Pathway to Japanese Literature

Under the Full Bloom of the Cherry Blossom Forest

When cherry blossoms bloomed, people would stroll beneath them with sake bottles dangling and dumplings in hand, getting carried away with talk of splendid views and spring revelry—but this was a lie.
To explain why it was a lie: though people had gathered under cherry blossoms since the Edo period to get drunk, vomit, and brawl, in ancient times even those who found them terrifying never called them splendid views.
These days, when one spoke of being beneath cherry blossoms, people gathered to drink and brawl in their cheerful liveliness—but strip away those humans and a terrifying vista emerged. There even existed a Noh play (here lies my digression) about a mother whose child was snatched away; driven mad while searching, she arrived beneath a forest in full bloom only to glimpse her child’s phantom among petal-shadows before dying raving and being buried beneath them—proof that cherry groves devoid of human figures inspired nothing but dread.

Long ago, Suzuka Pass too had a road where travelers were forced to pass beneath the cherry blossoms' bloom.
When flowers were not in bloom, all was well, but when flowering season arrived, every traveler beneath the forest's blossoms went mad.
Thinking to escape from under the blossoms as quickly as possible, they would run headlong toward where there were green or dead trees.
When alone, it was still manageable—the reason being that if they fled headlong from under the blossoms and reached ordinary trees, they could breathe a sigh of relief, think *Well, that's over*, and be done with it—but pairs proved problematic.
For people's running speeds varied from person to person; when one fell behind—*Hey, wait!*—even if those lagging desperately cried out, everyone now mad would abandon companions and run.
Thus, the moment they passed beneath Suzuka Pass's cherry blossom forest's flowers, travelers who had been on good terms turned hostile and ceased trusting each other's friendship.
For such reasons travelers too naturally ceased passing beneath the cherry blossom forest, deliberately taking long detours along alternate mountain paths—until at last the cherry blossom forest was left off the highway and abandoned to the mountain's silence where not a single soul passed through.

Some years after this came to pass, a bandit came to dwell in these mountains—a man of such brutality that he would descend to the highway to mercilessly strip travelers of their garments and take their lives—yet even this man, when he found himself beneath the cherry blossom forest’s flowers, would grow frightened and lose his wits.
From that time onward, the bandit came to detest flowers. "Flowers are terrifying things," he muttered to himself. "Somehow... loathsome."
Even though there was no wind under the blossoms, he felt as if a roaring gale was howling.
And yet there was no wind at all—not a single sound could be heard.
There was only his figure and the sound of his footsteps, enveloped in a still, cold wind that made no sound.
As the petals scattered dryly, so too did his soul seem to scatter and his life gradually fade away.
And so he would want to shut his eyes, scream something, and flee—but closing them meant colliding with cherry trees, leaving him unable to shut them—which only drove him further into madness.

But the bandit was a composed man, a man who knew no regret, so he thought this strange.
Alright—I'll think it through next year.
He thought this.
He had no inclination to think about it this year.
And then, when the flowers bloomed next year, he would think it through carefully then, he decided.
Every year he thought this, and more than a decade had passed; this year too, thinking he would consider it next year, yet another year drew to a close.

As he dwelled on such thoughts, what had begun as a single wife had grown to seven, and now he had abducted an eighth from the highway—along with her husband’s garments. He had killed the woman’s husband.

From the moment he killed the woman’s husband, the bandit had felt something was off. Things weren’t proceeding as they usually did. He couldn’t pinpoint why or where, but something felt off—yet his mind was unaccustomed to dwelling on such matters, so even then he didn’t pay it particular heed.

The bandit initially had no intention of killing the man, so he planned to strip him naked and kick him away to scram as he always did—but because the woman was too beautiful, he abruptly cut the man down.
As evidence that this was not only an unexpected event for him but also for the woman, when the bandit turned around, she collapsed to the ground and stared vacantly at his face.
When he said, “From today, you’re my wife,” the woman nodded.
When he took her hand and pulled her up, the woman said she couldn’t walk and told him to carry her.
The bandit readily agreed and began carrying the woman with ease, but when they reached a steep uphill path and he suggested she get down to walk since it was dangerous there, she clung tightly to him, crying “No! No!” and refused to dismount.

“Just think—how could I possibly walk a slope steep enough to make a mountain man like *you* suffer?”

“I see, I see. There, there,” said the man, who remained in high spirits despite his exhaustion and discomfort. “But just once, get down for me. It’s not like I’m asking because I’m exhausted and need a break—I’m strong, you know. It’s not like my eyeballs are on the back of my head—so carrying you this whole time has left me feeling oddly frustrated. Just once, get down and let me see that cute face of yours.”

“No! No!” she cried, clinging fiercely to his neck once more. “I can’t stay still for even a moment in such a desolate place. Hurry without resting for even a moment until we reach where your home is. Otherwise, I won’t become your wife. If you make me feel this lonely, I’ll bite my tongue and die!”

“Alright, alright.”
“I get it.”
“I’ll grant any request of yours.”

Thinking of future joys with this beautiful wife, the bandit felt a melting sense of happiness.
He swaggered, puffed out his chest, and spun around in a full circle to show her the mountains ahead, behind, to the right, and to the left,

“Every last mountain here belongs to me!”

he said, but the woman paid no attention whatsoever to such things.
He was unexpectedly, yet also disappointed,

“Listen here. Every mountain you can see, every tree, every valley—even the clouds rising from those valleys—they’re all mine!”

“Hurry up and walk.”
“I don’t want to stay under such a jagged, rocky cliff.”

“There, there.”
“Once we get home, I’ll cook up the grandest feast for you.”

“Can’t you move any faster? Run, I tell you.”

“This slope here’s a treacherous spot—even I can’t sprint up it alone.”

“You’re more spineless than you look.”
“To think that someone like me has ended up such a spineless wife.”
“Ahh... Ahh...”
“What am I to live on from now on?”

“What nonsense.”
“This much of a slope…”

“Ahh, how vexing you are.”
“Are you tired already?”

“What nonsense. Once we clear this slope, I’ll run so fast even a deer couldn’t keep up.”

“But your breathing sounds labored. You’ve gone pale!”

“That’s just how things are at the start. Once the momentum kicks in, I’ll run so fast you’ll get dizzy on my back.”

However, the bandit was exhausted, as if his body were coming apart at every joint.
And by the time he reached his home, his vision was swimming, his ears were ringing, and he had no strength left to muster even a fragment of a hoarse voice.
The seven wives came out from the house to greet him, but the bandit—his body stiff as stone—could only manage to loosen his limbs and lower the woman from his back.

The seven wives were struck by the woman’s beauty, which they had never before witnessed, but the woman was appalled by the seven wives’ filthiness. Among the seven wives, there had once been some quite beautiful women, but now not a trace of that remained. The woman recoiled in disgust against the man’s back,

“What are these mountain women supposed to be?”

“These’re my old wives.”

The man, flustered, had done well to come up with and add the phrase “former” as a spur-of-the-moment reply, but the woman showed no mercy.

“Well, so these are your wives, huh?”

“You see—I’d had no idea a woman as lovely as you even existed.”

“Cut that woman down for me.”

The woman pointed at the one with the most symmetrical features among them and shouted.

“But you don’t have to kill them—just treat them as maids!”

“You killed my husband, yet you can’t even kill your own wives? And even after this, you still intend to make me your wife?”

A groan escaped from the man’s bound mouth. The bandit sprang up as if leaping into the air and cut down the woman who had been pointed out. However, there was no time to catch a breath.

“This one.”
“This time—that one—this woman.”

The bandit hesitated, but then stomped over and sank Danbira into the woman’s neck with a wet crunch.
Even as the head kept rolling, her plump voice—lustrous and clear as spring water—rang out beautifully while pointing to the next woman.

“This one. Now—”

The indicated woman buried her face in both hands and shrieked.
Danbira arced through the air in answer to the scream.
The remaining women surged up as one and scattered like startled quail.

“If you let even one escape, I won’t have it.”
“There’s another one in the bushes.”
“There’s another one fleeing up the slope.”

The bandit raised his bloodied sword and ran wildly through the mountain forest.
There was a single woman who had lagged behind in fleeing, paralyzed with fear.
She was the ugliest of them all, a crippled woman, but when the bandit returned after cutting down every last one of the escaped women and carelessly raised his cleaver—

“It’s fine.”
“Only this woman.”
“I’ll keep this one as my maid.”

“Since I’m at it, I’ll finish her off.”

“You’re being foolish. I’m telling you not to kill her.”

“Ah, right.”
“You’re right.”

The bandit threw down his bloodied sword and dropped onto his rear.
Fatigue surged through him in a wave, his vision blurring as he became aware of a weight pressing down like buttocks rooted in the earth.
He suddenly noticed the silence.
A terror poised to erupt welled up within him; when he jerked around, the woman stood there with an air of resigned futility.
The man felt as if he had awoken from a nightmare.
His eyes and soul became transfixed by the woman's beauty, ceasing all movement.
Yet unease lingered in him.
What manner of anxiety this was, why it gripped him, what caused it—he could not comprehend.
Only because the woman's overwhelming beauty had captivated his soul could he dismiss the churning disquiet in his chest.

Somehow, this all felt familiar, he thought.
Something similar had happened once before—that was it—he pondered.
Ah—that’s right—that was it!
When he came to his senses, he was startled.

Under the Full Bloom of the Cherry Blossom Forest.
It resembled the time when he had passed beneath them.
He couldn’t understand where, what, or in what way they resembled each other.
But that something was similar was certain.
He had always only ever understood things to that extent, and he was a man whose nature it was not to mind even if he couldn’t comprehend beyond that.

The mountain’s long winter had ended, and in the shadows of trees at the peaks and in the hollows of valleys, scattered patches of snow remained—but already, the signs of spring were beginning to shimmer across the sky as the season of blossoms approached.

When the cherry blossoms bloom this year—he thought.
When approaching under the blossoms, it was not yet so bad.
So he resolutely stepped into the space beneath them.
As he walked on, his mind began to unravel—before him and behind, to the right and left—wherever he looked—nothing but blossoms pressing down from above; and the closer he drew to the forest’s heart, the more unbearable grew his terror until it erupted into blind panic.
This year, he thought, he would stay motionless right in the heart of that blossoming forest—no—he’d resolutely plant himself on the ground and sit.
At that moment, he briefly wondered if he should take this woman along—but when he glanced at her face, a turmoil welled up in his chest, and he hurriedly averted his eyes.
The feeling that if the woman discovered his innermost thoughts it would spell disaster lingered inexplicably in his chest.

★

The woman was terribly spoiled.
No matter how heartfelt a feast he prepared for her, she would invariably voice her dissatisfaction.
He ran into the mountains to catch small birds and deer.
He caught boars and bears.
The crippled woman wandered through the woods all day long, searching for tree buds and grass roots.
However, the woman never showed any sign of satisfaction.

“Are you telling me to eat this sort of thing every day?”

“But it’s the finest feast there is.”
“Before you came here, I only ate this much once every ten days or so.”

“You’re a mountain man, so I suppose that’s fine for you.”
“It won’t go down my throat.”
“In this desolate mountain hollow, all I hear during these endless nights are owls’ cries—can’t I at least have food as good as what they eat in the capital?”
“What is the capital’s wind even like?”
“What do you know of the poignancy of my yearning, stifled from the capital’s winds? You couldn’t even begin to perceive it.”
“You snatched away the capital’s winds from me, and in exchange, all you’ve given are the cawing of crows and hooting of owls.”
“You don’t find that shameful or cruel, do you?”

The man could not comprehend the logic behind the woman’s resentful words.
Because he did not know what the capital’s winds were like.
He had no idea at all.
He could think of nothing concerning the fact that something was missing from this life, from this happiness.
He was simply perplexed by the poignant air of the woman’s resentment and, knowing no concrete means of how to address it, suffered from frustration.

He had killed who knows how many travelers from the capital.
Travelers from the capital were wealthy and their belongings lavish, making its denizens ideal prey for him—yet when he went through the trouble of seizing their possessions only to find worthless contents inside, he’d click his tongue and curse them as “country bumpkins” or “filthy peasants.” In short, his entire knowledge of the capital amounted to this: a place where people with splendid belongings lived, and he entertained no thoughts beyond plundering them.
He hadn’t even needed to consider which direction the capital’s sky lay.

The woman treasured combs, hairpins, ornamental hairpins, and rouge.
Even if he merely brushed the kimono with his muddy hands or hands stained with mountain beasts’ blood, the woman scolded him.
As though the kimono were her very life—as though guarding it were her sacred duty—she made him keep their surroundings immaculate and ordered the house maintained.
The kimono could not be completed with just a single underlayer and thin cords alone; it required multiple garments and numerous cords—those cords tied into peculiar shapes and left to dangle needlessly—and with various ornaments added, a complete form gradually took shape.
The man’s eyes widened.
And he let out a groan.
He was convinced.
And so a beauty came into being—a beauty that filled him beyond doubt—where incomplete and incomprehensible fragments holding no meaning as individual parts gathered to form a whole; decompose that whole, and it would revert to meaningless fragments. This he had accepted as his own strange sorcery.

The man felled trees from the mountain and crafted what the woman ordered.
What was being made, and for what purpose—he himself could not know while crafting it.
They were a camp stool and an armrest.
A camp stool was essentially a chair.
On fine days, the woman would have him take it outside to sit in sunlight or shade, where she closed her eyes.
In the room, leaning against the armrest as if lost in thought—to the watching man’s eyes, all of it appeared as an uncanny, alluring, and tormenting form unlike any other.
Sorcery was unfolding in reality; though he himself served as its assistant, he would constantly marvel at and admire the sorcery at work.

The crippled woman combed the woman’s long black hair each morning.
For the water used in this task, the man would draw from a particularly distant spring in the mountain stream and grew fond of his own labors—so meticulously performed.
The man’s wish became that he himself might transform into one of sorcery’s forces.
And he thought he would like to lay his hands upon the black hair being combed.
“No! Those hands—” the woman scolded, pushing the man away.
The man withdrew his hands like a child and, embarrassed, came to regard as an unending dream her black hair gaining luster, being tied, her face emerging, and a single beauty taking shape and coming to life.

“Such things, huh?”

He fiddled with patterned combs and ornamental hairpins.
That was something he had been unable to recognize any meaning or value in until now, but even now, there was no criticism regarding the harmony between objects, their relationships, or what might be called decoration.
But he understood the sorcery.
Sorcery was the life of things.
There is life even within things.

“You mustn’t fiddle with them.”
“Why must you reach out every single day without fail?”

“Strange things indeed.”

“What’s so strange about that?”

“It’s not like there’s anything particular...”

The man grew bashful. He felt surprise, yet its source remained beyond his grasp.

Within him now grew a dread of the capital—not terror, but shame and anxiety toward the unknown, akin to what a learned man might feel when faced with unfamiliar matters. Whenever she uttered “the capital,” his heart trembled like a cornered beast. Yet having never feared anything visible to the eye, he knew neither how to dwell in fear nor dwell within shame itself. What took root instead was pure hostility toward that distant city.

He had attacked hundreds upon thousands of travelers from the capital, but since none had proven of use, he thought with satisfaction. No matter what past he recalled, there was no anxiety of being betrayed or wounded. When he noticed this, he was always cheerful and proud. He contrasted his own strength against the woman’s beauty. And within his awareness of strength, the only thing considered somewhat challenging was wild boars. Since even those boars were not truly fearsome enemies, he had room to spare.

“Are there any fanged humans in the capital?”

“There are samurai with bows.”

“Ha ha ha! When it comes to bows, I can shoot down even sparrow chicks across the valley. In the capital, there aren’t any humans with hides so tough they’d snap a blade, are there?”

“There are samurai in armor.”

“Would a blade snap against armor?”

“It would snap.”

“I can wrestle down bears and wild boars, you know.”

“If you’re truly a strong man, then take me to the capital. With your strength, decorate my surroundings with what I desire—the finest of the capital. And if you can grant me joy from the very depths, then you’re truly a strong man.”

“That’s no trouble at all.”

The man made up his mind to go to the capital.
He intended to amass every comb, hairpin, ornamental hairpin, kimono, mirror, and rouge in the capital around the woman within three days and nights to show her.
He had no concerns.
The one thing that concerned him was something entirely unrelated to the capital.

That was the Cherry Blossom Forest.

In two or three days, the forest would reach full bloom.
This year, he had resolved.
In the very heart of the Cherry Blossom Forest at peak bloom, he would sit stock-still without moving a muscle.
He secretly visited the Cherry Blossom Forest daily to gauge the buds' swelling.
"Three more days," he told the woman pressing him to depart.

"What possible preparations could trouble you?" she asked, brows knitting.
"Stop tormenting me."
"The capital summons me, I say."

“Even so, there’s still the promise.”

“You go back.”
“Who in these mountain depths could you have made a promise to?”

“There may be no one there, but…”
“But there’s a promise, I tell you.”

“Well, that’s a rare thing indeed.”
“There’s no one here—who’re you making a promise with?”

The man could no longer tell lies.

“The cherry blossoms are about to bloom.”

“Did you make a promise with the cherry blossoms?”

“Because they’re blooming—I have to see them before we leave.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to go see what’s beneath the Cherry Blossom Forest.”

“Why must you go see that?”

“Because they’re blooming.”

“Because they bloom—why?”

“There’s an icy wind stretched tight under those petals.”

“Return under the blossoms.”

“Because beneath them lies eternity.”

“Go back under the blossoms.”

The man became confused and crumpled up.

“Take me under the blossoms too.”

“That’s out of the question.”

The man said flatly.

“It has to be just me alone.”

The woman gave a wry smile.

The man saw what could be termed a wry smile for the first time.
He had never encountered such a malicious smile until now.
Yet he did not interpret this as “malicious,” but rather as something that could not be severed even with a sword.
As proof, the wry smile had been etched into his skull as though branded with an iron seal.
Each time he recalled it, the memory sliced through his mind like a blade’s keen edge.
And he found himself powerless to cut it away.

The third day arrived.

He secretly went out.
The Cherry Blossom Forest was in full bloom.
When he took a step inside, he recalled the woman’s wry smile.
It cut into his head with a sharpness he had never known before.
That alone was enough to throw him into confusion.
The coldness under the blossoms surged in from all boundless directions.
His body was instantly rendered transparent by the wind’s exposure; the winds from all directions roared through until only the wind remained stretched taut.
Only his voice cried out.
He ran.
What a void this was.
He wept, prayed, struggled, and tried desperately to flee.
And when he realized he had escaped from under the blossoms, he found himself with the same feeling as awakening from a dream.
What differed from the dream was the true agony of his body—his breath coming in ragged gasps.

★

The man, the woman, and the crippled woman began living in the capital.

The man sneaked into the mansions ordered by the woman every night.
He took out kimonos, jewels, and ornaments, but those alone were not what filled the woman’s heart.
What she desired more than anything else was none other than the heads of those who lived in those mansions.

Dozens of heads from the mansions had already been gathered in their house.
The heads were arranged on screens partitioning the four sides of the room, some hung from above; though there were too many for the man to tell which was which, the woman remembered each one individually—even after their hair had fallen out, their flesh rotted, and they became bare bones, she still knew which head belonged to whom.
When the man or the crippled woman moved the heads’ positions, she would fly into a rage and fussily declare, “This one belongs to such-and-such family! That one’s from so-and-so’s household!”

The woman played with the heads every day.
The heads went out for walks with their retainers.
A family of heads would come visit another family of heads.
The heads fell in love.
A female head would spurn a male head, and a male head would abandon a female head, leaving her to weep.

The Princess’s head was deceived by the Dainagon’s head.
On moonless nights, the Dainagon’s head would sneak in pretending to be the head of the Princess’s beloved and pledge himself to her.
After sealing this pledge, the Princess’s head came to her senses.
Unable to hate the Dainagon’s head, she wept over her cruel fate and took vows as a nun.
Then the Dainagon’s head went to the nunnery and violated the Princess’s newly tonsured head.
The Princess’s head resolved to die but, swayed by the Dainagon’s whispers, fled the nunnery to hide in Yamashina village—becoming his secret mistress as she let her hair grow anew.
Both the Princess’s head and the Dainagon’s head had by now lost their hair; their flesh rotted away; maggots seethed where features once were; bones peered through tattered skin.
The two heads drank themselves merry in perverse revelry, jawbones clacking dryly as they kissed, putrid flesh squelching together, noses flattened and eye sockets hollowed out.

Each time their faces squelched together and lost their shape, the woman would rejoice, laughing shrilly and uproariously.

“Go on, eat the cheeks.”
“Ah, delicious.”
“Let’s have you eat the Princess’s throat as well.”
“Here, let’s have you gnaw on the eyeballs too.”
“Let’s have you suck them dry now.”
“Here, lick them up.”
“My, how delicious!”
“I can’t stand it anymore! Come on, bite into it properly!”

The woman laughed dryly.
It was a beautiful, clear laugh.
A crisp voice like the chime of thin porcelain.

There were also monk’s heads.
The monk’s heads were hated by the woman.
They were always assigned villainous roles, hated—toyed with to death or executed by officials.
After becoming heads, the monk’s heads actually grew hair, but eventually that hair too fell out; they rotted away and became bare bones.
When they turned to bare bones, the woman ordered another monk’s head brought.
The new monk’s head still retained the youthful, dewy beauty of a tender child.
The woman joyfully placed it on the desk, soaked it in sake, rubbed cheeks against it, licked it, tickled it—but soon grew bored.

“A fatter, more detestable head!”

The woman commanded.
The man grew weary and brought back five dangling heads.
There were wizened old monks’ heads, faces with thick eyebrows and plump cheeks bearing noses shaped like clinging frogs.
There were monk’s heads with pointed ears like horses’, and monks’ heads that were terribly solemn.
Yet only one pleased the woman.
It was a head priest’s head around fifty years old—an ugly man with drooping eye corners, sagging cheeks, and thick lips that hung open slackly from their own weight—a slovenly head.
The woman pressed the drooping eye corners with her fingertips, twisted them round to lift them up, thrust two rods into the splayed nostrils of its lion-like nose, stood it upside down and rolled it about, then clutched it tight and forced her breast between its thick lips to make it suckle—all while laughing uproariously.
But she soon grew bored.

There was a beautiful girl’s head.
It was a pure, calm, and noble head.
Childlike yet bearing a dead face, it held an oddly mature sorrow, as if behind those closed eyelids lay a jumble of happy memories, sad ones, and precocious thoughts all tangled together.
The woman doted on that head as if it were her own daughter or sister.
She combed its black hair and applied makeup to its face.
She meticulously adjusted this and that until a gentle face—like the uneven wafting of a flower’s fragrance—emerged.

For the girl’s head, a young nobleman’s head was needed.
The nobleman’s head too was meticulously adorned, and the two young heads indulged in love games that raged like wildfire.
They sulked, raged, hated, lied, deceived, and put on sad faces—but when their passion blazed up simultaneously, each flame scorching the other until both were burned and soared as intertwined flames.
But before long, the filthy heads of evil samurai, lecherous men, and corrupt monks would meddle—the nobleman’s head would be kicked, beaten, and ultimately killed—and from all directions—right, left, front, back—the grimy heads would chaotically assail the girl, their rotten flesh clinging to her head, fang-like teeth biting into her, her nose tip chipped away, hair torn out.
Then, the woman would poke holes in the girl’s head with a needle, slice and gouge it with a small knife, rendering it into a head so repulsive that none could bear to look, then cast it aside.

The man came to detest the capital.
When even the novelty of the capital wore off, only a sense of alienation remained.
In the capital, he too walked with his calves exposed, wearing suikan robes like everyone else.
In broad daylight, he couldn’t even wear a sword.
He had to go shopping at the market, and even when drinking at the izakaya where Shirokubi was, he had to pay money.
The merchants of the city tormented him.
Even the country women who came to sell vegetables they had picked tormented him—down to the children.
Shirokubi also laughed at him.
In the capital, nobles passed through the middle of the road in oxcarts.
The barefoot retainers in suikan robes, their faces usually flushed from being treated to drinks, strutted off arrogantly.
He was shouted at as a fool, an idiot, a slowpoke—in the market, on the streets, even in temple courtyards.
And so, he had already stopped getting angry at such things.

The man suffered most of all from boredom.
Humans are such boring creatures, he thought profoundly.
In other words, he found humans noisy.
When a large dog walks by, small dogs bark.
The man was like a dog being barked at.
He disliked being resentful, feeling jealous, sulking, or thinking.
The mountain beasts and trees and rivers and birds hadn't been noisy at all, he thought.

“The capital’s a boring place, ah,” he said to the Crippled Woman. “Don’t you want to go back to the mountains?”

“I’m not bored in the capital, you see.”

the Crippled Woman answered.
The Crippled Woman spent all day preparing meals, doing laundry, and chatting with the neighbors.

“In the capital, I can chat so I don’t get bored, you see.”
“As for me—the mountains are boring and hateful.”
“You don’t find chatting boring?”

“Of course. Anyone would stave off boredom if they kept talking.”

“The more I talk, the more bored I get, I tell you.”

“You’re bored because you don’t talk.”

“That’s impossible.”
“I don’t talk because talking bores me.”

“But just try talking.”
“You’ll surely forget the boredom.”

“About what?”

“Anything you want to talk about.”

“What could I possibly want to talk about?”

The man let out an irritated yawn.

There were mountains in the capital as well.
However, on these mountains there were temples and hermitages, and in fact there was considerable human traffic.
From the mountains, the capital could be seen in a single glance.
What an immense number of houses!
And what a filthy sight this is, he thought.

He had nearly forgotten during daylight hours that he killed people every night.
Because even killing people bored him now.
Nothing held his interest.
When he struck with his sword, the heads would simply drop off with a plop.
The heads felt soft.
There was no resistance from bone—it felt exactly like slicing through radishes.
What surprised him most was their weight.

He felt as though he could understand the woman’s feelings.
In the bell tower, a monk was frantically ringing the bell.
What an absurd thing he was doing, he thought.
There was no telling what he would start doing next.
If I had to live face-to-face with these bastards, even I would choose to behead them and live with their heads instead, he thought.

However, because the woman’s desires were endless, he was bored even of that.
The woman’s desires were like a bird ceaselessly flying straight through an endless sky.
It flew onward without rest or pause.
The bird never tired.
Always slicing crisply through the wind, it soared effortlessly into infinity with unbroken momentum.

But he was just a bird.
He would flit from branch to branch, occasionally crossing a valley at most, much like an owl perching on a bough to doze.
He was agile.
His entire body moved well, he walked well, and his movements were lively.
However, his heart was a bird weighed down by its hindquarters.
The thought of flying infinitely straight in a line never even occurred to him.

The man gazed at the sky over the capital from atop the mountain.
A bird flew straight through that sky.
The sky turned from day to night, night to day, infinite cycles of light and dark repeating endlessly.
At its horizon lay nothing—no matter how much time passed, there was only this endless alternation—and the man could not comprehend infinity as concrete fact.
The day after that, the day after that, and the day after that—he pondered this infinite repetition of light and dark.
His head felt ready to split open.
This came not from mental exhaustion, but from the sheer agony of thought itself.

When he returned home, the woman was, as always, engrossed in her macabre play with the heads.
When she saw his figure, the woman had been lying in wait.

“Tonight, bring me the head of a shirabyōshi dancer.”
“The most exquisite shirabyōshi dancer’s head.”
“I’ll have it perform a dance.”
“I’ll sing an imayō for you to hear.”

The man tried to recall the infinite cycles of light and dark he had been gazing at from the mountaintop earlier.
This room was supposed to be part of that sky of endless, infinite cycles of light and dark that would never cease, but he could no longer recall it.
And the woman was not a bird—she was, after all, her usual beautiful self.
But he answered.

“I don’t want to.”

The woman was startled.
In the end, she burst into laughter.

“Well, well.”
“You’ve gotten cold feet too.”
“You’re just a coward.”

“I’m not such a coward.”

“Then what is it?”

“Because there’s no end to it—that’s why I’ve had enough.”

“Well, how strange you are.”
“Everything is endless.”
“Every day, day after day, you eat your meals—isn’t that endless too?”
“Every day, day after day, you sleep—isn’t that endless too?”

“It’s different.”

“How exactly is it different?”

The man was at a loss for a reply.
But he thought it was different.
So he went outside to escape the torment of being outwitted.

“Bring me the shirabyōshi dancer’s head.”

The woman’s voice called out from behind, but he did not answer.

He wondered why and in what way it was different, but he could not understand.
Gradually, it became night.
He climbed up the mountain again.
The sky was no longer visible.

When he came to his senses, he found himself thinking that the sky was falling.
The sky was falling.
He was tormented as though his neck were being squeezed.
That meant killing the woman.

The act of continuing to traverse the infinite cycles of light and dark in the sky could be stopped by killing the woman.
And the sky was falling.
He could breathe a sigh of relief.
However, there was a hole in his heart.
From his chest, the form of a bird flew away and vanished.

Could that woman be me?
And could the bird flying in an infinite straight line through the sky have been me all along?
And he doubted.
If I kill the woman, will I end up killing myself?
What am I even thinking?

Why the sky had to fall—even that he no longer understood.
All thoughts had become elusive.
And after the thoughts had withdrawn, what remained was only pain.
Night dawned.
He had lost the courage to return to the house where the woman was.
And then, for several days, he wandered through the mountains.

One morning, when he awoke, he found himself lying beneath cherry blossoms.
The cherry tree stood alone.
The tree was in full bloom.
He startled and leapt upright—not to flee,
for it was but a single cherry tree.
He had suddenly recalled the cherry blossom forest in the Suzuka Mountains.
That mountain’s forest too must be blooming riotously now.
Overwhelmed by nostalgia, he lost himself and sank into profound reverie.

I'll return to the mountain.
I'm going back to the mountain.
Why had I forgotten this simple thing?
And why had I been so obsessed with thinking about dropping the sky?
He felt as though he had awakened from a nightmare.
He felt delivered.
The mountain's early spring scent—whose very perception he had lost until now—pressed in on him and was understood with an intense, cold clarity.

The man returned home.

The woman welcomed him with apparent delight.

“Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry for making unreasonable demands and causing you suffering.”
“But please try to understand how lonely I’ve been since you’ve been gone.”

The woman had never been this kind before.
The man’s chest ached.
His resolve seemed on the verge of melting away.
However, he resolved himself.

“I’ve decided to return to the mountain.”

“Leave me behind and go back.”
“How could such cruelty have come to dwell in your heart?”

The woman’s eyes burned with anger.
Her face was filled with the bitter frustration of betrayal.

“When did you become such a heartless one?”

“So,”
“I hate the capital.”

“Would you still go back even with someone like me here?”

“I just don’t want to live in the capital anymore.”

“But I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Have you come to hate me now?”
“While you were gone, I did nothing but think of you.”

Tears welled up in the woman's eyes.
It was the first time tears had dwelled in the woman’s eyes.
Anger had vanished from the woman’s face.
Only a heartrending bitterness toward resentful indifference overflowed.

"But you can’t live anywhere but the capital, can you?"
"I can’t live unless it’s in the mountains."

"I can’t live without you."
"Don’t you understand my feelings?"

"But I can’t live unless it’s in the mountains."

“So, if you’re returning to the mountain, I’ll go back to the mountain with you.”
“I can’t live even a single day apart from you, you see.”

The woman’s eyes were wet with tears.
She pressed her face against the man’s chest and shed hot tears.
The heat of the tears seeped into the man’s chest.

Indeed, the woman had become unable to live without the man.
The new heads were the woman’s life.
And this was because there existed none beyond him who could bring those heads for her.
He had become part of her.
The woman could not release it.
When the man’s nostalgia had been fulfilled, within the woman dwelled a certainty that she would bring him back to the capital once more.

“But can you live in the mountains?”

“If I’m with you, I can live anywhere.”

“In the mountains, there aren’t any heads like the ones you crave, I tell you.”

“If I must choose between you and the heads, I’ll give up the heads.”

The man doubted whether it was a dream.
It was because he was too happy to believe it.
Even in his dreams, he could not have conceived of something so far beyond his wishes.

His chest was filled with new hope.
Its arrival was sudden and violent, and the anguish that had tormented him until moments before had now been pushed to a distant beyond where it could no longer be grasped.
He forgot even the woman who until yesterday had not been this gentle.
He had only today and tomorrow.

The two departed immediately.
They decided to leave the Crippled Woman behind.
And at the moment of departure, the woman turned to the Crippled Woman and secretly said, “We’ll return soon, so wait for us here.”

★

Before their eyes appeared the figures of mountains from times past. They seemed as though they would answer if called. They decided to take the old path. The path had long since fallen out of use, its form vanished until it was nothing but woods and mountain slopes. Taking that path meant they would pass beneath the Cherry Blossom Forest.

“Carry me. I can’t walk mountain slopes without any proper paths like this.”

“Ah, sure thing.”

The man effortlessly hoisted the woman onto his back.

The man recalled the day he had first taken the woman.
On that day as well, he had carried her on his back and climbed the mountain path on the other side of the pass.
That day had been filled with happiness, but today’s happiness was even more abundant.

“On the day I first met you, you carried me on your back too, didn’t you?”

The woman also recalled and said.

“I was remembering that too, I tell you.”

The man laughed happily.

“Look, you can see it, can’t you? That’s all my mountains. The valleys, the trees, the birds—even the clouds are my mountains. The mountains are great. Makes you wanna run, doesn’t it? In the capital, there was never anything like that, I tell you.”

“On that first day, you carried me on your back and I made you run, didn’t I?”

“That’s right.”
“I got so tired my head spun, I tell you.”

The man had not forgotten the full bloom of the Cherry Blossom Forest.
But on this day of happiness, what could the full bloom under that forest possibly amount to?
He was not afraid.

And the Cherry Blossom Forest appeared before his eyes.
It was truly an expanse of full bloom.
Petals blown by the wind fluttered down.
The bare ground was completely carpeted with petals.
Where had these petals fallen from?
For one could not even sense that a single petal had fallen—the clusters of blossoms in full bloom spread out above him, stretching as far as the eye could see.

The man walked into the midst of fully bloomed flowers.
The surroundings fell hushed, seeming to grow gradually colder.
He suddenly noticed the woman’s hands turning cold.
He was abruptly gripped by unease.
In that instant, he understood.
That this woman was a demon.
A sudden icy wind came rushing in from all directions beneath the blossoms.

What was clinging to the man’s back was an old woman with a large face, her entire body purple.
Her mouth was split open to her ears, and her frizzy hair was green.
The man ran.
He tried to shake it off.
The demon’s hand gathered strength and sank into his throat.
His eyes were beginning to fade.
He was frantic.
He mustered all his strength and loosened the demon’s grip.
When he wriggled his neck free from the gap in those hands, the demon slid down his back and fell with a heavy thud.
Now it was his turn to grapple with the demon.
He choked the demon’s neck.
And when he suddenly noticed, he was strangling the woman’s neck with all his strength, and she had already ceased breathing.

His eyes clouded over.
He tried to open his eyes even wider, but he could not feel that his vision had returned.
For what he had strangled remained unchanged—still the woman—and only her corpse lay there as before.

His breathing stopped.
His strength, his thoughts—everything ceased all at once.
Several cherry blossom petals had already fallen upon the woman’s corpse.
He shook her.
He called out.
He embraced her.
It was futile.
He burst into tears and collapsed.

He had probably never cried from the day he settled in these mountains until now. And when he naturally came to his senses, white petals lay piled on his back.

That place was at the exact center of the Cherry Blossom Forest.
The horizons in all directions were hidden by blossoms, and the depths could not be seen.
The usual fears and anxieties vanished.
There was no cold wind rushing in from the edge of the blossoms.
Only the petals continued to fall, hushed and whispering.
He sat under the full bloom of the Cherry Blossom Forest for the first time.
He could sit there forever.
He had nowhere left to return to.

The secret beneath the full bloom of the Cherry Blossom Forest remains unknown to anyone even now.
Or perhaps it might have been what we call "loneliness."
For the man no longer needed to fear loneliness.
He himself had become loneliness itself.

He looked all around for the first time.
Overhead, there were flowers.
Underneath it, a hushed, infinite void stretched endlessly.
The flowers were falling in whispers.
That was all there was to it.
There was no secret at all outside.

After some time passed, he felt a single lukewarm something.
And then he realized that it was the sadness in his own chest.
Enveloped in the sharp chill of blossoms and void, a faintly warm swelling began to make itself known little by little.

He tried to remove the petals from the woman’s face.
When his hand was about to reach her face, it seemed something had shifted.
Then beneath his palm lay only heaped petals; her form had dissolved into scattered blossoms.
And by the time he stretched out that petal-parting hand and his body, they too had vanished.
What remained were petals and a cold void stretched taut.