Disclaimer: Mushishi belongs to Urushibara Yuki; thanks as well to Artland Studio for producing such a wonderful anime.
Author's Notes: This story follows the settings and facts shown in the Anime Canon.
This Year's Preparations
He's seen that weird bit of hanging moss before--like dry seaweed at least ten houses high--crawling, like the last time, with Mushi. Or rather, plastered with the translucent creatures, lazily flicking their stubby tentacles in an effort to keep the frost away, emitting faint, nondescript hues in the morning dark. Larvae, most likely--the older ones look furry, he remembers. Cute, almost, because no matter how long he spent wandering the fields of his profession, he could somehow never get rid of the fascination that would make them as familiar as cute things often are. It's good that way--they're his old little buddies, that he hasn't seen in a long while but will always come back to.
Speaking of merry things, he's just passed by the fallen tree with the curved trunk. Really, his territory in Japan is only so big; he might have made it here faster than he did last time. Practice makes perfect, he supposes. Or maybe he has a sudden, un-Ginko need for human society. Or may be he just wants some of that questionable 'good tea' again. He hasn't found any other questionable good tea's aside from hers yet. Perhaps she'd like to hear that; it would make her smile, he's sure.
He wonders if the Mushi think about the opposite sex. Do the Mushi have opposite sexes at all?
A few steps more, and the hill surges up gently in front of his eyes. He'll try to look up gender in the Mushi today in the Archives.
--
She does laugh when he tells her about her tea. A quiet, reserved laugh, but an assertive one nonetheless. She offers to teach him how to make it; he refuses. The tea leaves would grow mold in his travelling drawer.
He doesn't find any information on the gender of the Mushi, too trivial compared to the effects of its behaviour, in the Archives. Perhaps one day he will be the one to help her add that information to the database, she suggests.
I will, he replies, as she sits up slightly from her arm-support, reaching across her blackened foot to take a scroll of paper and draw it open across the worn expanse of the low wooden table. It makes a whisper of a rumble as it rolls, followed by the gentle hiss of the paper as she shifts it into a more comfortable position for her to Write on--more space for her hand to move. The paper is beige-white, and does not smell of the dusty, dry Archive, or of the Ink. The Ink smells human, smells like slightly heated, smooth, tight, healthy skin on a humid summer night, and it does not fade. Tanyuu reeks pleasantly of that smell, but Tanyuu is not the Ink, though Ginko finds it hard to suppose otherwise. He watches her tuck the leaden weight of the blackened foot underneath her, and then tuck the lock of neck-length hair on the same side behind her ear.
(If he supposes otherwise, he supposes that Tanyuu would smell like the stuff she smokes, and the tea she makes--that's a bit like him, smelling of the same smoke and of what the Mushi call food, and what his patients call his miracle medicines.)
I am ready, she announces, after staring thoughtfully at the paper in front of her for a few moments. He nods once, before drawing in a breath to begin his Stories.
He has not discovered what she looks for in those seconds of preparation. She might be scrutinizing the fibres of the paper, barely visible, imagining how they will bind and cage and embrace the rivulets of characterized Ink that leak forth from the ridges of her fingertips and from behind her fingernails. Perhaps that is some sort of technique, some way of strengthening the Writer so that he or she may do battle against the strain of sealing the unruly Ink, against the pain forcing something as intimate as, for instance, a limb, out. He had commented on that once, after a particularly arduous Sealing. Her answering description had been surprisingly literal--simply a diseased leg being amputated. Slowly, she had emphasized--layer by layer of skin, bunch by bunch of muscles and tendons, cord by cord of nerves, tube by tube of blood vessels, splinter by splinter of bone. It is something that needs to be done, although like most sensible creatures, she is certainly, to an extent, unwilling to lose an appendage. Since none in her family have managed to write out every word the Ink has to say, she can only imagine what doing so must feel like, although it is not hard to picture--it would, she tells him, surely feel like what Ginko feels in his legs under any normal circumstances--as if there was nothing there, even though there is. She likens it to death, since in death one feels nothing, compared to the tingling and crawling and twitching and sliding and pain that she feels in her life with the Ink. Or, Ginko supposes, as the Ink, since she is its nurturer, its confidante, its spokeswoman, and perhaps someday, be its mother as the Ink leaves her body cured, unblemished, and stilled.
It is a strange, maybe even twisted perception of life, she admits to Ginko--but she does not, and will never complain now. She is a parasite, just like the Ink, and yet she desires to be free as soon as possible, as the Ink equally wishes.
As his narrative meanders further and further into the darkness of a swarm of Ink-words, the room begins to smell of heated, moist skin on a full summer's night.
--
The Ink knows him. The Ink yearns for him, because he tells the most vivid stories.
She always likes to hear vivid stories.
--
"How do you feel?" He asks, without moving from his seat. It hurts her more to be touched--the Ink is possessive, she has told him the second time he comes to her, when he tries to help her. The Ink is possessive, and she would have it no other way, for then she could be wholly devoted to the Ink in return. She is still young, and still grapples with the Ink, like lovers coming together with firm caresses, or pulling apart with vicious fights. She is however, a patient lover, and in time she will tame the restlessness of the Ink. Then, perhaps she will have the strength to let the Ink go, and release her own impatience. And he will be there, and be patient for her new legs to explore--he who has wandered over every worming foot-wide trail, every sky-wide plain, he who has no doubt stepped in his own footprint at least once before.
"I am fine," She answers between deep, calming breaths as the Ink recedes past her jaw-line. For now, he must be patient like her too. He questions sometimes, if they are too similar to be told apart, if Ginko is Tanyuu is Ginko is Tanyuu and so on, for there must be some difference for curiosity and attraction. He is a male, she a female, they are both diseased. The Tokoyami is a fixed blanket of a presence in the back of his mental perception, and the Ink is a stain that permeates the very fibres of her flesh and bones. All Mushi are genderless (or presumed to be). He can make herbal smokes, she can make herbal tea. They like both. He feels too light without his wooden portable chest, she feels too heavy without her polished wooden crutch. It is warm to lean on each other on a breezy, cloudy spring day, while sitting on the rock that overlooks the field in front of the house.
Ginko is Tanyuu is Ginko is Tanyuu. He doesn't think either of them are narcissistic enough to love.
"You seem to go through this better than the last time I saw you," He comments.
"I've heard--other stories in the meantime. I've had some practice," She answers between reaching for her pipe and lighting it. As she takes a long draw and exhales in relief, she smiles at him. "Your stories can be very difficult to Write as I hear you tell them. Some practice is necessary."
"You've had many, I'm sure--they're building a new town nearby, and I think they're going to clear some wood and dam a river for it. I may come by soon again with more," He replies.
"The more the better," She agrees. In the following lull, he watches her roll up the scrolls and carefully tie the ends with a coarse, plain ribbons. As she sets them on the ground, the scrolls rolled naturally up against each other, small and neat, the Ink within quiet and still like newly fed larvae. "Are you--leaving soon?" She looks up and asks, turning her eyes toward the window.
He follows her gaze for a few moments; outside, the sun is blazing with afternoon heat. "No--no, I'll stay a while. It's too hot to go skipping around in the fields with that monster of a thing on my back," He chuckles, jerking a thumb towards his medicine chest.
She snorts lightly, "I imagine so. Would tea suit the weather better then?"
"But tea is hot."
"Tea is refreshing."
"--If it tasted good."
"Why would it not?" A smile is playing on her plain lips again, and a dare in the tilt of her head and the curiosity of her eyes.
"I have no idea whatsoever why," He grins. "Please, some good tea would be very welcome."
"Of course," She finishes smoothly, the smile not leaving her face.
Tea is served by Tama, ever steady and patient as usual, and still very much a no-nonsense lady, as she efficiently goes through pouring tea to gathering the scrolls to putting down his little jokes with a light harrumph. But he is smarter than that; when Tanyuu smiles lopsidedly at his usual attempts to endear himself to the old lady, he sees a slight loosening of some wrinkles which seem fixed between her brows. Not to say that Tama is not smart -- it takes a smart woman to be able to keep a girl like Tanyuu from the wrong people. Not everyone wants Tanyuu to record their experiences of Mushi for them, and he suspects that not even Tanyuu knows how the Ink would react to being housed indefinitely with a world that they most likely find too large, too foreign. Tanyuu is a smart girl (and will be a smart woman like Tama) and a kind person though; she would not mistreat her multitude of whispering and hissing and crooning children like that. It takes, also, a woman equally competent as Tanyuu to tame the Ink when the scrolls get a little stuffy and the words decide to throw a few temper tantrums. The Ink moves, small and fast in flows of words, and that scares many because words on paper are not supposed to have life -- but not Tama. When those who live nearby or those passing by to share stories catch sight of the flesh of Tanyuu's leg, gorged on the Ink, they look away for fear and pity -- but not Tama. Tama is not fool enough to look away from her duty, just like how Tanyuu keeps the Ink tucked near her thigh all the time as she sits.
As for himself, he is learning fast. Someday soon, he might even cut his bangs; the injury of his missing eye ought to have scabbed over by now, or have formed a scar. (He has never looked after the first time.)
"How is the tea?" She asks after a few moments of tasting.
"Heavenly," he replies, just as she takes another drink. He smirks behind his own cup as she nearly chokes on the liquid.
"I will be sure to tell Tama that," she replies after getting the tea safely past her throat with a light cough.
"Please do. Tell her that I may come by more often just for that tea."
"Then she will start to make the most repugnant of teas. Do not make me suffer along with you."
They laughed together quietly, no louder than the cicadas calling outside, and fell silent together to listen to the latter. After all, they have each heard enough of themselves, in their own time alone.
--
He would not stay for dinner; as soon as tea is finished, he takes his leave of her and her watchful guardian. Outside, the sun is already nearing the western horizon. He can see, as he steps past the main door of the house, a swirl of Mushi in the air flowing gently after the waning light, like moving sunflowers. In the darker shadows made by the grassy field and the lush trees near the house, some fireflies are already making their nightly rounds about the greenery. Back in the courtyard of the house, a few bushes of flowers stand in full, still bloom, the bees having finished with their daily romp amongst the petals. The heated air shows, as of yet, only little signs of cooling, and in the distance, a gentle shower of rain appears to be approaching.
"It might be a warmer summer than the last," she muses as she pauses at the doorway.
"Perhaps it's just because we felt a bit too warm after the tea," he commented, turning around.
"Perhaps. It will be livelier this summer at least -- there will be more stories," she replies.
"True," he says. After a pause of looking at a nearby wink or two of fireflies, he starts again. "Tanyuu -- if you don't mind, may I ask you something?"
She shifts on her crutches, "Of course."
He takes a deep, quiet breath, and exhales just as fully before he asks, "Did you ever touch the Ink as it is in your leg?"
She looks a little startled by his question, but not for long. "Of course," she smiles. "It is part of my body, after all -- why should I not touch it, or fear to or hate to see it and touch it?"
"Indeed," he agrees. " -- What does it feel like?"
Her smile grew wider and, surprisingly (or not, because Tanyuu is, in a sense, a great Mushishi, and a greater human), peaceful. "It is hard, like stone, but not as cold -- it is warm. And it is very sensitive -- the Ink reacts to my touch."
He raises his eyebrows, "Interesting description."
"I am aware of that," she retorts lightly, amused, shrugging one shoulder. "But that is how it is, and I will not lie about it in its face. It does not bother me, anyway."
He hums his agreement; he may cut his bangs after all.
They are silent again for a moment, until she speaks, "May I ask you something as well then?"
"Sure thing."
She inches forward a little on her crutches, and tilts her head slightly so she catches him square in his one green eye. "Will you tell me about the Tokoyami someday?" She asks, perfectly serious. Around them, more fireflies begin to flit about, some in the blooming flowers, some in the thick, knee-high grass surrounding the house and outlining the road into the nearby town.
He holds her gaze for as long as he thinks about the answer, and looks away to answer, "The Tokoyami is -- unimaginably huge. I -- would take too long to describe it in the quality that you usually expect from my stories. There is so much to tell. By the time I am finished -- I would have stayed too long. It would have found me, and taken me."
"It will be very interesting -- an epic," she says. "I believe it will be a match for the Ink. I believe it can lay the Ink to its final rest."
"It is," he says, without a trace of doubt in his voice.
She tilts her head again, trying to meet his eye, "Are you -- afraid then?"
" -- No," he replies after a long, thoughtful moment. Really, it had been a basic truth of his life for too long -- it was always ready to take him, but apparently it had enough respect for him to wait until he decided that he'd survived long enough. "I am -- just not ready yet."
Their gazes are locked again, and she smiles with approval. "Neither am I," she admits. "I -- want to hear more stories. To write them down for more people like you. Maybe even for the common townspeople." She shifts again on the crutches. "It is good, I think -- for people to know more of the Mushi."
"And I will be travelling, helping as I am able to. There are still people who need help," he added, laying a hand on one of her shoulders. "But someday, eventually, I'll be ready to go."
" -- The Ink hurts when I write. It hurts because it seeps out through me -- my blood, my tendons, my bone, my skin. If I ever write about the Tokoyami, all in one breath, the Ink will tear me apart," she explains calmly, as if she had long expected such a thing to happen to her. She looks at him for a moment then, and leans a crutch against the doorway, holding out the free hand opposite of the Ink-filled leg. "Ginko -- could we make a promise?"
"Of what, I wonder," he smiles lightly as he takes her hand.
She returns his smile, "When you and I are ready -- when we have seen and heard and gone to and remembered all of the world -- when we are so immersed in the Mushi that we are almost another kind of existence altogether --" and here, he catches the small halt in her voice, because Ginko is Tanyuu is Ginko is Tanyuu is a girl and a boy and a woman and a man and a writer and a doctor, and they both wish sometimes that those are all they are. " -- when that day comes, you will let me write about the Tokoyami, and I will let you cure me."
He wants to hug her. (Finally, the certainty that he will not die alone.) But it is too early for that. Perhaps a few years down the road, when they are closer to being ready, as promised. Perhaps even in that moment when they do go together.
"Agreed," he says simply, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. They break apart then, her hand returning to the crutch, his hand to the pocket of his jacket.
"You will not bail out on this promise, will you? Lie down somewhere and die, old and forgotten and blind?" She teases, but her stare pins him solidly with the genuine question.
"Forgotten and blind?" He chuckles. "I hope at least that I've made enough of an impression on enough people so as to not be forgotten. And I hope blindness will not find me when I am old." He tilts his head curiously. "But I might be old and wrinkled -- I wouldn't know. Will you wait for me?"
"Of course," she answers.
He sighs, satisfied for the time being, or for all the time he has left. "Well, we'll try our best not to die on each other until then."
"Until then," she murmurs after him.
They part, as the sky darkens and the fireflies gather with light-loving Mushi bobbing on their tails, and as the summer air feels warm and slightly moist.
Comments and constructive criticism highly appreciated -- hope it was an enjoyable read.