Dimensional Descent

An explosion went off in Aina's mind. Of all the things she thought would happen today, this was the very last. For a moment, she couldn't sense anything else but the sensation on her lips. Her heart fluttered, her blood ran hot, and her lower belly pulsed with an odd feeling she would have trouble putting into words.

Her weight subconsciously fell onto Leonel, her palm pressing to his chest and her lips weighing heavier on his as though to fuse with him. With how Leonel had sat up and how she kneeled on both legs, the shift in balance wasn't a lot, but it was usually more than enough to force someone else to waver. And yet, Leonel's body was like a sturdy wall, not shifting in the slightest even as Aina leaned into him.

Little Blackstar, who had fallen into complete silence the moment Velasco had appeared, tilted his little head to the side. Even with all the emotional intelligence in the world, the little mink was ultimately still a child and this situation was confusing nonetheless.

They had gone from Leonel playing the part of valiant hero, to Aina unleashing a barrage of punches and kicks at his expense, to Leonel nearly dying, then to Aina meeting a man she was incredibly nervous around, then to Leonel being insulted maybe worse than he ever had in his entire life, all to end in…

A kiss?

When Aina's foggy mind cleared and the reality of it all snapped into place, she pulled back quickly, her palm leaving Leonel's chest and becoming a fist that pressed into her own. She breathed heavily and erratically, her mind all over the place and her body flushed red.

Aina didn't seem to want to look Leonel in the eye. There was something about this that felt wrong. She was one part happy, another part apprehensive, and a large part confused about how she should be feeling.

It felt good. It felt really good. Even if she had never experienced it with someone else, something in her intuition told her that Leonel was the only one who could possibly make her body feel like this with what amounted to a simple peck on the lip.

He hadn't touched her body, he hadn't used his tongue, he hadn't even used any great pressure or coercion. In fact, it was she who had found herself leaning heavily into him as though wanting for more. And yet, she felt like she had flown to another world for a moment.

"… Why did you do that?" Aina asked softly.

The happiness came too quickly. In one moment, she was made keenly aware that she lacked true stature in Leonel's heart, and in the next… He was making her feel as though she was riding on a cloud. She felt that in one part she should be angry, and she even somewhat felt used, but she still couldn't bring herself to feel that way.

"Because I really wanted to." Leonel said as though it was just a matter of fact. And, maybe it was to him, but that didn't answer any of Aina's question.

"… That's not an answer."

"Isn't it?" Leonel smiled.

Aina's heart began to beat wildly again. Leonel's words were definitely not always like this. At the very least, he couldn't always make her hang onto his every word like this. The Leonel she remembered was charming, but he also had a streak of boyish innocence and naivete to him. This Leonel felt more forceful and determined.

Was this the change brought about by his goal? If Aina was honest, she hadn't spent enough time with Leonel post his decision to pick up on this change. It might have also been because she had spent most of that time trying to get him to change his mind about said goal.

However, there was no denying that this Leonel held an even more lethal attraction to her, one that was far more difficult to ignore. It awoke a bit of her masochistic tendencies, something the previous Leonel had entirely failed to pick up on, but this Leonel would likely be far more in tune to.

Aina was both frightened and excited by this prospect. But, after a moment, she took a deep breath and calmed. After a second deep breath, she had returned to her baseline, her flushed skin receding and her gaze finally meeting Leonel's.

"Explain it to me, in real words." Aina said gently.

Leonel blinked and thought for a moment.

"You're a distraction. I can't focus on the task at hand or make harsh and necessary decisions when you're around. In the time we weren't together, my progress was far faster than anything I've ever experienced.

"However, it's become more difficult to ignore you than I thought. My mind ends up wasting it potential power output by diverting some of its attention to suppressing and locking away emotions I would otherwise feel.

"But, I've gotten way too ahead of myself. My dad is right, if he's alive, at best I can be a prince. There are certain burdens I shouldn't be taking on right now, burdens that would ultimately have the opposing effect to what I want. Instead of helping me in the future, it will instead slow my progress now.

"Since that's the case, there are certain things that aren't worth it. Treating you like a subordinate instead of my Queen, for example, is one. It's objectively a foolish waste of time that would, theoretically, help me to stay focused and keep an eye on the future. But, in the short term, it strains our relationship unnecessarily, while in the long term, no human has an infinite amount of patience.

"Even if you are determined to stay by my side now, it's impossible to tell if you'll still feel that way in 10 years, or 20 years, or more time than even that. And, if I keep you by my side during all that time, while insisting to not cross certain barriers, it only makes the day you eventually snap and give up all the more devastating because you would have been such an important and ingrained foundational pillar of all I had built until that point.

"Given that—"

"Just shut up and kiss me again."

Aina's lips stifled what would have been the rest of Leonel's explanation.