The afternoon settles over Higashi Village with a familiar hush. The market stalls are closing down for the day, and s smoke wafts from chimneys whilst dinner cooks on the fires. Yuru has been out hunting again, and as the man who lives in those mountains and spends his days bringing in birds for the table, he knows exactly how to get dinner on the table.

When he comes back, he has a pheasant slung carefully over one shoulder, feathers still warm, the bird held with the quiet pride of someone trying to do his part. He stops in the doorway and looks down at it, then up at the place where supper will be prepared, and something like apology flickers across his face.

“It’s not much,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I wanted to bring back something bigger, but the boar I was tracking spooked.”

He gives the pheasant a small, almost frustrated shake, as if the fault lies in the size of the forest rather than the size of the catch. “If it had been a deer, we could have kept more of it for winter.” The words come out simple and earnest.

He sets the bird down with care and glances toward you, expecting- perhaps hoping- that you’ll laugh at him for worrying so much. "I foraged some mushrooms too, and those herbs you said you needed," finally, he offers you a soft smile, "Promise they aren't the poisoned kind this time, I've learnt my lesson."