“Made it.”
”…This is the summit?”
We’d reached the summit of Fushimi Inari. I was happy at the achievement — Kano looked dubious.
The summit is 233m — sounds dramatic. But buildings block the views; you can’t see anything from any angle. The view was aggressively normal.
“Not what you imagined?”
“Yeah — I thought there’d be a panoramic view.”
“Honestly, the panorama spots on the way up were nicer.”
“Yeah — didn’t see that coming.”
(My kid-self had the same reaction.) We selfied with the summit sign and prayed at the upper shrine.
“Oh — free omikuji. Is free normal?”
“Pretty rare. Fushimi Inari omikuji have interesting results too.”
Standard omikuji give daikichi, kichi, chukichi, shokichi, suekichi, kyo, daikyo — Fushimi has that plus dai-daikichi, kyo-go-daikichi, shokyo-go-kichi, kichi-kyo-mibun-suedaikichi, kichi-kyo-aihan, etc. — categories I’d never seen elsewhere.
“Let’s try — revenge for the last one.”
“Yes — the Hakone give-up-on-love trauma — let’s overwrite it.”
We drew.
“Yuito look — I got dai-daikichi.”
“Best possible result. I got… kichi-kyo-aihan. Neither lucky nor unlucky.”
We read the verses. Kakeba michimitsureba kakete yo-no-naka no tsuki koso hito no kagami narikeri (a waka about the moon) and explanations.
“Mine says: wishes come true, fortune comes — but desire beyond your station leads to misfortune.”
“Mine says: wishes come true, abundant fortune — but desiring too much causes loss of treasures, misfortune.”
“Both saying: don’t be greedy.”
“Yeah — once I’ve got Yuito’s body and heart, I’ll settle down.”
“Don’t casually claim me as property.”
We chatted about the fortunes a while, then descended. Took as long as the climb with breaks.
“Next stop — Gion?”
“Wait — there’s a charm I want to buy first.”
“Charm?”
“One I was planning to get at Fushimi Inari.”
She had a beaming smile. She picked up a Myobu enmusubi charm — relationship-binding.
“You’ve already done relationship-binding everywhere — do you really need another charm?”
“The key word is Myobu before enmusubi.”
(Bad feeling.) “What does it mean?”
“Two meanings: the foxes who serve the Inari god — and wife.”
“Wife is way too premature.”
“Hmm — premature implies you’ll marry me eventually.”
“That was a turn of phrase!”
“Verbal contract obtained — execute as promised.”
(Lost.) This Kyoto trip is rapidly closing off my retreat routes. Probably-fine, but probably-very-not-fine. Setting it aside.