Haruno didn't believe for a second that the terms Lin Ye had set stopped at clothes.
If she were Lin Ye, she'd have demanded a lot more. She'd have gone for a far more thrilling stake.
Even if not the whole thing, he could at least have gone halfway and done a little of this and that, right?
If Lin Ye wasn't going to lay a hand on Yukino, then surely he'd make a move on that Rui Tachibana!
Otherwise, why bother setting up such a thrilling, edgy card game?
And so,
Haruno kept her eyes fixed on Lin Ye, waiting for him to give a clear, affirmative answer.
"Miss Haruno, what stakes do you think I'd propose?"
Lin Ye answered her question with a question.
With a question like this, you never answer directly. Countering was the better play.
"Knowing Lin-kun, it would definitely be the this-and-that kind of stakes."
She leaned in close beside Lin Ye and gently poked his waist. "And Yukino must have lost miserably, and Student Tachibana didn't fare much better. If I hadn't come tonight, I bet Lin-kun would be lounging with a girl on each arm, wallowing in sweet, tender comfort!"
That scene,
made even Haruno a little envious.
If she were a man, a gender-swapped version of herself, she was sure having a girl on each arm wouldn't be any problem at all.
With that face and that family background, there'd be no shortage of women willing to throw themselves at him.
Getting two of them together would be ridiculously easy.
But,
getting Yukino, her own sister, to share Lin Ye with other girls was a different matter. It was completely different.
She'd thought it impossible.
She knew Sister too well, well enough to be nearly certain Sister could never go that far.
But now,
Haruno realized her judgment had been off, and by quite a margin.
Sister was already playing thrilling betting card games with another girl. What would come next?
A person's bottom line gets pushed back step by step, lowered step by step.
Now Yukino was willing to play this game with Rui Tachibana. Then next time—no, not even next time. Tonight she'd be willing to share Lin Ye's bed alongside Rui Tachibana.
And if it went further,
Haruno couldn't even imagine it. She couldn't guess how far Sister might go.
"Hoo."
By then Sister would no longer be the girl she knew, the one she remembered. What on earth would she do then?!
A flicker of panic and worry crossed Haruno Yukinoshita's face.
"You've got a point. It's worth a try,"
Lin Ye replied,
which left Haruno Yukinoshita struggling to keep up.
Why had he suddenly decided to try it?
"In a little while I'll put my demand to Yukino and Student Tachibana: both of them keep me company tonight. Oh, and in Yukino's room. That sounds pretty nice."
With that smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, Haruno Yukinoshita felt he had to be joking, yet she couldn't stop wondering whether he might be serious.
"Miss Haruno doesn't believe me?"
Lin Ye's counter-question threw Haruno into a brief hesitation.
She wondered whether she should say yes or no.
It was troublesome, and she dithered.
Whichever answer she picked, it felt wrong.
"…"
"It's true. And last night I did have Yukino and Student Tachibana, one on each arm."
Haruno Yukinoshita: ???
She stared at him blankly, still clinging to a shred of doubt, but Lin Ye spoke again.
"It's true. If you don't believe me, ask Yukino and Student Tachibana."
With that line,
even if Haruno didn't want to believe it, she had to accept it.
So Sister had already been held like that, with a girl on each side!
Some idea of hers was cracking and crumbling bit by bit.
Sister had already become something Haruno could never have pictured.
But persuade her? Haruno shook her head. Impossible. It didn't even need saying.
Sister was more stubborn than she was. Once Sister made up her mind, nobody could change it, except Mother, and Mother basically wouldn't step in over Sister's current situation.
Because,
Lin Ye was there.
Lin Ye liked Sister, and out of consideration for Lin Ye and for the family, Mother wouldn't interfere too much with Sister's conduct. After all, it made Lin Ye happier.
Haiii,
the moment she thought of it,
Haruno sighed again.
It was getting harder and harder for her to influence Sister.
Sister would probably never be able to part from Lin Ye now.
The thought left Haruno more and more helpless.
She truly didn't want Sister to be with Lin Ye. It was too dangerous.
For one thing, Lin Ye might die at any moment and never come back. For another, with his current situation, there were far too many girls around him.
Haruno wanted Sister to find a man who loved her alone, who would be wholeheartedly devoted to her, instead of having to compete with other women and fight over him in jealous squabbles.
Finding a man who loved Sister with his whole heart really wasn't hard.
But getting Lin Ye to love Sister with his whole heart? That was too hard. Flat-out impossible.
Sister might not even end up marrying Lin Ye someday.
There were simply too many women around Lin Ye.
And in the future, there would only be more.
Just thinking about it made Haruno Yukinoshita dizzy and short of breath.
The thing she least wanted to happen was already on its way, and the next step would be making it a reality.
She wanted to change it, but there was nothing she could do.
"Lin-kun. Can we talk about something?"
Haruno let out a long sigh and spoke.
"Go ahead, but I don't promise to agree."
"Could you keep a bit of distance from my sister?"
Lin Ye smiled when he heard it.
Finally, he'd finally heard Haruno Yukinoshita say it.
Before, Haruno had often used that line to tease and needle him, acting as if she wanted him and Yukino together. But Lin Ye knew she was against it, thoroughly disliked it. She'd only used Yukino as a conversational hook because he was fond of the Yukinoshitas, to push him into compromises and serve some goal of her own.
But,
Lin Ye could sense that Haruno truly didn't want Yukino to be with him.
He'd been very clear on that.
Now, at last, Haruno had said it.
"Miss Haruno, do you think this is the time to say that?"
Lin Ye went on. "Or, to put it more accurately, don't you think it's a little late to be saying it now?"
Yes,
it was already too late.
Yukino was already his fiancée. They'd already lain together, already done so many intimate things.
Never mind that Yukino didn't want to part. Even if she wanted to leave, he wouldn't let her go.
He already felt possessive of Yukino. He would never hand her over to anyone else.
As for that scenario, Lin Ye didn't even want to think about it.
"…"
Haruno fell silent.
It was a bit late, true.
"But if you're willing, Lin-kun…"
"I'm not,"
Lin Ye refused outright, leaving no room for softening. "I'm not willing. Yukino stays with me for the rest of her life."
Just then,
Yukino, standing at the open door, looked at Lin Ye as his words ended.
Or rather, she and Rui Tachibana had caught most of the whole conversation between Lin Ye and Haruno.
Rui Tachibana, of course, had no intention of saying anything the entire time.
But Yukino was different.
In the current situation, she had to speak up and state her position.
Pit-pat, pit-pat…
In her soft indoor slippers, Yukino Yukinoshita made a surprisingly loud noise as she walked,
as if to display the displeasure in her heart.
In no time she reached her older sister's side, looked at her, and said slowly, "Sister, my affairs, my private matters, please don't meddle. I'll choose and handle my own future."
That was her stance.
She'd always resented her older sister's casual meddling. If it were Mother who stepped in, she'd dislike it inwardly but wouldn't say so outright. She'd just bottle her true feelings up.
But,
with her older sister it was different.
With her older sister, she could say it.
"Yukino, are you sure about that? Can you really decide your own future?"
That faint, ever-present smile instantly threw Yukino into a bout of self-doubt.
Her future wasn't hers alone, after all. It was bound to the family.
She knew full well that, if needed, she'd have to sacrifice herself for the family. Take this engagement to Lin Ye. Hadn't she keenly sensed back then how badly her parents wanted him, how they hoped Lin Ye would bind himself to the Yukinoshita family's warship?
And as the family's second daughter, she had to make sacrifices for the family.
Even with that whole chain of preconditions, she couldn't deny it.
Her future was already set, wasn't it?
But in the next second,
Yukino Yukinoshita felt her hand being caught in a large, warm one.
Lin Ye.
Yukino Yukinoshita instinctively looked at him, at the man she knew so well.
He was smiling, his eyes bright, giving off a calm that put her at ease.
She understood.
She got it.
Lin Ye was telling her not to worry!
"I can. I can decide,"
the girl with long black hair said firmly,
without a flicker of hesitation.
She knew she had the right to choose, the right to decide.
"Because you have Lin-kun as your backing, you think you have a choice? But isn't that limiting your choice too? You don't really have a choice, do you?"
For a moment,
Yukino even agreed with her sister's reasoning,
but she quickly caught herself and rejected it.
"What I want to break away from is the family's influence."
"So, leaning on a man instead?"
"He's my boyfriend, my fiancé. I can lean on him."
Yukino said it without a trace of hesitation or embarrassment, her words completely firm.
But those words stunned Rui Tachibana.
She was the one outsider who hadn't known.
She knew the relationship between Lin Ye and the Yukinoshitas was far from ordinary, ambiguous at the very least,
but what did "fiancé" mean?
Were Lin Ye and Yukino Yukinoshita already engaged?
How come…
How come she hadn't known a thing?
When on earth had that happened?
Rui Tachibana's head was full of questions, her eyes wide, her belly full of nothing but confusion and curiosity.
"Hahaha, so Yukino still wants to lean on somebody. Oh well, lean away! If I wanted to lean on someone, I'd pick Lin-kun too. Yukino got there first, and I'm so, so envious."
Haruno couldn't stop laughing as she said it.
She had seen Yukino's reaction and the change in her.
Even if it wasn't what she'd hoped for, it was still her sister's answer.
"Lin-kun, since you don't plan to let go of my sister, then you'd better… stay with my sister properly and take good care of her. And don't get tangled up with other women."
As she said this,
Haruno deliberately glanced at Rui Tachibana. "Yukino will be hurt. Don't be fooled because she doesn't say anything. When it hurts, it hurts."
Haruno knew she could no longer change the fact that Lin Ye and Yukino were together. So all she could do was find a way to make Lin Ye belong to Sister alone, or to Sister and herself, the two sisters.
Haruno didn't mind sharing as sisters,
because she knew Sister alone would struggle to handle the rest of those women.
Just one Mai Sakurajima was probably enough to give Sister a headache, never mind the several others.
Sister was too naive. She truly was no match for those other women.
"Sister, you don't need to worry about that."
"Aiya, a grown daughter can't be kept at home. It hasn't even started and you're already defending the man. Once you're married, who knows what you'll be like. It'll probably turn into sisters tearing each other apart!"
Hearing that,
Yukino Yukinoshita stayed quiet on the surface,
but instinctively she wanted to explain. Her reason kept her in check.
"Miss Haruno, all right, let's stop here."
"Boo-hoo, Lin-kun is defending Yukino now. Truly a couple of one heart! What are Student Tachibana and I supposed to do? So sad, so heartbreaking."
Haruno even wiped at her eyes, as if something truly sorrowful had happened.
But in fact, aside from Rui Tachibana, who believed it, neither Lin Ye nor Yukino Yukinoshita bought it at all.
What could possibly make Haruno Yukinoshita shed tears? They honestly couldn't think of anything.
"How about dinner?"
Lin Ye said.
It was about that time. Dinner was in order.
"Lin-kun's dinner? Simple! Three courses. I wonder which one Lin-kun plans to savor first!"
Haruno said with a beaming smile, her eyes radiating temptation,
and the air itself took on a hint of ambiguity.
Lin Ye stayed calm, however. "If Miss Haruno wants to go wild and cry, I don't mind obliging."
The hint was obvious,
pointing at what Lin Ye would do.
In that instant, Haruno gave up on the spot.
She really was no match for Lin Ye.
His methods of punishment,
she definitely didn't dare face again.
"Then forget it. But no more scaring me next time. If Lin-kun keeps scaring me over and over, it'll stop working. I… then I'll… I'll wait until nobody's around and bully Yukino hard to get my revenge."
She had stated her own ideas and wishes too.
"Of course, getting back at Student Tachibana works too. She obviously has a deep connection with Lin Ye, hahaha."
Haruno seemed delighted, as if she'd found yet another handle to hold over someone, her smile never fading.
…
…
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