Chapter 5
Kaneko
My escorts—or whatever they were—led me down narrower streets where the buildings pressed close enough to block out the sun. The merchant quarter gave way to another world entirely.
At first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing.
Women lined the streets in kimonos cut daringly low, their faces painted white as death masks, lips crimson-red.
They called out with voices like honey and smoke.
Some lounged in doorways. Others leaned from second-story windows, their laughter tinkling like broken glass.
There were men, too, boys really. They wore sheer silk that hid nothing and called out with the same teasing taunts.
Then I understood.
We were in the red district. I’d heard of it in Takeo’s tales but never quite believed them to be true. Yet, here it was . . . and here they were.
My escorts walked calmly through it all, unbothered, heads held high as if this were simply another neighborhood, but I couldn’t stop staring, couldn’t stop my head from swiveling at the call from each man or woman who offered themselves, couldn’t stop my heart from hammering.
A ragged man stumbled past us, his eyes unfocused, pupils blown wide. He mumbled something incomprehensible and collapsed against a building, sliding down to lie in the gutter. No one gave him a second glance.
Another man haggled with a painted woman, their voices sharp. She named a price. He countered. She laughed and turned away. He grabbed her arm. She slapped him.
He raised his hand—
I moved to intervene, but my name slapped harder than the woman’s palm.
“Kaneko-san,” the kind-eyed escort said softly. “Please keep walking.”
I tore my gaze away and hurried after them.
The stink of the place was overwhelming.
Cheap perfume fought with unwashed bodies.
Opium smoke drifted from darkened doorways, sweet and cloying.
Alcohol mingled with vomit. Incense couldn’t mask the stench of sex and desperation.
Even the cooking meat from street vendors—was that pork or dog? —threatened to empty my gut.
Laughter erupted from a building to our left. A woman’s shriek—pleasure or pain, impossible to tell—cut off abruptly.
My belly wrenched.
The silk kimono that had at first seemed so fine now felt like a costume, like I was already playing a part in a play I didn’t understand.
We turned down a quiet alley, noise sliding away like rain on a glass pane, as though we had passed through some invisible wall, then we crossed a wide boulevard where the buildings were grander, better maintained. Merchants’ establishments, I thought. Or tea houses.
Places with actual guards at their doors.
And then—
A park.
I stopped walking, stunned. It was an oasis in a forest of streets and buildings.
Cherry trees pregnant with blossoms lined carefully raked paths.
Beds of flowers I couldn’t name exploded deep purples, brilliant reds, and soft pinks.
The air smelled of nothing but growing things and fragrant petals.
It smelled clean. Innocent.Almost.
For the briefest moment, I allowed myself to hope for a better future than my last few months, to hope I might find usefulness and peace and a master whose lash never fell.
A modest bridge arched over a pond where fat gold and red and orange fish drifted lazily, surfacing the moment they thought passersby might toss a bit of food into their water. In that moment, I understood those fish. I was now one of them, living for the grace and kindness of others.
Stone lanterns stood at intervals, waiting for evening.
Everything was manicured, intentional, achingly beautiful.
At the far end, rising above the trees, stood a lone building, man’s one intrusion on this grove of perfection and peace.
Three stories tall, its walls were painted a deep crimson that seemed to soak in the afternoon light.
The roof tiles were black, gleaming like wet ink.
Windows with intricate latticework looked out over the park, while banners bearing a stylized flower emblem hung from the eaves, rippling in the breeze.
It was the most beautiful building I had ever seen.
And I knew, with sick certainty, what it held within.
“Come,” the kind-eyed woman said gently. “Momoko-sama dislikes waiting.”
Petals drifted around us, catching in my hair, on my shoulders. Their beauty felt wrong, felt like a lie wrapped around something rotten.
We climbed the steps to the entrance, massive doors, polished to a mirror shine, that stood open. Beyond them lay only darkness.
The moment I crossed the threshold, it was as if we had stepped into another world entirely. The sounds of the outside realm—the crisp breeze rattling leaves, birds singing from branch and bough, the distant hum of the city beyond this idyllic shell—simply ceased to exist.
Inside, the world grew soft and quiet. Almost dreamlike.
Paper lanterns hung at intervals along the corridor, their light diffused through painted silk shades depicting cherry blossoms and cranes in flight.
Flames inside flickered gently, making the painted images appear to move, to breathe.
My eyes struggled to adjust from the bright afternoon sun to the warm golden glow within.
The floors were polished cypress, gleaming like dark honey, so perfectly maintained my reflection walked beneath me—a ghost in blue and gray silk following at my feet. There wasn’t a speck of dust or a single scuff. The wood had been oiled until it glowed from within.
The walls of this palace were covered in creamy silk panels, stretched taut and unblemished, as painted screens divided spaces—some showing landscapes of mountains shrouded in mist, others depicting gardens where impossible birds perched on flowering branches.
The artistry was exquisite, each brushstroke precise and purposeful.
And the smells. Gods, scents hit me like physical things.
Incense, first and foremost—sandalwood burning somewhere deeper in the house, rich and heady and grounding.
Layered over that was something floral I could not name.
Lotus? Jasmine? It was subtle, not cloying like the cheap perfume in the red district, but present in every breath, seeping into my lungs, into my blood. It tasted clean and sweet.
And there was tea. I could smell it steeping, being prepared—green tea, delicate and grassy, the scent so pure it made my mouth water despite my fear.
And underneath it all, perfume. Real perfume, the kind that cost more than most people earned in a year.
It did not shout or demand attention. It whispered.
It promised. It teased. Notes of plum blossom and something darker, muskier—ambergris, perhaps, or aged oud.
Every woman we passed trailed a slightly different scent, as if each had been carefully chosen to complement her individually.
My ears rang in the sudden quiet.
After the overwhelming noise of the red district, the silence felt thick and oppressive, like being underwater.
But it was not truly silent. Water trickled somewhere—a fountain or stream, the sound crystalline and precise. Wind chimes hung near an open window, their tinkling notes so soft they might have been imagined.
We rounded a paper-walled corner to find a woman kneeling beside a low table in an alcove arranging flowers with movements so precise they looked like prayer.
White chrysanthemums and deep red peonies, their placement deliberate, creating a composition that looked effortless but must have taken years to master.
She did not look up as we passed, completely absorbed in her art.
Her fingers moved with the delicacy of a surgeon, adjusting a stem by a hair’s breadth, then pausing to consider the effect.
Further down the corridor, another woman sat in a recessed alcove, her back perfectly straight, a shamisen cradled in her lap.
Her fingers moved across the strings as lyrical notes fell like water droplets into a still pond—each one perfect and separate, creating ripples of sound that drifted on the air.
She smiled as she played, her painted face serene, her eyes half closed.
The melody was haunting, caught somewhere between joy and sorrow.
I felt both catch in my chest.
Through partially open sliding doors, I glimpsed other rooms.
One held a table set for tea, the cups arranged with mathematical precision, steam rising from an iron kettle.
Another showed silk cushions embroidered with golden thread, arranged around a low table where an incense burner sent thin ribbons toward the ceiling.
Fresh flowers stood in alcoves everywhere—orchids, lotus blossoms, branches of cherry and plum, each arrangement its own work of art.
A woman passed us going the other direction, her kimono midnight silk embroidered with silver waves.
She moved like water herself, each step fluid and graceful.
She bowed slightly to my escorts, who returned the gesture.
She did not look at me, but I felt assessed nonetheless, measured and catalogued in that briefest of moments.
My skin prickled. Every breath felt thick with perfume and incense and the weight of expectations I had yet to understand.
Everything was beautiful. Every single thing—from the way the light fell through the paper lanterns to the precise fold of fabric on a cushion glimpsed through an open door.
Nothing was out of place. Nothing was accidental. It was all designed and intentional.
It was perfect.
No, it was controlled.
And it was terrifying.