Chapter Text
The day was cold, overcast, and the air was crisp and sharp, bearing the smell of the falling rain which fell not in large drops but instead in a thick, steady drizzle which soaked through any cloth or fabric it came into contact with, as the drizzle felt not like rain, but instead like the air itself consisted only of freezing winter water that floated patiently, waiting for the chance to cling onto anything that passed it by. It had been like this all day, and the water had began to puddle in the miniature valleys and canyons between the cobbles of the courtyard floor of the Hu compound, and at the tips of the white leaves of the many funerary wreaths were drops of water which, once they grew too big to reasonably cling to the tip of the leaf on which it hung, fell off and dropped into the many puddles or against the peak of a stone, making it sound like it was proper rainy-season rain even though it felt more like snow or a mist. The only thing that wasn't a monotonous gray shaded by the even drizzle that filled every inch of the air was the many candles placed and lit on the shrine along with the many white wreaths, placed in two rows that stretched parallel from the staircase that lead to the courtyard proper to the family shrine, creating a path of sorts which all those who wished to pay final respects to Old Hu were to walk. Hu Tao breathed in, standing at the base of the stairs, with the many white wreaths before her, trying her best to control her emotions even though the moisture of the air choked her and the cold burned her throat and she wanted to cough but she held it back, desperate to uphold the respectful silence that permeated throughout the courtyard.
At the death of her grandfather, Tao’s Uncle was next in line to take the mantle of Director, becoming the 76th. But despite that, Old Hu had decided that Tao–not her uncle, but Tao–was to direct his funeral. The decision was not taken lightly when he revealed it to the family, a decision he had made when he had begun his first bout of illness which left him weak and bedridden with a nasty cough that practically ruined his voice. Through the cough and with his voice which was only a whisper at that point, he told both Tao and her mother that Tao was to direct his funeral in the case that he was to die despite the fact that she had not directed a funeral on her own before. He was adamant that it was to be her alone, with no involvement from her uncle, and while she did help Old Hu organize plenty of funerals in the past as in the recent years she had become practically glued to her grandfather’s side, to which she had become plenty familiar with how funerals where organized and carried out, the idea of actually doing it herself, with no help from anybody else, being thrown into the pool to swim by her own for the first time, made her feel helpless and scared, but Old Hu, face pale and weak from the sickness ravaging through his body, looked at Tao in that moment and asked in that dulcet voice of his that always managed to calm her down if she was okay with that, and Tao simply nodded with a sad squeak which she intended to be an affirmative “mhm” but the effort she had been putting into not crying left her voice weak and absent. Old Hu had said “good,” and leaned back in his bed, leaving Tao and her mother with written instructions as to how he wanted his funeral to be carried out, which Tao had studied religiously day and night while Old Hu got sicker and sicker, and even when he was seemingly getting better, Tao still studied it, during the day skipping class to go to town and track down the materials she needed but not buying them as she did not need them yet; she simply wanted to know where she could find them, to know that in the case that she came home one day to her grandfather laying in that bed cold and lifeless already passing to the other side, she could immediately start work on the funeral that he had outlined down to the smallest of details, as there was no greater sign of respect to the Hu family than a funeral carried out exactly as one had wished.
In her hands, at the base of the staircase, she held the hat which Old Hu had worn as part of his uniform working as director of the funeral parlor, a hat which, in her youth, Tao had loved to play with and, as she got older, began to obsess over. Old Hu had told her one summer evening in the very courtyard which she now stood freezing and drenched, her hair messy and wet with her makeup washing off from the occasional streams of rainwater flowing from her scalp across her face, leaving tracks on her cheeks like tears, that one day he would let her wear that hat, that one day when he no longer worked for the funeral parlor and he was happily retired spending his days sitting in that courtyard lined with plum blossom trees sipping on an aromatic green tea flavored with Osmanthus that he would not wear that hat, and instead he would watch as his granddaughter would dawn that cap in her uniform and walk off into the harbor to undertake her duties as director of the parlor, and Tao, who was ten when he told her this, giggled at the prospect, and asked if she could hold the cap, to which Old Hu took it off his head and handed it to her, where she played with it, feeling the cloth masterfully laid over the hard frame and smelling the plum blossom placed above the rim held in place with a black ribbon. She loved that smell dearly, as it reminded her both of her grandfather and of home, since the courtyard had plum blossom trees all around it.
But now, in the middle of the frigid Liyue winter, those plum blossom trees were naught but simple trees, dead and colorless, frost-laden and foreboding, and they brought Tao no joy now, even though in past winters the idea that they would soon blossom and bring the scent of plum to her home and the many miles of land around which would stick to everything and anything (including her clothes so that when she went to school she took the scent of plum with her to remind her of the people she loved at all times) would fill her with a giddy excitement which made her want to play in the courtyard even when the weather was as hostile and dreary as the emotions that hung over a funeral. It felt as if nothing could bring her joy now—not the plums, not the warmth of the sun, not the hug of her mother—nothing except seeing her grandfather again could whisk away the burning from her eyes and the feeling of tears running down the back of her throat and the shaking of her lip which she did her best to control, and while she kept the tears at bay, nothing else she did controlled the rest of it, and so her face, as miserable as it already was, struggling with the cold and the water running down it, looked like it was trying its best to cry, only that it could not conjure up any tears to cry and those that watched her could tell that she was in pain, but in a sort of pain that she did not want to show because she wanted to show her grandfather that she was not one to cry at a funeral, that she had the emotional maturity to be the director of the parlor, that she was strong enough and capable enough, that in addition to arranging everything and being the one to carry out the funeral that she was capable of saying goodbye herself without shedding a tear, but with every step she took up the stair case and now past the many wreaths, she could feel the grip she had on her tears starting to slip, her breathing becoming more unsteady and occasionally taking in large gasps of the wet air, forcing her to inhale small particles of water which stung her already sore throat. It is important to feel pain at a funeral, TaoTao, her grandfather had once said. We hold funerals not only to help souls pass on, but also as a way to allow those still alive to safely feel pain. She looked away from the falling plum blossoms dancing in the warm sun of the summer evening and towards Old Hu inquisitively, confused as to what he meant, to which he elaborated, saying that humans do not like to show pain, that to show pain is to be afraid that you are weak, and that showing pain is a perceived danger because the last thing a human wants to be seen as is weak, so when a loved one dies and all those that loved that person feel the distinct pain of death and loss, they are afraid to feel that pain, and the purpose of a funeral is to allow people to feel pain at its strongest moment, the moment in which you say goodbye one last time, and allow them to feel it openly, widely, for all to see because a funeral is a shared place of pain where everybody in attendance are under unspoken agreement that they are all there to safely be in pain, because to pretend to not feel a natural response to death and loss is a response that stunts emotions elsewhere and can cause pain to not go away without fanfare, but to instead become greater and greater until it becomes a beast that one cannot contain or even battle. Pain is the most impatient emotion, he had said, taking a blossom from the ground that had drifted from above and placed itself there in front of the old man. It has a place to be, and cannot wait for you. But she did not mind his advice he had told her a year and a half ago, and she kept her tears back, and did not let herself feel the pain because she was afraid of what it felt like to feel what her body told her to feel, the thing that caused her eyes to scream to her, to tell her to cry and let tears stream down her face freely, that told her lungs to take in gasps of air and sob uncontrollably, that told her legs to collapse to the ground and give in to the sorrow. She did not care about being seen as weak, that was the thing he was wrong about; she did not care about being weak, she just did not want to feel that way, knowing that once she gave in, she would feel things that she would never want to feel again.
She took gradual steps, her steps causing the water in the puddles to splash, throwing thick drops of murky water up and against her calves which ran down and soaked and stained her socks with that freezing water, causing her ankles to scream at the drop in temperature and her toes to numbly complain at the gradual loss of feeling, but she did what she could to not mind the pain, to not mind the fact that she was frozen to her core, that she was shivering uncontrollably, that her bare knees from the shorts she wore felt raw and barely could move as if the muscles in her legs were frozen, that her face was numb and her nose and ears burned, that her arms and exposed hands were so cold that she had to consciously force herself not to drop the hat she held out in front of her, level with the ground. Does everyone die? Tao had asked when she was a little girl, her grandfather sitting across the table from her taking a sip of Osmanthus Tea. He placed the small cup down on the table. We all do, little plum. One day, me, you, your mother, even things that are not us, such as all the trees in this courtyard, will pass on one day. It’s the guarantee of life: no one makes it out alive. She remembered laughing at that because of how he said it with a smirk on his face and a comedic undertone to his voice which had never failed to make her feel warm and safe, and now that she was out in the courtyard in the drizzling rain where she was cold and afraid, she held onto that warmth with all the might she had left, and she swore she could feel it, her stomach and chest still basking in the dim heat that she was afraid she would forget, and although she could feel it fading and the cold of the rain winning, the fact that it was still with her, even for just this moment, held her together as she approached the shrine.
The Hu family shrine was grand, decorated with many burning candles under a roof, sheltered from the rain, and in the middle of the many shelves decorated with enough candles to light the sky even with the absence of the sun, was a small drawing of her grandfather, Old Hu. Tao stood there quietly, gripping the rim of his hat in her cold, numb hands, and the burning in her eyes flared again, screaming to her to let them cry, but she held back, standing there for an amount of time that was lost to her, knowing that she had to place the damp hat on the shrine in accordance to how Old Hu had wanted his funeral to be carried out, but no matter how long she stood there, she could not force her arms to move and her hands to let go of the hat as if the cold had frozen her completely and she had now become a block of ice comprised out of solidified fear and cowardice, no longer knowing the warmth of freedom and safety and instead just staring at the picture on the shrine thinking to herself please, please I don’t want to! I don’t want to say goodbye! with her face saying nothing of the pleading she was doing in the safety of her mind, instead just showing signs of a dull anguish, but still she screamed in her mind please come back I don’t want to say goodbye!
You need to say goodbye, little plum , he had said to her when she sat with him alone in his room, him looking sicker than ever. Tao finally forced her arms to move, the ice shattering with the voice of her grandfather playing in her mind, moving the hat slowly and with an intense, shivering shake towards the place which it was meant to sit, and she placed it there, letting her hands let go of the rim, to which she gradually withdrew her hands, letting them fall to her side, her shoulders drooping and her head falling, looking to the floor, but she still did not feel like it was over; she still held on tightly to the hat, except this time not with her hands, standing in front of the shrine firmly, her socks wet and her feet cold, her jacket and shirt soaked through, her bangs dripping water, her entire body shivering with amplifying intensity. She stood there until she felt a hand against her shoulder, and when she looked up, she was not in the courtyard in front of the shrine, and it was not dark and dreary out with drizzle falling from the gray sky, but instead it was bright and the sky was blue with a trip of fiery orange signaling sunset, the light of summer beaming down on her and she felt the warmth of the light on the skin of her neck and legs and arms and hands, and she looked to her side to see who had placed a gentle yet firm and aged hand on her should that felt so familiar and she saw her grandfather, his face lively and gentle as always with a great smile plastered on it as always, hair as white as the leaves of the wreaths she had just walked past, framed by trees with blooming plum blossoms which were gracefully dancing in the light of the summer as the fell to the ground and he smiled at her as Tao’s eyes widened with surprise and confusion and joy all the same, and she could not speak, her voice only managing a squeak like she had when he had asked her to organize and host this funeral for him, but anything she could have said was interrupted when he spoke with that finely aged, deep and gentle voice.
“Thank you, my little plum,” he said. He smiled again, even wider this time, and she swore she saw tears pooling at the corner of his eyes, and she dove into a hug filled with a desire to feel the warmth of the man she had loved more than anybody else in this world, the man that made her feel safe and secure and happy like nobody else, and she embraced him with passion and desperation as emotions she had never even imagine ravaged through her. She opened her eyes and looked at the picture of her grandfather, and felt for the first time in many years tears streaming down her face, which now immixed with the rain water and dripped from her chin and into a puddle below, to which she collapsed, her bare knees meeting the cold and wet cobbles, and she began to sob, tears streaming from her eyes and falling straight to the cobbles, her long brown hair laid across the ground soaking up the water, hiding away the crimson tips that had always decorated her hair. She sobbed and sobbed, finally letting herself say goodbye, feeling a pain she had never felt before which coursed through every inch of her body—a pain she could not hide with a simple smile.