6. Tears
Her tears never stop.
The Ma Clan is dead now. All of her children are gone. She will never see them again. She will never hear their laughs again. She will never sleep hugging one of them again.
They are gone with no trace of their souls remaining and it hurts more than anything she has felt before. That empty feeling where she used to feel their names, that silence where she used to hear their thoughts and heartbeats...
It is even worse than the blight and she knows that if he wasn't there with her, she would have died a long time ago. Kazuma is the last name she can feel far in the distance, the only heartbeat she can faintly hear. He is the thin string that ties her to life and forces her to live.
She tries to find comfort in his presence when she is too tired to sob loudly. She often falls asleep with her head resting on his lap and wakes up alone under the heavy sheets of her bed to start crying again.
She cries for the children she has lost. She cries for Kazuma who she forces to share the pain and stay with a useless, weak woman like herself. She cries for herself. She doesn't know how she will get over her loss. She doesn't know when she will stop mourning.
She just cries. Her tears never stop. Thus, she never feels his which he lets himself to shed only when he is alone, safely locked in his room.
7. Fear
Years pass slowly. They live locked in a shrine in the Near Shore as Bishamon finds the one in Takamagahara unbearable with the memories. Only Kazuma occasionally goes out to buy some food and other necessities.
He waits for Bishamon to fall asleep before sneaking out quietly because it is impossible to do so when she is awake. He has explained her many times that he has to go out to the marketplace sometimes. Still whenever she catches him preparing to go out, she thinks that he is leaving her for good and she begs him to stay until he decides to not go that day.
She never goes out of her room except to bathe. Sometimes she doesn't let him leave when he goes to her room to take her meals to her. They lie side by side and she nuzzles herself to his side. He always untangles himself and quietly leaves as soon as she falls asleep.
He knows that she is afraid. He is the last one she has left and she fears being alone. She wants the old days back. She wants her shinki back.
Sometimes, he tells her to accompany him outside in the day time. He says that a walk would do her good and that maybe, just maybe she will find another shinki.
She refuses and buries her face in his chest. She tells him that he is the only one she needs. And he feels the guilt that he works so hard to supress awakening whenever she does that.
He knows that she doesn't mean what she says. She can't need him. She is just afraid of the pain that she would experience if she were to lose a shinki ever again. That's why she refuses to give out names and keeps telling him to not leave her.
She doesn't really need him. He is the murderer of the Ma Clan after all. She would hate him if she knew. But he is just too much of a coward to confess.
He is so afraid of being apart from her. He is afraid of not being able to protect her and losing her. He wants to stay by her side. Yet he knows that one day he won't be able to hide the truth anymore and he will have to face that fear.
8. Birds
Bishamon is lying on her bed. It's nearly evening and she can hear Kazuma walking around in the shrine, probably preparing her dinner.
She sighs and wipes her tear strained face with her sleeve. He never comes into her bedroom unless he has to do cleaning, bring her food or she calls him to help her dress but she can always hear his light footsteps on the old floorboards of the building.
She knows that he works from the moment he wakes to the last hour before he goes to bed. He prepares all of her meals, washes her laundry, prepares her bath everyday and cleans after her besides tending to the building on his own.
He seems to be able to do anything now after nearly two years of being her only shinki. He repairs the roof and the cracked porch himself, he grows vegetables to use for the food and even some flowers to put in her room in vases, he makes her dresses for all seasons...
She feels guilty for using him like a servant. Whenever she apologises for it, he tells her that she shouldn't. But she can see that he isn't fully comfortable and happy there. She sometimes feels small pangs comimg from him but they disappear as soon as she feels them and she knows all too well what that means.
He is stiffling his emotions. There is something he doesn't want her to know but she can guess what it is. He öust be tired. Tired of everything that has happened. Tired of being an only servant. Tired of fearing the ayakashi whenever he goes out of the shrine. Tired of her...
She should talk it out with him. She should ask for his preferances and find a better god who would name him, like he deserves. She should let him be free.
Yet she doesn't.
Why?
Because she is just that selfish. Because she doesn't want to die. Because she doesn't know if she could live without him by her side. Because she needs him. Because she-
The heavy wooden door of the porch creaks as it opens slowly and Bishamon's eyes widen. Is he going out? Is he leaving her?
She gets on her feet and runs out to the hall.
No. He can't leave her. He should stay. She should make him stay. She will-
Kazuma is throwing crumbs of what seems to be bread on the grass and small birds happily eat around his feet. She sees him crouching down slowly and he begins to talk quietly.
He is talking to the birds. He is telling them how much they resemble the birds Touma used to feed. After a few minutes later he takes one in his hand and he starts to tell it about Touma. He says that she is clever, strong and talented but also kind in spirit and that she was the one who helped him around when he was a new shinki.
The bird chirps in his hand and he gives it more bread as his breath hitches. Bishamon grips the doorframe as silent tears fall down her cheeks.
Unfortunately, Touma can't come there to meet them, Kazuma tells the birds as he first wipes a single tear off of his face and then strokes the head of the bird with the same finger.
Bishamon doesn't even feel a small prick. Just how good is he at concealing that sadness?
9. Omen
Kazuma is lying on his futon and watching the shadows dance on the ceiling as the flame on the small candle trembles.
His body aches, his head throbs and his mind screams for sleep yet he can't manage to close his eyes.
It happens sometimes. He remembers the old days and can't stop thinkng. He thinks about the first day that he was named. He had been saved from being a nameless, mindless, wandering spirit yet his vessel form had hurt the one who saved him.
He knows that the object he turns into isn't something he can control but maybe...
Maybe it s an omen. Maybe Izuma was right on that first day. Maybe Bishamon should have just sent him away. He hasn't done anything but to cause her pain after all.
Maybe he is an omen himself.
Maybe he was the sign of the calamity that would fall upon his family from the start.
That must be true, he decides. He is nothing good.
10. Choki
Bishamon quietly walks in the dark halls of the old shrine. It is nighttime and Kazuma is already asleep so she has decided to get her own water herself rather than calling for him.
She quietly tiptoes in front of his room but stops when she hears small whimpers behind the paper door. She slowly, carefully slides the door open and steps into the dark room.
She can see Kazuma lying on his futon. His blanket is kicked aside as he trembles and murmurs incoherent words in his sleep. She thinks of waking him but doesn't want to scare him.
Quietly, she sits down beside him and covers him. Then she takes his right hand in hers. She can't exactly see the mark of his name in the dark, but touching it has always given her comfort so maybe he will feel that too, she thinks to herself. She slowly strokes his hair with her other hand.
"Choki..."
She slowly calls out his name. Everything is okay. They are together. Nothing will hurt him or her. Nothing will seperate them. She whispers the most soothing sentences she can come up with more for herself than him but still, Kazuma calms down a few minutes later.
Bishamon slowly raises his hand to her lips and places a tender kiss on the back of it. It's the best way she can express the growing affection she feels for the young man. She runs her thumb over his name and whispers it again.
She wishes she were brave enough to hold his hand and kiss it when he is awake too. She wishes for him to, one day, understand her. He doesn't have to value her as much as she values him. She just wishes for him to stay by her side.
