Chapter Text
Lord van Zieks,
it is our greatest pleasure to inform You that it is a great honour for the Yumeji University to be among those You would consider to grace with Your presence as a guest lecturer for a semester. Yours skills are of great renown within the British Empire, our revered ally, blah blah blah we are very formal and don’t know whose boot to lick sooner, our vertebrae have been outsourced to the black market. Anyway get over here and we’ll throw a bunch of students at you who need some whipping into shape-
“Asougi, I am certain that is not what is written in the missive.”
“Yes, but the full version,” the prosecutor-assistant flips through the pages, “would take hours. And you don’t like the formal bullshit anyway. Besides, if you really minded, you wouldn’t asked me to read it to you.”
“As you were, Asougi.”
In exchange for putting the fear of your polished Wellingtons and maybe some law trivia into the students you shall be provided with adequate accommodation and semester stipend thrice what your long-suffering irreplaceable assistant gets in a year.
“Didn’t they also write that my assistant was very humble?”
“I was just getting to that.”
“How much is a Japanese yen converted to a British pound?”
Asougi told him.
“That’s not much.”
“It might have fluctuated over the course of two year. Probably not for better.”
“Well I don’t need the stipend anyway. If I stayed in London as a prosecutor, I’d earn that much sooner, and I am not including what the estates generate. I don’t have to accept this.”
“Sure. You also still try to drink yourself unconscious whenever you walk out of the courtroom. That shaking has gotten worse. I am not saying that you have to accept it, but for your own sake you ought to get out of London, out of Britain and the whole British legislature, for at least a year. It doesn’t have to be Yumeji,” Asougi stuffed the letter back into the envelope and then threw the thick package of paper on Barok’s table. “It doesn’t have to be Japan at all. I don’t know, visit the Ionian seaside, I’ve heard the air there is good for health.”
Barok gave him the look of a man who knew he was far too sober to even have the idea presented to him, let alone entertain it. He poured himself a chalice of wine, and mindlessly pushed the second one towards Asougi. “You’ve been to the Highlands with me and Iris. You know how lazy vacations agree with me.” Or rather how they disagreed with him.
“That’s why the guest lecturer thing is ideal. I know it. You know. The Queen knows it. The bats know it.” Asougi poured the wine down his throat as if it was water. He was not getting a refill. They both had learned their lesson already. “So, why is this still a subject of a debate?”
“Someone has to argue with you Asougi. You’d get bored otherwise.” Barok raised his chalice against the chandelier, out of habit rather tan to observe the liquid, as the candles were not lit. “While I am gone, entertain yourself with our detectives. Try not to kill Holmes. I’d be called off and have to prosecute the trial.”
“Holmes is not that bad.”
“Correct as usual. He is even worse.”
Asougi pouted, and Barok threw his head back in laughter. He was laughing even though his assistant threw his very own cape over his face, nobody could see the not-Reaper smiling let alone laughing.
Barok arrived to Japan two days before the winter semester began, which meant early October. Over the course of the sixty days he had spent on the steamship carrying him to the Japanese shores he’d been reminded of every reason he hated travelling overseas, and much to his chagrin he has also discovered a number of reasons he hadn’t known about.
Once he arrives to Tokyo, he is greeted by professor Kowa and a young starry-eyed student who was introduced to him as Kogoe Hanasu. Barok was expecting Mikotoba, either Mikotoba, or Naruhodo, maybe all three of them. But no, they had their lives here. The world did not revolve around Barok.
Hanasu clasped his hands under his chin and bowed deeply to him, his black uniform giving him a bit soldier-like look. “This person is honoured to serve as your translator for your entire stay in Nippon, Lord van Zieks.” Except that the boy didn’t say ‘Zieks’, he pronounced it ‘Zee-k’su’. It was something Asougi warned him about, it was either that or people choking on their tongues trying to pronounce it, maybe spraying him with saliva over the hard K followed by a hissy S.
That was not to say Barok didn’t make his own effort; he had purchase a textbook of Japenese. It introduced him to two various alphabets and informed him that neither of them would be of much help to him, because true Japanese laid in pictographs. So his effort ended with learning the hiragana alphabet, and he concluded that ‘Baroku wan Zikusu’ was as close as the Empire of the Rising Sun was ever going to get, so he just nodded along and didn’t bother to correct Hanasu’s pronunciation.
Instead he said: “It is my pleasure, Mr. Hanasu. You will find me in need of your assistance quite often, as you shall see as soon as anyone tries to hold a conversation with me.”
Profesor Kowa’s brows knit together and he nudges the young man, mouthing a word which Barok didn’t quite catch, and even if he did, he had suspicion he wouldn’t understand it. Hanasu hesitated for a moment, but then a string of Japanese leaves his mouth. Professor Kowa replied in kind, though he was looking at Barok, and Hanasu translated: “If you would like to, we can go to your provided housing and then familiarise with the teaching plan of the semester.”
“That is agreeable,” he nodded. The professor motioned for them to follow him up the wide street.
Barok began walking, and then suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He had to catch his own forearm to stop himself from instinctively shoving his elbow into Hanasu’s ribcage. He noted that his rapier was already half-drawn, he wasn’t aware he had even touched it.
Slowly he turned to Hanasu, who under his gaze paled, and said: “My well-spoken friend, humour me; while with me, walk by my side, never behind me.”
“Zieks-sama, the custom-”
“I am a foreigner, I am certain some customs can be excused on my behalf.”
“The shadow-tongue teaching does not allow for me to-”
“Mr. Hanasu,” Barok pinched the bridge of his nose, “would you prefer me to mistake you for an assailant in an accident, so that I’d harm you without you ever giving me the reason to?”
“No, sir, I would not.”
“Then,” he put s lot of emphasis of the word, “don’t walk behind me. And preferably do not move hands to your pockets suddenly. I am attempting to save the grace of both of us.”
Hanasu considered his chances. He was a small man – well, actually so far all Japanese people Barok had the chance to meet were rather petite, it was giving him worries how he was going to fit into a bed here – and while his built was athletic, it was on the lean side. Barok wondered if the young man practised any martial arts. If he did, he did not trust himself to be able to handle Barok’s instincts, because he bowed his head and fell into step next to him. Professor Kowa didn’t seem happy to see it, but his opinion was less important than not maiming an innocent man out of years of bad habits and even worse experiences
As it turned out, Barok was not the only visiting lecturer at Yumeji. He wasn’t expecting himself to be, of course, but this was an interesting collection of people. Albert, he though, would love this place. So while he was walked across the university campus, he saw a surprising amount of distinctly white faces whose owners carried as if this place belonged to them, as opposed to the native Japanese who moved between places as if they were always almost late and with head bowed avoided any eye contact, minding strictly their own business.
The apartments provided for visiting lecturers and professors were on the other side of the campus, so Barok had already had a beautiful view of the university when they walked through, located the cafeteria by smell alone, and had a moment to admire the grounds without them being swarmed by students. The university grounds served as its own microcosm, sustaining the education with everything save for agriculture. And maybe even that, Barok noticed something that looked suspiciously like greenhouses in the distance, and he had definitely heard stables.
He thought he would have his lodgings in a boarding house of some sort, one room maybe two to himself, sharing the entire floor with fellow foreign teachers. Instead the apartments were small houses of one story and with a porch, tucked away in a park of sparse red-leaved maples with dancing roots. The rounded gravel footpaths didn’t agree with Barok’s steel-tipped boots. He had to admit that the flat sandals Professor Kowa sported were much smarter idea, and so was the silken gown – kimono, he recalled the young Mikotoba girl referring to her own clothes as kimono – in the chilly but humid weather.
Winter hadn’t even began, and already Barok was dreading summer.
Professora Kowa left Barok to familiarise himself with the surroundings, providing him only with his calling card, because it had the number of his office at the university building, and the information that the lodging area had a shared bathing house further up the hill, and once that Barok was refreshed and rested after his journey, it would be very nice if he paid Kowa’s office a visit to review the curriculum.
Barok didn’t want to review the curriculum, he had agonised over it back in London, entertained himself with it on the boat not to lose his mind, and at this point he was convinced his teaching plan was a masterpiece, his opus magnum which he could not improve more. He also had the inkling from Professor Kowa’s attitude, that the man was going to stab a pitchfork in the whole plan, treating it as a rough draft at best. But also Professor Kowa was the man upon whom the whole Law course stood, and from the previous correspondence they had between them it was not difficult to grasp that his influence at Yumeji was vast. And Barok, while Englishman and a noble at that, was as good as mute without a translator. This was not the time to make enemies.
He kicked the luggage up on the porch and approached the door. No handle. Come to think of it, he wasn’t given any keys...
“Mr. Hanasu? Would you humour me and give me a tour through the house?”
Hanasu’s eyes bulged and the boy swallowed, but after a moment he said: “Yes. Yes, of course, sir.”
What appeared to be a part of the wall panel turned out to be a sliding door. Hanasu took his shoes off before he entered and left them on the porch besides the door. Barok internally cursed and knelt to remove his own boots. That took a while, his boots were designed to stay on once he got into them; until this very moment it had been nothing but a boon.
He had to bow his head to fit through the door frame. Asougi, both Genshin and young Kazuma, that the people of Nippon were very humble. The height of door frames had to factor in that, Barok was sure, and same with not wearing shoes indoor – he was taking smaller and cautious steps not to stub his toe and to creak the floor boards as little as possible.
“Over here is the bedroom,” Hanasu slid open another paper door. There was no bed, only a flat bundle of covers on the floor. However, there was a large closet which could store Barok’s possessions that he had brought over.
“Here is the kitchen,” his companion continued, showing him the stove. “This area does not have gas, so it runs on wood or coal, like the bathing house. The main room is left undecorated so you could furnish it to your tastes. I think it was meant to be both your office and the living room.”
Barok scanned the room: A couple of empty shelves lining the wall, a low table with a thick blanket thrown over it. No chairs. No chairs anywhere. Flat pillows stacked in the corner.
“You seem upset. I am sure you are used to luxuries from London,” Hanasu looked ashamed.
Barok shrugged: “It will do. Sit down with me, Mr. Hanasu, will you?”
They sat down on the straw mats, Hanasu picked up two pillows to throw under them. The you boy knelt across the Barok, much like Kazuma when he was tired and refused to sit in a chair like a normal person.
“So, Mr. Hanasu, what do you do here at Yumeji? What is your field?”
The question took him by surprise: “I- Sorry?”
“Well, I presume by your uniform and the pin on the collar that you are a student.” He had seen them before, of course. On Naruhodo, on Asougi. Not around the university, but then the semester hadn’t started yet, had it?
“I am studying combined English and Law Major here,” he answered slowly.
“Are you planning to practice law abroad?”
“As a judicial assistant.”
“Why not as a lawyer?”
Hanasu looked at his hands and said, a bit ashamed: “I am not that quick of thinking. I have a good memory and understand English well, so I can assist our lawyers abroad. Professor Kawa said that I have a potential to be a great shadow in the courtroom.”
“Shadow?” Barok was familiar with the word itself, but not in this context.
“It is customary. As a translator I would work as a shadow. I will be your shadow for the time of your stay. I will follow you and translate what you say and what is said to you. It will be as if I am not there at all.” Hanasu looked very excited. “It will be a great experience for me.”
Barok was starting to get the idea that when people here said ‘humble’ they meant ‘be treated like dirt and not know it is not alright’. And apparently it was customary, as Hanasu said. Barok didn’t think the day would come when he’d miss Asougi and his disability to suffer through inconvenience with his mouth shut. The day was today, apparently.
However, he only nodded and said: “Very well then. But you will find me acknowledging you as my assistant to advise me and bring your insight into matters. After all, you want to be a judicial assistant, not plainly a shadow, do you not?”
“Yes, sir.” He bowed his head. “I will do my best.”
“Excellent. Let’s start with tea. I’ve heard great things about teas of Asia, specifically. Afterwards I’ll unpack my things and see Professor Kowa about the upcoming semester.”
Meeting with Professor Kowa was lengthy and Barok was not satisfied until past midnight. His assessment of Kowa was entirely correct. In the end Barok’s carefully built teaching plan was left untouched, because Kowa was a teacher of law, but his ability to argument paled in face of Barok’s experience. Also Barok had the advantage of imposing towering, and where persuasion failed, intimidation did a lot. Barok hated it, but he worked with what he had.
By the time he reached his apartment, Hanasu seemed to be ready to keel over and fall asleep there on the ground. Barok refused to send the young boy home alone at this state, no not even across the campus to the dorms. Thus his first active participation was learning how to ready a futon for a person, and then he ushered the student to go to sleep in it.
Hanasu protested only as much as etiquette said he had to, but not a pinch more. He was obviously eager to get to to sleep. Come morning he couldn’t meet Barok’s eye because of it. Well, not that he was able to look him in the eye before the impromptu sleepover, but now it got only worse. It was an extremely improper behaviour, he explained, and a brutal lapse in professionalism.
“Well, you can rectify that by walking me to the market. Because of discussing my teaching plan with Professor Kowa took me the entire afternoon, I was unable to purchase any groceries, so as it stands, this house is devoid of all food except the complimentary box of tea we had yesterday.”
His assistant looked like he’d rather beg for five more minutes on the sweet embrace of the futon, but ultimately nodded and lead the way.
The center of Tokyo did not have omnibuses, but it had carriages. However, instead of a carriage Hanasu halted a cart pulled by a man in a long sleeved shirt and short breeches, and a wide straw hat shaped like a pan without a handle. Upon speaking, Barok realised it was a woman, the voice could belong to a boy as well, but the wrinkled face could not. The cart had seats, Barok noticed, two people could sit there, though close, three could squeeze in if they really tried.
“Have a seat sir. She will take us to a market,” Hanasu motioned for Barok to get on the cart.
“People usually take carriages because horses are faster than walking on foot,” Barok noted.
The woman turned to Barok and gave him a studying look. Whatever she was appraising him of, Barok instinctively knew that he had failed. Then she spoke to him with a strong accent, her L’s curling into harsh R’s, like a Scotsman: “Horse shit in street. I is fast enough for you-san, and I is fast all day. All day.”
Barok turned to hide his face in collar. He hoped it look like he was embarrassed, and not like he was trying not to chuckle at the way the woman’s pronunciation turned ‘all day’ into ‘ore-dei’. He had to remind himself that her English was incomparably better than his Japanese.
When Hanasu and he were seated, the cart-puller gave them a sharp not, pulled up her sleeves and ran with the cart the whole way. Once the cart reached the centre of the city, it became apparent why this mode of transport was far more popular than carriages: carriages with horses were simply too large for the crowds of Tokyo. While the streets were wide, Barok supposed it was to slow the spread of fire, paper-and-wooden buildings had to burn like, well, paper, it seemed that all of Tokyo was doing their business out in the streets.
The cart pulling woman didn’t even slow down in the crowd, only when somebody didn’t jump out of her way fast enough, she shouted something. Probably something like “Make way!”, such was Barok’s guess.
Browsing through the open-air market, he allowed Hanasu to do the talking, instructing him only what to get. His first purchase was a wicker basket from a little man weaving new ones right there at his stall, because Barok had quite the shopping list and his arms could hold only so much. As they weaved their way through the crowd and among the stalls, he made several observations.
One: Hanasu understood English quite well, but had trouble with idioms, both ways, and with a lot of words professional matter he had large difficulties. When Barok tried to converse with him about Japanese law, the young man often did not know how this or that word was said in English at all. Likewise his vocabulary did not contain a lot of useful words that would shorten his sentences. When talking to Barok, Hanasu was making educated guesses from the context, but they were still guesses. Words such as ‘discrepancy’ or ‘containment’ but also ‘collateral’ he adopted quickly, but it turned out that for two years he had lived under the impression that the word ‘casualty’ referred to a casual event. Barok almost had a cardiac arrest before his inner forensic etymologist informed him just what had happened in that sentence and why.
Two: The people of Japan avoided touch. they did not shake hands and bowed instead. He saw friends talking to each other but never embracing, lovers strolling but not holding hands. Even coins he himself gave to the merchants they had never taken from his hand, he either had to drop them in their palms or put them on the counter. In England, in fact in all of Britain, nobody wanted to touch the Reaper of the Bailey. In Japan nobody wanted to touch another man.
Three: The vast majority of foodstuff sold was a combination of fruits of the sea and rice. Oh, and a white raddish that was even a sadder vegetable than the common English turnips. There was very little of poultry and he had not seen any red meat on sale at all.
“I assume the Nipponese prefer smaller meals spread through the day?” he asked Hanasu. “That will be a change.”
His companion tilted his head to side. He had been flipping from Japanese to English the entire morning and had not eaten yet, and Barok was picking up the subtle signs that the young boy was getting exhausted. Still, he answered: “If you would like European, there are shops in the English Quarter. But I don’t go there, they have high prices for a student, so I cannot speak of quality.”
“Perhaps some other day I shall visit the English Quarter,” Barok shook his head.
“It is not really called that. The English Quarter, I mean. But we call it that because a lot of Englishman have their houses there and shops. It is very exotic.”
Barok chuckled at that. The novelty that British standards were something exotic to someone had not worn off yet. He supposed it never would wear off; he had always been endeared to Asougi’s half-angry ranting which usually started with “Could you have warned me about” and then he said the most commonplace thing under the sun. Swords that have two sharp edges. The gazpacho soup being served cold. Cockney. Oh dear Lord, how he laughed when Asougi asked him what had happened to Lestrade that she was ‘unable to speak in coherent sentences’. Or salted butter, that was an anecdote he wished he had someone to share it with.
Upon return to Barok’s assigned house, they ate bread with cheese and Hanasu made them tea. Barok did not really like the taste, but it was better than nothing. As the house did not have an ice box, he purchased mostly food stable on shelves, keeping in mind that the market was accessible and anything he needed he could purchase practically at whim. He was used to doing his own shopping, as he still hadn’t brought himself to hire staff to the van Zieks manor, just as he hadn’t been able to suffer people walking right behind him, or how he hadn’t been able to eat out in the city still. Some habits lingered.
Barok spent the day preparing for his first day teaching at Yumeji. He had never actually been a teacher before. Asougi had assured him that he couldn’t do worse than most of the teachers, especially in the subjects related to the law and legislation, but Barok had doubts. Barok had always doubts. He needed to be prepared.
What if no students attend? What if they deem his lecture so boring that they just don’t show up? What was he to do then? Drink rice wine and talk to the empty hall? What if he makes a mistake and a whole generation of Japanese lawyers and everyone they’d talk to would then gibber absolute nonsense across the world?
“Shit,” he sighed. “I am getting stage fright.”
Fine. Time to test what the rice wine actually tasted like. But first: “Hanasu? I am not planning to go anywhere for the rest of today. You may leave early.”
“But sir-”
“I phrased it as a suggestion, but it was a request. Meet me here tomorrow at seven in the morning. And... brush up your vocabulary on legislature.”
Professor Kowa introduced the young wide-eyed students. Most of them were boys around Hanasu’s age, but here and there he spotted among the black uniforms a girl in pastel kimono. Even though to him the flat small noses and slanted eyes looked all alike, there was no face he’d recognise. He was surprised to discover that it disappointed him. He expected Naruhodo or young Mikotoba. Maybe he was merely face-blind to Asian faces.
But even when the lecture was over and three students came over because they didn’t understand what for of exam he had planned (oral exam) or what did he think was good reading for his subject (Barok had a couple of books prepared, all in English, which disheartened most students), nobody gave a hint of recognition beyond a little sensationalism. Speaking of:
Four: The Japanese word for ‘reaper’ was ‘shinigami’. Barok took a note of it in his personal vocabulary in his abysmal hiragana handwriting. One of the girls noticed him doing so, she introduced herself as Dokuran invited him to a calligraphy seminar she and her friends were going to hold in March.
“It is mostly a ladies’ gathering,” she elaborated in a very soft English, “but we are always thrilled when a foreigner tries to familiarise himself with our language and customs. You’d be the jewel of the seminar.”
Barok blinked and then blurted out the first thing that came to his mind: “Are you- Are you speaking with a Portuguese accent?”
Dokuran hid her face behind her fan, but not enough that Barok couldn’t catch the blush in her cheeks and the light smile. She did that on purpose, he could tell. “Mr. Abrunheiro, one of the English teachers here come from a Portugal family. I studied under him. Well, van Zieks-sensei, I shall not bother you any longer. I am certain Kowa-sensei is eager to know how your lesson went.”
Professor Kowa was not actually eager, but wanted the report anyway. Barok could tell that the man was just waiting for his slip-up so that he could rub in that Barok refused to approach teaching his way. The Age of Enlightenment apparently didn’t know where Japan was or got lost on its way.
Five: Hanasu was a rather dull person, and while obviously educated, he was of simple thinking. There was nothing bad about simple thinking, Lestrade’s simple thinking was brilliant. Simple like a sharp knife. Unfortunately in young Hanasu the word carried with itself all the negative connotations it had accumulated over the years. Things in his head just did not connect. He had an excellent memory, but it was nothing Barok could not replace with several books he could reference at will to recall facts and trivia.
In the end Barok gave up on trying to hold a conversation with Hanasu. He could have talked to a wall, and it would be a more meaningful exchange. What made it worse, Hanasu was really, really trying to meet all Barok’s expectations and exceed them, but what Barok needed in an assistant was not a perfect shadow following him and translating what he needed or providing him with references. He needed someone he could bounce ideas off of, someone he could trust if not with his life than at least with his thoughts without the fear of misunderstanding or worse – blind acceptance.
Even as a young man Barok knew that he was clever and intelligent; after all everyone told him as much. His entire life he was surrounded with smart people. Cruel, evil, selfish, but smart, his intellectual peers. It was only when he began teaching at Yumeji that he realised that his logic being able of leaps others’ could not make meant exactly that: Most people were not able to keep up with him, and therefore they had nothing to talk about besides the weather.
He tried to approach Dokuran after his next lecture, but she left the classroom before he cleaned the blackboard. That was the entire extent of his attempts to approach the students outside of the bonds of what his curriculum entailed.
Six: He did not like the rice wine. It tasted as if someone dragged a slide of toast through very diluted alcohol. Hanasu’s explanation that the drink was meant to be enjoyed warm did not help, because then the drink tasted merely like lukewarm soggy toast.
November announced itself with leaves falling down in scores and the little artificial grove the lodgings visiting teachers were situated in turned from dramatical reds and oranges into foreboding blacks and greys while mist swirled around people’s ankles. Barok found himself falling into the routine of waking at dawn when the sun filtered through the paper walls, and therefore later and later as the true winter crept in. He allowed Hanasu to have weekends off, preferring to spend them in solitude than to expose the young boy to even more failures as he’d try to be the assistant he could never be and Barok so much needed.
It was a Saturday morning that caught Barok with a handless cup of tea – finally he had found a blend he liked – on the porch, and as he watched the red sun slowly rising behind the foreboding black bare maples, he wondered if this was how Holmes felt all his life; alone because no one could keep up, and solitude was slightly preferable to being surrounded by people who could never understand. As his thoughts wandered to the bottle of the plum wine he hadn’t had the time to taste yet, he wondered if Holmes’ casual drugs habits were also a part of... that.
This had to be what madness felt like. He was certain he was losing it. He should leave, half-heartedly apologise to Professor Kowa and boat the first ship bound to England, or at least some European port, there he could transfer-
“I would not believe it, but it is you in the flesh. Lord van Zieks, I cannot believe my eyes.”
Barok tore his eye away from the sun and blinked a few times to clear his vision. When he finally could see properly, his eyes met-
“Yujin Mikotoba,” he rose to his feet. It was such a relief to see the man. To see someone he knew! “Have a seat, have a tea! I’ll bring a cup for you- Or do you want to go inside? The morning is rather chilly I admit, I was just admiring- How have you been?”
Miktoba’s moustache betrayed the small smile on its owner’s face. “Well look at you, you have gone absolutely native. Well, save the fashion. Glad to see you have that cloak of yours, must be good to ward off the cold.”
He stepped to the porch and stood next to Barok, looking for something in the sleeve of his kimono. Barok had already learned that these sleeves served also as pockets. He was seriously considering getting one of the kimonos for himself; in the local weather the seemed very practical. Mikotoba was not wrong about him becoming native here.
Barok was definitely going mad.
“Tea?” he offered.
“Oh, I’ll decline. Bancha is not really, heh, my cup of tea. And sadly I have an early morning lecture and have to herd the students to the morgue, so I really cannot stay. But here,” Mikotoba produced an envelope, only slightly dog-eared.
The envelope was plain brown paper and smudged pencil lettering on it announced to the world that its recipient was Barok van Zieks. He took it cautiously. “What is it?”
“Post from London,” Mikotoba smiled again. “Kazuma, that is young Asougi sends all his letters to Japan in one package addressed to me, so I have the honour to be the postman. You have been here for a month, you should have visited, van Zieks. Always a pleasure to see a friendly face.”
“I figured you didn’t want to see me. I... sort of expected to see you sooner,” Barok admitted, turning the envelope over and over in his hands, but it provided no additional insight.
“I had no idea you were here.” Mikotoba again raided his sleeve, this time the left one. “My calling card, it has both my address and my office hours. You are always welcome. Susato will be thrilled to see you again. I insist, visit.”
Barok didn’t know of anything he’d be happier to do.