Chapter Two

Majestic Conifer

 

"Let's see, let's see," a soft voice of a young girl warbled through the wide space Nekohiko had decided was a workshop. One of those promised destinations of his destruction at the hands of some woodcutting master who would die to make a treasure chest out of him.

Naaah. As if Nekohiko would be so lucky to end up as a treasure chest? A floorboard to wipe royal boots on or a bathtub for the Emperor's dirt to soak in would be a more fitting fate for someone as feckless as him. After all, to end up not only a piece of wood but a piece of wood directly belonging to the person who'd murdered him in cold blood -- what else would one call it but disturbingly bad luck?

And the worst thing he'd found out from all those random conversations he overheard? Not even a day had passed after Nekohiko's death -- and Abihiko had been crowned. Nobody had mourned him. Nobody had objected to his death. By the current times, Abihiko had already been Emperor for over five years. He was well-liked by his subjects, still at his prime years -- young, and powerful and above all, accomplished.

And Nekohiko was a log.

He didn't know how much time had passed between that horrible conversation -- the first he'd been able to hear in years -- and now. Hearing was a great sense to have in order to distract himself from the endless rage that enveloped him on the inside. But hearing alone wasn't enough. Based on solely his doodled "ear", he could never tell where he was, or with whom, or whether or not he was going to be pushed and kicked and rolled into a ponderous tumble in the next moment. Pain somehow always felt like a dark surprise for the wooden log.

Because people generally treated him as an unfeeling piece of... well, wood. He wouldn't say what else he expected. Tummy rubs and back scratches? He had neither of those body parts, to begin with, so he completely understood the treatment. Anyway, now that this was his life, being left alone for days if not weeks at a time was a blessing he cherished deeply.

And the last time he'd been left alone for a long while was here. He'd gotten used to this room's sound-hungry space. Everyone's voices, however rare, echoed so prettily, he caught himself simply listening and enjoying the musicality of it. This young girl's voice was one of those, even though previously he'd only heard it from afar. On contrast, the fast whir of the circular saws and the merciless thuds of a hatchet when the master worked on another piece of wood in the shop didn't sound as nice.

Each time any type of sawing, or hacking, or chopping sounds happened nearby, every wood particle squirmed in Nekohiko's body. During those times, he wished he'd never received that doodled-on "ear" in the first place. Another wise saying he could attest to: ignorance truly is bliss!

"If I picked one," the melodically-voiced young girl yelled almost directly above Nekohiko, "would you make it?"

"Make what? Get out of my workshop!"

A period of lengthy, idle silence trickled by, only breaking to a shuffle of soft yet aimless footsteps.

"This log looks quite formidable," the girl said suddenly. She drew in a breath, then let out an appreciative hum. "And smells so nice, too. Hey, Elder Brother, is this a pine or a cedar?"

An oblivious human hand rapped against Nekohiko with its knuckle.

How rude.

But at least he now knew she was talking about him. And that he was apparently a conifer. Not that it made his situation any better, but for some reason, he felt a tiny bit pleased.

Conifers were such nice trees.

The girl's fist knocked on him several times more to his immediate disapproval.

"Mmm. Nice sound," the young girl commended him as though half-expecting he should react. "You'll make a great base for a musical instrument, you know?"

Then something soft yet weighty plopped on top of him, and Nekohiko wanted to writhe in embarrassment. Was he being sat on? He, the Divine Emperor? Luckily, thundering footsteps drummed the floors soon after. A huffing breath sucked in close by. "Get off, Aomi. You'll dirty it."

Nekohiko's surface was freed from Aomi's bottom. Someone's gloved hand quickly patted him as though trying to wipe all traces of dust or dirt from Nekohiko's top.

"But Elder Brother--" the girl began.

"Go! Away! If I see you touching any of my stuff again, I will personally --" The heavy weight of a metallic tool of some sort slashed through the air "-- murder you."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Aomi grumbled on as the older boy's footsteps receded after a while. But perhaps because she wasn't taking any of his threats seriously, or because she was too indignant after he'd made a scene, not only did she not leave. Instead, with an annoyed groan, she leaned on Nekohiko even harder as though she was bored and was now planning a particularly mean mischief to pull.

Not to me, Nekohiko thought. Not to me, please. His life was already too confusing to add some young brat's tricks on his precious lumber self.

First came disorderly scratches over his surface. They were bearable, if ticklish. A material like chalk or coal, crumbling against his fine wood grain. For a long time, almost nothing else happened other than the girl's doodles on his surface. But then...

Something so disturbing. And so earth-shattering.

He hadn't even dared hope, let alone expected this. To receive, out of the generous hand of fate, his sight back.

His sight. He... could see.

The glare of the amber sunlight casting all across the large wooden lodge blinded him. He felt as though punched right in his solar plexus, so brilliant and overwhelming having sight was. For a few seconds, he blanked out from the rush of emotions. Dark spots and flickering circles filled his vision while he was getting used to the unbearable sear of light, but slowly and imminently, the world around him began coalescing into focus.

Slanted columns of gold specks of wood dust swirled amidst the shadows. The faint mood of warmth, of a lazy afternoon, and of a busy and satisfying work permeated the place. Nekohiko couldn't take it in all at once. In a passing glimpse, he saw blocks of wood of various hues ranging from cream-pale to sunburnt orange and to the rich ebony, stacked against the walls, and on the shelves, and all over the floor. Some in raw log form, others -- shaped. Sculpted. Carved.

The girl's pointy-chinned face sailed into his view. All his attention snapped to her. Big round eyes, bright as coal, thin red lips bitten in by pearly white teeth as though in the midst of an engrossing, satisfying work. Dark, long hair twisted away from her grim face.

He was certain he saw this girl for the very first time in his existence, and yet... there was something uncannily familiar about her. Everything in him concentrated solely on following her face, trying to understand. To remember these features.

Abruptly, the girl stilled. Her pose screamed unnaturalness, so rigid it was. She slowly raised her face to be level with Nekohiko's line of vision. She stared, wide-eyed, straight at him.

Nekohiko couldn't help but blink several times in fright.

All color drained from her skin. Her lips trembled open.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah! What the--!"

She kicked herself away from him. A small box in which she held drawing tools sprayed coalsticks and brushes and chalk in the air. All of it clanked on the floor, spinning. The box didn't yet come to a halt when the girl already scampered backward, never pausing as she shrieked. Blinded with fear, she hit the line of wooden sculptures with her shoulder.

With a horrid clamor, the whole line toppled. Nekohiko's first impulse was to curl down to protect himself, but what did he expect -- no part of him responded. All the tumbling wooden cats and carved birds hailed onto him. The girl had no time to bother with Nekohiko either as she scrambled out of the damage zone and darted out of the room crushing into more and more statues in her way like a mad ox in a music shop.

"Katajiii! Kataji!" she hollered.

Hurt. Everything hurt. The last of the statuettes clanged on top of Nekohiko and bounced off. In the brief silence that followed, he was still too stunned to adapt to having sight, let alone being found out so soon!

Was he in danger? He had no idea, but the roaring clash of two sets of footsteps from the outside didn't sound promising.

A disheveled-looking young man rushed into the room, his mouth hanging open even before he had time to survey the wreckage. He was dressed in a prim, even elegant manner of a scholar or a noble, but was in the process of tearing a smeared worker's apron off his torso and a crafter's set of jelly-lens goggles off his head. Both his groomed hair and clothes came undone by the jerky movement, giving him the air of a quirky inventor instead.

A flash of recognition once again caught Nekohiko off guard. This young man was also so damn familiar to him. But then he realized.

Elder Brother -- hadn't the girl called this young man that? No wonder they looked similar to one another.

"What -- did -- you -- just --" the young man breathed, crushing both of his hands onto his head. He cast an enraged look to the door beyond which only the nose of the girl peeked out. "Aomi!"

Her thin hand visibly shook as it whipped in Nekohiko's direction, pointing.

"Kataji, that thing," the girl said, tremoring. "That log is alive."

Kataji swept his dazed eyes across the room but didn't bother to pay attention to his sister's words. He had a weepy expression on his face as he turned toward this pile of sculptures, or that, or another, rambling something so low under his breath, Nekohiko had trouble hearing.

The girl had no choice but to creep out after Kataji had ventured out into the destroyed room to stare in horror at his wooden statues. But unlike him, her gaze was solely fixed on Nekohiko. Sidestepping the carved foxes and tiny houses with a look as though she was ready to bolt if something made a sudden move, she tiptoed on. At some point, she caught her stupefied brother by the sleeve and never let go.

He wanted to object, Nekohiko heard. A hiss of pain came from him soon after. Did the girl pinch him? Nekohiko stopped tracking them with his vision because... well, it just dawned on him that it was his ability to watch them -- to follow with his eyes -- that had freaked out the girl earlier.

He didn't know how he was doing it, and with what! (did he have eyes?) but the way his gaze moved must be way too obvious to an onlooker.

Thus, ridiculous as it sounded, Nekohiko froze in place and pretended to be a normal wooden log under the girl's intense stare.

"What are you doing," Kataji ground out as his and her heavy breaths came nearer to Nekohiko step by step. "You'll wish you were dead, I swear. I'm going to tell Great Aunt, I'm going to tell Eldest Brother. I'm going to tell--"

"Shut it," the girl stammered. "There. Look at that spot on the log right there. Do you see it?"

Infuriated hush. Then the young man's snarl, "You drew eyes on it when I clearly told you not to touch it. I surely see that."

Nekohiko belatedly thought he should have closed his eyes before these two came. Could he even do that? Not now, of course. But... in general? Because staring into the emptiness before him, terrified of a single motion of his drawn eyes, was too big of a pressure on him. Subtly, but he felt as though he began trembling.

Which didn't help the matters at all.

"Observe," Aomi whispered.

From her side, clothes rustled in a ferocious motion. Kataji made a startled gasp, half in anger, half in surprise. What... what was happening?

In his side-eye, Nekohiko registered a blur of something thrown. An object zooming through the air from the girl and toward him. And so, instinctively -- without meaning to -- he wanted to cringe away. He shut his eyes.

Hey, so he could do that.

A small wooden statuette bounced off his side, but he barely felt it. The heavy, shocked silence of two held-up breaths in the room had a much greater impact on him.

"Spirits and gods save us," the young man mumbled in a hoarse voice. "It's alive!"

"Spirits, spirits, spirits," the girl echoed him. Both of their footsteps inched further and further away, bumping into fallen statues and toppling even more of them. "That damned log is cursed. Cursed, Kataji!"

"I know! I know! What should we do!"

Nekohiko's eyes flew open only to see how both siblings crushed each other in a shaken embrace, steadily backtracking away from him. Their pale faces never strayed from his.

Him opening his eyes was the last straw.

"Chop it," the young girl mouthed, then turned to run, yelling at the top of her lungs into the gaping door, "Everyone come here right now! Chop it down into mulch! Burn it! And burn down the entire workshop as well!"