Diabolik Dominatrix

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At least, if he spoke with her now maybe he'd understand this nameless feeling.

...He couldn't let these thoughts deter him, nor the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach every time he was in her presence. It was finally time to get his answers, he needed to push on, then he could get away from her;

"I just want to know-" sweaty palms half-nervously smoothed pristine trousers. "How do I make girls like me?" The room around him fell out of focus, what would she say in return?

"What?" Cordelia blinked, hand not pausing in the slightest while in the sweep of her hair. Did she even hear him?

"How do I make a girl like me?" He repeated, more sure this time, more anxious than ever. Anxious to get away from her, anxious to get an answer.

"Do you have a particular girl in mind?" She said this in a toneless, bored manner; she was not really interested in his answer at all: the inconsequential feelings of an inconsequential boy.

"Yes."

"And?" She doubted this would be worth her time.

And then there was that curious, nauseating yet pleasant feeling in his stomach. What was it? Anxiety?
"...It's Chou-chan."

Cordelia paused.

Laito always felt like Mother was too beautiful, too striking, too magnetic and impressive. She was difficult to be around without feeling overwhelmed. And Chouko was beautiful too, but her beauty had a calmness to it, an ease. A warmth wrapping around you like a blanket, it made you feel safe and not alarmed like Mother's did. Chouko's beauty exuded from her and shone especially in her laughter and exuberance. To put it simply she was everything bright and happy and stable about the Manor. She was the freedom and joy that he loved about his life.

She was his favorite sibling.

He admired her very much. She was the coolest person he knew, even if she was a girl. But even though they were siblings and therefore spent a lot of time together, he always felt like she spent less time with him than the other two triplets. That they weren't as close. Over the years he had tried to figure out why and eventually came to the conclusion that she didn't find him as interesting, and that's why she didn't like him as much. He had no problems with his relationships with his triplet brothers, but they were guys. Maybe he and Chouko weren't as close because she was a girl. He figured that could be the case anyway.

And he wanted to be interesting to her. Wanted them to be close. She's the person who always understood him the most.

So if there was any one person that he wanted to like him, it was Chouko.

"Really?" Cordelia stopped applying her makeup, put the brush down, her devious green eyes shimmering with a wicked and perverse delight only seen by her reflection. She turned around to face Laito. And she looked at him. Really looked, like it was the first time she ever saw him before. And he looked every bit the self-conscious, youthful, unimpressive pre-teen that she knew him to be, knew that he must have felt if he came to see her like this.

But there was something in the symmetry of his face, a remnant of something almost...handsome. It was like she'd seen it before but never recognized it clearly until now. Something about his face seemed so familiar and yet the way he carried himself seemed so breakable and vulnerable. She tapped the chair with long fingernails in tainted mirth.

Oh what was this feeling~?

"That's very interesting," the woman commented, her face coming alive with every inflection in her words, detail by detail, transforming in a transfixing way. There was something so engaging and lively about her all at once that you just wanted to look and look again to find the secret of it. "Now," he had her full attention. She was animated. "Before we continue, I have to know if you'll be dedicated to this. So tell me; how much do you like her?" Her hands gripped the back of the chair with rapt interest.