4.5 - The Fourth Day (part two)

When my eyes popped open again, the same old ceiling stretched before me.

I’d apparently fallen asleep on the sofa. I removed a blanket I didn’t remember covering myself up with, and took my pocket watch out to check the time. I hadn’t been asleep even a full thirty minutes. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“Tristan, you here?”

“Yes sir, over here.”

I did have some time to spare, but I couldn’t be late to my appointment with the second prince. When I called my valet’s name, he answered immediately from where he’d apparently been tidying up the tea setting.

“Prepare a change of clothes. And for Prince Douglas too.”

“… As you wish.”

I tilted my head at the strange interval before my valet’s answer.

“What, you have something you want to say?”

“No sir, nothing.”

“That’s not a face that says nothing.”

His usual expressionless demeanor hadn’t changed, but I could clearly see a tinge of confusion in his eyes. I abruptly closed the distance between us, and put my palms on either side of his face, despite his being a whole head taller than me. I put all my strength into it, and he hunched over without any great resistance.

“Keeping secrets from your master does not impress him.”

I brought our faces so close our noses almost touched, and his eyes wavered even more. He intentionally avoided my gaze, and I didn’t like it.

Apparently, he didn’t want to talk.

His stubborn attitude suddenly made me want to tease him, and our lips were already so close they were almost touching, so I put mine on his.

His eyes flew open in astonishment, and he finally looked at me. I enjoyed immensely how his green eyes glittered with emotion, and that beautiful light filled my heart more than anything else.

Were the words he was trying to say ones of refusal, or repulsion? I slipped my tongue into the gap between his reflexively opened lips, and tangled it around his, though he tried to get away. The wet sound echoed exaggeratedly loud in the quiet room. It was my first kiss in this world, but it was going surprisingly well.

He grunted, surprised.

As I’d done whatever I wanted with the inside of my valet’s mouth, his tongue hadn’t moved in the slightest, but now suddenly he moved with intention, wrapping his tongue around mine.

This time it was my turn to be surprised. I reflexively tried to pull my face back, but his hands were faster, and they wrapped around the back of my head to block my escape route.

“Lord Ulysses…”

He sighed and called my name, releasing my lips for just a brief second, and stealing my freedom once again before I could catch my breath. When he sucked on the tip of my tongue, with his own still wrapped around it, something like a chill ran down my spine.

I believe the correct expression for the way he was rampaging around the inside of my mouth is “violation.”

Just when my breath was running completely out, he finally released my lips. A thin line of saliva – whose, I didn’t know – strung out between us, and snapped off. My shoulders heaving, I glared at my valet.

“You over-greedy idiot. What are you, a dog in heat?”

“I do apologize, my lord.”

My valet shrugged his shoulders up in shame, and vigorously bowed his head. We stayed like that for a wordless moment, but with no sign my valet was going to lift his head again, I let out a small sigh and slapped him lightly on the head.

“Eeh, it’s fine, lift your head. I don’t make a habit of talking to people while they’re head’s bowed.”

He bent from the waist, his back muscles stretched taut. His textbook posture of apology not cracking an inch, he lifted only his head and glanced over at me. It may not have been his intention, but he looked like a pet dog whose poor behavior has been exposed to its owner. It reminded me of a dog I had raised and loved in my previous life, and my expression relaxed without my meaning it to.

My valet’s eyes flew open in surprise, and he sloppily returned to an upright position.

“You have changed, after all, my lord. Until a few days ago, you would never have forgiven my folly… Although, perhaps we never tried to get to know the real you?”

It seemed I was treated as some kind of saint among my retainers now. His gaze was somewhere between feverish and ecstatic, and my eyebrows came together reflexively.

“The real me?”

“Indeed. Your every action held meaning.”

Was he talking about my attitude towards my servants? The way I used money to get what I wanted? My donations to the church? Or maybe my behavior towards Ambrose?

As someone preparing a route by which I could escape my own evil deeds, it appeared he’d accepted my excuses without digging too deeply into them.

In spite of being my valet for nearly ten years, right by my side the entire time, he’d changed his opinion of me after only a few days – how uninteresting.

My actions had meaning?

Of course they did.

The meaning was, I enjoyed it.

I was the spoiled son of nobility, my rotten personality hadn’t changed just because I’d remembered my previous life. And in spite of the fact that I didn’t have much time left, my struggling would be pointless if it all ended with my conviction.

“Tristan. Whatever you think, I’ve been looking, and I’ve seen everything.”

My valet didn’t seem to quite catch the meaning of my words, and looked over at me with a confused expression on his face. The gaze that had been so feverish until just a minute ago fell totally silent.

Convinced, I deliberately opened my pocket watch. He must have guessed the time was approaching, because he hurried out of the room to make ready.

After that, I finished the preparations without incident, and boarded the carriage Brandon had prepared. The chairs looked as ancient as the rest of it, and no one would call the stiff ride nice, even as flattery.

“Lord Ulysses, where shall I take you?”

“The Fifth District.”

“… You’re serious then, my lord?”

“Of course I am. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have spent all that time talking with Prince Douglas yesterday.”

In an attempt to prompt our departure, I waved my hand through the window, which didn’t have any glass in it, and my valet put the whip to the horse, looking all the while like it was happening against his will.

The horse gave a quiet neigh, and the carriage moved slowly forward. I heard plenty of squeaking, but I expected it would hold together.

The Fifth District.

That was where I’d first met my valet. The place where I’d bought something dying, something sold like a worn-out rag, the cheapest slave.

The royal capital of this country is gloriously prosperous, but if you go out a little ways, you will find slums. Ambrose conducts his philanthropy here, unhappy about the fact that they exist.

The Fifth District is also where he distributes food. He ought to be there today.

“It’s difficult for me to know what on earth you’re thinking, but if I think it’s dangerous, I’m going to do whatever I have to, to bring you home.”

I made no response to my valet’s comment. He knows how awful security is in the Fifth District, it’s his hometown. He said it knowing very well how dangerous it could get.

After driving along for a while, I spotted another carriage in a place fairly close to the Fifth District. It wasn’t exactly resplendent, but it did have a certain “aristocrat using a commoner-style carriage” air about it.

I imagined the coachman would be dressed up as a knight. No doubt they had a commoner in mind when they did it, but it was “commoner style,” at best.

No matter what angle you saw it from, it looked like “undercover aristocrat.”

I had my valet stop near it, and before he could open the door for me, I got down from the carriage myself.

He made a dissatisfied expression, but I decided to ignore it, and started for the other carriage.

The coachman was wary for a moment, but he must have recognized me right away. He quickly got down from the carriage and came to meet me face to face.

“Lord Ulysses, when you act selfishly, you cause trouble for everyone.”

“Hmm?”

What a wretched way to start a conversation.

But he did have a point. I intended to take Douglas with me to the slums. From the perspective of the person who was supposed to protect him, it was unforgivable. It was perfectly reasonable for him to call me selfish.

“It’s alright. It was my decision, Cedrick.”

Suddenly we could hear Douglas’s voice. Douglas quickly opened the door himself and got out of his carriage.

The coachman was upset by such unprincely behavior. Obviously flustered, he reached out a hand to Douglas, who was stepping off the ramp, but that hand was never taken.

“But My Lord Douglas, I must say I’m against this. Someone of your rank and status, setting foot in the slums?”

“My status, indeed. Even a spare is still a prince, huh?”

“Calling yourself a spare… The undefiled blood of the royal family still runs through your veins, Your Highness.”

Not that Douglas seemed inclined to listen to a mere coachman. He glanced at the coachman and turned back to me.

“Lord Ulysses, I hope you’ve been doing well since yesterday.”

“Yes, thank you, Your Highness. Incidentally, that outfit…”

“Oh yes, it suits me?”

Douglas was dressed a lot like the coachman. In other words, he looked like an undercover aristocrat. Dressed like that, he’d have everything he owned stripped from his body the instant he set foot in the slums.

I called to my valet, who brought the clothes I’d prepared for Douglas.

“Your Highness, I’m afraid I must apologize. You’re all but declaring your social status with that attire. If you would please change over here.”

“It’s no good?”

“Indeed, you look like a naive rich boy pretending to be a commoner.”

“Watch how you speak to His Highness!”

I turned to look at the coachman, his shoulders quaking with anger, and heaved a deliberate sigh.

“You too. If you’re going to be his guard, please dress accordingly. Honestly, Prince Douglas isn’t the only one in need of a change of clothes.”

“Wha-!”

It didn’t seem likely that Douglas’s guard would leave his side. But I’d only brought a change of clothes for one of them. The methods available to me in this situation were limited, but the good news was that the coachman seemed about the same size as my valet.

“Needs must, Tristan.”

“Yes, Lord Ulysses.”

“Strip.”

“Excuse me?”

My valet’s expression blanked. But I’m sure he knew what I meant. He scowled deeply.

“I respectfully refuse. I have no intention of letting that coachman don my clothing. That would preclude me from going with you.”

“It’s better than leaving Prince Douglas’s guard here. Stop quibbling and take your clothes off.”

“I respectfully refuse.”

My valet’s feelings on the matter seemed to have hardened. But I didn’t have the spare time to be arguing about it here.

I gently ran my fingertips over my lips, and turned a suggestive gaze towards my valet.

“Ah, perhaps you’re hoping I’ll strip you?”

“What!?”

I stretched a finger towards the button of the shirt he was wearing, but when I tried to lay a graceful finger on it, my valet leaned back exaggeratedly.

He glared hard at the coachman, whose face was still red, took off his shirt, and threw it in the man’s face.

“Fine, I get it! If you want me stripped, I’m stripped! This… This coachman!”

“Cedrick.”

“Well then,” I said. “Sir Cedrick. Exchange pants as well, and then please mount your carriage once more.”

The coachman got into the carriage, still glaring threateningly at my valet.

So then, I had nothing to do until three people had finished changing. I leaned against the carriage, looking over at The Fifth District. You could hardly see what was going on inside from here.

The buildings there crowded together, and none of the roads were wide enough for a carriage. There was no choice but to go on foot if you wanted to pass through.

Which was why I intended to leave both my carriage and my valet behind. If he knew what I was about to do, he was liable to try and stop me. Having to leave him behind here because he didn’t have any clothes was actually quite convenient. It seemed I was luckier than I’d thought.

Most of the events in the First Prince’s route had been completed, but there was still one more crucial point at the end.

Ambrose goes to The Fifth District to distribute food like normal, but encounters bandits and is kidnapped.

He’s carried off, and his chastity is in danger. If his favorability rating with the first prince isn’t high enough at that juncture, he’s gang raped by grubby thieves, but if his favorability is high enough, he manages to escape in the nick of time.

It’s a common storyline in BL.

I wanted to get myself involved in it.

It was actually quite convenient for me that Douglas’s escort today was Cedrick. This was the man Douglas had pointed out as his friend when he and I had watched the knights training yesterday.

He was one of the seme as well, Knight Cedrick, friend of Douglas, and close associate of the first prince. His appointment as Douglas’s guard may have been the concern of an older brother for a younger one. He was a capable knight, and he may have been more serious even than my valet. No doubt he would give Douglas priority over everything and defend him. There was something else too, but it would depend on Cedrick’s attitude, so I left it alone for now.

“Lord Ulysses.”

“Are you finished changing, My Lord Douglas?”

“I am. Is this alright?”

I would never say that the crude clothes suited him, but once changed, he did look quite common. No one would ever think he was a prince, covered in that shabby robe.

It ought to be a good enough fit for The Fifth District.

The other two finished changing their clothes immediately after, and got out of the carriage.

“Tristan, be a good boy and stay. You can do that, right?” I said to my valet, who was hiding his displeasure behind indifference, and started off towards The Fifth District with Douglas and Cedrick in tow.

We hadn’t been walking long when an unconcealable rotten odor reached my nose.

Trash and human waste littered the ground in the ruins of a collapsed building. The flapping wings of the insects gathering on the humans who were sleeping on the bare earth grated on my ears.

Every last person in The Fifth District had lifeless eyes.

“Please don’t goggle, you two.”

“Ah, sorry.”

Douglas wasn’t merely aristocracy, he was a member of the royal family. Neither one of them had probably ever had an opportunity to visit the slums. His voice was overflowing with unconcealable confusion.

My father had brought me with him since my age was in the single digits, so I wasn’t surprised anymore, but I’m sure I’d been shocked at the harsh conditions here when I first visited.

It’s a bit late to say it now, but what a worthless father he was, bringing a child to a place like this. Although, perhaps a person who so calculatedly purchased a slave shouldn’t be saying anything.

In a comparatively wide and spacious square, we found Ambrose.

Douglas let out a small shout when he spotted him. Recalling his former love, his expression distorted slightly in bitter pain. He probably wasn’t conscious of it, but his hands clutched at his chest, making wrinkles in his grimey robe.

Cedrick reached out to comfort him, but hesitated and eventually lowered his hand without ever touching the prince.

That must have been a complicated feeling, from where Cedrick stood. A friend to whom you harbor feelings towards as a lover and as a lord. He’s such an earnest person, it’s obvious which one he’d choose.

Which was why he hesitated to touch Douglas, thinking he wasn’t qualified to comfort him. A man bound by his social status and role should be all physique and very little emotions.

“By the way, Lord Ulysses, this kindness of his, as you called it, it’s going to teach me something?”

“Ah, it’s, uh…”

“Hush, Your Highness, Lord Ulysses. I apologize, but a little quieter please.”

Cedrick must have sensed something, because he looked around cautiously before stopping entirely.

“I heard something odd, I’m just going to check it out. Please don’t move from this spot, either of you.”

“Of course.”

Cedrick’s “something odd” was probably the aforementioned thieves. Certainly the still frame from the game had depicted a scene in which quite a number of people attacked Ambrose. Naturally, Ambrose had guards with him too, but there were so many thieves that the guards were defeated surprisingly quickly. I wondered at the time if having a guard would be alright, but now I quite appreciated it.

“Your Highness. I didn’t answer your question..”

“Wha? Oh.”

Douglas had turned to look anxiously at Cedrick, and was surprised at the abrupt return to conversation.

I quietly closed the distance between us so no one else would be able to hear our conversation.

I shifted the hood of my cloak just slightly and met his eyes.

“My answer is ‘that.’ “

I pointed directly at Ambrose.

He didn’t seem to understand my meaning. He frowned, confused, and prompted me to explain.

“His kindness. It’s ‘charity.’ “

“Charity?”

“Yes, he’s kind to everyone, compassionate regardless of rank or anything else.”

Ambrose was the protagonist of the game, gentle and filled with a sense of justice. His attempts to make himself suitable for the first prince were more or less calculating, but engaging in this kind of charity work now, his intentions were nothing but virtuous.

He genuinely wanted to help people who were suffering from starvation.

“Regardless of rank…”

Douglas muttered quietly, staring hard at Ambrose.

Suddenly a skinny, dirty man staggered up to Ambrose.

Ambrose offered him a cup of warm soup, without an ounce of disgust on his face. The man snatched the cup from him, and drained it like he’d come across an oasis in the middle of a desert. A small chopped vegetable or something must have gotten caught in the man’s throat, because he started coughing quite vigorously.

With a worried look on his face, Ambrose patted the man’s back. A bit of soup must have leaked from the corner of the man’s mouth, and Ambrose handed him a handkerchief from his pocket.

Several men who seemed to be Ambrose’s guards grimaced at the sequence of events.

“The same?”

Douglas muttered, a dumbfounded look on his face.

Was he saying they were the same? The same as people who live in the slums, people who can’t even be called proper citizens? The same as these dirty, grime-stained beings who lusted after soup? As these creatures the guards were all staring at as one would peer down at insects?

He’d muttered so quietly, it was hard to hear. He let out a sudden voiceless scream and tore at his hair like he’d gone mad. I saw my moment to speak.

“My Lord Douglas, please calm down. You’ll injure yourself like this.”

“Shut up, why did you bring me here! I didn’t want to know this! I– he–“

I reached out to him, but he shook me off before I could touch him. Douglas’s fingernails must have caught me, and I paid the price of a small cut on my wrist. It wasn’t a big wound, but it started bleeding, and Douglas’s face quickly paled.

“I… I…”

“I’m alright, please calm down. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

His head hung limply down, and I wrapped my arms around his back, patting him gently. Oddly enough, our pose was a lot like Ambrose’s earlier, but fortunately Douglas didn’t seem to notice that fact.

I gently rubbed his back like I was comforting a small child, and at last Douglas seemed to calm down.

“I used to like Ambrose.”

“I know.”

“He smiled so gently, even for someone as worthless as me.”

“Yeah.”

“I told him about a book I thought he’d like, and he smiled and thanked me. He secretly shared his sweets with me, he told me it was a secret because his manners were bad. He was always so bashful when he talked about Erik, and it was that happy smile that…”

— that made me like him.

“I liked the way he was in love with Erik. But for him, I was just one of many, wasn’t I.”

Tears spilled from Douglas’s eyes. I gently wiped his eyes with my thumb, and opened my mouth to say some words of comfort.

“What exactly is going on, Lord Ulysses.”

I was stopped, however, by a returning Cedrick.

My cheek was touching Douglas’s we were so close, and his face was damp with tears. No matter how I protested, one glance at this scene would convince anyone that I made him cry.

Cedrick’s chilly voice was as sharp as a needle, and his penetrating stare was colder than an icicle in Antarctica.

I meekly stepped back from Douglas, and turned to him with an affectionate smile.

But I didn’t have any affection left in my heart, so I had to use Ambrose’s smile as a model.

“You may not think much of yourself, Your Highness, but please remember there are people to whom you are important.”

“Important?”

“I’m sure you won’t believe it now, but one day you’ll understand.”

I glanced at Cedrick. I’m sure Douglas couldn’t understand the meaning of that stare. He turned to Cedrick and tilted his head in confusion. Cedrick on the other hand, seemed to have correctly deduced my intentions, and his eyes were filled with hard determination.

Serious, with a strong sense of responsibility, and a notion that the weak should be protected. He surely couldn’t be left alone to hurl himself at Douglas, whose self esteem was so low thanks to being raised from a position of weakness, who unconsciously demeaned himself.

“By the way, the something odd you noticed, it was nothing?”

“Yeah. It must have been my imagination, the only person there was some old beggar.”

“Alright then, it’s about time we headed–“

I was interrupted by a scream that sounded like tearing silk.

The men with the dirty hoods pulled low over their eyes must have been merely hiding somewhere, because swarms of them now slunked from the building’s shadows. They held differently-sized but uniformly sharp blades in their hands.

A thief attack, just as in the game’s storyline.

Everyone in the square was surprised by their sudden appearance. And with all these people milling around for Ambrose’s handouts, it was a disaster.

“Ah!”

I got swallowed up in the waves of fleeing residents, and was separated from Douglas. As the distance between us grew steadily larger, I managed to shout back to him and Cedrick.

“Sir Cedrick, protect Prince Douglas!”

“I will. What about you, Your Grace!”

“I’ll get away somehow, you two stay put!”

In all the chaos, I didn’t hear Cedrick’s reply, but I knew he’d protect Douglas to the end. He was the only seme who was a knight, and he was especially good with a sword.

Unlike the nameless supporting characters who were Ambrose’s guards, I couldn’t imagine Cedrick losing to mere bandits.

Rather than worrying about those two, I had to find Ambrose. Still bombarded by escaping residents, I looked around for him. Suddenly I detested his commonplace brown hair.

Where was he, where was he?

“Shit.”

“Stop, please!”

A young man’s clear tones overlapped with spat-out, abusive language. Looking towards where I’d heard the voices, Ambrose was hunched over one of his injured guards, trying to protect him.

“What the hell? Don’t get in our way, little boy.”

“Oi, look close though, ain’t he got a nice face? Take him with us too.”

A man who was already carrying an unconscious resident over his shoulder called out to his comrade. I could see a man standing behind Ambrose suddenly holding a giant sword aloft, and on the spur of the moment, I stepped in between them.

“Watch out!”

The hilt of the sword nailed me right in the back of the head. My vision started going black even before I felt any pain. Through the haze over my eyes, I could see Ambrose, his eyes open wide in surprise.