The small grove deep within the park was darker and quieter than it appeared from the outside. The dense canopy almost completely obscured the sky, with only scattered strands of twilight struggling to penetrate, casting mottled shadows on the ground. The air was filled with the damp scent of soil and plants. The distant city noise was blocked out, leaving only their slightly hurried breathing and the rustle of fallen leaves underfoot.
Kanjuro stopped and turned to face Miura Yumiko. In the dim light, his handsome face seemed somewhat unreal, and his profound eyes were like two bottomless ancient wells, absorbing all the surrounding light and capturing Miura Yumiko's entire attention.
He reached out, his fingertips slightly cool, and gently lifted Miura Yumiko's chin, forcing her to look up and meet his gaze. His movement carried an irresistible dominance, yet was strangely mixed with a heart-trembling tenderness.
"Yumiko," his voice was deep, like a lover's whisper, yet carrying a hint of seduction, "You said... you like me, especially like me, right?"
Miura Yumiko's heart hammered like a drum, her cheeks burning hot. Under the scrutiny of his profound gaze, she almost melted. She nodded forcefully, her voice trembling yet firm: "Yes! I like you, Mr. Kanjuro!"
"So," Kanjuro's fingertips lightly traced her jawline, his tone carrying a persuasive guidance, "if you really like me, shouldn't we... do something to prove that affection?"
Miura Yumiko instantly understood his implication, and a massive wave of shyness and unease suddenly seized her.
Things were moving... too fast! This completely exceeded her imagination of a romantic confession. Her instinct was to shrink back, to call for a stop.
However, when she crashed into Kanjuro's eyes, which seemed to contain both stars and the abyss, and felt the electric touch from his fingertips, along with that mixture of danger and ultimate charm in his aura, all reason and hesitation collapsed in an instant.
An impulse like a moth to a flame dominated her. She was completely attracted to him, sinking; even if there was a bottomless abyss ahead, she was willing to leap down at this moment.
She closed her eyes, her long eyelashes trembling violently, and in a posture of near-sacrifice, she gave a microscopic nod... After an unknown amount of time, silence returned to the woods, with only the evening wind still passing through the branches, making a sobbing sound.
Miura Yumiko snuggled in Kanjuro's arms, her body still retaining the remnants of a tremor and a hint of secret pain. A massive sense of shame intertwined with a strange satisfaction, as if she had completed some sort of ritual, leaving her heart in a mess. She looked up, gazing at Kanjuro's profile, which looked exceptionally calm and even somewhat cold in the dim light, and a strong sense of unease surged in her heart.
"Kanjuro..." Her voice carried a post-event raspiness and a trace of imperceptible pleading, "Will you... will you always like me? You won't... you won't think I'm too easy, will you?"
Kanjuro looked down, seeing the anxiety and dependence flickering in her eyes. The corners of his mouth curled into a perfect, gentle arc as he raised his hand to brush her somewhat messy hair.
"Of course I will." His voice was gentle and pleasant, like the sweetest promise, "You're so cute, how could I not like you?"
However, hearing this promise, Miura Yumiko felt it was inexplicably hollow, as if separated by an invisible membrane. She wanted to ask more, but Kanjuro had already gently pushed her away and began to tidy his clothes, his movements calm and unhurried, as if everything that had just happened was merely an insignificant game.
"It's getting late, I should send you back." His tone returned to its usual gentleness, yet carried an unquestionable finality.
Miura Yumiko's heart sank, and a sense of loss spread through her. She silently dressed and followed Kanjuro out of the small woods. Arriving at the park exit, as the neon lights began to glow and the world of heavy traffic came back into view, it felt as if everything in the woods had just been a dazed dream.
"Kanjuro..." She pulled at the corner of Kanjuro's clothes reluctantly, her eyes filled with attachment, "Will we... see each other again?"
Kanjuro nodded, his gaze lingering on her face for a moment. That look was complex and hard to decipher, seemingly soft for a second, but mostly a deep, impenetrable darkness.
"Yeah, see you next time," he replied. Then, before turning to leave, he seemed to suddenly remember something and spoke with a tone of deliberate hesitation and heaviness:
"Yumiko, although... I was very happy being with you just now."
He paused, successfully seeing Miura Yumiko's eyes light up, but then he changed the subject:
"But... for some reason, in my heart, I still feel like there's some estrangement, something... inexplicable standing there." He frowned slightly, as if truly troubled by some emotion. "When I've thought it through... I'll tell you later."
After saying that, he didn't stay, turning to blend into the bustling crowd, leaving Miura Yumiko frozen in place as if struck by lightning.
(Estrangement? What is it?)
(Is it because I didn't do well enough? Or because he thinks I was too proactive?)
(Is he... regretting it?)
Kanjuro's last few words occupied Miura Yumiko's mind like a curse, pushing her from the hard-won peak of "sweetness" into the abyss of gain-and-loss anxiety and self-doubt. She stood there preoccupied, looking in the direction he had disappeared. The satisfaction and joy from before had vanished, replaced by sheer panic and unease, fearing that she had done something wrong to cause Kanjuro to feel "estrangement."
She walked toward home absent-mindedly, her silhouette looking exceptionally lonely and lost on the neon-lit street. And the path she had stepped onto was one already destined to lead to deeper despair and chaos. The seed named "unease" that Kanjuro had casually sown had already taken root and sprouted in her heart.
Yui Yuigahama moved toward the infirmary door almost in a daze. Her mind was a mess, like it was stuffed with a ball of wet cotton—heavy and suffocating. The sounds vaguely coming from her mother's room last night, Kanjuro's inscrutable attitude this morning, and Kitami-sensei's previous warning... all these swirled in her mind like fragments, piecing together a silhouette that she feared and refused to believe.
She took a deep breath and pushed open the infirmary door.
Reika Kitami was sitting at her desk, her long blonde hair looking somewhat dull under the lights. She looked more tired than usual, with heavy shadows under her eyes. Seeing Yui Yuigahama, she didn't seem surprised, merely gesturing for her to come in with her eyes.
"Kitami-sensei..." Yui Yuigahama's voice carried a sob. She walked up to Kitami, her hands twisting together nervously. "Why... why did you tell me to stay away from Kanjuro-kun before? How did you know... he wasn't a good person?" She looked up, her eyes full of confusion and a final sliver of hope, wishing for an answer that wasn't so cruel.
Kitami looked at her pale little face and swollen eyes, sighing in her heart. She knew that hiding the truth any longer might actually harm this girl.
"Yui," Kitami's voice carried a rare softness and heaviness, "you were right to trust me. I told you to stay away from him to protect you." She paused, observing Yui Yuigahama's reaction, knowing she had to provide more powerful evidence. "Some men hide their danger beneath a perfect facade."
These words seemed to pierce Yui Yuigahama's final defense, and her tears suddenly gushed out. The grievances and panic suppressed all night burst forth. "I... last night... I heard..." She choked out, brokenly recounting the strange sounds from her mother's room and her mother calling Kanjuro's name. "Why... why would Kanjuro-kun be with Mama... they..." She couldn't go on, only weeping helplessly.
Reika Kitami listened quietly, her face showing little surprise, only a deep sorrow and understanding. She stood up and gently patted Yui Yuigahama's trembling shoulder.
"It seems it can't be hidden from you anymore." Kitami's voice was very light, yet it struck Yui Yuigahama's heart like a heavy hammer. "Since you've already noticed the abnormality, I won't hide it any longer."
She stared into Yui Yuigahama's eyes and said clearly, word by word, "Kanjuro is not some ordinary high school student at all. He is the 'Eternal High School Student,' his appearance forever frozen at eighteen. Eighteen years ago, I, your mother Yuigahama Yui, and Yukinoshita Yukino... we were all his classmates at Sacred Scripture Academy."
"E-Eternal High School Student?" Yui Yuigahama murmured, repeating the bizarre term, her mind a complete blank.
Kitami nodded, looking at her with a complex gaze, finally dropping the cruelest truth: "And your identity is actually..."
She paused for a moment, seemingly unable to bear it, but said it anyway: "You are the daughter of Kanjuro and your mother, Yuigahama Yui."
BOOM!
As if a thunderclap had exploded in her mind, Yui Yuigahama's eyes widened, and her blood seemed to freeze instantly. She stumbled back a step, crashing into the medicine cabinet behind her with a loud 'clatter'.
"No... impossible!" she shrieked in denial, her voice distorted by extreme shock. "How could that be true?! You're lying to me!!" She couldn't accept that the classmate who made her heart flutter and troubled her was... was her biological father?! This was too absurd! Too terrifying!
"That is the fact, Yui." Kitami's voice carried an unquestionable heaviness. "Unless your mother had another man over the years close enough to father you besides Kanjuro. But eighteen years ago, your mother didn't have any public boyfriend at school; the only person she was closest to was Kanjuro."
Kitami's words were like a cold scalpel, precisely dissecting Yui Yuigahama's long-held perceptions. Her mother's daze when mentioning the past, her inexplicably complex attitude toward Kanjuro, Kanjuro's extraordinary 'interest' and 'gentleness' toward herself... all the previously incomprehensible fragments were linked together by this terrible truth at this moment, forming a picture of despair.
Yui Yuigahama slumped to the ground, covering her face with her hands and wailing. Her world view collapsed in an instant, overwhelmed by massive shock, disgust, a sense of betrayal, and a bone-deep fear. She was actually... the daughter of the person she 'liked'? Then last night, her mother and Kanjuro... what was that?! Incest?!
This realization made her stomach churn, nearly making her vomit.
Kitami watched her breakdown with a flash of pity in her eyes, but mostly a sense of powerlessness. She knew revealing this truth was cruel to Yui Yuigahama, but if she didn't, the girl might slide into a deeper, irreversible abyss in her ignorance.
"Protect yourself, Yui." Kitami could only repeat this hollow warning, watching the girl curled on the floor, crying nearly to the point of fainting, knowing she needed time to digest this fact that could destroy a person. And what awaited her ahead would be even more chaotic and painful choices. Yui Yuigahama sat slumped on the floor, her clothes soaked with tears. After a long time, the violent trembling finally subsided. She leaned against the cold medicine cabinet, struggling to stand up, tear stains still on her face, yet her eyes held a trace of fragile determination tempered by the cruel truth.
She bowed deeply to Reika Kitami, her voice still sobbing but exceptionally clear: "Kitami-sensei... thank you for telling me the truth." She raised her hand, forcefully wiping the tears from her face as if to wipe away all confusion and weakness. "I... I definitely won't be deceived by Kanjuro! Absolutely not!"
Kitami watched her pretending to be strong, feeling no relief but instead a deeper worry. She knew Kanjuro too well; his charm and his methods were not something a girl who had just learned the truth and was mentally shaken could easily resist.
"Yui," Kitami's voice carried an unprecedented solemnity. She stepped forward, holding Yui Yuigahama's thin shoulders and looking directly into her eyes. "Determination alone is not enough. Kanjuro's charm is immense, beyond your imagination. When he is gentle, he can make you feel like you are his whole world; when he is dangerous, that fatal attraction makes people like moths to a flame. I hope that after knowing the truth, you can stay clear-headed at all times. Never be deceived by any 'friendliness,' 'concern,' or deeper temptations he might show afterward. Remember, his essence will not change. Kanjuro... that is just the kind of person he is."
Yui Yuigahama nodded heavily, carving every one of Kitami's warnings into her heart. "I'll remember, Teacher." She thanked her again and then left the infirmary with unsteady steps, as if escaping the scene of a nightmare.
The door was gently closed, and silence returned to the infirmary, leaving only the smell of disinfectant and an invisible, heavy pressure.
Reika Kitami closed her eyes wearily, rubbing her aching temples. She knew she might have only delayed the tragedy, or... personally pushed the girl into an even more complex and painful choice.
Just as she was mentally exhausted, a low and familiar voice, carrying a hint of a faint smile, abruptly rang out in the silent room:
"Do you think this... is appropriate?"
Kitami snapped her eyes open, her heart contracting. She saw Kanjuro, who had somehow silently leaned against the infirmary doorframe. He hadn't turned on the light, his figure mostly hidden in the intersection of the dim light from the hallway and the shadows of the room, only his eyes flickering with a deep and dangerous light in the gloom, staring at her intently and gently.
He looked as if he had just returned from a stroll, his tone relaxed, even carrying a bit of casual small talk, but the temperature in those eyes was cold enough to suffocate.
Reika Kitami's body stiffened for a moment, but she quickly regained her composure. She slowly turned around to face Kanjuro, her face expressionless, her eyes as calm as a pool of stagnant water, as if looking at a stranger with whom she had no connection. Even her anger and hatred had been replaced by an extreme fatigue and indifference.
"Kanjuro," her voice had no ups or downs, as if stating a fact unrelated to herself, "enough is enough."
She looked at him, her gaze seemingly piercing through his beautiful, eternal skin to see the immortal darkness churning beneath.
"Living isn't just about so-called 'women.' Why not occasionally... spend your endless time and energy on something that truly makes you happy? Go do something you want to do, instead of always obsessing over this... game of plunder and conquest."
There was no accusation in her tone, no pleading, only a kind of see-through, near-pitying advice. It was as if she were letting out a final, faint sigh toward an obsessed soul that could never be reincarnated.
These words were less of an admonishment and more of a desperate farewell to her own inability to change the status quo. She knew he wouldn't listen, but she had to say it; it was the last, insignificant resistance she could offer as someone whose fate had once been tightly intertwined with his.
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