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It was by pure chance that Makoto was selected to clean the altars.
He hadn't even known that they were looking for someone new for that job until after he and all the other young men had been gathered on the steps of the luck god's altar and made to cast lots.
So far, it was a lot of pressure. And a lot of rules.
He couldn't clean the temple with just anything. Or wear just anything when he did it. And any ashes from incense or sacrifices had to be disposed of with respect, before he got around to washing away mud and other leavings.
It was kind of time-consuming, and the exomis he had to wear was a little...revealing? But on the whole, he didn't hate it. In a weird way, it made him feel more connected to things. It was cool to be one of the only people to ever see the temple completely empty. And he only got roughed up by robbers a couple of times.
Every night, he brought up a pail of water and a basket of supplies. The gods and goddesses of the arts came first, then the gods and goddesses of knowledge, then sports and war...On and on, until the biggest and last altar.
The stories said that every other god contributed a piece of themselves to create a vessel for something that predated and exceeded them all. Something primordial and amazing that descended to godhood status when the gods created for it a body.
Izuru Kamukura. The greatest of the gods. The god of...Well, no one was ever really capable of explaining his domain in plain words. They usually just said that he was the greatest of the gods and he was the one you came to for prayers about changing the self. Please make me smarter, please make me funnier, please make me good enough for her, for him, for this.
Children weren't allowed near Izuru Kamukura's altar. There was some concern that they might pray for silly things. Stories about children who prayed to be stars or bugs and then disappeared into thin air. (Not stories like "This happened to someone we know, or someone your parents know." Just stories. Makoto was pretty sure they were just stories.)
Makoto remembered having friends and acquaintances who were allowed to pray at Kamukura's altar before he was. Sometimes they would tease him, "I'm going to ask Kamukura to make you shorter. I'll ask Kamukura to make you forget how to do sums."
So his first time at the altar, all he could think to pray was, "Thank you for not making me shorter."
This evening, as he came up to the last altar with what was left of the water in his bucket and the soaps and oils and ceremonial pelts in his basket, he was startled to find someone waiting for him there.
A young man, about his age and covered in filth, with long, tangled hair covering generous stretches of what appeared to be a completely naked body. He sat on the floor, his weight resting irreverently against the grand altar, and stared back at Makoto with bright red eyes.
For a moment, Makoto stayed completely still.
But his initial fear of temple robbers was somewhat mollified by the intruder's nakedness. He didn't see a dagger, and while he couldn't yet be sure there weren't others lurking in the shadows, it didn't seem so.
Perhaps because the intruder's presence seemed heavy enough on its own.
"Good eve, stranger," he said cautiously. "You...must be cold." It was summertime, but it was late. "Were you looking for the poorhouse?"
The red eyes blinked once. And then the stranger spoke in a dull voice: "No."
Makoto glanced around again, just to see if there was any movement in the shadows. "Well, I'm afraid no one's allowed in the temple after dusk. I'm here to clean it."
There was no response, to this. No movement.
Shifting uncomfortably, Makoto added, "I could show you to the poorhouse, if you want. They can give you a warm meal, and a bed. Or, I could take you to the night priest. If you tell me what you're looking for, I-"
"I'm not looking for," the dull voice replied. "I'm looking at." And gave no further elaboration. Somehow, the silence that followed seemed to emerge from him as much as his words did. As if to break the silence would be to interrupt him.
"...Okay?"
The red eyes blinked once more.
"Do you need water, or food, or...clothes?"
Another blink. "I am cold," the stranger allowed.
Makoto felt oddly relieved, at the straightforward answer. "If you wait a moment, I can come back with-"
"The pelts, in your basket. They can cover me."
Makoto tried to stifle his alarm. "These are for cleaning the temple. The pelts are taken from sacred rabbits; we can't even eat their meat! The priests kill fresh ones every-"
A stray breeze passed through, and the stranger shivered.
Makoto paused, looking down at the basket uncertainly.
...He would pray the gods' forgiveness tomorrow.
"Here," he said, offering up the few remaining dry pelts. "These can cover your skin while we find you some real clothes. I'll..." If he held one of the pelts he'd used elsewhere in the temple before a fire for long enough, perhaps it wouldn't be so offensive to reuse it for Kamukura's altar. Or perhaps he should go back to the night priest and ask for another few pelts, and face whatever scolding came of it. For now, he'd focus on getting this stranger to someone who could help him.
"Pour the water on me, first," the stranger said.
"What? The...water?"
"The water in your bucket. Pour it on me. I'd like to be clean."
"I guess I understand that, but you'd feel even colder, if I-"
With a roll of his eyes, the stranger suddenly rose to his feet and took the bucket from Makoto's hands. Without hesitation, he dumped the water all over himself.
Makoto couldn't help staring, transfixed as the muck and filth washed away from the stranger's tan skin with unnatural ease. With just the overturning of a bucket, every bit of it fell away, pooling on the floor at the stranger's feet. At the foot of the altar.
Shaking his hair out nonchalantly, the stranger took the proffered pelts to his skin. They should have been just enough to cover his torso and his modesty, but instead, as the stranger casually pulled them into place, the rabbitskin scraps became sleeves. Became robes.
By the time those red eyes met his again, Makoto was already taking several steps back. "You're-!"
"Are you going to leave," the stranger interrupted, "without cleaning my altar?" The gray rabbitskin robes hugged his form regally, and his long, damp hair, still tangled, no longer obscured so much of his face. He was pretty in a way the carvings couldn't approximate.
Makoto's body was stuck in an odd crouch, as he couldn't decide whether or not to kneel. His head was bent somewhat downward, his eyes flicking around frantically, as if he were still on guard for temple robbers.
Kamukura approached him on graceful feet, took his chin, and raised it. Forcing him to meet his unwavering, red gaze.
"I w-would..." Makoto took a pause, to bite back the frightened stammer. "I would need more pelts, to..."
Kamukura tilted his head. "You have my permission to work without the pelts. If you do need a cloth, you will use this." He dropped his hand from Makoto's chin to instead trail fingers over the garment he was wearing. The exomis.
Makoto's heart raced with fear. He was definitely supposed to say something like, "Yes, my lord," or "It will be done," but all that came out was, "Okay."
He poured his soaps over the puddle of filth left behind by the god's humble guise. He washed it with his bare hands, to avoid dirtying (or removing) his garment. And he tried not to let the lingering attention he could feel from the figure a few paces away slow his work.
...But...
He couldn't help looking up and meeting those eyes once every few seconds.
And he had to say something.
"Why have you appeared to me?" Maybe too blunt. Maybe way too blunt. "I mean, is there a reason...that you've appeared to me?"
Silence, for a while. But again, the silence didn't feel like a lack. It felt like a thing unto itself. Then, Kamukura replied, "Do you remember what you prayed to me today?"
Makoto thought back. He wasn't the most spiritual person out there, but outside of his assigned cleaning duty, he did stop by the temple every so often. Sometimes walking his sister, or sometimes alone. He didn't usually visit Kamukura's altar at all, during such trips. But today...
"I asked..." He hesitated in saying it out loud. He hadn't really thought of it as a request, at the time. More just...a wish? A thought, not a prayer. "I wanted to know how to refer to you. How to...think about your domain. It's never been as easy to understand as the other...gods."
(He was hands-to-elbows covered in dirt, and he wasn't sure he could clean it off the floor if he didn't use some kind of fabric.)
(He really didn't want to remove his garment.)
"You used to struggle to carry the bucket and the basket up those stairs," Kamukura recalled. Not at all related to the topic at hand.
"I still do."
"You used to take breaks."
That was definitely true. It had become easier to get up all the stairs in one go, lately.
"You've gotten stronger, through persistence," Kamukura continued. "That is not my domain. Strain is not a part of me."
"Okay?"
Kamukura walked closer, standing directly above him now. Makoto felt very conscious of how vulnerable he was, on the floor, scrubbing away grime, dressed in his exomis. "Struggle," Kamukura pronounced clearly, "is not a part of me. I am always maximums. Ultimate actualization of potential."
"Is that...your domain?" Was he answering the question?
"If I could give you a word and make you understand, I would not. The work of learning is not part of me. For that reason, I find it...worth watching."
"...Oh. Um..."
"You are worth watching."
That made Makoto frown a bit and stare up at him. "Why me? I was just asking what a lot of people have already asked."
"Again. If I could make you understand why it's you and not them, I would not. But the god of luck was not wrong about you, when he marked you for me."
"The god of luck?" Makoto felt suddenly even more watched than before.
Kamukura made an acknowledging sound. He reached down and laid one hand on Makoto's cheek. His other hand pushed the hair back from Makoto's hairline, stroking his head, almost pacifying. "The day will come when I take you with me to the place where the gods sleep and wake," he whispered. "And you will stay with me for as many eternities as we have. But this day, I watch you clean my altar."
Makoto's heart thumped hard and wild, at the inflexibility of the promise, the lack of regard for anything he might say or think to the contrary. Yet, he couldn't seem to speak or move, as Kamukura pressed lips to his brow.
Then, in an instant, he was gone. The robes he'd been wearing fell to the floor as rabbitskin scraps again, fit to scrub the altar. The greatest of the gods had vanished, and the young man who cleaned the temple was alone.
Makoto let out a breath of, "Wait, what was that about?"
And then he sprang to his feet.
"Wait, what was that?!" he called out. His voice echoed throughout the temple, like the gods were mocking him. "What did you just say?! What does that mean?!" After a short pause, he added, "I'm not asking you to 'make me understand', but you said something at the end there that I did not agree to! I do not agree!"
Silence answered him.
Silence, in a god's voice.
Makoto let out a heavy, strangely-incensed breath. And then, with palpable indignation, he got back to work.