Chapter Four: The Woman in Moonlight

For a moment, Arata forgot how to breathe.

The moonlight fell across her face like a blessing, illuminating features that seemed sculpted rather than born—high cheekbones, a delicate jaw, lips that curved in a shape both soft and cruel. Her hair was dark as a raven's wing, pinned up with jade ornaments that caught the light. She wore a kimono of deep indigo silk embroidered with silver cranes, and when she moved, the fabric whispered secrets he couldn't quite hear.

She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

And he hated her for it.

The woman's face was carefully blank—a polished mask of professional serenity. Her smile was perfect, practiced, and utterly empty. She bowed her head gracefully. "Welcome, my lord. I am honored to serve you this evening."

Her voice was like silk dragged across steel—soft but with something harder underneath.

Without waiting for his response, she reached for the knot of her obi, beginning to unwrap the elaborate ties with the efficiency of someone who'd performed this ritual a thousand times. The kimono began to slip from her shoulders, revealing the pale curve of her collarbone.

"Stop," Arata said harshly.

She froze, surprise flickering across her features before the mask slammed back into place. "My lord? Have I displeased you somehow? I assure you, I'm quite skilled—"

"Put your clothes back on." The words came out harsher than he intended, dripping with disgust he couldn't quite control.

Now genuine confusion broke through her composure. She clutched the kimono to her chest, studying him with eyes that were dark as mountain lakes. "I... don't understand. If my appearance is not to your liking, I can summon another—"

"It's not your appearance." Arata turned away, unable to look at her without seeing his absent mother, without feeling the old rage and abandonment claw up his throat. "Just cover yourself. I'm not here for... that."

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant sound of shamisen music drifting up from below. He heard rustling as she retied her obi, the whisper of silk settling back into place.

"Then why are you here, my lord?" Her voice was carefully neutral now, the professional warmth evaporated.

"Because my retainer is a stubborn old fool who thinks this place will cure what's wrong with me." Arata sank down against the far wall, putting as much distance between them as the small room allowed. "I can't leave for two hours, or he'll have me standing night watch until my legs fall off. So we're going to sit here in silence, and then I'm going to leave. Understand?"

"...I see." Something flickered in her eyes—relief? Disappointment? He couldn't tell. "As you wish, my lord."

She settled back onto her cushion, folding her hands in her lap with perfect propriety, and the silence descended like a burial shroud.

Arata stared at the opposite wall, trying to ignore her presence, trying not to think about why being in this room made his skin feel too tight. But the silence pressed down on him, suffocating, until he felt like he might scream just to break it.

The woman seemed equally uncomfortable, her perfect posture starting to waver as the minutes crawled past. Once, she opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. The professional mask was slipping, revealing something raw underneath—uncertainty, perhaps. Confusion.

Finally, Arata couldn't bear it anymore. "What's your name?" he demanded.

She blinked, startled. "I am called whatever my patrons wish to—"

"I didn't ask what you're called. I asked your name."

A pause, heavy with consideration. Then, quietly: "Akari. Akari Saitō."

"Saitō," he repeated, and laughed bitterly. "A samurai name. How did someone from a samurai family end up spreading her legs for coin?"

He saw her flinch—saw the mask crack just slightly—and felt a savage satisfaction that he immediately hated himself for. But the words kept coming, poisonous and unstoppable.

"Let me guess," he continued, his voice dripping with venom. "You wanted the easy life? Better to paint your face and smile for fat merchants than to work honest labor? Is that it? Or maybe you just liked it—the attention, the power of making men beg—"

"Stop." Her voice was low, dangerous. The mask had shattered completely now, revealing fury beneath. "You know nothing about me."

"I know enough. You're a prostitute. You sell yourself. That's all I need to know."

"And you're a spoiled noble who sits in judgment of people whose lives you couldn't possibly understand!" Her composure broke like ice in spring, and suddenly she was on her feet, hands clenched into fists. "You think I chose this? You think I wanted to end up here?"

"Everyone makes choices—"

"I was fifteen!" The words ripped out of her, raw and jagged. "Fifteen years old when the bandits came to our village. They killed my father while he tried to protect us. They killed my mother while she begged for mercy. They killed my little brother while I hid in a rice barrel like a coward and listened to him scream!"

Arata's breath caught.

"And when it was over," Akari continued, her voice breaking, "when everything I loved was ashes, one of them found me. Dragged me out. And I thought he was going to kill me too, and I prayed for it. Prayed to every god and Buddha that he would just end it quickly."

Tears streamed down her face, cutting tracks through her white makeup. "But he didn't kill me. He sold me. Sold me to a brothel in Kyoto where the matron looked at me like I was livestock and told me I should be grateful—grateful!—that I was pretty enough to earn my keep on my back instead of scrubbing floors."

She was shaking now, the words pouring out like blood from a wound that had never healed. "So no, my lord, I didn't choose this! I didn't choose to smile for men who look at me like I'm meat! I didn't choose to pretend I enjoy being touched by strangers! I didn't choose any of it!"

Before Arata could respond, she closed the distance between them and began hitting his chest—not hard enough to hurt, but with a desperate frustration that made each blow feel like an accusation. "You nobles come here with your fine clothes and your full bellies and your judgments, and you know nothing! Nothing about what it takes to survive! Nothing about what we give up just to see another day!"

"I'm sorry," Arata whispered, but she wasn't listening.

"Every night I paint this face! Every night I smile and bow and pretend! And inside I'm dying, piece by piece, until I don't even know who I am anymore!" Her fists clutched at his yukata, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that had turned to water. "I hate this place! I hate these men! I hate what I've become! But I don't know how to be anything else anymore!"

Her sobs broke through the last of her words, and she collapsed against him, shaking with the force of emotions too long suppressed. Arata sat frozen, her tears soaking through his clothes, her grief a mirror of his own.

He should comfort her. Should say something. But what words could possibly matter against the weight of what she'd endured?

So he did nothing. Just sat there as she wept into his chest, her hands twisted in his yukata, and let the minutes crawl past in the heavy silence of shared suffering.

When her tears finally subsided, Akari pulled back, her makeup ruined, her eyes red and swollen. "I apologize, my lord," she said stiffly, trying to reassemble the professional mask even as it lay in pieces around her. "That was inappropriate."

"No," Arata said quietly. "It wasn't."

She looked at him then—really looked at him—and for the first time, he met her gaze without flinching. There was no disgust in his eyes now. No judgment. Just a recognition of pain answering pain.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "For what I said. For... everything."

Akari said nothing, just pulled away and returned to her cushion, wiping at her face with her sleeve. They sat in silence for the remaining time, but it was different now—less suffocating, somehow. Less alone.

When the two hours finally ended, Arata stood and moved toward the door. He paused in the doorway, looking back at her. "What you've survived," he said quietly, "takes more strength than any sword technique I'll ever learn."

Then he left, stepping out into the corridor and back into his life, but carrying with him the weight of her story and the haunting beauty of her broken face in the moonlight.