The Lake That Holds the Night
“......”
Ji-oh stood in the workshop.
“......”
What he gazed upon were the countless drawers lining every wall of the room. What filled his mind were the paint materials sleeping quietly inside them.
“......”
At last, Ji-oh moved.
“...Let’s go with what I used last time.”
He brought out the materials he had once used to create the Water Birds. Not only those—jewels that resembled aquamarine and emerald, white translucent pebbles like streamside marble, shards of obsidian branch that had hidden among the forest trees pretending to be burned wood, and light-green bark so full of life it looked ready to yield juice at a firm squeeze....
When he decided this would be enough, Ji-oh stopped pulling materials from the drawers.
“It’d be a pain to put leftovers back, so if I run short I’ll just fetch more later....”
Clack, clatter.
He set the materials on the workbench.
“...Today’s content.”
Making my own paints.
“Nice.”
The basic materials needed to make oil paints were pigment for color, oil to bind it, and a glass plate with a pestle to grind everything into smooth paint. A fillet knife of the right size helped with thorough mixing as well. What Ji-oh intended to make right now was the pigment that would give the color.
“Shall we smash a few first.”
The materials straight from the drawers could never become proper paint as they were. Everything had to be reduced to colored powder, and for that they needed breaking.
Ji-oh prepared a sharp nail and a hammer. Staring intently at a translucent jewel, he set the nail against a precise point and tapped it with a light tok!
“......”
Though the force was far from strong, the jewel—struck exactly on its fracture line—split cleanly in two.
Ji-oh thought,
As expected, I’m one cool potato. A magnificent potato.
This mountain-village idol could spot the breaking point of a mineral just by looking at it.
I should have been a miner.
He continued the work.
Clatter.
“......”
Tok, thud.
Craaack...!
“......”
Snap.
“...There.”
By targeting only the weakest seams, the jewel was soon broken into pieces smaller than his little fingernail.
“This should do.”
Ji-oh hammered the tiny fragments further, swept the even smaller shards into a ceramic mortar, and ground them with firm pressure. The harsh grinding noise that had battered his ears gradually softened into the gentle roll of glass beads, until the jewel had become pure powder.
“...I wonder what principle this even follows....”
A pigment of blue and light green, blended in a mysterious ratio, was complete.
“Troublesome. Everything that makes me up is so special that I hope I never get hauled off to some research lab.”
Every material in this workshop was unique. Ordinarily, grinding a jewel produced nothing but stone dust. Most gems owed their transparency and beautiful color to their molecular structure; once pulverized, that clarity vanished. But the jewels here were different.
Even ground down, their color and transparency remain completely intact.
That the original hue survived even an amateur’s process like his was entirely thanks to the excellence of the materials. When the finely ground jewels clustered together, they still glowed with their distinctive cool transparency.
Having silently turned every material into pigment, Ji-oh slowly mixed them with the oil he had prepared.
“......”
Even though he was blending raw stone powder, the oil and pigment never separated or floated. Normally one would need an oil matched to the pigment’s properties, yet the wax from his workshop displayed superb viscosity and blending power.
“...Add a little fragrance too....”
Going beyond mere color, Ji-oh mixed in complementary scents. Oils infused with flowers or fruit blended surprisingly well with the pigments.
“Grind it, add it....”
He placed pigment and scented oil on the glass plate and ground them fine—fine enough that his hand would feel as if silk had brushed across it. Extremely fine.
The Water Birds Ji-oh had created were more mischievous than he had expected.
“Kids.”
Clatter.
“The back of Dad’s neck is getting chilly.”
They had wriggled inside his collar and were building nests there. Into the slight gap of his shirt collar, into the barely open sleeves, into trousers and jacket—wherever there was space, Water Birds squeezed themselves in.
Aren’t they uncomfortable?
If he compared them to tiny water balloons, the sight of them crumpling their own forms to fit inside his clothes could hardly be called either balloon or bird. Looking at those minimally rounded, thoroughly squashed shapes, Ji-oh stared at the ceiling for a moment.
“......”
It was funny, so he would allow it.
“...Maybe it’s because you’re doing it to your parent, but you really love wedging yourselves into places. Or is it hiding that you like?”
Water Birds had a habit of moving in flocks. If not that, they preferred pooling somewhere. Sometimes when he stepped outside the cabin he was startled by puddles that appeared even though it had not rained.
They’re clearly different from ordinary puddles, so I notice them right away.
The pools they formed glowed with a faint blue light, were unnaturally transparent, and had all sorts of little odds and ends rolling around inside. Considering how little viscosity they showed when gathered into their usual round bird shapes, the contrast was almost ironic.
“They look just like ordinary water, though.”
Rustle.
“Keep making a racket and I might stick a straw in and suck you dry.”
Rustle, rustle.
“I was joking. I won’t drink you. Even I think that was a scary thing to say.”
Living water—how could anyone drink something like that?
“Eating anything while it’s still alive, drinking paint, or consuming the children I birthed from paint... all of it is physiologically impossible for me.”
Clatter?
“Before I can even be moved by your filial piety in offering your bodies if Father is thirsty, I feel pure terror. Restrain yourselves.”
Conversing in meaningless exchanges with the hundreds of children that had multiplied, Ji-oh sat in the workshop.
“I should make you a house.”
At first he had not thought much of it, but having living, moving water roaming near the house was more distracting than he liked. If they simply clustered quietly it would be fine, yet they occasionally wandered indoors to cause accidents or steal things. He might have found that cute and let it go, but sometimes they also hid in the stream water, and....
“I’ve been saying it for a while—I’m not actually going to drink you. I misspoke, kids.”
Pssst.
“No. Don’t paint your dad as some weirdo with strange tastes. I just wanted a drink of water.”
He had genuinely almost swallowed some Water Birds.
“Do you know how shocked I was when you popped out inside my mouth? Yes, you—the one with nothing in your belly right now.”
The only real ways to tell them apart were the soft glow and the little treasures inside, yet when they carried no belongings and blended completely with the stream, identification became impossible. Feeling that wriggling water in his mouth had made his heart drop. The birds themselves had not minded in the slightest—had seemed to enjoy it, astonishingly—but Ji-oh possessed no such ruthless tastes.
“You need a house too.”
Clatter, clack?
“You need your own habitat.”
Are we short on money? Short on time? Short on land? Why should anyone live as freeloaders in this abundant, spacious world?
“And....”
There was also personal interest.
“I want to decorate this place little by little.”
Tap-tap, snap!
“It’s too plain right now.”
One cabin, a vast forest, and a beautiful spring. That alone was not enough.
“I should make a fishing spot.”
There was a reason open-world RPGs varied so wildly in popularity. In every kind of content, a map that was merely large was not enough; it needed plenty of things to enjoy.
“This isn’t actually a game, but growing it further is still the right call. Same principle in the end.”
The outdoor activities Ji-oh currently had amounted to little more than gathering and farming. He needed to keep adding content one by one so he would not get bored even without leaving the painting.
“The outside world these days feels strangely unappealing.”
Scratch.
“Maybe because it isn’t the world I remember from back then....”
Scratch.
“I don’t want to live out there.”
Ji-oh liked the inside of the painting as it was now.
“Unemployed life is nice too.”
In truth, that was the best part.
“...Come out now.”
Clack! Clack!
“Watching me paint is fine, but if you stay inside my clothes the whole time it bothers me. Even now my shirt is about to burst, you poor things.”
Clatter....
“Do you think your dad is doing this just for himself, kids? Remember—this is all so I can build you a house.”
Fortunately the Water Birds obediently left his clothes.
“......”
Thanks to children who actually listened when spoken to, Ji-oh could finally take up his brush.
He opened his mouth.
“If we’re fishing....”
A large lake would be good.
“Let’s make it a lake.”
A lake where trees and water met completely. Fish would live beneath it. There would be tiny minnows that had drifted in from the stream, and flat fish hiding their bodies in the sand at the bottom.
“Nice.”
He would also make a bridge for fishing. A wooden bridge spanning the middle of the large lake. The color a little soft, perhaps—tender and gentle like freshly baked white bread. If the lake water peeked between the planks, it would sparkle under the sunlight during the day.
What about the evening scene?
“......”
Every time the wind stirred, the surface would glow like soft lantern light. Once night fell and darkness settled, he wanted the depths to remain visible. He wanted the entire interior of that deep lake to be seen. It would be a bright yet gentle light, like the glow-in-the-dark bracelet he had once treasured under a thick blanket in a darkened childhood room, visible only to himself.
“...It would be nice if the color changed with your moods too.”
Rustle.
“Golden on good days, red on bad ones, blue when you’re sad or depressed... and green on ordinary peaceful days.”
Rustle, rustle.
“You don’t have vocal cords, so you can’t cry.”
If they could not be heard, he would make them visible.
“That way I can talk with you as well.”
Although Ji-oh was the creator of the Water Birds, he could not freely control them. He did not know what they were thinking; their forms were hazy, and without vocal cords they were silent, so unless he listened carefully he could not even tell where they were.
It wasn’t for nothing that I almost ate them. There must never be another catastrophe like that.
If not for their mischievous, talkative natures, he would surely never have found them.
“......”
That thought felt a little sad.
“I’ll come visit at night. We can talk then.”
Pssst.
“If you glow like that in the dark evening, I’ll be able to see you even from the cabin. Yes, that’ll work. I’ll watch you from the veranda, so just tell me whatever you want to say then.”
Pssst, pssst.
“Alright.”
Ji-oh moved the brush again.
“Let’s do it that way.”
The lake he painted held the night within it.
“...I like it.”
The lake’s color was never only one thing. Water Birds loved clustering together, yet the treasures they kept inside their bodies were all different. Their personalities were different. The way they spoke, thought, and acted all had to be different.
So the complaints and boasts they whisper every night will all be different too.
That was why he laid down their clusters of light one by one with the brush.
“It really looks like pointillism.”
Up close you would know which of you was struggling or in pain, and which of you was joyful and happy. From afar you would know what the whole of you wanted to tell me, and when I should come to soothe and talk with you.
“Nice.”
It also looked like a flower field blooming on the water’s surface. Because he had painted it with paints he made himself, even though it was clearly water, an unnameable freshness rose from it.
“Good.”
Or perhaps it resembled fireflies, or the forest butterflies that wandered this place looking like sunlight and moonlight. Or maybe the glitter of transparent lights reflected in a windowpane.
“......”
When Ji-oh had finished painting every one of their emotions, the lake was dyed gold.
“...I think it’s good.”
The pleasure of pulling something from imagination into reality was beyond words. This lake would sit a little distance from the cabin, and clearly apart from the spring as well. The trees pressed right up against the lake’s edge would still keep their green.
“In the daytime it will be blue.”
Scooped water would be as clear as if it held the sky; the depths would be a cold blue like the sea; and the sparkling ripples when sunlight touched them would look almost white. Inside, these many Water Birds would hide and move, sometimes poking their heads out to play when they got bored.
“At night you’ll sparkle however you like....”
Sparkle like water made of mist.
“You’ll be spawning light.”
Like newborns giggling at the slightest breeze, they would pour out light. Imagining it lifted his spirits tremendously.
“......”
Tok.
He tapped the canvas, and the painting vanished at once. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but the scent of water drifted from far away—so soft that just smelling it made him want to lie down on moss and fall asleep immediately.
Scent rising from water that has nothing in it... similar to the white-tree spring water, maybe.
The bird on his shoulder stirred at the fragrance; the bird perched on the canvas flapped its wings.
Flutter-flutter—!
Flap, flap!
Psssssssh—.
Clack, clack!
Splash...!
The countless birds that had been hanging from the lamp flew out through the open window. Their lively wingbeats, like migratory birds returning to their homeland, felt as refreshing as a sea breeze passing through....
“......”
He liked it after all.
The Water Birds would like it too.
(To be continued)