Chapter 8: Yukino's choice (4/4)
March 21, 3:45 p.m.
The car slowly entered the parking lot. After parking, Yukinoshita Haruno turned to look at the figure in the passenger seat.
Her younger sister, Yukinoshita Yukino.
"You can drop me off here. I can walk the rest of the way myself."
Yukinoshita Yukino adjusted her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and glanced at the alley directly outside the window.
From this angle, she could clearly see the roadside sign for the Lycoris café standing halfway down the alley.
"Yukino."
Yukinoshita Haruno suddenly called out.
Yukinoshita Yukino, who had just pushed open the car door, paused and turned her head slightly, speaking in a cool voice.
"Was there something else?"
"Is it about transferring to Toyogasaki Academy, or moving into the apartment?"
Sitting in the driver's seat, Yukinoshita Haruno stared through the windshield, took several deep breaths, and said:
"If you can't take it, you can come home..."
Before Haruno could finish, Yukinoshita Yukino cut in.
"You seem to have forgotten something, Sister."
"Huh?" Haruno froze.
Yukinoshita Yukino drew a deep breath, then once again looked into her sister's eyes. It was the first time their eyes had met that year.
"You and I are enemies."
Yukinoshita Yukino stressed this in an icy voice.
The Yukinoshita Family's tradition was to establish enemies, defeat them, and surpass them, thereby continually surpassing oneself.
And within the Yukinoshita Family, the two sisters were natural enemies and rivals when it came to inheritance rights.
This was also an environment Mrs. Yukinoshita had deliberately created-or rather, an "environment" passed down through the Yukinoshita Family.
"There's no question that I lost to you in our previous competition. That's also why Mother agreed without hesitation when I proposed living away from home during high school."
In other words,