[BL on note] Hachisu no Utena

*This is a work participating in a project.

Good evening, everyone, this is Yoyoda.

This is my 4th time participating in the wonderful project #note for BL, and I look forward to your support this time as well.

The themes this time were
"Flower," "Nail clippers," and "I hate you! But I love you❤️."

I was struggling with the themes, but once I realized that something I had been thinking about separately fit perfectly with these themes, it went quickly.
It was incredibly fun to write this time as well.

Nami-san, thank you for always hosting such fun projects.

The characters appearing this time are
people I have written about on other occasions.
Is this the third one...?
Maybe it's time to give the series a name...

The header image is a photo I took at a pond near where I live.

By the way, the text length is exactly 5,000 characters.

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"|Kenshuu?"
When I found him and called out, the man in the samuemonk's work clothes turned around, looking startled.
It was the height of a hot summer day.
I had been walking around looking for Kenshuu, who had gone out to do garden work and hadn't returned to the kuripriest's living quarters, when I saw him staring blankly at the lotus pond behind the main hall.
For a cat like me, the recent summer heat is unbearable, but I imagine it's the same for Kenshuu, who is human. Whether it's really okay to just label him as a "human" is another story, though.

His face looked so blank when he turned around that I worried he might have gotten heatstroke while working in the garden.
As I approached, I hopped up onto the fence surrounding the lotus pond.
Since I'm a cat, there are various physical limitations to looking someone in the eye and talking.
The fence was only about as high as Kenshuu's chest, but when I peered at his face from a distance closer than looking up from the ground, the cheeks of the naturally pale man looked faintly flushed.
Worried that he might have heatstroke, I stretched up, using his body for support, and gently placed my hand on his cheek.
Even with a cat's paw, I could tell the skin I touched was feverish.
Kenshuu, who had been blank just a moment before, looked back at me with a surprised expression, then hurriedly scooped me up from the fence.

"Coming out in this scorching heat, your paws will get burned."

Kenshuu held my paws as if to check them.
"I'm fine, it's just this much."
I said.
In truth, my soft paw pads were stinging a little because I had walked on some very hot ground while searching for Kenshuu. But I didn't say anything because I thought he would make a big fuss about it.
"Let's go back inside, we have to go somewhere cool."
His voice sounded strangely concerned.
Sometimes Kenshuu gets an atmosphere that makes you want to call it overprotective.
I can tell immediately when that happens. His gaze seems to be looking at me, but it isn't. Through me, a cat, he is looking at something else, something much further away.
"You were outside the whole time too, Kenshuu."
"I'm fine."
I don't think you are, I thought, but I didn't know how much I was allowed to worry about Kenshuu, so I kept my mouth shut.
Even if I worried, there was only so much I, a cat, could do.
From within his arms, I could see the large lotus flowers.
Lotus flowers are best viewed early in the morning.
At this time of day, with the sun high in the sky, some flowers were already wilting. Even so, it spread out like a scene from a dream.

"Did you come to see the lotus?"
"Yes."
"It's beautiful."
When I muttered that, the wind blew and the flowers swayed as if to answer.
"Bring me along tomorrow, too. Let's look at the flowers together."
Kenshuu looked taken aback for a moment, then, as if savoring the words, he said,
"That's right, let's come see them together tomorrow."
His face looked like he was about to cry.
As far as I can remember, I was a human in my previous life.

The sensation of being human remains in my hazy memories. My memories from after I was born as a cat are also vague, and I just realized I had become who I am now.
So, rather than being reborn from human to cat, the truth is that I just realized I was a cat. What kind of cause and effect led to this, I don't know, even though it's about me.
I think Kenshuu knows something, but I've never asked him properly.
Although I don't remember clearly, I assume there must be some deep connection.

Even so, I still don't know what I am to Kenshuu, or how I should behave toward him.
"Your claws are getting quite long."

Kenshuu, who had been gently rubbing my cat paw as if to soothe it, said in a still slightly dazed tone.
I think I am cherished.

Even though I am never named, and never called by a specific name.
Kenshuu only ever calls me "you."
That's why I can't quite grasp who I am either.
There is no one here but Kenshuu and me. There is no one to call my name.
"When we get back to the kuri, maybe it's time for a nail clipping, with how long they've gotten."

"Ugh..."
"You make such a reluctant sound."
Kenshuu is chuckling. It's a relief to hear his voice gradually returning to its usual tone.
"It's actually something I hate! You try being forced down by a creature bigger than you and having a blade pointed at you. Even if you know it's necessary, you'll reflexively be afraid, it's scary."
"I see... so, 'I hate it! But I love you♡,' is that it..."
He uses an obviously playful falsetto and acts exaggeratedly. I decide to understand that he's trying hard to return to his usual self and failing, and I send Kenshuu a blank look.
No, maybe he's actually being serious.
"What do you mean by 'love'?"
"You love me. Even though you hate nail clipping, you let me do it in the end, so I know you love me."
I almost blurted out, "What's so obvious about that now?" but swallowed the words just in time. Kenshuu is smirking.
As I watch that smirk, my blood boils, and my fur stands on end. What was I about to say just now?
Unable to bear Kenshuu's gaze, I kicked off with my hind legs and jumped out of his arms.
After laughing and watching the small figure run away under the eaves with its fur standing on end, Kenshuu suddenly felt a presence and looked back.




There was nothing there but the lotus pond he had been looking at just a moment ago, but a mirage was rising on the water's surface.
As he stared intently at the mirage, the figures of two men in a hermitageiori deep in the mountains were reflected.
One was lying in a futon, and the other was dressed as a monk. Their features were identical to Kenshuu's, as if looking into a mirror.
"... 'If I go first, I shall wait for you, the one who follows, leaving half of the lotus pedestal.'"

A voice came from the futon.
"What was that?"
The monk beside him peered at the face of the man who had suddenly recited a poem. He had been clipping the nails of the man lying down.
He hadn't thought he was awake.
But he hadn't thought he was asleep, either.
Having spent days drifting between life and death, delirious, he hadn't expected him to speak.
The man was letting out a muffled, wheezing laugh. Did he still have the energy to laugh?
In the first place, the monk who was taking such good care of the man thought it was strange that human bodies grow nails even when they are in a state where they don't know when their life will end.
The man, entrusting his weak hands to the monk, let him clip his nails.
No, perhaps he wasn't entrusting them, but simply lacked the strength to move them. It was doubtful if he even had any sensation left in his hands.
It must have been days, no, weeks ago.

When the monk found him collapsed in the mountains, he knew he wouldn't last long.
His legs were broken, his arms were slashed, and there was a hole in his stomach. Blood flowed enough to dampen the surrounding area black, his head was cracked and swollen, and naturally, he couldn't even see.
The monk picked up such a man and began taking care of him in an abandoned hermitage he found in the mountains.
He didn't even know the man's name.
He wouldn't last many days anyway, and he didn't expect an answer if he asked.
Yet, contrary to expectations, the man survived, albeit barely. It was a flickering, unreliable flame of life that could vanish at any moment.
It's always like this, the monk thought.

The monk didn't know how long he had been doing this.

He just lived, without dying, without aging, in the guise of a monk, for so many years that he couldn't even claim to be human anymore.
The monk's appearancenari wasn't just a casual imitation.
There was a time when he was fed up with his endless life and entered the Buddhist priesthood. In the end, he couldn't find anything like salvation, and realizing he had no choice but to live a life without answers, he left the temple.
However, the manners and knowledge he acquired were not wasted.
An unchanging, immortal human.
He didn't even know if he was human anymore. It's difficult for such a creature to settle in one place.
If so, he had no choice but to travel, but people lower their guard against a mysterious lone traveler just because the clothes he wears are kasayapriest's robes.
Taking advantage of that convenience, the monk began to spend his time acting as a monk.
If asked, he would recite a sutra using his old skills.
He didn't know if there was any merit in the sutra chantingdokyou of a fakeese monk, but it was better than nothing. By now, he was quite accustomed to it.
And so, he continued to live and travel, searching for just one person.

That one person was always on the verge of death whenever the monk found him.
Sometimes he found him as a girl who had been tortured to death, sometimes as an old man starving to death, or sometimes as a skinny dog or a bird shot with an arrow.
Even if he was in a form that couldn't speak, or wasn't even human, he knew somehow when he found him that it was the person he had been looking for.
At first, he should have been furious at the miserable state of the person he was confronted with, but as he repeated the experience of parting by death in every form, he had become indifferent.
The one and only person he had searched for and found, who should have been dear to him. He had become accustomed, heartlessly, to the scene where that was lost.
How long must he keep doing this?
What kind of punishment is this? The monk couldn't even remember how they began.
Although he was used to this absurdity, he naturally couldn't just notice it and leave it alone, so he always picked him up and brought him home.
Sometimes the other person knows that he is repeating the cycle of being reborn, dying, and being seen off by the monk, and sometimes he doesn't seem to know.
How is it this time? He didn't really know that either.
He suddenly thought, "I wish this time would end soon," and the guilt he should have cast aside long ago peeked out.
"It's a poem," the man said from inside the futon.

"You looked so bored. Just a little distraction..."
The man coughed violently, and blood spilled from the corner of his lips. The monk wiped it away in silence.
"Do you know the meaning of the poem you recited?"
"Well, who knows?"
The man said, laughing.
He wouldn't last much longer. Even at the moment of death, the light in his eyes wouldn't fade. It was always like that. Even though he thought, "This time, it's enough," when he was pierced by those eyes that wouldn't give up, he ended up waiting for the next time.
"It seems... I will be going first again... When I arrive there... shall I preparetotono a lotus pedestal and wait for you?"
At the man's words, the monk sighed involuntarily.
Even if it were someone without memories who didn't understand anything, he would wait the same way, and see him off the same way.
Meeting someone who understands, who knows that there is a thread of fate connecting them, was a comfort that surpassed everything.
In the long, long time, the moment when their permitted times overlap is now.
"Do you have memories?"
The monk said in a trembling voice.
Without answering the monk's question, the man blinked slowly once.
"There's no need to prepare a lotushachisu pedestalutena. It seems I won't be able to go to the same place as you anyway. You always go first like that, but I can't follow you."
He gripped the hand he had been grooming the nails of.
"I can only ever wait for you to come like this."
"Ah, I see. So that's how it was. Then, I'll make sure to return soon. I hope that the next time I see you, it won't be on the other shorehigan, but the flowers on this shoreshigan."
"Ah, look. The lotus is beautiful."
Leaving those words behind, the man passed away.

Where the man pointed, there was nothing but the wall of the shack.
The wind blew, and the lotus flowers swayed.
The dead man and the monk, as if blown away by the wind, vanished and disappeared.


The only one left behind was Kenshuu.
"A hallucination?"
There was no one to answer Kenshuu's words.
The sound of the leaves swaying in the wind was like a human voice.
"Even if you don't show me things like this, I'll bring that child tomorrow. Because I promised to see the lotus on this shore together."
Behind Kenshuu, who said that and walked away, a particularly large lotus flower swayed, tilting as if to bow, as if to say, "I'll be waiting."

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*A little glossary*

Lotushachisu pedestalutena
In Buddhism, this refers to the lotus pedestal on which Buddhas and Bodhisattvas sit. It is the place where those who have achieved rebirth in the Pure Land and become Buddhas sit.

ZendoZendou Master's ancient poem

A Japanese poem I recently learned and have come to love.
Buddhism is based on the idea that when people die, they are reborn in the Pure Land. Everyone absolutely dies. That is why parting in this world is not a parting forever. It means we'll go first and meet again anyway.
Based on that philosophy, the meaning of this poem is,
"If I am born in the Pure Land first, I will prepare a lotus pedestal for you who will come to the Pure Land later, and welcome you."
Just thinking about who says it to whom and in what situation is moe...

In the first place, there are idioms like
"sharing half a seat"
or
"sharing half of the lotus pedestal"
,
which mean leaving half a seat for someone else = two people sitting on the same lotus pedestal in the Pure Land.
It means sharing one's fate, for better or worse, with someone with whom one has a deep connection. It means "Ichiren Takusho" (sharing the same lotus pedestal).
Ichiren Takusho is also a four-character idiom that includes the kanji for lotus. This also comes from the idea of leaning on the same lotus pedestal together.

This poem is introduced as a poem by Master Zendo, but Master Zendo was a monk in Tang Dynasty China.
I wondered if a high-ranking Chinese monk would leave behind a Japanese poem, but to be precise, Master Zendo did not recite the Japanese poem directly;
it seems that the words written in Master Zendo's work,
"Hanjusan" (Praise of the Pratyutpanna Samadhi), specifically in the "Ekan-gyo-to-myo-hanju-zanmai-gyodo-ojo-san," became the basis,
and later Japanese people refined it into the form of a Japanese poem.

I am impressed by the Japanese sensibility that can recite such a graceful poem from content that seems to describe the destination of this somewhat rigorous ascetic practice.
I want to make every couple separated by death talk about what to do with their lotus pedestal.