Princess Without Limits

Chapter Eighteen

Hello to all my amazing readers <33!

Yes, we're back with another chapter - though I have to apologise beforehand if this isn't a good chapter. I'm having major writers' block TwT (fellow writers, I know you get the pain). I promise sometime in the future I'll probably return to this chapter to rewrite it into a masterpiece, but for now, please bear with me ;-;

(Leon)

It was during our afternoon classes when a staff member, whom I recognised as the one always present in the principal's office, barged into our classroom, demanding to meet all the student council members. With no clue as to what happened, we were rushed to Gion's classroom next door.

The staff member knocked on the door politely, her feet tapping the ground. Sweat dripped down her face; it was no doubt she was in a rush.

"Excuse me, sir, and students, has anyone seen Prince Gion since this morning?" she asked, her eyes darting around searching for someone who wasn't there. "No, he missed the afternoon classes because he said he was going to entertain the princesses," the teacher at the front of the class informed, "So did Livio."

The black-haired staff member swore colourfully. I glanced around at my friends, who were wondering the same thing as I was.

What happened?

She answered our unasked question after gesturing to Shintarou to join us. "The princesses are missing. They were last in contact this morning." The staff member's brown eyes portrayed her fear despite her effort to stay calm. "Apparently there was a party in the princesses' room for Lena and Gion."

There it was. The raw guilt crashed into me, when I realised that I had forgotten another birthday of my sister's. Still, I pushed it down. If Gion was with them...

"Gion seemed to have disappeared with them. We suspected that he might be have something to do with it, since the last time...but after further investigation at the site, we confirmed that there's a high chance he's a victim in all this. We ask that your highnesses remain in your dormitories until further notice. Whoever's done this targeted so many of the royalties, there is a possibility that the rest of you are in danger," the staff member said. 

None of us could believe that the high and mighty Prince Gion Zecchino of Italy could possibly be kidnapped, but since no discoveries proved otherwise, we all took a brief glance at each other and swallowed the fact of him being captured. 

She opened her mouth to continue. However, without waiting for her to finish, I excused myself with a mumbled statement of going to the toilet. There was this horrible feeling in my stomach that I tried to ignore. If I had gone to the party, I might have been kidnapped along with my sister. Father would be mad if his golden heir was captured along with the disappointment.

Maybe it was the brotherly instinct that finally sprung out after being dormant for years, but I regretted not being there for my sister. I desperately hoped to suppress the emotions that came rushing to me. If I could do it all those years, why couldn't I do it now? I bent before the sink, my brain a mess. I was an erratic machine that couldn't understand itself, and now I had finally spiraled out of control. I only wished for someone to have the code to fix me.

"Leon?" Charles. He leaned against the door of the toilet, with sympathetic eyes. "Yes?" I snapped. He must have seen the haunted expression in my eyes, because he answered.

"We're all humans, Leon. We can avoid feelings, but not for long. In fact, you've been pretending for too long. I know you're probably teaching Lena a lesson, like how you gave Felix a cold shoulder for a whole day because he was careless. But isn't a few years too much?"

He was right, of course he was. Charles seemed like a fool most of the time, however I knew better as to what he hid behind that childish mask of his. He was wrong on one thing though. I didn't know whether I was ignoring Lena because I was punishing myself or her.

"You know, Lena never stopped caring about you," Charles stated.

"I don't care," I retorted angrily. Charles tilted his head, as if he could see the lie unfolding behind my eyes.

Had I been a fool?

Had I stopped caring so much that I was hurting myself and everyone around me?

Why couldn't we as humans ignore our emotions?

If no one was driven by emotions, if everyone wasn't selfish, wouldn't this world be flawless?

The realisation finally hit me like a knife, and in a toilet at Momos Academy, the Prince of Germany was reborn again.

I had never stopped feeling. Yet, in a useless attempt to hide my emotions, I'd let negativity fill me with something ugly. As social beings, humans never stopped caring. All we'd ever done was to mould our happiness into hatred and selfishness.

Being emotionless had never been to not feel emotions. It had always been to be so broken that emotions weren't distinguished in our brains. Maybe that wasn't true for everyone, but that was true for me.

If I had come to this realisation years ago, things would've been different. I wouldn't have leaped past the biggest canyon to avoid someone. In fact, I'd lost the adrenaline to jump over to the other side that I might need a bridge to go back.

I was sorry for Lena. She was so pure and yet she couldn't have a nice enough older brother. She had an immature one who was driven by others' perception of him, who chased her away because of others' perception of her.

However as I thought of my father's expectations and his disappointment if he found out that I would associate with Lena again, my world came tumbling down once more. My whole life revolved around being the one person my father would look at and admire what he had turned me into. It was to be his golden heir.

For now, I couldn't find my way to stop being what I was taught to be, but perhaps going one step closer to the light would be enough for someone to find me.

I stared into the mirror before me, studying the foreign brown eyes that met mine. I was broken, and I knew it. It felt like the final code that made me unbroken was finally removed. All that was left was a shell of a person who realised that the way he lived was a lie.

"Did I say something wrong? Hey, Leon, are you okay?" Charles stepped closer to put a hand on my back.

"No, I'm fine," I assured him, pushing him away, "I'm just worried for Lena."

He raised his eyebrows. "What have you done with Leon?"

"I'm still the same Leon as ever! It's just that stupid girl is so clueless about so many things that I'm scared she'll smack her damn head on the wall hard and bleed to death!"

"Not the same Leon then," Charles concluded, signalling for us to go back to the dorm. I wordlessly followed him, my mind too big a mess for me to respond.

When we reached our room for me to be met with the questioning stares of the other princes, I glanced at everyone with a surly look in my eyes, "We can't be stuck here doing nothing, can we? We need to think of a way to find the princesses and Gion!"

Everyone rushed to work instantly, and for the first time, I saw the whole world in a different light. 

The next chapter will be uploaded on 12 December, thank you for your patience in waiting! I'm fortunate to have such uncomplaining readers <3