The bell above Hanabira's entrance chimed low, muffled by the sound of a spring rain.
Aika sat in the back parlor, arranging cherry blossoms in a shallow porcelain dish. She wasn't meant to entertain clients that evening.
Her ankle had twisted during a dance the night before and Madame Sumire had allowed her to rest. It was a quiet reprieve, rare and borrowed.
She didn't look up when the door slid open, nor when the voice of the doorman greeted someone politely. It was only when footsteps echoed.
Slow, deliberate, unfamiliar. That she glanced through the open screen. He was soaked to the bone.
The stranger stood at the entryway, his long coat dripping water onto the polished wood. He removed his straw hat and bowed with precision, not to the girls or the hostesses, but to the house itself.
As if he were stepping into a shrine.
There was nothing remarkable about him at first. His hair was neatly trimmed, dark like most men's. His face was clean-shaven. He carried no sword, no crest. Just a traveler's pack slung over one shoulder and eyes the color of storm-washed stone.
But there was something in those eyes.
Something unhurried, and terribly human.
"I'm here to rest, not revel," he said calmly, handing over a coin pouch. "Somewhere quiet, if that's possible."
The madame hesitated, studying him. He did not leer or joke. He didn't ask for any girl by name.
"Then you may sit in the autumn room," she said. "No one will disturb you."
She turned to Aika, who had risen without realizing. "You'll tend to him. You're quiet enough."
The autumn room was small, with a paper lantern glowing amber in the corner. Rain tapped gently at the windowpane.
Aika poured tea with practiced elegance, her movements silent. She did not speak. She never did unless prompted.
But something about the silence between them felt different.
The man.
Renjiro Hayama.
Accepted the cup with both hands. He warmed his fingers against the porcelain and didn't drink.
"Do you enjoy it here?" he asked suddenly, voice low.
She blinked. Questions weren't rare. Men often asked personal things. But never like this.
Not with such sincerity. She could lie, of course. She was trained to lie.
But her answer came too softly, too honestly.
"It is... bearable."
He studied her. Not her neckline or the way she held the teapot, but her face. Her eyes.
"You speak like someone who's been here too long."
Aika said nothing. Her hands remained folded in her lap.
"Forgive me," he added after a pause. "That wasn't fair to ask."
She should have bowed. Apologized. Smiled.
Instead, she looked at him.
"It's alright," she said, the words foreign on her tongue. "You didn't ask to be cruel."
And just like that, something passed between them. A recognition. A breath.
He returned again. A week later. Then again.
Each time, he asked for the quiet room and said he didn't need a companion.
Yet still, Aika was sent.
They spoke little, at first. He would sip tea and stare out the window, murmuring thoughts aloud as if to himself. He once spoke of mountain roads he'd taken, of books half-finished, of a sister who'd married in Nara.
Aika listened.
And eventually, she began to speak too.
Not as a courtesan. Not as a commodity.
But as Aika.
And every time he stood to leave, she would feel something unfamiliar twist in her chest.
A fluttering ache, not unlike longing.