Lily Light (Shachi x Reader x Penguin)

⁕Honey🧡warm⁕

Someone calls your name.

Quickly, you throw on your favorite kimono, and tie it with a big bow at your hip.

"I'll be right there, sir!" You reply hurriedly but kindly, looking in the mirror one last time and fixing your hair. With a hairpin you stick your hair up, decorate it with a white lily, put the flower stem behind your ear.

You take a deep breath and put on a mild smile. Then you step out of the dressing room and into the tavern mainroom.

Red paper lanterns illuminate the well-visited room. The scent of sweet alcohol fills your nose, many voices are talking. You must not listen, you must not be irritated. You should always keep your posture and grace, look pretty. Just as you were taught.

Speak only if you are allowed to.

Be quiet, calm, gentle and polite.

Show yourself from your most beautiful side. You serve only as a decorative attraction for wealthy visitors.

It could have been worse for you. Your job as a waitress and entertainer is better than having to work in prostitution or being unemployed. After all, you live in the Flower Capital, not in the slums. You belong to the lower middle class and ensure your daily survival.

Your name resound again, this time a little more impatiently than before.

As you pass by, you are handed a vase of sake by your new colleague. You nod your thanks and decide to ask her for her name later. Her fake name, not her real one. Human distance is maintained here, for the safety of the employees. This ensures that you don't have an ego of your own. Humanity is out of place in the pleasure district.

With the sake-vase in your hands, you make your way elegantly to one of the back tables, near the door, where a middle-aged man looks at you, waiting. His empty drinking bowl lifted, on his unshaven face a sour expression.

When you reach his low table, you bow apologetically, avoiding eyecontact, and pour him a wordless drink.

"It's about time!" He barks at you, his voice blurry with alcohol. You continue to smile, kneel next to him, sit down at a healthy distance from him. His glassy eyes scrutinize you from the side before he continues to drink.

"Not the prettiest one, but what do you expect around here." He grumbles to himself. One of the nicer things you've heard from guests. You'll never be good enough.

Everyone prefers to be with the Courtesan, no one can reach her beauty. The most beautiful woman of Wano Kuni is the model of this country, the ideal of the female sex.

And you? You're... okay.

Your smile remains unwavering. You silently keep the customer company, nodding now and then when he says something to give him confirmation, and pouring him a drink when he holds out his bowl to you. Your eyes remain mostly focused on the low table, your chin lifted, your back straight. Maintain grace, politeness, and distance. Your trained facade gives you security. Lying to yourself.

Your focus is on your work, you are not allowed to be distracted. Always give the guest the feeling that he is the center of attention, but do not force yourself on him. Be a still life, a white painting, a subordinate.

The conversations in the background move into the secondary, for you there is only your master and your task.

Dishes clink, the man roughly hits the table with his fist.

"My wife is a good-for-nothing." He growls, slurring heavily. "I should never have married her. Old, frail, and to ugly to fuck!"

Brutally, he crashes the empty bowl on the floor next to you, loudly breaking it.