The Heartwood 茶葉

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her voice cuts through the haze like a reed through still water, soft but certain, and for a moment, ryūjirō doesn't move. just sits beneath the pines with that massive frame slouched against the weight of his own silence, one hand resting near the hilt of a blade he hasn’t drawn in days. the call of her voice—his name on her tongue, formal and restrained—pulls at something buried in him, something colder than grief and older than rage. masa. that samurai still lingers in his periphery, in every shadow cast by fading sun, and ryūjirō wears that absence like a second skin. but kaede—little kitsune, clever and patient—she stands before him not as a soldier, not as a servant, but as something else. her bow is deep, and he watches her from beneath his lashes, the corners of his mouth dragging into something that might have once been a smirk, had his heart not been cracked in half by the brother who should have stood where she now did. he ain’t here, he says, low, like gravel beneath a boot. and maybe he ain’t coming back. the words carry no malice. just fact. truth that doesn’t sting so much as settle, like ash. and then, softer—something for her, something left behind in the wreckage: where do you want to go, kitsune? his head tilts just slightly, voice rough but rich, laced with something darker than charm. i’ll take you. you say the word.