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“After all, it’s almost like fate is pushing you and Crow together. It fills my imagination with… thoughts,” Alfin muses dreamily.
“Just a word to the wise…” Rean says, hiding the way his heart hammers in what totally isn’t dissent as his world doesn’t tilt off his axis, “guys aren’t too hot about being paired up with their male friends when they don’t lean that way”.
Alfin chuckles with a degree of amusement Rean doesn’t feel the situation warrants, as if she knows something he doesn’t. “Well, like it or not, I consider myself fully invested in this little battle of wills now. So I intend to stay with you and see how it all pans out.”
“You’re welcome to stay aboard, Your Highness, wherever this journey might lead,” Rean answers, grateful they’ve moved to a less insane topic of conversation.
Alfin puts her Blade deck away and settles back in with a book, and Rean follows suit but the words blur into fuzzy splotches on the page before he can read them, thanks in large part to Alfin’s remarks running through his head.
What a ridiculous thing for her to think. Crow is Rean’s friend, his best friend, and he’s so clearly hurting right now. He talked about his past like it had happened to someone else, and Rean can’t help but wonder how true that might be--how much of the boy he’d been is left after the world’s cruelty ripped him to shreds and rebuilt him with rage.
Those are all totally normal things to think about your friend. Any guy would chase his best bud across the eastern half of the country to bring him back to their side even if that person had betrayed them all, wouldn’t they?
It’s totally not weird, and it’s not like that! Rean’s not like that!
He isn’t.
Is he?
The question shouldn’t shake him as much as it does. Obviously, he knows sexuality is a spectrum, and it hits him harder than the blow from Ordine that sent him into a month-long coma that Rean has never actually given much thought to where he falls on that line.
Between his chronic fear of going feral and killing everyone he loves and searching for ways to sacrifice himself in hopes that it might give his worthless existence meaning, he hasn’t really had the mental space to think about romance.
He’s been told that girls like him. Crow especially loves to harp on that, but Rean dismisses it with mild irritation each time the subject comes up because Rean doesn’t see it and even if Crow is right, Rean’s not interested in any of them like that.
So what if he sees the girls in Class VII as sisters rather than romantic partners? That doesn’t mean he’s not interested in girls, period.
He knows he finds them beautiful, but it’s more like appreciating a piece of art than “holy shit, I want her”, and reflects with horror on how he couldn’t focus during his study session with Emma not because he wanted to touch her chest, but because he couldn’t stop wondering if having one as big as hers was uncomfortable and whether or not it caused her back pain.
Rean hyperventilates behind the pages of his book and luckily, the princess is so engrossed in whatever she’s reading, she doesn’t notice. She gives a dreamy, romantic sigh as she reads, oblivious to Rean’s existential crisis.
Okay, so maybe Rean’s not totally into girls. Nothing wrong with that. It’s cool. No big deal. Not like he’s going to be a failure to his family in yet another aspect and bring further shame to the Schwarzer name by adding “gay” to the “filthy, adopted, commoner trash” moniker he’s garnered.
On the bright side, people will still probably be way more outraged by the “commoner” part than the “gay” one, so really, nothing about his public perception will change. They’ll just have one more stone they can throw his way.
Is he really… gay, though? Sure, his male friends are attractive in the same way the girls are, but it’s not like he’s stayed up late in his dorm getting off to thoughts of anyone except Crow, so it’s not—
His brain plows through an intersection and ricochets between at least six different vehicles before exploding in a devastating fireball that scorches three city blocks.
He thinks he can hear the metaphorical women and children screaming in agony.
He’s done such a good job burying that thought he’d managed to consciously ignore its existence, and now it leaps out at him like an eager golden retriever from a pile of autumn leaves desperate for attention.
Well, so what if he’s had some… wayward thoughts about Crow? He’s always flirting and making suggestive remarks, so who could blame Rean’s horny brain for going there? Horny people make bad decisions—it’s science! It’s only natural that the guy making comments like that would creep into Rean’s head when his hormones stir. It’s not like Rean does it deliberately! And besides, he’s closest to Crow, so it makes sense that Rean would wonder how his hands or mouth would feel—oh no. No.
Rean fists his hair and makes a small sound of abject distress, and terror seizes him when Alfin turns her head and her face tenses in concern.
“Oh Rean,” she starts, her gentle voice so full of warmth and tender regard it only compounds Rean’s terror, “are you all right?”
“Oh, me? Y-Yeah. Of course!” he stammers, then forces the rest cheerfully. Or, it’s supposed to be cheerful.
Alfin’s increasingly worried expression tells him he failed spectacularly.
“It’s the book,” he tries desperately. “It surprised me. That’s all.”
The princess raises a blonde eyebrow in obvious skepticism. “Is that why you’re holding it upside-down?”
“I dropped it in my lap,” Rean tries, like it’s not the flimsiest excuse he’s ever used. “Wasn’t paying attention when I picked it up.”
Oh Goddess, what has he done now? Why does she look amused of all things?
“Ah,” she replies. “It seems the Orbal Revolution is not for the faint-of-heart.”
Rean glances down at the book in his lap and dies a little when he sees The Orbal Age: The Price of Advancement staring back at him innocently.
This is not happening. Rean is not here and this isn’t happening. He’s going to wake up in his bed back at Thors and find these last few months will have all been a dream and his alarm hasn’t gone off and he’s late for class.
Her face turns sympathetic. “I just worry about you, Rean. We all do. Even Crow. Especially him.”
He searches for signs of mockery or teasing, but he sees only unspoken understanding.
“Before, you asked why I like that genre so much,” she continues. “I think it’s perhaps because all love is beautiful, no matter who it’s between, and the love between two men or two women so frequently goes unacknowledged, as though it’s somehow less real despite being just as valid. And some people have certain… let us call them ‘obligations’, like nobility or perhaps, royalty," she pauses meaningfully, "that prevent them from being able to love the way they’d like to. And that genre lets them escape for a while.”
Rean was never good at reading between the lines, but even he understands Alfin’s subtext.
“Some people, eh, Your Highness?” he asks with a small smile, somehow relieved despite still feeling as though he’s been thoroughly bludgeoned by a Soldat.
She nods, her smile clandestine and small and promising silence, and Rean returns the unspoken contract with a nod.
Alfin yawns, bringing a delicate hand to cover her mouth. “My, look how late it’s gotten,” she says, glancing at the clock on the wall.
Rean turns in the same direction and yeah, she’s right. Time sure flies when you’re having a nervous breakdown.
Rean knows even less about himself than he did that morning and he’s not sure about any of it quite yet, but one thing he does know for sure is that he needs to get Crow back now more than ever.