Yurui The Cursed One

In the living room, my mother has not moved. The blanket still covers her knees. One hand rests loosely near the remote. Her hair is tied back in a careless knot, and the TV paints her face in colors that make her look a bit alien. Her greyish hair looks shiny silver when illuminated. She was wearing a knitted white sweater. Or at least I think it was white, it could have been yellow. It's hard to tell when it's this dark.

I stop beside the couch. For a while, I say nothing as I stand there. The show on TV is one of her favorites. A palace drama, one of those mind-numbing Indian harem shows. I have no idea how anyone in their right mind can sit through even half an episode of that crap without going insane. The show is so bad that it could probably be used as a form of torture.

The show is about a sultan. Or a king. Or one of those men history keeps inventing titles for, so no one has to say rich bastard with too much money to count. He has his own harem where all his wives live. The whole plot is just women scheming and competing with each other for the rich guy's attention and favor. Seriously, one of the stupidest and least interesting storylines I've ever heard of. I mean, what's so hard about seducing a guy? All you have to do is take your clothes off. Heck, You don't even have to get fully naked.

(Has never seduced a guy before.)

I must've started frowning, because as if she just read my mind, mom says:

"Helps you take your mind off things."

I just nod and keep watching the TV show. Or more specifically, I stare at the TV itself, because I find the object more interesting than whatever it's showing. And we stay like that for God knows how long. Both of us staring at the TV. Not saying a word.

My mother speaks without looking away. “There is some food in the kitchen.”

“I know. I already ate.”

She nods once. That’s it. The entire conversation.

I sit down at the far end of the couch. The cushion sinks under me with a tired sigh. On screen, the crying woman collapses against a carved pillar. Her jewelry probably costs more than this building. I watch for three minutes and understand nothing except that everyone is miserable in excellent clothing.

“Why do you watch this stuff?” I ask.

Mom does not look away. “Pretty clothes.”

“That’s it?”

“Pretty rooms.”

On the screen, a woman with jewels in her hair cries because the sultan has chosen someone else for dinner. Mom lifts one shoulder. “And rich people being miserable.”

I stare at her. “That helps?”

“Sometimes.” Her voice stays flat. “They cry in palaces. I don’t have to feel bad for them. Keeps my head busy for a while.”

I look back at the television. Silk. Gold. Painted walls. Women lounging in rooms so beautiful they look fake, which, technically, they are. “Fair,” I say.

She makes a small sound that might almost be a laugh. The TV flickers.

I look back at Mom. Under the TV light, I can see the lines forming at her forehead. They are deeper than I remember. Or maybe I have not looked closely in a while. Her face is not old, exactly. Just worn down in places people are not supposed to wear down yet.

I do not know much about what she does all day. She never explained it, and I never asked. I only know she comes home tired, pays for what little we have, and keeps going. My father is not part of the picture. I have never met him. I do not know his face, his name, or whether Mom still thinks about him. Mom works, pays the bills, keeps food in the apartment when she can, takes care of me (somewhat.) So I cannot really blame her for wanting to sit in front of the television and disappear for a while rather than making conversation with me.

For a while, we sit together. Not talking. Not touching. Not looking at each other. But together, technically, in the same room, breathing the same damp air. I sit there a little longer, pretending to watch TV, until the words just slip out.

"I can't do it anymore."

My mother’s eyes shift toward me. My heart starts beating hard. “I mean school,” I add quickly. “I mean—I’m not saying anything dramatic. I just… I mean, I’m tired.”

She looks at me properly now. Her eyes stare me down like she is truly seeing me for the very first time. “What happened?” she asks.

Everything, I think. A monster came through the roof. A rich girl with a purchased blessing used my body like a toy. My teacher, who might be the most dangerous person alive, is after me. I turned into something disgusting. The worst part is, for a few minutes, I might have actually enjoyed it. For the first time in my life, I got to experience what it felt like to be strong.

And now I do not know which part scares me more: what I turned into, or the fact that some part of me wants it back.

I cannot stop thinking about what happens if someone finds out. Sometimes, I wonder if they already know. If the next person who looks at me closely enough will see the thing I turned into still hiding under my skin. I am afraid I will wake up as a normal girl tomorrow and be disappointed by it. I am afraid of being scared and having no one to reach out to.

“Testing period,” I say.

Of course, I was not going to tell her the real reason. Not because I do not trust my own mother. Although, honestly, maybe I do not. Not completely. But even if I did, what was I supposed to say? That I had turned into something inhuman at school? Those black plates had grown out of my body and then fallen off on the way home? That, for a few minutes, being a monster had felt better than being myself?

There were only two ways that conversation could end. Either Mom believed me and did something terrible with the truth, or she looked at me like something had broke inside my head. I did not know which would be worse.

The lie slides out easily. Too easily. “It’s been bad. Everyone’s stressed. Teachers are pushing hard. I thought maybe I could take a couple of days off.”

My mother studies me for another second. Her gaze brushes over my face, my uniform, the dirt dried at the hem of my skirt. Now that I think about it, she hasn’t said a word about my uniform being completely ruined. Is she angry at me? Is she gonna yell or scream at me for ruining the uniform? I cannot read her face at all, and that bothers me more than it should.

She is not hard to read like Yashiro or Maevis. There is no cruelty arranged carefully behind her eyes, no beautiful little mask on her face, no little smile waiting to turn sharp. She is just my mother. I have spent years learning how to read the smallest signs of danger in other people. A twitch in Yashiro’s mouth. A pause in Kika’s voice. The exact kind of laughter that means Sophia has found something new to use against me. But I do not know my own mother’s face well enough to tell what she is thinking.

I guess I have just never paid much attention to her.

After a few seconds, being watched by a face I do not know how to read is unbearable. It feels like I’m being stripped down under her eyes till I'm completely naked. I avert my eyes from her and stare at the corner.

“A couple of days,” she repeats.

“Just to clear my head.”

“You’ll fall behind.”

“I’m already behind.”

That lands closer to the truth than I wanted. Her mouth tightens. I brace for the lecture. The one about scholarships. Chances. Sacrifice. About how girls like me do not get to waste opportunities just because we are tired. I already have my answers lined up: careful, reasonable, ugly little lies polished until they sound like the kind of thing an adult would approve of.

But Mom just looks back at the television. “Suit yourself,” she says.

That is all. No questions. No lecture. Zero pushback. She just surrendered as if she didn’t care. I should be happy about it, but I would lie if I said that it didn’t hurt a little.

I push myself off the couch slowly. “Okay.”

She does not answer me.

I turn away and go back to my room. I climb over my bed and pick up the sleeping bag from under it. It smells faintly of dust and old sweat, with that stale, cold scent fabric gets when it has been folded away for too long. I shake it out once, roll it up, and hold it tight against my chest. I swiftly move to the other side and open my wardrobe. I take a gym bag and close the door.

I spend the next few minutes rifling through my room for supplies. As I do, a faint smile creeps across my face. As bad as the day was, I was glad to finally get myself some respite. Whenever I’m down in the dumps, I go “camping" to the balcony at the end of the hall to decompress. It’s my own little paradise.

I grab a bottle of water, my phone, a half-dead power bank, and whatever was left of the emergency packet of crackers I have been saving for a bad day. After today's event, I think I have earned myself a treat. It's gonna be chilly out here by now. I grab my jacket from the corner of the bed, work my arms through the sleeves, and pull it tight around myself.

When I return to the living room, mom has not moved. Her eyes are still fixed on the television. “I’ll be nearby,” I say as I walk past her, “Going to the balcony.”

A pause. Then my mother nods. It is so small I almost miss it. “Lock the door,” she says.

“I will.”

Another pause. “Don’t talk to strange men.”

Despite everything, a thin laugh escapes me. “I’ll do my best,” I say, grinning slightly, “Though strange men are famously irresistible.”

She gives me a hard look. I put my hands up in surrender and wave goodbye without looking back as I open the door. Then the TV light paints the apartment gold, mom probably went back to her TV show, and already forgot about me. I leave quickly, before she can turn around and change her mind.

The sad thing is that I wouldn’t mind if she did.

Cold air slides over my arms the moment I step out. The hallway has gone colder while I was inside. Despite that, I feel warm and fuzzy. As brief a conversation as it was, I guess, it did manage to make me feel better. The only good thing that happened to me today. Maybe I should try speaking with mom more often. Just maybe.

I lock the apartment door behind me and keep my hand on the knob until I hear the bolt slide into place. Stupid habit. The lock would not stop anyone who really wanted to get in. Half the doors in this building look like they could be knocked open with a hard shove from a shoulder. I wait for the lock to click regardless. If something bad were to happen, at least I wouldn’t be blamed for it.

I head down the hall. The further I go, the colder and darker it gets. The balcony is at the far end of the seventh-floor corridor, beyond the apartments people still live in, and the ones nobody admits are empty. You pass the door with the broken shrine taped beside it, then the door with three locks, then the place where the ceiling sags, then the rusted radiator that has never heated anything but arguments.

On this floor, the corridor ends at a metal door marked by a faded warning sign.

STRUCTURAL HAZARD. ACCESS PROHIBITED.

I painted that sign myself. Rather poorly. The letters are uneven, but apparently official-looking enough to have kept the residents away for half a year. A chain loops through the handle, secured with the lock I installed six months ago after three nights of carrying tools up here piece by piece under my jacket.

The balcony is supposed to be communal. Technically. No one uses it. No one even comes near the door anymore. So, over time, I started treating it like my own private property. I would give it back if anyone asked. Probably. Nobody has.

I hold my breath as I fiddle with the lock. It gives with a soft click. I step through and pull the door shut quickly behind me, before anyone can notice lil old me slipping onto the balcony that is supposed to be off-limits. Only after the door clicks shut do I let myself breathe properly again.

The balcony runs along the side of the building, wide enough for old chairs and laundry racks. I can still recall the sounds of children playing from way back when people trusted the railing. Now it is mostly abandoned. The concrete is cracked. One corner has sunk slightly. The rail is rusted, and the wind whistles through gaps where panels used to be.

And yet, it is my favorite place in the whole world.

I’m aware of how insane that sounds out of context. The floor is covered with cardboard I cut, flattened, and taped together into a kind of makeshift carpet. Pizza boxes, appliance boxes, and delivery packaging stolen from the backs of stores in the business district. I replaced the worst pieces last week. The edges still curl when the air gets damp, but I weigh them down with bricks.

Near the wall, I keep my things tucked behind a loose sheet of metal: a plastic cup, two candles, a lighter, an old blanket, three books I found in a flooded storage room, and dried page by page. One has half its pages missing. Of course, it just happened to be my favorite. Worst of all, it cuts off at the best part, right when things are finally starting to get interesting.

The wind hits my face, cold and rough with the smell of dust, rust, and old concrete. I lock the balcony door from the outside and slip the key into my pocket.

Safe.

I feel the weight lifting from my shoulders. I set the sleeping bag near the wall and make my way to the railing.

The slum stretches out below me, a mess of dark rooftops, broken windows, and cheap signs buzzing in the night. The business district pulses like an infected wound, bright at the edges, rotten underneath. Further out, the unlit housing blocks sink into shadows. Laundry lines hang between buildings like old spiderwebs. Smoke rises from barrel fires. In the distance, a train moves along the elevated tracks, each bright window appearing for a second before disappearing out of sight.

And beyond all of it, Miracle City shines brightly like a jewel, untouched by the darkness gathering at its feet. There is no better word to describe it tonight. It is so bright compared to the slum that I have to blink a few times so that my eyes can adjust to the sudden onslaught of lights.

White searchlights sweep lazily between the buildings. Neon signs ripple over entire walls. Golden windows stack themselves higher and higher until the tops of the towers disappear into a haze of electric color. Trains glide along elevated monorail tracks, bright carriages slipping from tower to tower through the dark, the bright lines of color lagging behind them like a bunch of glowing specters flying around all over the city. Crossing from one shining district to another without ever slowing down.

Looking at it from over here, the city looks magical.

Then the wind moves through the balcony, bringing the smell of damp concrete, rust, and old trash up from below, and reminds me exactly where I am. I rest my arms on the railing. The metal is cold enough to sting.

As I stare into the night, the whole miserable day crawls back into my head. Every insult. Every command. Every moment I was pushed lower and lower, until something inside me finally broke and I transformed into the monster, both literally and figuratively. My knees start to shake, and I tighten my grip on the cold metal railing. It twists slightly and lets out a loud creak.

I lower myself down onto the ground, carefully, one hand still gripping the railing. For a few minutes, I just sit there, back to the concrete wall of the balcony, looking up at the sky.

The dark night sky stretches all the way across the horizon. A sickle moon hangs in one corner. A few small dots are scattered around it, shining against the deep dark behind them. I actually like it better when there are only a few stars out. They stand out more. Look prettier.

I have never understood why people act like a sky stuffed full of them is some grand miracle. Honestly, all those stars spilling everywhere until the whole sky looks infected with light, to the point where it all blurs and blends into one singular mass of light, looks kind of ugly.

Sometimes, less is better.

I unroll my sleeping bag near the wall, where the wind cannot reach as easily. The cardboard ruffles under my knees. I take off my jacket and fold it into a pillow, then crawl inside. The concrete has gone ice cold without the sunlight. It seeps through the cardboard, through the sleeping bag, into my bones. I curl tighter and pull the fabric up to my chin.

Still beats sleeping in my tiny, crowded room. At least here, I can stretch out without immediately bumping against furniture.

I take out the packet of crackers, open it carefully, and eat one. Then another. As much as I would like to eat a third, I fold the packet shut and save the rest. Future me will need something to eat too.

I check my phone. Only twelve percent of the battery remains. No messages, obviously. No missed calls. No one is asking where I am. No one is checking whether I survived the giant centipede attack that may or may not already be on the news, depending on how fast Miracle Inc. can turn a disaster into a press statement.

I lock the screen. The dark glass catches my reflection. Thin face. Tired eyes. Hair tangled from running. A girl so ordinary she could vanish in any crowd. For a second, I imagine the monster still inside me, curled up somewhere under my ribs, waiting for another reason to come out.

I put the phone away to the side. The city hums below. Somewhere, a siren starts and stops. I can hear people laughing and shouting from the slums. At least someone around here is having fun.

Lying on my back, I can clearly see the night sky above me, with its moon and stars. That's my favorite part of sleeping on the balcony. As I stare up at the stars, the events of the day run through my head. The bullying. The trash. The class. The centipede. The transformation.

It's a lot to take in.

“What a day, huh?” I whisper.

The words leave my mouth in a small cloud of fog. My body is exhausted, but my mind keeps circling the same places, worrying them like loose teeth. Miracle Inc. will come. Or they will not. School will continue. Or it will not.

Yashiro will look at me differently now. Of course she will. She saw that thing come out of me. How am I supposed to face her after that? How am I supposed to stand in front of her and pretend I am still just a normal girl? How am I supposed to make anyone else believe I am human when I cannot even convince myself anymore?

Maevis will smile. That same cold, emotionless smile. That much is certain.

I do not want to think about Maevis smiling, so I focus on the stars instead. One near the moon. Two above the old radio tower. Another just barely visible over Miracle City’s central spire. They are weak little things compared to Miracle City’s lights. Pale dots caught between the glow of the towers and the darkness above them.

And yet, they are still there when no one else is. My only friends.

I pull the sleeping bag tighter around my shoulders. For the first time all day, the world leaves me alone. My eyelids grow heavy. Just before sleep takes me, I turn my face slightly toward the open sky.

I close my eyes and mutter, "Good night, Yurui."

It is embarrassing how much I needed to hear it.

My eyes sting. I pull the sleeping bag a little tighter around myself and let sleep take me.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!