Until We've Cried It All Out
I picked up the plush slippers waiting beside the bed and slipped them on. When I rose to my feet, a wave of dizziness washed over me, and I stood there for a moment without moving.
Only after the lightheadedness had settled a little did I take a few steps toward the door—then my whole body went numb, and I had to stop halfway and lean against the table.
The painkillers... the painkillers have worn off.
Without them, even walking a few steps was this hard and painful, so there was always a supply of medicinal decoction kept close at hand.
Leaning against the table, I glanced around the room and spotted a lidded bowl of decoction on the nightstand beside the bed.
Ugh, I have to make it all the way back over there.
It was barely six steps at my shuffling stride, yet it felt impossibly far away.
Should I call a fairy to help me... No, it's the middle of the night. Everyone will be asleep.
I took a deep breath and managed, barely, to make it back to the nightstand.
Drenched in a cold sweat, I drained the decoction in one gulp. I popped one of the candies beside it into my mouth and rolled it around for a while, and slowly the medicine began to take hold.
Now I finally feel like I might live.
Not that my body gained any real strength, but hey—at least it didn't hurt anymore.
After living in a human body so light it felt like I could fly, returning to this original body where everything ached and everything was exhausting was startling all over again.
How on earth did I used to live in a body like this?
I let out a hollow laugh as I left the room. This time, at least, I didn't need to stop and rest along the way.
I feel so stuffy inside. I want some fresh air.
Beyond my room stretched a long corridor, and just past the corridor lay the garden.
When I opened the door, the corridor came into view, soaked through with moonlight. The garden was painted in pale bluish silver, carrying an atmosphere wholly different from the daytime.
And there, hunched on the long bench right beside the railing that divided the corridor from the garden, sat a huge, dark bulk like a bear curled in on itself.
...That's Dad.
Why is he sitting there looking so miserable at this hour of the night, honestly.
He fought with me.
Dragging my slippers behind me, I crept around behind Dad. There was no way he couldn't sense me approaching, yet he didn't stir an inch.
I couldn't be bothered to walk all the way around to the garden door, so I lifted my foot onto the railing.
I had intended to swing right over it, but this wretched, feeble body had no ability to perform such an advanced maneuver.
The moment I balanced on one foot, my body tipped sideways and began to fall.
I used to hop railings like this one with ease when I was human!
Clumsy as that body had been, it had certainly been sturdy and healthy.
I reached out a hand for the railing to catch my falling body—and missed. As I flailed, my hand slicing through empty air, a large hand suddenly seized it and steadied me upright.
"You have to be careful."
Muttering in a voice thick with sleep, Dad plucked me up like a doll, passed me over the railing, and set me down in the garden.
Then he hunched back over on the long bench like a deflated bear. I came close and sat down beside him.
For a while, we sat side by side, watching the moon cross the night sky.
Then I was the one to speak first.
"Dad."
"..."
"Have you ever been exhausted? Ever felt worn down and drained?"
"Hm?"
"Ever been so tired you just wanted to quit everything? Wanted to throw it all away and give up?"
"Give up what?"
"Anything. Everything."
"Give up you?"
"...Yes. Give up on me."
Dad turned to look at me. Moonlight shadows fell across his face, and I couldn't read his expression.
I swung my legs, which dangled below the bench, and spoke as if to myself.
"Honestly, there were times I wanted to do that. Times I wanted to just give everything up, and—aaagh."
...In this body, I'm not even supposed to do something like swinging my legs while sitting in a chair. One stretch of living in a healthy body and I've forgotten everything.
As I clutched my throbbing ankle and whimpered, Dad startled upright and knelt down in front of me.
"Let me see. Hands off—show it to Daddy."
"Oww..."
Tears brimming, I lifted my hand away. To think a little wiggle of my foot could make my ankle sting like this.
Dad took my ankle carefully in his hands and examined it from every angle. Enclosed in his enormous grip, my ankle looked as thin and frail as a sorghum stalk.
"You twisted it."
"...I just shook it a little, and that's enough to sprain it?"
"Thank goodness the bone isn't cracked."
Dad pulled out a handkerchief, wrapped it around my ankle, and summoned divine power into his palm. With his now-chilled hand, he gently cradled my ankle, pressing a cold compress against it.
Still holding my ankle like that, Dad spoke in a low voice.
"Huiyo."
"Yes?"
"There have been times Daddy wanted to give up too."
"..."
"Not you. Other things."
"...?"
"The title of King Yama. The gods under my command and the Netherworld I govern. The workings of heaven and earth and every divine will. The laws and ordinances too."
Dad lifted his head and looked at me. I was so small and he was so large that even with me in the chair and him on the ground, our eyes were nearly level.
"...There were moments, more often than I can count, when I wanted to throw it all away—every last bit of it—and simply be Sang Rahi-yo's father. Nothing more."
"...!"
"But if I did that, I couldn't save you. So I held it in."
His large hand came toward me. As he caressed my cheek, barely touching it, Dad spoke as though whispering.
"You ask if I ever wanted to give up on you—how could you ask such a thing. To Daddy, you are... you're not the sort of being one can weigh between giving up and holding on. You are my one and only child, and... I am your father."
Tears welled in Dad's eyes like water rising in a well. With trembling hands, he cupped my cheek.
"And yet—even so, even then. My only daughter, if living ever becomes nothing but suffering for you... if you want the pain to stop at last... if you simply want it all to end... then."
Dad's lips twisted into a smile.
"No matter what your mother says, Daddy... will help you."
I stared blankly at Dad, words forgotten. With a smile that looked agonizingly painful, he went on, gentle as ever.
"Wanting you to somehow hold on and live—that is our own selfishness. If it's because of us that you're enduring this... if the truth is you just want to rest... then Daddy will help you."
"...Dad."
"Daddy is a god of the Netherworld, so I could do it for you without a single shred of pain."
"Dad."
"Don't think about us, all right? If it ever truly becomes too much, you can come to Daddy anytime, and—"
"Dad!"
I couldn't listen to any more. I threw my arms around his neck.
"Stop talking. Please, stop."
The tears that burst from me poured down like heavy snow. Sobbing, I pressed my face into the nape of his neck.
"I'm sorry, Dad."
"Huiyo."
"When I said I'd feel relieved—I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. I just said it in the heat of the moment. So please..."
"Huiyo, Daddy..."
Dad gathered me into his great embrace.
"Whatever choice you make, I only ask that it not be a choice to endure and suffer through something. You're struggling enough as it is... with a body this small, what more are you trying to bear?"
A voice soaked through and through fell in a low murmur by my ear. Stroking the back of my head without end, Dad went on.
"Do whatever you wish to do. Choose what you truly want. Whatever it may be, we will stand behind you. Your mother and I will be fine, all right?"
"...I'm sorry, Dad. I'm sorry."
"Don't cry. When you cry, Daddy keeps crying right along with you. If I show up to work in the Netherworld tomorrow with my eyes swollen shut, the whole underworld staff might faint dead away."
Dad said it playfully, as if by design. I clutched his clothes until they wrinkled and murmured through my sobs.
"I won't cry tomorrow. Just today... just right now, let me cry. Right now... I want to."
"...Then let's do that. Let's cry our hearts out today, until we feel wrung clean."
I buried myself in his chest, and he held me tight, and we poured our tears out as if to melt away and draw off every sorrow we had ever stored up.
"The human king told me I was like a grown adult of twenty-nine, not a child of nine. Isn't that impressive?"
"Very impressive. Our Huiyo is clever too, after all."
"Oh, and I can tie my own coat sash now! My handiwork is a complete mess, but somehow my knots come out so pretty. I'll show you later!"
"You must. Though wait—our daughter's handiwork is a mess? Who dares say such a thing?"
"I do... I tried embroidery, and even I could see there was no salvaging it. And I keep pricking my fingers on the needle..."
"You pricked your finger? Where? Show me! How dare some insolent needle lay hands on my precious princess's finger!"
"Dad, there's no use hunting for needle marks here. It was the human body in the lower realm that got pricked."
"Ah... right."
"Oh, and there's a human child I prescribed medicine for—the illness cleared up completely in just two months. And after that, the child went on to study..."
Nearly ten days had passed since I returned to my body in the celestial realm.
It was about time I went down to the lower realm. Everyone must be worried sick about me.
I carefully retied the scroll of Straw God Candidates and set it down on the table.
"I'm not going to decide right now."
My parents, seated side by side across from me, looked my way. I smiled brightly.
"I'll make full use of this precious time you've both given me, weigh everything as carefully as I can... and then, at the very end, when I come back—I'll make my choice."
"All right, my dear."
"It's not as if I'll drop dead the moment ten years are up, right?"
"It is not."
Mother nodded and added, "Think it through with the utmost care, to the very end. It is a matter of that much importance."
"Yes. I'll think it over."
The crossroads where I would stand ten years from now.
Whether to carry on with this present life, never knowing when it might end.
Or to be sealed away alongside the Straw Gods, sleeping a long, long sleep while dreaming of the future.
I can't choose right now.
I didn't want to waste the time my parents had bought for me, either.
They went to all the trouble of extending my lifespan by ten stable years—being sealed away immediately would be such a waste.
I decided I would live a little longer, savor a healthy life a little more, experience more of the world, agonize over it until I was thoroughly sick of thinking—and only then decide what to do with my future.
I took up the Lifespan Cord of Seruhwa that Dad had been keeping hold of.
Gripping that cord, I turned back to my parents to say goodbye.
"Then I'm off!"
This time, too, that farewell was no lie.