“MISS...”
“Silence,” Satsuki snapped. She searched his mind with his head sandwiched between her hands and her forehead pressed against his.
The corners of Shindo’s eyes twitched. The inside of his head throbbed with terrible spasms of pain accompanied by ringing in his ears. Along with the pain, fear and anxiety filled his heart.
Oh, God! Please tell me she isn’t...
“Miss...”
“Be quiet!” Satsuki commanded as she tried to delve through Shindo’s memories. Realizing what she was doing, Shindo tried to stop her, but Satsuki quickly issued orders that defeated his efforts.
“Tell...me...” with each word she uttered, a waft of Satsuki’s warm breath embraced Shindo. Her face was so close, he could feel the warmth emanating from it. Their foreheads were pressed together. The texture and warmth of Satsuki’s soft hands pressed against his cheeks helped him forget the unpleasant sensation of her searching his mind.
This isn’t good! I can’t let her find out. That incident was... Shindo tried to pull away from Satsuki, but his body wouldn’t so much as budge. It wasn’t as though Satsuki’s orders kept him from moving. He was actively trying to move, but it was as if the surrounding air held him bound, forbidding the slightest movement.
Miss...? Shindo stared in shock at Satsuki’s face held terribly close to his own. His gaze was fixed on her closed eyes. Are you preventing me from moving...?
It wasn’t as though Satsuki was applying much pressure with her hands. Nevertheless, he had no doubt in his mind she was the one robbing him of the ability to move. She was relying on her powers to bind him...
“Miss...” Shindo gasped. His mind felt as though pins and needles were prickling at it. Was someone searching through memories—through the mind—supposed to be this unpleasant? Even with Satsuki working to make it more bearable, it was still an indescribably strange sensation.
That sensation brought back a certain memory for Shindo. A memory from long, long ago. That happened...when the Miss was four, and I was sixteen.
“Stay with me...forever...”
The flashback played in his mind! Fragments of the memory rolled into frames that played like a movie one after the next, making him remember with vivid clarity.
I...must never remember this moment. It was the very memory Satsuki was searching for and “reading” right this very minute.
“Miss! Don’t!” Shindo shouted, shaking off the feeling he could collapse from mental fatigue!
Satsuki’s eyes flung wide open. Betraying a hint of surprise, her eyes pierced into the depths of Shindo’s gray-tinged eyes!
“Shindo...” she said in a trembling voice. “...Shindo...”
She slowly narrowed her wide eyes, revealing her sadness. Shindo was still unable to move.
“I’m sorry...Shindo,” Satsuki apologized in a meek voice, her eyes growing misty. Enchanted by her and unable to turn away, all he could do was gaze back at her. “I’m sorry...” It was only a matter of time before the tears began to spill down her cheeks.
Satsuki absolutely never used her powers on Shindo. Even when the door to her heart popped open, she never actively tried to read his mind. Ever since she was little, Shindo strictly forbid Satsuki to use her powers in daily life or on those she held dear. This also served as a means to prevent Satsuki from dwelling on the fact that she possessed supernatural powers.
Satsuki mostly obeyed those rules throughout the years. There were times she broke them in innocent mischief and play, only to earn a sound scolding. But now she went so far as to break those ironclad rules and paralyze Shindo in order to draw this memory from the person she trusted more than anyone. The memory was so overwhelming it made tears cascade down her cheeks as it wrenched at her heart.
“I...” Satsuki choked, tears streaming down the corner of her eyes. “I killed someone you held dear, didn’t I...?”
✦ ✦ ✦
THE wisteria flowers danced. Their petals fluttered in Satsuki and Shindo’s memory. In the midst of the dancing petals, there was a wisp of a little girl and a young man. The little girl was playing with the flower petals beneath the trellis of wisteria. The young man watched over her as she played.
“Stay with me forever, please,” the girl said.
It was a promise sworn under the trellis. Pinky finger twined with pinky finger. This promise would bind the two forever... To think Satsuki was only four and Shindo was sixteen at the time.
“Certainly, Miss,” Shindo swore. The moment he gave that reply, their “eternal promise” was forged.
They would be together forever and ever. Neither doubted this promise would last until the end of time.
Satsuki was overcome with such great joy, it made her want to dance in the air along with the tumbling wisteria petals. She was with the man who put her mind at ease. The smiles he gave her were kinder than any other, and the hugs he gave her were filled with boundless love. Unlike the love of her parents, the love of this young man made her want to melt. He wormed his way into her heart the very first time she laid eyes on him. And now he was promising to spend the rest of his life with her...
“Don’t you belong to me, Shindo?”
“But of course,” he replied. Shindo snapped the book he was reading shut. Slipping his hands between the child’s arms planted on the ground from crawling toward him, he lifted her up as easily as if she were a kitten before plopping her on his lap. Once she was on his lap, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. “I will forever be yours.”
Held in his embrace, Satsuki happily nuzzled her cheek against his chest.
Rustle...! Just then, the bushes near Shindo began to violently shake. The first to notice, Shindo quickly turned to face the bushes.
“I can’t bear to watch another goddamn second of this crap...” came a voice that made all of the blood drain from Shindo’s face.
Sensing Shindo’s emotional distress, Satsuki cocked her head in the direction of the bushes.
“Yer like a neutered mutt in that spiffy suit with that complacent look smeared across yer mug... And that ain’t yer style,” a man sneered as he stepped out from the bushes, glaring at Shindo. “Now is it, kiddo?”
Shindo’s lips began to tremble, his eyes open wide. “Pops...” he whispered, but the rustling of the wisteria in the trellis drowned it out...
✦ ✦ ✦
“NONETHELESS, this is how it must be done...” Tsukasa insisted and reached for his cigar case with the hand that fell short earlier. He pulled out a single cigar. “We were bound to confront this one way or the other when it came time for Satsuki to choose a future spouse. Don’t you see that?”
He turned to face his wife, who was standing over his shoulders. She was giving him such a nasty look, he could have sworn she was ready to bite him at any second.
“I’m not upset about your plans to make her pick a future husband. I am upset with you for consequentially tearing her away from Mr. Shindo,” Tsubaki clarified.
Tsukasa turned away from his outraged wife and sighed, “For Pete’s sake!” as he sunk into his chair. Always stubborn as a mule, something about his wife resembled her older brother when she contorted her face into this dangerous snarl.
Tsubaki’s brother was Manabu’s father. Like an older version of Manabu, the astute president worked alongside his son to steadily build up Hayama Group. Manabu inherited both his talent and skill. Even now, Tsukasa wanted the man renowned the world over as the “Hayama Prodigy” for the Tsujikawas.
If he didn’t have a fiancée, Tsukasa could have launched a hostile takeover against the Hayama Group and obtained Manabu that way... However, Tsubaki put an end to that ambition a few years ago, making her warning crystal clear with the threat “If you go after my family, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I just looked over the files. I’ll admit the candidates you’ve selected for her future grooms seem like fine young men with bright futures from respectable families. But even if she marries one of them, there isn’t any need to intentionally separate Satsuki from her retainer, is there?”
“I’ll have you know, Tsubaki...” Tsukasa stopped to take a whiff of his cigar before slowly rising to face his wife looming over his shoulders, “...it wasn’t my idea to have Mr. Shindo leave her side.”
“It wasn’t?” she questioned, her stern expression softening slightly. But the next moment, the name she heard made her doubt her own ears.
“It was Manabu.”