YMPDKMA Chapter 39

4: Sinking

Rupert sat in front of his desk in an awkward position, organizing firearms of all kinds. The more he concentrated, the sharper and fiercer his eyes became. Ruize, who'd been watching him, secretly let out a sigh.

A lady who didn't even care that her skirt was riding up, fiddling with terrifying pistols and such. No matter her origins, as someone who was a knight to his bones, this wasn't a sight he particularly wanted to see. Of course, Rupert handling a rifle with the grave expression of someone appraising jewelry wasn't a girl, but still.

Without even blinking, Rupert quietly examined the firearms before him, then carefully pulled over a medium-sized rifle and began wiping it with a handkerchief. The handkerchief, delicately embroidered with dandelions—the sort demure young ladies might use to dab tears at the opera—crumpled mercilessly in his grip and lost its intended purpose entirely.

It looked rough, but his touch was actually quite delicate. He tended to care for well-worn things, after all.

"Does wiping it that hard make the bullets fly faster?"

"Shut up."

Ruize was busy—not as busy as Rupert himself, perhaps, but very busy handling the tasks Rupert dumped on him. When he grumbled at Rupert, who'd set him up like a folding screen, the princess—no, the prince Rupert—snapped sharply and stepped up onto the desk.

The moment he reached up to hang the rifle at a height beyond his grasp, his temple stung as if pricked by a thorn. He swayed and fell, but Ruize didn't reach out to help him from slamming into the floor. He knew Rupert wouldn't welcome it.

He was the person in the empire most ravenous for Ruize's help, yet he never acted like it. That was precisely why Ruize followed him. His young master was wretched, but not servile.

"F*ck."

Rupert, hands pressed to the floor, staggered upright while muttering curses under his breath. Having one body but seeing two fields of vision was exhausting work. Even without monitoring Lariette, he had more than enough to worry about, so his mind—never particularly peaceful to begin with—was as chaotic as a soldier's on the battlefield.

Ruize clicked his tongue, saying no one would mistake him for a girl right now. Rupert glared at him while picking up the fallen rifle.

"If you're going to keep yapping, get out. I'm busy as hell."

"That hurts my feelings."

Ruize spoke theatrically, as if wounded, pressing his hand to his chest, but his expression remained utterly flat, not looking sincere in the slightest. Rupert irritably aimed the gun barrel at him. Click. He pulled the trigger without hesitation, but the chamber was empty, so naturally nothing happened.

"Going to kill me? How scary."

"I said shut up."

Rupert, seemingly unbothered, rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a hidden box full of hwea and bullets, tossing it onto the desk. His head was throbbing so badly he couldn't think straight. Ruize mocking him with that smug attitude wasn't exactly new, but today it grated more than usual.

He ripped open several buttons on the suffocating dress and untied the ribbon holding up his hair. Long strands cascaded down like golden waves, showing off their fine texture. Rupert's golden hair—brilliant as if someone had ground up the sun—played the most crucial role in his feminine disguise. It was the element that concealed the increasingly vicious, sharp-edged glare that grew worse by the day.

"Now you really don't look like a girl. Not cute at all."

"Were you planning to f*ck me if I was cute?"

"Please don't say such vulgar things."

Ruize grimaced and stuck out his tongue. He made a pitiful face, complaining that Rupert's language was getting rougher and rougher after spending all his time in back alleys. Rupert ignored him halfway—no, more than halfway—as he picked up a bullet. At first glance, it looked as ordinary and unremarkable as those commonly supplied to the military, but the tip was wrapped with silver thread in a peculiar way.

Rupert stared at it indifferently, then bit through the thread with his teeth. If he'd been an ordinary person, his body would have exploded the moment it touched the thread's end, but he was the one who'd created this bundle of thread stained with sinister curses. However, as with most dangerous things, alchemy always demanded a price, so blood beaded at the corner of his mouth where he'd bitten the thread.

Rupert paid no attention to the wound and repeated the same action several times. The bizarre behavior only ended when bullets with severed threads piled up beside the desk and Ruize grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Are you in pain?"

Tori came running over quickly with worried eyes, holding a clean towel, and wiped the corner of Rupert's mouth. He accepted her attention with closed eyes, then put a stick of hwea lying beside the bullets between his lips. His cracked lips stung as they heated up instantly, but the pain wasn't significant enough to matter anymore. He was indifferent to physical pain to a degree that horrified Tori.

Soon thick hwea smoke began to fill the room, forcing its way in. Hwea, made by drying and grinding hwea leaves into fine rolls, was the most useful thing he'd obtained through Fassbender. It became even more excellent when mixed with a powerful sleeping agent that could put you to sleep just from smelling it.

Of course, Rupert wasn't the type whose mind was peaceful enough to fall asleep from mere sleeping pills, but his razor-sharp nerves did settle down slowly. He inhaled the smoke urgently, as if breathing for the first time, then exhaled it like a sigh.

"No. I'm fine."

Rupert looked at Tori, who stood on tiptoe before him, with a caring gaze completely opposite to how he treated Ruize, and patted her head a couple of times.

"Um..."

Ruize opened his mouth in displeasure, but a knock shattered the rest period Rupert had been enjoying for the first time in ages.

Knock, knock.

He naturally stuck the hwea he'd been smoking into Ruize's mouth and sat primly in his chair like a doll. When Tori opened the door, Princess Naichelle entered the room with elegant steps. Rupert struggled to keep his expression from twisting as he rose from his seat and bowed.

"Oh, don't be so stiff."

Naichelle smiled warmly with a voice like an oriole and embraced Rupert. She was startled by the strong hwea smell, but when she spotted the hwea Ruize was holding, she laughed it off.

"Oh my, Sir Baden. Even though hwea is fashionable these days, Lapherte's health is still delicate. Please be careful."

"My apologies."

"Lapherte, have you been well?"

"Yes, thanks to you."

Rupert's answer was somewhat true. The reason Arnulf was bothering him less lately was entirely because of Naichelle. She was a noblewoman of refined nature by birth, appalled by her brother's brutality in tormenting their poor stepsister. Naichelle had argued with Arnulf over Rupert many times.

But Rupert thought that was none of his concern anyway. If anything, Naichelle made him more uncomfortable than Arnulf. He despised cheap pity.

"If Arnulf bothers you again..."

"Thank you, kind one."

Rupert cut off Naichelle's words with a gentle smile that wouldn't offend her. Naichelle wasn't as stupid as Arnulf. She knew Rupert was more beautiful than herself and frighteningly intelligent. That's why she pitied him. It was the easiest way to subjugate him beneath her.

"Hmm, what were you doing?"

"Just a small hobby."

Rupert murmured as he blocked Naichelle's gaze toward the desk with his body. Annoying b*tch.

"Oh my! Your lip! Are you hurt?"

Naichelle let out a small exclamation, seemingly very worried about the wound that had entered her field of vision. Rupert silently rubbed his blood-smeared lips, then made a strange expression when Naichelle's gaze alternated between his disheveled clothing, red lips, and Ruize standing there blankly.

"Lapherte! Surely, surely you're not doing something strange with Sir Baden?"

"What do you mean?"

Rupert asked innocently, and instead of tilting his head, he clutched his collar—which he'd unbuttoned himself earlier—as if embarrassed. At that affected gesture, Ruize, who'd been watching silently, gaped. His lord's behavior was outrageous.

"Keep it secret. The Sir isn't my knight yet, after all."

Rupert whispered, bringing his index finger to his lips. Shh. The performance would make an actor weep. Ruize, who'd never even dreamed of being implicated in anything unseemly with a girl—no, boy—barely half his age, wanted to cry.

"Oh, oh my. Oh dear. Lapherte! This isn't right! But I won't tell anyone."

Naichelle was more embarrassed than Rupert at his half-baked coquetry. When she nodded vigorously with a bright red face, Rupert smiled slightly and pulled her into an embrace.

"Thank you. But could you visit again later? I have work to do."

"Mm, I will."

Naichelle, red as if she might steam, hurried out of the room as if burned.

Within a week, malicious rumors would spread wildly—that Rupert played with his body carelessly like his mother, that vulgar blood couldn't be hidden. And the suspicious looks at his sudden growth spurt would decrease as well.

He smiled with satisfaction and approached the desk again. Ruize shrieked.

"Have you lost your mind!"