And how it was marked for destruction.
Chapter 28
Kazashita
The world stopped. Not metaphorically—not in the way poets describe moments of significance—but truly, completely stopped.
The night sounds of Bara faded to nothing.
The distant music from the House of Petals vanished.
Even my own heartbeat seemed to pause, suspended between one moment and the next.
It really was Kaneko.
MyKaneko.
He crouched on the rooftop edge like something from a dream, or a nightmare, or one of those visions that tormented me in the depths of sake bottles when I tried to forget. The moonlight caught his face—more defined than I remembered, sharper, but gods help me, it really was him.
He was alive.
My mind couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t process what my eyes insisted was true.
He was supposed to be dead. I mean, I hadn’t known that, only feared it. Still, I’d mourned him. I’d torn Bara apart searching for his ghost, following rumors and whispers that led nowhere. I’d drunk myself into oblivion trying to forget the sound of his laughter, the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the weight of my failure to protect him back on the island.
I’d thought him dead, yet never stopped looking, never truly stopped hoping. My heart wouldn’t allow it, wouldn’t let me surrender to darkness, wouldn’t let my mind accept a future in which we were never reunited.
And there he stood—no, crouched—dressed in dark silk that made him look like a shadow given form, staring at me with the same frozen disbelief I felt crushing my chest.
Neither of us moved.
Neither of us breathed.
We simply stared across the space, two phantoms caught in amber, unable to comprehend the impossible made real.
Then he moved.
In one fluid motion, he dropped from the roof and tucked into a roll that spoke of training I’d never seen him demonstrate. He came up in a crouch, perfectly balanced, and that’s when my paralysis shattered.
I ran.
Not away—gods, never away—but toward him with every bit of speed my weakened body possessed. My feet barely touched the ground. The distance between us collapsed in heartbeats, and I crashed into him before he could fully stand, before he could speak, before he could vanish again.
My arms wrapped around him, crushing him against my chest. I kissed his neck, burying my face in his skin, breathing him in as though my very life depended on his scent filling my lungs.
He felt so solid, so real.
“Kaneko—”
The name choked from my throat, raw and desperate, then my mouth was on his, kissing him with all the passion of a man pulled back from drowning. I tasted salt and tears, though I couldn’t say whose. His lips were exactly as I’d dreamed, exactly as I’d tried to forget.
He still stood frozen in my embrace, neither responding nor pulling away, but I couldn’t stop. My hands framed his face, fingers tangling in hair that was longer now, silky-soft and scented with something expensive that wasn’thimbut didn’t matter because underneath it all—
Underneath it all, he still smelled like the sea.
“Kaneko.” The words poured out between desperate kisses. “I thought I’d lost you.”
My voice cracked. Shattered. Reformed.
