The Piglet

Fujiwara Yukina had a different, clearer understanding of her mother and sister.

If her mother was a tyrannical beauty, a queen of ice, then Lady Murasaki was that, but with the added, poisonous layers of “hypocrisy” and “cruelty.”

She remembered a gift her mother had given them when they were children: a small, black-and-white piglet, its coat a perfect pattern of spots.

Yukina had adored the gift with the fierce, uncomplicated love of a child. She never let the maids care for it, instead feeding it and raising it herself alongside her sister. They measured its food, gave it fresh water, washed it with their own hands in a warm basin, and let it run free in the vast manor gardens. Yukina would scoop the squealing piglet into her arms and spin in joyful, dizzying circles on the grass, her heart so full it felt like it might burst. This is the first gift Mama has ever given me, she thought, and the thought itself was a treasure.

One night, a hundred days later, the Old Mistress summoned her two daughters to her private chambers. She clapped her hands, a sound as sharp and final as a closing lock, and a servant brought in a cage. Inside, nestled in the straw, was the piglet.

“Mama, why did you bring ‘Shōhan’ here?” Yukina asked in surprise. “Shōhan”—Little Spot—was the name she and her sister had lovingly given him.

The Old Mistress tossed a small, gleaming knife onto the floor. It skittered across the tatami mat, coming to a rest at their feet. Her voice was cold, devoid of all warmth. “Whichever of you kills it will have the chance to inherit the Fujiwara family.”

Yukina thought she must have misheard. The words made no sense. “Mama, are you joking? This was a gift from you.”

“I have no time for jokes,” the Old Mistress said, her tone so flat, so empty, it sent a chill of pure dread down Yukina’s spine.

“Shōhan is… he’s like our family…” Yukina’s voice trembled, the words catching in her throat.

“An animal is family?”

“My sister and I have been raising him for so long…”

“And I have been raising you for so long.”

Yukina froze, the world suddenly tilting on its axis, feeling strange and hostile and terrifyingly sharp.

She’s mad! The thought exploded in her mind, a burst of clarity in the fog of horror. She lunged forward, snatching the knife from the floor before her sister could even move.

“Miss!” a servant cried out in alarm.

Yukina pointed the tip of the knife at the Old Mistress. In the polished, merciless blade, she could see two reflections: her own tear-streaked, terrified face, and her mother’s calm, impassive one.

The Old Mistress smiled, a faint, chilling curve of her lips. “If you were to kill me, I would be very pleased.”

Yukina could hardly believe her ears. She had to get out of this strange, suffocating madhouse.

She turned the knife on the servants. “Give me the cage!”

The two servants glanced at the Old Mistress. Seeing no reaction from her, they cautiously handed the cage to Yukina, their eyes wide with fear of the sharp little blade.

Yukina took the cage and fled. The bodyguards hidden in the shadows of the long corridors did not move to stop her. Only a few foolish attendants tried to block her path, but she drove them back by wildly, blindly, swinging the knife.

“Young Mistress, please put the knife down, you’ll hurt yourself!” they cried, their faces pale, while thinking, The young mistress has gone mad.

Yukina ran out of the villa’s main gate, carrying the cage, the weight of it pulling at her arms.

The sky was pitch black, a light, cold rain beginning to fall, plastering her hair to her face.

She tightened her grip on the knife, clutching the cage to her chest, and ran toward an unknown, terrifying future.

I have to leave the Fujiwara house, I have to leave, I have to leave! The words were a silent, desperate scream in the fine, misting rain.

But the Fujiwara estate was simply too large, a kingdom of its own.

The rain made the paths muddy and slick. Carrying the heavy cage, she was exhausted after only five or six minutes of frantic running. Yukina hid behind a large, ancient tree, curling into a ball and hugging the cage, her breath coming in ragged, painful sobs.

From time to time, the sharp, white beam of a flashlight would sweep past her hiding place, a searching eye in the darkness.

Yukina waited until the footsteps faded away. “Don’t be afraid, Shōhan,” she whispered, her voice choked. She lifted the cage. The piglet lay quietly inside, completely still. It had been drugged.

It was only then that Yukina realized she was the one who was afraid.

The dark sky was endless, a vast, empty void. To be awake, to be aware in this world, was its own kind of unbearable pain.

Yukina hugged the cage tighter, curling into an even smaller ball. So cold, so cold, so cold, she thought, the words a chattering rhythm in her mind.

She didn’t know how long she huddled there in the darkness. She heard a rustling sound in the wet leaves and, startled, raised the knife, but in her panic, it slipped from her numb fingers. It clattered on the wet ground, right in front of a pair of tall, elegant geta sandals.

Yukina squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to look up, her small body a tight, shivering ball of defiance.

A purple umbrella opened above her, a sudden, welcome shield from the wind and the weeping sky. “Yukina,” a voice said, soft and familiar. “It’s time to go home.”

“Home?” Yukina screamed, the word tearing from her throat. “Why don’t you just put me in a cage, too!”

The person bent down without a word and gently, with a soft handkerchief, wiped the mud and tears from Yukina’s face.

The small, gentle gesture made Yukina’s fragile composure shatter completely. Her emotions burst forth like a broken dam. She threw her arms around Lady Murasaki, crying, “Onee-chan… onee-chan…”

“I’m here,” Lady Murasaki said, her voice a soothing balm.

“Am I the only one who’s gone mad?” Yukina sobbed, her face buried in the silk of her sister’s kimono.

Lady Murasaki thought for a moment. “No,” she said. “You’re the only one who isn’t.”

“I don’t understand,” Yukina said, her voice muffled. “Is Mama raising us like animals? If so, why didn’t she give me a tranquilizer too?”

Because being awake is the best tranquilizer, Lady Murasaki thought, but did not say.

Yukina hugged her sister tighter, the cage pressed awkwardly between them. “I don’t want Shōhan to die.”

“No one will die,” Lady Murasaki said softly, stroking her hair. “Leave it all to me.”

“Really?”

Yukina saw her sister nod solemnly in the dim light. The crushing tightness in her chest began to loosen, and the bone-deep exhaustion she had been holding back washed over her in a great, heavy wave. She leaned against her sister’s warmth and slowly, finally, fell asleep.

In her dream, she saw herself and her sister holding Shōhan, chasing the sun across an endless field of green. The sun grew larger and brighter, so bright that Yukina had to open her eyes. She found it was the next morning, the real sun streaming through her window.

She trusted her omnipotent older sister, certain that she had taken care of everything. Since they were little, whatever her sister had promised her, she had always, always done.

Just then, a maid called her to the dining table.

Yukina hadn’t eaten dinner the night before and had spent the night cold and hungry. She was now ravenous.

She ran eagerly to the dining table, a happy thought skipping through her mind: I wonder if Shōhan has eaten yet?

And then she saw it. On the gleaming mahogany table was the open, empty cage. And her sister and the Old Mistress were each eating a fragrant, perfectly cooked pork cutlet.

The color drained from Yukina’s face. The world went silent.

The Old Mistress pushed a plate with a freshly cooked pork cutlet in front of her. “Yukina, eat.”

Yukina covered her mouth, a violent wave of nausea rising in her throat. It was only because her stomach was completely empty that she was able to hold it back.

She looked at her sister in disbelief, her eyes pleading for some kind of explanation. Her sister, who had always protected her, who had always kept her promises, her beloved, beautiful sister…

Lady Murasaki offered no response. She simply took a delicate bite of her pork cutlet and said coldly, her voice as calm as a frozen lake, “It’s a little bland.”

From that moment on, Yukina no longer had a sister. There was only the woman known as “Lady Murasaki,” “hypocritical” and “cruel,” who had killed Shōhan, and killed a part of Yukina herself, all for the sake of inheritance.

Yukina became numb. She believed, with a certainty that settled deep in her bones, that everyone in the Fujiwara family was mad.

If Haruka stayed in this house, he would, sooner or later, become a stranger, just like her sister. Whether she had promised Yukishiro Tomoe or not, Yukina would do everything in her power to get him out. She was certain he would want to leave. She was completely, utterly confident.

Yukina slowly came back to the present, the memory fading, only to see Lady Murasaki whispering in Haruka’s ear, then helping him to his feet. “From this day forward, Yukishiro Haruka is a young master of the Fujiwara family. And he is my son. He does not need to change his surname to Fujiwara. He will remain a Yukishiro.”

And then she heard Haruka’s voice, clear and steady. “I am willing to join the Fujiwara family.”

Yukina fell silent. Her world, which had just begun to make a fragile kind of sense, had become a strange, unrecognizable place once more.