The East Coast Cage was an unassuming brownstone from the outside. One story, reasonably large, it kneeled amidst thirty acres of poorly-trimmed lawn, hemmed by a ring of tall, iron fencing long-ago claimed by the relentless assault of native vines and kudzu. Like an abused child hiding behind his fringe of uncut hair, it shyly asked for the ignorance of its neighbors, the sleepy-eyed suburbians of Walsh Street, and with more than two hundred years to soften their curiosity, they were more than happy to oblige.
Yasuko didn't know who had come up with the title 'Cage,' but it seemed an apt choice of word. Pretty things deserved to be locked up, in order to preserve them. And though many might argue that birds deserved to be free, there was nothing of the outside world that would interest a vampire. Yasuko's Formula found the world vibrant and offensive, so different from the era of oiran and samurai, and thus she remained obediently contained.
Despite the strict manner in which she was kept and monitored—for her own good, of course—Yasuko did not live a life without luxury. Her caretakers had gracefully adapted the Cage's interior to her homeland. Even Min-ho's room was dressed with paper doors and silk hangings.
The studio was by far Yasuko's favorite room. Doubling as a closet, it contained her collection of kimonos, waiting obediently on black, carved ikou. When she drank tea at her table, kneeling on her favorite cushion and facing the door, they flanked her like a silken army. Many a day, she envisioned herself as their general, ferocious and intimidating.
A facade, of course. Few people found vampires worthy of that much regard, and these days she and her kind were subjected more often to pity and coos of admiration rather than glory or fear—a fact that would always sit ill with her, no matter how many decades went by.
Sipping tea now, its bitter scent curling against her chin and cheek like a lover's embrace, she regarded sheets of paper laid before her on the table. The first sat at the very center, a poster whose ink had turned worn and faint but was all the more garish for its age.
'AGENCY FOR CONSERVATION OF SUPERNATURAL SPECIES! YOU CAN SAVE THE VAMPIRES!' Underneath its red, bold letters, a grinning facsimile of herself was drawn surrounded by caring, sympathetic faces. Americans, telltale by the roundness of their eyes compared to the slitted lines that were meant to represent hers. Their hands were lifted up, as if to lift her up, and their smiles were jubilant with a smug, self-satisfaction that she attributed with arrogance. Discreetly, in a corner, the date of 1883 was etched in curling black like a nasty, wicked secret.
The second poster, also familiar, was newer and more disgusting. Nestled in the center, drawn with exaggerated, thick lines, two vampires held hands. White curtains veined with sweet shades of pink hovered over the figures' heads like wedding garlands, golden bubbles at each end evoking images of bells and congratulations.
'1932: THE START OF THE NEW GENERATION!'
Her hand hovered over the latter, her revulsion so physical that it gripped her by the throat. No, wait, that was the Formula, its magic whispering along her skin, reminding her that violence was a forbidden pleasure.
Reluctantly, her teeth clenched, Yasuko dropped her hand. Her eyes strayed, slowly, to another item on her table. Again, anger clenched in her stomach, her back muscles aching with the fury of it. But she let that go, too, because the Formula was a stern nanny.
Behind her, a man strolled amongst her kimono, straightening the sleeves and dragging his fingernails across their elaborate embroidery.
"Breeze," she barked, sensing him linger too long where he wasn't wanted. "That kimono is older than you. Do not ruin it." The silks were not as fragile as they could have been, thanks to a magic cast to preserve their loveliness, but she was defensive of all her things.
The man paused his inspection, an insouciant smile flitting to his mouth. "I'm sorry," he said without remorse, his storm-colored eyes twinkling as he ran a hand across the front of his shirt. It was also gray, as well as the rest of his ensemble—his hair, included. He was a drab man, Breeze, but then again, he was government. Such men had a tendency to be boring; he even managed to be blandly handsome, a feat Yasuko would have never claimed possible before meeting him.
Breeze glided to her table, claiming the space beside her rather than across, taking liberties as only the young and American would. Americans in general were all arrogant and wouldn't make for good company, even if dead. Probably wouldn't taste good, either, but then again, Breeze was a fairy. For all she knew, his blood was liquid candy and likely to drive her blood sugar to dangerous levels.
Her fingernails danced across the ceramic side of her mug, impatient.
"I like this one on you." Breeze teased, touching the sleeve of her sky-blue and yellow kimono, tracing the pink outlines of cherry blossoms with a pinky. "Goes well with your eyes."
Perhaps he meant it as actual flattery, but during her tenure in Yoshiwara, Yasuko's eyes had been nothing worth celebrating. In fact, quite a few foolish men had commented that they were too reptilian, a black mark against her beauty. Japanese men liked their women demure and graceful, and even if she could dance with enough elegance to make young daimyōs weep and beg to touch her skin, men would never hold her gaze for long, quick to leave the warmth of her bed for women with softer eyes and hearts.
Breeze's comment made her want to arch her back like a cat, spitting mad, but she dismissed him with a flick of her fingers instead.
Not seeming to notice her gesture, he regarded the posters set before her, his lightness grating against her nerves. His whole being, an insult to her, when he shifted one of the papers, setting it askew and no longer in line with the other. He'd done it on purpose, and she was too prim to accuse him outright. "Reminiscing?" His fingertip tapped on the male vampire in the second poster, identifiable only by the short hair and lack of exaggerated feminine curves.
As if Yasuko had any curves to differentiate her from men like Min-ho.
"No," she said petulantly, setting her cup down to reach for the teapot and an empty mug. She poured for Breeze, because serving tea was a soothing habit, even when she hated the recipient. "I could care less about him."
True. Min-ho might have courted her for fifty years, but she had always either disliked or hated him outright.
"Think they'll make a poster, for him and your sister?" Breeze asked lightly, skating too close to wounds that Yasuko would rather leave unopened. Skating too close to shattering her composure, too.
In her mind's eye, she envisioned a more modern work of advertisement. Perhaps a photo, made shiny with all the accouterments of modern technology. Min-ho on one end, smiling and dangerously handsome, as he held the demure, lovely hands of his latest flame. A beautiful Japanese girl, with exotic red hair and a smile that had brought men frothing at her feet. Who had brought men from Yasuko's bed with only a shy quirk of her mouth and delicate fingers plucking haunting music from a shamisen's strings.
Rather than answer Breeze's question, Yasuko returned the teapot to its place and resumed sipping her tea. If she closed her eyes, she could breathe in the nostalgic scent and pretend she was elsewhere. That she was still in Japan, enjoying a relaxing morning while kamuro scuttled about following her orders and gossiped in hushed giggles. If she concentrated to her utmost, she could envision herself stretching out her toes to poke Sakura's, snickering at each other's bedraggled hair or comparing notes on their latest lovers.
...trying her hardest not to be jealous and angry.
Yasuko opened her eyes, banishing those ugly emotions, lest the Formula take notice and punish her for them.
'I love my sister,' she told herself, like a mantra. 'I love Sakura.'
'As does...'
Yasuko's mug squeaked protest as her grip tightened, her knuckles turning white as rage bubbled like rabies at the mouth of a mad dog. Breeze's eyebrows tilted up, but the amusement did not depart from his expression. He was accustomed to her fits and seemed to derive entertainment from her efforts to restrain herself.
"What are you going to do?" So easily did he push at her boundaries, stroking her sores and bruises. "If your sister decides she likes Min-ho?"
Two hundred years ago, Yasuko could have answered easily and quickly. 'Kill him.' Two hundred years ago, people would have believed her. But vampires had declined in many ways in the past few centuries, a path guaranteed by the Formula's demand for passivity. Stricken defenseless and unable to fight back, they'd crawled closer and closer to the cliff of extinction. Yasuko hovered at the rim of it, staring into the black depths of oblivion, knowing that her kind would all die. Not caring as long as Sakura was kept separate.
But she was separate no more.
Again, Yasuko held her tongue. Only acid could pour from her mouth now, and false pleasantries would choke her. The truth, however, would bring the pain of the Formula's hammer.
"It's funny though. I'd have thought he was infatuated with you, as much as he kept whining and moaning for attention." Breeze was so accustomed to Yasuko's inability to tear open his throat that he'd become overly familiar in their conversation. How she so dearly wished to correct his misconception. "See here?" Seemingly from nowhere he summoned a sketchbook, its bindings bent and strained with use.
Min-ho's. Yasuko knew, because he'd left it on her futon before his departure, because fifty years had not been enough to teach a fool proper boundaries.
Breeze flipped past pencil sketches of plants and birds and the outside world, a stupid vampire's attempt to beguile his cursed elder with sights and things that she didn't know. Humming as he hunted through the drawings, Breeze stopped on a rendition of Yasuko as she always was—draped in the glossy folds of a kimono, her dark hair a liquid waterfall down her back while she bent gracefully over brush and ink. "Aw, you're so pretty," her caretaker teased, turning to another drawing. Then another. "Huh."
The final page, the one which Min-ho had meant for her to see. In it, Yasuko reclined in a chair, her mouth a friendly curve while her hair tumbled free from the constrains of a bun. Rather than a kimono, she wore an airy blouse and skirt, her knees and calves drawn with loving attention.
'Soft,' the sketch said.
Vulgar, Yasuko thought. There were so many suggestions hidden in that drawing, and all of them offensive.
"Who's that supposed to be?" Breeze queried, and she felt a rare flicker of appreciation for her babysitter, who apparently knew her better than the man who'd courted her for half a century.
"I don't know," she replied, flicking the book closed with two fingers. To distract Breeze from pursuing the topic, she turned her attention to the third and final paper item on her table—an envelope, brown like mud cooked in the sun.
She wiggled her fingers at her caretaker, urging him to undo the clasp and show her its contents. He grinned and did as she bid, extracting a single sheet of paper and presenting it for her perusal. The type was neat and, in unusual concession to her, written in Japanese.
She read.
The Formula's magic took a hold of the back of her neck and squeezed.
Hastily, she gathered her self-control, leashing it with will and a small touch of fear. All the same, even after all that effort, her voice emerged with a touch of strain. "What is this?"
Breeze, who had used the time she spent reading to stalk the printed sakura branches on her kimono with thumb and forefinger, looked up. Mirth tugged at his lips. "Hmm? Oh yes. It's my letter of resignation."
She had to set down her mug, lest she commit violence with it. "You're...you're leaving?" A faint whooshing noise swept past her ears. Her chest felt uncomfortably full, the tension in her neck so tight that her shoulders started to physically hurt.
Let it not be said that vampires adapted well to change, of any sort.
"Forgot: dinner. Is beef tenderloin okay?"
"Retirement?" Yasuko repeated, her thumbs framing the crude word committed onto the letter, her lips so numb that they started to sting. "Retirement?"
"Should I spell it for you?"
"But..." She barely managed to keep herself from sputtering, as that would be the peak of inelegance. Logic failed her. "But how old are you?"
His smile was radiant. "Aww, you're never interested in me."
Of course she wouldn't be. She disliked him, and other than his name and a few relevant facts, Yasuko hadn't bothered to learn anything about him. He wasn't her friend or a member of her Circle. He was simply her government-appointed caretaker.
And he was leaving.
'No. He can't.' Min-ho's departure had been violent, sudden as it was, and the Formula had been cruel in its response. Another change to her environment would not go over well with the magic.
"Seventy, next year."
"You're too young to retire." Was there a way to make him stay? What arguments could she make?
"Will you miss me?"
"No," she admitted easily. And just as easily, "You can't go. I won't let you." Her whole house, her whole existence, needed to be kept within a specific sphere of order. Breeze's job encompassed a whole host of tasks and errands, but chief among them was his duty to maintain order. And as much as she disliked him at times, his existence was a part of her precious routine. If he left, he'd change things.
The Formula wouldn't let the crime go unpunished, and she would bear the brunt of its anger.
"I'll miss you, too," he told her, as if such a thing mattered. "Can I have a kiss before I go?"
'Of course, if that kiss involves death and your blood all over the walls,' she thought mutinously, glaring at him from under her lashes. She wanted so dearly to give voice to her threat, to remind him and all others that a vampire was not an orchid. But with the Formula hanging over her shoulder, the most she could manage was a sneer and an angry huff that made Breeze chuckle rather than tremble in fear. Struggling to maintain her superiority, she pointed towards the door. "This conversation is over. The library. Prepare the Dragons Tales for me."
Avoidance was not the best solution to her problems, but she was not allowed very many options. And while she might have liked to dig her heels in and throw a tantrum—or as much as the Formula would allow—thoughts of Min-ho hovered at the fore.
'Sakura, be safe.'
Her sister was smart. She was, also, unfortunately kind-hearted. Prime prey for those seeking to take advantage. Yasuko would know, better than anyone; no one had used and abused Sakura Kushida as much as her onee-chan.
❁
daimyō — a feudal lord, usually a samurai elevated to higher ranks
oiran — a highly-ranked courtesan
kamuro — younger courtesan-in-training who assist an oiran or other courtesans; can take customers
onee-chan — elder sister, can be shortened to nee-chan
ikou — special racks for holding kimonos
shamisen — stringed instrument used for entertainment