Chapter 6
Author's Note: There is content later in the chapter that might fall under the netori label. Reader discretion is advised.
By the time I finally relented and let Okunami drag me to the communal bathhouse, my skin seemed permanently caked in a blend of sweat, forge soot, and the fine iron powder that clung to everything in Irontown like a curse. I'd put off a proper wash for weeks, content to dab my face and hands with cold water at the forge's trough, but the ever-mounting grimace from my coworkers and Okunami's relentless teasing left me no more room to hide. When I entered the bathhouse, I realized that, despite its rustic construction, it was something of a marvel: a sturdy lattice of cedar beams and bamboo screens, designed with meticulous intent to capture the rising steam and direct it through the rafters, creating a perpetual haze of warmth and woodsy fragrance. The place was clean, despite the obvious wear and tear, and perpetually alive with the gentle buzz of community.
The interior was divided by a long, mino-papered wall that split the steamy chamber into two uneven halves. Some architect's nod to modesty, perhaps—though the wall's paper was more suggestion than barrier. Even standing at the threshold, I could hear the unfiltered cackling and the slap of towels from the women's section, where Okunami had undoubtedly already made her presence known.
"Mikko-san graces us with his presence!" crowed one of the men, a squat, hairless fellow with an ear missing and a grin that never quit. He was scrubbing his forearm with a ragged block of pumice as if trying to erase the arm entirely. The others in the men's section looked up with varying degrees of amusement, curiosity, or polite disinterest. For the most part, the townsmen were brawny laborers: charcoalers, miners, the rare engineer or technician, all with the powerful backs and scarred hands of those who wrestled with iron every day of their lives.
"Finally!" Okunami's unmistakable bark exploded from the other side. "I thought Lady Eboshi had chained you to your worktable!"
I allowed myself a tight smile, more for show than anything, and began to undress. The act felt almost ritualistic in this time and place: stacking my patched work clothes in a neat bundle, lining up my battered boots with the others, careful not to make a mess. Despite the sense of communal nakedness, there was an unspoken etiquette—averted eyes, quick and efficient movements, everyone equal in their vulnerability.
The water was mercifully, gloriously hot. I sank into the knee-deep pool with a groan that was only half feigned, feeling the heat penetrate my bones and set to work on the knots in my back and calves. I let my eyes close, savoring the sensation—and promptly heard more laughter from the other side of the wall.
"See?" Okunami crowed. "He's just like a cat who finally trusts you enough to show his belly! Don't scare him off and he'll purr all day."
I couldn't decide if it was mortifying or comforting, the way she insisted on treating me like an unruly pet. It must have been both.
"I've been busy," I called out, my voice echoing around the tiled chamber. The acoustics were designed to amplify every syllable, so I didn't need to shout. "You know, with the whole… you know…"
"Busy changing the world!" she shouted, her tone equal parts mockery and pride. "Half the town's talking about your crazy schemes and how you keep improving everything bit by bit. If this keeps up, we'll all be living to a hundred and dying of boredom!"
That drew a round of raucous laughter from both sides of the partition—men and women alike. I hunched deeper into the water, steam rising off my pale skin, and wished I could disappear. But the warmth was working its magic, and I felt some of my accumulated tension begin to float away alongside the ever-present fatigue.
The men's section was a chorus of comfortable banter. Someone passed a battered gourd of cheap plum wine around the edge of the pool, and I took a careful sip when it was offered. The burn of alcohol was gentler than the heat of the bath, but it was pleasant, grounding. I watched as the others joked and traded stories about the day's work, the most recent batch of ore, the latest mishap with a wayward cart. They seemed oblivious to (or simply unbothered by) the dirt on their own bodies; a man could scrub away the day but still wear its memory in every scrape and bruise.
An older man—Denji, if I remembered right, with a face like a knotted oak—was the first to address me directly. "Mikko-san. Heard from my wife that you're the reason the air around the town doesn't taste like ash anymore." He nodded toward the partition, where the women's voices were now engaged in loud, overlapping gossip. "She says it's the first time in a good while she's slept through the night without coughing."
I didn't know how to respond. I'd spent most of my days in Irontown buried in calculations, blueprints, and test runs, focused on the next incremental improvement in furnace design or water filtration system. I'd known, in the abstract, that success would mean something for the people here, but I hadn't let myself dwell on it. To do so would make the failures sting more. But Denji's gratitude was plain, and so I nodded, too, awkwardly.
"I'm glad," I said. "I hope it lasts. There's always more work to do."
He grunted, a sound of approval, then clapped me on the shoulder with a strength that nearly sent me face-first into the pool. "You'll do fine. You do good work, Mikko-san. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
There was a chorus of agreement. Several others chimed in with their own stories: kids with fewer nosebleeds, parents with fewer headaches, a newborn who hadn't yet learned the taste of iron or coal dust. Each account made the enormity of what I was attempting feel a little less ridiculous, and a little more vital. Maybe, for the first time since I'd arrived, I actually believed I was accomplishing something of worth.
On the other side of the wall, Okunami could sense my discomfort—or maybe she just reveled in fueling it further. "Careful," she called out. "If you flatter him too much, he'll start making demands. Next thing we know, he'll want a title!"
"Hell, let him have one! He already has Lady Eboshi's ear!" someone else from the women's section replied.
That sparked another round of laughter, and a volley of increasingly creative complaints about the town's leadership, the food, the weather, and the chronic shortage of proper soap. I let the conversation swirl around me, content to drift in and out of focus, enjoying the warmth and the heady sense of belonging that came from being just another worker soaking sore muscles at the end of a long day.
Eventually, the talk subsided into companionable silence, punctuated by the occasional splash or sigh. I let my mind wander, just as it always did when my body finally got the chance to rest. I thought of home—the real one, the one I'd left behind—and what my mother would think of this place, these people. I wondered if I'd ever get used to the constant noise, or if I'd ever be able to fully let go of my old life and call this one my own.
After what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, I caught the unmistakable sound of Okunami's laughter, softer now, blended with the gentle splashing of water. I could picture her, probably lounging at the far edge of the women's pool, arms draped along the rim and a grin stretching from ear to ear. I wondered again where she'd come from—what had drawn her to this town, to this life. She'd told me a few stories in passing, but I suspected there was much she kept hidden.
"So what's the next big plan, Mikko?" she called out, her tone almost conversational now. "Going to teach us all to fly? Or maybe figure out how to make the ore sort itself?"
I considered the question for longer than I meant to. "Just trying to keep everyone alive a little longer," I answered at last. "That's ambitious enough for me."
There was a pause, and then, softer: "Good enough for us, too."
The communal bathhouse was not a place for solitary contemplation, but for the first time, I didn't mind the company. I finished washing up, feeling more like a part of the town than I had the day before, and maybe even looking forward to the next time Okunami dragged me here against my will.
As I left, towel slung over my shoulder, I heard a snatch of conversation from the women's side—laughter, but I figured it was probably nothing important, so I paid it no mind.
"Hey, did you hear what happened Rika did yesterday?"
"No, what?"
Toki sank a little deeper until the heat reached the tight spot between her shoulder blades and answered without missing a beat. "She bet Reina she could lift the small ladle alone if she 'put her back into it,' then near dropped the pour on her own toes. Only thing saved her was the mould was half-empty. Now she's Red-Toes for a good while." The women around her burst into cackles, the sound bouncing off cedar and steam.
"Serves her right," Reina called from two buckets over, splashing water at Toki's knee. "Show-off nearly gave me a heart attack. If she tries that again I'll tie the ladle to her ankle."
Toki's mind was only half paying attention to the conversation. Instead she thought about the foreigner's way of speech after he left.
The words seemed to just… drift out of his mouth whenever he spoke—modest, always modest—and Toki felt that small prickle of amusement she hadn't expected to feel for him, not when she'd sworn to keep a healthy distance. He never took a compliment clean, always batted it back like it embarrassed him to be thanked for doing a good job.
"Ah, but Red-Toes was trying to impress someone," another woman sing-songed. "Seems half the forge is." The look she gave Toki made a few eyebrows lift, grins starting.
Toki rolled her eyes. "Don't look at me. I've got a fool at home who can't keep his sandals in a pair, I've no energy for training another."
"Your fool's sweet," Reina said, loyal even in teasing. "He brought me sweet potatoes when I was sick."
"Mm," Toki said noncommittally, though her mouth softened despite herself. Sweet wasn't the same as steady. Being sweet helped when you ran a fever and needed someone to care for you, not when your workplace was hazardous for your health.
"Hey, Okunami!" a girl shouted toward the wall, bold with youth. "What do oni think of the pale guy?"
Okunami's laugh boomed so loudly even the men stopped what they were doing. "He's all gristle and quiet. Would make him good for carrying, and even better for other things!" Another round of laughter, ruder this time.
Toki snorted and slapped the surface of the water, sending a small wave against Okunami's side of the wall. "Your tongue should pay rent, Oni. It takes up half the bathhouse."
"Ha!" Okunami crowed. "I'd like to see you come take it from me, forge-queen!"
They were all sunshine with her these days. The oni had worked like only a demon could all week, hauling timber as if the weight of the loads were merely a suggestion to her. And people laughed along with her easier now that the air didn't hurt to breathe.
"Since we're asking questions," Reina said, voice turning sly, "does anyone know if he's, you know, got someone? I heard he dodged Fuji's hints like it was water off a duck's back."
"I asked," came a voice from the far end—Kaede, the one with a missing front tooth and no shame to speak of. She pushed wet hair off her brow. "Caught him at the lunch shed. He looked me right in the face like a shrine statue and said he's never had a wife or even a mistress. Not once."
The steam seemed to pause with all the intakes of breath.
"Never?" Reina's eyes went wide.
"Not even a widow turned him out? Poor thing." another woman said.
"Gods," someone murmured, and Toki couldn't tell if it was pity or hunger in it.
They all turned to considerations then. The single ones with that bright, wicked light in their eyes. The married ones trying to look disinterested and failing. A few whispered about his pale hands steady on a ladder, about the way he spoke like you were the only one in the room, clear and careful, as if your words mattered. The younger girls giggled about his strange clothes; the older ones talked about how smart and thorough he was regardless of what it was that he did.
Toki scrubbed her arms, slower now. She'd meant what she said—Kohroku was hers, even if he left his tools where feet found them in the dark, even if his stories ran long and his shoulders didn't. He was a gentle soul. He brought her dried persimmons without being asked. He went under the ox cart when the axle squealed and fixed it, though he'd rather sing while doing so.
She loved him, curse him.
But the foreigner's hands in her mind were not gentle—they were exact. The way he sealed the seam on the chimney, thumb smoothing the paste until it lay flat, then checked it again because he preferred to trust his own senses over his pride. The way he'd said he would take the blame if the changes slowed the production of iron.
No man in Irontown made promises like that where others could hear, let alone kept to them.
Whenever she overheard him answer Okunami's jibes, it seemed to always with something quiet and wry.
It wasn't so much the words as the tone—steady, sure of their place in his mouth. He didn't boast, but neither did he walk on eggshells and apologize for breathing.
He just… said his piece, he didn't need to do much else.
"Never married, huh?" Reina repeated, almost to herself, then laughed to cut the softness of it. "Then he needs a woman twice over. One to show him how not to burn his own shirt while cooking, and another to keep him from wandering off into a ditch thinking about numbers."
"I'll volunteer," Kaede said, hand in the air like a child. "For… cooking duties." The chorus that followed was all hoots and exaggerated coughs.
"Spread yourselves out," Toki said dryly. "You'll trample each other and scare him back to whatever faraway land he came from."
"Men get strange when they're lonely," one of the widows said, a woman who'd learned the hard way how the nights could stretch. "They all pretend it doesn't hurt them but it does."
Toki wiped her face, eyes closed for a moment against the stinging heat. Yes. She knew lonely—even with a house full of noise, even with Kohroku's joyous laughter at his own bad jokes, even with women on every side of her at the forge. It slipped in during the walk home, kept pace beside her shadow, laid itself down at night and stared at the rafters.
"Don't get soft," she told herself under her breath, so faintly that the hiss of steam nearly swallowed it. But Reina, of course, heard everything.
"What was that?" Reina asked, glancing sidelong with a smirk as she scooped a double-handful of water over her hair.
"Nothing." Toki shrugged, tracing lazy shapes in the wet cedar below her knees. "Thinking about how to keep Rika from burning off the other five toes."
"You could take a gift," Kaede chimed in, voice sly and knowing, as if she'd been waiting all night for her cue. "To the man whose inventions keep us all in one piece. A personal thanks never hurt anyone."
"You taking your own advice?" Toki fired back, raising an eyebrow.
"I would," Kaede said, utterly unashamed, "if I thought I'd be the first to the door." She grinned, flashing the gap where her front tooth should have been. It made her look both younger and older than her years, and it gave every joke she told a little more bite.
On the other side of the plank wall, Okunami whistled, the note low and teasing. "He doesn't like big crowds," she called out, laughter curling through the steam. "Told me so himself. Goes still as a deer when too many eyes are on him. I think he also said something about listening to one voice being easier than a dozen all at once."
Toki's lips threatened to curl upward, but she managed to keep her face composed. She couldn't help but picture it—the foreigner hunched over some impossible diagram, head bowed, dog at his heel like a living footstool. She'd seen him like that before, working alone in the blue hush of predawn, hands covered in graphite and lines of sweat at his brow. There was an odd patience to him, a way of moving that made even the smallest task seem like a sacred ritual.
She poured a ladle of hot water over her head and stood up, letting the heat chase away whatever thoughts threatened to linger. "Enough talk. We'll parboil in here and be no good for the evening shift."
"Which of us is delivering the thanks, then?" Reina sing-songed, voice bright but eyes sharp as she watched Toki towel off. "We should draw lots."
"No lots," Toki said, wringing water from the tips of her hair. She forced a casual tone. "If anyone goes, do it out of kindness for what he's done—not for spectacle." She reached for her robe, shrugged it on, and cinched the sash tight. "I'll bring him some of the persimmon cakes Kohroku's aunt left. He can chew on those while he thinks up his next miracle."
Beside her, Reina's gaze flickered. She read more in those words than Toki wanted to share, but she only smiled, eyes gone soft with the secrets women kept for each other. "Of course," she replied, managing to sound both sincere and deeply amused. "Out of kindness."
"Out of thanks," Toki insisted, though her heart gave a traitorous skip.
The women began filing out, towel-wrapped and drowsy, voices dissolving into talk of work quotas and the ever-present logistics of charcoal crates and who owed whom a favor. Toki lingered longer than the rest, letting the vapor clear from her lungs, her fingers pressed flat against the thick wood. On the far side, Okunami thumped the wall with her fist. The blow was soft; the message was not.
"Forge-queen," came the oni's low rumble. "If you go, go alone."
Toki snorted, but the sound was more uncertain than she liked. "You planning to chaperone?"
"Planning to sleep." Okunami's reply was cheerful, but what followed was not. "Just don't break him. I aim to have a piece myself, in time."
"Please," Toki said, rolling her eyes to hide the heat that crept up her neck. She slipped her feet into her sandals, gathered her bundle, and made her way toward the western exit. "I'm just taking him cakes."
"We both know you're not," Okunami replied, voice sober now. "Toki, I may not be human, but I know men—and I know loneliness. Don't go unless you mean it. Mikko-san's not the kind to take a gift without thinking about what it costs."
"What do you mean? A gift's a gift."
Okunami's answer came without hesitation: "There's always a trade, even if you don't name it out loud." She paused, the scrape of her knuckles against the plank barely audible over the sighing pipes. "But if you're really bringing a gift just to bring it, then that's the kind of thing he'll remember long after the taste is gone. He's that sort."
Toki let the words settle, the truth of them stinging sharper than any scald. Maybe it wasn't kindness—it was longing, or even a little bit of selfishness. But wasn't all thanks a little selfish? A person wanted to be remembered as the one who brought comfort, even if only for a moment.
She left the bathhouse with skin flushed and heart jumpy, winding her way through the evening shadows curling over Irontown's lanes. The cool air bit at her bare calves and made the hair on her arms stand up. She stopped by the canteen hut, greeted the night cook, and traded a few jokes as she wrapped the cakes in a square of waxed cloth. The sweetness bled through the napkin, leaving sticky patches on her palm.
She felt eyes on her all the way up the winding path to the row of guest quarters. Some of the younger workers were gathering for the shift change, and as Toki passed, she caught the glimmer of gossip in their sideways glances. She ignored it. Let them talk.
When she reached Mikko's door though, she hesitated, listening for signs of life. All was quiet save for the scratching of paper and faint, soft mumbling.
She raised her hand, but again, paused as she considered for a moment whether this was indeed a good idea. Okunami's words played around in her head on repeat even as her knuckles connected on the door frame in firm and brisk knock.
"Kohroku… beloved husband… forgive your foolish wife for what she's about to do for the sake of someone else's happiness." She muttered to herself quietly.
I was staying up late reviewing production figures in my room alone, having allowed Okunami to have Nakki over today since the two seemed to get along quite fine.
He was an energetic little fella who thrived on exactly the kind of attention she could give him, and it was better for my focus to not have him act as a constant distraction when I really needed to focus on work.
However, before I could dwell on the matter further, my night of solitude was interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Mikko-san? Are you awake?"
It was Toki.
"I wonder what she wants this late at night." I muttered as I walked over to the sliding door and pushed it open.
Toki was indeed standing there, expectantly.
"Something you need?" I asked as I looked at her.
…Was her clothing always that loose?
"Perhaps. May I come in?"
I stepped aside to allow her through before we both sat at the table.
She stepped inside on silent feet, the thick red robe belted carelessly, her hair still wet from the bath and leaving a trail of droplets that spattered the clean swept floor. For a moment she just stood and looked at me, as if taking stock of the fact that I was, in fact, simply a man and not some magical engine of progress. I gestured for her to sit, but she didn't; instead, she drifted to the table and flipped through the rumpled diagrams and production reports I had been laboring over for the better part of the evening.
Toki's hands hovered over the mess, lightly touching the tools I'd cobbled together from the smithy's offcuts—the calipers, the battered slide rule, the block of white chalk... She took up the abacus, turning it over in her palm, then set it down and squared her shoulders with a deliberateness that made me wary. Her eyes, when they found mine, were the color of riverbed mud after rain, but clear and intent.
"I wanted to ask something," she said, voice carefully steady. "But also to thank you. You have made things… different for all of us, and for me especially."
I blinked. No one in Irontown ever thanked directly; gratitude was baked into the shared labor, into the way people left an extra helping of rice or passed a cup of sake when you looked thirsty. This was new. Dangerous, even.
"Okay," I said. "Ask away."
She propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward, cheeks flushed and damp, gaze never wavering. "Why?"
The question hit with more force than expected. I opened my mouth, closed it, and tried again. "Why what?"
"All of it," she said, motioning with a small circle of her hand. "The new tools and inventions, the recipes, the endless ideas. You give and give but don't seem to ask for anything back, not even respect, which is the minimum a man expects in a place like this." She tilted her chin at me, not unkindly. "You're a foreigner. You could hoard your secrets and barter them for favors, the way any sensible man would. Instead—" She ran a finger down the ledger's spines "—you just… give it away. Why?"
The words hung in the air like vapor. I had rehearsed answers for this, but all of them seemed brittle and false in the face of Toki's earnest curiosity.
There were a dozen complicated reasons, from gratitude at having the opportunity to come into their lives uninvited like I did to the simple pleasure of seeing my work tangibly improve lives, but the most honest answer felt too raw to say.
I wanted to matter.
I wanted to feel that after years of drifting through the world as a middling teacher and less-than-middling friend, I could finally build something that no one would want to tear down. I wanted to belong.
But I couldn't say that, so I just shrugged. "I guess I've always liked solving problems. If I see one, I want to fix it. Otherwise, it will just keep bothering me." I tried for a smile. "And besides, everyone here works so hard. It's the least I can do, really."
Toki was quiet for a long time, just breathing through her nose and drumming her fingers on the tabletop. She seemed to accept my awkward half-answer, but the silence that followed felt weighted, as if we were both waiting for the other to break it.
Eventually, she did. "You know, the women talk about you," she said, with a sly tilt to her mouth. "They say you are clever but also soft. Not soft in the sense that you're weak. Like you don't know how to bare your teeth and take what you want, not really."
I shrugged again. It was true. Even back home, I was more likely to offer someone else the last dumpling than to make a fuss over it.
She grinned, as if I'd proven her point, and reached across to flick a bit of graphite off my chin. "You're a good man, Mikko-san," she said, her fingers lingering a beat longer than necessary.
I blushed—actually, physically blushed. This was mortifying.
She watched me, head cocked, and then laughed softly, the sound more gentle than mocking. "Forgive me. That was not the question I wanted to ask, just the one I needed to." She slid the cloth-wrapped package toward me then, and I realized it must be the persimmon cakes—rich, fragrant, still faintly warm through the waxed paper.
My mouth watered. I considered politely refusing, then remembered how much I missed the taste of actual fruit. "Thank you," I said, more sincerely than I meant to.
She nodded and I took one of the cakes, taking an experimental bite. It was... plainer than I expected, still sweet, but it was nothing like the baked goods of my own time that had plenty of sugar and fat in them. The silence that accompanied my eating though was pleasant, almost easy.
Toki began to stand, then hesitated, as if considering whether to push her luck a little further. "Mikko-san," she said, again, but this time her voice was smaller, more uncertain, "may I ask one more thing? A personal question."
I took another bite before gesturing for her to proceed.
She bit her lip—not coyly, but as one who is weighing the risk of saying something irreversible.
"Do you ever get lonely, here? With us?" she asked.
Something about the way she said "with us" made it clear she meant herself, maybe Okunami, maybe some larger "us" that was less about the town and more about the people who had gathered here as outcasts and misfits. I started to answer, the usual platitude on my tongue—No, I'm fine, everyone is so friendly, I have Nakki—but the words knotted and refused to come out.
"…Yes," I admitted, after a time. "Sometimes I do."
Her hands twisted in her lap, squeezing at the edge of her robe. For a woman known for her sharp tongue and brisk demeanor, she seemed suddenly, deeply nervous.
She looked at me with a kind of fierce tenderness, like she was about to say something momentous. "You could have said so," she whispered. "There's no shame in asking for company."
She reached across the table again, took my hand, and squeezed. Her skin was callused, warm, and slightly rough from working the forges.
I was suddenly very aware of the space between us growing smaller.
Then she did something I truly did not expect. She leaned in over the table and kissed me, lightly, on the cheek. I felt the press of her lips long after she'd pulled away.
I stared at her, stunned. "T-Toki? Aren't you supposed to be married?" The words tumbled out without dignity.
She grinned, all teeth and confidence now. "Who says that should prevent me? Kohroku won't know, will he?"
"That's not the problem," I managed, voice cracking on the word. "It's whether this is wise." But I made no move to stop her when she shifted around the corner of the table, closing the distance so that her knees brushed mine.
She studied me, reading every flinch and micro-expression, before she spoke again. "If you ask me to leave, I will. If you want me to stay, I will do that too."
I did not ask her to leave.
She took my silence as answer and moved closer, until we were side by side—her shoulder pressed to mine, the heat from her skin bleeding through the sleeve of my tunic. The bundle of cakes was forgotten, nudged aside by her elbow as she reached for my hand again, this time lacing her fingers through mine.
"It's only for tonight," she said, her voice low and serious. "Tomorrow, I'll be the same as I always am. But I want this. And I think you do too."
I swallowed. My mouth was dry, my heart thumping so hard it felt as if it would rattle the table. She leaned in again, brushed her lips across my jaw, then trailed them to my ear. "You can tell me to stop any time," she whispered. "I will not be angry."
I didn't tell her to stop. Instead, I turned my head so that when she kissed me again, it landed on my mouth. Her lips were chapped but soft, and she tasted faintly sweet, like the persimmon cakes she'd brought. The initial kiss was gentle, exploratory, but when I didn't pull away, she deepened it, her hand coming up to cradle the back of my neck.
I was trembling, just a little. I hadn't been with anyone since waking in this world, and honestly, not for even before that. My mind kept racing ahead, trying to anticipate how this could go wrong, but she gave me no room for self-doubt. She kissed me again, and again, and when she pulled back, she looked at me with a hunger so naked it made me dizzy.
Her hand slid down to the hem of my shirt, bunching the coarse cloth in her fist. She hesitated, eyes searching mine for any last resistance.
"Are you sure?" she asked, the words echoing between us like a challenge and a dare, a test of whether I would finally seize something just for myself. Her gaze was steady and unwavering, but there was a tremor hiding in the set of her jaw. I could see she wanted to give me an out, one last chance to close the door on whatever was about to erupt between us, but I was already past the point where that was possible. My throat was dry. My heart thudded so violently I was half afraid it would fracture my ribs. I should have said no. I should have taken the out she offered. Instead I found myself nodding, not trusting my voice.
"Not really, but I don't want to make this awkward for you by backing out," I managed, the words strangled and thin.
She burst into laughter, the sound bowling out of her and filling the tiny room to the rafters. "For a man as big as you are… you are adorable, Mikko-san," she snorted, then doubled down with a series of little hiccuping giggles. There was no ridicule in it, only honest, unguarded delight—like she was genuinely thrilled that I was nervous, that I was not the implacable, sexless scholar everyone in Irontown seemed to think.
The laughter faded, and the grin that followed was slow and predatory and honest in a way that left no confusion about her intentions. She reached out with both hands and grabbed the hem of my shirt, dragging it up to expose my chest, then over my head with a roughness that caught and scraped the fabric across my nose. When I complained with a flinch and a whine, she just grinned wider and tugged harder, leaving my hair standing up in wild static. In a single practiced motion she shrugged her own robe off, letting it pool around her waist and then the floor, standing naked and unafraid over me as if daring me to look away.
Toki's body was nothing like the fantasy images of adult models seared into my memory from late-night porn browsing. It was a body of natural proportions, work-hardened and thick with muscle, arms and shoulders full of bulk built up through the process of hard physical labor, swinging hammers and carrying buckets of ore. Faded scars mapped her skin like pale reminders of a dozen old accidents. Her breasts were small and sharp, nipples a dark contrast against the flush of her pale skin. There was a faint line of pinkish stretch marks at her hips, a dappled freckling at the small of her back. Her legs were sturdy, those of a woman who had spent a lot of time in a squatting position over a forge. She was not "beautiful," not by the narrow standards of runway models or anime heroines, but she was alive and real and above all, she did not give a single damn whether she pleased me or not. She intended to take what she wanted.
She straddled my lap, her thighs caging me in, the heat of her skin blazing through the thin linen of my trousers. She leaned in, not with the gentle caution of a shy lover, but with the hungry determination of someone who had spent a lifetime grabbing at small scraps of happiness whenever they tumbled within reach. I jerked slightly as she ran her hands up my chest and then down again, tracing the line of my ribs, the muscles of my stomach. She was inventorying me, itemizing what I was, what I was not. Sizing me up for a future, maybe, or simply for the next five minutes.
"Well, maybe I can help convince you," she whispered, and before I could fire off even a half-hearted protest her fingers were already at the drawstring of my waistband. She tugged it loose, then ran a single callused hand up my thigh, the touch slow and loaded with intent. For a split second I thought I might pass out from sheer anticipation. Her hand was rough and warm and far less uncertain than I was, and when she curled her fingers around the bulge straining against my trousers I made an utterly embarrassing noise in the back of my throat.
She laughed again, but this time it was not mocking—more like she was deeply pleased to be the cause of my surprise. With a practiced flick of her fingers, she undid the knot at my waist and yanked the trousers down, just far enough to expose what she wanted. I tried to cover myself, but she took my wrists and pinned them above my head, leaning her weight into the hold, her breath hot on my cheek.
"See, you look so stern all the time, but I knew you would be soft and malleable underneath," she teased, then let go and ran her hand down, taking her time. She stroked me, slow at first, as if she was mapping every ridge and vein, every twitch and gasp. Then she squeezed harder, as if she wanted to remind me that she was the one in control.
I shivered under her touch, the sensation so raw and so unfamiliar that I hardly knew what to do with my hands—so I let them hover in the air at her sides, unsure if I was allowed to touch her, unsure what the rules were in this new, ridiculous reality.
She noticed my hesitation, and with a single, deliberate movement, she grabbed my right hand and brought it up to her breast. "You're allowed," she murmured, and the words felt like an invitation to a secret club I had only ever dreamed of joining.
I cupped her breast, surprised by its weight and the softness of the skin beneath my fingers. Her nipple was already hard, and when I brushed it with my thumb she hissed in approval. She ground herself against my lap, the pressure through the thin cloth almost enough to undo me then and there.
"You're looking at me like you've never seen a girl's tits before," she said, a note of fondness laced through the bravado.
I considered telling her the truth—that I hadn't, not like this, not in a way that counted—but instead I leaned in and kissed her collarbone, tasting the salt of her sweat and the faint sharpness of the soap she'd used in the bath. She shivered and wrapped both arms around my neck, then dipped her head to bite softly at my ear.
"Gods, you are a treasure," she said, and for a moment I believed her.
She let go of my hand and used both of hers to pull at my trousers again, yanking them down below my knees. My cock sprang free, red and rigid and—if I was being honest—far less impressive than I wished. She looked down at it, then up at me, and grinned like a child finding an extra mochi in the festival basket. She spat in her palm and stroked me again, slick and sure, never once breaking eye contact.
Her other hand went to her own body, working lower and lower until she was rubbing herself, two fingers buried in the dark, hairy patch between her thighs. She didn't perform for me; she just did what she liked, eyes fluttering shut as she worked herself wetter and then brought her hand up to my mouth.
"Lick," she commanded, and I obeyed, tasting her on my tongue—salty, musky, intoxicating. She watched me do it, then wiped her fingers on my lips and kissed me hard, as if to seal the flavor between us.
She was bold, but not cruel; she paused more than once, checking my face for signals, for the flash of panic or regret. When she found none, she grew rougher, grinding herself against me in little circles, building up friction until I thought I would lose my mind. At some point, she caught my hand again and brought it back between her legs, guiding my fingers to the spot that made her knees shudder. I learned quickly, watching her reactions, adjusting my pressure, my speed.
"Good," she gasped, after a particularly deep stroke. "You learn well."
I flushed with pride—a ridiculous emotion, maybe, but honest all the same. I wanted to please her, wanted to give her something that no one else could. Maybe that was vanity, or maybe just gratitude, but I was swept up in the current, no longer flailing but swimming for the first time in unfamiliar waters.
She shifted her hips, letting her robe fall open, and I saw the pale expanse of her shoulder, the curve of her breast, the straining muscle of her belly. She was astonishing—every part of her built for movement and effort, no softness except where it mattered. She took my face in both hands and kissed me again, slower this time, as if she wanted to memorize the taste of every part of me.
When she broke away, she looked at me with a seriousness that I had never seen before, not even in the darkest days when the clan was under siege.
"I want you to remember this, all of it," Toki breathed, her words vibrating in the tight space between us. "When you're alone, or hurting, or thinking too much—remember that you belong here, Mikko-san. You're one of us. And that's a rare and beautiful thing."
She pressed her lips to my lips again, a softer kiss than before, then reached down and lined me up with her entrance. The moment stretched out, infinite and trembling, as she hovered above me, catching her breath.
She was already wet—slicker than fresh riverstones, hotter than the close-packed coals that glowed beneath Irontown's furnaces—and as I watched her kneel over me, the wordless certainty of what she wanted collapsed the last of my hesitation. Toki hovered for a single, suspended heartbeat, watching my face with a gaze so direct it burned, and then she lowered herself onto me with the slow, controlled violence of a hammer striking hot metal. There was no delicate hesitation, no feigned shyness or practiced tease: she took me in all at once, bottoming out with an audible slap of flesh, a sound that echoed around us like the ring of a smith's anvil.
For a moment, she just sat there, impaling herself on me, eyes squeezed shut and lips parted in a white-toothed snarl of victory. The sensation was so intense I nearly yelped, but the noise caught in my throat and came out as a strangled gasp. She was impossibly tight, her muscles gripping me with the greedy ferocity of a starving animal, and it was all I could do to keep my hands from flying to her hips in a desperate bid for purchase. Instead, I let them hover in the empty air beside me, unsure if she'd slap them away or invite them in, unwilling to risk breaking the spell with a single wrong move.
Toki's body was a sculpture of effort, a monument to every hardship and labor she'd survived. The sweat on her skin made her gleam in the lantern light, beads running down her neck, tracing the edge of her clavicle and pooling between her small, firm breasts. My vision tunneled; all I could see was the arch of her back and the way her hair curtained her face, wild and tangled from work and now from pleasure. She didn't move, not at first, just ground herself down onto me in slow, rolling circles, making tiny, savory adjustments as if calibrating some complex industrial machine. I felt every twitch, every flutter. I was certain she could feel my pulse through the entire length of my body.
She let out a sound, half grunt, half moan, and cracked open one eye to observe me. The look was equal parts challenge and conspiratorial glee—she was not performing, not for me, not for anyone. She found pleasure on her own terms and dared me to keep up.
"You're bigger than you look," she muttered, voice roughened by both lust and the ever-present coal dust that scraped her lungs raw. "Took a second to get used to it. But I like a challenge."
I couldn't summon a response. My thoughts were a blizzard, every rational synapse blasted away by the intensity of her heat and the knowledge that this was really happening. That I was here, now, with a woman so alive she scorched away every self-conscious thought I'd ever hoarded.
She started to move, slowly at first, lifting herself up just enough for me to slip out an inch or two, then slamming back down with a force that rattled my teeth. Each stroke was deliberate, a demonstration of muscle and willpower; each time she impaled herself, she let out a little huff from the effort, and a wicked grin flickered across her face. She braced both hands on my chest, fingers spread wide, nails digging just enough to sting. The pain somehow clarified the pleasure, rooting me in the moment.
I shuddered, nearly losing control, but she caught the warning in my eyes and eased up, switching from force to finesse in a way that was almost tender. Toki sat back on her heels, still impaled, and started rolling her hips with a fluid, grinding motion that made me see stars. She leaned back, hands planted on my knees for leverage, and I watched the muscles in her belly and thighs ripple with each movement, watched sweat drip down her spine to the small of her back before pooling on my own skin.
"You're allowed to touch, you know," she teased, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I won't bite. Unless you want me to."
I reached for her, tentative at first, then bolder as I wrapped my hands around her waist and helped guide her rhythm. Her skin was hot and smooth and slick under my palms, the bones of her pelvis sharp and unyielding beneath a layer of dense, functional muscle. When I ran my thumbs along the stretch marks at her hips, she shivered and flashed her teeth in approval.
Every shift of her body sent ripples of sensation through me, and I realized with a jolt that I'd never had sex before—never actually, truly had it, not in a way that mattered. This was not the choreographed, abstract fantasy I'd half-imagined from bad hentai and worse conversations in high school. This was messy, feral, loud. There was nothing polite about it, nothing restrained or demure. It was sweat and heat and laughter and the looming desperation that she'd decide she was done and walk away, leaving me gasping in the ruins.
Toki rode me with a confidence that bordered on arrogance, and I was helpless to do anything but cling to her as she fucked me into the mat. The room was filled with the wet slap of skin, the staccato breathing, my own embarrassing noises muffled by her body as she ground herself down on me. She alternated between slow, torturous grinds and sudden, wild thrusts, sometimes slamming down so hard I worried she'd break me. But the pain—in my hips, my thighs, my lower back—only made the pleasure sharper, more urgent.
She leaned forward and bit the side of my neck, hard enough that I yelped. She licked the spot, then drew back to look at my face, her eyes lit with a wild, hungry light.
"You're going to remember this," she promised, her voice thick and ragged. "You're going to remember me every time you fuck another woman in this place."
The words landed in my chest like a hammer. I laughed, more from disbelief than anything, but the rush of it sent a tremor through her and she rolled her hips again, harder, faster. I tried to keep up, digging my heels into the tatami, meeting her thrusts as best I could, but she was always half a beat ahead, steering the tempo and the direction.
When she finally let her own pleasure take over, it was like a dam breaking. Her breathing turned to ragged, desperate gasps, and her hands flew up to tangle in her own hair, yanking at the roots like she could anchor herself against the oncoming storm. I felt the moment her muscles clamped down, locking me in place as she bucked and thrashed, riding out the first wave of her orgasm with a string of low, guttural moans. The sensation was so intense I nearly joined her, but I fought to hold back, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.
She came down from it slowly, cursing under her breath, sweat dripping in her eyes. She slumped forward and buried her face in the crook of my neck, her heart hammering loud enough for me to feel it through her skin. I held her there, arms around her back, unwilling to let go even as she caught her breath.
"Don't stop," she growled, voice muffled against my shoulder. "You're not done yet."
She rolled her hips again, slower this time, almost lazy. I was still rock-hard inside her, desperate for release but determined to last as long as she wanted me. She panted against my ear, then nipped it playfully. "You're stubborn. I like that," she murmured, and then she bucked her hips, harder this time, grinding her pelvis against me with renewed vigor.
It was easier, now, to touch her, to guide her movements and lose myself in the rhythm. My hands found every part of her body—her waist, her back, the freckles on her shoulders, the soft curve of her ass. She responded to every touch, every squeeze, matching my efforts with her own.
We found a new rhythm, less frantic but deeper, more focused. She rocked her entire body, using her weight and leverage, and I met her thrust for thrust, our bodies slamming together with a force that sent the table behind us shuddering across the floor. The lamp above us swayed, casting wild shadows on the walls, and the pile of papers at the edge of the table scattered across the tatami.
I could feel myself getting close, the telltale heat gathering in my spine and balls, and I tried to warn her. "I'm—fuck—I'm going to—" But she only grinned, riding me even harder.
"You're about to cum, aren't you? It's written all over your face," Toki said, her eyes glittering with an intensity that left no room for pretense. "Trust me, as a former whore, I know exactly what it looks like when a man's about to spill the contents of his balls." The words landed sharp and vivid, but there was no trace of apology or shame—she wore the statement like a badge, something forged from experience and wielded as both shield and sword. "But don't even think about quitting. You're not getting off that easy."
She clamped down with a muscular finesse that bordered on supernatural, milking every tiny twitch, every last desperate shudder that tore through my frame. I tried—god, I tried—to hold on, but my coherence evaporated in the furnace of her grip. The orgasm hit with a violence that shredded my remaining composure. I lost track of everything: time, body, sensation, the concept of self. My hips bucked, my heels dug into the mat, and I let out a sound that barely qualified as human—a hoarse, high gasp that echoed through the little paper-walled room like a secret shame. She coaxed every last ounce from me, grinding down mercilessly as I emptied myself inside her, until I was little more than a limp, whimpering wreck, a marionette with its strings cut.
But Toki wasn't finished. Not even close. She kept moving, grinding herself deeper with a slow, sinewy persistence, riding out the aftershocks even as my nerves screamed for mercy. The sensitivity became unbearable, almost electric, and I tried to jerk away, but she bore down with a predatory determination. I could feel her, tight and hungry, still spasming around me, using every ripple of my overstimulated cock to fuel her own rising pleasure. She dug her nails into my shoulders—hard, enough to leave marks—and then started rocking her hips again, each motion drawing out a fresh wave of sensation so overwhelming it bordered on pain.
Watching her above me, sweat-slick and wild-eyed, I realized she was chasing her own finish. The transformation was abrupt and mesmerizing: her face twisted, her breathing hitched, and she snapped her head back with a guttural growl as her climax crashed over her. It wasn't pretty or polite. It was animal—a series of shivering, full-body convulsions, a crescendo of moans that grew ragged as she bit down on her own knuckles to keep from screaming. Every muscle in her body clenched, and I felt her pulse around me in frantic, milking contractions, as though she wanted to wrench every last drop of my soul free with her spasms.
She let herself collapse onto my chest, boneless and spent, heedless of the sweat and slickness that glued our bodies together. Her heart thumped hard enough that I could feel it even through her ribcage, and she hung there for a long time, panting and drooling against my neck, her grip on my shoulders never quite relaxing. I wrapped my arms around her, more to keep myself from drifting away than out of any gallant impulse, and held on as my own mind struggled to rematerialize from the haze of post-orgasmic ruin.
We stayed like that, tangled and silent, for what felt like an hour. I wasn't sure how long. There were no clocks in Irontown, and the world outside the lantern-lit room was as dark and quiet as a well-sealed vault. My body wasn't fully under my command yet, but there was a strange contentment in the heaviness of her weight on top of me, the sticky velvet of our mingled sweat, the faint metallic tang of blood from where she'd bitten my neck. I felt like a piece of iron ore that had finally been smelted—reduced to slag, then rebuilt into something new and purposeful.
Eventually, Toki hauled herself up on one elbow, letting my softening cock slip out of her with an obscene, satisfied wet sound. She planted one hand on my chest and grinned down at me: a look of raw, unfiltered triumph. Her breasts, still bare and gleaming with sweat, swung heavily as she gave me a playful poke in the ribs. "You lasted longer than I figured," she said, voice rough and hoarse, but bright with amusement. "Honestly, I thought you'd faint halfway through."
I tried to muster a retort, but my mouth was dry and my tongue felt like it belonged to someone else. "You didn't exactly make it easy," I rasped, which only made her snort and roll her eyes, the wicked gleam in them softening into something almost fond.
She flopped onto her back beside me, arms and legs askew as if she'd been tossed there by some invisible hand. Her hair splayed out across the futon in a tangle, and she stared up at the ceiling, breathing slow and deep, like a runner at the finish line of a marathon. For a long while, neither of us said anything. The only sounds in the world were our shared, slowing breaths and the syrupy crackle of the oil lamp, its flickering light painting lazy shapes on the walls and our bodies.
I glanced at her, unsure of the etiquette for what came next. Was I supposed to get dressed? Apologize? Pretend nothing had happened? Instead, I reached for her hand, more from some primal homing instinct than any planned gesture. She took it without looking, her fingers lacing tight with mine, and pulled our joined hands up to rest over her heart. It was still beating hard, but slower now, and she let out a long, contented sigh, like she'd just stepped into a hot bath after a week on the road.
We lay there, side by side, hands entwined, limbs touching at every possible point, and I realized I didn't want to move. Not yet. Maybe not ever. There was a strange intimacy in the silence—an unspoken permission to just exist, sweaty and tangled, without the need to explain or justify or even think too much. The sweat on our bodies began to cool, raising gooseflesh along my arms and legs, but I didn't reach for the sheets or clothing. Neither did she.
Finally, Toki broke the quiet, her voice softer than I'd ever heard. "Don't tell anyone, but that was good. Really good." She turned her head to look at me, and there was a flicker of vulnerability in her eyes, a rawness that caught me off guard. "You're attentive. Most men in this place, they're all about themselves. You actually pay attention."
I swallowed, caught off balance by the compliment. I'd never been great at taking praise, much less praise about something as intimate as sex. My face flushed, and I stammered out a laugh, trying to diffuse the moment with self-deprecation. "I… haven't really done this before, so… I guess I didn't know better?"
Her brow arched, a slow smile curling her lips. "Seriously? Was that your first time?" She laughed, a big, genuine sound, and thumped me on the chest for emphasis. "I had you pegged as a total heartbreaker, the way you were holding back. I thought you were just being polite! But you're a real virgin?" She rolled onto her side, propped up on one elbow, and regarded me with exaggerated skepticism.
I let out a sheepish laugh, feeling the heat rise all the way to my ears. "Yeah. First time." The truth of it, spoken aloud, was weirdly liberating. The tension I hadn't even realized was inside me melted away, leaving something giddy in its place.
Toki shook her head in mock disbelief. "What a waste! A man like you, in a place like this, and you waited this long to get your wick wet? Don't worry, you did fine. Better than fine." She pinched my side, then rolled onto her back again, looking up at the wavering lantern light. "I'm glad it was me," she said, quieter this time, and I heard the honesty in it, the simple pride of having claimed something unique.
There was a warmth in her words that made my chest ache. I squeezed her hand—a little tighter now—and she squeezed back, her thumb drawing lazy little arcs across the back of my knuckles. We both watched the shadows dance across the paper walls, neither of us hurrying to fill the silence.
After what felt like an hour but was probably just a few minutes, Toki spoke again. "You don't have to say anything, you know. Not to me. If you ever want to do this again, you know where to find me. If not, that's fine too." She turned, her expression suddenly serious. "But don't let anyone—including yourself—make you feel bad about what happens here. I make my own choices, Mikko. I always have."
There was a conviction in her words that brooked no argument. I nodded, a lump rising in my throat, and managed to say, "Thank you. For everything."
She grinned, flashing that signature white-toothed, slightly feral smile. "I'm just returning the favor my own way." She said before she let go of my hand, only to stroke my cheek instead, a gesture so gentle and unexpected I nearly flinched from the sweetness of it.
We lay together, not quite asleep for a while, but eventually Toki does begin to yawn, clearly starting to feel tired.
"Mmh… If there is a next time… you'll be the one on top. I don't wanna be the one who has to always do the work…" She mutters, her eyes already closed, her breathing beginning to soften up.
"Sure, I suppose I can promise that much." I said in response, and was rewarded with a snort and a sleepy smile.
She drifted off soon after, snoring softly and drooling a little onto the pillow. I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling, feeling the shape of her against me and the echo of her words in my ears. I wanted to bottle this feeling, keep it for the lean times ahead, when the world would be less forgiving and the days less bright.
I thought of home, of the forests and the lakes, and the loneliness that had followed me here. For the first time since landing in this strange, dangerous place, I felt a little less alone.
I pulled the blanket over us, careful not to wake Toki, and let myself close my eyes. The warmth of her body, the sound of her breathing, the lingering scent of sex and persimmon—these became my anchors as I drifted, finally, into sleep.
I woke when the pale blue edge of morning was still only a rumor on the ceiling, soft and indirect, filtered through the thin rice paper of the shoji screens. I lay there for a long time, not quite ready to move or even open my eyes fully, letting the sensation of waking in a foreign bed—foreign not only in place but in meaning—wash over me. The futon, so recently a battlefield, was cold on my side and faintly warm on the other, where the indentation in the pillow gave away Toki's departure. A few stray orange hairs clung to the fabric. She'd left while I was still deep in the postcoital nowhere, and the only sign that she'd ever been here was a faint trace of her scent—persimmon, sweat, iron, and something indefinably animal.
My mind, slow at the best of times, retraced the night's events in lazy, drifting spirals. I remembered every detail and none at all: the way Toki's laughter had rung so loud it seemed sure to wake the dead, the wet heat of her mouth at my throat, the wild pull of her hips, and the quiet honesty afterward, when we'd lain in a heap with our limbs all mixed up. I felt the echoes in my skin—the throbbing scratches on my shoulders, the bite mark at my collarbone—and in the odd, pleasant ache in my thighs and back, as if she'd left a message for my nervous system to interpret all day.
I flexed my hand. There was a smear of dried blood under one fingernail, probably hers. The intimacy of that struck me with sudden, embarrassing force. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, letting my breathing settle. I'd spent years convincing myself that this kind of connection was a trap—something designed to unmake a person, to leave them vulnerable and exposed—but here, in the aftermath of what should've been a disastrous lapse in reason, I felt only lightness. A weight had come off me, so gradual I hadn't noticed its presence until it was gone.
After a while, I gathered myself and sat up, careful not to disturb the neat order of the futons. I found my undershirt draped over the lacquered chest, my trousers crumpled in a heap near the door. I held each piece in my hands for a moment before getting dressed, as if expecting them to have changed shape overnight. As I buttoned my work shirt, I noticed how loose it was across the chest, how the sleeves pinched just a bit more at the forearms than they used to. I'd been eating well here, working hard, filling out in ways that felt both unfamiliar and satisfying.
I padded to the table and unstoppered my canteen, taking a long pull of water. My throat was raw; I dimly recalled shouting, or laughing, or both. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The silence in the room was total—the kind that only exists when the rest of the world is still asleep, and you've managed to slip, for a moment, out of time.
That's when I noticed the object on the table: my journal, left open to a blank page, and Toki's fingerprint in charcoal at the margin. I smiled, shaking my head, and sat down to write. My hands were unsteady, but I managed a few lines in the stiff, blocky Japanese script I'd been practicing since my arrival. I didn't write about the sex, not directly. Instead, I described the way the air had felt when the lamp went out, how the walls had seemed to breathe with us, how the world had shrunk to the size of the futon and the two bodies on it. I recorded the taste of the cakes she'd brought, the exact shade of her hair in the lamplight, and the way she'd said my name at the end, soft and without the honorific. I tried to capture the feeling, knowing even as I wrote it that it would fade before I could ever read these words again.
It was easier to chronicle the physical symptoms: a stiff neck, soreness in my hips, the dull throb of my knees from kneeling too long on reed mats. These were facts, easily verified. The rest—the sharp, burning ache behind my sternum, the sense of having been punched in the soul and left gasping—was harder to pin down. I left the journal open, as if the ink needed time to dry, and dressed the rest of the way.
I splashed water onto my face from the basin outside, and the chill shocked me awake. My reflection in the surface was ghostly and unfamiliar: hollow-eyed, stubbled, and smiling with a crooked, private delight. I had the urge to laugh, but checked myself. No need to tempt fate or the gods, not in a place like this.
By the time I laced my boots and stepped into the corridor, the first feeble glow of dawn was beginning to seep into the world. I kept my footsteps soft out of habit, but the whole building was still and silent. It suited me: I liked the feeling of being the first to greet the day, the city at rest and all its possibilities unclaimed. I moved through the corridors with a kind of reverence, as if any loud noise would shatter the delicate balance of things.
Irontown's main street looked entirely different in the uncertain half-light, its usual smoke and clangor replaced by an eerie, sacred hush. The air was cold and sharp, and the breath from my nostrils hung in a fine, silvery mist. All around, the women of the forges were only just beginning to stir—some venturing out to the wells, others carrying baskets of kindling or setting up the morning fires. I walked with my hands in my pockets, head down, letting the silence pour over me like a benediction.
I was halfway to the well when I spotted Okunami, already up and dressed in her usual outlandish mix of work-appropriate and utterly impractical attire. She wore a heavy canvas jacket over a red kimono, the combination making her look like some half-mad mountain lord turned up for casual Friday. Her horns gleamed in the dawn light, and she was grinning with anticipation, as if savoring whatever gossip she'd gleaned from the night's adventures.
Nakki was there too, tail wagging in a polite, restrained way. He regarded me with the sharp, measuring eyes of a creature that has seen much and chosen to say little. His presence was grounding, a reminder that not all mysteries in life required explanation or apology.
Okunami's grin widened as I approached, and she called out in a voice that was entirely too loud for the hour. "Morning, Mikko-san! Or should I say 'lover-boy' now?" She doubled over with laughter, pounding her own thigh in amusement. Nakki gave a low, approving bark, as if to punctuate the point.
I felt my face go hot, but I managed to keep my smile. "Shhh," I said, glancing around, but there was no one close enough to hear. "I'm trying to keep a low profile after last night."
She sauntered up, close enough that I could smell the woodsmoke and sake on her breath. "Yeaaaah… Good luck with that," she said, winking at me. "You know Toki's quite loud when she wants to be, right? Half the town seems to know already."
I groaned, but I couldn't stop myself from laughing. "Thanks for the warning." I was surprised at how little shame I felt; embarrassment, sure, but not the old, familiar urge to run or deny. If anything, there was a perverse pride in knowing I'd made an impression.
Okunami clapped me on the back so hard my teeth rattled. "You lasted longer than I figured," she said, echoing Toki's razzing from the night before. "Strong man, soft heart." She looked me up and down as if reappraising something fundamental. "You're taking to this place."
Nakki sat at my feet, his tail sweeping a neat arc in the packed dirt. He looked up, tongue lolling, and I scratched behind his ears in silent gratitude.
We fell into step together, heading toward the main yard. Okunami was in an unusually good mood, and she kept up a running commentary on the work ahead: repairs to the sluice gates, a shipment of food arriving later in the week. Her voice was a comfort, even when she was ribbing me mercilessly, and I realized with a small shock that I'd come to rely on her presence more than I cared to admit.
The rest of the town was waking up in stages. Near the smithy, I saw the younger apprentices clustered around a fire pit, waiting for their turn at breakfast. They regarded me with sidelong glances, then quickly looked away. I caught snippets of whispering—my name, paired with Toki's, and a lot of giggling. At first, I braced for mockery, but the tone was different. It was admiration, or at least genuine curiosity, tinged with the kind of awe reserved for local heroes or notorious outlaws.
I felt the beginnings of a grin tug at my lips. So this was what it meant to belong.
Not to be liked unconditionally…
…But to be known, to have your existence be acknowledged and to be woven into the fabric of other people's stories.