At 5:39 PM, the sunset had already dyed the entire city a warm orange.
When Rinna stepped out of the train station, her steps were already a little unsteady.
After a full day of school and the evening rush hour train, her energy was flashing red.
Her calves ached, her kneecaps felt like they’d been injected with cold water, and the soles of her feet felt soft on the ground, like walking on cotton.
Hisaki walked on her left, both schoolbags still hanging from her shoulders, one on each side, her steps steady.
Her left hand held Rinna’s right, fingers interlaced, palms touching, with a grip that was neither too tight nor too loose—not enough to choke Rinna, nor enough for her to slip away.
She had used this pressure for so many years that she could control it perfectly with her eyes closed.
Rinna looked down at their clasped hands.
Hisaki’s hand was a size larger than hers, with distinct knuckles and long fingers. Holding it felt like a warm, breathing lock.
Her own hand was wrapped inside.
They exited the station and walked north along a path lined with ginkgo trees.
The ginkgo leaves in June were still a tender green, lit by the sunset like translucent emeralds. When the wind blew, they rustled with a crisp sound, like someone scattering a handful of glass beads above their heads.
Along the road were rows of detached houses, each with its own small yard. Vines climbed the walls.
Occasionally, the smell of dinner wafted from a house—a sweet and savory scent of soy sauce and mirin cooking together, carried by the evening breeze, seeping through the gaps in the walls.
After walking about ten minutes, the surrounding houses began to thin out.
The road widened, and the walls grew taller.
Then Rinna saw that wall.
To be precise, the wall had always been there, but every time she saw it, Rinna couldn’t help but exclaim inwardly, ‘Damn, it’s huge.’
It was a nearly three-meter-high dark gray wall, built from large blocks of bluestone, with the gaps between the stones filled tightly with dark gray mortar.
There were no glass shards or barbed wire on top of the wall. The Kurose clan didn’t need those things to tell people, “Don’t mess with this place.”
The wall’s height and thickness alone said it all.
The bluestone on the wall had been polished smooth by time. Near the ground, a thin layer of moss grew—dark green and fuzzy, like a pair of old socks dressed on the stone.
The courtyard wall stretched in both directions from where she stood—no end to the left, no end to the right, like a silent giant opening its arms to embrace everything inside.
Rinna knew that the area enclosed by this wall was about 2,200 square meters.
What was 2,200 square meters like?
Her own house was across the street, occupying about 500 square meters, which was already considered a “pretty big house” in this residential area.
But every time she stood in front of this wall, Rinna felt her own house was like a gatekeeper’s lodge.
“Let’s go.” Hisaki gently tugged her hand.
The two walked toward the Nagaya Gate.
The gate was the same color as the wall, made of dark wood. Above the doorframe was a thick horizontal beam, its ends slightly upturned, like a giant with furrowed brows.
The wood grain on the door panels was worn into deep and shallow grooves by time, like the veins on an old person’s hand.
The gate was open. Hisaki led Rinna inside.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, a voice came crashing down on them.
“Good evening, Young Lady! Good evening, Miss Shirahase!”
The voice was low and resonant, echoing several times in the narrow entrance hallway, buzzing with reverberation before fading away.
Rinna’s eardrums felt a little numb from the vibration.
She looked up.
On either side of the entrance stood three men, six in total.
Each of them wore a matte, pure black loose-fitting suit. Not the fashionable, tight-waisted kind—this was true “workwear,” with broad shoulder lines, straight pant legs, and fabric thick enough to stop a knife.
The collars of their white shirts were buttoned tightly, with no ties.
Each of them held their hands behind their backs, feet slightly apart at shoulder width, chins slightly tucked, eyes staring straight ahead.
Their stance wasn’t the ramrod-straight posture of soldiers—it was something else, like old trees planted in the ground, roots too deep to be moved by the wind.
They were all tall. The shortest was still half a head taller than Hisaki.
The tallest stood at the innermost spot, seemingly over 1.9 meters, bald, with his head reflecting a thin sheen of light from the warm yellow lamp in the entrance.
Rinna’s gaze swept across their faces.
Every face was expressionless, but that “expressionless” wasn’t coldness—it was a trained, professional, watertight calm.
As if to say, “We stand here, but we don’t exist. Unless you need us to exist.”
Hisaki gave them a slight nod, the gesture as light as greeting the air.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Her voice was flat, without excess emotion—the tone of someone who had grown up accustomed to being greeted this way. Polite, but the politeness itself was distance.
Rinna also instinctively nodded and murmured, “You’ve worked hard.”
Her voice was weak and limp, a completely different person from the one who had been cursing on the train earlier.
Hisaki led her through the entrance and into the front courtyard.
Rinna’s breath caught for a moment.
Not because she was tired, but because every time she entered this yard, she was struck by the same feeling: this was not a “home.”
It was like a temple forgotten by time, still to the point of being almost frozen.
The front courtyard was larger than her entire house.
The ground was paved with large bluestone slabs, with finger-width gaps between them. In those gaps grew fuzzy moss, dark green, lit by the sunset like a layer of golden powder.
The stone path stretched straight and long from her feet to the far entrance of the main building, like a silent guide.
On both sides were carefully pruned pine trees and low shrubs. The pine branches were fixed at specific angles with wire and bamboo poles, every branch direction as if measured with a ruler.
Several stone lanterns were scattered among the pines, their shades covered with a thin layer of dust, not yet time to light them.
***
In the center of the courtyard was a huge banyan tree.
The first time Rinna saw this tree, the word that popped into her mind was “monster.”
Not an insult—literally, the tree’s scale had exceeded what the word “tree” could contain.
The trunk was so thick that it would take five or six people holding hands to wrap around it. The bark was a mix of deep and light gray-brown, cracked into irregular scales, like the skin of a giant dragon.
Aerial roots hung down from the thick branches, dense and numerous. Thick ones were like an adult’s arm, thin ones like clotheslines.
Some had already rooted into the ground to become new supports, while others still hung in the air, swaying gently in the wind.
The canopy blocked out the sky, covering the entire front courtyard completely. The sunset light only leaked through the gaps between leaves, scattering pieces of gold on the ground.
This banyan tree was protected by a low stone fence, its stones also covered in moss.
In front of the fence stood a small wooden plaque, engraved with an old-style kanji that Rinna couldn’t read, probably an archaic form of “Kurose.”
This tree, it was said, had stood here for over 300 years.
It had been here even before the Kurose clan put down roots here.
Every time Rinna saw it, she felt a strange sensation—not awe, but a feeling of being watched.
As if the tree had eyes, had memories, and remembered everyone who had walked under it.
It remembered Hisaki as a child, remembered Hisaki’s mother as an even younger child, remembered the first Kurose ancestor who drove a stake into this land a hundred years ago.
And it remembered her.
It remembered the first time she was led through this gate by Hisaki’s hand, remembered her habit of pausing under the tree every time she came, remembered the silly light in her eyes when she looked at it, the “so big” expression.
“Rinna?”
Hisaki noticed her stopping and turned to look at her.
“… It’s nothing.” Rinna averted her gaze. “Let’s go.”