Chapter Text
It was January when our paths crossed.
At the time it was still cold, and my heart – distant from everything. When I woke up that fateful morning, it was still dark outside the window, and silent. A copious amount of people would flood the shrine later, breaking the stillness. Usually I would have gone home to sleep, but instead I had ended up meditating all evening. Rising from the small futon, I would have never thought that day would have been different from the rest, had I not heard the sound of barking in the distance.
For some reason I remembered what Yū-chan told me: whether or not I followed my father's footsteps and inherited his position as head priest of Aiken jinja 愛犬神社, the Shrine of the Beloved Dog, I did not have to give up on doing ritual dances, despite they were usually carried out by shrine maidens, miko, in the guise of female shamans. In fact, he had seen very few priests do them.
Being a priest should have been just as good anyway, but the physical activity they usually did to enter in contact with the gods was not the same as dancing. No matter how long he stood under a waterfall, the ecstatic dances done by the miko seemed in a different dimension entirely, whether or not they entered a trance.
He did not wish to be purified as to experience that divine ecstasy. But did he even have the courage to?
The young priest sighed and went back to putting on his white robes. Issuing blessings to all the visitors for the new year that had started, he had tried to come up with his own resolution, or at least a reason to happily carry on his duties as assistant priest. What was it that was missing?
He still did not know.
Viktor Nikiforov looked around him, taking in the scenery as he stood in the middle of a gloomy path that lead to a Shintō shrine, which was half-hidden in the trees. His dog trot ahead of him, looking like a ball of grey fluff in the distance. He then rubbed his hands together, his breath visible in the cold air of the early morning. When he started to approach the outer gate of the shrine, his eyes caught a figure wearing a hat of pure black, contrasting its bright white robes, which popped out from spectral surroundings like a sudden ray of light.
The priest had his back toward him, and was plunging a wooden ladle into a water-filled basin Viktor once heard was called a chōzubachi, which was used by worshippers for washing their hands and mouth before they approached the main shrine.
He watched the priest as he dripped the purification water on his right and left hand, without noticing the man behind him. Setting the ladle aside, the former lingered over the basin for a few moments before moving on to the next task. Just as he did so, he heard a noise and turned around to find a handsome dog greeting him on its hind feet. Stumbling back a few steps in surprise, he squinted to see if its owner was nearby. By the looks of it the grey dog was a standard poodle, though it certainly was not of average size. The priest soon heard steps coming up the stairs. Usually it would have not been so easy to sneak up on him, but these days he was lost in his thoughts. He basically did his routine on autopilot.
He looked down again at the dog, and suddenly a breeze of nostalgia came over him. Growing up he had owned a dog of his own, but it had died shortly after he was ordained. It made him feel like he did not have a protector at his side anymore.
A warm voice suddenly spoke.
“Oh, sumimasen!” A relatively tall, ash blond man – who was, the priest told himself, ridiculously beautiful – walked towards him. Somehow at loss of words, he merely nodded and patted the dog’s head, enjoying the soft texture, as the man smilingly bent down to attach its leash while scratching its back. Then, as if he were talking only to himself, the man said in a low voice, “He always does that when he wants to get to know someone.”
Making a small bow with his head, the priest then stopped petting the dog.
“O-namae wa...?”
Surprised by the sudden question in accented Japanese, and the intent gaze of the well-dressed foreigner, he inadvertently uttered his name.
“Katsuki Yūri.”
The man’s eyes lit up, and he repeated his name to confirm that he had heard it right, to which the priest nodded. The stranger seemed to be at the point of offering to shake his hand until he remembered where he was, and gave a half bow.
“Hajimete... Nikiforov Viktor.”
When Viktor stood up straight his bangs fell back on the upper left side of his face, slightly covering his eye. Though Yūri rarely looked at people he did not know well in the face, he somehow found himself studying the details he could gather without his glasses intently, the other’s eyes evoking both a cloudless summer sky and an arctic sea.
“Kore...Aiken jinja desu ka?”
Yūri nodded his head. “Hai...you can speak English to me if you wish,” he finally added.
Surprised, the man’s excitement seemed to grow even more. “Wow, really? It’s the first time I get to visit a dog shrine, yet I forgot to bring a guide. May I ask when it opens?”
Yūri forgot the last time he saw someone so brimming of life. He thought for a moment, before he replied.
“Well, if you want you can enter the grounds even now. Today however, there will be a special ceremony at the temple. Visitors will receive blessings. If you wish to participate...”
“I’d love to attend! Would my dog be allowed in too?”
The priest smiled, nodding yes. “I will make sure it’s taken care of. Please pass through that gate, and I will come to meet you at nine thirty.”
Yūri then watched the man mysteriously smile as he reached to adjust his scarf, giving him a wink before he turned around and walked back down the steps into the morning haze with his dog.
“We’ll be there.”
Viktor felt his heart pounding, hardly able to recall anything from the conversation that had just taken place but the expression on the Japanese man’s face when he smiled, the latter’s face changing into something even more beautiful, eyes glinting below dark eyelashes. Warmth spread through his chest as he walked down the path, the cold air around him suddenly forgotten.
He was going to see him again.