What am I doing?The question rose unbidden in the darkest hours.
Sometimes—and the shame of this burned—I felt a flicker of anger at him. I raged at Kaneko for being beautiful enough to be taken, for looking at me with those earnest eyes, for making me care so much that I destroyed myself trying to find him.
Then my heart would counter,He did nothing wrong. He is the victim. I am the fool.
And beneath the anger and doubt, a more terrifying question played like a distant drum: Did Kaneko even think of me, orhad I become just another face in the nightmare of his captivity? Would he even want to be found by me, a stranger who had participated in his enslavement and then done nothing, saved nothing, changed nothing when it mattered?
Was I searching for someone who did not care for me at all?
That thought made something crack inside my chest every time it surfaced. But I couldn’t stop, even knowing I might be chasing a ghost, a fantasy I had built in my own mind, even knowing Kaneko might not want—or need—my rescue. Because sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I could still see him clearly, not the dream version—that was already becoming hazy—but therealKaneko, the one I had glimpsed in stolen moments.
I remembered his hands—callused from fishing, scarred across the knuckles. I remembered the way he looked at the ocean one evening while I was coiling rope nearby, as though glimpsing a long-lost friend. I remembered his voice, not what he said—those words had faded—but the quality of it, rough but not harsh, the accent of the northern isles rounding the edges of his consonants.
And I remembered—gods, I remembered—the moment I saw him smile that first time.
That was what I was chasing, the boy who could still smile despite everything, not the perfect, idealized Kaneko of my dreams. I sought the real one, flawed and frightened and human.
The sun was setting when I finally finished my shift at the docks. My shoulders burned, my hands were bleeding again, and Ineeded food and water, needed to find somewhere to sleep that would not leave me stiff and aching in the morning.
Instead, my feet carried me toward the slave market. I had been there dozens of times, perhaps hundreds. It had become almost a ritual—this painful pilgrimage to watch other people’s suffering, to scan each face for the one I sought.
Today would be no different, I told myself, another wasted hour, another disappointment, but I went anyway.
The auction was already underway when I arrived. A crowd had gathered around the platform—merchants, military men, a few nobles with servants. The auctioneer’s voice carried across the square, barking out bids with practiced enthusiasm.
A thin woman stood on the platform, perhaps thirty, her eyes hollow and resigned. The bidding was lackluster. No one wanted her. I knew what would happen next, had seen it happen too many times.
The auctioneer’s voice grew sharp. “No bids? Very well.”
The Samurai stepped forward and steel sang. I looked away because there was nothing I could do, nothing anyone would do. The crowd barely reacted. This was routine.
Servants cleaned the blood while the next slave was brought forward.
This one was different. He was young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, and stunning—handsome in a way that made even my heart, which had room only for Kaneko, ache with a longing for beauty. Delicate features. Smooth skin. Large eyes that held terror but also a kind of defiant pride that made him even more attractive.
The crowd stirred.
“Opening bid—tenryo!” the auctioneer called.
Bidders erupted.
A merchant.
A military officer.
A man in noble’s robes.
The price climbed quickly—fifteen, eighteen, twenty.
I watched, hollow. This had happened to Kaneko, I was sure of it. This exact scene, played out while I was still traveling to Bara. Someone had stood here and bid on him. Someone had purchased him and taken him away.
The thought made my stomach churn.
Thenshestepped forward, a woman unlike any I had seen at these auctions before. She wore akimonoof deep crimson silk embroidered with silver cranes, her hair elaborately styled, her face painted with precision. She carried herself with absolute confidence—not the confidence of wealth, but of power and the knowledge that she would not be outplayed, not here, not in any game.
She raised a fan decorated with cherry blossoms.
“Twenty-fiveryo,” she said, her voice calm, almost casual, indifferent to the life-altering sum she’d just tossed across the plaza.
