Asuna had always thought celebrating the New Year at her family home was only natural when she was a child.
However, after reaching middle school age, Asuna gradually began to feel suffocated by this annual ritual.
The relatives gathered at the family home to celebrate the New Year. Put nicely, it was a reunion; put bluntly, it was a battlefield where everyone compared themselves against one another.
Since they all came from prestigious families and were members of the same clan, everyone wanted to show that they had developed better than the others. Every household wanted its children to outshine everyone else, to stand at the top of the Yuuki Clan battlefield, rank among the best of their many relatives, make others look at them with envy, curry favor with them, and display their success in life and lofty social status.
That was simply human nature.
Take modern class reunions, for example. Put nicely, they were gatherings where classmates who had not seen one another in a long time caught up. Put bluntly, were they not opportunities to show off, let everyone see how well they had developed, how others had fallen behind them, and how they were struggling at the bottom of society?
Even a small class reunion could be like that, let alone a prestigious clan that had flourished for more than two hundred years. Almost anything could happen.
That was why the parents desperately clawed their way upward, seeking only higher social status. They had no time to spend with their children, while the children barely had any childhood at all—only suffocating schoolwork and the pursuit of good grades. That was the reality of many prestigious clans, including the Yuuki Clan.
Asuna had been like that in the past as well. To avoid falling behind others, she