From the third story. Just the very beginning.

When Reishin met Yuri for the first time, he was truly still very young. It would be more correct to say that rather than met, Reishin had oddly come to know of Yuri’s existence and of his own volition gone to meet her.

At that time, in the depths of a forbidden forest, under a flowering plum tree beside a small waterfall, within the pure white petals falling like snow, Yuri was playing the biwa alone.

“You are Yuri?”

Reishin even now remembered well the expression of Yuri’s face as she raised her head.
That was the first time he had seen someone’s face twitch so much. It was such a twitch that rather it was mysterious that she did not cry out in surprise. What are you doing here?, said the face.

Without waiting for Yuri to reply, Reishin screamed:
“Listen, I will never, ever recognize you as Ani-ue’s fiancée!”

Yuri’s silence was brief. Then she shrugged her thin shoulders, and sighed in a displeased way.
“I didn’t decide that. Anyway, I think you will rarely if ever meet “Yuri.”

Then ignoring Reishin, Yuri returned straight away to the mansion.

It was later that Reishin learned the meaning of Yuri’s words.
His great-aunt Kou Gyokukan brought a boy to meet Reishin.

“From now on I will have him serve at your side. His name is Yuzuriha. Use him as your aide.”

Reishin was suspicious. In male clothing, the appearance was like that of a different person’s, but judging from her expressing when looking at Reishin, which was like that of someone crunching a bug between their teeth, it was unmistakably the girl he had met under the tree.

“Yuzuriha? Isn’t it Yuri?”

His great-aunt laughed like a bell chiming. She had preserved the beauty which she had exulted in formerly within the Inner Palace of the king.

“What a bad boy you are, Reishin. So you found this child. However, Yuri is Shouka’s. The one who is working for you is this boy, Yuzuriha. Don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to it. For Yuri’s future, she must learn many things, so for now it is more convenient for her to do so as a boy.”

This child is being raised for the sake of the Kou family. Treat her well, laughed his great-aunt. Under Gyokukan’s instruction, Yuri’s transformation was thorough. The slightest gestures and expressions, of course, and the tone of the voice, as well, were so well distinguished that no one in the clan could tell that the siblings “Yuzuriha” and “Yuri” were in fact the same person.

And even when she and Reishin were alone together, she would never become the girl he had seen at that time, “Yuri.”

And so certainly, from the day he met “Yuzuriha,” Reishin no longer saw “Yuri.”

Prologue

…From the time I [note: Yuri uses boku as her personal pronoun.] was born, I have had two names.

When I try to remember, my oldest memory is Gyokukan-sama’s words.

“I will give you two names. Your name as a boy is Yuzuriha. Your name as a girl is Yuri. Later the girl Yuri will be Shouka’s, but up till then as the boy Yuzuriha, work for the second son, Reishin.”

From that time on, I who had been Yuri became Yuzuriha.

“You belong to the Kou clan. For the sake of the Kou clan alone, live and die.”
That was what Gyokukan-sama always said.

Then after Gyokukan-sama’s sudden death, I did not change. I could not change. There was no other place I could be, no other place I could go, and all that was left to me was the tone of Gyokukan-sama’s biwa, and her words. That was why I stayed like that with the Kou clan. Then at Reishin’s side, as Yuzuriha, for a long time I stayed at the main house of the Kou family. The one who was busy with raising the little Kurou was mostly me.

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