The Japanese Tutor (PART I-II) [ONGOING]

VIII: Yui Tanaka

Here's a lengthy chapter of what happened to Aya's mentor.

Enjoy!

Yui thought that she was about to face death, according to the letter she received from the Emperor. She was even prepared by let everything go and remained her hideous information in secrecy, but, she was shocked at the sudden turn of events.

Yui was sent to the Imperial Palace two days after Aya was departed from Japan. This was what she expected as Takahito Yokohama was unusually close to his father and he had his chance to get his position. This was very expected from the father's boy.

One night before she was arrested, she told her son something.

"Yuuto, run as far as you could," Yui told her beloved son, "go and be with Prince Saichi Kujo, but he was all the way to Sendai." She gave him a fake train ticket. "Run now and pretend that you don't know me. Tell them that I'll be dead by the hands of the Emperor tomorrow."

Yuuto cried as he held to the ticket seemingly brand new. "You will be executed? Is it true?"

Yui nodded. She felt the pain in her chest as she was about to say her goodbyes. "I'm sorry, but I need to face what the higher-ups will do to me because of what I have done. You need to know that at least your teacher Aya is seeking refuge out there."

She embraced her son and put crucial things about Yuuto into the wagon outside. She hid pieces of evidence of her including her long-exposed photos in Britain and a twenty-year-old couple photo that she tried to hide from her eyes into the compartment, joining along with the other important ones. She tried not to cry as she was about to leave every memory behind to face serious punishment.

"Mom, is it now the time for me to leave?" Yuuto asked, "I don't think you will be executed."

"Being executed is a high chance, so now you have to leave me. Please remember that Mommy loves you." Yui placed a kiss on her son's forehead.

Yuuto began to maneuver the (human wagon) and walked away from their small residence. Yui cried, as the night before her arrest was indeed a lonely night. She inspected the secret compartment again that she had under the bed-there were books written in English, scrolls, notebooks about Japanese lessons, and her portrait when she was in a Western country.

"Perhaps my mission is already done."

The next morning, she heard a bang from the door. She hadn't prepared her breakfast as it was five in the morning. She heard various voices of men trying to find her throughout the different parts of her home. Yui sighed and stepped out of her bed to open the door.

"Why are you raiding my house?" Yui asked them harshly, "I am here. The one you will kill."

"We will bring you to the emperor," one of the Imperial guards harshly spoke. He grasped her wrist and pulled her to the carriage with metal bars attached to the window.

"You don't have to be harsh around me. I know I will be executed today. The Emperor told me through the letter."

"You are requested to be in the palace as soon as possible-"

"But give me time instead to change my dress!" Yui complained. Her wrists were tied and her eyes were covered with heavy fabric that gave off an unpleasant smell.

"No talk, Ms. Tanaka." The carriage moved too fast that Yui couldn't comprehend what was happening today. She looked through the thin fabric of the blindfold, and she saw the metal bars attached to the carriage window and judgmental faces of upper-class people.

So this is what people think about traitors...

When the carriage was stopped, she was dragged by the guards to the Imperial Palace. She heard various whispers and talks. When they went to the throne room, where the Emperor was sitting, she heard a large bang on the door to the throne room, assumed that the door was closed for a private conversation. The blindfold was taken off and she met the menacing eyes of the Emperor and his son Takahito beside him.