His hand reaches and strokes your face with the very tips of his fingers, like he is tracing a picture, before drawing back.
“With the criteria for spring met, there is only one thing left if you truly wish for the reward I promised you. But, in order to accept it, you cannot stay here. If you accept and come with me, you will no longer be a mortal. The choice is yours.”
You take a step back, reflexively, almost as though his words bear a physical weight. Kiku looks worried for a moment, as if he thinks you might faint, but you don’t feel faint. In fact, you feel more alert than you have done in weeks, thanks to hunger and lack of sleep. You look around the shrine, thoughts colliding frantically with each other as they struggle to connect Kiku’s words to you. But he is right about the loneliness- if he had not appeared before you that day, you might have ended up succumbing to the same sickness that claimed your mother. Friends and neighbors have offered you occasional meals, but you know they would not really miss you. If you went with Kiku, what possibilities would be open to you? Since your mother died, life has not been something to enjoy, but to be endured.
Why endure, when you can become something greater?
You look back at Kiku, eyes unblinking, and he understands.
“Are you prepared?”
You close your eyes, and feel tears drip off your cheeks with surprise. You did not even realize that you had started crying.
“I was ready for a long time,” you answer, smiling up at him despite your wet eyes. “I just didn’t know that until now.”
Kiku smiles, and this time, there is no subtly in his expression. Instead, all you see is warmth and light in his gaze, and automatically you move to him and throw your arms around the God of Spring, sinking into his embrace, and he presses his lips against your own.
“Come with me,” he whispers.
Taking your hand, Kiku wraps his fingers around yours, and the shrine begins to fade away as he concentrates, changing into something new.
When your body is discovered in the shrine the next morning, there is a smile on your lips. Curiously, in your hand lies a flower stem, two petals lying not far from it. And that morning is the day that the sakura blossoms by the shrine have finally bloomed.