Disclaimer: This is NOT a self-insert story. My bad. It took me way too long to realize that I made it sound that way with the opening prologue and the summary. I had to change the summery a little bit and to make sure no one got confused.

AN UNREMARKABLE PERSON

October 25th, 2014

"There's no better way of putting it, Kocho. We're gonna have to let you go. You're just…a surprisingly unremarkable person."

Juri's heart hammered against her ribs and left a dulling pain to pulsate throughout her body that only lasted for a couple of seconds. She stared at her boss with her stormy, blueish gray eyes that didn't waver at all under his harsh words. She wasn't immune to the pain it caused though. That dulling sensation. For the last 21 years of her life, it was like those words have been played on repeat inside her head like a broken record she couldn't turn off. It was almost astonishing how often people had said those words to her. She had grown quite used to it though, so the pain never lasted.

Juri's silence only lasted for a fraction of a second before she smiled. "I understand. I appreciate you giving me the time to work here and get the experience," she said and bowed her head.

Her boss looked quite taken back by her poise attitude. He was expecting her to get angry and blow up, but that didn't seem to be the case with her. "Please…please clean off your desk of all valuables," he cleared his voice and stuttered out.

"There's no need."

"Pardon?"

Juri lifted her head but her smile didn't appear to be very genuine. It looked as if she was forcing herself to keep it up for the sake of appearances. "I don't have any valuables…in the first place." She bowed her head one last time and didn't speak again after that. She just turned around on her blistered heels and walked out of his office.

She headed back into the unnaturally quiet office space that was full of people trapped inside their small cubical world. Their faces had become one with the screen and their fingers no longer belonged to them. They were bought out by the keyboard at their laps. 'Were they even human anymore?', was another question Juri had asked herself once before. They had nametags but she never learned them because not a single person had turned around to address her face to face. They'd simply hand something to her over their shoulder when they needed something done. Did they even have faces to begin with?

Juri walked past the millions of cubicles to the identical one that she owned. She had always kept it clean but there weren't any personal items on it for it to even get cluttered. No family photos or anything like that. You look at another cubical and see that it's covered with pictures of their family, child drawings, and personal mugs. It was cluttered but obviously theirs. With Juri's though…you would've never known it was hers.

Not a single person lifted their head as she gathered up her purse and phone. She bowed her head to her 'coworkers' who she never knew and walked out of the office. In the end though…they probably didn't even know she existed.

Juri headed down the flight of stairs and took her time getting to the bottom. It was late at night, but she wasn't in any hurry to get home. No one was waiting there for her and the only thing she would return to would be a darkened hallway with haunting silence. Juri never liked the idea of going home because it never once had a comforting atmosphere about it. She didn't even like studying there and preferred the college library over her own apartment.

Instead of making a sharp turn towards the exit door, she made an unusual detour down a hallway where the private bathrooms were located. She saw an unoccupied one at the end of the corridor and made a half-jog over to it, shutting the door behind her. She sat her bag down on the counter inside and stared up into the mirror at her appearance, not sure if it was actually her who was staring back.

Her eyes carried a storm inside. A spiral of blues and grays mixing together to make a murky dark cloud full of dread and depression. Her translucent skin had become thin over the years working an office job, giving her face an almost skeletal appearance from her insomnia. There were hardly any muscles on her toothpick arms, and you can clearly see the veins running under her skin as well. Juri could hardly believe that what was staring back at her was her own withered appearance, totally resembling a husk with no more life left within her hollow eyes.

"It's alright. There's nothing to be sad about," Juri spoke with a trembling voice while simultaneously forcing a painful smile to her thin and pink lips. Her eyes looked as if they resembled beautiful stain-glass windows you would see in a church. There were blues, grays, and reds swirling around in her tearful irises that gave them a glassy appearance. She lifted her hand and pressed it against the mirror to cover her face. "This is what happens to people when they stay too late at the office. It's not your fault that people kept..." she removed her hand from the mirror and stiffened when she saw the hot tears rolling down her sharp cheekbones, "that…that people kept…kept…"

Who was she trying to fool?

Juri bottled up her tears and tried to calm down by taking in deep breaths of air. She ran the water and splashed some over her flushed face to cool off, but also caused her makeup to run. It's not like it mattered though in the end. Juri was never really skilled enough to put on things like eyeshadow or even mascara. She really only used it to cover up a scar she had on her face. It was advice she got from her now-former boss when she first started working at the office.

The scar started at the right corner of her mouth and moved its way up a couple of inches. It wasn't an ugly scar by any means, and it had healed quite a bit over the years, but there was discoloration around the area that makes it noticeable at first glance. Juri picked up on it whenever she would meet someone for the first time. They looked curious and would always follow up with a question of how she got it, and in response, Juri would always say "Oh, it was nothing really. Just a couple of friends having a bit too much fun."

"Hold her down. Damnit! Hold her legs down!"

Juri struggled as much as she could against these two high school girls who were taller and stronger than her. They pinned her arms and legs down in the back of the school where it was known to be quite isolated from the rest of the area. Juri would've yelled for help by now if she knew there was a chance of someone hearing her. No voice could pierce the thick stone walls though surrounding them, which is why this was a paradise for delinquents but a nightmare for weaklings. No one to see the crimes and no one to hear them.

Fear gushed up within Juri's very core that kept her from standing still. She watched with fretful eyes as the third girl brought something out of her pocket. Something small but silver. Sunlight reflected off the smooth surface and glared right into her eyes. A knife. Juri opened her mouth to yell but the box cutter was roughly shoved into her mouth and it immediately caused her to shut up and swallow her screams. The tears didn't let up though and her body was on fire, cooking under the sun and rubbing against the rough pavement.

"Wow, Rumi! Are you serious? You ain't gonna kill her, are you?" one of the high school girls holding down Juri asked.

"What? Nah, but I'm thinking of putting a mark riiiiight here!" She sadistically pushed the knife against the corner of Juri's mouth and began to slowly cut into her skin.

Shake and cry. Those were the only two things Juri could do as she felt warm blood drip to the back of her throat that she forced herself to swallow. She stared up at Rumi's twisted face as she pushed in the knife deeper and deeper against her mouth.

Juri would usually get food on her way home from work at her local convenience store, but the idea of stomaching anything right now was a challenge she wasn't willing to accept at the moment. Not even the thought of eating yakiniku, her absolute favorite, didn't determine her enough to walk to a place that wasn't her own apartment. She just wanted to sleep the day away and forget that it even existed. Fall into a world that she created herself. A perfect paradise that existed only inside her head. It was better than what she was living in now.

Juri wasn't sure what to do next. The only reason she was working that job was to keep herself in college and finish her master's degree in psychology. If she had that then she could easily work her dream job, yet the long nights at the office were beginning to drain her both physically and mentally. The thought of studying after work made her sick to her stomach, and before she knew it, she ended up flaking out on her plans and sleeping the rest of the night and the next day. There just weren't enough hours in the day anymore, it seemed. She used to have so much passion, but now…it was nearly gone.

Like a robot on autopilot, Juri skillfully whipped her keys out and inserted them into the lock of her apartment door. She opened it up just a crack and felt a gust of cold air escape from the inside, sending unsettling chills right over her skin. Juri opened the door fully and peeked inside. The apartment room was dark as she left it, but it felt unnatural to her now. She couldn't place why she felt like this, but in the back of her mind, it made her believe that the darkness was there…to hide something from sight.

Juri felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up while she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She had to be alone. There shouldn't be anyone else inside but her. No one else owned this room but her…but why did she have the feeling that she wasn't alone. She slowly laid her purse down by the door and crept towards the black halls, taking one step at a time but also too scared to call out if someone was actually there. The room was cold enough to where she could see her own breath, but it was a type of coldness someone can usually find in a graveyard at midnight.

Juri stopped after at least three steps when the floor suddenly creaked, but it wasn't by her own weight. It was coming from the other side of the apartment. Down the hallway where she still couldn't see anything. She dared take one more step but that was all it took when a blast of blistering cold air brushed past her. Ice touched her throat that felt sharp and precise, but it instantly became hard for her to breathe. Juri grabbed her throat and open her mouth to speak but no words came out. Just pained gasps. An odd warmth began to slip past her fingers and drench her body. There was even what sounded like drops of water hitting the floor.

Blood…

There was no pain, and her mind was too disconnected from the confusion to even comprehend what happened. Blood poured from the cut on her throat as her body swayed, finally collapsing in the doorway of her apartment. The darkness swarmed her as her own blood pooled around her fallen body. It was a disgusting sensation, having her cold skin suddenly ignite with the feeling of warm and slimy liquid soaking into her clothes. Juri struggled in vain to keep conscious but the light was fading from her eyes fast. Yet…she didn't feel as scared as she thought she would upon impending death. Instead, there was a sense of relief that welcomed her.

With her fading eyes, Juri could see someone hovering over her that wasn't there half a second ago. It was a vision of white that appeared to be in the form of an enchanting woman made out of delicate snow. Juri had never seen someone, a vision, as beautiful as this one. The last thing she will ever see. Be it an angel, demon, or figment of her imagination. It didn't matter.

"Aaah….at…lea..st…not….alone…" Juri smiled one last time as blood coated her pale lips, but for the first time in 21 years…it was actually genuine.

Author's Note:

I...been planning this damn story for freaking MONTHS! And now I'm finally able to give it to all you. I wanted to write a Jujutsu Kaisen story for a while now and I finally got enough together to where I can post. This is just the opening though and the second chapter will be out before the week is up. Hopefully Thursday if I'm lucky.

Let me know what you think so far, and I'll see you all in a couple of days.