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What is the meaning of love?
It was a word that once was whispered into Okunimono's ear ( I love you ), but it was a word without definition—no clear shape, only blurry lines that, no matter how hard he squinted at, never seemed to take shape.
"What do you mean?" he had murmured back, but a pair of lips pressed against his forehead, and it was the only answer Okunimono would receive.
But really, it was no answer—only a question upon a question, until it built a mountain so high around him that the puppet staked his entire life on scaling it.
What was the meaning of love?
It was simple and childish to check a dictionary. Okunimono had slunk into library, once, wrapped up in his tattered cloak and battered boots. The words on the page were written in a language he naturally understood. An intense feeling of deep affection , it explained.
"But what the hell does that mean?"
He snapped the book back to the start, so the spine crackled as he ran his fingers along the page. Affection. A gentle feeling of fondness or liking. And still, the only clarity he received was he was now aware that he was attempting to shove a square peg into a round hole. It just, simply, was never meant to fit.
"Do you need some assistance, young man?" An old librarian asked, but Okunimono only shoved the tome into her hands.
"No," he replied and let the wind whisk him away into the eerie night sky.
What is the meaning of love?
It did not have a definition that he could comprehend. As a puppet, emotions were hardly tangible. He could name them on the faces of people, but how could he mirror an emotion he simply couldn’t see? He often studied humans, attempting to understand these quirks in their nature.
"You're scowling again," he had teased.
"I am not doing anything," Okunimono replied. "This is just what I naturally look like."
"Nope. You're frustrated. I can tell."
"I am unable to feel frustration."
He laughed, a beautiful, melodious laugh that surged within Okunimono like the apex of an orchestra performance. "I don't think that's true."
But the fact remained that it was. Okunimono was a puppet, no human. His skin was cold to the touch when he ran his fingers along his porcelain cheek, and his stomach did not growl or fatten with the tide of food. He was no different than a lamp post, really, with just enough light to keep the worst of the darkness away but inevitably resolved to a fate of solitude on a long and winding road.
But, sometimes, a stranger will stumble into the light. Just like he had.
Okunimono had found him when he was seventeen—battered, bruised, curled up on the side of the road in the snow with nothing more than a red scarf and a threadbare sweater. Okunimono wore clothes, for it was much easier to move with the crowd of humans than against it, but he did not need them. He unbuttoned the woolen jacket draped around his shoulders and tossed it over his body.
"You'll die out here, you know," Okunimono said, in his monotone, cold voice that sliced like the winter wind around them.
"Probably," the boy replied. His face was streaked with frozen tears, and Okunimono only blinked at the sight of them. "But that's okay."
Okunimono had never known a human who did not want to survive. Frankly, it was irritating—not emotionally, but in a rational way that his brain comprehended. He had seen countless people die since his creation, those taken too soon, or those who simply ran out of time. The irritation stemmed from the boy's willingness to go into the dark night with a whimper.
If Okunimono were human, he would have chosen to scream. Every single time .
"Get up," Okunimono said, and when the boy didn't listen, he hauled him up anyway. He was tall and lanky, and he had to hunch forward just so Okunimono could manhandle him by the collar. "You will not die today. Not while I am around."
Looking back, as Okunimono walked through the quiet, lonely streets, he never expected to meet the boy named Ajax like that. He had read in novels where first encounters could go a number of ways, whether that was hostility, romanticism, or friendship. Okunimono sought none of those when he dragged Ajax to a small cabin he called his own.
As a creature that defied the gods, he just wanted to infuriate them a little more. Tamper with the wheel of creation and destruction, so to speak.
And yet, despite being the one who took the lead, it was Ajax he spent the next few years following behind. It started as a quest or two—traveling to nearby towns for supplies or opportunities to put some cash in their pockets. That quickly spiraled into journeys, where the two spent long periods on the road, roaming from place to place. One day, Ajax came into his life.
The next, he never left.
Okunimono was good with languages. With a little studying, he easily filled his memory with the knowledge of the local people, since it was not preoccupied with past experiences and emotions. Ajax, however, was the negotiator—while Okunimono's inability to react to people's emotions appropriately often led to miscommunication or hostility, Ajax was able to sway anyone with a smile, a laugh, and a kind word.
It was an odd sort of relationship, between the two of them. Ajax never offered information about his past, Okunimono didn't pry, and vice versa. The two of them just... existed. Together. Not demanding anything, not requiring anything, and Okunimono enjoyed the rationality of an equal, symbiotic relationship.
The hazy days bled into one another, each one filled with Ajax's gentle smile and calloused hands and the soft pitch of his voice.
As a puppet unable to feel happiness or joy, Okunimono, for once, was content.
But then, in a giant, silent scream, the news of a war rose around them, and Ajax was called to its embrace.
Okunimono, as he had been doing those years they spent together, wordlessly, followed behind.
"What is the meaning of love," he asked the red scarf wrapped thickly around his neck.
It was cold today—was cold that day, too. The day Ajax had slipped on the stiff uniform that cinched his neck like a noose.
"What's that look for?" Ajax had asked with a faint smile. "Do I really look that bad?"
Okunimono had regarded him, as cold as the winter air that chilled the room. "What's the point of fighting for a war you don't believe in?"
Ajax had paused at that and pivoted on his heel to face a mirror. He was perfect in the puppet's eyes—the very image of a soldier. But. But. Okunimono knew Ajax. Had spent so much time just studying him, learning him. Ajax was gentle and kind. War cried for the blood of men, and Okunimono wasn't sure Ajax could give that.
Wasn't sure yet, at least.
"You're right," Ajax had said, his soft voice wilting to a whisper. "I don't believe in the war. But I have a reason to fight it."
Okunimono had raised an eyebrow then, almost condescending, before his non-existent heart had slammed into his throat. Ajax was smiling, his eyes closed, the corners of his mouth stretched in a gentle curve. Okunimono rarely used objective terms, but it was beautiful.
"I have someone to fight for," Ajax had said, and they did not speak of it again.
Okunimono had let his imagination fill in the blanks—he had painted a picture of this perfect "other" in his mind, of someone that would be worthy of Ajax's attention and sacrifice.
And when he had went to bed that night, he was seething . It had been the first emotion he could positively identify as having. Anger. Rage.
Jealousy.
The chill that day had crept into the weeks and months that followed. Where Okunimono had been hesitant, Ajax had been certain—the first time the war demanded a sacrifice, Ajax did not hesitate to provide—though he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed in Okunimono's lap afterward, and the puppet could only watch the waves slam into him like a lighthouse watching a shore. But Okunimono wasn't illuminating anything, only perpetuating the darkness that surrounded them.
Eventually, Ajax had became numb to the killing. Okunimono would help him wash the blood off after battle, and there would be nothing in those kind, gentle eyes, as if someone had sanded the pretty interior of a geode to the dark, dull crust.
"Ajax," he had said one night like that. Ajax didn't even shift his gaze. "Is this worth it?'
Was this person he was fighting for worth losing every part of himself ? Some nights when Okunimono lay awake watching Ajax sleep, he wondered if his sacrifice would be enough to satisfy the beast of war. But bloodlust and foolhardiness were just like a river. It may wane during drought season, but eventually, it will rain again.
And it will rain hard and fast, as it was now.
"Is this person worth losing yourself?" Okunimono had prompted again.
Ajax had grabbed his wrist then, hands calloused from the stock of his weapon.
"Yes," Ajax had whispered. "He is worth everything."
And like anything Okunimono did not understand, he had left it alone. To fester and rot.
But not this . Okunimono had to know. What is the meaning of love?
The slope on the hill was steep. His heels sunk into the snow with every step, and he had to bow his head into the scarf so the chill would not frost his skin. It would be a very harsh winter this year—Okunimono would need to find a place to shelter soon.
But those thoughts dissolved when he crested the hill and came upon the stone circle that rested at the apex—the symbol of going out with a bang when really, it was a small whimper.
"I'm home," he announced to no one, folded his legs, and plopped down in the snow. "It was annoying to get here."
The wind howled in response. Okunimono regarded the stone he sat before for a moment before he picked at the fraying ends of the scarf.
"I heard the war is over. It was a draw if you believe it." He paused. "To me, it means it was never worth it to begin with."
"But I have a reason to fight," Ajax would have said. "So I would have fought it."
Okunimono's fingers curled around the edge of the fabric. "You know what I'm saying, right? It means your sacrifice was in vain. It wasn't worth it."
Okunimono did not bother to remember most things—memories were useless without emotions or sensations tethered to them, or else it would be impossible to recall. But Okunimono would never, ever forget that day.
That night they were in the trenches, laid out in their thin sleeping bags and pressed together for comfort. He would never forget the whisper , "I love you," that sounded more like a phantom than a voice. Would never forget his confusion, his frown, the way he asked what he meant only to be met with a kiss on the forehead.
That morning, they had woke to an ambush. Ajax, the dutiful soldier, had responded instantly. His "comrades" did not react the same way. Most screamed. Most ran. Most died.
But Ajax didn't. He had roared, roared louder than the very war itself, as he had fired off round after round. When the enemies had entered the trenches, he had fought them off with a bayonet. When the bullets were gone and the knife out of reach, he had gone hand-to-hand. Okunimono could provide little assistance—he had purposely avoided involvement in a human war, but somewhere, deep inside of himself, he had wished he had learned something .
He had wished he had listened .
But he didn't listen hard enough, just like he didn't listen to the footsteps behind him. Before he had realized there were reinforcements, it was too late—he had turned to meet the dull sheen of a bayonet.
"Okunimono!" Ajax had cried and dove forward.
These blades were dull and jagged, he remembered—they had sliced into Ajax's stomach and came out with a vicious spew of blood.
"What the hell are you doing!" Okunimono had shouted, had caught Ajax when he stumbled back into his arms.
He wasn't very strong though—no muscle mass to speak of—and they both tumbled to the ground.
"You idiot!" Okunimono had hissed. It took a bit of wiggling to get out from under Ajax’s body, but he managed, the audience of enemy soldiers watching with their rifles raised. "What are you doing? I'm a puppet!"
I'm a puppet and you're a human. Protecting me is foolish—I can break and repair myself, but you will break and die are all the things that he wanted to say. But each word dissolved at the sight of that bloody pink smile.
"You're okay," Ajax had whispered. "You're okay ."
Okunimono had never felt more hollow, even as a puppet. "I would have been fine. Why did you do that?"
He had pressed his fingers into the wound, but blood had gushed and gushed and gushed . Ajax wouldn't live. That was a irrefutable fact, like a definition in an ancient tome.
"I told you..." Ajax had said with a slight laugh that had morphed into a pained noise. "I told you... I have someone to protect. I... protected him."
"What do you mean?" Okunimono had said. "You're speaking in riddles. I don't understand."
He had only protected Okunimono—not the person he was imagining. But.
But Okunimono was not dense. Though he struggled to understand human emotions, he understood their intentions.
"Why?" Okunimono had asked. "Why me?"
But Ajax was no longer there to answer. He had just stared up at Okunimono with the smile still on his face, and the puppet knew he was gone.
He had went gently into the dark night–the fate Okunimono had thought he had saved him from when he dragged Ajax from the snow that day.
So what was the meaning of love? Why was he someone Ajax had to protect? He was a puppet. Ajax understood that he could not feel emotions, that he could not begin to reciprocate the idea of love. He also knew Okunimono would not get hurt from knife and bullet wounds.
So why?
Why?
Why?
Okunimono bowed his head and pressed his forehead to the snow.
"What is the meaning of love?" Okunimono whispered. "Because I can't understand why you loved me."
And maybe he would never know the answer. Maybe there was never an answer to begin with. Maybe love was some abstract emotion that Okunimono would never have any hope of understanding.
He pressed his face into the scarf again and wondered why he felt moisture accumulating on his face. The melting snow, perhaps?
If he could rewrite the definition of love, he would only include one word. Because it seemed like that emotion was in kind words, gentle hands. In a laugh like a melody and in a smile so radiant it blotted out the sun. Love was just simply... Ajax.
And even though he was a puppet, Okunimono felt content to know that he had experienced something as beautiful as that.