YnM Fanfiction

Sakura
Written by Calis

Disclaimer: YnM belongs to Yoko Matsushita-sensei

Chapter Fourteen: The Face in the Mirror

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The mirror was old; the carved filigree design carved from the most expensive oak had darkened with age. The wood was polished carefully and the glossy sheen reflected the meager light that stole into the room. It had always hanged on the same wall in the house from the very day it was completed. The looking glass was commissioned as a gift of love, the wedding gift from a besotted groom to his new bride. Like a treasured heirloom, it had been handed down the generations, the silvered glass beholding the visages of women who had come and gone. It saw them in the first bloom of their youthful beauty and it saw them when that loveliness faded under the merciless hand of time. A silent observer within, the mirror witnessed and espied everything. There was nothing that happened in the room that the impassive glass did not perceive. Laughter, joy or love and their counterpart of sadness, sorrow and hate like a never-ending play enacted before this quiet watcher.

Like an eye that could never be closed, it saw how a woman was betrayed by the man she loved and vowed to spend eternity with. The mirror's current mistress was different; incomparable to the women who had came before her. Her extraordinariness gave her exaltation but it also doomed her. She had been so happy then, her face radiant with all the joy of a new bride when her husband sweep her into this room that had always been the matrimonial chamber. Yet it was so brief, her dreams falling into pieces at her feet. Like one of the dolls that she had brought with her into the house, she was used and then discarded. So short was the fascination that his master had with his new toy and so swiftly had his interest dwindled. His once smiling face was replaced by displeasure and the once gentle hands grew violent. Her long beautiful platinum hair lost their luster, becoming tangled and matted and the snow-white skin marred by the dark bruises that his strength had left on her body.

The servants spoke among themselves in hushed whispers saying that she was mad. That she was mentally ill even before she married into the Muraki family. It was beyond their understanding why their young master had chosen her, a deranged patient that he was treating to be his wife. She was beautiful but it was an unnatural frightening beauty. Like a snow maiden of a forgotten ancient Japanese legend, their mistress's hair was strangely colorless. Her skin so pale and translucent until the dark green veins stood out prominently on those fragile wrists. But it was her silver eyes that made them felt jittery and apprehensive whenever they were in her presence. They did not think that those eyes could belong to a human. And there was that room in the attic that the young master had given to her. The room that housed the collection of old European antique dolls that she had brought with her. They lined the tiny room from ceiling to floor, the perfect porcelain replicas of pretty little girls with their tresses of real human hair and vacant glassy eyes neatly arranged roll by roll, shelf by shelf. A maidservant once peeped into the attic room out of curiosity and had repeatedly waken up the entire household with her screams when nightmares of the dolls began to plague her sleep. In the space of a few short days, she had been reduced to a nervous wreck with no choice but to leave. From that day since, no one dared to go up to the attic room again.

The woman had to be cursed and they thought their beliefs were proven true when they saw the child that had came into the world from her womb. The male baby that she bore was not maimed nor deformed, in fact entirely the opposite however he inherited everything that was anathema to the very man who sired him. None of the servants wanted to be responsible for his care, believing in their simple and superstitious minds that they would be tainted by the contact. Adamantly refusing to have anything to do with mother and child, they left the young baby entirely to his mother's care not caring if she was competent. The old master was clearly displeased about this but he had no power to stop it. For his own selfish reasons, he held his silence. The marriage had been essential to keep the hospital from falling out of their hands. The mismanagement of funds had left the family hospital in bad shape and without the money of the half-mad heiress that his son had married; everything would have gone to the creditors.

It was a necessary sacrifice.

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The woman in front of the mirror giggled softly and the sound would have been girlish if not for the unstable edge that lurked beneath. She ran a silver-backed brush through the heavy silken locks of white-blond hair that fell in heavy waves down her back. Stroke after stroke she repeated the motion, combing through each tangle and snarl. Putting down the heavy brush, she picked up the tube of bright red lipstick and applied it onto her pale bloodless lips liberally, slathering layer after layer of the garish color. Her nails had been painted a matching shade of crimson and she held her fingers up to admire the shiny glossy flash. The nurses had been so kind to do her that favor before the car had came to pick her up. They should not have kept her in that institute away from her house and she knew that her husband preferred it if she never came back but those doctors had been so easy to fool. They could not keep her if there was nothing wrong with her and she knew just what to do to make them believe that. She had her beauty still and all it took was some feminine wiles to have those men eating from the palm of her hand. But none of that mattered.

She had to come back because of her son.

Walking over to the wide bed that her husband no longer shared with her, she sat on the ledge. Her pale delicate hand ran lightly over the smooth satin sheets, enjoying the feel of the cool silken material beneath her hand. But her fist closed in a sudden violent motion, crushing the satin in her hand, as she grew increasingly agitated. She hated what the empty bed reminded her. The long empty nights and the vivid images brought to mind by that taunting voice. How he had mocked her and told her all the lurid details of his sexual exploits. She had not understood then why he had treated her this way. The handsome man who promised to love and cherish her forever never existed. Over and over again she told herself that she did not care, repeating the words like a chant until she calmed down. Releasing the stranglehold on sheets, the pale woman took deep breaths. She had to be in control. She cannot give him any excuse however small to sent her away.

Locked in that white prison cell of a room.

Away from her beautiful Kazutaka.

She had missed her child, the baby that she had fought so hard to bring into the world. The only thing that belonged to her wholly and utterly now that she had lost everything in her name to the man who was once her husband. He had wanted an heir and she had given him a son to bear his name but he hated the legacy that marked the child as hers. It had been a great blow to her to know that another woman had been pregnant with his child at the same time she was carrying. Yet she was his lawfully wedded wife and she would see to it that his bastard never get his filthy hands on what was rightfully her son's. She smiled, the red lips lifting in secret knowledge as she took her favorite gown out of the armoire. The entire gown was black, a totally stark contrast against the pallor of her complexion. Lace so fine that they resembled the thin gossamer threads of a spider's web formed the bodice and sleeves and the heavy black silk that formed the full fitted skirt had been especially chosen by her own hand.

Singing a lullaby softly to herself, she began to dress.

Author's note: The mood in this chapter is a total swing from the last. Yes, I know Muraki's mother is one scary woman but she's very important... so please bear with me.