Chapter 2: Surname

The woman’s fingers were cool and firm around his wrist as she led him from the room. They felt less like a hand and more like a beautiful, unyielding cuff. Haruka offered little resistance, his small steps on the polished linoleum making no sound, easily keeping pace with her unhurried, graceful stride.

“So…” he asked, his voice startlingly steady in the charged quiet. “Are you taking me with you?”

She was not a woman who enjoyed wasting words, least of all on a child. And yet, there was something about this one. It wasn’t just his fine, almost feminine features, or the startling composure in his dark eyes—a profound stillness that felt unnervingly mature. She decided to grant him a few more words than she’d intended. If that failed, force was always an efficient alternative.

“Yes,” she said. The single syllable was as sharp and economical as a shard of glass.

Haruka didn’t ask where they were going. Instead, he stopped, forcing her to pause with him. “Can you call a doctor first?”

The woman’s gaze drifted to the hospital bed, to the still figure of his mother, who looked as though she had simply surrendered to a deep and final sleep. She paused, then clapped her hands twice. The sound was crisp, an imperial summons in the sterile hallway.

The two men in their dark, immaculate suits reappeared as if summoned from the very shadows. Between them, practically swept along in their intimidating wake, was a doctor in a white coat. The stark white was jarring against their funereal black, and the man’s face was a canvas of pure, undisguised terror.

“Miss…” the doctor began, his voice trembling as he bowed. His eyes darted from side to side like a trapped animal, terrified that the two stoic figures behind him might decide to “escort” him again.

“Go and see if she’s dead,” the woman commanded, her tone utterly flat, as if asking for the time.

The doctor scurried to the bedside, his movements jerky and uncertain. After a few moments, his fingers still pressed against Tomoe’s neck, he kept stealing nervous glances at the woman, whose silent presence seemed to suck the very air from the room.

“Well?” she prompted, her patience clearly finite.

The doctor seemed to squeeze the words from his lungs. “She’s… she’s gone.”

Haruka walked forward, his footsteps a soft, deliberate whisper on the floor.

Sensing the shift, the doctor scrambled out of the way, his face pale with alarm, desperate to decouple himself from the grim finality of his own words.

“You may go,” the woman said, her expression unreadable.

The doctor practically flinched. The two bodyguards, who had loomed like a gathering storm cloud, parted to create a path for his escape. He let out a shaky breath of relief. But just as he was about to flee, he looked back at Haruka, standing his quiet vigil. A flicker of professional duty, or perhaps simple human pity, crossed his face.

“With her illness,” he said, his voice softer now, “it was a miracle she held on as long as she did.”

Haruka’s face remained a blank canvas. No tears fell. No tremor disturbed the quiet set of his mouth. He simply stood there, a silent guardian, and in the deepest chambers of his heart, a cold shame took root. He hated himself for this numbness, this strange and bloodless calm where grief was supposed to be.

He took a few steps to the side, pulled several tissues from the dispenser, and with a careful, almost reverent touch, wiped the drying blood from the corners of his mother’s mouth. He pulled the thin blanket up to her chin, arranging it so she looked peaceful. The bloodstain that remained on the white sheet was like a cluster of plum blossoms scattered on fresh snow—a beautiful, violent poetry.

Haruka turned back to the woman. “I’ll go with you.”

Her hand closed around his wrist again. She led him out, a procession of four or five suited men clearing the way. The normally bustling hospital corridor fell into an unnatural silence as they passed. He was led all the way to the entrance before the world’s color and sound rushed back in.

But just as quickly, the light was swallowed whole.

She guided him into the back seat of a black luxury sedan, the door closing with a heavy, sound-proofed thud that severed him from the outside world.

For a moment, Haruka felt as if he’d been sealed inside a small, dark box. Is this what it will be like for Mama? The thought was a physical blow, sending a wave of nausea through him.

But the suffocating closeness he braced for never came.

The back of the extended-length sedan was cavernous. Haruka sat on the buttery soft leather, feeling adrift and bewildered. He’d never been in a car before, and the seat beneath him was softer and more yielding than his own bed. He felt small and out of place, a doll placed on display, waiting to be claimed.

The woman watched him from the opposite seat, a faint, knowing smile playing on her lips. She wasn’t the type to gloat; she took no crude pleasure in flaunting her wealth. It was simply that she found him… fascinating.

A lost, nervous child wasn’t fascinating. What was fascinating was a child with Haruka’s face and history reacting this way. He wasn’t like other children, his emotions worn like a brightly colored coat. He was trying so hard to project an armor of calm, but the rigid tension in his shoulders and the flicker of anxiety in his eyes were betrayals he couldn’t conceal.

The woman crossed her legs, the movement revealing a sliver of smooth, jade-like skin from beneath the hem of her long skirt. Her mood had noticeably improved. She raised a hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, only to find the boy—the object of her detached curiosity—offering her his small hand. In it were two clean tissues.

What now?

She looked at him, puzzled, and he pointed with his chin. Following his gesture, she glanced down and saw a small smear of blood on the webbing between her thumb and index finger. His mother’s blood.

Haruka’s own hand bore a similar mark, only his was larger, brighter, a fresher shade of crimson. It was then she remembered the savage bite. She snatched the tissues from him and, ignoring his surprise, seized his injured hand.

“Don’t move.”

Haruka’s instinct was to pull back, but her sharp command froze him in place. Her hands, he thought, were like flawless white jellyfish pulsing in a deep blue sea, cool and firm as they enveloped his own.

She carefully wiped away the blood, her movements precise, like peeling the rough skin from a lychee to reveal the pale, translucent fruit within. Underneath, the faint, violet imprint of a bite mark was visible. Thankfully, the skin wasn’t broken.

In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to truly hurt him.

The woman tossed the bloodstained tissues aside. “Fool.”

“Huh?” Haruka looked up, utterly confused.

“You should have tended to your own wound first,” she stated coldly. “Then, you could have offered the remaining tissue to me. Otherwise, people will mistake your kindness for weakness. They will see you as someone to be used.”

Her words were layered with meaning, a lesson—or a warning—delivered far too soon.

Haruka nodded, the weight of her words settling on him even if he didn’t fully grasp their shape.

“How old are you?”

 “Twelve.” The woman studied him. “Your name?” 

“Yukishiro Haruka.”

“Your mother’s surname?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then you’d better get ready.”

Haruka sat in the plush silence for a moment. The woman assumed he was lost in thought, but then he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Fujiwara,” she replied with a faint, almost cruel smile. “Yukina. Fujiwara Yukina.”

“Should I call you Fujiwara-neechan? Or Yukina-neechan?”

“There are enough Fujiwaras in the family that the surname alone is useless. Besides,” she added, her wine-red eyes fixing on him with a cool indifference, “I don’t like either of those titles. If we must observe the proper formalities given our… connection, you may call me ‘oba-san’.”

“‘Oba-san’?… From my mother’s side?”

Yukina caught the subtle, bitter resentment lacing his question. She smiled. “I couldn’t say. What I do know is that your father’s surname was Fujiwara.”

That name—Fujiwara—belonged to a ghost, a man dead for three years, yet an unstoppable tide of anger still rose in Haruka’s chest.

He’s still just a child.

Yukina’s face remained impassive, but inwardly, she felt a sliver of dark satisfaction.

“You need to be ready for what’s coming,” she repeated softly.

Haruka’s eyes widened slightly. He stared at her for a long, charged moment, his lips parting as if to launch a volley of furious questions. But in the end, he clamped his mouth shut and turned his head away, choosing the window as his adversary.

He shifted in his seat, the luxurious leather suddenly feeling like a trap. He wanted to stand up, to pace, to break free of the suffocating stillness, but he could only lean back against the seat, his gaze fixed on the headrest in front of him.

The back of the car was spacious, but it felt infinitely smaller than the tiny, single room he had shared with his mother—a room that smelled of damp tatami and cheap incense, but was, at least, his.

Haruka’s breathing grew heavy, the air thick and used. He felt as if he had sucked all the oxygen out of the car, leaving only the stale, suffocating carbon dioxide of his own breath.

I’m trapped.

The thought erupted in his mind, sharp and terrifyingly clear.