• Bitter things like coffee, dark chocolate, tea, and certain alcohols.
• The sound birds wings make when they flutter to land on a branch.
• The feeling of his feet hitting the cold floor in the morning.
• The cold side of the pillow, putting on a jacket that's been sitting absorbing the cold,
shimmying under covers that haven't yet been warmed by body heat.
• Silk linings inside clothing
• Ice skating

• Sweet things, syrups, or anything that tastes too artificial.
• Sticky things like honey, or glue. Even toothpaste or anything too viscous squicks them.
• Being surprised or sudden, abrupt loud noises.
• Not doing well in his studies, disappointing their master, not completing an assignment.
• Being away from Mushi, not being able to go outside.

A cold winter morning, sipping an even colder tea with ice, in quiet contemplation with others of like minds is the perfect day for Suru. He was born in Lübeck, Germany which is in a colder area of the country, and he lived there until they were 6, so they got very accustomed to the cold, and he fell in love with the calm quiet of a snowy field and frozen water.

Moving to Japan was quite a culture shock, and it was worse because his parents divorced and their mother took him back home with her, to her parents' rice fields, and he went from a midsize city kindergarten to helping their family work on the fields. But once he got used to it, they started to grow very fond of the quiet of nature, and the minimalist beauty of the sprawling fields across the plains. His room is always very clean and clear as well, he prefers white walls with nothing hung up except for their prayer flags, and no decoration but a small white Amitabha statuette.

He was always able to see some types of Mushi, even as an infant, but the Mushi of the city have learned to blend into their surroundings better for their protection, and appear much different than the Mushi of nature. So if you asked him, they would say they only started seeing Mushi after moving to Japan.

It wasn't until he was 20 that he went off to seek greater knowledge. For most of his life, he didn't realize that Mushi weren't just another type of animal or bug. Japan had always seemed like another planet to him, so their strange effects and abilities made sense to them. Whenever he told their mother and family about the Mushi he saw, their family just assumed he had an active imagination and liked to tell stories. They were always encouraging him to be a writer, but his passions lie with the bugs. He found out from a traveler that stayed the night with them that the creatures he so loved were actually Mushi, and the traveler told him of a great Mushi-shi master who knew all the ways of the Mushi.

When Suru arrived at the master's temple, it was empty. The master was nowhere to be found. Suru searched the grounds, but came up empty. They felt too shy to yell for the master, who might have been asleep in his room. This was Suru's flaw, his shy, quiet nature. A naturally warm person, he found himself alone more often than he wants, because he doesn't know how to speak up for himself and ask for what he wants. So he sat in front of the master's seat in the temple, in quiet meditation.

When he opened his eyes after about an hour, he saw the air filled with Mushi, some he had never seen before, and some which were familiar. The most prominent were the iridescent snakes pirouetting through the air. The light refracted off of them, red, and green, and yellow, and blue, again and again in a dizzy maze, and it filled Suru with wonder. A serpent came down from the sky and began to whisper in Suru's ear. It created a circle around his head, and filled his vision with prismatic light, and then, very gently, it closed in, pressing against Suru's temples. He was suddenly filled with the greatest need to know everything about the rainbow serpents, and he felt that he would go to any lengths to be near them. His mouth also felt incredibly dry. The serpent released his head and flew out the door, and the rest of the Mushi flew out after it. Suru rose to his feet and rushed after them, and they led him to the small well for drinking water, and he began drinking uncontrollably.

Out of nowhere, the master seemed to appear, and he came and sat next to Suru at the well.

"So you have fallen enamored of the Kouda." he stated, a slight grin on his face. "They'll lead you to the water, but they can never make you drink. That is a choice you make."

Suru turned to him, confused, wiping away the water from their mouth with the back of their hand.

"The rainbow serpents?" they asked

"If you know them by that name. You'll find there are a great many things in this world that can match a form."

"You are the grand master of the Mushi?" they asked. The master nodded. "Then you could be the only one to teach me the true nature of form. Tell me, how can I understand these strange creatures?"

The master began to tell him a story.

"There were once two men named Jizo and Shuzanshu.
Shuzanshu was a traveller, who arrived one fateful day.
asked Jizo,
'Where have you come from?'
Shuzanshu said,
'I have come from the South.'
Jizo said,
“How are the Mushi in the South these days?”
Shuzanshu said,
“There is much lively discussion.”
Jizo said,
“How could that match with our planting the rice field here and making
rice-balls to eat?”
Shuzanshu said,
“How could you then save the beings of the Three Worlds?”
Jizo said,
“What do you call ‘the Three Worlds’?
And so it was.”

Suru stared at him blankly, completely stumped. He had never considered himself to be stupid, but in that moment he felt like a newborn child.

The master broke out in laughter! He nudged Suru in the ribs, and then got up. Forgetting their thirst now that the effects of the serpent had worn off, Suru stood and began to follow the master, who was already starting to walk back to the temple. As Suru got in line with the master's steps, the master began to speak and explain that the creatures they had seen were the Kouda, and that the grounds were filled with them. The master warned to always carry a water flask on their person, and to fill it often. He began to ramble and Suru missed a lot of what he was saying, but it was along the lines that Suru should think about the story the master told, and give him their answer in the morning.

The morning came, and Suru was convinced they had come up with an answer. They arrived to class, and proudly declared:

"I have solved it! Jizo has never traveled outside of his home, so how could he possibly know there were three worlds, let alone two!"

The master just smiled and shook his head, and told Suru to take a seat so they could begin their lessons. The master didn't bring up the riddle for the rest of the day, but Suru couldn't get it off their mind. For the next five years under his mentorship, Suru always had the riddle in the back of their mind, and at least once a month, they come to the master with a new guess.