The farther west we went along the coastline, the higher the piles of fallen snow on the ground became, narrowing the roadway as the shoulders grew thinner and thinner. Out the right-hand window, we had a spectacular panorama of the Sea of Japan—marred only by being slightly obscured by the unwanted sight of Sera sitting in the driver’s seat. So naturally, I kept my eyes facing inland for most of the drive, and I told myself I could enjoy the view on the drive back.
That wasn’t to say I was enjoying this little excursion by any means. But I could also feel my initial revulsion at simply being around Sera waning with time. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I was growing numb to his presence.
“Hey, check it out,” he said.
I looked over and saw a signboard for the exit to Cape Kamui. We hung a right as instructed, then climbed uphill.
“Good thing it isn’t snowing right now, huh?” said Sera. “I know the forecast said the weather’s supposed to get pretty brutal this afternoon, so I was a little bit worried.”
“Why did you wanna drag me all the way out here, anyway?”
“For the gorgeous view, of course. I heard it’s best in the summertime, but it should still be pretty beautiful in the winter, I figure. Can you imagine how great it’ll feel to stand right out there on the edge, with the wind blowing through your hair?”
“I mean, yeah, that definitely sounds nice…”
Damn. Now I’m actually getting kind of excited.
We continued up the winding, mountainous road until we reached a large clearing that was apparently a parking lot—though there wasn’t a single car parked in it, and the snow was too thick to see the pavement.
As soon as we stepped out of the car, a powerful gust threw my bangs into a disheveled mess. It was much windier out here than it had been back in Otaru—and a lot colder too. Definitely below freezing. I snatched my coat from the back seat where I’d left it and threw it on.
“God, it’s freezing…” I said. “Which way do we even go?”
“Over here,” said Sera, taking the lead.
I could see what appeared to be a sloped path going up the hill behind him, which I could only assume led out to the edge of the cape. I followed obediently after him and up onto the trail. The incline wasn’t too bad, but there was so much snow on the ground that it made it very hard to walk. One false step off the side of the trail, and I’d sink down to my thighs in snow.
Keeping my gaze locked firmly on my footing as I inched along, I noticed some footprints in the snow that looked far too small to be human. Deer tracks, probably. It surprised me to think wildlife would wander all the way up here, even in the snow—but then again, I’d seen several “BEWARE OF BEARS” signs along the road. While they were probably hibernating this time of year, I had to admit that the thought of getting mauled out here with no one else around for miles was not an appealing one.
I picked up my pace a bit. The wind howled past as we made our way up the zigzagging path toward what looked like a big torii gate with some signs posted around it. When we reached the top and could finally read it, we both stopped in our tracks.
“Looks like it’s closed,” I said.
“Sure does,” said Sera.
According to the laminated warning posted on the closed-off fence portion of the gate, the area up ahead was too dangerous due to strong winds and inclement weather. Sera’s shoulders slumped in dismay; even I felt a little disappointed by this.
“Aw, man… This blows,” he said. “And after we came all the way out here too…”
“No point in crying over it,” I replied. “Might as well head back to the car.”
“Wait, I know! What if we hop the fence?!”
“If you wanna do that, that’s your prerogative. I’m not trying to slip and fall to my death out here.”
“Tch, fiiine… Guess we’ll just have to give up.”
And yet, Sera showed no signs of turning around. He stood there stock-still, staring up at the large wooden placard hanging below the top bar of the gate, where it read in big, calligraphic letters: “NO WOMEN ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT.”
I had to admit, I was curious to know the story behind this myself. Thankfully, there was a signpost with a more detailed explanation off to the side.
According to legend, there was once a woman named Charenka who was the eldest daughter of an Ainu chief, and she fell in love with the great Commander Yoshitsune of the Minamoto clan after he fled to Hokkaido after the siege of Koromogawa. But when he sailed north to Asia in pursuit of his ambitions and left her behind, her grief was so great that she threw herself from the edge of these very cliffs and took her own life. Ever since, any ships that attempted to pass Cape Kamui with women aboard capsized, with not a single survivor managing to escape Charenka’s curse… Or so the story claimed.
“Why only boats with female passengers, though, I wonder?” said Sera. “Wasn’t it a dude who abandoned her? You’d think she’d have a grudge against men, not women.”
“I mean, it’s pretty common for curses to be rooted in jealousy,” I posited. “She probably feels jealous of all those women getting to sail around on the ocean with their lovers, when hers just up and abandoned her. Makes perfect sense, if you ask me.”
It was a legend based in very raw human emotions, that was for sure. And while I didn’t buy all the stuff about curses and conspiracies, I could totally believe that there’d actually been a jilted woman who threw herself from these cliffs at one point.
“Well, if it were me,” said Sera, “I’d sink every last ship that came by for the hell of it. No gender discrimination here, folks! Heh heh…”
“Oh, shut the hell up.”
Sera gripped the fence and gazed off toward the distant cliffs at the cape’s edge. “Jealousy, huh? Yeah, I guess that’s what happens when you let yourself get too attached to one person. Shoulda played the field a little more, if you ask me.”
“It’s not that simple. People can’t just choose who they fall in love with. And Yoshitsune lived way back in the Heian period, didn’t he? No chance in hell you could get away with having multiple lovers back then…”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure it was kinda normal for nobles and aristocrats to have several women on hand at any given time. Yeah, you might only have one wife, but you could always have as many concubines as you wanted.”
“Okay, maybe—but that’s only if you were rich and powerful. It definitely wasn’t the norm for the average person.”
“Nah, even then, that was back when good ol’ ‘night crawling’ culture was still in full swing, remember? Couldn’t have been all that uncommon for ordinary men and women to sleep around and have two or three partners at once. And since everyone could get with just about anyone they pleased with no repercussions, there probably wasn’t nearly as much jealousy going around back then as there is today, if I had to guess.”
“I mean…”