The Yandere's Trap
Whoosh!
Before I could even answer, Lottie snatched the hem of my shirt and pulled me close. She leaned in until our faces were inches apart, her eyes wide and dead as she sniffed the air near my nose, the expression of a predator testing its prey.
‘…No.’
I snapped back to reality a beat too late. What was I thinking, zoning out like that?
Smelling the air? How could that help me figure anything out? I wasn’t that sensitive to scents, but still…
“…Two.”
“…”
“One is Elena, and the other is whoever the hell that is.”
Lottie finished her judgment quickly and murmured in a voice so sticky and thick it gave me chills.
She didn’t sound hostile or disgusted when she said Elena’s name, but the way she spat out “the other one I don’t know” carried clear venom.
Almost immediately she lifted her head and locked her gaze on me. Her eyes were still calm, not yet raging. That was fine. I could explain. I could talk my way out of this. I opened my mouth to start, but before the words could form:
“That depends entirely on what you say.”
“…”
“You have to explain everything. Opportunities like this won’t come again. So give it your all.”
Lottie spoke as if she could read my mind. She tilted her head with a tiny smile, and I felt my brain short-circuit. I had to keep my voice steady.
“Lottie… you can do mind-reading too? Seriously?”
Did the Blood Witch’s powers really include that?
After everything she’d pulled off so far, I swallowed hard. ‘No way.’
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
She just rolled her eyes at the absurdity.
“I haven’t mastered everything yet, but there’s no way I can read human thoughts. I’m not a god.”
“…Y-You’re right?”
I exhaled in relief. Yeah, even the Blood Witch couldn’t read minds that easily—
“It’s just that I know my brother really well. I can tell exactly what you’re thinking.”
“…”
“Well, that wasn’t always the case…”
She stood in front of me, stiff and frozen, as Lottie toyed with a strand of her hair. Then she shot me a sidelong glance.
“You know, brother, since that day everything about you has become so much easier to read?”
“What…?”
“Maybe because I stopped pretending. Once I stopped scaring you, that’s exactly when you finally let your guard down…”
For a second I didn’t understand, but then the pieces clicked. The day she meant was the day Douglas died—the day I had finally unloaded every burden between us.
Looking back, that was the turning point for both of us. I stopped worrying about Douglas’s opinion and treated her with genuine tenderness, while she, for whatever reason, began clinging to me with fierce obsession.
She was right. I had been too honest, and now I regretted nothing. Still…
“…Even so, if you read my mind out of nowhere, I get tense too.”
I had already noticed the switch from “you” back to “brother.” I tried to keep the mood light, but
“Ah, that was the point. So go ahead and tense up. I’ll decide how to punish you after I hear your explanation.”
“…”
It didn’t work. I deflated instantly, and Lottie noticed, letting out a soft laugh as she tugged me closer.
Plop.
She lay half-crushed beside me, gently stroking my cheek. I could only whisper in a dazed voice.
“I haven’t even changed yet, Lottie.”
“I know.”
“…Then can I change?”
“No. I have to cover up the scent.”
“…?”
Her casual reply left me confused for a moment, until I saw her pull me into a tight hug and I choked back a laugh.
So right now… she wanted to cover my body and clothes, soaked in Elena’s or Vina’s scent, with her own?
It was oddly cute after the earlier tension.
I felt the tension drain from my body and immediately pulled her into my arms. The faint lavender scent from her long light-blue hair and pale skin filled my head.
I rested my chin on her head while she squirmed and tried to push me away.
“Don’t… smell my scent… you’re completely perverted right now.”
“Who says that? That’s not—”
“Of course I’m talking about you…?!”
The stiff air from moments ago melted away instantly.
Lottie strained to push me off, but it was almost funny. She had the strength to stab me if she wanted, yet here she was muttering.
I smiled faintly and answered honestly.
“Okay, I’ll be straight with you, Lottie. The commotion in the northern district was… a lie to buy time.”
One sentence and her movement stopped.
Her forehead rested on my chest, so I couldn’t see her face, but I kept talking.
“It’s true that I was with Elena. There was something I had to keep secret.”
“…”
“Cain was there too… You know that guy? I’ve never seen him before, right?”
She started shifting, peeked out from under my arm, and looked up at me. The eyes that had been watching me like they wanted to devour my lie were gone. All that remained was a slightly hurt expression, as if saying “I’ll listen anyway.”
I silently chuckled and tapped her cheek with the back of my hand.
“It’ll take a while to explain how I got involved with that woman. I’ll tell you later. For now, just take my word for it.”
“…Who was the second one? What was she like?”
“Someone I happened to run into while doing what I had to do. A whore.”
“Ah, a prostitute?”
“Yeah… something like that.”
I wasn’t exactly angry at Vina anymore, but the word “whore” still felt too sticky on my tongue.
I apologized to her in my heart and pulled Lottie closer.
She didn’t push away like she had before.
She just asked quietly.
“…You won’t tell me about that task, right?”
“…”
Her voice was blunt. She had clearly guessed I was hiding something, even back when I vanished from the ducal mansion.
I swept her bangs back and planted a soft kiss on her smooth forehead. A tiny “chu” sound rang out. Lottie’s face flushed as she rubbed her forehead against mine.
“…You’re shameless, expressing it that way.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. It makes me even more irritated.”
Lottie clicked her tongue and slapped my cheek. It wasn’t hard—just enough to make a small “thud.”
I laughed. Lottie’s expression twisted again at the sound.
“It’s not sitting right with me, but since there’s something else to talk about, I’ll let it go for now.”
“…Something else?”
“Yeah. I want to ask you something.”
“What? Go ahead.”
Anything, I answered. Anything except Sephirot stuff, at least.
Lottie stared at me with those crimson eyes for a second, then spoke.
“Are you going to make a concubine?”
“?”
The question hit me like a slap. I blinked and stared back. Was this another trap?
I considered the possibility of stepping on a landmine, but Lottie poked my stomach lightly.
“Don’t overthink it. You don’t have to worry about my opinion. Well, you can check it, but you don’t have to change your thoughts just to please me.”
“…”
“It’s a problem I was going to think about seriously anyway because of Elena. Might as well ask the person involved directly.”
Elena? I blinked twice.
“Wait… you mean you don’t know?”
“Ah, no? After all the punishment you gave me…”
“…W-Well, what am I supposed to know?”
“Hah…?”
Lottie’s face twisted in a complicated way. All I could do was roll my eyes at her.
Normally I would guess my mistake, but this time…
“What the hell are you even saying?”
“…You really are slow, brother. Aren’t you an archmage? 8th circle or whatever, it feels like you just rolled dice for your magic circles.”
I bristled. She was poking at my pride as an archmage.
“Lottie, you’re—”
I was about to reclaim my big-brother authority, but
“Whatever. You only need to remember one thing.”
“What?”
“You can make concubines. You’re a noble. First, second, third… I’ll even allow up to nine. I don’t care.”
The anger I had just felt vanished instantly.
It was as if a sledgehammer had slammed into the back of my head.
“What… the hell are you suddenly—”
I asked in a dazed voice. Lottie smiled confidently in reply.
“No matter how many brothers you love, it won’t be ‘wives’…”
“…”
“…It’ll only be the one wife whose blood is tied to yours—your little sister.”
My mind blanked. Before I could even process the sudden twist in the conversation—
“Instead.”
Lottie raised her voice a little more.
“There is one condition for all of this. Brother.”
She had taken my lip between her thumb and index finger, sliding her finger all the way inside. She didn’t care that her finger was wet with saliva and gave me a sultry smile.
“You can marry other women too. Collect as many as you want. Treat them like trophies. But do not mix your body with any other woman besides me.”
“…What? Wait, what?”
“The moment you penetrate another woman— even once— and I find out…”
“…”
“Then what do you think I’ll do? When my brother’s love for me is divided between other women…?”
“…”
“This time guess the answer, brother.”
She would forgive affection but not lust.
She would accept kindness but not sincerity.
A faint crimson aura shimmered behind her. It promised slaughter as surely as a blade.
Right in the middle of that deadly silence—
“Um… yeah.”
I finished my hesitation and muttered uncertainly.
“…I’d just bite it off?”
“…”
Lottie’s lips pressed into a firm line.
‘…Was that a landmine?’
She wanted a serious answer this time, not a joke.
I broke out in nervous sweat and considered raising mana or putting up a guard, but
“Hmm, that’s fine too.”
“?”
Lottie’s reply was oddly refreshing.
She smiled brightly and then—
Kkkk!!
“…”
She grabbed my lower body without warning.
I went rigid instantly. Lottie buried her face in my neck and let out an affectionate voice.
“In that case, Lottie will bite it off and tear it apart for you…”
“…”
“Your private part, which you don’t even use on your sister… doesn’t have any value, right? I believe you’ll understand. Hehe.”
“…Lady of Respect, that’s right.”
“Yeah, I love you too.”
Lottie hugged me tightly. This time she took the rejection I couldn’t even form.
Her slender hand still gripped me firmly.