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Honger was dying. He was only 10 years old, but he knew it. He always knew it would happen soon, be it from the illness consuming him since he was born or from finally being beaten to death, so he tried to help fate by meeting his death himself sooner. And if with his death he could curse the entire kingdom he didn’t ask to be born in? What a great opportunity it was. Xianle never gave him any love his mother sometimes feverishly repeated he deserved before she died. Xianle was his father’s birthplace, his father’s new woman’s birthplace, too. Why shouldn’t they suffer the way they made him suffer?
Honger was only 10 years old, but he already hated so much. Sometimes he felt as if that hate was the only meaning to his miserable life. Why was he even born? To be beaten black and blue by everyone around him? To be a cursed sign for every person who ever saw his disgusting eye?
What did he do to be so hated by everyone? What was wrong with just existing? Why has his mother left him all alone? Why was his birth father hitting him daily, to the point of not remembering not having any bruises on his body? Why did everyone’s touch always hurt? Why wasn’t there anyone who wanted to show him just a bit of warmth?
Honger was only 10 years old.
Honger jumped off a tower.
For a moment, there was a blissful feeling of a freefall, his hateful brain for once wholly calm and quiet. He closed his eyes and wished to cover his ears, too, to not hear the alarmed noises of people standing under him. But he couldn’t. The fall made it impossible to move much. That was good. Very good. Let them cower in fear from what was about to come. In fear of the retribution of some unnamed, cursed child, whose existence they all despised.
Something slipped from Honger’s uncovered eye. A lonely tear, quickly disappearing somewhere above him, too little and light to cling to his accelerating body. The hate in his heart lessened a little bit, instead irrationally being replaced by a confusing feeling of sadness. What could he be sad about? He doesn’t know.
He felt an impact, as his body hit something firm but soft. Was he dead already? Was it really so easy and quick? If so, he should have done this way sooner. Stupid, stupid boy.
He expected pain and a slow loss of all his senses. Not… a warmth, which felt like an embrace. Was he perhaps in heaven? But… he should be in hell, where his place is. Was it some elaborate lie? Was he never really cursed by the gods? What was this amazing, soft feeling, which made him cry like a normal kid he should still have been?
Honger opened his eyes and he saw.
A.
God.
“Don’t be scared,” the god said with a calm, warm voice and with a soft smile stretching his lips. Honger’s mouth trembled slightly, unable to look from the bare face of the god who caught him. The smile turned in his direction widened even more. It was beautiful. The god was beautiful and so, so warm.
“Don’t worry, nothing will hurt you,” the god said later, when Honger was startled by a sudden sword fight he found himself thrown into. Strangely, by some miracle, he believed the words of the god. Nothing and nobody could hurt him as long as he was held in the arms of that god.
The fight soon ended but Honger wasn’t really paying any attention to it. He just looked. At the god. At the prince of the kingdom, he was unfortunately born in and which he hated with his whole heart. At the prince, who decided that saving some dirty, suicidal kid was more important than the good fortune for his kingdom. At the prince, who was still holding him after promising him that he wouldn’t be hurt.
That’s all Honger ever wanted; to not hurt. He wanted for his bones to not ache and his skin to not be black, green and purple. He wanted to not be tired everyday. To not deal with the creeping feeling of death slowly closing in on him day after day. To not be hated just for existing.
The prince smiled to him. The prince didn’t let him go, still holding onto him and taking him somewhere. The prince gave him something to eat before making him take a bath and then giving him clean clothes to wear. The prince apologized to him for not being able to do more.
The prince apologized to him. The prince didn’t have to apologize about anything to Honger. He showed Honger more kindness than the young boy knew what to do with. Honger was forever indebted to the only person who saw him as him; a young, scared boy who only craved to feel some love he never really knew. He wasn’t a curse in the prince’s eyes. The prince didn’t hate him for the sin of being born like everyone else did.
The prince put Honger down on his own bed, so large and so soft and after smiling to him one more time, he walked several steps away to talk with someone. Honger looked after him, hungry for more affection but losing with the bone-deep exhaustion.
He could go to sleep now.
The prince’s beautifully pleasant profile was all Honger saw before he closed his eyes. When he heard a melodious, soft laugh, the corners of his lips unconsciously turned up before he exhaled for the last time.
Honger was only 10 years old when he, for the first and last time in his short, miserable life, was met with love.