Chapter Text
Chapter One: The Quiet You Chose
The wedding was so quiet, even the gods didn’t hear it.
No family. No guests. No flowers. No dress.
Just ink on paper and the faint scratch of a pen signing her name next to his—Higurashi Kagome, bold in black kanji, beneath the elegant sprawl of Taishō Sesshōmaru’s seal. No kiss. No rice. No smiles.
A marriage not of love, but necessity.
Her grandfather was dying.
His father already dead.
They made the pact in the winter. A contract of confidence, crafted in the pale light of a shrine’s inner chamber, while her grandfather slept in the next room, tubes in his arms and peace in his eyes. He didn’t know what she gave up to keep the shrine. Only that his granddaughter would remain its keeper.
Sesshōmaru’s terms were simple. Two years of marriage. A shared roof, separate rooms, public appearances as needed. No physical intimacy. No shared finances.
Only proximity.
Only paper.
Only peace.
She asked for quiet. She asked for stillness. She asked to be left alone.
And Sesshōmaru—cold, brilliant, unknowable Sesshōmaru—had given her exactly that.
At first, it was almost romantic.
In the way silent snowfall is romantic.
In the way ghosts might dance in empty halls.
He moved through the house like a myth, seen but never touched. His footsteps were soundless. His presence came with a pressure shift in the air. When he arrived home, he brought the scent of ancient woods and new money. Always formal. Always composed. Never cruel. Never kind.
He was everything she asked for.
And so she kept to her corner of the house: the old side. Tatami mats, sliding screens, small offerings of rice and salt. She kept incense burning. Kept the shrine alive. She wrote in her journals at night, wondering what her grandfather would say if he knew she had married a demon to keep his legacy intact.
In the first year, they spoke perhaps a hundred words. She remembered them all.
“Yes, that date is acceptable.”
“There is tea in the cabinet.”
“I will not be here this weekend.”
“You are free to use the garden.”
“Please keep your guests to the east wing.”
“Your grandfather would be proud.”
That last one came on the day of the funeral. He did not touch her hand. He did not hold her. But he stood beside her, eyes like winter steel, as she poured sake over the grave.
She whispered, “Thank you.”
And he nodded, once.
She didn’t know when the silence began to hurt.
It was slow. Like frostbite.
Numbness first.
Then pain.
Then panic.
She had thought peace would heal her. That a life without screaming or drama or chaos would be salvation. She had survived heartbreak before—watching her friends date, marry, move on—while she stayed behind at the shrine, her powers anchoring her to sacred land no one wanted.
Sesshōmaru had appeared like a god from the myths.
Sharp suit. Ancient eyes. Ageless face.
He had been her grandfather’s final benefactor—offering funds and protection for their small, ancient shrine in exchange for blessing his new corporate developments. She remembered how still her grandfather looked in that final week, how he clutched her hand and said, “He’s not as cold as he seems. He still remembers the old gods.”
She thought she was clever, entering the contract.
Thought she could endure two years of cold in exchange for warmth that would come later.
But two years is a long time to eat alone.
A long time to go untouched.
A long time to wait for someone who never planned to come closer.
She began watching his routines like a ritual.
Not with longing. Not at first.
With curiosity. With desperation.
She would hear the shower run in the guest wing.
Smell the oolong he preferred.
Hear the quiet rattle of his keys in the dark.
He never brought women home.
Never brought anything home but work.
She once asked him, “Do you sleep at all?”
He replied, “Only when necessary.”
She never asked again.
By month twenty-two, her journal pages blurred. She had run out of words to describe loneliness.
By month twenty-three, she began packing.
She was gentle about it—methodical, respectful, as if the walls might mourn her departure. She labeled her boxes, wrapped her porcelain. She cleared her shelf in the shared study. Left the contracts in his inbox.
And on a rainy Wednesday, with trembling hands, she laid the divorce papers on his lacquered desk.
He was already seated, unmoved, elegant in a white shirt with the cuffs rolled back. He glanced at the document. Picked up his pen. Circled one line in red.
Then he pushed it back across the table.
“The contract may be terminated on the twenty-fourth month, midnight exactly.”
She blinked. Swallowed. Looked again.
She had missed it by one week.
Seven days.
One mistake.
“The clause is clear,” he said, voice like silk pulled taut. “Failure to meet the exact termination deadline results in automatic renewal for the full term.”
“Two more years,” she whispered.
He nodded.
And she—who had asked for silence, who had begged for distance, who had written it all into the fine print—could only stare at the man who had given her everything she wanted.
Everything but the one thing she had never dared to write down.
Love.
Outside, the rain turned to sleet.
Inside, the woman sat across from her husband of almost two years.
And for the first time since the ink dried, her voice cracked as she asked, “Why are you doing this?”
Sesshōmaru looked at her, gaze unreadable.
“You asked for silence,” he said. “I am honoring it.”
And she realized, with aching clarity—
She had never known how loud a quiet house could be.