"Yuri, I never would have thought that you are capable of such a bold initiative," Wolfram said in surprise after I decided to knock on his door.

The delicate pretty boy did not know what to make of the whole thing. He tilted his head to one side and, his lips slightly open, waiting in silence for an explanation.

"I just want you to have a bath with me. If you feel embarra.s.sed, you can keep your swim trunks on," I said.

"If it"s just the two of us then there"s nothing to be embarra.s.sed about, but... "

"Then let"s go! I"m in a hurry! A towel and a pair of trunks would be enough!"

In a corner of his room, Wolfram was busy digging for some strange object. Was he looking for a rubber duck to take with us?

I pulled the broadly grinning Wolfram, and head towards the familiar royal bathroom.

The private bath of His Majesty the Demon King was luxurious - the huge cream-colored pool could have easily held the world swimming champions.h.i.+p. It was so hot in this country but there was no public swimming pool. I really wished I could share this bathroom to everyone.

The s.e.xy queen Lady Cherie and the menservants who normally asked to wash my back were not there today, but the water still poured steadily out of the five taps shaped like lion heads. I could finally swim however I wanted to.

"One and two and hop!"

I held my nose and jumped into the pool still wearing my uniform. For a brief moment, I dived and almost touched the bottom, but I immediately came back up to the surface.

"What are you doing?" Wolfram asked, dumbfounded.

I flopped on the edge of the pool, water dripping from my hair and s.h.i.+rt.

"Can you push me into the pool?"

"What?"

"Come on now," I grumbled.

"What kind of foreplay is this?"

Wolfram pushed me into the water, but I immediately resurfaced.

"I don"t understand," I muttered. "Hey, what are you doing?! Did I tell you to jump in too?!"

Wolfram emerged again, his blond hair totally soaked. The image was like the scene of an angel bathing. Luckily he had kept his clothes on, just like me. With two strokes, he swam over to me.

"Why did you dive in? I only wanted you to push me."

He wrapped his pale arms around my neck.

"Don"t hug me!"

"Didn"t you want to try a totally new way of doing it?"

"Way of doing it...? Wolfram, you were expecting to do something naughty, weren"t you!?"

Even though I was completely desperate, my partner was shamelessly indulging in his own happy fantasies. I hung my head and swallowed my growing anger. In another attempt, I put my feet firmly on the bathtub floor, and slowly stretched my knees.

There was still no suction pulling me into the depths.

"I can"t go home," I quietly said.

"Aren"t you already home?"

"That"s not what I mean. It"s true that I"ve come back from Suveria to s.h.i.+n Makoku, but now I want to go back to my home!"

Like a small child, I flapped both my arms around, hitting the water surface furiously. In order to avoid the splash hitting his face, Wolfram stood up and took a small step back.

"I can"t go back, to my home, to earth, to j.a.pan!" I cried angrily. "I thought it would be just like last time, I could return through the bathroom again. But no matter what I did, nothing happened at all! I thought if I was forced into a corner, I would enter the star journey to escape from danger... But even when you pushed me into the water, still nothing happened."

"What?"

"Wolf... why is that grimace?"

Numerous creases gathered above his nose and between his eyebrows. The ex-prince lifted his chin and pulled his shoulders back.

"You used me for this small thing?"

"It"s not a small thing! This is incredibly important for me, don"t you understand that much?"

"You are now the king of this country, you can"t run around anymore! You"ve got to stay here. Yuri, your home is this castle! And that"s forever!"

Every time this bishounen scolded me, I would feel the numerous wounds his words caused. As hard as it was to accept, Wolfram was probably right. My diving attempts were pointless. But what other choice did I have? I had never thought that I could never see j.a.pan again.

"But it has always been like that so far. If I successfully completed the mission, I would be able to go back again. This time I have found the Magic Flute, and brought my double back safe and sound. The mission was successful. Why am I still stuck here, dammit! Could it be because the game was stuck at this point? If I couldn"t return to j.a.pan and remained in s.h.i.+n Makoku forever, what would happen to me?

"You would carry on your role and your life as the Maou, what else?"

Yes, true, I was the king. I had taken up this office and made my oath in front of everyone.

"But I still didn"t expected to have to stay here forever. How would I know if the Lions won the champion or not? I can never go to a baseball game again!"

"Then found your own baseball team here. You"ve said that you wanted to make this game a national sport."

"But I"m still not good enough at the game!"

The soaked clothes weighed heavily on my body. Nevertheless, I did not sink into the depths.

"What about my team, my school, my friends? If I don"t come out of the dolphin pool, Murata would suffer a blow and blame it all on himself."

Perhaps this was it. Perhaps the Yuri s.h.i.+buya from modern j.a.pan had died in an accident during the dolphin show? And that was why I could not go back?

"It"s just that... what am I going to do?... What will I tell my family?... No, actually, I might not be able to say anything to them anymore. It"s just that "my wife and child"..."

"You have a "wife and child"!?"

"Don"t pick at my words! I meant "my parents and sibling". It"s just that I have parents and a brother, and I can"t believe that I suddenly I can"t meet them again... That"s crazy, it"s unfair."

"You"re unbelievably dim-witted," Wolfram groaned and brushed his wet bang back from his forehead.

His seemingly arrogant green eyes stared at me fiercely. He really does have an angel"s face, but his words draw blood with each syllable.

"You belong to this world. You cannot escape, your soul is at home here."

"No one told me so."

Even I could hear the tremble in my voice.

"Don"t say you didn"t known what you were in for."

I had no answer to that. I had taken things too easy.

If the silence continued, I might do something stupid. So I decided to try again. I dived in hot water and repeatedly pushed myself against the bottom floor. I stayed under the water as long as I could and desperately looked for a possible opening in vain.

I couldn"t abandon my resolve, I had to calm down. Hadn"t the commentator in the last baseball game said "a crisis point is a turning point"? Even when forced into a situation with no escape in sight, I must stay calm and collected. If I didn"t carefully a.n.a.lyze the surrounding, I would never find the way to break out of the deadlock.

But no matter how hard I tried, the strange whirlpool from before refused to appear.

"Hey," Wolfram called, and fished me out of the water.

I had completely forgotten to breathe.

Well, that was it then. I had to accept reality. Never again j.a.pan. No more baseball. Never home again. The king got stuck in real deep s.h.i.+t.

(This translation was originally posted here. Please do not repost elsewhere.)