Aokigahara- A forest on the northern side of Mt. Fuji in Japan that is known for being exceptionally quiet, and for being the 'most popular' place for suicides in Japan.
Ubasute- The practice of abandoning elderly or infirm relatives in remote places so that they die from starvation, thirst, or exposure to the elements. Most common during times of drought or famine.
Obon- Festival of the dead where the deceased are supposedly allowed to come back to walk among the living. People honor their ancestors and loved ones most commonly by cleaning off their grave-markers and placing dedicated lanterns [to a loved one] (Toro Nagashi) afloat to symbolize the souls of the departed returning to the world of the dead.
Bon-Odori- Common dance usually performed during Obon celebrations.
Haiku- A poem that consists of 17 syllable, no more, no less.
He stood by the small creek. The tall spruces and maples twisted up to the sky, shrouding him in further darkness. Aokigahara forest in myth was associated with demons and angry spirits of those who died by suicide and ubasute. Byakuya had wondered there many times since that spring. He had wanted death. He spent many chilling nights in the ghostly forest thinking only of her, contemplating whether or not he should take his life if only to be with her once more. The distant drums of the bon-odori echoed through the trees, riding on the wind.
He secured his footing in his thronged sandals as he made his way down the steep, muddy bank. His usually spotless hands and feet now dirty and squishing around in mud. He gripped the roots of a mighty oak tree that was perched above the banks as a makeshift rope to guide his path to the water.
He sank to his knees, half in the water and half out. His hair fell down his back as he looked up at the canopy of leaves above him and out at the moon. The warm summer breeze that rustled the forest into life also dried his sweat. The cold mud also took his mind off the mid-summer temperatures. He felt around for the tools he had left on his last visit. Festivals like obon were not a public affair for someone of his status. He was confined within his own estate with his grandfather to reflect and pray for their family's dead in the quiet and peace of their family shrine. Occasionally they went to temples of which they were patrons to pray. But Byakuya wanted to feel connected to his deceased relatives. He wanted to reach out to them with a physical bridge that could connect them on this one night where the dead were among the living.
His dirty fingers fumbled around as he pulled thin rice paper through wooden panels. He did this until he had two square paper lanterns. He pulled the two small oil containers that he had kept within his robe out in order to place them within the lanterns. He used a piece of charcoal he'd taken from the incense burners of his personal quarters to write names upon the paper. For the first lantern, he wrote both of his parents' names. He took the second lantern, and held his breath. His dirty hand rattled as he raised the piece of charcoal. The cool stream rushed over his knees like the way her robes used to. The smell of the sweet rock within his hand was akin with her favorite incense, the one she would perfume all of her robes with.
Most people thought he was almost over her passing, for he remained collected when he did go out. Yet it was astonishing how quickly his confidence faded after his wife's death. Some mornings he couldn't bring himself to get out of his bed. Meeting new people or acquaintances was impossible for him. The deadened silence within his home caused him acute pain, sometimes physically. Even his sense of taste seemed gone, for all the food he ate tasted the same and made him ill. His bereavement was still full force a year and a half later. He coped by entertaining thoughts of reuniting with the one person that could ever make him live, even if he had to die to be with her. The only thought that kept him going was his intentions to fulfill her last wishes.
A small teardrop trickled from his eye and he quickly used the clean part of his wrist to wipe it away. A bittersweet smile tugged at his lips as he pressed the charcoal effortlessly across the paper, writing the twelve-stroke surname first, before the twenty-four stroke name: 朽木 緋真. How close he felt to her! It was as if she was still with him; physically beside him. It would only take the poisoning of the charcoal in his hand, the face-first placement in the water, or hanging by a tree, and he would be with her again. Byakuya closed his eyes to slow his thoughts and calm the temptations.
He had once been an aloof, carefree young man convinced that love was no more than a fleeting emotion that was heavily influenced by hormones. He never believed it could really happen, least of all to him. His boyish impetuosities led him to such a bleak enlightenment. He went about his merry life, living only for himself and the interests of his clan. One chance encounter completely tilted his world off its axis. That one, small girl singlehandedly changed him forever. She taught him what it was to be kind, to show warmth despite the world's cruelty. But most of all, she taught him that love was the only thing worth attaining in the material world. He remembered a conversation they had shared over such a topic.
"Love," Byakuya scoffed, his arms crossed, his mouth set in a passive snarl. "Such a trivial feeling. I've never seen it truly realized, not even between 'lovers'." She only looked at him, sympathy tangling upon her brow.
"Love isn't just some feeling that you can fall in and out of, or something you need in order to 'complete' yourself," She corrected ever so softly. "I believe it is a choice. The feelings that come from the choice is only the materialized desire to want the beloved's ultimate happiness and good. Why," She laughed, placing a hand frailly to her mouth. "Even Prince Genji compared his feelings and passions to the changing seasons. He never found true love because he only searched selfishly for a person that could please him. What a thing!"
"You believe so strongly in that?" He asked.
"I do." She smiled despite his mean glances.
"I still can only see it as a feeling. I've only ever heard it as such."
"That's because those who speak of it as an emotion do not understand it. That's why younger couples argue and fight over everything and older couples rejoice in the silence of their beloved's mere existence." He pondered her words before addressing her once more.
"Then why is it that people jump from lover to lover if love is no feeling? It appears to me that it's all just complicated lust."
"Does lust make you happy?" She asked innocently, he gave her an odd look. "Does sex satisfy you totally? If your answer is yes to either, you'll never attain the ability to love. Because neither sexual attraction nor sexual intercourse itself are love. They are expressions of love, no doubt, but not the real thing. You'll just be blinded by an imitation of love and most people are- their whole lifelong."
"How do you mean?" He was fascinated by her conversation. Not a single court scholar could have bestowed such thought-evoking knowledge upon him.
"Let me make it plainer," She said. "When you train with your sword, do you settle for the basics?"
"Of course not, I intend to reach full mastery." He huffed at the absurdity.
"When you eat, do you take one bite and leave the rest?"
"Preposterous."
"When you dress, do you put on the robe and ignore the sash?" He stared. "Then why would sex be so satisfying without the will to do good by that person? For that matter, if you truly loved that person, why would you wish to hurt their reputation, or risk the consequences that could befall their body from the act without the commitment of real love?"
"In other words, what's the point of lusting when you'll end up lusting again and again?"
"I suppose that's a way of looking at it. Why tear off one piece of 'love' and leave the best part of it?" She smiled at his quizzical expressions.
That smile was burned into his brain. He dreamt about it. He had had dreams where he just gazed upon it for long periods of time. Now, with her gone, it was like he was in love but had no one to shower his affections upon. The one person he could've ever loved more than himself, had slipped from his grasp. He wrote a small, short message upon her lantern.
You gave me joy
You loved me, then we were parted
Let me be with you
He carefully breathed on the charcoal to clear away any of the crude fallout. He set fire to the oil within the lanterns. He placed his first lantern in his left hand before scooping up the second in his right. The distant, celebratory singing and baritone banging of a drum from a nearby town clashed with his internal emotion. He closed his eyes before letting his hands sink beneath the running water. A short meditation followed before he spoke the names of his parents and released their lantern. He withheld the second one in order that he might feel something. After a continuing silence within himself of watching his first lantern slowly move down the creek, he chose to release the second lantern, letting free the one name that had total reign over his heart along with it.
"Hisana," His lips uttered the name he hadn't spoken since her death. The name he forbade anyone to speak around him. His family had thought it was because that after her death, he saw the error in his ways for wedding her. But it was his lack of forbearance with his anger of the situation that made him silence the revered name from anyone else's mouth. He had spoken it countless times in countless ways; this time, it was the answer to his desperate prayers. The withered twig burst forth new buds. "Let me be with you again," he repeated the line of his poem before adding, "someday."
Author's Note: One shot, yeah. I was feeling particularly philosophical and full of angst. A fun fact about the origin of the word "Obon": It was shortened from Ullambana, which is Sanskrit for "hanging upside down" implying immense suffering. The Japanese felt it necessary to ameliorate this ullambana.