Chapter Text
Go and Shogi were odious. Connoisseurs of such games were often fools–many a person has wagered too high only to lose far too much. Whenever the hands of perverts picked up pieces at Verdigris House, it was often for matters such as whose shoulder might peak out of silk or whether fingers might be slipped under a robe. Some men only played these games at the pleasure house to sit across a beautiful woman. Then there was her father, who played shogi and go out of obsession. Still, he was not a man immune to the temptation of a bet.
The nature of bets rarely appealed to Maomao, most of all, for having been the result of one. All of this is not lost on Maomao, who sits across from her father, Lakan, a board situated between them. Irksome he was, a sappy smile on his face as he stared at her, unblinking. His daughter had finally visited him.
Lakan picked up a black piece, considering his next move, before laying it down. “For all his intentions, he rejected my darling daughter in the end.”
“He wouldn’t make me empress.” Maomao laid a piece, understanding that she could not beat him in a fair game. She had learned the rules begrudgingly, as perhaps situations would unfold when it would benefit her to know the game. There was no benefit today. In fact, she did not understand why she agreed to play it. “Or rather, I wouldn’t be empress.”
“I heard you’ve taken up at the Verdigris House again, accumulating debts.”
Maomao swallowed, narrowing her eyes. The old man kept tabs on her, as anyone in the business of information would. She could not fault him for this, though she wished he had gained this knowledge later, when the debts were higher, when she was too ruined.
“Room and board come at a cost,” she said, placing a white piece without regard for the others.
“My rooms are free,” Lakan said.
“That life is not.”
The pieces clacked between them. Lakan’s deliberate moves matched Maomao’s furious ones. He reveled in the chaos, the limitations her carelessness presented him. Years ago, she would have been stone-faced. She would not have allowed him to peer beneath the thick skin she applied, but he was not naive enough to believe that she allowed him this rare glimpse. This was a woman undone. As a military general, he thought she had fallen for a trap laid under her watch; as a father, his heart ached for her.
“You become a courtesan to avoid what? Him? A low-life, good-for-nothing–”
“You speak that way at the cost of your head.”
Lakan barked a laugh. “That must be why whenever I’m near, he turns the corner!”
“Better not to speak of the Emperor, as a rule. Don’t you think? ”
“I would never want to upset my darling daughter.”
Maomao had stopped looking at the board several moves ago, though Lakan’s eyes never left her hand. She was grateful for it, first for the fact that the sight of him perturbed her, and second, for the fact that often her eyes were too expressive.
“Well, then, you take up being a courtesan to what? Continue the family trade?” Lakan asked.
“You said you don’t wish to upset me.”
“And you are not.”
“If I lived here, there would be engagements. Dinners. And when summoned, I can’t avoid those things. A year from now, two, when…” Maomao stopped herself. She hadn’t dwelled on the future. She never entertained what the Emperor regent might do. In her time, he was a child living in a man’s body. But with that power, that command, she shuddered to think of a summons. “A courtesan is unacceptable company.”
Lakan saw a path to winning, too obvious for his liking. The game would end, and then his daughter would walk away from the board. There was a bet to consider. For all of her protesting, she would not have easily wagered a life as a military official’s daughter–a princess, suitable in the eyes of the right politician. She had already rejected that life. But he offered to buy her out, offered as insistently as when she was a child, for he could not see her condemned to that place. Not with a mind like hers. He made no move, placing his hands on his knees.
“He wouldn’t force you. You’ve been released.”
“And I would leave Li, if I could, but I’m burdened with knowledge,” Maomao sighed. “I’m an arm’s length away, anywhere in this country. Don’t you understand what that does to a man?”
Lakan nodded. “Then he wouldn’t have let you go.”
“Make your move, if you’re so sure.”
“Let me think on it some more.” The fruit juice in his cup had emptied, and he moved to refill it. The juice trickled slowly, and drop by drop, the cup was filled. “Really, your moves can be so similar to your mother's, but there’s no follow-through. Perhaps, if you’d play a few more rounds…”
“Absolutely not. Make your move.”
“I’m considering my possibilities. There’s no rush.”
This was quite like him, Maomao thought. Infuriating her when it was most inconvenient, testing the boundaries she put up. He experienced a twisted joy whenever she glared at him, and he cooed if she ever so much as smiled in his vicinity. It was no wonder he was attracted to games he always won, when being around him was equivalent to losing, day after day.
“I would fund you to open a clinic. I’m sure the request won’t be refused,” Lakan giggled. Yes, this was his worst quality, she decided. He simply could not help himself.
So that was it, Maomao thought. He would conjure a dream world that daddy would pay for. Good daddy, generous daddy, let-me-rescue-you daddy. She began to laugh. The laugh started in her belly, traveling up through her lungs, into her veins, circulating in her blood, entering her heart as all blood did. That life unfolded in her mind’s eye, her belongings brought here, the clinic built to her exact specifications, the people she would help, the name she would make for herself. On and on, until the emperor regent was injured, was ill, and no more capable hands than hers could be found in Li.
Maomao hadn’t realized that her laughter brought her to tears. She despised crying in front of Lakan, though he was wise enough to remain on the other side of the board, his hands kept to himself. These were not tears he earned.
The board was wet; she was losing the game. “Then welcome me here so that one dinner, six years from now, he catches a glimpse of me. So that seven years from now, I sew his wounds. So that eight years from now, when he has made a new life, I’ll be at the foot of a concubine’s bed in the rear palace to deliver his child.”
“Maomao–”
“Make your move,” she demanded. “Do it.”
Lakan began to shift. Absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the other option, or rather, she hadn’t thought it a possibility among the moves he could make. Extending the game, leaving it to chance, she understood. But he took a piece, curling his fingers around it. He formed a fist, and pressing his lips together, he tossed it into her lap.
“I forfeit,” he said.