Kaneko was here. He was alive.
Blood soaked his clothes, blossoms littered his hair, and he was swaying on his feet like he might collapse at any moment,but he was alive.
My body shot forward before conscious thoughts could form. One moment I stood frozen at the edge of the training yard, the next I was running—sprinting—my feet moving faster than they had in any of my training.
The injured being tended, the blood-soaked stones, the shocked faces of guards and monks—none of it existed. My world had focused on a single point: the boy I’d loved, the one I’d lost, the heart I’d mourned—and never stopped searchingfor in every meditation, every dream, every desperate prayer to indifferent gods.
I wove between horses still wild-eyed from flight, dodged around Samurai and masters trying to restore order, shouldered past fellow students calling my name. Nothing mattered but closing the distance, crossing the impossible chasm that had stretched between us for more than a year.
I crashed into him with enough force to stagger us both. Only Esumi’s arm held us upright. My arms wrapped around him, crushing him against my chest, and a sob tore from my throat that didn’t sound human. It was joy and grief and relief so overwhelming my body couldn’t contain it.
“Kaneko,” I gasped into his shoulder, then again, “Kaneko,” like saying his name enough times would make this real, would keep him from dissolving like every dream before.
He was solid in my arms. He was warm. Sweet Amaterasu, he was real.
I pushed back long enough to drink him in, to scan his blood-drenched clothing for injuries and test if my senses lied, if this Kaneko really was standing before me, really was in my arms.
He looked different—thinner, harder, and carrying himself like someone who’d learned to move with a different purpose—but underneath those changes, he was still . . . him. Still the boy who’d knocked me into the harbor and laughed. Still the one who’d kissed me in the rain. Stillmine, despite everything the world had done to tear us apart.
I was sobbing openly now, my face buried in his neck, drinking him in. He reeked of blood and road dust and something expensive that wasn’t him, but beneath it all, buried beneath everything, lay the salt-sweet scent that was purely, singularly Kaneko.
“You’re alive,” I choked out between sobs. “Gods, you’re alive. I searched—I tried—they said you were dead, but I knew—I knew—”
His arms came up around me, tentative at first, then tighter, and I felt him trembling.
Or maybe that was me.
Maybe it was both of us, shaking and holding each other together in the middle of the courtyard while the world watched.
I pulled back again, enough to see his face, my hands coming up to frame it, to trace the lines and angles, the faint scar on his cheek I didn’t remember, the exhaustion haunting his eyes. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought—”
My voice broke entirely.
For a perfect moment, nothing else existed.
Not the rebellion. Not my failed awakening. Not the years of emptiness between then and now. Only us, holding each other while blossoms fell around us like the universe itself was blessing this impossible reunion.
Then someone cleared their throat.
Loudly.
We looked up—when had I fallen to my knees?
The entire temple stared at us.
Monks, Samurai, guards, students, even the wounded who could still sit up were watching with expressions ranging from shock to disapproval to barely suppressed amusement.
Esumi stood closest, one eyebrow raised, his mouth twitching. “Well,” he said brightly, “this explains why you weren’t interested in the pleasure houses in the last town. You were saving yourself for temple romance. How beautifully pure.”
Haru elbowed him hard in the ribs, which drew gasps from several monks—a prince strikinganyone, even in play, was unthinkable.
“What?” Esumi wheezed, rubbing his side in mock pain. “I’m just saying, if all temple reunions are this passionate, I might convert to a religious life myself.”
“You’re bleeding,” I said to Kaneko, ignoring the Prince and his irreverent friend, suddenly aware of a dark stain spreading across his shoulder.
“It’s nothing,” he said, but his voice was rough and raw.
“Yoshi-san!” My master’s voice cracked like a whip across the courtyard. “Return to your position immediately!”
