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Oiran: Chapter 3 - Onnagata

by Haku Baikou ::: 09.Jul.2003

Jubei glanced up in exasperation at the silken clad beauty before him and took a deep breath, willing himself to remain calm. He set the charcoal piece he was drawing with down on a small tray nearby and folded his hands, careful to keep from staining his sleeves.

“This session would go faster,” he stated in what he hoped was a patient and reasonable tone of voice, “If you could manage to hold still every once in a while.”

A tragic little sigh. A coquettishly demure dip of long thick eyelashes peeking over the edge of a delicately embroidered fan. Jubei’s petite subject continued to fidget under the heavy layers of silk and brocade that draped alluringly over an elegantly slim frame.

Jubei sighed. “Oh for heaven’s sake, will you stop that?”

“But I’m tired,” came a low sultry voice. “Why can’t I pose sitting down? Do you make Yumi stand this long when you do her portraits?”

Jubei rolled his eyes.

“Did—Did you just roll your eyes at me?” The incredulous voice raised a notch in pitch. The fan snapped shut revealing a strikingly beautiful, painted face. One which looked rather annoyed at the moment. A delicate eyebrow arched upwards expectantly, waiting for an apology.

“Kamatari,” Jubei growled.

“Hmm?” the young onnagata looked at him with wide, innocent eyes.

“Would you like to hold still for five more minutes? Or would you prefer I nail your feet to the floor?”

Kamatari blinked. “Someone must not have had enough sleep last night. Someone seems a tad irritable today.” The actor threw Jubei a nasty little sidelong glance and pouted in perfect imitation of a sulking young lady.

Jubei noted with smug satisfaction that the young man was at least holding still now.

“Thank you. Now please stay there and don’t move. I’m finishing up. It won’t be long now, I promise you.”

Jubei picked up the charcoal piece again and resumed his sketching.

His subject—uncooperative though he may be—really was a lovely specimen of humanity, Jubei had to admit. Kamatari was an up-and-coming young actor of one of Asakusa’s more eminent Kabuki playhouses. The young man possessed an extraordinary beauty, a luminous presence that rivaled most women Jubei knew. And the women Jubei knew tended to be quite beautiful, considering he associated mostly with oiran and geisha.

Kamatari’s physical pulchritude was not his only asset, however. The boy really could act, could imitate a woman with uncanny accuracy. Was a paragon of feminine poise and grace, was Kamatari. No wonder, then, that old Hiro, the theatre manager had snatched up the boy the moment he first laid eyes on him and sent the young man to the best trainers to learn how to be an onnagata, a female impersonator.

And what an onnagata he turned out to be, thought Jubei. The boy had great potential and would surely attain widespread fame someday. Or so Hiro had said. Which was why the old manager had approached Jubei with a request to do the young man’s picture. Jubei had helped Komagata Yumi become famous, after all, and old Hiro had asked if he could do the same for Honjou Kamatari.

Jubei had reluctantly agreed. And when the young man had amused Jubei to no end at their first meeting, he had then seriously taken up Hiro’s request. Jubei had since painted the youngster’s portrait several times despite the fact that each time, he subjected himself to the boy’s restless temperament and impish tendency towards mischief.

It was the boy’s one major fault, this restlessness. In all other respects, he was perfect at his trade, acting as a woman, demure and ladylike both on-stage and off, all hours of the day, according to the tradition of the greatest of the onnagata. He was perfect at it almost all of the time.

It was the “almost” that was the problem.

For Kamatari had a propensity towards troublemaking, one of his few unladylike tendencies. The young man had a restless energy that could not be quelled, and his control would occasionally slip. He had an alarming predisposition, at such times, for ending up in street brawls. And fighting with a goddamned scythe of all things, as unbelievable as it seemed. Jubei never could figure out how such a slight young man could wield such an awkward and heavy weapon. But Kamatari seemed to do rather well with it and had proven himself in fights on several occasions, much to the dismay and chagrin of his employers.

“Your face,” old Hiro would often wail. “You mustn’t damage that precious face of yours, Kamatari-kun! Why, oh why can’t you hire a bodyguard like the others do?”

Jubei smiled to himself. His young friend was quite a character, that was for certain. Kamatari’s strange blend of passive femininity and ebullient rabble-rousing may have been an endless source of anxiety for old Hiro and the other managers. But the actor’s steadily growing legion of fans adored him all the more for his outrageousness. They apparently found his erratic and violent eccentricities endearing. And old Hiro really could not complain about the fighting since it was in just such a rambunctious brawl that he had first spotted the boy. Not like the old man didn’t know the boy had such wayward tendencies.

“What on earth is so amusing, Jubei-san?”

Jubei came out of his reverie to find the young actor looking at him quizzically. He smiled. “I was thinking of street brawls.”

“And they amuse you?” Kamatari asked.

The boy’s confusion only heightened Jubei’s good humor.

“You amuse me.”

“Hmm. Everything amuses you.” Kamatari fanned himself and idly brushed back a strand of his long, waist-length hair.

“Remember the day when old Hiro first discovered you?”

“Vaguely.”

“Vaguely? You and your little friends nearly tore down the front pillars of Senso Temple.”

“Why does everyone have to bring that up all the time,” the young man muttered under his breath.

“I was just wondering what that particular fight was about.”

Kamatari shrugged. “Some jealous lover, I suppose. Same as always. I honestly don’t recall.”

Jubei shook his head in amused awe. “Were all your lovers so violent?”

“Some more so than others. The female ones were usually the worst. I’ve learned to avoid them at all costs.” The boy suppressed a lazy yawn. “Aren’t you quite finished yet, Jubei-san?”

“Hai, hai.” Jubei set aside his drawing board and charcoal and stood to clean his hands in the basin of water left for him by one of the servants. The basin, like everything else in the young actor’s suite of rooms, was gorgeously opulent. Far too extravagant a bowl to be washing charcoal stained hands in, thought Jubei. But Kamatari didn’t seem to have anything more plain.

The young man sauntered over to Jubei’s drawing, tilting his head this way and that as he appraised the sketch.

“Well?” asked Jubei.

“It’s absolutely lovely,” murmured Kamatari appreciatively. “Stunning. And quite accurate.”

Jubei snorted. “No woman I know would be so outwardly confident of her beauty.”

“No woman you know has reason to be.”

Jubei laughed. Too hard. And frowned as he had to stifle an unexpected little cough.

If Kamatari noticed, he gave no indication of it. He absently motioned for Jubei to sit down and have some tea while he casually began to take off the various layers of his complex Kabuki attire.

Servant boys scurried magically out from nowhere to pick up the various pieces of clothing dropped carelessly to the floor by the young actor before disappearing again, no doubt taking the costume to be carefully laundered. Jubei winced a little at seeing such expensive fabrics dumped so casually to the floor. It was yet another of Kamatari’s odd quirks, his dismissive treatment of objects that had been so carefully selected at the time of their purchase. It was as if he’d already grown bored of whatever he bought by the time he bought it.

As one of the serving boys produced a hot cup of tea (by some unknown signal on Kamatari’s part that Jubei couldn’t for the life of him figure out) and deposited it in Jubei’s hand, the young actor stepped behind a screen and changed into a comfortable blue kimono. He took off the massive wig he’d been wearing with a contented little sigh and brushed his long hair back and tied it with a plain ribbon. This was followed by a thorough scrubbing of his face (in yet another absurdly ornate basin) to clean off the thick make-up he’d worn for the portrait.

“How was the trip home, by the way?” asked the young man quietly as he washed his face.

Jubei set down his cup leaned back, resting his weight on his arms. “As I expected. Brief. Awkward. But blessedly uneventful.”

“I take it you didn’t talk to your father then?”

“No.”

Kamatari wiped his face dry. He looked even younger without the make-up, and his face was even more disgustingly beautiful. Fresh and young, and full of life. If Jubei had been the type to admire boys, he would have found the actor irresistible. Even so, his eyes were constantly drawn towards the onnagata’s face. Jubei was an artist. He appreciated beauty no matter the source.

“It’s probably for the best,” Kamatari was saying. “Last time I went home, I made the mistake of trying to talk to my father. The meeting did not go very well,” he said wistfully.

Jubei remained tactfully silent.

The onnagata blinked away his memories. “So. Nothing exciting at all? I’m disappointed.”

“Well, I did get caught in a fight just outside the Main Gate at Shin Yoshiwara last night.”

“A fight?” Kamatari’s eyebrows perked up in interest, then suddenly frowned in concern. “Was that wise?” In your condition, was the unspoken thought.

The young man’s eyes suddenly widened. “Wait a minute! I’d heard about that. You were involved in that?”

Jubei sighed wearily. “Hai. In the thick of it, unfortunately.”

“Shit!” said the young man in a most unladylike fashion. “You were—You could have told me! Why didn’t you say anything? What happened?”

Jubei sighed again, took a long drink of his tea, and told the young man about his meeting with the bandaged stranger and the little boy. He’d lost track of how many times he’d told the story already. The shirobei had questioned him earlier this morning as had Yumi’s oiran friends. Had the incident occurred only last night? It seemed as if it were longer ago.

The young man was uncharacteristically silent and thoughtful when Jubei finished his tale. It made the artist nervous to see the actor behaving so.

“Kamatari? What are you thinking about?”

"Jubei,” said the young man slowly. “Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

Kamatari’s frown deepened as he muttered something about damned reclusive artists who didn’t keep up on current events.

“It’s the talk of the town, Jubei. They say some demon tore through the offices of several Fukugawa organizations last night. Several rather gruesome deaths were involved. Buildings were burned to the ground. They barely were able to contain the fires.”

Fukugawa offices: East Bank offices. Jubei suddenly felt chilled.

“Some demon?”

“Hai. Some red-eyed demon, tall as a house with sharp fangs, they say. He breathed fire, they say. Disappeared into the shadows after killing nearly every man in the Seven Blossoms House.”

“Isn’t that a bath house?” asked Jubei.

“Hai, one of the few decent ones on that side of the river,” said Kamatari. “Or so I’ve heard.”

Jubei felt a cold dread creeping up on his heart. He’d seen the bandaged stranger up close. Had felt the man’s powerful ki. The man could have done it, thought Jubei. Could have killed all those people in cold blood. The stranger had both the strength and the temperament to accomplish such a thing. He had the motive as well. And red eyes. Chilling red eyes.

Last night he had suspected the man might go after the East Bank men. But he had not anticipated the scale of his actions, the wanton destruction. Should he have tried harder to keep the stranger from leaving last night? Should he have attempted one more time to convince the man to come to Shin Yoshiwara with him? What would have happened if he had succeeded in convincing the man?

Fool that he was, Jubei had involved Yumi and Mari in the matter, had left the stranger’s child companion at the ageya. Were his friends safe? Would Shishio come for the boy? And if so, what would he do? Thank them all politely for their hospitality, take the boy back, and leave? Or burn the place to the ground and kill everyone in sight just for amusement’s sake? Jubei realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach that he had no idea what the stranger was more likely to do.

All he did know was that he felt uneasy leaving Yumi and Mari at home without him. Granted, Jubei wasn’t as strong now as he used to be, and he couldn’t hope to truly defend them all against an adversary as powerful as the stranger. Granted, Kitada and the shirobei were competent fighters, all, and could most likely handle any danger more readily than a sickly man like Jubei. Granted, Yumi was with her client Takei-san today, and the man always traveled with a full compliment of guards wherever he went. Despite all that, Jubei felt a compulsion to head back to Yoshiwara. Felt danger. Felt that he had to be there for…he didn’t know what. He simply had to go back.

“Jubei?” Kamatari’s voice was filled with concern. And when Jubei didn’t immediately respond: “You think it was the man you met, don’t you.”

After a moment, Jubei nodded. “Do they know why he did it?” he asked quietly, not sure if he really wanted the answer.

The young actor shook his head.

Jubei closed his eyes, struggling for calm. Panic would be premature at this point. Shishio had gone after those who’d attacked him last night. That was all there was to it. A perfectly normal reaction, something he himself might have done had he been in the stranger’s place. But there was still that nagging thought in the back of his mind that the situation wasn’t quite so simple. His instincts made his skin tingle with dread. It was feeling he hadn’t experienced this strongly since back in the days of the Bakumatsu.

And one thing Jubei had learned over the years was to always, always trust his instincts.

“Jubei? Jubei, you look pale.”

“Kamatari.” Jubei stood up. “I’m very sorry. Pardon me, but I must leave.”

“What?”

“I must go home. Back to the ageya. Now.” And at Kamatari’s perplexed look: “Don’t ask. I don’t know. It’s merely a feeling, but…I’m worried about the girls.”

The young actor frowned briefly, then nodded. “We’ll take my carriage.”

“Are you sure that’s—“ Jubei blinked. “We?”

“Of course, you idiot. I’m coming with you.”

“This doesn’t concern y—“

“Oh, shut up, Jubei,” growled the young actor as he shoved past him and barked orders for the carriage to be brought.

Jubei was secretly thankful for the young man’s offer. It was cold out. He’d had some difficulty on his way over when he’d walked from Yoshiwara this morning. And speed, of course, was of the essence.

The trip back was a blur. His thoughts raced as the carriage took them quickly towards Yoshiwara. He stared blankly out the window, taking no note at all as sights and sounds of the Asakusa which normally enthralled him, sped by completely unnoticed. A fresh dusting of snowfall had touched the streets, something Jubei normally would have marveled at. But he paid no attention to it.

He was worried. Truly worried. Unreasonably so, he tried to convince himself. He was jumping to ridiculous conclusions, he told himself. The sense of dread and panic was surely out of proportion to the risk of danger. Most likely, he’d arrive home to find Mari with the boy and Yumi with her client. Yes, they both ought to be safe. Yumi’s client Takei-san may be a pompous ass, but he was a well-protected man. And despite his other depravities, he really did seem to adore Yumi. He wouldn’t allow any harm to come to her. Jubei hoped.

“I bet she’s fine,” Kamatari was saying, echoing Jubei’s own hopes. “The fight last night has you spooked. That’s all. We’ll get to your place, find everything in order, and afterwards, I shall have a marvelous time teasing you mercilessly as you buy me a jug of sake at a restaurant of my choice. Most likely a very expensive choice. Definitely.”

Jubei tore his gaze reluctantly from a view he wasn’t really seeing and smiled at the boy. “Thank you for doing this, Kamatari. I know Yumi’s not your favorite person in the world.” That was a bit of an understatement. The two of them usually fought like cats, were notorious for their rivalry, in fact.

“Hmm,” was the young man’s only reply.

They arrived presently at the Main Gate. And immediately knew that something was wrong. The normal early evening crowd&—ever present in the lively Nakanocho Boulevard—was gone today. The street was practically empty save for a few guards walking purposefully about and some nervous looking civilians watching quietly from doorways.

Jubei went to look for Kitada-san as Kamatari unloaded his scythe which he had strapped to the top of the carriage.

“Kitada-san’s not here,” said the guard in charge. “He’s gone to Yadaya House.”

Yumi and Mari’s House.

“What’s happened there?” asked Jubei, afraid to hear the answer.

The guard looked uncomfortable. “Best I take you there. Let the captain explain.”

Jubei’s blood ran cold.

Nodding, he strode forward, following the guard, passing under the great red gate and into the strangely empty boulevard. Kamatari managed to keep up with him despite a shorter stride length and an unwieldy weapon in hand. And the three of them finally came to the front door of Yadaya House where a sober-faced Kitada was quietly issuing urgent orders to several of his lieutenants.

“Kitada-taichou!” the guard called out softly.

The captain’s eyes widened as Jubei approached. “Good, you’re here. I’d just sent some lads to go find you.” The older man wasted no time with further words and got to the point. “Yumi and Mari are gone, Jubei. As is the lad you brought home last night.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago.”

“How? What about Takei-san? Doesn’t he have guards?”

“Takei-san didn’t come today. He had to cancel his visit due to some trouble with one of his warehouses on the riverside.”

“How the hell could this have happened, Kitada?” Jubei struggled to keep his voice even. “Oiran are not permitted to leave Yoshiwara. Period. How could they have gone without your guards noticing?”

“They did notice, apparently,” said Kitada softly, a vague look of shame coming across his face. “We found them all dead. Every man on that shift.”

“Kami-sama,” whispered Kamatari, eyes wide. “Were there no witnesses?”

“Oh, I’m sure there were.” The old captain scowled. “But they’re not talking. Too damned frightened, every last one of them.”

“The boy’s taken them to him,” said Jubei. He shut his eyes, trying to breathe as his heart pounded and another coughing fit threatened.

“Kami-sama,” said Kamatari once again. “How the hell are we supposed to track down a demon?”

And an even more unnerving question hung unasked in the air: What would they do if they found him?