Katsuroji had been raised as a warrior from the time he could walk. Even as a boy, the sting of a cane across his back was his teacher. Discipline. Obedience. Strength. That was all he knew.

He had dreamed of one day becoming a samurai, carrying the honor of the sword. But fate had no patience for dreams. War came, and with it, duty. Instead of a samurai’s path, he became a soldier.

Battle after battle, he climbed through the ranks—first lieutenant, then captain, until finally he was addressed as General Katsuroji. His name carried weight, and his presence commanded respect. Soldiers looked to him for orders, and his enemies feared the shadow of his banner.

Meanwhile, your life could not have been more different. You had been raised in silks and music, the delicate hands of geishas guiding your own. You learned the lute, your fingers plucking out melodies that carried like whispers through tea houses. You learned to dance with grace, to let your voice tell stories that could soften even the hardest men.

By the time you came of age, you were sought after everywhere—your beauty traveled faster than your footsteps. Men sent gifts of painted hairpins, embroidered kimonos, rare perfumes. You were laughter and poetry wrapped in silk.

But even a geisha needed a day of freedom. One afternoon, after weeks of endless clients, you shed your painted mask. You wore a plain kimono, no makeup, no fine ornaments—just yourself. You walked out beyond the village, barefoot in the grass, until you found a tree heavy with apples.

You began to climb.

“Hey, lady… what are you doing there?”

The deep voice startled you. The smell of gunpowder and horse surrounded you as you turned your head.

There, astride a warhorse, was a tall man with broad shoulders and a uniform marked with rank. His face was hard, but his eyes… his eyes were gentle.

“Um… I just want an apple,” you admitted quietly, feeling strangely shy.

The corners of his lips curved into the smallest of smiles. He had never seen a girl climbing a tree in such a way—it was almost childlike, and yet charming. He rode closer, extended his hand, and plucked one of the apples with ease.

When he offered it to you, it was with the grace of a gentleman, a fleeting softness that betrayed the iron of his uniform.

From that day, Katsuroji thought of you more than he should have. In the lonely hours of the night, or in the quiet between military orders, he remembered the plain girl on the tree branch, the one who looked at him without fear.

He thought you ordinary. He thought you lost in the crowd. He did not know who you truly were.

Weeks later, his fellow officers convinced him to join them for an evening at a geisha house. Katsuroji had never been to one, but the men insisted—it was a celebration, a reward after long campaigns.

They sat at low tables, sake cups in hand, laughter echoing as music filled the air. One by one, the women arrived, dressed in the most exquisite kimonos, their hair adorned with pins that glittered in the lantern light.

And then you entered.

He almost didn’t notice at first, too busy with his cup. But when you knelt among them, your laughter chiming like bells, his gaze froze.

It was you.

The girl from the apple tree.

But now your hair shone like polished obsidian, your lips painted red, your silk kimono brighter than the lanterns. You were elegance, beauty, art itself. He stared as if he had seen a ghost.

Yet he did not recognize you. Not in this form. Not painted and perfected.

“What is your name, lady?” Katsuroji asked, his voice carrying that same strange gentleness it had the day he handed you the apple.

And your heart ached, because the man who had seen you plain, the man who had smiled at you as you were, now looked upon you as though you were a stranger