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“Young Master!” Alec rushes into the main study of the Sergeyev mansion. “There’s a—”
He abruptly stops, seeing the scene before him. The Sergeyev’s current successor, Konstantin Caesarovich Sergeyev, stands by the current Sergeyev’s Head’s desk, eyes intently staring at something on top of it. Alec can’t see it from where he’s standing, but he guesses it’s something more than enough to make someone like Konstantin stop.
Alec approaches the younger man, eyes on the desk, and finally realizes what it is. “...Young Master, what...?”
“Oh, good morning, Alec,” Konstantin glances up at him, a wan smile on his face. “Sorry. Didn’t notice you walking in.”
“G-good morning. And...that...” Alec trails off, his mind numbed still by that thing on the desk.
“Is something to be expected,” Konstantin finishes quietly. “Or was I the only one who did?”
Alec says nothing, unable to find the right words to say.
The first rays of summer sunshine gradually brighten the large room, ironically revealing how Attorney Jung’s passing affected them all.
The main family, especially.
Konstantin sighs, staring outside the large windows. “Among all of us who cherished Father,” he mutters, “it is the Tsar who would be hit most by his passing.”
“But to the point of...!”
Konstantin shakes his head slightly. “As I’ve said, it’s something to be expected.”
“Young Master...”
“Or maybe it’s because I can’t blame the Tsar at all,” Konstantin muses out loud after a moment. “Not even a bit.”
“What do you mean?”
Konstantin pauses, ambling towards the large window. In the sunlight, his emerald green eyes are not as bright as they used to be; murky, heavy, still tinted with the shadows of his grief.
“...when you’ve lived so long in a cold, bleak world, your heart—or whatever it is called—eventually tires of it,” he starts. “Deep inside, you seek something new. Something that isn’t cruel, isn’t harsh...isn’t painful. So the moment you get a taste of warmth, even for a short while...you’ll want for more.”
He sighs, leaning his head against the windowsill. For a short moment, Alec thinks he’s not looking at the Sergeyev successor, but a lamenting man openly baring himself in the sun.
“Father...was the sun the Tsar never thought he needed. An oasis. A sanctuary. A place where he knew he would be safe. A reason for him to live, not just to exist. The center of his whole life.”
He briefly glances at the Tsar’s desk. “And when Father passed...”
“...he saw no reason to stay,” Alec concludes, his voice strained.
He’d witnessed it, hadn’t he?
That afternoon in the hospital, when the Tsar couldn’t keep his emotions in bay, unaware of the tears trickling down on his face. During the wake, when the Tsar was nothing but a husk of a man he used to be, the light in his ice-gray eyes extinguished with his anguish.
And on the day of the funeral, when his gaze was focused on the lowering coffin, unaware of his own surroundings until the rain passed and the sunset’s rays pierced through the heavy clouds.
Alec had sensed this coming. Everyone saw this coming.
But for Caesar to disappear this way…
He glances at the young man before him, pale and tired still, but somehow standing strong.
Yet you’re here, Alec thinks. Yet you, the son who loves him more than anyone...
Konstantin’s smile turns wistful. “In his own cruel way, my old man loved Father. Cherished him. Kept him close by his side. When he passed away...in a sense, you could say, Father took away the last sane part of him.
“So much of his grief, he wanted to leave this very house that became my Father’s golden cage. Vanished into nowhere, with no intent to be found. Because what sense is there to live, when the center of your life, your reason to live, your safe place, your sanctuary...is gone?”
Alec walks closer to him, and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Konstantin...”
“Maybe, if I was still the same child from the North,” Konstantin remarks wryly, “I probably would’ve acted as the Tsar did. Worse, maybe. Haha, you might’ve started looking for a new successor right away the moment I acted up or something.”
“Yet you’re here,” Alec reminds him. “Standing strong, despite the grief.”
Up close, Alec can see the emotions clear in his emerald eyes. Alec knows those eyes will never be as bright as they once were anymore, deep sorrow dimming the sparkle in his eyes. However, the quiet strength and strong resilience remained within those eyes, painfully reminding Alec of the man who raised and loved Konstantin as his own son.
The man Alec had sworn to serve until his last breath, now finally resting in peace.
“The Tsar and I...never really had a good relationship,” Konstantin mumbles, mostly to himself. “Still, I just wish he’d left a note, at least. Like, while he never was a father to me…” he exhales, rather wearily, “it wouldn’t hurt to at least tell me a proper goodbye. It’s kinda like I’m...haha, orphaned again in less than a week.”
The hand on Konstantin’s shoulder tightened. “You still have us, Konstantin. Me, and your six crazy uncles. You know that, don’t you?”
Konstantin laughs out loud, a short burst of sound more of surprise than amusement. “Right. Crazy uncles. Crazy, mad, loyal uncles. What are you even doing here?”
Alec laughs with him.
Gently, slowly, Alec turns Konstantin’s body to face him. “You’ll do well, kid,” he reassures him. “The pain will remain, but it won’t hinder you.”
Konstantin smiles at him, relief somehow brightening his emerald eyes. “Yeah. Thanks, Alec.”
×
The bloody microchip on the Tsar’s desk—the Tsar’s last memory of him—is disposed of on the same day, never to be seen again.
×
And on that same day, in the first morning of the summer, the Sergeyev’s Reaper pours fresh vintage on new bottles, the old bottles harshly cleaved with his twin axes for spoiled wine to be spilled away.