Work Text:
Yoshiyuki hated the days that his mother took him into town.
It didn’t happen that often. Most of the time, it was just the two of them in their big house tucked deep in the bamboo forest, alone except for the dozen crows that kept watch over the estate. But every few weeks his mother would run out of an ingredient, or there would be someone she needed to see, or some other tedious adult obligation would come up. Then she would drag Yoshiyuki along with her, no matter how he protested.
“I’m eight years old,” he said today. “I can stay home by myself.”
“You can’t just be by yourself all the time,” his mother told him.
This seemed unfair. His mother chose to be by herself most of the time, but then arbitrarily declared that Yoshiyuki needed more human company. He liked being alone, even though he hadn’t chosen it.
“Come keep your mother company, Yoshiyuki,” she said, and he knew that his argument had been dismissed.
As they left their grounds, heading for the main road, three crows split off from the flock and sailed after them. Yoshiyuki pressed his lips together, stifling a frown. He knew that they would follow along all the way into town, circling and cawing and chasing him like his own shadow, just like they always did.
The closer they got to their destination, the heavier his heart became, until he felt like he was hauling a sloshing bucket of his own unhappiness as he trudged along. Outside the pharmacy where she usually began her errands, his mother stopped and turned to him. “I don’t think I’ll be long today,” she said. “Meet me at Ito-san’s tea shop in an hour, all right?”
“Can’t I come with you?” He knew he was whining, but he didn’t care.
“Go play,” his mother told him. She combed her fingers through his hair with a smile, but then, in a heartbeat, she turned and was out of reach.
Yoshiyuki heaved a sigh. He knew his mother’s errands would probably bore him to tears. He knew, too, that for some reason he only dimly understood, she wanted some time without him, and thought that he should have some time without her. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was—
“Hey, it’s Yoshiyuki.” His shoulders hunched reflexively at the sound of Satoru’s sneering voice. “Seen any demons lately?”
The problem was that once, as a six-year-old, he had innocently followed his mother’s advice to “go play.” He was small and strange and friendless, and he’d made the mistake of telling the neighborhood kids that his father had been a demon hunter. “Demons?” they’d hooted, revelling in their status as big kids, too old to believe in such things. “If your dad hunted demons, why haven’t I ever seen any?” The obvious logic, that they’d never seen any because Yoshiyuki’s father had helped end them, never penetrated, no matter how many times he repeated it. That day, he had unwittingly offered himself up as prey, and they still made a game of hunting him every time he showed up in town.
“Leave me alone,” Yoshiyuki said.
“Leave me alone,” the boy mimicked. It was a stupidly bad impression of him, but it triggered braying laughs from the cluster of kids around him.
Yoshiyuki turned on his heel and stomped away. His face was flaming with rage at himself—he wished he could give Satoru a black eye, or come up with a comeback so devastating that Satoru would be too embarrassed to bother him again. But he was incapable of either of those things. And he didn’t have his own pack of siblings and cousins and neighbors to back him up. All he could ever do was try to escape while humiliation chewed him from the inside out with its blunt little teeth.
“Running away as usual?” Satoru bellowed. “You’re such a coward, Yoshiyuki!”
“I am not.” Yoshiyuki turned back, his fists clenched at his sides. He was the son of a fighter; he couldn’t be a coward.
“Yeah? Prove it.” Satoru strode up to him. He was eleven or twelve years old and a head taller than Yoshiyuki. His shadow fell over Yoshiyuki’s face as he leered down at him. “Hit me.”
Yoshiyuki looked away. “I don’t want to hit you.”
“Hit me, you little—!” Satoru shoved him, both hands pounding into Yoshiyuki’s shoulders, and Yoshiyuki went down hard. As he scrambled in the grimy slush to get his feet under himself, Satoru landed a heavy kick on his backside. The kids howled with laughter as he crumpled again. Tears prickled Yoshiyuki’s eyes, and a hot, red haze floated across his vision—and then, before he knew it, he was launching himself at Satoru. His first swing fell short as Satoru dipped sideways, and his second swing ended before it even began when he felt his arm grabbed from behind.
“Knock it off!” a man’s voice barked, giving Yoshiyuki’s wrist a rough shake before pushing him away. “Go fight somewhere else, you little brats. You nearly ran into me.”
The other kids retreated, snickering to themselves as Yoshiyuki stood frozen under the disdainful eyes of the pedestrians. Every muscle locked up tight with humiliation and fury, and to his horror, he felt the tears start to slip from his eyes.
Satoru snorted. “Crybaby.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you are! Crybaby!” The other kids joined in the chant.
Just when Yoshiyuki thought things couldn’t get any worse, the three crows that had followed him to town flapped down to land on the street near him. They strutted forward, cawing loudly, staring at the pack of kids.
“You are so weird, Yoshiyuki,” Satoru said. “Your only friends are those creepy birds! This is why nobody likes you!” He turned to the others. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I don’t feel like wasting any more of my time with this freak.”
After the kids wandered away, Yoshiyuki glared down at the crows. They looked back at him, blinking their flickering eyes. He started off in the direction of Ito-san’s tea shop, and the crows took to the air to follow, drifting from rooftop to rooftop. Anger simmered in Yoshiyuki, coming closer to a full boil each time he saw those birds swooping along. Too restless to sit and wait for his mother, he passed the tea shop and kept marching. There was a neighborhood shrine down one of the side-streets, quiet and lonely; it was a good place to be when he didn’t want to be found.
The crows came along. They dropped down to the ground and trotted after Yoshiyuki, right at his heels as he passed through the narrow torii. He ground his teeth together, and then something in him snapped, just as it had when Satoru taunted him. In one swift motion, he snatched a stone off the ground and hurled it at the nearest bird. “Go away!” he shrieked. “Go away!”
The crows burst into flight as the stone shot towards them, squawking shrilly. The sound was unmistakably that of panic and confusion, with an edge of anger. As they flew off, one of them landed briefly on the torii and stared back down at Yoshiyuki before hurrying after its companions.
A hot, sick bubble of shame swelled behind Yoshiyuki’s ribs. Tears slid down his cheeks again and he covered his face with his hands.
Twenty minutes later, he dusted the mud off his hakama and scrubbed the snot from his lip and went to the tea shop to meet his mother. When she asked him if he had fun, he shrugged.
Two weeks later, his mother decided it was time for a visit to the Kisatsutai cemetery. The schedule for these visits was, for the most part, even more obscure to Yoshiyuki than the trips into town. They went at Obon and Higan, of course, but they also went on other days, when they were the only ones in the cemetery. He didn’t have the courage to ask his mother what prompted those visits to his father’s grave.
Snow had fallen overnight, draping the bamboo with white garlands and hushing its rattling leaves. The tall grasses that normally whispered beside the road from their estate were silent beneath their cold blanket. Under their feet, the snow sighed as they followed the buried path; it was the only sound in the forest.
“The crows have seemed different recently, haven’t they?” his mother asked.
A trio of crows was following them, as usual, but they were keeping their distance. They were too far away to hear the beat of their wings; Yoshiyuki only knew they were there because he kept looking back, peering through the bamboo trunks to find their small, dark forms against the snow.
Guilt trickled down the back of his neck. He could feel his mother studying him, but he just shrugged and kept his eyes lowered, pretending to be fascinated by the glittering snow beneath his shoes.
“I wonder why that is,” she murmured thoughtfully.
“I don’t know.” Yoshiyuki kicked restlessly at the snow, sending a powdery puff flying back against his legs.
His mother said nothing more.
The Kisatsutai cemetery was a forest of gravestones stretching farther than Yoshiyuki could see. Many of the gravestones were ancient, their edges dulled by centuries of rain, their inscriptions worn down to faint impressions. The ones on the outer edges of the cemetery were newer, and his father’s was among the newest of all. But it still felt old to Yoshiyuki. After all, it had been there for longer than he could remember.
He carried the pail of water for his mother, and helped her wash the gravestone, the two of them working silently. The cold gnawed at his damp hands, and he tucked them inside his sleeves as he watched the incense burn. His mother’s hands were raw and red, too. He wondered if his father knew they were out here in the cold, doing this for him. He wondered what he thought of the bundle of camellias his mother had carried all the way from their garden to place on his grave.
Yoshiyuki’s mother gazed at him, and her eyes were hollow, as if the only things she could see were far away and lost. She always looked like that when they came here. “I’m going to see to Shinazugawa-san and the Kochous, as well,” she told him. “And then I’ll be a while longer here with your father.”
He understood that this was permission to leave, the more somber version of go play. With a nod, he wandered away, his hands still folded in his sleeves. The scarf wrapped around his face was damp from his own breath, but the snow was fluttering weakly down again, so he snuggled deeper into it.
He traipsed between the gravestones, trying to read the names, wondering about the people whose ashes lay beneath them. He wondered which of them his father had known. He wondered if any of them had left sons behind. As he walked, he watched the crows, stark like brushstrokes against the white sky, sketching messages he couldn’t quite read. They kept their distance from him, reeling away as he moved through the cemetery. He wrapped his arms tighter around himself.
After a while, he looked back towards his mother, and saw that Ubuyashiki-sama had come to talk to her. She was bent in a deep bow as the young man smiled and beckoned for her to stand up. Yoshiyuki was too far away to hear their voices, but he could see the way his mother’s shoulders softened as Ubuyashiki-sama spoke.
Yoshiyuki walked more slowly now. He knew that Ubuyashiki-sama had seen him and would come to speak to him, too. The young man was quiet and kind and had never done anything to annoy Yoshiyuki, unlike so many adults. But still, he belonged to the past, like his mother and the ghost of his father. He was part of the root system that kept Yoshikyuki bound to the lonely patch where he’d been planted.
Ubuyashiki-sama caught up to him a few moments later. “Good morning, Yoshiyuki,” he said, his voice soft and full in a way that made Yoshiyuki think of flower petals.
“Hello, Ubuyashiki-sama.”
“You know you can simply call me Kiriya, if you’d like.”
Yoshiyuki nodded. He wasn’t sure about that.
Kiriya smiled at him. “I was happy to hear from your mother that you’re both doing well.”
Again, Yoshiyuki nodded.
“Do you mind if I walk with you?” Kiriya gestured to the narrow path between the gravestones.
A serene silence floated around them as they wandered through the cemetery. Questions sat heavy on Yoshiyuki’s tongue—what could Kiriya tell him about his father? Who had these other people been, whose graves surrounded them like a vast lake? How did they know the demons were really, truly gone?—but he kept his mouth closed. He thought Kiriya would probably give him answers, but he wasn’t the person that Yoshiyuki wanted to ask.
Far off, the crows cawed, and Kiriya smiled. “It’s good to see the Tomioka crows are doing well, too.” He drew a small pouch out of his kimono and loosened its tie. The crows squawked in raucous excitement and began beating their way towards them. “They’re always especially excited to be fed in winter,” Kiriya told Yoshiyuki.
But when they were still a few meters away, the crows balked. Crying restlessly, they wheeled back and circled in the air. A tiny frown creased Kiriya’s smooth features. “I wonder what’s the matter?”
Shame flared like a roaring forge inside Yoshiyuki’s ribcage. “I think it’s my fault,” he confessed. His voice was a hoarse mumble.
Kiriya tipped his head. “How could that be?”
Yoshiyuki bit his lip, feeling the bitter sting of tears in his eyes again. “I—” he started.
Kiriya said nothing, just waited with a placid smile.
“I… threw a stone at some of them. They followed me into town the way they always do, and the other kids saw them and said I was a freak and I was just so embarrassed and angry, I wasn’t thinking—I’m sorry—”
“Yoshiyuki,” Kiriya said. Yoshiyuki dared to peek up at him. His smile hadn’t diminished, and there was no blame in his eyes. He tucked the pouch of food back into his kimono, and gestured for Yoshiyuki to keep walking with him. “Do you know why the crows follow you?” he asked.
Yoshiyuki shook his head. “Not really. I mean, I know there were crows that carried messages for the Kisatsutai, and there was one that was assigned to my father. But… none of the other families have crows, now.” He and his mother had spent the recent New Year holidays with Uzui Tengen and his family. The Shinazugawa twins and their mother had been there too, but the only crows were the ones that tagged along with the Tomioka family.
“Yes, when the Kisatsutai was disbanded, the Kasugai crows were also allowed to retire. Their descendants are all mostly wild now. But you know, even wild crows can recognize individual human faces, and teach each other who their favorite people are.” Kiriya tilted his head and gazed at Yoshiyuki. “Your father’s crow was named Kanzaburo. He was devoted to your father—he served him until a very old age, and even after the Kasugai crows were released from service, he chose to stay. Those two seemed very fond of each other, in their way.”
The crows settled on gravestones and watched them with their flint-sharp gaze, letting the two of them come a little closer this time.
“I believe Kanzaburo must have taught his offspring to recognize and stay close to Giyuu,” Kiriya continued, “and they, in turn, taught their own offspring to do the same for his family. They must see you and your mother as an important part of their world.”
Yoshiyuki felt too ashamed to look up, at either Kiriya or the crows. “I’m really sorry I threw a rock at them,” he mumbled.
“I understand,” Kiriya said. “But it’s not me that you need to apologize to.” He withdrew the pouch of food from his kimono again, took Yoshiyuki’s hand in his, and pressed it into his palm. “Take this home with you. Snacks are always a good way to make amends.” He smiled.
“Thank you.” Yoshiyuki felt the generous weight of the pouch in his hand, looking at the crows sitting in the distance. One of them tilted its head at him, its eyes flashing as it blinked. “I wish I had known about Kanzaburo,” Yoshiyuki said.
“Yes,” Kiriya agreed. Yoshiyuki watched as his gaze strayed back towards his mother, on her knees beside his father’s gravestone. “Life often makes a bit more sense when you know where you came from.”
The next morning, Yoshiyuki went out into the garden with the pouch of food Kiriya had given him. The crows were perched on the old pine tree that leaned towards the house, tucked into the dips and bends of its twisting branches. Their feathers gleamed like black lacquer in the ice-gray light of midmorning. Yoshikyuki waited until he was sure the crows had noticed him, then reached into the pouch. With a pile of seeds balanced on his palm, he held out his hand in offering. The crows watched him carefully, but none of them would approach, even when he held his breath and stood as still as a pillar. So, with rejection throbbing like a bruise, he flung the seeds onto the snow and retreated to the house. He peered through a gap in the door for what felt like hours until finally, one of the crows swooped down to investigate. As it began to eat, the other crows decided to join in as well, and descended as one to squawk and squabble over the food. Yoshiyuki breathed out a sigh.
He repeated the sequence of hope followed by a toe-numbing wait in the snow and defeat for a few more days, until he noticed the crows shifting around with interest each time he appeared in the doorway. Then, he tried putting the food on the stone step below the engawa, making sure the crows were watching as he slipped back into the house. Instead of hiding himself behind the door, he sat down in the doorway, inside but still in view. His legs had gone numb under him by the time one brave crow—Yoshiyuki thought it was the same one who had come first each time before—settled on the stone to peck at the offering.
Day by day, Yoshiyuki crept closer to the crows as they ate, until he was down to his last handful of seeds. He still wanted them to eat out of his hand, but so far, the most the crows were willing to do was snap the food off the stone while he crouched on the engawa, more than an arm’s length away.
He scattered a few of the remaining seeds on the stone, keeping the rest clutched in his fist. When the crows descended, he uncurled his fingers, moving as slowly as melting snow, and let them see the rest of the food. The bravest crow cocked its head at him. It took a few hopping steps in Yoshiyuki’s direction, then paused.
“Come on,” Yoshiyuki coaxed, making his voice as small and soft as he knew how. “I won’t hurt you. I promise, I’ll never hurt you again.”
The crow took another step. The others were watching, some from the far side of the stone, others perched on the pine tree.
“That’s right. Come on, this is for you. Come on.”
Yoshiyuki was sure the crow was thinking about it, gathering up its courage. Its eyes sparkled as it tilted its head side to side. Then, before it could come closer, he heard his mother behind him. “There you are, Yoshiyuki. Aren’t you cold?” She draped his haori over his shoulders before he could answer.
The crows weren’t frightened of his mother, but they all hopped a few shy steps backward, including the one that seemed ready to jump up onto Yoshiyuki’s hand. Yoshiyuki stifled a sigh.
“I see you’re making progress with them,” she said.
Yoshiyuki looked up at her, surprised. He didn’t realize she’d been paying attention to what he’d been doing with the crows. “Yes,” he said, “I think that one was going to get in my hand before you came out.”
“Ah, sorry for interfering.” She settled down next to him, pressed against his side. “It’s very nice that you’re befriending them this way.”
He nodded. He didn’t want to confess that this was also an apology, although he felt like somehow, she might already understand that. “Ubuyashiki-sama told me that they’re Kanzaburo’s descendants.”
“Yes, I believe they are.”
“What was he like?” Yoshiyuki asked. He kept his eyes fixed on the crows.
“Kanzaburo? He died before I married your father.” There was a smile in her voice as she continued, “I heard stories, though.”
“Like what?”
“Well, he was very old, and he made your father nervous because sometimes he’d get confused. He’d mix up the message he was supposed to be delivering and send your father to the wrong town or make him a day late for a meeting. Or sometimes, he’d mistake your uncle Tanjirou for your father, and land on his head, and refuse to get down for anything.”
Yoshiyuki giggled.
“He was very important to your father, though. And your father was very important to him.” His mother combed her fingers through his hair. “He would be so happy to see you caring for Kanzaburo’s family this way.”
Yoshiyuki heard the sadness in his mother’s voice, like there was something twisting deep in her throat. She always sounded like this when she spoke about his father, and he knew that she would soon go quiet. So he was surprised when she swallowed and said, “Yoshiyuki, I’m sorry I don’t talk to you about your father more often.”
He could only blink at her. He didn’t know what to say—he wanted, more than anything, to know about his father, but not at the cost of the tears reddening his mother’s eyes.
“He lived a difficult life,” she said. “We all did, but him more so than many. Your father gave everything he had to make the world you were born into one free of demons, and we didn’t want to burden you with sad memories. And—” she swallowed again. “And I was afraid of how sad it might make me to talk about him. But I should have been thinking about what you needed, not what I feared. I’m sorry, my love.”
“It’s—it’s okay,” Yoshiyuki stammered. He felt like he was stumbling under the weight of what his mother was suddenly offering him, but he wanted to carry it.
His mother smiled, the lift of her cheeks making her tears sparkle, and cupped his face. “You’re so much like him.”
He had been told for as long as he could remember that he looked just like his father, usually by adults smiling mournfully as they compared him to their memories. Those blue eyes, that shaggy, dark hair. But he understood that his mother meant more than that, now. That his father had given him more than his features; that some of the things that roiled inside him were from his father too, the things that he didn’t understand about himself. The things that might make more sense if his father were with him still.
“I wish I could have known him.” Yoshiyuki spoke warily. He wanted to offer his mother his own honesty in exchange for what she was giving him, but everything he could think to say had sharp edges that he knew might hurt them both if he wasn’t careful.
“I do, too.” She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, hugging him to her side, so that her words vibrated into him. “He loved you so much, Yoshiyuki. When you were born, he said you were the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him. He’d be so proud to see who you’ve become.”
Yoshiyuki nodded. Something thick blocked his throat, but he wasn’t sure if it was sorrow or happiness or some nameless thing made equally of both.
He had nearly forgotten the crows and the food in his hand, so he was startled to suddenly feel a tentative poke at his fingers. Yoshiyuki and his mother both looked down and saw the bravest crow staring back up at them. Cautiously, it ducked its head and nipped at Yoshiyuki’s closed fist again.
Yoshiyuki uncurled his hand, and the crow strode into it, each foot clutching a finger; its little talons prickled against Yoshiyuki’s skin. Then it dipped its beak down to the pile of seeds and began pecking. Every few seconds, it glanced up at Yoshiyuki, but it didn’t seem afraid.
“You’ve made a new friend,” his mother murmured.
They wrote to Ubuyashiki-sama, requesting his suggestions for grains and seeds that the crows would particularly like. He replied with a list, as well as a barrelful of the blend he made, enough to keep the Tomioka crows happy for at least half a year. Yoshiyuki went outside three times a day, after each of his own meals, and fed the crows. Some preferred to eat off the stone below the engawa; others perched on his fingers to pluck food from his palm. The bravest crow—his crow, he thought of him now—liked to stand on his forearm and watch the other crows take their turns. He was heavy, and Yoshiyuki’s arm ached after a minute, but he never minded that. Because of his courage, Yoshiyuki decided to name the crow Isamu. His mother smiled when he told her.
As the snow began to melt, leaving the garden bare and brown, Yoshiyuki began coaxing his crow to sit on his shoulder. By the time the cherry trees were flaunting swollen buds, Isamu made a habit of landing on Yoshiyuki’s shoulder whenever he came outside. Yoshiyuki liked the weight of him there, the subtle shifting pressure of the crow’s feet as he balanced, the rustle of feathers beside his ear.
The first cherry blossoms Yoshiyuki saw that year were not on the trees in their own garden. He slid open the door one morning to find a spray of the pink blooms sitting on the engawa stone. They were a little bruised, like they’d been carried a long way, from some place where the trees were flowering a few days earlier than their own.
Isamu flapped down and landed next to the blossoms. He looked up at Yoshiyuki and chirped, a sweet, throaty sound that he only made for the boy. Yoshiyuki smiled. “Did you bring these for me?” he asked. He bent to pick up the flowers, and twirled them between his fingers.
The crow hopped up onto his shoulder and settled down with a soft coo. He stayed there, snug in the curve of his neck, as Yoshiyuki went back inside the house and offered the flowers to his mother.