My escorts walked calmly through it all, unbothered, heads held high as if this were simply another neighborhood, butI 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 silkkimonothat 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-samadislikes 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.
