The walk back to Masato's abode rang with a heavy silence. Not a single word was uttered, as if the very air around us had become contaminated. Although we traversed flatter ground, my legs slid across the streets with a strange, anchor-like heaviness. I had slipped the Polaroid into my pocket, leaving my hands to hang loosely at my sides, grasping at the cool, crisp air that nightfall brought. My eyes kept drifting across the local plains and the silhouette of the distant hills, though I couldn't say for certain if I would even remember the scenery by morning.
We eventually passed the village's outer borders. The local energy had rapidly died down under the strict orders of time.
"Are we heading to the Monastery or the Temple?" I asked.
A brief pause followed. Perhaps I had spoken too early; still, I couldn't maintain this stoic act forever.
I looked over my shoulder. Masato was a few steps behind, keeping a slow but steady pace. His gaze was fixed on the road beneath our feet, but his mind was clearly wandering somewhere far above the stars, utterly lost in thought. He hadn't heard a single syllable of my question.
"Do I need to go find another ant colony?" I asked, raising my voice.
His body shifted slightly. His hands, which he had clasped tightly behind his back, fell to his sides. The thick haze in his eyes cleared, and his face twitched with mild annoyance.
"He's living by the Temple these days," Masato answered, his voice rough. "He finds that nature eases his restlessness."
"Is it about the Larch tree?"
My mind immediately shifted to the towering temple guardian standing near the foot of the hill. True Larch trees were exceptionally rare in our region; the locals frequently viewed the aging giant as a living blessing from the heavens—though recently, it had begun to prematurely wilt despite being in the absolute prime of winter.
I received no response. Masato was not one to believe in superficial fortune-telling, and ghosts held no active grudges against him. Yet his father's deeply spiritual concerns always managed to settle over the young heir like heavy sand drifting in the wind.
The remainder of the ascent passed in total silence. Masato strictly refused my help during the steepest parts of our climb. I couldn't help but feel his stubbornness was a quiet act of defiance against whatever pollution was clouding his mind.
"I've already forgiven Palmer," I said quietly before we reached the formal threshold of the temple grounds, ensuring that I didn't plant the toxic seeds of a grudge into such sacred soil. I let out a soft sigh. "No, it's more accurate to say I simply have no other choice."
As we finally reached the summit, the vast view behind us was thoroughly swallowed by nightfall, save for the distant streetlamps that appeared like glowing fireflies comforting the ancient roots of our heritage.
Even though I possessed the unique privilege of being considered a regular guest within this imposing piece of architecture—a structure of heavenly red and brilliant gold that refused to bend to the shadows of the night—it never failed to steal the breath right out of my lungs.
Behind the grand prayer hall, the terrain rose even higher into the night sky. Weathered oak stairs led upward to a natural basin of crystal-clear water, cradled by a design of dark green moss and perfectly smooth river rocks. Seldom was I ever allowed up to that higher tier, as it was strictly preserved for deep meditation or for finding answers clouded by human judgment—two entirely separate concepts in Hiroshi's eyes.
Glancing upward, I noticed a faint, warm glow escaping from the upper tier.
"We've moved all your papers and art materials from my bedroom into the main hall," Masato said from behind me, his gaze tracking the flickering light above us. "It might be a while before he's ready, so keep yourself occupied until I'm back with him."
He parted ways with me there, though I didn't immediately move toward the doors. I stood in the courtyard, watching Masato as he lowered his center of gravity, practically using all fours to carefully climb his way up the steep incline of the hill. Hiroshi firmly believed that these grueling, unfair physical exercises would force Masato to work around his disability intuitively, hoping his son would be fully capable of maintaining the vast temple grounds when Hiroshi was inevitably called away to his next spiritual duties.
Once I was entirely satisfied that Masato wouldn't lose his footing and tumble backward, I made my way toward the main hall, sliding off my shoes before stepping onto the smooth, polished wood flooring. Though the structure was fundamentally designed as a place of sacred prayer, the formal shrines and monasteries down in the valley were far more prevalent among the active locals. Because of this, Masato and I frequently slept in the grand hall without the lingering fear of disrespecting holy ground.
I systematically collected my art supplies, deciding on a simple graphite pencil set and a thick pack of paper sheets—about a dozen—all held together by a piece of worn string. Tucking the bundle securely beneath my arm against the side of my chest, I realized the ambient light of the grand hall failed to provide enough visibility for sketching. I decided to cross the grounds toward the kitchen.
Leaving the entrance of the hall, I walked away from the primary path and navigated toward the inner courtyard. Recently, a massive cypress tree had been cut down near the center, leaving behind an enormous wooden stump that now served as a permanent pedestal for a resting paper lantern.
I glanced to my right, where a stone statue of a kitsune sporting five magnificent tails rested atop a perfectly round boulder. Though its carved posture was deeply dignified, its stone eyes felt remarkably judgmental—which was entirely ridiculous considering it was a colorless piece of rock.
I began my trek across the courtyard toward the opposite side, where the kitchen—or rather, the Temple's makeshift café—stood waiting. I noted with relief that the main overhead light was already turned on, meaning I wouldn't have to scurry around in the dark to find the manual generator behind the dining area.
Adjusting my hold on the pack of paper and clamping my hand down harder against the wooden container of pencils, I suddenly froze. A distinct silhouette walked directly across the dining room, moving from the right side of the glass.
I halted abruptly, my grip loosening enough that the pencil container slipped from my fingers, clattering against the ground.
The interior lighting was just bright enough for me to discern that the figure striding through the dining room was a woman—though the specific contours of her face remained obscured by the shadows.
"Uhm…" I began, the sound dying in my throat, not nearly loud enough for her to hear.
Noticing that she was notably shorter than I was, I instinctively tensed my shoulders, desperately trying to project some semblance of authority. I reasoned that she might simply be one of the few traveling pilgrims staying over in the rear lodging area; her posture was perfectly straight, radiating a youthful energy.
Yet, why did the hairs on my skin suddenly feel like they wanted to tear themselves away from my flesh?
An alien sensation struck me instantly—a sharp, suffocating mixture of primal fear and absolute awe. If she were just a local girl, I would have viewed this as a minor inconvenience for the evening. But she continued to stride across the left side of the dining room with slow, deliberate, and fiercely elegant steps. There was a profound sorrow radiating from her movements. Why did this feel so terrifyingly familiar?
Just before she reached the far exit, her final step slowed to a halt. She shifted her weight, turning her torso directly in my direction.
The pack of papers slipped from my numbed fingers—no, my entire body gave out, and I fell straight backward onto the dirt.
That pale skin. Those piercing, cyan-blue eyes. That distant, freezing expression.
"You're that girl," I quivered, my voice cracking as my lips trembled. My muscles felt completely trapped in setting cement, and my heart hammered so violently I thought it would shatter my ribs.
She didn't offer a reply. Instead, I watched in absolute paralysis as a pair of tears welled in her eyes, spilling over to run down her pristine, pale skin. I watched from the dirt below as a single tear fell, plunging toward the floorboards. I blinked, looking up, and the girl from my dreams no longer stood there.
The room was completely empty.
I didn't know how long I sat there frozen in the dirt. My mind systematically raced back to the train tunnels, tracking the vivid dream of her that I had experienced time and time again, ever since…
I dug my fingers into the grass, my hands scrunching against the soil until the roots protested and tore free from the earth. Dragging myself back up to my feet, I frantically gathered my scattered belongings. The damp grass had ruined most of my drawing paper, leaving the sheets warped with wet stains from the evening condensation. I was left with barely half of what I had started with.
I walked cautiously over to the threshold of the dining room. Because my feet were bare, I meticulously wiped them on the welcome mat, my brain inwardly screaming the reality that she was gone. I looked down at the exact spot on the floorboards where her tears should have fallen—where she had supposedly left her sorrows—but she had taken them with her. My own rational doubts began to mock me.
Desperate to escape my own mind, I sat down heavily at the servicing table, laying out the surviving pencils and dry sheets of paper. And I began to draw.
When I was eleven years old, my homeroom teacher had called me to the front of the blackboard to showcase my orientation project to the rest of the class. I had chosen to profile the local bird populations.
The project's strict guidelines dictated that we use cameras to capture our findings, but I had completely failed to locate or borrow one. Left with no other alternative, I had walked down to a local park and spent an entire afternoon meticulously drawing a single Russet sparrow as it bathed within a stone bowl of water held aloft by a statue of a grieving widow.
At that age, I hadn't yet grasped the concept of an average drawing skill level for kids my age. So, when my teacher immediately marched me down to present the sketch to the principal, I genuinely thought I was in severe trouble.
Five years later, that exact drawing of a Russet sparrow had earned me a friend.
I could still remember our very first conversation so vividly, even though her dialogue back then had been a rather sorry, broken excuse for the Japanese language.
"Stranger, hello!"
She had abruptly shaken me from my daydreams. Rather, Masato had violently kicked the back of my chair, alerting me to the fact that she had already been standing there monitoring me for quite some time.
"Uhm…" was all my brain could manage to formulate.
"The sparrow at the entrance of the classroom!" she beamed.
"You mean the main entrance of the school?" Masato had questioned. He hadn't said it rudely; it was simply that his natural instinct to help a lost foreigner overshadowed his usual introverted nature.
"Yes! The Sparrow is so beautiful! He was born when you were eleven?"
Masato, once again, had stepped in to answer for me. Back then, I was utterly useless at conversations, entirely incapable of holding my own ground. But Masato's innate drive to teach this girl quickly overrode his typical behavior.
"You mean, when he was eleven, he drew the sparrow?"
The foreign girl had nodded her head aggressively, giggling out loud at her own grammatical mistakes, taking the entire interaction in stride. "I've never seen such…" She trailed off, pausing to look down at her hands before making direct eye contact with Masato, fully expecting him to provide the missing vocabulary.
"Such a talented young artist?" Masato had supplied slowly, leaning forward to violently pinch the back of my neck to force me into the conversation.
The girl had flashed a brilliant smile at Masato, throwing a double thumbs-up in his direction. "Talent," she repeated with another round of aggressive nodding.
After that day, the three of us began meeting up every single afternoon after the final bell. We would be driven around in a massive luxury car. I couldn't remember the specific make or model of the vehicle, but I was entirely certain Palmer would, considering he had just recently acquired his driver's license back then. Driving around with both of the foreign siblings had always been… lively, to say the least.
I could still remember the exact way she smiled. The way we all smiled. It was these specific memories that allowed me to live, these fragments of time that fueled my ability to sketch, draw, and paint with such intensity.
It took a moment for the ghosts of the past to clear from my mind. I forced my focus back down to the blank page before me, and my breath hitched.
"Wow…" I murmured aloud to myself.
It wasn't often that I managed to genuinely surprise myself. Usually, whenever I drew, I became so deeply immersed in the mechanics of the piece that the final result felt predictable. But this was different.
I had sketched her entirely in stark shades of black, grey, and charcoal white—yet when I blinked, the page seemed to jump out at me. Vivid, phantom colors threatened to escape the borders of the paper; her specific complexion, her piercing eyes. Like an entity trapped within the art, I thought, the memory of Masato's words from that morning felt as though it had occurred lifetimes ago.
Alison. Her hair flowed across the page, though not in the same tamed manner it had at the bridge, which had conformed to the subtle theme of the afternoon. No, this sketch captured her raw, wild nature—the untamed personality that had systematically grown on me over the years.
Alison. Her expression of lively, vibrant curiosity seemed to swirl violently within the complex textures and lines of her eyes.
I wiped my brow with the back of my right wrist—a subconscious tic I always performed the exact moment a drawing or painting was completed. It was rather amusing, considering I hadn't even finished illustrating the lower portion of the page from memory. I had only sketched her torso standing in front of that brilliant silver light. The perfect moment, she had called it.
Given that my hands weren't yet aching, I reasoned I had likely only been sketching for an hour or so. There weren't any clocks around the grounds to confirm my suspicions; the Temple fundamentally refuted the presence of clocks, believing them to be a toxic distraction to those who wished to spend their days in spiritual reflection. Still, I desperately hoped Masato would return with Hiroshi soon so I could deliver the sketch before it was too late.
I was well aware that I could simply hand it to Alison tomorrow morning at school; however, with the chaos of the new semester, it would be incredibly difficult to secure a private moment with her. She would be instantly surrounded by her massive circle of popular friends, signing up for elite clubs, and managing her schedule.
It was hard to explain logically, but looking up at how high the moon now hung in the sky, my heart recognized that traveling to her residence tonight was something I absolutely had to do.
It wasn't long after completing the final shading of the silver lining that I heard the faint murmur of voices approaching from across the courtyard. I dropped my pencil onto the table.
I carefully slid my wooden chair back beneath the servicing table; one could never accurately predict the mood Hiroshi would be in at this hour of the night. Stepping out of the dining room, my eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. Luckily, the glowing paper lantern resting on the cypress stump illuminated the path, and their voices were loud enough for me to easily overhear their banter.
"…And that's why you should never trust an American woman," Hiroshi's raspy voice drifted ahead of them. "The fairy lady told me she was going to the loo; however, a minute later, the manager came out and said she was stuck through the window!"
"So she tried to skip out on the bill and get a free meal out of you," Masato said.
"She would have gotten a lot more out of me if she'd just stayed at the table!" the old man cackled.
"Remind me how old you both were?"
"Well, let's see… that was back in '58, meaning I was forty-six, and she was about sixty."
"No wonder she failed to get through the window."
"Sato, my boy, if only you knew the women of those days—you just can't find them anymore."
Masato snorted out loud, waving a hand in loose greeting as he spotted me standing by the door. His expression looked a lot more relaxed than it had down by the river. "Did you hear that, Yoshi? My father was into older women."
I grinned. "I'm grateful for it, honestly. Otherwise, it would always be rowdy around here."
The old monk let out a wet snicker. "You see, Sato, my boy? Tashi here gets me."
I smiled. That was Hiroshi for you; he was incredibly old and frail, constantly messing up my actual name, yet it never bothered me. I was just relieved to see the old man in such high spirits.
Masato paused at the entrance, holding the sliding door open to let Hiroshi enter first out of respect. As the old man walked past into the dining area, he unstrapped his traditional sandals. He smiled warmly at me, placing a heavy, weathered hand on my shoulder.
"You brought money with you, Kakashi?"
"Only enough for one game," I track with a sigh.
His smile widened, and his grip on my shoulder tightened with surprising strength. "Atta boy—you know how to entertain an evening. That brave spirit of yours will take you far."
Masato chimed in dryly from behind us, "—and drive you poor."
Masato navigated his way over to one of the dining tables at the back of the room, lowering himself into a chair. He placed a hand over his stiff leg, rubbing the muscle slowly to ease the tension of the climb.
"Show me," he said, nodding over toward the service table where my sketch lay. "If it's done, of course." He shifted slightly to get comfortable.
I walked over to the service table, passing Hiroshi, who was busy inspecting a chipped corner on one of the wooden tables near the kitchen.
"Those mites are at it again," the old man muttered. I couldn't help but wonder how termites could have chipped the wood in the way that it had been.
I picked up my sketch and went back to Masato's table. Looking over my shoulder, I verified that Hiroshi had headed deep inside the kitchen to grab the board game. Even though I respected the old man, I felt this sketch shouldn't be looked at by him.
I laid the paper flat on the table and sat across from Masato, keeping my eyes on his face and my ears tuned to the kitchen.
Masato's face remained entirely blank, but his eyes seemed to drown within the complex details of my charcoal drawing, instantly grasping the raw texturing of the emotions I had so desperately poured into the piece. He sat completely silent and still, letting his bad leg drop loosely toward the floorboards while using his hands to grip the edge of the table. Those were the only physical indicators of his internal state.
From the kitchen, the distinct sound of Hiroshi gathering the wooden board echoed out. Gently but swiftly, I reclaimed my sketch, hurrying across the dining room to tuck it safely beneath the ruined, damp paper sheets.
Although Masato had said absolutely nothing, his silence was more than enough.
A few moments later, I found myself trapped in a thoroughly dire financial situation.
I stared down at the colorful board before me with immense psychological discomfort. Somehow, through a series of tactical atrocities, both Blue and Red had systematically claimed eighteen of the twenty-eight available apartments on the map. To make matters worse, every single property lining the final homestretch had been upgraded to luxury hotels. In order to successfully bypass these financial landmines, I would need to roll a perfect double-six, followed immediately by a four—and that was only applicable if I managed to roll a five on my subsequent die. If I failed, I would inevitably land directly on Masato's premium water park property, which carried a catastrophic landing fee of seven hundred yen.
Masato noticed my desperate gaze lingering on his water park tile, and a smile fit for a tyrannical king broke across his face.
"Would you care to visit the water park, Yoshi?" he cackled maliciously. "I assure you, the rides will cost you everything you have."
This double-crossing bastard and his father were cut from the exact same cloth.
"Say, Sato, my boy, how is your net worth holding up over there?" Hiroshi asked, stroking his thin white goatee as a competitive flame that had been buried for years relit in his eyes.
"Business has been exceptionally lucrative, father, all thanks to my incredibly kind and faithful contributor," Masato sneered, tapping me on the shoulder with slow, patronizing pokes. "I'm currently up twenty-four hundred yen. What about yourself, old man?"
The old monk cackled wetly. "Well, I'm currently—"
"Alright, that's enough out of both of you…" I interrupted, aggressively waving Masato's hand off my shoulder as I stared helplessly back down at the board.
Logically, I should have simply flipped the board and walked out, but when you were physically sandwiched between an ancient monk wielding a heavy walking stick and a smug Masato holding one of your own graphite pencils hostage… well, let's just say I was completely hopeless. They were clearly colluding in this scheme to bankrupt me.
I looked down at my only two surviving assets on the map—both situated on Beggars Street, currently worth about as much as an empty burlap sack.
"You both are utterly pitiful vermin," I muttered, scooping the plastic dice back into my palms.
"Rich and pitiful vermin, we are," Hiroshi countered with a sharp sneer.
After the game had concluded and my pockets had been thoroughly emptied, I handed the remainder of my art supplies over to Masato, informing him of my immediate plans to trek over to Alison's estate. He didn't question the late hour or interrogate me about why the sketch couldn't simply wait until the morning bell. He merely accepted the wooden container with a silent nod, promising to store everything away neatly for me once he finished cleaning up the dining room.
I secured the sketch beneath my arm, wrapping the fabric of my jacket tightly around it to protect the charcoal lines. But before I could cross the threshold into the night air, Hiroshi spoke up.
"Let me walk you out to the gates, Tadashi, my boy." He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder, leaning a fraction of his weight against his polished wooden walking stick.
I nodded my final goodbyes to Masato—a silent, mutual confirmation that I would meet him tomorrow morning for the start of the new semester. He returned the gesture before disappearing back into the kitchen to prepare a late-night meal for himself and his father.
Hiroshi and I stepped outside into the dark courtyard, the old man's hand never wavering from its position on my shoulder. As we neared the stone gates marking the edge of the hill, our pace naturally slowed to a meditative crawl. He tightened his grip on my fabric, slightly tugging backward to signal for me to halt.
I turned around to face him. The light of the paper lantern caught his face, and my stomach dropped.
That thick, suffocating veil of spiritual concern had returned to his expression—the exact look Masato had warned me about down by the riverbank. I didn't dare utter a single word, my spine tensing as the ambient air grew incredibly dense between us. Hiroshi noticed my apprehension, looking down to adjust the placement of his walking stick against the earth before leaning his frail frame into it.
"Masato told me he spotted a black cat today," the old man said softly. "He said it scurried frantically into the thick bushes adjacent to a local bouquet shop."
Honestly, I was entirely taken aback to hear this. It was not at all the type of conversation I had been anticipating, nor did I remotely comprehend the spiritual premonition behind it. "Masato isn't typically one to use mundane events to foretell his own fate, Hiroshi-san."
The old monk breathed a heavy, rattling sigh into the cold night air. "Back when I was your exact age, I possessed the same rigid, unbending spine that both of you carry now." His eyes clouded over as he recalled a distant time and a forgotten era I could never fully comprehend. "However, I grew up. And over the course of many years, my spine was battered by omens and horrific truths that now…"
He took his hand off my shoulder, slowly rubbing the weathered wood wrapped around his walking stick.
"Yoshi."
He looked dead into my eyes. That stare carried the crushing weight of eight decades, and his stern, authoritative voice commanded my absolute submission.
"I have felt for some time now that something terrible is moving upon us—an entity that will severely test our wills and completely shatter our views on life. I have meditated on this dark current for hours and days on end. Listen to me very carefully when I say this." He placed his hand back onto my shoulder, squeezing the muscle with an intense, burning grip. "We are not born to conquer this world alone. Warriors throughout history have always relied on a sacred brotherhood. But at the end of the day, it is you who must stand alone by the banks of the river. It is you who must stare into that water, look at that reflection, and answer for absolutely everything you have done, and everything you will do tomorrow."
His words were immensely heavy—enough that I could vividly imagine myself standing by the edge of a rushing river. It was a location I could recognize, yet when I looked down into the water of my mind, I completely failed to see my own reflection looking back.
"I'm sorry…" I said, a distinct hint of regret bleeding into my tone. "These spiritual concepts are simply not clear to me yet."
The sheer sincerity radiating from the old man was layered with a desperate sense of urgency, but I felt as though my young heart was still too naive. Too innocent to understand the weight of his words.
Hiroshi nodded slowly, as if he had entirely expected that exact reaction from me. "You must still fight your own battles, boy. Only then will the river finally quench your thirst. But remember this: when you finally look down into your reflection, you must ensure you recognize the thing looking back at you."
His words ran deep, operating on the scale of a vast, uncharted ocean. Although I was no better than Masato when it came to validating omens and superstitions, I held an immense, unshakeable respect for Hiroshi. He was someone I looked up to above all others.
I offered a sincere, deep bow, taking a deliberate step backward, though his hand lingered until the very last second. "I will respect your warning, Hiroshi-san. And I will take your advice to heart, even if it is difficult for me to fully comprehend right now."
He finally let go of my shoulder, a small, tired smile escaping his wrinkled face. "You're a good kid, Takashi. Significantly better than most."
With one final bow, I took my formal leave, parting ways with the temple grounds with a sudden, frantic haste, as if the ominous warning would grow physical feet and chase me down the mountain. But moreover, as I jogged down the dirt path, I felt the charcoal sketch tucked beneath my arm grow inexplicably sharper against my ribs.
When I finally reached the very bottom of the steep hill, I paused to take one final glance at the silhouette of the wilting Larch tree, whispering a silent, desperate prayer into the dark that it would somehow heal.
For all our sakes.