Chapter Two: When G-----s Met Rubert

Chapter Two: When G-----s Met Rubert

“Her Majesty—married?” Myusel’s eyes were round as saucers.

It was about half a day after Prince Rubert’s stunning proposal of marriage. We’d said goodbye to Matoba-san, who claimed he had to go to the JSDF garrison to report to the Japanese government. The rest of us came back to the mansion.

We had gone to the castle with the intention of giving Prince Rubert Amutech’s formal greetings, but things at the royal residence were in no shape for that now, and we had withdrawn for the time being. The fact that deciding to do that—and getting permission for it—took a full eight hours told you just how crazy things were in the Eldant government right now.

Our dinner was some food Myusel prepared in a big hurry. I had told her we would presumably be dining at a banquet at the castle this evening, so we wouldn’t need dinner; I felt a little bad about suddenly dropping in with a party of hungry employees. Before long, though, Myusel had produced a meal using whatever was on hand, but which still tasted just as good as ever. It was one of the many things I found amazing about her—but, er, forget about that for now.

“I don’t know,” I said to Myusel, whose face seemed to have frozen into a permanent expression of shock. “She didn’t answer right away or anything. It doesn’t look like the Eldant government was expecting this any more than we were...”

“I see... No, I suppose they wouldn’t.” Myusel nodded, sounding like she was talking to herself as much as to me.

“Honestly, proposal or no proposal, I can hardly picture Petralka getting married...” Well, wait. That wasn’t really true, was it? Why, just yesterday, I had been fantasizing about Petralka and me standing at the altar. But still, the idea that she might actually get married felt a little unreal.

“I disagree,” Hikaru-san said, elegantly sipping some soup. “If anything, I would say it’s incredible that the subject hadn’t come up already.”

“Y-You think so?”

“Her Majesty is seventeen, right? Very much a grown woman. I’ve heard it said that in Japan’s Heian Era, girls as young as thirteen were considered ready to be married.”

“Yeah, I know. But that was a thousand years ago.”

“True. But consider the cultural level: the Eldant Empire isn’t that far from the Heian Era, or maybe the Kamakura?”

“Well...”

He was right. People want various different things out of marriage, but when the goal was purely to produce a child who would carry on the family lineage to the next generation, then any girl who could get pregnant was ready to get married. It was really only in the modern era that we had come to think of eighteen or twenty years old as the line between being a child and being an adult—it was an idea with precious little history yet. You could even say that seventeen was the prime of the marrying years.

“I’m telling you,” Hikaru-san insisted, “I can hardly believe Her Majesty hasn’t been betrothed already at this point in her life.”

“I really wonder...”

“Still, when you’re an empress, you have to find a spouse of suitable status. He may be the prince of another nation, but at least he’s a prince; there shouldn’t be any objection there. Prime Minister Zahar told us this sort of thing wasn’t unusual, remember?”

“Well...”

“The prime minister said that?” Myusel cocked her head, curious, as if she couldn’t quite follow what we were saying. It was like she didn’t know why Prime Minister Zahar’s name should come up in discussing Petralka’s marriage.

“So, uh,” I said, trying to put it briefly. According to Prime Minister Zahar, the Eldant Empire and the Kingdom of Zwelberich had been engaged with each other for generations, and in that time several members of the respective imperial and royal families had intermarried. It was easy enough to imagine that this had a partly political purpose: it helped solidify the alliance. Or, if you were feeling less charitable, provide hostages... and when it came to having hostages, it needed to be someone important, like an empress or a prince of the blood.

From that particular perspective, it was impossible to ask anything more from Prince Rubert as a match for Petralka. Being the sixth prince of his country, he didn’t stand much chance of inheriting the throne—but he was still a direct descendent of the current king, and as such an appropriate partner for her. All of this combined meant Rubert’s proposal shouldn’t have been especially surprising. What seemed to shock the Eldant court more than anything wasn’t the proposal; it was the simple fact that there had been no warning, no feelers sent out. Rubert had simply shown up and asked.

“Of course, none of that means Zahar necessarily agrees with the marriage,” I said.

“Is... Is that so...” Myusel said, casting her eyes on the ground as if deep in thought.

“Not to mention... we have no idea what Petralka thinks about it yet,” I added with a pained smile.

It had been only just yesterday that Myusel had been telling me Petralka was in love with me—though to be fair, I had yet to hear it from the proverbial horse’s mouth. With or without me, though, if Petralka had been seriously thinking about marriage, that would have made it even stranger that the subject had never come up before. My guess was it wasn’t a thought she had really considered. All the more reason she would be taken aback by Prince Rubert’s offer. I had to assume she had a lot on her mind right now.

Of course, if Petralka really loved Prince Rubert, that would be great, right? It seemed like they knew each other from way back, plus he was handsome and seemed nice—Petralka had every reason to want to marry him. And yet... in all this time, I had never heard her so much as mention Rubert’s name. So while she might feel friendly toward him, I thought it was fair to say that she wasn’t in love with him.

Anyway, it all just seemed so sudden.

“When you get married...” I said, “I mean, you’re supposed to marry someone you really love, right? Right, Brooke, Cerise-san?”

“Er?” The two people I had named had obviously not expected to be part of this conversation. They had been quietly eating their dinners; now they both raised their long heads in surprise.

Brooke and Cerise Darwin: this husband-and-wife pair were not human. They belonged to a group of people called lizardmen, and the way they looked—and the way they lived—were noticeably distinct from humans. To put it bluntly, they looked like walking lizards. They had tough hides, no hair, and their body temperature was highly influenced by the environment. That is, they were reptiles.

They worked here at the mansion: Brooke was our gardener, and Cerise-san was a maid, like Myusel. They both had colorful life stories, and while they had been separated for a while, now they were living happily together.

At the moment, though, neither of them was saying anything. They just looked at each other, almost like they were confused by what I had said.

“Master, we—”

“When we became spouses, it was by th’ order of our chief.”

“Huh?”

It was? So what they wanted had had nothing to do with it? Come to think of it, they had mentioned something about this before. Brooke had been a big hero of the lizardman people, and Cerise-san was the daughter of a powerful member of the Tribal Council. They had known each other and been close for some time, so they had no reason to object—but their marriage was still a strategic one.

“’Course... ’tweren’t, ahem, as though I were against the match...”

“Me, either... In fact, I was very happy when it was decided.”

The two of them looked at each other.

“............Cerise.”

“............Brooke.”

Oooooookay.

It could be hard to read lizardman faces, but it was pretty obvious this was—you know. Them gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes, or whatever. Totally smitten. Head over heels. Falling in love all over again. Arrrrgh! Just explode, you damn Reals!

“If even the two of you had an arranged marriage,” Hikaru-san said with a bit of a smirk, dragging us back on topic, “then there’s no way the empress gets to marry for love. As Shinichi-san might put it—” (and here he pretended to imitate my voice) “—you see it all the time in manga and light novels.”

“Okay, true, but...”

Marriages among nobles were often political, dictated by circumstances—at least as far as I could tell. Hikaru-san was right, most of my knowledge of the subject came from manga and novels and stuff; it wasn’t like I was a scholar of this sort of thing. But it seemed pretty plausible. So I was aware of the reality. And yet...

“Unfortunately,” Hikaru-san said, “this isn’t an issue we can do anything about by talking about it.”

“Yeah, well, I mean, you’re right, but... you know?”

“It’s hard to let go of, isn’t it?” Hikaru-san smiled, not quite nicely. “Don’t know what you have till you’ve lost it, eh?”

“I haven’t lost anything! That’s not what we’re talking about, right?!”

Besides, Petralka and Rubert’s marriage wasn’t even settled yet! I-I-I was so not shaken by this! Not moved! Not upset! Agh, Myusel, don’t you give me that anxious look, too!

“Anyway, what matters is, we can’t change anything by talking about it, and you’re right about that! Yep!” I was very eager to be done with this conversation. I was just about to force myself to start eating again when I noticed something. “Elvia...?”

The girl sitting across from me wasn’t moving. Elvia Harneiman was part of a beast person tribe, a werewolf. She used to be a spy, sent here by the neighboring country of Bahairam, but now she was the mansion’s resident artist. (Yet another long story.) Just like you might expect from a “werewolf,” she had animal ears on her head and a fuzzy tail growing out of her behind.

The hair on her head, the same brown color as her ears and tail, didn’t quite reach her shoulders (a good length for keeping it out of the way), and her body was lean and taut. She was obviously the active type. She wore a sort of tube top that showed a lot of skin, including her midriff, but it wasn’t so much erotic as it contributed to the impression of energy. It was probably linked to the fact that, for better or for worse, she was a very open person.

As a beast person, Elvia had exceptional physical abilities, which also meant she ate a lot of food to fuel herself. I didn’t know where she put it all in that compact body, but seeing her pack dinner away was a common sight at our table. And now she wasn’t eating. Very unusual.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Er, is somethin’ the matter with Minori-sama?” There was a hint of hesitation—in fact, maybe fear—in Elvia’s voice.

We all followed her gaze to discover (as you might guess) Minori-san. She had her spoon in her right hand, her fork in her left, and was holding them up in front of her face. Okay, nothing too weird about that—but the way she was moving was very strange. Whatever she was doing with her utensils, it obviously wasn’t eating dinner.

“‘No, stop, Fork!’” she said. “‘I already have my heart set on Knife!’ ‘Him? He can never do anything but hurt you. Pick me instead. I’ll stab you right through the heart.’” Minori-san, muttering to herself, clanged her fork and her spoon together. “‘I... I can’t do it?! Is your heart really that hard...?!’ Hoo hoo... hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!” The edges of Minori-san’s lips turned up, and she laughed to herself.

I could see her eyes behind her glasses. They should have been looking at her spoon and fork, but instead they were unfocused, staring off into the distance somewhere. It was very, very scary. No wonder Elvia had sounded concerned.

“...You can just ignore her, Elvia.”

“Y-Yeah, but...”

“She’s been this way all day.”

“G-Gee, really?”

“Too much stimulation this morning. She hasn’t managed to come back to reality yet...”

I guess after seeing two BL protagonists basically in the flesh, she hadn’t been able to restrain the fantasies. Minori-san was normally very good at not getting carried away when it wasn’t appropriate—but maybe having such a strong breaking point meant that when she finally cracked, it was hard to come back.

“Ooh hoo. Ooh hoo hoo hoo. Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!” Minori-san’s unsettling laughter continued. Myusel, Elvia, Brooke, and Cerise all looked at each other uneasily. Incidentally, Hikaru-san and I, having spent not just the carriage ride home with Minori-san but the entire time we had been waiting at the castle, were already used to it. I figured if we left her alone, the fantasy would run its course and she would come back around eventually. For the time being, I intended to treat Minori-san and her rotten internal world as if they didn’t exist, and I urged Elvia to do the same.

“Oh...” At that exact moment, Myusel looked up and blinked. “It looks like we have a visitor.”

“Huh?”

“I heard a knock at the door just now. I’ll go see who it is.” She stood up and pattered out of the kitchen.

“Did you hear anything?” I asked.

“Don’t think so...” Hikaru-san said.

Then again, Myusel was a half-elf, so her sense of hearing was sharper than ours. She went out of her way not to call attention to her pointy ears, so I just didn’t think about them much. Elvia had unusually sharp senses, too, but especially vision and smell—not so much hearing. Maybe it was because of how her ears flopped over?

In any event, Myusel could hear things that us humans—and even people like Elvia and Brooke—couldn’t. Sounds that were too small or too soft for us to pick up. It was easy to overlook, but it was actually a pretty incredible ability.

“But who would be visiting at this hour?” I said.

“No idea...” Hikaru-san shook his head. Naturally, I guess. If I couldn’t imagine who it might be, after living here so much longer than him, then he certainly wouldn’t know. I had more acquaintances in Eldant that might drop by, too...

Myusel was back quickly. “Um, Shinichi-sama...” She stopped in the dining room doorway, calling to me with some hesitation. Apologetic about interrupting my meal, I guessed.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Er...” She was clearly distressed. I was in the middle of eating, and this person hadn’t said they were coming, so she didn’t know whether to show them in.

The visitor, though, ultimately solved this problem, because they apparently didn’t care what I was doing.

“Shinichi-sensei!” a familiar voice shouted, and then two people shoved their way around Myusel.

“Huh—Loek? And Romilda?!” I was taken aback by the two faces I saw peering into the dining room. One tall young man, one short young woman. The boy had long golden hair and composed features—he was an elf, Loek Slayson. The girl had her red hair pulled into a braid on either side: the adorable dwarf, Romilda Guld. Both were students at the school Amutech ran—pupils of mine. Loek was a son of the nobility; his father was in the government. And Romilda was the daughter of the dwarf who ran the Guld Workshop, which handled jobs for the Eldant government. So although they were both demi-humans, they had comparatively high social status. Princelings (or princesslings?), if you will.

In most fantasy worlds, elves and dwarves don’t get along very well—and while these two had started out that way, it seemed like they had gotten closer recently. But still—what were they doing here? And so late?

“What the heck’s going on?” I got out of my chair and went over to them.

I was startled, though, when hands reached around Myusel—one from between Loek and Myusel, the other between her and Romilda—and took my hands.

Wh-What the heck?!

I realized that Myusel’s anxiousness earlier hadn’t been just because Loek and Romilda had shown up—it had been more about the owners of these hands.

“Shinichi-dono!”

Two more figures shoved their way between Loek and Romilda, on either side of Myusel—another elf and dwarf. What’s more, the elf was a dead ringer for Loek. The dwarf was a middle-aged man with a beard.

“Huh? Er...” When I took a good look, I could see two more people still behind Myusel. Women, another elf and dwarf. The dwarf happened to look a lot like Romilda. So these must be...

“My mother and father,” Loek said.

“My mom and dad,” said Romilda.

“I’m Eric Slayson,” the dwarf said. “And this is my wife, Agnes.”

“Rydel Guld, at your service. And my wife, Lorna.”

That’s right, I realized, I knew these people. They were Loek’s and Romilda’s parents. I had seen both men in the audience chamber at gatherings of important Eldant officials.

“I appreciate you trying to get some learning into my son’s thick skull.”

“Yes, and I know how hard my daughter can be to handle. Thank you for all your hard work.”

They both greeted me in about the same way, and I could see their wives bowing to me as well.

“Oh, no, it’s been a pleasure...” Loek and Romilda had actually come to save me when I had been kidnapped by Bahairam, and the various craftspeople at the Guld workshop had worked hard to create Petralka’s body double. “But why are you here? And all together...”

That was when I realized: Loek and Romilda were just there as guides. It was really their parents who wanted to talk to me. Unlike the kids, the faces of the four adults were all serious.

“Hey, what’s up?” Minori-san, apparently brought back to herself by the obviously grim nature of the meeting, came over to me.

Eric and Rydel looked at me and Minori-san, then looked at each other. They nodded, and then Eric said, “Shinichi-dono, we wish to speak to you. Or more precisely... to ask a favor.”

The adults’ story was this: among the ministers of the Eldant Empire, there were two main factions, followers of the First Imperial Prince and followers of the Second. Of course, the current ruler, Petralka, had no children; these titles referred to the previous generation—that is, the parents of Petralka and Garius, respectively. The factions originated in the time of the previous Emperor—namely, Petralka’s grandfather—but they had persisted unchanged until now.

These factions each supported their own candidate for the throne, conducting a covert struggle for power. This struggle had led to the standard bearers for each of the factions—Petralka’s and Garius’s parents— being poisoned, and instead of any of them taking the throne, all of them wound up dead.

The emperor had been, let’s say, less than pleased with the factionalists’ behavior, and he told them so. The infighting subsided, and they reached a sort of compromise in which Petralka would rule and Garius would be her aide, or rather her regent. This was in part, by the way, because Petralka was the daughter of the First Imperial Prince, who had after all been first in line for the succession. What’s more, it would have seemed almost impossibly strange for Garius to rule and the younger Petralka to be his regent. So this was how it had turned out. The factions had never really disappeared, but they had achieved a sort of balance, encouraged in part by the good relationship between Petralka and Garius.

“But now, that balance is being threatened,” Eric-san told me gravely. We had moved from the dining area into the living room, where I sat on one sofa and my menagerie of visitors—Loek, Romilda, and their folks—sat on the other. You might wonder why Loek and Romilda, who seemed like nothing more than guides, were still there, but apparently they served as a sort of buffer between their parents. Remember what I said about elves and dwarves not getting along? I guess it wasn’t a pure hatred thing so much as it was personalities that tended to rub each other the wrong way. But anyhow...

“Threatened?” I asked. I guess he meant that it looked like more fighting might disrupt the accord.

As I’ve said, the Slaysons and the Gulds were both important families in the Eldant aristocracy. Eric-san was more of what we might consider a foreign diplomat, while Rydel-san was involved with construction and building, but both of them apparently came down on Garius’s side.

“But wouldn’t that do more harm than good?”

I didn’t really see Petralka and Garius suddenly going after each other’s lives, but a little behind-the-scenes work by unscrupulous people around them could leave them cornered in a situation they had no control over. An absolute monarch Petralka might have been, but that didn’t mean she could neglect relations with her ministers.

“Yes, this is a very dangerous situation,” Eric-san said with a nod. “Civil war might be the best we could hope for. But if other countries then got wind of it, they would fall on us like jackals.”

“Oh, no...” Suddenly I pictured a long shadow falling over the Holy Eldant Empire, threatening crisis. Whoever or whatever it was, I felt a profound revulsion for it. I owed so much to so many people here—Petralka, of course, but Garius too, and everyone in this nation who had accepted me. They were friends and acquaintances that I cherished. If someone was sneaking in the shadows, preparing to do them harm...

“I am pleased to say, though, that there is someone in our nation now who can avert this disaster,” Eric-san said.

“Very true—one and one only,” Rydel-san agreed, his expression grim.

Someone who could save the Eldant Empire from crisis? Who was it, some kind of superhero?

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Why, it’s you.”

..................

..................

.......................Excuse me?

“Kanou Shinichi-dono,” Rydel-san said, “you are the only one who can save the Empire from catastrophe.”

Of all the things I had expected him to say, that was at the bottom of the list. My thoughts practically froze in my brain. “Um, what? Me? You mean you, like, me, right?” I looked from one face to the next for some kind of lifeline, but all of them—the parents, Loek, Romilda—simply nodded.

What the heck? How can I possibly be the one to—?

“Minori-san...” I looked at my bodyguard, at the end of my rope, but she was looking at the kids’ parents with an expression of disbelief. I guess she didn’t understand this any better than I did.

“Ahem, let me apologize for not being clearer,” Eric-san said. “Her Majesty... If you’ll forgive my bluntness, she’s rather fond of you, Shinichi-dono.”

I didn’t speak. I mean, he wasn’t wrong. At the very least, she certainly didn’t dislike me. Even if I wasn’t sure about all that love stuff Myusel had talked about...

“And His Highness Garius feels much the same way about you.”

“Umm...”

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that, either. Garius talked to me like a normal person, even shared some personal stuff with me. It had even been Garius who had first told me about his and Petralka’s parents—even though the story seemed to cause him a certain amount of shame. But what he felt for me was ultimately friendship. That’s an important point. It was absolutely—

“You are so right about that!” a voice exclaimed. Naturally, it wasn’t mine. “Garius-san is completely crazy about Shinichi-kun!”

You there, the rotten WAC! Don’t make this any more complicated than it already is!!

“This goes beyond suki into pure ai shiteru territory! I’m sure he’s looking for any excuse to cross that final line!”

“That’s a complete fantasy! Your fantasy!”

“Aww, c’mon! You don’t have to be so shy, Shinichi-kun!” Minori-san exclaimed, her eyes shining—no, glinting. Ugh, just when I thought she had come back to reality, that perverse switch got flipped again, and off she went... “It’s obvious to everyone that it’s lovey-dovey love love love!” She put her hands on her cheeks, practically squirming with joy. She was starting to seem like a fundamentally different person...

“Ahem...” The parents had watched this truly strange display of excitement with no small amount of bemusement. In fact, they seemed to be trying to pull away a little. An understandable reaction the first time you saw something like this. As for Romilda, who had encountered this behavior before, she was just watching with a wry smile; Loek watched this madness unfold raptly.

Are you sure, Loek? Is this what you want?

“I’m sorry, I—” With Minori-san here, it didn’t look like we were going to get a lot of talking done, at least not about anything practical. I was looking around for help when: “Oh.” I thought I glimpsed a tuft of tail fur by the doorway.

Evidently, somebody thought she was hiding in the shadows, watching us covertly. But she had only hidden half of herself. And only one member of this household had a bushy tail.

“Elvia?”

“Y-Yes?!” She poked her head into the living room. “I-I’m real sorry! I wasn’t, like, listenin’ in or anything. I was just, uh, well, wonderin’ what you were all talking about...”

“So you were eavesdropping.”

“Er, no, well...”

That seemed to be all she had. Maybe she’d had too much time on her hands, or maybe curiosity had gotten the better of her. She didn’t seem to be thinking about how behaving like this could negatively impact her position. She was originally a spy sent here from Bahairam, and although we no longer had serious suspicions about her anymore—heck, we were prone to forget the fact entirely—too much sneaky listening ran the risk of raising new questions.

“Say, Elvia. You’re just the person I wanted to see.” This came from Hikaru-san, who had been quiet until that moment. “Sorry for the trouble, but do you think you could take Minori-san somewhere?”

“...Uh...” She blinked.

“Her ‘illness’ has flared up again. We aren’t going to be able to have a productive conversation this way.”

“Oh! Sure thing!” Elvia, too, was all too familiar with Minori-san’s “illness.” She nodded and came over to Minori-san, taking her arms.

“...But I see that a new obstacle to this true love blossoming has appeared in the form of this prince! After all, they’re living in the castle together, under the selfsame roof...” Minori-san was apparently too busy with her fantasy to notice Elvia dragging her away. “And could it possibly be that nothing would happen with them a stone’s throw away from each other?! No, it’s impossible! No, wait, the story isn’t over y— Wait, nooooo~~~”

Her voice got farther and farther away. When I was sure she was gone, I turned back to the parents.

“...Er.”

“She’s sick,” Hikaru-san said with a blithe smile. “These little flare-ups, they happen.”

“Do they, indeed...” The adults still seemed somewhat taken aback.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Loek gazing out the doorway where Minori-san had disappeared. His eyes were glistening, obviously the look of a man in love. To think that he had seen Minori-san’s “illness” firsthand and still felt the same way—was it possible Loek himself had a couple of screws loose?

Anyway, back to business.

“So, what were we talking about?” I said, gathering myself back up.

“Oh, yes.” The parents nodded, their faces still grim.

Eric-san cleared his throat. “Ahem, as we were saying, Her Majesty and His Highness Garius both seem to have a soft spot for you, Shinichi-dono.”

“Well, if you say so... But even if you’re right, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Interesting you should ask.” Eric-san sighed, then said, “We have devised a possible solution that could resolve this factional dispute entirely.”

“And that would be...?”

“A marriage. Between Her Majesty and Minister Cordobal.”

I almost choked. But when I thought about it, there was a certain logic to it. Both were legitimate members of the imperial family, meaning that there could be no objection in terms of lineage or social status. There had been royal dynasties in my own world that prized “purity of blood” so highly that they would even marry close relatives to maintain it. For that matter, modern Japanese law still recognized marriages between cousins. So the idea had real plausibility. And yet...

As far as I knew, Petralka had never shown any romantic interest in Garius. At best he was like an older brother to her. And Garius seemed to see her the same way, like a younger sister. In fact, sometimes I almost thought I sensed a hint of reserve in the way the two treated each other. Maybe it had to do with their parents. They’d seemed pretty close recently, but sometimes things could be awkward between them.

And then there was the simple fact that Garius didn’t seem especially interested in the opposite sex. So even if we somehow convinced or cajoled the two into getting together, it would be a complete sham, a marriage with nothing in it. No further heirs to the imperial throne would be born. Then distant relatives might well appear, claiming that they had imperial blood in their veins and a right to rule—and then the power struggles would begin all over again, and things in the Holy Eldant Empire would be even more chaotic than before.

Ultimately, having Petralka as empress and Garius as regent had been nothing more than a stopgap measure. It couldn’t last forever, and everyone knew it—yet in order to keep the peace between the loyalists of the First and Second Princes, there was no choice but to maintain this status quo.

But the status quo stopped being the status quo when...

“You came here.”

“Me?”

Kanou Shinichi. Yes, I had caused more confusion at first, but then I had earned the “imperial affection” of Petralka, and, just maybe, the “interest” of Garius, making me, in a way, the third corner of a triangle. With me in the middle, so to speak, Petralka and Garius had actually seemed to grow closer. This made the First and Second Prince factions more secure, and gave them time to look for another solution. So they actually welcomed my arrival, if only as an expedient. They even seemed to think that if this trend continued, Petralka and Garius might grow so close that the groups’ original goal—a marriage between the two royals—might actually be possible.

...Geez, I had no idea. They were planning this all along?

“But if Her Majesty accepts Prince Rubert’s proposal, that delicate balance will be shattered.”

Ahh, so the threat they’d talked about was Rubert himself.

“Er, but, just because Petralka gets married... Does that mean she can’t go on being empress and Garius-san can’t go on being regent?”

And again: where did I come in?

The parents regarded me severely. “If they were to wed, then in deference to our alliance with Zwelberich, we may expect that Her Majesty would begin to keep her distance from you, Shinichi-dono.”

“Huh? But—”

But why should she? I had been about to object, but the lightbulb went on in a hurry. People thought the empress was in love with me. Once she married Rubert, if she were to continue to remain close to me—well, it wouldn’t look very good. Say Petralka had a baby, and people started to question whether it was really Rubert’s child... In fact, it would be all too easy for people to accuse Petralka of throwing away the long-standing alliance between the Eldant Empire and Zwelberich in favor of the much newer relationship with Japan. And that wouldn’t bode well for diplomacy.

“What’s more, Zwelberich may be our ally. But if Prince Rubert were to be Her Majesty’s husband...” Eric-san took a handkerchief out of his bag and wiped his brow. “It would, in principle, give Prince Rubert direct and legitimate power over our nation. We worry that in the worst case, our country could be absorbed into Zwelberich.”

There was definitely some logic to that concern. Petralka might be an empress, but she was still a seventeen-year-old girl. Next to her, Prince Rubert was an adult man. When it came to knowledge and experience, he had Petralka beat. It would be by no means impossible to look up and suddenly realize Rubert held the reins of power, and the Eldant Empire had been effectively conquered.

There had been royal marriages between countries in the past, I was informed, but in every case they had involved a woman entering the imperial or royal household of the other country. There had rarely if ever been a case where a male entered the bride’s imperial or royal line.

“On top of all that, Zwelberich may be our ally, but they are notorious for their ill will toward demi-humans,” Rydel-san said, grimacing. “If their prince were to rule us, then our position might become quite tenuous.”

Ahh... Yes, that made sense. If Prince Rubert, from Zwelberich, were to be in charge of the disposition of ministers in the Eldant Empire, families like the Slaysons and the Gulds could find themselves up against the wall. Worst-case scenario, everything they had worked to build, their status and their stipends, could easily be stripped away from them.

And not just them. The fact that there were elves and dwarves among Eldant’s elite wasn’t lost on the common people. There was discrimination against demi-humans here, sure, but it wasn’t bad compared to many other countries, and that had a lot to do with the presence of influential demi-humans like the people in front of me. If they were to be forced out of the government, the effect could trickle down until it impacted even the people around me—the Myusels and Elvias, the Brookes and Cerises of the world.

That would be bad. Awful, in fact. Discrimination at our school was getting to be less and less, in part thanks to diligent teaching, but also in part because the Eldant Empire was already a relatively tolerant place.

“B-But Garius-san must have thought about all this already, right...?” It was inconceivable that these courtiers and even I would pick up on an impending crisis that Garius had simply missed. Surely he would come up with some kind of stratagem without us having to get all bent out of shape over it?

I felt so sure about this, but the parents’ faces only got darker.

Huh? But why?

“As a matter of fact...” Rydel-san lowered his voice and leaned forward. Sensing that he wanted to speak as secretly as possible, I leaned in, too. “Prince Rubert is said to be the, ahem... the reason His Highness Garius discovered... the way he is.”

............Come again?

My brain was already all but completely overwhelmed by the relentless series of shocks to my system.

“The way he is”? Did he mean, like... that way?

“Discovered? But wasn’t Garius-san, you know... always...?” Even as I questioned them, I was immensely grateful that Minori-san wasn’t here right now. If she’d been privy to this conversation, we might have finally lost her for good. Er, not that I knew where we would have lost her to. A land of love where every (BL) dream came true, I guess. Gandhara! (Meaning unknown.)

“His Highness Garius once went to the Kingdom of Zwelberich for study, and to further strengthen relations between our two nations...”

Oh, yeah—I had heard about that. And according to Eric-san, Rubert had been his host at the time. And I guess Rubert had pounded a lot of things into Garius’s—

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

But then again... to be in a foreign country, far from home... Even if it was an allied nation... Even if Garius had traveling companions, it would be only natural for him to feel lonely. And if there was one person who was exceptionally kind to him, well, I could understand how his heart might turn toward them.

Still—and I know I was late to the party on this, but—to imagine Garius really was like that... To realize Minori-san had been right all along... Yes, I get it, I should have known! But wouldn’t it have been hilarious if it had all been a joke?!

Hm? But wait... Wouldn’t that make Prince Rubert, you know, Garius’s... uh... ex-boyfriend?

Yikes! Even just thinking the word “ex-boyfriend” about a guy felt a bit, y’know, what-you-mean-for-real? But then again, it would help Garius’s behavior this morning make sense. But then again again, it would mean that Minori-san’s ridiculous fantasy about him and Rubert being boyfriends was... actually completely true.

“But in that case, wouldn’t Prince Rubert...” Wouldn’t he ask Garius to marry him?

I thought about it, and realized that in my own world, there were places that recognized gay marriage, like certain American states and even some entire countries. But here in the Eldant Empire? I guess I didn’t know what I expected. Setting aside any kind of value judgment on same-sex love, a union between two men wasn’t going to produce any children—and when a country’s political fortunes could rest entirely on the line of succession, same-sex marriage was not likely to be smiled upon. If anything...

“...Oh.” I finally registered the problem. “If Garius-san still has feelings for Prince Rubert, then maybe... he wouldn’t oppose this marriage...?”

If Petralka and Rubert got married, then by definition, Garius would be spending a lot of time around the prince. As men, they might not be able to actually get married, but this way, they would effectively be living together...

“That is the possibility we fear,” Eric-san said, interrupting my thoughts.

I see... This is... What can I say...?

“That is why you are so important,” Rydel-san added, leaning in again.

They looked so deadly serious, I wanted to draw back—but each of them placed a hand on one of my hands, almost as if to say they wouldn’t let me get away.

“Look, I don’t understand why I—”

“You are high in Her Majesty’s affections, and a man.” Eric-san’s wife Agnes spoke up for the first time. “In a matter like this, you have great influence over the empress.”

“What?” How did that work? Were these parents making the same mistake Bahairam had? Did they seriously think that I was on the receiving end of the physical imperial affections?

“In addition, you aren’t connected to either the First Prince’s faction, or the Second, or even to the Kingdom of Zwelberich. You’re a neutral third party, with nothing either to gain or to lose in the outcome of this situation. That’s why your objection to the union of Her Majesty and Prince Rubert would carry weight. And yours alone.”

I didn’t say anything for a long time.

So, to sum up: I was the only one who could save the empire from crisis.

...Okay, no, seriously, wait a minute.

If I told Petralka not to get married, wouldn’t it come across as me being jealous of Rubert? Maybe even implicitly offering her a proposal myself?

“Please, you must help us.” All four of the parents looked at me with imploring eyes. If nothing else, I could tell they hadn’t come to talk to me just on a whim. But still...!

“Please...!”

I flinched as four faces drew close to mine. But the parents were still holding onto my hands, and I couldn’t get away. So:

“L-Let me think about it, okay?”

It was all I could manage to say.

The next day. We had just finished breakfast when Matoba-san showed up.

I made to move us all into the living room, but he waved a hand and said we were fine where we were, then took an open spot at the table. Myusel offered to bring him some breakfast, but he refused with a smile. Now he was sipping the tea she had poured for him.

“Say, where is Koganuma-kun?” he asked, looking around the dining area.

Myusel, Brooke, and Cerise were all absent, having left to go about their respective jobs now that breakfast was over. Elvia was gone, too, back to her room. Matoba-san was left talking to just me and Hikaru-san. Minori-san, our bodyguard, would normally have been with us, but...

“Uhh... She hasn’t been feeling her best since yesterday. Sorry.”

The truth was, Minori-san was still caught in the grip of a rampaging BL fever. Heck, she had somehow managed to turn the table and chairs into characters in a steamy romantic drama. Suffice to say, she was in bad shape. Worried that prolonged exposure to her would infect the rest of us with her “illness,” we had already bustled her off to her room before Matoba-san showed up.

“You want me to go get her?” I asked.

“I see. No, just the two of you will be fine.”

“All right,” I said, and privately I was very relieved.

“So—what brings you here today?” Hikaru-san asked. He took a sip of his tea, elegant as ever, and glanced at me before going on, “Does the Japanese government have something to say about this whole marriage kerfuffle?”

My breath caught in my throat. My brain had been so full of the visit from Loek, Romilda, and their parents yesterday that I hadn’t even gotten around to thinking about my own government. But it made sense: Matoba-san had been there when Rubert had proposed to Petralka, and he must have told Japan about it. I couldn’t imagine Japan would just sit quietly by and watch something this politically important unfold.

“Clever. Yes, that’s exactly why I’m here,” Matoba-san said with a smile.

............Uh-oh.

I felt a chill. Why was I so worried? Because there was no greater sign of danger than a plain smile from Matoba-san. He was the quintessential bureaucrat, in the worst possible way. Smiling at someone as he stabbed them in the back was second nature to him. Sometimes it seemed like the only reason he ever smiled was to throw you off the trail.

“Their opinion is that they very much want Shinichi-kun to be certain he has a firm hold on Her Majesty’s feelings.”

“Wha...?”

What was he talking about? I blinked stupidly as Matoba-san, with deliberate nonchalance, went on, “Frankly, there seems little question that Amutech’s current position in the Holy Eldant Empire, and by extension that of the Japanese government, is due in no small measure to the empress’s personal feelings for Shinichi-kun.”

“No doubt.”

I had lost the ability to speak, so this grinning answer came from Hikaru-san. The way his long, black hair cascaded down onto his shoulders... He wasn’t deliberately showing a lot of skin, yet it was weirdly alluring. Dammit, I didn’t think of myself as the least bit interested in guys, but every time I looked at him, it was like a door that nearly cracked open... But forget about that for now.

“If Shinichi-kun were to lose the imperial affections... Well, in a worst-case scenario, we could be deprived of our base of operations within the Eldant Empire.”

“I don’t have any imperial affections...! Wait, you really think it would be that big a deal?”

Matoba-san’s tone was as mellow and nonthreatening as ever, but he was essentially saying that the very existence of Amutech, General Entertainment Company, could be at stake.

“The Japanese government thinks so, at least.” Matoba-san shrugged. “After yesterday’s, ahem, events, I went back to Japan and reported what had happened. In the government’s view, Rubert’s proposal could be an attempt at checking Japanese influence.”

“Checking? You mean, like, trying to stop us?”

“He deliberately invited us to that audience, did he not?”

“Oh...”

Come to think of it, Petralka did say that the ambassador from Zwelberich had specifically asked for us to be there. And yet neither Rubert nor any of his attendants had really spoken to us at all. I’d assumed that was because of all the chaos on the Eldant side, followed by having to get ready for the big welcome banquet, but...

“Some of my bosses believe that Rubert’s choosing this juncture to propose marriage could be a means of preventing Japan from usurping Zwelberich’s position in the Eldant Empire’s priorities. And if so, once he and Her Majesty are wed, the next step could be Japan’s forcible expulsion from the country.”

“Gosh...” It certainly made sense.

“Even if such political considerations aren’t at the top of his mind,” Matoba-san said, setting down his tea cup, “his feelings as a man, as a person, can’t be ignored. It would surely not be to his liking for his wife to be too cozy with another man. How many stories are there in our own history of a patroness who became very... well acquainted... with an artist she was supporting?”

“Well, sure, but...”

“And if Her Majesty the Empress should entertain a dalliance with you, Shinichi-kun...”

“D-Dalliance?” My voice went up an octave. Why was he using soap-opera language like that?! Look, I still hadn’t had my first kiss, let alone my first time!

“Her husband Rubert would become a laughingstock. An unbearable outcome for a person of such status.”

“Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. So?”

“The simplest way for Prince Rubert to guard against such a turn of events would be for him to get rid of you, Shinichi-kun, as quickly as possible—and ideally all of Amutech with you.”

I didn’t respond immediately. When he put it that way... well, I couldn’t say he was wrong.

“It’s true... You do have to wonder why he would propose now,” Hikaru-san said, his chin in his hand. “The age of majority in the Eldant Empire is sixteen, right?”

“Er, yeah,” I said. That was part of why Petralka had been so ticked off when I gave her the loli treatment at our first meeting. She was already an adult by then.

“Assuming the marriage age is the same, then if Zwelberich had been planning this all along, you would have expected them to raise the possibility as soon as the empress turned sixteen. For that matter, royal marriages are often arranged a lot earlier than that.”

Age of majority or no, an agreement between the highest powers in Eldant and Zwelberich could trump the law itself. It wasn’t even impossible that the empress could have been married off before sixteen, on the grounds that imperial family members were a special case. In short, there had been every opportunity for the Kingdom of Zwelberich—for Prince Rubert—to propose marriage to Petralka long before this. But they hadn’t. So why now? It had to be because circumstances had changed somehow. Such as...

“Because I came here...?”

“That would make the most sense,” Hikaru-san said.

“Agreed,” Matoba-san said with a nod.

“Arrgh... Why’s everyone got to come to me about this?” I groaned, resisting the urge to grab my temples.

“‘Everyone’...?” Matoba-san raised an eyebrow.

Oops. Had I said that out loud?

Hikaru-san spoke up before I had the chance. “Romilda-san and Loek-kun and their parents showed up yesterday.” Then he went on to explain the meeting with the adults and the request they had made of me. All about the competing factions in the Eldant government, the threat to the elvish and dwarven counsellors—and what they wanted me to do about it.

“Hmm... In other words, just about the same thing Japan wants,” Matoba-san said, tapping a finger against his chin. “Shinichi-kun, you yourself have a fair amount to lose if Amutech goes under, don’t you? Though perhaps not enough to lose sleep over.”

“It just...” I let out a deep sigh. “Rubs me the wrong way.”

This wasn’t about marrying someone because you were in love with them. It was about an individual doing something purely to benefit his or her country, or to prevent harm to that country. The feelings of the people involved didn’t matter. Only the state. The institution of marriage was being used to serve political, organizational ends.

“I hate the feeling that Petralka’s and Garius-san’s feelings are being treated as incidental. Like they don’t matter, or don’t even exist.”

“That’s how it goes for royals and nobles, a lot of the time.” Hikaru-san shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve seen this in movies and books and stuff.”

“Those are fiction. They aren’t real. At the very least, I want to save Petralka from being used as a political tool.”

“Oh ho...?” Hikaru-san’s blink was so exaggerated you could almost hear it. “Finally starting to realize, at this late date?”

“Huh? Realize what?”

“...Never mind.”

I didn’t know what he was getting at, but he looked away from me and gave a theatrical sigh.

Aw, what? Had I done something wrong?

“Ahem. In any event,” Matoba-san said, “the Japanese government objects to the empress’s marriage. Let me reiterate: Amutech and all the Japanese efforts here exist only thanks to Her Majesty’s good graces. If and when she loses or is deprived of interest in you, Shinichi-kun, we may suddenly find the tide against us.”

“But Petralka— She’s the one person who wouldn’t—”

Just turn her back on me like that, I wanted to say. I thought it was true. Let Prince Rubert be jealous of me—I still didn’t think she would just fold Amutech up and kick us out.

Hikaru-san, though, shook his head, a strained look on his face. It was almost like he could read my thoughts. “Happens all the time. A girl gets a boyfriend, suddenly she’s not so close to her other male friends. Maybe you think she wouldn’t do that, but we won’t really know until it happens, will we?”

“You really think so...?”

“Uh-huh.” Hikaru-san nodded with, I thought, an unwarranted amount of confidence. For him to be so firm about this—maybe he was speaking from experience. Come to think of it, I didn’t really know what his life had been like before he came to Eldant. Just because he dressed up like a girl, that didn’t mean he had to like guys. Maybe he’d had some friends who were girls—or more to the point, some girlfriends.

As for me—someone who had hardly had any friends who were girls, except for that old friend of mine, and who had certainly never had a girlfriend—I didn’t have any way of knowing what the truth was.

“So, Shinichi-san.” Suddenly, Hikaru-san turned toward me. He didn’t just look at me—he shifted so his entire body was facing me. “This is the moment.”

“Uh... Which moment?

“The moment where, if you want to keep being friends with Her Majesty, you have to find out how you feel about each other.”

“Look, I told you...”

“In fact, let’s face it: friends isn’t going to be enough. You at least have to make it to boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“You really think that’s the only way?!” I wailed. “I can’t—I can’t do it! It’s impossible!”

“Why is it impossible? You don’t hate Her Majesty, do you? In fact, I’d say...”

“But I don’t even know how Petralka feels about me...!”

Myusel’s words came back to me with a shattering reality.

Well, heck! I’m a guy! If a girl that cute really loved me, that would make me very happy! If there were no politics involved, if she just confessed to me like any girl anywhere, I’d go out with her in a flash!

(Long pause.)

Imagine the scene: the shadow of a tall tree stretching through a twilit evening. No one around. No sound but the gentle susurrus of the wind in the leaves.

“Shinichi...” she says, her voice threatening to scratch. She clasps her pale hands together in front of the chest of her sailor suit, as if grasping something precious. Then she takes a slow, deep breath. “Listen well. Because we are only going to say this once.”

“Huh? What’s up, Petralka? You still—”

“We have wanted and wanted to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“But we simply could not find the courage. We waited, in hopes that you might notice, that you might sense something, but at last we must admit that you are simply too dense. We are afraid we would graduate before you got it through that thick skull of yours.”

“Seriously, what are you talking about?”

“Shinichi—” She looks at me, resolution clear on her face. Her eyes are like great gleaming jewels—and is it just me, or are they starting to brim?

“We love you. We love you with all our heart.”

“Wha...?”

I stand there, shocked, as she throws herself at me. All I can do is take her delicate body in my arms...

For a long moment neither of us say anything. Until finally...

“Shinichi-san?”

“Er, yeah, I’m here.”

Hikaru-san’s voice brought me back to reality. “I think I have a good guess what you were fantasizing about, but we need you in the real world right now,” he said.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I was at risk of losing my right to laugh at Minori-san.

“In any event, the only thing we can do now—is act!” Hikaru-san clenched his fist, a rather uncharacteristic gesture for him. Maybe it just went to show how much the Holy Eldant Empire, Amutech, and the life he was living now had come to mean to him. If he could have done something about this situation without me, I bet he would have. I bet he would have tried everything he could possibly think of.

But...

“I’m the guy who confessed to his oldest friend and got shot down on the spot, did you know that?” I could feel my own face fall. “I’m a completely hopeless otaku. I don’t have any idea what to do here. I don’t have the first clue how to get a girl to like me!”

Hikaru-san and Matoba-san were silent. For some reason, they exchanged a long look. Finally, Hikaru-san turned back toward me, the edges of his lips twitching.

Huh? Is he... mad?

“I super want to hit you right now.”

“Agreed.”

“Huh?! Why?!”

And why Matoba-san, too?!

“God! There’s dense, and then there’s— Ahh, forget it.” Hikaru-san let out a long, disgusted sigh. Even Matoba-san was looking at me with open exasperation. That sort of obvious emotion was unusual for him.

“C-Come on, isn’t Matoba-san usually the expert at these things?!”

“Hm...?”

“I mean, deep down, this is a political problem, isn’t it? Why have me get mixed up in it? Why not have Matoba-san or someone else from the government negotiate?”

If the real goal was to nix the wedding between Petralka and Prince Rubert, there had to be some other way. Though I had to admit that by leaving it to Matoba-san and the Japanese government, I risked them taking some underhanded, unimaginably dark measure to get what they wanted.

“I would love to do that, sincerely I would, but I’m afraid it isn’t an option,” Matoba-san said with a shrug. “You once said something about being given a nutrient drink with lizardman tail in it, did you not?”

“Huh? Er, yeah.” I blinked, caught off guard by the sudden change of subject. Matoba-san was referring to a time Myusel had made me a drink to help keep my energy up when I had been burning the midnight oil. It was sweet, carbonated—and turned out to feature grilled, shaved lizard tail. Though the drink was sweet, there was an unusual bitter undercurrent—not bad, but sort of strange.

“The Japanese government found that story intriguing,” Matoba-san said, “and they had me bring some home to investigate.” Apparently, they had asked Myusel to make more of the drink with her leftover ingredients. “When we did so, we discovered that it did indeed possess the ability to relieve muscular fatigue.”

“Huh? Really?” I said, eyes wide. Hikaru-san looked just as surprised as I was. Matoba-san nodded at us.

Then again, Myusel had said that grilled lizardman tail helped beat fatigue or something. So it wasn’t just some kind of placebo effect, but actually had scientific validity.

“Animal testing produced some results that have Japan very excited.”

“About making people less tired?”

“Don’t underestimate the value of fatigue reduction, Shinichi-kun.” Hearing this from Matoba-san, who seemed perpetually overworked, it somehow sounded especially true. “Long-term, there are even hopes that it might prove to have rejuvenating properties, anti-aging effects. Let’s just say the geriatric crowd are tripping over themselves to get a hold of it.”

“Ah...” I assumed that the “crowd” he had in mind was parliamentarians—well, anyway, politicians.

“If we could synthesize this ingredient, it could turn the medical field upside down, or so some people are claiming. Politics and economics themselves would not be immune from the effects.”

“All that because of a lizardman’s tail?” Talk about unexpected turns of a conversation.

“I came here to talk to you about the marriage affair—but as it happens, I have to go directly back to Japan. With a fresh sample, you see.”

“You’re not planning to kidnap my gardener, are you?”

“Nothing of the sort. Samples are being obtained by trade with lizardmen in the castle town. Don’t fret, it’s all above board.” He gave me a wry smile and made an “OK” gesture. Apparently they were actually paying for the bits of tail they were collecting. According to Brooke, the amount of tail used in a drink like that was hardly bigger than the tip of a pinky finger, and grew back in about a week. It might actually prove to be a nice side gig for the lizardmen.

“All of which is to say, we’re leaving things in your hands, Shinichi-kun. Thank you for your help!”

“But—”

“Don’t worry about a thing.” That reassuring answer came not from me, but from Hikaru-san. Wait... why was he so keen on this? “And don’t you worry, either, Shinichi-san. I’ve got a script all worked out.”

“A script? I’m sorry?”

“Just say the words, and Her Majesty will be like putty in your hands. You’ve already tripped most of the important flags. As long as you don’t completely screw this up, I guarantee you’ll succeed.”

“Uh... huh.” Faced with this much confidence on Hikaru-san’s part, all I could give was a non-committal nod.

They were right about one thing: to just stand by and do nothing would really suck. If Petralka got married, and if Loek and Romilda’s parents, and Matoba-san and the Japanese government all found themselves in the sort of danger they were expecting... well, Amutech probably wouldn’t be long for this world. And that would mean I wouldn’t be long for this mansion. And that would mean saying goodbye to Myusel, Elvia, Brooke, and Cerise. Heck, Myusel might find herself out on the street with no job, and Elvia’s past as a Bahairamanian spy might come back to haunt her again. Maybe she would even be killed.

I didn’t want that to happen. I refused to let it happen.

I wasn’t on board with the actual plan—seriously, my heart wasn’t in it—but unless and until I had a better idea, the only thing I could do was play along.

Holy Eldant Castle.

As you might deduce from the fact that it basically shares its name with the entire nation, this building was the center of the Empire, or at least its center of power. Carved directly out of a mountain using magic, it was almost more a part of the terrain than a building. Look up from anywhere in the capital city, and you could see the castle.

Every time I saw the place, I could only stand in awe of the power of the Holy Eldant Emperor who had had the thing built generations before, not to mention the skill and technique of the dwarven craftsmen who had carried it out. On the other hand, it was so big that managing and administering it could be an unwieldy task.

In contrast to the elaborate exterior, the inside of the castle was relatively quiet: it wasn’t unusual to walk through the halls for minutes on end without seeing another person. The size was chiefly about communicating authority; I assume the planning stage began with somebody saying, “Let’s make it as big as we can.” The building included a number of parts that were basically for show; they weren’t structurally necessary, but if you wandered into one of them it was easy to get lost. By the same token, though, that meant the castle was riddled with out-of-the-way corners where no one was likely to notice you.

“Garius...”

At this moment, a voice called out to someone walking through just such a quiet part of the castle: a silver-haired young man, Minister Garius en Cordobal.

Garius slowly came to a halt. After a beat—of hesitation?—he turned toward the owner of the voice. The movement sent a ripple through his long hair. There was no hint of surprise or question on his face. He recognized the voice; already knew who had called him. Now there was no hesitation. No flinch of anguish. Garius’s expression was as placid and untroubled as ever.

“Yes?”

He didn’t ask who was there. The person who walked up to Garius where he stood, so still he could have been a statue, was a young man dressed in clothing that caught the light, much like his golden hair.

Prince Rubert Wollyn. The ambassador of the Kingdom of Zwelberich approached Minister Garius with elegant steps that revealed the nobility of his upbringing, and stopped just in front of him. Neither of them spoke immediately.

The two young men were about the same height. Prince Rubert, though, had just a few inches on Garius, so that from this distance the minister was compelled to look up slightly at him.

“It’s been some time since we saw each other last,” the prince said. “Since you studied in Zwelberich, I believe.”

“Indeed... This would be our first proper meeting since then.”

Prince Rubert gazed at Garius, a gentle smile on his face. The smile was measured, but his eyes, each of which seemed like a great, blue sea, were infinitely kind and sweet. Was that simply his personality? Or was it because he was looking at Garius en Cordobal?

Garius, however, remained completely unmoved. There was no hint of anything less than complete composure. How must that have looked to Rubert? A twinge of pain lanced through the Prince’s smile. “You’re awfully cold, considering how long it’s been.”

Garius didn’t say anything, but for the first time, his face shifted. The mask slipped and revealed surprise. It was an honest, almost youthful expression of emotion. But Garius quickly regained control of himself. Almost as if he hadn’t heard Prince Rubert, he said, “I believe my attitude befits a conversation with the ambassador of an allied nation.” His tone, of course, was cool. But to anyone who knew much about this man, Garius en Cordobal, it would have been obvious that his disinterest was affected.

Prince Rubert’s smile grew even kinder. “I see.” His hand, his beautiful hand—soft and pale in a way that bespoke a man who had never known hard labor—reached out toward Garius. For a bare instant, Garius’s body stiffened. The fingers reached for his cheek, but never touched his skin; instead, they traced their way along his flowing silver hair.

Garius stood, silent and absolutely still. Rubert’s fingers moved slowly, as if savoring the feeling of the other man’s hair. Just when it seemed his hand would emerge from the cascade of silver, Rubert suddenly moved his hand back the other way, lifting up Garius’s locks. He brought it to his face and planted a single, gentle kiss upon it.

A kiss on the hair, in our world, is said to communicate longing—was it the same here in the Eldant Empire, or even in this world? Whatever the case, Prince Rubert’s kiss seemed to surprise Garius. His hand swept up, pushing Rubert’s away; the motion carried Garius off balance and he took a couple of unsteady steps back.

An unequivocal refusal. But Rubert looked almost as if the whole thing amused him. He wasn’t put off his stride. It was almost as if he were saying, I know that’s not the real you.

“How sad, to be treated like a stranger. But that is profoundly in character for you.” Prince Rubert brought a hand to his mouth, as if to hide the smile that was starting there.

As for Garius: “Enough... It’s too late for that.” He looked at Rubert with something close to open hostility. Yet there was a tremble in his voice he couldn’t disguise. Something that betrayed his hard exterior, something that gave away the confusion within.

No doubt Prince Rubert saw it, too. He looked at Garius almost pleadingly and said, “Too late...?”

“All that time ago... You didn’t even try to stop me.” Garius didn’t seem critical so much as he sounded almost like he was talking to himself, remembering something from long ago. The prince’s eyes went wide for a second. Before him was the young knight who held authority over the entire Eldant military, yet at this moment he looked like a shaking puppy, abandoned in the rain.

Maybe that was why...

“I’m afraid I didn’t have a choice in the matter.” Rubert met Garius’s accusing gaze with one of absolute tenderness. “In my position, I could never have stopped you. You know that, don’t you?”

Garius didn’t respond.

“All that time ago” must have been at the end of Garius’s time in Zwelberich, I guessed, just before he left the country. In other words, the moment when he had parted from Rubert—when they had gone their separate ways. Neither of them was first in line for his country’s succession, yet both were of royal blood. They bore the hopes and expectations of their nations. However much they might care for each other, that unbridgeable gulf stood between them. Prince Rubert knew that, and of course, so did Garius. But still...

“And yet...” Rubert’s voice was a whisper. “We will be together forever, from now on. That’s why I’ve come.”

Garius looked up with an unvoiced sound of shock and blinked. But Rubert was already walking past him, as if to indicate that he had nothing more to say. As he went by Garius, who still looked vacant and confused, Rubert patted him on the shoulder—then kept walking. He got farther and farther down the corridor. The castle was pretty dark, even here at noon, but his golden locks caught the light that did filter in, and gleamed even as they faded into the distance. Everything seemed cold, as if time had stopped. Only the departing Rubert looked alive.

Garius kept staring resolutely forward, refusing to turn around. Finally he, too, started walking. His long, silver hair wavered with every step.

There was a long pause. There was no one there. Or at least, for an instant, it seemed so.

But in fact there was. As soon as Garius turned the corner out of sight, one of the shadows shifted and someone emerged. A woman. A young woman, her long, black hair tied up in a bun behind her head.

She was one of the attendants who had come to Eldant with Prince Rubert. One of his bodyguards, presumably; she had remained quiet so as not to interrupt a personal conversation. So why was she, and she alone, here? And why so secretly, melding with the shadows so that Garius would never notice her?

The woman spent a long moment looking in the direction Garius had gone, and then finally went after her master Rubert at a quick clip.

Ahhh. So that was it. It had to be.

She was one of them.

Or should I say, one of us.

A fellow exponent of man-on-man love.

“Hoo hoo, ooh hoo hoo hoo... heh heh heh!” As I watched the image on my smartphone, coming from one of the super-small cameras set up all around Eldant Castle, I, Koganuma Minori, began to tremble with joy.