Well, it's been a long time since my last update. This chapter is short but I hope you still get to enjoy it. So, before anything else, let me properly thank the following for the reviews left for me: Konan03, i'm sweetly insane, Suki90, Aoi Hana9, Lonely Athena, AnimeLover1885, Kurokishi, Evermint, Myne0, Cristinne, sapphirehimitsu, Ashtart, Ilovemyself036, theluckyshipper, Dragowolf, Everlastingsakura, JasminDragon92, II Wings of life II, Yatogirl, Hachiretsu, Angelus Ulquiorra, satomika, mominijunbashiri, kurovillgane, Zhane 17, kurokuro96, eureka crystal, A.S.-sama, and 4 others who identified themselves as guests. Thank you very much.

The pace of the story is kind of slow so hopefully, you'll bear with it. After all, it's not simply romance but this is also a story about acceptance and coming home and etc.

Please note that this is still a work of fiction which means that the practices mentioned are not as accurate as the customs itself. Other parts are loosely based on stories I have heard from people who witnessed it firsthand. I felt the need to always remind this just in case.

Disclaimer: Author does not profit from this and simply borrowed the characters from Nurarihyon no Mago.

Rikou watched with curiosity as the people watched in silence, while his grandmother faced the one who spoke. Her eyes were misty as she stared at someone she alone could probably see. To the rest of them though, they only see Tsurara.

No words were spoken between the two but it seems his grandmother understood the message so clearly. In a split second, the young woman turned to him and grinned. Nostalgia hit him hard as soon as he recognized that painfully familiar grin from an old man he idolized when he was younger. Then to his surprise, Tsurara suddenly fell forward and it was instinct that made him move and he caught her with his left arm.

She was panting hard as if her energy was suddenly depleted. Someone from nearby offered a glass of water which she refused as she held to him for a moment. "Thank you," she managed a small whisper before he felt her stiffen once more.

"Ah, ina."

He blinked at the voice and the smell that permeated his senses. It was the smell that reminded him of his father – the smell of that particular flower. "Dad?" he whispered.

This time, she straightened again. "Ah, Rikou, khawis ta sinmek mo sumaa."

He couldn't understand his words and so he only stared as the woman smiled at him wryly. "It's good that you finally stepped foot in this place, son. It's my deepest regret that I never showed you this part of your root and that's why I am hoping that you will not follow my foot step and run away. One day, I hope that you get to embrace this life which I threw away."

Without waiting for him to respond, Tsurara turned to his grandmother and a loving smile plastered her lips. Again, Rikou felt like he was seeing his father instead of Tsurara. "Momma."

"Child..."

"I miss you Momma. Some may think I don't care much about you but I do..."

Youhime choked back her tears as she shook her head. She stepped forward, breaking tradition as she reached Tsurara and cupped her face. "Oh my child...how I have longed for you to come home..." she sobbed.

Transfixed at the scene, Rikou only watched as Tsurara tenderly leaned on his grandmother's palm. "I'm finally home Momma. I'm finally home. This time, I won't be going anywhere. "

"Dad."

"Rikou...tell Wakana that I'm going ahead. Someone has been waiting for me for a very long time. I remember it now...I made a promise with her so long ago and she faithfully waited. Momma, know that I love you."

Youhime nodded her head as she stepped back and wiped her tears. Rikou felt some finality in his father's words and finally reality sunk in – that his father is truly gone.

"Then you should go...it's time to go...be at peace, my child. Know as well that I love you...so very much..."

Tsurara nodded her head.

"Wait – dad!" he called out reaching for Tsurara. The woman turned to him with his lazy grin and Rikou just knew...his father has left. "Damn it. I haven't said anything yet!" he cursed, catching the woman who was now falling.

"Her name was Yamabuki Otome – a child of nature. Since birth, he was already promised to her," Youhime explained later when she was resting. "You have to understand that he was a blue baby – dead for a few minutes." Youhime blinked back as she reminisced the past. There was regret there. "A mother...always do something for her child and that's why...I offered him to Yamabuki Otome...you have to understand that spirits like them also have a world of their own, and they age just as us to a certain degree."

Trying to digest everything, Rikou only stared at her for a moment. "Child of nature? Promised to her?" he repeated, the gears in his head already working. Being a writer, it made him curious about everything.

She slowly nodded her head. "Yes...she wasn't a spirit of the dead like most...she's the spirit that guards the wilderness – a nature's child. In return for helping him bring back to life, she asked for his soul when the time comes. I was desperate at that time so I agreed."

The mind of a writer started to kick in. "Is that even possible?"

"I am not forcing you to believe me. I am simply telling you part of the reason why Rihan chose to leave at first. It wasn't out of hatred or anything else but he simply refused to believe that the girl he met way back was actually his intended in the afterlife. He met the girl you know when Otome decided to show herself one day. Rihan was with Setsura back then and the two teenagers were camping with their friends when she appeared and he fell in love with her."

Rikou blinked. "But...he told me he never fell in love with anyone else before mom," he argued. He remembered asking him that before he asked Kana to be his fiancée.

Youhime only hummed. Someone knocked on the door and he stood up to open it only to find Tsurara, Yura and Torii.

"Hi, we came to check on Lady Kyo, Rikou," Torii spoke with a soft smile. "How is she?"

"I'm fine here Torii...I'm more worried about Tsurara – are you alright, child?" she asked tenderly and Rikou felt a little bit jealous that the three were more like her grandchildren than him.

"Not really but I'll manage. My body was unable to stand two possessions simultaneously and it was my first time."

"Come in, I was explaining to Rikou some of what truly happened to Rihan and what he meant about a promise to someone."

Rikou sighed for the invasion but returned back to his seat as the three ladies followed. Youhime continued as soon as they all settled down.

"Soon he started disappearing and would always return confused and unable to remember where he was and what happened. But he always remembered that girl. What I was thankful back then was the fact that Otome never harmed him unlike the other spirits. Normally, a spirit would do anything so that harm will fall for a person and that they will die so he or she can collect his soul. But Rihan always appeared safe. And then accident happened. And he was once again dying."

"What accident?"

"They went hiking when he fell down. At first I thought perhaps Otome came to collect him because even as they tried treating him with medicine, his wounds never healed. In fact, the more they healed his wound, the more it worsened. Internally, the doctors managed to save him. But the torn flesh never showed signed of healing which confused the doctors of course. To people who question things through logic, that was simply impossible." She paused, wanting to say more but considered what to say next.

"But...?" he prodded.

"He hit his head from that accident and it took us a while to realize that he soon forgot about her. I was thankful for that. Because despite how I traded his soul before for his life, I know that a spirit and a human is really impossible to happen unless the human dies. Because the doctors cannot heal his external wounds – I decided to finally do the ritual here. She refused any offerings I gave her just like she always did."

"What offerings?"

She smiled at him, for his curious mind. "Sometimes you offer them drinks, food, clothes and that will satisfy them. But with Rihan, Otome never took anything from what I offered. She told me...that she will have him someday. And that he promised that they will be together. She was willing to wait for him."

He watched as she stared into space with a pensive look.

"Youhime, you must understand why even to this day, I refuse what you give me in exchange for his soul. He promised that he will come to me on that day – on that field of keria flowers. If it were not for that accident, he might have come there you know, willingly and there's nothing you and I could have done. But now...much as I loathe to, I'm going to let him go. I'm not as cruel as the others. I'm setting him free not because you offered me. It's because I chose to."

"Those were her words to me and that was the last time I ever made contact with her. When Rihan learned about what happened to him, about the wounds that refused to heal, about the doctors amazement when it was suddenly gone, he refused to believe any of them. See here, he never believed in supernatural stuff to begin with. And he also could not remember her."

"Keria?" Rikou frowned. "Dad...always has a certain smell on him – I don't know why I think that but there's always a distinctive smell whenever dad is around – a smell of keria."

The old woman nodded. "Perhaps she always watched out for him. It's strange when you think about it...for a spirit to go that far for a human. And now that he died...he finally remembered what he forgot many years ago – his love for a woman he thought was a human being. I think to this day, even after explaining to him everything, he believed she was human."

"Uncle Rihan said he always see a woman with long black hair – beautiful and graceful. She always appeared when he seemed to be in trouble but would soon leave when he is safe. He told me once that he might even be in love with her. But because he was a married man and that he loves his family, he never repeated those words again. But he always could see her," Torii shed some light. Rikou turned to her with a questioning look. Torii only smiled. "Rikou..."

He wanted to say something, to question more but he felt the beginning of a headache. His mind could not possibly handle all the information he gathered in this short moment so he simply rubbed his temple and managed to force a smile before standing up.

"It suddenly sounded too much. I need some air."

The females watched him in silence until his presence left the room. Torii sighed and closed her eyes before looking at the old woman. "Perhaps it was unfair that on his dying breath, the name he was calling wasn't Wakana's but that of Youhime. I was there and witnessed it. It left Wakana-san heartbroken to realize that her husband was calling for a different person while dying." She sighed and managed a bitter smile. "This is why I hate coming home here. Being involved with this supernatural stuff could ruin a normal person's life."

Youhime's voice was gentle but her words were harsh. "You and Tsurara had been cowards for the last few years if you think about it. Never confronting what you feared most, never even acknowledging the gift passed down by your ancestors – you both just thought of it as a curse. You two – wherever you go, you can never escape such gifts. Always remember that the dead still sits on your table no matter where you are."

Tsurara observed her friend. Come to think of it, why did Torii run away too? She tried to think of reasons aside from Maki's death but she couldn't come up with anything at all. "Torii...why did you leave?"

Her friend simply looked away. It was Yura who answered for her. "Because while you were given the gift to heal, she inherited her grandmother's gift as well – that which can also see the other side. Many times, she saw Maki and the rest who passed away. In the bathroom, in the doorway, there's always someone that she alone could see."

"But Youhime-san is correct – the dead still sits on our table. Because I wasn't really able to run away from it. It was all thanks to Uncle Rihan and Rikou and Kuro that I managed to keep my sanity."

"Here we are – after so many years, reunited over the death of Uncle Rihan and finally shedding some light to some unspoken questions before. Will we be able to live differently if we choose to accept what we are?" Tsurara asked the kind woman.

She smiled warmly. "Only you children can answer that. While you are at it, please help my grandson understand some more."

He lit a cigarette and watched the people below from where he perched. He could still hear the eerie songs of the old women, the voices of some drunk men playing cards, the hush tones of some other people who came to pay their respect.

As a writer, he was always open to ideas and always willing to explore different genres. But this right here – he thought he was prepared for it but he wasn't. Perhaps at first he thought he was, because he knew he would simply hear stories from his grandmother. But having witnessed firsthand what happened earlier, he still couldn't wrap his mind around it.

His grandpa in Tsurara's body.

Then his father in her body again.

Their voices were that of Tsurara but the smell and gesture and the lazy and smug expressions were all from the two.

And then there was the matter about his father being intended for someone since long ago. What does that make of his marriage? Was it a lie then? But they said he lost his memories and forgot about her.

"Couldn't take it all in?"

He glanced at Torii who stood beside him and leaned forward to look below. "I actually always see her around Uncle Rihan. But she never does anything. She simply watched over him. I never told Uncle Rihan about that of course but I think he always knew even though he didn't remember at first. Hence he always liked keria flowers."

He blew some smoke. "When I first came here, it was only to fetch my grandmother to reunite her with her dying son. I wasn't truly prepared for this kind of stuff no matter how mentally prepared I felt I was."

"Then shouldn't you stay a little bit longer to learn more about it? To understand more of it?" she suggested lightly with a smile. "I think we all came home for a reason – for answers, for closures, for acceptance – whatever the case but I think you, me and Tsurara came home to start discovering what we are, what our purpose is and the like."

"So that Tsurara girl has some kind of power in her?"

"Her family came from a long line of healers so she could heal. But I think she got more. And hence, it was always painful for her to leave this place. How she managed to stay away for seven years must have been hell of torture for her, always suffering the consequences. That is what it takes to receive such gifts from nature. You owe nature your servitude. That's the reason your grandmother could never leave this place."

"I see."

"Anyway, it's a surprise Kana chose to stay a bit longer. I thought she would insist on going back already, being the city girl that she is."

Rikou only snorted. "Give her a little credit. She's not as icky as you think," he defended but Torii only rolled her eyes before patting his shoulder.

"Please don't question the love he has for your mother just because you learned about Otome. You must remember, he loves you both differently. I'm going down to help. Tsurara needed rest so Yura forced her to go home."

"Forced?" he raised his brow.

Torii gave him a sideway glance. "She doesn't want to be left alone in the house. She said she could always feel them there. But she's still human whose energy was spent being a medium between life and death so she needed to regain her strength."

And with that said, she left him mulling over things once more.

Rikou was curious when he barely saw Tsurara the following days until the burial of his father. He watched as the men dug out the open space two blocks from his grandmother's house. He questioned why they would be burying him there instead of the cemetery to which one elderly answered kindly.

"That property is owned by your family. It's only just that he be buried in the land that he supposedly owned. Besides, what is cemetery? It's but only a piece of land where the dead gathered. It doesn't really matter where you bury your dead – be it in the mountain, along the river or the cemetery – none of those matters."

And Rikou supposed that was the end of that. However, when the old man was a few feet away, he gave Rikou a grin. "Besides, you'd be surprise, in our neighbouring towns, they don't bury their dead six feet under but simply hang their coffin. They have their own belief for that too. They said you are a writer, you should stay and observe and see for yourself."

Despite not knowing of the culture practice by the people, Rikou and his companions managed to adjust themselves. In fact, even Kana decided to mingle, if only a little. But that's improvement, he supposed, rather than staying inside the room. Although she shared her intention to leave for the city anytime soon. It was only out of respect for his father, that she decided to stay until his burial.

Coming to terms with his discovery about certain aspects of his father's past, Rikou decided to finally stay a little while longer. He decided to see for himself the things his father refused to acknowledge before.

"What comes next after this?" he asked the person who passed by him as people gathered around the hole with the coffin already being laid down. As soon as it touched the ground six feet under, the men who dug out moved fast as they covered it in sand and the people only watched in silence. To his amusement, he heard someone say that it's a bad omen to sneeze or even point fingers.

"Men will butcher pigs once more."

He looked to his left to see the person who answered and it was Tsurara garbed in simple dark dress.

"Why?" he whispered.

"Because it is part of the custom," she shrugged and met his gaze. "So, are you going to stay a while?"

He only nodded.

"Then that's good. With you as the only relative around, there is someone to help her manage the next activities."

He blinked and briefly glanced as the people started to disperse. "There's more?"

She spun around and started to leave with the people and Rikou chose to tag along. His grandmother did not attend the burial given how difficult it is for her to move around.

"Of course there's more," Tsurara answered and glanced at him. "Sometimes, I even thought it was kinda ridiculous to practice everything in detail. Example, after this, they will butcher pigs. One is cooked and served in the house where the wake was held – and only to children and women only. Another will be butchered, cooked and served in old man Karasu's house for married men only. Those unmarried will be served butchered chicken instead. Ridiculous as it sounds, it is part of the customs and people follow them because if not, it's an invitation for an ill omen."

He once again only managed a blink at the information and perhaps there's something in his expression that made her suddenly stifle a giggle which was quite uncharacteristic of her. His impression of her was one who was always serious and gloomy because he never saw her so light hearted in the few days he had known her.

"Well, that's a first. I thought you're the type who simply question things without any sort of expression on you. I'm amazed you could be baffled simply by that kind of information," she mused. They both stopped walking now, unmindful of the people passing them by. He watched as a slow smirk crossed her face. "Did you know...?" she asked playfully, the smirk still present.

Rikou blinked at the change in her. It's like seeing a different person. "Know what?"

"There are beliefs and practices which should be strictly observed by family members to avoid ill omens befalling. You are given 40 days waxy."

He frowned at the ever present smirk on her face. "So? What could be the reason you can't wipe that smirk off your face then? It's simply a waxy period and that's all. I think even in other places, they are allowed that."

She shrugged. "Sure. I don't know about their practices but for people here, you are not allowed to take a bath during that period until told by the elderly and they also prepare the things needed for the bath."

She started walking again, leaving Rikou dumbfounded. Forty days? Without taking a bath? Seriously? Who does that?

Realizing she was already far ahead of him, he jogged and caught up to her. Only then did he notice the distant look on her face when she thought no one would see. And then he realized that she could put on a mask so easily that he started to wonder which is the real her.

Torii mentioned that she was given a gift too but still got away. How did she live those years suffering from consequence of abandoning her gifts? Barring his first impression of her and their unpleasant encounter, he finally started to see just how jaded she had become.

He remembered when she was suddenly ill after meeting 'Maki'. He remembered when two dead people used her as a medium. At first he didn't pay attention but as he remembered it clearly now...he remembered that she just looked so...defeated.

"Hey," he called her attention to her slight surprise.

"Huh?"

"Was coming home here a mistake for you?" he asked bluntly and sharply noted the widening of her eyes. Rage seeped in but she easily masked it away.

"I tried running away from this for years now you know," she answered coolly and truthfully which caught him by surprise. He wasn't expecting that. He expected her to rage. "But after being called a coward by the woman I respected the most, I finally understood and realized that for seven years, I have been going in circles and in the end, I still ended up in the same place I left and run away from. But still, I resent the fact that what tied me down to this place was the 'gift' I never wished to have in the first place."

She was bitter, he realized. He opted to say something but at that moment, he truly do not know what to say to her. Did he just open a lid he should not have? By asking her that?

She shook her head to drive away her bitter thought perhaps and flashed him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry. Anyway, we should hurry. Being her only grandson and family left, you are basically the man of the house so you should let the elderly guide you in the next forty days." She frowned a little. "You realized, don't you? That you can't just easily leave her now."

Slowly, he nodded in acceptance. "For years, I was made to think of her differently. It's sad that it was by my grandpa's family's doings but there's nothing to be done about it now but simply to accept and start things differently with her."

She briefly smiled and started walking again. "It's a lonely life and her only companions were the dead. She's a strong woman to have managed to live this kind of life – where she was surrounded by nothingness. And what kept her company in her house were the spirits of the dead. Had it been me, I think I won't be able to manage it. And perhaps that's why Torii ran away too after coming up with the same conclusion as I. Yet no matter how far we have gone, no matter the distance..." she trailed off and shook her head again. She looked over her shoulder to glance at him. "We started on the wrong foot – you showed a poor behaviour in front of your grandmother whom you met for the first time and I acted just as poorly. Seeing as you are to stay here longer and for your grandmother's sake, let's start anew. I'm Tsurara, you are Rikou. It's nice to meet you."

Dumbfounded once again at this shift in personality, Rikou grinned a little after recovering. Really, he's seeing her in a different light. Perhaps she wasn't as bad as he first thought. "It's nice to meet you too. Now, let's go and it seems like I have a lot to learn here."

Thanks for the read. Reviews are very much appreciated.