Lucky Bastard

Part 1 / Prologue

Cale was tired.

He spent every day faking his entire personality. Nearly a decade of blood, sweat, and tears was put into this façade, and it was tiring.

He had tried to keep his real self separate from the made up version, but doing so every fucking day of his life took its toll. Oftentimes he would find his internal monologue acting similarly to his outward persona, and it made him uneasy.

The entire reason behind such a commitment stemmed from his childhood.

When he was 8, his mother died.

From then on, his loving, caring father disappeared. He became distant, locking himself in his office for weeks on end, and only coming out to return paperworks and receive meals. Cale did everything he could to get his father's attention. His study habits repeatedly produced top marks, and he had even studied books which were multiple years ahead of his age group. He did everything an heir was supposed to do, and yet...

He was completely ignored for an entire year.

Each passing week reminded him of how incapable he was. How useless his presence must have been. He practically grew up as an orphan because of his father's avoidance. Every day made his view of himself sink lower and lower. There must have been a reason that he couldn't enter his father's eyes, so what was it? Why had he been neglected? Cale really wanted to know.

However, one day after around a year of this behavior, his father had requested to talk to him in his office. Cale had been so elated at that time. His father had wanted to see him in person, so how could he not be? Though, when he opened the door, he had become frozen. There were strangers in the room. He was not called to have a personal conversation.

His father had barely looked at him once over the past twelve months, yet that day he looked at Cale as if nothing was wrong.

As if that entire year of neglect didn't happen.

His father had smiled gently then, and introduced Violan and Basen. He should have been happy.

Cale had tried very hard to wipe the true feelings off his face. No, he definitely did not feel heartbroken. Not abandoned, not excluded, and not betrayed. He was not so immature as to feel such useless emotions.

But that night, he had cried himself to sleep, because deep down, he did feel cast aside, forgotten, and alienated. It felt like his feelings were not just hurt, but completely overlooked by the person he trusted the most.

That also happened to be the last time Cale Henituse cried. He was only 9, and yet he had already started putting up wall after wall. At some point, he had accidentally eavesdropped on a conversation between two servants. They were talking about the recent fight between extended family and his new stepbrother.

Cale chose to help by giving words of encouragement, but perhaps he was too harsh. The same servants from before overheard him and thought he was fighting with Basen. By the next day, there were multiple small rumors spreading throughout the county.

< The young master hit his stepbrother! >
< Young master Cale is becoming more and more violent. >
< Basen Henituse is severely hated by his elder brother... >

That was what sparked it.

Cale's genius idea which would dictate his personality for the next nine years. If everyone was so eager to paint him in a bad light at the drop of a hat, he would just do it himself.

His stepmother and stepbrother would be more accepted if Cale started acting out, right? They hadn't done anything wrong, so helping the two of them would be like getting two birds with one stone.

So that was what he did. He completely committed. Soon after the first rumors circulated, he quit his public studies and fired his tutors. Lily had been born not even five months after that.

By 12 he was known throughout the county and neighboring territories as a trashy and arrogant noble child drunk off of his father's power, and by 15, he was drinking; building up his monstrous alcohol tolerance.

It was definitely enough, he didn't have to go any further, but when he tried to ease away from his terrible behavior, the rumors pushed him from behind, propelling his reputation towards larger stages.

Eventually the entire kingdom knew his name, or at least his appearance. He was now the only person in the Roan kingdom who had blood red hair, so he was easy to talk about. In fact, his name had probably reached the neighboring kingdoms as the person you would want to avoid the most when traveling to the extremely rich Henituse territory.

It was like the world was telling him that this was what he was supposed to do. He knew how to do this, and everyone expected him to act like this...

So why change?

And just like that, another three years flew by, and he was officially tossed from the heir position. He didn't mind at all, since it was actually better this way. His stepmother and siblings were now completely in tune with the lifestyle that came with marrying into a count's family.

All of his goals were completed, and everything had finally settled down, but how much longer would he have to pretend? After a decade of this, could he even go back? Would he have to go through all the ridicule and hate again?

Everyone would only see it as him faking his way back into the heir spot or trying to gain more attention anyway, so what was he supposed to do now? He wasn't completely sold on the idea of doing this bullshit for the rest of his life, but there was no simple way to become a functioning member of society again.

Since becoming an adult, these thoughts plagued every waking hour of his day. With his crazy alcohol tolerance he couldn't even drink his problems away. Even after getting beaten to the point of near death. Even when Ron and Beacrox left. He could not stop thinking.

He was so fucking tired of it all.

As if he was seeing everything through a keyhole, it felt like he was watching everybody live their own lives, having fun and experiencing hardships, building families and enjoying their time alive, but he couldn't.

He was frozen in time, observing everyone around him from inside his fortified castle built from wall after wall of emotional protection.

It was lonely and tiresome. Was there a good way to escape everything? Any way at all? Perhaps.

'...I should just run away and live in the mountains. Nobody would look for me if I disappeared.'

Perhaps this was the best way.

'Yeah... Let's just leave.'

Late into the night, Cale Henituse packed a spatial bag, ate dinner with his family for the first time in months, and fled the mansion once the clock struck 10.

He wouldn't be returning anytime soon.

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