“Promises, promises, monk boy.”
One more quick kiss, then I headed to meditation, feeling lighter than I had in months.
The knot was gone.
Kaneko was here.
War might be on the horizon, but somehow, impossibly, I was no longer frightened.
Chapter 38
Kaneko
The chamber was too quiet without Yoshi’s breathing.
I lay on his mat—ourmat now—staring at the ceiling where shadows danced in the light cast by a single candle. My body still hummed with the memory of his touch, every nerve singing with the impossible joy of reunion.
A year of wondering, mourning, desperately hoping, all answered with his hands on my skin, his mouth against mine, his voice breaking as he said my name like a prayer.
Finally, I was happy.
The realization washed over me like wonderfully warm water.
When had I last been happy? Not relieved, not temporarily safe, not distracted from misery, but truly happy?
Not since before the pirates. Before the fires. Before I learned what the world did to boys who loved too carelessly.
Here, in this modest monk’s chamber that smelled of incense and Yoshi, Iwashappy.
My body ached in the most wonderful way, marked by passion instead of violence. The ghost of his touch lingered everywhere—in my hips where he’d gripped too tight, in my throat where he’d driven himself a little too quickly, in the tender soreness that reminded me with every movement that I was his, had always been his, would always be his.
Our reunion had been everything I’d dreamed and nothing I’d expected.
He was different now—stronger and more confident—but underneath, he was still Yoshi, still the boy who kissed like he was suffocating and I was air, still the one who looked at me like I was something precious, something worth crossing oceans for.
If he knew what you did, what you’ve become, would he still look at you that way?
The thought sliced through my joy like a poisoned blade.
My fingers found the scar on my ribs—the one from Sakurai’s training that Yoshi had traced earlier. There were others, too: marks on my wrists from rope work, a thin line on my inner thigh from a blade exercise gone wrong.
Each one a story I couldn’t tell.
My hands began to tremble.
I hadn’t told him about the House of Petals.
The realization sat heavy in my chest, crushing the lightness I’d been feeling. The room suddenly felt even smaller, the walls pressing in as my thoughts spiraled. In all our desperate haste to merge back into one perfect soul, all our frantic rediscovery, I hadn’t mentioned thegeishas, the training, the men who’d sought to buy my attention, if not my body.
The performances.
The careful seductions that never went as far as clients wanted but still went too far for my own comfort. The scent of jasmine oil suddenly filled my nose—a phantom memory of the perfumethey’d made me wear. It was too sweet, too heavy, designed to intoxicate clients before I even spoke.
Momoko’s calls during the Virgin Auction echoed in my mind: “A rare beauty from the islands, trained in all the arts of pleasure.”
I could still taste the bitter tea they’d given me, the one that made my muscles loose and my inhibitions quieter.
And how could I explain Haru’s protection? That I’d been marked as the Prince’s exclusive companion—a polite way of saying his whore, even if Haru had never touched me in that way? The entire temple probably thought I’d been warming the Prince’s bed for months, been wedged between him and Esumi like a slutty piece of meat.
