“Opposite actions.”
“Done for the same reason.”
“I think it’s a stretch that we agree on this.”
“Well, it felt fun to say,” he said.
“This much confusion is worth a chance for you to make a little quip?”
“Well, obviously.” He smiled, glancing over his shoulder at her. “I thought it was funny, at least.”
“Funny? How?”
He shrugged. “Just…funny?”
She shook her head. “That is not what humor is like, Painter.”
（She was, of course, dead wrong. Remember what the poet said: “Never let something trivial, like a sense of humor, get in the way of a good joke.”
The poet was me.
He said it right now.）
Afterward, they both rested on their backs and floated for a time to soak, and didn’t say much. Eventually they climbed out of the bath. He held the clothing toward her so she could make a copy. This, fortunately, did not vanish once donned. They didn’t know why. （It has to do with them automatically incorporating the clothing into their vision of themselves at the time, but that’s beside the point.）
The two turned back-to-back as a token nod toward modesty as they dressed. Which was amusing, since putting on clothing wasn’t exactly the immodest part of the experience.
Painter found it aggravating how difficult it was to tie the bow on his outfit. He pulled it too tight, then tried it loose, and then looked flabbergasted at Yumi, who had tied hers into a basic knot like she often did. She shrugged.
“At least,” she said to him, “I didn’t dismiss the people who could have done this correctly for me.”
A valid point.
A short time later, the attendants dropped them off at the orchard shrine, where trees drifted and bumped against one another like people in line for concert tickets. Painter felt bad every time they came here, as he knew for a fact they were interrupting the work of the orchard keepers. Then again, maybe the workers wanted an excuse to take a break.
Liyun was nowhere to be seen—the yoki-hijo was supposed to be alone during meditation—but she had done as Painter had requested, leaving a scroll, some painting ink, and a small brush for him. Judging by the symbol on the leather sheath for the brush, she’d commandeered them from the scholars. Well, they were probably too busy trying to make their machine work to bother with writing anyway.
“So why this?” Yumi asked, gesturing to it.
“Well,” Painter said, “you keep telling me I need to clear my mind while meditating—”
“You do.”
“—which is basically impossible—”
“It’s absolutely not.”
“—but I considered and realized there is a time when I mostly clear my mind.” He held up his brush. “When I’m painting.”
She cocked her head and watched as he rolled out the scroll, then knelt to begin painting. He started into it, expecting her to condemn him. If she’d hated it when he’d improvised earlier in the day, she would undoubtedly hate this doubly—as he was supposed to be worshipping the spirits at the moment. Or something. He still didn’t quite get the point of this part.
“You’re…actually trying,” she said softly, surprising him. “You’ve given this some thought.”
“A lot of it,” he admitted, doing a quick painting. Just some flourishes of the brush to create curved lines.
She knelt beside him. “When I was painting those bamboo stalks, I…got into a rhythm. Time passed. Almost like I was meditating.”
“So I’m right!”
“It’s wrong,” she said. “You’re not supposed to do anything. But…it’s right anyway, I think.” She peered closer at what he’d done—a painting where he tried to capture a face in as few lines as possible.
“Is that Hwanji?” she asked, pointing.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s an artistic technique for practicing how to see shapes and lines in everything around you. You try to capture a person with only a few strokes.”
“Looks easy,” she said. “Like…you don’t want to do all the work of a real painting.”
“It’s more difficult than it appears,” he said. “It’s like…like poetry written using the fewest syllables possible.”
She appeared skeptical. “It’s pretty, I suppose. But I do think it looks lazy. And it doesn’t seem it would be of much use against the nightmares.”
“It’s not.”
“Then why—”
“Hey,” he said, “I’m trying to meditate here.” He gave her a wink.
The stare she returned could have boiled water.
So of course he did a quick painting of that—her lips, eyes, the shape of her teardrop face. All done with quick flourishes of the brush to evoke the correct image. An artistic shorthand that had become a form unto itself.
She took this in stride. It was the kind of teasing he’d learned didn’t bother her—or, well, it bothered her in the right way. If he wanted Yumi to play along, he had to tease her, not her station or the spirits.
He continued, and soon moved from faces—he preferred references for those—to his old standby. Bamboo. The more familiar the motions, the better he felt it would be for clearing his mind.
Somehow, an hour passed.
When Liyun arrived, he realized he’d filled the scroll with bamboo. A part of him was slightly disappointed—he’d hoped, contrary to what Yumi said, that painting would draw the attention of spirits. She said that although other arts could do it, painting wasn’t one of them as far as she knew.
Yumi met his eyes, then glanced at the paintings. He could practically hear her thoughts—part of her had wondered as well. You didn’t need to be in a place of ritual for the spirits to come; that was just where the rocks were stacked, where it was easiest. If skilled painting could accomplish the task, an hour spent here should have been enough.
Or perhaps his painting did not count as skilled.
Regardless, it had been relaxing. He smiled, tucked away his disappointment, and turned toward Liyun. “That was perfect,” he said. “I’ll want to paint like this every day, please.”
“Why?” she asked.
“It is the will of the spirits,” he said.
Though Yumi gave him a frown at that, he figured his words were true. The spirits wanted him here and meditating, so they would approve. Together he, Yumi, and Liyun left the shrine and crossed out of the orchard and through the town. At the edge, near the place of ritual, a large tent had been erected. He heard voices from inside—mostly sounding annoyed.
“Those scholars haven’t gotten their machine working yet, I assume?” he said softly to Liyun.
“No,” she said. “Their arrival was a surprise to me. It’s an affront to us—bordering on blasphemy—for them to bring one of those here. I hate the things.”
“Wait,” Yumi said. “She knows about them?”
“You know about these?” Painter asked.
“It is nothing for you to worry about, Chosen,” Liyun said with a wave of her fingers. “The efforts of the scholars are a novelty, nothing more.” She hesitated. “Still, how dare they cart one of these to a village where we’re on duty…”