It is dark along the streets, the hour indecent, but this quarter of the Hanamachi is a restless beast that never sleeps. The lights of innumerable doorways permeate the gloom of a snowy, starless night, as they do every night. Eerie shadows dance mad sequences from one cramped alley to another.

I stagger again and almost fall from my clogs. Almost. Cursing, I grab Korin's arm, uncaring of how she shrieks in protest as I very almost pull the blue sleeve of her kimono out of shape. Really, it would be no great loss if I had. Korin hails from a different okiya to mine - far less prestigious - and so does this lack of pedigree speak in the geisha house's extensive wardrobe. Fine silk frayed with age, colours long faded, patterns obscure.

Giggling under the kaleidoscope of paper lanterns strung like beads above my head, I feel the dizzying warmth of the amakuchi saké heating my belly and think about Koichi.

Koichi!

My lover, my friend. The man I adore.

We met in secret just the other night, outside my okiya in the garden lean-to, a decrepit old shack once used by the servants. The fact remains it is a dank and dirty retreat for a clandestine tryst, but the single option we have. Our meetings are often brief, far too brief for my liking, but for all the years we've seen run by like water under a bridge, every time feels like the first. And for a short while, I am at peace.

Pressed against his strong body so closely it feels we are not two but one, hands tangled in my long hair, we make love in the liquid darkness, one moment sliding to the next like slow, sweet honey.

Peace? No… it is ecstasy. A forbidden fruit plucked and devoured, mouth-watering in its intensity and candour.

For a life like mine, steeped in tradition and rules, why, our romance is like a drop of pure, spring water in a tumultuous sea of obscurity.

This thought usually brings the glimmer of a genuine smile to my crimson-painted lips, but not tonight, as I recall something else resembling that selfsame element.

Those eyes…

Ensconced within the looming house of Okasan, my okiya's resident slave will no doubt be up at this late hour - so late it is almost early - awaiting my return as befitted a serving girl, ready to be tossed my coat, my clogs, the more uncomfortable condiments to my elaborate hair and always a sharp word or two. Really, what was she there for, if not to take the brunt of my boredom and sallies? A scullery maid should not complain if her betters extended towards her the occasional pinch or push. I am geisha of the house! My fame, beauty and steady income provide for a little autonomy under the busy gaze of Okasan, Mother, if nothing else.

These days little Chiyo posed no threat to me.

I scoff angrily at the mere thought as I allow Korin, drunk in her own right, to buoy me hurriedly back home. We should probably have hired a rickshaw back to our respective abodes, but halfway through waiting for such a hireling to finish receiving his pay from another passenger, my impatience took hold and I wandered off back into this evening's teahouse, looking for more drink.

It seems Korin will be walking home unescorted tonight, but she won't complain. Our friendship is one of like-minded souls, but the woman is as secure in her calling as I feel restrained by it. She needs me; my celebrity, my connections. I am the most renowned geisha in all of Gion, on par and really above my hated rival, Mameha. She'd be mad not to ally with me.

I stagger again and of a sudden my perfectly manicured nails dig themselves into the carved wooden frame of my home, if it can be called as such.

Blowing an entirely inappropriate kiss to Korin in farewell, I smile impishly at the thought of what awaits me beyond the stone walls of the okiya.

Knowingly leaving it for me concealed in a thicket of thorns behind our lean-to, Koichi's kindness and devotion had expressed itself yet again in the form of a mysterious gift…

Oh, I had my share of gifts from clients, it was true. My General, by far the most important of the men of work and leisure frequenting the tea houses, regularly spent inordinate sums in the quest to please me, and I had always smiled at him. In such moments I was at least true to the code of the artist, the geisha: remote and unobtainable as the mountain peaks.

But for all their money, charm and pampering, the warmth of these patrons was as ephemeral as the dusting of snowflakes frosting the Hanamachi rooftops. In a few days or a few months… their affections melted and their eyes inevitably turned elsewhere. To their families, their wives.

Gritting my teeth, I whack my fist repeatedly against the still-closed door of the house. Had I really been waiting here?

"CHIYO!" I roar, completely unconcerned at the din I'm creating. If I wake Okasan at this hour, well, that would be a different kettle of fish. But lately, Mother has taken to over-indulging in a new and expensive kind of leaf for her perpetually lit pipe. The smell clung to the rooms and made me feel sick, but it also sent the bitch fast asleep in the evenings. Somehow, I didn't mind my hard-earned wages paying for that.

Scuffling abruptly resounds beyond the door and it slides open with a belated snick-clack, revealing the girl I hated more than anyone else in this unfair and heartless world.

Chiyo is in her adolescence now, her diminutive figure having moulded itself - seemingly overnight - into the shape of a young woman. Yes, a young woman. One with flawless porcelain skin and eyes the colour of… a dead man's tongue.

That is a descriptive I often gleefully use for the benefit of others on the occasion a guest appears in the okiya and notices our slave. Chiyo's blue eyes have always been something of a commodity, even when she was still the rebellious brat of old, but over the years it seems my spiteful use of allegory has begun to pay off: Chiyo rarely meets the gaze of anyone nowadays. Prim and proper. Humble. Broken.

Never that!

Perhaps it was all this evening's saké, though I'm not done with it yet, or a combination of fatigue and the warm haze of Koichi's love that has addled me this evening, drawing me into placidity when I should by rights take the cane to this errant little nobody.

A nobody who is watching me, looking straight into my face, my eyes. Judging. We are a pair of opposites: water to fire, meekness to ferocity. We hate one another with a passion rivalling the intensity of my feelings for my lover. So it has always been.

Drowning in that merciless sea ready to devour any unwitting wayfarer, I shudder at my own treacherous thoughts - understanding deep down, deeper than any oceans go, we are kin. Sisters cut from the same cloth.

They turned her sister into a whore.

My hand lashes out, pale as a ghost's and lovely as any marble icon, striking the girl's face with enough force to snap her head around, tumbling her to the floor.

"You are a useless piece of dirt," I snarl down at her. "While you idle and daydream like a mooning dog, I have been kept outside on a freezing winter night - waiting!"

Tossing my head and releasing a few more loose strands to hang down my back, I turn towards my room, suspecting at last that perhaps I didn't require any more drink this night, satisfied in what punishment I'd meted out.

"Hatsumomo," Chiyo says quietly.

Spinning round at the sound of my name, spoken with a soft authority utterly unsuitable for a servant, I notice somewhat blearily Chiyo has picked herself up and is proffering me a package.

Hand-wrapped and tied in common, unremarkable paper, it is instantly recognisable and my black mood darkens.

Why, this peasant girl from some distant fishing village had found my - no - Koichi's secret gift, dared touch it with her work-roughened fingers… probably tainting whatever devotion awaiting me inside with the smell of fish.

Do I already catch a whiff of it rising up off the parcel? A tiny voice in my head reminds me Koichi's own trade is that of a fisherman, but how could I be sure? Why should I be sure? In finding this gift through either slyness or accident, it has been revealed to Chiyo that a tryst everyone else in the okiya considered dead embers - Okasan, Auntie and my pathetic excuse for a protégé, Pumpkin - has evidently roared back into life.

Oh, these prying fools! Okasan may be mistress of what by reputation remained one of the best okiyas in this geisha district, but she knew well enough who maintained that image. Without Hatsumomo, dear, sweet Mother would be nothing more than an old crow in an empty nest, counting out her depleting coin, slowly selling kimono after priceless kimono in exchange for food.

Ha, after all her machinations, she deserved worse.

Years ago, Chiyo had almost single-handedly pushed Koichi away from me for good. She, a mere child, had discovered us together in the lean-to and in our passion; we were being less than discreet.

Mother and Auntie had finally stormed outside at the ruckus, and Koichi had run, unduly angered at me by all this cloak and shadow… that which was crucial so that we could be together. Why couldn't he see that? In the ensuing argument, the brat had betrayed us and Okasan's wrath had turned towards her greatest provider: me.

Ultimately, it hadn't stopped us. Though I pined alone for months following this incident, the okiya's doors firmly barred each night, love like ours does not snuff out so easily. Eventually re-united, our old routine of secrecy fell back into place with even stronger precautions; those stolen moments we cherish more than anything in our less-than-ideal lives.

Was Chiyo going to repeat history?

My vision feels shaky, almost feverish, as in my fury I glance about, immediately delighting in the sight of that old hag Auntie's cane propped up neatly by the entrance. I grab it.

Ripping the package from Chiyo's arms with my other hand, I advance on the girl who backs away cautiously, raising her hands in a gesture that says she meant no harm. As if that would change anything.

The noise of a cane whistling through the air is a muted whish, at odds with the startlingly loud sound of impact.

Upon flesh at least, Auntie and Mother would be awoken, to say nothing of Pumpkin. Upon the crude, thick cloth of a serving girl, the noise transforms into a vicious whump, but by the agony in those blue, blue eyes, Chiyo might as well be nude.

Gradually working myself up into a frenzy, I lay into my task, saké-addled senses transforming the tepid entranceway into an inferno of heat, a hell, and I the devil feel no pity or remorse for my victim, a supplicant, a betrayer… imbued with the coiled strength of a spring that only I could see, a spring that one day in some terrible future might jump into the light and ruin me utterly.

Crumpled upon the wooden boards in her drab grey servant's attire, Chiyo rolls, avoiding some of my blows and weathering the worst, sobbing out tiny, shuddering gasps.

When the madness fades and the last of my energy with it, I breathe out a sigh. Well, it had been a worthwhile diversion, and I know my unspoken command has been received. Chiyo will not speak a word of what she found to anyone.

Content with this, I observe the girl stretched still upon the floor, shoulders shaking, and I wonder whether the motion is because she is crying or merely tension at an expected parting blow.

I do not disappoint.

With a sniff, I finally throw the cane aside and leave her to her misery, hugging Koichi's gift to my chest like a young girl her doll.

Slipping into my room, freshly aired and smelling faintly of jasmine, I slide shut the door and contemplate summoning Auntie to help remove the complex layers of silk that, expertly tied, become a kimono worthy of a geisha.

Too much like trouble.

Chomping into one of the apples delivered to my room on a daily basis, I settle down, unwrapping brown sheets of cheap paper to reveal the token hidden within.

My chest swells as I run my fingers over it. It is a small ladies' jewellery box, beautifully lacquered and obviously well-made. Koichi must have burnt a huge hole in his meagre earnings to afford such a thing. It is so typical of him.

Something shifts inside and I open the lid eagerly, laughing quietly as I lift out the treasure within: a tiny, beribboned package of tea and from the scent, it is a favourite of mine.

Flopping down upon my sleeping mat, drunkenly shoving aside the tiresome neck support for my hair, I smile secretly into my hands, stifling my giggling as if such mirth - joy, even - might awake Okasan from her smoke-induced fugue even if Chiyo's beating could not.

Oh, to be in love.

Prone, I resume examining the jewellery box at closer quarters, only to exclaim in surprise as the tea package shifts under my fingers to reveal a carefully folded note.

Felt even through the fog of my over-indulgence, my turbulent world has never felt more complete as I begin to read.

…lovely flower of my dreams…

I hate her.

I hate everything about her. I even hate the fact that I do hate her.

What could even change this cold, hard truth? Nothing. At least, nothing in this life.

My life does not cater towards fantasies.

Hatsumomo's does evidently, and I her whipping girl somehow hate her for this more than any brutality she's inflicted upon me, past or present.

I was only a child the first time I felt the poisonous lash of her tongue. Compared to Mother, even Granny when she was still alive, if the famous Hatsumomo intends to abuse and demean your confidence, she succeeds with flying colours.

Alternatively, if she decides to take a more… physical approach in her sadism, why, it hurts worse than Auntie's sad, distanced stare, or Pumpkin's self-absorbed chatter about life as a maiko.

With aching slowness I raise my head from the floor where I'd fallen, desperately seeking sanctuary from Hatsumomo's drunken outburst with bruised arms and blood-stained palms.

Sitting up, I shudder in relief to hear the closing of her door, like a final insult directed my way, even as I wince now my thoughts have turned towards my dearest friend.

Technically, she's Pumpkin no longer, at least on an official basis. Pumpkin has been in the arduous training of an apprentice geisha for years now, under the intimidating tutelage of Hatsumomo herself. Most maiko would kill for the chance of obtaining such a renowned artist as her mentor, but those closest to the tigress know the inside of Hatsumomo's black heart is rotten to the core.

I'm surprised Pumpkin, or rather Hatsumiyo, has even survived such 'guidance'. So far.

Dusting down my shapeless attire, I do my best to ignore the stinging lines of fire criss-crossing my back and pick up the cane.

A vengeful, dangerous side of me wishes to snap it then and there, but I know more than anyone there are always consequences to one's actions.

Snap the cane, and Auntie would be deprived of what doubled as a walking aid for her bad hip. Why would I hurt Auntie? She had only ever shown me kindness and understanding.

Snap the cane… and Hatsumomo would merely resort to some other means to inflict damage. She is an imaginative devil, if anything.

Suppressing this rebellious portion of my mind has, over so many long, dark years of servitude become almost second nature. Almost.

No one else sees how I continue to wrestle with it on occasion. Grappling with the simple, pure streak of indomitable free will that has so nearly destroyed me in the past, and probably still can judging by situations like this evening's violent conclusion. No one else sees it… except her.

As Mother's slave, a girl with no prospects and a bleak future at best… Well, I am reminded everyday of the fate former enemies have suffered under Hatsumomo's covert sabotage, and I've done my best over time to perpetuate the image that I am not a threat.

It is difficult. Pride is one thing, but I am not yoked to it as so many others are. Wounds heal, don't they? Merciless and cruel as she is, Hatsumomo would never go too far and damage me in ways that would draw Mother's attention to her.

Not out of compassion, one must see, but because as with every other hungry mouth living under the roof of the Nitta Okiya, I am just one more mark in the mistress's ink-stained ledgers of profit and loss.

Loss…

My beloved sister Satsu is long gone from this world. I feel it in my bones. A sister knows her own, and shared blood carries with it a connection transcending even that of friendship and so, as with our parents, I know she is dead.

This geisha house bears my last remaining connection to that distant past, less than a half-seen mirage in my mind. Such a parody of a true family, this!

Well, Auntie is certainly precious to me, she and my silly, clumsy Pumpkin of old.

But Okasan… and Hatsumomo?

I should kill her.

I have considered it. Terrible as the thoughts are, in times like these, when my muscles crack under the burden of work without rest, despair without pause… oh yes, I have such thoughts.

Quietly locking the bar of the okiya's entrance into place, mindful of how light a sleeper a certain fiend was, inebriated or not, I allow the agonies of my beating to coalesce, welcoming the treacherous feelings into my head with open arms.

It would be so easy.

Ghosting silently in the direction of the tiny closet housing my sleeping mat, I massage the red mark on my cheek where she struck me and think about what I would do. So many ways!

Perhaps, on a dark night such as this, I might creep into her room, palming the little silver knife she keeps for cutting her apples. I would slit her throat ear to ear as she slept. Certainly, it would be interesting to see whether Hatsumomo bled red like the rest of us, or even bled at all.

No. Far too quick a death for one with blood already staining her elegant hands. How many geisha, full-fledged or no, had their lives cut short by this wench? More than once, Pumpkin had whispered to me of women driven from their okiyas on the basis of rumours spread by those venomous red lips. These girls would have left behind every scrap of security they had, forced into joining the ranks of those working in the neighbouring Miyagawa-cho district as prostitutes. Some had reputably committed suicide.

So not the knife, no. Poison, perhaps? I imagine Hatsumomo neatly sipping more of her expensive amakuchi only to collapse into convulsions… but… but…

Oh, Satsu.

I only have to think of those long lost eyes, too large for her face, and my own burns in shame for harbouring such wicked fantasies. I am better than this. Better than her, and I cannot, will not, allow her to corrupt me.

From paradise, my older sister and parents must be ashamed of me.

Undressing in silence, I slip into the robe I keep for sleeping and curl up in the blackness, hugging my knees to retain warmth. Outside the okiya, a lone bird is singing. It must be closer to dawn than I thought. The sound is beautiful, tugging my worn heart-strings, and it is then that I feel the well of overdue tears come to the fore, but these are not tears of self-pity.

For less than a handful of days ago, hurrying into a teahouse in search of Pumpkin, I had come face to face with the Chairman again.

Those same features I had never forgotten - the kind stranger who had for a few, brief moments brought happiness back into the life of a despondent little girl.

Happiness… and hope.

As the weeks following our first encounter melted into months and then years, the mysterious Chairman's concern and generosity had acted as an anchor for my threadbare dreams, my weary spirit. Even at that age, I had understood with a child's strange belief in ultimates that I loved him, and more than any evil plots of revenge, it was love that continued to shape me, not hate.

Feeling the seductive tug of sleep pulling my eyelids shut, a drowsy corner of my mind wonders then why Hatsumomo had chosen the latter.

Chosen? In all probability-

+CRASH+

The noise startles me to wide-eyed wakefulness in a second, the next seeing me leap from the floor, rushing barefoot into the gloomy hallway of the okiya. I pray that Mother sleeps on, for I know that whatever the cause of the disturbance, it will be me who takes the blame.

My heart shrivels when I realise the subsequent sounds of violence - and rage - are emerging from Hatsumomo's room.

No time to pause. No time to think.

As I dash towards the large, painted doors of the tigress's domain, I a serving girl feel absurdly under-dressed and defenceless, for a moment wondering whether I should grab a blade from the kitchen as a means to defend myself from the denizen within.

No time!

Sliding open the doors in haste, I enter into a scene of utter carnage, and insanity.

Hatsumomo has gone berserk.

Gaping in shock, my naked feet narrowly miss treading upon the shards formally comprising a full-sized looking glass, partner to Hatsumomo's bottomless vanity. The frame is an empty mockery; beneath it the pieces of an exquisite little jewellery box nestled amongst hundreds of razor sharp splinters.

"No… oh… oh!"

The noise emerging from the older woman's throat is akin to a tortured animal's, causing me to shiver as the hairs on my neck prick in response.

She is bent right over, sections of her obi belt loose like fronds of seaweed, left to drift between folds of gorgeous green silk.

As I step forth, already she is scrambling to her stockinged feet, thrusting the carved table housing her cosmetics aside so that it tips over, spilling all manner of vials and containers to the floor.

Frenzied, keening; black hair tangles about her face as if to conceal from me the identity of this chaotic, unbalanced creature who has switched places with our district's regal tormentress, and I find I do not prefer it.

Smash. Hatsumomo kicks aside the tools of her trade, and the room is flooded in due course with the overpowering smell of spilled perfume and alcohol, white powder misting the air as if a cloud has somehow become trapped in here with us.

Rip. She tears at her own clothes, and all I can do is hope against hope she has not done lasting damage to the almost irreplaceable garments.

Clack. Amidst this hurricane of destructive intent, Hatsumomo at the centre, all I can suddenly hear are the wooden beads of Okasan's battered old abacus, totting up cost after cost…

Clack.

Broken mirrors bring bad luck, and that wooden frame was imported, you know!

Clack.

More powder already? I am not made of money…

Clack.

All this saké - wasted. I will be cutting down on food to compensate…

Clack.

How do you feel about working for the House of Tatsuyo, Chiyo?

No… I cannot… I won't let that happen.

Darting forwards, uncaringly slicing my toes on glass, I reach to grab Hatsumomo's flailing arms to pin them to her sides, force some sort of order back into my world.

Fruitless. Even intoxicated, Hatsumomo possesses a wiry strength I would never have guessed at, throwing me to the floor, head narrowly missing the overturned leg of the table.

Suddenly transported back years, back to the time a little girl gazed up into that hateful face with tears flooding her vision, begging the witch to reveal where her sister had gone, I realise I have had enough for one evening.

Hatsumomo for her part does not appear to even notice my presence, clawing at her breast and the thin walls of the room, tearing delicate paintings from their places as she spits out incoherent fragments of speech that make no sense.

And so she does not see my leg flip up from beneath me, kicking out the backs of her legs so hard she almost falls flat on her face.

Silence.

Struggling into a sitting position, I crawl hesitantly towards the downed woman.

"Hatsumomo…"

+CRACK+

When I awake, dawn is a rosy smudge on the horizon, bringing with it the promise of a day filled with a particularly vile brand of headache. The bitch had clocked me with the broken jewellery box.

Skull throbbing, nauseas, I stagger out from Hatsumomo's empty room and search desperately for where she might be. Auntie and Mother will soon be awake.

With any luck, I would find her at the bottom of the nearby river, dead and gone from existence, but as I stumble into the small ornamental garden housing the nefarious lean-to, I am reminded that monsters are not so easily slain.

There she sits on the damp earth, forlorn as a lost waif, proud silk sullied with dirt, dust and powder. Her back is turned to me, shoulders heaving, rocking gently to-and-fro like the last leaves of the winter foliage.

By… by all that is good, she is crying.

Never, never before have I seen her do so, nor for a moment did I think her capable of it.

This revelation is not as comforting or even as satisfying as I expected it to be. Instead, I am beset with the strangest premonition something, somewhere, has changed.

A butterfly begetting a hurricane…

I felt it first a handful of days ago, when through pure accident I ran into the Chairman again, saw the man who had become my own private avatar for everything that was right in this world.

And I feel it again, here. Now.

Cautiously, as if approaching a wild animal which in some respects I was, I step up behind Hatsumomo and carefully… carefully, pull her to her feet.

She is filthy and desolate, clearly blinded by whatever calamity has reared up and stolen her mind. I suspect I know the cause.

Shivering, weeping, her superior height combined with the disturbing dizziness in my head make it most difficult to keep her upright alongside me, stumbling along like the drunken Hatsumomo and Korin I knew from my troubled childhood; two malicious geisha intent on destroying a beautiful kimono through the hands of a bereaved girl.

Wounds heal, don't they?

Sobbing into her palms, she heeds me not as I find myself murmuring tiny words of comfort into her ear, memories from another life bringing with them the sounds of my own mother before she passed on, calming her frightened daughter on a storm-ridden night.

Gently but firmly sitting her down on the sleeping mat in the shambles of her room, so does Hatsumomo appear: an overgrown child plagued on all sides by a nightmare she does not understand.

"Koichi… Koichi…" she mumbles, a tiny boat besieged by the wrath of all the elements. Over and over she repeats the name, like one of Okasan's old records broken up into an endless cycle of the same sounds.

So it is what I imagined.

To think she had, not a few hours past, believed I might willingly betray the affair she fondly supposed invisible to my eyes and others, taking the cane to my hide in an effort so typical of her; the need to force my silence and co-operation rather than just asking.

For years, since that damnable night when I caught her with Koichi in the lean-to, I had known. I was not like Okasan. Love to me, that most fragile and potent of bonds, seemed too precious a gift to steal, even from an enemy.

To think I harbour compassion - inexplicable, ridiculous compassion - for this immoral, vicious harpy.

Carefully picking my way through the litter of her room, I silently shut the door in an effort to mute any noise brought on by the task ahead.

Wiping a smear of blood from my brow, I upright the table, replacing pots and ointments and creams. With my grazed hands I sweep away powder and glittering shards of mirror.

Deaf to it all, Hatsumomo soon nods off, tossing lightly in her dark dreams, muttering snatches of phrase I find myself dimly echoing in an attempt to comprehend.

My bleeding fingers snag upon the lid of the jewellery box used first to smash - then to bludgeon - and I stoically gather the pieces, resolving to fix them back together at some later hour.

Head swimming, I retrieve a tiny package of tea a flavour I've brewed countless times but never tasted myself. Next, a crumpled slip of paper.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I kneel upon the brightest patch of floor in the burgeoning light, smoothing away the creases as I focus my eyes.

My darling Hatsumomo… lovely flower of my dreams…
The years have not been good to us. Times change, prices get dearer, work-loads are steeper… but you, beautiful lady of Gion, remain changeless forever.
I love you. I will always love you, and I know you feel the same way. It is because of this I know you will ultimately give me your blessings for the years ahead. Money is scarce, and I barely scrape by when the fishing is poor. Eventually alliances are needed in order to make things work.
My family has long been in discussion with another's, my fiancé's relatives. Together, we can more than scrape by, for ourselves and our parents and later, our children.
Hatsumomo… if you cannot spurn the life of a geisha so that we can be together without secrets, what future could we ever have had?

I stop reading. I don't want to know more. Frowning, I wonder that I ever retrieved the hidden package from the garden, presented it to Hatsumomo as a way to prevent Okasan from finding out through chance. Stupid.

Something prickles against the fabric of my sleeve and I turn awkwardly to find myself confronted by a black, fathomless gaze.

"He's gone," she mouths, staring sightlessly into my face with a sleepwalker's countenance.

"Yes," I return, warily. I pause, thinking. "Let me make you some tea," I say, mercifully breaking eye contact. "Auntie bought a new pot of honey, last week. I shall add some-"

"Stop," Hatsumomo husks, tightening her grip on my sleeve. "Just… stop." Her eyes dart about, taking in the destruction of her room, and my efforts to right it. She observes the state of her kimono, and finally my own bloody dishevelment. Her lips turn upwards.

Of a sudden I stand, icy cold with anger, tearing away from her grasp and making for the door. I can hear Auntie up and about. Perhaps together we can deflect most of Okasan's ire towards the true cause of this mess.

Her voice halts me, tired and small. "Chiyo…my table… there's a pot of healing salve, somewhere. You may use it for now… if you like."

Neither asking or forcing this time. I stare back at her in astonishment.

Her face communicates no apology, no remorse. Her words: a simple statement of what she found acceptable. Gods, I hate her.

My smile is the Chairman's smile as I fetch the pot and leave, quietly returning to my duties as maid. The sun is up now, and I have lost a whole night's worth of sleep. Today will be hell.

Yet for all these straits, it does look to be a fine, clear morning. The markets soon to be bustling with life… graced with the swish of fans and the dainty laughter of women clad in paint and silk.

Times change, Koichi writes. So they do. Through work, dedication and trust in myself I too will change. To survive, and more than survive, for water should never fear the fire that by nature cannot stop until all is consumed in its path.

Love shapes me, not hate.

My destiny will be different.