“Prince Leon! I’m Cecilia, you know!?”
“…Yeah, I know. What wrong with that?”
“That’s what I mean! I am not Nina!”
“Why do I have to mistake Sister Cecilia for Nina?”
“What? Then why are you doing this!?”
“It’s to keep Sister Cecilia to myself of course, right?”
I looked back at Prince Leon, who was looking at me with a face that said he didn’t understand what I meant, and I didn’t understand what he meant either.
What the hell does that mean!? I thought this was the room we he was supposed to lock Nina up in! So why am I locked up!?
Remembering Prince Leon’s insane smile earlier, I was puzzled as to how things had gotten to this point.
“…Hey Cecilia, could it be that you’ve misunderstood the relationship between me and Nina?”
“A mistake? But Prince Leon and Nina are lovers, aren’t they?”
“…”
“Oh! Maybe it hasn’t come out yet? But you are attracted to each other, aren’t you?”
“…Misunderstood. Why do I have to be attracted to Nina?”
“What?”
“To be honest, I don’t care about Nina at all. It’s just that she’s a ‘Celestial Maiden’, so I was only dealing with her because of my position as a prince. The only person I’ve always been interested in…is Sister Cecilia.”
Prince Leon said that and turned that crazy smile on me again.
“Huh! Yeah, but Prince Leon likes Nina…”
“As I said before, I don’t care about Nina. But as usual, you’re insensitive, Cecilia. Well, that’s probably why you didn’t notice everyone’s feelings until now.”
“Everyone…by that…do you mean Kaiser and the others? So I was the only one who didn’t realize it then…”
The image of how everyone looked when they confessed to me at the time flashed through my mind, and without realizing it, my face was unconsciously hot.
I was holding the bars when Prince Leon suddenly grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly, so that he could cover them from above.
“Huh!? Pr-Prince Leon, it hurts!”
“Well, they confessed…before me…”
“Let go Prince Leon, please!”
“I can’t forgive it…but by the looks of it, you’re not someone’s property yet. Well, even if you were, I’d take you. Well, I’m going to have to be honest with you then.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s my feelings. The feelings that I love you, Cecilia.”
“You love…”
“Oh, of course, I don’t mean that I love you as my sister, I mean that I you my sister Cecilia as a woman.”
“What!?”
I froze at Prince Leon’s confession, which I hadn’t expected.
What? Huh? Prince Leon likes me…Why!? Because I thought Nina was in the Prince Leon route! Then there’s no way Prince Leon would like me! What the hell is going on!?
As I was intensely confused by such thoughts, Prince Leon brought his face close to mine through the bars.
“So…Sister Cecilia will remain here and become mine.”
Prince Leon’s dark smile deepened into a grin and he removed only his right hand from my hand and patted my cheek as I was stunned, unable to keep up with too much of this.
“Huh!?”
“Fufu, sister Cecilia with that look of fear on her face is very nice too.”
“Pr-Prince Leon…think about it! I’m the fiancée of your brother, Kaiser, right?”
“…Yes. But only for now, though.”
“What do you mean by…”
“Actually, it’s something that only a few people know about…if one of us goes missing during the engagement period and six months pass, the engagement is automatically terminated.”
“…Yeah!?”
Prince Leon’s words caused me to shout in surprise.
Wha-what’s that?! There wasn’t a single word on the game or in the setting material collection set that I played in the previous world! Ugh~ If I had known beforehand, I would have disappeared immediately and at any cost for six months…then I wouldn’t have been in this incomprehensible situation…
I let out a loud sigh of depression in my mind at the rule that I had never heard until now.
Then Prince Leon’s hand, which had been stroking my cheek a moment ago, somehow found its way to the back of my head, and when he put all his strength into his hand, he pulled my face to the very edge of the bars.
And although it was through the bars, my face was fixed in front of Prince Leon’s face.
Prince Leon watched my face, enraptured at the close distance, and smiled bewitchingly.
“So…I’m going to ask you to stay here, Cecilia, for at least six months.”
“What? That kind of thing is…”
“And as soon as your engagement with my brother is cancelled, we’ll be engaged… No, I don’t care about marriage anymore. I don’t really care about the ceremony. I just want to get the marriage license and have you be my bride!”
“Well, wait a minute! My marriage is…”
“I won’t wait. Cecilia is mine now. I won’t let anyone take you away. So…I need you to fall for me.”
“Mmmph!!”
Prince Leon’s hand pulled my face even closer to his, and then my lips were blocked by his across the bars.
“Mmph! Mmmph!!”
I tried to move my face to escape the kiss, but Prince Leon’s force was stronger than I expected and I couldn’t move.
Furthermore, since my face was pressed against the bars, the part that was hitting me honestly hurt.
To show my resistance, I bit Prince Leon’s lip while desperately enduring the pain and breathlessness from the kiss.
At that time, I felt like I bit my own lip a little bit, causing a tingle of pain and the taste of blood to spread in my mouth.
“Uh!”
As expected, Prince Leon was surprised at the pain, and when he took a step back from me, he wiped his bloody lips with his thumb and stared at the blood on his fingers, breathing heavily, and turned to me with a grin.
“…It hurts~ But…getting bitten by Sister Cecilia isn’t bad either.”
“Hiii!”
I seriously pulled away from Prince Leon’s obviously dangerous behavior, and wiped my own lips with the back of my hand in a hurry.
But Prince Leon just stared at me with a dangerous smile and then licked his lips.
Furthermore, when I saw this, I unconsciously felt my body tremble.
“Fufu, you can rest assured. I don’t intend to touch Sister Cecilia any more. I’ll take it all when you become mine in six months time, in name and in deed.”
“Oh, please! Prince Leon, please think about this and fix it!”
“I don’t want to. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment? It’s been since I first met Sister Cecilia when I was a six years old, you know?”
“What?…Has it been that long?”
“Yes. Well, Sister Cecilia didn’t notice my feelings at all…but that doesn’t matter now. Because I finally got my Sister Cecilia!”
Then he laughed happily with that usual devilish smile of his.
“Well…I’d better get going. I have to spread the rumor that sister Cecilia is missing.”
“Hey!”
“Well, I’ll come back later to check on you, so you can relax and look at the ores.”
“Wait, Prince Leon, please…”
I hurriedly approached the bars and reached between them and tried to stop Prince Leon, but he turned his back to me and walked up the stairs in a good mood.
Beyond that, I heard the faint sound of a door opening and closing, followed by the sound of a lock and the door being slammed shut.
I stared at the staircase stretching upward with my hands through the bars, and then fell to my knees with my hands on the carpet on the floor.
How did that happen?
My head ached at this unexpected turn of events as I stared at the stunning pattern on the beautiful carpet.
***
It’s probably been about a week since Prince Leon held me captive.
I’m not able to tell the time of day because the room is located in the basement, so it’s hard to tell the sense of time because of the lack of outside light.
Life in this room was…surprisingly comfortable.
Originally, I had lived alone for a long time in my previous life, so there was nothing wrong with living alone.
The bed that was provided was reasonably large and comfortable, and there were plenty of clothes in the closet.
I had heard that there was also a bathtub, but for some reason it was always filled with hot water and ready to be used at any time.
The hot water seems to be circulating and is always clean.
At first I was confused by such an environment and thought I couldn’t sleep on the first night of confinement, but I slept very soundly, more than I expected.
When I woke up, I was amazed at the brazenness of my own nerves.
But even in such a state, I couldn’t help but get nervous when I saw Prince Leon appearing with my meal.
“Sister Cecilia, I’ve brought you lunch!”
“…Thank you.”
I smiled and thanked Prince Leon for arriving with a silver tray, then took the tray from the iron grate, which could be opened and closed in one place, just wide enough for the dishes to pass through, and carried it to the table that had been prepared for me.
Then I sat down on a chair and glanced at Prince Leon as I looked at the food on the dishes.
Then Prince Leon was sitting on a chair behind the bars, cross-legged, looking at me happily as if it was natural.
“…Prince Leon, could you please stop watching me eat?”
“I’m the only one here, so don’t worry about it.”
“No, I’m just curious…”
“Look, look, the food will get cold, right?”
“Ugh…I’ll eat it.”
I reluctantly began to eat the food while having this kind of exchange each time.
But eventually, as I ate the food, I was so fascinated by its deliciousness that I didn’t care about Prince Leon anymore.
“It’s really cute to see Cecilia eating so happily.”
“That’s not the point! What’s going on now that I’m missing!?”
“Well, they’re making a big deal out of it. Especially my brother who is looking very hard for you. He’ll never find this place, though.”
“Is that so…”
“But…thanks to Sister Cecilia pretending that she went to Prince Alfeld’s country without telling anyone, most people just seem to be dismayed that she’s went away again on her own.
“What?”
“Fufu, so maybe my brother and his friends are the only ones who are seriously looking for you.”
He let out a chuckle as he put his hand over his mouth as if he remembered the state of Kaiser and the others.
“…Prince Leon didn’t know I went to Prince Alfeld’s country for sightseeing…”
“Yeah, I don’t think so. I mean, I know you were kidnapped.”
“Is that so?”
“To be honest, I was very angry at Prince Alfeld, who kidnapped Cecilia, but my brother started working on it right away and I thought it would be okay, so I left it to him. I had to be prepared for the return of Cecilia, because I had to be prepared for her.”
“…So that’s why Prince Leon stayed.”
“That’s right. Well, thanks to that, I got my sister Cecilia like this.”
“By the way…the letter on the nightstand in my bedroom…”
“I put it there. You were so cute, sleeping so soundly. Cecilia, you were so cute!”
“…”
I had expected this somehow, but it was so true that I didn’t feel like saying anything else.
So I returned the silver tray with the finished dishes to Prince Leon and appealed to him with a serious expression on my face.
“Prince Leon! Please let me out of here for good!”
“Absolutely not. I’ll bring you more back in time for dinner.”
My opinion was immediately dismissed and Prince Leon left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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