vinjira

[vinjira]

Decided to sketch Kiyo art

[vinjira]

Part two

You ended up agreeing to his offer. He wouldn't leave you alone otherwise, but you're starting to regret that decision now…

*****

As you're waiting for Kazutaka, you spot Kujaku. He seems to also be waiting for something, suddenly he turns towards you. You flinch a little at the sudden turn-around. You dart your head away. Maybe a bit too fast, as he is now heading towards you, or at least it seemed as if he was.

“Excuse me,” he says in a calm tone, “ Do you know where the..”Tori Cafe” is?” Tori cafe? What is with him and his bird obsession?

You don’t know, and you don’t know why he thinks you would. Nothing about you gives off the impression that you like birds. You look in the mirror everyday thinking: How far off from being a bird lover can I possibly look? And that’s what you go with. Anyway, why was Kujaku here? God, the others didn’t invite him, did they?

“Probably somewhere far away,” You decide to answer.

“Oh? Why do you say that?” Kujaku cocks his head, staring at you inquisitively with a map in his hands. It’s one of those old-fashioned ones. You wonder who doesn’t just use a smartphone these days. You say that as an old person, too. Very old.

Your patience is already wearing down because he won’t take a hint. “Because it sounds sort of niche.”

“Huh. I think I’ll keep looking,” His eyes light up as if he’s come up with a very good idea. It’s not. “Come help me look!”

Now he was demanding you to do things. The nerve! Luckily…

“I have plans,” You snap.

“Oh..” he looks as if he'll retreat finally, that's when you hear a voice calling you.

“Oi! Kotchi..!” It’s stupid Kazutaka, and he actually brought Kai with him.

You turn to look at them with an irritated face. Kai looks a little freaked out by it.

“Hello..” you roll your eyes as you greet them.

“What’s up?” Kazutaka wraps an arm around your shoulder, which you attempt to pull away from without looking too undignified. An impossible feat. Kujaku stares.

“Huh?” Kai says. Her voice seems louder than the last time you heard it. “Kujaku’s here?”

“I’m looking for the Tori Cafe,” Kujaku answers promptly, as if anyone asked. It’s enough to break him out of his trance.

“Oh, I haven’t heard of that,” She says.

“Really?” He makes a face. “You must not have lived here long.”

“No… I have.”

While Kai fends off Kujaku, Kazutaka purses his lips, giving you a questioning look. You’ve seen it before. Often it means “Should I or should I not?” You give him the same response you have in every situation like this: Eyes that mean “No, not in this lifetime or the next thirty.” And you were a person that knew about lifetimes.

He nods. “Kujaku, why don’t you join us instead? We’re doing something more fun.”

You groan. Inwardly.

However, if there’s any small god on your side, it intervenes today. Kujaku gives a sheepish laugh, something like he put a British accent onto a sigh. It’s condescending to your ears, but these mortals will never pick up on that. Seriously, who laughs like that?

“I’m just not sure anything could be more fun than a bird cafe,” He reasons.

That makes Kai and Kazutaku both laugh. As far as you can tell, there was no joke.

“Literally so many things,” Kai interjects, and for once, she is speaking your mind. It’s satisfying until you realize the implication is that she also wants to invite Kujaku along. It goes back to being a bad joke. “Come with us!”

And Kujaku nods.

Then replies, in contrast to the action, “No, I’d rather not. If there are no birds, I mean.”

“Really?” Kai exclaims. She’s shocked, but you aren’t. In fact, this is working out for the best, in your opinion. Let the birdboy be with his dirty birds instead of bothering you. You’re already trying to prompt the action of walking away.

Still, no small god of fortune could beat Kazutaka. What do humans call evil humans? Oh, right. Demons. Devils. He’s putting on his best puppy eyes. There’s no reaction from Kujaku, so he swings them back at you.

“Maybe we all go to the bird cafe?” He asks.

“Why?” You hiss.

“Why not?” Is all he says back.

You ended up at the cafe, against your will. Everyone else was fine with it, and you ended up being dragged there.

Whilst the others were thinking of what to order, you were thinking of the quickest way to kill what seemed to be 2 dozen birds. You looked up, and saw Kujaku had already gone into the bird room, not even waiting to order yet. You also notice he has around 10 birds on his head, you wonder how anyone can tolerate that.

“You have any idea what you're gonna order, Kotchi?”

You glanced at Kazutaka

“Not yet..” You responded with a bit of a growl in your voice.

“Do you need some help ordering?”

You were about to respond "No” but he had already started listing foods you might like. “Why did he even ask if he wasn't going to let you answer?” You wonder to yourself.

“I'll just get a water. I'm not hungry right now.”

“Got you.” Kazutaka smiles confidently at the person behind the cash register. “Two coffees, please. Bitter like this guy’s soul.”

“Seriously?” You mutter.

“And a parfait.”

You decide to give up on saying anything and find a table. It’s impossible to ignore the chittering of birds in the room above you and it’s already starting to get to you. Through the windows, they flutter back and forth, their variation of color dizzying, and among the people who leave the room there is a scent like earthy laundry. Every sense you have burns.

You startle when Kai sits next to you. You thought that she would have let Kazutaka sit there, but apparently she is more bold than that.

Gross. Another thing to focus on.

“What did you order?” You ask, if only to distract yourself from the birds.

Kai jumps on the chance to answer. Her cheeks are dusted with red, and her tone is a bad attempt at casual. “Carrot cake.”

“Okay.”

“Um… and you?”

“Parfait, apparently.”

“Oh, right. I heard that.” Kai nods her head awkwardly. “Cool.”

She seems to miss the point that it’s not cool. Your eyebrow twitches. “And tell me how excited you are about birds.”

You glare at her. She looks a little surprised, then begins to speak again.

“So, you don't like birds?”

“Took her long enough” You think to yourself.

“No, not really.” Truly ‘not really’ was more of an understatement, but you didn’t care right now.

“How come? And if that's the case why did you come with us?” You can feel your eye twitching a bit. “You and Kazutaka might as well have dragged me here, I never wanted to come” You think to yourself.

You wonder: Is she an idiot, or do mortals just make it their life goal to annoy you?

It’s at that point that Kazutaka slides into the booth across from them and answers on your behalf.

“He came for you,” He says, popping a cherry from his fresh parfait into his mouth. He holds out another one to you. “He just won’t admit it.”

You ignore the cherry, so he continues to wave it in your face.

“I came because Kazutaka cleaned my house,” You snap. You’re forced to give a reason because Kazutaka’s shameless lie leaves you in a position where any denial sounds like… denial.

You expect Kai to blush anyway, but she doesn’t. In fact, you nearly flinch as her hand is suddenly raised in front of your face. There’s a sharp smack. The cherry is knocked out of Kazutaka’s fingers, and his eyes widen as he watches it roll to the ground.

“Listen,” She says. “He doesn’t want a cherry in his face.”

Your eyes widen too. It isn’t often that you’re so caught off-guard.

Kai notices your surprise and goes back to stumbling over her words. “You can, um, share my carrot cake, Kotchi.”

“I-” You shake your head, the usual bite of your words flushed out. Weird, mood-changing mortal? “I’m not even hungry.”

Kazutaka seems rather pleased despite having to pick up his lost cherry with a napkin. You would never even think to touch those nasty floors.

“Sometimes Cupid is a third wheel,” He exclaims ambiguously. “I’ll keep in mind that Kai hates cherries.”

You roll your eyes at that. Finally after a few minutes of waiting the server arrives with your order.

“Thank you.” You at least know you have to be polite to the servers.

“Wow” You see both Kai and Kazutaka looking at you in shock.

“What?” You ask with an annoyed face.

“Oh, uh, it's nothing I've just…” Kai trails off, as if trying to find the words.

“We just didn't know you knew how to be polite at all, or knew what manners were at all!” Kazutaka interjects.

“Huh? What does that mean?” You say in an annoyed tone.

You know not to listen to Kazutaka. He never makes sense. But Kai too? She was fumbling on her words again, not denying the sentiment.

“I think it’s sweet…” Kai continues, her blush practically a curtain over her face. “It’s the real you.”

Now you feel embarrassed. You think waiters fall naturally into what mortals should be: Servants. They were distant. They didn’t bother you. They didn’t befriend you. Would Kai and Kazutaka still like it if you told them that?

“I’m always the real me,” You half-lie. You’re not a human. You sit through classes of subjects you’ve repeated dozens of times and eat in cafes where you’re forced to have coffee instead of water. Those aren’t things you would do normally.

Still, it annoys you that these humans attach onto you stronger lies than what your identity is. They assign you feelings of kindness and affection. Kindness and affection are delusions of your aura. They aren’t you. Yet they reject everything else. They refuse to see that your bitterness is very much real; you hate being among mortals. You hate them.

And you hate birds.

You flinch at the cutting gaze of a man through the window, above you. Kujaku. He still has all those creatures on his head and he hasn’t bothered to order anything. He stares at you, only you, without blinking, his face as neutral as you’ve ever seen on a mortal. A shiver runs down your spine.

“Why is that bird in the eating area?” Kai asks suddenly.

It’s worse than in the eating area. When your gaze snaps to the left, drawn by a chilling squawk, you see a bird larger than your face. You can only interpret it as large, and as having black feathers, because… it’s headed straight for you. There is no detail, only an immediate stiffening all throughout your body. Oh no.

[vinjira]

I know I'm late, but it took me longer than expected to make this. It's my Valentine's Day drawing!

[vinjira]

The designs are here! I imagine Kotchi's hair gets longer in this form

[vinjira]

The design for Kotchi's Nine Tailed form has changed a bit, I'll make a drawing for it soon, I'll also show you his human form and Kazutaka's design.

[vinjira]

Here's the first part of the book

Love Interest

“Once upon a time, 5000 years ago, Earth. was considered a magical place ruled by

magical creatures. There were six species that ruled over the rest: “The Goblin,” “The Mermaid,” “The Unicorn,” “The Orc,” “The Impious Bird,” and the most powerful of all, “The Nine-Tailed Fox.”

“However, magical creatures of all kinds died out long ago. Since the invention of the wheel, not one has been found alive. The cause of their extinction is unknown, although theories point to human uprising. Could human wit have outmatched such fantastical power? Others argue that these creatures never existed at all. Could they be only legends made up by our ancestors?”

You hold back a scoff as you listen to the teacher ramble on and on about mystical creatures. Though, the scoff was mostly because of what he said about the human uprising.

Humans never change in their arrogance, but at least by being here I can avoid my skulk. You zone out, not really caring for this class. You know most of it would probably be inaccurate anyway. Suddenly the bell goes off and you’re broken out of your trance by a classmate calling your name.

“Kotchi?” You spin your head around. Instead of answering, you give them a cold stare. Maybe they would leave. Of course, they don’t. They blush, looking away in embarrassment.

“Here.” A letter is nervously slid across your desk. You raise an eyebrow, letting the awkward silence stretch on.

“What’s this?” You ask, knowing full well what it is.

“Open it whenever you have a free moment.”

You wait for her to walk away. You already know what is going to be in the letter but still decide to open it just in case. The moment you look at it, you are disappointed. It is exactly what you expect: A love letter. This is the fourth one this week, and you have only been going here for a week. You're used to this kind of treatment though. You often attract humans to you. It is your aura and you can’t really turn it off. So, you’ve learned to live with it. You’ve also learned how to give a nice tame rejection that doesn’t lead them on:

“I can’t accept your feelings, find a better man, and please never talk to me again.”

That was how you always had lived your life and it won’t be different this year. That’s what you thought until the new student showed up, then suddenly your whole life is flipped upside down and shaken around like a snowglobe.

*****

His eyes are a deep gray. His stance is tall and rigid and his hair like flint to his shoulders. Such a darkness should have been the first thing to stand out, yet it is overshadowed by another trait of his appearance: Birds. Birds everywhere. From doves to hummingbirds to hawks, they are on the stickers covering his belt, on the pin over his collar, and on the covers of his notebooks. The first smooth word to slip out of his mouth was a fact on parakeets, the kind on a cheesy school website begging you to love science. Nevertheless, the girls and boys of the class were entranced like prey to a siren. Birdboy was popular?

After they all finally snap out of their trance he introduces himself.

“Hello, my name is Kujaku. It’s nice to meet you all, I hope we can grow to be good friends.”

He says in a polite tone. You process what he just said and you question his name, Kujaku? Like the peacock? So, he’s named after a bird and a little obsessed with them.

“He was clearly cursed at birth.” You mutter to yourself.

He hasn’t done anything at all yet but you didn’t like him, why did he need to look and act like such a bird? And all the bird stickers annoy you. You have never liked birds. You know with your hatred of birds and his awkwardness you would probably never like this guy, so you decide to try to stay far away from him. Little did you know how difficult that would be.

*****

Kujaku has been going to the school for a week now, and you have started to notice something during that week; He was really popular, even more so than you. You don’t care much, after all you don’t care for the attention, but what bugs you is the fact that he also seems to get better grades than you, and pretty much beats you at everything! You are a bit irritated by that, especially since he is the most awkward person you have ever met. He probably doesn’t even know what it means to be normal when it comes to talking. He somehow always fits a bird fact in there, which you don’t care for in the slightest. Really, he just annoys you.

It also annoys you that you can’t avoid him at all. After all, everybody is always talking about him and he was in your class. He also always seems to be nearby at lunch or when it's time to head home from class. You somehow always run into him, though you don't say anything. You don't want him to think you are friends with him or want to be at all. That was pretty much how you spent your week: Annoyed.

By the time Friday hits, you’re listening for the bell. As it rings, you stand slowly, vaguely feeling the relief that comes with a finished school week, but still thinking about useless weekend homework, your disintegrating backpack, and the lack of a crowd around you. You glance over to see they’re all in Kujaku’s corner. Good riddance. You think, pushing in your chair roughly. They’re his problem now. The emptiness is something you have been craving for a long time.

You trudge outside, trying not to think. It takes you a moment to process the cold burst over your face. Wind. Rain. You blink in disbelief. Had it been raining before? No way. You would have noticed it. It was raining hard. You shake your head. Were… the mortals getting to you? Maybe stupidity was contagious. That would be no good; There was a lot of stupidity to go around here. You shut the door again, swinging your backpack over your shoulder and reaching for your umbrella. It’s not there.

“Of course,” You grumble.

It wasn’t like you forgot it. Could anyone blame you for not packing an umbrella when it wasn’t rainy season? You jerk the zipper of the backpack a little too hard to close it-- The strap breaks off. The other strap had broken long ago.

You take a breath to avoid grinding your teeth. It’s fine. Fine. You just hate the rain. You’d walk anyway, without an umbrella and carrying your ancient backpack by hand. You glance around. There’s no-one in the hallway. You wonder if before Kujaku came and stole all the attention, there would have been one or two annoying mortals here to bug you with their spare umbrellas and extra hands… not that you would have wanted their help.

You’ve just finished positioning the backpack in your arms when you hear a voice behind you. It belongs to a ginger girl with bright blue eyes.

“What are you doing out in the rain alone? Don't you usually have a fan club around you?”

“Eh? Who the hell are you?” You question.

“Name's Kai. Nice to meet ‘ya. Your name's Kotchi, right?”

“Yeah..” You haven’t had many people talk to you recently, so you wonder what she wants to talk about.

“Sooo, you need an umbrella?” she says, her eyes glancing away, as she stands in an awkward pose. She clearly is nervous.

“If you're offering. In that case, I'll take one.” You don’t wish to go home in the rain, so you think it better to just take her up on the offer.

The blush is clear on her pale skin. It’s distasteful, but proof enough that Kujaku hasn’t won over every classmate. This girl can’t begin to comprehend your true superiority, but she at least doesn’t think some bird-themed high-schooler’s nonexistent charm is as equivalently compelling as the fabled, one-hundred-generation aura of the nine-tailed-fox. This is common sense.

The umbrella she hands you is white with a red fringe, the style antique. The handle is peeling. You can approve of the color choice, at least. Chances had been very high of her pulling out some pink, girly thing. She had the face for that.

“It’s old,” She says. “Be careful.”

You respond with a hum.

To your dismay, she doesn’t let you walk away. She ducks under the umbrella with you as soon as you pull it out.

“Huh? What are you doing?” You snap.

“What? I only have one umbrella. Let’s share.” Her words are bold, though her eyes shift back and forth and everywhere except at you.

What was her name again? You’ve already forgotten.

“Fine,” You huff. “Just hurry up.”

“Okie… doke.”

The walk back is awkward. She keeps opening her mouth to say something, then doesn’t, and you aren’t going to encourage conversation. She should have just let you keep the umbrella. It’s small, so you pull it slightly more over yourself whenever the rain picks up--because she brought this upon herself.

Her house is closer than yours. The yard is splayed with flowers of every color. Blossoms fall from the trees and cover any green space left between the shrubs on the ground. There are lights on inside, and shadows of people talking.

When you turn, the girl smiles at you as if it’s a sunny day, and you have to take an extra moment to figure her out, staring at her wet shoulders. Her hair looks darker in the rain. It was her family in that house, wasn’t it? Would they worry about her catching a cold? Would they wrap her in blankets?

“I don’t like you, you know,” You say.

You can hear her heartbeat. You hear all the heartbeats all day, like a cantankerous symphony.

“What do you mean?” She asks.

“Just get home,” You sigh. “I’ll return the umbrella on Monday.”

The girl’s heartbeat escalates into clanging symbols.

“Thank you so much.”

“It’s nothing.” You mean it. It is nothing. In her eyes, the effects of your aura reflect back at you. How she must think she’s in love, not knowing what divinity feels like. It’s like slipping a drug in a drink, but you have no control over it.

You have never felt the effects of an aura yourself. Whenever your heart beats as quickly as Kai’s is beating right now, it’s never accompanied by a positive feeling. Do mortals feel fear and label that as love? Is it a survival instinct to please an aggressor?

You find that you’ve been staring too long. You turn away.

“Goodbye.”

Her responding farewell is lost in the rain. You’ve already turned away, your feet bringing you down the street without conscious effort. The mud covering the pavement drags on the cuffs of your pants.

Your house is several streets farther, where the streets of the neighborhood become better. Yours was the best house of them all, which among mortals and among here, wasn’t saying much. Your yard lacks any blossoms. It’s just big windows, belonging to the extra rooms you’ve never filled. The walls are gray, darker than the cobblestone path, and two trees with thick branches cover the yard in shade. It’s the closest and furthest thing from a forest you have. You go inside, throwing your backpack on the floor, and head straight to your bed to spend the weekend.

On Monday, you find another letter on your desk.

Keep the umbrella. It says. - Kai

Today, it’s your only one.

******

It has been a couple of days since you had met Kai. You haven't seen her since. Even if you do see her again you'd probably just ignore her, or just say a hello and leave the conversation. You hear your classmates behind you. They're talking to birdboy.

“Wow! Kujaku I heard you got a 101 on your test! That's amazing!”

You roll your eyes. It's moments like these you wish you didn't have such good ears. You don't understand why mortals care so much about grades. They are just some numbers on a piece of paper. The questions you answer are super easy, yet they always fuss over it if someone gets a few questions right, just as they were now talking to Birdboy about. They used to do the same to you, so you feel a little sorry for the guy, but not much. You were just glad they no longer fuss over your grades.

“Hey, did you say Kujaku got a 101 on his test?”

“Yeah, isn't that amazing?”

“Wow..that's better than even Kotchi's grades!”

Your eyes widen a little. Why were they suddenly talking about your grades? And who cares if Birdboy's grades were a little better than his? It’s by one point only.

Surely, it’s foolish to have a system if one can score over the highest score, anyway. Perfection lost all credibility. It’s hardly an achievement, moreso a demonstration of the circling thoughts of mortalkind. Of course you had scored over 100 before, but knowing it provided zero gain, it was a goal ludicrous to strive for. Still, having a mortal be judged better than you…

You imagine Birdboy working late at night, ink smeared on his hands, studying and studying for that one extra point. It makes you feel better. Oh, how he must have suffered just to reach your baseline. You imagine him sucking up to the teacher, wasting his time mortal-to-mortal. That must have happened. Good thing you didn’t put in such pointless effort!

“You think you’re so good.” You mutter to yourself.

Birdboy looks in your direction, but with no indication that he’s heard you. If you could reveal who you are, this whole school would bow down to you. They would cry, realizing in the presence of real power just how little they mattered, how little they knew.

When Birdboy looks away, you do too. Waves of emotion numb your mind. You might break something again. Is it anger? Is it boredom? It must be both. You’re trapped in a place so absolutely, horrendously, terribly stupid. You would be here forever and, forever, you would pretend to be someone you are not: Inferior. If it isn’t this desk, it’s another desk, another school, another group of weak fools you feel no attachment to.

You dare to look out the window and feel longing. You wish that you could be back with your own skulk, not these stupid mortals. But, alas, you would probably never see them again, for they had abandoned you to the strange world of mortals. Whilst you were thinking this, a boy comes up behind you.

“Excuse me?”

You turn around. You immediately recognize who it is.

“Kazutaka. What is it?” You ask, not caring for your tone. This boy was always annoying you after all, saying you're “good friends,” just due to the fact you live nearby each other.

“Are you okay? You seem lost in thought about something, and from the looks of it, it isn't a joke or something like that.”

He's more perceptive than you thought.

“I'm fine. I was just thinking about having to clean my house today.” You lie blatantly.

Kazutaka gives a dramatic sigh. You brace, thinking he might be preparing a rant about his life that nobody asked for. To your surprise, his despair seems to be a show of empathy.

“I feel that,” He says, patting your shoulder. “Life’s an endless struggle.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“Sure.”

“So, are you free tonight?” He asks, frown vanishing like mist in the morning.

“No. I’m cleaning.”

“Oh, right.”

\

“If you’re done…” You start, stepping away.

“I saw you leave with Kai yesterday,” Kazutaka interrupts. “Did something upset you?”

“This again?” You scoff, attempting again to break off eye contact and therefore the conversation. “I said I was cleaning.”

“Well, you actually said you were thinking about cleaning.”

“You know what I mean.”

He’s standing in your way. He’s taller than you, so you can’t look anywhere but at his shadow. You’re a cornered animal.

You don’t know Kazutaka. Not personally. You don’t know his favorite color or his aspirations or his childhood crush. Of course you don’t, as you don’t care to listen, but, yes, admittedly, maybe you know one or two things about him, because he’d been bothering you for so long. You know his incessant stubbornness and lack of social awareness. You know there is little way out of this.

“I’ll be going now,” You say directly, a last ditch effort.

Obediently, he moves out of your way. Light hits your eyes without his back to block the window.

“Let’s do something fun,” Kazutaka declares predictably, right on your tail. “In return, I’ll help with all your cleaning. And…”

“And?”

“I’ll invite Kai.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

You sigh. Worst idea ever.

“Please don’t. We’re not close.”

“But you could be.”

“Not interested,” You say firmly, which earns another lopsided laugh from your non-friend. He tilts his head to the left when he laughs, a sound that’s soft even when his jokes seem brazen. You wonder if perhaps one side of his brain is smaller and lighter, and that’s why he acts as bizarrely as he does.

[vinjira]

Some character designs for my new book "Love Interest"