Us and the countdown

(1)

Toji sat beside me, facing me, his posture habitually tilted forward. He looked either slightly hunched or perpetually poised to strike.

It put me on edge, too, and I straightened my back a little more.

"Here I go."

Like someone giving the signal before a race, I let out a long breath and began carefully searching the cardboard box that might hold our last shred of hope.

Toji had found this box under the bed. By the time he pulled it out, its outer shell was already on its last legs. The dark brown cardboard seemed as fragile as the last thin connection holding shattered glass together.

That was why I handled it so cautiously, afraid that one careless tug would send it hurtling toward destruction, taking its precious contents with it.

The box held all sorts of documents belonging to Yuanyin and Toji. Full of hope, I picked up their marriage certificate. I had only opened the first page when I began regretting not taking everything into my room to search through on my own.

The photograph of their love, officially sanctioned by law, had been neatly cut in half. All that remained was the man, wearing a rare, awkward smile for the camera.

That smile must have been full of happiness back then. Now, with someone missing, it looked lonely and absurd.

Clearly, the person who had cut the photograph could not have been the man beside me, his body rigid and his expression evasive. From the look of things, he had known about it for a long time.

Yuanyin, I don't understand why you did this. Didn't you love him? Did loving him mean making sure he knew in advance that you would leave one day? Then making him spend all that time before your departure counting down the days?

My heart broke for Toji as he looked at it.

(2)

In my fourth reincarnation, Yuanyin and I faced an age of upheaval.

Every day, we saw samurai dragged off the streets to fight monsters. During the Sengoku Period, widespread conflict broke out between humans and demons. It was a struggle over cities, over race, and over humanity's place in the world.

In an era when your home and family could be destroyed at any moment, every human lived in fear-except Yuanyin.

Sometimes, I truly thought she was an aberration among human fighters. While humans were forced to prostrate themselves before monsters because of their innate racial disadvantages, Yuanyin could take Jinchūmaru and make renowned great demons kneel before us, listing the scant good deeds they had done in their lives. Then they would appeal to her emotions and reason, trying to sway someone who could never be held hostage by morality.

Yuanyin killed plenty of monsters, and she also got us into trouble time and again.

Once, a great demon who had founded her own kingdom captured us and confined us to a palace that reeked of dog.

Let me clarify: this was not some form of punitive torture. It was because that demon was a dog. A beautiful, enormous white dog.

Princess Tsukuyomi.

That was how she introduced herself to Yuanyin.

She was a demon so beautiful that even the moon could not resist bestowing its power upon her.

Powerful beings always appreciated one another. She and Yuanyin hit it off immediately, and after fighting for three days and nights, they became friends who could complain to each other about their lives.

She was Yuanyin's first and only friend.

Princess Tsukuyomi was married with a son, while Yuanyin was unmarried with a daughter. Neither had the slightest idea how to look after children, so they entrusted that task to me, a newly minted ten-year-old.

According to Yuanyin, I was the most reliable adult in her world.

Deemed worthy of this weighty responsibility, I was sent to Princess Tsukuyomi's son.

I was still innocent back then. He's a kid, I thought. A few stories should keep him occupied.

But when I actually stood before Sesshomaru, this "child," who was a hundred and eighty centimeters tall, of unknown weight, and over a hundred and fifty years old, knocked me to the ground with one punch.

Then, with an intensity of emotion he would probably never display so freely again in his life, he hurled at me the words monsters most often used when invading human cities: "What a vile, disgusting human."

I was furious. I pulled out the Fenrir Assault Rifle and charged straight at him.

Fenrir, otherwise known as the fire-breathing dragon that gave people stomachaches.

Sesshomaru was a monster, but he was also a puppy who had yet to reach full maturity. He could not maintain his human form all the time.

So I burned the dog's fur, and the dog held a grudge against me for a lifetime.

He really did hold that grudge for a lifetime-mine, at least.

That was about the extent of our dealings. After Yuanyin and I left Princess Tsukuyomi's palace, we had even less to do with each other.

Until one day, much later.

By then, Yuanyin was bedridden, and I was nearly eighteen. While I was out buying medicine for her, Princess Tsukuyomi arrived with her son.

I knew that, to monsters, human life and death had always been little more than idle amusement. Like the rich making jokes about the poor, heaven's favor kept them securely above everyone else, looking down with disdain.

But Princess Tsukuyomi was different that day.

A bond that could make a great demon who had lived hundreds, nearly a thousand years, sob uncontrollably at someone's bedside must have come from being uniquely cherished-from knowing she was someone's one and only.

While they talked and cried, Sesshomaru, still a child by demon standards, did something unprecedented: he struck up a conversation with me.

He said Princess Tsukuyomi had not been doing very well lately.

With the air of an old sage, I told him that was just how life was for demons.

He went on to say it was because his father had found a new love.

As someone who had seen every facet of life, I told him that was just how males were.

A trace of anger edged his cold voice. "Father married that human woman and never entered Mother's palace again. Are humans really so wonderful that he would abandon Mother for one?"

Suddenly, I could no longer offer a glib response.

The Sesshomaru I knew lived like a demon without feelings. His mind seemed to have room for nothing but becoming stronger. It was as though his life consisted of one straight, broad road, with nothing at its end but the vague, elusive goal of strength.

Why become stronger? If someone had asked him then, he would probably have stayed silent. He did not know. Even at over a hundred years old, his understanding of a demon's values was frighteningly blank.

Yet that trace of anger in his coldness was like a narrow, winding path suddenly branching off that straight road. No one knew what lay at its end, but I was certain the scenery along it had to be more beautiful than that empty, elusive goal.

We were not friends, but in that moment, I was willing to take my time and listen to him seriously.

(3)

The resentment Sesshomaru spoke of concerned race, but to me, the meaning beneath his words sounded more like abandonment.

He told me that the marriage between his father, Tōga, and Princess Tsukuyomi was essentially political.

Among the families of great demons who established their own kingdoms, marrying someone and having a fling were two different things.

Three years passed between Princess Tsukuyomi learning that Tōga was intimately involved with a human woman and Tōga marrying that woman.

A three-year countdown. How had Princess Tsukuyomi endured all those days and nights?

Sesshomaru was still young. He said he did not understand.

I knew what he meant: he did not understand whether there was love between them.

In truth, I did not know either. I did not know whether Tōga loved Princess Tsukuyomi.

But I believed Princess Tsukuyomi had love in her heart. If she did not, she would never have stayed beside me, day and night, keeping vigil over the dying Yuanyin.

If death counted as abandonment, then Princess Tsukuyomi and I had endured a nearly year-long countdown to abandonment back then.

That was why I could understand how Toji felt now.

(4)

I shoved the box of documents under my bed. When I finished, I found Toji still sitting blankly in the living room.

I thought the memories had swallowed him again because of me. I had to bring him back out. He had only just managed to start looking ahead.

I changed clothes, then fed Megumi, making sure he would not go hungry.

I took the initiative and spoke to Toji. "Let's go out to eat."

He sat on the sofa in a daze, then belatedly nodded. Still wearing the same clothes, he changed his shoes and followed me out.

Kanagawa was frighteningly quiet at night, especially the East District where we lived. Aside from a scattering of streetlights that still marked it as part of modern society, everything had a rural feel.

As we walked down a road scented with flowers, I instinctively took the outer side, keeping him safely on the inside.

Toji came back to himself a little and asked, "Where are we going?"

"A new fried chicken place opened nearby. I want to try it." Watching his expression, I added, "They also have fries, fried meatballs, and Hamburger."

At the mention of Hamburger, Toji's eyes slowly began to focus.

Inside the restaurant, the warm aroma brushed against us like soft cotton, bringing a comfort that seeped from the outside in.

Toji and I found a slightly out-of-the-way table and sat down. We ordered, waited, and were served.

I watched his expression and his eyes without letting it show. Once the food arrived, he began coming back to life, little by little, like a blade of wild grass meeting welcome rain after a long drought.

I pushed the food on my plate toward him, too. I was not hungry at all. Yuanyin's departure had robbed me not only of most of my emotions, but also of my sense of taste.

From the moment she died, my sense of taste had gradually faded. By now, I could no longer taste anything.

Food could no longer heal me, but it still could for Toji. He was lucky.

Seeing that I was not eating, he looked at me in confusion as he chewed his Hamburger. "I can't eat any more," I explained. "Go on, eat."

I watched him finish, then fold his arms and look around. I noticed every searching glance, every flicker of loss.

He was thinking about Yuanyin again.

He wanted to eat here with her, to share the atmosphere with her, to tell her about that last delicious bite that had nearly made him bite his tongue.

No, that's not right. I'm clearly thinking about her, too.

We had rested enough. It was time to go. I paid, and Toji and I once again plunged headlong into the darkness, leaving behind that warm orange glow and cheerful atmosphere.

The walk home was a little cold. When I tried to take the outer side again, a pair of large, strong hands gently guided me to the inside of the road. Then his tall frame quietly shielded me from all the chill of the approaching autumn.

Was he protecting me so discreetly because, at that moment, his heart was breaking for me, too?