Work Text:
Your name is Jouhei Kuzunoha, and you’re standing in your grandfather’s rice field, the water reaching to just below the hem of your shorts.
Kuzunoha Village is alive but quiet, with the sound of cicadas and flies filling the air. You can hear people bartering on Main Street. You can smell Grandmother’s old wood stove. You can feel a demon’s small hands wrap around your leg.
You keep walking, towards the end of the river with the nicer kappa (not the end with the azumi, although some of the kelpie from that end are here.) You wave to the deaf fisherman on the other side. He waves back. You keep walking.
The river is colder, running water flooding past you like cars in the city. You’ve never seen them, but Kiyoshi from down the road has. You imagine them like snakes, darting and weaving between the trees.
You stop, dropping the bucket onto the riverbed, scooping up the clay with it. Grandmother will be making a new teapot soon, and Mother is worried she won’t have enough. You pick out the rocks from it, bowing to the kappa that passes deeper in as you work. It ignores you, which is what you prefer.
It’s almost noon when you get back to the house. Grandmother has finished cooking, and Grandfather and Father are out buying something. Mother nods as you walk in. You leave the clay on the porch as instructed.
There’s a Moh Shuvuu under the awning. You bow to it as you walk inside, paying no mind as it follows you. Monday means that Mr Tanaka is here for Father, so you bow to him too.
Your room is stuffy. You open the windows and pull a book out from the shelf - your sketchbook. It’s filled with drawings of demons, of wildlife, of people. The elders used it to prove that you were of strong Kuzunoha blood.
You don’t know why that matters so much. Apparently, Grandmother and Mother are the same, and Uncle Kenji on Father’s side too. Moh Shuvuu flutters into vision. “Wow, you’re not a talkative one, are you?”
You shake your head. “Well that’s alright. Your grandmother already told me your name, and you already know mine, so we’re basically friends! And friends can be quiet together.”
You smile. A friend. You don’t have one of those. Well… maybe Pixie from the Grand Hall. But she’s never called you a friend.
“Either way, I think it’s wrong not to introduce myself, even if we already know each other. I’m Moh Shuvuu! Who are you?”
Your name is Jouhei Kuzunoha, and you are a Devil Summoner.