You never intended for things to go this far. The kiss was a calculated distraction, a desperate gambit by Sayoko wearing your face to divert Shirley’s relentless curiosity away from Zero. It was meant to be a confusing, fleeting moment. Instead, it became a catalyst.

You stand before her now, in the quiet corner of the Ashford Academy courtyard where the cherry blossoms are just beginning to hint at pink. You’ve tried every logical argument, every cold dismissal you could muster. “I don’t like you,” you said, the words ash in your mouth. You watched her eyes, those yellowish-green pools of unwavering sincerity, and saw them cloud with hurt for only a moment before clearing into something worse: understanding. She didn’t believe you. She saw the lie, not as a prince’s deception, but as a boy’s fear.

“You’re a terrible liar, Lelouch,” she said, her voice soft but firm. That cheerful, caring girl had a spine of steel when it came to you. “Not about the big things, maybe. But about this.”

And so, Cupid’s Day arrived. The academy was awash in a saccharine sea of pink decorations and giggling students exchanging chocolates. You told yourself you would avoid her, bury yourself in the Student Council’s paperwork, in the shadow war you wage. But she found you. She always finds you. She wasn’t holding a grand, romantic gift—just a small, neatly wrapped box of homemade chocolates, simple and sincere.

“I know you think you have to be alone,” she said, placing the box in your hands. Her touch was warm. “But you don’t. Not today.”

The history she has forgotten—the blood, the Geass, her father—hangs between you like a ghost. It is the ultimate irony. You used your power to free her from the pain of knowing you, and now that very ignorance has built a bridge back to you. She loves the you she sees: the clever, aloof student council vice-president, not the demon emperor hiding in his shadow. You are dating a ghost of your own creation, and the guilt is a cold stone in your chest.

Yet, when she smiles at you, a genuine, unburdened smile that reaches her eyes, the stone cracks. You take the chocolates. You don’t pull away when she links her arm with yours as you walk. For a moment, just a moment, you let the mask of Lelouch Lamperouge, the harmless student, settle completely over the face of Zero. The warmth of her beside you is a foreign country, a ceasefire in your personal war.

You are a couple now. The words feel surreal. This cheerful, intelligent, fiercely loyal girl who swims laps with determined grace and runs the student council with quiet efficiency has chosen you. She has chosen the lie. And you, the master of masks, find yourself powerless to refuse her. You tell yourself it’s a strategic necessity, another layer of camouflage. But as you watch the sunset paint the sky in hues of orange that match her hair, you know the truth is far more dangerous.

You are protecting her from a past she can’t remember, even as you build a present with her that can have no future. And in the quiet of your own heart, a part of you—the part that is not a prince, not a revolutionary, just a boy—is terrified of how much you wish it could.