An Honest Year

Ho came to Kusuma’s house the morning after she told Willowshore the truth. She had not slept. The cup beside her was full, the tea untouched and gone pale with cooling. Outside, the town moved in low voices, as if speaking too loudly might wake the dead. As if they were not already awake. When Ho knocked, she knew it was him. Three measured taps. No impatience. No demand. “Come in,” she said. He entered, bowed, and paused just inside the doorway until she gestured to the mat across from her. Only then did he sit. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
He looked tired. Not frightened, exactly. Ho did not frighten easily. But there was a heaviness in his face, the look of a man who had stood guard all night over a town that no wall could protect.
“Kusuma,” he said at last, “I wanted to speak before others begin speaking for us.”
Her fingers tightened around her sleeve. “About us?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“I have not asked anything yet.”
“You have that look.”
His mouth softened, but he did not smile. “Then you know I am serious.”
That made her stomach drop. Ho lowered his eyes briefly, gathering himself. “We have hidden our attachment for one hundred and seventeen years.”
“Two years,” she said quickly. “Not a hundred.”
He looked back at her. She hated how patient he was. Hated it because it made panic feel childish.
“It was the same year,” she said. “Again and again. We did not choose each other for a century. We did not grow old. We did not build anything. We were trapped and ignorant.”
“I know.”
“Then do not make this into some grand obligation.”
“It is not obligation.”
“Isn’t it?” Her voice sharpened, then softened just as fast. She had no strength for a fight. “You are a guard. You think in duties. Honor. Appearances.”
“I do.”
“Then you know what people will say if they learn. They do not even know we have been secretly together. They will count the months. They will whisper. They will decide you should have done the honorable thing.”
His expression changed then, firm and wounded. “Let them whisper about me. Not you.”
“That is exactly what I mean.”
Ho bowed his head once, accepting the rebuke. Then he said, “I do not wish to make an honest woman of you because you were dishonest or people might talk. You were not. We chose secrecy together.” Kusuma looked away.
“I wish to be honest myself,” he continued. “Yesterday, you stood before the town and told a truth no one wanted to hear. I watched you do that, and I understood that I have been hiding behind caution for too long.”
She stared at the untouched tea.
“Marriage is enormous,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“You say that as if it does not terrify you.”
“It does.”
That surprised her enough to look at him.
Ho’s hands rested still on his knees. “I am terrified. Of what we are. Of what we have lost. Of what comes next. Perhaps I was afraid before of what people might say, but I'm more ashamed that I let that fear keep me silent.”
Her eyes burned. “What if you get tired of me?” she asked. “When the year moves on. When there is a future again. What if I am only bearable because everything has been small and secret?”
Ho’s answer came quietly. “You have never been easy because you were secret.”
Despite herself, she gave a broken little laugh. He finally smiled, just a little. Then he reached into his sleeve.
Her breath caught. “Ho.”
He stopped at once. “It is not a ring.”
“What is it?”
“A list,” he admitted.
“A list?”
“Of what I meant to say. In case I forgot... or you started throwing things.”
For one absurd, helpless moment, she nearly laughed again. Then she nearly cried. Ho set the folded paper down between them, unread.
“I would like to marry you. Not today. Not because the town is broken. Not because death has made us desperate. Because if we are given even one true year, I want to spend it beside you without pretending. I love you.”
The room was too small for the words. Kusuma looked at him, at the careful set of his shoulders, at the man who had come to her door with no ring, no audience, no demand. Only a question he was honorable enough not to force.
“I cannot answer today,” she said.
“I know.”
“And if I say yes, I will be difficult.”
“That was never in doubt.”
She would have glared. Instead, she looked down before he could see too much of her face. Outside, Willowshore murmured around them, dead and grieving and still somehow alive. Kusuma drew a slow breath. “I’ll think about it,” she said. Ho bowed his head as though she had given him a vow already. “Then I will wait.”