'Another friend for your collection.'
There, at the end of her bed, was another bear. Mom had been the one to love these things, not her. Minori didn't care for them and she never had. Not since Mom had left. Not since Mom had just…just decided to be selfish. Not since she decided that her family didn't need her anymore. That her daughter didn't need her anymore.
She didn't.
She didn't need a mother or even a father for that matter. She was perfectly fine on her own. After all, wasn't that what the bear was for? Father had come and gone, leaving only that bear behind. He hadn't even thought to stop long enough to wait for her to wake up, or to wake her up on his own, he had just left. Off to do whatever it was that men of power did. Off to make sure that the world still turned. Off to line the family coffers. Off to make a better life for them.
As if such a thing was possible.
Minori pulled back the satin covers. The bear fell to the floor. She didn't care. It wasn't as though it was going to get dirty. Maid had been in here, one of them, while she had been occupied at school yesterday. The carpet was stiff as ever, the line of the vacuum cleaner still clearly visible in some place. The bed had been made, the feather pillows ruffled, the silk sheets pulled tight, everything in it's proper place. The only interloper, the one hair out of place, had been that damn bear.
The last thing Minori needed was another teddy bear.
She had an entire wall of her bedroom dedicated to those things. Gifts from her mother, back when Mom had been alive…around. The dead never truly left us, Dad had said, they watch over us even after they left their bodies. They watched over the ones they loved even after God had called them back to whence they had come. God. Minori, when she died, wanted to ask him what he had needed from her mother. What had he needed so badly that it couldn't wait? What was it that he had needed from Mom that he couldn't have gotten while she was still living?
What was even the point?
What did the dead even get from watching the living? What was it that they could do as ghosts or spirits that they couldn't do in their own bodies on earth? She didn't know. Dad didn't know. All the charlatans, snake oil salesmen, lairs, cheats, and frauds that her father had paraded through their home after Mom had died had come up with their own answers. Unfinished business, bad karma, a better life coming to them, a bad life before them, the will of God, the wills of the Gods, the will of the universe…a lot of will. A hundred different explanations from a hundred different men but still no truths…not that there even could be a singular truth.
We all made our own truths.
It was a lesson she had learned…she couldn't exactly remember when she had learned that truth but it was one she had learned well. If you said something with enough conviction then you could will it, briefly, into existence. There was no greater magic than that of a lie after all. If you told enough of them then even you could convince yourself of whatever you wanted. That was the hard part. The easy part was making the rest of the world believe your little piece of reality.
Lying to other people was easy.
Minori swung her legs over the side of her bed and picked up the bear. It was a lie. A cotton imitation of a father's love. If her father had truly loved her then he would have stayed, he would have woken her up, he would have done something other than send his assistant out for another one of these toys. She looked over at the others. A wall of them. Floor to ceiling shelves. Dad's gift to her that year, a birthday gift, or maybe a New Year's gift. Redoing her room. Redecorating. Another mural above her bed, another teddy bear picnic. A wall of them. A new bed in the shape of a giant bear. She didn't know how this could have counted as a redo of her room if the theme was the same. She would have done the whole thing up in purples, and silks, or maybe dark wood…dark woods and purple tapestries, like a castle…or a palace.
Or wherever Shige had been when she'd taken those pictures.
Shige did a lot of travelling. Her dad was always taking her to palace and castles and museums and stuff. He was just a big of a businessman as her dad, they were both the sorts of men that ran the world by birthright alone, but somehow Shige's dad found time for her. It wasn't fair…but life wasn't fair. At least she had been happier than Shige had been. No, when they had been friends all Shige had ever done was complain. Whine about being babied, about having to babysit her brother, about her dad loving her…the grass was always greener on the other side.
The grass had to be greener on her side.
Not the fun kind, of course. Not the kind that Shige brought with her. For someone who claimed to have it so hard she actually had it pretty good. She had all the weed and coke she wanted, adult friends, an unlimited allowance, no school, and hot guys after her. She had the life that Minori had always wanted. The life that she told the world she had.
The life that she was still going to tell the world she had.
She tossed the bear on her bed and stood up. Time to become Minori. Time to become the person that everyone thought she was. The person that she made everyone think that she was. Someone worth paying attention to. Someone worth something. Someone rich and beautiful, someone who was worth something to this society. That was what people thought, wasn't it? That if they spent enough time rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful some of that wealth or power would rub off on them. Like a disease. Like a curse.
Sometimes it was a curse.
She walked over to her vanity table. The only thing that was truly new in this room. It felt like being backstage, standing in front of that table. It was more like a counter with a giant lighted mirror in front of it. She clapped her hands and a thousand lightbulbs turned on. Edison bulbs, it was better for aesthetics the decorator had said. That was the way of the world, wasn't it? To focus on the look of things and not the fact of them, such as the fact that this had to be a practical workspace for her? After all this was her job, wasn't it? To be Asagiri Minori?
To make the world think that she was Asagiri Minori.
She picked up her brush and got to work. She really should have been wrapping up her hair before she went to sleep. That was what Mom had done. She remembered being small and watching Mom braid her hair before bed, putting her hair into one long plait and then typing the whole thing up in a headwrap. To keep it from knotting up. To keep her pillowcase nice. To make sure it held it's shape. She hadn't understood such things, being as young as she had been, having hair as short as it had been…
She stopped brushing.
She had never had short hair, not even when she had been in preschool. A woman's hair was her crowning glory, Mom had said. Mom would have been so sad to see what she had done to her hair, Dad had said. Minori's hair was the shortest that it had ever been. It barely touched her shoulders. When she had been younger it had been down to the small of her back at it's longest. Mom had loved brushing it, combing it, and braiding it even towards the end…even when she got so sick that her hands shook and she didn't have the strength to hold the brush….she still remembered the sound it had made when it hit the floor.
She got back to brushing.
Just a weird thought, that was all. Sometimes she just had these weird thoughts pop into her head. If the doctors were to be believed these memories were just waking dreams, leftovers from her years of drug use. One of the many changes she could expect to see as the years went by. These were the years when her brain went through the biggest changes it would ever make in it's life, after all. That is if the doctors were to be believed.
She knew better than to believe the lies that came out of doctor's mouths.
She finished brushing. She had lies to tell. At least her lies never hurt anyone. At least she had never left anyone rotting in a bed, sitting in their own filth, their breath rattling in their chests as they died. Nothing could be done…nothing at all. Just sit there and wait for someone to die. That was all. No matter what you did death was an inevitability. It came for everyone. Sometimes on it's own and sometimes you invited it in.
It hadn't been her fault.
That was what Dad had said. He had told her over and over again that it wasn't her fault or his or anyone's. Sometimes people died but that was alright, they watched over us, they never truly left. There was always someone you loved watching over you even if you couldn't see them. Sometimes she could feel someone watching her, someone there at the very edges of her vision, someone sitting there and saying…what were they saying? Probably just more waking dreams. Wishful thinking. Her mind playing tricks on her. Her mind lying to her. Of course her mind was going to lie to her, it was her mind after all. It was the mind that came up with all of the lies she told the world.
The world ran on lies.
Lies, half truths, and wishful thinking. Also pictures. The world economy wasn't just money, it was also the invisible currency that you made just by existing. Just by being seen. Not being seen as the person you were, she doubted that anyone wanted to see her bedhead and crusty eyes, being the person that you wanted to be. The person that the world told you that you were meant to be. She put her brush down. Her hair was in good order now. Sleek as ever, not a hair out of place, each purple strand exactly where she meant it to be. She could have gone back to pink if she had wanted to…she did like pink. But purple was Shige's best friend's color, her real best friend's, and…and purple was the color of royalty. That was what Minori was after all, royalty, or at least the closest thing that a person could be in this world without having imperial blood in them. She was rich, she was pretty, and she knew how to use it.
She knew how society wanted her to use it.
She was happy with her hair, for once, and now it was time for the makeup. That was the point of her, after all, to be as ornamental as the bears that adorned her walls. They were supposedly toys but there was no real way to play with them. They had no points of articulation, they couldn't stand on their own, and each one was so carefully themed and even named in some cases that any imagination was taken out of playing with them. Not that Minori still played with dolls, she wasn't Shige. She was fourteen now. She was practically an adult, practically a grown woman, and this was what grown women did.
They put on makeup.
They caked on layers and layers of it. She had to cake on the makeup so thickly that her natural face could not be seen, as if it were obscene, while revealing as much of her body as possible without being removed for posting images of an obscene nature. That was why she was wearing nothing more than a short camisole as pajamas. Even on her own she had to be ornamental, she had to be the person she was meant to be, she had to play the part of Asagiri Minori.
She played it well.
The final step to these preparations was making sure that she screwed her face into the correct approximation of whatever it was that she was mean to be feeling right now. Excitement seemed best for right now. After all she had been given a gift and the world needed to see how much she loved it, how grateful she was, how much she loved her father, and how happy she was to be Asagiri Minori. It wasn't enough to have everything, no, she had to show everyone how grateful she was for it to. She had to lie to ever, not that it mattered, she was just giving the people what they wanted after all. They wanted to believe that she was this person so this was the person that she was going to be.
On film, anyway.
She got up, grabbed the bear, and picked up her phone. She tapped it twice before she realized she was touching the wrong side. She tapped the glass and it came to life. She went into her camera program and got to work. She made sure to use the right lighting, the right angles, and the right face. The world had to see how happy she was. Everyone needed to know how wonderful Asagiri Minori's life was. The more they saw the more they would strive to be like her. The more they would do to be like her. The more bridges they would cross to get even a taste of the extravagance that she lived in. The wealth. The power. The supposed happiness.
This was her life.
That was all that she was, wasn't she? Just a liar. A girl smiling at no one in a cold, empty, room on a cold empty day. Just a doll, a toy, a being stitched in satin and cotton. A toy that the world could pick up and put down when they needed her. She had turned herself into this. She could have been something but this was the life she chose, no, the life which had been chosen for her. A long, lonely, life here in the prison of her own making. A house was a home and a prison as well. An empty one. No mother, no father, but plenty of jailers. She could hear them walking. Any minute now they would knock on her door and tell her that it was time to get up and begin her day. Any minute now they would tell her that it was time to get into her uniform, choke down some breakfast, and then get in the car to be ferried to school where she would sit in a row with the other dolls, the other toys, and do her best to learn what she needed to learn to get through to the end of the year…and then to the next…and then the next and the next until she too died. Until she too became a disembodied spirit watching over her loved ones.
Or maybe they would keep on watching her.
'That's a really cute bear Minori Did you go to Build a Bear and make it yourself?'
Not the usual sort of message she got…and not from a person she usually got messages from. Shige. That was…she knew that they weren't friends anymore, right? Minori had no use for her. She had betrayed Minori, embarrassed her, and caused her to get shipped off to the other side of the world. Shige wasn't anything close to a friend and Minori had no more use for her. That was what she did, wasn't it? She used people? She used them for their wealth, their status, to add to her status. She used both boys and girls for her own ends. She used everyone. She was nothing. She was-
-having more strange thoughts.
Her hands shook. She typed out the beginnings of several replies, many of them angry, before she settled on a simple message of thanks with a happy face. Father had people watching everything she did. If he knew she was being unkind he would send her back to the doctor and the doctor would give her more medicine, or worse, send her back to that prison. It had been a prison masquerading as a spa, the last treatment center, and she had no desire to go back. She had no desire to add to her list of pills she had to choke down every single day. She would be normal, she would be kind, and she would keep these strange thoughts to herself.
She would keep it all to herself.
The strange thoughts, the chills, the feeling like she was being watched, the lost time, the wandering mind…it would all stay with her. After all, Father would one day realize that he had a defective daughter and then where would she be? All that she had would disappear in a puff of smoke and she couldn't have that. She was, after all, Asagiri Minori. She was luckier than most. Who was she without all of this? Without her friends, her status, her house, her beauty? She was nothing. She needed all of this to fulfil her duty, her goals, her…whatever it was that she was working towards. Nobody understood. She didn't even understand. She didn't even know what any of this was, why she was so cold, why her feet were so cold-
-why she was at the table.
"Some sugar, Asagiri-san?" said cook as she leaned over her shoulder holding a sugar dish. She was…she was in her school uniform, sitting in the dining room, but she had forgotten her socks. Another burst of lost time. She just-
-had to be normal.
"Sugar?" asked Minori
"Yes. Some sugar like you have every morning, Asagiri-san." Said Cook.
"Like I have every morning?" asked Minori. No. She took her coffee black, she always had. Sugar in coffee ruined the flavor profile. She might as well have been drinking nothing at all.
"Yes. The sugar bowl was, unfortunately, neglected. Feng-chan is still learning how to serve, I am afraid, but rest assured she's been dealt with." Said Cook
"Feng-chan?" asked Minori. That was a Chinese name, but she wasn't in China. She was in Ankle City as she always was…no, no. She was in Tokyo…cold. She was cold. It didn't matter where she was, she could be cold anywhere. She kept calm. The last thing she needed was this getting back to Father.
"The new Maid, Asagiri-san." Said Cook
"Oh, her. Yeah, you'd better deal with her. She's just lucky that my father hasn't heard about this." Said Minori, making sure to sound like herself. The cook nodded…and still held the sugar bowl in her hands.
"Would you like some sugar, Asagiri-san?" asked the cook
"No way, I don't need to get fat. I'll take my coffee black this morning as usual." Said Minori. Cook's eyes darted down to the table. Minori's followed…down to the tea cup in font of her.
"Tea. I mean I'll be having my tea plain this morning, now leave me." said Minori. Cook nodded quickly.
"Yes Asagiri-san. Your breakfast, Asagiri-san." Said cook as she took the lid off of a silver platter in front of her…and then the smaller one beside it. On one platter was a frittata and on the other was a cup full of pills. White ones, blue ones, some as big as her head…so many pills. She didn't need any pills. She was normal. She was fine. She was herself.
She took them anyway.
She would bide her time for now and play along until the day came. Until then she would continue on as this person, as this girl, until her work was done. She would eat what she was told to eat, taken what she was told to take, and accept whatever pittance of love that man sought to give her. She was Asagiri Minori and this was the life she led, the life she had to lead. She finished her breakfast and left, at some point getting in the car. Whatever, she didn't need to pay attention to everything anyway.
She just needed to be herself, that was all, useless teddy bears and all.