Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

 

The evening cherry blossoms were dyed by the light of paper lanterns.

Nights in the pleasure district always seemed red. Why was that?

I suppose it’s the color of madness, Misao mused, resting his hands on the vermillion railing. He raised his chin ever so slightly and narrowed his languorous eyes like a cat.

A breeze blew through the spring evening, making Misao’s hair dance freely over his shoulders, despite the fact that he was a man. The movement exposed the delicate skin of his neck, which stretched up beyond his tall collar.

The merry sound of singing came through the sliding doors, muffled by the distance.

A sigh escaped him.

He wanted to dance, his mind free to float and play without restrictions, far from the shackles that bound his body.

At times like this, he didn’t want to feel or think about anything.

“Why hello there, Misao.”

A voice called out to him from the western hallway, dragging him back to reality.

Hiding a sigh of disappointment, Misao turned his head indolently. This was all reality was.

The guest was on his way back from the washroom, his face reddened slightly by alcohol. He came toward Misao, looking content. He was the owner of a large kimono shop.

“Well, this is a rare sight. Nothing to do?”

The merchant spoke cheerfully, and Misao put on a modest smile and shook his head delicately.

“I’m visiting Seno’o’s room. There was a bit too much wine, so I told them I was going downstairs to get some warmed wine. But...”

Misao turned languidly then, and cast his empty gaze over the railing.

“The cherry blossoms are so very red. They just captivated me.”

He pretended not to see the man’s face licking at the corner of his vision.

Ever since he was a child, he had known how to act to ensnare someone’s interest or get what he wanted without much thought.

Words could be so inelegant.

Seeming to follow the path of a single petal as it fell through the air, Misao tilted his head. As he did so, his gaze fell finally on the toes of the guest’s socks and Misao raised his eyelashes. The man caught this upward glance and his face filled with affection. He swallowed noticeably.

“Are you... eighteen yet?” the kimono merchant asked, sidling cautiously up beside Misao, closing the distance between them as he might with a skittish cat.

“Yes, last month.” Misao nodded gracefully.

“I’ve known about you for a very long time, Misao, but you just keep getting more and more beautiful.”

His meaty hands, warm with the heat of his body, plucked up Misao’s right hand.

“Oh—”

Misao gave a practiced cry of surprise, tinged with naïveté, and the man’s face relaxed.

“You don’t look like a man at all.”

Misao didn’t fight the unpleasant feeling of the man’s caresses on the back of his hand and only fluttered his lowered eyelashes. His only intention with such a refined act was to mock his suitor.

The first time Misao had been visited by the kimono merchant was many years ago, when he was a junior courtesan’s maid. They were called maids in the vernacular of the house. The maids went everywhere the courtesans went, doing their small tasks. The girl Misao had served was wildly popular at the time and had considerable charms, but she was only attractive on the outside: inside, she was a viper, a demanding, proud woman. She would blow up at the slightest provocation and would beat Misao to make herself feel better. Her regular customers were very familiar with this aspect of her personality, but they were paying for a beautiful woman, and so when she tortured her maid in the tea rooms they looked the other way.

But that didn’t matter.

The junior courtesan’s maid bore it, and when she had grown tired of looking after him when he was around twelve the men began to behave in a much more obviously affectionate way toward him. The reason was clear: as Misao began to develop, he was suffused with an asexual beauty that none of the girls could hold a candle to.

And after all, the men who came to these brothels to buy girls only judged people by their appearances.

They became lecherous.

“If you get a break, why not come by my place? I would love to watch your dances for much longer than I can here, Misao.”

Misao responded to the kimono merchant’s suggestion by bashfully dipping his head. “Thank you. I will.”

The merchant nodded happily three times, then removed one of the hands that held Misao’s delicate fingers and reached into his sleeve. He pulled it back out immediately and rested it once more on Misao’s hand.

Misao felt something rough against his skin.

“Is that a promise?”

The merchant squeezed Misao’s hand tightly as a way of sealing the promise, then pulled away and hurried into the inner hallway. As soon as Misao lost sight of him, the false interest disappeared from his face.

He blew on the back of his right hand, as if trying to remove dirt, then opened his hand to see what the merchant had given him. It was a five yen bill.

“Thanks,” he murmured insincerely to the note in his hand.

Misao had worked a month straight in the pleasure district without a day off, and he might have earned just as much from his performances as this amount. He squeezed his fist and decided that if this was his price, it wasn’t too shabby. Not too shabby, but still a long way from the amount of money he needed.

But if he could keep this up, the day might yet come when it would be over.

His mind wandered, imagining the future.

He slipped the money he had wheedled into his sleeve and leaned his right hip against the railing to look out at the pleasure district.

This was the hour when the world within the gates began to be pervaded by energy. Within the milling streams of people, he found his gaze resting on a young apprentice who was striding along the road carrying her older sister geisha’s samisen and being roundly chewed out. A two-person rickshaw came up behind them and pulled up to stop under the eaves of Misao’s own Oumi Tea House.

The hood was up, so he couldn’t see the passenger, but it could have been a guest arriving at the house or a geisha coming to perform in one of the tea rooms.

The wind blew his long bangs into his eyes and he swept them back behind his ear in annoyance. He peered at the cart and saw the first passenger climb out. It was the owner of an introductory tea house that worked as a guide for customers to the world of the tea house and the pleasure district. Both his hands rested on his belt. He stepped away from the rickshaw and bowed with great refinement as the second passenger climbed out. This was obviously a client. And since the owner had not left the work to the younger members of his tea house, but had escorted the client himself, it was also obvious that this man was a very important customer.

Misao saw a head of soft, pale hair emerge from under the rickshaw’s hood. Then he spotted a shoulder covered in a flocked coat the color of dry leaves. He felt a sudden burst of breath on the back of his neck and cried out in surprise. It had been a prank. But Misao’s voice seemed to have reached the man’s ears, because he turned his eyes up toward the balcony as he stepped down from the cart.

Misao’s eyes met the man’s handsome face.

Even from a distance, he was obviously an attractive man.

Keeping the same offhanded expression, the man gazed at Misao for a long time before giving a bashful smile and returning his eyes to ground level. The entire series of actions was performed with practiced elegance, in stark contrast to Misao who had been caught by surprise and had stared wide-eyed at the man the entire time.

We come from different backgrounds, Misao thought bitterly.

Nothing showed a person’s true breeding better than how they reacted to unexpected situations.

“Oh-ho.”

An amused voice that smelled very slightly of alcohol struck Misao’s ear.

“Quite the fancy man in town tonight. The girls will love it.”

The man chortled and leaned his elbows on the railing to stare down at the street. Misao glared at the dilettante out of the corner of his eyes. His kimono was disheveled and he gave off a powerful scent of attractive masculinity. But the courtesan who was so talented at wheedling his customers had now been outmaneuvered by an attractive man.

In the pleasure quarter there was a saying: a good-looking man has neither money nor power. This man, Yoji Katsuragi, was a beautiful young man in his mid-twenties. Plus, he was blessed enough to have been born the heir to a very old, landowning family.

Customers like him, who wanted for nothing in their lives, were rare indeed. They were born under lucky stars.

How old had Misao been when he’d realized the futility of envying others for the things he didn’t have?

He glanced back at the eaves with a cool eye, but the man was gone. Even the rickshaw had pulled away.

“Why did you do that, Mister Katsuragi? Now you’ve embarrassed me!”

Misao huffed, trying to pull away as he bluntly turned the blame on Katsuragi. Katsuragi blocked his escape with one arm, which he coiled teasingly around Misao’s waist.

He gave a short chuckle against his left ear.

“You may dress like a woman, but your body is definitely a man’s.”

Misao stood, silent and unmoving, within the restraints of Katsuragi’s arm. He stared blankly at a point in the distance. Misao knew his resistance would only encourage Katsuragi.

Katsuragi loved beyond all else to say and do things that made Misao uncomfortable. It wasn’t that he didn’t like him, but when he came to the brothel he always called Misao into his tea room and flirted with him frivolously, as if he couldn’t imagine how depressed Misao was. If he did it with pure motives, then Misao was using Katsuragi at least as much. But Katsuragi wasn’t quite so easy a mark to manipulate.

He had an unnaturally perverse character.

“Let me go. I’ve got cramps.”

Misao resisted tonelessly.

“You don’t look like a girl to me.”

Katsuragi’s throat quivered with laughter and he mimed patting around Misao’s hips with the palm of his hand.

“Though if any man’s going to turn into a girl, my money would be on you,” he continued rudely.

Warm breath surrounded Misao’s earlobe. “You want to check and make sure?”

This was real cold-heartedness, masquerading as a confession of lascivious passion.

He didn’t feel that way at all. Sometimes he just liked to toy with Misao. For Katsuragi, the brothel was never anything more than a place to kill time. He had taught Misao that even if a man said something like that, good-looking men with money could never be taken at their word.

So Misao avoided any unnecessary affection for Katsuragi and instead dealt with him indifferently.

In the pleasure quarters, either you tricked someone or you were being tricked.

Two lovers running away together just didn’t happen here. Misao craned his neck and looked up at Katsuragi.

“Do you want to?” he asked with a cool, victorious smile.

Katsuragi lost interest immediately and let Misao go.

“You’re a real pro. Why can’t you act more like the sweet little girl you pretend to be for Kato?”

“How repulsive! You watched us?”

Misao cast a sidelong glance at Katsuragi and jeered at him. His gaze slid past Katsuragi’s profile and down the hall.

“I thought about it.”

Misao saw a woman in a heavily-embroidered kimono walking with her nose raised a bit higher than usual, looking down at them. She had thin, sloping eyes that matched her upswept hair and made her look like a fox. This was the woman Katsuragi usually preferred, the second highest-ranking courtesan at the Oumi Tea House, Seno’o.

Katsuragi rubbed the back of his neck and looked back at her in irritation.

The people you least wanted to see always showed up at the worst times.

“I thought you said you were going to bring us warm wine. What have you been doing all this time?”

Seno’o regarded Misao frigidly, her tone almost suggesting that she had caught Misao in a meeting with an illicit lover. It was an absurd accusation, but it was true that Misao had been dawdling, so he decided to remain silent rather than take her bait.

“Don’t be jealous of the help.”

It wasn’t clear if Katsuragi was trying to calm her or incite her as he cut in nonchalantly.

“I’m tired of hearing about the help.”

Seno’o turned on Katsuragi with an annoyed look.

“The only help I know about are the men who do so much hard work for the house up on the second floor. If you mean the sort of work that person can do, that only amounts to basking in the adoring looks of the customers and boring everyone with his interminable dances in the tea rooms. It’s as if he thinks he’s a geisha.”

Seno’o turned her disparaging face on Misao.

“I don’t know how the owner feels about it, but it certainly doesn’t look good.”

Seno’o’s flat declaration annoyed Misao, but before he could answer it, Katsuragi cut in apathetically.

“Could you avoid your shallow politics in front of the customers? I don’t really care about these catfights,” he muttered as if to no one in particular, and walked back to the tea room alone. But Seno’o could not contain her irritation with Misao and she went on.

“I’d like to know how you’ve managed to ingratiate yourself with him so well.”

Seno’o offered Misao a hateful look and her red lips pulled into a cruel bow.

“Perhaps you’re generous with your physical gifts.”

“What did you say?”

Misao smiled lusciously at this vulgar insult.

“I’ve cornered the market on that. I can see that you haven’t picked any of them up, anyway.”

Apparently this response carried well, because Katsuragi’s boisterous laugh could be heard down the hall.

Seno’o was outraged, and she shrieked Misao’s name.

But Misao paid her no attention and departed as if he heard none of what she screeched at him.

He entered the hallway leading toward the rooms and walked in a straight line, maintaining the same pace.

The Oumi Tea House was built around a central garden, and even in the Otobe pleasure quarters, whose streets were lined with brothels big and small, theirs had the greatest pride in simplicity. There were numerous tea rooms for the guests, but if all the sliding doors were taken out the space opened up into a banquet hall. Even when all the doors were shut, the shadows they projected of geisha plucking at their samisens and dancers beating the accompaniment on small drums made for a bustling atmosphere. Disregarding all the festivities, Misao turned down the hallway to the interior garden, then climbed the stairs.

Two flirtatious new girls came down the hall from the other direction. They were at the proverbial base of the ladder. New girls were still training to be companions and could not yet take customers. When the courtesan who served as their older sister and mentor took customers, they accompanied her to the tea rooms. In the entirety of the sequestered life that they would lead, this period was the easiest. They had a lot of free time and one often encountered them wandering the hallways. This was one of those times.

They cast a glance into the so-called reception area, the room for first-time customers, and chirped, “Hello, handsome.” The room was set abuzz instantly and they giggled charmingly behind their sleeves, and scurried primly away.

They were so innocent. How long would that last? Misao wondered as he took a vacant, dispassionate look into the reception area. He saw at once why the girls had fled.

The sliding doors had all been pulled open to create a room big enough for twenty beds. Four new customers sat inside, three of them cross-legged on the floor. Their respective girls sat a slight distance away from each of them, looking professional in their embroidered kimonos.

Only one of the customers was sitting in formal seiza position.

He was so stiff, it looked like he was waiting to begin a tea ceremony. He watched how the girls sat across from him with a peaceful look on his face.

He looked to be more or less the same age as Katsuragi. It was the customer the owner of the introductory tea house had brought here personally only a few minutes ago.

A very young girl in a flirtatious kimono, her hair arranged tightly atop her head, kneeled down beside him to offer a cup of tea and an ashtray. This was Sazu, the maid to Ukigumo, one of the Oumi Tea House’s prostitutes. It seemed they were going to offer their finest jewel to their finest customer.

Too bored to witness the same rituals performed yet again, Misao was on the verge of continuing down the stairs when he heard a voice cry out in an unfamiliar musical scale.

“Thank you very much.”

Misao halted in his tracks, as if he’d reached the end of a leash. He turned around awkwardly. He saw Sazu gazing at the customer, her eyes so wide they looked ready to pop.

Misao was sure he had the same look on his face.

He had never seen a new customer acknowledge the maid before.

“And how old are you?” the man asked Sazu kindly. This was a rare opportunity to hear someone speaking the language with a cultured accent.

“S—se—”

Sazu stuttered, her face filled with shock.

“I am seven... sir.”

“Seven...”

The man mulled over Sazu’s whispered announcement of her age, a look of anxiety flitting over his face.

Eager to escape this unfamiliar situation, Sazu quickly started to get up from her seat. The man lay a hand on the kimono that covered her knee and stopped her, then took something out of his coat pocket. He wrapped it in a white handkerchief and gave it to the girl, whose tiny hand hesitantly scooped it up. He drew his face closer to Sazu and whispered something in her ear.

Sazu shot him a dubious look, but held tightly to the object in her hands.

The man smiled at her placidly and nodded. He had a kind face. Misao found his eyes resting naturally on the man’s profile.

“He works for a big company in the east. His grandfather is the president of the Towa Corporation,” someone said out of nowhere in a secretive whisper. Misao turned his head in wide-eyed surprise. “And he’s an entrepreneur himself, despite how young he is.”

Misao hadn’t noticed anyone come up beside him. Kazushi, a friend of his among the servants, was staring into the reception area as well. Out of all the men at Oumi, Kazushi was the closest to Misao in age: only three years older.

Misao’s face was rigid with confusion, which seemed to make Kazushi uncomfortable. He jerked his eyes over at him and lifted his eyebrows. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Misao continued staring at Kazushi as he asked this question, then shook his head haltingly.

He could never admit that he had been captivated by one of the customers.

“No reason.”

Pushing his hair behind one ear, he lowered his eyes awkwardly. Only then did he notice the great tray that Kazushi balanced on one shoulder. On his tray were wine cups, bottles, and a plate of fish. Misao recognized it as the menu given to first-time customers.

“You’re going to serve him?”

“As you see.”

Kazushi looked at Misao triumphantly and winked.

“Can I do it?”

Normally, Kazushi wouldn’t hesitate to agree to it.

He knew Misao had a huge debt to pay off. So when he could help Misao make a little extra money, he would ungrudgingly give his trays to Misao to serve to the important customers. After that, it was up to Misao to inspire the customer’s predilections and make the situation profitable.

He looked back into the reception area.

Sazu bowed again and again to the man, then finally stood up.

Kazushi watched the man escort the maid to the door graciously before he finally answered.

“That’s all right. These men aren’t used to your tricks yet.”

“Do you think young master Katsuragi has made me too good?”

Kazushi gave a short laugh, then walked into the room with his tray as if nothing had happened. Sazu squeezed past him quickly and walked straight toward Misao. She tried to duck past, but Misao reached back and caught her fingers.

Sazu turned to Misao in surprise.

“Come with me,” Misao ordered, and dragged Sazu into a hallway hidden from the view of the reception area. Sazu looked a little guilty as she was pulled along. A coquettish little girl normally would have cut off a shriek, but she followed Misao as silently as a mouse.

Misao bent down to look at Sazu.

“What did he give you?” he asked with a serious look in his eye.

Sazu hunched her shoulders and stuffed the handkerchief she clutched in both hands into her kimono, trying to protect it. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. She looked like a child afraid of being beaten. The courtesan who was responsible for Sazu, her “older sister,” was Ukigumo, a beautiful woman who combined modesty and flamboyance, inside and out. She would never raise her hand to her maid. But for the children in the brothel, being beaten was a fact of life. Whenever something happened, they drew themselves up like this. Misao remembered the reflex well.

“I’m not going to take it,” he said with a rueful smile, patting Sazu on the head.

Misao just had to know what the man had given her. He felt like it would tug at his memory forever if he didn’t find out.

“You swear?”

Sazu looked up at him warningly, then finally let her clasped hands, held like a tiny flower bud at her chest, bloom open for Misao, revealing their prize. The handkerchief seemed to bloom simultaneously, opening itself in her hands.

It revealed an adorable translucent bottle in a rainbow of colors.

Misao picked it up, and his eyes traveled back to where the bottle had come from with something like jealousy.

He brought the bottle closer to his eye and saw the smoothness of its surface, unmarred by even a single fingerprint.

Shaking it from side to side, the high-quality multicolored candies inside it made a small tinkling sound.

“Ukigumo loves these,” Misao murmured.

Sazu’s eyes snapped open and she flew at him. “He gave it to me!”

Sazu snatched the bottle back, the handkerchief dancing out of her fingers.

“Oh—”

A small cry escaped Misao. He reached for the cloth before it had even completed its snowflake tumble to his feet.

“Are you going to tell her?”

The anxious question fell like a stone between them.

“Dummy.”

Misao looked up, as he scolded her with a stern voice.

“Even if I don’t tell her, you have to. If she doesn’t know that her maid has received a gift, she won’t be able to thank the customer for it. And that will make your sister look very bad.”

Sazu’s face was tortured as Misao lectured her, her lips pressed into a thin line. When he saw that she wasn’t going to argue, he decided that she had understood. But even when she nodded obediently, she still seemed upset.

“Who is it that makes it so you can wear pretty kimonos and eat as much as you want every day? Who’s paying for that?”

“My sister,” Sazu answered, in a voice tiny like a mosquito’s.

“So you mustn’t hide things from her,” Misao affirmed with a gentle smile. “Do you think your sister would take that from you? When it was a gift to you?”

This time the small head shook from side to side and the little girl’s hands fidgeted, at a loss.

“That customer...” Sazu murmured slowly, staring down at her hands. “He’s nice.”

“Why do you say that?”

Sazu fell silent when Misao asked her for proof, unable to offer any solid evidence.

“Because he gave you candy?”

Misao smiled patronizingly. Sazu glared, leaping to his defense.

“He’s nice!”

Apparently unsure that her argument would be effective, Sazu ran away down the hall like a fleeing rabbit.

Her long sleeves fluttered behind her like butterfly wings.

“I’m sure he is.”

Misao whispered his agreement in a voice he knew she would never hear as she fled down the hall.

He could tell, even as her tiny figure grew distant, that Sazu still clung protectively to the little bottle of candy.

But that wasn’t the nicest thing that man did for you, Sazu.

Misao didn’t believe that people who had been blessed by property and wealth brought only good things to those around them.

It was better not to believe that, in this wretched world stained by lust and sex.

Misao gazed at the pure white handkerchief Sazu had dropped, then folded it carefully.

It had protected the bottle the little girl had received, and he tucked this small kindness inside his kimono, against his heart.

 

 

 

At two in the morning, the monitor on the second floor walked through the empty hall beating his wooden clapper.

This let everyone know that the time had come for last call.

Misao walked down the hall on the second floor, stifling a yawn.

Moans came from every direction, muffled by pillows, but Misao had been used to that since childhood. He found it absolutely degenerate that the men who came to these places enjoyed when the women made such noises. After this critique, the next thought that came to Misao’s mind was of the customer in the reception room whom he’d discussed with Sazu. It was not the first time Misao had thought of him that evening. Everything that happened triggered the memory of him in his mind.

Of all the customers who came to the Oumi Tea House, there had been only one whom Misao had adored. They first met right after Misao became a maid andhe would never forget itthey had passed each other in the hall.

The man asked Misao how he had gotten a certain injury on his face and when Misao didn’t answer, he stopped the junior courtesan parading ahead of him and began to lecture her severely. The girl beat Misao for it later, but Misao knew it would pass. He was simply overjoyed that anyone had bothered to be concerned for him. The second time they met, Misao had run up to the man.

He felt an aura of selfless kindness from him.

He hadn’t come by in months, though. Why was Misao thinking about him so nostalgically all of a sudden? He supposed it must have been the effect of the new customer.

Masaomi Towa.

Entrepreneur and heir to the Towa Corporation. With titles like that, he had the power to keep a woman, and warnings were circulating among them all not to blunder.

Misao had no connection to this person, but oddly, his heart fluttered and refused to settle down.

“Hey there, all done?”

Kazushi called to him from one of the hallways on the central garden as he put new fuel into one of the garden lanterns.

Whenever they saw each other, he always had a look of perfect understanding on his face. Misao could imagine that if he ever left the tea house he would be popular with girls, but he remained wasted on the men of the brothel.

“Are you on watch?” he asked with a yawn.

That day Misao had started work at ten in the morning, when he took part in calling out to customers on the street in front of the tea house, so he was glad that his work was over.

“Yeah.”

Kazushi winked and quirked a corner of his mouth.

“And I have to get the girls in order before they go out on the street tomorrow. I can’t go to bed till that’s done.”

“How sad.”

“You sound real sympathetic.”

Kazushi frowned at him, then laughed. Misao stepped out of the hallway.

The girls slept on the second floor, but Misao and the other men slept on the first floor.

He turned toward the staircase. He was halfway down the hall when he saw a figure leaning on the railing, gazing down at the garden.

The person gave off a languid impression, dressed in a light summer kimono, caressed by the night breeze.

Misao opened his lips slightly and lay a hand to the crossed seams of his collar. He remembered the item he’d placed there.

I should return it...

Why was he thinking of doing something so conscientious?

“Having trouble sleeping?”

He’d spoken before he realized it.

The man turned around.

It was the man who had flickered through his mind all evening, the beautiful man from the reception room, Masaomi Towa.

He looked confused for a moment as he looked at Misao, then seemed to remember him. His expression instantly softened into cordiality.

“Good evening.”

Masaomi greeted him elegantly. It was the voice he had heard speaking to Sazu in the reception area, full of romance and fantasy. It made Misao feel as if he were reading a fairy tale.

Misao bowed slowly. He raised his face once again with the same languorous speed and saw that Masaomi was still staring at him, illuminated by a beam of moonlight. The purity of the scene dulled Misao’s nerve and he found it impossible to look directly at the man.

Maybe he ought to have waited until he was closer to speak.

Misao regretted it now, since he would have to awkwardly walk by so closely under Masaomi’s gaze, his own eyes lowered.

Why was he being so ceremonious for the return of a single handkerchief?

He tried to dampen the uncharacteristic excitement in his heart, but the tension refused to leave his shoulders. In fact, he felt even more stressed than before.

He stopped in front of Masaomi, who seemed to be waiting for him, and slipped his fingers inside the collar of his kimono. At almost the same moment, Masaomi began to speak.

“This is my first time at a place like this. I came without any idea of what I was going to do.”

“Hm?”

Misao raised his eyes with an almost impudent quickness, his long eyelashes cutting the air.

Masaomi looked at him with a weak smile, then turned his face slowly back to the garden.

The night breeze played through his soft hair. His bangs fell into his eyes, casting shadows over his face.

“So a courtesan is a woman who doesn’t speak?”

Misao glanced curiously at the man’s forlorn expression, disbelieving the furtiveness in his voice.

He must be teasing him.

The tiny doubt that floated into his mind never grew to be a suspicion: instead it withered quickly away to nothing.

Misao laid his hand on his kimono, which still concealed the handkerchief. He seemed to have missed his opportunity to mention it.

He didn’t think this man was the sort of person who teased others for his own enjoyment.

“Only at a reception,” Misao explained in a soft whisper.

Masaomi twisted his head around to look at him.

“The courtesans never use their mouths in front of a guest during his first visit. Not for speaking, not for drinking, and not for smoking.”

“That’s—”

His mouth seemed to have run away with his interest. Masaomi gasped, and cut himself off. Misao watched the man collect himself once more before turning to him and inquiring more politely.

“That means she will talk to me some day.”

Misao stared at Masaomi wordlessly.

Masaomi seemed unsure of how to interpret Misao’s silence and let out a short, nervous laugh in his embarrassment.

“I’m sorry. I must be keeping you.”

“Not at all.”

Misao shook his head slightly.

But he couldn’t very well continue standing there when he had been given permission to go.

No...

The man standing before him was somehow similar to the old customer who had been so nice to Misao when he was young, but they were also completely different.

The customer who had treated him kindly had done so because he understood how brothels worked. He had always conducted himself skillfully in the tea rooms. He was what might be called a connoisseur of the pleasure quarters.

But Masaomi had just finished his very first visit and understood nothing. He was an amateur.

Misao knew that if this generous man were to enter a tea room with his utter lack of knowledge, he would end by paying out all the money in his pocket.

“Um—I’m sure this is very forward of me to say, but...”

Misao felt annoyed at himself for his stuttering speech.

This was the first time he had ever felt concern for a customer’s well-being.

Masaomi looked at him curiously.

Misao let out a sigh of relief that his motives hadn’t been discovered, then hardened his heart.

“If you’re not yet familiar with the tea house, would you like for me to explain some of its finer points for you?”

“You?”

Masaomi asked, then immediately seemed to notice something and looked down into a corner of the garden. Misao followed his gaze. Standing on one of the garden bridges, one of the night watchmen had raised his lantern and was looking suspiciously up at them.

“Ah,” Misao murmured, feeling fatigued. “He thinks I’m one of the girls.”

It was a common mistake after dark. Misao wasn’t particularly short, but his long hair blurred the line apparently.

“He’s watching us to see if we’re planning to run away together.”

“You and I?”

He probably hadn’t meant anything by that. But Misao was unusually taken aback by his words.

For a moment, he saw the image vividly in his mind: running with Masaomi, hands locked.

At nearly the same moment, they both turned their eyes from the watchman’s lantern to each other’s faces.

Their eyes locked.

Misao gulped and Masaomi smiled at him gently.

It was like a soft spring breeze, Misao thought hazily as the night air played through his hair.

Masaomi moved slightly away from the railing and turned his back.

“Then it appears we should go somewhere else.”

He looked back at Misao once more, echoing his thoughts, and tilted his head ever so slightly with a gentle expression.

“Even if you’re only going to flatter me.”

 

 

 

There were small butterflies drawn on several of the thin paper lanterns, and the flames inside caused their shadows to flutter on the walls.

They were in a room that could hold two beds, walled off by folding screens with cushions scattered about its wooden floor. It showed no sign of having been used.

Misao felt a little uncomfortable at the fact that this was one of the rooms where the girls slept, but perhaps that was because the room was so tidy; or then again, perhaps because there was a man sitting so formally right across from him. Masaomi was someone who was buying women with money, but at the same time he gave an impression of refreshing cleanliness.

“The second time you come, they will do the same thing.”

Masaomi nodded wordlessly at Misao’s explanation. The light of the lanterns cut a sharp relief on his serious face.

“The courtesan will speak to you more familiarly, but just as tonight, you will have to sleep alone. A courtesan will only loosen her sash for a guest after he visits three times.”

Misao informed him about all the various methods of payment such as the tip, the monetary gift, and even the courtesan’s flower money, with the utmost propriety. Masaomi would occasionally raise a question and Misao would answer, until finally he finished explaining the basics. It had taken more than an hour to cover it all. There was no means to tell the time inside the room, so they didn’t know the exact hour, but it must have been near four in the morning.

Masaomi never shifted his position during the entire discussion. He had barely even taken his eyes off of Misao the entire time. The intensity of his attention was almost frightening.

Misao pretended to have just remembered something and glanced at the screen, fleeing Masaomi’s direct gaze.

“When is the tea house bringing you back?” Misao asked without returning his eyes to Masaomi.

The tip was typically paid upon leaving the brothel and often the tea house would send someone to escort the customer home.

“I requested first thing in the morning,” Masaomi answered.

At the brothel, “first thing in the morning” meant four in the afternoon.

Misao turned his face back to Masaomi. He was still looking at him. It was a perfectly relaxed look, devoid of excitement.

“Then they should be coming for you soon. Would you like to change? I can help you.”

“Oh no, it’s still much too early for that.”

He refused the offer assuredly, as if he carried a watch inside his head.

His calm seemed to radiate oddly into the environment. Misao had begun to stand up, but at the sound of the man’s voice, he sat back down and gave an easy sigh.

The last thing he wanted to do was disturb him.

“Do you need anything else?”

Misao knew that they needed to somehow fill this time, but Masaomi only shook his head slightly. The next moment, he looked more relaxed.

“You’ve been a big help. Thanks.”

Misao blinked slowly at this gratitude.

What a strange man.

He had no flaws.

It troubled Misao why someone like him would come to a place like this. He had wondered about it all night.

Masaomi ought to have attracted scores of women without needing to come to a brothel. Was it just the indulgence of a man with too much time and money, like it was for Katsuragi? Misao just couldn’t figure it out.

There could be many reasons for him to visit a brothel for the first time.

Simple appreciation of women. A family custom. To see someone from work. To cheer himself up. Among all those, there was one more reason; a motive purer than the rest.

Well...that must be it.

Everything fell into place.

Well then.

“Did you know that Ukigumo likes candy?” Masaomi looked surprised at Misao’s sudden inquiry.

That must be it. He was almost certain.

Masaomi must have seen Ukigumo on the street going out to greet a customer and fallen in love at first sight. Suddenly, it all made sense. His gift to Ukigumo had never been intended for anyone else. He had known exactly what he was doing.

Confusion came over Masaomi’s face when Misao pulled the object from his kimono and held it out to him.

At first he peered curiously at the handkerchief Misao held out to him, but a few moments later he let out a murmur. “Ah... that’s mine, isn’t it?”

“I’m returning it to you.”

Masaomi gave a slight nod. He didn’t even ask him how he’d gotten it and simply picked it up. “Thanks for going to all that trouble.”

Misao watched him pull his hand away.

He momentarily regretted returning it, a strange sort of attachment flitting through his heart; but when Masaomi stood up, all business, Misao no longer understood why he had felt that way.

All he could do was shake his head at this mysteriously uncharacteristic mood.

Masaomi appeared to be tucking the handkerchief into the pocket of his flocked jacket, which hung in a corner of the room. His back was turned, so Misao couldn’t really see what he was doing.

They had been talking the entire night, so this was the first time Misao had seen his back.

Why did it make his heart feel so empty?

“Don’t you think it was a little arrogant to give the maid a token intended for her courtesan?” Misao asked quietly.

It seemed highly unlikely that Masaomi would carry that sort of thing around with him as a matter of habit. It was much easier to imagine that he had done some research into Ukigumo’s tastes.

Masaomi came back over to Misao and chuckled. He didn’t deny it. So he really had come to the Oumi Tea House to try and win Ukigumo.

“Don’t you feel sorry for her?”

Misao didn’t know why he said something so petty. He felt almost nauseous at giving voice to these angry words and his face twisted. The eyes of the man across from him stared back, trembling like a candle flame.

It was the face of a man who had suddenly encountered something unexpected.

Then his eyes lowered and he looked to be deep in thought, staring at a point on the floor. It seemed Misao’s words had dug up something much deeper inside him.

In the silence that followed, so quiet that they could hear the crackling of the fire burning in the lanterns, Misao briefly regretted his rudeness.

There had been no reason to attack Masaomi.

Misao knew very well how happy that small act of charity had made Sazu, even if it was unintentional. He also knew how very important the memory of it would be to her for the rest of her life.

So then why had he said it?

A sudden anger, quick like the flare of a match, had taken over his emotions.

Masaomi let out a single long sigh.

Misao held his breath and pressed his lips together.

“I see,” Masaomi said to himself quietly. His big, round eyes closed once, briefly. “Definitely, such arrogance is highly unattractive in a person.”

He turned to face Misao, chastising himself.

Misao heard the pounding of his heart inside him.

“It’s all in the name of self-gratification.”

Misao had always thought of this place as nothing but a lie.

Men and women held the ugly truth about themselves under layer after layer of gilding.

The truth had no place here.

A raspy breath escaped Misao’s slightly open lips.

“Forgive me.”

He bowed his head.

“It was very petty of me to say that.”

He had no doubt made Masaomi say things he would have rather not said.

The man had spoken his feelings truthfully, without any pretense.

“Forgive me,” Misao said again.

Masaomi moved silently to sit diagonally across from him. “Sit up.”

All Misao could see were Masaomi’s hands, resting lightly on the long kimono that covered his knees.

“I don’t want you to apologize to me. In fact, I’m glad you said that. I need to be aware of this selfish side of myself.” Misao felt a little suspicious of this act of self-discipline.

He slowly sat up and turned his head haltingly. This was the closest he had been to Masaomi all day. He saw that the man’s placid features bore him no grudge.

“Hey, I still haven’t asked you your name,” Masaomi said with a light laugh. “I’m Masaomi. Masaomi Towa. And you are?”

“Excuse me for not introducing myself earlier.”

Misao sat up straight and reoriented his body to face Masaomi.

“Misao. I was named for a festival.”

Masaomi nodded.

“That’s a pretty name. Could I be so bold as to take your hand?”

“My hand? I don’t understand.”

He tilted his head and held his hands out, palms up. Masaomi swept one up in his left hand.

Misao gulped and his eyes widened. He followed the path of his hand with bulging eyes as it was raised to the level of the man’s chest, as it touched his skin, then he turned his eyes to Masaomi’s face. His eyes were lowered to Misao’s palm, the orange light of the lanterns casting the faint shadow of his eyelashes on his face.

The pulse in Misao’s wrist thudded, as if competing with the speed of his heart’s pounding.

He felt a single finger touch his palm, then slide over it.

A sensation shot through Misao, threatening to choke him.

The finger traced out a character on the taut skin of his palm.

It was his name.

Misao’s eyelids fluttered with each stroke.

As he finished the last line, the man’s finger withdrew from his palm.

“I don’t know if that helped, since it was written backwards.”

Masaomi lifted his head and looked straight into Misao’s eyes. A tremor ran through his face and, as if he had been holding his breath, his shoulders shook slightly.

Misao imagined what a strange face he must be making right then.

Under normal circumstances, Misao was in perfect control of his expression. He would know it as surely as if he had checked in a mirror.

But right now, he had no idea what he looked like.

He had never felt so unstable before.

“About the...”

He looked earnestly at Masaomi, then looked everywhere but at him. Misao heard his own faint voice float out of him, like a paper balloon blown in the breeze.

“Your handkerchief... could I have it?”

“What?”

Masaomi appeared taken aback. Misao was shocked himself at what he had just said.

He covered his mouth with his hand at this unbelievable request.

Masaomi was just about to say something when the wavering light of a hand lantern shone on the screen door.

“That’s the owner making his rounds.”

There was a noise in the hall. It was Kazushi’s voice. Instinctively, Misao readied himself to stand at a moment’s notice. Across from him, Masaomi slowly turned his head, like a rusty tin man, to the shadows cast by the man’s lantern on the screen.

“I’m sorry, I’m not dressed yet,” Masaomi called through the door. His voice was more businesslike than Misao had heard it all night. “Could you please wait a moment?”

“Would you like some help?”

Masaomi refused Kazushi’s offer. “No need, thank you.”

“Let me,” Misao offered quietly. Masaomi nodded and stood up. Misao stood as well, to help. Due to the urgency of the situation, Misao’s heart pounded so erratically he was afraid it might simply stop, which would be no help at all. But gradually, it calmed.

The man pulled off his robe and Misao drew his shirt over his broad back. When he pulled his arms through the sleeves of his flocked coat, Masaomi looked over his shoulder at Misao.

“Thank you.”

Misao was adjusting the collar of his coat when he said it and, for some reason he didn’t quite understand, it touched him. He shook his head silently. His feelings were in strange disarray once again.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Masaomi opened the door.

Kazushi had set the lantern on the floor and kneeled beside the door to wait. He looked up and noticed Misao standing behind Masaomi. His mouth opened and he stared stupidly.

“Is something the matter?” Masaomi asked.

“Uh—no, sir. Please follow me.”

Kazushi picked up the lantern and led Masaomi down the hall, and Misao followed behind them.

When they reached the first floor, he slipped out the gate.

A two-passenger rickshaw was waiting in the street. A small lantern hung from its side. The owner of the introductory tea house stood in the light, waiting for his customer.

Masaomi turned back to Misao. Misao was surprised by his sudden change in direction and he fell back a step. But Masaomi’s steps were much larger and he closed the distance, gently taking one of Misao’s hands. The feeling of his skin as he covered Misao’s hand with his own made Misao’s breath catch.

“Thank you for all your help,” he whispered, catching Misao’s eye. Then he silently pulled his hands away and walked unerringly back to the cart. The owner sat beside him and ordered the driver to take them away, and they set off at a quick pace.

“Guess I was wrong about you and him,” Kazushi teased, holding his lantern aloft. Misao didn’t answer. He dropped his gaze to his hands.

The handkerchief was folded in quarters, then folded in half in the middle. There was a ten yen note tucked inside. Misao felt a leaden weight sink into his heart.

This was much too large an amount to be called a simple tip, and when Kazushi stole a glance at it, he let out a low whistle.

“What did you do?”

One corner of Kazushi’s mouth twisted up, and for some reason Misao found that extremely offensive.

“It wasn’t like that,” he answered glumly, and walked back through the gate. He went toward the owner’s room in the back. There was a fixed distance to reach the end of this job. He slipped his right hand into his sleeve and gathered the many bills that he kept there. It was everything he had earned from the customers that night. There must be eight yen in all. He wasn’t including the ten yen from Masaomi.

He went into the room.

The owner had carelessly put his bed next to the hearth. He only woke up when Misao stood next to his pillow.  He lifted his head, which was going white, disagreeably.

“Who’s there?” he demanded imperiously. But when he saw it was Misao, his mood changed.

“Oh, it’s you, Misao. You were working late tonight. How did you do?”

Misao knelt down silently and sat beside him. He laid each of the bills he’d received on the edge of the bed. The owner picked them up and counted them.

“You’ve got eight yen! Well done.”

He raised his eyebrows, impressed.

“How much is left?” Misao choked out.

The owner quirked a corner of his mouth and sighed. “Don’t be so stubborn. I’ve been here my whole life.”

The owner stroked Misao’s cheek with a sticky hand, and Misao slapped it away harshly.

“I’m not joking.”

The owner’s throat shook with his amusement. He was obviously a pervert to derive such joy from that treatment.

“All right, all right. You really are good.”

He gazed at Misao, as if lost in a dream, and said the same thing he said every time Misao came to him.

“Your face, your eyes—every day you’re more and more in the flower of your youth.”

The owner reached out again, forgetting his lesson already, but Misao avoided him and stood up.

“I’m tired of this. I don’t need you to tell me over and over how much I look like whatever. Thanks for your time,” Misao exploded, then headed out of the room. The owner called out to stop him, still in his bed.

“You’ve been holding on to that thing the whole time you’ve been in here. What is it? A handkerchief?”

The owner peered at Misao’s left hand with great interest.

Misao left the room without answering.