Princess Without Limits

Chapter Twenty-four

I woke up to a new day. I wondered why I felt so giddy, as if something great had happened, until the memories of a few days ago came rushing back to me. Lena forgave me. I was so overly paranoid of her never letting go of this incident that I had not considered the fact that my sister was too kind to do such a thing.  It would be selfish to say I wished she didn't forgive me because I didn't deserve it. I wanted her to forgive me so bad. Not because I deserved it, but because I wanted closure.

I walked down the corridors to my classes, and my ears picked up the whispering of various students. Rumours began flying around a few days back, mainly due to the big chaos the princesses' kidnapping had caused. "Have you seen Princess Lena? She seems awfully close with Prince Gion." "Her? She's a princess? I never knew Germany had a princess." "She was pretty popular a while back, but her fame dropped when she stopped making public appearances." I knew from the curious glances from the students that they were aching to ask me about Lena, yet I maintained an uninterested look.

"Big brother Leon!" Oh great, she is never going to get that 'big brother' phrase out of her head, is she? Lena crept up from behind me and wrapped her arms around me. I rolled my eyes as I gently pushed her away. Beside her stood Gion. From his frosty gaze, I knew that while Lena forgave me, he might never.

Gion, you've grown soft too, due to this girl.

I nearly chuckled at the absurdity of it, the cold and calculating prince of Italy falling for my affectionate and silly little sister. Once, I would've never doubted Gion's loyalty to us as a friend. Now, seeing the person he had become, seeing how his grandfather moulded him into an unfeeling person, I somehow still felt like holding myself back when I was with him.

We locked eyes for a long while, before Lena snapped her fingers in front of our eyes. I blinked for a bit until my gaze focused on her. She stared at me, like she was trying to tell something with her eyes. However, she gave up a second later. As she turned around, I felt a hard box in my pocket. Oh, right.

"Lena?" I took a step forward, closer to her. She turned around almost instantaneously. She flashed me a smile, and tilted her head as if she was reading my mind. Gion continued walking, but I saw him slip to the side to let other students rush before him.

Without saying a thing, I fished out the box from my pocket, pushing it into her hands. She raised her eyebrows a little, but made no comment. It seemed like the whole world was holding its breath as she slowly opened the box.

"Leon...this..." I spied the reflection of the diamond necklace in her eyes. She clutched the box tightly as if it would fly away any instant. "Happy birthday," I said softly. Her eyes began to fill, but she turned around before any tears dropped. "Thank you," she replied in a strained voice, and walked away into Gion's arms. I watched when he wrapped his arms around her, feeling like an outsider.

It was funny how he was closer to her, he who left five years ago without a word and came back an emotionless being. It was funny how he was closer to her than me, who had been in the same house as her for the past five years he was away. It's funny how he was closer to her because of the three years I let tear us apart. I knew those times were never coming back, and I knew whatever the case, we would never go back to how we were.

Yet, it was nice knowing that we could be something more, something new, something better. Somehow, the something we could eventually work towards, was a nicer thought than returning to what we once were. Even if this new someone I could be to her would never ever be an inch of what Gion was to her.

There would always be things that wouldn't wait; there would always be people who leave immediately; there would always be a day where you abandoned something and lived to regret it. I knew that some wouldn't even get a chance to remake things, whether they were more desperate than me or not.

For that, I was glad. Glad that I got a chance with her, even after I walked away.

ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO UNTIL THE END OF PRINCESS WITHOUT LIMITS T^T Oh gosh I'm getting emotional thinking about it. I'll like to thank our ever-loyal fans, whether you've been with us since the start of this story or not. It never fails to delight me to enter Wattpad to see notifications about someone voting for our story. Truthfully, we are so glad to be able to go abroad this journey with tons of amazing people!!

The more perceptive people may realise that I changed my Wattpad name to Avea, but rest assured I'll continue to address myself as Mia to the end of this story to avoid confusion.

I cannot end this note without once again emphasising that we only have one more chapter to go until the unfortunate end of this story. I am glad we have people who like this story, because truth be told when we first started this story, I never thought we'd get anywhere. Thank you for constantly pushing us to go forward, even after months of absence without any updates whatsoever, or just infrequent chapters in general.

From the start, to the end. Let's bring Princess Without Limits to a wonderful conclusion.