Chapter one

"Who"

"It stopped raining", I thought lazily lying on my futon, looking through the small window how daylight filled the sky little by little.

A tear of ice-cold water dropped on my eye and I screamed, furious at the old ceiling full of leaks and patches Jeichiro had made.

-Stupid leaks… -I growled.

I slid myself slowly between the mattress, trying to ignore the sound of the little drops falling into the numerous recipient I had placed all over the attic, and the light that was filling the little room more everytime.

Then, a harsh male voice echoed through the walls.

-Fuu! Wake up!

Startled and still sleepy, I jumped from my bed like spring, bumping my head against the wooden beam that cut in my head's way every morning.

-I'm coming!

I screamed out in pain and rubbed my forehead.

-Stupid beam! –I shouted at it before getting dressed quickly with the Matsukone's uniform and stumbling down the stairs.

Taku gave me a long to-do-list that morning. I spent the whole day running from one side to the other. First of all, I cleaned all over the Matsukone. The public space, with the restaurant and the casino, and then the space Taku liked to call "private", what an euphemism.

It always gave me lots of work. The place was gigantic and I had to clean it up from all kind of disgusting substances, among them alcohol, tobacco powder, and others for which they made me clean my hands and they checked over my belongings to make sure I had not stealed not even a bit.

I never protested for these invasive revisions. Even though everytime I came back from work, I found out that I had a little less money from what I got for the week. Everytime a little more, until I had no more than one Ryou per week, from my original ten Ryou salary.

I never dared to complain to those gorillas that were always around Taku, the ones responsible of the revisions.

After cleaning the whole place, around midday, I went on my way to purchase some "specialties" that weren't on sale on shops.

Taku used to give me a little note that I never read, and a envelope with an amount of money that I never opened. He said he appreciated that in me. That my lack of curiosity made a good assistan out of me.

Everytime he said that, it seemed that he was talking about someone else, not about me. I never thought that I would be told something like that, that I'm good at that kind of stuff.

When I first met Taku, I remember that I was dying of starvation. I hadn't eaten in a week, it was so cold in mid-autumn, and no one had wanted to hire me since I got to the town.

"I'll give you a job, kid" he said. And I followed after him without noticing. Then they offered me food, sake and a warm bed, as well as enough money to buy all the things that a girl like me liked or needed. In exchange, they only asked for my loyalty and silence. I accepted without hesitating.

Maybe because Taku was the first person since I was left alone again that offered me help, food and shelter, and I was scared of dying alone and hungry in the streets.

I'm not a fool. For the first minute I knew that a regular restaurant couldn't afford so many workers. They didn't have that much success as a restaurant. But it wasn't until a month passed that I found out about the business they had with drugs and prostitution.

At the backside of the Matsukone, where only the most select customers could enter, from who I never knew the names, there was a brothel with more than thirty girls of all ages.

The youngest of them all was my age. I still remember how sick I felt the night they auctioned her virginity, and how sick I still feel when I remember how these select customers treated them, or the stories that brought them there.

If either Mugen or Jin hadn't taken me out from that brothel, I could have been any of them.

Like every day, I came back to the Matsukone, but before, I stopped to buy myself some dango sweets. When the tasty smell started to make me drool, I found out that my purse wasn't at his rightful place inside my kimono's sleeve.

Ashamed and sad, I told the bartender that I wouldn't buy anything, and I went back to work with my stomach empty and my head down.

It was being a very busy night. The Matsukone was filled to maximum, shining and bustling like a red firefly in the dark of the night. Its music invaded everything, the same as its clouds of intoxicating smokes, laughters and its noise.

It wasn't easy to walk between those tables, carrying trays full of food and drinks without trip over anything. Avoiding those drunks, pulling their hands inside that girl's cleavage, that group that was playing mahjong very loudly, and that man that was running another prostitute, I attended every costumer's table one by one, keeping a smile on my face as hard as I could.

I stopped a second to rest, and I tried to find my purse again, without remembering that it wasn't there. When my hand again grasped the emptiness, I snorted frustrated and angry. Those gorillas had crossed the line that time.

If Taku knew…¡of course! ¡Taku! My face lighted up, and I walked hopping towards the backside, decided to get the justice I deserved.

Without thinking a lot, like most of things I use to do, I opened his office's door shut, at the other side of the kitchen.

The change in the air was brutal. Every light in the room was off, except the one hanging over the table, were a circle of men were sitting around. Taku was also there, showing his back to me.

They stopped talking immediately, their glares smashed on me with hatred.

-Hello. –I said with weak voice.

Taku turned back at me and looked at me with that kindness that he always used when he talked to his customers, and to me.

-Fuu, ¿What happened?

He smiled hastily, trying to hide his obvious bother. I kept calm and with my intentions, despite of the tense silence, that leaked danger. "Come on, Fuu".

Taku, ¿Can we talk?

He blinked incredulously and turned to his companions.

-Pardon me.

He stood from the table and walked towards me calmly. I remember that this gesture encouraged me.

I don't know what brought me to think about Taku like an equal. Someone I could complain to, and get mad at, like I used to do with them. To spot the danger was never my specialty.

We went to the other room, crossing the door. When he closed it, the smile on his face was washed away like an oil spill which is poured a bucket of water over. He stared at me quietly, with a look that said that he was contemplating the best way of killing me, but for some reason, I didn't realize. I didn't apologize, or run away before it was late.

-You are very kind for giving me this job, and I'm incredibly thankful for that. – I bowed him, thinking that should calm him down, but his face was still cold and harsh, so I kept on talking.

-But…for a while I have noticed that my money is disappearing day by day and…-

I looked at the floor and back at him, every time surer that I should have shut up and said sorry. But I couldn't stop talking, as always.

-I don't think is fair that… -And a bitter and metallic feeling crossed over my mouth when my inner cheek was sliced under the impact of his fist.

And I fell to the ground. I didn't dare to look back, I was afraid of what I could find. Instead, I looked at the floor, and I counted silently every drop of blood that fell on the wooden tables.

I heard my breath, and his footsteps going away through the room again.

-Go and attend the customers, Fuu.

When he said my name he had already disappeared behind the door and I started crying. I realized that I wasn't a privileged, and that I had been given in by my own loneliness when I thought that I could be happy this way, or that Taku would protect me in any way.

I was in a business from which it was almost impossible to leave. I felt a whirl going inside my head. Very seldom I had felt so useless, abandoned and forgotten.

Forgotten by everyone.

I sat there for a while, crying until I was calm again.

I stood up, shaking, and I spit the blood that was filling my mouth into the bucket we used to clean the fish.

"I can run away" I thought. Knowing the kind of friends that Taku had. I was so scared to think about the power they possessed. This country was rotten until its very guts. Just like the Matsukone.

I rinsed my mouth with water and ran away when I heard footsteps coming back, fearing it was Taku again. I whipped my nose and my eyes with the palm of my hand and I waited until someone gave me a tray. I supposed that my face was swollen and red, but I didn't care as long as Taku could see that I was busy working.

I thought of my mother, and my father. Of how much I needed a hug. And of what they would say if they found me in a place like this.

I walked among the tables full of anonymous clients, and I realized that I was carrying a tray full of empty dishes that I ignored which table they came from, or when they had given it to me. Between the colorful lights I moved slowly, like anesthetized, looking at every costumer, and feeling how hatred poured from every skin pore of mine.

An obese man, looking like a feudal lord, that was eating first class tuna sushi in the bellybutton of Kibari, the head of the prostitutes and one of the most expensive girls; A young looking boy, only a few years older than me, apparently drunk, was drinking warm sake lying on Shion's knees; and at the back of the room, a slender man with bushy hair and ruffianly looks, was drinking, haning from the shoulders of Kagura and Rena.

I froze myself still and I looked at him, ignoring the turmoil around me. I focused my still blurred eyes in him, and something inside of me cracked like a dry shell when, with a tattooed hand and a grey-steel gaze, designed to drive the devil off, he raised the sake cup to his mouth and eyed me.

"Mugen"

I didn't know if I said that or just thought it. It was impossible that the heard me. But he looked at me, I'm sure about that.

We stared at each other in the eye and I panicked when I thought that he could not recognize me, or that he could ignore me. It had not been so long, he had to recognize me. He looked the same. Exactly.

I know that he looked at me directly and that he saw me. And I know that he probably noticed my swollen face and my eyes about to explode in tears, but even surer I was when he looked at me for a second time after a pause when he looked down to the bottle in front of him.

"Mugen, help me"

No sound came out from my mouth.

I must have felt in that moment the same way someone would feel if they win the lottery the same day they're about to lose their house, and they have no money to eat. An unimaginable luck.

I felt so happy for a moment so brief, despite the head waiter shouting at me, that I wanted to drop the tray and run towards him, and ask him to get rid of that entire place.

But I couldn't, because a waiter crashed over my immobile body, and knocked me to the floor. I should have been terrified of Taku's reaction to this, but I wasn't, because Mugen was there.

-Oh my God, Fuu! Fuu, are you all right? – the head waiter came close to me when he saw that a whole tableware had broken over me, but I was lucky enough not to get hurt. Without answering, I stood up by myself, I shook the pieces off me and I went quickly towards where Mugen was.

What was my surprise, when I saw that in the place where Mugen had been just a second ago, there was nothing. Kagura and Rena holded about ten Ryos in their hands, and counted them greedily.

I started spinning around looking for him everywhere. In the casino, in the restaurant, in the game room…he wasn't anywhere.

-Mugen! –I whimpered. I was surprised to hear how familiar his name sounded in my voice after so long.

I went out to the streets to look for him, driven by anguish.

It had been a miracle. He couldn't just leave me behind again. ¿Where had he went?

That night I walked the city three times, until my teeth chattered due to the cold, and the sun started rising from the east. I didn't realize how late it was until sunlight touched my face and the exhaustion hit me fully.

Incredibly miserable and carrying the weight of the world over my shoulders, I came back to the Matsukone, still waiting to find him in every corner I turned.

I started to doubt that it had been him. If he was, he would not have gone without saying a word.

But his face was so engraved in my memory that I couldn't doubt. It was that same man.

I slipped away to my attic, and ignoring the questions coming from some companions, I slid myself inside my futon and I asked Shion to tell Taku that I was feeling very ill and if I could had a free day. After what happened with the dishes, I was surprised that he accepted.

I laid down for a couple of hours, but the light was too bright, and there were no curtains that I could draw.

I got up dazed, with a terrible pain on my cheek, with my teeth stained in blood, and swollen red eyes from crying and no-sleeping.

I stared at my reflection on the mirror I kept under my futon, and I let out a gasp when I saw that I couldn't recognize the image coming from it.

How defeated I looked. I had been uncertain, undefined, alone. But never defeated.

Suddenly I realized that I had become more of a question instead of a person.

I washed my face, I tied my hair up, and wearing the light red yukata with black letters, I went down the stairs, hiding under my obi my loyal pink tantô. But I left my apron behind, since I had no intention to use it that day.

Despite of how much it hurted that Mugen left, seeing him reminded me better times, in which I was a better person.

My courage decreased as I became closer to Taku's office door. My steps became shorter and slower. I didn't knock, but I slid the door shut, for not giving me enough time to hesitate, and for reminding me that I should be furious instead of scared.

Taku was sitting behind the occidental style table, and he didn't seem bothered at all for my interruption.

-Are you feeling well, Fuu?

His lack of emotion made me feel puzzled.

-Takuhiro-san –I bowed. He seemed surprised.

-What is the deal with all this formality, Fuu? – I didn't raise my head yet.

-I wish to leave, sir –I said with a less powerful and persuasive tone that what I would have liked.

I knew that I wouldn't be able to escape. They would follow me. This wasn't a common brothel. This was my only opportunity, as small as it was, to leave that place.

-What? –His tone was the one of an obviously pretended shock.

-Please.

-Fuu, sit down.

-Sir…

-Sit down! –I almost screamed when he shouted at me with anger.

I sat down in the chair in front of his desk, even if I had only sat in an occidental chair two times in my life.

I kept my head down and I heard as Taku walked behind me. The silence invaded the room, and I heard him breathing slowly to the beat of his steps.

More than five tortuous minutes passed and I felt as frozen-fear sweat drops traced down my spine, despite the cool air.

I knew that I shouldn't talk, even if the silence was more painful than the loud slap he gave me in the face, from behind, in the same cheek he punched me the day before. I lost balance on the chair and fell to the floor. I couldn't help but cry out in pain when I felt the cut slice open again inside my mouth.

This time I stood up. I looked at him with pulsating anger and unconsciously I raised my hand to my obi, looking for my tantô. Big mistake.

-What are you carrying there?

He came to me calmly and without me daring to do anything to avoid it, he took it away from me. He looked at the small pink lacquered sword and with one hand he hold the pendants hanging from it. He took the small Ikitsuki island skull between his fingers and observed it with curiosity. I became pale.

Lucky me, he didn't notice that. He just put the tantô down on his table and faced me.

-Is not that easy to kill me, Fuu. –He mocked.

-Let me go…

-I can't do that.

-I won't say anything.

-Fuu…

-I won't say anything, let me go…

-Shut the hell up! –He punched his table and everything trembled. I obeyed. –There are only two ways of leaving this business, Fuu. One is unreachable for you, just for the plain fact of being who you are. The other one, is the one nobody wants to ever choose.

My eyes were watering; he stared at me leaning on his table casually.

-Fuu, I liked your discretion. It made you a very valuable employee. Do you understand what I'm saying? –I did not answer. –I wouldn't like to have to give you a harder job. One in which I could control those unsuitable mind changes of yours. Do you understand what I'm saying?

I stopped breathing.

-How old are you already, Fuu? Sixteen? Seventeen? – I did not answer. –Well, in fact I think it would be good for you, you know? You would earn much more money. –He came closer to me, like he was trying to have a more confident conversation.

-You steal my money from me! –I wish I hadn't said it. But I did.

He grabbed me by my arm and he tighten it very strongly. I would have not thought that such a skinny man could have such strength. But I thought the same about Jin and Mugen, I guess.

-Don't answer back. That's rude.

I nodded with my head so he would release me, but he didn't. He looked at me for a moment with interest.

-Kibari!

After a few moments, Kibari appeared through the door and looked at me with concern.

-Kibari, take Fuu…well, we will have to find her another name. Teach her the basics, tomorrow we're going to auction her off in the party room. We have to wait until her face is back to normal, I overdid it a bit with her.

He still grabbed my arm, offering it to Kibari as if I was a bag or similar.

Kibari nodded, looking at me frowning, so her beautiful face was altered.

-How old is she? –She asked sadly.

-Enough. –He answered dryly. –But she's still a virgin for sure.

I was petrified. I looked at Kibari and back at Taku, waiting for one of them to talk to me, to ask me anything, but they did not. Kibari hold me by the shoulders and took me with her up the stairs and away from Taku's office, to the prostitute's rooms.

I started to feel a little sick.

-Kibari, help me…

-I can't do that, Fuu. –She answered with sorrow. –They would kill me. –She said that with a melancholic smile. With that answer, I stopped insisting.

We got to the room, where the other girls started asking us what those screams downstairs had been, and Kibari calmed them, saying that what was important now was to help me.

-Calm down, Fuu. You'll see is not that bad, and then you won't even remember. –Said the girl who was my age with sweet tone.

-Yeah, you will get used, and you have us. –Smiled at me, a girl whom I did not know the name.

They surrounded me with warm words. I would have liked to answer them, but I was too shocked to open my mouth.

-Oh, that's right! We have to find her another name! –Said Rena when she felt the silence was starting to invade the room slowly.

I felt like a pet, and I wondered what would these girls real names be. Would they have forgotten who they were before coming to this place?

-Chiaki! That's it! Your name will be Chiaki! –Kibari announced.

-Chiaki…-I repeated.

I didn't want to accept any of that, to get used, to become comfortable. I didn't want to sit down and conform to the idea of staying there.

-Come here, sweetie. Let's check that cheek.

We spent the rest of the day putting every kind of ointments and cosmetics on me, not only to calm the swelling on my face, but also to soften my skin, darken and enlarge my eyelashes, to ruddy my blush, and others.

I would have loved all that beauty session, if I had not known the purpose of it.

When the sun was still up bright in the sky at noon, I went to get my stuff. But one of Taku's gorillas had taken them. My zori, my kimono, my mirror, and of course, my tantô had not come back from Taku's office. He said that I wouldn't need them. I got so angry that I dug my nails into my palms when while clenching my fists.

I rolled up my futon, and I took it to my new room. There, I laid down and I slept the whole evening and the whole next morning.

I had a light and unpleasant sleep. The faces from every person I ever loved came to my mind one after the other, and the same way they got there, they left, leaving a huge stain of darkness behind. And there was the smell of sunflowers everywhere.

I woke up with my forehead wet, and I decided to take a bath. When I came into the bathroom, Kibari was waiting for me with some towels.

-Oh, Fuu. I was on my way to wake you up. We have just enough time to get you ready.

-What? Already? –A few hours ago, "tomorrow" sounded so far away.

-Come on, come on, You will see, You will look so pretty! –She tried to encourage me, while taking my yukata off me and pushing me into the bath.

She brushed me with all kind of soaps and perfumes, and Kibari grabbed my face, turning it from one side to the other.

-Darling, your cheek looks perfect.

-Awesome…

They brushed my hair until it was straight and dry, and they wrapped a kimono around me, one of a pearl-grey color, with beautiful golden flowers climbing from down to the top, filling every part of the light shiny silk with their gleam. Even when I knew what came next, I couldn't help but blush when I saw Chiaki in the mirror.

-You're always wearing those? –She asked me pointing to my hairpins on the boudoir.

-Uh, yeah…I thought they were cute…

-Oh, why Fuu, of course they are! But they are also kind of childish. We need to put you something more sophisticated.

She tied my hair up in one of those elaborate buns I would have never been able to make, keeping my side parted hair that I always had to disguise my round face. Maybe she thought of that too. She put on my hair two golden pins and one red ornament.

-You will be fine like this… -She stared at my face, thinking of what to do next.

-You have very big eyes, Chiaki.

At first I didn't thought she was referring to me until a few moments passed. I still don't know if she said that as a compliment or not, due to the look on her face.

-They would look sweet if you didn't have that shocked look all the time –She commented amused.

I pouted.

-Come on, come on! Don't get mad! We are going to let you so beautiful you will not look like you!

-That wasn't good either! –I complained, and Kibari laughed with that beautiful voice of hers.

She applied powder on my face, she painted my lips red, and applied occidental make up on my eyelashes. When she was finished, Chiaki was so pretty.

-Let's take you to Taku so he sees you.

I frightened at the thought, but nodded and followed her downstairs. We got to Taku's office and he stood up when he saw me, and studied me.

I made the coldest face I could pretend, while he walked around me.

-Nice, Nice, Fuu. They will pay a fortune for this. –He smiled –But… -He placed himself in front of me, and suddenly opened the cleavage of my kimono more. I screamed and I tried to cover my bust with my hands unconsciously. –You are not a princess, Fuu. You are a hooker.

I know that the pain his words gave me could be seen on my face. I held my anger and sorrow in as good as I could.

-But you don't have that much to show anyways –Said, before gesturing with one hand so we got out.

Onto the little stage, sitting on a cushion, I looked down at my hands while the room filled up with people, men, that I didn't know whether they came for me or not.

"Is this really happening?" I thought when I realized of how lost I was.

Kibari was sitting next to me, wearing an obviously uglier kimono she had even bothered to change kindly, without any make up or ornament, trying to make me look prettier next to her. But she was still gorgeous, and that made everything even more depressing and ridiculous.

-Be calm, Fuu. You must not cry or show fear. That attracts perverts and maniacs.

I raised my face and I could not find one man in the whole filled room before me that gave me the tiniest inch of confidence. I felt sickness when I thought of what would happen in a few minutes.

For a moment I reflect on my whole life, on myself. And it didn't seem logic at all any of the things that were taking place there, in that moment. I couldn't find any good explanation of why I had finished in a place like that that night.

-You know… -I didn't turn to look at her as I talked, but I know she was paying attention to me anyways. –I am the daughter of a samurai.