Chapter Text
When Katarina and Sophia turn, they find Nikol and Keith hovering uncertainly in the doorway.
"Are we interrupting something?" Nikol asks.
"No! Actually, you've come at just the right time." Katarina straightens up and plants her hands on her hips. "How long were you planning to wait to properly confess to me, huh?"
Nikol and Keith both flinch, glance at each other, then look back at her.
"Ah..." Nikol rubs the back of his neck as Keith wrings his hands. "To whom, exactly, are you addressing that question?"
"Why, both of you, of course! But, Keith! Didn't I directly ask you what was wrong?" Katarina stalks up to them and pokes her brother in the chest. "Well?"
“I was afraid,” says Keith, looking as if he's a man doomed to hang who is dictating his last words. "And I couldn't bear to drive you away by clinging too tightly to you."
“Didn't I promise that I would always stay by your side? And that I could never hate you?” says Katarina, scowling as she ruffles Keith's hair to vent her frustration. " Am I the kind of person who breaks my word?”
"I... no." Keith sighs, defeated.
"And you!" Katarina rounds on Nikol, turning the full force of her annoyance onto him. "What was all that nonsense that you were saying in the gardens about unrequited love, yesterday?"
Hands spread helplessly before himself, Nikol says, "It's not nonsense, if it's true?"
"Bah!" Katarina crosses her arms over her chest. "It's a good thing that Sophia is smarter than the both of you! How can your love be unrequited if you haven't given me the chance to properly accept or reject it?"
Nikol's face twists strangely, then he pinches the bridge of his nose.
"If that's the case, then let me say this clearly."
With that, Nikol gets down on one knee and takes Katarina's hand in a truly princely gesture.
"If all the best people that we know are flowers in a beautiful garden, every leaf and blossom is nothing compared to the strength and grace you display. You're the sun, Katarina, and I'm helpless to do anything but cling to your radiance as tightly as I can. I love you. Do you think that you could love me back?"
With how red she's sure her cheeks are, Katarina doesn't feel radiant, but before she can say as much, Keith takes her other hand, kneeling at her other side.
"I have to speak up, too. We’re not blood related, and while I call you sister, when I said I love you, I mean it romantically. I can't imagine being with anyone other than you.”
He presses his lips to her knuckles.
“Maybe it’s selfish of me, but if you wanted a confession of my true feelings, that's what they are.”
"Well." Katarina looks back and forth between the bowed heads of Nikol and Keith, then takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. "Well!"
With all the dignity of a queen, she drops down to kneel at the same level as Keith and Nikol.
"This is all very new to me! I've never thought of myself as anything special! Sophia is beautiful, and Nikol is charming, and Keith is intelligent, and I'm just Katarina!"
Katarina bites her lip, then declares, "But you two and Sophia are some of the most important people in my life! And I've never thought I'd have one lover, not to mention three, but if you love me, how could I not love you back?"
She frees her hands from Keith and Nikol's, so that she can grab them both by the necks and drag them into a teary hug. Sophia joins in soon after, throwing herself to the ground and into their embrace.
Katarina doesn't know how she went from the villainess to the capture target in this otome game plot, but this ending, in the arms of three of her most precious people? This ending leaves her with no regrets.