Year of the Boar, Fourth Month, Day 17.

I think I am losing my touch. I managed to earn myself "at least another week's confinement" this morning, by arguing with mother over breakfast. I say argument, I must concede that it was rather one-sided. I made the mistake of asking father whether I could travel to Dying Crane to help the Lady Yuika in her distress; mother replied that I most certainly could not. She then asked me, well, demanded to know why it is that I have such an attachment to that "little strumpet". I am rather afraid that my response to her was to ask father when mother had become the Ruling Lord of Pale Twilight...
And so here I am, twiddling my thumbs in my rooms again. I am supposed to be embroidering this afternoon but gods know how I hate embroidery... Instead I am taking stock of my network and strangely, asking myself mother's question; what is it about Yuika that I feel the need to jump to her defence...? We never became the close friends I would have had us become - confidantes, sharing girlish tips about hair and make-up, boys and the boredom of life in the Ruling Classes. We only met twice a year of course, and after her mother died and Yuika Rose, we barely saw her at the Talks because she merited a place at Table. So I must ask myself again... what is it about this situation that makes me want to interfere...? The only answer I can give myself is that Yuika represents everything I wanted to be; talented, witty, beautiful, free-spirited and possessed of great charm. She was much like Shunsuke in that way, she only had to flash that radiant smile of hers and she would get out of whatever trouble she was in, or get whatever she had been refused. The Yuika I remember from my childhood was everything I aspired to be, but never became. Perhaps in trying to save her, I am really trying to rescue myself...