Tenonaru Hou e prologue part17

“I’ve just come back from scaring someone! Seriously though, those Edo guys sure are used to youkai.”

Kusamakura became enraged by the word youkai.

“—I don’t want to scare anyone!”

Being yelled at by Kusamakura, Shunshou closed his mouth as his eyes widened. Even Kusamakura was taken aback, but he was unable to honestly apologize, so he put his arms around his knees again while feeling awkward. Shunshou and the others may not have known, but Kusamakura didn’t think he had an unusual appearance at all. He was afraid of scaring people with his frightening form. He didn’t want to scare anyone at all. The only proof he had that he was strange was how humans saw Kusamakura. He had never thought about it before though. Kusamakura stood up, still silent.

“Kusamakura? Hey, where are you—“

To shake off the voice trying to stop him, Kusamakura ran. Halfway through, several sneering laughs coming from the shadows of the gra.s.s reached his ears. They may have known that he wasn’t aware he was faceless. Unable to bear that thought, he yelled at them to shut up, but he just felt empty. Kusamakura ran as fast as he could into the dark night as he muttered, d.a.m.n it, d.a.m.n it, repeatedly. He reached a pine tree at the top of the mountain and put his hand against its wide trunk. When he tried to catch his slightly elevated breath, a gentle voice came down from above.