Year of the Boar, Eleventh Month, Day 5.

Evidently, I have somehow given Sasanuma the impression that we are ... more than we are... until he left a stick or so ago to bathe and take some food, he has not left my side since I was forced to take to my bed. My hand has remained in his and every so often, he brings it to his lips and presses them to my skin. I could stop him. I could simply tell that I want nothing from him... that there can be nothing between us and he would cease... I cannot help but compare him to Kenta and where Kenta would persist, I know deep within my bones that Sasanuma would respect my wishes completely. 
The truth is that I do not want him to stop.  I do not fool myself that I am desperately in love... after Kenta, I am unsure that I could ever love a man again for fear that I should lose my senses entirely but I feel so very alone and the prospect of having a companion to comfort me, to hold me and love me in the way I believed Kenta loved me... the way I wanted Kenta to love me... I ... is it enough to respect a man...? To know that he is good and has only the best of intentions...? I can be reasonably certain that he has no designs on my House for if he did, he could have moved against me long before now... 
I am so tired... tired of the subterfuge, of being unable to voice my intentions and of being confined by this pregnancy... If I could simply crush White Lake between my fingers like an insect and have done with it, I could think on my true feelings about Sasanuma... 
I suppose I must speak with him about this. At the very least, I cannot give the House any more to gossip about than they already have. Anyone would think this is Dying Crane...