Chapter Text
Javier never pegged himself a scholar, but neither had he pegged himself a henchman, a manual laborer, and “heavy machinery” as his master occasionally called him. Ever since being made to work like a dog doing various ludicrous tasks under Master Lloyd’s command, Javier had since been forced to realize that he had many uses. In his master’s narrow, profit-oriented mind, apparently it was for cutting uniform twenty foot segments of steel to make rebar.
Going a little further and with a little more ambition, Javier set to work on the other problems his master didn’t care to pay any mind. Research. On the nature of Kim Suho’s transmigrating here.
Digging through ancient texts with a rough dictionary or local guide on hand, Javier scoured through texts and acquired more than a few tongues in his quest to help his master. It was something of a useless endeavor since it became clear that no matter how many rare books Javier ordered to the estate or borrowed from Queen Alicia, there was absolutely zero mention of anything like Lloyd’s case. Despite that, Javier kept working at it.
He didn’t have many hobbies to occupy him besides. Sword training no longer held its physical purpose at his level, and he only engaged it as a form of meditation. Master Lloyd had no time whatsoever to do any of this time-consuming and often fruitless pursuits while Javier now had nothing but time. It was easy enough to sneak off while Lloyd was busy organizing new branch locations for the merfolk saunas, advising on centaur legislature concerning racing, or mumbling to some kind of “messenger” or “butt of winter” over his latest designs.
But maybe at the end of it, Javier just despised being idle. Something about watching his master work himself to exhaustion in the fires of white-hot ambition made Javier feel some of that flame himself. That was why, when they returned to the county to find another location for the Jewel of Truth, Javier placed a bottle on the table between them.
“Wh’assat?” Lloyd was glanced up over Sir Bayern’s reports and put down his cup of coffee. It was made into an unshapely, ugly piece of chinaware that more resembled a stein of beer. But it was functional and sturdy even if it was ugly. It much reminded Javier of his master.
“Why don’t you speak properly, Master Lloyd?” Javier sipped from his cup and blend, both of which were gifts from Master Julian and Lady Scherazade. The tea was stronger than Magentano blends, sweeter and stronger with elusive swirls of unknown herbal notes beneath.
“What abomination are you showing me this early in the morning?” He grabbed the little vial of violet-tinted glass, outlined and embellished with miniature flourishes of silver. The dark liquid within was thick, almost sludgy. “Is this meant to be poison? Did you catch some assassin or something?”
“It’s a gift.”
“Oh,” he replied, surprised into a candid response. His fingers wrapped around it, shifting as if they didn’t know how to hold it. “Uh, thanks.”
They both looked anywhere but at each other, each of them seeming to take a breather from the notion of gifts in their kind of relationship.
Lloyd cleared his throat and tossed his report aside, setting his hands on his thighs and splaying his elbows out in an unflattering, old-man-like pose. “So, why’d you bring me a vial of mud?”
Javier resisted the urge to turn up his nose at him and focused on the infinitely more elegant Kalaska blossom blend from the Sultan’s royal gardens. “It’s a potion. It’s said to restore pieces of your true essence, and I believe it will improve your health and stamina.”
“Wh’assat?”
“Speak properly.”
“What do you mean my true essence? How do you know that it improves my health?” Lloyd furrowed his brows, shaking the liquid around in the vial before carefully setting it down. Then, a crooked grin spread across his face, slow as the sludge slowly dripping down to the bottom of the vial. “Oh, Javier. I believe that whoever gave you this snake oil swindled you. You know, it’s not safe for you to believe just anything, even if they promise you all sorts of—”
“I made it myself.”
“Oh.” Another candid response. He scratched the back of his neck in an awkward grimace, finding this every bit as uncomfortable as Javier. “What do you mean you made this yourself? And—true essence?”
“I enlisted Siluria’s help.”
“What?” Lloyd blinked at him a few times. “So—wait, when did this happen?”
Javier raised a brow. “Whenever I had the chance to see her in-person, either in Cremo or the capital.”
“Hold on, so all your sneaky little midnight dates—”
“Pardon me?”
“—were they actually dates or were you just putting her to work an alchemy lab?” Lloyd stood up, jostling his mug.
Javier blandly stared up at him. “Siluria and I have nothing but a strictly professional relationship. All of my correspondence with and from her reflect that, so I am not sure where you draw the conclusion that she and I are romantically involved.”
“Oh, you sick son of a bitch,” Lloyd groaned, running his hands down his face, wallowing in more of his incomprehensible antics. “ No , what’s wrong with you? Do you have any idea how much of the canon timeline you’ve wasted—are you telling me you didn’t even have the full moon confession scene?! ”
His mind flickered to a moment in Siluria’s private laboratory spent carefully learning how to finesse the right amount of mana into a concentration of gold dust. The room was the magnificent fruit of her industriousness, ambition, and innovation. Wall-to-wall were countless products of her passion for her work and people, but the lady’s character was the brightest of them. When Javier took his leave for the night, leaving her with his gratitude in her help, she gave him one more display of her noble devotion through a heartfelt pledge to build herself into a grand mage and confess her heart to him. It stirred some part of him that Javier hadn’t anticipated. Some part that instantly brought him to yearn for something he’d already resigned as out of his reach.
In some other life, maybe Javier’s heart would have swallowed her up entirely. He would have taken to her flame like an unlit candle, knowing passion for the first time.
But in this life, Siluria somehow reminded him of Lloyd.
And no wick could take two flames.
And so, Javier smiled and thanked her. And sent her flame to ignite with greater men.
“There was no such confession,” Javier answered truthfully, silver lashes fluttering downward as he remembered her wilting but sincerely grateful smile. “Lady Siluria is single-mindedly focused on her studies as a mage, so it is quite rude to assume that she would divert from her ambitions for me.”
“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Feminist.” He sat back down with an unsightly scowl as he flapped his fingers in a gesture that mocked Javier’s completely reasonable reply. “She totally had a thing for you, and you’re the idiot who’s making her work in the middle of the night. You even give her any overtime pay? Huh? Not very women’s rights of you.”
Javier was driven to a frown himself. “Enough with your babbling. Would you accept my gift?”
Lloyd’s face scrunched up behind his mug. The thought of accepting it was giving him a fresh dose of agony. “Agh. Aughhh.”
Javier was tempted to hold him down and stuff the potion down his throat.
“Well, first of all, how do you know it’s safe? Where did you get the recipe?”
Javier pulled open his jacket and produced a docket of neatly summarized information about the effects, side-effects, and literature supporting his and Siluria’s research. He tossed it on the table between them. “I have more extensive notes in my room if you wish to have it confirmed by the estate’s alchemist. These documents have also been reviewed by imperial alchemists, too. Though I may have created this particular potion, Siluria headed much of the research.”
Lloyd took the papers, grumbling more about how typical it was for a man to take advantage of a woman’s work in STEM fields, and skimmed over the document. He squinted at the second page. “So, this true essence is, like, original souls? It says my appearance may change?”
“Why don’t you read about the benefits before you start criticizing the very mild side effects?”
LLoyd huffed and did so. He pored over every inch of it, face coloring a bit, but Javier wasn’t sure why. His master rubbed his face, leg bouncing and eyes flitting around the room a bit before landing on Javier again with a frown. “What is the point of this potion? You clearly spent way too much time on it, so—so what gives?”
“Read section 3b, article—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s supposed to relieve the stresses of unaligned souls and vessels and whatever crap, but why? This was at least thousands of hours worth of trouble—not to mention how much it must’ve cost to—to do all this!” His face was even more red by now.
Javier had a sedate sip of tea. “You refuse to rest properly, and your health declines. These are my measures to protect you.”
Lloyd groaned. “Listen to me, Javier. Don’t—don’t do this again, okay? It’s—this seriously is not needed. If it ever comes down to me or Sil—I mean… anything that you might ever want to possibly , hypothetically pursue… for your own happiness… do that. Just do that, sword-for-brains. My goodness.”
“I wouldn’t have to do this if you would rest properly.”
“Don’t blame this insane behavior on me . My parents don’t go on a quest to the ends of the earth to find me the finest cough medicine.” He snatched the vial. He pulled a bit of a face at the sludge that Siluria couldn’t make any more appealing no matter how much she decorated its container. “Ugh. Did you really have to make it chunky?”
No. Javier did that for some malicious fun. He smiled behind his fine porcelain cup and enjoyed the show of Lloyd gulping down the bitter liquid.
Lloyd sat down, complexion a bit off from the taste and texture of the potion, but otherwise displaying none of the signs and adverse effects observed in the trials. Javier had a hand on a nullifying potion that Siluria supplied him with in case things went south.
His master’s expression shifted with discomfort, and he suddenly doubled over. Javier was out of his seat in an instant, pulling Lloyd’s face up to check his condition. The cartoonishly melted face looking up at him reminded Javier of Master Julian’s first attempts at pottery when he was seven. “Master Lloyd, are you experiencing pain or inflammation?”
“I—uh. I’m—” He burped, bringing instant relief to his face. “Whew. That was a big one.”
Javier recoiled in disgust and dropped him on the floor.
“Hey, asshole , I’m still getting turned inside-out over here!” Lloyd flailed around his lanky arms which were twitching and trembling as he tried to pick himself up. His voice spiked downward for a jarring voice crack. “ What is in t- hat thing? ”
Lloyd coughed and felt at his throat.
“Master Lloyd, are you in any pain?”
“No,” Lloyd replied in a voice Javier had never heard. It was deeper. Smooth and soft and so much nicer on the ears than Lloyd’s nasally, pitchy squawk. Lloyd’s eyes went wide, and the color shifted from mousy dirt brown to a vivid, rich amber bordering on red. “Uh.”
Javier watched in disbelief as his master completely and utterly transformed, the potion sculpting his face and body into a different form. Lloyd’s expression ranged through several emotions as his body remolded around the shape of his soul, and he looked down at how his thighs were widening and his shoulders broadening out.
When the transformations completed, Kim Suho looked back up at him with big amber eyes and small mouth slightly apart. Pale, clear skin over a face sculpted with labor and good breeding. Wavy raven locks effortlessly framing his face.
Javier’s skin prickled. He almost mistook it for chills, but a rush of heat passed beneath his skin. His heart set to pumping.
“Bring me a mirror.” There was that low, gentle voice, a perfect match to his face.
His heart set to racing. Javier didn’t want to speak for fear that his vocal chords might not work, so he went straight to the corner of his master’s sitting room and carried the mirror to him.
Kim Suho stood up, body too big in most places and small in others to fit properly in Lloyd’s clothes anymore. He touched his face with a grimace that didn’t curl grotesquely but instead made his eyes crinkle and fuller lips ever so slightly—pout. “Oh, man. Crap. I’m back to this face again?”
Javier almost had no idea what Kim Suho was talking about. He didn’t even know what to say, looking at the way that Kim Suho ruffled his hair, trying to get his hair to fall in the right way even though it kept falling across his forehead in perfect fans. Javier felt scandalized for some reason as if he wasn’t supposed to be looking at the way his lord’s hair fell in thick curls on the back of his neck like wild waves.
Those large eyes, the color of stubbornly burning embers, trained on him. They were naturally striking—with such a look and color that they demanded attention—but they softened at him with a nervous smile. That smile. “W-what? That bad?”
This was too much to handle for Javier. He opened his mouth. Closed it.
“That bad,” Kim Suho confirmed to himself. He rubbed his face. “Oh, man. This is bad. Javier.”
As if Javier hadn’t had enough nasty shocks, the sound of his name in Kim Suho’s voice was nearly the killing blow. He didn’t understand this reaction. What in Magentano’s Great Queendom could be inducing this kind of reaction in Javier? Why can’t he pull himself together? He hadn’t lost his composure like this even in the face of certain doom.
“Javier, what am I going to do about the count and countess?” He grabbed Javier’s arm.
His heart kicked, and he pulled away.
Kim Suho looked at him, and Javier looked back. His eyes flickered with hurt. Immense, dreadful hurt. It was like a lightning clap smiting Javier where he stood.
“M-my apologies,” Javier blurted without thinking. “T-that’s not what I… you just surprised me.”
They stood in uneasy silence.
“Uh… yeah. I understand.” His eyes flickered downward and off to the side as he stepped away from the mirror.
Javier felt like he had to clarify something, but Kim Suho took up a stance that only meant he was deep in thought. The expression he made in this pose as Lloyd Frontera was often beastly and scared small animals when he was lost in thought, but Javier felt robbed by the fact he wasn’t able to see Kim Suho’s version of it with his back turned.
He perked up in the same way he did when he realized something. He turned and blinded Javier with a small beam of sunlight he called a smile. “I got it!”
Javier was still blind as Kim Suho quickly rummaged through his drawers and pulled out some trinket of a necklace.
“Glamour spell! This’ll do the trick. It’ll probably work for voices, right?” He laughed, and it was like soft, silver peals, lighter and higher than expected in contrast to his lower voice.
Javier grabbed the hands holding that necklace before he knew what he was doing.
Kim Suho looked up at him, and Javier realized that he was slightly taller. Enough that their eyes were almost level. And so were their noses. And their lips—
“Uh, Javier?” He quirked a nervous smile at him. His hands shifted beneath Javier’s.
He couldn’t come up with a reason why he was stopping Kim Suho. Couldn’t even come up with one that he himself could accept. He let go and regained the proper distance between a knight and his lord. “I would suggest a top-grade spell. I could contact Siluria for one.”
Kim Suho’s face screwed up like he just ate something sour, but he had a smile on his face as he scolded, “You’re terrible! Haven’t you made her do enough for you?”
“For you,” Javier corrected, the sight of Kim Suho’s playful smile burned into his retinas. “It was for you.”
His face dusted pink. He turned away as he mumbled, “Like that makes it better.”
Javier was beginning to think that giving his lord this potion was a mistake.
It was a mistake. Colossal mistake.
“Have you been sleeping well, Countess?” Kim Suho smiled gently, putting the soft white camellias fluttering beyond the windows to shame as his voice softened with the honey-sweetness of filial affection.
“Why, yes, I have, my dear,” Countess Frontera replied with pleasure. “And you? I certainly hope you’re resting well, Lloyd.”
“You know what, yes, I’m sleeping super well.” Kim Suho’s gaze flickered toward Javier, and it felt like it was an attack too fast for Javier to possibly block when he winked conspiratorially at him. “The tea Javier has been brewing is doing wonders for relaxation.”
Javier resolutely stared at his plate. But then again, he had no resolve anymore at the thought that he might miss some expression of Suho’s, so he looked up like a fool.
Despite the disaster Javier had found himself in, Kim Suho actually did apply the best glamour spell in the continent, hand-made by Siluria herself. However, Javier was a sword master whose senses could peel apart the flimsy spell like a scalpel through a flower petal. Javier was the only one subjected to this unique mode of torture that robbed him of all sense.
He couldn’t tell Kim Suho that the glamour didn’t work on him. It was abundantly clear that he was desperate to maintain his image as Lloyd Frontera, so Javier obliged him because pretending his way around Kim Suho’s real appearance was the easier way of processing this.
“Count, may Javier and I be excused?” Kim Suho called sweetly, raising his hand and lowering his head in a deferential, polite way that looked respectable on Lloyd but utterly charming on Kim Suho. “I’d like to get in a bit of exercise before my duties. Would you join us for some sparring?”
“Against you two?” He laughed and cut into his breakfast. “I think I might have better luck against stone walls. Please, go on by yourselves.”
They both left the dining room, and Kim Suho placed his hand on his back to guide him out of the room. He waited until the doors shut behind them to lean in too close with a smile, hand still touching him. “They totally bought it.”
“Yes.” Javier tried to naturally step away from him, but he couldn’t look at his lord head-on as they walked side-by-side at an unnatural distance.
If Kim Suho noticed, he said nothing. He scratched his neck with a white glove and looked out the window. Since his clothes still couldn’t fit him, Kim Suho changed his appearance to an open black waistcoat, a white dress shirt, and dark pants just slightly tinted red. Javier was sent to procure these clothes for him, and he had no idea he had such a propensity for fashion because he had inadvertently picked out clothes that perfectly suited Kim Suho. The effect of clothing had astronomical weight. He exuded incredible presence and dignity even in such plain, hastily-tailored clothes that Javier couldn’t help but be shocked that no one was looking twice at him.
“Well, Javier. Up for some sparring?”
He nodded mutely, looking straight ahead of him no matter how much he wanted to indulge a glance at a new smile. What was wrong with Javier? Was he always so shallow about looks? He never felt so enchanted by Siluria even though she was extremely pleasing to Javier’s eyes. She was nice to look at, like the intricate engravings on the cover of a rare, expensive leatherbound tome.
Kim Suho, on the other hand, drew in the gaze—in the way one couldn’t help paying attention to a familiar voice or a striking idea. He was no lightning strike of a beauty like Alicia Magentano, for instance, but the expressions moving across Kim Suho’s face fascinated the eyes. Javier was so bitterly resentful that these smiles and frowns and grimaces were so badly translated into such an ugly face that they were the worst part of Lloyd Frontera’s looks.
Javier still hadn’t concluded whether he was a shallow man or Kim Suho was inordinately attractive by the time they reached the training fields. Javier took up his usual stance, rewiring the paths of his manahearts to get ready for a fight.
“Take off your shirt.” Kim Suho took off his waistcoat and put it into an servant’s hands with an appreciative smile.
Javier’s mind was too busy spinning like a mana circle over the sight of Kim Suho slowly, casually undressing as he smirked at him.
“I mean it when I say exercise. I feel great today.”
As Javier had assessed previously: colossal mistake.
Kim Suho started unbuttoning his top.
Javier took in a steadying breath—as if it would ever banish his desperate wish to run away—and took off his coat, too. His ears pricked with the twittering of maids and butlers crowding at the windows of the manor as he pulled off his buttons. Javier, for once, knew how they felt because he was failing spectacularly at not looking at his lord’s bare torso.
Lloyd Frontera’s body, after undergoing rigorous training, remained lean and wiry but compact with corded, powerful muscle. He looked more like a lithe hound bred for speed, and in that sense his form was nice to look at in the way that looking at a race horse was pleasing. Kim Suho was decidedly another type of creature.
He was broader with a better genetic disposition to retain more fat, but so much of it was chiseled away with labor and diet that it only highlighted the swells and curves of muscle that knew what pain and labor was. His body was marked with healed nicks and old scars that Javier wanted to study and record in detail, but they were just gilding on the lily.
Javier was already sweating by the time he’d stripped his shirt off. He swallowed carefully.
“Woah. What’s with that expression?” His brow raised. “If you dare to beat your lord, I’m gonna take it out of your pay, ‘kay?”
He was fine with that because Javier didn’t think he would be able to land a single hit when those red-amber eyes, blazing harder than the summer Fronteran sun, were rushing at him with all the martial grace that Lloyd possessed but could never quite own. Suho Kim, on the other hand, looked should be painted and displayed in the imperial art gallery.
As it rocketed down toward him, Javier put his hand up and caught Lloyd’s shovel. “Pardon me, my lord. I remembered I have something I must urgently write to Siluria about.”
“Hah?” He blinked. Blinked again when Javier quickly put his clothes back on—to the immense disappointment of crowds of passerby and nosy house servants—and sheathed his sword. “What the… we’re in the middle of a spar!”
Javier ignored him and hurried into the house in utter disgrace.
He’d written to Queen Alicia and Siluria about making a stronger glamour or about rendering him permanently blind. Either one would get him out of this ridiculous situation.
Because that was what this was. An utterly ludicrous situation.
Javier had no idea what this was happening.
Yes, he indeed… loved… the Suho Kim that looked like Lloyd, but it was heavily tempered with disgust and occasional doses of dislike. It was more like a sibling bond than anything. How could he not look at that contemptible face he’d been subjected to since childhood and not see anything else than—a brother?
Javier reached a bland realization that Lloyd Frontera… at least the original one… had been in his eyes like his brother. Even beyond the torment and hatred, Lloyd was still considered family to him even if the feeling wasn’t reciprocated. It was such a deeply rooted feeling wrapped in layers of hatred and resentment that Javier was surprised to trace it back to his entire relationship with Kim Suho. Somehow, Javier had inexplicably come to adopt him as a brother without really thinking of why. If he had come into this world without wearing his brother’s face, would Javier have treated him differently?
Would their relationship have been less antagonistic and been something else?
Javier massaged his temples over his spread of notes. It was too much to think about any of this, but his thoughts were dragging him along, and he was much too disoriented by all this to even resist.
Whether his feelings toward Suho Kim had been brotherly was irrelevant. The point was that it was extremely strong—enough that he couldn’t bring himself to prioritize Siluria over his lord—but Javier never walked around like a fool comparing his eyes to intense paint strokes.
Even when he noticed the affection developing in the queen’s eyes, Javier was… well… he was… neutral? He was baffled by it, but it wasn’t like he was jumping for joy about it.
Javier paused in the middle of his notes review in the middle of the night, setting his quill in the ink pot. He wasn’t happy about it?
It was surprising to realize in hindsight that Javier’s reaction was one of unease. He’d just attributed it to the shock of such an unlikely match between the queen and that hooligan, but why… hadn’t Javier been more supportive of the budding romance?
Clearly Kim Suho immensely respected the queen even if he intensely feared her, but there was an underlying trust bordering an affection between the two of them. It was abundantly clear that Kim Suho and Queen Alicia would make for a very suitable match, something rare in noble and even commoners’ marriages. It suddenly appeared so obvious as to be an immediate conclusion anyone would draw.
Why hadn’t Javier recognized that and become pleased with that fact?
Why did he carefully monitor each expression with confusion, dread, and discomfort? He really should have been jumping for joy at each sign that his lord might… be happy with someone else. He deserved it. More than anyone. Javier, as his companion and knight, should have done everything in his power to encourage the match and safeguard this chance at his lord’s happiness.
Javier put his head in his hands.
The plot was only getting deeper and darker the more he mined for an answer. This was hopeless—a fact which was something Javier already knew the moment he laid eyes on Kim Suho.
He despised it. He wasn’t shallow. Certainly not. He couldn’t be. How could that be the answer for the way he was feeling?
His mind dragged back to Siluria. She was beautiful. With confidence, he would state that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, ranking above everyone in his eyes because that beauty communicated strength, fortitude, and focus. Her beauty was virtue and her virtue was beauty.
Why hadn’t he been nearly as taken with her? What was it about her that his wick couldn’t take?
Why did he keep thinking about his lord whenever she showed him her latest elixir ratios and talked about her love for her subjects?
His eyes dropped to the paper, and he saw some notes scribbled in his margins.
Production date must be hastened as much as possible. [Master Lloyd can’t even get up without caffeine stimulants. buffoon. Must put him to bed earlier… request heartier meals from kitchen?]
Javier reached the throne room first because Kim Suho had gotten hung up with terrorizing a few smarmy noblemen out of their money in some kind of casual mugging. He surged in, and Queen Alicia met him with a smirk as he dropped to his knees before her.
“You may speak.”
“Your Majesty, there is a problem.” He looked up, trying to communicate the intensity of the situation before Suho Kim came in on an unsuspecting victim.
“What, the matter of Lloyd’s changed appearance?” She seemed to be looking upon this all as an elaborate joke playing out on a stage without realizing that she would soon be sucked into this absurd comedy. “His appearance merely shifted to better reflect his soul, correct? It must not be too shocking.”
Though Alicia didn’t know the true details of Kim Suho’s identity, she was taking this all far too laxly. Javier put his fist over his heart, conveying utmost sincerity. “Your Majesty, I beseech your help in putting an enchantment on my vision or his appearance. Please humor this arrogant request of your insolent subject.”
“Ho.” She uncrossed and crossed her legs like a cat getting comfortable as she played with a mouse. “I never thought I’d see you reduced to the eloquent grovelling on the level of Lloyd Frontera. I hadn’t the faintest clue you were such a shallow man.”
Javier couldn’t deny any of it. “Please, Your Majesty.”
She scoffed. “How disappointing of such an otherwise promising sword master. Appearance alone was enough to spark your affection? Even my own emotions, stunted and gnarled as they are, have a bit more depth than that.”
Javier’s head pulsed with—something. It was a dark sensation that made him want to scowl at her. Jealousy.
She raised her head to take proper notice of him. Her eyes flickered, malice like a spark as she picked up on the infinitesimal shift in Javier’s demeanor. “Hah! An insolent subject you are. Unfortunately, it only looks good on that hooligan.”
Javier tamped down on it and put his gaze on the floor again. “My humblest apologies, Your Majesty. I simply must impress on you that Lloyd Frontera you see will not be the one that you are familiar with.”
“Did you really just run into this room to gossip about me?” That voice called from the back of the room, and it was like all the pressure and air in the room sucked toward the source, gravitating around it as the two sword masters honed in on the man entering the throne room.
Neither Javier nor Alicia said a word as Lloyd hurried toward them. Nor even took a breath.
Kim Suho lowered himself before Alicia, doing his usual idiotic pose with his forehead on the floor and ass in the air. Javier’s face lit on fire, and the arm of Queen Alicia’s throne exploded in her grip.
His lord flinched and showed his face to Her Majesty who turned nearly as red as her hair. Interpreting her mood as horribly as ever, Kim Suho hurried to placate her by raising his ass again.
“ Stop that! ” she boomed. “Stand on your feet this instant! ”
Kim Suho scrambled to his feet, complexion drained of color.
Alicia’s mood was like a swarm of hornets, buzzing low and unpredictable as she covered her mouth and glared hard to the side. They slid toward him. “So, it is true. You no longer appear as you once did.”
Kim Suho blinked. “Uh… what?”
“I must say, this is an immense improvement. I have a proposal.”
“H-huh?”
Javier’s thoughts boiled black and thick with seething emotion.
Sensing the extreme bloodlust, Alicia’s eyes snapped to Javier’s, the rage of a apex predator being provoked by a rival. Her gaze was a consummate weapon and a promise of violence.
Javier was no better.
“What makes you think you have any right to challenge my claim?” Her voice was thunder itself.
He had none, and he didn’t give a shit. He scowled at her which was as good as pointing a blade at her. He stood up without her command.
“ Insolent fool.” She stood and unsheathed her sword in one deadly stroke as she locked her jaws around Javier’s challenge, unwilling to let go until blood was spilled. “I’ll make you regret having teeth to bare at me.”
“HEYYYY WOAHH HEY!” Kim Suho flung his arms out with a nervous smile. “Hey, uh, let’s all calm down here. I think I, uh, missed a few lines of this conversation. Could we—could we run it back a bit…?”
Javier pulled out his sword and stepped in front of Kim Suho. “I can and I will challenge your claim because I won’t allow you to impose your will on my master.”
“Ha. My will? I was about to make a proposal.”
“Which is paramount to an imperial order.”
“If you are forgetting, I was engaged without my consent. I have perfect grounds to make my demand.”
“I reject it,” Javier hissed, raising his blade at her and immediately drawing the steel of every guard in the room. “Requests I will allow, but demands will not be tolerated.”
“I don’t remember you being so irritating. It’s usually the other one.”
Kim Suho jumped in front of him, trying to get Javier to lower his sword. “Your Majestyyyy, listen, I think that Javier really put his foot in his mouth somewhere, so maybe we can smooth this over with a bridge or two? Maybe a nice public bath? How about it? Nice little crowning jewel to your reign, right? Don’t some public works sound nice?”
Javier didn’t take his eyes off of the queen. “You might underestimate my will and sincerity, but make no mistake. You will feel it if you force yourself on him.”
She smirked down at him as if she knew something he didn’t. “You think I need to force my will? All I need to do is bare my heart, and I will already have surpassed your limit. Your will and sincerity are feeble. I have no respect for you as a rival.”
Kim Suho was just lost for words in the cross-fire of the two most powerful people on the continent.
“Lloyd Frontera. You are under no obligation to assent or decline my request but rather are welcome to do as your heart dictates. I vow on the honor and glory of the Magentano Empire that I will exact no retribution against you for your reply.”
“Huh?”
She lowered herself to a knee, drawing the involuntary gasps of all around the room. “Lloyd Frontera, son of Count Frontera, my most loyal and worthy subject. I request your hand in marriage.”
Javier didn’t bother looking at the sight of a Magentano kneeling that probably only happened once in a millennia. He was just looking at the way that Kim Suho couldn’t take his eyes off her, his cheeks in flame. His fist tightened around his sword, and he suddenly and violently lurched into a conclusion so obvious that he fell into the deepest pit of self-loathing for making the grievous mistake of missing it.
He was in love with Kim Suho. Not Lloyd Frontera. Kim Suho .
He suddenly became aware of a candle burning in some part of his heart for the sound of his name. It was there, and it had always been there.
“Y-Your Majesty,” Kim Suho started in a daze, star-struck.
Javier took a step back without thinking. Then, another, and he was walking out of the room, unmolested by guards as Queen Alicia allowed him the dignity of accepting defeat.
He wandered out into the hall in confusion, in awe at the utter state of himself. It was like the months of the slightly discordant notes of his and his lord’s relationship were all coming back in one horrific melody. Every time Javier felt an odd sensation in his chest around Kim Suho, every time he brushed it off, every time he was so ignorantly content with things as they were. The answer was blinding and torturous.
“Javier!” Sound of his name was like a wire around his heart, tugging until Javier was forced to turn around.
Kim Suho, his lord, rushed toward him, worry in his eyes. “What’s going on? What happened?”
He looked down in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?!” He shouted back. “Shambling out of the room, leaving me alone in a room full of people with swords! You’re supposed to be at my side at all times, you lousy knight!”
Javier could only furrow his brows. “What?”
“Were you illiterate when you signed your knight contract to the barony? You’re supposed to be with me, and you’re supposed to tell me—” He stopped himself, covered his mouth, and paced around.
He came back and asked, “Javier. Tell me what you’re really feeling. Please.”
His voice curled around the last word in such a brittle, fragile way.
His hands tightened on Javier’s arms, and his head ducked. “I… I know that I’m different. I know that I don’t belong here, and I’m not the lord you grew up with, and I’m not—I’m just a stranger to you at the end of the day. I know all that. Just tell me straight up if you… can’t be by my side anymore.”
Javier’s throat closed, and he despised the sight of Kim Suho so weak and small like this. He opened his mouth to reply, but Kim Suho hurried to continue.
“No, just tell me what to do, okay? I can find a way to change my appearance if that’s the problem! Or—or a memory wipe, so you won’t remember it altogether. Would that put us back to how we were? Just—tell me what I have to do to keep you next to me!” The look in his eyes was pure desperation. “Money? PTO? Paternity leave?!”
Javier swallowed. “I… don’t know if things will be the same. Because I think that I—”
Kim Suho clamped a hand over his mouth, pure fear in his eyes.
Javier tried to take it off and finish his sentence, but Kim Suho was fighting to keep the words from leaving his mouth.
“Just—give me a minute, okay?!” Kim Suho’s voice was fragile and close to collapse as his cheeks turned ruddy and eyes watered. “Just give me a fucking minute before you say it. Please.”
Any further attempt to struggle just made him even more upset, so Javier was at a loss for a few moments until Kim Suho started speaking.
“If this… changes your mind at all… I just want you to know—” His voice cut. “—that I’ve always… wanted a life like this. With someone who I depend on and who depends on me. That was all I ever wanted from this world, okay? That’s—that’s all.”
He let Javier go, and he immediately took Kim Suho’s face in his hands. “I wanted to tell you that I have feelings for you.”
Kim Suho stared at him blankly for a minute. “Huh?”
“I think since—since the first month you came here.”
An even longer minute of incomprehension and a creeping pink over his cheeks to match Javier’s.
“I don’t know how things will be different, but I know that our feelings, at least on some respect, are mutual. I also want to stay by your side for the rest of my life.” Javier’s skin roared with a vicious blush. “However you’ll have me.”
“H—” Kim Suho managed. He must seriously have lost some large chunks of his mind in the blind panic of their miscommunication. “Uh, so you’re, like, chill?”
“Chill?”
“Chill with me being—” He waved a hand over his face. “—like this?”
“Yes,” Javier understated.
“Oh, cool. Very cool. Chill. So sweet.” He quickly extricated himself from Javier’s hands and nearly fell over. “Y-yeah, this is—we’re so chill right now.”
“Kim Suho?”
His face was consumed with a ferocious blush that he scrambled to hide from Javier. “ Hey , yeah, easy with that, okay? S-sensitive information, so l-let’s just stick to my lord.”
“My lord… your reply—”
“I just got slapped with two love confessions in a row from the two biggest psychos in the world!” He snapped, face completely red. “Wouldya let me at least consider the geopolitical implications of what I just did? I just left the queen on seen!”
“On what?”
“I understand I promised you immunity from my wrath, but best not test my patience, Lloyd Frontera,” Queen Alicia declared, stepping out into the hall with a piercing gaze. “Pick between that commoner with poor emotional sensitivity or the woman who saved you from utter annihilation from our draconic overlord.”
Suho Kim stood very still as if no one would see him if he didn’t move.
“Or perhaps I should eliminate my rivals from the start.” She turned her eyes on Javier.
“A-ha! Would you look at the time!” Suho Kim scrambled to start herding Javier out of the hall and out towards the doors while still babbling on about nothing. “Your Majesty, I really do think we have to get going and see some—see some of those wonderful gardens you had build recently! I hear a lot of great things about it, you know! The Samarkands are crying with jealousy!”
As soon as they reached the front doors, he leaned into Javier’s ear and whispered, “ Run .”
Alicia watched that fool and his subordinate fool fly off together as if Alicia would bother chasing after the two. She huffed and turned to return to her throne room.
“Impish little thing…” It was enough to deny her a proper response, but it was quite another to make his choice right in front of her, for all of her kingdom to witness. She chuckled, inordinately amused by this situation. She’d had rivals before, and she’d famously and methodically defeated each one.
However, she began to doubt her position when Javier Asrahan refused to take his blazing eyes off his lord the moment he stepped in the room. Even more damning was the way that Lloyd Frontera was fixated on preventing his knight from entering a lethal clash of swords with her. Perhaps the killing blow was how he immediately forgot about her proposal and simply scurried out of the room after his knight.
There were some battles unfeasible, men unbreakable, and flames—unquenchable.