The first thing that registered in your mind when you opened your eyes was that you were dreaming.
You were back in the cemetery uphill, wearing your mother's same, old cherry blossom kimono. When you tried glancing at the view of the city that you usually saw this high up, darkness that stretched on for miles greeted your vision instead. It was like the cemetery was the only place that existed in your dreamscape.
Instinctively, your eyes flickered to the vague direction where you remembered your parents' graves have been marked. But instead of seeing the worn tombstones you've regularly been visiting, you saw Akaashi's familiar, demonic form in its place. Suddenly, you weren't in the cemetery anymore, but in the forbidden forest where you first found him.
Dead trees loomed over the two of you much more menacing than they had been alive. Instead of the blood you've witnessed firsthand, the wilted leaves pooled around the clearing. Despite the significant changes in the scenery, it was like the scene replayed the same way. When Akaashi turned around to affix you with his chilling, ruby-eyed stare, he still seemed to be feasting on something in his hands.
But this time it wasn't an unidentifiable carcass.
It was a very human-looking forearm, lopped off at the elbow. Your heart surged in your chest, and you could feel your blood running cold beneath your skin when you caught sight of the familiar bell charm that enclosed the slack wrist. You were too petrified to take a look at the sleeve of your kimono, but at the corner of your eye, you could see the crimson fabric becoming dyed into a darker shade from the spot where you feared your arm must have been missing.
Akaashi darted out his tongue as he licked a single drop of blood that trickled from a cut on your fingers. The bell chimed from the abrupt motion, and the sound rang so loudly in your ears, you winced.
"Foolish, foolish, little human," Akaashi whispered in your ear, and you barely had time to wonder how he appeared behind you so abruptly.
Because the moment you opened your mouth, blood spilled from your lips as you felt him plunge a hand through your chest.
———༺♥༻———
"Fujimoto-san, what are you doing?!"
"She's been blighted! This is the only way to purge the negative energy that's infested her body!"
A crash. Shuffling footsteps. Rage. "You will not exorcise my granddaughter because she is not possessed."
"Amatsuki-sama—"
"Please remove yourself from my home immediately." A pause. A shaky breath. "We'll discuss this come morning."
You knew better than to announce that you were awake when you regained consciousness. The dream you had just now threw your mind into a haze. But the familiar feeling of lying on a futon with a soft pillow beneath your head, and the warmth of your grandmother's hands as she gently caressed your arm—still, thankfully, attached to the rest of your body—drastically helped in anchoring you back to reality. When you were sure that Fujimoto, who must have been in the same room, has left, you fluttered your eyes open; squinting slightly at the harsh light that razed your vision.
Your grandmother looked more disheveled than you've ever seen her. The lines of worry were etched onto her aged skin, as she stared vacantly at the tatami in contemplation. But when you managed to call out, "oba-san," weakly, her gaze snapped your way in a split second.
"Thank the gods," she whispered, sounding too relieved for comfort as she felt for your temperature. "Your fever still hasn't gone down... (Name), what did you get yourself into?"
"Sorry," you croaked, struggling to pull yourself upright only to be halted by your grandmother.
"Lie down," she commanded, before standing up to pad over to your dresser. There, she plucked something from one of the drawers before returning to your side, tying your warding charm around your wrist. Wait. When did you take it off?
"You forgot to put this on when you headed out for the festival." The disappointment in her tone was hard to miss, and you could feel yourself shrinking with guilt. "Out of all the times you could have encountered a malignant entity, why did it have to coincide with your forgetfulness?"
You grimaced, examining the charm with curious eyes. "A malignant entity?"
"Are you hiding something from me, child?"
The answer was probably written all over your face because your grandmother all but sighed in the next second, brushing stray hairs out of your face with a tenderness you've gotten so used to receiving over the years. You felt terrible for having to hide Akaashi's identity from her. Even after what you saw, even after what you dreamt of, you couldn't find the courage to be up front about the yokai that's lurking in the shrine's territory.
You couldn't bring yourself to break Akaashi's trust just like that.
When you refused to speak a word, your grandmother pressed her lips into a thin line, readjusting her position so that she's seated comfortably by your futon.
"I suppose it's time I told you the truth of how you survived that car crash."
Your ears perked up, and you shot your grandmother a hard stare. Was she talking about what you thought she was...?
She spared a brief glance at the open window, where the full moon was still on display in the vast sky. It must've been well past midnight, and you were taken by surprise by the fact that you weren't out cold for a whole day just like what happened the last time you blacked out.
"A few years before your mother had you," she began, the stutter in her tone being clue enough of how hard this was to talk about again, "the shrine was infiltrated by a yokai."
You are a false prophet.
Grimacing, you brought your fingers up to massage your temples a little. Where did that come from? And why did the voice in your head sound so familiar? But before you could even wonder why your brain decided to bring forth a random recollection to the forefront of your mind, your grandmother continued.
"Yokai attacks weren't very unusual back in the day, when we still didn't have...appropriate protection. But this yokai, in particular, was different." She paused, looking at you for a moment before she shot you an unreadable look. "He claimed that he was the eldest son of Tsukuyomi-sama, and that he's been cursed to wander the land for being half a demon."
"He's spent centuries searching for his mother's sacred ground, and when he finally found it, he begged for us to help him transcend to the heavens so he could speak with the goddess, himself." Something flashed across her eyes for a brief moment—regret, perhaps? "The thing about being the head of Amatsuki Shrine is that you get this...familiarity of sorts. You'll know when a certain creature is even remotely related to the goddess, just by following the feeling in your gut."
"I believed him," your grandmother said. "Despite the way he looked—a grotesque demon that seemed like he was out to desecrate the shrine—I knew it deep in my heart that he was definitely connected to Amatsuki-sama somehow."
How dare you claim to be of the lunar goddess' progeny when you look like that!
The headaches were getting worse now, but your grandmother didn't seem like she was going to be stopping any time soon.
"But before I could even think about what to do, the monks followed the usual protocol for a breach in the shrine," she spoke with a softer tone now, like she's having a hard time reminiscing. You observed the way she clenched her fists on her lap, lip quivering with an emotion you couldn't identify. "One of them carved the demon's heart out of his chest when they weakened it significantly. We all know that once a yokai loses his heart, he will perish on the spot."
"However, that didn't happen with that one. But instead of lashing out as a final resort to take his heart back, he melted into the shadows and went into hiding. We've yet to see him again, actually."
Your grandmother then spared you another one of her fleeting glances, like she had the same chaos swirling in her mind as you. "The yokai's heart held power like no other—even the monks could tell at one glance. So, instead of disposing it like we should, I agreed to keep it locked in one of the hidden rooms within the shrine. You wouldn't believe how well its energy alone repelled other yokai and malignant spirits."
"Me and Anri lived in peace thereafter. She graduated, prepared to become the next shrine head, met your father, Kazunari, and had you." This was the first time she's cracked a smile in the midst of her story, but there's something bittersweet behind it. "Oh, what joy you brought in this old shrine. Your mother couldn't even take care of a houseplant when she was little, yet she immediately became a busybody mother the moment you were born. She wouldn't give up on you even if you were a really sickly child...but then—"
"The accident happened."
She took in a sharp breath when you took the words right out of her mouth, and your grandmother hastily wiped off the evidence of her still-festering grief from her eyes. Clearing her throat, she managed a somber smile as she took your hand in hers.
"It happened on a night of an eclipse; a hit and run that happened right at the main road in front of the shrine. Your father was killed on the spot," she murmured. "...Anri was severely injured, and she would bleed out if we didn't bring her to the hospital. But she insisted that we saved you first."
"Your legs have been crushed in the wreckage, and I couldn't quite get the sound of your wails out of my head for days after that." Your grandmother laughed, pinching your nose affectionately as if she wasn't telling you the tale of your parents' demise. "I thought I would lose all three of you that day...until Fujimoto-san proposed a solution."
You frowned, staring down at your legs. There had been a time in your life when your they were fucked up? You could never even imagine your life without track, much less having to live as a cripple.
"Yokai have inhuman regenerative capabilities, said Fujimoto-san, and I immediately figured out what he was talking about. He was telling me to transfer the yokai's heart we have in safekeeping into my only granddaughter."
Wait. What?
"It was a practice that the heavens would most definitely frown upon, but I was convinced that Tsukuyomi-sama will forgive this foolish little human for saving the only family she has left," she told you, eyes roving over your pliant form so tenderly, it almost hurt to see her that way. "But it's as if my sins are catching up to me fast, and you have to pay for the grave decision I've made all those years ago."
She reached out for the arm that had your charm tied around it, caressing the bell with lithe fingers. "I made this charm to specifically keep that yokai away from you. I suppose it's worked well for a few years, but I'm not so certain anymore..."
You tried pulling all your focus on what your grandmother was telling you. You really did. But the facts at hand were beginning to add up in a terrifyingly parallel manner as Akaashi's stories.
A human stole his heart. The monks kept a yokai's hidden away in the shrine.
It was breathing life into another human, unknowingly. The heart you had right now was not yours.
It was Akaashi's.
"Is that why...I never get tired even after track practice? Why I've always had such inhuman stamina?" The way your voice trembled with dread or confusion or resentment—perhaps a mix of all three—rang in your ears like white noise. You raked both your hands through your hair, tugging mindlessly as you fought the urge to scream. Your grandmother scrambled to enclose you in her arms, consoling you as you let choked sobs rip past your throat. You could feel her trembling as she held you close to her chest, but you couldn't reassure her that it was okay, that this will all pass.
Because it wasn't okay, and this will not just pass like any other trivial matter that plagued your fickle, little minds.
There was a yokai's heart beating inside of you. And the same yokai—the one you blindly put your trust in—was going back to get what was truly his.
———༺♥༻———
Foolish,
foolish,
l̴̟̙̟̣̟̠̐̈́̒̉̽̌̒͝ͅi̵̭̟̦͎̻̱̇̐ͅț̶̨̧̛͇̝̹̟̽͒̓̂͒̓͊͠ṭ̷̡̨̮͖͚̄̀̈́͌͑̊͆͆͝l̵̡̤̘̣̰͎͚̮̾̀͐̊̈͛̒̽̕ĕ̵̦͚̭̰̟̪̱̋ ̴͎̀̀͑̈́͑̀̄ḩ̵̯͔̎̀̒́̆̓̓́u̷͈͍͖̯̪̰̗̒̕m̶͉̀̾̀ã̶̬͖͌̀͂͛ṇ̸̨̭͎̼̖̼̟̌̾̐̇̊.