…
…
The next afternoon.
Her attendance over, Yukino was delivered to the gates of Sobu High like a marionette on strings. Her phone gave a faint buzz.
The caller ID flashed two characters: "Sister."
Yukino's brow tightened almost imperceptibly, then smoothed out again.
Her feelings toward this older sister, who always toyed with her in the palm of her hand and inspired in her both reverence and dread, were complicated.
But now, after that life-altering "transaction," when she faced Haruno, what filled her heart more than anything was the calm of having been useful, and a faint, secret, tragic satisfaction at having protected her family.
She walked to a quiet corner of the campus, made sure no one was around, and only then answered the call.
"Hello, sister." Yukino's voice remained cool and aloof.
"Little Yukino, how's school?" From the other end came Haruno's usual voice.
"…Did you need something?" Yukino had no desire to engage in any meaningless small talk with her.
"My, my, still so unadorable."
Haruno gave a soft laugh, but cut herself off mid-sentence with practiced skill, then shifted her tone, letting a hint of unintended gravity slip through.
"It's nothing major. I just wanted to update you on how things are at home."
Haruno's voice sounded a little tired.
"Thanks to Mr. Fujiwara's help, Yukinoshita Real Estate's stock price has stabilized, no further crash. The pack of old foxes on the board has settled down for the moment as well. But… haa, those key real estate projects the Saionji Family deliberately stalled before, the situation now… it seems to have gotten worse."
"Worse?" Yukino's heart sank as if seized by an invisible hand.
"Yes."
Haruno let out a heavy sigh. "The Saionji Family may have fallen, but they ran Chiba for years. Their roots run deep, and their allies, those who fed off them, are still around. Now those people, as if they all coordinated, have suddenly banded together to choke our projects."
"Construction materials can't get in. Workers can't start. Just the daily losses from breach-of-contract penalties and bank interest add up to a staggering figure."
The sudden news set off massive waves in Yukino's heart.
"Alright, alright, enough of these unpleasant matters." Haruno seemed to sense her silence and quickly slipped back into her breezy tone. "Big sister will handle things at home, don't worry… that's all for now, I have a meeting."
With that, Haruno hung up.
Yukino held the phone, rooted to the spot, motionless for a long while.
The crisis… wasn't over?
Had her "sacrifice" only bought a brief moment to breathe?
The thought sent a sharp pain through her chest.
…
That evening, when Yukino returned to the villa and once again carried out her duties, her movements showed a subtle stiffness, a faint distraction.
And Seiji Fujiwara, like the keenest of hunters, caught that minute change in her with perfect precision.
But he didn't point it out. He only smiled to himself.
The next day, Haruno's second "guidance" arrived right on schedule, like a strike calculated long in advance.
This time she didn't call. She sent an image directly to Yukino's phone.
It was a screenshot of a meticulously forged, yet utterly convincing, "internal emergency email."
The senders were the legal departments of several of those stalled projects' major partners, signing jointly.
The recipient was the entire board of Yukinoshita Real Estate.
Every line of the email was a dagger, cold and pitiless in its threat.
The message stated plainly that if Yukinoshita Real Estate could not resolve all the work stoppages within one week, the partners would jointly invoke the sky-high breach-of-contract clauses in every contract, demanding that the Yukinoshita family pay penalties amounting to tens of billions of yen.
And they would simultaneously file suit, applying to freeze all of the Yukinoshita family's assets, dragging this once-illustrious Chiba family into a legal abyss from which there could be no return.
Reading the contents.
Yukino's breathing instantly went shallow and ragged. She felt close to suffocating.
In her eyes, panic and fear surfaced, undisguised.
The situation was far, far more serious than she had imagined.
Her one act of "self-sacrifice" had solved nothing fundamental.
She had only, like a fool, stamped out a small flame in the kitchen… while a forest fire vast enough to reduce the entire family and its house to ash had only just begun to spread in earnest.
Anxiety, like black vines, sprouted wildly in her heart, coiling tightly around it, stealing her breath.
And the final straw that broke this proud camel came down with crushing weight on the evening of the third day.
Haruno called again, and this time her voice carried an exhaustion and helplessness Yukino had never heard from her before.
"Little Yukino… I'm sorry…" The moment the call connected, Haruno's voice was thick with tears, as though she were one breath away from total collapse. "Big sister… big sister really is useless… I went to beg Mr. Fujiwara again…"
Yukino's heart leapt to her throat.
Her whole body went taut with tension.
"He said… he only deals with destroying enemies, he doesn't clean up our messes for us…" Haruno's voice was choked, brimming with despair. "He said, the sincerity our Yukinoshita family showed last time was only enough to buy the Saionji Family's life. It's nowhere near enough to make him offend so many partners at once for our sake…"
"Unless…" Haruno paused deliberately at this point, a pause heavy with humiliation almost too shameful to voice.
"Unless what?!" Yukino almost screamed the question. She had already sensed the most terrible answer coming.
"Unless we Yukinoshitas can show… more sincerity."
With that, Haruno seemed unable to hold herself together any longer and hung up at once.
Listening to the busy tone droning through the receiver, Yukino stood frozen.
More sincerity… a display that would truly satisfy him…
The words echoed in her mind like a malicious incantation, again and again.
She wasn't a fool.
She understood the bare, unvarnished implication behind those words, an implication soaked through with carnal, dominating intent.
Passively, numbly enduring the contract like a corpse was nowhere near enough.
That man… what he wanted was more. Something deeper.
Active.
Debasing.
Like the lowest of maids, the most pitiful of slaves, casting aside her dignity to actively… "please" him!
Only with this kind of unreserved offering could her family's safety be truly secured.
At that thought.
Yukino was drowned in profound despair.
She knew she had to do something.
Something… she had never even imagined doing, something that would lower her into the dust.
…
…
That night, when Seiji Fujiwara returned to the villa.
What greeted him was no longer the vast, cold hall that resembled a palace mausoleum.
A slender figure stood respectfully in the shadows of the entryway, like a servant who had waited for her master with absolute loyalty.
It was Yukino Yukinoshita.
She wore the classic black-and-white maid uniform.
The black miniskirt, so short it barely covered the tops of her thighs, left her long, perfectly straight legs, sculpted as if from the finest ivory and utterly without flaw, completely exposed to the air.
The intricate band of white lace at the hem, paired with the pure white over-the-knee stockings shimmering with an almost holy glow, created a visual contrast steeped in both chastity and temptation.
Her head was lowered. Her silken black hair had slipped down past her ears, hiding most of her expression.
Only her small, stubbornly pursed lips, like cherry blossom petals, were visible.
When she saw Seiji walk in, her body stiffened slightly on instinct, then, as if steeling herself like someone walking to the gallows, she stepped forward in awkward, faintly unnatural strides until she stood before him.
Then she slowly knelt down.
She extended a pale, slender hand and began, with extremely clumsy, halting movements, to remove his shoes.
This was the most "sincere," most active form of "service" she had been able to come up with after an entire afternoon of agonizing inner battles and self-loathing.
She had thought that this "initiative," this "humility" with all dignity discarded, would at least win from Seiji a flicker of "satisfaction," a flicker of mercy.
However.
Seiji only gave her a cold, dismissive glance.
There was no desire in his eyes, no satisfaction, not even surprise.
Only a kind of detachment, as if watching a clumsy, ridiculous farce.
"I have no interest in this kind of cheap roleplay."
His voice, flat and devoid of emotion, came down like a frigid hammer that shattered Yukino's fragile heart to pieces.
He didn't even let her finish removing his shoes. He simply lifted his foot, stepped past her rigid body, and walked on.
He walked toward the study, leaving Yukino with only the cold sight of his back.
Yukino remained kneeling, her whole body frozen.
The "initiative" she had summoned every ounce of courage in her life to muster had earned her a merciless, even humiliating, "indifference."
Vast confusion and frustration washed over her like an icy tide.
Why?
Did I misunderstand?
Or was this level… still not enough in his eyes?
Yukino bit her lip and rose from the floor. The unyielding pride within her drove her, recklessly, to follow him into the study.
In the study, Seiji had settled leisurely onto the sofa. In his hand was a thick English original with a gilded cover: James Joyce's Ulysses, one of the most impenetrably difficult monuments of modernist literature.
Yukino walked quickly to stand behind him. Trembling violently with nerves and shame, she stretched out her arms and embraced him tightly from behind.
She pressed her cold cheek against his back, like a drowning person clutching the only piece of driftwood.
"Please… please use me…"
The girl's voice trembled fiercely with extreme humiliation and tension. It was as thin as a mosquito's whine, mournfully pleading. "Whatever you… whatever you want to do to me… is fine…"
This was the last bargaining chip she could offer as a woman, as a "commodity."
In theory.
No male creature alive could refuse a top-tier beautiful girl actively, abjectly throwing herself into his arms like this.
Yukino had always been quite confident in her own loveliness.
But Seiji once again trampled on her common sense.
He didn't even turn around. He simply extended one hand and, as if pushing aside something that was in his way, shoved Yukino off without the slightest mercy.
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