You know, Hoozuki no Reitetsu doesn't get a lot of attention. Most of it is all NozukixHakutaku, which is ok, but there's no HakutakuxOC stories. Well I've decided to come up with one of my own. I shall try my best to make sure that this one is not a mary-sue I swear.

disclaimer: I do not own Hoozuki no Reitetsu. I only own my OC who's name will be revealed at the end of the chapter.


Chapter 1: Remembering my first friend

I remember him like the back of my hand.

Every feature from the red marks on the corners of his eyes, to the mischievous smile that would take over his mouth every time he had a trick up his sleeve.

He was beautiful in an otherworldly sense.

He was not human.

He was not a demon.

He was my only friend.

As a child I had been abandoned in front of an orphanage. If I had a name back then I have never known it, just as I have never known the faces of the parents who left me behind. Nanako-san, the director of the orphanage, told me I was at least two at the time, barely able to speak in full sentences and unwilling to look others in the eye. She gave me my own name and along with the rest of the children living there, gave me a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food to fill my stomach.


You would think that most parents would want a quiet and intelligent child to adopt correct?

Well, when people would come, Nanako-san would set interviews with those who were old enough to form coherent sentences to speak with them. The first time I went, the man and woman present there were excited to meet me. They asked me what I liked to do in my spare time. I told them I enjoyed reading, writing, and drawing gave me some pleasure.

Yet as the conversation continued, their questions became more hesitant as they noticed that my facial expressions did not change. At first I believed that they simply did not know what other questions to ask of me. However, when the interview ended I could hear them talking to Nanako-san saying that I was much too 'frightening' in a sense. I didn't understand. Was it because I preferred the sound of silence? Or was it because I did not do things that the other children would do?

I did not enjoy playing with dolls. To me, creating situations where they had to act was dull. There was only so much I could do before I got bored of the other girls who kept on pretending that their dolls were looking for boyfriends.

Books on the other hand opened the mind to fantastical worlds and characters. they were a plethora of imagination and wonder. The words would paint pictures so clear in my mind that I was astounded by the clarity in the power of literature. It also gave way to a passion for drawing. Scenery could be created out of thin air, and with it a story could be created.

Even with these interests in the arts, people who came to the orphanage began to avoid me. At first when I asked why Nanako-san said that it was because they had never dealt with a child who had my level of intelligence. In school I always had my nose in a book. Whether it was fiction or history or some other genre, I read to my heart's content. Other children simply knew me as 'the bookworm who sat in the back of the classroom'. Teachers would praise my intellect telling me it would take me far.

Yet deep down I knew the truth of why people didn't want me. It was not unknown to myself that I didn't show a lot of facial expression most of the time. It was rare for me to show expression other than indifference. Just because I didn't show a lot of facial expressions, it did not mean that there was something wrong. I just didn't think I needed to show every emotion all the time. I knew I was a quiet child. People seemed to believe that if a child did not show emotion 24/7 it meant that something was wrong with them.

Nanako-san was a person who believed that and for a while took me to see a child psychologist. However after about three or four sessions of questioning, the psychologist merely told Nanako-san that there was nothing wrong psychologically with me. I wasn't unhappy. In fact, despite seeing children get adopted and potential parents now beginning to avoid me, I was quite content.


I never had friends there or at school to be honest. I was too quiet for their tastes. At least, that is what I would hear when they didn't think I could hear them talking in loud whispers. It was annoying but I put up with it. There were a few who were like me that didn't have much to say. Yet to me they were considered mere acquaintances and stayed as such. Only speaking if there was something of interest to speak of. As I grew older people like myself were referred to as loners, or sometimes even goths or emos because it was believed that we suffered from depression or that there was something wrong with us.

Was it wrong for a person to enjoy silence? Was it wrong for a person to believe that it was OK to be alone?


It wasn't until I was ten that I met him.

I remember that I was inside the school library reading 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' at one of the tables next to a window. I had looked outside for a moment when I saw my teacher laughing with a young man in the school's courtyard. I was not paying attention to the giggly tone in the female's voice, but rather to the appearance of the man before her.

He was tall and lanky with neat black hair across his forehead. At the corners of slanted grey eyes were red markings that did not look as if they had been painted on. hanging from his left ear was a red cord with a gold ring attached in the middle and two green beads attached to the ends. His attire appeared to be that of Chinese culture. A white mandarin jacket, white pants, and white shoes. Everything he wore was white. Other than those attributes, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about the man. Yet something about him screamed different. What is was I couldn't put my finger on at the time but I had decided not to pay attention any longer.


Every time I looked out that window in the school library he was there during the lunch break. He would flirt with the female teachers every time that period. It was strange for a better lack of term. He would be talking to all of them at the same time in what appeared to be a flirtatious manner but they would all cling to him like leeches. I saw that they would never argue even though they were all pining after the same man. I was baffled. It was like he had them spellbound.

After five more days of this I couldn't keep my curiosity down any longer. Instead of going to the library, I made my way down to the courtyard and sat on a bench waiting for the man in white to arrive.

I remember what I said when he finally did arrive.

"Are you a magician or something?"

My question had been so out of the blue and sudden that he turned to face me with a shocked expression on his face while mine remained straight. It became something of a staring contest between us for a few moments.

"...Come again?" he finally spoke blinking.

"I said 'are you a magician or something?' Every time I see you talking with all the teachers who are girls they cling to you like they're leeches and they're not even fighting over you." I explained. "I've read that when another woman gets too close to a man who's already taken by another, they fight like a cat and a dog."

He just stared at me again before his mouth curved into an amused smile and bent down to my height as I sat. "Well little Nuhai [1], let's just say I like talking to pretty girls." he said.

"So you're just leading them on." I said and with that he froze in his tracks.

"So I'm right?" I asked already knowing my answer.

The smile on his face became forced as he turned to me again. "Listen little one: I can't help it if I attract pretty ladies. Besides I'm not leading them on. I'm simply giving them all of my love equally." He said smirking.

I just deadpanned "If making a harem is what you call sharing your love equally then I think you'd better be ready to face a bunch of angry in-laws because I don't think their going to share you're thinking."

He just straight out glared at me while I kept a poker face. "Where did you learn things like that? Don't your mom and dad make sure you don't read anything you're not supposed to? I just might have to tell them you're being a bad little girl." He bit out with a smirk thinking he had won.

I on the other hand only raised an eyebrow. "I don't have a mom and I don't have a dad either. I live in an orphanage. As far as reading goes I've read a few stories in the public library where the villain or the king has a harem of women. Manga show that stuff too though it's a lot more perverted in some cases."

At the comment I made about not having parents he flinched but then looked at me in curiosity. "You're strange for a kid you know that?" he said now sitting on the bench with me.

I shrugged. "I get that a lot." As I ate my lunch I saw the gaggle of female teachers coming toward us. "You're harem's arriving." I said motioning towards the onslaught of estrogen.

The man merely smiled like a pervert and sauntered towards them. before he got any closer though I said "Until tomorrow Ero-san[2]." He froze again.


After that encounter we had begun a pattern of sorts. I would sit on the bench during lunch break and he would sit with me. somethings he would chatter about girls and their assets while I half listened most of the time. Other times I listened wondering why he was such a perv. On the other hand he would tell me about traditional medicine. This was something that garnered my interest rather quickly. Despite being a pervert his knowledge on traditional Chinese medicine was so extensive that I was shocked at how much I was learning.

Sometimes he would tell me about work. It was mostly about him flirting with ladies but sometimes he would go on an angry rant about someone named Hozuki and how they would go out of their way to mess with each other. I often had an inkling that there was more than he let on however when he would say that Hozuki needed to 'go back to Jigoku and stay there' though.

He would even tell me about mythical beasts from both Chinese and Japanese legend. Again there was more to him than he let on when he told me extensive knowledge on spirits such as Enma, Ox-head and Horse-head. I didn't think much of it at the time though merely believing him to be a mythology enthusiast.

After a while the principal finally saw the female teachers' behavior which led him to make a rule that no one except students and faculty were allowed on the courtyard. This ended my lunch conversations with the man in white. However it seemed that this wouldn't stop him from talking with me. After school I would cross through a park. I found him hunched in front of some plants the day after the principal enforced the outsiders rule. He told me that he was studying some of the foliage present in the park to see if they had any medicinal properties he could use to create remedies. As he worked, I would stay close by and we picked up where we left off once again beginning our conversations. On occasion he would make a pass at a young adult female walking by, but other than that everything continued as normal.

One day during our park conversation I finally asked him what his name was. At this he smiled and told me it was time I got back to the orphanage. Before I left however, four words left his mouth.

"My name is Hakutaku."


I still had a strange feeling about my only friend Hakutaku. There was something mystifying that I just couldn't put my finger on. It wasn't until I had turned eleven however that I found something to tie it all in.

While I was searching for a new book to read I had wandered into the fiction section. A book titled 'Ancient Myths of Asia' caught my attention. I checked it out and began to read through it fascinated by all the myths that the continent had to offer. It wasn't until I had reached the myths in China that I found something that shocked me.

It was a traditional painting of a white creature with a billowing mane and tail. Two horns sat upon it's head along with an additional four horns along the lower back. It stood on four hooves and instead of two eyes, this creature had nine eyes in total. Three on the head, and three on both sides of it's body. What shocked me to my very core however, were the red markings on its face and it's name.

Bai ze, Hakutaku

At first I dismissed it as my imagination. There was no such thing as mythical creatures. They were just ways of explaining the unknown from long ago. As for the name I simply dismissed it as his parents wanting to name him something unique. however the red markings on the corners of the eyes in the picture kept haunting me as I would meet with the Hakutaku that I knew.

The fondness for medicinal plants coincided all to well with the mythical beast regarded as a patron of medicine and healing. The fact that he always wore white was beginning to wear on me as well.

After a few months passed and the warm weather increased in temperature I finally could not keep silent anymore.

I confronted him and blurted out words.

"Are you Bai Ze?" I demanded more than asked.

The jar he was holding to place medicinal plants in fell in the grass with a muffled thud against the Earth. Hakutaku regarded me with a look of pure shock before covering it up with a smile.

"What in the world are you talking about Lizi-ko[3]?" He attempted to play it off but his eyes were averting away from my face.

"It's just a yes or no answer. Don't lie to me either I'll know." I threatened with a gleam in my eyes as my eyebrows furrowed.

After a few moments Hakutaku sighed looking away from me.

"You're way too smart for your own good. I was wondering if you were ever going to figure it out. Now I know." He finally spoke.

Crestfallen I walked towards him and tugged on the sleeve of his white jacket. I didn't dare look up. "I only figured it out because I saw a picture of you as a beast in a book at school. I thought I was probably imagining it but the similarities were too much. Please don't stop being my friend?" I asked at the end of my explanation. Beast or not, I didn't want Hakutaku to leave me. Despite being a pervert and a mythical creature, he was the only person I had ever had in my life as a true friend. I didn't think I could handle it if he left me.

After a moment Hakutaku took my hand off his sleeve. I thought he was going to leave but then he bent down to my height and wiped away forming tears that I hadn't realized were prepared to fall from my eyes.

"It's all right Lizi-ko." He said giving me a kind smile. It wasn't the usual one he had with hidden intentions behind it but an honest smile. I gave a small smile back and his eyes widened for a second before he embraced me in a hug. It'd been a while since I showed a smile.

He told me everything that day. About how there was heaven, hell, and that creatures of folklore did in fact exist.


This pattern of ours continued for years. Even going into middle and then high school I would still meet him in the park. As I started to get older I had developed a habit of sneaking out of the window in my room to meet him at night as well. The first time was to show me his celestial form. It was exactly like how the picture in the book had depicted him.

"Where do all those eyes of yours go?" I asked him one night. We were watching fireflies buzz around glowing when I had suddenly brought up the question.

He merely smiled and pulled his bangs back revealing to me a red marking on his forehead in the shape of an eye.

"In this form the rest of my eyes usually change into markings." he explained and laughed as I poked the mark experimentally thinking it would blink. Nothing of the sort happened though.

I thought our friendship would always be like this.


It was never meant to last it seemed.

Hakutaku stopped coming to the park one day. At first I had assumed he was busy that day so I continued on as if nothing had happened. Yet from that day more passed and Hakutaku still did not come. Days became a week, and then weeks. Even at night there was no sign of the mythical beast I had come to care about.

I was worried thinking that maybe something had happened. I just wanted to see him again.

Instead of my usual going to the park, I found him one night sitting on my window sill.

I didn't know what to think.

"Where have you been?" I hissed quietly trying not to wake anyone else in the orphanage gritting my teeth though the rest of my face was carefully void of showing what I felt. I was rightfully angry with the spirit before me. He had left without a word making me worried sick over him. "Do you know how worried I was?"

For once though Hakutaku did not smile though. For the first time in the years I had known him, sadness crossed his face.

"Haku...?" I questioned.

He walked up to me and peered into my eyes. "I can't come anymore."

My face betrayed me and morphed into shock. "...What?" I asked hesitantly hoping I had heard him wrong. The look remaining on his face told me otherwise.

"I can't come to Earth to see you anymore Lizi-ko. A few of the envoys in heaven found out I had revealed my identity to you for this long. I'm on probation and no longer allowed to come to Earth for a while." He explained and gently rubbed the top of my head. I reached his chest now with him no longer having to bend to my size.

I grabbed his jacket and looked him in the eye. My facade had completely crumbled away by now. Tears were falling like a waterfall down my face.

"Don't go... I've never told anyone about you... I've kept it a secret for six years... don't leave me... please..." I was sobbing quietly and uncontrollably. Hakutaku held me close and sat us both down on the floor holding me until I cried myself to sleep.

I woke up finding myself tucked in bed a few hours later. Jumping out from the covers, I searched my entire room for any sign of Hakutaku but to no avail.

He had left me.

I collapsed to the floor weeping. Then my foot touched something that felt like burlap. I looked over for a moment to find a very small sack tied with a bit of string. Curious despite my predicament, I opened it up and tilted it so that the object inside would fall into the awaiting palm of my other hand.

What fell into my hand was a purple cord that reminded me of the one Hakutaku wore on his ear. In place of a ring to tie it in the middle, was instead a metal plum blossom where the cord was tied to the back. At the ends instead of beads, two small bells were tied making a soft jingle with each movement.

The tears came back at full force as I held the cord in my hand.

It seemed that cruel fate cut my ties with my beloved friend for good.


It was difficult but after a few months of wallowing in silent sadness, I had learned to live life without the presence of the only one I had ever called a friend. I had to break out of the habit of going to the park after school and even locked my window at night so as not to sneak out anymore. I threw myself into my studies, books, and drawings. Sometimes I wound up drawing Hakutaku and had to will myself not to think about him.

I graduated high school with full marks and moved out of the orphanage saying farewell to Nanako-san and thanking her for all she had done for me. I attended a university of my choice on a full scholarship majoring in business and minoring in creative writing. Books were still my life and drawing was a passion I had refused to give up. I found work as the assistant to a mangaka artist named Natsumi Eguchi who was currently working on a manga of her own design.

All the while, I was creating a manga of my own. It was about a young woman who had the ability to see spirits. Using her ability she would try to help the spirit find peace and let them move on. However, one day she found the spirit of a young man and for some reason she cannot bring him to peace seeing as he has forgotten how he actually passed away and what he needed to do in order to move on. The spirit winds up staying with the young woman causing all sorts of mishaps for her.

As the years passed by I tried to push the memories of Hakutaku to the back of my mind but it was of no use. My memories even served as inspiration for my manga. I know I should've moved on, but I suppose that the memories of the mythical beast would serve to haunt me for as long as I lived. It did not hinder me from living my life though.

I was able to keep on living. I was living in a decent apartment, I had a good job, I was satisfied. As for the cord Hakutaku had given me, I wore it despite myself wanting to forget him. However, those memories that I had with him were ones that I would cherish. I still missed him but at least I had something to remember the sweetness of the first friendship I had ever had the pleasure of receiving.


Disaster struck one night in the Akihabara prefecture in Tokyo. At 9:54 pm, a car going over the speed limit went past the crosswalk when the light for pedestrians to cross was still on. Only one person was killed in the hit and run incident. A 24 year old woman with long wavy chestnut colored hair, pale skin, standing at five-three was hit and died instantly at the impact. Her furneral was attended by the few who had known the girl. Her boss and colleagues, as well as the woman who had taken her in as a child when she'd been abandoned on the steps.

My name is Umeko Kagurazaka. The woman who died in the hit and run was me. This is the closing of my life on Earth but it is also the beginning of a new chapter in death.


Author's note: And that concludes chapter one. So now you all know that my OC's name is Umeko which means 'plum child' or 'plum-blossom child'

I hope this story came out good. I wasn't sure how to go about Hakutaku's personality outside of heaven. Please review!

[1] Nuhai- Chinese word for girl (I used google translate for this. If there are any native speakers of Chinese dialect please let me know if I got it wrong)

[2]Ero-san- Umeko basically called Hakutaku a pervert

[3]-Lizi-ko: Remember how Hakutaku calls Momotaro Tao-taro because Tao is chinese for peach? Well Lizi (sorry i don't have the accent marks for it again I used google translate) means plum since Ume is the Japanese term for the fruit. Hakutaku is just adding the -ko in her name to it.

Ja'ne- Kitsune to Tenshi-chan