Chapter Text
Mina had never seen a so-called ‘curse’ in her entire life, yet it seemed to revolve around them. Her family owned a small farm and elderly horse sanctuary in Hokkaido, they were also jujitsu sorcerers. Her older sister Sakura had inherited the cursed technique, communicating with creatures and commanding them. She also happened to excel at academics, she went to a top school instead of one dedicated to jujitsu and consistently did top of her class.
Her little brother Aki had weak cursed technique but strong physical prowess, and wanted to build a career as an athlete in the future and if that didn’t work out he could rest assured knowing he would be a valuable farmhand. He could lift two cows in one hand, plow the whole field on his own in one day and his coach said he’d be olympics-ready in a few years. They had about a dozen cousins, most of which planned to do something similar; university, sorcerer, athlete or farmer.
But Mina herself? No good at academics. Curse technique? None whatsoever. Athleticism? Don’t even mention it, she got out of breath climbing the stairs too fast. She spent most of her time at the arcade or behind the cornershop smoking and gossiping, or finding a new way to dye her hair. She’d listen to her friends complain about their older boyfriends, wondering why in the world anyone would subject themselves with those creatures they called ‘men’ and during the night, she’d spend it at the cinema or a karaoke suite pissing around.
One thing she did seem to have is she did like working with the horses. But she was undisciplined on purpose. She carefully tried not to show too much enthusiasm, especially in front of her father. If she showed too much enthusiasm she’d be some horse caretaker for the rest of her days. In her youth, that prospect sounded like the worst. Not at all exciting enough.
School always seemed like a side activity to amuse herself with (or confuse herself, depending on if it was math or not), sitting still with a book or paper and pencil were not things she enjoyed. She eventually dropped out of high school, walking out one day in the middle of term on a rainy Autumn day, as her teacher droned on about some guy name pythagoras. Her parents had been pissed but not exactly surprised. She was joining the ranks of other dropouts at her fairly low-achieving school. Her siblings were mildly amused by her rebellious attitude. Her sister only shrugged at the news, quickly refocusing her attention on an essay she was writing, her brother made some friendly-meaning quip about how it was ‘bound to happen’ while patting her shoulder. “Look on the bright side, I won’t have to hear you complain about schoolwork anymore,” he grinned, showing his good, straight teeth.
Her parents were scared she’d talk to boys, get into trouble. There was two sides to her, the country gal and the girl who still originated from jujitsu society. As distant as their relation was to the bigger, more important families of jujitsu sorcery they were still a part of it and jujitsu society didn’t like girls getting too ‘loose’. She had some awkward talks with her mother afterwards, her mother who was so backwards thinking she thought putting in tampons caused a loss of virginity, she nodded along and waited for her mother to finish as she explained the phenomenon of breaking the hymen like an Edo period monk.
She never really saw a threat to her lifestyle, never thought her family was strict enough to take the extreme measures she sometimes heard of in passing. She was always allowed to do most of what she wanted, almost the invisible child. Even some non-jujitsu folks envied her parents' carefree attitude when it came to her, the aimless middle sibling. Friends gasped about how she was never asked about even when she returned in the late hours of the night.
After quitting school she started working for the video store in her small village with some friends, who inherited the shop from their parents. She remembered moving out, her parent’s resigned looks. For a time, things were nice, she could pretend her family wasn’t a few miles away as she roomed at her friend’s house. She could almost forget about jujitsu sorcery and mysterious elders clad in centuries old fashion whispering about earth shattering stakes she had no concept of. She recommended music and chatted with her coworkers and the occasional customer, managed inventory and kept the store clean. No one from her family showed up there, which was fair, it was a little far from the farm.
Her chest ached sometimes, the indifference to everything she did was favourable to too much control yet she sometimes imagined it, a family member walking through the doors. Taking an interest, even a feigned one into what she was doing, saying anything.
Her friends played gigs, made their own websites and had dreams of making it big in Tokyo, she thought about it too. There was seldom anything she liked in the countryside, with the exception of her horses. She always thought of them at least. Those stubborn, strong beautiful creatures, there was something about them she could always relate to, riding them, the wind whipping in her hair. Sometimes she could picture herself going far enough to disappear from this place into somewhere so unfamiliar and new where she’d forget everything. Maybe her family wouldn’t weigh on her heart any longer, maybe her soul would finally be set free from the lingering feelings that made her almost nauseous.
One of the only times her sister ever spoke well of her came from an incident with a horse. A young foal was so panicked by a storm that even Sakura’s curse technique couldn’t calm him down, it was Mina who stood firm while her sister walked out in frustration. Once her sister returned with their mother she found Mina stroking its head. Her mother, who saw the false alarm, was ready to leave. Sakura stood there with a strange look, almost a frown, once her mother had left she spoke, looking directly into her sister’s eyes. “Without even a hint of cursed energy… Maybe there is something you’re good at,” she’d said that day before disappearing away from the stables. Mina stared after her with mixed feelings.
Then it happened one day, a gig, a boy, a kiss that her brother witnessed. Suddenly her dreams of Tokyo, of the record store, were all shattered. That’s how it seemed anyway. She tasted the alcohol on his tongue, everything felt hazy and light, in the background, a new up and coming band was playing, the thrum of the drums echoing her heart beat. She’d never really done anything like this before, her breaths quick, a grin on her lips. A voice cut through the crowd, one she hadn’t heard in a few months from a brief voice message for her birthday. “Mina! You’re going home right now!” shouted the voice. Instantly she pulled away from the guy, pushing him back slightly, trying to keep her heart steady.
There, in front of her was a red and panting Aki in his dark tracksuit, like he’d just ran all the way here from the farm, maybe he had. She looked back at him, ignoring the confused onlookers and the boy, who looked scared for his life. He’d entered a world she’d kept separate from her family, one he wasn’t supposed to be in. He looked so out of place the tanned country kid in the middle of the scene of alternative clad onlookers with their pale faces and dramatic makeup.
Of course, her family knew of what she did, vaguely. Her mom drove past the video store once when she was clad in full skimpy goth outfit, eyeliner and yellow neon dyed hair smoking at the front of the video store while talking to a male friend (gasp) unchaperoned. A slight widening of the eyes, looking away too quickly and whispering something imperceptible. Mina also looked away at the time, carrying on her conversation.
She laughed at the time, mildly amused by her younger brother’s antics; even her father, the stern man he was, didn't speak to her like that. “Aki? What are you doing here kid?” she asked with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. She felt sick.
That’s when he did what she’d never expected, he shoved through the crowd, a solid wall. Then he’d gripped her hand hard and dragged her by the arm while everyone watched, mouths agape. She twisted, trying to get away, his demeanour was distant, not that of the usual warm boy she knew. His grip was tight enough to bruise. “Hey! What’s your deal! Ow Aki you’re hurting me! What the hell!” she shouted as she tried to pull away. He didn’t look at her the whole time, and with his hulking muscle nobody stood up to him either. She was thrown into the rusty family pick up truck like a sack of wheat, no explanation, no apologies.
Her parents didn’t try to sugarcoat it, she was going to be sent to the Zenin clan to be a maid, it was something out of those absurd historical dramas her mother indulged in. She laughed hysterically. “You think I’d agree to this? Go willingly? If I don’t agree you can’t-“ her mother nodded, some kind of signal, not to her but someone else in the room. She felt a short prickle by her neck and then a haziness before eventually collapsing onto the ground.
The place was a few hours away in Kyoto. Her brother escorted her to the entrance, a stone statue. She tried to meet his gaze as they walked there, her heart in her throat. The ancient architecture loomed ahead, a promise of what was to come. “Aki, are you serious right now?” she grabbed his arm and tried to shake him to make him feel something, anything. He didn’t even move, his mouth in a slight pout, eyes looking ahead. “Can’t you say anything! Do I not matter at all to you now!” Her voice got louder till it was as loud as it could be, afterwards it felt raw. “Am I not your sister!” She wept and tried to crouch onto the ground but he pulled her back up, waiting for someone to ‘collect’ her. A guard finally came, she didn’t look back.
She entered the Zenin compound with nothing but a rucksack full of essentials. Ever been asked that hypothetical about what you’d take with you if you were left stranded on an island? For Mina at the time she’d taken her cellphone, a lippie, a change of clothes and small notebook to chronicle everything like people did during other hard times in history like the wars. It was a jumble of things she’d picked in a hurry, not exactly her optimum ‘stranded on a dessert island’ combination but close enough.
Part of her wondered if her family felt bad at all, what her friends thought of her suddenly disappearing on them, the boy who she’d danced with at the party and her horses. Was this it? The end. Maybe she should’ve been more hardworking, more passionate, maybe she should’ve found what she excelled at rather than complaining about all the skills she lacked. It was no use dwelling.
A stern old lady she might have seen before came out wearing traditional black robes, she clicked her fingers and suddenly Mina was ambushed on all sides by a flurry of maids. “Change her into something less… whorish,” she said with a judgmental look up and down her body. “Dye her hair back black, I see it’s been treated with some kind of chemical. Cut the nails short and remove that paint off her face.” Before she could get in a word she was dragged inside by four or five women.
In a fairly large room full of shower heads she was stripped and hosed down, the water freezing cold against her skin and yet she already felt so cold, hot tears welled up, too hot compared to what the rest of her body was experiencing. She tried to cover her face up to avoid humiliation but her hands were pulled away from her face and a blast of water was suddenly aimed at her as if to completely drown out her tears, displace them. She shut her eyes tight and suppressed a sob. Her clogged nose was dealt with by a similar technique, water filled the nose and suddenly she was coughing and spluttering and the water was coming out of her mouth and her nose and her throat burned, nevermind that it still stung from screaming at Aki earlier.
Abrasive loofahs scrubbed her raw from three separate sides with soap that smelled sharply of lemons. A new layer of pink skin was exposed, inflamed like the skin of a newborn out of the womb. Her hair was dyed pure black, the smell pungent and sharp. In the end it was tied up into a knot before she was dressed in a white rough cotton kimono which felt too covering and too exposed at the same time since there were no undergarments, at least none given to her in the initial process.
A girl around her age approached her. “Follow me, I’ll escort you to your place in the servant’s quarter,” she said, her voice lacking any emotion, her expression cold and almost judging.
“H-hey. What about my things? The things that I bought with me? Do you have any idea where they are?” asked Mina nervously. The girl didn’t answer her, she only did a little amused snort and walked ahead of her, she hurried to catch up to her. “My things,” she repeated, nonsensically hoping the other girl had just misheard her.
“You didn’t know?” she replied. “You can’t bring anything from outside the compound. Your things are probably in the trash.”
Mina blinked. “Are you serious? Everything?” The girl nodded and walked even faster as if to signal for Mina to stop talking to her. She didn’t understand the other girl at all, they were both maids in the same kind of similar situation, why was she acting so rude and dismissive?
Once they were down in the servants quarter the other girl opened a door and signed for Mina to go in. There were multiple mattresses on the tatami floor and maids already asleep. “Here’s where you sleep, have a good night.” There was not a lot of sincerity in her voice, Mina only nodded, curling up and trying to get to sleep, her eyes started to burn again and this time she could let it out.
-///-
“Aki? What are you doing? Can you tell the camera?” said a 9 year old Mina, pointing a small camera his way, the one bedazzled with sticker gems and doodled on in permanent marker.
A toddler aged Aki, face and hands covered in paint, ochre, crimson and blue looked down at a large piece of paper covered in his small footsteps in all different colours and crude markings he’d made, maybe a tree, maybe a person, who knew? “Drawing the pictures,” he said as he leaned back down to use his crimson, yellow and blue fingers to create more markings on the paper on the floor.
She snickered from behind the lenses. “Woww, is that a blue ball?”
Aki laughed as if her question was ridiculous. “It’s the moon!”
Her older sister walked in with a thick looking book, she gasped dramatically. “God! What a mess, what have you two been doing here?” huffed a slightly older Sakura coming into the room, shielding her face from the camera lens once she noticed it. “Mina! What a mess! This OUR room y’know? Not just yours!”
-///-
A mild autumn afternoon, Mina was up in the highest branches of a tree, planning a precarious attempt to rescue a resting cat, her feet clinging to the damp moss not wanting to slip and fall. It wasn’t a big tree, she’d fall maybe two metres at most but it was still not a favourable risk. “Hey! Mina! Careful up there, if you fall I’m gonna have to catch you!” shouted a 14 year old Aki down below, watching her on mission ‘retrieve Mr Mao’ the mischievous neighbourhood cat, his voice was scratchy as was common with boys at around that age, getting deeper. “I don’t know if I can bear the weight!” He added, unnecessarily.
She looked down with a glare. “Oh really? You’ve gotten so mouthy! Just wait till I get down there Aki!” she pointed at him with a pink nail.
He flexed arrogantly. “I’m much bigger and stronger than you now sis.”
“Oh? So you think growing a few inches taller is going to save you?-” she teased back. The cat suddenly jumped smoothly out of the tree before she could say anything else, just as her hands reached out to grab it. “Oh,” she uttered quietly, eyes as big as two moons, watching it stalk away. They both stilled into silence for a moment before bursting into laughter.
-///-
“Could you be a bit quieter with the sniffling?” a voice called out.