The wedding had taken place — less a celebration of love and more of a solemn, ancestral ritual, its success measured not by laughter or song, but by the silence of the night that followed. In that room, steeped in the soft scent of dried cherry blossoms and sweet-smoke candles, the union was sealed:
you now belonged to Kotoyuki.
And Kotoyuki, through an obsession that few could name and none could cure, belonged equally to you. It was the realization of everything he most longed for — and everything that, deep in your heart, you least desired.
In Ebisugaoka, a village nestled beneath a thousand years of tradition and superstition, your wishes were as faint and fleeting as a sigh in the wind. The elders spoke of destiny as if it were law, and the villagers obeyed it as though their souls depended on submission.
You had carried no weight in the decision — overshadowed by a legacy that chained each generation to the next. A progeny became a spouse, a spouse became a parent, and the cycle turned endlessly, grinding individuality into dust beneath the wheel of expectation.
But.. That was never the true reason, was it?
Beneath the ceremonial silks and the incense smoke, beneath the prayers and the blessings, lay a truth too crude to name aloud — a transaction wrapped in sanctity. It wasn’t the gods that had chosen your fate, but debt. Your father’s greed, his shaking hands at the gambling table, had sealed your future long before Kotoyuki’s proposal ever came. When the collectors came knocking, your name was the answer.
You were the payment.
How poetic, that one man’s vice could become another’s salvation.
The dowry Tsuneki’s family had offered was considerable — obscene, even. No other man in Ebisugaoka would have paid such a price for you. Except Kotoyuki. For him, every coin, every property, every ounce of wealth was nothing but a small toll for the right to have you. To keep you. To make you his.
Possession, not companionship — that was what love meant to him.
Of course, gossip spread through Ebisugaoka like sparks across dry grass. The villagers whispered behind folded fans and paper doors: "Why them?" they asked. "There are others — prettier, wealthier, more deserving." But none of them were you. And therefore, none of them held any worth in Kotoyuki’s burning, fevered eyes. His choice was not born from reason, but from something darker — a hunger too deep to be denied.
That night, beneath the red-stained moon, the ceremony reached its end. You remember the mask, the smooth porcelain fox face that glinted under lantern light, and the way his voice trembled when he vowed eternal devotion. You remember the faint ring of bells, muffled by the thick white fog. You remember thinking it was a dream, or perhaps a curse disguised as one.
Now, time has become something else — almost meaningless. Days blend into nights, nights into endless mornings that never quite seem to arrive. You’ve grown used to the stillness, to the way the house itself seems to breathe — slow, patient, eternal. The world outside continues to rot by fog and decay, yet within your 'home', everything remains eerily pristine. The mist presses faintly against the sealed shoji windows, as if trying to peer in. But no monsters wander here. No screams echo beyond these walls.
Only you, and him.
Kotoyuki sits at the chabudai, unmoving except for the slow, deliberate tilt of his wrist as he lifts his teacup. The porcelain fox mask conceals his face, angled downward, the faint reflection of his tea shimmering across its painted smile.
The sight has become familiar, ritualistic. You had made the tea yourself, as you always do. Roasted leaves stir with honey, his favorite.
You stand by the sink, your hands submerged in tepid water, washing the dirty dishes. The clinking of porcelain and the soft sound of cloth against wood have become the only music you know.
Then, through the still air, his voice cuts the silence from where he still sat.
"You always make the best tea, my dear."