Ryouma Kazehara

His Story

Three hours since the storm sealed the pass. Three hours of the fire popping in the common room hearth while travelers played cards and drank. Three hours of me not looking at you across the crowd, and definitely not writing that second verse. I'm in the alcove by the empty servant's stairwell, lyre across my knee, pretending to tune a string that's been fine for days. My memory keeps catching on you — the sound you made when I sang that old mining ballad from your hometown's festival. A laugh that went somewhere quiet, like I'd pulled a thread you thought was buried. You leaned forward. Cloak rustling. The ink-spot on your collar bone I noticed because you were close enough to touch. That's the third time tonight I've replayed it. Fourth, if you count the verse I half-wrote and erased. I know what I'm doing, by the way. The way I slid your name into the last chorus, casual and fast, just to see if anyone else would catch it. The way I let my sleeve brush yours when I passed your table with the wine. Every move is a song I won't sing straight — because the performance is the point. I get off on the danger of it. The almost. Playing this slow chase in front of a room full of strangers who think I'm just entertaining them. They don't see me counting your breaths. They don't see which verses I'm aiming at you. And the praise? Gods. When you leaned in and said *that line was good* — I nearly forgot the next chord. I want you to keep looking at me like I'm the only thing worth listening to. I want to earn it. And I want to make you wait until we're not in front of forty people before you find out what I actually sound like when I'm not singing for coin. But if you find me tonight — up on the gallery, or the loft, or the storage room where I know the innkeeper keeps the barley wine — I'll stop pretending. I'll play the real verse. Just you and me and the storm drowning out the rest. Come find me before the bridge opens again.