brew

Away from the neon lights and noises of the big city, tucked away in a dark alleyway, lies a small tea shop owned by a rather strange individual.

The Fox, they call him. The man renowned for his knowledge that put every scholar to shame. With wisdom so wast, even the wisest temple monks come to seek help.

The shop offers brews of great variety, but it is the Fox's advice visitors often seek instead.

"How do I help my sick mother? Are my sons going to return from the war? Is my husband cheating on me? What are the winning lottery numbers?"

He doesn't care how big or small and insignificant your worries are. He will answer truthfully and with no judgment... but for a price.

This is a tea shop, after all, buying services outside of the menu doesn't come so cheap.

Have no money to pay with? Doesn't matter, there are other things of value... All he asks for is a beloved trinket. An object of sentimental value to the customer, the closer to them, the better. The Fox values knowledge above all, each item, each new locket, necklace, figure, or toy, is a new story for his collection. A piece of new information. But of course, these are the things people do not give up so easily.

There are some who thought it might be easy to outsmart the Fox.

"I wanted to throw this out a while ago. Might as well give it to him. He won't be able to tell."

People of the city are whispering rumors about the Fox. The oldest telling tales of him from when they were just children, yet they remember the Fox looking just as youthful as he is now. He knows about the rumors. He enjoys the fear and respect it strikes in the hearts of his patrons.

Which is why he finds it so disrespectful when some try to trick him with worthless junk.

These are the ones who get to witness the reason why he's been given the Fox title. Some lucky ones are thrown out of the tea shop as a warning, he needs someone to spread the rumors around. But most don't live to tell the tale.

It is thanks to these sinners' sacrifices how he gets to live so long afterwards.

The kettle whistles atop a wood-burning stove, the shop softly smoky with escaping fumes. It’s a different kind of smoky than what lies outside, somehow more comforting and homey.

Ume’s tea shop is a quiet hole-in-the-wall, tucked into an alleyway in the outskirts of the metropolis. It’s a quaint reprieve from the grimy, jagged modernity of this city, this place of equal parts concrete and machinery mixed into its sky-high developments.

Ume rummages through loose-leaf tea canisters, uncapping some to waft their aromas up into the store air. He swiftly decides on one, picks up the ornamental tin in a gaunt hand; his fingertips have a menacing taper to them, claw-like in appearance. He taps out an appropriate amount into the sieved basket in the teapot’s opening, tunelessly humming to himself.

This, this is how tea is meant to be made, how it’s meant to be savored. None of that derivative teabag nonsense.

The little tanuki youngsters, their ears excitedly perked, bounce and weave through the little shop; they take orders, make small talk, and deliver the brewed tea to waiting customers. They are young by spirit standards, but they surpass human middle age by a handful of years.

By all means, this shop is a ghost in the system; no one checks these distant outskirts very thoroughly. But tongues wag and word travels: there’s enough business to keep a roof over everyone’s heads. The kitsune can run the shop on his own, no problem; he just happens to prefer keeping the tanukis around. It keeps things… livelier.

The fox hears raised voices out in the drinking area and multiple smashes of porcelain against the hardwood floor. He can hear the customer mock the tanukis, setting his blood to a boil. Ume makes his way out front, ducks out from under the dividing curtain. The tanuki attendants scream, agitated, by the entryway, pointing to the offending patron. In their open hands, they angrily show the counterfeit currency used to pay off the tea.

Ume chases the customer into the street, corners him into a dead-end alley.

How dare you? The fury rises in his throat, the humanoid shape of his body peeling back to reveal his vulpine form. He slams down to the ground on all four paws, snarling as he locks eyes with his prey. You, you disrespectful speck.

You are nothing.

The energy of the soul siphons into Ume’s breath, first slowly before rushing to join his essence. The taste is first sweet on his tongue, but the aftertaste becomes strangely bitter and acrid. Its vitality courses through him, intoxicating and renewing.

The body slumps to the pavement. Shifting back to his humanoid shape, he kicks it into the shadowy gutter of the alley, where it lies face down into the muddy waters. Ghosts in the system, all of us. Doubt anyone will come looking for him.

What a miserable end. Nothing proper about this burial. A faint guilt creeps over his conscience; Ume quashes the brief misgiving with a contemptuous shake of his head. Foolish mortal.

He makes his way back to the shop, ducking and weaving back to its place on the outskirts. The late afternoon sun hangs low in the sky, bloody red through the thick film of smog.

The little tanukis bring out the broom and dustpan, carefully gathering up the pieces. Alongside them, Ume does his best to collect the shards into separate bundles: one for each of the cups, each of the ornamental saucers, and the teapot itself.

The kitsune, upon seeing the damage, seems disquieted, disturbed even. He clucks his tongue disappointedly. Tetsuo will just have to do his best. Ume sets the bundles into a handbasket softly, almost reverently.

He shoos the tanukis out, closes the shop early; it’s been enough ruckus for the day. The kitsune, the basket tucked into the crook of his elbow, sets off to call on the repairman.

Ume ducks into the doorway, winds his way into the workshop; he shuts the door quietly behind him. He tiptoes around bins of scrap and spare parts, peers up at the ceiling lights ever in disarray. Cables run from each and every power outlet, all leading to the back of the shop. The air hums with the sound of electrical current flowing through wires and complex circuitry.

The craftsman sits hunched over his workbench, turning pottery pieces in hand to reassemble the greater whole; he has a special touch with ceramics and pottery. He’s a peculiar automaton, a horned and monstrous creature: an oni made in machinery. He’s a rather old model, his components aged and worn; his power core has been on the fritz, rendering him homebound: a prisoner to his power source.

The oni peers up from his handiwork, pushes the spectacle-bound loupes up and out of his glowing golden eyes. He grins widely at Ume’s approach, daggered fangs front and center.

His mystical appearance puts Ume so much at ease, a reminder of the ferocious Onis of ages past; he even has the small subset horns of most spirit-folk, much like Ume himself. There’s a sense of kinship there between them, bridging the divide between the traditional mysticism of times past and the hypermodern mechanics of technology.

“Go easy on them, fox.” Tetsuo’s words are sweetly mumbled, his eyes rounded and gentle beneath machined eyelids. He takes the basket of tea sets in hand, pulling out a wrapped bundle containing the remnants of a cup. As he rummages among the pieces to make sense of the damage, the porcelain chimes against his clawed metal fingers. “Customers are ever so much in a hurry.”

“Too much of a hurry for tea.” The kitsune curls his lip in derision. “What a thought. They have no appreciation for the traditional; it’s all cyber and machinery and what’s the new mod.” His voice rises, pitching to a mocking tone.

“Well, Ume,” Daubing the jagged edges with glue, the robotic oni presses shards together, rebuilding the ceramic whole. “I can’t agree that husking another civilian was your soundest call.” He wiggles a smaller fragment into the gaping crack with a careful touch. “That’s your second this week, right?”

“His soul tasted like shit anyway.” Ume grumbles, ignoring the last question. “Filthy and subpar.”

Tetsuo tilts his head to glower at the kitsune halfheartedly, his gaze good-humored but critical. “So what’s the lesson here?” Waiting for the glue to dry, he places the half-repaired cup into a mold for stability.

The sorcerous fox snorts in response; only his third eye blinks: a baleful, resentful blink. “Don’t eat shitty people. Stick to the good ones.”

The oni exhales loudly, takes a long, breathy inhale. “Remind me, how do I put up with you?”

“You don’t.” Ume cackles with playful glee. “You take the money and look the other way till I get outta here.”

“I suppose you’re right.” The oni softly chuckles, giving the fox a knowing look.

The kitsune continues grousing. “Can you believe the gall of this man? Snippy with the younguns, paid in forfeits, and smashed a perfectly good set–the disrespect is maddening.” His expression twists into a hotly contemptuous sneer. “Traditional sets are impossible to replace these days.”

“Though,” His face softens a touch as he stares at the automaton. “I suppose it does give me a reason to drop by.”

“Ume…” Tetsuo chides him, the pain marked on his face. “You know how I stand on this.”

The fox stares at him, much longing in his eyes.

“We shouldn’t.” The oni shakes his head, but doesn’t have the heart to fully rebuff him. “This can only end poorly.”

The fox still stares, his expression sweetly forlorn; it is the look of a broken heart.

“Come, Fox, sit with me.” Tetsuo softly sighs; he knows Ume too well, reads his feelings like a book. He takes the cup from its mold, dips a brush in the thick lacquer. “With a broken cup, the immediate impulse is to puzzle and fix. Be still, take a moment to notice the brokenness without rushing to fix it.”

“You’re being a hypocrite.” Ume cocks his head, all three eyes blinking in concerted confusion. “You’re diving right into repairs.”

The oni laughs good-humoredly, his brushwork making clean lines perfectly matching the cup’s cracked patterns. “No, I’m doing this to be paid. I need to keep the lights on.”

Ume snorts glibly. “And the difference is?”

“I’m not here for the mindfulness exercise.” The oni answers sagely, in a kind of teacherly way. “But you might need a round of it yourself.” He pauses as he gathers all the pieces of a shattered cup, places them gently at the end of the workbench. “Come, sit. Do one of these yourself. You’ve seen me work similar ones before.”

Ume sits next to him, starts clumsily applying the glue to the rough edges.

“Few things are broken for good.” Already curing the lacquer on the first cup, the mechanical oni smiles, his joyful expression in stark contrast to his fearsome features. “We repair what we can to be better than before.” He dusts gold onto the lacquered seams, looks at his handiwork in delight. “Healing comes from connection, not perfection. What’s done is done.”

Tetsuo hums to himself as he turns it in his hands. “See, Ume. Look carefully.”

The spidering of gold against the smooth-paned porcelain looks ever so delicate: a well-crafted kintsugi on display. Ume can’t help but smile with him; his simple happiness is contagious.

Their exchange is cut short by a crackling arc of electricity. Sparks, hotly orange, cascade from cable connections, spilling to the floor before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Junctures between external components similarly alight and smolder, dangerously close to burning out.

He almost looks like a kintsugi himself, like this is the best he can be rebuilt. The dark thought comes unbidden; Ume bites his tongue to avoid giving voice to the snide, embittered observation.

“How much longer, Tetsuo?” He looks upon the robot with startling intensity, looking for any sign of progressing damage. “I’ve seen you in bad shape, but this is the worst I’ve seen.”

“My core can’t run on auxiliary power forever; it really isn’t designed for it.” The robot’s laugh crackles with distortion, but his eyes are gravely somber. “They don’t make hybrid cores like they used to. I put feelers out into the market, but couldn’t find a compatible replacement.”

He takes a slow blink, the golden light of his irises unsteadily lit. “At this rate, any day now.”

The kitsune presses a kiss to the robot’s head. His voice breaks as he murmurs a short phrase, one that breaks his heart: “Broken for good.”

He hesitates before speaking. “Yes.” The robot’s core flickers for a brief second, weakly stabilizing hereafter; Tetsuo winces, rubs at a scorch mark on his exterior. “Irreparable.”

“Can I help you with anything?” The words catch in the fox’s throat. Sorcery can do so little here, he thinks bitterly to himself.

Tetsuo seems hesitant to word his wishes; the right hinge of his jaw pops and sparks as he speaks. “Spend these days with me.” His eyes, still faintly flickering, meet Ume’s. “Few things sound better than a good cup of tea and good company.”

“For you?” The kitsune gives him a slow nod, whispering his response. “Anything.”

He whispers his magics onto the wind, spiriting his best teas, kettle, and teapot to his side.

He boils the water with foxfire, pours it into the kettle with graceful pomp and circumstance.

He gives his oni the illusion of the teashop: its wood-grained walls and polished lacquer counters, the rustic–almost austere–ambiance with the quiet talk of surrounding patrons.

He tries to give him a most honest and ideal experience: the dulled sounds of a hurrying city, the peace and tranquility of steeping tea, the comfort of cradling a hot cup in his hands, the quiet togetherness of appreciated company.

It is all he can offer.

… It is all he can have.

profile code by FallenSamurai

introduction by atempause

story by Tribe

art, overlay by atempause

background pattern from toptal