“Nothing in Bara is safe!”
A fight broke out near one of the departing ships as a merchant who had been waiting for cargo tried to board, claiming he had paid for passage. The remaining crew beat him back with clubs. He fell into the water, and no one moved to help him.
The dockmaster shouted himself hoarse, trying to restore order, trying to stop the ships from leaving, but he held no authority here, not anymore. The captains answered only to their own survival.
By the time the sun had moved a hand’s width across the sky, seven ships had fled the harbor. Seven fewer vessels meant seven fewer sources of work, seven fewer chances for men like me to earn the coin we desperately needed.
I saw it in the faces of the other dockworkers. The calculation. The dawning horror.
Fewer ships meant fewer jobs and less money. Less food.
The harbor’s lifeblood flowed outward, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.
“Back to work!” the dockmaster was shouting, his voice cracking. “All of you! These ships won’t load themselves!”
But half the workers had already disappeared, either fleeing like the ships, or standing paralyzed by what they had witnessed. Or, like Goro, still trying to tend to the burned and dying scattered across the dock.
Chapter 22
Kaneko
Iwoke before dawn, my heart already racing.
Today. It wastoday.
I lay on my sleeping mat, trying to calm my breathing, trying to convince myself I could do this, that I was ready. But I wasn’t ready.
Who could be ready to sell themselves to another? Who was prepared for such?
The door slid open, and Hana entered with tea, her movements quiet and graceful as always. She kneeled beside me and poured, the familiar ritual somehow soothing despite what waited ahead.
“How do you feel?” she asked softly.
“Terrified,” I admitted.
She smiled sadly. “I was, too, on my first day. I threw up twice before I even reached the common room.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“No, I suppose it’s not.” She handed me the cup. “But you are more ready than I ever was, Kaneko-san. You have trained longer and learned more. You are skilled in ways I was not.” She paused. “And you are stronger than you think.”
I took a sip. The tea was bitter and perfect, and I wanted to make it last forever, wanted to stay in this moment where nothing had yet happened, where I could still pretend.
“The customer . . .” I started.
“Will be kind,” Hana said firmly. “It will be . . . bearable.”
Bearable.
That word again. The highest aspiration we were allowed.
“Come,” she said. “Let me help you dress.”
I glanced down at a bundle folded neatly at the foot of my mat. Parts of the clothing laid out were unlike anything I had worn before. There was my usual sheerkimono, yes—the one that revealed more than it covered, clinging to my body in ways that left little to imagination; but over top of it, Momoko had provided something extraordinary: a luxurious coat that fell below my knees, styled in an idealized imitation of a sailor’s outfit.
It was nothing like what I had actually worn as a fisherman, nothing I’d ever seen any seaman wear. Its fine needlework and golden thread belonged more at court than on the planks of any ship. The fabric was fine—deep navy silk embroidered with golden waves. The cut was elegant, the fittooperfect. It was a fantasy of what a sailor might be if sailors wore silk and moved through the world like works of art rather than slaves to their labor. Momoko clearly planned to play up my nautical background, to sell the illusion of the fisherman transformed into a work of refined beauty, the mighty sailor ready to surrender to the will and whim of the highest bidder.
I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.
