But just as a sneer of "I knew it" was about to appear in Kanjuro's eyes, Yukino took a sudden deep breath, forcibly suppressing her physiological disgust! Her gaze became incredibly firm again, even carrying a desperate resolve as she met that uncomfortable gaze, saying almost through gritted teeth:
"Then come and try!! See if I mind or not!!"
Her body was trembling slightly, but her eyes did not evade him at all!
Kanjuro (in his old and ugly form) was stunned. He scrutinized Yukino carefully, as if trying to find a trace of pretense on her face, but he only saw genuine disgust and an even more genuine, unyielding persistence.
In the next second, that nauseatingly slovenly image vanished like smoke. Kanjuro returned to his original peerless appearance, even his school uniform looking as neat as new. He wore an extremely complex expression—surprise, playfulness, and a hint of... unspeakable satisfaction? He shook his head with a light laugh:
"As expected of my daughter... this strength of character is truly rare." His tone carried a strange intimacy. "That's why... good things should stay within the family."
Looking at Kanjuro, who had changed back in an instant, and hearing his absurd statement, Yukino actually laughed out of anger for a moment. That smile was full of helplessness, sorrow, and a deep exhaustion.
"Kanjuro..." She shook her head, her voice carrying a heavy sense of powerlessness. "I'm truly speechless with you... Why? Why do you always like to use such... extreme methods to torture yourself and torture us?"
Kanjuro looked at her tired gaze that seemed to see through everything. The smile on his face gradually faded, and he let out a rare, genuine sigh—a sigh that seemed to contain a hint of... emptiness that even he hadn't noticed?
"Torture?" He softly repeated the word as if tasting its meaning, then looked up at Yukino, his eyes as deep as the night. "Little Yukino... do you think this... is a form of torture?".
Kanjuro's rhetorical question, carrying its twisted logic, was like a stone thrown into a deep pool, creating ripples in Yukinoshita Yukino's heart but failing to change the already settled base color. In the darkness, her senses became sharp and their breaths intertwined. Those memories of things forced upon her—mixed with pain and an unspeakable throb—were branded into the depths of her soul.
When the first faint light of dawn filtered through the grimy windowpane, dispelling the gloom of the room, Yukinoshita Yukino had already tidied her school uniform. Though her clothes were slightly disheveled and her face was pale, her gaze was exceptionally calm, even carrying a strange clarity after weathering a storm.
She turned her head to look at Kanjuro beside her. He had returned to his peerless form, looking as if the "tramp" from last night, who had radiated hostility and stench, had never existed. His eyes were closed, his long lashes casting faint shadows beneath them; his quiet appearance even gave a fleeting illusion of harmlessness.
Yukino couldn't help but sigh softly, a sigh that contained too many complex emotions.
"I now..." she spoke in a low voice, her tone slightly raspy yet exceptionally clear, "finally understand why Mother... could never let go of you."
Kanjuro slowly opened his eyes; those deep pupils held no grogginess from just waking up, only a sense of clarity and amusement. A characteristic, inscrutable smile played at the corners of his mouth.
"Aren't you the same, Yukino?" His tone carried a hint of certain teasing.
Yukino didn't deny it, nor did she show any irritation. She gave Kanjuro a deep look, as if her gaze wanted to pierce through his perfect skin and look directly at the chaotic and dark core hidden deep within. Her voice was very soft, yet it carried a solemnity born of determination:
"I think... whether it's torment, or the occasional... bit of joy I feel, perhaps... they are all distorted forms of 'happiness.'" She paused, a flash of helplessness and resignation crossing her ice-blue eyes, yet it was strangely mixed with a clear sense of personal choice. "As long as... the person inflicting all this is you, Kanjuro... for me, it seems... that's enough."
These words were almost an abandonment of all secular ethical bottom lines, a complete compromise with her own fate, and a final acceptance of Kanjuro's distorted way of existence.
Hearing this, Kanjuro was slightly taken aback at first, then burst out laughing. His laughter carried a hint of surprise, a hint of pleasure, and a hint of an indescribably complex emotion.
"Is that enough?" he repeated, as if confirming something.
Yukino nodded firmly, but then, she changed the subject, her gaze becoming serious and carrying a hint of pleading: "Although... I can't fully agree with many of your actions, my feelings for you—whether as a 'daughter' or as... someone chosen by you—are real. So..."
She took a deep breath and made what might have been an extravagant request:
"Please, Kanjuro, in the future... can you promise me to... not act without considering the consequences at all? At least... don't be so absolute; leave a bit of... room for maneuver, okay?"
This was her final, weak struggle and exhortation after recognizing reality and choosing to sink into it.
The smile on Kanjuro's face gradually faded, and he fell silent. His deep eyes watched Yukino, churning with unreadable emotions. A brief silence fell over the room, with only the faint sounds of the city's hustle and bustle drifting in from outside.
After a long while, he finally looked away, his tone returning to its usual faint, emotionless calm. He stood up and straightened his school uniform, which wasn't wrinkled at all, as if everything from last night was just a dream.
"Let's go," he didn't directly answer Yukino's request, but simply walked toward the door, his voice steady. "Time for school, my..."
He paused, the title rolling around his tongue before finally being uttered with a strange, almost intimate meaning:
"Good daughter."
Yukinoshita Yukino watched his back, her heart filled with a mixture of emotions. She hadn't received a clear promise, but that title, different from before, seemed to hint at some subtle change. She didn't know what the future would hold, nor if Kanjuro would truly take even a fraction of her request to heart.
But she knew that from this moment on, the boundary called "father and daughter" between her and the eternal youth beside her had become even more blurred. And she, amidst despair and realization, had found her own distorted way of survival.
She stood up and followed Kanjuro's footsteps, stepping into the morning light together toward the campus that seemed ordinary but had long been permeated by darkness. On the campus of Sobu High School, something seemed to have quietly changed.
The most eye-catching was none other than Yukinoshita Yukino. The once cold and aloof Ice Queen, who kept others at a distance, now allowed Kanjuro to naturally hold her hand as they walked side-by-side on campus. She showed no resistance; her expression even carried a strange sense of calm and... acquiescence. Though her gaze remained clear and cold, the sharp sense of rejection directed at Kanjuro had vanished.
This picture of "perfect intimacy" undoubtedly dropped a bombshell on the peaceful campus, attracting countless looks of surprise, curiosity, or jealousy.
"Hey! Look over there... Classmate Yukinoshita and Mr. Kanjuro..."
"Since when did they get so close?"
"They're actually holding hands?! Classmate Yukinoshita didn't even shake him off?!"
The sounds of discussion spread behind them like a tide.
Miura Yumiko and Ebina Hina, who had been closely watching Kanjuro, naturally saw this scene as well. A visible fire of anger and jealousy instantly ignited in Yumiko's beautiful eyes. Pulling Ebina along, she almost jogged to the front of Kanjuro and Yukino, blocking their path.
"Kanjuro!" Miura Yumiko stood with her hands on her hips, her tone full of dissatisfaction and questioning, her gaze glaring fiercely at Kanjuro's hand holding Yukino's. "What is going on?! You and Yukinoshita... when did you get so close?!" She couldn't accept another woman appearing so intimately by Kanjuro's side, especially when that woman was Yukinoshita Yukino, whom she had always been at odds with.
Ebina Hina pushed up her glasses, her gaze behind the lenses scanning back and forth between Kanjuro and Yukino with a hint of inquiry and realization, but she didn't speak.
Looking at the fuming Yumiko, Kanjuro wore his usual gentle and harmless smile. He didn't let go of Yukino's hand; instead, he used his other hand to gently pat Yumiko's head, as if soothing a cat with its fur standing on end.
"Yumiko, don't get excited." His voice had a relaxing magnetism. "Actually, Yukino is my daughter. Isn't it normal for a father to hold his daughter's hand?"
"Dau... Daughter?!" Miura Yumiko's eyes instantly widened, her mouth forming an 'O' shape, as if she had heard a fairy tale. She looked incredulously at Kanjuro's young and handsome face, then at the cold-faced Yukinoshita Yukino beside him, who was similar in age to them; her brain almost stalled. "How is that possible?! Kanjuro, how old are you?! Yukinoshita, she...!"
Facing Yumiko's shock, Yukinoshita Yukino merely gave a cold nod, which served as an acknowledgment of Kanjuro's claim. Her reaction was excessively calm, as if she were admitting to the most ordinary thing.
"How can this be...!" Miura Yumiko still found it hard to accept. She looked at Yukino with a complex gaze, carrying a strange sense of defeat and awkwardness. "I'm actually... I'm actually going to be sisters with this annoying Yukinoshita?!" This realization made her feel extremely awkward.
Hearing this, Yukinoshita Yukino finally withdrew her gaze from the distance and gave a faint glance at Kanjuro, who was still holding her hand. Her tone was steady, yet carried a trace of subtle mockery:
"You certainly are... quite the sentimental one." It was unclear if she was referring to his many daughters or hinting at his ambiguous relationships with Yumiko and the others.
Kanjuro looked down at Yukino. Far from being annoyed by her thorny words, he found them interesting. He leaned in closer, a playful smile on his lips, and asked in a low voice:
"What? Are you jealous?"
Yukinoshita Yukino immediately reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, snapping her head to the other side, leaving him only with the view of her graceful profile and slightly reddened ear tips. Her voice was clearly tsundere:
"I am not jealous." she flatly denied, but her tightly pursed lips betrayed a hint of emotion. "I just think... you are indeed... exactly as I imagined."
This sentence had a profound meaning. It seemed to say his romantic and sentimental nature was hard to change, while also carrying a sense of helplessness and resignation from having "seen through you long ago."
Seeing her duplicitous and awkward manner, the smile in Kanjuro's eyes deepened. He stopped teasing her and just gripped her hand tighter, saying to the still shocked and conflicted Miura Yumiko and the spectating Ebina Hina:
"Alright, we'll talk about the details later. Class is about to start, let's go."
With one hand holding the cold-faced (but red-eared) Yukino and the other naturally draped over the shoulder of Yumiko, who was still muttering "how can this be," he led his distinct "daughters" toward the school building like a true head of the household, leaving behind a trail of surprised looks and whispers.
Campus life continued as usual, but the essence of certain relationships had undergone an earth-shattering, irreversible change in the shadows where no one knew.
In the Service Club during the afternoon, sunlight streamed through the window, making the dust motes floating in the air clearly visible. Yui Yuigahama, as usual, pushed open the clubroom door cheerfully, carrying cookies she had baked herself—cookies that were slightly clumsy in shape but full of heart.
"Daddy Kanjuro! Yukino-n! I'm here—"
Her cheerful voice came to an abrupt halt the moment she saw the scene inside the room.
In the clubroom, Kanjuro was leaning lazily against the table by the window, while Yukinoshita Yukino stood before him, the distance between them excessively close. One of Kanjuro's hands rested casually on Yukino's waist, while the other was gently raised, tucking a disobedient strand of hair behind her ear. Although Yukino didn't lean in, she didn't resist at all; she just tilted her head slightly, her ice-blue eyes downcast, her long eyelashes casting faint shadows beneath them, and a faint, almost imperceptible blush on her cheeks.
This picture was quiet, intimate, and even... carried an indescribably ambiguous atmosphere.
In Yui Yuigahama's perception, Kanjuro was "Papa," the existence who gave her the fatherly love and warmth she lacked. Her feelings for Kanjuro were pure reliance and respect. She also knew Kanjuro had many "daughters" around him, including herself, Yumiko, and even Komachi, who had become strange lately. She had always thought those were special "father-daughter" relationships, like family.
But this scene before her... was completely different!
This was absolutely not the posture or distance a father should have with his daughter! This was clearly... the intimacy that only exists between lovers!
Crack.
A faint cracking sound came from the edge of the cookie box in Yui's hands, pressed by her fingers which had unconsciously tightened. The smile on her face froze, like a shattered mask, peeling away bit by bit to reveal the confusion, shock, and an uncontrollable... sourness and sadness underneath.
Kanjuro and Yukino seemed to hear the movement and turned their heads at the same time.
"Ah, Little Yui is here." Kanjuro's expression didn't change at all, still wearing that gentle smile, and he didn't even withdraw his hand from Yukino's waist.
Yukinoshita Yukino also just gave Yui a faint look, gently brushed away Kanjuro's hand, and stepped back half a pace. Her expression returned to its usual coldness, as if that moment of warmth just now was merely Yui's hallucination.
But Yui Yuigahama had seen it clearly!
She stood there, her hands and feet feeling a bit cold. Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand, a dull ache throbbing within. It wasn't that she was jealous of Yukino getting Kanjuro's attention—as a "daughter," she had always enjoyed Kanjuro's favor. What she couldn't accept was... that kind of intimacy between a man and a woman that transcended the "father-daughter" boundary!
(Why...)
(Father Kanjuro and Classmate Yukinoshita... how could they...)
(That kind of look... it clearly should have been...)
Her mind was in a state of utter confusion, and a sense of grievance from being betrayed and excluded welled up within her. She had always believed that she and Kanjuro shared the most special and purest 'father-daughter' bond. But now, she had witnessed firsthand that Kanjuro and another girl—even if it was Yukino, the'sister' she acknowledged—displayed a completely different relationship dynamic.
"Yui?" Kanjuro seemed to sense her abnormality and called out to her.
Yui Yuigahama snapped back to reality. She blinked her aching eyes forcefully, forced a smile that looked more painful than crying, and placed the cookie box on the nearest table.
"It's... it's nothing! Father Kanjuro, Yukino, these... these are the cookies I just baked! Please... please try some! I... I suddenly remembered I have something to do, so I'll be going now!"
She finished speaking incoherently, not daring to look at Kanjuro or Yukino again. She practically fled from the Service Club activity room, even forgetting to close the door.
She ran far away until she was sure no one was around. Only then did Yuigahama lean against the cold wall and slowly slide down to sit on the floor. She buried her face in her knees, her shoulders twitching slightly.
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