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 andhe would never forget itthey 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—”