I find it so, so frustrating how many highschool yuri with normal main couples will include other relationships with massive age gaps or incest, and never treat them as different from the normal relationships. If this series actually confronted how fucked up the president's crush on her cousin was, then that might be pretty cool, but I severely doubt it.
Aside from that, I find the main dynamic here pretty compelling. I can't imagine this sort of roleplay being healthy for either of them, and Emma's expressions during the sequence give off a pretty bad aura. I think the obvious conclusion is that Emma's unrequited love is the president, but trying to seduce the person you like by pretending to be the person they just broke up with, rather than just trying to comfort them and grow closer seems like a very odd move. Maybe Emma's "I just behave the way that's being asked of me" on pg 15 hints at a much darker problem. Something like Bloom Into You where Emma doesn't feel like she is good enough as herself, so she tries to become a copy of the person the president likes? Maybe I'm just grasping at straws, idk.
Thank you for the TL!
it feels like the concept of "roles" and veneers/masks will be a big part of this one. We have Emma being the Prince and going around breaking hearts (including those of her senpais even), and Suzuran who has to put on a bright face around her cousin from here on out, and who also carries herself with the utmost propriety and studiousness as the president of the student council.
I'm not even certain if Suzuran went fully "mask off" around Emma in their 1-on-1 halfway through the chapter, or if she just let her annoyance show through. She was so bubbly around her cousin, and also bright and happy if a little anxious around her friend helping to pick out a present - that I don't yet have a bead on which would be the "real" Suzu-chan.
Emma being from a half-English family and potentially having a bit of (at least pseudo) blue blood to her makes me think that quote you referenced is very much why she does what she does at the end with Suzuran. It might even be to the point where Emma herself doesn't know what her true self is anymore, or it's tied up in trauma/past stuff that she can't let the mask slip for fear of Consequences (from family, or triggers of past stuff, or something). Or, if it turns out her "backstory" is fake to some degree, the Prince persona is armor to hide the truth from everyone and she can never let it slip, lest her secret get out and she risk ruin.
At that point I'm just wildly conjecturing with nothing to base it on but the author's penchant for narrative gut punches though, so I'm fully not getting behind anything until we get at least a half-dozen chapters in, give or take.