Mistake

I come from a superstitious family. This is an understatement.

Out of my 4 siblings, I was the second to last, and my two older sisters' age gap was too large for me to have known them well enough to say anything about them. They had moved out of the house before I was born. Their names were Hikari and Akiko and that's all I know.

The moment I was born, my mother screamed, or so my grandmother told me. She would never fail to mention that she was so frightened by what she saw she screamed as well. She would bring a mirror to my face and tell me to look long and hard, and try to tell her if what I saw didn't scare me too.

I was born with a birthmark that covered a fourth of my face and so my name was given to me on the belief that I was a mistake, a name much different from my siblings. Machigau. But soon after that, I was given a nickname. Not because they were endeared, but because the name I was given was too long and strenuous on their hateful tongues.

Chigau. The accusations only got worse when my little brother was born. They got right back on track with names.

We met when he was four and I was eight at a family gathering. Important family-involved events were the only time I was allowed to leave my room. Concealing makeup was pounded onto my face for an hour or two until my birthmark was gone, and then I was allowed outside of my prison to meet my "family." I was never really introduced to any of them, and I knew the occasional one only by hearing their names in conversation. There were too many to really know well at all.

Kibō didn't deserve to be born into this house.

When he met me, he was sweet. It was the very first time I had been treated with kindness in my little life. He had a small voice and was half my size. I loved him instantly. I didn't know he was my little brother until my mother, who rarely took the time to unlock my door and come into my room, hurled insults at me and told me never to speak to her son again.

When I saw him next, he was different. Not in appearance, but in manner.

He did not look at me once. He had become like the rest of them.

~

My room had a small window, much too little for me to fit, just enough to see out into our backyard. The beautiful view was what I spent most of my days looking at. I could watch the koi swim in a pond only a few feet from my window. I could watch, day by day, as certain flowers grew and wilted with the seasons. This was the only thing they never took from me.

On my tenth birthday, nothing had changed. Everyone still despised me. My grandmother came in, a servant following after her, bringing her a chair and a mirror so she wouldn't have to touch anything I owned. She told me the story of my birth again. And forced me to look at and hate myself.

She always chose to come in on my birthdays.

My tenth birthday happened to fall on some holiday of my family's. I only knew this because a servant came into my room and started to conceal my face. This would be the last time.

When I came into the gathering room for the third time that season, I kept to the edges of the room. My eyes found Kibō easily and I watched him as I always did. he was still much smaller than me, but he was bigger than he used to be.

An hour in, he looked back.

His head swiveled back to the position it was in before me saw me. His face flushed a deep red, and I knew it wasn't from happiness, or childish embarrassment from meeting eyes. It was shame at himself for looking. My stomach hurt and I felt as if all the energy was drained out of me. I took a small step back, running into a waiter. If only I hadn't been staring at my little brother.

What drinks he had in his hands spilled all over me. My face melted. Concealer dripped and stung my eyes and I couldn't see.

I was a monster. I needed to flee. I needed to get out of this room.

My small legs ran towards the door and stumbled. My feet caught with eachother and I ran into the wall next to it. The mantle above the fireplace shook. Several urns, several generations, including my fathers, clattered to the floor.

My heart caved in on itself in fear. The stomach ache from earlier grew stronger. I wanted to throw up but fear closed up my throat. My shoulder ached terribly from hitting the wall. Kibō was looking at me. Ghoulishly pale. His brown eyes reflected what I already knew. Monster. Monster. Monster.

Several servants ran to me and escorted me out of the room.

I searched for my mother in the crowd, knowing she would be the one to dole out punishment for me later. I found her, speaking with my grandmother.

She didn't look at me. Not once.