Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Karita Sōhei spoke smoothly.
It closely resembled an artist painting their favorite work.
It was like watching someone draw each line and point, every blurred section and coloring sequence, without error or hesitation.

"It’s just like with Tategami," thought Kōdō Kōbei.
Nearly identical to the Tategami Heisuke incident—from behind came a kitten’s faint mewl, while outside the window eaves rustled with dead leaves.

“No, I cannot do that,” Kōbei said with a slight shake of his head. “There is nothing for it but to say it’s impossible.”

Karita sipped the cold tea and took a chestnut manjū from the sweets bowl to eat.

“Oh?”
Karita smiled amiably. “These chestnut manjū from Jueidō—they’re truly my favorite treat. That shop’s run by just an old man and his daughter, you see. The daughter must be twenty-eight or twenty-nine by now. The old man dotes on her so much he can’t bear to let her go. And she’s quite the beauty—suitors come swarming like flies—but since he won’t give his approval, she remains unwed to this day.”

It was his usual habit, Kōbei thought. When sensing disadvantage, he would skillfully divert the conversation. He had been more adept at it before, but now he was past his prime. How pathetic, Kōbei thought, averting his eyes from the man.

"How about another six months?" Karita abruptly returned to the original topic. "I'll settle it by next April without fail."

"You've said that before."

"I've been completely truthful with you, Mr. Kōdō," Karita said, formally placing both hands on his knees. "I didn't act out of self-interest—it was for those driven to desperation by hardship. I simply couldn't bear to watch."

Again dead leaves scattered against the eaves, their sound like sleet beginning to fall.

“Even if you demand immediate repayment, they lack the means to do so.”
Karita pressed on. “But with a six-month grace period there, I’m certain the funds would be recovered—no, I will surely collect them, even if it costs me my life.”

Kōbei paused for a moment before retorting.

“Do you remember Mr. Tategami?”

Karita Sōhei opened his mouth and widened his eyes.
He felt as if a bell had been suddenly rung beside his ear, leaving him unable to form an immediate response.

“Mr. Kōdō,” Karita finally said, sounding deeply wronged, “do you truly think of me in such a way?”

“I merely asked whether you remember.”

“I had thought Mr. Kōdō would have understood my explanation much better.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken.”
Kōbei slowly shook his head. “I neither know nor wish to know how you used the government funds. No matter how thoroughly you explain the circumstances, it holds no relevance to me—I have no power to act upon it.”

Karita let out a long sigh.

“His Lordship’s return will be in March of next year. Let us wait until then,” Kōbei said quietly. “Well then, as it’s time for me to attend the castle, I shall take my leave here.”

Kōbei stood up and left the tatami room.

At that moment, Kōdō Kōbei noticed Karita Sōhei staring up at him with eyes like those of an abandoned puppy watching its departing master’s retreating figure.
"How pathetic," he thought.
When trying to cover up their own misconduct, does everyone make that sort of face?
Had Tategami Heisuke also made such a face? Kōbei imagined.
In the living room waited Fuji, his wife.
In the Kōdō household, braziers were not placed in the tatami rooms until December arrived.
Karita too looked cold, but his wife Fuji—the cold must have been biting into her—her lips appeared purplish, and her body trembled in small shivers.

“Call Yoshikawa—I need to change clothes,” he said to his wife, looking at her. “What are you doing here?”

“Mr. Yoshikawa this morning—”

“Yoshikawa,” he cut in. “He is the steward; you are the mistress of the Kōdō household. I’ve told you before—if we don’t maintain clear distinctions between master and servant, managing the household becomes impossible.”

Fuji lowered her eyes and bowed her head.
Kōbei softened his voice slightly and asked what had happened to Yoshikawa.
“Yoshikawa Jinzaemon took to bed with sudden stomach pain,” Fuji answered.

“One more thing I should mention,” Kōbei said as he changed clothes. “When serving sweets to guests, I will say so. There was no need for that with this morning’s guest—keep that in mind.”

The wife answered, “Yes.”

There seemed to be a kitten in the back—I disliked cats and dogs. After ordering someone to immediately find and dispose of it somewhere, Kōbei left the house. Even after two hundred days since joining the household, she still hadn’t adapted to the family customs. She was always acting skittishly, seeming to watch nothing but my expressions. With that demeanor, could she truly be turning twenty-three? Kōbei wondered as he walked. He was irritated. And he also knew this irritation toward his wife was in fact a rebound from the Karita problem.

“A wicked man,” he muttered. “More malicious than Tategami.”

When Tategami Heisuke was audit officer, he lent government funds to merchants and earned considerable interest.
He had colluded with two subordinates, and though it was discovered in the second year, since nearly all the government funds had been repaid, the three were merely relieved of their positions.
Karita Sōhei had been audit officer for three years, but he began engaging in similar activities around last spring, and his misdeeds came to light this July.
When the Tategami incident occurred, Kōbei had been serving as auditor of magistrate positions and thus bore no direct responsibility, but now, as financial overseer, he naturally held accountability for the government funds.
Initially, upon hearing rumors that Karita was secretly engaged in moneylending, when he investigated, it became clear that over fifty ryō of government funds had been diverted, and Kōdō Kōbei immediately summoned Karita.
Sōhei attempted to talk his way out, but unable to endure Kōbei’s relentless questioning, he confessed.
Though he had couched it in elaborate terms, in summary, he had been lending small amounts to mid-to-lower-ranking samurai and profiting from the interest.
When they investigated a few of the borrowers, it turned out to be "money from a certain government-contracted merchant," with interest rates and repayment terms that were quite unreasonable.

In Tategami’s case, the counterpart had been merchants.
But Karita was entirely different—no matter how low-ranking a samurai might be, samurai maintained their public standing and dignity as domain retainers.
Should they become unable to repay their debts and have this exposed publicly, they risked losing their stipends and being forced to see their families scattered.

“Karita had set his sights precisely there,” Kōbei muttered as he kept walking. “It seems I can hear the groans and sighs of those poor samurai trembling before him.”

“Did you say something?” Uno Ikuma, his attendant, called out from behind.

“The wind is cold,” Kōbei replied.

That afternoon, after leaving the castle grounds, he visited the Koshikawa residence in Uchomai.
Koshikawa Saikyū served as second senior retainer at forty years of age—known among the clan as sharp-tongued yet showing particular kindness to Kōbei. Indeed, Kōbei owed his current appointment to Saikyū’s vehement advocacy.
For six or seven days now, Saikyū had remained secluded indoors after his cold worsened.
Kōbei had meant to discuss the Karita affair during this visit of condolence, but another guest’s presence prevented him from broaching the matter.
The guest was Komori Takane, a mid-ranking elder two years Saikyū’s senior. Despite their difference in status, every word and gesture revealed undisguised deference toward Saikyū.

“Any bird,”
Saikyū coughed violently, his corpulent frame doubled over from the agony of unceasing coughs, his face flushed crimson as he declared, “they say no bird hatches an egg with a cracked shell. It pushes it right out of the nest.”

Komori waited for the next words.

“That Hanroku’s a worthless man.”
Saikyū wiped his eyes and the area around his mouth with a pocket handkerchief. “You’re trying to hatch a cracked egg—like some foolish hen. Best push Hanroku out of the nest.”

Then, with a look that seemed to demand What business do you have? he turned his gaze to Kōbei. He answered that he had only come to visit and, leaving Komori behind, took his leave.

On his way back from Uchomai to his home at Kitayashiki, he noticed part of the townspeople’s district had expanded.
This traced back to the Year of the Fire Horse when flames consumed some five hundred homes there—temporary shelters permitted after that disaster had hardened into permanent dwellings over time. Yet this place had once been an open field bisected by a waterway called Hori.
Now bearing Horibashi Bridge across its flow, people had taken to calling the whole area Shinmachi.

“No good,” came the attendant’s voice from behind. “No good—don’t come near, don’t come near!”

When Kōbei looked back, an old beggar cloaked in a woven straw mat was extending a hand toward his attendant, Uno Ikuma.
Whether from illness or cold, the outstretched hand trembled violently; his hunched torso swayed unsteadily.
By now, this marked the fifth or sixth time the beggar would tug at his sleeve whenever Kōbei passed by.

“Give it to him, Ikuma,” Kōbei said. “You have some small change, don’t you?”

“I do have some, but giving alms every time we pass will set a bad precedent.”

“That’s just what you think,” Kōbei said. “Give it to him. I’ll repay the money later.”

Seeing Uno take out the coin purse, Kōbei started walking.

Two

Koshikawa Saikyū’s caustic remarks were often laced with parables—there was that instance when a young man named Yura Shōshichirō, after repeated violent outbursts, finally slashed Hara Koichirō.
Koichirō himself had been stubbornly criticizing Yura’s brutish behavior—provoking Yura into drawing his sword and striking at Koichirō’s arm.
Though the wound proved shallow enough to mend with ten stitches, those long vexed by Yura’s violence reported this blade-drawn incident to the magistrates.
At the monthly council of high officials held within the castle walls, this matter came before the assembly—where sentiment nearly solidified to strip Yura Shōshichirō of his stipend and exile him from the domain.
Then Koshikawa Saikyū voiced opposition.

"That fool's beyond redemption," Saikyū said. "A stupid dog can't be trained whether you beat or kick it—you've no choice but keep it tied up. Banish that wretch and he'll shame this domain at every turn. Best keep the stupid dog tethered. Three years' house confinement should suffice for now."

Yura Shōshichirō, branded a stupid dog, endured two years' confinement before receiving pardon. He now lived wholly unremarkably, drawing no one's notice. Though countless such barbed remarks existed, these two in particular resurfaced for Kōbei now weighted with significance.

“If I had spoken of Karita,” Kōbei muttered, “what would he have said? ‘An egg with a cracked shell—push it out of the nest,’ or ‘Keep the stupid dog tied up’?”

In any case, it was good he hadn’t brought up the matter.
Consultation would have to come later; first he would investigate Karita’s personal affairs, he decided.
And Kōbei immediately made the arrangements.
Perhaps owing to the close-knit nature of the castle town, within less than five days, the full scope of Karita’s activities came to light.
He had been lending money to mid- and lower-ranking samurai while greedily collecting exorbitant interest.
On the other hand, it was revealed that in Shin Yanagi-machi—a lower-class pleasure quarter—there existed a woman with whom he maintained close ties; though making frequent visits to her went beyond mere carnal relations—he used her to loan money to the district’s prostitutes while again extracting outrageous interest rates.

“With the roots having spread this far, it’s quite beyond our ability to manage,” said Hori Sanzaemon, the inspector who had brought the report. “Should this become public knowledge, it would stain the domain’s honor and bring shame upon the entire household. What course should we take?”

Closing the report he had finished reading, Kōdō Kōbei sighed and replied that he would think about it for a while.
The time to leave the castle was drawing near. The office room grew thick with the hues of dusk, and a hushed cold seemed to spread from its four corners.
Kōbei’s position was directly subordinate to the castle deputy elder; since the audit officer also fell under that jurisdiction, he first needed to speak with the deputy.
However, Castle Deputy Elder Ikeda Gorōzaemon possessed not only the youthfulness of being thirty-one years old but also an innate short temper and impatience, with a habit of immediately complicating even trivial matters.

Even if I’m subjected to caustic remarks, I should still hear Uchomai’s opinion first.

Kōbei thought.

On the day he left the castle, at the main gate, he dismissed his attendants first.
When he informed Uno Ikuma of the message for his wife about stopping by Uchomai, Uno acknowledged it and started to leave, but then turned back as if suddenly remembering something.

“Regarding that beggar who extends his sleeve in supplication at Horibashi Bridge,” Uno said, “please take care regarding that individual.”

“What’s the concern?”

"I have meant to mention this before," Uno said. "Through my observations, that beggar disregards all other passersby and only extends his sleeve in supplication to you alone."

"So that explains why you previously warned about 'forming a habit through repeated almsgiving'?"

"I have reported the facts as they stand," Uno replied earnestly. "You may deem it absurd, but I believe utmost caution would be prudent."

“Don’t worry—I won’t laugh,” Kōbei said as he started walking. “I’ll be careful.”

When he went to Uchomai, Koshikawa Saikyū was drinking alone.
The wife was sitting in attendance and immediately attempted to prepare a meal tray for Kōbei, but he firmly declined, stating that he had come on official business.

"I'm recuperating; I won't listen to talk of official business," Saikyū said.

"However, a matter has arisen where I absolutely must seek your esteemed opinion."
Kōbei did not yield. "...And regarding your claim of recuperation—if you're well enough to drink sake—"

"Don't spout nonsense!" Saikyū nearly shouted as he cut him off. "I started drinking sake at thirteen—from then till now, even bedridden sick—never once quit!"

“That fortifies our domain’s foundations,” Kōbei said with an eye-meeting bow.

Saikyū’s eyes flared as if to roar, but noticing his wife smiling nearby, he lowered his voice and commanded her to pour more sake. When told there was no need to rush, the wife withdrew after exchanging an acknowledging nod with Kōbei. Kōbei promptly launched into detailed accounts of Karita Sōhei’s deeds. Saikyū listened wordlessly until mention of Shin Yanagi-machi’s courtesans—those women probed by the inspector—twisted his face into what might have been history’s most vinegar-steeped grimace. Then he turned to Kōbei, demanded the embezzled government funds’ total, and snorted through his nostrils.

“I’ll manage that amount of money somehow. First we must cage that fool—what of the Castle Deputy?”

“I haven’t yet informed him.”

“I’ll handle informing him,” Saikyū said. “Right—swift action’s best. I’ll present myself at the castle tomorrow.”

After a few more discussions, Kōdō Kōbei soon departed from the Koshikawa residence.

The usual caustic remarks he had anticipated never came.
This incident must have unsettled Saikyū’s mind to no small degree, yet Kōbei felt the weight on his shoulders had lightened slightly.

"If Uchomai intervenes, matters will settle."
"What weighs on me is Castle Deputy Ikeda," he muttered while walking, "but with Uchomai restraining him, there'll be no trivial uproar."

He had been walking while preoccupied with such thoughts, so he didn’t immediately notice when someone called out to him. Upon hearing “Lord Kōdō,” he turned around to find the usual old beggar standing behind him. The streets were already beginning to light up, and foot traffic was sparse. Seeing that Kōbei had stopped, the beggar wearing a straw mat staggered closer with an unsteady gait.

“It seems you just called my name.”
Kōbei said warily, keeping an eye on the other’s movements, “Furthermore, I hear you always beg by tugging sleeves at me alone—just who exactly are you?”

The beggar extended one hand and said, “My sake’s run dry and I’m suffering—please give me about fifty mon.” Her tongue slurred the words into incoherence, and both the outstretched hand and her small frame trembled violently.

“I will hear your reply,” Kōbei said. “Who are you?”

The beggar hesitated for a moment but soon clearly answered, “Sakura.”

“What do you mean, ‘Sakura’?”

“You,” the beggar said trembling, “have you forgotten your own wife’s name?”

Kōbei carefully considered the other’s words, then slowly shook his head from side to side.

“Don’t come near me,” he said. “You’re already a dead person.”

“My liquor’s run dry and I’m suffering—fifty mon, even a hundred would do,” the beggar said. “I’ll do anything for drink now—you hear? Absolutely anything.”

The spot was just before Horibashi Bridge. On the right side, charcoal and firewood dealers, basket shops, and barrel makers lined their eaves in rows, while on the left side, greengrocers, fishmongers, rope and matting shops, and stonecutters could be seen.
It was at the outskirts of Shinmachi, and because all those shops were small, the view steeped in deep twilight hues felt like hearing the lamentations and sighs of hopelessly destitute people.
Kōbei took some coins from his coin purse, handed them to the beggar, and left without saying a word.

“Thank you very much,” came the beggar’s voice from behind him. “I’ll come to ask another favor someday.”

Kōbei was perplexed and flustered.
The position he had painstakingly built over time—one he had believed unshakable and secure—had suddenly begun to tremble.
No—that wasn't right. He'd done nothing for which the world could condemn him—no deceit, no corruption, nothing underhanded whatsoever.
"I never curried favor with colleagues or superiors—never once stooped to flattery," Kōbei thought as he walked.

"Best not to interfere—let her do as she likes," he muttered. "She’s nothing but a beggar now—even if she goes spreading such things about me, no one would believe her. And should anyone actually credit her words and dig into her past—should charges be brought—it wouldn’t be me standing accused. That woman herself would face judgment."

Kōbei scolded his wife Fuji during dinner.
It was both because there were too many side dishes and because the taste of the soup didn’t please him.
Kōdō maintained that one soup and one side dish was the family custom, something he had repeatedly impressed upon Fuji since she first married into the household.
While uttering such reproaches, he suddenly grew irritated with himself and stood up roughly, as though fleeing from his wife—her face on the verge of tears.

Three

“Don’t try to scare me,” Old Man Yazawa said, then suddenly opened his eyes wide. “Surely—surely this isn’t true?”

“She really has come back.”

Old Man Yazawa tilted his head and pinched his chin with the fingers of his right hand. “I can’t believe it,” he said.

Kōbei explained the details.
Yazawa Kin’emon listened without moving a muscle.

In the garden of this house stood a massive enoki tree; of course, its leaves had all fallen away, leaving even the tips of its small branches completely bare.
Around that enoki tree, the clamorous chirping of a flock of sparrows could be heard.
“The Madam is expecting a child,” Yoshikawa Jinzaemon, the house steward, said this morning.
For about three months now, her body had been unwell; not only did her appetite fail to improve, but preparing meals also seemed difficult for her.
As this was likely due to morning sickness, his wife had recently taken over the meal preparations.
“You must be exhausted from your numerous official duties—you always seem weary and have even grown somewhat thin.”
“Your family custom of one soup and one side dish is all well and good, but when one’s physical strength declines, it’s only natural to have more nourishing meals.”
“In fact, I too changed my diet to restore my health after experiencing abdominal pain and dysentery.”
“Considering these matters,” Yoshikawa resolutely declared, “I want you to be a little kinder to your wife and entrust the meal preparations to her for the time being.”

"At first I too struggled to believe," Kōbei continued explaining, "but she clearly called out my name and gave hers as well. And not just that—even reduced to beggary with her build and features changed—I knew without doubt it was Sakura."

"If we accept this as fact—"
The old man spoke as if interrogating himself: "What earthly purpose could she harbor?"

“I suppose she grew homesick for her birthplace—but given she’s been reduced to beggary, you’d expect her to avoid drawing attention.”

“True enough—were she an ordinary woman.”
The old man spoke in a bewildered tone, then squinted at Kōbei as if dazzled. “Shall I investigate this myself?”

Kōbei shook his head. “No—I’ll observe matters a while longer. My purpose in consulting you was this: should we assume Sakura has returned with some scheme… I’ve no wish to trouble you again, Mr. Yazawa. This time, I ask that you feign ignorance of whatever unfolds.”

“However, that won’t happen,” Old Man Yazawa retorted, but Kōbei would not accept this, strongly insisting that no matter what occurred, he wanted him to feign ignorance just this once before taking his leave.

Kōbei was twenty-one years old when he married Sakura, the daughter of Onoshima Kasuke.
The matchmaker at that time was Yazawa Kin'emon; Sakura was eighteen years old.
Onoshima was a mounted guard with a stipend of just over thirty koku, and Yazawa served as a record keeper attached to the district magistrate’s office.
The two families were related by marriage, and as Kōbei’s deceased father and Yazawa had also been haikai poetry companions, the match between the two was arranged.

Sakura was a selfish woman.
Some might have called her a spoiled yet endearing woman; others might have thought so—this much Kōbei could surmise.
All preferences differed from person to person; that much held true. Some became infatuated with their wives' charms, others saw them as convenient entities to entrust with household management, while still others considered them mere matters of habit.
Which approach reflected true humanity remained unknowable—indeed, if this proved unknowable, then everything became unknowable.
There were couples who spent lifetimes together cursing and hating each other, and couples who—despite utterly incompatible temperaments—grew so close they became shamelessly intimate, harmoniously reconciling as time passed.
Each instance held countless variations—hundreds or thousands perhaps—all likely governed by some force surpassing human power.

—Sakura’s elopement had been a nearly fatal blow to the Kōdō household.

In the autumn of her second year after marrying into the family, his wife Sakura suddenly eloped.
In the early summer of that year, Kōbei’s parents had died.
Father—who couldn’t hold his liquor—had suffered a stroke; Mother had succumbed to the severe dysentery that had swept through the castle town that year.
Sakura’s elopement felt like the final blow to these twin misfortunes, leaving Kōbei so crushed he lost even the strength to rise.
About ten days after Sakura vanished, the young servant Gohei disappeared without a trace—irrefutable proof this had been an elopement following an illicit affair.
Such scandals were intolerable in samurai households; even if they hadn’t fled together, since both departed without explanation or declared destination, society would inevitably deem it a secret liaison and elopement should word spread.

—That should never have been done.

If a wife committed adultery and eloped, the husband had to pursue and kill them both.
Moreover, whether one killed the male adulterer or not, it was considered a disgrace.
To avoid that disgrace, the matchmaker Yazawa Kin'emon and Sakura’s relatives held a council where they publicly declared that Sakura had died of illness and conducted a funeral, but nothing arose to invite suspicion.

I became unable to trust women, remained single for eight years after that, and finally married Fuji this year.

His position had changed from Inspector of Various Magistrate Offices to Chief Financial Steward, and his stipend had been increased from 130 koku to 155 koku and 10 fuchi.

And now, when Fuji became pregnant, Sakura—who had been missing for eight years—returned to this land as a beggar.

The very Sakura they had publicly declared dead from illness and even given a funeral to had now appeared as a beggar.
Even if Sakura had some scheme, for conditions to align so coincidentally would not be due to human will—it must instead be governed by some greater, invisible force.
Kōbei thought this and was seized by a chilling sensation that ran down his spine.

“If that’s truly how it stands,” he muttered under his breath, “I won’t obscure matters this time—I’ll meet them straight on without evasion.”

From that moment, a change occurred in Kōbei’s heart. When he ate the chestnut manju, Karita Sōhei’s fawning smiles and servile, pleading expressions would surface in his mind. They seemed to conspire with Sakura, and he would even feel an intense personal hatred.

On the evening of the first day it snowed, Kōbei met Sakura again.
It was a year of late snows, and cherry blossoms had bloomed out of season at Manganji Temple—an unprecedented event that made people wonder whether this foretold next year's poor harvest or presaged some extraordinary calamity.
Such rumors had spread from the castle town to rural villages.
Even within the castle keep, this became tea-time talk; likely recalling the Hinoeuma Great Fire, the town magistrate ordered stricter-than-usual fire precautions, erecting official notice boards at five crossroads in the merchant quarter.
Kōbei had naturally been aware of all this, but having merely seen and heard about it, these matters carried no tangible reality for him.

And then, for the first time, the snow began to fall.

Because it was dry, powdery snow that fell with a whisper, Kōbei descended from the castle wearing nothing but a straw hat.
When ascending to the castle, he would dismiss his attendants unless absolutely necessary.
This followed protocol—while regulations required escorts for castle ascents, no such rule applied when leaving.
Sakura waited between the charcoal shop and basket shop on the right side before Hori Bridge.
In the faint luminescence of the snow-whitened path, her straw-mat-shrouded figure immediately caught Kōbei’s eye.
Without slackening his pace, he approached and walked straight past her.
Then Sakura came chasing after him.

“No.”
Kōbei continued walking without turning around and said, “Don’t follow me.”

“I’m dying of agony right now,” Sakura slurred, “The liquor’s all worn off—feels like my chest’s ’bout to cave in here.”

Kōbei kept walking until reaching the bridge’s base, where Sakura caught up and clung to him.
Her faltering gasps and body’s full tremors pressed directly against him, making Kōbei stop.

“What is your true aim?” he demanded. “What did you come back here for?”

“Please let me drink some alcohol. I’m truly about to die.”
The woman’s voice sounded like a scream. “If it means getting alcohol, I’ll do anything—didn’t I say that? I could even scream out here that I’m your wife!”

“Do you think people would believe that?”

“There’ll be talk,” the woman declared proudly, lifting her forehead, “and then—someone might dig up my grave. I could tell them to dig it up myself. Maybe nobody would truly believe what I say. Maybe they wouldn’t bother digging at all. But you know how people are—they love that kind of gossip. The more far-fetched the rumor, the more they savor it. Isn’t that right?”

Kōbei paused briefly. “Come with me,” he said, and started walking toward the right side of the bridge’s base.

“Are you planning to kill me?”
The woman clung to Kōbei’s sleeve and laughed unsteadily as she walked. “Fine then! If you want to kill me, go ahead and kill me. But listen—I have someone named Gohei, remember? Gohei who was employed at your estate.”

“Let go of this sleeve.”

“If I don’t return, Gohei will file a complaint.”
Sakura spoke mockingly and, determined not to be shaken off, clutched Kōbei’s sleeve even tighter. “Go ahead then—if you’re prepared for that, kill me quickly if you dare!”

Kōbei desperately suppressed the hatred and anger welling up in his throat.
He stopped and turned toward the woman.

IV

Did I do something foolish? Kōbei asked himself.
Would this only sink him deeper into the mire, letting that woman manipulate him as she pleased?
"No," he shot back at himself.
No more evasion—he must face this directly. He needed to ascertain clearly why Sakura had returned and what her true objective was, he resolved.

In that snowy twilight, he had given the woman money—told her to use it to obtain proper clothing and present herself decently—then ordered her to come to "Sano-ya."
Sano-ya was a restaurant in Yanagimachi containing three detached tatami rooms, where they could speak without being overheard.—The first snow had fallen but failed to linger, and by this second day, even the mud on the roads had dried.

When the time came to leave the castle, Terada Shōji—an assistant clerk from the office—approached and inquired, “When was the audit officer replaced?”

“I don’t know,” Kōbei answered while preparing to leave. “Has the audit officer been replaced?”

“Were you unaware that Mr. Karita had been dismissed from his position?”

“I didn’t know.”
Kōbei stood up and admonished reprovingly, “You’d do well to suppress rumors—once they pass between lips, they grow tails and fins.”

Terada awkwardly lowered his eyes.
Seeing this, Kōbei was seized by impulsive anger—though he himself didn’t understand its source—and took a step toward Terada.

“Public gossip is inherently irresponsible,” Kōbei said, suppressing his anger. “No matter how amusingly they exaggerate stories, those who spread rumors remain unharmed—yet the subject gets wounded each time, unjustly stained with infamy.” Having gone this far, he suddenly felt ashamed of his own agitation over something self-evident. “In any case,” Kōbei continued, softening his tone, “you’d do well not to bandy about terms like ‘dismissal from position’ so freely.”

Terada Shōji silently lowered his head.

After descending from the castle, Kōbei returned home, immediately changed into his everyday clothes, and left the house still wearing them.
He said he had already eaten dinner and did not disclose his destination.
Yanagimachi was located about two blocks away from the district that had escaped the Hinoeuma Fire, and the forest behind it stretched all the way to Inari Mountain, where it was said the cries of foxes could often be heard.
Since there was a small Inari shrine on the mountain, it seemed such rumors had emerged.
Although the feudal lord had conducted hunts many times before, aside from wild boars and deer, not a single fox had ever been caught.

“But right now there are foxes in Sano-ya’s detached tatami room,” he muttered while covering his face with his hood. “Be careful not to get bewitched.”

In the farthest detached tatami room, Sakura had come and was waiting.
There were already two meal trays with food and drink set out there, and Sakura was drinking by herself.
One round paper lantern, two hand warmers glowing crimson with charcoal embers, and a brazier with a sake warmer sat beside Sakura, containing two sake flasks.

“You don’t want anyone to recognize your face, huh?”
Sakura looked at Kōbei’s hood and laughed. “How inconvenient!”

“Are you drunk already?”

“This is only my third flask, you know. I can’t even get drunk on sake anymore—not that a place like this would have shochu anyway. So—” Sakura said with a thin smile, producing sake flasks from beside the brazier to show him. “See? I bought these myself.”

She had likely bought them from a secondhand store—a kimono with cascading stripes and an obi scattered with small maple-leaf patterns, her hair properly arranged.
Having married at eighteen, she should have been only twenty-eight now, but between the wrinkled skin, cheeks like scraped bone, and sunken eyes, one could not possibly think she was under forty.
She had never been a beauty even when married, but now there was no denying her ugliness.
Kōbei sat down but kept his hood on.
"How about one?" Sakura offered a cup, and Kōbei shook his head side to side.

“You’re just the same as ever,” Sakura said. “Eight years have passed, yet you haven’t changed a bit. Fine then—if you refuse, I’ll just do as I please.”

“Let’s settle the matter first—what exactly are you demanding I do?”

“Twenty ryō.”
Sakura raised two fingers on her right hand and took a sip from the cup with her left. “Then I’ll leave this land.”
Then she immediately lowered two fingers to one. “Ten ryō will suffice—though I’d really like to demand fifty.”

Kōbei clenched his teeth.
While being a samurai’s wife, she had committed adultery and eloped.
Because of this—how agonizing a position Kōbei had been forced into! Yazawa, of course, and even his birth family Hatashima had been so tormented and socially apprehensive that it was impossible to comprehend.
Now this very person had returned and shamelessly demanded twenty gold coins—though fifty ryō would have been the proper amount.
Yet Kōbei restrained his anger.

“What reason?” Kōbei asked quietly. “Why must I pay you money?”

Sakura took the sake flask from beside the brazier, picked up the teacup on the tray, poured the sake into it, took a sip, and then pointed at Kōbei’s face.

“Shall we say it’s because of that hood?”
Sakura bared her discolored teeth. “That’s what turned me into this wretched woman.”

“What about the hood?”

“You’re a samurai—if anyone found out you met a woman like me in a place like this, your status would be tarnished. That’s why you’re hiding your face with that hood, isn’t it?”

“What does that have to do with this?”

“You don’t understand, do you? I thought as much.” She took another sip from the teacup. “Eight years and you’re still back where you started—you haven’t changed a bit. I don’t know what your current wife’s like, but day after day she must be spending her time sick to death of it all.”

“My wife is pregnant now.”

Sakura seemed startled. She raised her swollen, bloodshot eyelids heavily and stared fixedly at Kōbei’s face with dull eyes.

“It’s strange—I can’t believe it’s true,” she said with visceral conviction. “No blood flows through your body. You’re either a metal statue cast from a mold or a stone Jizō idol. That a woman could lie with you and conceive a child—that such a creature exists among humans—is beyond imagining.”

“You lived here two years yet bore no children. My current wife has been married barely two hundred days.”

“That person surely isn’t human.”
Sakura drank from the teacup again and snorted. “Exactly—she must be some metal statue like you. If two statues get together, having a child isn’t strange at all.”

“So you’re saying you’re the only human here?”

“Yes indeed, I am human—a woman with blood flowing through her veins!” Sakura’s face twitched, suddenly appearing deathly pale. She poured strong sake into the teacup, gulped it down in one breath, poured again, then looked at Kōbei. “When I married you at our wedding ceremony, I thought I’d found a good husband—fine family lineage, comfortable life. From being a 30-koku mounted guard’s daughter, I became the wife of a 130-koku magistrate official with some complicated title. I’d cherish my husband, live harmoniously with him my whole life—I truly believed that from the bottom of my heart. And I did everything I possibly could.”

"But it didn't work out."
Sakura sipped sake from the teacup and continued, "You weren't human—you became a samurai before you were ever human. A rigid samurai among samurai, one without a shred of humanity."

“Even if your father was a thirty-koku mounted guard, as a samurai’s daughter you should’ve known what samurai are like.”

“I did know—oh yes I knew! But the people I knew were humans who happened to have samurai traits.”
Sakura poured herself more sake and drank. “No braziers lit in the tatami rooms unless snow falls. One soup and one dish all year round. Never taking off your hakama from dawn till dusk, never slouching—these Kōdō family customs aren’t unique to your household. Even I would’ve endured that much—if you’d shown even a speck of human warmth or marital care.”

“People who make mistakes usually shift responsibility onto others.”

“What did I ever pin on anyone?”

“Think about what you just said.”

Sakura hung her head and shook it from side to side—a gesture that seemed to say she’d grown utterly exasperated with an unreasonable child and had nothing left to say.

“If I had pinned anything on you, you should’ve been the one getting hurt more than me. Oh, this is pointless.”
Sakura waved her hand to stop Kōbei from speaking. “If you’re going to blame me for pretending I died of illness and even holding a fake funeral—just don’t. If you’d had any backbone back then, you should’ve sent men to hunt us down—me and Gohei—dragged us back and cut our heads off. Might’ve looked bad in society’s eyes, but you’d have faced no reprimand. Everything would’ve been settled cleanly. Isn’t that right?”

Five

From a detached tatami room somewhere, the sound of someone singing Noh chants began to drift through the air—a vigorous voice that soon faltered off-key before stopping entirely, followed by what sounded like the singer himself laughing uproariously at his own performance. The inn’s maid approached the veranda and inquired if they required anything. Kōbei replied that he would summon her later, at which she withdrew.

“But you didn’t do that,” Sakura continued, her drunkenness making her tongue looser rather than slurring, “—before ever hating me, you thought about family honor and samurai dignity and society’s opinion. Just like you’re hiding your face with that hood now, first you devised ways to protect the family name and avoid personal disgrace. And you succeeded perfectly in concealing it all—didn’t you?”

“Then you…” Kōbei slowly countered, “are you saying it would have been better if I’d cut you down?”

“Don’t be absurd—how ridiculous!” Sakura wrinkled the bridge of her nose. “I grew tired of living with a metal statue. I wanted to live with a human. That man may have been a menial by status, but hot blood flowed through his veins—someone who’d forget shame and appearances when it mattered. A truly human person.”

“Did that supposedly human man make you a beggar?” Kōbei nearly retorted but cautiously held his tongue.

“Your body’s like it’s got some shameful wart or blemish you can’t show anyone,” Sakura said. “You spend all day on edge, terrified people might see through you—even when sleeping with me, your wife, it was like you were still wearing formal robes. No, better to say a suit of armor. As if terrified I’d discover that wart or blemish hidden somewhere on you.”

“On top of that, there’s never been anyone as selfish as you.”
As if to prevent Kōbei from speaking, Sakura hurriedly continued: “—You only held me when *you* wanted to. I was flesh and blood—a young woman with hot blood in my veins! Don’t think I’m saying this just because I’m drunk! There were dozens of nights I writhed till dawn, aching for you to take me. Countless times I gripped the sliding door to your bedroom, unable to bear it any longer—but no. The image of you rose before me, cold as stone, like some cast-metal statue. That door never opened. You couldn’t begin to imagine—no, you never even *tried* imagining—what agony that was for a woman.”

Gohei treated me as a woman with care.
After becoming involved with Gohei, I for the first time came to know the inexhaustible depth of a woman’s joy and immersed myself in the happiness of having been born a woman.
Drunk and stripped of all shame, Sakura spoke openly about the specifics, embellishing her account with gestures.

Kōbei was not listening.

Sakura’s accusations against him were an attempt to shift responsibility for her own mistakes onto his shoulders.
That he had become a samurai before being human; that his conduct left no room for fault as he rigidly upheld family customs without compromise; and that he lacked understanding of his wife’s desires—these were all Sakura’s own grievances, not issues for which he was particularly responsible.
When a woman married into a family, it was only natural she adapt to its customs and her husband’s habits—the Kōdō household’s way of life couldn’t have been so inhuman that Sakura found it impossible to conform.
Kōbei reached this judgment as impartially as possible and cut off Sakura’s ceaseless torrent of words.

“Where is Gohei?” he asked. “Is he really in this castle town?”

Sakura stopped speaking as if exorcised of a possessing spirit, looked at Kōbei, and said, “You weren’t listening to a word I said,” before abruptly trying to sit upright. But instead she lost her balance and collapsed sideways in an undignified heap. “Didn’t hear a word? Mocking me now?” she slurred while thrashing her limbs in attempts to rise. Her kimono hem rode up to reveal thighs—sickly-pale and swollen like the grotesque underbelly of rotting fish—as Kōbei grimaced and averted his eyes.

“Oh, I see.”

Sakura, having finally risen from her precarious position, supported herself with one hand and wiped her mouth with the other as she said, “You’re planning to kill me, aren’t you? That’s why you’re concerned about Gohei—am I right?”

“If you want money, you alone won’t suffice. I’ll hand it over only when both you and Gohei are present.”

“Fine, I’ll bring Gohei along.”
Sakura’s speech had grown increasingly slurred. “I’ve sunk this low—your threats hold no terror for me. Heh, come back tomorrow night and you’ll learn where Gohei is. If you’re setting terms like that, make it fifty ryō.”

“Tomorrow night is acceptable—but not here.”

“Even if you wear a hood,”
Sakura twisted her saliva-dampened lips. “Repeated often enough, and the truth emerges—that’s your weakness. The wart you don’t want anyone to see.”

“I’ll deliver it to your inn. Where is it?”

“Don’t make me laugh with this ‘inn’ talk—you think I’d be begging if I could afford to stay at an inn?”

“But you do have somewhere to sleep.”

“Are you mocking me again?”
Sakura snapped, but suddenly formed a faint smile. “Oh, I’ve got a place to sleep—even stray dogs find somewhere to bed down when night falls.”

And she named an inn in Hyakkenchō.
That area was a district on the outskirts of this castle town, known as the most impoverished and notorious for its poor morals.

“Let me warn you—don’t try any funny business,” Sakura pressed, her voice tightening. “If pushed, I’ll come forward immediately. Even if punished for eloping through illicit relations, it beats living as a beggar. Neither Gohei nor I fear death one bit. But you’re different—you deceived everyone into thinking I died of illness, even held a fake funeral. You didn’t act alone in that scheme, did you? If I expose this, several others besides you will surely face reprimand. If we can take down such ‘honorable’ people with us, we’ll gladly accept punishment—oh yes. Best not forget that.”

After stepping out into the corridor, Kōbei called a maid, settled the bill, and requested that the woman be sent home at an appropriate time.

He did not touch the food on the tray.
Yet he felt no hunger whatsoever.
Since he had instructed them to prepare his meal, there would likely be nothing waiting when he returned home.
When leaving Sano-ya, this thought briefly crossed his mind—not out of hunger.
The calculated threat of Sakura—who had committed adultery and eloped—returning after eight long years to extort money, declaring she would come forward prepared to face punishment if unpaid, knowing full well this would sacrifice multiple others.
There might exist people in this world even more shameless and lawless.
Sakura’s methods were brazen beyond compare—more malicious and despicable than theirs.
Kōbei was of course seized by indescribable fury, yet beneath that rage he sensed himself faltering in deeper confusion.

He had a blemish he couldn’t show others; to keep anyone from sensing its presence, he perpetually wore formal samurai robes, never relaxing his posture. Whether awake or asleep, he ceased to be human—maintaining only the dignity of being a samurai at all times.

At Sakura’s words, he was steeped in shame as though stripped naked and a sense of self-reproach.
Even when embracing his wife in their nighttime chamber, she had said, it was as though he wore formal robes—no, even as if clad in a suit of armor.
Sakura’s accusations were not general but biased; there could be no doubt they were the complaints of a selfish woman driven by lust—a conclusion none would dispute upon hearing.
Nevertheless, he could find no rebuttal to the criticism that he had lived solely to preserve family honor and samurai dignity while lacking any semblance of human life—nor did he possess the conviction to defend himself.
The words—"I wanted you to be a man before being a samurai"—were something he had never heard before.
Before those words, even concepts like samurai honor and family prestige could only feel like mere vanity.

"But I could only live as I knew how," he murmured. "The Kōdō family honor mattered to me—I merely endeavored to become a man who brought no disgrace as a samurai."

Even as he uttered this, Sakura's words seemed to keep laying bare his vulnerabilities with inexorable force.

When he returned to his residence and was changing clothes, the house steward Yoshikawa Jinzaemon informed him that his wife Fuji was asleep. Since this was apparently the peak of her morning sickness, he added that she should be considerate of her. He went to his wife’s bedroom. As this was unprecedented, Fuji hurriedly tried to sit up, but he gestured to stop her and sat down beside her futon.

“Don’t trouble yourself.”
Kōbei smiled gently as he said, “Just do as you like—focus on having a strong, healthy child. It’s the Kōdō family’s firstborn, after all.”

Fuji smiled as if fighting back tears and nodded happily against her pillow.

Six

It seemed snow had begun falling again around midnight.
When Kōbei awoke, both the garden and the neighboring estate were blanketed in over five inches of snow, while fine, dry flakes continued to fall thickly.
As soon as he woke up, he checked on his wife.
When the steward’s wife was feeding Fuji her meal and saw him, both of them were startled.
This was his first time visiting his wife’s bedroom, and the two women’s startled expressions made that fact abundantly clear.

“That’s fine as it is.”
Kōbei spoke while waving his hand. “I’ll come home early today.”

The steward’s wife opening her mouth and widening her eyes remained strongly imprinted on Kōbei’s memory.

He wrapped twenty ryō in paper and went to the castle, immediately sending his attendants home.
And immediately after leaving the castle grounds, he made his way to Hyakkenchō.
The snow still fell steadily. He wore a raincoat and sedge hat, but before entering that district, he wrapped his face in a hood.
The designated lodging was an inn called Iseya, but Sakura was nowhere to be found.
There was no woman resembling Sakura, nor any man who looked like Gohei.
It must have been what they called a firewood inn—past the earthen-floored entranceway lay an expansive room of some twenty tatami mats, where a large sunken hearth blazed fiercely with guests sitting or sprawled around it.

“The guests here are all we have,” the fiftyish woman who identified herself as the innkeeper said. “Such people have never stayed here, and we have no other tatami rooms.”

“Admittedly, they might still come to stay from now on, but given this snow since morning, they should have arrived long ago if they were coming,” the female innkeeper added.

After leaving there, Kōbei grew increasingly uneasy.

"What's going on?" he muttered as he walked through the snow. "She was quite drunk last night—could she have mistaken the inn's name? Or was she plotting something?"

He had thought twenty ryō would settle it—but perhaps upon seeing that money could be obtained, they changed their minds and devised a more underhanded scheme.
Moreover, with a man named Gohei involved—if he was making his own woman resort to begging—his disposition must have grown even more depraved.
They could have been using Sakura as a pawn to probe our true intentions and, seeing that a larger sum could be extorted, suddenly changed their location to adopt a new method.

“If only this could be brought into the open...” Kōbei murmured again. “But there’s this growth—samurai honor, family name... A growth I can’t show others. Sakura must have seen it.”

If they were to take new measures, there would be no keeping it hidden any longer.
His wife Fuji was about to give birth; the false death report claiming Sakura had died of illness and the sham funeral would surely be exposed.
But continuing to flee from this was no good—no matter what might come of it, now was precisely the time to confront the facts head-on, Kōbei resolved. If they were plotting something, Sakura would surely reach out again.
Having thought this, whenever leaving the castle he would always have his attendants return home first; Kōbei took his usual path and returned alone.
The second snowfall became settled snow, and after that, dry powder snow fell roughly every other day.

Kōbei took the same path every day, but no one called out to him.
Around Hori Bridge, there were occasionally beggars, but there was no sign of a woman resembling Sakura or a man resembling Gohei.
As for what had changed, it was only that the cooperage on the right side of the road had collapsed and twins had been born at the stonecutter’s shop on the left.
The cooperage had been run by a couple, but their business was failing, so they fled under cover of night.
He had heard this in passing, but at the stonecutter’s shop, an apprentice was chattering away.
Even though our master had gone eleven years without children, in the eleventh year twin girls were born—hearing this, he listened to the apprentice chatter on boastfully.
One household fled under cover of night, driven to financial ruin; at another, twins were born in the eleventh year.
It was likely a common occurrence, but despair and joy sat facing each other.
In places unknown to the likes of himself, such things must be occurring constantly, Kōbei thought.

Today or tomorrow.
When would Sakura call out to him? Each time he left the castle, Kōbei tensed with uneasy anticipation.

"Did Karita Sōhei feel this way too?" he muttered. "He must have been constantly anxious, wondering when his embezzlement of government funds would come to light—today or tomorrow."

While convincing himself it would be fine—that he could resolve this cleanly—he must have simultaneously continued to fear the crime he had committed.
Though the content differed, I was now trembling just like Karita Sōhei.
And to have been outmaneuvered by a criminal—in terms of lacking resolve, wasn’t Karita rather more manly? he told himself.

Five days passed, then seven, and even after ten days had gone by, there was no sign of Sakura appearing, nor did he see any man resembling Gohei.
Kōbei resolved himself, recounted the general circumstances to investigator Hori Sanzaemon, and requested that he search for Sakura and Gohei.
Hori contacted the town magistrate and answered that he would try to find them as soon as possible.

And on the third night, Hori Sanzaemon came to report.
Kōbei invited him into his private study and sat with a brazier between them.

“It’s a fine moonlit night outside,” Hori said. “It’s as bright as day.”

Kōbei merely nodded.

“I’ve located the woman you’ve been searching for,” Hori said in a low voice. “It wasn’t Iseya—she was at a neighboring firewood inn called Tsudaya.”

“So it was the neighboring one—she got the name wrong,” said Kōbei. “And what became of the woman?”

“She died.”

“She died.”

Kōbei was speechless.

"On the evening thirteen days ago. They say it was a stroke."

So it was right after meeting at Sano-ya, Kōbei thought. However, the question remained: had that truly been Sakura, and what had become of Gohei?

"The man was reportedly with her too," Hori continued. "Given the nature of such inns, their guest registers aren't reliable—the woman went by Osai, the man Gozuke."

"What happened to the man?"

"He reportedly ran off with another woman."

Osai and Gozuke—then that must be them. According to Hori Sanzaemon’s account, the two had been staying there for about thirty days. Both the man and the woman were alcoholics who drank shochu from morning onward; when drunk, fights would immediately break out, escalating into chaos with shouts of “I’ll kill you!” and “Go ahead, kill me!” The man seemed fond of gambling, always fiddling with dice or hanafuda cards, but lacking both the money and energy to visit proper gambling dens. He would coax fellow lodgers into games, yet lost every time he played—no matter the opponent—and ended up with considerable debts. The woman would leave the inn near evening; though it was unclear what she did, she would return having earned a small amount of money. It was said she sold her body, and there were those who claimed to have seen her begging; in any case, she couldn’t even pay the full amount for lodging.

“And on the night thirteen days prior,” Hori said, “when the woman returned drunk, the man was gone. There was a woman around forty staying alone at the same inn—it seems he ran off with her.”
“When Osai heard this, she must have intended to chase after him. In her drunken state, she tried to run out, tumbled down to the dirt floor, and lay motionless. The inn people immediately called a doctor, but she had already stopped breathing. It was diagnosed as a stroke, they say.”

The lodging fees had piled up, but such incidents were not uncommon in firewood inns and the like; the fellow lodgers took pity and lent a hand, burying her in an unclaimed grave at Saimokuji Temple, it was said.

After Hori Sanzaemon left, Kōbei remained with his hands held over the brazier, lost in thought for a long time.
Now I was safe—since he had run off with another woman, there would be no more fear of Gohei appearing. I was completely safe.
While telling himself this over and over, his body felt leaden as if all strength had drained away, and his mood sank into a wretched, oppressive gloom.

“What a pitiful woman,” he whispered under his breath, “believing she lived as she pleased yet gaining nothing real—likely never knowing a joyful life. Even returning to her birthplace meant selling her body or begging to survive—and then the man ran off with another woman—what must Sakura have felt in that moment?”

Sakura’s words—“You were a samurai before you were human”—resounded with vivid clarity in his ears’ depths, and he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head side to side.

If I had been more human—if I had known how to care for others—Sakura’s life might have turned out differently.

House steward Yoshikawa came to inform him that the bedroom was prepared.
The fire in the brazier had already turned to ash, but Kōbei carefully covered it with more ash, stood up, and peered into his wife’s bedroom.
Fuji seemed to have been asleep; when he drew near her side, she opened her eyes and blinked uncertainly.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Kōbei whispered. “How are you feeling?”

Fuji must have fully awakened; she hurriedly tried to sit up, but Kōbei stopped her and reached for his wife’s hand.
Fuji’s fingers were soft and warm.

“Seki told me I should start getting up tomorrow,” she said. “She says it’s not good to stay in bed all the time.”
Seki was the house steward’s wife: “I deeply apologize for the inconvenience we’ve caused you. Please bear with us a little longer.”

“There’s nothing inconvenient on my part.”
Kōbei stroked his wife’s hand and said, “Your only task now is to bear a healthy child. You’re allowed to be selfish.”

Fuji's face twisted, looking as if she were about to burst into tears.
Kōbei said, “I shouldn’t have woken you. You should rest now,” and left the bedroom.
Even to such a simple act of kindness, Fuji was so moved she nearly wept.

Was I truly such a cold, rigidly formal man?
Even after lying down, Kōbei spent hours retracing his past.
Even a samurai—if they were truly human—might sometimes become entangled in matters that soiled their family name or reputation.
Which required more correctness and courage—dreading the spread of scandal and merely seeking to bury the problem in darkness, or confronting that problem directly as a human being?

Kōbei muttered, “Let’s do something for Karita Sōhei. Punishment isn’t the only form of judgment—tomorrow I’ll go to Uzumi District to discuss it.”

Then he seemed to hear Senior Retainer Koshikawa Saikyū’s caustic tongue—What nonsense are you spouting now? That Karita fellow did the equivalent of shackling an infant’s legs and tossing it aside! Absolutely unforgivable. Out of the question.

There Kōbei clung stubbornly in his fantasy—Can you not find pity when considering that even such a man will someday be stricken by a fatal disease and die in agony?

There Saikyū would likely turn crimson—Kōbei could almost see the senior retainer’s face flushed with rage—and he allowed himself a faint smile.