Should I Stay or Should I Go?
When Shouta had first become the god of the underworld he’d had a dead mortal design his castle. While alive, the mortal had designed and constructed dozens of beautiful castles and other structures for various nobility, and while the castle did look large and regal, it often missed the necessary touches for Shouta to call it home.
The Underworld rock used to build it was dark and added a heaviness to his surroundings, the halls were large and long but with very few to occupy them and were often stiflingly quiet. Things had changed for the better when Hitoshi had begun living with his father, but as contradictory as it sounds the castle still seemed to lack… light.
On that particular night, however, Shouta was grateful for his unnecessarily large room which left him plenty of room to pace. Surrounded by the sound of his own footsteps he puzzled the pro’s and con’s of his deal with Nemuri, even going as far as to try coming up with fitting excuses as to why he’d changed his mind and could no longer go. Which was ridiculous because he was the King of the Underworld gods damn it! And he shouldn’t have to listen to a younger snarky goddess who thought she knew what was best for him… except he’d also promised Hitoshi.
With an exhausted sigh he sunk into the chair behind his desk and tried not to think about how disappointed Hitoshi would be if he went back on his word now, which was the exact moment Hitoshi chose to enter his room.
Shouta sometimes wondered if mindreading was included in his son's list of extraordinary skills or if his timing was just that good. Afterall, Hitoshu seemed to have a knack for showing up all over the castle at the most convenient times.
“Toshi,” just a look at his son's face was all it took Shouta to realize that his visit was more for his own sake than his fathers, “What’s the matter? Everything okay?”
Hitoshi’s eyes wandered around the room for a couple of seconds before finally focusing back on his father. “I’m not stupid you know.” He was forcing his voice to sound as steady as he could, but the underlying pain and fear could still be heard if you knew what to listen for.
“I know that very well, but I’m confused as to why you’re bringing this up now.” Shouta knew he was walking a thin line between his son's anger and his disappointment, so he tried to not push him one way or the other until he figured out what was going on.
“I knew Nemuri was just using my spell as an excuse to make you go to the mortal realm, the only reason I played along was because I didn’t actually think you’d agree to go. Except you did so, I just wanted to let you know that if you’re only doing this for me you don’t have to, I’m fine with waiting for Nemuri to finish her spell and go get the ingredients herself.”
Shouta mentally face palmed as he watched his son nervously eye the table he sat next to, no longer able to maintain direct eye contact with his father while he waited for his reply. Hitoshi had come a long way from where he was when he’d first come to live in the Underworld but he still had a few hurdles left to climb and one of those was his discomfort in asking for things. The Furies had helped Shouta to discover the problem fairly early on, and as a rule he’d promised himself that whenever Hitoshi got up the courage to ask for something, as long as it didn’t endanger him, he’d always say yes.
That was the main reason he plastered a smile on his face and reached forward to grab his son’s hand, waiting for the boy to look at him again before he spoke. “Hitoshi, Nemuri and I talked and we both think it’s a good idea for me to get some time away from the job, just to clear my head. Grabbing ingredients for your spell is the perfect errand to get me away from my responsibilities and give me something to do in the mortal realm. Plus, it’ll give me a chance to annoy Demeter since i’m fairly certain i’m her least favorite god.”
A shy smile began to reappear on Hitoshi’s face and it made Shouta’s heart lighter as soon as he saw it.
“You’ll only be gone a little while, right?”
“A day at most, it’ll just be a quick pop upstairs and back.”
“Well, just in case, take this with you.” Hitoshi reached into his pocket and pulled out a small charm on the end of a leather cord. “Nemuri was teaching me how to make good luck and protective charms a little while back and I've been practicing so, maybe this charm’ll help keep you safe.”
Shouta carefully took the charm from his son's outstretched hand and turned it over a few times as he inspected it. It was a simple piece of silver, about the size of a coin, with a few symbols carefully carved into its side and he could already tell that it was well made. Protective magic and positive energy radiating off the charm as he tilted his head up to give his son an amused smile.
“Hitoshi, I am the king of the Underworld. One of the first gods to ever come into being, one of the three most powerful gods to walk the earth, humans cower at the very mention of my name.” He paused for a handful of seconds before slipping the leather cord over his head so that the charm rested warm and comfortably against his chest.
“I will wear this charm because it’s extremely well made and I'd be a fool to turn down a gift from you, but you have nothing to worry about. Everything is going to be just fine.”
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Everything was not fine. Hizashi had been locked in his room alone for what felt like an eternity, but was really only a few hours, and he was starting to feel like he was going insane.
He’d tried reading but had given up on that idea when he realized he’d read the same page five times already without comprehending a single word that was written on it. He tried playing cards but grew bored of that once he finished beating himself in a game of War and solved his twelfth game of solitaire.
He thought that maybe going to sleep early would help the time pass faster but the sun seemed to be losing in a race against a snail. Hizashi briefly wondered why Apollo suddenly seemed to hate him as he laid on his bed staring at the ceiling of his room.
Dinner that night was bland and boring and contained none of his favorite foods, however a handful of flowers rested on the corner of the tray as a peace offering from the guards.
The guards learned long ago that Hizashi was what they referred to as an ‘active child’ which basically meant that if they didn’t find some way to occupy him, he’d find ways to occupy himself which never seemed to turn out well for them. But several years ago he’d picked up the past time of drying and preserving flowers after reading about it in a book. Since then his collection of dried flowers had steadily grown and since the guards saw no danger in the new hobby they were happy to help him collect new buds from all over the garden.
With a quiet smile on his face he made room for the new flowers in the dresser he’d dedicated purely to his hobby before hanging each of them upside down to dry. His new bundle contained a couple of roses, some daphne, a ghost orchid, and a bit of alstroemeria they must’ve grabbed from the gardens further from the house.
Hizashi very carefully pulled one of the upside down bulbs towards himself and felt the softness of it’s petals before looking out his window in the direction of the alstroemeria grove. He’d been out there, once, during one of his first few escapes from the house, it was where he’d met Kamui for the first time.
He doubted any of the guards knew why the flower was so special to him, except for maybe the captain of his guard, they probably figured he liked it just cause it was pretty. For people who spent all of their time protecting and walking through a garden, they paid surprisingly little attention to the flowers around them. Never bothering to learn the secret meanings and languages of the flowers and instead focusing on their color and fragrance.
Kamui used to play a game with him where they’d leave each other secret messages using picked flowers but they’d had to stop when Demeter had declared the nymph a ‘bad influence’ and made it difficult for him to approach the main house alone.
Hizashi missed the games they’d played in the rare gardens, or running through the halls wreaking havoc for the servants, but Kamui was a nymph and no matter how much Hizashi wanted his friend to stay he always had to return to his tree eventually.
Sometimes he wondered if that was why they were such good friends, Kamui was tied to his tree and Hizashi was tied to this house, neither able to travel very far away before the invisible cord dragged them all the way back to where they’d started.
It was a dizzying yo-yo feeling, but each time he went out Hizashi felt like he was stretching the cord just a bit further before he was pulled back, and as he looked out his window for the millionth time that day, he saw a way he might be able to stretch it all the way to the gardens wall.
Demeter disliked trimming plants of any kind, believing that they had the right just like any other creature to grow in whatever way helped them to best survive. It also helped that a very young Hizashi had cried at the sight of a bush being trimmed, so unless a plant or vine was strangling or harming the plant next to it, it was left alone.
The side effect of this was that the vines growing up the sun washed bricks of the main house were tall, wild, and strong. They were so tall that they almost reached Hizashi’s window on the third floor, and as he watched their leaves sway a bit in the late evening breeze he realized that a small push of his godly powers would bring them up to the right height within a few days.
An escape plan began to form in his mind and even though he hated the thought of having to wait so long to be free again he smiled at the sun as it slowly began to sink below the distant tree line. This Time he would make it further than he ever had before. This Time he would see the garden wall, and oh what an adventure it would be.