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The first time Satoru saw Megumi was an accident.
He doesn’t venture above ground very often. There never really is a reason to; Satoru knows his place. Besides, he thinks the world above is run entirely differently than the one below and he has no understanding of it.
Today, however, he is restless. There’s an odd twitching between his fingers, the balls of his feet, something unspoken telling him to move. And so Satoru finds himself, of all places, above—the sun merciless on his thin skin.
Spring seems to have finally set in, the ground fluffed with overgrown grass, and the drooping branches of wisteria grazing the ground. With spring, it seems as if vitality and joy have arrived as well. Satoru spots the frenzy of dryads, slipping through the trees, heavy hooves thundering after them. Little circles of nymphs sit together, lounging on each other’s laps, occasionally shimmering under the sun.
Satoru, of course, cannot be seen: not willingly, anyway. It’s enough to just sit and watch. His presence, if known, would probably not be welcome in such a lively place. He knows the things said about him, especially those whispered through desperate, disparate mouths, gaping in prayer. But among his own, he is perhaps more of an anomaly. He exists somewhere so starkly at odds from here. Here is life, sex, love and growth. Satoru is the embodiment of its opposite. But there is a part of him, somewhere, that calls him here from time to time. Satoru doesn’t know what it’s in search of.
Something whizzes by the side of his face, dangerously close to his eyes. Alarmed, Satoru jolts back and sees a figure run past him.
It stops short close to him and bends to pick up what looks like a discus, circular and gleaming. The figure, a boy, wrapped in a soft white chiton, turns towards him and smiles sheepishly, eyes bright.
“I sure hope I didn’t hurt you, sorry about that.” The boy bows slightly, still panting harshly. “I’m still working on my aim.”
Satoru feels his stomach drop and his feet curl in the grass.
“Y-you can see me?”
“Uh, yes, quite clearly,” the boy says, eyebrows furrowed. “Am I not supposed to?
“No, no, I just—I don’t understand how—do you recognise me?”
“... Sorry, I don’t think I know you. I think I’d remember someone like you.” The boy winces then, as if in pain. He chuckles, drumming his fingers on the discus and asks, a little subdued, “What’s your name?” and yellow roses and peruvian lilies start growing around them. There’s something so magical about the boy in front of him, kind smile and all but—
Satoru’s feet have almost dug into the earth. How does this boy see him? It should be impossible. He looks around quickly to see if anyone else is looking this way, looking at him. But it seems as if the boy and him are cocooned away from the rest of the world—nobody is paying them any attention. The boy is still standing in front of him, little chasms forming on his cheeks as he stares expectantly at Satoru. Satoru can’t look at his face directly.
“That’s none of your business. Just leave me alone.”
The boy’s mouth flattens. The flowers around them wilt a little. He clicks his tongue in slight annoyance.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” he says, in a voice far less friendly than before.
There’s a different kind of light in his eyes now, and Satoru feels his stare burn through him. He looks away from the boy, seemingly dismissive, but his heart beats just a little faster. The boy huffs and runs away. Satoru watches him as he goes, bounding over to a group of boisterous men and women, all dressed similarly, all glowing in the sunlight.
He watches as a girl with gossamer hair steals the discus from the boy’s hand and quickly sneaks a wreath onto his head. Startlingly bright, the flowers twine atop the boy’s hair, framing his wide eyes and slowly reddening cheeks. For a moment, it feels as if he’s been struck by one of Cupid’s arrows and Satoru whips his head downwards, patting his chest for any trace of the bronze tip. But there’s nothing, only the erratic beat of his heart and an abnormal warmth on his cheeks. The boy yanks the wreath off his head, throwing it aside in a frenzied movement. He shakes his head quickly, beaming at his friends, and Satoru can see the little dimples on his cheeks all the way from where he sits. The boy turns his head slightly and catches Satoru watching him, face immediately darkening.
Suddenly, Satoru wants to disappear and so he does. He stands abruptly and begins to walk away, following the sounds of water running beneath his feet.
The boy stares after him, watching his black hair unravel from the small, neat braid it was in as he almost glides across the earth. The wreath, laying forgotten at his feet, seeps red, violet and bright white hues into the soil.
-
Satoru cannot stop thinking about his encounter with the boy. It’s almost as if the boy has planted flowers into his chest as well, for he feels a fluttering petal-like feel ghosting across his heart. The more Satoru thinks of him, it blooms and blooms and blooms until he feels like he is exploding and he stands up from his throne—a purple-coloured petal has fallen into his palms.
He later finds out that it belongs to a spring crocus, which blooms when someone we love forgives us—Megumi is lying down, head on his lap, eyes on him and the sky, silent and with a soft smile.
-
It truly is spring, and the boy brims of cherry blossoms, the same texture of folding petals thawing on Satoru’s tongue, fragrant snow bloom. So ephemeral and weak. But it’s shining with all its might. Thump, thump. Like a heartbeat. Satoru is watching again, interest piqued and heart swelling with the boom of flowers that have been blooming and fluttering—paltry plum palps that have been put between his palms. Everything the boy says and does: crushed flesh spilling purple sweetness, unlike citrus from the summer dribbling down onto the boulevard ground,
Satoru, God of the dead and King of the underworld, is enamoured by a boy who blooms flowers wherever he walks and has a soul that is so bright and warm, a complete juxtaposition of him. He comes to realise that the boy is Persophone, and His name is Megumi.
It all sparkles so brightly, watched by sakura trees and it’s too blinding for Satoru, like how Megumi’s soul is and he ends up closing his eyes while the flowers around him dance in paper-thin air. But even in the likeness of the depths of the underworld, some light always pierces through. Megumi is suddenly in front of him, eyes looking curiously again—he doesn’t seem to be startled as he was the previous time, and there isn’t any less to his friendliness anymore, greeting Satoru again with that soft smile of his.
“I see you’re here again. Want to head to the river together with me?”
Satoru feels the inclination to nod, and so he does.
-
The water shifts—a soft sliver through a lasso of time, baked in the glint of sun and frothed with a milky sugar glaze. This passage, passing, downstream, in trickles, then in bouts, then in torrents, pressed up against rocky slabs in a victorious deluge, like triumph over what has been conquered, and persistence in what is left to be conquered still. But more so, a gentle waning of river rush; tender sloshes against sand, lapses over moss. Pondering, as Megumi does, these travels of mind and breath.
They watch water lilies cresting downstream where the soft river snakes, leaves overhead on needlepoint with dew and winterfrost, floating under a kaleidoscope sun. The light—it glistens, and Megumi nestles the back of his hand in the cusp of Satoru’s, lifting it to catch the warmth and wind; this is the light of life.
Tulips teem the flower pasture. Azaleas, too. They unfurl to the rhythm of a haiku, and breathe to the song of wind chimes.
Megumi’s song: the one he wrote for the coming of April.
A lump of steel, like a shooting star. Satoru thought he was slowly getting used to the world above ground, but seeing the same sky as Megumi makes familiar scenery look different. Hades, is swinging between hope and despair at Persophone’s slightest gesture, and he feels the blooming in his chest again, a melody starting to play—April is here.
What kind of feeling is this again? What do they call this feeling? He is sure this is what Cupid calls love, for Megumi exists inside a spring that cannot be replaced.
Maybe the underworld can be a little bit prettier, can be a little bit brighter, can be a little bit— and Satoru might just be losing control of his mind just a little bit. Even more so when Megumi turns around and smiles at him, white carnations blooming in between and around their intertwined fingers, “I showed you my space, maybe one day you should show me yours.”
Now, Satoru feels overwhelmed. It would be catastrophical, as if the world he knows has simply slipped off an eternally weary back. Of all creatures, he is most painfully aware of the natural order of things; he belongs to the balance. Belongs to the ground, seeped into rich earth and molded into gold. Belongs to the rotting carcasses of lives past and what’s left of their souls. He feels ripped open, bones exposed to scrutiny but somehow, blessedly, finally, free?
Then it hits him, “Did you figure out who I am?”
“No, you’re a real unfamiliar face, you know?” Megumi smiles sheepishly, his eyes gentle as his hand shyly rubs the back of his neck, “Zeus happened to be nearby watching me hit my aim. He told me.”
“Did he tell you the underworld isn’t anything like here?”
“Yes. But he did give his regards. And blessings,” Megumi’s cheeks turn to the shade of pink peonies, and said flowers are in his long, silky hair now, forming a crown along with some roses and chrysanthemums.
“You are really good looking, those bright eyes of yours so full of wonder. I couldn’t believe that you are Hades, I’d think that the King of Hell would look more… dark.”
“That isn’t the look I should be having,” Satoru murmurs, and Megumi chuckles. His hand gives a little squeeze, and Satoru feels dizzy.
And so it is, then, that he is the King of ache passing by, bottoms up and seared and raw, peeled skins—burn of muscle and vessel inflamed and fevered. Everyday he witnesses the slow crawl that lurches into a swelling emergence from the pits like and it’s bitter, hardly palatable—from the pits to the skies, from bone to limb, nerves to flesh that fucks off from the pits to the skies, and rips free from within. A swelling, a swelling emergence, so swollen and that is where he belongs but—
He talks to a stranger he’s meeting for the first (well, second) time and the whole conversation he knows, he just knows, Megumi is looking at the swell and is curious how tender. He nods, a smile forming on his face, and he feels that it’s just as warm as Megumi’s hand in his. It’s something different: Satoru knows warmth from the flames that ablaze the pits of Hell, but this warmth isn’t of the screams of agony from the dead but rather, it feels more like the gift of life.
“Shall we?”
Satoru envisions Megumi as the needed light in the Underworld, maybe he can even tame Cerberus and put sunflowers behind his ears. He squeezes Megumi’s hand back, “Yes, okay. Sure.”
5-2-4; their fingertips match.