"...and the darkness that follows"

Zhizhu sat with her hands folded almost primly in her lap, watching the night-muted reds and golds of autumn-bedecked trees rush by the car. She’d rolled the window down, waiting for Yuki to protest the deafening blast of cold air that now stung her eyes and numbed her cheeks. The Crane, however, seemed to have spoken her piece. Zhizhu was glad; she longed for solitude, but this was the best she was going to get right now.

So this is love, she thought.

No, she amended, this is heartbreak.

The pain had begun to settle within her. At first, it had been a stone. When Zhizhu had said good-bye to Shin, she had felt as if her heart were heavy enough to sink into the earth. For a short while afterward, the pain had transformed into a horde of stinging bees. It had been restless inside her, making her want to lash out and hurt everything around her. She had waited for that phase to end before returning to her uji.

Now it was like water, which reached into and drowned all the hidden little corners of her heart. Hot tears rolled unnoticed into tracks left by equally as unnoticed predecessors, only to be blown away by the cold wind. There was a part of her that still felt like a swarm of hornets, which railed against her decision, against her uji, against life and fate itself.

Is just a little bit of happiness too much to ask for? Zhizhu found herself thinking. She didn’t even need her demon to answer for her. She’d always known that what she’d had with Shin was doomed. They could never have been a happy little couple, walking the streets hand in hand and blissfully ignorant of everything but each other. They’d both known that it would have to end.

She’d had one evening, though. She’d lived in the moment, and she had not cared about the consequences. For part of one evening, Zhizhu had felt and loved and fucked with abandon. Maybe that was why she’d been so rude to Flaring Grin. After the previous evening, somewhere deep inside her she must have known that things with Shin would have to end.

The sweetness of last night threw the pain of today into sharp relief. She found herself wishing solitude again, but this time she wanted the solitude of her kitchen. The sharpness of a blade, and the ephemeral pain of quick cuts. She wanted to carve this pain into her flesh, to make it a part of her until her end.

Zhizhu glanced sidelong at Yuki, who was to all appearances intent on the road. A sign just ahead announced that the springs were only mile away. She thought about what the Crane had said, which only echoed her own thoughts of late. Zhizhu had not, however, considered the possibility of finding Shin again in another life. It was a bittersweet thought. She had found him now, in this life, and she wanted him now. She wanted happiness now.

But she was a gaki. What she wanted—and she found that she wanted it quite fiercely—she would have to wait until her next lifetime for.

Unless she failed.

I will not fail, she vowed. This world will tremble before I’m through. And in my next life, I will have as many chances as I need.

Yuki pulled into the parking lot. The car holding Flaring Grin and Blood Red Thorn was already there. Zhizhu folded the pain up within her, clasping it to her heart like a lover. She turned to Yuki with a calm, cold smile.

“Let us join our uji.”