Saiunkoku Monogatari – 03

Thanks to a couple of helpful commenters, the story of Saiunkoku Monogatari became a bit clear. Shiujou actually is an emperor, and Siurei was hired as a tutor for him. As women can’t be officers, she currently works as a concubine. Seiran was taken in by Shiurei-s family thirteen years ago, when he had nowhere to go, and ever since he’s been wanting to pay them back for their kindness. A couple of things indeed begin to make sense now…

Anyway, this episode, the emperor has a strange dream about his older brother, who bears suspiciously close resemblances to Seiran. Then he wakes up, with Seiran in front of him. The two have a strange discussion, I didn’t understand it, but it gave some ‘interesting’ impressions. Anyway, after that, the emperor admits that he’s a bit jealous of Shiurei and Seiran while they’re together, and he sees them being so close.

We then switch to that night, at which Shiurei has a small conversation with the little girl and an woman, probably both of them are concubines as well. The girl leaves, and returns with the message that the emperor really wants to speak with her. She looked pretty serious, though when Shiurei arrives at the emperor, it only appears that he went out and picked up a couple of wild roses. His hands, of course, weren’t used to the needles, so they’re full of scratches. Shiurei tends these, the two talk a bit, and somehow, Shiurei mentions Seiran’s name. Suddenly, the emperor demands her not to talk about Seiran, or something similar. Shiurei agrees, but she finds this kindof weird. The emperor then makes her tell a little story, at which he immediately falls asleep.

Apparently, he fell asleep in Shiurei’s bed, so she has no choice but to divide the bed into two with what looks like a role of carpet, and both of them sleep at one side. This makes for an interesting scene on the next morning, as the girl from before comes to wake them, and sees the role of carpet gone, and the emperor embracing Shiurei in his sleep. Needless to say that Shiurei doesn’t wake up in a pleasant manner. That was a nice moment. It also shows what an idiot the emperor actually is, he needs someone for everything, and just thinks he can do as he pleases.

The next evening, he again stands in front of her door in his bedgown, apparently planning to sleep next to her again. The two talk a bit, and she gives him a self-made hankerchief. I don’t know whether I picked up the next thing right, but if I understood it correctly, Shiurei didn’t give Seiran a hankerchief, which makes the emperor happy.

The next evening, there seems to be some kind of party at the palace. The emperor and Shiurei get offered some sake, but before Shiurei gets to even touch hers, the emperor snatches it away and drinks it himself. Later, it appeared that the sake wasn’t good anymore, giving the emperor a nice stomache-ache, so Shiurei carries him to his bed. When she finds out about the emperor knowing the sake was poisoned, she begins yelling at him, though he tells her to be quiet, or something in that direction.

Shiurei sits next to him for the next couple of hours, and suddenly, he begins a speach about how he’s afraid of the dark, mostly at his mother’s fault. It also appears that he was crying for some reason when he was young, and he was being comforted by none other than Shiurei’s father. The next morning, the emperor seems to be fine again, and he’s playing a bit with Shiurei’s hair as she wakes up. She’s a bit embarrased, though the two of them make up.

Then we switch to a scene at which Ran and Koyu meet up with a delivery-boy, which comes to deliver two flowers which the emperor sent them. I have no idea about the meaning of this scene… I mean… why would he even do such a thing?

The episode ends with Shiurei realizing something, and then getting angry at the emperor, to the point of yelling at and hitting him. I think that he wasn’t really sick in the first place, and that he’d just been acting all the time. After all, you don’t recover from food-poisoning in one simple night. And I can understand why Shiurei’s ticked off when discovering this. This really shows what an easy-going idiot the emperor is, he just does as he pleases.