2026-02-01: Chizuru Sights Yua's Misfortune
- Cutscene: Chizuru Sights Yua's Misfortune
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin and her husband Kimitake Ijuuin, Chizuru Ishigami
- Where: A Fancy Party, Narumi Ward
- OOC Date: 2026-02-01
- IC Date: Wed, Sep 19 2012
- Summary: Kimitake takes Yua out for a dinner party, only for her to find herself in trouble when she insists the Ainu aren't simply Japanese. Before he can take her aside, though, another woman steps in to 'help' -- Chizuru Ishigami, who's taken enough interest to read Yua's fortune. It seems she's in her time of Joka...
- Content warning: Coercive control, racism, disordered eating, reference to potential miscarriage
"Another dinner...?" Yua pouted, when she got the call. "We just went out on the weekend..."
"I'm sorry," Kimitake says, on the other end of the line. "It won't be a large affair... but some powerful people will be there. I hope you understand...?" There's an edge of vulnerability to his remorse, a subtle manner of lowering himself before her without saying a single word.
It's a favour. (It's effective.) "It's really not a problem," Yua hurries to assure him.
She's a little more sad, when she tells Miho, but... it's fine.
And the dress he's prepared for her... is fine.
And the party is --
Yua supposes they're all the same, in the end. Hollow men in rich suits saying awful things; she knows Kimitake has to agree with them for the sake of his career, and she feels awful, knowing he simply has to grin and bear jokes at the expense of everyone but them. She doesn't have fun at dinner; they're still keeping her pregnancy quiet, so no one ever knows to make something mild enough for her to eat.
Last time, he scolded her for running out in a hurry, when the dancing afterwards upset her stomach. He said it was unbecoming to call attention to it, in Japan. He understood that things were more relaxed in Okinawa, at least...
This time, she picks at her food, says she's on a diet, and gets comments on her beauty.
It isn't the kind of thing they should praise, she thinks, privately.
Well, she doesn't have much fun at dinner, but... at least at dinner, she could sit down. Mingling afterwards involves more of those conversations; involves Yua dutifully laughing at jokes she really doesn't think are very funny.
"You opened up a new office in Hokkaido, haven't you?" Goes one man in a suit. It's proper for a wife to lower her gaze, so Yua couldn't even tell which one, given how she'd tuned the details out until she heard the topic change. "How is the business, up there?"
"It's really not so bad, and despite all the fuss in the news about these 'native rights', there's really nothing to worry about." Another man chuckles; he finds it funny. "From the first inch of Japan to the last, Japanese people are Japanese people..."
And hearing that --
"Ainu are Ainu!" The Okinawan woman snaps, looking up to him with a scowl.
"Eh?" He asks, turning his head to her. "Is it that offensive to be Japanese?" It's a dangerous question.
"My wife is just an empathic person," Kimitake explains, on her behalf. "She read one of those accounts from the natives in a journal, so..."
"It is offensive!" Yua cuts in. "Ainu are Ainu, not anything else! They worked hard for that!"
Kimitake's smile thins, just so. "Excuse us," he says, a hand to her arm. "She feels a little hot... I think she's taken ill."
And that is when a woman's elegant fingers brush his, her lank black hair framing an angular, foxlike face. "Allow me," she offers, smiling to Yua's husband. "I was just thinking of getting some air, anyway..."
Anyone would recognise the face of Chizuru Ishigami, the famous fortune teller whose Wang Long prophecies are startlingly accurate. And Kimitake recognises something else -- and lets his own hand drop away, as Yua looks up to her, blinking one crimson eye as it meets her purple gaze.
She isn't just some wife, Yua thinks, looking at her. She's sharper than that, sharp as a knife...
She isn't sure she's safe, as Chizuru leads her out to the balcony, but she wasn't safe back there, either.
"You know who I am?" That dark-haired woman asks, as the glass door closes.
"I--I heard a little," Yua says, as she bows her head. "And I've certainly seen you! Um, I'm -- Yua Ijuuin," because she is not so important, or so fabulous, as to need no introduction. She peeks back up, as she asks: "Um, why...?" She doesn't say it; the fear in her eye says enough.
"I was curious," Chizuru says, as she steps to the balcony, leans languid against it. "What possessed you to speak against your husband that way. Dozens of women at dozens of arms would have kept their tongues... but not you. I wonder why?"
"... I'm Okinawan," Yua replies, after a moment's hesitation. She does not occupy the space as comfortably as the woman beside her; her hands curl, at her chest. "I guess tonight, listening to it was too much for me... Kimi-san said he doesn't believe those awful things, but he let his maids clean up my shrines like they were trash just because they weren't in the right Japanese place, you know?! So -- so I thought maybe he did believe that, and -- it is offensive!" Yua's cheeks puff, in her frustration. "Ooohhh... it is!"
"Haha..." Chizuru laughs, looking back, to her. "You're a very honest woman. Some of them would say you won't get awfully far, that way... they'd say an outcast like you wouldn't survive." She sees the fear in Yua's eyes, and turns to her fully, again, spreading her hands. "Myself, I find you quite charming... you shine brightly, despite the kegare locked behind that eyepatch of yours. You've made yourself a home... hmm, or someone has, haven't they?"
"A... a home...?" Yua asks, a hand pressing flat to her chest.
"I'd like to read your fortune," Chizuru offers, with a flourish of a wrist, and Yua knows it's an uncommon offering.
And so Yua bows, with appreciation. "Please do."
"Yes... I see quite clearly," Chizuru muses, thoughtfully, looking through her. "A lineage given to the Gods, but your sensitivity is not entirely your own... yes... you've known much tragedy, Ijuuin-san. Oh!" She gasps, jerking back. "How wretched--! Your normal compatibility... it's been overridden by a dark interloper!"
"Huh?" Yua asks, a hand tightening at her wrist, dread settling in her chest.
"I've seen your fate," Chizuru's sorrowful eyes fall on Yua, and her expression is serious. "You're in your time of Joka, dear. I'm afraid your tribulations will grow greater in number... without strength and initiative, something precious in you will surely die."
There are a dozen things she could mean; Yua thinks of only one. "No!" She gasps, and shakes her head, rapidly. "I won't let that happen! I won't!"
"Yes, it's awful news... I'll tell them you need a little more fresh air." And Yua stays on the balcony for some time, after Chizuru goes back inside.
Kimitake's able to cover for her much better when she's quiet.
... Yua still doesn't like the party, very much.
It's only when he's driving her back, though -- driving her back home, just as she's asked -- that he asks, in the privacy of his car: "Ah, Yua-san... if I may."
"Of course," Yua smile to him, a touch wan.
He pauses, delicately, for a moment. "Has Miho-san not spoken to you about interrupting her...?"
"... no?" Yua asks, a frown knitting at her brow. "She's never been upset about it..."
"She doesn't help you out of difficult social situations like that?" He wonders.
"No -- no, she does," Yua says, still feeling a little unsteady.
"Hmm..." Kimitake's fingers drum, the once, on his steering wheel. "Then, did you not quite realise I was doing so?"
"No, I just..." But it feels so silly to tell him she felt like he meant it, when he just said he was trying to help her. Yua worries at her lip, hand folding together, on her lap. "I just got mad," she settles on, after a moment. "I guess I was grumpy, since I didn't eat much at dinner..."
"Perhaps you don't yet trust me enough," Kimitake sighs, ruefully. "I heard Ishigami-san 'handled it', when she got back... are you all right?" And he sounds so concerned...
"Um, s-she didn't do anything bad!" Yua insists, shaking her head. "She just read my fortune... it was bad, but that wasn't her fault, right...?"
"I see..." Kimitake frowns. "Forgive me. I did try to excuse you..."
Yua finds herself feeling all the more unsettled, hearing him ask for forgiveness. "No, I -- I'm the one who spoke up, so..."
"But I am your husband," he says, and does not say that it is as far as the world outside is concerned, this time. "I should be able to protect you at least as well as Miho-san does. She wouldn't forgive me if I brought you to trouble."
"I know," Yua says, sadly, "but you didn't do anything wrong."
It's not that she decided the things that mattered to her so much stopped mattering.
He just -- makes it sound so convincing.
"Then please try to mind me a little better out there," he asks her, kindly. "At least offer me the consideration you'd extend to Miho-san. I do have some power, but... I'm limited in what I can do, if you won't listen."
"I understand," Yua says, her gaze dropping down. "I guess I'm not being a very good wife if I talk over you..."
"You could say that," Kimitake allows, as if he hadn't implied it the whole time, "but don't be so hard on yourself, Yua-san. You're still getting used to it, aren't you?"
"Mm..." Yua hums, still quite downcast. "I don't like these parties. I don't like these people. There's nothing inside them..."
And Kimitake is sympathetic, as he says: "I know. Please try to bear it, Yua-san... I appreciate your aid."
"... thanks for taking me home," Yua says, and tries to smile, as she looks to him again. "After -- after tonight, I really just want to see Mimi..."
"I know," Kimitake says, gently.
He knows.