Part 7
Yohji Kudoh had the sneaky suspicion that all was not going to plan. He was working as a retainer in a teahouse and listened in on all the conversations that he possibly could, and all he was hearing again and again was that some gaijin was working wonders in charming the geisha Murasakiiro. In fact in Gion people spoke of geisha with the same wonder that Tokyo people spoke of idols. It was the scandal of Gion that this new and rather fabulous geisha was being wooed by a gaijin of all people, and that they had met every day since she had come to Gion to patronise her maiko. It was a terrible scandal, made all the worse since even though Aya would deny it he pretty much accepted Yohji as his boyfriend, a role that he was playing for this mission, and now he was letting himself be wooed by a customer.
If it was for the mission Yohji got the distinct impression that he should have been told. Omi had been to see him twice, regaling him with tales of Aya's triumph and explaining that Aya was constantly busy, busy with this gaijin. Ken saw him daily, telling stories of the little things that they did in the Okiya, and showed him the terrible scratch of his face where Aya had kicked him for tickling his feet when painting his toenails, but no one mentioned this mysterious gaijin. He flicked open his cell phone and dialled the Okiya.
Ken answered the phone. "Ichirogo Okiya." He said.
"It's me." Yohji said, "is Aya available?"
"No, not really." Ken said, it sounded like he was avoiding the topic. "I'll just check his itinerary." Yohji heard the sound of pages flipping. "He's got afternoon tea at the Hiiragiya hotel with one of his most persistent clients, there's an hour and a half window at six, if it finishes on time, come here and you can eat supper with him."
"You're pencilling me in?" Yohji was a little offended.
"Aya would have charged you, he's fast becoming the most popular geisha in town. The other geisha are jealous, someone sent him cakes laced in ipecac this morning, but you know that Omi's the only one with a sweet tooth so he's been babied because the muffins ran through him like a dose of the salts." There was the sound of a paper door sliding. "I'll catch up with you later, Aya will be back around sixish, he normally has a bath before he goes out for the evening at eight, it's when he normally eats."
"Who is this infamous gaijin?" Yohji growled down the phone.
"Look, I have to go, Kaasan has a very large bundle of dry cleaning and is looking at me funny. I'll see you at six." The line went dead.
Yohji made his mind up there and then. He was going to tail Aya and find out who this mysterious gaijin was, and scare him off. He would of to the Hiiragiya hotel, even if it was the most exclusive in Kyoto and make sure that this gaijin was not taking advantage of his Aya.
Murasakiiro was wearing a dark lilac dress chased through with silver thread with a scoop neck that showed the line of sapphires at her throat, her long red hair was loose about her wide shoulders, the line of the skirt was ragged falling in uneven lengths about her legs. She wore stockings and a pair of ankle boots with a small heel. She sat in the lobby of the Hiiragiya hotel sipping on what the barman told Yohji was a vodka and orange. The man who sat opposite her was handsome in a foreign way, with loose short black hair that was mostly held back by gel but a few errant locks fell across a smooth forehead, his eyes were large and seemed to be the colour of amber, and he was laughing with genuine amusement at what Murasakiiro was saying.
Yohji had seen Aya in his Murasakiiro guise before, but never with such delicate care taken to flatter her alien features. She was leaning forward and putting her hand on his. The man seemed to ripen under the gesture and Yohji growled with jealousy. So this was the gaijin no hentai that was making moves on his Aya, but he couldn't just murder him because truthfully he had done nothing wrong, yet. Unless he was the person that had sent the doctored muffins. He might have, thinking that Omi would have eaten them and then wouldn't follow Aya around, giving him time with her alone, time he might use to do anything.
Yohji was taken out of his theory when Murasakiiro laughed, she cast back her head in a shower of long scarlet hair and twin gold pendant earrings and laughed. Yohji's dark temper just fumed a little darker, it was enough that he had sent the muffins. He had made his Aya laugh, out loud, and looked so sexy when he did it. Maybe it was the geisha training and the additional Kudoh seminar but everything Aya did now reminded him of sex. Kritiker had hired a stage dresser to promote the image that Aya was a woman, and the violet and silver dress hugged curves Aya really didn't have. He got the impression that if he leant in close that Aya would smell of jasmine and orange blossom.
The gaijin was wearing a dark suit but without a tie and he struck Yohji as being very familiar but he couldn't for the life of him say where he had seen him before. He reached into his jacket and handed her a pair of tickets.
She squealed a little excitedly, then reached forward and kissed him on the cheek obviously excessively pleased at the pair of tickets. If a man gave a woman a pair of tickets he was obviously expecting her to invite him as well. She sat back, realising what she had done and blushing prettily.
Yohji swallowed a ball of jealousy. Those blushes were supposed to be his, he had spent a long time wooing Aya and this gaijin had just swooped in with expensive gifts and stolen him away.
The gaijin would have to suffer for this. Oh, yes, he would suffer, nobody stole Aya from Yohji, nobody.
"Saki-chan, that man watching us, and being lousy at being surreptitious, is that your boyfriend?" Crawford asked. "Don't stare, by the bar."
Murasakiiro flicked her eyes across, then smiled. "Jealous Ta-kun." She said fondly, "yes, Crawford-san, that is my boyfriend."
"You could do better." Crawford said, "you could have someone that would trust you."
Murasakiiro cast her head back and laughed, "he does trust me, Crawford-san, it's you he doesn't trust. You have stolen all my time away from him, in truth I have seen more of you this last week than him. All of Gion is talking of our "little romance" and I think he just wants to check that nothing untoward is happening."
"Speaking of which," Crawford said looking around, "where is our little chaperone?"
"Chiisai Aoi?" Murasakiiro asked picking up her glass and swirling the liquid within it. "I was a victim of sabotage this morning. I received a basket of muffins, Aoi ate one, but it seems that someone covered them in ipecac. She won't be joining me for several days."
Crawford sniggered. "I trust those muffins were intended for you, Saki-chan."
She nodded sagely, "I think that they thought that such a gift that I would assume to be from you and would be unable to work for days. I don't know whether I should be flattered that the other geisha consider me so much of a threat when your largesse has been less here in Gion."
"Is that a hint?" Crawford asked with a wry smile.
"Certainly not, I was merely saying that word of the gifts that you gave me in Tokyo has not reached here." She reached forward and touched his hand. "I know that you are just teasing me, but I can't help but feel these are dangerous times for the geisha."
"He's still looking at you, do you think the okiya sent him?" Crawford said referring to their uninvited guest.
"Ta-kun?" Murasakiiro asked, "no certainly not, they know that nothing untoward will happen, will it, Crawford-san?"
"Oh, I don't know." Crawford's smile was distinctly wolfish, "I might steal another kiss, but I think you might kiss me for this." He reached into his jacket and pulled out two tickets.
"Ohmigod, you got tickets to the noh," she gasped, jumping forward and kissing him on both cheeks. "I couldn't, it's been booked up for months, did you have to kill anyone to get these?"
"I remember you saying you wanted to go, it's for next Thursday, that's not too soon is it, Saki-chan?" Crawford was suddenly bashful. "I just had to pull some strings."
"Thursday will be wonderful. Thank you so much for thinking of me." She was blushing again that she had reacted so vehemently.
"Believe me, Saki-chan, there's little else I do but think of you."
Aya took off his high heeled boots in the door well of the Okiya with obvious relief and stood against the wall for a few moments to let his head catch up. He was more than a little drunk. "Kaasan," he called out, "I need next Thursday free, I have invites to Noh."
"Hello Aya." Yohji said from the hall. His voice was cold and hopefully ominous.
"Yotan," Aya said stumbling forward and kissing him on both cheeks, "I haven't seen you in days and days and days. I've been soooooo busy."
"You're drunk." Yohji said catching Aya as he stumbled into him.
"Just a little." Aya said making a gesture with his hand. "Had an appointment, but a geisha that can't hold her liquor is like a cockerel with no crow." He swept his hair back. "Not time for lunch, thought afternoon tea would involve food." He burped covering his mouth with his hand. "Involved vodka."
"And this gaijin..." Yohji pressed, putting his arm around Aya's waist.
"My stalker!" Aya said with a laugh. "He's nothing to worry about. He keeps kissing me, but I didn't have my fan today, so I couldn't hit him, but you never ask for me. I'm beginning to think that you don't love me anymore."
"Aya, you're drunk." Yohji said as Aya stumbled again.
"He drove me home." Aya explained trying to blink away the sensation of the room spinning, "and he gave me a cell so that he can phone me, because Kaasan won't let him phone me on the Okiya number. He makes me feel beautiful."
"Have you forgotten why we're here, Aya?" Yohji said, he was very jealous.
"Of course not," Aya answered as Yohji led him into the dining room where a pale looking Omi looked at a cup of tea, "we've a mission." He enunciated the words carefully.
"Murasakiiro-sama." Kaasan said patiently from where she knelt at the table next to Omi, "I take it that your appointment went well."
"Yes, Kaasan." Aya said, stealing Omi's tea and downing it in one gulp.
"I think it would be best if you laid your head down until later." She said frowning. "and sleep off some of that drunk, how many did you have?"
"Too many." Aya answered wavering. "It's lovely to see you, Yotan, but my bed is calling me if I'm going to be able to work tonight." He reached out, looking every inch the woman in his stockings and lilac dress and kissed him on the cheek before padding up the stairs and away leaving Yohji in a cloud of his sweet perfume.
"Don't worry about it." Ken said from behind him. "I don't think Aya's been sober since we came to Kyoto."
"He's been known to throw up to continue drinking." Omi said. Yohji blinked, even he had never stooped that low. "The teahouses make their money from overpricing the drinks, the geisha has to keep up with the customer and encourage him to drink. He'll sleep off the worst of it, eat and then go out tonight and do it all again. The hangovers are definitely priceless." Omi had absolutely no colour but Ken had said that he had been eating ipecac cakes earlier.
"Aren't you worried about his with this foreigner?" Yohji asked, he was terribly jealous.
"Aya can look after himself." Ken said "and apart from the ultra bran muffin incident this morning he's not on his own with him. You should see the gifts he gets. He's a sensation, you'd be so proud if you could see him." He laid the table with several bowls of rice. "He's just like you."
The colour drained from Yohji's face. "That's it." He said snapping apart his chopsticks that forcefully one of them broke in two. "I'm driving him tonight and I will kill his gaijin stalker."
"Fine." Kaasan said pushing more rice towards Omi, "but make sure he's paid him first."
In the next installment Murasakiiro is torn between two lovers, neither of which she'll admit she wants.