Chapter Text
The small quiet town of Stonebridge, was home to many people. Among them, was a young man named Eijiro Kirishima who was known as a kind and brave man. Although he was only twenty five years old, Kirishima had made quite the name for himself. He was a skilled fighter and one of the youngest men that had fought and won in the previous war against a neighboring kingdom and rose in the ranks as a knight.
He was also one of the towns most eligible bachelors, with hair dark as ebony and crimson colored eyes and a battle scar over his right eye from the war, he was quite the sight to behold.
As a knight, his body was built like a stone fortress, he and the other knights had trained for many years to elevate their bodies to their current state but even now Kirishima still maintained his rigorous training to maintain it. Whereas other knights didn’t dedicate themselves as fully as he, which made him one of their strongest fighters but not one of the brightest. He was powerful yes and had phenomenal intuition skills when it came to battle strategy and people but he was not by any means a scholar. He would constantly get lost during his visits to other villages or while exploring and days or sometimes weeks would go by where he would not return but eventually he would always find his way back.
Many villagers and nobleman in the town had offered him their eldest daughters hand but Kirishima had always politely declined any and all advances from the young ladies. He was brought up in the idea that it was a mans duty to do the pursuing in a romantic relationship and anything less he considered unmanly and although he never said it out loud to anyone before, he wanted to marry for love and not status.
Although, if he was truly being honest with himself, he had never pursued anyone because he had never found anyone he had wanted.
Kirishima’s life after the war had turned stagnant. Most days, he was on patrol doing his routine rounds and training with his fellow knights. Every once in a while they would be called upon to eliminate threats from spies from foreign kingdoms or something along those lines.
On his days off from being a knight, Kirishima loved to travel and explore beyond the town he knew so well. He would always visit the neighboring village about twenty minutes away from his home and visit their pub and challenge any man that felt they could take him in an arm wrestling match. No one had beaten him yet but many came from other towns just to challenge him and Kirishima reveled in the fact that nobody could beat him.
The fall season was his favorite to go exploring in because the dull green leaves on the trees and shrubbery transformed into cascades of varying shades of ruby, amber and honey.
One evening, after a particularly drunk Kirishima had won multiple arm wrestling matches against his fellow knights and a few pub patrons, he decided to return home and do some late night exploring to sober up for the coming day. He mounted his horse and began his ride home.
A heavy fog had fallen upon him as he continued riding and it was late into the night as Kirishima unknowingly made his way farther and farther away from his hometown. What he had thought was a twenty minute ride back home to the village soon turned into him sobering up enough and realizing he was nowhere near his home. He surveyed the surrounding area and came to the conclusion that he had absolutely no idea where he was. Kirishima had never gone this far out and was completely unaware of his surroundings.
As the fog began to clear up and the moon became more and more visible, Kirishima saw the faint shape of what looked to be a house.
As he grew closer to approaching the said house he realized it was not a house but a very old looking mansion. It looked to have been abandoned for a long period of time. There were no lit candles glowing from any window from what he could see and as he walked up to the main entrance, he found that it was surprisingly unlocked.
Kirishima entered the gate and jumped down from his horse, he walked up the steps to the door and gave a few knocks. No one answered after the third knock so Kirishima gave the doorknob a wiggle and it too was unlocked. Not wanting to ride any further and feeling completely drained, Kirishima decided he would stay the night in the abandoned mansion and make his way home when he woke up the next day.
He surveyed the inside of the mansion, realizing that the inside did not match the outside. The inside of the mansion looked like it had never been touched by dust, everything looked to be well kept and in good order.
As Kirishima made his way up the stairs and started opening doors to see where there might be a bedroom he could throw himself on for the night, he took note of the distinguishing details of the mansion. The chandeliers and silk crimson drapes that adorned the ceilings and windows looked to be the kind that were made from the finest material that came from a foreign kingdom from across the sea. He had only ever seen decorations similar to those of the mansion inside the royal castle of his own monarchy.
Kirishima opened another door, he sighed in relief that he finally came upon a bedroom and not a study or library. With little effort, he jumped onto the bed which was like the rest of the mansion he’d seen, surprisingly clean. There seemed to be no remnants of debris or cobwebs anywhere in the room. He laid in the comfort of the bed and with the glow from the moon beaming in from outside, Kirishima’s eyes became heavier and heavier. His mind began to get foggy as he began to drift into a deep sleep, unaware of who’s estate he had unknowingly stepped into.
As Kirishima slept, through the crevices of the door, the tendrils of a thick fog began to manifest into a shadowy figure of someone quietly entering the room and taking in the sight of the unfamiliar dark haired man that lay in his bed.