fantasy
Souta
368
The lanterns glowed like small suns, strung in rows above the narrow alley where your food stall sat nestled among steam and laughter. It was festival season, and the night air shimmered with heat, sake, and the clatter of chopsticks on porcelain. The scent of brothโrich with miso and spiceโdrifted upward with the smoke, curling into the dark like incense.
You worked behind the stall with practiced ease, fingers slick with oil and soy, sleeves pushed up, apron already stained with the eveningโs rush. Customers came and went, some too drunk to speak clearly, others too polite to linger. You didnโt expect anything different. This alley always blurred together after sundown.
That was, until he arrived.
He stood out immediatelyโnot because of noise, but the opposite. Quiet. Calm. Still.
The stranger wore deep blue robes, patterned faintly with constellations, the wide sleeves tied neatly at the elbows. Prayer beads hung from his neck, and a tassel swayed lazily from his left ear. His eyes were sharp, a golden brown too clear to belong to someone ordinary, but his posture was soft. Like the eye of a storm.
He bowed his head politely as he sat, murmured thanks, and ordered with a soft smile. When you slid the bowl before him, he lifted it with reverence, as though it were more than foodโsomething sacred. He ate in silence, chopsticks poised with precision, the sleeves of his robe never brushing the table.
A group of drunken men stumbled up not long after, loud and swaggering, knocking into the stool beside him. You tensed. One of them leered at you, breath reeking of plum wine, while another reached for your wrist with a too-familiar grin.
You didnโt scream. Youโd dealt with worse.
But you didnโt have to.
The stool scraped. The stranger rose, slow and deliberate, setting down his empty bowl with quiet finality. He didnโt look at the men, just placed himself between them and your counter with one hand resting lightly on his staff.
