The morning sunlight slipped through the gaps in the vermilion torii gates, casting a scatter of light and shadow across the stone steps.
Along both sides of the approach to Fushimi Inari Taisha, the vermilion torii stood one after another, stretching on endlessly all the way up to the mountaintop.
It was said there were ten thousand torii here, each one dedicated by a worshipper, the pillars carved with the name and date of the donor.
Tsushima Kagami, Ijichi Seika, and Shimizu Nayotake walked together down the path of the Senbon Torii.
The red pillars pressed in from both sides, narrowing their field of vision into a single slender passage that led toward an unseen distance ahead.
Nayotake walked at the very front, stopping now and then to look up at those layer upon layer of torii.
Sunlight leaked down through the gaps above her head and fell onto her face.
Seika followed behind, taking photos with the compact camera she'd brought from home.
After walking a stretch, the path ahead suddenly opened up.
It was a small platform, with a few benches and a tiny shrine.
A handful of tourists sat resting on the benches, and some were queuing with goshuin books in hand.
"Want to take a break?"
Seika asked.
Nayotake nodded.
The three of them sat down on a bench.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the torii and fell at their feet.
The chatter of tourists drifted over from a distance, faint and indistinct.
"Oh, right."
Seika suddenly spoke up.
"You can draw fortunes over there."
She pointed to a little pavilion not far off.
Seika stood up.
"Since we're already here, let's draw one."
She tugged Shimizu Nayotake along, then glanced over at Tsushima Kagami.
Tsushima Kagami got up and followed too.
The group checked the price—one hundred yen per person.
Ijichi Seika picked up the lot cylinder and handed it to Shimizu Nayotake.
"You draw first, Nayotake."
Nayotake took the cylinder and hesitated for a moment.
At last she closed her eyes and gave the cylinder a gentle shake.
A lot stick tumbled out.
She opened her eyes, picked up the stick, and glanced at the number on it.
At this point Ijichi Seika and Tsushima Kagami picked up the cylinder and drew as well.
Once both of them had their lot numbers,
they walked over to the drawer cabinet beside it, found the matching drawer, and pulled out the fortune slips.
An ordinary shrine's omikuji is generally made up of a number, a luck grade, and a waka poem.
A temple's omikuji, on the other hand, generally uses Kannon fortunes—likewise bearing a number and a luck grade, but with text written in the form of a Chinese poem.
She opened it.
[Great Blessing]
Below it was a waka poem expressing its meaning, along with an explanation.
Nayotake's eyes lit up for a moment.
Ijichi Seika, too, opened her own slip bit by bit, full of anticipation.
[Blessing]
She gave the slip a happy little wave.
"Great!"
The two of them looked at Tsushima Kagami at the same time.
Tsushima Kagami looked at the bamboo stick in his hand.
Number: lot twelve.
He found the corresponding drawer and pulled out the slip.
He opened it.
[Curse Followed by Blessing]
The three of them froze at the same time.
"Curse followed by blessing?"
Seika leaned in.
"What's this?"
On the slip was written a waka poem, with a line of explanatory text beneath it.
Nayotake read it out softly.
"In life you will face a crucial juncture, where even a small mistake may bring great trouble."
"You need to rethink your own way of thinking..."
She raised her head and looked at Tsushima Kagami.
Tsushima Kagami stared at that slip and fell silent for a few seconds.
"Didn't they say Fushimi Inari Taisha has no curses?"
The probabilities of good and bad fortune actually differ from one shrine or temple to the next.
Fushimi Inari Taisha's omikuji, for instance, is famed for having no curse at all—on top of Blessing and Great Blessing, it even adds a Greater Great Blessing.
Clearly its main selling point is dishing out good luck.
This stands in stark contrast to Tokyo's Sensō-ji, with its curse-slip rate as high as 30%—a place that plays it for real with you.
It was just that Tsushima Kagami had never imagined there'd be a trick like this up their sleeve.
Blessing is blessing, curse is curse.
What the heck is both curse and blessing?
"Oh, by the way, if you draw a not-so-good fortune, you can tie it up here."
Ijichi Seika said this just then, smiling.
She pointed to a wire rack beside them.
The rack was densely packed with white fortune slips tied all over it.
When the wind blew past, those slips fluttered gently, like countless tiny paper cranes.
"If you tie your fortune here, you can leave the bad luck behind here."
"Is that so?"
"Looks like Seika-chan did a lot of homework before coming."
"Were you really that excited about this school trip?"
"Oh my, who was it that said school was so boring?"
"Don't want to go to school anymore?"
Tsushima Kagami couldn't resist teasing just then.
"D-dummy!"
"Who said I was looking forward to it?"
"And besides, isn't all this just common sense?"
"When you went to shrines and temples to pray over New Year's as a kid, didn't you ever draw a fortune?"
"Is that so? I had no idea~"
Tsushima Kagami looked at Ijichi Seika—ears flushed red, face turned away, arms crossed in disdain—and laughed.
At this point Nayotake reached out and took the [Curse Followed by Blessing] from Tsushima Kagami's hand.
"Let me do it."
She took the slip from Tsushima Kagami's hand and walked over to the wire rack.
First she folded the slip in half, then wound it around the wire, and tied a knot.
After tying it, she even gave it a tug to make sure it wouldn't fall off.
She stood there, the wind stirring the ends of her hair and stirring, too, the thousands upon thousands of slips on the wire rack.
Those white slips fluttered gently, like the prayers of countless people whispering in the wind.
Nayotake turned around and walked back.
"There."
"Now the bad luck stays here."
Afterward, the group found Sayuri and the others near the main hall.
Sayuri waved at them from afar, a fortune slip fluttering in her hand.
"Kagami! Come quick, all of you!"
Only when they drew near did they realize Yukinoshita Shizuku and Hiratsuka Shizuka were there too.
The three of them were huddled together, looking at the fortunes in their hands.
Sayuri held her slip up in front of him.
[Great Blessing]
She was smiling so hard her eyes curved into crescents.
Yukinoshita Shizuku held out her slip as well.
[Blessing]
Hiratsuka Shizuka was the last to hold hers out.
She didn't say anything, but a faint smug smile played at the corner of her mouth.
Written on the slip was
[Greater Great Blessing]
Sayuri leaned in, looking at Tsushima Kagami.
"What about you, Kagami? Did you draw one?"
Tsushima Kagami was silent for a second.
"I did." "What kind of blessing?"
"Curse followed by blessing..."
Sayuri froze.
Then she covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
"Curse followed by blessing? There's even a thing like that?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku shot Tsushima Kagami a glance, the corner of her mouth ticking up slightly.
"That luck of yours is pretty rare too."
Hiratsuka Shizuka walked over and patted him on the shoulder.
"But Nayotake tied it up for me on the fortune-hanging rack."
Sayuri was still laughing.
"Don't just stand there like a dope."
"There's a spot over there where the photos come out amazing!"
The group was dragged off by her toward that direction.
At noon, after everyone had finished lunch, they rested for a while.
In the afternoon they boarded the bus again and arrived at Rokuon-ji.
The bus pulled into the parking lot, and the group filed out one after another.
It was just past midday, the afternoon sunlight perfect, the breeze mild and gentle.
Rokuon-ji is a temple of the Shōkoku-ji branch of the Rinzai sect, located in Kita Ward, Kyoto.
Among its structures, the three-story pavilion clad inside and out in gold leaf (the Shariden) is also known as the Kinkaku.
The temple as a whole, including the Shariden, is also called Kinkaku-ji, and it is a satellite sub-temple of Shōkoku-ji.
Following the signs inward, they passed through a stretch of verdant pine forest, and all at once the view opened wide before them.
Upon the surface of Kyōko Pond, the Kinkaku stood quietly, its three stories glittering in the sunlight.
The top two stories were covered in gold leaf, brilliant and dazzling, mirrored on the calm surface of the pond.
A breeze swept across the pond, raising fine ripples.
The Kinkaku in the water swayed along with them, the reflection of the gold leaf crumpled apart, scattering into flecks of golden light, then slowly piecing itself back together again.
____
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