Love Me

Orochi waits for the last part of Hotaru’s song, so he can begin to ignore her crying. He takes a long inhale of his kiseru and blows out a large cloud of smoke. He stares out into the forest, finding anything to distract himself with. 

It’s always impossible, her voice pierces through his thoughts as if it were the wind. Her beautiful voice replaces the breeze passing by his ears, and now he can’t ignore her. He puts out the pipe before following the direction of the song:

If there’s a day when I am not the same,

Not human anymore,

Would you still love me as you did before?

Her whimpers follow soon after. His heart aches and he wishes he could go to that room and comfort her, but he can’t. Hotaru made him promise to leave her be when she shuts herself in that place. There is no way for him to check on her, there are no windows in that room. Every time she comes out to join him on the terrace, he worries more.

The first month in the new house, her hair stayed white and she couldn’t reverse it to her usual black locks. The fifth month, her skin paled and dulled. A year in the house, she got eyebags and her fake smile came back. Her fangs don’t appear when she smiles now, that’s how Orochi realized it wasn’t genuine. 

Recently, the past few weeks, she’s been keeping a distance when he tries to embrace her. They haven’t been intimate and he’s starting to wonder why the sudden change.

Yet, she pretends nothing is wrong as much as he tries to pretend too. Each night he asks what’s wrong, Hotaru changes the subject in a heartbeat. Not tonight though, he won’t let her even if it will cause a fight. He’s prepared himself for it, but fear still lingers in his stomach. It’s quite silly, a God being afraid of his partner.

Orochi knocks on the door. “My love?”

Her cries stop abruptly with a small gasp. Hotaru slides the door open and peeks her head out. Orochi smiles and she does too while stepping out and closing the door behind her. She ties her obi tight and pulls the hems of her kimono. He knows she had it open because she tied the obi backward in a hurry to open the door.

“You scared me, you never come to this side of the house,” she says, glancing down the hallway.

“I know, you told me not to.” He chuckles. “I wanted to see your lovely face sooner than usual.”

Hotaru takes his outstretched hand and Orochi guides her to their favorite spot. She sits on the edge to dip her feet in the pond, then leans her head against Orochi’s shoulder. They talk about their day’s activities and what they wish to dream about once they fall asleep. It’s always the same dreams with her; complete and peaceful darkness. He took the opportunity to finally bring up what he’s been waiting for. 

Orochi took a strand of her stark white hair, giving it a light kiss. “I dream of knowing what you do in that room every night.”

“Hmph, you will not be able to seduce me into telling you,” she teases, elbowing him.

He pulls her by the shoulder and kisses her cheek. “I seduced you into being mine, now didn’t I?”

Hotaru rolls her eyes. “I think you mean begged, Orochi-sama. Do you not remember almost crying the first time we made love?”

He bites her cheek, leaving teeth marks. She responds by pulling on his bangs to try and make him fall in the water. They wrestle one another, careful not to use so much strength and destroy a part of the house. She falls on top of him and kisses the tip of his nose. Before getting off, Orochi grabs her face and pulls her for a better kiss.

They laugh and stare at the pond. The koi swim by Hotaru’s feet but keep away from Orochi. His green glowing eyes resemble a predator that makes them flee. They’re attracted to Hotaru’s golden eyes because they’re the same as fireflies.

Orochi faces her, he brushes her messy hair away from her face, and thinks how he’s able to touch her freely when at first she threatened to rip his throat out.

“What are you staring at?” she giggles, shying away from his touch.

He sighs fondly. “Just remembering our first encounter. It feels great to caress you without being jabbed in the gut.”

I hope at least that’s the only thing I’ll get after the conversation, Orochi thought.

Hotaru stares at the koi while Orochi tries not to have his words come out as vomit. “Why do you always sing the same song?” he blurts out like a fool.

She sits ups and looks at him wide-eyed. Shame appears on her face and she looks down at her feet. “I thought you couldn’t hear me,” she mumbles.

“With your beautiful voice, how could I?” He smiles. “But why always the same song, my love?’”

“I just think it’s a lovely song.”

He wants to ask, ‘a song that makes you cry?’, but he can’t push her too early. If he pushes too hard she’s going to shut down on him. It didn’t work the first time when he met her, and she had built up various walls around herself. His hands tremble, knowing that this conversation won’t go as he planned.

“Tell me about the song. It must be from a God of poetry.”

“It’s a folktale. Humans created it.”

He raises an incredulous eyebrow. “Humans? You treat them more of a disease than I do. Are you trying to deceive me, the God of Lies, dearest?”

“You are the God of other things too, Orochi.” She pouts at first, then she shrugs. “But, I know it’s odd. Even creatures as destructive and selfish like humans know how to write songs about love.”

“Then, what is the song about?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s a bit difficult to explain.”

They stay quiet, letting the noise of the forest fill their silence. It's the perfect time for Orochi to overthink everything. Hotaru made it clear to end the conversation, but how could he? There is meaning behind her tears every night. She lies straight to him when he has always been honest with her, despite his true nature. He’s stopped being a monster that demanded sacrifices for his amusement, to be with her. 

Am I not enough? Am I not giving her the love she desires? These thoughts circle and circle in his head with no intention to stop.

“My love, do you not trust that I love you?” he murmurs, balling up his hands.

“What? Orochi, what are you-”

“I can hear your heart break every time you sing that song.”

Stunned, she says, “It’s a sad song. Anyone who will sing or listen to it will be sad.”

“No, not you, I know you. It’s a human song, there’s no reason for you to feel so strongly about some humans’ love.”

She narrows her eyes, finding his words as a challenge to her character. “That’s not for you to decide, Orochi.”

“I know that, but you show more emotions to such a thing than to me.”

He opens up his yukata to show his chest where the dashed out Yama character sits, mirroring the one Hotaru has on hers. A binding symbol for the dishonored gods.

He grabs her hand to place it over the tattoo. It reacts to her touch and pulses at the same rate as his heartbeat. “This symbol represents my everlasting and never-changing love for you. We’re destined to be together as the outcasts of Takamagahara. We are bound for a reason.”

“I love you too, and I’m so happy that I have the same symbol as you. Eternity finally means something now that I can share it with you. But forgive me, I’m not ready to speak of it.”

She kisses him before heading inside, lingering on his lips for a moment. Unhappy, He follows behind her, regret creeps up but he pushes it away by thinking back at her previous words. She gave the same excuse when he opened up his heart to her. He accepted it and gave her space until she came to him on her own. They’re together now, and he still feels the emptiness from her words of supposed affection.

He grabs her wrist. She turns to see with head lowering. His grip tightens as she sees his scales appear on his arm. “Orochi?’ she says.

“Tell me again, please,” he whispers.

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me you do love me. That you can't be without me.”

He looks up. His sclera turned black and the scales appear on his temples. Tears run down his face as he pulls Hotaru towards him. She lets him, and he hugs her to feel the warmth he always lacked and desired. As he tries to pull tighter, he feels her tense up and inch away from him. He breaks the hug and holds her by the shoulders.

But she coils.

“Don’t.” He shakes his head. “Don’t be afraid of me!”

He throws her on the floor, not knowing he did so until he heard a thump. His scales and black sclera recede, and he runs towards her, ready to apologize. Hotaru turns on her back. Orochi stops in his tracks at what he sees in her hand. Blood turning almost black made a small puddle in her hand. It pours from her mouth down to her throat and falls on the tatami. Staining it.

His heart stops. He falls on his knees next to her. “You’re bleeding…but how? That’s impossible.”

He tries to hold her, but he’s too afraid. Instead, with his sleeve, he wipes her mouth and hand. “Oh my love, my dear, my life, please forgive me. I didn’t mean to use my strength on you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he cried as he wipes away the blood.

She coughs and out came more blood in a thicker quantity. Hotaru pushes his hand away to try to get up. She staggers while trying to lean against the wall, coughing some more. Orochi looks at her with tears in his eyes, feeling rejection down to his core. Despite this, he goes to her because a God bleeding…something can’t be right.

Hotaru heads towards that room, leaving a trail of blood. She stumbles inside, ready to slide the door closed. Orochi put his foot in before she could do it. She fought to push his foot out, but the fit of her bloody coughs didn’t let her. For the first time in months, Orochi steps inside the room. There’s no right reaction for what he sees. 

On the left side of the room, hidden from the doorway, there’s piles of broken mirrors. The shards sprawled everywhere tinted with blood. Below the mirror that faced the entry, there are large bloodstains on the tatami. A bloody handprint stained across the wall next to the mirror, that was the only one intact. Orochi looks over at Hotaru, who is still coughing, and sees healing scars on the soles of her feet. 

“What is it that you do inside this place?” he whispers.

“Please, le-”

“Hotaru!”

She slides herself up against the wall. She wipes her hand on her kimono and combs her hair back, staining her white hair red. Her bloody face and hands look like she devoured somebody. She looks exactly as when Orochi found her in a desolate forest years ago. Her eyes are different, they show fear instead of emptiness. 

“I don’t want to tell you,” she says.

“I deserve to know. I never kept anything from you, not even the virgin sacrifices.”

She shakes her head. “I still accepted you, but you won’t accept me after I tell you.”

Orochi slams the wall. “Tell me what!? Tell. Me. What!?”

Tears run down her cheeks. “You could never understand what I went through before I was banished from the heavens. Everyone in Takamagahara made me believe I was a Goddess worthy of my position. Until someone was convinced that I am a beast that belongs with the humans.”

“Do you think I don’t know what humiliation is? The storm God Susanoo came into my domain and almost left me for dead.”

“You chose to be a monster, I never did! I was seen as impure because my father fell in love with an Ookami. What fault do I have?”

He grabs her wrists, gritting his teeth and glaring. “I changed. I changed for you but you…you also chose to be cruel. You hunted humans as revenge.”

She pushes him off. “I know I did. I regret it deeply now, but it still won’t change my hatred for them.”

“That still doesn’t explain what happens here.”

She glares and unties her obi. She opens up her kimono to show her torso. She’s covered in black splotches with bloody linings. Her veins turned black from them and Orochi saw the faintest trace of scars in each mark. Hotaru coughs again, not bothering to cover her mouth from the blood. 

She shakes as she holds her kimono open to him. “They don’t go away. No matter how many times I cut, they stay.”

He jerks his head back. “Hotaru, don’t tell me all these shards, you use them to-”

“Look at me! Look at what has happened to me! Every mirror I look in, all I see is a grotesque deformity. I try to replace the black masses by dragging a glass across my skin to see if my blood will cover them. It doesn’t work. Nothing ever works,” she cries as she sat down on the floor. 

“How did this happen?”

She coughs. “I’m ill.”

“That can’t be because you’re not human.”

“I’m turning human!”

Orochi's eyes widen, unable to process her words. Hotaru cries covering her face while he tries to figure out what to do. The person he’s supposed to share his eternal life with, is turning into a mortal being. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not natural.

He can only stare at her in disbelief with a blank state in mind.

“In my banishment, I’ve been cursed to poison myself with my hatred. My immortality is being cut short by going through every pain a human has felt,” she admits, unable to look at him.

“I’ve seen humans through every sickness, and they don’t always survive,” his voice trembles upon seeing her weakened state a little more closer. Her bright eyes are dim, and the black veins spread faster than the first time he saw them. 

“Even so, I can survive this…I still have some of my strength.”

He cups her cheeks while shaking his head. “My love, we’re outcasts, incomplete deities. Why didn’t you say anything? We could’ve figured out something together.” 

Hotaru looks up at him. “How could I tell you something like this when you took human sacrifices?”

He looks down, understanding her. Before, he couldn’t even stand to look at them for a second. This is different though, this is the woman who he tied his life to. It’s impossible for him to hate her. This is just another obstacle they have to go through, they have to. He wants to be with her, but he still needs to know the whole truth.

“That song you sing, it has to do with this doesn’t it?” he asks quietly.

She nods. “Would you still love me the same as a human?”

Before he could answer the obvious, he stops himself.

“What about you, Hotaru? If I ever turned human…would you still be able to love me?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “but I couldn’t.”