One who sells their body but not their art meets one who sells their art but not their body. It's like a cabbage getting trampled by a pig.
Step by step, they build their standing in the brothel, laboring over every detail until they can barely stand shoulder to shoulder as equals.
The one who sells their art takes advantage of the one who sells their body, and the one who sells their body gives the other a spectacularly hard time...
But enemies are bound to meet, and lovers are bound to quarrel.
They say their relationship is nothing special, but their bodies tell the truth.
Yet the truth is, the one who sells their body doesn't, and the one who sells their art doesn't either.
Their identities are a mystery. How can anyone tell what's real and what's not?
Who cares if it all falls apart? The important thing is to bring the brothel down first.
Original blurb
Candlelight sways red, incense smoke drifts like clouds. You make love while I play the flute.
Outside, a light breeze stirs the thin curtains; inside, a dim lamp glows in the secluded room.
Between us is only a layer of red paper and a few narrow windows, not tens of thousands of mountain peaks.
One inside, one outside. A slanting moon, a dying lamp, half-lit and half-dark. Old grudges and new sorrows knot together without end.
I play the courtesan, watching you smile ingratiatingly as your zither plays a thousand falling snows;
I play the chaste courtesan, watching your eyes turn coquettish, your figure outshining all the beauties of the pleasure quarters.
Treading through snow and drifting willow fluff, tangled threads of love crowd the passing years; the world stretches endlessly, yet you are close enough to touch and still I pine for you.
In short:
This is a story about a free-spirited courtesan gong and a cool, aloof chaste courtesan shou falling in love in a brothel. HE, 1v1. The original title was Moonlight on a Dying Lamp. Someone said it wasn't catchy enough, so I changed it. The original blurb was the one below. Someone said it was too ordinary, so I changed that too. If you still won't read it after all that, I give up (shrugs).
P.S. I wrote this a while ago. I'll update once I've finished posting the parts I wrote back then. The story I'm updating now is another one of mine, In the Days Our Companions Vanished (Katekyo Hitman Reborn: Yamamoto x Gokudera). Thanks for your support!
Five additional words. HE?