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“Ennoshita’s the only one I can spare. All the other entertainers are fully booked.”
“I’m very sorry about this, but we need at least two,” Sawamura Daichi beseeched. “The guests booked an appointment in an hour’s time and requested two entertainers. Normally I’d turn them down, but--”
“One is a tengu and a distinguished warrior, and the other is a dragon deity slated to become the next lord of the city,” Ukai Keishin sighed, scratching the back of his head. “I know your pain, but you’re putting me in a very tight spot, you know that?”
“I’m truly sorry!”
Frowning at Sawamura’s bowed head, Ukai drummed his fingers against the table, and racked his brain for a solution that would not come to him. Sawamura owned and managed one of the most popular teahouses in the city; it was a unique job for a brown bear spirit, who would have been better suited for grittier work, but Ukai had come to appreciate him as a reliable work partner, so he did not want to let Sawamura down if he could help it.
Still, there was no way Ukai was going to cancel and reshuffle the entertainers’ schedules just so two spoiled brats could get the two entertainers they wanted. Important guests they might be, but Ukai, who had lived and seen countless moons, saw the crow tengu Hinata Shouyou and the dragon deity Kageyama Tobio as nothing more than brats. It was their fault for making such last-minute requests in the first place, and if it were up to Ukai, he would send only Ennoshita to entertain them. They could take it or leave it.
“There really is no one else available,” Ukai grimaced. “Ennoshita will take the appointment, all right? Tell your guests that they need to book earlier next time if they want to avoid disappointment.”
Sawamura’s shoulders sagged, and he appeared to have accepted Ukai’s offer, until an idea dawned on him.
“What about Yamaguchi?”
“What about him?” Ukai repeated dully. “The last time he served one of your guests, he nearly gave the man a black eye, or so I’m told. Are you sure you want to risk that happening again?”
“That wasn’t Yamaguchi’s fault,” Sawamura explained, smiling. “The guest tried to force him to dance, so…”
“Then, I’d say that man deserved that black eye,” Ukai snorted, and Sawamura watched his aura, taking the form of a crow, flare briefly with amusement. “You tell your guests that Yamaguchi’s still new, and you best make sure that they don’t try and get him to dance.”
Sawamura nodded, gratitude shining on his relieved face.
“Thanks, Ukai-san. You’ve been a great help.”
“Think nothing of it. The guys staying here have work, thanks to your teahouse,” Ukai puffed on his pipe. He then turned to his right and yelled so loudly that Sawamura jumped.
“Ennoshita, Yamaguchi! You have work in an hour. Get ready, and make it snappy.”
“Yes, Ukai-san,” Ennoshita Chikara showed up first, and Sawamura beamed at him. Meeting his eye, Ennoshita acknowledged him with a return smile.
Yamaguchi Tadashi arrived shortly behind Ennoshita, and despite his height, his hunched appearance made him look diminutive compared to Ennoshita. Yamaguchi was staring at Ukai, unable to believe what he had just heard.
“...I’m going as well?”
“Obviously,” Ukai raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t house freeloaders, so hurry up and get changed and earn your living for once. When you’re done, leave for the Karasuno Teahouse at once.”
Yamaguchi shrunk further, nodded frantically, and took his leave before Sawamura had the chance to talk to him. Ennoshita gave them a brief bow, and left as well for preparations.
“Aren’t you being too harsh on him? He’s entertained many guests before,” Sawamura frowned, making his disapproval known.
“That was true when he first arrived, but not anymore,” Ukai muttered, bringing the pipe to his lips. “You don’t see red-crowned cranes often here, so naturally people got curious, but they lost interest once they found out that he’s still a greenhorn.”
He exhaled deeply, and contemplated the swirling tobacco smoke. It made him think of Yamaguchi’s wispy, almost ethereal aura.
“...really, this city is no place for a crane. I don’t know what Gramps was thinking when he brought him in.”
The hallways of the teahouse were familiar to Yamaguchi, but they retained their foreboding and stifling atmosphere from when he had first walked through them. Bearing trays of liquor and food for the guests, he and Ennoshita passed by the other guest rooms, the chatter and laughter from within unnerving him. While he was delighted to have work assigned to him again, he could not shake away the shadow of the incident that had happened a fortnight ago, and the shuddering breaths he took in did nothing for his tension.
“Don’t worry,” Ennoshita gazed over his shoulder, and Yamaguchi felt his nervousness ease at the sight of his calming smile. “I’ll handle the storytelling and dancing, so all you need to focus on is the music, if the guests ask for it. You’ll be all right.”
“Thank you, Ennoshita-san,” Yamaguchi whispered, both grateful for Ennoshita’s help, and remorseful that he had to rely on his senior because of his lack of flair for entertaining guests. While he had been learning to play the shamisen and the flute from Shimada-san and Takinoue-san from the kabuki theater, he had a long way to go before he could consider himself a decent player.
Approaching the guest room, they could already hear two voices conversing loudly, one brimming with youthful energy and anticipation, and the other laced with what Yamaguchi recognised as irritation. Yamaguchi’s heartbeat spiked again, and he stayed close behind Ennoshita as they entered the room.
The guests’ aura were blinding, and Yamaguchi had to pull himself together before he buckled beneath the sheer pressure of their presence. While Ennoshita tended to the dragon deity, the crow tengu - his name was Hinata Shouyou, Yamaguchi reminded himself - had piped down, and was all smiles as Yamaguchi placed the tray in front of him. Hinata’s excitement was infectious enough that Yamaguchi felt himself smile back through his nerves.
Yamaguchi glanced at the other guest out of curiosity. While the Kageyama and Oikawa clans were frequent patrons of the teahouse, their visits were handled by entertainers much more experienced than himself. This was, for all intents and purposes, his first time being in close proximity with a dragon deity. What struck him was Kageyama Tobio’s aura, radiating quiet dignity and raw power. Yamaguchi could not bring himself to look at Kageyama in the eye, and it was taking all of Yamaguchi’s willpower not to flee from him. He deemed it a wonder that Ennoshita could speak to him without so much a fracture in his composed exterior.
“--right. Kageyama, you like shamisen, don’t you? Ennoshita-san, can you play shamisen?” Hinata’s voice boomed beside Yamaguchi, and he hastily returned his attention to their conversation. It would not do to be distracted while the guests were still here.
“I’m afraid I can’t, but Yamaguchi’s good at it,” Ennoshita turned towards Yamaguchi with a smile, and the flustered heat of embarrassment washed over him.
“No, I’ve only started learning recently,” he stuttered, wringing his hands. “I’m not really good.”
“That’s fine,” Kageyama said, and Yamaguchi slowly worked up the courage to look at him again. “Play for us.”
Having adjusted to the intensity of Kageyama’s aura, Yamaguchi could see his face better now. His was a stranger’s face, one Yamaguchi was certain he had never seen before.
However, the moment their eyes met, everything on Yamaguchi’s mind was consumed by an overwhelming attraction, an intense need to connect.
The barrier Yamaguchi had put up over the years to protect himself disintegrated away, and his heart unfastened.
Opened up to the warmth of Kageyama’s spirit, a tenderness he once knew from many eons ago.
And it all fell into place.
All his life, Yamaguchi grew up listening to beautiful, moving stories about soulmates. People would speak of finding their other halves, individuals who were also one’s shelter from the blizzard, and one’s key to eternal happiness. Once a person found their soulmate, they would bond with them through a special dance, settle down, and build a family.
Yamaguchi was friends with plenty of people who knew right away they had found the one after just one lingering gaze. He also knew just as many people whose first meetings went awry but eventually made it to the bonding ceremony together after several misunderstandings and detours. Since young, he had always wondered how his soulmate would be like, and how their fated first meeting would unravel. He would often ask his parents - they had been one of those lucky couples who had fallen in love at first sight - for tips on finding his soulmate, and they would smile and pat his head and say.
“You’ll know when you meet them.”
He had initially left the words to the back of his mind, believing it only to be a matter of time before he met his soulmate. As more and more of his friends made promises of fidelity to their newly found soulmates, the words, now offered to him by well-meaning friends and relatives, became a source of comfort, and he clung onto the hope it gave him.
A few years later, as it became painfully obvious that he was the only one within their small village to not have a soulmate, the phrase had taken on a very sour note, and in his eyes it had become little more than a half-hearted attempt to console him. He had hated the pity in people’s eyes as they tried to cheer him up, and while he had used to look forward to the bonding ceremonies conducted for each blissful couple in the village square, he now went to great lengths to avoid being invited to them.
Worse were the insensitive comments from some of the older folks, saying how his inability to find his soulmate was his punishment for a sin he had committed in a past life.
Anyone in his shoes would have grown weary of the baseless sympathy and callousness constantly thrown at him. Anyone in his shoes would have made up their mind to leave for somewhere else, away from people’s misguided kindness, and away from the soulmate lie.
So he had departed, with mixed feelings, for the city of colours, Hanabira.
Contrary to what he had told his parents, it was not a job in the city he desired. If not for the other villagers, he would have been more than happy to stay and help out on his parents’ rice farm. A part of him was sure that his parents knew his true reason for leaving too, although they had not said anything.
Almost a month on, whether his decision to move had been a good one or a poorly thought-out one remained a big question mark. The city of colours had proven to be a rough place for a country boy like him. Having lived in an isolated village his whole life, the sheer number of people floored him, and the potent aura of the more powerful deities and spirits had thoroughly frightened him out of his wits.
Exhausted and shaken, he had taken to hiding in a quiet corner, until an old Yatagarasu had chanced upon him. The Yatagarasu, whose aura burned fiercely like the sun and whose gruff and harsh mannerisms belied his empathetic personality, had brought him in, and had helped him to find work. When their few options fell through, the Yatagarasu had brought him to his grandson’s lodging house.
“No choice but to bring you to my grandson, boy. You’ll need to entertain guests at the teahouses here. The work is difficult and the pay is pitiful, but it’s a respectable job. You’ll have a roof over your head and you won’t go hungry.”
“Thank you so much,” Yamaguchi had bowed deeply to him. He had been, and was still, immensely grateful for the help rendered to him by the Yatagarasu.
The Yatagarasu, Ukai Ikkei, had nodded and his hardened face had cracked into a satisfied smile.
“Keishin is going to ask the same thing, so I might as well do it now. What are you doing so far from home?”
Yamaguchi had not been able to answer. Perhaps having sensed his difficulty, the older Ukai had laughed it off.
“...I see, it’s not my place to ask. I know for a fact that everyone has secrets they don’t want to share, so I’ll respect your decision not to answer.”
Yamaguchi did not see the older Ukai after that. He spent his days doing chores around the lodging house, and tagging along with the other entertainers, mainly Ennoshita, on their assignments. Eager to brush up on his severely lacking entertainment skills, he had approached Shimada-san and Takinoue-san on his own initiative.
He liked playing music. Dancing, however, was special. It was an expression of love reserved only for one’s soulmate.
Here, the concept of a soulmate was a foreign one. Almost everyone he spoke to laughed at the apparent ludicrity of the idea, while he struggled to come to terms with the notion that higher-ranking deities and spirits were allowed to bond with as many partners as they wished. As time passed, and as he surrounded himself with friends and people who showed him that happiness came in many different forms, the hurt of being seen as incomplete, or broken, diminished.
Still, his longing for his soulmate never quite went away.
No matter how much people told him that he was free to fall in love with anyone, he continued to yearn for the day he could finally dance for his other half.
In the tastefully furnished guest room of the Karasuno teahouse, he knew his long wait had come to an end. He played his music with loving care, and relished the way his soulmate’s aura settled with an appreciative peace, and glowed a gentle blue.
Yamaguchi Tadashi had finally found his soulmate. He was a mountain dragon deity.
Slow days did not come often for Sawamura. If he was not busy handling queries from guests making bookings, he was tied up with the accounts of the teahouse. He hardly minded the workload, however; being busy was a happy problem, a sign that business was booming.
He had just completed the tallies when a potential guest entered. Raising his eyes from the books, he gave them a warm smile.
“Welcome.”
Kageyama Tobio nodded back curtly, and Sawamura’s smile widened at the sight of his familiar face. Kageyama was a regular patron of the teahouse, and though the staff and entertainers often picked on his austere aloofness, Sawamura liked him for his sensible and grounded personality.
“Ah, Kageyama-san. How may I help you?”
To his surprise, Kageyama lowered his gaze, looking everywhere except at Sawamura.
“The crane,” he mumbled. “...sorry, I didn’t get his name. I want to see him again.”