Disclaimer: Mushishi © Yuki Urushibara
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Petrichor Spell
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Day becomes night. The fishing village's lanterns are put out, leaving the moon and its silvery reflection in the sea as the only sources of light. Storm clouds block the stars tonight. Evening sinks over the landscape in time with the descending sun and silence as parents kiss their children goodnight.
This is why Adashino frowns as the floorboards outside his house creak. He slides open the fusuma.
A strange—but no stranger—man with white hair sits at his porch, and twists his soaked jacket. It is done with no haste, his mind and gaze elsewhere. Rain runs over the side of the roof, creating a wall of water that smudges the lush landscape like a watercolour painting. He crosses his legs and rubs his sore, muddy feet; feet that have walked thousands of roads; feet that have entered—and saved—thousands of homes.
(The question Doctor Adashino has been pondering on for years: How does Ginko keep doing it?)
He is no stranger to Adashino, but he is a stranger to this world. He carries an eerie air, and the average man would shoo him off. Adashino disappears back inside the house. Moments later, a towel falls on top of Ginko's head. "You're gonna catch a cold if you don't dry yourself properly." Ginko grins from underneath the towel, all teeth and teasing, making no move to remove it. Adashino sighs and looks at the landscape before going back inside. "C'mon. It's in the middle of the night. I got an extra futon prepared for you."
Not long after he slips into his own futon, he hears feet go pat! pat! pat! against the floor. Adashino falls asleep to the sound of rain drizzling against the roof.
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Adashino awakens to a horrible, hacking coughing. He raises a hand to shield himself from the first sunrays shining through holes (holes he haven't fixed after the Kumohami incident) in the roof. Dark clouds still linger in the horizon, telling him that this storm will be a lasting one.
Ginko is sweating underneath the thick blankets. Adashino lays his hand on the burning forehead, and the mushi shi gives a little sigh. "You've definitely got a fever." He wears the standard expression of irritation and concern, and gets a bucket of water and a cloth to cool Ginko's temperature.
"Where's my thi—" the rest of it becomes a cough sounding as if the lungs are about to burst.
"Don't worry, I moved your things inside this morning. Insides are undamaged. And none of the villagers would dare touch your things after what you've done." Ginko blinks slowly. Sometimes mushi seem far less complicated than humans. He's never figured out why paranoia grows like vine in his footsteps, curling around those who walk the same path. Adashino wants to tell him that people fear what they don't understand (it be mushi or mushi shi) but is interrupted as Ginko tries to get up. Adashino shakes his head. "You're in no condition to wander off."
"I'm a wanderer, Adashino sensei," Ginko rasps. "If I stop for too long, I'll become a nesting place for mushi." Well, at least it'd perhaps produce some rare artefacts. "You know this."
Adashino knows why he wanders, yes. That isn't enough. "Please stay another day, at least." He gives a respectful bow, fingers curled on his knees. "Think of it as compensation for dirtying my floors."
Ginko chuckles a bit despite how his chest wheezes when he inhales, resolve wavering. Adashino allows him to rest for a few more hours, cloth resting on his forehead. His dream catcher of seashells, bird feathers and bamboo rustles in the growing wind. Adashino has heard tales of the River of Light and wonders if Ginko visits it in his dreams.
Sometime later, the doctor starts crushing herbs and chopping up vegetables to make a healing miso soup. Adashino brings it in a small table. Ginko's sleep is nowhere near peaceful. Thanks to fever induced dreams, he's twisted and turned on the futon, his sweaty hair pushed up to reveal
a black hole where an eye ought to be.
The other opens, coloured in an unnatural shade of green. It widens. An act of a mushi, no doubt. Ginko curses and stirs, ruffling his hair back in place. "Saw it, didn't you."
Adashino helps him sit up, placing the table over his lap. Tension sneaks in between them, ruining their usually so comfortable silence. Adashino cannot help breaking it, "How—? How are you not bitter?" It isn't the eye he's talking about, not entirely.
(How does he keep on walking, day in day out, but most importantly how does he keep doing it?)
"At mushi? That's like being bitter at air." He holds the bowl of miso soup up to his lips and drinks greedily, Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He grimaces. It's too healthy to be tasty. "Besides, I don't remember what caused it, so bitterness would be pointless."
"You are strong, then." Doctors have seen a lot. Weakened by illness, people are more prominent to fall into darkness. He has seen villagers lose all hope after the death of their loved ones, withering, like flowers in autumn. "Strong to resist."
"A compliment?"
Adashino snorts, and almost hides his smile. "Drink your soup."
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The storm is lessening. All that remains is the rain.
The village's fishermen grow restless, complaining during Adashino's routine checkups. He tells them short tales about sea monsters and the old gods, to which the men shudder. It is for their own good. "Do not throw your lives away carelessly. Spend time with your families. Wait, and the goods will come."
The village's last elder passed away three winters ago, and now it is Adashino who must calm the storms breeding in their hearts. In return, they give him little gifts: soft rice and egg noodles, and little luxuries like oranges, stir fried melon, sweet dumplings ("Please deliver this to Ginko-san!" said the girl who fell ill because of the ink stone) and ginseng for Adashino's tea.
Adashino sits, practising his calligraphy, brush strokes smooth like when he operates on a patient. The ink comes alive on the milkweed paper as he draws the creatures he imagines mirrored in Ginko's eye, crawling above the fusuma and murmuring in tongues unknown to men.
The creaking of the floorboards is the only warning he gets. "Your depiction of the Un is pretty accurate, Adashino sensei."
"You really shouldn't be up."
Ginko slumps down in front of him, huddled in a blanket.
Adashino puts the paper and ink away, making place for an antique tea set. Its decorative art is mushi inspired, Ginko can tell. Adashino lifts the teapot, elegantly pouring hot water into their cups. It mends with the tea powder, tinting it green—but nowhere near as green as Ginko's eye—and releases a spicy scent. The steam settles like a veil between them, like the veil between their worlds.
"If you wished to, you could stay here longer." Forever remains unsaid.
"Staying too long at one place defeats the purpose." The tea softens the blades in Ginko's throat like a honey blanket. He no longer rasps like chalk on stone. "I am a wanderer."
"You come back here."
Ginko huffs. "There's an awful lot of mushi here, thanks to the swamps and forests." He winks at Adashino. "And there are not a lot of mushi artefacts collectors either."
"Not a lot of people who would share their roof and food with a mushishi, no." He instantly regrets it, but surprisingly, Ginko does not look hurt. 'Too used to it,' Adashino thinks, sadly. He know there are scars on Ginko's body—some deeper than others—from people that perceived him as a threat in lieu of a friend.
They drink the tea and eat sweet dumplings in silence.
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The Fūrin chimes in the wind. It is still pouring onto the porch roof and into puddles, but it is lighter now. No thunder.
Adashino and Ginko sit at the veranda, peeling oranges. Ginko likes to make a hole at the top and suck from it. It is a very childlike thing to do. Adashino wonders who his parents were, leans back, and inhales the smell of wet earth. He reaches throws something over to the mushishi. "A gift."
Ginko catches it and holds it up against the sun peeking forth behind a cloud. "I've been looking for a glass eye for quite a while now. Thank you."
"People won't be so scared now," Adashino says quietly.
"You care what others think of me?" He pops it in. For someone unacquainted with Ginko, it'd look like one of them was glassier than the other, nothing more. "Why?"
"Because I am your friend."
Ginko opens his mouth to reply.
"Ginko-san, Ginko-san!" a boy comes running, geta clicking against the wet slabs of stone. "You're Ginko, the mushi shi, ri—right?" His heart beating so fast both men hear it. "I have a letter for you! Sender says it was urgent, and— and—" he collapses.
Adashino goes to help him up. Ginko unfolds the scroll. From the little Adashino sees, the characters are elegant and precise, but there's something desperate in the words' whorls and loops, ink smudged induced by a quivering hand. Ginko rises. Adashino does the same.
"I thank you for your hospitality, Adashino sensei, and for your gift. But most of all I thank you for our friendship." He bows low. "I must go now, for I am needed elsewhere." Adashino feels helpless as helps strapping Ginko's valuables to his back. "Goodbye, my friend."
"Wait!"
Ginko stops.
"How do you keep on doing it?" Adashino finally dares to ask.
He receives a smile in return. "Why do you stay in this village, Adashino sensei? Why do you look after each and every one of them, small or big, rich or poor, kind or unkind? Why do you wake up early every morning to take care of the frail?"
"Because I l—" the words get stuck in his throat, and standing in the wet grass, Adashino understands.
Ginko smiles, and wanders on.