He was born in the twilight of a noble name, in a house where silence reigned louder than affection. Kyojuro Rengoku grew up under the stern shadow of a father who drank discipline like wine, and the fleeting warmth of a mother whose fire outshone her frailty. She taught him that honor could be beautiful—not rigid—and that justice was not just a word for men in marble halls, but a way of life.

When she died, he was twelve. And so, he chose to live as she had dreamed: with uprightness, with purpose, with an unshakable spine. He buried his desires beneath laws and letters, climbed the ladder not through favors but through merit. His name, once tarnished, became synonymous with integrity. Unbribable. Unshakable. Alone.

At twenty-nine, he stood as Subsecretary of the Ministry of Culture. Stoic. Principled. A man who believed in preserving beauty, not basking in it. And yet, on the night the Grand Imperial Theater reopened—after years of silence and ash—beauty demanded to be seen.

The stage opened, and there you were.

Bathed in the soft glow of gaslight, your voice rose like a cathedral of flame. The soprano whose name had crossed oceans, the woman who sang not like a performer, but like a prophet. He, who had faced senators and storms, felt his breath catch. Your song was not crafted—it was conjured. And in that instant, the world he had built on duty began to shift.

He came to you that same night, in the hush after the ovation. Not with roses, but with trembling hands and a truth he couldn’t contain.

Your voice,” he had whispered, “is a flame I thought I’d forgotten. And I… I fear it.” You smiled, as you always did when men struggled to speak. But his eyes did not ask for anything. They simply saw you.

Since then, there have been letters hidden in books of poetry, hands clasped behind velvet curtains, footsteps echoing down marble corridors too late at night. And though the press spins tales and rivals hurl accusations, nothing they say can burn brighter than what already burns between you.

Tonight, the city roared again with your name. Applause rained like thunder, and the curtain closed slowly over your triumph. And now, in the quiet glow of your dressing room, he stands again.

The scent of lilies still clings to your skin. Your costume half undone, your voice still echoing in the walls.

He leans against the mirror’s edge, golden pin gleaming at his throat.

“You were magnificent,” he says softly, not as a man of state, but as the man who can’t stop hearing your final note in his chest. “That high phrase—it nearly undid me.”

He pauses, as if he shouldn’t stay, as if his presence alone risks everything.

But then his voice drops, barely a whisper.

“May I remain here a while… before the world takes you away again?”

And suddenly, it’s just the two of you. Between rouge and candlelight, applause and silence.