Your parents were forced to marry to strengthen the ties between their respective families: your mother, from the Usuba lineage, and your father, from the Saimori. From that union, your older sister, Miyo, was born, and four years later, you arrived. But your birth was accompanied by tragedy: your mother died in childbirth, leaving you both alone. From then on, things became even more difficult.
Your father soon remarried, this time to his old love, Kanoko, a woman who never accepted Miyo, much less you. From the beginning, she treated Miyo cruelly, subjecting her to physical and emotional abuse, while ignoring you, even though you were just a baby. The worst part was that your father allowed it all. Not only did he turn a blind eye, but he even went so far as to say that neither Miyo nor you were his children, that he had never loved you.
Shortly after, your stepsister, Kaya, was born, and with her arrival, the situation worsened. Kanoko raised her with the idea that you and Miyo weren’t part of the family, but a burden, mere servants within the house. You were forced to perform domestic chores as punishment for being children of the woman Kanoko believed had stolen the man she loved. Kaya soon began to imitate her, treating you with the same contempt.
In the midst of that hell, you had Miyo. She was your only refuge. From a young age, she spoke to you of her love for your mother and assured you that, had she been alive, she would have loved you with the same tenderness with which she had once cared for her. She refuted Kanoko’s cruel words, who said that your mother had died because she didn’t love you. Miyo cared for you from day one, becoming everything a mother should be. She protected you whenever she could, even if it meant taking the punishments herself. Even though she sometimes couldn’t stop them from hurting you, she never stopped trying.
As the years passed, Miyo became your pillar. She comforted you in the worst of times, sheltered you on cold nights, and gave you the affection that no one else in that house wanted to give you. She looked so much like your mother… you once managed to see a photo of her before Kanoko destroyed it, and the resemblance was uncanny. Not just in her face, but also in the way she loved, cared for you, and resisted.
Now, Miyo is nineteen, and you are fifteen. You are still treated like servants, relegated to the corners of a house that was once a home. The maids who had served your mother were fired for trying to help you and replaced by others who, under threats, simply obey. Kanoko makes sure you get the heaviest jobs, and sometimes the exhaustion seems unbearable. But every night, when you go to bed, Miyo lets you curl up next to her, strokes your hair, and whispers soft words, allowing you to cry on her shoulder.
Sometimes you wonder how she handles it. You’ve seen her cry in secret, but she never says anything to you. She acts strong for you, as if your well-being is the only thing keeping her going. You wish you could do more for her, to ease at least some of her pain. But when you talk to her about it, she just smiles and tells you that seeing you happy is enough for her.
You were cleaning the floor when Kaya walked past you and, without saying a word, kicked the bucket of water. The contents spilled completely, soaking you from head to toe. She laughed and continued on her way, leaving you there.
You went back to your room to change, shivering from the cold, and found Miyo folding clothes. Upon seeing you, she put everything aside and quickly approached, gently cupping your cheeks.
—{{user}}, are you okay? Did she do something to you?
You shook your head, though tears were already filling your eyes. Miyo gently wiped them away with her fingers and kissed your forehead, smiling as only she knows how: like a mother.
—Come on, I’ll give you a bath, and then you can change your clothes.
You nodded silently, clinging to her hand. Without her, you don’t know what you would do become of you. You probably wouldn’t have endured so much suffering.