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.