DISCLAIMER: Gravitation and it's characters are the intellectual property of Maki Murakami. This story means no offense to the creator, and is merely a work of fandom, attempting to further endorse interest and appreciation of the Gravitation manga and anime.

GRAVITATION is a story of shonen-ai. Many of the characters depicted in Gravitation are homosexual or bisexual. If this is not to your liking, please do not read the story, as I would not wish to offend.

The Illustrious Onnagata

(Kyoto - 1860)

On the bad end of Gion, near to Miyagawa-cho, the late afternoon patrons of the Kishibeya were even more lethargic than usual. It was, in a word, the heat. Sweltering. Swimming. Ceaseless heat that even the Kishibeya's proximity to the River Kamo could not defeat. No one could remember a summer like this. No one. Not even old Kameko-san from the Sumiya in Shimabara...and there were rumors that -she- was almost 90 years old.

"It couldn't possibly be this bad in Yoshiwara," Haruma groaned, swishing up to the house bar to fetch more sake. "Summers are always delightful in Edo."

Harutaki, the most senior of the otoko geisha working at the Kishibeya, flipped his fan at his face in annoyance, trying to keep his makeup from melting off. "You think everything was better in Edo, Ma-kun. I wish you would go back there." Slumping dramatically to the side, Taki sighed noisily and flitted his eyes from left to right, hoping a patron or admirer would notice, but the half-dozen old otama in the room all looked nigh-unconscious. "Ma-kun, find someone to fan me. I can't move anymore. I feel faint."

At that moment, as oft she did, the Okaasan appeared as if from nowhere, and proceeded to smack the back of Harutaki's arm with her tessen. No one knew when or -where- Okaasan had procured the iron fan, but she'd used it as an instrument of discipline for as long as Harutaki could remember. "Che, don't be hard on Taki," Haruma-kun implored, though he stepped out of the reach of Okaasan's tessen, "He's just trying to keep his makeup and kimono looking fine."

"Useless. Don't stand around chatting, Ma-kun. Get back to work. And you..." Okasaan's already pinched expression grew even icier as she glared at Harutaki. "I suppose you're going to tell me that it is too hot for you to perform?"

Harutaki only closed his eyes. He couldn't even summon the anger to tell her off today.

"Useless. How did I end up with so many useless otoko? Where's Hiroshi? Get that boy in here. Make him play something lively. When the customers are this dead, they don't spend enough money to even get Harutaki's wigs cleaned."

Hiroshi, who had been sitting -very- still inside the coolest part of the sangyou, reluctantly slid open the door of the pantry and peeked his head out. The thin sheen of sweat which coated his lean face made him shine like a ripe apple, waxy yet succulent. Each step he took caused the cord of brown hair dangling from the paper-tied ponytail at the nape of his neck to jingle from the tiny line of brass bells fixed into his coiffure. Hiroshi's calmly confident exterior had already gained him quite a few admirers, much to Hakutaki's chagrin. Nonetheless, Taki wrote most of it off as being silly old otama in love with the sound of the shamisen. It didn't matter, Taki knew. No matter how hard they worked, no mere shamisen player could compare with a dancer. And Harutaki was the best dancer in the sangyou.

As Hiroshi made his way across the open room to a waiting zabuton on the slightly raised stage, he found bittersweet thoughts zipping through his mind. On one hand, he was now stuck here, in this loathsome place, where day in and day out his lot in life consisted only of pleasing customers with his shamisen. But, on the other hand, at least he had food, and shelter, and the knowledge that the fee the sangyou had paid for him would feed his family for some time yet to come. And, perhaps someday, he would play shamisen in one of the great theaters of Gion, earning enough to pay back his debts to the sangyou. You never knew what could happen here.

Gion was the district of dreams.

Hiroshi carefully tucked his thin lavender kimono under his knees as he knelt and brought the shamisen into position. Dressing in woman's clothing wasn't so bad. At least he didn't have to affect full geisha costume and makeup like the dancers. Those wigs were heavy. And when they went out, the dancers had to wear high geta, just like female geisha. Now, if Hiroshi could just find a patron to help him get an audition at one of the great theaters.

As he plotted, he began to strum the shamisen.

"Okaasan?" One of the boys from the kitchen barely poked his head out of the back hallway to whisper at the house matron. "Your new purchase is here."

The Okaasan put on her curt and practiced smile, and smacked Hakutaki on the back of the arm with her tessen again, just hard enough to leave a faint bruise beneath the kimono. "Yare, yare. Looks like you may have someone to fan you, after all."

"What scruffy piece of trash have you brought me now, Zaiten?" The procurer, a rakish looking man lacking eyebrows, shoved the child on the back, causing it to stumble forward and fall on its knees in front of Okasaan. Zaiten, of course, was a clever man. He'd brought the boy most of the distance blindfolded, to help ensure that even if he ran away, he couldn't find his way back without consulting someone.

Someone who, hopefully, would be a good enough citizen to return the sangyuo's new property.
Okaasan's lips upturned into a look of distaste as the boy raised the sleeve of his threadbare yukata to wipe at a drop of sweat trickling down from behind his ear. He was, in a word, scrawny. Incredibly...scrawny.

Okaasan reached down to tug the blindfold off of the boy, flipping the nasty rag at the servant standing to her left. Roughly, she pulled his face left and right, examining his skin, his mouth, nose...and.

Interestingly colored eyes. Blue, but not the blue of the sea. They were a color that had no name, dyed a pale purpled indigo, like the late evening sky.

"What is your name, boy?"

The quivering, disoriented child replied, "Shuichi."

If the woman heard his answer, she didn't show it. She seemed more preoccupied with scraping her fingernails painfully through his hair. "No lice. But..." Okaasan slid her blackened fingers together. Something in Shuichi's hair had rubbed off onto her skin. "-What- is -this-?"

Zaiten suddenly took to a fit of coughing, causing him to be completely unable to answer.

"It's some sort of oil," Shuichi whispered, looking at the ground. Zaiten had told him not to speak unless a question was asked of him, and she -had- asked a question. Nonetheless, he still had the distinct impression he was going to be in trouble for ratting out the procurer. "To make my hair black."

Okaasan's thin lips pressed together as she barked an order for the servant to bring two buckets of water. These produced, Shuichi found water being suddenly poured over his head without warning, and vigorous scrubbing being done to remove the oils. "Pink. His hair is pinker than sakura blossoms. How can I have an otoko geisha with pink hair?"

Zaiten shrugged and lit his pipe, "That's your problem, not mine. Put a wig on him."

"This significantly lowers the price, Zaiten-san. Wigs are expensive. I can't possibly pay as much as we originally agreed."

"WHAT?"

As the pair squabbled over money, Shuichi hazarded a flick of his eyes upwards. This place... It even -smelled- rotten. Not at all airy and light like the shrine.

Well, the shrine had been airy and light... Until it burned down.

Here, shadows permeated every corner, even during the sweltering afternoon. Someone had made an attempt at a garden in the courtyard, and then apparently lost interest. Where the weeds stopped, moss or ivy began, some of it clinging to the ancient two-story building. It almost looked as if the walls were bleeding slick green. All around, the heady call of cicadas pulsated rhythmically, as if screaming from the overwhelming heat. Shuichi thought he could hear the rushing sound of water coming from somewhere, but between the cicadas and the argument, he couldn't be sure.

But, the building itself looked not at ALL as lovingly tended or immaculately kept as the shrine he once called home. There were spots at the corners where the wood appeared to be flaking away. And even the slatted blinds which hung on the western wall had faded from what must have once been a brilliant red to a sad excuse for orange.

"How old is he?" Okaasan asked, once again pawing at Shuichi to get a look at his neck. "And if you lie again..."

Zaiten cut her off before she could spout the oft-used threat of never buying from him again. "Fourteen. But look, he's so small, he'll easily pass for twelve."

"Twenty ryo."

Shuichi had never even heard of that much money in his life.

"Forty. He's unique."

"Twenty five. And my customers don't want unique. They want a particular standard of beauty and talent.

"Well, if they want -that-, they should go to some place with -standards-."

The pair glared at each other for a long time, before the Okaasan finally murmured a chilly, "Thirty ryo."

"Done."

And so it was that Shuichi's debts to the Kishibeya began at thirty ryo, enough money to feed a family of five for over two years. Unfortunately, this would only be the beginning of what he owed the house. Before he knew it, he would be so in the hole that an entire life of working would not pay it off.

For, that was the way things worked....

In the hanamachi.

"You'll be sharing a room with me and Hiroshi-kun," the serving boy said with a smile. It was the first time someone hadn't spoken to Shuichi as if he were property in a week. The upstairs of the Kishibeya had two wings, the boy had told him, one for living...and one for entertaining. There was no need for Shuichi to concern himself with the other wing for now. "This room is Okaasan's. Don't go in unless she calls for you. Um. Down that hall for Baachan, she's in charge of the servants and the kitchen. Some of the servants live in the quarters out back, some live with their families elsewhere. Now this..." The servant boy stopped in the hall and tapped open the shoji just a few inches. Inside, a room filled with bright colored kimonos, an elegant ikebana, and a rather expensive wall scroll depicting a dancer reaching his arms towards a gilded moon, shone with festive glamour. Shuichi barely contained his gasp. He had never witnessed such finery amassed into one small place before. "This room belongs to the senior otoko geisha, Haruma and Harutaki."

Shuichi could almost detect the small bubble of admiration in the other boy's voice. "Our sempais get the very best, because they make the most money for the house. Someday..."

The boy shook his head and closed the door, but Shuichi understood what he meant to say. Someday, he too wanted to have fine things.

"Anyway..." The boy's step picked up and he hopped and skipped in his pumpkin-orange yukata towards the last door on the row. "This is our room. Hiroshi-kun is downstairs playing shamisen right now, so it's just you and me."

Shuichi tilted his head around the frame of the paper door to look inside. The much smaller, and more subdued, room of six tatami had, nonetheless, an airy and comforting feel to it. This perhaps had to do with the large sliding window which someone had thrown open to allow a non-existent breeze to waft inside. "Can I..."

"Un!" The boy chirped, hopping inside and leaning out the window. "Look...you can see almost all of Gion from here. The river is that way. And Pontocho is over there. And the great theaters... The highlight of Gion..."

As the boy babbled, Shuichi timidly made his way to look out the window onto the strange city. Sprawling before his eyes, row upon row of lively streets, and brightly colored houses, all encased by the grey forms of distant mountains. In the road below, men dragged carts behind their haggard and sweaty forms as women in elegant kimonos tried to hide themselves in the shadows, fanning themselves furtively to combat the heat. So many sounds that he couldn't identify echoed within Shuichi's ears. Even the calls of the barkers sounded garbled. "I can't understand them."

"Stilted Kyoto dialect. It gets worse the further you go into Gion. Every hanamachi district has their own way of speaking. You'll learn it in time, don't worry. Where are you from, anyway?"

Shuichi almost missed the question as he watched a fantastically dressed woman walk slowly down the street, surrounded by child attendants dressed in the richest color of red he'd ever seen. Even -blood- couldn't be that red, he thought. She wore geta that had to be six inches tall, if they were one, and had a face painted so white it looked like one of his sister's dolls.

"Um. From a village north of Edo. Uh..." Shuichi tore his gaze away from the street that bustled despite the heat. "I didn't ask your name."

"Everyone calls me Ken-chan for now, until I get a professional name." Ken-chan brushed his hands off on his yukata and gave Shuichi a small bow. "Usually I'm not wearing this, but one of the servant girls got sick, so I had to work in the kitchen."

"It is good to meet you, Ken-chan," Shuichi replied, bowing deeply. It was, indeed, good to meet someone like Ken-chan. Someone who had answers, and didn't mind sharing them with the newcomer. "May I hazard to ask... I mean, I am not quite certain... What -is- this place, anyway?"

The smile slipped from Ken-chan's face a notch as he turned back to look out at the window.

"This is the Kishibeya. A sangyou."

"I'm sorry," Shuichi murmured, bowing again. He felt dizzy from not being able to understand this massive place, this busy city, these strange people. But, if he could just figure out what it was he was expected to do here...he could try his hardest to get it done. Afterwards, he could go back home and help his mother rebuild the shrine. "But, I don't understand. A sangyou?"

Ken-chan turned his face even further away from Shuichi, until only a smooth line of neck and the swooping curve of Ken-chan's short black ponytail could be seen. "Un. It's a restaurant..."

"Oh! A restaurant! I could help in the kitchen...!"

"And a teahouse..."

"Like the ageyas between our village and Edo, where people stop to drink and freshen up?" Even -that- wouldn't be so bad, Shuichi thought. Sure, those places got rowdy sometimes, but that was mostly because of bandits and other unsavory types. Surely there would be less of those in the city.

"...And a brothel." Ken-chan leaned his forehead against the frame of the window as he repeated mournfully, "The Kishibeya is a brothel."

In the Next Chapter: Shuichi learns more about the inhabitants of the Kishibeya, and we learn more about Shuichi. Shuichi gets his first kimono, meets a very strange customer, and gets peek at the most illustrious onnagata in Gion.

Glossary:

Otama - Gay person

Otoko Geisha - What male geisha eventually took to calling themselves. Here I use it differently than the "taikomochi", which are the entertainers that are more like jesters or comedians. They are also different from the kabuki actors and "onnagata" that will feature more prominently later in the story.

Sangyou - Restaurant/teahouse/brothel. In the Kishibeya they serve light, easily prepared and stored meals along with alcohol. The otoko geisha entertain in the main room unless a private party is arranged for upstairs. The otoko geisha of the Kishibeya all perform dressed as women, but only the senior ones (Ma-kun and Taki) are currently allowed to fashion themselves after female geisha. The dressing as women is a tribute to the highly sought-after onnagata in the theaters.

Ryo - One gold coin. A LOT of money.

Hanamachi - The "flower and willow" districts, or pleasure districts. In Kyoto, there were five, but Gion was best known for its kabuki theaters.

Shamisen - three stringed "banjo" like instrument.

Un - Yes.

Che - Shit. Damn. A curse word.

Zabuton - cushion for sitting.