Author's Note: This is the beginning of my 100 one-shots. I saw the list for the Twisting the Hellmouth 100 prompts (a link to the original site of the prompts can be found in my profile) and decided to use the prompts as an original series of inter-connecting moments in time, with a few alterations. In these one-shots I’ll be using Japanese vocabulary (including a translation of the prompt if I can) and I try to define them within the story. Any questions feel free to message me.

Also, these are original characters and ideas, so don't borrow my work.

Word Count: 546

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Prompt: Tsuki/Moon

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The making of mochi—or sweet rice—was an annual tradition in Japan and was essential to the New Year’s Festival as everyone ate a bowl of mochi soup to insure a happy year. At the festival several people had set up their mortars with mochi that had been soaked over night, and began pounding it with wooden mallets. It was almost an art, as one person pounded and another reached in between strikes to turn the rice.

On this day, Matsuo Ayumi was helping her father by darting her hands in to turn the smooth and shiny rice, in a rhythm that kept her hands from being accidentally struck by the mallet. “I believe it’s done,” her father commented, studying the contents of the bowl.

“My turn to make cakes now, otooto,” Ayumi proclaimed to her younger brother. The sixteen year old huffed a bit but stepped up to take her place. She in turn went to the table where the newly finished mochi had been placed on some sweet rice flour to keep it from getting sticky.

She and other members of her family had formed an assembly line of sorts. One would pinch of the mochi and hand it off to be shaped and filled with sweet bean paste. Then another would place the treats on a layered pan to be served. Another would pinch off the mochi to be used in soup. At the booth they ran, her two aunts were selling the goods as soon as they were made.

“Obaa-san, tell us the story about Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu, onegai!” Mikoto, Ayumi’s niece, pleaded as she shaped small spheres of rice. Quickly the others joined in asking their grandmother and mother to tell them the story of the moon god.

Laughing, the older woman nodded as she stuffed mochi with deft hands. “Alright. Amaterasu once sent Tsukuyomi to represent her at a feast presented by Uke Mochi. The goddess made the food by turning to the ocean and spitting out a fish, then facing the forest wherein game came out of her mouth, and finally turning to a rice paddy she coughed up a bowl of rice. Tsukuyomi was utterly disgusted by the fact that, although it looked exquisite, the meal was made in a disgusting manner, and so he killed her.

Soon, Amaterasu learned what happened and she was so angry that she refused to ever look at Tsukuyomi again, forever moving to another part of the sky. This is the reason that day and night are never together.”

The children listened with rapt attention, leaving the older family members to make the rice. They pleaded for more stories and the woman obliged by telling them stories of the kami. Ayumi smiled at the younger ones, and at the cries of “kawaii” of customers who saw the pairs of eyes listening closely to the stories.

She remembered when she was younger; her kaa-san had showed her the rabbit in the moon making mochi. For years, she thought that the rabbit came down from the moon to deliver mochi to the people to be made into cakes for New Years. Of course now she knew better, but every time there was a full moon she would always smile at Tsukiyo no Usagi.