Chapter Text
“But we’re both men!”
I’ve been saying that to so many people so many times that even I’m getting tired of it. It’s what I say whenever Wolfram demands that we get married due to whatever circumstances we happen to find ourselves in, it’s what I say to Gunter whenever he starts to glare at Wolf suspiciously, it’s my one and only excuse whenever Celi starts planning our imaginary wedding without my consent.
Heck, I’ve even had to say that to Gwendal, when he asked me to tell him ahead before going off for my honeymoon leave!
“The problem is, no one seems to listen!”
I throw my hands into the air in exasperation, and Murata ducks away just in time to avoid having his glasses batted off his face.
“You know, Shibuya, maybe that’s because it’s not as valid a point as you think it is.”
I stare at him. “Murata, don’t tell me you--”
“Not me, but my predecessors. I can tell you personally that when they say one in every four men is gay, they have their facts pretty straight. No pun intended.”
I suppress a shudder. I had enough of bad puns from Conrad, if Murata started…
“In fact, even the very first--”
“Wait, stop!” I clap my hands over his mouth in a hurry. “Haven’t you heard of ‘too much information’? I don’t need my image of the Great Sage twisted any further, thank you!”
Murata rolls his eyes at me, but as soon as I take my hands away from his face, he continues, ‘—Even the very first Demon King had dubious intentions. The ancestor of my soul felt an odd gaze on himself more than once.”
So it was Shinou… no wonder Gunter said that he became a shut-in as soon as the Great Wise One left for earth… *
I will never look at the founder of my country the same way again.
“Ancient history aside, I thought you of all people would be more liberal in your ideals. Aren’t you trying to modernize the Shin Makoku as fast as you can? By building schools and making education compulsory and all that.* Well, if there’s one thing this world understood faster than ours, it’s the matters of the heart.”
“B-but…” I ruffle my hair in frustration. “We’re both men! Every time Gwendal looks at me suspiciously, or Gunter starts chewing his handkerchief... I mean, what can we even do?!”
A long pause.
“Shibuya…” I never heard my advisor sound so… strangled before. “Are you telling me you don’t know… about that?”
“About--” Blood rises into my cheeks. “Of course I know! For goodness’ sake, I’m a perfectly healthy 17-year-old boy! I’ve—I’ve known for a long time!”
Although how long exactly I’m not going to tell. It wasn’t really an incident to be proud of.
“Nii-chan? What are you looking at?”
“Y-Yuu-chan! Urk… it’s nothing, nothing at all! Aren’t you supposed to be at practice?”
“It’s raining, practice got cancelled. Nii-chan, why is that girl--?”
“……”
“Nii-chan?”
“…Yuu-chan, come here. It’s time we had a talk… but no telling Mom, okay?”
I was twelve at the time.
“It’s because that I know all about it that I don’t understand. It’s something we can only do with people of the opposite gender, right? So--”
He doesn’t let me continue. Looking uncharacteristically solemn through his glasses, he puts both hands on my shoulders and sits me down on the garden bench. “Shibuya—Your Majesty. Sit right here for a while, won’t you? I’ll be back in a jiff.”
“Eh? …Okay.” There isn’t much point in saying anything else, seeing as he is already gone.
Apparently, Murata’s definition of ‘jiff’ is just a little over five minutes. I counted.
“Here.” Expression unreadable, he drops two very different books into my lap. One is a thick leather-bound volume that wouldn’t look out of place in Gunter’s bookshelf, and the other—
“M-Murata…” I hold up what I recognize as ‘a forbidden object’ to the boys back in Japan. “W-why do you have this…?”
“It fell into my bag,” he replies with a remarkably straight face. “I was curious, so I read it.”
“M-M-Murata…” I wave my hands in front of his eyes frantically. “Quick, how many fingers am I holding up?!”
“I hate it when people do that.” He sighs theatrically. “Shibuya, don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a book, you don’t actually go blind reading things like that.”
Well, that’s not what Shori said…
“Your brother is an overprotective idiot.”
Point taken.
Still, when I look at the cover of the thin manga volume with two –men? probably?—holding hands, I can’t help but wonder what could be so damaging to the eyes. They say once it’s seen, it can never be unseen…
“You really don’t know.” Murata pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, eyes glinting. “I almost feel sorry for Lord von Bielefelt.”
I saw it. And now I’m seeing it everywhere.
No wonder it’s forbidden. It was one thing looking at girls… to look at other guys and know that I could actually… they could actually…
All of a sudden, I’m extremely glad that Mom managed to convince me to leave my hair long. My neck must have been burning redder than Anissina’s hair.
I had noticed from my very first day in this world that there are an awful lot of ridiculously good-looking guys here. Gunter with his long silver hair and impeccable grace, Gwendal with his air of authority, even Yozak with those enviable guns…
I turn my face away from every one of them. It was one thing to look at guys and know that they could… but why do I keep imagining myself at the bottom?!
“Damn you, Murata…”
Each image that pops up in my mind sends a wave of nausea down my stomach. Wrong, wrong, this is all so wrong! No wonder Wolfram keeps accusing me of cheating… But never mind, it’s just a phase, right? I’m imagining things because the impact was too great, but I’ll get over it. Most importantly, the way I’m reacting, the disgust and awkwardness and… it all just means that I’m straight, after all. Probably. No, of course it does…
“Your Majesty?”
“Call me Yuuri, Godf--”
The moment I meet Conrad’s eyes, brown flecked with silver, I freeze. No, no, no…
But the images appear in my mind anyway.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaah--!”
“Your Ma—Yuuri!”
My godfather, he’s my godfather, dammit! That stupid book, these stupid thoughts! This—I’m going to hell for this, I know it!
Even though I’m already the Demon King, so I’ll probably be going to hell anyway… but is there even a hell for demons?
Amazing how the human (?) mind works. By the time I got back to my chambers, I’ve managed to clear my head by thinking about anything but—Okay, no going there.
Damn you, Murata.
It’s dark in the room, and I undress mechanically, feeling more drained than I did the first time I used magic. The day couldn’t have passed by fast enough.
I sigh to myself as I roll into bed. What I really need is a good night’s sleep, and—
I turn to my left, and find myself looking into the most beautiful face in the world.
Instinctively, I clap my hand to my mouth and nose to stop myself from screaming. Wolfram is so going to kill me! If he knows the things that have been running through my mind all day, he would—he would--!
…What would he do?
Cancel our engagement? Call me a wimp? Throw fireballs at me? All of the above?
I’ll never know, because he can’t read my mind. He won’t find out, he’ll never yell at me or threaten me or…
So why do I feel so guilty?
That’s the other feeling that had been dogging me the whole day. Besides the embarrassment and the awkwardness and the disgust, I’ve been feeling guilty. Because a voice deep down keeps telling me that I shouldn’t be looking at anyone else, a voice that sounds awfully like my haughty fiancé over there…
I caress his cheek before I even know what I’m doing. His skin is soft, as soft as silk, and though his golden brows gather a little at the annoyance, I know he won’t wake. Looking at him, being so close to him, the images race through my mind again. But instead of feeling disgusted, I feel… like I’ve come home.
Oh. So that’s what they thought we would be doing.
And that’s it. It’s as though I finally found the last piece of the puzzle, and now I know what our relationship really looks like. More than just friends, but now I know exactly how much. So this strange feeling I’ve been feeling… this is attraction? Not the same attraction I feel for girls, but just as strong, if not stronger. Not the perverse ideas my crazed mind has been conjuring up all day either.
This feeling… is only for Wolfram.
I push a lock of golden hair away from his eyes, pull his nightdress back to cover his thighs, and force myself to take a cold shower.