Chapter 3 If Lord von Kleist were Human, he would be wailing "Oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d!" But since he is neither Human nor American, he is howling "Your Majesty!" at the sky instead.

His long frantic strides take him around and round the wide room. The master of the castle stops as he pa.s.ses the open door and enters. He looks at Günter suspiciously.

"Günter, you haven"t set out for the capital yet?"

"This is no time to be thinking about that! He"s disappeared, he"s disappeared disappeared disappeared!"

"Calm down. Are you really Lord von Kleist?"

Gwendal coolly takes a step back from Günter. He cannot afford to become involved.

"This isn"t about me!" He glares at Gwendal. "It"s His Majesty! Wolfram has disappeared—I think he has gone chasing after His Majesty! Aaah, what should I do? This is a disaster! If anything should happen to His Majesty, how could I ever atone?"

"Don"t exaggerate. Wolfram can protect himself—I don"t believe he"ll be a burden."

"You don"t believe he"ll be a burden? That selfish Pooh?!"

""Selfish Pooh?""

There is a moment of silence.

Tutor and a.s.sistant to the king though he may be, calling someone who was a prince until just a short time ago "Pooh"—and in front of his own brother to boot—is an impertinence. It would certainly come as no surprise if Gwendal were to take offence.

"...Actually, I"ve thought so too."

"I-it seems we"re in agreement, for once."

And thus was the Alliance of Those Who Have Always Thought of Wolfram as a Selfish Pooh, abbreviated the Pooh Alliance, created.

"Achoo!"

"Gesundheit!" I answer on cue in a conditioned response to Wolfram"s cute little sneeze, which sounds like something a manga character might make, as I rummage through my luggage and toss everything out of the clothes chest.

"Aaargh, dammit, it"s not here not here not here not here not here not here!"

"What are you looking for?" Wolfram, who finally seemed to have recovered around noon, asks, lying face down on the bed. His feet are on the pillows, and he flails and kicks from time to time.

"I"m pretty sure I put it in here, that metal buckle thing that holds up this c.u.mmerbund."

"Humph."

He sounds both disgruntled and disappointed.

I quite understand how he feels. It"d be like someone pa.s.sing over me and picking an amateur to play a game. Wouldn"t it be better to call on me instead of somebody who doesn"t even know what letter "baseball" starts with?

I"m getting ready for a ball—the perfect setting for an ex-prince.

Breakfast started with the captain"s salutations; I had tea forced on me while I was walking restlessly around the deck midday; there was an invitation to psuedo-billiards in the game room in the evening and a full-course dinner at sunset; after dinner"s finally over we get to take a shower before our attendance is requested at a formal social—no rest on a gorgeous luxury liner! And if the guests in the deluxe suite don"t show up, they immediately become the subject of gossip and are accused of being eccentric.

"Wouldn"t it have been better to get third-cla.s.s cabins and stay shut up in our room not attracting attention for the entire trip? When I remember what it"s like being in sleeper cars, I"m pretty sure I could"ve handled a shared room with bunks."

"I can"t endure something like that!"

"Yeah, but you weren"t even in the plans!"

"Then your plans were flawed from the start."

Sounds like he"s closer to his usual self. But even if he"s recovered his energy, he can"t be set loose with other people. I don"t think this proud aristocrat could pa.s.s himself off as someone from a crêpe silk merchant house.

"What"s in that chest, anyway?"

"Hm? Oh, stuff that Günter insisted I bring along. Things he said would be necessary or come in handy for the trip...a book?"

I tear off the oiled paper wrapper to reveal an important-looking hard-cover book, bound in green mountain goat hide. Its t.i.tle is written in gold letters, but sadly I can"t read Mazoku writing.

"Let me take a look, I"ll read it for you...The Dream Begun in Spring, a Diary."

"A diary?! Does he want me to become Ki no Tsurayuki or something? Geez, teachers."

""...I met His Majesty for the first time today. He is many times, many dozen times more wonderful than my limited imagination could ever have conceived.""

"What?"

Wolfram turns a page and continues reading loudly.

""Lord Yuuri alighted from his horse, golden ears of wheat his backdrop, and smoothly swept back his jet-black hair with a graceful alabaster hand. He turned to look at me with his glittering, intelligent eyes and spoke.""

"Wah! Wait, wait, what the heck is that?! It"s not a new diary Günter wants me to keep?!"

""My loyal Lord von Kleist, my true friend, I was able to return because of you.""

"I never said that!"

Why do I have to be tortured like this by somebody else"s diary? Though I"d be writhing if anyone read my diary out loud, too.

"Yuuri, how are your preparations coming along?...looks like you"re pretty well recovered, Wolf. How did you get ahold of Günter"s "His Majesty Love-Love Diary?""

Conrad peers in from the living room, smiling wryly as he fastens his tie.

"Uuurgh...more like a Sob-Sob Diary."

"Someone must have mistaken it for a new book and wrapped it up. Here, please hurry and change if you don"t want to keep listening to it."

"His Majesty considers the kingdom and its people above all. Oh, how fervently I, Günter von Kleist, wish to remain by the side of such a splendid, beautiful king as Lord Yuuri."

""Take me away, get me out of heeeeeere!""

What expression would be on the face of the uber-beautiful intelligentsia if he knew we were reading this?

The tutor looks dreadful.

Straggling strands of hair cling to his pale cheeks below bloodshot eyes, and there are several deep wrinkles between his eyebrows. Any woman within a five-meter radius would certainly have been brought to weeping by his beautiful anguish.

"Günter, do you not have a mountain of duties to attend to?"

"Not that many."

The distinct scent of burning calcium fills Voltaire Castle. Someone has already collapsed moaning within the corridor: it"s that pungent.

"Please take a look at the cracks in the joints of this humerus," Günter declares, holding a burnt bone high. There is an obsessed glint in his eyes. "There are two places where these short oblique lines cross these three vertical ones. They signify obstacles. Which means that right now, right this moment, danger is approaching His Majesty. And he is out of our reach!"

Gwendal"s long bony fingers twitch unconsciously. It"s his only expression of irritation; in all other respects he is his usual ill-humored aristocratic self.

"That"s as it may be. Where did that bone come?"

"A cow."

"Hum. If his fortune can be told from a cow"s bone, then that youngster must not amount to much."

"Not amount to much? Are you not worried?! He is the Mazoku"s star of hope! Do you not think there is a limit even to a pretense of apathy?!"

"I will not tolerate such stench in my castle for stars, moon, or cow. If you"re going to burn bones, do it outside. If you want to grill cow, do it with the meat. Do you have any idea how many complaints I"ve received?"

Putting out the fire resentfully, the worrywart steward hisses, "...Must"ve gotten one from Anissina, anyway."

Three seconds later, Lord von Voltaire retorts—though only in his mind.

Bones.

h.e.l.lo, nice to meet you, I was recruited as an extra for the Rok.u.meikan. It"s not the ladies in their dazzling, varicolored dresses or the live orchestra on stage that freeze me for a second as I"m making my awkward way in unfamiliar full formal dress to the ball.

There are a countless number of bones scattered on the floor. I suddenly realize that everyone except us was dropping bird and fish bones on the floor at meals, too. As I stand there watching, the woman at the buffet table right in front of us takes a bite of fried chicken and casually tosses away the bone as crudely as any man.

"Is this the etiquette...?"

"I can think of no other explanation."

The dance hall can easily fit two tennis courts. To reach its center, we have no choice but to cross over all the corpses of the little animals that have disappeared into people"s stomachs. They crackle piteously underfoot. What a disturbing dance.

Though I have been liberated from the usual mob of beauties, I feel oddly ambivalent. I should be able to relax more in a place filled with Humans, but instead I"m unsettled and on edge.

Everyone s.h.i.+fts to create a path, curtseying and bowing in greeting. Some men shake my hand. I feel like I"ve been made police chief for a day—geez, just let me do whatever I want already. By the time I make it to the front of the hall, I quite understand the hards.h.i.+ps of being a celebrity. Next time I catch sight of a pro baseball player in the city, I"ll just watch them from afar.

Up close, the piano sounds like a xylophone. The violins" strings are too tight, and they"re super high-pitched.

"Now that you have come this far, prepare yourself: you"ll have to dance."

"Me?! I can"t dance! I was in the baseball club until the middle of my third year in junior high! I was a catcher, not a cheerleader!"

"Ah, but the ladies are looking at you rather invitingly."

Woah, it"s true. They are looking at me. A few of them are even drooling like beasts.

"A-and these are the dances where the man and woman grapple?—I mean, I"ve only been to athletic meets in elementary school."

"..."Grapple" is something of an exaggeration. You danced at your graduation party from junior high, didn"t you?"

Don"t confuse US and j.a.panese cultures. At my junior high graduation party I threw pizza at my baseball club advisor. That"s the only fun memory I have of it.

"What sort of step did you do in elementary school? Waltz? Tango?"

"Oklahoma Mixer and the Chichibu Marching Song."

Two extremes. I"m the one who said not to confuse US and j.a.panese cultures, but talk about a total j.a.panese-American mix. About the only thing they have in common is that they"re both characteristic of their local cultures. Conrad only tilts his head a little and sets down his drink, looking slightly worried.

"Then let"s do the Oklahoma Mixer."

"Do, huh?! No no no, I don"t wanna dance with a man!"

"Let me give you a bit of practice so you don"t embarra.s.s yourself by fumbling when you have to lead a lady in the dance. It"s all right, there are many instances where men are paired; just think of it as a tennis doubles pair."

What unpardonable words. I"m the ten-thousand-years-warming-the-bench reserve, so I"m pretty sensitive to leading. There"s no way I wouldn"t be able to lead if the girl were a pitcher.

"But I am not taking the girl"s part."

"It"s all right, I"ve always wanted to try the other part. Here, Young Master...right, it"s reversed, so...now put your hand around my waist.

Eeeeeek.

I"m already half-crying, my eyebrows tilted up to my hair; Conrad takes a step, murmuring: left left, right right, left right...is this an eyesight test or something? Right right left left turn turn stop right, catch release bend backwards crackle.

A tiny bone breaks beneath my shoes. This is the dance from h.e.l.l.

"I-I guess dancing isn"t about which part you play, but about who"s taller, huh?"

"So it would seem. Are you not glad you"re not doing this with Gwendal?"

"I don"t...even want to think about that!"

Mr. Hiscruyff is at the center of the hall, decorously wearing his wig. He is turning in what looks like a professional wrestling match with a slender, delicate woman that must be his wife. They"re glowing with sweat under the lights and look just like "The King and I." Once upon a time in j.a.pan, Matsudaira Ken and his wife...

"Oops."

The music suddenly s.h.i.+fts to a slow tempo, and everyone around us starts getting glued together.

"In a cheek-to-cheek dance, you can just sway."

"Haaah, sway, right. Oh, sorry."

My shoulder just b.u.mped into the neighboring couple. It"s the s.h.i.+p"s captain and navigator.

Ack! What a coa.r.s.e pair. For them it"s more like beard-to-beard than cheek-to-cheek.

Someone keeps poking my head. I turn to see a large woman with magnificent orange hair smiling at me. She"s so buff you can see her muscles even through her clothes. She"s wearing silk gloves that go up past her elbows. Her curves, exposed from her shoulders to her back, would be the envy of any outfielder.

"Woah...you have pretty nice biceps there."

"Thank you. May I have this dance?"

Her voice is jazzy and husky. But it"s a long way from s.e.xy. I"m sure the request took courage, but I really don"t think I can handle this sportsman—er, sportslady.

"Thank you for asking, but, er..."

"Wait a darn minute here!"

Excuse me?

Ladies in elaborate dresses that must have been made with whole store-fulls of lace push through the crowd of people toward us.

"I saw him first. If he"s going to dance with anyone, it should be with me."

Another lady in a light-green native costume answers, "His eyes met mine first, which means I should be his partner."

"Wait a minute, I had my eyes on him right at the start, so if he"s going to ask anyone to dance, I should be the first."

That was the bone-tossing wildwoman. Now everyone else seems to have gathered up their courage, and there are more cries of "wait a minute!" Yikes, what a scene.

"I"m the one who made up her mind first. So one song, if you please."

"Well, in that case, I conceived of the idea first."

"Not true! Mamilen sensed him with ESP!"

"Yeah, but he really suits me."

"He"s the one I"ve dreamed of. We"re fated to be together."

"I would not mind me being last, if thou wouldst consent to a dance with this old warrior."

Woah, we"re getting all types in here.

"My my, impressive. But I would have expected no less from my Young Master Mitsuemon. How envious I am."

"What are you talking about, Con-eeer-Kaku-san! You"re not going to just leave me to drown in here, are you?"

"Oh? But it"s such a pleasure to see my master so sought-after."

His smile is bright and cheerful as can be, even though I know he"s totally amusing himself.

A second before Conrad finally says "well, can"t be helped," a baritone voice that could be used as a weapon in the hands of the ambitious is directed at me from behind the women.

"It appears you are having a difficult time making your decision."

"Mr. s.h.i.+ny!—er, I mean, Mr. Hiscruyff!"

"I see that there are many who yearn for the company of someone as fascinating as yourself."

Yeah right, if a baseball kid like me is fascinating, they"d all faint if they went to Kous.h.i.+en.

"But my lord Mitsuemon is still young. You must not be used to being so flattered. If I may make a suggestion?"

He spreads his arms expansively, eyes indicating his wife seated in a chair against the wall with a gla.s.s tilted to her lips.

"Will you not dance with her?"

With the little lady sitting next to his wife, staying up late tonight and looking rather bored.

She"s wearing a sakura-colored dress, her unfastened hair twined with ribbon. Her legs swing back and forth.

"This is Beatrice"s first evening party. She"s already six; there"s a saying in my country that if you dance at your first party in the spring when your age is a multiple of six, your life will be a pa.s.sionate one. I present myself as one sterling example of such."

Hiscruyff laughs boomingly, sticking his chest out further than Yul Brynner.

"It must be because of such pa.s.sionate love that your betrothed would chase you all the way onto this s.h.i.+p as a stowaway. I wish such a life for my daughter, so I hope you will consent to be her first partner."

Shouldn"t the normal father be trying to keep men as far away from his daughter as possible? Foreigners nothing. These people from another world are impossible to understand.

"Now then, Young Master, go up to the lady and say "May I have this dance?" or "May I have your hand for this dance"—something properly smooth and dandy-like."

"A-all right."

As I turn towards the little girl"s chair, the ladies disperse with ill humor. One of them tsks and snaps loudly enough to hear, "So he prefers little girls?" Absolutely not. I kneel in front of Beatrice and say in my manliest voice:

"Miss, please ready your hands."

Dammit! That"s the hand-clapping patter...

She bounces off the chair and heads for the center of the floor. Very proactive—she must take after her father. The song is a slow-tempo waltz, easy to dance to. But because I"m so far bent over, I end up with a horribly jerky step.

"Is your hair dyed?"

Her large eyes are the color of the marble in a ramune bottle (oooh, I miss them!), and hold not a trace of malice. With eyes so clear looking up at me, I can"t even think about lying.

"Yes it is, how did you know?"

"Because it doesn"t suit you."

Children are so cruel.

"Tell me about your father. Beatrice, what kind of a person is he?"

"Someone who would throw away everything for love."

"...I see, so he"s a pretty cool guy."

He must tell her that every day. Looks like this father-daughter pair aren"t much for cross-examination. Beatrice turns bashful. The sparkle in her marble eyes turns them the color of star sapphires.

"You"re kinda cool, too."

"Me?"

She lets go of me as the triple-time comes to an end and runs to cling tightly to her father"s waist. Mr. s.h.i.+ny lifts his daughter up high, heaping so much praise on her that it would set any j.a.panese person"s teeth on edge.

"That was fantastic, Beatrice! That"s my little princess! It was very elegantly danced."

"Like a queen?"

"Of course, you are always a queen. You and your mother are my pride and joy."

I"m embarra.s.sed just listening to them; sweat runs down my face and neck. I unthinkingly wipe at it with a fist. Oops.

"...Ah..."

The contact in my right eye moves.

Not good.

If I"m exposed as a Mazoku here, they"ll beat me up and chuck me overboard. A melody like something you"d hear at the New Year starts. It"s the famous "Spring Ocean."

"Conra...argh, geez, where the heck is he?"

Lord Weller is chatting with someone at a table near the piano.

Of all people, it"s the woman who made a move on me earlier: Miss Biceps of the ideal outfielder body. His taste is rather...er, make that really radical. But there are varied and far-ranging preferences in the opposite s.e.x. Or maybe in s.h.i.+nma Kingdom, such women are much admired? I mean, this is the country where I"m supposedly beautiful. I wouldn"t be surprised if they criticized people with nice bodies like Ichirou and s.h.i.+njou as being too exotic. As for me, well, Lady Cäli is more my type.

They look pretty intimate with his arm around her shoulders.

"I need your a.s.sistance, Con...Kaku-san!" I yell silently towards them, before slipping alone out of the hall.

Wanting a teammate to be successful in love is an expression of friends.h.i.+p.

In the twenty-four hour time system I"m familiar with, it would be ten o"clock at night. The deck is covered in darkness. The tension drains slightly out of my entire body as I walk along it. Gentle waves strike and brush against the bottom of the s.h.i.+p. It"s odd, but peace slips into my mind as I look out at the pure black sea.

Now that I think back on it, there was not a trace of anything black other than the tightly-curled shadows at our feet in that brilliant, dazzling hall.

A flame wavers in the distance. Must be the guard s.h.i.+p that"s been tailing us all the way from Schildkraut.

The pain in my right eye grows sharper. I trot around the corner to get back to the room as fast as I can so I can get it out.

"Oh, I"m sorry!"

I crash hard into someone as I enter the dimly-lit corridor. That shock delivers the fatal blow.

"Ack! The scale—the scale—!"

Has fallen out of my eye.

"I"m so sorry, my lord, have I hurt you?"

"Don"t move!"

He freezes in a conditioned response.

"This is the first time in my life I"ve dropped my contacts. And right now is the first time in my life I"ve had to search for my contacts. Could you s.h.i.+ne your lamp on the floor? If it"s not at your feet, kneel slowly and feel for it with your hands."

"Ye-yes sir. But what kind of a thing is a contact...?"

I calmly cover my right eye and brush the floor with my left hand.

"Um...is your face injured?"

"No—hey, isn"t it Freckles?"

Turns out the one who delivered the blow is the sailor apprentice with the freckled face designated for the peanut commercial spot. He clutches his head in heartfelt apology and starts searching with me.

"You saw me this morning in such a strange state, and now...I"m really really sorry. I was on patrol, but I didn"t think anyone was around."

"Mmn, well, it"s fine, contacts falling and people looking for them seems to happen in shoujo manga a lot."

With a lot of falling in love with the one resigned to being late to help search for them. I"m really glad that today isn"t the school opening ceremony, "cause I really don"t want a foreign love in a place like this.

"Must be tough being an apprentice, when you have to patrol on your own so late at night. And it"s not really worth it to put in much effort when your boss is such an a.s.s, huh?"

"But I fell from the ladder because I was daydreaming. Oh, and he was the one who taught me how to get on and off. That"s why he was angry. I don"t blame him at all. There"s a lot to remember, and I"m too dumb."

When I look up, the boy is smiling. Rather surprised, I sit back on my knees, resting my left hand.

"Don"t blame him? When he hit you like that?"

"It happens to everyone when you"re an apprentice. It"s the same for all the sailors. This is my first voyage, and I"m really happy that it could be on such a fantastic s.h.i.+p as this one."

"...You"re...happy?"

"Oh, yes!"

Just half a day ago I was thinking that he was unlucky. I decided that he was to be pitied. I suddenly feel ashamed of myself, and look down to hide my expression.

"I dream of steering a boat as big as this one someday...oh, my lord, there"s something glittering on your chest!"

It"s true, there"s a small brown gla.s.s chip clinging to the side of a b.u.t.ton. Which means I"ve descended to the level of one of those people who goes around saying "my gla.s.ses, my gla.s.ses" when they have their gla.s.ses perched on top of their heads?!

Embarra.s.sment times two.

I cough evasively and stand with a short "thanks."

"See you later, Apprentice."

"I"m Rick, my lord."

"See you later, Rick. Great job with the patrolling. Keep up the good work!"

I rush away without waiting for a reply and fly into our room.

Why am I such a simpleton? Why can"t I just shut up and observe? Deliberate on the issue, for once? It"s like deciding the other team"s secret ace is a third-rate player after a single at-bat. It doesn"t make for a good catcher or a great king. When it comes to baseball...well, I"m at something of a roadblock right now, but my path to kings.h.i.+p"s just started.

I guess my career as Maou is still interim...well, provisional interim.

Sounds like a pasta lunch special.

"Wolfram! My contact just fell out, it totally caught me off guard!"

"Were you dancing?"

The ex-prince comes out of the bedroom in a fluffy white bathrobe and a towel wrapped turban-like around his head.

"...Why"re you dressed like a lady who"s just stepped out of the bath?"

"I asked if you danced," he demands sharply with a glower, looming over me with arms crossed. Oooh, we"re in the middle of a selfishness advisory alert.

"Well, of course I danced, since that was the point of the thing. It"s not like I went to a cooking cla.s.s or a film preview or something. What about it? Why"re you snapping at me like that?"

"You s.k.a.n.k!"

"Wha?!"

What does it mean to call a guy a s.k.a.n.k?! I do a search in my brainular encyclopedia for a corresponding entry. No matter how slowly it turns, it"s not so different from going through the pages of a real encyclopedia. Skag, skald...s.k.a.n.k.

"Oh, rhythmic dancing?!"

I"m a bit concerned about that preceding "skald"...scald?

"So that was praise? Well, hey, I"m not only light on my feet, I can do a wicked throw to second base, too."

"I"m calling you a traitor!"

"That again? What the heck? Where and when, and who"s supposed to have betrayed whom? When exactly did this happen, anyway? I haven"t betrayed anyone, and I don"t think I ever will betray anyone, either! Betraying someone means that you break trust with them, so I think I"d know if I betray anyone! But you"re still going to claim that you"ve been betrayed by me?!"

Have I got all the conjugations of the word yet?

"Look here! So you"ve got good looks, I"ll give you that, even though you"re a total wimp on the inside. I"m sure there are lots of people who"ve got their eyes on you. But don"t tell me you"re planning to take all of them up on it. If you have no virtue, you"re totally unfit to be a n.o.ble, no matter how cute you are!"

"Woah, wait a minute! You"re supposed to be the cute one! And what is this thing about virtue..."

The impact occurs right in the middle of this important question.