Yurui The Cursed One

The academy looks as though a colossal beast has bitten a chunk out of it.

I stop outside the gates and stare at the upper corner of the main building, where several classrooms used to be. The outer wall has been torn away in a wide, uneven chunk, leaving exposed beams and fractured concrete beneath a sheet of gray tarp. Scaffolding clings to the remaining facade, while construction equipment crowds the courtyard below, abandoned for the moment behind a temporary fence.

They are already rebuilding.

Of course they are.

Give them another week and there will be new windows, polished floors, maybe even a little gold plaque mourning everyone who had their lessons interrupted. The blood will be scrubbed away, the damaged desks replaced, and the whole academy will go back to pretending none of it ever happened.

My reflection trembles in one of the glass doors.

Dried blood darkens the front of my blouse. One sleeve is torn almost to the shoulder. Dirt clings to my legs, my hair, the shallow cuts across my face. There is blood beneath my fingernails. Some of it might be mine.

Most of it probably is.

I should not be here. I should be back at the apartment, but the thought tightens something inside my chest.

There is no one waiting for me there.

I look away from my reflection and push through the front doors.

The entrance hall smells of dust and fresh plaster. Workers have sealed off the western corridor with plastic sheets, but the rest of the school continues as though half the building was not torn apart days ago. Students crowd the lockers. Group of kids laughs near the stairwell. Music leaks from a phone.

Everything is back to normal already.

A group blocks the doorway ahead of me. None of them move. One boy glances over his shoulder, sees me, and wrinkles his nose.

“Watch where you’re—”

I drive my shoulder into him and force my way through. He stumbles into the wall behind me.

“What the hell?”

I do not turn around. My pulse beats hard behind my eyes.

Come on. Say something else.

I wait for footsteps behind me, a hand on my shoulder, a shove between my shoulder blades.

Nothing comes.

By the time I reach the second floor, whispers follow me through the corridor.

Is that her?

What happened to her?

Was she there?

Why is she here ?

Someone says my name, but I keep my eyes ahead.

Sophia sits on a windowsill halfway down the hall, surrounded by three girls from our year. She is laughing at something one of them says, one hand pressed delicately over her mouth.

Then she sees me.

Her smile vanishes, and the girls around her fall quiet. Sophia slides down from the windowsill and smooths her skirt. For half a second, something uncertain flickers across her face.

Then she remembers she has an audience.

Her shoulders straighten. Her lips curl.

“Hey,” she says, stepping into my path.

I stop.

She looks me over slowly, taking in the blood and dirt. Her eyes brighten.

There it is.

She has already found the joke. I can see it forming behind her teeth.

“What happened to—”

My fist hits her mouth.

The impact snaps her head back, sending her crashing against the windowsill before she folds to the floor.

For one suspended second, nobody moves.

Neither do I.

Pain blooms across my knuckles. Sophia stares up at me with one hand pressed to her bleeding lip, not angry yet, only confused.

I almost apologize.

The instinct rises automatically, dragged up by years of conditioning.

Sorry for standing in your way.

Sorry for looking at you.

Sorry for making you hurt me.

Sophia’s confusion twists into outrage. “Have you gone ma—”

I kick her in the stomach.

The breath leaves her in a broken gasp. One of the girls screams as Sophia curls around herself, coughing, and I step past her.

I walk away with one leg trembling and a sick thrill still buzzing through me.

Behind me, Sophia begins shouting, her words breaking apart between sobs and furious gasps. Her friends finally rush to her, but none of them come after me.

Not one.

I stare at my throbbing knuckles as I walk.

She was going to insult me. That is what she does. She would have laughed, and everyone else would have laughed with her. Maybe she would have shoved me. Maybe she would have taken another picture.

She will not be doing any of that now.

A door bangs open behind me.

“Someone get a teacher!”

I keep moving, resisting the urge to look back.

By the time I reach the classroom, my heart was pounding so hard against my ribs I thought I might be having a heart attack. I grab the handle, but my hand freezes before I can push the door open.

They are all on the other side.

Yashiro. Kika. The people who watched me being dragged across the floor and ordered around like an animal, smiling while it happened.

I could still leave. Turn around, walk out of the academy, and never come back.

But then the apartment flashes through my mind again: the cramped rooms, the silence, my mother’s shoes still beside the door as though she might return for them.

I wrench the classroom door open.

It slams against the wall, cutting every conversation short. Heads turn toward me, their eyes dropping almost immediately to the blood stiffening my uniform.

Let them look. The first one who opens their mouth is getting their teeth knocked in.

I cross the room without speaking. Desks scrape aside as students clear the aisle, careful not to touch me. By the time I reach my seat, a narrow path has opened behind me.

My desk is exactly as I left it. The same scratches cut across its surface. Someone has drawn a cockroach in black ink near the corner and written my name beneath it.

I drop into the chair.

Around me, everyone finds somewhere else to look.

My foot taps beneath the desk, faster and faster as the silence presses against my skin. Sophia will be here soon, bleeding and hysterical. A teacher will come with her. Security may already be on its way.

I should be terrified, and part of me is. Fear claws through my chest, tangled with something hot and restless.

Come on. One of you must have something to say. My foot continues tapping the ground frantically

A hand settles on my shoulder.

I whip around before I can think, wrenching the chair sideways with a shriek of metal against the floor. My fists are already clenched, a smile tugging at my mouth as all that bottled-up anger surges to the surface.

Yashiro stands beside me.

Her long white hair rests neatly over one shoulder, and every fold of her uniform sits perfectly in place. She looks exactly as she did the last time I saw her- composed, untouched, and faintly bored by everything around her.

Then she smiles.

It is soft enough to fool anyone who does not know her well.

“Hey,” she says.

I stare at Yashiro’s hand on my shoulder.

Once, that alone would have been enough. One touch, one softly spoken command, and my body would have betrayed me before I could even think to resist.

My skin prickles as her voice echoes through my memory.

Sit.

Stand.

Move.

Nausea stirs in the back of my throat.

“Fuck off.”

The words come out low and raw, loud enough to send a murmur through the classroom.

Yashiro does not remove her hand. Her smile stays in place, but something behind it hardens.

“Excuse me?”

I raise my eyes to hers. “Take your hand off me.”

My foot has stopped tapping. Around us, the entire room seems to have gone still.

Yashiro studies me, and I wait for the command.

One word. That is all it would take. She could force me to my knees in front of everyone, make me hurt myself while the class watched, remind me exactly where I belonged.

My throat tightens, but I hold her gaze while every instinct in me screams to back down.

Go on.

Give me a reason to tear your tongue out.

For several long seconds, neither of us moves. Then Yashiro lifts her hand from my shoulder.

The change in her expression is almost invisible- a slight tightening at the corner of her mouth, a faint narrowing of her eyes, but I catch it.

For the first time since I have known her, Yashiro looks uncertain, and I am the one who put that look there.

A warm, almost euphoric rush spreads through me. For once, I am the one inside her head.

“Not interested,” I say. “Go away.”

Yashiro’s gaze lingers on me for another second, searching for something- fear, regret, perhaps the version of me who would have lowered her eyes by now.

She does not find her.

At last, she turns and walks back to her seat.

The room erupts into whispers the moment she moves. I cannot catch a single word, but I do not need to, I know exactly as to what they are talking about.

I face the front of the classroom and pretend not to hear any of it. It does nothing to stop the smile pulling at the corner of my mouth.

I made Yashiro back down.

The thought sends another warm rush through me. I keep replaying the moment her expression changed, that tiny crack in the calm she wears like armor.

For once, I managed to put a dent in it. Given enough time, maybe I could tear the whole thing apart.

The armor, I mean.

Although undressing Yashiro would not exactly be the worst—

Jesus Christ. Get a grip.

Now is not the time to start fantasizing about some rich psychopath. I have more important things to worry about. Violet is back, for one.

And yet, given the choice, I would still rather undress Yashiro.

Whatever. Future Yurui can deal with that.

I had made her uncertain. This time, I had been the one to get under her skin.

Maybe I should have fought back sooner.

Instead, I had spent years lowering my head, apologizing when they shoved me, and laughing weakly whenever they humiliated me. I told myself that enduring it without making things worse counted as a victory. As long as I survived the day, I had won.

But keeping quiet had never stopped them. It had only shown them how much I was willing to endure.

Not anymore.

The next person who wanted me on the floor would have to put me there. The next person who wanted me quiet would have to—

Kill me.

My smile fades.

Because they could.

The warmth drains out of me as the centipede flashes through my mind, its enormous body splitting apart beneath Maevis’s hands. Then I am back in Stephan’s grip, feeling my bones give way one after another.

Whatever sense of invincibility I had built up disappears. I may be stronger now, but there are still monsters who could tear me apart without effort. It reminds me that I cannot afford to get reckless.

Behind me, Yashiro pulls out her chair. Its legs scrape across the floor, and every muscle in my body tightens.

She does not need Stephan’s strength. One quiet command would be enough to make all this courage meaningless.

My fingers dig into my palms.

Get a grip. I made it out of the desert. I am still here.

Then my mother’s face intrudes—pale and motionless, blood trailing down her cheek.

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.

Not now.

The classroom door swings open.

Kika steps inside, turning slightly to guide her folded wings through the frame. Arisa trails behind her with both hands clasped behind her head, looking as though she has only just dragged herself out of bed.

Kika takes two steps before she notices me and stops so abruptly that Arisa walks straight into her back.

“Hey, what the—”

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