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He was a hunter once.
He was the best for seven villages around, before a boar hunt went awry and ended with a broken shoulder and a hand that would no longer grip properly. At ends and jobless, tired of the pity of his neighbors and former lovers, he left to go traveling. When he reached the high shrine in the mountains, they saw his dead eyes and how he gripped his shoulder with one hand, saying nothing, and took him in to learn the simple life of a monk.
He's nothing special now, and doubts he ever will be again. He's content, however, with an ascetic's simple robes and an ascetic's simple life, dedicating himself to something higher and unseen. He has nothing to lose, nothing to be proud of on this mortal plane, the perfect kind of worshipper—and so it is not totally a surprise when the god visits him.
Chris raises his eyes and sees a figure sitting in the lap of the god's statue. One foot is drawn up and the other kicks against the statue's stone foundation, a golden staff dangling from their hands. He hurries to cast his gaze down again, and stiffens when the god laughs.
"Are you blinded?" they inquire.
"No, your eminence," Chris replies. "I can still see."
"So you truly believe," the god muses. "How surprising! I had thought with your dead heart that you could not believe anything. Perhaps it is only that you cannot love."
Chris frowns, but wouldn't dream of arguing with a god. "What do you require of me?"
"You?" the word is laced with scorn. "Nothing. You only remind me of someone I know. He didn't love anyone either, when I first met him." The god hums, and their foot taps a bit faster against the stone. "I'm not sure he does even now."
Chris remains silent, his mind still trying to process the fact that that he could touch his god's robes if he had neither a sense of propriety nor self-preservation.
The god's laugh is sharp and piercing. "You're no fun, are you?" they say. "But you're loyal, and I like that. I'll give you a reward sometime." And just like that, the god is gone, taking their soft glow with them. The room falls back into candlelit darkness.
Chris doesn't tell anyone else about the encounter, but he doesn't pray for a few days after that, just to see what will happen. Nothing does, except for the head monk scolding him for neglecting his duties. When it is his turn to pray he creeps into the temple like a thief, waiting for something to happen: lightning to strike him, his shoulder to be healed.
Nothing happens, and after a while he curses himself for his own hope. The temple is dedicated to a trickster god, kind and harsh by turns; their worship is meant to placate him more than anything else. He was a fool to trust them, but he knows now that his faith is not foolish.
--
He's not even praying when the next visit happens. He's outside on one of the high wooden balconies that jut out over the edge of the mountainside, precarious and dizzying, a reminder of how much they rely on the gods to protect them from the whims of nature. He's on his knees with his sleeves rucked up, one hand scrubbing slowly at the floorboards. There's a rustle of cloth by his ear, and then the most beautiful man he's ever seen is beside him, crouched down and peering at the rag in his hands.
"What are you doing?" the man asks.
He doesn't cast any light, although his skin has a too-pale luster. His voice doesn't shake the rafters. He's not a god, though he's not quite human either.
"I'm scrubbing the floors," Chris replies.
"But no one comes out here," the man points out. "Isn't it a waste of time?"
Chris leans back on his heels, feeling the soreness settle into his muscles once he stops moving. "You know, I've often thought the same thing."
His visitor laughs. The sound is as sharp as the god's was but less harsh. There's a kind of music in it, and Chris wonders at the sound. "I'm Miyuki," he says. "Kuramochi told me about you."
Chris glances up, but the sky remains cloudless. He isn't cut down for his impertinence, for saying the god's true name aloud. "You're their favorite," he says, realizing. Miyuki leers, but says nothing.
It seems like no one else in the temple can see him. Miyuki follows him around for the rest of the day, asking after everything he does, mimicking him when it pleases him, laughing when Chris does something he finds funny. After a few hours Chris starts to forget himself, starts to joke with Miyuki just as he's being joked with, and feels his face trying to smile for the first time in years.
"I like you," Miyuki says. "I'll come again."
"Please do," Chris says, and means it.
--
For someone whose beauty and charm was so powerful that it caused a war among the gods hundreds of years ago, Miyuki's behavior is quite ordinary. He gets distracted by butterflies and coaxes Chris to take more chore assignments in the kitchens so he can harass him into cooking his favorite dishes. He squints sometimes, as if his sight is bad, but when Chris asks him about it he ignores him with a prideful tilt of his head. Sometimes he lures Chris to sneak away from his duties, to sit with him on the grassy inclines that surround the temple and comb his long hair smooth. "Kuramochi won't let me cut it," he says.
"Are you happy with them?" he asks, and then hesitates. Being in Miyuki's carefree presence is making him forget himself more and more.
Miyuki's grin is bright, but no less false for that. "Who would complain about the attentions of a god?" he says.
"I assume the attentions of a human monk can't compare," Chris says as he begins to plait Miyuki's hair. It's soft and smooth as it slips through his fingers.
Miyuki is quiet, but Chris has learned to read him over the past few months. This is a thinking quiet. Chris leaves him alone as he weaves his fingers over and under, leaving a braid behind.
"At first, I came because I was sent to you," Miyuki says. "But now I come because I want to."
"Is that a problem?"
Miyuki sighs and leans back without warning. Chris's hands are interrupted as they're squashed against his chest, and he tenses to accommodate Miyuki's sudden weight. Miyuki feels warm; he was a human once, and is more human than god even now.
"They've never denied me anything," Miyuki says. "Have you ever noticed that? They can be cruel, but they always help you if you really need it."
"That's why I chose to worship them above all other gods," Chris agrees.
Miyuki makes a thoughtful noise. "Kuramochi is kind," Miyuki says. "So are you."
They watch the sun set together. Eventually Chris's hands curve around his waist, his weaker hand covered by his stronger one to help maintain the grip, but Miyuki doesn't protest or move away.
--
"So," Kuramochi says above Chris's head. The voice is at once furious and resigned.
Chris immediately prostrates himself, unable to stop his body from shaking. He always knew Miyuki's carefree nature was a bad influence, knew his constant presence was a test that he was failing. "Blessed be the paths you walk upon," he says. "Glory to your name."
Kuramochi snorts. "Is that the tongue that stole my consort's heart from me?" they say. "Maybe I should cut it out."
"Do with me as you will," Chris whispers.
"I'll tell Miyuki not to visit you any more, then," they say, and Chris can't stop himself from flinching. Kuramochi's laugh sounds viciously pleased. "You do love him, don't you?"
Chris knows better than to lie, but he can't make the words pass his lips. He nods, and the god's light turns thunderous.
"Of course you do. Even the gods fell in love with him; how could a mortal resist? But he never loved anyone in return," they say. "He was always satisfied by the gifts I gave him. But now..."
Kuramochi sighs. "I came to kill you, but Miyuki would be sad if I took you away."
Chris remembers Miyuki's voice in the field: They've always given me everything I want.
"Not even a god can control the human heart," he answers.
"Don't test me," Kuramochi snaps, and Chris presses his forehead harder against the stone floor. "It's not just you I'm punishing. I'm banishing Miyuki from my side. He'll return to being a mortal, doomed to reincarnate and die over and over again just like you."
The thought of dying doesn't frighten him as much as the thought of losing Miyuki. He presses his lips together to stop their trembling.
"And every time," Kuramochi says, "Every life, you'll find each other. Finding him and losing him, over and over again. A fitting punishment from a trickster god, don't you think?"
The words are harsh, but their tone is tired. Sad. Reincarnating through the ages is the kind of boon that only the truest lovers earn.
They always help you if you really need it, Chris remembers.
"But that's not enough," Kuramochi says. "One of you will remember everything—every lifetime, every loss, every death. But only one of you. That isn't a misery you can help each other with."
Kuramochi lifts his staff and nudges Chris sharply in the side. "On your feet, mortal," they command, "and choose. Who will bear the burden of memory? Miyuki, or yourself?"
Chris stands, though his legs feel weak. Kuramochi's robes are a jewel-tone green, something that the stone and wood statues erected in their name have never been able to capture.
He imagines Miyuki bowed down by the burden of memory, the burden of finding him, over and over again. Then he imagines himself, injured forever in a way that's invisible, and thinks, what's one more.
Kuramochi is kind, he remembers. So are you.
Chris lifts his eyes to Kuramochi's face—a last gesture of bravery—and gives the only answer he can.