Chapter 1: A Slight Setback
One could say Nanami Momozono had really bad luck.
It was a fact that her life, well, sucked. She accepted long before this point, honestly, and she didn't often dwell on it. Her already drudging life would be rather depressing if she did. Her school performance was pathetic. She had never had many friends. Her mother had passed away when she was very young. She was very poor, and her relationship with her father was less than stellar. Or, barely existent. Same thing, really.
Nanami tried to make herself believe that everything in her life was coincidental. If someone had to suffer not having a mom or friends or a doting father, she's glad it was her and not someone else. However, a nagging voice in the back of her mind liked to pin the blame on the same source. Her dad.
You see, her dad wasn't a normal person. He wasn't even technically a person. He was a bakeneko, a transforming cat yōkai. (Nanami liked to call him stupid cat whenever he did anything particularly stupid, which was a lot.) So, that made Nanami herself not entirely human. But, honestly, Nanami would much rather be completely human. All she inherited from her dad was the ability to eat practically anything (which got her out of going hungry, no matter how gross it was by normal human standards) and cat like reflexes. And the complete unease that normal people felt around her. Which is why she had trouble making friends. After all, most people wouldn't be friends with someone that gave them a bad vibe, so Nanami couldn't blame them.
Once, when Nanami was younger, she got the idea in her head to try to make a yōkai friend. After all, they wouldn't get the same weird vibe that normal people did. But, she soon realized that that wouldn't work either. She was too human, and she was almost eaten. Thrice. Then, her dad, in one of his few moments of being genuinely concerned, dragged her home and explained that she could never follow him again to the "other world", her aura was practically the same as a humans to them, and they could both be in big trouble if it was discovered that he had a half-human daughter. That's when she realized that she would never entirely belong in either the human or the supernatural world.
But, like mentioned previously, she preferred not to dwell on things she couldn't change, so instead sighed as she ripped off a piece of masking tape. "Again, huh?" She asked her dad.
She had returned home, only to find that the glass of one of the windows had been broken through again. They had just gotten that fixed a few weeks ago, too. "The loan sharks broke the glass again, Dad." She sighed as she walked towards where the money jar was.
"Don't worry about it, Nanami!" Her dad said happily, as always. She was a little surprised he sounded so sober, but he was completely human in appearance, so he had obviously not gotten too drunk. "With this 10000 yen ticket, I'll pay back all my debts!"
Nanami, in terror, opened the food jar to find… nothing. "You spent all our money on horse racing again?! What am I supposed to eat you stupid cat?"
"I'll win and make 100 times that and give it back to you! I told you that I'm capable as a human!" Nanami's father replied, unabashed. Since Nanami's mom had died, her dad had often said that to her. He had proven nothing but that he was useless in the human world. He couldn't exactly resort to using his powers, however. If any attention was brought to him, I would be revealed that Yori Momozono was not a real person and that would be bad for both her and her dad.
"Like that'll happen you useless old man!" She yelled as she kicked him so hard his favorite towel fell off his head.
Nanami had to cut down on her lunch yet again. Now, as previously mentioned, Nanami can eat pretty much anything, but can't really do that at school. It is frowned upon for humans to eat tree bark or plastic. Which, in case you're wondering, aren't quite as bad as some of the things she's eaten before.
So, the next day in class, she held her head high, even as one of her classmates laughed at her meager meal of a portion of plain rice and a single loquat.
After enduring what was probably the worst school day of the year for her, she trudged home, only to find darkness. "I'm home, Dad! Have you bought new glass yet?" She called, only to be met with silence.
"Dad? Are you here?" She flipped on the light switch, to find the apartment completely empty, except for her few possessions and a white slip of paper on the table. "I'm going on a journey. I'm sorry. Don't look for me. Remember everything I told you. –Dad" Anger and sadness filled Nanami. Just like her dad to run away from his problems.
Then, a knock sounded, and Nanami heard a rough male voice "Momozono-san, open up." The door then flew open to reveal two men in suits matching outfits with a slip labelled "Eviction Notice". The men said something to her, but she was in too much shock listen, and came in and started moving out furniture. Nanami, realizing what they were doing, grabbed her duffle bag and suit case and filled the two of them with her few outfits and other possessions.
She walked dejectedly to the park, which as the one place she knew she could hang around without being kicked out, drying her eyes with her scarf every few minutes. Luckily, the tears eventually subsided and turned into anger. It was a relief because anger led to action. Now, if only the action she should take was clear.
Her reverie was cut short by a shout of "Someone help!" Nanami, without thinking, jumped up and followed the sound, only to find a man in a hat, tan coat, and white pants in a tree. At the base of the tree, a dog angrily barked at him. Nanami briefly wondered what he did. Dogs didn't even bark at her dad that much. The mysterious man in the coat spotted her. "Please, get that dog away!"
She looked at the dog, which didn't look all that intimidating. "Shoo." She waved it away. The dog noticed her and quickly fled. The mysterious coat man slid down the trunk of the tree and landed securely on the ground. He sighed in relief.
"Thanks, you have saved me! This is my first time being in this town in a long time, and I just arrived only to be harassed by that dog, and…"
"You don't like dogs?" Nanami asked. Not that she blamed him. She wasnt so fond of them herself.
"No, I don't." The man replied. "I guess the residents here don't want to welcome me back." He turned to Nanami. "Are you from here as well?"
"Yes." She paused, then sadly smiled. "I don't really have a place to call home right now, though."
After explaining her story to him while they sat on the bench where her belongings are, he was reflective. "I see, so your father ran away from home." Then he broke down sobbing, shocking Nanami. "You must hate him for abandoning you like that, right?" Nanami pulled out the handkerchief she kept in her coat pocket.
"Well, he's always been a pain." Nanami said. Truthfully, she didn't really know how to feel about him at the moment.
"I'm ashamed to confess it, but I also abandoned my home. It's been decades. I wonder how they are doing… I'm sure that Tomoe will attack me as soon as I walk in the door." Nanami briefly wondered if Tomoe was his wife.
Wanting to comfort the strange man, Nanami quietly spoke. "Well, you do have a home to go back to, right? That's what's important. I wish I had one to go to."
The man looked at her. "In that case, I'll give my home to you."
Nanami wondered if she had heard him wrong. "Huh?"
The man stood up, looking off into the distance. "A house cannot be left unattended forever. Plus, if you live there, I would no longer have to be burdened by it, and above all else, you are" He turned suddenly to her and pushed back her bangs "much more worthy of that particular house than I am." Nanami, placed her hand to her forehead, taken aback by the odd feeling the kiss had left there. He pulled a map out of his coat pocket. "Tell them that Mikage told you to go there, and they will surely welcome you as their new lady and mistress. No matter what you are." Mikage turned and started walking away. Nanami wanted to ask him so many questions, but couldn't find her voice.
Nanami realized what it was. Something about that man…
He was definitely not human. And he somehow knew that she wasn't completely human either.
That's a wrap on the first chapter!
Welcome to Liberated from Misfortune! This story is an AU in which Nanami's dad is a bakeneko, a "transforming cat" yōkai that can shapeshift into a human, they often wear a towel or napkin on the head and dance, curse and possess humans, and use necromancy. Thus, making Nanami half yōkai. She has catlike reflexes and can eat pretty much anything, but that's all she got. Oh, and a pretty mean kick.
The main goal in this story is, instead of Tomoe learning to love humans because Nanami is one, he is learning to love them because she does.
I hope you all enjoyed it, and please send any concrit my way; this is my first attempt at writing in quite a while.