Tears in the rain

You are a human from the human village. One day you come out for a walk in broad daylight. After a while, you start hearing another set of footsteps, just out of sync with yours. It's probably just a fairy, but to be safe you turn around and head back towards home, but the footsteps get closer and louder, and you start running through the list of youkai you know how to deal with in your head. Unfortunately, you run through that list pretty quickly, and you start thinking about the ones you can't handle.

Just as you're getting to some of the really mean ones, Kogasa drops down in front of you, hanging by her knees from a tree-branch. You were so absorbed in thought that you reflexively jump back, and before you can recover yourself, her huge umbrella-tongue gives your face a nice long lick. She giggles, says "Thanks for the meal, mister!", and floats away into the sky, leaving you weak and drained, barely able to get back to your warm house.

You're bedridden for a few days, but the worst part is when you recover and have to face your friends. "So, what's the story?" asks a man who lost his left arm to Rumia. "Yeah, tell us" says the young boy who courageously rescued his two brothers from Yukari. There's a hush in the bar, and everyone's listening.

You try to obscure the details, saying you didn't really get a good look at the creature, but nobody's buying it. "You say it was a young girl?" they say. "Well, what did she look like? What's this about a long tongue?" The schoolteacher gives you a knowing smirk, and you have to admit that Kogasa surprised you.

The crowd erupts in laughter. Young children who have to be warned about fairies jeer at you. The man who once tripped over Youmu's phantom half sighs in relief: there will be a new butt of jokes in the village.

You're slowly becoming bitter. You develop a grudge against that umbrella youkai for making your life miserable. As the mockery worsens with each passing day, your rage gradually builds until it reaches its peak.

You're out for a walk in broad daylight, again. Again, you hear a set of footsteps trailing behind you and a faint giggle from a familiar, yet aggravating voice. You grit your teeth, clenching your fists as you take the same exact route back home.

Unsurprisingly, Kogasa repeats the same exact tactic she used to scare you the first time. Her legs hooked around the branch of a tree, she swings down and lets out a shriek. "Bero bero baa!!" However, in response you just remain standing there, glaring at her.

Recognizing that her plan had failed, Kogasa slowly grew nervous as she remained dangling from the tree, unsure of what to do. However, in the next instant she laid crumpled on the ground, dazed and confused as to what had just transpired. Her cheek bore a deep red mark, likely going to bruise. Feeling your presence looming over her, Kogasa brought her gaze upwards. Her vision was obscured by the tears welling up in her eyes as the pain began to register in her brain.

Before the umbrella youkai had the the opportunity to fully grasp the situation, you brought your fist down against her face again. Your right hook made contact with her left temple, sending shock-waves through her cranium as she let out another scream in pain.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, mister..! P-Please stop!"

Kogasa tucked her head, guarding and obscuring her bruised, crying face behind her arms. She remained sitting there in front of you, quivering and shaking in terror. Minutes pass as you both remained fixed in your positions, the night air growing stagnant as the tension slowly subsided. Assuming she was safe, she lowered her guard and raised her head to take another glance at her assailant. But she lets out another shriek as you grab a clump of her hair, tugging her head upwards as you kneel down and glare directly at her heterochromatic eyes. Her face was streaked with tears, battered and bruised. She was unable to return your gaze, her eyes shut tight out of pure fear.

"Kogasa. That's what they call you, right?"

She nodded weakly in response. Her eyes remained shut tight. She bit her lower lip, balling her hands up into fists against the dirt floor. She expected more physical abuse, more pain, more torment. Yet, it never came. Instead, she was met with something else.

"Kogasa, over the past few days, I've heard stories about you. About who you are, and how you were born. And now I remember."

She was unsure as to what you were getting at, yet she remained sitting there and continued to listen.

"I wasn't originally from here. I came from a distant land, where the cherry blossoms bloomed in the Spring like in Hakugyokurou. I came from a poor family. Everything I owned was, more often than not, secondhand. And I remember for my seventh birthday I was given a hand-me-down, tattered umbrella. It was dingy. It had an ugly shade of purple. The other kids would laugh at me for bringing it to school on rainy days. It was always such a hindrance."

Tears welled up in Kogasa's eyes.

"Kogasa, did you ever wonder why you were born? Wondered what's the point of your existence? Wondered why you're even alive? Do you understand why I threw you away? Do you understand how much of a failure you are? You must have been aware of that fact in the deep recesses of your mind, yet you never wanted to acknowledge it."

Kogasa was sobbing.

"Quit lying to yourself. Quit trying to give your life any meaning when you're aware there is none. You're aware surprising me was just a fluke. You're aware you can't really scare anyone. And did you think you could compensate for your inherent uselessness by leading the life of a youkai?"

Kogasa's audible sniveling and whimpers continued to fill the air. She held up her hands against her face, cradling it as tears poured down into her palms. You learned forward, whispering into her ear.

"Your entire life is a failure and no one ever wanted you. So, isn't it better if you just killed yourself?"

In that instant, you were unable to see the expression on her face but you could easily imagine the overwhelming despair and sorrow her visage held. Standing up, you look down to see the defeated, lifeless figure of what was once Kogasa Tatara. Her arms dangled by her sides. Her eyes were vacant, pointed downwards and looking at nothing in particular. She looked pathetic. Looking to the side, you notice Kogasa's umbrella counterpart resting at the base of the tree. Grabbing it, you toss it in front of her before turning around and resuming your trip back home. With her disappearing out of sight, the tranquil silence of the forest was the only ambiance reaching your ears. Yet suddenly, from a distance behind, you could have sworn to have heard the sound of something snapping.

You never forgot that day, even after 12 months. Not only because what you did, how you got your revenge on the youkai that humiliated you, but also because of what happened the day after. That is, the day that the rain started.

And never stopped.

Sometimes is heavy, a never ending torrent of tears, other times is lighter, an almost gentle drizzle. But it´s constant and never ending. The clouds never leave. It almost can´t be considered a storm, there´s no wind nor lightning, but there´s almost no sun neither. Just the rain.

The village is in shambles, has been for a while. Not only due to the wooden buildings rotting, unable to handle the constant humidity, and not only due to the famine, any hope of farming crashed in the sunken fields, nor even due to the sickness, bodies weak due to cold and hunger being easy prey to disease. No, its the mood: there´s no one in the streets, no parties no festivals, barely any interaction with other human beings. The lack of sun or moon make day and night barely distinct in the winter, while in the summer, days in which you can see just a peek of sunlight through the grey clouds a short, but thanked occurrence. The souls of the people have become cold and bitter in mimicry of the weather.

It has reached the point that even the youkais are suffering, according to rumors. The vampire´s manor has become a bunker, all windows shut down with cement. The brick structure better suited to withstand the rain, but only up to a point. No one has seen fairies in a while, nature suffering untold damage under the unnatural weather. The kappas, to no one´s surprise, adapted quite nicely, but they´re apparently trying to create an underground cucumber farm in what they call a "submarine". They have even offered to share with the villagers, which they accepted. Like they accepted the additional free medicine coming from the salesgirl, even as she stopped hiding her rabbit ears. There´s no a lot of distrust towards youkais nowadays. There´s just no energy for it. Many would even accept to be eaten nowadays. depression has become just another pandemic, suicide attempts an everyday occurrence. The gloom and sadness has put down the spirit of the people, like fire under the rain.

You´re probably the only exception. another powerful emotion has filled you for a while now: Fear. Fear that you will get caught, that what happened last year will come out to light. Even if you tell yourself day after night that you have nothing to do with it. It´s impossible. How could it be? She was just a lowly trash youkai, an pest and an annoyance, the sort that the Shrine maiden slaughters everyday! All she did was scare people and... summon rain...

You try to calm yourself with whatever liquor you can find, which by this point is meager but at least an oni started sharing her supply recently. You´re about to start to drink yourself to sleep, when you hear the commotion outside. Its the Hakurei shrine maiden, along with a little girl... no, it´s a youkai, she has pink hair and strange red string surrounding her body, connecting a red eye-like orb to her. People say she lives underground, in a youkai city that´s starting to get flooded by the rain. You overhear someone say that she can read minds. As soon as you hear that, you realize what that means, and the second panic grips your heart... the youkai turns and stares at you. And you know she knows.

You start running, before the youkai finish saying "him".

The Shrine Maiden catches up to you with ease, didn´t even run, just calmy followed you until you tripped in the mud that is now gensokyo. you can´t even see her face, her body betrays no emotion to you... Is this what it feels to be a youkai? You shake the feeling quikly, fear turning to anger. You yell at the Miko; Is she not the protector of humans? is she really gonna believe the word of a youkai over that of a human? And even if he did it, who cares?

"So you´re not sorry, then", Her voice, the voice of a cute teenager, and yet filled with the authority and power of a demigod.

"Of course I´m not sorry! She was a lowly youkai! She sucked as an umbrella, and sucked as a youkai she was meaningless, and a failure and EVERYONE KNEW THAT!"

"I see."

She answers all your questions at once, with a chilling calmness. Slowly removing something from a pocket; a handful of needles. she holds them in her palm, and they slowly move by themselves, pointing at you. "Did you know she was also a blacksmith? She made and fixed these needles for me, you see. And as all things youkai do, they still have a bit of her spirit. And they know what you did."

She takes a stance to trow the needles. "...And I never paid her for the needles, so I feel like I owe her a favor".

She then threw the needles... at the sky. As you stand there confused turns around, gives you one last pitiful look, and flies away. As your trying to understand what just happened. You feel something odd. or rather, the lack of something.

The rain stopped.

You can feel the sun rays in your back, the clouds partying, nothing short of a miracle, and even beyond a miracle, when you see the rainbow. It the most beautiful sight you´ve ever laid eyes upon. you just stare in amazement at the sky, almost crying at the beauty and the release, the end of the nightmare...

And then you hear it, not with you ears, but with your soul:

"bero bero ba!"

And then you saw the needles. Not fast enough of course, with you eyes still adjusting to the sun, but just before they land in your eyes, 5 on each. another 10 land in your tongue when you yell out of pain. the rest just falls all over you as you run for shelter, trying in vain to think over the pain. But now matter how much you run and then crawl, not one needle fails to hit you. The last one hit your jugular, for good measure. As you lay there, bleeding to death, you stare at the open sky, now only a couple of clouds left. You last thought are of those clouds, even if you´re not sure you are actually seeing them considering the needles, but you can´t hel but feel like that cloud looks like and eye, and the rainbow a tongue, staring at you. Forever.

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Pub: 17 Dec 2021 14:57 UTC
Views: 333