The Tatami Galaxy

[I mean, pretty hilarious for a set of opening pages]
It's said that people who become an obstacle to on their path to love will be kicked by a horse and d' someone a rule I stay away from the riding grounds on the lonely north so as edge of campus. If I were to go anywhere near there, the unbroken horses would probably fly into a rage and jump the fence to gang up on me—I'd be trampled into shreds of soiled meat you couldn't even use to make sukiyaki. For the same reason, I am also terrified of Kyoto Prefecture's mounted police.

Why am I so scared of horses? Because even among people I don't know, I am notorious as an Obstructor of Romance. I am a dark Cupid costumed as a god of death who wields not arrows of love, but a battle-ax. Red threads of destiny are strung around like infrared sensors, and I cut every last one in range, severing the invisible bonds between would-be lovers.

Young men and women have shed barrels of bitter tears over these acts of mine.

It's the height of injustice, I know.

When I began college, even I sometimes quivered slightly with the thought that I just might have a rose-colored court-ship ahead of me. And only a few months later, though it was clear there was no need to so temper my resolve, I had even decided in my head: I will not behave like a wild animal. In the company of beautiful maidens I will be a purehearted, proper gentleman. In any case, I should have had the capacity to turn a blind eye to those men and women who forsook reason to recklessly pair off.

Instead, at some point I lost that capacity and turned into the kind of heinous fiend who delights in the sound of red threads being severed. Broken-Heart Alley, where snippets of red thread float in puddles of bitter tears... I stepped into this cramped backstreet of despair under the guidance of a detestable character, a man who is both my mortal enemy and sworn comrade.

Quoted on April 25, 2023

[the narrator meets a fortune-teller]
The old woman took my hands and pored over them, nodding to herself.

"Mm. You seem to be extremely hard-working and talented." I was already impressed by her keen insights. Just as in the proverb "a clever hawk hides its talons," I had modestly kept my good sense and talents hidden so no one would find them, but I did such a good job that I hadn't been able to locate them myself for the past few years; for her to spot them within five minutes of our meeting meant she couldn't be any ordinary fortune-teller.

Quoted on April 25, 2023