How do two people become one? In plays it would be love stories, but this angel thinks one needs to rip the other apart.

A lovesick maiden sings under the plum shower dance. She laments, Is there no way to understand my lover’s heart?

There is no way to understand the other. There is a drift between man and woman that begets heartbreak and unending misunderstandings.

Oh, what a terrible fate. She whines, might she not see the play at hand? She is an actress, she is a performer, but she doesn't defy despite knowing fate like she knows the seasons will fall and die.

A maiko dances with a fan, drawn movements like soaring wings spell grace and the flow of winter into spring. But the maiko is a man, although one with a face worthy of a maiden. He does not wear a hikizuri, nor does he apply a feminine appearance with wareshinobu and oshiroi. He is not a dancer, he is part of the clientele, an esteemed guest of status and influence.

Yet no spectator questions the audacity of this performance. They hold timid adoration. Why wouldn't they? This amateur man has the elegance and maturity a geiko would, yet he has the coquette novice of a maiko, hair tied like wings with shidare that frills with his gaze, bells that jingle as though he walks the streets in okobo. Oh what a beauty, how is it possible? It is otherworldly, it is god-like, a plum petal is lost and lands idle on a pond. The charm!

Some young maiko gossip backstage. Who does he think he is? The whore. Okama.

A few creaky business men fester smears for later. He's more shameless than his late father. Failson. Meddlesome takokujin. I'll put that brat in his place, sooner or later.

But the shamisen strikes the thoughts out; the maiko waves his fan. A heavenly command. He contorts his body in cranes and swallows. A bird doesn't care, a bird simply flies.

The maiko bows his head to the tatami and retreats to the seat he had defied. Young men throng like starling wives selling their daughters' hands at a wake. They shower him in jokes and praise; the tearoom is open to a garden to invite the plum shower the amateur maiko rather admires. Professional maiko seize the stage and diffuse the flock in games, flirtations, and conversations.

A Chinese prince stays by the resting maiko. The dance exerted him, but it has no hint on his moonshine face. Is that what he sees?

"Hokan, will you entertain me?"

The hokan remarks the prince, shifts his seiza to face him. "I'm no entertainer. But we can play."

"How are you well versed in the arts then?" The prince calls an apprentice maiko.

"I'm interested in it, it's beautiful."

The girl arranges a board for them, she bows and smiles with her lower lip when she is thanked and shooed away. "Do you think humans are beautiful?"

"Humans don't understand beauty." The hokan starts the konpira. They don't sing, they set rhythm only by the clap of their hands.

"Is that why we must guide them? We might lead them to heaven."

"I think what you do is fruitless. You can improve their way of life however much you want, but their core doesn't change. As soon as you leave them to their own devices, fundamental problems will emerge and throw them into disarray."

"Isn't that a bold prediction? Say, what are you doing instead? How are you improving their humanity?" The prince snatches the box, 

"I'm not. I couldn't care less." and the hokan taps down his flat hand.

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