Chapter 68: A Woman Who Looked As Though Gothic and Lolita Had Been Simmered Together in Black and Pink (1)

A Woman Who Looked As Though Gothic and Lolita Had Been Simmered Together in Black and Pink (1)

From the window, even though it was already late at night, Issak could see staff members dashing about as if something had happened.

But at that moment, Issak had no way of knowing what was going on outside.

In this room that Mina had prepared for him, there was no internet connection, let alone a TV or radio.

Issak let out a huge yawn.

Right now, more than worrying about what was happening outside, figuring out how to get out of here took priority.

If things continued like this, there was no telling what Mina might do to him.

That said, no good ideas came to mind.

This building had been constructed by Mina for the purpose of imprisoning Issak.

It was hard to imagine that any decent escape route had been left intact, and there was little hope of help from Desnos or Liliwi.

Trying to win over the staff who were monitoring him would also be difficult.

After all, Issak was hated and reviled throughout the entire royal castle.

If it was going to come to this, he should have been a little more sociable, Issak thought with regret.

No. Maybe it wasn’t too late, even now?

Issak looked up at the corner of the ceiling.

Here and there on the ceiling, painted a pale beige, the paint was peeling slightly in white patches.

He fixed his gaze on one of those patches, then slowly exhaled and let all the tension drain from his body.

Then, using every bit of his strength, he put on the brightest, most exaggerated smile he could muster.

His wholehearted smile lasted for five, ten seconds.

But before he could count to fifteen, he reached his limit and began massaging his face roughly with both hands.

“This is brutal! How do Mina and Lovecraft manage to keep this up on stage for hours?”

Issak was terrible at forcing a smile.

His motto was that eighty percent of being a king was acting and bluff, but smiling had never suited his nature.

“If only I’d managed even one smile for Mina…”

He murmured, then immediately shook his head and laughed at himself.

No way. No matter how much he tried to reform his heart, he couldn’t change his true nature.

Issak lay down on the sofa, placing a hand over his face to wipe away the lingering discomfort.

Don don.

The door was knocked on brusquely in the dead of night.

He tensed up, thinking Mina had come again, but the knock was too sloppy for that.

Issak relaxed a little and called out, “Come in.”

The door creaked open slowly, and there stood Desnos.

Issak blinked in surprise at the unexpected guest, wondering how he had gotten here when he was supposed to be captured by Lovecraft.

The moment Desnos saw Issak’s face, his voice trembled.

“Issak, I think I might be dead.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

But Desnos’s large face, atop his hulking frame, had gone pale. It was the same expression he’d worn the night before when he saw his dead parents among the crowd of the dead.

Could the dead be spilling out into the city again?

Then suddenly, from behind Desnos, a figure clad in black and pink lunged at Issak.

Before Issak could cry out, the figure had already thrown itself into his arms, letting out a bizarre scream.

“Onii-sama! Onii-sama! Onii-sama! Onii-sama! My beloved Onii-samaaaa!!”

“You… Tokiha?”

“Yes! It’s been so long, Onii-sama!”

The girl called Tokiha shook her twin braids, split neatly down the middle into black and pink, as tears welled in her eyes.

“You look well too… that’s a relief.”

Overcome by a sense of nostalgia, Issak’s face softened as he patted Tokiha’s head.

Tokiha tilted her head slightly as she looked up at him.

“Onii-sama, have you… thinned out a bit?”

“Eh, seriously? I’ve been under an insane amount of stress lately…”

Flustered, Issak reached up to touch his hair.

“I didn’t mean your hair… No, it’s probably just my imagination.”

A long-awaited reunion between brother and sister.

But from a short distance away, Desnos, watching the scene unfold, let out a groan like someone trapped in a nightmare.

“Issak, you’re not surprised?”

“Of course I’m surprised. What are you doing here, especially you of all people?”

“That’s not what I meant! Tokiha should be dead.

Didn’t Mina kill her six years ago!?”

To Desnos now, both Tokiha and Issak looked like they no longer belonged to the world of the living.

In fact, Tokiha’s appearance was outright bizarre.

The right side of her twin braids was black, the left pink, but that was only the beginning.

The right side of her face was caked in thick makeup like a poorly made wax doll, while the left was completely covered by an enormous pink eyepatch.

Her outfit, overloaded with frills, was split evenly, with black on the right and pink on the left.

On the night of the Festival of All Souls, people wore all sorts of costumes, but no one had worn anything this unhinged.

The image of the former princess Desnos had once known had been utterly and completely destroyed.

“But my underwear is white.”

When Tokiha tried to lift the long, frilly skirt, Issak immediately cut in with a “Stop that,” and the two burst out laughing.

Even this absurd sibling comedy felt like horror to Desnos.

Seeing Desnos’s pale face, Issak and Tokiha clapped their hands in realization.

“Oh right, we never told you. Back then, we faked Tokiha’s death and continued her treatment in secret.”

“You faked her death? Why?”

“She was the only family I could truly trust.

I couldn’t bring myself to kill her.

Anyway, don’t just stand there, get in here.

I’ve got a lot of questions for you too.”

Desnos hesitated.

Issak’s smile as he patted Tokiha’s head looked monstrous to him.

“Hey.”

Issak’s voice cut sharply through the air.

For the first time, a feeling of real confusion stirred in his chest.

But Desnos forced his eyes wide open, as if shaking off his doubt, and walked forward in heavy steps that made the floor tremble.