The Gauze Screen

She must be so tired, Haruka couldn’t help but think. The moment the thought formed, a bitter, self-mocking laugh almost escaped him.

Fujiwara Kiyohime, a precious young mistress, a princess in her gilded cage, guarded by maids and bodyguards wherever she went. She could unleash her temper like a storm and laugh with cruel delight, and no one would dare to say a word. Unlike him, who had to navigate a minefield of unspoken rules, his every breath contingent on the shifting expressions of others.

Maybe I just saw it wrong, he thought, trying to dismiss the flicker of empathy. But he still found himself watching her, searching for another crack in her perfect, porcelain facade.

Before he knew it, they had arrived at the door to the Old Mistress’s bedroom.

Two servants stood guard like silent statues.

“I will announce you,” one of them murmured, disappearing inside. She returned a moment later, opened the door, and allowed them to enter.

The bedroom was not as opulent as Haruka had imagined. It was decorated in a simple, almost spartan Western style, but the furniture was heavy and dark, from another era. Though everything was spotlessly clean, an air of age and decay hung in the room, the faint, sweet smell of sickness and old paper clinging to the heavy curtains.

Haruka looked toward the far end of the room, where a thin gauze screen, a translucent veil painted with faded peonies, divided the space. Through it, he could vaguely make out the imposing shape of a large, four-poster bed.

A maid went inside. Her shadow flickered on the screen as she bent down and whispered toward the bed, “Old Mistress, the Young Master and the Second Young Mistress are here.”

After four or five long, silent breaths, Haruka heard the vibration of decaying vocal cords, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement. “Let them come in.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The maid respectfully withdrew.

Kiyohime, suddenly impatient, rushed inside, and Haruka had no choice but to follow, stepping from one world into another.

Behind the gauze screen was a single, vast white bed. Lying on it was an old woman, so frail and still she seemed less like a person and more like a collection of brittle sticks arranged under the sheets.

Haruka glanced at the screen, then at the bed, and thought, So, lying here, she can’t see what’s happening on the other side either. We are all hidden from each other.

“Grandmother.” Kiyohime smiled, a rare, genuine smile of pure, unguarded innocence. In that moment, she looked like a real girl, her usual cruel mask stripped away.

The Old Mistress didn’t even lift her eyelids. Her withered lips twitched. “Ah, Kiyohime.”

“Grandmother, it’s me! You still recognize me,” Kiyohime chirped, her voice bright with a desperate hope. “It’s been so long since we’ve really talked.” She was as excited as a child who had just been given a longed-for toy. If she weren’t in front of the Old Mistress, she probably would have been dancing with joy.

The Old Mistress lifted her heavy, paper-thin eyelids. She stared at Kiyohime for a long, vacant moment, then turned her head to the side. “You may leave.”

Kiyohime’s smile vanished, collapsing in on itself. “Grandmother… what? You want me to leave?”

“Leave,” the Old Mistress repeated, her voice a dry, toneless rasp.

Kiyohime’s voice was agitated, trembling with hurt. “But Grandmother, we haven’t spoken in so long! You always said I was your favorite!”

“Leave.” The Old Mistress closed her eyes, a final, dismissive gesture.

Kiyohime pressed her lips together into a thin, white line. She turned indignantly and stomped away, deliberately making her geta clatter loudly on the floorboards. But the Old Mistress remained unmoved, a still island in a sea of white sheets.

Kiyohime had no choice but to leave, her shoulders slumped in resentment. As she passed Haruka, she whispered, her voice a furious hiss, “Don’t say anything unnecessary. She’s ill, she can’t be agitated. Just… try to cheer her up.” She hesitated, a flicker of something complex in her eyes, then added, “In a way… she’s your grandmother, too.”

With that, she ducked back through the gauze screen, looking back with every step as if hoping for a last-minute reprieve that would never come.

Haruka slowly walked forward, the air growing colder near the bed.

The Old Mistress seemed to have no strength left. Her withered appearance reminded him of a dried ginseng root, all knots and wrinkles. It was as if her flesh had melted away, leaving only skin stretched tautly over a fragile frame of bones. Without being told, one would only know she was an old person; it was impossible to even tell if she was a man or a woman.

Suddenly, the Old Mistress’s eyes snapped open. They were like bright, burning coals in the darkness, fixing on Haruka with a terrifying intensity. “Come here.”

The suddenness of it would have startled anyone else. Haruka approached without a trace of fear.

“Closer… lean down,” the Old Mistress’s voice trembled.

Haruka bent at the waist. The Old Mistress’s withered, rough hand reached out, her touch surprisingly cool as she gently traced the lines of his face. “The resemblance… it’s uncanny…”

“A resemblance to whom, ma’am?” Haruka asked softly, though he already had a guess.

The Old Mistress didn’t seem to hear him. She stared at Haruka for a moment longer, her eyes searching his, then let her hand fall away with a sigh. “No… not quite. The eyes are wrong. I must be mistaken…”

“What is your name?” she asked, her tone suddenly sharp.

“Yukishiro Haruka. My name is Yukishiro Haruka,” he replied.

Her tone turned instantly to anger. “Yukishiro? Whose name is that! That is not a name of this house!”

Haruka met her gaze for a moment before replying, “Yukishiro is my mother’s surname.”

“Your mother? How can ‘Yukishiro’ be your mother? You only have one mother… and she can only be…” The Old Mistress suddenly fell silent, her eyes clouding over, her mind adrift.

Haruka sensed something was wrong. “Who is she, ma’am?”

The Old Mistress was silent for a long moment, then suddenly burst out laughing, a sound so wild and unhinged it left Haruka standing frozen and bewildered. When her laughter finally subsided, she slowly returned from the depths of her dementia to a fragile state of lucidity. “Who… who are you again…?”

Haruka paused. “I am Yukishiro Haruka. We were just speaking, do you remember?”

“Yukishiro… Yukishiro… Oh, yes, I was just speaking with you.” Her expression then shifted back to anger. “Why don’t you have the Fujiwara name? Why did you take an outsider’s surname?”

“My father abandoned my mother before I was even born,” Haruka said simply. “That is why I have my mother’s name.”

“I see.” The Old Mistress’s anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared, her expression returning to a vacant calm.

Haruka felt her mood swings were like a violent tide. “Old Mistress, are you feeling alright?”

“Are you saying I’m sick!” The Old Mistress’s anger surged back, her eyes flashing with their former fire.

“No… I didn’t mean that.” Haruka stammered, then noticed the Old Mistress’s eyes were fixed, not on him, but on the gauze screen.

His expression remained unchanged as he leaned his ear close to the Old Mistress’s lips, sensing a shift.

Her voice was no louder than a mosquito’s buzz, a dry, urgent whisper. “Since you are not a Fujiwara… you must leave this place. Go now, while you still can. This house… it will consume you.”

Haruka took a step back. “Old Mistress, can you move?”

The Old Mistress didn’t seem to understand his meaning. Her body was as still as that of Jesus nailed to the cross. “I can’t move. I am trapped here.”

“So am I,” Haruka said softly.

The Old Mistress fell silent. After a long, tense moment, she suddenly began to laugh again, a crazed, desperate sound that was more like a sob. “Then you must take the Fujiwara name! You must become a Fujiwara! It’s the only way!”

The loud, frantic noise alarmed the maids outside.

Maids rushed in to attend to the Old Mistress. A bodyguard in a black suit also heard the commotion and came in, grabbing Haruka’s arm with a firm, bruising grip. “Young Master, please leave.” His tone was respectful, but his actions were rough as he dragged Haruka out from behind the screen.

Outside the veil, Kiyohime’s face was a mask of fury, clearly angry that Haruka had upset the Old Mistress.

But Haruka’s eyes weren’t on her. From among the crowd of servants, he saw a familiar figure standing half-hidden in the shadows near the doorway—Momozawa Ai.

She had been behind the gauze screen the entire time, listening.