Evil
"How long will you fools let her walk among you?!"
At the market, Gohei had taken to tailing her as she made her way from stall to stall. He talked to everyone, except her.
"She communes with spirits, even now!"
It tended to make her trips rather awkward. Spirits no longer existed in their world, and people were all too ready to move on. So everyone averted their eyes as they shuffled past, and she discovered that invisibility was far lonelier than an empty home.
"They're plotting to return and she's going to help them, just like her father did!"
They arrived at her final stop, the tofu seller.
"He destroyed my chances of being a swordsman because I was strong—he feared I'd stand up to them one day!"
Kaoru bowed and murmured a polite greeting, then passed her tofu bucket across the counter.
"Old woman," said Gohei. "You should be more careful of this one. Everyone knows blue eyes are the sign of pacts with spirits." He leaned closer. "She might cast a blight on you. Don't you think it's suspicious that she didn't catch the sickness like everyone else?"
"She and her boy took good care of me last week." The small woman peered up at him. "She may have the evil eye, but I see no evil in her heart. I cannot say the same for you, young man."
When she returned Kaoru's bucket, it was unusually heavy. Kaoru started to protest—she hadn't bought that much—but the woman waved her off. And after that, she always made it a point to slip Kaoru the cracked blocks she could no longer sell.
A/N: I think it's mainly in the eastern Mediterranean/Aegean region where blue-eyed people are viewed as bearers of the evil eye. It's funny because the fic morphed into something else, but this concept is what sparked the whole fic.