Yurui The Cursed One

“Open it.”

I hesitated for one second, then my hands moved.

The zipper rasped loudly in the narrow service passage. I held the bag open in front of me, my notebooks and pencils and cheap little scraps of school life visible inside, a pathetic reminder that I kept coming back here every day.

Yashiro glanced into my backpack, then lifted her eyes back to mine.

“Empty it.”

The words hit me like a shove. For one second, I just stood there. Sophia’s smile widened.

“Oh, this is a good one.”

“Do it,” Sophie said, already laughing.

My hands tipped the bag.

Everything spilled out onto the pavement in a graceless little collapse: textbooks, pens, loose worksheets, my lunch wrapped in yesterday’s paper, one of my cheaper notebooks falling open face-down as if even it were too embarrassed to be seen with me. A pencil rolled in a slow, stupid circle and came to rest against Sophia’s shoe. She looked down at it, then at me.

“God,” she said softly. “It’s like watching a life come apart in installments.”

Sophie snorted.

Kamila barely looked up from her phone. “Can we move this along?”

Yashiro didn’t take her eyes off me.

“Good,” she said, a faint note of satisfaction entering her voice.

Then she turned her head slightly toward the recessed garbage area built into the wall. One of the metal doors stood open. Inside, black bags were stacked in the dimness beside the old compactor bay.

“Take one.”

I stared at her, my pulse lurching. “What?” I heard myself say, my own voice sounding far away.

Yashiro’s expression didn’t change. “Take one,” she repeated.

I moved toward the open garbage area, my body already obeying. The smell thickened with every step: sour milk, wet cardboard, old grease, rot gone sweet at the edges. The bags inside were swollen and slick-looking, knotted tight at the top. One of them had a dark, wet patch blooming near the bottom.

Yashiro pointed.

“That one.”

Sophia laughed out loud. “No, seriously?”

Yashiro paid her no attention. “Pick it up, Yurui.”

I crouched and grabbed the bag. It was heavier than I expected and soft in all the worst ways. Something moved inside it with a damp, nauseating squelch. Heat rushed into my face so fast it made my ears ring. Behind me, the girls were already giggling.

“Oh my God,” Sophie said, pointing at me. “Look at her.”

Kamila finally glanced up, took in the bag in my hands, and let out a faint, almost appreciative breath through her nose. “That’s disgusting.” She paused. “I approve.”

I held the trash bag as far from my body as I could. Yashiro’s gaze dropped to my open backpack on the pavement, my things scattered around it. Then, very calmly, she said :

“Empty it into your school bag.”

For one second, my mind simply failed. Sophia made a delighted choking noise.

“No,” I said before I could stop myself.

All four girls went quiet- not shocked so much as intrigued.

Yashiro stepped closer.

“Excuse me?”

I could feel my heartbeat in my teeth. “That’s my—” I swallowed and tried again. “That’s my school bag.”

Something changed in Sophia’s face then, some bright little flare of pleasure. There it is, I thought dimly. That was the wrong thing to say.

Yashiro smiled. Not warmly. Not with any obvious cruelty, either. Just that cold little lift at one corner of her mouth, the one that meant my day still had room to worsen.

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

Looking at me the way someone might look at a soaked, shivering puppy, she said almost gently, “Do it.”

My hands moved. I fumbled at the knot first, my fingers shaking too badly to get a proper grip.

Sophia started laughing before I’d even gotten it loose.

“She can’t even open a trash bag,” Sophia said, barely making out the words between chuckles. “Embarrassing, considering her background.”

“Use your teeth,” Sophie suggested.

Kamila looked faintly bored again. “Please don’t. I just ate.”

On the second try, the knot loosened. The smell that came out of the bag hit like a physical blow.

I gagged.

Inside, cafeteria waste had collapsed into one wet, foul mass. Half-eaten fruit gone brown. Sauce-slick cartons. Crumpled wrappers. Soaked napkins. Something unidentifiable and pale clotted against the plastic. My stomach turned so hard I had to lock my jaw to keep from giving them something else to laugh at.

“Go on,” Yashiro said.

So I did. I tipped the garbage bag over my backpack and watched trash slide into it in slow, obscene lumps. Wet paper. Food sludge. Sticky wrappers. A split container that leaked something cloudy over the zipper and straps. My notebooks were still lying on the pavement a few feet away, dangerously close, as if they were trying to witness this from a safe distance.

The girls were laughing too hard to bother hiding it now. Sophia actually braced herself against the wall.

“She has to carry it like that,” she said, breathless. “Please tell me she has to carry it like that.”

Yashiro looked me over for a moment, then said, “Pick up your things.”

I swallowed. My throat felt ruined. I crouched and gathered my notebooks and papers one by one while holding the fouled backpack open in my other hand. The lunch paper had soaked through from something on the pavement. One worksheet had a footprint across it. My pencil snapped when I tried to pick it up too fast. I put everything back anyway. My notebooks. My papers. All of it, straight into the trash filling my bag. The same bag I still had to sling over my shoulder and carry back to class.

By the time I zipped it shut, my hands were shaking. Sophia wiped beneath one eye.

“Look at that,” he said, catching her breath between words, “She even packed it neatly.”

Yashiro looked at the bag, then at me. “Bring it.”

My shoulder screamed when I lifted it. The strap came away tacky in my hand. Then she nodded toward the compactor bay.

“Now,” she said, pausing for dramatic effect, “get in.”

I turned toward the open container and took a step before the meaning of the command caught up with me. They did not want me to pick up the trash or carry it away. They wanted me inside it, curled among the filth like another piece of trash meant to be thrown away.

My stomach lurched. For one stunned second, I could only stare at the black plastic lining the container, even as my body continued moving toward it while leaving the rest of me behind. They’d put me through hell since the day I transferred here, but even by their standards, this felt like they were crossing a whole new line.

“Stop,” Sophia said, and my body locked at the threshold.

The girls came up behind me. Their footsteps were light. Leisurely. Nobody hurried when they already had all the power. Sophia leaned close to my ear.

“Do you know,” she murmured, “what I like about you?”

I stared straight ahead into the dark mouth of the container.

“No matter what we do, at the end of the day you always find your way back where you belong.”

I felt her smile without seeing it.

“Yashiro,” she said pleasantly, “tell her to get in.”

Silence stretched between us, just long enough for a flicker of hope to rise in my chest.

Then Yashiro said, very calmly, “Inside.”

My body moved.

I caught the edge of the container with both hands before I could climb in fully. The plastic lining crackled under my fingers. The smell rolled over me in a wave so thick it seemed to coat the back of my tongue. Behind me, the girls laughed. Above us, somewhere beyond the service wall, a monorail slid across the afternoon sky in a ribbon of silver light.

Miracle City gleamed.

And here I was, about to throw myself away into the trash.

I decided, at the last possible second, that I would rather take my chances with them than willingly climb into a bin. I shoved backward. For one blessed half-second, I actually moved. Then Sophia stuck out a foot and tripped me. I pitched forward and hit the concrete hard enough to see white.

“There she goes,” Sophia said. “Making a mess of things again, you just can’t behave, can you ?”

I rolled onto one elbow, gasping.

Cold seeped through my skirt and tights, sending a deep shiver through my body. Maybe it was the concrete beneath me. Or maybe it was the fear tightening around my ribs. Either way, I could not stop shaking.

The girls circled me.

Sophia looked down with her head tilted, her pink star bright against the white of her blouse, Superstar stamped beneath it in those huge childish letters. That annoyed me more than it should have.

Everything about her got under my skin: the smirk, the perfume, the way she stood as if the whole room would naturally rearrange itself around her if she stayed still long enough. Sophie folded her arms beside her, a near mirror image in the same smug pose. Same blouse. Same short skirt. Same glossy, curated carelessness. Together, they looked like some kind of rich-girl in-joke I’d been forced to attend.

Kamila barely glanced up from her phone. “Can you get this over with?” she said. “I want to catch Jones before he starts embarrassing himself in public.”

Of course, even now, somewhere in Miracle City, Kamila’s current ex-boyfriend or former current boyfriend or whatever title applied this week was apparently waiting to be made miserable, and I was inconveniencing their schedule.

“What can I say,” I muttered, tasting blood where I’d bitten my cheek. “Romance is alive.”

Sophie snorted. Sophia actually laughed. Kamila looked down at me as if I’d coughed in church.

Yashiro stepped closer, and the resemblance to Maevis sharpened. Same pale complexion. Same lovely, composed face. Same unsettling sense that every trace of softness had been carefully constructed. Maevis hid her cruelty behind warmth. Yashiro didn’t bother.

She pinched her nose delicately. “God,” she said. “Something stinks.”

Her pale eyes settled on me.

“Did somebody leave a bag of rotten garbage out here?”

The girls laughed again.

Students passed in the distance, along the far end of the service path and down the side steps from the yard. They could see enough to understand. Some slowed. Others kept walking. One boy glanced over, then looked away so quickly that something twisted in my chest.

No one said a word.

That was the part that got me every time. Not the pain. Not even the humiliation.

The indifference.

Nobody cared enough to stop. They could have broken my nose against the concrete right there. Kicked my teeth in. Thrown me headfirst into the compactor bay. People would have watched, looked away, and continued with their day. By the time a teacher finally intervened, it would already have become a misunderstanding- provided the right parents signed the right forms.

“Up,” Yashiro said.

My body obeyed. She put a hand between my shoulder blades and steered me toward the edge again. Not rough. Not yet. Just firm enough to remind me that with Yashiro, force was rarely the point.

Control was.

I stared down into the dark mouth of the container and braced for the shove. It didn’t come. The waiting was worse. A shove is simple. Waiting for it is its own kind of torture. Sweat prickled under my arms despite the cold.

My knees shook.

Behind me, I could hear their laughter turning soft and private, the intimate little sounds of people enjoying themselves.

Then fingers brushed the back of my neck. I made the smallest, ugliest noise in my throat. Sophia doubled over laughing. Sophie slapped a hand over her mouth and nearly dropped against Kamila’s shoulder.

Yashiro stood beside me with that same thin, emptied-out smile she wore when she was most pleased with herself.

“So, Yurui. Assuming that’s still your name.”

The twins snorted.

“I’ve been thinking.”

I would have preferred it if she hadn’t. Nothing good ever comes when Yashiro starts “thinking.”

“The girls and I have decided we’re not going to throw you into the trash anymore.”

For one humiliating second, some stupid part of me believed her.

“R-really?”

“Yes,” Yashiro said. “It’s beneath us, don’t you think? Playing garbage collector. Work like that should be left to those more naturally suited for it.”

Kamila, still typing, said, “Please tell me this speech has an ending.”

Yashiro’s fingers settled more firmly at the side of my neck. “So,” she went on, “as the only slum rat in our school, you are now officially designated our personal trash man.”

She gave the slightest approving nod, like she was bestowing some grotesque little honor.

“Congratulations.”

My throat worked around nothing. “You want me to collect your garbage?”

“Oh, no.” Her voice turned almost amused. “Nothing so labor-intensive. We wouldn’t want you demanding overtime.”

Sophia laughed. Sophie echoed her half a second later.

Kamila sighed. “Careful with the labour laws. She might demand a bathroom break.”

The twins lost it. Yashiro leaned closer.

“Besides,” she said, “you already brought all the trash down here.”

I blinked at her. “What?”

Her smile fell away, and the next instant, the crack of her palm against my face echoed through the alcove.

For a second, no one made a sound. Even the girls seemed to enjoy that silence. Heat burst across my cheek. My vision lurched sideways. Before I could fully recover, Yashiro grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked my head back hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. Her face was inches from mine. I could smell her breath, faintly sweet and clean, intimate in a way that made my skin want to crawl off me.

And because apparently I’d been born with some essential survival component missing, I heard myself say, “At least something smells nice around here.”

Silence.

Then Sophia folded in half. Sophie actually wheezed.

Kamila looked up, took in the distance between my face and Yashiro’s, and said flatly, “Jesus. Get a room, you two. There are laws against this sort of thing. Public fornication, or whatever it’s called.”

Then she went back to her phone.

Yashiro kept holding my hair. Usually, I could read her. Not because she was expressive. Quite the opposite. You learn to notice tiny things when they’re the only warning you ever get. This time, I couldn’t read her at all. That scared me more than the slap.

She exhaled once through her nose.

“I used to call you a rat.” She looked me in the eyes. “That was generous.”

The edge disappeared from her voice, replaced by an eerie calm that sent a shiver down my spine.

“I’d rather not insult rats like that. Rats are clever. Adaptable. Survivors.”

Her grip tightened.

“You’re more like a cockroach.”

She smiled. That cold little smile returned, and absurdly, shamefully-vI felt a flicker of relief. At least I knew this version of her. There was a sick kind of comfort in the familiarity.

“So that settles it,” she said, clapping her hands. “From now on, you’re Roach.”

Sophia straightened and let out a soft whistle.

“Oh, that’s good.”

Sophie grinned. “It really suits her.”

“Charming,” Kamila murmured. “Very democratic.”

Yashiro stepped closer. Too close. Our faces were nearly touching. I could see my own warped reflection in her pale eyes. Heat climbed into my face again, stupid and involuntary and humiliating for reasons I refused to examine with four girls standing there.

“In case you still haven’t understood,” she muttered quietly, “you are the trash.”

I stared at her. “Huh?”

“That’s right.”

Her smile deepened.

“And trash should…”

She waited. She wanted me to finish it for her. My head emptied in an instant. Whatever answer I might have had disappeared.

Her expression flattened.

She slapped me again.

Harder.

My balance gave out. I caught myself against the wall with one hand and tasted blood where my teeth caught the inside of my cheek. The others had drifted closer now, their laughter dying away as anticipation settled across their faces.

Yashiro dragged my face up by the hair once more. “Trash,” she said very clearly, “should throw itself out.”

For a second, all I could hear was the pounding of blood in my ears. Then my stupid mouth betrayed me.

“You want me to throw myself out?”

Yashiro let go and stepped back. She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. She just stood there watching while her blessing sat inside my body like a hook. The worst part wasn’t what she wanted me to do. It was that my body obeyed without even giving me a chance to fight it.

I turned toward the ledge. Humiliation flooded me so fast it made me dizzy. My legs gave out halfway there, pitching me onto my knees. I threw out my hands to catch myself and scraped one palm open against the concrete. Behind me, Sophia made a strangled sound of delighted disbelief.

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “Look at her.”

I started crawling.

I used to believe there was a point beyond which a person simply broke. But every time I reached it, it moved farther away and left me intact enough to keep suffering.

The edge of the container rose in front of me, close enough to touch. I got both hands on it, hauled myself up, and toppled over the edge.

It wasn’t much of a drop, but I landed badly enough for pain to shoot through my body. The bags gave under me with a wet, ugly softness that made my stomach lurch. Something hard underneath jabbed into my ribs. Plastic crackled around me. One bag split somewhere close enough to splash cold slime across my sleeve.

Then the smell engulfed me, thick and rotten, and I doubled over as a violent gag tore through my body.

Above me, Sophia screamed with laughter.

“She did it! Oh my God, she actually did it!”

Sophie had one hand braced on the wall, bent over laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

Yashiro appeared above the ledge and looked down at me with that emptied-out calm that always meant she was pleased with herself. Kamila stepped up beside her, lifted her phone, and pointed it down.

The flash went off, and the world disappeared behind a burst of white. By the time my vision cleared, my face was burning. No. No, she wouldn’t—

“Put it in the school chat,” Sophia said between gasps. “Please.”

Kamila glanced at the screen, adjusted something with her thumb, and said, “Done.”

Of course she did it without a moment’s hesitation. I let my head fall back against the bags and stared up at the strip of gray sky above the service bay. Then, because apparently I had not humiliated myself enough for one afternoon, I opened my mouth again.

“You do realize I’m in the group chat too,” I muttered.

My voice came out thick, dulled by shame. One more stupid thing that made the whole predicament worse. I don’t know why I was ever added in the first place. Maybe someone thought it was funny. Maybe they just forgot to remove me. I never typed anything, so after a while people stopped noticing I was there, if they’d ever noticed at all. Leaving now would only draw attention, so I stayed silent and invisible, scrolling past whatever fresh little humiliations people felt like throwing my way. Sometimes, against my better judgment, I caught myself staring at the screen with this pathetic sliver of hope that maybe someone, anyone, would say something decent about me for once.

Nobody ever did.

Something small bounced off my chest. I looked down. A wrapped candy. When I looked up again, Yashiro gave me a brisk, approving nod.

“Good job,” she said, looking straight at me. “You’ll be taking out the trash every day from now on.”

She pointed at the candy.

“There’s your reward, Roach.”

She put weight on the name, made it official. Something that would travel fast through classrooms, corridors, phones. Through every place I still had to show my face. My fingers moved before my pride could stop them. I unwrapped the candy and put it in my mouth. Just like that.

Sweetness spread across my tongue, only making the stink around me feel fouler.

Above me, the girls fell quiet for a moment, savoring what the moment. Yashiro watched me eat it the way someone might watch a dog accept a treat after pulling off some complicated trick. Then, in that same cold voice, she said, “Good girl.”

Something in me gave way. Not dramatically. No grand shattering. Just a quiet internal failure, like an old structure finally giving in after years of hidden rot.

Kamila tugged lightly at Yashiro’s sleeve. “Can we go now?” she said in a whiny voice. “I seriously need to get to Jones before he starts making a scene.”

Yashiro picked up my bag from where it had fallen, looked at it once, then dropped it beside the container, as if carrying something I owned for even a few seconds had been beneath her. Sophia and Sophie were still giggling as they turned away, already replaying the scene for each other in little broken pieces. None of them looked back. Not once. They lost interest in me the moment the fun was over. Their footsteps faded, and then even the laughter was gone.

I stayed where I was, damp garbage digging unevenly into my back as the smell seeped into my hair, my clothes, and the back of my throat. The candy dissolved slowly on my tongue, its sickly sweetness mixing with the taste of rot. I could have climbed out whenever I wanted. I knew that. I could wipe my face, collect my bag, and go home pretending they hadn’t just put me exactly where they thought I belonged. But I stayed. I didn’t have it in me to pretend anymore.

The realization came quietly, which somehow made it worse.

Down here, nobody could get to me for a little while. Yashiro was gone. Sophia and Sophie were gone. Kamila and her phone were gone. So were the students who watched and looked away, and the teachers with gentle voices and knives hidden underneath them.

Down here, in the trash, I was safe.

The relief came so fast it sickened me more than the smell ever could. I lay very still, staring up at the stained concrete and the strip of sky above it, and let that realization settle inside me like poison. Safe, curled up in a pile of garbage, with sweet candy on my tongue and filth in my hair. I think there are realizations that never really leave you once they arrive. This was probably going to be one of them.

I kept staring upward. I had to be cursed. What else could explain a life like mine?

This wasn’t just a matter of luck.

Bad luck was a missed train, a cracked phone, plans ruined by rain. Bad luck did not begin with being born in the last slum on Earth and continue every morning when a bus carried you into a city bright enough to display everything you would never have. It did not make you kneel in crowded hallways or climb willingly into garbage because a few rich girls were curious to see how far they could push you.

No.

This had shape. Pattern. Intent. By then, too much of it had repeated with too much precision for me to call it bad luck. It felt structured. Deliberate. As though some invisible entity kept turning every path in my life toward the same place. As if shame and humiliation weren’t consequences of my life, but its entire purpose.

I closed my eyes and let out a deep sigh.

“Fuck my life.”

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