2

Starting from the thin willow tree known as the "looking back willow," a path wound loosely down Emonzaka (1). What lay past the great gate of Yoshiwara was like a completely different world.

This area had been full of soaplands until just recently. Now it had become a designated district for legal prostitution, and large amounts of money were being invested in putting up high class brothels. In the past ten years the area had changed into a brilliant, gorgeous, sex district barely recognizable as what it had been before.

The large brothel known as Hanafurirou that had bought Fuki was here. It had been started by a rich man half as a hobby, half as an actual business, and was modeled after brothels from the pre-war days. Even with the anti-prostitution laws abolished, the fact that the owner had brought a brothel into the current times and had resurrected it with all male prostitutes showed that he was a man of rather odd tastes. And it wasn't just the prostitutes - from the helpers to the head clerk, every single person in the shop was male.

Just inside the entrance curtain of the three story building with an elegant design like a Japanese restaurant was the harimise (2) with its brilliant red grates. There the iroko lined up to show their faces to the customers. In this shop, the oiran were called keisei and the prostitutes were called iroko (3). Above the second floor were the iroko's private rooms, called "main rooms," and the "shared rooms," where customers could be kept waiting.

Since Fuki had just arrived, he didn't have his own room yet. Instead, he lived in a large room with the other boys about the same age as him. It was difficult for him, since he wasn't used to sharing a room with other people, but it was somewhat fun as well, kind of like a school trip.

He thought worse of himself because even though he had resisted being sold so much, he had gotten used to it pretty quickly. But when he thought about his father and the ryokan, he realized that he didn't have any other choice but to get used to it. Besides, he knew that the really hard part would be his debut and the days after that.

"They say he's the by-blow of some high class person." This was something that Karin (4), a fellow kamuro told Fuki about the owner.

A kamuro was an iroko in training who saw to a keisei's appearance and belongings. A long time ago it was the job of children about seven or eight years old, but in the present time at Hanafurirou boys were called kamuro until age sixteen. After that they were given the title shinzou (5), and when they turned eighteen they had their debut and became full-fledged iroko. Even though the anti-prostitution laws had been abolished, there were still other laws pertaining to the sex industry, unlike in the past, and prostitution of boys and girls under the age of eighteen was still prohibited.

The set outfits were cherry blossom colored cotton kimonos for the kamuro and scarlet silk ones for the shinzou. A man who had come of age wore a brilliant uchikake (6) called a shikake over the silk. That way, people could tell what someone's rank was easily at first glance.

If you took even one step past the great gate everything was modern, but inside everything seemed to be lifted out of history. Sometimes it all confused Fuki quite a bit.

"By-blow?"

"If I say a former nobleman and a politician, as well as a family with enough money to support this... you get it, don't you? But it's just a rumor."

Even after hearing that, Fuki couldn't think of anything.

"...Is the owner gay?"

"Well, isn't that obvious? If he wasn't, I don't think he'd have ever thought of this. Even with Japan's long history of having kagema (7), a brothel full of men is a little..."

"Yeah, that makes sense..."

Fuki had met the owner once, on the day he had come to Hanafurirou. He had been evaluated, and it had left him with quite a frightening memory of the time.

"Remove the things you are wearing, open up your legs, and spread your butt cheeks so I can see. Then allow me to examine the inside of your ass."

"So he was gay..." was what Fuki was now thinking, a little too late.

"How long are you two going to talk?" came a voice all of a sudden from the other side of the glass door separating the bath from where they were.

At some point they had gotten to talking in the dressing room. Taking a long time in the bath was rather heavily encouraged, but spending time chatting away in the dressing room instead of working on their bodies was pointless.

"Sorry...!" they automatically replied before hurriedly stripping and rushing into the bath.

The person monopolizing the huge white cedar bathtub was the number one keisei, Kichou (8). The number one was the keisei who brought in the most money during the last month, and except for one time during February, that had been Kichou. Fuki and Karin were the kamuro assigned to that same Kichou.

Kichou had his long, shaggy hair piled on top of his head, and because he was facing away from the door, the line of his body from the nape of his neck down peeked out from above the edge of the tub. He couldn't really be called delicate - faint but evenly distributed muscles filled out his frame - but something about him was surprisingly captivating.

"Good morning. Are you just getting started?"

"I'm almost done. Yesterday's customer took forever... so much I thought he might have been extending it." At Karin's question, he turned just his head and answered him openly.

"Would you like me to wash your back?"

"That's fine. I did that already." Then he tossed a bag of rice bran at the two boys sitting in front of the mirror.

"Make sure you scrub hard. If you can make a lot of money, you'll rise in the ranks that much quicker."

The key to making money was one's body. There were bags of rice bran available in the baths, and the boys were instructed to use them to scrub at their skin from their time as kamuro. And really, keisei like Kichou and Kagerou (9), the second most popular keisei who fought Kichou for the number one spot every month, had skin so silky smooth that it was hard to think that it was a man's skin.

"Okay!"

"Then, I'm getting out first." After Fuki thought he heard a big splash and the noise of someone getting out of the tub, Kichou passed behind him on the way to the dressing room. Then Fuki and Karin, who had been left behind, started diligently working at improving the tools of their trade.

After bathing and eating, Fuki and Karin helped with Kichou's preparation for the night. They didn't have to do makeup and an elaborate Japanese hairstyle like the courtesans of the past, but putting on the kimono still required some help.

First they pulled the collars of the two layered kosode (10) back quite a bit and then tied a wide obi around him in the front. Even without face powder, his neck was so white it looked transparent. On top of the kosode, they placed a flashy black and red shikake.

He had a sort of brilliant beauty, and even though he definitely looked like a man at first glance, that sort of outfit suited him quite well. One might even say he looked chic, like a kabuki-mono (11). And the manner of speaking so frank it was almost violent that lay behind that beautiful exterior had its own mysterious attraction.

Not everyone at Hanafurirou was like Kichou, but maybe it was because there were several people like him there that the all male brothel was possible. The amount of money they brought in in a single night was enormous, but that was definitely because they had men worth spending that money on.

"Okay then, we still have some time left." After they had finished getting him ready, Kichou looked up at the clock.

"So, should we have a study session?"

"A study session?" Thinking of a review session from school, Fuki cocked his head, and Kichou laughed.

"You do those kind of things during the day, right?" Because they were in a high class brothel, they had to be able to talk with any sort of person, so they were given all sorts of cultural education. Fuki had already been to several of those classes.

"Come to think of it, you just came in. The study sessions we do here aren't like that. Karin, go get it."

After being told to do so, Karin brought out a box. The items that appeared when he opened the lid caused Fuki's eyes to bulge out.

It was full of adult toys.

"Wha... What the...?"

"They're model penises. Is this your first time seeing one? Here." Fuki nodded, and then all of a sudden Kichou handed one to him.

"For the sake of the newbie, let's start with a review today."

Having taken the object without thinking, Fuki stared down at it fixedly. It was a dark skin tone in color and was made to look quite real.

"Uhh... ummmm... this is..."

"That one's pretty much average size and color. You have one yourself, so I'm pretty sure you realize that."

"Uh..."

Now that he mentioned it, it was neither too big nor too small... probably just a normal one. But that wasn't what Fuki had wanted to say. He had wanted to ask what he was supposed to do with it.

Fuki had never really looked that hard at a guy's genitals, whether they were another guy's or his own. Even though this was a model, it was very well made. Fuki found it curious, and he continued to scrutinize it.

Kichou took another one with a somewhat different shape out from the box. Then, he thrust it in front of Fuki.

"This one's phimotic."

The sudden mention of that word shocked Fuki. What in the world was Kichou talking about? But he eventually realized the meaning behind that statement. Apparently the reason for having all these models wasn't for use as sex toys, but as "teaching materials."

"This is the real thing. Most of these guys don't come to brothels, though. Anyway, this one's false phimosis."

"Ohh..."

"So, here's the question. When you get a customer with false phimosis, what do you have to be careful of when sucking him off?"

"Ehh!?"

Fuki drew back from the false phimotic model being thrust in his face. The glans of the model just barely peeked out from the tip, like an eye. Fuki tried to think of an answer, but nothing came to mind, so he shook his head.

"I guess you can't help it. Karin, tell him the answer."

"Okay," Karin said. "The part that's usually covered with the foreskin is sensitive, so when you stimulate it the guy will come before you realize it. You have to be careful of that."

"That's right."

Smiling, Kichou handed Karin a piece of candy. The food the brothel gave them wasn't enough for growing boys, so things like candy and snacks were extremely valuable to the boys.

"If you screw up the timing, he'll end up coming in your mouth or on your face. When that's what he wants to do, it can't be helped, though. If he's fine going home after just a blow job, that's fine, but usually that's a big no-no."

Apparently what he was getting at was that if the customer came before he could put it in, it would take some time before he could continue, and that would tire one out. Doing this every night, especially with several customers a night, would end up being quite exhausting. Better to get done with each one as quickly as possible.

Fuki was once again reminded that he was now in a world where you were obviously talking about these actions as a job. And, in two years it would be his job as well.

"So, in my experience up until now, the smallest I've seen was about this big, and the biggest was..." Kichou held a small model in his right hand and a big one about the size of an arm in his left hand. "Well, about this big."

It was so thick that Fuki let out a gasp of wonder. It looked almost like an arm.

"It was really awful when I had to take this one in. I didn't really have any choice in the end, but if I was as delicate as the Princess, I probably would have broke- Oops."

The reason Kichou had cut himself off was because the same "Princess" was standing just outside the open window that looked out onto the hallway.

Kagerou's nickname among the other people at Hanafurirou was "Princess." He was the keisei who always competed with Kichou for the number one position, and the two of them fought like cats and dogs.

It was hard to say which of them was the more beautiful of the two, but compared to laid-back, natural Kichou, Kagerou gave off an aura of eternally composed arrogance. It seemed odd to think such a thing of a man, but he certainly acted just like a haughty princess who had fallen into ruin. Rumor had it he really did come from that sort of high class family.

Apparently Kagerou had heard Kichou's last words while passing by, since he had purposefully stuck his chin up and was coolly looking down his nose in Kichou's direction.

"As usual, you're being indecent even during the day."

"I'd rather you say I'm enthusiastic about my work."

"You would be. Honestly, they do say "to a willing mind" (12)... Have you ever turned down a customer?"

Following the customs of the Yoshiwara of old, at Hanafurirou a keisei could refuse to take a customer that he didn't like. Kagerou, being as haughty as he was, turned down quite a few.

But come to think of it, Fuki had never seen Kichou refuse a customer, no matter how ugly he was.

"Nope, never," Kichou replied.

"I hear there used to be some oiran who refused customer after customer and lived their entire lives as virgins. Why don't you turn a customer down every now and then?"

"...Well, I don't really mind it. If I make a lot of money, I can get out of here that much sooner. And, well, it's not that big of a deal, is it?"

Though he said that, Kichou used the money he made on feasts for the kamuro who served him and the staff more often than not, so his debt was most likely not getting any smaller. But that was just how he was.

"Anyway, looks like I'm gonna be number one again this month." When Kichou said that and smiled, seemingly deliberately, Kagerou stiffened.

"You slut. I just don't get it," he said.

"Don't you like sex, Princess? Or maybe you're frigid?"

"Who's frigid...!?"

Kichou's nasty smirk stayed put on his face.

"If you like, I could give you some pointers. There are some guys out there who like a virginal princess, but they'll get sick of a dead fuck with someone with no skills before too long."

"And how would you know whether I have any skills or not!?"

Once a customer chose his partner he couldn't change, so the two of them should have never had the same customer before. And of course, there was no way Kichou could know something like that, since he had never slept with any of Kagerou's customers.

"You actually said "skills." Is it really okay for the princess to be saying such vulgar things?"

Kichou smirked teasingly. Then he stood up and walked over to the window. He placed his elbow on the windowsill and purposefully looked up at Kagerou.

"If that's really the case, then I'd like to try your skills out sometime."

"Wha...!?" Kagerou fell silent for a moment. Perhaps he had imagined sleeping with Kichou... His white cheeks took on a pink tinge.

Seeing that, Kichou smiled happily.

"I have this customer who'd like to try a threesome. Me and you and him. He said he'll pay a fortune to do it. Wanna try?"

"N-no way!!" Kagerou yelled and then slammed the window shut, without seeming to care that Kichou's elbow was still there - or maybe because it was still there - and left.

"Owww... Even after I told him my body's my livelihood..." Even as he rubbed his pinched elbow, Kichou was giving a thumbs up to show his victory.

"That's seven wins and two losses..."

Fuki had been keeping count since he had arrived at Hanafurirou. It seemed that Kichou won most of the time. Fuki thought that Kagerou shouldn't give Kichou any more chances if he was just going to lose, but it seemed that he just couldn't leave well enough alone.

"...Jeez." Opening up the window and watching Kagerou stalk away, Kichou said, "It's 'cause he's like that that he's gonna get hurt one of these days."

"Huh?"

When challenged, Kichou smiled. "Doesn't he just make you wanna rape him?"

When he saw Fuki was unable to come up with an answer, Kichou smiled and said it was a joke.

But he had looked surprisingly manly as he said it.

Fuki spent his afternoons almost as if he had forgotten his surroundings. No matter how serious they were meant to be, things like the study sessions were more like guy talk with his friends, and thus were fun.

But nighttime was completely different.

When he walked down the hallway, obscene gasps and moans leaked out from behind shoji doors. Those noises came from the guys who laughed and joked around with everyone else during the day.

Though he wanted to cover his ears, he couldn't, so instead he pretended not to hear.

Eventually he too would... have some strange man pay to fuck him. And he would make those noises too.

It was hard to even think about it.

"...I guess I should have slept with Ouichirou," he still thought every now and then.

Since he was going to be selling his body anyway, he might as well have slept with Ouichirou at least once.

But there was no way he could have come on to him himself back then.

That night Kichou had a shokai.

When a customer first came to Hanafurirou, it was called his "shokai (13)," and his second time was called "ura." It wasn't until Fuki got to Hanafurirou that he learned that this was where the term "ura wo kaesu (14)" came from in the first place.

The first two times, a customer was not allowed to have sex. The third time he came to the brothel, he and his partner finally became "najimi (15)," and he could sleep with a keisei.

It was all just the time-consuming and expensive ways of the brothel. After all, it wasn't the sort of place people would come to unless they thought it cool enough to be interesting, had the time and money to spare, and had strange tastes.

Fuki was still amazed at how many men there were out there with such strange tastes.

"Oh... but..."

If Ouichirou had been the one sold to the brothel, Fuki would probably use all the money he had - no, if he ran out of money he would make more - to come buy time with him.

In a way, Hanafurirou sold not only sex, but a sort of pretend love.

Today's new customer was a high-ranking policeman and had requested the ever so popular Kichou.

Just as might be expected from the enormous prices, the customers could only really come from certain occupations. The majority of them were from corporate upper management, politics, the entertainment industry, or medicine, and it was fairly rare to see policemen. Usually even the upper ranks of the police force didn't make enough to come to Hanafurirou.

"Maybe his family's rich or something..." Fuki thought. "Or maybe he takes bribes."

Maybe he had connections to some powerful politician or yakuza group that didn't want to get caught. After all, the yakuza who had come to the ryokan had had influence with the police.

It might have been just because he remembered that, but this new customer didn't leave a good impression on Fuki. Not that he said anything about it.

As a rule, Hanafurirou did not accept unfamiliar customers, so a new customer had to have someone introduce him to get in. This customer had gotten his introduction from another high-raking policeman named Yamafuji, who was najimi to Shirayuri (16), an iroko who had just recently started serving customers.

Those two customers, Kichou, Shirayuri, and their shinzou and kamuro held a banquet that started early in the evening. Shirayuri had been one of the shinzou assigned to Kichou until just recently, so everyone knew him. The banquet turned into a lively event.

As a kamuro, Fuki spent his time at the banquet in the corner. Generally the role of filling the customers' glasses and talking to them fell to their partners and the shinzou, so the kamuro's job was to take away empty plates, get cigarettes for the customers, and other such small jobs.

While the new customer was older, Yamafuji was still young. Probably about twenty-seven or twenty-eight. He had soft-looking brown hair and brown eyes. He looked a bit nervous, but overall he had a rather handsome face.

"He's about... the same height as Ouichirou," Fuki thought. "...But he's completely different." Something about him was totally different... Maybe it was his eyes.

Unlike Ouichirou's eyes, which looked frightening at first, but were actually very clear on closer inspection, Yamafuji's eyes seemed much colder and much more malicious.

Fuki couldn't help but compare the younger customers to Ouichirou. He supposed it was because they all made him remember Ouichirou.

Even he thought it was stupid. After all, before long he would be offering his body to all takers. And Ouichirou had surely forgotten all about him and his betrayal and was on the road to a completely new life.

"Hotaru... Hotaru," one of the shinzou called, and Fuki suddenly snapped back reality.

He realized that the sake decanters were all empty.

"Sorry."

He hurried to stand up. He had had other people care for him before, but he had never had to look after another person while growing up. Because of that, he just didn't notice some things.

Before long it was midnight, the banquet came to a close, and the customers retired to bed with their respective partners. Fuki was left behind to clean up the room, now devoid of people. Finding himself alone in a room in the middle of the night while he could hear gasps and moans coming from outside was a rather strange feelings.

"Look. See that run down brothel over there...?" It reminded him of something he had heard during the day. At the end of Naka no Machi (17) were the ruins of a old brothel that no one would go near anymore. "There's a ghost there. The ghost of a whore who hung herself from the rafters way back when..."

The thought sent a chill down Fuki's spine, and he started to clean up even faster. He wanted to get done as fast as possible and get back to the room where everyone else was. He piled plates and decanters onto a tray and carried them out time and time again.

Then when he was almost done, he noticed a book lying abandoned in a corner of the room. It was travel guide. One of the customers must have forgotten it.

In Yoshiwara, the prostitutes were just like caged birds. They weren't allowed through the great gate to the outside world, so just the pretty picture on the cover of the book was enough to attract Fuki. Forgetting that until just recently he had been shaking, Fuki was reaching for the book before he realized it. He squatted down and started turning the pages.

"Nagatsuma used to show up in this sort of book pretty often..."

It had been a while since Nagatsuma had been at that level. Even so, he couldn't help but look through the book in hopes that there might be even a single line about them.

How was the ryokan doing now? How was his father doing? Had the ryokan managed to revive a little with the money from selling him?

They weren't allowed to have cell phones, nor were they allowed to call out, so Fuki knew absolutely nothing about what had happened after he left. Though there was always the chance that once he became a full-fledged iroko he could secretly borrow a customer's cell phone and call home.

He sighed softly.

Then, suddenly, he felt someone's presence behind him, and he thought his heart was going to stop. Though he was sure it couldn't be a ghost, it was still extremely difficult to turn around. Even so, he finally gathered some courage and looked behind him.

It was Yamafuji.

Even though it was obvious it couldn't have been a ghost, Fuki still breathed a sigh of relief.

The sight of Yamafuji, who was leaning against the open shoji doors, was oddly sexy. Maybe it was because Fuki couldn't help thinking that he had just been in bed with Shirayuri.

"Ah... excuse me. You're here for this, aren't you?" Fuki apologized for looking at the forgotten magazine without asking. Most likely Yamafuji had realized that he had forgotten it and had come to get it.

"No, it's not mine. I was a bit thirsty and came to get some water. Shirayuri's fast asleep, and I didn't feel like waking him."

Hearing that, Fuki decided that Yamafuji was actually a pretty nice person. That made him regret having thought that he seemed cold earlier. But still, why did that decision feel so very wrong to him?

"Then I'll bring some..."

"You seemed quite interested in reading that," Yamafuji said, interrupting Fuki's words almost as if he hadn't heard him at all. "Does it feature some place you'd like to go?"

"Oh... no. It's just... I... my family runs a ryokan..."

"Ah, a ryokan."

He then realized that he had made a mistake in carelessly talking about his past with this man, not just because he didn't even know him, but because he was someone else's customer. Fuki could feel something lewd about his gaze, and the uneasiness that that feeling caused made him suddenly afraid to be alone with him.

"I'm sorry. I'll get you some water." Having said that, he stood to go fetch said water.

Yamafuji caught Fuki's hand, and Fuki froze in place.

"You were watching me, weren't you?"

"Huh...!?"

"During the banquet you kept looking in my direction."

Now that Yamafuji mentioned it, Fuki realized what he was talking about. He had been looking at Yamafuji and comparing him to Ouichirou. They were about the same height, so he couldn't help but do it. Unfortunately, he was now in this predicament because he had been doing something so rude earlier.

Maybe one of the others, who were more used to such activities, would be able to get away without any real problems. But Fuki couldn't do that.

"Do you find me interesting?"

"No...!!" Fuki replied immediately, but Yamafuji wasn't listening.

"You have very slender wrists," he said as he pushed up Fuki's sleeves and ran his hands up Fuki's arms. Fuki reflexively tried to push Yamafuji away, but he didn't succeed.

"P-please let me go...!"

"Your hands and legs are so small... Your neck, too... I might break it if I squeezed too hard. And you have such a baby face... You're everything I like in a boy."

"Please let me go...!! Or else I'll call someone in here!!" Fuki yelled.

"I was joking," Yamafuji said, the corners of his mouth twitching upward. "I already have Shirayuri, so I won't go after another boy... That's the brothel's rule, isn't it?"

Finally, he let go, and Fuki clutched at his own wrist. There was a red mark around Fuki's wrist where Yamafuji had had a hold of him.

"I'll give you that book. It's not mine, but I'll buy another one for its owner. ...They'll take it away from you if they find it, won't they? I'd recommend hiding it before that happens."

Having said that, Yamafuji left the room.

Fuki, now alone, was shaking with disgust. He dashed out of the room and to the washroom, where he frantically scrubbed at his wrist. He just couldn't figure out why Yamafuji had done that when he already had Shirayuri.

He didn't know if it was because it was Yamafuji that he hated it, or if he would have hated it had it been anyone else. Still, this would be a common occurrence from now on. He would have to get used to it and get better at dealing with it when it happened.

And then when he turned eighteen, he would become a full-fledged iroko, and it wouldn't stop with something like this. He'd have to let anyone who came touch him all over, lick him, and do all sorts of other things.

He knew that, but when he thought that he would have to make himself go through such treatment, his vision seemed to darken just a little.