The Bird of Dawning
A Christmas party. What do we need a Christmas party for,
for god's sake? Christmas is for going out on a date, if that's what you're
into, but if you want a *party*, then you have a bounenkai. Them I can live
with, because bounenkai happen at the end of term when the papers and exams are
over, so even if they're boring- 'cause getting drunk with a bunch of other
people isn't *my* idea of a good time- at least they don't interfere with
deadlines. But Christmas is when the papers and exams are still happening, or my
papers and exams are still happening, whatever the thesis writers may be up to.
So who gets to lug the beer and decorate the lounge and set out the food for
the Ethnology Department's Christmas party? Not the thesis writers, my
oh-so-reverend senpai. First year Iijima Ritsu is who, lowest of the low and
least of the kouhai. (I looked up kouhai in the J-E when I was trying to
explain it to Ashuri-san. It said 'underclassman'. How true. We're a brutally
overworked underclass. Marx was right: "kouhai of the world, unite! You
have nothing to lose but your chains.")
Ashuri-san of course is the reason we're having a
Christmas party in the first place. It was her idea originally, because that's
what they do in America, and the senpai-tachi jumped at it because Ashuri-san
is Ashuri-san, all glamorous blue eyes and red hair. No, not entirely true.
They jumped at it because none of them has a girlfriend to go out with on
Christmas, so better to get drunk together with our exchange student. My cousin
Akira at least tried to get it scheduled on the 23rd, which is a holiday
already, but Ashuri-san said no, it wasn't right to celebrate Christ's birthday
on the Emperor's birthday. It had to be the 25th or at least the 24th, she said,
for some reason having to do with the difference between kami and kami-sama
that no one quite followed. So there we were, Christmas Eve, having a Christmas
party in our department's lounge. Beer bottles scattered everywhere, bowls of
chip and dip drying up, and the usual conveni dried snacks- shrimp crackers,
dried squid, wasabi peas- looking no more appetizing than they usually do. Some
home-made stuff from the girls, croquette and sushi, which was the only edible thing
around.
Good that it wasn't a sit-down affair, maybe, because
there was one guest too many. Other people kept complaining about someone
drinking their beer or making off with their futomaki. At first I thought the
birds had snuck in as they tend to do, but then I saw him in the middle of a
group, laughing like everyone else and cheerfully into the swing of things.
"Hey," I said to Watanabe senpai, "who's that over there
next to Ashuri-san?"
"Hunh?" he said. "Which one?"
"The guy with the red highlights in his hair."
"Him?" He looked astonished. "That's- you
know- whatsisname."
"What *is* his name?"
"Uhn- you know- Damn, it's on the tip of my tongue.
He hangs around the department. You *must* know him."
"I'm just trying to get a name for him."
"Yeah, well- go ask him what it is, why don't
you?" and he turned away.
"I'll do that," I said, though Watanabe wasn't
listening.
"Oi," I said over his shoulder. "Long time
no see."
"Iijima! Iijima Ritsu! Where ya been!" He
punched my arm. It hurt. He needs to go back in the pot, or *a* pot, whatever.
He's been hanging around humans way too much and picking up all sorts of
undesirable habits-- to add to the undesirable habits he possesses by nature,
of course.
"I've been right here," I said meaningly, "where
I belong. Unlike some people I could name."
"Huh?" He made a big show of looking around.
"We got gate-crashers?"
"Yeah, we do. Maybe you should get rid of them,
senpai?"
"Sure. Point 'em out to me and I'll sort them."
Oh fine. Impasse. Ashuri-san was giving me go away
looks. I couldn't think what to do. This guy's notion of fun can be no worse
than a bad scare. It can also maim people or even kill them. The best I could
hope for was he'd try something that'd kill *me*, because then Aoarashi would
have to come and save me. Short of that there was no hoping for any help from
my supposed guardian demon.
Since I was in for the long haul here I looked around me
for a beer, but there weren't any left on the table and I didn't want to have
to go out to the kitchen. And of course at that moment Morishita-senpai yelled
at me, "Hirose's cousin!"- 'cause half the guys don't even remember
my name- "Get us another six-pack from the fridge!"
"And some more dried squid!" Iwano demanded.
"And some ice," Morishita added.
"Aye aye sir," I said. They could take it as a
joke or not. But on the way I made a detour to grab Akira, who was off in a
corner with her guy Saburou.
"Look, you two. That guy over there sitting by
Ashuri-san, see him? Go over and keep an eye on him in case he tries
something."
"Tries--?" She looked at him and frowned.
"Who *is* that? It can't be Ashuri-san's boyfriend?"
"I wish. He's an old friend of Grandfather's."
"Oh my god."
"Yeah."
"What do you want us to do?" Saburou asked.
"Whatever you can. Trip him up. Spill beer on his
head. Anything." I don't imagine either can do much against a youkai like
that, but Akira's psychic like me and Saburou-- well, he's halfway to being a
youkai himself. I figured they'd manage something, push coming to shove.
I went off to the kitchen, across the hallway and on the
other side from the common rooms. Beer, snacks, ice- no tub for the ice. I
bugged two of the girl who were there cutting up sandwiches and they found me a
bowl, and I stumbled back to the common room with my arms full.
Someone had started to play the piano while I was down the
hall and now almost everyone was singing- the school song for starts, and then
popular stuff. Akira and Saburou were hovering about Ashuri-san's group: Akira
was singing and Saburou, of course, wasn't. My heart sank. I'd made a huge
mistake. Redhead had noticed Akira- psychic power draws youkai- and his eyes
were gleaming with excitement. Ashuri-san was sitting beside him, tapping her
hands in time to the music but not singing either. His eyes were on Akira, but
he raised his hand behind Ashuri-san's head. I made a move to try and stop him-
instinctive, unthinking, and useless from where I was- and of course banged
into a corner of the table. The dried squid, the bowl of ice, a couple of beer
cans, all flew out of my arms and crashed to the floor. The music and singing
came to a sudden discordant stop.
"Iijima!!" Morishita howled at me; and a couple
of other people too, by the sound of it.
"Sorry, sorry-" I was trying to pick things up
and mop up and still see what had happened. Akira came to help, and Saburou.
"Hirose, keep your butter-fingered cousin under
control."
"Yes, yes, sorry, senpai." She cleared away the
ice and the singing started again as I was shovelling dried squid back into the
bag. No screams or shrieks, in any case. Whatever he'd done, it wasn't
something immediately noticeable. I straightened up and glanced, apprehensive,
over at Ashuri-san's group. The guy- the guy was looking what I can only call
put out.
"What did you do?" I whispered to Saburou.
"I didn't do anything."
"Huh? What did *he* do, then?"
"He didn't do anything either."
I looked at his open, pleasant and not exactly intelligent
face. "Well, what was he *going* to do?"
"I don't know. He didn't do it."
"You sure?"
"Well, pretty sure."
Maddening. He'd pulled something, or tried to pull
something, and I didn't know what; but at least it hadn't totally come off.
That only meant he'd try something worse later on.
He got up and said something I couldn't hear to
Ashuri-san. She nodded and went with him out of the room. I followed right
behind, of course. Out into the darkened corridor with the kitchen lights
shining a few metres down its length. He turned to look at her, grinning
broadly. I could see that much from the light that came from the common room
door behind me. Something went wrong with his grin and his head seemed to jerk
a little side to side, like someone with a tic.
"What is it you wanted to show me, Akama-san?"
Ashuri-san said.
"I- I thought-" That little flick again. A snort
of impatience and temper. "I must have been mistaken; I thought there was
someone here," he said, smoothly enough.
There was an awkward little pause.
"Well, let's go back to the party," Ashuri-san
suggested and turned back in my direction. He came after her, giving me a look
of seething suspicion and fury as he passed. And I still didn't know what was
going on.
They'd run through all the current hits back in the common
room. As Ashuri-san came in Watanabe-senpai bellowed, "Hey, Ashuri-san!
Sing us something in English!" Everyone else picked that up and began
yelling, "Yeah! Yeah! Sing us an English song, Ashuri-san! Sing us your
Christmas songs!" For some reason that made her blush bright red.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't sing."
"Can't sing?" Iwano echoed, and a couple of the
girls.
"We don't go in much for singing where I come
from," she said, still blushing. I couldn't figure that one out; I mean,
everyone sings, even if not well. Akira caught my eye and mouthed 'Tone-deaf?'
at me. I shrugged. I suppose.
"But if you like I'll recite you a Christmas poem in
English. It's from a play by Shakespeare called Hamlet."
"Hey, I know Hamlet," Ota said. "There's a
Christmas poem in it?"
We all know Hamlet, actually. There's a set piece in third
year high school English from the play, the 'To be or not to be' bit. But I
didn't know there was anything about Christmas there either. I thought it was
all about a bunch of people getting killed.
"Yes," Ashuri-san was saying, "very early
on there's this bit," and she started saying it:
"Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time."
I think everyone looked as blank as I did when she was
finished because she said, "I'll try to translate it for you. 'The story
is that when it gets to be Christmas time, the umm chicken that usually cries
at dawn cries all through the night.'"
"Rooster?" Akira hazarded.
"Is that what it's called? A male chicken? Thanks.
'The rooster cries all night long. And then they say no ghosts can appear. The
nights are umm healthy, and unlucky stars have no influence, and umm- I don't
know what the Japanese word is for fairy. Do you know what a fairy is?"
"Youkai," I supplied.
"Oh, thanks. 'The youkai don't take and witches have
no power-'"
"Wait," Iwano said. "What don't the youkai
take?"
"Mmh, people's souls, I think. Whatever it is they
usually do take. They can't at Christmas, 'because the season is so holy and so
beautiful.'" Everyone clapped when she was finished.
I went over to her after people had gone back to singing
karaoke classics around the piano. "I've heard something like what you
said," I remarked. "I think there may be some truth to it," and
I gave red-hair my best smile. He was seething, but I could see he was still
puzzled.
"Oh yes," she said to me, beaming. "It's a
very holy time of year, all the world over. Would you two like to come to
church with me tomorrow?"
"Ahh, sorry. I have a paper due. In fact I should
probably get back to doing it," now that it was clearly safe to leave.
"I'll walk you to the door," red-hair said to
me; and did. Akira gave me a worried look. I smiled and waved to her and
Saburou.
Out in the corridor he turned on me. "What did you do?!"
"Not a thing, senpai. You know, if you're
going to hang around our department you should at least come to some of our
lectures. The ones on the psychology of religion, for instance. Nothing like a
solid belief system to dictate your reality for you."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Just that human reality is what humans believe it to
be. It changes in accordance with the way we think. Like my cousin Tsukasa,
say." His face froze. "A bit of youkai crosses her path, all she sees
is a cockroach- and whacks it with a rolled-up newspaper."
"Listen, you--"
"And Ashuri-san's the same. Only worse, 'cause hers
is a gaijin belief system. No figuring that one, let alone fighting it. I mean,
you're welcome to go on trying, but you don't seem to be having much
luck."
He sheeshed between his teeth. "You humans. You're no
fun at all."
"That's us," I said. "Sorry."
mjj
Dec 07