A Millennia long Lesson
This is my response to Diamond’s challenge, as I got Nishigori Yuuko. I also posted this to my AO3. Thank you Diamond for allowing me to be apart of this.
It was a cold night with the full moon high in the sky. Yuuko sighed as she took in her ominous scenery. It was beautiful, yet terrifying – just like the situation that she was in. They were engaged – yes – but the fact that she was pregnant was still going to be scandalous. She also knew that he was going to be an amazing father, and he was going to love them as much as he loved her - if not more. The only problem was it was them. Not one. Not two. But three of her and Takashi growing inside of her.
Aaaaaaaagh. She screamed internally. How was she supposed to support three children? How was she supposed to be a decent mother? What if they hated her?
“What the hell?” a grumpy voice sounded next to her, causing her to scream aloud this time.
“Seriously bitch, what gives you the right to come up behind me and scream in my ear – twice?”
It took her a couple seconds to make out the owner of the voice. He was standing in front of her, but his body seemed to blend in with the waves and the moonlight that were his back drop. She could only make him out as long as she was completely focused on him, but he still looked like her hands could pass right through him.
“Seriously, I get ears one day a month, and now I might not be able to hear anything because you just blew my fucking ear drums,” the boy growled as he stepped into her space.
“Now I’m doomed for sure,” Yuuko sobbed. “A funayurei has come to drown me because I screamed in his ear.”
“A what?” the boy demanded.
“A ghost, one who was drown at sea and now wishes to drown the living,” Yuuko clarified. “You should know, you’re the ghost here.”
“I’m not a ghost,” the boy stated. “I just got cursed by some stupid old woman, and now I live most of my life as sea foam, except for when the full moon comes out, and then I turn into this.” He gestured to his translucent body and huffed.
“Okay then, what’s your name?” she asked, deciding to attempt to change topics.
“Yuri Plisetski,” the boy replied. “Sole heir to Nikolai Plisetski.”
“So Yuri, you got cursed, and you have a body I can see through, but you’re not a ghost?” Yuuko asked because she really just couldn’t get her mind off the fact that she was talking to a ghost.
“No, I’m not a fucking ghost.”
“Then…?” Yuuko asked again, still not completely believing that she was actually talking to a translucent boy.
“I’m not a ghost.”
“Okay, then why are you cursed?” she asked as she walked closer to the water. There was rock ledge where she could sit down and listen to him. Maybe this was what she needed. Maybe she needed to hear someone else’s problems so that she could look at her own in perspective. So far, she wasn’t cursed, and she wasn’t walking, talking sea foam – so it could be worse.
“The stupid old hag said that I was ungrateful,” the boy huffed as he kicked at the sand, almost as if he was imagining that it was the ‘stupid old hag’ herself.
“Well, were you?” Yuuko asked.
“Not ungrateful enough to deserve this,” the boy replied.
“So what did you deserve?” Yuuko prodded.
“I don’t know, take away my right to leave the castle grounds for the week or something, not hundreds of years as sea foam,” he grumbled.
“You lived in a fucking castle?” Yuuko asked in shock.
“It wasn’t a big castle or anything, just a small one that was my grandfather owned,” he explained – his voice almost sounding wistful.
“But who cursed you?” she asked, hoping to understand the situation more, because she agreed that so far the punishment seemed extreme.
“It was my tutor,” the boy sighed as he sat down on the rock beside her.
“And why would she turn you into sea foam?”
The boy muttered something incoherent next to her as he hung his head in shame. Yuuko leaned in and did her best to catch at least something that he said, but it was hopeless.
“Again, why did she turn you into sea foam?” Yuuko prodded.
“Because I told her to kiss my ass and go to hell,” Yuri growled back at her.
Yuuko took a breath and collected herself. Her parents had always taught her to be respectful, and just hearing of the disrespect made her want to scold the boy – but she had a feeling that that would get them nowhere.
“And why would you do that?” Yuuko asked in the calmest voice that she could.
“Because she took away my right to leave the castle grounds for a week,” Yuri grumbled.
Yuuko all but burst out laughing. After all this time this boy decided that he would have preferred that he would have rather his original punishment. Of course it would take a few hundred years for a boy to learn his lesson.
“And why did she do that?” Yuuko got out as soon as her laughter started to subside.
“Because I made a comment about how if the poor people didn’t want to be poor then they should have been born rich.”
Yuuko sighed. Yuri was obviously ashamed of what he had said, but that doesn’t change the fact that he had said it. She wondered what else his tutor had tried to train out of him in order to come to this drastic of measures.
“But you don’t believe that anymore?”
“No,” Yuri replied, and Yuuko could swear that she could see a tear rolling down his cheek.
“And what changed that?” Yuuko prodded a little further, as she placed her hand on top of his, shocked to find that it didn’t sink right through him.
“There was this old man,” Yuri started. “He used to come down to the ocean every day and wash himself. I used to hate him because he pissed in me every day, and I was sick of it. Then one night I ran into him while I was in human form. I was all prepared to beat the shit out of him…”
“But you didn’t?” Yuuko asked, as she could tell that the boy was nervous to tell the rest of the story.
“No, I didn’t. He was old, and sad, and reminded me so much of my grandfather after my mother had died. And it turned out that he had lost his entire family in an accident. He had lost everything that he had had and there was no one who was willing to help him – and so he ended up on the streets. He used to come and share food with me – sometimes he would come and talk to the ocean as if he knew I was there. After he passed, I started to pay more attention to people. I started to notice that there was a lot more to them than just their wealth. They all had lives and people they loved and problems that couldn’t be solved. And that old man stayed in the back of my mind – how he lost everything and no one was willing to help him. He was born rich and yet he died with nothing, and that was the same with almost everyone – they had no control over their fate and no one was willing to help them because people are so goddamn selfish.”
Yuuko pulled Yuri into herself as he started to cry. She stroked his translucent locks and allowed his tears to soak her shirt.
“And you still want to be human again, even though they’re so selfish?” Yuuko asked. She wasn’t sure if she was really asking him the question, or if she was trying to convince herself that not all humans were selfish. Then she thought about herself, and how she had a wonderful loving fiancé, three children on the way, and a career set out before her – she had everything and yet she was still looking for a reason to complain. She still wanted more even though she had everything.
“No,” Yuri started. “I want to go back, and I want to change my answer, and I want to help people. Maybe if someone all those centuries ago had been willing to help someone in need, maybe the people now wouldn’t be so selfish. Maybe it would have caused a ripple effect and the world would be a better place. Lilia was right, I was ungrateful. I didn’t realize what I had.”
Yuuko allowed the boy to dwell on what he had just said. She held him in her arms and rocked him as he thought. Every once in a while she could tell that he had started to cry again, but she knew that it was something that he had to work through on his own. He had to come to terms with who he was and decide what he was going to do.
After sometime the tears had started to subside. He sat in her arms and she could have sworn that he had fallen asleep. She looked up and noticed that the moon had hit its peak in the sky. There was something strange about its light though, it was almost as if it was pooling in the ocean. As Yuuko gazed at the pool of light in the dark waters, she watched as it started to take form into another person.
This second ghostly person started to approach the pair on the shore. The closer the person got, the more intimidating they became. It was a tall slender woman with a permanently set scowl. IT was almost as if this woman radiated a cold disgust of the world around her.
Yuuko huddled protectively around the sleeping boy as the woman came to a stop directly in front of them.
“Yuri Plisetski,” the woman said.
“Lilia,” Yuri asked, skepticism clear in his groggy voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Yuri Plisetski, did it seriously take you nearly two millennia to realize that what you said was wrong?”
“I… I mean…” Yuri stuttered as he sat up from the place he had been resting. “Was it really necessary to punish me for hundreds of years?”
“Yes, it was necessary to punish you for as long as it took for you to learn your lesson,” Lilia stated.
Yuri huffed and turned his back on Lilia, a pout clear on his face.
“Now Yuri, come. I am sure your grandfather is anxious to see you,” Lilia stated as she started to walk away.
“Grandfather?” Yuri asked as he turned around to face the receding figure of his old tutor.
“Yes, as far as he is concerned you will have only been missing for a few days. That way you really can go back to your time and hopefully spark the change you expressed earlier.”
Yuri started to follow Lilia into the horizon before he stopped dead in his tracks. He turned in spot and ran back to where Yuuko was still watching him off. He ran and fell into her arms in a tight embrace.
“Thank you,” he murmured before pulling back and running after Lilia.
Yuuko sat back and sighed. That boy sure was a character, but she hoped that he would be alright. More than anything though, she hoped that the three Nishigori’s growing in side of her would learn lessons quicker than that boy did – because she didn’t have the patience to wait more than one millennia for their characters to grow.
