“You too, Hana-san.”
She left, and I sat, alone with the tea implements and the fading warmth of her presence. In this place of captivity and cruelty, she had become my tether, my anchor to something human. We were both prisoners, property, both waiting for futures we did not choose, but we had each other. And somehow, that made it almost bearable.
I pushed back from the tray and padded to my mat. My mind raced, but I knew I needed rest. The morning came far earlier than anyone might expect in a house of pleasure, especially for those still learning to earn their keep.
Hours past, and I still lay staring at the ceiling.
The house was quiet—that deep, still quiet of night when even the customers had gone and the courtesans had retired to their chambers. The warmth from Hana’s praise had faded, replaced by the familiar hollow ache that came with being alone.
I tried to remember Yoshi’s face, the shape of his cheekbones—sharp, like his father’s. I could just make out the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, casting him far younger than his years. I smiled as I recalled the small scar above his left eyebrow from when he had fallen on the dock as a child.
But other details were slipping.
I could remember the shape of him, the sense of him, but when I tried to picture his face clearly, it wavered and blurred at the edges like water droplets falling on wet ink.
How long had it been since I last saw him? Six months? A year?
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force my mind’s eye into focus.
His smile came into view, the one that shimmered like moonlight on waves.
What did it look like exactly?
I knew it was warm. I knew it made me feel safe. But I couldn’t picture it, couldn’t quite see it.
Terror seized my chest.
I was losing him.
Losing the memory of him.
Soon he would be nothing but a vague impression—a boy-shaped absence in my mind. And then what? Would I forget I had him in the first place? Forget the burgeoning love that made every part of me wish for eternity in his arms? Would I forget everything we had been?
Everything that came before this place?
Would the fisherman’s son I had once been disappear entirely, leaving only this refined, trained creature in his place, mindless and soulless, existing only for the pleasure of others?
I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.
Please,I prayed.Please don’t let me forget. Grant me that one grace.
But memory was like water: the tighter I tried to hold it, the faster it slipped through my fingers.
We must learn to bend so we do not break.
Hana’s words were not quite a salve, but they did ease the throbbing at my temples. I had bent. I had learned. I had survived.
But in surviving, what had I lost?
What was I still losing, even now, as the details of Yoshi’s face faded like morning mist?
Yosh, where are you? Do you even remember me?
My door slid open again.
It was late—or was it early?
The paper walls made it impossible to tell.
