Chapter Text
“Did you see the ad? There is a vacancy in the cafe right at the junction.”
Yushi looked up. It had been several months but he still couldn’t remember this girl’s name. He recognized her since she was taking the same course and shared a few classes with him, but each time she came to talk, his attention was often focused on another place.
“I heard you were looking for a part-time job. Why don’t we apply for that place together, Tokuno-kun?”
Namely, the small spirit resting on her shoulder. It was a harmless little ball, but it was certainly distracting enough.
Yushi packed his books. “I’ve already applied to another place, but thanks for telling me.”
There were no more classes for the day. Yushi ignored whispers from all the other students in the lecture hall. He had half an hour before the next train came, and he could use the extra couple of minutes to buy some snacks before heading home and finishing all the chores he couldn’t do last night.
It wasn’t as if he was popular for a good reason, anyway.
When Yushi first moved to the small town a few years ago, the entire school was talking about him. Everyone wanted to befriend the boy who came from the big city of Tokyo. It didn’t take them long to feel put off by his silence, his awkwardness, and the way his eyes never seemed to meet theirs. They noticed the way he would sometimes talk to himself, his refusal to join their invitation to hang out, and his random movements at the most random times.
He was labeled ‘a weirdo’ within the first month of his new high school life.
Yushi didn’t blame them. He was not like most people, after all.
Most people were not born with the ability to see creatures that only wandered in another realm. Yushi grew up waking up to nightmares, constantly surrounded by spiritual beings that sought chaos, and harassed by monsters that others could not perceive. His parents didn’t believe him. His relatives thought he was a mere child seeking attention.
They would sometimes mention his late grandmother, whom he never had the chance to meet, as she had passed when his mother was still a young girl. His late grandmother allegedly exhibited a similar behavior, although his mother would quickly dismiss it and claimed his late grandmother only suffered from hallucinations due to her terminal illness.
His parents had him examined at the hospital multiple times, fearing he might inherit a genetic disease from his grandmother. Even though all the doctors had cleared him and concluded Yushi was very much physically healthy, his parents ended up sending him to the countryside, hoping the fresh air would clear whatever brain fog he might have.
Truthfully, Yushi wasn’t sure if that was the case. Maybe they were just embarrassed to have a son like him. Maybe they thought he was too troublesome to look after. Maybe he wasn’t the son they were hoping to have.
So he didn’t complain and obediently stayed in his mother’s childhood home. He learned to cook on his own, cleaned up after himself, and went to bed on his own. The countryside wasn’t a bad place to stay. If one wasn’t sensitive to spiritual beings, of course.
People had stronger spiritual beliefs. There were more shrines, more offerings, more hidden corners here and there, for non-human creatures to roam. There were rivers, hot springs, and deep forests where those beings thrived better, in comparison to the skyscrapers of Tokyo, dominated by humans.
There was no loud music from clubs, shopping streets, cars, or trains. Which meant Yushi could hear those creatures even louder than usual.
He would wake up from nightmares alone, wipe his own tears, and sit in a small corner waiting for sunrise. There was nobody he could seek comfort from. Nobody to stay with him while he trembled from fear.
For months he stayed in the old traditional house alone, tiptoeing on the brink of insanity, until he discovered some of his late grandmother’s belongings while clearing the attic. Most of the boxes were filled with junk, old kimonos, and magazines from decades before he was born. Two items, however, instantly stole his attention. A worn-out book with a hard cover, and a cat plushie the size of his palm.
‘Book of Wish’ was written messily with dark ink on the hard cover. There were also unknown stains on the cat plushie.
Yushi tried to rub the stain on the cat plushie, and like magic, the cat plushie suddenly puffed up to the size of a white housecat and started speaking.
“Human! Bow down before your master!”
Needless to say, Yushi did not.
He taped the cat spirit inside a carton box before deciding he could use a housecat to accompany him. The cat was already making noises all night while being trapped in the box anyway. It also stole his bubble tea, so instead of Master Whatever-Name it asked to be called, Yushi simply named the creature Bubblenyang.
Bubblenyang apparently was old enough to have lived and met his late grandmother, but refused to divulge much about its past or his grandmother. It only mentioned that the Book of Wish was a powerful spiritual item that contained the ‘names’ of spirits that lost a battle against his grandmother. The owner of the book, namely his grandmother and her descendant, had the power to command any spirits whose names were contained in the book.
Yushi didn’t know his grandmother was that powerful. He also didn’t know what to do with the power he now had. He certainly had no interest in becoming chief of hyakki yagyo.
Thus, for the past three years, since he held ownership of the Book of Wish, Tokuno Yushi started his slow journey of meeting all the spirits whose names were contained in the book and would return the ‘names’ to their rightful owners whenever possible.
“You’re late!” Bubblenyang complained when Yushi finally reached home. “Where is my dinner?”
Yushi tossed a pack of salt bread at the gluttonous round cat. “Eat this first and wait.”
Bubblenyang’s eyes lit up, and the white cat began to stuff itself with the soft buttery rolls. “Ooh! This is from Wish Bakery, isn’t it?”
Yushi nodded and took off his jacket. “They told me I can start next week.”
“Does this mean free bread every day?”
“If there are leftovers.”
“Hah! That’s easy-”
“If I catch you disturbing the customers so you’ll get leftover breads, I’ll turn you into a baked mochi cat right away,” Yushi threatened.
The white cat spirit began murmuring its complaint, albeit in a lower volume. Yushi tied his apron and began preparing dinner. He wasn’t a great cook but he had enough skills to follow simple recipes without burning down his kitchen. Most nights his dinner was just simple dishes like fried rice, noodles, and steamed frozen dumplings.
While chopping vegetables, he heard a few knocks. Yushi sighed.
If the knock came from the front door, it was usually the deliveryman, or some kind neighbours sharing side dishes. If it came from the window, like today… hundred percent of the time, it was a spirit.
Yushi put down his knife and slid open the window.
Sure enough, Riku was hanging by the window with a cheeky grin.
“It’s dinnertime, right? I brought you a fish!”
“... Come in,” Yushi said, knowing the feline spirit wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer anyway.
He met Riku over a year ago, during a summer festival. Back then, Riku was still trapped in his animal form - a black, lithe cat just wandering the streets, unable to transform to his humanoid form. Yushi felt the Book of Wish resonating and realized the black cat he was petting was a spirit, whose name was in the book.
He returned the name, but Riku kept returning to him for more headpets and neck scritches.
Bubblenyang hissed when he saw Riku, knowing it would have to divide his portion of rice with the black feline spirit. As usual, Riku paid no attention and focused more on fixing his hair. Unlike other spirits that usually stuck to the same old clothes, Riku always put on different kimonos whenever he came to see Yushi. He was also obsessed with hairpins, bracelets, and other accessories.
If Riku were a human, Yushi was sure he would be the most popular and stylish man around. Riku could be that easygoing friend who would nag Yushi for his fashion sense and get him out for a shopping spree.
It would be really nice.
“Move away, fat cat,” Riku said, nudging Bubblenyang.
“What did you say, you gyaru old hag?”
“H-hag?! How rude, you are a whole century older than I am, you old fart!” Riku gasped.
Yushi resumed chopping the vegetables, this time with a little more force. “If you two don’t behave, we will all eat instant ramen tonight.”
Riku immediately dropped the fish onto the counter. “Yuu-chan, you can’t say that after I dirtied my feet catching this fish! Do you know how hard it is to get this fish?”
“You live near the river, don’t you catch fish every day?”
“Yeah, but the lord has woken up, and it’s a little scary to go there now.”
Yushi paused. “The lord?”
“The Forest Lord. He has been dormant for a while, but my intel says he is awake from his slumber.”
Yushi placed all the vegetables into the pot with simmering broth. He would figure out what to do with the fish later. “Is Jaehee not the master of the forest? Why are you scared of Jaehee?”
Jaehee was a tree spirit whose name was also in the Book of Wish. Coincidentally, Yushi met him while visiting Riku’s abode. Unlike any other spirits, he was a gentle soul who calmly approached Yushi, even apologizing for the ‘inconvenience’ when he requested to have his name returned. Jaehee, after having his name returned, would also often appear in his human form to meet Yushi, instead of his original appearance as a giant wisteria tree.
(Not that Yushi ever thought his original form was intimidating. In fact, he thought Jaehee was beautiful even as a tree, but it seemed like Jaehee was very concerned that seeing a walking, moving tree would put him off.)
“Jaehee is not the lord. He just happens to be the strongest and biggest spirit in our town. But there is a stronger, older spirit now, the lord who used to preside over the forest,” Riku said.
“Used to?”
“Well….used to, until your grandmother took his name. I heard rumors that she beat him in rock-paper-scissors and the lord was so humiliated, he chose to self-confine himself in a cave after his name was taken.”
Oh. Another one. What exactly was his late grandmother doing, offending so many spirits? Did she find joy in fighting spirits?
Was she perhaps just like him? Lonely and desperate for company?
“It’s Saturday tomorrow and I don’t have any class. Let’s go there and find him tomorrow,” Yushi said.
Bubblenyang almost choked on his fifth salt bread. “You’re going to go all the way to find him? To return the name? Why?!”
Yushi shrugged. He glanced at Riku, who also didn’t seem to like the idea much.
Was the lord really that scary?
Yushi let out a small chuckle. If he was so crushed by a rock-paper-scissors battle that he even ran away to hide himself… he might just be an endearing little soul, right?
Note:
Hyakki yagyo/hyakki yako: parade of thousands of supernatural creatures marching the streets at night