II. A Suitable Companion?
Sachiko's first thought -- right after It's a girl -- was She's crying. She mustn't do that.
She didn't wonder about that until later.
The girl was plainly scared out of her wits. She thought Sachiko was about to kill her, or perhaps eat her.
The light from Sachiko's hand changed from dark red to light blue, and then winked out.
The door to the common room slid open, and there were Rei-san and Sei-san, swords drawn. Yoshino-chan was just behind them, her hand issuing a subdued white light. "What is it, Sachiko?" Rei-san demanded. "A thief? A murderer?" She moved forward and held her sword over the thief's head. "I charge you, speak!"
The girl squealed, and Sachiko cried sharply, "Stop, Rei-san! That's enough!"
Rei lowered her sword, looking confused. "Sachiko?"
"I mean...thank you, Rei-san. Thank you, Sei-san and Yoshino-san. For coming to my aid." She looked at each of them in turn and felt completely foolish for some reason. "But I don't think she's dangerous."
"She's a guttersnipe," Rei-san said. "One of these foul, strange denizens of --"
"Yes, all very familiar," Sei-san said archly. She sheathed her sword.
"Sei!" Rei-san was growing more bewildered by the minute.
"Sachiko is right, Rei," Sei-san sighed. "Look at the girl. She couldn't hurt a fly. Wouldn't, if she could."
"What's happening, Sei?" said a naked girl who was peering around the door.
"Just a collision of worlds, sweetheart," said Sei-san without turning. "Nothing to be concerned about. Go on back to bed. I'll be there in a few minutes."
The girl simpered at Sei-san's back, and disappeared.
Sachiko found that she had been staring at the naked girl. She was getting a look from Sei-san, a raised eyebrow and a faint, sardonic smile. Blushing, Sachiko turned back to her thief, knelt, and held out a hand to her. She became aware of the girl's smell, a sharp, hot stink. Her lip began to curl in revulsion, but when the girl just looked at the hand with those big, heartbreaking eyes, Sachiko's revulsion evaporated.
"Fire?..." the girl whispered, shrinking a little more.
"No fire on it this time," Sachiko said softly. "I won't hurt you. Did someone send you?"
"Send her?" Rei-san asked.
"She was scared just opening the door," Sachiko said absently, not breaking eye contact with the girl, "and she didn't seem to know what she was doing. Are there people waiting for you outside?"
The girl stared at her, then nodded.
Sachiko heard Sei-san draw her sword again. "Come on, Rei," she said pleasantly. "The noise and light could have frightened them off, but if Fortune be our lady, we might just get to fight someone after all."
"Under the eaves of the empty house," Sachiko's little thief said, unexpectedly. "Across the street." Her voice trembled a little, but she got the words out.
Rei-san gave her a measuring look, and then said, "We'll see."
Rei-san, Sei-san, and Yoshino-chan left the chamber. There was some only partly muffled argument in the common room about whether Yoshino-chan was going along. Sachiko didn't hear the end of it, but assumed Yoshino-chan had won.
Her attention was taken up by the would-be thief in front of her.
The girl was dressed in the same ragged get-up Sachiko had seen her in earlier that day. This covered her torso but left her legs and arms free. The rags were dirty and the girl was dirty, all over. Her tears had left tracks on her cheeks. She was skinny, and small, and her age was difficult to guess; Sachiko thought she might be no younger than ten and no older than twenty. Her hair might have been brown. It was matted and filthy. But the filthiest thing about her were her feet, which were bare. She was altogether as benighted, unbeautified and unprepossessing an object as Sachiko had ever seen.
A few short years ago, before she'd left her father's house, she would have turned away from such a creature without more ado. But things had happened to her since then. "I hope I did not frighten you too badly," Sachiko said stiffly. "I thought you meant me some evil. I see now that wasn't so. You're not hurt, are you?"
"I don't...think so," the girl said. She wasn't cringing any more. She just lay curled there in the corner, gazing at Sachiko.
"I have some questions for you. I want you to answer truthfully. I saw you in the street today, didn't I?"
"Yes."
"Why did you come up to me?"
"Well," the girl stuttered, "y-you were so beautiful, I mean you are, and I thought anyone that beautiful must be kind as well, so I was going to ask you for a copper or two. But you looked at me with a demon's eyes and I ran."
"Oh." A demon's eyes. Yes. Youko-sama has told me time and again, I must learn to rule my temper. "What did you want money for?"
The girl was quiet for a moment, then she looked down and said: "I was hungry."
"Look at me, please. Did you follow me here?"
"N-no!" The girl jumped. "When I realized it was you, I, I almost ran right then."
That had been a surprised whimper, then. "Some people sent you up here to steal from me?"
"Yes. Older men. I don't know them."
"Gentlemen?"
"N-not really. One of them seemed like he might have been, once. But the other two talked flash."
"Why did you agree to help them?"
"I was hungry." The girl was looking directly at Sachiko this time.
Sachiko sat there and looked back at her. She knew something of privation and hardship from her travels away from Heian Kyo and the sheltered world of the Good People. But she had never, so far as she could recall, missed a meal. Sometimes the meal had been scanty and cold, but there had always been something. She not only couldn't imagine what it would be like to go to bed hungry, she had never tried to imagine it. Here was a girl for whom it was apparently a regular occurrence and suddenly, for some reason, Sachiko was trying.
The silence stretched a little too long, and the girl began to tremble again. "Stop trembling," Sachiko said irritably.
"Yes, my lady," the girl quavered. The trembling lessened, but the girl couldn't seem to stop altogether.
Sachiko sighed. Her brain had been extremely active since she had first seen the girl's face, but in fact she was of two minds about what was best to do. All she was sure of was that she couldn't keep thinking of her as "the girl." "Have you a name?" she said at last.
"Yumi," the girl said.
"Yumi..." Sachiko said, trying it out. "Family name?"
"Don't have one," Yumi mumbled.
"Are you sure of that?" Sachiko said sharply.
"Don't remember..." Yumi was staring at the floor.
"You don't remember your family name?"
"Don't remember anything."
There was pain in her voice. Was it painful to remember her past, or did she not remember her past, and was that the source of her pain? Well... Sachiko sighed again. There was always more to learn, it seemed. "Well, Yumi, if you're hungry, and don't mind eating cold leftovers... I didn't finish my dinner. Would you like to sample it?"
--
Night in Heian Kyo, a city at least half burnt wilderland and waste, was a difficult proposition. Due to a lackadaisical city government, it was rather on the lawless side, for a settlement of its size. Such constabularies as the city did have were ill-manned and ill-equipped, and seemed always to be a step or three behind the local banditry. On a cloudy night such as tonight, there were no moon and stars to light one's way, only a few lamps and torch fires dotted here and there -- none of the aristocracy, who lived in the Nine-fold Enclosure in the northernmost ward, would dream of setting foot out in the city at night, and especially not a dark and terrible night such as tonight, for fear of running afoul of the criminal element.
Even Tsujimoto and his comrades, Shinji-kun and Ichiki-san, didn't much care for it, and they were of the criminal element. Tsujimoto liked it less than his friends did, perhaps, having been born in the Nine-Fold Enclosure himself.
Yes, he was a son of the aristocracy, now fallen on hard times. How fleeting fortune! Unfortunately the night was cloudy and the season cool if not cold, so he couldn't muse rhapsodically on moonlight through the pine branches and fireflies at the bottom of the garden. There wasn't even a garden. Nature was not in harmony with his sadness for things past and gone, beyond recall. He shed a few bitter tears, and wiped them away, sniffing loudly, ignoring his companions' turned heads.
He had been banished from the court for a silly, childish intrigue which he blushed now to recall -- or rather, flushed red with anger to recall. Everyone does it, he would mutter, whether alone or in company; everyone does it, but I was caught by this damned girl and made an example of by the damned Dowager Empress, and now look! Tsujimoto no Fujito, cousin to emperors, lives in the filth of the southwest quarter, and spends his days trying to improve his financial luck at the expense of others around the Rasho Mon. But now I have a plan -- a plan -- his brain had lately seized on this plan. And now he was putting the plan into execution...
He was still miffed at Ichiki-san and Shinji-kun. They were more experienced than he, and one of them would have been better for this than he or the girl, from a practical point of view. But they had refused point-blank -- wouldn't be caught fooling about in a sorceress's room at night -- weren't being paid enough to dangle their goolies over an active volcano -- pair of sillies. Tsujimoto had grown up around sorceresses, and their sorcery was all gammon, insubstantial froth, as far as he'd been able to make out -- they were good at ceremonial, and they could make quite a pretty light-show to reflect in the water at a lake-party, but their clothes choices were drab; for perfume they stuck with calendula -- an effective if unadventurous choice -- and their poetic skills were frankly piss -- not one good metaphor to rub against another. And to top it off they were unnatural creatures -- women who had left their womanhood behind.
But in spite of his contempt, he was alarmed and unnerved when the dark red light blazed out through the shutters of the second-story room, and the scream rose, and cut off --
He wasn't as alarmed and unnerved as Shinji-kun and Ichiki-san, however. In the dimness, he could make out the shaking of their legs and arms, and he heard their low moans. They had drawn their swords, but had difficulty holding them steady.
"Time to go, Tsuji-sama," Shinji-kun quavered.
"What? Why? Our girl may have met with a setback, but --"
"She'll be dead," said Ichiki-san.
"Nonsense!" Tsujimoto snapped.
There was silence for a moment, then Shinji-kun said, "So the red light and the scream were just..." He trailed off.
"The sorceress offering her dinner, maybe?" Ichiki-san finished for him.
"Absurd. Still...shit. You may be right. Shit. But let's give her a few minutes, just in case."
"But, Tsuji-sama --"
"You agreed with me she was lucky!"
Shinji-kun fell silent.
Ichiki-san said, "Tsuji-sama, luck will only take you so far. She's been discovered. It's time to cut our losses and run."
"And all we'll have accomplished will be to put the sorceress on her guard. Maybe she'll hide the object so it's that much harder to steal. Come on, Ich, you're always saying how commoners are so much cleverer than we bumbling aristocrats --"
"Not the sorceresses, sir --"
Shinji-kun found his tongue again. "You might trick a sorceress, if you're very clever and very lucky, but if she rumbles you, you're her dinner."
"It's worse than being used as a snotrag by a bear."
"It's worse than being thrown in a mudhole with an amorous walrus."
"It's almost as bad as having thirty-seven hornets in your trousers." (1)
"You have made your point." Tsujimoto allowed an edge of impatience to creep into his voice. "Just a few minutes and we'll go."
They were shuffling from foot to foot. "If she is alive," Shinji-san whimpered, "she'll have talked. They'll know we're down here..."
Tsujimoto was torn between the luck he'd glimpsed today in a filthy young girl's avoidance of death and the hope of mending his fortunes on the one hand, and the dawning suspicion that his henchmen may be right, and that they were fairly tough, hard men, and probably wouldn't be shaking like that unless they had very good reason to be afraid on the other. All that was really holding him in that spot was stubbornness --
-- and then a sword came out of the dark to try and help his stubbornness.
Tsujimoto shrieked -- he hadn't drawn yet --
But then a sword came to parry the attack -- Shinji-kun's or Ichiki-san's; Tsujimoto never did find out which it was.
The next few moments were noisy and confusing. Tsujimoto was not a skilled swordsman -- it wasn't something aristocratic young gentlemen such as himself dirtied their hands with, as a rule. He tried to fall back, to give Shinji-kun and Ichiki-san more room to work. Then, before he knew it, the clanging of metal had mixed with startled, pained cries and a shriek of rage, and there was a terrible light, in which he could make out very little, what with sudden blindness. Ichiki-san was falling back into his arms. Shinji-kun was running to Ichiki-san, his loose tunic torn and flapping in the queer light. Without prior consultation or thought, they took either of Ichiki-san's arms and ran with him dragging between them, cutting their losses at last...
--
Yumi sat there at the kotatsu and just stared at the food for a moment. Sachiko sat to her left, and slightly behind her.
"Eat, Yumi," she prodded, as Yumi seemed to have difficulty believing the food was really for her. It was only a little rice, and fish, and half of a roll. To Sachiko. To Yumi, it suddenly occurred to Sachiko, it might seem like a lot.
Yumi started picking up rice with her fingers and cramming it into her mouth.
"Chopsticks!" Sachiko said, a little too loudly.
Yumi jumped, and rice fell out of her mouth. She looked crestfallen.
Sachiko glowered, which cast Yumi down further. Had she but known, Sachiko was only angry with herself. The girl obviously doesn't know any better. I meant to be kind to her, didn't I?
She picked up the chopsticks. "Here," she said, as gently as she knew how. "Like this. One in the crook of your thumb, the other between these fingers. See?" To demonstrate, she took up a bit of rice and a sliver of fish in the chopsticks, and moved them, slowly and carefully in case Yumi jumped again, toward Yumi's mouth, which Yumi opened automatically. A mother had fed her, once. Everyone had a mother. Yumi had a family, somewhere, even if she'd lost them, somehow. The food went in, and Yumi chewed. "You should also eat slowly," Sachiko added. "Chew each bite carefully. It's better manners and your stomach copes with it better. Why do you eat so fast?"
"Mumfa fumf --"
"Stop! Stop. Finish chewing. Swallow. And then answer the question."
"...don't know," Yumi said. "If you've got food and you're surrounded by people who don't, they'll take it away from you. Stomach's the best place to hide it."
"I see." Sachiko briefly glimpsed a world where you had to fight for every meal, run, hide, wolf it down before you could be discovered, then walk out again in search of the next meal, your belly aching... Sachiko could fight. But Yumi looked so defenseless -- How was she still alive? "But here, no one is going to take your food away from you. So you may eat in a leisurely, dignified manner." Yumi was gazing at her. She clearly wasn't afraid any more, which was all to the good. But why is she looking at me that way?... Sachiko realized she was gazing at Yumi also. The girl fascinated her for some reason. She plucked with the chopsticks and fed Yumi another mouthful. Yumi accepted it and chewed slowly, carefully, as she'd been told. She continued to look at Sachiko.
I'm sitting too close to her. She smells terrible. Or, no. The smell was strong, but not actually unpleasant. Yumi smelled a bit like a fox Sachiko had encountered once, in the wilds.
"You need a bath," she said.
Yumi flinched and ducked her head. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Oh! This was frustrating. I hurt her again. I have to stop that. "No, I mean... would you like to have a bath? The bathhouse at the temple will be closed right now, but we could go in the morning."
Yumi was looking at Sachiko again, openmouthed. "I...I have no money, my lady..."
"I have," Sachiko said firmly. "I will bathe you, dress you --" another pluck of the chopsticks -- "and feed you --" another bite into Yumi's mouth. Yumi chewed, still looking at Sachiko in disbelief. "Yumi, I am in need of a bodyservant. Will you serve me?"
The girl's eyes went even wider. She chewed hastily and swallowed. "Serve you? My lady?"
"Yes," Sachiko said patiently. "There is no pay, I fear. But you would have plenty to eat, and a place to sleep, and I would teach you things."
"Teach me things?"
"Yes. Mostly your duties, but...we would see." Magical talent might turn up anywhere, after all. Look at Sei. And there was something fey about the girl... some otherworldly quality, at odds with her repellently filthy appearance, which Sachiko couldn't put her finger on. "Much would depend on you."
"My lady..." Yumi shifted about so that she was facing Sachiko and bent at the waist. She was making obeisance, Sachiko realized. You're doing that wrong, she wanted to say, but decided, well, there was time for that later. "My lady, I broke into your room. I have wronged you. I am unworthy. I am not...you could not..."
"Of course I could," Sachiko said curtly. There was so much to teach this girl, about proper manners, and so on. But after that clumsy bow, Sachiko didn't know whether to scold her or embrace her, and neither, she thought, would do right now. "Just think about it. And sit up straight, please." Yumi straightened up, right away. "Keep eating. Do you want to try using the chopsticks now?"
Yumi seemed disappointed, for some reason, but she accepted the chopsticks. She struggled a little at first, but with the occasional gentle suggestion from Sachiko, she was using the sticks with fluency by the end of her meal. In fact, she seemed to be doing her best to mimic the way Sachiko did things: not just the way Sachiko handled the sticks, but the way Sachiko sat with her legs curled under her, the way Sachiko held her head. Sachiko might have regarded this as impertinence, but couldn't take her eyes off it long enough to chide the girl. The smell was almost unnoticeable now, and Sachiko was looking forward to getting the girl cleaned up and wearing civilized garments.
As Yumi was chewing her last mouthful, they heard a commotion on the ladder, and there was the triumphant expeditionary party at the door.
Or not so triumphant. Rei-san had a cut over her left eye and Yoshino-chan was holding a cloth to it. Yoshino-chan was crying a little and calling Rei-san a fool. "You could have been killed!"
Sei was laughing as she brought Rei over to the kotatsu. "Don't be hard on her, Yoshino. She didn't fare so ill. Eh? A lot better than last time!"
"They got away, Sei," Rei-san said glumly as she sat down, Yoshino-chan still clinging to her side.
"So they did," Sei-san said, "but they won't soon forget us, will they? Not so bad. You just have to remember that you were taught to fight according to rules the rest of the world is under no obligation to follow. You give him an opening and he's going to use it, and hardly cares whether your old swordmaster would approve."
Yumi had reacted to their entrance by shrinking a bit toward Sachiko, but seemed unwilling to touch her without permission. Sachiko stood, putting a hand on Yumi's shoulder to reassure her as well as steady herself, and walked around the table. "Let me see the cut, Rei-san."
Rei-san moved the rag away and presented her forehead without argument. Yoshino-chan got out of the way without being asked. Sachiko knelt by Rei-san. Her eyes on the cut, Sachiko took the rag from Rei-san and wet a corner of it in the water-bowl on the kotatsu. She touched her lips to the cut, and came away a little bloodied. "Poor flesh and bone," she murmured. "Poor head." Blood was trickling down Rei-san's forehead and about to run into her eye. Sachiko caught it with the wet cloth.
She then began to massage the wound, very gently, with the cloth. As she did so, she sang, softly, as if to a lover:
The tree on the mountainside
Will rally again and see
Many springs and
summers.
The cloth went back to the bowl. The lips went back to the cut. Then the cloth again, and another song:
The spring melt flowing
Off the mountain makes
A
constant hymn of praise.
The blood was gone from around the cut...and when Sachiko lifted the cloth, the cut was gone too.
Sei-san sighed. "It's beastly of me, to be sure, but I wish someone would get wounded daily so I could watch you do that all the time."
Rei-san looked at Sachiko with her face happy and flushed. "Thanks, Sacchan," she said dazedly.
Yoshino-chan put an arm around Rei-san and glared at Sachiko. "Thank you," she said, irritably.
Rei turned her still-mazed smile on Yoshino. "Please don't speak so roughly to her, Yoshino," she chided gently. She touched Yoshino's cheek. "Pretty Yoshino," she added, in a low voice. "Sweet, gentle Yoshino."
Yoshino blushed in turn, and laid a hand on Rei-san's wrist. "R-Rei-chan," she said, a bit shakily. They gazed upon one another.
Sachiko smiled, looking down demurely, then stood and walked back around the table. In the glow of the healing communion she had almost forgotten Yumi was there. But there she was, gazing at Sachiko still, fingers to her mouth. It was the same look she'd been giving Sachiko before, only more intense, and Sachiko knew all at once what it was. Worship. Utter worship. What nonsense. She blushed. She had to dissuade the girl from that, but somehow did not want to.
She looked Yumi in the eye. "I am not a demon," she said. "I am a sorceress. If you join me, you will be a famula, servant to a sorceress. Is that acceptable to you?"
Yumi flung herself at Sachiko's feet. Sachiko knelt and raised her up. "You serve me, but you don't have to kneel to me," Sachiko said, a bit breathlessly. "So do you accept?"
The girl nodded emphatically.
"You're taking her on, then?"
Sachiko turned her head. It was Sei-san who had spoken; she sat there looking at Sachiko and Yumi quizzically. Rei-san and Yoshino-chan seemed to have slipped away at some point. "Yes," said Sachiko. "Youko-sama told me I needed a famula or I couldn't attend this year's Questioning. I was going to have to find one tomorrow, anyway. I think this girl will do very well."
Sei-san's sharp gaze rested doubtfully on Yumi. "If you say so..."
A red firework went off in Sachiko's head. "What do you mean by that, Satou-san?" she said quietly.
"Sei?!" another voice said brusquely.
They looked at the door to Satou-san's chamber. The naked girl from before was standing there, except now she was wearing one of Sei's tunics and an irked expression.
"Oh, hell!" Satou-san stood. "Sorry, Maeko. Something came up --"
The girl turned without a word and slid the door forcefully shut behind her.
Satou-san smiled easily at Sachiko. "Goodnight, Sachiko. We should talk about this more in the morning."
"Yes," Sachiko said coldly. "We should."
"But just quickly... Why would those wideboys send a sneak up to your room? Could it be that you have been asked, by someone or other we might both know, to look after some item possessed of some vague importance? Have you forgiven the sneak a little too readily, and might you now be asking that sneak to share your roof in entirely too trusting a fashion?"
"Satou-san --"
"That's just food for thought." Satou-san's voice, which had taken on an unwonted sternness, now relaxed into its usual flippancy. Her eyes flashed agreeably. "Have a lucky dream, Sachiko. You too, little sister." And, with a saucy grin, Satou-san retired.
Sachiko watched her go into her room and shut the door, and then turned back to Yumi. Yumi was still gazing at her. How often has she taken her eyes off me since we've known one another? "Come, Yumi. We should both get some sleep. The bathhouse opens in a few hours."
When they were in Sachiko's chamber, and the door was shut, she went without ado to her cabinet and opened it. She pointed at the top shelf. "Look at that."
Yumi did. Sachiko was secretly delighted by the gentle golden light the object cast upon Yumi's reverent, astonished, grimy face. She suddenly had an idea of what Yumi would look like clean.
"I suspect that's what they sent you up here to steal," Sachiko said stiffly. "It's the only thing of unusual value I currently possess. The cabinet itself is more valuable than any other single object in it, and the cabinet is only painted wood. Do you believe me?"
Yumi straightened. She wasn't looking at Sachiko. "Yes, Mistress." She seemed pained again.
"I'm not going to take any particular care, here," Sachiko said. "I still feel awful about giving you such a fright earlier. So I'm going to sleep. And you're going to sleep in this room with me. I sleep quite heavily, and probably there's no way I could stop you if you waited until I was asleep, then took the object out of the cabinet -- which I am leaving unlocked -- and ran for it. You could probably find those men and get the money they promised you."
"Do you believe I'll do that, Mistress?" Yumi said.
"Obviously I don't, or I wouldn't be so frank about this. I don't think you'll do it. But whether you do it is not up to me. It is up to you, isn't it? I'm just telling you how things stand. Being honest. I think you'll stay..." Sachiko trailed off. She felt confused. She wasn't sure why she'd approached the topic this way. Yumi stood straight, she no longer trembled under Sachiko's gaze, but she was looking down, and tears were welling in her eyes, and Sachiko couldn't escape the suspicion that she was hurting Yumi needlessly. She seemed to hear Youko-sama saying, Sachiko, don't make a meal of it. Just say what you feel, or at least what you think. Simply and clearly.
"...I want you to stay. Yumi, I want you to stay very much. Will you?"
And Yumi was looking at her again, and Sachiko hadn't known until Yumi's gaze returned to her how saddened she had been by its absence. "Yes. Yes, Mistress, I will stay. I want to stay too. Thank you."
Sachiko sighed. "And thank you, Yumi." It came to her that she was tired. Well, it must be nearly the hour of the Ox by this time. "Time for sleep, Yumi," she said, turning away.
Yumi said, "Should I sleep by the door, Mistress?"
"No. With me, on my pallet." Sachiko was lying down on it as she spoke. "It's a chilly night, and you're not warmly dressed. Here, under my robes."
"But... Mistress, I'm filthy!" Yumi was trembling again, and her hands were clasped over her mouth.
"Yes," Sachiko said impatiently, "but we're both going to the baths first thing in the morning. So what does it matter?"
"We -- we shouldn't, Mistress --" The girl seemed ready to flee.
Sachiko was annoyed. She was being practical as well as conferring a favor, and the girl was being obstinate. A minor matter was being blown up into open warfare between mistress and famula, and on their first day. "Yumi, are you defying me?"
Yumi looked stricken. "No, Mistress! Mistress, I...I..."
"You what?"
"I...I have lice, mistress..." Yumi began to cry.
Sachiko lay there, staring, at a loss.
Yumi kept crying.
Sachiko got to her feet, went to Yumi, and put an arm about her shoulders. "Please don't cry," she said awkwardly. "Please, Yumi."
"Do I...disgust you? Do you h -- hate me?"
"No. To both. No, Yumi." I'm amazed you don't hate me. "Please, Yumi." Her hands, unbidden, were stroking Yumi's bare shoulder and her rough, matted hair. "Please, little fox, don't cry."
With some effort, Yumi got it down to sniffles.
"Come to bed, Yumi."
"...the lice..."
"Don't worry about the lice. I know a word or two will settle that. Come on. Sleep warm with me."
Yumi came with her, and they slept warm together, having fallen asleep to the sound of the bitter yet desultory argument in Satou-san's chamber, and the blissful lovemaking in Rei-san and Yoshino-chan's.
--
(1) "It's almost as bad as having thirty-seven hornets in your trousers." Ichiki speaks feelingly, here. Japanese hornets are of an especially loathsome sort. They are enormous (about two inches long), aggressive reptiles with a predilection for slaughtering bees by the hiveful, eating their honey, and stealing their children for food, and -- just to be refreshing or something -- the venom in their stingers actually dissolves human tissue. Perhaps forty people die each year from encounters with the beasts. American hornets are pussy cats by comparison. If you don't believe me, google "Japanese hornets."
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