Akiyuki, a young man in his early 20s, who lives at a small village known as Takayama which was at the very tip of Kyoto. Aki would often go into the woods which surrounds his village, in search of plants and rare herbs that could be used as medicines and sometimes would try to find new plants for his family's farm.
Akiyuki, mostly called Aki-san, is a quiet and reserved young man. He is a man with few words but a profession at what he does. He greatly enjoyed his life and his job, wanted nothing more than what he currently has. A daily life with his family is enough to satisfy his little to no needs in life.
Hondô Akiyuki is his full name coming from the family of Hondô who specializes in spices. His village was a farming village where almost all the villagers were farmers. Some houses does weaving but those were very rare. Aki's family was one of the major family in his village controlling the spices as their area of specialty.
Hondô Akiyuki was one of the most reliable man from his family. He is the son of Hondô Akihiko and Hondô Yukio. Hondô Akihiko is the younger brother of Hondô Akira, who is the soon-to-be successor for the Hondô family head.
Aki inherited his father's personality but his mother's look. Thin black hair, narrow eyes, pointed chin and tanned skin with his father's calmness and mysterious personality, Aki is the definition of a perfect man in his family's eyes.
Currently Aki was wondering in the woods trying to find something useful. Aki wanders in the forest from one tree to another, crouching down around bushes every time he finds something and added them to the straw basket he is carrying. The air around him was refreshing as it is spring despite the forest being a bit dim as he goes deeper.
Aki would hums songs and poems that his family always sing at dinner to ease the cold feelings that his surrounding is giving out.
"Gazing at the cheery blossoms, the bones of my neck, get painful..."
Mumbling the words while looking up at the sky covered by tall trees, the sunlight howeber passed through the small gaps to shine on his face. Aki puts his right hand up to his face covering the dazzling light from reaching his eyes and try to see the birds that were flying up in the sky.
Aki looks back down at his hand holding the already filled basket and decided that he should heads back to the village. He was not really too deep in the forest and because he has been travelling back and forth to the places around his village for as long as he could remember, he had already memorized the pathways around.
Aki decided to risk a bit and takes the shorter route back home since he has wasted enough time in the forest and that looking up to the sky has given him a hint that it was probably around ten in the morning. At this time, his family might have started tending to the fields already.
The shortcut that Aki decided to take have many sharp branches laying on the ground with sometimes poisonous animals reside the area. The place is a mess with a lot of mud and dirt which is not a place for a person to go through without anything prepared to protect themselves with.
However, as Aki was a profession on these routes because he used to play so wildly when he was young, he had gotten used to the rough surrounding of the place. Aki, rush through the forest, jumping up and down dodging the layout branches. The sleeves of his black yukata swings in the air as he hurried through the woods.
"Ah...!"
Aki halts, stopping midway and looks at the other direction to where he was heading. His village was not too far ahead and he could hear the laughter of children and people from where he was standing.
Aki was staring into the woods and he he didn't know why. He knows that there was a shrine near his village and he used to visit it often. The place he was staring off now was also where the shrine would be. For some reason, Aki feels that something or rather someone was calling out to him claiming that he should heads to the shrine.
Aki was not a type to be curious and definitely not a type to poke his nose into something that might get him in trouble. His guts is telling him that if he goes in now, he would be met with something troublesome but somehow he walks towards it anyway.
Before he knows it, he was already in front of the shrine. The air around him was totally different from before and he felt extremely calm at the same time sad. The shrine was dedicated to the god, Inari and his family or rather the whole of his village visited the shrine to pray for their business. Since his whole village were filled with farmer's families this shrine was considered to be their source of income.
Aki puts down his basket and decided to pray while he was here, clapping his hands together and started praying. He thoughts of his family, his parents, siblings, cousins, relatives and grandparents all singing and laughing together at the dinner table and prayed that these days would last forever. It was something he always prayed for every times he visited the shrine.
Next he would prayed for his family's business and would prayed that the emperor and people at the court would not disturb his honestly normal life.
It was not unheard of that most villages were burdened with heavy taxes, especially the farmers' villages, but his village managed to slip under the emperor's watch due to its size and for the lack of communication with the other villages.
They weren't of course, free of all the taxes but compare to those at other villages and towns, theirs were less rough.
"O-kamisama, please don't let this peaceful life be disturbed..."
"Humm... that was some unusual wish you have there human..."
"It is what I want...huh...!? Who is there??!!"
Aki immediately turns his head around to face the voice he heard. He tries to grab hold of the sickle that was in his basket to defend himself since it could be someone dangerous.
"Humm... such reflexes..."
"Who is there...?"
Aki, after hearing the voice for the second time decided to calm down and search for the said person instead, although with a sickle in hand. He looks around the shrine and saw no one which doesn't make sense to him, he was sure that he heard the voice.
"I thought humans your age would want to be away from a such 'hard' life... as humans called it..."
Aki, this time, was sure that the voice was not coming from the shrine but from the wood so he decided to look through and met with, yet again no one. When he looks above however, he finds someone, a rather unusual someone sitting on a branch of a rather tall tree.
"So... you found me... took you quite a while."
The said person jumps down from the tree and walks towards Aki which Aki's reflexes were defensive. He holds the sickle close to his chest with the sharp end pointing towards the stranger. Aki tries to make out who the person in front of him was, he has never seen someone like him anywhere before.
Aki has been living in the mountains, in these deep woods near his village long enough to know how many paths there are to the many places surrounding his village but he never has seen or heard anyone living in the woods nor anyone like the person in front of him living in his village, that's for sure.
The stranger in front of him has unusually white hair, for a man his age. Aki must admit that the person in front of him doesn't looks any older than he is. The man was wearing an expensive looking white yukata with blue ropes tightening around the person's stomach. The man has strange blood-red eyes and with a visible bored look on his face.
For some strange reason, Aki felt terrified at the young man's gaze that sent him shivering under that cold red eyes. He was not sure why or when but he has started moving backwards, away from the man in font of him. He has never seen such a beautiful yet at the same time terrifying person in his life. He gathers all the strength he has left in his trembling body to let out a crooked voice and ask the male the same question.
"I-I will ask again... who... are you?"
The fear was visible in his voice as it changes from his first stoic voice to a quivering chihuahua's. He swallowed down his saliva trying to ease his fear but it was not helping, the man in front of him was dangerous, he knows it.
"You... are quite observant aren't you?"
As if not noticing him, the man bluntly ignored him. Aki felt a bit pissed but he was not going to push his luck around, if a glare could kill he would be dead by now.
"Oh, right, what were you asking again? Who am I? I am known as the Inari-okami to you humans, my name is not what I will give easily however."
"!!??"
Aki blinks in surprise when the man suddenly appears before him and the sickle that he was holding before stabs right into the man's chest, staining his white yukata with blood.
Aki was incredibly surprised and worried for what just happened that he has to double checked. He didn't even catch what the man just said although he did heard it. Aki let go of the sickle and fall back a little only to grab ahold of the man's shoulder.
"A-Are you alright. Ah... there's no way you are... what should I... please wait a bit... I'll try tending to your wounds..."
"Oi... human..."
Aki flails as he crouches down to grab hold of some herbs from his basket that could cover the wound and stops the bleeding. On the other hand, the self-proclaimed Inari-okami watches as Aki worried over his health.
"Y-You could come to my village, not really fur from here, for further treatment, there are some doctors there that could help you, I'm not going to be able to help much.... aye.... don't pull it out!?"
"Oi... it wasn't that deep... and this is not even a scratch..."
Aki was only wrapping up some leaves for treatment only to see the man pulling out the sickle. The action was fast confirming that the wound wasn't as deep as Aki had originally thought it would be.
"Eh... it stabs straight to your heart, you shouldn't pull it out like that... even if it wasn't deep..."
"You are quite talkative, I thought you were.... a quiet kid.... have you changed??"
"Wha-- anyone would have been surprised if they have accidentally killed someone, don't talk as if you know me as well... and stop moving closer!?"
The man, with still a straight face, moves closer despite Aki's protests. Aki then remembers the wounds when he saw the blood stains on the man's yukata. This time Aki was the one to moves closer and get hold of the man's yukata.
"You...your wounds... let me see... it may not be deep but I need to check..."
"You should have told me if you want to strip me that badly, I know I'm good looking but I didn't think that you'll be this desperate..."
With a sly smirk that creeps across the young man's face, he teases Aki. Aki looks at him with dead eyes but a bit of a blush was visible on his cheek. Clearly pissed at what he just heard, Aki grabs the man from the collar of the yukata and with his basket in hand drags him out of the wood and headed towards his village.
"Oya, where are you talking me human, your village?"
"Yes, I am pissed but I cannot leave you here, this is my responsibility, I hurt you. You also have blood stain on your yukata, you need to wash it off."
Aki said with a hint of worry in his tone and let go of the man's yukata. He walks ahead and his tone changed back to how it was before, stoic. The white hair man followed behind smirking holes at Aki's back making Aki uneasy.
"Well, the wound might has already been healed but it wouldn't hurt to see your village and how it has changed over the years..."
"You are very strange... with the way you talk... I do not like it one bit."
"I don't like you as well, human. You're boring."
Something told Aki before when he urged to go to the shrine that his life is going to change. That it would not be 'normal' as he would have wanted anymore.
Something told him that he, Aki might be facing off with something troublesome, something opposite of his desires but somehow he went in anyway. And Aki wonders what actually urged him to make such a decision even goes on even after all the possible warnings in his head.