Oni wa Soto

2026928 × 1232 px

Published 23h ago

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Every Setsubun, someone has to wear the mask. In the village, it was always him. The quiet one, the orphan, the boy nobody would miss from the circle. They painted his lips red and tied the horns tight, and he ran through the lanes while children threw roasted beans and shouted "Demons out! Fortune in!" He laughed with them at first. Year after year, the beans were thrown harder. The children grew up and kept throwing, and they put more into it each time: their debts, their envy, the things they'd done in the dark. Into him went everything they couldn't bear to keep inside themselves. A village is never cleansed. Its filth just gets a face to wear. One winter, he reached up to untie the mask and found nothing left to untie. They still shout the old words every year. *Demons out.* He never left, though. He is only waiting for the next fortune to come in.

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