10:46 A.M.

10:46 A.M.

 

This had been going on almost an hour.

“So you’re the classic sheltered heiress, then?” Teratsuki Kyoichiro said, just as he had that day. Except for the curious lack of light in his eyes.

They were in the sky lounge on the twentieth floor of a hotel, and except for the bartender, they were alone. A beautiful night view spread out before them.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. He’s just a manager at a minor firm, not exactly raking it in, but my father insists on treating me like that. Less like a daughter than an expensive French doll. My mother…”

She trailed off.

He turned towards her.

“This is so strange, King of Distortion. That was your name, right?”

“Call me whatever you like.” He smiled, gently.

“Yes…well, my mother… truth is, she hates my father, and she hates me.”

She finally said the words she’d been unable to say that day.

 

***

 

Hashizaka Shizuka had her child when she was only twenty.

She honestly had no idea whose child it was. But there was only one man, out of all the men she’d been with, whose child she wanted it to be.

Teratsuki Kyoichiro. He’d been forty-seven at the time.

She and Teratsuki had been together three times. He had the face and body of a man in his thirties and must have had all kinds of girls after him, so perhaps it was all just a game to him. He was rich, but never married, never even dated any one woman for long. There were rumors he was keeping himself available for a strategic marriage. The dozens—no, hundreds of women he’d slept with made it clear he wasn’t batting for the other side. He was just playing the field, but for some reason, it never once resulted in the sort of lawsuit that level of philandering usually does.

When Shizuka told him she was pregnant, she learned the reason why.

When he heard that, Teratsuki burst out laughing.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! I see! So how much do you want?”

“Th-that’s not what…” Shizuka protested, but Teratsuki wasn’t having it.

And what he said next really threw her.

“I’ll give you whatever you ask for. But I won’t admit parentage or marry you. You see, I don’t have citizenship. There’s no way we could ever get the office to accept those documents.”

“Hunh…?”

“I don’t know whose child it is, but…that doesn’t matter.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I’m unable to have children. Sorry.”

“…!”

Shizuka had no idea what to say in response to this. But she wasn’t done yet.

“I-I’ll leak it to the press! The scandal will destroy your company!”

There was no backing down from that statement. Even if she succeeded, there was no way he would ever love her.

But Teratsuki just sighed.

“Friendly warning? Don’t do that. You’d be putting your life at risk.”

He sounded serious. Like this hurt him.

“E-empty threats won’t…”

“I wish it was only a threat. Look, why don’t you try sending that story to a weekly rag under a false name? Make sure you use a false name. Using your real name is too dangerous.”

His tone was so grave that Shizuka shivered.

“Wh-what’ll happen?”

“First, within two months that monthly magazine will go under. Same with any newspaper,” Teratsuki said, holding her gaze. “I’m not talking about putting pressure on them. And I won’t be the one doing this. The system I work for will.”

“………”

Shizuka gaped at him. Something in his eyes told her he wasn’t lying.

“Y-you don’t have citizenship?”

The true meaning of those words finally sank in. Was it even possible for a powerful industry tycoon like him to have no citizenship? Yet, it seemed like it hadn’t caused him any problems. Which meant…

“Exactly,” Teratsuki said. “I’m talking about a power above nations.”

Shizuka moved her lips, but no words came out.

“So, back to the subject of money,” Teratsuki said. “I won’t have you insisting you’ll take nothing. You’ve got your chance; go ahead and squeeze me. It’ll be much easier raising the child if you’ve got money. Mm?”

“………”

Shizuka quietly realized that not one word Teratsuki had said was remotely normal for a moment like this.

“You…won’t tell me not to have it?”

“Do you want me to?” Teratsuki frowned. “If you want to, I won’t stop you, but personally…I feel like that would be a waste.”

“W-with no clear father, I…”

“Then just get married. I’m sure you have no shortage of potential partners. And I promise…even if you get married, I won’t balk at paying.”

He made it sound so easy.

“………”

“This is your chance. In a few years… maybe six? I’ll be disposed of,” he said, as if this revelation was of no consequence. “Once that happens, there’ll be no more money.”

“………”

“I’m not going to take that lying down. I plan to leave one last gift behind. I’d like to do what I can for you before that mess happens.”

“………”

In the end, there was nothing she could do but take the money he offered and give birth to Makoto. She did not marry. After Teratsuki, there were no men she was willing to be with and she couldn’t trust any man who’d marry her for the money. She fought with her parents, but in the end the money settled that, too.

Once she had the child she became a devoted mother, despite her promiscuous past. She now had the money to play around as much as she wanted—at least, to the extent that she had before—without relying on her parents, but that just made her not interested in it at all. She could easily have relied on babysitters, but she never really did, dedicating herself to raising Makoto on her own.

It was her own way of getting revenge on Teratsuki.

She would make Makoto into a great man and then show him to Teratsuki—make him regret not claiming him as his own. That was what Shizuka lived for.

But…then he died. Slightly later than his initial prediction of six years—but not quite eight.

Shizuka couldn’t believe it.

 

***

 

“Custard Pie.”

She knew that song.

Teratsuki Kyoichiro had been a Led Zeppelin fan. When she’d been escorted to the hotel suite he used as a bedroom, this song had been playing on the stereo, the opening to their second album, Physical Graffiti. Shizuka clearly remembered laughing to herself at how childish his taste was. A man as wealthy as him, listening to rock?

So when she heard that song playing, Shizuka knew she’d been right.

This Moon Temple…

It was the gift Teratsuki Kyoichiro left behind.

“Mom!” Makoto tugged at her skirt. But she wasn’t paying any attention to her son. How could she?

She had been thrown into another world.

 

“Now, now, is that any way to talk about your mother?” the King of Distortion said, with Teratsuki’s face. His tone and grin showed he agreed with her.

Shizuka let out an inappropriately raucous laugh. She had quite a buzz going, or at least, felt like she did.

“I mean, she does!”

At the time, she’d played it off, trying to sound wise. “She has her own problems,” she’d said. But there was no reason to hide it now.

“My mother despises me. Nothing I did would make her like me. She never once came to parents’ day at school—she was something of a beauty when she was young, and that made her just conceited enough to let happiness slip through her grasp several times before realizing she was thirty-five, and hastily settling for my father. And I was the result. And she took all her frustration out on me. Once I started raising my own child, I was so surprised—I kept doing things, and then remembering that my own mother never did that for me.”

“I see.” The King of Distortion nodded. “But you’re doing right by your own child. That’s good.”

Shizuka tittered, bending over.

“What are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just…this is all your doing, isn’t it? Kyoichiro-san.” She looked blearily up at him. “You arranged for all of this to happen, and yet… and yet you’re just being nice.”

She gave another wild laugh. But the King of Distortion didn’t look at all put off.

“I’m not so sure. Did I ever claim to be the real Teratsuki Kyoichiro?”

“Who else could you be?”

“But this is the world as you desired it to be. What my real nature is has nothing to do with you.”

“So Teratsuki Kyoichiro never really cared about me, did he? Just like my mother…”

Shizuka was starting to slur her speech.

“But I loved you. I really did, Kyoichiro-san. I really loved you. I just couldn’t tell you.”

“Is that true? Or were you not that serious at the time, and only convinced yourself you were in hindsight?” the King of Distortion asked.

“Does it even matter? I don’t even care anymore…”

Shizuka flopped down on the counter.

“I just want to be done with it all… I’ve been such an idiot…” she muttered. Then she suddenly jumped to her feet. “Hold on… am I really back in time?”

She glared at the King of Distortion.

“Then where’s Makoto? What happened to him? Is he not born yet? Is he not going to be born?”

The King of Distortion shrugged Teratsuki Kyoichiro’s shoulders, smiling. “Good question. Maybe. Or…maybe we can make him what you’ve always wanted.”

“What I…”

Shizuka swallowed.

“You mean? You can’t…”

The King of Distortion did not reply.

He just smiled.

“You mean… I could make it so Makoto was actually your son?”

She choked on the words, her face turning pale.

“Good question,” the King of Distortion said, smiling.