Rebuke
Author: Ukari (translated with author’s permission, please visit their website to see the original Japanese works!)
To say here is far, and to call yonder nearby. Stories on the edge of the every day, strange tales you may or may not be moved by. Strange, curious, fantastic stories told by me, you, him and her. There are many stories but they’re all concluded within a single page, each story around 200 to 1200 characters in length, a short story collection you can easily read. Please enjoy them. Updated every Saturday at 6pm.
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When I was a child, we mostly played near and around some shrine grounds.
One of the lion-dog statues there was chipped near its open mouth, and I always messed around with it. Sometimes I even kicked it.
One day, my friends had other things to do, so I was on the shrine grounds alone.
I always played there, but by myself it was pretty boring.
Because of that boredom, I took it out on the chipped statue and kicked it. Right away, I felt a sharp pain in my calf.
I quickly rolled up the leg of my pants and there was a faint but definite mark on my leg. It was red and looked like a dog bite.
I looked up at the lion-dog statue and its eyes were glaring at me. Like it was telling me off. Like I shouldn’t get carried away.
Like, if it actually got angry, it had a large mouth and big fangs. There was no doubt it could easily tear through a child’s leg with those.
I was a vain kid, so even after that I continued playing on the shrine grounds.
But I did avoid going near the lion-dog statues for a while after that.