Shizuko and the Otome Game

The air was thick with the smell of soil and pine as I walked across the courtyard towards the palace. The sun was high in the sky, beating down on my head and shoulders, but I didn’t mind. The heat didn’t bother me. I stopped at a nearby fountain and took a long drink of water before continuing on.

By the time I reached the entrance to the palace, my heart was pounding. I took a few deep breaths before walking inside.

A guard greeted me as I entered, his face expressionless. He spoke formally, “You are most welcome, Miss Shizuko. If you will follow me please?” His voice was so cold it made goosebumps rise on my arms.

I followed obediently behind him until we got to an ornate door with beautiful carvings in the wood. The guard knocked and said, “Miss Shizuko is here to see you, Your Majesty.”

The door opened and a woman with pale skin and dark eyes stepped out. She spoke calmly and gently, “Please come in, Shizuko-chan.” Her voice reminded me of soft wind chimes in the summer evening breeze. It had to be Kaguya-hime, but she looked nothing like what I had imagined her to look like based on the description in the book that led me here: no flowing hair or kimono or parasol or makeup of any kind. She just looked like a normal woman one would see anywhere in Japan, but there was something about her eyes that gave away her true nature as a yokai from beyond this world.

I bowed deeply to show respect for her presence and followed her into her office. She gestured for me to take a seat on one of the two cushions placed on either side of a low table in front of her desk while she sat directly across from me on an equally low chair facing me directly. She smiled at me and asked kindly, “How are you today?”

I answered politely, “I am very well, thank you for asking Your Majesty Kaguya-hime!” But inside I was terrified; it had only been three days since my 18th birthday when everything changed forever…

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The day started out like any other day at my temple orphanage except for one small detail: I woke up on my eighteenth birthday without knowing why or how or anything else about myself. My head felt fuzzy and foggy like I was dreaming all day long only to wake up and find that it really wasn’t all a dream after all; I was still living at the orphanage where everyone treated me like they always did – with kindness and respect because Father Yokan had given them strict orders never to harm me in anyway whatsoever because he believed that some day he would be able to cure me by some miracle he couldn’t even begin to explain himself even though he tried many times over the years while I was growing up there under his care… But whatever his reasons were for keeping me alive all these years at his temple orphanage despite my seizures that sometimes left me unconscious for hours or days at a time (and even longer than that once or twice) when my heart rate went dangerously high (because even though he knew it could happen again he never bothered to figure out why), and for sending two nurses with me when each new boyfriend came around every month after my sixteenth birthday (to make sure he didn’t try anything funny) and for paying off detectives who watched over me every minute of every day (to make sure no one else tried anything funny either), he never seemed inclined to tell anyone anything about himself or about how it was possible for him to keep such an order running without anyone ever questioning him about it… And so everyone just went along with it without thinking much about it because there wasn’t much else they could do other than obey since they also feared what might happen if they disobeyed him… So whatever reason Father Yokan had for keeping me alive – whatever secret he wanted kept hidden from everyone including myself – stayed that way… But today something different happened because today brought the end of all secrecy…