It was an exhilarating feeling, watching as the key piece of the jigsaw fell into place, the big picture spreads out in front of me. Yamagami's explanation finally making sense, the big picture showed me one thing: there is still hope. Gin is not truly gone, his soul is out there somewhere and what I saw that night was simply the disintegration of his body, so if I follow Yamagami's line of logic, there is hope, but the question is, how to make it happen.
'So, Gin's soul is somewhere, but his body is gone, if we find his soul, then he could come back, right?'
'Then what are we waiting for? We have to find him and bring him back!' I didn't mean for my tone to sound so harsh and demanding, but the lack of expression on the Yamagami's face and his ambiguous reply is getting to me.
'Why are you just standing there? This is gin we are talking about! There is a chance for him to come back, and all we need to do is to find his soul! So why are you just standing there! You are the mountain god, for god sake!'
Already, I have started toward the edge of the clearing, intending to start searching as soon as possible. Looking back, the mountain god hasn't moved a muscle, standing underneath the great tree like a statue. There is a stillness about him that is only achievable by gods.
'Please, help me? If you are not helping, at lease tell me how I can find them, please! Yamagami Sama, please. I am begging you, please, tell me how, I need to find them!' turning around, I begged him, willing him to understand my need to find Gin again.
But, there was only silence. A maddening silence that seems to stretches on forever.
'Hotaru stop.'
Stop! Is that all he is going to tell me? Then somewhere in me snapped.
'I thought you were his friend, I though you would do anything for him, I thought you'd want him back as much as I do! And all you tell me is 'stop'! Well, I guess I thought wrong!'
I don't know what I was thinking that moment when I burst out screaming and raging at the mountain god. But it was too much to bear, simply too much. The feeling of helplessness, the feeling that I am unable to do anything even if I want to, the feeling that I am just a human girl, was too much. While he, an all mighty mountain god stands and tells me to stop. I must have lost it then, I wasn't sure what I was trying to achieve by yelling and shouting, a reaction perhaps, or a different answer to my questions, but one thing I was sure, I hated that feeling of helplessness, I hated feeling useless. That moment I felt for the first time just how powerless I am in Gin's world.
Still he remained silent, the wind slightly stirring the hem of his Yukata, he's face tilts towards the sky, seeming to be watching something in the distant. Knowing that he will not be helping, I turned around and once again headed towards the forest. Just as I stepped into the shadow of the forest, his voice reached me, faint like a whisper carried on the wind.
'I have.'
'What did you just say?' I turned around sharply, not sure if I heard the two words or imagined them, my hair wiping my face painfully in the process. Yamagami still stood motionless, face turned towards the sky, not a hint that he spoke them. Slowly, I walked towards him, back to the giant tree, all the while keeping my eyes on him, hoping for a clue as to whether I have just become delusional. When I was a meter or so away, he turned around slowly, graceful like a cat, bowing his head slightly to fix me with his silvery blue eyes, cold and hard like icicles outside the windows.
'I have.'
This time there was no mistake. Two words and that was all I needed. Gin is coming back! But there was something that prevented me from my happiness, it was Yamagami's eyes. There was something different about him, something dark and frightening in his cold icicle eyes. Something to be feared. Unconsciously, I took a step back.
'Who do you think you are to say that I don't care? Who are you to say that when you only exists in a blink of his life, a life where I have been all along, a life that I have helped to create!'
I took another step back. The rage in Yamagami's eyes is like a brewing tropical storm, violent and destructive. His eyes were solely focused on me, the power and anger in them is hard to withstand, I tried to look away, but the electric blue of his eyes held it in place. Without thinking, I started to retreat, wishing to get out of his terrifying presence. He must have sensed because for every backward step I took, he took another forward, yet all the while having his eyes fixed on me.
'Gin has lived for near two centuries with me, and you were only in his life for the short summer months of less a decade, what makes you think that you are better than me? Let's try and remember that I am a mountain god, and you are a helpless, useless human girl, shall we? You are nothing compared to me, nothing!'
An unnamed anger sparked up in me. I maybe useless and helpless, but I was never ever nothing.
'How dare you call me nothing? I am far from nothing; I gave Gin human company after 2 centuries of living amongst Youkais, something you weren't able to provide. I gave him happiness, he was happy when he was with me, he laughed and smiled like a normal person with me, did you ever realise how beautiful that rare small smile of his is? Most of all, I made him feel human again! You may have given him his life, but it is me who showed him the joy of being a normal person. And Gin... Gin loved me, you know, he loves me. And I love him too, from the first time I met him, how could you call that nothing! It was much more than what you could have done!'
'And it was because of you that Gin disappeared.'
Yamagami's soft voice cute across, straight into the part of me that have stubbornly tried to forget how Gin disappeared that night.
He was right. It was all my fault, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise. I was me, if I haven't gone with him to the festival, he wouldn't have touched the kids. If I never went back to thank him all those years ago, if I haven't gotten lost in the forest, if I never disobeyed grandpa and ventured into the Forest in the first place, Gin would still be here...
'If you weren't useful to what is to come, I wouldn't have tolerated you for so long.'
His quiet words reached me through the eerily calm clearing.
'Useful? What do you mean?'
Author's Note: Happy Chinese New Year! Please leave a review as a New Year present!
