ONE-SHOT
Disclaimer: Gakuen Alice belongs to Tachibana Higuchi.
Summary: Dying was part of her well-planned procedure. Getting reincarnated was not even in the list from the very start. (SI-OC! as Koizumi Luna)
Rating: T
Word Count: 2800+
A/N:
i'm trying my hand on one-shot and reincarnation fic so sorry if it's uhhh weird? and i just realised that my tenses just change randomly out of nowhere. i think it's because i wrote like the first half of it like last year and never touched it until just now?
i have never read or saw a sioc fic of koizumi luna and my hand just itched at the thought of it so ta-dah! as of why i chose luna, after re-reading the manga, i was like damn this girl needs some love or something 'cause like hello, she was first abandoned and then freaking isolated by her schoolmates in the academy and only stuck close to yuka and esp because they showed some care - or fake care, in the latter's case. i dunno and don't want to know.
(now it's going to be 3am in the morning and i haven't finish my Mother's Day gift to my mum and here i am writing/posting fic. wow my priorities.)
i'll look out for mistakes and edit it later, just not now… c:
Pardon?
I
It had been a long day and Satomi Asuka just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.
Life was harsh as a dweeb and a wallflower.
Back then, when she was in kindergarten, socialising is not even a chore to do. You barely had to move a muscle before someone starts talking to you and a small group of happy kids chattering away is form. But not for one Satomi Asuka.
She struggled, with all that horrendous mixtures of expressions, and could barely let out even a whisper before someone pushes her out of the conversation.
She had not made a single friend when she graduated.
(You should talk more, they said.)
In elementary school, life was not better. She got greeted by an upperclassman with a fresh bowl of steaming hot soup within the first few months of school as a first year. And within that first few months of school, she had made a name for herself.
(She did not react well with scalding water running down her skin, the remaining contents of the bowl nestled themselves on her hair, and punched that upperclassman guts hard.)
The remaining five years in school were spent with pure determination.
Girls would take it upon themselves to pour those flavoured bubble tea drinks onto her, act nicely and befriend her before promptly ditching her to the dirt and boys would duked out their frustrations on her whenever they could.
(Why were you even born? You're not even needed, they said.)
Her father and mother gave her a dirty look when they found her happily drawing circles on her small sketchbook, locked up in her room, away from all the uncles, aunts and cousins.
Rude, they scolded her, that's not how you treat your guests. This is why you can't socialise with others. How do you expect to be able to do so when you can't even talk to your own family?
(You should talk more, they said.)
She opens up her mouth to speak, words tumbling out fast but loud and clear.
In middle school, she tried to make friends.
She spent the next three years standing at the sidelines, freed from bullying, writing about her life in her notebook. No one notices her crying.
In high school, she doesn't even try anymore and allowed herself to be thrown into the currents of bullying.
She stopped writing, burned her diary and planned her death instead.
Now in college, despite her efforts, she found no reason to continue fighting on. She began packing and head to the infamous Death Forest.
All she wants to do is just go to sleep and never wake up ever again.
The twenty year old, Satomi Asuka, died on the night of her birthday in her tent. A bottle of pills rolling away from her unmoving form. Her body was found a few weeks later.
No one knew why she died.
(You should talk more, they said.)
She gets ignored.
She gets interrupted.
She gets talked over.
No one pays attention.
No one notices her.
"You should talk more."
No one cares.
II
She wakes up with huge mushy sponge-like stuff wrapped around her tightly.
She couldn't breathe, she realised with panic, and couldn't see. She made to to move her arms to get her out of the suffocating place, her legs thrashing about, but to no avail. Her limbs felt so heavy to the point she had difficulties moving them and her body felt stuck.
If this is what dying feels like, I hereby regret overdosing those pills, she thought.
And then, her head broke out into the cold air as she felt her body being squeezed out of the weird suffocating place and into heaven that was bright, bright - FUCKING BRIGHT.
She screamed and hollered as much as she could at the sudden intense light, thrashing about as wildly as her muscles allowed her to as she felt hands touching her and arms wrapping her.
Wait what, hands and arms?
SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS - WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE BEINGS? THIS IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT! KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF! She screamed in her head.
"...such a hyper child…" A voice from her far right chuckled, and a small portion of her mind backtracked.
Something's not right, her gut instinct told her but she was far too gone to notice as warm water washed over her body.
"...energetic...healthy…"
Something poked at her closed lids before spreading them open, light flashing into her eyes.
MOTHERF-
Darkness took over her vision once more.
"Eyes no problem…"
Her jaw was forced open and then closed, followed by the tilting of the top of her nose.
"-ing's fine…"
"...like... carry?.."
Something soft and a touch of coolness replaced all those insensitive jerks' prying hands and she was really grateful for it.
Her gut instinct rang again and she barely paid any attention to it. She vaguely felt herself being passed around.
"She's so beautiful…" A voice began gently, rocking her body slowly.
She paused in her small act of squirming to listen to the soothing bell-like voice that seemed so fragile.
Another voice, a polite and cold one, spoke. "Sir, Ma'am, what would your child name be..?"
That question was briefly registered into her brain. All alert signals went off in her body. Something was not right.
"Luna." The bell-like voice above her informed together with another voice that was close to her. "Koizumi Luna is her name."
"Alright then…" The gruff voice confirmed and a snap echoed. "I'll leave the both of you alone for awhile."
"Thank you, Minami-sensei." was the last thing she heard before she lost conscious.
III
Satomi Asuka isn't exactly surprise if those people with photogenic memory don't remember themselves being born.
Who the hell wants to remember being squeezed out from the vagina?
(She also has come into terms that she has indeed been reincarnated and not in heaven or hell or some random limbo. Seriously, why is fate so cruel to her? All she wanted was to sleep and never wake up. Never.)
It took her days to arrive at the conclusion that she was a baby all over again and she was not happy with it. Definitely not happy.
Especially when she spent most of her time in the hospital crib in a blaring white room with other screaming babies.
Last time she thought it was so adorable watching all her nephews and nieces growing up from as a baby in the hospital nursery room with other babies. Now she thinks she might not want to have any relation with any of these loud abhorrent monsters.
She mentally applauded all the nurses who took care of every single one of them and be able to withstand all the miserable price that came with the job of living.
Those people really deserve an award or something for their patience and effort.
If she were in their shoes, she would have quit in less than a week. Heck, she would even slap herself fifty times on the face for even thinking about getting this kind of job.
Despite being cooped up in the jail room of the hospital, her parents occasionally visited her, silently smiling and tapping on the glass plane that separated them and the room filled of noisy monsters.
It was easy to get a look at them, seeing how her crib is the second closest row to the window and that her eyesight is much better compared to when she was just born.
Her (new) parents are relatively pretty looking. She drank in all the details of them.
Her mother has that straight kind of bubblegum pinkish hair, where her long, loose curls cascading down her shoulders and back. She has a pair of beady caramel orbs that matched with her hair and thick lips that brought out her more feminine features.
Her father, on the other hand, has dark curly hair, his fringe parted to the right. He has those defined high cheekbones on his rather charming face and cold blue eyes, giving him the posh look.
And judging by their clothing, she'd say that these people are relatively paid well.
She was not wrong. In fact, that had been an understatement.
IV
She progressed faster than normal babies and she knew that. She couldn't help it. Really.
It was difficult, not being able to move her limbs the way she wanted - the way she remembered to be able to move them. And the fact that she didn't know how babies develop did not help.
She did not wanted to admit that that was ridiculous - considering the fact that she had helped in taking care of sixteen nieces and nephews because her distant relatives were all too busy with excuses of not being able to handle their own respective children when they are in their diapers.
They, apparently, preferred handling children who are matured enough to think and not cause trouble and follow the rules that had been laid out in front of them.
(She swore to groom them right, to protect them from their horrid, twisted family.)
(But she's dead. She's not there. She's somewhere else now. And it was her turn to be the baby.)
(If only she had been stronger. More strong-willed and not wimpy. She had survived about nine years of bullying and if she could survived those years, why couldn't she have pushed herself forward? Why the actual fuck did she go through with her suicidal tendencies? Why couldn't she be less selfish and maybe had at least thought about her family. People who actually needed her.)
...In the deepest part of her mind, she knew that she had started to realise and regret too late. She couldn't undo her actions.
She was torn between trying to live her new life and push forward for her family and being haunted with images of her nieces and nephews being treated like machine dolls, groomed to put on a mask and never being able to express their true self.
(She would sometimes find herself dreaming standing in front of them who are all grown up. They gave her dirty glares, eyes intense with fury and blame. They opened their mouth - )
She doesn't want to close her eyes and sleep forever now.
V
Her parents are very proud of her.
She was the top in her class and was proclaimed to be a genius.
However, she knew better.
She remembers the time in which she had spent days crying as she mauled paper over paper again and again, desperate to pull her marks up.
It took sheer effort and will to get into college and not giving in to the stress of workload level. Not to mention that she had to deal with social problems.
But now, she was back to square one, back to kindergarten, her efforts all floating aimlessly above her, as if nonexistent.
She wants to punch God in the face.
VI
It had been a mistake.
It always have been a mistake in trying to socialise.
All she wanted was someone to talk with, all she wanted was just a friend. So why? Why does this kind of thing always happen to her? Was she born to forever unable to make a single friend or form a good relation with anyone?
Her parents were now scared of her despite their kind facade. She knows. She can tell. She's not stupid.
After all, she had just freaking mind-controlled somebody - who the hell wouldn't be afraid of whoever could do that?
(Except that 'whoever' was her.)
In the first place, mind-controlling shouldn't even be possible! That's something out of a fiction, fantasy or weird sci-fi book!
...or is it?
She was left alone again. Out of groups, classmates and even the teachers' so-called care.
Completely ignored, completely erased. Gone.
Satomi Asuka wasn't surprised when suddenly one day her things were up and packed and she was being ushered towards her ride to a so-called prestigious school called Gakuen Alice.
But she was surprised when she did not had any emotional tantrum of sorts despite the heavy dead weight on her chest. She had grown numb.
As the car door closes on her, she looks to her side to get one last look at her parents whom had cared for her wholeheartedly until that incident. The emotions on her parents' crying face as they huddled together were the last image of them she would ever had in her memory.
(She apologized to the being who should have been born but that right was stolen from her - the actual Koizumi Luna who was supposed to be born, not her. She had destroyed her life and family, and probably that nonexistent girl's first chance to live a life.)
VII
Being subjected to the cruelty of school bullying and criticism for years, she knows how to differentiate between the cunning and greedy ones and the blind sheep from a single glance.
The man in his pressed suit sitting tall in front of her definitely belongs to the formal.
He has taken care of his appearance slightly too extreme for her liking - his hair was combed neatly, face devoid of any malice, and he has that kind of going-towards-a-puppy-and-gain-its-trust approach. He is too clean. It's like he had laid finish his cards, waiting for his chance for a checkmate. Like a predator.
He has the upper hand before her and she knows that he knows it. She just prays that he doesn't know that she knows it too.
This type of people are the ones whom you need to tread around lightly and carefully.
...did she mention that she hated this kind of people?
"Hello there," He began, smiling innocently with the warmth of a kind and understanding father. "What's your name?"
She bristles at the sudden affectionate tone but didn't let it get to her too much. "It's rude to not introduce yourself first."
"Ah yes, how rude of me, I forgot my manners." he chuckles, "My name is Kuonji, the Elementary School Principal of Gakuen Alice. Now what's your name?"
"I think you already know that, sir." She says softly, and looks straight at his eyebrows because she had the feeling if she were to look at his eyes, she would get lost.
He smiles and the room got cold.
"...my name is Luna."
He clasps his hands together and leans forward with a curious and intrigued eyes.
Fake, her mind screams at her as she notes that hungry look swarming in his eyes beneath that tint of curiosity.
Yet the chilling sensation she had felt earlier disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and it left her internally shaking and quivering in fear. This man is certainly not to be mess with.
"How are you?"
"...in terms of?"
"Your current predicament."
"...everything is well."
"Is that so?" He asks her and she remains quiet. Maybe her lack of existence would come in handy and help her out now…
"Your parents sold you to the academy, did you know that?"
Fuck.
"I'm sorry about what your parents had done to you.. It wasn't right of them to treat you like that."
No shit Sherlock -
"What are you talking about? My parents did not sell me to a school… that's not possible."
She swears she could hear the gears turning in his head.
"But it happened. That's why you're here. Don't worry, as your principal, I would take care of you so don't let their actions get to you."
If you really are going to 'take care of me' and don't want their actions to 'get to me' as you have bluntly put it, you might as well have never mention it. She thought, you're plotting something and I don't like it.
"Why did they sell me?"
His smile got bigger.
"Because you're different. You're special."
Her head is spinning with the alarm bells are going off and she has no idea why.
"...how so?"
"You have an Alice."
"Alice?"
"Yes my dear, an Alice. It's what separates us from those normal people - our special ability."
She frowns. "But we're all the same. We're just humans. We're not separated."
"That's where you're wrong. We are different." He stands up and walk towards her, placing his large hand on her tiny shoulder as he brings himself towards her eye level. "We are special people. That's why they fear us and treat us badly. Some of your new schoolmates had went through a lot back before they entered this academy. All because those normal people fear the unknown, so they strike at us. But don't worry, everything will be fine as long as you trust me. I will always protect my students. I will always have my students back covered."
Her mouth felt dry and she does not trust it nor her brain to continue that topic further.
"...what Alice do I have?"
His grin stretches so wide that she thinks that she is looking at the devil himself.
"The soul-sucking Alice."
Pardon?
