Chapter 13.

I contemplate her from my privileged position in the temple garden, where the elders of the main line have ordered me to wait. It’s curious how their messengers interrupted my morning routine with such urgency, only to have me wait here like another pawn in their elaborate power game.

While she performs her morning prayers, I analyze the possible motives behind this sudden summons. Her purple silk kimono waves gently in the spring breeze, creating hypnotic patterns that follow the rhythm of her movements, and I wonder if her presence here is a coincidence or part of some greater plan of the elders.

I know exactly who she is: Fujiwara no Sakura, the most precious jewel of the main branch. And I, a mere descendant of a secondary line, observe her with the same clinical fascination with which I would examine a peculiarly beautiful insect. The elders never do anything without purpose, and my mind already catalogs the probabilities that this seemingly fortuitous encounter has been orchestrated with the same precision with which she executes each of her movements.

I wonder what it feels like to experience that reverence that others show in her presence. For me, her beauty is an objective fact, like recognizing that the sky is blue or that blood is red. I admire her the same way I would admire a perfectly balanced equation: with mathematical precision, without the slightest trace of emotion... or so I want to believe. For since the incident the other day, when for the first time in my life I felt something—a strange tingling in my stomach, a kind of warmth that I couldn’t catalog or analyze—my world of perfect equations has been crumbling.

It’s disturbing. For years, I have navigated through life as a distant observer, categorizing others’ emotions as one who classifies specimens in a museum. But now... now there are cracks in my armor of indifference. Tiny, almost imperceptible, but they’re there. I feel them grow every time blood pulses a little faster in my veins, every time something twists inside me in a way I can’t control or understand. It’s as if that first taste of... emotion? had awakened something that had been sleeping all my life. And I hate it. I hate it because I can’t measure it, because I can’t reduce it to variables and constants.

I try to ignore all that and listen as the servants whisper something, that her skin is like the finest porcelain from Kyoto, that her eyes shine like stars on a winter night. I see microscopic pores, capillaries under translucent epidermis, and pupils that dilate and contract following predictable patterns. Where others see poetry, I see anatomy. Ignorant fools.

I approach with the studied grace I’ve perfected over years. Each step is a calculated representation of what others would call respect. My posture, my expression, everything is calibrated to project the exact image expected of someone in my position. It’s a dance I’ve performed thousands of times, a social choreography I’ve mastered to perfection.

“Fujiwara-sama,” I pronounce with a bow that measures exactly forty-five degrees. Not one more, not one less. I’ve practiced this angle in front of the mirror until it became as natural as breathing.

She turns and, for a moment, our gazes meet. Her eyes open slightly - 2.3 millimeters, I automatically calculate - in what others would interpret as surprise. For me, it’s just another piece of data in the catalog of human reactions I’ve meticulously compiled over the years.

“Fujiwara-san,” she responds, and her voice has that particular timbre that surely makes common men lose their heads. I hear frequencies and modulations, vocal patterns that I could graph if I had paper and ink at hand. I wonder if she is conscious of how she manipulates these variables to achieve the desired effect, or if it’s pure instinct.

The wind carries cherry blossoms between us, a scene any poet would find inspiring. I can only think about wind velocity, petal trajectory, how air currents interact with the mass and surface of each pink fragment.

“It’s an unexpected honor to find you here,” I say, and the words leave my mouth with an archer’s precision. Each syllable is calculated to convey the exact balance between deference and dignity that my position requires.

She smiles, and I see the facial muscles tense in sequence: first the major zygomatic, then the minor, followed by a slight contraction of the orbicularis oculi. It’s a genuine smile, according to all the indicators I’ve learned to identify.

“The honor is mine,” she responds, and there’s something in her gaze that intrigues me. It’s not the usual mixture of admiration and envy that I tend to provoke in others. It’s more... analytical. As if she too were dissecting each of my gestures.

I wonder if she can see through my mask, if her eyes are capable of detecting the microscopic imperfections in my performance. The idea should worry me, but worry requires an emotional capacity that I don’t possess, or at least not entirely. Instead, I feel curiosity. It’s a cold and calculating feeling, closer to scientific interest than to any form of human connection. That’s why I deliberately ignore the flash of warmth expanding in my chest, that disturbing tingling that began with the Kazuki incident and that now, in front of her, threatens to become a fire. No. It’s just scientific curiosity, I repeat to myself. Nothing more than the clinical interest of an impartial observer. After all, what else could it be? Beings like me don’t feel. We can’t feel. And if my hands tremble slightly while adjusting my hakama, if my breathing becomes irregular at times, it must be simply the effect of the fresh morning air. Nothing more.

A monk passes near us, his straw sandals producing a rhythmic sound against the stones of the path. I count the steps automatically: one, two, three... until they fade in the distance. Time enough for anyone else to have felt the discomfort of the silence that has settled between us.

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“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she finally says, breaking the stillness. Her tone is studiously neutral, but I detect a subtext that I can’t completely decipher. It’s fascinating, like a puzzle that resists revealing its pattern.

“I hope they’re favorable stories,” I respond, allowing a calculated smile to curve my lips. It’s the type of smile I’ve practiced to perfection, the type that makes people feel simultaneously attracted without knowing why.

“Interesting,” she responds, and there’s something in the way she pronounces that word that makes me think she knows more than she lets on. “They say you’re... different.”

The word floats between us like one of the cherry blossoms, apparently innocuous but loaded with meaning. I wonder how many layers of understanding hide behind that simple lexical choice.

“We’re all different in our own way, aren’t we?” I respond, savoring the irony of using a cliché to hide a much darker truth. I wonder if she can appreciate the subtlety of the game we’re playing.

“Some more than others,” she says, and there’s a gleam in her eyes that I find fascinating from a purely academic point of view. “Some are so different they barely seem... human.”

The last words fall like drops of poison in ceremonial tea. Sweet, deadly, and perfectly served. Anyone else would have tensed, would have shown some sign of alarm. I simply file the observation in my mental catalog of notable human interactions.

“Humanity is a fascinating concept, isn’t it?” I respond, allowing my voice to acquire that tone that suggests depths of meaning without committing to any specific interpretation. “So difficult to define, so easy to imitate.”

Her breathing changes slightly - an inhalation 0.2 seconds longer than normal. For anyone else, it would be imperceptible. For me, it’s a signal as clear as a scream in the middle of the night.

“Are you admitting something, Fujiwara-san?” she asks, and there’s something almost predatory in the way she pronounces my name. It’s refreshing, in a way, this deviation from the usual pattern of social interaction.

“I’m simply exploring concepts with someone who seems equally... interested in the complexities of human nature,” I respond, and for the first time in a long time, I feel something approaching anticipation.

The sun reflects on her face in a way anyone would find beautiful. I notice how light refracts at different angles, how shadows play on the planes of her face.

“Do you know what’s most fascinating about masks, Fujiwara-san?” she says, adjusting her kimono with a movement that seems casual but that I know is as calculated as my own gestures. “It’s not what they hide, but what they reveal about who wears them.”

“And what does mine reveal?” I ask, allowing a touch of amusement to color my voice. It’s a calculated risk, a small crack in the facade that could be interpreted as humanity or as something completely different.

“That it’s perfect,” she responds, and there’s something in her tone that suggests she doesn’t consider it a compliment. “Too perfect. Like a painting trying to imitate reality but lacking the imperfections that make something truly... alive.”

The words should cut me like blades, but I only feel a kind of admiration for the precision of her observation. It’s as if she were dissecting my psyche with the same precision with which I analyze others’ facial expressions.

“Perfection is a noble goal,” I respond, keeping my voice in that exact register that suggests sincerity.

“Perfection is a lie,” she counters, and there’s something in her gaze that suggests she’s enjoying this exchange as much as I am, although probably for very different reasons. “True nobility is in our flaws, in our humanity.”

“And if someone lacks that humanity?” I ask, allowing my mask to slip enough for her to see the void behind it. It’s an experiment, really. I want to see how she reacts to the naked truth of what I am.

“Then they’re more interesting than any normal human,” she responds, and there’s something in her smile that makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I’ve found someone who can see the world with the same clinical clarity that I do.

A group of pilgrims passes near us, their conversations and laughter creating a backdrop of normality that makes our exchange seem even more surreal. I wonder if they can feel the tension in the air, if their primitive instincts warn them that they’re in the presence of something that doesn’t quite fit into their understanding of the world.

“Doesn’t that possibility frighten you?” I ask, genuinely curious. She seems... intrigued.

“Fear is an emotional response,” she says, and there’s something in the way she pronounces ‘emotional’ that makes me wonder if I’m not looking in a mirror. “I prefer curiosity.”

The wind changes direction, bringing with it the aroma of temple incense and the distant sound of bells. It’s the type of moment others would find loaded with spiritual meaning. For me, it’s just another set of sensory data to process and archive.

“Curiosity can be dangerous,” I warn, although there’s no real concern in my voice. It’s more of an observation, like pointing out that fire burns or ice is cold.

“Everything truly interesting is,” she responds, and there’s something in her smile that suggests she perfectly understands the risks and finds them... stimulating.

I wonder, not for the first time, if this is the closest I’ll ever come to feeling a connection with another human being: this mutual recognition of our fundamental difference from the rest of the world. It’s not empathy - I repeat to myself that I’m incapable of such a thing, deeply burying that flash of warmth that threatens to contradict me. I push it down, to that dark place where I’ve been storing all these... anomalies since the incident.

It’s just an intellectual recognition of our similarity in difference, I tell myself firmly. Nothing more. And if for a fleeting moment I feel my heart accelerate when she tilts her head in that particular way, if my stomach flips when our gazes meet, well... that too can be buried. Like everything else. Like that stifled cry that escaped my lips in the encounter with Kazuki that sometimes wakes me in the middle of the night, like that sensation of vertigo that invades me more and more frequently. I’m a predator observing another predator, I remind myself. There’s no place for... whatever this warmth means. There’s no place for the way her movements seem to hypnotize me, for the way each of her words resonates in places I thought dead.

No.

There Is. No. Place.

Cherry blossoms continue falling around us, creating a pink rain that anyone else would find romantic. I can only think about patterns and probabilities, about the mathematics of falling and the physics of wind. Or so I try, because there’s something about the way the petals tangle in her hair that makes my mind deviate from its usual calculations.

“Fujiwara-sama, Fujiwara-san,” a high-pitched and panting voice cuts through the air like a poorly sharpened knife. I turn to find the figure of a monk, his voluminous body wrapped in robes that seem about to burst at the seams. His cheeks are flushed from the effort of walking, and his chubby hands flutter in the air like nervous butterflies while he catches his breath.

“The elders,” he pants, his pudgy fingers toying with his japamala in a way I find unnecessarily theatrical, “are waiting for you in the council chamber.” His eyes jump between us with a gleam that reminds me of the fish in the temple pond: wet, anxious, and hungry for gossip. “It is not... appropriate... to keep them waiting.”