A pile of papers slammed Baba Haru in the face. He fell backward onto the sidewalk outside Yoko Oni High School. There was a group of angry students in front of him.
“What the hell?” he asked, “I was just giving you the papers you dropped.”
A girl answered, “You obviously took them! I can tell just from looking at you that you were up to something!”
Another student said, “You should check to see if something’s missing. This delinquent probably stole something.”
With a huff, they left him behind. Haru got up from the ground, brushing the dust off his body.
“My first day of high school, and it’s exactly what I expected,” Haru mumbled to himself.
A memory flashed in his mind. It had been years, but Haru still remembered it like it was yesterday. He remembered the moment the old witch told him the story.
Once upon a time, there were a husband and a wife. They lived together in happiness; however, the wife was afflicted by a terrible illness. Out of desperation, the husband went deep into the woods and begged a witch for a cure. His family was poor and he couldn’t pay her, so the witch asked for his firstborn child instead.
The husband agreed and the witch gave him a potion. Sure enough, his wife was cured. Time passed and they had a child. The witch noticed it and waited for them to deliver him to her. She waited and waited until she decided that they were going to shirk their deal. Out of rage and anger, the witch cursed the child with a curse so powerful that even she could not undo it.
“And then they gave you to me anyway. They took longer than I thought they would,” an old woman told Haru, “So, it was a bit awkward.”
“You put a curse on me, grandmother?” the younger Haru was shocked.
She rubbed the back of her head, “Well…yes. It’s a pretty bad curse too.”
“Will it make me fall into a deep sleep? Will it give me some disease? Will it make my hair fall out?”
“No,” his grandmother explained, “This curse makes people hate you. When they meet you, they will assume that you’re the type of person that they hate the most. This can be overcome if you break through that hatred or they learn about the curse, but that won’t be easy. And there’s one more thing.”
The old witch took in a deep breath, “This curse will make it so that women hate you more than men. So, I hope you’re gay.”
Haru remembered how horrible the curse made his middle school life. Teachers constantly accused him of cheating on tests. He told the principal about the curse and he called Haru a liar. It was three years of frustration and rejection.
“I hope that things get better in high school,” Haru sighed, “People should be more mature here.”
He stepped into a bustling classroom and looked around. A few students stood out. There was a bored teenager who looked young for his age, had lean muscles, and hair dyed shoe-polish black. Two girls chatted about the student newspaper. A young woman’s eyes darted side to side as she circled around the room before tossing her flaming red hair and taking a seat. With meticulous care, a boy dressed in formal clothing was writing on one of the several small strips of paper on his desk.
Haru’s eyes were drawn to a girl that sat next to the windows. She was watching a black car pass on the road. Most of the class surrounded her and were trying to seek her attention with praise. There was a little gold katana pinned to her lapel. One of the students addressed her as Keiko.
Haru was deciding where to sit when he felt a hand grab his shoulder, “You! I need to talk to you!”
The teacher spun him around and their eyes locked.
She poked a finger into his cheek and said, “I know your type. I can tell just by looking at you that you’re a delinquent, a troublemaker.”
He held his hands up, “I promise you that I’m not a delinquent.”
A pair of students with their uniform jackets open and chains for belts walked up behind the teacher. One of them was short and the other was tall. They had hair that stuck directly up and was gelled into spikes.
The teacher said, “Don’t give me that. I know your type. You can forget the sweet-talk.”
One of the students behind the teacher rubbed an eraser in chalk until it was pure white.
“Umm, there…” Haru started to speak.
The teacher cut him off, “Shut up and listen. I’m warning you to stay out of trouble. I can’t stand troublemakers like you.”
The student behind the teacher threw the eraser in the air, and then he and his friend ducked behind a desk.
As Haru watched the eraser fly into the air, he said, “Oh, no, not this again.”
He saw the eraser bounce onto the teacher’s head in a poof, sending a cloud of dust over her face. When it cleared, the eraser was resting on her head like a cat and she was covered in white chalk.
For a moment, there was silence. The teacher wiped the chalk from her piercing eyes. They gazed into Haru’s with hatred. More silence.
The teacher grabbed his cheeks and started pulling on them, “How the hell did you do that? I didn’t even see you!”
“I swear, it wasn’t me! It was…”
“Don’t lie to me!”
After getting chewed out by the teacher, Haru sat next to the two students who threw the chalk. Haru listened in on their conversation.
“I can’t believe she thought he was one of us!” the tall one said.
The short one replied, “I know! He’s such a putz!”
Once again, the tall one spoke, “Having a goody-two-shoes like him be mistaken for one of our boys is an embarrassment.”
“Yeah, but we showed him!”
The two of them laughed.
Haru gritted his teeth. They were affected by the curse. The difference was that they were delinquents. Haru felt that revenge was justified.
A pair of girls sat next to the delinquents. The delinquents looked right at them.
“Hey, babies,” the shorter of the delinquents said, “You wanna go cause some trouble?”
“We can get you all sorts of things,” the tall one stated.
Seeing his chance, Haru whispered an incantation. As he uttered the final word, the gel on the delinquents’ hair solidified into cement. It cracked and broke apart, shattering their hair into pieces. A breeze flowed through the room and blew the bits of hair away.
The two girls started laughing.
“Hey, what’s so funny?” the short delinquent asked.
A girl just pointed at their heads.
They both reached up and felt their scalps.
The short one looked at his friend, “Dude, you’re bald!”
“So are you!” the tall delinquent shouted.
“No, no, no! How can we get chicks now?”
“Hold on, do you have a wig?”
“What the hell would I carry around a wig for?”
Haru chuckled as he looked at them. He had to keep it quiet or they might suspect him. Still, he did have some hidden words.
“Morons,” he whispered to himself, “You really should be careful who you mess with.”
Ved'ma Story 