Minori was not getting out of bed today.
She knew that it was time to get up. That was what her alarm clock was for…an actual alarm clock. Dad had her on a phone diet just because some bitch in a lab coat told him to. Whatever happened to 'Asagiri's didn't take orders from anyone'? Had he just forgotten that? Had he never meant it at all? Probably….it wasn't like Dad cared about her. He just cared about being embarrassed, about his company, and about his stupid legacy. He cared about what he was going to be remembered for, not what was happening right now. That was just how powerful men were. They built this world up and made the rest of them run around in it like rats in a maze. You ran from one corner to the other and then the other hoping that there was a piece of cheese for you somewhere along the way. When there was a piece of cheese then you were happy, you thought that it had all been worth it, and when there was no cheese to be found you were angry. You thought that if only you had run faster, looked harder, done more then there would have been some reward in it for you.
There were never any rewards. Not for her, not for any of them.
"Miss Minori! Your father says that it's time to get up!" said Maid as she knocked on Minori's door. She picked up a teddy bear, some stupid Elsa one that Shige had made for her that time they went to Build a Bear, and threw it at the door. Her crown fell off…whatever. She didn't care. Not about her shoes, either, or that stupid song…
Let it go.
Shige's favorite song. Just let it go. Turn away and slam the door….that was how she went through life. She just expected everyone to let things go when she just-just betrayed them or embarrassed them or whatever else she was planning on doing…fucking bitch….her best friend was a fucking bitch…her best friend had been a fucking bitch…
Her former best friend.
"Did you hear me? Your father says-" said Maid, not getting a clue. Minori wanted her gone. What did she have to do? Hire a skywriter? Send a singing telegram? Hire someone to paint it across the side of the house? She laid back down and rubbed her eyes, she didn't have the energy for this shit. She needed to go back to bed. She went to bed tired and she woke up tired…growing pains, Dad had said.
Dad said a lot of things.
"Fuck off!" said Minori. She reached down and picked her math book up off the floor. She sent that sailing into the damn Elsa bear. The song stopped. Let it go…as if it could ever have been that easy. Just let it go….
"I…yes. Very well then, Miss Minori. I'll come back later. Happy Birthday." Said Maid before she hurried off. Minori could hear her shoes squeaking against the floor…how annoying. People were always so annoying. It was like the whole of humanity existed just to bother each other. Nobody was capable of thinking for five seconds how their actions affected others. Everyone was just out for themselves…happy birthday. As if Maid cared about anything other than her checks getting signed. She didn't care that it was Minori's birthday, nobody did. Not her so called friends from school, not the house staff, not even her own Father! He pretended to care, sure, but in that same way he pretended to care about everything. Her health, her grades, her so called drug addiction…so she did coke once and smoked a little bit of pot, big deal. Dad acted like she was drinking bleach or whatever. He acted like he cared about her but she knew better. He just cared about how he looked. He had never cared about her, that had been Mom's job. She would have cared about Minori's birthday…even though she had turned into such a selfish bitch towards the end. She hadn't been able to play with Minori or talk to her for very long…she had just let herself get sick….she hadn't even tried to get better. She had just laid there on that bed day in and day out getting sicker and sicker and sicker…just wasting away…and the doctors hadn't been able to do anything because they'd been just as useless as everyone else in the world was…
Everyone and everything in the world was pointless…
And she was pointless too. She was fourteen now….it wasn't any different than being thirteen. She wasn't an adult yet, and even that wasn't any better than being a kid. People would still pick on her, they'd still call her a freak, they'd still ask who she was talking to all the time. They'd say that she was crazy, that they couldn't see anything, that there was no invisible world…but she would prove them all wrong…the invisible world was real and she would save Mom and…
Dreams were pointless.
It had been another one of the truly pointless dreams she'd been having lately. Dreams where the world was grey and smelled. Dreams where no matter how tall she got she was still small. Dreams where no matter how small she got she was still nothing more than an ant under the heel of the world. No matter what she did it didn't make any difference. Mom would still die no matter how hard she worked, no matter how much money she had…you couldn't change the past or the present or…or anything. Dreams were just as pointless as…as anything else. As this bed, this room, this house, this world….dreams were kind of pointless when you got down to it.
Birthdays were kind of pointless, too, when you really thought about it.
Cake. Singing. Presents. Parties. All of them were pointless. She couldn't eat cake, sweets made you fat and ruined your skin. She didn't need people to sing her happy birthday, she hadn't liked it when Mom had done it and she didn't like it now. As far as presents went she got an allowance, she could buy whatever the hell she wanted. Parties were pointless. People came to your house, ate your food, pretended to be your friend, and then they talked shit about you behind your back. She knew.
She had been the one on the other side of it.
The last party that she had gone to had been this stupid New Year's Eve thing a girl from her class had been throwing. No boys, no drinking, no drugs, and her mom had stayed the whole time like she was their friend or something. She hadn't even old her mom to get out and find her own friends. That was what Minori would have done if Mom had been there with her friends….not that she had a mom…or any friends…
Friendship wasn't real.
She'd had a best friend, once, Shige. She'd been a total weirdo, like someone had taken a first grader and stretched her out until she could pass for a teenager, but she'd been a good friend…for a time. She'd known when to listen, to do as she was told, and she'd understood that Minori undeniably knew best. Minori had tried her best to be a good friend but it had all gone wrong. Shige had let it get to her head. She found an older guy who liked her, thanks to Minori's tutelage, and then it all went wrong. Suddenly Shige thought that she was too good for Minori. She thought that she could snub Minori's friends, make her look bad in front of the entire school, and even left all of her drug stuff lying around so Dad could find it and then she got shipped off and-
She threw a teddy bear.
It was morning. She needed to get out of bed. She needed to sit up and just…get out of this place. This teddy bear prison. That was what it was. Bars on her window, Dad said that it was for security, and teddy bears all around her. When she had been little Mom had put a camera in one of her teddy bear's eyes so she could make sure that Nanny was doing her job. She hadn't been. Nanny had been a total bitch, the Nanny with the really short hair, she'd made Minori go to bed early and stay in her room all day…told her that she was bad…Minori picked up another teddy bear.
She looked into it's eyes.
Nothing. Just glass…she tapped them. Just glass marbles. She didn't know what she had been expecting, really, it wasn't like she had a Nanny anymore. Dad had tried to get her one but Minori had managed to talk him out of it. She'd held her breath and banged her head against the wall until he gave up. She didn't need a Nanny. She didn't need a jailer. She didn't even need a Dad. She just needed to be alone…she didn't need to be watched…she didn't want to be watched….
She was always being watched.
She sat up and threw her teddy bear on the ground. It hit the ground and rolled under her vanity table. She made eye contact with her reflection. She looked terrible. Her hair was a rat's nest. Just a big, black, tangle…she hated it. A purple tangle could have been at least like a punk look or something…or like a delinquent look, since everyone seemed to think that she was a delinquent. She had tried coke once and she hadn't even liked it! It made her head fuzzy and her heart start to beat way too fast and her mouth super dry. It wasn't like she was ever going to do it again, at least not on her own, and it wasn't like she was ever going to have the chance again. Shige was gone. She had told Dad that Shige was gone but, of course, Dad thought that he knew best. He had this idea in his head that she was some kind of drug addict delinquent and he shipped her off to Switzerland and she hadn't even gotten to go skiing even though she was really good now…she had been. What was even the point? She had worked at it just so that people could see that she was good at it…
What did she even care if she was being watched?
She always felt like she was being watched. She went to sleep feeling a pair of eyes on her and she woke up with the same pair of eyes looking at her. she had torn her room apart time after time and then time after time again. She'd ripped down the wall paper and dragged the rugs out into the hallway. She'd kicked holes in the walls and stabbed all of her teddy bears opened. No matter what she did she didn't find anything…anyone. Nobody was watching her. Even Dad had come in and helped, brought in a team of investigators to check for cameras, but they'd found nothing. Just to be safe they'd disabled the cameras on her phone and computer.
She didn't know what she was so upset about.
She loved being watched. Everything she did was just so that someone, anyone, would look at her. Pay attention to her, make her feel like she was something. Someone. Like she was a person. If she fell in the forest and nobody was around to hear her would she make a sound? She had fallen, so many times, and nobody had heard her or seen or…or anything. She had fallen at the place, the rehab place, and she'd fallen when she'd gotten home. Dad had called the doctor and he hadn't been able to find any reason why she should have been falling so much…she didn't even know why…she hated the falling…she hated it when people found her, they looked at her, they looked at her like…
Like she was crazy.
She didn't know how much time she spent on the ground. Sometimes the shadows on the floor got really long, sometimes they were gone, and sometimes they were new. It took so long for people to find her, she wanted them to find her, she hated it when they found her but she loved to be seen. She lived for it. Her entire life had been spent trying to be seen…what was even the point? If she wasn't being seen then why was she even here? What was even the point?
She was seeing herself.
Her eyes were dark. Dark circles under them…she needed to sleep more. No amount of concealer could hide them. She couldn't be seen today. She couldn't leave her room today. She didn't care if it was her birthday, birthdays were pointless anyway. She didn't need presents or cake or singing, and it wasn't like she even knew anyone who would do those things for her. Not after Dad had pulled her from her old school and sent her to this boring, all girl's school…made her cut contact with all of her old friends…not that they had been good friends. She hadn't minded cutting contact with…with one of her friends…Shige the bitch…her most pointless, useless, waste of time…
She was better off without friends.
Another knock at her door. She knew better than to think that it was all of her so called friends, really just girls from her class, coming to wish her a happy birthday. They were still at that lame sleepover. She'd been right to bail on it. She'd been so bored that she'd started thinking all kinds of thoughts. Thoughts like how most of them would grow up to be nothing at all, just accessories for rich men. About how this was truly the high point of their life…about how it was all downhill from here…about how all of them should have just died now to get it over with…to be spared the pain of living…
That party had been so boring that it had driven her crazy…of course she didn't need that in her house.
"I thought I told you to fuck off!" shouted Minori. Maid was back, probably, if not that specific one then one of them. There was no point in learning their names. They came and went so fast, like worker ants being replaced by their queen, the brutality of the world taking them out before they truly had a chance to be anything other than what they had been born to be…to do anything other than fulfil their roles…the ones that they'd been cast in by society…
Fuck society.
"Minori, I've asked you not to talk to the staff like that. Come on, you're a young lady now. You know better than to say such things." Said Dad…oh, him. Not maid. He had come all the way here to speak to her…she should have felt honored. The great Asagiri Minori had taken time out of his busy day of ruling the world to speak to his progeny.
Well wasn't she just the luckiest little girl in the whole, wide, fucking world?
"Yes, I'm a lady now, Papa. I'm another ornament for your tree, something shiny to show off and then, eventually, sell to the highest bidder. If only I had a brother, then you could find a shiny ornament for him and the Asagiri name could live on forever…god, you're so myopic." Said Minori, the words rolling off of her tongue with easy. She felt far away, sort of like this was another one of her pointless dreams. She tried to sit up…it felt like something was sitting on her chest…she moved so slowly…
But she got up.
"Minori, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that you're old enough to know what those words mean, the affect that they have on people, and how you look when you say them…alright? I never meant to imply that you were…any of those things that you've just said…alright? Now come on, let's not fight." Said Papa…like his words meant anything. Like he had power over her…he did. That was life…people having power over others…that was what society was based off of…what it ran off of…
She was so tired of living in a society…she was just so tired….
"Fine. Whatever. We won't fight…now can you go away? I'm not up for this right now." said Minori with a yawn. The pressure on her chest had lessened. She could sit up now…but she didn't want to. Her bed was so warm and inviting…she pulled her covers up higher.
"Are you feeling alright? I wasn't expecting you back from the party so soon. Driver said that you called him very early and…and I was just wondering if something had happened." Said Dad. Minori rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, Dad, I'm fine." Said Minori
"Are you sure? Minori, if those girls were getting into anything that they shouldn't have been it's alright to tell me…and if you got into anything you shouldn't have then you can tell me and I promise I won't be mad. I'll call Doctor and then he'll know what to do. We can take another vacation, you like those. We could book another trip to Switzerland." Said Father
"No! I don't need to go up there again! We didn't do anything! They just watched anime until midnight and then we drank juice out of champagne glasses, but only a little because Mimi's bitch of a Mom hung out with us the whole time because she's all sad and old and doesn't have anything better to do than to tell me how much juice I'm allowed to have before bed! Ok!? Nothing happened and I want you to leave me alone!" shouted Minori. She threw another teddy bear at the door…and then another…and another. Soon her bed was bereft of teddy bears…she didn't feel any better…
The heavy feeling was still there.
"Minori…I'm going to send a maid in with your pills and then…and then we're going to have fun today…just like old times. How about that?" asked Papa
"What old times? We never did anything together, that was all Mother. You were always working. I've never been a priority to you, father, and I never will be…so why don't you just leave me the hell alone so I can spent the first day of my fourteenth year in peace? Why isn't that an option?" asked Minori
"Minori…I'm going to call Doctor. It sounds like you're getting into one of your depressive moods…or maybe you're manic this time…or dissociative. Doctor will know. You just stay in here, alright? And now phone if you have one." Said Daddy. He loved to throw words around like he knew what they meant. He loved for people to think that he was something more than he was. He was born into this, he had built nothing. His father hadn't built anything either, or his father before him. Their family had survived by licking the boots of more powerful men since the beginning of time and power…that was all that Dad was, a bootlicker…
He was so pointless…so boring.
"You don't have to. Why don't you go back to licking boots, Father? Go lick someone more powerful's boots…what's Suzuki up to? Or Shige? I bet her boots need licking, I mean you did send me to do it at the age of eleven. I had to get down on my knees because you wouldn't…and for what?" asked Minori. There was some sputtering on the other side of the door. Papa was choking on his words…good. She hoped that he choked right then and there…one less powerful man to make the world a worse place…
She didn't want that at all.
"Minori…how dare you talk to me…I am your father and-and-and this is just…one of the other girls-" said Dad
"Dad! I'm sorry! I don't want you to die! I don't want…please…please don't go! Dad!" shouted Minori. She managed to get herself out of bed. Her legs worked…for a few steps. Then they gave out….her stupid medicine. Muscles weakness and lack of coordination….the cure was worse than the disease…and she didn't even know what the disease was! Sometimes it was like…like her mouth moved on it's own…like her brain just put together words without asking her first….and they just came out…
She really was sorry.
"Minori just…just stay there, alright? I'm calling the doctor." Said Father, his footsteps echoing away from the door….the closed door. He hadn't even bothered to open the door, to check on his own daughter, his only child. He hadn't cared about her, he didn't care about her, he only cared about how she made him look…he only cared about being seen…
Like her.
Like father, like daughter. They were both powerful people, born into it, people who made nothing…because they had made nothing they wanted to be seen as something, as something better than what they were. What they were was just a collection of people, that was all, a collection of dolls…of toys…of ornamental beings with glass eyes that existed to be watched…she could feel herself being watched…she could feel the heaviness of two eyes on her…
She got back into bed.
She managed to shrug off the heaviness and get back into bed. She was so tired…so very tired…her eyes were heavy. Her body was heavy. she felt like she had just run a mile in gym class. She pulled the blankets up over her head and closed her eyes…she didn't care about anything but getting some sleep. Not Dad, not the Doctor that was coming over to poke and prod her like a lab rat, not the so called friends who she had bailed on, not the ex-best friend who had ruined her last birthday and also nearly her life…she didn't want to think about anything but getting some sleep. Maybe this would be one of those days when she'd wake up tomorrow…
Maybe she could even find a way to skip her birthday, her pointless birthday, entirely.