Master...? Hehe... Kiss...?
"Master! I won't move a single step until you answer me!"
The moment I stepped out onto the terrace, Alice shouted, shaking off my arm.
The blade of the dagger clutched in her trembling hands caught the moonlight and threw it back across her face. Tears poised to spill over glistened at the corners of her eyes, and the glare she fixed on me was sharper and more heartbroken than any I'd ever seen from her.
"My, my, Alice. Drawing a blade so crudely. With Darling, we ought to... resolve things calmly, through conversation."
Vivian put on an air of composure, but her tails told a very different story. All eight of them had already splayed out in every direction, sealing off the terrace's only exit as she advanced on me with slow, deliberate pressure.
Left alone, this really might turn into an incident in the heart of the Imperial Capital — at the Crown Princess's birthday ball, no less. My precious, beautiful girls, who had always guarded my flanks so faithfully, had become ticking time bombs on the verge of detonation.
"Both of you, calm down for a minute. People will hear us out here. Alice, hand me the dagger."
I tried to reason with them in a voice as steady as I could manage, but my words simply couldn't reach two people who had already lost their reason.
"How am I supposed to calm down?! Just now, Ophelia touched your chin, Master... her lips...!"
Alice clenched the dagger tighter, gritting her teeth. Bloodshot eyes finally began shedding fat tears, one after another, until she broke down sobbing like a child.
"S-so you do... hate me... don't you, Master...? Every day... sob... it's always only me who..."
Her rabbit ears, always the first to perk up at the sound of my voice, drooped pathetically now. It hurt to look at.
"You speak truly, Darling. On this occasion alone, this girl cannot help but agree with Alice. That shameless woman dared to leave her mark upon your precious body before this girl could even steal a single touch!"
Vivian had thrown off her usual silky demeanor and was now growling outright, looking ready to kick down the ballroom doors and seize Ophelia by the hair.
By this point my head was spinning. Words would never stop these two. Their burning gazes were fixed on me alone, and what was needed here wasn't logical persuasion — it was some kind of powerful shock therapy.
Haah... I really didn't want to resort to this. It feels like doing something unforgivable to girls who love me, when I haven't even sorted out my own heart yet — just standing here, fumbling in the middle.
Steel myself, I walked slowly toward Alice.
"M-Master...? Stay back! If you come any closer, I really don't know what I might do..."
I took her wrist — gently, but firmly — and at last the strength she'd been squeezing out of herself began to ebb. I carefully pried open her fingers and let the dagger drop to the floor, then with my other hand drew her slender waist lightly toward me.
"I'm sorry, Alice. For hurting your feelings. For not understanding your heart."
"M-Master...?"
The moment she blinked up at me wide-eyed, I bowed my head and pressed my lips, ever so lightly, against her trembling ones.
A faint scent of soap brushed the tip of my nose, then slowly drifted away. It was the briefest, lightest of kisses.
But the destructive power of it far exceeded anything I'd anticipated.
"...Hweh...?"
Alice's body went rigid as a block of wood, and the chilling killing intent that had been pouring out of her seconds before evaporated in an instant, as if it had never existed. Her pale cheeks burned from her neck to the tips of her ears, and her drooping rabbit ears shot up like springs before beginning to wave wildly back and forth.
"M-Master...? Hehe... kiss...?"
Completely unfocused, Alice began giggling foolishly. Then her legs seemed to give out, and she crumpled against my chest — I caught her by the shoulders just in time to keep her from sliding to the floor. Panting, cradled against my right side, her fingers clinging to my lapel had no strength in them at all.
"Y-you've lost your mind, Darling?! What on earth did you just...!"
Vivian's jaw dropped at the scene from her corner of the terrace, and her eight tails shot straight up in shock, bristling to full puff.
"This is unfair! Even if Alice did throw her tantrum first, how could you give your lips so shamelessly to this lowly rabbit before this girl...!"
Eyes narrowing, Vivian stomped over, seized my remaining lapel, and demanded answers through brimming tears. Before she could get a word out, I gripped her shoulders and pulled her straight into my left side.
"Vivian. I'm truly sorry to you too. You've always been the one coming to me so boldly."
"This girl will never...! Mmph—"
Her protest was sealed off perfectly by a single light kiss.
For someone who spent every night scheming after my bedroom and never hesitated at the most dizzying of seductions, Vivian's reaction the moment my lips actually touched hers was devastatingly innocent. As soon as our lips parted, her pupils began trembling wildly.
"Ah... uh...? D-Darling... just now... on my lips... a ch-chu...? A... chu....♡"
The tails that had been slicing threateningly through the air puffed up as if they might burst, then lost all their strength in an instant and flopped to the floor. Vivian's breathing turned noticeably ragged; she cupped her flushed cheeks in both hands and began stamping her feet, utterly at a loss.
"I-I... I wasn't... prepared in my heart for... ah, aahh... the feeling of Darling's lips... chu... chuu...♡"
When Vivian finally gave out at the knees and threatened to collapse, I wrapped my remaining arm tight around her waist and barely managed to keep her upright.
On my right, Alice, face buried in my chest, grinning like someone who'd lost her mind. On my left, Vivian, her tails coiling in spirals as she nuzzled her face against my arm.
The two who had been snarling loud enough to shatter the terrace itself had, with one light kiss apiece, transformed into the most docile pets in the world.
Haah... I don't even know anymore. In any case, the fire was out.
I kicked Alice's fallen dagger up with the tip of my shoe, caught it, and slid it deep into my trouser pocket.
"Come on, it's getting rather cold out here — let's go back in. It would be poor manners to stay away from the ball too long after coming to attend it."
"Yeees... Master... ♡"
"As you command... Darling... ♡"
All trace of their earlier sharpness was gone; only honey-soaked, syrupy replies came back. Each of them hooked an arm firmly through one of mine, half their weight leaning on me, as we stepped through the terrace doors.
---
Back inside the ballroom, the sound of the orchestra and the murmur of noble chatter washed over us again. The nobles who had been sneaking glances at the ugly atmosphere when we'd first left for the terrace now wore expressions of pure bewilderment at the sight of Alice and Vivian entering tucked meekly against my chest. A few covered their mouths with their fans, eyes wide with alarm as they looked the three of us over.
"Oh my... in the middle of the ballroom... how could the Crown Princess with a man like that..."
"How utterly shameless..."
Well, of course they'd think it was strange. I'd walked onto the terrace with two women radiating murder, and returned shortly after with them melted into puddles.
When we settled back at our table in the corner of the ballroom, Alice and Vivian hurriedly glued themselves to my sides. Just then, from across the room, Ophelia's gaze — until then engaged in conversation with a group of noble ladies — locked precisely onto us.
She exchanged a few words with the ladies, lightly closed the fan in her hand, and came straight toward us with graceful, unhurried steps.
"Brother dear."
The same proud, elegant smile the Crown Princess had worn during our first dance. But her eyes, aimed at Alice and Vivian — who were clinging to both my arms and swooning — skewered them like needles.
"You disappeared for quite a while after our dance... and the two of them look remarkably well now, don't they?"
There was a sharp edge buried in Ophelia's words. Hm... seeing her like this, she really is exactly like Callix.
Under ordinary circumstances, Alice and Vivian would have been glaring at Ophelia and radiating hostility, but right now they couldn't pull themselves free of the kiss's afterglow — they simply giggled and rubbed their cheeks against my forearms.
"Er... the wind outside was colder than I expected. So I... calmed them down a bit."
I lied awkwardly, sweating, and Ophelia looked at me with clear suspicion.
"Hmmm..."
Trailing the hem of her dress, she stepped one pace closer, rose onto her toes, and brought her face right up beside my ear.
"Calmed them down, did you...? Surely you didn't, in that short a time, on the terrace..."
"N-no. It wasn't anything like that. We just... had a little talk."
The tip of Ophelia's nose skimmed the air around my lips and the edge of my jaw. Close enough that her breath nearly brushed my skin.
Then, as if certain of something, her eyes narrowed to slits.
"...The scents have mingled. Between those telltale traces of your cool, distinctive scent, Brother dear, there's soap and rose perfume ground into you, crushed flat."
"O-Ophelia. That's..."
"Well, it doesn't matter."
I stepped back in flustered retreat, but Ophelia simply smiled sweetly and straightened her posture. Casting a leisurely glance over Alice and Vivian — still giggling, completely disarmed — she wore the smile of someone entirely at ease.
"Once we head down to the North anyway, I'll bury every one of those scents under my own, without leaving a single trace. Look forward to it, Brother dear."