White Moonlight

The light was clear and soft, with a cool chill to it. Like a silver ribbon, it drifted from very, very far away, passing through layer upon layer of darkness, through the walls of his palace, and through the shadows around him before falling on the ground in front of him.

He had never seen light, nor did he know such a thing existed in the world.

He crouched down and stared at the small white patch of light on the ground, watching it tint a little of the surrounding darkness a gentle gray.

Then, carefully, he reached out a finger and touched the light.

Cool.

The light climbed up his fingertip, over the back of his hand and up his wrist. He snatched his hand back as if shocked, held his fingertip before his eyes, and turned it over and over.

He was not injured, nor did he feel any pain. He only felt that the light had left a tiny trace of warmth on the pad of his finger.

At the time, he did not yet know the word "warmth."

He only knew that when he touched the light, the heavy feeling in his chest had suddenly eased, as though someone very, very far away had sighed on his behalf.

He wanted more.

He stood and looked in the direction the beam had come from.

The light passed through the layers of darkness in his palace, through the silent shadows he had molded, through countless stretches of void he had wandered, and on beyond his sight.

He did not know the way or which direction to go, but he had come from the darkness in the first place. Everywhere he went was dark.

But there was light ahead.

That light was so thin, so weak. Before his darkness, it was so small as to be almost insignificant.

He could swallow it up simply by releasing a little shadow.

But he did not want to swallow it.

He wanted to catch up to it and see where it came from.

He wanted to ask it:

"Who are you?"

"How did you come to be here?"

"Do you know what I should use to fill that empty place in my heart?"

And so, he began to chase the light.

He ran through the darkness and swam through the void, passing through star regions he had never set foot in and crossing asteroid belts he had never seen, chasing a slender ray of moonlight...

Only later did he learn that it was called moonlight, and the one who gave it off was called the Moon God.

At last, he caught up to the light.

It disappeared into a silver-white lake.

Boundless and clear to its depths, it was like a bright mirror ruffled by the wind, reflecting the entire universe.

And the light he had chased all that way was merely the most insignificant ray in this expanse of moonlight.

That day, the Moon God was resting beside his Moonlight Pool.

He reclined against the jade steps beside the pool.

One hand supported his temple, his sleeve slipping down to the crook of his elbow and revealing part of an arm bathed in moonlight until it was almost translucent. His eyes were closed, and his eyelashes cast two small, fan-shaped shadows on his face.

His moon-white hair was unbound, spread out behind him. A few strands trailed into the pool, floating gently in the moonlight. The surrounding moonlight gathered around him of its own accord, wrapping his shoulders and covering his knees like a thin silver fleece blanket.

That was the scene he saw when he emerged from the darkness.

He stood there in a daze.

It was not that he had never seen beautiful things.

The darkness had a beauty of its own.

Silent, solemn, and majestic.

At that moment, he felt he could spend his entire life looking at this scene and never grow tired of it.

Without thinking, he took a step forward.

The Moon God opened his eyes.

It was the first time their eyes met.

Two pairs of eyes.

One was a clear silver-white, reflecting the light of the entire Moonlight Pool.

The other was a deep darkness, concealing tens of thousands of years of loneliness.

The silver-white eyes, a little dazed at being awakened, blinked twice.

The dark eyes were staring blankly.

He did not know what expression he was wearing.

He only knew that when those eyes looked at him, the place in his chest that had been empty for he knew not how many years

was suddenly filled with something warm.

The Moon God tilted his head and studied the uninvited guest, his gaze shifting to the dark trail behind him that marked the path he had followed.

"Did you come chasing my moonlight?"

"Yes."

His voice was hoarse, dry from not having spoken for a long time.

After saying it, he felt the answer was too stiff.

He hurriedly added:

"I didn't know it was your moonlight. I didn't mean to chase it. I just..."

He could not go on.

Just what? Just thought the light was beautiful? Just felt the heaviness in his heart lift when he touched it? Just thought that if he did not chase it, he would regret it for the rest of his life?

The words went round and round in his head, yet he could not get a single one out.

He simply stood there in silence, like a stone cut from the darkness with nowhere to put it.

The Moon God watched him for a while and gave a fleeting smile.

He saw it.

Not only did he see it, he engraved it in the deepest part of his memory.

From then on, every night he spent alone, he would bring it out and recall it again and again.

"So it was you. You chased it from so far away."

The Moon God rose from the jade steps and walked barefoot across the ground paved with moonlight until he stood before him.

He was half a head shorter than the other, and tilted his face up slightly to look at him. Moonlight filtered through his hair, spreading in a thin silver layer at their feet.

"How long did you chase it?"

"...I don't know."

He was telling the truth.

In the darkness, time had no meaning.

He only knew he had chased it for a long time, but not how long. It might have been a hundred years, or a thousand.

The Moon God smiled again. Then he reached out and touched a fingertip to the other's forehead.

"You followed a beam of light all the way here, chasing it for so long. Just to see what the light looked like?"

"Was it worth it?"

He wanted to say "yes," but he did not say it aloud.

The word was too light, too light to do justice to the journey he had made in pursuit of the light. He only nodded, very firmly, like a child afraid of being taken for a liar.

The Moon God withdrew his finger and turned to walk back. After two steps, he looked back again.

"What's your name?"

"...I don't know."

"You don't have a name?"

He shook his head.

He had been born of darkness, and no one had ever given him a name.

He had only learned that such a thing as a "name" existed from the civilizations along the way as he chased the moonlight.

The Moon God raised his head and glanced at the night sky overhead. The other had brought this night sky with him.

"Night. You are Night."

The Night God lowered his head and looked at his hands.

He was not yet used to being watched, much less to being named.

The darkness that had lain quietly dormant in his palms was stirring slightly. But it was not a desire to attack. Rather, it was an utterly unfamiliar stirring, one he did not know the source of.

"Night," he repeated.

The Moon God answered, "Mm."

At that moment, the darkness that had lain silent for tens of thousands of years finally found its name at the end of the moonlight.

Night.

From then on, another figure was always at the Moon God's side.

He was the Night God.