Location: Tatsumori Town (龍森町) – Evening Mist
Tatsumori Town always seemed to exist out of sync with the world, as if it had quietly slipped through a hidden fold in the fabric of time itself. A modest hillside town tucked away between prefectural edges, it rarely featured on maps or travel blogs.
On paper, it wasn't much—the kind of place you didn't pass through; you ended up here. Or were born here, like Akira Moriya, and simply never left.
It wasn't rural enough to be called countryside, but not quite urban enough to qualify as modern either. Instead, Tatsumori existed in a liminal hush. A still pocket of the world where things moved a little slower, where nothing much changed—except maybe the shape of the mist that poured down from the ridgelines at dusk, or the color of the river when it caught the moonlight just right.
If this were a film, the first shot would fade in with a wide aerial view: rolling hills blanketed in pines, their tips lost in low, drifting clouds. The camera would pan gently down over tiled rooftops peppered with moss, narrow lanes curling between weathered houses with faded shōji screens and bicycle baskets rusted from countless rains. A dog barking in the distance. A soft chime from a shop door opening. Somewhere, a wind bell clinking lazily from a second-floor balcony.
Evening here came gently. Not in sharp shadows, but in watercolor gradients—faded blue sliding into soft lavender, the sun dipping behind the Ryūjin Mountains like it, too, needed rest.
Electric cables, tangled and looping like black threads, stretched across the sky between poles leaning with age. They buzzed faintly as cicadas quieted and the town's neon signs flickered to life one by one—no rush, no ceremony. Just the soft, automatic glow of vending machines humming under shrine gates, their blue-white light casting ghostly reflections on rain-damp stone.
The streets thinned. A lone cyclist coasted past. A crow beat its wings and settled on a shrine roof. Lanterns swayed under eaves, while noren curtains rippled outside shuttered shops, their paint faded with age: a small café, a stationery shop, a general store. Each one a little worn at the edges, leaning quietly into memory, as if the town itself refused to forget the people who had passed through.
Even the air here felt different.
Cleaner, yes—but also... older. Like it had weight. Like it remembered.
It held the scent of camphor trees and earth, the last hint of sun-warmed pavement, a distant trace of incense from somewhere upwind. The kind of scent that made you think of your grandmother's garden. Of temple paths. Of festivals long since faded. It clung to you—quietly, reverently.
Children still bowed to Jizō statues on the way home from cram school, tapping their heels politely together before running off. Grandmothers swept fallen petals from stone steps that led nowhere in particular. And in spring, the cherry blossoms here fell slower, as if reluctant to touch the ground—as if the town itself asked them to stay just a little longer.
Akira Moriya , as mentioned, had lived here all his life.
He knew which drainpipes dripped longest after rain. Which stair railings squeaked. Which shrine foxes had their ears chipped, and which ones had new bibs tied by anonymous hands. He could walk from his house to the river blindfolded, past the postbox with the faded sticker of a blue cat, past the old tanuki statue that everyone dressed up in scarves during winter.
Twenty-three years old, recently graduated from veterinary school, now working part-time as a clinic assistant at the local animal center. His life, by most definitions, was ordinary. Others might have called it "uncomplicated."
But since last spring, things had grown quieter.
His grandfather's passing hadn't left a hole so much as it left an echo—a soft one, yes, but persistent. The house they once shared now felt emptier, filled with a silence that didn't press down with loneliness but made you hesitate before flipping on a light—half-expecting him to still be there. A cough. A comment about the weather. The creak of the old kettle warming on the stove.
They had shared a house perched on the outer bend of town, where the roads thinned into forest trails. A quiet place, two stories tall, lined with sliding doors and shelves stuffed with herbal jars, brush calligraphy, and photo frames yellowed by sun. A home built with patience, not speed. Warm in winter. Humble in every season.
His grandfather had loved this town. Had believed in it.
Had once called Tatsumori "a town of thin places."
He used to say it was a town where the veil between worlds was thinner—where the land still dreamed, even when its people forgot how.
Akira used to laugh at that. He'd thought it was just a poetic thing old men said—like how some people talked to flowers or read fortunes from steam.
Sometimes, those old beliefs felt less like superstition and more like warning signs.
Even now, there was something about Tatsumori that lingered. A stillness beneath the surface. Not eerie, not unsettling—just... present. Like the town itself was listening. Remembering.
The mist had settled low along the gutters, clinging to wooden steps and curling beneath shuttered doorways. Lanterns flickered quietly above them, painting the narrow streets in softened light. From somewhere deeper in the neighborhood, a wind chime rang out—clear, solitary.
Evening deepened. The town exhaled.
And as the sky turned to ink above the tiled rooftops, Tatsumori folded once more into itself, patient and unhurried.
Waiting, perhaps, for something to begin.
Location: Shiraishi Animal Wellness Clinic – Closing Hours
"Thanks again, Moriya-kun," his supervisor said, waving as he lingered under the flickering clinic sign. "Take care at the crossroads on your way home."
"Only if they take care of me first," Akira replied with a tired smile, brushing his bangs from his eyes.
He slung his bag more securely over his shoulder, feeling the familiar weight settle against his back—a small, grounding reassurance before stepping into the evening. The scent of antiseptic still clung faintly to his sleeves. Crickets had begun their evening symphony, stitching the quiet with rhythmic chirps. A low fog was settling along the gutters, curling like stray thoughts around rusted storm drains and the edges of vending machines.
Tatsumori always looked a little more ancient at this hour. The yellow-orange streetlights buzzed overhead, turning empty corners into silhouettes, and telephone lines sagged like weary spines across rooftops. The world felt stretched thin between past and present, as if the town hadn't decided which era it belonged to.
His phone buzzed.
" Ryujin Petalstorm vs. Hirame Hawks: Quarter-Finals – Live at 7:00 PM "
Akira winced. "Damn," he muttered. "I'm gonna miss kickoff."
He broke into a light jog, his sneakers scuffing the uneven stonework beneath him. Tatsumori wasn't a big town, but his apartment lay ten blocks away from the clinic, and his shortcut wound through older streets where sidewalks gave way to packed dirt. A pair of neighborhood cats scattered as he passed—a calico and a tortoiseshell.
Even so, there was one thing he never skipped.
About three blocks in, he slowed his pace and came to a quiet stop beneath a crooked ginkgo tree. There, nestled between two rows of aging storefronts, stood a tiny wooden altar—barely waist-high, paint peeling, roof slightly askew. A woven shimenawa rope still clung to its posts, though the paper gohei strips fluttered like worn flags.
Most people in town ignored it. But Akira had been taught otherwise.
He adjusted the strap of his bag and bowed his head, just once. A simple motion. No incense, no coin, no prayer—just acknowledgment. Respect.
His grandfather used to call these little shrines "threshold markers"—places where old things lingered, not to haunt, but to remember.
"Not every shrine is for a god," he once said, squinting into the sun. "Some are for the land itself. The memory of it. And memories, Akira... they remember you back."
The words came back to him like wind through dry leaves.
He looked up at the empty offering tray, then gave a half-smile. "I'll bring a plum bun next time," he murmured.
Then he jogged off again, the shrine fading behind him like a dream that hadn't fully formed.
Location: Ryūjin Shrine Path – Dusk
Feeding the strays.
Every evening, no matter the weather or the rush, Akira stopped by the moss-streaked steps near Ryūjin Shrine. He carried a bag of soft-pack tuna, sometimes leftovers, and occasionally small cans of cat food—just enough for the handful of cats who had claimed the shrine's overgrown garden as their sanctuary.
It wasn't a big thing. But it was his thing.
A thread of kindness in an increasingly loud, distracted world. A tether to something quieter. Something human.
And among the cats, one always stood out.
She was nothing short of ethereal. Midnight-black fur, sleek and unblemished, shimmering like polished obsidian beneath the shrine's old streetlamp. But what truly caught his attention—what had stopped him the very first time—was the iridescent violet that shimmered along the tip of her tail and brushed faintly across both sides of her face.
You couldn't see it at a glance. Not always.
But when the light caught her just right, the black turned to deep violet, like the final hue of twilight before the sky surrendered to night. A strange, shifting color that felt more felt than seen. Like shadow ink soaked in starlight.
He called her Kukoshi. (Black Purple)
She never meowed like the others. Never begged or fought. She sat, composed, tail curled precisely around her paws, as if she were royalty awaiting tribute. Watching.
And somehow, Akira always felt like he was being watched back.
By the time he reached the shrine, the other cats had already come and gone. But Kukoshi remained—just as he knew she would.
She sat beneath the leaning streetlamp, her golden eyes gleaming like twin coins against the dark.
"Sorry I'm late," he said, kneeling and opening the tuna packet with practiced ease. "Got ambushed by a bulldog today in the clinic. Thought I was a chew toy."
Kukoshi gave a soft meow, then tilted her head, expression inscrutable.
Akira laughed under his breath. "Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. Maybe I should start carrying treats for myself next time."
She dipped her head and began to eat with a certain ceremonial grace. Not desperate like the others. Not even hurried. Every motion felt deliberate—dignified, almost sacred.
Akira remembered something his grandfather used to say:
"Some animals carry memory. Not their own, but the memory of the land."
He hadn't understood it back then. Now, watching Kukoshi, he felt like he almost did—though there was something more about her, something faintly... otherworldly, in the way her amber eyes reflected the torii gates, or how she moved as if she belonged to a place slightly out of reach.
Behind them, the shrine gates rose like red ribs into the sky, shadows pooling beneath the arches. The wind stirred the hanging lanterns. The nearby river murmured steadily. Somewhere across the Ryūjin Bridge, incense burned, its scent drifting gently through the air.
Akira stood, brushing off his knees.
"Alright, princess," he said. "The Petalstormers are playing tonight. It's do or die."
Kukoshi looked up at him and blinked—slow, deliberate, feline approval.
Then, with a flick of her tail, the violet shimmer catching briefly in the dark, she turned and padded into the underbrush, vanishing without a sound.
Location: Tatsumori Alleyway – 6:58 PM
Akira cursed as he glanced at the time.
"No way I'm making it back in two minutes…"
The streets ahead stretched long and empty beneath a sky bruised to violet. Above, the last embers of twilight clung to distant rooftops, but night was swallowing the town in earnest now. His breath caught in the cooling air as he picked up his pace, sneakers thudding against damp asphalt, soles slipping just slightly on the uneven cracks.
Shuttered storefronts passed by in a blur—faded menus taped to dusty windows, old gachapon machines left outside convenience stores, a flickering arcade sign blinking its final red pixel. A few stubborn neon lights buzzed sleepily overhead, their glow weak and sallow like forgotten stars.
The world felt deserted, but not silent.
A hum in the background—low, steady—like the town was holding its breath.
Then something caught his eye.
A narrow alley.
Wedged between Tsukigoya Books, the forgotten used-book store with a sun-bleached cat calendar still stuck on July, and Miyano Fix-It, a hardware shop with rusted rollers and unopened shutters but fresh chalk signs that kept mysteriously updating.
He'd passed it hundreds of times. A dead-end, always. A place where junk bins collected rust and weeds clung to the drainage pipes. Nothing worth seeing.
But tonight... it looked different.
There were lanterns.
Small, drifting lights that shimmered and shifted with no steady hue, flowing from amber to teal to soft rose as if breathing. They hovered weightlessly through the alley like fireflies caught in a dream, spilling liquid color across the damp bricks. The walls themselves seemed alive, rippling faintly as if reflecting something older and deeper than mere light.
He slowed. Paused. Took a step back. Then forward again.
Still there.
"…Shortcut?" he muttered. "Worth a shot."
The moment he stepped inside, the sounds of the town muffled—like plunging into water. At first, he didn't notice anything unusual; it just felt quieter, the alley a little narrower than he remembered, nothing more. His footsteps seemed to sink slightly into the cobblestones, and the night air thickened without him thinking much of it. Then the scent changed: asphalt gave way to something older, like incense faintly burned long ago, or dried plum blossoms left in drawers for years.
The alley twisted.
Then twisted again.
The angles felt wrong—too tight, too fluid. The walls weren't flat anymore. Shapes shifted beneath the surface of the bricks: overlapping waves, repeating scales, the suggestion of eyes that vanished when stared at directly. Symbols etched in faded gold appeared between the cracks, pulsing once, then retreating like breath into stone.
His skin prickled.
The alley should have ended by now.
Instead, it opened all at once—like a curtain pulled back..
He stepped through.
And the world changed.
=============== End of Chapter 1 ===============