Naughty Hand
Naughty Hand
After Yune finished speaking—"As long as the Crown Princess remains Student Council President, I will not join the Student Council"—a silence fell over the student council room.
Kir was barely holding back the urge to scream.
'Y-Yune?! No. This isn't like him at all.'
The reason for her shock was simple. What Yune had just said was far too rude—borderline insolent—to direct at the Crown Princess.
Kir had long suspected that Yune was inwardly uncomfortable around the Crown Princess, but she never imagined that gentle Yune would refuse her so openly.
Kir, momentarily stunned, turned her gaze toward the Crown Princess almost on instinct.
There at the end of that gaze stood the Crown Princess, frozen mid-gesture with her hand outstretched toward Yune. Her expression hadn't even changed.
But that didn't mean Yune's words hadn't shaken her. The bewilderment she felt was, if anything, greater than Kir's—not less.
The reason she stood there unmoving was that she had never faced such a direct refusal before, and her mind needed a moment to process it.
The Empress's own daughter. Her sole blood relative. First in line to the throne. The Empire's next ruler. Crown Princess Isabella.
In her entire life, she had never once met someone who refused her so bluntly when she asked for something.
She was not so arrogant as to make unreasonable demands, and in the first place, even among the Noble Faction, no one was brazen enough to cross the future sun of the Empire.
So a rejection hurled at her without a shred of rhetorical cushion was a first for the Crown Princess.
Her briefly faltering mind soon dismantled Yune's words and absorbed the meaning within them.
'...He doesn't want to join the Student Council because I am the Student Council President?'
"...May I ask why?"
Convinced that Yune would never say such a thing without reason—that this had to be some sort of politically charged message—the Crown Princess inquired after his true intent.
But Yune dropped an even bigger bombshell than before.
"Because I don't like being around you, Crown Princess!"
"...What?"
"Y-Yune?!"
More forceful than the first statement—blunt to the point of violence.
The moment Kir heard those words, she sensed something had gone terribly wrong and rushed over to cover Yune's mouth.
But to the Crown Princess, Kir's movements looked as sluggish as if someone had cast a slowing spell on her.
Because the past was rewinding through her mind at a furious speed.
The Founding Festival when she was eleven—when she had praised Yune's dancing and approached him hoping to share a waltz.
Wanting to look good in his eyes, she had pestered her mother the Empress to have a staff made in the exact same design, then wedged it between her still undeveloped breasts.
Yune had smiled awkwardly at her, then claimed he was too tired, went to get some fresh air, and went straight home.
From that point on, whenever it seemed like Yune might run into the Crown Princess at the Founding Festival, he began slipping away in every direction.
Until now, she had forced herself to ignore it, telling herself it was because Yune only attended the Founding Festival and was unfamiliar with high society, or because he was terribly shy, or because it was all an extraordinary chain of coincidences...
But hearing Yune's words, she finally understood why he had been avoiding her all this time.
'...Yunes dislikes me?'
All those times she had steadfastly approached him, armed with the unshakable conviction that "the child of a pro-Imperial house could never dislike the future Empress," only to be rebuffed.
Yune's baffling behavior—every bit of it—could be explained by a single assumption: that he disliked her.
'I see. Yunes dislikes me. I was the one who failed to notice.'
Having drawn that natural conclusion, the Crown Princess withdrew the hand she had extended toward Yune.
Her thoughts had just reached that point when Kir's hand finally reached Yune's mouth.
-Smack.
"Mmph! Mmph?!"
"Crown Princess! It seems Yune is drunk and not in his right mind at the moment. You can tell from the way he's spouting things he doesn't mean! For Yune's rudeness, I, Kirschblüte von Charlottenburg, and in the name of Grand Duchess Erengard von Nordkirchen, offer you our deepest apologies!"
"...."
After clamping Yune's mouth shut first, Kir did exactly as Erengard had instructed—"If anything ever happens to Yune, you may use my name"—and deployed it immediately.
A bitter smile settled on the Crown Princess's lips.
"...The heir to a Ducal House. And the name of the Northern Grand Duchess besides. You've made it impossible for me to be angry even if I wanted to be."
"I am truly, truly sorry!"
"Mmmmph!!"
"Yune, stop thrashing!"
The Crown Princess spoke with an expression like she'd just bitten into something bitter. Kir apologized over and over.
If time had simply continued on like that, the Crown Princess would have quietly excused herself.
Holding only the wound of being rejected by Yune—a peer she had been fond of, someone she had thought would support her going forward.
And if the Crown Princess had left then, the Charlottenburg Ducal House and the Nordkirchen Grand Ducal House—whose names had been put on the line—would have had to offer the Imperial Household a certain degree of tribute to atone for the rudeness committed against her.
But.
"...Hyaaah?!"
-Flump.
As Kir, who had been holding back the struggling Yune with all her strength, somehow lost her grip on his frail body and let him slip away—
"Crown Princess! That's not what I meant—!"
"...!"
—Yune, freed from his restraints, rushed straight at the Crown Princess.
And the situation flipped in an instant.
* * * * * *
Feeling oddly giddy, as if I were floating through the sky, I had let slip all the honest thoughts I'd been nursing for so long.
But it was only after Kir clamped my mouth shut and started apologizing—even invoking my mother's name—that I realized. I had made a terrible mistake.
'No, that's not what I meant! Wait, wait!'
I struggled with everything I had, desperate to catch the departing Crown Princess, clear up the misunderstanding, and apologize. But...
Breaking free of Kir's grip, locked tight around my body, was impossible.
Kir didn't look like she was going to let me go for anything short of a calamity.
Ultimately, the method I chose for my escape was...
'No choice. Kir, I'm sorry!'
-Lick, lick.
I started furiously licking the palm of the hand Kir had clamped over my mouth.
I lapped at her palm with a loud, wet sound.
-Slurp. Schlllp.
'I'm really sorry! Just go wash your hands later!'
"Hyaaah?!"
Startled by the wet sensation of my tongue, Kir yanked her hand away.
I seized the opening, threw all my strength into escaping her embrace, and rushed at the Crown Princess.
...Without even wiping away the spit that had transferred from Kir's palm to my lips.
"Crown Princess! That's not what I meant!"
"...? Yunes?"
I reached the Crown Princess in a flash.
When she turned to look at me—as if asking what on earth was going on—I caught the deep sorrow lingering in her eyes, and my mind started spinning frantically.
'Uh, what should I say first? How do I even begin... Argh, my head isn't working!'
But my mind, which had been floating somewhere up in the clouds for a while now, refused to produce a solution.
It only offered vague directives like "apologize somehow" and "explain that you didn't say that because you dislike the Crown Princess."
-Wipe.
I wiped the spit from my lips with the back of my hand while I thought.
Then something entered my field of vision.
The root of all evil. The object that had become my trauma. The Magical Girl Wand.
Normally I would have restrained myself, but for some reason a surge of courage that made me feel like I could do absolutely anything was coursing through my body right now.
I resolved to finally go through with something I had briefly considered—and abandoned—at the entrance ceremony. I rose onto my tiptoes and moved my hand.
My hand was headed for... the Crown Princess's chest.
-Shhk. Squish.
"?!!"
"Y-Yune?!"
My spit-slicked hand landed on soft flesh, and with the saliva as lubricant, my fingers slid straight into the Crown Princess's cleavage.
Originally, I had only meant to grab the jewel at the tip of the staff...
But it was wedged deep within the Crown Princess's bosom, and no matter how high I stretched on my toes, the height difference made it hard to gauge the distance. My hand inadvertently slipped between her breasts.
I nearly froze up but hastily grabbed the Magical Girl Wand.
...Though in the process, there was a very brief mishap where my fingers freely rummaged through the flesh between the Crown Princess's breasts.
In any case, I pulled it out immediately.
And then I raised the staff high in a pose reminiscent of a certain famous statue from Ryu Si-u's world—the Statue of Liberty...
-Flump.
"...H-huh?"
The Crown Princess collapsed to the floor as if all the strength had drained from her legs.
Her gaze flickered back and forth between the cleavage where the Magical Girl Wand had just been lodged, me holding the wand aloft, and her own chest—now thoroughly coated in spit thanks to my drenched hand.
When I glanced to the side, Kir, who had been rushing toward me, had also frozen in place, her eyes darting between the Crown Princess and me.
It was at this point that I finally came to my senses.
The holy water's effects that had been raging through my body had finally run their course, though I had no way of knowing that at the time.
'Wh-what have I done?! I—I have to apologize!'
Face burning red, still clutching the Magical Girl Wand, I hastily blurted out an excuse.
"S-so, you see. I really, really hate this Magical Girl Wand... no, this accessory. What I meant was that I didn't want to be around the person wearing it. I don't dislike you, Crown Princess. I was just trying to pull out the wand—I never meant to put my hand on your chest..."
* * * * * *
A while later. The Crown Princess had finally collected herself and accepted Yune's apology.
"So you don't dislike me as your sovereign. You simply dislike women who tuck away staffs like that? If you hated it, why didn't you just say so?"
"I-I couldn't exactly tell the Crown Princess to stop wearing something..."
"Haa. Fine. Anyway, as long as I don't wear this thing, you have no real objection to putting your name on the Student Council roster. Is that correct?"
"Huh? Ah, um... Yes. I'll join. The Student Council."
'How am I supposed to refuse in this atmosphere....'
"...I will join as well."
"Lady Kirschblüte too. Understood."
Carried along by the mood, Yune had accepted the invitation to join the Student Council, and Kir, who had been standing beside him with a cold, expressionless face, likewise announced that she would join.
Once both children of the great noble houses agreed to enter the Student Council, the Crown Princess nodded with an oddly rigid, stiffened expression.
"Then, for the sake of our colleagues, with whom we shall now march toward the future of the Empire and the future of the Academy, I will let this matter rest. I shall ensure that neither your two houses nor either of you suffer any disadvantage from this incident going forward."
"...Thank you."
"Good. ...I should be off to my next lecture soon, so the two of you may rest here and leave at your leisure. I will explain the details regarding the Student Council tomorrow."
"Thank you, Crown Princess."
After that brief exchange, the Crown Princess stepped outside.
-Sniff, sniff. ...Stare.
She didn't even notice Chloe—Yune's personal attendant, who had been eavesdropping on the situation from outside the door with her cat ears pressed flat—sniffing the air and staring at her with startled eyes.
The Crown Princess simply kept walking until she reached the rooftop.
-Gasp!
"...Puhaaaah!!"
Only after she arrived on the open, empty rooftop did she allow her desperately maintained blank expression to crumble, and she sank to the ground.
-Ba-dump, ba-dump!
'M-my heart. My heart hurts....'
The moment she dropped the act, her face melted. The cause was, needless to say, what had just happened.
Her mood had plummeted to rock bottom when she thought Yune disliked her and felt disappointed.
But that mood had been yanked back up again when Yune caused a major incident by putting his hand on the Crown Princess's chest, then kept stressing over and over that he absolutely did not dislike her.
'Yunes... that Yunes...'
As her heart was quite literally flung up and down over and over, the feelings the Crown Princess had harbored toward Yune underwent a massive shift.
Even the Crown Princess herself couldn't properly define what emotion was now raging inside her chest. But...
One thing was certain.
'That Yunes... to me...'
She would never again be able to look at Yune with the same innocent eyes as before.
Because from now on, just looking at his pale hand would call up the sensation of Yune's fingers wriggling around, wedged between her breasts.
'F-first, let me wipe this off. ...Yunes's—saliva.'
After that, her face flushed scarlet, she let out heated breaths as she dabbed at the moisture on her chest with a handkerchief.
And every time the handkerchief-wrapped fingers traveled back and forth across her cleavage, the flashback of that sensation made her face burn even redder.
'So a boy's saliva smells sweet too....'