Chapter Text
Yuuji was born as the first twin in a set, as was his father and grandfather. And just like them, the younger twin was killed and the older left to live. That is the resolution their village has agreed upon when twins are born. The older lives, the younger dies.
As a trait passed through the paternal line as far back as their village records go, it is no surprise when Yuuji’s elder brother’s wife becomes rounder and heavier than the average in her pregnancy. She must be pregnant with twins. Everyone thinks it, but none say it. To her face, at least. After all, they have no way of being certain how many she is pregnant with, nor if all will be born alive. It is optimistic to think one of the twins could be stillborn, because then she wouldn’t have to go through the heartbreak of one being killed.
The day comes too quickly for Yuuji’s tastes, and she is whisked away to a pit-house with their local midwife for a forty-hour labor as the villagers prepare the celebration. The youngest villagers weave baskets from hardened lotus stems and the eldest sew small blankets and clothing for the baby’s arrival. Yuji, along with the other young men, work extra hours in the paddies to make up for the others and ensure they have enough crops to send off to Fuji-Taki at the end of the month.
They all feel it at once. Each of the men pause. Yuuji looks up at the little hill their village houses are built upon, and the sun slowly setting beyond it. The twins have been born, the equilibrium broken, and now the youngest must die.
“Go on, Jiro.” One of the men says, rubbing a thumb at the center of his chest where the imbalance can be felt. The older men must find the transition difficult, and they want Yuuji to get rid of it as quickly as possible. So Yuuji walks back to the village and he’s uncharacteristically out of breath by the time he stops outside the midwife’s house.
It is with silence and a lowered head that the midwife places a baby into Yuuji’s arms, wrapped in a blanket tightly enough that its little arms can’t shift the fabric when it tries to move. For now, it stays quiet, rocked along in Yuuji’s arms as he walks the path past each pit-house and toward the outskirts of the village where he can perform the lotus-return ceremony. That peace is destroyed by the banging drums and shrill flutes that emanate from the village’s center where everyone must have already gathered to celebrate the eldest child’s birth. Eleven years ago, that was Yuuji, but now he is the one carrying the youngest away.
The baby cries loudly, startled by the sounds, and so Yuuji refocuses on rocking and walking down the path. His attempts to soothe don’t help at all, and by the time they reach the shrine there is a little splotch of wetness on the fabric covering the baby’s face. Yuuji sighs and leaves the fabric where it is because he knows the baby won’t be alive much longer. Tears and drool on a blanket won’t matter then.
“Your body is not needed here, but your soul can be freed.” Yuuji says gently, the same words his grandfather said when performing this ceremony. He sets the bundle down onto the flower-covered ground in front of the shrine, slowly so as to not hurt or discomfort the baby any more than necessary. Leaving Yuuji’s arms only makes it cry more, but Yuuji tries to ignore it and continue: “I will return your soul to the lotuses…by separating the body from soul.”
Yuuji sighs again, and closes his eyes for a moment. And when he speaks again, it is off-script. “Please don’t be sad.”
The baby keeps crying.
“You should be happy. The afterlife is easier than this, no? The gods will embrace you, you will never toil in the fields or feel the pain of injuries and illness. Isn’t it good? You will be loved.”
Yuuji kneels in front of the baby and gently tugs the fabric away from its face so it won’t be waterboarded by its own tears. He shouldn’t, because now he knows what the baby looks like, and when he kills it, he will never forget. This is the mistake his grandfather warned him of, but Yuuji still thinks he can go through with the ceremony if he just calms the baby down first. “How can I do this when you are so upset…” Yuuji mumbles, using a dry portion of the fabric to wipe the baby’s face dry as well as he can. Though the rest of its body is still covered in the bundle, Yuuji can see dried spots of blood around its neck and the top of its head. The midwife must not have washed it before handing it off to Yuuji.
For a third time, he sighs. But now it is because he knows his job has just been extended. The funeral rites can only be done with a body that has been purified, and cleanliness is a part of that. He tries not to be frustrated with the midwife for giving him an unclean sacrifice, but it really is disrespectful to the gods. So Yuuji picks the baby back up and walks through the light pink flowers until he reaches the nearest pond. There are a few cranes sipping from its water, but they leave when Yuuji arrives.
He can still hear the drums from the village rattling through the dirt beneath, and so the baby won’t calm. By the time Yuuji has dipped it into the water and wiped the blood remnants from its skin with the blanket, it cries and cries and cries. Yuuji lifts it from the water and pulls off his own nae-eboshi hat to cradle it in something dry. And, for now, Yuuji doesn’t return to the shrine. He stays by the pond and does his best to bring some sort of comfort.
He rocks the baby, hushes him, hums a little tune, and even tries singing a lullaby, but none work. Then he tries splashing some water to district him, making stupid faces to get his attention, and playing peekaboo, all of which get no reaction at all. By now, the villagers will certainly wonder why Yuuji hasn’t done the deed yet. But he can’t. He just can’t send the newborn off into the afterlife while it is crying so much.
“Ah, what can make you happy..? Do you cry because you miss your mother? Do you cry because you have a sense of what is coming? I’m telling you it is for the best that you die, when you should never have been born in the first place.”
Yuuji lifts the baby and cradles him closer so his tiny head is against Yuuji’s shoulder and his fingers fist into the pale fabric of Yuuji’s hitatare. Only then does he quiet down. Worried that the baby will get finger-cramps, Yuuji pries one of his fists open just for the baby to immediately grab onto Yuuji’s finger instead.
Yuuji frowns, regretting. Oh, he is regretting so much. He should pull his finger away, but he can’t bring himself to. Minutes pass, and the cranes slowly return to sip from the pond again while Yuuji and the baby quietly sit at its edge. Yuuji hears a rain-like pattering, so he looks toward the village again to see hundreds of lotus flowers falling from the sky to celebrate the elder brother. But there is nothing for the younger brother in Yuuji’s arms.
He gently pulls his finger from the baby’s grasp and pushes its forefinger and thumb together as if he is holding a teeny tiny calligraphy brush. Then Yuuji points the little hand up toward the sky and zig-zags it in a Z shape. Pink ink follows the movement, smearing as if painted onto paper several feet above them. As the pink fades away, five little lotus flowers splash into the pond water in front of Yuuji and trick the cranes into thinking there are fish to eat. “Oops.” Yuuji giggles, watching as the cranes come closer, pecking at the water uselessly.
Yuuji lowers the baby’s hand back to his collar, and it instinctively grips Yuuji’s hitatare again. “It seems you can do something I can’t, little guy.” Yuuji says quietly. “I can’t make lotus flowers like everyone else can. But look at you…you can make flowers just like you’re supposed to.” Yuuji trails off with a soft hum, watching the cranes. His grandfather taught him how to perform funeral rites because he can’t create flowers like everyone else can. Yuuji should be able to do something with a communal purpose, his grandfather had said, and so Yuuji became the perfect unlucky one. He was the only one not blessed with the ability to create flowers, so it is only natural that he take on the unclean task of preparing funerals and killing extra offspring far away from the village where no one else must hear it crying.
But Yuuji heard the baby cry. He saw his face.
When Yuuji walks back to the shrine, he sets the baby down in front of it and pulls out the knife from his hitatare’s waistband. Slowly, to keep the baby from freaking out again, Yuuji draws the blade close to the baby’s neck.
When the baby squirms and his neck skin presses up against the blade, Yuuji instinctively pulls it away so as to not hurt him.
Yuuji has to force himself to put the knife up to the baby’s neck again, but he feels unwell. The mere thought of sliding that blade across the infant’s neck makes Yuuji pale. He sets the blade down and adjusts the nae-eboshi he had cradled the baby in so it is over the baby’s front rather than his back. Quickly, while he can’t see the baby’s face, Yuuji grabs his knife again and presses it against the fabric just above the baby’s neck.
But he is hesitating. And that gives the baby enough time to be annoyed by the fabric and start crying again.
Yuuji frowns at the baby. His fingers tighten around the blade. And then he tucks it back into his waistband. He picks the baby up, shifting the nae-eboshi to his bottom again, and then holds him to his chest.
“I guess this is what they mean when they call babies brats.” Yuuji mumbles, the familiar timbre of his voice calming the baby in his arms. “I’m supposed to send to you to become one with the lotuses again, but you don’t want to go, do you? Ah, what can I do? It must be a sign…you must know you should be here?” Yuuji nudges against the top of the baby’s head. “The gods must want you to stay. Yes, that’s it…if I harm you, it would be an affront to them.”
The previous anxiety and frustration gives way to a renewed sense of purpose. It must be the gods’ will that this baby stays alive, and even the baby must know it on a subconscious level to keep crying when Yuuji is about to send him back to the lotuses.
With this knowledge, Yuuji carries the baby back toward the village. People stare and crowds part and his elder brother’s wife looks horrified. Even the people banging drums and blowing flutes stop and stare.
Because Yuuji’s grandfather never brought back a baby sentenced to death when this was his duty. The man before him never did it. No baby had ever been spared, but Yuuji has already decided he won’t let this one die. While everyone is shocked into silence, he says: “This child cannot die.” And it draws surprise from every person around.
His elder brother is the first to speak. “It cannot die? You mean - it survived the cut?”
Yuuji shakes his head infinitesimally. “No. I…didn’t cut him.” The surprise turns to varied anger and confusion, so Yuuji elaborates. “I took him to Sakuya-hime’s shrine, and he cried each time I tried to cut him. Sakuya-hime must have him under her protection. There must be a reason the gods wish for him to live, right? We must take care of him, and let him live.”
Yuuji sees dissent in the villagers, but he also sees belief. Yuuji believes his own words, too, and they would understand if they had experienced what he did. The gods might not speak directly, but he can recognize the signs when they come.
“...Did you give him the wrong one?” A woman asks, pointing at the midwife. “Did you mistake which twin came out first, and give Jiro the wrong one?”
Yuuji’s sister-in-law is fear-stricken, clinging to the baby she has been holding for more than an hour now. “But - I - no!” She turns away from the crowd slightly, as if afraid they will try to switch her baby out with the twin Yuuji is holding.
“I made no mistake.” The midwife says quickly, but it’s, again, a toss-up as to who believes her. “The mother was holding her firstborn already when I gave the second to Jiro!”
“Then the gods must want both to live.” Yuuji’s elder brother says quietly. Because no one wants to hear that answer. The lotuses in their village can only comfortably support a certain number of people, and bringing just one more life than intended into the world has already thrown its equilibrium off. Yuuji felt it in the way he panted when walking uphill toward the shrine and the slightest ache in his left bicep from holding the baby. They can all feel their lowered life-energy.
The old man Mokichi motions out toward the rice paddies. “How will we have enough energy to work? If our yields are lower than the Zen’in family expects, then they will most certainly punish us. Some will be imprisoned, or hands will be cut off.”
“We must push past our limits, then.” Yuuji says, as if it is simple. And Mokichi looks at him like he doesn’t believe a word from Yuuji’s mouth. “It is possible. The gods wouldn’t give us an impossible task.”
Most of the villagers are unhappy, but willing to concede. None will risk angering the gods when their lives teeter on the edge of being smushed by the greater empires surrounding them. And even those who think he lies just mumble it among themselves and glare at him from across the paddy and village and ponds each time he sees them.
Yuuji keeps the baby tied to his back with a cloth, and he’s sure that doesn’t help. Now, when anyone looks at him, they see the baby no one wanted. After a week, there is no naming ceremony, and so Yuuji walks back up to that shrine in the darkness of night, after the paddies have been tended to and his back aches from having a new weight upon it for so many hours.
There, he sets the baby down at the very bottom step of the shrine and he prays for the safety, love, and future of the baby. He prays to have the instincts of a mother, or at least the quick-thinking of a full-grown adult. Well, Yuuji had his coming-of-age ceremony two months ago, so he is technically an adult. But he doesn’t feel as mature or intuitive as he should, especially when it comes to taking care of a baby by himself.
The next thing Yuuji prays for is a name. The village has decided not to give this baby a ceremony, but he must have a baby name.
The very first name to pop into his mind is Kippoushi, and he thinks it must be a sign from the gods. Yes, the gods must have put that name into his mind. Yuuji looks down to the baby then, now wrapped in a tiny and simple imitation of a hitatare Yuuji got from one of the older village women, and gently touches the back of his pointer finger over the baby’s head. “You’ll be Kippoushi. Just for now. And now to celebrate!” Yuuji takes the baby’s tiny hand and forms his thumb and pointer finger into the shape of holding a calligraphy brush. With a simple movement, pink paint coats a portion of the sky and lotus flowers fall so prettily.
Unfortunately, a few land on Kippoushi and his little limbs jolt in shock. Then he starts crying. “Ah, sorry, sorry!” Yuuji says, his arms flailing for a moment before knocking the offending flowers away. “Ahhhh, you’re so easy to scare, little guy. Afraid of sounds, afraid of your own art, what am I going to do with you?”
Yuuji is too exhausted to pick Kippoushi up right now, so he just lies down next to the shrine, about a foot between him and the baby. He offers his finger and Kippoushi clamps his fist around it, squirming like a little worm as he slowly calms down.Yuuji could fall asleep here, but he doesn’t trust Kippoushi to stay in the same spot even though he’s only a week old.
“Watch this.” Yuuji says softly, using his free hand to form the shape of a calligraphy brush and paint a line across the sky. Unlike everyone else, the paint that appears is so black it blends in with the night sky beyond it, and no flowers fall. All it does is cover the sparkling light of a few pretty stars. “Did you see it?” Yuuji asks. If Kippoushi saw it, he doesn’t react. Yuuji supposes that’s fair.
He isn’t sure how to talk to Kippoushi. Ever since he can remember, he has been out in the rice paddies, or helping pack it up to send off to Fuji-taki as tribute, so he doesn’t see how mothers talk to their newborns. Yuuji just talks to him like any other person his age. He isn’t that much older than Kippoushi anyway, so perhaps they will be friends one day. Yuuji has an uncle who isn’t much older than himself, too.
Kippoushi starts his whining again, and Yuuji crinkles his nose. “Please tell me you didn’t poop yourself on the shrine.”
Yuuji hates cleaning Kippoushi because it’s gross. But Kippoushi was offered to his mother and the next couple in line to have a baby and they all refused. He could have been offered up to more people, but Yuuji begged and pleaded to take him, so their village leader conceded. Undoubtedly people believe Yuuji wants Kippoushi simply because he is Yuuji’s nephew, and maybe that is part of it, but Yuuji also wants Kippoushi because he wants to protect him. Yuuji’s village duty is to send the unwanted back to the flowers, so he is the ideal person to take care of a baby the gods wish to live. But there’s also a growing worry in the back of his mind that the other villagers might try to hurt Kippoushi to balance the equilibrium, and Yuuji feels better having Kippoushi in his sights.
So even though Yuuji is unmarried and eleven-years-old, he has his own pit-house and thus the kid is his now. He might not know how to take care of a baby, but it isn’t the worst. Food is for the rich, and everyone else survives off the life-energy the flowers give them, so the baby doesn’t need to be fed. He just needs to be watched, given attention, held in the night when he cries, which is multiple times every single night. Yuuji thinks it’s worth it to have done the gods’ will.
And he is tired often, from the lack of sleep and the lower life-energy, but he is also young enough to recover in a few hours of sleep. It’s certainly a more difficult life, but he can handle it.
The others, though…
Yuuji sees their exhaustion, especially in the older men and women. They’re slower, they take more breaks, they aren’t as thorough as they should be, and they are angry. Each time the baby cries or coos from his spot on Yuuji’s back, Yuuji feels the eyes upon him and the mumbles of frustration from old people who don’t realize how loud they talk. Or maybe they do, and that’s the point.
Surely it won’t last for long. Old man Mokichi is in his fifties, so Yuuji thinks he will die soon and the equilibrium will be balanced again. But a year passes and he is still alive, as is everyone else in the village. There is no drowning in the water, no illness to wipe out a chunk of their population, and no jealousy-fueled murder. It should be a blessed year, but there is simply an aching weakness in everyone’s chest that grows larger as the baby does. Their village is getting weaker, but the fields stay the same.
As the sun falls and the sky darkens, Yuuji doubles back through the paddies, checking the water levels. Today isn’t the first time he must clear some weeds and leaves from drainage, and it will become even more common as the older villagers grow more exhausted. Just as Yuuji has gotten the drain working again, ten lotus flowers drop from the sky, right atop his head and into the water. “I told you not to do that when we’re in the paddies.” Yuuji sighs wearily, knowing his words don’t mean much to a one-year-old who has discovered the art of conjuring flowers from the sky.
Yuuji bends back down, now adjusted to the weight of a kid tied to his back after a year, and starts tossing the flowers out of the water so they won’t clog up the drainage again.
There’s a babbling, then a giggle, and then Yuuji feels dozens more lotus flowers fall from the sky above them. At least this time Yuuji is already crouching, so he just tosses the flowers out as quickly as possible before Kippoushi can conjure more again.
Digging into the water disturbs the mud, so when Yuuji’s fingers wrap around something unfamiliar, he can’t see it until he pulls it out of the murky water. It’s smaller than the palm of his hand, mostly red, and with some green leaves sprouting from its top. Yuuji turns it around in his hand, briefly wondering if someone lost a token, or if this floated into the water from another village. Curious, Yuuji squishes it and it smushes like a berry, but one he has never seen before.
He kind of wants to eat it. Is that bad? He’s really hungry and this thing looks like food.
No. All the people in his village are tired. Maybe if more of these things appear, then Yuuji will try it. For now, he decides a visit to his elder brother is in order. Maybe he will know what the fruit is.
Kippoushi is quiet as Yuuji steps up to his brother’s pit-house. The door is made of twine and straw, its shape kept by a few pieces of stronger wood, and Yuuji easily pushes it open. His brother is inside, but so is his father, though his back is turned. When Yuuji and his brother make eye-contact, Yuuji nods once and dips out of the house to sit just in front of it while the two men continue whatever conversation they were having. Yuuji unwraps Kippoushi from his back so the little guy can stretch his legs a bit. He is a bit delayed in walking skills due to how long Yuuji carries him around each day, and it does make Yuuji feel guilty. But it’s worth it to know Kippoushi is safe.
“And how’s the wife? Is she taking care of the baby well? She must return to labor soon, because we need her. We need anyone we can get, even the younger children should start labor sooner, but the clan head won’t listen to my advice. If we aren’t careful, we’ll have a smaller yield this year, and who knows what the Zen’in family will do then…” blah blah blah.
Yuuji’s father has a habit of rambling to anyone who will listen. For the past year, Yuuji has heard this conversation a thousand times before, and he can tell by his elder brother’s lackluster response that it’s probably tiring for him, too. So Yuuji tunes them out to focus on Kippoushi instead. He gently grabs Kippoushi under his armpits and holds him up so his feet are touching the ground. Out of respect for his elders, he doesn’t speak so as to not distract them from their own conversation, but he does beam at Kippoushi when Kippoushi smiles at him.
Kippoushi’s feet are pretty firm on the ground, but he still can’t quite hold his weight up when Yuuji starts to release his hold. Well, he’ll just keep doing this until Kippoushi figures it out.
“And what about Yuuji?” His father’s voice catches Yuuji’s attention, locking him back into the conversation within the pit-house. “He’s a disappointment, hm?”
Huh. His father might not know Yuuji is sitting just outside, but his elder brother does. It’s only for a brief moment that he expects to be defended before the understanding settles in that his brother would never openly disagree with an elder. “Not any more or less than anyone else.” Is his brother’s answer. Yuuji feels his chest tighten, hurt that quickly turns into anger even if such a meagre response was to be expected.
“He failed his very first lotus-return ceremony, and now he carries the child around with him everywhere. It cannot even walk yet, and it doesn’t play with the other children. He should just give it to one of the women who knows what they’re doing.”
“...The baby plays with others when Yuuji returns from the paddies. And Yuuji is playful, too. He is young enough to have a lot of energy.”
“Young, yes. All the more reason he shouldn’t be taking care of the child. And he shouldn’t perform another lotus-return ceremony if he can’t do it.”
Yuuji doesn’t hear whatever his elder brother’s response is because he is already walking away with Kippoushi in his arms. He knows the older villagers are struggling to keep up with the physical labor as Kippoushi grows older and thus takes up more of the lotus’ energy, but he believes their anger is misplaced. Returning to the lotuses is a good thing because it returns life-energy to the rest of the clan and allows a new life to be born and sustained. Maybe those old people should go die, then, so Kippoushi can live easily. Doesn’t he deserve a full life like they have had?
Yuuji huffs, stalking off toward the hill where their village shrine is located. He was designated as the one to perform the lotus-return ceremonies, so he is the closest connection to the gods. The gods wanted him to keep Kippoushi alive whether the villagers believe him or not.
“I’m glad you can’t speak yet. So you cannot know the way they treat you.” Yuuji says roughly, unable to hide his anger. He sets Kippoushi down at the bottom step of the shrine and lies down next to him, looking up at the sky. The stars are bright tonight, and the sight of them soothes his soul just a little bit. “I will tell you a story; will you remember it when you’re older?” He asks, and when Kippoushi rolls onto his stomach to look at Yuuji, Yuuji takes that as an affirmative. “That stupid old man was your grandfather, but don’t pay him any attention. Your great-grandfather was a better man. Ever since I can remember, he never treated me like less than anyone else due to my inability to create lotuses. He taught me how to perform several ceremonies at this shrine, and he let me take his place as the village priest when he died. I’ll teach you how to perform them, and I’ll never treat you as less-than. I’ll be a good, honorable man just like him, and I’ll protect you.”
Yuuji sits up a bit, just enough to point at the nearest pond. Kippoushi looks at Yuuji’s hand, not where he is pointing, but that’s good enough. “See that? That’s where I washed you when you were only an infant. That water is pure, and so it’s the best place to purify yourself, too. That’s just the very first thing you should know. Got it?”
Kippoushi babbles something. Yuuji thinks Kippoushi understands.
It’s getting so late now, but Yuuji stays a while longer because he knows Kippoushi needs this time to crawl around and expend some energy or else he won’t sleep well at all. Boredly, Yuuji presses his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger together and aims it at the sky. It’s the same form he has seen everyone else make, and it’s the same form he pushed Kippoushi’s fingers into, but when Yuuji paints across the sky, no lotuses fall. The paint is black rather than pink, and it fades away without anything happening.
Yuuji does it several times in a row. He tries shifting his fingers, too, but he has tried that hundreds or thousands of times in his life, and nothing changes. His fingers are shaped perfectly, his angle toward the sky is perfect, he moves his fingers just like brush strokes, but it always ends up the same. Black ink fading into nothing.
With a huff, Yuuji looks down at the pond and paints over that. One long ink stroke covers the pond in deep black, and Yuuji feels the change before he sees it. The wind is knocked out of his lungs and his heartbeat stutters as his body tries to adjust to the drastic decrease in life-energy. Even the edges of his vision start to black out and he thinks he might actually just die here on the spot while trying to blink the black edges away. By the time he can see fully again, the black streaks of paint have faded, leaving behind a newly bare pond.
Every inch of available space in their village had been covered in lotuses to get as much life-energy as possible. Now that entire pond is empty. The pretty pink lotuses are gone.
Kippoushi starts crying then, loud and wailing. It draws Yuuji out of his shocked stupor, and he picks Kippoushi up. First to comfort, and then to grab Kippoushi’s little fingers and use them to paint a line of pink across the pond.
Roots dig deep into the pond. Fifty lotus flowers bloom in an instant. By the time the paint fades out, the pond is perfectly normal again and a rush of life-energy returns to Yuuji’s body, though his heart is still beating quickly in a mixture of anxiety and adrenaline. He scrambles toward the pond with Kippoushi still sniffling and crying in his grasp and reaches into the murky water, searching for the original lotuses.
His fingers wrap around something thick and pull up a blackened, withered, and wrinkled lotus flower. Yuuji has seen lotuses dried for decoration or cut for celebratory food, but he has never seen one withered and dead. Not one that has been rooted into the ground. That doesn’t happen. Every person on earth can create flowers, but they can’t kill them.
With a jolt, Yuuji realizes two things at once: destroying flowers must be the worst possible affront to the gods and everyone else in this village certainly felt that rapid drop in life-energy, if only for less than a minute.
Yuuji closes his eyes as guilt washes over him so thickly that he almost feels the need to purify himself with the pond water. But right now, he doesn’t feel like he deserves that. “Oh…” Yuuji pushes himself up, heading toward the path leading back to his village. He feels like he is in trouble before he even gets back there, and for good reason. If people already didn’t like very much, he can’t imagine how they will feel knowing what just happened.
As he suspects, people have wandered out of their huts, some in confusion and some in anger. When they see Yuuji walking down from the shrine trail with a withered lotus in his hand, they quieten and stare. He expects someone to throw a stone at him or try to drown him in the shallow water surrounding them, but somehow they don’t. The silence just makes him feel like some kind of beast or demon.
He walks up to his clan leader’s pit-house, his head down, and waits. Footsteps come closer from behind him as the other villagers form a small crowd that Yuuji is too anxious to look at. When the clan leader steps out, face-to-face with Yuuji, Yuuji speaks first. “It was me.” He says quietly. And then louder: “It was me. I didn’t know - I was just painting on the sky and nothing was happening ‘cause I can’t make lotuses-”
“We know!” Someone yells, their voice cracking at the end. Yuuji wonders if this will really be the end. They might just kill him at this point.
The clan leader raises his palm at the crowd, trying to keep them quiet for now. Frustrated chatter slows and eventually stops, but Yuuji has a feeling it will just start back up again once he continues speaking.
The clan leader taps the bottom of Yuuji’s chin with his fingers, so Yuuji looks up at him. Matataro is in his thirties, with eyes as large as Yuuji’s and hair as pink as Yuuji’s. Even his smile, when given, is just as bright as Yuuji’s.
Right now, he looks just as confused as everyone else. “What happened?”
“I was trying to make lotuses, and, um…I painted over a pond and all the lotuses died.” Several people yell different things at once so Yuuji yells over them: “But Kippoushi fixed it! He made the flowers grow back, so - so everything is fine now-”
“He is lying.” An old woman says, loud and confident. “I guarantee the child did this and Jiro is simply lying for him.”
The only thing stopping Yuuji from yelling at that woman is their age difference. “Do you think I cannot prove it?” He asks instead, enunciating every word harshly.
“No!” Another villager says. “Are you trying to kill us? Don’t destroy any more flowers, you fool.”
“Well, what can I do if you accuse me of lying and won’t let me prove it?” Yuuji asks, becoming increasingly frustrated. That starts off an entirely new argument amongst the villagers. They bicker around whether Yuuji is lying, whether he should prove it to them, whether he should be smacked for lying, and whether Kippoushi is some kind of curse instead of a blessing.
Matataro rubs his forehead with a heavy sigh. “Stop.” He says, too quietly. And then louder: “Stop!” Only when everyone is quiet does he speak at a lower tone again. “We cannot let ourselves be divided by dissent. It is a crucial time of year, and the ambassadors from Fuji-Taki will come to collect our yields soon. If we fall apart at this critical time, it could be the end of our people completely. If the Zen’in family punishes us for having a small yield, we will have much worse to worry about than whether a twelve-year-old is lying.” With that, he places his hand onto Yuuji’s shoulder and leads him back to the path toward the shrine. “Come. You will prove it to me alone, and only on one flower.”
Yuuji wants to leave Kippoushi with someone, perhaps his elder brother, but he is too afraid one of the villagers will lash out at him. So Yuuji just tries to comfort Kippoushi while they walk back up the little path. He can feel the people’s stares at his back and it makes him feel like he has already been cast out of the village.
“I’m sorry.” Yuuji mumbles, stepping up to the nearest pond.
“Sorry for…what? Did you really lie?” Matataro asks, staying one step behind Yuuji.
“No, I just - I’m sorry for making trouble. But…I can prove to you that I am not lying.” Yuuji kneels down with a grunt because he has been carrying Kippoushi around with one arm for a while now and it’s starting to get tiring. Still, Yuuji scoots close to the pond’s edge and uses his two fingers to paint a black mark over a single lotus flower. Even this close, the paint is far too dark for Yuuji to see the lotus wither, but he feels the dip in his life-energy immediately though it is nothing like destroying the entire pond of lotuses. When the paint fades away, Matataro reaches into the water and pulls out the wrinkled lotus. His thumb rubs roughly across a petal, testing if it is really dead, and it crumbles away like ash.
Matataro is quiet for a long moment as he handles it more carefully, shifting it around as if studying it. It seems like he doesn’t believe what is happening and Yuuji can’t blame him for that, but it is real. And it is right in front of their faces. Matataro lowers his hand back into the pond and lets the lotus drift down into the murky waters. “Hm.” He rubs his chin, staring down at the ripples. “So you only discovered this ability tonight?”
“Yes.”
Matataro waves his hand and a simple streak of pink paints over the withered lotus’ spot, easily replacing it with a new one. Pink, fresh, and beautiful. “A curse.” Yuuji says quietly. “For me to destroy something that gives without taking, that has sustained our people, it must be a curse. The gods must be angry with me.”
“Hm.” Matataro hums simply. “Have you tried this on flowers from another clan or village? Does it work on theirs, too? Or only ours?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s go, then.” Matataro says, pushing himself up and walking past the pond, away from the shrine. Yuuji realizes with a cringe that Matataro is heading west, toward the border between Ume-Mae where the Gojo family rules and Fuji-Taki where the Zen’in family rules. On the westernmost edge of Hasu-Ike’s territory, one can see the border between Ume-Mae and Fuji-Taki as it spans out into the horizon. Yuuji used to go there when he was younger, just to imagine what it would have been like to be born into royalty rather than a commoner.
But going there now scares him. “Wait!” Yuuji tries. “Why are we going to the border? You don’t really want me to erase the flowers of other empires, right?”
“Just one, to test it.” Matataro replies simply. It worries Yuuji, but he doesn’t think defying the clan leader is a good idea. The clan leader of such a small village might not have nearly the same power as an emperor or even a lord in one of the big three massive territories, but he still has far more power than a semi-outcast like Yuuji.
Besides, Matataro is a lot older than Yuuji and he has been the clan leader for most of Yuuji’s life. He has kept them alive, and he let Kippoushi live, too. So Yuuji should trust his judgement.
When they reach the border, Kippoushi is asleep as he should be at this hour, though this would be a good sight for him to witness: the very boundary between Fuji-Taki to the south and Ume-Mae to the north. Fuji-Taki is known to have high mountains and billowing waterfalls, so the massive wisteria vines wrapping around every tree in sight and dripping down toward the ground in cascades makes Yuuji wish he could see the waterfalls from here. They would probably be beautiful with wisteria looming above them. Looking to his right where the Ume-Mae territory begins, the land is covered in short and skinny trees with dozens of little branches filled with white plum blossoms. Ume-Mar is the territory that spans farthest north, and it is known to be covered in snow. Yuuji has never seen snow before, but he imagines it looks like those little white plum blossoms.
The last time Yuuji came here, it was with a stark feeling of unfairness. Because the wisteria is a vine that can grow on any sturdy plant and the plum tree can have hundreds of small branches. Both are tiny, tiny flowers and Yuuji can probably count more than ten-thousand on each side from this vantage point. The pond by his shrine has about fifty lotuses in it. By nature, the lotuses cannot sustain as many people as the sprawling wisteria and tiny plum blossoms.
It is by the gods’ will that Yuuji’s Hasu-Ike grows such large and terrain-specific flowers, but sometimes Yuuji simply does not understand why the gods would do this.
It must be because they know the people of Hasu-Ike are strong and resilient enough to handle a harder life.
“There.” Matataro says, pointing at the nearest plum tree. “Try it on that tree.”
“The whole tree? But shouldn’t I try it on just one flower first? They’ll notice…”
“There are half a million people in the Ume-Mae territory; they won’t notice. Or they might just think there has been a birth of triplets or quadruplets somewhere in the territory. No one will think there is a person who can destroy flowers. It’s unheard of.”
“But…shouldn’t I do it to the wisteria instead? We are allies with the Zen’in family, so they wouldn’t try to hurt us if they found out what we did, right..?”
“We aren’t allies with the Zen’in family.” Matataro says, shaking his head. “We are their tributary. We give them rice and lotus and they protect us from the chance of Ume-Mae attacking us. If we destroyed their wisteria, then we would lose their protection and they would probably kill us all without repercussion. On the slightest chance that the Gojo family discovers we have destroyed their plum blossoms, they will be at war with the Zen’in if they attack us, so they won’t do it. Do you understand? It’s better to destroy a plum tree.”
Yuuji still hesitates. But he concedes quickly. He doesn’t really understand foreign affairs like Matataro does. So he supposes Matataro must be correct. “Okay. I just - um, let me get the right angle.”
Because Yuuji certainly does not want to accidentally paint over several trees at once and kill them all, he must ensure he only destroys one.
Yuuji takes a few steps into Fuji-Taki territory so he is facing the plum trees head-on, but not too closely. He is still uncertain about the limits or abilities he has. He doesn’t know if it can destroy an entire tree or simply strip it of its flowers, and he doesn’t know if it can destroy hundreds of flowers at once or-
Yuuji’s view becomes two-dimensional when he forms his fingers into the shape of holding a calligraphy brush, like looking out at a canvas, a landscape painting. He uses one stroke from the bottom to the top of a single plum tree and a streak of black follows.
By the time the streak disappears, the plum tree is dead. It’s wrinkled, twisted, and still standing up by mere luck. Each flower has shriveled, and would probably just disintegrate if touched. It’s ugly. Against the green grass and the other healthy plum trees, the dead tree is a blight.
But as Yuuji feels guilt well up within him, Matataro lets out a breath of amazement. “This is a blessing.” Matataro says. “You are a blessing. Do not forget it.”
“Huh? Really?” Yuuji feels a swell of happiness overtake the previous guilt. Is it so easy to see this as a blessing, he wonders. And could the rest of the village see it as a blessing, too?
“Yes.” Matataro has never sounded more confident. “Listen, tomorrow you will be absolved of paddy duties. Leave Kippoushi with his mother and meet me here again at dawn.” Yuuji nods, his heart beating with excitement. As they turn back down the trail leading toward their village, Matataro places his hand upon Yuuji’s shoulder. “And don’t worry about Kippoushi’s safety. After tonight, I can swear no one will hurt him nor you.”
Yuuji returns to his pit-house with a mixture of excitement and guilt. He isn’t entirely sure what Matataro has planned, but he seems so confident. Matataro always has Hasu-Ike’s best interest in mind, so he will make the right choice, even if it means Yuuji must destroy the gods’ most beautiful creations.
Because the gods would not have given Yuuji this ability if they did not intend for him to use it.
When the next day comes, Yuuji scrams off to the border where Matataro and a few other young men are. They have already dragged the dead plum tree into their own village territory and chopped it to bits for firewood, which is quite hard to come by considering how wet Hasu-Ike’s terrain is.
Today must be the first day since Kippoushi’s birth that Yuuji hasn’t lugged him around in his arms or on his back. It feels like only the first weight of many to come off his shoulders today. Seeing Matataro’s optimistic smile incites Yuuji’s own. “Jiro, look.” Matataro says, pointing out at the vast land of plum trees leading into Ume-Mae territory. “I want you to destroy ten more trees. Then we will go out, cut them down for wood, and dig out a pond to fill with lotus flowers. Understand?”
Yuuji nibbles his bottom lip, looking out at the trees. “Ten is a lot…that’s at least a thousand plum blossoms to be destroyed, right..? Are you sure they won’t notice?”
“Their land is too vast for us to even imagine. They won’t notice.”
“Well…” Yuuji takes a step toward the border again, stuck between uncertainty and excitement.
Matataro touches Yuuji’s shoulder again, and squeezes. He gives Yuuji a smile and with how similar everyone in this village looks, Yuuji can imagine it’s his father smiling at him like this. “Don’t worry. I told you I won’t let anyone hurt you, right?”
Yuuji nods. Again, he steps into the Fuji-Taki territory to get a better angle on the plum trees. With two strokes of his fingers, he etches off ten trees closest to Hasu-Ike’s territory.
He wonders if they feel it. If they do, does it come immediately like it did for Yuuji when he destroyed the lotuses in that pond? The worst case, Yuuji imagines, is that the people of Ume-Mae will experience a tiredness that seeps into their bones and a deep irritability just like Hasu-Ike has had to experience in the past year. It won’t be any more than a nuisance, he thinks.
So Yuuji helps the men chop at the dead, blackened trees and he carries several batches of firewood back down to the village while the others dig out a new pond in their new territory.
New territory. Yuuji wonders what it would be like to have been born in one of those big empires with hundreds of thousands of people and flowers to support them. Just one extra life has felt difficult to sustain here; what would it be like to have more life-energy than one even knows what to do with?
Yuuji walks up and down the path several times. First transporting firewood, then bringing buckets of water to fill the pond-hole they have dug.
He feels it when Matataro paints over the pond and dozens of pink lotuses sprout up, fully grown and blooming. It feels like Yuuji has been breathing through one nostril for his entire life and only now able to breathe fully. Yuuji takes a deep breath, lets it out, and takes another breath.
He has been up and down this hill tens of times today, but he feels like he could run up and down a thousand more. It’s not just a return of the equilibrium they had before Kippoushi’s birth, this is more than they have ever felt before. All from one extra pond of lotus flowers. The equilibrium has swung in the opposite direction, and perhaps that is the gods’ gift for Hasu Ike’s hard work over this past year.
Yuuji lies awake that night with Kippoushi a few feet away on the other side of the pit-house. Sure, he has some extra energy he has not expended today, but there is also fear lingering inside him that has yet to quell. It’s hard to sleep when he is afraid of Ume-Mae sending people to come kill them all. But that line of thought always leads Yuuji to trust Matataro’s promise to keep him safe. And the Zen’in family, too; they wouldn’t let anything happen to Hasu-Ike. That’s what Matataro said.
Still, it takes a week of nights before Yuuji can forget about the fear of consequences.
And then the contentment sets in, deep inside Yuuji’s chest. The entire village seems happier now. Within two months, things have changed so vastly; the paddies are properly tended to, people sing instead of gossip, another couple has gotten pregnant, and best of all, they don’t treat Yuuji like an outcast anymore. Even if a part of him still wants to be bitter, he really can’t. Because at the end of it all, he’s just happy they have accepted him again. They see him like the gods do: a blessing.