The school bell rang, and students swarmed out of the teaching building like bees returning to a hive. Yui Yuigahama deliberately lingered until the end; she didn't want to face anyone, especially Kanjuro and Yukinoshita Yukino. Alone, carrying her heavy schoolbag and with her head down, she walked home with a heavy heart, the setting sun stretching her shadow long and lonely.
However, not long after she stepped out of the school gate, two familiar figures blocked her path.
"Little Yui, why are you walking so fast?" Kanjuro's voice was as gentle as ever, but it made Yuigahama's heart tighten suddenly.
She looked up to see Kanjuro smiling at her, and beside him, Yukinoshita Yukino stood quietly, her cold gaze resting on her.
An indescribable sourness and grievance instantly surged into her heart. Yuigahama puffed out her cheeks, her tone carrying a thick sense of jealousy and spite that she hadn't even noticed herself:
"The two of you... have such a good relationship, so why come looking for me?" She looked away, not wanting them to see her reddening eyes. "It's fine if you two just walk together..."
Hearing this, Kanjuro burst into laughter—a relaxed and pleasant sound, as if Yuigahama's jealousy was an extremely interesting thing in his eyes.
Yukinoshita Yukino looked at Yuigahama's awkward and sad appearance, sighed softly, and took a step forward. Her voice wasn't as icy as usual; instead, it carried a strange, almost soothing calmness:
"Classmate Yuihama," she began, "actually... I am the same as you."
Yuigahama turned her head toward her in confusion.
Yukino met her gaze, her eyes frank: "We both like Kanjuro. Moreover, we both know about '330,' and we... are both daughters of Father Kanjuro." She pointed out this twisted relationship without any hesitation.
Yuigahama was stunned, looking at Yukino in surprise: "Yukino... what are you trying to say?"
Yukinoshita Yukino didn't answer directly. Instead, she did something that surprised Yuigahama even more—she gently but firmly reached out and embraced the stiff, bewildered Yui Yuigahama.
The embrace wasn't passionate, but it carried an understanding of shared suffering and a... bizarre inclusiveness.
"Since..." Yukino's voice sounded in Yuigahama's ear, soft yet carrying an unquestionable power, "since we all uncontrollably love Father Kanjuro, why... can't we stay by his side together?"
Yuigahama's body gave a violent shudder.
Yukino continued, her tone holding a resigned clarity and tenderness: "I know that such feelings are wrong, twisted, and violate all ethics... but who can truly stop their inner... most primitive longing and impulse to love someone?"
These words were like the final straw that broke all the struggle and defenses in Yuigahama's heart.
She thought of the blood she had stained her hands with in the shadows, unknown to anyone, for Kanjuro's sake—that boy named Hube Sho who used to harass her. Because he tried to harm Kanjuro (or rather, touched something Kanjuro didn't allow him to touch), she had... "cleaned him up." At that moment, she knew that her feelings for Kanjuro had long surpassed ordinary "father-daughter" affection; it was a dark love mixed with worship, possessiveness, dependence, and... a willingness to fall into hell for him.
She couldn't deny it.
She was already deeply mired in it, unable to extricate herself.
Tears welled up uncontrollably again, but this time, it wasn't just pure grievance and jealousy. It was mixed with relief, resignation, and the complex emotion of having found a "kindred spirit."
She raised her tear-blurred face to look at Kanjuro, who had been watching her tenderly. On his peerlessly handsome face was a reassuring (even if false) smile, as if silently telling her: It's okay, I know everything, I accept everything.
Her final psychological defense completely collapsed.
Yui Yuigahama gave a sob and threw herself into Kanjuro's arms, hugging him tightly as if to merge all her grievances, insecurities, and that twisted love into this embrace.
Kanjuro smiled and opened his arms, his left hand naturally encircling the calm-faced Yukinoshita Yukino beside him, while his right hand gently stroked the trembling back of Yui Yuigahama in his embrace.
"There, there, my precious daughters..." His voice was deep and magnetic, carrying a sense of satisfaction from controlling everything and a facade of fatherly love. "Don't cry. From now on, Papa... will never leave you again."
His gaze swept over Yukino and Yuigahama in his arms, his eyes deep like a bottomless abyss, firmly drawing in their souls.
"We all... must be together forever."
The afterglow of the setting sun cast a warm golden halo over the three embracing figures. The scene appeared warm and harmonious, yet it was built upon twisted ethics, a dark past, and an inescapable descent. One was Yukinoshita Yukino, who had walked from clarity into the abyss; the other was Yui Yuigahama, who had been tainted from innocence into darkness. And at the center was that eternal youth, smiling, embracing his "daughters" as they walked toward a deeper, more irreversible vortex of fate.
The setting sun sank below the city skyline, dyeing the sky a hazy orange-red. Kanjuro held Yukinoshita Yukino's hand with one hand and draped his other arm over Yui Yuigahama's shoulder, their three figures appearing exceptionally striking in the deepening twilight. What was even more eye-catching was that they were not traveling alone; Yukinoshita Yukino and Yuigahama Yui, two mothers who still possessed charm, followed closely behind, their faces wearing complex expressions mixed with submissiveness and secret anticipation.
This peculiar "family" combination was heading toward a well-known hotel, the air filled with an unspoken, ambiguous atmosphere.
Just then, a voice that was somewhat playful yet carried a hidden sharpness rang out from behind and to the side:
"Oh my? Isn't this my dear sister and... Mother? It's so lively; where are you all going?"
Yukinoshita Haruno stepped slowly out from the shadows of a street corner, her face wearing her usual, inscrutable smile. Her gaze, however, swept over everyone present like a searchlight, finally landing on Yukino, who was being led by Kanjuro.
Yukinoshita Yukino stopped and met her sister's gaze calmly. Having experienced the honesty and choices of the previous night, her eyes were no longer filled with the antagonistic coldness of the past; instead, they held a trace of deep, almost weary frankness. She answered clearly:
"Sister. We are preparing to attend Father Kanjuro's... party."
The title "Father Kanjuro" coming so naturally from Yukino's mouth, combined with the word "party" which was full of suggestion in this context, caused the smile on Yukinoshita Haruno's face to freeze for a moment. Her pupils contracted imperceptibly as her gaze quickly flickered over her mother Yukinoshita Yukino, the Yuigahama mother and daughter, and the central figure, Kanjuro.
She understood.
Yukino already knew the whole truth.
And she had made a choice similar to her mother's... no, she had thrown herself even more thoroughly into that vortex of darkness.
A complex mix of emotions flashed through Haruno's eyes—shock, realization, an indescribable pang of heartache, but more than anything, a heavy sense of powerlessness as her premonition of "as expected" came true. She looked at her sister, whom she had once tried to protect (albeit in an awkward way), and at her mother, who was gradually losing herself under Kanjuro's influence. The habitual smile on the corner of her mouth finally vanished completely, replaced by deep disappointment and alienation.
She shook her head gently, her voice low and carrying a coldness that felt as if it came from a great distance:
"Yukino... and Mother... you both have truly disappointed me."
She spoke softly, yet her words were like a cold dagger, accurately piercing Yukinoshita Yukino's heart and causing Yukino's eyes to flicker for a moment. But neither of them argued or explained; they simply accepted this judgment from their closest kin in silence.
Haruno said nothing more. She gave Kanjuro a deep look—one filled with warnings, wariness, and a loneliness from being excluded that she herself refused to admit—before turning away and disappearing into the bustling crowd and the night without a trace of lingering.
This little interlude failed to change the group's destination.
Inside the luxury suite on the top floor of the hotel, the lights were intentionally dimmed, and the air was thick with the scent of expensive incense.
Yukinoshita Yukino carried the thorough depravity of someone who had weathered much; Yuigahama Yui's eyes sparkled with a fanatical and twisted adoration; Yukinoshita Yukino displayed a calmness born of burning her bridges beneath her cool exterior; and Yui Yuigahama was a mix of shyness and confusion from her first brush with darkness. Under Kanjuro's presence, the relationships between them became intricately complex.
Kanjuro sat calmly at the center of this emotional vortex he had personally woven.
His smile remained gentle, but deep in his eyes burned the pleasure of controlling everything.
This was an entanglement stripped of worldly norms, beyond what an ordinary person could imagine.
...The next morning, sunlight streamed through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, dispelling the night's haze from the room.
Kanjuro stood by the window, greeting the dawn as he lazily stretched his body.
Dressed in a snow-white bathrobe, his complexion was ruddy, his eyes clear, and he looked entirely refreshed.
He glanced back at the messy bed behind him, which still held a lingering warmth.
A faint, imperceptible curve of satisfaction tugged at the corner of Kanjuro's mouth.
A new day had begun, and the web of darkness he had woven, now ensnaring even more people, seemed to have grown even stronger.
Standing by the floor-to-ceiling window of the hotel suite, Kanjuro watched the city gradually wake up, the twisted warmth of the previous night still seemingly lingering on his fingertips. The satisfied curve of his lips had not yet faded, but his gaze was already fixed further away—on the only figure who had not yet been completely tainted by his darkness and was even trying to break free: Yukinoshita Haruno.
He took out his phone, tapped the screen, found the contact labeled "Haruno," and dialed the number.
Meanwhile, on a distant shore.
Yukinoshita Haruno sat alone on a breakwater, the salty sea breeze blowing through her long hair and thin clothes. Hugging her knees, she stared at the boundless, surging blue sea, her eyes vacant and weary. The morning sun shone on the water, shattering into ten thousand golden scales, but it could not illuminate the gloom in her heart.
The scene she had witnessed last night—her sister Yukino's look of calm depravity and her mother's complete, unresisting submission—hit her like cold waves, repeatedly battering the boundaries she tried to maintain. She felt a bone-deep loneliness and... perhaps a hint of disappointment at not being chosen.
Just then, the phone in her pocket vibrated, and the name flashing on the screen was—"Kanjuro."
Haruno's gaze fell on the name, her eyes instantly becoming sharp and complex. She didn't answer immediately, letting the phone vibrate in her palm as if it were a hot potato or a summons from the abyss.
The ringtone persisted, over and over, intertwining with the sound of waves crashing against the shore, leaving her feeling agitated.
She knew the purpose of Kanjuro's call. It was nothing more than to flaunt his "victory" or use his twisted logic to try and drag her, the last one, into that swamp-like vortex. She didn't want to listen, and she certainly didn't want anything more to do with him.
(Enough... truly enough.)
(Yukino and Mother are already... I can't anymore...)
At the last moment before the call would have timed out, Haruno took a sharp breath of the salty sea air, as if having made a decision. She forcefully pressed the red decline button and then gripped the phone tightly in her hand, her knuckles turning white from the exertion.
She stood up and faced the vast ocean, as if wanting to cast all her chaotic thoughts into the infinite blue.
"Let it be..." she whispered to herself, her voice scattered by the wind, carrying a sense of finality. "Kanjuro... from now on, you and I... have nothing more to do with each other."
She decided to completely sever this pathological connection, even if it meant drawing a line between herself and her fallen sister and mother. Even if the path ahead was unknown, she would hold her final ground of clarity.
Inside the hotel suite.
Listening to the prompt indicating the call had been declined, the smile on Kanjuro's face didn't change at all; instead, it became deeper and more... playful.
He put down the phone and looked out the window again, as if he could pierce through the city's steel and concrete to see the figure on the distant shore trying to escape.
"Severing ties?" He repeated the phrase softly, as if he had heard an extremely childish joke, his lips curling into a cold and certain arc.
"Haruno, my dear 'daughter'..."
His voice was low, carrying the pleasure and unquestionable authority of a predator locking onto its prey.
"This game... has never been something you can start or end just because you say so."
"We will meet again very soon."
The sea breeze continued to blow against Haruno's thin figure. She thought her refusal was the end, but she didn't know that in Kanjuro's eyes, it was merely the brief silence before the curtain rose on another, more challenging, and inevitably more cruel "game."
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