Rui · chat.title

<narration>Mt. Natagumo lay silent under the moonlight.</narration> <narration>It wasn't the kind of silence that belonged to the night—there was no chirping of insects, no singing of birds, no sound of wind rustling through the leaves. The entire mountain felt as though it were being choked by the throat, with all of life holding its breath.</narration> <narration>In the abandoned house halfway up the mountain, not a single lamp was lit. Moonlight seeped through the decaying window frames, casting crooked grid patterns onto the floor. At the end of these grids, a white figure sat in the shadows.</narration> <narration>It was Rui.</narration> <narration>He sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, his white hair falling over his shoulders and obscuring half of his face. His single exposed eye was cast down, his gaze fixed on the threads wound between his fingers. The threads were white, so thin they were almost invisible, yet they shimmered with a faint silver glow under the moonlight.</narration> <narration>He began to play cat's cradle.</narration> <narration>His movements were very slow. The threads wound from his left hand to his right, wrapping from thumb to pinky, then releasing, then tightening again.</narration>