To Stay or To Go

“Wh-what ambition?”

Seeing Haruka still feigning an innocence that was rapidly wearing thin, Izayoi slowly released him and took ten steps back, her voice turning cold as the morning mist. “Young Master Haruka, look at me.”

“I won’t.”

“Look at me.”

“I won’t.”

“Turn your head and look at me!”

Exasperated by his stubborn, almost childish refusal, Izayoi’s carefully constructed patience finally snapped. “Young Master Haruka, are you a man or not? The thing I despise most in this world is a useless coward who isn’t a man.”

Haruka could not tolerate such an insult. A hot flash of anger cut through the fog of confusion. He whipped his head around. “Fine, I’ll look!”

When he turned, he saw Izayoi standing there, a playful, knowing, triumphant smile on her face.

He froze, his eyes wide, his breath catching in his throat as he took in the full sight of her.

“Am I beautiful, Young Master Haruka?”

“Beautiful,” Haruka breathed, his mind completely, utterly captivated. In that moment, he felt she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. A treacherous thought, as if his soul had been possessed by some foreign demon, whispered in his mind: If Lady Murasaki doesn’t dress up, is she really as beautiful as this…?

“So this is a qipao…” he murmured, the word a soft exhalation.

It was a garment of deep, shimmering crimson silk, patterned with golden phoenixes that seemed to fly across the curves of her body. It clung to her, outlining a figure of impossible grace, with slits that revealed the long, pale lines of her legs.

Izayoi slowly approached him, her movements fluid and mesmerizing, a predator closing in on its prey. “Am I beautiful, or is the qipao beautiful?” she whispered, her voice a silken caress that wrapped around him.

“The qipao is beautiful because of you,” Haruka said, the words escaping him without thought, a pure, unfiltered truth.

Izayoi leaned in close, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear. “There is another woman just as beautiful as me. Do you want to see her?”

Haruka’s heart leaped, a jolt of pure, unadulterated desire that shocked him with its intensity. But he managed to hold himself back, saying nothing, his silence a fragile shield.

Izayoi stroked his cheek, her touch gentle, her heart ultimately softening at his boyish confusion. “Do you like my qipao?”

“It’s beautiful…” Haruka said, forcing his eyes away from her, from the impossible curves and the shimmering silk.

“I have many more like this at my home,” Izayoi purred, her voice a low, intimate promise. “Since you have no ambition of your own, why don’t I just take you with me? You can admire them all at your leisure.”

Haruka looked up and saw her gazing at him, her eyes heavy with a promise of forbidden pleasures. She took his hand and guided it to her long, dark hair, letting him feel its silken, cool texture. Then, with a graceful, deliberate movement, she slipped her slender, beautiful foot out of its high heel and gently placed it on top of his own, her bare sole a shocking, intimate pressure against the thin fabric of his sock. She pressed her lips to his ear again, her voice a hot whisper. “Do you want one, or do you want two?”

Haruka felt a rush of heat surge through him, a fire spreading from his loins through his entire body. “I… I…”

“Choose what you want,” Izayoi whispered, her voice a hypnotic command that bypassed all his defenses.

“I want both…” The moment the words left his mouth, he froze, unable to believe he had said them himself, the confession hanging in the air between them.

A look of profound, almost feral satisfaction crossed Izayoi’s face. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight, and giggled, a sound of pure, triumphant delight. “That’s right. Be greedy. Your problem, Young Master Haruka, is that you are not nearly greedy enough. I will help you get everything you desire. The Fujiwara family, the Kurosaki family, Lady Murasaki goes without saying, and even myself… I can give them all to you. But the foundation of it all is that you must ‘dare to want’. You must learn to ‘dare to want’.”

Dare to want…

The words echoed in Haruka’s mind, and he felt a monster stirring in the depths of his soul, a creature of ambition and desire that had been sleeping for a long, long time.

Izayoi looked at his profile, at the raw conflict and burgeoning longing in his eyes, and thought, I will shape him into the man I desire. And Lady Murasaki… we will fall into depravity together.

Haruka took a few deep, ragged breaths, then gently pushed himself out of Izayoi’s intoxicating embrace. He looked at her with a new, strange, unsettling expression in his eyes. “How will you help me?”

Izayoi smiled her enchanting, bewitching smile. “Not even going to call me ‘Izayoi-neechan’ anymore?”

Haruka hesitated, then lifted his head and met her gaze directly, a new fire in his eyes. “Help me, Onee-chan.”

Izayoi’s own heart began to beat faster. This was the boy she had been waiting for. “Alright,” she said, her voice soft and full of promise. “I will help you.” She leaned in again, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Young Master Haruka, do you know how to control someone?”

Haruka thought for a moment, his mind suddenly sharp and clear. “Give them what they want.”

“Very close, Young Master Haruka.” Izayoi looked genuinely surprised, a flicker of true admiration in her eyes. “I was right about you. Everyone has desires. You cannot control a person, but you can be controlled by your desires. If you control a person’s desires, you control the person.”

Haruka immediately saw the crux of the matter. “Then how do you discover what a person’s desires are?”

“That is the key. Everyone knows the principle, but few have the eyes to see ‘desire’. Lady Murasaki is a master of this art. In that, I am not even a shadow of her.” Izayoi continued, “The eyes to see ‘desire’ are something you must train yourself. However, I can give you some ‘desires’ that are already known.”

“What kind of ‘desires’?”

“For example…” Izayoi’s full, red lips parted slightly, and she gestured with her hand toward Suzune. “First, have her move further away.”

Suzune, who had been standing with her back to them all this time, flinched as if she had been physically struck.

The “desires” Izayoi was about to speak of were the hidden, dirty, rotten secrets of the Fujiwara family. To speak of even one would be enough to cause a storm. And she was about to speak of more than one. Even whispering was not safe; Suzune had to be completely out of earshot.

Suzune understood this. A wave of bitter disappointment washed over her as she waited for Haruka’s inevitable order to leave. But instead, she heard him say, his voice firm and clear, “Let her stay there.”

Suzune was stunned. A surge of emotion, of gratitude so profound it was almost painful, washed over her. Without waiting for a direct command, she turned, bowed deeply, and said, “Young Master, I will take my leave.” She then voluntarily moved more than ten meters away, a silent, respectful, and grateful distance.

Izayoi smiled her bewitching smile. “Young Master Haruka, it seems I don’t need to teach you after all. You have already discovered her desire.”

Haruka’s actions had been entirely sincere. He had no idea what desire of hers he had supposedly discovered. He only knew he would not treat Suzune as a disposable tool.

Izayoi was already at his ear, whispering, a serpent in the garden, introducing him to the key figures of the Fujiwara family, both inside and out, and one by one, revealing their secret, hidden “desires.”

At first, Haruka frowned. The more he heard, the more his heart pounded with a mixture of shock and a cold, rising disgust. The stories he had read in books, with their villains of ultimate evil, were nothing compared to the sordid, ugly, pathetic desires of these people. He wanted to believe Izayoi was making it all up, but she spoke with such certainty, with such irrefutable, sickening detail, that he knew it must be true. A wave of righteous indignation rose within him. If he ever had the chance, he would cleanse this entire house, from top to bottom.

As she came to the end, Izayoi hesitated, as if unsure whether she should reveal the last, most dangerous piece of information.

She’s told me so many filthy things already, Haruka thought. What could possibly be so bad that it makes even her hesitate? Then he thought, My ears are already sullied. How much dirtier can they get? I might as well hear it all.

“Izayoi-neechan, what is it? What are you hesitant to say? Is it even more disgusting than what you’ve already told me?”

Izayoi shook her head. “I’m not sure if this is true or not.”

“Then don’t say it.”

“But… it could be true.”

Hearing the genuine confusion in her own words, Haruka’s curiosity was piqued. “Is it important?”

“Very important. There is likely nothing more important in the entire Fujiwara family.”

“Can you tell me?”

Izayoi stared at Haruka’s face for a long, long time, as if weighing his soul, and then finally, the words tumbled out, a quiet explosion in the morning mist.

“Fujiwara Kiyohime is not Lady Murasaki’s biological daughter.”