I try to open my mouth to talk, but trying to get words out feels like pushing boulders out of my throat. I take the handkerchief and just nod.
“Feel free to keep that handkerchief. I’ve got seven of those.” He opens the door wider for me. “After you.”
I do as he says, daubing my eyes. I clear my throat. “What are you doing here?”
The Geisha lets the train station door shut and catches up to me. “I just had a feeling I should be here, tonight.”
“Be serious, Geisha.”
He rolls his eyes. “Fine. I wanted to stop at Twenty-Pho-Seven. But can we pretend like I had a sixth sense? That sounds much better.”
His words tug a faint curl from my lips. I sniff again. “If you say so.”
Genji looks around. “How about we have a seat somewhere?”
I dab the corner of my eyes with the handkerchief. “But don’t you have to catch the train? It’s late.”
“The train runs twenty-four hours,” The Geisha says. “Besides, I don’t think I could leave you here in good conscience without doing something.”
Good conscience? It’s weird to think of an assassin as having one of those. Though I suppose it’s probably because his Geisha instincts are kicking in. We head to the familiar corner where he had me meet him last time and sit down. It’s strange to sit by him now. Last time, he was the one that was distressed; this time it’s me.
The Geisha removes his tweed cap and lays in his lap. “Care to tell me what’s upsetting you?”
“You sure you want to hear it?”
“Your thoughts are always fascinating to hear, Hound.” He clasps his hands together. “But venting to a Geisha is its own catharsis.”
I fold the black handkerchief, creasing it over and over into a neat black square: the same way Megumi would have if she were still alive. “It was just an argument with my fiancé.”
He tilts his head toward me. The way he tilts his head makes me think that maybe he’s not listening for words, but for my feelings. “About?”
I finger the corner of the handkerchief. “He’s been really pushing wanting to talk about marriage stuff and I haven’t been in the mood to talk about it with all of this CRISIS-D madness that’s been going on.”
He nods. “Understandable. Has he been told?”
I crumple the handkerchief in my hands. “Can’t do it.”
The Geisha’s fingers lace together. He frowns. “Why not? That’s an awfully important thing to hide from your significant other.”
“I don’t know I just…” Averting my gaze toward the entrance, I sigh. “How would you react if your spouse told you that they were being blackmailed, or hunted down by terrorists? Even when I was in Showguns, I could tell that all he was looking forward to was when I would quit.”
“But he knew you were? And he tolerated it?”
“Only if I promised not to kill anyone.” My hand opens, I crumple the handkerchief and unfold it again. “I figured that sounded fair. Killing off your fellow members of humanity isn’t an admirable trait anyway.”
The Geisha studies his hands, glances over at the bento box line, a hint of his smile inching across his face.
I elbow him. “What’s so funny?”
“Forgive me, perhaps I shouldn’t but I feel inclined to be the devil’s advocate here.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You think killing other people is admirable?”
“Killing in general? Admirable?” Genji raises both of his eyebrows back. “Oh heavens no. That’s terrible. But Hound that’s not what Showguns was made for. It was made to root out corruption in politics, to be an organization for people who just have no place in normal society, and to be a voice for people who couldn’t take things into their own hands.”
Slumping a little in my seat, I stare up at the screens flashing the train departure schedules. “But it was made by a dictator.”
“She wasn’t a dictator when she took power, Hound. She became one when she started to ignore the voice of the people, and tried to destroy the shrines and temples,” The Geisha says. “But the people are just as guilty of turning blind eyes and doing nothing while she did.”
I narrow my eyes. “I don’t get what any of this has to do with me and my fiancé. Or killing.”
He holds up a finger. “Let me finish, Hound.” He puts his cap back on and crosses his legs. “My point is that it’s all in perspective. Asking someone to change because a habit is dangerous is one thing, but imposing change on someone because they think that’s how you should live is another. In my opinion, it’s still as bad as killing someone with a gun. Maybe even worse.”
I sit back in my chair, frowning. “You almost sound like Ken."
The Geisha makes a face. “Gross.”
I elbow him again. “Hey, be nice.”
He scoffs. “I’m sorry, Hound, but Ken is the last person who should be giving any life advice. He’s been spoiled since he was born and his entire life is practically already decided.”
I scoff back at him. “Oh? And you haven’t “Mr. Son Of Mai The Leader Of The Silent Seven?”
He snorts. “Have you not paid any attention to our relationship, Hound? My mother doesn’t believe in making things easier for her own child. I had to work for everything. And you know how things wound up at the retirement party. But that is…” He drums his fingers on the outside of his knee. “There is no point in visiting that anymore. What I’m trying to say is the only difference between killing a person with a gun and making a person change is where the bullet wound is.”
At least the bullet kills right away. One good bang and you’re done for, change is so subtle; you don’t see yourself die until everything has gone wrong. I run my thumb over the silk. My finger pads brush over something: gold embroidered letters. GF. “Did you read that in one of your philosophy books?”
“No.” He leans in closer. “That’s a Genji original, Hound.” His breath tickles my ear.
My skin warms and a slight quivering starts in my fingers. I should be getting back home. But as I sit there next to him, I can’t bring myself to say those words. Maybe I’m pushing my luck. Maybe I’m running away from my problems. Maybe I’ve lost my gods-damned mind. But I don’t want to leave. I’d stay here from one sun rise to the next. Because at least here at the train station, my life makes some fucking sense. No wondering what I should do. No getting dragged by the ankles. No binding commitments. No one trying to murder me. No labels or duties. It’s the place I feel perfectly balanced and everything seems laid in plain black and white: a path of least resistance where the route to your destination is always straightforward and the only identity I have to everyone aboard is That Girl On The Train.
An outgoing train chugs out of the station. An incoming one opens its doors, letting off a few passengers. I catch the Geisha following my gaze. And I have to admit, in his scarf, cap, and his thoughtful stare, he looks like he could be a modern philosopher.
But then he whispers, “Do you want to take a ride with me?”
The huskiness in his voice sends a jolt down my spine and I’m suddenly aware of just how close he is to me, how close his lips are to my skin, and how close mine are to his. From his mouth, the question seems like a dare. Where? At this time of night? So many questions that I probably should be asking. But looking in his eyes, every doubt I have gets pushed to the back of my mind in a spur of adrenaline and the feeling that everything will be alright. “Of course, I do.”
Revolution (Heart Hall)
Revolution: 5-0 'Ah'
Revolution
1. A dramatic and wide-reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people's ideas about it
~~~
“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate the enemy
To do so may cost one to lose his valuable life.
Therefore, when two armies engage in a battle,
The party that feels the sorrow of killing shall win.”
— Lao Tzu
~~~
“No worries,” he tells her. No worries for one night. The challenge.
“You’re on,” she says.
The Geisha follows the Hound on board the train. Like any ordinary couple they sit together in first-class across from a balding man nodding off with a magazine in hand. The train roars to life and rattles its way out of the station.
The Geisha and the Hound scoot to the window, watching the rain bead against the panes, watching Tokaido’s nocturnal heartbeat pump the city with life before their eyes.
Boulevards sprawl out like stretching cats. Passing streetlights become blurred threads. A couple of Tokaido University students lock hands and blend into a line for a late night sushi bar. A man bashes the buttons of an ATM, unaware.
The Geisha and the Hound move like mirrored images of the other: the Hound puts her chin in her hand; the Geisha follows suit. As she shifts her weight from one side to the other, so does he. When her foot bumps his, a chuckle leaves them both.
She playfully accuses him of being a copycat. He denies. Mid-ride, the Geisha enthuses about the nightclub they’re passing: the Honne, an old favorite that his mother used to frequent in Yamamura. She frowns. He chides her about their agreement.
No worries for one night.
When the train hits their stop at the Tokaido Boardwalk, they are walking closer than when they stepped on. His hand gently guides her from the small of her back.
The Hound makes no protest. The Geisha feels her shiver against his warm palm. He isn’t sure if it is pleasure that drives her or guilt.
Tonight, the he promises, they will be the flaneur, man of the world, observer of everything like the Tower of Dao.
Tonight, the she remarks, she’d like to not get wet from the rain.
He opens his umbrella for her and laughs. But in the shadows she is not sharing his mirth.
No worries, he reminds her with a nudge, no worries for one night.
She hoists a smile onto her face, and loops her arm through his.
They pass coffee shops and shaved ice places. They pass clubs and bistros with their open signs still flashing. They pass a supermarket with a gabled red roof and lion dog statues guarding the latticed doors, a withered woman in an apron and visor still offering yakitori samples. Yakitoriiiiii, she calls meekly to the drizzle-dampened streets, yakitoriiiii.
Somewhere along their walk, their shoes tread the long wooden planks that lead out to sea. The Hound’s mind starts to drift, a lone boat cut from the coast, at the mercy of the waves and the mood of the tide, trying to comprehend how the ocean, something so powerful can rest on the horizon so peacefully, always molding to the shape of the earth. Does the god of the sea ever get frustrated that land stops it from going further? Or that the moon god can control the tides? That the mortals can dump their garbage in it whenever they like with no consequence? Does it ever tire of yielding?
The warmth of the Geisha’s hand on her chin brings her attention back to shore, to his eyes, the hard palpitations in her chest as he brings her close. His lips surge against hers like the waves and her whole world capsizes in the depths of his mouth.
No worries, he breathes against her warm lips.
The Hound grips the lapels of his jacket, No worries for one night.
Their lips crash together again and again. Inhibitions drowning in a haze of lips meeting lips, tongues sparring back and forth, moans and gasped pleasure, and flushing heat under their skin surging hotter. Wilder. Growing. No longer able to be contained.
It is eleven o’ clock when they leave the edge of the boardwalk. Eleven thirty when Regi calls. Eleven forty-five when the Geisha and the Hound steal into the Nirvana love hotel to escape the rain. Eleven fifty when the Geisha pins the Hound to the wall in the elevator, and she massages the bulge in his pants. Eleven fifty-three when the pair haphazardly opens the door to their room. Eleven fifty-four when the Geisha’s mouth finds her neck. Eleven fifty-seven when the Hound yanks down the Geisha’s pants. Eleven fifty-nine when he guides himself inside of her.
Twelve o’clock. Regi calls his fiancé again.
But the Geisha throbs in her contracting walls, kisses her neck, and smiles into her shoulder as he holds her close on yin-black satin sheets. Fingers slowly combing through his unruly sex-hair, one gold eye open, the Hound listens to him go on about the funny happenings he’s seen as a Geisha, the white lies people will weave for a rendezvous, the secrets they’ll entrust to a stranger, the facades that they put on. Completely attentive.
The Hound asks him what he thinks of hers.
Facade? He says it like it is an impossibility, a lost legend, something that would stump even the greatest of his philosophers. Then he laces his fingers with hers. Assures her with a kiss that he has never seen such thing. Maybe she has shown one to others, but never to him.
But how can you be so sure? She insists. After all, she doesn’t even know herself.
Because Geishas are mirrors, he says. The only places where facades don’t keep.
The words quiet her finally.
And she does not worry.
Not a single worry for the rest of the night.
But someone else does.
Two floors down, a door slides open and a huge hand thrusts a wet, shivering Masah inside. She scrabbles to sit up, her eyes wide.
A massive man in black enters the room and stands against the wall with his arms folded, red eyes pinned on Masah. “Don’t move.”
She doesn’t need to be told twice. Even if she wanted to, their magic could force her to do anything against her will. Masah huddles with her cloak around her for comfort, blinking rapidly. She doesn’t want the dragons to see her cry.
The war goddess wishes that she never left home with Mura to hunt Amaterasu. She wishes that she never ran away from her mother. She wishes that she never put hands on Megumi. And most importantly, she wishes that she never got caught out in the cold, her very weakness.
Outside, thunder bellows a strained muffled cry, sounding every bit as distressed as she is. Masah wonders maybe if it’s looking for her.
I should’ve told the truth. Maybe Mura would’ve hated her guts, but then Masah would’ve been spared the punishment, Mura’s lies would’ve never spiraled out of control, and Masah would be at home safe and watching the season finale of The Red Hood.
And she wouldn’t have killed another god.
The door opens again.
Masah peers from the cover of her cloak. More crimson-eyed men enter, then a black-haired woman in a black trench coat.
Masah’s heart skips at the sight of the woman, only to deflate when she sees that the woman has the same piercing red eyes as the men.
The woman reaches into her coat for a cigarette and appraises Masah with narrowed eyes; the long yellow feelers beneath her nose curl and uncurl. She blows a thin stream of blue fire to light the tip of her cigarette. “So you’re the Vermilion Bird, hmm?” She sounds utterly disappointed, as she’d been expecting Masah to have the aquiline majesty of an eagle instead of the plainness of a common pigeon.
Masah’s eyes dart from the men in the room to the woman that spoke. “Yes.”
The woman takes a long drag of her cigarette. She blows a double ring of smoke from her nostrils. “You haven’t been in this world very long, have you?”
“No.”
The woman gives a wheezy laugh. “Lesson number one is on the house kid: Never underestimate a dragon in combat, baby bird.”
Masah bristles at the address, but remains still.
The woman takes another a puff of her cigarette. “Daisuke.”
The massive dragon at the wall detaches. “Yes, Uriko?”
Uriko paces the foot of the bed. “What were the polarity test results for baby bird here? Can we bring her to King Ryuu?”
“She’s Yang, Ma’m. Like that human we picked up,” Daisuke says.
Uriko frowns. “We don’t need another Yang vessel. We need a Yin vessel.”
A thin dragon
with frayed feeler ends says, “We might be able to get some use out of her still. I heard that Heaven might be planning to change her set up since we sent that present. We could use baby bird here to break in with no problems.”
At the mention of Heaven, Masah stiffens. She forces herself to breathe and look neutral.
“Hmm…” Uriko turns her gaze onto Masah again. Then she faces her fellow dragons. “We won’t need our connect anymore. Especially not if our deal with Antonym goes through.”
Daisuke shoves his hands into his pockets.“I don’t know if we should be so quick to get rid of him. What about that assassin he told us about? Before we were going to keep the human? He never did say if she got Devil’s Disease or anything.”
Uriko takes another drag of her cigarette. “Maybe she’s dead.”
“Or immune,” Daisuke says.
Uriko studies him. “You think she might be the kid we’re looking for?”
“Or the life of Amaterasu that Rin shot at,” Daisuke says with a glance at the frayed-feeler dragon. “We could send in the human to check. They’re friends aren’t they?”
“Even so, most of the lives are Yang-polarity. They’d be the same case as baby bird at this point.”
“But it wouldn’t hurt us to have the lives,” Rin says. “Or to at least get the useless ones out of the way.”
Masah perks up a little. There’s more than one Amaterasu?
“Hmm… that is true,” Uriko says. “But until then, we ought to keep running searches on the Archdemon’s counterparts in the city.”
Archdemon? Masah has only overheard the title once from Bastet and her mother in passing: a creature so vile and twisted that her anger caused the worlds to be split into two. But why would dragons want to be associated with that?
But the dragons do not elaborate on this and instead indulge in their own devices: making phone calls, smoking cigarettes and cigars, shooting dice, things that Masah always see gangsters in movies and on tv. If I were strong enough, none of this would’ve happened. She tucks her head down back into the shelter of her cloaks and listens to the thunder scream into the night. She watches the lightning rip across the sky, and cast the room in flashes of blinding light.
Vicissitude Yang Side Page 42