The Loving Brothers

Long, long ago, in a small village, there lived two brothers. The older one was hardworking, and the younger one was kind. The two of them loved each other very, very much.

When autumn came, the fields turned the color of gold. Side by side, the brothers cut the rice, tied it into bundles, and shared everything exactly in half. One pile for the older brother, one pile for the younger. The two piles were just the same.

That night, the older brother lay in his bed and thought quietly to himself. “My little brother has only just set up his own home, so he must have so much he needs.” Softly, he rose from his bed.

He gathered an armful of his own rice bundles and tiptoed under the moonlight. He stacked them gently in his brother’s storehouse and slipped back home. His heart felt warm, so warm.

But on that very same night, the younger brother could not fall asleep either. “My older brother has such a big family to feed. I should add a little of mine to his.” And so the younger brother quietly got up, too.

He carried his rice bundles all the way to his older brother’s storehouse. Ever so softly, he stacked them up and crept back home. Up above, the stars in the night sky twinkled and twinkled.

The next morning, the older brother tilted his head, puzzled. He was sure he had carried bundles away, yet his own storehouse looked exactly the same. “How strange,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

The younger brother felt just the same. The rice in his storehouse had not gone down even a little. “How can this be?” he wondered, tilting his head too.

So that night, the older brother set out once more with an armful of rice. And the younger brother set out with his armful, too. There, in the bright moonlight, the two met smack in the middle of the path between the fields.

An armful of rice in the older brother’s arms, an armful in the younger brother’s arms. The two of them stopped still and looked at each other. And in that moment, they understood everything.

The older brother took his little brother’s hand. The younger brother leaned his head softly on his older brother’s shoulder. Something warm rose up in both their eyes.

“Brother, it was you, thinking of me all this time.” “No, no. It was you who thought of me first.” And the moonlight wrapped the two brothers up, gently and snug.

For many, many years after that, the brothers lived together in happiness. The love that thinks of the other first never ran low, no matter how much they shared it. In fact, it only grew and grew.

The people of the village named that path “The Way of the Loving Brothers.” And they say that even now, on nights when the moon rises full, that path shines the brightest of all.