Empress new clothes
The wind was blowing and the sky was clear when Kagura walked on the road, on the outskirts of the city, completely alone.
It was a concrete road surrounded by endless fields of grass, only decorated by a few signs and powerline poles here and there. There was a flock of cranes flying above, and in the distance was a bridge with cars passing over it, but few were crossing the road that the young woman was walking on.
Kagura looked around her, her short black hair hair flowing lightly in the wind, and her light green eyes scanning the area to see if there was anyone nearby. After seeing there wasn't a person in sight, she took a deep breath and started walking more swiftly.
She had something to do.
“God, I'm so stupid for this,” she thought to herself. “I'm even stupider than that guy in my class who thought Mussolini was a type of dessert”. Even though she wasn't the most talented student, she still knew more than him, or most of the boys in her class, to be frank.
“But even then, those boys who probably never do this”
She thought this as she started to pick up the pace ever so slightly, and took off her hair braid, followed by glasses. It made it hard to see, but for this moment, she could manage.
She had made up her mind on what she was going to do, despite knowing how…..unbelievably stupid it was. But still, she wanted to do it, just so she could feel free.
“I always felt a bit constrained by my school uniform” she thought as she glanced down on said uniform, usually a symbol of youth and pride in her country, but to her it was a prison.
she stopped for a brief moment to take off her shoes and socks, the shoes making clicking noises when hitting the ground.
The sun has begun so ever so slightly set over the horizon, giving the sky a pastel, almost surreal colour.
She began to take, or rather tear, off her school uniform, leaving them on the ground in a disheveled manner,
as she began running faster she remembered how trapped she felt in her daily life. By the school, her parents, and society at large, all of which suffocated her in order to live up to what someone like her was supposed to be like. And how everyone around her seemed to just….not feel the same way. But, just for this moment, in this instance, all of that didn't matter, as for the first time in her life she felt truly free.
Her bare feet hit the concrete road, and her breath began to pick up, her heart racing as she went farther and farther away from the city, reaching the outskirts soon enough. On a hill nearby layed a large supermarket, which Kagura passed by.
“I really hope no one saw me,” she thought to herself in a slight moment of embarrassment, before removing her last article of clothing.
She was not entirely free, in her mind.
The sunlight reached out and graced her skin, her hair flowing freely in the wind, her vision almost being blocked by her tears, but they were not tears from grief, but from joy.
Now, nothing and no one could hold her back, she was as free as a person could ever be, at least in this one moment.
Eventually she reached a large lake, where she jumped in to feel submerged by the water, and after half an hour or so decided she was ready to go home.
When she was walking back, picking her discarded clothes up along the way, she saw a red panda in the grass, which looked back at her, their eyes locking.
She slowly reached out to call for it, like you would with a cat, and surprisingly enough it came closer, allowing her to pet it.
This made her very delighted, as she always liked smaller animals, in part due to their cuteness, and also admiring their freedom.
“Thanks for letting me pet you” she said quietly as the red panda disappeared into the grass once again.
She put back all of her clothes and went back to the city, sad that she had to go back to her normal life, but happy she had finally found an outlet for her inner emotions.
God this was so dumb” she chuckled to herself.
“But…..it was fun, perhaps i should do it again sometime”
THE END
