Eyes of Azure | Assassination Classroom

:: Attempt 07 | Liebesleid ::

:: Attempt 07 | Liebesleid [1] ::

"I think you are a liar because you think you know what is true. You think you feel what is true. But you do not yet know what you do feel and what you do know. Your desire and do not take; you love and are too afraid to feel your love; you conceal your vanity and pettiness from yourself; you are afraid to look into your soul and see what you are. That is why I think you are a liar."
― "The Riddle" (Book Two of The Books of Pellinor series) by Alison Croggon

x + x

"Mother?"

I look up with an unfocused gaze, blearily rubbing at my eyes. Beneath the dark confines of the grand piano, I stretch out my arms, rolling onto my knees. A silhouette blocks the small ray of light filtered near the edge of my shade, and I crawl closer to the entrance.

She wears the same smile she always does: her rosy lips turn up at the corners, the dimple in her cheek made prominent by her radiant grin. "What is it, my little skylark?" She asks softly, and I tilt my head just in time to hear the melancholic music she's playing come to a brief end, the last chord coming to an abrupt conclusion.

"How come you're always smiling?" I stifle a yawn, edging closer to the light. Mother laughs, and I immediately squint as her hands slowly guide me further out of the isolation I had encased myself in. She draws me up onto her lap, and I lean my head against her collar, closing my eyes.

Here in my mother's embrace, I know that I'm safe.

"Isn't it always better to smile even if you're sad?" Her voice whispers in my ear, and I lose myself in the warm melody of her tone. "A smile hides your emotions - it conceals what you don't want others to see, what you want to keep to yourself."

I open my eyes, pulling slightly out of her arms, and I look up to meet her caring gaze with my own. Yet there is something peculiar in her stare, and I - almost as if I can't help myself - tangle my fingers into my mother's long brown hair, a mere child once again.

"Are you sad, Mother?" I question, my fingers caught in the strands of her tawny locks.

And there I notice the blood, dripping from between my fingertips, coating the ends of her tresses, spilling from her smiling lips - gruesomely etched with streaks of crimson. I stiffen, clambering out of her lap. Falling to my knees, I start to back away, my hand knocking against something made out of cold metal.

My mother continues to advance, blood painting scarlet rivers down her white dress. "Why, Aoi,", she says, and my trembling hands take hold of the gun, releasing the safety and shakily aiming at her bloodied form.

Shoot, says a part of me. You have to, you have to kill.

I shake my head, teardrops splattering against my shirt. She continues to move forward, and my index finger hovers over the trigger.

"Shoot," a voice commands, and I look up to see my father standing above me, his mouth thinning into a straight line. He stares down at me, before kneeling at my side, taking both of my hands - with the firearm in between.

An unfamiliar glint shines in his familiar azure eyes, but when I blink, it's gone.

"'It is better to be feared than loved,' [2]" he says, and with a quick jerk of his fingers, urges my hand to pull the trigger.

I scream as my mother's now lifeless form falls to the floor.

Her amber eyes looks through me, her lips in a perpetual smile as nine words fall from her tongue.