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.