“Heading home?”
Jinya exited Sakuraba Milk Hall and encountered Hotaru right outside the entrance, gazing up at the night sky. She pushed her hair back to show flushed skin, an alluring action. She seemed a bit older than most of the Dove District’s sex workers, but she had the grace and charm to make up for it.
“Yeah. Were you seeing a customer off?”
“Stargazing. Or is that a little too pretentious a claim?” She smiled, as though to make Jinya quickly forget about another man being with her. She never dropped her act. Being a lady of the night was ingrained in her.
“Sorry, were you waiting out of consideration for us?” asked Jinya. He figured she’d stayed outside after seeing off her customer so she wouldn’t overhear his conversation with the manager.
She looked momentarily bewildered, perhaps because he had guessed right. “I suppose… I wasn’t sure if I should be around to hear.”
“If it was something I minded people overhearing, I wouldn’t have brought it up in a place like this. The same goes for your boss.”
“You’re too kind… But the thoughts of a lady of the night are like an open book to you, huh? I guess I’m still too green.” She seemed amused rather than offended by their exchange.
“Have you been working here long?” he asked.
“Yes, ever since I decided to become a sex worker. The manager has taken good care of me.”
“Then you were here around spring last year?”
“Of course. I have no home to return to. I’m here in spring, and in summer, fall, and winter as well.”
“I see. Oh, by the way, would you happen to know what year of Showa it currently is?”
She giggled and answered, “Year thirty-four, of course.”
To her, his question probably sounded like a lousy attempt at being considerate by changing the topic. But no, he was probing for information, and the result was what he’d expected: She, too, saw nothing strange about the current year or the fact that the Dove District still existed.
“Can I ask you something too?” she asked. “Are you an old acquaintance of the manager?”
“No, it hasn’t even been a month since we first met. Why?”
“No reason. It’s just that I haven’t seen him show that kind of weakness to anyone before.”
Jinya only knew the manager as a strange man who talked like a woman, but he had seen how earnest he was toward his work and what a calm character he was. He also kept his walls up high, something that likely came with running a brothel. Hotaru must have had a similar impression of him, and so it surprised her to see him act so vulnerable in front of Jinya.
“Weakness, huh…” mused Jinya.
“Not the word you’d use?”
“It’s not. He’s realized his truth but is on the fence about how he ought to be. I don’t think it’s fair to call him weak for trying to figure that out.”
Just as women experienced the pain of labor when they brought life into this world, people would always feel pain when they reached for something new. That was a fact of life. Jinya didn’t want to call such a thing weakness.
“He’s trying to come to terms with himself. It might be a bit too late for him, but he’s trying.” He stopped himself short of adding That’s why he’s here. Jinya couldn’t speak for others. He still had to come to terms with things himself.
“He lets his walls down for you, huh?” said Hotaru.
“Pardon?”
“The manager. You understand him well, so he opens up to you.”
“Ah, I wonder. Some things are just easier to tell a stranger.”
“Perhaps,” she said after a pause. “But I’m sure this time it’s because you two can relate to one another.”
She was right. Jinya and the manager both had pasts they were helpless to change. They couldn’t help but understand each other’s pain. They shared a bond built not out of time but of sympathy.
Hotaru’s expression clouded briefly. She had said too much. She hardly knew Jinya; he wasn’t even a client of hers. This was shameful behavior for a lady of the night.
“At my age, it’s no surprise that I have a few memories of bumping my toe into dressers.” He smiled thinly, confirming what she said out of courtesy and keeping things vague out of consideration. No one could truly understand another person’s pain. One’s lived tragedies were no more relatable than a story of bumping one’s toe. In a roundabout way, he was telling her not to worry about her overstepping. She grasped that and nodded.
“Does your toe still hurt?” she asked hesitantly, not as Hotaru the sex worker but as just some woman. Her gaze, as though fleeing his, turned to the sky. Her face in profile appeared forlorn.
“From time to time,” Jinya answered. He hesitated to say anything further and looked up at the sky with her instead.
It was a curtain of black velvet, with sporadic shards of twinkling silver. Jinya felt like there were fewer stars than there used to be. With all its street lamps and neon lights, the nights of the Dove District were made bright with man-made light, and the twinkling stars shone less prominently in turn. What he saw now was a far cry from the dazzling night sky he had seen with Shirayuki so long ago.
But Hotaru didn’t feel the same way. “I like gazing at the stars,” she said, looking up at the sky with eyes full of nostalgia. “We didn’t have the money to spend on things, so instead the two of us would gaze at the stars for fun.”
Her voice was frail, as though a passing breeze would scatter her away. She didn’t say it directly, but Jinya understood she was talking about the man he’d seen her with many nights ago.
“Do you regret coming here?” he asked.
“Of course not. This place accepted a straggler like me. I have nothing but gratitude for it.” But the slightest bit of lingering regret followed her wherever she went. “Kajii Takumi was his name. He was my boyfriend, and before I became a sex worker, I promised to marry him.” Her voice was lifeless as she continued, “I don’t regret coming here, but…I think not telling him how I feel was a mistake. I couldn’t do it, though. I was too scared. Too sad. And I haven’t changed since then one bit.”
Her words weren’t meant for anyone in particular. Maybe they were only for herself. Jinya, who knew nothing of Hotaru, could not read what emotions lay behind her thin smile. But he listened to what she had to say, making no attempt to offer his own words of comfort.
Hotaru exhaled a sigh, then donned the face of a sex worker once more. “Sorry for oversharing a bit there.”
Not a trace of the frail image she’d shown remained. Even her tone changed, as though to highlight that she was finished. Her sharing her past unprompted must have been her apology for overstepping.
“You’re rather earnest,” he said.
“You’ve got to be in my line of work.”
Their exchange was lighthearted again. Now that they were strangers once more, they had no reason to linger.
“I think I’ll take my leave here,” Jinya said.
“Is that so? Sorry for taking up your time.”
“Not at all. I got something worthwhile out of it.” Her expression showed she wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He smiled lightly and walked along. “There might be no point telling this to a woman of the night, but do be careful going out this late.”
“Thank you for your kind words. Please do visit again.”
He didn’t need to look back to know she was seeing him off.
Hotaru had known it was year thirty-four of the Showa era but saw nothing strange about the Dove District’s existence. The same went for Aoba. The manager of the milk hall seemed to feel something was off, though. There must have been some significance in the difference between them.
“Damn you, Nanao…”
Annoyed, Jinya sped up his pace. The light of the bright neon signs felt irritating just then.
The following day, after the sun dipped down and night arrived, Jinya returned to the brothel Ichikawa. When he entered, he called out to the first sex worker he saw and gave his name. Nanao must have told her workers about him, because she smiled in bemusement and led him to the back room. He didn’t know what exactly she told them, and he didn’t particularly care. He sat himself down across from Nanao, who was just as listless as before.
“Oh, you’ve come again for me? Why not spend the night? I’ll cut you a special rate.”
“I’ll have to decline. I’m here to talk about the job you offered me yesterday.”
Unfazed, she merely smiled as he shot her down. Her offer for him to stay wasn’t serious in the first place; she only meant to tease him.
He continued, “There are some things I’d like to ask.”
“Oh dear. Is this going to be a serious talk?” She didn’t bother sitting up. Her movements were sluggish, but at least she was listening.
She acted unguarded and lazy, but she didn’t brush Jinya off. He didn’t know whether this was because she was a fragment of Suzune or because of her own disposition, but she was an undeniable outlier among Magatsume’s daughters.