A/N: A mindlessly written fic for Yuri Miyazono. I noticed that there's only one Yuri fic in the Gakuen Alice archive, and as a reader who likes Yuri's character, I decided to contribute. :D
Dedicated to yunamoogle, who I promised to write a one-shot for.
Dust
by Autumn Win-Dow
She firmly twisted the knob of the door and pushed it open – the hinges moving with an unpleasant creak. The girl sharply inhaled the now unfamiliar smell of the room, and she immediately cringed at the unfriendly tickles within her nose due to the unhygienic atmosphere as she swiftly moved her hand up to cover her nose from the air.
Her dark eyes immediately flitted to the most significant section of the three star room – the exact room she had considered home a year prior. The room's usual brightness which existed due to the countless photo frames capsuling the frozen moments of the youthful graduates of Gakuen Alice had dulled significantly, the reason being the dust which thickly coated the tops of the frames and the window panes, and the drifting particles which were easily visible within the rays of the sun gleaming through the lackluster glass of her window.
She took caution as she walked forward, closer to the frames adorning the otherwise plain, off-white wall.
The short-haired female sighed and bitterly pressed her lips together as she noticed for the umpteenth time ever since she had enrolled into Alice Academy that the majority of her friends were male, as the term 'friends' was one too questionable for Yuri to use as a basic classification of her classmates. She found it irrational to call the countless girls who clung on to her like an idol – as well as an attractive male – her friends, since she was aware that the only thoughts flitting through their clouded minds were not even theirs. Besides the usual repeating of the name they knew her as – Yuri-sama – her fans never spoke of a want to become her friend, and she once knew that it wouldn't change.
However, Yuri knew in her heart that it wasn't their fault at all that they were constantly affected by her once uncontrollable Alice.
She never wanted to be popular – especially when she was seen as a girl who attracted girls – and because of the image which had developed without her permission, she felt utterly restrained. Yuri had read about it constantly in countless novels and manga – when the main character wished to be their own person by doing something which they had longed to do in their heart, but their pride and image tower as the obstacles between them and their goal. Usually the obstacle would centre around an inerasable habit, peer pressure, a desire for popularity, or all three.
Despite what she read, she couldn't relate to any of the main characters of the many stories she had read in her lifetime.
Yuri felt that she was cursed for life. Her Alice – the only significant difference between her and 'non-prodigious' children – strictly prevented her from being what she wanted to be.
It created her image before she herself could, and she hated it.
However, she accepted that nothing would change. The only way for people to know of her gender was the school uniform she wore every school day at Gakuen Alice, but as soon as she came out of her room in casual clothing, she knew that every person who didn't know her at all would believe that she was a pretty boy rather than a girl. It was bitter, because even if she acted like a girl, everything about her would still be known to those around her.
It didn't matter if she was really a girl.
It didn't matter if she was straight.
It didn't matter if she used an Alice restraint or not.
It didn't matter if her Alice wasn't what she had wanted.
Yuri kneeled down on the dusty floorboards in front of a large box with her clothes from a year ago – composed of dull greens and browns, pants, shorts, and loose unfitting shirts. Her younger self had no courage to toss her baggy clothes out of her room, let alone out of her life. She carefully dug out one of the only vibrant articles of clothing she owned from the bottom of the box – her Prince coat from the Somatic Ability's play during the Alice Festival five years ago.
Yuri recalled the unheeding Narumi immediately designating her the Prince role not only for her supposed 'princely appearance' which she did not want to be known for, but for the rather selfish tactic to bring in audience members with her large fan base which easily surpassed many of the Student Council members.
However, that day had once given her a shimmer of hope, when she met Mikan Sakura.
For the first time in her fourteen years, she had met someone who was completely resistant to the dreadful workings of Yuri's Alice. She was shocked out of her mind to meet a girl with a Nullification Alice, and it felt strange to talk to a girl who didn't give her a dazed, dreamy expression, or referred to her with the usual 'Yuri-sama' – instead calling her 'Yuri-sempai' which the elementary boys called her.
On that day, she went to bed with a smile on her face – and the fact that she was forced out of the play due to the effects of the Sticky Balls was not the sole reason.
She would finally be able to make a female friend despite her Alice or her fan base.
But after almost two years since she met the young brunette, her hopes had shattered because of one big event.
Mikan lost her Alice.
Then, just like before she met the pigtailed girl, there was not one girl in the Academy who could be her 'friend'. By then – as soon as Mikan left the grounds of Alice Academy without a single memory of her closest friends, let alone her boyish sempai – she knew to accept the fact that nothing was going to change about the effects of her Alice regarding her image.
However, it didn't stop her from continuing to want a girlier style.
As she roughly pushed the jacket back underneath the messy stack of clothes, she felt a hard substance brush her fingers. Curious, she carelessly pushed the clothes away from the area – causing a cluster of dust particles to fly off the pieces of cloth – and what she found was a box.
As soon as she sighted the strange box, she knew exactly where it was from. The pink bow decorations, the silky ribbon, and the words written on the lid with glitter pen were undeniably recognizable from her childhood.
When Yuri Miyazono was still an innocent girl, with no knowledge of the harsh realities of society – and with no knowledge of her cursed Alice.
It was a time when she still wore dresses, and her hair was long to the extent that it reached her waist. She loved the infamous Disney princesses and their majestic tales with their respective princes, and she adored cute animals such as rabbits and chicks. However, when she turned ten – two years after she enrolled into Alice Academy – she realized that people looked at her strange, with disgust. The concept of girls liking her was looked down upon in her class – but instead of all the girls who fell victim to her Alice, it was Yuri who felt wrong.
She felt wrong, as she believed that she was doing something wrong – judging from the murmuring of her male classmates. The young girl did not want to differ from everyone else, with normality being the idea that all people should like someone of the opposite gender, and the fact that she was a girl despite the target group of her Pheromone Alice was what she believed was the problem.
It was a childish, naïve belief which caused her to pick up a pair of paper scissors to swiftly cut off her beautiful long hair with no regrets – though the ten year old didn't predict her future regrets despite her thoughts that nothing would have changed otherwise.
The ten year old Yuri didn't know that she would later hate her decision, since she had erased the slightest hint of a girly appearance – and by the time she realized this, it was too late.
She had already conformed to her own fake persona, to the extent that she had lost the confidence to return.
Biting her lip, she traced the rusty brass clasp at the front with her thumb. Yuri pondered whether to open it or not – a part of her was worried that she would feel even more disheartened if she opened the chest containing her happy memories which to her felt as if they occurred a century prior, rather than a decade.
After a moment of silence as she stroked the edges of the aging pink box, she huffed – realizing that she would definitely feel unhappy, because unlike the dust atop her photo frames, she knew she could no longer erase her mistakes leading to her current state. Even if she were to wipe the dust, the colour would still appear yellow and aged.
Restoration was impossible – and the fact that her room had been left unused for almost a year was how she accepted the bitter truth that she could never return to how she used to be. She previously did not understand why Sakurano had called her to Alice Academy a year after her graduation, but now Yuri seemed to comprehend – he was one of the only people who knew of her insecurities, as her former student-teacher, and the fact that she had been sent to her old dorm was not only because they needed more rooms for the increasing number of students in the Academy – they had Takamatsu to clean the room instead.
It was Yuri's final opportunity to clear all traces of her childhood from the Academy – to erase every physical proof of her dreaded memories by herself – in order to start anew.
Because as soon as she carefully placed the box atop the pile of clothes and closed the cardboard box completely, she felt that she would officially move on as soon as everything was out of her sight.
Over the years, Yuri had sunk to the lowest point of her dread – and at that point in time, the cleaning of her dorm which she had selfishly left dormant was the starting point for the direction she was headed – up.