A/N- You're female in this one shot. Sorry for the set gender, it just fit better with the story. I'll try to not limit the gender as much as possible in the future.

YOU WERE RUNNING as fast as you could, but the bullies were after you, and they were faster.

One of the stronger ones, a muscular and rather egotistic boy who went by his first name only, Shang, pinned you down to the ground, and the other boys punched and hit you until you were senseless. You didn't even try to fight. These boys were too strong for you to fight, and you were only a weak, small child. You just let them hurt you, let them beat you until you were unconscious.

When you opened your eyes, you were lying in the softest, most elaborate bed you had ever been in your life. A soft, thick, comfortable white blanket was spread over your body, and you noticed bandages covering the cuts you had on your arms, and you felt bandages on the wounds on your face, which was probably no doubt a single large gash along your forehead. They always beat you up in that exact place, in the exact same way.

You sat up in the bed and realized that you had a very bad headache. Your vision was dimming, and your body was spinning.

"Please, don't let me lose consciousness again," you whispered.

But that was a meaningless wish. As soon as those words left your mouth, you were unconscious again.

This time, when you woke up, you were in the same bed, but a man was looking over you. He was handsome, but you backed away from him, afraid. You recognized him from seeing his image drawn before.

He was Hua Cheng, the Crimson Rain Sought Flower. And he was a Ghost King, known for murdering great amounts of people. Although he looked handsome and sweet, he was a killer, and he used his good looks to seduce women into helping him commit crimes, then murder them later, along with doing many other terrible things to them. You knew that if he wanted to take advantage of you and use your body for his pleasure, you couldn't fight him.

You were widely known for being born weak and sickly. You couldn't even go to school from kindergarten to third grade because of how prone to diseases you were. But as you matured, you got more and more healthy, and now you weren't as sickly as you were, and you managed to go through the classes you missed right to fifth grade, and into tenth grade, which was where you were now. You seemed young for him anyway. Maybe he would just kill you. Not that that would be preferable, though.

He reached his hand out to touch you, and you froze up with fear.

Gently, he grabbed your wrists, and unwrapped the bandages that were covering your wounds. You saw that someone- was it him?- had disinfected the cuts and put alcohol on pieces of cotton, which he then pushed down onto the wound so that he could leave them in the bandage. He took the pieces of cotton off and showed you how much blood the soft balls that looked like fluffy clouds had absorbed. Your cuts had already begun to heal, so he didn't put more alcohol on them, he just re-bandaged them with smaller, more light bandages. When he finished fixing up your arms, he reached out and hovered his fingers over the bandages on your face, keeping them from touching you. They simply stayed there, silently questioning, Am I allowed to touch you?

You nodded, and he smiled a beautiful, innocent looking smile at you, taking the bandages off. You winced when he pulled the one over your forehead off, and his eyes looked sad. He gave your hand a pat in an idle motion, then ripped off the rest of the bandage. You were in a lot of pain after he did it, and actually cried out. Your cry made him seem unsure if he should proceed. He looked away from you and stopped touching your face. His fingers were moving in his lap, shifting like snakes. His face was red, and you noticed that he was crying.

"What's wrong, Hua Cheng?" you asked him, his name catching on your mouth before it came out.

"You know who I am," he responded. His voice wasn't as deep as you thought it would be. It actually was decently high for a man. You could hear the shock in it. He was not expecting that you would know who he was. That meant you would know the terrible things he did. And you guessed that he didn't like that.

"Yes, I do. I know you're a murderer, but you're being kind to me, so I hate to see you cry," you responded.

"I'm sorry for hurting you," he responded. His voice was thick with unshed tears, and he had stopped crying, but you knew he would start again.

"You didn't hurt me. Bullies did. They always do. It's not your fault it hurt when you pulled the bandage away. You just pulled a little fast. That's all."

"Yes. And for that, I am sorry," he responded.

He had gotten serious again, and you didn't enjoy talking to him when he was this way. In fact, him being serious scared you a bit. When he was serious, he seemed harsh and unyielding, like the killer he should be, not the kind man he was being.

As soon as he had finished reapplying the bandage to your face- judging by the pain you experienced and the seriousness of the wound, which hadn't healed enough to warrant not being disinfected and rebandaged with a weaker bandage, he stood up, and you realized that he was tall, in addition to being handsome. He laid his hand over yours for a moment, then let go and went to the door of your room.

"You should stay here until you heal," he said. "Tell me when you wish to leave. I'll lead you out of here back to your home. You will be safe from those bullies here, though. I wish you would stay with me."

"I don't wish to live with a murderer," you responded coldly.

Hua Cheng seemed hurt by this statement. He hung his head and said, quietly, "I wouldn't hurt you. You're beautiful."

Then he left, and you heard the sounds of his boots hitting the floor as he ran down the hallway. Strangely, you felt bad for hurting him. You knew he was a murderer, and that he had seduced and used many women for his own pleasure, not caring for them, but he seemed to think of you differently. He seemed to be attracted to you for who you were, not your outward beauty. Although he had said you were beautiful...

After resting for a little while, you decided that you would try and apologize to him for hurting his feelings. Since you didn't know your way around his home, which was no doubt a mansion judging by his rank as a ghost king and the way your room looked, you just called his name loudly. If you were right about his being attracted to you, he would probably be close to you at all times if you were injured.

"Hua Cheng! Hua Cheng, I need to talk to you!"

The Ghost King rushed into the room, his hair undone from its neat ponytails and hanging down his back tangled and in a mess. His eyes were pink from crying, and his nerves seemed to be quite frayed. When he saw you, he rushed over to your side and grabbed your arms, shaking you violently and yelling, "What is it? Are you in pain?"

"I just wanted to apologize for hurting your feelings," you told him. "I'm just unsure about this whole arrangement. My parents and all the women in my village talk about how I should never trust you, because you hurt women and use them for your own gain, and the men talk about how many people you've killed so mercilessly, but now you're in front of me, and you're not holding a weapon or hurting me, but trying to take care of my wounds and talking kindly to me. To be honest, I'm terribly confused. You're handsome, and you seem kind and you love me, but you're a murderer and you can take advantage of me. So I just don't know how to treat you. But snapping at you was unforgivable. I'm sorry."

"I understand," he said. His voice was soft, and he still seemed to be a little sad and disappointed that you didn't love him, but at least he understood.

He turned to go, and you called his name once again. He turned around and asked, "What is it now?"

"I'll stay with you in your house for a week. If I enjoy being here, I'll live with you for the foreseeable future. Is that agreeable to you?" you asked.

"Oh, thank you! I don't even know your name, I know nothing about you, so I can't give you any gifts because I don't know what you would like, but thank you! You've made me so happy, beautiful one!"

You smiled at him and said, "My name's L/N Y/N. And the only gift I ask for is that you don't hurt me, like those bullies do."

"My lovely Y/N. I won't hurt you. I will never hurt you. You are my precious flower, like an orchid in the desert. Thank you for being so kind to me."

With that, he left your room with a bow and another beautiful, innocent smile.

You sighed deeply, and examined the room that would be your bedroom for the following week.

It looked beautiful.

But not as beautiful as Hua Cheng himself.