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【Krystal's POV】

Being on the back of Jay's bike with Eonnis in the car next to us again made countless memories flood my mind. It's no secret that I loved Jay. No! I don't love her like 'that'! She was like the mother I always wished I had. When Sica Eonni and I were first bought into The Ministry, Jay was standing right next to Father with knives, daggers and chains strapped to her body. I never knew she was female until much later and she had opened up to Eonni and I. 

But when I first saw her, the look in her eyes scared me so much that I used to have nightmares about it. Her bright and beautiful cobalt blue eyes and her small and flawless face were completely devoid of any emotion to the point where she looked exactly like a doll. In fact, she skin so fair that it looked like porcelain and that added on to her looking like a porcelain doll.

Eonni and I used to be so scared of her when we first arrived because of that doll-like demeanor she had when we first saw her. The first couple of weeks were hell what with the amount of training we were all put through. It was through that training that we met Amber who told us she was around for about a month before we arrived and according to her, Jay was already there when she was brought in.

During the entire ride and throughout the rest of the afternoon, I let the memories play through my mind like a movie while I absentmindedly laid on the couch in our lounge after my shower, lunch and Jay had gone back to her own home.

♣♥♠♦

January 1841

Being pushed out of that dark caravan, the first person I reached for despite being blindfolded was my sister, Jessica, as the men that grabbed us off the streets hours ago led us somewhere. When my blindfolds were taken off, I found myself in a dark, moonlit corridor with nothing but a set of double-doors at the end of the corridor. Grasping tightly to Jessica's trembling hand with my equally trembly hands, we were pushed down the corridor and through the doors into a grand dining hall filled to the brim with people and kids, most of the around my age and others were younger.

At the end of the room, on a raised stage, was an older man was sitted down right in the middle of a long table who the kids and the men greeted as Father and standing right by his chair was a boy around my age. If it wasn't for the fact that he was visibly bleeding through the bandage that was wrapped around his right arm, I would have thought he was a life-sized porcelain doll - he had skin as white and flawless as porcelain, large blue eyes, hair so black that it looked blue, weapons and chains strapped to his body, an expression that was devoid of any emotion on his face and the aura he exuded was overwhelming and commanding.

Jessica and I were made to sit right at the very front of  the long table in the middle, closest to the raised area Father was at together where we sat across each other with an empty seat at the head of the table in between us. Eventually, the empty seat was pulled out by a couple of the men and all of the kids around me tensed with some even visibly flinching. Through my peripheral vision, I saw the boy shifting to sit down and I couldn't help but look at him as he settled down into the seat.

He turned to look at both Jessica and I before turning to the man on his right who spoke to him in a foreign language to which he nodded, the blank expression never leaving his face, before they walked away. After what seemed like an hour, maids bustled in to set platters of food onto the tables. I looked around only to see the kids picking food and putting them onto their plates and I followed suit while the boy next to me never moved an inch. I got the answer as to why he wasn't moving when a maid walked directly to him and placed a plate of mouth-watering and luxurious food onto the table in front of him.

It was then that I realized that he was a very important figure if he was given such luxurious food while the rest of us down here were given normal food - that looked like crap next to his food, mind you. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw the kids all looking at the boy who has yet to move. I could only assume that they were waiting for him to start eating before they would start. It seemed strange to me at first but as I allowed my mind to get an aerial view of the entire dining hall, I saw that every kid in the hall was waiting for him - it was one of my abilities to be able to get an entire aerial view of an area with my mind, sort of like astral projection.

What shocked me was when the boy stood up and walked towards Father while picking up a bejeweled golden goblet and a bottle of wine along the way. I followed him with my eyes and saw him go up to Father, talking to the elder as he pour the wine into the goblet. It didn't take rocket science to know he was talking about eonni and I judging by how much he kept looking up at us during his conversation with Father. Seconds ticked by and he finally straightened up while setting the bottle down before walking back down, grabbing three silver goblets and another bottle of wine along the way and settling back down into his seat.

Setting a goblet each in front of Jessica, myself and himself, he glanced at us and for a moment, I saw a soft expression flash through his eyes before it completely disappeared. Lifting up the bottle of wine, he emptying its contents into all three goblets before setting the empty bottle down onto the ground where a maid rushed over to retrieve it before scurrying out. I glanced at him curiously only to have him gesture for us to pick up the goblets before he took his own, took a sip, set it down and started helping himself to his food. Immediately following suit, I drank from my goblet and glanced at Jessica who was setting the goblet down while wiping small droplets from the side of her lips.

When he had set the goblets down in front of Jessica and me, there were small gasps erupting from the kids around us so I could easily conclude that the boy didn't do things like this often if not at all. While eating, Jessica and I always kept glancing each other and at the boy who looked like he was having trouble eating with his injured arm. I wanted very much to help him but something told me that it was out of line for me to do that.

The next morning, I was woken up from being drenched shooting up from lying down, I found myself looking at the girls we shared the room with holding a couple of buckets and a quick glance showed Jessica in the same drenched state in the bed next to mine. Before either of us could do anything a boy strode into the room. The boy looked to be around my age, maybe older, and had big, almond-shaped eyes, slightly tanned and flawless skin, light brown hair and, like the first boy, his expression was completely devoid of any emotion.

The way the girls froze in their positions showed that they were afraid of the boy shortly before they bowed and scurried away into different directions. The brunette boy walked over to us with a set of clothes in hand and placed them on the side table in between Jessica's and my bed before walking off. As the days went by, we recieved such brutal treatment from the kids on top of the brutal and intense training we were put through. I figured it had something to do with the raven-haired boy and the wine he gave us.

By the second week, Jessica and I were already wishing we were dead because we've had to deal with being bullied and tortured by the other kids while the men did nothing to help even when they saw what was going on. Until the end of the second week where someone finally stepped in and beat up the kids when they were in the middle of hitting and beating Jessica and me - it was the brunette boy from our first day here.

"Um... Th-thank you... F-for helping us... Uhh..." Jessica eonni spoke up when we got to the infirmary with the brunette boy only to find the raven-haired boy sitting on a chair in a corner getting the bandages on his right arm changed.

"Anna. My name's Anna. I got here a month ago. But that one, I heard he's been around here for the past 7 years and rapidly rose through the ranks as soon as he got here." Oh my Goodness! This wasn't a boy at all! This was a girl who looked like a boy!

"Thank you, Anna... Our names are -" Jessica said only to be cut off by Anna.

"Jessica and Chrystal. I know very well who you are. I know what you're going through... I got the same treatment as you did. I didn't know anything until I found out that the wine in a silver goblet offered to you by that one there meant that he saw something special in you and is going to monitor you closely. I've never spoken to him though." Anna said. The three of us glanced at him only to find him look at the nurse before she scurried out, slamming the door behind her. As soon as the nurse was gone, he stood up and walked to the door to lock it before rolling the trolley full of medical supplies over to us.

The fact that Anna flinched and tensed as the boy approached us, a slight limp in his step, never escaped my gaze and a quick sideways glance at Jessica showed that she too was tensed up and wary about the boy approaching us. I wonder where he got the limp from because it wasn't there the night we were brought in. Come to think of it, I haven't been seeing him during dinner for the past two weeks and the last time I saw him was when we first got here.

The moment he got to us, he knelt down in front of me and started treating the cuts and bruises that covered my legs. His hands were gentle and very skilled which only meant that he ha