Chapter Text
“This isn’t what I wished for.”
But it is, and when Kashuu Kiyomitsu realizes that someone may have heard his prayers after all, he knows that everything is his fault.
(It is, but not in the way he thinks it is.)
---
Water drips down the wooden walls, tightly packed and smelling of rot-- smelling of moss and rubbish and dead rats that get lost in the darkness, blinded by fish bones that litter the surface, scratching their skin.
Midare hears the water dripping, disappearing into the mud, and he wonders if he'll ever become like the last drop of water from the rain, disappearing into the filth.
“What dirty rats,” Yagen says, looking at the corridor. Midare stands before it all, one of the many small alleyways of Edo, of houses built too closely together but not quite connected.
“...What dirty rats,” Midare agrees. And in a moment of perfect synchronicity, he turns to look at Yagen while Yagen turns to look away.
--- Eight.
(This is a memory. Some things are forgotten, some things twisted out of shape, into beauty or tragedy.)
“If you go by Kashuu, we'll call you Kashuu,” Yagen says. Naming conventions take up too much time. “I'd introduce you to the oiran, but-- hold on, I need to attend to someone else.”
Kashuu isn't confused. Even if he barely reaches Yagen's waist, he's old enough to have awareness, and old enough to know why he's here. It isn't to clean the floors and scrape dirt off the walls.
Which is why he is confused, when Yagen shoos him off with a washcloth-- “Up the stairs. Take a left turn. Introduce yourself to the onnagata sitting there.”
He grips the cloth, and water drips down his nails. “...I thought the oiran is a lady.”
“He's a lady when he wants to be. Now, go.”
(No one remembers much before they arrive. It goes less colorful when he began to walk down the hallways, but the rooms were still full of paintings. That's what he remembers.
He doesn't remember if he was scared, without his parents, or if he fully understood that he wouldn't see them again. He doesn't remember a lot of things, as if--)
“--It's in the smoke,” The oiran says, voice floating through the hallways. He's a burst of color, an art piece, a walking painting with clothes too bright for fieldwork or merchants. Except the white dust that decorates their faces in the day is wiped off, replaced with his skin, replaced with the smell of sake and a blush of someone who shouldn't be pouring even more sake for himself, but here he is. “The smoke around this district makes you forget a lot of things!”
Midare clears his throat. (Midare, even though Kashuu didn't know his name yet.) “Look, your new apprentice is here. Aww, he's too scared to come in the room-- jeez! Jirou, you scared him!”
“I'm not scared,” Kashuu quickly says, but he doesn't walk in anyway. It's the only thing he can say, now. Except there is something else he can say. His name.
But instead, he says-- “--What smoke?”
There's a distinct accent in his voice, far too distinct even if he's barely eight to nine, barely capable of remember where he came from. It's an accent Midare and Jirou both recognize immediately, and it answers a whole world of questions in itself. “You said something was in the smoke. I don't see smoke.”
“It's the smoke that hangs over a-ll of us,” Jirou slurs halfway, and he laughs at his own joke. “Right! Don't you see it? From the tobacco, the fire, the--”
Midare sighs while he undoes Jirou's hair. “Come on, Jirou. He's going to think you're pathetic, at this rate.”
“But I'm no-t,” Jirou retorts immediately, pouting like a child. “Hey, you! I'm your big sister here, okay? I'm the oiran. As my apprentice, you-- eek! My hair!”
Kashuu looks up when Jirou exclaims, Midare tugging through his hair. (When did he look down at the ground?) “Oooops, sorry. Knots, you see. Tucking your hair this way will always cause them to get stuck together~”
“You're horrible! I'll throw you out! Ouch, ouch, ouch--”
“--Are you new here, too?”
(Kashuu hears all this happening, and it's as if he isn't a presence at all. But he is, the pivotal turning point for everything, saying nothing and yet letting everything occur.
The first time he gains a voice and begins to remember what happens is when Horikawa Kunihiro taps him on the shoulder.)
Kashuu turns to face the new voice, only to find that this person is just as tall as he is. His voice is still pitched just as high, because back then, they were both too young to remember what was happening, and back then this place, doesn't seem so bad--
“I'm Horikawa Kunihiro,” he says, and Kashuu's entire hand is drenched with water from the washcloth he's digging his nails into. “What's your name?”
“...I'm Kashuu Kiyomitsu--”
“No last names!” Jirou waves his hands wildly, and Midare curses when wine spills onto the table because of that. “We won't be using your last names here!”
(But his last name is his name, and Kashuu cannot forget it. He wants to, though. Of all things, he wants to forget that.
God, why can't he just forget--)
---
Introductions come in the morning, when Jirou is more sober and the sun reveals exactly how colorless the hallways are in comparison to the people who walk in them.
Kashuu remembers, at least, that the bed Midare eventually showed him to was the comfiest he'd ever lied on. Even if it was simply several pieces of cloth, folded on the ground, and Horikawa kept speaking next to him. Speaking about things he can't remember, but Kashuu didn't tell him to be quiet.
“Our jobs,” Jirou hums, as if Kashuu and Horikawa don't know, “is to be art pieces. Alright? What we do, is an art. Don't worry if you haven't seen it before. Big sis Jirou will teach you everything you need to know!”
Midare closes his eyes for a moment, before shaking his head. “Yeah, yeah, but I'll have to do all the work, right?”
They smile, from ear to ear, and it's so hard to remember that they're art pieces. Ornaments to walk by the walls, like flowers in a vase, arranged by hand, expertly, precisely-- like how Midare grabs Kashuu's shoulders, now, causing him to squeak when he's hoisted off the ground with strength he doesn't expect.
“Hey, are you listening? You're staring off into space! What are you thinking about?”
“I don't know,” Kashuu says, and Midare shakes him again. “I don't know-- put me down--”
“Put him down!” Horikawa grabs Kashuu's feet, trying to yank him down, and they're both children who are too panicked to hear how loudly Jirou is laughing. “Hey, put him down!”
Midare sticks out his tongue. “Ganging up on me already? You two are horrible!”
But he's smiling, when he says that, and he puts Kashuu back on the ground gently. He hides behind Horikawa, suddenly terrified of the strange new sights, of the people too colorful to be alive, too colorful to be people but perhaps colorful enough to be living paintings. Horikawa isn't any bigger than Kashuu is, but he stands in front of Kashuu anyway, standing with more certainty than men several times his age.
(It's funny, how terrified they are. It shows how they have no idea what a real punishment by Midare is. Not yet.)
“I know, I know,” Jirou says, petting Kashuu on the head and making him shrink. “He must've been distracted by how stunning I am!”
“I wasn't,” Kashuu still manages to reply.
Midare rubs his temples while Jirou simply laughs in response-- “I'll have to teach them how and when not to talk, too. Hey, Kashuu.”
Kashuu shows he can hear Midare by grabbing Horikawa's shoulders and hiding himself as well as he can.
Horikawa puffs his cheek in some vain attempt to seem larger, while Midare simply reaches over him to tap on Kashuu's shoulder.
“Your first lesson,” he says, “will be practicing away that accent.”
(His accent reeks of the people who are tainted with death. They can't have that. They can't.)
---
“Why did you come here?”
Horikawa’s question is an earnest one. There is no judgment, no venom or anything other than curiosity. Which is why it actually makes Kashuu pause in his actions, and he rubs the sake dish in his hands with his thumb while thinking.
Because his reason, a solid reason for an eight-year-old, is-- “My mother brought me here.”
“Oh,” Horikawa says, and perhaps in a few years, that thoughtful expression will fill Kashuu with some sense of fear. “Okay! Can you help me clean more often?”
Kashuu shakes his head. “Can’t. Midare wants me to speak.”
“...Huh?”
It’s a strange answer, but it makes sense to Kashuu.
Perhaps Horikawa would have inquired further, but their attention spans are short, and the sound of Jirou crashing into the room would make anyone turn their heads. He does not crash, per se, but he is a chorus of sounds and laughter that betray the human behind the painted faces on display.
“Jirou,” Yagen follows, rushing after him as both Horikawa and Kashuu shrink away-- “You’re drunk.”
“No, no, I’m actually too sober.” Jirou waves Yagen off as he reaches for the cupboards, wrenching them open. He closes it shut, then checks the next, one after another, and Kashuu realizes what he’s looking for.
Jirou has a smell that Kashuu hasn’t ever smelled before arriving here. A luxury beyond the liquid of the riverbed, running stale with mud, and Kashuu can recall exactly where the bottle of sake is.
So he quietly grabs the broom, and taps against the cupboard to Jirou’s right.
“Hm?” Jirou turns around, and Kashuu doesn’t say anything when he flings that cupboard open. “Ohoooh! There it is, there it is! Good boy!”
He pets his head like Midare does, but without as much gentleness, and he leaves a few frazzled strands in his wake. Kashuu opens his eyes (when did he squeeze them shut?), before seeing Jirou uncap the bottle and laugh into the lid while Yagen simply sighs.
For some reason, he feels kind of proud that he found it for Jirou.
“He called you a good boy,” Horikawa whispers in a hushed voice, as if it’s something to be awed about. “Big sis Jirou is the oiran, so that’s good, right?”
Kashuu’s basically hugging the broom right now, when Jirou tilts the bottle and pour everything into saucers (which they will have to clean later). He turns to Horikawa, then to Jirou, then back at Horikawa and says-- “I think?”
“You need to stop,” Yagen says, stepping in front of the two apprentices. “There will be clients again in two days. Once the affairs are in order--”
Jirou cuts Yagen off halfway with a wave of hand. (If Yagen continued, he would have learnt that young children are smarter than they seem.) “You know, these two attendants are so well-behaved! Why weren’t you this cute when you first arrived? Hmmm?”
Yagen crosses his arms, and for some reason, he looks like the older one, even if he’s half of Jirou’s height. “Well, maybe it’s because we didn’t have you as the oiran then.”
“Awww, you sweet-talker!” Jirou hands a saucer to Yagen, and he sighs into the sake. “Well, drink up.”
“How much money do you spend on sake alone, Jirou?”
Horikawa suddenly looks up at that sentence. As if one of those words sent a chemical reaction in his brain, jerking his neck and widening his eyes. “--Sake is cheaper than tobacco,” Jirou replies as some sort of vain retort, and Yagen shakes his head.
“It is not much healthier.”
The corners of Jirou’s lips turn up even more. “When did you become a doctor, Yagen? Don’t worry about your big sis! I won’t be falling ill any time soon. --Right, Kashuu?”
“Eh?”
Kashuu’s head whips around almost too quickly at the mention of his name, and for a moment, Yagen considers jumping forward in case Kashuu lost balance and fell over. He doesn’t, though it might’ve been a close call. “What?”
“Sake isn’t thaaat bad, right?”
This banter is a small thing. It is only some tomfoolery, nothing more, enjoying the last scraps of free time they have before their bosses (or whoever sits atop the throne and paints them into the artworks they are) put them up for display again. But Kashuu is too young to realize that, and he is also too young to realize that this is the first time someone has asked for what he thought of it.
And so, the boy who has never smelled sake before replies--
“No, it’s not that bad…”
“What a good boy!” Jirou waves the bottle around, and Yagen doesn’t even flinch when some of it splashes onto his hair. “I can trust you to stick by me, Kashuu!”
Horikawa steps up, perhaps a bit more confident at the sight of Jirou smiling down at the both of them. “Actually, I don’t think I heard it was healthy…”
“Yes, that’s right,” Yagen says, taking Horikawa’s side while Jirou pouts. “--Good boy.”
(They still smile because they don’t know what being a good boy really means.)
---
“Would you like some tea? Uh-- would you like some tea?”
“No,” Midare says, and it's not an answer to that question. “Again, Kashuu. Mimic exactly what I say. There will be clients here tomorrow, and if you can't disguise that accent well enough, I'll have to shut you in your room the whole day.”
It doesn't sound like something too bad. Not to Kashuu, who's barely been here for two days, but his throat is hoarse with repeating phrases over and over again, trying to imitate the falls and rises of Midare's voice. But it all sounds the same, to someone who isn't old enough to touch Midare's face even if he stood on tip-toes and grew out his nails. “But I'm, like-- I am.”
“Don't slave-drive him,” Yagen says through the thin walls, and Kashuu can already recognize his distinctive voice. That's it, that's the voice that doesn't sound the same, but he can't imitate it. It's too--
“I'm not,” Midare answers, not turning his head to look. “I'm giving him special treatment. Look at Horikawa, scrubbing the walls and nailing the paintings, running around and sweating all day! See, Kashuu, he has to do all that work himself because you can't get this right.”
Even though they are not the only apprentices here. There are girls who walk down the hallway, girls as dull as the wooden floor, as dull as Horikawa and Kashuu both are. Children who are not yet art pieces but insects, eating the dirt off the flooring. There are men and women alike who carry themselves so differently when they think no one can see them, when they are not on display to the clients who pass through the streets of Yoshiwara. Jirou is like a living treasure and he commands more than just them, but a child's world is small. Midare knows that Kashuu can't put two and two together, not quite, not yet, and so he says that.
And it's enough to make Kashuu's mouth become drier. “I'm sorry! I'm trying--”
“I'm not the person you have to be sorry to,” Midare continues. “So, get this right. Listen to me.”
“That's even crueler than scolding him,” Yagen comments, but Midare doesn't reply.
Kashuu's world is small.
Midare uses that against him, because the only one who speaks to him and stands at his height is Horikawa.
“Would you like some tea?” Midare puts a plaintive smile on his face as well, but it’s not a smile Kashuu needs to learn.
He’ll learn it anyway, though, as he tries to repeat, syllable by syllable-- “...Would… you like some tea?”
“You’re getting there,” Midare says, but his voice is softer than a whisper, so Kashuu hears nothing but silence.
---
“Who is that man? He always books you for the mornings, Jirou. I want to know!”
In the end, Kashuu was shut away in his room the entire day-- perhaps the walls are thicker than he thought, or his room was too far away, because even at night parted and the clients were supposed to leave, he heard nothing.
(Well, it’s fine, he didn’t need to hear anything. He knows already.)
“Hmm? That man?” Jirou looks at Midare, before twirling his drink. There are many more around them, undoing their hair and washing their faces, but children stick to those they find familiar, even if they’re terrifying. So Kashuu sticks to Jirou, while Horikawa fetches another bucket of water for them. “Oh, oh, that man! He never really talks about himself. He’s always looking like his head is in the clouds-- that kind of person, you know?”
Midare’s smile slips. “...So he’s a monk.”
“Haha! How did you come to that conclusion?” Jirou gives Horikawa a nod when the water bucket is placed at his feet. “--Oh, don’t be shy, you two! You can wash up now too.”
“I don’t need to,” Kashuu mutters. “I was in my room.”
“Yes you do, you stink,” Midare says cheekily, but it actually makes Kashuu freeze up and reach for the water. “Anyway, Jirou, you of all people should know that those clothes definitely mean he’s a monk.”
Jirou shrugs. “He has a looot of money for a monk, though.”
“Maybe he’s the son of a big store too, then. ...Or maybe he’s just stealing money.”
Yagen stops Midare there, while he strips off his shirt. “We don’t need to make baseless assumptions about our clients.”
Midare sticks his tongue out, while Kashuu splashes his face with water. It runs across the ceramic tiling that was built upon wooden floors, bringing along dirt, hair, makeup-- everything into the drains near them. Yet, in this life, Kashuu finds no reason to be disgusted by this, because the water makes them cleaner in the end.
“By the way, Jirou,” Midare says, voice lowering to a whisper. “You know that ‘Mikazuki’ guy? The client who went with Yamanbagiri, yes-- he’s loaded! Look, I simply reached into one of his pockets, and I got this!”
Flipping his skirt, he pulls out the bag that was strapped to his thigh. It makes a sound that everyone recognizes upon being placed on top of an overturned washbucket, and Jirou’s eyes widen with both pride and some degree of half-assed fury.
“Midareee! What did I tell you about stealing from clients?!”
“He might not come back if he realizes he’s been stolen from,” Yagen adds. “So, in the end, we’ll lose money.”
Midare’s smile doesn’t disappear, and instead, he leans in to whisper. In response, Horikawa and Kashuu both step closer, trying to hear whatever words of wisdom he’ll impart.
“He’ll definitely come back,” Midare whispers. His voice is loud enough to be heard by Kashuu, this time, and he looks at the two apprentices. “You two, pay attention tomorrow-- Kashuu, you still can’t talk, but I want you to look at his face. He keeps glancing back up at the door while leaving, with that tiny half-smile. That’s the face of someone falling in love!”
Yagen picks up the bucket of water Horikawa fetched, and dumps it over the top of Midare’s head.
“Eh?!” --It’s an exclamation said by three people, including Yagen’s brother and the two apprentices. Since they were leaning in to listen, as consequence, there are all equally drenched.
It’s a good thing Jirou prompted them to change out their clothes earlier, or there’s no way it could’ve been dried in time.
“Get to washing up. The water’s only getting colder.”
“You’re the cold one, Yagen!”
(This is only the beginning of the story. Yagen has never been truly cold.)
--- Nine.
The first sign that Kashuu didn’t fully understand what he was meant to do comes quite a while later.
It’s normal, that he would only realize this now. The job seems clear-cut from the beginning, anyway-- and it is not something shameful, or something Jirou seeks to hide from them. It is not something their parents sought to hide from them.
He can walk around now, when the clients are here. He can speak to them, but it’s not like they seek his words. He’s simply an attendant, a young apprentice, a canvas with no paint-- they do not seek innocence or inexperience.
They do seek youth, however, and Kashuu realizes how afraid Midare is of growing old only when he realizes he stares at the mirror far too long in the morning.
“...I’m going to chase them away, tonight,” he whispers, and Kashuu has gotten used to listening for those whispers. “I’ll make sure they leave in time. Before the candle burns down. I need my beauty sleep.”
“Midare,” Kashuu asks, even though he realizes he’s not supposed to be eavesdropping-- MIdare greets him with a smile, anyway. “...Like… how old are you?”
“How rude, you don’t just ask someone for their age! And jeez, I told you to practice away that ‘tick’ of yours. Don’t go ‘like’, ‘like’, ‘like’!”
Kashuu doesn’t shrink, because now, he can tell apart Midare’s teasing from his anger. “But, I’m twelve. How old are you?”
(Kashuu is not old enough to realize that Midare does not carry himself like a twelve-year-old. He is not old enough to realize that Midare should have received his adult name by now. That’s how old Kashuu is.)
“...Nine, I think.”
“Ohhh, so you’re three years younger than me!” Midare pats Kashuu on the head. “I wonder when you’ll catch up to my height. Hmm, but no-- don’t hope for time to pass quickly. We’re not like girls or big sis Jirou, after all.”
He continues smiling, and Kashuu realizes just how much the makeup conceals-- the whiteness conceals the bags under Midare’s eyes, hues darker than they should be, from weeks of the candles burning down and the room being plunged into a similar darkness. From sleep still being a distant dream at that time, before he is not the only one in the room, and he cannot simply lay still-- everything about him must be a work of art, including the sounds, the strength of his fingers and the way his grip digs into their shoulders and he goes ahh, no, there-- I’ll die, if you keep going--
“See, Kashuu,” Midare hums, “they don’t want adult men. Male clients, they can’t possibly go for someone their age-- everything is between a man and a boy. When you catch up to my height, I might not be a boy anymore.”
It doesn’t make that much sense, to someone who hasn’t had the time to understand centuries of history, a culture which chains their feet to conventions. Their life is inflexible, yet also manipulatable, because Midare, by all means except the official coming-of-age ceremony, is already beyond boyhood.
Kashuu doesn’t know that. So he just nods.
(He doesn’t know that Midare has seen someone else grow too old. He looks like he hasn’t aged in years, and Midare hopes, prays that this can be the case until his debt is paid. Because he saw his brother, his Ichi-nii, grow too old.
He’s still lucky, though. Ichi-nii had a client which glanced at his door with a tiny half-smile. That Tsurumaru, a crane that perhaps could’ve been as graceful as they were should he have been raised here-- but he is a samurai, a swordsman with enough money to pay for his big brother’s debt. He is also strange, in the way that he didn’t seem to mind when Ichigo began to look his age.
They are not biological brothers-- their eyes are too different, their face shapes from different provinces. But in the same way Jirou is his big sis, it makes no difference.
Midare sometimes wishes he would have a client look at him that way. The same way ‘Tarou’, whatever his name was, looks at Jirou, or the way Mikazuki’s eyes shined like the moon when he finally walked away from Yoshiwara with Yamanbagiri alongside him.
But he’s just a troublemaker. Just a boy who never grew up. That’s fine, though. He’s fine with never growing too old.)
“But you can be a boy for a long time,” he continues. “You just need to get your beauty sleep. ...Not when you’re young, though. We can’t have you growing too tall!”
“...Huh?”
Midare turns Kashuu around, and shoos him out the room. “I let you sleep early last night, while I worked the entire time! That’s not fair. Tonight, I’ll sleep early, and you’ll do a complete clean-up of the dining room with Horikawa, okay?”
“Eh?! That’s not fair!”
But Kashuu is old enough to talk back. He isn’t, however, old enough to actually act on it, which is while Midare still smiles that good-natured smile.
“If you behave well,” Midare says, “I’ll bribe big sis Jirou into giving you a bigger bowl of food tomorrow, okay?”
(This Midare is so different, so different from the Midare who whispers things into the ears of clients, men and women alike and go hey, do you want to see what’s up my skirt? Kashuu is too young to realize this.
--Or rather, Kashuu is too deluded, because Horikawa is definitely thinking about it.)
---
“Look at the moon!”
Kashuu’s world is slightly bigger now, in the way that there are more apprentices than simply Horikawa which exist in his conscience. But Horikawa’s voice is the one he remembers the most, the one that he responds to.
The full moon shines in through the dining room window. Jirou stands next to it, along with a client, who should have left by now, but--
“Can you see it well?” Tarou’s voice is unfamiliar, but Kashuu decides it’s nothing to fear. “The moon. The window is quite high up, after all.”
Horikawa goes on tiptoes. “I can see half of it.”
“Aww, but you need to see all of it,” Jirou hums. Even when he isn’t drunk, he sounds drunk, and Kashuu has accepted that as a part of life.
Horikawa blinks. “Why?”
“To make a wish, of course!”
That’s when Horikawa turns to Kashuu, eyes wide, and goes-- “Kashuu, can you see the whole moon?” But he can’t, even when he jumps, and he does jump, desperately, feet slamming against the floorboards as he bounces.
His hair undoes itself, at one point, but he’s still jumping, and Horikawa’s jumping too, but they can’t see the full moon. “I can’t!”
“Keep trying!”
--That’s when Jirou finally decides to grab Kashuu.
But he doesn’t hoist Kashuu in the air like Midare did, when he first arrived. Kashuu only realizes he’s off the ground when his feet don’t make that thump against the ground, and only realizes he’s on Jirou’s shoulders when he can see those intricate hairpins which decorate Jirou’s headpieces. But most of all, he can see the full moon.
Tarou takes the cue and grabs Horikawa, putting him on his shoulders the same way.
“Oooh! I can see the moon!” Horikawa scrambles forward, accidentally grabbing at Tarou’s face while he does so. Jirou only laughs while Tarou’s expression remains the same. Horikawa doesn’t even seem to notice-- “Can we make a wish now, then?”
“Of course,” Jirou hums.
Horikawa closes his eyes, clasping his hands together (said hands are still in front of Tarou’s face). “I wish… to have a rich samurai pay my debt! And live in a place with lots of flowers.”
(The only flowers in Yoshiwara are the ones in paintings and the people themselves, who are all afraid of growing old and wilting.)
“I wish,” Kashuu says, putting his hands together in the same way-- “That when I catch up with Midare’s height, he’ll still be a boy.”
Jirou shakes his head. “You shouldn’t use your wishes on other people, Kashuu! There’s only so many this world can grant.”
“It’s an earnest wish, though,” Tarou says. Now, his expression is changed slightly, with some semblance of an amused smile gracing his face. “The heavens above will grant a wish like that.”
Silence for a moment, while Kashuu looks pleased with his wish.
“--Wait, but my wish is earnest, too!” Horikawa’s pout in itself is almost audible, and finally, Tarou laughs.
They all laugh, while the full moon watches.
---
“...So, what is it, Yagen?”
It’s not common to hear Jirou sound so solemn, and that’s what makes Kashuu pause in the hallway. He grabs Horikawa, shushing him when he’s about to say What is it, Kashuu?. The walls are literally paper-thin, and Kashuu stands behind it, pressing his ear to the door.
“The rash,” Yagen says, voice too distinct to be anyone else. “It’s what you think it is. That isn’t a normal rash. It keeps coming back, so… he’s got a fever, too-- he normally doesn’t speak, but he won’t speak at all right now.”
Horikawa blinks. “What are they talking about?”
“Shh,” Kashuu answers. “I don’t know either.”
There’s a thump at someone drags a chair over the floor and slumps onto it. They know it’s Jirou, because Yagen wouldn’t make such a loud sound, of falling and dejection-- it’s not unlike when Midare tosses him into bed when he’s too drunk, but also holds some sort of difference.
(If only he was drunk now.)
“Nakigitsune’s been having this for… how long, again?”
Yagen closes his eyes. His memory is impeccable. “A year. Two. Since that Aoi festival, remember? When he was too ill to go on display.”
There’s no sound of drinking, or laughter. Jirou simply presses his elbows onto the table, from what Kashuu can make out of their shadows. “...If it keeps coming back… and this time, it seems serious, right?”
Yoshiwara is busy. It lies at the start of Tokaido road, where so many pass every day. The sights of Yoshiwara are sights that the rest of the country aspires to see, along with their magnificent art pieces, even though it was set up merely a decade or two ago. But here, in the hallways that are no longer colorful and the rooms that are tucked away, there are always things which no one ever wants to see.
Yagen doesn’t say anything yet. He pulls the chair and sits next to Jirou. “It’s the ‘spread disease’-- I believe you’ve already been suspecting that. No client must be allowed to see him. If we are lucky…”
“It’s my fault,” Jirou slurs out. “I should’ve checked closer. Made sure that--”
“You know that this disease is like a ghost, Jirou,” Yagen says. And that’s when Kashuu really presses against the wall, because this is the first time Yagen sounds-- unprofessional? Comforting? “It strikes without warning or without signs. Like a ghost passing through the walls.”
“I have enough ghosts as it is, don’t bring in metaphorical ones.”
And that’s when Yagen opens the door.
Kashuu almost tumbles into the room, while Horikawa lands on top of him. It would be comical, if it wasn’t for how Jirou’s hands were pressed onto his face, hair in a mess-- he doesn’t smell of sake, and Kashuu wishes he did.
“Big sis Jirou! Um, Yagen--!” Horikawa scrambles to his feet, kicking Kashuu in the back while doing so. “Oh, uh, this was my idea. I wanted to listen. Please don’t punish Kashuu.”
“Were you listening?” Jirou is the one who speaks, and he looks tired in a different way. Not in how he wakes up in the morning, with an enormous bedhead, and Midare curses under his breath while undoing the tangles. He looks tired in--
(In the way Kashuu’s mother was tired, he supposes.)
Yagen shakes his head. “Eavesdropping? We didn’t teach you to do that. As punishment--”
“No, no,” Jirou says, getting up. “They need to know about this.”
“...Jirou, you are too lenient with them.”
Kashuu finally gets up himself, standing in front of Horikawa. (Horikawa doesn’t need to hide behind him, however.) “If we need to know, we’ll, like, listen. Please don’t punish us!”
“We haven’t ever punished you before,” Yagen mumbles. (Never in the way they are supposed to punish them.)
Jirou simply sits back down again. “Listen, you two. When the new year comes, I’ll begin training you, beyond tea ceremonies and knowing how to clean up after yourself. You know what I mean, right?”
They both nod, and Jirou leans over, right to their eye level. His head tilts up and his back is arched, like a kabuki dancer, like the onnagata he is, a man with the grace of women from legend-- “I’ll teach you some signs to look out for, okay? If you ever see anyone with them, run and tell big sis Jirou immediately. For that situation alone, don’t worry about appearances. I’ll deal with it.”
The fact that Jirou doesn’t have a smile on his face, not at all, is the thing that fills them with the most dread.
---
“There’s a story I can tell you.”
Yagen’s voice breaks the silence, while Midare leans against the wall. He has time to sleep today, but for some reason, he doesn’t. “I’m sure you two have heard it already, though.”
“They haven’t,” Midare answers for them, and Kashuu turns to look at Midare. He doesn’t smoke or drink, because it might make him age faster, and that’s something he can’t afford. “They’re good kids. Kind of too good. Oooh, they’re really boring, actually… I miss that Imano kid, too bad his big brother paid for him to get out, hmm.”
Even though that isn’t a bad thing at all, but Midare says that anyway.
“I’m not boring,” Kashuu retorts, but he has nothing else to fight back with.
Horikawa, instead, turns to look at Yagen. “What’s the story?”
“On a day like this, when the moon was clouded…” Yagen points to the skies. The moon isn’t visible at all. There will be no wishes granted today, not by a god that watches from the sky. “Two boys, a bit older than you. They stood taller, and they weren’t the most graceful--”
“Yagen,” Midare cuts off. “Should you really be telling this kind of story?”
Yagen closes his eyes, while Kashuu is torn between looking at either of them. “...If you want to hear it, you can ask someone else, I suppose.”
“Hey, you can’t just start and don’t continue,” Kashuu says. “What’s the story? What do you mean, we should have heard it already?”
“Well, you could ask me when Midare goes to sleep,” Yagen hums.
Midare rubs his eyes. “Don’t say that. I’m never going to sleep at this rate.”
---
“I heard the story.”
Horikawa’s voice is a whisper. The room they sleep in is rather crowded, because children are small and they take up space. Being awake at this time is worthy of a punishment, but Kashuu and Horikawa are never punished. “Kashuu, hey, wake up.”
“Hmmph,” Kashuu barely stirs, while Horikawa sits next to him and prods his neck. “Ugh, ugh-- tomorrow, tomorrooow--”
“It’s a story about running away, Kashuu.”
Kashuu pulls down his blanket. “Why would we run away?”
(This is still the nicest bed Kashuu has fallen asleep in. This is still the place where he takes his meals, where Midare smiles, even when Kashuu can’t remember the steps for tea ceremonies and which flower means what in the vases that decorate rooms with splashes of color. Yagen’s voice is distinct, and he has nothing to fear, while Jirou laughs and spoils them like a big sister should. Kashuu doesn’t know that they aren’t supposed to treat them this way-- they aren’t supposed to be like a family.
But Horikawa knows.)
“You know what big sis Jirou was talking about before, right?” Horikawa shakes Kashuu awake. “We should get them all together and run away! Before we get that ‘spread disease’, and before we grow too old.”
They are not nearly old enough to approach this in a way that makes some degree of sense. But Horikawa continues-- “The story, is that two boys who were barely past apprenticeship got to the entrance of Yoshiwara in the darkness. They disguised themselves with tablecloth and covered their faces. They didn’t run, they walked, because running would be suspicious. They managed to make it all the way and broke out.”
Kashuu rubs his eyes. “Then?”
“Then they’re free! To go home.” Horikawa’s voice is a bit too loud, but no one else stirs. (Or perhaps they don’t have the will to.) “Kashuu, it’s the new year celebration soon. We’ll all be declared ten years old. They’ll start teaching us seriously, as entertainers and as art pieces.”
They’ll dance with folding fans, with graceful turns of their wrists, enacting battles of the past with long robes and painted faces. The enka will boom behind them, like the beat of their heart that doesn’t stop even if the government tries banning what they do over and over again-- regulation is a distant dream in the district that lies at the start of Tokaido road.
It lies at the center of everything. The trends, the arts, the sights-- it is the center of everything.
Which means, if they run, they have a plethora of places to go to.
“On the new year celebration,” Horikawa says, “let’s run away.”
Kashuu’s eyes are wide open now, and he says, once again-- “Why?”
“To go back home.”
(But what if Kashuu doesn’t want to?)
--- Ten.
The New Year is an art piece in itself.
Those who don’t take clients are running, running all over, preparing food and pouring tea and delivering messages-- ringing the bells of temples that overlook the different parts of the cities, making sure everything fits into place. They are an invisible army, while the oirans of Yoshiwara stand at the foremost. Jirou is an entertainer first, everything else second, and Midare is a rising onnagata himself. His hair is pulled tight, pinned together with red and white and glittering stones, while Yagen appeals to those who aren’t looking for femininity.
They are an invisible army, and Kashuu has no idea if he wants to make use of that invisibility.
“Look, Horikawa,” he says, as the lanterns glow and people cheer-- “Big sis Jirou will take good care of us. There’s no need to run.”
Horikawa isn’t scary. He stands at Kashuu’s eye level, stands on two legs with no pins in his hair or white makeup that makes him almost look like a ghost in the shadowed places when the candles burn down. But he has another power over Kashuu, which is--
“Kashuu,” Horikawa says, “trust me. Okay? I’m sure they’re understand. Why do you think Yagen wanted to tell us that story?”
It makes sense, in a way. Kind of.
Horikawa presses a pouch into Kashuu’s hands. “I stole this from Jirou’s first client, today. It should be enough to pay for a year or so of food. You know the way back to your family, right?”
“--No,” Kashuu says. “I can’t.”
“You’ll remember the road when you see it,” Horikawa decides to say, and Kashuu isn’t sure where he got all this information.
Maybe he doesn’t know Horikawa so well, after all, even if they’ve been growing up together for two whole years.
He is a bright smile that hides how watchful his eyes are. Horikawa grabs Kashuu’s hands and twists around the streets of Yoshiwara, tablecloth tied over his head, and they are two boys, barely past apprenticeship with the new year celebrations still booming over their heads.
It’s cloudy today.
Kashuu doesn’t feel anything, when Horikawa walks past the big gate that separates Yoshiwara from the outside world. The gate left open for the festivities, the gate where so many are passing through that they are simply two faces, two invisible members of an army that are deserting. He doesn’t feel anything until Horikawa seriously breaks into a run, pulling him along, and Kashuu gasps as he almost trips on the road.
“Kashuu, look! Do you recognize the road?!”
“I do!” Kashuu yells back in reply, over the gongs and the people chatting with high voices-- “The small road to the right! I came here from there!”
The trees that grow along the road are still the same.
He can’t look at Horikawa’s face, but he can almost feel him grinning, when he picks up the pace and runs, runs as far as possible, to the small road to the right, to freedom--
Tarou grabs Kashuu’s shoulder and yanks him back, while Horikawa stumbles from the sudden force.
“You two,” he says, voice entirely too calm. But he is a person living on the earth they are on, a person existing in this current time, and he stands between them. “Where are you going?”
“--We’re on an errand,” Horikawa replies swiftly. “We need to send an urgent letter!”
But, like a blind god, Tarou simply accepts that answer. “Be careful, you could get lost on this road. If you need directions, I have time to spare.”
Kashuu forces himself to his feet, instinctively giving Tarou a bow. “We’re heading to, uh, the small road to the right. Past the tallest trees.”
(That’s all he remembers.
If only he could forget.)
Tarou turns around first, as if to lead the way, but he stays still instead. The people pass around them, while Horikawa almost walks ahead in haste. He speaks, a second or so later, and his words end Kashuu’s delusions.
“Why are you delivering a letter to the etamura?”
(There is no reason for anyone to hide what it means, to be a work of art in Yoshiwara, the red light district. But there is plenty of reason to hide where they all came from-- their birth should not matter. Their skill and their beauty should be what defines them.
Midare made Kashuu practice away his accent. Tarou does not put two and two together because of that.
Horikawa does, however.)
“The…?” It’s been so long, too long, and Kashuu does not understand why that word sounds so ugly. Eta, something filthy, a syllable that rolls off your tongue with spit and the flick of your tongue-- “I’m going to the village by the riverbed.”
Horikawa grabs Kashuu’s hands, realization crossing over his face.
“Kashuu,” Horikawa says, “why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you--?”
“We can’t run-- I’m sorry, mister Tarou!”
Horikawa’s plan falls apart, and Kashuu doesn’t understand that it’s because of him.
---
Tarou leads them back to Yoshiwara. “Why are we going back, Horikawa?”
“Because we both have no where better to go,” he replies. “I lived too far away. ...I wanted to see if I could stay with you.”
Kashuu’s mouth breathes a small oh as he blinks. “Kashuu, don’t you know where you come from?”
Tarou continues walking. He pretends he can’t hear them speaking.
“I do,” Kashuu replies. “I come from the riverbed.”
“Don’t say that out loud!” Horikawa looks around, but no one has heard him. No one is interested in the conversation of two boys like them. “...Right… maybe you just-- didn’t know while you were growing up there. Kashuu, you’re…”
“I’m what?” The drum is still beating through the seats, the lanterns are still glowing, and Kashuu has been dragged through the entire district in some half-assed attempt to run away. It shouldn’t come as a surprise-- Kashuu’s entire life, to this moment, is made of the people around him altering the path which he should take. He is simply someone who watches the proceedings, like the eyes of an audience member. He watches everyone else, so rich with color and so alive in their own way, while he is kept in a constant delusion that keeps him from living in that same way.
That delusion ends now.
“You’re tainted with death,” Horikawa breathes, and Kashuu suddenly realizes Horikawa is no longer holding his hand. “The people outside the etamura think everyone there is filthy. That’s why you were brought here. That’s… your life will only become worse, if you run away.”
“Jirou,” Tarou suddenly says, stopping their concentration. “I caught them trying to run away.”
“...I expected that,” Jirou replies, stepping off the stage while the people around them cheer for performances they bore no witness to. Kashuu barely registers Horikawa’s words, much less Jirou, face unsmiling, everything about him colorful except his expression.
Tarou turns away. “Were you expecting them to return, too?”
“Partly.”
Jirou is the oiran. He has no time to deal with troublemakers.
So it is Midare, following right after Jirou, who grabs Kashuu’s ponytail and yanks it before slapping him across the face.
“Treating you so leniently was a mistake,” he says, while Kashuu’s heart drops to his feet and everything feels cold with sudden terror. Yagen grabs Horikawa’s clothes and drags him away in a similar way. “I’ll show you exactly how I can wreck havoc.”
Midare’s voice is sweet, but Kashuu can tell that he has every reason to feel fear.
---
To say Kashuu’s delusions simply ‘ended’ is too kind.
It was destroyed, crushed and drowned in the water that Midare drenches him in until he can’t breathe. He can’t breath and he feel like dying, and that’s when Midare wrenches his head back out from the trench. The water is filthy, with dirt and hair and makeup, running off from the bath house into the trenches nearby. The same bath house where Midare laughed, about stealing from clients and how to tell when someone is falling in love--
(He did not teach them how to tell when someone is falling into derangement.)
The water also goes up Kashuu’s nose and his mouth, and Midare gives him five seconds to breathe each time. It sometimes takes longer than that to clear his airway, and that’s when Kashuu really, really thinks he’s going to die, because Midare forces him back into the trench.
“Just breathe it all in,” he says, and there is no sadism in his voice. He’s simply doing as he has to. “It’s dirty. You wanted to be dirty, right? You wanted to run back home? To your riverbed, where the water runs with your shit?”
Kashuu can barely hear Midare, even when he breaches the surface because he’s gasping to breathe, but he hears enough. “I told Yagen, not to tell you that story. I knew something like this would happen. You have no place to run to, Kashuu. Your surname, Kiyomitsu, isn’t a samurai clan or even a peasant’s glorified name.”
When Midare finally yanks his head back up and keeps it there, he thinks it’s over-- but Midare slaps Kashuu again, forcing him awake.
“Ah--” Kashuu’s eyes are wide open. “Please, don’t--”
“I won’t put you in the water again,” Midare says. “A punishment with only that is too lenient.”
Kashuu still gasps for air, water dripping down his nose and mouth, along with hair and other things he’s breathed in, and he wakes to vomit-- but Midare gives him no time for that, pulling him by the hair again.
“Bad behavior won’t be tolerated again, Kashuu,” he continues. “Do you know what you are? You were born among defilement and death. Here, we can turn you into an art piece. But maybe you don’t want that.”
No, no, please, I want to, don’t-- But he can say nothing in his defense, nothing like it was Horikawa’s idea or I didn’t know. Besides, he knows now. Midare has told him, over and over, while dunking him into the water--
“Do you know why I told you to practice away that accent, Kashuu?” Midare’s scissors cut away at Kashuu’s hair, and the fact that becoming bald is merciful compared to going back in the water is-- “If people heard it from you, they’d toss you out into the mud. They’d step over you like a dirty rat. Do you want that, Kashuu? Do you want to go back to that?”
“No,” he breathes, as Midare pulls him by the tiny tuft of hair he leaves at the top of his forehead. “I d-don’t.”
Midare presses him against the tree that grows outside the bath house, along the pathway everyone has to pass before they reach the sleeping quarters. “Good. You have a pretty face, you know. If you behave well and learn everything we have to teach you, then, there won’t be any problem.” His voice is softer now, not as hard as before, still without any hint of happiness or sadism. He holds Kashuu still while grabbing the rope.
“You have an eye for detail. Believe me, when you stop being an apprentice, men and women will line up in throves to see you dance. You’ll be famous. Everyone will want to love you.”
Everyone will want to love you.
Kashuu continues nodding dumbly. He’s numb everywhere-- water drenches his clothes and leaves him shivering, but Midare doesn’t let that stop him from trying Kashuu to the tree. “But, for now, you can learn how it feels like when no one loves you.”
He leaves Kashuu tied to the tree.
And then he simply walks away.
The drums are still beating through the streets, and Kashuu can hear the laughter, but he doesn’t see anyone. No one but the courtesans and their clients, walking past the bath house, looking like bursts of color.
Their eyes sometimes fall to Kashuu, and they laugh.
--- Fifteen.
“...Like… how old are you, Midare?”
“I’m twelve,” Midare says cheerfully, tying small flowers to Kashuu’s hair. He’s given up trying to get rid of Kashuu’s informal speech. “How old are you, Kashuu?”
Kashuu sits in seiza, while Midare ties his hair-- he has hair to tie, now. “I’m fifteen. Saaay, Midare, how long has you been twe--”
“Jeez, you’re three years older than me! How time passes,” Midare hums pleasantly, but that doesn’t change the fact that he cut Kashuu of intentionally. “So, Kashuu. It’s about time I impart you a few tips and tricks.”
It would be foolish to say that Kashuu is completely inexperienced. Even before he got the hang of everything, before his wrists could move with such agility on stage while enka plays, katsura hiding a ‘shaved pate’ of hair that isn’t even shaved in the first place-- however, despite that, he is still not a work of art. He is a burst of color, cheeks red with blush, clothes adorned with gold and flowers now weaved into his hair. But he does not yet move like a living painting, not on the tatami mat of the floor, and that’s the most important part of his job.
He’s an entertainer, yes. But there are many places people can go to be entertained normally.
Until now, Kashuu has only been the replacement for others should they be too tired to tend to clients. He has no one loyally visiting to pay for him alone, no one that waits until the sun moves entire leagues across the sky for their turn.
“You’re going to be on display tomorrow, Kashuu,” Midare bubbles. “Doesn’t that make you excited? Go and show up that ‘Souza Samonji’, will you? He’s hardly the prettiest one in Yoshiwara, I don’t know why everyone likes him so much…”
“Yeah, yeah, I will,” Kashuu replies to Midare. “After all, who would love a courtesan without beauty? And exuberance comes with beauty.”
“Exactly!” Midare finishes up on Kashuu’s hair. Midare looks like he hasn’t aged, not in half a decade-- not in any way except for how he now leans harder on the paper thin walls, panting and breathing--
Speaking of which.
“Before that, of course, you need to get used to working while dressed like this.”
“I already am,” Kashuu says. “Big sis Jirou--”
“Yes, yes,” Midare cuts off. “But Midare’s got a few tricks of his own! Here’s how to wreak havoc on your client’s mind, hmm?”
It’s almost a shame, that Kashuu has to lie on the floor and have his hair ruined so quickly after Midare’s been working on it for so long. But he has to get used to it, the sensation of crushed flowers tickling his face while Midare lifts his legs, and the kimono he’s wearing gets flipped up. “You’re not bad at all, Kashuu. You don’t have Horikawa’s big doe eyes or cute face shape, but you have longer legs. Mm-- I bet you make sounds better, too.”
He will be on display for the first time tomorrow. Midare puts on the finishing touches, like a painter fixes up the shading for his masterpiece, tracing Kashuu’s skin and making him--
“Sounds are important. Say specific things to them. More, more, or breathe against their neck. Sometimes, just gasp as they move. They like to hear that. They want to know what they’re doing to you, see?”
“More,” Kashuu breathes againsts Midare’s neck, fingers gripping his back. “Ah-- ahhn--”
“Right, just like that,” Midare continues, pressing him against the ground. “Smile. Then look like you’re going to cry. Breathe, keep breathing and make your breathing audible. Move against them, like you know what you’re doing and you know what they want. Say the first thing that comes to mind.”
Midare is right on top of Kashuu now, face to his, and Kashuu smiles while looking like he’s about to cry.
Now, he is a work of art.
“Please take good care of me,” Kashuu almost whispers, voice airy with pleasure that may or may not be faked-- “I promise, my performance will be good. I’ll love you with all I have, so please love me back.”
“That works,” Midare replies. “You’re ready.”
(He is a work of art, not a dirty rat which scampers across the streets of Edo.)
--- ”Ah, you shouldn’t be keeping track, Kashuu! You’re fifteen. Alright?”
Yamato no Kami Yasusada leaves his sword at the entrance to Yoshiwara.
“Er,” Mutsu no Kami Yoshiyuki begins to say, raising his hand. “You know that no one actually does that, right?”
“Huh?”
Izumi no Kami Kanesada grabs the both of them. “Whatever, Yoshiyuki, just let him be! We’re at Yoshiwara. So, what the hell did you want to show us, Yoshiyuki?”