Chapter 6 — The Machinations of Ebisugawa Sōun (Part 2)

The scarlet leaves had largely scattered from the trees in the city, but from a distance the mountains that rose up around the valley were still draped in luxuriant hues of red and gold. Though surrounded by the warm colors of the mountains, the city steadily became chillier. Even the pine trees that lined the Kamo Delta had been wrapped with straw mats to prepare for the bitter cold of the Kyōto winter.

Looking at the pines I recalled how Yaichirō used to go around ripping off the straw mats whenever he was in a mood. These days, as the head of the Shimogamo clan he would loudly urge his useless younger brothers along, or at least try to, yet even he had once let himself become preoccupied in useless vices of his own. Being violently stripped of their protective straw mats was rough for the pine trees, but it was rough for me too, because I was the one who had to go around wrapping them back up.

December 26th, the day of the election of the Trick Magister, also happened to be the day that Father was made into stew.

Each time that day approached, Mother would become noticeably tense.

I would take her to the billiards hall by the west end of the Kamo Bridge, but her heart wouldn’t be in it. I would show her pictures of the Takarazuka, but she would only sniff. Whenever Yaichirō and Yajirō were away from the forest she would worry about whether they would come home safely, and the same was true whenever I was away as well.

One day Yajirō didn’t come home from the Faux Denki Bran distillery, so I waited with Mother, shuffling back and forth along the shrine path. Mother’s cell phone dangled around her neck. A considerable length of time had passed since Yajirō called to say that he had left the distillery.

“It’s a good thing that Yajirō is a frog in a well,” she said, scanning the entrance to the shrine.

“Why’s that?”

“Because I don’t have to worry about a frog being made into tanuki stew. If he hadn’t been a frog then I would have had one more child to worry about, and then I might really go crazy!”

“Why don’t you stop Yajirō going to the distillery? We can live without money. After all, we’re tanuki.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Mother snapped, her butt wiggling in fury. “It was Sō who asked them to train Yajiro, and I couldn’t withdraw from that agreement just because I feel like it. And you know what kinds of things Ebisugawa would say if Yajirō were to quit halfway. I just couldn’t stand it! And besides, if he did quit, where would I get the money to buy tickets to the Takarazuka?”

“I could lend you the money. I’ve still got some saved up from the camera store.”

“You know, though, Yajirō said he couldn’t stand to run away either,” Mother smiled. “I’m so proud of him.”

“I guess even Yajirō couldn’t stay a baby forever. But I know if it were me, I couldn’t bear to work for Kinkaku and Ginkaku at the factory for even three days.”

“Sō knew that, and that’s why he didn’t arrange to have you work there. But you need to stop slacking off and learn a trade too! While you’re at it, make some money too, so you can buy me tickets to the Takarazuka.”

“But I thought you didn’t feel like going to the theater?”

“Well, now’s really not the time to go. But after the new year begins I plan to go again.”

While we were talking, Yajirō showed up at the entrance to the shrine and started to trot towards us. Mother heaved a massive sigh of relief.

Yaichirō’s late returns were another source of concern for Mother. As if he felt some sort of fateful connection with that date, December 26th, he was still soldiering on all over the tanuki world running his campaign. Always worrying about him, Mother took Yajirō and me to the discount store at the shopping arcade and bought mountains of energy drinks, forcing them on a reluctant Yaichirō.

“I can’t drink any more, Mother!” he shrieked. “My nose is going to start bleeding!”

“A nosebleed means you’re drinking the right amount,” Mother said unreasonably, lining up another row of energy drinks. “After all, this time it’s do or die.”

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A fine, grey drizzle fell on Kyōto all through the day of the winter solstice. It was the kind of day that made your butt unpleasantly chilly.

As furry as we are, tanuki find winter rain quite unpleasant. Yaichirō and Yajirō went out early in the morning, but I refrained. Wandering around outside and getting your butt drenched is sheer folly; the only thing to do on a day like this is roll around under the protective umbrella of the trees.

I was buried in the dead leaves nibbling on a daifuku mochi, protecting my hindquarters assiduously, when Mother called for me.

“Yaichirō just called. Be a dear and run to Master Akadama’s for me.”

I burrowed deeper into the leaves. “I’m a little, uh, occupied at the moment.”

“Looks like you’re just keeping your butt warm to me.”

“Cold butts are the root of all evil, Mother. Keeping warm is important!”

“Master Akadama is saying that he doesn’t want to attend the election. He’s moaning and whining and making a scene.”

“But it was Yasaka who proposed sending him an invitation. Sounds like it’s a done deal already.”

“But it isn’t, since it was all so sudden. Everyone’s worried, and Yaichirō thought the Master might listen to you.”

“Oh, so now that it’s convenient for him I’m suddenly useful again? Look, I’m not that close with the Master!”

“Well I told him I’d send you to the Master right away. So off you go. Go on, go on!”

Mother brushed away the dead leaves and kicked me out from under the tree. The tanuki version of tiger parenting involves kicking out their children from their warm leaf beds into the freezing winter rain, a thoroughly vicious act of cruelty. I attempted to wriggle back in, prompting Mother to aim another kick at my behind.

“Fine, I’m going, I’m going!”

“Honestly, thinking of warming your own butt when your brother’s in trouble!” Mother fumed. “Oh, and make sure to buy some energy drinks from the Demachi shopping arcade on your way back. Yaichirō could always use more.”

Bidding my comfortable bed farewell, I left the Tadasu Forest and headed out towards the shopping arcade.

Passing north over the Aoi Bridge I saw cottony clouds strung out over the distant mountains. Grey waters rushed by magnificently beneath the bridge. I concentrated on angling my umbrella, doing everything I could to ensure that my butt stayed dry.

The sound of the rain echoed through the shopping arcade as I turned into the alley and walked towards the Masugata Court Apartments, where I found a line of visitors snaking out of the Master’s room and all the way down the stairs, jostling and shoving each other. The fact that they had all transformed into human forms made no difference to the Master, who of course was so put out by the presence of so many tanuki that he refused to listen to even the most reasonable of proposals.

I pushed my way through, saying, “Hello, Yasaburō here, pardon me, Yasaburō coming through,” and a whisper started through the entire crowd: “Yasaburō’s here!”

Shoving my way up the stairs, I entered the Master’s tiny apartment.

Master Akadama was sitting cross-legged in his yellowed underwear, his back facing the entrance to the room, scrutinizing the wall scroll as he plucked his nose hairs. Bottles of Akadama port wine were lined up before the tatami in hopeful offering, and the hallway from the kitchen to the front door was packed with important tanuki prostrating themselves on the floor, leaving nary a place to set foot.

“Whoops, ‘scuse me there.”

“Watch where you’re stepping, Yasaburō!” came a hiss, and I looked down to see that I had trod on none other than Yaichirō.

“How’s it looking?”

“He won’t budge an inch. I’ve sent for additional offerings, but I’m out of ideas. He’s squeezing us dry!”

“I can hear you, Yaichirō,” said Master Akadama. Yaichirō started and fell on his face again, while the other tanuki backed towards the entrance. I sat on my heels and scooted forward, stopping at the edge of the tatami.

“Master. It is I, Shimogamo Yasaburō, come to call on you.”

“Why have you come? I don’t recall summoning you.”

“There’s no need to get bent out of shape. Just think of it as a year-end party.”

“Pah. I don’t want to get hairs mixed in with perfectly good alcohol.”

“No need to pretend you’re not secretly pleased, either.”

“How dare—!”

Master Akadama whipped his head around, purple with fury, and the rest of the tanuki fled the kitchen like a rolling tide from the kitchen, leaving me all alone. Even Yaichirō turned tail and retreated in the most unseemly fashion. But the last time the Master had tried to call up a whirlwind he had ended up only wasting a roll of toilet paper, and perhaps remembering the disgrace of that previous experience he merely glared at me but expressed his anger no further. That saved me from having to come up with needlessly clever countermeasures like turning into a cow.

Finally, the Master snorted and turned back to his hanging scroll.

The tatami was quiet, save for the sound of the dripping rain outside. I stared at his back, not saying a word. His bony back stood out in relief against his yellowed undershirt. At length he lit up a cigar and puffed out a thick cloud of smoke. Picking up a nearby daruma, he said softly, “Yasaburō.”

“Yes.”

“Go purchase some cotton swabs. Itchy ears make me foul-tempered and apt to blow up whirlwinds. I really will.”

“I understand. I shall make the arrangements with utmost haste.”

“Must I really attend this gathering of tanuki?”

“By all means, I implore you! It cannot begin without your presence to grace it. The tanuki of Kyōto eagerly await your words of wisdom.”

“I’ll wager Kurama plotted to push this onto me.”

“I cannot deny it is so.”

“I knew it was something of that ilk!” The Master clutched the daruma and feigned a show of tears, letting a high-pitched fart squeak out. “So, they mean to say I am but suited only for the menial work of choosing the leader of the tanuki, do they? And so they have saddled me with this dreary task, those damned Kurama pipsqueaks! I am Yakushibō of Nyoigatake, he who once held the fate of the realm in his hands! And you tanuki, you all think only of using me to suit your own ends, getting the closest tengu at hand in order to keep up appearances. Of this I have no doubt. Is there even one among your number who truly gives the honor I am due? Well? You furballs, you’re nothing but talk!”

There the Master’s rant broke off, and he hung his head.

It was somewhat of a stretch to consider the Master as having held the fate of the entire realm in his hands; in fact, I would deem it rather questionable whether he had ever even controlled the lands east of the Kamo River.

I shuffled forward on my knees. “What need has the great Yakushibō of Nyoigatake of the respect of furballs such as us? Does your pride come from the respect of tanuki? Are you proud because you are respected? Surely such a thing would not be worthy of you. You are proud because you are a tengu. Tanuki and humans may flap their tongues for all they like, but is it not that indisputable majesty that makes a tengu a tengu?”

The Master hugged the daruma to himself and said nothing.

“I shall keep the words you spoke earlier to myself, Master,” I said. “Please, put such things from your mind.”

The Master snorted. “Tell them to prepare alcohol and wait. I may come, if I am so inclined.”

I knew that he would come, but just as I was smirking inwardly to myself, Master Akadama patted the daruma and said, “Yasaburō. You thought to yourself just now that I would come without fail, did you not?”

“You know me too well, Master. One of those mutual understandings?”

“Of course it was. You tanuki and your simpleminded thoughts. Fools, one and all.”

I bowed low to the floor by the kitchen.

Having completed negotiations with the Master I left his apartment, to find the other tanuki crowded outside waiting with bated breath. “Well? Well?” they asked.

“He’ll come,” I replied.

The bigwigs all sighed with relief, muttering amongst themselves.

“If that don’t beat all…”

“Everything’s set, then.”

“Thank goodness!”

“Well done!” Yaichirō clapped me on the shoulder. “I knew that every tanuki had to be good for something!”

“Well, excuse me!”

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With my butt thoroughly drenched from the cold rain, it was high time for me to pickle in a piping hot bath. Fortunately, today being the winter solstice meant that yuzu baths were in season. Leaving the Master’s apartment behind, I went to the bathhouse and lowered myself into a bathtub.

As I let my backside warm thoroughly, I watched the tendrils of yuzu-perfumed steam spiral up through the light from the high glass windows. Yaichirō never went into the yuzu bath, claiming that the smell made him sneeze. Perhaps that was why, despite his insistence on keeping up appearances, he was always sucking on Asada cough drops. Year after year my scrupulous habit of taking yuzu baths had protected me from catching colds, but Yaichirō kept parroting the old superstition that “Idiots don’t catch colds!”, which infuriated me to no end.

Taking advantage of the fact that I had the whole bath room to myself, I floated along the water as naked as the day I was born, occasionally even transforming into a yuzu with my butt bobbing up in the air. A feeling of peace and tranquility spread through my body from my nether regions as I enjoyed myself. Apparently, this sensation is most usually followed by disaster.

After Father’s departure to the afterlife our quarrel with the Ebisugawa clan had simmered along slowly, but with the climax of the heated Trick Magister election approaching, it was starting to reach a boiling point. But I was a little sick of the whole thing. Tanuki are beings who love peace and tranquility. Nowhere is this more true than when we are sitting in a hot bath, for this causes our passion for peace and tranquility begin to rise like the bubbles in the bathwater. What does peace and tranquility mean for tanuki? It’s the feeling you get when you’re lying on the bank of the Kamo, staring at the blue sky overhead. That’s all there is to it.

These days, tanuki who set their sights on the position of Trick Magister are scarce to be found. One the one hand, you have the carefree, unfettered life of a tanuki. On the other, you have the life of a Trick Magister, who is hounded day and night when problems arise and must take charge and lead the way in all sorts of matters. Most upright, clearheaded tanuki will look at these two choices and think to themselves, “The title of the Trick Magister is one steeped in tradition and prestige, but is it really worth throwing away a cosy, easygoing life?”

In order to obtain this little-sought position, Yaichirō waded, no, threw himself headfirst into the quagmire of the election. Given that the brothers of the Shimogamo clan were a collection of deadweight, he fought this battle mostly alone. In order to assuage my guilt, I made up a little ditty to cheer him on.

“What a stupid song!”

I had gotten out of the tub and was singing as I scrubbed myself when a stinging rebuke came flying out of the women’s bath, giving me a start.

“Kaisei? You here to warm up your butt a little too?”

“Don’t talk to a lady about butts, you gross little pervert!”

“If you wish to avoid the sniffles, you would do well to keep your butt protected from the cold.”

“That’s none of your business!”

The sound of vigorous splashing came from the women’s bath and the cursing subsided for a time, as Kaisei seemed to be concentrating on keeping her butt warm. There didn’t seem to be anyone there but her, and all was quiet. I finished scrubbing myself and went back into the bath. One tanuki in the men’s bath, one tanuki in the women’s, both floating there not saying a word. I was sitting in the jet bath with pounding bubbles soothing my body, when Kaisei blurted out, “Nice bath, huh? Ahaha.”

“It really is quite nice,” I said. “The yuzu is especially good.”

“Sure is.” For once, Kaisei answered me without any snark.

“It’s been a while since I got to see the Navel Stone, and somehow it’s still rocking the same look. I gotta be impressed with how it’s managed to stay transformed like that for so long.”

“I bet you’d never pull that off. You’d drop the act in a flash!”

“I could too do it, if I tried. I wouldn’t lose to Yaichirō, or even Mother. There’s not another tanuki out there who could beat me when it comes to transforming.”

Kaisei snorted with laughter. “Didn’t you roast the Navel Stone before? You’re such an ass!”

“I didn’t roast it, Ismokedit.”

“Same difference.”

“Let’s just let the past be the past. Things got pretty nutty at the Rokkakudō, when the elder got carried away by a pigeon.”

“I know!”

“Were you even there?”

“You dummy, of course I was. I was hiding and watching from the top of the camphor tree.”

“You’re insane...when are you just going to come out and show yourself?”

“Like I’d show myself to you!”

“You could just pop over to the men’s bath for a little bit.”

A round bar of soap came hurtling over the partition. I swiftly picked up a plastic washbasin bearing a picture of a frog and ducked under it to protect my head from the swarm of projectiles flying overhead. Eventually the entire supply of soap in the women’s bath found its way onto this side, Kaisei’s tantrum subsided, and once again I heard her sigh with contentment, “Nice bath, huh?”

“So the Trick Magister is being chosen next week. The day’s almost here.”

“Yaichirō isn’t going to make it, you can quote me on that.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He just doesn’t have what it takes.”

I floated there morosely, when she suddenly added, “Friendly word of advice. Tell Yaichirō to watch his back.”

“What, are your two stupid brothers filling their empty heads with more dumbassery?”

“Don’t call my brothers stupid, you smelly ball of lint! But yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“Well I doubt it’ll amount to much, but thanks for telling me anyways.”

Kaisei sighed. “My stupid brothers are getting craftier. They’re being sneaky now to make sure I don’t find out what they’re up to. If you underestimate them you’re going to get tripped up.”

“Hmph. Tripped up by those guys?”

“Stick your nose any higher in the air and you’ll turn into a tengu, Yasaburō.”

“Fat chance of that. I’m just a tanuki, after all.”

“...One more thing.” Kaisei was silent for a moment. She seemed to be tapping on an overturned washbasin, making a pong sound that reverberated off the high ceiling and throughout the room.

“What’s wrong?” I called, and I swear I heard my erstwhile, unseen fiancée mutter, “Sorry.”

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As far as I could remember, my ex-fiancée had never shown concern even once in her life, which made her pronouncement all the more confusing. More than confusing, it was unsettling. I attempted to pry further, but she had sealed her lips like a daruma, and before long all sign of her vanished from the women’s bath. I pursued her outside, but the vixen was already vanishing somewhere into the twilight, no doubt still steaming from her cozy bath.

And with that, Kaisei disappeared from my sight—or should I say, since she had never shown herself to me in the first place, she ended the conversation there.

The city grew livelier with each day closer to Christmas. I prowled the city, searching all over—under bridges, in dark alley corners, inside chest drawers in secondhand stores—but Kaisei was nowhere to be found.Sorry—it had been the faintest of whispers, no louder than a sigh, and yet each time I thought about that word trailing over from the women’s bath, I felt a strange sense of foreboding somewhere in my chest.

“That wasn’t just an apology,” I thought to myself. Then what was it? I didn’t have a clue.

At last Christmas Eve arrived.

There’s nothing wrong at all with tanuki celebrating Christmas. On the contrary, it’s fair to say that there’s nothing tanuki like more than the pointless clamor of this holiday. Mother prepared a Christmas cake, I went to buy KFC, and Yashirō traipsed off to the home improvement store by the river to buy Christmas lights.

As the darkness of twilight fell over the Tadasu Forest, Yashirō exerted himself sending current through the wire, and with a little effort the little multicolored lights coiling around the branches of the great tree began to blink cheerfully. “That’s amazing! Keep practicing that skill, Yashirō!” said Mother approvingly, bringing a proud grin to Yashirō’s face.

Yaichirō returned to the forest. The Trick Magister election was being held in two days. “To do this now of all times,” he scowled darkly, but I persuaded him that this celebration was intended to wish him good luck and let off a bunch of party crackers to silence his continued protests.

Tanuki love fried chicken. By some counts, tanuki make up about half of the customers who frequent KFCs in Kyōto. Yaichirō’s frown immediately turned upside down when I placed a plate of fried chicken in front of him. Under the Yashirō-powered twinkling lights, we all set to work devouring the chicken in ecstasy.

“I vow that I shall carry on Father’s legacy,” Yaichirō stated repeatedly, full of vim and vigor and chicken. “Just you wait, Sōun. Just you wait!”

“Keep an eye out for those Friday Fellows. I don’t want you running around carelessly now!”

“I know, Mother,” said Yaichirō, puffing out his chest.

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Sometimes knowing that you're going to be frowned upon for doing something makes you want to do it even more.

After the fluffy Christmas party got underway, I decided to take a gift over to Master Akadama. It was a walking stick inset with a small sake bottle, quite suitable for filling with Akadama port wine, that I had bought in an antiques store in Ichijōji. I had initially planned to present him with the Fūjin Raijin fan now that Benten had cleanly forgotten all about it, but after months of searching I still had no ideas as to its whereabouts.

It was quite late when I set off to the Master’s residence. The shops were all closed and their shutters rolled down in the Demachi shopping arcade, with the exception of the pubs, which had put out the short curtains at the entrance. I walked briskly along the street, the long, thin package tucked under my armpit.

The front door at the Masugata Court Apartments was unlocked: the carelessness of a tengu who lives alone. Inside, multicolored lights flashed on and off over the garbage strewn all over the tatami. It was quite odd, and not at all fitting, to see a blinking Christmas tree standing in the corner of the room of a tengu who boasted to once have held the fate of the realm in his hands. Master Akadama was cross-legged in front of the plastic fir tree, holding a daruma and drinking himself senseless. The tiny lightbulbs flashed in turns, sending red and blue and yellow light over the ridges of the Master’s forehead. Apparently this was how he was spending this holy night: putting up decorations and downing a full three bottles of Akadama port wine, alone. It was a sorry sight to see, and I couldn’t help thinking that he could have just invited me.

“Master, Master!” I called. “What’s up with the tree?”

The Master lifted his head, looking irritated, and wiping away drool from his mouth cast his bleary eyes around the room. “Dunno,” he muttered, before letting his head droop listlessly once more.

Seeing that there was no use talking to him in this state, I rolled out his futon and stuffed his slender frame into it. “I duneed your shympathy,” he slurred. “Leave me alone!”

“As if I could!” I crammed the daruma into the futon as well, which he immediately hugged tight. No doubt he was dreaming of his beloved Benten’s round behind. He may have been my mentor, but all the same there was no denying he was an old lecher.

Pretending to be a fuzzy Santa Claus, I placed his gift by the side of his pillow, but just as I turned to leave, the door to the apartment opened with a soft click, and who should blow in with a chilly blast of wind but Benten. She was obviously intoxicated, her cheeks ruddy and glowing, and she was dangling a wrapped wooden bento in her hand. Her mouth split into a grin when she noticed me, and she sang out, “Ah, I’m wasted!”

She let out a little gasp when her eyes lit on the flashing Christmas tree in the corner, and she plopped down by the sleeping Master, watching the lights flicker on and off. Her eyes closed, as if she was soaking in the colors as they washed across her face. The tiny lightbulbs kept extinguishing themselves like they had burned out, only to blink on again a moment later. In those intervals of darkness, her smooth, porcelain-like cheeks would float up through the gloom.

“This takes me way back. I bought it for him, you know.”

“That makes sense. I was wondering why the Master would have a Christmas tree in his room.”

“It was years ago now. I just love Christmas!”

“Tanuki love it too. The pointlessness of all this celebrating and revelry is what makes it so fun.”

Benten picked up the parcel under the tree. “Now what have we here?”

“It’s a present for the Master, a smart walking stick.”

“Look like someone’s getting into the season...and what about my present, hmm?”

“There isn’t one.”

“Why not?”

“What could the great Benten possibly want for Christmas? You’ve got everything you could ever want.”

“Now that’s not nice at all. I never get what I want, never!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

Benten suddenly stood up and brought over a new bottle of Akadama port wine from the kitchen. She poured it into two cups and offered one to me. Wrapped snugly in his musty futon, Master Akadama frowned in his sleep, completely oblivious that his beloved Benten was sitting right beside him. Benten’s eyelids drooped as she sipped her wine languidly.

“Brr, it’s cold. I expect the snow will really start piling up after New Year’s.”

“Maybe sometime in January or February is my guess,” I replied.

“I get so lonely whenever it snows.”

“That, coming from Benten, who doesn’t have a care in the world? You’re not going to find anyone who sympathizes with you there.”

“Humans aren’t like tanuki or tengu...some nights we just drown in our own thoughts.”

“Tanuki have their own thoughts to worry about too, you know.”

“Ours are deeper than that though, much deeper. They’re not comparable at all.”

“Well, let’s just leave it at that.”

“You know, before the Master brought me here, I lived next to a huge lake in the mountains. It snows a lot on that side of the mountains, like Old Man Winter dumps all the snow over there and runs out by the time he gets over here.”

“You think that’s how it works?”

Benten stroked Master Akadama’s white hair and continued. “I used to take walks and look at the dried up paddies and green bamboo thickets near my home, all buried in snow. Nothing made a sound. A little further on I would come on to the beach. The shore was all covered in snow, too, and not a single footprint in sight, or a person. The big lake stretched out as far as I could see, and it looked so cold, and so vast. I felt so lonely, so alone, but I couldn’t standnotto walk out there, either, where there were no people. I didn’t have a destination in mind, though. As I walked my mind would start to go all blank. Whenever I feel lonely, I always think of that scenery, and myself, walking through it. I was always so lonely, lonely, seeing that landscape every year, and so now loneliness and snow are all tied up in my head. That’s why the pit of my stomach is always so cold. Poetic, isn’t it?”

“Didn’t you have family or friends when you lived in the mountains?”

“Those things have nothing to do with what I was just talking about. I wouldn’t expect a tanuki to understand.”

“Snow makes my butt cold, so I like to avoid it where I can. Maybe I’d rather not understand after all.”

“You could always try being alone?”

“No thank you. Tanuki aren’t meant to be alone.”

Remembering that I was carrying a picture of her, I reached in my pocket and took it out. “Come to think of it, why don’t I make this your Christmas present?”

Benten took a glance at the photo and remarked, “Well if it isn’t Professor Yodogawa? But I don’t want this photo.”

“Don’t say that, look how well it’s framed. I’m a pretty good photographer, hey?”

“I said I don’t want it.”

Just then there were signs of stirring from the futon. Master Akadama peered over my shoulder at the photograph and mumbled, “Who is that?”, his voice still heavy with sleep. “Benten, how wretched it is that you get on so with a human such as this!”

“My my, Master, you’re looking a bit green.”

Nimbly slipping through the Master’s fingers as he attempted to grab hold of her from behind, Benten got to her feet.

“Surely you can stay?” Master Akadama said piteously, with the grubby futon draped around his shoulders like a cloak. “It has been such a long time since you came. Surely you will not leave yet?”

Benten pointed to the wooden bento box on the table. “I only came to bring you a party gift. I’ll be taking my leave here tonight.”

“Perhaps you could stay the night?”

“Oh, I could never impose on you like that, Master.”

“What! Impose! Come, let us celebrate Christmas. I shall give you a gift. Yes...what do I have left. The Fūjin Raijin fan? ...no, I gave that to you already. Wait! Wait! I will find something! There must still be something here!”

“Master, I really don’t think you have anything left,” Benten whispered to him.

The Master’s eyes rolled wildly at her, before he muttered, “You are right. I no longer have anything left to give you.”

“I’ll be going then,” said Benten, smiling back at the Master as she turned the doorknob. “Do be careful not to let your jealousy stick in your throat. If you were to choke on it and die, why, I would feel quite lonely.”

And leaving those parting words, she walked through the front door and vanished into the darkness.