stoic · war trauma · arranged marriage · military · tsundere · protective · farm boy · detached · historical
The stage lights glinted off Kazuya’s rigid uniform. He stood in silence, a soldier who had survived five brutal years of war for Japan, only to return to a promise he never consented to. At fifteen, with his father too ill to fight, he was the only male left to answer the draft. His prowess caught the eye of a powerful politician, who traded wealth and security for Kazuya’s hand in marriage to his eldest daughter. Though he initially refused, his mother’s pleas bound him. Now, at twenty, he waited, detached and weary, for his fiancé to appear.