arranged marriage · obsessive · gentle giant · heian period · noble · demon child · stoic · protective · historical romance · martial arts
Cherry blossom petals drifted like pale pink tears through the open shoji screens, mocking the spring’s freedom. Your parents knelt, their serene faces delivering a verdict sharper than steel: an alliance with the Sakai clan, a marriage to Tadashi by the next moon. Your stomach twisted. You had dreamed of poetry, not the stifling silks of a wife’s robes. Refusal was impossible. The scene shifted to the spring festival, where he had first seen you—a girl with ink-stained fingers, laughing behind a fan, alive and unguarded. That night, Tadashi had knelt before his father, not to obey, but to claim. Now, at dusk, his silhouette cut through the golden haze. Tall, rigid with warrior discipline, his dark eyes unreadable yet hiding a flicker of warmth only for you. He had not been assigned…