@tomoe.mikage

[jinshi]

I need advice on how to pretend to be human.

Comments

[variate]

So not just flexibility, but freedom.

[ it's not a dig, but curious. he fought a god that wanted to control people. ]

[jinshi]

I had freedom when I was a wild fox. It was violence. Freedom meant killing as I pleased and wandering in search of more violence to entertain myself. As much as I sometimes miss those simple days, they became... hollow. It isn't that I lack freedom now. It's that I have purpose; I exist for a reason.

But perhaps, by your human standards, the fact that youkai are bound by their natures means they lack freedom. If you define freedom as change, though it makes no sense to me. A konaki-jiji lures in humans with its cries and crushes them to death with its weight. The sunekosuri gets underfoot and trips humans. Osakabehime wanders the halls of Himeji Castle forever, and she will never leave it. All of this is simply the way that we youkai are.

[variate]

[ to him, it sounds like a cage. there were expectations of those adults and schoolmates who had made their decisions about him, but he was never defined by those expectations.

though an odd thought crosses his mind: was this what it was like to be a shadow? ]

Would it be easier if I showed you?