Work Text:
“Ah, if it isn’t Hiromasa! I didn’t expect you until evening,” Seimei smiled and tucked a brush behind his ear while he pinned a few sheets of writing to the workboard next to him.
“Seimei! You’re home,” Hiromasa called, making his way through the overgrown blooming grasses along the garden path. “I know I’m very early, but... Seimei, are you terribly busy?”
“Not terribly.” Seimei took in the lack of official palace attire and the fiddling with the sleeve ties. So, he pushed aside the board and nudged with his foot a cushion in the direction of the veranda. “Come on then, tell me what’s happened.”
“Thank you,” Hiromasa breathed in relief and sagged down on the cushion. “It’s my mother. I think… something is not right.”
“Ah. Then we must have sake, too,” Seimei commented and an earthenware jar amicably rolled itself to his writing desk.
After a moment, Mitsumushi appeared with a tray and cups, too.
“So, what has the lady your mother done?” Seimei asked while he poured.
“She hasn’t done anything,” Hiromasa sighed and accepted a cup and a silent toast. “It’s… well… it’s all a bit delicate actually,” he said and went back to fiddling with his sleeves. “But after what I saw this morning…”
Seimei just watched him patiently and with just a hint of a ‘get on with it’ expression.
“Well, you know how my mother never remarried, right? After my father passed away. And so she lives with me.”
“Yes,” Seimei nodded. “You’ve told me that you’re both happy that she’s there to run your household for you. Has that changed?”
“No, no,” Hiromasa shook his head. “But you see, even if she hasn’t remarried, she’s also still quite young, actually. Accomplished and distinguished. And, as far as I can be any judge, not at all unattractive.”
“Ah,” Seimei smirked.
“It’s not like that,” Hiromasa huffed and took another sip of sake. “I don’t mind at all that gentlemen visit her. They always have. She has her own wing of the house, and exclusive use of one of the estate entrances, and enough common sense not to gift me with any new siblings.”
Seimei chuckled quietly.
“Besides, some of the gentlemen have been rather good to me, especially when I was younger and didn’t have many close older men to turn to. I still keep in touch with a couple of them. But some others…”
“You’ve chased down the street, sword in hand?” Seimei suggested merrily over the rim of his sake cup.
“No,” Hiromasa said primly. “Although not for lack of desire, mind you.”
Seimei stifled a laugh.
“But there hasn’t been anything like this,” Hiromasa shook out his sleeves in frustration. “At first I didn’t think anything at all of it. It was all very romantic, in fact.”
“What was?”
“Someone started serenading my mother at night. On a koto. We could tell by the playing that it was a man, and he was very good! He didn’t sound like anyone I could think of from court, but then again, some men just prefer to keep their music to their close family and friends, which is perfectly fine. Even I cannot know everyone’s playing.”
“You’re sure it was her that he was serenading?” Seimei asked diplomatically.
“Abe-no-Seimei! Be serious!” Hiromasa huffed and waved an accusatory finger. “I’m really worried over here.”
“Just clarifying,” Seimei said innocently. “We have to consider all possibilities.”
“Nobody in their right mind would serenade me. The jury’s still out on whether you can actually turn people into slugs, and nobody wants to volunteer to find out first-hand,” a puff-cheeked Hiromasa said, and then added, “Besides, the music was definitely carrying from the direction of my mother’s wing.”
“Does she have an idea who it could be, then?” a rather self-satisfied Seimei asked.
“No,” Hiromasa shook his head. “She waited for a letter to arrive, or for the gentleman to make himself known in some other way, but… there was nothing. Night after night, he just came, played for her, and left no trace of himself.”
“Perhaps he is intimidated? As you pointed out, your mother is a very accomplished woman of rather high rank.”
“But if he intends to get anywhere with her, he should at least send a message, isn’t it so? Even just a flower or an anonymous poem. My mother thought it strange that he persisted in not doing so, and, once her interest was piqued that way, she decided to take matters into her own hands.”
“Ah. Let me guess. She decided to follow the music and see if she could somehow get a glimpse of him. Alone and in the middle of the night, after sneaking away from her own ladies,” Seimei commented dryly.
“How did you know!?”
“Strong family resemblance,” Seimei sipped placidly. “Did she manage to see anything?”
“No. You see, when she followed the music, she expected it to lead to the wall, or her gate, or perhaps even to some other part of the house, in case the gentleman was a friend of mine. But instead… can you guess where it led her?”
“Her own wing?”
“Yes! More precisely, to a small outbuilding, little more than a pavilion. So she sat down in the shadow of a willow nearby and waited for the gentleman to finish playing and come out. Only… he didn’t.”
“Never?”
“After the music stopped, she waited, and waited, and eventually went to the pavilion and risked cracking open one door to try and see inside. But there was no light, not even a wick, and she saw nothing. She got scared of the darkness and quiet, and ran back to the house.”
Seimei hummed approvingly.
“At first she convinced herself she’d made a mistake, and the music had actually come from the street, since the pavilion is quite close to the estate walls. So the next night, she had a male servant stay up and go out into the street after the music started. He did so, but reported that there was nobody there.”
“Did she send him to the pavilion, too?”
“No,” Hiromasa shook his head. “But something about the whole thing kept nagging at her all day, and so she finally came to me. She asked me to come over to her wing in the evening and listen with her. I thought it a bit awkward to sit in for her serenade, but I did so anyway. And Seimei, after a while I realized why she wanted my opinion.”
“Something about the music was strange?”
“The koto, Seimei! He was playing my mother’s old koto, that’s normally stored in that outbuilding. I’m sure of it. I used to practice on that koto as a boy.”
“Is it a famous instrument? Named?”
“Not at all. It’s… ordinary. Quite old, but definitely not old enough to come to life or something. But more importantly, it turned out that he’s been serenading my mother from inside her own home, on her own old instrument all along! I was going to go and confront him right away, but she stopped me. I shouldn’t have listened to her, things only got worse after that.”
“I can’t say they sound very dire so far…” Seimei murmured into his cup.
“This morning…” Hiromasa started on his sleeve ties again, frowning. “Well. One of the ladies-in-waiting found that a gift had been left for my mother.”
“I take it, it wasn’t the expected flower and anonymous poem, then?” Seimei asked, when Hiromasa’s pause prolonged and his frown deepened.
“No. The more I think about it, the worse it becomes,” he said, eyes distant, as if seeing the ominous gift again. “It was a tray of sweet rice cakes with filling. Rather good-looking ones. But… but when she was just about to bring them to my mother, the lady saw something on the tray. Something… wriggling.”
“An insect, then.”
“It scurried from under one cake. So she picked it up, turned it over, probably saw something unusual, and decided to tear it in half.” Hiromasa stopped again, made a disgusted face, and looked back to the other. “Seimei, it was… it was full of insects. Absolutely full of them. I’d never seen anything like it.”
Seimei’s eyebrows rose in interest, and he poured more sake for Hiromasa.
“The lady was rightfully horrified. She tried another one, too, and it was the same. That’s when she came running to me, crying and asking me what to do. And Seimei, that was the last straw for me too, and so I told her not to tell my mother under any circumstances and came straight to you.”
“I see.”
“All this cannot be right, can it?” Hiromasa fretted. “I mean, music may be a wonderful and refined method for seduction, but surely, not when accompanied by breaking and entering! And those cakes, I suppose they could have just gone bad without the sender ever realizing it, but… but not that much! And why did he never show himself or send word? It’s just no good, all of it.”
“Yes,” Seimei conceded after a moment’s thought. “As far as seduction attempts go, this does lack a bit of class.”
“You’re way too generous,” Hiromasa huffed and cast a covert worried look. “It’s not some monster or demon or something equally horrific trying to seduce my mother, is it, Seimei?”
“Let’s go and find out, shall we?” Seimei smiled and polished off the rest of his sake.
“Let’s!” Hiromasa sighed with relief, and followed suit.
“Can you just tell me one thing, Hiromasa?” Seimei asked while he untucked the brush from behind his ear and started to tidy up a few work-related things before leaving.
“Of course?”
“Since you also use music for seduction, what would you do in our mystery man’s position?”
“Well…” Hiromasa considered that. “It’s different for me. Most people recognize the sound of Ha Futatsu, so I can’t stay anonymous. And I’m third rank, so in theory, I could try my luck with just about anyone I wanted. I wouldn’t need to stay anonymous even if I could.”
“You could. If you played someone else’s koto, for example.”
“Ah!” Hiromasa’s eyes widened.
“And you might want to make the effort of staying anonymous, if being turned into a, what was it, slug was something you often contemplated.”
“What did I say about being serious!” Hiromasa huffed.
“But what I meant was, what next?” Seimei said with a chuckle. “Cakes strike me as a slightly… odd choice. But then again, you always inform me how woefully lacking I am in the courtly romance department.”
“Hey! I merely pointed out that as far as come-hithers go, ‘come to my house, I have a giant smoking onryou we can exorcize together’ is not what anyone might call the stuff of timeless romance.”
“I’m impressed at how taken in with me you must have been to decide that that was a ‘come-hither’ in the first place,” Seimei smirked.
“Hey!” Hiromasa bristled and his ears went pink.
“Focus, Hiromasa, cakes.”
“I’m… not sure,” Hiromasa rubbed his pink ears in his sleeves. “If he was trying to show he can provide for her, or advertise his rank, an expensive gift wouldn’t be inappropriate. If he’s not, a simple message of some sort would be best. Sure, if the cakes meant something to my mother, or if she was known to be particularly fond of them, they would also be… an alright next step, I suppose? But they don’t, as far as I know.”
“So, odd choice,” Seimei summarized.
“Odd choice,” Hiromasa nodded.
Seimei was finally ready, and after putting Mitsumushi to work on something at his desk, he fixed his undone sleeves and got up. Hiromasa followed him eagerly, with thanks and apologies for taking him away from his work, which Seimei waved off.
The sun was high and the day was warm, so they decided to forgo the ox-cart, which would have been slower with the traffic at this time of day. While they walked to Hiromasa’s estate, thankfully situated not all that far away, he continued to fiddle absently with his sleeves and frowned a bit. Seimei just looked at him, but said nothing.
“Say, Seimei, and how did I seduce you, after all?” Hiromasa asked eventually.
“Oh?” Perfect eyebrows went up. “And who says I didn’t seduce you?”
“Hm? By making me hold a gourd full of demonic snake? Or by tossing me at an onryou, after all?” Hiromasa asked innocently.
Seimei just sent him an unimpressed ‘and yet, here you are’ pointed look.
“Alright, for argument’s sake, let’s say you may have,” Hiromasa pushed on, unwilling to give up the wonderful distraction from his mother’s case. “But for that, I must have caught your eye somehow.”
Seimei hummed noncommittally.
“Come on, Seimei. Tell me,” Hiromasa nudged his sleeve. “Something must have made you want to do that. And I doubt it was my plump, fair-skinned beauty or my flowing, evocative poetry.”
Seimei laughed, but said nothing.
And Hiromasa had a new mission.
Upon arriving at Hiromasa’s estate, a lady-in-waiting with red-rimmed eyes sprang from the veranda with the best view of the entrance and ran to meet them.
“O-Hagi! Has something happened?” Hiromasa asked her, and then hurriedly added to Seimei, “O-Hagi is the lady I told you about, the one who found the cakes.”
“No, my lord. I excused myself from my lady and stayed here, with your page's permission, so she wouldn’t see me in this state,” O-Hagi explained from behind her sleeve, bowing to them. “The lady is just leaving to visit a friend, so if you’d just wait a bit, you’ll be able to examine the pavilion without alerting her.”
“While we do that, O-Hagi,” Seimei said, “could you please find out who the servants are that take care of that pavilion? We might need to speak to them.”
O-Hagi bowed again, promising to do that, and then brought them the inauspicious tray of cakes, sans the two she had already torn open. At Seimei’s request, Hiromasa’s page was made to open another one, to the same shudder-inducing effect. The inside of the otherwise delicious-looking cake was essentially filled with insects instead of bean paste, most of them apparently alive. The page seemed on the verge of breaking into tears, and so Seimei mercifully let him go and advised him to bring the cakes to the nearest rooster owner he knew of.
Soon after that, they were ushered to the garden that belonged to the wing of Hiromasa’s mother, down a path between a couple of splendid willows, just starting to shed the first of their slender leaves, and to a small outbuilding snuggled next to the outer estate wall. Seimei gave it a once-over, and then asked Hiromasa to show him where the instrument was stored. Hiromasa just slid open the doors to the back of the pavilion, and there, on the floor, sat an old and rather innocuous koto, already tuned and ready to play.
“So, can you play it for me, please?” Seimei asked him.
“If you like,” Hiromasa nodded seriously and sat beside it, giving the bridges a careful look. “Will something happen?”
“That’s what I’d like to see.”
“I used to practice on it the melodies my grandfather taught me at the palace,” Hiromasa murmured. “I wanted to master his favorites in particular, so I ran back home and put in extra practice from memory.”
“Then let us hear one of those,” Seimei smiled.
“Wouldn’t you rather I played the melody the man did?”
“You managed to memorize it?” Seimei’s eyebrows rose.
“I think so.”
“You never cease to amaze, Hiromasa,” Seimei said and settled more comfortably to listen. “Then by all means, play that.”
Hiromasa nodded, trailing his fingers along the strings with a distant look in his eyes, and then reached out to adjust some of the bridges. Seimei, however, stopped him with a touch and a shake of the head. Hiromasa considered the setting for another moment, and then started to play. Seimei watched intently at first, but after a while, he relaxed and his eyes fluttered closed. Beautiful, he whispered almost silently, and then simply sat and enjoyed the flowing melody.
When Seimei opened his eyes, after the final notes had given way to the hushed silence of the garden pavilion, he found that Hiromasa was watching him.
“So I seduced you with my music, after all, did I?” he grinned. “Grandpa would have approved greatly.”
Seimei laughed and raised a sleeve to his face. “Your music is exquisite, but I’m afraid I have to disappoint your grandfather.”
“Come on. That must have been it. That’s the one thing I know I’m better at than other people.”
“You’ll be shocked to know that I wasn’t really holding competitive auditions for the position.”
“Then what was it?”
“Since this koto seems to be absolutely unremarkable, despite the results your staggering skills managed to produce from it, now we need to speak to the servants,” Seimei said and got up.
Hiromasa huffed, but also got up and followed him with a determined look on his face.
Right outside, under the willow where Hiromasa’s mother must have stood, there were now O-Hagi and another, more humbly dressed lady, waiting for them.
“My lord,” O-Hagi bowed and addressed Seimei, “since you said you wanted to talk to the servants who come to this building, I took the liberty of asking around informally if someone had noticed anything odd. And Tsuyu here has.”
“And what did you notice, Tsuyu?” Seimei asked.
“I’m not sure how odd it really is, my lord, and it’s really such a minor household matter, but…” Tsuyu seemed star-struck as she fiddled with her apron and threw constant looks at Seimei. “Well, I dust this place whenever the veranda boards need a shining, too, and… and last time I came here to do it, it was very dirty inside, my lord. There were a lot of dead insects on the floor, as if the building had been tightly closed and uninhabited for a very long time.”
“Oh? Was this before or after your mistress’s suitor started to serenade her?”
“After, my lord. Two or three days, maybe,” Tsuyu said, after a small consideration. “I cleaned up, of course, and I was going to put some strong incense to burn to keep the insects away, only I got called out to do other things at the main house, and I couldn’t. And so I returned the next day to do it. Only, my lord…”
“Only?”
“Well… the floor was covered in insects again!” Tsuyu twisted her apron and threw a slightly fearful look at O-Hagi. “But I swear I cleaned them all the first time!”
“It’s alright, we believe you,” Hiromasa said soothingly. “What else did you do?”
“Nothing, my lord! I just cleaned it all up again, and lit the incense and all. But it didn’t really work. It’s been like that every day since…”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about it?” Hiromasa frowned a bit.
“I… I think I complained about it…” Tsuyu was twisting her apron with some force now, and surreptitiously looking from one lord to the other, and back to O-Hagi. “But after all, it’s what I do, isn’t it? It didn’t seem like anything to get alarmed over…” She folded into a bow. “I’m sorry, my lord, I didn’t know.”
While Hiromasa reassured her that she was in no trouble at all, and asked her not to talk about it to other servants or his mother for the time being, Seimei nipped to the back room with the koto.
“O-Hagi, Tsuyu,” he said when he returned. “Is it at all possible that someone from the staff or any lady-in-waiting could have been… incentivized to bring a gentleman in here and see him out without the knowledge of the lady of the house?”
Both women shook their heads.
“All of us have been in the lady’s service for years,” O-Hagi said. “None of us would expose our mistress to such danger, even if the gentleman seemed of the best rank and character. We might convey a letter, or even a gift, but never the gentleman himself. Not without our lady’s express orders.”
“That’s very commendable,” Seimei said. “Thank you, you’ve both been very helpful. O-Hagi, please let us know if you find anything else odd.”
The women bowed and retreated to the house, and Seimei returned inside once again, looking around, up and down, and even behind screens and cabinets.
“Seimei,” Hiromasa eventually pulled his sleeve.
“Hm?”
“The music killed the insects, didn’t it?” he asked quietly. “The music that man played. Because nothing happened when I did. Look, the floor is clean.”
“That’s what I checked, too,” Seimei answered absently.
“So they died because of the music!”
“It’s a possibility, yes.”
“Seimei,” Hiromasa’s fist tightened. “My mother approached the pavilion the other night, while he was still playing. And she’s been listening to this music for days on end! What if something happened to her?”
“That’s why I keep telling this entire family to please exercise caution, at least once in a while,” Seimei sighed and caught the hand that was gripping his sleeve. “I have work at the bureau of divination now, but let’s meet here again in the evening. Talk to your mother when she returns and ask her to let us have the use of this pavilion tonight.”
Hiromasa nodded silently and squeezed back Seimei’s hand.
And so, nightfall found Hiromasa and Seimei huddled comfortably behind a screen in one corner of the room with the koto, hidden from the world by a spell. The rest of the room was encompassed in one of Seimei’s seals, made in light chalk on the clean, open floor. The koto itself stood exactly where it had been, now caught right in the middle of the pentagram, with the rest of the furniture and decorations moved away.
Hiromasa’s mother had told them that the music didn’t start at the same time every night, which had led her to believe that the gentleman had some duties that kept him occupied during the day. It did, however, always start after full darkness had fallen, she had said. And so, they waited.
Seimei looked perfectly content and ready to wait for as long as it took, but Hiromasa was fidgety and probably more bored than he wanted to appear.
The wait was dragging on, and dragging on. Eventually, Hiromasa spoke up.
“Seimei, I’ve been thinking,” he said very seriously.
“Hm?”
“And I think I figured it out.”
“You did?” Seimei’s eyebrows rose and he sat up straighter. “Let us hear it, then.”
“I think it all started with Sawara Shinnou’s onryou,” Hiromasa said and threw a look at him.
“Sawara Shinnou?” Seimei looked startled, and a shadow of concern passed over his features. “How so?”
“Well, you remember how I, uhm…” Hiromasa wiggled in his seat. “I didn’t do my best work that first time, and the onryou managed to knock me down, on your veranda.”
“Yes,” Seimei’s eyes narrowed. He was sitting up now, all attention. “But you seemed completely unharmed otherwise.”
“And I was,” Hiromasa hurried to reassure him. “But I remembered… that something else happened, too.”
“What happened?”
“When the onryou passed over me, all smoke and wind, it pulled at my clothes. There was silk flying all over the place.”
“Your… clothes?” Seimei blinked.
“And by the time I knew what was going on, I was lying sprawled on your veranda, with my hakama riding up my naked legs all the way above my knees,” Hiromasa said dramatically, and upon seeing Seimei’s face, hurried to finish with, “and I think that’s how I seduced you. You just couldn’t resist the sight.”
The look on Seimei’s face could have killed a lesser creature on the spot. Hiromasa made a valiant effort not to burst out laughing, and mostly failed.
“Oh, or am I wrong?” he asked innocently. “Then maybe you can correct me?”
After a moment, Seimei’s face relaxed into something less calamitous, and he sighed in resignation.
“Alright,” he said mildly. “I suppose I can do that.”
“Really!?”
The very tip of Seimei’s tongue licked his red lips and his hand gently landed on Hiromasa’s as he slid over to whisper in his ear. Hiromasa gulped when Seimei leaned in close, nose almost touching Hiromasa’s cheek, breath gliding on his skin. Seimei paused there for a moment, as if considering his words, and his other hand languidly, but firmly trailed down Hiromasa’s entire spine. He gently shivered.
“The truth is…” Seimei purred in his ear, “during that particular incident, I wasn’t the one getting seduced, and you know it.”
Hiromasa blushed violently and made a choked little sound that said more than any admission. Seimei settled back into his old spot and beamed at him.
“So now that that little misapprehension has been corrected, maybe you can sit still and concentrate on the case at hand? I thought you were worried about this gentleman’s intentions.”
“Well, you’re here now,” Hiromasa mumbled. “You’ll sort him out.”
“Will I?” Seimei asked brightly. “I’m the last person to judge semi-supernatural beings for falling in love with members of your family, you know.”
Pling
Whatever the scandalized Hiromasa had been about to say was immediately forgotten at the first sound of a koto string being gently touched on the other side of their screen. Both men immediately went still and silent. A few more disjointed notes carried through the darkness of the pavilion, as if someone was tuning the instrument, or deciding what to play.
“Where did he come from?” Hiromasa whispered, even though he knew that thanks to the spell, the man couldn’t possibly hear them.
“Let us listen for a bit,” Seimei said. “Does the music mean anything to you?”
“No, but…” Hiromasa trailed off as the first notes of a melody resounded in the night, gentle like late summer raindrops, soft like a lover’s touch.
“But?” Seimei urged him, after a while.
“He really is very good. Up close even more so,” Hiromasa said admiringly and with a touch of wonder. Then, his eyes moved to Seimei’s. “Just listen to this. Could something evil really play like this?”
“I’ve found that when it comes to music, you are more qualified than me to judge,” Seimei murmured and made to slide over to the edge of the screen, to take a look.
Just then, however, a low, sad voice made him pause. What started as a long-drawn moan resolved itself into the first words of a poem:
If not for the tears
my loved one makes me shed,
this fine Chinese robe would be
singed round the breast
with the colors of passion [1]
Seimei’s eyebrows rose at that, and Hiromasa made a face and seemed to shrink in on himself.
“Has your mother spurned someone lately?” Seimei asked him.
“Neither do I know, nor do I wish to,” Hiromasa winced. “He’s in your trap now, isn’t he? Can’t you just catch him? Must we listen to this?”
“Oh? Now you have qualms about amorous men inflicting their poetry on others?”
“That’s my mother he’s so eager to toss off his ‘fine Chinese robe’ for, you know,” Hiromasa grumbled. “What are you waiting for?”
“To see what happens to the insects. Besides, reciting sad poems while playing the koto isn’t exactly a hanging offense,” Seimei said, and added under his breath, “for better or worse.”
Hiromasa huffed, but settled down beside Seimei. After some more music, the first poem was followed by another, equally sad and horny, about someone who wouldn’t admit their lover into their house. Hiromasa wriggled in his place and looked hopefully around, presumably for any dead insects. But there weren’t any, and so he tried again to urge Seimei to do something. He didn’t budge. Hiromasa huffed again, slid over to the edge of the screen, and risked a peek at the man instead.
He was mostly just an outline against the garden of his mother’s wing, brightly lit by the clear moon. In the darkness of the pavilion it was hard to tell even if his robe was really Chinese, let alone if it was fine; but it was black, and gave away nothing about his rank. Hiromasa’s eyes, which had been first drawn to his fingers on the koto strings, traveled up, and so did his eyebrows.
“He’s… very hairy,” he said with a frown when the next sad poem started and he withdrew behind the screen again. “Really hairy.”
“Is he?” Seimei commented dryly. “Some people find that to be very manly and therefore attractive.”
“Do you?” Hiromasa almost jumped in his place, and then pulled his hakama primly down over his squeaky smooth calves.
Seimei gave him an innocent look and didn’t answer. On the other side of the screen, the poem went into frankly scandalous depictions of flower-picking and various types of white dew. Hiromasa rubbed his face in his sleeves and growled quietly, pressing them over his ears in vain. Seimei was looking amused. The insects obstinately refused to fall dead on the floor.
“Ah, my Lady of the Strings…” the man sighed sadly after the poem, as he plucked the strings of her koto in a heart-rendingly beautiful tune. “You must have forgotten, then, our tryst on that blessed day in Kiyomizu-dera…”[2]
“Tryst in Kiyomizu-dera?” Hiromasa’s eyes widened and he removed his sleeves from his ears.
Seimei gave him a questioning look, but he only pursed his lips and said nothing.
“Ah,” the man lamented again, “what happiness it was to crawl through your silks all afternoon, what happiness to be held in your gentle hands…”
Hiromasa jumped to his feet, shoved the screen aside and drew his sword before the startled Seimei could make a grab to stop him. The melody broke off.
“How dare you!” he shouted at the equally startled man and advanced threateningly. “Who even are you? Name yourself!”
The man didn’t answer, he just crouched defensively over the koto, and watched the arc of the still lowered blade, glinting in the moonlight.
“Hiromasa, step back,” Seimei said behind him, also coming out from behind the screen. “Do not step on the chalk.”
“I said, explain yourself!” Hiromasa ordered the man again and took another step.
The man lunged forward, with shocking speed for his stocky, almost plump build. Hiromasa lifted his sword, ready to meet him, eyes darting to seek the first glint of any concealed weapon.
And then, the man leaped aside, bypassing Hiromasa entirely.
The man was lunging at Seimei.
Hiromasa shouted in shock and turned around so quickly that his feet got tangled in the hem of his cloak and he staggered, staining it all with chalk.
“Seimei!!”
The man threw himself on the onmyouji with such force that he toppled both of them, right into the collection of screens and standing curtains that had been tucked away into the corner to clear space for the now broken pentagram. Things crashed and crunched when the screens and the two men fell over whatever had been stored at the back of the pavilion room. The man didn’t even seem to care that there was someone with a sword behind his back, and just fought to get a good grip on Seimei’s neck.
“Don’t you dare,” Hiromasa shouted as he threw the sword and grabbed the man by the collar and pried him from the struggling Seimei.
Torches came on in the darkness outside, their clear light almost blinding after the long darkness of the wait in the pavilion. The male servants of the household, alerted by the crashes and shouts, ran over to help.
The man shuddered violently at the light and noise, shook off Hiromasa as if he weighed nothing, and dashed away into the deepest darkness.
“After him! Go after him!” Hiromasa shouted to the servants, while he himself scurried over to where Seimei still lay on his back on the toppled screens.
“I’m fine,” Seimei breathed when Hiromasa grabbed his shoulders. “Just… a moment, please.”
“Seimei,” Hiromasa panted and leaned down to hold him tighter.
He pressed his forehead into his shoulder, and tried to catch his breath. Seimei patted him on the back, and after a few more moments, pushed him up gently. Hiromasa helped him sit up, and then looked around for his sword.
“What is it about my barriers that makes it impossible for you not to break them?” Seimei sighed with fond exasperation and daintily picked up the hem of Hiromasa’s robe, now generously stained with chalk.
“I’m sorry, Seimei,” a flush-faced Hiromasa stammered. “But you heard what he was saying about my mother!”
“What happened there, exactly? Didn’t you say you were fine with her gentlemen callers?”
“And I am! But I’m not fine with any ‘crawling through her silks’ in broad daylight and in Kiyomizu-dera, for heaven’s sake! What was she even thinking!?” Hiromasa’s sleeves flapped like the wings of a very ruffled stork as he rose back to his feet. “In fact, let’s go and ask her just this, right now!”
He turned on his heels and made to stomp out, but Seimei, still sitting on the screens, had not let go of his robe hem, and held him back.
“Before you do that, it may be prudent to remember how we spent our time at Oo-i-kuninushi-jinja.”[3]
“That was different,” Hiromasa protested, but Seimei didn’t let go of his hem.
“And during that visit to Mt. Hiei.”[4]
Hiromasa made a choked sound and gave a half-hearted tug at his robe.
“And in that small garden in Sai-ji.”[5]
Hiromasa’s ears went pink.
“And that sutra storage in-”
“Alright, you’ve made your point,” Hiromasa huffed and plopped back down next to Seimei, arms crossed. “But we still have to ask her if any of this rings any bells.”
“We do,” Seimei finally let go of the hem and added softly, “but please understand that the last thing I want is for my involvement in this to lead to discord in your family, even if indirectly.”
After a moment, Hiromasa’s shoulders finally relaxed.
“I know, Seimei,” he said, and gave him a smile. But then he looked away, fingers playing with the ties of his sleeves.
Seimei smiled back and let the silence prolong. But Hiromasa said nothing more, and so, Seimei stood up and offered him a hand. Hiromasa took it, and with that, the matter was closed for the night.
O-Hagi sobbed uncontrollably, held upright mostly by Hiromasa’s disheveled and wide-eyed page, and tried to stifle the noise in her sleeve. But in the pre-dawn hush of the sleeping estate, their footsteps and the sobs carried well, and by the time the door to Hiromasa’s bedroom was quietly slid aside, Seimei was already awake. He had already risen to one elbow, his other hand protectively going to Hiromasa’s back, and gave the servants a questioning look. Their faces apparently told him everything he needed to know, and so he silently got up.
The half-dressed Hiromasa gingerly made his way to his mother’s curtained sleeping dais, where she was beginning to stir. The servants had done their best to clean a path to it quietly, but he really, really needed to get to her before she woke up.
“Mother,” he called when he saw her rise on one elbow, and took the rest of the way in one hop. She startled to see him there and sat up.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t be alarmed,” he said and got inside the curtains.
“Son? What’s happening?” she murmured, confused, huddling in the robes she’d been sleeping under.
“Nothing, nothing, I’ll just… I’ll just help you out, just please don’t scream?” Hiromasa said, and winced at the way her eyes widened in alarm.
He managed to put his arms around her just as she reached out and lifted the curtain. To her credit, she didn’t scream, but she inhaled loudly and her fingers dug in a death-grip on Hiromasa’s forearm.
“Mother, it’s alright, look at me,” Hiromasa said and tightened his hold. “I’m here, I’ll just help you out now, the rest of the house is fine. Your ladies are fine, too.”
He helped her up and the two of them stepped back out onto the strip of relatively clean floor where only the occasional alive insect still scurried underfoot. The lady needed to take a moment when the sight of all the rest of the floor was revealed to her wide eyes.
The floor was covered in dead insects - everything from tiny mayflies and mosquitoes to large horned beetles and venomous centipedes. Here and there, a few large worms and small mice and frogs writhed and twitched. And by the veranda doors, Seimei was just handing out to a horrified servant a baby songbird, still squeaking.
He was handing it out through an uneven mesh of strings and ropes with which the whole room had apparently been entwined from the outside. Here and there, the ladies’ sewing needles and even scraps of sewing hung from the strings. Hiromasa’s mother shakily lifted her eyes to the ceiling, which was mercifully untouched, and then kept them firmly on the tear-washed O-Hagi waiting for her near the door.
“If this is how it is, let us resolve things today, shall we?” Seimei said cheerfully and came over once the ladies-in-waiting had hurriedly tossed on some more presentable clothes over their shaken mistress.
“How?” Hiromasa asked grimly. “Do you know what happened here? And why?”
“I’m guessing that things escalated because of me. For which I feel I should probably offer my apologies, my lady,” Seimei addressed the lady of the house, politely averting his eyes from her face.
“Was this really done by the same man who played so beautifully last night?” she asked weakly, looking between the onmyouji and her son. “How is that possible? And why should he turn to hate me so?”
“He doesn’t hate you, my lady,” Seimei said reassuringly. “Let us take the koto and escort you to my humble home, and you’ll be able to see for yourself.”
“To your home?” the lady’s eyes widened. “But why?”
Seimei just smiled politely and offered no other comment. Hiromasa, who was a lot more used to not asking questions when Seimei was at work, held his mother again and took it on himself to reassure the ladies and organize the visit.
Seimei, in the meantime, pulled up his sleeves and directed the cleanup, while setting up a purification rite for the room.
Upon returning from the bureau of divination towards evening, Seimei stopped in front of his gates and carefully regarded the pleasing flower beds now merrily surrounding them, as well as the aesthetic single stem of morning glories climbing up the doorframe. An eyebrow was raised.
He ventured closer and slid a finger down the polished, clean wood of the doors, all the way to the fresh paint of the twin pentagrams, and then pressed gingerly. The door glided open without so much as a creak. With a carefully blank face, he stepped over the threshold and onto smooth stone in the middle of a completely non-overgrown garden path.
His eyes quickly darted towards the tufts and rows of various herbs and medicinal plants growing on both sides, and stifled a gentle sigh of relief. He tucked his hands in his sleeves and spent a few moments studying the bright new ribbons and furnishings of his various house screens and blinds, and pursed his lips only slightly at the sight of the amount of laundry gently undulating in the breeze in his back garden. The smell of cooking food and the sounds of ladies chattering, laughing and playing instruments carried, mercifully, from the direction of what was technically the women’s wing.
“Seimei!” Hiromasa’s voice carried over the din and he cropped up on the veranda. “Welcome back!”
“I hope I’m not imposing,” Seimei murmured under his breath, and Hiromasa’s ears went pink.
“I’m so sorry, I tried to make them take it easy, but they just…” he made a helpless gesture at the state of the estate. “But I managed to keep them away from your office and all, I swear!”
“I suppose this is what I get for not resolving this little problem quickly enough,” Seimei sighed and his shoulders relaxed somewhat. “Can I at least hope for some of that freshly cooked dinner?”
An apologetic Hiromasa showed him to their usual spot on the veranda in front of the office, where Mitsumushi and O-Hagi soon brought two perfectly charming trays of food and withdrew. The din of the wing now overtaken by Hiromasa’s mother and her ladies was mostly muted there, and Seimei soon relaxed completely.
Hiromasa, however, was fidgety and untalkative. It was only when a shikigami had silently brought in the sake and cups, and they had toasted each other once, that he spoke up.
“I’m sorry, Seimei…” Hiromasa addressed his cup.
“Hm? What for?”
“Well… this,” Hiromasa said and vaguely waved his sleeve at the rest of the house. “It’s all actually my fault, isn't it? What happened this morning, too. If I hadn’t scared the man away last night, none of all this would have happened.”
“No, it is not your fault,” Seimei said pointedly. “It’s the fault of our mystery gentleman.”
“But…”
“Besides, I told you that it’s me that he took objection to, didn’t I? Which is why I’m taking this fastest route to solving the issue.” He also gestured at the rest of the house.
“Did you really mean that?” Hiromasa frowned. “Do you know him, then?”
“Not at all.”
“Then why would he object to you? Why not me?”
“Because you are your mother’s son.”
Hiromasa pursed his lips and gulped the rest of his sake. Seimei leaned in to pour more.
“I asked her about it today,” Hiromasa said eventually, eyes downcast. “She says she doesn’t recall ever meeting anyone like the man I described.”
“But… you doubt her word?”
“Not really. Just… Kiyomizu-dera is…” Hiromasa started, paused, turned the sake cup in his hands. “It’s where my father is commemorated. That’s why I snapped like that when he said… all that.”
“Ah…” Seimei said quietly.
“She sometimes goes there, on a day trip, and plays for his spirit. Usually around the anniversary of his passing, and around the festival of the returning spirits. Apparently, he loved her koto playing, even though I don’t remember it myself.”
“That’s very touching.”
“I thought so, too,” Hiromasa said and paused again, and drank some sake. “I’ve never once said a word about anyone she meets. But the idea that her trip to Kiyomizu-dera of all places could have been only an excuse to have it off with some random man just…”
“Well…” Seimei said and pushed the tray of small sweets towards him, “isn’t that all the more reason to think that there’s more to that story than what we heard?”
“But if what he says isn’t what happened, then what did happen?”
“We’ll know tonight,” Seimei smiled.
Hiromasa looked at that smile for a long moment, and then popped a sweet in his mouth and relaxed back against his pillar.
“Alright.”
“And speaking of tonight, we’ll need to have the lady come here, to this wing, with the koto and without her ladies.”
Hiromasa made a face.
“I’m afraid I have to insist on this one. You will be with her, of course, but nobody else must come.”
“Her suitor won’t like that. Not to mention O-Hagi.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Seimei smiled his fox-like smile. “Please, see to it that her ladies make the minimum of fuss.”
“Are you really certain that he doesn’t hate her?” Hiromasa said after a sip. “I cannot imagine for what other reason anyone would do that.”
“He and the lady are… from different worlds,” Seimei said diplomatically. “Some things tend to get lost in translation.”
Hiromasa huffed in affront and polished off his sake.
“Don’t you dare defend him,” he said with a glare. “I know you think that sending someone a perfectly simple love poem on an appropriately-colored paper and tied with an appropriately-seasonal flower is more complicated than the sixty sacred scrolls, but it’s really not. Why couldn’t he do that instead!”
“I do not think anything of the sort,” Seimei said in affront. “The sixty sacred scrolls are not complicated, just long-winded and mostly boring.”
Hiromasa glared harder.
“Alright,” he said eventually, and looked out into the twilight garden. “If, if he can prove that his feelings for my mother are genuine and he means her no harm, I will accept his suit.”
“You will?” Seimei hid a smirk in his sake cup. “Isn’t there someone else who should accept or decline it?”
“She was ready to accept, if only he’d stuck to pretty music and horny poems, like normal suitors do,” Hiromasa said with a pointed look at Seimei, and then shrugged and looked away again, cheeks coloring slightly. “And why shouldn’t she? He’s not anything much to look at, but if someone like you could settle for me, then she can probably settle for that man too, hairiness and all.”
Seimei promptly stifled a choking cough into his sleeve and pinned the blushing Hiromasa with a wide, horrified look above it.
Then, his eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Is this another brilliant ploy to get me to tell you how you allegedly seduced me?”
“Maybe,” Hiromasa’s eyes darted to him and back to the garden, before his grin finally broke through.
“Well,” Seimei said and casually pushed the tray of sake aside. “I’ll grant you that, it wasn’t your looks that did it for me.”
“Then what?”
“I’m so glad you asked.”
In the next moment, a hatless, wide-eyed Hiromasa found himself sprawled on his back below Seimei.
“Let me demonstrate exactly what does it for me, since you seem to have forgotten,” Seimei purred, and proceeded with the demonstration with great vigor and enthusiasm.
The sounds of scraping against whitewashed brick were faint, but persistent, filling the lull between notes, muted by the pluck of strings, waxing and waning from one minute to the next. Beyond the intimate circle of low brazier light, a breeze filled the night with the susurrus of tree branches and strange grasses, and ragged clouds dragged in front of the moon, plunging everything in almost complete darkness. The incessant scraping and quiet, keening moans, seemed to come from all sides at once, or from nowhere at all. And yet, the lady’s trembling fingers continued to tease and caress the strings, weaving a melody that spoke of love and desire.
Seimei looked at the hands dancing over the old koto - just like Hiromasa’s, they were the hands of a musician, but smaller and more delicate. He took another sip of sake and seemed completely deaf to the way the breathless groans became more eerie the more the music swelled and worked towards its climax. One elegant white finger trailed along the mats right along the hem of her attractive selection of layers, never really touching it. With a look over her bowed head towards the half-shadowed corner of the veranda, Seimei slid closer to her, and the hems of his sleeves inadvertently covered hers. He opened his fan and leaned in slightly.
“In the interest of speeding things up,” Seimei said placidly behind the fan, to the background of increasingly frantic scraping, “may I be permitted to take your hand, my lady?”
The lady gave him a look, but soon wound down her melody, and sat up. Then, she gracefully extended a hand. Seimei took it with his free one, and sipped some sake with the other, completely unperturbed by the outburst of sobbing in the night. In the silence following the music, it was now clear that it came from beyond his garden wall, right beside the ancient paulownia tree that leaned against it.
“I think you can go now, Hiromasa,” Seimei said.
Hiromasa, huddled against the darkened corner pillar of the veranda, gave a dirty look to where Seimei’s hand was joined with his mother’s.
“By which I mean,” Seimei stressed, “go outside and talk to our mystery man. Don’t worry, you’re in no danger from him, and I don’t think he’s in any state to run today.”
Hiromasa pursed his lips, but nodded and slid silently off the veranda and into the wild garden, sword in hand. His soft shoes made no noise as he made his way to the main gate, the one closest to the paulownia, and the newly mended doors let him out just as discreetly. The moon peeked from behind a cloud, probably also curious to see the proceedings, and in its uncertain light, Hiromasa rounded the corner and looked for the stocky shape that had to be there, in the side-alley…
A tuft of the bush clover growing by the wall, below the overreaching branches of the paulownia, resolved itself into a huddled shape. Another few steps showed that it was the man they had seen the previous night, dressed in the same dark robe. Hiromasa adjusted his grip on the sword and gave it a look, but then lowered it when he heard the pitiful choked sobs that the stranger was apparently trying to stifle in his sleeves. He was curled against the wall, among the grasses, with his forehead pressed to the crumbling mortar. His nails scraped uselessly against it, Seimei’s magic ensuring that no man or monster could get in without an invitation.
“My Lady of the Strings…” the man sobbed, his voice made hoarse and frayed by weeping. “I wanted you so much… why did you have to choose another…”
Hiromasa’s shoulders fell and he looked down at the man who seemed so deep in his grief that he didn’t even notice him. He adjusted his grip on the sword again, worried his lip, and made no move.
“What does that little man have that I don’t…” the man lamented.
“Common sense, to begin with,” Hiromasa grumbled under his breath, singed on Seimei’s behalf.
Then, he gave an exasperated sigh, tucked his sword in his belt, and approached the man, making sure the grasses rustled at his approach. The man startled only a little, and simply sent Hiromasa a tear-filled look, remaining miserably huddled against the wall. Hiromasa sighed again and knelt next to him.
“Why did you follow the lady here?” he asked without preamble.
“What else was I to do? I could not believe that she would choose another…” the man said and his rather hairy fingers scraped convulsively on the wall again.
“You love her, then?”
“So much,” the man burst out in sobs. “I’ve never met anyone more perfect. Ah, I should have never hoped that someone like that would ever choose me…”
Hiromasa swallowed, his eyes darting to the wall, beyond which was the old paulownia and then - the veranda where Seimei and he always sat, in their own little private world.
“I see,” Hiromasa said quietly, and then added. “Yes. That is a painful feeling, I know.”
The man just sobbed again, and after a moment, Hiromasa reached out a hand and patted his shoulder consolingly.
“I hope they will have many big and strong sons, just like you,” the man choked.
Hiromasa snatched his hand back and did his best to stifle his disgusted and confused wince.
“Thank you… I suppose,” he managed. “But surely, you’re getting ahead of things now.”
“I am not!” the man protested. “I would have gladly died for her love, and I expect nothing less from my happy rival! What good is he, if he cannot do at least that for her!”
Hiromasa rubbed his face in his sleeves in a frustrated gesture and sent a longing glance to his sword. Then, he took another look at the pitiful sight, and huffed.
“Alright, my lord, why don’t you just… come in with me, and we all talk, like adults?”
“What else is there to say? I already said all I could.”
“Did you? Really?”
“Yes. Every night. Through my music.”
Hiromasa pulled at the ties of his sleeves, shuffled, looked carefully at the man. One hand went to his sash, as if all by itself, where Ha Futatsu was safely nestled.
“You know, I also have been playing for someone I love, for a long time now. Most people don’t really… hear what I’m trying to convey when I play. I could put all of my secrets out there, in front of everyone, and they wouldn’t understand.”
“The Lady of the Strings is not ‘most people,’” the man sniffled.
“Neither is the one I play for. I always know he hears me. And he always did, right from the first time. Unmistakably and unfailingly.”
The man looked at him in tear-washed silence.
“But… it takes more than that. Some things, you just have to dress in words and deliver to the one you want to reach.” Hiromasa placed a tentative hand on the man’s shoulder again. “You have to talk to them. Even if just to hear the lady decline your suit herself. Come inside.”
After a long pause, the man nodded sadly, and then obediently followed Hiromasa.
The man looked very uncomfortable, twitching in his seat on a cushion facing Seimei and glaring at him. Seimei just took a sip from a crystal cup and smiled placidly. In the light of the brazier, it became apparent that the mystery man had large, luminous eyes, a black robe that was both fine and Chinese, and restless, hairy fingers that seemed to itch to touch the koto in front of Hiromasa’s mother. She had declined the offer of a screen, and sat a little way aside from the three men, with only a fan spread open in front of her face. Her eyes studied him carefully, but she remained silent.
“Could you tell us how you met the Lady of the Strings?” Seimei asked.
The man threw him a dirty look under bushy eyebrows, fidgeted again in his seat, and looked away.
“We met in Kiyomizu-dera, about a month ago, around the time of the festival of the returning spirits,” he said eventually. “So it happened that the fortunate winds carried me that day to the veranda of the temple. The strings were there, and I approached. I thought them abandoned at first, but then… the lady returned, and I scurried away, afraid of startling her.”
“As a gentleman should,” Hiromasa conceded.
“She started to pluck at the strings, and then to play in earnest,” the man went on, his eyes on his own stapled fingers. “From the song of her strings, I learned that there was no gentleman in her life now. The last one was already dead.”
Hiromasa’s hand landed on his sword.
“And I thought to myself, as I listened, what a blessed man he must have been. What happiness he must have known in his life, even if it was short, and what joy to have died in this lady’s beautiful hands…” the man sighed profoundly.
Hiromasa had a complicated look on his face at that, and his mother hid hers behind her fan, and even brought her sleeve up to her face.
“And what did you do, when you learned that?” Seimei asked, unperturbed.
“I approached the lady, at first from afar, and then closer, but she didn’t seem to notice me. Her silks trailed invitingly just within my reach, and so I gathered my courage and… well.”
Hiromasa gripped his sword in earnest this time and glared daggers at him. His mother peeked over the fan and the sleeve and shook her head, wide-eyed.
“I spent the entire blessed afternoon nestled on the lady’s thighs,” the man went on, and Seimei had to grab Hiromasa’s sleeve and pull him back down in his seat. “And towards evening, she took me in front of the statue of the thousand-armed lady Kannon of Kiyomizu-dera, and we prayed together. That’s where she parted from me. But I…” the man sighed again, tears coming on in his eyes. “I couldn’t be parted from her. So I stayed in front of lady Kannon, and prayed to her, and prayed, and begged her to give me another chance to express my feelings to the Lady of the Strings.”
“Ah,” Seimei said softly. “So that’s what it was.”
“And is that how you express them!?” Hiromasa’s sleeves flapped in indignation. “By scaring her and her entire household half to death!?”
The man just hid his face in his sleeves and sobbed.
“I do not remember any of this…” Hiromasa’s mother murmured behind her fan. “You must be mistaken. It must have been another lady you met there. While it is true that I went to Kiyomizu-dera at that time, I do not remember ever meeting you, much less…” she coughed politely.
“I know that now, my lady,” the man said, daring to look directly at her for the first time. “I know now how little our meeting meant to you. I know my humble gifts and music were not enough to move your heart to me. But please understand that I… I couldn’t… let you go without at least trying to convey my desire.”
The lady seemed touched, if also quite confused, and faltered for a moment. But then, she folded down her fan and looked straight at him. Her expression was firm, but held kindness.
“I am dismayed and flattered that my humble person should have stirred such passion and deep feelings,” she said. “But I cannot return them, my lord. Please, abandon your pursuit of me.”
“Yes, my lady,” the man broke down into bitter sobs once again, and curled in on himself, hiding his face in his sleeves. “Even though I know that I will never find another to move my heart like you have done, I shall do what you ask.”
Hiromasa rolled his eyes with a lot of feeling at this display, and then gave a silent little sigh of relief and let his shoulders relax. His mother seemed to share in his relief at the man’s promise, and raised her fan once again.
So their eyes darted with great surprise when Seimei got up and approached the man with a warm, sympathetic smile.
“There-there, my friend, don’t say that,” he said and reached out a hand, as if to pat the man’s back. “I’m sure there’s a perfect lady waiting for you, just around the corner.”
“Never!!” the man proclaimed.
And Seimei slapped the charm on his back.
Hiromasa and his mother gasped loudly as he vanished into thin air, but Seimei took the now empty crystal cup he’d been drinking from and flopped it on the cushion.
“My lady,” he said happily. “Maybe now you will recognize your ardent suitor?”
And he held up the crystal cup, sealed tightly by the charm, and inside it…
…was a hairy black spider.
“Ah!!” Hiromasa’s mother gasped.
“Oh, so he literally crawled through her silks,” Hiromasa mumbled, with wide eyes and not without some goosebumps at the sight of the miserably curled spider.
“I… I found it on my lap when I was getting ready to leave that day, and carried it to lady Kannon’s altar. I… I really did pray, and then leave it there,” the lady said in hushed awe, equally wide-eyed.
“So you see, my lady, he did not hate you,” Seimei explained. “But he behaved in accordance with his nature and his own understanding of the world. He pulled at your koto’s strings because some male spiders pull at the strings of the web of their intended, to attract her attention. And insects, dead or alive, are indeed a very appropriate and splendid gift, for a spider.” He smiled and added, “and so is trying to stake his claim, when what he thought was a rival appeared at your house and was allowed in. That’s why he attacked me, and then tried to protect your bedroom from my perceived amorous intentions.”
“A spider! All this for a spider! I would step on him personally, if he had hurt you last night at the pavilion,” Hiromasa grumbled.
“You are not going to step on him!” Hiromasa’s mother exclaimed, affronted, and then looked at Seimei. “In fact, what will become of him?”
“We cannot stand in the way of a passion that lady Kannon herself has smiled upon,” Seimei said cheerfully. “But we can perhaps gently redirect it. Come with me.”
He got up, the cupped spider in hand, and hopped out into the garden. A shikigami with a lantern appeared from behind the corner and illuminated the path for them. It was only a short walk to a rather overgrown corner of the nighttime garden, and Seimei stopped in front of a large bush clover. There, he removed the charm from the cup and deposited none-too-gently the spider right next to a large, thick web faintly glittering in the lantern light.
“And now?” Hiromasa asked, looking at the immobile spider, still curled into a hairy little ball of misery.
“And now we hope that he has not only the seduction methods of a great nobleman, but also the fickleness of one. Present company excluded,” he tacked on with a twinkling look at Hiromasa.
“Huh?”
“Ah!” Hiromasa’s mother exclaimed and pointed at the spider.
It had extended a leg and was plucking at a web string, trying to get the attention of the large female spider presumably somewhere in it.
“There you go, his broken heart has been cured. The rest is up to him,” Seimei turned around and stepped back towards the house. “Let’s also hope that he’s a fast runner,” he smirked a tad gleefully.
“How easily he has replaced me, after all those grand words!” the lady huffed in affront, and also turned on her heel and followed him with an indignantly raised chin.
Only Hiromasa lingered behind, looking in wonder at the large web and the enthusiastic little spider plucking at its strings. Then, he too turned around and hurried after the disappearing light of the shikigami’s lantern.
And so, Seimei and Hiromasa sat in their spot on the veranda, finishing the last of the sake after Hiromasa’s mother had retired to her wing for the night. The moon shone brighter than the dying embers of the brazier, and the chill of the night was just starting to set in.
“You’re still very quiet,” Seimei said.
“Just… still thinking about the spider, and how such things can happen,” Hiromasa murmured.
“There really is no telling how these things happen,” Seimei nodded. “Sometimes there’s a rhyme and reason, sometimes not.”
“Yes, you’re very right,” Hiromasa looked up at him and agreed whole-heartedly. “There’s really no telling what small acts of kindness can steal someone’s heart, is there?”
“What I meant was, there’s no telling where you can run into a monster spider, but yes, that too,” Seimei laughed, and then became serious. “That is very true,” he murmured into his cup, and looked up at the bright, curious moon.
“Seimei!” Hiromasa sat up straighter and put down his own empty cup. “Is that how I did it? How I seduced you? What did I do?”
“You were yourself, Hiromasa, and a very good man,” Seimei smiled fondly.
“And what was I doing when you realized that?” Hiromasa leaned in, wide-eyed.
Seimei looked towards him, to his cup, to the garden.
Hiromasa waited.
“You beamed with such pure joy that I had not killed Mitsumushi, after all.”
“But that was…” Hiromasa blinked. “That was barely a few minutes after we met! Like, properly met, right here, where I’m sitting now!”
“It happens when it happens, Hiromasa,” Seimei said and rose to his feet. “Are you coming to bed now?”
Hiromasa looked up at him in wonder, eyes wide and very bright in the moonlit night. Seimei reached out a hand in invitation and waited for him.
“Yes!!” Hiromasa exclaimed, grabbed the offered hand and followed him inside.
Seimei smiled.