Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

“Heishichi.”
“—Heishichi! Heishichi!”

…………

“Is he deaf? Where is Heishichi? Isn’t Hei here?!”

“Yes, sir. Hei is over here polishing your boots at this very moment.”

“Go to the garden.”

“Yes, sir. They say Tokyo’s lately seen a remarkable increase in beauties—quite a predicament, isn’t it?”

“There you go again with that talk. You—just when I thought you’d finally learned some humility and that pride of yours was starting to bend, here you go sprouting thorns again. Don’t. No matter how many thorns you sprout, you lot of impoverished hatamoto will never see your reign return!”

“I see…”
“What’s this ‘I see’? That’s precisely why you’re always getting scolded—the way you talk. You know of the Yūbin Hōchi, don’t you?”
“Are you referring to the newspaper company?”

“Exactly.”
“That bastard’s been acting outrageously again lately.”
“You—go now and pressure them into line.”

“What exactly am I to pressure them about?”

“That damn rag’s been calling me ‘Kyōsuke’ this and ‘Kyōsuke’ that again—utterly insolent.”
“I bear the splendid name Yamagata Aritomo now—there’s no need for them to dredge up some old moniker and scribble out all this mocking drivel.”
“Once the papers start braying ‘Kyōsuke’ left and right, even the rabble in the streets take up chanting—‘Kyōsuke’s lining his pockets,’ ‘Hagi’s got its Hagi,’ every sort of worthless tripe.”
“Unconscionable!”
“Go this instant and set them straight—properly.”

“In what manner am I to press them, sir? Are you saying I should go scold them with something like ‘Hold back, townsfolk—heads will roll!’?”

“You’re a dullard. Once they realize a messenger came from Yamagata Aritomo—once they understand what position I currently hold, how fearsome this role of Army Vice Minister of Military Affairs truly is—the likes of you won’t need to say a thing. It should strike terror into those bastards. Go immediately.”

“Yes, sir. I shall depart now, but as you can see it’s nearly dusk, so my return may be somewhat delayed. Will you still be here tonight? Or will Your Excellency be returning to the main residence?”

“Don’t bother asking such trivial nonsense.”
“If you return late and don’t see me here, assume I’ve gone back to the main residence.”
“Then you should return there too.”
“Get moving.”

“…………”

Like a man blown by the wind, Heishichi staggered unsteadily up toward the third embankment.

Even though autumn should have arrived by now, the sky remained thickly overcast—a murky and oppressive haze that showed none of the season’s characteristic clarity.

If there was any hint of it at all, it lay only in a faint chill lingering within the embankment’s green grass.

An autumn landscape devoid of such autumn scenes was, if anything, several times more desolate.

With a vacant expression, Heishichi staggered unsteadily down the embankment and turned toward Azuma Bridge.

It was a faintly perceptible remnant of Edo.
The dusk over the Ōkawa River—its waters spread like stagnant pools, murky and black—gradually expanded wide and far before his eyes, dotted with white sails.

Though neither the Abolition of Sword Edict nor the Haircut Order had yet been issued, Heishichi—who had long since stopped wearing swords at his waist, deeming such things useless—nonetheless pressed a hand protectively over the tip of his topknot brush, that sole remaining vestige of former refinement. With his other hand, he tapped rhythmically against the bridge railing as he drifted unsteadily onward, neither truly advancing nor halting, swaying like a kite caught in the wind.

“River, river, river.”

“Boat... boat... boats.”

“The water’s been growing murkier too...”

When he drifted to a stop, Heishichi dropped his chin into the hand that had been rhythmically tapping and stared vacantly at the water.

How many years had passed since that time—it had been the beginning of autumn like this as well.

The location too had been exactly upstream of this bridge.
The water horsemanship competitions, long discontinued, were to be held again after several years, and Heishichi too rushed to join the event.

All of them were similar hatamoto young lords, aged twenty to twenty-five or twenty-six.
Public sentiment swayed daily under swirling rumors of war and unease, yet within the hearts of Edo’s daughters, the name “hatamoto young lords”—cultivated through long tradition and refinement—still lingered as a quiet yearning. That day too, palace maids who had slipped out of the castle under pretense of official leave filled three boats with their beautiful faces, while spectators crowding the embankment could nearly all be said to be young women.

The riders numbered thirty-six.

Divided into groups of twelve riders each, Heishichi was in the second group.

The horse was a dapple-gray borrowed from the Sakurada Imperial Stables.

Out of his mother's thoughtful consideration that this color would make a striking contrast for the dapple-gray horse, Heishichi had tightly fastened to his chest a vermillion-lacquered, patternless bamboo cuirass. He wore white practice undergarments beneath a broad white satin headband and pure white Kogura hakama below, becoming a vision of monochrome white from head to toe save for the crimson armor sharply defined at his torso. When this figure of Heishichi came galloping into the water with a dramatic splash, both the faces along the embankment and those in the boats erupted in such swaying commotion they seemed ready to topple over.

Swimming went without saying—in both galloping and water horsemanship alike, Heishichi was someone who had never fallen behind others.

Boom, boom, BOOM,

Hup!

Boom, boom, BOOM,

Through the thunderous intervals of disordered drumbeats, Heishichi left three, then five riders behind as the crimson armor emblazoned across his chest plunged through rising and falling sprays. Before one could fully register this sight, his dapple-gray horse—shaking droplets from its mane—danced up the embankment amid cheers for the first arrival.

It was simply a dream-like state of mind.

Never before had Heishichi felt such profound joy and pride in being born to a hatamoto household as in that moment when cheers and faces came surging toward him.

Yet the world refused to acknowledge that joy.

The young men who should have formed the backbone of the hatamoto class were so absorbed in frivolous water horsemanship games—entertaining women's eyes but amounting to nothing—that Edo forces lost every battle they fought. Along with such criticisms came an unstoppable brute force that smashed everything to pieces in one blow.

It truly was an unstoppable brute force—like a raging flood. It was violence that felt utterly inevitable—snatching fragrance from where it bloomed, erasing color from where it shone, deliberately hurling stones into still pools as if declaring this world needed only utilitarian function.

Against such brute force bordering on barbarism, no matter how much the hatamoto—their very hearts refined to the finest grain—might exert themselves, they could never hope to withstand it...

From around that time onward, even this river’s waters had begun to grow turbid…

“Hey!…”

Suddenly at that moment, someone barked “Hey!” and roughly struck his shoulder—Heishichi lifted his face with an annoyed expression, turned clouded eyes, and looked back.

Standing there was his old comrade Tsuwamono Shinbei—the man who had shared adjacent estates in Banchō district, ridden alongside him in the same second group during water horsemanship competitions, and been denounced together as “weakling hatamoto.” He was a man who had abruptly vanished from all knowledge after rumors spread that he’d soon after angrily risen against those criticisms—going all the way to Kōfu to deliberately court defeat in some conflict where he sustained two or three additional wounds.

However, even now within this shogunate retainer’s topknot—perhaps still harboring lingering resentment from when he’d been denounced as a ‘weakling hatamoto’—a particularly thick ornament had been thrust sideways, while in his eyes’ gleam burned an intense, irritable defiance.

“What a pathetic face you’re making.
What a wretched state you’re in.”

While looking down with those piercing eyes, Shinbei declared in a vigorous voice.

Heishichi silently looked over his own body.
Indeed, just as those words suggested—his skin tone and even fingernails had lost their luster. Nowhere remained any trace of that dazzling vitality from years past, when he had boldly crossed this Ōkawa River in full warrior splendor, crimson armor cutting through sprays of pure white.

“Heh… heh… heh…”

Laughing listlessly, Heishichi let out a drawn-out yawn and spoke in a slack voice.

“What have you been up to lately?”

“There’s something I want to say—I hear you’re still holed up at Yamagata Kyōsuke’s place, acting like some servant or freeloader. You’re still there?”

“I’m here.”

“What an utterly despicable wretch.”
“For a shogunal retainer once called Hatamoto to accept rice from that bastard who might as well be our sworn enemy—they all raged at how utterly spineless this was.”
“You find it amusing staying at that bastard’s place?”

“Not amusing at all.”

“Then why don’t you get out of that place?”

“But even so, the world beyond can’t be much better.”

“What a spiritless thing for a man to say.
What were you doing zoning out here?”

“He told me to go strongarm the newspaper, so I came out.”

“What’s there to strongarm about?”

“Because they keep calling him Kyōsuke barefaced, he says to go threaten them.”

“Are you going?”

“I won’t go. Since he’s Kyōsuke, there’s nothing strange about being called Kyōsuke. So I just stood there blankly.”

“Do you have any backbone at all? Spouting nonsense like some jellyfish—can’t say I don’t feel pity for you. If you want, shall I buy you a drink?”

“Do you have money?”

“I have some, so I’m saying I’ll take you there.—You coming?”

“…………”

Blank-faced, Heishichi shuffled out after him.

II

After crossing back over the bridge and turning right along the river, Shinbei hurried down the embankment.

The entire left side had once been lined with appropriately sized estates nestled among larger ones; until crossing from Edo's borders into Meiji, even the tree branches peeking over fences maintained a quiet order. But now, surrendered to the rampant trampling of brute force that had surged in, gates warped, nameplates were torn off, and on the white spaces left behind—seized through convenient methods such as purchases or outright seizures—the names of those who'd claimed them as private property were scrawled haphazardly in hard-to-read characters. Just passing by and seeing how things were progressing made one feel a parched dryness rising in one's throat.

At the edge of those continuous walls lay Honjo Ishiharacho, its streets bleeding faint lamplight into the dusk.

Hemmed in on all sides by officials’ residences that had come to surround the area, it was a town where glistening lamplight still lingered—as if determined to defend this lone fortress at the very least.

At that far corner stood a single building facing the river,

*Edo’s Lingering Traces: The Rare Shop*

At the gate of a small eatery where a lantern glowed with what seemed like slightly sulky air, Shinbei stopped. Jerking his chin upward and squinting his eyes, he briskly ducked inside.

Water had been sprinkled damply on the stones laid in the narrow front garden, and the wet stones' color appeared all the more desolate.

“Oh, welcome…”

Seeming to be frequent visitors, two familiar-looking maids flusteredly lined up their faces and ushered Shinbei upstairs without even descending.

However, Shinbei seemed to have someone else in mind. Peering into room after room, he briskly climbed up to the second floor's three adjoining rooms facing the river.

Leaning against the room's handrail, her floral hairpin fluttering in the wind, the petite woman who had been gazing absently at the river turned around in surprise.

“Oh…”

“Ah, there you are!”

That was what he had been searching for.
She still appeared to be seventeen or eighteen, her smooth skin gleaming like a river fish’s scales, the curves from her chest to her waist as fresh and delicate as the floral hairpin in her hair—a young girl untouched by time.

“That won’t do. Loitering around like this.—Come on, sit here.”

Far from being an occasional visitor—in fact, he seemed to come daily—Shinbei unceremoniously took the woman’s hand and pulled her close to his side.

“When I came yesterday, I told you to shave your nape, but you still haven’t done it.”

“But I’ve been busy...”

“Keep saying you’re busy all you want, but gentlemen with handlebar mustaches aren’t coming to a place like this. They’re all drifters like us anyway, aren’t they?”

“Well, that may be so, but…”

“Writing letters every day, meeting all sorts of men now and then—that’s what keeps you busy?”

“Oh, you’re so hateful…”

Forming dimples like pools of rouge, she smiled coquettishly and silently mouthed with her eyes.

“This companion here?”
“......”

“Yeah, sake.”

“Would you care for some as well, sir?”

“Let’s drink.”
“And have the dishes as usual.”
“If you bring squid sashimi again like yesterday, today I’ll throw a fit! It’s sweet and clings stickily to the teeth—that’s something for Chōshū folks to eat.”
“Make sure you tell the old man properly.”

As she tried to stand up, Shinbei hurriedly stopped her with a squint, fidgeting as if he still wanted to say something. But after scrutinizing Heishichi’s expression, he led the woman to the adjacent room and whispered something in a hushed voice.

Crimson instantly suffusing her nape, the woman went downstairs as though concealing her face.

However, no matter what entered his eyes, Heishichi remained slumped with his chin resting in both hands like a man devoid of all sensation, not saying a word.

Before long, sake was brought before his chin.

“Here it comes. Go on, drink up!”

“…………”

“What’s wrong with you?”
“Aren’t you drinking?—You’re making a sour face there.”
“Shall I pour for you?”

Silently drawing closer the cup that Shinbei had filled to the brim, Heishichi silently brought it to his lips.

It wasn't that he was in a bad mood.
Even to alcohol, Heishichi's emotions had now stiffened completely, showing no reaction.
No—rather than there being no reaction, it would be more accurate to say he had forgotten how to make expressions.
Their world having been abruptly shattered, these six or seven years of existence—like taking shelter under foreign eaves during rain—had drained all elasticity from Heishichi's heart, from Heishichi's flesh.

“Hopeless fool,” Shinbei said. “I went through the trouble of bringing you here to lift your spirits—couldn’t you at least drink like you’re enjoying it?”

“…………”

“Does it taste bad? The sake! The sake!”

“It’s fine.”

“If it’s fine, then drink like it’s fine!”

Noticing Heishichi’s demeanor, Shinbei admonished from beside him.

Yet even as he spoke these words, Shinbei himself showed no particular enjoyment in his drinking. Appearing to await something anxiously, he repeatedly glanced toward the staircase with restless movements.

As if to confirm this suspicion, after the girl with the flower hairpin brought and arranged the final dish, she cast a fleeting glance at Shinbei and slipped into the dark room at the far end as though hiding herself.

It seemed the fidgeting anticipation had been for that signal, for Shinbei followed right after her into the room without delay.
At the same moment—whether a stifled breath was heard or imagined—the girl’s flower hairpin tinkled faintly.

However, Heishichi treated even this as if it were happening in some foreign land, his face blank as he rested his cheek on one hand. With his free hand, he listlessly drew the sake bottle closer and brought the cup to his lips.

“Oh dear. You poor thing.
“You’re all alone, aren’t you?”

Suddenly at that moment came a raspy voice from below; then the plump maid plopped down beside him and sat close by with her full weight before speaking conciliatorily:

"How cruel they are! To leave someone so gentle like yourself completely alone—the sake must've tasted awful."

"I've always been alone."

Suddenly, Heishichi spoke as if angry.
—Yet he hadn’t truly been angry.

“Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh……”

After a pause, he laughed as if recalling something, then said quietly to the woman.

“Is the river still deep now?”

“Deep as ever it was. Edo may have become Tokyo, but the Ōkawa River hasn’t grown any shallower.”

“So that’s how it works.”
“Then even when Edo turns to Tokyo—in places where men can drown, men will still drown.”

“Oh dear. You say such unsettling things, don’t you? Why on earth would you ask such strange things?”

“How many people do you think have died in this river here since olden times? Things that don’t change stay unchanged forever—I was just thinking how strange that is.—And how old are you?”

“Hey...”

As if to interrupt the conversation, Shinbei stuck only his face out from the dark room across the way and, jerking his chin, said.

“We’re heading back now.”

“……?”
“Ah. I see.”
“Did the flower scatter?”

Casually standing up, Heishichi made a nonchalant face as he lumbered off.

On both the water and embankment, darkness settled damply as faint night dew brushed against feet.

Where was it? In the dark river, an oar creaked.

Seeming satisfied, Shinbei urged in a cheerful voice from within the shadows of the dark embankment.

“Where’re you off to?”

“Hmm…”

“Don’t ‘hmm’ me now.
What’re you doing mooning about here?”

“Hmm…
Seems this stretch still runs deep as of old.
Hear that sloshing?”

“Fool’s work, marveling at such trifles.
Keep lollygagging and I’ll leave you behind!”

Suddenly from behind came the jingle of a hairpin.

Though she had hidden shyly behind the sliding screen without showing her face earlier, it appeared she had secretly come to see Shinbei off after all. Hesitating repeatedly as she approached with the chiming flower hairpin, the young girl stared intently at Heishichi’s dark figure standing dejectedly by the embankment, fidgeting as if wanting to say something for some time—

“That was wrong of us, wasn’t it?
“Leaving you all alone like this—you must have been so lonely, standing there looking so sad.”
“Next time, I’ll surely…”
“If I do it like this… that should be all right.”

Whispering as she drew near, she suddenly grasped Heishichi’s hand softly—then jingling her hairpin ling-ling—she dashed through the gate as if fleeing.

She went up to the second floor and stood at the window where her face couldn’t be seen, perhaps seeing someone off—the same hairpin’s sound ling-linging faintly through the air.

Three

“Heishichi.
“—This here, Heishichi. Heishichi.”

…………

“Day after day you grow deafer, eh?
“Where’s Heishichi?”
“Isn’t Hei here?!”

The following evening, Yamagata once again called out sharply from the inner quarters.

He had been waiting, thinking he would be told to go around to the garden, but for some reason today, just as the sound of geta approached from beyond that garden, a sharp face identical to the voice peeked out abruptly.

“What’s this?”
“Polishing the boots again?”

Just as he had done the day before, Heishichi was squatting by the back gate near the stable, diligently polishing the prized long boots Yamagata boasted of.

That seemed to put him in a good mood, and Yamagata’s thorny long narrow face softened uncharacteristically.

“There are times when I think you might be a fool, but depending on how you’re handled, you make for quite the dutiful sort."
“Since they’re boots I hold dear, that resolve to polish them properly—rather commendable for one of your station."
“Were you just a bit more sharp about things, you might even manage some advancement though…”

…………

Heishichi suddenly chuckled.

“What’s so funny! —Where exactly is the humor?!”

“It’s not as though I polished them with that intention.”

“Then with what intention did you polish them, I ask?”

“By idly moving my hands like this, my mind goes numb—that’s why I was polishing them.”

“There you go again with that talk!”
“That’s exactly why—even when I think of carving out a path for your advancement—I can’t bring myself to do it.”
“If you’re training to become a fool, then by all means continue…”

As if a hole had gaped open—suddenly, at that very moment, the back gate Heishichi had been leaning against creaked open of its own accord.

Immediately beyond, a narrow path continued onward, and a faint breeze passed over the tips of susuki grass that grew thickly across the area, creating quiet waves as it went.

It was because the weather had changed from yesterday, becoming crisply clear.

In the midst of that rustling wind, the true autumn silence of Mukōjima settled for the first time in this area, while the desolate shadow of the setting sun flowed over susuki grass waves, leaving faint streaks in its wake.

“Heishichi.”

“Yes, sir.”

“…………”

“…………”

“Autumn, isn’t it.”
“Autumn it is, sir.”

There was no particular reason. Yamagata forgot he was Yamagata, Heishichi forgot he was Heishichi, and before they knew it, they found themselves walking shoulder-to-shoulder along a path through susuki grass. It wasn’t their feet moving—it was their hearts that truly walked.

Without purpose or destination, they climbed the embankment together.

“Where do you intend to go?”

“Anywhere would be fine…”

“I suppose anywhere would do...”

There was nothing particular to it.
As he shifted his feet sideways in staggered steps, before he knew it, Heishichi found himself walking unsteadily toward that small tavern in Ishihara-cho from the previous evening.

Yamagata, too, with an expression as though he had made an appointment to go there before he knew it, followed unsteadily after Heishichi.

The pale lamplight seeped into the riverside dusk just as it had the previous evening, and whether due to the lack of customers or not, the color of the stones wet from sprinkled water seemed especially forlorn today.

“Ah! Your Excellency!”
“Your Excellency Yamagata! —This way, please.”
“Right this way!”
“O-Yuki... O-Yuki...”
“Where the hell is O-Yuki?!”

Though she wore a casual kimono, it was her sharp-featured face that had recognized Aritomo. From behind the counter emerged the proprietress with blue-tinted eyebrows—flustered and in frantic panic—who then led them to that second-floor room from the previous night.

“Please, Your Excellency.”
“Please.”
“Right this way!”
“For Your Excellency to grace such a squalid place with your presence—I’m at a loss for words.”
“I’ll have the women come pay their respects shortly.”
“This way! — Miss O-Yuki!”
“Cushions! Now!”
“Where are the good cushions?!”

“…………”

“Miss O-Yuki!”
“O-Yuki!”
“O-Yuki! —Where in blazes is O-Yuki?!”

Calling out in a shrill voice, the proprietress hurriedly slid open the tightly closed fusuma door at the far end of the room with a clatter—all by herself.

At the same time,

"Oh!"

"Hey."

From both sides, surprised voices and faces clashed.

Unexpectedly, on the other side of that fusuma door, last night's Shinbei sat holding last night's young girl O-Yuki in his arms.

However, the flower hairpin was no longer visible in her hair.
Directing a coquettish gaze that seemed newly acquired, she shyly looked up at Heishichi's face, then O-Yuki shyly lowered her face again.

Already, Yamagata’s eyes fixed on her figure.

The proprietress’s deduction was equally swift.

“This is a problem.
“You.
“This customer comes every day—you can deal with him later.”
“Your Excellency has his eye on you, so go over there right away to greet him!”
“Don’t mess this up now!”

Taking O-Yuki as if plucking her from a branch, forcing her down beside Yamagata, the proprietress—seizing this critical moment—turned on the charm full force.

“After all, she’s just an innocent here—no, Your Excellency, innocent she may be, but quite reliable.
Since I’ve raised this girl as my own from three years old, she’ll serve you properly.
—Hey! What’s everyone standing about for?
That rōnin’s sake can wait!
Bring everything over here now!”

With a sharp crack, the fusuma to Shinbei’s room slammed shut.

Baring his white teeth in a sharp laugh, Yamagata glared at the violently closed door and said to Heishichi.

“You’re comrades with that one, aren’t you.”
“No need for you here.”
“Go over there.”

“……?”

“Since you’re no longer needed here, I’m telling you to withdraw.”
“Out! Now!”

“Is that so.”
“Am I to go over there...”
“Ah, you.”
“My apologies about last night.”
“He said ‘Withdraw,’ so I came.”

With a sluggish expression, Heishichi entered as he was driven out.

“You fool!”

As if lying in wait, Shinbei glared.

“What the hell were you thinking, bringing that thing here?!”

“It’s not like I guided him here. I was just wandering over here when that Lieutenant General in Japanese attire got interested and followed along aimlessly, so we ended up coming in together, that’s all.”

“What kind of Lieutenant General is that? You—it’s because you do such bootlicking that everyone’s flicking you away like dirt. That proprietress—she’s exactly what you’d expect! Putting up pretentious signboards boasting about ‘remnants of Edo’ and ‘exotic novelties,’ and yet look at that disgraceful spectacle! It’s because you do things like this that upstarts grow ever more brazen!”

“That might very well be how it turns out.”

“If you had any sense, you—starting with you—shouldn’t be doing such things! It’s because you do this, because you wag your tails, that even women with pure hearts—even someone like O-Yuki—”

Seemingly unable to endure any longer, Shinbei began inching the long sword lying beside his knee closer. However, though he lifted his knee time and again to reach for the fusuma door, that paper-thin barrier now stood firmly between them like an unassailable fortress wall, impossible to open with ease.

“You fool!”
“You spineless coward!”
“It’s because things turn out like this! Because you suffer these consequences! That’s why I can’t stand the world today!”
“—Proprietress!”
“Proprietress!”

Tormented, Shinbei thudded down into a sitting position and called out shrilly.

“Bring the sake!”
“Proprietress!”
“I’m a customer too!”
“If you can’t bring it, call the old man, call him!”

Smoothly, the fusuma door slid open, and the proprietress showed a pale face.

However, though she did look in, she paid no mind to Shinbei.

"Mr. Heishichi—since you're making such a nuisance—His Excellency says you're to return ahead."

“Ah, I see.”
“This time I’m to go back first?”
“If that’s how it must be, then there’s naught else but to comply.”
“Well then, I’ll be returning…”

With a sluggish expression, Heishichi rose heavily once more, driven onward.

“Wait!”
“This makes me sick.”
“I’m going too!”
“—Wait!”

Unable to endure it further, he stood up and—leaving violent footsteps in his wake—Shinbei too went chasing after.

However, no sooner had he stepped outside than his feet began pacing back and forth, never leaving the gate.

After glaring up at the second floor several times—eyes fixed irritably, reconsidering and changing his mind only to clench his teeth again—Shinbei suddenly drew the dagger at his waist and thrust it into Heishichi’s hand, speaking in a groaning voice.

“I’m begging you! Take this with you!”

“Are you telling me to kill?”

“No—Shinbei’s coming too! I’m coming too! Let’s go together and kill him!”

“Can’t you kill Yamagata Kyōsuke on your own?”

“It’s not that I can’t kill him—Kyōsuke—it’s not that I can’t kill him…”

“If you’re not incapable of killing him, then go alone and do it.”
“Or if you can slay Kyōsuke alone but find the smoke clinging to Yamagata Aritomo too thick to cut through, abandon this.”

“So you—you mean to let our old comrades die?!”

“I don’t intend to, but if you’re enraged while I remain unperturbed, that’s how it will turn out.”
“Go if you will; stay if you will.”
“I intend to first try surviving until tomorrow.”

“You—!”

The voice cut off abruptly. For a while, Shinbei's ragged breathing could be heard behind him, but soon came the clattering sound of footsteps breaking into a run.

Four

Undoubtedly, Heishichi survived safely until the following day.

He had thought he would be called again from the rear rooms or the garden in the same manner, but Yamagata never uttered another word.

It was not merely one day.
Days passed, and even when three days had come to pass, Aritomo did not so much as show his face.

Under the pretext of recuperation, Aritomo had come to this three-circuit villa—devoid of womenfolk, attended only by an elderly caretaker—and it had never been unusual for him to spend day after day living in this manner without even raising his voice.

During such times, he would shut himself away in one of this villa’s mere five rooms—though which room exactly remained unknowable—remaining so secluded that even the three daily meal trays brought from Kamechou across the river could not reveal whether he was eating or merely leaving them untouched.

However, it was certain he was doing something. As evidence: when Yamagata Aritomo would don his lieutenant general’s uniform, ride his horse to this villa, seclude himself here for three or five days without making a sound, then emerge from the villa with his boots polished—invariably, just when people had forgotten—garrison officers’ heads would fly off one by one somewhere, and afterward, new officers’ heads would sprout up and spread just as swiftly.

Every time there was such seclusion, the fact that Kinshōji Heishichi was invariably ordered to accompany him from among the several retainers stemmed from this man with the splendid name Kinshōji Heishichi possessing a quality that made it unclear whether he had a heart despite bearing such a name.

Indeed, no matter how many days Yamagata Aritomo shut himself away in this villa, no matter how he labored to nurture the roots of the Chōshū Army while obscuring public scrutiny, it remained entirely irrelevant to Heishichi.

If he were swept away somewhere again tomorrow by that current, then let him become sodden where the flow ceased; if they twisted him off and cast him aside, then let him be cast aside...

“Mr. Army General,
Mr. Navy Admiral,
Satsuma’s our fleet,
Chōshū’s our guns,
But Tosa’s bees give a vicious sting!”

“Who’s there! Who’s singing that song?! Heishichi!”

“Me—? I don’t recall singing anything though...”
“I don’t recall singing anything at all though...”

“No—alright, I see now. It’s the neighborhood brats. Who taught them that nonsense rhyme? The little miscreants go raising a ruckus as they flee over there. Hopeless brats. To the horse!”

“Ah, I see you’ve donned the military uniform and boots as well.”
“Then shall we proceed at a leisurely pace?”

After three days of lying in the straw where he kept returning, Heishichi rose sluggishly from within and positioned himself ahead of Aritomo—who had nimbly mounted the led-out bay horse—before ascending the three-circuit embankment at a clip-clop pace, his expression blank as he walked alongside the steed.

Strangely, Heishichi went straight down the embankment toward Ishiharacho.

“Wrong.”
“Heishichi.”
“Cross the Azuma Bridge.”

“Is that so… If we take this route, might we not reach the mansion?”

“It’s not that we cannot go that way, but returning to Hanzo Gate via Honjo would mean a significant detour. Turn back to Azuma Bridge.”

"But given that the horse must come through..."

…………

Silently tilting his head, Yamagata suddenly let out a cavernous laugh from atop his horse.

“Ah, I see.
“Ha ha ha…
“So it’s you…”

“Is there something amiss?”

“So you’re smitten with that O-Yuki, aren’t you?”

“Me?!
“Could that be…”
“That can’t be the case—I don’t believe I’ve ever once thought such a thing…”

However, the other evening was the same.
Today was even more so.
He felt as though something was resonating deep within his ears—and though he had undoubtedly come down this path drawn by that sound, yearning for it—

What that sound was.

The sound he had been yearning for in the dim depths of his ears surged up as the jingling of a flower hairpin.

Heishichi’s face flushed red involuntarily.

“See? You’ve been pining away without even realizing it.”
“Ha ha ha… How pitiful.”

“No!”
“No!”
“The pitiable one isn’t Master Heishichi!”
“It is I!”
“Please wait!”
“Your Excellency!”

No sooner had a bursting scream been heard than a white blur—whether from the roadside or a gate—shot out with blinding speed and clung to Aritomo’s leg as though sinking teeth into it.

It was O-Yuki.

“You!”
“You imbecile!”
“What are you doing?!”

“No!
“No!”
“I won’t let go!”
“Monster!”
“Monster!”
“Liar! You monster of an Excellency!”
“You deceived me, made me suffer such sorrow—no matter what anyone says, I won’t let go of this boot!”
“Today—today—I’ve wept through day after day waiting for this!”
“If all of you have gathered here, then listen well!”
“When I tearfully begged you—‘Please spare me this, please restrain yourself’—you deceived me! Threatened me! Promised ‘I’ll come tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll send a messenger, make you my pampered mistress’! Tricked this young girl with such lies—that—that—”

“You imbecile!”
“What nonsense are you spouting?!”
“People are gathering! Let go!”
“Let go!”

“No!
“Even if I die, I won’t release this boot!”
“I knew it was all lies from the start, but still I waited day after day thinking ‘perhaps… perhaps…’ only to suffer such sorrow—that—that—you liar!”
“Monster!”
“No!”
“No!”
“That’s not all.
“You’ve made even Mr. Shinbei—who’s done nothing wrong—suffer such cruelty! Was there truly any need for Your Excellency to have the officials drag him off to a prison cell?!”
“How pitiful! To arrest even those already beaten down by the world—I won’t release it!”
“I won’t release it until Your Excellency apologizes to this O-Yuki!”

“You imbecile! What would I know about Shinbei?! It’s because he dared draw his sword and come raging here that they arrested him! Step back! Step back!”

“No! Even if this body is torn to pieces, I shall not retreat! Everyone gathered on the street—listen well! This you—this lying Your Excellency—”

“Still running your mouth?!”

Whether it was because the ears of the people—who had now formed a black-gathered crowd—proved more terrifying than O-Yuki’s screams, Yamagata Aritomo abruptly jerked his mounted body with one violent shake, and in that instant, O-Yuki’s white face spewed something crimson as she reeled backward and tumbled beneath the horse.

“Heishichi!”
“Let’s go!”
“Forward!”

It was at that very instant—as he turned the corner as if fleeing and tried to break into a run—

Suddenly, eyes glaring, Heishichi leaped from the side and clung to the boot released from O-Yuki’s grasp, as if substituting himself in her place with warrior-like ferocity.

“What?!
“You imbecile!”
“You—you—what are you doing?!”
“Let go!”
“Let go!”

However, Heishichi's hand did not let go.
No sooner had he thrown himself forward with warrior-like intensity than he yanked off one boot.

It was not rebellion.
It was not rage.
It was neither love, nor moral outrage, nor vengeance.
Heishichi's entire body—which had hung swollen and limp like a waterlogged sack—abruptly, at this very instant, gathered all its strength and burst into motion; this description captured it most precisely.

Clutching the stolen boot tightly in both hands, weeping profusely all the while, he descended the embankment—and no sooner had he done so than he came wading into the autumn-swollen current of the Ōkawa River, the water splashing loudly around him.

No sooner had he entered than he sank smoothly and deeply to the riverbed.

“Ah!”
“That’s... that’s certainly Lord Kinkōji all right—what a splendid way to go.”

From the gathered crowd emerged the face of what appeared to be an elderly construction worker, who then spoke as if overcome with emotion.

“If it’s Lord Kinkōji we’re talking about, he should’ve been adept at watermanship—but they say drowning yourself when you can swim takes more grit than slicing your belly open. Quite splendid indeed…”

However, from the water’s depths, nothing floated up after that.

As if declaring there was no other way for one who lacked the will to sustain himself—pitying himself yet bereft even of the strength to live—to end such a life than this, only small bubbles gurgled faintly two or three times as they rose up.