Chapter Five: The Silence Between Two Hours

The days that followed were strange. Arata found himself thinking about Akari at odd moments—during sword practice, during tedious council meetings, in the quiet hours before dawn when sleep refused to come. He tried to push the thoughts away, to focus on the endless duties of lordship, but her face kept surfacing in his mind like a ghost.

Hayato noticed, of course. "You seem more settled," the retainer observed one morning after a particularly successful training session. "The visit helped?"

Arata grunted noncommittally, not wanting to explain that what had helped wasn't what Hayato thought. He focused on his studies, learning the intricate dance of managing his domain, meeting with retainers and merchants, trying to project confidence he didn't feel.

A week passed. Then another.

"Time for another visit," Hayato announced one evening, that infuriatingly knowing look in his eyes. "Clear your head again."

Arata wanted to refuse, but the truth was... a part of him wanted to go back. Not for the reasons Hayato thought. But to see if he'd imagined it—the raw honesty, the stripped-away masks, the feeling of seeing another person's soul laid bare.

This time when the matron led him down the corridor, his heart was beating faster than he wanted to admit.

The door slid open. The moon was full again, painting the room in silver light. And there she was—Akari, kneeling in the same place, wearing a kimono of deep green this time, embroidered with white plum blossoms.

Their eyes met, and for a moment, neither moved.

"My lord," she said finally, that professional mask firmly in place again. But her voice wavered slightly. "I wasn't certain you would return."

"Neither was I." Arata stepped inside, closing the door behind him. An awkward silence stretched between them.

Akari's face was pink with what might have been embarrassment. "About last time... I apologize again for my outburst. It was unseemly." She took a breath, then began reaching for her obi. "Please, allow me to make amends. I promise I can make you feel—"

"No." Arata held up a hand, his tone gentler than before. "You don't need to do that. Just... keep your clothes on. Please."

She froze, genuine confusion flickering across her features. "I don't understand. If you don't want—"

"I just want to sit. And talk, if you want to talk. Or sit in silence if you'd prefer." He settled against the far wall again, leaving space between them. "Two hours. That's all."

Akari stared at him like he was a puzzle she couldn't solve. Slowly, she retied her obi and settled back onto her cushion. "As you wish, my lord."

The silence this time was different—less hostile, but somehow more charged. Arata found himself studying her face when she wasn't looking, noting the way her mask would slip sometimes, revealing flashes of genuine emotion underneath.

Finally, she spoke. "Why did you really come back?"

He considered lying, then decided against it. "I don't know. Maybe because you're the first person in months who didn't treat me like a lord. Just a person."

"A person who said terrible things to me."

"Yes." He met her eyes. "I'm sorry for that. Truly. You didn't deserve it."

She studied him for a long moment. "You hate prostitutes," she said quietly. "That much was clear. Why?"

Arata's jaw tightened. The old anger rose in his throat, but this time he swallowed it back. If she could be honest, so could he. "My mother was one. A prostitute in Kyoto somewhere. My father bedded her, she got pregnant, and then she... disappeared. Left me to be raised as living proof of his indiscretion." The words tasted bitter. "Everyone knew what I was. The bastard son of a whore. Do you know what that's like? Growing up knowing you're shameful by your very existence?"

"Yes," Akari said softly. "I do."

Of course she did.

"I spent my whole childhood hating her," Arata continued. "Hating that she abandoned me. Hating that she was weak enough to sell herself. Hating that her blood ran through my veins." He laughed bitterly. "And I hated places like this because somewhere in one of them, maybe she's still smiling at men and pretending and selling herself. And I can't... I can't separate my hatred of her from my hatred of all of you. Even though I know that's wrong. That you didn't choose this any more than she probably did."

Silence settled between them again, but gentler this time. Understanding, maybe.

"My family was happy once," Akari said quietly. "My father was a low-ranking samurai in service to a minor lord near Ōmi Province. We didn't have much, but we had each other. My little brother used to catch fireflies in summer and bring them to me in bamboo cages." Her smile was sad, distant. "I wanted to teach children someday. Be a governess for a noble family, maybe. Teach them calligraphy and poetry and all the gentle arts my mother had taught me."

"What was your brother's name?"

"Kenji. He was seven when they killed him." Her voice cracked slightly. "He wanted to be a great warrior like the stories. He used to practice with sticks, pretending they were swords."

They talked through the rest of the two hours—carefully at first, then with growing ease. About their childhoods, their lost families, the weight of expectation and abandonment. When time ran out, Arata found himself reluctant to leave.

"Same time next week?" he found himself asking.

Akari's mask slipped, revealing surprise and something that might have been hope. "If you wish, my lord."

"Arata," he corrected. "Just Arata."

A week later, Hayato practically shoved him out the door. "You're more focused after these visits," the retainer said approvingly. "Whatever you're doing there, keep doing it."

If only he knew.

The visits became routine. Every week, Arata would arrive at the brothel, be led to Akari's room, and they would sit and talk. She told him about her life before the tragedy—her father's laugh, her mother's songs, the way cherry blossoms looked from her family's small garden. He told her about his lonely childhood, Lady Aiko's kindness, the crushing weight of suddenly becoming a lord he never wanted to be.

Slowly, the distance between them shrank. Not physically—they maintained careful space, neither wanting to acknowledge what might happen if they crossed that invisible line. But emotionally, they drew closer with each meeting, like two wounded animals recognizing kindred spirits in the dark.

Arata found himself looking forward to their hours together with an intensity that frightened him. The rest of his week became something to endure until he could see her again. Hayato's approval only made it easier to justify—the retainer thought the visits were helping him unwind, never suspecting that Arata spent those two hours fully clothed, simply talking.

Three months passed this way. Spring turned to early summer, and the city bloomed with color.

"Tell me about the town," Akari said one evening. "I never get to leave this place. What's it like out there?"

So Arata described it—the morning markets where merchants haggled over fish and vegetables, the temple bells that rang at sunset, the way the Kamo River looked in the rain. He told her about the street performers he'd seen, the festivals that were approaching, the small moments of beauty that existed beyond the brothel walls.

"I wish I could see it," she said wistfully. "Just once. Walk through the streets without paint on my face, without this silk cage around me."

"Maybe someday," Arata said, though even as the words left his mouth, he wondered how that would be possible.

Their conversations deepened. They shared their fears, their dreams, the parts of themselves they kept hidden from the world. Akari confessed that she sometimes forgot what her real smile looked like. Arata admitted that he woke up some nights convinced assassins were standing over him, even when Hayato's guards stood watch outside his door.

"Does it get easier?" he asked her once. "Living with fear?"

"No," she said honestly. "You just get better at carrying it."

One evening, as their time together was drawing to a close, Akari asked the question that had clearly been building in her for weeks.

"Why don't you ever touch me?" Her voice was quiet, vulnerable in a way her professional persona never was. "In all these months, you've never even held my hand. Do you find me... unattractive?"

Arata's breath caught. "No. God, no. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

"Then why?" She looked at him directly, her carefully maintained distance cracking. "Every man who comes here wants something from me. But you just talk. Why?"

He was quiet for a long moment, wrestling with truths he'd been avoiding. "Because somewhere in this city, there might be a woman who looks like you. Who paints her face and smiles for strangers and sells herself to survive. And she might be my mother."

Understanding dawned in Akari's eyes.

"Every woman in this place could be her," Arata continued, his voice rough. "And I can't... I can't cross that line. Can't touch any of you without wondering if I'm somehow betraying the ghost of a woman who abandoned me. Does that make sense?"

"Yes," Akari whispered. "It does."

"But it's more than that now." He met her eyes. "You're not just some prostitute to me anymore. You're Akari. You're the woman who survived hell and kept her soul intact. You're the only person in this whole city who sees me as just a man, not a lord or a bastard or an heir. And I don't want to ruin that by making this about... that."

Akari's eyes glistened. "I see you too," she said softly. "The real you. Not the mask you wear for your retainers."

The moment stretched between them, heavy with unspoken possibilities. Then Arata stood, breaking the tension before it could pull them under.

"Same time next week?"

"Yes," she said, her voice barely audible. "Please."

The weeks continued. Four months became five. Their bond deepened into something neither wanted to name but both felt with increasing intensity. Arata caught himself thinking about her at strange times—wondering what she was doing, whether she was safe, whether other men came to her room and if she wore her mask for them or if he was the only one who'd seen her real face.

That thought began to eat at him.