Chapter Eleven

And Meow Again

 

The jellyfish lanterns gave the great room an ethereal glow, and in it, Kataji looked especially lonely, sitting on one of his benches in his immaculate dress, in his upright manner so wildly contrasting the sour curve of his lips.

"I was afraid you were gone," he told Nekohiko, as though stung. "Or that you're not in the mood for talking to me."

Nekohiko didn't want to waste time on explanations of where and for what reasons he'd been unresponsive.

"Kataji," he said, nervous. "I'm sorry for saying all those cruel things to you before. I didn't mean them."

Immediately, Kataji's forehead creased. His eyes flicked aside, and he assumed his usual haughty expression. "You don't have to apologize to me. I'm not a child. I can handle conflict just fine. Also..." He cleared his throat, still avoiding Nekohiko's eyes. "I'm sorry too. I said many things I didn't mean as well."

This was uncomfortable, but Nekohiko would take it. As long as Kataji talked to him again. He never forgot how much he depended on this person, how much he owed him, how much he needed him. After all, Nekohiko was only one of many carving logs in Kataji's workshop. That Kataji was willing to meet him halfway was already a generosity on his part that Nekohiko wasn't sure he could afford.

"Itsuki." Kataji got up from his bench and took several stiff footsteps toward him. He stared straight into Nekohiko's eyes. "I know I tend to get carried away with my work, but I want you to know -- I don't see you as one of my projects."

"Well, technically, I am. Whether either of us likes it or not, so..."

"You are a human being, even though at the moment your existence puts you below that level. But I never would."

"..." Nekohiko was at a loss of words. "You don't have to say this."

I will never be able to pay you back. My debt will only grow from there.

Especially in regards to what I'll do to your very brother once you give me a body.

"We're fine," Nekohiko added after a brief second. "You and I. Everything's fine."

"No, we're not. Not yet, at least. I promise I'll give you a body," Kataji said, resolute. "Then you and I will talk for real. As equals."

Nekohiko was so confused and, worse, moved by Kataji's promise that, for a long time after, he couldn't find a topic of smalltalk that would sound natural. He simply blinked around and pretended that everything was back as it should be. Even though inside, it really didn't feel like it.

Either Kataji wasn't as bothered by the silence, or he also couldn't come up with a decent conversation starter, but the atmosphere in the workshop was so quiet and stilted for the next few hours that Nekohiko gladly escaped back to Aomi and Daichi and their chit-chat about the most popular music theaters in Nara.

Daichi and she only came back on Coalback after the dusk had settled upon the mountains, and all the servants and maids in the estate had begun scurrying around, mimicking busy activities in the household. They all did it because Lady Abi, Kataji's and Aomi's Great Aunt, was so disgruntled once she found out that Aomi had left without asking anyone's permission. What if the girl was kidnapped by bandits? What if she was dead somewhere? The Lady screamed at the servants and she clutched at her chest, saying that Aomi and Kataji would wreck her poor heart one of these days.

Having been informed by Nekohiko about Aomi's little trip and about Lord Okinaga's guard she met there, Kataji was the only person in the estate who kept deathly calm throughout the ordeal. But this fact only devastated the old woman so much more.

"That girl should absolutely be captured by bandits one day," Kataji told Nekohiko as he methodically whittled a piece of dead matter wood into a low-relief panel of appropriate size. "Leaving like this, and kidnapping the best chunk of you we have! I hope she gets what she deserves, and soon."

"That man... Daichi?" Nekohiko feigned unfamiliarity to the old guard. "After they finished their meal in the restaurant, he said he would escort her back to Red Stone."

"See? She's luckier than a demonic spirit," Kataji mumbled under his breath. "An elite guard like him, babysitting a little brat like her. Tsk. I wish I had such heaven's blessings."

Using the fact that Kataji was too distracted to suspect any hidden intent, Nekohiko grasped at the thinnest thread he wanted to unravel. "An elite guard, is he? I heard Lord Okinaga favors Abi family but didn't know it was to such an extent."

"...lord? Ah yes, five years ago he must have still been a Lord." Kataji tilted his head, bemused, only pausing in his carving for a second. "You probably don't even know about the separation of all the Great Lordships into independent Kingdoms, huh."

Oh, the shock Nekohiko had to fake. "Sacred spirits and essences! I did not know this at all!"

Too artificial? He was never good with social skills. Yet Kataji wasn't great with them either, so he didn't notice.

"Wait till you hear about the war between Hisome and Towa families against Nagare?"

No faking necessary.

"...what?! When did--"

"Two years ago." Wearily, Kataji nodded as though he himself thought the topic frustrating. "Some dispute about the land. His Supreme Divine Majesty gathered for a conference to try and solve that peacefully, but... it was such an utter failure. Ugh. It hurts even to remember."

Nekohiko shut his eyes down hard.

How come--

How was this possible! His Empire, crumbling into even smaller, more aggressive parts than how it had been before Nekohiko died? Emotions of rage, shock, shame, heat, and paralyzing cold all crested over him like a tide, yet he couldn't allow himself to show even one.

His voice quavered. "The Emperor... what is he supposed to be if there are all these Kingdoms around? What exactly is he the Emperor of?"

"Oh, he's fine. The Emerald Palace in Nara is in King Okinaga's domain and is given neutral status. No one, including him, can attack it. As the laws of Spirit-Binding say -- the Emperor keeps the land and the people together. You know." Kataji tapped a graphite pencil against his forehead in some kind of profound meaning. "We're all still the same people, deep inside. We just have different rulers. The Emperor is the reminder of that deeper... symbolic unity, I suppose."

A... reminder? A symbol?

"So he's a figurehead," Nekohiko said, crushed. "The Emperor is only a show."

No. Not even a figurehead. Something much worse. A puppet on the throne. A dummy. While all those greedy Lords -- the Kings -- ruined the country from behind him.

At the front of the estate, the part of his body that was in Aomi's hands gave him a jolt of nausea when the girl began swinging him around again. Not now, Aomi! he wanted to say.

Yet, at the same time he was grateful for a small distraction away from this devastating news about the state of his Empire, about the Lords scavenging his land in the wake of his absence, and about Abihiko's treachery that went far greater than betraying Nekohiko himself.

He'd betrayed everything Nekohiko stood for.

"Just so you know, Aomi and Daichi are finally here," Nekohiko told Kataji, and Kataji immediately sprang to his feet.

He grabbed a smaller wooden piece of Nekohiko, about the size of a palm, and rushed out of the workshop and into the garden, gritting out through his teeth. "This girl. Stealing my stuff. Oh, I'll show her!"

"Itsuki," Aomi whispered close to Nekohiko's ear back at the estate's entrance. She ignored the ruckus the Great Aunt and the servants made around her as soon as she and Daichi rode in. Daichi's presence seemed to distract Great Aunt somewhat, and all of her attention went to thanking and admiring and weeping at Daichi in undying gratitude. Nekohiko was instantly overwhelmed by all the commotion and voices speaking from all the different directions in the front yard, so he barely understood what was going on at first.

Fortunately for him, Aomi slipped away from all that hubbub unnoticed. She darted into the garden where it was quieter and darker, covering behind the taller trees and shrubs as she threw cautious glances over her shoulder. Here, at least, Nekohiko could hear her clearly and even comprehend what was happening. And why.

"Kataji's coming for me, isn't he?" Aomi breathed at him, anxious. "I know he is. Is he fuming?"

"Uh..." Nekohiko stammered.

"I need to hide from him until we get to my bedroom. Where do you think I should go so I don't bump into him?"

Footsteps pounded over the gravel where the second small piece of him was being carried by Kataji. "Where is she? Where is she now? Itsuki, tell me -- I need to kill her!" Kataji hissed at Nekohiko's surface all the while.

His mind was assaulted. From both sides, at the same time. Nekohiko couldn't tell whether his nausea and vertigo were caused by either sibling running around mad, holding a piece of him to themselves, and therefore shaking him till he couldn't see. Or if it was the constant switching between two bodies to listen to Kataji and Aomi by turns that forced him into such stupor.

"I don't know -- somewhere in the garden!" he cried, too panicked to control which of the siblings he was even talking to.

"Got it," Aomi said.

"Thanks, Itsuki," Kataji echoed.

Unsurprisingly, the evening ended in a very dramatic fashion.

The night that unfurled afterward was fragrant, moonlit, buzzing with insects and nightbird trills in the weighty plum branches. From inside the workshop, Nekohiko also heard music wafting from the tea house where Great Aunt and Uncle were receiving Daichi to properly thank him for his kindness, and through the thin jelly windows, he saw lit lanterns drift through the garden as people wandered about, enjoying the night. It was calm in the workshop, away from all the chaos of the outside, so Nekohiko preferred to keep his consciousness here. Those two siblings would drive him insane otherwise.

After Kataji had chased, fought, and then won Nekohiko's head from Aomi, he'd ordered his dummies to move all of his bedding and his personal hygiene items from his bedroom in the main house and into the workshop. Then he slammed shut the doors and even barred them from the inside. Only then, did he feel content enough to spread his bed out on the floor amidst Nekohiko body parts, and sit down proudly on top of it.

"I'll order meals brought here as well," Kataji informed Nekohiko as the two of them were getting used to their new arrangement. "So that I never have to leave this place. Nobody is taking you out of my sight without my permission again."

"It's not a big deal." Nekohiko had tried to defend Aomi's blunder several times by now, but all of them missed Kataji's ears.

He sniffed in derision. "It is for me. I cut these body parts. It took sweat and blood and my time, not even talking about your pain."

Aggravated, he started pacing the workshop, and Nekohiko could only keep quiet.

Later, they lay in the dark for a while not speaking. Kataji read a book written in glow-script, and even from a few steps away, Nekohiko could see the titles of the chapters and some of the words on the pages. About dummies. About resign-types. Yield and flexibility. Animal tissue as substitutes. Animal organs, too.

Manuals on how to make dolls capable of movement and capable of the illusion of life.

Kataji lay back a few times, simply staring up at the ceiling as though overwhelmed by all the information.

"I didn't know it was so macabre," Nekohiko told him at some point. "Sorry you have to deal with all that for my sake."

Kataji's voice carried an undertone of apathy. "It's all right. Just too complicated to absorb at two in the morning." He finally rolled the books closed and turned around, covering himself with the blanket over his head. "Sleep, Itsuki. Tomorrow's a long day."

And indeed, it was.

 

---

***

This type of routine continued for over several next days. Kataji reading. Kataji too invested in his carving. Sometimes he worked on dead matter relief painting for Abihiko's rooms, sometimes he worked on the gradual and patient sawing and hacking of Nekohiko's larger parts. Other times, he prepped and chipped small wood blocks to work out the first body parts for Nekohiko's human doll model. He did that in front of his books on human anatomy, on doll-engineering, on Binding techniques and requirements from the assembled parts. He seemed tense, and he seemed stiff.

And quite a bit frustrated.

It was raining most of the time, the cloudbursting humid showers Nekohiko missed so much from his previous life. Because the weather only induced melancholy and idleness, even Aomi didn't show up to bother Kataji. Not that she could, with the doors being blocked and all. The days in the workshop "prison" passed by hushed and murky from the skies being so overcast, swaddled in the rain's eternal rustling in the garden.

Nekohiko talked to Kataji when Kataji felt like it. Which lately, became rarer and rarer. A sort of a shroud seemed to have come over the two of them, and Nekohiko was too self-conscious to try and lift it.

When Kataji worked on him, Nekohiko persevered through the pain. When Kataji was busy with something else, Nekohiko spent his time peering out the windows at how raindrops roiled the leaves and grasses. Or he read rolls and albums of books Kataji had magnanimously spread out before him to scan over with his eyes. Recent history books, and some of the news notes from the neighboring Kingdoms and from the Imperial Palace. Some fiction books, too, although Nekohiko was genuinely not interested in those.

All the same. So, when Aomi finally wormed her way into the workshop one day, sneaking in behind the Bound Servant carrying the breakfast basket for Kataji, Nekohiko couldn't hold in his breath of relief.

Kataji had grown so solemn, so downcast in lately, Nekohiko became reluctant to stay with him in the same room for another stretch of days. Aomi was a feast for his bored soul -- a festival, really. Her stupid puns included.

She pounced on Kataji from the back and growled in pretend-playfulness. Her way of acting all cute and apologetic; Nekohiko already knew. But Kataji only swatted away lazily, going on with his reading as if he didn't even notice she was here.

"How's my most favorite doll doing?" she cooed at Nekohiko, creeping in closer as though ready to pounce at him next. "Did Kataji wear you out with his obsessive-dull-out spell so much that your eyes are even shining from seeing me?"

"We were working, Aomi," Nekohiko said as a way of explanation.

"Working? On what?" She got to him at last but didn't jump him. Only started tickling him on the sides, grinning all through. "Come on, we all know he can't actually make a human doll like that! Who could? It's not so easy, and besides, you already agreed to go to Metori's Lumberworks to pick a body model with me, no?"

Aomi, no! Nekohiko threw a heedful glance over to Kataji.

"What?" Aomi picked up a drastic change in Nekohiko's expression but didn't seem to understand the reason. "Ahhh," she drawled at last. "You think Kataji will be disappointed if you choose another woodmaker instead of him? Don't be so dramatic."

She swung around to peek at her brother. "You wouldn't mind, would you?"

Foolish girl.

It wasn't that the last few days Kataji had grown more apathetic and depressed for no reason. Kataji's skills in carving human body parts were... not exactly promising. Nekohiko would never make such a judgment himself, but he knew what a dejected young person looked like when they were trying their best at mastering, or even only approaching a new skill, and failing regardless of all their efforts.

Oh, Nekohiko knew it better than anyone.

"I'm not in any hurry, I would rather wait for when Kataji can do my model. Like we agreed in the beginning," Nekohiko said, hoping that Kataji would hear. If not because Nekohiko actually meant it -- he didn't! he wanted his new body as soon as possible! -- but because he suspected such words might lift Kataji's spirits.

Nekohiko owed him at least that.

Slowly, Kataji raised his face from his books. He sat with his back to the others, so Nekohiko couldn't see his expression. But he saw how rigid Kataji's shoulder line was, and how still his breath.

"Huuuh?" Aomi grimaced in exaggerated surprise. "It might take you years to wait, you dummy!"

Years? Damn it.

Of course it would.

Nekohiko set his mouth firm. "Well, then... I don't mind that either."

"Aomi. Leave." Kataji stood up. The book that was splayed atop his lap tumbled to the floor.

"What? Why? I just came."

"And now you're just leaving."

She started to protest more, but Kataji remained silent for as long as it took her to pout and exchange unsure glances with Nekohiko, then realize that Kataji wouldn't repeat again until she did as he asked.

She rolled her eyes and stood up. Then she made a grand bow to Kataji. "Every year, I swear, you act more and more like him."

Subtly, a muscle in Kataji's jaw flexed, but he didn't turn to regard her.

"Manic, reclusive fools. So tired of this stupid family," she added much lower passing by Nekohiko. She flashed him a meaningful look when she stopped in the doors. "Itsuki -- call me if something freakish happens. I'll be waiting here in case you need--"

Kataji swung the doors closed right into her face. When he swiveled to Nekohiko, he was smiling. However thin that smile was, it was the first one Kataji had shown him for the last two days.

Nekohiko's confusion spiked. "You just wanted to get rid of her? Or is there another reason for all this?"

"Oh, I always want to get rid of her, mind you." Kataji went to his workbench overflowing with charts, books, and half-finished or never even started wooden projects he'd been carving. He picked one of them up, then hid it behind his back as he made a slow way to Nekohiko. "But yes -- there is another reason for all of this."

He stopped an elbow-length away. "Metori's Lumberworks is a good doll shop. They have great models to pick from. I think you will find one that pleases you there."

Ah, so this was it. "Kataji, I don't care about any shop--"

"And I will gladly go there with you and Aomi to pick a body model for you. Let's be real here." His weak chuckle had all the impact of a punch, seriously. How fragile this person was, Nekohiko thought in dismay. "I'm not good with humanoid work. I might get better with time, but it's going to take me a very, very long time. Like Aomi said. What's the reason for you to wait until my skills are good enough to fit you? There are plenty of places where they make good, in fact perfect, humanoid dolls. Even they will take several months to craft one out of raw wood, let alone an amateur like me. We have to be realistic about this, Itsuki."

Nekohiko hid his gaze. "I wanted to work with you. I swear I did."

"Who said you and I aren't going to work with each other? Aren't you a dummy." Kataji went to his knees on the floor, eyes staring at Nekohiko with a sort of an odd excitement. "I promised I'll make you a body. Didn't I?"

In Kataji's pale hands proffered to Nekohiko like a gift, something small and round lay. A wooden ball?

No, not a ball. This ball had two holes in it, and it was shaped... so weirdly. So hauntingly. Like something out of a nightmare.

"It's just not going to be a human body," Kataji said. "As I told you, I'm not good with humans. But I'm fairly good with other things."

This small round object before him, Nekohiko realized slowly and imminently -- it was a wooden skull. A head of a very small animal. Those huge holes for the eyes, this small flat nose, and triangular-shaped face. And then, those slits at the top of the head with supporting frames coming out of them. Probably for the later stretching of animal tissue and fur above it.

To form small, cute, triangular ears.

Kataji smiled, half-nervous, half-expectant. "I wanted to make a full-body surprise in a few days for you since by now I've mostly only managed to craft its head. But when you and Aomi were talking, you started making such grand pronouncements about being loyal to me as your woodcarver, that I couldn't let you--"

"This is a cat's head, isn't it?" Nekohiko interrupted. "A cat. You want to give me the body of a cat."

"Well. Yeah?" Kataji seemed genuinely perplexed. "Why? You don't like cats?"

...

It only took Nekohiko a couple of seconds to collect himself. He was going to have a body of his own. And much sooner than expected. Why in the world would he refuse it?

"Meow," he said with a sigh.