The day after the start of summer break, I got lost in the mountains chasing after a ball of flame. Or that's what I think happened. The elves in the forest had been kind so far, but they beguile.
I had never believed a word they said. Not since I was trapped here eight years ago, in the Nameless Woods where my grandparents thought they lost me, or at least, that's what I was told. By them. By Mistress.
Eyes too big, too bright to be called human snapped onto mine. "Something on your mind, Hachiman?"
Mistress did always seem to know what I was thinking about. Her smile started to fizzle out, like an old camera losing focus. She was incensed. I wasn't thinking about her in a positive light, and she noticed.
But today I just didn't give a damn.
"Just thinking about my family, Mistress." I replied honestly. Trickery was their forte, but they cannot lie. They expect everyone to be as honest as they were. "It is the day your grace took me from them, after all."
"Ah, yes, you've grown into your majority, have you not?" Mistress regained her aloof-guile. "Will you still not call me 'mother' like I asked?"
"No," I couldn't help myself from snarking, "besides, I don't think a mother should kiss their children."
"Every mother does that."
"On the lips."
"Some mothers do that, it's a way to show our love." She leaned back on her chair, knowing that she'd won.
She was always like this, chiding me for assuming things. She'd lean back on her chair, a small breeze would blow within our room, rain would start to pitter against the window, and music would start to play. She just summoned a bean-bag chair for me to sit in, and a fireplace appeared to our left, crackling.
"With tongue." I stood my ground. "Don't think I don't know what French kissing is, Mistress."
She sighed dramatically.
"Woe is me, for I have a child who does not love me anymore." Too many tears fell from her eyes. "I knew I shouldn't have given you those filthy human books. They've tainted your mind!"
I sighed. "That's not what tipped me off."
Her face regained focus, her wide eyes narrowing, her nose sharpening, her lips becoming dots and disappearing.
"Oh? What tipped you off?" Her lips reappeared and she smiled, with too many sharp teeth to ever be considered human. I clicked my tongue. She was truly angry this time. "If it's that Shrine Maiden, I'll—"
"No." I cut her off. "I—"
"You what?"
Her face truly started to morph into something terrible. I don't usually pay attention to the surroundings, 'cause they morph and change a lot, but I saw hundreds of eyes staring right at me when I spared a glance behind her form. The fireplace was more of an inferno and I was pretty sure the wood would've burned out right now if it was that strong. At least, if it wasn't smothered by the tempest in the room.
Eh, not the first time.
"I found out about your plans." I pressed on. "About marrying me."
The room quieted down. Her face was now neutral. In other words, faceless. She still had a body, which was more than I could ever hope for.
"You told me you'd let me go. You told me that I'd get to see my family before I reached my majority. That I'd get to be human for once in my life." My chest tightened. "You told me…"
"You're right," she stood up. "I did promise you." A hand that was both soft as feathers and rough as gravel scratched my face. The tears cleared up enough so that I could finally see what she looked like.
She was stunning.
There was simply no way to describe it. She had become my wildest fantasies incarnate. A field of flowers blossomed under her feet and the room became a ballroom. She wiped away my tears and her mane of moonlight and starlight fogged and wrapped around us. The world outside disappeared.
Was there even an outside world?
"Hachiman, I am your mother." No, she wasn't. She took me away from my real mother. "I love you."
Those words were tinged with a motherly warmth, but her eyes were filled with lust. A horrible mixture. I was pretty sure she didn't know what love actually was. Mistress leaned in for a kiss, her arms wrapping around me, protective like a mother, possessive like a lover.
No, I realized. She does. It was me who didn't know.
And how could I? I didn't know anything.
This was probably my biggest weakness against her. I have no knowledge. Humanity's only weapon, knowledge, was barred from me. The only mathematics I knew was how to multiply until 4s. The only science I knew was mixing baking soda and vinegar to create a reaction. I was taught language, but never history, philosophy, politics or economics.
Mistress told me I didn't need those things. That as a mother, she would provide for me until the end of time and forevermore. Humanity's obsession with categorizing and learning, to be more than their nature, filled her with revulsion. I was to be with her, in paradise, so I didn't need to debase myself with useless knowledge.
She was both my Mistress and my Mother, both my lover and my caretaker, my key to be something more than I was and my chain.
She told me to call her Haruno. That wasn't her real name. But she knew my real name. She had power over me, and she knew. I didn't know, and I was weak because of that.
Blue eyes flashed in my mind.
I didn't know, but now I do.
"-" I muttered in between a lull in our kiss. "Stop."
And she did. Too many tears fell for it to be human, and her face was too sad, too exaggerated with those wide purplish eyes that mirrored twilight. "How did you—"
"-, please give me a choice." The same words that the Shrine Maiden told me to say now left my mouth. "I want to experience the other world for a year, before I have to make a choice."
"Mou—It was the Shrine Maiden, wasn't it," her voice returned to her beguiling mischief. "She taught you my true name, didn't she?"
"Yes, Mistress."
Her face gained an air of nonchalance.
"You now have power over me, and this is what you wanted?"
"Yes, Mistress."
She poked my chest.
"Call me Mother."
"I still haven't made that choice."
I told her bluntly.
"You knew that I was just going to let you out for a day before your majority, didn't you?" Mistress sighed, plopping down as a bean-bag appeared behind her. "Well, it doesn't matter. A year in the human world or a day, you'll choose me eventually."
Her purplish eyes swirled, a tempest in twilight. Delightfully, she began to list out the whys of her statement.
"The human world is filled with suffering. Death will be a constant enemy. Greed will chase after you. Corruption and pollution pervades that world, are you sure you want to experience it for a year?"
I nodded.
"Of course you do," she sighed. "Just my luck that the shrine maiden you met was a divine one." She spat out that word like a curse. "It was our world before He put you here. And now that he's left, you'd think that we'd get a breather, but no—He just had to send out divines to drive us back even further."
"I'm sure that she isn't anything like that." I argued. "It's simply human to want the best for others. It's a human trait, purely of our own nature."
"Hoh?" Her eyes glittered. "I know what human nature is, and it's not that. It's dark, twisted and corrupted. That's why He abandoned you, after all. You're a failed experiment of His—nothing more, nothing else."
I stood silent. What Mistress told me versus what I've seen and read from books are almost the same. Every book she gave to me for my burgeoning language skills were often filled with the detritus and vice that showcased the horrific nature of humanity—which she often told me was their actual nature, what my nature should have been had I lived in the human world—before smothering me affection and telling me that I was a success. That I was different.
She affixed me a look of warmth. It was almost enough to want me to call her Mother again and embrace her, apologize and never bring this up again.
A flash to that time in winter, where blue eyes met my own colorless, fading eyes… a promise between us… a True Name told….
I stood my ground.
"I still want to see it for myself. The bad that you tell me, and the good that she told me. The genuine article," I told her, finding comfort within my words. "If she was born into that world, then…"
"She doesn't love you, not like I do."
"I don't know what love is."
"I give it to you everyday."
"I have nothing to compare it to. I don't know."
"Do you have to be human for this? Can't you just let your nature lead you?"
I clenched my hands. "My nature is dark, twisted and corrupted. I don't know if the love I feel, or love that I want to feel, is the same love that you're talking about. I need to know. I need to know if what I feel is the genuine article."
She was silent.
"-, Haruno, Mistress, Mother…." I couldn't stop the tears from dripping down my face as I listed out every single name I called her. "I need to know."
"...Fine." She crossed her arms, pouting.
"Thanks."
A grin broke out on her face, splitting it in half.
"You'll be back anyway, Hikigaya Hachiman."
The world shattered.
Hey there, folks.
I know this is kinda different from my usual fics. And I assure you, it's exactly the same. I wrote this while I was procrastinating on studying after all.
I've also got a confession to make.
I was a major chuuni during my chuuni year of middle school. But to those of you who read Spirit World Diaries, you probably knew this. I've outgrown it, I'm a college student now after all, but I still find it fascinating. And by it, I mean the occult stuff, the folklore, the esoteric and whatever people decided to do to make the world less boring without the advances in science that our modern world has. It's a luxury that I'm sure our alchemist, wizard, seer, and magician ancestors would probably kill for. I mean, reviving people with controlled lightning, even after their heart had stopped? Wizardry, I tell you.
Of course, that's what they would probably think.
I still want to believe in Magic, though.
So here's my love letter to my waking fantasies of the past.
I probably won't update this much. I'll probably only write for it intermittently, when the thought strikes me.
But seeing as you're here, you probably already knew that, didn't you? You've stuck by me even when I wrote random shit that popped up in my head, so what's another weird story with no update in sight? My impermanence is also a hassle for me as well, I assure you. I'm working on that too, though.
You'll be stuck with me for the end of time.
Best wishes,
Xynovitch.
