Chapter 95
The sixteen-year-old Saint and the twenty-two-year-old Saint didn’t differ much in appearance. The younger had simply shed her naivety, maturing into the older version. But the eyes gazing at Wakako were markedly different.
At sixteen, those eyes held expectations, occasional whims, sometimes shy, and a touch of girlish awkwardness. There was always something left unsaid, a secret she hoped Wakako would understand.
Now, at twenty-two, those same eyes were mostly cold, as though they could see through everything.
If not for the hallucination transporting her into memories from years ago, Wakako might never have realized just how much Miki had changed.
“…”
A flower branch swayed high, then fell, petals brushing against her cheek with a soft, crisp sound. The thorns on the branch were sharp, leaving a red mark on Wakako’s face, and a few drops of blood seeped from Miki’s fingertips.
“You’ve outdone yourself,” Miki said, her voice cold.
Wakako remained dazed, unable to respond.
Again and again, the flowers landed on her cheek until Miki’s wrist gave out, the branch slipping from her hand and falling to the ground, soaking in the dirty water.
Her face wasn’t swollen, but it hurt terribly.
After a long moment, Wakako finally spoke, “I only took a bit more than half. It won’t harm me.”
It was the truth. The plant, in its raw form, could only induce hallucinations for a brief period.
Wakako knew this well. She could ensure that such a brief indulgence wouldn’t affect her body, which had been trained against drugs.
But to Miki, this explanation sounded hollow.
“Spit it out,” Miki demanded.
“I’ve already swallowed it,” Wakako replied. There was nothing left to expel.
Miki slowly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she suddenly grabbed Wakako’s wrist. “What are you hoping to see in your hallucinations?”
The Saint, clever as she was, knew Wakako wasn’t one to easily succumb to addiction, neither psychologically nor physically.
For her to take it under these circumstances, there had to be another reason.
Wakako didn’t answer.
Miki stepped on the flower beneath her boot, grinding it into the dirt. Her beautiful eyes lowered, growing colder by the second. She already knew the answer.
“It was the old me,” she said. “I just heard you call my name.”
“…”
Across the street, a curious cook peered over, trying to catch a glimpse of the commotion. But the slightly taller girl blocked the view completely. Apart from the occasional flutter of a black skirt, nothing was visible.
“Yes,” Wakako finally admitted.
She saw Miki’s right hand pressed tightly against her own chest, lips parted in labored breaths, cheeks flushed with anger. It was as if a block of ice was being melted by fire; the cold, harsh frost dissolving entirely.
She looked as though she might suffocate at any moment.
Miki had never shown such an expression before.
Even when she had misunderstood Wakako’s relationship with her fiancée, even when she had met Miki in person, she had never lost composure like this.
She gripped Wakako’s wrist even tighter, her voice hoarse: “You’d rather immerse yourself in the past?”
Wakako felt her wrist bones ache under Miki’s soft yet unyielding grip, as if they might shatter.
Each word cut like a knife.
Numbly, she replied, “Yes.”
Across the street, the cook, ever eager for drama, called her friends to come watch. Wakako, naturally perceptive, noticed the growing crowd.
“Let’s go inside,” she said in a low voice. “Don’t let others see you like this.”
“I don’t care,” Miki retorted.
“But I do.”
“Is that so?” Miki whispered. “Then why couldn’t you resist wanting to see the sixteen-year-old me again?”
Wakako said nothing.
Miki closed her eyes slowly. “Answer me,” she commanded coldly.
Silence.
Miki said nothing more, simply dragging Wakako by the wrist back into the inn. She walked so quickly that Wakako feared she might trip, not daring to use any force, only following obediently.
Outside, the cook and the others, finding no more entertainment, exchanged glances and dispersed.
Upstairs, in an empty room they had rented earlier, Miki locked the door behind them and began, without any rhythm or method, to pull at Wakako’s clothes.
Wakako lay on the bed, neither resisting nor responding.
Miki roughly yanked open Wakako’s black shirt, leaving it in disarray, revealing large patches of fair skin.
The scent of cherries easily filled her nostrils.
Desire stirred in an instant.
Just as she had done during most reckless moments in the past, Miki bit Wakako’s neck hard, leaving a mark deep enough to last, though not for too long.
The faint taste of blood spread in her mouth.
She used her hands and mouth to leave marks on Wakako’s chest, covering her body with passionate rose-like imprints, as if this could somehow make them eternal.
Usually, Miki left it to Wakako to move, but this time she said nothing as she thrust her fingers inside, all the way deep.
The Saint’s movements were never truly rough, yet it still hurt. The blood Wakako had drunk years ago began to stir within her body, each touch bringing tears to her eyes from the pain.
In that moment, she thought that even if the person before her changed in appearance or voice, she would always recognize them by this particular pain.
Fingers pushed deeper and deeper.
But the next moment, Miki’s tears began to fall, one after another, wetting Wakako’s chest.
“Why do you want to drown in illusions?” she asked softly. “I’m right here.”
She struggled to control herself, but her repeated words were choked with sobs, “I’m right here in front of you…”
“Do you prefer the sixteen-year-old me?”
Over and over, she asked.
Wakako showed no extra emotion, but her face was already soaked with tears as she looked up at her. The Saint’s hair draped across her neck, tickling like the thorns of a rose, pricking her with more pain.
“Yes,” she whispered, numb to everything but that one word.
Miki’s breathing nearly stopped, her chest heaving violently as she struggled to draw air into her lungs.
“Is sixteen better than twenty-two? In what way?” she demanded.
As she asked this, she withdrew her hand and pushed it into Wakako’s mouth, as if to prevent any more hurtful words. Tears streamed down her face, almost forming a small stream.
“Do you not like who I am now…?”
For the first and only time, Wakako resisted Miki in bed. She pushed away the person on top of her and slowly sat up, knowing without looking how disheveled she must appear.
Perhaps even now, she hadn’t fully come out of the illusion. Her own voice, when it finally came, sounded like a stranger’s to her ears.
“If these leaves became widespread among the untrained, addiction would be unavoidable. I might be able to resist now, but if I’d come across them a year ago, I wouldn’t have been any different from the others.”
“If it had been back then, no matter how poisonous they were, no matter how much they harmed my body, I would have eaten them without hesitation. Do you know why?”
Wakako’s lips trembled.
Her next words came out as a near-shout.
“Because I thought you were dead! Reduced to ashes, gone forever! If someone had given me these leaves and told me I could see you again by eating them… I would have eaten them until I was crippled, until there was no life left in me. I would have kept eating them.”
Tears fell everywhere, filling her mouth with their salty, bitter taste.
“How could I not love you… I just… I just thought you should always stay sixteen.”
“You should always be the radiant, untouchable Saint of the Saionji clan, high above the rest, free from harm, free from suffering… you should’ve always lived that way…”
“It was because of my existence that you wanted to run away… that you suffered so much from divine punishment…”
“But I couldn’t help at all, I had strength but couldn’t protect you… I was as insignificant as a grain of sand…”
“I couldn’t do anything…”
In her daze, unsure if the drug’s effects had truly worn off, Wakako saw the face before her transform back into the sixteen-year-old Saint in a white robe, demurely holding a fan, smiling at her and saying softly, “It’s alright, everything will pass.”
Will it really?
She cried like a child, burying her face in the sixteen-year-old Miki’s embrace. “Can we go home? I want to go back to that small courtyard in the Saionji clan, where your favorite bamboo grove is…”
There, no one would disturb them. Just the two of them. Miki would play the koto, and she would serve her, even though she couldn’t understand the music, it still made her happy.
The sixteen-year-old Miki said, “We can.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I’ll stop being a mercenary. I’ll only be your servant.”
“Alright.”
“Then let’s leave tomorrow and live in the same courtyard as before.”
“Alright.”
“Will the bamboo grove still be there?”
“We can always plant new ones.”
Hearing that, Wakako’s tears didn’t stop, but she smiled, satisfied. Her head felt a little light as she lay in Miki’s arms, finally falling into a light sleep.
The twenty-two-year-old Miki stared vacantly at the person sleeping in her arms. Slowly, she pulled a blanket over Wakako’s body.
“But the Saionji clan is no more,” she mouthed silently.
Her cousin Ichiro, the head of the family, Kyouka-mama, Third Lady… all those familiar and unfamiliar faces had been gone for five years now.
In Mios, the law wasn’t overly harsh, except when it came to treason. The punishment for that crime was the extermination of the entire clan, leaving no one alive.
On the day the Saionji clan was punished, Miki had not yet been taken back to Eagle Kingdom. She had mixed with the crowd in Saburo’s carriage, watching with her own eyes as over a hundred family members were hanged one by one.
Saburo had always been treated coldly by the family. His hatred for them was deep, and seeing their demise made him clap with joy, his face lighting up with a smile.
Miki had thought she hated them too. Those strict teachers who constantly forced her to learn etiquette, the elders who relentlessly imposed their rules…
But in the end, she had shed countless tears, just like now.
Because, from that day forward, she no longer had a home to return to.
She was still the revered Saint to the world, but she was no longer the young lady of the Saionji clan.
Miki looked down at Wakako’s sleeping face.
“It’s just the two of us now,” she whispered. “There’s nowhere else left for us to return to.”
In the small pouch tied to Wakako’s sash, there was still less than half a leaf left. Miki’s senses were sharp, and she could easily tell where it was hidden just by the faint scent.
She suddenly felt the urge to take it herself. With her frail body, even that small amount would be enough.
But Miki only crushed it between her fingers, letting the remnants scatter on the floor.
She didn’t need to escape into illusions. All she had to do was close her eyes, and memories from the past would flood her mind, vivid and alive.
She had relived these memories thousands upon thousands of times, every word and every moment engraved deeply in her heart.
It was these memories that had kept her going, and they would continue to do so now. She had to keep moving forward, without hesitation.
And she had to bring Wakako with her.
