HathoriHatori. Disclaimer: FB belongs to Natsuki Takaya. Anything that you recognize isn't mine.
Chapter 9
The weekend had finally arrived. It would be anything but restful.
First thing in the morning, both Haku and Hatsuharu were required to appear before Asheno. Not in the mood for games, Asheno went straight to the point.
"Haku, I don't suppose there's any chance you'll tell me anything about the wolf?" Asheno muttered, glaring at Haku.
"I really don't know much about it." Haku tried to sound as noncommittal as possible.
"Don't insult me. I know you're the one who's been releasing it."
"Really, if you're trying to trick me into telling you all its secrets, it won't work. I don't know much about the wolf, and I can't get him to come out." Faran-Zhuku had been completely silent since he returned to Haku's body last night. Haku had had no visions, not even a note from the song.
"Haku's telling the truth," declared Hatsuharu. He'd been in Haku's room earlier, when Haku vainly tried to summon the wolf again.
"Did I ask you? Be silent," snapped Asheno. "So, Haku, you can't control the wolf. That sounds about right for my incompetent ward." The two boys exchanged quick glances. Asheno was afraid now. Maybe they could use that to their advantage.
"Anyway," Asheno coughed, shifting his position, "that's not what I summoned you for. You should know that soon, the other members of the Dzuni will arrive here."
"No!" barked Hatsuharu. "They don't need to experience the horror of living with you."
"Indeed? Perhaps after some of them get here, you'll realize how ungrateful you've been to me. I took steps to make sure their lives would be as miserable as yours, if not more."
That had been the end of the audience. Now Haku and Hatsuharu were having hot cocoa with Rhena in a side kitchen.
"He didn't do anything to you, did he?" asked Rhena as she ran a scrutizing eye over the boys. "Good. Sit down, make yourselves comfy, now."
The three drank their steaming cups in a companionable solitude. Rhena thoughtfully looked at the boys over the rim of her cup.
"Haku, Hatsuharu," she addressed them firmly. "I have looked after you since you were little boys I could bounce on my knee. If anything bothers you, I want you to tell me."
"How does someone as insane as Asheno remain as family head?" demanded Haku.
"Yeah," interjected Hatsuharu. "How is it possible? So many people know about his problems."
Rhena's lips tightened. "Boys…" she sighed. "Asheno has very tight control over the Shoma affairs. Do you know about the family curse?"
"You know about it?" gasped Haku. "I thought the servants weren't supposed to know."
"I'm an exception. Asheno knows I know. A little over fifteen years ago, he hired me to be one of two head nursemaids to oversee the care of thirteen new babies. Haname Dze was the other one—yes, you remember her, Hatsuharu. You were always so attached to her, Blessedly kind woman, she was.
"Well, Asheno had told us we would take care of you until proper foster families were found. He said that only you two would stay here in the main Shoma house, as his wards. Dze and I noticed that you all looked very unusual, but that didn't make us suspicious. We just thought you were the most beautiful babies. And so you were, I declare. Our job was just to take care of you, and we did.
"One day, when Hatsuharu was about three and a half years old, Asheno ordered me to appear before him with Hatsuharu. He told me, 'I want you to give Hatsuharu a full-body hug. Now.' He had this gleam in his eyes—dangerous-like. I'd never seen him like that before. Usually he was very gentlemanly. You know how well he can put on an act. I didn't want a sweet little baby in the presence of someone like that, so I tried to tell him that you needed a nap, Hatsuharu. But he just growled, 'Hug him.' I hugged you, Hatsuharu, just to get you out of that man's room more quickly. Nothing happened, except you started to cry.
"'Master,' I said to him, 'little Hatsuharu really needs his sleep. His crying will only bother you more.'
"'No,' he practically screams, 'tap him on his collarbone.'
"'What for?' I said. 'That won't do anything except make him cry even more!' But Asheno only got angrier, and threatened me. So I tapped you on your collarbone, and of course you started bawling at the top of your lungs. And nothing else happened. Finally he let us go."
"I know that being hugged by a member of the opposite sex is supposed to transform a Dzuni to animal shape," Haku said, "but I don't understand about the collarbone."
"It's an old test in the family," explained Rhena. "Some dzuni don't transform as easily as others, but the collarbone tap never lies."
"What happened after that?" Hatsuharu prompted.
"Naturally, I told Dze what happened. She was just outraged. 'Something's not right here, Rhena,' she said. 'First Asheno sends off all the babies, except two, with scampy-looking people, and now this. He may be master of the house, but no one gets to do this to gorgeous, innocent little babies like them! I'm having a word or two with him!'
"When Dze made up her mind, there was no stopping her, though I had a very bad feeling. She did see Asheno, but she got naught but a black eye to show for it. That very night, a doctor we'd never seen before came to see us. I remembered thinking he looked just like one of the babies who'd left—he had such a lovely shade of auburn hair and green eyes. But he had grown his hair over his left eye—you couldn't see it, it was totally covered, I remember—very odd. He comes into this very kitchen, where me and Dze were having a nice cup of cocoa. He says, 'Good evening ladies. I am Shoma Hathori, the private doctor of Shoma Asheno. He asked me to look after Ms. Haname. If you could come in here, please, Ms. Haname, the light's better in this room.'
"Dze followed him into the room, and that was the last I saw of her. I have a reliable gut, you know, and that night my gut told me not to let the doctor touch me. So when he came back out, I didn't so much as let him breathe before I said, 'Look here, Doctor Shoma, I don't know what you did to Dze, but we were hired to look after some wonderful babies, and they need us. At least let me stay and take care of them. They need someone to save them from Asheno.' He just stood there gaping at me like his mother risen from the dead. So I decided to ask him. I'd already said too much, and I didn't have anything to lose.
"'Whatever you did to Dze, did that have something to do with Asheno ordering me to hug one of the babies?' That got him. He said to me, 'Are you sure that Asheno ordered you to hug the baby? Was the baby a boy?' I said yes both times. Then he asks me all sorts of questions like, did they have strange hair colors, eye colors and so on. I said yes to all of those questions.
"'What is going on?' I demanded. 'What is so wrong with the children that Asheno expects something horrible to happen when I hug them? And what is with tapping them on the collarbone? Can't Asheno let them alone like normal children?' I give him my best evil eye—you know what my evil eye is like—and he's quiet for a long time.
"Finally he said, 'They are not normal children. You see, Rhena, the Shoma family is cursed…' And he gives me a long lecture about how the curse worked. That about floored me, especially when he told me that Asheno was head of the family because he had been the Dzuni god while the curse was still unbroken. Then I pointed out to him that you two didn't transform when you were hugged.
" 'Sometimes it's delayed—some children cursed with Dzuni spirits don't start being able to transform until a few years after birth. But such cases are rare. I was one of those rare cases. I was cursed with the spirit of the Dragon. It's very shocking to me that the curse seems to have returned. I thought it was broken for good…that explains why Asheno summoned me.'
"'What did you do with Dze?' I had to know. 'I erased her memories of the Shoma household,' he said, 'that is my special Dzuni ability, which I've retained even though my generation's curse was broken.'
"'Did Asheno tell you to erase my memories, too?'
"'He told me only to erase any memories of the hugging incident. I believe he intends for you to stay with the children, and for Dze to leave permanently.'
"I convinced the doctor to let me keep all my memories, because I thought someday you'd need somebody to explain the curse to you someday and help you with Asheno. The doctor and his fellow Dzuni must've also been abused by Asheno, because I had no trouble convincing him of the problems you'd have with Asheno. As a matter of fact, I remember now, he said, 'I know firsthand of the pain Asheno is capable of inflicting.' And he had such a tragic look on his face. I've never forgotten that. Since then, I've always thought he was actually a very kind man, just a victim who became a slave to Asheno's whims, just like everyone else in this house."
Rhena stopped speaking, sighed, and sipped her now-cold cocoa. Haku and Hatsuharu had been sitting spellbound. Neither moved.
"At that moment, Asheno began yelling for the doctor, so he had to leave. But before he left, he told me he wouldn't erase my memories, but that I should pretend that I no longer remembered that incident. I've been pretending since then. Dze was sent to somewhere in western Hoth, Rhenigroth, I think. About five years ago, Asheno decided he trusted me enough to tell me about the Dzuni curse. Of course, I acted like it was the first time I'd heard it. I've never seen the doctor again—I think Asheno got worried and purposely kept him away. Nor have I seen any of the doctor's Dzuni fellows."
Rhena got to her feet. "Oh, my, the time!" she exclaimed. "I've been away from my duties long enough. Asheno won't like that, should he find out. I should go. Of course, you will keep this a secret, boys, all that I've told you?"
"Of course, of course!" Hatsuharu said. "We love you, Rhena, we don't want you sent away."
"Oh, you dears," Rhena gave each boy a bear hug, then strode out of the room.
The rest of the day passed quietly enough. In mid-afternoon, Kho called to inform Haku and Hatsuharu that Tori was still sick for the third day in a row.
"Kho, are you all right? You're talking kind of strangely," Haku asked, concerned. It almost sounded as though Kho was talking with a big rag stuffed into his cheek.
"Ah'mm fahn, relly," insisted Kho.
"If you say so," Haku murmered. Kho hung up, and Haku replaced the receiver.
"Do you think something's going on at Kho's home?" Hatsuharu asked.
"We don't even know what part of Lhasa he lives in," answered Haku. "I'm worried too. Normally he goes on and on, but he kept the conversation so short."
At six-thirty, Rhena sent a girl to the small parlor to announce dinner. Haku had been drawing in the bay window, and Hatsuharu read a newspaper, curled in a chair. Both were getting up when the girl returned to the room.
"Master Hatsuharu, Ms. Rhena says that the phone rang in your room while you were in the garden."
"Thanks."
To Haku, "I'm going to check the answering message. Wait for me."
Haku stood, admiring the silhouette of the bare flame tree in the fading sunlight.
"What? Oh my GOD!" came down the stairs from Hatsuharu's room. Haku turned, to see Hatsuharu flying at him. Hatsuharu grabbed Haku's upper arms, eyes streaming with tears.
"That was Lhurone who called me earlier!" yelled Hatsuharu. "He says that he's going to be in a kickout at seven!" A "kickout" was the word used to describe what happened to members who left gangs. The gang would corner the departing member, and beat him or her. In girl gangs, the kickouts were generally gentler and the departing member usually survived, but that was rarely the case in boy gangs.
"Oh, God," moaned Hatsuharu, "it's too late to get into Shiwa before the kickout begins. If I'd been here…" He collapsed sobbing into a chair. Haku patted him on the back, and then left for the kitchen to get some water for him.
Since finding out about the Dzuni, Haku had tried to think of everyone of the same age group he'd met who might be a Dzuni. Tori and Kho, definitely. The other person he'd thought of had been Lhurone. He and Hatsuharu had first met Halinake Lhurone in the mountain suburb of Shiwa while they spent a summer there with Asheno. They were twelve then. To be perfectly accurate, Hatsuharu had been the one to befriend Lhurone. Haku'd had a hard time warming up to the violent boy, already a member of the worst gang in town. But weirdly, Hatsuharu and Lhurone became close friends. Lhurone did supplement Hatsuharu's lack of sense of direction with an absolutely perfect sense of direction, but other than that, Haku couldn't see what Hatsuharu saw in Lhurone. When pressed for a reason, all Hatsuharu could say was, "I just felt drawn to him." The two had kept in touch sporadically, but Hatsuharu hadn't heard much from Lhurone until now. It tugged at Haku to see Hatsuharu so upset. He tried so hard to protect his friends, and now one of them was about to die…Haku filled a glass with water and started the return trip.
An idea flashed in his head. Maybe he could send Faran-Zhuku to Shiwa to rescue Lhurone. But was it even possible? He'd only just started getting to know the ghost. Even if he could, would it work?
As he neared the parlor, he heard Hasuharu sobbing. The clock said 6:45. It was now or never. He had to try, for Hatsuharu's sake.
"Faran-Zhuku, can you hear me?" Haku said. Silence. "Please, this is urgent. You remember Hatsuharu's friend, Lhurone, the boy we met in Shiwa when we were twelve? He's about to be killed by his gang in a kickout. Can you go to Shiwa and save him?" Nothing. "Faran-Zhuku…"
"I remember…horse boy…" The cold draft permeated Haku's body as he passed out, dropping senseless to the floor.