Imaginary Stories

A solid thunk against the wall made Sato Saki jump and drop her hairbrush. She grabbed at the brush, nearly dropped the towel wrapped around her, and then her hands were confused between trying to catch the brush and the towel and she knocked the brush out of the air. It skittered on the bathroom tiles before ending behind the toilet.

"Ew," Saki grumbled. She grabbed some toilet paper and used it to gingerly pick up the brush and place it in the sink. She needed to wash that before using it again. Saki knew what her bandmates thought and it wasn't true, she wasn't a germaphobe, just careful.

So far Belgrave had been a bit of a bust. The schedule allowed them exactly enough time to fly in, set up and rehearse, take a couple of pictures, and then perform for the contest winners. Now she and the rest of BTK69 had enough time to eat, sleep, and fly to Taiwan for their next concert.

The money was good though, so none of them were going to complain. And Hal Harrower wasn't big in streaming, but he was big enough to be worth the band's time.

Before Saki could start washing the brush she heard a ragged knocking at her door. Probably Seo-yun again, wanting to complain about her upset stomach from eating too much airport food. Saki adjusted her towel as she stepped out into the hall. She unlocked the door and turned the lever and suddenly a massive weight on the door forced it open, and Saki barely stepped back in time to avoid being slammed by the door.

The weight was Hal Harrower, boneless and floppy. Saki drew a breath to scream but it caught short in her throat. Her billionaire host nearly collapsed to the floor, barely catching himself by falling against the wall instead. His bloodshot eyes swept past Saki, staring down the little hallway into the hotel room. Harrower shoved himself to a somewhat upright posture.

"Mr Harrower," Saki spoke with all the authority she could muster while she was wearing a towel and face to face with a man at least thirty centimetres taller than her. "You can't come in here."

He said something in - not English. Was that French? Did Hal Harrower think she spoke French? Harrower said something in French and then stumbled past Saki, swaying like a child on a bicycle.

Saki watched as an obscenely wealthy and even more obscenely drunk man wobbled into her room, dropped his coat on the floor, and then slowly fell forward until he hit her bed with a crash hard enough for her to feel it through the floor.

A long deep sigh escaped from Hal Harrower, and then his breathing settled into the slow rhythm of sleep.

"Huh," said Saki. She looked at Hal Harrower passed out on her bed, shrugged, and dumped her towel on the floor. Grabbing her phone from the charging station she muttered "No such thing as bad publicity."

火事と喧嘩は江戸の華

Fires and fights are the flowers of Edo.

In the Shōgun's city of Edo, Momori approached the master of Himyaku.

"Hey, Publisher-san." Momori held a roll of papers out to Yoshiki, shaking it under his face. "Give me some fucking money."

The publisher of Himyaku, Yoshi, looked down on Momori from his shop's open sales floor. The more he looked the higher his eyebrows rose. His gaze touched Momori's black eye, then moved up to her charcoal-dusted eyebrows, on to the pale birthmark peeking out from below her headwrap, then finally to the wrap itself. Momori figured he was looking to see if her unnatural white forelock showed through the thinned cloth.

"What happened to you?" Asked Yoshi as his eyebrows climbed towards his freshly shaved hairline.

Momori shrugged, trying to look casual. Her empty stomach spoiled her best unconcerned look by rumbling loudly. "War. The lockdown. I was nearly arrested this morning."

"You didn't get that black eye this morning." Today was one of those days where Yoshi felt like being a pain in the ass, apparently.

"Yeah, this is from the first time I was nearly arrested." Momori shook her roll of papers again. "Just before the lockdown. One of the Shōgun's court guards came by to ask me a few questions. Mostly about that poem you paid me for."