The Mist

The words struck Haruka as if he had been pricked by a needle. “What kind of joke is that!”

But seeing her serious expression, the usual playful light completely extinguished from her eyes, he knew she wasn’t lying. A sliver of ice-cold belief took root in his heart. “Then whose daughter is she?” he asked, his voice a low, unsteady thing.

Izayoi’s face was a mask of calm, a still lake hiding unknowable depths. “It is precisely because I am not certain that I said it was a guess.”

“Izayoi-neechan, you shouldn’t spread rumors you can’t prove,” Haruka chided, a hint of desperation coloring his voice. He felt a strange, protective urge rise up for Kiyohime.

“I have no proof, it’s true,” she conceded. “But I have known Lady Murasaki for many years. I can guess certain things from her reactions, from the shadows in her eyes.”

“Izayoi-neechan, you’re overthinking things,” Haruka insisted. He instinctively rejected this unverifiable, poisonous piece of information. And yet, a treacherous curiosity coiled in his gut. He couldn’t stop himself from asking, “If… and I mean if… if it were true, who do you think Kiyohime’s real mother is?”

Haruka looked up and saw Izayoi staring at him, her gaze so intense, so full of a strange, pitying light, it made his scalp tingle. “Izayoi-neechan, why are you looking at me like that? It’s not like I gave birth to her.”

“I do have someone in mind,” Izayoi said, her voice distant, as if speaking of a ghost. “But I hope it isn’t her.”

“Who is she…?” Haruka had a bad feeling, a cold premonition that crept up his spine like a spider.

“I can’t say,” Izayoi murmured, as if to herself. “I hope it’s just my imagination…”

“Is this person… special?” Haruka probed, his own voice tight.

“Very special. To you as well, Young Master Haruka.”

“To me as well…” Haruka’s mind raced, a frantic search through a gallery of faces that held no answers.

“I hope I’m wrong. If it’s true, the heavens are about to fall on the house of Fujiwara,” Izayoi whispered, the words dissolving into the mist.

Haruka thought, If Kiyohime really isn’t Lady Murasaki’s daughter, that alone is enough to throw the family into chaos. For the truth of her parentage to be even more serious than that… the mother’s identity must be extraordinary. But Izayoi used the word ‘special’. What is so special about her?

Suddenly, Izayoi let out a soft, airy laugh, shattering the tension. Haruka was taken aback. “It’s nothing, really,” she said, her tone suddenly light and dismissive, the playful mask slipping back into place. “I have no proof. It’s probably just my mind playing tricks on me. Just some wild guesses that came to me after my fight with Lady Murasaki yesterday. They don’t mean anything.”

A wave of sharp irritation washed over Haruka. If she wasn’t even sure herself, why would she tell him and burden him with such a thought?

Seeing his sullen expression, Izayoi smiled and reached out a slender, playful finger, tracing an invisible line on his cheek. He flinched, and she rubbed her finger and thumb together as if she’d picked up a speck of dust. “What did you put on my face?” he asked, his voice sharp with annoyance.

“You guess,” Izayoi said with a mischievous grin.

Haruka touched his cheek. “I don’t feel anything wet. Is it some kind of powder?” The more he touched his face, the more unsettled he felt.

Izayoi reached out her finger again, this time drawing a slow, deliberate circle on his other cheek. Haruka didn’t pull away this time, resigning himself to her whim. “It’s not too obvious, is it? I have to go see my mother soon.”

Izayoi pulled her finger back, her laughter growing, a bright, tinkling sound in the quiet air.

“Is it that noticeable?” Haruka asked, a note of genuine concern in his voice.

Izayoi’s finger, long and slender, gently tapped him on the forehead. “You fool. You fell for it.”

It dawned on him. “There’s nothing on your hand.”

Izayoi covered her mouth, her body shaking with silent, delighted laughter. “The clever are often fooled by their own cleverness. I just rubbed my fingers together, and you thought I had put something on them? If I were to crook my finger like this…”

Haruka found his chin being gently lifted by her finger. He was frozen, her warm, fragrant breath tickling his cheek, a scent of rain and flowers and something uniquely her.

“…and asked you to follow me, wouldn’t you just come along like a little puppy?”

Izayoi was still laughing, but her expression changed when Haruka, in a surprising, bold move, reached out his own finger and hooked it under her chin, tilting her face up to his. She blinked, her long, beautiful eyes wide with genuine, unfeigned surprise.

“Izayoi-neechan, one day, will you let me lead you away?”

Izayoi’s smile slowly faded. She leaned closer to his face until her lips were almost touching his eye. With a soft “whoosh,” she blew a warm, gentle breath against his eyelid.

He instinctively closed his eyes and heard a voice, almost too quiet to be real, a ghost of a whisper in his ear: “Why turn ‘one day’ into ‘today’?”

Haruka felt his heart, like a tender new sprout, tremble in a gentle breeze.

He opened his eyes. Izayoi’s expression was no longer flirtatious or teasing. Instead, she was peeking at him with a look of pure, shy innocence that disarmed him completely.

“Well, I should be going now,” she said, turning her head to the side, unable to meet his gaze.

“You’re going back to your room so soon?” Haruka asked, a strange reluctance to let her leave.

“Of course I’m going home…”

“Izayoi-neechan, aren’t you going to wait until after the Old Mistress’s exorcism?”

“No. I’d rather not be tainted by bad luck.”

“I see…”

Izayoi let out a long, slow sigh. “The fog seems to be lifting a little.”

“Yes. It’s a good time to head back.”

“Mmm. And you should go see your mother.”

“Alright…”

Seeing the flicker of feeling lost on Haruka’s face, Izayoi suddenly smiled. “Young Master Haruka, let me tell you a secret.”

“I think I’ve heard enough secrets,” Haruka said, waving his hands dismissively, though his heart betrayed him with a curious flutter.

“It’s about me,” Izayoi said softly. “Are you sure you don’t want to hear it?”

Haruka hesitated. “Go on…”

Izayoi looked up at the sky, at the thinning mist. “The truth is, I’m a fairy who has taken human form.”

Haruka couldn’t help but laugh. That was impossible. But looking at her beautiful profile against the white canvas of the fog, his heart quietly sped up. If she wasn’t a fairy, how could a human be so beautiful?

“I have a magic spell,” she continued, her voice full of enchanting mystery. “I can disappear when you don’t need me, and appear when you do.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“If you don’t believe me, then I’ll just… What are you doing here!” Izayoi’s expression suddenly turned cold and hard, her voice sharp.

Haruka’s heart skipped a beat. Had Lady Murasaki found them?

He spun around, but saw no one in front of him. At that exact moment, he felt a soft, warm pressure on his right cheek, and his heart forgot to beat.

He wanted to turn his head back, but he didn’t want to break the spell. He silently counted to ten, then slowly, deliberately, turned back around.

He had expected her to have vanished, a true spirit of the mist, but she was still there, walking away at a leisurely pace. In a qipao and high heels, she couldn’t walk very fast. And in this wide, open space, there was nowhere to hide.

Haruka couldn’t help but smile. He kept his distance, following her, letting her hear his quiet, amused laughter.

Izayoi’s steps became a little stiff. She could hear him behind her, calling out with mock seriousness, “Miss Fairy?” With every word, her posture became more awkward, until she was waddling like a flightless, exquisitely beautiful penguin.

Haruka could imagine the embarrassed flush on her face, and his mood brightened considerably.

After a hundred meters, a black luxury car came into view, a uniformed maid standing beside it like a statue. The maid bowed respectfully to them and opened the car door.

Desperate to hide her face from Haruka’s teasing gaze, Izayoi awkwardly squeezed into the car, leaving only one hand, as lustrous as white jade, outside. She turned it over, showing it was empty.

Curious, Haruka stopped. He watched as her hand suddenly flicked, and a folding fan appeared from nowhere. It was not the fan Lady Murasaki had given her, but a simple, plain one. With a flick of her wrist, it opened. On its surface, in wet, slightly crooked, hurried calligraphy, were four Kanji characters: 博君一笑.

Just for a smile.