3. Sakura #2
Morning: Torin appears with coffee. My exact order, every time. He settles into the waiting area chair—which I’m starting to think of as his chair—and stays until lunch.
Afternoon: He checks in, sometimes bringing food from Moonpetal Bakery. “Sunny’s orders, not mine. Something about a nutrient deficiency she’s not willing to risk.” The pastries are always my favorites.
Evening: He stops by before heading home. Quick. Undemanding. Just making sure I’m okay before the studio closes.
He never pushes. Never demands conversation. Never watches me with the anxiety of someone expecting disaster.
He’s just there.
And despite my best efforts to find it irritating, I’m starting to find it... comforting.
Thursday afternoon, Ember from Eternal Flame Candles arrives with a welcome gift.
She’s a phoenix—sweet, scattered, and prone to spontaneous combustion. I learned this within thirty seconds of meeting her when she burst into flames in the middle of Moonthread Square and had to be extinguished by a passing water witch.
Today, she makes it all the way into my studio before igniting.
“Welcome to the neighborhood!” She holds out a box of beautiful candles—flames in impossible colors, promised to never burn down—just as her hair catches fire. “Oh. Oh no. Not again. I’m so sorry, this happens sometimes, it’s very—”
The flames spread. Fast. Her arms, her shoulders, her entire body erupting in phoenix fire that’s definitely going to set my studio ablaze.
I reach for my water magic, but Torin is already moving.
He shrugs off his flannel jacket in one smooth motion, wraps it around Ember, and smothers the flames with calm efficiency. No panic. No hesitation. Just practical action, like extinguishing spontaneously combusting phoenixes is a normal part of his day.
Ember emerges from the jacket cocoon, smoking slightly, her hair a singed mess. “Thank you. I’m so sorry. It’s the emotions, you know? I get excited and then—” She gestures at herself. “Whoosh.”
“Does that happen often?” Torin examines his jacket. It’s scorched but intact.
“Phoenix.” I shrug.
“Ah.”
That’s it. That’s his entire response. Ah. Like phoenixes bursting into flames is perfectly reasonable and doesn’t warrant further comment.
Ember recovers her composure, delivers her candles with profuse apologies, and departs in a swirl of smoke and singed feathers.
Torin settles back into his chair, scorched jacket draped over the arm. “Interesting neighbors.”
“You have no idea.”
“Tell me.”
So I do. I tell him about Berry and her semi-sentient bookshop—how it picked out a stack of romance novels for me on day one and hasn’t let up since. He tells me the shop tried to matchmake him within a week of his first patrol through the square, and he still doesn’t know how it knew.
He listens. Asks questions. Laughs at the right parts—a low, rumbling sound that does unfortunate things to my insides.
By the time I realize what’s happening, an hour has passed and we’ve traded more stories about this town than I’ve traded with anyone since I got here. He tells me about the bear community in the western woodlands, about the cubs who ask him for advice he doesn’t have.
Right after three o’clock, Torin glances out the window and abruptly stands.
“I have an, uh, errand to run. I’ll be back.
” He walks out, holding the door open for a woman in her sixties with a councilor’s bearing and a warm smile that reaches her eyes, or seems to.
She introduces herself before I can ask.
“Councilor Valesh.” She extends her hand. “I’m on the welcoming committee. We try to greet all new arrivals personally.”
I shake it. “Sakura. I own the studio.”
“I know.” Her eyes move around the space with what looks like admiration. “Radiant Aura. Very inviting. The salt room especially—the crystal placement is unusual. Your work?”
“Two full days of it.”
“Impressive.” She settles into the chair across from my reception desk—Torin’s chair, though she doesn’t know that—and folds her hands in her lap with the ease of someone who’s comfortable taking up space.
“I’d love to hear about your gift. Elemental sensitivity is quite rare.
The coven hasn’t had a weather witch since Dorothea.
Five years now, was it? Terrible, what happened to her. ”
I tell her what I tell everyone: some of the truth, none of the worst of it. Uncontrolled surges, yes. Emotional triggers, yes. Still working on the fine-tuning.
She listens with the focused attention of someone genuinely interested. Asks questions. Good ones—how far does my sensitivity extend, can I detect magical disturbances beyond weather, has it ever responded to external sources rather than internal ones.
An hour later, she leaves with the same warm smile she arrived with, pressing my hand and telling me Mistvale is lucky to have me.
I feel welcomed. Seen. Like I might actually belong here.
Friday evening, I’m closing up when my phone buzzes.
Leire: “I hear you have a new shadow.”
Anouk: “The bear? Interesting choice for a monitor. He doesn’t usually volunteer for anything.”
I glance toward the window. Torin left a while ago, but I can still see the slight indentation in his chair. Still smell the woodsmoke and pine that clings to him.
Me: “He’s assigned to monitor me. It’s not a thing.”
Zeph: “Ha.”
Leire: “Mmhmm. Sure.”
Anouk: “He’s never shown interest in anyone.”
Zeph: “Until now apparently.”
Me: “It’s not a thing.”
Anouk: “Is it?”
Me: “Yes!”
Zeph: “She used an exclamation point. She’s lying.”
Leire: “Oh, Torin? He’s a sweetheart. Total teddy bear despite the grumpy exterior.”
Me: “He’s not grumpy. He’s just... quiet.”
Anouk: “You’re already defending him. Fascinating.”
Zeph: “Called it.”
Me: “I hate all of you. Also he put out Ember yesterday when she caught fire in my studio. With his jacket. Didn’t even blink.”
Zeph: “Wait he smothered Ember? That’s hot. The irony I mean. Phoenix. Smothered. Fire jokes.”
Leire: “You love us. Also, he writes poetry.”
I drop my phone.
Scramble to pick it up.
Stare at the screen.
Me: “He what?”
Leire: “Poetry.”
Anouk: “I’ve heard the same.”
Me: “Torin?”
Leire: “Don’t tell him I told you. He’s very private about it. But I thought you should know. In case you were wondering what’s underneath all that stoic silence.”
I look up from my phone. I see his scorched jacket he left behind and will probably pick up tomorrow with another perfectly prepared coffee.
The man who asked everyone in town what I drink. Who told me he volunteered so no one else could manage me. Who sits in my studio for hours without demanding anything except my presence.
A crack forms in the wall I’ve been building since I got here. Since before I got here. Since I learned that being too much meant being alone.
The door opens behind me.
I spin, heart lurching, and there he is.
“Forgot my jacket.” His eyes find the scorched flannel draped over his chair. “Ember’s flames are more persistent than they look.”
“Right. Yes. Your jacket.”
He crosses to retrieve it, and I watch him move—graceful despite his size, controlled, every motion deliberate. He picks up the jacket. Examines the scorch marks. Looks at me.
“You all right?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Long day. Lost in thought.”
He studies me for a moment longer. Those observant eyes seeing more than I want them to.
“Get some rest.” He pulls on the scorched jacket, and I do not notice the way his shoulders strain the seams. “I’ll bring coffee tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Then let me.”
He leaves. Again. And again, the studio feels emptier.
I stand in the middle of my shop, surrounded by crystals and candles and romance novels I’m not going to read, and try to process what I’m feeling.
He smothered a phoenix with his jacket and barely reacted.
He brings me coffee every morning and he asked everyone in town what I drink.
Next morning, Torin arrives with coffee and a paper bag from Moonpetal Bakery.
“Sunny insisted.” He sets the bag on my desk. “Apparently there’s a new stress-reducing scone recipe and she needs feedback.”
I peer inside. Lavender-chamomile scones, still warm, the scent alone making my shoulders drop.
He’s not looking at me. He’s examining the door hinge—the one that’s been squeaking for days. He pulls a small tool kit from his jacket pocket and starts adjusting the mechanism.
“What are you doing?”
“Your hinge squeaks.”
“I know it squeaks. Why are you fixing it?”
“Because it squeaks.”
He doesn’t look up. Just keeps working, hands steady, movements precise. The hinge stops squeaking within minutes.
He moves to the window that doesn’t close properly. Fixes that too. Then the shelf that’s slightly crooked. Then the cabinet door that sticks.
By the time he’s done, half my studio’s minor irritations have been resolved, and I’m standing there with a scone in my hand and absolutely no idea what to say.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“Why did you?”
He finally looks at me. That gaze. That almost-smile that’s becoming familiar.
“Because I noticed.”
Because I noticed. Not because I asked. Not because it was his job. Because he noticed things that bothered me and decided to fix them.
My weather produces a small, involuntary burst of sunshine.
He glances at the window. At the golden light now streaming through.
“Better day?”
“Better day.”
He eases into his chair. Pulls out his phone. Becomes part of my studio’s furniture the way he has every day this week.
And I stand there, eating my stress-reducing scone, watching a poetry-writing bear shifter scroll through his phone in my waiting area, and think:
I’m in so much trouble.
The romance novels on my desk seem to agree.
I pick up “Bearfoot and Pregnant” and flip to the first page.
Just to see what it’s about. Research. Purely research.
Torin doesn’t comment. Doesn’t even look up.
But I could swear his mouth twitches.
Damn him.