CHAPTER FIVE
新月
Shingetsu
On May twelfth, Amu burst into our room in a tizzy. "Nadeshiko, you have to help me!"
I was sprawled out on my bed reading The Secret Garden, tetchy at being jerked away from my rainy English moors. "Ah, don't mind me," I commented, offhandedly. "I'm just a piece of furniture."
"Utau's going to sneak out and meet that man, and she wants me to help her," Amu wheezed, leaning against the doorframe. "Wh-what do I do?"
Nagihiko looked up from where he was writing schmaltzy poetry at the fold-down desk with a startled look. Despite his wide innocent eyes, I was sure that Nagihiko had seen this coming. There was a certain artificiality to the way he tilted his head.
"Why, if Hoshina-san has decided to run away, then I suppose Hoshina-san will run away," he said, in the same reserved-yet-puzzled Nadeshiko voice as before. "That's like wondering what to do when the tide starts coming in."
"Well, yes, but… she's not running away, really," Amu amended hastily. "She just wants to talk to him. It's… complicated."
I was still pretending to read about British girl exploits, although admittedly with furrowed brow. Amu's evasive tone seemed to hint at knowing something the rest of us didn't. Moreover, why hadn't Amu asked me?
I may have not been a rakish, risk-taking lawbreaker, but an overprotective extended family had given me a certain disregard for rules set in place to protect me. Nagihiko, on the other hand, was an obedient lapdog who dressed up in women's clothing to please his mother's outdated ideals. I had anticipated this from the moment Amu walked in—Nagihiko was incapable of saying no.
"If that's the case, what would you have me do?" his voice reluctantly slipped into his Nadeshiko register, from where it had been going dangerously low.
Amu visibly relaxed, scratching her cheek sheepishly. "Well, there's the caretaker that patrols at night, you know…"
"Ah, yes." Nadeshiko closed her eyes, but opened them again suddenly.
"Wait, no. Hold on a moment. A caretaker? We've never hired one—you must be mistaken. Why would we need night guards? We have gated walls."
This was also the first time I had ever heard of a caretaker. I stared at Amu, baffled. She stared back at us, face suddenly panicked. "You mean, that man– who's often out by the woods, looking at the stars– he doesn't work for the school?"
"Why is there such an overabundance of tall, despicable men in this town?" I asked dispassionately. Nagihiko pretended not to hear me.
"That's very worrying." He furrowed his eyebrows, very hesitantly. "... Forgive me for this question, but was he wearing, for instance, burial clothes…?"
"Huh? N-no, just a shirt and trousers," Amu stuttered. "I've talked to him once or twice… W-wait a minute, Nadeshiko! You don't really think it could be a g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-"
"A ghost?" I cut in, helpfully.
"You have to deal with it!" Amu wailed, flapping her arms wildly enough to look like Kichigai-sensei's descendant. "I can't! You're the heir to the school, right? That means you own this land! B-banish it with the land deed!"
"But I've never heard of any deaths on this property," Nadeshiko murmured to herself, preoccupied with more important details. "My father's family has owned this land since the Edo period. We would know if it was haunted."
"Maybe it's your dead great-grand-uncle or something," Amu whispered, nervously.
"No, he died during the Boshin war, in Hiroshima…"
Amu relaxed. Nagihiko finished his sentence, leering. "… Family legend says that his ghost continues to defend the imperial family to this day. One may hear the clop-clop-clop of his horse's hooves across the countryside on warm summer nights–"
Amu jumped, with a cry. "Nadeshikooo! Don't joke about that!"
This was the Fujisakis we were talking about, so it probably wasn't a joke, but I kept my mouth shut. Amu notoriously hated ghosts. If Nagihiko knew better, he'd simply agree to help distract whatever might be patrolling the grounds just to shut her up.
Indeed, he must have thought the same thing as me, for he nodded reluctantly. "Very well, Amu-chan... for you."
I didn't quite like that.
"What will we do if we're caught?" Amu whispered.
"You aren't friends with the headmistress's daughter for nothing," Nadeshiko replied, in a measured tone. "I have influence. This is why you asked, was it not?"
"Well, a bit, but–" sheepishly, Amu sat down on my bed. I moved my elbow, distastefully. "You're so much better at this strategy stuff than I am, you know? I try my best, but you always help me straighten my thoughts."
Nadeshiko smiled very slowly at this, the timid smile of a carnation opening its petals in direct sunlight. I scowled like a pile of garbage.
"I suppose I can look out for anybody who will catch you two… but I think that's the least of your problems," she said. "You'll want to be quiet, or you'll wake up the teachers. But as soon as you're outside, there ought to be nothing stopping you but the gate."
"Except the g-ghos—"
Nadeshiko cut across her, smoothly. "Yes, we'll see about that."
On the night that Utau was to run away, the sky was the clearest I had seen all spring. The stars glimmered sharply, like slivers of ice on the rapidly darkening blue, something that only made Nagihiko more antsy.
"It's a new moon, but those stars will make us easily-spotted," he murmured softly to himself, struggling to keep composure. "That's why he picked tonight. With no moon, it'll be pitch black. He was probably counting on cloud cover, though…"
"Fascinating," I commented, smoothing my nightgown down and staring at him with an ugly expression. He didn't notice through his fretting, something that annoyed me even more.
"… Well," I announced, crawling under the covers pointedly. "I'm going to bed."
When that garnered no reaction, I reached over to turn the oil lamp next to my bed down.
Nagihiko continued to pace in the dark, hair over his shoulder, fingers hopelessly tangled in it like ivory bars in black silk.
How obnoxious. I decided that if he wanted to dither away through the night, I would let him. I lay down and closed my eyes. Sometime during this, I must have dozed off, although true sleep lingered on the threshold of my mind and refused to stay.
It felt like hours later when I heard the softest of sighs and the sound of leather boots rustling. It was roughly eleven-thirty, by the clock on the wall, and lights-out had been long ago. Opening my eyes, I saw that he was lacing up his boots.
In a daze, I automatically sat up and began putting my feet into my shoes. Nagihiko looked up, eyes glimmering in the semidarkness. "Rima, what are you doing?"
"I'm coming with you."
"Oh, are you?" He laughed, like an amused father whose young daughter has said something particularly clever. "Whatever brought this on?"
"Your own incompetency, mostly." I buckled the straps to my bare feet with a firm noise, and opened the wardrobe door to get my coat.
I took care to make every word of my next sentence very deliberate.
"You– are– a– coward." I buttoned a button for every word. "If you are so terribly afraid, then I will escort you. Will you really fail Amu and Utau-san over something as petty as… what?…"
I turned to squint out the window, very scornfully. "Getting discovered by ghost caretakers?"
"To be quite clear, ghost caretakers is not why I am hesitating -"
"We are allies." Very coldly, I adjusted the fur lining around my neck, regarding him haughtily. "Or are we only allies when it suits you, Fujisaki-san?"
"You know it's not like that," he replied very slowly, gritting his teeth. "What if you're caught?"
I tossed my hair, mimicking his Nadeshiko voice. "You're not friends with the headmistress's daughter for nothing, you know. I have influence."
He closed his eyes as if I had deeply wounded him, but an amused smile played at his mouth. Too late, I realized I had said the f-word— friends—even if I had only been parroting Nadeshiko. I prayed that Nagihiko wouldn't notice, but I wasn't entirely sure he hadn't. His smile was especially smug.
"When I choose to help Amu, that's one thing—she's made up her mind to go. It's another thing to let you come with me, take a blow for me, even. At least think this through."
"I have!"
"I don't think you have!" Nagihiko shot back, loudly. I flinched. He seemed to almost regret raising his voice, but his voice was nevertheless stern. "You're only a girl, you know, however much you try to act like an empress!"
The temperature went from reasonably muggy to stone cold in an instant. I was almost a full head shorter than Nagihiko, built like a child where he was nearly a man; he could have easily overpowered me, but he positively quailed under my cold stare.
"Ah," I whispered, dangerously soft. "Only a girl?"
"Rima, I was just–"
"Are you saying that you are not a mere woman, Lady Nadeshiko?"
The bitterness rose in my throat, betraying inadequacy. I had nearly forgotten—ah, yes, Nadeshiko had the woman's pedestal without the woman's burden. Let him do as he pleases, no regards to his own safety, but suddenly I had to stay inside. Things had been going so well with Fujisaki-san, but he had to go and make a royal arse of himself. What more should I have expected?
Nagihiko seemed to have retained his masculine sixth-sense to understand when he was on thin ice; he leapt to repair the damage. "Don't take that tone, please. You know you're not-"
"You're noisy," I interrupted, extremely bad-tempered. "If you are quite done attempting to insult me, we should be going."
He was no longer in any position to argue. With a hollow sort of air, he opened the door, and stepped back to let me go first. As quiet as we tried to be, every sound seemed deafeningly loud.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick- went the clock hanging at the end of the hall. Clack, clack went Nadeshiko's boots. Squeak, squeak went the rubber soles of my shoes. Floorboards in the distance creaked. Creepy.
I had the distinct impression that Nagihiko was attempting to leave our row behind our closed dormitory door, even as I brooded in it. No matter where it had gone, we reached the dormitory exit without incident nor word from Fujisaki Nagihiko's mouth.
Exhaling in relief, I wrenched the front door to our dormitory building open with a cold draft of air. There was a sound of rustling blankets from behind the nearest door.
Nagihiko's reproachful eyes glimmered in the darkness. Without thinking, I scoffed back. My voice echoed down the hallway, and resounding back, the soft squeak of door hinges. Damn it to hell. The door directly on my left creaked open, much to my horror.
"Senpai?" Two pale faces appeared at the doorway. I turned to face them slowly, silently sizing them up. It was first-year from calligraphy, Hīragi, and her roommate, a soft-looking girl with glasses. I clamped a hand on Nagihiko's sleeve, from where he had been about to make a desperate bolt for it. Sometimes Nagihiko reminded me of a spineless deer.
"Shhh," I admonished, fixing them both with a hawk-like stare to rival Sanjō-sensei's. "Close the door and stop walking on the floor without shoes. Fujisaki-san and I found a snake slithering around the hallway."
Nagihiko's reproachful stare was now burning a hole in my back.
"Wh-whaaaat?! A snake?" Hīragi clapped a hand to her mouth, eyes wide with horror. Her roommate seemed to be rooted to the spot in terror, but Hīragi was doing an odd sort of jig, as if the snake was already under her feet. Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Stop that this instant, or you'll wake up the teachers," I hissed. "Hīragi, you complete and utter imbecile, if you keep the door open, it'll slither in. Close the door and go back to sleep. Snakes can't get under the door crack."
I was very good with children. I think even Nagihiko was impressed by my blatant lies.
"W-what if the snake's in our room?" her roommate squeaked, face shining with sweat.
Nagihiko seemed to sense that I was not the most sensitive of creatures—he leapt in with a very gentle, feminine voice.
"That's impossible! We would have seen it go in. It's just a completely harmless grass snake, you know. I don't want you two to get in trouble because Mashiro-san's been frightening you with tales of demons." He laughed in his Nadeshiko voice, and put either hand on both their backs soothingly to turn them around. "Come on, now."
Reluctantly, the first-years allowed themselves to be herded back into their room by Nagihiko. Softly shutting the door behind them, he stared at me disapprovingly, as if I should have nurtured my mother complex more.
"You're welcome," I replied, affronted.
Finally—finally—we stepped out into the cool night air. I had ran across this familiar lawn only the other day when I had been late for class, but night-time seemed to change the scenery into something foreign. The silence was louder; the breeze was full in my ears. It was too early for crickets, but the grasses rustled on the wind like a mother humming at the loom.
I trotted after Nagihiko like a cocker spaniel amid distinct feeling that it was us, not Utau, who was running away. I thought Nagihiko would be more jittery, nervous; but there was something eerily casual about the way he stepped noiselessly through the grass with languid steps. It was me who kept tip-toeing as if the ground would shatter under me any moment.
"Calm down," Nagihiko said, scanning the distant gate at the foot of the hill with the air of a seasoned war veteran. "We're fine."
"Says the one who was analyzing the moon phases," I snarked back. At that moment, we saw two fuzzy shapes approaching us through the grass.
"You came," Amu whispered in the moonlight, face drawn with terror. "Thank goodn‑- oh, hello, Rima."
"Good evening," I said elegantly, as if we were at an evening ball rather than a human trafficking mission. I saw Utau's eyebrow politely rise in the dim visibility before Amu pushed us further down the slope, muttering something about not standing around and chatting so close to where everyone was sleeping.
"No, no, this is fine," Nagihiko said, still with the demeanour of a lady of war. "Rima and I will stay here and make sure nobody sees you. You two can go on by yourselves to the train station."
"We've already had to shake off a pair of first-years," I interjected, pulling my coat around myself tighter.
"I bet it was Hīragi and Glasses Girl, those busybodies," Utau muttered very audibly, before being frantically hushed by Amu. Although not happy at getting to miss juicy Utau information, I nevertheless regaled myself to the position of Nagihiko's Hunting Dog; it would be the most useful, that's for certain.
"We'll see you when we get back," Amu whispered, face pale and drawn. Before she could turn around, Nagihiko hastily grabbed her arm, wide-eyed.
"Wait. How are you going to get over the gate?"
Amu looked like a deer in headlights. Utau, however, wordlessly held up a ring of keys with a steely eye.
For a minute, I thought Nagihiko was going to slap her. When he finally spoke, it was nothing that any of us expected; it was an exhale of admiration. "Why, Hoshina-san. Those are-"
"–Your mother's keys, yes," Utau finished, boredly.
Cripes! Elegant and refined Hoshina-san, stealing the gate keys from Nagihiko's mum! I was as enthralled as I was horrified. I could do nothing but put a warning hand on Nagihiko's arm, in a very comforting Fujisaki-don't-have-a-strop-in-the-middle-of-the-school-lawn kind of way.
Fujisaki, however, did not look as if he was ready to have a strop. His almost-black eyes reflected the thin moonlight towards distant horizons. He slowly let go of Amu's arm, breaking the unfortunate friend chain.
"If those keys are not back on my mother's desk by five in the morning, she will notice." His gaze flicked to the distant electrical light of the train station. "Hoshina san– if, by chance, you do not return, leave them with Amu. I will ensure they are back in their place"
Utau seemed to have expected as much. I wondered what was going through this crazy girl's mind as she exchanged a nod of understanding with my roommate, to Amu's and my watching awe. I did not expect this. Amu did not expect this. But somehow, Utau had.
"Well, I'll be going," she announced.
"Good luck," I said.
"Luck?" Utau drew herself up with all the composure of the daughter of a financier, eyes glimmering dangerously. "The shrewd man has no need for luck."
I had expected as much. Steadily, Amu and Utau retreated through the dewy grass and purply darkness, towards the distant black spikes of the school gate. Nagihiko watched them go, but I could no longer see his face in the foggy night cover.
It made me want to grab onto his arm tighter. Resisting the urge, I relinquished his arm instead and stuffed it in my rabbit-lined coat pocket. I had forgotten that I was cross with him.
Right. So now our plan was to keep an eye out for adults. But as far as we could see, the surrounding area was silent and free of suspicious teachers. So what was left?
Together, we gazed into the leafy green forest that bordered the building. Even in darkness, the place was friendly and familiar. Bushy trees and shrubby undergrowth scattered through the grass, rays of moonlight shining in to barely illuminate the forest floor. It was hardly the dark and foreboding place of folklore, odd tales of ghosts aside. This was reinforced by Nagihiko picking his way through the undergrowth comfortably, not unlike a grazing deer. He had obviously done this a thousand times before, but I still wondered how far he planned to go into the trees. Did he seriously believe this caretaker-ghost nonsense?
Despite my misgivings, I obediently followed. Quickly, it became apparent that the forest was notmy natural habitat. Tree branches pulled at my already-tangled hair. The ground was treacherous, riddled with rocks and tree roots. My visibility was severely limited by the moon's absence; I saw nothing but very dark green amid even darker black. The only way I knew that Nagihiko was continuing to walk in front of me was by the white wisteria crest on the back of his padded haori, bobbing up and down in front of me with every step.
If I hadn't been in a row with him, I would have moaned and complained about it at length. Did he think I was fit to go walking in these shoes? If I had known that we would be tromping through the sodding forest like Girl Guides, I would have at least stolen a pair of his ridiculous boots… !
Nagihiko stopped walking so abruptly that I, looking the other way, walked directly into his back.
"Augh," I said, which didn't count as talking because it was a vocalization of pain-slash-annoyance. "What–"
"Be quiet," Nagihiko whispered, without further explanation. He flung out his arm to stop me; something that shouldn't have flattered me, but did. "You see that?"
I peered into the gloom. The trees rustled. Before us stood a barely-visible forest clearing, thick clusters of black leaves dancing on the deep blue of the sky. Only minimal starlight was able to pierce the canopy above, and it was reflected directly into our eyes by something man-made– something metallic.
Slowly and cautiously, we approached the edge of the clearing, twigs cracking like fireworks under our feet. The closer we got, the more apparent it was that we should not be getting closer; at once, we saw a dark humanoid shape rise to its feet.
We moved fast; I lunged behind the nearest tree. Nagihiko seemed to have the same idea at precisely the same moment—he twirled behind me, black hair whapping me in the face. Staring eye-to-eye, chest-to-chest, we exhaled in terror as one.
"My, my…" A voice rang out beyond our tree.
Nagihiko had not spoken, judging from his immobile jaw and soft, wispy breathing. I did not believe in ghosts, but I did believe in real, dangerous men in forests. There was somebody else here.
I tentatively reached for Nagihiko's arm in the darkness, knuckles scratching the tree bark I was pressed up against. I felt a sleeve rustle, and Nagihiko's larger, cooler hand around mine. I squeezed it, leaning back a few mere inches to try and see beyond the tree trunk. Nothing.
It couldn't be helped. We'd have to say something. But it couldn't be me. If someone thought there to be two girls in a forest at night, with no teacher aware that they were missing… well, Utau's escape would be the least of our problems.
I tried to exhale instructions as softly as I could. "Say something."
I thanked all the gods I could name when Nagihiko did not question me. He straightened up, my hand still clenched in his clammy fist. I did not thank the gods for this, because it was disgusting.
I heard him inhale, very deliberately, in a deep voice—"Who's there?" he bellowed, voice echoing. A startled scops owl whook-whooked.
Eep.
It was the lowest pitch I had ever heard come out of Nagihiko's mouth. My stomach jolted, a mix of fear-driven adrenaline and something else. For once, his gender was an enormous asset. I was hardly proud to crouch behind a man's authority, but I also wasn't a fool.
"Why, only me, sir!" a warm male voice replied, bordering on laughing. "There's no need to shout so—you'll give every night-bird in a ten-mile radius quite the shock."
"Stay behind me," Nagihiko said, through gritted teeth, sounding fully prepared to deck someone.
"Don't be a prat." I nonetheless stayed behind him. If Nagihiko got punched out, I reasoned, I could bolt while he was distracted.
My roommate stepped out from behind the tree in a single reckless motion, squaring his shoulders, still in the same deep, haughty voice. "My family owns the land that you stand on, so I daresay that I may shout as I please." Oh, how I wanted to chuckle. Nagihiko trying to act like a little feudal prince was as impressive as it was precious.
There was a silence, and then another laugh. A lantern was hoisted high, so that I could see a sliver of a young man's unlined face and the glint of an almond-shaped eye. "So then this would be the famous Fujisaki-kun, is it? I do beg your pardon."
I bristled. So did Nagihiko. Fujisaki-kun, he had said.
"How do you…" he began, deep voice turning tremulous.
"You needn't worry," the man replied, setting the lantern down on a rock so that its light was thrown towards us. "I'm an old friend of your mother's. She permits me use of these grounds for astronomy."And then he winked very obviously at Nagihiko. "Shall I not tell her that you're sneaking around with girls after dark?"
"We weren't doing anything questionable," I tried to protest, but changed my mind last-minute. "We wuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh…" I whined, like a wounded piece of machinery, and Nagihiko stepped on my foot.
"How do you know my mother? She's never spoken of you," he said, a little accusatorily.
"Oh? I find this hard to believe, given that we're your brother school."
"Huh?" Nagihiko said, hollowly.
"My name is Amakawa," he said, laughter in his voice. "I'm the chairman of Ōzono Academy."
Ōzono Academy was the all-boy's school a way's to the east, considered a mystery as far as we were concerned. I looked at Nagihiko. Nagihiko looked directly ahead, suddenly the picture of meekness.
"Oh… er… I'm sorry, sir."
"Whatever for, Fujisaki-kun?" Amakawa turned back to the metallic object behind him with the loving caress of a mother. In the lantern light, I could now see clearly that it was a telescope. "I'm not going to punish you, just because you snuck into my school a few times."
"You knew about that?" he said, aghast.
"You snuck into their school?" I hissed, finding my voice. Did even goody-goody Nadeshiko routinely sneak out of this school on a regular basis? I had thought myself a daring rule-breaker, but between Utau currently eloping with a sexy older man and Nagihiko the juvenile delinquent, I felt like quite the model citizen.
"I have friends at Ōzono!" Nagihiko tried to defend himself.
I waved my hand dismissively. "No, that's impossible. You don't have any other friends."
Nagihiko opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out.
Amakawa watched this exchange with an amused twinkle in his eye, like a jolly Father Christmas. He seemed to decide that this was a good opportunity to distract us before I ate Nagihiko alive.
"As for how I know your mother, Fujisaki-kun… well, it's quite the story. I wouldn't dare try to do it justice with my own tongue. You should ask her."
"I think we have the time, Amakawa-sensei," he said, regaining his composure and leaning against the tree behind me. He smiled, almost… cockily. "… Since you decided to interrupt our romantic tryst."
Bastard! I hid my face in my coat's fur lining and stomped on Nagihiko's foot, hard.
From the continually blissful look on Amakawa's face, he interpreted this as a maiden's embarrassed shyness instead of a woman's outrage. He moved the lantern slightly so that he could take a seat, lovingly adjusting his telescope. As he spoke, he continued to peer through it.
"I first met Satsubaki when I worked as an astrologer in the district of Gion. By that time, she was already an accomplished maiko, always bustling to and from dance practice. She was headlining Dances of the Old Capital the year I began working, and my... none of the posters let me forget it."
So Fujisaki-sensei really had been a geisha. Amu and Yaya would be enthralled if they knew. But if Amakawa-sensei could remember Fujisaki's mother as a young woman… how old was he, really? I squinted at him. He couldn't be a day over thirty.
At my squinty look, he added, "Barely anything is done in Kyoto without consulting an almanac or an astrologer. It's important to pick an auspicious dates for important events, is it not? She was one of many clients, but the most memorable, for certain. At first it was because of her fame… later for her sudden marriage… and finally for fate leading us both to run schools within the same prefecture."
He moved his telescope slightly, and turned the lens to focus. "I still remember the day she made an appointment with me, and came into my office to inquire about dates. I tried to ask her what event it was for, but she was quite evasive. Finally, she said, 'Tsukasa, I'm getting married,' quite firmly. Just like that! With such a serious, earnest look on her face. And it happened, too. When Satsubaki sets her mind to something, woe betide the person who tries to stand in her way. She certainly had to wade through her fair share of beautiful women to get her claws into Fujisaki-san, let me tell you that."
Impressive. Nagihiko looked slightly amused, but mostly terrified. I presumed this was because he had been on the receiving end of the dragon's claws more than once.
I wondered about Nagihiko's father, but did not want to ask, should I look too interested. Amakawa's gaze flicked from me and back again.
"We should have seen it coming, of course. He was her patron for years, but we all thought she enjoyed independence too much. Satsubaki lived for dance. We didn't think in a million years that she would retire to become a housewife, but here we are. And here you are." He leaned back, fixing Nagihiko with quite the smile. "There's no need to fret, you know, Fujisaki-kun. Your parents married for love."
Nagihiko started, and I was at once alerted to the fact that he existed. Had Nagihiko been fretting about such a thing? I never spared much thought as to whether or not my parents had been madly in love or not. Love was the last thing I was spending my days mooning about, unlike Hinamori Aimless over here.
"I see," Nagihiko murmured.
"I believe your girlfriend is a little anxious," Amakawa-sensei commented, nonchalantly. "Perhaps you should both check on Hoshina-san."
Nagihiko had a look on his face like he had been slapped. I was so astonished that I forgot to tell him that I wasn't Nagihiko's girlfriend. How did he know? All this time, we had thought we were stalling him, but—
Without missing a beat, Amakawa-sensei folded up his telescope, smiling at the both of us in a rather grandfatherly manner. "Well, Fujisaki-kun… should you ever get the urge, I'm sure there will always be a school door left unlocked so that you can come in and distract my students. But I daresay we'll be seeing each other again before the winter snows come."
How did he know?
"Goodnight, Mashiro-san, Fujisaki-kun."
How did he know my name? Bleeding hell…!
He left us standing in the exact spot we had started in, sweaty hands clasped together, staring blankly into the woods. I gazed mistrustfully into the darkness where he had vanished.
"Dodgy bloke," I murmured, darkly. Nagihiko relinquished my hand like a guilty schoolboy who had been caught with his hands on an expensive vase he wasn't supposed to be touching.
"I s'pose," he replied, looking at me sideways. "We should see about Hoshina-san."
"Yes," I whispered. The best idea you've had all night, I added, in my head. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, self-consciously.
This time, it was I who led the way out of the forest quite eagerly, picking over roots and rocks and obsessively following the thinning trees. I wanted out of this bloody forest, full of weird psychic exposition astronomers, mean trees and awkward Nagihiko faces.
As we approached the geometric iron gate, I gazed at Nagihiko. Had we not been currently sneaking out, I reflected, I might have enjoyed the stroll. It was rather romantic and calming, if not horribly, horribly dark. Once again, I cursed Nagihiko for ruining what could have been a perfectly good moonlit tromp and forcing me to shun him for badly-timed and ill-advised chauvinism.
As if the gate recognized Nagihiko as its master, it creaked open under his hand. I saw no padlock on the other side of the gate. Evidently, the gate only locked from the inside; it meant that Utau had to leave it unlocked when she escaped, a blessing and a curse. Wordlessly, Nagihiko held the gate open, and I walked through it without thinking twice.
You're only a girl, however much you try to act like an empress, he had said.
Did he think I didn't know? I was reminded every waking moment of my life that I was a girl. My mother reminded me every time she didn't let me step foot outside my own front door with an escort. Fujisaki-sensei reminded me with every ridiculous speech she made about how vital women were in the lives of men. I was reminded every minute I was trapped in the forest with that idiot, realizing that if we had been two girls, we could have easily been attacked.
So, in a way, he was right. I was frail and petite, more doll than human, the shortest of all my friends. I had pitiful upper-body strength; I was the worst at physical activities in my class, to the point where it became a joke. Don't hit the ball at Rima-chan, Nadeshiko had laughed once, eyes sparkling with mirth. She's so pretty that even the ball is drawn to her huge head. You'll knock her right out. She doesn't even make an attempt to defend herself.
On the first day back to school, the dirt path from the train station had seemed to stretch on for miles and miles. In the night-time, with only Nagihiko at my side, it seemed to take mere minutes. I felt like we approached the train station from the back far too soon.
What we referred to as a "train station" was, in reality, no more than a tiny wood covering on a raised platform. It ran alongside the polished black railroad tracks, which then vanished into the hills. It was lit by a single electric light, encased by wires, surrounded by fluttering moths. I could see Utau's hair glinting under the flickering light, and presumably Amu at her side.
Nagihiko and I slowly approached the train station from the far side, half-hidden in the undergrowth and wooden backing of the building.
Before we could alert them to our presence, Utau's hair glinted under the lights. She rushed forward towards the train tracks, in a single, breathless gasp—
"Ikuto!"
I quickly moved to hide behind the train station, and Nagihiko followed suit.
A tall figure seemed to materialize out of the surrounding blackness. She threw her arms around him without fear, a bright illuminated figure embracing the darkness. They stood there together for a few moments, clasped in each other's arms.
"It's been too long… you're too thin." She took her face out of his chest to clasp his face tenderly in her hands. "Oh, Ikuto—where have you been? They think I know where you're hiding, they've been hounding me for months, you– …you shouldn't have come. Where have you been?"
"Here and there," he replied, evasively. Even in the semidarkness, I could tell he was the same man from before. He awkwardly released Utau as though even hugging made him physically uncomfortable. "You know that Stepfather dearest's company thugs can't keep up with me."
There was something excessively odd about this sentence. I exchanged a look with Nagihiko.
"Are you sure?"
"'Course," he replied, evenly. "Nearly caught up to me in Osaka."
Utau made a sharp, angry noise.
"Didn't get me, though. I like being on the run. But not… if it affects you." He murmured this, ineloquently.
"They're still trying to force me to sell my shares back to the company," Utau whispered, frantic. "Because if Father is truly dead, then we own at least fifty percent collectively–"
This time, it was Nagihiko who gave me a look of complete and utter bafflement. I had thought myself watching the beginning of some sweeping romance novel; to see it sink into the stock market was jarring, to say the least. I was slowly beginning to realize that Utau did not, in fact, have a lover, but instead…
"But Father's not dead," Ikuto replied, stiffly.
"It's time to put your idealism to rest, older brother." Utau's voice was like gravel and ice. "If he wasn't dead to begin with, Ichinomiya-san's most certainly ensured he's dead by now. If he finds out where you are, you're next."
"A thousand times better than what he'll do if he gets his hands on you," Ikuto said, full of hate. "Keep ignoring their offers."
"I was already doing it. You don't have to tell me," she said, stubbornly. "I'm still a member of the Board of Directors. If I can resist their demands until I come of age, then perhaps I can convince them—"
"—That maybe he'll have no regrets about disposing of you like an adult," Ikuto said, harshly. "As long as he's married to her, he holds all the power. There's nothing left for us here, Utau."
There was silence. Behind them, Amu's eyes shone with horror; she seemed longing to say something, but wasn't sure what. I was willing to bet that the economics had severely compounded her understanding of the situation. This was clearly a family situation that we could only hope to piece together at best.
A moth nearly flew into my eye, and I tipped backwards into Nagihiko. He grabbed my shoulders to steady me, pulling me further out of view so that our view was obscured completely.
"Why did you come here, Ikuto?" I heard Utau say, quietly. Her voice was resigned.
So was his. "I'm running away."
"Running away?" She made a noise that could have been a scoff, and I heard Amu swallow audibly. "Where will you go?"
"Manchuria. There's fifty thousand Japanese prospecting in Northern China. They won't notice two more."
Utau sounded as if she was putting two-and-two together. "They won't notice… two more?"
Ikuto's shadow moved in the pool of light. "I'm not leaving without you," he said, staunchly. "The last train for Tokyo leaves in fifteen minutes. From there, we could catch a ship in the dockyards. Be out of the country by morning."
"You would abandon our mother?!"
"I would abandon the woman that trapped me in a life that is not my own."
Nagihiko sucked in a breath, sharply, and his fingernails dug into my shoulder.
"My place is here," Utau replied, voice weary. "I have my own plans. If you can wait a few more months…"
"You're asking me to stay?" he said.
"No, I am telling you to stay," she ordered. "I have an education to concern myself with— more than can be said for you."
Something mischievous glinted in Ikuto's eye. "There's no education like the streets."
"Oh, don't pull that on me," she shot back, disgusted. "When we tried to send you to school, you rode the train all the way back to Tokyo."
"Sure did," Ikuto replied, amused.
This seemed to be all the answer he needed. He shouldered a black, bulky case shaped like a gourd, and turned towards the lights of the town. "I'll bide my time until winter, see what news comes my way. You'd better hope that your plotting falls through by then, little sister."
"Good. Hurry up and clear off," Utau said, huffily.
He sauntered towards the village at a liesurely pace, stopping only once, to look over his shoulder.
"Oh. One more thing." A grin widened on his face. "Make sure to thank your cute friend for dropping all her handkerchiefs at the Tokyo platform like a clumsy idiot. It came in terrible handy for contacting you."
I saw Amu go scarlet in the dim light, audibly spluttering. "TH-TH-THAT'S-"
He had already disappeared down the hill.
Utau looked mildly ruffled, as if she had just been forced to scold a disobedient cat. Amu, still extremely overcome, leaned against the wooden platform for support.
"Is-is he always like that?" she spluttered.
"Essentially," Utau replied, although worry subtly wove through her words.
"U-Utau…" Amu straightened up, frowning at the keyring in her grasp. "… What did all that mean?"
Utau did not reply.
I presumed this was a good time to reveal myself from the shadows; I quickly walked forward into the light, trying to look as bored and completely disinterested as I possibly could. It wasn't difficult at all, because my face already looked bored and disinterested.
"Are you both done here?" I said, staring around me with complete lack of empathy. "It's freezing. Evidently Utau-san is not running away, because she is still standing here."
"Yes, we're quite done here, I think," Amu said quickly, scuttling closer like a nervous squirrel. "Rima's right, we shouldn't have taken this long. Nadeshiko, can you take the gate keys, please? I feel bad just holding them."
"Of course, give it to me," Nagihiko's white arm stretched around my shoulder to pluck the keys from her sweaty hand. The Nadeshiko mask was once again fixed with a gentle smile upon his face.
That was the last phrase anybody said all the way back to Seiyo. We walked back up the hill in silence, accompanied by nothing but the crunching of dirt under our feet. I believe we were all still preoccupied with our own thoughts. My mind was churning with shareholder law and all I knew of the Hoshina family; Amu was gnawing her lip next to me, cheeks still pink. On my other side, Nagihiko stared hungrily at the stars, as if he could see so much more. Ever since he had eavesdropped with me on Ikuto, he had been acting oddly.
And ahead of us, Hoshina Utau strode briskly, head held high . I was now conscious of how much difference a year in age could make. She was sixteen years old, an adult in Old Japan by many standards. She could marry—she could divorce. She could inherit property, bequeath it. It was overwhelming.
The gate loomed in front of us, no longer a symbol of fear and prison. It curved towards us like an old friend, as homey as a lantern lit on the porch of one's home.
Perhaps my metaphor was a bit too literal to my own crazed mind, for there was, in fact, a glimmering light in front of the gate. But surely I must be going mad… that was impossible.
A dark mass held the lantern, the shape of what looked like two people. Oh, horrors. Something was terribly wrong.
Hoshina strode forward as confidently as if the light was not there. I hurried in her wake, a remora fish comforted by the presence of the shark. As we approached, the first face became rapidly and horrifyingly clear.
"Hoshina," Sanjō-sensei said curtly, glasses an opaque gold in the light of the lantern. She regarded Utau coolly, as a wrestler regards his bigger but feebler opponent. "Hinamori… Mashiro… of course… Fujisaki."
I couldn't tell if Sanjō's of course was an addendum to my own surname, or a prefix to his. After all that I learned tonight, I was suspecting the latter.
Nagihiko pushed me back forcefully, going to stand next to Utau. "Mother–"
"I'll take those, thank you," a soft voice said from behind Sanjō, pulling the key ring from his unresisting fingers. The terrifyingly beautiful face of Fujisaki-sensei came into view, cold eyes staring out from behind an impregnable Noh mask.
Housekeeping!
Archive of Our Own: Just so that everyone knows, I'm simultaneously publishing chapters of like a lady to AO3 in case anybody prefers subscribing on there (or hates FFN's layout, lol). I personally prefer that site, because they support CSS and HTML—I was able to code a more "old-timey novel" look for how the chapters display (indentations, paper texture, etc) which I like a lot. Additionally, AO3 supports illustrations, so if I ever figure out how to draw in the proper style I envision for this story, I'm certainly tempted. On that note—
Illustrations: I doodled a couple of Nagihiko and Rimas on my tumblr (linked on my profile), in case anybody was unclear/remotely curious on what the top of their uniforms look like. This is extremely unlikely, but you should praise me anyway for saving you from this nonexistent, burning curiosity.
A very unrelated note: Is anyone else going to watch Sarusuberi when it comes out?! I saw the poster and promo art today and I'm super excited. It's basically a new animated movie from the same studio that did Psycho-Pass (I.G.) It looks really gorgeous, and if you guys are interested in historical Japan, hopefully it'll be up somebody's alley, since it's the Edo period.
