Taiga didn't look at Mashi. "Captain, your brother sold me into slavery to pay for his drug habit. It's soured my memories of that time a fair bit."<br/><br/>"Itadakimasu," he said, and dug into the hotpot. He had eaten the finest meals in Japan, and still would sell them all for a good bowl of katsudon.<br/><br/>The wind through the trees was nice. It did smell sweet, like cherry blossoms and nature, and the wet heaviness of the aged, ill-kept-up wood of the onsen.<br/><br/>He remembered this man's brother. They'd been friends. Taiga hadn't suspected him at all.<br/><br/>If Taiga lived to be a hundred he'd never forget going to play cards in a gambling tourney and instead having guns leveled at him. He'd lost his virginity the next day, terrified and confused, on a couch in Cortez's office. He'd had to kill that man to be free of him, and that had taken nine long years.<br/><br/>Perhaps he'd never really be free of it, especially now that he was running the place.<br/><br/>But it was a different operation than when Cortez was heading it—far more humane. Hookers had protections, good wages, medical care, tax help, even college funds.<br/><br/>And they could leave, now, without aging out.<br/><br/>Almost no beatings or torture, too. It was mostly legal pornography, nowadays.