At that moment, Kirishima Bupai sat quietly there, as though none of this concerned him.
The male proprietor sighed heavily, his heart pounding.
Inside the tearoom, Kirishima Bupai seemed not to hear the whispers outside the door.
His dark gray eyes settled on another table of guests in a corner of the hall.
At that table, a dead-drunk, bald ronin with a brutish face had a death grip on the wrist of a young girl who had accidentally splashed wine onto his sleeve.
The girl cried out in pain, her face white with fear.
"You filthy bitch! You got my clothes dirty..."
The drunk leered, his eyes roaming over the apprentice courtesan's face and body. "An apology isn't enough! Tonight, I'm going to give you a proper 'lesson' in serving a man!"
As he spoke, he yanked the girl toward his chest! His companions around him jeered and laughed lewdly.
The girl trembled all over, tears welling in her eyes as she looked helplessly around. No one dared step forward.
Kirishima Bupai lifted the cup of sake he had left untouched, his slender fingers tapping lightly against its cold surface.
He set the cup down, its base meeting the tabletop with an extremely faint but distinct click.
The sound was quiet, yet it seemed to carry a strange penetrating power that hushed even the noisy hall.
The guests at several nearby tables involuntarily stopped what they were doing and looked toward the tearoom in confusion.
Crack! Crash-!!
Suddenly, a dull cracking sound, accompanied by the scattering of wood splinters, erupted from the floor beneath the drunken ronin's feet.
The sound was so abrupt that it even drowned out the ronin's lecherous laughter.
Everyone looked toward it in astonishment.
The somewhat rotten tatami and floorboards beneath the ronin's feet suddenly split