Chapter 37
Yoshi
The world felt different. Lighter. As though someone had been slowly tightening iron bands around my chest for years and I’d grown so used to the pressure I’d forgotten what breathing was supposed to feel like. Now, walking toward the dining hall with Kaneko beside me, those bands were gone.
Shattered.
Discarded.
He was also walking somewhat . . . carefully.
“You’re walking funny,” I observed, unable to keep the satisfaction from my voice.
“Shut up.”
“What?” I bumped his shoulder with mine. “I didn’t say anything else.”
“You’re thinking it loudly.”
“I’ve been thinking many things loudly since you arrived,” I said, and watched with delight as his steps faltered.
Then he grabbed my arm as I almost stumbled into a pillar, too busy paying attention to him to watch where I was going. “Eyes forward, monk boy.”
“Hard to do when you’re moving like that.”
“Like what?” He tried for innocence, but his wince when he took the next step ruined it.
“Like you’re tender. Sore, even. Like someone was . . . very large and rather thorough.”
“Thoroughly enthusiastic was more like it,” he shot back, then reached up to adjust my collar, which was definitely not hiding the mark he’d left on my throat. “At least I didn’t make animal noises. You practically purred.”
“I did not—”
“You did. It was adorable.” He glanced down at himself. “Why is my kimono—?” It was inside out.
“Mm-hmm. So tell me now, great one, who was distracted?”
As he stepped behind a shrub and quickly fixed his robe, I couldn’t help staring at his exposed skin, the way his muscles moved under—
“Now who’s thinking loudly again?” he teased.
We passed a group of younger students who took one look at us—disheveled, marked, practically glowing—and immediately began whispering. One of them made a crude gesture to his friend. That earned him a playful shove.
“We’re not subtle, are we?” I asked.
“Were we trying to be?”
I had to give him that.
Halfway down the next corridor, Kaneko pulled me into an alcove.
“What—”
Then his mouth was on mine, hot and urgent, pressing me against the stone wall.
“Just one more,” he breathed against my lips. “Before we have to behave.”
“You’re terrible at behaving, almost as bad as Esumi,” I pointed out, but kissed him back anyway.
“Ahem.”
We sprang apart to find one of the masters standing there, his expression somewhere between amused and exasperated.
“The dining hall is that way,” he said pointedly.
“Yes, Master,” we said in unison, which somehow made it worse since Kaneko didn’t even belong to the temple.
As the monk walked away, I heard him mutter, “. . . like rabbits. Every generation, like fucking rabbits.”
Kaneko was shaking with suppressed laughter. “Did he just—”
“Compare us to rabbits? Yes.”
“You’ve gotten louder, by the way,” Kaneko said conversationally.
I nearly tripped. “I have not—”
“Oh, you have. That thing when I—”
“We are not discussing this in the corridor!”
“But the way you—”
I kissed him just to shut him up, which backfired when another someone cleared their throat. This time it was an older monk who just shook his head and kept walking.
“We really need to make it to dinner,” Kaneko said.
“Can you even make it through dinner?” I asked innocently.
“I managed a good year without you. I think I can manage an hour of sitting quietly beside you,” he said with dignity, then immediately undermined it by wincing again as we turned a corner. “Stop looking so smug.”
“Stop looking so thoroughly debauched.” He shoved my shoulder for that.
I reached up to fix my hair, which was probably standing in every direction. Kaneko’s fingers joined mine, smoothing it down, and for a moment we just stood there, touching without urgency, relearning the simple pleasure of being able to do so.
“I missed this,” he said softly. “Just . . . being with you, being stupid together.”
“We were always good at stupid.”
“The best at stupid.”
“Champions of stupid.”
“Speaking of which,” he said, grinning again, “you’ve developed some new techniques.”
“Stupid techniques?”
He chuckled. “Definitely not stupid.”
I shrugged. “Someone recently told me to awaken. I’m not sure that’s what they had in mind, but they’re not here to complain.”
He chuckled again, though I knew he didn’t fully grasp the jest.
“That thing with your hips—”
“You seemed to enjoy it,” Kaneko cut me off.
“I’m just observing. Where did you even learn something like that?” I asked.
A shadow passed over his eyes before he answered. “Some of us did more than meditate this past year.”
“Apparently,” I said, then quickly darted past him toward the dining hall entrance. “Dinner. We’re going to dinner. Where there are people. And food. And no discussing . . . things with hips and other . . . parts.”
His laughter followed me down the corridor.
I kept glancing at him as we walked—partly to confirm he was real, partly because I couldn’t stop myself.
His hair was still damp from washing, his topknot about as messy as was possible without insulting every Samurai in sight, and he’d borrowed one of my training robes since his clothes were beyond salvaging.
It was too small on him, tight across shoulders that had broadened since I’d last held him, and riding so high I worried his manhood might peek out from below.
The sight made something warm and possessive curl in my stomach.
“Now you’re staring,” he murmured, the corner of his mouth quirking up.
“I’m allowed,” I said. “I have months of staring to make up for.”
“Just staring?”
“Behave.”
“Never.”
The dining hall was half full when we entered.
My usual table with Daichi, Kenta, Teshi, and Hiroshi had space.
They all looked up as we approached. Daichi’s eyes narrowed, tracking Kaneko with the focus of a predator catching a whiff of prey.
His hand actually twitched toward where his sword would hang if we were allowed weapons at dinner.
Teshi looked like he wanted to say approximately seventeen things at once, his nervous energy vibrating the air around him. His eyes darted between Kaneko and me, questions building behind them like water against a dam.
But dinner meant silence.
Sacred, enforced silence.
I’d never been more grateful for temple rules.
We sat, and I watched—with no small amount of amusement—as my classmates struggled with their curiosity.
Kaneko settled beside me with a grace that was new—fluid, economical, his back to the wall and eyes automatically cataloging exits. When had he learned to move like that? His hand rested on the table, but I noticed how his fingers stayed loose, ready to grab a weapon that wasn’t there.
Under the table, our knees touched. Kaneko pressed back slightly—acknowledging and accepting it—and that simple pressure said more than words could have.
The meal was simple—rice, pickled vegetables, and miso soup—but watching Kaneko eat beside me made it feel like a feast. Every movement, every breath, was proof he really was alive and sitting beside me.
In more ways than I could fully comprehend, I felt free.
We were halfway through the meal when the massive wooden doors opened, and the masters filed in, their expressions grim. Behind them came Samurai, Esumi, and Prince Haru.
Every student rose and bowed until the Prince waved us back into our seats.
The moment those men arrived, the atmosphere in the hall shifted.
The weight of whatever had been discussed in council now wafted through the room like thick, billowing smoke, and the presence of the Prince only magnified everyone’s distress.
Haru’s eyes landed on our table. He walked over, Esumi trailing behind with that perpetual smirk of his.
“Yoshi-san,” Haru said quietly. “Perhaps you and Kaneko would care to join me in my chambers to dine? The hall seems . . .” He glanced around at the hundred eyes, trying not to stare at their prince, then up at the head table where the abbot and a few of the ancient monks waited by empty spaces. “Crowded.”
“Of course, Your Highness.” I rose and bowed again, nudging Kaneko to do the same.
As we stood to leave, the main doors opened again, and another familiar figure strode in—travel-worn, grim-faced, but unmistakably—
“Uncle!”
Takeo’s expression softened when he saw me. “Yoshi-san.”
“Join us,” I said immediately, not even thinking to ask the Prince’s permission. “Please. We’re taking our meal in Prince Haru’s chambers.”
He hesitated, then glanced to Haru.
The Prince nodded, never breaking stride.
The walk to Haru’s chambers should have been simple, but the temple had changed in the hours since the Prince’s arrival. Guards stood at every intersection—not the lazy patrol of before, but alert sentries with hands on sword hilts. Their vigilant eyes tracked us as we passed, noting every detail.
“This is new,” I murmured.
“Since the attack,” Takeo confirmed. “The temple can’t pretend to be neutral anymore.”
We passed a cluster of senior students near the armory. One called out, “Yoshi-san, who’s your friend?”
Before I could answer, another added with a sneer, “Didn’t know the temple accepted Imperial whores.”
Kaneko went rigid beside me. I stepped forward, but Takeo’s hand fell on my shoulder.
Imperial whore?
What the hell did that mean?
And why had Haru simply strode forward without so much as a glare at the loudmouthed boys?
“Walk on,” Haru said calmly.
We encountered two more groups, each with questions, speculation, and barely veiled hostility. The temple had always been competitive, but the Prince’s presence—and now Kaneko’s—had sharpened that competition into something much uglier.
At one intersection, Takeo pulled me aside while the others walked ahead.
“Kaneko . . .” he said quietly, eyes on Kaneko. “He survived. You need to know . . . just know that he did what was required to make it home to you.”
Did what he had to? My head swam. What did any of this mean? What had Kaneko survived? What had he done?