Hanabishi Fusai no Taima-chou

After they reached the top of the stone stairs, they saw candy sellers and fukidama sellers1 on the shrine grounds, attracting the attention of children. A young woman with a baby on her back was gazing at the candy fashioned in human and animal forms, and her siblings were all staring at the fukidama with sparkling eyes. There were rows of teahouses serving millet mochi, shiruko,2 and dango, where adults who had finished their shrine visit could take a breather. Right next to the shrine was the Restaurant Hoshigaoka, a social gathering place for the nobility and people from the business and political worlds.

Takafuyu didn’t even look at the shrine buildings, but walked along the edge of the grounds and among the dense trees. “If I worship another god, the jourou would be in a bad moon,” he said.

“Does she not have a name?”

“Pardon?”

“That jourou.”

“Ah. She is called ‘Awaji of the Third Rank’ or ‘Awaji no Kimi.’ Her true name has not been handed down.”

After passing through the woods, their view opened up. Below them, they could see the neighborhoods of Tokyo. As one would expect, the view was excellent.

“I don’t visit the shrine, but I come here from time to time. The view here is excellent.”

“Yes, it certainly is.”

A pleasant breeze blew. Suzuko folded her parasol up.

“I was hesitating over whether or not I should ask you about it,” Takafuyu began, and then turned his gaze to Suzuko’s hands. “But is there a reason why you always wear gloves?”

“It’s not a big reason. I just have a scar from a burn I received in my childhood. When the nobility see it, they become surprised and concerned, so I hide it because it’s a hassle.”

“Oh, I see. Do you have a preference for lace?”

“No, not particularly.”

“Next time, I shall give you gloves. I have a nice pair imported from England.”

Suzuko looked up at Takafuyu. He narrowed his eyes in amusement.

“You often look at my face. Does it please you?”

“I’m trying to read it because I find it creepy not to know what you’re thinking.”

“Can you read it?”

“No, not at all.”

Takafuyu smiled happily.

“I enjoy being with you. Right now, I have a cheerful look on my face.”

“I thought you were up to no good.”

He laughed out loud.

“…Suzuko-san,” Takafuyu laughed for a bit, and then quietly spoke. “You see, I am my grandfather’s child.”

“Huh?”

“Not my father’s child, but my grandfather’s. It would be a great scandal if it was known, so I was registered as my father’s child.”

“…Are you saying that you’re the child of your grandfather and his mistress?”

She asked, thinking that there was no way he could be the child of his grandfather and grandmother.

“Ah, well…” Takafuyu was being evasive, so Suzuko didn’t repeat her question.

“In the Meiji era, the shinshoku world was a whirlwind of chaos, confusion, and recklessness, so there was a great deal of trouble caused. Did you know that?”

“No,” she answered, but she had a feeling that things were getting complicated from what Takafuyu had said earlier about Kanda Myojin and shrines not being religious institutions.

“It was a new era, so perhaps it was only natural that there should be disputes. To simplify it, the Shinto world was divided into the Izumo faction and the Ise faction over enshrined deity, which created disputes, and the reorganization of shrines caused the disappearance of small roadside shrines and nameless deities. There were many other things, but anyway, there was a big transformation. Shrines were at the mercy of it, and opinions were divided even among shrines, as well as within the shinshoku families. It was the same for the Hanabishi family. My grandfather’s and father’s ideas were opposed to each other at every turn. This caused friction between father and son.”

Putting aside the complicated things, Suzuko understood that the father and son were at odds with each other. Come to think of it, Takafuyu had mentioned something like a family quarrel before. Was this what he was talking about?

“My father was my grandfather’s only son. My father already had a son by my mother, and that was my brother. My father was supposed to succeed my grandfather, and then my brother will do the same, and so on. However, my grandfather began to ostracize my father, who didn’t listen to him. The same went for his son, my brother. So—he decided to create a new child who would do his bidding.”

And that was me, Takafuyu said.

“As in any family, grandfather, the patriarch of the family, was the absolute head of the family. It seemed that he intended to disinherit my father and install me as his successor. However, the Bureau of Peerage, the watchdog of the nobility, wouldn’t allow such a reckless act. The bureau was also very sensitive to any kind of disgrace, so it was decided that I would be my father’s son in order to maintain our respectability. My grandfather favored me and treated my father and brother terribly. Naturally, my father and mother hated me. But my brother was kind to me, though…”

There was a shadow over Takafuyu’s eyes. Suzuko felt cold, like her sweat had chilled. It was a coldness that made her feel unexpectedly chilled in the shade, even though it was hot and sunny. No, this isn’t coldness, it’s sadness. It felt as if Takafuyu’s sadness was seeping into her skin.

“The situation changed when my grandfather fell ill. He became bedridden and unable to communicate his wishes, so my father took over. I was adopted out to relatives in Yokohama and never saw my parents again. My grandfather died within a year. Later, my parents died by drowning in Awaji, and my brother, their heir, died from illness. He was unmarried and had no children, so it was inevitable that I would take over the family.”

“…You’ve been pushed around a lot.”

She thought that it was an awful story. He was shown favoritism, hated, and adopted out by adults for their own selfish reasons, and he was tossed around regardless of his own will. Even though he didn’t do a single thing wrong.

It’s all warped.

Thinking that, Suzuko understood why Takafuyu told her this story.

Takafuyu smiled at her.

“I know what you meant earlier by ‘distortion.’ Without that distortion, I wouldn’t have been born in the first place.”

“…Yes…”

Suzuko guessed what was going through Takafuyu’s mind. He didn’t need to tell her about this kind of thing. It was a private matter within the family that he would have preferred not to tell anyone, For Takafuyu, it was a wound that would remain in his heart forever. He told it to Suzuko just to convey to her, “I understand how you feel.” Suzuko thought that he happened to be a much more sincere person that she had expected.

Suzuko looked down the hill and gazed at the streets of Akasaka. The black tiled roofs shined in the sunlight and looked like the surface of a river. The dust clouds whipped up by the wind made the scenery seem hazy and whitish. In the midst of the haze, she thought she saw a towering building. Asakusa Juunikai. Suzuko clutched the handle of her parasol with both hands.

Everyone…Ginroku-san, Tei-san, Grandpa Torakichi …

At that time, the dome-roofed Asakusa Kokugikan was located next to the Juunikai, and on the street in front of it, the entertainment district of Asakusa Sixth Ward, a number of motion picture theaters were being built one after the other, replacing the freak shows. Even now, she could picture the brightly colored banners fluttering in a row from the eaves. Amongst the fortune-tellers, physiognomists, saimon-katari,3 news vendors hawking newssheets, and various other peddlers, in a chokingly dusty corner of that hustle and bustle, Suzuko called herself the Clairvoyant Girl. She hadn’t been alone. She was with people who she could call family.

——Until that day.

“…Baron Hanabishi.”

While gripping her parasol, Suzuko spoke.

“Please call me by my name. As your fiancé, that is too unduly formal,” Takafuyu spoke lightly, but his smile withdrew when he saw Suzuko’s expression. “What is it?”

“In exchange for marrying you, I have a favor to ask.”

“Even if you don’t use our marriage as a bargaining chip, I would at least listen to your favor. Or is it a favor so great that you are willing to exchange it for our marriage?”

“Among the nobility, I’m searching for someone with a pine as their emblem. I would like to ask for your help.”

Takafuyu blinked, as though he was thinking about it a little.

“By emblems…do you mean those marks often used by the nobility? I grew up in a merchant family, so I never had anything to do with them. I believe it was originally a samurai custom, yes? You are searching for a pine emblem?”

“There are many nobles who use pine as their emblem. Under the guise of collecting ghost stories, I visit the residences of nobility to investigate them.”

""

Takafuyu widened his eyes.

“That was your goal? ——But, why…”

“I didn’t attend a girls’ school because of my grandfather’s plans for me, so I couldn’t obtain information from my schoolmates. I was also restricted from going out, so it was only after my grandfather’s death that I was able to walk around freely to some extent. That was two years ago. I had to think hard about how I could visit various noble families.”

“So, you decided to collect ghost stories? That’s quite eccentric, isn’t it?”

Suzuko laughed a little. “Have you forgotten? I am clairvoyant.”

“I see, so you’re saying that it’s because it’s your field of expertise,” A smile also appeared on Takafuyu’s lips. “By the way, I saw your smile for the first time.”

Suzuko’s smile disappeared. Takafuyu laughed in amusement.

“Your smile is lovely, but I also like the usual you with your dead fish-like eyes.”

“…” Suzuko sighed.

“Suzuko-san, I didn’t ask you about your underlying reasons. Why are you searching for someone with a ‘pine emblem’?”

Suzuko hesitated for a few moments and turned her eyes to the street.

“It’s because they committed murder.”

When she said that, even Takafuyu gasped.

“You have said it as well, that there was a slaughter in an Asakusa slum. The people I lived with were killed. At the same time, I disappeared. ——It is as you said. To be more precise, I was at the Takigawa residence on the day they were killed. A few days before, I was discovered by a servant of the Takigawa family. At that time, I was working in the entertainment district of Asakusa Sixth Ward, and the servant who saw me reported it to my grandfather. Even without being called to the mansion and telling my story, my grandfather seemed to know immediately that we were related by blood. For I clearly resembled my father.”

“Ah, I can certainly see it,” Takafuyu nodded, but Suzuko got a sour look on her face. It didn’t make her happy to be told that she looked like her father.

“My grandfather asked me to live at the Takigawa estate, but I couldn’t give him an immediate answer, so I left. On my way home, Ginroku-san and the others…”

“Ginroku…ah, is that the person you used to live with in Asakusa?”

“Yes. Ginroku-san, Tei-san, and Torakichi-san. Ginroku-san was a man of about fifty, Tei-san was a woman of about forty, and Grandpa Torakichi was probably about seventy. Grandpa Torakichi’s legs were bad and he could hardly walk, so we took care of him. Although we weren’t related by blood, both Ginroku-san and Tei-san said they were indebted to Grandpa Torakichi. I, too, loved to hear stories about the old days from him.”

Suzuko bit her lip as she felt herself begin to recall those days. If she completely recalled them, she would be in too much pain to speak.

“Tei-san was my mother’s friend, from when we lived on the bottom floor of the Juunikai. She was the one who took care of me after my mother died. And then…um…”

What was she talking about? Suzuko pressed her hand against her forehead. She couldn’t speak properly because of the emotions swirling in her chest.

“You were talking about what happened on your way back home from the Takigawa estate. So, what did Ginroku and the others say?”

“Oh, yes…Ginroku-san and the others were there.”

“There? Where do you mean?”

“So, I was walking down the street…on my way back and saw three people standing in front of me. They were standing there…and bleeding…”

She had avoided remembering that scene. But now she had to talk about it. About the three standing there, covered in blood.

“——You mean that they are ghosts.”

The perceptive Takafuyu gave the answer. Suzuko nodded.

“All three of them were bleeding from the chest in the same way. And then, they told me this. ‘Don’t come back.’”

Don’t come back, Suzu.

Tei-san had said while spewing a large amount of blood from her mouth. Her blue striped cotton kimono was dyed dark with blood. Her cheeks were emaciated, but even though her face was pretty in its own way, she was deathly pale at that time.

Don’t go back home. Go straight back to the Takigawa estate.

It seemed that Ginroku had been beaten, as his eyelids were cut and swollen, and his cheeks were blue-black with bruises. Blood was in his beard and hair, which were streaked with white. His worn white shirt was red with blood.

Torakichi didn’t say anything, simply looking at Suzuko tenderly with bleary, clouded eyes. He was wearing a faded yukata, and his chest, where his ribcage could be seen faintly, no longer moved up and down as he breathed, but instead bled.

Suzuko couldn’t take it anymore and crouched down on the spot, burying her head in her hands. The parasol fell to her feet.

“Grandpa Torakichi couldn’t even get up anymore, and yet…”

Even such an old man had been brutally stabbed to death.

Even though she had been told not to go back, at that time, Suzuko’s legs had naturally wanted to run back home. But it was Ginroku’s words that stopped her.

“My feet stopped when Ginroku-san told me, ‘Find the culprit.’ He said, ‘Become a noble’s daughter and find the culprit who escaped. He’s a noble.’ The culprit was said to have been carrying a handkerchief with a pine emblem on it. So, you don’t have to come back, just find that person, he said. Ginroku-san used to work at a noble’s mansion. I don’t know who the noble was, though. That was why he knew about emblems.”

So, Suzuko returned to the Takigawa house. From that day on, the “Clairvoyant Girl of Asakusa” disappeared.

After she finished speaking, Takafuyu remained silent for a while.

“I think this Ginroku-san was probably much more than a servant.”

Takafuyu said after some time. Suzuko, who had been crouching down, stood up and shook her head.

“I don’t know…I don’t know at all. He never talked much about his past.”

“No, it was just a hunch. He seemed to be a smart man.”

“He was smart. Ginroku-san was the one who came up with the clairvoyant business.”

Such a business was just right for Asakusa, a chaotic downtown area. Ginroku taught her how to talk as the Clairvoyant Girl, how to put on airs, and all the other details.

“He certainly was. That was why he gave you an objective and returned you to the Takigawa estate.”

""

“Eh…”

“There was a possibility that the culprit was still in the Asakusa area. That must have been why they stopped you there and told you to go back to the Takigawa estate. And, in order to prevent you from spending your days in tears over losing them, they gave you the objective of ‘finding the culprit.’”

The image of three covered in blood reappeared in Suzuko’s mind. Ginroku with his usual angry and stern eyes, Tei with her desperate expression, and Torakichi gently watching over her.

She could no longer contain the whirling heat in her chest. Tears spilled from her eyes and fell down her cheeks.

Takafuyu reached out his hand and touched Suzuko’s cheek. Her tears wetted his hand. He took a step closer to her and put his hand on her back. Pulled to his chest with a reserved gesture, Suzuko leaned against Takafuyu’s chest. The sweet smell of incense wafted from his jacket. Suzuko closed her eyes with a feeling of relief, because it felt like he was letting her use him rather than being embraced. Enveloped by the clean fragrance, Suzuko felt as though her heart had lightened just a little.

After sending Suzuko back to the Takigawa residence, Takafuyu returned to Kojimachi and the Hanabishi mansion.

“Welcome home, sir.”

Yura, the butler, greeted him. Takafuyu handed him his hat and told him that he could take his leave. Yura bowed expressionlessly and left.

Even just being able to see a look of contempt on his face would be more worthwhile.

Takafuyu thought this as he climbed the stairs. Yura was a faithful butler of his brother, Saneaki. There must have been cold emotions behind his hard face.

His brother was treated like an outcast by their grandfather, the head of the family, and received cold treatment. Takafuyu knew that many of the servants of the house looked at him, who was spoiled by his grandfather, with bitter feelings. He was sure that they didn’t welcome the fact that he, who was supposed to have been adopted out and left the family, was now back here again as the master of the house.

Takafuyu opened the door to a room and stepped inside. This was the room that belonged to the master of the house. He stood with his back to the door for a while. There was a window facing him, and soft sunlight shined through the lace curtains. There was a large desk in front of it, a chest of drawers by the right wall, and a bookcase against the left wall. Takafuyu walked to the middle of the room and turned around. He stared at the mahogany door with an amber sheen. He felt as if he could see his brother’s body, his legs splayed out on the carpet.

He hadn’t told Suzuko this, but his brother had committed suicide. He hung himself by tying a hand towel to the handle of this door.

Takafuyu leaned against the desk and put his hands on it. Despite being filled with sunlight, the room was faintly chilling. Gloomy shadows fell here and there, trying to drag him into the darkness. The brightness that had filled him when he was with Suzuko seemed like a lie at this moment.

Suzuko wasn’t a cheerful or spirited girl, but for some strange reason, when he was with her, his melancholic feelings were blown away and he could laugh naturally.

The wind. Yes, she’s like the wind.

A fresh, pure May breeze with a breath of new green leaves. Suzuko was that kind of person.

Having to return to this mansion riddled with tired old traditions and hatred, having to feed the jourou spirit, having to marry the bride chosen by that spirit—all of those things were abhorrent to him, but he had accepted them with resignation, because he had no choice. However…

A wind was blowing. Suzuko called the things that were taken as normal in the world “distortions.” She made him realize that they weren’t normal.

The wind blew into Takafuyu’s heart and opened up his vision that had been covered by a haze. That was what it felt like.

He exhaled deeply and then brushed his bangs up. He turned his attention to the Western-style chest of drawers. It was an elegant chest with gentle curves in the Art Nouveau style. It was still filled with his brother’s personal belongings. Takafuyu hadn’t thrown away any of his things, but left them as they were.

He didn’t know why his brother had committed suicide. He simply died without leaving even a note behind. Fearing scandal, they had a doctor who had long been associated with the Hanabishi family diagnose illness as the cause of his death and reported it to the Ministry of the Imperial Household.

Takafuyu opened one of the drawers of the chest. It contained several white handkerchiefs. They were all without a single stain, which was typical of his brother, a neat and tidy man. Takafuyu picked up one of them. When he unfolded it, he saw his brother’s crest carefully stitched in the corner with black thread.

It read, “Matsuin” (pine crest)——

It can’t be possible.

Takafuyu laughed a little to dispel the doubts that welled up in his heart. There were many nobles who had the pine as their crest. It made no sense. It was impossible.

However, his brother died in the autumn of six years ago. It was six summers ago that Suzuko’s family members were slaughtered.

His thoughts alternated between “So what?” and “It couldn’t be…”

Takafuyu put the handkerchief back in the drawer and crouched down on the spot.