"You're saying if you had to pick between your sister and Seth, you wouldn't pick your sister? I see someone who would make what's mine go through hell for her…why should I let you anywhere near what's mine?" She said, her voice carrying a dangerous edge as she looked Michael right in the eyes with an intensity that felt like it could pierce through him completely, almost as if she could see his soul itself and read everything within it, every secret and every truth he tried to hide.
Michael gritted his teeth hard in frustration, but he looked away from her penetrating gaze, unable to meet her eyes since… well, it was completely true, and he couldn't deny it even if he wanted to. His elder sister was the most important person to him in the entire world; if he had to pick between the two of them in any situation, he would do absolutely anything to save her without hesitation or regret.
"I would never allow those I love to go through that," Michael said through gritted teeth, his voice strained with the effort of maintaining control over his emotions.
"And I would never allow my treasury to be put in such a situation. I forbid Seth from ever forming any kind of relationship with you." She said calmly, her tone final and absolute without room for negotiation. This stunned Michael completely, who was growing more and more annoyed with how she kept calling Seth her treasure as if he were an object to be possessed rather than a person.
"You can't make choices on his behalf. Let him decide, where is he?" Michael asked, his voice rising with frustration and anger. Chu Yin smirked in disdain at his question and naive belief.
"I just chose him. What free will does Seth have that isn't part of my will?" She asked with a cold smirk spreading across her face, her tone mocking. This made Michael slowly grit his teeth harder in anger at the implications of what she was saying. But before he could do anything rash or say something he would regret later, his elder sister reached out and held his hand gently with trembling fingers, silently communicating that she wanted to leave this place immediately.
"Thank you…" She said softly to Chu Yin, her voice barely audible and filled with resignation. Honestly, that was all she could say to Chu Yin in this situation without breaking down. She couldn't help but recall her past in vivid, painful detail… not her past with Seth and their relationship, but her past with Michael and what they had endured together in those dark times.
Flash Back
Within an underground dungeon that reeked of decay, waste, and despair, two kids could be seen huddled in the oppressive darkness. One of them was Lisa, Seth's future ex-girlfriend, who would later betray him.
She was rolled up into a tight ball against the cold stone wall, too hungry and weak to do anything but simply look off into the empty air in front of her with vacant, lifeless eyes that no longer held any hope.
She couldn't recall how long it had been since she was captured and trafficked like an animal to be sold. Days? Weeks? Months? Time had lost all meaning in this endless darkness.
She couldn't recall how long it had been since she was locked away in this filthy cell, waiting for someone to buy her like merchandise at a market. She couldn't even recall how her own family looked anymore, their faces fading from her memory like ghosts disappearing into mist.
With how the person who captured her seemed to have forgotten about them entirely, leaving them in this hole, they were left to slowly starve to death in the darkness… but despite everything, she desperately wanted to live.
Her eyes, sunken and hollow from malnutrition, slowly turned to the little kid named Michael, who was curled up in the corner. He was in slightly better condition than her skeletal frame, as he had been in the trafficker's possession for a shorter amount of time than her.
Looking at the meat still covering his small body, the flesh that hadn't yet wasted away, she couldn't help but lick her cracked, bleeding lips with desperate hunger. Just one bite, just one small bite of flesh to make her stomach stop screaming in agony and twisting itself into knots.
Slowly, she clawed forward across the filthy dungeon floor, her fingers scraping against the cold stone covered in waste and decay. Her weak limbs that looked almost like sticks that would break at any moment from the slightest pressure, barely having the strength to help her get closer and closer to Michael, who lay on the ground in the corner of the cell, asleep and completely vulnerable to what was about to happen.
She opened her mouth wide, her cracked lips splitting and bleeding as they stretched. She took a bite into his arm, her teeth sinking into the soft flesh of a child. She ripped off Michael's flesh brutally, tearing it away from the bone, causing Michael to scream in pure, agonizing pain as he woke up suddenly from sleep, not understanding what was happening to him… but the scream was weak and pathetic, lacking the strength a normal child should have after weeks of starvation.
He struggled desperately to get away from Lisa, his small body thrashing weakly, horrified and scared beyond comprehension, seeing the blood covering her lips and teeth, which was running down her chin in thick rivulets and staining her old, tattered clothing that hung off her skeletal frame.
He screamed louder, his voice cracking and breaking, for it hurt like hell having your flesh suddenly bitten out of you without warning or reason. But even more than the physical pain that shot through his arm, he screamed out of pure, primal fear, for it was clear from the look in her vacant, hungry eyes that Lisa was about to eat him alive, to consume him piece by piece.
Tears ran down his face in endless streams, mixing with the dirt and grime, a sight that caused Lisa, who had been so happy at the fact she finally could eat something after so long without food, to pause mid-bite with flesh still in her mouth.
Seeing his face, overflowing with fear and terror and betrayal directed at her, suddenly the flesh in her mouth that had tasted heavenly just moments before, that had promised relief from the endless hunger, didn't taste so good anymore as guilt crashed over her. A long-forgotten memory hit her mind, breaking through the fog of starvation.
A little baby, crying nonstop without end, wailing in distress, all while the boy's parents stood over the crib helpless and desperate on how to stop the baby from crying no matter what they tries.
That was until she stepped forward, just a young girl herself, and hugged the baby gently with small arms, with a loving smile spreading across her young face as she rocked him… she recalled suddenly, as if waking from a nightmare, that she had a little brother once.
She recalled vividly that bright, trusting smile her little brother had every time he fell into her arms seeking comfort and safety… and slowly, maybe it was thanks to the hunger distorting her perception and breaking her mind, Michael's terrified face began to twist and shift in her vision until it looked exactly like her little brother's innocent face… Had she eaten her little brother?
"I'm sorry." She said weakly, her voice barely a whisper, broken and filled with horror at what she had done. But Michael was still too scared of her, his eyes wide with terror, not allowing her to get close to him at all as he backed away into the corner, leaving a trail of blood… but he soon fainted from the severe blood loss, his small body going limp and pale.
This allowed her to quickly move forward with shaking hands and stop the bleeding by tourniqueting his arm tightly with torn strips of her own clothing.
She hugged him deeply against her chest, feeling how cold his body was becoming, praying deep down in her heart with everything she had left that she didn't kill her little brother with what she had done.
So, for the first time since she got trapped in this nightmare, she prayed with everything she had, her voice breaking as she asked whatever god could hear them in this forsaken place to save him, to not let him die because of her.
She promised through her tears that she would become the best big sister Michael could ask for if he lived. She promised desperately, over and over, that she would make up for her sin of eating him, that she would spend the rest of her life protecting him… and luckily for her, that day the gods answered her desperate prayer.
How it happened, she didn't know and couldn't explain, but food formed before her and Michael out of nothing. It was the first time Lisa witnessed a miracle with her own eyes, proof that something had heard her, but in the end, it's why her promise remained deeply ingrained in her very being forever after.
It's why she did everything in her power to have Michael forgive her for the unforgivable; it's why, although she was still desperately hungry and her body screamed for more food, she had Michael eat first after he woke up weak and confused, while she only ate a small amount for herself.
(A/N: They are not real brother and sister.)