An Illusory Dream

Haruka felt as if he were the master of a strange, unsettling dream, and Lady Murasaki and Fujiwara Hitomi were merely characters within it, moving to the whims of his own dark, unfamiliar thoughts.

He had expected Hitomi to refuse, or at least show some flicker of resistance, some sliver of pride. But he never imagined she would maintain her grotesque, fawning smile and say, “If the Young Master is in a bad mood, then I will make a fool of myself to amuse him.”

She slowly, deliberately, got down on all fours, devolving before his eyes, crawling on the sharp gravel.

Hitomi, ignoring the stones that must have been digging into her knees and palms, crawled forward a couple of steps, then lifted her right leg high in a crude imitation of a dog urinating. She then rolled over, lying on her back with her limbs flailing like a helpless, overturned tortoise, revealing a sliver of her pale white stomach through the disheveled clothes.

Suddenly, she tucked her limbs in, her pretty, wrinkled face staring straight at Haruka. He thought she was about to speak, but then her crimson lips parted and she let out two sharp, shockingly realistic sounds: “Woof, woof.”

It was so unexpected, so utterly absurd, that he couldn’t help it; a short, sharp snort of laughter escaped him.

But as soon as the sound left his lips, something felt deeply wrong. He glanced to his side and saw Lady Murasaki smiling at him with a look of doting, proprietary affection.

Suddenly, everything around Haruka felt unreal, as if he were trapped inside a shimmering, illusory bubble.

Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe he was just asleep at a school desk somewhere, his cheek pressed against the cool wood, and when he woke up, Yukishiro Tomoe would be there, her presence a solid, comforting reality.

Watching Hitomi rolling on the ground, a wave of nauseating guilt washed over him. What’s wrong with me? Am I really in a dream? I don’t even feel like myself anymore. How could I make her do something so degrading?

He found his voice. “Stop it, Hitomi.”

Hitomi froze. Haruka was about to move to help her up, but he heard Lady Murasaki laugh, a soft, musical sound. “Alright, that’s enough. You can get up now.”

Hitomi sprang to her feet as if released from a spell, bowing deeply to Haruka with a cheerful, triumphant grin. “I made the Young Master laugh.”

Lady Murasaki laughed. “Not just my son, you even amused me.” As she spoke, she intercepted Haruka’s hand, which had been frozen in mid-air, halfway to helping Hitomi up.

Hitomi, seeing the gesture, beamed. “Then for me, it’s a ‘double happiness’.”

“Indeed, it is,” Lady Murasaki said, clicking open an old flip phone and showing her the screen. “This matter, you will handle it.”

Hitomi was overjoyed, her voice now that of a human again, shedding the persona of the dog. “Thank you, my Lady.”

Lady Murasaki smiled. “Don’t thank me.”

Hitomi, quick on the uptake, straightened up, her eyes shining with a fervent, almost frightening loyalty. “Thank you, Young Master. Thank you.”

Haruka saw the dirt and sand falling from her expensive kimono as she bowed. The only warmth he felt was from the hand Lady Murasaki was holding, a firm, possessive grip.

Lady Murasaki whispered in his ear, her breath a warm, secret caress. “Your hands are not for touching ‘dirty things’. They are only for holding Mama’s, do you understand?”

Haruka nodded, his feelings a tangled, chaotic mess. He watched Hitomi leave, her face beaming with a joy he couldn’t comprehend, and he began to doubt the very nature of the world.

Lady Murasaki was about to use this moment to instill her own philosophy in Haruka, to shape his confusion into understanding, but he spoke first. “Is it because of ‘desire’?”

“What?” Lady Murasaki was startled by the word.

Haruka said, “You grasped her ‘desire’, and that’s why she’s so obedient.”

Lady Murasaki looked at him with surprise as the boy murmured to himself, “I read a Chinese history book once. It said: ‘The world bustles, all for profit; the world scurries, all for gain.’ Isn’t ‘desire’ just another word for a ‘transaction’?”

“That is a line from the Records of the Grand Historian, from the ‘Biographies of the Money-makers’,” Lady Murasaki said, her eyes now sharp and assessing, the maternal softness gone. “It was written by Sima Qian during the Western Han Dynasty.” She paused, her gaze piercing. “Who told you the word ‘desire’?”

She didn’t need him to answer; she already knew. “The woman with a folding fan. It seems she got to you first.”

Haruka lowered his head. Lady Murasaki told him, “You mustn’t listen to her.”

The words were on the tip of her tongue—to say Izayoi was a liar—but looking at Haruka’s conflicted face, she told the truth instead. “She didn’t lie to you, but she misled you. She herself is a half-filled bottle, sloshing about with half-formed ideas. How could she possibly teach you?”

Haruka reacted quickly, seizing the opportunity, a flicker of his own cunning emerging. “Thank you for offering to teach me, Mama.”

Lady Murasaki was taken aback. She swallowed the words she had been about to say—I’ll find you a tutor in a few days. She stared at him for a long moment, then a small, genuine smile touched her lips. “Alright. Then Mama will teach you.”

But she saw him turn his head away again, unable to meet her gaze. Annoyed, she turned his face back to hers, her touch firm, unaware of the sheer, disarming power of her own charm. “I don’t care about the others, but when you speak to Mama, you must look me in the eye.”

Haruka felt helpless. No matter how many times he looked at her, he found her too beautiful, especially when she smiled at him like that. It left him completely flustered; he didn’t dare to look.

Lady Murasaki rarely smiled genuinely; most of her smiles were weapons, polite and distant. She wasn’t fully aware of her own charm, and even if she were, she would have disdained using it to bewitch others. But for some reason, she smiled often for Haruka. Seeing the precocious, intelligent boy at a complete loss for words brought her a strange, possessive sense of joy.

“Don’t just stand there like a fool. Let’s go back to the car,” Lady Murasaki said.

The bodyguard finally had his moment, opening the car door with a bow. Haruka got in first, followed by Lady Murasaki. Once inside, his first instinct was to buckle his seatbelt, but Lady Murasaki’s hand gently brushed his away.

Haruka looked at her, confused. He saw her elegant profile as she leaned over and buckled the belt for him. As she moved, a single strand of her long, dark hair brushed against his nose, making it tickle.

“I can do it myself…” Haruka said in a small voice.

Lady Murasaki ignored him. After she had secured his, she buckled her own.

Once they were settled, the limousine began to move smoothly, a silent silver fish gliding through the city.

With the windows closed, the interior of the luxury car was almost silent. In the stillness, Haruka could hear the frantic, unsteady beating of his own heart.

Lady Murasaki took out her phone and dialed a number. As she spoke, her voice became cold, devoid of all warmth, and Haruka felt she had transformed back into the head of the family. No matter how beautiful her face, it couldn’t hide the absolute chill in her words.

Soon, she hung up and dialed another number. Her tone shifted from icy command to falsely polite inquiry. She spoke only three or four short sentences, then hung up again and dialed the next.

Strangely, no one called her. It was always she who initiated the calls, and her tone was a carefully calibrated instrument, different for each person—though the one constant was a faint, underlying coldness, even with the most enthusiastic of her conversation partners.

Haruka turned his head away, looking out the window but seeing nothing. Every now and then, he would overhear Lady Murasaki give a terrifying order in a calm, gentle voice. Just listening made his blood run cold.

Suddenly, a warmth enveloped the hand resting on his knee. He looked down, startled. Lady Murasaki, still holding the phone to her ear with one hand, her elbow propped on the armrest as she gazed out the window and spoke her dreadful, world-altering words, had taken his hand with the other.