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Sylvain notices that his hands are always a little shakier at the sight of a certain individual, a face that has painted his childhood with hazy silvers and deep blues. He hates the feeling.
This individual, he thinks, shares many similarities with a grumpy cat - its brow always furrowed, spending its free time fighting with other cats to train and be a stronger one, scowling, hissing, sharpening its claws.
But since he’s known this cat for so long, he’s found many ways to look past its constant distaste for people, and has grown incredibly fond of it over the years. Spending lots of time with cats does change a person significantly, after all.
He’s been by this cat’s side since childhood, from the kitten he once knew to the cat now at the monastery, with longer, unruly hair tied messily into a wispy bun.
It’s as if Sylvain felt like the owner of this cat, sometimes - but why would this cat choose him, anyway?
The thought of being chosen makes him sick. It’s not a foreign feeling to him, being chosen to be the heir of the Gautier Family, to be chosen to hold a responsibility more than his constantly lovesick heart can bear - but having a choice that is within his control? That’s what makes him nauseous.
Someone else choosing me? Not because of my Crest, or my status, or my looks? Because of who I am? Me? Someone who truly knows me? Someone I can’t lie to? Someone who sees through me? No, no way. That’s scary. I’m gonna be sick.
Sometimes I wonder why he’d be friends with someone like me. Why? Why would he do that? Everyone knows the rumours about me, but… I can’t help but say that some of them are true…
But when this clawing cat enters his mind, with his tight-lipped expressions and distasteful hisses - it feels as if this creature tries to claw its way under his skin.
Like a sly fox, he keeps his cunning tricks up his sleeve, keenly observing rabbits before pouncing upon them with a sort of blood-lust - he resorts to what he knows best.
He preys.
Leaving traces of his fur tangled with his troubles upon foreign bed sheets through fleeting touches, caresses, embraces, he buries them beneath temporary distractions, so he doesn’t have to think about them - not for now. The shards of broken hearts follow his trail as he leaves his ginger piles on pure white sheets, but he’s done this a number of times - cleaning up the mess is no issue to him. It should be. But it isn’t.
Escaping responsibility is easy, he thinks, but he knows it’s a constricting thing.
He knows that producing an heir is an inevitability as the sole Crest bearer of the Gautier family, and that he's meant to find a suitable partner that's willing to put up with him. He's never cared too much, and has taken advantage of his father's words - using it almost as a free pass to break hearts, without thinking of the damage it causes, both to other people and himself. Ingrid says he should care. He doesn't, and continues to prey anyway. A fox can’t remain hungry, after all.
He hates feeling culpable for his actions, but he knows he should. He'll have to settle down with one of these rabbits eventually - whether it’s one who he loves, or one that loves him, or one that only wants him for his Crest, his money, his title, his body - it matters little to him.
Yet years of playing with this cat have caused feelings deeper than friendship to blossom within him - and the mere thought of being chosen again brings bile to his throat.
He has spent years chasing after rabbits, not realising that a fox could feel far more satiated by the genuine company and love of one particular cat than by any meal.
He slowly begins to dream - not only of playing catch and watching its tail flick up and down in the wind, but of being able to show his affection to this cat he sees: to stroke its fur and bathe it, lick its wounds, kiss behind its ears, nuzzle it with love.
Gods, my head’s spinning. This is making me feel off.
Despite the way it makes him feel, he imagines the thought of this cat looking at him with a particular type of longing, one shrouded in stubbornness and denial - a look he knows far too well. He wishes for this cat to hook its tail around his leg, curl into his lap, knead an entire bakery's worth of bread on his pillows.
He wants to throw up.
Really? Come on, you’re outta your mind. He has his own mind made up, probably. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lord Rodrigue would be looking for someone for him, or if he already has someone and he’s just too afraid to mention it-
Alone in his room, knees up to his chest, his back to the door and his head in his hands, he begins to panic.
There's no point in me liking him. It's wrong anyway - it's not right. Liking him won't help me produce an heir, won't help my family in any way. It's pointless. Loving a guy? What would be the point in that? I can't handle this…
He mumbles, tears beginning to fall down his cheeks, dampening his sore knees. He wants to vomit all the butterflies in his stomach out in a pile of ugly green against the lacquered floorboards.
But a familiar scratch on his door breaks the silence. A strong paw hits once, twice, a third time, before peeking its head into the door.
"You're not acting normal today," the cat's hushed voice rings out, booming in Sylvain's ears.
Felix was the last person he'd wanted to see right now. Suddenly, he's felt like he's developed an allergy to cats, sneezing and playing it off as sickness to shoo the cat away, where in reality, it was just the summer pollen creeping through the window.
Sylvain was a terrible liar. And this cat, blue and terribly messy, having stuck by his side since the cat was a kitten, knew that all too well. An allergy? Really?
Maybe some cats were impossible to get rid of, no matter how much fish you fed them, how often you shooed them away, or how many times you misted them with water. Some would always find their way back to you.
Perhaps Sylvain could tolerate the sneezing.