They walked back through the village hand in hand, neither of them making any effort to remove the red ribbon.
The celebration was still alive around them — music spilling through the streets, children darting between the stalls with sticky sweets clutched in their fists, flower petals crushed into soft patches of pink and red beneath their feet. Every so often, someone would notice the ribbon connecting them and call out another blessing, warm and bright as the morning sun.
Kui barely heard any of it.
His fingers drifted up to the ribbon tied into his hair. He rubbed the smooth fabric between his fingertips, slow and disbelieving, as though it might dissolve the moment he stopped touching it.
He had actually married someone.
The thought was so absurd that a laugh nearly escaped him. He hadn't understood what the ceremony meant.
He hadn't walked into that temple intending to be wed.
