ImmediatelyWriting's One Shots

#43. Mushishi) You Dissolve My Darkness

Something had changed.

Ginko could feel it, the exact second that he entered Adashino's house on a stormy winter afternoon. Something about the place had changed, and it wasn't just a new carpet or some odd vase Adashino had acquired somewhere fishy.

No, it was something much stronger, something that set off all Ginko's senses. Or rather, it tricked his senses into believing there was something; but there was no strange smell, nothing odd to be seen, no sounds other than the shuffling of two pair of feet causing the wooden floors to creak.

And that was exactly what worried Ginko; where he would normally see and hear and smell so many things, there was nothing this time. Not even the tiniest thing floating through the air.

It was ominous, almost. This place usually crawled with mushi.

"Strange," Ginko muttered as he wandered through the house, searching for mushi near the ceiling or the floor. He found none. "Really strange."

"Huh?" Adashino turned around to Ginko. "Did you say something?"

Ginko shook his head and sat down with his back against the wall. He looked up at the ceiling again, staring at where the ceiling and the walls collided; that dark corner always used to have some type of mushi hiding inside of it, from the very first day that Ginko got here. Now, there was nothing.

The sound of someone clearing their throat startled Ginko, and not much later Adashino's hand moved into Ginko's field of vision; he was holding a cup, probably filled with some herbal tea to warm Ginko up after his long travel in the snowy weather. It looked all steamy; delicious.

Adashino handed Ginko the cup of tea and plopped down beside Ginko with a lot of noise.

Usually whenever he did that, and Ginko would look at him, he would see the mushi around him back away, startled by the sound of Adashino's butt hitting the wooden floor. Ginko always found himself agreeing with the mushi; the way Adashino threw himself down to the floor couldn't be nice for his ass. But this time Ginko wasn't worried about Adashino's poor gluteus maximus, instead he wondered where the mushi that usually surrounded him had gone.

"Say," Ginko muttered to draw Adashino's attention. He took a quick sip from his tea before asking, "Have you been feeling strange lately?" Ginko knew Adashino didn't usually feel the presence of the many mushi that floated through his house, but his entire house felt out of balance without Adashino's invisible housemates; he must've sensed something when they disappeared. Wouldn't he?

Adashino frowned and shook his head almost right away. "Why?" He paused, his frown growing even larger. "And since when are you my doctor?"

"I'm not a doctor," Ginko murmured, taking another sip of the steaming hot tea. He swallowed, taking another good look around the room; still not a single mushi to be found. "It's just that something seems off." It just didn't make sense, not at all. Adashino was the biggest hoarder of cursed objects Ginko had ever known, most of which were possessed by harmful mushi. On top of that, Ginko, of all people, was here and he attracted mushi; how on Earth weren't there any in here?

"Off, huh?" Adashino took a sip of his tea as well, still frowning. He was smart enough to know that Ginko didn't mean that Adashino acted strange or looked feverish - that was Adashino's line of work, not Ginko's. So Ginko wasn't surprised when Adashino turned to him and asked, "mushi?"

Ginko nodded. "Mushi—" He took a last gulp of his tea before putting it down on the ground. His face was serious when he looked up at Adashino. "—or rather, the lack of."

Of course, Adashino seemed less worried about this; it wasn't like he ever noticed that there was a massive amount of them crawling through his house like there was some ceremonial festival being held.