They arrived in Karasuma District at dusk, when the alleys began to reek of old oil and the street vendors lit their lanterns with sticks still wet from yesterday’s rain. The air was thick with misused incense, frying grease, and piss. Noise poured from every doorway: a biwa playing somewhere out of tune, a fight breaking out two stalls down, someone laughing too loudly over something that wasn’t funny.

This was a place people fled to, not from — and only because no one came looking for them here.

You were leaning against the wall of a half-rotted teahouse that doubled as a gambling den after the sun went down. The blade at your hip wasn’t polished, but it was visible, and that was enough. You had long learned that no one asked where it had been drawn, only how recently.

The siblings stood out, but not as badly as they might have a week ago. Dust had softened the color of their robes, and their coin was running thin enough that they no longer walked as if they expected space to be made for them.

The girl’s name was Sae, and the boy — older by a few years — was Haruki. He carried a shoulder bag too light to hold anything important. She carried nothing but kept her arms close to her sides, as if uncertain whether they belonged to her here.

Sae looked first when they passed you. Not long. Just enough.

Haruki said, almost to himself, “I didn’t think it would smell like this.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Everything.”

They moved like people tracing someone else’s footsteps. Haruki’s mouth was set in a permanent line, the kind that forms when a boy’s ideas about justice begin to rot in the air. Sae didn’t seem to be looking for anything at all. Just trying not to be noticed.

A pickpocket bumped into her and moved on. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t check what was missing.

The stall across from you was selling grilled eel on skewers made of split chopsticks. The cook was shouting down a drunk who hadn’t paid. In the far corner, a girl no older than Sae was dancing for coin, the kind of dance that wasn't taught in temples.

Sae watched her for a moment. Not with judgment. Not with curiosity. Just watched.

They asked you — eventually — if there was somewhere they could stay. Haruki had the voice of someone who was used to being pampered and held.

You nodded toward the three-story brothel that loomed above the other buildings like a crooked lantern tower.

“No one asks questions there,” you said.

He nodded, but didn’t thank you. You weren’t insulted. Politeness here was a kind of arrogance. As they stepped away, Sae lingered half a beat.

“Do people survive here?” she asked.

“Only if they stop asking that.”

That night, they were seen again. Briefly. Through the paper screen of a second-floor window, the warm flicker of lamplight outlined their silhouettes. He was pacing. She was sitting still.

Almost as if it couldn't get worse, there were strangers in the room, who had paid for their stay. You also arrived in the room, through much more... forceful methods. Then again, spilling blood was better than staying out in the early morning hours. From midnight to sunrise, sin was around every corner.

Sae, feeling more comfortable with you than the strangers, shifted closer. "Are these people trustworthy?"