THE SECOND MONTH OF SPRING
𝓜𝓪𝓱𝓲𝓽𝓸 & 𝓡𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓮𝓻
Can human and yōkai share one heart? That's not for me to know. But I do love a good tale.
Tags: Comfort No Hurt, Drabble, No Smut, Soft Mahito
☙ 𝓡𝓮𝓪𝓭 𝓸𝓷 𝓐𝓞3 ❧ ☙ 3052 words ❧
The warm rays of the afternoon sun seeped through the young foliage, dripping down the tree trunks like molten honey. Glints of light scattered along the paths like golden coins, flickering over the glittering facets of granite chips. Nature celebrated its awakening, lavishing people with its treasures: the aquamarine purity of the endless sky, the pearly velvet of sakura petals, the emerald needles of fresh grass chiming in the breeze.
Despite the beauty, Mikamine Park was nearly empty. A handful of passersby strolled the paths, their laughter sparkling in the sunlight, carried aloft by the warm midday wind.
You tilted your face toward the light and closed your eyes. Unlike summer’s scorching heat, the spring sun only grazed your cheeks and nose with silken fingers, a gentle reunion after winter’s long absence. The cat curled in your lap shared your mood wholeheartedly. He stretched and twisted, presenting his fluffy belly to your hand. Smiling at his effortless mastery of leisure, you ran your fingers through his warm fur, watching them disappear into the thick, plush grey-blue strands. He responded with a contented rumble — his version of a purr. The fact that he didn’t know how to purr properly was endearingly amusing.
“Grandma, look! A kitty cat!”
A little girl in a puff-sleeved pink dress wrenched free from her hunched, gray-haired grandmother and bounded toward your bench. She halted just a step away, staring at the cat sprawled across your thighs.
The old lady shuffled closer, squinting blindly.
“Oh, how marvellous!” she exclaimed with a smile. Her voice creaked like a rocking chair, warm as baked apples. “He won't run away, will he?”
“No, he's tame.”
The cat’s eyes narrowed at your words, his muzzle twisting into an expression of aristocratic disdain. He yawned, then fixed his gaze on the girl. She stood frozen, a wax doll with unblinking black-brown eyes. Her stare was detached, devoid of childish curiosity — unnervingly hollow. You watched her, puzzled. The sunny idyll in your mind fractured with a resounding crack.
Without breaking eye contact with the cat, the girl reached toward him with a small, chubby hand. His claws dug into your knees.
Sensing his tension and driven by the sudden, inexplicable anxiety flaring in your chest, you held up a hand, stopping the girl with a polite gesture.
“Careful — he doesn’t like to be petted. He might scratch you.”
The girl flashed a sharp look at you. Her cold, intense eyes glistened like the backs of two black beetles, stirring an unease deep in your chest. Her grandmother smiled and laid a knotted, parchment-skinned hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry. She just adores kitties. Right, Akane-chan?” The old woman’s voice softened further, syrupy with patience. “Not all animals are trusting, dear. There are evil people in this world — ones who hurt the weak, or those they don’t understand. Some creatures have met such people. Now they’re wary.”
You hesitated, your hand drifting unconsciously to the cat’s head. He sat unnervingly still, ears pricked as if parsing every word. Your thumb stroked the short fur of his forehead, pausing at the base of his warm ear.
The old woman turned to you again.
“He’s lucky to have you. He's been through a lot,” she murmured, nodding at the scars striping his muzzle. “If a cat like that opens its heart to a human, it must have chosen you for a reason. When a soul, human or not, follows you through the storms of life, it is no accident. The gods have tied your threads of fate together.”
Her eyes, watery from old age, lingered on the cat. He held her gaze with a poise that was too human for an animal — patient and understanding, as if curiously waiting for her to continue. The woman’s wrinkled face stilled, her cheer melting into something ancient. The expression of carefree good-naturedness evaporated, and her faded eyes became thoughtful and bottomless, like ice over dark water.
“He has the «odd eyes», your cat,” she whispered. “Could it be that a bakeneko [1] loves you? If so, if you are protected by a spirit — a yōkai — you will be spared any misfortune. But remember, yōkai’s love is fierce. It doesn't fade with time, nor does it forgive betrayal. Not even in death.”
The seriousness of her frail voice made you freeze. Then — just as suddenly — the intensity shattered. The wrinkles around the old woman's eyes came alive again, her lips curling into a harmless smile. The mysterious icy brooding disappeared without a trace, and before you once again stood an ordinary hearty old woman.
“The moon and sun. Water and fire. Shadow and light. «Itai dōshin» [2]… Can human and yōkai share one heart? That's not for me to know. But I do love a good tale.”
She took the girl’s hand and gave a gentle tug.
“Oh, look at me! I talked your ear off. Let's go, Akane-chan.”
After a few steps down the path, the woman turned back and offered you a slight bow, a cryptic smile lingering on her benevolent face.
Soon, their figures melted into the distance.
“Interesting old lady.”
The quiet, melodious voice pulled your attention away from the distant point where the park path blended into the horizon.
“Yes,” you agreed, smiling as you patted the cat's head. His ears flattened in that funny way they always did when you ruffled his fur. “She figured you out, huh?”
“Many people can sense cursed energy,” the cat drawled thoughtfully, though the twitching tip of his tail gave away his slight irritation. “That woman sees and knows much — but she's wrong about one thing.”
“What's that?”
“The girl doesn't like cats at all.”
Your eyes drifted back to the distance again, to the empty path where the strange black-eyed girl and her grandmother had disappeared.
A sudden gust of wind rippled through the trees lining the walkway. Branches heavy with tufts of velvet flowers swayed drunkenly, sending rose-pearl petals spiraling upward in streams of warm air. Like a flock of restless butterflies, they shimmered in the sunlight before fluttering back to earth, coating the path in a silken carpet of pink.
You sighed and hugged the cat protectively, cuddling him tighter.
“I didn't like how she looked at you,” you admitted. “I didn't want her touching you at all.”
“What a heartwarming concern! I can take care of myself, you know,” the cat grinned, stretching luxuriously before draping one soft paw around your arm. You felt the faintest prick of claws. “But you're right. She has a rather unusual soul.”
“How so?”
The cat didn't answer immediately. How do you put into words something as convoluted, as bizarre, as intricately woven as the human soul? It seemed pointless, like trying to explain colours to someone born blind. But he loved searching for these metaphors, loved finding images that could mirror the visions only he could see. Most of all, he loved the way your eyes widened when he painted them for you.
“It's harsh and lifeless,” he said at last, his quiet voice taking on that urgent, agitated tone it always did when he spoke about the things that fascinated him. “Imagine an abandoned hive — a frail crypt full of dead wasps, with a hole torn right through its centre, as if someone had smashed it with a stick. Except it is gnawed from the inside, as if something had eaten its way out. The edges of the hole are ragged — tattered shreds of withered honeycomb. They quiver like some monstrous maw, sucking in air. And inside…” His tail lashed once. “Inside, in its bottomless womb, there's nothing but suffocating murk.”
He paused, then added softly, almost to himself:
“I wonder what she keeps in that darkness.”
Despite the spring warmth, icy goosebumps crept up your spine. You suddenly felt the urge to scrub your hands raw, as if you'd plunged them into that rotten hive — as if crumbling fragments of dead honeycomb clung to your fingers like decayed parchment.
“I have no idea, and I don't want to know,” you said sharply, shaking your head as if to dislodge the girl's beetle-black eyes and the grotesque vision of her soul. Exhaling slowly, you asked, quieter now, “Do you think she harms animals?”
“I don't think, I know.”
“Why?”
“Because she's a human.”
You understood him better than you wished to. The bitter taste flooding your mouth — the same one that rose whenever you remembered your own scars. The hundreds of little stab wounds pockmarking your soul. But admitting he was right meant accepting the world as it was: filthy, cruel, irredeemable. And you… You still weren't strong enough to live in a world like that without illusions.
“Not all people are animal abusers,” you muttered darkly.
“Not all. But all people are human.”
You opened your mouth to argue, but the cat leapt from your lap, arching his back in a stretch. His whiskers twitched adorably, eyes squeezing shut in feline bliss. When he turned to face you, his expression had soured.
“Let's go deeper into the park,” he grumbled. “Away from prying eyes. Staying a cat for too long makes my skin itch.”
He landed soundlessly on the petal-strewn path, tail held high like a plume of smoke, and began padding forward with liquid grace. Smiling, you followed.
“Mahito, you make a very good cat,” you teased, catching up to him. “Maybe you really are a bakeneko.”
“Keep talking, and I'll transform you into a worm.”
The two of you walked on — a human and a cursed spirit masquerading as a cat — beneath a canopy of sakura branches that hung like cirrus clouds of cream and pink peach. Between the riot of flowers, the occasional unopened bud glowed like a ruby, waiting to erupt at the first warm gust. Everything around you breathed with the light, and the powdery sweetness of blossoming. Even the silence between your footsteps hummed with that floral whisper. You inhaled deeply, letting spring saturate your lungs. Sunlight filtered through the lacework of leaves, painting shifting gold patterns on your shoulders and the cat's fluffy back. Every few steps, his tail brushed your leg, leaving little ticklish traces of warmth on your skin.
Passersby grew scarcer as you strayed from the park's heart, their curious glances lingering on your odd pairing. Then, guided by some inscrutable instinct, Mahito veered off the path. You followed him through grass that sighed underfoot, past the curved tree trunks. After a couple of minutes, he stopped.
“That's it. No one here.”
You sank to the ground, leaning your back against the gnarled trunk of an ancient sakura tree, your eyes locked on Mahito. To some, his transformations might seem grotesque — even disgusting — but you were endlessly fascinated by the liquid grace of his body. There was something mesmerizing about watching him playfully command form and substance, reshaping himself with a magician's effortless flair.
The cat arched his back and rose onto his hind legs. His claws extended, gleaming briefly before retracting into pink pads that elongated into slender, graceful fingers. Tendons crunched quietly as paws reshaped into hands. Smoke-like fur rippled, stiffened, then dissolved into pale skin as shadows coiled around him. The darkness twisted and flowed, wrapping his form: a black shawl draped over his shoulders, while rustling satin trousers materialized around his long legs. His patterned muzzle stretched, flattening into a face framed by cascading gray-blue strands that shimmered in the sunlight as they spilled down his back. The scars crisscrossing his cheeks and forehead deepened, blooming into vivid crimson. His curved tail coiled into a ring before retracting as if yanked by an invisible string. Last were his eyes — one storm-cloud gray, the other sky-blue — as the slit pupils rounded, becoming ordinary human. Almost human.
A gasp escaped your lips. Only then did you realize you'd been holding your breath, utterly spellbound by the impossible metamorphosis.
Mahito scratched his scalp impatiently, tousling his hair.
“I'm all itchy!” he whined, flopping onto the grass beside you with the petulance of a spoiled child who had been denied an ice-cream, which was awfully cute. Without ceremony, he dropped his head into your lap, pouting up at you through his lashes. “Scratch me now,” he demanded, closing his eyes.
You grinned, threading your fingers through the silk of his hair that pooled across your knees. Your nails traced light paths over his scalp, and the weight of his head pressed warm and comforting against your thighs. Mahito emitted a satisfied hum — infinitely better than his attempted purrs in feline form. His hair slipped through your fingers like quick, cool streams.
Behind you, the tree's rough bark scraped faintly through your shirt. The leaves rustled overhead, and through their shivering whisper, golden sunlight streamed in, scattering shimmering glints across the grass. The wind ruffled the petals, tossing them into the air, only for them to drift down reluctantly, clinging sleepily to the sharp tips of the grass blades.
“Mahito?”
“Hmm?” He cracked one eye open, lazy as a sun-drunk cat.
“Why don't you ever tell me what my soul is like?”
A sigh escaped him, barely audible. Your soul… He saw it as clearly as your eyes — the dark amber that froze a cautious hope. As clearly as the timid arch of your brows, the charming wrinkle they pressed above the bridge of your nose. Like the curve of your lips, whose subtle shifts had taught him to read the words you never spoke aloud.
Oh, he could tell you volumes about your soul.
He could say it resembled an old teacup — its once-cheerful pattern of wildflowers now faded against porcelain sides. Abandoned, it still retained the warmth from the last sip of summer herb tea, long since drunk. Countless cracks webbed across its white surface. It had been broken many, many times. Here and there he saw unhealed chips exposing porous edges dulled by time. Somewhere a small piece was missing, a shard lost forever. But every fracture glowed with the golden sap of lacquer tree that flowed along the jagged lines like liquid sunshine. He could spend hours tracing those magnificent scars with his fingers. They were beautiful, like all things that shouldn't have survived — yet somehow did.
He could try to describe its iridescence — shifting from blue to purple, to red, to yellow, to green and back to blue, as if someone spilled oil into a puddle left on the wet asphalt after a rainstorm. Colours bled into one another, cutting patterns with razor-edged clarity, transforming with every swing of your mood. You were azure in surprise, peachy in laughter, emerald bordering on jade in contemplation. But Mahito's favourite hue was the rarest of all: dirty pomegranate. Dark, nearly black bubbles swelled and burst like plague buboes, splattering blood-red across the other shades. When he touched those spots, he heard you crying. Old tears, long dried and forgotten, yet their echo still resonated through your soul — a ghostly wail that no longer remembered its origin, lingering only as a phantom ache.
He could reveal its most intimate core — a heavy bud on a fragile suede stem, swaying helplessly in the wind, straining for sunlight or rain. When Mahito first touched your soul, he’d been certain the slender stalk would snap under the slightest pressure. Yet instead of recoiling, it reached for him. He felt a prick. Then another. And another. What he had mistaken for a curious weed was in fact a thorned flower, its spikes digging greedily into his emptiness. Enthralled, he collected those thorns like jewels, embedding them in his flesh. Poisonous shoots took root in his burning veins, turning his blood thick and heavy, like honey laced with arsenic. Your tenderness was a toxin he couldn't purge now without tearing his body in half. Every touch left kiss-shaped burns; he studied them with admiration and wore them with pride. Your love flooded his throat like a thick mass of black water — dense, suffocating, saline. He thrashed, choking on its weight. The worst part? He adored drowning in it.
He could have told you about your soul. But how would you understand? You were only human.
“Look,” Mahito squinted, raising a hand to point skyward, “see that cloud?”
“What cloud?” You twisted to follow his gaze. “The blotchy one?”
“No, to the left. The one like a jumping llama.” He tsked impatiently, nudging you lightly with his elbow. “There's the ear — you can't see the other one — and there's the snout, reaching up. See?”
Tilting your head sideways, you squinted, trying to see the jumping llama in the fluffy marshmallow of shapeless clouds.
“Well…” you hedged. “There is something to it…”
“That's your soul. It's like this cloud.”
“Mahito!..”
You swatted his hand and furrowed your eyebrows in annoyance. Mahito laughed — bright as a glass bell — then, impulsively, braced on one elbow and pressed his lips to yours.
You froze in surprise. Time stuttered, and the floral spring air around you thickened like syrup. Sakura petals danced like pink snowflakes, forgetting gravity as they swirled in place, hesitant to fall. Velvet warmth spilled through your chest, liquefying your limbs with each heartbeat until you sagged against him, surrendering. Eyes closed, you drowned in that kiss as if in a dream.
After a small eternity, your lips parted, but he didn't pull away. His breath burned warm against your skin, his mocking face so close his nose nearly brushed yours. Mahito arched an eyebrow as he studied your expression — the peachy blush spreading across your cheeks betraying you completely.
“You won't escape my questions that easily, you know,” you mumbled, flustered.
“Of course not,” he grinned, settling back into your lap. “Remember what old woman said? You’re under a yōkai’s protection. Until death!” His voice dropped to a playful growl. “And mark me — I'm a vindictive bakeneko. Run away from me, and I'll hunt you down and torture you even in the afterlife.”
To emphasize his point, he contorted his face into a mock-menacing glare: eyebrows knotted threateningly, nose wrinkled, lips pursed in exaggerated sternness. The act crumbled when you laughed, throwing your head back. His face broke into a sly grin, and soon his laughter — boyishly tinkling — twined with yours, spilling carefree into the warm, honeyed air.
It was the second month of spring. The whole summer still waited ahead.
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[1] Bakeneko — 化け猫 — A shapeshifting yōkai that takes the form of a cat and possesses magical abilities. [2] Itai Dōshin — 異体同心 — "Different bodies, one mind." A phrase symbolizing harmony in diversity: even if people appear different, their hearts and goals can be united.