Sekai Ichi no Imouto-sama - BestLightNovel.com
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Clank, clank.
This strange feeling and sound of being supressed waves through my skin, even though I was asleep. In the light of this sensation, I opened my eyes to find myself in a place I thought would never exist in the Blackhazel Manor. What followed my chain of thought was a sudden pain from the blow to my head that came some time before.
Right, so I was talking with Maria just now, and something attacked me during the conversation, and I fell unconscious right there and then.
…Er, wait a second.
I was attacked and fell unconscious?
“!”
I instantly jolted upright, seized in astonishment.
But my intentions betrayed what my body could do in reality.
Upon inspection, my body was firmly bound to something, and I couldn’t move a muscle from how I was positioned.
“Are you awake now, Onii-sama?”
It was none other than Maria, who I found to be the cause of this weight pressing down on my body.
In an instant, my fragmented thoughts started to gather as I a.n.a.lyzed the situation.
Tied to an unknown piece of furniture with all movement restricted, was me. More accurately, it feels like I'm tied to a bed.
And the person on top of me was Maria, of all people.
Struggling to move my head, I could see a work desk and a bookshelf with various military manuals lining the insides; I was inside a small study of sort. I couldn’t see anything you would typically see in a teenage girl’s room – like teddy bears or flower-pattern curtains – one of the reasons why this room gave off an aura of desolation and simplicity.
Though, that’s all well and good but…
“That’s not the problem here!”
I think this was my brain attempting to escape reality. I mean, by focusing on the room decoration rather than me. It’s natural; a part of human psychology…
“H, hang on, Maria! Let’s untie all this and then we can talk this over reasonably…”
“Shhhh.”
The only thing Maria did in response to my fl.u.s.tered rambling was softly placing her finger on my lip.
Seeing Maria in nothing but white s.h.i.+rt hiding her black lingerie underneath, surely an outfit of forbidden danger, exuded an aura of maturity I never felt from her before.
And to top it off, the situation felt abnormal.
With her one hand resting on my lips, and with her other hand free, her five serpentine fingers slithered down to my neck, tickling me gently.
“W-what…”
Her pupils dyed in infatuation, she teased my body ever so kindly – and sometimes extending to roughly, she kept on, as if to mark my body as her own.
“H, hang on a sec, Maria! What are you doing!?”
“I’m trying to possess Onii-sama as my own.”
“W, what?”
Just what was it that I saw lurking beyond Maria’s eyes?
Staggering dizzily amidst all this, I gathered up what little concentration I could muster and regained my focus.
Uneasiness. Terror. Fear. Suspicion.
And then abyss.
What I could see behind her gaze wasn’t something I could sum up so simply in one word.
All I could sense was that this situation was not in my favor.
“I cannot wait any longer.”
“You can’t?”
Maria proceeded to undo my b.u.t.tons, one by one.
Afterwards, where her serpentine fingers came to a stop was right above my belt.
“I beg of you, please engrave your maddening determination upon this girl’s precious place, so that it may never come off in this lifetime!”
“He- hey! Wait!”
Heeding no attention to my plea, Maria, with her trembling hands, reached down to my belt and started to strip me from the waist-down!
“Wait! Waitwaitwait! Are you crazy!? Why are you like this all of a sudden?”
“Is that all you want to say?”
Truly Maria’s face spoke with such defiance, that she would accept refusal. Maria gulped down her breath and with her still trembling fingers, reached to my boxers...
“…”
“Ah, U…..gh.”
Nothing happened afterward.
Wondering what was happening, I squinted my eyes to see what was going on with Maria.
“W-what’s wrong?”
And there was Maria just sitting there, her face dyed in persimmon crimson, not knowing what to do in her confusion.
I should have known.
No matter how mature Maria was with her adult demeanor and grown-up appeal, she was still a maiden at heart.
“E, erm, usually with things like these, I’ve learned that it’s usually the male who takes the lead, that’s what I was taught, and, then, that’s, erm…”
“Er, hmm?”
Her stuttering voice trailed away to nothing, and with her face still dyed red, Maria stuttered out an explanation after what seemed like an eternity of waiting.
“…I’m embarra.s.sed.”
Along with her lament, Maria shook her head down, her face dyed red with embarra.s.sment.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If you’re that embarra.s.sed, can you just come and untie all this?”
The chance is now.
I have to somehow get it through to her that now is not the time and turn her thoughts around.
What I’m saying is, I’m not here to preach her to boredom. Though Maria started off ambitious with all these mysterious tools to hold me down and seal the deal with, it seems she is unable to continue with her usually blatant form of love expression.
Yes, ‘that’ Maria was embarra.s.sed.
She’s gone past the line of discretion to the point of hurtling to the horizon.
In some ways it may look more complicated than that, but essentially, it was just that.
Maria’s embarra.s.sment that was keeping her occupied, in the end, only served to detriment her briefly.
In a flash Maria, now embedded in some sort of poetic determination, carried her confidence into her twin gaze and glared at my way.
“I will not be the one to take a step back tonight.”
“Wh- Hey! Just calm down a bit and listen to a word I’m sayi- Mmmgh!?”
What followed my defiance was not the usual violence.
Her long strands of saliva descended down to my mouth, lip-to-lip, sweetly glistening.
Like powerful acid being pumping into me, the sensation was enough to loosen my grip on consciousness.
“…!”
Just like that, Maria whipped her arms around my neck, and proceeded to devour my lips, as if to show her rejection of any form of defiance and resistance she might receive.
「Onii-sama’s smell, breath, voice, down to the very last cell… Everything is all so very precious to me, so precious that I cannot contain myself! 」
Why is it so?
I think back to the first time I had to become a “Member of Blackhazel” and what Maria had to say about me then.
“Haa, haa…”
It was only then that Maria stopped her kiss and slowly put the distance between us.
Those strands of spit spreading like spiderweb upon her black, cherry lip – who did they belong to, were they mine or hers?
“Thanks for the meal, Onii-sama ♥”
Maria smiled mysteriously, combing back her hair tidily as she spoke.
It’s not a sight a growing seventeen-year old girl would be able to mimic so easily.
It’s more close to an adult’s appeal, so to say.
Gently tickling my neck and smiling to herself, it was really a complete domination for her.
“So that’s why, I’m asking if I can taste Onii-sama to the fullest ♥”
“No! Who do you think you are, a cannibal?
…That’s what I would have said, if this was like the usual situation.
But I couldn’t.
Was I once again, crushed by the overpowering aura she exuded so much, to dominate and take over?
Or was I really feeling attracted by this seventeen-year old little sister before me?
Really, it might not look like it but I’m pretty good when it comes to being patient. But it’s not to say I can endure anything indefinitely.
Please just know what I’m feeling. You stubborn, obstinate little sister of mine!
“Hmm… As I thought, you’re getting aroused, Onii-sama.”
“W-wait Maria! This is…”
An unavoidable reaction?
The world’s least convincing excuse (but according to research, a fact that has been proven scientifically and biologically) came out into the stage.
Hahaha.
Haha. Ha.
I was laughing, but I couldn’t explain these tears in my eyes.
“You say you hate it, but your body doesn’t seem to be going along with it.”
“Stop saying such corny lines that you’d see a protagonist from a 90’s NTR (aged 46, school guard) p.o.r.no would say instead!”
“Ah, but there is a reason a cla.s.sic becomes a cla.s.sic, perhaps due to its timeless appeal and niche goodness it contains.”
“So NTR is a cla.s.sic genre now!?”
Not to mention she’s mixing something like timeless appeal and niche goodness to it!
…
Hang on a second, what was I babbling out just now?
It’s really not an important matter considering the situation I’m in right now.
While I was immersed thinking about such complicated things, Maria once again opened her mouth.
“So that’s why it’s fine."
“It’s fine.”
“Er, erm?”
It’s a proclamation I don’t know the significance of.
“Just leave everything to me and rest your body on me.”
“Onii-sama just needs to leave everything to me and rest your body on me.”
It’s a saying of Maria I have heard her say a few times in the past.
“Onii-sama’s flesh and blood, I shall devour them down to the last sc.r.a.p without so much as a crumb left.”
Scary! Too scary!
What’s more, the situation is too serious for me to even know if she’s trying to talk dirty or if she’s literally serious about what she just said now!
“What- what are you talking about, you!?”
This chill down my spine tells me intuitively that this situation was not going the way I hoped it would. Still gripped in fear, I gulped down my breath but managed to somehow don a stoic face for her to see.
“Are you afraid of me, Onii-sama?”
I said stoic, but this girl in front of me wasn’t so gullible enough to be fooled by whatever makes.h.i.+ft facade I could ever hope to put up.
She was out of my league, so to say.
As if she was aware of everything that went through my head, Maria chuckled excitedly and talked, this time in a more gentle tone than before.
“To tease someone so dear to me – It’s a rather exciting thing to do. I used to look down on such behavior, calling it childish thrill, but perhaps I can come more to term with it now.”
“Don’t you go and get addicted to some weird fetish now! Don’t come to term with it either!”
Being a s.a.d.i.s.t was in her genetics. If what she’s enjoying now was to combine with her base aura, then the synergy that’ll result will be like a nuclear bomb!
“Alright then, if Onii-sama must act so impatient, then I shall skip any more needless delays.”
“Er, emm… Come again?”
On hearing that, Maria shook her shoulders as if she was out of options, and continued on.
“Right to the main event.”
“M, main event?”
It sounded rhetorical.
Or was I really unsure of what she was implying?
But d.o.g.g.i.ng myself for the answer won’t get me any answers I’m looking for.
“We’ll both feel good together.”
I don’t really want to feel good so just stop for now!
“But you’re my little sister, you!”
“That is so. I, Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, am a sister to none other than my precious Onii-sama.”
Like the cold grasp of carrion, her finger poked my chest, as if to pierce through.
The sharp sensation from that jolted me to the situation, and when I raised my voice to complain, Maria again silenced me with her finger to seal whatever I was about to say.
“That’s why, I want you to take this pure, unbridled innocence of your little sister and corrupt it beyond any form of recognition and redemption – and most of all, to make it as your sole plaything.”
“Y-You… Do you even know what you’re talking about right now?”
“Perhaps it may be difficult for Onii-sama to understand.”
How is it hard to understand?
“Sometimes in this world, there exists a certain sort of l.u.s.t – a feeling where you want to be utterly humiliated and played with by the person one absolutely holds dear, that sort of whimsical emotion.”
This event is progressing at a pace I am not comfortable with.
It’s like a roller coaster of sorts, speeding up and slowing down at one’s whim, a paradoxical speed of questionable median.
Of course, I am well aware of what kind of figure Maria Lunalady is, the eccentricity of her thoughts and actions, and what her position of power as《Princess of Pure Darkness》symbolizes as a lord of dominance.
Even so.
Even knowing all that.
No matter what kind of out-of-bounds monster she is made out to be, I have to tell her that it doesn’t matter.
So what about it?
So what if Maria is special.
She’s been chosen from the moment she was born.
That is why despite all this, I have to regard everything she’s doing as a “it can happen” sort of justification and nod my head to it.
“…But you’re still my little sister.”
“Just because I am your little sister, just because our chain of ethics that bind us, you would say that you cannot embrace me?”
“What now?”
“Such trifle of an ethic, shatter them away. If the opinions of those beneath us concern you so much, then crush their fingers and cut out their eyeb.a.l.l.s.”
The atmosphere around Maria encased the air into an icy rancour, and she continued on her words.
“Law itself bows down to us; not a single king in this world can defy our will. How is it then that a mere code of ethic and boundary can even dare to block our path?”
Hers was the authority that superseded all authoritarians around the globe beneath her feet.
“Remember, Onii-sama.”
She continued on her speech in a quiet and gentle voice, but with it accompanied her sense of stability and boldness, a belief that no other in the world could ever hope to match or deal with.
“Duty, ethic, law as a human being… As an extension, all that binds us to the fragment of a world; they are but a barrier put up by those in power to bind the weak, common and naïve, to herd them into the commoners they are.”
It seems like this is nearing the Illuminati in terms of cla.s.sified rating. You’d see something like this in a movie.
“Long ago, the seven sages bestowed three chosen the authority of ‘justice’, and nine plebeians promised their eternal loyalty on their power.”
Er, in this case the Hollywood world’s secret conspiracy theories were taking on after Maria’s chain of thoughts.
And here was Maria, talking about something so great a scale as this like it were nothing, as if it was common knowledge for all she knew.
Really, she’s not normal.
“Do you understand now, Onii-sama?”
“W-what?”
All I could do was sit there dumbfounded, unable to pinpoint where the conversation was heading off to.
“Onii-sama still doesn’t understand the true composition of this world.”
“Composition…?”
I asked back to her in curiosity, but what emerged from Maria’s confession would have been more than enough to overturn the world many times over in shock.
“The accidental shooting of the Dali Llama, the one event that sparked the genesis of conflict between Chinese minorities. Was the shooting really accidental? Or was the shooter even Chinese to begin with?”
“What are you…”
“Last year in the US election, Republicans saw a drastic rise and promotion of Neo-Con members inside the party. The reason of success for this change can be attributed to US population’s rising interest in national safety. As if by a premonition, the timely incident of US Subway Shooting served to alert its citizens of freedom from terrorism, and in the end, those fears emerged to the politics.”
“…”
“If that is so, then what reason did the Arab terrorists have to go out of their way to slaughter 17 Americans, when anti-Islam opinions were already growing so exponentially in the US? The cause of the most radical and extremist faction’s revival, the Neo-Con, within the Republican Party can only be attributed to the irrational and suicidal decisions made by the Islam extremist members – and to an extent, attributed as the reason all of Middle East was engulfed in a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle that was inevitable.”
Dull-faced, Maria continued on her confession, as if she was merely explaining to a child before her that one plus one equaled two.
“Were they really unaware of the consequences their terrorism would bring upon them? To be clear, were they really the “Jihads of the Islamic Righteousness” they so claimed to be, waging a holy crusade against the western forces?”
s.h.i.+ver.
The truth that emerged from Maria’s declaration was shocking, no doubt; but when pieced together, her confessions could be described as nothing more than appropriate considering what situation the world was currently in, though that rationality did nothing to ease this dual-faced revelation I was experiencing.
Snicker, snicker.
Looking at Maria, who was smiling – the thought that I already knew Maria’s answer as to who was behind all this seized me.
“Just what kind of a mastermind could manage to break out a full-on war between Western and Middle East factions, and devise a ridiculous plan to light the fuse that is called Chinese minority discrimination and lead all of China into a fiery civil unrest?”
It started from a simple belief, but now, my head was shaped into a singular answer by the numerous knives of thoughts that weaved through my brain.
“Just what kind of a great deviser is this person to sink all off the world into a flaming chasm, and suffer even the slightest of the repercussion?”
Truth is always cruel.
“Stop…”
I know.
The formula Maria was explaining to me; I already knew what x equaled out to.
“It is so, Onii-sama.”
“Stop, I’m telling you, stop…!”
Heedless to my disapproval, the《Princess of Pure Darkness》 continued on, her unrivalled twin pupils s.h.i.+ning brighter than ever.
“I, Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, am the one and only harbinger princess responsible for all the h.e.l.l and strife that exists in this world.” A Harbinger Princess.
“In the end, all the truths in the world are but a fabricated model constructed to one’s liking.”
《Princess of Darkness》Maria.
“That is why Onii-same must become an adult.”
“Adult…?”
“Do you still believe that a physical relation with your sister is not of ethical conduct?”
Fu-!
Of course. I finally saw something progressing and there was another curveball thrown.
“Hey, hey! Besides ethics and stuff like that, isn’t incest genetically bad for genes if siblings d, d, do that!?”
“You mean the scientific findings about how inbreeding and incest can increase the chance of congenital birth defects? You need not worry about them."
“Huh!?”
“It’s my safe day today.”
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
“If that is your only issue, then it seems that all the obstacles barring the connection between me and Onii-sama have been demolished.”
“…”
At this point, it was clear that all this speech she gave out about the truth of the world doing kickflips many times over and back were just a logical leeway she paved for her to say "That’s why it’s okay for us to go beyond sibling love.” to a casual urging.
The world was coming to a close.
It had gotten to the point where she conjured up and wove all these world chapter history level conspiracies into her argument just to make justification for some sister-brother action.
“I do admit I had gotten a bit carried off with my explanation, but I can be sure that I gave no loopholes. Surely you will not reject my advance now?”
“Game over, man. Game over.”
She took Sun Tzu’s Art of War and turned it into a theatrical RTS level joke.
But the important thing was that I had nothing to retort back her ridiculous but somewhat plausible argument with.
“B-but! My heart still isn’t prepared…”
“How much longer will you force this humiliation play on this poor girl before you now, Onii-sama!?”
“T-that’s…!”
It wasn’t like I was devoid of my pride as a man. I wasn’t impotent either; I was just normal, nothing more or nothing less.
Oh, it’s specifically because I was normal that I was hesitant.
I’d heard so much here and there, but whether the truth of the world was correct or not, what I was taught along my youth was thought patterns of the normal world. No matter how she emphasized that it’s an illusion, I couldn’t just ditch the things I was used to all my life and accept her thought pattern like this.
In the end, it was like that, dammit.
“H, hey Maria, but I’m…”
I couldn't manage to avoid Maria’s conjecture, much less wrap up the argument heating between us. It was dull and stupid, and anyone else could see how dead-end I appeared in their eyes.
“If that is so, then your compromise is hereby rejected.”
And then, all in a moment, Maria ceased to tolerate my shaky and indecisive att.i.tude any longer.
Reject my compromise?
Did she really realize the true meaning of what she was getting at?
“Tonight, I’m dyeing you in my color, if nothing else.”
Maria’s arm coiled around my neck, and her wet, unruly breath tickled the nape of my neck.
Maria acted with possessive determination.
Still grasping my neck, Maria instead carried strength into her fingers and started tightening down on my windpipe with all her strength.
Strangling… me.
“Kuh, you, why…!”
“Do not be afraid, Onii-sama.”
Chuckling to herself, Maria was entranced in a maddening satisfaction staring down at my oxygen-deprived body.
Like a hound prowling the hunting ground, a predator sinking into bloodl.u.s.t.
“I love you, Onii-sama, more than anything in the world. I daresay that there is n.o.body in the world that loves you more than me?”
“W-What are you getti…”
With pain prying my life loose, I managed to spit out a few words.
“That is so Onii-same belongs to only me. I will not lose you to anyone else; that is why you are my Onii-sama, only for me.”
The Maria that was on top of me was not the Maria I knew. What I could see was but a person of fear and catharsis welled up in the abyss of her twin gaze, shaped to a grotesque singularity.
I could tell.
Maria was like that.
My little sister, Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, is just like that.
“-It’s about Baekryeon, isn’t it?
What I uttered out flew out like a silver bolt, and careened through the wave of madness whirling around us.
Pause.
The fingers constricting my neck shook ever so slightly and ceased to act further.
But even if you did something like this, I knew where you were getting at from the start.
You’re just that kind of a kid, who would lash out and choke me just to project out your uneasiness.
The hands that were strangling me were shaking from the start, like a petrified child’s.
“!”
What I could see now was a wide-eyed Mara, trembling in her place; a tide-turner, so to speak.
“B, but that’s…”
“That means that I knew everything from the beginning, you good-for-nothing sister.”
Why must you always be like this? Whether you were the《Princess of Darkness》or not, this person in front of me now was just a little girl, struggling so hard inside her head, just because she didn’t know what her own brother was thinking.
“I’ll be honest; I’ve been feeling a little chaotic because of her for a while now.”
Just think. You flipped the TV on nonchalantly, and you heard your name mentioned, and a rather noticeable biochemical terrorism takes place right before your eyes; I doubt you could shake the earth upside down and come up with anyone that could cope with that in a sane manner.
“But Maria, I need you to know this one thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever you think of me, I’m your only Onii-sama.”
So what was so hard about pampering your sister a bit?
“Don’t tell me you were thinking that I was going to leave you or something?"
“…”
Hearing that, Maria shook her head down and mumbled something unintelligible.
Wrestling with something silly like that; this girl in misery before me was none other than the《Princess of Darkness》.
”Fuha, hahahaha!”
I wasn’t sure why I burst into laughter there.
“W, why do you laugh?”
“It’s amusing.”
“It’s, amusing?”
Very much so.
Here I was, tied head to toe, incapable of even a single resistance, pathetic as I was, and I found this amusing.
“n.o.body else in the world could possibly see this side of Maria.”
“Why is that…?”
“It feels like I’m harbouring a great secret to myself.
It’s beyond amusing.
Did I really want to say that? To say that I was amused like a kid stas.h.i.+ng a rare gla.s.s trinket in his room and feeling a sense of superior secrecy?
“A genocidal war criminal in angel’s clothing. Persephone on earth.”
“…!”
“n.o.body will ever know. To know that someone of that amazing, enormous caliber, that the harbinger princess responsible for all the h.e.l.l and strife that exists in this world, is such an impressionable and innocent girl like this.”
“B, but that’s because I’m in front of Onii-sama!”
Maria blushed and reacted so predictably, still encased steadfast inside her pride.
Ahh.
I could see.
I could read her so clearly.
This girl definitely wasn’t some sheet of ancient hieroglyphic papyrus, hiding within it infinite mysteries, like the image everyone took her for.
The difference was that, she was a princess; simple as that.
Darkness or whatever, all these fancy adjectives were muddling the truth within her.
「In the end, all the truths in the world are but a fabricated model constructed to one's liking.
The truth that was there was just much too simple.
What we had here was but a teenage girl who, threatened that she might lose her dear brother again, went to whatever desperation she could allow, just to keep him to herself.
“I’ve got one more thing to ask, silly.”
“…What would that be?”
“You, what would you do if, let’s say, some other guy, who’s like ten times better and good-looking than me, turns out to be your Onii-sama and I turn out to be a third-wheel fake?”
“What do you mean!? On my honor as Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, that sort of thing is just not possible!”
“No no, I’m speaking in a literally hypothetical sense. I don’t ask of this as ‘Maria Lunalady Blackhazel’s Onii-sama’ – but as ‘Siyoung’ like you asked about me before, and what you think of that.”
I knew for sure what she would say.
It wasn’t because I was wrapped in some superiority complex, nor was I being humble in any sense. Departing from all the formalities, I just could know what Maria was going to say.
Maria Lunalady Blackhazel does not desert a boy named Siyoung. Why was that so? Because I was her Onii-sama?
Well, one could think so at the beginning.
No.
Perhaps that was all there was from the start.
But not anymore.
I was sure.
But despite that, she still hadn’t caught on.
That was why I was trying to tell her a tale that was opposite to the uneasiness she was experiencing right now.
“Even so, Maria will never desert me. At least, that was what I was thinking.”
“I do not particularity feel the need to answer to a question with an answer as obvious as that.”
Maria whipped back, her cheeks slightly swollen with annoyance.
“But that’s a.s.suming you truly think like that. Why not try thinking in the opposite sense?”
“What would tha…”
Twitch.
Maria bolted upright in shock, as if she was. .h.i.t over the head with a hammer.
“Ah, ah.”
I could see the shock digging through her as she heard the answer she could not predict, devoid of any reb.u.t.tal and retort.
I had to give a moment of doubt to this world we were in, to be so easily controlled by a girl that was as senseless and defenceless as this.
“That’s why I’m telling you, there’s no need to cram all your worries inside all by yourself.”
I’m your one and only Onii-sama.
Whether you were《Princess of Darkness》or not, that kind of formality was all fine with me.
As a single brother, and as a single pampered sister.
“If I can’t even pamper you even a little like this, then how could I be considered your Onii-sama?”
“Ah, uuu…”
Maria was lost for words, and merely shrugged in silence, like a child being yelled at.
“That’s why there’s no need to worry. I’ll never leave your side. It’s not like there's a place waiting for me besides here.”
I still had some reservations about what that “Baekryeon” girl had said to me, and the implications she suggested.
But that wasn’t important here.
Wouldn’t consoling your little sister in need be your foremost duty as a Onii-sama?
“That’s why there’s no need to worry. There’s nothing to worry about now.”
“Onii-sama…”
“You really should learn to depend on others every once in a while. After all, that’s what the term ‘family’ exists in the world for.
Woah.
I just said something really cool I think, I thought it was beyond me honestly.
So there I was, amazed at my sudden inspiration of quotes, and I felt a warm droplet fall onto my chest.
Wait.
Droplet?
“Au, auuu…”
Surely it belongs to no one but Maria on top of me.
“Eh- T, that’s, I don’t, why tears…”
Perhaps she herself wasn’t sure either. It would be more correct to say that she herself wasn’t sure of the emotion she was experiencing right now. Feigning ignorance, rather.
“I am strange, aren’t I? I must keep up a fitting dignity as Onii-sama’s sister… To be such a weak woman to show tears like this… Haguuu, uu…”
“Did you really just forget again, you silly!”
“W-what are you referring to?”
Struggling to keep her emotions from welling up inside her, Maria was shaking her shoulders and barely containing her cries from leaking out.
“Quote from blessed Onii-sama himself, first clause. Try to depend on others and not keep everything to yourself every once in a while.”
“Uu, auu… uu.”
“Second clause. It’s the duty of a ‘family’ – as the only Onii-sama of the Blackhazel, me – to be dependable enough to be relied on, and pamper its members at times.”
For a guy like me, high-cla.s.s dignity just didn’t seem to click with me in any way whatsoever.
I knew that.
The true face of the《Princess of Darkness》that reigned over in overpowering fear and awe; her true self as a mask-wearing, meek and innocent girl.
“Ah, au, auu…”
Her crystal tears, like small droplets of jeweled pearls were dripping endlessly. In other words, she was at her limit.
“So what if you cry your eyes out a little bit? No one’s going to make fun or chastise you for that here.”
“Onii-sama… Ahh, Onii-sama, Onii-sama…!”
Finally reaching her breaking point, Maria sunk her face down straight at my chest and started bawling.
I saw it for the first time.
For Maria to expose herself so open like this, and reveal how she was like this.
But what Maria needed was exactly this.
She didn’t need some souped-up darkness or vice or anything of the sort like that. It may not be fitting, but they always did say kindness beats strength; the situation here was a mere extension of that. Not that I would know though. I was in science major.
“I love you, Onii-sama…! Onii-sama, Onii-sama…!”
Wiping her tears on my chest, Maria really was the proverbial child, with the way she was letting out the misery she had been saving up for so long inside her.
With that, I moved my hand to pet her head, a crucial “Onii-sama certified pin point action” acknowledged all around the world.
Klank.
And there was that familiar metallic clank that ticked down the side of my head.
Oh right.
I had gotten so wrapped up in the situation here that I forgot just how serious of a problem I was engaged in before.
“Er, Maria?”
Maria, while she was busy engaged in ‘Maria’s sister-pamper-play-forever’, looked up from my chest and tilted her head in curiosity.
“Ern, I know that you’re currently immersed in your sentimental bonding and it’s a bad time to ask for something right now.”
“Hau…?”
“But maybe we can get rid of all these shackles that would give a late-night S&M video a run for its money?”
“That will not do.”
What returned was an unexpected rejection.
“Er, what?”
“I shall do my best to the best of my ability to be thoroughly pampered upon Onii-sama’s chest tonight.”
Er, well it wasn’t like I was going to pack up and leave right the instant I was freed or something like that.
Just when I opened my mouth to correct Maria's stance on something so plain like this, Maria cut across my word and sealed the deal.
“It is so. Onii-sama belongs to me now.”
“Er, err? No, hang on! I feel as if we’re straying from the highly reasonable and ethical route we just agreed to progress into!
“If your sister is happy with it, then is all not well?”
Please don’t nod your head like that and look like everything is according to the norm.
I could say that, but she wouldn’t understand anyway.
I could act cool and sophisticated all I want like I was the best brother in the world and I would have another lap to go.
No matter what kind of supernatural Maria was made out to be, no matter how fancy a -darkness adjective slapped before her name, it wouldn’t change a thing as to the truth of how much of a pampered in-your-face little sister Maria was.
This strange feeling and sound of being supressed waves through my skin, even though I was asleep. In the light of this sensation, I opened my eyes to find myself in a place I thought would never exist in the Blackhazel Manor. What followed my chain of thought was a sudden pain from the blow to my head that came some time before.
Right, so I was talking with Maria just now, and something attacked me during the conversation, and I fell unconscious right there and then.
…Er, wait a second.
I was attacked and fell unconscious?
“!”
I instantly jolted upright, seized in astonishment.
But my intentions betrayed what my body could do in reality.
Upon inspection, my body was firmly bound to something, and I couldn’t move a muscle from how I was positioned.
“Are you awake now, Onii-sama?”
It was none other than Maria, who I found to be the cause of this weight pressing down on my body.
In an instant, my fragmented thoughts started to gather as I a.n.a.lyzed the situation.
Tied to an unknown piece of furniture with all movement restricted, was me. More accurately, it feels like I'm tied to a bed.
And the person on top of me was Maria, of all people.
Struggling to move my head, I could see a work desk and a bookshelf with various military manuals lining the insides; I was inside a small study of sort. I couldn’t see anything you would typically see in a teenage girl’s room – like teddy bears or flower-pattern curtains – one of the reasons why this room gave off an aura of desolation and simplicity.
Though, that’s all well and good but…
“That’s not the problem here!”
I think this was my brain attempting to escape reality. I mean, by focusing on the room decoration rather than me. It’s natural; a part of human psychology…
“H, hang on, Maria! Let’s untie all this and then we can talk this over reasonably…”
“Shhhh.”
The only thing Maria did in response to my fl.u.s.tered rambling was softly placing her finger on my lip.
Seeing Maria in nothing but white s.h.i.+rt hiding her black lingerie underneath, surely an outfit of forbidden danger, exuded an aura of maturity I never felt from her before.
And to top it off, the situation felt abnormal.
With her one hand resting on my lips, and with her other hand free, her five serpentine fingers slithered down to my neck, tickling me gently.
“W-what…”
Her pupils dyed in infatuation, she teased my body ever so kindly – and sometimes extending to roughly, she kept on, as if to mark my body as her own.
“H, hang on a sec, Maria! What are you doing!?”
“I’m trying to possess Onii-sama as my own.”
“W, what?”
Just what was it that I saw lurking beyond Maria’s eyes?
Staggering dizzily amidst all this, I gathered up what little concentration I could muster and regained my focus.
Uneasiness. Terror. Fear. Suspicion.
And then abyss.
What I could see behind her gaze wasn’t something I could sum up so simply in one word.
All I could sense was that this situation was not in my favor.
“I cannot wait any longer.”
“You can’t?”
Maria proceeded to undo my b.u.t.tons, one by one.
Afterwards, where her serpentine fingers came to a stop was right above my belt.
“I beg of you, please engrave your maddening determination upon this girl’s precious place, so that it may never come off in this lifetime!”
“He- hey! Wait!”
Heeding no attention to my plea, Maria, with her trembling hands, reached down to my belt and started to strip me from the waist-down!
“Wait! Waitwaitwait! Are you crazy!? Why are you like this all of a sudden?”
“Is that all you want to say?”
Truly Maria’s face spoke with such defiance, that she would accept refusal. Maria gulped down her breath and with her still trembling fingers, reached to my boxers...
“…”
“Ah, U…..gh.”
Nothing happened afterward.
Wondering what was happening, I squinted my eyes to see what was going on with Maria.
“W-what’s wrong?”
And there was Maria just sitting there, her face dyed in persimmon crimson, not knowing what to do in her confusion.
I should have known.
No matter how mature Maria was with her adult demeanor and grown-up appeal, she was still a maiden at heart.
“E, erm, usually with things like these, I’ve learned that it’s usually the male who takes the lead, that’s what I was taught, and, then, that’s, erm…”
“Er, hmm?”
Her stuttering voice trailed away to nothing, and with her face still dyed red, Maria stuttered out an explanation after what seemed like an eternity of waiting.
“…I’m embarra.s.sed.”
Along with her lament, Maria shook her head down, her face dyed red with embarra.s.sment.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. If you’re that embarra.s.sed, can you just come and untie all this?”
The chance is now.
I have to somehow get it through to her that now is not the time and turn her thoughts around.
What I’m saying is, I’m not here to preach her to boredom. Though Maria started off ambitious with all these mysterious tools to hold me down and seal the deal with, it seems she is unable to continue with her usually blatant form of love expression.
Yes, ‘that’ Maria was embarra.s.sed.
She’s gone past the line of discretion to the point of hurtling to the horizon.
In some ways it may look more complicated than that, but essentially, it was just that.
Maria’s embarra.s.sment that was keeping her occupied, in the end, only served to detriment her briefly.
In a flash Maria, now embedded in some sort of poetic determination, carried her confidence into her twin gaze and glared at my way.
“I will not be the one to take a step back tonight.”
“Wh- Hey! Just calm down a bit and listen to a word I’m sayi- Mmmgh!?”
What followed my defiance was not the usual violence.
Her long strands of saliva descended down to my mouth, lip-to-lip, sweetly glistening.
Like powerful acid being pumping into me, the sensation was enough to loosen my grip on consciousness.
“…!”
Just like that, Maria whipped her arms around my neck, and proceeded to devour my lips, as if to show her rejection of any form of defiance and resistance she might receive.
「Onii-sama’s smell, breath, voice, down to the very last cell… Everything is all so very precious to me, so precious that I cannot contain myself! 」
Why is it so?
I think back to the first time I had to become a “Member of Blackhazel” and what Maria had to say about me then.
“Haa, haa…”
It was only then that Maria stopped her kiss and slowly put the distance between us.
Those strands of spit spreading like spiderweb upon her black, cherry lip – who did they belong to, were they mine or hers?
“Thanks for the meal, Onii-sama ♥”
Maria smiled mysteriously, combing back her hair tidily as she spoke.
It’s not a sight a growing seventeen-year old girl would be able to mimic so easily.
It’s more close to an adult’s appeal, so to say.
Gently tickling my neck and smiling to herself, it was really a complete domination for her.
“So that’s why, I’m asking if I can taste Onii-sama to the fullest ♥”
“No! Who do you think you are, a cannibal?
…That’s what I would have said, if this was like the usual situation.
But I couldn’t.
Was I once again, crushed by the overpowering aura she exuded so much, to dominate and take over?
Or was I really feeling attracted by this seventeen-year old little sister before me?
Really, it might not look like it but I’m pretty good when it comes to being patient. But it’s not to say I can endure anything indefinitely.
Please just know what I’m feeling. You stubborn, obstinate little sister of mine!
“Hmm… As I thought, you’re getting aroused, Onii-sama.”
“W-wait Maria! This is…”
An unavoidable reaction?
The world’s least convincing excuse (but according to research, a fact that has been proven scientifically and biologically) came out into the stage.
Hahaha.
Haha. Ha.
I was laughing, but I couldn’t explain these tears in my eyes.
“You say you hate it, but your body doesn’t seem to be going along with it.”
“Stop saying such corny lines that you’d see a protagonist from a 90’s NTR (aged 46, school guard) p.o.r.no would say instead!”
“Ah, but there is a reason a cla.s.sic becomes a cla.s.sic, perhaps due to its timeless appeal and niche goodness it contains.”
“So NTR is a cla.s.sic genre now!?”
Not to mention she’s mixing something like timeless appeal and niche goodness to it!
…
Hang on a second, what was I babbling out just now?
It’s really not an important matter considering the situation I’m in right now.
While I was immersed thinking about such complicated things, Maria once again opened her mouth.
“So that’s why it’s fine."
“It’s fine.”
“Er, erm?”
It’s a proclamation I don’t know the significance of.
“Just leave everything to me and rest your body on me.”
“Onii-sama just needs to leave everything to me and rest your body on me.”
It’s a saying of Maria I have heard her say a few times in the past.
“Onii-sama’s flesh and blood, I shall devour them down to the last sc.r.a.p without so much as a crumb left.”
Scary! Too scary!
What’s more, the situation is too serious for me to even know if she’s trying to talk dirty or if she’s literally serious about what she just said now!
“What- what are you talking about, you!?”
This chill down my spine tells me intuitively that this situation was not going the way I hoped it would. Still gripped in fear, I gulped down my breath but managed to somehow don a stoic face for her to see.
“Are you afraid of me, Onii-sama?”
I said stoic, but this girl in front of me wasn’t so gullible enough to be fooled by whatever makes.h.i.+ft facade I could ever hope to put up.
She was out of my league, so to say.
As if she was aware of everything that went through my head, Maria chuckled excitedly and talked, this time in a more gentle tone than before.
“To tease someone so dear to me – It’s a rather exciting thing to do. I used to look down on such behavior, calling it childish thrill, but perhaps I can come more to term with it now.”
“Don’t you go and get addicted to some weird fetish now! Don’t come to term with it either!”
Being a s.a.d.i.s.t was in her genetics. If what she’s enjoying now was to combine with her base aura, then the synergy that’ll result will be like a nuclear bomb!
“Alright then, if Onii-sama must act so impatient, then I shall skip any more needless delays.”
“Er, emm… Come again?”
On hearing that, Maria shook her shoulders as if she was out of options, and continued on.
“Right to the main event.”
“M, main event?”
It sounded rhetorical.
Or was I really unsure of what she was implying?
But d.o.g.g.i.ng myself for the answer won’t get me any answers I’m looking for.
“We’ll both feel good together.”
I don’t really want to feel good so just stop for now!
“But you’re my little sister, you!”
“That is so. I, Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, am a sister to none other than my precious Onii-sama.”
Like the cold grasp of carrion, her finger poked my chest, as if to pierce through.
The sharp sensation from that jolted me to the situation, and when I raised my voice to complain, Maria again silenced me with her finger to seal whatever I was about to say.
“That’s why, I want you to take this pure, unbridled innocence of your little sister and corrupt it beyond any form of recognition and redemption – and most of all, to make it as your sole plaything.”
“Y-You… Do you even know what you’re talking about right now?”
“Perhaps it may be difficult for Onii-sama to understand.”
How is it hard to understand?
“Sometimes in this world, there exists a certain sort of l.u.s.t – a feeling where you want to be utterly humiliated and played with by the person one absolutely holds dear, that sort of whimsical emotion.”
This event is progressing at a pace I am not comfortable with.
It’s like a roller coaster of sorts, speeding up and slowing down at one’s whim, a paradoxical speed of questionable median.
Of course, I am well aware of what kind of figure Maria Lunalady is, the eccentricity of her thoughts and actions, and what her position of power as《Princess of Pure Darkness》symbolizes as a lord of dominance.
Even so.
Even knowing all that.
No matter what kind of out-of-bounds monster she is made out to be, I have to tell her that it doesn’t matter.
So what about it?
So what if Maria is special.
She’s been chosen from the moment she was born.
That is why despite all this, I have to regard everything she’s doing as a “it can happen” sort of justification and nod my head to it.
“…But you’re still my little sister.”
“Just because I am your little sister, just because our chain of ethics that bind us, you would say that you cannot embrace me?”
“What now?”
“Such trifle of an ethic, shatter them away. If the opinions of those beneath us concern you so much, then crush their fingers and cut out their eyeb.a.l.l.s.”
The atmosphere around Maria encased the air into an icy rancour, and she continued on her words.
“Law itself bows down to us; not a single king in this world can defy our will. How is it then that a mere code of ethic and boundary can even dare to block our path?”
Hers was the authority that superseded all authoritarians around the globe beneath her feet.
“Remember, Onii-sama.”
She continued on her speech in a quiet and gentle voice, but with it accompanied her sense of stability and boldness, a belief that no other in the world could ever hope to match or deal with.
“Duty, ethic, law as a human being… As an extension, all that binds us to the fragment of a world; they are but a barrier put up by those in power to bind the weak, common and naïve, to herd them into the commoners they are.”
It seems like this is nearing the Illuminati in terms of cla.s.sified rating. You’d see something like this in a movie.
“Long ago, the seven sages bestowed three chosen the authority of ‘justice’, and nine plebeians promised their eternal loyalty on their power.”
Er, in this case the Hollywood world’s secret conspiracy theories were taking on after Maria’s chain of thoughts.
And here was Maria, talking about something so great a scale as this like it were nothing, as if it was common knowledge for all she knew.
Really, she’s not normal.
“Do you understand now, Onii-sama?”
“W-what?”
All I could do was sit there dumbfounded, unable to pinpoint where the conversation was heading off to.
“Onii-sama still doesn’t understand the true composition of this world.”
“Composition…?”
I asked back to her in curiosity, but what emerged from Maria’s confession would have been more than enough to overturn the world many times over in shock.
“The accidental shooting of the Dali Llama, the one event that sparked the genesis of conflict between Chinese minorities. Was the shooting really accidental? Or was the shooter even Chinese to begin with?”
“What are you…”
“Last year in the US election, Republicans saw a drastic rise and promotion of Neo-Con members inside the party. The reason of success for this change can be attributed to US population’s rising interest in national safety. As if by a premonition, the timely incident of US Subway Shooting served to alert its citizens of freedom from terrorism, and in the end, those fears emerged to the politics.”
“…”
“If that is so, then what reason did the Arab terrorists have to go out of their way to slaughter 17 Americans, when anti-Islam opinions were already growing so exponentially in the US? The cause of the most radical and extremist faction’s revival, the Neo-Con, within the Republican Party can only be attributed to the irrational and suicidal decisions made by the Islam extremist members – and to an extent, attributed as the reason all of Middle East was engulfed in a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle that was inevitable.”
Dull-faced, Maria continued on her confession, as if she was merely explaining to a child before her that one plus one equaled two.
“Were they really unaware of the consequences their terrorism would bring upon them? To be clear, were they really the “Jihads of the Islamic Righteousness” they so claimed to be, waging a holy crusade against the western forces?”
s.h.i.+ver.
The truth that emerged from Maria’s declaration was shocking, no doubt; but when pieced together, her confessions could be described as nothing more than appropriate considering what situation the world was currently in, though that rationality did nothing to ease this dual-faced revelation I was experiencing.
Snicker, snicker.
Looking at Maria, who was smiling – the thought that I already knew Maria’s answer as to who was behind all this seized me.
“Just what kind of a mastermind could manage to break out a full-on war between Western and Middle East factions, and devise a ridiculous plan to light the fuse that is called Chinese minority discrimination and lead all of China into a fiery civil unrest?”
It started from a simple belief, but now, my head was shaped into a singular answer by the numerous knives of thoughts that weaved through my brain.
“Just what kind of a great deviser is this person to sink all off the world into a flaming chasm, and suffer even the slightest of the repercussion?”
Truth is always cruel.
“Stop…”
I know.
The formula Maria was explaining to me; I already knew what x equaled out to.
“It is so, Onii-sama.”
“Stop, I’m telling you, stop…!”
Heedless to my disapproval, the《Princess of Pure Darkness》 continued on, her unrivalled twin pupils s.h.i.+ning brighter than ever.
“I, Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, am the one and only harbinger princess responsible for all the h.e.l.l and strife that exists in this world.” A Harbinger Princess.
“In the end, all the truths in the world are but a fabricated model constructed to one’s liking.”
《Princess of Darkness》Maria.
“That is why Onii-same must become an adult.”
“Adult…?”
“Do you still believe that a physical relation with your sister is not of ethical conduct?”
Fu-!
Of course. I finally saw something progressing and there was another curveball thrown.
“Hey, hey! Besides ethics and stuff like that, isn’t incest genetically bad for genes if siblings d, d, do that!?”
“You mean the scientific findings about how inbreeding and incest can increase the chance of congenital birth defects? You need not worry about them."
“Huh!?”
“It’s my safe day today.”
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
“If that is your only issue, then it seems that all the obstacles barring the connection between me and Onii-sama have been demolished.”
“…”
At this point, it was clear that all this speech she gave out about the truth of the world doing kickflips many times over and back were just a logical leeway she paved for her to say "That’s why it’s okay for us to go beyond sibling love.” to a casual urging.
The world was coming to a close.
It had gotten to the point where she conjured up and wove all these world chapter history level conspiracies into her argument just to make justification for some sister-brother action.
“I do admit I had gotten a bit carried off with my explanation, but I can be sure that I gave no loopholes. Surely you will not reject my advance now?”
“Game over, man. Game over.”
She took Sun Tzu’s Art of War and turned it into a theatrical RTS level joke.
But the important thing was that I had nothing to retort back her ridiculous but somewhat plausible argument with.
“B-but! My heart still isn’t prepared…”
“How much longer will you force this humiliation play on this poor girl before you now, Onii-sama!?”
“T-that’s…!”
It wasn’t like I was devoid of my pride as a man. I wasn’t impotent either; I was just normal, nothing more or nothing less.
Oh, it’s specifically because I was normal that I was hesitant.
I’d heard so much here and there, but whether the truth of the world was correct or not, what I was taught along my youth was thought patterns of the normal world. No matter how she emphasized that it’s an illusion, I couldn’t just ditch the things I was used to all my life and accept her thought pattern like this.
In the end, it was like that, dammit.
“H, hey Maria, but I’m…”
I couldn't manage to avoid Maria’s conjecture, much less wrap up the argument heating between us. It was dull and stupid, and anyone else could see how dead-end I appeared in their eyes.
“If that is so, then your compromise is hereby rejected.”
And then, all in a moment, Maria ceased to tolerate my shaky and indecisive att.i.tude any longer.
Reject my compromise?
Did she really realize the true meaning of what she was getting at?
“Tonight, I’m dyeing you in my color, if nothing else.”
Maria’s arm coiled around my neck, and her wet, unruly breath tickled the nape of my neck.
Maria acted with possessive determination.
Still grasping my neck, Maria instead carried strength into her fingers and started tightening down on my windpipe with all her strength.
Strangling… me.
“Kuh, you, why…!”
“Do not be afraid, Onii-sama.”
Chuckling to herself, Maria was entranced in a maddening satisfaction staring down at my oxygen-deprived body.
Like a hound prowling the hunting ground, a predator sinking into bloodl.u.s.t.
“I love you, Onii-sama, more than anything in the world. I daresay that there is n.o.body in the world that loves you more than me?”
“W-What are you getti…”
With pain prying my life loose, I managed to spit out a few words.
“That is so Onii-same belongs to only me. I will not lose you to anyone else; that is why you are my Onii-sama, only for me.”
The Maria that was on top of me was not the Maria I knew. What I could see was but a person of fear and catharsis welled up in the abyss of her twin gaze, shaped to a grotesque singularity.
I could tell.
Maria was like that.
My little sister, Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, is just like that.
“-It’s about Baekryeon, isn’t it?
What I uttered out flew out like a silver bolt, and careened through the wave of madness whirling around us.
Pause.
The fingers constricting my neck shook ever so slightly and ceased to act further.
But even if you did something like this, I knew where you were getting at from the start.
You’re just that kind of a kid, who would lash out and choke me just to project out your uneasiness.
The hands that were strangling me were shaking from the start, like a petrified child’s.
“!”
What I could see now was a wide-eyed Mara, trembling in her place; a tide-turner, so to speak.
“B, but that’s…”
“That means that I knew everything from the beginning, you good-for-nothing sister.”
Why must you always be like this? Whether you were the《Princess of Darkness》or not, this person in front of me now was just a little girl, struggling so hard inside her head, just because she didn’t know what her own brother was thinking.
“I’ll be honest; I’ve been feeling a little chaotic because of her for a while now.”
Just think. You flipped the TV on nonchalantly, and you heard your name mentioned, and a rather noticeable biochemical terrorism takes place right before your eyes; I doubt you could shake the earth upside down and come up with anyone that could cope with that in a sane manner.
“But Maria, I need you to know this one thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever you think of me, I’m your only Onii-sama.”
So what was so hard about pampering your sister a bit?
“Don’t tell me you were thinking that I was going to leave you or something?"
“…”
Hearing that, Maria shook her head down and mumbled something unintelligible.
Wrestling with something silly like that; this girl in misery before me was none other than the《Princess of Darkness》.
”Fuha, hahahaha!”
I wasn’t sure why I burst into laughter there.
“W, why do you laugh?”
“It’s amusing.”
“It’s, amusing?”
Very much so.
Here I was, tied head to toe, incapable of even a single resistance, pathetic as I was, and I found this amusing.
“n.o.body else in the world could possibly see this side of Maria.”
“Why is that…?”
“It feels like I’m harbouring a great secret to myself.
It’s beyond amusing.
Did I really want to say that? To say that I was amused like a kid stas.h.i.+ng a rare gla.s.s trinket in his room and feeling a sense of superior secrecy?
“A genocidal war criminal in angel’s clothing. Persephone on earth.”
“…!”
“n.o.body will ever know. To know that someone of that amazing, enormous caliber, that the harbinger princess responsible for all the h.e.l.l and strife that exists in this world, is such an impressionable and innocent girl like this.”
“B, but that’s because I’m in front of Onii-sama!”
Maria blushed and reacted so predictably, still encased steadfast inside her pride.
Ahh.
I could see.
I could read her so clearly.
This girl definitely wasn’t some sheet of ancient hieroglyphic papyrus, hiding within it infinite mysteries, like the image everyone took her for.
The difference was that, she was a princess; simple as that.
Darkness or whatever, all these fancy adjectives were muddling the truth within her.
「In the end, all the truths in the world are but a fabricated model constructed to one's liking.
The truth that was there was just much too simple.
What we had here was but a teenage girl who, threatened that she might lose her dear brother again, went to whatever desperation she could allow, just to keep him to herself.
“I’ve got one more thing to ask, silly.”
“…What would that be?”
“You, what would you do if, let’s say, some other guy, who’s like ten times better and good-looking than me, turns out to be your Onii-sama and I turn out to be a third-wheel fake?”
“What do you mean!? On my honor as Maria Lunalady Blackhazel, that sort of thing is just not possible!”
“No no, I’m speaking in a literally hypothetical sense. I don’t ask of this as ‘Maria Lunalady Blackhazel’s Onii-sama’ – but as ‘Siyoung’ like you asked about me before, and what you think of that.”
I knew for sure what she would say.
It wasn’t because I was wrapped in some superiority complex, nor was I being humble in any sense. Departing from all the formalities, I just could know what Maria was going to say.
Maria Lunalady Blackhazel does not desert a boy named Siyoung. Why was that so? Because I was her Onii-sama?
Well, one could think so at the beginning.
No.
Perhaps that was all there was from the start.
But not anymore.
I was sure.
But despite that, she still hadn’t caught on.
That was why I was trying to tell her a tale that was opposite to the uneasiness she was experiencing right now.
“Even so, Maria will never desert me. At least, that was what I was thinking.”
“I do not particularity feel the need to answer to a question with an answer as obvious as that.”
Maria whipped back, her cheeks slightly swollen with annoyance.
“But that’s a.s.suming you truly think like that. Why not try thinking in the opposite sense?”
“What would tha…”
Twitch.
Maria bolted upright in shock, as if she was. .h.i.t over the head with a hammer.
“Ah, ah.”
I could see the shock digging through her as she heard the answer she could not predict, devoid of any reb.u.t.tal and retort.
I had to give a moment of doubt to this world we were in, to be so easily controlled by a girl that was as senseless and defenceless as this.
“That’s why I’m telling you, there’s no need to cram all your worries inside all by yourself.”
I’m your one and only Onii-sama.
Whether you were《Princess of Darkness》or not, that kind of formality was all fine with me.
As a single brother, and as a single pampered sister.
“If I can’t even pamper you even a little like this, then how could I be considered your Onii-sama?”
“Ah, uuu…”
Maria was lost for words, and merely shrugged in silence, like a child being yelled at.
“That’s why there’s no need to worry. I’ll never leave your side. It’s not like there's a place waiting for me besides here.”
I still had some reservations about what that “Baekryeon” girl had said to me, and the implications she suggested.
But that wasn’t important here.
Wouldn’t consoling your little sister in need be your foremost duty as a Onii-sama?
“That’s why there’s no need to worry. There’s nothing to worry about now.”
“Onii-sama…”
“You really should learn to depend on others every once in a while. After all, that’s what the term ‘family’ exists in the world for.
Woah.
I just said something really cool I think, I thought it was beyond me honestly.
So there I was, amazed at my sudden inspiration of quotes, and I felt a warm droplet fall onto my chest.
Wait.
Droplet?
“Au, auuu…”
Surely it belongs to no one but Maria on top of me.
“Eh- T, that’s, I don’t, why tears…”
Perhaps she herself wasn’t sure either. It would be more correct to say that she herself wasn’t sure of the emotion she was experiencing right now. Feigning ignorance, rather.
“I am strange, aren’t I? I must keep up a fitting dignity as Onii-sama’s sister… To be such a weak woman to show tears like this… Haguuu, uu…”
“Did you really just forget again, you silly!”
“W-what are you referring to?”
Struggling to keep her emotions from welling up inside her, Maria was shaking her shoulders and barely containing her cries from leaking out.
“Quote from blessed Onii-sama himself, first clause. Try to depend on others and not keep everything to yourself every once in a while.”
“Uu, auu… uu.”
“Second clause. It’s the duty of a ‘family’ – as the only Onii-sama of the Blackhazel, me – to be dependable enough to be relied on, and pamper its members at times.”
For a guy like me, high-cla.s.s dignity just didn’t seem to click with me in any way whatsoever.
I knew that.
The true face of the《Princess of Darkness》that reigned over in overpowering fear and awe; her true self as a mask-wearing, meek and innocent girl.
“Ah, au, auu…”
Her crystal tears, like small droplets of jeweled pearls were dripping endlessly. In other words, she was at her limit.
“So what if you cry your eyes out a little bit? No one’s going to make fun or chastise you for that here.”
“Onii-sama… Ahh, Onii-sama, Onii-sama…!”
Finally reaching her breaking point, Maria sunk her face down straight at my chest and started bawling.
I saw it for the first time.
For Maria to expose herself so open like this, and reveal how she was like this.
But what Maria needed was exactly this.
She didn’t need some souped-up darkness or vice or anything of the sort like that. It may not be fitting, but they always did say kindness beats strength; the situation here was a mere extension of that. Not that I would know though. I was in science major.
“I love you, Onii-sama…! Onii-sama, Onii-sama…!”
Wiping her tears on my chest, Maria really was the proverbial child, with the way she was letting out the misery she had been saving up for so long inside her.
With that, I moved my hand to pet her head, a crucial “Onii-sama certified pin point action” acknowledged all around the world.
Klank.
And there was that familiar metallic clank that ticked down the side of my head.
Oh right.
I had gotten so wrapped up in the situation here that I forgot just how serious of a problem I was engaged in before.
“Er, Maria?”
Maria, while she was busy engaged in ‘Maria’s sister-pamper-play-forever’, looked up from my chest and tilted her head in curiosity.
“Ern, I know that you’re currently immersed in your sentimental bonding and it’s a bad time to ask for something right now.”
“Hau…?”
“But maybe we can get rid of all these shackles that would give a late-night S&M video a run for its money?”
“That will not do.”
What returned was an unexpected rejection.
“Er, what?”
“I shall do my best to the best of my ability to be thoroughly pampered upon Onii-sama’s chest tonight.”
Er, well it wasn’t like I was going to pack up and leave right the instant I was freed or something like that.
Just when I opened my mouth to correct Maria's stance on something so plain like this, Maria cut across my word and sealed the deal.
“It is so. Onii-sama belongs to me now.”
“Er, err? No, hang on! I feel as if we’re straying from the highly reasonable and ethical route we just agreed to progress into!
“If your sister is happy with it, then is all not well?”
Please don’t nod your head like that and look like everything is according to the norm.
I could say that, but she wouldn’t understand anyway.
I could act cool and sophisticated all I want like I was the best brother in the world and I would have another lap to go.
No matter what kind of supernatural Maria was made out to be, no matter how fancy a -darkness adjective slapped before her name, it wouldn’t change a thing as to the truth of how much of a pampered in-your-face little sister Maria was.
