Gyokko had long since forgotten what his name had been when he was human. It was only a label not worth remembering anyway.
Born in a fishing village to parents who were both fishermen, he and his family were not even entitled to a surname.
Their family lived on the edge of the village, closest to the sea.
His parents left early and returned late. An only child with neither playmates nor toys, Gyokko took to collecting fish that the waves washed ashore by their door and playing with them.
He hid the fish in corners of the house, only taking them out to throw away once they rotted and began to stink.
Later, he took to chopping the fish he found into pieces with the kitchen knife, then stitching parts of different fish together with a needle and thread.
The fish took on new forms once stitched together. Looking at those grotesque dead fish, the young Gyokko felt certain yearnings within him satisfied for the first time.
And so he began experimenting with stitching all sorts of things together.
Fish from the villagers' baskets, dogs that vanished from the village without explanation-the more alive they were, the more beautiful the results were after he stitched them together.
He heard that a child from the village had been sent to town to apprentice at the Pottery Shop. He eagerly ran there too, only to be rejected for having "no artistic sensibility."
Artistic sensibility? Gyokko was puzzled.
So they brought out the child's drawings for him to see and showed him the pots they sold in the shop-though, of course, the display was meant less for him than for the villagers gathering around.
Looking at the things they called "beautiful" and "artistic," Gyokko suddenly understood, then took off running home.
He