Author's Preface
Jun woke before the lanterns.
Not from a nightmare. Not from a sound. Just the slow pull of cold air through the paper walls, and the distant awareness that his uncle was already moving in the kitchen.
He lay still for a while, watching the ceiling beams emerge from darkness as dawn seeped through the grime-streaked window. The house creaked softly. Not in the way it used to—not like something listening. Just old wood settling against the cold.
He pulled on his coat and walked barefoot into the kitchen.
His uncle stood over the stove, pouring hot water into a clay teapot. Steam curled upward in slow, untroubled ribbons. The old man's hands, Jun noticed, were steady this morning. The edges of his fingers no longer flickered against the firelight.
Neither of them mentioned it.
“You slept,” his uncle said.
“A few hours.”
“That's more than yesterday.”
Jun sat at the table. Two bowls rested there—one filled with cold rice from last night, one empty. The arrangement was so familiar now that he no longer paused before the empty one. He simply picked up his chopsticks and began to eat.
The rice was cold. It tasted like rice. Nothing more.
His uncle poured the tea. The scent of roasted leaves filled the small kitchen, pushing back the dampness for a while. They drank in silence. Outside, the wind moved softly through the lane, carrying the dry rustle of snow shifting across rooftops.
When Jun finished his bowl, he rose to wash it. At the basin, he glanced through the small window above the water pail.
Footprints crossed the snow outside. Bare feet. Narrow. Too evenly spaced.
They led from the edge of the fields to the center of the lane, then stopped. As if whoever made them had decided, halfway through, that they no longer needed to walk anywhere.
Jun looked at them for a long moment.
Then he washed his bowl, dried his hands, and sat back down.
His uncle refilled his tea.
“Anything?” the old man asked.
“Footprints.”
“New?”
“Fresh.”
His uncle nodded slowly. He did not rise to look. He did not reach for the knife hidden at his waist. He only poured more tea into Jun's cup, the stream of liquid steady and unhurried.
They finished breakfast before the sun had fully cleared the rooftops. Outside, the village remained quiet. No bells. No screams. No corrections. Just the slow, patient silence of snow covering everything that had once been sharp.