Ch.90Chapter 90 – The Broken Mask

– Creak…

“Where are you going, Mr. Adler?”

As Issac Adler, who had been staring blankly at the mirror on the wall for quite some time, staggers to his feet from the bed, Professor Moriarty, having returned to her usual composed self, tilts her head and asks a question.

“You shouldn’t be moving around when you’re still not well.”

“…Haa.”

But ignoring her, Adler approaches the mirror and exhales a rough breath.

“…Professor.”

After closing his eyes tightly for a moment to steady his breathing, he quietly turns his head and speaks.

“I’ll be honest with you.”

“……….”

“I have never seen you as a romantic interest until now.”

As she quietly gazes at his eyes, which have now returned to black, she smiles wryly and shakes her head.

“That’s sophistry.”

“………”

“Even if we put aside your previous behavior, you just declared that your ultimate goal was to become my husband.”

Professor Moriarty’s smile grows noticeably colder.

“And now you’re saying you never liked me?”

“That’s…”

“Isn’t that a bit too shameless?”

Adler pauses at her words, delivered in a slightly different tone than usual.

“…What I felt for you was reverence and admiration.”

“So that’s how you’re trying to escape.”

“The reason my eyes would take on Sharlotte’s color but never yours was precisely because of that.”

At his somewhat dazed mumbling, the professor’s eyes narrow.

“Unlike love, reverence and admiration are usually one-sided emotions. Even with the same intensity, they don’t resonate well.”

“Mr. Adler. Usually, people who strongly revere or admire someone don’t think about coloring that person with their own color.”

“Is that so?”

“They’re so overwhelmed by just observing that they wouldn’t dare think such thoughts.”

At these words, Adler’s expression grows confused.

“Then, why did I…?”

“Your eye color, which changed momentarily, has already answered that question.”

The professor, looking at Adler with more interest than ever before, walks toward him as he stands precariously in front of the mirror.

“You’ve been in love with me all along.”

“……….”

“You just didn’t realize it. Or perhaps you’ve been deceiving even yourself.”

Muttering this, the professor brings her face close to Adler’s.

“If you still don’t understand, let’s conduct an experiment together.”

“Um…”

“It’s a teacher’s duty to instruct her student, so I’ll personally demonstrate.”

The next moment, the warm sensation that had been lingering on her lips seeps into Adler’s cold mouth.

“How is it?”

The professor, who had been gently holding Adler’s tongue in her mouth, pulls back slightly and asks.

“How did that kiss taste?”

“…Like coffee.”

“It seems we need more practice.”

When Adler avoids the question by tilting his gaze to the side, the professor smiles slyly and lowers her head slightly.

“…Mmh.”

This time, Moriarty gently bites just above Adler’s Adam’s apple.

“Pro… fessor.”

As her tongue softly licks his neck, confusion fills Adler’s eyes.

“How was it, Mr. Adler?”

After finishing this rather unusual kiss, the professor puts her hands behind her back and tilts her head from side to side.

“Did your heart flutter a bit?”

“……..”

Once again, her changed tone, the habit that Adler likes, and her characteristic enigmatic smile all combine to stir emotions in Adler’s heart.

“I see it did flutter after all.”

When a blush finally rises to his cheeks, Jane Moriarty looks at him as if finding him adorable and reaches out her hand.

“The experiment is over.”

“……..”

“Because an undeniable conclusion has been drawn…”

Just as her hand was about to touch Adler’s cheek.

“Stop it.”

– Slap…

Suddenly, with the atmosphere turning cold, Adler struck away the professor’s hand.

“……?”

“The change in my eye color was coincidental.”

Her gaze, which had been quietly looking down at her hand with its red mark, turns toward Adler, who has begun to whisper.

“It was just coincidence upon coincidence that made it appear that way. Or perhaps it was your imagination.”

“I don’t know where the intelligent and sharp you went, and who this foolish man is.”

Looking into Adler’s eyes as he offers such futile objections, she begins to whisper.

“To say that I’m not someone to be revered but a romantic interest. That’s…”

“Well, I suppose it makes sense.”

Adler’s right eye, which had been flickering between black and gray, caught her attention.

“Love sometimes clouds the mind.”

After observing this curious phenomenon for a while, she gently lifts Adler’s chin.

“It’s quite adorable how confused and flustered you are, discovering that what you thought was perfect acting was actually your unconscious true feelings, Mr. Adler.”

When she said this with a bright smile, Adler’s eyes remained gray for quite some time.

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“So, what exactly are you trying to say?”

But the moment his eye color returned to black, Adler coldly muttered and turned his head away.

“…As of today, you’ll return as my assistant.”

After looking at him with dark eyes for a moment, the professor suddenly brightens and begins to whisper as if nothing had happened.

“I’ve received a criminal consultation request.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s the first client who sought me out after hearing of my reputation, not someone you brought in.”

At her proud expression, Adler quietly turns his gaze back to the professor.

“…But I didn’t want to accept such a monumental request without my lovely assistant, so I’ve been holding off.”

“That’s cringeworthy.”

“Why have you suddenly become so cold?”

With a puzzled smile, Moriarty tilts her head before continuing to gaze at him.

“Anyway, I want to work on this case with you.”

“……..”

“Will you join me?”

Adler rolled his eyes and was about to speak.

“Ah, by the way, no answer is necessary.”

But one step ahead of him, the professor’s voice, tinged with laughter, echoes through the room.

“This is an order.”

“………”

“As my assistant who loves me, you will participate in my crime.”

And after some time had passed.

“…I will comply.”

Adler quietly nods and answers.

“My loyalty to you, Professor, will never waver.”

“We’ll see how long you can escape with such ambiguous answers.”

The professor carefully takes his hand again and mutters in a low voice as she heads toward the door of the hospital room.

“Soon, you’ll have to decide the color of those eyes.”

“………”

“After all, it’s you who won the right to choose between us two in our previous bet.”

Hearing this, Adler momentarily froze, then his eyes met the professor’s, who was looking at him with an intrigued expression.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

“……..!”

The professor, who had been quietly smiling with her eyes, slightly bowed her head and kissed his right eye.

“What are you doing?”

“Marking.”

When Adler asked with a dumbfounded expression after she had licked his closed eye with her tongue before pulling away, her answer was quite suggestive.

“My goal is to do this to every part of your body.”

“…That’s sexual harassment.”

As the professor who said this wrapped her arm around Adler’s waist, he involuntarily shuddered and muttered in a low voice.

“I’ll do it while you sleep, so don’t worry.”

“…Professor.”

Finally, with a serious face devoid of his usual glib responses, Adler mutters.

“While I’m absolutely loyal to you right now, I am still a man with sexual desires.”

“……..”

“If you continue like this, I might pounce on you.”

After saying this with a somewhat dangerous look in his eyes, he shakes off the professor’s arm and heads toward the door, while she watches his retreating figure and thinks to herself.

‘They say seawater makes you thirstier the more you drink it.’

“So please stop.”

‘That expression suits you perfectly.’

The moment she finally reached his thoroughly hidden true feelings, he suddenly became several times more distant.

‘To think he would close his heart so suddenly.’

Just minutes ago, he had been pleading to impress her, but now she was the one desperate not to lose him.

It felt as if offense and defense had switched.

‘…That makes me want you even more.’

Just as the sea has its tides, she had learned that love also has its push and pull moments.

At least, that’s what was written in the books the professor had secretly borrowed from the academy library during the break.

‘So this is the impact when someone who’s been pulling suddenly pushes away.’

She wanted to devour that boy walking ahead.

‘…This couldn’t possibly be part of your plan too, could it?’

She wanted to make Issac Adler completely hers.

‘Well, what does it matter?’

“…..!?”

With these thoughts, she approached Adler from behind without making a sound and gently brushed her lips against the nape of his neck as he was about to open the door.

“…Professor.”

Startled by the eerie sensation, he flinched and turned around with cold eyes.

“I warned you, didn’t I?”

“…Hehe.”

This wasn’t his usual somewhat inhibited, masked reaction toward her. It was Issac Adler’s pure, raw response.

“I’m sorry.”

Knowing all too well why he had changed so quickly, Jane Moriarty put her hands behind her back and smiled contentedly.

“…Hmm.”

Then, suddenly turning her head toward the mirror, the professor withdrew her gaze with a relaxed smile.

“It seems I have a peculiar constitution.”

Her reflection in the mirror still showed gray eyes, but she no longer cared.

“My dear Mr. Adler.”

“…Yes?”

If what we’re sharing now isn’t love, then what else could love be?

“It’s nothing.”

“…Haa.”

Having reached this conclusion internally, she quietly began to follow behind Adler with her hands behind her back.

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– Creak…

“So, what exactly is this request?”

“I don’t know yet.”

The door to the hospital room, through which many people had come and gone over the past few days, opens as the professor and Adler walk out while conversing.

“All I know right now is that the client’s name is quite amusing.”

“Their name is amusing?”

At this, Adler expresses his doubt about the professor’s statement.

“I mean, how can someone’s surname be Gary Dabb?”

“…Ah.”

“Ahah, ahahaha…”

Just as he seemed to catch on to something in the professor’s laughing remark.

“…Adler?”

From the far end of the corridor came the voice of an unexpected person.

“Are you finally awake?”

Zia Lestrade, surprisingly dressed in casual clothes, stood with wide eyes holding a basket of apples.

“Well, this is truly surprising.”

“……..!”

“The Lestrade in casual clothes? Don’t tell me you took time off just for a hospital visit?”

As she hurriedly walked forward, she noticed the professor standing beside Adler and paused momentarily.

“…Huh?”

Her gaze suddenly turned cold.

“What are those marks?”

The handprints and bite marks on Adler’s neck had just been clearly caught by Lestrade’s sharp eyes.

“These are… wounds from that day…”

“They definitely weren’t there yesterday.”

As Adler hesitated and tried to make excuses, Lestrade muttered with an even colder gaze.

“…Isn’t that right, Professor?”

Her gaze turns to Professor Moriarty, who had her arm around Adler’s waist and was wearing a relaxed expression.

“What did you do to my boyfriend?”

“You live such a troublesome life, Lestrade.”

The chilly air that the two women began to emit started to fill the corridor.