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The blue moon settled high in the sky radiated a gleam so bright it left Mizu squinting. There’s a slight frown on her face as she stares at it, observing its surface. To Mizu, there wasn’t anything special about this phenomenon. The moon, despite its color, was still just the moon. That’s all there is to it.
But the village she’s currently passing through seems to think differently.
The streets are crowded with the hustle and bustle of the Blue Moon Festival. There are people stopping from vendor to vendor, checking out the wares as others decide to observe the festivities. The overall atmosphere is joyous. One would think just by viewing the spectacle that everything was gung-ho like this all the time.
Mizu knew better. Life now was anything but peachy, and as far as she knew, it would remain unpleasant.
Head tilted down, Mizu continues forwards. She was used to shouldering her way through a crowd, but this one seemed to be more of a problem than she anticipated. The dense mob just seemed to be getting thicker. Bodies seeming to hold together, shoulder to shoulder, almost as if blocking her path purposely. It was getting to a point where she had to push a little rougher, slotting herself into any little area she could to navigate out of the mass of bodies.
Emerging from the crowd, Mizu finds herself outside of a quaint shack, its structure akin to a large tent. There’s a little sign at the entrance that reads “Portrait Paintings Inside” in scrawl so illegible she’s almost sure it was written in a different language.
Ah, no. Definitely not for me. Mizu knows better than to journey into any place that required one’s body to be put on display. Getting one’s face painted on a canvas, stripping at a brothel, all of that is forbidden in Mizu’s mind. Not only because she’s fated to hide her features, but because she also believes them to be a waste of time.
Mizu turns to leave, ready to face the sea of people once more.
“Excuse me, sir.”
The voice is quiet and light. She’d almost thought she’d imagined it if it weren’t for the slight tug on her sleeve.
“Forgive me, but may I interest you in a portrait?”
Mizu looks back and finds a girl standing in front of the entrance of the tent-like building. She’s a few inches shorter than Mizu, dressed in traditional festival garb. The girl smiles up at her, finger still clasped gently onto Mizu’s tattered garment.
“Sorry, but I’ll have to decline,” Mizu says hurriedly. She tilts the brim of her hat a little lower, shielding her face.
“Oh, but sir, I think you’ll find the result quite stunning!” The girl lets go of Mizu and begins circling her, like a shark circling its prey. She’s eyeing Mizu up and down, examining her build and clothes before stopping right in front of Mizu. The girl steps closer, breaching into Mizu’s personal space, head tilted upwards to get a better look of her features.
Mizu goes wide-eyed for a moment before turning her face, brows furrowing instinctively. How bothersome.
The girl steps back, a grin on her face. “Oh yes, you’d be perfect to paint. You have a certain unique look to you.”
Mizu looks back at the girl. She doesn’t know how to take that, but Mizu knows better by now. Any mention of her appearance was never good, and she didn’t expect whatever this girl has to same about her looks to be good.
The girl most notice Mizu’s expression change for she immediately raises her hands, head shaking briefly.
“Not in a bad way! I just think you have a certain beauty to you that you don’t normally see around here.” She clears her throat. “Think of it as a painter’s expert eye catching something lovely, hmm?”
Mizu can’t help the way her eyes widen slightly. Beauty? Something lovely? In her?
Skeptical but curious, Mizu says, “How much would it cost?”
The girl visibly relaxes, hands lowering. “Tell you what, I’ll paint you for free. On the house!”
Mizu huffs. “Sounds too good to be true.” She eyes the painter down. “What do you really want?”
An odd expression passes on the girl’s face. It’s unreadable but Mizu finds a tint of redness on her cheeks. Embarrassment, perhaps? But why?
The girl is quiet, almost as if she’s thinking something over, before she lets out a quiet sigh. “Listen, I’ll be straight with you. I live alone and I think you’re handsome. Have tea with me after the painting is finished and we’ll call it even.” The girl stares up at Mizu, making direct eye contact. She’s steeling herself, Mizu notices. “Sound okay...?”
Mizu can’t help the brief, startled huff of a laugh that comes out of her mouth. How...funny. The girl must have noticed Mizu fumbling around through the crowd and, for some unexplainable reason, found her attractive enough to come out of her little home to ask for something so bold.
Mizu appreciates her forwardness. So much so that she disregards her own thoughts, rules and feelings about presenting herself bare and agrees to the deal.
A look of shock crosses the girl’s face, as if she’s surprised Mizu accepted her proposal.
“R-really?” the girl stutters. She clears her throat, composes herself, and starts again. “I mean, thank you. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”
“In the painting or the date?” Mizu raises a brow, watching as the girl walks around Mizu and begins heading into the small building.
“Hopefully both.”
Hat off and settled neatly on a small, wooden table nearby, Mizu finds herself sitting on a rickety wooden chair, legs slightly spread and arms resting on her own thighs, hands clasped.
“Alright, I have everything prepared,” says the girl. “You ready?”
Mizu nods, adjusting her sitting position so that her posture was upright but comfortable. She does nothing with her face, deeming a stoic expression easier to maintain than a smile.
The girl’s smile drops for a second, brows scrunching. She’s staring right at Mizu, her eyes studying her face.
“No, that won’t do.” The girl closes her eyes, shakes her head. She reopens them, paintbrush now pointed at Mizu. “The glasses.”
“...What about them?” Mizu raises a brow.
“No good. Take them off.”
Mizu’s stomach drops. In an attempt to calm herself, she barks out a laugh. “Is that really necessary?”
“Yes, it is. The eyes are the window to the soul!” the girl notes passionately. “To paint you at your best, I not only have to see your face, but your eyes." Her expression turns serious. “Trust me on this.”
Mizu doesn’t budge. This didn’t seem like a good idea in the slightest. Mizu’s used to the reaction people have to her eyes. Half-breed this, onryo that; she’s heard it all. And quite frankly, she’s not in the mood for any more biting comments about her appearance right now.
Deep in thought, Mizu doesn’t notice the painter scooting her chair around the easel and up towards her own sitting place. It isn’t until they’re face to face, the girl’s hands gently lifting to reach for her glasses, that Mizu reacts.
Mizu catches both of the girl’s wrists before they brush the band of her specs. Her face is hardened, stern, but the painter simply stares at her. Mizu can’t read her expression.
For a second, Mizu falters. She doesn’t know why, nor does she understand the reason her heart lurches for the briefest of moments, but that’s all that needs to happen for Mizu to carefully remove her hands from the painter’s wrists, allowing the girl the freedom to reach closer to her again.
With an unexpected gentleness, the painter removes her glasses.
Mizu can’t help closing her eyes out of instinct. A beat passes before she reopens them. She locks eyes with the girl’s own, noticing how the other’s eyes widen.
“Your eyes,” the painter starts. “They’re so blue...!”
Mizu frowns, expecting the worse. She opens her mouth to say something but is swiftly cut off.
“How lucky, to have eyes that resemble the blue moon.” The girl smiles sweetly, eyes crinkling. “To have eyes that shine so brightly.”
For the first time in forever, Mizu is stunned into silence. She doesn’t know how to react to such a positive response; never had a single nice thing been said about them. Not until now.
The blue moon...
The painter places Mizu’s glasses neatly on the table, beside her hat. She scoots her chair back behind the easel, picking up her paintbrush once again.
“Now then,” speaks the painter, eyes firmly on Mizu’s own. “Are you ready?”
A quiet thump in Mizu’s chest has her swallowing. “Yes,” she says hoarsely. Mizu clears her throat with a cough. “Yes, I’m ready.”
“Perfect,” whispers the girl. “Now hold that pose...”
Mizu sits for what feels like an eternity. She’s grateful she opted out of smiling, knowing that if she did, her face would be aching. The two are quiet, with the painter girl breaking the silence every once in a while to instruct Mizu on her form. Eventually however, there is no need to continue guiding Mizu and they become left with the faint sound of chatter from the festival outside.
There’s a tidbit of anxiety in Mizu that sits in her stomach as the painter moves her eyes from her to the canvas. She doesn’t know why she feels so anxious. There really wasn’t any reason to feel this way.
Maybe it's the result she’s worried about? Could this whole ordeal be a plot to make fun of Mizu’s appearance? Maybe the girl is painting her out to look like a vicious monster. At this, Mizu can’t help the twitch of irritation that crosses her face.
“You’re frowning,” the painter says, breaking the stillness of the room. “Are you tired? Wanna take a break?”
Mizu catches herself then and shakes her head. “I’m fine. We can keep going.”
The girl studies Mizu for a second, as if she’s trying to read her. She speaks then, softly. “You can rest assured that I’m simply drawing what I see.”
Okay, so the girl was better at reading Mizu than she thought. It was almost scary, to know that this stranger could easily pick apart the little features in Mizu’s expression and know almost exactly what she was thinking.
“And?” Mizu asks, adjusting her face to seem more relaxed. “What do you see?”
The girl says not a word. There’s a soft smile on her face as she rests her paintbrush down on the easel’s painting tray. She observes her work, nodding once before beckoning Mizu over.
The anxiety in Mizu heightens. This was it. The portrait was done, and Mizu was being called over to look; to look at herself, at how this stranger perceives her. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t frightening, and yet...
Steeling herself as if going into battle, Mizu stands from her chair and walks around the easel. She doesn’t immediately look at the painting, opting to glance at the girl, almost as if to make sure it’s okay to look.
There’s not a hint of malice behind the painter’s eyes. In fact, she looks proud of her work.
That’s enough to get Mizu to finally turn her attention over to the painting.
A blindly bright blue moon melts into the background, its rays of light spilling outwards as if reflected in water.
No, that’s not right, Mizu notices. There's no “as if” to that sentence. It simply is. The background is water, reflecting the moon and all its glory.
Mizu's eyes follow the trail of echoed light as it cascades downwards, draping itself over the person in the picture’s shoulders, lapping at the strands of unbound black hair.
Those were Mizu’s shoulders; her black hair.
Mizu allows herself a long second before finally facing the painting head on, taking in the person that centers the foreground.
Burning blue eyes stared back at her, narrow and sharp; but oddly enough, they were nothing like the monster they’ve been said to have mirrored. If anything, they almost looked...kind.
Her eyes looked kind.
Altogether the painting revealed Mizu not as a monster, not as a onryo or half breed or whatever unclever insult anyone in Japan could think to give her. Here, Mizu was a person; one laying in water with the same stoic expression she’s known to don. There is no demon here, just a woman with blue eyes.
“Um, I took some creative liberties with the piece. Obviously you’re not really in water right now, I just thought it’d looked,” the painter pauses, daring to gaze at Mizu. “...cool.”
The awe in Mizu subsides for the briefest of moments, giving her enough time to find her voice. “This is what you see when you look at me?”
The painter girl’s cheeks flush red but she nods, nevertheless. “I think I’ve said this before, but you truly do look lovely, sir.”
If Mizu was anyone else, she thinks tears would form at the corners of her eyes, trickle slowly down her cheeks and paint the floor in a clear blue.
She is not anyone else, however. She is still Mizu, a person hardened by the world around her. She does not cry. Tears are not for her.
But a smile is something different, something she still allows herself to do.
So, she does. At the painting and at the painter.
“Thank you,” Mizu begins, head dipping. She’s surprised at the frailness of her own voice but continues regardless. “You are...incredible.”
Mizu could say more, wants to say more, but words were never her strong suit. Not when a sword could do most of the talking for her.
“Please,” the painter stands, body facing towards Mizu. One of the painter’s hands gestures for Mizu to lift her head. "Don’t thank me. You’re deserving of my respect, of my kindness. Don’t let anyone let you forget that.”
Silence washes over them again, the chattering of the festival deaf on Mizu’s ears. She can only hear the thumping of her own heart, the unnatural beating making her feel itchy and awkward.
The painter is the one to break the tension first. She breaks eyes contact with Mizu, turning her head to face the painting. A blush is very apparent on her face.
“You can take the painting if you want." She moves to grab the canvas. “Like I said, it’s free.”
Mizu moves to stop her, gently taking a hold of the painter’s outstretched hand. She watches as the girl turns to look at Mizu questioningly, but Mizu knows what she wants in this moment.
“Is the offer for tea still on the table?”
Mizu once believed the moon to be nothing special. She saw it as it was: the moon and the moon alone. But there is so much beauty hiding there, Mizu now sees. From the way it lights up the night sky to the calm aura it drapes over the world when it reaches its peak. There was so much beyond what the eye can see.
And the same can be said for Mizu. She is much more than what others deem her to be, whether that be a blue-eyed devil, a half-breed child, or a cursed onryo. She'll always be much more than that. She’s a swordsman, a daughter, a friend. So, so much more.
Like the moon, despite its color, is still just the moon, Mizu, despite it all, is still just Mizu. And there is beauty there too.