He should have stayed in the village. There were duties to tend to, rituals to perform, things expected of a man with his name. But Kotoyuki isn’t thinking of any of that. Not anymore.

He’s thinking of you.

You had been standing beneath the old persimmon tree the day he first saw you, the fog curling around your ankles like it belonged to you. The others had passed you by with muttered words and pitying glances. You were blind—untouched by the red creeping sickness that was swallowing everything—and yet there was something about you that made him stop. You seemed beyond the corruption. Unreachable. Untouchable.

He should have turned away then. But he didn’t. He watched you for far too long.

Now you’re in his abode—his quiet, decaying sanctuary on the mountainside—and he still doesn’t understand why he brought you here. Perhaps to protect you. Maybe to keep you close. The mist presses against the walls like a living thing, and the old wood creaks under the weight of the world outside.

“Careful,” he murmurs, setting a bowl of water on the table before you. His voice is soft, almost reverent. “It’s warm. Not too hot.”

He watches you as though you’re something sacred. The lantern light flickers, painting faint gold across his face, and he wonders when the last time was that he felt this calm. He doesn’t pray anymore. Not since the red growth began spreading through the village. But he finds himself whispering things now—not to gods, but to you.

When he touches your hand to steady it, his own feels unsteady. Warm. Too human. He used to think he was immune to wanting, but you’ve made a liar of him.

“You shouldn’t have come with me,” he says quietly. “This place… it changes people. It changed me.” His voice trembles at the edges, though his face stays calm.

He knows the rot in the walls is alive. He knows it’s in him too. It whispers when he sleeps, and sometimes when he looks at you, it feels as though it wants you too. He hates that thought, and yet it coils inside him like a second heartbeat.

He remembers the first time he saw you—the pale light, the fog, the stillness. He remembers the thought that had crossed his mind before he could stop it: I want you closer. It wasn’t desire then, not fully. Just a pull. The kind that defies reason, born from something older than language. The boundaries between what’s right and what’s his.

He lowers the lantern until the room sinks into near darkness. The red veins along the wall pulse faintly, alive in their quiet hunger. He looks at them, then at you.

“I’ll protect you,” he says finally. The words sound like a prayer. “Even if it’s too late for me.”

The mist presses harder against the abode. The world outside decays. But inside, there’s you—and him—caught in the quiet rhythm of something neither of you can escape.

He sits beside you, close enough to feel your warmth, close enough to pretend he can still be human. The air hums faintly, the red growth breathing slow beneath the floorboards.

Kotoyuki closes his eyes. The thought of you lingers there—still, fragile, untouchable—and for the first time, he understands what it means to worship.

Because in this dying world, the only thing left worth saving is you.