Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 

 

Rain fell in a steady drizzle.

It was eight in the evening. The hour of feasting.

The servants carried the emptied trays from the room and put them in the hall. Everything but the wine was practically untouched. It was always like that in Katsuragi’s rooms, so it seemed ridiculous to Misao that they should keep bothering to make hors d’oeuvres for him. Once the majority of the cleaning was done in the tea room, Misao entered the adjacent room.

It was Seno’o’s bedroom. There was no one in it right now. Silence had also returned to the room behind him, its doors flung wide.

While the monitors on the second floor were getting the rooms ready, the girls and customers were absent for a short time. The girls had gone to fix their makeup and the men had mostly gone to the washroom.

A high quality, soft futon was piled up proudly in a corner. It had an almost poisonously vibrant design and color. Misao was on his hands and knees, smoothing the wrinkles out of it.

Then his hand stopped.

His body was immediately rocked to its core and his heart began pounding restlessly.

No. He couldn’t think about it.

It would hurt too badly.

He tried to break off the train of thought somehow, but it didn’t go well. Work that had been so easy to do only a moment before became difficult.

He clung to the futon, balling it in his fists.

“I saw that man of yours at the bathroom.”

Suddenly, Katsuragi’s voice came from behind him. Misao spun around in shock. The pounding of his heart broke into a different sort of race.

“How long have you been there?”

Katsuragi feigned ignorance and stood just inside the room. On reflection, Misao saw that Katsuragi was standing directly behind him. He was fanning himself with a single sheet of long, thin paper. He aimed it at Misao and flicked it through the air at him.

It fluttered down beside him. Misao looked down at it skeptically. When he picked it up, he saw it was a check. The number 640 was written in the amount field. The amount was so large he couldn’t be shocked by it. It was just a piece of paper.

“I don’t know if he’s just that honest or what, but he really did pay me double.”

Katsuragi sounded surprised.

Misao looked up at him: he had no idea what Katsuragi was talking about. Then he realized. His eyes shot back to the check. He checked the amount very carefully.

It was exactly double the amount that Katsuragi said he had paid to make Misao up like a courtesan.

He raised his wide-eyed stare to Katsuragi and hesitantly asked, “Did Masaomi?”

“I don’t know his name.”

Katsuragi snorted derisively and Misao shot to his feet. “Hold it! Are you actually planning to take this money? You have to give it back! I’ll be in trouble otherwise.”

“You’ll be in trouble?” Katsuragi parroted tauntingly. Then he came over and sat down on the exquisite bedding that Misao had laid out and smirked. “I never thought I’d hear you talk to me like that.”

“Quit it. I mean it.”

Misao put his hands on the bedding and bent forward. He was begging. But Katsuragi knocked him over.

“What?”

For a moment, Misao didn’t know what had happened.

Just before his back hit the floor, Katsuragi caught at his collar and tore one side of his kimono open.

Misao’s eyes were wide, searching Katsuragi’s face as Katsuragi knelt over him.

A wet pain ran up his neck, raising goosebumps on his entire body.

He tried to scream, but his voice seemed stuck in his throat and only the smallest sound made it out.

He shoved back against the powerful chest, fighting back at random, but the man hanging over him didn’t even flinch.

His teeth clattered, making a terrible noise.

He turned his face all the way to the side, burying it in the bedding, and shoved at Katsuragi with all his might. But his hands met no resistance and only flailed through empty space.

The weight that had pressed down on his body was gone.

He pulled his kimono closed again and sat up. He scooted back. It had been only a few brief moments, but his breathing was labored, as if he had just sprinted half a mile. In contrast, Katsuragi sat across from him looking perfectly calm, as if nothing at all had happened. He lay on his side, his head propped up on one elbow.

“I hope you die,” Misao spat at him through ragged breaths.

Katsuragi’s lips only twisted slightly and he rolled onto his back on the futon. He had no remorse at all. He folded an arm behind his head as a pillow, then moved onto his side, looking up at Misao at an angle. He seemed completely at his ease.

“You’ve been almost crossing the line the last couple of days. But if you don’t want to get hurt, you’d better remember your place.”

Katsuragi sounded almost bored. Misao glared at him. His body was still tense.

“You’ve really lost your touch with the customers. Not that you’re a lost cause. When you fight back so desperately like that, it really turns a guy on.”

Misao knew that he was implicitly commenting on the fact that he’d been with a man.

His lips trembled in humiliation and he pressed them tightly together.

Misao had known it all along.

He couldn’t play these erotic games with people anymore. It was too frightening.

Katsuragi jerked his chin at the wrinkled check that still lay atop the bedding.

“You can have that money.”

“What?”

Misao frowned dubiously. He wondered what else Katsuragi had up his sleeve.

Apparently his suspicions showed on his face. Katsuragi laughed at the frown on his face.

“You’re no fun. Why can’t you just believe me?”

“Whose fault is that?” Misao muttered back.

“Who knows.”

Katsuragi rolled onto his back and folded both arms behind his head.

“Think of it like my admission fee, for you showing me things I would never usually see at a brothel. Then you can do what you want with the money. Buy yourself clean, give it back to that man, or whatever.”

Katsuragi spoke quietly, looking up at the ceiling.

It didn’t seem like a joke or some cruel trick.

Misao let out a soft sigh. Finally, a bit of tension was released from his tight body.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to do.”

Misao spoke the truth.

“I told you.” Katsuragi turned his head slightly toward Misao and smiled. “I only pay for things that entertain me.”

“How refreshing.”

Misao shook his head.

“So what’s it going to be? You want the money or not?”

Katsuragi was pushing the choice on him.

Of course, Misao wanted to give the money back to Masaomi. But he hadn’t seen him since last night, when Kazushi told him Masaomi had made an offer to Ukigumo. Misao doubted he would ever see him again. Misao had acted shamefully in front of him. He’d heard Masaomi was coming to the tea house again that night, but when it came time to prepare Ukigumo’s room, Kazushi had kindly offered to go in Misao’s place.

Misao’s eyes rested on the check, conflicted.

“I want you... to return it to him.”

The emptiness of his hopes showed in his voice.

Katsuragi snorted and glanced at Misao.

“You think I’d do something that nice?”

He offered this predictable response with a deeply shocked expression.

“I didn’t think so,” Misao answered bitterly. His fingers still hesitant, Misao picked up the check. He tried to convince himself that it wasn’t so much money that he had to think about it. He had to return it.

Decided, he strode from the bedroom into the tea room. His feet wanted to run, but he reconsidered it. He turned back to the room. Katsuragi was staring up at the ceiling as lazily as ever. He seemed to have lost all interest in Misao, and Misao briefly wondered whether to say it or not. Part of him was reluctant to say it. But he decided to tell him anyway. It was simple politeness.

“Thank you.”

When he heard that, Katsuragi scowled horribly, so Misao was reassured that he had made the right choice.

He ran down the checkerboard complex of hallways, looking this way and that. At this hour, the halls were filled with rushing servants carrying bedding and it was hard to get through.

“Kazushi!”

Misao spotted the back of the person he was looking for through the crowd and called out to him. He must have just finished preparing a room, because he wasn’t doing anything. As Misao ran up to him, he asked, “Is Ukigumo’s room ready?”

Kazushi looked a little surprised. Then his face turned serious and he shook his head.

“It’s done, but Master Towa’s not going there tonight.”

“What?”

“A different customer is using Ukigumo’s room, so she’s using the servants’ room tonight. The Cherry Room,” Kazushi explained, staring straight into Misao’s eyes. “But Ukigumo isn’t there right now. She’s fixing her makeup.”

Implied in Kazushi’s words was the suggestion that if he wanted to be alone with Masaomi, he still could. Misao frowned, feeling like he was missing something in Kazushi’s words.

“Did you talk to Masaomi?” Misao asked worriedly, and for several moments Kazushi seemed obviously confused by the question. But he soon had his usual look of quick comprehension again and arched his eyebrow at Misao.

“If you want me to wait on him for you, we’re going to have to have a talk. Can’t you even talk to him?”

He patted Misao on the back jokingly, then went by him.

“You’d better hurry!”

He tossed back one last stupid warning. It reminded him of the check and Misao ran down the hall again. It was such a terrifying amount of money it made him uncomfortable to hold onto it. What if he lost it? The thought chilled him. But when he arrived outside the Cherry Room, a different sort of fear filled his heart.

The door was open.

In the gap between two folding screens, Misao spotted Masaomi sitting, legs stretched out, on top of a decent quality futon. He was wearing a summer kimono. A lantern behind the screen shone on his downcast face.

There was something unbearably poignant about the sight.

Misao couldn’t speak. He only stood there for a long moment.

He had watched Masaomi for too long, he knew.

Masaomi glanced up, as if something had caught his attention. He looked vaguely surprised to see Misao and whispered his name.

While Misao’s eyes searched for something to look at, Masaomi walked out from behind the screens. Before Misao realized it, he was standing right in front of him. He let out a sigh of relief and smiled.

“I didn’t see you all night. I was worried something had happened.”

He put his arms around Misao’s shoulders without any hesitation and started to pull him inside the room, and Misao couldn’t resist. It was like trying to resist the force of gravity.

“I need to talk to you,” Masaomi said, waving Misao behind the screens.

Misao’s body became very still and his face tightened.

Would Masaomi force him to hear it from his own lips?

Why? The sad question billowed through his heart. Masaomi didn’t need to be that honest with him. That was just cruelty.

“I know.”

His voice was like air escaping.

It was pathetic.

Masaomi looked surprised. “What?”

When Misao didn’t answer, Masaomi sat down on the futon and drew Misao down beside him. His face was so close.

“What do you know?” he asked again, confused. Misao’s eyes dropped, unable to bear it.

“When will it be?”

His voice was hard.

Masaomi took a moment to think. “The sooner the better, I think.”

There was some hesitation in his answer. Masaomi cupped Misao’s cheek with his left hand. He turned Misao’s downcast face slightly and looked into his eyes.

“You don’t seem very happy about it.”

Masaomi sounded slightly apprehensive.

“Happy?”

A tremble ran through Misao’s lips and as he gazed at Masaomi’s face, so close to his own, his face contorted. He knew his expression was becoming accusatory.

How could he be happy about it?

“Misao?”

Masaomi looked troubled. Unable to bear the sight of him, Misao twisted his head away, pulling free of Masaomi’s hand.

He spotted an elegant-looking tassel in a corner of the bed.

Dark emotions swirled up to fill his heart. He was afraid he might spit out some horrible abuse at any moment.

He thought his heart cried out with despair alone, but how could that drive him to such depths?

He shouldn’t have come.

He should have surrendered to reality without ever seeing Masaomi again.

“Are you upset about something?”

Masaomi sounded bewildered.

Misao’s eyes hardened and he turned sharply to face him. How dare Masaomi ask him that? Masaomi had been caught completely off-guard. Misao opened his mouth to hurl an assault at him. But some small discretion still remained in a corner of his mind, telling him he had no right to do that. The cold logic forced Misao’s trembling lips shut again.

He turned away and hung his head.

Cautiously, Masaomi started to say something, but before he could get it out Misao pulled the check from his sleeve and held it out to him.

“Katsuragi says he doesn’t want it.”

His voice was hard. He raised his eyes from the check to Masaomi’s face. He was looking down at the check in Misao’s hands with loathing.

“Then you should have burned it,” Masaomi said with a cold evenness.

Misao felt as if his hand had been slapped away.

Katsuragi had told him he could return it, so Misao had begun to think of it like actual money. But unless someone cashed it, the check was just a piece of paper. Masaomi wouldn’t lose anything.

“Were you with him tonight?” Masaomi asked quietly. His face contained the exact displeasure that was in his voice. Misao felt like he was being attacked for something he had narrowly avoided, and he looked away.

“Even though you didn’t come to see me?”

After this accusation, Masaomi sighed and rested his hand over the check in Misao’s hand. He pushed it gently back towards Misao.

“I’m not sure this is enough to bring you back with me to Tokyo.”

His voice was earnest. Misao’s eyes widened. His mouth fell open at the same moment, but it took much longer before he managed to say something.

“What... did you say?”

When he finally did speak, his voice was rough.

“Why? I don’t understand. You’re supposed to spend tonight with Ukigumo! Aren’t you getting married?”

Misao exploded. Masaomi gaped, then his face slowly filled with anguish.

There was a brief silence, and finally he sighed.

“We’re not getting married.”

Masaomi’s voice melted away into the silence.

Misao’s eyes widened as he stared at him.

“But then why?”

His lips trembled.

His brain felt like it was bruised from a lack of oxygen.

“You’re going to keep her as your mistress?” Misao asked, despairing.

Masaomi looked as if he wanted to argue, but apparently thinking better of it, he closed his mouth as soon as he’d opened it.

Misao’s heart fluttered and his mind clouded.

“Noyou’re not like that!” he muttered derisively, but what was really in his heart? What did he really want? Reallywish for? His emotions had all gone astrayhe didn’t know anymore.

Agony clouded Masaomi’s brow.

“What did you think I was like?” he asked, his voice controlled.

Misao squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. He pushed a hand against his temple and hung his head.

“Misao.”

Masaomi reached out to touch his shoulder and Misao almost knocked his hand away, but he sagged. Masaomi held him in his arms, steadying Misao against the tremors of his body. He buried his face in Masaomi’s robe. He felt the man’s warmth.

“No”

His throat was tight.

“Misao.”

Held in the man’s arms, hearing him speak his name, Misao pounded against his chest, just once.

“How could you?”

He squeezed a husky voice from his constricted throat.

How could he ever be expected to give up the warmth he felt in this man’s arms?

“You should have just told me that she was the only one you cared about.”

They heard a voice suddenly from the other side of the screens, and Misao stiffened. He lifted his head slightly. Masaomi was already gazing seriously in the same direction. He still held Misao in his arms, but not strongly enough to hold him back. Misao pulled petulantly away and turned angrily to the screen.

“You don’t need to look so innocent, Masaomi.”

Ukigumo came through the screens. She was wearing a nightgown.

Painfully aware of how very out of place he was, Misao started to stand up. But Ukigumo stopped him with a look. She sat formally on the edge of the bed. Then, without the slightest perturbation, she fixed her eyes on Masaomi with a purity like morning dew. Masaomi moved into a more formal position as well and looked back at her, as if awaiting orders.

Misao was perplexed by the extreme formality they treated each other with. They were nothing like a man and woman in bed together.

Nothing like a courtesan and one of her regular customers.

Misao held his breath, but Ukigumo paid him absolutely no attention. She fixed Masaomi with a cool regard and spoke calmly. “You should take good care of the things most precious to you. Don’t pay attention to anything else.”

A look of deep regret came over Masaomi’s face.

“Really, Masaomi.”

For the first time, her face had a touch of warmth in it.

“You need to forget about me.”

Misao was trying to look small and quiet, but when Ukigumo gave Masaomi this unexpected notice of separation, a cry escaped him nevertheless. He looked at Masaomi, wondering how he would take it, but he didn’t seem particularly upset. He just sighed gently and quietly lowered his eyes.

“You won’t change your mind?” Masaomi asked, looking up at her, but Ukigumo only shook her head, her long lashes never fluttering.

“As I told you initially, I am not interested in accepting pity.”

Finally, Misao lost the thread of the conversation.

He had no idea what they were talking about. The conversation was not developing at all as it should for a man and woman who obviously loved each other.

“I, Ukigumobut no, you knew me as KotokoI loved you when were we children. And because I loved you, I know very well that you never loved me.”

Ukigumo’s story, which she told with slightly narrowed eyes, staggered Misao’s heart.

Images flickered into his blank mind one after another, and everything fell into place.

A gasp escaped his lips, which had opened without his realizing it.

“I’m sorry, Kotoko,” Masaomi apologized. “I’ve been extremely inconsiderate to you.”

“Yes. I am humiliated.”

Ukigumo spoke harshly.

“I am, in some ways, the best there is at the Oumi Tea House. It would dishonor my name to be paid out of sympathy by a man who will not share my bed.”

Ukigumo held her long neck straight. Her decisive tone showed her inner strength.

“Having dedicated my body to the pursuit of sensuality and love, I will leave here having conquered the great gates by love. But you are not the one to help me do that, Masaomi.”

“Is there someone who can?”

Ukigumo answered Masaomi’s question with a sorrowful movement of her eyelids and a mysterious smile. Then she turned her inscrutable expression on Misao.

“Forgive me.”

Ukigumo inclined her head slowly to him, and Misao shook his head, uncomprehending. His shoulders were incredibly tense.

“I thought I would surely win Masaomi’s heart this time, but I attempted many unflattering frivolities.”

She was referring to feeding her guest stories.

That was perhaps the reason Masaomi had gotten the idea that Misao was a prostitute, but there was no way Misao could blame Ukigumo for it at this point. In fact, her apology only made Misao feel guilty.

Misao said nothing, but Ukigumo’s smile seemed to say that she had understood it all. She looked back at Masaomi.

“As I said earlier,” she murmured in an almost lyrical voice, “You were the only one I cared for. That is all that need be said. The power of those words will stay with anyone who has been in love.”

As she concluded tranquilly, Ukigumo touched three fingers to the floor before her knees and bowed. Masaomi’s melancholy gaze rested on her upswept hair.

“As regards our earlier discussion, I’m afraid that I must refuse.”

Ukigumo lifted her head, utterly undisturbed, and Masaomi quirked a smile. “I wish you the best.”

This brief hope brought a look of girlish happiness to Ukigumo’s face that Misao had never seen. Tiny white teeth peeked out from her lips.

 

 

 

After Ukigumo had left, the screen doors glowed almost blue in the moonlight after a rain.

Masaomi gazed at the pale light, his face fragile with the distant thoughts running through his mind. His mind must have been filled with thoughts of Ukigumo.

This was their goodbye.

Misao quietly stood up, causing Masaomi to turn his head slightly and focus his eyes vaguely on him.

“Where are you going?”

Masaomi looked up at him, trying to hold him back, and Misao smiled faintly.

“To sit beside you,” he murmured, and sat down.

He laid a gentle hand on the man’s cheek.

“You’ve been rejected, haven’t you?” Misao asked kindly.

Masaomi smiled ruefully and lowered his eyes. “Apparently.”

His head hung down slightly as he agreed, so Misao had to bend forward a little to lend him his shoulder. Masaomi’s forehead sunk into his right shoulder and Misao rested his temple against Masaomi’s head.

He felt there was no need to speak, but Masaomi broke the silence, speaking quietly into his shoulder, so Misao listened.

Ukigumo had been the daughter of a famous family of former nobility in Nara, the Kadokuras. The Towa family and Kadokura family were friends, and Masaomi had thought of Ukigumo as a little sister. But the Kadokura family had fallen.

“After that, no one heard from any of them. They all disappeared, except for one who I finally located: Kotoko.”

Misao finally understood how Masaomi must have felt when he heard the story of Misao’s past in the rickshaw to Dotonbori.

He had been unable to interrupt. Because he had been unable to help.

“My older brother was the first one to find Kotoko in the pleasure district, completely by chance. When I heard, I decided I would come and see, though both my brothers were against it. So much time had already passed so cruelly, you see. They said Kotoko would never want to see anyone she’d known before.”

The fact that Masaomi regretted his decision had long been clear.

“You were right about what you said the first day. For some reason, I just couldn’t let go. Was it pity?”

“It’s all right.”

Gazing at the light of the lantern, Misao absolved Masaomi of his self-condemnation.

“I don’t think you’re arrogant, Masaomi.”

He said it again. “I don’t think you’re arrogant.”

“No”

Masaomi lifted his head.

He looked straight into Misao’s eyes.

“I am arrogant.”

Misao looked back at the firm front he had taken on. Masaomi touched Misao’s hair lightly with his fingertips, then stroked Misao’s temple with the palm of his hand, sweeping his hair behind his ear.

Misao tilted his head slightly in embarrassment. His face hopeful, Masaomi spoke solemnly.

“I will take you back with me to Tokyo, at all costs.”

Every word was filled with this desire.

When their colliding gazes made Misao tremble, Masaomi declared his intention all the more earnestly.

“Even if you turn away from me as Kotoko did. I won’t let you leave me. Ever.”

Misao felt a sharp pain deep in his nose and, as the tension left his widened eyes, tears flowed down his cheeks.

He smiled at the man he loved through bleary eyes.

“You promised...”

Misao’s thin voice trembled, as if bobbing on wavy water.

“You would take me to the sea again.”

Masaomi nodded, and his face broke into a broad smile.

“I also promised to take you on a boat.”

“Together...”

Misao had never expected that dream to come true.

The emotions that had pushed through his eyes reached their peak, and he covered his mouth with his hands.

“I’m so happy.”

Unable to hold back his endless tears, he bowed his head.

“So happy.”

“Misao”

His face was soaked by his pattering tears. Misao clenched a hand atop his knee, and Masaomi covered it with one of his own.

He tilted his head and gently brushed his lips over the corners of Misao’s eyes, kissing away the tears.

His eyelids fluttered.

Misao lifted his tear-streaked face. The next kiss fell on the back of the hand that covered his mouth. His faintly closed eyelashes popped open and he was captivated by the man’s eyes, so close to his own.

Misao let the hand that covered half his face slowly drop. Lips covered his exposed lips. The kiss was light, almost bringing his tears to a halt, but it grew deeper, invading his mouth in its intensity.

“I feel like I’m dreaming.”

Masaomi chuckled, slipping his lips over Misao’s cheek, nibbling on his earlobe, then tracing down his neck. He pulled Misao’s kimono open. He stopped suddenly. Misao brushed Masaomi’s head with his left hand and tilted his head curiously, wondering what was wrong.

“Masaomi?”

Misao freed his fingers from the tangle of Masaomi’s hair.

Masaomi looked up at him. The severity of his expression shocked Misao. He was closely examining the left side of Misao’s neck. The only thing that could be there was the bruise Katsuragi had made as a prank. Misao was suddenly terrified of Katsuragi’s depravity, wondering if he had planned even this.

Masaomi shifted his eyes up to Misao’s.

“I didn’t do that.”

His low, sharp statement made Misao clap a hand over his neck to hide it, but he realized that only looked suspicious and he hurriedly tried to explain.

“No, IKatsuragi was playing a joke, and”

“Katsuragi.” Masaomi whispered his name terribly. “What an infuriating name.”

Misao felt pangs of Masaomi’s irritation in the air and he frowned, wondering what to do. He hadn’t been this afraid of angering someone since before he’d become a maid.

He knew the reason for it. He wasn’t afraid of making Masaomi angry at him.

He was afraid of making Masaomi hate him.

“You said before that I wasn’t that kind of person.”

His voice was controlled and unemotional. Misao gazed at him pleadingly and nodded.

Masaomi lifted the hand that covered the bruise from Misao’s neck. He offered his lips in its place.

“I want you to remember that.”

“I”

Masaomi sucked on the skin so hard it felt like he was biting him. Misao fell back, raising his right knee in surprise.

“I don’t want anyone but me to do this. I don’t want them to even touch you.”

His hot breath whispered over Misao’s neck and his eyelids fluttered. Masaomi lifted his head and, from close enough that he could have kissed Misao, he murmured, “I’m a jealous, narrow-minded man, I suppose.”

His lips were sealed off as he gasped. The bottom hem of his kimono was rolled up and the man’s hands swept over his thighs. As his neck quivered, Masaomi pulled his lips away.

“I want you to be mine alone.”

Captivated by the sweet, intense entreaty, Misao opened his faintly closed eyelids and locked his eyes with Masaomi’s frantic gaze. He couldn’t hold back a faint sigh. Masaomi stopped the breath in his throat with words like fire.

“Your heart and your body.”

The two rushed at each other in their lust. Misao felt the part within him where they joined together tightly fill with wetness. He knew it was the passion Masaomi had released into him, and he panted raggedly, his throat convulsing with ecstasy.

Misao’s legs were open wide, and Masaomi adjusted his hold around his waist. As he shifted slightly inside, an exquisite sensation ran up Misao’s spine and he let out a deep moan. Masaomi gazed into Misao’s face as he bent over him. He deepened the connection of their lower bodies and Misao threw his head back and cried out.

His eyes were squeezed tightly shut. His hips rocked slightly.

“No, II can’t”

He was enthralled.

Masaomi sucked his earlobe into his mouth, teasing it with his tongue. He bit into it and a sweet thrill of pain shot through him. The sound of Masaomi’s voice, husky with pleasure as it pronounced his name, made Misao’s heart skip a beat.

“I want more,” he urged at Misao’s ear, and Misao turned his eyes to the side, shimmering with tears. Masaomi looked down at him and smiled lustfully. That alone was enough to make Misao lose all reason.

“I feel like I’m going crazy,” Misao murmured breathily. He wrapped his arms around Masaomi’s back, and Masaomi lifted him up.

“Ahnngh!”

Unconsciously trying to flee the thing buried inside his body, Misao clung to Masaomi’s arms and raised himself onto his knees. But the man rested his hands on Misao’s pelvis and immediately pulled him back down.

“Nngh! Ahahh!”

The penetration was unbearable, and he clung to the man’s neck. He stayed like that until his body got used to the new position. As if he’d noticed calm return to Misao’s breathing, Masaomi reached up and pulled his arms away from his neck.

His lips brushed over his temple.

“I want to see you when you’re crazy.”

His whispered words dazzled Misao, and he pulled his face away. Gazing into Misao’s dubious eyes, Masaomi planted both hands on the bed and leaned back. He settled onto his elbows.

Misao swallowed dryly.

This position meant that he would have to move. Misao had seen the women doing this. It was a popular request with those women, but of course Misao had never done it before.

Breathing deeply, Misao rested his hands on the stomach that he rode. He focused his eyes on his hands and, trying not to spoil Masaomi’s pleasure, he moved his hips as he’d seen the girls do. But he didn’t do it very well, and a pained cry escaped him. He was sure it didn’t feel good for Masaomi either, and he looked up at him as he panted raggedly. Just as he’d feared, a tense frown awaited him. Misao hung his head.

“You’re adorable.”

Masaomi smiled at him and put a hand to his waist. He stroked the line of Misao’s body, then traced upwards. Sex had made Misao’s body incredibly sensitive and his entire body shuddered as Masaomi caressed his skin.

“Just do whatever feels good for you.”

Masaomi rubbed one of his nipples with a thumb.

“Ah”

Misao ached inside and his hips began to move naturally. The place inside him that wanted to be struck harder throbbed, and Misao tensed his knees and dropped his hips further to drive Masaomi where he wanted him, rubbing inside him. The pleasure it unleashed arched Misao’s throat. When he began touching himself in front, he lost all control over himself and his hips wiggled in every direction.

“Ah! It’s so gooditah!”

His mouth hung open lewdly and Masaomi traced his lips with the pad of a finger. Misao gazed rapturously down at him. Masaomi’s gaze was indulgent, swollen with pleasure, and it locked into Misao’s gaping eyes.

“You’re good. It feels very nice.”

Masaomi’s middle finger slipped into his mouth through the slight opening in his lips and tickled the inside of Misao’s lower lip, and stroked around the base of his tongue. The sensation was overwhelming. Misao tangled his tongue with the man’s finger. He felt himself slipping into a dream as he sucked on it. His brain ached lusciously.

“I’m going to light the lanterns.”

Caught off-guard by Kazushi’s voice, Misao accidentally bit hard into Masaomi’s finger. Masaomi’s eyes narrowed with pain, but there was no time for anything like an apology. Masaomi grabbed Misao’s head, rigid and wide-eyed, and pulled it down to kiss him deeply. He rolled Misao onto his side, then pushed his back into the bed. He pushed shallowly against him and swallowed up the scream that Misao unleashed.

His fingers clawed at the air as the man squeezed deeper inside.

There may have been screens to obscure them, but Misao knew better than anyone that they would be completely visible to the outside world through the gaps.

Humiliation and pleasure whirlpooled together and threw Misao’s mind into chaos.

He thought the lewd noises made by their bodies joining together sounded extraordinarily loud.

“I’m sorry, I need to do my job.”

At the sound of Kazushi’s apology from only a few feet away, Misao felt dizzy with embarrassment.

“I don’t think anyone else will come bother you now. Enjoy your stay.”

Masaomi waited a few moments after Kazushi put the oil in the lantern and left the room, before he stopped moving and took his lips off of Misao’s.

“I can’t believe you,” Misao said in shock, between his panting breaths.

Masaomi chuckled at Misao and raised his eyebrows.

“I hid your pretty face and voice, didn’t I?”

He dropped a kiss on Misao’s silent lips, then began an irresistible wave of motion in his lower body. It conquered Misao. But before he surrendered himself to it, he realized for the first time that this man might be even more trouble than Katsuragi.

 

 

Before the girls went out to attract customers that afternoon, the back room was filled with rich white smoke. The tea house owner had been puffing without rest on the tobacco in his pipe, looking irritable. Misao sat across a heating box from him, glowering critically. “It certainly is smoky.” But the owner only glared viciously at Masaomi, who was sitting very formally beside Misao. He showed no sign of having heard Misao’s complaint.

“I was under the impression that you were here to see Ukigumo, Master Towa.”

Sitting beside the prickling owner, Gikuyo spoke to Masaomi with a serene look. Misao stole a glance at Masaomi. He nodded to Gikuyo placidly. “But Ukigumo has cast me aside.”

“And so you suggest taking a servant in her place? How very whimsical.”

Gikuyo replied without the slightest change in her calm expression. In contrast, the owner lashed out at Masaomi resentfully.

“Do you know how much work I’ve put into him over the years? I made him study all the arts and scholarship! Do you know how much that cost? Are you seriously”

“I will pay it all back, even if it takes some time.”

Masaomi cut the owner off in the middle of his tirade, forcefully declaring his own desire. That resistance seemed to have angered him.

“And just how much do you think you owe?” the owner shouted, pounding on the side of the heater.

“How much?” Masaomi countered coolly.

Apparently he’d called the bluff, because the owner whined, “It’s not a question of money!”

He was insufferable.

“Aaand what’s ththat on your neck?”

He pointed a finger, trembling with rage, at Misao. It was the mark that Katsuragi had made on his neck, that Masaomi had then darkened with the imprint of his own body.

He didn’t need to be ashamed of it here. Misao stretched his neck out and looked straight back at the owner, hiding nothing.

“I did it,” Masaomi confessed crisply.

Misao had vowed to stand firm no matter what was said to him, but that threatened to bring tears to his eyes. He felt a dull ache in his neck.

Enraged, the owner’s mouth hung half open, shaking with anger.

“How dare you... how dare you! I raised that child as my very own, and you’ve ruined him!”

“Well, sir,” Masaomi responded, drawing himself up beautifully in his flocked coat, “I want to take responsibility for my actions. Would you please listen to what we have to say calmly?”

“How can I be calm about a thing like this?” he shouted angrily, leaping up from his seat with the force of his anger.

“Disgraceful.”

Gikuyo had sat silently watching the proceedings until then, but now she snorted and berated the owner. She glared at him fiercely.

“Sit back down at once.”

Her voice was threatening, and he huddled back down in his seat fearfully.

Seeing their bizarre power relationship, Masaomi glanced meaningfully over at Misao. Misao turned to look back at him incredulously.

The owner had settled down physically, but he was still grumbling to himself. Gikuyo slipped the bowl of her pipe into a bag of tobacco and, without once looking at him, spit out a harsh insult. “Just shut up, you horrible little man!”

Despite the affront, the owner obediently shut his mouth on his abuse. As if she expected nothing different, Gikuyo knocked the ash out of her pipe and into the heater.

“You paid back enough to cover your room and board each month. Saying that that’s all just money lost is far too patronizing and greedy.”

Misao’s shoulders trembled. Also sensing what she meant, Masaomi stared at Gikuyo.

“Will you feed him enough to keep him off the streets?”

Masaomi nodded once, firmly. “Of course.”

Misao felt strange.

He didn’t know if it was because he had Masaomi there beside him or because he never thought Masaomi would be with him. No matter how he stared at the woman smoking a pipe across from him, his heart remained still and he could think of nothing to complain about.

“I mean for the rest of his life.”

Masaomi smiled faintly at Gikuyo’s qualification. “Of course.”

Seeing the discussion wrapping up between the two of them, the owner could no longer restrain himself and he cut in frantically.

“Absolutely not! I will never give up Misao!”

A heavyclangrang out through the room, and ashes tumbled to the floor.

“Would you shut up!”

Gikuyo had slammed her pipe down on the heater and snapped at the owner, staring piercingly at him with a dangerous glint in her eye.

“If you want me to continue working here, you will be silent!”

The owner choked.

“Tamaki” Misao whispered, and Gikuyo glared at him. Then she turned to Masaomi.

“Take him wherever you like. The owner himself has said this isn’t a question of money. We couldn’t accept anything from you. And we’ve done so much to offend you already.”

Gikuyo wrapped it all up indifferently, but Masaomi bowed deeply to her for what seemed at least a hundred times.

“Thank you for entrusting your boy to me.”

Gikuyo glanced down at Masaomi without the tiniest flicker of emotion as he thanked her, and arched an eyebrow disapprovingly at Misao.

“How strange. You haven’t said a word all this time.”

Misao stared straight at Gikuyo in silence, then bowed his head to the same angle as Masaomi’s. “Thank you.”

Misao spoke quietly, his face to the floor.

“For giving birth to me.”

Misao sat back up after this final goodbye. Gikuyo was gazing up at the purple smoke as it rose to the ceiling, as if she found it utterly fascinating.

“By the way, Master Towa.”

Masaomi finally raised his head as Gikuyo called his name dully.

She very slowly turned her eyes from the ceiling to Masaomi’s face, bringing her pipe to her lips.

“Ukigumo has no lingering emotions where you’re concerned, does she?”

Gikuyo narrowed her eyes and savorously exhaled a cloud of smoke.

“There may be some small concern,” Masaomi answered solemnly, then turned to look earnestly at Misao. “But he is the only one I want.”

Misao smiled, gazing back at Masaomi.

It’s true.

Misao knew that with those words alone, he could follow the man anywhere.