It was a warm midsummer night. Scents of roses and jasmine in bloom warred in the small vibrant flower garden. Crickets sang in the night, and the sound of water flowing in the brook at the edge of the property added to the music. Standing on the tallest tree, Tani Ryuzo watched a two-story house built in the middle of the property, a complicated mood settling on him.
He supposed the house represented the perfect American dream: a husband, wife, two children, and a white picket fence in the front yard. The woman worked at the local hospital as a nurse. A school bus picked up the two children every morning and took them to school. She hosted sleepover parties for the children on the street often. It was the perfect life in the small suburban city of Kirtland, Ohio.
Tani scoffed and wondered what he should do now.
A breeze ruffled the leaves around him, Tani reached up to touch the branch caressing his cheek to offer him comfort. His feelings for the occupants of the house left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. The bitter taste was tied to nine devastating choices in nine centuries. There was no hope left. The branch slid away and he sighed.
Tani wondered why he would feel disappointed at this point.
His beloved had truly gone ahead of himself. In their very last chance, the man had gone ahead and decided to make a family before they even met.
Tani should not feel disappointed or betrayed.
After all, in the last nine reincarnations, this tenacious soul always chose the perfect family over him.
Still…
Tani had hoped this last one would choose him. He gave an internal scoff. Foolish thinking. It was impossible now. The family was made. Commitments and promises forged. Tani could no longer interfere for the sake of the little ones. He was no family breaker.
“Quite a beautiful home, isn’t it?” a soft voice commented behind him. “One might believe this two-story house represents a happy home.”
“You come to take pleasure in watching the end of my calamity,” Tani said, pushing his long dark coat back. He sunk his hands into his dark trouser pockets and kept his gaze on the two-story house.
“Don’t sound so unhappy. I find the ends quite depressing. I know you don’t believe me when I say it. Tani, don’t you think it is a tragedy to see such a perfect family come to an end?”
“I wonder if you understand what tragedy means, Cale. In your perspective, tragedy is a word you say, but do not know what it truly means. They are a happy family. No end is coming to them. I have made my decision. I will not meet him this cycle.”
Cale solidified next to Tani, wrapping an arm around Tani’s tense shoulders.
Tani stayed still, refusing to show any reaction to Cale’s presence. Fear fed Cale. Made him stronger, and more callous. Cale sniffed Tani’s neck, touching his left ear with a finger, his fingers then sweeping into Tani’s red-brown hair. The long fingers tugged on curly strands, and Tani closed his eyes, working to control his irritation.
Cale leaned into him and whispered into his left ear.
“Sweet Tani, I’m so grateful for you. Your pain has fed me for centuries. The last cycle you had with the mortal left you lost in a sea of pain for a hundred years. I wonder how long this cycle will take. Or…wait—”
Cale broke off and shifted away, dropping his arm from Tani’s shoulders. He made a show of counting on his fingers and then widened his dark, dark eyes. Tani dragged his gaze away from the quiet house to look at Cale. He shuddered when Cale smiled, the sinister curve of Cale’s lips sent shivers down Tani’s spine.
Cale was painfully handsome. His face was designed to seduce and fool unsuspecting souls into believing he was a benevolent god. The god of calamities adapted to time better than his peers. He was always dressed in neat tailor-made suits and shirts. Tonight, he was in a grey suit and a white shirt open at the collar. He looked like a gentleman but was a man who controlled and thrived in the chaos of darkness, pain, tragedy, and what all souls called calamities.
Cale was the most sinister of gods from the hidden world known only as the Ekho.
“You look at me with such accusing eyes, little fox,” Cale said, with a shrug. “You’re still young, Tani Ryuzo. compared to my millenniums in these realms, your three thousand and one hundred years are a drop in the ocean. You know so little.”
“Thanks to the thousand years of calamity you bestowed upon me I have aged to ancient status, Cale,” Tani said, looking away from unsettling black eyes.
His heart always felt frozen when he looked into Cale’s dark eyes.
Although, there were times he needed Cale’s dark eyes to numb his heart.
“You know nothing about me.”
“On the contrary,” Cale said, his tone filled with amusement. “I know pain molds a soul. Your pain has molded your soul, and his, and the journey you have both walked has kept me quite entertained. Your pain has changed you, as it has him. You are living your last century of calamity, Tani Ryuzo. If he makes the same choice he made the last nine, your place in this mortal realm shall cease to exist. Your fate will be tied to the Ekho Realm and you shall never return to the human realm.”
“It makes you happy to repeat the sentence my father’s peers gave me for loving a mortal,” Tani noted.
“It does,” Cale said with a smile. “The eternal sadness you feel will allow me to remain in our Ekho Realm with no need to reap calamities in this realm. I hope you fail the mission the Septum gave you.”
Tani took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. There was no need to get angry with Cale. It only made Cale happy.
Tani could not cry either. The tears were long gone. There was nothing left inside him.
It was true that Cale was not the only one waiting to watch him fail.
Tani was a visitor in the human realm, just like Cale.
Tani was a deviant Ekho, born of a fox clan mother and an immortal clan father. He was considered deviant because he dared to fall in love with a mortal a thousand years ago. In the eleventh century, he fell in love with a handsome mortal soul, and with careless delight, bound his soul to the mortal to the mortification of his entire race.
Mortal lives remained fleeting. An Ekho’s life was too long. The Ekho Realm forbade bound love between an Ekho and a mortal. Tani broke the taboo when he bound his soul to the mortal man he loved.
In a bid to return him to the Ekho Realm, Tani’s father, and the council named the Septum—which governed Ekho—dragged him home for a trial. The Septum did their best to get him to unbind his soul from the mortal man.
Loyal to his beloved, Tani refused to yield his love, and instead begged the Septum for a fair judgment. His lineage saved him. The Septum ruled that he, Tani Ryuzo, would live under a one-thousand-year calamity monitored in person by Cale, the god of calamities.
Tani would stay in the mortal realm, and live life among the mortals. His beloved would live a life of reincarnation through the one thousand years. His soul returned through the centuries in different families.
The only way to escape the calamity was if Tani’s beloved mortal chose to bind his soul to Tani. His beloved’s choice would prove Tani’s love true, and lift the weight of his one-thousand-year calamity, restoring Tani’s freedom.
At the start of his thousand-year calamity trial, Tani boasted with confidence to his father’s Septum that he would win his mortal’s love within the first century. He begged for a second reward. The right to be allowed to love the mortal bound to him unstopped by his people, or any other soul, including Cale, for the rest of his life.
The Septum agreed but added to his punishment should he fail. If Tani failed to gain the mortal’s unconditional love, he was to give up the right to visit the human realm forever.
At the start, Tani was sure he could convince the mortal man bound to his soul to choose him, to love him, to make a life with him. He never once remembered to account for his beloved’s free will.
Nine hundred years later, each century past, a different yet similar reincarnation of his beloved stumbled onto Tani’s path. Each time, each one made a choice to love, but never with Tani. Never.
Tani watched his beloved choose to bind himself to another mortal soul, another woman, or man in some centuries.
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