Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Kunieda Kanji

I

“Heh heh.” “So—what’d you do?” “Don’t tell me you turned tail and ran?”

“But Master, please don’t laugh.” “I’m no Kōno Moronao from Chūshingura, but I suddenly got scared for my life—pretended I needed the lavatory and ran off without even tying my fundoshi properly.…”

“What do you mean?” “You ran away?—” “Well, I’m ashamed to admit it, but if I’d let that body of hers have its way with me, I don’t think my life would’ve lasted.…”

“What kind of spineless talk is that from a strapping young lad? I don’t know how that body overpowered you—she’s just a woman. Getting beaten by a woman and slinking back here with your tail between your legs—that’s a disgrace to carvers these days.” “But Master—you’re talking big because you haven’t seen her. Like I said before, that woman’s body’s the spitting image of the cannon-shaped one from your old Northern Provinces Five Colors Ink series.…”

“Perfect! A cannon-like figure ain’t something you find by looking—they don’t grow on trees. When Udonge flowers bloom once a century, you don’t retreat even if your hips break! Kids these days—no backbone at all.”

Utamaro—tall and consequently slightly stooped, plump yet somehow high-strung—rolled up the sleeves of his yellow-checked lined kimono to his elbows and gazed pityingly at Kamekichi the carver sitting on the veranda, his swaggering manner belying expectations for a man past fifty. Kamekichi was still two or three years shy of thirty. With his flamboyant physique—more suited to a pampered youth than a craftsman—he sat hunched awkwardly on the veranda, furiously scrubbing sweat from his face with a towel clutched like an eagle’s talons.

Utamaro’s *Twelve Hours of the Pleasure Quarters*— It was after Keibori An of Takegashi—celebrated as both past and present master for carving printing drafts—had suddenly died following his final work on Moriji’s *Men and Women Under Mosquito Nets* that Utamaro discovered Kamekichi. Though young, the carver’s passionate working style proved unexpectedly suitable, and from then until Tsuruki’s publication of *Eight Views of Shimada Beauties* at autumn’s onset, nearly every significant printing draft thereafter came to require Kamekichi’s chisel blade.

Though his popularity was said to have halved since the brush scandal two years prior, Utamaro still found orders from various publishers flooding in—his flourishing state far surpassing even the then-popular Toyokuni and Eizan.

Today as well, Utamaro—having woken not long before—found himself engulfed by a boisterous crowd of morning revelers. Taking this as his cue, he left untouched the recent sketch of Kintarō he’d begun recalling and redrawing, and for no particular reason ended up drinking round after round of unremarkable sake with Kyōden, Kikuu, and publisher Izumiya Ichibei as they came and went. Yet once drunk, he suddenly felt ten years younger—or so it seemed—and grew unbearably nostalgic for his old romantic pursuits.

And then—after the previous guests had all departed—it was Kamekichi who suddenly appeared. Moreover, when Kamekichi concluded his tale of having suffered an effortless defeat at the hands of a courtesan he’d purchased in Asakusa the previous night—and when Utamaro further learned that this woman bore not the slightest difference from the female figure he himself had depicted in *Northern Provinces Five Colors Ink* about a decade prior—he found himself both scorning the young man’s spinelessness and pressing a hand against his own strangely pounding chest. “Kame-san.”

Utamaro, who had been staring fixedly at his knees for some time, suddenly raised his eyes, twisted his mouth into a grotesque leer, and glared at Kamekichi’s face. “Huh—” “You there—how ’bout letting me meet that courtesan tonight?” “What did you say, Master?” Kamekichi, at these unexpected words, widened his triangular eyes into diamond shapes. “You needn’t act so shocked. “It’s just a matter of letting me meet that courtesan you bought, ain’t it?”

“Don’t joke about that! No matter how you slice it, for Master to be with a courtesan...”

“Ha ha ha! No need for such pointless reserve. I ain’t some grand lord—whether I meet a courtesan or a ditch whore, ain’t nobody got any cause to be shocked.” “Well, I suppose that’s how it is, but even if you meet that woman, it won’t do you a lick of good.” “Whether it helps or not, I don’t care. If I just avenge your defeat, that alone is my sole desire.”

“You’d avenge my defeat.— J-joking like that won’t do! If it were the Master of old, that’d be one thing—but no matter how capable you are now, there’s no way you could handle that woman these days.—” “Are you saying it won’t even be a contest?” “I’m afraid that simply won’t happen.”

“Kame-san.”

Utamaro proudly straightened his posture. “Huh...” “Once you hear Ishichō’s six bells—no matter what—come back here again.” “If you say it won’t be a proper contest, that’d shame Utamaro himself.” “I’ll meet that courtesan to the last and avenge your defeat—gotta do it.”

Though he spoke of avenging your defeat, Kamekichi's shadow had already vanished from Utamaro's mind. In its place surged forth—vivid and potent—the bursting-at-the-seams magnificent physique of Myōgaya Wakatsuru, that back-alley courtesan from ten years prior whom he'd casually befriended and later immortalized in full-color prints for commercial success. A joy akin to unexpected fortune about to materialize before his very eyes gradually overwhelmed his chest until he could no longer ignore its pressure.

“Master, is that true?” “There’s no need for such concern.” “Well now, this has turned into quite the mess.” Kamekichi stroked his own dazed face two or three times in circular motions, and while feeling some measure of interest, he rather clearly showed bewilderment at this result that had fallen upon him like sudden rain. But for Utamaro, what Kamekichi might be thinking was now of no concern whatsoever. The carnal desire that kept surging up within him swirled from one impulse to the next, until even the still-intense daylight blazing across the sky began to fill him with agitation.

“So, Kame-san.” “Huh...” “The woman—uh—how old is she?” “She said she was twenty-four or twenty-five.” “Twenty-four or five? That’s just right. Men have no age limit, but women are done by thirty. That Wakatsuru woman from *Northern Provinces Five Colors Ink* you mentioned earlier was exactly twenty-five too, heh heh heh.”

In Utamaro’s chest surged great waves of tense pleasure, as if Wakatsuru’s very skin were pressed against him. They had likely come straight from the riverbank. Out front, a vigorous sardine seller was bellowing his crystalline voice as if to make it resound throughout all of Edo.

II

As the setting sun, which had until now clung to the finial of the five-story pagoda with its final light, vanished without warning, even Asakusa—so bustling with people earlier—was swiftly swallowed by shadows beneath the trees, their darkness thickening ominously, while an autumn wind that nipped at collars alone continued its mischievous dance, chillingly caressing skin as it passed.

With blazing eyes, standing under the willow tree at the corner of an alley in the backstreets of Umamichi were Utamaro, a tall man, and Kamekichi, a short-statured man. Kamekichi had pulled up his hemp-leaf-patterned hand towel over his cheeks.

“Master, you mustn’t breathe a word that we know each other. “Stick to saying you heard everything from Zaruya’s Tora.—” “Quit your fretting. “Mentioning a weakling’s name like yours would shame me.” “Tch. Not funny.” “When it comes down to it, didn’t I drag Master into this by losing?”

“Enough—just leave it be.” “I’ll avenge your defeat.”

“The tenement’s the third one from the back.”

“Got it.” “The name’s Ochika.—” “Whoa, Master! Your tobacco pouch’s slipping!” But Utamaro had already taken two more strides, trampling the alley’s gutter planks with vigor. As Kamekichi peered through darkness beneath his raised cheek cloth, Utamaro plunged headlong into the shadows and vanished. Soon he halted before what seemed the tenement—then moments later came the clatter of rain shutters sliding open from within. Before the faint light stood Utamaro’s face—Nakazo’s doppelgänger—floating yellowly like a shadow-puppet projection.

“Oh, do you have some business here?” That was unmistakably Ochika’s Okami’s voice.

“Just a bit of business with Ochika-san.” “Well now—pardon the intrusion.”

Having said just that, Utamaro—carrying the bamboo-wrapped meal from Chūshuntei—slid into the rain shutters and vanished. “Damn.” “Master really is experienced.—” Kamekichi, who had been watching blankly, once he confirmed Utamaro’s figure had been swallowed within, left a jealous tsk beneath his cheek cover and turned back toward the earthen wall of Enshōin Temple from which they’d come. Having entered, Utamaro deftly handed Okami the souvenir and immediately climbed into the three-tatami room as if he were a regular patron, yet even he must have felt some self-consciousness—taking a hand towel from his kimono sleeve to wipe the sweat beading on his forehead, he asked in a low voice while still standing.

“Is Ochika-san out?” “No.” “With those big eyes of yours, you don’t even notice.” “Isn’t she sprawled out like a grub behind that screen?” “Grub... Hmm, this one’s something else.” Indeed, just as Okami had said, there in the six-tatami room beyond—surrounded by a two-panel folding screen—lay what Kamekichi called “Five Colors Ink”: a body sprawled with the heavy weight of a toppled Satsuma pottery ornament. Seemingly overwhelmed by her own body grown plump from daytime drinking, clad in a Mooka cotton yukata with the thin obi carelessly tied and watermelon-like breasts exposed, the figure sprawled out to fill every inch of the cramped space met Utamaro’s gaze.

“Ochika-san.”

“Eh—” Startled awake by an unfamiliar man’s voice, Ochika jolted and stared at Utamaro’s face. “So you were inside after all.” “You there—who’re you?” “I’m that Kamekichi’s uncle—the one you ‘took care of’ last night.” “What? You’re that man’s uncle?”

“That’s right. Ain’t no call to get so startled. I haven’t come to complain about you takin’ care of my nephew, nor to demand back the money he spent on you. I’ve got a little request—that’s why I went outta my way to bring Chūshuntei’s cuisine here.” “Oh, what an eccentric man you are. For someone like me to have a request?—”

As she said this, Ochika finally sat up and plopped down into a sprawl, staring at Utamaro’s face as if trying to bore holes through it. “Does it seem strange?” “That’s right. I’m not as dependable a woman as you take me for.” “Yeah, I came asking *because* you’re unreliable.—Here—not much, but I’ll pay my respects upfront.”

From the tip of his thumb—flicked off with a snap—a two-bu gold coin clanged onto the tatami and stood upright like a shogi piece between frayed edges. “Oh, that’s a two-bu coin, isn’t it?” Ochika used the bowl of her pipe to pull the freshly minted two-bu coin closer, but perhaps sensing something unsettling about it— Without taking it in hand, she stared fixedly at the coin and Utamaro’s face in a forty-sixty split.

“How about it, hmm? How ’bout grantin’ me this one favor?”

“Hmm, well...” “When shown a tip worthy of Ōmagari’s top courtesans, one can’t exactly refuse, can they?” “But really—what’s this request of yours?” “If it’s something my body can handle, fine—but if you’re wanting me to ask Kannon’s monks to lower the belfry bell or such nonsense, no tip’ll make me agree.” “Sis, you’re quite the dandy, ain’t ya?”

“Don’t flatter me now.” “I ain’t flatterin’ ya, but Kannon’s bell’s caught my fancy.” “But that ain’t what I’m askin’.” “I want you to let me have my way with that body of yours—big as Kannon’s bell—for ’bout two hours straight.”

“My body.—” “That’s right. True to the rumors, I’ve taken an intense liking to those magnificent cannonball-like breasts of yours. I may just be an old man, but that doesn’t mean I’m trying to sleep with you. All I need is for you to do exactly as I say.—What do you say, Ochika-san? How ’bout givin’ me one favorable answer?” Utamaro, having thrust one knee forward with a jolt, burned with the passion of a twenty-year-old man—already moving to lay hands on those bell-shaped breasts without waiting for her reply.

“Hohoho. You spoke so formally I thought it’d be some impossible request—now I’m downright deflated.” “If it’s something my body can handle—whether two hours or three—you can have your way with me till you’re satisfied.” “Well then, you’ll consent?” “Alright—I’ll agree.” “But you—if you’re not trying to sleep with me, what exactly do you plan to do?” “You’re not planning to cut off and take these breasts of mine, are you?”

“Heh heh，don’t you fret over such triflin’ worries. “Ain’t no harm comin’ to your precious neck. “Just need you sittin’ there stark naked as the day you were born，is all.” “Fine then—I’ll strip bare.—”

“Feeling shy?” “No need for shyness now.—Meeting a woman with your form after ten years is heaven’s blessing. My request—let me caress that body freely while drawing it on this paper.” “So you’re an artist then?” “Call it that if you like.” “What a tedious man to come bursting in like this. My body’s no model for pillow books—this’ll be wasted effort.”

However, even as she said this, the woman abruptly stood up, pushed the pillow screen aside, suddenly untied her thin obi with a smooth motion, and swiftly cast off her yukata before Utamaro.

“Well then, hurry up and draw wherever you like.”

It was likely due to having slept off—just as it was—the intoxication from alcohol drunk during the day. The loosened Shimada mage hairstyle tilted heavily sideways, while beneath disheveled hair at her nape, greasy sweat seeped viscous and thick—its greenish-blue sheen glinting on flaking white powder—as flesh swelling like a tuna’s back from neck to shoulder pushed upward from the abdomen, culminating in two plump breasts strained taut with audacious fullness. Moreover, flesh flowing uninterrupted from mountainous chest curves surged in a great wave around hips, presenting a relatively smooth line toward knees while feet—small for the frame—fiercely pressed inward against tatami matting browned from sun exposure.

“What’s the matter with you? If you don’t draw quickly, you’re wasting the lamp oil.” But Utamaro, having drawn the yatate from his waist, remained motionless—his gaze nailed in place as he stared at the area around Ochika’s chest. “Tch, what a spineless man you are.” As she said this, the woman gave a wry smile— No sooner had the rain shutters at the entrance clattered open than Okami’s voice rang out—“Oh my, what brings you here, sir?”—but immediately overlapping it from above came a sardonic man’s voice—“Well now—this is a rare sight. Utamaro, eh?”—that suddenly made Utamaro’s earlobes tremble.

“Ah—”

“Now, now—no need to run.” “Huh—”

However, by the time Utamaro gave this response, he had already stepped over the entrance threshold and was treading on the alley's drainage planks.

“P-palanquin bearers! K-Kayabacho...” Barefoot Utamaro couldn’t even muster a proper voice to call the passing palanquin bearers.

III

Sitting on the tatami in his own house, even after drinking two bowls of water in quick succession—water the housemaid had drawn—Utamaro found his pounding heart would not subside.

That face, that voice, that sound of footsteps.—They were none other than Watanabe Kinbei, the South Magistrate’s Office policeman whom he could never forget, no matter how desperately he tried. ——

“Tsune. Secure the crossbars on the rain shutters tight—no matter who comes, you absolutely mustn’t open them!”

“Yes.” “Sake.” “And then, hurry up and lay out the bedding.” After hurrying the fumbling housemaid and gulping down the unchilled sake in one breath, Utamaro’s massive frame curled up beneath the bedding like a sea cucumber. “Ugh—I can’t stand this.—” Utamaro shuddered violently once more and strove to banish Kinbei’s figure from before his eyes. But the more he did so, the more vividly that demon-like Kinbei’s face loomed ever closer before Utamaro from the darkness within the bedding.

“I never want to set foot on the interrogation area’s gravel again.” Utamaro clasped his hands together as if in prayer and spoke these words to no one in particular. That memory could be none other than that incident from two years prior when he had suffered fifty days of handcuff punishment. Each time the swallow’s white belly fluttered once, the color of the sky grew clearer—it was mid-May. From the dispersal of the previous night’s painting gathering—having drunk with Kyoden, Shokusan, Enju, and himself at Matsue in Fukagawa Nakamachi until their sake-induced haze refused to lift—Utamaro’s hangover headache weighed mercilessly on his skull as he lay there about to commence Otsune’s prepared morning-after drink. It was then that Jirobei—the landlord who had climbed up without announcement, his touch rough against the lattice—scrambled in panic toward Utamaro’s bedside until his very teeth chattered.

“Well now—this is…” The instant Utamaro saw the landlord’s face, he intuited this was no ordinary matter—yet despite that realization, he couldn’t grasp what exactly was happening. Lifting his leaden head from the pillow as though a rod had been shoved down his spine, he sat bolt upright atop the futon. “Quite early for a visit—what business brings you here?—” “Mr. Utamaro.”

Jirobei first called Utamaro’s name anew, then swallowed a dry gulp.

“Huh—” “You—I’m sorry about this, but you’ll have to come with me to the magistrate’s office right now.…” “The magistrate’s office…” “Indeed.” “Perhaps I’m being summoned as some sort of witness—” “However, that’s not the case. This morning, an official summons came from the police box regarding you.” “Wh-what? About me?—” Utamaro remained staring at Jirobei’s face and couldn’t utter another word.

“The village headman and monthly duty officers were all waiting at the police box.” “We don’t know what business warrants your summons either, but when it’s a call from the authorities, there’s no refusing. My sympathies—but get ready at once and come with me.” “――――” “Unlike other matters, I understand it’s hard for you to go, but this is one thing you must comply with without resistance...”

“Huh—”

Obediently. That hardly needed reiterating now. In the fifty-one years since his birth, he had indulged in frequenting pleasure quarters as he pleased, had come to know women's skin ten times more than the average libertine—yet he had never once gambled with dice, let alone having any memory of stealing so much as a speck of dust from others. Thus until now, he had never set foot in even a police box—let alone the magistrate’s office—save for that single time when, having dropped his precious tobacco pouch and received a summons from Tamachi’s police box demanding he come retrieve it, he had pretended illness and sent his apprentice Hidemaro in his stead. Given that he had always repeated like a mantra that his favorite place was Yoshiwara and his most detested was government offices, his state of mind should have been all too clear—painfully obvious, in fact.

For Utamaro, the summons from the town magistrate’s office—of all places—remained an unfathomable enigma he could not comprehend. Utamaro, with a heart darkened by dreamlike forebodings, followed the landlord’s instructions to prepare meticulously without oversight. Then, tormented even by the thought of others seeing his face, he first made his way to the police box.

At the police box, just as Jirobei had said, Village Headman Koemon and three other monthly duty officers were gathered with grim expressions, waiting. When Koemon saw Utamaro’s face, he called out in a comforting manner. “This is most unexpected and unfortunate—but this must surely be some mistake by the authorities. For someone of your standing to be summoned to the magistrate’s office—even temporarily—is a true calamity. But you needn’t concern yourself. Heaven has eyes. An honest person would never be condemned for a crime—that’s for certain.”

Though their words were bold, even the town officials likely couldn’t conceal the anxiety in their hearts. The heart that secretly prayed for Constable Watanabe Kinbei’s arrival to be even a moment later was the same for everyone.

Moreover, May’s sky stretched clear as if scrubbed clean to a sapphire blue, and the breeze caressed the fledgling swallows’ feathers with a tender touch—yet Utamaro’s heart remained as heavily overcast as a northern sky, refusing to clear.

IV That was precisely an offense he could never have dreamt of. When Utamaro—commissioned by Kaga-ya Yoshiemon of Ryōgoku Hirokōji’s local publishing house—drew pictures in the same style as Ishida Gyokuzan’s Picture Book of the Taikō’s Chronicles (Ehon Taikōki), and when two or three of those illustrations proved calamitous, leading to him being ordered into custody pending investigation, he nearly collapsed at the interrogation area from sheer shock. The three days he spent in his jail cell with a death-like numbness felt longer than three years in the outside world. During those three days, Utamaro noticed his cheeks becoming gaunt and sunken.

“From now on, I’m too afraid to hold a brush.” After his release from jail—fifty days in handcuffs followed by house arrest under his landlord’s supervision—Utamaro sat once more in his own studio, transformed into a timorous shadow of his former self. He would seize upon any visiting publishers who came to check on him, subjecting them all to identical accounts of prison terrors. Whether due to this compulsion or not, the vitality that had once fueled boasts like “I’ll bed women till eighty” now vanished overnight. His body and spirit deteriorated so abruptly that one might suspect he’d aged a decade—no longer even glancing at a cup of sake, let alone showing any trace of that self-driven initiative to grind pigments which might have served as medicine for his condition.

It was a drizzling afternoon. Utamaro was leaning against his desk as usual, blankly staring at the rain’s legs pouring onto the hydrangeas in his one-tsubo garden. Just then, Otsune hurriedly entered and came to inform him of a visitor. “I don’t know who it is, but if it’s someone new, I’ll say you’re ill and turn them away.” “But Master, the visitor says he’s an urgent messenger from Lord Sakagami Mondo—the hatamoto retainer of Waridashi.”

“What? A messenger from a hatamoto?” “That he is, indeed.” “He insists he must meet with you—says there’s something he wishes to request.” …”

“I don’t know what sort of official business this is, but especially if it’s a messenger from a hatamoto, I can’t receive anyone in this state.—Though it’s impolite, tell them I’m indisposed and decline the request.”

Before Utamaro had even finished these words, “Master, there’s no need for such reserve,” declared a woman as she slid open the lattice door at the garden’s edge and strode briskly inside—a beauty of twenty-seven or eight with a large round topknot styled like a man’s mustache, her skin dewy as morning dew.

“Well now… Coming here of all places…”

The woman swiftly restrained the flustered Utamaro. “It is I.” “It is I, Okita.” “Huh—” Utamaro raised his sharp, sunken eyes. When he recognized that large round topknot as unmistakably belonging to Okita of Nada-ya—once hailed as Edo’s foremost beauty—even he couldn’t help but let a wistful smile rise to his cheeks. “Oh—Okita-san! What brings you here?” “What brings me here is too pitiful to mention.” “I have come to pay my respects.” Gliding to Utamaro’s side, Okita sat down and gazed at his aged face with evident impatience. Her skin, likened to pearls since her twenties, now radiated with the heightened luster of a woman in her prime. Having become a hatamoto’s concubine, she carried an air of refinement absent in her past—a chilling beauty that overflowed like witnessing Kikunojō’s disgrace.

But Utamaro’s smile was cold. “When I heard it was a messenger from a hatamoto, I thought there mustn’t be any careless blunders and had them refuse you—so why didn’t you properly say you were Okita?”

“If I had said that, Master, you would never have agreed to see me—after spurning your long-standing kindness and fleeing with that traitorous man all the way to Kōshū’s hinterlands, only to return to Edo and enter service at Lord Sakagami’s estate.” “You must have thought me a hateful creature—but Master,” “Okita’s heart remains as it was of old.” “By chance I heard of your recent misfortune, and though knowing I shouldn’t show myself before you, I could no longer restrain myself—thus I came masked to visit.” “What dreadful trials you’ve endured—how I long to rub your aching back.”

Utamaro, who had been sitting with his eyes closed in silence, felt the warmth of Okita’s hand near his knees as she sidled closer while speaking. “Ah, your kind intentions are appreciated, but there’s no need for that.” “Even if you were to rub me now, there’s no way this cracked body of mine could be fixed.”

The Utamaro of yesterday would never have refused Okita’s words—not once in a hundred times. All the more so because seven or eight years prior, he had devoted himself to Okita—the very woman before him—with such intensity that young men would gape in astonishment, even staking his very life. He should have pulled her to his lap without needing to be told, but Utamaro’s wrists—thinned from the handcuffs—remained clasped and motionless. “Master,”

“—” “Are you frightened of me now that I’m under a lord’s care?” “That might be.” “Ever since then, just hearing ‘samurai’ makes my vision go black.” “Ohoho, how weak of you to say such a thing!” “If they’re such light handcuffs, you might as well not be wearing them at all. Let me remove them for you—make a clean break of it.……”

Okita quite casually laid hands on Utamaro’s handcuffs.

“Oh, no!” “Such boorish reserve isn’t fashionable in Edo.” The instant she yanked the handcuffs backward, Utamaro felt a stabbing pain in his right wrist—then black blood oozed out, seeping into the blue tatami mats.

“Agh!”

Even Okita released her hands in surprise. "I've done something reckless.—" The pocket paper swiftly retrieved from her obi entwined itself around Utamaro’s blood-seeping wrist. "Does it pain you?" —

“Perhaps some medicine...” But Utamaro remained looking down, not uttering a single word. The voices of blind sellers passing along the street outside rose and fell in pitch.

“Master,” “Huh?!” Utamaro, startled by the voice, raised his face—and reflected in his sunken eyes stood policeman Watanabe Kinbei, lingering at the garden’s edge.

Five From that moment onward, Kinbei’s form clung to Utamaro’s mind like a demonic presence, never fading for an instant. Utamaro had encountered that very Kinbei—of all possible places—at the courtesan’s house he’d visited for the first time. That Utamaro, fleeing barefoot, couldn’t even manage to properly call for palanquin bearers was hardly surprising.

“Master.”

He must have wanted to hear about last night’s events as quickly as possible. Though the sixth hour had barely tolled, Kamekichi the carver, grinning to himself, placed his hand on the sliding door of the studio.

“Master.—Oh, this won’t do.” “You must still be deep in dreams from last night’s exertions.” Kamekichi took out a straw bag and natamame pipe from his breast pocket, grinned once more, then drew several quick puffs from the tobacco tray Otsune had prepared. Yet Utamaro lay completely still beneath the bedding that covered him head to toe—a sight that must have dampened Kamekichi’s spirits. After mumbling indistinctly for a moment, he stood and made his way toward old woman Otsune in the kitchen.

“Otsune-san. Since Master still doesn’t look like he’s waking up anytime soon, I’ll just run an errand over to Namiki for a bit.” “It doesn’t suit you either, Kame-san—isn’t it perfectly obvious Master wouldn’t rise this early?” “I know that, but I thought just this morning might be different.” “How could such a thing be possible? I can’t say it too loudly, but last night, it seems something unusual happened—he came rushing in like a madman and just like that had me lay out his bedding and went straight to sleep. There’s no reason he’d wake up so soon.”

“Hmph, exactly.” “That’s why I want to ask Master all about what happened—but never mind.” “I’ll be back in about half an hour, so please take care of things while I’m gone.” When Kamekichi’s footsteps faded beyond the back gate, Utamaro—like a frightened child—poked his face out from the bedding’s collar and scanned the room for light. “He had the nerve to startle me. “Coming here so damn early...” Clumsily crawling out from the bedding, Utamaro opened a nearby cupboard and pulled out one print from his “Northern Provinces Five Colors Ink” series published in the sixth year of Kansei [1794]. It was Myōgaya Wakatsuru’s form—an exact match to Ochika, the courtesan he’d met the previous night.

"Hmm... Maybe these're sisters after all." "But 'fore I could even get a proper feel of her skin—that damn fool bastard had to show his face there—"

Utamaro tried to place the brocade print he held beside the pillow while saying this. And in that moment, he suddenly felt a numbness in his fingertips. "Th-this is... bad.—"

However, the ends of his words—his tongue had already stiffened, and he couldn’t speak as he intended. “O... tsu... ne...—”

Like a turtle flipped on its back, Utamaro’s massive frame could only flail atop the bedding.

“It’s terrible! Master is in trouble!”

Utamaro heard Otsune calling out at the top of her voice to the hard-of-hearing Hidemaro as if in a dream.

On the twentieth day of the ninth month of Bunka 3 (1806), a mirror-like autumn wind flowed through Edo’s main streets.