Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101427 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“Because you felt like you had no beauty?”
“Yes. I was just a little girl thinking she was ugly and already a failure.” She lowered her hand and placed it back on her lap. “However, around thirteen, everything changed. I began to develop breasts, hips. . .My aunt sent me to Kyoto to train with the geisha. Not because I was graceful or pretty. But because she believed that at least my body could be valuable for the family.”
What the fuck?
She turned to me. “So I became a maiko.”
“What is that?”
“An apprentice geisha. I painted my face white. Bit my lips red. Walked with okobo that made me sound like bells in the snow. My body became my art. My silence, a performance.”
I could almost see her as a nervous teen, powdered and obedient, hair pulled into an elaborate style. Lips painted.
“It wasn’t about talent back then, it was about how well you could survive being seen and. . .touched.”
My chest ached.
She turned her view to behind us and looked out the window.
The sea glittered.
“I lived in the okiya with a strange woman who I was to only call mother. And mother loved power and money more than people. We trained for hours. Danced until our ankles bled. Learned shamisen, tea ceremony, calligraphy, and most of all. . .how to smile even if we were dying inside.” The elegance in her voice didn’t crack, but it shimmered at the edges. “There was one client. . .older. Wealthy. He always wanted me naked when I played because he wanted to touch my collarbone and count each vertebrae down my back over and over with every note. He said it made him feel closer to God.”
Her lips barely moved, but her voice sharpened. “He was one of the nice ones.”
I looked at her, horrified.
“The worst were the ones who pretended they were saving me while they ruined my little body.”
My hand reached out instinctively, resting lightly over hers.
She didn’t flinch when I touched her. Instead a sad smile spread across her face. “When I turned nineteen, I was given a choice: become a full geiko—a fully trained entertainer or. . .”
“Or?”
“I could disappear.”
“What did you decide?”
“I disappeared.”
“How?”
“I took the last stipend mother gave me, snuck out in the night with two silk kimono and a dagger tucked into my obi.”
“Where did you get the dagger?”
“I stole it from one of my clients.”
“Smart.”
“I thought so.” Hiroko smirked. “And then. . .I ran until my feet bled and hopped a night train to Tokyo with barely enough to last a month.”
“Holy shit.”
The corners of her lips curled into something soft, sad, and stunning. “In Tokyo, I learned to be free. I learned that power isn’t in beauty—not real power. Real power is healing the mind and knowing that you already hold everything you need inside you.”
The room went still.
Even Zo quietly watched her.
Outside the window, the sea exhaled a long slow breath and the waves licked the base of the cliffs in worship.
“I used to think being beautiful would make me untouchable, but it only made me easier to claim. What made me dangerous. . .was truly knowing myself and loving every bit of. . .me.”
She looked down at her hands. “I made my body a currency. But my mind became a weapon. And now, I choose who sees me. Who hears me. Who touches me.”
The weight of her words hung heavily in the space.
“Although I was born in Uji that is not my home. Although I was raised in Kyoto that is not my home either.” Her voice cracked with the next words. “My home is Tokyo and it is presently covered in smoke, ash, and flames.”
Her eyes watered, but no tears fell.
Yet. . .I didn’t even realize a tear had left my eye until she reached over and brushed it from my cheek.
“Nyomi, I know the Dragon, and I know his father, the Fox. Neither will give a cease fire. They will not stop this war until the other is dead.”
My nerves flared.
“And they will fight. . .even if that means that my beautiful city is destroyed.” She sadly shrugged. “For them it will just be. . .so be it.”
A cold shiver ran through me.
“They are both beasts, Nyomi, but there are big differences. I do not want the Fox to win. I prefer the Dragon.” She let out a long sigh. “He is the safer monster.”
I tilted my head slightly. "Why do you think Kenji is safer?"
"He’s more like his mother’s side. There’s a sweetness she placed within his heart that his father could never stomp away. That tenderness is still there, Nyomi. It’s buried under steel and fire, but it breathes."
Hiroko rose from the bed in one fluid movement. Something in her posture changed—subtle but undeniable. Her back straightened too while her chin lifted, and her eyes sharpened with purpose.