You had been sitting on the engawa for nearly an hour, watching the shadows stretch and shrink across the garden. The wooden planks were cool beneath you, worn smooth by years of footsteps.

Footsteps you knew by heart.

It had been weeks since you two had spoken properly. Weeks of passing each other in the hallways, of meals eaten in silence, of glances that never quite met.

Obanai shifted his weight, looking anywhere but at you. The moonlight caught the edge of his bandaged jaw, the sharp line of his profile.