Chapter Text
The incense is cloying this close; the scent of agarwood threatens to choke her, to leave her gasping for air if she doesn’t open the thick curtains drawn around the kamidama. A punishment at the hands of the gods themselves.
Instead, Shirayuki kneels.
The lamp burns steadily above, its light spilling off the shelf to fall, muted, to where she sits. The scent is less here, almost pleasant as long as she’s on her knees. As long as she’s showing deference.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, hands reaching up, up, until her fingers flip the latch over the sacred mirror – the latch her grandfather had set so many years ago, when her mother was just a child, when he had built this with his own hands, to show that they were townspeople now, that they weren’t poor farmers –
There’s no shinkyō inside. It’s only books, only the last of her precious treasures, only her last memories of the time before.
Even now her fingers tremble as she holds them. The last of her dreams, held in rice paper and foreign parchment. A match, a careless hand, and she would lose even these.
She’s already lost too much. She can’t bear any more.
There’s just enough light to read by, for her to squint as she turns the delicate pages. Lines sprawl across the page, like nothing more than trees with endless branches. Shinkei, one book says, zenuw, say another. Nerve, she mouths to herself; the English word she knows from asking ship surgeons. She’ll know all of them, one day.
“Shirayuki!”
But not this one.
“Shirayuki!” Eno shouts again, knocking his cane against wood, gravel scuttling beneath his feet as he tries to peek in a window. “Shirayuki!”
“What is he thinking?” she huffs, cheeks flushing. She hurries to squirrel away her books, her notes. They can’t be left them out here for anyone to find. “Does he want someone to hear him?”
She scrambles to her feet, flipping the latch on the kamidama to hold her treasures safe. A breath of relief, and then she is rushing to the window, throwing open the shutters.
“Eno-san!” She doesn’t dare lift her voice above a loud whisper. “There’s no need to shout!”
“Shirayuki!” His mouth widens into an insensible smile. “Are you open?”
She glances toward the sky, the sun disappeared behind the roofs but light still golden. “No.”
“Ah, come on, then,” he cajoles. “It’s hardly much before dusk. Might as well open a bit early, if there’s asking!”
Her mouth purses into a thin line. She already works late into the night, ushering the drunks home only hours before dawn. Must she be expected to do more, to be available at all hours for a man’s pleasure? She did not risk so much to live a yujo’s hours anyway.
But she can’t shout her thoughts into the streets, not when there might be dōshin around, watching the old drunk make trouble. “All right,” she relents, “just this once.”
“Bless you!” he calls out, drawing more eyes. “Bless you, girl!”
She hurries out to the front, cursing each blessing Eno lays upon her doorstep. He’s a kind man, an old friend of Oji-san’s, a man she’s known her whole life – but he’s the sort who must always make a scene, who must make a production of himself. It had been funny when she was a small girl, when he was only a whirling, mad uncle who would turn every moment into mummery.
Now he is a liability. A danger.
The door slides open easily in her hands, allowing him to stumble through.
“You are a golden child!” he tells her, nearly bowling her over. He already reeks of sake; some of the foreigners must have plied him with it, thinking it a fun game. She sighs, peeking out past him to see what attention he’s garnered.
The street is not busy, not before nightfall, but there’s always someone. With the foreigners in the port, there’s always some samurai prowling, looking for an excuse to make the tension worse.There will be violence here, one day, a massacre – already, barely months ago, a Russian sailor was murdered three streets away, cut down by Japanese steel. Sonnō jōi is a wave, a tsunami, and one day it will break on Yokohama.
No one is particularly interested in this scene however; a drunk man in Yokohama can be seen on every corner when the ships are in. Still, eyes latch to them before skittering on, pretending they never looked.
Except one.
Gold eyes fix on her, steady, set in a face that might as well be a mask for how much it gives away. His hair is shorn, covering his skull like a bristled cap. It was cut all at once, she knows, maybe evened in some still water’s reflection; the look of a man without a master. She’s seen it enough these days; she hardly needs to take in the blade slung at his waist to know just what he is.
“Ronin,” Eno spits, catching the line of her gaze. “There’s too many of them here. Samurai too. Too many hot-blooded young men in one place spells trouble.”
Shirayuki doesn’t mean to stare, but there’s something about him that draws her eyes like a flame. There’s a scar just above his eye, a pale slash on his dark skin. Dangerous, that says, as does the gouge on his chest, bared through the loose wrap of his kimono. It’s a wound that might have – should have, by her guess – killed him. And he displays it proudly, like a trophy.
She doubts the man who gave him it is alive
“Maybe the shogun was right to place the sword ban,” she breathes, tearing her eyes away, She can still feel his on her. “Less steel will make it safer in the ports.”
The ronin’s gaze slips over her, and he passes, no more than another man with a blade.
“No,” Eno says, his speech clear. “It only makes men desperate. Like that one. A whole city full of desperate men.”
Shirayuki stares out on the street, empty now. Another street over, she wouldn’t even have to imagine it. She hears you can smell blood on it still, when the sun beats down.
“Forget about that!” Eno says suddenly, back with his old drunken swagger. “Come on now, let’s give a drink to Jiji.”
“To Jiji!” the men roar, cups lifted. One of them – the youngest, Roku-san’s middle son – traipses to the bar. He’s quiet out of his cups, a wary thing, but now he saunters up to the golden Buddha that sits, contentiously, at its center. A sliver of serenity in the chaos that is the sake house.
The wave might take this from her too. The sake house sees mainly regulars, men who knew her grandfather, grandmother, and even mother, but those who aren’t cast dark eyes at the statue, gazes slipping off it as if it is unclean. Sonnō jōi is to expel all foreigners, even, it seems, saints.
And Shirayuki will do anything to keep her head above water.
Her patron is all smiles now, tipping some of his sake into the offering cup clutched in golden hands. Shirayuki grimaces. It’s tradition she knows, meant to honor Ojii-san, but –
But it’s another task she’ll have to do, cleaning the Buddha, making sure there’s no sticky sake left in his cup. Another reminder that if she doesn’t mind herself, this could all come tumbling down.
“Another!” Kino-san – the Elder – laughs, waving his hand. “The night’s not yet done!
Shirayuki nods, hurrying into the pantry to grab another bottle; behind her she hears laughter, hears one of the men say, “Might as well go grab it yourself, Kino, save the girl the trip! It’ll be yours anyway.”
She nearly drops the flask. That’s not – she’d refused him, his offer of protection. She knew what a precarious situation she was in, how all it would take was a curious dōshin to bring it all down around her, but –
But she wouldn’t take a man’s kindness, just because their grandmothers had been close, just because their mothers had called each other sisters before one had married beyond herself.
If she must come into marriage with a man, it would not be on her knees.
“Ah, no!” She turns in time to see Kino – the Younger – flush, to see him wave away the teasing. “It’s not like that. Shirayuki – Jiji has this well in hand.”
“Ah, right.” The atmosphere of the bar becomes somber; more than a few eyes linger on the Buddha, on the cup he clasps.
“Come on, girl!” Eno-san calls out, jovial, trying to raise the mood. “Hurry –“
The bar goes silent when the doors burst open, revealing red coats. Foreigners. British.
“Well, well!” says their leader in English, a young man with a lop-sided smile and dark hair. “Don’t let us stop you.”
Raj has come to the sake house every night since his ship has been in port, and it feels as if it will never sail again.
“You’re not like the other girls here, Shirayuki,” he drawls, the consonants of his English crisp, the vowels sharp. She doesn’t know much about accents – hardly more than it takes to find out if a man is English or American – but his men don’t have the same. She’s sure he’d call it educated, but by the way his men send him long looks, she guesses it is more moneyed.
Perhaps that’s the same, in the West.
“How would you know?” she says, letting her voice sound teasing but not flirtatious. He already sees too much into the way she talks with him. Foreigners always do. “None of them speak English.”
“S-some of them do!” he blusters, pale skin flushing red. “Isn’t that right, Sakaki?”
“Of course, sir,” his manservant deadpans, eyes hooded with what she assumes is exhaustion. He’s older than Raj, but lower rank. She suspects this has more to do with birth rather than competence.
“I mean, of course, that you speak so well,” he continues, as if the man had never spoken. “You’re clearly a league above the other girls here, when it comes to intelligence. Why, with that red hair, you could almost pass for British.”
She hopes her grimace looks much more like a smile than it feels.
“Our ship leaves at the end of the week, you know,” he says, finger tracing the rim of his cup.
She hadn’t known, and it’s only through practice that she manages to keep the relief off her face. Soon he will be gone, and some other foreigner will come. Hopefully someone who prefers pining rather than flirting. Maybe someone French; she’s been meaning to pick up that language too.
Her thoughts distract her, she doesn’t realize his hand has moved until it’s on her wrist, thumb rubbing over her pulse. The blood in her veins turns to ice.
“It would be a shame to leave such a treasure as you here,” he says thoughtfully, tugging her closer to the bar. “We aren’t supposed to bring home souvenirs, but no one will say me nay…”
There is a part of her that is tempted. Here, there is no chance of her getting to study, but across the sea, she had heard there are women doctors. Not without pain, not without strife, but Shirayuki is used to both.
All it would cost her is herself.
“I cannot,” she breathes, “my grandfather needs me here.”
“I’ll pay him,” Raj promises easily, as if he’s never wondered where money comes from. “More than handsomely. A bride price any proper girl would be proud of.”
“Bride…price?” The term is strange, though she can guess what it is, from context. He couldn’t possibly –
“I couldn’t marry you, of course,” he laughs. “But you’d be the best kept mistress in England, aside from the King’s himself.”
Her mouth pulls flat. “No, thank you.”
She tugs at his arm, but he yanks her closer. “I’m offering you a life beyond dreaming, Shirayuki. A way out of this backwater country. Come with me, and I’ll show you how civilized people live.”
“I said no,” she gasps, pulling away, but he just holds tighter, his grip nearly painful.
“If you know what is good for you,” he growls, words clipped, “you’ll come with me.”
She grabs for something – anything – to make him release her, and –
And Grandfather Buddha slaps him across the temple, sending him tumbling to the floor, sake offerings staining his coat, his face.
The bar is quiet.
“I said,” she says, raising her voice, “no.”
The laughter crashes down with a roar, native and foreigner alike. On either side of the ocean, a spurned man is ridiculous
Raj scrambles to his feet, shaking himself. Sake sprays off his jacket, his trousers, and it only makes them laugh harder, grown men nearly in tears, leaning on each other to stay upright. Even Sakaki’s lips twitch at the corner, though he remains his master’s stoic shadow.
“You!” Raj growls, back hunched, teeth bared, more an animal than man. “You’ll regret this, you little whore.”
As the curtain swings shut behind him, only Sakaki following him into the night, Shirayuki certain he is right.
It’s the shouting that rouses her, that makes her lift her head, but –
But it’s the glass breaking that gets her out of bed.
It’s all gibberish for a few minutes as she rights herself, and but then she realizes it’s English, it’s Raj’s men outside shouting whore and worse. A rock crashes through her window, breaking the wood slats and –
And, oh, she can’t stay here. They’ll kill her.
Her hands shake as she throws clothes on; there’s not time to worry about propriety, not when any moment they could break through the door, the high windows – even the walls themselves, if they’re angry enough. She manages, just barely; her kimono lies askew over her juban, and her obi is just barely tied, but it’s enough, enough, and she moves to flee –
But then she smells the smoke. They’re carrying torches. They could set the sake house alight.
The latch of the kamidama is hot against her palms, and she flings it open, collecting the precious treasure within. The last of her hopes, her dreams. They’re the only thing worth anything in this whole place, save for –
The Buddha.
There’s no thought to leaving it, not now that she remembers. Not when it will be the first thing looters take, thinking the gold real, thinking there’s more than just wood beneath.
They would not like being right.
Shirayuki sprints into the bar, ducking under the windows so as to not be seen. Wood litters the floor under her feet, glass and stone as well. They’ll destroy this place to get at her, to make her pay, to force her onto that ship if she still lives. They’re practically pulling boards off the walls, but they haven’t broken through yet.
She cradles Buddha in her arms.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I’ve ruined everything.”
There’s only one place to go.
Kino-san opens the door himself, eyes bleary. She thanks all the kami it’s him, not his parents.
“Shirayuki,” he says, eyes wide. “Are you all right?”
He would have made a good husband, had she been the sort of girl interested in being a wife.
“Kino-san,” she breathes, aware of the Buddha tucked against her chest. “I have a proposition.”
Her pockets are heavy as she steps out into the streets. The kimono she wears isn’t hers – that one is smoke-stained, ruined, but Kino-san’s mother was eager to dress her nicely, to put her in the sort of silks a wife of their house could enjoy. It’s beautiful, makes her look like she’s a woman to be reckoned with, instead of one without a home to go back to, with only what her life is worth in her pockets.
She can’t stay in Yokohama. Even if Raj’s ship leaves today, he’ll be back – a year, two? Enough time to build, only for him to raze it again.
She won’t live in fear. She won’t marry to be safe, to protect herself from a man who won’t let her say no.
Where will you go? Kino-san had asked her after she refused him again. It’s not accusatory, not angry, just – concerned.
If only she knew how to make herself love someone. It would be so much easier.
None of these samurai will take her. They ask to see her father, to know where her gold comes from. That, or they eye the wisps of hair from under her wrap, or their gazes linger too long on the folds of her kimono.
There are men who are too expensive, and those who are too…expensive. She can pay in coin, and she knows some of them will not be happy for it.
By mid-day her feet hurt, her legs tight from mincing about in this fashionable kimono, and she is no closer to leaving than that morning. She’s desperate, and –
Desperate.
There’s at least one other man in this city as desperate as her.
“Samurai-dono.”
Gold eyes sweep down to meet hers. Up close, he’s smaller than she remembers, but still tall. At least average.
His kimono still gapes, still shows off his scar. He scratches it.
She does not wince. Hopefully.
“I have a proposition for you, samurai-dono.”
The key to negotiation is to pretend you hold the power. Oji-san always told her that.
“Six ryo if you bring me to Kyoto safely,” she says, her hands not even trembling around the cup. This past year has been an exercise in acting; this is just one more small performance. “Well, samurai-dono? Do you accept the terms?”
He’s a slovenly man, and when he slips his hand down from his face to hide in his kimono, she cannot hide her distaste. He’s not shaved recently; stubble prickling his face, though she must admit it lends him and air of…ruggedness she does not precisely mislike.
His mouth lifts at one corner, wry. He thinks he has humor, this ronin. She’s yet to see evidence of it. “Sorry to say, ojou-san,” he says in his smooth voice, “but I’ll pass on this one.”
Her gaze flicks up to his. This isn’t right. He’s desperate, more rib than meat. He can’t possibly pass up six ryo. It’s a fortune. “Is it the money?”
“No.” He grimaces as he takes in his sake. She’s surprised they’re selling it this early, but this ronin is not a man she’d care to cross in her own house. The man probably just wanted to keep him happy, less likely to make trouble. “It’s that you’re lying to me.”
Her heart pounds, her cheeks flush. “T-that’s not true. I’ll pay you half the ryo now, and half when we arrive in Kyoto.”
“Where did a girl like you even get so much money?” His eyes trail over her, no spark of interest in them. It’s a relief, as well as an insult. “Can’t be in the brothels. Are you running away from a marriage?”
Her mouth works, trying to find some reason to give him, but –
But she hears Raj, kicking up a fuss about the whore inside. “Samurai-dono,” she whimpers. “Please. Take me to Kyoto.”
His eyes narrow. “What’s in Kyoto, ojou-san?”
Nothing. He can’t know that. “My – my cousin.”
It’s a likely enough story, no reason for him to doubt it, but he remains incredulous. “I don’t think –”
“Let me in!” Raj demands, throwing – something. She flinches. He’ll find her, just sitting here like this. With another man. He won’t think it’s just business, not a man like him.
“Ojou-san –?”
“Please.” She wants to be big, be strong, but she’s so, so scared. He’ll kill her. He’ll strangle her right here while everyone watches. “Please take me from here.”
There’s a moment, an eternity, before the ronin speaks.
“Come here.” He grabs her wrist and yanks.
She’s not prepared; she stumbles into the table, and that in turn sends her sprawling into his lap, bottom pressed improperly to his front.
“I –“
“Play along!” he hisses, and then – then –
Then he puts his hand down her kimono.
Never has she been so – so manhandled, and he worsens it, jostles her to that her legs fall open, so that she tips against his shoulder, then – then –
He put his mouth to her neck.
“Sound like you’re having a good time,” he purrs against her, and she – she feels strange, feels hot –
“Oh-ho-ho!” she shrills, like the geisha she’s seen flirting with custom in the streets. She hopes.
It’s not. “Not that kind,” he snaps, and then –
Oh. Oh, oh – that is – that is his mouth, and it’s – his tongue is there too, and there’s sucking, and she cannot – it’s not –
“You, ronin!”
Oh, that’s – that’s right. She’s – she’s hiding from Raj. She’d forgot—
His hand shifts; no longer is his palm pressed awkwardly against her breast but cupping it, long fingers holding her with far more delicacy than she’d expect from a man like him. The way he positions her over his crotch, though – that she expects.
Raj stamps his foot, incensed. “Excuse me, I’m talking to you!”
The ronin looks up, gold eyes cold as coin, and stares blankly. Perhaps he doesn’t speak English; very few speak it as well as her.
“Have you seen…?” Raj lets out a huff, a growl, impatient as always. “HAVE YOU SEEN. RED HAIR. WOMAN.”
His only answer is to bring his mouth back to her neck, worrying at a spot that makes pins and needles break out over her arms, her legs.
“Why do I bother? Sakaki!”
Shirayuki dips her head as his companion appears, hoping her face has not flushed more than is seemly for some – some yujo, or whatever this ronin is trying to imply about her with his antics. Between the two of them, it would be Sakaki who would see through a ruse. She may only be red hair and green eyes to Raj, but not to Sakaki.
Raj thrusts out an impatient hand. “Ask this man about Shirayuki.”
“Excuse me, samurai-dono?” he intones softly, his Japanese as impeccable as always. “But have you seen a young woman with red hair?”
She is more disappointed than she ought to be when the ronin pulls away. “I haven’t seen any foreign women.”
“Not foreign. From Yokohama. Green eyes as well.”
The ronin’s face grows thoughtful – he may not have seen her hair, but her eyes, those he could not miss. She came to him because he was desperate, because she though a bag full of ryo would speak louder to him than pride, but –
But Raj could offer so much more, and for far less effort.
Shirayuki can’t – she won’t allow that.
How she makes the moan she’ll never know; it hurts her throat to be used in such a strange way, but both Englishmen stumble back, propriety offended, and the ronin –
It’s can’t be heat that she sees in his eyes. Not for that.
“No,” he says, so even, even as his thumb flicks out, rubbing right over her – her –
It makes her flush even to think about, squirming on his lap as a strange heat pools between her legs.
“Tell him to look in a brothel,” the ronin snaps. “I’m busy.”
Raj makes a scene, of course, and it’s nothing to sneak out the back, though she hesitates not to leave coin on the table.
“If it make you feel better, that man would have sold you out if he knew what was under your scarf,” the ronin tells her, cold, before moving past her.
It’s a fair point, even if it leaves a limp knot in her belly. She follows him.
It’s not a long walk to the back, to the alley behind the sake house, but her cheeks are still red with shame, her face flushed with heat, and –
And he had no right to use her like that. As if she were – were – some kind of yujo.
“We should go over my terms –”
Her hand snaps out before she can help herself. They both stand for a moment after she’s done, stunned.
He looks up, and her hand pulls back, ready to try again, and –
And he grabs it, giving her a long-suffering look.
“Don’t – don’t do that again!” she stammers out, cheeks flushed. “I’m not – I’m no yujo –”
“I know, ojou-san,” he says, both soothing and stern at the same time. “I was saving your life. Or maybe just your virtue.”
She doesn’t want to think about what would have happened had Raj found her, had this ronin decided to give her up. “I…know. Thank you. But…think of another way, next time. Samurai-dono.”
His laugh is harsh. “I’m no samurai, ojou-san.”
She’s not stupid. “I know. What else should I call you?”
He hesitates. “Obi.”
She nods. “Obi-dono.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Just Obi.”
“All right,” she says. “just Obi. We should…finish our conversation. Not here.”
“Not here,” he agrees. “Do you have somewhere to go?”
“I…” It’s a terrible idea, but unless she wants to pay for an inn tonight, it’s what she has. “I do.”