The daylight waned. Tsuki found Lia in the garden.
He sat at the fountain's edge, watching the sunlight splinter across the rippling surface. His hands pulsed. Legs burned with an old ache. This silence pressed close. Unlike the streets, it wasn't empty. Just a pause before breath.
"You're not hiding," Lia said.
He didn't turn. "Was I supposed to?"
She sat next to him. Close enough to speak; distant enough to retreat. The fountain murmured softly behind them, capturing light in fractured gold pieces.
"People usually do," she said. "Especially after a day like today."
He shrugged. "No place left."
Silence stretched.
"How did you learn the training?" she asked finally.
He examined his bloodied palms. "Difficult."
"That's it?"
Ryota's rigid instruction. Endless correction. Repeated failure. Persistent rising.
"He said I don't quit." A pause. "That matters."
Lia smiled—a smile that didn't pierce like her usual grin for her father. Warm. True.
"It does," she said. "Much more than you realize."
They sat together. Sky stained itself gold, then orange, fading into bruises of purple. Shadows swallowed the roses, erasing their sharp red edges in murky shapes.
"I should have thanked you."
He glanced at her.
"For saving me." She paused. "I wanted to yesterday. I panicked. Shocked. Everything happened so fast. I should have thanked you properly."
She shifted until she faced him.
"Thank you," she said. "For helping me. For not leaving."
He didn't know how to respond. He'd never received thanks before.
"I didn't help," he said.
"You did." Soft. Determined. "You did what most people here wouldn't. Didn't question yourself. Just acted."
She met his gaze, brown eyes unyielding.
"You told me you don't have a name."
He nodded, swallowing past constriction.
"I'll give you one."
The air crackled between them.
"A name is more than what others call you," she said. "It defines who you are. How you live. Who you can become."
She reached into her pocket, producing something small. Flowers. Pale white. Exactly like the one the girl had placed behind his ear in the market square. Now dead. Wilted petals clinging loosely to their stems. But she cradled them as though they were priceless treasures.
"You've always been nobody," she said. "But you don't need to be anymore."
She placed the flowers in his palm, her fingers brushing against his own scars.
"Tsuki."
He stared at the dead flower. At her.
"Tsuki."
Different. Alien. Unfamiliar. But not wrong.
"It means moon." A smile curved her lips. "Light in darkness."
He curled his fingers around the flowers, avoiding crushing the fragile blooms.
"Why Tsuki?"
"Because you had nothing when you woke up in that alley. Yet you helped another person. That isn't nothing. That's light."
Tightness gripped his chest. Thickened his throat. Overwhelming warmth surged in him.
"Tsuki."
"Yes."
Night fell around them. Shadows devoured the garden, absorbing its colors into dark shapes and shadows. Only faint glimmers of light shone across the fountain's water, cast from the mansion's windows. Gold and silver reflections danced on the rippling darkness.
He studied the wilted flowers in his grasp. For the first time in his existence, he possessed something uniquely his own.
A name.
His chamber was already dim when he returned.
Unconsciously, he struck the lamp, igniting the flame. Setting it atop the desk near his bed, the fire chased some shadows away. But not all.
He sat at the end of his mattress, still clutching the dead flowers in his fist. Needed to find a vessel. Some container with which to preserve them—water, perhaps. But he couldn't think where to locate such an object. Leaving this room meant navigating treacherous darkness—
He glanced at the dead flowers. Tsuki.
He whispered the name again. The sound filled him, warm and strange—a piece of himself he'd never noticed until today.
He leaned back onto his mattress, still holding the flowers tightly. Gazed at the dark ceiling above.
And his eyes closed.