I am only one world away from Yukinoshita.

"This is your own choice, and you must bear the corresponding responsibility. I will not allow you to continue training with your body like this. If you still want to participate in the competition, then you should take a good rest."

"Yes……"

Qinglai gave a listless reply and buried his head in his bowl to eat.

"Sorry……"

Asuka still hadn't touched her chopsticks. "If it weren't for me—"

“Asuka doesn’t need to apologize,” Carole suddenly said. “If you need any help, you can come to me and your Aunt Touko anytime. Even Kiyora, that little guy can be reliable sometimes.”

What does "sometimes" mean...?

“You’ve always cared about Qinglai since you were little, and your Aunt Yuanzi and I treat you like a daughter. There’s no need to be so formal,” Carol put some chicken from her plate into Yuanzi’s bowl. “Even if you’re not hungry, have a taste, considering it’s rare for your aunt to cook.”

Asuka nodded silently, picked up a piece of chicken, and put it in her mouth.

"Very tasty."

"That's good," Carol kicked Qinglai, who was eating in silence, under the table. "How about it? You're the worst cook in the whole family."

Qinglai looked at his smug mother expressionlessly, "Who was it that almost poisoned my wife and daughter with that fried rice they made back then?"

"Who is it?" Carol shook her head, feigning confusion.

"It is you!"

Watching the mother and daughter bicker, Yuanzi covered her mouth, her eyebrows curving into a smile.

Asuka lifted the miso soup bowl and covered most of her face with it. Although she was sitting at the same table as the Tachibana family, she felt out of place.

If only she were a member of the Tachibana family, then she could be with Kiyori...

But that's impossible. If she had been born as the eldest daughter of the Tachibana family, there might never have been Asuka who fell in love with the euphonium.

Without the euphonium, Asuka doesn't want to imagine herself like that, at least not now.

..................................................................

After dinner, Asuka took the medical kit and Kiyori back to their room. Touko had already prepared another quilt and thoughtfully laid out a makeshift bed on the floor.

"Come on, let me apply the medicine for you."

The wound has stopped bleeding, but it still looks a little scary.

Asuka skillfully disinfected Kiyora's wound with an alcohol swab, wiped away the small blood clots mixed with dust, and then bandaged it.

Spiral gauze was wrapped around Qinglai's arm layer by layer, and then tied into a small bow. There was a whitish protrusion on the edge of the bow. This was a wound that Qinglai had gotten from a fight with someone before. He even had to go to the hospital to get two stitches, leaving a scar.

"This one……"

Asuka stroked her finger, "You were only six years old then."

“Ah…” Kiyoyori also recalled that incident, “I got a really bad scolding from Touko’s mother that time.”

Kiyoshi awkwardly turned his head and scratched his cheek with his left hand. "But I don't regret it."

"You little brat, how dare you fight with those boys?" Asuka threw the blood-stained alcohol swab into the trash can. "I've never seen someone go looking for trouble and act so self-righteous. Fighting for others, you're really something."

“You are not just anyone,” Kiyoshi’s calm words made Asuka pause. “Asuka is special.”

Is it special...?

"You talk so nicely, but you still lost the fight." Asuka nudged Kiyori lightly with her shoulder and said teasingly.

"That's—!" Kiyori turned his head and glared at Asuka, who was smirking. "It's an undeniable fact."

Asuka laughed out loud, then collapsed onto Kiyori's soft mattress, her back to him, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

"Is it that funny? I fought for you..."

“That’s why it’s funny,” Asuka turned around and looked up at Kiyori, who was sitting upright. The incandescent light shone down on her head, casting a small shadow. “What kind of person am I in Kiyori’s eyes?”

Asuka asked a question softly, but Kiyori suddenly didn't know how to answer.

Is she beautiful and has a great figure? Is she hardworking and has excellent grades? Is she exceptionally talented and practices diligently?

Kiyoshi seemed to be able to use every positive adjective he could think of to describe Asuka. She was so perfect that Kiyoshi could only chase after her back, begging her to slow down, and longing for himself to be faster.

But a voice resounded in her heart:

Is it really?

She enjoys teasing you and will enter your world with a domineering attitude, but she will shut the way to her own world tightly, not giving you any chance to understand her.

Do you think you know her well?

You can't even get into her heart, yet you're trying to keep her by your side.

"I--"

It felt like a million words were stuck in my throat.

"I'm not as good as Kiyori imagines." Asuka wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her head on Kiyori's thighs.

Even so, she still wanted to be the radiant Asuka in Kiyoshi's heart.

If that's the case, Kiyori won't leave her.

"Masakazu Shindo, do you know this person?"

Chapter 43 Perhaps it's better to just treat everything as aspiration.

Masakazu Shindo...

"Ah... um, a very famous euphonium player..."

Kiyoshi tried her best to hide the trembling in her voice. From an angle that Asuka couldn't see, she nervously gripped the sheets, her heart pounding wildly. In the silent room, it was as clear as the ticking hands of a clock, "tick-tock," as if counting down to the coming of judgment.

Did Asuka know that she had investigated her family...?

Kiyoyori had begged her two mothers to investigate the Tanaka family. To this day, she still doesn't know why she did such a thing. At first, she was refused, but after she had put the matter out of her mind, the truth came knocking on her door.

Just a few years ago, when Carol took Kiyoyori and Asuka to watch a concert by Touko's band, Kiyoyori met Shindo Masakazu for the first time.

While her mother and Asuka weren't looking, the mischievous Kiyoyori sneaked backstage. There, she heard the last section of the piece, the one that started her connection with Asuka. The man told her that the piece was a gift he gave to his daughter—"Sound! Euphonium."

As a result, Kiyoshi seemed very absent-minded during the regular concert that day. As soon as he got home, he kept asking Touko about it, and only then did he learn that Masakazu Shindo was Asuka's biological father.

"He was my ex-father..."

Asuka curled up beside Kiyori, drawing warmth from her. The two of them smelled of the same shower gel, which made Asuka feel at ease.

Kiyoshi's heart sank, yet he couldn't help feeling a surge of excitement.

She had been waiting, waiting for Asuka to tell her herself. It was as if she had been walking on a dark, unknown road for nearly ten years, and finally, on this day, she touched the door at the end of the road.

"Former...father...?"

Qinglai spoke in a hoarse voice. She didn't pretend to be surprised; rather, the way she was addressed made her feel strange.

“Well, after all, he’s already divorced from Mom, so I’m the real ‘Tanaka Asuka’.” She looked up at Kiyoshi, and their eyes met unexpectedly.

Kiyoshi parted his lips slightly, hesitated for a moment, and said, "The blood flowing in my body cannot be changed."

I don't know who I was saying it to.

“But he left when I was two years old, and I have almost no memory of him, no memory of ‘father’,” Asuka said, resting her head on Kiyori’s lap and burying her face in his stomach. “I’ve only ever had my mother from the beginning.”

It's not that I can't understand it...

As the child of two women, Kiyoyori had longed for the role of "father." Although her family didn't intentionally hide it from her and Eriri, they still deliberately avoided the topic.

"So Asuka learned the euphonium because she admired Mr. Shindo?"

"Mr. Shindo..." Asuka seemed to really like the title. "You could say that. I was younger back then, so I would unconsciously try to imitate him. But now it's out of personal preference."

"Has Asuka ever thought about going to see Mr. Shindo?"

Just like Kiyoyori, who once wanted to find his "father".

“I’ve thought about it before, but I don’t want to anymore,” Asuka shifted her body and looked up at Kiyoyori. “If Mr. Shindo isn’t the kind of person I imagine, I’ll be very disappointed, right? Maybe it will all be for naught. So it’s better to keep some things a mystery.”

Kiyoshi recalled his situation at the time, couldn't help but smile bitterly, and then nodded in agreement.

"But wouldn't you want him to see how you've grown? Like playing instruments and stuff..."

Kiyoyori's diligent practice of the oboe was not solely out of his own love for it; a large part of it stemmed from his desire for recognition from Toko's mother and teacher. He wanted to be praised, to be patted on the head, and to be told, "You are truly my daughter (disciple)."

"Yes, it's more like part of my motivation. I want to be praised, I want to be recognized. I always feel like I'm being a bit greedy, even though I'm already happy just to keep playing..." Asuka shielded her eyes from the glaring light. "And Kiyori, do you ever feel like something's missing from your life?"

"It happened before, back then, people often gossiped..."

Qinglai gave a wry smile.

Asuka knew that Kiyori was a restless child when he was young. Back then, Asuka was almost always either stopping Kiyori from fighting or on her way to find Kiyori who had run off to fight. At that time, Kiyori had not yet officially started learning the oboe and was always running around outside like a mischievous monkey.

Kiyoyori gets into fights for two reasons: first, because she has two mothers but no father and is considered a monster; and second, because her close friend, Tanaka Asuka, is a child unwanted by her father.

If you use these two things to provoke Qing Lai, you're guaranteed to succeed every time.

Such days only ended after Kiyotaka began formally learning to play wind instruments and study music. She started growing her hair long, became more mindful of her behavior, and began to act like a girl.

"But actually, after meeting that person, I never thought about it that way again," Kiyoyori recalled the day she learned the truth, the expressions on her and Eriri's faces were so vivid, the kind she'd never forget, "or rather, it was disillusionment..."

Kiyoyori found it hard to describe his feelings at the time. Was it surprise at the unexpected? Anger at being kept in the dark? Joy at finding his father?

She was probably just surprised, and it also brought a bit of embarrassment. Even now, she still doesn't know how to get along with the other person.

"Kiyoyori has met his biological father? Aren't sperm bank donors supposed to keep their identities confidential?"

This topic piqued Asuka's curiosity. She already knew that Kiyoyori was conceived through IVF, but she didn't know the other details.

"Well..." Kiyoshi turned his head away shyly.

Forget about keeping it a secret; the other party was waiting outside the delivery room with their family when she was born.

"I guess you could say I've seen her since birth, but I just didn't know it back then," Kiyoyori couldn't stand Asuka's blatant gaze and covered her eyes with his hand. "You've seen Eriri too, right? What do you think of the two of us?"

"How about it? If you're talking about looks, it's simply—ah!"

An eerie silence.

"So, when he found out that the other person was actually an otaku who took pleasure in selling his daughter's adult-themed doujinshi..."

"Hmm, it's quite disillusioning... Pfft!"