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“Hey Kuni, what if we got married when we were adults?” Lying on the grass in our secret hiding spot I turned my head to look at my best friend. He had his arms behind his head as he gazed up at the clouds rolling by. We were ten but he was moving away at the end of the summer so he probably didn’t take me seriously when I asked. But, when I peeked at him he had a tiny grin on his face as he looked at me.
“Sure, I’ll be your wife, if you can wait for me to come back to Tataratsuna.” He rolled over onto his side to look at me fully. The emotion in his eyes was haunting and for a moment I thought I was the one who was toying with him.
Laying on my side to face him I stuck out my pinky which he looked at quizzically, “We’ll promise then, I’ll never leave Tataratsuna until you return to marry me.” Back then I wasn’t sure what the burning in my chest meant when he hesitated, but the feeling of his pinky wrapping around mine made my heart soar.
“It’s a promise then, when I’m a grown up I’ll come back and marry you.” The tight grip of his pinky was the last time I was ever alone with him again. The next morning he moved to live with his adopted parents in Inazuma City. Between stifling sobs I held him in a tight hug before watching him board that boat.
Years passed, at first he’d send a letter every week, then every month, then only on my birthday until thirteen years after his departure I received no letters. Then the cough started, it was unproductive at first and I assumed it was from breathing in the smoke around Tataratsuna my entire life until one day I coughed up a blue-violet petal. It was small and shaped almost like a sakura petal. At first I thought I had swallowed a petal from one of the flowering trees on the island but as the months and years progressed and my cough steadily got worse I realized. I had fallen in love with Kuni, but he didn’t love me any longer.
I had an important decision to make. Continue to love Kuni and leave Tataratsuna to find him, breaking my childhood promise or, get a surgery that would remove the flowers from my lungs and lose all my memories and feelings for him. It was a tough decision, but at the same time it was the easiest decision I had ever made in my life. I loved Kunikuzushi and if I got that surgery I would never leave Tataratsuna, haunted by a promise I couldn’t remember. So in the dead of night, I slipped away to the docks.
That takes me to where I am now, standing on the docks in Ritou, twenty-five years old and staring like some kind of country bumpkin at the splendor of a city. With nothing but a small rucksack and a blade at my side I set out towards Inazuma City. Beautiful scenery greeted me just outside the city's walls. A towering mountain brightly lit at its peak, pink trees and small shrines at every crossroads. Narukami was nothing like my home, but at the same time it was achingly familiar. I almost forgot my purpose, lost in my travels until a sudden coughing fit produced several of the same petals on the trees but in a much darker hue. Two days, it took me two days to walk to Inazuma city because of my health, but once I reached the city I immediately started asking after Kuni. I knew he had changed his name to Scaramouche but even with this information very few people knew who I was asking about.
“He’s the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen. Dark hair like the clouds over Seirai, eyes as dark and mysterious as the night sky. If you didn’t know he was human you would assume he was a doll.” Sitting on a stool in Uryu restaurant with my head on the counter, I described him aloud to the bartender, “Skin as soft and fair as moonlight…” Turning my head into my elbow I coughed violently.
“And you said his name was Scaramouche?” He placed a cup of water in front of me, “I don’t know anyone by that name and that description but the man you’re describing sounds like the Oiran of Komore teahouse. He goes by just Kuni in public.”
Every hair on my body stood on end and I turned to him like a madman, “Oiran? Kuni? But he was such a gentle and innocent boy.” I downed the water and started gathering my things, “Where is this teahouse?”
Loud laughter from the corner made me pause, “Kuni?! Gentle and innocent? Why he’s nothing but a bitter, used up wh-” I couldn’t contain myself and my blade flashed to his throat in seconds, “Whoa boy, Kuni is practically public property.” He held his hands up in surrender.
“Show me, where is he?” Sheathing my sword I gestured to the door with it.
Grumbling, the man stood and led me outside, pointing to a small building in the distance, “That’s Komore Teahouse, today is his day off so he won’t see customers but you may catch a glimpse of him in the garden.”
“So close…” Without a second thought I headed off toward the teahouse, heart pounding and steps light. Komore teahouse was a small building with a zen garden gazing out to sea, toward Tataratsuna. And there, gazing out toward our home island was my childhood best friend, “Kuni.” A breathless whisper, I could barely hear it myself.
“I do not entertain guests on Wednesdays.” His voice was clear and strong, it had changed so much since we were children, without even turning his head, “Wednesday is my day of rest, the only day I can be myself.” With a gesture of his hand a hidden security guard started to head towards me, “Come back tomorrow night for the Parade of the Oiran so you may gain my favor, maybe I’ll choose you as a bed partner.”
“Wait! Kunikuzushi!” Alas, it was too late, I was being forced away but the sound of his birth name caused him to stiffen and finally turn his proud head my way.
He was so much more beautiful than I remembered, skin like freshly glazed porcelain, eyes like a raging sea. I felt a tight squeeze in my lungs as I was being pushed away and another coughing fit overcame me. Petals and flowers the same color as the eyes that haunted my every moment mixed with blood spilling over the cobblestone road as I lost consciousness and fell. The last thing I saw was the horrified look on Kuni’s face as I blacked out and my name, like the sweet call of a uguisu, whispered like a fervent prayer before darkness, “Kazuha?”
-
“Thirteen years…” Gently I brushed the hair back from Kazuha’s forehead, tears forming in my eyes, “Thirteen years I let my heart belong to you.” Silently the tears fell and I caught them in my hand before they hit his face. I was kneeling in my silent bedroom, not the room I used to entertain guests but my personal room with Kazuha’s head in my lap. In the corner by the door stood Tomo, my personal guard, “Why now? Why when I had finally given up on you saving me from this Hell?” A choked sob left me, “You broke that stupid promise, you left Tataratsuna, but why?” I sniffled, leaning down to touch my forehead to his, “Now I’m a prisoner… A bird trapped in a cage, forced to perform and please faceless men when the one I truly yearn for is too far for me to reach.” Gently placing his head down on the futon pillow I scoot away, hugging myself to sob openly yet silently.
Two years ago I gave up on my feelings for Kazuha. The shogunate, my adopted family had run out of funds and in order to pay off their debts they sold me to their debtor, the Kamisato clan. At first I had assumed I was being sold to Ayato Kamisato to be his wife and had resigned myself to a loveless marriage used as a breeder to carry on his bloodline. But when I was sent to Komore Teahouse, the Kamisato clan’s brothel, I knew my fate was worse. Forced to learn how to please a man I became bitter and cold, “It’s too late… I’m stained by the lust of the countless men who have soiled me… I can never be anyone’s wife…”
“Do you still love me?” A soft, calming voice and gentle hands cradled my face, brushing away my tears and fears like petals, “Do you still love me, Kunikuzushi?”
Gentle cerise eyes met mine for a moment and that’s all it took for the dam to burst. The feelings I had been locking away in the corner of my heart burst forth and I openly sobbed. Kazuha pulled me into his arms, cradling me and stroking my hair, “Why?! Why now?!” Howling I beat on his chest with my fists, “Why couldn't you come two years ago?! When I still had hope?! When I was still me?! When I was still innocent and beautiful?!”
Silently Kazuha held me, taking the beating from my fists until I calmed enough for him to gently cup my chin and tilt my face upwards, “You’re just as beautiful as the day I let you leave me.” Tucking my hair behind my ear his touch was feather light, like I was made of expensive porcelain. Yet here I was, crumbling at his touch regardless, eyes fluttering shut to savor the feeling. Both his hands cupped my cheeks, tilting my face up toward his as he leaned in to press a kiss to my forehead.
Instantly my stomach churned. Why didn’t he kiss me? Was I too dirty? Soiled and stained by all the other hands that had held me, “Please…” But I didn’t even know what I was begging for.
A soft hum of amusement and a thumb brushed against my lips, parting them, “Do you still love me, Kunikuzushi?” Another kiss, this time to my right cheek, “Will you still marry me?”
Clutching onto his biceps I let myself sag against him, “I never stopped, Kazuha.” That’s all it took for whatever was holding him back to snap and he kissed me deeply, longingly, yet with the reverence of one worshiping a holy object. One hand held my face while the other slid down to pull me into his lap.
Pure bliss was the only way to describe what I was feeling, secure in my Kazuha’s arms, “I’ll take you away from here, back to our home.” He pulled away and like a blind man searching for the sun I chased after him, leaning in to try and capture his lips in another searing kiss.
But a throat clearing broke us out of our loving haze, sending me crashing down into reality, “The Oiran’s family still owes the Kamisato clan one million mora, it would take him another year of service to pay it off.” Tomo, my personal guard and closest confidant, finally turned to face us, “Oiran, are you sure you can trust this man? He became a limp noodle as soon as I touched him.” He frowned, the scar across his face glistening in the candlelight.
“Probably because I was dying from Hanahaki disease.” At that Kazuha held me tighter, “One million mora…” He looked down at me, a heavy weight behind his eyes, “That’s almost all the money I have saved, would you be happy as the wife of a poor man, Kuni?”
The question shocked me. For the last two years I had given up on happiness and love and just assumed I would be an Oiran forever, but my heart was certain now, “It has to be you. I would treasure our poverty for the rest of my life.”
Kazuha smiled, a brilliant rising sun in contrast to my bleak gray life, “And I would treasure you for the rest of mine. I love you. Please marry me.” Gently he bumped our foreheads together and reached over into his rucksack, pulling out a tanto and a sack of mora, “This was originally going to be your dowry, I made the tanto for you.”
I could feel my heart in my throat, “Yubikiri..” Trembling, I took the knife from his hands, pulling it from its sheath, “It’s beautiful Kazuha, thank you.” Without a moment's hesitation, before either of the two other men could react I cut off my pinky, the same pinky I had used to promise myself to Kazuha all those years ago.
“Kuni!?” Quickly Tomo was wrapping the stump on my hand, a scowl on his face. He pushed Kazuha away in his haste, the bloody knife on the ground next to my now detached digit which Kazuha stared at in shock, “You idiot! What if Lady Ayaka sees?! She’ll kill us all!”
“Let her see.” Kazuha muttered, picking up the tanto and my pinky, “Let everyone see.” And with one fluid movement he cut off his own pinky, crying out in pain and wrapping his pinky with a cloth from his bag. Standing he picked up the bag of mora, “I know what I must do.”
Minutes stretched on into hours, my heart hammering in my chest as I waited until a knock startled me. Tomo had resumed his post at my door and before he could even open the door Kazuha opened it, my heart filled with joy at the sight of him and slightly behind him lady Ayaka.
“My little songbird.” She crooned, holding the large sack of mora in her hands, “This man has bought your freedom, plus extra, be a good wife to him, okay?” And with a greedy smile she sashayed away.
“Let's go home, to Tataratsuna, Kuni.” Offering me a hand Kazuha leaned down, a soft smile gracing his handsome features. As I took his hand I knew, there would never be another person who would come between us.
It’s been forty blissful years since then. Kazuha now owns a successful blacksmithy and I became a vocal coach, Tomo went on to become a shuumatsuban agent and now lives a happy retired life in Tataratsuna with us. My children have children and the love they have given me has healed me. It took me forty years, but I am finally free.