Chapter 2: 2. A Monstrous Problem

Jiro waited until Kaori slid the glass door of the bath shut behind her. Then he allowed himself to relax. He sat back into the bath, uncrossed his legs, and let the warmth seep into him.

Kaori was a strange woman, thought Jiro. Of the staff members he had met in his three days at the bathhouse, she had been the only one willing to speak to him. Even before Gramps had run off and abandoned them, the other staffers had been cold, distant, hateful even. But why? What was going on in this bathhouse? And why couldn’t he just have an ordinary Working Holiday?

When little Jiro was ready to go, Jiro dried off, changed back into his uniform, and, padded down the corridor in the direction of the meeting room.

The meeting room was on the other side of the first floor, down a corridor behind the front desk. When Jiro passed the stairs, he saw Yui coming down with a stack of towels in her arms, short hair bobbing up and down with each step. At nineteen, she was the youngest member of the bathhouse staff.

“Hi Yui. How’s everything?” Jiro said, flashing his best approximation of a charming manager smile.

Yui didn’t even blink. It was like she hadn’t seen or heard him at all. She pushed right past and strode down the corridor in the opposite direction. He could feel her hatred from the way she hammered her slippers into the oak floor.

“Good to see you too ...” He called after her, mostly out of spite. “This is some holiday,” he muttered to himself. The whole bathhouse staff hated him, and he hadn’t even done anything wrong. Except be born as a blood relation of his grandfather. Born in the wrong place. Tied to the wrong people. A useless little fly caught in a web of someone else’s making. That felt like the story of Jiro’s whole life.

Kaori was in the meeting room waiting for him. A low table stood in the center of the large room, and Kaori was kneeling there, Japanese-style, with her elbows resting on the wood. The room must have once been something more than a place for meeting, thought Jiro. With its arched roof, thick wooden beams, and the carvings of strange beasts that ran above the doors, it was too grand of a place for a purpose so … administrative.

Jiro sat down across from Kaori, but she sidled around until she was next to him. He could almost feel her knee pressing against his thigh through the fabric of her kimono. Almost sneezing distance. He caught a whiff of lavender, and swallowed. What was this woman trying to do? Did she get off from teasing him? Did she want him to do something stupid, something not entirely legal?

“What did you put in my drink?” he said, leaning away from her.

“Don’t worry,” Kaori said, breathing into his ear. “It was just tea. No stimulant in there but caffeine. It wasn’t very good tea, but tea nonetheless.”

“I hope this isn’t what we’re serving the guests.”

“It would be, if we had any guests.”

“No guests … tonight?”

“No guests tonight, or on any other night.”

“There were some guests here yesterday.”

“Do you think they’ll be coming back?”

“No.”

They were both silent for a time. Jiro fiddled with his thumbs and tried not to think about how close Kaori was. Again, he caught a whiff of lavender.

“So we have no future bookings,” Jiro finally said. “At all?”

“Zero.”

“That’s not good.” The bathhouse, Jiro had learned in his three days here, operated less like a modern bathhouse, where people paid money for a few hours in the baths, and more like a hotel or traditional Japanese inn. Guests paid a fee to stay for few nights. During their stays, they could wine, dine, play, forget about their worldly worries, and (of course) rejuvenate themselves in the establishment’s many bathing facilities. Or, rather, the guests would have been able to do these things, had there been any guests in the first place.

Kaori was talking, but Jiro was having a hard time focusing. In the corner of his eye, he had caught sight of the curve of Kaori’s breasts peeking out from the folds of her kimono. Had the fit always been that loose? Or had she loosened it on purpose? He could never tell what this woman was plotting. But despite her flirtations she was probably just like all the others. She probably wanted his hyoid bone to snap. But, unlike everyone else, she probably wanted it snapped in style.

“Jiro?”

“Y-yes. I’m listening,” he lied.

Kaori smiled again. A woman with her experience … The things she could teach … Jiro shook his head and pushed the thought away. Even imagining such things made his nose itch.

“For better or worse, you’re in charge now. I know you don’t have the experience. Or the know-how. Or anything … But we’ve got to make do.”

“Thanks …” Jiro said sarcastically.

“What I mean is that you need to get your act together. The others don’t trust you. They think it’s ridiculous that an amateur they barely know was put in charge of a place like this. Yes, you’re the owner’s grandson. But that’s a red mark, considering how bad of a job he did. Plus you’re a gaijin, a foreigner. A half-blood Japanese. … You’ve got to show them that you can lead. That you can be trusted.”

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“Do you think I’m ridiculous?” he asked. “Untrustworthy?”

Kaori smiled but said nothing.

“I know the stakes,” replied Jiro. “It’s do this thing or go back home. And I’m not going back home. Ever, if possible.” He went over to a cabinet in the far corner and came back with some documents. “I haven’t just been sitting around in the baths, you know. I took a look at the books, the account logs, the state of the floors, rooms, baths, gardens, kitchen.”

“And?”

“And we’re in a bad spot. A really bad spot.”

He looked at the room around him. Perhaps it had been grand once, but now … The wood of the supports and beams were decayed from age, termites, and lack of care. The straw tatami mats had long faded to white and lost their fragrance. The bathhouse, Jiro’s grandfather had told him, was well over two hundred years old, and dated back to before the Meiji Period. He believed it. It looked like nobody had done a renovation in centuries.

“We need to fix up the building. Pay for renovations. Not for all the floors … who knows how many there are. Just the important ones. Hire someone to clear out the area behind the baths. Most of the land out there, all the way up into the mountains, is a complete mess. And there’s the matter of advertising, food for the guests, sheets and bedspreads, not to mention paying you and the other staff … I’m surprised Gramps didn’t run away earlier. But there’s a problem.” Juro laid back onto the tatami and stared up at the light that hung from the ceiling. “If we want to change any of this, we’re—”

“We’re going to need money,” finished Kaori. “Not bad … for a little boy. Sounds like you have some management ability.”

“Don’t c-call me little boy,” Jiro mumbled. There was no way he could tell her that his only management experience came from summers playing Sim City, plus a few dozen hours of Diner Dash.

“So what are going to do about money?”

Kaori shrugged. “That’s for you to figure out.” She rose to go.

“Kaori?”

“Yea?”

“Even if you’re faking it, thanks for supporting me. It’s nice to feel like not everyone in this bathhouse wants me hanged. At least not directly”

“Charming. But save your sweet words for the guests … I just like to play with my food … before I eat it.” She gave him a little nudge on the leg with a bare foot.

“Achoo!” When had she taken off her sock? Kaori looked Jiro in the eye and wriggled her toes at him. Jiro felt the blood rush to his face. This woman and her games.

“Oh,” said Kaori, turning back from the doorway. She ran one slender finger slowly up the wood of the wall. “There’s something else you should know. Something your grandfather conveniently forgot to tell you.”

“Something important?”

“Oh yes. It’s about the clientele, or former clientele anyway.”

Jiro swallowed. So here it came, Problem Number Three. What could it be? Was this bathhouse an underworld establishment, where the guests carried katanas and had tattoos of mythical beasts inked all over their torsos? Or was it a cover-up for some kind of drug-smuggling cartel? An entryway for an international human trafficking ring? A portal to another world? Was it something even worse?

“What about the clientele?” he whispered, not wanting at all to know the answer.

“Well,” replied Kaori. Her eyes were laughing again. “If you’re going to manage this place, it’s something you’ll need to understand. And to accept. The guests in this bathhouse … they don’t always come here looking for baths. They expect certain kinds of … services.”

“Services …”

“Probably not the kind you’re imagining.”

“Oh.”

“But that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that these guests … they’re not exactly human. Not all of them.”

“What?” Jiro asked. “What do you mean not human?” He was sure he had misheard.

But there was nobody there to reply. Kaori had slid the paper shoji door shut and was shuffling in her slippers down the hall, down and away into the depths of the bathhouse, where, hidden in shadow, there lay, abandoned and derelict, all the hallways, corridors, rooms, and baths, that waited, patient yet hungry, for someone, anyone, to rescue them from their decay—and restore them to their former glory.