High spirit | Dazai Osamu ff

Human

"A long time ago, when I led a life of a human....

 ....people with abilities were not called gifted. We were considered cursed. Heavily persecuted and discriminated against, we ability users preferred keeping the knowledge of our powers a secret. We were made to carry on with our lives like normal humans."

"Now that I think about it, they were just being jealous bitches. Grumpy, that they did not have abilities while we did."

                                                                                                                                                                 - Yoko San.

•••

In an era and period, under the rule of Tokugawa, peace prevailed. There hadn't been any wars  recently and normalcy was restored to the lives of people. Culture and art flourished under the patronage of nobles. The status pyramid was rigid as ever and the servants served their masters like devoted disciples.

Now, as difficult serving under these haughty and condescending nobles was it couldn't get more difficult than serving their young lady.

She never regarded them with any contempt nor did she ever treat them as low lives. But the way her head worked made them question their ancestors for past misdeeds. She terrified them to their core, however sweet she maybe.

They had all known her since she was six years of age. The entire retinue of servants serving under her was changed at the master's orders. The master of the house, the young lady's father was in a constant state of anxiety due to his youngest child. They had later discovered that one of the earlier servants had handed her a knife to cut fruit and she had used it to stab herself.

Since their predecessors were fired for this reason, the current servants made sure their lady was never provided with sharp objects. This was an order from the master. The young lady was prone to try and kill herself.

She had once bribed a samurai to perform Seppuku on her. Unfortunately, her father had found out before the deed could be done and the samurai was the one who ended up beheaded at the end.

They had all wondered why their young lady was such a strange person. But it was all answered when one of the maids saw the strange symbol on her hand while dressing her. She was cursed. Cursed children were often kept in seclusion by their parents. But their lady was permitted to mingle within the family. She had good relationships with her two elder brothers and two elder sisters. Apart from her strange behaviour, she never once showed any sign of being cursed. One could say that she wasn't cursed at all and the strange symbol was just a birthmark.

But they were afterall, her servants. It was their job to look after her needs every hour of the day. Behind closed doors and in utter seclusion, they would hear her talking to something. A red glow could be seen from the cracks of the door every time she let out her curse. Once a maid had accidentally opened the doors to her chambers and fainted at the sight of what she saw.

When she regained consciousness, she wasn't sane. She kept muttering "Dragon...Dragon..." Under her breath. Nobody understood what she had seen behind those doors. All was forgotten when their young lady came, asking sweetly for some fruit. Serving their young lady mattered. The delirious maid did not.

But the reason that their lady frightened them had nothing to do with the curse. It was her cursed intelligence that terrified them. 

She had come up with a twenty three point plan that detailed taking down the Tokugawa shogunate and bringing complete reform in the taxation system between the classes, just because sleep had not graced her that night.

She was a lady of grace, who wrote beautiful calligraphy and played the koto well. She was well liked in the society and would have many suitors. But behind those kind smiles and soft laughs, just because they had served under her for so long, they could detect a sinister and cunning being.

She would return from banquets and make cold hearted predictions about murders and marriages. When the news about the incidences concerning her predictions would turn out to be true, they servants could only look at each other in despair and suppress the shudder that would run through their spines.

What startled them the most was the apathy their lady would hold when in private. To the society, she was a vivacious young girl who would shy away when approached and blush when teased. But when the mistress of the house, her mother had skinned her forearm to get rid of the strange symbol, the lady, a child only twelve years of age at the time, had not shed a single tear.

She had later nonchalantly told one of the servants that when she was six years old, she had herself, cut out the skin on her forearm and burned the open wound but the symbol had been intact when she woke up the next morning. She had then sickeningly rubbed her hands in wait of her mother's reaction when she would show her forearm to the woman the next day. 

When she was in her eighteenth summer, a young man had visited the estate and seemed to have been infatuated with her. He was the son of their master's fellow noble. He had asked for her hand in marriage but their master was hesitant. He had told the young man of her cursed background and offered to marry off one of his elder daughters instead. But the young man was adamant and claimed that she was the only one he pinned after. He promised that she would be the only one he loved.

What love? What pinning? They hated the young man for he did not allow her to take any of her servants from her maternal home after marriage. He later took many concubines even though she remained his main wife. They hated him for separating them from their young lady.

They hated him even more when they heard that he had been found dead and their young lady was missing. She was never found again. Some said that she lived in the  mountains for the rest of her life. Some said she had been abducted by his murderers. Some said she haunted Yokohama.

For all they knew, their young lady...the little girl that they had served under. The same girl who turned into an enigmatic woman was and would always remain a mystery, even to them. She had truly led a cursed life, as a child, as a woman and perhaps even in death.

×××

A/n:

I'll write another chapter from Yoko-san's POV about her human life, some time later. Next chapter, we'll return back to the main plot.

Ciao :-)