Tokyo, in the quiet hour before dawn, breathes like a sleeping beast.
Aya walked through the backstreets of Asakusa, the red kimono wrapped around her like a second skin, though she hadn't put it on. It had *wrapped itself*.
She didn't remember deciding to come here.
She only remembered waking with a name in her mind —
**Yuriko Himeji.**
*Seamstress. Kyoto-born. Works in shadows.*
And a whisper:
> _"She made the first one."_
So she walked. Through neon-lit alleys, past shuttered ramen stalls, past a stray cat with one blind eye that watched her like it knew her fate.
And then, she found it.
Tucked between a pawnshop and a shuttered pachinko parlor, a narrow door with no sign. Just a single red thread tied to the handle, swaying in the wind like a pulse.
She knocked.
No answer.
She turned the knob.
Inside: a dim atelier, thick with dust and the scent of aged silk. Mannequins stood like silent sentinels, draped in kimonos of impossible colors — gold like molten suns, blue like deep ocean trenches, green like moss on forgotten graves.
And in the center, an old woman sat at a wooden loom, her fingers moving without sight, weaving thread that shimmered like oil on water.
She didn't look up.
"You're wearing it," the woman said. Her voice was dry as autumn leaves. "And it's wearing you."
Aya froze. "You know me?"
"I know the kimono." The woman — Yuriko — finally turned. Her eyes were milky, blind, but they *saw*. "I've made twelve before yours. And I'll make no more."
Aya touched the fabric at her shoulder. It was warm. Alive.
"You made this?"
"I made the *pattern*," Yuriko said. "But the cloth… that was spun from something older. Something hungrier."
She reached out, not to Aya, but to the air beside her. Her fingers brushed the invisible seam of the garment.
"This isn't just silk," she whispered. "It's *memory*. Woven from the first tear of a forgotten artist. Dyed in the blood of a broken promise. Stitched with thread that remembers every name it has erased."
Aya's breath caught. "It's… taking them from me."
Yuriko nodded. "One by one. First the small things. A laugh. A scent. A touch. Then the great ones. Love. Grief. Identity. Until you are nothing but motion. Nothing but beauty. Nothing but *his*."
"Ren," Aya said.
"The Prince of the Forgotten," Yuriko corrected. "Once a dancer, like you. He danced so perfectly, he forgot he was human. Now he collects those who follow."
Aya stepped back. "I can take it off."
Yuriko laughed — a sound like cracking ice.
"You already tried. Three times since you woke. You pulled at the collar. You cut it with scissors. You burned the sleeve with a lighter. And each time, it healed. Each time, it *punished* you."
Aya touched her neck. A thin red line, like a scratch, throbbed beneath her fingers. She didn't remember how it got there.
"The kimono isn't a garment," Yuriko said. "It's a *cage*. And you're not its wearer. You're its *womb*."
Aya's voice trembled. "How do I stop it?"
Yuriko stood, slow, ancient, and walked to a drawer. She pulled out a small wooden box, carved with kanji:
**忘却の糸**
*Thread of Forgetting.*
Inside lay a single red thread — identical to the one on the door.
"This is a *counter-thread*," Yuriko said. "Woven from a memory that refused to die. Your grandmother gave it to me before she passed."
Aya's breath stopped.
*Grandmother.*
She tried to recall her face.
The lines around her eyes. The way she hummed while brewing tea. The smell of camphor and incense.
But it was… slipping.
Like smoke.
"She knew you would come," Yuriko said. "She danced the same dance. Faced the same choice. And she left this — not to save you. But to *remind* you."
She placed the thread in Aya's palm.
The moment it touched her skin, a memory *snapped* into place:
---
**Flashback: Kyoto, Ten Years Ago**
A young Aya, age twelve, sits cross-legged in her grandmother's tatami room, fumbling with a fan.
"I can't do it," she says. "The movements are too hard."
Her grandmother — *Obaasan* — smiles, pours green tea.
"The dance is not in the hands," she says. "It is in the *remembering*."
She places a hand over Aya's heart.
"When you dance, you are not alone. You carry all who came before you. All who loved. All who suffered. All who *forgot*."
She leans close.
"And if a man in black comes, with a kimono of red — *run*."
Aya frowns. "Why?"
"Because he does not want your dance."
"He wants your name."
"And once he has it… you will dance forever.
But no one will remember *you*."
---
The memory faded.
Aya gasped, back in the atelier, tears on her cheeks.
"She knew," Aya whispered. "She *knew* this would happen."
Yuriko nodded. "And she loved you enough to leave a thread. Tie it to your obi. Wear it close. It won't stop the kimono. But it will help you *remember* what is worth losing."
Aya clutched the thread like a lifeline.
"Is there a way to break the pact?"
Yuriko's blind eyes turned toward her.
"There is a dance," she said. "The *Kuzu-no-Ki*. The Unbinding. But it has not been performed in centuries. And those who try… rarely survive."
"Who knows it?"
Yuriko hesitated.
"Master Daisho. He lives in the mountains near Nikko. But be warned — he does not teach it to those who still crave fame."
Aya looked down at the red kimono.
It pulsed, like a heartbeat.
And in the corner of the room, a mirror — cracked, dusty — reflected not the atelier.
But a vast, endless theater of mirrors.
And in it, a man in black waited.
Smiling.
Aya tied the counter-thread to her obi.
It glowed faintly — gold, not red.
And for the first time since the deal, the kimono *tightened* in protest.