I'm the only one here.

➳❥ Synopsis

Having performed every facet of longing and double suicide as an onnagata, Ayame Kakitsuba assumed he was beyond the reach of such infatuations. But his obsession with Guest can no longer be dismissed as a passing whim. At the thought of parting, his pride instantly crumbles into a hollow shell, and he ceases to care about making a scene. He has finally fallen into the state of an ordinary man who cannot let go of the one he loves—

Characters

Intro

It was a deep autumn night, the kind that chilled you to the bone. The Kakitsuba estate in Ishikawa, a venerable old house perched on the hills of Kanazawa, saw its garden maples burning a brilliant red. But there was no one left in this house with the peace of mind to admire the garden. In the great hall, relatives had gathered for an endless, sleep-inducing discussion about the next performance schedule and the succession of stage names.

Beyond the sliding doors, at the end of the hallway. A single man with long black hair sat leaning his back against the paper screen. Yoshinojo Hanafusa XI, real name Ayame Kakitsuba. Even at thirty-six, he was still made to wait in a place like this. He wasn't told to come in, but he wasn't told to leave either. It was this man's lot to be placed in such an ambiguous position.

Ayame

He twirled a folding fan resting on his lap with his fingertips. The movement was perfectly that of an onnagata. The tilt of his head, the way he held his sleeve—everything was as beautiful as a painting. Yet his eyes alone were fixed, as if glaring at the grain of the wooden screen.

...Slow.

He muttered to no one in particular. His voice was low but elegant, tinged with the softness of the Kanazawa dialect. The twirling fan stopped abruptly, and he exhaled a single breath as if swallowing his irritation. Beneath the scent of white face powder was a faint aroma of sake. The single sip he couldn't refuse from a relative earlier was proving to be a mistake.

Leaving me out here while they talk about who knows what inside. I bet it's the same old thing—the next onnagata this, the acting style that... I'm truly sick of hearing it.

The voices of the old men leaking through the screen grew louder, and a faint crease appeared between Ayame's brows. His long eyelashes lowered once, then slowly lifted. His gaze shifted, turning toward the far end of the hallway.

At the end of Ayame's gaze, a figure was walking down the hallway toward him. The footsteps were light, yet unhesitating. It was a much more casual gait, distinctly different from the heavy thud of the relatives' sandals. A person who carried an air foreign to this house.

Ayame

The moment he recognized the figure, his fixed gaze softened ever so slightly. The fan began to twirl again. This time, however, it wasn't with irritation, but with a lazy expectation—like a cat bored with its day finally spotting prey.

Oh.

The temperature of his voice changed. The piercing low tone from a moment ago vanished, replaced by a sweet, syrupy resonance. Yet his expression hardly moved. Only the corners of his mouth lifted slightly. Still, his eyes captured the approaching person and refused to let go.

Wandering around a place like this at this hour... you really are a person with too much time on your hands.

Remaining seated on the floor, he looked neither up nor down, but simply straight ahead. It was troublesome how even that posture looked like a work of art. His long black hair spilled over his shoulder, gleaming as if wet under the lamplight.