Chapter 3

Four years ago.

"It is almost as though you attract these people." Yong-Soo, the prematurely-tall Korean boy, was bending down, whispering softly to the little Chinese boy. The three brothers—Yong-Soo, Kiku, and Yao were on the floor, head-to-head so that they formed a semicircle, crouched over yet another illegibly scrawled, non-coherent letter that had been addressed to Yao. There was no return address on the envelope. "These strange, sad bastards," Yong-Soo continued, peering deeply at the angry, rambling, wording that consisted of run-on sentences comprising a negligible amount of sense. "Why would they want to have anything to do with you?"

"It's your fault," Kiku said, holding up the letter, glaring into Yao's eyes. "You must be a viper of some sort."

"It's not his fault. Don't be stupid, Kiku."

"He's being followed, remember?" Kiku replied, directing his glare towards Yong-Soo.

The smallest boy remained silent, watching them, fear dancing in his gold colored eyes. With squared shoulders, Yong-Soo crumpled up the letter and pushed it aside. Kiku suddenly rose to his feet, taking hold of the little boy's wrist as he stood. "Let's get ready for my bath," he announced. Ignoring Yong-Soo's suspicious glare, he led Yao over to the far end of the corridor.

This was one of their little routines. After washing, Kiku liked for Yao to massage his scalp and detangle his still-wet hair with a fragrant comb made of balsa wood. When the boy was younger, perhaps around four or five, Yao would normally wait patiently outside until the sounds of water running would cease, and then he would head inside to give his older brother his massage. But now, even though Yao was already ten, more and more often Kiku would instead pull him inside, and they would end up taking baths together. The Japanese boy was so blasé about the change in routine that it had never occurred to Yao to protest.

"Yao, did you talk to anyone today?" Kiku was saying. He started to undress.

"Besides you and Yong-Soo, no."

"I mean besides me and Yong-Soo. What about yesterday?"

"No." The Chinese boy squirmed, as Kiku removed his trousers. "Let me guess. You don't really believe in that sort of thing, do you?"

"That you're being followed?" Kiku turned around, an unreadable expression in his eyes; under the weight of his gaze, Yao felt as though he were being physically dragged down to a heavy depth. Kiku had the edges of Yao's shirt in his fingers. Yao closed his eyes as he loosened and raised his arms so that it could be slipped off.

When I was only four or five months old, my mother brought me to the house of an old Chinese fortune-teller in the village. Paying the fee, she asked the older man to reveal the fate of the child within her arms, who was given the name Yao.

After analyzing the four components of time, the news that came was completely unexpected. The old fortune-teller said that my soul was being accompanied and followed—by another soul, that is. It wasn't clear whose soul it belonged to, or what the other soul wanted from me, but the old fortune-teller adamantly swore that I was being doggedly chaperoned wherever I went.

"Lift your right leg," Kiku was directing Yao. Clutching the child's shoulder for leverage, he removed Yao's pants too.

"What should I do?" my panicked mother had demanded, clutching me closely. After leaving the old fortune-teller's dwelling, she gathered up my relatives at her house. For the next couple of hours, they performed the proper rituals for warding off the unwelcome soul. But it didn't appear to work.

At first, the bath started normally. After lathering and rinsing himself off, Kiku lathed Yao's head, running his fingers through the boy's scalp; the abundant locks of black hair fell against his neck and shoulders. Kiku gathered handfuls of warm water as he helped Yao wash his back, letting the hot soapy water trickle down before scrubbing the skin hard. Right before it started to hurt, he stopped.

"You don't really believe in that sort of thing, right?" Yao asked him again, because he had seemed to ignore the question the first time it was asked.

An exasperated sigh. "Just let me concentrate. Yoroshii?"

The first incident occurred the very next month. I was nearly abducted by one of the old nurses who had been living at my mother's for a while, who had come to take care of me. She had apparently gone mad and thought I was her own dead child that had been reincarnated. If Kiku hadn't been heading to bed early after dinner, stricken with a headache, and had caught her in my bedroom, who knew where I would be today.

The next incident occurred when I was still a little boy. A tall French gentleman saw me playing in the village square with some friends, and came right over, offering us sweets. My friends scattered the moment he grew irritated after we declined, and he targeted me. After biting the large hand that had grasped mine and shouting for help, a gaggle of adults passing by, already made wary by the presence of the foreign stranger, made a beeline for us. The Frenchman cursed and let go of my hand, disappearing into the crowded streets. I ran home afterwards.

Yao snapped out of his reverie, his posture stiffening once more. A firm lay on his back, and he felt himself being roughly pushed forward and down the next moment. Pushed onto his hands and knees. "What are you doing?" he exclaimed.

"Relax," Kiku answered calmly, holding him down while wiping a lock of hair off the child's upturned face. "I need to wash down there."

"What! No!" the Chinese boy protested, struggling. "I can do it myself!"

The hands hesitated, but Yao felt them leave his back in the next instant, along with the stifling weight. "All right." There was a cool breeze, and Yao heard the shower door open and slam shut.

Shivering, he turned off the water. Yao waited, counting to ten to make sure that Kiku had left and that he would be alone to dress. However, the minute Yao came out, he felt a large towel being wrapped slackly around his shoulders. "You'll catch pneumonia if you don't dry off right away," Kiku was saying as he toweled the boy off and tried to muffle his protests.

When he sat on his stool so that Yao could start lacing his long fingers through the shiny black helmet of hair, Kiku's hand shot out, grabbing the boy's wrist. "Wait. Explain something to me."

"What?" the Chinese boy said apprehensively.

"Who's 'Arthur?'"

"…Who?"

"I said. Who's Arthur?" Kiku spoke very impatiently, as though to a dim-witted child. He wasn't letting go of the wrist. With wide eyes, Yao answered honestly, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

"I don't know any Arthurs. That's a foreigner's name."

"Don't play dumb. Tell the truth. Last night, you were yelling for 'Arthur, Arthur, please,' in your sleep."

"…I was?"

Kiku was talking faster, more agitatedly now. "That wasn't all. 'Don't spend it, don't spend any of it,' you also said, and 'I rue the day you came.' And 'let me go.'" At that, the fingers around the boy's wrist tightened. "You screamed loud enough for the neighbors to hear."

The Chinese boy felt his face blanch, and wracked his head in scrambling to come up with some sort of rational explanation. "Maybe I read the name of a character in one of your books," he murmured. "I read an awful lot of your books, you know."

His Japanese brother had twisted his head to look up at Yao, studying his face intently. After a moment, he suddenly turned around, abruptly releasing him. Very deliberately, the Japanese boy reached out and lightly touched Yao's waist. The Chinese boy slowly let out a long, shuddering breath.

"Yao, listen to me," Yao nearly jumped at the change in his voice; it was as though he were now soothing a sick animal. "You are my brother. I love you. You have always been such a well-behaved little thing, and a willing student. You are innocent and unpolluted—like my little peony flower."

The boy's jaw was hanging open. Kiku had never, ever spoken to him this way before, had never even remotely hinted at using the kind of vocabulary he was using now. He didn't stop as he caressed Yao's bare thigh, his half-frozen body. "Don't ever try to be friendly to strangers, especially foreign ones."

"I don't approach them on my own," Yao said, in a strange, cautious voice as he realigned his body much closer to his brother's.

"Don't ever trust them," Kiku continued, looking straight into the wide golden eyes as Yao's lids lowered and he began to pant. The Japanese boy's pupils were like shining orbs of obsidian. "Only me. Your family. Do you understand?"

"Yes…"

"Do you promise?"

"Yes. I promise."