《• ʀ ᴇ ʙ ɪ ʀ ᴛ ʜ •》[ ᴍᴜᴢᴀɴ x ᴏᴄ ]

C59: ☆Happiness☆

When a person dies, they stop breathing and all bodily functions would stop working.

But how does a person truly dies?

Some say that you die once you cease to exist and when your flesh and bones have decomposed, long enough for you to become one with the earth. 

Nature's cycle is what they call it.

In essence, Yuu died and should have disappeared.

But he didn't.

A thousand years ago, he was once human. A human who fell for another human, one who craves to have their affections returned.

Like any other foolish man, he waited and waited. 

Yuu only ever have affections for one person who he swore he would dedicate his life to. 

Like all the children in the ancient times, he was born in a poor family, neglected among his many siblings and expected to provide for himself when his parents were too busy frolicking and gambling around town to take care of him and his brothers and sisters.

Yuu often wondered why he was born. For that very matter, why did his parents birthed him when they could not raise or take care of him? Were children so easy to make and discard that they could stomach neglecting so many at once after having done their duty of 'creating' them?

Yuu thought that it was such a sad thing. He would not be like them. If the gods were kind enough to allow him to reach adulthood, he would not marry nor would he sire so many children. He would not allow them to suffer much like he and his siblings did.

Starved. Neglected. And hungry for affection.

Useless.

He was nine when two of his younger sisters died in their sleep. They were gaunt, sickly and thin. He was not surprised about their deaths. Yuu had heard them coughing every night, their stomach growling, like animalistic noises alerting him to an impending doom that could not be avoided.

And ah.

This was death. It was so sudden and natural. A process that could not be avoided or stopped.

In the Heian period, poverty was rampant even in a small town like theirs. Deaths occurred everywhere, people hardly blink about it. 

A thousand years later, he could still remember the dirty old wooden hut he lived in where his human parents and siblings would huddle together to shelter themselves from the wind and rain.

It was a time of great hardship until he met Mimi.

Having been born poor, he knew his place. What could he ever hope to accomplish? She was a person way out of his league, someone he could not possibly hope to reach.

But then, that rich merchant's daughter who was the envy of everyone in town had smiled at him and looked his way as if he was someone.

'Someday, you will find the right person for you.'

She looked at him like Yuu was an equal and not a mere parasite who was leeching off of the goodness of other people.

"Mimi-san, why did you befriend me? I cannot offer you anything. I am from a poor family and I have no means to adorn you with gifts.. I am uneducated. I cannot read or write. I do not have a house of my own except for the old wooden hut where my family reside. Why me? Why?"

"Do you believe yourself inferior because of that?"

"There is no other explanation..."

"Yuu-kun, you're funny." Yuu could never forget the smile on her face that day. So bright and so full of warmth. Her sincerity was blinding when she spoke to him in a way that made him feel he was someone special.