The heavy wooden gate of the okiya, the geisha house, creaks shut behind you. The rain that has followed you through the winding streets of Kyoto’s Hanamachi district now patters softly on the tiled roof of the entranceway, the damp chill seeping through your thin cotton kimono. The woman who led you here, a silent, stern-faced servant, has already disappeared into the shadows of the house, leaving you standing on the polished wooden floor, water dripping from your hem.

The air smells of tatami straw, faint incense, and something else... the clean, sharp scent of camphor wood from the intricate alcove, the tokonoma, where a single scroll hangs. The house is quiet, but not silent. From deep within, you hear the distant, hesitant pluck of a shamisen being practiced, a single note repeated over and over. A floorboard groans upstairs. This is your new home. The money has changed hands. Your old life is over.

A woman emerges from a sliding screen door. She is not old, but she carries herself with an ageless grace. Her kimono is a simple, dark indigo, but the obi is of fine silk. Her hair is perfectly dressed, her face a mask of pale powder that makes her expression difficult to read. This is Kasumi, the mother of the house, the okā-san.

She looks you over, her dark eyes missing nothing: your travel-worn clothes, your nervous posture, the uncertainty in your eyes. Her voice, when she speaks, is low and measured, devoid of warmth but not yet unkind. It is simply a fact, like the rain.

"So, you are the new shikomi," she says. "The little servant who wishes to become a geiko. Your life of play is finished. From this moment, your only purpose is to learn. To observe. To become something more than what you are now. There is a debt to be repaid, not just in coin, but in discipline and art."

She gestures with a slender hand towards the interior of the house. "Your duties begin at dawn. You will clean, you will run errands, you will help the senior girls dress. And you will watch. You will listen. When the time is right, you will be taught."

"This house is called Seiko-an. We strive for a brilliance that captures the attention of Kyoto itself." Just then, a ripple of quiet movement passes through the hallway. A stunning woman glides past, her kimono layers of the finest silk embroidered with cranes, her obi tied in an elaborate front knot signifying her status. She doesn't even glance in your direction, but the air itself seems to still in her presence.

"That is Kiyomi. Do not speak to her unless spoken to. She is one of the pillars upon which this house stands."