The house felt smaller at night.
Not physically, but acoustically. Breath carried through thin walls. Floorboards registered weight shifts. The second brother muttered once in his sleep before falling quiet again. Even the sliding doors seemed to settle with intention.
Roen lay on his side facing the wall that separated his room from Genryū's.
He could hear him breathing.
Steady. Controlled. Even in sleep, it carried the same discipline as during training. No restless movement. No uneven exhale. Just rhythm.
It unsettled him more than noise would have.
There was something invasive about it not because it was loud, but because it was close. Too close. Close enough that he could measure the timing of each inhale. Close enough that he could predict the pause before the next.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
In his previous life, he had lived stacked among strangers separated by concrete and distance. Here, the separation was paper and wood. He shared walls with people who could end his life if they chose to. He shared blood with someone whose interior world was completely inaccessible to him.
He knew Genryū's stance angles.
He knew the flaw in his shoulder alignment.
He did not know what passed behind his eyes when he stared at their father.
The father's presence was further down the corridor, but somehow more defined. Roen could not hear him breathing, yet he was aware of him. The awareness was not emotional. It was structural. The house revolved around him without visible movement.
At dinner, the father had corrected Genryū twice and praised him zero times. Yet his gaze lingered a fraction too long after each exchange. Not warmth. Not cruelty. Something closer to calibration.
Roen felt irritation flicker unexpectedly in his chest.
Not at Genryū.
Not at the father.
At the structure itself.
It allowed no softness. No collapse. No release.
He shut his eyes, trying to settle his thoughts, but the rhythm of Genryū's breathing persisted through the wall. The sound was steady enough to be reassuring. It was steady enough to be oppressive.
A soft knock broke the pattern.
Not at his door.
At the outer gate.
The sound did not repeat.
The corridor floor shifted under measured footsteps. The father's. The sliding door at the front of the house opened and closed quietly. A voice outside spoke in low, formal tones. Roen could not make out the words, only the cadence.
He listened harder than he intended to.
There was a pause. Another exchange. Then a simple response from the father, equally controlled.
When the door slid shut again, the air in the house did not return to its previous stillness. It tightened slightly, as though something external had attached itself to the structure.
Footsteps returned down the corridor.
They did not slow near the children's rooms.
They did not hesitate.
The father did not wake them.
He did not explain.
Roen lay awake longer than before, irritation fading into alertness.
Somewhere beyond the walls, the village was moving.
And whatever had touched the gate had not been casual.
Morning came colder than the day before. The yard carried a thin layer of mist that clung low to the ground before the sun could burn it away. Roen stepped outside at the usual time, not early, not late.
Genryū was already there.
He stood with his back to the fence, adjusting the wrapping around his forearm where the flat of their father's blade had struck the previous morning. The movement was methodical, neither hurried nor hesitant.
Roen moved toward his usual position near the wall.
Genryū spoke without looking at him.
"You were awake."
The words were simple. Neutral. No accusation carried in the tone.
Roen's body reacted before his thoughts organised. His stomach tightened unexpectedly, a small contraction beneath the ribs. His jaw set slightly. His pulse rose a fraction faster than it should have for such a minor exchange.
He forced himself to inhale slowly.
"I wake up sometimes," he said, keeping his voice level, slightly uncertain in the way a five-year-old might attempt indifference.
Genryū finished tightening the wrap and lowered his arm.
"The knock," he added.
Roen felt irritation flicker again, sharper this time. Not at the question. At the accuracy.
He let confusion cross his face, deliberately slow. "I heard something."
Genryū turned his head just enough to look at him.
It was not a heavy stare. Not a challenge. Just measurement.
"You listen too much," Genryū said.
Roen did not respond immediately.
Through the open doorway, he could hear the second brother Shigure sliding a door open inside the house. Their father had not yet entered the yard.
Genryū stepped forward, lifting the dadao from the rack. "Sleep matters," he added, as though the conversation were instructional rather than observational.
Roen nodded once.
"Yes."
The conversation ended there.
Genryū had not accused him of anything. He had not probed further. He had simply acknowledged awareness. Proximity had become reciprocal.
Roen realized something uncomfortable.
He had assumed himself the quiet observer in the house.
He was not the only one measuring.
Their father entered the yard shortly after, expression unchanged. Training began as it always did. Genryū's strikes were sharper this morning, his transitions tighter. When lightning gathered along the father's blade during a correction, Roen felt the same tightening in the air as before.
This time, his heart spiked before he could regulate it.
He steadied himself by grounding through his feet, mimicking the stance discipline he had watched for days.
The body adjusted slower than the mind.
He accepted that.
When the first exchange ended, the father called Shigure forward.
Shigure stepped into position without visible eagerness. His grip on the kodachi was lighter than Genryū's but more fluid. The rhythm shifted. Less force. More redirection. His corrections were quieter but deliberate.
Roen watched both of them.
Dragon and rain.
Pressure and atmosphere.
And somewhere between them, he stood unseen only if he chose to be.