Tug of War 

It turned out that Lady Murasaki, seeing that it was getting dark, wanted to discuss the evening’s exorcism ritual with Haruka and Yukina. And so, she had sent Momozawa Ai to fetch Haruka, and Kiyohime to notify Yukina.

Kiyohime had come from a different direction, so she hadn’t seen Suzune waiting patiently on the other side of the secluded clearing. She arrived at Yukina’s door, rang the bell, and when the door opened, she found Yukina looking at her with a strange, complicated expression she couldn’t quite decipher.

Kiyohime touched her own face, confused. Why is she staring at my face like that? There’s nothing on it.

She looked past her sister’s stiff shoulder and saw Haruka peeking out from inside. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice sharp with surprise.

Haruka was also quite startled. He slowly came forward, a guilty, sheepish look on his face. “What are you doing here, looking for Yukina-san?” He glanced at Yukina. They had just been talking about Kiyohime. Speak of the devil.

“My mother sent me to get her for the exorcism ritual tonight,” Kiyohime said, a suspicious look clouding her face. “What did you just call her?”

“Huh?” Haruka froze for a second.

Kiyohime looked back and forth between the two of them, her expression growing stranger. “Did you just call my sister ‘Yukina’?”

“I told him to,” Yukina said, her voice a flat, cold statement of fact.

Haruka glanced at her. Her expression was as awkward as if she had just walked into an invisible spiderweb. She was using a cold tone to cover up her strange, flustered emotions.

Kiyohime didn’t notice the strangeness, but she felt a sharp, unpleasant pang of jealousy that these two, who were so close to her, had been meeting secretly behind her back, and seemed to be on such good, familiar terms. Just as she was about to express her displeasure, Haruka quickly cut her off, his voice a soothing, placating murmur. “Onee-chan, can I call you by your name, too?”

Kiyohime paused, forced to swallow her rising emotions. “Of course you can,” she said sullenly, though a secret thrill ran through her.

“Kiyohime-neechan?”

“Mm.”

“Since we’re brother and sister, and we’re being so close, you should call me by my name, too.”

“Me too?”

Haruka nodded, then said her name again, his voice soft, “Kiyohime-neechan.”

Kiyohime looked at his gentle smile, and a faint blush started at the tips of her ears, her skin beginning to tingle. “Haruka…” she said in a small, almost inaudible voice. She felt as if a finger had gently, precisely poked her heart, leaving a small, shallow, indelible imprint.

She glanced at Yukina. Her feelings for her “aunt” were relatively simple; she thought of her as an older sister who was cold on the outside but warm on the inside, and in some ways, even more childish than she was. That was why she had always called her “onee-chan,” not wanting to call her “oba-san” and be put down a generation. But what she didn’t know was that this “sister” was now her real sister.

We’re a family, Kiyohime thought. It’s normal for us to call each other by our names. But from the look on my sister’s face, she must be reluctant to call him by his name. It seems I’m still closer to him, hehe.

With this thought, her annoyance turned to a giddy joy, and she couldn’t be bothered to wonder why Haruka was here in the first place.

Yukina turned her face away, feeling the two of them were being too silly-cutesy and immature.

Seeing her sister’s haughty, dismissive look, Kiyohime felt a surge of childish displeasure. Half to tease her, half to show off her new prize, she grinned, grabbed Haruka’s wrist, and pulled him in front of her. “Haruka,” she said, her voice a possessive purr, “only I am allowed to call you that.”

Haruka, knowing Kiyohime’s tragic, tangled fate, felt a new sense of protective affection for her, as if for a real, vulnerable younger sister. “Alright,” he said with a helpless, indulgent smile. “Only you can call me that.”

Kiyohime was even more delighted to hear this. She roughly, playfully pulled on his arm as if he were a doll she had just won.

But in Yukina’s eyes, this scene was interpreted very differently. She saw Haruka, unable to resist Kiyohime’s bullying, forcing a placating, unhappy smile. After so many years, Yukina had formed a rigid stereotype of her “little sister,” seeing her as cruel and rude. She didn’t know that their relationship had already changed into something softer, more complex.

She had intended to be patient with her sister, but seeing Haruka “suffer,” she was filled with a deep, protective displeasure and, unable to stop herself, she grabbed his other wrist and, with a single, sharp tug, pulled him to her side.

Kiyohime thought Yukina was jealous and, feeling both triumphant and annoyed, she gave her a provocative glance and pulled Haruka back.

Yukina, unable to stand the childish provocation, grew angry. She bit her lip, her long eyelashes unblinking as she glared at her, her expression like a cold plum blossom on a winter branch. She grabbed him again, and Haruka felt a chill run down his spine, as if he had been pulled out of the warm, sunlit ground into a frozen shadow.

Kiyohime’s anger turned into a laugh, and not to be outdone, she stared back and was about to pull Haruka back again. He felt his wrist was on fire.

The two women stared at each other coldly, neither offering an explanation, stubbornly refusing to let go of him. One pulled, the other tugged, one hand as cold as ice, the other as hot as fire. Haruka’s head began to spin.

“Enough!” Haruka could no longer stand being fought over like an object. He twisted his hands, capturing both of their slender wrists and, with a sharp, surprising tug, pulled them both toward him.

Kiyohime, caught completely off guard, fell softly into his arms. She looked up at him with a fierce glare, as if to say, You’re dead! But then she felt the pressure on her wrist tighten. She looked up at Haruka’s slightly angry, exasperated expression, and her heart trembled. She found herself subconsciously lowering her head in a gesture of submission, while thinking, I’ll deal with you later. The tightening grip on her wrist sent a strange, pleasant sensation through her. Her other hand rested on his chest, and her legs somehow wrapped around his right leg. Her head grew dizzy. As soon as we’re out of this room, you’re going to get it.

Yukina, pressed against Haruka’s side, gave him a displeased look but slowly straightened up, saying nothing.

“What are you two fighting about?” Haruka asked, his voice tight with frustration.

“You should ask her,” Kiyohime said coldly, gesturing with her chin.

“I should be asking you that,” Yukina retorted just as coldly.

Haruka first turned to Yukina. “You two are ‘sisters’. Please, don’t be angry with her.”

Yukina knew what he meant, the unspoken truth in his words. She had intended to be patient with Kiyohime anyway and had only intervened because she thought she was “forcing” Haruka. Now that Haruka himself didn’t seem to mind, she took a step back. “Fine, this is the last time.”

Haruka then turned to Kiyohime. “For my sake, stop fighting.”

Kiyohime grumbled something under her breath and rubbed her legs against his. “Hmph. Next time, I’ll make her pay.”

Only then did Haruka smile. He brought their two hands together. “Then consider it forgiven.”

Neither of them knew what to think, but they actually, awkwardly, shook hands, then immediately pulled away as if they had been electrocuted.

“This is so stupid,” Yukina said coldly, though she didn’t know why her heart was beating a little faster.

“Ugh, disgusting,” Kiyohime said, wiping her hand on Haruka’s shirt, her eyes darting back and forth between her sister and her brother, a new and confusing dynamic settling between the three of them.