A/N: This story is rather... different. It is not lemony, but the theme is quite mature. This centers on Yumi... I would like to thank you for reading (or even reviewing) although you dislike the character I am using or the pairing I ship.

Anyway, thanks to Saihei for the reviews! I hope you don't mind AU... because to be honest I like reading AU ficts!~ xD


Challenge #4:

Dark


Four high school students dragged their own chair to the teacher's table which located near the blackboard. Giggling at each other, their eyes widened when one of the students took a brown wooden plate out of his school bag.

"Here goes!"

"Oh my God. A real Ouija board!" everyone gasped. They quickly formed a circle and put the board on the table. The classroom went silent.

"Guys," said the boy who brought the board, "do you know that this school used to be a famous inn on Bakufu era? I am thinking of… something… great…"

"Wait! Wait, wait! The board… the Ouija board is shaking! We haven't called the spirit yet!"

The four of them sat motionlessly on their respective chairs. Trying his best to be brave, the boy who brought the board put his hand on the planchette. He trembled in fear when the planchette moved. "H-hello…" his voice was shaking hard. "P-please… tell us y-your… n-name…"

The planchette moved smoothly, pointing the letters on the board…

My name is Komagata Yumi.

The four high school students stared in disbelief. "It's really a ghost!" a braid-haired girl shouted. "I am scared… we should not continue this…"

"Are you kidding? This is a rare chance, you know! Please, Ma'am, tell us your story…"

The planchette once again danced on the board.

Fufufu.

The braid-haired girl let out a frightened scream. "She is mad at us… we are cursed! We are cursed, oh my God!"

"Calm down!" the boy bellowed. "Look, the planchette is moving again… hey, why are you guys staring at me like that? I did not do anything!"

You teens are funny, eh… very well, this is my story.


I am Komagata Yumi. I will not lie about my occupation—I am a courtesan. My clients are usually high-ranking officers from both sides—it's either the patriots or the Bakufu men. Funny, isn't it? The war is raging through the country, but men are still men. Don't you think the world is a weird place to live in? People kill each other. People murder people. Fathers abandon their sons. Mothers secretly hope that they givebirth to daughters so none of their child will be called to the battlefield. How scary, people playing with other people's lives… and their own.

Thus love becomes a commodity as well.

I am a courtesan. I sell myself to the darkness of this room long ago, feeding hungry souls of provisional happiness that can be obtained by an hour of this thing called love. I make love. They buy the love I make, hungrily consume it until their body goes limp, unable to move, unable to react.

Love is an intoxicating drink then…

Go on, accuse me. Judge me for being a courtesan, call me witch, evil, anything that pleases you. But I will have you know, the job I am indulging myself in is my pride. You call me evil? What about the men who mercilessly kill each other? You call me a whore? I am a good seller. My customers are kings; I aim to please. Blame on your lecherous husbands and boyfriends for coming to me at night when you are fast asleep. Do you want to know the things they told me? Do you want to know whose names they were calling when they laid themselves on my lap?

You don't want to know. You will never want to know…

Do not take me wrong, it is not that I am so fond of my job. Yes, I have my pride for being a courtesan—this is the safest job I can do, you know. Sometimes geishas are killed for knowing too much. Manslayers are cursed by their own guilt, let alone always being targeted for revenge. Politicians can count the days—you are going down, sooner or later. Do you hear about the assassination of X-sama who belongs to the Y Clan? You cannot escape your destiny.

Being a wife?

I know how painful it is to say goodbye to the man you love the most. And no, thank you, I do not want to face the same experience anymore. I have seen women lost their children, I have seen suffering women who tried their best to deliver their babies to this cruel world, I have seen fathers that only have enough time to stroke their firstborns before rushing to the battlefield again.

I know I will surprise you by saying this—I dislike this job, you know. In fact, I loathe it.

However something disturbs my mind. What makes a man, man? What makes a knight, knight? Someone who dies by the blade of his archnemesis is considered to be noble, compared to my fellow courtesans who surrender to either disease or suicide. Those warriors, those sword-wielding men, are our clients. Do you know something? They are so sweet when they are with us. They throw away their ego and come to our feet like puppies who are begging for a little love from their masters. They call us goddesses. Never once they belittle ourselves; when we feed them with this intoxicating called love at its peak, their scream for our name ever so loudly that I thought my ears were going to explode…

They worship us.

After the sweet talk they give, they fill our purses with a lot of money. Yes, I know, the money should be yours, their loyal wives who wait for them at home while taking care of their children. Do not get jealous of me and my colleagues, Madame, please. We give your husbands, boyfriends and fiancées the service that they do not get from you. Blame it on your beaus for coming to us. Or better, blame yourselves.

So, the whole thing about government does not care about our kind at all does make me laugh. You men care your cattle more than us. We are women; we are humans. Sometimes we do your cattle's job: we beg for your mercy, we neigh, we moan, you name it. Your face when seeing us like that? Priceless. So lustful that I do not know the difference between man and devil anymore…

That is why I prefer the light to be turned off when I am working. I do not want to see my clients' faces, I do not want them to remember me more than the amount of precious time I give them. I would rather remember them as headless gray shades of the night that come and go just like that.

… Madame, do not call me a vixen for cradling your husband in such nectar speech. At least do not call me that way before hearing my reason—simple. Because I leave my heart somewhere else while I am at work. Sweet but soulless talks are easy to spit out because I do not put my feeling on them, that is all.

Then I met this man. People call him a rebel, devil's advocate, a maniac, a crazy person. People tried to get rid of him once yet failed; he is now polishing his talons to strike back.

"Come with me," says he. "You are strong. A brave woman that you are, Yumi. Those people who want to kill me? They are a bunch of losers. They are weak. Only when together that they feel strong, strong enough to do anything. Those men who shared your futon at night? Maggots. You survive, Yumi, does not it mean that you are strong?"

"Shishio-sama, I…" to tell you the truth, he is the first man ever being so understanding.

"You want more proof? I take it that you do not believe me," he chuckles. "Very well. I shall prove everything to you. Join me. Do not leave my side. You will see…"

Ladies and gentlemen, I then pull his body closer to mine. While undressing himself, he says something… "Are you afraid of me? Or perhaps do you loathe me because I am like this?"

My answer? Simple. So very simple. "I would have turned off the lamp if that's the case, Shishio-sama."


The four high school student waited. The Ouija board stopped shaking. The planchette was still…

"She is gone," said the braid-haired girl. "Thank God."

"But why…?" the boy asked. Disappointment was clear in his voice. "You know… I thought we could get something… really great. Our history teacher always says that this place has so many stories that will not ever be recorded to the books. And I had it enough with him preaching us to go home right after class."

"But the spirit…" another girl who wears glasses interrupted. "Proves that Kawada-sensei is right."

"He is just superstitious," the third girl who has brown hair countered.

"Then what is it that we saw before?" said the boy who brought the Ouija board. "Ma'am? Oh well, she is gone…"

"… not yet!" the braid-haired girl yelped. The planchette were moving again.

Thank you. Now I can go back to sleep…

"Hey, you did not tell us anything," the boy objected.

I am done reminiscing. Hey you, I love the way you treat your female classmates!

"But what did I do?"

You treat them as humans. Oh, I know your little secret. Each of you. You, the braid-haired lass. You work part-time at a maid café, don't you? Brunette, you keep old men company after school—

"H-hey!" both the braid-haired girl and the brunette shouted angrily. "Stop it!"

"Are you guys…?" the boy asked in disbelief.

Do not get cocky, boy. To think three beautiful girls want to be friends with a weird guy like you who are so into witchcraft and magic…

"P-please," the boy blushed.

You teens are so funny… fufufu.


Three days after, their Japanese teacher received a paper which done by the boy. The title of the paper was My Name is Komagata Yumi, and I am a Courtesan.


Owari