The mirror in the bridal suite wasn't just old—it was the kind of antique that had witnessed a thousand women transform themselves into brides. The gilded frame caught the afternoon light filtering through the Imperial Hotel's curtains, casting soft halos that were supposed to make you feel ethereal. Magical. Like a princess from a storybook.
Hanae Kurosawa stared at her reflection and saw a stranger wearing her face.
She'd gotten good at this over six years. The careful posture, shoulders rolled forward just enough to seem demure without appearing unhealthy. The gentle breathing that never fully expanded her ribcage. The soft, uncertain smile that made her seem like she needed protecting. She'd practiced that smile in mirrors just like this one until it became automatic. Until she almost believed it herself.
The wedding dress was beautiful, objectively. Custom silk, imported lace, three separate fittings with a seamstress who kept saying things like "we need to minimize the shoulders" and "create a softer silhouette." What she meant was: you need to look smaller. More delicate. Less like whatever you really are.
The corset beneath the dress felt like a punishment. Every breath was a negotiation with the boning, a careful calculation of how much air she could take in without testing the seams. Hanae had fought in abandoned warehouses, had held her breath underwater for three minutes while evading pursuit, had taken a knife to the ribs without making a sound. But this—this slow suffocation in expensive fabric—this felt like dying.
She touched her jaw, fingers ghosting over makeup that had been layered on like plaster. Underneath, she could feel the ridge of the scar. The makeup artist had been horrified when she saw it, had spent two hours erasing it with foundation and powder and God knows what else, all while making sympathetic noises about "accidents" and asking if it hurt when it rained. Hanae had just smiled that empty smile and said something about being clumsy in the kitchen.
The scar was from Yokohama. Seven years ago. A shipping container, a rival clan, a blade that had been aimed for her throat. She'd been twenty-three, already a legend in certain circles, already known as someone you didn't cross unless you had a death wish or were very, very stupid. She'd taken the knife from its owner and used it to paint the walls red.
That woman felt like a myth now. Like something she'd read about in a book.
Don't flex. Don't stand up straight. Don't let them see.
The mantra had become a heartbeat, so constant she barely noticed it anymore. Except in moments like this, when she was alone, when there was no one to perform for. Then the weight of it felt crushing.
Six years of performance art. Six years of pretending her hands were soft when they were marked with calluses no amount of expensive lotion could erase. Six years of acting like the most stressful part of her day was whether the soufflé would rise, when once upon a time she'd orchestrated hits that made the national news. She'd traded the weight of a katana for the weight of groceries. The adrenaline of combat for the anxiety of disappointing Kenji with overcooked fish.
She remembered meeting him with the kind of clarity that felt cruel. He'd been walking home late from the office, still in his junior executive phase, all nervous energy and ambitious dreams. A drunk had stumbled into him, gotten aggressive, gotten loud. Hanae had been in the area—working, always working—and she'd seen it unfold.
She could have ended it in two seconds. One precise strike, and the drunk would have been unconscious before he hit the pavement.
Instead, she'd played damsel. Had let Kenji step between them with his briefcase raised like a shield. Had let him think his stern voice and corporate posture had saved her. Had gasped and clutched his arm and said thank you in a voice pitched high with manufactured fear.
He'd bought her coffee. She'd pretended to be charmed. And somewhere in that coffee shop, with its too-loud music and too-sweet pastries, she'd seen an exit door. A way out of the blood and the violence and the constant looking over her shoulder. She'd seen peace, or what she'd thought peace might look like.
"I love you, Hanae. But I need you to understand something."
His words echoed in her memory with perfect fidelity. They'd been together for six months. She'd been trying so hard, but apparently not hard enough.
"I needed peace. I needed a sanctuary. A place where I could just... breathe. But with you, it's always so intense. You try to be small, but you take up all the air in the room. You look at everything like you're calculating escape routes. You flinch when sirens go by. I don't want a project, Hanae. I don't want someone I have to fix. I just want a wife."
So she'd become smaller.
Not metaphorically. Actually, physically smaller. She'd stopped lifting. Had watched the muscle she'd spent a lifetime building slowly atrophy. Had eaten salads she hated and drunk smoothies that tasted like grass clippings because Kenji said he preferred "petite women." She'd felt her strength leave her body like water draining from a tub, had felt herself becoming weaker, softer, more acceptable.
And the worst part—the part that made her throat tight even now—was that she'd done it willingly. Eagerly, even. Because she'd wanted so desperately to believe that normal was possible. That she could have what other women had. A wedding. A husband. A life that didn't involve checking every room for exits and sleeping with a knife under her pillow.
She'd wanted the fairy tale. And fairy tales required princesses, not warriors.
You're such an idiot, she thought, staring at the stranger in the mirror. You really thought you could just stop being what you are.
"Hanae-sama?"
The wedding planner's head appeared in the doorway, her headset blinking like a warning light. She had that particular smile people used when they were trying very hard to be polite about something they found distasteful.
"It's time. The groom is waiting." Her eyes traveled over Hanae's dress, her carefully styled hair, the makeup that made her look like a porcelain doll. "You look... lovely. Very traditional. Very..." She paused, searching for the word. "...safe."
Safe.
The word landed like a slap. Hanae heard what the woman wasn't saying: You look forgettable. You look like you belong in the background. You look like someone who won't cause problems.
"Thank you," Hanae whispered, voice breathy and small. The voice of someone who'd never raised it in anger. "I'm ready."
She stood, and immediately her body protested. The corset dug into ribs that had once been protected by slabs of oblique muscle. Her latissimus dorsi—still there, still powerful despite everything, lurking beneath the forced softness like a coiled spring—spasmed against the boning of the dress. Her body wanted to expand, to breathe, to move the way it was designed to move.
She forced it down. Forced the Dragon to keep sleeping.
Just a few more hours, she told herself. Then it's done. Then you're Mrs. Sato. Then you're normal.
The lie tasted bitter.
The Imperial Hotel's Grand Ballroom was designed to make you feel small in a good way—the kind of awe that came from crystal chandeliers the size of cars and ceilings painted with cherubs and clouds. It smelled like money and lilies, that particular combination of fresh flowers and expensive perfume that Hanae had learned to associate with people who'd never had to worry about where their next meal was coming from.
Three hundred guests. Tokyo's elite packed into velvet chairs, their jewelry catching the light like warnings. CEOs, politicians, old money in kimonos worth more than most people's yearly salaries. People who moved the world with phone calls and signatures, who measured their worth in buildings and influence.
People who wouldn't spit on her if she were on fire.
The organ began. The Wedding March, played with the mechanical precision of someone who'd performed it a thousand times and would perform it a thousand more. The guests rose in a rustling wave of silk and wool.
The doors opened.
Hanae stepped onto the white runner and immediately wanted to run.
Her senses were still sharp—you didn't unlearn twenty years of survival training in six years of playing house. She'd tried to dull them, tried to stop automatically cataloging exits and potential weapons, but some things were too deeply ingrained. So she heard everything. Every whisper that was meant to be private but wasn't, not to ears trained to pick out footsteps from three rooms away.
"That's her?" A woman in the third row, voice dripping with disdain barely hidden behind a fan. "The Kurosawa girl? I heard she's basically his maid."
"Kenji could have done so much better." A man, voice carrying that particular smugness of someone who enjoyed other people's misfortune. "Look at her. She walks like she's afraid of her own shadow. No presence whatsoever."
"I heard her family disowned her. No dowry, nothing. Kenji's a saint, really, taking in a stray like that."
A stray.
Hanae kept her eyes on the floor, counting steps because looking up meant seeing their faces, seeing the judgment, seeing the way they looked at her like she was something dirty that had wandered in from the street.
This is the price, she reminded herself. This is what normal costs.
But God, the price was high.
Kenji stood at the altar in his white tuxedo, looking like he'd stepped out of a magazine spread. Handsome, successful, perfect. He checked his watch as she approached—not even subtle about it—and when she stumbled slightly on her hem, catching herself before she fell, he didn't reach out. Didn't offer a hand.
Just looked annoyed, like she'd committed some social faux pas by almost falling at her own wedding.
Hanae reached him and bowed. To the priest, to his parents (who looked at her like she was something they'd scraped off their shoe), and finally to Kenji himself.
His eyes were flat. Empty of anything resembling love or even affection. He looked at her the way you'd look at a piece of furniture you were planning to throw away but hadn't gotten around to yet.
When did it change? she wondered. When did he stop pretending?
"We are gathered here today," the priest intoned, voice echoing in the cavernous space, "to join Kenji Sato and Hanae Kurosawa in holy matrimony—"
"Stop."
The word wasn't loud, but it cut through the ceremony like a blade through silk.
The organ died mid-note, leaving a discordant echo hanging in the air. The priest blinked, confused. "Mr. Sato?"
Kenji wasn't looking at the priest. He was looking at the audience, at all those important people in their expensive clothes. He straightened his cuffs—a gesture Hanae had seen a hundred times, the one he used when he was about to close a deal or fire someone.
"I can't do this," he announced, and his lapel mic caught every word, amplified it, sent it echoing through the ballroom. "I can't marry her."
Three hundred people gasped as one.
Three hundred heads swiveled toward Hanae.
She stood frozen, the bouquet trembling in her hands. White roses. Innocence. Purity. Lies.
"Kenji?" She made her voice small, confused, hurt. It wasn't hard. "What... what are you saying?"
He looked at her then, really looked at her, and his expression was so contemptuous it was almost physical.
"Look at you, Hanae. Really look at yourself." He gestured at her like she was evidence in a trial. "You're boring. You're bland. For six years, you've just... existed in my space. Like a piece of furniture. Like wallpaper. You have no dreams, no ambitions, no spark. You're just... there."
The words hit like bullets. Each one precise, aimed to wound.
"I did everything for you," Hanae said, and this time the tremor in her voice was real. "I supported your career. I took care of your home. I—"
"Cooking and cleaning isn't love, Hanae. It's servitude." Kenji's voice was almost kind now, which made it worse. "You looked at me like I was your savior every single day for six years. Do you know how exhausting that is? How suffocating? Emi doesn't need me to save her. She just needs me to love her. Do you understand the difference?"