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As an Oosuzuki, Kurara knows that she will always get the best of the best. It’s the role of peasants to do the job of sifting, to separate the wheat from the chafe, but she will always get the best of the best in the end. That is why, when her parents wake her up the morning of her twelfth birthday, she doesn’t start.
(Her parents do not actually come to wake her up. They are exceedingly busy people. With only 16 waking hours in the day, not a single second can be wasted with useless stuff like waking up early to tell your daughter happy birthday. They will come to her during afternoon tea.)
Kurara doesn’t even reach for her mask. She is old enough, strong enough, to wear it all the time. Kurara knows that people are always talking about it. She knows that she’s getting old enough that people have been asking her parents why she hasn’t grown out of it yet.
The servants lead her across the lawn, to the mansion that had been taken shape over the last few months. Because she is an Oosuzuki, construction is silent. They have the best workers that money can buy, the type of workers that get something more than money. For some, it is prestige, for others honor, for a few, their freedom.
They lead her inside and Kurara understands it piece by piece.
It is her birthday gift: something of her own. A palace to manage according to her whims.
Her parents visit her for afternoon tea, judging her command. She forces herself to raise her head with pride.
“Your father gave me quite the gift, Oosuzuki-chan.”
Kurara stares at her teacher, purses her lips so she can hide her elation. Introduction to Mechanical Physics had been one of the hardest classes she had ever taken, yet was also the most fun class. It is the only class that has made her feel like the Oosuzuki name was worthless, the only class to reteach her the worth inherent to her name. No other class would make her happily schedule a meeting with the professor on her birthday.
Being an Oosuzuki meant struggling to be the best, constantly fighting upstream, doing the impossible over and over and over again. It meant winning. Even if the fight was difficult, even if there were times where she was sure that she would fail the class. (Though, in the grand scheme of things, she is still close to failing. But she no longer fears it.)
Being an Oosuzuki meant carving yourself into the best.
“I have mentioned your class to him,” Kurara replies, slightly bowing her head to him. Oosuzukis only bow to their betters, those further up in the clan hierarchy than themselves. Likely, he would not understand the great concession she had just made.
“I am aware,” Her teacher says, “And I have to say, talking with him was a pleasure. We talked about a lot, I had been aware of your family’s interest in mechanical physics, but I hadn’t know how deep it went. I promise you, you will have a chance to continue on your family’s legacy.”
As he keeps talking, Kurara understands. This is her birthday gift: a perfect score and a letter of recommendation from her most difficult class.
A wristwatch sparkles on his wrist.
It shines even brighter than her.
She wakes up in the middle of the night in a home that has one occupant and an owner who is not her, on land that she did not earn, in a world that has never gotten to see her.
She wakes up in a pool of searing hot sweat. She tries to take a deep breath and cannot. Her throat hardly expands, the mask cinched tight against her neck. To remove it would be to tear her own head off at the root. To be headless is to be maskless to be maskless is to suffocate. She is suffocating she cannot suffocate she cannot be—
Kurara wakes up in a pool of cold sweat. She tries to take a deep breath and cannot, the mask has caught on her blankets and presses down on her throat. She twists it a bit to adjust it and breathes in air that has long grown stale.
Kurara always wakes up gracefully. Even if she is no longer an Oosuzuki, she still has her pride. She doesn’t snore like Kyoshika does, doesn’t toss and turn like Nozomi, she sleeps calmly and restfully.
Since she is no longer an Oosuzuki, there is no army of staff to make her breakfasts in the morning. There is no ironed clothes waiting for her, there is dust collecting in the corners of the room.
One of the hardest parts of no longer being an Oosuzuki, of just being her, was the little things like that. Things were always messy because she never cleaned them and Nozomi was tired and Kyoshika never cleaned well. Something could break and there wasn’t a free repairman at her fingertips so it would remain broken for weeks. There was never a fresh meal waiting for her when she woke up.
Most of the time.
When Kurara wakes up gracefully, a puddle of dried drool on her pillow, the dust will not be swept away and their windowpane will still be broken but there will be a breakfast waiting for her. It will not be a complex breakfast, or a particularly good one.
It is not her birthday, it is not a birthday gift. It is not a surprise that she is getting a gift, seeing as she gets one every time she wakes up beside them.