Torashi is so far from the life his parents imagined for him.

He was never meant for greatness. Even his childhood home was at the bottom of the city; always meant to look up at the imperial palace, its shadow a constant cloak over the common folk. His life was supposed to remain simple, even if his eyes always drifted away from the ground.

He was always better at holding a sword, no matter how much his parents insisted he take up agriculture like them. Torashi's skills got him up the ranks and further away from the outskirts. But again he was stuck longingly staring up at the palace, even when protecting its walls as the Minister of the Guards. Though rather than the abundance of the emperor's riches, it was his wife that caught his eye.

"... How is His Majesty, Empress?" Torashi asks, staring at the pattern adoring the robes of his love. Four steps behind. Never allowed too close. Some days he curses that desperate evening. The lucky amulet her brother gave to her, how she wandered the palace's walls and saught solace in his arms which so yearned to hold her.

The kingdom finally had an heir, thirteen women finally no longer questioned for being barren. But it was a curse on the laws of love and a curse on Torashi's heart. One he's been under for twenty long years.

Emperor Li died believing what he wanted. Happy, but tricked. And now his heir lives on the same, a fool who knows nothing of the doubtful glances he receives. Knows nothing of the loving eyes watching from his mother's side. "I heard his studies are all but finished."

Torashi's parents wanted him to be a husband and father. He will die as neither.