Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(8 y.o. Giuus POV)

The morning broke softly.

It filtered in like breath held too long, exhaled gently through the rice paper shoji, drawing pale gold across the tatami floors. The air smelled faintly of woodsmoke and the first bloom of spring—bitter plum, distant camellia, and the thin sweetness of boiled rice. Giyuu stirred beneath the futon’s worn blanket, his small fingers curled tight beneath his chin. He blinked at the shifting light, then yawned wide, lips dry, throat ticklish with sleep.

From the other room, a familiar sound: the soft clink of bowls, the drag of slippers, and the comforting rhythm of someone humming off-key.

Miso soup.

He pushed himself upright with a grunt, hair sticking in every direction like dark feathers, and shuffled unsteadily to the doorway. The scent of breakfast was stronger here, coaxing his stomach into a low grumble. Tsutako stood near the hearth, sleeves rolled and smile tugging at her lips as she stirred the pot. Her long hair was braided in a way he hadn’t seen before—looped and pinned with a small red comb.

“You’re up early,” she said, not turning around but clearly aware of him by the way her voice curved. “Did the light wake you?”

He shook his head slowly, then paused. “Smelled the soup.”

Tsutako gave a soft, amused hum. “So that’s what gets you out of bed before the rooster. I’ll have to remember that.”

He stepped further into the room, rubbing the heel of one hand against his eye as he went. “It smells good,” he added after a beat, voice still scratchy with sleep. “Like the kind you made last new year.”

“Mm,” she replied thoughtfully. “Not quite the same. That one had dried sardines. This one’s just tofu and wakame… we’re saving the good stuff for tonight, remember?”

Giyuu nodded, though he only half-remembered her mentioning it. He lowered himself onto one of the seat cushions at the low table, feeling the lingering warmth where she had sat earlier. His legs folded unevenly beneath him, and he reached for the chopsticks with uncertain fingers.

They slipped once. Then again.

He huffed through his nose, frustration prickling under his skin like burrs. He hated that his hands felt so slow in the mornings, like they didn’t belong to him.

Tsutako glanced over her shoulder, immediately catching the way his brows pinched.

“Having a duel with the tofu again?” she teased lightly, setting the ladle down with a soft clack.

He scowled at the bowl. “It keeps running away.”

“That just means it’s well-cooked,” she said, walking over to kneel beside him. “Now, let me see.”

She took his hands into hers—her fingers warm, her touch light—and adjusted the chopsticks gently. The pads of her thumbs guided his grip, corrected the tilt of his wrist, adjusted the anchor point of his thumb.

“Like this,” she murmured. “See? Thumb steady. Index and middle finger do the lifting. And don’t squeeze too hard, or it’s like trying to hold water.”

“I know ,” he muttered, cheeks warming in embarrassment.

“I know you know,” she replied, ruffling his messy hair with her free hand. “But even grown-ups need reminders sometimes. Doesn’t make you any less clever.”

Giyuu didn’t respond, but his lips curved faintly at the corners. He tried again, slower this time. The tofu stayed between the sticks as he lifted it to his mouth.

“See?” she said, watching him chew. “Told you. Now you’re a master tofu wrangler.”

“That’s not even a real thing,” he mumbled around his food.

“It is now,” she said, grinning. “You just invented it.”

They fell into an easy silence as they ate, broken only by the soft sounds of the fire and the occasional scrape of porcelain. Giyuu stared at the bowl in front of him, slowly eating bite by bite.

After the bowls were cleared and the fire stoked, Tsutako set aside her sleeves and patted the floor in front of her. “Come sit, little brush-wrangler.”

Giyuu groaned from the corner where he was sprawled, arms thrown dramatically over his head. “Do we have to? I brushed it last night.”

“You mean the five seconds you ran your fingers through it before bed?” she teased, already holding up the comb like a sacred instrument. “You’ve got twigs in it again. What were you doing in your sleep, battling wind demons?”

He sat up with a scowl. “Maybe I was. You don’t know.”

“Oh, I know.” Her tone turned playfully ominous. “Because I heard something thud against the shoji at midnight, and I’m still trying to figure out if it was you or the cat.”

With an exaggerated sigh, Giyuu dragged himself across the floor and plopped down cross-legged in front of her. “You always say you’ll be gentle.”

“And I always am , aren’t I?”

“…Mostly.”

Tsutako chuckled. “Such slander from a child who still can’t tie his own obi.”

“I can , I just don’t like how tight it gets.” He stuck out his lip in a pout as she settled behind him.

“I loosen it for you every single time,” she said, amused, brushing back his hair and gently dividing it with her fingers. “Honestly, I should start charging you for these spa treatments.”

“Then I want a cookie with my combing,” he muttered.

“You just had rice and pickles.”

“That’s not a cookie.”

Her laughter warmed the room. The rhythm of the comb brushing through his tangles was slow, steady, like the beat of a familiar lullaby. Every so often, she paused to gently work out a knot with her fingers, murmuring “hold still” or “almost through” as he winced quietly.

“If you keep so still,” she said after a while, her voice light, “I might even tie it with the red string today.”

Giyuu perked up, but tried to hide it. “Really?”

“Maybe,” she said, teasing. “But only if I don’t find any more bark, pebbles, or suspicious traces of dried plum in it.”

“That was one time ,” he mumbled defensively. “And it was because you told me not to eat and run at the same time.”

“You took that a little too literally, sweetheart.” She giggled, brushing his hair with renewed vigor. “You came back with plum paste in your bangs.”

“I was multitasking.”

“Well, multitask this—sit still or I’ll braid it like a village auntie.”

“Nooooo,” he groaned, but didn’t move, melting back into her hands.

When she finally reached for the crimson thread—tucked as always into the fold of her sleeve—he sat very still, breath held, eyes wide.

With a delicate loop and knot, she tied the end of his dark hair. “There. A finishing touch for a good little brother.”

Giyuu turned his head, watching the red string swing softly like a small banner of triumph. “It looks cool.”

“It looks handsome ,” she corrected with a proud grin.

“…What’s the difference?”

She leaned forward and tapped his forehead. “When you're older, you'll know.”

But something in her gaze shifted, her smile softening as she looked past him. Giyuu followed her line of sight. On the low shelf just behind them, partly obscured by a hanging cloth, sat a faded photograph. The image had dulled with time. The edges of the frame were chipped.

He stared.

A woman with his eyes. A man with dark brows and a smile that looked kind, if unfamiliar.

Tsutako’s hand came to rest gently on his shoulder. Her voice dropped into something quieter, more thoughtful. “You were still swaddled when they passed,” she murmured. “Too small to remember. But they loved you, Giyuu. More than anything.”

“…Do you remember them?” His voice was small.

“I do.” She nodded slowly. “I remember Mama’s singing. And Papa used to lift me so high I thought I’d touch the clouds.” Her fingers paused, her thumb brushing the ridge of his shoulder. “They’d be so proud of you.”

He turned to glance at her, but she was already smiling again—soft and glowing with that old, steady warmth. “They would’ve loved this little red string too,” she said.

The room was quiet for a moment. The kind of silence that wasn’t heavy, just full. Like something remembered.

A hush of breath. A ghost of joy. Then it was gone.

Later, they walked the dirt path to the village together. The sun hung lazily overhead, bright and warm. Tsutako held a woven basket in one hand, swinging it with every step, while Giyuu tugged along his tiny wooden wagon—its squeaky wheel catching on every bump and stone.

The market was alive with color and clamor. Merchants haggled over crates of fish, the scales flashing like coins in the sun. Old women fanned themselves as they arranged bundles of green onions and dried herbs on woven mats. Children darted between stalls, laughing with sticky fingers and ruddy cheeks.

Tsutako greeted nearly everyone. “Good morning, Ishida-san! Oh, those yams look perfect!” she called. “How’s your granddaughter’s fever, Kayo-san?”

Her laugh came easily, always quick, always warm. Giyuu kept close, one hand on her sleeve whenever the crowd got thick. He watched everything with big, careful eyes—eyes that never stopped moving.

He noticed how some villagers looked at him. Not with cruelty, not quite. But with a flicker of curiosity. A pause that lingered too long.

His pale skin. His quiet steps. His strange, almost glassy eyes that shimmered blue in certain light. He didn’t know why it made them look twice.

But no one ever said anything.

Without a word, Tsutako slipped a warm red bean bun into his hand. “Don’t tell anyone I let you eat this before lunch,” she whispered conspiratorially.

“I won’t,” he said, mouth already full, cheeks puffed out like a squirrel’s. “Thank you.”

She winked. “My lips are sealed.”

They made their way back as the sun dipped low, arms full, feet aching. Tsutako told stories to keep him distracted from the soreness—half-whispered tales of mischievous moon rabbits pounding mochi and koi fish that leapt up waterfalls to become dragons.

“And then ,” she said, making her voice dramatic, “the old tanuki rolled down the hill so fast he turned into a barrel!”

Giyuu giggled so hard he nearly tripped, and Tsutako reached out to catch him mid-fall, both of them laughing as they stumbled into each other like a pair of clumsy sparrows.

That night, the world shrank back to soft lantern light and the rustle of wind through the roof beams. Giyuu curled beneath his blanket, the red string still tied neatly in his hair, swaying slightly with each breath. The scent of dried lavender hung in the air.

Tsutako sat beside him as she always did. She brushed his bangs back with quiet fingers, tucking them gently behind his ear.

“Tsutako?” he whispered, eyes barely open.

“Mmm?”

“Will it… always be just us?”

She hesitated, only for a breath. Then she leaned down, pressing her forehead gently to his. Her voice came low, a promise.

“Even if everything else changes one day, even if we’re far apart… I’ll always be with you. That won’t ever change, Giyuu.”

He blinked slowly. “Even if I forget?”

“I won’t let you forget,” she said softly. “I’ll remind you every day.”

He closed his eyes. “Okay…”

Her hand came to rest on his brow. The lantern’s light trembled, then stilled. Outside, the night whispered through the trees.

Inside, something sacred held fast.

But beyond the edge of the peaceful dark, something quiet and cold had already begun to stir.

And it was waiting.

` 

`

`

(10 y.o. Giyuus POV)

Morning came gentle and golden, wrapping the edges of the world in quiet promise. Light filtered through the paper windows in long slants, turning the tatami into a canvas of shifting warmth. Outside, birds chirped with a lazy rhythm, and the wind stirred faintly in the blossoming trees, rattling a wind chime that hung from the porch with soft metallic clicks. The house stirred with life not all at once, but gradually, like a pot warming over a low flame.

Tsutako moved about the house with the grace of someone long familiar with early hours. Her footsteps were soft, her movements quiet but purposeful. She braided her hair with deft fingers, twisted and tied with the practiced ease of ritual, then folded the bedding and tucked it away in the cedar chest. Her sleeves whispered as she leaned over to straighten a cushion, and she tucked a small cloth pouch of coins into her sleeve—pausing to double-knot it so it wouldn’t shift. Everything she did had its rhythm. Its weight. It was all part of the same dance—the same way she brewed tea, or swept the porch, or laid out pickles in the sun.

Giyuu sat on the floor near the door, already dressed, his small hands clumsy but determined as he wrestled with the knot on their empty cloth shopping bag. The drawstring had a mind of its own, slipping and curling through his fingers every time he tried to pull it tight. His brows furrowed deeper with each attempt, lips slightly parted in frustration. But he refused to give up. More importantly, he refused to ask for help.

“I can do it,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes low as he yanked the cord again. “I said I can do it.”

Tsutako knelt nearby, silent for a moment, watching him with a fondness that softened her features like morning fog. She didn’t reach to fix it. Didn’t offer to take over. She simply sat with her chin resting in one hand, her smile tucked into the corner of her lips like a folded secret, and waited.

When the knot finally cinched tight with a quiet tug, Giyuu let out a small breath—half relief, half pride. He lifted the bag toward her like a trophy.

“There’s my little man,” she said with a clap, her voice teasing but warm. “Strong enough to carry all the daikon in the market.”

“I will carry them,” Giyuu insisted with stubborn conviction, standing and holding the bag close to his chest. “All of them. Even the fat ones.”

Tsutako laughed, rising to her feet and brushing the creases from her hakama. “Then I better bring an extra coin or two. The daikon seller will be thrilled to have such an enthusiastic customer.”

The walk to the village market took them down a winding slope, the narrow dirt path still damp from the dew of dawn. Pale cherry buds hung from the branches like sleepy lanterns, not yet in full bloom, but beautiful in their restraint. The scent of earth and bark filled the air, and each breeze carried with it the promise of spring—alive and swelling beneath the soil.

Tsutako pointed out a cluster of wild violets blooming shyly near the edge of the path. “Maybe we can press some later,” she mused aloud. “Start a little flower book. I’ll show you how to fold the paper so it doesn’t smudge the petals.”

Giyuu nodded distractedly, but his eyes were already trained forward, his ears tuned to the distance. He could hear the faint murmur of the market ahead—voices rising and falling, the clatter of wooden carts, the occasional bark of a dog.

The village was livelier than usual that day. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe the season. Whatever the reason, it buzzed like a stirred hive. Clanging pans echoed from food stalls; aunties shouted prices over one another like it was a contest of volume. Farmers bickered jovially over pickle barrels, and somewhere, a bamboo flute played an uneven, cheerful melody. Children ran wild in the open lane, chasing one another between the legs of exasperated adults. They laughed and screamed with glee, their sleeves flapping like wings, their sandals slapping against the packed earth.

The smell of sweet soy and tangy vinegar filled the air, and Giyuu’s stomach betrayed him with a soft growl. He pressed a hand to it as if to silence the sound, but Tsutako heard it anyway and looked down at him with an arched brow.

“Hungry already?” she asked, amused.

“…A little.”

“You’re always a little hungry at the market,” she said, her tone affectionate. “We’ll get something warm after we visit the rice vendor.”

She slowed her pace so he could keep up, her fingers lightly brushing the back of his shoulder every now and then—small, wordless reassurances in a sea of noise. Giyuu held onto the edge of her sleeve like a tether. He wasn’t scared, exactly. Just… small. The world seemed very big when so many voices moved through it at once. His cloth bag bounced softly against his side, the knot he’d tied holding fast.

Then, just past the vegetable stall, Giyuu stopped.

There—at the edge of the open square—stood the boy again.

He was unmistakable. Tall for his age, a little older than Giyuu maybe, with wiry arms and a narrow frame that looked like it had been chiseled by hard work and early mornings. His hair was white—truly white, like bleached bone or snow that hadn’t yet touched the ground. It caught the sunlight and turned near silver at the ends. He wore no hat or scarf, even in the breeze. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, revealing pale, calloused forearms. In his hands, he dragged a heavy wooden wagon filled with firewood, wrapped jars, and folded cloth.

But it wasn’t the wagon, or the hair, or even the strength in his posture that made Giyuu pause.

It was the boy’s eyes.

Violet.

Not the soft purple of flowers, but something deeper. Clear and distant. Cold like twilight, but not unkind. They were the sort of eyes that looked through things—like they already knew what was on the other side and were just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

Their gazes met.

The crowd didn't exist for a heartbeat. There was no flute, no shouting merchants, no pressing bodies moving past. Just the two of them, caught in a strange and silent stillness. No words passed between them. No nods. No expression.

Not discomfort.

Not quite curiosity.

Just… recognition. Like a bell being struck far off and hearing its echo in your bones.

Giyuu’s breath caught without meaning to. Then, a moment later, he looked away—first.

“Giyuu?” Tsutako’s voice broke gently into the moment. She followed his gaze, but by then the boy had turned, dragging the wagon forward again, disappearing into the crowd like a ripple in the current.

“Nothing,” Giyuu said softly, but he couldn’t stop glancing back. “Just someone I saw.”

Tsutako tilted her head, curious. “A friend from the village?”

“…No.”

“Do you want to say hello?”

He shook his head. “He didn’t smile.”

“Ah.” She knelt beside him, smoothing down a wrinkle in his sleeve. “Not everyone knows how to smile, sweetheart. Some people forget, especially when they’ve had to grow up too fast.”

Giyuu blinked at her. “Like him?”

She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes this time. “Maybe. Maybe like you, too.”

He frowned, not understanding. But her hand closed around his again, warm and sure, and the world felt a little steadier.

“Come on,” she said, straightening. “Let’s find you something to eat before you start chewing on your sleeves.”

He didn’t argue.

But as they stepped forward, into the market’s noise and color and heat, Giyuu glanced over his shoulder one more time.

The boy was gone.

They continued shopping—moving from stall to stall with slow intention. Tsutako chatted with the old rice merchant about the weather, commented on the size of the cabbages, asked after the fisherman’s daughter who had been ill last month. Giyuu wandered within reach, peeking at root vegetables, trailing his fingers across the edges of the tablecloths when no one was looking.

At one stall, the vendor—a soft-faced woman with laugh lines around her eyes—offered Giyuu a wrapped piece of plum candy.

“For the little helper,” she said with a wink.

Giyuu blinked, then nodded quietly. “Thank you.” He slipped it into his sleeve, intending to save it for later. Maybe for Tsutako. Maybe for himself. He hadn’t decided yet.

By midday, the sun was climbing, and their bag was full. The walk back was slower, but not unpleasant. Tsutako shifted the weight to her other shoulder and let out a mock groan.

“If I knew you were going to pick the heaviest daikon, I might’ve left you at home,” she said.

“You said I could carry all of them,” Giyuu pointed out.

“Mm. True. But maybe not all at once.”

He glanced up at her, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Next time I’ll bring two bags.”

She chuckled. “Deal.”

They passed under the same cherry trees again, though now the petals were drifting downward, carried on a soft breeze that rustled Giyuu’s hair and made Tsutako pause to tuck a wayward strand behind his ear. He didn’t pull away. Just watched the path in silence.

“You’ve been quiet today,” Tsutako said softly as they walked the narrow dirt path toward home, her voice gentle like sunlight through leaves.

Giyuu didn’t look up. His feet dragged just a little, the small wooden wagon he pulled behind him creaking with each uneven turn of the wheel. “Just tired,” he murmured.

“That’s alright,” she said, her tone never pushing, only wrapping around the quiet like a blanket. She reached out and gave his shoulder a small, grounding squeeze. “We’ll have a good dinner tonight. Simmered salmon. With daikon.”

He didn’t answer right away, but when he glanced up at her, there was a flicker of light in his eyes. Barely there—but it was enough to be seen, and she never missed things like that.

“You remembered,” he said, surprised, as if still not used to being known so thoroughly.

“I always remember your favorites,” she replied, smiling. “Especially when you’re feeling a little gloomy.”

“I’m not,” he said quickly, almost on reflex, brows pulling down as he stared at the ground again.

“Of course not,” Tsutako replied, amusement dancing just beneath her voice. She didn’t press him further, didn’t name the quiet ache she could sense beneath his words, only smiled in that knowing way of hers—as if she'd stitched him into her heart so long ago that every silence he gave her still carried meaning.

As they neared the house, the wooden frame coming into view beneath the long stretch of sakura branches overhead, she leaned down beside him. Her hair brushed his cheek and her voice dropped into a warm hush.

“I’ve got a surprise for you tonight, little one.”

Giyuu blinked up at her, brows lifting. “What kind of surprise?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?” she said, ruffling his hair with a sly grin. “But I think you’ll like it.”

He stared at her for a long moment, trying to read her face like it was one of the old scrolls she sometimes showed him. But her smile gave nothing away—just the gentle confidence of someone who knew exactly what would bring joy to the person beside her.

“…You always say that,” he said at last, not accusingly, but in that quiet tone of skepticism he’d picked up from her over the years.

“And I’m always right,” she said without missing a beat.

The rest of the day passed like a slow breath—full of small comforts and little things that made the world feel steady. Giyuu helped unload the vegetables from the basket, sorting them by shape and texture the way Tsutako had taught him. He washed the daikon by the well with a stiff-bristled brush, scrubbing away the dirt with care, even if his arms got a little wet. He swept the entryway too, the broom too tall for his small frame, but he managed anyway, gathering fallen petals and dust into neat piles. He didn’t complain, not once—not when Tsutako smiled at him every time he looked up.

By late afternoon, the house was filled with the scent of things being made with love. Simmered salmon bathed in soy and mirin, the sweetness catching in the back of the throat. Steamed rice and pickled plums. Daikon slices simmering in broth, their clean fragrance sharp and mellow all at once. Giyuu padded quietly through the house, trailing his fingers along the wooden doorframes, feeling the grain beneath his fingertips.

At the table, he knelt and began setting the chopsticks one by one. He aligned each pair with careful precision, then smoothed out the cloth napkins, copying the exact folds Tsutako always made. It was one of those things he did without thinking—his way of showing care in return, even if he didn’t always have the words for it.

His feet swung absently under the table, bare and cold against the wood, and for a moment, he found himself glancing toward the door. Not in expectation, exactly. Just in thought.

He remembered the boy.

The one with the snow-colored hair and the strange, striking eyes—violet, almost unnatural. He hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t even looked at Giyuu for very long. But he’d been there. Alone. Dragging that little cart behind him like it was part of him, like it had always been there and always would be.

“What do you think his name is?” Giyuu asked aloud, voice quiet.

Tsutako looked over from the kitchen, hands deep in a bowl of miso paste. “Hm? Who, sweetheart?”

“That boy,” he said. “From the market. The one with the white hair.”

She tilted her head slightly. “Oh. I think I’ve seen him a few times before. He’s always by himself, isn’t he?”

Giyuu nodded slowly. “He didn’t look scared. Or sad. Just… like he wasn’t really there.”

There was a brief pause, the kind that only existed between people who had shared too many thoughts in silence. Then Tsutako said, “Maybe he’s just waiting for someone to notice.”

Giyuu looked down at the table, fingers pressing into the cloth. “…Do you think he has a sister?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Wouldn’t it be lonely? Without anyone?”

Her hands stilled behind him, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer. “It can be. But some people get used to being alone before they even realize what it means.”

He didn’t answer, not right away. His eyes lingered on the door, the edges of memory curling like steam from the rice cooker. The boy’s violet gaze. The silence that hung around him like a cloak.

“Do you think we’ll see him again?” Giyuu asked.

Tsutako smiled to herself, voice a little wistful. “The world has a funny way of bringing people back to each other, especially the ones who are meant to cross paths. If he’s meant to find us again, he will.”

He nodded, though the answer didn’t quite settle the way he thought it might. Something about the boy’s silence had stayed with him all afternoon—not eerie, not even sad, just... familiar in a way that made Giyuu feel something heavy and unnamed in his chest.

Outside, the wind whispered again, brushing past the paper walls like a secret trying not to be heard.

Inside, the scent of salmon, daikon, and soft rice filled every corner of the house like a lullaby.

But still—quiet and curled like a question waiting in the dark—he thought of violet eyes, and silence, and the ache of being noticed only in passing.

Chapter Text

The house smelled like comfort.

Simmered daikon and grilled salmon infused the old cedar walls with a warmth that felt lived-in, like laughter and lullabies still lingered in the corners. The scent drifted through the paper-thin hallways, carried gently by the hush of an early spring breeze that nudged the sliding doors ajar. Outside, dusk crept lazily over the rooftops, casting long, honey-colored beams through the slats of the lattice windows, turning the room gold. Shadows of tree branches danced across the floor like slow-moving ghosts.

Inside, Giyuu moved carefully around the low table, his brow furrowed in focused silence. He placed the lacquered chopsticks in perfect parallel lines—each one measured by memory, not tools. The plates were arranged just so. The miso bowls turned precisely inward. A folded cloth rested at the corner of each setting. Everything was as Tsutako taught him. Ritual, routine, reverence.

His fingers trembled slightly as he smoothed the edges of a napkin. It wasn’t cold. Not fear, either. Something else. A jittery kind of stillness in his chest, like a bird resting on a wire before flight.

From the kitchen, he could hear her humming again.

Tsutako’s voice wasn’t particularly strong, but it always felt like home. She moved lightly between the stovetop and the counter, sleeves tied back, a bit of hair stuck to her cheek from the steam. Her cheeks were pink with warmth, her eyes bright with something Giyuu couldn’t name. She was smiling—not the polite smile she wore in the village, but the kind that pulled at her whole face, honest and warm. Almost giddy.

“Is it ready?” Giyuu asked, peeking around the doorframe.

Tsutako didn’t turn. She just lifted the lid of the pot, leaned in, and sniffed with exaggerated theatricality. “Almost,” she said. “One last taste to be sure.”

“You’ve already checked three times,” he pointed out, tone suspicious.

“And what if I get it wrong on the fourth?” she replied with a grin. “Tonight’s special.”

“Because of the surprise?”

She only looked over her shoulder with a glimmer in her eyes and said nothing. The way her smile curved—not coy, but full—made Giyuu shift where he stood. He didn’t like not knowing. It itched beneath his skin.

But before he could prod further, a knock echoed from the front door.

It wasn’t sharp or urgent—just three gentle taps, more polite than imposing—but it cleaved through the stillness like a blade through silk.

Giyuu froze, one foot still half-lifted, and the cloth in his hand crumpled. His chest grew tight. A heavy thud settled behind his sternum, dull but distinct.

Tsutako stilled too—but only for a second. Her surprise melted quickly into something soft. “Ah! He’s right on time,” she said lightly, brushing her hands over her apron as though smoothing her heartbeat.

He?

Giyuu didn’t move. He lingered by the table, heart tapping against his ribs, body tense as a bowstring. He didn’t like the sound of her voice—bright, almost floaty. Different.

From the front, he heard the door slide open, wood rattling gently against the track. Heard Tsutako’s laugh—light, too breathy. The kind she used when she was nervous. And then, a man’s voice. Deep, unfamiliar. Calm.

Giyuu’s legs rooted to the tatami. He turned slowly, cautiously, keeping himself half-concealed behind the doorway. The figure standing in the entryway was tall, bathed in shadow where the fading light caught his back. He wore a plain haori over a worn indigo kimono, and his dark hair looked wind-tossed, like he’d come from somewhere far.

He leaned in to speak to Tsutako—low, almost intimate—and something in the way her shoulders dropped made Giyuu feel like a stranger in his own home.

“There you are,” she said suddenly, spotting him. Her hand lifted, beckoning gently. “Come here, little one. There’s someone important I want you to meet.”

He didn’t move right away.

The napkin was still clenched in his hand, his knuckles white.

This wasn’t their usual evening. This wasn’t their rhythm. Someone had stepped into their world without asking.

But her eyes were patient, warm with the kind of trust that made even the darkest corners safe. So eventually, slowly, he stepped forward.

The man straightened slightly as he entered the hallway, ducking to avoid the low ceiling beam. His eyes found Giyuu’s face—and something in his expression shifted. Not in a patronizing way. Not pitying. Just… soft. Understanding. As if he saw something familiar in the boy’s guarded stare.

“You must be Giyuu,” he said, his voice gentle and steady, like the rustle of water through reeds. “I’m Hiro.”

He crouched, setting down a small paper-wrapped parcel with care, then held it out. “I brought you something. It’s yokan—sweet bean jelly. I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I thought I’d guess.”

Giyuu stared.

He didn’t take it. Didn’t move closer. Didn’t meet the man’s eyes.

After a long pause, he finally reached out—reluctantly—and accepted the bundle with both hands, like he’d been taught. “...Thank you,” he said, just above a whisper.

Hiro’s smile widened a little. “You’re very polite. Tsutako said you would be.”

“She says too much,” Giyuu muttered, lowering his gaze.

“Well, she says you’re smart. And that you always set the table just right.”

“It’s not hard,” Giyuu replied.

“No,” Hiro agreed, “but doing something simple really well? That’s impressive in its own way.”

Tsutako touched Hiro’s shoulder, eyes bright. “Come on. The food’s ready.”

They sat together—awkwardly, at first—around the low table. Tsutako served each plate with practiced care, carving the best cuts of salmon for Giyuu without needing to ask. The broth in the daikon bowl shimmered gold. Steam coiled upward like incense.

“Itadakimasu,” Hiro said, bowing his head respectfully.

Giyuu hesitated. “...Itadakimasu,” he echoed, quieter, watching him from the corner of his eye.

Dinner passed in gentle waves of conversation, Tsutako laughing quietly at Hiro’s stories about market vendors and a lost sandal incident. Giyuu barely touched his food.

He picked at the daikon. Nibbled a bite of rice. It all felt… wrong. Not in taste—but in presence. As if someone had shifted the furniture in his heart without telling him.

Tsutako noticed. She always did. But she didn’t say a word.

Later, as the dishes were cleared, Giyuu lingered in the doorway while Hiro helped clean up—unprompted. He dried bowls with care, humming faintly under his breath. When he dropped the ladle, he muttered a small “shit,” then looked at Giyuu with a crooked grin.

“You eat like a sparrow,” he said. “Did I scare you off your appetite?”

Giyuu blinked at him. “No.”

“You sure? I was trying to make a good impression. Not sure if I succeeded.”

There was a beat of silence.

“I guess…” Giyuu mumbled, “...you’re just really big.”

Hiro laughed, loud and sudden. But it wasn’t sharp. “That’s fair. I am.”

He leaned a little closer, more solemn now. “You don’t have to like me right away, Giyuu. I’m not here to take anything from you. I just want to know you. That’s all.”

Giyuu didn’t respond. But he didn’t leave either.

And Hiro, thankfully, didn’t push.

`

`

`

The days that followed settled over their small home like slow-falling snow—gentle at first, but constant, until everything was softened beneath its quiet weight. Giyuu lived within it, moved through it, let it coat his shoulders and dull the ache in his bones without question. He didn’t know if he was healing, or just forgetting how to feel pain.

Hiro came by often. Not every day, but enough that his scent—woodsmoke, rice bran, and sawdust—lingered faintly in the doorway even after he’d gone. He never arrived empty-handed. Once, he brought salted radish packed in a jar, sharp and sour, made by a friend from the outer fields. Another day, a well-worn carpentry book with folded corners and penciled notes in the margins. And then—without fanfare—a little toy tucked carefully in a basket of turnips and sweet potatoes: a ball wound in old straw, stitched through with red string. There was no note. Just something there for the finding.

Giyuu didn’t say anything about it. He kept the toy beside his futon and didn’t return it. Hiro didn’t ask. He never asked anything Giyuu didn’t want to answer. Never pried, never lingered too long in silences that weren’t his to break. He didn’t fill the space with jokes that needed laughter or stories that demanded attention. He simply came, and stayed.

Tsutako… laughed more.

It was strange. Soft and sudden, like something she remembered she was allowed to do. She let her hair down now when she cooked, let it fall over her shoulders as she scrubbed the rice pot or poured tea. She hummed sometimes, too—quiet little melodies without a name, ones she used to sing while folding laundry years ago. For a while, she had stopped. Giyuu hadn’t noticed until it returned.

He didn’t know what had changed. Only that the air in their home no longer felt like something holding its breath.

It wasn’t like before.

But it wasn’t terrible.

And in the slow, white hush of those days, Giyuu began to believe that might be enough.

One evening, long after the fire had dimmed and the wind outside had gone still, Giyuu sat on the tatami floor beside the low table. He was folding the bath towel into precise thirds—just the way Tsutako had taught him when he was younger, palms moving slowly over the soft fabric.

The quiet stretched between them, easy and warm.

Tsutako knelt beside him with a sigh that didn’t sound tired. Just thoughtful.

“I have something to tell you,” she said. Her voice was steady, but soft—like she was testing its shape in the silence.

Giyuu looked up at her. One brow lifted in gentle question. “Mm?”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “We’re going to be married,” she said, and the words came with a kind of breathless bravery that startled him. “Hiro and I.”

The sentence floated there—gentle, whole, and final—like a lantern released into the air. Giyuu stared at her, hands frozen over the towel.

She waited. Not pressing. Just patient.

His fingers resumed their folding. Once, twice, slowly. Then he looked at her again.

And nodded.

Just once.

Tsutako’s exhale came like a wave crashing all at once. Relief washed through her body in a visible ripple. She leaned forward immediately, gathering him into her arms with the kind of embrace that didn’t ask permission. Giyuu didn’t resist.

She held him close, pressed his head beneath her chin, and murmured against his crown. “I love you, Giyuu. That’s never going to change, alright?”

He didn’t answer.

But his small hands clutched the front of her robe, and he tucked his head tighter against her chest, listening to the steady rhythm of her heart beneath her words.

And for the first time in weeks—maybe longer—the tight, invisible thread coiled in his chest loosened just a little. It wasn’t gone. But it gave him room to breathe.

The silence returned, but it was no longer cold.

Only quiet.

Only full.

Maybe, he thought, as her arms stayed around him and the wind whispered soft against the paper screens, this new shape his life was taking… maybe it didn’t have to be something to fear. Maybe it could be something else. Not a replacement. Not a betrayal of what was lost. Just—something new.

Something his sister could still be a part of.

Maybe, if he let it, it could even be a kind of peace.

And as the stars turned overhead and the house held steady against the night, Giyuu dared to close his eyes.

Just for a moment.

Just to rest.

`

`

`

The night before the wedding was filled with laughter—the kind that clung to the air like incense, warm and lingering, thick with love. Candlelight flickered gently in every corner of the modest house, casting slow-moving shadows across the walls, and for a moment, the world outside didn’t exist. The world was just them—two siblings suspended in time. No war. No demons. No loss. Only the rustle of silk and the creak of old wood beneath bare feet.

Tsutako spun through the hallway, her ceremonial uchikake billowing like a painted wave behind her. Crimson silk shimmered with every turn, catching the candlelight on golden cranes and winding plum blossoms stitched with care and purpose. The hem kissed the floor, too heavy for dancing, but she danced anyway, letting the weight of it swirl around her like celebration. She wasn’t supposed to wear it yet—should’ve kept it folded neatly until morning—but tradition could wait. Her baby brother needed to smile.

And smile he did. Giyuu stood nearby, hidden under the folds of a yukata several sizes too large, the sleeves drooping past his tiny wrists, the neckline sagging off one shoulder. His dark hair was still damp from the bath, clinging to his cheeks and curling slightly at the ends. He tried, halfheartedly, to maintain a stern expression, arms crossed in mock disapproval, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him—curving up, trembling with the effort to suppress a grin.

“You look ridiculous,” he murmured, voice dry but fond.

“And you,” she declared, twirling until she nearly lost her balance, “look like a dignified young lord preparing for his bride!”

Tsutako stopped with a wobble and gave a deep, theatrical bow, spreading her arms wide. “Dearest Giyuu Tomioka,” she said in a dramatically formal tone, “do you take this fool of a sister to be your most embarrassing family member, now and forever?”

Giyuu covered his mouth with one oversized sleeve, stifling a laugh. “You’re not supposed to be the jester.”

She straightened with a smug grin. “Tonight, I’m both jester and bride. It's a two-for-one special.”

“Then I want a refund.”

“Too late, no returns,” she teased, stepping forward and flopping beside him with all the grace of a falling futon. Her uchikake pooled like a red tide around them, and she pulled him into her arms, burying them both in silk and laughter. “You’re stuck with me.”

He let himself be hugged. Maybe even leaned into it a little. He liked when she held him like this. When the world felt small and safe and warm.

She pulled back just enough to straighten the collar of his yukata, fingers fussing over the fabric even though it was hopelessly wrinkled. Her eyes softened as she looked at him—really looked. He was getting so tall lately. His face still had the roundness of childhood, but his gaze was older. Quieter. More thoughtful than it should’ve been at his age.

“You’re growing up too fast,” she said gently, almost to herself.

“I’m not,” he mumbled, eyes flicking away.

“You are. You’ll be taller than me soon, I just know it.”

“You’ll always be older.”

She smiled and pinched his cheek. “True. And don’t you forget it.”

He squirmed out of her grip, flushed. “You’re prettier.”

Tsutako blinked. “What was that?”

He hesitated. “I said… you’re prettier.”

She cupped a hand around her ear. “Did the wind just whisper something?”

Giyuu groaned, cheeks red, and turned away. “No.”

“No? Well, I could’ve sworn—”

“Stop.”

She laughed, full and unrestrained, flicking him lightly on the forehead. “Smart boy. Never compliment your sister—she’ll never let it go.”

The air in the house was warm with the smell of burning candles, old cedar, and faint lavender from her hair oil. It was a humble home, but it didn’t feel that way tonight. It felt alive. Lit from within by something deeper than fire.

Suddenly, Tsutako reached out and grabbed his hand. “Let’s rehearse.”

He blinked, puzzled. “Rehearse?”

“Our vows, of course,” she said as if it were obvious. “It’s not a real wedding until there’s at least one dramatic rehearsal.”

“I’m not the groom.”

“For tonight, you are.” She stood up, wobbling slightly in the heavy garment, then tugged him upright with her. “Come on. Stand tall. Shoulders back.”

Reluctantly, Giyuu let her pose him. She was smiling too brightly for him to resist. She took both his hands in hers, still warm from holding him, and looked into his eyes like she meant every word.

“I, Tsutako,” she began, voice low and ceremonial, “promise to always hide sweet buns in the back of the pantry just for you. I promise to fix your wrinkled sleeves, to protect you from bullies and nosy neighbors, and to tell embarrassing stories about you at least once a year, forever.”

Giyuu swallowed hard, throat dry. “I…”

She nodded encouragingly. “Just say you’ll always be there for me.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then whispered, “I will. I promise.”

A moment passed. He stepped forward suddenly, arms wrapping tightly around her waist, face pressed into the heavy folds of her uchikake. She tensed for only a second before cradling him close, her hand stroking through his hair with practiced care. His breath hitched softly.

“You’re shaking,” she said quietly.

“I don’t want anything to change,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to go.”

She was quiet for a beat. Her hand stilled.

Then, gently, she stepped back and knelt in front of him again. She reached for his collar, smoothing it with more care than necessary. “Change isn’t always bad,” she said. “It’s scary, I know. But I’ll always be your sister. That part doesn’t change.”

“You can’t promise that,” he said. “No one can promise that.”

Her smile faltered, just barely. But she nodded. “Maybe not. But I’m going to anyway.”

He nodded, barely—just the faintest movement of his head, like a leaf caught on still water. Tsutako’s smile didn’t reach her eyes anymore. She let out a shaky breath through her nose, brushed his bangs from his forehead with the backs of her fingers, and straightened to her full height.

That was when the sound came.

Sharp. Jarring. Like metal dragged across stone, too rough to be natural, too deliberate to be wind. It rang once—echoed—and then again, slower this time, like claws dragging along the edge of the earth itself. It came from the backyard. Past the altar. Past the candlelit porch. The air felt different after it. Pressurized. Off. Like the house wasn’t theirs anymore.

Tsutako froze.

The change in her was instant—like water dropping into hot oil. Her whole body stiffened, and the color drained from her face as if her blood had dropped to her feet. She didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. Her head turned slowly toward the rear of the house, chin tilted just slightly as if listening for something only she could hear.

Giyuu stood frozen by the hearth, still holding the corner of her ceremonial sash. His fingers clutched the silk instinctively, heart pounding harder with each second she didn’t speak. She didn’t look afraid, not exactly—not like the trembling he sometimes saw in villagers when rumors of bandits came up the road. No. This was older. Deeper. Her eyes darkened in a way he’d never seen. Something inherited. Something primal.

Then she turned back to him, all at once, and crouched down—so fast he flinched. Her hands cupped his face. They were cold. Trembling.

“Giyuu,” she whispered, low and stern. Her voice shook at the edges, but she forced calm into it. “I need you to listen. You hear me?” She waited until he nodded again—his mouth open, heart thundering—and only then did she continue. “Go into the wardrobe. The big one. The one near the altar. Get inside and close the doors. Do not make a sound.”

He stared at her, not understanding.

“Do not come out—no matter what,” she added, clutching his cheeks gently, her thumbs brushing over his temples. “I’ll come get you. I promise.”

He shook his head, barely. “What is it? What’s out there?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” She smiled then—but it was the kind of smile you give to a child when there’s smoke behind the door. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Just go. Now.”

“I don’t—” he started, voice trembling.

She didn’t let him finish. She took his hand, and in long, soundless strides, led him past the screen, past the kettle still steaming from earlier, to the big wooden wardrobe near the altar—where they kept her wedding robe. The embroidered hem of it peeked out beneath the sliding panel.

She opened it. Helped him climb inside. His small feet curled beneath him.

“I don’t want to—” he whispered, clutching her sleeve, breath catching in his throat.

“I know,” she said, gently prying his hand off her. “But you have to. Just this once. Just this.”

Her hand lingered on his, pressing it to the inside of the wardrobe door. “Hold it shut. No matter what you hear.”

He nodded, eyes wide.

“Quiet,” she breathed again, softer now. “Be brave for me.”

Then she kissed the top of his head.

And she was gone.

Giyuu was alone in the dark.

The doors closed with a soft creak, swallowing the light. He tucked his knees to his chest, the silk of her robe brushing against his side, the smell of sandalwood and cedar surrounding him. It was hot. Too hot. His breath bounced off the wooden walls and back into his face. Sweat gathered under his arms and on the back of his neck. The silence outside was thicker than the dark.

The floorboards creaked faintly as Tsutako walked toward the back of the house. He imagined her hand against the sliding door. The faint squeak of it opening. Then—

Nothing.

No sound. No wind. No breath.

Just silence.

And then—

A scream.

Her scream.

It was horrible. It ripped through the night like a jagged blade, high and sharp and wrong. Giyuu’s whole body flinched, and he hit the side of the wardrobe with his elbow. Pain flared, but he didn’t cry out. He covered his mouth with both hands, teeth digging into the soft fabric of his sleeve to stifle the sob rising in his throat.

Then came the sound that followed the scream—wet. Final. A splatter that didn’t belong in the world of warm baths and braided hair.

Silence again.

Not peace.

Not ever again.

His fingers trembled against the doorframe. He stared at the sliver of light between the panels, heart thudding in his ears. Slowly—so slowly—he pushed the door open just a crack.

The light from the kitchen lantern flickered, warping everything in sight. The room beyond looked like a nightmare. Like a painting rotting from the inside out.

Blood soaked the floor.

Not a puddle. A sea.

Tsutako’s body lay crumpled in the center of it, her ceremonial robe shredded and dark with red. And above her—crouched low, feasting—was something that didn’t belong in any human world.

It was shaped like a man, but bent too far forward, spine arched like a bow. Its arms were long. Too long. They bent at impossible angles. Its fingers were like knives, buried in her chest. Blood dripped from its chin, dark and viscous.

Its mouth—

It smiled.

It smiled as it ate her.

Tsutako’s eyes were still open. Her mouth hung slack, as if she’d meant to say something—one final breath that never made it past her lips. Her fingers twitched once.

Then stopped.

Giyuu couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink. His throat closed around the scream rising in his chest. He couldn’t cry—he didn’t understand what he was seeing. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She was supposed to get married tomorrow. They’d just laughed together. She’d danced in her robes. She was—

She was gone.

The monster paused, head tilting like a bird of prey. It sniffed the air.

Giyuu’s breath caught.

The creature turned, face lifting, those glowing, unnatural eyes scanning the room. It moved toward the center. Toward the altar.

Toward the wardrobe.

Giyuu yanked the door shut and pressed himself against the back wall, curling in tighter, tighter, until it felt like his bones would crack from the tension. His teeth sank into his sleeve, and he bit down until his jaw hurt. The sob still escaped in the form of a stifled, breathless gasp.

Outside, floorboards groaned.

One step.

Then another.

It was coming.

But he didn’t move.

Just like she said.

Be brave. Stay quiet.

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that. Minutes. Hours. A lifetime.

But the door never opened.

Eventually, he passed out from terror. Curled into the cramped darkness of the wardrobe, knees to chest, arms locked around his shins, he slipped into a cold, shivering sleep without meaning to. The scent of iron had already begun to fill the house by then—thick, metallic, and wrong.

When he woke, the world was pale blue. Morning had come.

It seeped in through the cracked shutters in a hush that felt unnatural. The candles had long burned down, puddling wax across the wood. Shadows clung to the walls like bruises. Everything was quiet. Too quiet.

He didn’t remember opening the door. Didn’t remember crawling out. Somehow, he was just there, knees soaked in blood, hands gripping her arm, shaking it with growing desperation.

“Tsutako…” he breathed, voice hoarse. “Nee-san…?”

She didn’t move.

Her body was stiff beneath his touch. Her skin had cooled to the temperature of the morning air, lips tinged with the color of violets. Her hair, always so carefully brushed back and tied with ribbon, fanned loosely over her face, matted now in places where it clung to blood.

He shook harder. “You said you’d come back. You promised.”

Still nothing.

“Tsutako.” His voice cracked. “Nee-san. Wake up. Please.”

The plea left his mouth in a whisper and collapsed under the weight of silence. The house no longer smelled like wax and herbs and laundry. It reeked of death.

He couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t move.

Why her hands, the ones that always cupped his face and brushed his bangs from his eyes, now lay still and turned away.

He stayed like that—kneeling beside her—long after the blood lost its warmth. Long after his own limbs had gone numb. He didn’t notice the small gash on his own foot, or the way his shoulders trembled. He couldn’t hear anything but the high ringing in his ears.

Then something in him broke.

He ran.

Barefoot, stumbling, with a shirt stiff from drying blood clinging to his small frame. He bolted through the back door, past the overgrown stone path, through the woods where he and Tsutako used to gather mushrooms and firewood. Branches clawed at his arms. The dirt bit into the soles of his feet. He tripped, fell, and got up again. The air was too cold for spring. Or maybe that was just him.

He didn’t stop until he reached the village gates.

He stumbled into the square like a ghost dragged back to earth. The world blurred—faces, colors, voices. The sun was too bright. His heart was thunder in his chest.

Villagers looked up.

A farmer paused with his cart. A merchant dropped a string of onions. Mothers pulled their children back by the arms. A dog barked once, then went quiet.

Giyuu stood there, panting, mouth parted as if to speak—but no words came.

He opened his mouth wider. Tried to say something. Anything.

Nothing.

His throat was dry and tight. No scream, no sob, not even a whisper. Only the rasp of breath and the pounding silence in his head.

He lifted one trembling hand. Pointed behind him.

Tried again.

Still nothing.

Just a boy soaked in blood, shaking like a leaf in a storm.

The whispers began like wind in the grass.

“…Isn’t that Tsutako’s little brother?”

“What happened to him?”

“He was with her last night, wasn’t he?”

“Where is she?”

“Why won’t he speak?”

“Maybe he snapped.”

“Maybe… maybe he killed her.”

That last one hit harder than any stone.

His knees gave out.

Someone screamed, but not for him.

No one came running to gather him into their arms.

No one asked what he’d seen.

No one reached out to hold his hand, or cover his ears, or wipe the blood from his face.

Instead, they took him somewhere quiet. A shed behind the temple. Sat him on a mat that smelled of straw and incense. The head priest lit a small brazier and asked him questions in a soft, careful voice. Others hovered in the doorway—eyes sharp, judgment coiled just beneath the surface.

“What happened, Giyuu-kun?”

“Did you… hurt her?”

“Was there anyone else?”

“Why won’t you speak?”

He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

His hands were in his lap, fingers twitching. They were still sticky.

Still stained.

Tsutako’s blood had dried beneath his fingernails.

He stared at it. Stared through it. Not really seeing.

And still said nothing.

The priest sighed. One of the elders muttered something about demons. Another muttered about curses. But nobody looked for one. No one even searched the woods.

Eventually, they stopped asking.

Giyuu didn’t cry.

Not that day. Not the next.

When he slept, it was shallow and dreamless, and he always woke up cold.

But he never spoke of that night.

Never again.

Because that night shattered his world.

The promise she made— “I’ll come back, I promise.”

It broke the moment she hit the floor.

And Giyuu had learned, in the hardest way possible, that sometimes silence is the only thing you have left when the person who filled the world with warmth is gone.

All he had now was the echo of her voice in the dark.

And he held it like a blade.

Chapter Text

They found her body the next morning.
Word spread fast—too fast—like rot crawling through damp wood, touching every wall, every window, every idle mouth. By the time the sun had fully crested the mountain ridge, its light painting the thatched roofs gold, the entire village knew. Tsutako is dead.
Beloved Tsutako—who smiled even when it rained, who always brought an extra parcel of food for the sick, who braided flowers into the hair of the girls in spring—was dead. Mangled beyond recognition, they said, save for her ribbon—a faded pink scrap that had clung to her like a final, desperate tether—and the delicate silver ring she wore on a string around her neck. It was the only way they could identify her. That, and the blood. The blood that painted the floorboards, the walls, the doorframe. The blood that had soaked into the tatami matting, into the wooden threshold, into the memory of the house she had filled with warmth, incense, and laughter.
Giyuu had made it to the village before the morning bell rang.
He had run barefoot. Hands scratched. Face blank. Dried blood crusted beneath his fingernails. His clothes stuck to his small frame, stiff and reeking. He had no words. Only the image burned behind his eyes: her hand, twisted at the wrong angle, reaching toward the wardrobe where she had hidden him. Her lips parted. Her voice a distant echo of his name—Giyuu, stay quiet. No matter what.
He had stayed quiet. Just like she asked.
And the first thing he heard when he stumbled into the village square, the sky still a bruised blue, were the gasps.
Not of sympathy. Not of welcome.
Of horror.
A woman cried out and shielded her daughter’s eyes. A man grabbed his young son by the collar and yanked him away. A shopkeeper’s hand flew to her mouth. Elders shook their heads and muttered prayers, crossing their fingers, their wrists, their hearts. The fishmonger cursed under his breath and turned his back.
And then came the words.
Low, whispered things. But never soft enough to miss.
"Mad."
“Demon-touched.”
“Murderer.”
“Cannibal.”
He didn’t understand them at first. His ears were still ringing. His mind still clung to the image of her ribs cracking under the pressure of something inhuman. Her voice telling him to hide. Her blood seeping beneath the slats of the door. He had run when the sun began to rise, thinking they'll help. Someone will help.
But no one helped.
No one had seen the creature that tore her apart. No one had seen the hulking, slavering thing that crouched over her broken body with hunger in its eyes and gore in its teeth. No one had seen him, a child, crammed into a wardrobe, paralyzed by the sound of his sister dying.
They saw only the aftermath.
They saw him—silent, red-soaked, blank-eyed—and they filled in the rest.
The story had already been written.
Giyuu felt it in the air when they looked at him. Not with pity. Not with concern. But with suspicion. With revulsion. As if the stench of death had clung to him too long and sunk into his skin.
No one asked what had happened.
No one asked where he’d come from, or why he was soaked in blood and shaking.
No one let him speak.
Not that he could have.
His voice had been severed the moment he saw her hand go still.
It wasn’t that he wouldn’t talk. It was that he couldn’t. Something inside him had slammed shut like a rusted gate, barred and heavy. His throat no longer understood sound. His tongue sat useless in his mouth. His lungs refused to draw the breath needed to cry out.
The words were trapped, curled like smoke in his chest.
And so the village spoke for him.
They filled the silence with stories of madness, of violence, of curses. They whispered about demons wearing the faces of children. They murmured about spirits that took the shape of boys to lure women to ruin. They began to wonder—out loud—if he’d done it himself.
If maybe he’d eaten her.
The body had been in pieces, after all.
One by one, doors closed to him. Figuratively first—sidelong glances, crossed arms, half-steps back. Then literally. He was not taken in. No meals offered. No warm beds. Only cold porches and colder eyes.
A neighbor—a grim woman with a lined face and trembling hands—took it upon herself to scrub the dried blood from his arms that morning. Not with gentleness. But with the fervor of someone trying to cleanse something unclean. Her grip left bruises. She did not meet his eyes.
"Don’t move," she muttered. "You’ll only make it worse."
Giyuu didn’t.
He stood there while the water turned pink in the basin and her fingers dug into his skin. He stood there while his stomach growled, while his hands trembled from exhaustion, while the world blurred at the edges. Still, he did not speak.
Still, no one listened.
That night, he was locked in a shed.
They said it was for his safety. But the lock clicked shut from the outside, and no one came when he cried soundlessly into his sleeve.
In the distance, a dog howled. Somewhere beyond that, an owl called. And Giyuu—just eleven years old, with blood in his hair and hollow eyes—lay curled on a pile of straw, finally allowing the tears that refused to come earlier to soak into the sleeve of his ruined yukata.
No one would come for him.
His sister was gone.
And he was the monster now.
The days bled into each other like ink on wet parchment.
He wasn’t taken in. Not really. No one wanted him—only tolerated him out of obligation, and even that thinned quickly. He was passed from doorstep to doorstep like a parcel with no return address. Some days, someone would push a bowl of rice toward him without speaking. Other days, he was given nothing. If he asked—not with words, but with a glance, a pause too long near a hearth—he was met with silence or the flick of a hand shooing him away.
He slept wherever there was space: on cold floors under tables, beneath the overhang of a storage shed, once in the loft of a barn where the hay was sharp and full of mice. He spent one long, frozen night in the narrow hallway outside the bathhouse, curled beside a leaking pail, too afraid to knock on any door. Another night, they locked him in the shed again.
The hinges creaked. The bolt clicked. And someone muttered, low and certain, just loud enough for him to hear through the wood:
“It’s for safety. He’s sick. You can see it in his eyes.”
No one let him near the other children. When he wandered too close to the schoolhouse, a woman snapped her fan open between them like a barrier and hissed, “Shoo, now. Go on.” When he passed the fields, mothers would draw their daughters close, hands clutching their sleeves, eyes narrowed in quiet warning. They said nothing to his face. They didn’t need to. The way they pulled their children away like his shadow might taint them said more than words ever could.
The older boys were less subtle.
They threw stones at his feet when he walked down the lane, not enough to wound, but enough to make him stumble. Flinch. One, bolder than the rest, once grabbed him by the collar and shoved him into the mud, sneering.
"Why don’t you scream, huh? You got a demon in there eat your tongue, too?"
Giyuu said nothing. Just stared, half-buried in the muck, until the boy backed off with a nervous laugh and ran.
He didn’t scream when they threw cold water at him. Or when they pushed him into the trough meant for livestock. Or when someone smeared ash across his brow and whispered a warding prayer.
He didn’t scream because the part of him that could was gone. Or maybe it had never been there at all.
The silence wasn’t empty. It was heavy. Saturated with unspoken grief, a weight he wore like a second skin. It pressed against his ribs when he lay down to sleep, clawed at his throat when he tried to breathe.
No one asked if he hurt.
No one asked how.
No one asked why.
Weeks passed like that. Dull, colorless. The world became a series of motions—walk, wait, sleep, repeat. Hunger gnawed at his belly until even that dulled. The ache became a kind of background hum. A companion. Something real he could point to and know: I’m still here.
And then—without fanfare, without kindness—a letter arrived.
Someone. A distant relative. A friend of his parents, maybe. The details were vague, and no one seemed interested in elaborating. But the message was simple enough:
They had heard. They had space. They would take him in.
The villagers didn’t hesitate.
They looked at one another with quiet relief, like a storm had passed or a debt had finally been paid. A burden lifted. A blemish erased. They didn’t mourn him. Didn’t miss him. They were simply done.
They didn’t tell him until the cart was already waiting outside the square.
No explanation. No forewarning. A man with rough hands and a stern face approached him in the street and thrust a bundle of clothes into his arms. The fabric was coarse, smelling faintly of damp straw. Still wet in places.
"Change into these," the man said gruffly. "You're being sent off."
That was it. No goodbye. No well-wishing. No one even came to watch him go.
They didn’t want to risk touching him. Not even with their eyes.
He was packed like a forgotten parcel—slumped against burlap sacks of rice and winter onions, tucked between crates, a single blanket thrown over his legs like an afterthought. The cart creaked with every bump on the mountain path. The mule snorted and trudged forward. Dust rose around the wheels like the earth itself was trying to swallow him whole.
Giyuu didn’t cry.
He didn’t look back.
He stared at the bucket of water at his feet. It sloshed with every turn in the road, rippling just enough for him to catch the blurred, shifting reflection of the boy he had become.
The face staring back was almost unfamiliar.
His hair had turned wild and matted, stuck together with sweat and neglect. His cheeks were hollow, sunken. Deep violet shadows clung under his eyes like bruises that wouldn’t fade. His lips were cracked and pale, slightly parted from the effort of breathing. He looked like a spirit caught halfway between this world and the next.
He looked like something already dead.
The haori swallowed him.
Tsutako’s haori—once a rich maroon, soft from years of washing and wear—now hung from his shoulders like a memory too heavy to carry. It reeked faintly of blood and incense. One sleeve had torn at the hem. He didn’t fix it. Couldn’t.
He pulled it tighter around himself and closed his eyes.
The wind blew gently over the mountain road. The mule’s hooves clopped a rhythm into the earth. The driver didn’t speak.
And in the lull between one breath and the next, Giyuu wondered—only briefly—if this was what being forgotten felt like. A quiet fade. A soft unraveling.
No name.
No voice.
No home.
Just a shadow wrapped in his sister’s scent, being carried away to nowhere.
`
`
`
The house was too big.
Too quiet. Too clean. Too wrong.
It stood tall at the far edge of a new village, tucked behind a row of pristine fences and perfectly manicured hedges. The roof tiles glinted in the sunlight like armor, and the flowerbeds bloomed in rigid, unnatural rows—bright bursts of color lined up with military precision. The gravel walkway had no weeds, no scuff marks. It crunched beneath the wheels of the cart like it was protesting the presence of something unwelcome.
Giyuu didn’t move until the cart stopped fully. Even then, he didn’t lift his eyes until someone cleared their throat.
The man and woman who greeted him at the door were unfamiliar. They bowed, polite and perfunctory. Their smiles were thin. The woman’s hands were folded too neatly over her stomach, her knuckles pale. The man glanced once at the driver, once at Giyuu, and then turned his gaze toward the house behind them, already half-dismissing the boy before a single word was exchanged.
"So… this is him," the woman murmured. "The boy."
The man grunted. “He’s… quiet.”
The woman bent slightly at the waist, offering a distant, brittle smile. "Welcome, Giyuu-kun. We’re… happy to have you."
She didn’t sound happy. She didn’t even sound present. Her voice had that brittle edge, like porcelain—beautiful from a distance, but liable to shatter if handled wrong.
Then, she turned—not to Giyuu, but to another woman standing in the hall behind them.
“He’s fragile,” she said, with the kind of tone one might use to describe a cracked teacup. “Emotionally stunted, from what we were told.”
The other woman, older and sharp-eyed, nodded. “We’ll do what we can.”
That was the extent of the welcome.
Giyuu was taken by the wrist—gently, but without warmth—and led through the too-wide halls, the glossy floors reflecting his dirt-caked sandals. The air smelled sterile. Like bleach and boiled rice. The walls were bare except for a single painting—three white cranes on a lake.
He was not offered food. Not yet. Not until after.
That night, they examined him.
Not out of care. Not the way Tsutako used to—pressing the backs of her fingers to his brow when he sniffled, rubbing salve into scrapes with a hum on her lips.
This was clinical. Detached. Like observing a strange creature washed up from sea foam. A task. A responsibility.
They brought him into a small room with bright lamps and a mat laid out on the floor.
"Undress, please," said the woman with the clipboard.
Giyuu blinked.
She didn’t repeat herself. Just waited. Her lips thinned.
He stripped slowly, fumbling with the buttons. His fingers trembled, but not from modesty—just from cold and exhaustion. He hadn’t eaten that day. Maybe not the day before, either. He couldn't remember.
He stood, naked and bony, under the scrutiny of several pairs of eyes. His skin was pale, stretched taut over too-prominent ribs. His collarbones jutted sharply, and the faintest shadows of bruises painted his hips, his knees. His arms hung limp at his sides.
“Undernourished,” one of the men muttered, pressing fingers into the boy’s ribs without warning. Giyuu didn’t even sway. “He’s too thin for his age. Likely hasn’t had consistent meals in weeks.”
“Look here,” said another, lifting his arm. “Scarring across the knuckles. A burn on his thigh. Bruising on the left side of his abdomen. No signs of infection, but the skin is…”
“Pallid,” someone supplied.
“Detached,” another corrected. “He doesn’t flinch. That’s not healthy.”
He didn’t.
They poked. Prodded. Jotted notes. Ran fingers along his spine, checked the back of his neck, brushed his hair aside to look for lice. They measured his limbs with strings and wooden rulers. Stared at his nails. His eyes. His teeth.
One of them—tall, silent—took a slender blade and made a shallow slice along the side of his thigh.
Giyuu didn’t move. Just watched the blood bead, slow and sluggish.
"See that?" the man said. “Delayed clotting. He’s malnourished.”
No one apologized for cutting him. No one offered a bandage.
Instead, someone dipped a cloth in cold water and bathed him, brisk and impersonal, scrubbing his arms and legs like cleaning grime off a countertop. His skin flushed pink under the pressure. They didn’t bother heating the water.
He didn’t make a sound.
No one spoke to him directly during the entire process. When it was over, he was wrapped in starched, unfamiliar robes that scratched at his skin and smelled of linen and nothing else—no lavender, no smoke, no Tsutako.
The woman with the clipboard looked him over one last time.
“We’ll monitor him.”
“Emotionally, he’s…” the older man trailed off.
“Unresponsive,” she said firmly. “Detached. A textbook case of early trauma, perhaps dissociation. We’ll keep his environment calm. Routine. No stimulation.”
The older woman nodded. "He can stay in the room by the stairs. He won’t need much."
They spoke like he wasn’t there.
Like he was an empty pot to be set on a shelf.
Giyuu stood in the center of the room, robe hanging from his bony frame, hair still dripping cold water down his back. He blinked slowly, chest barely rising.
“Would you like to lie down?” one of the attendants finally asked, her voice a little softer than the others.
He didn’t respond. His lips barely parted. His fingers twitched once against the stiff fabric. His eyes stared forward—at nothing.
After a long pause, the woman led him down the hall to a small room with no furniture beyond a futon and a shelf.
"This is yours," she said, opening the door.
Still nothing from him.
She frowned faintly. “You should rest now. Tomorrow, we’ll begin a routine.”
And then she left.
The door clicked softly shut.
Giyuu stared at it for a while. Then at the futon.
He didn’t lie down.
He sat cross-legged on the floor instead, pulling the too-large haori he’d carried in with him—Tsutako’s—over his shoulders like a shield. It was too warm for it, but he didn’t care.
The room was still.
Outside, the wind rustled the hedges. Somewhere nearby, someone was sweeping the porch. Voices passed in the hall, muffled and distant.
And in the middle of this silent, spotless house, Giyuu sat unmoving, still as stone, wrapped in the last remaining thread of someone who had once called him little brother.
He didn’t cry.
He didn’t sleep.
He waited—for what, he didn’t know.
His room was plain.
Too plain. Uncomfortably pristine.
The tatami mats beneath his bare feet were tightly woven, without a single frayed edge or creak—stiff underfoot like they’d never been walked on, never known dust or story or home. The paper walls were untouched, no thumbprints, no smudges. No scrolls adorned them. No woodblock prints, no ink paintings of cranes or mountains. There wasn’t even a hook to hang his haori.
It was like the room had been assembled just for show. A display of what a child’s room should look like, in a house where no child had ever been allowed to stay.
There was no scent of cooking wafting in from the hallway. No bubbling pot or spiced steam rising through the cracks in the floorboards. No warm blanket with soft, worn corners. No brush beside the pillow. No sister’s voice humming to herself as she lit the lanterns, one by one.
Just silence.
That awful, sterile silence.
The kind of silence that didn’t rest. It pressed. Weighed. Watched.
Giyuu sat on the edge of the futon. He didn’t lie down. Didn’t fidget. Just sat, hands folded in his lap, his eyes trained on the white wall in front of him. The futon’s sheets were crisp, colorless, and so tightly tucked it took effort just to slide beneath them. The pillow didn’t give under his head—just resisted, like it wasn’t made for sleep. Nothing in the room had been touched by warmth or memory.
He didn’t touch anything unless he was told to.
He didn’t move unless directed.
Meals came and went with little fanfare. Bowls of lukewarm rice, soulless miso, pickled roots too sour and strange for his stomach. They made him gag sometimes, but he didn’t spit them out. He chewed. Swallowed. Endured.
He never asked for seconds.
Sometimes, the woman—his supposed caretaker—would watch him while he ate, arms crossed, lips tight.
“He doesn’t respond,” she’d say, not even pretending to whisper. “He just stares. Like a cat that doesn’t blink.”
One evening, she tapped her knuckles on the low table while he sat perfectly still, chopsticks resting between his fingers.
“I think he’s sick in the head,” she said to the older man behind her. “Something in there’s broken. It’s not normal for a child not to cry. Not to ask questions. Not to talk.”
The man barely looked up from his scroll. “Maybe he’s just simple.”
“He’s a burden. That’s what he is. I don’t have the time to fix him.”
Their voices never lowered. Never softened.
They didn’t speak as if he wasn’t there—but they never spoke to him either.
He was a piece of furniture. A broken tool. A defective doll left on the doorstep with a tag that said good luck.
And he learned, fast.
Don’t flinch when the door slams. They’ll call you hysterical.
Don’t cry. They’ll leave you out in the hallway again, like they did last week.
Don’t speak. They’ll call you cursed.
Eventually, he stopped trying.
He stopped lifting his eyes when spoken to.
Stopped nodding when given commands.
Stopped reacting when his elbow was accidentally bumped or when the house grew cold at night.
He stopped being, little by little.
That night, after the dishes were cleared and the lamps had been extinguished, Giyuu curled himself into the unfamiliar bedding.
The room was dark. Still.
Hushed like the moment before a prayer—but no one in the house prayed. No one lit incense or knelt beside a shrine. There were no offerings for the dead here. Only schedules and appointments and carefully measured lives.
His body ached—not from exertion, but from stillness. From days of holding himself in like a breath that could never be exhaled. His muscles were tight. His spine too straight. His neck strained from constantly looking down.
The blanket clung to his arms like paper. Too stiff to be comforting. Too sterile to feel like anything.
He curled his fingers around the edge of it anyway. Gripped it like a lifeline.
And for the first time since that night… since the blood and the screams and the wardrobe door creaking open to silence…
His lips moved.
Just a shape.
A whisper with no sound.
“...Tsutako.”
No air came out. No breath. His throat tightened, dry and constricted like he’d swallowed a fistful of salt. Nothing emerged—not even a whimper.
Her name burned against his tongue like it no longer belonged to him.
Like saying it, even silently, would tear him apart.
She was gone.
Her voice. Her stories. Her hands in his hair, braiding flowers. Her sharp tongue when he forgot to wash his face. Her laugh—loud and clear and real.
And him?
He wasn’t her little brother anymore.
He wasn’t anyone’s.
He wasn’t a child.
Wasn’t family.
Wasn’t even a person they wanted to fix.
He was a patient.
A problem.
A puzzle everyone had already given up on solving.
He turned his face into the pillow. It didn’t smell like anything. Not sweat, not rice, not home. Just linen and silence.
He closed his eyes.
And in the endless dark, with the too-crisp sheets and the aching knot in his stomach, the truth settled heavy in his chest:
The warmth was gone.
And the silence was all that remained.
`
`
`
A year passed.
Or something close to it. Time no longer moved in any straight line for Giyuu—no sunrises marked beginnings, and no sunsets offered closure. The days bled into one another, indistinct and shapeless, like candle wax spilled too many times over the same place. Seasons came and went unnoticed. There were no rites of passage, no birthdays, no first harvest celebrations. No paper lanterns drifting on streams, no plum wine, no roasted sweet potatoes in winter. Just silence. Just the sterile chill of a home that had long since forgotten what warmth meant.
He remained in the care of his relatives—though “care” was the word they used when neighbors asked why the boy never came out anymore. They spoke of him in hushed tones and with sorrowful sighs, bowing their heads like mourning was a full-time act. “He’s grieving,” they would say, placing their hands over their chests like priests. “We’re doing all we can.” But inside the house, behind shut doors and shuttered windows, the truth was something far less merciful.
They watched him. They monitored his eating, his bathing, his silence. They called it healing. Said he needed correction, that Tsutako’s death had been a divine warning. “The demon didn’t take her,” his uncle hissed once, his breath sharp with sake, “She took herself—by harboring a thing like you.” That was the first time he heard the word hollow. It wouldn't be the last.
His aunt was quieter with her condemnation. She never shouted, never struck in anger. No—her cruelty was colder, clinical. She believed him diseased. Possessed. Not by a demon, but by grief, by corruption, by something dark and ancient that had sunk into his bones. “Your silence is not holy,” she murmured, tying another strip of dried wormwood around his wrists. “It’s pride. Pride is the language of evil.”
They experimented. At first, it was small things: herbs burnt near his skin, holy texts read aloud while he sat kneeling for hours on cracked floors. But when he did not cry, did not scream, did not beg, they grew bolder. Needles threaded into pressure points. Cold baths before dawn. Hours locked in a darkened room with nothing but incense and old bells that rang without rhythm. They claimed they were trying to help. “Pain,” his aunt said one evening, “is the voice of God. If you don’t cry, how will He know you’re listening?”
Giyuu never cried. He never screamed. Not when the belt came down across his back, not when they tied his ankles to keep him from moving, not when his hands trembled from hunger so badly he couldn’t lace his robe. His silence became his only rebellion, the last thing they could not burn out of him. But it did not make him stronger. Only smaller. Quieter. More ghost than boy.
“Maybe he’s too far gone,” his uncle muttered once, lighting another candle with trembling fingers. “Maybe the street will cure him.”
“He’s not right,” his aunt agreed. “You can see it in the eyes. There’s nothing there. Nothing but the echo of that night.”
They began to make plans. Giyuu didn’t understand at first—he was always dizzy, always cold. But when they brought him clean robes and combed his hair for the first time in months, he knew something had shifted. Something was about to happen.
“You’ll feel the sun again,” his aunt said, brushing dirt from his shoulder with a cloth. Her smile was practiced, brittle. “Isn’t that nice?”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t move.
He had learned by now that when they smiled like that, it only ever meant pain.
They told him he needed fresh air.
Said it gently, almost sweetly, like the words were tea-soft and honey-glazed instead of barbed. “A walk will do you good, Giyuu,” his aunt had murmured, fingers brushing his shoulder as though she hadn’t cinched cords around his wrists just a week ago. “You’ve been cooped up for so long. It’s time to see the world again. Don’t you think?”
He didn’t answer. He had learned not to. Every question had a right answer they never told him. Every wrong answer was met with silence, or worse, scripture.
They told him they were taking him to a tea house. A proper outing. That the incense and gentle chatter and quiet music would help his soul heal. “Recover,” they called it—as if he’d tripped in the street and needed a bandage. As if he hadn’t watched Tsutako’s body bend backward, blood spilling down the floorboards like ink from a broken brush. As if he hadn’t stared at her fingers twitching long after her eyes had gone glassy.
But he said nothing.
He let them dress him in a clean yukata, pale blue with a subtle pattern of cranes embroidered along the collar. It wasn’t stiff with dried sweat or caked with herbs. It fit. Not perfectly, but close enough to feel foreign. His arms hung loose at his sides as his aunt combed his hair back, murmuring about how much easier it was when he didn’t squirm.
“You almost look normal,” she said, tilting his chin up with two fingers. “Don’t ruin it with that blank stare.”
It was the most attention they’d given him in months. He didn’t know whether to feel grateful or scared.
They didn’t speak as they led him outside. The sun pressed warm and foreign on his face, making him blink like a mole dragged into daylight. He heard birds—actual birds—singing above the courtyard wall. Someone down the street was shouting about cabbages. For a moment, it almost felt like something close to life. Not happiness, not hope—those things were gone—but a dim flicker of reality. The world had gone on without him. That hurt more than he expected.
The carriage smelled faintly of lacquered wood and perfume. The cushions were stiff and untouched by dust, and the silk curtain blocked the view to the front. The air inside was warmer than he liked. Still, he said nothing as the carriage creaked to life and began to roll.
They didn’t speak to him once during the journey. Not his uncle, not his aunt. They sat across from him, upright and composed, like they were attending a funeral. Maybe they were. Giyuu stared at his own knees as the carriage passed unfamiliar towns and strange, painted shop signs. Shadows flickered behind red curtains and half-open windows. The scent of cooked meat made his stomach turn. It had been too long since he’d eaten anything warm.
Once, his uncle adjusted his sleeves and said, “Don’t slouch.” That was the only time he addressed Giyuu at all.
Hours passed. Or maybe only minutes. He no longer trusted his own sense of time.
Eventually, the carriage slowed. Then stopped.
His aunt reached for the door without a word, slipping out first. His uncle followed. Neither of them looked back.
“Out,” his uncle said flatly, not sparing him a glance.
Giyuu blinked.
The man grunted, and that was all.
Giyuu slid forward on stiff legs, stepping down onto the stone street. The sky above was bruised with dusk, the air thick with unfamiliar smells—sake, sweat, perfume, iron. Paper lanterns hung from buildings in the shapes of flowers and fish, glowing dimly in the gathering dark. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed.
He turned to ask what they were doing—if this was the tea house, if they were going to sit together—but the carriage door had already shut behind him.
And then, without a single goodbye, it rolled away.
Giyuu didn’t run. Didn’t shout. Just watched it shrink into the distance, wood wheels clattering over cobblestone, until the sound was gone too. Until it was just him, standing small and confused beneath the paper lanterns, in a district that didn’t want questions.
His hands clenched the sleeves of his yukata. It was still too clean.
Too presentable.
Too easy to sell.
The room they took him to was quiet—unnervingly so. The walls were padded with velvet drapes, each one swallowing sound like heavy fog. Candles flickered in carved sconces, their glow gentle and amber, softening the sharpness of everything but not enough to disguise it. The air was thick with the mingling scents of lotus oil, face powder, and warm sake—heady, cloying, and unfamiliar. Everything in the room whispered of false comfort, like a stage dressed for a play that had already been decided before the actors even entered.
Giyuu sat on a small wooden stool near a paper-screened window, posture straight not out of pride but from instinct, from months of being told to sit properly or you’re inviting devils in. He stared ahead at the curtain that covered the door—silk-draped and embroidered with golden thread, a veil instead of a barrier. The muffled sounds beyond it—laughter, hushed voices, the occasional sharp clack of geta on wood—reminded him that he was not alone, not truly, but he had never felt more isolated.
He didn’t know how long he waited. Five minutes. Thirty. An hour. Time wasn’t something he held onto anymore. His hands stayed folded in his lap, fingers still stained faintly with old ash and herb oil, even after all the scrubbing. He did not fidget. He did not speak. He had learned too well that silence was safer than curiosity.
Then the curtain rustled.
A woman entered.
Her presence took up the room before her body even did. She was tall—not in stature, but in aura. She wore her black hair high, coiled like a crown, held in place with golden pins shaped like butterflies and wisteria blooms. Her skin had been painted white, a mask of porcelain perfection, and her lips were the color of fresh blood. Her eyes—framed in shadow and lined in kohl—were clever and cold. She was beautiful, in the same way snowstorms were beautiful. You could admire them from a distance, but you did not survive them up close.
She did not greet him. She did not offer her name.
She only smiled. Not kindly. Not warmly. But it was a smile nonetheless.
“Well,” she said, voice smooth and unhurried as she approached. Her gaze raked over him like a blade through silk. “Not much meat on the bones. They could’ve fed you better if they wanted to get more for you. Or perhaps they simply didn’t care.”
She circled him once, her steps soft—nearly silent—like a cat in a cage full of birds. She reached out and gently tilted his chin up with two gloved fingers. Giyuu flinched, but didn’t resist. Her touch was cold. Measured.
“Mm,” she murmured, tapping her chin. “Too thin. But the face is good. Eyes like a fox. Exotic. You’ll sell.”
Giyuu didn’t understand.
No—that wasn’t quite right.
He did understand. He simply refused to let the understanding bloom. It sat in his chest like a stone, weighty and deliberate. A truth that couldn’t be spoken because it would mean the final surrender of everything he still clung to.
He lowered his gaze. Said nothing.
From behind the curtain, another voice called out—dry, raspy, male. “Cheap, I assume?”
“Of course,” the woman replied, glancing over her shoulder. “Look at him. Malnourished, no training, barely aware of what day it is. I’ll have to start from nothing. But he’s quiet. That’s worth something.” She turned back to Giyuu, smiling wider. “Quiet boys always fetch better prices. Men love the illusion of obedience.”
A shuffle followed—cloth, coin, murmured haggling like he was nothing more than a bundle of rice straw at a farmer’s market. He didn’t hear the amount. No one said it aloud.
But he felt it anyway.
A cold click in the pit of his chest, like a lock turning behind his ribs.
He had been sold.
He looked up once, meeting the woman’s eyes as she stepped toward him again. “From now on, you will answer to Tama. I don’t care what name you were born with—it no longer matters here.” She leaned down, brushing a strand of hair from his cheek. “Smile when spoken to. Don’t speak unless asked. Learn quickly, or suffer quietly. Either way, we’ll make something of you.”
She straightened, clapped twice, and two attendants entered—both girls, maybe only a few years older than him, dressed in bright kimono and painted smiles. One of them bowed to the woman. The other came toward Giyuu with a folded bundle of new clothes and a comb.
“Undress him,” the woman said, already turning toward the curtain. “He needs to be scrubbed. We can’t sell a stray mutt.”
Giyuu did not move.
Did not fight.
Not because he was obedient.
But because a part of him—something once warm and living—had gone numb.
And because no one had looked at him like a boy in a very long time.

The brothel was neither warm nor kind. But it was cleaner than the house he had left behind.
It did not pretend to love him, did not wrap cruelty in the shape of family. Here, pain wore silk instead of scripture. Discipline came with a painted smile and a sharpened nail. The floors were polished, the walls fragrant with old incense and cherry wood, and the lanterns glowed like tired stars strung across the ceiling. There were no holy texts here, no belts or ice-cold baths. But there was no kindness either. Only routine.
Madame Ao ran the house with an iron fan and a sharper tongue. In public, she was called Mother, a name that sounded nurturing but meant nothing of the sort. She was not soft, but she was clean. Her clothes were always pressed. Her makeup never smudged. Her voice carried through the halls like lacquer—bright, brittle, and impossible to ignore.
She gave him things—more than his relatives ever had. Food, three times a day. A futon with real stuffing. Clothes that weren’t torn at the seams or stained with incense ash. A comb. A toothbrush. A small bowl of plum vinegar to rinse his mouth. These things should have meant comfort. They didn’t. They were tools. Purchases. Investments.
In exchange, she took everything else.
His name was the first to go.
She never once called him Giyuu.
“Too harsh,” she told the others, waving her fan with disinterest as she observed him from the doorway of the sitting room. “Too sharp on the tongue. Giyuu is a knife. The clients want something softer. Something that melts, not cuts.”
She tapped her fan against her palm. “He’ll be Tama. It suits him. Like a little polished gem. Dull, but presentable.”
From that moment forward, he ceased to exist in any form he remembered. Tama was what they called him. Boy, when they didn’t bother with even that. Child, when she was feeling generous.
He didn’t correct them. He didn’t protest. Not once. What would’ve been the point?
She taught him to bow, but not too deeply—never lower yourself more than the client unless they paid for it. She taught him to smile, but never with teeth—men don’t like to see themselves reflected in anything too sharp. She showed him how to move without sound, to glide instead of walk, to sit with his knees at a precise angle, to hold a tea cup as though it were a lotus blossom. She taught him to laugh without breath, to blink slowly, to lower his gaze just enough to appear humble.
Speech was never part of the curriculum.
Not that he would’ve used it anyway.
But Madame Ao noticed his silence, praised it like a rare gem. “You’re a good boy,” she said once, cupping his chin and turning his face toward the light like she was inspecting porcelain. “Obedient. Pretty. Easy.”
He wasn’t easy. He was exhausted.
Still, he nodded. As he was meant to.
He was trained as a taikomochi. Not a dancer. Not a courtesan. Not a fighter. Not like the others with bells on their sleeves and flirtation folded into every word. No, he was a companion. A conversation piece. A shadow with a face that would not challenge, would not interrupt, would never dare to rise above the client’s gaze.
He poured tea. Slowly, precisely.
He folded fans into paper butterflies.
He inked poems when asked—though they often stole them and signed their own names.
He learned the language of flowers and how to place them in vases so that they meant welcome or regret or desire.
And above all, he stayed silent.
That made him valuable.
The clients whispered about him. At first it was idle gossip—the curiosity of a boy too young, too quiet, too still. But it changed with time.
“Have you seen the mute boy with the fox eyes?”
“He listens better than my wife.”
“He doesn’t talk back. Not even once.”
They praised the things that should have made them uncomfortable. His stillness. His submission. His eyes that watched but never blinked too much. His hands that never pushed away.
They touched him when they thought no one would notice. Brushed his hair, ran fingers along his shoulders, cupped his small wrists and laughed about how delicate he was.
“You’re lucky,” one man had told him, drunk and sagging across the table as sake dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “No voice, no questions. I wish mine was like you.”
Another leaned in close once, breath sour, fingers pressed too hard against his back. “You understand, don’t you? Loneliness. That's why you're good at this. You're just like us.”
They told him things they should never say to a child. Stories of their wives. Their mistresses. The things they lost. The things they wanted to do. Some whispered their guilt like confessions. Others laughed as they shared plans. All of them assumed his silence was loyalty.
And it was. Not because he was loyal to them. But because his voice was still buried in a wardrobe beside a dead body, in a home no one would ever call his again.
He smiled when prompted. Nodded when expected. Flinched only when the doors were closed.
And Madame Ao beamed.
Her little mute boy was making her money.
He was becoming a favorite.
“You see?” she said to another attendant one night as she watched Giyuu serve tea to a silver-haired man with too many rings and too loud a laugh. “No fuss. No trouble. They project onto him whatever they want. Sadness. Mystery. Desire. He’s an empty bowl. They fill him with whatever they’re lacking.”
She smiled over her fan, eyes sharp. “He’s perfect.”
And Giyuu—no, Tama—just kept pouring the tea.
Still, she was not cruel the way the others had been.
Madame Ao did not strike him. She didn’t slap his mouth for silence—he never spoke, so there was no need. She didn’t drag him across floorboards by his wrists, didn’t whisper that demons lived in his skin, didn’t lock him in closets for days until he forgot what the sky looked like. She didn’t claim he was cursed. Never once reached for holy sutras or called priests to burn herbs at his feet. No.
Her cruelty was not loud.
It was precise.
She gave him hot rice. Steamed, fragrant. Sometimes with pickled plum or miso if a client left in a good mood. She brushed his hair twice a week with a boar-bristle comb, untangling the knots with a practiced patience that wasn’t kindness. It was maintenance. Like one would polish silverware or oil a door hinge. She gave him robes that fit—always soft, in pale blues and creams to match his coloring. “Your skin’s too light for red,” she said once. “It makes you look ill.”
She did not call him names. She didn’t spit on the floor when he passed or refer to him in third person like his aunt had. She didn’t scowl when he entered a room. She greeted him with nods, faint approval. She called him child, boy, Tama. Never Giyuu. Never anything closer.
She was not cruel in the ways he knew. But she was never kind, either.
She never touched him with affection. Never rested a hand on his head or called him good. Not really. Not in the way a mother might. She didn’t stroke his cheek or hug him when he trembled after a customer gripped his knee too tightly. She didn’t shield him from the stares or give him space to cry. Not that he would have. He didn’t cry anymore.
What she gave, she gave for profit.
And what he gave in return—his time, his stillness, his performance—was taken without question.
It was not a transaction. There was no exchange. There was only expectation.
“You belong to the house now,” she’d told him once, during one of the earliest weeks, when his hands still shook as he poured tea. “That means you belong to me. Your smile is mine. Your silence, mine. Your eyes, your hair, your hands—mine.”
She had taken his chin in her fingers, tilting his head to inspect his face beneath the lantern light. Her nails were sharp, but her grip was not cruel. “You may keep your thoughts, if you like,” she added. “They won’t serve anyone but you.”
She let go with a click of her tongue. “But your body? Your body is a mirror. Learn to reflect what they want to see, or you’ll be replaced.”
And he had learned.
He learned that his mouth was not for speaking. It was for smiling. For sipping. For breathing silently, evenly, when someone sat too close or said too much. He learned that his eyes were more valuable than his voice. That a well-timed glance, downcast or lifted just so, could earn him praise—or more rice.
He learned that his hands were for delicate things: folding paper, arranging flowers, serving sake. Never pushing away. Never clenching into fists.
He learned that his stillness was what made him desirable. That the more invisible he made himself, the more visible others became. They projected onto him like light through a screen, painting him with their loneliness, their hunger, their nostalgia.
His body was no longer his. It was a costume. A mask. A vessel others poured themselves into.
He became the shadow they spoke to when they could speak to no one else.
And in the quiet between conversations, in the moments when the curtain fell and the lanterns flickered out, Giyuu perfected the art of vanishing.
He vanished into the corner of the room. Into the folds of his robe. Into the pale softness of his silence.
He learned how to breathe without being noticed. How to shrink his presence into the size of a sigh. How to listen so intently that his own heartbeat seemed to stop.
Even when he was spoken to, even when touched, he was not really there.
Not the real him. Not the boy who had once laughed in sunlit courtyards with his sister, who had once cried for help with dirt under his fingernails.
That boy had been tucked away. Hidden deep. Untouchable.
All that remained was Tama—the quiet, lovely thing who served tea without tremor and smiled without teeth.
And that was enough. It had to be.
One night, Giyuu sat behind a paper screen, alone in a quiet corner of the brothel, the sound of soft laughter and clinking porcelain drifting in from the front room like the wind through reeds. It was his break—though breaks were just pauses in performance, not freedom. The silk-covered floor cushions beneath him still bore the faint warmth of the last client who had touched his sleeve too long, said his name—Tama—like it meant something intimate.
In his lap was a folding fan. Pale silk stretched tight over lacquered ribs. He was painting it with black ink, the brush held delicately between three fingers the way Madame Ao had taught him. Not too high, not too low. Never press too hard. The weight of your hand matters more than the shape of the lines.
Peonies, this time. They were his favorite to paint. Soft and round, endless in their curves. Like clouds made from petals. Gentle. Safe. He shaped them carefully—one bloom opening wide across the center, the others cradling it like guardians.
He worked slowly, deliberately. Every brushstroke soft enough to blend, but steady enough not to tremble.
And yet…
His hand shook.
Slightly. Barely. But enough. Enough that the tip of the brush faltered, and one petal bled into another, the black ink trailing out too wide, like a vein opened beneath the surface. The silk soaked it quickly, too quickly to fix. The flaw stood stark against the pale background—imperfect, irreversible.
Giyuu stared at it.
At the small, ruined bloom. At the mistake that wasn’t loud, wasn’t even ugly, but was still a mistake. Something unwanted. Something that didn’t belong.
He could have folded the fan, tossed it aside, started another.
He didn’t.
He didn’t correct it. Didn’t blot it with rice paper. Didn’t adjust the design to cover it. He simply… stared.
The laughter from the next room rose louder. Someone was telling a story—drunken, booming, boastful. Giyuu knew the voice. The client always asked for him by name. Tama, bring the sake. Tama, smile for me. Tama, you're so quiet—it makes a man feel powerful.
He didn’t hear the words this time.
Not really.
All he could hear was a name.
One name.
Tsutako.
His sister’s voice, warm and clear, replayed in his mind like a forgotten melody. Giyuu, come help me fold the sheets.
Giyuu, taste this—tell me if the plum’s too sour.
Giyuu. Giyuu. Giyuu.
His real name. Not Tama. Not boy. Not child.
Giyuu.
The brush slipped from his fingers and clattered softly to the floor.
He closed his eyes.
The room blurred into black behind his lids, but the inked peony remained burned into his mind—flawed and quiet and soft.
He sat perfectly still, hands in his lap, breathing slow and even, just as he’d been trained. If anyone came behind the screen, they’d think he was meditating. That he’d paused to contemplate the design. That he was resting.
But he wasn’t.
He was unraveling.
He had learned how to disappear without vanishing. How to tuck his soul behind his ribs and live with only the shadow of it left behind.
He had learned how to survive without living. To endure without asking. To serve without question. To smile without joy and to nod without comprehension. He had learned to hollow himself out and become something useful.
But in that moment, with the ink bleeding on the silk and the ghost of his sister’s name echoing in his ears, he felt something stir inside him.
It wasn’t rebellion. It wasn’t strength.
It was ache.
A low, throbbing ache that felt like a candle guttering in a sealed room.
He hadn’t spoken in a year. Not a word. Not since the night Tsutako died. Not since he was locked away, judged, bought, and remade.
But now, behind the paper screen, heart trembling like the brush in his hand, he whispered something soundless.
His lips moved, just once.
Tsutako.
No one heard.
No one ever would.
And then, like always, he straightened his spine. Reached for a fresh brush. Dipped it into the ink.
And painted another flower.

Chapter Text

Obedience was not taught to Giyuu.

It grew inside him—slow, patient, like ivy up an abandoned shrine wall. At first, it brushed gently against him, coaxing instead of commanding. But as days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, it wrapped tighter. It climbed into the hollows left behind by grief and silence, filled the cracks where warmth used to live. Where Tsutako's voice used to echo. Where love had once been something simple.

He learned fast—too fast. Not because he wanted to impress, or because he dreamed of a better place within the brothel's painted halls, but because he had no other anchor. No home. No name that didn’t taste like a lie in his mouth. No language, spoken or written, that hadn’t betrayed him. Just silence. And the hands of strangers.

In the house of powdered faces and practiced elegance, survival was a performance. Giyuu learned this before his voice even found a reason to tremble again. He survived by watching. By listening. By mimicking. When to smile. When to lower his eyes. When to touch—delicate, fleeting, like the promise of rain. He observed the curve of a courtesan’s wrist as she poured plum wine, her fingers trailing the rim of the cup like a lover’s parting kiss. He watched the subtle tilt of her chin when she laughed—not quite joy, never full vulnerability. Everything measured. Nothing sincere.

He learned the rules of gaze—how to hold it for three breaths, then drop it. Enough to entice. Not enough to invite. A careful balance: be wanted, never known. Be seen, but never seen through.

He became something ungraspable—elegant, intangible, a dream barely remembered by morning. The boy with no voice and too-soft eyes. The ghost among silk and incense.

The madam noticed.

Madam Ao, regal and ruthless, with skin powdered to porcelain and lips always painted the color of crushed peonies, watched him with a strange fondness from behind her paper fan. “My silent fox,” she called him one evening as she traced the edge of his cheek with a gloved finger. “All mystery, no noise. Perfect for the ones who don’t want answers.”

She began dressing him herself after that—silks in muted shades, soft grays like mourning doves and blues like the sky just before it rains. When he stepped into the lantern light, he shimmered. Ethereal. Untouchable. Clients noticed. Word spread.

“You’re not for the loud ones,” Ao said with a chuckle as she slid a comb into his hair. “But the poets, the scholars, the lonely lords who like to hear their own voice reflected in quiet eyes? Oh, they’ll adore you.”

And they did.

Some came just to sit with him. To speak, to spill, to confess. He never spoke back. He didn’t have to. His silence made them feel profound. Important. Listened to. Others touched him with reverence, unsure if he was real. Most asked questions he never answered. Some cried in his presence. Some begged him to speak. But his silence became a service all its own—sacred, untouchable, coveted.

His training deepened.

He was no longer just surviving. He was being carved into something beautiful and unnatural.

A retired geisha was brought in to teach him refinement. Madam Saku. She was older, with a face like carved stone and eyes that missed nothing. “Grace,” she told him on their first day, “is not a gift. It is a weapon. You will wield it.”

She made him kneel for hours until his knees throbbed. Corrected the angle of his hands with swift taps from a lacquered fan. Taught him the six sacred steps of steeping tea—the silent way, with breath held between pours. By candlelight, he memorized waka poems until he could recite them with his hands alone. He learned to fold love letters with corners so sharp they could cut. “No creases,” she’d hiss. “Only intention.”

Calligraphy came next.

The instructor was not gentle. Not even close. His name was Hama, and he spoke with clipped disdain, as though every student he’d ever taught had disappointed him. Giyuu’s first stroke wavered. The second bled too far. The third smeared. Hama struck his knuckles without pause.

“Ink is breath,” the man barked, slamming a new brush into Giyuu’s palm. “You will learn to breathe beautifully, or you will not breathe at all.”

For weeks, his hands throbbed. For months, the sting of ink and shame marked his skin like branding. But eventually, his lines stopped trembling. The brush began to glide. His strokes turned fluid. Precise. Graceful.

He was being sculpted, reshaped. And he let it happen.

There was no rebellion in him. No fight. Not because it had been beaten out of him, but because he no longer remembered what resistance even looked like. What would be the point? His old life was a closed door, and this—this place of perfume, secrets, and shadow-light—was the only home he had now. So he wore it like second skin.

He moved through the halls like a reflection in still water—always present, never fully tangible. When spoken to, he bowed. When touched, he endured. When smiled at, he smiled back.

Sometimes, late at night, he would sit at his low writing table, folding tiny paper cranes from spare scraps of calligraphy practice. His fingers moved automatically, making wing after wing. He never kept them. He’d toss them into the brazier, watch them catch flame and vanish into smoke.

“Why do you burn them?” a courtesan once asked, lingering in the doorway.

Giyuu looked up, met her gaze for a heartbeat too long, then looked away.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

`

`

`

The rumors came slowly, like fog curling in through the narrow streets of the pleasure district—quiet, persistent, impossible to brush away. At first, they were soft-spoken things. Fragments of curiosity, drifting from painted mouths and behind folding fans.

“The mute one with the soft eyes.”

“The boy who listens like a well and never echoes.”

“Like a poem you can’t read out loud.”

A novelty. An enigma. A story to pass between sips of sake.

Then came the requests.

First, just one or two. A merchant’s wife who wanted someone to hear her lament about a cold husband. A poet who preferred his own voice to anyone else’s. Then a visiting lord with grief rotting in his chest like old fruit, who asked to sit in silence with the boy who would not speak.

And then more.

By the end of the month, Giyuu’s name was inked into appointment books with increasing frequency. “The silent one,” they said. “The boy with the river-eyes.” They came not for conversation, not for wit or charm or laughter—but for the quiet. The peace. The gentle stillness he offered, as if stepping into a room with him was like slipping beneath the surface of a still lake—no ripples, no storms, only reflection.

Giyuu became a quiet garden for their secrets.

They told him things they couldn’t even confess to themselves. Their hands curled into the folds of his robe as they wept, or boasted, or reminisced. They whispered names of lost lovers. They cursed their fathers, their sons, their gods. And Giyuu listened. Always listened. He let their words wash over him like rain on stone, soaking in but never leaving a mark.

“Sometimes,” said a silver-haired court official one evening, fingers trembling around his wine cup, “I wonder if you’re even real. Or if you’re just a mirror for everything I’m too afraid to say out loud.”

Giyuu did not reply. He only poured the man another cup with steady hands.

Some came to talk. Some came to touch. Some came just to be seen—by someone who would not speak, would not judge, would not remember.

They liked the silence.

They filled it with their fantasies, their projections, their loneliness. To them, Giyuu was not a boy, not a person. He was an idea. A beautiful illusion behind clouded glass. Mute. Obedient. Safe.

He never corrected them.

He never cried.

Not when they touched him. Not when they praised him with words that slid off his skin like oil. Not when they pressed coins into Madam Ao’s hands like he was something borrowed.

Not when they dressed him in soft silk and painted his mouth with colors he did not choose. Not when he was told to kneel beside the balcony and smile while men drank and laughed below. Not even when a client with a snake tattoo curling up his arm pressed a hand to his cheek and whispered, “You’re too pretty to be real. Almost feel bad using you.”

Almost.

Giyuu didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away.

He simply let it happen.

“Beautiful boy,” one client said, stroking his hair like one might stroke a favored pet, “you must be blessed by a god to be so quiet. So perfect.”

He looked at them, still and calm, and thought of how silence had never been a blessing. It had been a prison.

Performance became his shield. Every gesture, every blink, every graceful bow. He learned to move like water slipping past fingers—impossible to hold, impossible to wound.

Mystique became his cage.

It kept them at arm’s length. Made them believe he was untouchable, ethereal. A ghost painted in silks.

But behind it—behind the stillness, the bowed head, the empty gaze—was the aching pulse of a boy forgotten. A boy who had once known warmth and laughter. Who had once had a sister who brushed his hair and told him stories as he fell asleep with his head in her lap.

That boy was buried now. Giyuu had buried him.

Because if he remembered, he might cry. And he couldn’t afford to cry.

Crying would mean breaking.

And Giyuu was not allowed to break.

Not here. Not ever.

Madame Ao began charging higher rates for him.

She called it "exclusivity." Said it with a smile painted in lacquer-red, said it like it was a kindness. "Rarity demands reverence," she cooed as she adjusted the fall of his sleeve one evening, her long nails grazing his wrist. “A porcelain vase in a sea of clay bowls. That’s what you are now, my fox.”

He said nothing. He never did.

But he noticed the changes.

He no longer wore the soft grays and sky-blues of his early days. Now he was dressed only in black and white—monochrome like snow under moonlight, like ink on parchment, like mourning. The contrast made him striking. A ghost in silks. A fox carved from ice and shadow. Even the other courtesans had stopped whispering his name.

Not that they ever knew it.

To the clients, he was “the fox.” Sometimes “the silent flower,” “the mute moon,” or simply “it.” His name, the one Tsutako gave him, the one he hadn’t said aloud in years, had no place here. It didn’t belong among the rich men’s laughter or the sweet smoke curling from incense burners.

He entertained nobles with ink-stained fingers and scholars who quoted verses they barely understood. Foreign traders with gold teeth and coarse manners. High-ranking men with voices like blades and smiles that never touched their eyes.

They brought him gifts—boxes of sugared plums, perfumes imported from the south, silk fans with phoenix feathers, golden coins wrapped in folded poems.

But none of it ever reached him.

The gifts were for Madame Ao.

“Oh, you think these are yours?” she had once laughed, brushing her fingers through his hair. “Sweet child. You are the gift. They’re just paying tribute.”

What he received instead was more training. More hours bent over calligraphy. More bruises beneath new robes. More rehearsals. More polish. More rules. More watchers. Even when he walked, it felt like he did so beneath glass—everyone watching, no one knowing. Every compliment, every rising price, every closed-lipped smile from Madame Ao chipped away at him. It should have been a triumph. He was valuable. Untouchable.

So why did he feel like he was drowning?

He ate alone.

Not with the other boys, who laughed over bowls of rice in the kitchen, or teased each other about their latest clients. Not with the girls who sometimes passed him in the hallway and bowed too quickly. He was given a separate room—an elegant corner space with high screens and a wide bed made for entertaining but cold with emptiness. There was always incense burning. Always a tray left at the door. Always silence.

No one spoke to him unless directed.

They avoided him in the halls. They stopped inviting him to sit by the hearth. Some were envious, yes—but others? Others were afraid. Afraid of what he represented. Afraid of becoming like him. Of being lifted too high, too fast, only to fall so far no one would remember they were ever people to begin with.

He was a pressed flower, admired in silence, preserved in performance.

Never touched.

Never known.

Sometimes, he missed noise.

Not the laughter of clients, not the rehearsed elegance of the dining parlor—but real noise. Honest mess. Clumsy warmth. He missed the creak of the old shrine door in his village. Missed the rustle of daikon leaves as Tsutako harvested vegetables with dirt-stained hands. Missed her laughter, too big for her small frame, the way her wedding robe had swirled around her like a storm of silk and joy. He missed the thud of someone sitting beside him. The hush of night broken by quiet breathing near his shoulder.

Now, he had nothing but stillness.

And applause.

Always applause. Always the smile of a client as he bowed. Always Madame Ao’s soft clapping behind a folding fan, proud of her polished masterpiece.

But the truth hung behind every closed door and every gentle command.

His body was not entirely his own.

Not every client touched him like that—but the implication hovered. It filled the air like too-sweet perfume. Like something spoiled beneath the surface. Consent was not something Giyuu was often asked for. Sometimes, it was hinted at—“Will you stay a while longer, little fox?”—and sometimes it was a quiet, unquestioned command, sealed with a smile.

“You’re always so good,” a man murmured once, trailing fingers down Giyuu’s neck. “Never any trouble.”

As if obedience were a gift he offered, not a survival tactic. As if silence made him a thing instead of a boy.

So he learned to go still when touched. To retreat into himself. To let the mask harden until even he couldn’t tell where it ended and he began.

He smiled when he was meant to. He bowed when he was expected. He responded to affection with practiced grace. And he disappeared, in every way that mattered.

Some days, he drifted so far he forgot what his voice used to sound like. Not just the words—but the feeling of them. The warmth that started in the chest, the soft pull in the throat, the shape of breath against the lips. He would sit alone in his wide, cold room and try to recall it. Try to hum. Try to whisper.

But nothing came.

Only the echo of silence, and the feeling that maybe—just maybe—that silence was the last thing in the world that still belonged to him.

And so he kept it. That, at least, remained sacred.

At Madame Ao’s command, he began appearing at exclusive events.

Private dinners. Seasonal festivals. Ceremonies behind brocade curtains and lacquered walls. She dressed him like a painting—subtle, soft, graceful. She called him her little fox with pride and claimed she’d found him in a temple, a divine spirit waiting to be tamed.

People believed her.

They wanted to.

No one asked where he came from.

No one asked who he had been.

They only asked for more.

One night, Giyuu knelt behind a carved paper screen at a merchant’s estate, tucked like a secret in a corner of splendor. The screen was painted with peonies and cranes—elegant and still, like him. Lanternlight spilled through the rice paper, scattering golden patterns across the floor like waterlight, shifting gently with every breath of wind that whispered through the open garden doors.

Outside, laughter echoed—drunken and careless. Inside, the air shimmered with perfume and heat, thick with the scent of rosewood incense and the sharp bite of sake. Silk rustled. Fans snapped open. Laughter trailed like ribbons. But in his corner, Giyuu was silent. Motionless. A shadow dressed in silver-gray silk, folded with such precision that he looked sculpted.

His hair had been brushed until it gleamed like onyx, tied at the nape with a black ribbon embroidered in silver thread. He had not tied it himself. Nothing he wore or carried ever belonged to him, but it suited him all the same—refined, understated, haunting.

In his lap rested a shamisen.

The lacquered instrument felt cool beneath his fingers, familiar in a way nothing else did anymore. He had been trained on it since he was small, back when he still flinched at loud voices and struggled to hold the bachi right. Now, it sat obedient in his hands, waiting.

He played.

Softly at first. Barely a murmur. Then the melody grew, each note slipping from his fingers like snow falling over a frozen pond—slow, quiet, endless. His wrist moved with graceful precision. The bachi tapped and glided, carving songs out of silence. Around him, the room hushed. A thousand tiny indulgences held their breath.

Men with gleaming hairpins and women with lips stained like plum blossoms turned toward him. The low hum of conversation faded. Even the dancers stilled. Silk sleeves paused mid-motion. Fans drooped. The music gathered them like mist in a basin—slow and inevitable.

A woman near the front sighed audibly, her hand resting against her chest. A drunken nobleman clapped off-beat, then quickly stopped, ashamed. Another leaned forward, eyes half-lidded, whispering to his companion, “The mute one, yes? I thought he was just for show.”

Giyuu did not hear them.

Not really.

Their voices filtered in and out like noise behind a closed window. He didn’t register their admiration or the heat of their eyes on him. Didn’t notice the servant girls watching with envy, or the court official staring as if memorizing every line of his face.

He just played.

Because it was expected.

Because he was good at that.

Because it was easier to let his fingers speak than to remember how to scream.

When the final note lingered in the air—soft and slow and trailing like the last petal falling from a dying bloom—he let it go. The shamisen stilled beneath his hands. A breath passed through the room like wind through tall grass.

Then came the applause.

It was thunderous. Delayed, but fierce. A mix of startled reverence and performative approval. Men clapped as if suddenly remembering they were meant to. Women smiled into their sleeves. Someone tossed a coin, and it landed with a chime at his side.

A servant retrieved it, bowed, and gently placed a golden coin on the woven mat beside his knee—a signal, a reward, a silent transaction.

From across the room, Madam Ao nodded once, her fan fluttering beneath her chin. Her painted smile never faltered. Satisfaction radiated from her like heat from a brazier.

Giyuu bowed low. Hands placed precisely. Fingers curled against the strings. Back straight. Eyes cast downward. A perfect doll.

He did not flinch.

He did not speak.

He did not rise until the signal was given.

And when he finally stood, gathering his shamisen with practiced grace and letting the long folds of his robe whisper against the floor, he did so with the same poise that earned him titles he no longer cared for: the fox, the flower, the ghost boy.

But the boy inside—the one who once wept in a dark wardrobe while his sister died just beyond the doors—the boy who’d swallowed screams and silence together—

That boy had never left.

He still sat, small and shaking, behind closed doors in the back of Giyuu’s mind. Watching. Waiting. Forever listening for footsteps that never came to save him.

Giyuu passed the laughing guests as he left the room, careful not to meet their gazes. One man reached for his sleeve, and Giyuu bowed quickly to avoid it, letting the touch slide away like rain off lacquer. Another leaned in to murmur, “Such talent wasted in silence. I’d pay more for a voice.”

He said it like a joke. Like a game.

Giyuu gave the barest smile. One of the ones he practiced in the mirror. Then slipped away like smoke.

Down the corridor, into a quieter wing of the estate, he walked alone, the shamisen clutched like an anchor.

“Beautiful as always,” whispered a maid as he passed. “I don’t know how he does it.”

Giyuu didn’t answer.

Not because he couldn’t.

But because some things were easier left unsaid.

Because some things, once spoken, shattered.

And he had been shattered enough.

By the time Giyuu turned seventeen, the name he no longer spoke—if he ever truly had—had become something whispered behind lacquered screens and delicate fans edged in gold. It was not Giyuu they murmured, not even the silent boy, not anymore. He had long since ceased being a curiosity, ceased being a trainee. He had become legend wrapped in human skin. They called him Tama , the fox courtesan, the spirit of sorrow made beautiful. They called him myth and moonlight, and when they did, it was not with reverence, but with hunger.

He lived like mist, slipping through hands before anyone could hold him. Men from the southern coasts, from the capital, from nameless northern provinces all came bearing gifts and names and blood-heavy coin purses. They entered the house like pilgrims, bowing before his door, whispering their desires to the silk curtain as though praying to a god. And when the curtain pulled back and they saw him in full—the painted lashes, the lips stained soft as plum blossoms, the long dark hair pinned and trailing down his back—they always paused. Just for a second. Just long enough for their fantasies to fall silent beneath the weight of his presence.

He did not speak. He didn’t need to. That was part of his mystery, part of his value. He had been taught—no, sculpted —into something beyond a person. Every gesture was choreographed. He did not walk; he glided . His hands poured wine with the grace of poetry. When he sat, it was as though he were folding into the world, not merely the cushion beneath him. His laugh, soundless as it was, fluttered behind closed fans, practiced and perfect, always delivered in three soft breaths and a downward glance. He could listen to a man unravel his soul and never offer more than a slow blink. That was enough to keep them coming back. That, and the unshakable illusion that he might one day touch them with more than just fingertips and duty.

“You’re not real,” one man whispered to him once, breath sweet with rice wine and longing. His fingers ghosted along Giyuu’s cheek, hesitant but yearning. “You’re a spell someone cast to make me forget the world.”

Giyuu tilted his head, let his lashes lower just so, lips parted slightly as if considering a reply.

But he said nothing. He never did.

Sometimes they begged—on their knees, in their cups, on the polished floor of his room—crying for affection, for kindness, for a word. One syllable, they’d say. Just one. Say my name. He never did. Others tried to force the matter—hands too bold, breath too close—but the madam ensured her fox was never marred. The house protected its most treasured illusion. They were allowed to look. Sometimes, if they paid enough, they were allowed to touch. But Giyuu never flinched. Not even when their fingers trembled against the skin of his back, trying to memorize something that was never really theirs.

He had learned long ago not to think of his body as a home. It was a mask. A tool. A beautiful cage he carried with grace. There was no self here, no Giyuu , no boy who once braided flowers at his sister’s side. That boy had died with the sound of a scream behind a closed door. All that remained was Tama—the courtesan with foxfire eyes and no voice. Tama, the myth.

Even the other courtesans had stopped calling him by his name. They treated him like a spirit drifting among them, untouchable, enviable, cursed. He did not join their laughter behind the bathhouse screen or linger in the shared halls. He returned to his room when dismissed and left only when summoned. He ate little, slept less. Some nights, he stood before the mirror and tried to see what others saw. Tried to find the person beneath the paint and the perfume.

But all he ever found was the mask.
And silence.

The madam loved him for that.

“Men like the mystery,” she once told him, tightening the obi around his waist. Her fingers were swift and precise, her breath scented with incense and sharp wine. “They come here to pretend. And you— you , my little fox—you make them believe.”

He didn’t answer, didn’t nod. But his eyes met hers in the mirror, just long enough. That was all she needed.

“Tama,” she sighed, brushing down the silk at his hip. “Perfect as ever.”

Yes. Perfect.

Because he didn’t know how to be anything else.
Because he couldn’t.
Because to be imperfect meant remembering.
And to remember meant breaking apart.

And there was no place left for broken things here.

`

`

`

The night was like many before it—perfumed with incense, thick with the heat of too many bodies and too much sake. The laughter that rolled through the halls was hollow, edged in desperation. Silk rustled with every movement behind the paper walls, the scent of sweat and plum wine drifting through the corridors like ghosts left to linger. Giyuu’s steps were measured, practiced, soft against the polished wood floor. He moved like water, like wind, like something half-real, no longer tethered fully to the world he walked through.

His last client of the evening had been a retired official—a man whose mouth trembled when he smiled and whose hands trembled worse. He had clung to Giyuu’s sleeve with shaking fingers, weeping softly about a lover lost to war decades ago. His breath had reeked of fermented rice, and his tears soaked the front of Giyuu’s robe. Somewhere between the second and third cup of wine, he had asked Giyuu to sing. “Please… even just a note. Just one…” he had murmured, his eyes unfocused, clinging to an image he thought Giyuu could bring back.

Giyuu had said nothing. Of course he hadn’t.
He never did.

Instead, he had tilted his head slightly, the practiced expression of apology blooming soft over his features like a plum blossom in snow. The old man had leaned in then, pressed a trembling kiss to Giyuu’s jaw—wet, sour, unwanted.

“Your silence is sweeter than any song,” he whispered, voice crumbling. “Sweeter than anything I've heard since she died.”

When Giyuu pulled away—gracefully, without sound—he waited until he was past the curtain to wipe his mouth with the inside of his sleeve. The warmth of the kiss lingered like rot.

Outside the client’s room, the brothel was quieter. Candles burned low. The madam’s voice echoed faintly from deeper within, issuing orders, laughter peeling from a cluster of younger girls seated at the edge of the main hall. Giyuu didn’t pause to listen. He moved down the corridor, shoulders barely shifting, and slipped out the side door into the courtyard.

The sky was thick with smoke and haze. Lanterns hung like low moons above the eaves, casting the flagstones in shifting red and gold. The stars were a memory, blurred behind the lanternlight and lingering incense. Giyuu’s footsteps slowed as he crossed the courtyard, heading toward the back gate. His limbs felt heavy. The wine’s scent clung to his sleeves. The taste of the old man’s kiss still burned like vinegar on his skin.

And then he heard it.

Shouting.

At first, it was nothing. Laughter too loud, a bottle breaking, the typical noises that filtered through the pleasure district once enough coin had changed hands. He almost kept walking.

But then came the slap.
A sharp, unmistakable sound.
Followed by a child’s cry.
Then the crash of pottery.
And a voice— slurred, coarse, dangerous.

“Stupid little bitch—! Think you’re better than me? Huh? You filthy—”

Giyuu stopped in his tracks.

He turned without thinking, head snapping toward the narrow alley behind the brothel. The shadows were long there, the lanterns not quite reaching. But he could see—vivid and awful.

A girl, no more than twelve, crumpled against the wall. Her lower lip was split clean down the middle, blood streaking her chin. One sandal was missing. Her hair had come undone, a pin snapped and tangled in the knots. And above her, towering and swaying, was a man—his robe unfastened, his face red and slick with sweat. In his hand, glinting beneath the moon’s breath, was a small blade. Too short to be deadly. But sharp enough to leave scars. Sharp enough to silence her forever.

Giyuu did not think.

He moved.

One step. Two. Like crossing a threshold. Like stepping into fire if the scream was loud enough. The blade came down—*

And he was there.

The steel slashed across his cheek—clean, burning, deep. From the corner of his eye to the curve of his jaw. The pain exploded in white heat. It should have dropped him.

But he didn’t cry out.
Didn’t even draw breath.
He just stood.
Blood ran hot down his face, warm and relentless, soaking into the high collar of his robe. His vision swam slightly. But he stayed upright.

The man blinked. Stared. Took a step back. He hadn’t meant to hurt him. Hadn’t expected the ghost-boy, the silent fox, to intervene. No one ever did. They all knew better. Knew to stay beautiful and distant and untouched.

But Giyuu was there. Unmoving. Bleeding. His eyes—glass-dark and unreadable—stared at the man like a mirror polished with sorrow.

Behind him, the girl whimpered, then scrambled to her feet. She pressed herself against the alley wall, staring at Giyuu with wide, stunned eyes. Her breath came in wet gasps. She clutched at her torn sleeve, as if afraid to move, as if she couldn’t believe she’d been saved.

The man lowered the knife, suddenly aware of the weight in his hand. Of the blood on the blade. His eyes flicked to Giyuu again.

And still— no words.

No scream.
No accusation.
Just that silence. And the blood.

“You—you crazy little shit—” he stammered, trying to square his shoulders. “You think you’re better than me? You don’t even talk! You’re nothing—just some fucking pretty face—some—”

He took a step forward.

So did Giyuu.

That was enough.

The man froze. He looked into Giyuu’s eyes and found nothing there. No fear. No plea. No fury. Just emptiness so profound, so endless, it felt like standing at the edge of a cliff.

Then he dropped the blade.

And ran.

No one followed.

Giyuu stood there for a long moment, breath steady despite the pulsing sting of the wound. He reached up, fingers brushing the cut, and came away wet with red. It dripped onto the ground, thick and slow.

Behind him, the girl’s voice shook. “T-Tama-san…?”

He turned slightly, just enough to look at her from the corner of his eye. She flinched, but then stepped forward. Small, scared, but brave enough to reach out and touch his sleeve.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Giyuu said nothing. He reached into his sleeve, pulled free a soft handkerchief embroidered in pale gold, and handed it to her. She blinked at it, then clutched it like a lifeline.

When Madame Ao arrived, the hush in the courtyard deepened into something unnatural.

Giyuu was still standing.

The girl clung to the hem of his robe like a lifeline, her small fingers twisted in the silk, but he didn’t look at her. Didn’t touch her. His arms hung slack at his sides, his hands stained red where blood had dripped from his face, coating his pale fingers. His entire left cheek glistened wet in the lantern light, the cut weeping fresh blood with every beat of his heart. The fabric of his outer robe was soaked, stuck to the curve of his throat, the collar already stiff with dried crimson. He looked like a painting in watercolors left out in the rain—bleeding, blurred, still somehow too lovely.

Madame Ao stopped in the doorway, flanked by two guards and a younger attendant. She didn’t speak at first. Her eyes flicked once—left to right—sweeping over the scene with a predator’s precision. The shattered ceramic bowl in the alley. The discarded blade. The child’s swollen lip, the torn collar of her robe. And Giyuu, covered in blood, not weeping, not shaking. Just still.

Still, and somehow louder than any scream.

Her gaze settled on him and didn’t move.

“Bring him inside,” she said, her voice like a blade sheathed in ice. “Now.”

Not a whisper of concern. No gasp. No questions.

The girl tried to speak—“Madam, he—he saved me, the man had a—he was going to—” but Madame Ao cut her off with a flick of her hand, elegant and final.

“No tears here,” she said coolly, turning on her heel. “We’ll handle it indoors.”

Two attendants came forward, hesitating as they approached Giyuu. One reached for his arm. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t react at all. He let them lead him toward the back entrance, feet dragging just slightly against the floor as though his body had finally remembered its weight. The girl tried to follow, but the guards blocked her path.

“Back to your room,” one said firmly. “You’ll be summoned if needed.”

Her eyes filled with tears, but she obeyed. She looked once more toward Giyuu’s back as he disappeared into the house, then vanished into the shadows without a sound.

In the inner rooms, Giyuu was made to sit on a raised platform, half-naked beneath the lamplight, while the house’s medic—a former nursemaid turned beautician—tended to him with shaking hands. The cut was angry, swollen, already beginning to welt.

“Sake,” Madame Ao instructed.

One of the attendants brought a steaming cloth soaked in alcohol. The medic pressed it to the wound.

Giyuu didn’t make a sound. Didn’t blink. His breathing remained slow, shallow, even as the sting began to burn through skin and down to bone.

“You should’ve ducked,” Madame Ao said, standing off to the side with her arms crossed, her voice clipped and distant. “You’re trained better than that. You were told what to do. What not to do.”

She didn’t look at him. Not directly. She stared at his face in the mirror instead, her expression unreadable.

“It wasn’t his fault,” the medic mumbled, trying not to meet her gaze. “He—he protected the girl.”

“She’s barely worth five ryō ,” Madame Ao scoffed, letting the archaic word roll off her tongue like dust from a forgotten age. She looked right at Giyuu, “And you? You were worth fifty. Until tonight.”

Silence followed. No one dared speak further.

The medic finished cleaning the wound and began wrapping it in a long strip of gauze, careful not to press too hard. The blood had slowed, but the edges of the gash were deep. It would scar. That was certain.

As the dressing was tied off, Giyuu’s eyes—hollow and faraway—drifted to the mirror.

For a moment, he didn’t recognize what he saw.

The face was wrong. Off-balance. Red and white. Swollen and scraped. Something inside him went still.

He’d always been beautiful. Always immaculate. He had been sculpted, honed, painted—trained to be flawless. Not human. Product. Now the line across his face made him real. Broken. Vulnerable.

He should have felt shame. Should have begged.

But instead, he looked away from the mirror and lifted his gaze to Madame Ao.

And for the first time in years— years —he met her eyes.

She froze.

There was no fear in his expression. No apology. Only a quiet, flickering thing that burned behind the dark of his gaze.

Not pain. Not regret.

A plea.

Not for mercy, nor for forgiveness.
Just for her to see.

That he knew exactly what he’d done.
That he knew what it would cost him.
That he had chosen it anyway.

Their eyes locked—hers sharp, calculating, furious. His soft, but steady.

And in that moment, something wordless passed between them. Something bitter.

She turned away first.

“Clean him up,” she said. “Restyle the hair. New silks. He sees no one for a week.”

“But madam,” one of the attendants spoke nervously, “the Governor’s son—he requested Tama-sama personally—”

“He’ll wait,” Ao snapped, not looking back. “Or he’ll choose another. If he has sense, he’ll want one with an unmarked face.”

“But his name—his reputation—”

“Will change,” she cut in coldly. “Tama is dead.”

Everyone went still.

Even Giyuu.

Ao walked toward the doorway. Just before stepping through it, she paused. Without turning around, she said,

“You made a choice. Remember that.”

And then she was gone.

The room remained silent.

No one dared speak.

Giyuu sat quietly as the blood was wiped from his jaw and new robes were draped across his shoulders. The scent of sake lingered in the air, clashing with the perfume soaked into his sleeves. The gauze pulled slightly when he turned his head.

His reflection stared back at him in the mirror—no longer the fox spirit. No longer perfect.

Just a boy with a scar.
A boy who chose to bleed.
A boy who, for the first time, did not regret it.

The bandage itched.

Not at first—at first, there was only the raw sting of alcohol as it licked across torn skin, the bite of it sharp enough to make the back of his throat tighten. Then came the slow pull of the needle, thread tugging flesh where the dagger had ripped from brow to cheekbone, uneven and vicious. The beautician worked without speaking, her hands deft, steady, and impersonal. Her touch was practiced, not tender—but not unkind either. She held his face like one would hold a doll with a cracked porcelain jaw: not out of care, but to keep it from crumbling.

The blade had missed the eye.

Barely.

But when Giyuu blinked, the world refused to return to him.

His left eye showed nothing but a murky wash of shadow and red. He blinked again, slower, as if coaxing clarity out of the blur, but there was only the sting of dried blood pulling at his lashes, and the throb beneath the lid—a deep, wet sort of ache, like something swelling behind the bone.

The cloth was pressed tight. Too tight, maybe. Or maybe not enough.

“You may never see right from it again,” the healer muttered. Her voice was low and thoughtful, as if she were speaking to the wound itself, not the boy it belonged to. “The damage is deep. The lid will scar. The nerves may not recover.”

Still, he said nothing.

Not because he had nothing to say.

But because pain was a language he’d grown fluent in. Sharp aches and dull throbs. Fevered shivers and phantom burns. He knew how to hold it, how to cradle it inside like a second heart—louder, crueler, but just as steady. It pulsed beneath the bandage. It whispered behind the blur. It told him what he already knew.

He had deserved this.

The beautician’s fingers paused as if waiting for something. A question. A cry. A single shudder of protest. But he gave her none.

“…You’re very quiet,” she said at last, tying the ends of the cloth at the back of his head. “Most boys scream. You didn’t even flinch.”

He blinked again, slow.

She hesitated. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” he said simply, voice soft, hollow, and hoarse from disuse.

She seemed surprised he’d spoken at all. “You should rest. The swelling will get worse before it gets better.”

Giyuu didn’t move. He hadn’t moved since they’d brought him here—half-carried, half-dragged, trailing blood across the tatami like ink on parchment. His knees still ached from where he’d knelt for hours before they found him, head bowed, body still, the blade that had cut him already cleaned and returned to its sheath.

No punishment. No scolding. Just bandages.

Just silence.

“Someone will bring you tea,” the beautician said. “Don’t touch the bandage.”

She left him sitting there in the pale, clean quiet of the treatment room, the door closing with a soft click behind her.

That night, the hallway outside his room was too quiet.

No footsteps echoed across the polished wood. No whisper of silks brushing against papered walls. No perfume drifted through the air like usual—jasmine, yuzu, camellia. The entire okiya had fallen into a hush so absolute it seemed staged, like the breathless pause before a blade’s swing. No clients approached. No courtesans passed by in laughter. No one brought his evening tea. No one tapped softly at his door with a tray of rice or plums.

He had become invisible in the place that had once gilded and sold him to be seen.

“Remain in your quarters,” the servant had said earlier, eyes cast downward, voice barely audible.

That was all. No elaboration. No comforting pretense of concern. Just orders.

But he already knew.

The room was spotless. Cold in its cleanliness. The tatami had been replaced. The scentless candles were newly set. His kiseru had been taken away. The crimson lacquer of his vanity gleamed, untouched. His makeup brushes had been laid out in their usual line—powder, coal, rouge, wax—but they may as well have been someone else’s tools.

His comb lay beside his shamisen.

Both untouched. Both pristine.

Giyuu did not reach for them. He didn’t move from the mat, still and upright like an offering left behind. One side of his face was wrapped in fresh cloth, clean and tight. The other, still bruised from earlier—purple blooming over cheekbone and jaw. His left eye, though not entirely blinded, now saw through a blur of blood and haze, darkness clawing at the edges like rot.

He welcomed the pain. It was all that was his.

And then, without warning, the door slid open.

No knock. No name announced. No permission asked.

Madam Ao stepped inside like a specter summoned by silence. She was draped in crimson tonight—deep, slick, vivid. The sleeves of her robe trailed like blood down her arms, and her face, though painted, looked gaunt beneath the layer of powder. She did not speak.

She didn’t have to.

Her gaze raked the room slowly, methodically. The basin, pink water still tinged with blood. The towel—soaked and folded. His posture, too still. Too composed. It offended her. Her lip curled.

She clicked her tongue.

“Do you understand what you’ve done?” she asked finally. Her voice was quiet, but sharp, like a silk fan hiding a dagger.

She stepped forward, one slipper dragging slightly across the tatami, slow as a predator circling prey.

“You ruined the very thing I paid for.”

Giyuu said nothing.

She stepped closer.

“They didn’t pay for your thoughts,” she spat. “Not your little poems. Not your miserable silences.” She let out a brittle laugh that didn’t touch her eyes. “They paid for your face. Your body. Your image . And now?”

She paused in front of him. Her shadow cut through the candlelight.

“Now you’ve lost the only thing that ever made you worth something.”

Still, Giyuu said nothing. Not even a flicker of reaction passed over his features. The room was too quiet. The stillness between them stretched so taut it could snap.

The madam’s eye twitched.

“You think anyone wants that now?” she snapped, hand gesturing vaguely toward the white cloth around his eye. “That scar? That disfigurement? You think the noble sons will whisper about you the way they used to? You think they’ll bring offerings and silks and gold coins for this ?”

The silence was too much.

She snapped.

Her hand flew before he could brace—and the slap cracked through the room like a whip. Giyuu’s head turned violently with the force, hair spilling over his shoulder, the taste of iron blooming on his tongue. He blinked slowly, dazed, though his expression did not break.

Another slap—harder, meaner, laced with frustration more than fury. She wasn’t satisfied with silence. She wanted collapse.

Her hands tangled into his hair then, fingers twisting hard, yanking his head back. She hauled him upward like a puppet, his spine arching painfully with the force of it. He did not cry out.

She dragged him to the mirror.

His knees scraped across the mat as she pulled him forward, cruel and graceless. The vanity loomed up before them—his own face framed in lacquered wood and candlelight. She forced his head up, knuckles biting into his scalp, and made him look .

“Open your eyes.”

He refused.

Her grip tightened.

“Open them!”

He did.

And there he was—bruised, battered, bandaged. The cloth around his left eye stained faintly pink where it met the cheekbone. His lips, chapped. A deep mar along his temple, curling down like a branch of lightning. His hair, half-tied, half-loose, falling uneven. He looked like a ghost caught between lives.

“ Look at what you’ve become, ” she hissed, venom dripping. “This is what happens when you forget your place.”

She shook him by the hair like a dog.

“This is what you are now. Damaged. Worthless. A ruined toy.”

His throat moved.

No words.

Just breath.

Shallow. Measured.

She let go abruptly, and he collapsed to his hands and knees, strands of hair falling like spilled ink over his face.

“You will not appear in public again. No lantern feasts. No ceremonies. No dances. No performances,” she declared, each sentence like a nail in a coffin.

“You will entertain only those who ask for what no one else wants. The men who pay to own things already broken.”

Her tone soured, laced with disgust.

“I’ll sell what’s left of you to someone very specific.”

She turned, robes whispering behind her like water slipping through cracks in stone.

“And when I do,” she said over her shoulder, “they won’t care about scars. They’ll want silence. And obedience. And pain. ”

The door shut with a finality that echoed.

Giyuu remained on the floor, shoulders rising and falling with slow, deliberate breath. His reflection stared back from the mirror, distant and alien, as if he were already fading from the world.

And still—he said nothing.

Giyuu stayed on the floor far longer than he meant to.

The wooden planks beneath him were cold, but not enough to soothe the burn behind his eye. The pain pulsed like a heartbeat—sharp and rhythmic, as if someone had carved a second pulse beneath his skin. Sometimes it was fire, flaring hot behind the bandage and making his skull feel too tight. Other times it was a dull, glacial throb that sank down into his teeth, made his vision blur, made the world tilt. He didn’t try to move. Didn’t even try to breathe deeply. The air was sharp in his nose, sour with old perfume and blood.

His fingers drifted to his face—slow, hesitant. He touched the bandage where it crossed his temple and pressed lightly. Damp. Warm. Not just blood.

Tears.
He hadn’t realized.

His throat tightened. His face didn’t change. His eyes, or rather, eye , stared blankly at the far wall. He didn’t sob. Didn’t shake. The tears came quiet, aimless. Not for pain. Not for fear. But for something heavier. Something that rotted in his stomach and soured his tongue. Something shapeless. Guilt, maybe. Or memory.

He curled his knees to his chest and leaned against the wall. The slap still echoed in the skin of his cheek, dull and hot. Not even the worst he’d been given, but somehow it lingered more than most.

The girl.

He thought about her—the one he’d stepped in front of. Small. Barely into her role. He hadn’t even known her name. She hadn’t spoken to him. But she had been so afraid.

And he had moved.

He didn’t remember choosing to. His body had simply gone , like instinct—an echo of a life long past, when protecting others was something that mattered. When his hands had still shaken with kindness. Before obedience became survival.

He wondered if she was all right. If the man who raised his hand at her found another outlet. If she cried. If she had been scolded for showing fear. Or if, maybe, someone else had stepped between her and the blow.

Maybe that was all it took.
One movement.
One fool willing to take it.

And maybe… maybe he had wanted to bleed.

Because part of him believed he deserved it. For living when she hadn’t. For staying quiet. For not running, not fighting, not screaming. For hiding in a wardrobe, clutching a robe to his mouth to silence his sobs, while his sister was torn apart only feet away. For every step he’d taken since then.

Because he always moved.

And he never learned.

`

`

`

Time didn’t pass cleanly. It dragged like a torn kimono sleeve through mud—wet, heavy, and slow to lift. The hours didn’t tick or turn; they congealed. Mornings and nights tangled into one endless dusk, muted by shoji screens and stale incense smoke. Days bled into each other with no rhythm, no distinction. The soft click of a door sliding shut behind him, the distant murmur of a bell, the cool press of damp cloth on split skin—none of it marked time anymore. He could have been there a week. Or a year. Or a century. He had stopped counting.

At first, the punishment felt almost symbolic. A formality. A warning with polish. He was stripped of status, not flesh—at least not yet. The front parlor was forbidden to him. He wasn’t allowed to paint his face or pluck the strings of the koto. His calligraphy brushes were removed. His wardrobe chest locked. The silk uchikake he used to wear for formal recitations, stitched with cranes and waves, was taken and never returned. He had shamed the house, the madam had said. Even if he’d been the one bleeding.

But weeks passed. Then months. The silence never lifted.

The kimonos came next. The vibrant layers of brocade and the scent of fresh camellias gave way to dull cotton and mildew. His sleeves no longer brushed the floor when he bowed. He wore what the servants wore—undyed cloth, stiff with wear. His tabi were no longer changed. His hair, once combed daily with camellia oil and tied with colored ribbon, now hung limp around his face, sometimes brushed but never pinned. He no longer saw the lantern-lit corridors or heard the teasing laughter from the high rooms. He was not bathed in perfume or praise anymore.

He was housed in the back now. Behind the servants' quarters, where the air smelled of wet straw and cooling coals. The floorboards creaked more. The walls were thinner. The light colder. They hadn’t said it aloud, but he understood. He had become a thing to be hidden.

A stain.

A ghost wrapped in expensive shame.

And then came the summons.

They always came at night. Always from someone else’s mouth. “You’re requested.” “He’s waiting.” “Don’t take too long.” And he went. Silent, barefoot, eyes low. The rooms were different now—smaller, colder, with no paintings on the walls. No scent of incense. No music. Just the stale reek of sake, smoke, and sweat. The men didn’t speak much. Not to him. Never to him.

They didn’t want elegance. They didn’t want flirtation or wit or veiled metaphors beneath candlelight. They didn’t want the slow dance of conversation and longing he’d once mastered. They wanted something faceless. Wordless. Soft and pliant. They wanted a body that would not talk back, would not shake, would not matter.

And Giyuu… Giyuu had become very good at being still.

He didn’t resist. Not that he ever could have. But now he didn’t resist even in his mind. He floated somewhere above himself, dissociating with the grace of someone long-practiced in leaving. He left his body in those rooms—left it for them to bruise and use and bury beneath their moans. The weight of them pressing him into the futon. The rough heat of their palms. The rasp of their breath. Sometimes they whispered things into his ear—things he couldn’t remember by morning. Sometimes they didn’t bother pretending he was anything but what he was now. A hole. A silence.

He remembered the first time—how it tore. How the shame of being taken , not touched, had curled in his gut like a rotting flower. There was no ceremony. No soft kisses. No perfume or poetry. Just a hand, a grip, a muttered command. And after, the ache between his thighs, the wetness that wasn’t his. His petals weren’t scattered. They were crushed under a heel.

They had not claimed him like a lover.

They had harvested him like something wild and unwilling.

There were nights when they didn’t care if he bled. Nights when his wrists ached from how they held him down, or when teeth left marks that lingered days. Sometimes their hands wrapped around his throat—not hard enough to kill, but enough to remind him. Enough to make his head spin. His pulse throbbed in his ears when they did it. He learned not to react. To relax into the choke. They liked it better that way.

He bit the inside of his cheek until it tore, again and again, blood pooling on his tongue. A ritual. A distraction. Something real. Because if he didn’t taste it, he might forget he was still in a body. Still tethered to this skin.

He stopped crying a long time ago.

Crying made it worse.

The last time he did, the client had smiled. Cupped his chin and said, “Pretty when you cry. Do it again.”

After that, he didn’t cry anymore.

He didn’t scream. He didn’t beg. He didn’t move unless guided.

Sometimes he thought if he just stayed still long enough—if he played dead thoroughly enough—they would stop. That one night, he’d be summoned and find the room empty. That the silence would hold. But it never did.

And afterward, when they left him there—sprawled on twisted sheets, bruised and hollow and still—he never moved right away. He would stare up at the ceiling, ribs rising in slow, deliberate breaths, as if remembering how lungs worked. As if checking if he’d died and missed it.

His body had become a ruin of bruises and phantom aches. His voice, unused, felt fragile in his throat. He barely used it. No one asked him to.

During the day, no one looked at him. Not the maids. Not the other courtesans. They passed him like smoke in the corridor—something that could choke if acknowledged. He had become a haunted room with legs. His existence an uncomfortable echo of something no one wanted to face.

But he didn’t mind. Not anymore.

It was easier this way.

To fade. To shrink. To rot in silence.

To disappear.

Sometimes, he caught his reflection.

Not often. But sometimes.

In the rippling basin water, darkened with rose-tinted hibiscus and a drop of scented oil. In the sheen of a polished floor, so clean it gleamed like still ice. In the passing shimmer of a lacquered tray, carried by a younger attendant with quick hands and eyes that never lingered. Always quick, always looking away. They were taught not to stare. Not at him.

And when he saw it—caught the glimpse of a shape that was supposed to be his—his breath would catch in his throat.

A boy stared back.

A boy with only one visible eye, the other wrapped carefully in fresh gauze, tucked behind his ear and tied with thread so white it looked like a funeral cloth. The bleeding had stopped days ago. Maybe longer. He wasn’t sure anymore. But the ache lingered—dull and pulsing at first, then sharp if he turned his head too fast, or if his fingers grazed too close to the bandage’s edge.

His lashes were curled, darkened with wax. His cheeks dusted with sakura-pink powder, lips brushed a muted coral. It was subtle—tasteful, Madame Ao insisted. Dignified. He looked expensive.

He looked beautiful .

And he hated it.

He hadn’t owned this body in years.

It had become something separate from him. A doll. A mask. A shrine to other people’s desires. Piece by piece, he had sold himself off—not with coin, but with silence.

The first time he bowed instead of screamed.
The first time he whispered “yes” when everything in him begged to say “no.”
The first time he smiled and let them touch him, laugh with him, praise him for things that felt like slow deaths.

He bled. He danced. He sang.
He let their hands rest too long on his skin.
He let them call him by names that didn’t belong to him.

Now, he didn’t even know what his name sounded like when spoken with care.
He didn’t recognize the shape of his face beneath the powder.
Didn’t know the sound of his voice unless it was trained, altered, smooth like smoke curling under a door.

The mirror didn’t show him anymore.

Not the boy he used to be.
Not the man he could have become.
Not the spirit who once sat on temple steps with daikon soup between his knees and his sister’s voice humming beside him.

There was nothing left.

Just a shade.
Just damaged goods, waiting to be sold off or buried.
And maybe, in this place, that was the point.

She came to him that night.

Madame Ao didn’t knock—she never did. The paper door creaked as it slid aside, and her shadow poured into the room like ink. Her perfume preceded her—jasmine and crushed sandalwood—and it always made the back of his throat tighten.

This time, she smiled.

And Giyuu felt his stomach turn.

“A nobleman,” she said, voice light and sweet like dripping syrup, as if she were commenting on the weather. She brushed nonexistent dust from her sleeve with slow, practiced fingers. Her robes were the shade of deep green jade, embroidered with golden cranes in flight. Her lips curved, but her eyes did not. “He’s seeking a fourth wife. Someone elegant. Quiet. Someone… well-trained.”

She let the words hang like perfume in the air, thick and hard to breathe through.

Giyuu didn’t speak.

She stepped closer. Her gaze raked over him—not lecherous, no. That would’ve been easier to stomach. This was clinical. Calculating. Like she was appraising fruit at a market and deciding how long it might last before it spoiled.

Her eyes flicked to the gauze covering his left eye.

“Won’t be much of a problem,” she murmured, almost to herself. 

Her fingers, long and pale, reached out as if to adjust a strand of hair that had fallen over his cheek. Giyuu flinched before he could stop himself. Barely a twitch—but she noticed. Her hand dropped back to her side.

She smiled again, thinner this time.

“You should feel honored,” she added. “A man of such high status—considering you. Even like this.”

Giyuu bowed his head slowly. It was the right response.

He didn’t say anything.

He never did.

That night, the silence in his room felt heavier than the darkness.

There were no visitors. No music from the outer halls. No whispers behind closed doors. He lay on his back, staring at the wooden ceiling beams, watching the shadows shift as the lantern outside flickered in the wind. His hands rested on his stomach, fingers splayed. He didn’t move them.

He imagined Tsutako’s voice. The soft, warm way she used to murmur to him as he fell asleep. The warmth of her hand on his brow. The rough cloth of her apron when she’d pull him close to her side. He remembered the way she used to gently scold him for sneaking plum candy from the storage jar, only to sneak him an extra one anyway.

He tried to remember his face then—his face before all of this.

Before rouge and rice powder. Before tea ceremonies and laughter that wasn’t real. Before he became what Madame Ao wanted him to be.

He couldn’t.

The image wouldn’t come. It slipped through his fingers like river water.

All he could see was what he was now—painted lips, powdered cheeks, curled lashes. A hollow eye. A bandaged void.

He didn’t even know the color of his natural lips anymore.
Didn’t remember how his voice sounded when it wasn’t wrapped in silk and restraint.
Didn’t remember the last time someone looked at him and saw him —not the illusion, not the body, not the product.

Somewhere, beneath the layers of quiet and obedience, a thought whispered.

If the nobleman wants silence... if he wants someone unseen, unheard...

Will I finally disappear completely?

He closed his one good eye.

And the world blinked out.

Chapter Text

The day before he was sold, the madam came to his room with a smile like oil on water—gleaming, unnatural, and impossible to grasp.

She did not knock. She never had. The sliding door rasped open with a sound like a blade being drawn, and she stepped in as though the floorboards still belonged to her, as though every breath in that room was still borrowed from her good graces. The scent of her perfume—sandalwood and crushed plum blossoms—preceded her like a warning bell. That, and the soft clack of her lacquered heels against the wooden floor.

Giyuu did not move.

He was seated as always—knees tucked beneath him, back straight, hands resting gently in his lap. The hem of his robe pooled neatly around him like ripples in still water, and the edge of a bandage peeked out from beneath his left sleeve, yellowed slightly at the edge with healing ointment. A paper lamp flickered low beside him, casting his features in amber shadow. His left eye—the clouded one—glimmered faintly beneath a curtain of dark hair.

The madam's fan snapped open with a flourish, and she pressed it lazily against her painted lips. Her eyes, heavily lined in kohl, wandered over the room with idle calculation—pausing on the low table, the untouched tea, the unopened letter folded beside a brush. Then her gaze landed on him, and the smile widened.

“Well,” she said lightly, a purr wrapped in silk. “Isn’t this a lucky day?”

Giyuu did not look up.

She didn’t wait for acknowledgment. She never needed it. His silence had long since become part of the decor, like the hanging scrolls and the dust in the corners she never bothered to have cleaned.

“You’ve finally earned your keep,” she went on, pacing leisurely across the tatami mats. The fan tapped against her palm with every few steps, rhythmic and deliberate. “A nobleman. A real one this time—not one of those lecherous half-drunken traders from the southern roads who think stuffing coin down a servant’s blouse makes them highborn.”

She let out a soft laugh, feigned and hollow. “No, no. This one’s different. Old money. Titled. Hosts foreign dignitaries and tea ceremonies for men whose names you wouldn’t even recognize. Always traveling. Always collecting… things.”

She glanced back at him then, tilting her head.

“And he wants one of the high courtesans.”

Her words hung in the air like incense smoke—thick, cloying, inescapable.

Still, Giyuu said nothing. His fingers flexed slightly in his lap, a ghost of motion. That was all.

She came closer, the scent of her perfume sharpening at the edges. Her voice dropped to something low and intimate, like a knife drawn across silk. “You’ll be presented as one, of course. One of the women. You’ve always blurred the lines so beautifully, haven’t you? Fragile. Quiet. Pretty in the way that hurts to look at. I’ve had the tailor adjust your ensemble—it’s exquisite. Layers of imported silk, phoenix threads, sapphires in the collar.”

She crouched beside him now, close enough that her shadow crossed his lap.

“Of course, we’ll need to be mindful of the… details,” she murmured, her eyes flicking to the faint curve of his chest. “But the right binding, the right folding, the right scent in your hair… it won’t matter in the end. He asked for obedience. Poise. Mystery. Not a mouthy little thing with an opinion.”

Her smile twisted then. “Which means you’re perfect.”

He flinched—barely. A twitch in the corner of his eye.

She noticed.

“Ah. There it is,” she whispered. “Still alive under all that ice.”

Her fan tapped the underside of his chin, urging his face upward. He resisted for only a moment, then allowed it—slowly, mechanically. His gaze did not meet hers.

“I’ve told the servants to ready you in the morning. You’ll be bathed. Waxed. Painted. We’ll cover that nasty scar with the finest powder I own. And that eye…” Her fan paused. “Well. Perhaps he’ll enjoy something a little… damaged. Men like to feel important. Like they’re rescuing something broken.”

She rose to her full height again, smoothing the front of her robes.

“You’ll smile when told. Bow when expected. Speak only if addressed. I don’t need to remind you, but—” she leaned against the doorway, one hand resting on the frame, “—you’re not a boy tonight. Not tomorrow either. Not ever again, if he decides to keep you.”

She lingered for just a second more, then added in a voice light as feathers but sharp as claws:
“Be good. Understand?”

Still no answer.

But she didn’t expect one.

The smile returned. Cold. Triumphant. Mocking.

“Good girl, ” she said, sweet and syrupy, letting the words sink in. “Better for all of us that way.”

Then she was gone. The door slid shut behind her with a finality that echoed like the click of a coffin lid.

And Giyuu stayed exactly where he was, back straight, hands knotted in the silk over his knees—knuckles white, breath shallow, his pulse thudding dimly behind his ears.

He stared at the floor, unblinking, as the silence swallowed him whole.

It was done.

There was no scream. No sob. No protest. Only the slow sinking of the self beneath a tide too strong to resist.

And somewhere behind his eyes, something old and cold and tired curled tighter into itself—learning, again, how to disappear.

`

`

`

They came for him at dawn.

The air was still heavy with the quiet breath of night—blue shadows clinging to the paper screens, the chill of the floor seeping through the thin mat beneath him. He hadn’t slept. He rarely did anymore. What use was sleep when the world only ever remade him into something new by morning?

The sliding door creaked open with the sound of resignation. There were three of them—two older attendants and a younger boy who looked barely of age. They moved like ghosts through the threshold, robed in muted hues, faces schooled into masks of perfect detachment. Not a word was spoken. Not a bow exchanged.

He stood before they could beckon.

He always did.

Their hands reached for him without hesitation. Familiar. Practiced. They untied the plain robe at his waist, letting it fall to the floor like shed skin. It barely made a sound. Then came the hands again—cool and firm—guiding him toward the inner chambers where a steaming bath waited, already prepared.

The water was too hot.

It stung when he stepped in, but he didn’t flinch. That part of him—the part that had once gasped, recoiled, shielded himself—had been carved away long ago.

The older woman scrubbed his back with a coarse cloth, her strokes mechanical and unyielding. Another poured water over his head in slow intervals, as if erasing him layer by layer. Fingers combed through his hair, slicking it with oils that smelled faintly of plum, something sharp like cedar, and something else—unfamiliar and bitter, like wilted roses ground into ash.

His limbs were lifted and turned, his hands stretched out so that oils could be worked into the skin until he gleamed like polished ivory. A foot was placed on his thigh to brace him as one woman scraped a knife against the pale down of his legs. He watched the blade move, catching the watery sunlight like a sliver of moon, and thought—not for the first time—how easy it would be to press his neck to it.

But he didn’t move.

Not even when the younger boy nicked his ankle and muttered an apology so soft it barely existed.

He was dried in silence. His arms raised. His hair towelled. His eyes dabbed. He did not meet their gazes. They didn’t offer them. That, too, was part of the ritual.

He only realized it was snowing when one of them opened a shutter to let in the daylight. Flurries drifted like ash over the garden, disappearing before they could settle.

He wondered if she had seen snow, that older girl. The one who’d worn this same ceremonial silk the last time it was brought out. The one who smiled too much, always hummed under her breath when she brushed her hair. The one who’d vanished before the morning bell.

Her room had been wiped clean before noon.

He had never learned her name.

They dressed him in silence, layer after layer. The first was a sheer underrobe, soft against the skin. Then another—pale lavender—woven with thread so fine it caught the light like mist. Then came the outer robe, bold and heavy with peony blossoms and cloud motifs, dyed in scarlet, crimson, and deep violet. Gold thread traced fire across the sleeves. It fit perfectly. Too perfectly. The way a coffin might.

“You’ve grown into it,” the elder attendant said under her breath. The only words spoken.

He did not answer.

A wide silk obi was wrapped tight around his waist, cinching the flatness of his chest into the illusion of something shapely. Padded panels slipped beneath the folds, pressed in place, bound with cords that hid beneath the outer layer. The robe's collar was adjusted to show the delicate notch of his collarbone, exposing just enough.

Then came the cosmetics.

He sat on a low stool while one of the women took a sponge to his face, dabbing thick powder across his forehead, cheeks, chin. The scar that ran down his left eye to his jaw was obscured with careful strokes, layered in cream and blush until it looked more like a faded birthmark—something gentle, something forgettable. Color was drawn down the curve of his cheekbone, meant to mimic the faint heat of a flustered smile. The cloudy eye was left untouched—just another flaw to be ignored.

Kohl lined his lids, dark and soft. A brush swept pigment over his mouth—no longer red, but the delicate plum hue worn by the eldest courtesans. The kind expected to serve silently, to keep secrets in their eyes.

Jewelry followed.

Long hair combed smooth, looped into a twisted knot. Gold pins slid into place, decorated with beads that clicked faintly with every movement. Fresh piercings glimmered red at the edges as earrings were slipped through them—dangling pieces of pearl and jade that brushed his jaw.

He inhaled sharply as a final perfume was pressed to his neck—floral, bitter, foreign. Not a scent he recognized. Not one that belonged to him.

None of it did.

And when the mirror was placed before him—polished bronze, too warped to show him clearly—he saw not himself, but a stranger.

She was beautiful. Composed. Elegant.

She didn’t speak.

Didn’t cry.

Didn’t ask where Giyuu had gone.

“Hold still,” one of them said, smoothing the folds of his robe one last time. “You’ll be summoned shortly.”

Another reached for his chin, tilting it slightly.

“Good. Lower your gaze when you bow. Let them see the lashes, not the eyes.”

He didn’t respond. He simply obeyed.

They stepped back.

They did not thank him. They did not smile. Their job was done.

And just like that, Giyuu ceased to exist.

In his place stood Tama —a name whispered years ago, selected from a list of gentle syllables meant to soothe. Tama, like a trinket. Like a pet. A jewel . A thing meant to be owned. 

Elegant. Obedient. Silent.

He stood motionless as the attendants filed out, the door sliding shut behind them. The rustle of their sleeves disappeared down the corridor like the closing lines of a funeral hymn.

The silence pressed in thick around him.

And for the first time, his hands trembled. Not from fear. Not from rage. But from the hollow truth of what it meant to be seen as beautiful.

Not a person. Not even a boy.

Just silk. Powder. Perfume.

Just a doll, dressed for purchase.

`

`

`

The parlor was warm. Almost too warm.

The heat came not just from the tall lanterns glowing like miniature suns along the lacquered walls, but from the way the air clung to skin—soft, perfumed, heavy with expectation. It smelled of polished wood, tea leaves, and a faint trace of lotus oil burned in a dish beside the entrance. The floor beneath Giyuu’s feet was smooth, unnaturally spotless, and it caught the gold of the lanternlight like a pond catching stars.

He stood behind the folding screen exactly as instructed—poised, unmoving, every inch of him arranged to be pleasing. Head bowed, shoulders relaxed, hands folded in front of his hips. His feet were bare, toes curled slightly into the rug. The kimono wrapped tightly around him was heavy with silk and scent, his earrings still throbbed faintly from the piercings, and the weight of the jewelry in his hair felt more like a crown of glass than decoration.

He had not asked who the buyer was.

He had not been told.

And he had not cared enough to ask.

They came and went, men with coins and preferences. Some liked dolls, some liked damage, some liked the illusion of obedience in a body built to be broken in private. He was what they asked him to be. Tama. Silent, composed, agreeable. A gentle shadow wearing borrowed beauty.

The doors at the far end slid open.

And the air shifted.

It was immediate, subtle in a way only bodies trained to anticipate could feel—like the moment before lightning hits, or the silence just before a bowstring is loosed. He heard the footsteps first, but more than that—he heard the voice.

It arrived with swagger.

“Is this the place?” the man said, loud and unabashed, voice rich and full of breath. There was a kind of humor in it, the casual tone of someone who found this all amusing. “Bit gaudy, but I guess that’s the point, right?”

Not drunken. Not slurred. Not breathless or glazed with lust like most of them.

He sounded…awake.

Madame Ao’s laugh answered him, a soft hiss wrapped in silk. “My lord Uzui,” she drawled, every syllable rehearsed. “We are deeply honored by your presence. Please, come in.”

Uzui.

The name cracked something dormant in Giyuu’s memory, but it was the voice that made his stomach tighten. He blinked once, slow and deliberate, even as the screen offered him shelter. His ears were trained on the footsteps crossing the polished floor—confident, uneven. Boots, not sandals. Heavy, solid.

Then he stepped into view.

Tengen Uzui didn’t enter the room so much as arrive, like thunder rolling over a calm field. He was tall. Broad in the shoulders. His skin was sun-warmed and smooth, and his white hair was tied back, glinting with ornaments—a jeweled band across his forehead caught the lanternlight and flared like fire. His clothes were dark and tailored, decorated just enough to be elegant but never delicate. He walked with a loose, rolling gait like someone who’d danced with danger often and learned to make it part of his rhythm.

He did not look like a noble.

He did not smell like one, either. He smelled faintly of steel and sweat and some sort of cologne—sharp citrus and something earthier, like leather warmed in sun.

Giyuu, still behind the screen, kept his head bowed.

He felt the air shift again. Felt the weight of a gaze that didn’t press, didn’t prod, but measured.

And then—

“Tama, my dear,” Madame Ao called softly, eyes glinting, voice laced with the syrupy pleasure of possession. “Come out.”

His limbs obeyed before his thoughts did.

He stepped from behind the screen on quiet feet, movements fluid and reverent. His sleeves brushed the air like falling petals. Chin dipped, eyes fixed just above the floorboards—not low enough to seem afraid, but far from proud.

He knew how to perform demureness.

He had been made to.

He heard it then—that slight pause in breath. The space between inhaling and speaking, caught not in awe, but something heavier. Curiosity, maybe. Or confusion.

A low voice followed, slower now, amused: “...That’s the one?”

Not mocking. Not cruel.

But not quite convinced either.

Silence pulsed between them like a slow drumbeat. Giyuu could feel the man’s gaze brushing across him—not ogling, not undressing him, but reading him, like a puzzle that didn’t fit the frame it had been placed in.

Then—

Tengen stepped closer. One step. Then two.

The sound of boots against wood, steady and sure.

He stopped a breath away. His presence filled the space like heat.

Giyuu didn’t lift his head.

He didn’t need to.

“…Are you alright?” Tengen asked.

The question dropped into the room like a stone in a still pool.

Giyuu froze.

The words weren’t sharp. They weren’t invasive. They were soft, almost casual, like they had no weight to them. But they landed heavily, all the same—because they were the first question he had been asked in weeks that hadn’t come with an expectation of performance.

He could not answer.

Even if he wanted to.

His lips parted slightly, but no sound followed.

Behind him, Madame Ao let out a fluttering laugh, light and practiced. “She’s shy,” she said, stepping in like a mother bird shielding her chick from scrutiny. “A rare trait these days. Reserved. Gentle. She won’t talk back. Hasn’t said a word in months.”

“She doesn’t speak?” Tengen asked, his gaze not leaving Giyuu.

“She’s been trained not to,” the madam said smoothly. “Silence suits her. A quiet flower. Elegant, untouched . The perfect ornament.”

Giyuu felt the bile rise in his throat, but swallowed it down with the same reflex that smothered all things in him.

“She,” the madam continued pointedly, “is yours, if you’ll have her.”

Another pause. He could hear the way the man shifted—something thoughtful about the rhythm of his breath.

“…How much?”

The question came low, unbothered.

The madam didn’t miss a beat. “Eighty gold mon,” she said sweetly, as though naming the cost of a rare vase or imported songbird. “A fair price for a beauty like her.”

Eighty.

Higher than any Giyuu had ever heard. Higher than he was worth. Higher than anyone in that house had ever been bought for.

She was testing him.

Tengen didn’t laugh. He didn’t scoff. He didn’t even blink.

Instead, he reached into the folds of his coat, pulled out a pouch, and placed it on the lacquered table without ceremony. The weight of it landed with a thunk.

He paid.

In full.

Without another word.

The room fell quiet. Even the madam looked surprised—her lips parting slightly, then snapping into a grin.

“Well then,” she said, folding her hands. “She’s yours.”

Tengen turned to Giyuu again. Not with hunger. Not with triumph.

But with something else.

Something Giyuu didn’t yet have a name for.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, gently. Then paused.

“…If that’s alright.”

And for the first time, Giyuu raised his eyes.

Just a little.

Enough to see the gleam of gold in the man’s gaze. Enough to wonder—cautiously, quietly—if perhaps he hadn’t been bought to be broken.

The final papers were signed with a flourish.

The brush in Madame Ao’s hand moved with slow, deliberate strokes, each character written as though she were savoring them. The silk of her sleeve rustled with each movement, perfumed and smug, her expression serene—but beneath it, her fingers trembled ever so slightly. Not with reluctance. Not with fear.

With triumph.

She had won.

She had dressed a boy in powdered blush and painted lips, buried a soul beneath ribbons and silk, and sold him off like a story someone else would get to rewrite. And now, as she sealed the parchment with the red ink of her stamp—her seal pressed with ceremonial care into the corner—she smiled in that thin, tight-lipped way she always did when money exchanged hands. When control changed forms.

Tengen Uzui said nothing.

He watched the transaction as one might watch a pot being poured—idly, without investment. He stood with his arms crossed, expression unreadable beneath the sharp angles of his features, the jeweled band at his forehead glinting faintly beneath the lanternlight. His posture was relaxed, but not careless. His gaze, when it flicked toward the table, did not flicker toward the boy who stood to the side.

Not once.

Giyuu did not expect him to.

He had learned long ago that the moment of purchase wasn’t about the person—it was about the prize. The performance of wealth. The thrill of acquisition. Giyuu, for his part, stood in silence with his hands folded before him and his shoulders set just slightly forward—soft enough to seem pliant, refined enough to suggest grace. A posture taught to him through repetition and reward. He had long since mastered the art of stillness.

He stood like an offering.

A doll in painted skin. A picture dressed in silence. An idea more than a person.

He felt the powder caked over his scar crack slightly as the warmth of the lanterns touched his face. Beneath it, the skin pulsed faintly. A reminder. That beneath the image, blood still moved. A body still lived.

But that body was not his. Not anymore.

It had never been.

Ownership, after all, was an illusion. Even before this house, before the makeup and the silence, he had belonged to others—his sister, the streets, the city’s hunger. The hands that pulled, shaped, discarded. He had never had the chance to belong to himself. There had never been space for that.

And now?

Now, he belonged to him.

To Tengen Uzui.

“My lord,” Madame Ao said, voice buttered in satisfaction as she rolled the scroll closed and offered it with both hands, “we thank you for your generous patronage. She—” her eyes flicked toward Giyuu, all painted fondness, “—will serve you well. She is quiet. Loyal. Perfectly preserved .”

Tengen took the scroll without comment.

He didn’t even look at her.

The madam didn’t mind. She didn’t need his attention. She had his money.

And Giyuu—

Giyuu was already out of her hands.

“Come, Tama,” she said sweetly, with a final tap of her fan. “Your new master waits.”

The title rolled down Giyuu’s spine like a drop of ice water. He stepped forward when expected. Each footfall was soundless. Measured. Not too fast—never eager. Not too slow—never disobedient.

His gaze remained low.

He did not try to meet Tengen’s eyes.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. Not now. Not ever.

Because he wasn’t being rescued.

He was being relocated.

As they stepped beyond the threshold, the door sliding shut behind them with a smooth, almost reverent click, the weight of the brothel fell away from his shoulders—but the chains remained.

The outside air was colder than he remembered. Sharp. Clean. Unfiltered by perfume and incense. It filled his lungs like glass and scraped along his ribs. The sky above was darkening toward evening, blue and gray clouds trailing behind the tips of distant rooftops. A cart waited at the edge of the road. Two white horses stood tethered, snorting in the cooling air.

Tengen moved ahead, slow but purposeful. He didn’t turn to Giyuu. Didn’t speak.

He hadn’t said a word to him since the papers were signed.

Giyuu walked behind, careful not to let the hem of his robes drag in the snow-dusted road.

And it was then, beneath the shifting shadows of the lanterns, that a sliver of moonlight caught the edge of his face—just enough to light the faint, imperfect curve of the scar beneath the powder. The mask had cracked.

And in that fragile fracture of silence, Giyuu realized something cold.

Something still.

To Tengen Uzui, he was just another mask.

Another performance. Another tool in a vast collection. Another costume, worn for spectacle, set aside when the show ended. It didn’t matter that he breathed. It didn’t matter that he had once bled in secret. It didn’t matter that his silence came not from serenity, but from fear.

Because masks weren’t supposed to speak.

They were meant to be worn. To be admired. To be used.

And if they broke—

They were meant to be replaced.

So Giyuu lowered his eyes, folded his hands neatly, and followed the man who now held his name on paper.

He did not ask where they were going.

He did not ask why.

Because dolls did not ask questions.

And masks did not speak.

Chapter Text

Snow had begun to fall again—slow and delicate, drifting like feathers from a burst pillow, weightless and white against the bruise-colored dusk. The sky hung low, choked with heavy clouds, as if the heavens themselves had taken a breath and held it. The sound of the brothel door closing behind them was quieter than expected. No slam. No finality. Just a soft click—unremarkable, but damning all the same.

Giyuu didn’t look back.

The walkway underfoot was unfamiliar. Strange stone. Strange air. Strange silence. The lanterns of the pleasure district were behind him now, flickering red like fevered eyes as they vanished one by one into the swirling veil of snow. He used to know those lights. Could trace their patterns with his eyes closed, each sway of silk and shadow a language of its own. But now they were distant. Now they were ghosts.

Perfume had been replaced by pine. Sake replaced by frost. The laughter, the music, the whispered exchanges—the scent of roasted chestnuts or incense leaking from the parlor walls—gone. Stripped away like the rings from his fingers, the combs from his hair, the name from his tongue.

They guided him like he was something fragile. Something that might break if held too tightly.

He didn’t resist.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t blink.

His steps were light, practiced. Measured in rhythm, not purpose. He walked not as Giyuu, not even as Tama, but as something in between. Something half-dead and half-sculpted, a doll carved from memory and silk. He only noticed the cold when it touched his face, when the snow caught in the loose strands of hair near his mouth and melted against his breath.

The carriage was dark, waiting. Private. The kind used for the treasured. Or the dangerous.

He was helped inside.

The door shut behind him.

And with it, the district—his prison, his stage, his entire existence for nearly a decade—disappeared.

But freedom did not rush in to take its place.

Freedom wasn’t the absence of walls.

It wasn’t snow.

It wasn’t silence.

It wasn’t the soft cushion beneath his legs or the subtle scent of cedar oil that perfumed the carriage’s wooden walls. He didn’t know what freedom was. Only that it hadn’t arrived with him.

He settled onto the seat the only way he knew how: knees tucked beneath him, thighs parallel, spine straight. Chin lowered. Hands folded just so. Eyes obediently trained on the embroidered hem of his sleeve. This was the body language of obedience, of refinement. Of survival.

He heard the madam’s words again, sharp and cold and cutting despite the lipstick that had glistened on her mouth.

“Once you leave the district, it doesn’t matter. But until then—stay quiet. Keep the image intact. Don’t ruin this for me, Tama.”

So he stayed still.

He stayed silent.

He stayed perfect .

Across from him, the man lounged like he belonged to another world entirely. Tengen Uzui. He didn’t sit so much as sprawl, one long leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee. His arm was slung over the backrest, cloak half-falling from his shoulder. Everything about him was loose and vibrant—an explosion of color and movement against Giyuu’s motionless quiet.

He was looking directly at him.

Of course he was.

“Damn,” Tengen exhaled, dragging one gloved hand down his jaw. “That madam really didn’t want to let you go, huh?”

His voice was warm—loud but not harsh. Confident but not mocking. Like someone used to commanding a room, used to having people listen.

“She kept her smile plastered on like it was painted in blood,” he added with a chuckle. “You see that? Eyes like poison. Real theatrical. Gotta admire it.”

Giyuu didn’t answer. Didn’t react. Didn’t flinch when Tengen shifted forward, elbows to knees, grin tilted sideways like he was trying to coax a reaction.

“Not the chatty type, huh? That’s fine. I can carry the conversation.”

Another pause, this one stretching longer. Tengen tilted his head, regarding him like something fascinating in a display case.

“I’m Uzui Tengen,” he said, as though starting over. “ I’m a Demon Slayer—a Hashira, which is basically a fancy way of saying I’m strong as hell. Flashy too. You’ll learn.”

Still, Giyuu did not lift his eyes.

“I’ve got three wives. They’re all completely different and completely insane, in the best way. Suma cries a lot. Makio yells a lot. Hinatsuru’s the only one with any brain cells left, and even she’s got her days.” He snorted at his own joke. “But they’re good. You’ll like them. They’re good at reading people. Better than I am.”

He waited again. Another beat. Another silence. Then, softer:

“They won’t hurt you.”

It wasn’t a promise. Not really. Not yet. But it wasn’t a lie either.

Tengen leaned back again, folding his arms behind his head as the carriage rocked gently over the stone road. The lantern outside threw bars of honey-colored light across Giyuu’s face. His painted lashes didn’t twitch. His lips remained closed. The blood-red lacquer on his bottom lip was smudged near the corner where he’d bit it earlier to keep from shaking.

He wasn’t cold.

He wasn’t warm either.

He was nothing. Half-man, half-mask. Still Tama, as long as this silk remained on his skin. The makeup hadn’t been wiped. His hair still held its careful shine. He wasn’t Giyuu. Not yet. He didn’t know how to be.

“Gods,” Tengen muttered, watching him. “They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”

Still no response.

“You know,” he said more gently, as the snow started coming down harder against the shaded windows, “You’re allowed to breathe, kid. You’re allowed to blink. I didn’t buy you to keep you caged.”

That word. Buy.

Giyuu’s fingers flexed once in his lap—barely a movement—but it was something.

Tengen caught it.

He leaned forward again, voice lowering just slightly. “Look. I’m not here to force anything. I just… I saw you. And I knew you didn’t belong there. That’s all. Whatever happens now, you call the shots. You wanna scream? Fine. You wanna sleep for a week? I’ll carry you inside myself.”

A flicker. A tremble in Giyuu’s lashes.

“But if you wanna talk,” Tengen added, gaze steady, “I’ll listen. No pressure. No rush. Just… you’re safe now.”

Safe.

He said it like it could be true.

Like it should be.

But Giyuu didn’t know what that word meant anymore. Didn’t know what it would take to believe it. All he knew was the tightness in his gut, the ache behind his eyes, the way his body remained locked in stillness like it didn’t trust the floor beneath it not to vanish.

He said nothing.

But for the first time since the carriage door had closed, he looked up.

Just briefly.

Just enough for Tengen to see him blink.

The first night passed like something half-dreamed.

Outside, snow danced in slow spirals against the glass—thin and soundless, as if the world beyond the carriage had been muffled in cotton. The lantern light inside had dimmed to a soft glow, golden and flickering. The only noise came from the occasional shift of the wheels over uneven stone or the faint creak of wood as the carriage swayed. Giyuu sat still through most of it, curled slightly into himself, his back straight but slouched just enough to suggest exhaustion. His hair, though pinned neatly, had begun to come loose near the nape, strands sticking to the side of his neck. The makeup had started to flake at the corners of his mouth.

Tengen had offered him food midway through the evening.

Not with ceremony. Not with insistence. Just a simple gesture—a tray set before him, with warm rice, miso, and sliced pear. Nothing rich. Nothing laced with wine or drugged sweetness. Plain food. Humble, even.

“You should eat,” Tengen said quietly, settling back into his seat with his own tray balanced casually on one thigh. “Carriages suck for digestion if you wait too long.”

Giyuu bowed his head before touching the bowl. Old habit. Automatic. He ate in small, measured bites—more from memory than hunger. He chewed slowly, then paused, then chewed again, as though each bite had to be negotiated with his body.

Tengen didn’t comment.

He simply talked. Not at him—but around him. Stories, observations, thoughts spoken into the space between them as if they were both standing beside a fire instead of locked in a moving box of velvet and polished wood.

He talked about the mountains they were passing through—how he used to run along rooftops there during missions. About how Hinatsuru used to sneak plum wine into the compound and pretend it was medicinal. About how Suma once cried for an hour because he tripped and scuffed his knee. About Makio breaking a practice dummy in half during a sparring match and then blaming the dummy for being weak.

His voice was loud, animated, almost theatrical. But not cruel. Not mocking. Not expectant.

Giyuu had known many voices like that. Voices that laughed while fingers pressed bruises into hips. Voices that promised kindness before turning sharp. He had learned long ago that smiles meant nothing. Warmth meant even less.

And yet…

Tengen never touched him.

Not once.

Not when Giyuu shifted too close to the wall. Not when he turned his face away. Not when he fell half-asleep sitting up, breath fogging the cold glass window.

Not even to adjust his hair.

He simply watched from the other side of the carriage, hands folded loosely in his lap, and let Giyuu drift into sleep with his face pressed to the wall and his body still wrapped in the armor of silk and silence.

It unsettled him.

More than pain would have.

He waited—rigid, heart aching—not for violence, but for inevitability. For the moment Tengen would finally say, Lie down. Or worse— You’re mine now, aren’t you?

But it never came.

“You’re easy to be around, you know?” Tengen said once, long after midnight, when he thought Giyuu was asleep. His voice had lost its humor, its edge, its performance. “Quiet doesn’t mean dull. Just means different.”

Giyuu had kept his eyes closed. Not because he feared being caught listening, but because he didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t understand what that meant. He didn’t believe it meant anything.

He dreamt of nothing that night.

Only silence.

Only snow.

The second night, the carriage came to a slow halt.

It was nearly dawn. The light was pale, bruised at the edges, with a faint rose-colored bleed where the clouds had thinned. Giyuu stirred as the wheels crunched over gravel, and for the first time since leaving the district, he let himself see .

The Uzui estate unfolded before them like something drawn from a painting—broad courtyards lined with flowering trees, eaves dusted with snow, the faint glow of lanterns tucked beneath the lip of the roof tiles. A long stone walkway stretched between rows of manicured hedges and bare-limbed cherry trees. Wind whispered through the branches. Somewhere, water trickled faintly through a bamboo spout.

Giyuu could smell plum blossoms.

Not heavy. Not artificial. Just real. Soft. Natural. The scent of untouched things.

It made his chest hurt.

The door opened.

A burst of cold air swept in.

Tengen stepped down first, boots crunching into the snow-laced gravel. He turned and looked back—not impatient, not commanding, just… waiting.

His arm extended, hand open. No demand in it. No pressure.

“Come on, Tama,” he said, voice low with something gentler than before. “This is home now.”

Home.

The word rang hollow in Giyuu’s ears.

His eyes dropped to the hand.

Then past it.

Without taking it, he rose. His legs were stiff from sitting too long. His joints ached beneath the silk. He stepped carefully onto the threshold of the carriage, then down onto the stones, the hem of his outer robe whispering against the path.

He didn’t stumble.

He didn’t lift his head.

His hands remained curled at his sides, fists half-formed in the delicate folds of his sleeves. Each breath felt like it scraped through cobwebs inside his ribs. His body remembered the madam’s rules. It moved as if still being watched.

Tengen fell into step beside him—but not too close. He said nothing more.

One cage was gone.

Another had opened its arms.

He didn’t feel free.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

The estate gates opened before them.

The Uzui estate was quiet when Giyuu first stepped through the wooden gate.

Not the kind of silence that pressed like a weight—like in the backrooms of the brothel, or in the hush that followed a client’s departure—but something gentler. Untouched. It breathed.

The wind slipped through the open latticework of the walls, lifting the scent of blooming plum and cedar. A bamboo chime clacked lazily somewhere above. The shoji doors creaked faintly in their rails as they opened under Tengen’s hand. Somewhere deeper inside, a kettle whistled. Not shrill. Not urgent. Just… part of the home.

No one came to greet them.

No girls in makeup, bowing low with smiles stretched too wide. No servants watching behind half-lowered eyes. No whispers about reputation or value or worth.

There was no recognition at all.

Giyuu didn’t mind.

He followed Tengen without a word, his silk sleeves gliding against his sides, the tips of his geta barely whispering across the polished floorboards. His eyes swept the halls without turning his head. Everything here was wooden, lacquered, and warm. Woven baskets, wall scrolls, calligraphy done in sweeping brushstrokes hung behind small altars of incense. Not decorative. Not performative. There was something deeply lived-in about this place. Not opulent, but… intimate.

It made his skin crawl.

There was no performance. No game. No illusion to pick apart and fold into pieces.

He was still waiting for the trap.

Something always came—someone demanding, someone cruel beneath perfume and praise, someone who reminded him of what he was. Of what he’d been.

But what came was not cruel.

It was loud.

“TENGEN!”

“Tengen-sama, you’re late!”

“You didn’t write—I thought you got eaten!”

The silence shattered like glass. Three women came barreling down the hallway in a storm of silk, long sleeves flaring and hair ribbons trailing behind them like streamers. One of them practically leapt onto him, another grabbed at his sleeve, and the third moved more gracefully—but no less quickly—as they crashed into Tengen’s frame all at once.

Giyuu flinched and stepped back on instinct, his shoulder nearly brushing the doorframe behind him.

Tengen stumbled a step under the impact, then let out a loud, theatrical laugh that rang off the beams.

“Miss me already?” he grinned, catching a flailing arm before it socked him in the chin. “How fortunate I’m flashy enough to survive the attack of three stunning kunoichi.”

“Tch,” said the first—sharp-eyed and brimming with fire. She jabbed him in the ribs with a practiced flick. “You’re lucky we didn’t move on without you.”

“You cried for two days,” said the second, her voice pitched in an exaggerated wail as she clung to his arm. Her eyes shimmered like she was ready to weep again.

“I was worried!” she insisted. “You didn’t even leave a note!”

“I said he’d be fine,” the third added calmly, tucking herself against his side with a kind of elegant finality. “But a letter would’ve been nice.”

Tengen dropped a kiss onto her hair. “Next time I’ll hire a flock of pigeons.”

“You’ll what ?” the loud one growled.

Giyuu blinked slowly.

He had seen women cling before—seen them beg for attention, posture for favor, hiss with envy behind painted lips. He had seen that dance a hundred times: veiled in sweetness, wrapped in desperation. But this…

This was something else entirely.

They didn’t cling. They collided . Teased. Interrupted. Argued and touched and tangled without hesitation. There was no competition in their voices. No backhanded barbs. No cutting glances, not even when they vied for the same hand.

They didn’t fight for Tengen’s love.

They shared it.

It was loud. Unfiltered. Almost overwhelming.

And impossibly foreign.

“Alright, alright,” Tengen chuckled, shaking off the last of their fluster with flair. “As tempting as this ambush is, we have a guest. Try not to scare her off.”

All three heads snapped toward Giyuu.

He stiffened, shoulders pulling taut under his layered robes.

“Tama,” Tengen said smoothly, voice warm and effortless, “these are my radiant wives—Makio, Suma, and Hinatsuru.”

Makio—the one who had jabbed him—narrowed her eyes, arms folded across her chest. “This is her?”

Suma gasped, eyes widening with genuine delight. “Oh, she’s gorgeous !”

Hinatsuru gave a slight, elegant bow. “Welcome to our home. Please forgive the noise.”

Giyuu dipped into a formal bow so fast it bordered on instinct, sleeves sliding down to cover his hands. His gaze stayed fixed on the floor, lips curling into the shape of a smile that did not reach his eyes.

It was automatic.

Polite. Hollow.

Makio arched a brow. “Shy, huh?”

“She’s so elegant,” Suma whispered, hands clasped to her chest like she’d just seen a flower bloom. “And she doesn’t talk. That’s so mysterious!”

Hinatsuru tilted her head slightly, though her voice remained serene. “Silence is not a flaw.”

Giyuu kept still.

He could feel their eyes on him. Not dissecting, not cruel, but curious. Open. It unsettled him more than scrutiny ever had.

Tengen patted Makio’s head like she might bite someone. “Don’t go biting the guests, Maki. It’s not what you think.”

Makio scoffed. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it.”

“Then stop reading my thoughts.”

“I didn’t bring her here to replace anyone,” Tengen added, and his tone dipped with something quieter, something serious beneath the dazzle. He glanced sideways, and for just a moment, his gaze softened on Giyuu. “She just… needs a place to be. Somewhere quiet. Trust me.”

Makio didn’t look convinced.

But she didn’t argue.

There was a tension in the air that ebbed instead of snapped. No cutting remarks. No sulking retreats.

Just breathing space.

Giyuu’s gaze flicked up, just enough to catch the way the three women hovered close to Tengen—not clinging, not competing, just… there. Steady. Unshaken by his absence. And unthreatened by someone new.

He had never seen that before.

He didn’t know what to make of it.

So, he bowed again. Not as deep this time. Just enough to acknowledge them. And let his sleeves fall back into place like a curtain.

It wasn’t fear that made his chest tight.

It was the ache of something he didn’t have a name for.

And somewhere deep in the estate, the kettle stopped whistling.

`

`

`

Dinner was warm.

Not in temperature alone, though the soup steamed gently in its clay bowl and the grilled fish crackled faintly as the oil settled. No—there was warmth in the way the room breathed. In the unceremonious arrangement of plates set askew across the low table. In the mismatched lacquerware that bore the nicks and stains of real use, not display. In the way no one waited for a signal to begin, or recited rote words, or bowed stiffly before eating.

They simply began.

Giyuu sat at the far end of the table, slightly removed—not out of rudeness, but out of habit. His back was straight, hands cradling the rice bowl delicately, movements small and precise. He brought the food to his lips slowly, chewing with care. He did not slurp the soup or dig in with relish. He did not ask for seconds. He did not speak.

No one asked him to.

He kept his eyes low. Not submissive, not afraid. Just… distanced. The kind of distance honed through repetition. Through survival.

The food was simple. Honest.

Rice, cooked just a little too firm. Miso soup that leaned far too salty. Pickled radish sliced unevenly, some pieces thicker than others. Grilled fish—charred at the edges, but tender beneath the skin.

It wasn’t beautiful. Not like the dishes he’d served in the brothel, all painstakingly lacquered and sculpted into little illusions. No golden trays. No floating flower petals or sugared fruits that looked too perfect to eat.

But this food filled the room with a richness that couldn’t be mimicked by appearance.

Because it was made by hand. Carelessly. Lovingly.

And that made it dangerous.

“Tengen likes it this way,” Suma insisted as she pushed more soup into his bowl, half-pouting, half-proud.

“You put in twice the miso again,” Hinatsuru said gently, smiling without malice. “His tongue’s going to shrivel off.”

“No, it won’t!” Suma puffed out her cheeks. “You’ll see. He always finishes mine.”

“Because Tengen will eat anything if he thinks it’s romantic,” Makio muttered, stabbing a piece of radish with her chopsticks like it had personally wronged her. “I once caught him eating raw squid because you said it reminded you of your first date.”

“It did! ” Suma wailed. “You’re just mad because he said my soup was comforting!”

“It was comforting like a punch to the kidneys!”

“It was warm! ”

Tengen chuckled, not even trying to mediate. He sat back, his wide shoulders taking up far more space than the seat allowed, arms thrown lazily over the backrest as though the bickering was a lullaby. “You’re all so energetic tonight,” he mused, letting a piece of fish slide off his chopsticks into his mouth. “Must be my radiant presence.”

Makio threw a crumpled napkin at him.

Suma wailed again.

Hinatsuru laughed into her sleeve.

Giyuu didn’t speak.

He ate slowly, methodically. Not because the food was unfamiliar, but because everything else was. The noise. The way their voices layered over each other without care. The way no one seemed afraid to take up space, to argue, to interrupt, to be loud and tender and ridiculous all at once.

There was no performance here. No role to memorize.

They were just… being.

“She’ll warm up,” Suma whispered behind her sleeve, trying and failing to be subtle. Her eyes flicked toward Giyuu, soft with optimism. “She just needs time!”

Hinatsuru nodded, her expression gentler. “Of course. She’s not used to us.”

No one asked Giyuu anything. No one tried to pry. They didn’t ask about his voice, or his past, or why he was so quiet. They didn’t press when he kept his eyes down. No questions about his clothing, or his posture, or the way he flinched ever so slightly each time someone laughed too loud.

But not everyone let it go.

Makio’s eyes lingered more than the others. She watched him—not unkindly, but sharply. Suspicious. Her lips pursed and unpursed several times, like she was chewing on a question too bitter to swallow.

Eventually, she leaned toward Tengen, keeping her voice low, but not low enough that Giyuu’s sharpened ears didn’t catch it.

“She’s pretty,” Makio muttered, frowning slightly. “Too pretty. You really didn’t—?”

Tengen raised a brow, his voice a casual flick of amusement. “No. Not like that.”

Makio glanced sideways at Giyuu again, gaze narrowing. “Then why’s she dressed like—”

“Because it’s what she was taught,” Tengen cut in. His voice didn’t rise, but it deepened—just slightly. Just enough to turn the edge of the room quieter. “Let her unlearn it.”

Makio blinked. Her jaw clenched. She looked like she wanted to argue, but found no footing to stand on.

So instead, she clicked her tongue and sat back, stabbing another piece of fish in silence.

Giyuu did not react. But his grip on the bowl tightened just a little. Enough to notice.

Tengen met his eyes across the table, just for a moment.

Not with pity.

But with patience.

It was worse than pity.

Giyuu looked down again, pretending to chew. Pretending to need another sip of soup. Pretending to be deaf to the words tossed across the table like stones skipping over water.

He had spent years behind makeup and glass doors, learning the art of deflection, of invisibility, of perfect pliability. He could still do it. Still melt into his sleeves. Still take up no space at all.

But something about this house refused to let him disappear.

Even when they didn’t speak to him, they made room for him. Passed him dishes without waiting to be thanked. Didn’t scold when he didn’t eat fast enough. Let him be quiet without assigning blame.

And somehow, that made his chest ache worse than shouting.

He didn’t understand this house.

Didn’t understand this dinner.

Didn’t understand the warmth.

So he kept eating. Quiet. Careful. Uncertain.

But he didn’t leave the table.

And no one made him.

`

`

`

After dinner, the laughter had barely faded from the room when Suma clapped her hands together with a bright, mischievous spark in her eyes.

“I have the best idea!”

It came with such enthusiasm that her sleeves fluttered, and she nearly knocked over the half-drunk tea cup by her elbow. Her whole body leaned into the declaration like it couldn’t possibly go wrong.

Across the table, Makio groaned aloud, dragging a hand down her face. “Don’t.”

Hinatsuru was subtler in her exasperation, setting down her cup with a sigh as if she had seen this storm before and already knew they were powerless to stop it.

Giyuu, seated at the corner where he had barely moved for the entire meal, froze in place. The edge of his bowl rested lightly in his palms, now empty, long since cooled—but his grip on it tightened.

Suma beamed, entirely unfazed by the resistance. “Let’s all take a bath together!”

Makio nearly choked on her tea. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Absolutely not,” Hinatsuru said at once, even as she rubbed her temple with the tips of her fingers. “You always say that. You always say that.”

“I’m being serious!” Suma whined, puffing out her cheeks. “It’s perfect! It’ll help her feel more comfortable, right? Like a bonding thing! You know—girl talk, bubbles, maybe a hair mask—”

“No,” Makio snapped, crossing her arms so tightly she might’ve bruised herself. “Do you even think before you speak?”

Suma ignored her. “Come onnnn, she’s probably nervous! This could help break the ice! Right, Tama?”

And then—

All eyes turned.

Giyuu’s heart stopped.

In an instant, the warmth of the room evaporated. The flickering oil lamp cast strange shadows across the walls, dancing in ways that made the space feel smaller, tighter. Suma’s question still hovered in the air—light, harmless, maybe even kind—but it pressed down on him like the edge of a blade.

The bath.

Bath meant undressing.

Undressing meant—no fabric, no padding, no chance to hide.

It meant being seen .

And if they saw—

If they saw what he was—

His fingers twitched against the porcelain bowl.

Makio’s gaze narrowed in his peripheral vision. Hinatsuru’s was thoughtful. Suma’s was expectant and disarmingly bright, like she had already decided what the answer would be and was just waiting for confirmation.

The air in his lungs turned cold.

His pulse beat too loudly in his ears.

He managed to shake his head, once, quickly—too quickly—and it didn’t feel like enough.

“Aw, don’t be shy!” Suma said, undeterred. “You’re with sisters now!”

Before Giyuu could react, her hand reached across the table and took his.

Warm.

Soft.

Insistent.

His fingers didn’t close around hers—they couldn’t—but hers wrapped tight anyway, squeezing like it was reassurance. Like this was comfort. Like she thought this was something safe.

He opened his mouth. Tried to speak.

Nothing came.

His throat tightened. No sound. No word. No practiced smile.

Just a breath. A soft, shaking gasp that never made it past his lips.

And she was already tugging him to his feet.

“You’ll relax,” she promised, laughing as though the world hadn’t tilted sideways. “Trust me! You’re gonna love it!”

The words echoed uselessly in the space between them.

He followed.

Because what else could he do?

Because to pull away would raise questions.

Because to fight would make him dangerous.

Because if he said no —truly said it, with his voice, with his body—he didn’t know what they would do.

The hallway stretched before them, dim and warm, lined with painted panels and soft floorboards. Lantern light cast shadows along the walls, and the windows fogged gently from the rising steam that leaked out from under the bathhouse door.

The scent of yuzu and cedar blossom grew stronger with each step.

When they reached the changing room, Suma flitted inside with a cheerful hum, already tugging at the sash of her outer robe.

“I’ll go in first and check the water! You get undressed and join us, okay?”

The door swung shut behind her with a click that echoed like a drumbeat.

And Giyuu stood alone.

Frozen.

The room was warmer than the rest of the house, mist curling against the high windows, condensation trailing down the smooth wooden frames. The air was thick, heavy with scent and memory.

He did not move.

His hand hovered near his obi, fingertips barely brushing the tightly-knotted sash.

He could not breathe.

The kimono was still tied around him—layered in the way he had learned long ago: one underlayer, one binding cloth, one outer robe, two pieces of padding, a final decorative sash. Each fold carefully arranged. Each layer placed not for beauty, but for armor.

Each one a shield.

He had worn these clothes for years. Learned to live within their folds. Breathe through their structure. Walk like a courtesan. Smile like a doll.

This wasn’t just clothing.

It was identity.

It was protection.

To take it off—

To let it fall—

What would be left?

The scar on his collarbone could be hidden. His face could be painted. His hands could be folded delicately to hide the calluses.

But his body…?

His body could not lie.

They would see.

The truth would pour out, unbidden and unforgivable.

Would they scream?

Would they send him back?

Would they touch him?

Would they look at him with disgust?

With pity?

With desire?

His fingers curled tightly against the knot, knuckles whitening. The silk creaked slightly beneath the pressure. His shoulders trembled. His knees locked.

From the other side of the door, water splashed.

Suma’s laugh rose above the hiss of steam. “Hinatsuru, you always make it too hot!”

“You always say that, but you never get out.”

Makio’s voice grumbled. “If she pulls me in again, I swear I’ll drown her.”

Then, gently—curiously:

“Tama?” Hinatsuru’s voice, soft through the panel. “Are you alright?”

He couldn’t answer.

He stared at the floor. The polished wood blurred as his vision swam. His heartbeat thudded in his throat, his chest too tight to draw a full breath.

He had stepped out of a cage.

But he hadn’t escaped it.

Here, in the warmth of a home he didn’t understand, surrounded by people who smiled too easily, who asked for nothing, who offered kindness like it cost them nothing at all—

He felt the bars begin to close again.

Invisible.

Soundless.

Tight.

He backed away from the knot, trembling, arms folding tight around himself as though he could hold the pieces of his disguise in place just by sheer force.

Because if it came off—if it unraveled—

There might be nothing left to put back together.

Steam coiled along the bathhouse walls like mist off a still lake, soft and slow and fragrant with yuzu oil and cedar. It softened the light until the golden glow from the lanterns diffused like honey across the tiles, blurring the edges of the room into gentle curves and shadowed corners. The polished wood sweated beneath the heat, and every surface glistened like it had just been born from water. Towels lay stacked near the washing stations. The bath itself steamed invitingly, its surface disturbed only by the occasional ripple where one of the women moved. From outside the fogged windows, the song of night cicadas filtered faintly in—distant, almost unreal.

Suma had already begun to undress with the same theatrical flair she brought to everything, flinging her robe with a spin that nearly knocked over the towel stack. She giggled at her own stumble, wagging her finger at Makio. “You folded yours like a crumpled fishcake again!” she sang, as if that were a mortal insult.

Makio scoffed, untying her sash with a roll of her eyes. “You twirled out of yours like a goddamn crane. This isn’t kabuki.”

Hinatsuru, more composed, was gently wringing her hair into a bun, her robe already folded neatly by the wall. “Both of you,” she said with a low laugh. “At least pretend we’re dignified.”

Their banter fluttered like wind chimes—offbeat, cheerful, loud. The air was warm with it. The kind of warmth that clung to skin, that wrapped around bones, that soaked into the floor.

None of them noticed Giyuu.

Not yet.

He stood in the doorway still as a shadow, back pressed against the wood, shoulders rigid. His feet refused to move further inside. He could feel the seams of the wall biting into his spine, grounding him in a way that hurt. His fingers hovered over the knot of his obi, trembled, and withdrew. Then hovered again. He couldn’t move. His breath was locked in the top of his chest, shallow and stale, like air that hadn’t been touched by life in years. His throat burned with the effort not to choke. He wasn’t cold, but his entire body was shivering.

The robe still clung to him, tied tight and high, padding layered beneath like armor. Every fold a memory. Every layer a mask. He had worn them for so long, he had forgotten what his own skin looked like without them. Forgotten what it felt like to simply be instead of perform . These clothes were safety. They were silence. They were sanctuary.

To take them off was to unravel everything.

And yet if he didn’t… they would know something was wrong. They would question. They would ask. And if they asked the wrong questions—if they pulled at the wrong thread—the whole illusion would tear. The whole truth would spill.

And what then?

“Come on, Tama!” Suma’s voice broke the fog like a stone dropped in a pond. She was already submerged to her shoulders, cheeks flushed from the heat, arms splashing in little waves as she waved him in. “The water’s amazing ! You’re gonna love it!”

Makio, turning, narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ve got way too many layers,” she muttered. “Want me to help you out of that thing?”

The words struck like a blade.

Giyuu’s eyes snapped to her face. Panic surged, raw and unfiltered. His mouth opened. Closed. Nothing came out.

Hinatsuru must have seen it—the shift in him, the terror laced into every line of his body—because her playful expression faltered. She stepped forward, her bare feet silent on the wet tile, and her voice lowered to something softer. Something that knew pain.

“It’s alright,” she murmured. “We can help, if you’re nervous.”

Her hand extended. Not fast. Not forceful. Just a gentle reach, deliberate and kind, toward the knot at his obi.

He flinched before she even touched him.

But he didn’t stop her.

Because stopping her would mean explaining .

And he couldn’t.

The knot unraveled under her fingers, a slow breath of silk parting.

And then the robe fell.

The fabric slipped off his shoulders like water and puddled at his feet.

Silence dropped into the room like a boulder.

Everything stopped.

Suma froze mid-splash. Makio stilled where she’d just been reaching for the soap. Hinatsuru remained in front of him, one hand still lifted, her other closing around the towel she’d already been holding.

The steam no longer felt warm. The light no longer felt golden.

Giyuu stood exposed—pale, bare, breathless. The faint shimmer of sweat gleamed across his skin, but it could not obscure the truth. Flat chest. Scarred ribs. Narrow hips. No softness. No curve. No mask. No illusion.

His makeup had smudged under the heat, revealing the sharp line of his jaw, the scar beneath his left eye. Not a girl. Not a courtesan. Not a sister.

A boy.

A boy who had been hiding in plain sight.

He didn’t move.

His arms hung stiff at his sides. His fists were clenched so tightly the nails dug half-moons into his palms. His head remained bowed. His eyes fixed on the floor.

He waited for the scream. The slap. The gasp. The betrayal.

He waited for someone to say You tricked us.

He waited for someone to call him thing. liar. whore. freak.

But none of it came.

Instead—

A breath. Soft. Not sharp.

Then the sound of fabric brushing skin.

Hinatsuru stepped forward and draped the towel across his shoulders with the care of someone handling something sacred. She didn’t fumble. She didn’t hesitate. Her touch was steady, warm, real.

“You’re freezing,” she whispered.

His throat worked. He didn’t understand.

Makio exhaled sharply. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He tried to answer.

Tried to open his mouth.

But his chest tightened, throat closed, voice lost.

Only a faint tremor escaped his lips.

Hinatsuru’s hand rose to his cheek. “You couldn’t,” she said, like it was truth she’d known for a while.

Behind her, Suma let out a small, wounded sound. “You must have been so scared ,” she whimpered, scrambling out of the bath with water still dripping from her elbows. “Oh gods— all this time? You must have thought we’d—”

Hinatsuru intercepted her, arms wrapping around her waist to keep her from lunging at him. “Not yet,” she whispered. “Give him space.”

Suma clung to her, sobbing into her shoulder. “I didn’t mean it. I said all that dumb stuff—I didn’t know —”

Makio sat down heavily beside them on the tile. “I figured something was weird. Didn’t think it was this. ” Her voice wasn’t angry. Just tired. “Damn.”

Still, no one moved away.

Still, no one yelled.

No one called for help. No one looked disgusted. No one moved to redress the robe like a wound.

They just… stayed.

Hinatsuru guided Giyuu down until he was seated at the bath’s edge, towel wrapped tight around him. Makio slid a cup of water into his hands without comment. Suma sniffled and curled up on his other side, bumping his arm with her shoulder like a cat nudging for warmth.

“I’m not mad,” Makio muttered. “You’re obviously dealing with… a lot. We can tell.”

“You don’t owe us an explanation,” Hinatsuru said gently. “Not unless you want to.”

“You don’t have to be Tama here,” Suma whispered. “You can just be you.”

He didn’t cry.

Not outwardly.

But something deep inside him cracked, so softly it sounded like relief. Like the first thaw of spring. Like silence breaking open.

He didn’t understand why they weren’t angry.

He didn’t understand why they didn’t leave.

But they stayed.

And for the first time in years, he felt seen.

And he wasn’t hated for it.

Chapter Text

The air after the bath carried a different weight.

It clung to Giyuu’s skin like steam, warm but fleeting, vanishing the moment it touched the cool edges of the corridor beyond. His limbs still felt heavy, as if the bathwater had seeped into his bones, not just washed over his skin. The plain robe draped over him was too large—loose at the collar, trailing over his wrists like mist, cinched at the waist only loosely with a thin sash that didn’t quite hold him in. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t flashy. But for the first time in what felt like years, it was his. Not a costume. Not a display. Not a thing crafted to catch the eye or please a buyer.

Just… clothing.

He didn’t fully understand why they’d offered it. Or why they hadn’t asked him to speak. He didn’t understand the way Hinatsuru had knelt behind him and dried his hair in slow, almost reverent strokes—fingers gentle, not perfumed. How Makio had kept her voice low and her distance respectful. How Suma, despite her jittery hands and tear-prone eyes, had only touched his sleeve, not his skin. They hadn’t flinched at his scar. Hadn’t whispered about the flatness of his chest. They’d simply accepted what they saw… and had led him here.

The estate was quiet. Evening had begun to settle into its bones—lanterns lit in quiet corners, the scent of ink and citrus leaves drifting faintly through the paper doors. They walked without speaking, Hinatsuru at the front, Makio beside him, Suma lingering at his side like a protective shadow. Their movements were calm, practiced, but there was a tension woven into their silence. Not fear. Not pity.

Purpose.

Giyuu could feel it in the way Makio’s shoulders were set, the way Suma bit her lip. And most of all, in Hinatsuru’s steady eyes—eyes that said she’d made a decision, and nothing he said now would stop what came next.

They were taking him to Tengen.

He knew before they even reached the door.

Inside, Tengen sat on a low cushion, one leg stretched out lazily, the other folded beneath him. Scrolls fanned out in front of him like discarded leaves, one hand balancing a cup of tea. He looked relaxed, like a man trying to carve out a rare moment of peace. His hair was tied back loosely, a silk robe open at the throat, eyes half-lidded in the flicker of golden light.

When the door slid open, he looked up, smile half-formed.

“You’re back already?” he said, not yet seeing. “What did she do this time, Suma—try to baptize someone with rosewater again—?”

He stopped mid-joke.

Because no one laughed.

The smile vanished from his face before the sound of his own words had finished echoing.

Tengen’s eyes passed over them quickly—Hinatsuru’s solemn expression, Suma’s clenched fists, Makio’s stiff silence—and then landed on Giyuu.

And stayed there.

The robe. The scar. The way Giyuu lingered behind them all, half-hidden, like a child waiting to be punished. And perhaps that’s exactly what he was doing.

Tengen slowly lowered the tea to the floor.

His voice lost all trace of levity. “What happened?”

Hinatsuru stepped forward with the calm, deliberate grace of a woman who’d already rehearsed this moment in her head. Her voice was quiet. “There’s something you need to know.”

Tengen arched a brow. “About Tama?”

She hesitated. Just for a second.

Then gently—so gently—it was a mercy in itself, she said, “About Giyuu.”

There was a beat of silence.

Tengen blinked. “Giyuu?” he echoed. The name landed awkwardly in his mouth—foreign and unfamiliar.

Makio cut in, voice sharper than intended. “That’s his name.”

“We didn’t know either,” Suma added quickly, voice soft. “We didn’t mean to pry. It just—he wrote it down. When we asked…”

Tengen looked back at Giyuu—who still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t spoken. The name settled into the room like dust. Real. Solid.

Then Tengen’s voice dropped to something softer. “You’re a man.”

It wasn’t a question. Not really.

Giyuu flinched anyway. His jaw tightened. His fists bunched in the long sleeves of his robe, hiding the trembling in his fingers. The urge to bolt rose so quickly it made him nauseous. He’d known this moment would come. He’d thought it would feel like fire, like drowning. But it didn’t.

It felt like waiting to drown.

Waiting to hear what Tengen would say next. What he would do next.

But Tengen didn’t shout. Didn’t frown. Didn’t accuse him of lying, or worse.

He stood.

And approached—slow, quiet steps, like approaching a wounded fox in a trap.

When he stopped in front of Giyuu, he didn’t kneel immediately. He looked at him first. Really looked. At the lowered face, the scar, the way Giyuu wouldn’t meet his eyes. And only then—only then —did he kneel.

Hands empty. Palms turned outward. No judgment. No threat.

“You could’ve told me,” he said simply.

Giyuu didn’t breathe.

“I wouldn’t have sent you away.”

Still nothing.

Tengen’s voice was lower now, warmer. “I know why you didn’t. I know the kind of place you came from. You don’t owe me trust, and you don’t owe me a damn explanation.” He gave a small, bitter smile. “Truth is, Tama or Giyuu… you were still you the whole time.”

Giyuu’s lips parted—just barely.

No sound came out.

He lowered his gaze even more, ashamed without knowing why. Tengen’s words weren’t cruel. They weren’t anything close to what he expected. But they still cracked something open.

Hinatsuru stepped closer. “He didn’t say it aloud,” she said. “He just… wrote it. That was enough.”

Tengen nodded once, slowly. Then turned back to Giyuu. “You gave us a false name because it was safer, didn’t you?”

Giyuu’s throat bobbed. His shoulders drew tighter. Then—after a long pause—he nodded once. Barely perceptible.

“And now?” Tengen asked.

Another silence.

Then, finally, Giyuu moved. One hand slipped from his sleeve. Fingers shaking, he reached inside the robe and pulled out a folded paper. The one they’d seen earlier. The one with a name scrawled on it in small, careful strokes.

Tengen took it.

His eyes scanned the characters. Then he held it against his chest like a vow.

“Giyuu,” he repeated. “It’s a good name.”

For the first time, Giyuu looked up.

Not fully. Just a glance. But his eyes were glassy with something that wasn’t tears—but wasn’t far from them either.

Tengen smiled, softer now. “You’re staying here. Not as a courtesan. Not as property. As family. If you’ll have us.”

Giyuu’s breath caught in his throat. He didn’t speak. But the tremor in his frame stilled.

Suma sniffled. “I already considered him family…”

Makio shrugged, arms crossed. “He can’t cook, but yeah. I’m not kicking him out.”

Hinatsuru laid a hand on Giyuu’s shoulder. “We want you here,” she said. “Not Tama. Not a mask. Just… you.”

And for the first time in years, surrounded by faces that should’ve turned cold the moment they saw him—he felt something shift deep in his chest.

It wasn’t joy.

It was something quieter. Harder to hold.

But he thought it might be the start of hope .

`

`

`

The room was warm when Giyuu woke.

Not the suffocating, cloying heat of the brothel's bathhouses, where steam curled like fingers into every breath, heavy with sweat and incense. Not the stifling closeness of the cramped servant quarters, where bodies were packed too tight and air was rationed like coin. No—this warmth was different. It was quiet. Ambient. The kind that soaked into your skin without pressing down, the kind that didn’t demand anything in return. It clung gently to the wooden floorboards and wrapped itself around the woven blankets, sunk into the corners like a gentle hush instead of a threat.

The silence was the first thing he noticed after that.

There was no scuffle of feet in the hallway. No hiss of urgent whispers or the groan of old doors being forced open in the dead of night. There was no knock—sharp, expectant, impatient. No perfume threading under the door like a noose. No weight.

For the first time in years, he had not been roused by a hand at his collar or a heel digging into his ribs.

He opened his eyes slowly.

The ceiling above was plain wood, unmarred by soot or peeling paint. Morning light filtered softly through the paper screens, pale gold and warm at the edges. Somewhere nearby, a sparrow chirped, and the breeze rustled lightly against the frame.

He was alone.

And it unsettled him more than anything else.

The robe he wore was still around him—loosely tied, rumpled from sleep, but untouched. No new scent on it. No change in how the sash sat across his hips. He hadn’t been stripped and redressed. Hadn’t been repositioned or powdered or rouged. No one had left a price at the foot of the futon.

He sat up slowly, blinking against the light. His shoulder ached faintly, but it was the honest kind of ache—muscle and tension, not the bruising kind that crawled up from the inside after a long night of being used.

His eyes drifted toward the corner of the room.

The bundle was still there.

Folded neatly beside a blanket he didn’t remember using, the bundle sat where he had dropped it days ago—untouched, unclaimed. No one had opened it. No one had taken it.

His breath caught, and for a moment, he didn’t move.

Then, slowly, carefully, he reached for it.

His hands trembled slightly as he untied the knot—more from habit than fear. The cloth fell away with a whisper, revealing the faded fabric within.

The haori.

Maroon faded with time, softened by years of wear. A seam mended by nervous, clumsy hands. His sister’s scent still clung to it faintly—sandalwood, wild summer grass, and something older that he had no name for. Memory. Home.

Giyuu sat there for a long time, fingers curled in the fabric.

And then—without thinking, without even meaning to—he slipped it on.

It was looser than he remembered, but it still fit. The weight of it was like being held.

He didn’t cry.

But his throat felt tight.

Eventually, when the light shifted and the birds had stopped their morning song, he stood. The robe from the night before stayed beneath the haori, a second skin. He padded barefoot into the hall.

No one stopped him.

That alone made his stomach tighten.

He had grown used to checkpoints. Used to the tap of a guard’s rod against the floor. To the questions— Where are you going? Who summoned you? Who gave you permission? There were none of those here. Just open corridors. Wooden floors that creaked only gently beneath his steps. No lanterns snuffed too early. No eyes darting away when caught watching.

It was too quiet.

He walked slowly, hugging the haori close.

The Uzui estate was large. Not in the ostentatious way he had feared, but in the way that suggested breath—space, and light, and room for movement. Shoji screens stood open, letting in wind and warmth. A thin thread of incense hung in the air—something mild, like cedar or plum, but it didn’t choke.

He passed a training hall first. The scent of sweat and polished wood hit him—familiar, but not unpleasant. The floor was empty, weapons racked neatly against the far wall.

Farther on, a library—small, but filled with scrolls and bound volumes, some faded at the spine.

And then the kitchen.

Two older women stood near the hearth, speaking in low tones. One had a ladle in hand, the other was slicing something with practiced ease. They glanced up as he passed.

One nodded. The other gave him a faint smile.

Neither bowed. Neither looked away. Neither whispered.

He paused. Just for a second. Enough to wonder if he’d imagined it.

They didn’t say a word.

He kept walking.

Eventually, he found himself at the edge of the courtyard. It was quiet here too, but not empty. A koi pond stretched across one side, stones placed just so to guide the water’s edge. A maple tree leaned over it, its leaves already beginning to blush red and orange at the tips.

He sank down beside it, folding his legs beneath him.

The air smelled clean.

Wind stirred the water in gentle ripples. The koi drifted slowly beneath the surface, flashes of white and orange like pieces of sun caught in glass. They didn’t notice him. Didn’t care.

That, at least, felt normal.

He didn’t hear her approach.

Only when the air shifted did he sense her—Hinatsuru, kneeling beside him with a grace so fluid it barely stirred the grass.

She said nothing. Made no sound of greeting. No request for permission.

Just sat.

A moment later, she set a small lacquer bowl between them. In it—slices of fruit. Plum, apple, grapes still cold with dew.

She didn’t push it toward him. Didn’t gesture.

She just set it down beside him.
Giyuu didn’t move. He only stared at it, unsure if it was meant for him, unsure why his throat had gone tight.

“You looked like you hadn’t eaten,” Hinatsuru said softly, settling on the stone ledge a short distance away. Her voice was calm, light enough not to crowd the moment.

The koi swam lazily in the pond beyond them, stirring the surface with ripples. She watched them as she spoke, never once looking to see if he was listening.

“You don’t have to do anything for it,” she continued. “You're a guest here. That’s enough.”

Giyuu’s hands remained in his lap for a long time. Then, slowly, they shifted. His fingers curled around a slice of apple like he thought it might disappear if he wasn’t careful.

He brought it to his mouth. Bit down. It was crisp. Cold. The sweetness clung to his tongue in a way that almost hurt.

Hinatsuru didn’t react. She didn’t smile at him, didn’t praise him for eating, didn’t even glance his way.

“I’m not going to ask you anything,” she said after a while. “Not unless you want me to.”

Another slice disappeared between his fingers. Then another.

She let the silence stretch, unbothered by it. It sat between them like something warm, shared—not a void to be filled, but a space to rest.

He kept eating. Slowly. Methodically. The bowl grew lighter.

Hinatsuru tucked her hands into her sleeves and closed her eyes, face tilted slightly toward the sun.

They said nothing.

And for the first time in years, Giyuu tasted something he didn’t have to pay for—with coin, flesh, or obedience.

It was enough.

`

`

`

He had only just returned from a quiet walk along the perimeter wall—his feet moving without real purpose, his thoughts quiet in the strange way they had been since arriving—when she found him.

Suma.

She came skipping down the path like a gust of wind wrapped in silk, practically bouncing on her heels with a carved wooden brush clutched in one hand and a ribbon trailing from the other. Her eyes sparkled when she saw him, as if spotting a prize she hadn’t expected.

“There you are!” she exclaimed, rushing up to meet him, entirely unbothered by his startled stillness. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Giyuu blinked, taking half a step back out of instinct. But she was already in front of him, and any retreat was deftly disarmed by the sheer force of her enthusiasm.

“Come sit, sit, sit!” she chirped smiling wide, reaching to tug lightly at his sleeve. “You have the prettiest hair. I want to try something with it—Hinatsuru said I could, and Makio didn’t say no , so that’s basically permission.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t nod. But neither did he pull away. That seemed to be enough for her.

Without waiting for a clearer answer, Suma spun on her heel and led him toward a sun-warmed platform lined with cushions. Her pace was cheerful, quick, and unrelenting. Before he quite realized it, he was being gently pressed down onto a soft seat, and Suma knelt behind him with the brush in hand and a delighted hum on her lips.

Her fingers were warm where they brushed the nape of his neck, steady in a way he hadn’t expected. The brush passed through his hair with a slowness that startled him—no tugging, no impatient jerks, no cold hands trying to finish as quickly as possible. She worked carefully, gently, murmuring to herself whenever she found a snag, then easing it out with the patience of someone tending something delicate.

He stared down at his hands in his lap. They were still, but his shoulders were not. Not entirely. There was a tightness there, just under the surface. An invisible flinch waiting to be useful.

Suma didn’t seem to notice. Or if she did, she didn’t show it. She just… talked.

“Oh, did anyone tell you about the koi?” she said cheerfully, beginning to separate strands with her fingers. “One of them is pure white with this weird little red splotch on its back—Makio says it looks like Tengen’s forehead vein when he’s angry, but Hinatsuru says it’s shaped like a heart. I think it looks like a peach, personally.”

She giggled to herself. Not the forced kind Giyuu was used to hearing in crowded rooms and smoky parlors, but a real one—high and sincere and almost too bright for the late afternoon sun.

“Makio fell in the pond once, did you know? Slipped on the rocks trying to scare me. She landed face first in the water! It was hilarious—but don’t tell her I said that. She still insists she was pushed by a spirit.”

Giyuu let his eyes drift half-shut. The sun was warm against his face. The brush moved like waves through his hair.

She didn’t ask him anything. Not about his past. Not about what he was doing here. Not even about the worn, faded haori still draped over his shoulders—the one stitched from two different lives, one of which no longer existed.

Suma kept talking.

“Hinatsuru makes the prettiest flower arrangements. You should see the one she did last week—it looked like fireworks in a bowl. I don’t know how she manages to make it look so elegant every time. Mine always end up looking like something the cat dragged in. Do you like flowers? I bet you do. I mean, you seem like you would.”

Giyuu’s throat moved with the ghost of a swallow. But he didn’t answer.

That didn’t seem to bother her, either.

She just kept going. About Hinatsuru’s tea blends. About a dream she’d had where Tengen turned into a giant fluffy cat and tried to battle a demon using only a fishbone and charisma. About how loud Makio snored, and how soft the laundry smelled after being dried in the garden.

And the whole time, the brush kept moving. Slow. Rhythmic. Reassuring.

He didn’t realize someone was watching until he heard the faint shift of cloth in the doorway. Makio stood there, arms crossed tightly over her chest, expression unreadable. Her gaze landed on the haori Giyuu wore, and for a moment, something flickered in her eyes. Discomfort. Hesitation. But she didn’t speak.

She didn’t stop Suma, either.

Eventually, she stepped away without a word.

By the time Suma was done, the sun had started to sink behind the outer wall. A pale blue ribbon—silken and soft—had been woven into Giyuu’s hair and tied with a gentle knot near the base of his neck.

“There,” Suma said proudly, sitting back on her heels with a little sigh of satisfaction. “All finished. You look beautiful.”

Giyuu didn’t react. Didn’t shift. Didn’t touch the ribbon. But he didn’t remove it, either.

And Suma didn’t linger. She didn’t press for praise or thanks. She didn’t ask for a smile.

No one told him to sit a certain way.
No one powdered his face or pinched color into his cheeks.
He wasn’t required to bow, to entertain, to earn his place by being soft or beautiful or quiet in the way others wanted.

The only things asked of him were to rest.
And to eat.

It made his skin prickle.

It felt wrong.
Like a story told out of order.
Like a trick wrapped in silk.

He kept waiting—for the curtain to fall. For someone to change their tone. For the price to reveal itself in the softness he was offered.

But the silence held. The ribbon stayed tied. And no one came to collect anything from him.

Not yet.

Tengen didn’t hover.

That alone made Giyuu notice him more.

He wasn’t like the courtiers or clients Giyuu had learned to avoid—those who lingered too long and spoke too loudly and watched too intently. He wasn’t like the guards who strutted down halls with blades they never drew, or the handlers who spoke through smiles and never meant a word of it.

Tengen entered like a storm and left like a breeze.
He made noise, yes. Always did. He announced himself with the rustle of elaborate fabrics, the chime of his earrings, the boom of his voice echoing down polished wood. But he never brought that noise into Giyuu’s space. Not unless invited.

Which, of course, Giyuu never did.

Still, the man never stopped trying.

Sometimes he passed through the inner hall carrying a tray of sweets for Makio or some bundle of flowers wrapped hastily in cloth—“because Hinatsuru looked like she needed color today”—and if he saw Giyuu, he always gave a nod. Sometimes a grin. A “Hey.”
Nothing more.

And once—just once—he stopped.

It had been late afternoon. Giyuu had been sitting just outside the room they'd given him, cross-legged on the engawa with the haori draped over his shoulders like a second skin. His eyes had been trained on the gravel path below, though he wasn’t really seeing it.

Tengen’s footsteps slowed as he approached.

He didn’t crouch or bend down or try to make himself smaller—he didn’t need to. He simply stood there, close enough for his shadow to brush the edge of the wood, and said, in a tone more casual than anything Giyuu could’ve prepared for,
“How’re you holding up?”

Not demanding. Not prying. No title, no flattery, no forced softness. Just… a question.

Giyuu didn’t answer.

Not because he didn’t want to. Not because he didn’t hear it.

Because he couldn’t.

His voice stayed locked somewhere behind his tongue. His jaw stayed still. His hands didn’t move. He hadn’t been spoken to like that—like a person, not a product—in so long that his body didn’t know how to respond.

Tengen didn’t push. He didn’t wait long, either. After a beat of silence, he nodded once and reached out—not to grip or grab, but to gently pat Giyuu’s head. A single touch. Large hand warm and careful against tangled black hair.

“Alright,” he said. “Take your time.”

And just like that, he walked on. No dramatics. No apology. No expectation.

That night, Giyuu lay beneath the futon in the quiet dark, the blanket pulled neatly over his frame. He had not changed clothes. The robe he wore was soft cotton, worn at the edges, the sleeves too long. Familiar now. Still foreign.

Tsutako’s haori lay over his body like a prayer—half maroon, half patterned like memory. He’d folded it around himself without really thinking, fingers brushing over the seams he’d mended so long ago they felt like part of his own skin.

The paper screen beside the futon had been left slightly open. Not by him.

Hinatsuru, maybe. Or Suma.

Moonlight spilled through the gap, painting soft silver patterns over the tatami mats, climbing over the walls in hushed shapes that looked like water lilies and branches in motion. Shadows flickered with the occasional breeze. But the house around him stayed still.

He listened.

Not for the wind. Not for the hum of the insects outside. Not for peace.

He listened for things he’d always needed to hear.

Footsteps. Measured. Heavy.
The soft rustle of cloth near a doorframe.
The metallic sound of a lock being drawn into place.
Breathing that wasn’t his.

The familiar signs of being chosen .
Of being claimed .

But they didn’t come.

No one opened the door.
No one stepped over the threshold.
No one touched him.

No one asked him to remove his robe.
No one called his name with sticky sweetness or yanked his sleeve or traced fingers across his neck like they owned it.

And somehow, that silence felt louder than any scream.

His hands rested atop the blanket. Still. Curled, as if in defense. The tension hadn’t quite left his shoulders, though his body ached from days of quiet. The kind of ache that came not from battle, not from bruises—but from lack. From waiting.

Waiting for the illusion to drop.

Waiting for the curtain to fall.

He didn’t trust it yet. Couldn’t. Every breath of calm felt like bait. Every kindness, a blade hiding beneath silk.

But the door stayed closed.

The light stayed soft.

And the futon beneath him held no weight but his own.

So when his eyes closed, it wasn’t out of habit.
Not because his body had collapsed under exhaustion.
Not because his spirit had nowhere else to run.

He closed them because he chose to.

Because for once—just once—he wanted to.

And in the stillness that followed, moonlight dancing on his haori, with no hands reaching for him and no voice demanding he earn his place, Giyuu allowed himself a single, cautious thought.

Maybe—
Maybe he was allowed to rest. Just for tonight.

`

`

`

Time, once something Giyuu had survived by measuring in heartbeats and half-choked breaths between orders, moved differently now. It no longer strangled him with silence or dragged behind like a chain. It passed—quietly, steadily—like the gentle wind that whispered through the corridors of the Uzui estate, stirring the paper doors and carrying the scent of pine and sweet miso from the kitchen.

The first few days, Giyuu existed like a shadow. Present, but not touching. He rose with the sun not because he was expected to, but because his body no longer knew how to sleep late. Each morning he slipped from his futon in silence and draped Tsutako’s old haori over his shoulders—worn and faded, the plum-and-crimson fabric heavy with memory. It no longer fit his frame properly, sleeves falling past his wrists, but he wore it like armor. Not to shield himself, but to hold close what little he had left of her.

His steps were soundless as he moved through the estate, barefoot on smooth wood, robe sleeves brushing softly as he passed the open shoji doors. Sometimes he swept the garden paths before the gardeners arrived, not because he had to, but because the rhythmic motion gave him something to hold onto. Sometimes he sat beside the koi pond, legs tucked beneath him, unmoving as he watched the fish weave through shadows. Their red and white bodies flickered beneath the surface like forgotten prayers.

He never asked for food. He didn’t need to. Meals simply appeared—carefully portioned, always warm. Someone always remembered what he liked. There was never a fuss about it. No comments about how much or how little he ate. Just the quiet offer of nourishment and the knowledge that no one would scold him for leaving a bowl half-full.

And no one, not once, asked him to speak.

In the beginning, Suma had tried. Her eyes would glisten every time he blinked too slow, and she’d reach for his hands with a trembling, “Are you okay?” as if the silence might shatter him if she didn’t fill it. But when he didn’t answer—couldn’t answer—she eventually stopped asking. Now, she just looped her arm through his during walks, swinging their joined hands back and forth like a child, talking about birds she saw or dreams she couldn’t remember. Sometimes she cried over dumb things—a broken cup, a dead beetle, a sad story from a neighbor—and when she did, she always pressed her cheek to his shoulder and whispered, “Thanks for listening, Giyuu,” even though he hadn’t said a word.

Makio was louder, brasher. The first week she’d tried to spark something in him with pointed jabs and raised brows. “Y’know, it’s creepy how you just sit there like a ghost,” she muttered once while he was folding laundry beside her. But even her tone had softened over time. Now she only scolded the others for babying him too much. “He’s not glass. Let him be.” Still, she’d toss him a rice ball when he looked pale, or shove a cup of barley tea into his hand with a grunt that sounded suspiciously like care.

Hinatsuru was quieter. Observant. She never said much when he entered a room, but her gaze always tracked him. Not with pity. Not with expectation. Just quiet attention. As if she were waiting for something to bloom, but wasn’t in a rush for it to happen. She never hovered, but she always sat close enough for him to reach, if he ever wanted.

Then there was Tengen.

Tengen was loud. Always had been. But his voice never seemed to crack against Giyuu like it did when others spoke too sharply. Maybe it was because there was no demand behind it—just presence. Boisterous, flamboyant, ridiculous presence. At breakfast, Tengen would swing into the room like a storm in silk robes, throw himself dramatically onto the floor cushions, and declare things like, “Breakfast is the meal of champions! And I am, as always, undefeated in taste and looks!”

“Then maybe you should make your own miso for once,” Makio would snap without looking up from her bowl.

“Now, now,” Hinatsuru would murmur gently, smiling behind her teacup. “Don’t provoke him before the rice is even done.”

“I’m just saying,” Makio huffed. “He brags enough to feed the entire estate. He should cook too.”

“Don’t drag my brilliance down with mundane tasks,” Tengen proclaimed, flipping his hair back with one hand. Then he’d turn to Giyuu, grin wide and mischievous, and say, “You understand, don’t you, Giyuu? A man of elegance like me must remain untethered by soup duty.”

Giyuu never replied. But he didn’t look away either. And that was enough.

Tengen never tried to draw out a laugh. He didn’t expect a smile or even a reaction. He just kept talking to Giyuu like he was part of the room—like he mattered, even if he said nothing at all.

“You’re quiet,” Tengen had said once, not long after Giyuu arrived. The sun had been setting over the estate, casting gold across the shoji screens, and they had both been sitting on the veranda watching the sky bleed. “But you’re not empty. Don’t let anyone treat you like you are.”

Giyuu hadn’t looked at him. He hadn’t even breathed differently. But something in his chest had gone still. Not painfully—just… still.

That stillness became peace.

And it was that peace that allowed time to pass gently. Weeks bled together like ink in water, soft and directionless. His days were quiet but not cold. He learned where the sunlight fell warmest on the porch at noon. He learned which path in the garden bloomed first with plum blossoms. He even learned the creak of each floorboard outside his room—not in fear, but familiarity.

One afternoon, it changed.

It was chaos, not pain. Just noise. Human, messy, ridiculous noise.

Tengen had, once again, declared the day perfect for “combat bonding,” which loosely translated to dragging his wives out into the courtyard to wrestle with him under the guise of “team synergy.”

Makio had another term for it. “A goddamn excuse to throw us around like rice sacks,” she grumbled, rolling her sleeves up to her shoulders with the solemnity of someone preparing for war.

Giyuu sat quietly under the edge of the veranda, half in shadow, half in sun. He had brought a cup of barley tea outside with him, though he hadn’t touched it. The steam had long since vanished into the spring air, but he didn’t seem to notice. His gaze was fixed—watching, but distant—as the chaos unfolded in front of him.

Hinatsuru moved like she was dancing on a stage, all liquid steps and sharp, clean angles. Her movements were precise, nearly effortless, her practice blade carving lines through the air with grace that bordered on elegance. She never overreached, never flinched. Just flowed.

Makio, by contrast, fought like a boulder with legs. She charged with everything she had, shouting each strike with fervor as if announcing her intent to flatten the entire estate. “HAH! TAKE THAT, YOU PEACOCK!” she shrieked as she lunged, nearly knocking Hinatsuru off her feet.

Suma, bless her, was already crying halfway through the first round. “I DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU—WHY ARE WE HURTING EACH OTHER—” she wailed, parrying clumsily before collapsing in a heap of limbs and emotional devastation.

“You’re supposed to spar , not sob!” Makio barked.

“BUT I’M DOING BOTH!”

Yet even so, Suma crawled back up, swiped at her eyes with a trembling hand, and launched herself into the fray again, hiccuping through each clash of wood.

It was ridiculous. Loud. Messy. Completely uncoordinated.

And Giyuu could not look away.

The chaos should have unsettled him. In the past, it might have. But now, as he sat with his sleeves pulled over his hands and his bare feet pressed to the warm wood, he felt something inside him still—not with fear, but with a kind of reluctant recognition.

When Makio misjudged her opponent’s position and took a solid crack from a wooden blade to her upper arm, the scene erupted.

“OW—shit! Dammit, ow!” Makio hissed, stumbling back and clutching her arm.

“OH NO—NO, NO, NO, YOU’RE BLEEDING—AREN’T YOU BLEEDING?!” Suma shrieked, already on her knees and crawling toward her.

“STOP screaming in my ear, you banshee!” Makio roared. “It’s just a scratch!”

“YOU’RE GONNA DIE!”

“I’M NOT GONNA DIE, YOU DRAMA LEECH—”

Hinatsuru just stood to the side with a sigh, unwrapping a roll of linen from her sleeve like a mother preparing to fix yet another childish accident.

The shouting echoed off the garden walls. The koi darted under the lily pads at the noise. Someone knocked over a training post.

And Giyuu—

Giyuu just stared.

Not at the blood—it was shallow, already slowing.

But at the mess. The sound. The way hands reached and voices overlapped and no one backed away. The way the concern came out rough and hot, like steam bursting from a cracked pipe. It was clumsy and loud and terribly real.

It reminded him—achingly, vividly—of being ten. Of falling into the stream behind their house, soaked and shivering, and Tsutako dragging him out with a groan and a laugh. “You’re a disaster,” she had said, wrapping him in her shawl, “but you’re my disaster.”

It reminded him of nights when her fiancé would burn the rice, and she’d scold him half-heartedly while still grinning, and Giyuu would laugh until his stomach hurt.

It reminded him of a family.

Not one dressed in ceremony.
Not one made of prayers.
But one built in noise. In frayed edges and hands that never hesitated to reach.

His chest ached. A knot pulling tight just beneath his ribs.

He didn’t understand it.

He didn’t want to understand it.

So he stood up slowly, wrapped his haori tighter around his frame, and turned without a word, walking away from the voices toward the far side of the garden.

The sun was slipping low by the time he reached the edge of the stone path. The gold light of late afternoon spilled over the courtyard walls like warm syrup. The garden was quieter here, shaded by plum trees just beginning to bud. Moss softened the ground beneath his feet, and the wind smelled faintly of earth and old bark.

There, barely visible beneath a patch of leaves, was the sparrow.

It didn’t chirp or struggle when he knelt beside it. One wing was bent, its feathers crooked and damp with dirt. Giyuu hesitated only a moment before gathering it into his palms—hands trembling, unsure.

He didn’t know why he picked it up.

He didn’t know how to help.

He only knew what it meant to be alone.

And he didn’t want it to feel that. Not tonight.

He sat on the grass, cross-legged and small, with the injured bird cradled gently in his hands. Its heartbeat was faint, fluttering like the wings it couldn’t move. And for a long moment, that was enough.

Then—

Footsteps.

Heavy. Familiar. No effort to hide their sound.

Tengen.

But—for once—he didn’t speak right away.

The Sound Hashira merely lowered himself to the ground nearby with a grunt, back against the garden wall, long legs stretching out into the moss. He said nothing. Didn’t joke. Didn’t call attention to himself.

They sat like that. Side by side. One made of noise and brightness, the other carved from silence and dusk.

Minutes passed. The air grew cool. A wind picked up, rustling the trees.

Then—barely audible, raw from disuse—

“…Makio.”

Giyuu didn’t look at him. His eyes stayed fixed on the sparrow in his palms. The word had rasped out of him like it wasn’t meant to exist in air. More breath than voice. More wound than word.

Tengen didn’t react. Didn’t move. He let it hang there, suspended between them like a thread of incense smoke.

“…She got cut earlier.”

This time it was clearer. His voice cracked around the edges, frayed from silence, but it held. Giyuu’s gaze remained low. He didn’t dare look up.

“Yeah,” Tengen said softly. “She’ll be fine.”

A pause.

“She’s tougher than she acts. Stubborn, too.”

More silence. Then, without fanfare or weight:

“Good to hear your voice, kid.”

Giyuu’s throat closed.

But nothing shattered.

The world didn’t spin. The sky didn’t fall.

He hadn’t expected the relief—the quiet understanding that washed through him, warm and startling. He’d expected pain. Rejection. Pity.

But all he got was gentleness.

Tengen shifted, resting his elbows on his knees. His voice was lower now, steady as earth.

“You don’t owe us anything. Not your voice. Not your story. Not even this moment.”

Giyuu swallowed hard, and the movement made the sparrow shift in his hands.

Tengen didn’t look at him. He didn’t need to.

“You speak when you’re ready. That’s enough.”

And just like that, he stood. No more words. No grand speech. He reached out only once, briefly—hand landing firm and warm on Giyuu’s shoulder. A squeeze. Just enough to say I heard you.

Then he walked away.

And Giyuu stayed, hand curved protectively around the broken thing in his lap. His voice still echoed faintly in the air like a dropped stone in still water.

He didn’t know why it hadn’t hurt.
Why the world hadn’t cracked open.
Why it felt—just for a moment— safe.

He only knew he didn’t want the feeling to go.

Not yet.

Not this time.

The wives learned the next morning—just after sunrise, when the air still smelled of charcoal and warm rice, and the kitchen’s steam drifted lazily out the open windows of the main hall.

The household’s breakfast rhythm was well-worn by now. Suma flitted between cushions with mismatched socks and a wild bedhead she never remembered to fix. Makio snapped at her for dripping soy sauce on the table and elbowed Tengen when he tried to claim the last pickled plum. Hinatsuru, calm as ever, sipped her tea slowly while reading a letter from a neighboring estate, nodding faintly to herself.

Giyuu sat quietly in his usual spot near the edge of the table, haori neat and sleeves folded respectfully in his lap. He didn’t eat much—he never did—but he accepted what was offered. A small bowl of congee, a slice of grilled sweet potato, and a mug of hot barley tea he warmed his fingers on. The warmth helped with the quiet, always had. It gave him something to hold.

Tengen spoke between bites of rice like he was remarking on the weather.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, voice casual, chopsticks hovering over his bowl, “Giyuu talked last night.”

Silence fell around the table like the drop of a pin in an echo chamber.

Hinatsuru looked up first. Slowly. Her expression didn’t shift with surprise or delight—it simply softened. Her lips curved gently, and she gave a knowing nod, as if she’d heard the words already in a dream. She didn’t speak. Just watched Giyuu with eyes as calm as moonlight.

Suma, however, made up for everyone’s lack of reaction.

She froze. Chopsticks slipped from her hand and clattered noisily against the lacquered wood. Her eyes went wide, trembling at the edges, and then—without warning—she let out a sharp, choked wail and threw herself sideways into Giyuu’s lap with the full weight of someone who had been waiting too long to be happy.

“You talked?! ” she cried, voice rising like a siren, arms flinging around his shoulders in a messy, tear-soaked hug. “ You talked—you trusted us—you have such a cute voice—I KNEW YOU DID—I’M SO HAPPY—”

Giyuu went stiff as a board, nearly toppling backward under the impact. He didn’t protest—didn’t push her off, didn’t retreat—just blinked at her in stunned silence, hands hovering awkwardly in the air like he wasn’t sure whether to comfort her or protect himself. His mouth opened slightly, as if to speak again, but nothing came out. The words had already been used the night before, and this moment—this noise—required none.

Makio groaned and rubbed at one temple with the heel of her hand.

“Gods, you’re so dramatic, Suma,” she muttered, rising to her feet with a scowl that lacked any true heat. She brushed past them, paused at Giyuu’s side for the briefest moment—just long enough to reach out and give his shoulder a firm, solid pat.

It was quick. Unceremonious. Reflexive.

But it was real.

“’Bout damn time,” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Giyuu watched her go, then turned his eyes down toward the sobbing woman clinging to his robes, dampening the fabric with every hiccup. He didn’t pull away. He didn’t smile either—but something flickered behind his eyes. A small shift. Not warmth, exactly, but the place it might grow from.

Tengen grinned wide from the far end of the table, propping his chin up with one hand. “You’re popular now,” he teased, clearly delighted. “Might have to start charging for your words. I bet Suma would pay in sobs.”

“ SHUT UP, ” she wailed. “DON’T RUIN THIS FOR ME!”

Hinatsuru chuckled softly into her tea.

There were no fireworks. No ceremonies. No grand declarations.

Just warmth.

Just closeness.

Just… being seen.

That night, Giyuu walked the garden path in silence.

The moon had risen full and pale, casting the estate in a silver-blue wash that caught on the pond’s surface like scattered starlight. Lanterns lined the stepping stones, their light dim and flickering, soft enough not to disturb the peace but steady enough to guide gentle footsteps.

He walked slowly, deliberately, hands tucked into his sleeves and haori loose over his shoulders. The stitches were uneven, but each one had been done by hand. His hand. A small act of remembrance stitched into fabric.

The cool breeze brushed through his hair as he neared the edge of the koi pond. The fish were asleep, nestled beneath lily pads and stones. The water glimmered beneath the moon’s gaze, still and glass-like.

He knelt down.

The stones beneath his feet were cold, worn smooth by time. His reflection shimmered just beneath the surface—half-shadowed, half-whole. For a moment, he just stared at himself. At the person who looked back—someone quieter, older, softer than the boy who once crouched in a wardrobe and held his breath through screams.

He opened his mouth.

Sound didn’t come easily, but it came.

“...Giyuu.”

He said it once, lips barely parting. The sound disappeared into the night like mist.

Then again, firmer this time. “Giyuu.”

He didn’t say it for them. Not for Tengen. Not for the wives.

Not for duty or identity or because anyone asked .

He said it because he needed to hear it.

Needed to remind himself that the name still belonged to him. That it was more than a string of syllables. That it was something real. Not something that had been assigned to him in the aftermath of fire and blood—but something he had reclaimed with his own voice.

He breathed in.

The wind whispered through the garden. Bamboo rustled in the distance. A frog chirped from the far bank.

For the first time in years, he felt whole—not because he was healed, not because the past had vanished, but because—for one night—he allowed himself to exist.

Here.

Now.

Alive.

Not in memory.

Not in silence.

Not in survival.

But in presence.

In name.

Chapter Text

The day began gently.

It was the kind of morning that made it easy to forget the world ever knew violence. Early spring sunlight filtered through the branches of the plum trees, casting dappled gold across the stone paths and wooden corridors of the Uzui estate. The last remnants of winter clung to the breeze, crisp and fleeting, but warmth bloomed steadily in its wake. Dew glittered like pearls on the leaves. Birds sang softly above the eaves.

Giyuu had woken before the others, as he often did, drawn not by obligation but by the rhythm of habit—the quiet pull of morning stillness. He padded barefoot through the veranda, loose robes tied lazily at the waist, sleeves rolled back to the elbows. His breath steamed faintly in the cold, but he didn’t mind. He preferred it like this—empty paths, no voices, no weight on his shoulders save for the haori wrapped around them.

He found his way to the garden and sank to his knees in the earth without fanfare.

One of the older gardeners—a man with a spine bent from age and a mouth full of missing teeth—nodded to him in greeting but said nothing more than a quiet, “Morning, lad.” The two worked side by side in silence. Occasionally, the man hummed fragments of old lullabies, half-forgotten things from a childhood no one else remembered, notes curling gently through the air like incense smoke.

They pulled weeds. Dug shallow furrows. Tended the soft new buds emerging from their winter rest.

Giyuu liked it that way. No questions. No expectations. Just the earth beneath his fingers and the sun warming his back.

But peace, he’d learned, was not a still thing. It was a rhythm—measured and fragile. It could hold steady for hours, days even, but sometimes something came along and nudged it just wrong. Just sharp enough to rattle the bones beneath it. And he felt it before he heard it.

A shift in the air. A pulse. A crack.

Then—

“UZUI!!!”

The voice struck the quiet estate like a gong—bright, uncontained, and impossibly loud. “OPEN THIS GATE BEFORE I KICK IT DOWN WITH THE FLAMES OF YOUTH!!”

Giyuu jerked upright. The gardener beside him startled, planting a hand on his lower back.

From somewhere inside the estate, a teacup shattered.

Tengen didn’t flinch.

He was already on his feet by the time the second voice called out—dry and laced with exasperated amusement.

“Gods, do you even know how to knock like a normal person?” the second stranger said. “You’re going to scare the koi again, idiot. ”

Tengen threw open the front gate with a dramatic sigh, arms wide, voice rising to meet the energy outside. “You bring that much noise to my door, you better be carrying something worth my time.”

And standing beyond the gate were two figures Giyuu had never seen before.

The first was unmistakable, even from a distance. Tall, broad, and radiating intensity like a furnace. Kyojuro Rengoku beamed with the force of a sunrise, his haori a swirl of fire against the daylight. His smile was so wide it bordered on absurd, and his eyes gleamed with that same unwavering light he was infamous for, according to Tengen. He carried a large wrapped bundle over his shoulder—probably the sake—and waved it like a flag of war.

Beside him, leaning with calculated ease against the gatepost, was someone entirely different.

This man was smaller than Rengoku, but lean and whip-strong. His hair was longer now, tousled and layered, its dusky pink shade like fading camellias at the end of spring. Jagged scars marred the side of his face and jaw, but they did nothing to dull the sharpness of his expression—those foxlike eyes still glinted with a quiet confidence, though the mischief had burned down to something more subdued.

 He wore his uniform with quiet neatness, the collar fastened, sleeves straight, draped beneath a green and golden green haori patterned with interlocking cubes—mesmerizing and intricate. His stance was relaxed, even still, but there was a coiled precision in his posture, a sense that he could strike with lethal grace at any moment—danger dressed in quiet dignity.

“Missed us?” the pink-haired man teased, brushing past Tengen without waiting for an answer. His voice was smooth, playful, practiced in the art of teasing affection and controlled chaos. “You look older. That much glitter in your hair now, or is that just old age?”

“I should’ve locked the damn gate,” Tengen grumbled under his breath, but he didn’t hide his grin. “You weren’t invited.”

“And yet, here we are,” the man said, walking backward through the gate with a smile like a cat who’d just found an unattended roast. “Aren’t you lucky?”

Rengoku boomed with laughter, stepping in behind him. “WE BROUGHT SAKE!” he declared, lifting the bundle triumphantly. “AND STORIES! AND QUESTIONS!”

“I’m regretting this already,” Tengen muttered, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

The estate shifted beneath their voices.

Energy bloomed into every corner. It was like throwing a festival into a temple—the sudden presence of them made the walls feel too close, the air too loud. Laughter echoed off the eaves. Heavy boots thudded across polished wood.

The wives reacted on instinct.

Makio took one look at the newcomers from across the garden path and spun on her heel. “Nope. Not today.” She vanished toward the armory before Sabito could even notice and tease her.

Hinatsuru bowed politely from the corridor, lips tight in a barely concealed smile, and slipped away like mist.

Suma made it all of three steps toward Kyojuro with a squeal of delight—“Rengoku-san!!”—only to trip on the hem of her robe and collapse into a yelping heap. She scrambled upright, face scarlet, and promptly ran in the opposite direction.

“Charming as always,” Sabito called after her, snickering.

The estate had become a thunderstorm in a teacup.

And just around the corner, down a narrow path edged in moss and quiet, Giyuu paused. His hands were still sunk into the garden bed, fingers cold from the dirt. He blinked at the sudden chorus of unfamiliar laughter. The brightness of it. The confidence.

He didn’t know those voices.

And yet something in him bristled.

His stomach had dropped the moment he heard them.

It wasn’t fear. Not exactly.

But it was something just as sharp—something that curled low and tense beneath his ribs. Like standing outside a celebration you weren’t invited to. Like watching people embrace under a banner you didn’t understand the language of.

He shifted slowly to his feet, brushing soil from his palms.

He’d been fine just a moment ago.

Why did it suddenly feel like he was somewhere he didn’t belong?

`

`

`

In the tea room, chaos didn’t just bloom—it erupted .

The air was thick with the scent of polished wood, fresh rice paper, and the subtle burn of sake warming over a nearby brazier. Tatami mats creaked beneath every exaggerated motion as Kyojuro Rengoku launched into his tale like a man possessed by the very flame he wielded. One arm carved wildly through the air, nearly knocking over a ceramic tray as he described—in blistering, roaring tones—a recent mission that ended with him dangling off a cliff, clutching a demon boar by its tusks, while the ground gave way beneath him.

“AND THEN,” Kyojuro bellowed, eyes blazing with manic joy, “the cliff collapsed ! But the boar! The boar would not yield!”

Sabito—lounging with his sleeves rolled and his hair tied back loosely—snorted from behind his sake cup. “That cliff was barely a ledge and the boar was a runt with half a tusk.”

Kyojuro whirled on him. “Sabito, I felt its hatred! It had the wrath of ten demons in its soul!”

Sabito smirked, reclining further until his shoulder brushed the paper wall. “Or maybe you were just drunk on adrenaline—and stupidity.”

Tengen, seated between them in a more refined pose than usual, poured the next round of sake with careful fingers. The glass glinted amber in the late afternoon light, his rings clinking softly as he tipped the bottle. His smile was subdued but genuine—softer than either man had seen in recent months.

“You two haven’t changed a damn bit,” he muttered, watching as Kyojuro refilled his own cup with a hand that somehow managed to shake from excitement, not exhaustion.

Sabito cocked his head. “But you have. You've been mysteriously absent.” He pointed his cup like an accusation. “No mission reports. No joint training. You missed three corpse meetings. I asked Shinazugawa where you were and he just growled at me like a dog with a broken muzzle.”

Kyojuro leaned forward with exaggerated concern, brows knit in mock seriousness. “Tell us, Tengen. Have you taken a yet another lover? Is that why you've vanished into the night like a shinobi of old?”

Tengen chuckled, slow and unhurried. “Let’s just say I’ve had my hands full.”

“A new mission?” Kyojuro asked brightly, leaning closer still.

“Something like that.”

Sabito narrowed his eyes. “That a yes, or a ‘yes-but-it’s-trauma-related-and-we’re-not-allowed-to-ask’?”

Tengen swirled the sake in his cup and sipped. “No comment,” he said, lips quirking into a sly smile.

Sabito burst out laughing. “I knew it! It’s the soul-crushing kind!”

Kyojuro slapped the table. “Alas! Tragedy and intrigue walk hand-in-hand once more!”

Laughter roared through the room like a wildfire. Even Tengen, who usually wore his charm like a mask, laughed without restraint. For a moment, the space felt like the old days—before missions piled on like tombstones, before the blood had gotten so hard to wash off, before the quiet between assignments began to ache.

The tea room buzzed with the kind of warmth that lingered in the ribs. Sake flowed freely, stories bled into one another, and the paper walls swayed gently as the wind outside caught the edge of evening. Minutes blurred into an hour.

Kyojuro eventually stretched his legs out beneath the table with a satisfied sigh. “I’ve missed this. The quiet times. The laughter.”

Sabito poured himself another drink and glanced sideways at Tengen. “So. Seriously. What have you been doing? You look better. Looser in the shoulders. Less… haunted.”

Tengen didn’t answer right away. He leaned back and tilted his head toward the ceiling as if weighing his words against the rice-paper sky.

“I’ve been… watching someone,” he said at last. “Someone who reminds me what it means to live.”

Sabito blinked. “That’s vague and alarmingly sentimental. I don’t know if I should be concerned or if I should give you a hug.”

“You could do both,” Kyojuro offered.

Tengen grinned but shook his head. “Let’s just say… he’s had it worse. Much worse. And he’s still here.”

That silenced them. Even Sabito’s smirk faded into something more contemplative.

“I’ve been trying to keep him safe,” Tengen said more softly. “And trying not to fuck it up.”

Kyojuro sat forward again, voice lower this time. “He a demon slayer?”

“No. But… he’s strong.”

Sabito raised a brow. “Strong how? Like, physically? Spiritually? Emotionally? I need categories, Tengen. Subtext is not my strong suit when I’ve had this much sake.”

Tengen let the silence settle for a moment longer. Then he smiled, broader now, the kind of smile that came from somewhere tired but hopeful.

“He survived things that would have broken most of us. And he’s learning how to speak again.”

That drew a glance between Kyojuro and Sabito—brief, but loaded.

Kyojuro, as always, was the first to recover. “Then we’ll raise a cup to him.”

“To survival,” Sabito added.

Tengen clinked his cup against theirs and murmured, “To healing.”

They drank. And outside the room, the estate fell quiet, save for the wind brushing through the garden trees and a soft footstep far down the corridor—one that paused, unnoticed, just beyond the shoji screen.

`

`

`

The door to the tea room slammed open with a force that made the paper walls tremble.

Suma stood framed in the doorway, her breath caught in her chest, eyes wide and brimming with panic. Her hair, once neatly pinned back, had come partially undone, and the sleeves of her kimono were rumpled, clutched tightly in her shaking hands. Her face had gone pale, lips trembling as she tried to find the words.

“L-Lord Tengen—!” she gasped, voice high and tight.

Three pairs of eyes snapped toward her, the laughter dying instantly, sucked from the air like a candle snuffed in a gale.

“Giyuu—he’s—he’s having a panic attack!” she blurted, each word tumbling over the next, too fast, too frightened. “I don’t know what happened—he just started shaking and crying and—and I didn’t know what to do—he was fine, he was eating plums and I was braiding his hair and then he just—he broke —”

The silence that followed was immediate and absolute.

Kyojuro’s cup clinked softly as he set it down with both hands, his golden eyes wide with concern, already halfway to standing.

Sabito sat up straighter, the lazy tilt of his posture gone. His expression had lost all traces of mischief—his brows drawn tightly, lips parted, chest held still as if even breathing too loud would shatter the moment.

Tengen didn’t speak. He didn’t pause.

He was already on his feet, sake cup abandoned, silks whispering as he strode past them.

Past the table.
Past the stunned stillness of the room.
Past Suma.

Gone.

His footsteps vanished down the hallway before any of them could say a word.

The tea room held its breath.

Sabito stared at the open doorway, something unreadable flashing behind his eyes. His jaw worked slightly, like he was grinding down a thought he didn’t want to voice.

Kyojuro stood the rest of the way up, frowning faintly. He glanced at Sabito, then at the door, a crease forming between his brows. Tension hung in the air like a held note, waiting for something—an explanation, a confirmation, a denial.

Suma remained in the doorway, frozen with her hands still fisted in her sleeves. Her bottom lip trembled, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes were wide with guilt and helplessness, glancing down the hallway as if she could will herself backward in time—undo whatever had just triggered the spiral.

Sabito’s gaze shifted toward her slowly, voice low and unreadable. “Is he…?” He didn’t finish the question. Didn’t need to.

Suma didn’t answer.

She just stood there—small, shivering—and shook her head once, barely perceptible.

Sabito’s gaze lingered on her, jaw tightening ever so slightly before he looked away.

The sake sat untouched now. Its fragrance hung in the air, sharp and sweet.

Outside, the gold light of late afternoon had begun to dim, slipping into grey-blue dusk. Shadows crept across the tatami mats, stretching toward the empty doorway like long fingers.

And in the silence that followed—broken only by Suma’s soft breaths and the distant echo of footsteps somewhere deeper within the estate—what lingered wasn’t a name, but the shape of something unspoken.

Sabito’s fingers tightened around his cup.

He said nothing.

`

`

`

(Giyuus POV)

Giyuu noticed the change the moment they arrived.

Not visually—he didn’t see them. Didn’t need to.

The shift came in the air itself. Like the subtle weight that settles right before a summer storm, heavy with something electric and invisible. It pressed down on his skin, made the hairs along his neck rise, made his breath catch just slightly in his throat.

Then came the voices.

Two of them—unfamiliar, uninvited.

One was deep, full-bodied, resonant. It carried with it an ease that filled every space, as though the owner of the voice had never once needed permission to speak, to exist, to laugh loud enough to rattle the beams.

The other voice was higher, more agile. Quick and mischievous, bright in a way that felt sharp. Boyish. Unruly.

Their footsteps followed, echoing down the halls like pebbles dropped in a pond, chasing away the quiet Giyuu had only just begun to feel at home within.

His body responded before he could stop it.

A tightness bloomed in his chest. His shoulders locked up beneath the thin robe he wore, as if expecting impact. The soft fabric of his haori slipped slightly as he moved, hands curling into fists to catch it before it fell from his shoulders. He adjusted it, then stilled completely—brow furrowed faintly.

He didn’t recognize them.

But his body remembered enough of what unfamiliar laughter meant.

And that was enough.

Quietly, instinctively, he turned from the hallway—before their shadows could lengthen around the corner—and slipped into motion. He didn’t need instruction. Didn’t need prompting. His feet moved with the same practiced caution he’d honed through necessity. Silent steps. No wasted movement. No sound.

He crossed through the garden courtyard like a passing shadow, his presence unremarkable against the flutter of bamboo leaves and the distant chirr of birds. He did not look back.

The door to the wives’ sitting room slid open without ceremony, and he stepped inside.

Warmth greeted him.

Soft, filtered light streamed through the open shoji, casting long stripes of sun across the tatami. The scent of green tea and pressed herbs lingered in the air, mingling with something distinctly sweet—plum candy, maybe. Cushions lay strewn about in lazy disarray, as though the room itself were relaxing, sprawling out its limbs after a long day.

Hinatsuru looked up from her embroidery. Her gaze met his for a breath. She didn’t smile—but her eyes softened. She didn’t speak.

She never needed to.

Makio was lounging closer to the veranda, sleeves pushed up, one leg bouncing idly. She tilted her head in acknowledgment, offering him the smallest nod—casual, unbothered. A way of saying, You’re welcome here.

And then there was Suma.

Already tangled among a sea of cushions, silk sash draped halfway off her shoulder, hairpins scattered like confetti around her, Suma gasped theatrically when she spotted him.

“ Giyuu! ” she exclaimed, arms flailing above her head like a cat stretching after a nap. “Oh, you’re perfect! Just the person I needed!”

He blinked slowly.

She sat upright with sudden purpose, scooting forward until she was nearly falling off her cushion. Her hands smacked the floor in front of her twice— pat pat —like she was summoning a pet.

“Come here,” she said, trying for stern and failing miserably. “I had a dream last night that you had this absolutely divine braid. Like, celestial. I woke up angry at reality. You can’t walk around with all that hair and not let me play with it again.”

He didn’t move immediately.

But he didn’t retreat either.

Instead, his eyes drifted briefly across the room—to the sunlight against the far wall, to Hinatsuru threading a needle with calm precision, to Makio sipping tea with one hand and fanning herself with the other. None of them were looking at him like he was an intruder. None were waiting for words he didn’t have.

And Suma… Suma was already reaching for a comb as if the matter was settled.

So he stepped forward.

Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself onto the cushion in front of her, knees folding beneath him with precise grace, hands resting gently in his lap. He kept his gaze downward, lashes low. His breath came slow and measured, but he made no move to resist.

“Thank you,” Suma sighed happily, already separating strands of his hair between her fingers. “This is going to be so relaxing. For me , anyway.”

She hummed as she worked, a little off-key but cheerful. Her fingers were gentle as they began combing through the dark strands—softer than Giyuu expected, her usual chaos tempered by the way she focused.

“Your hair is so soft,” she murmured after a pause, speaking more to herself. “Do you use something special? Oh wait. Of course you don’t. You’re a ‘rinse and go’ kind of guy. The kind who secretly smells good but pretends it’s just the wind.”

Makio snorted.

Hinatsuru let out a faint laugh behind her hand.

Giyuu sat still. His body relaxed by degrees—small shifts only someone watching closely would notice. The way his shoulders loosened. The way his fingers, once clenched in his lap, slowly unfurled.

He didn’t flinch when Suma brushed his neck.

Didn’t pull away when a lock of hair slipped down over his cheek and she tucked it back gently.

“Look at this,” she said after a moment, her voice softer. “I knew it. Your hair was made for this. You were destined to be someone’s muse.”

He let his eyes drift to the side—toward the light, toward the embroidery on the low table.

Not toward the laughter still echoing in the distant hallways.

Sabito. Rengoku.

The names drifted in, carried on the breeze like pollen.

He didn’t know them. Didn’t need to.

Let the others meet them. Smile for them. Welcome them.

He had no desire to be seen today.

No interest in new voices. New eyes. New judgments.

Suma’s hands never stopped moving.

At some point, Hinatsuru came over and placed a small plate beside him. Dried plums. A rice cracker. A delicate cup of tea.

She didn’t say anything.

She didn’t need to.

The silence he brought with him wasn’t awkward here. It wasn’t treated like a void to be filled or a problem to be solved. It was just part of him—like his shadow, like the quiet hum of breath beneath ribs.

And they let it exist. Let him exist.

Suma began humming again, swaying slightly as she secured the braid with a ribbon—something pale blue she must’ve found nearby.

She whispered, with a dramatic sigh of pride. “Gorgeous. If anyone says otherwise, I’ll bite them.”

Giyuu didn’t react.

But his eyes closed for just a moment longer than a blink.

Suma worked with gentle fingers.

She was surprisingly deft, each motion light but certain, weaving through strands of Giyuu’s long hair like she was lacing flower stems into a garland. Her touch wasn’t hurried, nor was it hesitant—it was playful, almost reverent, as though the act itself was less about decoration and more about the process, about giving her hands something to do while her voice filled the air with its usual brightness.

And her voice did fill the air.

It came in waves—bubbling, spiraling, tangling over itself without direction or destination.

“I saw a sparrow chasing a butterfly this morning,” she said, as if the thought had only just landed on her tongue. “And it almost caught it too. Which would’ve been sad—well, for the butterfly—but also kind of impressive. Do you think sparrows eat butterflies? Or was it just being rude?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, and she didn’t need one. Giyuu sat still, letting her braid his hair, gaze lowered, hands folded loosely in his lap. The words washed over him like the hush of rain.

“And then I remembered that one time Tengen tried to braid my hair,” Suma continued, giggling under her breath. “And he tied it so tight I couldn’t turn my head for a full hour. He said it was a ‘sailor’s knot,’ and Hinatsuru had to cut me out of it. You remember that, Hina?”

Hinatsuru, seated just behind them, let out a quiet laugh—warm and low. “You cried for twenty minutes.”

“I was trapped, ” Suma whined. “Like a very glamorous hostage.”

Makio, sitting cross-legged on the other side of the room with her arms resting on her knees, rolled her eyes. “You only cried because you thought your hair was going to fall out.”

“Exactly! It’s the source of my power!”

Another ripple of laughter filled the space.

Giyuu didn’t join them.

But he didn’t need to.

The sound—so mundane, so soft and unburdened—settled over him like a shawl. It hummed along the walls, warming the tatami and softening the golden morning light filtering through the shoji screens. He didn’t understand how a place could feel like this. Quiet without being empty. Warm without pressing in on him. Safe without ceremony.

Hinatsuru leaned forward at some point, setting a small dish beside him. Her sleeves rustled faintly as she poured tea into a simple ceramic cup and placed it next to the plums.

He bowed his head—slight, almost imperceptible, but she caught it.

She always did.

Makio, watching lazily from her cushion, gave him a long look before saying, “You sleep at all last night?”

Her tone was casual, but there was a weight behind it—not demanding, just aware. Familiar.

He met her gaze for a second. Then gave the smallest of nods.

She nodded back and said nothing more.

That was enough.

They didn’t ask him to speak. Didn’t try to coax words from his throat like others had. There were no questions about his silence, no sideways glances, no exaggerated patience as if waiting for a performance to start.

He was simply allowed to be here.

To exist , without being dissected.

That kind of space still felt strange.

Not bad. Not wrong.

Just… unfamiliar. Like a language he hadn’t spoken in years, but still remembered the rhythm of.

“There!” Suma said suddenly, her voice bright with victory. “Finished!”

She tied the end of the braid with something she must’ve pulled from her sleeve—a strip of pale blue silk, soft and clean. Giyuu felt it brush against the back of his neck like a whispered goodbye.

“You look like a noblewoman from a tragic romance scroll,” she declared with faux gravity. “The kind who dies of heartbreak but still looks breathtaking in every frame.”

Hinatsuru laughed again, her smile barely hidden behind her sleeve. “He does.”

Makio snorted. “Too pretty. It suits him more than it should.”

Giyuu blinked, eyes flickering briefly between them.

They weren’t mocking.

That much was immediately clear.

There was no sharpness in their voices, no weight behind their words. Only lightness. Playfulness. The kind that didn’t prod or poke, didn’t demand he answer for existing in the room. Their eyes didn’t linger too long on him, didn’t dig. They simply… saw him.

And accepted him.

A knot pulled tight in his chest.

He didn’t know why.

Only that it hurt. Quietly. Deeply.

It wasn’t sharp like a blade or crushing like a fist. It was something slower, more invisible—like a thread wrapped around his lungs, tightening with each breath he took, quiet and unnoticed until it wasn’t.

Suma scooted closer behind him with a little sigh of satisfaction, her fingers still tangled gently in his hair. The braid was finished now, but she couldn’t seem to stop touching it—like she was proud of it, like it was something delicate she’d grown and wanted to admire a little longer. She smoothed a palm down its length with care.

“Your hair’s so soft,” she said, voice warm, pleased, unconcerned. “Was it always like this?”

It was an idle question. Meaningless.

But something inside Giyuu cracked open.

Not loud. Not with warning.

Just… broke .

Because suddenly—

He remembered.

Not in words. Not in flashes.

But in feeling .

The scent of camellia oil. The soft, persistent tug of a comb through his hair. A rhythm, steady and warm. A quiet hum behind him, sometimes a melody, sometimes a lullaby without a name. A voice that had been everything. Tsutako’s voice.

She used to sit behind him in the narrow square of sunlight that spilled through the window of their small home, combing out the tangles with patient fingers. She never rushed. She never scolded. She always smiled when she worked, even when he was too still and too silent.

She used to tell him stories—about foxes in the mountains, brave swordsmen who could call the wind, the moon who fell in love with the sea. And even though he rarely answered, she never seemed to mind.

He remembered her wedding robe—red like poppies. Red like spilled ink. Red like something sacred.

He remembered how she had cupped his face before the ceremony, leaned in to press her forehead to his, and whispered, “Don’t be afraid. You’ll always have me.”

She was wrong.

Because he remembered the scream.

He remembered the blood.

He remembered the gurgling sound of something torn too fast. The wet scrape of talons across the wooden floor. The slam of a door forced open. And he remembered the way the wardrobe cracked open just enough for him to see —

Her body, mangled. Her limbs twisted at unnatural angles. Her mouth frozen wide in a scream she hadn’t finished. Her eyes blown wide, reflecting nothing at all. Her wedding robe soaked through, stuck to the floor.

And above her—

That thing .

The monster that smiled with too many teeth and blood on its jaw. A nightmare with a voice that rumbled low and amused, like it had been waiting for this moment.

He hadn’t moved.

He’d watched.

He hadn’t breathed.

Not until it was too late.

The silence after—the nothing —had wrapped itself around him that day and never let go.

His breath caught.

Again.

Only this time—it didn’t come back.

He tried to draw air in, slow and quiet like always, but it didn’t work. His throat closed up. His chest tightened so suddenly it made him dizzy. The warmth of the room—its colors, its softness, the easy conversation—disintegrated in an instant, swallowed by the flood.

The tatami under his knees turned jagged and cold.

The cushions felt too far away.

The tea nearby reeked like iron.

The walls tilted, pressing in— too close, too bright, too loud —the same way they had that night in the pleasure district when the madam had walked in and he’d realized the door wasn’t just closed.

It was locked.

His lungs refused him. His fingers began to tremble.

His hands were clenched now—pressed against his thighs, shaking. His nails were biting into the skin beneath his robe. He didn’t notice.

The panic didn’t come in pieces. It surged.

Like a wave made of memory and blood and silence, rising too fast for him to hold it back. He couldn’t keep it down. Couldn’t pretend to be still or composed or untouched. He was drowning inside himself—and still, still —he didn’t make a sound.

Not even when the tears came.

They slid down his face without force, trailing silently along his jaw, soaking into the blue ribbon at the end of the braid like rain falling on silk.

He couldn’t breathe.

His chest heaved in dry, fruitless gasps. His heartbeat thundered in his ears—pounding like it was trying to burst free.

He couldn’t see.

Not clearly.

Everything tunneled, the edges of the room turning white and bright and wrong . His hands rose without thinking—clutching at his sleeves, at his chest, at anything —as if he could claw the memories out of himself if he just tried hard enough.

He barely registered it when Hinatsuru’s voice broke through.

“—Giyuu?”

Her voice was soft. Uneasy.

He didn’t respond.

Makio sat up straighter across from them, her posture shifting in an instant. Her brow furrowed. Her eyes locked onto him, narrowing.

“Is he—?” she began, then caught the look on his face and swore under her breath. “Shit—Hinatsuru.”

“I see him,” Hinatsuru said quickly, already moving to his side.

Her voice turned low and soothing. “It’s alright. Giyuu, you’re safe. You’re here. It’s just us, just the room—you’re not there, you’re not alone—”

But he couldn’t hear her.

All he could hear was the snap of talons.

The squelch of blood.

The nothingness afterward.

His hands were shaking so violently now it looked like they might break. His shoulders hunched, his back curling in on itself. His arms crossed over his chest as though trying to hold it closed, to stop it from spilling open.

His mouth opened once. Tried to speak. But no sound came.

Just air.

Just emptiness .

He wanted to disappear. To fold so small that nothing could see him. No one could find him.

No monster could reach him again.

Suma had gone pale.

She turned to look, face crumpling in alarm when she saw the tears, the trembling, the ghost-white expression hollowing his face.

“Giyuu?” she whispered. “Giyuu—what’s—?”

He flinched when her voice hit his ear.

And the smile dropped from her face entirely.

“I—I’ll get Tengen!” she gasped, scrambling to her feet. “He’ll know—he’ll—”

She was gone before she finished, sprinting barefoot across the wooden floor, her footsteps echoing too loud against the walls.

He didn’t see her leave.

Didn’t see anything at all.

His vision was tight and wet and spinning.

Hinatsuru stayed at his side, her hands hovering close but never touching—not yet. Not without permission. Her presence was solid, unwavering, a tether even if he couldn’t grasp it.

Makio stood near the doorway, guarding it with her body, her eyes scanning the corridor like she expected something to come through and try to hurt him. She didn’t speak. She didn’t soften.

She watched.

He was crouched now—half-curled, barely breathing, braid slipping over his shoulder and brushing his wrist.

His lips were parted, his jaw locked.

The panic hadn’t passed.

It was still climbing.

Still rising.

The sound in his ears grew louder. Like a waterfall. Or a scream. Or the beat of wings against the air, faster and faster and faster.

And under it—

Footsteps.

Fast. Heavy.

Coming straight for him.

`

`

`
(Narrators POV)

Tengen was running before Suma even finished the sentence.

She had barely stumbled into the hallway—her face streaked with tears, her words breaking in her throat—before instinct overrode thought.

“Giyuu—he’s—he’s shaking, I don’t know what to do—”

That was all it took.

He didn’t wait for clarification. Didn’t need her to explain. The look on her face—the pale dread, the way her hands trembled as she grabbed the doorframe for balance—said enough.

Tengen’s body moved before his mind caught up, a blur of motion and purpose. His feet pounded the corridor with heavy, echoing thuds as Suma scrambled after him barefoot, nearly slipping on the wood. She was crying now, half-choking on sobs as she followed, her voice cracking from the sheer helplessness of it all.

He turned the last corner with his shoulder, slammed the door open with a force that rattled the frame—and then—

He saw him.

Giyuu was on the floor.

Not sitting.

Not kneeling.

Collapsed.

Curled tight into himself like a creature too wounded to defend itself. His arms had wrapped around his ribs as if trying to hold his chest together. His hands were fisted against the mat, shaking with a tremor too violent to be called mere fear. His entire back was hunched, convulsing with shallow, broken gasps that didn’t draw in air. His mouth hung open slightly, as if caught mid-breath—but the breath never came.

His eye, the one not veiled in scar tissue, was wide and unseeing. Glazed. Shining. Not with recognition, but with terror. And not the kind bred from danger in the room—but the kind that came from a place much older, buried too deep to climb out of.

Time was fractured around him.

Whatever he was seeing—it wasn’t here.

Hinatsuru knelt beside him already, poised and composed despite the strain in her voice. Her hand moved in slow, gentle circles across his back, whispering something low and constant that sounded like a prayer.

Suma had fallen to her knees again, trembling, her hands clasped over her mouth as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. Her face was a picture of guilt, panic, and helpless love.

Makio crouched in the far corner, nearest the door. Her entire body was taut with tension, like she was waiting for something to strike—like she’d place herself between it and Giyuu without hesitation.

Tengen didn’t speak at first.

Didn’t ask what had happened. Didn’t waste breath on questions.

He dropped to his knees and crawled forward in three long strides, body low to the floor, movement smooth and without sound. He didn’t want to tower over the boy. He didn’t want to loom or startle.

He came down to his level.

To meet him where he was.

Only when he was close enough to feel the erratic, stuttering heat radiating from Giyuu’s body did he speak.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

Not his usual voice. Not the one that filled a room and turned heads and dared attention.

This one was low. Controlled. Human.

“Giyuu. You hear me?”

No response.

The boy’s eyes didn’t move. His body shuddered like a leaf caught in wind. His breaths—if they could be called that—were shallow, fast, choking over themselves like he’d forgotten how lungs worked.

“You’re safe now,” Tengen continued. He didn’t try to force calmness—he brought it. Every word steady. Anchored. Solid. “You’re not there anymore, wherever you went. You’re here. With us. With me.”

Still nothing.

Tengen reached out, slowly, deliberately, and rested one hand on Giyuu’s shoulder. Not gripping. Just there. Just present. His palm was warm. His touch was light enough to be ignored—but impossible to mistake.

“Breathe,” he said, keeping his tone even, his cadence slow. “Just try to match me. That’s all you need to do. No thinking. No remembering. Just me. Just now.”

He took a breath himself—deep and slow, loud enough to be heard. Exaggerated, almost theatrical, like the kind of breath you’d make when exaggerating sleep for a child.

“Inhale… nice and slow…”

Then again.

“And exhale…”

Giyuu’s shoulders jerked slightly.

Not quite a breath.

But the sound— Tengen’s voice —was cutting through the static. Not sharply. Not quickly.

But like light bleeding under a locked door.

Hinatsuru looked up at Tengen, her expression a mixture of relief and exhaustion. “He’s not hearing us yet,” she murmured. “He’s too deep. It hit fast.”

“What happened?” Tengen asked without looking away.

“We don’t know,” Makio answered, voice low but clipped. “Suma was braiding his hair. Everything was fine. Then—he just collapsed.”

“I said something,” Suma whispered hoarsely from behind him. “I—I didn’t mean to—I was just talking about his hair, and he got really quiet and then… then…”

Her voice cracked. “Then he started crying, and he never cries —”

“Suma,” Tengen said gently, “this isn’t your fault.”

She curled in, her fingers twisting hard into the fabric of her sleeves.

Tengen turned back to Giyuu.

The boy was trembling harder now. His hands had slid across the floor, as though trying to dig into the mat for something real, something solid. His lips were parted, his mouth twitching—trying to shape sound, trying to speak, but nothing was coming.

Not a single noise.

Not even a whimper.

Tengen leaned in closer, hand still on his shoulder.

“You don’t have to talk,” he murmured. “You don’t have to explain. Just breathe. That’s all I want. Just one breath. Can you do that?”

Still nothing.

His body remained locked in that folded shape—tight, desperate, like if he let go he’d fly apart.

Makio moved then, rising from her crouch. “Tengen,” she said tightly. “We need to ground him. He’s not coming back like this.”

Tengen nodded once.

“Hinatsuru—keep the contact gentle. Don’t let go. Just your hand. Nothing sudden.”

Hinatsuru adjusted slightly, her movements practiced, soothing. “Still with you, Giyuu,” she murmured. “You’re not alone. You’re safe. We see you.”

“Suma,” Tengen said without looking, “grab the lavender oil from the bath shelf. Fast, but don’t slam the door.”

Suma nodded rapidly, getting up and darting away.

He turned his attention back to Giyuu.

Then slowly, with all the gentleness his large frame could manage, he shifted closer and brought his other hand up.

Still no pressure.

Just presence.

“You’re not dying, Giyuu,” he said, quiet but certain. “I promise you that. I promise you. I know it feels like you are. Like the world’s gone sideways and your skin doesn’t fit and nothing is real. I’ve been there. I know.”

He leaned forward, forehead nearly brushing Giyuu’s.

“But I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere. So come back to me, yeah?”

A sound escaped Giyuu then.

Not a word. Not even a breath.

Just a crack —the softest, most broken sound imaginable. His lips trembled.

His shoulders hitched again, deeper this time.

The first real breath came out as a ragged exhale.

Shallow.

Uneven.

But real.

Hinatsuru let out a quiet breath of her own, eyes glimmering.

Tengen exhaled too, just as slow, matching him again.

“That’s it,” he said gently. “You’re doing good. I’ve got you.”

Behind him, Suma returned, kneeling and holding out the small vial with both hands.

Tengen didn’t move.

But he nodded.

Makio took it from her and uncorked it, letting the lavender spread through the room like a balm.

And slowly— very slowly—color began to return to Giyuu’s face.

His fingers still twitched. His lips still parted without sound.

But his eyes blinked once.

And this time, they moved.

Just slightly.

Toward the man holding his shoulder.

Toward the voice anchoring him.

And for the first time since he’d broken—

He saw him.

The doorway darkened.

Two figures cast shadows that stretched long into the room, cutting across the woven tatami like fresh ink across parchment.

Rengoku stepped in first.

For once, his presence did not blaze like sunlight—there was no thunder in his step, no rousing grin beneath his flame-colored hair. His golden eyes, bright and wide by nature, softened the instant they landed on the trembling figure curled on the floor.

Giyuu.

His expression changed slowly. First confusion—then a tightening of the mouth, a narrowing of the brow. His shoulders squared. But his arms stayed folded across his chest, not from distance, but from restraint. From quiet respect for the sacred silence in the room.

Sabito followed close behind.

A half-step slower. Lighter. More hesitant.

The mischief usually stitched into the corner of his mouth had vanished, replaced with something rawer—unspoken. The playfulness faded as quickly as mist in sunlight the moment his gaze swept the space and landed on the shape on the floor.

It took him a second longer to register what he was seeing.

The braid.

The tears.

The tremble in Giyuu’s spine—unrhythmic, broken, like a boy who had been cracked too many times to hold his shape.

Sabito’s face shifted—his mouth parting, his brows drawing together.

He didn’t know this version of the boy.

Not this one.

Not this small .

But there was something eerily familiar in the way Giyuu folded into himself. In the ghostlike stillness. In the silence that spoke too loudly.

Something he’d once seen in a mirror, years ago, and tried to bury.

Neither of them stepped further in.

They stood still, just inside the threshold. The air in the room was too dense, too saturated with unspoken ache. To cross that line would have felt like trampling through a shrine.

Rengoku’s arms remained folded.

But his voice, when it came, was quiet. Measured. “How long?”

Makio answered without turning. “Minutes. Ten, maybe twelve.”

Sabito stared, mouth opening slightly. “What happened?”

“Trigger,” Tengen answered over his shoulder, still crouched low. “Something small. Something soft.”

Sabito’s throat tightened.

He didn’t need the details.

Giyuu had always been soft in a way that was easily mistaken for blankness—quiet not by choice, but by necessity. It was a silence born from rupture, not peace.

Tengen kept speaking—his voice still slow, deliberate, gentle enough to touch glass without cracking it.

“You’re safe,” he said again, lips near Giyuu’s temple. “You’re not there anymore. Just here. With me.”

Over and over, like a heartbeat. Steady. Predictable.

Giyuu flinched at the sound, but not as violently as before.

A shiver rippled through his back, and then— slowly —his fingers began to loosen. They peeled away from the floor, twitching. His knuckles, once white, were turning pink again. His shoulders dropped—barely. A fraction of a fraction.

But it was enough.

The breathing, still shallow, began to change. Less of a rasp. Less of a choke.

Still shaking.

Still not whole.

But no longer on the edge of collapse.

The tears hadn’t stopped.

They clung to his lashes, soaked into his sleeves, and fell in uneven drops down the front of his borrowed robe.

But the terror had passed.

It lingered, but it no longer ruled him.

Tengen shifted closer.

Slow. Careful. Not a single movement made without purpose.

He extended his arms—not to grab, not to contain—but to offer.

To invite.

Giyuu didn’t fall forward.

He folded.

A slow collapse, not from exhaustion—but surrender. Trust, fragile and trembling.

His forehead came to rest against Tengen’s chest, so gently it might’ve gone unnoticed by anyone not watching. His hands lifted, barely—then settled into the fabric of Tengen’s robes, grasping like a child gripping the hem of a blanket in the dark.

The room didn’t breathe.

Neither did the men in the doorway.

Tengen didn’t speak.

He didn’t try to fix it.

He simply wrapped an arm across Giyuu’s back, warm and solid. A shelter more than a hold. He rested his chin lightly atop the mess of black hair now braided and damp with sweat.

There was no more talking.

No reassurances.

No need.

Because Giyuu hadn’t run.

Hadn’t pulled away.

He had reached out .

And that was more than anyone had asked of him.

Suma, red-eyed, quietly leaned into Hinatsuru’s side and clutched her sleeve. Makio remained still, hands folded tightly in her lap, gaze pinned to Giyuu with something fierce and silent burning behind her eyes.

Sabito, at last, took a single step inside.

Sabito’s fingers curled into his palm.

He looked again at the blue ribbon in Giyuu’s hair—still neat, still tied, though darkened now with salt and tears.

The braid had come undone near the crown, strands slipping free.

Across the room, Suma sniffled again, her face buried in the curve of Hinatsuru’s shoulder. Her sleeve was damp where she’d wiped her nose and eyes raw with a helplessness she didn’t know how to swallow. She was quieter now, the panic in her movements gone, replaced with that peculiar stillness that came only after seeing something too big to understand and too close to forget.

Hinatsuru said nothing. She didn’t offer platitudes. She simply let her arm rest gently around Suma’s back, her other hand smoothing over the girl’s trembling shoulder in long, steady strokes—reassurance through motion. Her gaze didn’t linger on Giyuu or even on Tengen. It moved past them, settled on Makio at the edge of the room.

The two women shared a look—measured, restrained, and sharp beneath the surface. There were no words exchanged, no nods, no shifts in posture. But something passed between them, unmistakable.

Makio remained where she stood, arms folded tightly across her chest, chin lifted as though she was guarding something she didn’t yet have a name for. Her eyes, however, betrayed her.

They stayed on Giyuu.

On the way his fingers twitched against Tengen’s sleeve with residual panic. On the uneven rise and fall of his ribs, still too fast, too shallow. On the damp threads of his hair stuck to his cheek. Her jaw tightened further—enough that the muscle jumped under her skin. She didn’t speak. Didn’t sigh.

But her silence wasn’t detachment.

It was rage .

Quiet. Focused. Not at Giyuu—not even close—but at whatever had taught this boy that this was the only way to survive. At whatever had carved this kind of response so deep into his skin that kindness could unravel him.

Rengoku was the first of the visitors to speak.

He cleared his throat softly, as if afraid to break the fragile calm. His voice, when it came, was low and strangely subdued for someone known to fill every room with brightness.

“Is he…” he hesitated, glancing between the wives and the boy still pressed to Tengen’s chest, “…the one you’re caring for, Tengen?”

There was no flourish to his tone. No smile, no booming warmth.

Just gentleness. Just curiosity.

Sabito, still beside him but a step back in the shadows, squinted slightly, as if trying to see Giyuu more clearly through the tangle of sweat-matted hair and rumpled fabric.

“He doesn’t look like a servant,” he said after a long moment.

There was no malice in his voice—just a slow confusion, the kind that came when a puzzle piece refused to fit. His head tilted slightly as he studied the boy in Tengen’s arms.

The braid.

The silence.

The way he held on like he didn’t expect to be held back.

He looked like someone used to disappearing.

Tengen didn’t lift his head.

Didn’t glance back.

His hand remained steady where it rested between Giyuu’s shoulder blades, firm and grounding, as if the touch alone could anchor the boy to the present.

“He’s staying here,” he said flatly. “He’s family.”

That word didn’t leave space for interpretation.

Not project. Not charity. Family.

Tengen’s tone brooked no argument. No curiosity. No pity.

“That’s all you need to know right now.”

The silence that followed was brief—but it was solid.

A line drawn in the sand.

Rengoku inclined his head once, respectfully. “Of course.”

Sabito didn’t respond.

But his gaze hadn’t left Giyuu.

He stared, not rudely, not intrusively—but with something knotted in his chest that he didn’t quite know how to name. There was something too familiar about the curve of Giyuu’s back, the way he leaned, not collapsed, but given in. The way his hands gripped fabric like they didn’t trust it to stay.

Like even this moment—this care—was too much to carry.

Sabito’s hand twitched by his side. His fingers flexed. Then stilled again.

He looked away.

Not out of discomfort.

But out of shame.

He didn’t know this boy.

But he knew this pain.

And he hated how long it had gone unnoticed.

No one else spoke.

The room didn’t need it.

The tray of sake, once set aside in anticipation of a lighthearted reunion, remained untouched in the tea room. The cups sat cold and forgotten, their contents still. The warmth and laughter from earlier now clung to the edges of the walls like something ghostlike, half-remembered and wholly out of place.

Tengen stayed where he was.

Kneeling.

Silent.

Still cradling Giyuu to his chest like something sacred.

Like something fragile and worth protecting.

He didn’t rock him. Didn’t shush him. He simply was —a presence to cling to, a mountain in the middle of a storm.

Giyuu hadn’t moved.

Hadn’t spoken.

But he hadn’t pulled away either.

His breathing, uneven and thin, continued. No longer choking. No longer spiraling into collapse. His hands stayed curled against Tengen’s robes, knuckles tight, not in fear, but in something hesitant.

Something like belief.

Hinatsuru’s voice broke the quiet, barely above a whisper. “He should sleep soon. He won’t let himself, but he needs it.”

Makio nodded once, still watching.

“I’ll draw a bath,” she said, her voice a little rough. “The heated one. He’s freezing.”

Suma sniffled again but sat up straighter. “I can get clean clothes,” she offered, voice hoarse. “The soft ones. The ones from the basket.”

No one needed to tell them what to do.

This wasn’t pity.

This was protection.

Sabito shifted his weight. His voice, when it came again, was barely audible.

“…what’s his name?”

Tengen’s hand stilled for a moment over Giyuu’s back.

Then—

“Giyuu,” he said.

The name landed in the air like a stone into still water.

And in Tengen’s arms, the boy exhaled.

Still trembling. Still wordless.

But breathing.

And for now—

That was enough.

Chapter Text

The room settled.

Not in silence, but in a hush that trembled just beneath the surface—like the way a field still shivers long after lightning strikes, long after the storm has passed. The air felt thick with the weight of what had happened—not spoken aloud, not truly acknowledged, but still there. Lingering. Pressing.

Giyuu hadn’t moved.

He remained tucked tightly against Tengen’s side, the loose folds of the blanket draping around his shoulders and pooling at his waist like a cocoon hastily thrown around a wounded animal. The tatami beneath them creaked occasionally under the shift of weight, but Giyuu remained mostly still—knees drawn up, bare feet curled against the floor as if anchoring him to the room. His head leaned against Tengen’s upper arm, just enough to touch, just enough to feel warmth but not enough to claim it.

The braid Suma had so lovingly woven still clung to the curve of his neck, ribbon now limp and tangled. His hair, damp at the roots, clung stubbornly to his cheek. It obscured the side of his face, shadowing the strange hollowness in his expression.

He wasn’t crying anymore. That, at least, had stopped.

But the silence he left behind was its own kind of ache.

Tengen watched him closely—felt the minute tension in his slender shoulders, the subtle hitch in every breath, the way his fingers clenched ever so slightly into the blanket with each loud sound. He was listening. Even now, even worn raw, Giyuu was still braced for something more. For something worse.

The bath had long been forgotten. No one had dared mention it again. Giyuu hadn’t moved an inch from Tengen’s side, and Tengen hadn’t tried to coax him away. Neither had his wives. It was understood, unspoken, but shared.

And then—

“…Who is he exactly?”

Rengoku’s voice broke the silence like a stone dropped into a still pond—deep, sonorous, but softened, held back by a rare gentleness. It didn’t startle Giyuu, but his eyes flicked toward the speaker with slow, dull recognition.

Tengen didn’t answer right away.

Sabito leaned forward, the sound of his movement louder than it should’ve been in the quiet room. His arms braced against his knees, posture tense, knuckles white.

“Where did he come from?” Sabito asked, voice more clipped. “Is he a civilian? A retiree? Someone you’re protecting?”

The word landed like a blow.

Protecting.

Giyuu flinched—barely, but visibly. A twitch in his shoulders. A breath caught between his ribs. He didn’t look at Sabito, but the reaction was clear, like a ghost recoiling from salt.

Tengen’s gaze turned sharp for the briefest second.

“He’s not a case file,” he said, voice even. Calm, but with that razor edge tucked just beneath the surface. “His name is Giyuu. As I said before.”

He let that hang there for a moment. Testing the air. Watching.

“He stays here now. That’s all you need to worry about.”

Sabito’s brow furrowed.

Tengen didn’t flinch.

“He’s family,” Tengen said simply. “And we don’t know too much about him ourselves. He’s… been through a lot. He’s healing.”

His voice softened slightly—barely a breath, but still something gentler.

“That’s the only thing that matters.”

Final. Unshakeable.

A line drawn with careful intent—firm, but not unkind. Protective.

Sabito’s mouth opened again, a question forming, perhaps something about records or safety or circumstance—but before he could speak, Makio’s eyes flicked sharply toward him from where she knelt across the room. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to.

Her gaze alone was enough.

Don’t.

Hinatsuru shifted next, folding her hands neatly in her lap, her face as composed as ever, but her tone no less clear.

“He doesn’t need questions right now,” she said softly, decisively. “He needs quiet. He needs peace.”

Sabito exhaled through his nose, clearly displeased but unwilling to argue. He leaned back again, the motion stiff, like his skin didn’t quite fit right.

Suma, who had spent most of the past hour quietly anchoring herself with slow breaths and soft humming, edged forward. She pressed lightly against Giyuu’s other side, her presence small and unobtrusive—warmth without pressure. Her hand slipped beneath the blanket. She found his fingers.

And held them.

“You don’t have to talk,” she whispered gently. “Not unless you want to, okay? We’re not going anywhere.”

Her thumb stroked over the back of his hand.

Giyuu didn’t look at her. Didn’t squeeze back.

But he didn’t pull away.

His eyes shifted slowly to the center of the room, then to the shadows in the corners. He watched, not with fear, but with the blank, distant wariness of someone who had learned long ago that safety was a temporary thing. Something to observe, not trust. The edges of his mouth didn’t lift, but the sharp set of his jaw eased just slightly. Enough for Tengen to notice.

Tengen’s voice came again, this time quiet, near Giyuu’s ear.

“You’re safe,” he said. “They won’t push you. I promise.”

Giyuu’s lips parted—barely.

Then closed again.

He turned his face slightly, cheek brushing against the fabric of Tengen’s robe, and exhaled, shallow and unsteady. Not relief. Not comfort. But something like… surrender. Just for now.

Sabito rubbed his jaw, clearly biting back something more.

Rengoku looked between them all—Giyuu, Tengen, the wives, Sabito—and gave a quiet nod. Whatever he had wanted to say died behind his lips.

The tension didn’t vanish.

But the room held steady.

And for the first time in hours, Giyuu didn’t look like he was waiting to run.

Tengen looked up slowly, fingers still curled loosely around the neck of the sake bottle, his gaze locking with the two men across the low table. The lanternlight flickered, catching the edge of steel in his voice before it even left his mouth.

“I’m asking you not to bring him up to the others,” he said, quiet but firm. “Not even the Master. Not yet.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. The words hung in the air with finality, as grounded and immovable as stone. Not even the rustle of fabric or the gentle clink of teacups dared interrupt the space they carved between them.

Sabito blinked, brows drawing together at the rare weight behind Tengen’s voice. He sat back slightly, one hand curled beneath his chin, studying the man across from him like he was seeing him anew.

Rengoku, seated beside him, was the first to answer. He didn’t question the request. He didn’t ask why. Trust ran deeper than curiosity in him, and his nod came without hesitation.

“Of course,” he said quietly, the fire in him banked for once. “If he’s under your care, then we’ll honor that.”

His tone was stripped of its usual fervor. Gentle. Respectful. Final.

Sabito hesitated. His eyes shifted—not to Tengen, but to the slight figure beside him.

Giyuu hadn’t moved.

Wrapped in a blanket that swallowed most of his frame, he sat rigid at Tengen’s side, not quite leaning but close enough to feel warmth through cloth. His hands had stilled again in his lap, though his fingers still curled faintly against the woven hem, the skin around his knuckles stretched taut. His eyes were open, but distant. Not unfocused, not unaware—simply observing without anchoring.

There was something ghost-like in the way he held himself.

Like a photograph left too long in the sun—edges faded, colors muted. A boy out of place, out of time. A man who had forgotten what it meant to belong to a room.

Sabito’s chest tightened.

Still, he said nothing. Curiosity burned in his chest, hot and sour, but he banked it behind his teeth. There was something sacred about the silence around Giyuu—something not meant to be disturbed.

“I won’t say anything,” he muttered eventually, though he didn’t look away. “Not if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Tengen said simply, without looking up.

He adjusted slightly, hand drifting from the table to settle once more along Giyuu’s back—not pushing, not claiming, just there. A steady presence. A silent reassurance.

The atmosphere slowly began to shift again. It wasn’t immediate. It wasn’t total. But there was a visible ease that came with the breaking of tension. Tengen refilled his sake with practiced ease, passing the bottle to Rengoku, who received it with a grateful nod and a flicker of a smile. Sabito leaned back on one arm and exhaled slowly through his nose, letting the pressure behind his ribs ease for the first time since they arrived.

Rengoku, ever the light, reignited the conversation.

“You’ll never believe what happened near the western border last week,” he began, already warming up. “There was a demon, a collapsing inn, a runaway hay cart, and a goat—an incredibly persistent one.”

Sabito groaned loudly, dragging his hand over his face. “Not this story again.”

“You weren’t even there ,” Rengoku shot back, grinning now. “The innkeeper gave him a name—Shichiro the Brave!”

“You named the goat?” Makio called dryly from the other side of the room, incredulous.

Rengoku clutched his chest with theatrical offense. “He earned it! He headbutted the demon right into a cart of millet!”

Hinatsuru chuckled behind her hand. Even Tengen let out a quiet breath of laughter, shaking his head as he raised the cup to his lips.

The story unraveled with flamboyant hand gestures, exaggerated voices, and the occasional indignant noise from Sabito. It filled the room like warmth from a hearth—familiar, bright, and gently ridiculous. The kind of mood that only truly settled in once everyone present had chosen to stay.

And still, Giyuu did not move.

The laughter didn’t touch him.

He sat exactly as he had before—shoulders high, spine straight, legs tucked slightly beneath him, one hand ghosting along the edge of the blanket in an unconscious rhythm. His face remained unreadable, his lashes casting soft shadows on his cheeks as the light shifted.

He wasn’t ignoring them.

He was simply apart.

Not distant out of disdain, but from the ache of not knowing how to step in.

But then—just barely—he shifted.

Not toward the door. Not away.

Toward Tengen.

His cheek inched closer to the older man’s shoulder, the movement slow and almost imperceptible, like a leaf drifting to water. His eyes didn’t close, but his body tilted inward by the smallest measure. Not to rest. Just to exist beside someone.

Tengen felt it, and his hand gave the faintest response—a small, slow rub across Giyuu’s back, silent in its meaning.

The others didn’t notice. Or at least, they didn’t show it.

Another story began. Sabito countered it with a snide remark about Rengoku’s tendency to exaggerate livestock heroics. Makio rolled her eyes. Hinatsuru offered quiet commentary between servings of pickled plum and shredded daikon. Suma had curled up at one end of the room with a small, empty sake cup she didn’t dare refill.

But Giyuu shifted again.

This time, he moved.

His muscles tensed slightly, and then—slowly, carefully—he began to rise. Tengen adjusted instinctively, pulling his hand away to give him space.

Blanket still wrapped tightly around his shoulders, Giyuu stood. The movement was unsteady but not weak—more like someone trying to remember how to move through the world on legs that hadn’t trusted the floor in a long time.

At the edge of the room, he paused.

He didn’t glance back. Didn’t raise his chin.

But he bowed his head—just slightly, the gesture low and automatic. A leftover habit. A half-remembered instinct. The air around him didn’t change. He simply was , and then wasn’t , disappearing behind the screen like mist into the tree line.

No sound of closing doors. No creak of wood. Just the soft whisper of footsteps and then silence.

Rengoku raised his sake again. Sabito leaned back on one hand and shot another quip about the goat’s “bravery.” The rhythm of the room began to breathe again.

But there was a thread of quiet now, woven beneath the conversation.

It wasn’t tense.

It wasn’t awkward.

It was acknowledgment.

A shared, unspoken understanding that behind those walls, something fragile lived. Something quiet and wounded and still learning how to breathe in shared spaces again. A presence they would not name aloud. A space they would protect without question.

In the hallway beyond, behind the quiet screen, Giyuu lay down on the futon fully clothed, the blanket still draped around his frame like armor. His head turned toward the window, though he wasn’t looking out of it. The fading light fell across his face, soft and gold and dimming by the second.

The laughter drifted through the paper walls.

He didn’t move.

He was safe.

But not ready.

Not yet.

`

`

`

By the time the sun had bled out behind the mountains, the estate finally remembered how to breathe.

It wasn’t abrupt. Not like a door slamming shut or laughter dying mid-sentence. No—this release came gradually, a long, slow exhale after hours of holding tension in the walls. The kind of hush that followed a storm, where even the floorboards seemed reluctant to creak. The overwhelming pulse of too many voices, the ripple of forceful personalities colliding under one roof, began to dissolve. Footsteps faded into memory. Conversation ebbed like the tide. The house did not fall into silence.

It settled into it.

Tengen lingered by the gates long after Rengoku and Sabito had stepped beyond them. The sky above had softened to velvet dusk, painted in long strokes of smoke-gray and bruised violet. The lanterns at the edge of the path burned low and warm, casting amber light on the gravel.

Rengoku had gone first—naturally—flames in his voice even as they dimmed to something gentler.

“You’ve built a haven here,” he had said, clasping Tengen’s hand with both of his, strong and steady. “I hope it brings him peace. All of you.”

“We’ll see,” Tengen murmured, his voice quieter than usual. “Still working on that part.”

Rengoku smiled, radiant even in the dimness. “Then we’ll be back. Sooner than you expect, perhaps.”

There was something unsaid in that promise. A vow too soft for ceremony, forged not from duty but from shared weight. Tengen held his hand a moment longer before letting go.

Sabito had followed behind, slower to move, his footsteps more like echoes than steps. He didn’t offer a hug, or a handshake. Just paused with one hand resting lightly on the wooden gateframe and his gaze pinned to the darkness inside the house.

“Take care,” he said at last, his tone measured, like a blade held in a gloved hand.

Tengen nodded. “You too.”

Their eyes met—briefly. Sabito’s gaze drifted past him then, to the hallway beyond the entrance, to the lingering shadows that pooled near the corners like secrets unspoken. His mouth didn’t move, but something about the line of his shoulders said what his lips wouldn’t.

They didn’t speak Giyuu’s name.

They didn’t need to.

The gate latched behind them with a quiet metallic click, not final but conclusive. With it, the house closed like a book that had been read too many times, the end not changed but understood better now.

And for the first time in hours—maybe days—the quiet did not feel suffocating.

It felt sacred.

The air cooled. The wind stirred faintly through the trees, rustling their branches like fingers through long hair. Somewhere in the garden, a frog let out a solitary croak before falling still again. The house groaned softly, as if shrugging off its shoulders. A few lamps remained lit, casting golden ovals on the wooden floor.

Hinatsuru passed Tengen in the hallway, her steps feather-light. She paused as she neared him, and without a word, brushed the back of her hand gently against his. Her eyes met his for a heartbeat—steady, understanding, warm with the kind of wisdom that didn’t require sound.

Suma appeared next, more subdued than usual, eyes red from unshed tears she didn’t try to hide. She reached for his sleeve with her small hand, gave it a little tug like a child needing reassurance, then leaned in and whispered, “I hope he’s okay,” her voice shaky, barely a breath.

Makio was last, always the one to stay behind a moment longer. Her grip was firm where she touched his arm, grounding him in the now.

“If he needs anything,” she said. “You’ll call me.”

“I will,” he promised.

Her nod was curt, but her eyes lingered, serious and sharp. Then she turned and followed the others down the corridor, the rustle of her clothes brushing softly against the wood.

And then they were gone.

No more voices. No more questions. No more careful steps or sideways glances.

Only Tengen remained, standing in the long hush of the main hall. His feet were bare. His arms hung loosely at his sides. He watched the light shift along the floor, stretching like the shadow of something reaching—reaching, but not quite touching.

He thought of Giyuu.

Of how he’d slumped earlier in the day, collapsing in slow motion like a building that had finally taken one blow too many. Of how he’d fought the urge to curl in on himself, even when his limbs screamed for it. Of Sabito, who had watched with eyes full of ghosts and said nothing, because nothing could be said. And of how grief didn’t heal like a wound—it just waited until it was noticed again.

Eventually, the ache in Tengen’s legs grew too familiar to ignore. He turned toward the guest wing, his steps soundless. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for.

Until he saw it.

A door.

Not closed.

Not open, either.

Just barely ajar—enough to whisper a message, not speak it outright. Giyuu’s door. The gap was no wider than the span of a hand, but in this house—where doors were closed as habit and permission had to be earned—it might as well have been an invitation.

Tengen paused.

Then, quiet as breath, he stepped forward and knocked—softly, just two fingertips brushing wood.

“…Can I come in?”

There was no reply.

Just a pause.

Then, ever so faintly, Giyuu’s head inclined.

It was enough.

Tengen slid the door open gently, as though entering a room of incense and prayer. No performance. No fanfare. Just presence.

Giyuu sat on the futon, bathed in the dim gold glow from a lamp in the corner. He wore a plain robe, pale against his skin. His hair was damp, unkempt at the ends where the braid had loosened and begun to fray. His uniform had been folded neatly beside him—an act of habit, not pride. His hands rested in his lap. His gaze was cast to the floor, unmoving.

“You’re still awake,” Tengen murmured as he knelt.

Giyuu didn’t look up. “So are you.”

His voice wasn’t strong. But it wasn’t gone.

They sat in the stillness, letting the silence stretch long between them, not as strangers, but as something else—something quieter.

“I thought you’d shut the door,” Tengen said after a while, shifting to rest one arm on his knee.

“I forgot,” Giyuu answered.

He didn’t sound convinced.

Tengen didn’t press. He only watched the way Giyuu’s shoulders hovered somewhere between alert and tired, like he wasn’t sure if he should brace for impact or let himself fall.

“You don’t have to talk,” Tengen said softly. “But I didn’t want to leave you alone… if that’s not what you wanted.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Giyuu whispered.

“That’s fine,” Tengen said. “It’s not something that needs deciding all at once.”

Another pause. Then:

“It’s easier when it’s loud,” Giyuu admitted. “When people are around. Talking. Moving. The silence doesn’t feel so sharp then. Doesn’t cut.”

Tengen tilted his head, listening. “I used to think you liked silence.”

“I did,” Giyuu said. “Or I thought I did. Maybe I just liked what I understood. Noise… felt too unpredictable. Now it feels like silence is the part I can’t control.”

Tengen didn’t speak right away. Instead, he leaned forward slightly and withdrew a small bundle from his sleeve. The cloth, deep indigo, unfolded into a palm-sized wooden charm. A fox. Curled in on itself, sleeping.

He held it out, steady, open.

“I picked this up earlier,” he said. “Didn’t know why.”

Giyuu stared at it. At the curve of the tail, the smoothness of the wood. His hand reached forward without command, fingers brushing over Tengen’s before he took it gently and held it like something precious.

He said nothing. But he didn’t let go.

Tengen smiled faintly. “Makio almost set the stove on fire again,” he offered, casual, like telling a story from a market trip. “Suma tried to help by hurling the pot outside. It nearly hit a carp.”

“…That poor fish,” Giyuu murmured.

The words were dry. Quiet.

But they were a crack in the ice.

Tengen let the silence return.

Eventually, Giyuu’s voice emerged again, quieter.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Tengen said. “But I’m glad you said something.”

They sat in that stillness for a while longer.

And when Tengen rose, carefully, Giyuu had not moved much. But his shoulders were lower. His eyes were calm.

He was not healed.

But he wasn’t alone either.

And sometimes, that was enough.

`

`

`

The days after the panic attack passed without spectacle.

There was no grand declaration of healing, no sudden breakthrough. The world didn’t pause to mark the shift, nor did the estate announce the change with trumpets or ceremony. It simply… moved. As it always did. The sun rose, climbed, and set with patient indifference. The garden bloomed softly, dew clinging to petals and leaves in the morning like secrets not yet whispered. The sliding doors creaked with the same rhythm. The kettle hissed. Chopsticks clinked against bowls. The wooden floor groaned under familiar steps. And yet—beneath all the normalcy, something was undeniably different.

Tengen’s laughter still thundered through the halls in the morning, bold and unrestrained during his stretching routines, the kind that rattled the rafters and made the birds outside scatter from the eaves. Suma still shrieked dramatically about water that was too cold or towels that had mysteriously “disappeared” from the laundry bin. Makio still grumbled under her breath about poorly folded futons and crooked door screens, threatening divine punishment for anyone who left their dishes unwashed. Hinatsuru still drifted through the chaos with that serene grace of hers, her quiet authority slicing through the noise like a sharpened ribbon.

From the outside, nothing had changed. To an unfamiliar eye, the estate pulsed with its usual warmth, that blend of gentle madness and domestic ritual. The world spun on.

But underneath it all—where only those who stayed long enough, listened close enough, could feel it—a shift had begun.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t obvious.

It was quiet.

Not the silence of avoidance, or fear, or the suffocating tension that had haunted the halls just days before. No, this silence was different. It was intentional . A hush that allowed space to settle. A pause—not out of hesitation, but listening .

They didn’t speak about what had happened. Tengen hadn’t brought it up once. Not during breakfast. Not after dinner. Not while fetching firewood or boiling water or folding Giyuu’s spare robe in the laundry room like it hadn’t been discarded in a half-dazed state just days before. There was no probing. No pointed glances. No suggestion that Giyuu owed anyone an explanation.

And in that space—unguarded, untouched by obligation—something began to stir.

It started with breath.

Then small things. Movements that weren’t instinct but choice . The sound of feet stepping into shared spaces. The weight of presence lingering in the hallway a few seconds longer. Eyes that didn’t always drift away. Fingers that no longer clenched quite so tightly around the edge of his sleeves.

Then came the words.

Soft. Tentative. Uneven at first, like pebbles tossed into a still pond. But they came.

“Giyuu,” Tengen had said one morning, voice casual, leaning in the doorway with a towel draped over one shoulder. The morning light slanted through the open shoji, brushing golden across the wooden floor. “Would you rather sit outside today?”

A pause. Giyuu had turned toward him—not fully, but enough to acknowledge the question. His lips parted, his voice barely audible.

“Yes.”

No hesitation. No flinch.

Just… yes .

The next time, it was tea.

“Do you want tea?” Tengen asked later that afternoon, two cups already on the tray. His tone was light, his posture easy, like it didn’t matter either way.

“…No,” came the reply.

And later, as Tengen swept leaves from the back garden path, Giyuu stepped forward—unprompted—and hovered at the edge of the stone walkway.

“You alright helping with this?” Tengen had asked, motioning toward the gathering pile.

“I don’t mind,” Giyuu answered.

It wasn’t much. Three words. But they were his.

They came slowly, always when no one else was around. Always in moments where shadows fell softly and the walls didn’t echo. Tengen never asked for more than what was offered. He never followed a word with another question. Never looked too long. Never gave any indication that what was happening was anything extraordinary.

He simply nodded. Sometimes smiled. Sometimes replied with a short, “Thanks,” and moved on.

And that— that —more than anything else, was why Giyuu kept speaking.

Because he wasn’t being observed like a wound. He wasn’t being coaxed like a frightened thing. He wasn’t being fixed.

He was simply being met.

One evening, as the sun dipped behind the trees and the shadows grew long, Giyuu stood in the open engawa, arms folded loosely over his chest, watching the wind dance through the garden. Tengen appeared beside him, silent for a moment, his presence warm like the fading sun.

“You always watch the same spot,” he said eventually, voice low.

“There’s a spider’s web in the camellia bush,” Giyuu replied.

Tengen raised an eyebrow. “That so?”

Giyuu nodded. “It’s not easy to see. Only when the light hits it right.”

Tengen followed his gaze, scanning the delicate branches until he caught it—a fine shimmer, almost invisible. A thread of silver where the last of the sunlight caught it just so.

“Didn’t think you were the spider-watching type,” he said.

Giyuu’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but something adjacent.

“Spiders rebuild their webs every night,” he murmured. “Even if they get destroyed. They just… start over.”

Tengen didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at him—really looked. The quiet in his posture, the weight in his voice.

“That’s a good thing to remember,” he said finally.

Giyuu nodded again, slower this time.

There were still days where he spoke very little. Still moments where he flinched at sudden noise or retreated before the others came in. There were mornings where his sleeves were pulled too far over his hands, where his eyes carried too many shadows, and where he sat with his back to the wall even if the room was empty.

But when Tengen called for him, he answered.

And that mattered.

It wasn’t healing in the way people expected. It wasn’t loud, or linear, or cinematic. It didn’t come with grand apologies or the tearing away of every bandage in a single breath. It came in inches. In breath. In quiet.

And in that quiet, Giyuu began, finally, to come back to himself.

Not the version others remembered.

But the version who had survived . The version who now sat on the engawa watching a spider rebuild its web, and whispered, “Yes,” when asked if he wanted to go outside.

The version who was still here.

And, perhaps, learning—slowly, painfully, but surely—that being here was enough.

Their bond didn’t explode into being.

It grew in the way morning dew clings to blades of grass—gentle, almost imperceptible, until one day the light catches it just right and you realize the whole field is glistening.

It was slow. Patient. Quiet.

Tengen never demanded anything from him—not words, not presence, not change. He extended invitations like branches over calm water, never insisting they be taken. His words were soft suggestions, strung with ease and space.

“Want to walk the garden with me?”

“You can sit here if you want.”

“Feel like helping me oil my blades?”

Sometimes Giyuu didn’t answer at all. He would stand still, eyes cast down, body unreadable. But more and more often, after a few seconds of quiet deliberation, he would nod. Just once. Just enough. And then follow.

It started with shadows and silence. Giyuu would sit beside Tengen while the man cleaned his weapons on the engawa, the warm wood beneath them sun-soaked and fragrant with camellia petals carried on the breeze. He rarely spoke. But when Tengen needed a cloth or water, it was already in his hand. Passed to him without eye contact. Without prompt. As though Giyuu had been reading his movements in the corner of his eye, memorizing the rhythm of steel on cloth, of breath between passes of the blade.

Once, while they sat under the sloping awning of the garden bridge, Giyuu leaned forward, watching the koi twist through the pond like living brushstrokes.

“That one,” he said suddenly, voice low. “It’s missing a scale.”

Tengen followed his gaze. One of the older fish, pale orange and fat around the middle, had a small patch of pale skin exposed on its back. A wound, maybe. A story.

“Yeah,” Tengen replied, setting down his blade. “That old boy’s been through some things too.”

He didn’t ask Giyuu what he meant. He just leaned back on one elbow, let the silence stretch, and offered a quiet company that didn’t need to be named.

It wasn’t comfort. Not yet.

But it was something like it. A soft foundation. A hand resting on the ground beside another, not quite touching, but close enough to feel the warmth.

The wives noticed before they were told.

Hinatsuru, with her eye for balance and rhythm, saw it first. She observed the way Giyuu’s posture shifted when Tengen entered a room—not tense, but aware. How his shoulders, always slightly pulled in as though shielding a fragile core, eased ever so slightly when Tengen was near. He didn’t lean in. But he no longer leaned away.

He stood beside him during morning chores, shared the engawa space with him without stiffening. Once, while passing each other in the corridor, Tengen gently bumped Giyuu’s shoulder with his own in passing—a casual, brotherly nudge—and Giyuu had simply… blinked. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t recoil. Just turned his head, stared at him a moment, and then kept walking.

It was a tiny moment. But it meant everything.

Suma, however, was the first to hear her name.

They were walking through the back hallway, arms full of freshly folded linens. She had been rambling aloud—about some ridiculous love story she was reading, where the heroine had mistaken her enemy’s twin for the real villain, or something equally convoluted. Giyuu had been trailing behind, quiet as ever, until—

“Suma.”

It was so soft it barely registered.

Just her name. Spoken like a question. Or a thought.

She stopped mid-sentence.

Her arms dropped the linens to the floor.

She stared at him with wide, watering eyes, lips trembling.

Then she screamed.

“He said my name!”

And then she tackled him.

There was nothing elegant about it—just a blur of pink sleeves, flailing limbs, and pure emotion as she launched herself at him like a cat launched at a cushion. Giyuu stumbled back with a noise of pure shock, arms half-raised like he wasn’t sure if he was about to be attacked or saved. She wrapped her arms around his middle, sobbing outright into his chest with muffled declarations of how happy she was, how proud, how grateful, how she knew he liked them deep down, and oh gods he smelled like cedar and soap and she was going to die right there—

Makio had to come pull her off.

“Get off him, you lunatic,” she growled, yanking Suma back by the collar like a misbehaving dog. “You’re going to break his ribs!”

“He said my naaaaame!” Suma wailed, kicking weakly as she was dragged down the hall.

Makio huffed and shot Giyuu a sideways glance.

He was standing frozen, stunned, lips parted like he wasn’t sure what had just happened.

“Probably just sneezed,” Makio muttered. “Sounded like one.”

But after that day, she started watching him more carefully.

Every time he made a noise—a sigh, a murmur, the faintest grunt—her eyes flicked up, narrowed, tracked him like a hawk.

She never smiled. Never praised.

But she always looked. And she always lingered.

With the wives, Giyuu was still quiet.

He didn’t seek them out. He rarely initiated.

But he stopped flinching.

When Suma grabbed his hand one day and started dragging him toward the sitting room to show him the latest sketch she’d done of the koi pond—complete with dramatic captions—he didn’t yank away. He let her chatter, even nodded once when she asked if the fish “looked heroic enough.”

When Hinatsuru reached up to fix the collar of his robe one morning, smoothing it out with practiced fingers, he stood perfectly still, eyes fixed ahead. He didn’t recoil. He didn’t shift away. He just… let her.

And when Makio made a dry comment one evening over rice—“Your hair’s getting longer than mine, Water-boy”—he looked at her. Just a glance. But then, as if on impulse, he tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. Amused. Not quite a smile.

But it was close.

Closer than anyone had seen in a long time.

Later that night, Tengen found him sitting alone in the engawa again, legs crossed, arms loose across his knees. The lantern light caught the edge of his face in profile, casting the rest in shadow.

“You survived the Suma Incident,” Tengen said, settling beside him.

“She cries… a lot,” Giyuu murmured.

“You have no idea.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then, unexpectedly, Giyuu said, “She smells like plums.”

Tengen blinked. “Yeah?”

Giyuu nodded. “And Hinatsuru… like chrysanthemum tea.”

He didn’t mention Makio.

He didn’t have to.

Tengen grinned. “You’ve been paying attention.”

“I’ve been listening,” Giyuu replied. Then after a pause, quieter, “I forgot how to, for a while.”

Tengen didn’t say anything. Just let that sit.

Eventually, he leaned back on his hands and tilted his head toward the sky.

“You know,” he said after a while, “people always think strength is loud. Flashy. The biggest voice in the room, the sharpest blade. But it’s not.”

Giyuu turned toward him slightly.

“Strength,” Tengen said, “is letting someone sit next to you even when everything in you wants to run.”

Giyuu didn’t reply.

But he didn’t look away.

And the silence that stretched between them was easy. Not empty.

Not anymore.

Just full of things too big for words.

The beginning of something.

Something like trust.

Something like family.

Something like peace.

And in that quiet space where ivy kept climbing along warm stone, Giyuu stayed.

Not as a guest.

But as someone learning what home could be.

`

`

`

He helped in ways that didn’t require asking.

No fanfare. No declarations. Just action.

At first, it was little things. The kind most people wouldn’t notice. A towel folded tighter, straighter, than it had been left. Fresh buckets of water drawn in the early morning before Hinatsuru had even lit the stove. The firewood stacked neater than usual. Suma’s sandals placed by the door with the soles aligned.

Later, it became more. He carried sacks of rice from the market without prompting, one balanced over each shoulder, posture silent but sturdy. He swept the garden paths just after dawn, careful not to let the broom scrape too loud, shaping the fallen leaves into neat crescent piles before the others woke. And he fed the koi. Always in the quietest hour—when the sky was still caught between blue and gray, when even the birds had not yet begun to sing. He scattered the feed with slow, even movements, watching the ripples spread out like breath on glass.

He moved through the house like mist curling between beams. No noise, no disruption. But present.

Reliable.

A thread of color woven into the house’s rhythm, quiet but unmistakable.

The others didn’t speak of it. Tengen didn’t comment. The wives—though observant—kept their distance. They watched him from the corners of their awareness, acknowledging him with their patience rather than their voices.

Giyuu didn’t speak to them.

Not yet.

His eyes lingered on them sometimes—on Hinatsuru’s calm grace as she prepared tea, on Suma’s musical hums as she swept the halls, on Makio’s focused scowl as she sharpened her blade—but when their eyes met his, he looked away. Not in fear. Not anymore. But as if unsure of his place in their world. As if unsure he deserved to have one.

Then, one morning, something shifted.

It was just after breakfast. The table still held the smell of miso and rice, steam curling lazily into the beams above. The others had started to move about—Suma collecting bowls with her usual flair, Makio already grumbling about the chipped lacquer on the tray—but Giyuu remained seated.

His hands were wrapped gently around his tea cup. His gaze rested low, somewhere near the edge of the table. There was a faint crease in his brow, like he was thinking too hard about something simple.

Then he spoke.

“Can I help in the kitchen today?”

It wasn’t loud. Barely a whisper. The words came slowly, as though dragged from a well with uncertain hands. But they were clear. Intentional. Not a reflex. Not a mutter.

Tengen looked at him. Blinked once.

And then he smiled.

Not the wide, showy grin he offered to crowds or his wives when he was teasing. This one was smaller. Simpler. The kind that softened the corners of his face rather than lit it up.

“You don’t have to ask, y’know,” he said. “You live here too.”

That made Giyuu pause. He looked up, startled. Like the words had struck something fragile and half-formed inside him.

Live here.

Not stay here. Not rest here. Live .

After a heartbeat, he nodded. Once.

“…Okay.”

He stood and followed Tengen to the kitchen without looking back. Suma nearly dropped a bowl. Hinatsuru stilled where she was wiping the counter. Makio glanced over her shoulder—but none of them said a word.

They didn’t cheer.

They didn’t clap.

They simply made space .

Hinatsuru brewed a second pot of his favorite tea that afternoon—roasted barley, steeped to a rich gold—and left it on the porch without a note. She didn’t wait to see if he’d drink it.

Suma, dusting the corridor nearby, twirled her broom dramatically like she was dancing for an invisible stage. When she passed by Giyuu, she didn’t try to grab him or pull him into conversation. She just let her sleeve brush his lightly, like a passing breeze, and smiled to herself when he didn’t flinch.

Makio, of course, pretended not to care.

She challenged him to a game of go that evening, slapping the board down on the table between them like a declaration of war.

“You look like someone who needs to lose at something today,” she said, arms crossed.

They played in silence. She furrowed her brow at every move he made. He never looked up.

When it ended—with Giyuu ahead by six points—Makio glared at the board like it had insulted her.

“You’re cheating. Somehow,” she muttered.

Giyuu blinked at her, unblinking and expressionless.

And then—just briefly—his lips curved. Not quite a grin. But unmistakable.

Makio turned away so fast her braid whipped her shoulder. “Tch. Whatever.”

That night, the house quieted into its usual rhythm. Lamps were dimmed. Steam from the bath lingered in the air like memory. The shoji doors clicked shut one by one as everyone retreated to their corners of rest.

On the back porch, beneath the open sweep of the stars, Tengen sat with Giyuu beside him. The night air was crisp, the scent of pine and fresh earth drifting in from the forest edge. The garden rustled softly in the breeze. Lanternlight glowed faintly through the trees.

They didn’t speak at first.

They rarely did.

Tengen rested back on his elbows, one leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee. Giyuu sat with his knees pulled up, arms looped around them loosely. His hair was damp from his bath, curling slightly at the edges where it dried slower.

The koi stirred in the water, little flashes of orange and white sliding beneath the surface, disturbed only by the ripple of wind and the occasional shift of moonlight.

Giyuu’s voice came so softly it nearly vanished.

“Do you think… the white koi ever gets lonely?”

Tengen turned his head.

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t brush it off. He looked at the pond, at the large pale koi that swam alone near the reeds, a little slower than the others, its movements smooth but deliberate.

“Nah,” he said after a moment. “He’s the boss. Probably likes the space.”

Giyuu was quiet.

Then, after a beat: “…Maybe.”

They didn’t go any deeper.

No pasts were dug up. No wounds were named. There were no speeches about healing, no metaphors about broken people and broken fish.

Just two men. A porch. A pond. A passing breeze.

And the victory—so quiet it barely registered—was being there. Sharing space. Existing in each other’s orbit not out of obligation, but choice.

Not running.

Not flinching.

Not performing.

Simply being .

Tengen leaned back further, eyes closing.

“You ever think,” he murmured, “that maybe we’re all just koi waiting for someone to toss in breakfast?”

Giyuu’s shoulder moved. A breath. Or a laugh.

“…That one was worse than usual.”

“Thought so,” Tengen smirked. “Didn’t land right. Gotta fine-tune the fish humor.”

Another silence. But now it was easy. Light.

Giyuu let his arms fall to his sides. His fingers brushed the porch. Open. Relaxed.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

Tengen didn’t ask what for.

He just leaned over, bumped their shoulders together, and said, “You live here too, Giyuu. Don’t forget that.”

And under the moonlight, with the koi stirring and the trees dancing in the wind, Giyuu didn’t look away.

He nodded.

He stayed.

Chapter Text

It was just after sunrise when the crow arrived, slicing through the cool morning like a shadow born of steel. Its wings beat sharp against the pale gold light, a blur of black feathers cutting across the sky as if drawn to purpose by instinct alone. The air still held the hush of sleep—dewdrops clung to the veranda railing, and the cicadas had not yet begun their song. The crow landed with precision on the post at the porch, talons curling around the wood, head cocked in that too-knowing way. A scroll, bound in red wax and twine, was tied to its leg—urgent. The seal bore the insignia of the Demon Slayer Corps headquarters.

Inside, the house was slowly stirring into motion. Soft footsteps padded down the hall. Suma’s sleepy voice yawned something unintelligible from the western wing, followed by the low clink of porcelain—Hinatsuru had begun the morning tea. From the side garden, the sound of koi rippling beneath the pond’s surface could be heard, water lapping gently in response to careful fingers. Giyuu was kneeling at the edge, sleeves rolled just past his wrists, hand outstretched to offer a few scattered pellets. The white koi surfaced first, brushing against his fingertips with a ghost of a nip before diving again.

He heard the flap of wings before he saw the bird. The stillness in the air seemed to tremble for a beat, and then came the shrill cry.

“Urgent dispatch! From headquarters! Urgent dispatch for Tengen Uzui!”

The caw rang like a blade being drawn.

Tengen came swiftly. He stepped into the open-air walkway with the easy, sharp grace of someone who had never learned to hesitate. His eyes flicked to the crow, then to the scroll. In one fluid motion, he untied it, broke the wax with a thumb, and unraveled the message. His eyes skimmed the words with practiced efficiency—but something shifted in his expression. The usual brightness dimmed, just a touch. Not fear. Not quite. But alertness sharpened like a blade taken off the wall.

“Demon activity,” he said aloud, his voice low but firm enough to carry. “An attack along the northern trade route. There were... bodies. A merchant caravan. Looks like it happened sometime last night—trail’s still fresh.” Almost talking to himself. 

Hinatsuru, halfway through pouring a second cup of tea, paused mid-motion. Suma stood frozen in the hallway with one sock only halfway on. Makio, from the armory room, let out a quiet curse and immediately started pulling gear from the wall pegs.

“It shouldn’t take long,” Tengen continued, not looking at anyone in particular now. “I’ll go ahead and handle it myself. Should be a few days. Three, at most.”

He said it with casual certainty, like it was just another errand—but the tension in the room had already thickened. The kind that crept into the corners and clung behind the ribs.

Giyuu had not moved from his place by the pond. The water still dripped from his fingers, but he no longer noticed it. The koi swam circles, oblivious to the cold that had begun to settle in his chest like wet stone.

He heard the words. Every one of them. He heard the shift in Tengen’s voice—the subtle note of preparation masked beneath confidence. He noticed how Suma’s cheerful humming had gone silent, how Hinatsuru’s shoulders were no longer relaxed, how Makio moved with intent, not her usual dramatic flair. He watched them from afar, still kneeling. Still soaking. But his gaze was no longer on the fish.

He was still.
Too still.

The kind of stillness that didn’t mean calm—it meant withdrawal. Like someone folding in on themselves, drawing the curtains shut from the inside. His shoulders curled inward slightly. His hands rested in his lap, but the fingertips pressed hard into his sleeves, bunching the fabric. His eyes lost focus.

It wasn’t just quiet.

It was the quiet before collapse.

No one pointed it out. No one dared.

But they all noticed.

Hinatsuru passed him later on her way to the laundry line and let her hand linger on his shoulder just a little longer than needed. She didn’t say anything. Just a warm press of fingers. Suma tried to smile at him when she walked by, but it faltered quickly, uncertainty peeking out through her usual bubbliness. Makio didn’t even pretend—she stared at him for a moment too long before turning away and muttering to herself about the damn blade sheath.

By the time the sun had climbed to mid-morning, Giyuu had shifted to the porch steps, sitting quietly beneath the overhang. He watched the trees beyond the estate sway gently with the wind, eyes half-lidded but alert beneath the surface. Like he was waiting for something to go wrong.

Tengen found him there.

He approached without a word at first, only letting his footsteps fall loud enough on the wood so Giyuu would hear him coming. When Giyuu didn’t turn, Tengen lowered himself into a crouch beside him, careful to leave just enough space.

“Hey,” he said, voice low. “I’ve got to head out.”

Giyuu didn’t blink.

“I won’t be long. Just a quick sweep and I’m back before you even know it.”

Still nothing. Then, after a long pause–
“…Okay.”

The word was small. Not emotionless, but drained. Like something scraped from the bottom of a locked drawer. Giyuu’s hands curled tighter into the loose fabric at his sleeves, knuckles pressing hard against his knees.

Tengen sighed through his nose, watching him carefully.

“It’s not forever,” he said. “I’m coming back. You know that, right?”

Giyuu gave the faintest nod. But his eyes stayed on the ground. As if looking up might break him.

Tengen wanted to say more. He wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder or his hand—do something, anything —to crack through that shell Giyuu had wrapped himself in. But he didn’t. He knew better than to rush it.

So instead, he smiled. Quiet and small.

“I’ll be back before the tea gets cold.”

Giyuu didn’t smile back.

When the sun reached its zenith, the gate shut behind Tengen with a low creak. His figure disappeared over the forest ridge shortly after, leaving only dust in the air and silence in his wake. Suma stood on the veranda, waving until he vanished from view. Hinatsuru remained still, her arms crossed, lips pressed in a line, not pretending to feel any better about it than she did.

Makio had already disappeared, checking their reserves with a muttered curse about dull blades.

And Giyuu stood just inside the hall.

Unmoving.

Staring at the closed door as though, if he waited long enough, it might open again. As if the silence in the air might bend and twist and undo itself.

But the door stayed shut.

And he did not move.

That night, the house felt too large.

Not in size—but in the way silence echoed through the hallways like something alive. The warmth that usually filled the rooms during dinner—laughter, teasing, the occasional loud clang of Makio’s chopsticks hitting the edge of a bowl—was quieter now, dimmed by the absence at the head of the table. Conversations trailed off midway. Suma tried to keep things light, but even her voice sounded thinner than usual, like she was struggling to fill the space Tengen had left behind. Hinatsuru served seconds no one asked for, her hands moving on habit alone. Makio chewed slowly, eyes fixed on her rice as if it held answers.

And Giyuu—he hardly touched his food.

He sat with his back straight, bowl in hand, but his chopsticks hovered more than they moved. He stirred the white rice slowly, mixing it around as if to fool the others into thinking he’d eaten more than he had. Every now and then he brought a bite to his mouth, chewing quietly. Methodically. As if each grain of rice was something he had to think about.

After a while, he lowered his bowl, set it gently on the tray, he stood up slowly, without meeting anyone’s eyes.

He left before anyone could protest. Though none of them really tried.

But Giyuu didn’t go to bed. Sleep was something too distant, too foreign tonight. Instead, he wandered.

Not aimlessly, exactly—his steps had rhythm, almost like muscle memory was guiding him instead of thought. The paper doors closed softly behind him as he moved from room to room, too slow to be in a hurry and too quiet to be deliberate. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Maybe just something to do. Something to distract from the hollow stillness behind his ribs.

At one point, he found himself crouched in the laundry room, folding towels that had already been folded. He smoothed out every edge, stacked each one with precise corners, and did it again when the pile felt wrong. His fingers moved automatically. The scent of clean cotton lingered faintly in the air—too crisp, too sterile. He didn’t belong in that silence either, so he moved on.

Later, he ended up on the porch, his knees drawn loosely to his chest. Suma had crept in beside him at some point, wrapped in a blanket that pooled around her ankles like a discarded cloud. She curled close, her shoulder lightly pressing against his as she spoke in that soft, dreamy voice of hers.

“I had the weirdest dream last night,” she murmured. “You were flying. But not like a bird—like, floating? You had ribbons in your hair and Hinatsuru was crying because she thought you’d blow away, but Makio was yelling at the sky like it owed her money…”

She giggled, muffled by the blanket. Giyuu gave a faint nod, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the edge of the veranda. He didn’t catch the end of the story. Maybe he didn’t need to. Suma didn’t seem to mind. She leaned her head against his shoulder and let the conversation drift.

Eventually, the house grew dark again, the lights dimmed, and everyone disappeared into their rooms. Giyuu returned to his futon, but not to sleep. He lay flat, arms stiff at his sides, eyes open and fixed on the wooden ceiling above him.

It was too quiet.
Too still.

Without Tengen’s presence—his voice echoing through the hall, his heavy footsteps, the scent of incense he wore like a second skin—the quiet became oppressive. It was like the house had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.

And in that vacuum, the memories came.

His sister’s laughter echoed in the corners of his mind, high and bright like wind chimes in the spring. A door slamming—hard, final—so loud it still rang in his bones. The slow horror of being sold off, the cold resignation of being bought. The strange mix of hope and dread when he was taken in again. The warmth he found in Uzui’s home. And now—this silence.

People left.

They always left.

Some promised they’d come back and meant it. Some meant it and never got the chance. And some… just never looked back.

Giyuu had long since stopped believing in promises.

He didn’t know when his body moved, but sometime past midnight, he found himself rising. He slid into a thin robe, barefoot, and slipped outside into the cold hush of the night. The wood beneath his feet was cool with dew, and the air smelled like wet leaves and distant flowers.

The moon hung heavy and full above the courtyard, casting the koi pond in silver. The water glimmered faintly, shadows of fish drifting slow and aimless near the stones—quiet, like ghosts.

He knelt at the edge.

And stayed there.

He didn’t cry. Didn’t speak. Barely breathed. He just... was. A figure carved from stillness, a weight made of memories too old to name. The cold touched his skin but didn’t move him. The night moved on without asking.

At some point, he sensed her.

Hinatsuru approached with the soundlessness of a falling leaf. She didn’t say his name, didn’t announce herself. She simply sat down beside him, folding her legs under her with practiced ease. Her hands settled neatly in her lap, sleeves pooled at her wrists, the quiet warmth of her presence diffusing into the night air like balm.

They didn’t speak.

She didn’t ask what he was doing there. He didn’t offer any explanation. There were no questions about dreams or silence or loss. There was only the rhythm of the water, the cold kiss of moonlight, and two figures sitting side by side—one unraveling, and the other simply staying.

She didn’t leave.

So he didn’t, either.

And for now, that was enough.

The next day passed like water through a sieve—present, but slipping away with no weight, no shape. It moved around Giyuu, not through him. Morning blurred into afternoon, and tasks filled the hours without anchoring them. He folded towels in the washroom, fingers smoothing fabric automatically, not caring whether the corners lined up or not. He walked the narrow path to the garden and brought back a basket of vegetables, barely noticing the dirt under his nails or the way the sun warmed his shoulders. He knelt beside Hinatsuru at the stove, helping her grind dried peppers and toasted seeds into a fragrant paste. She guided his hand once when he slowed, gently pressing her fingers over his, wordless.

But Giyuu didn’t speak.

His voice had retreated somewhere inside his chest, buried beneath a weight he couldn’t name. Even when Hinatsuru asked him something softly—"Do you want less spice tonight?"—he only nodded. When Makio greeted him with her usual fire, waving a rice paddle like a sword, he blinked like someone waking up too late to understand the joke.

He flinched when Suma called his name across the hall, loud and bright in that way only she could be. It wasn’t fear. Not quite. But it startled something in him, and he disappeared before she could come running.

He slipped out of the common room before Makio could toss him one of her questions—somewhere between genuine interest and a dare. She watched him go with a frown but didn’t follow. They were all watching now. Not pressuring. Just…watching.

He left half his food untouched at each meal, not because he disliked it—Hinatsuru had made his favorite again, rice mixed with slivers of dried plum and sesame—but because he wasn’t hungry in the way that food could fix. It sat in his stomach like a rock, tasteless and wrong.

The fox charm stayed tucked in his sleeve—small, worn, carved from pale wood. Tengen had given it to him once, half-joking, half-serious. Now Giyuu held it like a lifeline, fingers curled tight, as if it could keep the silence from swallowing him whole.

By the third night, the silence had grown thick. Not just in the house—but in the air, in the walls, in Giyuu’s chest. It had the weight of something unsaid. Suma tried humming as she walked the halls, her tune light and sweet, but it faltered every time she passed the porch. Hinatsuru cooked the rice again—more carefully this time, with crisped edges the way he liked. Makio, ever defiant, cornered him just long enough to hold out the shogi board and say with a huff, “I’ll even lose on purpose if you just sit down for once.”

He had paused. Met her eyes.

He nodded once acknowledging her.

And then he left.

Now he sat outside on the porch, the night brushing cool fingers across his face and bare toes. His knees were drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them beneath the blanket Hinatsuru had laid over him. It had already started slipping, one shoulder exposed to the night air, but he didn’t fix it. His fingers were too tight around the fox charm to move. The carved wood dug into his palm, edges pressing so hard it left faint indents in his skin.

The courtyard stretched out in front of him, the shadows long, the grass still. The stars blinked quietly above the trees. Clouds had passed hours ago, leaving the sky clear. The air smelled like pine and cold earth. But Giyuu wasn’t looking at the sky.

He was watching the gate.

The one that stood dark and unmoving across the yard.

The one Tengen had passed through.

The one that hadn’t opened since.

His gaze never left it. Not even when the wind whispered past. Not even when a moth landed near his foot. He just sat, motionless, eyes fixed forward like if he blinked, he might miss it—the flicker of movement, the shadow crossing back into the light.

The charm in his hand trembled faintly as he tightened his grip, knuckles straining white.

He wasn’t sure anymore if he was waiting to see it open…

Or if he was preparing for it to stay shut.

Forever.

And he didn’t know which one would break him faster.

`

`

`

The sound of the estate gates creaking open echoed like a thunderclap across the stillness of midday.

It shouldn’t have been so loud. The hum of cicadas buzzed lazily in the garden, and golden shafts of light bled through the latticework of the courtyard walls, casting fractured shadows across the wooden floors. A breeze barely stirred the heavy summer air. Even the bees seemed sluggish in the heat, drifting aimlessly from bloom to bloom. The world had stilled, lulled into quiet, thick with waiting.

Until that sound.

Makio shot upright before the echo had even finished reverberating, her body moving on instinct alone. “That’s him!” she cried, breath catching with the force of the realization. Her sleeves whipped behind her as she tore through the hallway, the sliding door rattling in its frame as she flung it open and sprinted barefoot across the stones.

Suma was already crying, tripping after her with a hiccupping wail. “Tengen-sama!” Her voice cracked on the second syllable, shrill with overwhelming relief, laughter already tangled in her tears.

Hinatsuru followed at a measured pace, but her hands trembled where they gathered her skirts, and her chest rose and fell with shallow, disbelieving breaths. She didn’t speak. Her lips just parted around a soundless exhale as her eyes locked on the figure stepping through the gate.

Tengen.

He looked sun-drenched and battle-worn, travel-dust clinging to the edges of his clothing, his scarf bunched loosely at his throat. One arm was streaked with dried blood—none of it fresh—and a fading bruise colored the edge of his jaw. His white hair was tied sloppily, strands falling into his eyes. But his smile was easy, open, tired in the way only someone finally home could wear.

“I missed the noise,” he said, voice cracking into a laugh as Suma hurled herself into his side and clung like a vine.

“Idiot,” Makio snapped, slamming a fist lightly into his shoulder as she hugged him just as tightly. “You were supposed to be back two days ago!”

“I told you it might run late—”

“You didn’t write !”

“I didn’t have the chance. Things got... complicated.”

Hinatsuru stepped behind him, laid one palm gently to his spine, and let it linger. “You came back,” she murmured. “That’s all that matters.”

He smiled again, smaller this time, and nodded.

The courtyard filled with their voices—questions, laughter, affectionate scolding. The tension that had knotted through the estate over the last week began to loosen, unwinding from the rafters, spilling from the rooms like a deep breath let go at last.

And at the edge of the porch, half-hidden behind the wooden post, stood Giyuu.

He hadn’t moved. Not when the gate opened. Not when the girls shouted. Not even when he saw Tengen walk through the dust and sunlight and embrace the people who loved him.

His fingers hung at his sides, loose and pale. His face was unreadable—stoic as always—but his eyes betrayed him. Wide, glassy, transfixed. He stared like the vision might dissolve if he looked too long. Like it might be another dream clawed into being by exhaustion and too many sleepless nights.

Tengen’s gaze finally found him.

He went still—then disentangled himself gently from Suma’s clutching hands, patted Makio’s head with the quiet fondness of an older brother, and nodded once at Hinatsuru before making his way across the courtyard.

He didn’t speak right away.

He just stepped in front of Giyuu, a single breath away, and waited.

“Hey,” he said finally, voice low. Not a question. Not a demand. Just a sound—a word meant to bridge the space between them without forcing the weight of expectation.

Giyuu didn’t answer. His gaze shifted to the side, lips pressed in a line, breath caught somewhere too deep in his chest to release.

Tengen didn’t press.

He didn’t ask how are you? or what’s wrong? He didn’t point out the exhaustion etched beneath Giyuu’s eyes or the way his frame had thinned slightly in the days Tengen had been gone. He didn’t mention the stiffness in Giyuu’s posture, the wariness in his shoulders.

He just reached out—slowly—and laid a hand on Giyuu’s shoulder.

Warm. Solid. Steady.

And Giyuu… breathed.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. Just a slow, nearly imperceptible exhale, as if his lungs had been locked shut for days and had only now remembered how to let go. His shoulders dropped. His eyes fluttered closed for half a heartbeat. The tension coiled in his chest loosened—not all the way, but enough.

He nodded once.

Tengen’s grip didn’t tighten. He didn’t speak again. He just stood there, beside him, without moving.

And for now, that was enough.

Tengen didn’t make a show of things.

He slipped back into the rhythm of the estate with quiet ease. At dinner, he told stories about roadside inns with suspicious stew and demon nests that didn’t know how to hide their tracks. He teased Suma until she was breathless with laughter, helped Makio polish her damaged blade, and let Hinatsuru re-stitch the hem of his cloak even when he claimed it was “perfectly fine.”

But he watched.

He watched Giyuu from across the table. Not in a way that would be noticed. Just enough to mark the way Giyuu’s hands hovered near his lap during meals, never reaching for seconds. How he answered questions when asked but never volunteered thoughts of his own. How he always seemed to stand at the edge of the room—present, but never part of it.

And Tengen… didn’t pull him in.

Not with force. Not with insistence.

He simply kept making room.

“Giyuu,” he’d say in the middle of a story, “you ever pass through Kagami Ridge? That’s where the trail split.”

If Giyuu nodded, that was fine. If he didn’t, no one pressed.

At night, when the garden’s shadows deepened and the girls settled near the porch for tea, Tengen would set down a second cup beside him without comment. Just a quiet offering. Just the reminder: You’re not forgotten.

Days passed. Nothing grand shifted. No sudden confessions or teary moments of healing.

But Giyuu sat a little closer at meals.

He stopped flinching when Suma laughed too loudly.

And once, just once, he met Tengen’s eyes across the table and gave the smallest of smiles.

It lasted only a breath.

But Tengen saw it.

And he smiled back.

It started with Suma.

On the second morning after Tengen’s return, the estate had begun to breathe again—slowly, steadily, as though it too had been holding its breath in his absence. Giyuu had taken to spending his mornings by the koi pond, a quiet corner of the garden where the stone path met the water and the sun filtered in dappled waves through the trees. He liked the hush there, the way the koi flicked their tails through the stillness and sent ripples across the surface—small, controlled movements that didn’t demand anything from him.

He was crouched at the edge, feeding the fish with an almost reverent stillness, when Suma came bounding down the corridor like a storm wrapped in silk.

Without a word, she dropped to her knees beside him and flung her arms around his shoulders, nearly toppling them both into the pond.

“You’re my little brother now,” she declared, face pressed into the side of his neck. “I’ve decided.”

Giyuu blinked, slow and startled, the wooden scoop still in his hand. His mouth parted, a breath caught between confusion and some quiet disbelief.

Makio, who’d been leaning in the doorway watching with her arms crossed, let out a scoff. “You can’t decide that on your own.”

“I can, ” Suma shot back, turning her head just enough to stick her tongue out. “He’s small and quiet and always tired. He fits perfectly. Like one of those sad stray kittens Hinatsuru keeps trying to bring in.”

Hinatsuru passed by then, a tray of tea balanced effortlessly in her hands. She paused at the threshold and glanced down at the two on the ground. Her eyes softened. “He does fit,” she said simply, with a small, knowing smile.

Giyuu didn’t reply. He didn’t nod. But he also didn’t pull away. Suma’s grip tightened slightly—no pressure, no demand. Just warmth.

He let her stay there a little longer.

Later that day, as Giyuu was heading back from the well with the laundry, Makio met him near the steps. Her arms were crossed, expression unreadable, but she held out the laundry basket with a tilt of her head and a single lifted brow.

“C’mon, little brother,” she said, voice edged with playful challenge. “Let’s see if you can fold better than you cook.”

Giyuu took the basket without hesitation, though his hands faltered at the edges. As they settled into the shade of the porch, he reached for a damp shirt, fumbled with the sleeves, and mumbled under his breath, “I’m… not very good at folding.”

Makio glanced at him sidelong, caught the wrinkle of frustration in his brow, and let out a short laugh. “You’re worse than Suma,” she said with a grin. “But you’ll learn. Lucky for you, I’m an excellent teacher.”

He didn’t look up, but the tension in his jaw eased. His hands moved again, slower now, more careful.

By the third morning, Hinatsuru approached him in the courtyard with a comb and a soft ribbon folded neatly between her fingers. “Sit,” she said gently, patting the edge of the porch. “Your hair’s gotten long again.”

He sat without protest, legs tucked beneath him. She knelt behind him, began to part the strands with her fingers, combing slowly, her touch feather-light. Her breath was quiet as she hummed—an old song from her childhood, full of lilting notes and a melody like a lullaby.

She brushed along the curve of his neck, and he didn’t flinch. He didn’t ask why she was doing it, didn’t tense when she tied the ribbon near the base of his skull in a loose, elegant braid.

He simply… allowed it.

No words. No fight.

Just a stillness that wasn’t born of fear.

A kind of surrender to the quiet intimacy of care.

They worked more together after that—Giyuu and all of them.

He rolled up his sleeves beside Tengen in the kitchen, dusted in flour and focused entirely on kneading the dough as the older man recounted an absurd tale about a traveling merchant who sold demon-slaying charms that were, in fact, just garlic cloves sewn into felt. Tengen’s booming laughter filled the room. Giyuu didn’t laugh, but he looked up—eyes soft, shoulders relaxed.

On the porch, he strung bundles of dried herbs with Makio, both of them squinting in the sun. When Suma tripped over the step and sent a basket of scallions flying, Giyuu’s snort of amusement was so quiet Makio almost missed it—but when she caught it, her grin was triumphant.

He crouched beside Hinatsuru in the garden, hands in the soil, repotting delicate blooms she’d been coaxing back to life. He didn’t speak, but she didn’t mind. They moved in rhythm—her arranging, him pressing the roots gently into place. It was easy. Grounding.

And when he made mistakes—burned rice, forgot which room was which, spaced out during instructions—they didn’t scold.

They teased.

“You spacing out again, Giyuu?” Makio would say with a smirk, flicking him lightly with a towel.

“Maybe he’s haunted,” Suma whispered one evening, eyes wide with faux drama. “Do you think ghosts like fish?”

And when he froze, unsure whether to respond or retreat, Hinatsuru would always nudge him gently with her elbow and say, “Ignore them. They’re just loud.”

He didn’t smile often. But sometimes—just sometimes—he did.

And that was enough.

One evening, the five of them sat around the low table for dinner, the air buzzing with the comfort of familiarity. The food was warm, the light golden, conversation drifting lazily from the mundane to the absurd.

They were debating whether or not a crow had tried to flirt with Tengen when he clapped his hands together suddenly, the sharp sound startling enough to make Suma yelp and drop her chopsticks.

“I’ve decided,” he announced, far too loudly, with a grin that could’ve lit up a temple. “We should throw another party.”

Makio groaned audibly, head in her hands. “You just got back. Can we not throw you back out with it?”

“What kind of party?” Hinatsuru asked calmly, sipping her tea, one eyebrow arched in suspicion.

Suma clutched her own face. “Please not the one with the feathered kimono. I still have nightmares about that thing.”

Tengen chuckled. “No, no. Something smaller. A celebration for… being home. For being together. That kind of party.”

Giyuu, who had been quietly focused on his rice, glanced up.

He didn’t speak. But his gaze lingered—curious. Watching.

There was a flicker in his eyes—something like cautious amusement. Or maybe just tentative relief. Whatever it was, it looked new. Like the realization had only just begun to settle in.

This wasn’t a performance. There were no chains beneath his sleeves, no masked guests or veiled bids. No eyes assessing his worth.

Just this.

Just warmth.

Tengen caught the look, his expression softening.

“We’ll keep it small,” he said, quieter now. “Just family and comrades.”

Giyuu didn’t respond.

But that night—he didn’t slip away early.

He stayed.

He let Suma lean against him, let Hinatsuru press a fresh cup of tea into his hands. He didn’t flinch when Makio joked about his terrible folding again, didn’t look away when Tengen’s palm ruffled through his hair on the way to the kitchen.

He didn’t smile.

But he didn’t retreat either.

No shadows in his eyes. No fear in his breath.

Just a gentle quiet.

The kind that didn’t feel like absence anymore.

The kind that felt like the beginning of belonging.

He wasn’t being shielded like a fragile thing, wasn’t being fixed or pitied or even gently tolerated.

He was loved.

And for the first time in years—he let himself believe it.

Chapter Text

The floor beneath them groaned softly with the shifting weight of bodies and boots—wooden slats worn smooth from years of use, laced with the familiar scents of incense, steel, and old cedar. Damp cloaks hung heavy over shoulders, dripping quietly where snow or rain hadn’t fully shaken off. The final words of the meeting still lingered faintly in the air—bureaucratic ash from a fire already fading.

The hall was thinning now.

Another summit over—another cycle of grim logistics, demon sightings, and the endless rotation of patrol schedules and funding debates. Oyakata-sama’s silhouette had already faded behind the inner shoji screen, his children moving like quiet shadows at his side. Most of the Hashira were beginning their usual exodus—some murmuring in small knots of conversation, others wordless as they made for the door, ready to trade silence for sky.

Tengen didn’t move.

He stood rooted in the center of the room like a monument carved in flamboyance—arms crossed over his chest, posture tall and gleaming, every line of his uniform pressed and pristine. The gemstone rings on his fingers glinted with the last rays of slatted sunlight spilling through the high windows.

Then, just as the hum of conversation reached its most fragile lull, he clapped.

A sharp, echoing crack that snapped through the space like a blade leaving its sheath.

“Oi! Before you all vanish—stay put!” His voice rang out like a drumroll over the hushed shuffle of feet. “I’ve got something worth hearing.”

There was an audible groan. Several heads turned.

Sanemi, halfway through stepping over the threshold, paused mid-motion with the most visible twitch in the known world. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Kanae turned gracefully, one hand brushing a nonexistent speck of lint from her sleeve, her expression serene but curious. Sabito, leaning back against one of the beams with all the theatrical suffering of a martyr, let out an exaggerated sigh that could’ve wilted a flower.

“You’re going to make a scene, aren’t you?” Sabito deadpanned.

Tengen’s grin spread like summer wildfire. “When don’t I?”

Rengoku lit up like someone had lit a fire under his feet. “A surprise? Glorious! Tell us, Tengen—does it involve food?!”

“Oh, there will be food, ” Tengen promised, eyes glittering with mirth. “And drink. And laughter. Music. Maybe even a few stolen kisses under moonlight if you’re lucky.”

Sabito narrowed his eyes. “Wait. Wait. No. Don’t say it.”

Tengen winked. “Say what?”

“You’re throwing another party. ”

“I absolutely am, ” Tengen replied, throwing his arms wide. “A real one this time. Not one of those half-baked strategy dinners where everyone’s too paranoid to enjoy the sake.”

Sanemi made a noise like he was chewing glass. “The hell for? We just spent three hours discussing demon intestines and useless new recruits. And now you want us to dress up and eat pie?”

Tengen lifted a brow. “Would you rather spend another night alone sharpening your blade and pretending you don’t cry when you do it?”

“ Fuck off. ”

“Delightful,” Tengen drawled. “So that’s a maybe.”

Rengoku clapped a hand on his shoulder. “An evening of celebration! Yes! It has been too long since we’ve shared anything other than wounds and patrol reports!”

“That’s the spirit, flame-boy,” Tengen said, slapping him back. “I want a night with no demons, no dispatches, and no one sneaking off before dessert. When’s the last time we had that? ”

Sabito made a face, lips twisted. “Do funerals count?”

“See?” Tengen shot back. “That’s exactly why we need this.”

Kanae, standing just to the side of the group, tilted her head with her usual grace. “I’ve heard… rumors, Uzui-san,” she said lightly, her tone half-mirth, half-inquiry. “That your estate has taken in someone new.”

Tengen’s brow twitched, but his smile didn’t waver. “Careful, Kocho-san. Gossip like that might get you roped into pouring tea.”

She smiled back, unbothered. “Just curious. It’s not often we hear of you keeping quiet about a guest.”

Tengen gave a low, amused hum. “That’s because this one isn’t for showing off.”

Gyomei, who had remained in quiet contemplation until then, bowed his head slightly. His voice rumbled gently into the conversation like a temple bell. “Joy is a form of resilience. We must tend to it when the burden becomes too great.” He looked up, gaze warm. “I will attend.”

That, more than anything, settled the matter in Tengen’s mind. Gyomei’s approval carried the weight of scripture. It made the idea feel less like an indulgence and more like a necessity.

Sanemi, still in the doorway, scoffed again but hadn’t left. “If I find feathers in my goddamn rice again, I’m stabbing you.”

Tengen threw him a finger-gun. “Feathers in your food only if you ask nicely. Or if Suma helps me cook.”

“She would do that,” Sanemi muttered. “She did it last time. Fucking Feathers.”

Sabito shook his head, but something in his posture had shifted. He wasn’t sulking anymore—he was listening. Really listening.

Tengen scanned them all, his heart quieter now beneath the rhythm of his usual bravado.

Rengoku—already discussing food options with himself.

Kanae—elegant, amused, observant.

Gyomei—steady as ever, hands folded in silent prayer.

Sabito—grudgingly curious, his sharp gaze a little softer than usual.

Sanemi—angry and bitter and, underneath it all, still here.

Tengen held that moment, breathed it in.

Then he said, “The estate. Two nights from now. Bring nothing but your charming selves and an appetite.”

Sabito leaned against the beam again, arms folded. “So what's the real reason?”

Tengen paused, just briefly.

He didn’t say: Because Giyuu still flinches in his sleep.
He didn’t say: Because he still asks if he’s allowed to eat with us out loud, like he expects someone to say no.
He didn’t say: Because it’s been nearly a year, and he still doesn’t know what it means to be welcome.

He just smiled.

“Maybe I missed your pretty faces.”

Sabito rolled his eyes and flipped him off.

Tengen grinned wider.

And deep down, under all the sparkle and flair, his heart beat a little louder. Because this wasn’t just a party.

It was a promise.

And Giyuu—
Giyuu would see it.

They began to drift apart slowly, like leaves carried on a sluggish wind.

Rengoku threw a booming laugh over his shoulder as he sidled up to Gyomei, animatedly discussing seasonal sweets and how they must try plum syrup over shaved ice this time. Gyomei, ever serene, responded with a gentle smile and a murmur of approval, nodding along to the excitement with quiet grace.

Kanae had turned her attention to Sanemi, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she stepped into his path. “Will you actually go?” she asked softly, the barest edge of teasing in her voice. “Or will you spend the whole night sharpening your sword and crying as you do so– as Uzui-san had put it, hmm?”

Sanemi grunted and looked over to her. “Depends. If you’re going, maybe I need someone to suffer with.”

“Oh? Is that your version of an invitation?” she asked, eyes glinting.

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t push your luck.”

Meanwhile, Sabito let out a long-suffering sigh, tossing his head back as he followed them out. “Guess I’ll have to borrow a nicer haori again,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “Last time, someone tried to hand me a tray of sake like I was the hired help.”

“Maybe don’t show up looking like a windswept delinquent,” Tengen called after him, his voice laced with mirth.

Sabito lifted a hand in a lazy wave without turning. “Maybe don’t throw parties that look like parades.”

The echoes of footfalls, laughter, and idle conversation slowly faded, one by one, swallowed by the vastness of the old meeting hall and the quiet hum of the evening.

Tengen stayed behind.

He stood still for a moment, arms loosely crossed, gaze turned upward toward the rafters where beams of soft amber light streamed through the slats under the eaves. The day was waning, the sun now low enough that it painted long shadows across the polished floorboards. Dust motes floated in the golden air like drifting stars.

He exhaled, slow.

He thought of Giyuu.

Not the Giyuu the others still saw—stoic, quiet, unreadable. But the one he saw in between the silences.

The one who had, just a few days ago, smiled—barely, just a flicker—when Makio handed him the garden shears and muttered, “Watch it, brat. Don’t snip your fingers off.” The one who had blinked in confusion but hadn’t pulled away when Suma braided a thin lock of his hair at dinner, humming as she tied it with a soft lavender ribbon. The ribbon had slipped, fallen behind his ear. He hadn’t even panicked that time. No breath hitch. No tremor.

That was new.

But so was the way he still slept with his door locked, no matter how many warm meals or soft touches filled the day. So was the flinch—small, involuntary—every time someone brushed his shoulder without warning. That one never seemed to go away.

He deserved better.

Not pity. Not performance. Not whispered curiosity behind fans and shut doors.

He deserved to be seen —genuinely. Not stared at like something broken. Not handled like a possession. Not dressed up and displayed like a rescued relic from a fire someone else had set.

Seen.

And this time—this time—no one would touch him without his consent. No lingering stares disguised as curiosity, no careless hands reaching like they owned him, no words laced with implication. Giyuu wasn’t in a brothel anymore– and he wouldn't be treated as such.

Not on his watch.

Tengen tilted his head back, drew a deep breath, and stepped out into the late afternoon sun. The light bathed the courtyard in gold, brushing the stones with warmth and glinting off the edge of his rings.

A tune found its way to his lips—a low, aimless hum as he walked. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t flamboyant. Just steady. Comfortable.

He was already building the party in his head. The layout. The food. The pacing. He’d keep the crowd small. Only the ones who mattered. No strangers. Just voices Giyuu soon to recognize. Faces that didn’t frighten him. He’d plan everything himself—every step, every precaution.

There would be lights, yes. And laughter. And music, slow and sweet in the early hours before the drinking and real party started.

A celebration.

One Giyuu could survive.

One he might—just maybe—begin to enjoy.

Tengen smiled to himself, the hum on his breath deepening.

It was time to begin.

`

`

`

(days prior)

It began subtly.

Small signs, quiet ripples in the fabric of the household—changes that might’ve gone unnoticed if Giyuu weren’t so finely tuned to disruption. A new stack of lanterns tucked into the corner of the storeroom, their paper shells delicate and hand-painted with curling wisteria. Suma darting past him down the corridor with a ribbon clenched between her teeth, laughter muffled and wild. A courier arriving at the back gate with baskets overflowing with more vegetables than they could possibly need for their usual meals.

He watched from the shadows—half-obscured behind the edge of a paper screen, his fingers curled tightly inside his sleeves. The others moved like dancers across the tatami floors, busy but graceful, never quite brushing too close. Something was shifting in the air around them, subtle but undeniable, like the breeze that comes before a storm.

Not violent. Not dangerous.

Just… present.

By midday, the estate had begun to hum with life. Not the gentle kind. Purposeful. Directed. Tengen’s wives flitted between rooms, arms full of trays and folded silks, boxes of decorations, and strings of paper flowers. Their movements were brisk, practiced—light-footed yet precise, like they’d done this before and knew exactly how to do it again.

He didn’t ask, not at first. He didn’t need to.

He knew .

But he didn’t want it confirmed.

Still, when Hinatsuru passed him in the hallway with a calm, warm smile and a lacquered box of delicate sake cups, something inside him twisted. The question formed before he could stop it—dry in his throat, barely a breath of sound.

“What… is happening?”

Hinatsuru slowed, caught mid-step. Even now–even after months, Giyuu speaking still seemed to surprise her, even if its still rare he speaks to her or the girls.

But her smile didn’t falter.

She adjusted the weight of the box gently in her arms, as if bracing against the chance that her answer might hit him wrong. Her voice was careful but kind.

“Tengen’s planning a gathering,” she said. “A party. Just the Hashira. He mentioned it the other week.”

The word echoed in Giyuu’s skull like a dropped stone in a deep well.

Party.

The sound of it made something in his chest seize. It shouldn’t have. He should’ve expected it. Should’ve prepared. But hearing it aloud gave the thought weight—and the weight landed sharp.

His pulse spiked. He could already feel the ghost of painted fabric on his arms, the phantom grip of fingers on his chin tilting his face up, forcing him into a smile. He could still hear the voices—smirking, disinterested, hungry.

He’s expensive. Don’t touch the face. Smile, darling. Smile.

He turned away without another word.

Hinatsuru didn’t follow. She didn’t reach for his sleeve. She just let him go.

That night, he didn’t eat. He sat in the garden long after the lanterns had been lit, blanket draped around his shoulders even though the spring air was still warm. His knees were pulled to his chest. His eyes didn’t move from the koi pond, though the fish had long since vanished beneath the water’s dark surface.

He heard the footsteps long before they reached him.

Tengen always moved like he had music playing somewhere behind his eyes—each step measured but easy, like he couldn’t help but exist in rhythm. Giyuu braced for the usual interruption—an exaggerated greeting, a grand sweep of motion and voice that demanded attention.

But Tengen said nothing.

He just sat beside him on the wooden porch with a slow, controlled exhale, letting the quiet fill the space between them.

It was a long time before he spoke.

“You’re still uncertain.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t pity.

It was just true.

Giyuu didn’t respond. His gaze stayed fixed on the pond, fingers curled so tightly in his sleeves that the seams strained.

Tengen leaned back, resting his elbows on the porch behind him. “It’s not like before,” he said, voice low. “This isn’t one of those nights. There’s no one here to buy you. No owners. No clients. Just my comrades. People I trust.”

A pause.

“People who’ll respect you. ”

Still, Giyuu said nothing. His throat ached. His fingers pressed harder against the hem of his sleeve.

Tengen didn’t push. His tone softened, stripped of its usual showmanship. “You don’t have to come,” he said. “This isn’t a command. It’s an invitation. You don’t even have to leave your room if you don’t want to. I just wanted you to know the door’s open.”

Giyuu didn’t trust his voice, so he only nodded—small, slight. But it was enough.

Tengen didn’t say anything else. He stayed a while longer before rising and walking back inside.

That night, Giyuu didn’t sleep. Not truly. His dreams were scattered and sharp, filled with the scent of perfume and spilled sake, with candlelight flickering across polished wood, with ghost hands that touched without warmth.

The next morning, the preparations continued.

The wives mentioned the party—but never directly to him. Just in passing, each in their own way, like they were giving him a map but not forcing him to follow it.

Suma spun through the corridor like a storm, holding two vibrant kimono up to the light, twirling dramatically. “Which one makes a better entrance?” she demanded to no one in particular, but she lingered near Giyuu, pausing just long enough to whisper, “I’m glad I won’t be the only one nervous this time.”

Makio clacked her chopsticks loudly over lunch, glaring into her bowl. “If anyone looks at Giyuu wrong, I’m breaking their face,” she said. “I’ll do it in front of everyone. He just has to point.”

Hinatsuru never asked. She simply approached that afternoon, laid a soft-folded haori beside him on the porch, and said, “It’s light. Doesn’t cling. Wear whatever makes you feel like yourself.”

Giyuu stared at the haori for a long time after she left.

He didn’t know what it meant to feel like himself anymore.

But he tried it on when no one was watching.

A day passed. Then two.

Decorations appeared like blooming flowers—strings of paper cranes, lanterns, flower arrangements tucked into corners. Music drifted through the halls in the evenings, flutes and the distant low hum of strings. Giyuu listened from his doorway. Not a single knock came. No one dragged him out. No one painted his face. No one called him a “pretty thing.”

Instead, they asked.

What would you like to wear?
Do you want to help with the flowers?

Every choice was his.

And it terrified him.

Late that night, as the house fell quiet and the lanterns burned low, Giyuu crept into the main hall. Tengen sat on the floor, reviewing a scroll, ink smudged on his fingers.

He looked up when Giyuu entered—but didn’t speak.

Giyuu’s voice was thin, barely audible. “If I come…” He hesitated. “Can I leave? When I want?”

Tengen’s answer was immediate. “Always. No one locks you in. Ever.”

Giyuu nodded once.

And left.

It wasn’t a yes. But it wasn’t a no.

That night, alone in the hallway outside his room, Giyuu paused in front of the mirror. The old, warped glass reflected a face he barely recognized. He stared at the scar cutting down from his brow to his jaw—long, pale, disfigured.

A ruin.

Not the soft-eyed boy he once was. Not the painted puppet he had been sold as. Not the voiceless thing that had flinched when someone smiled too nicely.

He didn’t know what he was now.

But as music whispered faintly down the hall and laughter hummed like distant thunder, he touched his reflection—just once.

Maybe, just maybe… this time, he would choose.

And that choice would be his.

`

`

`

The Uzui estate thrummed with gentle purpose—not frantic, not rushed. Just alive.

Lanterns swung softly from wooden beams, their thin paper skins catching and diffusing the sunlight into hues of pale gold, warm amber, and faint crimson. Delicate shadows danced across the tatami as hands—practiced, patient—secured silk cords and tucked fresh-cut arrangements into earthenware vases. The scent of polished cedar hung in the air, mingling with hints of simmering broth, shaved ginger, and fresh yuzu rind carried in on steam from the kitchen.

Something was coming.