This lunatic’s enjoying every second of this. She’s a hell-bent masochist to the core. A sadist too. The worst kind. The type who gets off on psychological warfare and sprinkles glitter on it.

Yes, she’s a masochist. A sadist. No, possibly both at once.

A hell-bent, chaos-giddy freak who lives off the emotional instability of others like it’s a candy.

My palm moved on its own.

Slap.

It wasn’t hard. Just sharp enough to be real.

Selene blinked slowly. Then tilted her head with that annoying faux-innocence, rubbing her cheek with cartoonish slowness.

"Owww~" she pouted. "You’re so mean, Kairi. It hurts"

"You’re such a pervert," I muttered flatly.

She beamed. "Takes one to know one."

And I really hate that you’re right about that.

I didn’t even dignify that with a response.

Just squinted at her like I was trying to mentally delete her from this dimension.

A gasp came from the side.

Azalea—who’d apparently woken up at some point—was wide-eyed, mouth agape.

Her hands hovered uselessly midair, like she was trying to physically grasp the situation but kept dropping it like an overused tape records.

"You... you just slapped her," she whispered, as if bearing witness to divine blasphemy.

"She deserved it," I said without looking.

"You both need a shaman," Azalea deadpanned.

Selene perked up immediately. "Ooooh~ should we form a group? The Perverted Trio? I call dibs on designing the uniforms!"

Azalea stared at her like she just committed high treason against sainthood.

"I used to worship you..." she muttered, horrified. "I literally wrote your name in my prayer journal. I quoted your speeches during student assemblies. I would pray in the name of you five times in a day. I even made a mental statue just to worship you."

I shrugged. "Yeah, well. My bad. I guess... you’ll have to get used to it."

I pointed a thumb toward the smug woman beside me.

"Because your so-called holier-than-thou Senior Selene is actually like this."

"A total perverted scum."

Azalea stared at the floor like she was watching her world shatter frame by frame.

Selene, ever the shameless criminal, giggled again.

That girlish, breathy one she used as a fake reaction to feign guilt.

She even did the whole "oh no, you got me!" hand-over-mouth thing.

Then grinned. "Oh no~ So, sorry for shattering your perfect image all of a sudden."

"Oh my, this is so embarrassing you know~ I mean I didn’t like to admit this at all...." she said coyly.

I narrowed my eyes.

She was definitely loving it.

And somehow, that made my opinion about her getting even worse in my eyes.

"Anyway... about your secret."

Selene continued with her usual ’dry with elegance’ kind of tone.

Here’s the translation, aiming for a 10/10 fit within the context, preserving the original’s tone and nuances:

Then, with a graceful yet overly confident expression, Selene began to sway her hips towards Azalea.

"So, are you really curious?" she asked, curling into a mischievous smile.

Azalea swallowed hard. Her eyes widened, a hint of panic flashing, but her body remained rooted. She looked confused, as if trying to choose between fleeing or succumbing to her own curiosity.

"U-uh, how do I say this..."

Classic Selene. It was her bad habit to toy with innocent underclassmen who hadn’t yet grasped how absurd this world could be.

"Selene," I interrupted, sighing deeply, "next time you’re offering something, could you please stop making that disgusting motion?"

"Huh? Why, what’s wrong?" Selene pouted playfully. "Are you scared? That I might turn my affections to someone else besides you?"

Oh, ’affections’ my a**.

Good heavens. I couldn’t deal with Selene’s arrogance anymore; it was like a tsundere girl character from a Japanese rom-com anime. You know the one.

Yeah, the one who loves to look down on an edgy guy with a nose in the air.

Selene seemed confused by my internal monologue just now.

Well, she didn’t need to know anyway.

"Not really," I replied curtly.

"Really?"

"Yes." My voice was as firm as stone.

"Okay then, fine." She winked.

"So, what about it? Aren’t you curious, Azalea, my dear junior?"

She’d just been given the green light, and she was already flirting shamelessly.

Honestly, I desperately wanted to facepalm, but for now, I held back. This sadomasochist was truly too much. But that didn’t mean I was completely sane either. My own madness was within reasonable limits, to be exact—

...wait.

Selene turned to me. Her gaze was piercing, and I could instantly hear the translation of her facial expression.

The sentence just popped into my head:

"Do you want me to give you a whiff of my pussy again?"

My God. That threat—or rather, that temptation—was so accurate it made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Honestly, I got chills.

I merely shivered in disgust, while Azalea still looked halfway between aware and bewildered. Her eyes, wide and unfocused, slowly, slowly began to clear.

And then, her gaze locked onto mine.

A chilling clarity entered her expression, reflecting the same disgusted contempt she held for Selene.

A shiver ran down my spine. It was as if, in that moment, she saw us both as the absurd, manipulative creatures we were.

"O-okay," Azalea finally mumbled, her voice barely a whisper. "I’m curious..."

Selene smiled sweetly. Ah, the characteristic smile of a predator whose prey was finally showing a slight response.

And yes, this was a puppet master and puppet relationship. Unlike my interaction with Selene. Because in my case with her, we were both the puppet masters. Each trying to make the other a puppet, taking turns in conquering each other.

That analogy was too perfect to describe this strange situation.

Especially seeing how Azalea now looked distressed, like someone who realized that a secret she had guarded with her life could vanish just like that... by two crazy women who enjoyed this game a little too much.

She was scared. Scared that her secret would be snatched away.

Scared that, even before she realized it, she had been peeled layer by layer, and it was only a matter of time before all her rottenness would be exposed.

And of course, we—Selene and I—knew exactly how to expose it: Mytheia, a magical object in the shape of a transparent crystal ball.

Without much ado, Selene immediately raised the object and displayed it, as if showing off her new toy to her prey.

Azalea, looking increasingly panicked, reacted immediately with a flushed face. She tried to snatch Mytheia from Selene’s hand.

"Give it to me!" 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Selene, with the reflexes of a manipulation expert, pulled her hand back before it could be touched.

"Ohh? So you don’t want that secret revealed so badly, my dear junior~?" Her voice was drawn out, mocking, teasing.

And that’s when, with full awareness, I realized one thing:

Azalea had just officially had her hopes extinguished.

Like a mouse caught in a trap, she was too slow to realize.

And I—who had been through this before—could only watch with a bitter taste.

This is how I used to do it.

This is how I used to do... extortion.

Blackmailing.