Did people not go to mountain towns for the starkness of nature? Did they not go to forget their busy lives for a while, and take solace in the silence, appreciate the simple things, a warm hearth, a hot bath, a comfortable place to rest?
Instead, An had erected temples to vanity. Its visitors had not been able to stand removal, Hideshi trusted, from their false gods for long. This teahouse matched his company. Cheap, beaten gold. Vulgar artwork. Foreign, to boot. He looked away from the cavorting naked forms in nervous disgust.
Hideshi wanted to spit. Ensconced in his master’s rigorous household, he had been shielded from Eikon’s decay. The scales had not fallen from his eyes, they had been ripped away. Hideshi wanted to weep.
Two attendants walked them down a hall of lavish pronography - they might as well have been back in Hakana. So trained to fade into the background, so devoid of life were these men that they did not twitch as much as an eyebrow at Hideshi’s appearance. Dressed in a yukata in the dead of winter, his hot, swollen face purpling already around the eye and the jaw. He looked as much of a prisoner as he felt. The brisk mountain air had been a balm to him. The steamy, perfumed interior, like a sour cup of jasmine tea, was yet another punishment.
But his animal nature betrayed him. The smell of food set his mouth watering. He glared sidelong at the waif of a courtesan. He was sure he never ate - he was sure he subsisted on fine vapors and the cum of his lovers alone. When had Hideshi last had a solid meal? Before he had met Madoka, and damned himself at all?
They were lead to a room at the back, for the important guests, very expensive, Hideshi was sure. The door opened with a formidable shove from the two attendants, revealing a wide expanse of table, at the head of which two figures sat.
One of them was known to Hideshi. The flickering lamplight rendered her ghoulish - or, in so far as she could be made any more so. He raised his chin in a defiant grimace. He had been humiliated before her, by her, already. He was lowered no more by his current display. Let her see that, if he was to be a dog, cornered and beaten and starved, he would still bite.
The other figure, upon whom his eye alighted next, he did not know. As it did, he knew that he did not want hers to alight on him. Not in this state. His defiance was snuffed as quickly as he’d kindled it. Hideshi stepped back into Madoka’s shadow and lowered his head.
But her neck - her neck in the lamplight. The unorthodox cut of her vestment pulled his gaze like a moth to the flame. Even the flowers in her hair, frivolous, a-seasonal, lead the eye unfailingly down to that expanse of fine, naked skin.
Chie. Hideshi had only his master. He was not tempted by any show of femininity, for he was stronger than his urges. But her neck - her bare neck - he was not bewitched, but Hideshi understood for the first the madness that had taken his master’s brother.
Beneath the cosmetics that caked her, applied, he was sure, at the behest of that detestable grandame, her features were so fine. Her eyes were properly downturned, her lashes stark black against her skin, as she bowed before him, and a shiver went down his spine. His cheeks burned as she looked upon his cartoonish clothing. His ravaged face.
If any woman had said those words to him - handsome, rugged, in his current state. He would have slapped her down for her insolence. But she was not any woman. Her voice was not so enchanting as her appearance. Hideshi bowed to her, and said nothing.
・
He looked like a performing animal. Madoka might as well have dragged him in on a leash. Yukiko would have sneered, but her make-up was too good. Her face remained perfectly unmoved as she made her greetings.
Even as she went up to Madoka, the corners of her lips quirked up in only the tiniest of smiles. ‘Don’t you look
splendid,’ she determined.
Yukiko was a master of the brush. She could become her own canvas with ease; artistry was artistry. But Madoka was a master of
presentation. His art was
arriving, and
being, and drawing every eye.
She did not want to draw him like this; she had nothing to add. No, to the contrary, she thought, casting an eye at the uncouth little man Madoka had dragged in with him. There was something she wanted to subtract. ‘But could you not have thrown something becoming over him? Or knocked him out completely? What a farce - like seating a dog at the table.’ She said this so politely that the meaning of her words was nearly lost.
Not that the dog in question was listening, so entranced was he by the sight of Chie. Yukiko rolled her eyes. She supposed it was to their benefit. ‘Shall we sit?’ She suggested to all, and they did. The attendants swept in with hot towels, and vanished as quickly as they’d come.
At least he knew his manners well enough not to wipe his beaten face. He braced his hands against his knees and stared pointedly down at his setting, inscrutable, or just empty of sensate thought.
‘Hideshi-san,’ she said, and watched his shoulders tense beneath his ridiculous costume. She smiled. ‘Correct me if I am mistaken, but you have not been formally introduced to our Chie, is that right? This,’ she reached out and caught the prim angle of Chie's jaw in her hand. ‘Is Chiharu. Chie-chan,
this is Nouda Hideshi.’
Through Madoka and through Chie, Yukiko had put the pieces of the puzzle together. The next game started now. Nouda’s retainer knew who Chie was, and what had happened between her and Nouda’s brother, so that was over and done with. He was here now. All that remained was to obfuscate him completely. Send him running in some direction - preferably off of one of the many majestic summits they were surrounded by - perhaps get a sample of his writing first, so that she could continue the subterfuge in many an ardent letter to his cherished master.
Only one who knew Yukiko would know that she was smiling. Now Chiharu only had to perform.