Chapter Fifteen Consent
Chapter Fifteen
Consent
Hana’s eyes watered, but she didn’t dare to blink. She feared her thoughts would wander from the full moon quivering in the fusuma’s painted lake and escape. She knew exactly where they would go. The second they slipped from her, they would dart away and find Keishin behind the sliding cloth panel, lying on the Horishi’s table, making a cruel trade so that she could find her mother.
Hot tears stung her eyes. Hana blinked. A small boat drifted over the lake and scattered the moon’s reflection, leaving Hana with nothing to stare at except the truth: Though it was the Horishi’s hand that gripped the nomi, it was she who was stabbing it into Keishin’s skin. She cursed under her breath and pushed the fusuma open. “Stop!”
“Hana!” Keishin sat up from the table, his clothes in a pile on the floor.
“I cannot let you do this.” Hana’s eyes darted over his bare skin. The Horishi’s map revealed itself only when touched by the rain, leaving Hana to wonder if she was too late.
“I want to, Hana.” Keishin stood up.
“He has given his consent.” The Horishi set a nomi down, its tip tinted with blue ink. “He cannot take it back.”
“But I can.” Hana grabbed Keishin’s clothes from the floor and knocked the silver water bowl from the table. A puddle pooled by Keishin’s feet. She shoved Keishin into it and jumped in after him.
—
Hana climbed out of her courtyard’s pond and found Keishin standing in front of her.
“Why, Hana?” Keishin’s throat tightened around his voice. “Why did you stop her? The Horishi would have told us where to find your mother.”
Hana averted her eyes from his nakedness. Keishin had stripped himself of more than just clothes. The sacrifice he had been about to make for her bared his soul. She did not need her father’s or mother’s glasses to see that he was blinding. She held out his crumpled bundle of clothes.
“Get dressed and leave.” Her words trembled as much as her hands. She had never meant anything more. Or less. She wanted him to stay as desperately as she needed him to go. Though the map of her skin was not visible, she knew every inked detail on her tattooed map by heart. Keishin was not in it.
“Hana…”
“Go home, Kei.” She dropped his clothes on the ground. “While you can.”