Certain as the Sun
He was acutely aware of it seeping from decayed hands and dull eyes. With vestiges of force, he tugged the white strings in all the wrong directions, watching the wool unravel like his existence.
"What are you doing?" asked Miharu behind the silhouette of a mug. He could not smell or see its contents, but the boy was cradling the blue haze tenderly like it contained lemonade. "Do you want some lemonade?"
"Put it over here, please," he pointed to the mahogany colouring his right. Then he returned to the unfinished scarf and hovered between unraveling the entire thing and repairing the consequences of a silly impulse. A sudden blur of black, green and skin obscured his needles from view.
"Miharu!" he admonished, addressing the startling green that came with being Miharu. Putting down his work, he gently pushed the head away and picked up the mug of lemonade. "Thank you."
"You've been distracted lately," Miharu observed from the floor. "Does my lemonade taste funny?"
The mug halted before his lips.
"Ah," Miharu paused. "I mean…nothing. Nothing much. I just wondered whether you were feeling okay. Sorry."
"…I'm alright," his tired smile hid behind the rim. "Don't worry about me, Miharu."
Even then the boy did not leave him. His startling green eyes, gilded in the afternoon sun, fixed themselves upon the scattered wool. Yoite gazed at them. Miharu's silhouette was longer now, his voice a little more mellow, but the single thing that had not changed was his eyes. They were rich and olive green like thin leaves under the autumn sun and ponds hidden in untamed bamboo growth, and in their depths they were golden, scarlet, indigo, every hue of life. They were the simultaneous happening of the past, the present and the future; in a single face, they were the eyes of a thousand entities, unified and masked under one perfect shade of green.
In the dimness of his dying sight, they were clearer than ever.
"Miharu, I…" he began. Then visions burst through his mind like great rivers and terrifying currents, debris of once sturdy dams embedding solidly into his intangible consciousness. He saw a face, then two, then another, another, and another and a bloodied knife parted the sea of faces and he screamed like a witch licked by flames, like a soldier with no arms, like a child with her father's sin in between her legs. The wail of a banished, wretched creature rose from the depths of his soul.
Then more faces appeared, but they swam around him, enclosing his self in warmth and easing away the torrential terrors. Amid the rush of sky and colour and sound, a fraying thread emerged. Something familiar about its presence made him reach out with shaky fingers and grasp it. He pulled it towards himself, coiling the thread around his hand, and the faces began to unravel and slow until he could vaguely make out the green of a thousand beings.
A thousand forms in one form.
A thousand smiles in one smile.
A universe in one child.
Miharu.
Miharu. Miharu.
"Miharu! Miharu! Miha—ha—haaaaa!"
He felt hands on his chest clumsily pressing him onto a solid surface. "Yoite, Yoite, Yoite," someone was crying.
Miharu. Miharu. Miharu.
Then there was a warm, quivering splatter on his cheek, and the darkness was dispelled. He became aware of sticky warmth on his lips, his neck, his chest, his hands.
Miharu hovered over him precariously. Yoite found what he had to say, but the trembling coat of water that blurred the boy's green eyes caught the words in his throat, and he choked, spilling more black-red substance from his lips.
"Yoite," Miharu whispered, soaked in his blood. He clutched his trembling face with black-red hands. "Stop it, Yoite, stop it, you're scaring me, you're scaring me…you're scary…"
"Miharu," gasped Yoite. He reached for the boy's face, fingers shaking over the stickiness of Miharu's hands. "Please…erase me...now." Before too soon became too late.
He could feel his sanity and his consciousness draining like the senses in his limbs some months ago, and what remained of his mind was speaking desperately, telling him to disappear. Soon, the curse would render him completely senseless. He would never have to look into Miharu's desperate eyes or hear his quiet sobs again. But he wanted to see Miharu, wanted to hear him; he wanted to feel Miharu exist, because Miharu was so powerful an existence that he brought meaning where there was never any.
"Miharu," he whispered, finality in his words. "For everything you've done for me…thank you. Thank you for staying by my side without asking for anything in return. Thank you for making me happy, even while knowing that I can never repay that happiness." Miharu threw himself into his bloody, soaked, sticky arms. "I don't want to die, Miharu. I don't want you to feel sad for my death after all the joy you've given me. So please erase me now, before I die."
"But Yoite," Miharu croaked, "I would rather feel sad than be happy and never have known Yoite."
Yoite felt his breath slowing.
"You can be sad now, Miharu," he smiled gently, "But you must be happy later. You must—"
More blood splattered onto Miharu's sweater. His heart was ticking like a clock that needed to be rewound.
"—live. You must be a strong king. You must live without me. Without knowing me."
A clock with no key.
"Here—give me the scarf, please," he held his hand out weakly. Miharu passed it with numb fingers and still eyes.
Then, with the last of his strength, he pulled at the strings and watched the white haze unravel.
"Miharu," he began, gazing at those sad, furious, beautiful green eyes. Somewhere beneath the thousand hues and regrets, there was acceptance, and when he found it, he smiled. Then he closed his eyes.
Are you closing your eyes because you can't bear to look back and turn upon yourself?
Did you smile and give me those warm encouragements because you knew I couldn't bear to leave you otherwise?
Miharu's eyes were stained red like the wool in his lap and a shirt with no body to fill it.
I've accepted this a long time ago.
That evening, the sun set in the west.