As I lay on the roof, tem­porar­ily relieved of my duties, late this morn­ing… I recieved the answer I was hop­ing for. My bask­ing in the sun­shine was cut short as a shadow was cast over me. Look­ing up, beyond a white dress bil­low­ing in the gen­tle breeze, was a famil­iar face.

“Yuki!” I exclaimed, sit­ting up.

She smiled, and for a moment the air felt strange and cold around me. “I don’t get to see the sum­mer very often, you know… It’s nice here,” she said quietly.

“Yes,” I mut­tered, turn­ing to face her.

“But I’m not just here to admire the weather. You want to ask me some­thing, don’t you?”

“Yes, I… Well…”

“Show me.”

“But…”

“Don’t worry, Kotori. No-one can see us up here. Show me.”

I sighed, emp­tied my mind a lit­tle, closed my eyes, and stretched my wings. Some­how, every time, this felt good. And it never felt strange; maybe as if I’d always had them.

As I opened my eyes and looked down at Yuki, I saw her smil­ing and felt comforted.

“Kotori,” she said. “Do you remem­ber that dream you had on the night after we first met?”

“Y… yes, of course. I could never for­get that dream…”

“You dream of fly­ing a lot, don’t you? Of hav­ing wings.”

“Well, yes, but… Those are just dreams.”

“Just dreams? My dear, Kami like me are just dreams. Dreams made real by belief, by their Story. That’s what we do. We take a sin­gle story and make it into everyone’s Story. We make dreams come true. There’s some that call that, magic.”

“So… These wings are my dreams… made real?”

“That’s right. Con­sider them a gift, from me.”

“But how can I ever repay you?” I asked with eyes open wide.

“Don’t worry, Kotori. You already have.”

With that, the lit­tle girl hugged me tightly. After a few sec­onds, still tightly in my arms, she faded away to a sprin­kling of snow that melted quickly to water on the warm roof. Hid­ing my wings, I jumped down from the roof and went back to the shrine.

And so, with a bless­ing in my heart, Golden Week began.