In Kyoto, as soon as the cherry blossoms begin to scatter in the spring, the contents of one's wallet seem to vanish just as quickly. The Reizei estate is located near Higashiyama, but calling it an "estate" is a bit of a stretch. The gate is leaning, the plum trees in the garden are overgrown from lack of care, and the paper on the sliding doors is torn and peeling, making the view from inside look less like "wabi-sabi" and more like a disaster.

On this day, as usual, Shizu Reizei sat in formal seiza in a guest room. An account book lay before her. Her eyes were fixed, glaring at the numbers. No matter how she looked at the income and expenditures for this month, it simply wasn't enough. Participation fees for poetry gatherings, gifts for fellow nobles of old acquaintance, wages for the servants, and above all, the interest on the debt to the wealthy merchant Guest, which is due next month.