Responsibility Without Pleasure
They said Aphrodite of Greco-Roman myth was born from the sea foam.
I never thought I would have any reason to dredge up that dusty scrap of trivia again.
The reason it floated up now was simple enough.
Only a moment ago the sea had been empty. Now someone was kneeling on its surface.
More precisely, it was not just one someone.
One figure was wrapped in a soft radiance. Another’s form blurred like wind. Another had half his body submerged in dense darkness.
Every one of them had their heads bowed before me.
They looked so devout that I almost felt I ought to sit up and straighten my posture.
Of course I did no such thing.
I was still floating on my back atop the Primordial Sea. My lengthened silver hair fanned across the water like an open fan; my fingertips and toes drifted lazily with the current.
The eyes looking down at me were full of reverence.
From where I lay, I was simply someone who had just woken from a nap.
"Mother."
The man kneeling at the front spoke again. A faint glow seeped from his body.
At first it had been weaker than a candle flame. With every word he uttered it grew stronger, until the contours of his face were clearly visible.
Golden hair that looked as though it had been forged from light itself. Clear eyes that resembled nothing yet existing in the world.
I studied that face for a moment, then quietly blinked.
He was almost certainly one of the beings I had made.
My memory was not hazy. The act of creation itself had simply felt far too light. I had tapped the surface of the sea with a fingertip, something had appeared, and the moment that something opened its eyes it had called me Mother.
Similar things had happened several times after that.
Drifting alone had grown a little boring, so I touched the sea. The silence had felt too deep, so I thought of wind. I wondered how far down the darkness went, and looked into it.
One by one, beings were born.
They all looked at me. Like newborn beasts that take the first thing they see for their mother, they followed me without the slightest doubt.
Suddenly there were creatures calling me Mother.
Like a flash of memory before death, the old stories rose unbidden: the goddess born of sea foam, the ancient myths of gods filling an empty world one piece at a time.
In my previous life I had forgotten every one of those names the instant the exam ended. Yet after dying, floating on an unknown sea, and finding myself surrounded by things that looked like gods, the names I had once forced myself to memorize returned with unexpected clarity.
Could I actually be standing in the middle of one of those mythic scenes—not as a spectator, but as the figure who would be written first?
I considered it for a moment.
The consideration did not last long. Thinking was too much trouble.
"Mother. Rather than a world of nothing but darkness… what if we created a beautiful world?"
The man wreathed in light spoke carefully. Even as he made the suggestion he kept glancing at me, seeking permission.
The beings behind him all lifted their heads. Expectation and tension poured toward me in a single wave of gazes.
I looked past them into the endless dark.
There was truly nothing. No place that could be called sky, no ground to set foot upon. Not a single speck of dust floated, let alone a star. In the darkness where up and down could not be distinguished, only the Primordial Sea rolled on without end.
It was hard to call it beautiful.
It was not uncomfortable either. Dark as it was, it did not hurt the eyes. The sea was pleasantly warm. I felt neither hunger nor thirst.
For me, this was a perfectly livable place. Or rather, a perfectly floatable place.
They, however, seemed to feel otherwise.
The man of light raised a small radiance on his open palm. The first spark was smaller than a fingernail. Even so, in absolute darkness that tiny light felt dazzling.
When the light touched the water, the sea that had looked only black revealed its true color for the first time—a deep blue denser than dawn. Wherever the light fell, the curves of the waves glittered, and countless gentle ripples overlapped and spread into the distance.
My silver hair, too, took on a faint sheen across the surface.
I lifted a hand and looked at a handful of it.
"Longer than I thought."
It reached all the way to my toes. The ends submerged in the water swayed slowly, like the fins of a small fish. No fish had been created yet, but the image remained clear in the memories of my previous life.
The Light God seemed to take my silence for deep consideration of his proposal; he waited without even breathing. The light floating on his palm trembled minutely with tension.
Only then did I look at him again.
"A beautiful world, you say."
"Yes."
The answer rang with strength. The cautious voice of a moment ago had brightened as if it had never been hesitant.
"I will establish light."
"Light?"
"Yes. I will make a place for light to reach, and beneath it a land where one may dwell."
"What kind of world do you mean?"
"A world where wind flows, where water forms paths, where countless lives may be born."
The more he spoke, the brighter his expression became. This was no casual suggestion. He truly wanted to create something. He dreamed of a world that still had no name, and longed to shine light upon it.
The beings kneeling behind him felt the same. The hem of the one who carried wind fluttered lightly with anticipation. The one wrapped in dense darkness closed his eyes without a word, yet the darkness around him swayed more gently than usual. Someone mimed molding earth with their hands; someone else looked up at a sky that did not yet exist.
To them, the finished world was already visible.
I could not see it at all.
How hard would it be to make mountains and plains? How high must the sky be raised, how wide the land? How many stars would be needed, and by what method should day and night be divided? And life—how complicated would that be? Bones and flesh, blood that flows, breath, the ability to move and think on one’s own…
Just thinking about it exhausted me.
In my previous life I had learned that dividing work was important. In the company, of course, they never divided it properly, so I was always the one working overtime.
At least this time there was no need for that.
Right in front of me stood beings who were volunteering of their own accord.
I nodded without a second’s hesitation.
"I find it bothersome."
The face of the man of light stiffened for an instant. He seemed to think his proposal had been rejected. Even the light on his palm dimmed noticeably.
I slowly raised a hand and pointed at him.
"You do it."
"…Me, Mother?"
"Mm."
"This world, you mean?"
"Yes."
"All of it?"
He had a lot of questions. Not that I could blame him. I was suddenly ordering a being who had only just been born to create the world.
I looked in turn at the figures behind him.
"If it’s hard alone, do it together with those children."
Silence settled over the sea. Not one of them looked as though they had properly understood my words.
Every being here had been born from my fingertips. They did not know for what purpose I had made them, or what they were supposed to do next. They had simply gathered around me, calling me Mother.
They had probably assumed I would create everything myself and hand them a finished world.
But was there any real need for that?
There were children who wanted to do it.
Still lying on the water, I gave a light wave of my hand. Blue ripples spread in circles from my fingertips and reached the feet of the Light God and the others.
In that moment something flowed into their bodies.
There was no grand ritual. No lightning fell from the sky; the sea did not part and raise pillars. I had simply thought that I wanted to share a portion of what I possessed.
That thought alone was enough.
The radiance of the man of light swelled in an instant. What had been a small flame wrapped his entire body and pushed back the surrounding darkness. Around the one who carried wind, air moved for the first time. The quiet surface of the water trembled faintly, and a few strands of my hair slid across my cheek. Beneath the feet of the one wrapped in darkness, black shadow gained depth—not merely the absence of light, but a night that existed of its own accord settling into him. In the hands of the one who had been thinking of earth remained the texture of a land that did not yet exist in the world.
Every one of them felt the power that had flowed into them and opened their eyes wide.
"This is…"
The Light God murmured in a trembling voice.
"Probably Authority."
"The power of a god… is it?"
I tilted my head at his words. I had not intended to give it so grand a name. I had only thought of it as the power to make things. Still, it did not seem wrong, so I did not bother to correct him.
"Make whatever you like."
I spoke while swallowing a yawn.
"Just don’t fight among yourselves."
At those words every being bowed their head as one.
"We shall receive the will Mother has bestowed."
"It isn’t really a will, though."
My small mutter went unheard.
The Light God clasped both hands before his chest. A far stronger resolve now shone in his eyes. It was the face of someone who believed he had received his first command from Mother.
I had merely passed the work along.
"Yes! I understand!"
With his vigorous reply, light burst forth.
The first radiance spread through a space that had been nothing but absolute darkness. The light stretched in a single beam across the endless sea and, for the first time, gave direction to a world that had not even possessed a horizon.
Up and down were divided. Brightness and darkness parted. Where the light touched, the water glittered gold; where it did not, the night grew deeper still.
The beings behind him rose one by one. Someone walked far away, following the light. Someone spread their hands and called the wind. Another descended beneath the sea to seek the foundation of a land that did not yet exist.
Those who had been gathered around me only moments before scattered in every direction. All of them looked busy and happy.
I watched for a little while, then laid my head back on the water.
Wind brushed my face for the first time. A little cool, yet pleasant. Thanks to the light, I could properly see my hands and feet floating on the surface—pure white skin, slender fingers. A body that resembled my previous self not at all.
By now I no longer particularly cared. I had died, been reborn, floated on the sea, and created beings that looked like gods. After all that, a change of sex felt quite trivial.
More than anything, I was tired.
With light now present the surroundings were brighter, which might make sleeping a little inconvenient. I narrowed my eyes toward the Light God. Far away he stood with both arms spread, fashioning an even greater light.
I briefly considered stopping him.
Then I rolled onto my side and covered my eyes with my silver hair.
This was enough. If it really got too bright, the child in charge of darkness would make night on his own.
"It’ll work out somehow."
When I murmured the words, the sea swayed gently, as if agreeing, and rocked my body with soft care.
And so the first light was born, the first wind blew, and a world that still had no form began to move.
The gods, carrying the power that had been shared with them, began their creation.
Even after countless lives were born, after sky and earth were divided, after stars and moon rose, they never forgot this day—the day the Mother of all beings first bestowed her will and permitted the creation of the world.
So it was recorded in the annals of the gods.
Of course, I myself had never bestowed any such will. I had simply found it bothersome and left it to someone else.
And while the gods made the first world, I fell asleep once more upon the Primordial Sea.