Chapter 12: Suma
In which Genji exiles himself cuz his life is getting a little hectic.
After he has been caught in bed with the woman who was meant to be wedded to the Emperor, everyone is a little miffed at Genji. He decides to go live in the Suma coast for a while and let his reputation simmer down. He considers bringing Murasaki, but decides instead to leave all his ladies behind. He spends days writing sad letters to all his ladies and saying goodbye to everyone. He hangs out at his dead wife’s mansion (there’s other people living there, don’t worry) in Sanjo, and drinks with To no Chujo. Afterwards, he sleeps with one of his late wife’s serving ladies, Chunagon. nice.
He goes home to Murasaki and fills her with some bullshit about where he had been for the past few nights. Apparently, Murasaki’s father now knows where she has been all this time, but he refuses to see her cuz her husband’s skank status is particularly high right now. One page later, Genji goes to sleep with the old concubine of his father’s and her younger sister, again. Even though Genji is a shitty person, Murasaki now has no one else who even really talks to her other than her servants, so she’s developing a lovely stockholm syndrome at this point.
Finally, after getting all his sexy affairs in order and making sure everyone is sad about his departure, he takes some poetry books and heads out to Suma. He spends alot of time in his exile sending poetry to all the women he left behind. I have to give him credit for attempting to keep up with all these ladies…His retainers comment on how sad and thin Genji is getting. However, this makes him even more beautiful and perfect than he already was, and thus his servants don’t even want to go visit their families.
anyway, 7 emo poems later, To no Chujo decides he can’t go on any longer without visiting Genji so he pays him a visit. Unfortunately, still no gay sex occurs.
A ridiculous storm happens and Genji has a dream about the king of the sea, who is known to be partial to handsome men. He tells Genji to leave exile, so he does. It has been one year.
