Work Text:
setting: a quiet church, with new offerings on the altar. rain pours from outside.
enter mushitaro oguri, sopping wet.
mushitaro: you could have warned me this was going to happen.
he expects no answer and he gets no answer. the god of knowledge has never appeared to him, and he doesn’t expect him to, at this point. while he was sure churches aren’t meant to feel so lonely, that hasn’t been proved wrong yet. (churches were meant to take you closer to your god then anywhere else, to let the church’s heartbeat–so to speak–beat with yours in sync with your god’s. but mushitaro oguri has heard no divine heart.)
mushitaro sighs, glancing at the altar. the offerings he’s prepared are untouched, as they usually are. sometimes they are taken, but never when he is around.
mushitaro: i’m not going out. you’ll have to interact with me if you want that.
he scoffs, a bit bitterly. he hates feeling like he must beg, especially for attention, especially from his god.
mushitaro: i know you must hate that. maybe i’m not the priest you wanted.
it would make sense. mushitaro is a coward, a man who couldn’t stomach being at his best friend’s house any longer and thus his dear yokomizo’s funeral was so quiet that he knew yokomizo would have called it sad. he didn’t want it to be sad. he’d wanted the mystery to spread like wildfire, throughout towns and the world, making even the gods wonder.
maybe that’s why mushitaro ran here.
the god of knowledge could obscure the truth, right? so that no one would truly know?
mushitaro: i must have asked too much of you.
the rain pours.
mushitaro expects nothing else. he prays anyway.
enter ango, the god of knowledge, smelling of old papers and fresh ink and secrets and truth.
ango: you haven’t.
mushitaro stops, looking over. ango’s face is one of quiet discomfort, someone who’s seen tragedy and grief yet doesn’t know how to handle it in any other way than drowning in it. he looks so human.
note: make sure the actors’ expressions are the same.
mushitaro: …
ango: the last time i appeared to my priests, i regretted it.
mushitaro does not ask. he knows he will be told anyway.
ango: one wanted the best for his friend. to have a calm life. to let kids he’d saved himself live long lives. we were almost something.
ango: the other came to me asking how to die content. my answers were never enough for him, and he craved a death from the first priest who knew as much as him.
mushitaro: why?
ango: i wish i could tell you.
the sound of rain pouring is the only noise for a long minute.
mushitaro: …are those offerings enough?
ango: more than enough. thank you.
mushitaro: is a god meant to thank his priests?
ango: it’s right to do.
ango goes over to the altar, nibbling on the offerings. mushitaro watches.
mushitaro: …i want to hear more about your priests.
ango doesn’t say anything.
mushitaro: and in exchange, i’ll tell you about my friend yokomizo.
ango seems about to deny him, but he shakes his head. he has granted him so little, been ungrateful that there is still someone worshipping him, that he owes him this.
ango: alright.
settling in their own mourning can only offer so much comfort, but at least it grants the divine and his mortal any at all.