Chapter Text
At first, Balladeer was not called Balladeer, nor Scaramouche. Kunikuzushi was a forgotten shadow in a long blank memory. In his impression, another shadow with soft fingers touched his face and wiped his tears. He felt infinite peace of mind and warmth in her cold arms.
Who is that person? He didn't know, at that time his heart was blank and pale, and he didn't have the urgent desire to know someone. Shakkei Pavilion was vast and narrow, with him walking back and forth for decades, his mind simulated what he saw faster than his eyes.
...At that time, he didn't know what the year was, nor did he know the month, week and day. Time is frozen, the sunset outside the window is always setting, but there will never be a day of setting. Only the leaves of the maple are tumbling in the inexplicable wind and falling to the ground one by one. But leaves never accumulate on the ground, and maple leaves never fall out all.
Soon he got tired of walking and became interested in flying leaves. He looked at the fallen leaves outside the window all day and all night. Counting the days-when he closes his eyes and opens them again, it's a new day. The fallen leaves would return to the maple tree and totter in the nonexistent wind.
Sometimes the leaves will float farther away, and sometimes they will be closer. He looks on the window lattice and never blinks. He closed his eyes entirely by chance, but once he closed them, it was a whole day.
He was not surprised that the leaves flew into the house, and he could not understand what surprise was. He withdrew his gaze from the window and stared blankly at the falling leaves with his head down. The leaves were spinning gently in place, and he looked at the rotating leaves for a long time. For a moment, something struck him strongly, making him cold and breathless, so that he had to close his eyes and fall down immediately.
The leaf gently whirled into his arms, and the rough leaf surface rubbed him, and the petiole pressed against the base of his palm and stopped rotating in his hand.
He suddenly felt comfortable and vaguely remembered the distant past. Once upon a time, he held someone's hand and fell asleep, then the thunder from all directions subsided, and since then, he hasn't had to fear nightmares.
Shogun, a shallow shadow in a dream. The person's cold hands and her faint shadow. In a deep dream, he suddenly woke up, and the leaves outside the window curled up fiercely, but did not disappear.
A new leaf took its place and gently floated.
He stood up and attempted to cross the window lattice for the first time, lowered his head to pick up the leaves, and the gravel grinded the soles of his feet through his tabi. He hasn't walked for a long time, and he has forgotten how to use his legs. He stumbles when he walks, and his knees hit the ground again and again, and he feels pain. Pain is a new feeling, but he was a puppet be left in the past.
Pain, I'm not used to it, but I have to adapt.
On the first day, he adapted to pain, on the second day, he adapted to walking, and on the third day, he picked up leaves and and was scratched by many fine stones, which then embedded themselves in the fine wounds. The leaves will return to the tree the next day, but the wound will never heal.
There are more leaves every day, and he sleeps on the fluffy pile of leaves and dreams every day. Shogun, the shallow shadow in his dream combs his hair in the dream, and the comb never stagnates, all the way to the bottom of his long hair.
He stared at the lines of the floor, and a faint and boundless prayer song came from outside the house.
Ah,green is my garment,
Whose inside's yellow dye.
Ah,my heart's despondent.
How could it bide for aye?
Oh,green is my garment,
Whose skirt's yellows beset.
Oh,my heart's despondent.
How could I ever forget?
Ah,green is each silk thread,
Which was thy hand-weave.
Smell of thee it does shed.
Ah, how thou art nanaive!
Oh,thin and thick is my cloth,
Against the wind I stand,
shedding smell of thy troth
Oh,how thou to me grand!
*
The person who was combing his hair suddenly tugged at his hair, which was a new pain that he shouldn't be accustomed to, but he calmly accepted it. He tried to turn his head, as if he had done it millions of times, but he couldn't see her face clearly.
Shogun.
He vaguely thought: She is the Shogun.
Shogun grabbed his hair and hid herself in his sleeve, crying silently. There were a string of cold tears on the back of his hand, and he wanted to wipe them for Shogun.
The door suddenly opened, and there was no mournful crowd outside singing prayers over and over again. Only the overwhelming maple red rushed into the room, and countless leaves spun rapidly. The woman behind him also turned into a red leaf and merged into the maple trees with the wind.
His eyes looked at the dim yellow sunset outside the wide open door.
He woke up from his dream and wiped off a handful of water droplets, knowing that they were called tears.
When he woke up and counted the leaves, he didn't count one, two, or three, but counted one, one, many and many. As he counted, he couldn't see the sight clearly.
He looked down at the lines of the leaves. A little tree lived in the leaves, and the leaves were the children of the trees. Will he be someone's child, too? It's that person's child, that person's little imitation. But the tree abandoned its leaves.
Don't want to be abandoned.
A strange idea arose in his mind that when the leaves filled the pavilion, he could come back to her. But, who is she?
When he counted to the last one leaf, and the wind suddenly blew in from outside the window. The scene from his dream seemed to be replayed, with leaves rustling and rustling all over the room, and the leaves brushed against them and made a panic moan and low sobs. Time goes backwards outside the window, and the leaves return to the tree to start a new cycle of withering and flourishing.
Life is rapidly annihilating, and the running-in between time and space makes a harsh and solemn sound. The sun sets and rises again, the rusty time is rotating at a fast speed, all the leaves curl up and wither quickly and turn to ashes, the air vibrates, the sleeves fly over, the bright moon rises behind him, the ashes swirl, and the room is lonely.
A ray of real moonlight, like a silvery white sword, pierces the dreamland, and the place where no one has set foot has disappeared with the arrival of people for thousands of years. At that time, he didn't care about the disappearance of his shelter, didn't care about the people who appeared in front of him, and didn't care about himself. He just sat there and thought calmly: I can't go back to her anymore.
He felt very very sad, not for himself, but because no one came back to her side.
No one, forever.