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retrievablememories · 3 years ago

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the moon listens in on our love | yuta

title: the moon listens in on our love pairing: samurai!yuta x black reader, samurai!shotaro x oc genre: slow burn romance, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, historical!au, 1500s!au — Sengoku Jidai, The Warring States Period of Japan request: “I forgot I had this idea saved for when you reopened requests. Insert person here is a samurai in the sengoku period that frequents the restaurant that your family owns to drink alone. One night after closing up shop alone some bandits try to rob/harm you and your local lonely samurai happens to be in the area to help you and that begins the tumultuous relationship. I don't have a person in mind for once so surprise us please~” word count: 29k warnings: major character death, minor character deaths, mentions of death, physical violence, blood, wounds, attempted robbery/physical assault, vomiting/emetophobia warning, mention of suicide, illness/disease, symptoms of PTSD, mentions of class disparities, mentions of colonization/enslavement, familial conflict, gender stereotyping, some sexual tension a/n: there are some historical inaccuracies for the sake of the plot, and also because it’s difficult to find accurate & readily accessible info about the Sengoku online. some things here may apply more to the Edo period/Tokugawa shogunate that follows immediately after Sengoku rather than the Sengoku itself. however, if you see any discrepancies that could stand to be corrected, feel free to reach out to me

because i also remember how people scalped bridgerton after it first came out: black people existed in japan in the mid 1500s. if anyone isn’t bored by history, there’s this article that’s behind a subscriber wall—however, there are some excerpts of that article and another academic paper on this blog concerning the 1543 nanban trade, which brought portuguese, africans, and some other foreign peoples to japan. there’s also the history of yasuke the black samurai...so yea i’m not a historian but those are my lil receipts.

also take a look at the glossary for any unfamiliar terms throughout + any extra info that’s helpful to know

June 1574 — Owari Province, Japan

Nakamoto Yuta is always sitting there in the corner of your family’s restaurant, with his head either lowered—deep in thought, maybe—or held in some kind of quiet, mysterious pride. But considering his ranking as a distinguished samurai of the Oda clan, it’s not hard to figure out why he’d exude that kind of unshaken confidence.

His black hair is long and brushes the tops of his shoulders, shining like a lake at midnight whenever it catches the light. It’s always in that familiar topknot; you’ve come to recognize him in the crowded shop by that signifier alone, even though so many other men wear it too.

He has a fascinating face—one that persists in your memory amongst the many others that pass through your family’s shop throughout the week.

He’d started showing up at your family’s restaurant in May. You remember it specifically because it was very recent, but also because this was not too long after the latest battle between the Oda and Takeda clans, close by in Mino Province. Like the other samurai you’d seen in the past, something in his face gave you the impression of a war-torn countenance, even if he wasn’t visibly upset. He possesses the eyes of someone who’s seen a lifetime’s worth of death, and then some. You don’t know if anyone else notices this on the faces of the warriors who come back from battles, but it has always seemed clear to you.

Yuta never talks to any of the other patrons—just you, your sister, or the shop’s other employee Kichirou whenever any of you come to serve him. And even then, he only says a few words—whatever his choice for that day is. You’d think he’d get the same thing, as he seems to keep a routine with everything else he does, including sitting in the same chair on the same side of the table, visiting the shop around the same time every few days. But he usually tries something different. That faintly piques your interest. He’s had almost everything on the menu by now.

You’d like to learn more about him. There’s not much you know about Nakamoto Yuta except for the fact that he’s apparently prosperous enough to have his own farmland and a set of loyal vassals, provided to him by Oda Nobunaga. His skills as an Oda warrior are talked highly of, though you’ve never seen him fight or train yourself.

However, you don’t say much to him other than making the courteous small talk required of you when serving patrons. He is not mean, but just...closed off. You don’t want to be known forever in history’s ledger as the one to disturb his peace and gravely offend him, so you always leave your words at simple greetings.

You wonder about his home life, what his family might be like. Maybe it’s a little nosy, but imagining stories about the patrons’ lives makes the days pass easier. Ultimately, your mind always strays back to your own incomplete story.

Growing up in Owari and never knowing your parents’ homeland of Mozambique had not been particularly easy; you always thought it was curious how you could miss a place you’d never seen. Even though there were several other families in your area who bore the same dark skin as yours, there was often a lingering sentiment of displacement. A sense of not quite knowing the full truth of yourself.

When you and your sister Subira were younger, you’d often beg your parents to tell stories about this long-ago, practically fabled place they hailed from. Although they’d give anecdotes here and there, there was still much they would never tell you. Together, you and Subira would sit on the porch while retwisting each other’s locks and use these bits and pieces of your parents’ lives to try to weave a tapestry of what things might’ve been like before Owari—before either of you even existed.

Still, you accept your life for what it is, because there is nothing else you can do. Days spent working in the shop, completing errands, and using your free time for whatever other activities you can think of often bleed into each other, transforming into one long outstretch of time punctuated by some events a little more worth remembering than others.

Even Yuta’s frequenting of your parents’ eatery doesn’t do much to break up the monotony after you grow used to seeing him. But you don’t yet know what the future holds.

The sun is almost completely gone now, its rays coloring the sky in fading hues of blazing orange and red against a navy backdrop as you complete the last of the cleaning inside the restaurant.

You’ve stayed back to close the shop yourself, though you aren’t anywhere near happy about it. Kichirou, one of the other workers, was supposed to help you close up, but he claimed he had some business—more like fun—to attend to with his friends and took off early. You shake your head as you think about it, angrily sweeping the last few crumbs off the floor. There is no point in hunting him down and making him do his part of the job, so you figure you can just make this as quick as possible and go back home.

As you lock the entrance of the shop, ready to head home after completing your duties, a hand grabs you around the bicep harsh enough to sting.

“Ouch—”

Someone yanks you around before you even have time to move on your own, and you come face-to-face with a rough and stubbled man flanked by two other men. You don’t recognize either of his partners, though he seems a bit familiar—maybe someone you’ve seen around the town once or twice before. His breath is hot and foul against your skin, and it makes you recoil, but you can’t move very far away with him holding you in an immovable grip. “Say girl, what have you made from sales today? Hand it over.”

“I...I don’t have any money.” You are surprised at your ability to say this without stumbling over your words, though you feel much less self-assured on the inside. The man squeezes your arm tighter, and you make a sound of pain, trying once again to fruitlessly pull away from him.

“Quit with the lies, girl. There must be something stashed in this pretty outfit of yours.” He eyes your body as he says this, and it makes your skin crawl.

“I don’t have anything! Let me go!”

One of the other men speaks up now. “If there really is no money, there is plenty else we can take. What do you say to that?” The three men laugh.

Your stomach twists at what they’re implying, and you’re even more desperately angry at Kichirou for leaving you alone to close up the shop tonight. You try to shout for help, hoping anyone still lingering in the area would hear, but the man holding you covers your mouth with his other hand. He begins dragging you away to the darkened alley between your parents’ shop and another building nearby, and you struggle as fiercely as you can against him, although one of the other men comes beside you to restrain your other arm.

“Are you that full of cowardice that you would bother a young woman?”

Everything pauses for a moment, and all of you look around to see who has spoken. The one remaining man who doesn’t have his hands on you draws his ko-wakizashi, the blade of it sharp and bright.

“Have your turn later, bastard. She’s ours,” the man says, holding his sword poised to strike. Even with the moonlight and the light from the lanterns shining along the street, whoever just spoke is still hidden in shadow, but recognition has already started shaping itself within your mind. The voice sounds strikingly similar to one you’ve been hearing for the past month…

The person finally steps out of the shadows, and as you thought, it is Nakamoto Yuta. You know he doesn’t live around this particular area, instead residing at the further edges of town where many of the samurai tend to do, and you briefly wonder what he’s doing here at this time of night. He hadn’t even come to the shop today.

“You might want to rethink such crude words,” Yuta says, drawing his own wakizashi.

Yuta’s presence seems to incense the man beyond a regular sense of anger, and he gives a great shout as he charges at the samurai without a second thought. Their swords clash with a noise that makes your ears ring, and you worry this fight will be too long for your own good as the two men holding you continue wrestling you into the alley.

You scream once more, though it’s muffled by the man’s hand. Sweat springs up on your skin; by the time Yuta has cut the other man down, it might already be too late. The men’s bodies block your view, and all you can perceive is the sounds of swords striking each other.

However, it seems you’ve underestimated Yuta’s abilities.

There’s hardly enough time to register what’s happened before your bottom is hitting the ground, both of the men dropping you harshly. The first man clumsily whips around, groping for his weapon at his waist, and that’s when you catch a glimpse of the long gash on his back and his torn clothes, newly cleaved open by Yuta’s sword. There’s not enough time left for him to react, though—even as his partner draws his ko-wakizashi—when Yuta opens up another split across his neck.

From your spot on the ground, you aren’t fast enough to shield your face when the man’s blood sprays across your body. You stare through bloodied eyes, horrified and shaking as you watch Yuta cut the man down like he’s an animal ready for slaughter. You try to wipe the crimson from your eyes, though your vision remains blurred from the mess. It makes an acrid burn rise in your throat, and though you don’t want to vomit here, you can’t keep the contents of your stomach down.

The only bandit left standing is busy trying to field Yuta’s sword as it bears down upon him, and he stumbles back, nearly losing his footing amongst the dirt and rocks. His low prospects of winning along with the slayings of his two partners is enough to make him decide that death isn’t worth the trouble. He grapples to get out of range of Yuta’s wakizashi and flees the scene. Yuta moves like he’s about to follow after him but then pauses and glances to where you’re still sitting in the alleyway, bloodied and dirty. Wiping his reddened weapon on his hakama and sheathing it, he steps over the body of the man blocking the alleyway and stops in front of you, holding his equally bloody hand out.

“Can you get up?” he asks. He barely sounds winded or tired after just killing two people and nearly taking another. You nod hesitantly and take his hand so he can help you to your feet. His palm is firm in your own and slick from the bandits’ blood. “You shouldn’t be out alone at night. I’ll accompany you back home.”

He procures a small square of fabric from his clothing and holds it out to you. You take it gratefully, wiping your face with it.

“What about the bodies?” you murmur, casting your gaze to them. You don’t think your parents will be ecstatic to find this mess in front of their shop in the morning. Yuta doesn’t bother to look back at the men lying slain in the street.

“I’ll take care of it once you’re home. For now, we can leave the refuse where it belongs.”

You can only nod, too shaken to say or do much of anything else. You discover he’s brought his horse with him, and he helps you get onto the animal’s back; once you’re settled, he walks beside it holding its reins. The trip to your parents’ home is quiet, only punctuated by the sound of night creatures and insects. Yuta doesn’t say anything else, which you don’t really mind; you’re too busy trying to process everything that’s just happened.

When you appear in the doorway of your home accompanied by Yuta’s intimidating figure, your kosode covered in blood, your family screams in terror. They are slightly more relieved to find out the blood isn’t yours.

“Nakamoto Yuta-sama,” your father rushes out and gives a deep bow, “wh-what happened here?”

“I found her at your restaurant alone. A group of men tried to attack her, but I dispatched them.” Yuta doesn’t say anything more, but there is a question in his eyes, which makes your father bristle with embarrassment.

“Did Kichirou not stay with you?” your father asks you. You shake your head no, and he looks like he’ll curse until he thinks better of it in the presence of such company. Taking a deep breath, he bows to Yuta again. “I cannot thank you enough. Your gracious actions have spared my daughter’s life; we are indebted to you.”

Yuta tilts his head in acknowledgement of your father’s gratitude. “There is no debt to pay. I only did what was necessary, as any honorable man would.” He looks to you, and Subira’s grasp on your arm tightens a fraction. “Goodnight. Stay safe.”

“I-I will. Goodnight,” you repeat.

Always a man of few words, he nods once more before taking his leave.

After Yuta departs, your parents and sister fuss over you until they’re certain you’re not wounded anywhere.

“What happened?” your mother demands, her hands on your shoulders maneuvering you every which way as she looks you over one last time. She shakes her head at the blood staining your sclera, her eyebrows drawn together and lips turned down in a frown.

“Regardless of what happened, I should skin Kichirou alive,” your father gripes, still simmering with anger.

You recount the events of earlier that night, your family members listening intently. Telling them what happened with Yuta and the three men draws mixed reactions.

“He did all of that?” your father asks, his voice booming all around the house in his panic, and your mother tries to quiet him with a hurried shush!

“He’s a trained warrior father, it’s not that surprising,” Subira says. “They were foolish to even challenge him at all.” Some of your sister’s initial fear has begun to wear off, and she seems fascinated at you witnessing Yuta’s sword prowess up close.

Your father gives her a look. “You cannot help but find it a bit terrifying.”

“We all know who he is. It’s his job to kill people. He saved Y/N’s life,” Subira continues, her voice weary. “I won’t take issue with him. There’s no reason to. Maybe he could even be of more help to us in the future.”

“Why are you always thinking of a way to get something out of someone?” your mother huffs.

Your father lowers himself to sit cross-legged on the ground, shaking his head and murmuring under his breath; the shock and excitement have tapered off, and he’s now too weak to keep standing.

“I’m fine, father,” you try to assure him, and you’re pretty certain that you are fine, at least physically. Your mind is a little shaken, but that’s to be expected. You don’t want to create more stress for your family than necessary. “Don’t worry.”

“Hmph. Everyday, I still wonder if it was a good idea to let you and Subira work at the shop. It’s nearly impossible to keep anyone safe in this world.”

Subira sighs, and you and your mother exchange a glance. Your father always gets like this at the slightest inconvenience, wanting to lock you and your sister up and away from all dangers without acknowledging that it would also steal your freedom. “Father, please don’t,” Subira protests, “it’s better than sitting at home sewing clothes or sweeping the tatami all day.”

Your father and sister start going back and forth about it, as they are often wont to do when this subject comes up, while your mother begins preparing water for a bath.

When the water is ready, you go into the washroom so your mother can help you get out of your ruined kosode. Afterwards, you carefully rinse all the blood off your face and body before getting in the wooden tub, curling your knees to your chest and watching the water ripple around you as the night’s events circle through your mind.

You stay in the water until it grows cold and your fingers and toes turn wrinkly. When you finally get out, you dry off and slowly dress in your night clothes. Subira is still awake when you enter your shared room, and she looks at you with bright eyes in the warm light of the lantern.

“Were you afraid?” she whispers from the comfort of her futon.

“Of course I was, what kind of question is that?” You roll your eyes, getting into your own futon next to hers.

“I mean to say, were you afraid of Nakamoto Yuta himself?” she asks, reframing her question for your understanding. “You know father is so easily disturbed and will be having a fit over it for a while. I think he’s just fine, if a little stoic.” You look at her and think back to Yuta’s bloody hand wrapped around yours, his blade glinting under the lantern light.

“Perhaps. But he saved my life.” You lie down then, your eyes darting up to the ceiling as you become lost in thought. “That’s the only thing that matters, isn’t it?” Subira hums a quiet response and blows the lantern out a few moments later. You close your eyes, the lingering smell of the burning oil coloring your senses.

Your parents try to convince you to stay home from the shop the day after the attack happens, but you decide to go back. You can’t stay at home forever, and the longer you stay away, the more afraid you’ll be about going back.

So, you push away the muted fear hovering over you and try to ignore the slight trembling of your limbs as you return to work that day. If you close your eyes for long enough, you can still feel the warm, stinking blood trickling down your face. You think it’ll be a long time before that sensation disappears from your memory—if ever.

Kichirou arrives halfway through the day as scheduled, but he’s subsequently cursed out and chased off by your father with a burning pot of water once he sets eyes on the younger man. You’re still afraid and angry, but the sight gives you a small laugh. You don’t think you’ll be seeing any more of him after that.

Besides wanting to return to your normal life, you also go back to the shop because you want to see Yuta and properly thank him for his actions. In your fear last night, you had never thanked him directly.

You aren’t sure if he’ll even be there, as he doesn’t visit the shop everyday; maybe you’ll just have to talk to him another time. But to your relief, he shows up at his usual time that day.

Yuta’s eyes are already on you before you walk over to where he’s sitting, like two dark stars burning straight through you. “Hello, Yuta-sama,” you say, your voice coming out more timidly than you intend.

“Good evening, Y/N.”

“Before I serve you today, I wanted to thank you for the other night. It was really unexpected, but I’m glad you were there. The outcome would’ve been much worse without you.”

He acknowledges your thanks with a nod, his eyes remaining on you the entire time. You don’t look directly in his eyes, but you might as well with how intently they are trained on you. “It’s part of my duty to protect those who can’t protect themselves.”

“Of course,” you agree. You hesitate a moment before saying, “Um…the bodies weren’t in front of the shop this morning, so thank you for that, too.”

“Yes, I took care of it. I’m sure they’ll become some animal’s sustenance. Better served that way.”

The idea makes you wince inwardly, and you try not to show it on your face. On more than one occasion, you’d nosily peered into some ditch and spotted human remains you’d rather not have seen.

The one bandit who’d gotten away pops into your mind, and you suddenly wish that Yuta had been able to take care of him, too. With him still roaming free in the streets, there is no telling if he’ll try to come back to your parents’ shop again, or if he’ll bring more backup next time. Your heart beats a little faster, and you clench and unclench your fingers inside your kosode sleeves.

“I am reminded of the one who ran away,” you say, trying to keep your voice even. “It’s truly regrettable.”

“I’ve already handled that one,” Yuta says. You raise your eyebrows in confusion, and he continues. “It took considerable effort, but I eventually found him last night. There’s nothing worse than a coward who draws their sword and won’t even fight.”

This shocks you, as you can’t imagine how difficult it must’ve been to find the bandit in the dark with little illumination—nothing but the moon and the lantern light to guide Yuta. “I…see.” You give him a low bow. “Thank you again.”

“I hope you won’t be left alone like that again.” You’re a bit surprised at the gravity of his tone and his expression, and you’re not quite sure why he, essentially a stranger, would be so concerned with your well-being. Things like your attack and much worse incidents happen everyday; you’re living in the midst of continual battles, after all.

You hesitate, unsure how to respond in a way that won’t reflect badly on your parents or their shop. “...I’m grateful for your concern.” You give him a small smile, putting your professional mien back on. “Now then, what may I get for you?”

For that week and the next, your father stays late each day to close the shop for the night, alternating with you and Subira. One evening, however, he and your mother have to leave earlier than usual to attend to some business matters—a meeting between all the local merchants—so you and your sister both stay to close the shop on your own. Your father is incredibly wary about it, and it takes some convincing to get him out the door, but he eventually departs.

It won’t be much longer now until it’s time to close. The sun has already set, blanketing the sky with darkness. By this point, there’s no one left in the restaurant except you and your sister. And Nakamoto Yuta. He sits at his usual table, looking down into a cup of tea—his last one for the night—as if studying it.

You are curious; he’s never stayed this late before. Though you have an idea about why he’s doing it, you don’t intend on questioning him about it. However, your sister has no qualms about going up to ask him once she finishes cleaning up all the tables. You almost tell her not to bother him, but she always does what she wants anyway; and besides, you want to know why yourself.

“You are still here quite late, I’m surprised. And of course, we’re grateful for your patronage,” she tells him, a perfectly amiable smile on her face—the same one she uses for all customers.

“You haven’t replaced that worker boy yet, and I noticed your parents aren’t around, either. I thought I’d stay until closing tonight, just in case anything happens,” Yuta explains casually.

Your sister’s smile widens, this time more genuine. “That’s very considerate of you; thank you.” Her eyes drop to the daisho at his side, barely concealed wonder sparkling in her pupils. Still standing behind the counter, you shake your head at her unabashed admiration of his weaponry. “It’d be nice if we could all defend ourselves so efficiently like you do. It would make life less...precarious.”

The corner of Yuta’s mouth shifts in a slight smile. “Commoners are allowed to carry ko-wakizashi.”

“We are women,” Subira says, her tone taking on a certain dryness though she keeps her same kind smile. This statement and the resentment crammed within it is hard on your ears, but it’s the truth. “That’s what our parents say. We aren’t allowed to. The sword is a man’s right, and as long as there is a man around to protect us, we don’t need to know anything about the blade.”

“They’re just scared,” you say, speaking up for the first time. Your response feels uninspired; it’s often what you tell yourself to rid yourself of the lingering unhappiness of living underneath your parents’ overprotective nature. “Scared of us…having to defend ourselves, I suppose. And get killed.”

“Nevermind the fact that you almost got killed anyway. See how well that idea serves us?” Subira huffs, and you want to tell her to shut her mouth, but Yuta speaks again.

“That’s unfortunate. You may not know of it, but there are some female warriors who freely wield ko-naginata in battle. It pays for every individual to know the sword, or at least have the barest self-defense skills. Especially with bandits frequently on the main roads.”

“I didn’t realize…” you murmur. You’d heard rumors about these women before, but as noblewomen, most of them were of a higher class than even many samurai, and you’d never crossed paths with one.

“It is unfortunate,” your sister agrees, “which is why I’ve always thought it’d be nice if we could learn how, through some miraculous turn of events...” When Subira’s eyes slide down to Yuta’s daisho again, you immediately get what she’s insinuating, and you’re embarrassed.

Yuta’s interest is piqued. “To wield a sword?”

“Subira, you can’t just ask anyone to teach you. I’m very sure he has plenty of his own business to attend to within the Oda clan,” you blurt out. Your face warms when they both look at you; your sister throws you an irritated expression at your rebuttal.

“Is it a punishable crime to ask?” she argues.

“...It might as well be.”

“That’s a considerable request,” Yuta remarks, tilting his cup of tea around and making what’s left of the drink swish around the sides. “I see you are not afraid to ask for exactly what you want.” Subira smiles nervously at that, thinking she might’ve actually overstepped this time, and you hold your breath. “But I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

“Really?” You and Subira echo each other.

“Yes. But you’d be disobeying your parents’ wishes for you,” he notes. His expression remains fairly neutral, but there is some amusement in his eyes. “Not much for filial piety.”

Subira casts a nervous look at you, and you shake your head in one last attempt to get her to stop. “No, I suppose not. But following the rules doesn’t always get you what you desire. And…I’m tired of being treated like there’s nothing else for me to do in the world but serve others.”

“You’ve already had experience with that life lesson, then.” Yuta chuckles. “Alright. I’ll teach you and your sister some things, but I can’t predict what your parents will say or do if they find out. And if they tell me to never come around either of you again, well—I’m afraid I’ll have to do just that.”

“Thank you!” Your sister bows low, her locks brushing the edge of the table as she does. You belatedly follow suit, though inwardly you remain skeptical about this whole scheme. When you straighten up again, Yuta’s eyes are on you, and you think for a moment that your heart misses a beat.

“Will you be fine with that idea?” he asks you. “You don’t seem as enthusiastic as your sister about this. You don’t have to do it.”

Subira glares at you as if to force you to say yes using just her mind, and you sigh. After a moment’s reluctance, you say, “Yes, I…am also curious, despite what it may seem like. It’d be an honor to learn from you.”

You’re not lying about it; you do think it’s a rare opportunity, and surely anyone else in your position would be grateful for it. But you don’t know if it’s the right opportunity for you.

Yuta accompanies you and your sister home after you close the restaurant. Your sister is more talkative than you, asking him questions periodically. Your walk this time is calmer than the last one you had with Yuta, without you being covered in someone else’s blood and overcome with the fear of being attacked, though tendrils of nervousness curl themselves in your chest as you think back to it. You still haven’t completely managed to rid yourself of that fear, often wondering if you’d be ambushed from the shadows.

Before you know it, you’re back at your house; your parents haven’t yet arrived home from their meeting, and the shoji are still dark without any lantern light to signal their return.

“Thank you again for accompanying us,” you say, you and Subira standing in front of the porch.

“Before we begin, I must make some preparations; I hope you understand. I will let you know when I’m ready,” Yuta explains.

“We won’t have much unoccupied time until we can find another worker, so it’s perfectly fine,” Subira replies, and you give her a skeptical, silent glance.

“Then I’ll bid you goodnight here.”

You both echo goodnight as you slip into the house.

“You have a gift for crafting the most ridiculous situations,” you mutter after you’ve closed the sliding doors behind you.

“There’s nothing ridiculous about it,” Subira whispers, irritated. “There’s nothing wrong with learning to defend ourselves, despite what mother and father say. Are you fine with feeling helpless your entire life? I am not.”

“I never said I felt helpless.”

“You don’t have to say it, you act like it. You’ve always been too afraid to communicate what you truly want.”

You recoil, not expecting this conversation to turn into an analysis of your personality. “What I want? I’ve always had to think about you and our family first. There just isn’t enough room for whatever it is you think I want.”

Subira puts her hands on her hips. “I know you are the exemplar eldest daughter, but you can choose things for yourself sometimes. You don’t have to obey mother and father all the time.”

You shake your head, your lips thinning into an angry line—but you mostly feel too tired to keep arguing about this. You walk away from her, sighing with exasperation and deciding to leave before you say something that will make you both too upset to control your words. “You don’t know everything, Subira.”

“I know enough,” she calls after you, always one to get the last word in. Maybe there is some truth to her words, but that’s the last thing you want to think about right now.

It takes another week and a half to find another worker to replace Kichirou, a young man by the name of Noboru, by which time you and Subira can finally get more free time again. Those open hours during the weekday plus the weekends provide the perfect opportunities for meeting with Yuta.

Near the marketplace that your parents’ eatery sits in, there’s a forest. Going through it offers a much longer route from the market back to your own neighborhood, and you and your sister have avoided traveling through it for that reason—and because your parents have never allowed it. Not many other people attempt to travel through the woods because of its long detour unless they are truly desperate to escape a bandit. The forest’s foliage is not so dense that it’s impossible to navigate, but it provides enough cover to keep anyone hidden from sight if they want to be.

Which makes the woods a near perfect spot to practice self-defense without being seen by prying eyes. Though you can’t help feeling like you’re being led into the jaws of a hungry animal.

The forest makes you apprehensive, but you realize it is ultimately a smart choice for the privacy it offers. You know there’d be less outward judgment of Yuta for training you, because few people of lower rank would dare to purposely offend a samurai. But you and your sister have less leniency in such matters. There remains the chance of someone catching you and reporting back to your parents that you’ve been wasting your free time—and handling swords, at that.

But you don’t get swords. You could’ve figured as much, but Subira is a little dejected about it. The way she’d been eyeing Yuta’s daisho made it clear she’d been looking forward to waving a real blade around, and you’re secretly glad you won’t have to deal with that any time soon.

Yuta gives you bokken to train with. They look like wooden versions of a ko-wakizashi, solid and smooth and gleaming dark brown under the sunlight. You slide your hand over the surface of the one you’ve been handed, astounded by its careful craftsmanship.

“I made them,” he tells you, unconcealed pride coloring his features. “It was a while ago, but they’ll still be useful now.”

This gives you a new sense of awe of the bokken in your hands. It’s as finely made as can be, and you’re a tiny bit regretful you’ll have to use it for practice. “It’s of a very lovely make,” Subira says, and you murmur your agreement.

“Thank you.” Yuta smiles, and though it is a close-lipped expression, you think it harmonizes nicely with the rest of his features. “Now, let’s begin.”

You allow Subira to try the bokken with Yuta first, mostly because this was her idea but also because you are a smidge afraid and don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of one of the Oda clan’s best samurai. You take the opportunity to watch their movements closely and try to be attentive to every word Yuta is saying so you can put those instructions to use when it’s your time.

“Don’t hold it so tightly,” he tells her. “Try to think of it as an extension of your body. Be sure to keep it at this angle...”

When it is your turn, Yuta gives you similar instructions while Subira practices her stance. You don’t know how he has enough focus to direct you while simultaneously correcting Subira’s posture every few moments, but he does. You’re distracted just by seeing her out of the corner of your eye, awkwardly wielding the wooden sword and trying her best to give balanced slashes with it.

It also doesn’t help your distraction that you feel oddly nervous around Yuta. You’re still chalking that feeling up to the terror of the incident weeks ago, because it’s the only explanation that makes sense to you. Death isn’t unusual or uncommon, but you hadn’t been privy to it that intimately before. It will take a little more time for you to stop associating him with that incident; that is reasonable, you figure.

That reasoning is what you keep in mind whenever your hands quiver as he puts his own hands on your arms to adjust you, or when his breaths tickle the side of your cheek as he stands particularly close to you.

You and Subira are sweating and unsteady by the time Yuta calls an end to your training session. You didn’t think it’d be quite this strenuous, as he mostly focused on getting the two of you to try out stances and sword cuts, but attempting to get your body positioning correct was half the battle. Once you’d gotten your shoulders and arms into alignment, your hips and legs would be wrong, and vice versa. Thinking about it all made your head ache. You weren’t sure how any of this could ever translate into something you could actually make use of. You dab at your forehead with your sleeve, tired and mildly irritated.

“Well, that was a bit disastrous.” Yuta’s comment makes your face heat with embarrassment, though he is smiling wryly when he says it. You’re slightly taken aback by this more relaxed side of him in contrast to the stoic aura he has whenever he comes to your parents’ shop. It makes you uncertain how to interact with him properly considering you are still of very different classes, and the only response you give is a brief, nervous smile before looking away. Your sister, despite the meaning of her name, has a lot less patience; she huffs like a kid, swiping her locks out of her damp face only for them to fall right back into place.

“I know we just began, but it feels like we’ll never get it. How do you do this? Let alone in an actual fight?” Subira asks.

“I have been training since I was a child,” Yuta notes. “It will take much practice, but I believe you can get to your desired level over time.” Subira still seems unconvinced, but she accepts this.

“What do we do with these?” you ask, referring to the bokken in your hand.

“They’re yours now, so you keep them,” he responds matter-of-factly.

“Really?” Subira exclaims, her eyes lighting up. You hadn’t considered that Yuta was actually giving them to you to keep. You suddenly feel bad about your initial apprehension and complaints. It’d be rude to give it back; you figure you might as well continue with training now.

You and Subira give the bokken back to Yuta so that he can tuck them away in the carrying bag he’s using for them; that way, you won’t have to carry them yourselves on the way out of the forest.

You let Yuta lead the way out of the forest as he led you into it. His eyes remain attentive the entire time, scanning through the trees, although there’s really no one out there but you three. Again, you wonder why he agreed to all of this so easily and why he was going out of his way for you and your sister. It’s all you can think about as you listen to his horse’s hooves scuff against the ground, the animal’s reins held tightly in his hand as he walks ahead.

“What will we do with the bokken once we return home?” your sister asks you. If she feels any nervousness about being caught by your parents or anyone else, it’s all eclipsed by the sheer elation in her eyes.

“Just hide them in the back of the closet, behind those old kosode we never wear anymore,” you mutter, your mind crowded with too many thoughts to count. “No one looks there.”

You and Subira have trained with Yuta several times by now, which has mostly consisted of acquiring the basic strikes and stances and trying to refine the ones you’ve already learned. It’s never easy work, which does not make you particularly enthused about starting on the actual sword-defense moves, but it isn’t all bad. The secret is surprisingly simple to keep from your parents after you surmount your initial anxiety; all you need to do is act natural and keep taking the hidden path in and out of the forest.

After the first couple of sessions, you must admit there is a small thrill in doing something your parents aren’t aware of and wouldn’t approve of, though you wouldn’t dare say this to Subira.

But when you and Subira go to the woods to meet with Yuta when you both have a few hours away from the shop, someone else is already there with him that day.

“Who is that?” Subira whispers to you as you both walk up to the usual meeting place. She narrowly avoids stumbling over a tree root from how hard she’s trying to catch a glimpse of the new stranger from the gaps in the greenery, her bokken knocking against her hip where it sits tucked in her obi. You grab her arm to steady her, sighing.

“How would I know? I don’t recognize them.”

The both of you quickly reach the small clearing where Yuta and a boy are standing. The first thing you notice about the boy is his face. He has a boyish and round face, plump lips, and a cutely-shaped nose. Your first instinct wouldn’t be to think of him as a samurai, but he has the same topknot as Yuta. And then there are his eyes. His eyes have traces of the familiar battle-scarred shadows you’ve seen from other warriors, but despite that, he seems fairly easygoing. Maybe the worst of war hasn’t gotten to him yet.

You and Subira give him genial smiles, but you know Subira well enough to realize that she might have just become smitten with him at first glance. Her eyes sparkle a fraction brighter like they always do when she sees a man she’s interested in.

“Y/N, Subira, this is Shotaro. Shotaro, these are the two women I’ve told you about. I thought it’d be easier for both of you to have a partner instead of waiting to take turns with me.”

“That is more convenient. And very resourceful of you,” Subira says, her interest thoroughly piqued.

Shotaro introduces himself to both of you with a bow. “It’s nice to meet you. I know you’ve just started, but Yuta’s already told me some good things about you.” If possible, Subira is even more ecstatic after hearing this. Even though this whole idea of learning defense techniques was Subira’s suggestion to Yuta, you can already guess that she’s going to claim Shotaro as her partner if he doesn’t speak up first.

As you predict, she does so as soon as the introductions are over. “Would you mind working together?”

Shotaro gives her a smile—one you find surprisingly bright for the context of the situation, but maybe he’s just a generally cheerful person. Or, like Subira, maybe he’s taken an immediate interest. “Of course not; that’s fine with me. Yuta’s told me we’re the same age, so I think we’ll fit together just fine.”

Which leaves you with Yuta, inevitably. You give him what you hope is a friendly smile, though you’re anxious. You wonder if you would not have been better off pairing with the younger man. Not to say that he’s inexperienced, but maybe you wouldn’t feel as silly and unpracticed with him as compared to with Yuta.

“Nothing we learn today should be particularly difficult for a beginner. But I’ll be gentle on you if you prefer,” Yuta says, a mischievous lilt to his voice when he notices the tension in your expression.

You shake your head, your neck heating up as you untuck your bokken from the side of your obi. “You don’t have to.”

And so it begins.

You spend those hours by first reviewing the stances and strikes and then moving onto some very basic defensive moves. You don’t want to think about how many times you’ve gotten your knuckles clipped by Yuta’s bokken by now, and how bloody your hands would be if you were using actual swords. Your grip on the bokken’s handle is still a bit too loose, your swings uncertain. Sweat beads on your forehead as exasperation rises in your chest.

Yuta pauses in the middle of a move, his bokken held almost perpendicular to his body, and you follow suit, waiting for him to speak. “Pretend as if it’s not me. Anyone else in Owari but me. Focus less on the person who’s making the movements and more on the movements themselves.”

“Not you?” you say, puzzled.

“Your mood is affecting your technique; your mind isn’t completely in it. It’s easy to see I make you feel…afraid. No, maybe not that. Nervous.”

Your ears ring as you hear Shotaro’s and Subira’s bokken clash together nearby. A drop of sweat rolls down the bridge of your nose. You want to refute his words, but there’s no point. He’s not a fool. You try not to let your grip on the wooden sword slacken as you search for a response.

“I’m not going to reprimand you for it, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just focus on what I’m doing.”

“...Right. Okay.” No time to dwell on it now. You steel yourself and readjust your stance, looking to him for his assessment of your body positioning until he nods.

It’s a long afternoon.

August 1574 — Owari Province, Japan

At the beginning of every August in Owari, the townspeople work together to throw a festival that spans a few days, each day extending from daytime into the late night. You and your sister attend to see the puppet shows and eat the festival treats that are rare finds at any other time of year, and this year is no exception.

Being out at night still puts you on edge, but you try to convince yourself nothing will happen with this many people around to witness. Instead, you let yourself be immersed in the sights and smells of the festivities, your sister tugging you from one place to the next by pulling on your sleeves and you following her around like a loyal servant.

“I don’t think we’ve gotten to have fun like this in ages,” she says as you both watch a group of dancers perform under the burning light of nearby lanterns. The sun has already rescinded its glow, leaving nothing but the numerous lanterns to light the way.

“It has been a while,” you agree, a slow smile taking over your lips.

After a while longer spent walking through the crowd, exploring the stands, and greeting regulars you recognize from the restaurant, you’re ready to call it a night until Subira tugs on your kosode sleeve once again, a soft gasp escaping her lips.

“Look who’s here.”

Turning your head in the direction she indicated, you glance around for a few seconds, trying to see who she’s pointing out amongst all the people. Then, you spot them—Yuta and Shotaro a little ways off. “Oh? That’s unexpected.”

Subira grabs your hand and begins pulling you over to them immediately, ignoring your protests for her to slow down for the sake of your hurting feet.

Shotaro’s eyes brighten when he notices the both of you making your way over, and he waves happily, which Subira returns.

“Hey! How long have you been here?” Shotaro asks.

“A few hours,” Subira answers, which makes you sigh. A few hours? It’s been the whole day. You already know what she’s thinking, and you’ll probably be powerless to convince her otherwise. “We didn’t expect to see you two here.”

“Shotaro wanted to come,” Yuta explains. “He hasn’t been to this particular festival before.”

Subira is genuinely surprised at this. “Is that so? I could show you around if you’d like. My sister and I come to this festival every year.”

“Ah, really? I’d appreciate it. Let’s do it, then.” Shotaro nods to you and Yuta. “We’ll meet up with you later.” Yuta waves them off, chuckling at their enthusiasm.

Before you know it, you’ve been paired off with Yuta again. Except this time you’re alone with him—as alone as you can be in a crowd of people, anyway.

“Are you enjoying the festival?” you ask him.

“I am; it’s lively. The performances have been quite memorable. Maybe I should come to these more regularly. Are you?”

“I’m having fun, yes,” you reply, trying not to think about how much you just want to sit down and give your feet a rest, especially as the two of you have started walking. Something you’ve been pondering for a while comes into your mind yet again, and you decide you might as well ask him here and now.

“Forgive me for asking,” you start, and he looks at you curiously. “I don’t understand it. You’ve been very accommodating to me and Subira with teaching us the sword, and even securing the bokken for us…but why? We are only acquaintances to each other at best. I’m sure there are other things you’d rather be spending your hours on?”

Yuta cocks an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting that I’m wasting my time?” he asks, his tone serious.

“N-no! I-I just—wasn’t quite sure…” You grapple for words for a moment, now wishing you hadn’t said anything. Even if it was accidental, Subira wouldn’t forgive you if you ended up putting an end to this arrangement.

Yuta laughs heartily then, which makes you stop in your attempts to try to save yourself.

“I’m only having a bit of fun with you, don’t take it seriously.”

Belatedly, you realize he’s taking some enjoyment from you being flustered—and being the one responsible for it. The expression he has now isn’t like the other small smiles you’ve seen from him so far; it’s completely carefree, showing many of his teeth, and it immobilizes you for a moment. You feel like you’ve just gained an entirely new perspective of the man—crossed a barrier you didn’t know could be crossed.

You’re grateful you don’t have to think of anything else to say—your mind emptied itself for a few long seconds there—because he speaks again.

“It’s just as your sister said. It’s good for women to know how to protect themselves in this world. I have no reservations about lending my skills and time for another’s betterment when possible,” he explains.

It’s a thoughtful answer, and it makes sense to you. “Well…that’s an honorable thing to do, looking out for others.”

“Your parents’ feelings about it are understandable; they want to protect their daughters from harsher realities. But if I can help in ensuring your safety, I’m glad to do so.”

His answer feels more personal than him just trying to uphold the good of society, but you don’t question him any more about it. He’s made his case. “Your parents must be overjoyed to have a son like you.”

Yuta’s face changes then, his smile weakening. “My parents died long ago.”

“Ah…I’m sorry.”

“Shotaro’s family took me in after my own parents died, and I lived with them for a while. After I left for my training, Shotaro and I lost contact for years. He’d wanted to follow me, but his family didn’t want him fighting.”

“I understand their sentiment. I suppose they didn’t get their wish, though.” Yuta’s previous words of Not much for filial piety come to mind; they seem especially apt for this context.

Yuta nods. “I feel responsible for him since he wanted to become a warrior because of me…and left his considerably safer home to do it. He’s the only family I have.”

A wistful expression crosses your face. “Being an older sibling is hard work, isn’t it?”

He nods with a slight grin, and you get the impression he relates exactly to what you’re saying. “Certainly.”

In that moment, you finally begin to make sense of him. You are glad to have more context for the seemingly lonely man who regularly visits your parents’ eatery, widening your scope of his being.

You venture carefully into another question. “I do wonder…did you ever feel—misplaced? When you were living with Shotaro’s family?”

“Misplaced…” Yuta ponders it for a moment. “Maybe somewhat in the beginning. But they treated me well, and I quickly felt safe with them.”

“That’s nice to know. I’m glad to hear it.” You give a smile that falls a bit short of being genuine in its cheerfulness, and he looks at you with a question in his eyes until he realizes.

“I take your crestfallen expression to mean you haven’t been so fortunate in that regard?” he asks, his tone measured like he’s also approaching his question with much prudence.

“It’s not unbearable.” You glance away from him. “Many people have been kind, but of course some aren’t. Maybe they shouldn’t matter amongst the many, but...sometimes I can’t help but feel wrong here, even though I was born here.”

Yuta’s eyebrows lift a fraction. “I didn’t realize you’d been born in Owari.”

“Only my parents aren’t from here,” you explain. “I’m sure you’ve seen the foreign traders around here. My parents mostly knew Portuguese when they came here with them. Only bits and pieces of the original language of our land remain with us.”

You don’t really know why you are telling him all this, or why you feel free to talk about something you’ve only ever discussed with your sister and parents. Maybe you’ve gotten weary of always keeping it so close to the chest. Abruptly, you wonder if you are giving away too much of your family’s business; maybe it shouldn’t matter since he’s already told you his own, but you try to lighten the conversation. “Anyway, I suppose that’s the nature of life. Sometimes you fit in easily amongst others and other times you…don’t. That is all.”

Yuta is silent for a few moments. “I can’t claim to know what your experience has been like, but I hope that Owari will begin to feel more like a safe place to you one day.”

You glance at him from the corner of your eye, suddenly feeling too exposed to look directly at him. “…It’s appreciated.”

Eventually, Subira and Shotaro meet up with you and Yuta again, looking like they’ve had the most fun of their lives.

“Are you finally satisfied?” you ask Subira, grinning at her air of happiness.

“Well…Y/N, can we look around just a little more before we leave?”

“Stop talking nonsense! My feet hurt, and I’m not moving another step.”

“You sound like an old lady!” Subira giggles, and you roll your eyes.

“We’ve walked all day, what do you expect?”

“If you can walk a few more steps to the horses, you won’t have to stay on your feet at all,” Shotaro says cheekily. “Let’s go.”

The four of you go over to where the men have tied their horses up in a space separate from the thick of the crowd. Much like he did that night he saved you, Yuta gets you up on his horse and holds the reins so he can walk alongside the animal. Shotaro does the same for Subira, though she doesn’t miss the ripe opportunity to pretend like she doesn’t know how the stirrups work so she can receive extra assistance. You suppress the urge to roll your eyes again, though you giggle discreetly into your sleeve.

You’re glad you don’t have to walk any longer, the throb in your feet finally alleviated, and the view from up on the horse is nice. In this moment, you feel calmer than you have been in a while, especially after nightfall.

It’s a satisfying end to a good day, and you fall asleep easily after you return home.

Your parents had overreacted a bit to Yuta’s invitation for you and Subira to visit his home.

“Don’t do anything to dishonor us,” your father begs you both on the day of—but mostly Subira. The younger girl sighs heavily but nods her acquiescence. “It’s not everyday you receive an invitation to visit a samurai’s home. Treat this occasion accordingly.”

“We will be fine,” you try to reassure him, because you surely don’t think Yuta is the type to dole out punishments to anyone who simply looks at him wrong—unlike some other warriors who freely lord their status over others.

“Yes, you will be fine if you act accordingly,” your mother reiterates, still fussing over Subira’s kosode and making sure every piece of fabric is in its rightful place.

“You both have taught us well enough. We know how to comport ourselves,” Subira insists, chewing her lower lip with impatience.

Your father just shakes his head. “That does bring some doubt into question.” Subira frowns at this, and you laugh at her expression.

When Yuta and Shotaro arrive at your home, your parents put on their most welcoming expressions and send you and your sister off with a more eager mood than they had shown to either of you all morning. Neither of you were surprised about that.

You’re seated on Yuta’s horse now as he leads you all to the home he shares with Shotaro, which you’d only recently found out. You cannot blame the younger man; why stay in the military compound with hundreds of other men when you can live in a much nicer place?

You do your best to maintain your earlier calm during the ride, but you cannot help but admit to yourself that the heat of Yuta’s chest against your back has you slightly restless.

Yuta asks you if you’re alright every so often—it’s a fairly long ride to his land, after all—and it makes the inside of your chest flare up like you’ve got something inside that’s trying to beat its way out. Silently, you pray to the gods that what you suspect is happening is not really happening. It would not be very professional or appropriate to begin having affections for your sword-training mentor. Maybe it’s just too hot outside, and the heat is making your heart race.

Subira sits on Shotaro’s horse taking in all her surroundings in this part of Owari neither of you have been to before. Her eyes scan the landscape with childlike interest, bits and pieces of her conversation with Shotaro floating within your earshot.

Yuta’s home is surrounded by sturdy stone walls and protected by a wooden gate, the doors of which open into a main courtyard area, with a stone trail leading to the porch of the house. There is still much more beyond what you can see, with trails extending past either side of the home’s front, flanked by the stone walls. It’s clearly the type of home intended for a samurai, with its remarkable design and size. You momentarily wonder what just two men could do with all this, but then you remember Yuta’s vassals must reside here too.

“Your home is very nice,” you comment. Yuta chuckles behind you, and you feel the vibration of his chest against your back. It sets off a shivering twinge in your stomach, which you pointedly ignore.

The horses come to a stop in front of the house. Shotaro and Subira get off their horse, and Yuta does the same, helping you off.

“It must feel like a blessing to own a house like this,” Subira murmurs.

Yuta takes you through a few different areas of the house, all of which have different things to show; some contain art, others are simply gathering rooms for entertaining.

There’s a courtyard at the center of it all that includes a colorful garden and a few sitting areas. You soon come to a part of the house that opens out onto a stretch of Yuta’s farmland; it looks well cared for, and there are several rows of crops. The nearest neighbor’s land is a ways off and surrounded by its own set of walls, so there’s more than enough privacy.

There are a few vassals out in the field now, tending to the crops. They glance up at your group’s arrival and give their greetings, though a few of them are openly surprised at your and Subira’s presence. The back of your neck prickles at their stares, and you can’t help feeling examined. Scrutinized, even.

Shotaro turns to Subira with a kindly smile. “There’s a small pond at the rear of the house. It’s especially pretty when the sun glints off the surface at this time of day. Shall we go see it?” Shotaro suggests to Subira, helping to alleviate the taut atmosphere that was beginning to settle in.

“It sounds perfect. Let’s go.” She grabs his hand excitedly when he holds it out to her, and you smile to yourself; they are truly a cute duo. Unbeknownst to you, Yuta studies your expression with similar interest.

“Come with me, there’s something I think you’d enjoy seeing,” Yuta announces, making you turn your head to him.

“More than the other things we’ve already seen?” you say, following Yuta as he leads you away from the field and to another area of the house. “I’m interested, then.”

You and Yuta end up in what you discover is the practice room, complete with the intricate sets of samurai armor hanging on the wall and a surprising array of weapons other than swords. On the other side of the room is a set of shoji that open out to reveal the courtyard. You study the weapons on the wall, realizing that you don’t even know some of their names. “There are so many things here. I didn’t realize your weapons knowledge was quite so varied.”

“You have to be proficient at just about everything as a samurai,” he explains, walking to the middle of the room. “If you are inclined to observe, I will show you some of the kata. We’ve been through many of the moves, as you know, but it’s a bit different to see it practiced cohesively and in succession.”

“If I am inclined? Of course I’ll watch.”

You sit on a small pillow near the entrance of the room and wait for him to begin. Yuta stands in the center of the room and unsheathes his katana from its scabbard, pulling it free in one fluid movement.

If there was anyone at all who embodied the true principle of treating the katana as an extension of the body—of the soul itself—it would be Yuta. You’ve seen him in action many times while training with him, but watching him do the kata alone is another thing entirely; something ethereal and otherworldly in its grace. The way his sword cleaves the air with each movement as if it were cutting the empty space itself leaves you breathless.

Your eyes alight on his hands and their grip on the sword, not too firm and not too light. Just enough to allow easy maneuvering of the sharp metal in his grasp. Then your eyes glide down to his feet, observing how precisely he positions himself to maintain his steady stance.

By the time he finishes demonstrating, his forehead is damp with sweat, though you think it may be more because of the heat rather than physical strain. His breaths are a little heavier, but still controlled enough to show the payoff of all his training.

“What do you think?” Yuta asks. You’re a bit surprised that he wants to know your opinion of his display, and you say the first thing that comes to mind.

“It was beautiful. I think we’re very fortunate to have a teacher like you,” you murmur, visibly awed by his sword-wielding abilities, “even if we still have a ways to go.” The last part is spoken more quietly as you think about your training sessions so far and how chaotic they’ve been.

“It’s about the principle of it,” says Yuta. “There’s no expectation for you to be the best swordswoman alive. As long as you do your best to understand and respect the practices and the art of the sword itself, that is what matters.”

“You make a good argument,” you say, watching as he goes over to a low table near the back of the room. He carries it over to the center of the practice room before going over to a shelf that holds an assortment of containers with varying liquids, a stack of thin papers, and other tools you can’t quite identify.

While he is busying himself with that task, you decide to go over to the sliding screen doors, stepping onto the porch to look across the courtyard. Birds sing in the trees overhead, flitting from branch to branch and sending some leaves scattering to the ground as they chase each other through the tree limbs. The only breeze you can feel is just as humid as the rest of the air; it stirs your locks slightly, and they tickle the sides of your face.

A few minutes pass, and the next breeze brings the smell of cloves strongly in the air. You glance around to find the source of the new fragrance, and your eyes widen when you see Yuta seated on the floor now. The top half of his kosode and juban are pulled open to allow him to cool down, exposing a considerable amount of his bare skin. He is busy carefully rubbing the blade of his sword with one of the thin pieces of paper. The low table from earlier now holds his kataginu and a few things from the shelf, including one of the containers. Sweat gathers on Yuta’s neck and chest from his earlier sword-practicing, and some of his hair sticks to the back of his neck and the sides of his face.

You’re a little flustered for a few seconds, not expecting to see him in this state of dress when you turn around. Is it even appropriate to be in such close quarters with him like this? It’s one thing among fellow commoners, but…

Your parents would probably have conniptions if they knew. You momentarily glance back to the courtyard, your eyes darting around as if someone will walk up and catch you—catch you doing what, really?—but no one is around except for the two of you.

“What are you doing?” you ask Yuta, walking back around to his front. You notice your pillow is in front of the table now, and you sit down on it so you can see better. You try your best to appear unfazed since he is equally unbothered by his bareness. You’ve bathed with others fully nude in the public bath many times before, but most of those men weren’t much to look at twice. And despite your parents’ overly vigilant nature concerning you and your sister, you’d even lain with another person in the past; the human body wasn’t some uncharted thing to you. But this was different.

“Polishing a sword with choji oil helps preserve it,” he tells you in a similar tone to the one he uses when he’s instructing you and Subira. “Prevents it from rusting and getting spoiled.”

“I see. I’ve admittedly never given much thought to needing to preserve the metal.” Despite your best effort, your words come out far-off and unfocused. You can’t take your eyes away from Yuta’s hands and their careful motions on the sword. You try to tell yourself you are only impressed by his meticulous polishing and how attentively he cares for his sword, but you find yourself studying the veins in his hands, the slopes of his shoulders, the planes of his abdominal muscles that remain partly hidden by his clothing…

“Sword-polishing is not that interesting. Has something else taken your attention?” Yuta asks. When you look in his eyes, they hold a mischievous expression, and his mouth slides up into a conniving grin.

“Forgive me,” you blurt out. “I didn’t mean to—”

“There is nothing to apologize for. Admiration of the human body is only natural.”

You smile slightly in return, though your skin is still warm from being caught. “Yes, I suppose that is true…”

“Indeed, you might be surprised to realize that a beautiful sword and a beautiful body are quite similar in their attraction.” Your eyes widen a fraction. “The way you can handle a sword or someone’s body is truly not that different…there’s a certain satisfaction in caring for both. Making them respond to your actions.” His tone is casual as if he is talking about what he’s having for dinner tonight, though his words are decidedly not. His voice flows out like water, and you find yourself unknowingly wading into its depths.

It feels aggravatingly hot within the room, and not solely because of the sun blazing the land outside. A bead of sweat drips into the collar of your juban, and your mind is suddenly filled with the sensation of the fabric rubbing against your skin. “Well, you certainly sound…experienced.”

“One day when you have your own sword, I will show you how to care for it in the same way,” he murmurs, and your eyes fall back to his hand and the slow, measured way his fingers slide the paper across the metal.

You’re curious at the thought of owning your own sword, though you also can’t help but wonder if you’re getting ahead of yourself with your interpretation of his words. Is there another meaning hidden there? You swallow hard; your mouth feels dry. “I would appreciate it if you did.”

Yuta looks up at you like he has something on his mind, but before either of you can say or do anything more, rustling fabric and the sound of feet stepping on the tatami startles you. You turn your head to see Subira and Shotaro at the entrance of the practice room, returning from their walk.

“You two are back so soon?” Yuta asks, casting his eyes up at Shotaro. “I would’ve thought you’d try to show off and give a tour of every corner of this land.”

“It’s burning outside,” Shotaro answers, the corners of his mouth quirking up sheepishly. “We’ll continue looking around some more another time, when it’s cooler.”

“What are you two doing?” Subira asks, her interest instantly captured by the array of polishing tools set out on the table—and also by Yuta’s loosened clothing.

You straighten your posture, as if your back can get any straighter than it already is. Your younger sister’s presence snaps you back to reality, and you try to thrust your previous thoughts away in some inaccessible corner of your mind. “It’s sword-polishing,” you say. “It’s…decidedly more interesting once you learn about it.”

“Oh, that certainly sounds like fun.” Subira smiles at you with an expression that would likely seem normal to anyone else, but you know her well enough to recognize the teasing look on her face. You merely give her a warning glare before turning away.

You and Subira stay late enough to eat dinner at Yuta’s home with the rest of his vassals; the evening is filled with a lot of laughter and drinking. Maybe a tad too much drinking, because Subira reaches a point where she laughs at nearly everything Shotaro says, even if it’s not meant to be funny. You pinch her side in an attempt to get her to collect herself, but this only makes her retaliate—making you yelp out loud and then have to awkwardly pretend you only sneezed.

The horse ride back to your neighborhood afterwards is similar to the ride to Yuta’s place, except quieter since your stomachs are full and you’re more tired than you were earlier in the day.

Maybe you were sleepier than you thought, because at some point your eyes are blinking back open when you don’t even remember closing them. You are awakened by something brushing the side of your face, which you now realize is Yuta’s index finger, the knuckle of it dragging across your skin in a tickling touch.

“Are you awake now? We are here,” he announces from behind you, his voice amused. You sit up straighter and shake yourself fully awake, rolling your eyes at the sound of Subira’s giggles a little ways away from you.

“I’m fine,” you say, trying not to reveal your embarrassment in your tone.

When Yuta helps you off the horse this time, his hands linger around you for a few seconds longer than they normally would. “Are you sure you can stand on your own?” he asks, his voice and eyes still showing humor.

“Yes, I’m capable. Thank you for your assistance,” you say in your most formal diction, though you let a giggle slip at the end. Even though you were sleepy earlier, you feel light and happy now; your body is overly warm from how humid the night is, but your mind is so preoccupied that you don’t notice it much.

At the sounds of your arrival, your parents come out to greet you and give their thanks to the two men for hosting you so graciously.

“Don’t tell me you did something ignorant,” your mother murmurs as soon as she sees Subira’s utterly giddy expression, and your sister sighs, a hole already poked in her mood.

“I didn’t do anything, you always think I’m up to no good—” Subira mumbles before being shushed by your mother.

“Thank you again for your gracious invitation; we’re truly honored,” your father says to Yuta.

“Thank you for allowing your daughters to accompany us today; their company was pleasant.” Yuta replies.

You all bow to the two men before they leave. After watching them retreat, you and your sister head into the house giggling and talking in excitable, low murmurs, unaware of the curious look on your mother’s face as she follows you in.

November 1574 — Owari Province, Japan

Summer passes more quickly than you would’ve ever liked, giving way to the coolness of autumn. You’ve always enjoyed summer, imagining it’s what your parents’ home of Mozambique must’ve felt like year-round, and it made you feel a little closer to that land. Now, you are sad to see it go for another reason. You know once the weather turns freezing, there will be no opportunities to practice with Yuta and Shotaro until next year.

You and Subira have both markedly improved in your lessons over the past few months, even though there was a point where you felt somewhat hopeless about ever progressing. You’re surprised and delighted at your improvements. You think it might also have something to do with you becoming more comfortable with Yuta, your mind less clouded with anxiety and your movements surer, which unnerves you to admit to yourself.

You and Subira end up visiting Yuta and Shotaro’s home a few more times during autumn. You didn’t expect it to become this common, but you also aren’t going to say no to Yuta’s invitations, or to the prospect of simply enjoying yourself for a few hours—no responsibilities and no parents.

On an early November evening, you find yourself sitting at Yuta’s table drinking sake and eating dinner again, accompanied by Shotaro and Subira and a few of Yuta’s vassals. They are just a handful of the men you’d encountered on your first visit, the ones who’d made a habit of joining the four of you for these occasional gatherings. Inwardly, you are grateful that none of them are the same ones who’d stared so strangely at you and Subira that first day.

The vassals are humorous, if a little crude at times. The first few times you’d attended these dinners, you were surprised at how comfortably they’d speak to Yuta when at the dinner table, but you supposed things were different in this more relaxed atmosphere. Plus, they’d already known him and been close to him for years.

“Look,” Yuta calls out suddenly. You all are halfway through dinner now, fully settling into the fun and casual air of the evening. You watch as he places his cup of sake down and reaches for a small rectangular box sitting in the middle of the table, opening its lid. “I found these recently.” You peer inside the box to get a closer look, spotting an assortment of small yellow-ish rectangles that look to be made of large grains. A sweet smell rises to meet your nose.

“What are these?” you ask. “I haven’t seen this before.”

“Okoshi,” Shotaro says, picking one of the rectangles out of the box. “It’s just millet and syrup, but it’s good. You two should try it!” He breaks a corner off and stretches his arm across the low table, holding the morsel out to Subira. She gives him a curious look and hesitates for only a couple of seconds before leaning forward to let him feed it to her, both of them giggling conspiratorially afterwards.

“Oh, it’s good! Here, you take some too.” Subira takes a bit off the same square Shotaro’s holding and feeds him in turn, grinning at the way his nose crinkles with delight. Two of the vassals begin poking fun at Shotaro and Subira, which sets off a playful round of bickering between Shotaro and the other men.

Yuta’s eyes slide from the two younger ones to the rest of the candies in the box, and his expression grows sly. You watch with anticipation humming in your chest as he reaches in and pulls one out, breaking a small piece of it off like Shotaro had and holding it in front of you.

“Try it.” His statement is an echo of Shotaro’s earlier words, except his tone is noticeably lower, like it’s only for you to hear. You glance over at your sister and the younger man, but they are too preoccupied in their own little world, feeding each other pieces of the candy and talking happily about how it tastes. You try to ignore the amused expression of the vassal sitting next to you; he takes a sip of his sake in a poor attempt to pretend like he wasn’t just watching you and Yuta.

“Okay,” you murmur, fruitlessly trying to settle your racing heart as you let Yuta put the candy between your lips. His thumb and forefinger press against your lips as he does, his eyes attentive to where his fingers and your mouth meet. It’s not necessarily a lingering touch, but that brief contact is enough to make heat burst underneath the collar of your juban. You almost forget to chew the damn candy as he watches you, awaiting your assessment of the treat.

“I-it’s good.”

“You don’t sound very believable,” Yuta comments, still keeping his eyes on you.

“No, believe me—it’s good,” you reiterate, though you can’t bring yourself to say anything else at the moment. You reach for your cup and take a drink, turning away from him slightly, because you feel like you need to do something to hide your face with how intently he’s looking at you.

You aren’t sure what Yuta’s intentions are with this. Maybe you’ve gotten yourself too deeply involved by allowing yourself to become so casual with him. But you wouldn’t have been able to do so if he hadn’t invited it first.

“Aren’t you going to offer me some, then?”

It’s not exactly the same thing as you pouring his sake, but of course you should’ve seen this approaching. Especially after he just did the same for you.

You break off a piece of the candy, and Yuta leans across the table to allow you to pass it into his mouth. He lingers a little longer than he needs to. When you first saw him in your parents’ shop those months ago, you did not expect that someday you’d become acquainted with the feel of his lips. Now, they are soft and warm against your fingers, still slightly damp from the sake he’d been drinking, and another flush of warmth sweeps through your body.

He sits back with a satisfied look, closing his eyes as if he’s just accomplished a massive feat he’d been waiting to conquer.

“How do you like it?” you ask him, and it’s no small wonder that you can keep your voice from wavering. You’re still trying to maintain some of your dignity here.

“I have had it before, so it’s familiar to me. A cloying flavor, maybe more than I prefer. But compared to all other times, it tastes better tonight.” It’s hard to look into the darkness of his eyes as he says this to you, his voice smoothly subdued, and not feel like you’ve edged slightly too far over a line or been pried a little too far open.

You give Yuta a smile that doesn’t feel like a smile, but a mask. You assume he must absolutely be able to identify the thrill emanating from you right now, the way he had when you’d first begun training. The real question is, does he know that it’s for a different reason? “…I’m happy to know it suits your palate.” You respond as nonchalantly as you can with your face burning, the vassal next to you snickering quietly to himself.

Before the night ends and it’s time for you and Subira to return home, there is one last thing Yuta wants to do.

He sends two of the vassals out of the room, presumably to get something. The cloth-wrapped objects that they come back with have you immediately curious. You don’t know precisely what they are, but you think you can guess by their shapes, and the idea sets your heart racing. Yuta stands then and goes over to the two vassals. Everyone else gets to their feet too, so you and Subira do the same, Subira coming over to stand next to you and the two of you shooting each other questioning and anticipatory glances.

“I know the past few months haven’t been the easiest for you, but you two have done exceptionally well with your training. This is earlier than it would be on a standard training timeline, but after all your lessons, I believe it’s time for you to have your own swords. You’ve earned it through your diligent efforts.” Yuta takes one of the parcels from one of the vassals and walks over to you with it.

He places it in your outstretched palms, his hands brushing your own, and you take a deep swallow as you stare at the object resting in your grasp, your head lowered in a bow. All of this is so overwhelming. The contact of Yuta’s hands makes your head a bit dizzy, and you’re inclined to blame it on the sake that you must’ve had too much of. Your sister is practically trembling with excitement by the time her own sword is placed in her hands.

Unwrapping the cloth, you are greeted by the sight of a scabbard, and the recognizable hilt of a ko-wakizashi extending from the end of it. The characters of your name etched on the handle catch your eye. Gripping the handle, you carefully slide the blade out of its sheath, remembering the proper way Yuta had shown you and Subira to do it. The metal of it reflects the light from the numerous lanterns around the room.

A real ko-wakizashi, gleaming bright in all its beauty. This sword is special; it’s wholly yours. You almost don’t want to use it and spoil its unearthly quality.

Subira is in a similar state of awe over her sword, her face lit up from ear to ear with a grin. The vassals show their enthusiasm for the both of you by giving their applause.

“What do you think of it?” Shotaro asks Subira.

“It’s amazing, I can hardly believe it. Can you? Now we can have matching weaponry. Did you feel this way when you first got yours? I think I might burst.” She carries on excitedly, Shotaro grinning at her all the while.

Yuta observes your face as you look at the ko-wakizashi like it holds all the answers to your life’s questions, tracing your fingers over the handle with your name engraved into it. A missing piece slides into place within his mind, fitting in so easy that he doesn’t register it at first, and only when he realizes what has happened does the smile on his face fade slightly.

He turns away from you to pick up his forgotten sake cup, taking a long drink in an attempt to burn away the thoughts suddenly overcoming his mind.

There is no way he can afford to fall in love with you.

With the life he lives, it’s simply not something he can bear—not for the enamored, appreciative smile currently adorning your lips, not for your subdued but captivating nature that had called out to him in the first place, not for the sheer determination you’d shown in the past few months in your efforts to learn the sword. It feels foolish to even consider the thought.

“Thank you. It’s the most beautiful gift I’ve ever received,” you say, breaking into his thoughts, and he doesn’t have to see your expression to know you mean that completely. He looks back to you anyway, because he wants to drink in the fullness of your countenance. Even if he knows he shouldn’t.

“I’m honored to be able to bestow you with such a gift.” When you meet his eyes, you feel yourself smiling a little wider at him, your chest filled with a kind of warmth you can’t describe.

“How are we going to bring these back home?” Subira asks, still in a breathless state of pure euphoria. “Even if you wrap them back up, mother and father will surely be curious and want to see what they are.”

Yuta answers, “I’ll keep them here for now, and I’ll bring them the next time we train. It’ll be easier for you to bring them to your house when your parents are working.”

It’s a sensical explanation, so you and Subira agree to it, though you almost don’t want to part from your sword.

On the ride back to your parents’ home, Yuta keeps turning this new revelation over in his mind, his hands squeezing the reins a little tighter than necessary. The warmth of your back against his chest as you sit in front of him on the horse makes him feel somewhat untethered from reality. He finds it hard to stop his thoughts from straying back to the dinner and to the gentle parting of your lips when he’d fed you the candy. Though he’d been able to successfully manage his emotions in the past with your close proximity to him on these horseback rides, they are particularly difficult to ignore tonight.

In the back of his mind, that sign is enough to cause him even more concern. Getting any more emotionally involved with you could only spell peril.

“Are you well?” you ask him, keeping your voice low. Your words are almost lost amidst the noise of the horses’ hooves and the errant whistling of the wind, and he has to lean forward to hear you better.

“I am fine. Why?”

“You appear tense,” you answer, your eyes trained on how strongly he’s gripping the reins, the veins in his hands standing out beneath his skin. He makes an effort to relax his grasp when he sees you’ve noticed the troubled state he’s in. No point in worrying you or burdening you with something you don’t need.

“I am fine,” he repeats, wanting to steer the conversation away from himself. “Are you? If you feel like taking a nap again, I suppose I’ll have no choice in being your personal futon.”

Him mentioning that previous incident makes your face warm; he laughs from behind you. Though he can’t see it, you smile to yourself. “I think I’ll manage.”

It takes you a while to properly drift off that night, your mind immersed in thoughts of the earlier evening—pretty, sharp, and fragrant. The texture of Yuta’s hands as they touched yours, the sincere quality of his smile, the soft feel of his lips. It’s the type of memory that will last a long time in your conscience, etching itself into your dreams and resurfacing at moments when you most need the warm reminder.

December 1574 — Owari Province, Japan

There’s only enough time for one more late-autumn lesson before winter begins settling in, stripping the leaves from the trees as if it were attempting to beat a deadline. The four of you are unable to meet up in the forest once the freezing cold and snow become a hindrance. With no remaining foliage, the trees no longer provide any cover for you to hide in.

You’re relieved to have that last lesson, because it affords you and Subira the opportunity to sneak your swords home when your parents are still at work. Training with the blade had felt so much different from using the bokken; your sword strokes were heavier from the weight of the metal, and more dangerous, which required you to adjust your stances and movements practically all over again. Still, your previous practice remained useful.

Even after the lessons halt, you still see Yuta at the shop as normal—and now sometimes Shotaro accompanies him to see Subira.

But Yuta is different lately. He is not as open and talkative as he was when you were all training in the woods together throughout the summer and autumn, or when the four of you were enjoying each other’s company at his home. As if receding into himself, he withdraws from you; and if you didn’t know any better, you think you could physically feel the separation somewhere deep within your being.

It’s almost like you’re dealing with a different man entirely. With this new distance he’s created, he’s like he was when he first started coming to your parents’ restaurant; your conversations are shorter, glances more fleeting. Just by looking at him, you feel like his mind must be somewhere far away from the present, locked away from you.

You can’t help believing all the progress you’ve made with each other has been undone. And you can’t even begin to fathom what caused it.

It’s inevitable that your parents would have noticed you getting more comfortable with Yuta, especially after him inviting you to his home all those times, though they still don’t know about you and Subira training with him and Shotaro. You’re quite certain that they still don’t know, otherwise they never would’ve allowed it to go on. Your bokken and ko-wakizashi still remain hidden in your shared room, tucked into the very back of the closet.

You didn’t think they’d be paying attention so closely, however—and not to what you might’ve expected.

“I would hope that you are not developing an affection for the samurai, Y/N,” your mother says one night while the four of you are eating dinner, “but it seems I’ve spoken much too late.” This sudden statement makes you briefly choke on your water, and Subira covers her mouth in equal parts shock and amusement. Your father looks expectantly between you and your mother, like he already knows this conversation was going to happen and is waiting to see how it will unfold.

“What…gives you the impression that that has happened?” you ask, unable to fully meet her eyes.

Your mother shakes her head and sighs, her face weary. “If only you could see your expression every time you go to serve him at the shop, or when anyone else simply mentions his name. I know that look.”

Your face burns as you gaze down at your food, lost on how to respond. Maybe it would just be better to stay silent rather than try to explain yourself and dig a deeper hole. “I don’t…”

What could you explain, anyway? She is right.

Your mother reaches across the table to grab your hand, and you have to make an effort not to pull away from the contact. “Warriors form marriages with other families in the same class. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up and begin expecting something that will not happen. His family will likely be looking for a match for him at some point—and if not them, then the Oda clan will.”

You don’t bother to tell her that he doesn’t even have any blood family left. “I’m not expecting anything, mother,” you say, and a feeling of burning, squirming foolishness creeps up your spine. Why couldn’t you have been more discreet?

“He has treated us all very well when he didn’t have to. But please, don’t think anything more of it than that.”

For a moment, you want to disagree. You want to express the frightening thought forming in your mind and tell her it doesn’t matter if she tells you to rid yourself of any feelings for him…because you’ve already tucked Nakamoto Yuta deeply into a hidden pocket of your heart.

But then you pause, because you don’t even know how he feels. His actions at the last dinner he hosted—was he only toying with you then, and all those other times? Is that why he is treating you so frigidly now? Maybe he just viewed you as some naive and inexperienced girl all along even though you are the same age as him.

That doubt is enough to deter you from saying anything.

“I won’t. I hadn’t thought about it at all,” you mutter, wanting this conversation to be over and needing all their eyes off you. Subira’s gaze has turned from its former amusement into something sympathetic and unsettled—maybe she’s also anticipating her own developing romance with Shotaro being dragged out into the open—but you refuse to meet her eyes.

“The same goes for you. Don’t assume I haven’t noticed,” your mother says to Subira, which makes her tense up. “Whether or not Osaki Shotaro is of lower ranking, his ideal match still would not be a merchant’s daughter.” Subira is quiet for a long moment, and you believe she won’t say anything at all.

But then she says, “Don’t say that like it’s the truth. You act as if I’m no good for him. Am I nothing to you? You always treat me like a nuisance.”

You and your father freeze, but he quickly follows up with, “Subira, enough! Why do you never listen? Does it please you to vex us constantly?”

“I don’t intend to vex anyone! But I can’t understand why—” Subira struggles for words. “Y-you don’t know who his ‘ideal match’ is. Why couldn’t it be me? He loves me, and I—”

You flinch away when your mother reaches across the table, not to hold Subira’s hand like she did yours but to slap the younger girl across the face. Subira lowers her head, silent and mouth tucked into a thin line. Her locks tremble around her face from the effort of holding back tears. You glance at your mother, but there isn’t anything you can do that won’t end in more punishment.

“You’ve lost your mind, girl. Don’t speak another word of this nonsense. You’ll have to find out for yourself in the end,” your mother mutters, tucking her hands back into her lap and fixing your sister with a hard stare. “And don’t even think about getting up. You will not let this food go to waste.”

The rest of dinner is tense and silent as you all finish eating, your sister teary and shivering beside you. You don’t really taste the food. Your appetite has long fled.

Despite your heart’s desires, your mother’s lecture makes you keep your distance from Yuta to avoid arousing any more of her suspicions and being on the receiving end of another excruciating talk. You begin sending Subira or the other worker Noboru to serve Yuta whenever you can. When you do have to go to him, you keep your interactions as short as possible, even slipping into the more formal diction you’d used with him in the beginning.

If he notices the difference in your behavior towards him, he doesn’t openly acknowledge it. He’d been the first one to widen the distance anyway, and maybe he thinks it’s just a natural reaction to his own actions. That’s how you explain it away to yourself.

Yuta doesn’t bring Shotaro with him every time, because he does appreciate the moments he gets alone when he can just sit and think to himself, but he also can’t bring himself to tell the younger man no when he decides to accompany him to the restaurant. Plus, it’s the only way Shotaro can see Subira with lessons on hold due to the season change. On the rarer occasion, Shotaro comes alone.

“You and Y/N seem colder to each other now, and I don’t understand it.” Shotaro tells Yuta on one of his visits. The younger man could not ignore the brief and awkward smile you’d given Yuta, especially in contrast to the more relaxed expression you’d taken with him.

Yuta glances at Shotaro from where he’d just been watching you tending to another table across the room. Shotaro doesn’t fail to notice this either, and it only stokes his confusion. “You’re still young, there are many things you don’t yet understand.”

Shotaro sighs. “I know, that’s what you always say, but…I thought you’d taken a liking to Y/N. The way you’d been acting around her...”

“What are you insinuating?”

“...I am insinuating that you have romantic inclinations towards her.” Shotaro’s words are chosen carefully, somewhat due to his skepticism—as if he can’t believe Yuta isn’t getting the gist of his words. Or doesn’t want to understand them.

Yuta doesn’t respond for a while, busy thinking of an appropriate response. Shotaro has just resigned himself to not getting an answer when the older man says, “Nothing will come of it. Having those kinds of ties just makes it harder when it’s time for battle. You know that.”

Shotaro slumps slightly, picking up on the subtext of Yuta’s last sentence. “I know. That’s not going to stop me, however. I’d rather spend my last moments having known love than not having experienced it at all.”

It’s Yuta’s turn to sigh. Deep down, he knows there is sense in Shotaro’s words, but he can’t acknowledge it for himself. It’s not his place to tell Shotaro what to do with his own life, so he refrains from commenting on the relationship between him and Subira—though he can’t say for certain if he thinks everything will turn out fine.

Yuta doesn’t have time to respond before you’re back over at their table with their tea. Shotaro smiles nervously and thanks you graciously, doing his best to alleviate the tense atmosphere. After you leave, Yuta cannot resist one more glance at your retreating form, his expression cloudy with deep thought—and so the younger man decides it best to steer this conversation elsewhere. He alone can’t change Yuta’s mind.

At first, you think the entirety of winter will be uneventful to you. You feel distant from everybody, frozen inside a moment in time while everyone else moves steadily forward. You simply go through the daily motions at the restaurant and go back to daydreaming of your parents’ home of Mozambique to tide yourself and your sadness over until the warm weather returns once again.

Then you notice a face in the shop you haven’t seen before.

Though the restaurant has a healthy amount of regulars, there’s still the occasional new person, just like when Yuta showed up for the first time. This new man has a dark scar across one of his eyebrows, though he doesn’t have the samurai topknot, so you figure he’s not a warrior. You wonder who he could be. Maybe just someone around Owari who you’ve managed to miss.

Yuta is also there today, though you’ve so far managed to avoid speaking to him. You bow as you pass his table, keeping your eyes lowered away from his face.

“Hello, how may I serve you today?” you say to this new customer.

The man pauses when the both of you lock eyes, and then he gives a zealous smile, which confuses you.

“Oh wow, I didn’t know this place had beautiful women, too.”

“Eh?” Your face warms. “Ah…thank you?”

“Sorry, was that too much?” he laughs nervously. “I just came here from Mino. I’d heard some good things about this restaurant in passing, so I decided to come see.” No wonder you hadn’t seen him before.

“Welcome to Owari, then. It’s always nice to have new residents.”

“My name is Akio, by the way,” he says. “Not that you would really need to know, I guess, but—. Um. You know. It’s polite to introduce oneself.” He laughs again, and you can see he’s an interesting character. Definitely a nervous kind of person, with how his fingers intermittently tap on the table in an unknown rhythm—and you thought you were overwrought.

“It’s fine,” you smile genially and give him your own name. “Well, since you are new to the area, maybe you’d like to try our green tea? It’s well-loved around here.”

Akio nods. “Of course, whatever you suggest. I’d love to try it.”

Akio watches you leave his table with a tiny smile on his lips. He glances over to his left and is surprised to see the dark-haired samurai already looking at him, his expression hard to decipher; though if Akio had to guess, he’d say the other man looks slightly chagrined. He gives Yuta a hasty bow in his seat, which Yuta responds to with a raise of his cup before turning away and rolling his eyes.

As it turns out, Akio quickly turns into another regular, but you’re quite certain he’s not just there because of the food.

Displaced by the recent battle in Mino, he makes a home in Owari and begins working under a local blacksmith, as he tells it to you. And he does love telling you many, many things. He always has some new story to interest you with whenever he comes back to the shop, whether it’s something that happened back in Mino or in Owari itself as he adjusts to living in the region.

In the beginning, you are a bit resistant to getting close to him. His stories are compelling, even if some are a little embellished for your entertainment, and he has made it a habit to find a way to compliment you every time he visits. It feels like too much too soon, as you’re still unable to sever your heart from Yuta’s grasp—and he isn’t even privy to your struggle. You can’t stop your eyes from sliding over to the other man occasionally, lingering on his form. You wish you could just make him tell you why his demeanor changed so abruptly.

But eventually, you relent when you realize there’s no real need to keep Akio at arm’s length. Yuta sees you as just another person. Your parents like Akio well enough. And perhaps most importantly, he wouldn’t be such a “mismatch” as you and Yuta. Not that that has much bearing on your feelings for the other man either way.

You don’t see Akio in the way he’s beginning to see you, but perhaps it is preferable to pursue…whatever this is becoming. Maybe it will help your feelings for the samurai fade away. You hope.

Your feelings are tested one evening when Akio visits your family’s home, supplying some more firewood for the long winter ahead, which your parents are very appreciative of. He claims he’d had extra to give, which makes you skeptical; people always keep all the wood they can possibly collect for themselves. Not entirely out of selfishness, but survival. It isn’t always easy to find good-quality firewood when it’s needed, and keeping warm throughout the winter is paramount to avoiding serious illness or death. But if he desires to go out of his way for your family’s benefit, who are you to stop him?

“If I knew we could get free things simply by you befriending men at the shop, I would’ve told you to do it sooner,” Subira remarks, chuckling to herself as you both stand in the kitchen of your home, heating up water on a small fire. Your parents have asked Akio to stay awhile, at least warm up with some tea before going back into the cold. You almost want to tell them no, but you can do nothing but smile amiably when Akio looks at you hopefully, as if silently asking: Do you want my company?

You scoff and nudge Subira in the side. “Oh, be quiet.”

“Better to have something than nothing,” Subira responds, still smiling. “But does this really mean you’ve lost interest in Yuta? It might be…troublesome when we begin training again.”

You have no idea how to respond to this. Subira had been just as confused as you by Yuta’s change in behavior, and from her brief talks with Shotaro, the younger man wasn’t able to give an explanation for why, claiming to be just as unaware. “I…think mother might’ve been right. It’s better to move on, at least in the emotional sense.”

Subira clearly resents this statement, and you wonder if you should’ve even brought it up considering how that dinner turned out for your sister. “And just like I have said, you’re always too afraid of displeasing mother and father that you never consider what you desire. Your self-sacrificial behavior tires me to no end. If you love Yuta, then—”

You quickly open the pot, purposely scraping the lid against the side of the pot to drown out Subira’s words. Little bubbles have begun gathering in the water, floating to the top and bursting every so often. “Subira, please. I don’t want to do this today. Akio’s just in the other room.” You give her a look that you hope is pleading enough to make her stop.

To your relief, she sighs, crossing her arms and giving you a dry look.

“As you wish. But this conversation isn’t done.”

You sit with Akio in the dining room, where you’ve served tea for the both of you. His face is still slightly red from the cold, his nose and lips pinker than usual, and you find the sight of it slightly amusing.

“How have you been?” he asks you, enclosing his hands around his cup of tea for the added warmth.

“I’ve been faring well. I’m not fond of the cold, but there’s nothing that can be done about it. I’ll be glad when spring returns.”

“So, you like the spring?”

“I tend to like warmer weather, yes.”

“Should we see the cherry blossoms together once winter is over?” Akio asks you, and there is an amused lilt to his voice, though his eyes are genuine.

You’re momentarily lost on how to approach his flirting and this suggestion he’s laid out for you. It would not be a bad idea. You aren’t as delighted by it as would be appropriate, though, and you know exactly why. “I…that would be nice.” You try to disguise your lack of words for shyness, looking from his eyes to your cup and smiling slightly. He’s thoroughly captured by your act, a grin of his own taking over his face.

“I’d enjoy that. I haven’t been able to take time to view the flowers properly in many years because of all the fighting, having to care for my relatives…you know. The necessary things.” His voice lowers towards the end of his sentence.

“Did your family come with you to Owari?” you ask him, noting the shift in his tone.

His eyes darken. “No. They’ve since passed on for different reasons. My grandparents and mother died of sickness…my cousin and brother took up arms and went to join the battles and were killed.”

Now you understand part of why he seems so eager to get to know you; he truly has no one left in the world. A twisting guilt seizes your stomach. “I’m so sorry,” you whisper.

“So you see, I wasn’t exactly displaced…I just didn’t want to stay in Mino. There were too many memories there. A bit cowardly of me, huh?” Akio chuckles, though it’s a humorless sound.

You shake your head. “Not at all. You’re doing the best you can with what you have. That’s all anyone can do.”

“Thank you for your kind words.” The way Akio looks at you, smiles at you, makes your chest tighten. He seems so taken with you already, and you have no idea how to reciprocate. You know as well as anyone else that love is not a requirement for a successful partnership, but you can’t evade the guilt you feel about loving someone else entirely while accepting Akio’s affections.

You don’t express any of this, of course. Not after he’s just told you something so personal and so heavy. You merely smile at him again. “I’m happy if you are.”

March 1575 — Owari Province, Japan

When the days gradually start becoming longer, you’ve never been so glad to see the small signs of the return of warm weather. Before you know it, all the snow has melted, and the trees have regained their green hues.

And the return of spring means two things: the recommencement of your sword-training lessons, and your promised outing with Akio. Your feelings about both remain somewhat ambiguous. Part of you thinks it’s better not to expend any more energy thinking about either matter until you have no choice left.

You’d been getting to know Akio throughout the winter months, and you’ve come to find him quite agreeable. Because of this, you figure you’ve begun to like him to some degree—though you do feel occasional doubt about it. These sentiments were similar to what you’d experienced with other men you’d favored in the past, so surely it had to be the same now? You were letting your self-doubt get the better of you.

But it wasn’t as if you didn’t have a justifiable reason. Even now, you spend an undesirable amount of your time trying not to think about Yuta, trying not to look at him in that same seat as always. At this point, you might not hate it if he decided never to train you again. Perhaps then you could have an easier time forgetting about him.

You and Akio agree to meet on a day when neither of you have many responsibilities to tend to. He comes over to your house dressed in a kosode and hakama of good quality, his hands clean and polished. It’s a marked contrast to how they normally are, perpetually dusted with layers of soot from his work at the blacksmith’s. He’s truly done his best to dress up for the occasion, and you wonder if these are his finest clothes. The thought makes the corners of your mouth lift in a small smile.

“You look handsome,” you say, stepping down from the porch to meet him.

“Thank you. I have to say I’m likewise taken away by your beauty,” he says, bowing exaggeratedly low as you laugh. When he straightens up, he peers behind you at the house. “Is your family here?”

“Ah, everyone else is working at the shop today. Shall we go, then?”

You and Akio have to take your family’s horse to get to your destination, as he doesn’t have one of his own yet, and the walk would be exhaustingly long without some assistance. You hadn’t needed to use the horse in a while, with all your usual haunts being close enough to walk to—and with Yuta taking you on his horse anywhere else that was a distance away.

You sigh quietly as you bring the animal out of its small shelter behind your family’s house. Your first attempt of the day to not think of the man has already failed.

“Do you know how to ride one?” you ask Akio, holding the horse’s reins in your hand and petting its side with the other. It turns to you and nudges your arm with its muzzle, and you bring your hand up to rest against its mane. Akio looks up at the creature with an apprehensive expression.

“I haven’t had much experience…b-but I can try?” He seems faintly surprised that you know how to ride a horse. You let him take the reins for the sake of his ego because you can tell he wants to impress you. Or avoid looking foolish in front of you. Ah, men…

You sit behind him on the horse, clinging to his midsection and directing him how to guide the animal as calmly as possible so he doesn’t make any sudden movements that will scare it. It’s slow-going for the first stretch of your trip, but you’d rather take longer to get there than go tumbling off.

You and Akio go to Sakai River, which ironically separates both of your territories, running right between Owari and Mino Province. The cherry blossom trees are lush in their pink softness, many of the blossoms floating down on the breeze and landing in the river or on the fabric of your kosode, standing out against its dark hue. The water is thick with the tiny flowers; they create a pastel blanket on the water’s surface.

There are several other people scattered about down the expanse of the grassy banks, some sitting underneath the trees. A few unsupervised kids chase after each other, weaving in and out between the tree trunks. You and Akio dismount your steed, and you pretend not to notice when he almost trips on the stirrup on the way down.

“This is so pretty,” you murmur, holding your hand out for a few small flowers to land on your palm.

“Isn’t it?” Akio sounds a little breathless, and not just because he’d been using all his energy to concentrate on guiding the horse. “It’s been ages since I’ve been able to enjoy the cherry blossoms. I don’t know how I went this long without it.”

“Aren’t you glad you’ve gotten to see it again, then?” You walk farther ahead, Akio following you.

“Yes. It is even better to see them with someone you like,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice before you even look at him.

You try your best to match it, a slow smile of your own curling over your lips. “It certainly gives a romantic impression. I suppose that’s one of the best parts of spring…the newness of everything.”

A few of the small blooms land in your hair, a splash of pink against your dense locks. Akio looks at the tiny flowers with a grin, several of them stuck in the strands of his own dark hair. He doesn’t look away after a few seconds like one might normally do. You take this stretch of time to study his face—the small mole under his left eye, the soft upturn of his lips as he smiles, the dark scar above his right eyebrow.

Akio’s proximity to you makes your stomach seize with nervousness—sheer nervousness, not like the shivers of attraction you felt for Yuta. Even so, you remain still as he moves closer to you, allowing him to press his lips to yours. His lips are warm and slightly chapped; the kiss is brief. You can’t deny that it makes your heart speed up, but something about it is not quite there. A flower floats down between the two of you after he pulls away, tickling your nose, and it makes an anxious giggle burst from your mouth; you don’t know what else to do with yourself at the moment.

“I’m sorry if that was too sudden,” Akio murmurs, the tips of his ears just as pink as the flowers, “but the timing felt…right.”

“Sudden?” you repeat, your voice in the same subdued tone as his. “No, it was…fine.”

Akio slides his hand into yours, and you both continue walking along the river, listening to the sounds of people conversing nearby. This could be enough, you think to yourself. I could come to be happy with him, with time.

Yes, maybe a serious relationship could work. But only if you try.

“Did you enjoy your time with Akio today?” Subira asks you later that night, her face eagerly curious as she lies across her futon, hair framing her head like thick black ropes.

“It was fine,” you say. “He’s pleasant to talk to, and the cherry trees were pretty. You should come and see them soon, too. The blooms will disappear quickly.”

The younger girl scoffs. “That’s all? You have more to say about the drunken and disorderly men we have to throw out of the shop every month! Really, how did it go?”

“It was fine. What do you want me to say?”

“...That you are partial to him, maybe. That you are interested in being with him. Those are the things one would usually expect to hear. Or is that not true?”

You hesitate for a second, and you hope that delay in your response is not enough for her to question. “I could be with him. It’s perfectly feasible, if…that’s what he wants. Which I’m very certain he does.”

“What do you want?”

“For you to let me sleep.” You pull the blanket closer to your chin.

“I’m serious. What are you seeking?”

“Just…happiness.”

Subira is silent for a moment before saying, “And do you think your current path will get you there?”

“Eventually. Isn’t it better to avoid rushing these things?”

Subira closes her eyes then, rolling onto her back. “Sometimes. But if you go too slowly, you’ll miss what you’re wishing for entirely.”

The sword-wielding lessons don’t exactly go the way you expect.

Yuta is still guarded around you in a way that he wasn’t before, but he begins talking more relaxedly to you again—like you are someone more important than just the girl at the restaurant. You’re his friend, his mentee. His unpredictable behavior annoys and confuses you.

But to your immense dismay, you realize you are still as receptive to him as you ever were. You open up towards him like a flower once his attentions are wholly back on you, your chest warming whenever you hear the silk of his voice speaking to you.

Akio practically wilts in the back of your mind, though you still have enough of your senses about you to feel bad about it. You don’t think he suspects your change in feelings, with how he still chats happily with you at the shop and flirts with you whenever he can. You intend to keep your emotions secret for as long as you can—which means not telling him about your training either, of course. You don’t know his proficiency at secret-keeping, and you aren’t interested in testing it.

You take in as much knowledge from Yuta as you can within those spring months, all while still going on weekly outings with Akio—visiting the Sakai River, shopping in the market full of vendors, or simply watching Akio play card games with the other men who frequent the restaurant. He loses every time, but you find his enthusiasm and determination to impress you admittedly endearing.

The multiple sides of your life travel precariously on in that way until the sessions begin unexpectedly thinning out again after the arrival of May.

At the end of one of your lessons, Yuta tells you why.

You suspect that something is off immediately after laying eyes on him. His technique is as good as it ever is, but his mind seems less sharp than usual, his movements a bit too harsh at some moments and too hesitant at others. You want to ask him what’s wrong, but he doesn’t give you much time to think about it with how quickly he segues from one move to another. And though you are able to keep up with him fairly well in these training sessions now, today is difficult.

After he calls it quits, he brushes his sweaty hair away from his face with a dark expression, and your heart squeezes with a small dread even though you don’t know why.

Shotaro comes to stand next to Yuta, his usually calm or cheery expression seeming uncharacteristically morose. When the older man speaks, there are no pretenses—he goes straight to the point.

“The Takeda clan has recently taken action against the Tokugawa due to a long-standing political grievance that’s simply too much to go into here,” Yuta informs you, his tone dry. “It is expected that the Tokugawa will call in Oda reinforcements, so we must depart for Mikawa Province soon. Which also means that these meetings will once again have to cease.”

Although he is speaking to both you and your sister, he looks squarely into your eyes. You stare back and hope that your expression does not appear too visibly shocked. This is expected of him. But between the lessons and the dinners and the too-close encounters that you’d convinced yourself meant nothing, you suppose you’d managed to forget that he is still a warrior who’d be called on for battle once again.

“Oh,” Subira says, a clipped noise that sounds like she’s had the breath punched from her. “So soon? Well…that’s how things are.” She sounds immediately resigned to accepting this information, which is not a very common thing for her; but there isn’t anything either of you can do to stop them from leaving, so why fight?

“Don’t look so sad about it,” Shotaro says, giving her a plaintive smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “We’ll come right back, and we’ll all enjoy our time together again.” Because they always end up gravitating towards each other in some way or another, he steps forward and holds one of her hands in both of his, patting the back of it.

“I hope so,” she mumbles. She lowers her head to look at their joined hands and then abruptly looks up at Shotaro again, her locks swinging at the motion. “Say you’ll come back. I just want to hear it again.” She’s playing a risky game, but Shotaro does not have the heart to deny her of this. So he acquiesces with a gentle smile, one that speaks of pure affection for your younger sister.

“I’ll come back.”

They fall into a hug as easy as breathing.

You’ve kept your eyes on the younger two in your efforts to avoid looking at Yuta, but now you turn away to give them some privacy. You risk a glance at Yuta, biting your lip as you try to conjure up the right words. Sweat cools on your face. The advent of summer is still weeks away, but the weather is uncomfortably warm; everything is uncomfortable. “Please try to stay safe.”

At those words, Yuta’s gaze breaks away from your face. His mouth parts as he makes to say something, but he stops himself for a long moment. Whatever he was originally going to say is abandoned as he settles on, “I will do my best.”

Your interaction feels lacking compared to the one your sister and Shotaro share; there’s more you want to say, but the words are left to die in the corners of your mind. Though you’ve already made contact with Yuta multiple times during your session today, you want to touch him with your bare hands, and outside the context of training—to press your palm against his or draw your fingers across his arm.

And yet you can’t bring yourself to do any of it. Not just because of Akio, but because of your own fears. You’ve never been able to cross that last obstacle with him. What were you both missing that the younger two fully possessed?

You cast another forlorn glance at Subira and Shotaro, sad for them and yet envious.

You’re merely left with the weight of Yuta’s hand on your shoulder before he and Shotaro leave, a brief and wholly neutral touch, but more than you expected at this point. You watch his retreating back, tracing your eyes over the wispy strands of that black topknot and wondering if you’ll get to see it again.

You see Yuta once more before he leaves.

You and Akio are at a fabric shop in the market during the day, looking through rolls of fabric and him trying to help you decide which you should buy, when a figure catches the corner of your eye. You recognize him instantly. He’s about to walk past you, and you think maybe he didn’t notice you.

“Oh—Yuta!” you call out.

Despite your greeting, Yuta doesn’t speak when he sees you. He only slightly inclines his head in your direction, which you might’ve just imagined. He looks dead at you, but his lips remain closed.

It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of life—especially with things like an upcoming battle to be concerned about—but your heart twists. He’s never done that before. Is he ashamed of talking to you out here in public like this? But he hasn’t cared about that before. You think back to the mess that was last winter, and a swirl of irritation and hurt arises fresh in you.

You look down at the bundle of fabric you’re holding, and with only a split-second thought, you messily place it in Akio’s arms to free up your own hands. “Can you hold these for me? I…just need to—”

Meanwhile, Akio stares at you with wide, fearful eyes, too flustered to address you dumping your items on him. “You’re that familiar with him to call out his name so casually?” He probably thinks you’ll be killed for your informality. You don’t have time to assuage his fears.

Before you can reason with yourself, you are abandoning the fabric stand and following after Yuta, too restless to go without an answer this time. He knows you are following him, but he doesn’t stop to let you catch up or even look back at you until he veers into a narrow alleyway. When you’re standing behind him, he turns back to you with a stony expression.

“I know you are very busy with preparations right now, but…” You’re unsure how to pose your next sentence without sounding too desperate or indignant. You like to believe you understand his position as a samurai, but his actions haven’t made any sense to you in a while now. “Why do you ignore me? I just…cannot understand you.”

“Y/N, your kindness is better spent elsewhere. I can’t afford to have any distractions right now.” His voice, like his face, is emotionless.

“Distractions…” Your mind goes blank, and you suddenly feel like a burden. “We can’t even talk?”

Yuta remains quiet for a moment, looking away with serious and withdrawn eyes, and you wish you knew what was going through his head. He seems to be carefully weighing whatever he’s about to say next. “No, we can’t.” Now he looks at you again, though you almost don’t want to meet his gaze. “I’m afraid I’ve let this go on longer than necessary.”

“What do you mean?” you ask, uneasy.

“You are a respectable young woman, and I’m a man hardened by battle. In the long run, it won’t serve either of us well for our lives to become so enmeshed with each other. You and your sister have learned enough to defend yourselves by my and Shotaro’s teachings, and I think it’s best if we part ways here.”

Your mouth moves, but no sound comes. It’s true that you and your sister have learned considerably since he and Shotaro began teaching you last year, but you never considered there would come a time when it all ended. Especially not now, and not like this. Not with him severing himself from you as if nothing of importance has ever transpired between you. You’re left with even more questions than before. “But…you said…don’t you think we deserve a better explanation than this?”

Yuta’s eyes flicker away from yours for a second, and you try to parse some meaning from it—anything that will explain what is happening right now. “This is the only explanation I can give. Forgive me if it’s not enough. Give my apologies to Subira.” He bows low to you in a formal stance, which you don’t expect.

Once again, you are no longer his friend or his mentee, but a stranger who’s worlds apart from him. When he straightens up, he turns on his heel and is quickly gone from the alley, disappearing around the corner.

“What’s wrong?” Subira whispers as you lie next to each other on your futons that night. She turns on her side to look at you. “You have been quiet and peculiar all day.”

It takes you a few moments to respond. Your throat feels thick, and you don’t want to think about what that means. “I saw Yuta today. I don’t think he intends to teach us anymore,” you say, your voice low. “Even after the battle. He doesn’t want to meet anymore.”

“What…why not?” Subira’s voice radiates disappointment. “I thought lessons were only to be put on hold because of the battle? What happened?”

“No—I don’t know, it was, but—he says we’ve learned enough—” Your voice catches on the last word, and you cut yourself off from saying anything else. Your sister looks at you questioningly, and you both lie there for a few suspended seconds before you abruptly turn your back to her and put your face in your pillow, curling into yourself.

“Wait, are you crying?!” Subira puts a hand on your shoulder and leans close to you, listening to your irregular breathing. “Y/N, what exactly did he say?” You shake your head at her questions, covering your mouth with the blanket and keeping your back turned to her. Subira eventually sighs and rests her chin on your shoulder, rubbing your side. “…I understand. You are still in love with him. Of course you are. I know you.” After a few beats of quiet, she continues. “I don’t care what mother says, Y/N. You shouldn’t either. It’s not wrong for you to love him. It’s simply human.”

You groan miserably in reply, unable to answer with words. During every moment spent with him, you’d fallen more in love with Yuta—despite your common sense, despite your mother’s warnings, despite Akio—but your sentiments towards him don’t seem to matter anymore. You don’t think they’ve mattered in a long time.

You cry until your temples hurt. Eventually, you fall asleep with your sister’s arms around you, your head resting on her chest.

July 1575 — Owari Province, Japan

You give your best effort to avoid thinking about Yuta while he is gone, which is about as successful as you anticipated it would be. Your eyes always stray back to his signature seat in the restaurant—which, even now, no one sits in unless the building is truly crowded that day. You think about him when you dare to bring your ko-wakizashi out of its hiding spot in your room, pressing the pad of your thumb into the engraved characters of your name.

Subira is not faring much better about Shotaro, who she worries about from sun-up to sundown. Your mother quickly grows weary of the younger girl’s mood swings, and more than one argument sparks between them. For everyone’s sake, you can only hope things turn out alright for both men, though you are also afraid to let yourself put too much optimism in that.

Akio notices your reticence as of late—it becomes impossible not to—and you suspect he has begun to deduce the reason for it. He is not as easily fooled as you once thought he was. Not after all the time you have spent together getting to know the details of each other’s lives and learning each other’s habits and behaviors.

“You’ve been very withdrawn lately. Are you…alright?” Akio’s voice is quiet. You’re both at the Sakai River again, sitting next to each other underneath one of the many cherry trees. Their blooms have long since fallen off, leaving the dark green summer leaves behind. For the first time, Akio doesn’t hold your hand, and you feel guilty at your relief over it.

“I am fine,” you say, though there’s the ghost of a shiver in your voice when you speak.

“You aren’t,” Akio counters. “You…ever since…” He takes a breath, and you can guess what he’s going to say. Your body tenses as you wait for him to speak again. “Ever since the samurai left for battle two months ago, you’ve been…distant.”

“I—hadn’t noticed.”

Akio heaves a sigh. “You don’t need to lie to me.” You glance at him but say nothing, and he worries his lower lip with his teeth. “I think there is something more to this that you aren’t telling me. I wish you would just say it.”

You’re silent for a few moments longer until you squeeze your eyes shut and put your chin on your knees, curling into yourself. “I am so sorry, Akio. I have tried hard to forget about it and move forward,” you whisper, your breaths coming fast and shaky. “But I…I love Yuta. I always have. I don’t know how to make room in my heart for another. Please, forgive me for wasting so much of your time.”

You think Akio will be angry, which you cannot really blame him for, and you find yourself subconsciously wanting to flinch away in anticipation of his response. You open your eyes again to look at him. He does seem indignant at first, with how his eyebrows crease together and his mouth tucks into a hard line, jaw clenching. His scar becomes more prominent when he makes this face, and it makes you ashamed to know you’ve dealt him yet another hurt he could’ve done without.

But then, all at once, he simply deflates. He is defeated and maybe even a little relieved, which you don’t understand.

“I think I always suspected your feelings for the samurai in some part of myself,” he murmurs. “But I was lonely, and I had no one else to turn to after I came here, and…I like spending time with you. I didn’t want our time to end, despite all that.” He looks up at you from beneath his lashes, shame coloring his expression. He looks away just as quickly, casting his gaze back to the river.

“Still, i-it was unfair of me…to play upon your emotions. You must’ve thought things between us would turn out differently.”

Akio shakes his head and gives a humorless laugh, rubbing at the scar above his brow with tired fingers. “Few things are ever fair in life. We both know that. I don’t really see it as a waste, Y/N.”

You still believe Akio is too forgiving. Too gentle for this world of cruelties. You find yourself wishing that he had reprimanded you or done anything other than react this way. You aren’t sure why. Maybe it’d just be another way for you to self-flagellate over this meaningless love you keep harboring.

“And what about him?” Akio asks.

“What?”

“Does…does he feel the same way, or…”

You think about your last encounter with Yuta, and shame burns across your skin anew. Another fleeting thought drifts through your mind—that you’re throwing all of this with Akio away for nothing. “I don’t know.”

You are quiet after that, the both of you staring into the river water as it rushes down the channel, ceaseless in its motion. After a while, you both rise to your feet, Akio offering you his hand to help you up. You stand face-to-face, your eyes mirroring a similar sadness back to each other.

“Let’s get you back home then, eh?”

You nod silently, walking back to your horse. The ride back is quiet; the silence stretches all the way up to when you step onto the porch of your home. You are glad no one is at home when you arrive. You don’t have the energy to explain your sullen disposition.

Before Akio departs, he gives you a strained smile from where he stands at the bottom of the porch, and you raise your hand in a silent wave. Though you can’t say it for certain now, it feels like a final farewell.

“I hope he comes back to you.”

You and Subira spend one evening in the middle of July sitting on the porch of your home. She looks up at the darkening night sky as you sit behind her retwisting her locks. You are both silent for a while, though both of you are restless with energy. It feels like something is on the verge of happening. Suddenly, Subira speaks.

“You know they should be back soon. People were talking about it in the market today. It was a great victory for the Oda and Tokugawa, but do you think Yuta...? Shotaro?” Subira lets her words trail off, and that makes your stomach sick as if you’ve eaten something bad. Many different endings could lie within that questioning tone. Did they survive? If they did, will either of you even see them again? Yuta made his intentions painfully clear before he left, but you still struggle to accept that as the end of everything.

You momentarily take your hands away from Subira’s hair and press your hands to your face, feeling the heat of them from how the sun’s been beating down on you all day. The onset of night provides some relief from the fevered weather, but that’s the only relief you can find. You shake your head and look at the ground, too afraid to meet her eyes even as she turns to look at you. You don’t have any answers, but she looks to you as if you do. “I don’t know. We should just wait for more news. That’s all we can do, Subira.”

Subira turns back around with a tremulous exhale, tightening her hands in the fabric of her kosode and looking off into the middle distance.

It has been over a week since the news of the warriors’ return spread through Owari, but despite seeing other men begin trickling back in amongst the townspeople, you still haven’t seen any hints of Yuta or Shotaro.

That worries you immensely. A foreboding you can’t get rid of swells within you. And although you try to practice patience, try to remind yourself that Yuta intentionally separated himself from you before he left, you eventually reach a point where you can no longer sit and wait for an answer that might not come.

You’re unable to sleep on the night you put your decision into action, but it doesn’t much matter either way; you don’t plan on sleeping tonight. After you are positive that your parents and Subira have all fallen into deep sleep, you slip out of your futon and go to the closet, pulling out one of your kosode and your ko-wakizashi as quietly as possible. Once you are dressed and your sword tucked into the left side of your obi, you slide the shoji open, listening for Subira’s breaths to make sure she’s still asleep, before slipping out of the room.

It takes some effort, but you quietly make it out of the house with a lantern in hand, slinking over to the small shelter behind the house to fetch your family’s horse. Mounting it, you hold the reins in your sweaty hands and spur the creature on.

You have not been to Yuta’s home since last autumn, but you are certain you can still remember the way there. This late-night journey is incredibly risky, the kind of thing Subira would be more inclined to do than you, but you have to know if he survived—if he’ll be there. You try to calm your heart as it hammers inside your chest, memories of your attack last year washing back into your mind in a torrent. This time, at least you know enough to defend yourself if something does happen.

To your immense relief and slight surprise, you are able to make it to your destination unscathed, only taking the wrong path and having to turn around once. When you get to Yuta’s house, the gate is open a fraction, allowing you a hassle-free entrance. Though this is convenient, it immediately raises alarm in your mind and gives you pause. There’s no reason why the gate should be open and unlocked at this time of night, unless…

You tap on the shoji at the main entrance to see if anyone will answer. You can tell that it’s dark inside even from where you’re standing; no light shines through the milky translucent screens, and that does nothing to make you feel more reassured. You stand there for what feels like an eternity, and even when you knock a few more times, there is no answer. You don’t want to stand out in the open for much longer, but you don’t want to leave without an answer either; and part of you is afraid that someone might already be lurking on Yuta’s property, with the gate being unlatched as it was.

Shaking your head and exhaling, you hold the lantern up and tentatively slide the door open. No one is there in the dark, and nothing jumps out at you. You stand in the entrance for a moment and scan the front hallway before reluctantly moving on. As you move deeper into the house and peek into the rooms, one hand holding your unsheathed sword and the other carrying the lantern, you see there are still signs of life everywhere. A pair of zori strewn at the bottom of the steps leading to the courtyard. A lone sake cup sitting on the low table in the dining room you’d all sat around just months ago. A garment of fabric left abandoned near a doorway, which looks suspiciously like a kataginu. Some of the rooms you glance into are messy in a way that doesn’t come from the disarray of everyday living; it looks like someone has been through and deliberately destroyed things, and that makes your stomach roil with fear.

You don’t see a single person until you slide open the door to Yuta’s bedroom, which you’d never seen before, but an instant giveaway tells you the room belongs to him. In here, the shoji covering the window are slid aside to reveal the outside world. It’s a half-moon night, and the glowing celestial body provides some light to see by. The moonlight along with the lantern is what reveals Yuta lying on the floor, curled onto his side and his hair obscuring his face. Your heart jumps into your throat, your ko-wakizashi clattering to the floor, all your training forgotten in an instant. Your knees weaken so much that you have to slump to the floor and crawl to him. You are shaking too hard to be able to tell just by looking, but he is breathing slowly; you feel the breaths on your fingers when you hold your hand under his nose. When you put your hands on his body, he is still warm. Half of his kosode is falling off his shoulders, and he wears no other layers underneath it; the garment has not been secured together, and the opening reveals a bloody set of bandages around his midsection. They are discolored with both old and new blood. Beneath them, you know there will inevitably be a new scar forming to add to all the existing ones.

You maneuver him as carefully as you can so his head is lying in your lap. Wisps of his hair stick to his forehead and his cheeks; he is sweating hard, and you don’t know if it’s because of the relentless heat of high summer or something worse. You slide your hand across his hot forehead and try to calm your breathing.

“Yuta?” you whisper. He doesn’t respond for a few moments, and your worry grows. “Yuta, please wake up…it’s Y/N.”

When he stirs, it sends some relief through you, though you are far from reassured yet. Your hand slips from his forehead to his cheek. “Yuta…” After a few more moments, his eyelids flutter and then open, but only slightly. He looks at you blearily, but it seems like he’s not even seeing you in front of him; his expression is dazed.

“Yuta...what’s happened? Where are your vassals? Where is Shotaro?” You have to wonder why his once-loyal retainers have left him in this state without doing anything to remedy his wounds. Your hand hovers over Yuta’s midsection and the ruined bandages; you’re afraid to peel them away and see what’s underneath, but you feel like you need to do something. Yuta closes his eyes again at your questions and pushes his cheek closer into your hand; the movement is so slight you might’ve missed it if you weren’t focusing on him so closely.

“Shotaro is dead,” he answers. His voice sounds like it hasn’t been used in weeks, and he winces when he speaks—from physical or emotional pain, you couldn’t guess. You’re in too much shock. “I…I watched it happen in just seconds. I could do nothing...it was my responsibility to take care of him, Y/N.” He doesn’t explain anything more about why he’s lying in his own home wounded and sickly, because he breaks into desperate sobs. You gather Yuta in your arms as comfortably as you can and hug him to you, your own tears flowing out and thoughts of how hurt Subira will be racking your mind. In this moment, reality feels exceedingly painful and unjust.

You don’t know how long the both of you sit there crying and clinging to each other like the world will cease tomorrow. Maybe in a way, it already has.

Eventually, you pull away from each other when the sobbing dies down to whimpers, looking at the tear stains on each other’s faces in the intermingled moonlight and lantern light. You want to wipe Yuta’s tears away, but part of you is still somewhat hesitant around him; you don’t know how he feels about your presence here from his last words to you, so you refrain.

“I have to go find something,” you murmur, feeling dazed. “These need to be changed.” You gesture to his bandages. You help Yuta sit up fully, though the movement is slow and pained and pulls a rough grunt out of him.

Once you trust that he is adequately situated, you go searching for anything that will help treat him after he instructs you on where to look; even talking takes some effort. When you find the materials you need—along with water, because he is clearly dehydrated—you quickly return to him.

You cleanse the wound after taking the old bandages off. It’s a long gash across his stomach, the skin around it inflamed. It doesn’t appear to be very deep—at least not as deep as some other wounds you’ve seen before. Again, you wonder why he or anyone else didn’t try to tend to it more, but you disregard those thoughts as you apply the necessary herbs and re-cover the wound. You don’t know enough about medicine to judge if the wound is more serious than it looks, but you pray your efforts help.

You sit the things aside and belatedly realize that your hands are shaking. Yuta notices also, and he takes one of your hands in his, slowly curving his thumb over the back of it.

“Why are you alone?” you whisper.

“I sent everyone else away. Kicked them out. You’ve seen the state of this place.”

“Why?”

“It’s easier to die when you’re alone.”

Your heart drops. “To die?”

“Shotaro is gone, and I knew after our last meeting you’d no longer be in my life. I didn’t see any reason to remain here. But until the end…I’m still a coward. I couldn’t gather the resolve to kill myself.” For a moment, he cannot meet your eyes. “Instead, I figured the wound would do it soon enough.”

You’re at a loss for words, unable to draw up a response that could convey the abject pain you’re feeling. You finally stumble out with, “You wanted to die…partly because I wouldn’t be in your life anymore?” But you threw me away first, remains unsaid within your mind.

You examine Yuta as he sits in front of you—his body bandaged up from where you’ve tended to him, his kosode hanging off his shoulders, his skin glowing with sweat. You stare at each other silently, and once again, you wish you could see inside his mind. You have no clue how to read him right now. His expression doesn’t reveal much to you; it’s returned to its usual closed-off demeanor, shutting you out from his emotions in a contrast to his earlier vulnerability. You don’t know if he’s trying to protect himself from the hurt or from you.

However, you’re surprised when he lifts his other hand to your face and touches your cheek—like the day he did the same after your first visit to his home—then cradles it. It’s a surprisingly tender gesture from someone who wields a pair of swords like it’s the last thing he will ever do.

“The whole time I was in battle...the only thing I could think about—besides Taro—was you.” He sighs and glances away again. “You make me so weak, Y/N.” And now, you can hear it in his voice. The fatigue, self-conflict, yearning, and everything else he has been trying to keep from you for months. It all bleeds out without control, baring itself to you.

“You pushed me away,” you whisper, and you can’t help feeling angry. You still hurt when you think about it, a wound that was never given closure. It makes your mouth draw up tightly with the need to resist crying all over again. “You acted like you wanted nothing to do with me.”

“I didn’t know if I’d come back,” he replies, though regret seeps into his tone. “When you’re in battle, you never know which breath might be your last. I didn’t want us to become so entwined together and then you suffer me abandoning you in this world. You seemed happy with Akio, and…if I died in battle, I could be at peace knowing you wouldn’t be alone. You’d have someone there to do what I couldn’t.”

“What you couldn’t?”

He pauses for a while and then takes a shaky inhale. “Shotaro wasn’t constrained by those worries as I was. He simply loved your sister and lived as he wished. I’ve been nothing but a fool. I’m sorry, Y/N.”

You furrow your eyebrows and shake your head, closing your eyes against more tears. They spill without your consent. This time, Yuta wipes them away.

“Will you finally allow me to love you?” you ask quietly, unable to look at him. “Will you love me?”

Yuta does not speak for a few moments, and you refuse to open your eyes, thinking you might somehow be rejected once again. But then you hear the fabric of his clothes shuffling, and his lips are suddenly caressing yours.

You kiss him back, and it’s a palpable relief to you. He tastes like sweat and sickness, and your senses are overpowered by the scent of the herbs, but you don’t mind any of it as long as it’s him. A note of desperation colors the kiss in how his lips press so intensely into yours, his fingers grasping the nape of your neck with as much strength as he can muster in his weakened state. You’re both overtaken with the need to be close after all this time of endlessly circling around each other. Even after you both pull away, he rests his forehead against yours.

“After what I’ve done to you, I shouldn’t ask you to stay,” he mumbles, looking down at your still joined hands. “But, I…would like for you to stay.” Saying that requires some emotional effort on his part.

You both know your family will be terrified when they don’t find you in the morning, but you also know it’s more dangerous to go back out alone at this time of night. It’s no small miracle you made it there safe and in one piece, and you’re reminded of your ko-wakizashi lying on the floor.

It doesn’t take you long to think about your answer, though you do feel bad for your family. “I’ll stay.” And you kiss him once more. You reposition yourself so you’re sitting side by side, and he pulls you closer to his body as much as his wound will allow, his arm secure around you. For a while, you sit and listen to him breathe beside you, and even that simplicity is more than enough; it reassures you that he is indeed alive. You’ve never been so relieved just to hear someone’s breaths.

When sitting against the wall becomes a strain on your back, you and Yuta carefully make your way to his futon and lay your tired bodies across it. A deep and dreamless sleep greets you when you manage to close your eyes.

The ride back to your village is long. The sun has not been up in the sky for more than an hour, but it’s already hot, burning rays beaming down on you without reprieve.

Even in his injured state, Yuta had tried to go with you. You didn’t know if it was more because he didn’t want to be left alone or if he didn’t want you to journey alone. You promised to send someone by for him instead.

And you intend to make good on your word. Before you even return to your parents’ home, you visit one of the few physicians in your area to tell him what has happened to Yuta. He barely believes you at first, but he finally relents to go visit the man’s property—and mostly because the physician has a good rapport with your father. You try to ignore the suspicion and unconcealed judgment in his eyes from the state you’re in, disheveled and coming from a man’s house early in the morning, and give him your utmost thanks.

When you finally reach your home, Subira is there with your mother, both of them sitting on the porch holding hands and looking sick with worry. Subira instantly gets up and runs towards you when you arrive, your mother following close behind. “Y/N! Where were you?! Father just took up a group of people to go looking for you!”

“Do you have any idea of the worry you’ve caused? We thought you decided to run away! And for no possible reason that we could discern!” your mother shouts, holding her head as if she’ll faint.

“I-I’m sorry,” you say, dismounting the horse and nearly stumbling in your rush to get down. You give your mother and sister a sympathetic look, though you are already wincing away from the inevitable reaction. “I…I-I went to Yuta’s home last night.”

“What?!” your mother shrieks. Your sister recoils in shock. “You went to the man’s house, and that far away? At night? Have you completely lost your mind? Has all sense escaped you?” Before you can think to move away, your mother slaps you across the face, the sound of it ringing across the yard. Your hands fly up to hold your burning cheek, and Subira watches the scene with surprise and horror.

“H-he hasn’t come around at all. I had to see if he survived,” you stumble out, your eyes stinging with fresh tears. The pain in your chest and in your face causes some of them to roll free. Though she is currently seething with anger, your mother’s eyes finally catch sight of the ko-wakizashi secured in your obi.

“What? Where did you get this?” she asks, her eyes fixed on the weapon.

You’d forgotten about the sword at your side until this moment. If your internal organs weren’t already stirring with anxiety and fear, they are now. “He gave it to me, mother. A long time ago.”

“Gave you a sword? Tell me more nonsense and I’ll kill you.”

“It’s the truth,” Subira blurts out in an attempt to save you. “I have one, too.” Your mother’s head whips in her direction. “It’s in the closet. If you look in there, you’ll find it.”

Your mother’s expression is marred by anger, and she sets off in the direction of the house to go look for the sword as if she’ll kill you both where you stand if she doesn’t leave right now.

You remain rooted to your spot on the ground, your body tense enough to snap in two if so much as brushed against too carelessly. Subira steps forward then, clamping her hands on your shoulders and looking you straight in the eyes, and her actions break your stony demeanor.

“Y/N—did you find him? What about Shotaro?”

You lick your dry lips, your stomach rolling. “Yuta is—okay. He…he could be better. But I-I think he’ll be okay.” You don’t allow yourself to believe anything other than that.

Subira frowns with lingering worry, but some of the tension goes out of her shoulders. “And Shotaro?”

You throw your arms around Subira then, crushing her against you. You shake your head, burying your face in her locks and smelling the familiar fragrance of her hair. She instantly stiffens against you, part of her already suspecting what you’re going to say. “I’m sorry, Subira.”

“You’re lying,” she argues, her voice furious and loud with denial as she struggles in vain for a few moments to be released from your hold.

“Subira, he didn’t make it back. I wish it wasn’t this way.” Your sister screams, shaking her head in protest. That tormented wail is enough to bring your mother back out of the house, panicked and trying to see what’s happened now.

“I want to die,” she cries. The way she clings tightly to your kosode reminds you of when she used to do the same when you were only kids, usually sobbing because she’d hurt herself while playing. Thinking back to that little girl with her tiny fists and big wet eyes, you’re pained that you couldn’t do more to protect her from this world.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, the volume of your voice dying. All other words seem useless to say.

Your heart is a strange knot of grief and love from one moment to the next, and you never know the appropriate way to feel. The only thing you can make sense of is taking care of your sister, which you’ve always done, so you do that.

It takes you and your parents a few days to convince Subira to eat again, and not all of it stays down, but some is better than nothing. Though your parents are disgruntled by it, you don’t reprimand her for it. It’s the last thing she needs. You just let her lay her head on your lap in the lantern light of your shared room, listening to her cry and curse as much as she needs to.

Your parents had not been pleased about your late-night journey or the sword lessons you were forced to tell them about. Your father had been more indignant than you’d seen him in a long time, even as you tried to explain the reasoning for why you and Subira did it.

But they kept the swords. Not because they wanted to, but because they feared causing offense for discarding a gift from a samurai.

Even so, you doubt you’ll ever be able to use your ko-wakizashi again. Both of them, along with the bokken, are currently locked away in a trunk in your home, and the key’s whereabouts are unknown to you. This only adds on to the grief you’re already suffocating in, but there’s nothing you can say to change their minds, and there are other matters that need your attention more.

To your relief, the physician’s endeavors prove successful, and Yuta slowly begins recovering. You haven’t had the time to visit him since that night because of caring for Subira and taking on extra work in her absence, but the physician comes by the restaurant to let you know of Yuta’s condition, already knowing how important the information would be to you.

It takes Yuta a little while to return to the restaurant, what with trying to heal his wound and dealing with the grief, but he comes back eventually. You only see Yuta when he comes to the shop, though these days he visits much later in the night; he’s usually one of the few or the only one left before it closes. It’s easier this way. Whenever he shows up, you sit at one of the tables with him as he holds your hands tightly enough to make them sting and rests his head on your joined hands, keeping his eyes closed. Sometimes he doesn’t say anything at all and just comes to sit in the stillness with you.

One night when he comes by, you give him some tea for free though he insists he should pay for it. Noboru is the only one still there with you, cleaning in the kitchen, and you know he won’t care about you giving out free goods. When you return from the kitchen, Yuta looks at you with nervous, almost fearful eyes, which makes you stop in your tracks. You have no idea what he’s about to say and whether it’ll be something good or bad.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’ve been spending all this time together, and I haven’t even asked you formally,” he says, his hands crossed on top of the table.

“Asked me…?”

“Will you be with me?” he asks, his face imploring. His question makes your heart speed up, and your fingers clench around the teapot you’re holding. Before you can respond, Yuta continues with, “I say that to mean…marry me?”

This time, the teapot slips entirely out of your grasp, and you both receive a shock when it shatters on the ground, spilling tea and broken clay across the floor. You try to stumble back to avoid getting it on your feet, but some of the hot tea splashes you anyway.

“Ow!”

“Y/N.” Yuta jumps up from his seat to help you sit down in a chair at another table. “Are you okay? Just stay here.” Carefully, he picks up the broken clay pieces though they’re still hot and must be burning his fingers. After he discards them, he goes to ask Noboru if there are any medicinal supplies on hand and soon returns with them, kneeling in front of you.

The way his hand wraps around your ankle and his fingers brush across your foot as he pulls your zori off is one of the most intimate things you’ve experienced. His hands are feather-light as he handles your foot, and you don’t think you’ll ever stop being surprised at how gentle his touch can be.

As you sit on the chair watching him bandage your foot where it was scalded, you realize that you want…more of this. More of Yuta tending to you so gingerly, more of him speaking to you in this soft tone you’ve barely heard from him before, more of him entirely. As if your eyes are opened for the first time, it becomes a reality to you that you could spend the rest of your existence like this with him and be happy.

“I’ll marry you,” you say, your words coming out breathless and rushed in your haste to make them known. Yuta looks up at you like he doesn’t understand what you said, though there is already realization dawning in his eyes. “I’ll marry you, Yuta. Just please…stay by my side from now on.”

He stretches up to be eye level with you as he nods hurriedly, caressing your cheek as he kisses your lips. “I’ll go wherever you ask me.”

May 1577 — Owari Province, Japan

The little bundle wrapped snugly in the sling on your back stirs intermittently with a soft babble, spending most of its time dreaming in a peaceful sleep.

“He looks so content,” Subira whispers, peering at the baby’s small brown face where he’s tucked against your upper back. Her smile is wide, her eyes crinkling as she presses her hands to her cheeks.

“After giving us so much trouble, now he sleeps just fine,” you sigh, though you are also smiling. You think the walk around the garden has done the baby a lot of good, the gentle motion of your steps lulling him back into sleep after an earlier bout of wailing.

“Even when he’s crying or upset or hungry, he’s the sweetest little thing. I can’t believe someone so precious exists. When will you two have another?”

“Subira, we just had this one!”

She giggles, separating from you to take refuge from the sun under the shade of a nearby tree but also so her laughter won’t wake up the baby. “Just a suggestion.”

“…If we have another, then you have to stay here forever,” you say, teasing her. “You don’t even understand it, but all your help has saved my life.”

“Forever?” Subira chuckles and shakes her head, walking a slow circle around the tree and tracing the bark with her fingers. “My lovely sister. I greatly enjoy this little family you’ve created, but don’t you think I’d want my own someday?”

“Of course you would,” you say softly, your heart twinging at the thinly veiled melancholy on her features. You try to give her a reassuring smile. “But the longer you stay here means the longer you don’t have to return home.”

Subira gives a half-smile at that. “Correct.”

Subira has stayed with you and Yuta since you gave birth to your son five months ago, helping you care for him as if she’d brought him into the world herself. She adored him as soon as she set eyes on him. Between the three of you, your baby’s feet hardly ever touch the floor, the small boy always being carried by one of you. You know he’ll need the freedom to begin learning to crawl soon, but you are content to hold him close to you until then.

It surprised you at first to see how easily Subira took to caring for another person, with you always being the one caring for her. But then you’d had to realize she’s always had her own way of caring for you. Not only that, but Subira has changed markedly from the young woman you knew her to be before Yuta and Shotaro came into your lives. She is more mature now, more thoughtful, less excitable—but all of you have changed in different ways in such short time.

You and Yuta married in the autumn of 1575, preceded by a simple meeting between him and the rest of your family over cups of sake. Your parents had not been pleased with him teaching you and Subira the sword after they found out, and you wouldn’t have been shocked to know if their high regard of him had shifted, but you were surprised at how easily they relented to giving you away to the very same man.

“If you’re this adept at seeing him without our knowledge, then I’ve come to realize there is likely not a single thing we can do to keep you from him,” your father had said to you that day, a look of resignation on his face. “Let’s make this less difficult for everyone involved.”

You know your mother was somewhat embarrassed that the lecture she’d given you ended up not holding any weight, though she would never admit it. She did not have much to say about the arrangement other than sullenly giving you both her blessing, along with your father. You never imagined any future marriage of yours being overshadowed by such unpleasant sentiments, but you tried not to care. It didn’t matter. You weren’t under your parents’ care anymore.

Yuta could not continue serving the Oda clan and marry you, as samurai of his ranking were not permitted to marry commoners, so he’d relinquished his status as an Oda samurai and took to farming full time. In the beginning, this decision shocked you. You’d asked him to stay with you, and you both understood what that implied, but you could not help feeling guilty for a while after. He’d trained to be a samurai since childhood, and you knew how he loved the sword.

But he’d done his best to reassure you that staying alive to enjoy his new life with you was more precious to him than being able to wield his daisho. You had no choice but to believe him eventually.

Adjusting to living away from home took you some time. You’d never lived anywhere but with your parents and sister, and realizing you wouldn’t wake up to them everyday opened a pit of sorrow in your chest you didn’t know you were capable of. Despite this, being with Yuta was enjoyable. It was wholly what you wanted. It wasn’t without its pains, however.

Even now, Yuta sometimes has trouble staying asleep at night. You’d discovered this soon after you moved into his home. He’d jerk awake, sweating and trembling from a nightmare or crying out indistinguishable words, and it’d startle you out of your sleep. In the beginning, he wouldn’t say anything to you when it would happen, but you could guess what he’d dreamt about. Over time, he’s become more receptive to telling you about what goes on in his mind during those dreams, even if his words are brief.

On those nights, you sit on the porch facing the courtyard and let him lay his head in your lap until he manages to get back to sleep, gliding your fingers through that inky black hair all the while. And when he can’t fall asleep again, sometimes you make him tea, or simply stay up with him to watch the sun rise. He always expresses guilt for you not getting any rest on those days, but you have never much minded caring for him in this way.

Almost two years since the Mikawa battle has passed, it has become easier for him to talk about Shotaro again. A month after your son was born, Yuta began making a habit of telling you and Subira stories about his childhood growing up with Shotaro and their later adventures as adults.

The first night he did this, you were surprised; you had begun to think you’d never hear the other man’s name from his lips again. But you were also relieved. So, you’d observed silently—the three of you sitting together on the floor while you breastfed the baby, the shoji closed tightly and the blankets piled up to keep out the winter chill—and listened to Yuta’s story of his parents meeting Shotaro’s family on a spring day many years ago…

The stories remain a way for Subira and Yuta to keep Shotaro close. Subira likes to hold your son so that he can listen too, even if he doesn’t yet understand, tucking him close in her arms and feeling the soft coils of his hair tickling her skin. Those times are some of the most content you’ve seen her look.

It’s a full-moon night, the round disc of white illuminating the sky as if it had been hung there by the gods. Through the open window, it’s the only other thing illuminating the room beyond the lantern light, and the aura of your surroundings vaguely reminds you of that now-distant day when you’d found Yuta sick and alone in his home.

You lie on your shared futon next to your baby’s own futon, his little curls smushed against the pillow. You hold one of his tiny hands in your palm, counting the small fingers over and over again as if to make sure they’re all there. Yuta smiles at you softly as you do so, his eyes darting between you and your infant like he can’t get enough of looking at the both of you.

“Taro...” you whisper, gently tapping the baby’s round nose and pouty lips. You watch as his face crinkles slightly in his sleep before relaxing again. “How cute you are.”

“It’s because he looks so much like you,” Yuta comments, chuckling quietly.

You suck your teeth, though you can’t help smiling at his words. “You say that to flatter me. Anyway, he still has your eyes.”

“Hmm, he does. But since Taro looks like you, the next one will probably look like me,” he says casually, and you roll your eyes.

“You too with this ‘next one’ talk? You’ve been talking to Subira too much.”

He grins. “It’s not a bad idea.” He sits up with his arms across his knees. “Are you happy?” he asks, studying your face.

“Of course I am. Why not?”

“I just…” Yuta’s voice trails off, and then he says, “You’ve told me multiple times about Mozambique…how you want to see it someday.”

Your heart pangs, and you glance back down at Taro, your smile fading a bit even as you look at his sleeping face. “I have.”

There’s a beat of silence before Yuta says, “It was not particularly easy, but I got information from some of the active Oda samurai who have close ties to the Portuguese traders. I found out about what it’s like in Mozambique right now, if conditions could be…conducive to travel.”

Despite yourself, your heart jumps in your chest, and you sit up straight. Casting one last look at Taro to check that he’s properly settled, you come closer to Yuta and grasp one of his hands. “What did they say?”

“The Portuguese are steadily taking over the land, and there is much ongoing conflict. I’d say it may be even more dangerous there than here.” He sighs and squeezes your hand tighter. “The other samurai have said it’s best if any Mozambicans who are living here don’t attempt to return, as they’re liable to be enslaved and transported elsewhere. Many native Mozambicans have already been separated from their families this way. I’m sorry, Y/N.”

Your grip on his hand slackens a little, following suit with the rest of your body as you slump into yourself. “...I see. It’s…worse than I imagined.” This is only part of the reality your parents had tried to shield you and your sister from for so long; and now that you are staring it in the eyes, you finally begin to understand why they did it.

The only thing you know to do is wrap your arms around Yuta’s shoulders and lean your head against his, smelling the scent of his hair and his body that are distinctly him. Your eyes sting; you close them against the burn of tears, though some drop down your cheeks anyway. “Thank you for thinking of me. Of us. I am happy here with you, Yuta.”

Shifting to face you, he wipes the droplets away with his thumbs, cradling your face in his palms. “I’m sorry. I want to give you everything you desire, but...”

You shake your head and lean forward to kiss his lips. “You already have.”

That night, you fall asleep with Yuta holding you in his arms and his heart steadily beating underneath your ear, the moon silently watching you from its position in the sky.

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