The winter she turned twelve, the snow came late.
By then, the once-bright shoji screens of their home had dulled to parchment. The tatami mats were fraying at the edges. Meals became simpler: rice gruel flavored with pickled plum, when they could afford it.
But what Aika remembered most from that winter was the silence between her and her mother. Not out of anger, but out of preservation, like two people tiptoeing across a frozen lake, too afraid to break the ice.
Then one evening, after days of rain, a woman in a snow-white cloak visited their home.
Her name was Madame Sumire.
She arrived with no introduction, only a folded fan and the faint scent of chrysanthemum oil. Her voice was velvet wrapped in iron, the kind that made you listen before you understood why.
Aika was sent outside during the conversation. She sat under the veranda, knees pulled to her chest, listening to the murmur of two voices and the occasional click of porcelain teacups. The rain fell in quiet beads from the roof.
When she was called back inside, her mother didn't meet her eyes.
Harue's hands, always steady, trembled as she smoothed Aika's hair behind her ear. Her voice cracked only once:
"You'll wear silk, Aika. You'll eat well. You'll be... safe."
Aika didn't understand what she meant.
But she understood enough to stay quiet.
That night, she packed what little she owned: a wooden comb, her father's old inkstone, and a faded piece of washi paper with a mountain drawn in charcoal, her father's last doodle before he left for guard duty that final time.
She walked beside Madame Sumire the next morning without protest.
Their destination was the Hanabira Teahouse, nestled in the hidden corners of Kyoto's Gion district.
Behind sliding doors painted with golden flowers and lanterns that never dimmed.
To outsiders, it was a place of music and elegance.
To Aika, it became a velvet prison.