Indignation

Dear reader, I propose that we play a little game. Throughout my work, I shall produce one lie and one lie only. Can you guess it? I am sure the lie won’t be of any significant importance, or perhaps it might be. Is this enough of an intrigue to win your attention for the remainder of this work? Perhaps not, but perchance it might pique your curiosity just enough for you to give it a go. Pardon me the irregularity, dear reader, and though there will be many more irregularities of all sorts that will be encountered throughout this story, this one in particular, I shall ask forgiveness for, for it is, in its essence, of a selfish nature.

I am not fond of these…attention-grabbing gimmicks that are now oh-so commonplace in the world of literature. I find myself indefinitely repulsed when I encounter these machinations myself because, dear reader, they are insulting. They are insulting because they treat the likes of you and me as a commodity… A formula for optimisation, a disgusting trick, an outright sham for a writer to amass irrelevant numbers that will give him bread and never, ever immortality. Real literature should not rely on any of this. I have considered this beneath me because I considered myself a real writer. And yet, by starting a story with an unorthodox play as some foolish child, tailed by a rant on cheap gimmicks, I have found myself using one. I have given into its temptation and started my story in this proclamatory manner, in a manner that humiliates me as a form of punishment. I hope you understand. I have contemplated for far too long on how to start this epic, and each new iteration made me despise it with incremental hatred, and so I start in a manner I hate and use it eviscerate my ego and to document the events in the most raw manner as my skill as a writer allows it.

A few words about myself: I am no one of any importance and will not be playing any significant role in this story until its end. Consider me an observer for now, or alternatively, a guide who will walk you through the events that occurred many years ago. The events I will depict in this epic are by no means fabricated. All instances of dialogue, even the most intimate, have been verified word for word by either myself or trusted sources that I find no need of disclosing.

I suppose I could bother you, dear reader, since you have tolerated me this far, a while longer with my autobiography. It will serve as a form of familiarisation to the fantastic world I grew up in: I, a lone child of the upper middle class family, the name of which I shall not disclose, in the Mura Village. It could be argued that this one village was perhaps the most fought-over territory throughout the 1000 year war that ended a mere 10 years before my birth. Now sought as territory of the relatively newly formed unified Yangland empire, the supreme arch general Shingan Minamoto has himself decided to move in and live here with his family as a form of ultimate claim and control over the area. Now, dear reader, I know, I know all too well how daunting listening to all of this must be. I myself detested history classes that were ever only about this great war and about this supreme general that ended it… But I digress. We shall be exploring the political intricacies of the war and the significance of the war hero Shingan Minamoto in the later stages of the story.

I seem to have gotten ahead of myself by mentioning my academic upbringing. I shall mention that I was born into a family of scholars of Yinglish descent and had the privilege of going to the most prestigious of schools these lands had to offer alongside our first central figure of the story: Ryoki Minamoto. Yes, the intuition serves you right reader, I was classmates with the son of a war hero.

To everyone, the name Shingan Minamoto is well known, it is impossible not to have heard of his accomplishments, of his legends and triumphs, it is simply not. It is, however, less known, yet unsurprising, that his son Ryoki was no less of a prodigy than he is, or at least so I would imagine. Seated at the front of the class, an example of perfect academic brilliance. There was not a subject that he did not excel in. This was by no accident. The Minamoto family went to great lengths to give Ryoki the best possible education and portray him as a prodigy. It was a display of dominance, a message to other families that the legacy was hereditary. One of the latest advancements in Ryoki’s brilliance was the discovery of his immense chess talent, it was said that he was performing close to grandmaster level after just a little over three years of study. His mother, Misaki, would often boast of Ryoki’s accomplishments in front of the moms of our classmates, mine included, and would often call down Ryoki to demonstrate many of his talents such as citing poems or playing the piano, when she had them over for some tea.. I remember instantly sprinting to my room, scurrying to pick up a book to assume a studious position to avoid my maman’s wrath when she would come home from such meetings. My poor father quickly learned to follow suit to avoid an extensive discourse regarding his unsatisfactory career prospects.

I remember being quite irritated at Ryoki for that, in fact most of my peers felt the same way, but this silent unspoken tensity remained just that - unspoken. I personally can now confess that I have many times wished he would do poorly on anything, but my malicious wishes never came true. What’s perhaps worse than his academic brilliance was his popularity. Every family of any importance wanted to establish any form of positive relations with the Minamoto family, another testament to the greatness of Shingan, and achieving that through the friendship of children was the best way. I imagine many of my friends being egged on to be on excellent-most relations with Ryoki by their parents, the same way I was egged on by mine. Though I never made any valiant endeavors when it came to friendship with Ryoki… or well anyone else really, something I’ve come to regret more and more as the years fly by actually, I certainly did try to come off as polite during the few interactions we had. Others definitely put in more effort at being friends. They would constantly praise him, smile at him, always seek his approval and attention, and try to invite him to their household to play.

Yet, for all their eager smiles and incessant flattery, there was an undeniable undercurrent of resentment that could be sensed even by an observer like me. Ryoki wasn’t oblivious either—far from it. He could tell that beneath the well-practiced courtesies lay a reluctance to see his downfall. And so, over time, the entire charade began to unravel into something far less sincere, a charade interwoven with backhanded compliments, scrutiny and envy. As much as I wish to lie and say that I was an unbiased observer, I would be lying. There is an unmistakable angst a human feels in the face of the success of another, as if it was a commodity, a limited resource. It was as if the entire class was in fear that one boy would take all the success for himself and not leave any for us. As it was, Ryoki never made any friends at school, nor ever found someone whom he could trust.

I shall here note one peculiarity regarding his appearance. My recollections of him as can be inferred from what I’ve written this far, are from his early youth, though multiple accounts have later confirmed it to be true even in his later years. It seems that Ryoki Minamoto had no noticeable features, or should I better say that he looked just like anyone else. Not particularly tall but not short, definitely not fat but not quite skinny, straight dark-brownish hair, black cold calculating eyes, no striking features. People loved saying that he was the spitting image of his father, but to me, it always seemed like flattery at best. Though I could see some similarities, and again I could argue that he shared a similarity with every single being in this world, Shingan had significantly rougher and dominant features. During a rare occasion where Madam Misaki invited the entire class for a playdate at their mansion, I managed to get a good glimpse of her face before tailing my friends elsewhere. He had her eyes. I would also like to believe that her soft features, especially her feminine chin and nose, were much more noticeable.

“Not good enough.” A thin baton snapped against Ryoki’s fingers by senior Toru, a renowned musician and his private piano tutor. The hit was stern and painful, leaving a bright crimson imprint on his fingers, though not cruel enough to draw blood. “What has gotten into you, Ryoki?” he sighed with irritation. “The G major, what is this kindergarten?”

The metronome mercilessly ticked away.

count properly and a ONE… two… three and…” He demonstrated with his agonizingly precise dictation of the tempo, slowly synching it with the metronome.

Ryoki took the punishment with silent indignation. At times like these, he liked to stare at his tutor’s twitching neck. Toru seemed to have had a tick that caused his lower lip, often sprinkled with a few flakes of his spit during passionate instances, and an entire side of the lower neck to twitch periodically. He urgently replayed the notes accentuating the G major and replayed it in multiple instances, anticipating the permission to move onto the next motive of the piece. However, Ryoki’s haste led him to play faster than the cold ticks of the metronome, causing further indignation.

This slight mechanical error this late into rehearsal was no accident, the entire Minamoto household was on edge that day. You see, dear reader, though the Minamoto family was in fact easily the most prestigious family throughout both Yangland and Yingland, they still had the status of nobility only. Royalty, in terms of pure status and not achievement, still stood above them. And the circumstances just so aligned in the following particular manner: The king of Yangland was to come as a guest alongside his only son. Now it is here that I shall take time to explain the significance of this visit, dear reader, and do bear that this elaboration shall be as brief as possible: The Yangland empire has formed… under conspicuous conditions.

In essence, the empire itself comprises many regions with vastly different cultures and ancestry. The monolith for this unification was undoubtedly the newly presented realistic chances of ending the one-thousand-year war against Yinglish forces through the ace that was Shingan Minamoto, who, at the time, was working with Westland. Naturally, Westland became the face of the newly formed Yangland empire once the coalition was passed and therefore, it is in the interest of both the Minamoto and the Royal family to keep strong ties as their relationship is what the kingdom was formed around. Strengthening this bond through a friendly visit and the introduction of the heirs to one another was simply the next logical step.

“Oh, now what is this utter disaster!” Toru shrieked with exaggerated despair. The metronome's ticking turned irregular as foreign sources of similar pitch flooded the room. Lady Misaki, accompanied by what almost seemed like an army of housemaids, hastily entered the room. She was wearing a long traditional dress embroidered with delicate flowers of varying sizes and colours. The clunky design of the dress, specifically its narrow lower half, did not allow Misaki to take big steps, which she was, quite evidently, yearning to do by clicking away at the marble floor in short, rampant intervals with her pointy footwear.

“Make sure to clean this place thoroughly and swap out the curtains for the finest ones we have, and bring in the new painting we just brought from the capital and hang it… There…” She was giving orders in general directions whilst scanning the entire room for imperfections.

“Ah! Lady Misaki, what a pleasure to be in your presence,” exclaimed Toru with utter delight, briefly forgetting his vexatious state. He hurriedly walked over to the noblewoman and gave her a generous bow, his whitening whiskers pointing at the polished floor at a ninety-degree angle.

“Oh, Toru, I didn’t even notice you had a lesson here!” Said Misaki, putting on a broad smile. “How is Ryoki doing?”

“You interrupted my training, Mom.”

“He is as brilliant as ever, Lady Misaki, I am teaching him my arrangement of the 'La Campanella'; I assure you the King of Yangland shall be smitten with its elegance!” - He proclaimed with confidence.

“I am afraid I will be moving the maids to this room in preparation for the event…”

“Then I won't be able to practice, and Mr.Toru is still displeased with my performance!”

“Oh, is that so? Have the room all to yourselves; we were just about to finish anyway!”

“Ah, well, I suppose you could have Ryoki practice one more time, and I’ll have the maids start with rearranging the curtains first. That shouldn’t get in the way, should it?”

“I won't be able to play with all this noise, mom, this is ridiculous. It is easy for you who doesn't have a piano to realise how difficult it is even for me to practice while these servants will be all over the place distracting me and annoying me!”

“By all means, Lady Misaki, but I assure you there is no need for any further practice,” persisted Toru. “Not to mention we have been practicing for hours today alone, in my expert opinion, a break will result in greater yields than further practice”. Toru then lowered his tone to a more cospiratous volume and uttered the following words with caution: “Are you certain that this performance is a good idea anyway?”

“How preposterous! I thought you said I wasn’t good enough! Now you have doubts? Now you don't want me to perform after you’ve tortured me?”

“Well, in that case, Ryoki, go revise your homework for school tomorrow.”

Ryoki was imagining himself to be a part of the conversation. He longed for his mother to ask him these questions, to talk to him, not his teacher, and he wanted to say it, but all that escaped him was a simple “Yes, maman” as he sought himself to his room.

On his way to his bedroom, Ryoki chose to take a detour, a rare occurrence given his hyper-rational nature. He first turned left after exiting the piano room and entered the main hall. The usually quiet, spacious room was now a cacophony of chatter and various sounds of objects that were continuously funneled into it, the sounds of zippers and shriveling cloths, clanking of chains, and so much more. He observed it only for an instant before shifting his gaze to the window, through which he observed the gardeners correcting the bushes and cutting the grass. The flowers were blooming rather nicely… There was an influx of servants, many were most likely hired for this day only. After sating his irrationale, Ryoki finally ascended the stairs and strolled into his room. Somehow, the whole fuss regarding this important event felt distant.

‘Father will come today’. It was hard to describe how exactly Ryoki felt about this thought. Should he be happy? Or perhaps anxious? Should he feel fear? Why should he? The matter of fact is, most probably even Ryoki himself didn’t know how he felt, other than two unmistakable axioms: The thought ‘Father will come today’ persisted, and its cause of a strong indescribable emotion was irrefutable. From the window of his room, he once more glanced at a freshened-up garden.

Evening approached unexpectedly. The majority of the day was spent in preparation, allowing the hours to slip by without notice. However, all sense of ease, inattentiveness, and such ilk immediately ceased to exist as slow, heavy footsteps of shingan were heard throughout the household. His breath, too, rigged drawing greedy grasps of air was unmistakable in a mostly female dominated household.

Inherently, he arrived with the rest of the guests, and further chaos of a warm, flamboyant welcome ensued; however, at least in Ryoki’s imagination, there was this brief interval where only the aforementioned subtle sounds completely dominated the lavish mansion. He waited to be called to meet the guests.