The next day I felt strong enough to walk around the house, slowly, but hey, I was going to take whatever I could get.

Natsu had gone back to work, since she’d left her post suddenly when she’d heard about my condition.

I was sitting down in the living room with a cup of coffee, reading Toshi’s book, when all of a sudden, Kaoru leaned on me from behind, her forehead leaning on my shoulder blade.

“Um, Kaoru?” I asked, shifting slightly.

“Please, let me just stay like this for a moment,” she said quietly. And so I let her. Feeling her warmth through the back of my kimono was nice. This was probably the longest we’d ever been so physically close to one another, I realized, and with that realization, my heart began to pound harder. I could feel Kaoru’s heartbeat too. Strong and steady, like I’d expect from someone like her.

Her scent was homely—it was a mixture of the earth and forest’s scent, mixed with the sweetness of flowers. Lavender stood out in particular.

Lavender to ward off evil spirits.

I didn’t know where I’d heard that before, but if it was true, Kaoru was doing a fine job with this house.

Somehow it felt like this was her way of seeking comfort. While I wished there was something more I could do, I accepted that this was all she wanted from me right now. After all, Kaoru wasn’t one to mince her words.

Eventually, she sighed, and wrapped her arms around me, moving her head to my shoulder.

“I had no idea you were such a fighter,” she said, the usual smirk returning to her voice. “Taking out two tengu all on your own? I don’t think I’ve met many humans who would be up to the task.”

I said nothing. One, because I didn’t really feel worthy of that praise, considering where those fights had landed me, and two, because I didn’t get the impression she needed me to speak.

She sighed again and her embrace became tighter.

“I was really worried, you know,” she said, her breathing tickling my ear. “I thought I’d failed my job as your protector.” She faltered and started again, hurt in her voice.  “I did fail as your protector.”

Now I felt it was time for me to speak up.

“No, you didn’t.” I turned my head to face her. “I’m guessing you took so long because you didn’t think I was in danger, because I was with Toshi, right?”

She nodded, looking away, ashamed.

“Well, that was a reasonable thing to think. You knew what kind of person he was, so you knew he’d do everything to keep me safe, and you had no way of knowing what was going to happen. Besides, I’m still alive, aren’t I? No one has devoured me.”

My words didn’t quite seem to do the trick. She remained unconvinced, and truthfully, I couldn’t blame her. I would likely feel the same way. We stayed seated in the position in silence for a while, but then my stomach grumbled.

Kaoru released me, laughing.

“Saving you from starvation is the least I can do!” she said, and, her usual smirk back in her face where it belonged, she went back to the kitchen where soon, heavenly scents emerged from dishes that, without a doubt, would be just as good.

“I have a surprise for you,” Kaoru said after our meal. “It was actually the reason why I was gone that day.”

She didn’t give me any chance to guess. Before I knew it, she’d bounded across the room, and set out a large box that looked incredibly familiar to me.

“My paint supplies!” I exclaimed. “How did you get them?”

“It was no big deal,” Kaoru grinned, fanning herself. “I got your address from your wallet, so I went and broke into your apartment. I figured you’d want them here.”

I was stunned. Delighted that she’d thought of that and went through all that trouble for me, I still found that her methods… could have been less drastic.

“Thank you so much, I can’t wait to get started on painting again! But why didn’t you just take the key from my bag?” I asked.

Suddenly Kaoru looked sheepish. “I did… But it broke in the lock.”

I couldn’t be mad at her. Not when she’d gone through such lengths to get something she knew would make me happy.

I inspected the box. It had been a long time since I’d opened it. The last time I’d painted with these, I’d still been in London, studying biology, shortly before I had found out about my father’s illness. It must have been almost two years at this point. And yet, I couldn’t bear to give them up or leave them behind anywhere. I opened the box, looking at its familiar contents—There were my favorite brushes, my watercolors, my acrylic paint, my calligraphy set, my colored pencils, my chalks, my wax colors, and the rest of it all.

I delighted sigh escaped me, and I felt at peace. What to paint first?

Over the next few days, whenever Kaoru was in the human realm for his job, I painted everything—the house, the pond, the garden, the forest, Kaoru, Natsu, Luan, and Toshi. But I wasn’t done there. I tried to recreate the tengu temple from memory as well, and once I’d done that, I decided to paint a scene from Toshi’s book.

One by one, my paintings vanished from the table in my room, and reappeared framed on the walls of the house. Kaoru didn’t lose a word about it, and neither did I, though I often found myself smiling at the newest additions. Outside of breakfast and dinner, we spent time together in the evenings, when it had gotten too dark to continue painting, and we’d often play some of his video games together.

When I wasn’t painting, I was reading or dealing with the pile of mail Kaoru had thought to bring from my apartment in Tokyo. Unsurprisingly, I’d been fired. Bills were also piling up, though some were only notifications because the money should have been pulled straight from my accounts. Reading through the letters brought back my concerns about how to go about things when I could finally go back. Perhaps I ought to pretend to have lost my memories—say that night I was hit on the head was the last thing I remembered before waking up in a forest several months later. Then again, I didn’t have to go back. I ought to, though. It was the right thing to do. I belonged there. Probably.

It was a little sad to see that outside of work and bills, no one was missing me. I might have received emails or texts, even voicemails. None of which I could check so long as I was still here. After contemplating back and forth for a while and sorting through the letters, I put them in a drawer in my room, intent on forgetting them completely until I could even start thinking about going back. As long as my curse was still there, that would just be a waste of time. Who knew if I’d even live to see the day?

One of the days, as I was painting in the garden, I noticed a figure enter the garden from the forest. A weasel was scurried over to me, carrying a scroll in its mouth.

Memories of the threatening ten from Satoru’s party flashed through my mind, but this weasel looked different to the one back then. Its fur was lighter, and it looked a little smaller. About a meter away from me it stopped and stood up on its hindlegs, carefully taking the scroll from its mouth and holding it out to me.

Putting down my paint and brush, I took a step over and took the scroll.

“Please deliver this to the kami no mori. We seek his aid,” the weasel said.

I nodded, puzzled. “And who might you be?”

“My name is Minoru. But it’s all in the letter.” The weasel nudged toward it with its nose. Then it bowed and scurried away again, leaving me nothing if not bewildered.

Realizing that the ten must have been referring to Kaoru, I gave him the letter when he came home. He flew over its contents briefly, and I watched his eyes flit up and down a few times, trying to read in his impression what sort of information or request the letter might contain. Finally, he nodded and rolled it up again. He caught me observing him and smirked.

“Nosy, aren’t you?” He waved the latter in the air.

Embarrassed, I turned away. “No, not really.”

We both knew I was lying through my teeth. Still, already feeling the blood rush to my ears, I couldn’t bring myself to admit how curious I really was. When I glanced back at Kaoru, he was still grinning knowingly.

“They’re just asking me to check something out for them. They’re a little concerned about some unusual activity, that’s all,” he said, finally releasing me from my awkward position.

We fell back into our usual evening routine then. As Kaoru cooked, I decked the table, and afterward I did the dishes before we sat down to play some games.

I was beating her at her favorite fighting game for the sixth time in a row when she leaned over to me.

“How is your injury?”

“Distracting me isn’t going to work,” I responded, and hit a combo to destroy her character’s remaining health.

She rolled her eyes. “Not everything is a trick to get you to lose attention, you know.”

I grinned at her. “You mean like last time you asked me the same question?”

That got her. “Well, not this time,” she relented.

I touched my side. I’d rebandaged it just this morning because it had gotten loose, but there was something strange about the fabric of the bandages. It was unlike anything that I knew from the human realm. It was a lot softer and thinner but also seemed stronger, somehow. “It’s a lot better. Give it a few days and I’ll basically be back to normal!”

Kaoru grinned. “I’m glad to hear that. In that case, let’s go somewhere tomorrow.”

“Way to be ominous about it. Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

No matter what I said, she wouldn’t give any more than that away, so I was forced to accept my fate, unsatisfied though it left me.

Just one thought occurred to me. “Will it be safe?”

After all, I was still cursed. Meaning yokai all around might still want to get a piece of me, and that included the human realm.

“Of course. I’ll be with you after all.”

Even though she’d said it so nonchalantly, the reassurance made me feel warm. Kaoru really did have a way of putting me at ease.