Chapter 142
Aurora put on the mask with Leon's help.
At first, she felt no change at all. It was just a thin mask resting over her eyes.
She slowly looked around.
The study looked no different from usual. She felt nothing in particular.
‘Is it broken?’
That was when she turned her head, thinking that.
Leon was there.
Aurora's gaze stopped there.
Leon was no different from usual either.
His hair was still a little damp from just having washed up.
Perhaps because it was summer, his collar was only a little looser than usual.
It was the same sight she always saw.
‘Huh……?’
But strangely, Aurora couldn't look away from him.
So much that she briefly forgot how to breathe.
It wasn't as if she'd never felt this way when looking at Leon.
When he was near, she wanted to talk to him, and when he looked at her, she felt happy.
When he called her older sister, her chest tickled; when he drew the line by calling her Your Highness, she felt oddly disappointed.
She had only thought it was that much.
Because he was just someone by her side.
He was a special slave, and the writing assistant who helped make her wishes come true.
It was a feeling she'd brushed aside by attaching suitable reasons to it, but now it refused to pass quietly.
The moment she saw Leon's face beyond the mask, indescribable emotions surged over her.
Her heart seemed to swallow them all, swelling as if it would burst, pounding noisily.
So much that she worried the beating sound might leak outside.
What should she do about this?
What was she supposed to do?
Just as Aurora was at a loss because of emotions she couldn't control.
“If you don't answer, should I take it off?”
Leon said that and came closer to remove the mask.
Leon's face came right up to her.
Suddenly, a scene she'd read in a romance novel came to mind.
First kisses usually come without warning.
The heart moves before words do.
The body moves before the heart does.
And by the time you realize it, it's already too late.
Back then, Aurora hadn't understood that line.
Could a kiss really be that impulsive?
If it was a scene confirming love, shouldn't it be a little more beautiful, a little more careful, a little more composed?
But now, she thought she understood.
There were emotions that couldn't be neatly arranged.
And feelings that wouldn't even leave room for careful refinement.
Just like now.
Before Aurora even realized it, her body was already moving.
-Mwah.
Their lips touched.
“……!”
It was almost simultaneous.
At most, half a second.
At the unfamiliar sensation, Leon recoiled faster than light.
“Sister?”
Leon's startled mind froze for a moment. What had just happened was far beyond his ability to comprehend.
What on earth had she just done?
Leon shot her a look demanding an explanation at once, but...
“…….”
Unfortunately, Aurora was in no state to do that.
Her cheeks were flushed red as if drunk on emotion. The breaths she let out from time to time were warm with excitement.
Aurora brushed her lips as if savoring the sensation again.
It had truly been an almost fleeting touch.
Too vivid to be an illusion, too clear to be a mistake.
Too clumsy to be called a kiss, too hot to dismiss as a joke.
That was the kind of touch it was.
‘Too bad…….’
The warmth left on her lips was too faint.
It wasn't enough yet.
She wanted to stay in contact a little longer.
A little longer, a little deeper, until she could properly understand what this sensation was.
Aurora couldn't stop herself even after realizing what she was thinking.
Thoughts like being ashamed, or that she had done something wrong, or that she shouldn't do this had long since been pushed into a corner by the surging emotions.
“Sister…?”
Aurora's gaze turned back to Leon.
Her eyes were hazy and unfocused.
I like you.
I want you.
I want to touch you.
Those words overflowed in her eyes, unable to become speech.
What Leon felt in that gaze, ironically, was fear.
He realized that emotions this pure and primal could sometimes be more frightening than a blade.
Dangerous.
He had to get that mask off at once.
With that thought, just as Leon was about to quickly remove Aurora's mask.
“Leon.”
A seductive, sweet voice flowed out—something that would never come from the usual Aurora.
“Stay still.”
The moment it, like a command spell, rang through his ears and reached his mind.
Stopped.
Leon’s movements stopped.
No matter how exceptional Leon was, a slave was still a slave.
Before a master's command, even a hero who had saved the world or a nine-tailed fox who had twisted fate would be nothing more than a well-behaved puppy.
“Hehe.”
Aurora smiled as if pleased to see Leon unable to move.
“Leon, come here.”
With her lips curved in a thin smile, Aurora slowly approached Leon.
Their faces drew closer and closer. Their breaths touched.
Just as she was trying to recreate that feeling from before.
-Swish.
The air was sliced.
There was no sound.
There was no shape.
Only across the middle of Aurora's mask.
A single vertical line was drawn across it, as if by a blade.
-Crack.
The butterfly mask split in two. The halves slid down to either side.
Beneath it, the eyes hidden there were exposed.
Her dazed eyes wavered wide open at once.
As if someone who had been submerged underwater had been pulled up to the surface.
Her blurred focus slowly returned.
The heat that had filled her entire body just moments before drained away at once, and reason belatedly settled into the empty space.
Aurora blinked.
Once.
Twice.
And then she saw it.
Leon’s face, less than a handspan away.
Time stopped.
At least, that's how Aurora felt.
Within that halted time, Aurora's thoughts flowed on.
‘I…… now what did I……?’
Just because she'd worn the mask didn't mean her memories had disappeared.
If anything, as her mind cleared, everything came back even more vividly.
What she had done.
What she felt for Leon.
It wasn't some false emotion.
The mask's effect was only to amplify emotions.
So the feelings Aurora had just felt for Leon meant they had been inside her from the very beginning.
Like a letter folded small.
A feeling she'd shoved deep into a drawer and never once properly unfolded.
The mask had forcibly dragged it out.
It shoved it right in front of her until she could no longer pretend not to see it.
I like Leon.
That sentence settled belatedly in Aurora's mind.
It was the conclusion Aurora herself had understood after her mind cleared.
“I…….”
Her voice shattered at her lips.
No words came out.
She didn't know what to say.
“I…….”
And yet she had to say something. She had to somehow salvage the situation.
Otherwise, this relationship would fall apart.
Thinking that, Aurora tried to force out a voice.
“Sister.”
It was Leon who spoke first.
“Uh, yes?”
“Could you undo this first?”
The master's command was still in effect, so Leon still couldn't move.
He had only swung the formless sword drawn in his mind to cut the mask.
“A-ah, yes!”
Aurora hurriedly lifted the command.
Leon’s body began moving again, like a wind-up doll whose spring had been rewound.
At once, Leon took a subtle step back.
Aurora belatedly drew back her own upper body, which had leaned forward.
A brief silence fell.
Leon scratched the back of his head.
“Um, to start with, I don't really understand what's going on, but can I ask for an explanation?”
“W-well…….”
Aurora's mind began racing at a frightening speed.
She had to explain.
Right now.
Something very plausible.
And logical.
She had to come up with an excuse Leon could accept.
Actually, I have feelings for you.
‘I could never say that, even if I died.’
No.
This won't do.
Something irreversible would happen. It would be beyond repair.
Given the positions of princess and slave, it was something that must never happen.
“So…….”
Aurora, whose brain had been turning at a scorching speed, came up with an excuse.
“Lately, I've started reading books in a new genre.”
“A new genre?”
“Erotica…….”
“Pardon?”
“Erotic books…….”
The moment the words left her mouth, Aurora realized she'd picked the wrong option.
But once something was said, it couldn't be taken back.
Like a dam whose embankment had given way, her mouth was already moving on its own, spewing words.
“Th-there was a scene like that in a book! A heroine swept away by her emotions pouncing on the male lead!”
“And?”
“Seeing a quiet girl pounce on the boy she liked made my heart flutter a little. So I thought I might want to try it myself~”
Something was strange.
She was clearly making an excuse.
This was supposed to be the part where the situation got resolved.
So why did it feel like the harder she explained, the more Leon's opinion of her dropped straight down?
“No, I mean, don't misunderstand. I'm not saying I usually think like that. Of course, if I said I'd never thought about it at all, that would be a lie, but maybe it's just a writer's curiosity?”
“Ah, yes…….”
But the words still wouldn't stop.
Aurora knew it too.
That she needed to shut her mouth right now.
But her tongue had already abandoned its master and was walking its own path.
Was this because she was a writer?
Could it maybe just follow the writer's path?
“Anyway, I must have found it too impressive. When I put on the mask, my body just started moving on its own, you know? Well, what was I supposed to do? I liked it. Besides, I'm an adult too. I can read books like that, can't I?”
Aurora closed her mouth, which had been moving nonstop.
Because she'd spewed the words out, her breathing was a little ragged. Her shoulders rose and fell, and her face was bright red.
But somehow, the excuse was over.
It was over.
It was over, right?
“Now do you understand why I did it?”
Leon nodded slowly.
“I see... Well, that can happen. Everyone has different tastes, after all.”
“As expected of Leon. Thanks for understanding.”
Silence fell again.
Leon looked at Aurora without saying a word.
Aurora looked back at Leon without saying a word.
Silence.
More silence.
Aurora's mind had gone completely blank, and it no longer worked.
I wish the world would just end right now.
“I'm sleepy now. Could you go?”
“Understood.”
Leon stood up.
“I'll take this mask back.”
“Yeah. Please do.”
Leon picked up the mask fragments from the floor and walked toward the door.
Leon put his hand on the doorknob.
Before leaving the study.
“Older sister.”
He turned back.
Aurora was smiling as if nothing at all had happened.
“Yeah. What is it?”
“Don't read too many books like that. They'll rot your bones.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the advice.”
With that, Leon left the study.
Click.
The door closed.
Left alone, Aurora sat there for a moment.
Still wearing that smile.
After freezing like that for a long while, Aurora's mouth slowly drooped.
She collapsed onto the sofa.
She buried her face in a cushion.
-Thump! Thump!
Kicking the air with both legs, she slapped at the sofa with her hands.
“Aaaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaah!”
Aurora screamed into the cushion.
The excuse was over.
The dignity of a princess.
The pride of an older sister.
And Aurora's identity as a person.
They were all dead too.
They had been killed off without even a funeral.
Above all, the most horrifying thing was this.
The fact that, even now, the sensation left on her lips still hadn't faded.