Vows

He laid upon the ground, listening to the summer cicadas interrupted by heavy footfalls. Half a heart was beating, half a lung was breathing, but all the food had spilt out of his stomach. Hunger. No sleep. Just the sound of walking without feet. Riders on horses. They’re running after someone.

“I’m not really a horse,” said the man with the horse head, slurping on some soup. He was tall and lean, with his horse head the colour of chestnut and his human body reminiscent of the inner heart of a tree having been lightly kissed by the sun. He was dressed in the traditional black haori, but rather than a kimono he was wearing a sturdy silk shirt that was slightly unbuttoned.

He leaned forward, shirt revealing his sinewy chest.

“Eyes up here. I’m a married man.”

“Ah, sorry. My apologies, I was just curious about your outfit.”

He looked down. “Oh this is just the formal wear from where I’m from.” His horse lips pulled back in a grin.“I am Daniel, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

“Call me Nura,” said Hitode. Somewhere in the crowd, he could feel eyes burning into him. Sorry, mouthed Hitode.

“Well like I was saying, I’m not really a horse. I’m a tikbalang— a trickster spirit from the Philippines. I was just visiting my cousins.”

“Cousins?”

“Kitsune, although they’re kind of busy right now..”

“Ah, you see, that's who I was expecting.” asked Hitode,“…how are horses and foxes related?”

“It’s a weird spiritual migration thing. I don’t really get it. Something with Spain and those few years during the war…we both like rain though. Oh and the food!”

A large whole roast pig was plopped down on the table in front of them,along with a large bowl of stir fried noodles.

“Although I had to bring some stuff from home. Cultural exchange.”

Hitode couldn’t complain about that. He shrugged and piled his plate high.

“Thanks for the food!”

Hitode took a bite and nearly cried. The pork skin had such a satisfying crunch, with the soft flesh so delicately salted, he could really appreciate the taste of the meat.

“Try it with the sauce.” said Daniel, pouring out a dollop of brown from a bottle.

Hitode almost screamed. It was such a massive burst of umami, like a shotgun to the tongue.

“I’m so glad I decided to visit.” Daniel agreed, with a loud neighing laugh.

“Just visiting?” asked Hitode, still stuffing his face, now with noodles. “I’m surprised you found a bride the moment you got here.”

The horse’s eyes suddenly sparkled.

“No,” he said giddily, “She found me.”

“I was sitting on a tree alone last week, when I chanced upon this girl looking up at me. She wasn’t looking through me, nor around me. She was looking right at me! It was the way our eyes met, and caught—they haven’t left since.”

“It was the first time anyone’s asked me so many questions, like ‘do I chase people?’’What’s a good escape route?’ ‘What’s my bank information?’ ‘Where’s the bathroom?’. She’s just so—” as Hitode listened to Daniel, the horse groomsman, gush about his wife, while it sounded very sweet as far as yokai romance goes, he felt something was just a little strange.

“She had asked me so many questions, the only one I figured I could ask back was, ‘Would you marry me?’

Hitode nodded, “And this person—she’s a fox?”

Daniel neighed aggressively, “Oh, hell no! Ew, they’re my cousins.”

“That wouldn’t be ideal,” agreed Hitode.

“She’s actually a- Oh, there she is. Hi, wife!”

He looks over and she’s a young human child with red splotchy eyes from crying. As their eyes met, an understanding came between them.

“I see,” Hitode.

Daniel grabbed a small bottle of sake, “I know, right? She’s gorgeous. We should toast to her beauty.”
He poured it into Hitode’s cup. Hitode sighed and looked down at the liquid longingly.

“It’s really a damn shame. I thought. I thought you were cool.”

There was a streak of light and the shattering of glass—a small trickle of blood began to drip onto the table.

Hitode was standing over Daniel, arm impaled by spikes growing out of Daniel’s hand. However, Daniel was the one who looked nervous. There was a rabid look in Hitode’s eye as he tried to cut the yokai with his mirror—Still his arm was struggling to reach the yokai through the spikes.

“This is making my head hurt.“

Daniel kicked him back, sending him flying into another table.

“What is your problem?” yelled Daniel.

“Something solved with you disappearing.”

The yokai crowd was well versed enough. The room dispersed, taking the food and tables with them.

“You guys gonna help me?” asked Daniel.

“No way! This is a fight for your honor.” The parade cackled like thunder in a storm. “Now we have dinner and a show.”

Daniel cursed. “Fine, I’ll just–”

Instinctively, he extended the hair on his arm, just barely stopping the mirror just inches from his face.

“I won’t even give you time to blink.” Daniel couldn’t understand how Hitode was moving so quickly, even with the wounds on his arms. He could see he had punctured holes deep into his body.

“Eyes up here.” smirked Hitode. “I thought you were a married man.
He squeezed his arm, squirting blood straight into the tikbalang’s eyes. In that brief gap, he pulled his arm away from the spikes, and in a single swift motion struck the horse man right in the face with the mirror, knocking him down onto the ground.

“Fighting you yokai is always such a pain. Unless I have a divine weapon or I’m a yokai too, I can’t just beat you up. It’s always like a puzzle I’ve got to solve to put a fist straight through your face—all the while you have your spells and strength. But well—thanks to a little human ingenuity-” he showed off the mirror to the horse. “-I got a cheat sheet.”

He slammed his foot into Daniel’s chest, sending the horse man flying backwards—a lot farther than Hitode expected. He never hit the ground, instead, crumbled apart into black leaves.

A soft voice in his ear, “You got the answers to the wrong test.”

Hitode leapt forward and slammed into something hard. Shaking his head, suddenly the space was dark, and humid, with nothing but the long shadows of trees surrounding. He raised his mirror only to have it shatter in his hand.

Daniel emerged from overhead, hanging upside down from the black canopy, shadows clinging to his face. The trees all took on his smile.

‘I’m a different animal than you’re used to,” the trees spoke in chorus, “ I’m not as fragile as the mirrors you use to stop my cousins. Now, it’s time for me to earn my honor back.”

He plunged his hands deep into the dark around him, a hundred hands growing from trees, clasped in prayer. Hitode braced himself for the impact.

But it didn’t come from the outside. He felt it under his skin, right by his ankles, fingers slipping under the muscle and right onto his tendons. It took only one quick flick of the wrist.

Snap, both his ankles were broken. Hitode stumbled forward.

“It wouldn’t be honorable if I won like this.”

In a flutter of leaves, he reappeared before him, leg cocked back.

“I’ll end you like this—beast to man.” His leg was just a blur as it slammed into Hitode’s stomach with a loud snap, launching him spinning into the air. He skidded on the ground, rolling out of his coat.

Daniel turned, satisfied. Although, he was confused why the floor was now the ceiling.

Then he realized he too was on the floor.

“Huh?” he tried to get up, but felt extremely dazed, like his thoughts were going a million miles an hour. Then he noticed the little white grains all around him.

“Salt”
Hitode coughed up blood, “I always keep some in my pocket” He dusted his hands and threw some over his shoulder.

“How are you still alive?” Daniel tried to step forward, and fell over again.

“That’s the thing with you guys—so obsessive.” Hitode tried to stand up too, barely having strength in his arms. “You have to count it all before you pass.”

“Looks like it’s a game of who gets up firs–”

“3667.”

“What?”

“3367.”

“There’s no way you counted it that quickly.”

To prove his point, Daniel stood up, albeit, unsteadily. “I’ll give you a chance to die on your feet.”

“Ugh, fine. But you really better kill me this time.”

Hitode was unsure how he managed to get onto his feet with his tendons cut, nor was he sure how he was still awake with so little blood left. What he was sure of however, was that if he was going to lose, he had to look good at least.

He did his best to put on his jacket, and to place his body in a warrior’s pose.

“Good man.”

The tikbalang had a running start. Hitode didn’t even bother checking his pockets. He was sure that he had nothing, so he would keep his pride instead.

Daniel leapt forward, leg like a spear, to the man who welcomed death.

The yokai parade went wild.

“That would have been cool if you hadn’t put on your coat backwards.”

“-Backwards?” said Daniel, but he was already too late to stop. Inertia carried him forward, force dispersing around the coat then recoiling back into Daniel’s leg. The bones shattered in his leg, turning whatever was under the skin into jelly.

Hitode limped forward while Daniel clutched his leg in agony.

“Did you say reversed clothing

The horse covered his eyes and nodded his head in shame.

“What don’t you like about it?”

“It’s yucky! All your inside stink is now your outside stink. That sucks for horses.”

Hitode shrugged. He had pride but he also knew enough to accept a win when it came.

“Well, I’m not nice enough to let you get up.” he said, raising his fists.

A loud crack like wood striking bone.

Hitomi wasn’t a child. Small? Yes. Cute? She would stab you if you ever denied it. But it had been many years since she was a child—a fact she quite rather resented. It wasn’t fun worrying about taxes and rent and groceries, especially when you knew yokai were real. How can one live a normal life when she knows that there’s an entire world of magic? She should have been a princess, whisked away by a spirit to be rescued by her hero.

But yokai are so naturally shy. As it turned out, if you had the gift to see them, they don’t really want to be seen, running away the moment you get close.

Then one fateful day, when her boss handed her a letter. It was simple and short.

“Go to the park.”

She presumed it was a confession, something along the lines of those romantic gestures beneath the leaves. Hitomi arrived, dressed as nicely as she could so she could reject him.

But then,she saw him: The horse man.

He wasn’t handsome like she knew it, but that body told her no lies. He approached her as an open book, arms wide open to receive and let her read his pages. When he asked for her hand in marriage, it was her fairy tale come true. She didn’t know any handsome guys who’d want to come save her, but being this monster’s bride sounded like the next best thing. It helped a lot that he was rich.

A dream wedding, full of magic, where her dress was made of the white fiber of a cloud and all the guests were gods and monsters who all looked at her.

It would have been perfect if it weren’t for her aggressive allergies. Apparently she was allergic to cloud fibers. During the entire ceremony, she was puffy eyed and snot nosed.

But she was not going to let this ruin her wedding. During the reception, she went to the bathroom, wiping her nose and splotchy eyes with a new resolve. With a dress that moved like shimmering flames, she walked back out.

There was another human now with her husband: a dirty middle-aged man whom she had never met in their entire life. When their eyes met, her stomach turned: He wanted to be the hero. She did her best to signal him to back off from her man.

The balding man nodded and immediately attacked her new husband.

And so now, Hitomi had taken matters into her own hands—a chair to be specific, swung right at his balding skull.

Hitomi quickly removed the heavy coat from Hitode’s body.

“Thank you, my love.” said Daniel, stumbling to his feet. With one hand, he lifted Hitode who was still dazed from the heavy blow to his head. With his other hand he extended one of his hairs as a blade.

“I respect how tough you are, but every human life has a breaking point–” he stabbed him in the heart. Hitode gasped out in pain. “I just broke yours.”

He dropped him, letting him go limp on the ground.

When the blood rushes out of the body, it goes cold. At the moment of death, in response to this chill, the spirit burns with the light it had known in life, so that it might escape the body. This is what every human saw before they died.

Hitode had never known such mercy.

There was a deafening crack of bone.

“I told you to make sure to kill me.” snarled Hitode. His headache was now gone.