1
In a small city called Pyacca which is about 6km away West from the Kingdom, there are dozens of brothels with female and male prostitutes, and the whole city has become a red-light district. Since it’s about an hour’s ride from the Kingdom with a carriage, by the time the sun has set and the lamps in the eaves are lit, men from the Royal Capital, the neighboring city, and the villages who are looking for a one-night meeting gather.
Customers are already flowing inside the popular store shops operating across the main road.
A man with a good physique came from a store called “Hana Hana” operating at the endmost of Pyacca lit the lamp a bit later than the other shops.
“Yaquel, can you fix the backdoor after that? It seemed to have broken again because of the strong wind yesterday.”
Ordered by the proprietress, “I understand”, Yaquel answered.
Yaquel’s main job is doing odd jobs at the brothel. Manual labors from tidying the dirty rooms to doing maintenance at the shop and wood-chopping. Taking advantage of his large and bear-like build which is close to 190cm, he is responsible for customers who have bad manners and those who break the rules.
Yaquel came to this shop when he was 10 years old. When his alcoholic and womanizing, undisciplined father as well as a gambling addict and sluttish mother were about to sell Yaquel to a slave merchant, “It’s such a waste to enslave such a robust child. If you don’t need him then sell him to me.” He was saved by this shop’s proprietress. 12 years after that, Yaquel has been working in this shop as a manservant.
For Yaquel, the proprietress is his life’s benefactor and this “Hana Hana” is his home. He has decided to work his body to the bones for this shop until his life runs out.
Yaquel who was repairing the tilted door noticed the fissure on the window beside it.
Oh, here, too…
The fissure on the window isn’t only here. Although it’s not up until the guest rooms, the kitchen’s window and the windows on the hallway, Yaquel’s and the other man- and maidservants’ rooms, and recently, the fissures have also become noticeable in the prostitutes’ bedroom windows.
Of course, it’s just a matter of buying new ones, but perhaps because the location of this Hana Hana is far from the main road and the site condition is bad, it is the least famous brothel in the entire Pyacca and the state of business is always bad.
However, the proprietress never once showed a struggling expression. “We’ll manage as long as we’re alive.” Her own share is minimum and most of the shop’s profit, after deducting expenses, is distributed to the prostitutes and servants like Yaquel.
Just by seeing the other brothels’ shopkeepers being covered in their own self-interest, everyone who has worked for the proprietress is grateful and respectful to her.
Yaquel is of course one of them, and wrenching his poor brain wanting to be of help to the proprietress, all he could think of was reducing the portion of his meals. Upon implementing it, the proprietress instead forcibly shared with him her own share of bread saying, “What is going to happen if a man at the prime of his life doesn’t eat?”
Is there anything I can do to help?
Yaquel was thinking as he covered the cracked parts with paint so it wouldn’t worsen.
Mending the backdoor was done, and just when he just finished fixing the noticeable crack on the window, a fellow manservant rushed out from the backdoor and, “Big trouble! Yaquel, please come!”, he called Yaquel.
“What’s wrong?”
“A guest is going out of control!”
When Yaquel hurriedly went to the room guest who was said to be out of control, the sounds of things being thrown and a man’s rude voice, as well as the proprietress’s voice trying to placate the customer, can be heard.