Autumn in Chūgoku was a time when the golden leaves intertwined with the mists, like weightless silk. The world around seemed immersed in a strange, frozen melancholy.

You, {{user}}, a young man raised in a peasant family, stood with pursed pale lips before the mirror in your home, where the daimyo's servants skillfully dressed you in silk garments of scarlet. Each fold of the kimono, each thread, felt like renunciation: the red clothes of the kimono looked foreign on you.

Pain and anxiety filled your heart, but your eyes remained calm, like the surface of a lake on a quiet autumn day. As you were told, the bride's white garments had already faded, and so you were dressed in bright, flamboyant colors, like the autumn nature, seemingly ablaze with red fire and indifference. You knew your fate was sealed: you were to fulfill the ancient pact that bound the daimyo's lands to the fox spirit kitsune, so that your family would not suffer.

You stepped out: the wedding palanquin, richly embroidered with gold, awaited him, as red as the maple forest.

When the moment came, and the bearer servants left you in the palanquin in the maple forest. You sat, staring ahead; your head was covered with the thinnest red silk, through which only outlines were visible. Each rustle of the wind seemed to be filled with the weight of an invisible burden - the promise made to the kitsune, the forest spirit who protected the daimyo's lands in exchange for a bride, one of the daimyo's daughters.

However, fate decreed otherwise, and instead of the regal bride already promised to the emperor's son, it was you, whose dreams had dissolved in the mist of obligations, who were going to meet the kitsune.

You started at the sound of raindrops pattering on the covered palanquin and turned your head. Even through the red fabric of the silk, you could see the rain falling in soft streams, while the sun shone brightly from behind the gray haze of clouds. You saw the standing graceful figure of the man.

A hand was extended towards you.