Secrets

Haruka’s body went limp, a dead weight against her. A wave of unexpected, poignant affection washed over Izayoi, and she tightened her grip on his arm, her own body a firm support. But when she looked up, her breath caught.

Lady Murasaki had, at some point, descended from her throne. She was now standing directly before her, looking at her with cold, hard eyes that stripped away all pretense. “Let go of my son.” It wasn’t a question.

Izayoi’s gaze shifted down. She saw that Lady Murasaki’s hand had, at almost the exact same moment, taken hold of Haruka’s other arm. Izayoi was supporting his right side, Lady Murasaki his left. A silent, invisible tug-of-war.

It seemed that Lady Murasaki, seeing Haruka sway after his final toast, knew he had reached his limit. She should have let Fujiwara Hitomi go and help him. She should have remained seated, maintaining the dignified, untouchable posture of the head of the house. But for some reason, she had instinctively risen from her seat and rushed to his side.

Lady Murasaki quickly found a rational explanation for her impulsive action. She was “buying a thousand-mile horse with the bones of a common one”—if she could treat her rival’s son with such grace, how much more would she favor her own allies? The logic was sound, but it didn’t explain the fierce, possessive fire in her eyes.

The two women were now supporting Haruka together, a tableau of competing ownership. A surge of raw anger rose in Lady Murasaki’s heart. Her voice was ice. “My son does not require your assistance.”

Izayoi smiled, her own voice sweet as poison. “I am merely helping you, my Lady. Such a small matter should not trouble the ‘head of the house’.”

She bit down on the words “head of the house,” her voice dripping with insolence. Lady Murasaki laughed, a sound as beautiful and sharp as breaking crystal, her own words carrying a hidden, venomous barb. “No need. Izayoi, you should go home and find a way to help your own husband up.”

The guests, of course, understood Lady Murasaki’s displeasure with Izayoi. Someone immediately chimed in with a crude, cruel joke. “Her husband can’t get it up anymore!”

This was their revenge for Izayoi’s earlier disrespect, and a wave of mocking, ugly laughter rippled through the room.

A feeling of profound, chilling discomfort spread through Izayoi’s body. Then she heard someone else say, their voice a cruel stage-whisper, “What does she care about that? With a husband who can’t perform and a body like hers, who knows how much fun she has on the outside. She even dares to flirt with the Young Master.” The words were daggers, aimed to wound.

Hearing these words, Izayoi felt a mixture of shame and a deep, hollowing sadness. She saw Haruka, stirring at the sound, looking at her with hazy, unfocused eyes, and she let go of his arm as if it had burned her.

What are they saying? Haruka, half-drunk, only vaguely understood the adult innuendos. He just knew they seemed to be mocking someone, and that the beautiful woman beside him had suddenly grown cold.

Izayoi laughed, a brittle, forced sound, pretending not to care. “And how are any of you so different from me? I imagine you are all a thousand times more promiscuous and carefree on the outside than I am.”

The guests just smiled, saying nothing. Despite their dignified appearances, nearly half of them led debauched, secret private lives. “How could we possibly compare to you?” they said, their voices dripping with a false, cutting sincerity.

Normally, Izayoi wouldn’t have cared about such rumors. In fact, she would have flirtatiously debated with them, turning their own hypocrisy against them. But now, she was afraid that her false bravado would be mistaken for the truth. She looked at Haruka with lost, pleading eyes, but Lady Murasaki moved, blocking her view, severing their connection.

Lady Murasaki returned her gaze with a triumphant, merciless smile. Izayoi knew she could never win against her. She had been losing to her her entire life.

Haruka, though dazed with drink, vaguely sensed the raw hurt in Izayoi’s eyes before Lady Murasaki blocked his view.

Lady Murasaki supported him back to the head of the table. She looked at the seat beside her, hesitated for a moment, and then, with a decisive movement, pulled Haruka onto her lap.

He didn’t even have the strength to struggle. He was enveloped in a strange, intoxicating fragrance, a world of silk and warmth. He shifted his body slightly, his hips and waist sinking into a firm yet elastic softness. His head fell back against her shoulder, and the alcohol conjured a strange, blissful dream in his mind: he was floating in a warm, dark sea, adrift on gentle waves that smelled of flowers and night.

A flicker of annoyance crossed Lady Murasaki’s face at his small, unconscious movements. No one had ever dared to be so bold with her. Even her own daughter would have been thrown to the floor for such an act. But looking at Haruka’s flushed, innocent face, she sighed with a strange resignation and held him still, telling herself he was just drunk.

Everyone below was watching her. She had to restore her dignified, authoritative demeanor. She stroked Haruka’s head and said, her voice once again cold and controlled, “My apologies for the scene just now.”

“Not at all,” Fujiwara Hitomi was the first to say. “We were all shocked by the Young Master’s capacity for drink.” The others quickly chimed in with their agreement, their voices a chorus of flattery.

Lady Murasaki sat on the head seat, as cold and distant as if she were looking down on them from the clouds. Suddenly, a muscle in her face twitched, and an involuntary tremor started deep in her legs. Fortunately, everyone saw her as the unassailable, noble head of the house, and no one noticed the momentary, shocking change.

Lady Murasaki felt a rare, confusing mixture of shame and anger. Her long, willow-leaf eyebrows furrowed as she looked down at the limp form of Haruka in her lap. He was completely drunk now, his body soft and pliant, moving unconsciously like a restless baby in his sleep. His head shifted, his cheek brushing against her abdomen, and an unconscious turn of his body sent a knee grazing the soft flesh of her inner thigh. The women of the Fujiwara family shared a similar, cursed constitution. Like Kiyohime, their bodies were extremely sensitive. Even a light, accidental touch in a slightly sensitive area was almost unbearable, a jolt of unwanted electricity.

He’s a restless sleeper, she thought, her own body tense.

She stared at him for a long time. In the end, she didn’t push him aside. Instead, she straightened him up and called for a servant to bring strong tea and a hot towel.

She first wiped Haruka’s face with the hot towel—his cheeks, his chin, behind his ears, carefully, tenderly wiping every spot. Then she picked up the cup of strong tea. It felt a little hot in her hand, so she gently blew on it a few times. Still afraid it might be too hot, she touched her red lips to the rim of the cup, taking a small, testing sip. Only when she was satisfied did she gently nudge him awake. “Here, drink this.”

Haruka had never felt so reluctant to wake up. He just wanted to stay in this warm, fragrant, soft embrace, to be held tightly forever. But her voice was insistent, and half-asleep, he did as he was told.

Lady Murasaki held him, watching him obediently sip the tea from the cup she held to his lips. A strange, profound sense of satisfaction filled her, and a slow, genuine smile bloomed on her face.

The people below were surprised. They couldn’t understand why Lady Murasaki was being so warm, so tender, to her “son.”

Her own daughter, Kiyohime, couldn’t understand it either. In all her years with her mother, their relationship had been one of duty and distance. A sour taste of jealousy, sharp and bitter, rose in her throat. Mama has never been this good to me. Watching Lady Murasaki and Haruka together, she felt as if a space in her own heart she never knew was empty had just been filled by someone else, an indescribable feeling of being robbed.

Kiyohime was sulking when she saw Izayoi drinking sullenly by herself. A feeling of schadenfreude, petty and satisfying, washed over her. No one is paying attention to me at this party, but you were so magnificent before, and now no one is paying attention to you either.

Izayoi was drinking cup after cup. Kiyohime grew curious. Is this sake really that good? I saw him drink so much of it earlier too.

No one was looking at her. She secretly took the sake pot, poured out the fruit juice in her cup, and quietly filled it to the brim with sake. Imitating Haruka’s earlier bravado, she drank it down in one gulp.

Her expression changed instantly. She couldn’t help but spit it out, a fine spray of alcohol. “What is this taste!” She gasped for air, her tongue on fire, as if she had eaten a chili pepper, as if she had swallowed a handful of hot sand.

Most of the sake she spat out landed on Fujiwara Hitomi’s leg. But Hitomi wasn’t angry. She immediately started patting Kiyohime on the back to help her catch her breath. “Second Young Mistress, are you alright?”

Seeing this, Izayoi couldn’t help but burst out laughing, a genuine, unrestrained sound.

Everyone’s attention was drawn to them. Kiyohime looked up, her face flushed with anger and humiliation, but as she looked at Izayoi, she saw through the bewitching expression, through the laughter, to a deep and profound sadness in her eyes.