Until the World Went White
The whisper was warm, and threaded through that warmth was a desire he had pressed down and endured for a long time.
It was so plain, so unmistakable, that even Laniakea—who had never once been faced with a feeling like it—recognized it at once. Her mind, already reeling and at a loss, came to a dead stop.
He had been waiting for today?
The words made no sense. Wasn't that something only a person could say who had seen the other often, and carried them in the heart for a long while? The days she and Hyperion had met could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and every time, hadn't he simply finished the meal and hurried away?
He always arrived looking disheveled. Once, watching him go, the Empress had spoken as if she pitied Laniakea.
"Allow me to apologize in the First Imperial Prince's stead for his discourtesy. He so rarely comes to the palace, and yet he appears in such a state... I hope you will be generous enough to understand."
The meaning was easy to grasp. He disliked their meetings so much that he would come even looking like that.
The Empress was very skilled at leaving scratches while pretending to be kind. Laniakea tried, as a rule, not to keep her words, but that one lingered in her longer than she had expected.
She had come here as if in flight. She knew better than anyone that there was no one in this place who would take her side, and no one with whom it was worth cultivating any particular closeness. She trusted Lucy and was fond of her, but Lucy, too, belonged to the imperial household—less an ally than someone Laniakea was responsible for.
So she had never said it aloud. Still, on the days Hyperion returned, she had been glad to see him. He was, at least on paper, someone bound to her. Someone on the same side.
But perhaps he thought of her as the Empress's creature. Whenever he came to the palace he was a wreck, bloodstains on his clothes and even on his skin. During the meal he would sometimes look at Laniakea in silence, and she could not begin to read what lay in that gaze.
What is it? Is he curious how I'll react to the blood? Or is he blaming me for failing to look after the last shipment of relief goods? Or else...
At those times the hand cutting her food would tremble. She simply could not tell why he was looking at her. With every meeting his eyes grew sharper, and little by little she shrank before him.
He did not seem to dislike her. Unlike the others, there was no light of contempt in his gaze. So this attitude, she had told herself, was only wariness—watching to see what the Empress's doll meant to do. But that was as far as it went. He might not hate her. There would be no fondness.
That was why the offer that she remain Empress had puzzled her. Even if he had his reasons, was there truly any need to keep her? And yet he not only granted a demand that felt unreasonable with startling ease; he was the one who first proposed terms several times more generous.
When she took the revised contract in her hands, Laniakea had been glad. Not merely because he was giving her more. Against what she had thought, he did not seem to dislike her so very much.
And now he was saying he had waited a long time for this moment. As if he truly were a man who had been waiting for it.
At a confession she had never imagined, the body tension had locked rigid began to loosen. He must have noticed. What had only been touching her below began, all at once, to press urgently inward.
"Nnh—!"
Startled, Laniakea jerked hard.
"Ah... ah..."
He had barely slipped inside her at all. Even so, a deep ache she had never known spread through her whole body. Her hand clenched the sheet of its own accord. If she did not hold on to something, she felt she would scream at once.
Between legs that did not know what to do with their shock, he pushed in again. Breath climbed to the top of her throat, and the world spun before her eyes. Only a little later did she understand that it was the dull, enormous pain—greater than anything she had ever felt—that was doing it.
"Nn... nnh..."
She meant to ask him to wait just a moment, but the unfamiliar pain stole even her voice. Was this how it felt to be split by some enormous club? The sensation of him coming in slowly, and yet without stopping, sent her mind reeling. A clamorous bell seemed to ring in her head, warning of disaster; her vision blurred, and she thought she was seeing things that were not there.
Seen only from the outside, it was no different from the first kiss she had read about in books. So why did it feel not like the heaven they spoke of, but like being dropped onto a battlefield?
Even while Laniakea's senses swam, Hyperion did not stop. He kept coming in.
"Kh..."
A sound slipped from between his teeth, as if he were far from comfortable himself.
Why?
Even through the haze, the question rose. She had heard that, unlike the women who struggled through this, men for the most part felt great pleasure. Wasn't that why every man went mad for the act? It was hardly an exaggeration to say that beside men of power and wealth there was always a woman. Some were so given over to lust that they brought several women to a banquet under the pretext that the women were protégées they sponsored. In Priatra and in the Empire alike, such sights could be seen anywhere.
She had seen men hesitate. She had never seen a man who, once the chance was his, held back. There were more than enough who caused trouble by being too greedy for women. So why did Hyperion seem so troubled?
The thought did not last.
"......!"
What had shoved in so roughly had at last forced her open to her limit. Pain climbing through her waist, she looked down with difficulty. The thing that had been so large and thick the first time she saw it that she had doubted her own eyes—its tip was inside her.
Before that unreal sight she could do nothing. Shame was far too leisurely an emotion to feel just now. All she could feel was a tension that seemed to stop her breath, and pain, and bewilderment.
Only the tip has gone in.
She knew this act would not reach its end until she had taken all of him. And so she went faint all over again. She already felt as if she might die of it, and there was more?
A belated gasp climbed her throat. The spreading pain reddened the rims of her eyes. The last time she had cried from pain was some childhood so distant she could not even remember it—and now, at this age, she was about to whimper from pain again.
"Haa..."
Hyperion let out a rough breath and went still for a moment. But she could tell the pause was only preparation for a deeper entry. So she had to speak to him now. That it was too much. That he should stop.
She still did not know him well, but he seemed the sort of man who would keep what he had promised. She meant to say it.
Yet the man who had looked ready to drive in roughly at any moment went still and looked at her. When his eyes met hers—wet as they were—Hyperion's face hardened. He seemed to realize she was suffering because of him.
A complicated expression rose over his silent face. It looked a little like apology, and at the same time like some satisfaction she could not name. He lowered his face close to hers. He did not say he was sorry, nor that she should endure a little longer. Instead he began, carefully, to kiss her brow and her cheek.
Even the light touch of his lips held a fierce heat. Leaving across her face a cautious affection that would mark no trace, he took the hand still gripping the sheet. Between fingers that still tingled, his own—long and thick—laced firmly with hers. He held her without a single gap, like the roots of an old tree, and slowly tightened his grip, then loosened it, again and again.
Through their joined palms Laniakea could feel a pounding pulse. His heart was beating as hard as hers. Somewhere in that interval the two heartbeats, which had been racing out of step, drew close to the same rhythm. The ache below seemed to be growing a little used to the pain as well; breath was only just returning to her.
Even so, she was still afraid. If it grew harder than this, might she truly die?
He had said he wanted this moment, and still she could not understand the man called Hyperion. In that confusion—whether she ought to trust him or be wary of him—he slowly stroked her fingers with his own. Wondering why on earth he was doing it, she turned her head, and understood exactly what he was touching.
The ink stain that had been left because of it. What still remained beneath her nail. He was caressing that, as if he were sorry he had not been able to wipe all of it away.
At that, Laniakea drew a deep breath and let the strength leave her body. She could not know what would happen from here, but the instinct rose that a man who fretted over so small a trace would not harm her. So for now, she had no choice but to try trusting him.
The moment her rigid body eased, Hyperion smiled. He had understood that she was allowing him to go on.
"Laniakea."
No one in her life had ever spoken her name with affection in it, and so her own name, called in that sweet voice, was unbearably strange.
"Laniakea."
He whispered it again and drew her into his arms. Just as she reached to put her arms around his neck—
With a thick, dull sound, Hyperion drove deep inside her.
And then—
"......!"
Feeling the world before her eyes go white, Laniakea fainted where she lay.
A long while later, Laniakea's mind slowly returned.
What happened? Did I only fall asleep and wake?
She opened her eyes slowly and turned her head—and saw a sight she could not believe.
"However long you may have waited, Your Majesty, how could you take Her Majesty the Empress so recklessly!"
A stranger was glaring at Hyperion with a fearsome expression, voice raised, and Hyperion stood before that person with his head bowed like a puppy that knew it had done wrong.
What a strange dream.
Faced with a scene that made no sense at all, Laniakea decided she must be dreaming and closed her eyes again. It seemed she ought to sleep a little longer.