2hu fanfiction by 12 year old Aral: Emo Meiling (Part 1)

The damn monster is 13k words long, so I'll break it into a few parts. It's gonna be like a little series.

A little trigger warning (yes, like on tumblr) here for those who have suffered with self-harm:

there are explicit depictions of self-harm in this story. If you're sensitive to it, it may not be for you.

I wrote this at age 12, date of creation says November 25, 2012. I probably abandoned it a month later in December. It's unfinished and will remain so since... well lmfao I'm not 12 anymore
It may be quite a heavy story when you think about it, the amount of despair and pain is palpable, but I think no one should be ashamed of that. In fact, I think it's a good thing to share it... because there is no shame in being vulnerable, and disclosing some very difficult moments of your past. Yes I did cut, though not as much as she did, mostly on angry impulses, and it wasn't too pleasurable, but now I'm not doing it anymore, and I'm not ashamed to say I used to be a cutter, and accidentally glorified self-harm in my teenage years. It was the only way I could express what I felt then, and I think it's the case for many teenage girls. No one listens to you, so you end up glorifying your own self-destructive behaviour, because that's the only way someone could eventually listen to you, even if it's just to say "you're seeking attention".

Anyway, without further ado...! It's probably going to be both an emotional and funny read. I laughed more than once translating this because... I just fell into wangst many times and it was just clunky. But hey, I was a troubled 12 year old.




That evening, Sakuya came to get me. I was wondering, once again, why she was taking me to Remilia-sama. Maybe I was in for a raise?
But no. When we entered the large room where the little vampire was sitting, my heart immediately started racing. She looked angry, at her wits' end. Patchouli, Flandre and Koakuma were standing by her side. I didn't understand what was going on.

"Mistress", said Sakuya, "here is the one you wanted to see."
"Come closer", Remilia ordered.

Anxiety got worse and worse as I was walking towards her. What had I done so bad that she was so mad at me?

"Meiling. Lately, you've been sleeping quite a lot in front of the gate. Even Sakuya couldn't wake you up! It's the fourth time this year. You've been working here for a good thirty years as a gatekeeper and I had no idea you were this lazy."

My heart was thumping so hard in my chest, almost exploding, I thought I'd choke.

"You're not working like you should, my dear little Meiling", Remilia firmly said with aggression in her eyes.

My heart broke. I thought for a moment I'd break down in tears. But why cry like a little kid? It was only my fault if I was working so poorly.

"You should sleep at night instead of reading until 2 am! If Sakuya, Patchouli, Koakuma, Flandre or even I catch you again snoozing at the gate, you'll be fired."

I started to horribly dread losing my job, my salary, not being able to feed and clothe myself decently... my pupils got smaller, my heart started to hurt so much, as if tearing itself apart.

"Sakuya?"
"Yes, Mistress?" the servant replied, bowing.
"Take her to her quarters. I don't want to see her getting out until supper."
"Understood."

****
My colleague let go of my right arm in front of my room and closed the door behind me. Immediately, as I was alone, I jumped on my bed and buried my head in one of my pillows. Fired? No. That couldn't be. Remilia couldn't be considering this! What had got into her head?

I started to feel myself slipping into crying and decided to let it all out. At some point, with my face wet with tears and eyes burning, I got up and decided to look at myself in the mirror. My reflection, that of someone incapable of working correctly, that of an irresponsible Chinese youkai. My tears and dull gaze were giving away the deep pain I was desperately trying to hide. My complexion was so pale. I had dark circles under my eyes.

During supper, I did not speak a word. I was too hurt. I was too broken on the inside. I ate, but only the smell was making me queasy. I'll tell you, it's hard to eat when you're that down in the dumps...

****
Back to my room after a shower and saying good night to the others, I started pouring out tears again. I caught my reflection in the mirror again, and this time, my own reflection was unbearable to see; I violently slapped it, and it broke into several pieces. A bit of glass got lodged in my palm, and it started bleeding, but I did not feel a thing. Rather, I did, but it wasn't bothering me; I was even starting to find it... weirdly fun.

Then I made one of the worst mistakes in my life.

I took the glass off my hand. It slightly hurt. I went on my balcony and looked at the moon. A tear went down my cheek and I held the shard a little tighter. I had a strange idea in mind. And when I felt ready, I started to cut my left wrist. It started burning, bleeding, and the more I cut, the deeper it got, even if it was probably no deeper than a few millimeters. Oh, smelling this red liquid with a twinge of iron was so exciting, exhilarating, like ecstasy! I quivered excitedly, the pain was such... a pleasure! And I started to attack the other one after I made a dozen cuts on my left arm. I laughed internally. I felt free, alive, relieved of all this pressure, of all this pain that was infecting my already too broken heart, broken by Sakuya making fun of me with my name or my origins...

The internal side of my arms was tainted with blood, and I would probably get scars from that, but who cared... I had the right to attack my body, after all, if there was so much wrong with me!

I felt tired, went out of my room quietly to disinfect my wounds and bandage my arms, then went to sleep.

****
Sakuya came to wake me up in the morning, but my bandaged wrists were under the covers, so she didn't notice them. I felt awful burning pain in my arms, but I didn't show it. I unwrapped them after she left my room and noticed how bad I had damaged myself. The wounds weren't deep, but quite impressive.

I spent my days hiding my arms behind my back, ate my breakfast alone before going back to work. Several times I had to turn to the wall to cry incognito, even if it was showing my wounded arms. I was going about my day and keeping the gate when I heard voices behind me. It was Remilia with Flandre, who had got out of the basement for once, and Sakuya.

"I wonder why Meiling's walking so weirdly with her arms behind her back", my mistress said.
"I know why, I saw everything last evening" Flandre laughed. "Her wrists are full of cuts, she did all of this herself, hahaha!"

Oh yes, I did feel a presence last night! What was Flandre doing outside at such an hour? And how had she even got out?

"Yeah, I believe you", Sakuya sighed.
"When you'll see the state of her arms, you won't say the same thing, u-fufu..."
"Stop laughing at this, Flan, this is no joke" Remilia objected. "Sakuya?"
"Yes?"
"Go say a word to Meiling, cheer her up a bit."
"As you wish, Mistress."

Sakuya got closer to me. I felt my heart rate rise, hid my pain, wiped off my tears and put my arms behind my back, again.

****
"Hey, how are you holding up since yesterday?" the maid asked, sitting close to my knees.
"Fine", I replied with an useless forced laughter: my teary eyes were just giving me away.
"Why are you hiding your hands?"

I got scared and started trembling.

"Oh, for... for nothing", I forced myself to smile.

Sakuya got irritated and got back up.

"Show me your arms!" she thundered.
"No, why?"

I was scared she'd discover...

"Show them. Now. It's an order."

I refused.

"Are you trying to hide something?" the silver-haired girl ended up inquiring exasperatedly.

In the end, I couldn't hide forever. After a few seconds hesitating, I looked away, raised my arms and showed her my wounded wrists. I could tell she was shocked, but without any warning, she pinned me to the wall.

"Are you crazy??" she screamed, "you could've died!"
"I don't care."
"But, Meiling, dangit! Don't you realize no one would be protecting this manor if you died??"
"No one would, but I'm already usele-"

I couldn't finish, Sakuya put a hand on my throat.

"Won't you listen to me? You're not useless!!"
"Sakuya, please-"
"Shut up or I'll strangle you!" she screamed again.
"You crazy bitch", I murmured tearfully.

I got her off me. She tried to hold me back, but I ran away.

****
I'm not sure how far away I ran. Maybe a couple kilometers. In the end I was so tired my legs gave out and I fell to my knees. Why was Sakuya doing this? Why was she getting so angry at me? I didn't do anything to her. It wasn't her that I cut, it was me!

My head was spinning. I leaned against a tree, completely exhausted. I was still dizzy after I got my breath back, my heart was still beating quite fast, and I felt hot. I thought it would be a good idea to sit on a rock. It wasn't. I started seeing stars, my vision got dark, and I fainted. I likely exhausted myself running like some madwoman.

When I woke up, I didn't know how much time I had spent without consciousness. I was laying on my side, still near the tree, and had fallen off the rock.

I had no idea where I was at first, but looking around, I realized I almost ran to the Sanzu's banks. I wanted so badly to jump in it to end it all, but I remembered Sakuya's words. "Who would be protecting this manor if I died?"

I chose to come back home. The sun was high, I had ran in the morning, so that meant I had probably been out for a couple of hours, in that complete unconsciousness and black emptiness. Midway my feet hurt, my wrists were burning. They had hit the ground when I had fallen. Thankfully, they hadn't got infected... yet?

****
When I started seeing the gate, Sakuya was in my place, curled up in a ball, with her head between her knees. She looked... incredibly sad. I came closer.

"Hi, sorry for what happened earlier", I apologized with a sigh.
"It's not your fault, it's me who flew off the handle and almost choked you", muttered my colleague, "I could've killed you, and this is on me."
"No... I'm telling you, it's not your fault", I said.

I listened to the background noise. Patchouli, Koakuma and Remilia spoke.

"Not only Meiling isn't working, but Sakuya almost strangled her", Patchouli complained, "both of them are just being useless at this point."

This one sentence touched my already sensitive heart and I heard as Sakuya, too, started crying quietly. The salty water went back to my blue eyes.

"Why not fire them both?" suggested Koakuma.
"I'm too attached to Sakuya... I've raised her from childhood, and Meiling... she's like a relative to me, I couldn't really think of leaving her in the cold", murmured Remilia. "I wonder where she ran away. I hope she'll be back."

I remembered my tears as I was running for my life to the Sanzu, without looking where I was going, without thinking, with just the wish to die and escape. This liquid, like water, was pouring out of my eyes when I blinked.

"I'm scared for her", Remilia resumed, "I'm scared she might have jumped into the river or something happened to her."

My mistress had no idea I was back there, of course, I was behind the pillar with Sakuya.

"I can't fire them both. They mean too much to me and even if they do things wrong, I like them as they are, both of them."

The vampire's words warmed my broken heart. I did not have the strength to continue. I went back to the manor, said hello to the three girls, and went back to my quarters. I felt myself getting paler, something was off.

****
I couldn't hold on. Entering my room, I fell onto my bed and slept for a long time. I did not even have lunch. I was so tired, exhausted, beyond belief. It was just the end for me. When I woke up, I had a bite and then went back to guarding the manor. Marisa probably went into Patchouli's library with Aya and Reimu. God, these are always making a mess. The reason why I would fall asleep at the gate was that most of the time, no one was there. I was bored, and even practicing my martial arts, I couldn't fight off this boredom that was always taking over me. I liked to garden, I even loved it, but it never really equaled the walks in Gensokyo I liked to take from time to time.

Yet something was tormenting me. I wasn't sure what it was, but it had been bothering me for a while. I told Remilia I would be off and ran to the lake.

The wind was calmly blowing, flattening the grass. I laid down close to the lake and looked at my reflection. It was, again, the reflection of a useless worker, someone who didn't know how to do things right. I still had in my pocket the shard of glass, but I held myself back from taking it out and cutting more. I had enough cuts already. I just looked at it and sighed. How stupid I am sometimes.

It was so beautiful outside, the birds were singing, two or three yokais were walking around without seeing me... sometimes a butterfly would flutter around and bees were harvesting pollen from flowers. I was happy, it was like a secret garden, even if it was nowhere near the happiness I felt in my native China.

I remembered Sakuya curled up, crying, all of this because of me. I shouldn't have called her a crazy bitch. Now it was my fault she was shocked and sad. My tears started flowing again, dropping into the lake, creating little circles on the surface that were drifting further and further away, with a slight wave. I had been so stupid. I had apologized, but I still felt guilty... how could I make Sakuya smile again?
 

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ETierhuman

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