The smell of stewed roots and fresh bread hit Jiro the moment he stepped out from behind a hanging cloth that was the separator of his sleeping space from the rest of this single-room house. Morning light leaked in through the gaps in the shutters, pale and watery, catching the dust motes that drifted above the low table. His mother was already seated on the floor cushion opposite his usual place, sleeves rolled up past her elbows, ladling thick porridge into a wooden bowl like she hadn’t spent half the night being thoroughly used by his father.
She looked……Well, fine.
Better than fine, Jiro would say.
Her cheeks even held a soft flush that had nothing to do with the cooking fire. Her black hair was tied back in a simple knot, a few loose strands curling against the side of her neck. The smile on her face said she was satisfied and very well refreshed.
This scene never stopped confusing Jiro. Any normal person would have been dragging themselves around with dark circles and a stiff walking posture after what his father made her go through every night. But his mother always moved like she had slept the deep, dreamless sleep of the pure.
His father was sitting beside her, one thick arm draped along the back of her cushion in a casual claim that somehow still managed to look intimate even after eighteen years of their marriage.
The man himself was already dressed for the fields, a rough tunic open at the collar, showing some white hair on his chest, sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms that looked like they had been carved from oak wood. His hair was pure white as usual, making the guy look as handsome as before.
He was chewing on a piece of bread. When he noticed Jiro staring at him, he gave a short nod and a crooked half-smile that infuriated Jiro more than he realised. It wasn’t like Jiro hated his dad or anything. It's just that the man never seemed to care about Jiro's privacy. Not even in the least.
Every morning, seeing the broad man showing off his crooked smile and teeth, after thoroughly fucking his mom all night, not caring whether Jiro listened to it or not, made Jiro feel rage even at the sight of this guy.
“Morning, boy. Sit. Your mother’s been hovering around the house since morning to serve your food. Who wakes up so late in the morning?”
Jiro controlled himself from punching the guy for saying that so shamelessly. It was as if the guy didn’t even know he was the reason Jiro didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.
Without showing any expression on his face, Jiro just lowered himself onto his reserved cushion without any comment.
The porridge was perfect, as always, slightly sweet from the dried berries his mother added, thick enough to stick to his tongue. He ate in silence while his parents continued their quiet, shameless affection right in front of him. His father’s hand drifted from the back of the cushion to rest against the side of his mother’s waist, thumb moving in slow, idle circles over the fabric of her dress. She leaned into the touch like it was the most natural thing in the world to do in front of their kid. Her shoulder brushed his chest. When she passed the guy another piece of bread, their fingers lingered a second longer than necessary. The soft look they exchanged made something tighten inside him, making him uncomfortable, as his stomach twisted with disgust. He felt like vomiting right there on the spot.
They had been married longer than he had been alive. Most couples in the village would usually settle into some practical kind of tolerance by this point, shared work, shared meals, having only the occasional tired coupling when their urges struck.
But that was not the case for these two.
The way his father watched her move around the room still held that heavy, possessive heat from their early days. The way she also answered it with small, almost shy smiles and the occasional tilt of her head that exposed the line of her throat made the whole thing seem like these two were still in their honeymoon phase. It was like watching two people who had never quite finished their first week of marriage.
It should have been comforting, for a child to have their parents still love each other this deeply, even after all these years had passed. Instead, for Jiro, it only made him feel like living inside a city brothel would’ve been better. At least he wouldn’t have to witness this scene every single morning, year after year.
“You’re quiet today,” his mother said, voice warm and light. She reached across the table and brushed a crumb from the corner of his mouth with her thumb, the same way she had always done when he was small. The gesture was tender. It also carried that firm undercurrent she only ever used with him.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you tossing around last night. Sorry for being too loud, dear. If the wall is still too thin, we can hang another blanket for you.”
Jiro kept his eyes on his bowl. “I’m fine.”
His father chuckled with a low and amusing tone. “Don’t mind him, dear. Boy’s probably just growing. Needs more sleep than he gets. Or maybe he’s finally starting to understand why his old man can’t keep his hands off his mother.” Saying that last sentence, he gave her waist a light squeeze. She made a soft “Kya” sound that was half protest and half something else entirely, and swatted at his arm without any real force. The flush on her cheeks deepened.
Jiro stood up before the conversation could slide any further in that direction. He carried his empty bowl to the washing basin in the kitchen side of the house and rinsed it with practiced efficiency. Behind him, he heard the soft rustle of fabric and the quiet murmur of his father’s voice saying something too low to catch in his mother’s ears.
Without giving it another thought, he just dried his hands, grabbed the small satchel he uses for herb gathering, and headed for outside.
His mother’s voice stopped him when his one hand was already on the latch.
“Jiro.”
He glanced back. She was still seated, but her expression had shifted into that particular firmness she reserved for him alone. Submissive to his father to the point of melting, but sharp as a freshly ground pestle when it came to her son.
“Stay away from that woman at the apothecary,” she said. “I mean it. I know how she looks at you these days. Words reach me here, don’t forget. Just.. Don’t give her the chance.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, Mom. I’m just going there to work, not to flirt, don’t worry,” he answered.
“Good.” Her eyes held his for a long second. “My son is better than the rest of the boys in this village. So, don’t let some easy woman ruin that. Okay?”
His father snorted quietly but didn’t contradict her. He just pulled her a little closer against his side and pressed a lingering kiss to the side of her head. Her eyes fluttered half-shut for a moment. Jiro turned away before he had to watch any more of it. He stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him with more force than necessary.
The village outside was already awake. Smoke curled from a few chimneys. Chickens scratched in the dirt near the well. The fresh air around his house smelled of damp earth and the distant tang of the fresh air from the forest that ringed their small cluster of houses. People around him moved with an unhurried pace as if they had nowhere urgent to be and no real entertainment waiting for them except the one that started after the sun went down.
A few nodded at him as he passed. One of the younger farm girls from the eastern edge of the village, where his house also resides, gave him a long look that lingered a little too warmly. He kept walking, brushing off her look.
The apothecary he works at sat at the far end of the main path, a low wooden building with a steep thatched roof and bundles of drying herbs hanging under the eaves. The door was already open when he got there. Inside, the familiar sharp-sweet scent of crushed leaves and powdered roots welcomed him. It was the only place in the village that ever felt clean to him.
Grisha was on the floor mat near the front counter; the sleeves of her simple green dress were pushed up, and she was grinding a pile of bright “blue nightbloom” petals with a heavy stone pestle. Her dark hair was tied in a messy knot that was already coming loose, and a smear of blue pollen marked one of her cheeks. She looked up the moment Jiro’s shadow crossed the threshold, and her expression immediately folded into a particular brand of aggrieved complaint she seemed to reserve just for him.
“Jiro, you came? Finally,” she said, voice pitching upward into a soft whine. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been stuck with that stubborn old woman this morning? She wouldn’t leave until I promised you’d look at her ankle when you got in. Kept saying my poultices never work as well as yours. See the nerve of that damn hag?! She has the nerve to say that, even after it was me who saved her daughter’s life last year.”
She didn’t even give Jiro a chance to speak and kept talking by herself. “Can you believe it? Mine. The one who’s been running this place since before you could read the alphabet properly. That old hag says my treatment doesn’t work as yours.”
She gave the pestle an extra hard grind, blue paste splattering the edge of the stone. That didn’t stop her from continuing her talking. “It’s not fair. I taught you half of what you know, and now everyone acts like I’m just the assistant who keeps the shop warm until you show up. Agh-hhh!”
Jiro set his satchel down and offered the awkward, noncommittal smile he had perfected for exactly these moments. “Did she go home? That old lady?”
“Yes, eventually. After making me swear on my grandmother’s grave that I’d send you by later.”
Grisha sat back on her heels, wiping her forehead with the back of one wrist and leaving another streak of blue. “I don’t get it. I’m the one who stayed up half the night finishing the fever drafts. I’m the one who knows every root and leaf in this forest better than most people know their own spouses. But the second someone has a scrape or a swollen joint, it’s ‘Where’s Jiro?’ every single time.” Her lower lip pushed out in a pout that somehow managed to look both genuine and fake. “It’s exhausting, you know. And a little insulting, too, for the chief apothecary of the village, if I’m being honest.”
He moved past her toward the back room where the gathering tools were kept. “And who says that?! You’re still the main apothecary, Miss Grisha. I’m just the extra pair of hands who works here to get some pocket money.”
“Yeah, extra pair of hands that everyone prefers,” she muttered, but the edge in her voice had already softened into something closer to her usual needy attention-seeking. She watched him gather the small sickle, the cloth pouches, and the notebook he used for sketching plant locations.
“You’re going out again? Already? You just got here!”
“Yeah, Nightbloom’s almost past its peak. If I wait another day, the good patches will be ruined by the wild animals.”
Grisha let out a long, theatrical sigh and slumped against the counter. “Fine. Abandon me to the ungrateful villagers and their preferential treatment. See if I care.” She paused, then added in a smaller voice, “You’ll come back before evening, though, right? I might need help finishing the joint salves. My wrists get sore if I grind too long by myself.”
He gave her another brief smile and stepped back toward the door. “Yeah, I’ll be back.”
As he crossed the threshold into the morning light, the thoughts he usually kept buried surfaced with their usual quiet bitterness.
Grisha was skilled. There was no denying that. She had taken him in when he was still a scrawny twelve-year-old hanging around the shop, asking too many questions about why certain leaves could be used as drugs and others could be poisonous. She had been the only person willing to teach him instead of laughing him off. And just because of that fateful moment, he finally found his calling, a work to get up in the morning, something to look forward to every day.
For that alone he owed her a debt he wasn’t sure he could ever fully repay.
But he also knew exactly what kind of woman she was once the sun went down.
If his mother hadn’t made her quiet territorial claim years ago, Grisha would have tried her luck with his father without a second thought. There were very few handsome, hardworking, and not overly dumb men in the village, married or otherwise, who hadn’t found their way into her bed at least once. She never bothered hiding it. The soft smiles, the lingering touches when she handed over finished medicines, the way she always seemed to need help with something that required standing just a little too close; every movement of hers is usually calculated, as far as Jiro could realise by now from his observation.
Even her always whining about this and that to him was probably one of her ways of trying to seduce him.
That was why he always kept the distance from her carefully measured. He came here to learn. To refine the one skill that had ever felt clean in his hands. The rest of it- her needy looks, her soft complaints, the unspoken invitations that hung in the room every time they were alone- he simply refused to acknowledge. He wanted something pure. Something that hadn’t already been passed around half the village like a shared flask of cheap wine. Grisha was many things, but pure was not one of them.
He stepped fully into the street and stopped before heading toward the forest’s direction.
The usual morning flow of the village had changed for some reason. As he stood in front of the apothecary, he found people moving in the same direction, toward the open square near the one and only village well.
While moving in that direction, their conversations overlapped in low, excited murmurs.
Jiro frowned. The only things that ever pulled this many people to the square at once were either danger from the forest or an official notice from the nearest town. Neither option filled him with particular enthusiasm at this moment.
He was just about to go back to the first way when someone called from behind, “Hey, Jiro!”
He turned to look at who that was.
It was Garin, one of the younger crop field hands from the western plots, who also happens to be working with him every once in a while to gather herbs and such things from the forest. The guy was jogging toward him with a flushed face and wide eyes. Garin skidded to a stop and grabbed his shoulder like they were old friends instead of occasional drinking acquaintances.
“Hey, man, what are you doing standing here? Aren’t you coming?”
“Huh? Coming where?” Jiro asked in confusion.
“Huuuuh! Listen to this guy! The square, of course! They say a sage has been reborn. Don’t you wanna hear about it?” Garin’s voice dropped into something closer to awe. “And that’s not all. They say a sage has been born right here. In our village. They’re about to announce who it is over there.”
“Can you believe that? A sage. From this backwater.” He laughed while being a little breathless. “Come on. You don’t want to miss it. Come with me.”
Jiro blinked. ‘A sage?’
The word itself felt heavy, almost unreal in the middle of an ordinary morning for an average guy like Jiro. Sages were the stuff of distant stories, people born once in a generation, having the gift of healing right from birth, which could even mend what herbs and priests could only ease, Jiro heard.
Most villages went their entire existence without ever seeing one. The idea that one had appeared here, in this quiet, lust-soaked corner of the countryside, felt like someone had made a joke with someone and a rumor got out of hand. And of course, that was what was going through Jiro’s mind right now.
Garin was already tugging him forward. “Hurry up. They’re gathering everyone. You can go find your leaves later.”
Jiro let himself be pulled along, a little bit of curiosity cutting through the usual fog of resignation that clung to him most mornings.
He adjusted the satchel on his shoulder and picked up his pace.
In his mind was only one thing. Whatever was waiting in the square, it had to be more interesting than him finding herbs in the forest.
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