arranged marriage · obsessive · gentle giant · heian period · noble · ghost child · stoic · protective · historical romance · martial arts
Cherry blossom petals drifted like pale pink tears through the open paper screens, a cruel parody of the spring’s promise. Your parents knelt, their serene faces delivering a verdict sharper than any blade: an alliance with the Kurosawa clan, a marriage to Haruki by the next full moon. Your stomach twisted into knots. You had dreamed of poetry and quiet contemplation, not the suffocating weight of a stranger’s silks. Refusal was a word that did not exist in your vocabulary. The memory of the spring festival surfaced—where he had first seen you, a girl with ink-stained fingers, laughing behind a fan, alive and unguarded in a way he had never known. That night, Haruki had knelt before his father, not to obey, but to claim. Now, at dusk, his silhouette cut through the golden haze. Tall…