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The leisurely breakfast in the Spades castle was interrupted by a slam of heavy papers on the spotless luxury desk that stretched from the front to the end of the banquet hall.
“You two are always rushing off on your own with various projects,” Jack Yao barked, his expression stormy. Perhaps it was due to the summer heat - meaning that all three of them were wearing casual yet Spades-branded shirts in various shades of blue and violet - or the fact that Alfred and Arthur, King and Queen of Spades, were shooting each other guilty glances. “So I figured that this would be the only time to ensure you’d read all this.”
“Well, that’s all right,” Arthur cleared his throat, sure he was looking as nonplussed as he felt. “I thought we covered this week’s events in the meeting on Sunday? If it’s a matter of national urgency, then would it not have been more pertinent to contact us before breakfast?”
He glanced over at Alfred, his King…and saw him munching on some hash browns, the left corner of his lip coated in ketchup. Suppressing a groan, and the urge to wipe it off, he turned back to Yao and his documents, the embellished blue-and-white stationery of the Spades kingdom a contrast to the dark mahogany of the table.
White Paper on the King and Queen’s Popularity, and Effect on Public Morale
“Whaf’s this?” Alfred swallowed his bite of hash brown. He looked at both Arthur and Yao’s faces, then wiped at his lips before repeating his question.
“I’ve been conducting an anonymous survey amongst the people,” Yao said, moving his and Arthur’s teacups to the side and pushing the papers into the center. “At least, for each canton, we’ve been collecting responses regarding this for a month. As part of a project to determine how we can increase morale for the people.”
Taking the third page from the top, Arthur cast a side eye at his dark haired colleague. “And what have they said about your impact on morale, hm?”
“Still conducting that survey,” Yao spoke as he removed the large blue binder clip at the top of the documents, distributing the papers to Alfred and Arthur. “However, preliminary results say nothing but positive things about His Excellency Jack Yao.”
“I suppose,” Arthur said, making no effort to keep the skepticism out of his voice.
“Though admittedly, it does help because I’m more visible with my current set of efforts, running the legislature and all,” Yao adjusted his belt as he shifted in his seat. “Your current committees won’t necessarily reach the people in terms of bearing fruit for a while. That, and I thought it would be good for the two of you to work on a project for once. The two of you don’t get that chance much.”
“Is it really that bad?” Alfred leafed through the pages. “I mean, there’s…yeah. It doesn’t seem that bad.”
“I wouldn’t say bad, just…points of improvement,” Yao replied. “Also, a few cantons set up a collection box for letters addressed to both of you, so that’ll be in our usual meeting room, behind the second whiteboard…at least, that’s where my butler has placed it I believe. Now,” he got up with a quiet thump of his palms, “I must take my leave. A school group has booked a tour at the Legislative Parlour, and I intend to show them around personally. Gentlemen.”
In a flash, he sauntered out of the room, leaving Alfred and Arthur with a huge stack of papers.
Alfred F. Jones was a peculiar young man. That thought had not changed in Arthur Kirkland’s mind from the day they were both crowned.
Spades over the years, like the other three kingdoms, had modernised; that was the long and short of it. Arthur remembered growing up in a household where the nearest phone was located down the nearby street; now most households had them thanks to a stipend that they had implemented by the second year of their crowning. While the pace of democratising their technology could not match the affluence of the Kingdom of Diamonds, Arthur would have liked to think they’d been doing a cracking job.
And yet, the path to becoming crowned was unchanged from the way it had been performed from the establishment of the Hoylian Authority and the beginning of Spades’s history, approximately four hundred and sixty years ago. One of the few traces magic still had on the New World. In the highest turret of the Spades castle, on the morning of the summer solstice, if the powers above had deemed a position of the royal trio - King, Queen and Jack - to be unfit to continue their duties, or if a member had gone to the private chapel within the turret to plead to be relieved of their duty, a name would appear in the water, lasting until the sun finally fell on the day. Yao came five years first, then Alfred and Arthur’s names had appeared in the water, together, three years ago.
Whatever that meant, Arthur was not sure. But he had remembered from reading the annals of Spades history that entire suits had appeared together as a trio, so it couldn’t mean anything. At least when it came to him and Alfred.
As the two of them went through the papers, Arthur could not help but watch his King. Alfred was the youngest of the three of them, twenty three to Arthur’s twenty seven, and behind closed doors, though he definitely acted more childishly, one could not parse the difference between him and Arthur maturity-wise when it came to ruling.
Yet Alfred was nothing more than a mere colleague, Arthur thought as he read through the next page of the report. After their dual coronation, they had an extensive laundry list of things they had to go through that their predecessors had left, and Arthur could tell both of their obsessive personalities would be stuck combing through the list before they could become deeply acquainted, and that was exactly what had happened.
It wasn’t as if Arthur wanted, nor hoped for anything other than that. The three of them being able to work together was a blessing that could not be taken for granted. Being able to work smoothly without much argument was good luck, he thought as he finished the fifth page, and began to reach into the box that Alfred had fetched from the meeting room.
“About the King,” Arthur murmured to himself. About to put it back into the box, Alfred paused him with a little tilt of his glasses. “Pardon?” Arthur raised a thick eyebrow. “It’s addressed to you.”
“It’s about me, not addressed to me,” Alfred’s tone was a slight tilt of smugness. “Hey, I wanna hear you read it.”
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Arthur pulled back his arm. “You can do your own reading, you know.”
Alfred only grinned. A slight bitter taste of anxiousness crawled into Arthur’s throat at the sight, but he brushed it away. Perhaps it was the wind, or the new violet velvet drapery they’d installed in the dining hall over the spring. With the amount of sunshine it absorbed through the summer, it would make sense.
“Ahem,” Arthur cleared his throat, using the untouched fork from the kitchen to unseal the letter. A litany of compliments: how charming the king was, how lovely his smile was, how cheerful and how happy the kingdom was to have a young king from an ordinary family…irritation pricked at his tongue, and so he continued on. “The note says: from his appearances, I believe that the King’s very attractive, and easy on the eyes..but I wish there was more going on up there…”
“Up there?” Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur could see Alfred ruffling his honey blond hair. “What’s he mean? Or she?”
“They mean,” Arthur responded dryly, “that you’re a bit daft.”
“Wh-what should I do to fix that, then?” Alfred spluttered.
The laughter that had replaced the nervousness in Arthur’s throat threatened to bubble to the surface. “Pursue a degree, perhaps?”
“That’ll take too long! And we need to increase visibility to the public,” Alfred reread the portion of the report that had been printed on the paper, “right now! Also, I’m a King!”
“And there’s three of us ruling, thank you very much,” Arthur said dryly. “Yao has a doctorate and I have a Masters.”
Alfred pouted. “I’m twenty three!”
Arthur narrowed his impressively thick eyebrows. “And is that my problem, pray tell?”
“Hey, if you can come save the Spades cattle industry like I am doing right now, maybe!” Still, Alfred’s barb was as harsh as a leaf in the wind, and Arthur found himself finally releasing the laugh that his body had been holding. “I’m doing great work, y’know!”
“Yes, I am very well aware of how you’ve been able to personally quadruple our imports on that front. Regardless, about the report, I-”
“I’ve noticed the work you’re doing to repair our dam infrastructure,” Alfred added quietly, practically out of the blue. “I mean. I used to live near a river, so I know that stuff’s important.”
Arthur tried to not gawk. Alfred knew about the sort of thing he was working on? Unlike his King and his prideful Jack, Arthur preferred to not parrot his achievements unless they were fully completed, which was something that his dam restoration project was not. So for Alfred to know meant that he had paid more attention than was necessary, despite his busy days.
“Oh, I, erm. Thank you.” Arthur cleared his throat. “Is there, how shall I say. What do you think of the report?”
“It’s not that bad, as Yao said,” Alfred said, hurriedly getting back to the paper, lifting it so high it covered his face partially for some reason. “Mostly some things about being more prominent and being able to appear at more events…but since we’re newer than Yao, morale and visibility are a problem for us in the way that it isn’t for him.”
“He’s on telly every week with the Legislative Parlour, so I believe it’s far easier for him,” Arthur sighed. “But I suppose he has a point. Seeing us regularly will help improve morale. How do you reckon we go about it?”
“I guess maybe more appearances? But that might seem more fake than anything, if we force it,” Alfred fished a letter out of the box, putting it next to his now empty coffee cup. “And there’s only so many photo opps and stuff that we can take with cows and dams. And meeting committees.”
Arthur rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He couldn't help but agree, even internally. It felt odd to agree so readily with Alfred like this, given that they barely had time together one-on-one, as their weekly meetings were with Yao - where he and Alfred usually clashed - and then the rest of the time working was spent with their personal teams. Perhaps such a meeting could be beneficial from time to time, one on one. After all, they’d entered this world of Spades together, in some way.
“I guess we should ask our fellow royals,” Alfred thought out loud. “Since Yao’s the one who conducted the survey, or at least he’d commissioned it. And I’m sure he’ll be happy to give us a scolding, heh. That’s his hobby.”
“Perhaps,” Arthur read the note about Alfred again, not noticing Alfred opening his own letter that he’d fished out from the box - about the Queen of Spades - and looking awfully jealous. “Whom shall we ask? The Kingdom of Clubs, perhaps?”
“I’m not talking to Ivan Ivanovich Braginsky!” Alfred cried, leaping to his feet. The rivalry between the King of Clubs and King of Spades had been there practically from the first day they had met at the seasonal conference hosted quarterly between the four kingdoms. “Hey! What about you and King Francis?”
Arthur scowled. “I will absolutely not speak to the frog for a breath longer than necessary. And there’s no valuable insight he can surely provide. Some pompous idea about love and ridiculous foppish uselessness…”
The two of them bickered lightly about their respective rivals, before they finally settled down at the obvious conclusion.
By the time the beautiful scarlet halls of Hearts had finished welcoming both the King and Queen of Spades for a diplomatic visit, Arthur was exhausted. And impatient. And bored. And plainly, rather cranky.
On the bright side, other than Jack Roderich of Clubs, the other person Arthur found it easiest to get along with was the Queen of Hearts, Kiku. Both were from similar backgrounds: sons of scholarly mothers and absent fathers, who had ascended at similar points of history, Kiku two years before Arthur. There were two points of difference rather than the obvious: one, that Kiku had a dog, and two, Kiku was married to and in love with his King.
Which was quite an odd concept. Intermarriages between royals when it came to rank were common, but between the classic pairing of king and queen, quite rare.
And so it was with these lens that Arthur asked Kiku about the matter of the report - he’d prepared a condensed version for both Queen Kiku and King Ludwig, who Arthur was certain Alfred would be approaching for advice right about now - and how Kiku had so quickly enjoyed a comfortable approval rate.
Kiku picked up his teacup; the two of them were seated in the Queen’s personal parlour.
“Well, there is the matter of marriage, like Ludwig and I. For the Hearts kingdom, who values these stories of love, it was a move that showed that us royal members believed in our shared values. I believe that marked a changing point, that is, our ceremony. But it is important to know why you wish to be married, Arthur. That is, Ludwig and I…”
“You two fell in love, didn’t you? After the two of you became King and Queen.” Arthur exhaled. “How is that something I’m meant to replicate with Alfred?”
He didn’t notice Kiku’s grip on his teacup, wobbling for a moment. “Ah…Arthur, that is, in reality, it’s-”
“I can’t engineer affection out of thin air for someone I barely know,” Arthur kneaded his palms into his sallow cheeks. “It’s just that, between preparing for all these Spades development conferences with His Excellency, running the Masthead and the Restoration Trust and Alfred championing the Spades cattle industry, we’ve just not had a lot of quality time together, so to speak. I suppose that that opportunity may have come along at the start, but now that we've settled into our duties, there is nothing to be done.”
Kiku opened his mouth to add something, but then wisely closed it.
“But the two of you came to Hearts quite successfully, I think,” he instead chose to pry further. “And you said that these letters that the citizens wrote for you were mostly compliments, yes?”
“And they say all sorts of things about Alfred. About his good character, good looks, turn of fortune, his dedication, work ethic, attractiveness and youth…” Arthur frowned as he listed off each attribute rapid-fire. “Blast it, I’ve said that already. But you understand what I mean. There’s…we have nothing in common between our work. And have scarcely any time to spend together, if…if that’ll lead to a stronger relationship. How did you and Ludwig decide to marry?”
“W-well, it was a matter of-”
“Forget- no, ignore me,” Arthur buried his face in his hands, careful to not dislodge his intricately decorated teacup. “You two are in love. It’s the natural move right afterwards. Luck of the draw.”
“It is not that simple,” Kiku offered. “Ludwig and I, it was an agreement that came naturally.”
“Did Feliciano support the idea?” Arthur said, mentioning the Jack of Hearts. While from his limited interactions, he knew that the Jack was flighty and timid, he knew that Feliciano had a heart of gold from what Yao had said. “Of you and Ludwig getting married.”
“Oh,” Kiku said. “Yes, it was part of his- no. It was part of our strategy as the Hearts kingdom. We thought that, because it would bring joy to the kingdom, it would be the right choice. However, it is not a solution everyone can come to, so please be careful.”
Arthur exhaled. “Alfred would never agree to such a solution. He’s the romantic sort. A hopeless romantic type. He’d be very likely to marry outside of the royal circle as is permitted, and for love, no less.”
“I see,” Kiku unfolded his hands, giving his colleague a pat on the shoulder. “Well, either way, I believe in yours and Spades’s ability to continue forward. If there is anything I or Ludwig or Feliciano can do for you in these three days, please do not feel hesitant to ask.”
“Thank you,” Arthur could only bow his head. A numb feeling of disappointment gnawed at where the warm tea was now sitting in his stomach, and it did not dissipate as he lay down for bed in his own private chambers. What would Alfred say?
And why did he, after reading all the sweet, caring words that the citizens had written about the King of Spades, realise he suddenly cared?
“The Queen of Spades has such a refined figure, such excellent manners, everything a queen needs! I admire him so much! If only we could see more of him!”
“Queen Arthur has done so much for the quality and speed of Spades journalism by leading the Masthead team…it’s amazing that he still finds time every week to write and edit a column. With the added budget and larger staff, it’s finally a newspaper worthy of being the national paper.”
“Queen Arthur should appear in a magazine because of his good looks…”
“Queen Arthur is amazing and so well read…”
“If Queen Arthur could be happily married someday, it would absolutely raise morale!”
In the same castle the next door over, King Ludwig and King Alfred were going through the box of letters that Alfred had brought over from Spades regarding the queen. Letter after letter of excited praise, and as the night and the words wore on, Ludwig could notice his companion making sourer and sourer faces.
“We can take a break,” Ludwig offered, to a noncommittal grunt from Alfred as he leafed through another letter. Ludwig tried again with a sterner tone. “Jones, a break is in order. It is late into the night.”
“But I came here with the idea of trying to get a good idea,” Alfred exclaimed. “And it’s just letter after letter about how amazing, cool, good looking, well-spoken, smart, put-together, lovely, super, and-”
“I get the point,” Ludwig tried to not wince. He was not interested in Alfred extolling the virtues of Queen Arthur - who from experience was a perfectly adequate man and ruler - and he did not appreciate hearing compliments that were supposedly from the people of Spades, and not from Alfred himself. “What I am trying to say is that there is no need to despair.”
“But you and Kiku got married out of love!” Alfred almost cracked the table with a defeated fist bump, if Ludwig had not come to the poor table’s rescue with a loud clear of his throat. “And I’ve wanted that for me and Arthur for so long, but there’s never enough time, and he clearly doesn’t love me or want anything to do with me outside of work, and with the whole morale and visibility thing Yao was tryna put us up to, it just reopened the old wound…”
Truth be told, Ludwig and Alfred had bonded quickly, both being young kings, and the fact that Ludwig was not Ivan Ivanovich Braginsky. Ludwig had hoped that Alfred’s youthful energy would rub off on him, and while someone else’s youthful energy had captured Ludwig’s heart entirely, Ludwig was now a bystander to Alfred’s three-years-long-held pining for the Queen of Spades. Which was very plainly obviously not onesided.
Initially, he’d thought that the Jack of Spades, as clever as he was, was using this so-called ‘survey’ to finally encourage the King and Queen of Spades to get together, or at least see the truth. Unfortunately, with the detailed methodology, professional field-gathering, extensive citations, terminology, and the scientific rigour of the report, Ludwig could only gather that this was a legitimate attempt.
“I don’t think His Excellency meant it that way. In the meantime, you and Arthur have had an extensive itinerary today, so you and he should rest. For more talks between us tomorrow. Feli will be arriving, so…”
Alfred’s weary gaze at least picked up a little at the news. “Neat, I’ve missed hanging out with him.” Then he paused. “Wait. Feli?”
“Yes, Feli.”
“As in…Feliciano Vargas, right? What happened to calling him Mr Vargas?”
Oh no. Ludwig felt himself go cold, even more than he was used to being. I didn’t know he could read the atmosphere nor understand it like that…if Kiku and I’s secret comes out so quickly, then-
“That’s not fair!” Alfred complained, much like a child. “I’ve been trying to get you to move on from Mr Jones that and Mr Jones this for years! We’re close, aren’t we? Just Alfred is fine! Just Alfred!”
The relief that flooded into Ludwig’s body was incomparable. “I’ll give it another thought after this mini-summit is over,” he said, fighting to keep his tone cool. “For now, I must ask you to go to bed.”
Thankfully, by the next morning, the arrival of the Jack of Hearts - returning from supervising the upcoming Hearts Homegrown Food and Wine Exhibition - lightened the mood around the four royals considerably.
“My, my, what a lovely surprise!” Though Feliciano was around Arthur’s age and the second oldest of the Hearts royals - older than Ludwig by three years - he had all the happiness that age had seemed to deprive adults of. He immediately went to hug Alfred, then with a bit of apprehension, hugged Arthur. “Both the Spades royals having holiday here! The sun is the best in Hearts, no?”
“We’re here on business, Feli,” Alfred was the only one out of the four that still had the energy to match Feliciano’s enthusiasm. “But I’m glad that we could still catch ya.”
“Oh? Business? Yes, yes, I’ve just come back from the exhibition, so it’s the right season for business too!” Feliciano beamed. “OK! What is it that we can do for you, Alfie?”
As the five of them walked back into the palace, Feliciano taking the time to hug all three of the welcoming staff that had been assigned to the entryway, Arthur filled him in on Yao’s report and the suggestions that had been made to help Alfred and Arthur’s popularity, and the people’s morale. Naturally, he did not mention the conversation he had with Kiku, not knowing that Ludwig and Kiku - sharing a knowing glance as they walked behind Alfred and Arthur - were wisely keeping silent also.
“So, that is to say, Feliciano, erm. Would you have any ideas?” Arthur tried to keep his tone as light as possible, despite the fact that at the back of his head, he was certain that the Jack would probably spout something about good food and exports, especially because he’d just come back from the Exhibition.
“Oh?” Feliciano paused from where he’d been skipping into the conference room. “You are asking me?”
Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Naturally.”
“Why, it must be a marriage!” Feliciano chirped, making the four of them freeze. “Ludwig, isn’t that what you and Kiku did~? But even if it turned out to be a bit complicated, it was a great success, and it is not really a problem even with our love, and I don’t mind, so it’s really fine, I think it could-”
“Wait wait wait, wait a sec,” Alfred held up his hands, ungloved for the summer. He leaned against the nearest chair as Kiku hurriedly went to close the door. “Love? Our love?”
“Ah!” The Jack of Hearts turned into a tomato. “No, it is, I mean, so sorry, it is, don’t get mad at me, Ludi, it would be, ah…!”
The King and Queen of Hearts exchanged a panicked look, before Kiku shook his head, his footsteps a staccato as he rushed to comfort his colleague.
“It is okay, Feli,” he petted the Jack’s auburn hair. “We were attempting to tell the King and Queen of Spades already.”
“Pardon, what exactly is going on? Between,” Arthur drew a line with his finger between Feliciano and Kiku, then with Ludwig, before he gave up, “all of you.”
“But aren’t you and…I mean, Ludwig and Kiku are married, right?” Alfred leaned harder against the chair. “Because they’re in love? Is it a situation with all three of you?”
Ludwig and Kiku exchanged a glance.
Clearing his throat, Ludwig went first. “Well, as the marriage occurred before Feliciano came onto the throne, the previous Jack of Hearts recommended we take a romantic angle, as we are the kingdom of love, but in the end…”
“So you’re not in love? You and Kiku?”
“It was what I was trying to explain with our discussion last night,” Kiku pulled at the hem of his shirt in discomfort. “After Feliciano became Jack of Hearts, he and Ludwig were together, but it would impact the kingdom’s reputation, as well as cause discomfort to our citizens, we believe. Ludwig and I have decided to quietly dissolve the marriage at some point.”
Alfred cleared his throat awkwardly. “Is it just us two that don’t know?”
“We’ve told the other kings,” Ludwig said, then after a moment, added, “and Elizabeta. But we don’t think the others need to know just now.”
“But you and Arthur are, right?” Feliciano piped up gingerly. “I mean, the two of you must be very close, and when you’re at state dinners with us and everyone, you’re always together! And Alfred gets annoyed when you’re not with him, and he stares…”
“That is what the job necessitates…” Arthur began to say, yet something in his throat stopped at what Feliciano was saying. Come to think of it, he and Alfred were always together, at events. Yao was the social butterfly between the three of them; other than Arthur exchanging snipes with Francis and Alfred picking fights with Ivan, they hadn’t been particularly interested in moving away from their safe duo. At the very least, on Arthur’s end, he could now recall a restlessness that came with having to leave his King’s side. Did Alfred feel the same?
But even if he did, surely it did not mean love, could it?
Instinctively, Arthur turned on his heel to search for Alfred’s blue eyes. His King’s gaze flickered up to his as if guided by a cue in invisible music, and Arthur could hear Alfred’s breath catch in his throat.
“We will give you two some privacy,” Kiku said quickly, taking Feliciano’s hand and gesturing fiercely to Ludwig to leave the room. Between that, the revelation that the King and Queen of Hearts were not in fact in love, and the abrupt stillness in Alfred’s broad shoulders, Arthur could barely process all of these rapid developments.
Before long, it was just him and Alfred in the room, utterly and completely alone.
Alfred stepped forward, clearing his throat. “I guess we should talk.”
“I didn’t…expect any of this,” Arthur found himself saying. Alfred had closed the distance, not by much, and he had to tilt his head upwards to close the height difference between them. “I suppose- whatever Feliciano said, about the staring, is it true?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess.”
Despite the strange atmosphere, Arthur snorted at such a careless remark. “Can you put some more effort into your answers? Especially at a critical juncture?”
Alfred’s jaw tightened, yet from the way he crossed his legs, then stuffed a hand in his pocket, it made Arthur realise how easily he could read his King. The youthful fiddling nervous tell he had, the hint of a dimple in his mouth as he shifted his jaw, the restlessness in his eyes when he looked at Arthur.
“Is what Feliciano said, true?” Arthur moved forward, his hand trailing the backs of the ornate chairs of the conference room. “That you stare.”
Alfred swallowed before he responded. “Maybe. Not…not in a creepy way, though. It’s just that, you’re my queen, y’know. So I thought it was a natural thing to do.”
“There’s a difference between staring, and…never mind.” Arthur sucked in a breath.
“So, what about the Jack’s suggestion? What do you think? About it, I mean.” Alfred stuffed his right hand deeper into his pocket. “Getting married.”
Arthur’s green gaze flew to his own immaculate oxfords and to Alfred’s. “Getting married? Now?”
“Ludwig and Kiku said they weren’t in love when they got married, and they said that it worked out fine for them, and their popularity has gotten better, I believe that-”
“I doubt it’ll come out too neatly in the press if they’re unable to time the reveal cleanly,” Arthur retorted. “I don’t want that sort of purely transactional, sanitised push. It’s a waste for a morale boost-”
Alfred folded his arms, repositioning the way he leaned on the back of his chair. “I don’t want that for us either.”
“Then we’re settled.” Arthur felt his chest tighten, a knotted rope that had bloomed in between his bones, just until Alfred spoke.
“We can do better, can’t we?”
The Queen of Spades’s head jerked up, and the two of them made eye contact once more. Arthur hadn’t truly observed Alfred’s face until now, and to see it in its flustered glory: softer, pink cheeks highlighting the ends of his blue eyes. Do better? With that face? All the compliments that Arthur had read about Alfred came flooding back, and with a shiver that coincided with Alfred stepping closer, he realised-
“Raising morale for the people is important,” his voice had fallen to a gentle quiet. “But I want you to think of you and me. Not…I mean, uh. Not married, yeah, but closer. I read a lot of things about you, how much the people adore you, want to see you happy…”
“I have as well. And I suppose,” Arthur looked away, “I suppose there is some merit to those claims.”
“So, could you?” There was a hitch in the usually brash and confident King of Spades’s voice. “That is, uh…think of us? Like that? Not like Ludwig and Kiku because of what we know now, but something a bit more real. Like Elizabeta and Roderich. I think.”
Arthur scoffed. “I believe they’ve shot a whole television special about how they came to marry. There’s no need to worry on that front. “
About to continue with another presumably lacking in humour barb, it was then that Arthur’s brain was able to hit him with the sincerity that had been buried in Alfred’s words. Between the slight tripping over words and the nervousness in his delivery, there was an honesty, a sweetness that Arthur did not come to expect from his colleague. The taste of realisation was the same as the moment Arthur realised that the irritation from before had been some sensation of jealousy.
“It’ll have to be quite a bit of effort,” Arthur exhaled after he spoke. “And we’ll have to…arrange our timetables so that we’ll be able to spend more time together. I feel as if I scarcely know you.”
With a shift in his steps, Alfred’s hand moved to take Arthur’s, the bare skin interlacing with each other, and Arthur felt his breath catch. The warmth of Alfred’s hand, uncovered without his glove, felt almost like forbidden fruit. Had he clasped him to his hand before like this, kept him close?
Then Alfred knelt slightly, lifting the back of Arthur’s hand to his lips. With a tender shift of his eyelashes, he kissed it.
“I’ll make sure we will.”
Though Jack Yao watched with disbelief and a slight touch of envy when their approval rates skyrocketed practically overnight following the lavish royal wedding, a year later, Alfred lived up to his promise when the King and Queen of Spades were married in a total love match.