Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction ❯ Contemplations on Condescension ❯ The Return of the Green-hat Boy ( Chapter 1 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Kacfrog711 
Kafei waxes poetic over love, hate, and the fateful night on which his obsession began.
Non Anime: Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Psychological / Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 08.07.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.7K | Visits: 426 | Status: Completed
Kafei waxes poetic over love, hate, and the fateful night on which his obsession began.
Non Anime: Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Psychological / Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 08.07.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.7K | Visits: 426 | Status: Completed
Title: Contemplations on Condescension
Author: Kacfrog711
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I obviously don’t own the rights to anything Zelda, because this isn’t even CLOSE to being canon.
A/N: I’m writing this for fun (because I couldn’t find any decent Kafei/Link...And if you can’t find something, that means you just have to do it yourself.) and, truthfully, I have no idea where it’s going. The rating will probably go up as the story progresses.
Chapter 1: The Return of the Green-hat Boy
I was late to my own wedding. It’s an incredibly shameful thing to be, as anyone would tell you, but no one seemed to mind too terribly at the time. I suppose they were simply glad to see me there at all. It wouldn’t have been the first time I had run away. When I was first cursed, I was ashamed at my child’s form, my weakness at being transformed, and subsequently, the loss of my mask. All threads of dignity I had clutched together were torn from my grasp with one short tug. I believed I was at my lowest then, and I simply couldn’t show that side of myself to Anju. ...I suppose I should have realized then that this was a sign of something more troublesome to come, some unresolved issue between us. My fear of rejection was unfounded. I should have gone to Anju directly. I loved her. She loved me. She would understand and console me. I had no reason to hide myself from her, to run from her. ...But the very thought of being seen by Anju as a weak child when I had sworn not the day before that I would marry, provide for, and protect her always... it made me sick inside. So I ran and hid, without a word to anyone, save my old, outcast friend, whose shop I would skulk in for the following week. Naturally, they all assumed I had abandoned Anju because I was afraid of getting married. They assumed I had run from her and my vows. It was, after all, a logical assumption, given the unfortunate timing of the thing. Thus, weeks later when I was not promptly at my own wedding ceremony, I’m sure there was more than one person whispering that I had “run off again,” as they knew all along I had done the first time. Likewise, when I showed up ten minutes or so later, there was a strong feeling of gratefulness (Anju would not be disappointed.), mixed with a flavor of disappointment (In their unquenchable thirst for gossip, they had wanted me not to show.) amongst the meager crowd. It was silent and formless but completely palpable. And it was in this bastard mix of feelings that I was married.
I don’t regret marrying Anju at all. She was positively radiant in her white gown (and later, out of it), her hair pulled away from her face, her smile the brightest and most genuine I’ve ever seen it. The reception lasted well into the night, full of games and dancing, drinking and talking, and general happiness. It was a wonderful celebration; everyone agreed it was their fondest Carnival of Time, even those who couldn’t remember it. I remember it exactly, and it was the most fun I have ever had. Though Anju and I were married that day and celebrated by the town only that night, our elation continued on long afterwards. The following week was a triumph of life for us. We honeymooned in a cottage in the mountains, which was far enough from Clock Town to be an escape, but close enough not to be a burdensome journey. The air was chilly there, but the sun was warm, and the fall made the flowers bloom even more fragrantly in a last burst of sweetness and color before their deaths. Such are many things, if one cares to think on them: highest before the fall.
Anju and I spent every instant of every day together, utterly in love. Our thoughts were always on one another. Our eyes, along with our bodies, were always searching for one another. Even while eating, some part of us had to be touching, as if invisible strings bound us together. I remember the time fondly. However, honeymoons, like all things, are not eternal and must end. Thus, we returned to Clock Town more in love than we had ever been. Every day, we smiled with one another and laughed and kissed. I stayed at the inn - slept there, ate there, lived there - to be closer to Anju, and shared her room at night. It became our room, our life. I thought that this would be my life from now on, and I was content to believe it. I was in love, and I believed I would be in love forever. That is, until one day, not even a month after Anju and I had begun living together, when that boy came to our inn. That green-hatted boy.
I admit, I had never particularly liked the child. He was, after all, a child, and I have never liked little children. Moreover, there was something inherently unsettling about him. When he looked at me, his grey-blue eyes seemed to take me in, weigh my worth on a scale, and judge me in an instant. Then he would speak with that frustrating mouth and say something so completely banal that it made his knowing look all the more condescending. I had known him for only a short time - three days at the most, but in that time he had been so invasive, so arrogant, that my mere dislike of him at first glance became true detestation. Yes, I hated him. He was a meddling brat, frankly, and I couldn’t understand what Anju saw in the boy. But my wife was genuinely fond of him, and who was I, as her husband, to deny her what she liked? So when the child arrived at the inn, still in that tired green hat, I grudgingly welcomed him and sat beside Anju while she gushed, to this little boy, the intimate details of our married life.
It was sickening. He laughed at my wife’s cliched jokes and smiled warmly when she spoke of warm things, and nodded, and looked worried at all the appropriate moments in my wife’s shy and often babbling stories. I found her timidity endearing and loved her more for it. He couldn’t possibly. He had known for as long as I had known him: a few days. That he acted so riveted by her weak and awkward conversation was just that: an act, a falsity. And I stared at him, at his sky-colored eyes that appeared so genuinely interested in her words, interest that couldn’t possibly be honest. And that impossibly interested look in his eyes mocked me, even more so when he felt my eyes on him and would look towards me and smile in reassurance. As if he could reassure me! I could see through him. He was not honest; I would not be reassured.
I think that’s what bothered me more than anything else about the boy: the way he looked at me so sincerely, as if to say, “I know, and I understand,” when he couldn’t possibly. His cognisant look was a blatant lie. From the first time I met him, and he said, “I know; you’re Kafei, right?” he has always looked at me that way, with eyes that say, “I know you. I know everything about you. And I understand.” It infuriated me. He was a child. I had known him for three days. What right had he, to claim such a thing? And his actions and his words only supported the grandiose claim of his eyes.
Even more frustrating to me than his existence, though, was that I was alone in my hatred. Everyone else loved the boy. The whole town positively fawned over him as if he were a god, falling all over themselves to thank him and talk to him. I admit, he had done a lot for the town in the short time he’d spent here. But so had my father and my mother in their lives, and no one revered them as holy (nor should they). And, frankly, that the green-hatted boy was so well-known and loved was suspicious in itself. How did he know all of us so well, when everyone affirmed they had never seen him until “just before the carnival” ? He seemed to know everyone and everyone’s business. It unnerved me down to my soul, and I couldn’t understand why no one else saw this boy’s omnisciency as unnatural, evil, or even strange. My wife, like all others, was completely taken in by him. Then again, she always had been rather easily swayed into believing whatever one chose to convince her to be true. Still, it bothered me.
Thankfully, (and per usual), the green-hatted boy didn’t stay for very long. He spent the night at our inn, then left in the morning, presumably furthering his travels around Termina. It was, unfortunately, not a permanent stay, and he returned to Clock Town a few weeks later, looking no worse for the trip (though with a slightly larger load on his back). Once again, he intended on spending a single night at our inn before leaving the next morning. My wife tried to convince him to stay longer, but the boy insisted that he had been “gone from Hyrule for too long already,” and joked that if he were to stay more than a night, he might never want to leave. Anju laughed fondly. I attempted a smile that I’m sure came off more sardonic than was appreciated. He went to his room that night, and Anju and I went to ours.
I woke up to the sounds through the wall of the boy getting his things together . (The adjoining wall has needed repairing for some time, but no one has had the motivation necessary to repair it.) Anju, beside me in bed, remained asleep. Quietly as I could, I slipped out from under the covers and dressed hastily. I opened the door just as the green-hatted boy was hopping down the steps. Apparently he heard me, because he paused with his foot on the last step, and turned to look. I was once again struck by the arrogance of those grey-blue eyes, however subdued by the darkness. We stood there: he at the bottom of the stairs, looking up, and I at the top with my wrinkled clothes and unbrushed hair, looking down. After a moment, he leaned to one side and looked past me; I turned toward my room (in the direction of his look) to find the door open, my wife still asleep on our bed, mostly-naked and barely covered by our sheets. I then fiercely pulled the door shut and turned to shout at the boy at the bottom of the stairs, for how dare he look at my wife like that! But he had already gone.
I found him just outside the inn, sitting beside a large, rather flat plant alongside the wall, fixing his boots. I strode forward, fully intent on yelling at him for his look and whatever else came to my half-asleep mind, but the boy spoke before I could even form the words. “I’m sorry,” he said without glancing up from his task, “I didn’t mean to intrude on you and Anju.” I slowed in my steps, then paused and frowned. My eyes narrowed as I considered his words.
“No, you’re not,” I replied sharply. “You’re just saying what I want to hear.”
He looked up, his blue eyes missing their usual “I know” edge, then he smirked and said, “Yes, I am.”
I scoffed at his nerve. “That’s what you do with everyone, isn’t it?” I continued, the victory at finally being able to confront the boy I disliked so much clear in my voice, “You say what people want to hear, and give them what they want, and smile that innocent little smirk, and think it fixes everything, is that it?”
Those grey eyes of the know-it-all child grew dark, and they met my own narrowed ones without blinking. He replied recalcitrantly, “Isn’t that enough? What else could I do?”
I thought about it, struggling to come up with a suitable answer, one he wouldn’t be able to argue with. Finally, I had a chance to make my argument, to force his arrogance into submission. I would not let him win. “You could be honest.” I said even as I crossed my arms and looked away. “Some people value honesty more than constant condescension.” I spared a glance down at him over my nose, and saw his head bent forward, contemplating the boot he had his hands on. There was a spark of victory inside me at his lack of response. With it came the unusual sensation of pity, but it was extremely easy to ignore. He deserved to be upset. ...For what, I wasn’t quite sure, but I knew he deserved everything he got, the pretentious brat.
“Condescension,” he echoed without looking up.
“It means talking down to people because you think you know more than they do,” I replied with a triumphant smirk, “Which you obviously don’t.”
He looked up at me from under his pale bangs, made almost yellow by the single streetlight. “I know what it means to act condescendingly,” he said. “I’m reminded every time I talk to you.”
My arms dropped and I glared at him, but said nothing (because the only thing that came to mind were juvenile insults). He looked down again, and we were quiet for a while after that. It seemed useless to stand there any longer. I considered turning my back on him and going inside. The lightening of the eastern sky was a warning that the sun would rise soon, and my wife usually rose with it. For some reason, though, I couldn’t bring myself to move. So I merely stared down at the boy, waiting for him to do or say something more, unsure of if I should be doing something myself. Finally, he swung forward and stood, pulling the large pack up on his shoulders in a fluid, exaggerated motion. “You want me to be honest.” He met my eyes with what I now recognized as a challenge and said, “The last time I was honest with you, Kafei, you told me you didn’t want to hear it ever again,” and stormed off to my right without waiting for a reply.
“Did I.” I frowned at his back (Addressing me as an equal rather than an adult. I hated his continued arrogance.) as he headed through the arch to the South end of town. Questioning my memory but doubting his more than mine, I barked, “And when was that?”
The boy stopped, but did not turn, and said tonelessly, “The last time, before I left you to die.”
He was gone before my mind had processed the words fully. What did that mean? I continued standing there long after he had gone, speechless. It was hours after sunrise before Anju stepped outside the inn and saw me sitting there on the cobblestone walk in yesterday’s clothes with tired red eyes. She asked if I was feeling well and fussed over me the way any good wife (or mother) would. Then she brought me inside and fed me soup that was too salty, and sent me to bed, promising we’d talk later, after I’d slept. Even when under the warm covers, I stayed awake for hours, still thinking of what that boy had said. My death. It was nonsense. It was a turn-of-phrase, a metaphor, a witticism. It was some kind of joke I obviously wasn’t meant understand. He had said something like that merely to get the last word in. There was no way I could have responded. It was nonsense, and he knew it. I knew it. There was no point in getting upset over it. He had cheated in our impromptu contest of words, and that was it....So, why did it still unnerve me?
It occurred to me, just before I succumbed to sleep, that this was the same boy who had broken the curse on me, helped me regain my mask, and reunited Anju and I. He knew intimately everyone’s business, solved everyone’s problems, and had somehow made the ominous moon and that masked child disappear. But, somehow, I had never bothered to learn his name. I wondered how one could possibly make such an oversight as that. I had heard it, I knew. He must have introduced himself at one point. And my wife talked about him often, as did anyone else who was reminded of that one infamous carnival. I’d heard the green-hatted boy’s name a hundred times or more... But I couldn’t remember it now, when I tried. I would have to ask Anju tomorrow, I decided. And then I was asleep.
I had a dream of Sakon, the loathsome thief, which was not an uncommon occurrence since the incident so long ago. I dreamed I was alone in his hideout, sealed in on all sides by stone, and that he held my glorious Sun’s mask in one long-fingered, grey hand. He was smiling; that man was always smiling. I dreamed he stabbed me in the chest with a thieved golden sword (The pain was intense.), and that he pushed my own gold mask over my face to muffle the scream. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see, but I could hear Sakon laugh, and I could feel the blood dripping down my stomach and back. I blacked out, and then I woke up, blind and shaking in my empty room. When my vision returned and my heart slowed a bit, I saw a tray of what could only be my dinner placed on the bedside desk. My wife must had brought it but not bothered to wake me. I sat and ate the food, and it was lukewarm and dry.
My mind dwelled on the green-hatted boy as I ate the charcoal-tasting meat. I had never liked him. Never, from the start. Why hadn’t I? Anju had spoken very highly of him in her letter, urged me to trust him. I grudgingly had, for her sake, yet I had never really trusted him at all, merely used him to regain my mask and my adult form. What reason had I not to trust him? What had he done to me? Nothing. And now that it was done with, why disdain him? He had helped (despite my protestations) to un-cursed me and reunite me with my fiancee, and still I hated him. Why? Because he was annoying, but what kind of reason is that? Because he was a child, and what other reason did I need? Because he was a know-it-all show-off of a brat. Because he spoke to me, and especially me, as if he were not a child. Because he knew things. That was why, I realized. I didn’t like him because he knew things I didn’t. Important things. Things about everyone. Things about Anju. Things about me. Things he had no right to know. Things he couldn’t possibly know. Things a boy his age shouldn’t know. How could someone with the body of a child be so arrogant as to speak like an adult?
It occurred to me as I thought about it then, that he was just like I had been when I was cursed. He reminded me of me, of a way I was and never wanted to be again. That was why I hated him.
I finished my dinner and sat staring at the dirty plate, contemplating this revelation and the words he had said that pre-dawn morning. I couldn’t put them out of my mind. Maybe I had heard him wrong. (He had spoken softly and from a distance.) Maybe he had been lying. (I wouldn’t put it past the brat; he lies constantly, in under-handed ways.) There were infinite excuses for what I had heard. Maybe it was a word game, in retaliation for the “condescension” remark. Maybe he had just been acting the stupid child he was and was playing a stupid child’s game with me. And, if that was the case, then by dwelling on it, I was letting him win. And I’d be damned before I would let that brat win. I rose from my seat and brought the tray down to the kitchen, then washed it out so Anju wouldn’t have to. As I was walking back through the hall, I heard her voice drifting through the door of her grandmother’s room. With a step’s hesitation, I continued past, out of the inn. I had decided: I would find out as much about the boy as possible, to put us on even ground the next time we met. And when that happened, I would get him to stop being evasive and simply answer my questions about his ill-gotten knowledge, even if I had to tie him down and torture him to do it. Next time, one way or another, I would win.
Author: Kacfrog711
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I obviously don’t own the rights to anything Zelda, because this isn’t even CLOSE to being canon.
A/N: I’m writing this for fun (because I couldn’t find any decent Kafei/Link...And if you can’t find something, that means you just have to do it yourself.) and, truthfully, I have no idea where it’s going. The rating will probably go up as the story progresses.
Chapter 1: The Return of the Green-hat Boy
I was late to my own wedding. It’s an incredibly shameful thing to be, as anyone would tell you, but no one seemed to mind too terribly at the time. I suppose they were simply glad to see me there at all. It wouldn’t have been the first time I had run away. When I was first cursed, I was ashamed at my child’s form, my weakness at being transformed, and subsequently, the loss of my mask. All threads of dignity I had clutched together were torn from my grasp with one short tug. I believed I was at my lowest then, and I simply couldn’t show that side of myself to Anju. ...I suppose I should have realized then that this was a sign of something more troublesome to come, some unresolved issue between us. My fear of rejection was unfounded. I should have gone to Anju directly. I loved her. She loved me. She would understand and console me. I had no reason to hide myself from her, to run from her. ...But the very thought of being seen by Anju as a weak child when I had sworn not the day before that I would marry, provide for, and protect her always... it made me sick inside. So I ran and hid, without a word to anyone, save my old, outcast friend, whose shop I would skulk in for the following week. Naturally, they all assumed I had abandoned Anju because I was afraid of getting married. They assumed I had run from her and my vows. It was, after all, a logical assumption, given the unfortunate timing of the thing. Thus, weeks later when I was not promptly at my own wedding ceremony, I’m sure there was more than one person whispering that I had “run off again,” as they knew all along I had done the first time. Likewise, when I showed up ten minutes or so later, there was a strong feeling of gratefulness (Anju would not be disappointed.), mixed with a flavor of disappointment (In their unquenchable thirst for gossip, they had wanted me not to show.) amongst the meager crowd. It was silent and formless but completely palpable. And it was in this bastard mix of feelings that I was married.
I don’t regret marrying Anju at all. She was positively radiant in her white gown (and later, out of it), her hair pulled away from her face, her smile the brightest and most genuine I’ve ever seen it. The reception lasted well into the night, full of games and dancing, drinking and talking, and general happiness. It was a wonderful celebration; everyone agreed it was their fondest Carnival of Time, even those who couldn’t remember it. I remember it exactly, and it was the most fun I have ever had. Though Anju and I were married that day and celebrated by the town only that night, our elation continued on long afterwards. The following week was a triumph of life for us. We honeymooned in a cottage in the mountains, which was far enough from Clock Town to be an escape, but close enough not to be a burdensome journey. The air was chilly there, but the sun was warm, and the fall made the flowers bloom even more fragrantly in a last burst of sweetness and color before their deaths. Such are many things, if one cares to think on them: highest before the fall.
Anju and I spent every instant of every day together, utterly in love. Our thoughts were always on one another. Our eyes, along with our bodies, were always searching for one another. Even while eating, some part of us had to be touching, as if invisible strings bound us together. I remember the time fondly. However, honeymoons, like all things, are not eternal and must end. Thus, we returned to Clock Town more in love than we had ever been. Every day, we smiled with one another and laughed and kissed. I stayed at the inn - slept there, ate there, lived there - to be closer to Anju, and shared her room at night. It became our room, our life. I thought that this would be my life from now on, and I was content to believe it. I was in love, and I believed I would be in love forever. That is, until one day, not even a month after Anju and I had begun living together, when that boy came to our inn. That green-hatted boy.
I admit, I had never particularly liked the child. He was, after all, a child, and I have never liked little children. Moreover, there was something inherently unsettling about him. When he looked at me, his grey-blue eyes seemed to take me in, weigh my worth on a scale, and judge me in an instant. Then he would speak with that frustrating mouth and say something so completely banal that it made his knowing look all the more condescending. I had known him for only a short time - three days at the most, but in that time he had been so invasive, so arrogant, that my mere dislike of him at first glance became true detestation. Yes, I hated him. He was a meddling brat, frankly, and I couldn’t understand what Anju saw in the boy. But my wife was genuinely fond of him, and who was I, as her husband, to deny her what she liked? So when the child arrived at the inn, still in that tired green hat, I grudgingly welcomed him and sat beside Anju while she gushed, to this little boy, the intimate details of our married life.
It was sickening. He laughed at my wife’s cliched jokes and smiled warmly when she spoke of warm things, and nodded, and looked worried at all the appropriate moments in my wife’s shy and often babbling stories. I found her timidity endearing and loved her more for it. He couldn’t possibly. He had known for as long as I had known him: a few days. That he acted so riveted by her weak and awkward conversation was just that: an act, a falsity. And I stared at him, at his sky-colored eyes that appeared so genuinely interested in her words, interest that couldn’t possibly be honest. And that impossibly interested look in his eyes mocked me, even more so when he felt my eyes on him and would look towards me and smile in reassurance. As if he could reassure me! I could see through him. He was not honest; I would not be reassured.
I think that’s what bothered me more than anything else about the boy: the way he looked at me so sincerely, as if to say, “I know, and I understand,” when he couldn’t possibly. His cognisant look was a blatant lie. From the first time I met him, and he said, “I know; you’re Kafei, right?” he has always looked at me that way, with eyes that say, “I know you. I know everything about you. And I understand.” It infuriated me. He was a child. I had known him for three days. What right had he, to claim such a thing? And his actions and his words only supported the grandiose claim of his eyes.
Even more frustrating to me than his existence, though, was that I was alone in my hatred. Everyone else loved the boy. The whole town positively fawned over him as if he were a god, falling all over themselves to thank him and talk to him. I admit, he had done a lot for the town in the short time he’d spent here. But so had my father and my mother in their lives, and no one revered them as holy (nor should they). And, frankly, that the green-hatted boy was so well-known and loved was suspicious in itself. How did he know all of us so well, when everyone affirmed they had never seen him until “just before the carnival” ? He seemed to know everyone and everyone’s business. It unnerved me down to my soul, and I couldn’t understand why no one else saw this boy’s omnisciency as unnatural, evil, or even strange. My wife, like all others, was completely taken in by him. Then again, she always had been rather easily swayed into believing whatever one chose to convince her to be true. Still, it bothered me.
Thankfully, (and per usual), the green-hatted boy didn’t stay for very long. He spent the night at our inn, then left in the morning, presumably furthering his travels around Termina. It was, unfortunately, not a permanent stay, and he returned to Clock Town a few weeks later, looking no worse for the trip (though with a slightly larger load on his back). Once again, he intended on spending a single night at our inn before leaving the next morning. My wife tried to convince him to stay longer, but the boy insisted that he had been “gone from Hyrule for too long already,” and joked that if he were to stay more than a night, he might never want to leave. Anju laughed fondly. I attempted a smile that I’m sure came off more sardonic than was appreciated. He went to his room that night, and Anju and I went to ours.
I woke up to the sounds through the wall of the boy getting his things together . (The adjoining wall has needed repairing for some time, but no one has had the motivation necessary to repair it.) Anju, beside me in bed, remained asleep. Quietly as I could, I slipped out from under the covers and dressed hastily. I opened the door just as the green-hatted boy was hopping down the steps. Apparently he heard me, because he paused with his foot on the last step, and turned to look. I was once again struck by the arrogance of those grey-blue eyes, however subdued by the darkness. We stood there: he at the bottom of the stairs, looking up, and I at the top with my wrinkled clothes and unbrushed hair, looking down. After a moment, he leaned to one side and looked past me; I turned toward my room (in the direction of his look) to find the door open, my wife still asleep on our bed, mostly-naked and barely covered by our sheets. I then fiercely pulled the door shut and turned to shout at the boy at the bottom of the stairs, for how dare he look at my wife like that! But he had already gone.
I found him just outside the inn, sitting beside a large, rather flat plant alongside the wall, fixing his boots. I strode forward, fully intent on yelling at him for his look and whatever else came to my half-asleep mind, but the boy spoke before I could even form the words. “I’m sorry,” he said without glancing up from his task, “I didn’t mean to intrude on you and Anju.” I slowed in my steps, then paused and frowned. My eyes narrowed as I considered his words.
“No, you’re not,” I replied sharply. “You’re just saying what I want to hear.”
He looked up, his blue eyes missing their usual “I know” edge, then he smirked and said, “Yes, I am.”
I scoffed at his nerve. “That’s what you do with everyone, isn’t it?” I continued, the victory at finally being able to confront the boy I disliked so much clear in my voice, “You say what people want to hear, and give them what they want, and smile that innocent little smirk, and think it fixes everything, is that it?”
Those grey eyes of the know-it-all child grew dark, and they met my own narrowed ones without blinking. He replied recalcitrantly, “Isn’t that enough? What else could I do?”
I thought about it, struggling to come up with a suitable answer, one he wouldn’t be able to argue with. Finally, I had a chance to make my argument, to force his arrogance into submission. I would not let him win. “You could be honest.” I said even as I crossed my arms and looked away. “Some people value honesty more than constant condescension.” I spared a glance down at him over my nose, and saw his head bent forward, contemplating the boot he had his hands on. There was a spark of victory inside me at his lack of response. With it came the unusual sensation of pity, but it was extremely easy to ignore. He deserved to be upset. ...For what, I wasn’t quite sure, but I knew he deserved everything he got, the pretentious brat.
“Condescension,” he echoed without looking up.
“It means talking down to people because you think you know more than they do,” I replied with a triumphant smirk, “Which you obviously don’t.”
He looked up at me from under his pale bangs, made almost yellow by the single streetlight. “I know what it means to act condescendingly,” he said. “I’m reminded every time I talk to you.”
My arms dropped and I glared at him, but said nothing (because the only thing that came to mind were juvenile insults). He looked down again, and we were quiet for a while after that. It seemed useless to stand there any longer. I considered turning my back on him and going inside. The lightening of the eastern sky was a warning that the sun would rise soon, and my wife usually rose with it. For some reason, though, I couldn’t bring myself to move. So I merely stared down at the boy, waiting for him to do or say something more, unsure of if I should be doing something myself. Finally, he swung forward and stood, pulling the large pack up on his shoulders in a fluid, exaggerated motion. “You want me to be honest.” He met my eyes with what I now recognized as a challenge and said, “The last time I was honest with you, Kafei, you told me you didn’t want to hear it ever again,” and stormed off to my right without waiting for a reply.
“Did I.” I frowned at his back (Addressing me as an equal rather than an adult. I hated his continued arrogance.) as he headed through the arch to the South end of town. Questioning my memory but doubting his more than mine, I barked, “And when was that?”
The boy stopped, but did not turn, and said tonelessly, “The last time, before I left you to die.”
He was gone before my mind had processed the words fully. What did that mean? I continued standing there long after he had gone, speechless. It was hours after sunrise before Anju stepped outside the inn and saw me sitting there on the cobblestone walk in yesterday’s clothes with tired red eyes. She asked if I was feeling well and fussed over me the way any good wife (or mother) would. Then she brought me inside and fed me soup that was too salty, and sent me to bed, promising we’d talk later, after I’d slept. Even when under the warm covers, I stayed awake for hours, still thinking of what that boy had said. My death. It was nonsense. It was a turn-of-phrase, a metaphor, a witticism. It was some kind of joke I obviously wasn’t meant understand. He had said something like that merely to get the last word in. There was no way I could have responded. It was nonsense, and he knew it. I knew it. There was no point in getting upset over it. He had cheated in our impromptu contest of words, and that was it....So, why did it still unnerve me?
It occurred to me, just before I succumbed to sleep, that this was the same boy who had broken the curse on me, helped me regain my mask, and reunited Anju and I. He knew intimately everyone’s business, solved everyone’s problems, and had somehow made the ominous moon and that masked child disappear. But, somehow, I had never bothered to learn his name. I wondered how one could possibly make such an oversight as that. I had heard it, I knew. He must have introduced himself at one point. And my wife talked about him often, as did anyone else who was reminded of that one infamous carnival. I’d heard the green-hatted boy’s name a hundred times or more... But I couldn’t remember it now, when I tried. I would have to ask Anju tomorrow, I decided. And then I was asleep.
I had a dream of Sakon, the loathsome thief, which was not an uncommon occurrence since the incident so long ago. I dreamed I was alone in his hideout, sealed in on all sides by stone, and that he held my glorious Sun’s mask in one long-fingered, grey hand. He was smiling; that man was always smiling. I dreamed he stabbed me in the chest with a thieved golden sword (The pain was intense.), and that he pushed my own gold mask over my face to muffle the scream. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see, but I could hear Sakon laugh, and I could feel the blood dripping down my stomach and back. I blacked out, and then I woke up, blind and shaking in my empty room. When my vision returned and my heart slowed a bit, I saw a tray of what could only be my dinner placed on the bedside desk. My wife must had brought it but not bothered to wake me. I sat and ate the food, and it was lukewarm and dry.
My mind dwelled on the green-hatted boy as I ate the charcoal-tasting meat. I had never liked him. Never, from the start. Why hadn’t I? Anju had spoken very highly of him in her letter, urged me to trust him. I grudgingly had, for her sake, yet I had never really trusted him at all, merely used him to regain my mask and my adult form. What reason had I not to trust him? What had he done to me? Nothing. And now that it was done with, why disdain him? He had helped (despite my protestations) to un-cursed me and reunite me with my fiancee, and still I hated him. Why? Because he was annoying, but what kind of reason is that? Because he was a child, and what other reason did I need? Because he was a know-it-all show-off of a brat. Because he spoke to me, and especially me, as if he were not a child. Because he knew things. That was why, I realized. I didn’t like him because he knew things I didn’t. Important things. Things about everyone. Things about Anju. Things about me. Things he had no right to know. Things he couldn’t possibly know. Things a boy his age shouldn’t know. How could someone with the body of a child be so arrogant as to speak like an adult?
It occurred to me as I thought about it then, that he was just like I had been when I was cursed. He reminded me of me, of a way I was and never wanted to be again. That was why I hated him.
I finished my dinner and sat staring at the dirty plate, contemplating this revelation and the words he had said that pre-dawn morning. I couldn’t put them out of my mind. Maybe I had heard him wrong. (He had spoken softly and from a distance.) Maybe he had been lying. (I wouldn’t put it past the brat; he lies constantly, in under-handed ways.) There were infinite excuses for what I had heard. Maybe it was a word game, in retaliation for the “condescension” remark. Maybe he had just been acting the stupid child he was and was playing a stupid child’s game with me. And, if that was the case, then by dwelling on it, I was letting him win. And I’d be damned before I would let that brat win. I rose from my seat and brought the tray down to the kitchen, then washed it out so Anju wouldn’t have to. As I was walking back through the hall, I heard her voice drifting through the door of her grandmother’s room. With a step’s hesitation, I continued past, out of the inn. I had decided: I would find out as much about the boy as possible, to put us on even ground the next time we met. And when that happened, I would get him to stop being evasive and simply answer my questions about his ill-gotten knowledge, even if I had to tie him down and torture him to do it. Next time, one way or another, I would win.