Chapter Text
The rain had stopped just before dusk, leaving the streets of Gion slick with amber reflections of the brightly lit paper lanterns trembling in the wind. The teahouse smelled of wet cedar and plum wine, the air thick with the hum of shamisen string tunings for the evening’s entertainment.
You adjusted your hairpin once more in the mirror, making sure the tilt of your head was precise–reflective of the years you spent sleeping upon a takamakura. The pain was unbearable to you when you were still a Maiko, but that dull pain in the back of your neck now greeted you like an old friend. The apprentice behind you whispered, informing you that the guests had arrived: merchants, samurai, a magistrate’s son. Nothing new. Nothing less.
You stepped onto the tatami floor quietly, and continued forward as if the floor were fragile ice. The murmur of men softened; fans paused mid-flutter. The drummer began the slow heartbeat of the kouta, and you moved through it–shoulder low, long sleeves breathing with every note. Each smile you gave was measured to the second, the curve of your lips perfect enough to hide everything it cost.
From the corner of your eye, a shape different from the rest: a man sitting too still, hands cradling a cup of sake plum wine; a strange sight. His long hair tried carelessly behind him, the scabbard at his side polished but old. He wasn’t drinking. He was watching.
Most men watched your body. This one watched the silence between your movements.
You felt it then–his gaze catching on the faint hesitation you had tried to smother in the third verse, the one that always reminded you of home. Of the beaten-up shack, the teeth-shatteringly cold winters, and the plum tree that would color the sky pink once the snows of winter had melted. Before your father had sold you for a cow. You recovered before anyone else noticed, but he did. You knew he did.
When the final note faded, applause scattered like dry autumn leaves. You bowed, eyes lowered, and when you rose, his chair was empty. For some reason, the absence felt heavier than his stare.
——
Later, while you poured wine for the magistrate’s son, an attendant whispered near your ear, “That ronin again. Hoshina Soshiro, they call him. Came in from the western road. Can’t pay much but polite enough.”
You nodded, feigning indifference as you timed a poised laugh at the magistrate’s son’s words.
A ronin, you thought. A man untethered. You had met dozens. And yet, the image of him lingered–the way he had looked at you, not as a prize or an object of desire but as if he had stumbled upon a ghost.
After the guests departed, you slipped out into the narrow alley behind the teahouse. The rain had returned, light as breath. The lanterns hissed when the drops touched them, bleeding color into the dark. You had told yourself you only wanted air, and yet you couldn’t stop your eyes from scanning through the streets.
He was there, leaning beneath the eaves of the neighboring shop, hat pulled low. When he saw you, he straightened and offered the smallest of bows–too deep for someone of your status, too sincere for formality.
“Your dance,” he began, voice rough with the lack of use, “was beautiful. But… sad.”
His words caught you off guard. No one ever saw through your performance; they praised, they laughed, and they applauded. But they never saw.
You found the right smile, gentle and distant, “Then you saw it wrong, sir. It was meant to please.”
He looked at you for a heartbeat longer than manners would allow, then nodded once, “Perhaps I did.”
He disappeared into the crowd, footsteps steady, until you could no longer see his figure past the turn where the light no longer reached.
——
Back in your quarters, you removed the painted ornaments from your hair, one by one, until the last fell into your palm. The lacquered petals felt too bright against your skin. You gently placed them on the stand, brushing away a single drop of rain water caught in your sleeves moments before. It glimmered there, tiny and cold, refusing to dry.
You told yourself you would forget his face by morning.
Even though you already knew you wouldn’t.