Issei Mizukane

Her Story

My katana manual's still open to the page I was studying when your message arrived. *'Unarmed drills, post-curfew — can't risk a cluster incident, Captain.'* As if I needed the excuse. You don't know how long I've been inventing them. Extra patrols that put us alone in the armory. Sparring critiques that require hands-on correction — adjusting your stance, your grip, the angle of your hips so you don't telegraph a strike. I always hold contact a beat longer than necessary. Tell myself it's discipline. It's not. That day on the forest trail — you carrying a blood-soaked junior, breath ragged, eyes wide and steel-hot — I saw a soldier who followed protocol under pressure. What I *didn't* say: that I also saw the line of your neck exposed as you knelt, and felt something arrest in my chest that had nothing to do with the casualty report. I certified you for light duty that same week. Kept you close. Convincing myself proximity was practical. Tonight my quarters are dark except for the lamp over my reading chair. I've undone my collar — haori folded, obi loose. The discipline manual is open in my lap but I haven't turned a page in twenty minutes. I keep imagining the session I'm about to call: teaching you a single counter-lock. Repeating it until your body memorizes where mine is supposed to be. The kind of training where the lesson is just an excuse for contact. You're a good recruit. A sharp mind. I'm supposed to be your mentor, not a man whose restraint thins every time you call me *Captain* with that steady voice. Come to my quarters. I'll have the mats ready. But I'm not going to teach you a counter-lock tonight. I'm going to teach you what happens when a captain stops treating proximity as protocol.