The Winter of the Ubume

An LLS Production


: 吹雪

Viktor

Kachu Snack Bar was quiet, as expected for a bar in a city as small as Hasetsu. It made sense for a former ballerina to retire here – the comforts of a quiet life after the glamour of the stage, but the semi-darkness that shrouded Hasetsu's light gave the tiny town some sort of charm, I suppose.

Minako Okukawa set down a bottle of Hell's Invitation. With a name like that, I'm surprised that it's not flying off the shelves. It's so imaginative~

There were even more bottles on display, so I might be interrupting a party that had yet to begin. Or maybe Hasetsu's lost youths were coming back for the Hot Springs on Ice event, and they decided to hit up this place. I recommend the shōchū!

"Huh? Yuuri? He's not here," she told me after I explained my purpose in visiting her business. "By 'my place', Mari meant my ballet studio. I teach ballet to kids... well, less since they're all leaving Hasetsu for now."

"Ballet?" Excellent foundation for conditioning, I noted. Yuuri certainly managed to show off some ballon in that video.1

"Whenever Yuuri gets anxious, he always wants to practice," she explained quietly. "I usually go along with him. Ice Castle lets him skate anytime if it's not books already. Yuuri was able to grow because he had a place where he could practice alone whenever he got anxious."

"How is he?"

"He's not a genius, but he was gifted with more free time than anyone else to practice."

Even though he was surrounded by so many warm hearts, I suppose he might feel rather lonely. Mr and Mrs Katsuki were supportive, and that was very important. There was however a difference between having the support and using the support.

"Tonight's Monday," Minako warned me as I rose to leave. In the dim lighting of the bar, her dark eyes shimmered.

"Yes, Monday blues." I agreed. "You're not in a good mood, madame."

Minako nodded and smiled. That smile... unsettled me. "My relative is coming to visit tonight."

I went to Ice Castle again, only to be told that Yuuri had just left for the Atariûni Shrine in East Hasetsu. The Nishigori couple were still there, though. Nishigori-san drove the Zamboni to resurface the ice, and his wife Yuuko was sharpening the skate blades.

I think I'm having trouble over which honorific to use. I'll just call them Takeshi and Yuuko. Takeshi was a stocky-built man with tan skin, short-cut black hair, and a square jaw with a nose comparable to Ded Moroz. That would probably make Yuuko the snegurka; entirely appropriate.2

"Yuuri?" Nishigori-san echoed. "He's always came here to practice by himself, but he's not here. Guess he went to the Atariûni Shrine. It's right in town, but south by the river mouth."

"Oh, thank you..." I paused. "He must really love this place."

"I always thought that he really loved skating!" Yuuko chirped. "He didn't even play with his friends."

"Well, he was never very good at making them," Takeshi said. "Skating aside, he's not good at putting himself out there, and- anyway, I don't want this to be the end for him."

"Me too!" Yuuko agreed loudly. "He actually hates losing, doesn't he? It's just... them."

"What do you mean?" There is something... odd.

"The Katsuki family are... pretty... famous in the district. Lots of traditions come from the bit before Hasetsu was subsumed into the city.3 Long story." Takeshi hesitated. "People are... when someone else's onsen endures on despite every other onsen in town closing or drying out, it gets... you know how jealous some people get. But that's where it gets... weird."

I nodded. I could sympathise, except in my case, their jealousy was rather... futile. Perhaps If they cooked as well as Yuuri's mother, their inns would have stood the test of time. Things changed; some people just don't like to accept that.

"I..."

"I would like to know Yuuri better," I told them, without subterfuge or artifice. The Bol'shoy sekret will be answered today!

"So apparently it happened in the sixties when Yuuri's grandfather carried a baby through a blizzard down a mountain and back to his house." Takeshi gesticulated as he spoke. "That's not exactly weird – rescuing a baby is a good thing, you'll agree? But that's where it gets-"

"Takeshi!" Yuuko's eyes narrowed in anger and... something else. Takeshi immediately kept silent, waiting as Yuuko gave me a measured look.

When she spoke, it was with uncertainty – and after she had looked over her shoulder. "They like Yuuri, you know," Yuuko whispered in the wake of my silence. "But they don't like outsiders who stay too long. That's why Yuuri's at the shrine. To pray. For nothing would happen."

"To him?" I asked. "Who are they?"

"Not to him, of course not." Yuuko glanced at me, meeting my eyes. "If you really wish to find out... it's Monday night. If you really want to know about Yuuri... the Atariûni Shrine in East Hasetsu. You'll know there."


Yuuri

"That punk called me ugly! Ugly!" I sighed, thankfully unheard by the local god of sailing. "He looks like a catfish! I'll see how pretty he is when I turn him into a catfish!"

"Please don't, Unihime-sama! There's too many humans looking at the Hot Springs on Ice, it'll be noticed," I hurriedly added.

See, my grandfather, in his infinite kindness, had taken in the child of a yōkai, and in return gained the Ôbō-Jikara. His kindness did not stop there; the saloon of Yū-topia was opened to yōkai clientele, and some yōkai even managed to find work – as much as it was possible to fairly employ yōkai. Atarime-hiko and Unihime had been his clients, on the rare moments that they left the shrine in the local festivals. Grandpa had taught us shrine etiquette. After his death it fell to me, as the only relatively free person in the family, to communicate with the local gods.

Unihime had thrown a tantrum when I told her I was going to America. There had been... words. I kept wondering if she was going to commission a fusuma to bring down the plane or something. In the end, I got a katsumori waiting outside Yū-topia, and a standing offer once I retired. Which was defined as however long it took for me to move back to Hasetsu for good.

Mum probably played the human-lifespan card again. Although I think Atarime-hiko was involved in comforting her too...

Unlike yōkai, though, the kami and their attendants were an entirely different rank in the spirit world. A friend in Detroit had once lent me Gaiman's The Sandman to read, so for people with Europe-centred conceptions of fairies, there is a world of difference between Tinkerbell and Maleficent.

If I had to draw a parallel, it was like the pair of gods presiding over Hasetsu were the daimyō, and we were normal people who served them. Either way, Grandpa's legacy had connected our family to the local gods and demons, in a way that had most of Hasetsu either in awe or in fear – or, if they had moved away, irrelevant.

"I don't want to accept that... that... rude thing!" Unihime continued.

Of course, all spirits could be capricious to some degree. It was like they thought being part of the otherworld left them irrelevant to human laws. "No, I'm sure Yuri Plisetsky does not know the crime he has committed in transgressing against your representation before the train station. He comes from Russia."

"Ah," Atarime-hiko's voice echoed from within the shrine. "From beyond the shores of the sea. However, he is remiss in his manners."

"He's still young!" I tried. "He's... fifteen..."

"Then... he has not undergone the genfuku?4"

"No. Not at all."

A beat. "A child so far from his homeland... did he not follow his parents?" Atarime-hiko carefully asked. "What Kyō-sama called... the sojourn children?5"

"You mean... 'foreign student'?" I asked. "Yes... except that he's an athlete."

"But he is a minor within human society?" Atarime-hiko sounded so reasonable, except that I knew that in some ways, he was even more unreasonable than- "Since he is as minor, we can bring him here and teach him. Humans will not find those hidden by gods.6"

I KNEW IT! "His guardian is... is Viktor. I think. So, I'll take responsibility for Yuri."

"You're an adult, Yuuri. Of course you'll take responsibility for yourself."

"No, I mean, the boy from Russia is also called Yuri. But it's a different Yuri!" I explained. "His name is Yuri Plisetsky!"

"Hmm... Russians have a middle name, right?"

"They won't usually give it out," Unihime responded to her husband. "So, Yuuri... what would you pay?"

"I..." I swallowed, trying not to finger the package at my side. "I can offer nothing of value. But, if given the chance, I will dedicate a performance to the great kami of Hasetsu. I will perform... Lohengrin."

I shielded my eyes as the doors of the shrine's honden opened with a clack of wood.

Despite being normally incorporeal, Unihime had chosen to appear in human form. I stared at her.

"Human hairstyles are truly varied," Unihime drawled. "Is there something wrong?"

"...not at all?" I hazarded. "It's just... is ganguro catching on with the kami or something?"

Since the kami as a rule are able to change the details of their corporeal forms by whim, I'd never actually had a fixed idea of what the couple looked like.

Unihime, this time, was a moderately pretty woman who had her hair in a pageboy cut – shaped like a sea urchin, like everything else she wore.7 She wore a black full-length dress and wave-patterned tights ending in toe-socks, sauntering on tengu-geta – the better to show off her reflexes She still looked way more flexible and acrobatic than Minako-sensei, sliding forward like she was walking on her toes even on those impossibly tall clogs – or maybe it was a deliberate choice.

"You'll do a kagura dance?" She asked me pointedly.

"Huh...? I mean," I cleared my throat, "I will perform a routine as your personal entertainment at Ice Castle Hasetsu this night, in penance for Yuri's transgression against the gods."

"We can't go tonight," Atarime-hiko spoke, his voice drifting in from within the honden instead of manifesting. "There's the flower-viewing party here."

"That's perfect!" Unihime whirled around on her impossibly-tall clogs, more like stilts. They stabbed into the ground, much like the spines of an urchin on an underwater roll. "That Hashihime rubs her geiko into my face at every party in Uji. This time I'll have my revenge on a grand stage!"

I blinked at the local sea goddess, trying not to run and hide. Ôbō-Jikara or not, Unihime was still a kami able to bless and curse in the same breath. "Eh?"

"Don't worry, boy," sparks fell from her fingers as she spoke. "Even god's entertainment needs to be varied a little."8

"I'm a figure skater!" I tried to ditch appearing in the middle of a holy procession to shame myself. My family still has some reputation in the spirit world, even if it was limited to up and down the archipelago. "I need ice!"

"Don't worry, it's the last frost, we can call in a Yuki Onna or ask Kyō-dono to arrange something, I didn't hire an event organiser for nothing!"

...I'm not going to win here, am I?


Viktor

I don't understand. What's so special about Monday night?

They gave me the same warning about Monday night when I announced my rather hasty departure to search for my student. Either way, I managed to find my own way to East Hasetsu as a sea mist blew in from over the Matsuura river. Just behind the bit where suburban Hasetsu was about to feed into a fork leading to two roads, I moved to take one road.

A bark echoed.

I froze. It was a normal bark, like Makkachin, but the thing that my eyes could barely see in the half-darkness of a flickering street-light. The looming dog stood in my path.

"Nice doggy..." I whispered. "Good doggy..."

The... thing... barked. I flinched. Then I realised as it growled and shook its head, towards a sign. "Oh..." I squinted. A chain wound around its neck – it was tethered to a pole topped with a mailbox. "The other road?"

A happy yip.

"Thank you." Maybe it should seem weird that I would chat with dogs like this, but my road was fairly straightforward. It's not like he understood Russian anyway. "I'm going to find my student Yuuri."

"Gav?"

"Yep, Yuuri. Do you know him? You must have known him with Vicchan. Well, I gotta go turn the little piggy into a prince, but I have to find him first, you know. Dasvidaniya!"

"Gav gav."

Did he just...?

I kept walking the other path, which took me through a forest that really deserved its photo to be taken and uploaded, being so... creepy. Except that apparently, I couldn't get reception, so I simply took photos to upload later. I turned the flash on and started to take a photo, and then I squinted at the screen as a bright light went off and an image jumped out at me.

"Gyaa!"

My phone clattered to the ground. It was less than a meter tall – so about the size of a fair-sized child. It was small for a person. The strangest thing was the two horns seemed to split through its dishevelled red hair. Its sex was difficult to judge through its thin kimono.

"What is it?" it spoke. In Russian.

That is... incredible. The first time I've heard Russian in Japan, spoken with a Japanese accent, is so hot. Maybe if Yuuri spoke it...

"That is... incredible," it mouthed at me. "The first time I've heard Russian in Japan, spoken with a Japanese accent, is so hot. Maybe if Yuuri spoke it..."

"Er..."

"Is that your dog?"

A growl sent shivers up my spine as I whirled around to see the dog with its glinting chain. In the darkness, I could see no detail save for the chain reflecting light. I scrambled for my phone, except that it chose that moment to short out. Too much static...?

The dog growled, and gave a bark. I scrambled back, my heart beating in triple time allegro.

"Okuri inu follow travellers back to their houses," the horned child taunted, its response far too impudent. "You can't outrun it, nor can you hide from it. The only way to shake it off is to fall down."

"Is that so?" I shifted my weight, and then fell.

"I lied," I heard right before the bark and teeth sank into my jacket.

A tree branch snapped. A weight hit me in the midriff, pushing my breath from my lips as I was hoisted up bodily. The horned liar of a child had been knocked down by a man wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat along with a formal kimono in dark blue, along with a jacket. That wasn't the weirdest thing; such an appellation should be reserved for the eight- no, ten tentacles emerging from under the hat, complete with suckers under the edge. One of those tentacles was stretched along a tree branch, holding my body up from a controlled fall.

The horned liar straightened its back. It said nothing. It only gave a creepy laugh and an upturned glance.

"Okukawa. This human is under our shrine's protection."

I frowned. The newcomer was also speaking Russian, but... it was less of listening to Russian, and more about the intent of the language being fed directly into my mind.

"It was a joke," the liar smiled. "Welcome to the neighbourhood, as it were."

"I'll tell your daughter that you were hanging around here again. Or would you like to handle the Katsuki family again?"

The smile wiped off its face, and he jumped to his feet to make a dead run through the forest.

"Good place for a rest, Nikiforov-san." The newcomer spoke, turning towards the dog. "Too bad it has been stained with terrible intentions. The Katsuki family would never forgive me if I let their guest get savaged by a yōkai."

I frowned as the tentacle let me down, backing from it within three steps before I remembered the dog behind me. "Who are you? And what was... that person?"

"You may call me Atarime-hiko. As for the second question, that was not a person," replied the man. "That was an Amanojaku."

This time, only one word was phonetically pronounced. "Ama... no... jaku?"

"The Amanojaku is an adversarial and unclean spirit that answers any question with a lie. It commits small pranks like reading travellers' minds to mimic them and surprise them. It would pull simple pranks, yet it was also a deadly creature that would kill people, wear their skin, and take their place."

I shuddered. "And... okuri inu?" I haltingly pronounced.

"The okuri inu, also called okuri ōkami," all that information felt like it was not being told to me – more like it was being imparted into my head. "It follows lone travellers late on the road at night. It stalks them, keeping a safe distance but following as long as they keep walking. If the traveller should trip or stumble, the okuri inu will pounce on them and rip them to shreds."

So the liar had malicious intent. "Thank you so much, Atarime-hiko...-san," I copied Yuuri's bow.

"It is somewhat of a blessing and a curse. They are so ferocious that while they are following someone, no other dangerous yōkai or wild animals will come close. As long as one keeps his footing, he is safe. Most likely, he was guiding you to your destination."

"Ah... I'm looking for the Atariûni Shrine."

The man's tentacles became more prominent. "And what business do you have there?"

"I would like to understand my student better," I spoke. Japan had a way of pulling away my attempts at obscuring the truth – likely because so much of it had been obscured that I hadn't even known the dog was a prividénije. "I talk to Yuuri mostly in English, so... I can't understand Yuuri. Yuuko said that if I come here tonight, I'll know the answer about who Yuuri is. You just mentioned the Katsuki family with that thing... they're Yuuri's family, right?!"

The man regarded me with his shiny eyes under his hat. The tentacles kept waving in the air, undecided. "How is that important?" He said at last, or he... his mouth definitely wasn't moving when I heard him. "You could do very well not knowing this."

"I cannot do that. I am his coach, and I need him to trust me. As his coach... there is so much I need to learn that he won't let me." I told the man.

"You came here to chase a dream, Nikiforov-san."

"That's... part of the reason," I looked away. "Not a dream, more... a possibility. Of winning something else. Takeshi mentioned Yuuri's grandfather, but I don't understand the connection."

"You came here with the snowstorm and did not know?"

"No... why?"

"No... it was simply an inevitable coincidence." The man turned his back to me. "We're having a flower-viewing party. The weather is great. Would you like to come along?"

"I should be getting back now." No wonder they gave me so many warnings about Monday night. If monstrs were running around every Monday night no wonder there were so many warnings in Hasetsu.

But he knew my name. And the Katsuki family. And nobody would tell me anything.

"You came here to learn about Yuuri, didn't you?" Atarime-hiko asked me, echoing my thoughts. "How do you know that you were not meant to be here? Who could you ask, who could speak your language, and willingly give, without artifice, a direct answer to your mysterious protégé?"

"You're... a prízrak?" I could not answer that question.

For one, that would imply that the horned liar was more than a mutation, and this dog more than a simple canine. It would mean that the Bolsheviks were wrong, that all those monsters and by extension God did exist-

"I'm not a ghost, boy," he laughed. "I'm the local land god, and your ward has just angered my wife."


Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !

1 Ballon is the appearance of being lightweight and light-footed while jumping. It is a desirable aesthetic in ballet and other dance genres, making it seem as though a dancer effortlessly becomes airborne, floats in the air, and lands softly.

2 Ded Moroz is a Slavic fictional character similar to that of Father Christmas. The literal translation is "Old man Frost", often translated as "Grandfather Frost". Ded Moroz is accompanied by Snegurochka, his granddaughter and helper, who wears long silver-blue robes and a furry cap or a snowflake-like crown. She is a unique attribute of Ded Moroz, since similar characters in other cultures don't have a female companion.

3 Hasetsu is based off of the city of Karatsu in Saga, Kyushu. The current Karatsu was composed in 1889 by the establishment of the modern municipal system of Japan. Hence, the current city region is occupied by 1 town, and 19 villages. However, bureaucratic change doesn't always lead to a disruption of continuity – yōkai also form part of the traditions of the villages they live in. This is what partially makes this story plausible – that Yuuri is alone not only because of his own lack of social skills, but also the fact that everyone knows that his family is associated with the yōkai world.

4 Genpuku is a Japanese coming-of-age ceremony modelled after an early Tang Dynasty Chinese custom, dates back to Japan's classical Nara Period. This ceremony marked the transition from child to adult status and the assumption of adult responsibilities. The etymology of the word, which is atypical, reflects the major points of genpuku ceremonial format; in this case gen (元)means "head" and fuku (服) means "wearing".

5 Kaigaishijo is a word referring to the children of Japanese expatriates who take part of their education outside Japan.

6 Kamikakushi (lit. 'hidden by kami') means "spirited away". Kamikakushi is used to refer to the mysterious disappearance or death of a person that happens when an angered god takes a person away.

7 Unihime means 'sea urchin princess'. In this case, hime is '毘売' instead of '姫', because it's an indicator of divinity rather than royalty.

8 Kagura is a Japanese word referring to a specific type of Shinto theatrical dance. Once strictly a ceremonial art , Kagura has evolved in many directions over the span of more than a millennium. Today it is very much a living tradition, with rituals tied to the rhythms of the agricultural calendar, as well as vibrant Kabuki theatre.