Chapter Text
On the last morning of Lady Inumaki’s life, the garden was buried beneath snow.
It lay quiet beyond the windows, every hedge and bare branch softened white, every stone path hidden, every rosebush sleeping under frost. The world looked clean in a way the sickroom did not.
The sickroom smelled of boiled linens, bitter herbs, cooling tea, and the faint sweetness of the orange blossoms Toge’s father kept ordering from the hothouses, as though enough spring flowers might convince death it had come to the wrong house.
Toge sat beside his mother’s bed with both hands folded tightly in his lap.
He was very small then. Small enough that his feet did not touch the floor when he sat in the chair, small enough that his father still lifted him onto his knee after supper.
But he was not so small that he did not understand the servants were crying in the hall.
Not so small that he did not notice how his father stood with one hand pressed over his mouth by the window, shoulders shaking silently beneath the weight of his sorrows.
His mother turned her head on the pillow.
“Toge, my sweet child,” she whispered.
He slid from the chair at once and went to her.
Her hand lifted slowly, trembling with the effort, and came to rest against his cheek. Toge leaned into it, both hands rising to hold her there, as if he could keep her with him by refusing to let go.
“Be good,” she had whispered to him.
“Be kind. Even when they are not kind to you.” Toge had nodded, too young to understand what death meant, but old enough to feel it waiting in the room.
His mother had smiled at him then. “And when you are lonely,” she had breathed, “come to the garden. I will be there.”
Toge’s face crumpled.
His mother brushed at the first tear that slipped down his cheek, but her hand fell before she could catch the second.
Outside, snow began to fall again.
By spring, the garden bloomed.
By summer, the house learned how to be quiet without her.
And by autumn, Lord Inumaki could no longer bear the silence.
He had not been born into one of the grand houses, not the kind with ancient crests carved above their gates or marble halls wide enough to host half the court. He was a middle-class nobleman, respectable and comfortable, with good land, a modest title, and enough standing to be invited where it mattered—if not always welcomed warmly once he arrived.
But he had loved his wife with the helpless devotion of a man who never imagined he might outlive her.
After her death, he wandered through the rooms of their home like a ghost. He would pause in doorways as though expecting to find her sitting by the window with her embroidery. He would turn at the sound of a footstep, hope rising bright and foolish in his face before grief smothered it again.
Toge watched him fade.
He tried to be good, as his mother had asked.
He tried to be kind.
He sat beside his father at breakfast and pushed the honey dish closer when Lord Inumaki forgot to sweeten his tea. He brought him books from the library. He stood quietly at his side in the garden, beneath the young plum trees his mother had loved, and slipped his small hand into his father’s.
Sometimes, his father squeezed back.
Sometimes, he did not seem to notice Toge was there at all.
So when Lady Mei Mei appeared less than a year after the funeral, dressed in mourning silk and smiling with silver at her throat, everyone said perhaps it was a mercy.
She was beautiful. That was what everyone noticed first.
Not soft-beautiful, as Toge’s mother had been, with gentle eyes and hair always escaping its pins. Mei Mei was sharp-beautiful. Polished. Pale hair arranged perfectly beneath a black veil, lips curved with practiced sorrow, every movement graceful enough to suggest she had never once done anything by accident.
At her side was, Ui Ui.
He was younger than Toge by a little, though not by much, and he clung to Mei Mei’s sleeve with both hands whenever anyone looked his way. He had wide eyes, dark and watchful, and a sweet voice he used only when Mei Mei told him to greet someone.
“We are very sorry for your loss,” Mei Mei said to Toge the first time they met.
She knelt before him, all rustling silk and perfume, and took his hands in hers.
Her palms were warm.
“You poor thing,” she murmured, her eyes soft with something that looked very much like pity. “A boy should not have to lose his mother so young.”
· · ─ ·✶·
For a time, Mei Mei was kind.
She was kind in the way winter sunlight was kind—bright through glass, pretty to look at, but never quite warm enough to touch.
She spoke gently to Toge when his father was in the room. She praised his manners, complimented his reading, and had the kitchen make his favorite plum cakes on rainy afternoons. She said it was important for children who had known grief to feel secure.
Lord Inumaki looked at her as if she had hung the moon back in the sky.
Toge tried to like her for that.
He tried because his father smiled again when she visited.
He tried because the house no longer felt as hollow when Mei Mei’s laughter drifted through the halls.
He tried because his mother had told him to be kind, even when others were not kind to him, and Mei Mei had not been unkind.
Not yet.
Before the next winter came, Mei Mei and Ui Ui moved into the Inumaki house.
Three months later, Toge’s father died in his sleep.
The officials called it a failure of the heart.
A quiet death, they said. A merciful one. No signs of violence, no signs of struggle, no reason to suspect anything except an unfortunate weakness no one could have foreseen.
Mei Mei wept into a black handkerchief throughout the inquiry.
Ui Ui stood beside her with red-rimmed eyes and his face pressed against her sleeve.
Toge did not cry, well, not at first.
He stood very still in the doorway of his father’s room, staring at the bed where his father lay beneath a white sheet. The curtains had been drawn open. Morning light spilled across the floorboards. On the bedside table sat an empty cup of tea.
Toge stared at that cup.
Something bitter lingered in the air beneath the lavender sachets Mei Mei had ordered placed around the room. Something hidden. Something wrong.
His father had not been well with grief, but he had not been ill.
He had kissed Toge’s forehead the night before. He had promised they would visit the garden together after breakfast, because the late roses were still clinging stubbornly to bloom.
Then morning came, and he was gone.
The officials said it was likely a heart condition.
The servants whispered tragedy.
Mei Mei accepted their condolences with tears shining beautifully on her cheeks.
And Toge knew. He did not know how he knew. He had no proof, no word he could offer that would not sound like a child’s desperate grief.
But he knew.
Mei Mei had done something to him.
That evening, after the officials left and the house settled into the unnatural hush that followed death, Mei Mei came to Toge’s room.
She wore no veil now. Without it, she looked less like a grieving widow and more like a portrait hung in the wrong house.
Mei Mei closed the door behind her.
“My poor boy,” she said.
Toge turned to her.
“I know this has been very difficult for you.” Her voice was soft. Almost tender.
Toge’s fingers tightened in the hem of his shirt.
“Yes Lady,” he said, very quietly.
Mei Mei’s expression changed.
Not much, but the softness went out of her eyes.
She crossed the room slowly, each step measured, the hem of her mourning gown whispering over the floor.
“You have your mother’s voice,” she said.
Toge went still.
Mei Mei stopped in front of him and reached out, brushing her fingers beneath his chin to tilt his face up.
“It was charming, once,” she continued. “When your father was alive to enjoy it.”
Her thumb rested lightly against his throat.
Toge did not move.
“But now…” Mei Mei sighed, as though the thought pained her deeply. “Now, hearing you speak is unbearable. It reminds me of him. Of all I have lost. I do not think my heart could withstand it.”
Toge stared at her.
Behind her, the door opened just a crack. Ui Ui stood in the hall, one eye visible through the gap. Watching.
Mei Mei smiled. “So we will make a small arrangement, you and I.”
Her hand slid from his chin to his shoulder.
“You will not speak in this house unless I permit it.”
Toge’s lips parted.
Mei Mei’s grip tightened.
“If you do,” she said, still smiling, “I will have no choice but to send you away.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath him.
Send him away? From his home?
From his mother’s garden.
“You are not yet of age,” Mei Mei said. “This estate requires proper management. The servants require wages. The accounts require a steady hand. Your father, rest his poor soul, left many things unsettled. Without me, you would have nothing.”
Toge’s heart beat hard against his ribs.
“You should be grateful,” Mei Mei murmured.
Ui Ui pushed the door open a little wider. His face was blank, but his eyes were bright.
Mei Mei looked toward him and held out one hand. At once, Ui Ui came to her side, folding himself against her skirts.
“Besides,” she said, stroking his hair, “my Ui Ui is sensitive. Raised gently. He should not be upset by strange noises in his own home.”
Toge looked from Mei Mei to Ui Ui.
Then back again.
His throat burned.
There were words inside him. So many words. Grieving words. Angry words. Frightened words. A thousand little sounds he had always used to make himself understood.
Mei Mei leaned closer.
“You may nod,” she said kindly. “That will be enough.”
Toge thought of his mother’s hand against his cheek.
Be good.
Be kind.
Even when they are not kind to you.
Slowly, trembling, he nodded.
Mei Mei’s smile returned, warm as candlelight and twice as false.
“Good boy.”
From that day on, the house became quieter.
Toge learned to move through it without sound. He learned which floorboards creaked outside Mei Mei’s sitting room. He learned to lower his gaze when Ui Ui passed him in the hall.
His fine clothes disappeared first.
Mei Mei said mourning did not suit vanity, and the son of a ruined household had no need for silks. His jackets were given away.
Then his bedroom was needed for storage, and Toge was moved to a narrow room near the kitchen stairs where the walls smelled of smoke.
By the time the first snow fell, he was no longer treated as the son of the house.
He rose before dawn to light the fires. He carried water until his arms ached. He polished silver Mei Mei never used, scrubbed floors Ui Ui dirtied on purpose, and mended linens by candlelight while ash settled in his pale hair.
The servants pitied him, some of them.
But pity was a quiet thing too.
No one wished to cross Lady Mei Mei.
And so Toge became a shadow in his own home.
· · ─ ·✶·
Only in the garden did Toge remember he had once been loved.
There, beneath the stars, he would kneel where his mother’s favorite peonies grew. He would press his fingers into the earth, bow his head, and let himself cry without making a sound.
Sometimes the wind moved through the hedges like a hand through his hair.
Sometimes the flowers stirred, though there was no breeze.
And sometimes, from beneath the shadow of the peony leaves, a small white bunny would appear.
It came quietly at first, little paws silent over the soil, nose twitching as it watched him with bright, gentle eyes. Its fur was soft as moonlight, untouched by dirt no matter how damp the garden became. It never seemed frightened of him. It only crept closer, inch by inch, until it was near enough for Toge to feel the warmth of its tiny body beside his knee.
The first time it pressed its nose against his hand, Toge nearly sobbed.
He held very still, afraid any movement might scare it away.
But the bunny only nudged him again, as if asking him not to cry.
And sometimes, when the house behind him stood dark and cruel and full of ghosts, Toge almost thought he could still hear his mother’s voice.
Come to the garden.
I will be there.
When Toge sees a shooting star, he wishes for very little.
Only a home that feels like home again.
Only someone who would look for him if he disappeared.
Only happiness, if happiness is not too greedy a thing to ask for.