"Some truths are easier to hear in silence. Others, you have to fight for."
The sharp tang of hay and steel filled Hikaru's nose as the first rays of morning filtered through the slats of the stable walls. The horses stirred around him, one of them snorting like thunder in his ear.
He groaned.
"This is why I don't do the countryside," he muttered, sitting up and brushing straw from his hair.
As he stood and stretched, a sudden crack in the distance sliced through the stillness. Hikaru paused. Another. Clack—clack—crack.
He followed the sound on instinct, steps silent as a shadow. Beyond the house, in a clearing flanked by bamboo and worn stone lanterns, Nala was sparring with her grandfather again.
He stopped short.
Her movements were flawless—controlled, sharp. Not the wild kind of power you expect from someone with a lot of strength, but refined. She ducked, pivoted, countered. The wooden sword was like an extension of her body. Kenjiro, nimble despite his age, barked sharp commands, but Nala matched him.
She didn't grunt. She didn't curse. She didn't even smile.
She was emotionless. Efficient. Beautifully cold.
And something about that stirred him.
After several rounds, she landed a blow that forced Kenjiro to call the match. She bowed—barely. Her grandfather nodded and walked away. Hikaru stayed hidden behind a post, arms crossed, watching her as she caught her breath and wiped the sweat from her brow.
"She doesn't play," he whispered to himself.
At breakfast, Emiko did her best to warm the tension with grilled mackerel, miso soup, and green tea.
Kenjiro gave Hikaru all the hospitality of a prison warden. Every time Hikaru reached for something, he could feel the old man's gaze burning a hole through his skull.
"So... Tachibana, was it?" Kenjiro asked between bites. "You from the city?"
"Tokyo. Born and raised," Hikaru replied coolly. "But I've traveled."
"Doing what?"
Hikaru gave a thin smile. "Things."
Kenjiro's eyes narrowed. Emiko gently patted her husband's arm. "Maybe after breakfast you boys can help me tend the garden. The carrots are overgrown again."
"I'm allergic to dirt," Hikaru said flatly.
Nala, without looking up from her tea, snorted. Just once. He counted that as a win.
Later that afternoon, Hikaru stood by the fence near the stables, his fingers brushing over the worn grain of the wood as the wind stirred the tall grass. The scent of horses and wildflowers carried on the breeze, grounding him in the present—but his mind had already drifted to a memory long buried.
His mother's voice, soft and tired in her final days, echoed in his head.
"When you're lost, follow the flame by the river's edge. That's where truth begins, Hikaru."
At the time, he'd thought it was metaphor—just another poetic phrase from a good mother trying to soothe her son. But now, standing here, with the river just a stone's throw away and maple trees blazing red against the hills...
He wasn't so sure anymore.
Could she have meant this place?
He looked around. Nothing overt. No enemies lurking. No signs of intrusion.
Just Nala, sitting beneath that very maple tree, writing—notebook in hand, her dark brown skin lit golden by the late afternoon sun. The breeze tousled her curly black hair, the light catching in her brown eyes as she scribbled something across the page.
He narrowed his eyes. The river. The flame.
Was she the flame?
He shook his head with a scoff. "You're losing it, Tachibana."
Still, he lingered longer than he meant to.
She looked... unreal.
His feet moved before his mind could catch up, steps quiet across the grass.
He stopped just short of the tree. The river whispered nearby, and the rustle of wind in the leaves made it feel like time itself was holding its breath.
"Wow," he whispered, before catching himself. "Beautiful."
The pen froze.
Nala looked up slowly, eyebrow raised.
"You say something?"
Hikaru froze mid-step. "...I said brutal. I meant brutal. Your training. Earlier."
She narrowed her eyes.
He cleared his throat. "I meant it as a compliment."
"I didn't take it that way."
She returned to writing. Hikaru lingered, then walked toward her and crouched beside the tree.
"You always this warm to strangers?"
"You're not a stranger. You're an annoyance."
Hikaru grinned. "Fair enough."
There was a pause.
Then he asked, "Where are you from?"
She kept writing for a while, then spoke without looking up. "Born here. Kyoto. My mother's from Jamaica."
That caught him off guard. "Huh."
"Yeah. Not that anyone lets me forget."
He tilted his head. "Why would they?"
Her pen paused again. Her voice was still calm, but there was a flicker of sharpness underneath.
"You've been in Japan long enough to know how people treat what they don't understand."
She had on a bright yellow dress that hugged her curves just right—soft fabric draped over her hips, the color rich against her sun-kissed skin, making her glow in the dappled light.
He hadn't meant to stare, but his gaze lingered anyway—at the strength in her thighs, the definition in her calves, and the way her waist curved, full and proud, like it was carved from something divine.
"So what—you get judged because you don't look like everyone else?" he asked, voice lower than he intended, but honest all the same.
"I get called big-boned or foreign looking at best. 'Too much' at worst."
Hikaru's jaw flexed.
"In Jamaica, it's different. Curves are admired. You're expected to take up space, not shrink yourself."
He leaned back on his palms and looked at her again.
"Well," he said, smirking, " Japan clearly needs new eyes."
She blinked.
He shrugged. "If they can't handle power and beauty in one body, that's on them."
For the first time, she actually looked at him. Really looked.
Then she rolled her eyes. "You're still annoying."
"Better than being boring."
She shook her head, faintest hint of a smirk tugging her lips. But she turned away again, pen scratching once more across the paper.
Hikaru stayed.
And listened.