Yumi kept silent.
Toying with the rim of her cup, Mariko averted her gaze. “I learned something else that afternoon, though it would take me an unforgivable amount of time to realize it fully. I learned how unaware I was of life outside my experience. I used that poor boy like a thing to be discarded, never once considering what might happen to him.” Something caught in her throat, a shimmer welling in her dark eyes. “Do you know the most important time I realized my own ignorance?
Yumi shook her head.
“It was that night you and I first met, at the teahouse next door. When I watched you dance wearing a mask meant to entice, and I was so jealous of you. Even more jealous when I saw you doff the mask for Ōkami. I knew at that moment how much you cared for each other. I realized then that every person has a story to tell. And for every person, that story is the most important one. Since the day I first saw you, that feeling has stayed with me.” Her eyes locked on Yumi, her expression wholly without guile. “I never want to be the kind of person who uses others solely for her own gain again.”
In silence, Yumi moved to her dressing table. Her chest felt strangely tense, though her soul felt lighter than she could recall it being for a long time. She twisted the lid off a jar of white paint, then dipped a dampened sea sponge in its center. With careful patting motions, she covered her face and neck until they were coated in a thin layer resembling the palest cream. Then she picked up a charred piece of paulownia wood, holding its edge to a flame until it began to smolder. Yumi felt Mariko’s gaze on her as she used the ashes to darken her eyebrows.
“What do you see when you look at me, Mariko?” Yumi asked while she painted careful lines above her eyelashes with a three-haired brush.
“A maiko. A smart, lovely young woman.”
“Anything more?”
“I see mystery and sadness. Anger. Not necessarily because you were born a woman”—Mariko smiled in obvious remembrance of what Yumi had said not too long ago—“but more because you have always been treated as less than what you are.”
“Those feelings are to be expected,” Yumi said. “Young women do not find their way to an okiya from a place of hope. Whatever mystery you sense is the work of my trade.” She put down the smoldering paulownia wood. “In truth, I hate the idea of mystery, and if I could, I would say whatever I wanted and do whatever I wished every day of my life.”
Mariko’s grin widened. “We should create a world for women like us. It would be a thing to see.”
“I intend to do just that,” Yumi said. She loosened her obi from around her waist, then untied her kimono to hang it from a wooden display rack with great care. After she crossed to the back of the room, she removed two sets of nondescript garments from a fragrant tansu chest.
Garments made for a boy.
“Will you join me?” Yumi asked. She let her smile widen slowly until it took on an air of mischief. It was a look Yumi hid from most people. One of unbridled happiness, absent any calculation.
After the initial shock, delight warmed across Mariko’s face. “It would be my honor to join you.”
Her openness endeared Mariko to Yumi even further, for the younger girl did not ask where it was they were going. What it was Yumi wished them to do.
Hattori Mariko trusted Asano Yumi.
Later tonight there would be time for Mariko to share any more information she might have obtained at Heian Castle. For Yumi to agree to pass along Mariko’s revelations to Tsuneoki. For Yumi to continue playing Mariko’s brother for a fool.
But for now?
They would be two girls racing across the rooftops of Inako, with freedom coiling through their hair and their shadows fading into the dusk.
Together.
More Than Love
You won’t believe what she did next.” Mariko leaned forward conspiratorially as she continued working in near darkness. “That same man who yelled at the melon vendor tried to filch Dragon’s Beard candy from a little boy. Yumi was incensed, so she stole a chamber pot and emptied it on his head.” She snickered while tying the last little vial to the loop on the end of the string. “He screamed as though he were being murdered. We had to leap over two nearby rooftops so he wouldn’t catch us. I almost fell, but I haven’t laughed so hard in forever.”
Grinning, Ōkami took hold of the other end of the string, sliding the vial past the iron bars of his cell, over the strip of moonlight, and into his waiting hand.
“If only her brother had been able to see that,” he said.
Mariko met his gaze, her eyes wide. “Would he be mad? Should I not have told you? I was trying to share something lighthearted.”
“No, I asked you to tell me what you did today.” Ōkami’s laughter was quiet and warm. “I just didn’t realize you’d clambered onto the city’s rooftops to terrorize the populace with Asano Yumi.”
Mariko gnawed at her lower lip. “I wouldn’t want to get her in trouble with Tsuneoki. I … really like Yumi.”
“Since I’m currently in chains awaiting execution, her brother likely won’t find out anytime soon. But in the event my circumstances change …” Though his face still appeared bruised and battered, Ōkami’s grin turned sly. “I can’t make any promises about staying silent. If you wish to offer me a bribe, I would not protest.”
“That’s not the least bit amusing.” Mariko cut her gaze. “Only you would jest about dying.”
“I think it’s appropriate, following a story about a man being drenched in someone else’s waste.” The chains by his feet jangled as Ōkami braced his elbows on his knees. “The best jokes end with shit or death.”
At that, Mariko laughed again. The same kind of laughter she’d shared with Yumi earlier that evening. It had been the first time in a long while that she’d allowed herself the luxury. Indeed there had been a moment just yesterday when she’d wondered if she would ever laugh at anything again.
Upon returning to the castle grounds, the first thing she’d wanted to do was tell Ōkami what had happened. To laugh with him about it. Sometimes it frightened Mariko how much he had come to matter to her.
“Is the lock cold yet?” she asked softly, so Ōkami would not detect the emotion in her voice.
Ōkami reached down into the small hole beside his foot. The sound of shifting metal coiled into the night air. He sighed. “Not yet.”
Mariko exhaled with frustration.
It’s taking too long.
The night prior, Mariko had brought a pilfered spoon to Ōkami. She’d instructed him to find a soft space in the earthen floor near his legs. To dig a small but deep hole, large enough to fit the lock securing his chains.
Her idea had been to weaken the metal by exposing it to the kind of cold that never saw the sun. The kind that froze into the earth and never thawed, even during summer. In her chamber, she’d crushed remnants of charcoal she’d collected from beneath the castle. After storing the powder in two empty cosmetic vials, she’d brought them to Ōkami, thinking to pour them into the lock and spark a controlled burst of fire within the mechanism. Hoping it would give way.
“I wish it weren’t so warm outside,” she said. “If the lock doesn’t frost over, it may not work.”
“I would not be disappointed in you if it failed, Mariko.” Ōkami’s voice was thick. “You astound me at every turn.”
Mariko glanced around for a way to change the subject. Her eyes settled on the stream of moonlight cascading from the narrow window cut high above. It made her long to be bathed beneath its cool glow, fast asleep in Ōkami’s arms.
“The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” she said.
“I imagine the moon would be a thing of beauty on a night like this. But I prefer what I’m looking at now.” His eyes remained focused on Mariko as he spoke.
Ōkami had been right when he’d said Mariko eschewed most sentiments. But this was a feeling she could not ignore. A vital feeling, like a hand being burned when held too close to a flame. “You likely say that to all the girls who rescue you,” she mumbled.
He did not smile. “They are a candle in the sunlight compared to you.”