°˖✧Gaijin✧˖°

°˖✧Damage✧˖°

[Trigger Warning: Bullying + suicide]

[°˖✧Prologue✧˖°]

I have been dead for 27 years, 4 months, and 16 days.

When I made the decision to take my own life, I had hoped that it would end my suffering for good. However, I realized that the universe was just as cruel as life had been to me. There was no respite for me even after death. The only thing that was left for me after death was being confined to the home that I had lived in for my entire life. The only thing that was left for me was pain, just like how it was when I was alive.

The funeral my parents had for me was small. I did not have any friends that could attend, on account of not having any. Very few family members attended. I watched as they set up an altar for me, yet I couldn't do a single thing. I wanted to apologize for hurting them, but no matter how much I tried to communicate, they could not hear nor see me. It's a cruel existence.

Eventually, being in the house that I died in proved to be too much for them, and they decided to move on to somewhere else for a fresh start. It hurt me deeply knowing that the universe hated me so much that I could not follow them and have the comfort of the only two people who ever cared about me. I watched as one family moved in, then another, then another. They all left eventually.

My existence in death is even more lonely than it was in life, if that's even possible. With the creation of the internet, it was easier for prospective buyers to realize that there was a death in the home, so they began to steer clear of it like it was the plague. They didn't want to have the bad luck that I bestowed upon the premises. I can't blame them. The house lay dormant for years. As did I.

Until, finally, after years of doing nothing but weeping by myself, there seemed to be someone desperate enough to peruse the home. A foreign woman, in fact. I had never seen a foreigner in any year of my life or my death, so to say that I was intrigued would be an understatement. I could not understand a thing that she or the realtor she was speaking to were saying, but I knew one thing more than anything: this would be her new home. If Japan is anything like it was when I died, then I knew more than anyone that it would be incredibly hard for a foreigner to get a home of their own because of xenophobia.

My prediction ended up being correct. I knew that the realtor was desperate at this point, after so many years of not being able to sell the house, so she would have likely given it to anyone that would have asked. Soon enough, the foreign woman began to move in. I was a bit enamored with how different she looked than everyone else - particularly how she had a pierced nose and some tattoos. By Japanese standards, she looked like a typical yakuza. But I learned that she was not that type at all.

No, she was a devoted mother.

Her daughter was a pretty little thing, a couple years younger than me when I died, but chronologically around 29 years my junior. I found myself fascinated with her, as well, from how her curly hair contrasted my own, to the pale skin that so many young women in Japan could only achieve with foundation. Just like her mother, I could not understand anything she was saying, but I understood that she had a cheerful personality and a love for everything cute based on her bedroom alone. But, beyond the chipper attitude, I could see a bit of myself in her.