First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1145: Introduce Us Again
Chapter 1145: Introduce Us Again
K’ael liked his room.
Opening the door with his name on it led to a simple Japanese shrine in a realm that was certainly not on earth.
It’s simplistic, yet ancient wooden design gave it the look of a structure that had been standing tall since the Edo period.
The shrine had only a single floor and not much in the way of decorations.
In two respective corners, there was a tatami table in one and a futon in the other.
The leftmost facing wall was mostly covered by an ancient-looking tapestry.
It depicted three dragons, one white, the other golden, and the third black. All three were wrapped around each other as if they operated as one.
The back wall of K’ael’s shrine was missing, exposing the sprawling realm that made up his home.
Deep red spiderlilies covered nearly every inch of the ground. In the far distance, a rumbling volcano painted a rather imposing and majestic picture. The bright blue sky that hung over everything was symbolic of K’ael’s deeply held belief that change did not always have to make things dark and ugly.
Kael spent much of his time inside his room, but he did not consider himself to be a shut-in.
He attended school in Tehom and graduated with honors years ago. Now, he devoted most of his time to further deepening his understanding of the sword and developing his own brand of martial arts that incorporates ninjutsu.
He would spend hours, sometimes days, locked in meditation. Luckily for him, he didn’t require food, and he didn’t necessarily need rest, so he was able to work more efficiently in the meantime.
K’ael also practiced a fair bit of tai chi.
It was undoubtedly one of his favorite pastimes. He used it to calm his mind and spirit and achieve symbiosis with his more undesirable impulses.
He usually had to do around two hours of tai chi after having a conversation with his sister. It was the best way to calm himself down and move past his issues.
Today wasn’t much different.
K’ael was having one of his usual meditative periods when he suddenly heard his cellular device buzz in the corner of the room.
The young prince didn’t use his phone for much of anything. Sometimes, he could even forget that he had it.
He briefly stopped his exercise and held out his hand for his device to come rushing towards him.
Glancing at the first message across the screen, K’ael stood up with a bit of pep in his step.
Tatiana had been working on her Michelin-starred seafood gumbo for the last forty-eight hours. Her son’s and her husband’s ultimate favorite.
He summoned a door out of thin air and walked through it quickly.
A small smile was visible on his face as he floated down the hallway as fast as he could without breaking the sound barrier.
K’ael arrived in the kitchen in under twenty seconds. Just in time to see Tatiana taking a pot towards the dining room.
“Oh, great, you’re here. Wash your hands and come on, we’re having some people over for dinner.”
K’ael turned around to go back upstairs.
“Boy, don’t play with me!” Tatiana grabbed her son by one of his ears and pulled him towards the sink, where he could wash his hands.
“I do not find dinner parties enjoyable, Mother. Especially not with the guests’ father and Odessa chose to bring. They persistently refer to me as a… cosplayer.”
Tatiana controlled her face perfectly so that she wouldn’t smile.
“They’re just not used to seeing someone like you with such a wonderful sense of style.”
K’ael wasn’t proud of it, but flattery did, in fact, work on him.
“Besides, you don’t have to worry about these guests making fun of you at all. I promise they’ll be on their best behavior.” Tatiana smiled.
K’ael already knew that his mother was pretty. It was one of the first things anyone thought about when they saw her for the first time.
But for reasons he could not explain, his mother seemed much more radiant that night. Probably more than he had ever seen.
Tatiana noticed her son staring at her rather hard. She bumped her hips into his to get his attention.
“Something wrong? If you’re simply in awe of me, I’ll ask you to save all your compliments and praise until after dinner, and you’ll raise the portion of beingets I slide your way.”
K’ael tilted his head. “Are you very happy, mother?”
Tatiana seemed surprised by the question.
But after a moment’s thought, she placed her hand on her son’s cheek and smiled at him with a look that K’ael could honestly say he had never seen before.
“Oh, my sweet boy… Mommy is so happy that her heart feels like it’s about to burst.”
K’ael didn’t have the foggiest idea what was going on, and his mother wasn’t going to give him any time to think about it.
Tatiana wrapped her tail around his wrist and began pulling him out of the kitchen into another room.
He wanted to ask her why she was behaving so strangely. And about who these alleged dinner guests were.
But as they headed towards the dining room, K’ael realized just how rowdy things seemed to be. He could hear many loud, frantic voices from beyond the walls.
But it was strange. He couldn’t feel anything, no matter how hard he tried.
Tatiana didn’t waste a second breath and pushed open the doors with impunity.
Light washed over her and her son. For a moment, the room almost seemed too bright to perceive anything.
“E-Everyone, this…!” Tatiana became choked up, and she couldn’t finish her words.
All of the noise that K’ael could hear mere seconds ago came to an instant halt.
When K’ael’s eyes adjusted, he felt like he was seeing a hallucination, or the dreams of someone else come to life.
The long table was populated by more than thirty people. He recognized all of them, of course, how could he not?
There were photographs of all of them stationed on nearly every wall in the house.
He had seen ten-year-old videos of him with these people, taken when he was still a child.
K’ael was beside himself. He had no idea how he was supposed to react, or what the right words to say might have been.
A lump formed in his throat.
His usual cool and unflappable personality fled him.
All that he could do was resort to his base instincts.
He slipped his hands into his sleeves. Lowered his head in as deep a bow as he possibly could, and spoke in a trembling voice.
“I am… honored to meet you. It pleases me to see you’ve returned…”
The room was bathed in quiet. K’ael obviously wasn’t the only one feeling blindsided.
The young prince didn’t lift his head. He had no idea what was supposed to come after this greeting.
He had spent the last fourteen years in the only ’normal’ that he knew.
But now that everything was clearly about to change, he had so many questions.
Not just about what it would be like to have all of them live together, but also about what they had seen while they were gone.
Had it made them strong? What did they learn?
Did they think about him while they were gone? Did they even have the time?
K’ael heard the sound of a chair being pushed back. Followed by the sound of heels clicking off the floor.
The footsteps were unsteady. Emotionally imbalanced.
It was almost as if the person had been drinking.
When the footsteps stopped right in front of him, a pair of gentle hands were placed on his cheeks and lifted his head.
He was treated to the sight of a most beautiful woman. Her eyes were like his, twin colored, and reptilian.
Her hair was split right down the middle. One side was white, and the other black.
She looked like a woman in her late twenties or early thirties. A bit different from how he had seen her in pictures.
“Do you… remember me…?”
The answer was no. But K’ael didn’t have it within him to say that.
Somehow, the woman seemed to recognize that he was having trouble remembering when he took his time answering.
She didn’t press him. Instead, she wrapped him in a large hug as she cried on his shoulder.
“My name is Mira… I am your big sister, a-and I love you very much..!”
K’ael felt his eyes become watery.
A man ran up to K’ael from the table. A demon, black skinned and white haired. K’ael thought he bore an uncanny resemblance to his father. “H-Hey, hey, what about me, you remember me, right?!”
“Obviously, he doesn’t remember any of us, you damn sissy! Stop crying over our dinner!” A bald man shouted.
“You’re crying too, Darius!!”
“THIS ISN’T ABOUT ME!”
Suddenly, K’ael heard the sound of excited footsteps approaching from behind.
Odessa ran into the room in a pair of sleep shorts and with her hair still wet from the shower.
’Sorry, I’m late! I just got out of the…’
Odessa Tathamet was not a girl who was easily lost for words. And yet, she experienced it then for perhaps the first time since she learned how to talk.
Unlike her brother, keeping her cool was a bit difficult for her. She also didn’t process things quite as fast.
So, all things considered, it wasn’t really that surprising for the young sixteen-year-old to collapse on the ground when she couldn’t wrap her head around what was happening.
