His mother, head of the clan, had recently expressed dissatisfaction that he had not yet graduated from the academy. It was his self-control alone which had kept him seeming calm in the face of her words, instead of snapping like he had very much wanted to. Sometimes, he absolutely despised the clan.
It was easier to blame the clan as a whole than to think about the pressure his mother put on him. He knew that his mom loved him. But, he knew well by now, she wouldn’t fight for him like she did for herself and Akane, his sister and her heir.
Mother was unmarried, each of her three children having a different, unknown, father. She had fought to remain unmarried, and she had put a stop to the elders' demands for her to arrange a marriage for Akane. Yet, when those same elders said that Kyuuji and his younger brother Hinata should have their future spouses chosen for them, mother had given in.
If she hadn’t, he might have never been put in a position where he would have befriended Tsubaki. That didn’t make him resent his mother any less, though. If anything, he resented her more, for both his own sake and Tsubaki’s. Neither of them wanted to be married, let alone to each other.
There would come a time when Kyuuji would express his own dissatisfaction, he told himself. But that time was not yet, and it was increasingly difficult to suppress his feelings.
So he didn’t. He put all his emotions into his training, and his practiced attacks might have looked fairly benign. Yet, in his mind, he imagined his training to be brutal combat. It was one of the only ways he could vent his rage, without giving the game away.
Most days, when he trained, he was conscious enough to keep his own sadism from showing, but an observant watcher might notice today that his attacks on his imaginary opponent were not focused most on efficiency, but inflicting pain.
WC: 336
It was easier to blame the clan as a whole than to think about the pressure his mother put on him. He knew that his mom loved him. But, he knew well by now, she wouldn’t fight for him like she did for herself and Akane, his sister and her heir.
Mother was unmarried, each of her three children having a different, unknown, father. She had fought to remain unmarried, and she had put a stop to the elders' demands for her to arrange a marriage for Akane. Yet, when those same elders said that Kyuuji and his younger brother Hinata should have their future spouses chosen for them, mother had given in.
If she hadn’t, he might have never been put in a position where he would have befriended Tsubaki. That didn’t make him resent his mother any less, though. If anything, he resented her more, for both his own sake and Tsubaki’s. Neither of them wanted to be married, let alone to each other.
There would come a time when Kyuuji would express his own dissatisfaction, he told himself. But that time was not yet, and it was increasingly difficult to suppress his feelings.
So he didn’t. He put all his emotions into his training, and his practiced attacks might have looked fairly benign. Yet, in his mind, he imagined his training to be brutal combat. It was one of the only ways he could vent his rage, without giving the game away.
Most days, when he trained, he was conscious enough to keep his own sadism from showing, but an observant watcher might notice today that his attacks on his imaginary opponent were not focused most on efficiency, but inflicting pain.
WC: 336