“I could swallow you whole.”
“She’s my wife,” Takeda said calmly, tasting the broth.
“You’ll have a kotatsu.”
The wolf-goddess—her name, she grudgingly admitted later, was Ookami no Mikoto, though she allowed him to call her “Ookami-san”—narrowed her eyes. “So?”
She sniffed the air, and her tail gave an involuntary thump against the cedar. Then she caught herself, hackles rising. “What do you want, human? Offerings? Prayers? I haven’t eaten a traveler in decades, but I’m not above making an exception.” Ookami-san wa Taberaretai
Takeda smiled. It was a quiet, unassuming smile, the kind that had made him a beloved teacher at the village middle school. “I’m Takeda. I cook.”
She let him carry her down the mountain, limp and warm in his arms, her nose buried in the crook of his neck. The village children saw them pass and whispered. The old women at the shrine crossed themselves. But Takeda just walked, one hand cradling her head, the other holding the nikujaga pot. That spring, the school principal found Takeda in the staff kitchen, stirring a huge pot of zoni while a silver-haired woman in an oversized sweater sat on the counter, feet dangling, stealing pieces of kamaboko . “I could swallow you whole
“I know.”
“Takeda-sensei,” the principal said weakly, “is that… a wolf?” Then she caught herself, hackles rising
The autumn leaves had just begun to dust the forest path when Takeda Ryoichi first saw her.