CHAPTER 35
XVI Century
The golden couple, as Kuon and Kyoko became known, had a prosperous life in Hizuri II.
The palace never became a castle, considering that the outposts were a resounding success in ensuring peace. Therefore, there was no need for any change in Hizuri II.
Because of the tranquility that Lady Kyoko had brought to his country, the sovereign felt so much indebted to her that he complied with each of the petitions that the little Druid had made about Hizuri II and its administration in the centuries to come.
(Eccentric petitions, in the king's opinion, but as eccentricity seemed to be a druid trait, he signed the decree that Kyoko placed before him without thinking twice.)
The Stone of Wishes and the replica of Kuon's portrait were entrusted to Yashiro, who became the one in charge of passing the legacy of Lady Kyoko onwards through very well-selected administrators and curators.
Finally, when there was nothing left to do but trust that her 21st-century version would do the rest, Kyoko allowed herself to have the most normal life a time traveler could have.
Throughout the marriage, there were several misunderstandings with Kuon, which was expected given that they loved each other enough to drive each other nuts, but they always reconciled soon after and always in a torrid way. In fact, they were the Court's hot topic for a long time, and there was even a bet on how long it would take for the couple's passion to cool down.
(Lory and Kuu would have made a small fortune if they had lived long enough. They were the only players to bet that the couple would remain in love even in old age.)
A few years before she died, Lady Kyoko became the hot topic for the last time. The gossipers talked about how she did not shed a single tear when her husband was buried. On the contrary, the snoopers who went to the wake were shocked to see her smiling and blushing occasionally and questioned the veracity of the love they seemed to feel for each other.
None of them knew that Kuon had stayed with her, accompanying her wherever she went and whispering scandalous comments in her ear, as he used to do while alive. Only the family and close friends had the privilege of seeing the fire mysteriously revived every time Kyoko dozed off in the armchair in front of the fireplace, or the way she blushed and admonished nothingness after rising abruptly holding her behind, always after have bent to pick up something on the floor or on a low shelf.
Who really knew the couple did not find any of this strange. Accustomed to seeing the same interactions occur daily while the patriarch was alive, none of the residents or regulars of Hizuri II had any doubts about the permanence of Kuon's ghost alongside his beloved wife, who was spotted countless times talking to herself, blushing and smiling for no reason and whirling around the ballroom as if she had a dance partner.
Behaviors easily attributable to senility, aggravated by the loss of her husband, if there was any doubt that Kuon was with her.
Lady Kyoko has lived long enough to help bring her youngest great-grandson to the world. It would have been a difficult birth, were it not for the wise and comforting presence of the matriarch. Then, having completed her mission, she died with a smile on her face and so serene that she seemed to be sleeping, were it not for her open eyes focusing on emptiness.
Again, no one doubted that she had left willingly, for her husband had certainly taken her with him. After all, not even death could separate them.
The day of the funeral of Lady Kyoko was also the day that the doors of Hizuri II were closed. The matriarch's orientation had been clear, and no one would dare to contradict her. The family that still resided there moved to the Solar Mogami and the employees chose which other family property they preferred to work in.
The palace door would only be reopened five centuries later.
XXI Century
It was time. The royal decree prohibiting any intervention in Hizuri II until that moment had also determined the reopening and restoration of the historical proprierty: a palace surrounded by legends and mysteries, a stage of a deep love and home to the last druid of the country.
Following instructions that were passed from administrator to administrator, from curator to curator, for five centuries, Sawara provided minimal living conditions for one of the rooms near the kitchen and hired a company to grant access to drinking water and electricity to the housekeeper.
Then it was time to hire the person who would oversee the restoration and open the palace to the public.
No bizarre ads were needed. Lady Kyoko did not need extreme measures to ensure that her version of the twenty-first century would be the one chosen, since it was enough that the selection was fair.
As she had predicted, without false modesty, it was easy for Sawara to identify the best curriculum. After meeting the twenty-seven-year-old woman who seemed to have had better days, the curator laughed to himself at the coincidence of names: a Kyoko had given life to Hizuri II in the past, so it was promising that a Kyoko was chosen to give life to Hizuri II in the present.
He only hoped she would not be shocked by the strange instructions and "gifts" that Lady Kyoko had reserved for the housekeeper. After all, what would the practical, rational woman want with a replica of Kuon's portrait, a mystical stone and a box full of padlocks?
She opened her eyes but did not recognize where she was. The middle-aged woman who was dozing next to her was not a complete stranger just because her features looked familiar.
The rest was a mess.
The last memories that Kyoko had were not good. First, an intruder attempted to steal Kuon's portrait. Then he shot her. Lastly, the handsome ghost appeared to her with an expression of despair as he begged her to hold on before he disappeared.
After that, nothing else.
Kyoko wept for a few seconds all the fear, the pain and the doubt of those moments, until a comforting hand caught hers, interrupting her wail.
"Do not be sad, my dear. Everything will work out."
Kyoko doubted it. Things did not usually work for her not even when they looked promising.
"Who are you?"
The woman looked surprised for a second.
"Laureen, my dear. We talked yesterday. You do not remember me?"
Confused, Kyoko shook her head.
"...Oh I see. Yes, yes, it makes sense. The you of that moment already belonged to the past..." The woman's ruminations confused Kyoko even more, which was just the beginning. "Well, I'll have to introduce myself again! I am Laureen, Bo's mother. "
Which explained her familiar features, but complicated the rest.
"Bo's mother? But-"
"No, I did not die in that accident. The same doctor who saved your life, saved mine. My death only occurred on another timeline."
Kyoko swallowed hard. Surely, that woman was a patient in the psychiatric ward and God only knew how she had gotten into her room. Discreetly searching for the button to call a nurse, Kyoko froze at Laureen's next words.
"Your ghost no longer exists, my dear. In fact, it never existed. Not in this timeline, at least."
Okay, that was bizarre.
"...What ghost? I do not know what you are talking about."
Laureen smiled.
"I am talking about Kuon Hizuri, sweetie. You saw him, did not you? As you were losing consciousness because of the bleeding, you could see him." Too stunned to speak, Kyoko just gawked at the woman who seemed willing to report moments she should not know about. "Your bloody hand was holding this stone, right?"
It was sad to see what was left of the second and last clue to free Kuon: before a beautiful translucent purple-blue stone, now somewhat opaque and resembling something a two-year-old would do.
"I have mended it the best I could with the pieces Bo and I found, but this little piece is missing... See? We could not find it anywhere..." Kyoko was comforted before realizing she was crying. "Do not worry honey. The stone has fulfilled its mission."
This caught Kyoko's attention.
"...What mission?"
"To grant your last and most important wish, silly! How else would the balance be restored?"
A stone that granted wishes and kept the balance of something. Kyoko felt as crazy as the woman who had surely fled from the psychiatric ward. On the other hand, her very real relationship with a ghost was also not an example of reasonableness.
"And what was that desire?"
Laureen laughed.
"Oh, I do not know, but it probably had something to do with Kuon's freedom. That is what you wanted at the time, right?" Kyoko was more astonished every second. Except for the absurd claims about miraculous stones, everything Laureen said was frighteningly certain, although it was not information accessible to normal people.
Kyoko blinked several times to dispel her own thoughts. For a moment, she had thought she was before a person with supernatural powers.
"Well, your wish was fulfilled and Kuon was saved. Maybe not the way you imagined it... magic has certain eccentricities... but he certainly was saved. And that changed everything else."
Even afraid to ask, Kyoko had no choice.
"What is... everything else?"
Kyoko spent five more days in the hospital, where Dr. Nicholas - or Nick, as he insisted on being called - practically turned her brain inside out searching for an explanation about her memory loss involving the minutes she was conscious and talked to Laureen, Bo and some Dr. Ren. Otherwise, she would have been discharged earlier.
By the way, everyone around her seemed to want to remind her specifically about Dr. Ren, called at the last minute to replace a sick surgeon at a congress in another country and therefore absent from the hospital.
It was not easy days for Kyoko, even with Laureen's support. Going through the experience of gradually (re)acquiring the memories that related to that timeline was a tiresome and unpleasant task, especially since they were not good memories.
All of her past - her mother, Sho, the various odd part-time jobs, Hikaru - had happened exactly the same. The changes only began the moment she came upon the job advertisement as a housekeeper in Hizuri II: no strange condition for a young woman, single and willing to live with a poltergeist. Just a normal job advertisement.
As much as remembering childhood and abandonment at the altar was painful, remembering the daily life at the palace was the most difficult. In that timeline, there were no supernatural events that little by little made her realize she was not alone. She did not need to get accustomed to the sensual and protective presence of the ghost, only with the normality and solitude of a woman working alone, sometimes with Bo, but always without a ghost to provoke her, to seduce her and to protect her.
It was painful, and made her understand why she had fallen so easily for the handsome face in the portrait and by the 16th century accounts of a love that has transcended death.
A beautiful story indeed. How she would like to experience something like that... so much so that her solitary mind eventually gave in to the fantasy that Kuon Hizuri's ghost had fallen in love with her and kept her company in Hizuri II, as he had once done with his beloved wife, the other Kyoko.
Upon receiving the special stone that had belonged to Lady Kyoko, the Kyoko of that timeline carried it into a velvet bag tied around her neck not as an attempt to break Kuon's curse, but in the hope that the stone would become her lucky charm.
Depressing, very depressing, but not so much if the amulet brought her true love.
The brief corporal fight to regain the portrait culminated in the shot in the chest that would have killed her, were it not for the stone in the way of the projectile and for the skillful hands of Doctor Ren.
In short, during the five days she stayed at the hospital, Kyoko was able to access all the memories that were part of her life on that timeline. Thanks to Laureen, now she knew that life had been even more depressing than life in the previous timeline, since there she had a ghostly lover instead of an imaginary lover.
Yep, the other life had been better. Definitely, an upgrade compared to the current timeline.
.
.
.
It should not be possible to go down after reaching rock bottom, but apparently, she had discovered how.
Kyoko crossed the atrium with slow steps. It was the first time she was seeing the palace in all its splendor, clean and restored, properly furnished with the objects and furniture that had hitherto been stored in a warehouse in the city museum.
Her dreamy eyes scanned the ground floor and the imposing main staircase until a painful stab in her heart made her swallow hard.
The ghost would love to see the palace now! However, certainly Kuon had enjoyed much more having returned to the sixteenth century, to the arms of the bride with whom he was finally able to marry.
Kyoko knew that it was petty of her to feel jealous, mainly because she should be happy about Kuon's freedom and what it meant: based on the legend of the timeline in which the poltergeist existed, she had released him because she was the chosen one, the promised bride, the reincarnation of Lady Kyoko.
Yes, she and the most envied woman in the world were the same person. Only the centuries separated them. It was ironic and so typical of her: meet the ideal guy, fall in love with him and discover that he also loves you just to lose him to your own version five centuries younger.
Five centuries! Was it not enough for her to always lose to women a few years younger?
Well, at least the lovely ghost had a happy ending. Now there was only one cursed person in Hizuri II.
Walking through the ground floor of the palace, Kyoko examined everything except a single place. Her eyes stubbornly ignored what she knew would be the final blow to her heart, and as much as she knew she would have to face reality sooner or later, she would only do so after Sawara had left her alone.
She did not want the curator to see her cry, because that would make him worry even more about her.
"Are you sure you want to spend the night alone here? I mean, it must be very scary... after what happened to you, no one would blame you if you would rather sleep somewhere else."
Kyoko smiled enigmatically at her friend. He did not know that they had exactly that conversation in another timeline. Except that his concern to leave her alone was about the poltergeist, not the recent crime she had been the victim of.
"Yes I'm sure. After all, the security system has finally been installed and there are guards in the guardhouse. I am probably in one of the safest places in town."
Sawara knew she was right, as much as he knew a panicked mind did not rationalize correctly.
"...Well, if you're sure..." He was already at the door when he looked at her one last time. "Just promise me you'll call me or Laureen if you do not feel well."
Smiling, Kyoko nodded and only let out the breath she was holding when he closed the door. After taking a deep breath, she finally turned to the fireplace in the main hall and stared at the picture on the mantelpiece.
Kyoko remembered clearly what she had thought when she put Kuon's portrait there: a picture too small for such a large fireplace. However, the new portrait that the restorers placed on the mantel while she was hospitalized was worthy of the grandeur of the room and occupied the cornice from one end to the other.
Tears immediately blurred her vision. Approaching with hesitant steps, she tried not to cry, but it was impossible with her heart rejoicing and breaking at the same time.
Sitting on an armchair, Lady Kyoko was smiling. In her right leg, a little boy of about six years was holding his sister's hand, about three years old, sitting in her mother's left leg. Standing next to her mother and brother, the first-born teenager, probably in her fifteenth year, circled her mother's shoulders with the left arm. Standing on the other side of the chair, two boys, also in their teens or almost, posed proudly, both touching their mother's arm.
"Wow. Certainly, there was no television at that time." Kyoko half laughed, half wept as she spoke, eyes fixed on Kuon's face as if talking directly to him.
More magnificent than she remembered him, the Master of Hizuri II smiled proudly at the portrait. Though he was behind the armchair, his arms rested on the shoulders of his standing children, which kept them open in a clear demonstration that he was the protector of the whole family: wife and five children.
Kyoko could not be happier for him: Kuon had made good use of his freedom. At the same time, she felt more miserable than ever: if that was her version of the past, surely all the luck that could have belonged to a single person had been used in that sixteenth-century existence. If there were something like the balance that Laureen talked about so much, the joys of that existence would be offset by the sorrows of the present life.
Crying copiously, Kyoko remembered the lovely ghost. He had been the perfect combination of a friend, a protector and a lover. And now that her heart was breaking painfully, his absence made her feel more lonely than ever.
How good it would be if she could feel him at least once more!
.
.
.
Maybe she was wishing his presence too fervently, because she suddenly heard soft knocks that were exactly how Kuon announced himself before approaching her.
Drying her face quickly with her hands and closing her eyes, Kyoko tried to focus on the energy she had grown accustomed to feeling, until she finally knew he was there, in the main hall, slowly approaching her.
Turning to greet Kuon, the tears of joy immediately ceased and the smile died on her face.
"Who are you? What do you want here? How did you get past the guards?"
Realizing that he had frightened her, the stranger raised his hands in a gesture of peace.
"My name is Ren Tsuruga. I was your doctor. I returned some time ago from a Congress and was worried to know that you had a memory lapse. That is why I am here. And about how I got past the guards... well, they're both old friends of mine. Sawara also knows me... he was the one who opened the door for me, by the way, and he seemed very relieved to do so. I guess I'm not the only one concerned about your well-being."
Intentionally, he did not say that he had spent the last few days pestering Nick about Kyoko's exams, nor that the Congress sucked because he was too worried about her to focus on anything else. Ren also ruled out the part in which he had become the favorite target of Nick and Laureen's taunts about his strange obsession over a certain patient, as well as the part in which he drove to Hizuri II as fast as legally allowed just to see her, as soon as he got off the plane.
Not to mention the other things that were happening to him since he first spoke to her.
As Kyoko continued to study him apprehensively, Ren tried another strategy.
"I can show you my badge if you promise not to hit me with that ember poker as soon as I move my hands."
There was humor in his voice, though the situation was not funny. In fact, Kyoko had instinctively sought something to defend herself with, and the poker was within reach.
"Oh. Forgive me. I did not realize... what I was doing."
She put the long iron bar in place, but the gesture did not seem to reassure the doctor.
"Are you alright? Would not you rather I take you somewhere else?"
"I'm not going back to the hospital. I hate hospitals."
Ren smiled.
"I understand, but I was not referring to the hospital. Maybe to a hotel, to a friend's house... to your boyfriend, maybe?"
Kyoko snorted and shook her head, not realizing that he looked at her almost inquisitively when he asked about a boyfriend.
"I feel good here. Although everything is different from how I remember it, this is still the only home I have ever had."
She did not know why she was revealing so much to a complete stranger, but there was something about him. Maybe it was the initial impression she had, about him having the same presence as the ghost that was softening her.
Crediting her own behavior to weariness and stress, Kyoko scolded herself for being so at ease with the doctor, who was too handsome to be trusted and who gave no indication that he was surprised with her words about the palace being the only home she knew.
"Let me light the fireplace, then. It's getting cold."
Surprised by the offer, Kyoko realized that the weather was a little chilly, indeed.
"Oh… yes. Thanks. I've never been able to do it right..."
He thought her nervous giggle was lovely.
"Yes, I know."
He knew?
"...How?"
"What?"
"How do you know I am not good at it?"
"Ah... I figured it out. After all, it is very cold in here."
Accepting the explanation, Kyoko stepped back so Ren could work. While he set the firewood and peat, the doctor decided to approach the topic that was bothering him.
"You do not want to leave this place, but I do not feel comfortable leaving you alone."
"...I know how to take care of myself."
"I bet you do. After all, you could open someone's skull with that poker. Nevertheless, your ability to take care of yourself does not reassure me at all."
"...I don't understand."
Ren took a deep breath and stood up, standing face to face with the woman who had been driving him crazy for the past few days.
"You're physically safe here, but your mental health worries me. I can almost see you waking up in the middle of the night after a nightmare, disoriented and scared. Completely alone in the same place where you were almost killed because of an ordinary portrait."
There was something in his voice, Kyoko realized. It was almost as if he was scolding her for risking her life trying to protect the painting.
"It was not an ordinary portrait. At least not for me. And what I do not understand is the reason for you to worry about me, if I'm not your patient anymore. We are not even related!"
He took a deep breath. His next words proved the universe's sense of humor.
"I do not know if you are saying that I need an extra reason to worry about someone in need, or if you think the need itself is not enough reason for anyone to worry..."
Neither of them knew, but Lady Kyoko had said the same to Lord Kuu, when he had asked her why she was buying wool for the villagers.
"...Touché." Kyoko sighed resignedly. It seemed that Ren was more persistent and persuasive than Sawara. Not to mention that his presence comforted her a little more every second, and she did not crave solitude after going head-to-head with the picture on the mantelpiece. "So, what do you suggest?"
Ren seemed to think for a few seconds, when in fact he was just trying to calm his rampant heart.
"I have a sleeping bag in my trunk."
He sounded nonchalant, but inside he was a mess.
"What?"
He thought she looked even more adorable with wide eyes.
"I camp a lot..."
Perplexed, Kyoko looked at Ren as if he had just turned into a unicorn.
"Do you want to sleep here?"
He shrugged in a casual way that she found annoying.
"This very place looks good to me. Cozy, in front of the fireplace and under the gentle gaze of a loving family."
He indicated the picture with a nod, but Kyoko refused to look at the portrait again. Which was a shame, because he intended to use the cue to ask why the image bothered her enough to make her cry.
"But... what will people say? What about your reputation?"
She was almost allowing a stranger to sleep a few feet from her room, and what worried her was his reputation?
"Not that I'm worried about my reputation, but... who will gossip about it? Sawara, or my friends?"
Ren smiled when Kyoko finally realized that no one would comment on his staying there. Accepting without knowing for sure why, she went into the kitchen to prepare something to eat while he took the sleeping bag from the trunk and a change of clean clothes from the suitcase.
As the minutes passed and the usual mild conversations ended, Kyoko began to feel progressively more uneasy at the way he watched her intently.
It was as if he wanted to ask something or start an unpleasant conversation, but did not know how.
At the end of the meal, she remembered that he would probably need to use the bathroom before bed, but the only one fully operational was hers. With no other choice, Kyoko led him hurriedly through her room and into the bathroom.
Relieved by what promised to be the end of the night's embarrassing moments, she froze when she glanced at him.
Ren stared at the tub as if he could decipher the mysteries of the universe on the enameled surface.
Uncomfortable, Kyoko cleared her throat to catch his attention, but Ren's only reaction was to walk slowly to the tub. When he rested his hand on the edge, Kyoko held the breath.
"I... feel like I'm going crazy." His fingers slid smoothly over the edge, and to Kyoko it was almost as if they were caressing her intimately. "Maybe I should be immediately admitted to the psych ward."
His words were mere whispers, but Kyoko heard them perfectly. In the next instant, he startled her by looking directly at her.
"Since we first talked, I have seen images in my mind... memories... like echoes of another life or whatever." Kyoko did not know if she was confused, hopeful or scared. "I feel like you're the only one who can clarify what's happening to me, so it's so frustrating that you do not remember the moment that triggered it all. Your eyes... since I saw them when we talked in that hospital room, my life turned upside down! Even so, upside down seems to be the correct position because everything started to make sense. The reason I have always been drawn to this city. The reason I always camp in places that would allow me to see this castle. "
More from habit than anything else, Kyoko corrected him.
"Palace. A castle would be bigger..."
Ren smiled.
"We've had this discussion before, have not we? You and me, in this place." Kyoko gulped. "Tell me, please, if I'm crazy to know you almost as well as I know these walls. To remember of an interminable period of loneliness, which seemed to be no more than a second after a strange woman invaded my domains. Tell me you were not the maddening housekeeper who stubbornly refused to accept that she was being haunted. Who challenged me more than once. Who gave meaning to my existence by accepting that I was stuck in this place. Who gave me a voice by creating a simple yet efficient system with which we were able to communicate."
Tears rolled down Kyoko's face as she tried to muffle her sobs by covering her mouth with both hands.
"Tell me that none of this has happened, and I will present myself to the psychiatric ward first thing tomorrow. One knock for yes, two for no, three for uncertainty. Tell me we've never been together in this tub, and that I've never made you cum with the hands I did not have. Tell me that I did not see you being attacked and that I was not with you while you were bleeding in the entrance hall."
"..."
"Tell me, Kyoko."
He asked in a whisper, while his eyes denoted anxiety, hope and fear. Unable to speak, Kyoko just shook her head.
"…It all happened, did not it? Somehow, everything I said was real."
He seemed frail and insecure, as if he could die if she said no. Kyoko sobbed and nodded. Slowly, Ren's face brightened with a relieved smile that could have warmed the coldest heart. She did not know what she had done to deserve it, but somehow he had come back to her.
"My ghost!"
Her voice was filled with joy and wonder as tears of sheer happiness trickled down her smiling face. With a playful bow, Ren greeted her.
"Eternally at your service, Milady."
A / N - For those who have forgotten, I referred to Chapter 23 of this fic.
I had fun writing this chapter, because in my head Sawara is Yashiro, Bo is Maria, the guards are Kijima and Taira, and Nick is Rick. It was something I liked to thought, but did not want to introduce into the story, because the focus is not the reincarnation of the side characters of the sixteenth century, but the love between Kuon / Ren and Kyoko.
I hope you have enjoyed this fic. My initial idea was to write a tribute to the fairy tales, since they are so important to Kyoko, mixing elements here and there. The scenery of haunted castle / palace came about the first time I read the manga. I remember thinking that Ren's martyrdom, caused by remorse, looked very much like the idea of suffering ghosts and poltergeists.
Then it was just a matter of mixing everything! XD
At the end, I gave Kyoko everything: the man and the ghost, the prince and the beast ;)
Thank you for reading, commenting, following, favoring.