"Did you know that the bamboos here only flower once in a hundred years?"
Keine looked up from her book to see her friend, Fujiwara no Mokou, standing on the other side of the clearing. Her back was turned towards her, looking at the bamboo thicket growing all around the edges of the clearing.
"Oh, didn't hear you arrive." She put her book away and inched further to the edge of the large rock she had been sitting on. "A hundred years exactly? That's quite interesting."
Mokou nodded. "Yeah, it's a hundred years exactly. And it's been ninety-nine years since the last time." She extended her arm and stroked the nearest stalk. "And once it's time, they all blossom all at once. No point in lamenting the rarity of bamboo flowers then."
Keine nodded; she had known that much. She tried to imagine all the stalks surrounding them in bloom. "I'm looking forward to seeing it."
"Me too. I can show you around the forest once they flower if you like."
"That would be kind of you."
"Of course," Mokou bend her neck downwards, "the flowers only last for a while, and once they shrivel up, the entire plant shrivels up. You can imagine what the forest looks like then.
Keine blinked. All of this was to be gone in a year? "The forest will die away? Just like that? Where will the rabbits go?"
"No need to worry about that: this isn't the outside world, remember?" she turned towards Keine, her hand still on the stalk, and smiled wryly. "Once the bamboos die, it's time for the real miracle: Now that's something you really must see. As soon as the last stalk has withered away, a new forest will begin to grow: and before the day is gone, it will be indistinguishable from the old one." She pointed at the rock Keine was sitting on. "Stand on that rock on that day, and you can see the forest growing around you."
"Indeed?" Keine imagined the scene. Now there was another thing she was dying to witness with her own eyes. Mokou looked at her quietly.
"Of course," she said suddenly, letting go of the plant, "bamboos are terribly lazy plants, don't you think?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, take for instance the camellia. Its beautiful red flowers in bloom before winter is even fully out of the way, year after year after year. And the bamboo?" She snorted. "It only cares to bloom once every hundred years, dies almost instantly, the blossoms considered beautiful only because of their rarity. What a lazy plant."
Keine smiled. "Still, it's less lazy than the udumbara."
Mokou smiled back at that. "You're right. Three thousand years? Even I am yet to see one." She shrugged. "Well, we'll see it once the time comes. We can-"
Her smile faltered, as if she had just realised what she had said might not be a real possibility.
Keine quickly spoke to interrupt her line of thought. "I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. Its beauty is legendary, right?"
"I suppose. Still, it'll have to be three thousand times more beautiful than the camellia to beat it out." With that, Mokou put her hands in her pockets and walked away from the clearing, disappearing into the thicket.
Keine sighed and let her go. She'd be back soon enough: it wasn't unusual for Mokou to wander off in the middle of the conversation, only to return after a moment and continue on as if nothing had happened.
Sometimes, at times like this, Keine wondered if she was doing more harm than good by being Mokou's friend. She always kept a certain distance, offering comfort and kind words only when Mokou most desperately needed them: after all, the closer they were, the more it would hurt Mokou when she could no longer be there for her. It was usually fine, but even with all the precautions, whenever the question of her mortality came up, Mokou's face would fall and her mood darken. Moreover, it was getting harder and harder to keep the distance: Mokou had become such an integral part of her life she could hardly imagine it without her. Even so, would it be kinder to keep away entirely, so that her passing would have no meaning to Mokou? Or was it already too late for that?
Before she managed to come to a conclusion, Mokou came back; and to Keine's surprise, walked right over, hands still in pockets, expression unreadable. She sat down on the rock next to her.
"Is something the matter?" Keine asked carefully.
Mokou shrugged. "Dunno. Just feeling a bit blue. She leaned into Keine, and only now could Keine see the huge bags under her friend's eyes.
"Here, let me." She bent her knees to turn her lap into a makeshift pillow and placed Mokou's head on it. Mokou lay down and closed her eyes without protest. "Haven't you been able to get any sleep?" She knew of Mokou's usual sleeping habits: at worst, she'd keep going until she passed out, sleeping away wherever she happened to fall.
"Nah," Mokou muttered. "I was going to sleep today, but Kaguya insisted on having a fight. And then I wanted to see you."
"We could have always rescheduled if you're this tired. It's not like we had to see tonight."
"Mmhm." Mokou was now breathing deeply, already at the brink of sleep. "There was some other stuff too. Stuff I needed to think about." She opened her eyes and stared up at Keine's face. "I shouldn't fall asleep now. You'll catch a cold if you have to stay outside all night."
"Don't worry about that, I'll be fine." Mokou pulled a face, but closed her eyes all the same. Keine took the opportunity to look at her face more closely. Was it just her, or was she even more emaciated than usual?
"You should take better care of yourself," she chided her.
"You know that I don't have to-"
"I do, but even so. You may not need food or sleep to survive, but you'd feel much better if you lived healthily. All humans do."
"You consider me a human?"
"Of course I do."
Mokou's eyes fluttered open. "Is it...important that I'm a human?"
Keine smiled. "No, what's important is that you're you."
Mokou sighed and closed her eyes once more. "I kind of hoped that it mattered the most. Then I could have said that I'm not a human." she chuckled. "It would have made this so much simpler."
"Oh?"
"It would have taken the choice away from me."
Silence followed. Judging by Mokou's heavy breathing, she had finally fallen asleep. Keine smiled softly at her and looked up at the sky. The clouds had cleared, revealing countless stars, and the huge, waxing moon. It was only days until another full moon, another transformation. How many full moons would she still witness? Mokou's presence made her just painfully aware of her own mortality as her presence made Mokou aware of her own immortality.
She looked down at the sleeping Mokou. Her long silvery hair, was in disarray; the countless ribbons tied to it drooping sadly. Carefully, Keine reached out to straighten out the worst of them, all the while thinking about how curious it was only Mokou's hair betrayed her real age. What wonders of the world long gone she had been allowed to witness? She rarely talked about her past, and when she did only in snippets, difficult to place even for Keine. She imagined Mokou, with her red eyes and ankle-length hair, wandering around the nightly streets of ancient Kyoto.
She was brought back to the present day by a small, sinewy hand touching her cheek. With a startle, she looked at her lap to see Mokou awake and staring at her quietly.
"Keine," she said with uncharacteristic softness.
"Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, it's just..." she labourously got back up and sat opposite to Keine, shyly taking her hand.
"I don't really know how to put this," she said, her voice. Her usual aloof attitude was nowhere to be seen.
Keine covered their joined hands with her free one. "I think I know what you're trying to say."
"You do?" And when Mokou looked up this time around, her eyes were filled with uncertainty. Uncertainty and possibly something else.
Keine smiled her encouragingly. "Yes, I do." She adopted a more serious demeanour. "Are you certain? Won't it just cause you more pain in the long run?"
Mokou chuckled mirthlessly. "I've been running away from pain for as long as I can remember. In the end, it always finds me no matter what I do. Might as well stop running."
"I could always hide the history between us before I-"
"No, no." Mokou shook her head violently. "Please, I've thought this through. I don't care about the pain." Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. "You're worth it."