Who Is Sekinai?
The young retainer who drank the face in his tea
Sekinai is the hero of "In a Cup of Tea" from Lafcadio Hearn's Kotto. He is a wakato (a young, low-ranking retainer) serving a lord named Nakagawa Sado.
At New Year, the lord's party is on its way to pay New Year visits and stops to rest at a teahouse at Hakusan in Hongo. Looking into his cup of tea, Sekinai sees the face of a handsome young samurai he does not know. No matter how many times he refills the cup, the face stays. Being a bold man, he simply drinks it down, tea and all. That night, while he is on guard duty in the mansion, the young samurai with that face, Shikibu Heinai, appears without a sound. Sekinai strikes at him with his sword, but the man slips through the wall and vanishes.
The next night, three samurai who say they are Heinai's retainers visit and warn of revenge. Sekinai draws his sword and leaps at them, but they jump over the wall and disappear. The story ends there, and no one knows what happened to Sekinai.
