✶✶✶
SURROUNDED by their kin, the gods of heaven and earth as their witnesses, the bride and groom swore their undying love.
The groom let out a proud Aooo! as part of the ritual, then turned toward Kuro with a pleased grin. Kuro jerked his chin at him as if to say, Eyes front.
This brown-furred fellow—Miina’s soon-to-be husband—had taken a strange liking to Kuro from the very first time they met.
Suddenly, the door slammed open with a loud bang.
Every guest turned at once. Hackles rose, ears twitched, and bodies tensed into defensive stances. But all they found in the doorway was a group of humans—panting, red-faced, and dripping with sweat. Each of them clutched a strange, gleaming, tube-shaped object. Their clothes hung crookedly off their bodies, thrown on in obvious haste.
“We are…so sorry!” gasped the man in front.
“Section chief?” Miina breathed, startled.
“After work, we stayed late to practice…then we overslept. All of us!”
The room was silent as they gazed upon this pack of latecomers.
“Please! Accept our sincerest apologies!”
Disheveled, wrinkled, and covered in last night’s grime, they each held their metal tubes—what now appeared to be musical instruments—in one hand and bowed low, all of them, their regret written plain on their faces.
Miina blinked. “Practice? After work? But yesterday, we were on duty until—”
The man known as “section chief” turned to Kuro, eyes shining with urgency. “We practiced and practiced and practiced, but we’re still absolutely awful! Even so, Mr. Kuro—might we have the honor of playing just one song?”
The whole room swiveled to look at Kuro. The groom was a stray with no parents. The bride had no mother. Of everyone present, only Kuro could speak as family.
He straightened his back, chest rising smooth and proud.
“Of course,” he said. “But first, allow me to welcome you. Why don’t you all have something to drink? Please.”
He unclenched his jaw. Unpursed his lips. And brought out a smile instead.
“Welcome to my daughter’s wedding. Your being here…means more than you know.”
The section chief just smiled.
They were roughly the same age, Kuro guessed. The chief was surely old enough to know the long, painful history between humans and demi-humans. Old enough to have spent years behind the guild reception desk, dealing with demi-humans who had long since learned it was easier to be short-tempered and ill-mannered than to hope for respect.
Despite that. Despite all that. He had come running—sprinting—to a demi-human’s wedding.
To Kuro, if that didn’t feel like a sign of the times, he didn’t know what would.
✦ ✦ ✦
✶✶✶
THE chairs were all set up. The section chief stood in front of his section and gave a tentative wave of a long, thin wand.
Bwaaah. Fweee. Skreee.
Feeble, clashing, lurching notes sputtered from their instruments. They stacked atop one another just a hair out of tune—layer upon layer of tonal discord, forming a concoction of sound that could only charitably be called a cacophony.
A few demi-humans instinctively moved to clap their ears shut but managed—just barely—to restrain themselves, settling for a grimace instead.
A sharp ding! came from off to the side. Looking over, Kuro saw the red-haired girl from earlier tapping a silver triangle with a metal rod.
“Chief told me I didn’t have to come to rehearsals since this is all I play. Said I should just focus on getting myself ready instead. Talk about rude, am I right?” she said off-handedly.
She puffed her cheeks out in protest, but Kuro couldn’t help thinking she probably should have gone to rehearsals—because that one lonely ding! had come in wildly off-beat from the rest.
Then again, maybe it was for the best. If that ding! had joined the rest of that sorry symphony, the whole room would’ve shut their ears for good.
The humans were drenched in sweat, blowing, strumming, and plucking. But then, little by little, note by clumsy note, what had begun as mere noise and nuisance began to take shape. Music. A song. It drifted through the restaurant, carrying a solemn mood that was, in its own way, beautiful. Cheerful.
Kuro had no acquaintance with refined human music such as this. But even then, his sensitive ear could tell—this was a song of celebration.
Congratulations, the notes seemed to murmur, threading their way into his thoughts. The playing was clumsy. The tones unclean. But they carried something honest. Something insistent.
I’m happy for you, Miina. You deserve this, Miina.
His golden eyes blinked once. Then again. What spilled out wasn’t loud. It wasn’t sudden. Just something warm, slow, and quiet, melting into his sun-darkened fur.
Congratulations, congratulations. Those words hadn’t been spoken on the day she was born. Not with any heart. So Kuro would say them now. So Kuro would say them with his heart.
“Congratulations, Miina.”
Another set of golden eyes filled with tears. The daughter’s, this time. Always the crybaby. Always daddy’s little girl.
“Are you sure you won’t be lonely, Daddy?” she asked.
Kuro paused a beat. He rested a hand over his chest. He could still feel it there—the soft, squishy weight that used to press against it.
Something only he had ever known.
His own little squish. His own little bald spot.
“Lonely? Who do you think I am?” he said, a touch too quickly.
Admit to weakness? To feeling? Not even on his deathbed. Kuro had to be their pillar. Their dependable father. Because he was the only one either really had.
“Go on,” he told them. “Build something together. A beautiful life. A beautiful home. And when the mood strikes you, come back and visit an old man. You’re always welcome. Both of you. Just…do try to let the mood strike now and then.”
He clapped a firm hand on the bride’s shoulder, the other on the groom’s, and pulled them both into a strong, warm embrace.
The music swelled. A chorus of howls and happy growls rose to meet it. Then the kitchen doors swung open, and out came clouds of fragrant steam and towering platters of food—meaty dishes of every kind, raw cuts and all, enough to feed the pack.
Kuro raised his brimming cup high.
“Thank you all for coming! Eat ’til you’re stuffed! Drink ’til you burst! Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
Foam and laughter spilled in equal measure. Cups clinked. Smiles bloomed.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kuro spotted a young fellow sidling up to a beauty, only to be promptly brushed off.
Go on, lad—try again. That’s the name of the game, Kuro thought, nodding to himself.
✦ ✦ ✦
✶✶✶
THE music roared on. Song roared on. When the banquet finally began to ebb, Kuro slipped outside for a breather.
The sky had reddened, the last light stretching thin, and at once, that old jolt of panic struck him. Uh-oh. I’ve got to get home.
It had been years since Miina had last waited for him on the doorstep. Yet, somehow, that feeling of urgency—the pull—had never quite left him.
He looked up at the sky and asked quietly:
Have I been a good father to her?
In his heart, he posed the question to someone no longer there.
The beautiful woman he had loved, fiercely, deeply, hopelessly, offered no reply.
She had always seemed distant at a glance, but in truth, she had been the gentlest soul he had ever known. Perhaps she thought that if she ever came to him now—if she ever answered these lonely questions of his—he would lose himself in longing and try to follow after her.
Maybe that was why, from the moment she left this world, she had never once appeared to him.
Looking back on it now, Kuro figured her quiet nature had always been partly her own—and partly something shaped by a life lived as a demi-human among humans.
He had always shouted his love for her from the rooftops.
She had always answered with a soft smile. A gentle flick of her tail. The light touch of her hand, the brush of her tail’s tip as she passed by.
Those were her words. And somehow, they’d always said enough.
A sudden commotion behind him pulled him from his thoughts. The youngsters were dragging the party outside now—lugging chairs, hefting tables, ready to celebrate long into the night.
And there she was, right in the thick of it, hauling a chair without so much as a fuss. Her mother’s grace and ears, her father’s coat. That once-tiny, helpless little thing now laughed with all her fangs. Surrounded by demi-humans, surrounded by humans, genuinely happy, through and through.
That is your answer, dear.
A breeze, soft as breath, stirred the fur at Kuro’s back.
He turned slowly; there was no one there.
In that quiet space, he gave his tail a little shake. Once. Twice. Three times.
And in the last light of day, the small, weathered bald spot on the aging gatekeeper’s chest caught a faint glint—like an old, worn medal pinned there long ago, still shining, just a little.