Sara Fan-fiction

A girl called Princess

“Princess…your client is here.”
I rushed around, pushing silks and lingerie into various draws, and throwing the fresh batch of flowers that sat in the vase out the window. I put some redder tint on my lips, staring into the polished silver surface above my dresser. I pouted a bit and raised my eyebrows, then quickly went and perched on the edge of my straight-backed chair in the corner of my room, and arranged my kimono delicately around me. I surveyed my area of expertise; it had the look of a nobleman’s bedroom. I had seen plenty of those, before my job here. I heard the tap of slippers coming up the wooden staircase, and let a coy smile play at the corners of my mouth. A familiar face strode in, with that ever-so-familiar smug smile. My smile faltered. I got up and strode over to my dresser; applied more white powder to my complexion, moving it in small circles, not looking at the gentleman in my room.

“What do you want?” I said quietly.
Hisaya, with his coal-black hair that stuck up straight from his head, allowed himself to grin broader. He was enjoying this, I could tell. Enough to ignore my rudeness.
“Lady Eboshi wishes to entertain your presence.”
A small hiss escaped from my mouth
“You mention her name, here? You know what happened to Yuko!” I looked around, almost expecting to see the strongman of this establishment, Kaoru, eavesdropping in the hallway.
“I do, ah, Prin-cess… however; Lady Eboshi still wishes to speak to you.” He shrugged, as if Yuko’s disappearance was not a concern.
“I’ll think about it, ok?” Not intending to let the entertainment of that thought ever pass my lips again. “Now go away, before someone sees you.”
Hisaya made a small bow. “Some habits never change, do they, Gio?” he said, with narrowed eyes. I opened my mouth to retort, but he swept around in the room and left, leaving a pile of tattered Yen on my bed in his wake.

My pride wished me to throw Hisaya’s treacherous Yen in the fireplace to shrivel and never exist as currency again, but my head soon talked sense. In my mid-twenties, it was no lie that I was tight as it is, and one of the least popular girls in this place. Times were getting desperate, and I would even accept money from Hisaya. I sighed. I would have to go give Yoritomo his cut of this, and fast, or he would get suspicious. Clients that left quickly didn’t sit too well with Yoritomo. “Don’t disrespect my girls!!! Or did you respect her a bit too much, if you know what I mean?!!” he would leer at scarpering men. But they would come back. They always did.

As I went descended downstairs to pay my dues to Yoritomo, I swore under my breath. Hotoke, the new girl, was in the downstairs showing room. Was I to mentor her today? It was bad enough that I was training someone to compete with for my income, and possibly even my place in this establishment. If not, that she was painfully young and naïve, and every time I taught her I felt like I was snapping feathers off her white wings. I had had enough guilt in my life. Sure enough, Yoritomo took my money without note, handed me some back, then said “Please continue your training of Hotoke today, Gio. And get into the good stuff. I will know.”
“Princess…princess…how did you get that name?” Hotoke asked me.
“It was the only one left, it’s just a name!” I said, losing my patience. We were in her room. “So, about your clothes…”
Hotoke interrupted me again “Don’t you ever think, you know, about leaving here? Going somewhere else?”
Immediately suspicious, I frowned “This is my home. Unlike you, I can’t just pack up and…and leave anytime! I have to stay here! How did you get in this hellhole anyway??” I finished, furious.
Tears welled up in her eyes. “This is my home, too” she said meekly.
This infuriated me further “Wh-what? What do you mean?!”
“My parents are dead” she said, bluntly.

I immediately softened, embarrassed. “Oh”
“Yoritomo came to me. He said, I can offer you opportunity. Just, helping a few guys a day, I could make some money to support myself, maybe even my grandparents. He said, you’ll be well looked after and physically protected, great food and clothes…and the rent’s really cheap, too.”
“Rent?” I asked, dumbfounded for a second.
“Yeah, he said he do deal for me, extra-special deal, better than the other girls, because I’m new” She looked at me, as if frightened what I’d think of her. “And, y-y’know, I, um, only have to sleep with him s-s-sometimes, since his wife died, he’s been very lonely. And he says he has to take that out of my pay, because I could be getting more work when doing that, and I agree with him.”
My stomach felt hollow. Yoritomo had no wife. He’d never been married. I knew of sometimes when Yoritomo had been known to “sample the merchandise”, as he would call it, but never on a continual basis, not like this. After all my work, everything I’d done over the years, this renewed evil still shocked me.

“Listen, Hotoke” I said, looking left and right, and checking we were alone. “There’s this opportunity…have you heard of Lady Eboshi?”
Hotoke sniffed, trying to wipe the tears from her face “Lady Eboshi? Isn’t she a myth?”
“No, no, she’s real all right. I heard she sets girls like us to work, over at Iron Town. I don’t know what work it is, but…”
“You’re-you’re thinking of leaving?”
“Well yes, I guess I am…” I smiled, entertained at the thought.
“But Yoritomo…won’t he miss us?”
“Hotoke…he won’t miss us. Girls like us are easily replaced” I said, my voice full of sad cynicism of many years of work. “But if we want to go, we have to go, now.”
“Ok!” she said, almost entirely changed in demeanour “Let’s go! All I need is my fur, my silks, my favourite kimonos…”
“No Hotoke. I mean NOW. Yoritomo thinks we are together, we can go now.” I crept out into the hallway “Lady Eboshi better have clothes for us” I muttered. “Let’s go.”

We crept down to the bottom floor of the establishment. We could hear Yoritomo uproariously laughing in his office, entertaining one of his friends. I wondered if it was nobility. We walked out the front of the building. Some passing young boys turned right around as they walked, staring at us. “What are you two girls doing?” My heart stopped. Kaoru approached us, arms full of expensive silk in which were likely our next outfits. My mouth opened, moving wordlessly.
“We’re going for a walk!” Hotoke said, brightly.
Kaoru looked from Hotoke, to me. “We-ell, be back before dinner. You know what Yoritomo is like.” He smiled.
“Yes, yes of course!” I said, laughing weakly.
Kaoru nodded to us, and then walked inside the building. As soon as he went inside, we started walking, fast. I could see the smoke from Iron Town in the distance.