Yutaro (30), broken by a toxic corporate job, takes a leave of absence to recover in his late grandmother's old house. He expects quiet solitude but instead witnesses something impossible: a tiny figure stealing sugar cubes from his kitchen.
That figure is Marienne, a sharp-tongued girl from the 'Hitokage'—a race of tiny people living beneath the floorboards. She is a walking contradiction: a WiFi-stealing, S-rank sass-master who treats Yutaro like a plaything, mercilessly teasing him over his
The Girl in the Crawlspace - The continuation of the promise, waiting for my turn
Cedar needles glistened as they shed morning dew. How many times had Takahashi Yutaro passed through the torii gate of Okusawa Shrine? He stood in the kitchen, remembering the sight of Marianne curled up on the veranda.
The fragments of the broken sugar jar were already cleaned up. In their place sat a soy sauce dish, and on top of it, Marianne was nibbling a sugar cube.
"……So, what've you been quiet about this whole time?"
"Thinking."
"How rare. Your brain actually has a function for that?"
Yutaro didn't brush off her sharp tongue the way he usually did. He looked straight at her.
"Do you want to go back to the village?"
The sound of her nibbling stopped.
"……Huh?"
"I'm asking if you want to go back."
Marianne's wings shifted to a pale purple. Wariness, or agitation. Probably both.
"What are you talking about? I can't go back. I was banished. I broke the Manazashi law."
"I know."
"Then why ask something like that?"
Yutaro placed his hand on the edge of the dish. His fingertips were barely ten centimeters from where Marianne sat.
"Fumie was waiting. Three sugar cubes. For when you came back."
"……I know that. You told me before."
"Fumie was the one waiting. For fifteen years, the whole time."
Marianne lowered her eyes.
"I thought it was my turn to wait."
"……Yeah."
"But I was wrong."
Marianne looked up. Her deep green eyes fixed on Yutaro.
"Just waiting doesn't change anything. It only keeps you here."
"……"
"This time, it's my turn to move."
His voice was quiet. But in those words lay a resolve he'd been avoiding all along.
Marianne said nothing. Her wings simply changed color, slowly. From purple to pale blue. Then to something clearer still.
"Move how?"
"I'm going to the village. To find out what's happened with the law."
"……Are you insane? You don't even know where the Hitokaage village is."
"That's why I'm asking you."
Marianne was silent for a while. She sat on the edge of the dish, her hands clasped in her lap.
"……You're serious."
"I wouldn't say it if I wasn't."
Marianne's hands tapped awkwardly against the dish's rim. A small gesture, as if she were organizing her thoughts.
"……I've been thinking about this the whole time."
"About what?"
"Being banished wasn't your fault or mine. It was just an accident, like you said."
"I did say that."
"But I kept thinking, 'It happened because I got involved with a human. If humans didn't exist, I'd still be in the village.'"
Yutaro listened silently. Marianne's voice had lost its usual sharp edge, becoming only quiet.
"……But I think that's wrong too."
"How so?"
"I couldn't go back because I kept blaming someone else and standing still."
Marianne stood up from the dish. She walked slowly across its surface on her small feet.
"I'm not going to have you push my back. I'm going back to the village on my own two feet. And I'm going to demand answers from the Tsumugi Council about whether that law is really necessary."
"Marianne."
"What?"
"You planning to go alone?"
Marianne stopped for a moment. Then she laughed. Not her usual sharp laugh, but something softer, a little embarrassed.
"……I won't stop you if you come along."
Yutaro's mouth relaxed slightly.
"You're a pain in the ass, you know that?"
"That's your catchphrase, isn't it?"
"Shut up."
The cemetery sat on a small hill at the edge of the city. Climbing the stone steps made the world below feel distant. Beyond the slope lined with persimmon trees stood the Takahashi family grave. Fumie's name was carved into the fresh tombstone. Only three years had passed, so the engraved characters still stood out white.
Yutaro took Marianne from his pocket and gently set her on the edge of the tombstone. She stood on its surface with her small feet, tracing the carved characters with her fingers.
"……It's been a while."
Her voice trembled. Yutaro lit incense and placed it before the grave. Smoke rose in a thin line.
"Fumie."
He crouched down and spoke to the tombstone.
"I remembered. All of it."
Wind rustled the persimmon leaves. Marianne sat motionless on the tombstone.
"The promise you believed in until the end. I remembered. Three sugar cubes."
He took three sugar cubes from his pocket and arranged them carefully before the grave. Clink, clink, clink—three small sounds echoed in the silence.
"……Grandmother."
She called her that for the first time. Yutaro glanced over, slightly surprised.
"I'd never called her that before. I think this is the first time I've said it."
"Is that so?"
"……She told me to keep waiting. Those were the last words she gave me."
Marianne's voice grew hoarse.
"'Wait here until he grows up and comes back.' That's all I believed in. Fifteen years in the crawlspace of that house."
"I'm sorry for making you wait."
"……It's too late for that now, idiot."
But there was no sharpness in her voice. Only a faint tremor, as if holding back tears.
"Grandmother."
He used that word too. Marianne glanced at him.
"I thought I'd just wait. But that's not enough. You decided to go back to the village of your own will."
He continued, as if reporting to the grave.
"The promise she connected us with—it's reaching us. We're moving forward from here."
Wind blew again. The sound of persimmon leaves brushing together. The incense smoke drifted sideways.
Marianne stared at the three sugar cubes on the tombstone. Then she gently picked one up and pressed it against her cheek. The cold stone sensation lingered—just that, a single sugar cube.
"……Thank you. For waiting all this time."
Her whisper was barely audible.
On the way back from the cemetery, walking down the slope, Yutaro kept Marianne in his pocket. Only the tip of her flax-colored braid peeked out from his shirt collar.
"Hey."
"What?"
"That was…… cool back there."
Marianne popped her head out of the pocket.
"Huh? What did you just say?"
"You heard me."
"Say it again. I didn't quite catch it."
"Not happening."
"Cheapskate."
Yutaro gave a wry smile and pulled out his phone. He was just trying to check his appointment date for the mental health clinic while walking. But the moment he tapped the screen, he noticed something was wrong.
"……Huh?"
A dating app icon was open. Profile edit screen. Unfamiliar text filled it.
'Takahashi Yutaro, 30 years old. Currently dating a small woman. Hobbies include making furniture out of chopsticks.'
"……What?"
"Surprised already?"
Marianne's shoulders shook with laughter inside the pocket.
"When did you——"
"While you were sleeping. You forgot the Wi-Fi's always connected?"
Yutaro frantically operated the screen. He pressed edit. The moment he tried to fix it, a small hand reached out from the pocket and grabbed the phone's edge.
"Don't fix it! I worked hard on that profile!"
"It's not good, it's nonsense!"
"It's the truth. You're not interested in any other woman anyway."
Yutaro's finger stopped on the screen.
"……What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're blushing because it's true."
It was true. So Yutaro couldn't argue. He hadn't opened the dating app to new matches in months. There was no need. The reason was sitting right in front of him, an eighteen-centimeter sharp-tongued girl peeking out of his pocket.
"Your face is all red."
"Shut up."
His hand stopped trying to fix the phone. Marianne placed her small hand on top of his.
"……You don't have to fix it."
"Huh?"
"Currently dating a small woman. That's not wrong."
Marianne's voice suddenly became small. Her wings shifted toward a pale pink. Her usual confident tone wavered slightly.
Yutaro repeated her words in his head over and over.
"……Can I correct it?"
"To what?"
"Dating, to something more like——"
"What are you saying, idiot? You're rushing."
Even as she said it, Marianne didn't let go of his hand. A small warmth transmitted through his fingertips.
"……Take your time. We have time, after all."
"Yeah."
He gently put the phone back in his pocket. He never did fix the profile.
Back at the house, the sun had already set. He placed the usual soy sauce dish on the veranda. Marianne sat on its edge, swinging her feet.
"We start preparing tomorrow."
"Preparing for what?"
"Going to the village. It takes six, seven hours on foot through the mountain paths to reach Hotarubi no Sato."
Yutaro stopped shaving the chopstick.
"Hotarubi no Sato?"
"That's right. Deep in the Kamuro Mountains, around seven hundred meters elevation. Where I was born."
Marianne's voice hardened slightly.
"There's a place called Tobira Rock on the way. The boundary between the human world and the shadow world. Once you cross it, you need the resolve to never come back."
"The Tsumugi Council, right? The elders?"
"……Elder Kazuki. The one who banished me personally."
Marianne's wings darkened rapidly. From deep green to ashen.
"They decided it unanimously. A banishment doesn't overturn easily."
Yutaro stared at the shaved chopstick. It was still just a rough piece of wood, not yet formed into anything.
"Then we overturn it."
"……You make it sound so simple."
"It's not simple. That's why I'm going too."
Marianne was quiet for a while. Then her eyes moved to the piece of wood he was shaving.
"……What are you making?"
"Haven't decided yet."
"Still so vague."
Night wind drifted through the gaps in the veranda. The persimmon tree in the garden rustled faintly in the darkness. Marianne hugged her knees on the dish, gazing at the distant mountain ridge. Beyond it lay her birthplace.
Yutaro stopped shaving and watched her profile. Her wings gradually returned to their settled deep green.
"Are you scared?"
"……Of course. Going back on my own two feet to a place where I wasn't called by name for fifteen years."
"Then we'll be scared together."
Marianne glanced at him. Then she smiled softly.
"……You've gotten good at saying things like that."
"Your teaching."
"The student was just a good learner."
Stars appeared one by one in the night sky. The direction of the Kamuro Mountains remained dark and invisible. But Yutaro had already decided not to look away from whatever waited beyond.
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