Archive of Our Own

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Hi. For obvious reasons, I go by an alias. My name is クズちゃん. Kuzu. I am writing this here as a draft, since I don’t have a keyboard. This is to write down my thoughts and experiences. If you’ve read No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, maybe you’ll like this. Though, unlike in his time, I have characters to refer to, so you can have a better understanding, in a way.

This work won’t be finished until I turn 18. This is kind of like a diary, I guess, to see what people have to say online, since therapy doesn’t help much.

Each chapter is like a diary entry, and I mention some characters every now and then. 

So I ask this question at the end of every chapter;

What does it mean to be human?

Chapter Text

I don’t remember too much of my childhood, but I remember growing up, I never felt a real connection to any person, animal, or thing. I had no community, no home, no sense of belonging, anywhere I went. Since the moment I could remember, I knew I wasn’t like the other kids. My parents often told me they were worried because I spent most of my time alone. The other kids often complained about how quiet I was. Eventually, I learned the art of mimicking.

When they were bought a toy, made a new friend, found something new or interesting, they smiled.

When they got hurt, fought with other kids, watched a sad scene in a movie, they cried.

When they didn’t get something they wanted, got yelled at by parents, couldn’t do a difficult task, they pout or throw a tantrum.

When they saw someone hurt, an injured animal, saw another sad kid, they had this look that I couldn’t quite out my finger on.

I started doing the same, even when I felt indifferent to the stimuli. I taught myself to smile or laugh when my parents did something fun with me, I taught myself to cry when I saw a sad movie, I taught myself to cross my arms and pout when someone took something away from me, but I could never learn how to show that I cared, even though I didn’t. I did feel pity, though. I would see two kids fighting over a toy, with one ending up crying, and I’d pity them. Maybe if they were stronger, I thought.

My whole life, I’m just a skin walker, mimicking the behaviors of my peers and adults to understand the way they think. I knew that people cry with sad things, and laugh with happy things, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t feel what they felt, even when I did the same. Like a blackhole in the middle of my heart, sucking in all the information without understanding any of it. A deep, dark pit of emptiness was the only thing that filled my “heart”.

I used to think that hearts were literally ♡. I’d absorb every person I met, changed the kind of “person” I was hundreds of times. I saw an extroverted girl, I was extroverted. I saw a rough boy, I was rough. I saw a calm teacher, I was calm. Who was I?

In middle school, while scrolling on media, I came across an anime called “My Hero Academia”. By now, I’m already used to the “hero and villain” tropes, and of course, I wasn’t surprised when I found the main character to be ambitious, kind-hearted, and heroic. A particular character struck with me momentarily, a poor, misfortunate girl who was outcasted by society for the way she was. I felt connected to her in the sense that we both didn’t have a sense of belonging, and a hard time understanding what true human relationships are like. My hopes of finding a character to match my symptoms were pointless, though, since I found out she still feels belonging within her villain group. That, and she feels emotions, regardless. She finds salvation, etcetera. 

Poor me, with no real connection to another person, not in the past, and not now. I’m sure there is someone, fictional or not, who understands this kind of emptiness while watching other people bond and form relationships, laughing and crying without a deep pit of pure nothingness. Someone, who understands the feeling of being a walking shell, a skin walker, a mirror.

What does it mean to be human?