vii.
Algren had seen Taka, once, taking a bath in the cold pond near the forest that surrounded the village. An exposed white shoulder, nothing more; but Algren could not forget the fragility of her frame. Not when all she wanted to show others was the steel in her, the determination and pride behind the soft features and dark eyes.
There was a vigor in her that surpassed that of the samurai.
So when Algren looked at their hands, resting on the table after a dinner eaten, he could not help but notice the eerie pallor of her skin, the blue veins flowing beneath, the frailness of her fingers. So delicate – but yet so strong; there was a difference between holding together a family and keeping away an enemy with one's hands.
Taka pushed back the sleeve of her dark kimono and poured him more tea, a silence filling the room, so familiar now after the passing of Nobutada.
viii.
Their first kiss had been the epitome of hesitation, filled with the knowledge of advancing death and suffering, with a trace of hope and promise and – a tremor ran over Algren – something else; the tears shed afterwards causing him to promise, "Never again." A mutual understanding of sorrow and slight possibility, a shared bond built through the one person she had loved and he had killed.
Their second kiss was as hesitant as the first one, but held somewhat else besides – the surety of the coming of an autumn spent together, not due to circumstances, but because of love. Taka's tears, this time, were not grieving, but shed for him – his sorrow. "Never again," he whispered against her hair and held her, afraid of breaking her.
Never again would he ride to war.
Never again would the man she loved be killed.
ix.
To him, she was everything the world could offer.
Algren looked at her, memorizing the path her hands took when she performed her chores, remembering each little detail of her routine; the arch of her slender neck, the fleck of her wrist when she pushed her hair back behind her ear, her quiet steps on the wooden floor when she crept to bid goodnight to her children. To him, she was beauty and peace and life encompassed into one.
When Taka smiled at him, Algren felt his heart tighten with exhilarating freedom.
And when the night came, he stared at the ceiling and felt a craving so burning it nearly ripped his heart asunder, and yet he tried not to relieve it. There was a boundary which he could not cross – living in her home, eating with her – even talking to her – were all nearing that border, but no further would he go.
Enough lives had been stained by him. She would not be another one.