The small radio's folk song was always distant and tinny, the meals were getting ever more meagre by the day, and Takamichi Souma was growing weary.
Sayuri sat next to him, quietly sewing, expressionless. She was a different woman from the one he had married— that was the glum reality. The smiling fancies of her youth had been stripped away by hard years, as had, Takamichi was guilty to note, her scant scraps of down-to-earth beauty. Now she was all the more drawn and thin, looking ten or twenty years older than she was, and her hands were rough from the mountains of chores. She seemed tired all the time, far too tired to hold grudges.
She hadn't carried the name "Souma" for even ten years yet, but Sayuri had already been changed this much. Takamichi began to feel very tired.
"It's nearly New Years'," Sayuri said eventually, her gaze not leaving the shirt she was repairing. Takamichi swallowed.
"I don't know what we're going to do," he said. "There's just not enough, even after all we've done to save. I don't know what to do."
"What about the police?" Sayuri asked. She continued to stare away from him.
'They're my family' was on the tip of Takamichi's tongue, but today, he couldn't say it. "What indeed," he managed. "They probably wouldn't listen. If bribes are involved, I wouldn't be surprised."
"In that case, what choice do we have?" Sayuri laid her mending aside slowly, walked the few steps to the door, and pulled on her ragged jacket.
"What are you doing?" Takamichi asked, standing up as well.
"I am going out to speak to the head of the family," Sayuri said. "I think that's our only option now."
"At this hour? But Master Akito would—"
Sayuri clenched the sliding door's handle tightly, bowing her head again. "I don't want to associate with that man, but there's nothing else we can do. And we don't have much time left. It has to be tonight."
"But he hates you. He...hates women. He'd eat you alive." Takamichi fumbled for a moment. "Besides, they probably won't even let you inside the main house. They don't let anyone in."
At this, Sayuri relented somewhat. "Then what can we do?"
"I'll go. They'll make some allowances for me, since I'm part of the family." Takamichi dragged his battered second-hand coat off the rack. Sayuri looked as if she wanted to say something, only to let it fade away into her mind.
Takamichi paused, then glanced in the direction of the bedroom, where his son was nestled in the shared futon already. "I'll be back soon, with some luck. If Jun wakes up, tell him I send my love."
"All right. Take care."
"I will." Takamichi slid open the door and stepped out.
The wind was frigid, but no snow fell yet as Takamichi walked through the sea of identical nameplates. It was strange; every one of the pitiful shanties had something to show that it was indeed a noble Souma house, despite having been lashed together with cardboard and straw.
Takamichi wondered if this year would be cold enough for snow. If it was, he reflected, the flakes would probably just form muddy slush before morning, at least around here. Inside the main compound, they said, snow fell on Christmas Eve and stayed pristine and white till spring. He'd heard some very strange things like that about the main compound. Unbelievable things.
Trees. It was easy to tell when you reached the official Souma estate, because that was where the trees were. There was a paved road here, lined with neat and lovely little cypresses, all carefully manicured. It was dark, but the dim outlines of upstanding Souma houses were barely visible beyond the trees, arranged in similar rows on each side. As he walked down the street, Takamichi was reminded of the army stories of his youth—of being made to "run the gauntlet", as they called it.
He shivered, and pulled his jacket on a bit more tightly.
It was like living in a prison, sometimes. Akito Souma arranged his subjects well, ruling over them like a Feudal lord. He had no need for dungeons or stocks; those who displeased him ended up, unfailingly, in the "boondocks". That area legally belonged to the Soumas, but according to the fences, maps, and signs, it wasn't part of the estate, and was just a place where a lot of dirt-poor Soumas happened to live at significant expense. It was practically a slum, and everyone Inside's most deep and terrible fear was to be sent there one day. Yet whenever documents were produced demonstrating that actually, someone's late father mysteriously had an unpaid debt (to an Inside company, of course) of one hundred million yen, no one spoke up, whatever suspicions they had. Family ties.
After walking past trees for what felt like forever, Takamichi reached the Inner Gate. It was a massive thing, a masterpiece of craftsmanship and hinoki, and the brass address plate was shining, polished, even at night. For a moment, Takamichi felt uncomfortable, and angry, as he thought of how much the gate alone must have cost. Empty frivolity.
Surrounding the gate was a high stone wall, above which palatial houses and the remains of climbing shrubbery were visible. The gleaming little intercom unit, vaguely anachronistic compared to these traditional structures, was affixed to this wall. Takamichi took a deep breath, and pressed the buzzer.
It would be better to do this in the morning, but Sayuri was right. They were out of time. There was still a week or so to New Year's, when their debts were due, but everyone important spent most of the time before that day preparing for the banquet. If Takamichi was to do any grovelling, it would have to be now.
As he waited for someone to answer, he tried not to think about the banquet.
Everyone had heard something about it, but no one had ever seen. The banquet. A decadent party for Akito's favourite little pets. Of course that was how Takamichi thought of it, and that was why he tried not to think of it. It made him too angry.
By the time a severely cross maid opened the gate for him, Takamichi's hair felt frozen to the roots and his teeth were chattering. His stomach seemed to have internalised the cold wind. He wanted very adamantly to be somewhere else, anywhere else in the world.
"Souma Takamichi," he said haltingly, "from the—the outer neighbourhood. Come to speak with the Head. I can wait if he's busy."
The maid studied him critically, then seemed to decide that his story held some water. "Take off your coat," she said. He followed her instructions, wincing slightly in the chill; she surreptitiously felt through the pockets, probably to check for weapons, then folded it over her arm. Given the state of the state of the coat, Takamichi was a bit surprised that she was even willing to hold it at all. The maid motioned him inside the Gate and frisked his remaining pockets, so expertly that Takamichi barely noticed she had done it at all. She would make an excellent thief, he thought. Apparently he passed inspection, because the maid stalked off, leading him through the darkness and towards a truly magnificent building. The core of the core, the inner reaches of the inner reaches. The Main House.
It was full of twisting hallways, and the whole building was disturbingly quiet. There were some hushed whispers, footsteps, and the occasional rustle of cloth, but not much else. Takamichi, who was used to hearing an entire boardinghouse's worth of radios and chatter through the thin walls, felt as if he'd gone deaf. And it was lit only by candles; couldn't these people afford decent lighting, given how much they charged for rent? It seemed an entire world apart from the slums.
The despair was mounting. It wouldn't work. Of course Akito wouldn't grant them any more time. He'd probably throw his own mother in debtor's prison without a second thought, so why would he give an extension for a distant cousin's son?
Takamichi took a deep breath and tried to keep the panic from showing on his face.
"Master Akito doesn't like to be bothered," the maid was saying, "so I trust that this is an important matter."
"Important—important indeed," Takamichi managed. "Thank you very much; I'm in your...your debt." Blast. He'd never been very good with words, even in the best of times. The maid was probably regretting having met this stuttering, shabbily-dressed fool.
"Quit mumbling," she said, and that was all. Takamichi felt a vague thread of hope. Perhaps the people Inside were a bit softer than he remembered.
"Is, is Master Akito still awake?" he asked. Takamichi didn't own a watch, but he knew it was after midnight now. "So late? I thought he was s-sickly."
"He often is," said the maid, "but he has duties all the same. We can't exactly keep the head of the family sedated."
"Ah." That made sense. "I'm, ah, sorry to bother him."
"Quit mumbling," the maid said, again. They stopped in a large anteroom, and Takamichi was made to sit down (properly) on one of the cushions. He couldn't help but stare at the room's size. It was obviously intended as nothing more than a waiting room, but it was probably bigger than his family's entire apartment space. The maid quietly slid open the door to the adjoining room, then closed it back. She sat down, presumably to keep an eye on Takamichi. "Master Akito is still working. When he's finished, you'll get...ten minutes, perhaps."
Ten minutes to save everything. He had no chance.
Rubbing his forehead, Takamichi tried to push out the hopeless thoughts. His surroundings provided him with no distractions, and only deepened the sense of despair. He tried to think about other things, and then spoke up, trying to sound casual.
"Is Master Akito alone in there?" he asked.
"Yes. He dislikes being distracted when concentrating on paperwork."
Takamichi had glimpsed the back of a thin figure when the door was opened. The back. So Akito (who had a frail body and didn't sleep enough) sat with his back to the door, and didn't keep anyone else in the room with him. There were many maids floating through the compound, but most of them were either decrepit with age or didn't have two brain cells to rub together; plus, most of them were so poor that they could be bribed with a mere pittance, if need be. There weren't any reliable, strong bodyguards about the place, of either gender. (If there had been, they would be the ones answering the doors and frisking pockets, after all.) And Akito tended to stay in his room for long periods at a stretch with strict instructions for absolutely no one to come in, and was so so unhealthy that he probably wouldn't be missed for weeks if he didn't come out for a while...
These people. How had they set up an empire if they were so bloody stupid?
If someone really needed to eliminate a debt, or really wanted an inheritance as quickly as possible, there were about a million different ways they could do it. For heaven's sake, the leader of a zaibatsu should at least have some kind of guard!
Unless...!
Takamichi swallowed hard. He had a hunch, and if it was correct, he needed to tell Akito immediately. This was even more important than begging for help with a debt. This was a matter of life and death.
He'd have to ditch the maid too. The whole thing was starting to come together. Draconian rent collectors. Bitter class divisions. Forgeries. Despair. Resentment. It all made sense. Family ties...
"W..." He was sweating, and he would regret that later. "Which way's the...the restroom?"
The maid flushed faintly and pointed down the corridor, no questions asked. Perfect. Takamichi dashed off, dipping an odd little bow and thanking her as he went. He sincerely hoped he wouldn't meet her again.
He struggled to remember the direction of the entryway. The house—no, not just the house, the whole estate—seemed intentionally designed to confuse, like a maze. The servants' living quarters (marked, just like everything else, with identical rows of Souma as far as the eye could see) were this way, the washrooms that, the kitchens that; how had this place passed fire safety codes?
The coat! This had to be the right way. Yes, here was the coat rack where the maid had (perhaps against her better judgement) hung Takamichi's coat, which stood out against the others like a rat in a pie. And there, the shoe cabinet, and beyond that, yes, the door. His heart leapt. Now he just had to get outside and locate the outer wall of Akito's room...
A rather firm and rather cold hand clamped down on Takamichi's arm. He nearly wet his pants. Caught. Finished. Failure. The maid had noticed that he was nervous, and had sent someone, and now it was all for nothing...
"That is not the way to the washroom," came a very precise voice from behind. So they did keep some strong men around after all. "That is the way outside."
"I'm sorry," Takamichi said, trying vainly to pull away. The stranger did not release him.
"Turn around slowly," he said, "keeping your other hand where I can see it."
"Yessir." Takamichi raised his free hand and turned about. Then his trousers were, again, in grave danger. His captor was over 180cm tall, and did not look pleased.
"I am a member of Akito's inner circle," the man said. "Bear that in mind as you answer my questions."
"Yessir."
"Why did you come here, when you claimed you were going to the washroom?"
"Got lost."
"You were given directions, and there was one across the hall from your location, clearly marked as such."
"I'm no good with nav, navigation...sir."
"You put on your coat and shoes upon reaching this room."
"I thought I'd...go outside, sir."
"For what reason?"
"No, I thought I'd...go...outside. Like on a tree. Y'see. Sir." Takamichi was sweating bullets by now. It was impossible to tell whether or not the man accepted the story; his face betrayed no emotion, no thoughts whatsoever. At last, he seemed to give up.
"Where are you from?" he asked, apparently trying to change the subject.
"The outer neighbourhood, sir. I told the maid."
"From the 'boondocks', then?"
Takamichi was a bit surprised. The man seemed very proper, not the sort who would call Takamichi's realm by its nickname. "Yessir. Gotta wife and a son, too."
"Why did you come here tonight?"
"Dad had a debt. He never paid it, and it's near due. I was going to ask for more time."
"What do you think of the inner compound? Answer carefully."
Takamichi faltered. "I-I think it's...very suspicious, sir."
"Elaborate."
"You don't guard your leader. You don't have guards at all. Your maids know things they shouldn't, and don't know things they should. You let in suspicious people without checking on much. And you set things up like you're trying to make us all as mad as possible. Mad at Master Akito."
"And?"
"And I think I know why. You..." He could be wrong, he could be completely wrong, but he had no choice save speaking up. "All of you, you want Akito out of the way. You're hoping someone will get mad, really mad, and kill him for you. So you shut him up in a cage and hurt people in his name, and don't even try to protect him." Takamichi closed his eyes and waited. The man said nothing for a while.
Then, "Do you intend to kill Akito?"
"No."
"Then go home. Quietly. Never speak of this to anyone. Not your wife. Not your neighbours. You will never mention it again, in any circumstances. Your debt will be waived, in its entirety. Your family will be taken care of properly."
"Yessir." Takamichi swallowed and tried to convince himself that this, all of this, was none of his business. He hadn't been paying attention to the man's other arm, but realised then that it was moving.
"All of this," the man said, "on a single condition."
"Welcome home," she said, opening the door. "How did it go?"
There was no urgency in her voice, no panic, no feeling. Only tiredness. He was tired too. He didn't answer her. He didn't know what to say.
"I see." She seemed a bit disheartened. "We have no other choice, do we? I'll call the police tomorrow. We'll finally—"
"No." He wasn't really sure why, but he knew that he couldn't allow that, somehow. "It's fine. Don't worry."
"How can it be fine?" She sounded a bit angry, but was good at concealing it. "It can't possibly be fine. At this rate..."
He spoke to her, just one sentence, and that stopped her. Her arms fell to her sides, and now her terror showed. She did not say anything. He said it again.
"Who are you?"