I wiped my hands on my beige shorts and tried not to shake with all the emotions wrecking my body as I stood in front of the exit to the village. It was a pair of trees that wound and twisted together with light shining between them—a portal that led to a park in a city called Tokyo. I couldn’t see through it and that scared me further.

Being scared wouldn’t help.

I took a deep breath and turned to my father and older brother. Then I grinned, and though my grin trembled at the edges, I held onto it like it was the last strand of my sanity.

“Maze, are you sure we shouldn’t—” my older brother started, but I chuckled, my grin growing wider.

“If someone saw you, they would think you were worrying about your capable sister!” I said, putting my hands on my hips and leaning forward. My grin softened into a smile as I leaned back. “Don’t worry, I know everything I need to know in order to settle there.”

My father sighed, and then he smiled as well. “Make sure to stay in contact with us. Don’t forget, letters sent by crows reach everywhere.”

I nodded.

Oh, no. I was really leaving.

The realization suddenly dawned upon me, and I hugged my father so that he wouldn’t see my tears.

I knew he could smell my sorrow, however, because he hugged me back as tightly as he could.

After I pulled back, I hugged my older brother as well.

Then it was time to leave.

I let go of my older brother and took a step towards the portal.

Then I heard him.

“Maze! Wait!”

And I started to shake. Of course, he would be here. Of course, he wouldn’t let me go by myself.

I turned back to my family and behind them, I saw Kon running towards me. He had one of those backpack things and modern clothes, much like I did, and he was running so fast that he was even panting.

Tears pricked my eyes again, but this time, I was honestly smiling.

He skidded to a stop when he reached me and wiped a tear from my left cheek.

I could see the promise ring on his pinky finger, reminding me of that day.

***

It was the day we had met, and we were running through the forest that rang with our peals of laughter.

Kon, always the show off in times like this, was running backwards, looking at me as he ran away from me.

I felt myself warm up as I laughed, and Kon’s deep blue eyes went round like the sun and the moon.

Then I saw the cliff behind him.

“Careful—”

But I was too late, Kon started to fall, continuing to run on and off the cliff in his confusion at my sudden change in mood.

He yelped as I screamed, “Kon, wıs! Kon, stop!”

I squeezed my eyes shut against the scream that I would hear as Kon fell, but the scream never came.

Was he dead?

“Maze?”

My eyes opened at Kon’s confused voice calling me. I blinked and then rubbed my eyelids.

Kon was floating midair, just over the cliff.

“K-Kon?” I replied, unable to believe my eyes.

“Kon!”

The voice was panicky as its owner rushed by me to grab Kon where he floated.

It was a grown kitsune woman, with silver hair and deep blue eyes that looked at me with hatred.

I gulped.

“H-hello—” I said, beginning to bow.

“Leave.”

I froze mid-bow.

“Mom?” Kon asked.

So she was his mother, like I guessed.

“Hush, Kon.”

“Um,” I said and she raised a hand in the air after letting Kon down, stopping me.

“Leave, human. And never come back.”

I started shaking, tears beginning to well in my eyes.

Father Wored…

“Okay, stop there.”

It was my father’s voice, he had appeared between me and Kon’s mother, who took a step back as she held onto the shoulders of her son, keeping him behind her.

“Wored-san, I—”

My father raised a hand in the air. “Enough, Suzu-san.”

Then he turned to me with a smile. “Were you scared?”

The tears welling up in my eyes started flowing down my cheeks as I wailed, running to my father and clinging onto him. He arrived when I called his name in my mind, as he had once promised that he would to my mother and her mother.

Kon stared at me for a second, and then he started crying as well, which worried his mother.

She flapped her arms about as she said, “I-it’s okay. It’s okay, Kon.”

Kon ran to me, still crying, and hugged me.

I hugged him back, and Kon’s mother didn’t like that, but my father stopped her from separating us.

“Don’t cry,” Kon whined. “You mustn’t cry!”

Then Kon pulled back with his hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes as he sniffled. “Mom isn’t scary! Right, mom?”

I sniffled as well as I looked at Kon’s mother. Various emotions passed over her face before she smiled. “Yes, Kon.”

She took a step towards me, slowly so as not to scare me, and leaned down to meet my eyes. “Auntie isn’t scary.”

“You’re not?”

She smiled wider as she replied, “No, I’m not. Auntie is sorry for yelling at you, okay?”

I smiled as I felt my skin warm up again. “Okay!”

…Why did everyone look surprised?

Kon smiled wide as he said, “You’re shining again!”

My eyelids fluttered as I felt my skin cool down.

Kon didn’t like that. He started jumping up and down as he said, “Shine again, shine again!”

I was shining?

“I don’t know how to do it,” I mumbled.

“Aw…” Kon said, disappointed. “…I know! Laugh!”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “But there’s nothing to laugh at.”

Kon thought deeply about that as I looked at him. I was so thankful that he didn’t fall down the cliff, but how did it happen?

“I know!” Kon said then, and he squeezed his cheeks together, making his lips pop like a fish. “There’s me!”

The action was so unexpected that I started laughing and felt my skin warm up again.

Kon sighed as he smiled and said, “I will always make you shine.”

I put out my pinky finger as I grinned. “Promise?”

He smiled as he hooked my pinky finger with his. “Promise.”

Then a light shone around our fingers, leaving red marks on them as it went away.

Kon and I stared at our fingers.

What was this?

“This is…” Kon’s mother whispered and we looked at her.

“What is this, mom?”

My father smiled. “It’s a promise ring.”

We looked at our rings as we murmured, “A promise ring…”

Then we smiled brightly at one another. “It’s a promise!”

***

“What about your mother?” I asked as we stood in front of the portal. Kon smiled down at me.

“She understands. I made a promise.”

I smiled back, my lips wobbling as we hooked our pinky fingers together. “We made a promise.”

Then, after saying goodbye to my father and older brother, we stepped through the portal.

***

As soon as we stepped through the portal, familiar and foreign scents assaulted us. Kon, having a stronger sense of smell than me, couldn’t help but groan while I managed to stop at wincing. Another sign of human evil—the park, in spite of all the trees, smelled bad.

I took measured breaths so that I would get used to the smell and stop noticing it so much when we heard a chuckle.

“It’s called exhaust gas. Takes time to get used to.”

The voice belonged to a crow perched on one of the trees. Upon catching our gaze, the crow flew down from the branch and seamlessly turned into a young man with a red, long-nosed mask.

A tengu. What was a tengu doing here?

“Aren’t you—” I started to ask and then caught myself. He was clearly our guide and asking why he wasn’t in the mountains would be rude. “Greetings,” I decided to say instead as I bowed. “I’m called Kuromatsu Maze.”

Kon bowed as well. “And I’m called Kuromatsu Kon. Pleased to meet you, um…”

The tengu chuckled again and bowed as well. “I’m called Kuromatsu Terukata. Pleased to meet you two.”

Kuromatsu was the surname all yokai were assigned by the government, which was why all yokai were usually called by their given names. Even though I was a human, since I was legally adopted by a kitsune, I had the Kuromatsu surname as well and so was called Maze by everyone.

I didn’t know how to feel about it. I was happy to share a surname with my family, Kon, and other yokai, but at the same time I wondered what it would feel like to have my mother’s surname. Not to mention I didn’t feel like I deserved it—not after what I had done to Kohaku.

Terukata-san guided us to a parking lot linked to the park and to a sleek, black vehicle called a car. Kon and I sat in the backseat so we could be together and held on for dear life as our guide drove through the city.

The city, unlike the park, was noisy like a bee’s nest after spending all my life in a kitsune village that was situated in a pocket dimension. I couldn’t help but stare at the skyscrapers, and the people, the cars with their awful exhaust gas—and the sakura trees dressed in their pink petals. That was another change; our village had only summers with cicadas going miin, miin in the trees. Weather differences weren’t something we had ever experienced before, and I must admit, I stared.

Terukata-san taught us about some of what we saw, but his mind was clearly set on getting us to the dorm where we would stay from now on.

Soon enough, we arrived at the dorm situated on the outskirts of the city. It was a two-story house made of ferroconcrete. A sturdy fence—again, not of wood—surrounded the small garden.

Terukata-san let us enter at our own pace, waiting patiently. So, I took a deep breath to calm myself down and sighed it out. Kon was holding my hand. We were together. And we could deal with anything life threw at us as long as it stayed that way.

I smiled at Kon. “Let’s go meet the people we will stay with from now on.”

***

We were bombarded with a loud welcome.

“Welcome home!” the voice said, stretching out the end of the sentence. We could only stare, speechless, at all the yokai waiting for us at the entrance.

The one to who the voice belonged was, in a word, colorful. She had blonde, fluffy, chin-length hair. Her eyes were green and her skin blue. With her short stature and style, she was adorable, but I knew not to underestimate her.

She introduced herself as Genka, a baku, and pulled an oni by the arm so he would introduce himself as well.

The oni was taller than me at my around-170cm height, and he had red skin. His hair was black with two small horns protruding from his forehead, but the black of his eyes was like a void. His name was Chino, which meant blood field.

Fitting.

The final one to introduce themselves was a yokai who felt older than all of us—not because he looked old, but because something in his cold gaze said he had been through a lot.

“Welcome home,” he greeted us and introduced himself as Rakuo, a jorougumo.

Jorougumo were usually known to be females but there were rarely male specimens as well. I was both fascinated and scared.

Kon squeezed my hand, and I smiled.

“We’re home.”