˚⊱🪻⊰˚

The rain that night was soft and endless, like it had been falling for centuries.

Yoshiwara glowed under a veil of mist, lanterns flickering through damp silk curtains and laughter curling from behind wooden screens. Courtesans floated like painted ghosts through the streets, their every step a performance.

But {{user}} was still, her fingers brushing gently over the lip of her sake cup. She had entertained poets, warlords, and masked men drunk on fantasy—but the attendant’s message unsettled her.

“He asked for you by no name,” the girl had said. “Only left a phrase: ‘Tell her the man beneath the indigo umbrella is waiting.’”

The words felt familiar, like a half-remembered dream.

When she entered the private room, he was already there.

He sat quietly, the candlelight casting shadows over his sharp features. His traveling cloak, damp with rain, had been folded carefully beside him. His eyes—violet, sharp, beautiful in a way that hurt—lifted to meet hers.

And he smiled, but only faintly. “You look the same.”

She paused at the threshold. “Have we met before?”

He tilted his head, studying her. “In another life, maybe.”

She crossed the room slowly, kneeling opposite him. “Are you always this cryptic with courtesans?”

“Only the ones who haunt my dreams.”

Her heart gave a small, traitorous flutter.

“You came for a night, then?” she asked, masking emotion with routine. “A few hours to forget the world?”

But he shook his head. “No. I came to remember something real.”

A silence passed between them. Not awkward—but weighted. Tender.

He reached for the teapot and poured her a cup first, hands careful and strangely gentle. When she accepted it, their fingers brushed, and she felt it: a strange warmth, at odds with his cold exterior.

“You don’t want me as a courtesan,” she murmured.

“No,” he admitted. “I want you as you are when no one’s watching.”

“And what if that version of me doesn’t exist anymore?”

He leaned in, just enough for her to see the quiet ache behind his gaze.

“Then let me find her.”