But Kristal has truly changed me. I can now see that he deserves to know the truth about both Jae-Hyun and his younger brother. And bringing Norio along for this reckoning was the only way to ensure any chance of him actually believing me when all was revealed.
I crook my head at the ghost, standing just a few feet away from the old man’s fallen body. He is younger than I expected him to be. Also older. Much, much older. If not for the many drawn depictions of samurais that graced both my paternal and maternal ancestral homes, I might not have recognized him for what he was.
A samurai. I’m looking at a samurai.
He must’ve died in battle. He wears an intricate coat of armor crafted from iron, red leather, and fur. I cannot see his hair, hidden as it is underneath an iron flame helmet laced with gold and bronze. But I could easily imagine him sporting a chonmage, the classic shaved-on-the-top, knot-at-the-back hairstyle long favored by many historical Japanese warriors and current-day sumo wrestlers.
And as for his face, it is well sculpted with the sharp planes both Norio and I inherited from our family's Nakamura side.
I can see now why my mother might have fallen for him. On the outside, he had been a rough and uneducated servant. But his spirit was that of a classically handsome warrior.
My mother had most likely been impressed by his spirit. But I feel nothing but disdain for the ghost after all the trouble he is caused.
“Calm yourself and return to your body,” I command. “I will need your assistance to convince my brother I have not gone insane.”
As if to prove my point, Norio asks, “Who are you talking to?”
His voice is careful and highly modulated. As if he’s no longer talking to the brother he trusted implicitly just a few days ago, but to a crazy person, he doesn’t know it all.
“Now,” I command the ghost.
The ghost wavers, both figuratively and literally. As he hesitates, his image flickers in a way that I’ve only ever seen with spirits from long-ago eras.
Norio stands up from the body of the man Kristal calls Jae-Hyun. “I will call 9-1-1. This situation has obviously gone beyond anything we can handle.”
He pulls out his phone, but Jae-Hyun abruptly sits up before he can make good on that threat.
Norio jumps at his sudden recovery, and Kristal falls back on her bottom.
But then she immediately takes Jae-Hyun by the hand. “Are you okay? Did you break anything with that fall?”
It is a valid question. A normal human Jae-Hyun’s age would’ve certainly broken a hip after such an unexpected crumple.
But Jae-Hyun remains silent under her concerned gaze.
I remember how long it had taken Satomi to speak after she had assumed possession of Koyamo’s body at that fateful meeting with my father. And I conclude out loud, “Possession does not appear to be an easy feat. I believe it is taking him some time to access the body’s voice box.”
At my words, Kristal drops his hand.
“Oh my Santa,” she says, her voice breathless with shock.
I believe she is beginning to understand who Jae-Hyun really is. What he really is.
But Norio becomes so frustrated, he switches to Japanese to demand imperiously, “You will tell me what is going on here!”
He sounds much like our dead father, even though Kazuo wasn’t truly blood-related to either of us, thanks to our mother’s infidelity.
When I was younger, I had cowered at that commanding tone when Kazuo used it on me. But now, I stand up to it, “There is much to explain, Norio-oniisan. But it will take that much longer if you do not remain calm. And silent. Perhaps you should take a seat and not talk again until the explanation has concluded.”
Norio glares at me, obviously not appreciating having his imperious tone mirrored back to him, even with an older brother honorific attached to his name. But in the end, he must be more curious than insulted. He goes to sit at the table covered in drawing materials.
I wait for my brother to take his seat before turning back to Jae-Hyun.
“Are you recovered then?” I asked, my voice dripping with contempt.
Jae-Hyun regards me, his eyes glittering with amusement. “I should’ve guessed it would be you who would find me after all of these years. The younger son who was such a sensation among all those house spirits.”
He forces a smile onto the face of his host body. “You should’ve heard how they talked about you after they realized you could see them. They vied to serve you and to have conversations with you. They were so happy to be acknowledged by any human, even if you were only a small child. You see, they were weak spirits. Killed by their Nakamura masters on a whim, not like me. I was a Nakamura samurai who had died in battle, fighting for my emperor. I was a worthy male, so strong I was able to pass my seed into a woman even while using a host body.”
Jae-Hyun puffs up a bit as he speaks, sticking out his chest. But then his expression softens and his gaze falls on Norio, who’s staring at him from his seat, his mouth dropped open in shock.
“I died before I could take a wife and have children,” he tells the both of us. “You two are the greatest gifts your mother could have given me. And though you grew up unaware of who your true father was, I can see much of myself in the both of you
“So we are Nakamuras after all…” I should be surprised by this news, but I’m not. The revelation of the caretaker as our father had always seemed….odd. He was small and spry, while both Norio and I were tall and covered in lean muscle. I remember thinking that we looked more like the man we’d assumed was our father than the caretaker Kazuo executed in front of us.
But looking upon the ghost earlier, there was no mistaking our connection. I could see many of both Norio’s and my features etched across his young face.
I think of my father, who had been so proud of his samurai lineage, he’d burned with secret resentment about having to pass Norio and I off as Nakamuras. When Kazuo had married my mother, their parents had made sure to mention that both the bride and groom came from samurai lineage in the announcements.
Kazuo’s marriage to my mother had been meant as a corrective to his first one to Tetsuro’s mother, a Chinese woman he had married for love. By commanding Kazuo to take a young bride of such excellent lineage the second time around, our grandfather had decreed that his next heirs would be exemplary.
How disappointed my father had been when he found out that we were not his sons at all. Without telling us why, he had belittled, manipulated, and commanded us without mercy or regard. If not for Satomi’s possession of Koyamo during their meeting, there is no doubt I would currently be residing in Tokyo, married to the woman he had hand-picked for me.
What would he say if he were here now and could see that our birth father was not merely descended from samurais but an actual samurai himself?
I almost laugh at the notion. Perhaps after this is all said and done, I will make a special trip to our factory home. I’ll inform the ghost of my father, who is still wandering the country estate where he died, that the sons he was so secretly ashamed of were descended on both sides from samurais after all. Indeed, his own ancestor had cuckolded him.
“Yes, I am a Nakamura from the Edo period. What your generation called the ‘factory home’ was actually a house given to me by the Emperor himself as a thank you for fighting so valiantly in battle.”