Birds of a Feather | Soul of Yokai AU

Because I'm Different

The God and I soon arrived at his shrine. But for some reason, it was boarded up so I had to bend down to enter in.

"So, child. We'll need to begin the ritual at once. The Yokai World is waiting for you." The God stated. 

"Yes!" I nodded.

The God soon clapped his hands and with a burst of light, a black kimono appeared in his hands. For some reason, it felt familiar but I couldn't place my finger on it.

"Now please, put this on." The God instructed.

"Alright." I took off my puffed jacket and took the kimono in my hands. I soon put on the kimono. 

All of the sudden, I soon started to have a bad headache. I held my head and closed my eyes.

"Um..." I mumbled, "Could we take a break...? I don't..." 

I opened my eyes up to see a strange place swirling with light.

What is this place? Where am I? This isn't the shrine...

My body felt like it was in zero gravity. I looked around me to see many people floating around me.

I soon saw a young woman float towards me with her hand extending out to me.

"Miss!" The young woman called out. 

I decided to reach out towards her

"Please, escape here!" The young woman said, "He's tricking you! Don't fall for his schemes!"

I soon reached out for the kimono on my body but my body felt weak, like I had a ball of chain on my arms.

"Push on! There's a better life out there!" The young woman encouraged, "Live it out! Even if it's hard, I promise that you'll be okay! You've got something worth living for that you'll never see again if you stay here! Just take off the kimono!"

Of course... How could I be so stupid? 

I soon reached out for the kimono using all of my strength. I felt it within my hand and I pulled on it. I soon threw the kimono to the floor and stumbled back.

"Hm? What are you..." The God mumbled.

"I..." My eyes were trembling and I gulped, "I have to go..." 

The God soon grabbed me by the arm, "But, don't you want to be able to stand against your challenges? As a God, I can see your future, it has nothing good in store with if you stay a human." 

"I know..." I soon whipped my arm out of the God's grasp, "But I don't care."

"Don't you want to be happy?" the God asked.

"Even if I'm not happy, I'm not going to let that stop me. I'm going to stop looking back and start looking forward!"

The sun had already set and I raced down the mountain where the shrine was.

———

My parents were born from two different countries. My father, Sosuke Yamamoto, was born in Japan. While my Ma, Xiù Zhōng, was born in China. And thus, me and Miyuna were born as children of two worlds. 

Both of my parents taught me to value both sides of me and learn about them. And of course, I listened, not seeing any reason to not. I learned Chinese and Japanese equally. But with learning two languages, problems came.

When I went to school, my way of speaking was different to everyone else's. I wasn't as advanced in Japanese as other kids, I'd sometimes use Chinese words to say what I meant, and whenever we had to read out kanji, I said the Chinese word of the kanji instead of the Japanese word. It made my mixed heritage obvious to everyone. And my classmates would use this as a reason to pick on me. They were all vicious... They did many things, mocking the way I spoke, hiding my things, calling me slurs, even sometimes pulling my hair and hitting me.