Arc 2 - Chapter 7: The Trickster (1/3)

Yu's fingers smeared blood on the white keys of the piano.

None of the listeners could see the blood, but Yu could. Each time he pressed a key, the redness slowly spread to the other keys.

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was one of Yu's favorite pieces. At least he thought so only for the first movement. Slow, calm and peaceful, it was like an escape from life for Yu, who hated noise and loud noises of any kind.

But after the death of his older sisters, he had come to hate it, and every time he heard the notes, a dark cloud fell over his heart.

The reason he played it today was because of what happened last night. After Camaeron Don's death, the piece kept returning to his mind and when he saw the piano in the Leafera mansion, the first thing he wanted to do was play it.

"But are these fingers worthy to play it?"

Yu thought of his older sisters. Was the blood on his fingers only Camaeron's, or was it still there from the previous time, he thought as he played.

"I was savage..." he thought as his breathing quickened. "I cut off her head, with a dagger..."

It wasn't easy, and Yurine didn't help. Yu rolled up his sleeves and, clumsily wielding the dagger in his hand, slowly separated Camaeron's head from his body, soaking his jacket in blood.

"I did it... I did it..."

Yu could still see the blood in front of his eyes as he slit Camaeron's throat. The throat was so soft and the dagger cut through the flesh so smoothly that with a little more skill Yu could have finished the job in a short time.

But he hadn't; his hands had trembled, he had failed to cut, and in the process he had torn his throat. The sight of the blood still coming out of Camaeron's neck and mouth was driving him mad.

"I'm a disappointment. I'm a disappointment to my sisters, I'm a disappointment to the woman who saved me, I'm a disappointment to Yurine... But I am... But I had a purpose, didn't I?"

His fingers quickened as his breaths deepened, playing the piece a little faster than they should have.

"If I hadn't done it, more people would have died, good... It's a good thing..."

His eyes were completely locked on the blood on his fingers. He was looking at his fingers as if hypnotized, watching the blood flowing from them as they danced over the keys.

"Mr. Valarfin, you are very impressive," Lucie said. Her green eyes sparkled emerald with admiration as she looked at Yu, who had stopped playing.

"Oh?"

At Lucie's comment, Yu was suddenly pulled up from the sea of thoughts and felt like he could breathe for the first time in a long time.

He had come for breakfast at the Leafera mansion in the morning, having promised to come back later last night.

He hadn't originally intended to come here, but when they had returned to the inn last night, the caretaker had told them that Lucie had invited them for breakfast. It would have been rude to refuse Lucie, who had left her home at night to come to the inn to invite him.

"I haven't even met them for two weeks and they invite me for breakfast." Although he was sometimes the object of jealousy from men his age, people were usually warm to him. "Because I am a product with good packaging. My packaging is impressive and people think I'm sweet. That's the only reason why they like me, trust me, are interested in me. But they wouldn't think that about me if they knew that when the fancy package is opened, there is a bitter product inside that is out of date. They don't know I'm an asshole."

He killed Camaeron Don. He did it with his own hands, willingly, because he was selfish. If they knew that, they wouldn't even want to see Yu.

"You have a beautiful gift, Mr. Valarfin, and though I prefer the cheerful stuff, I can't deny I'm impressed."

"That's why I learned it." Yu felt bad about what he had done, but he still enjoyed the fact that people found him impressive. "I mean to impress people. At first I didn't like it that much because of the lessons, but when I played it, people liked it, they were impressed by me, they told me how talented I was. That's what motivated me and gave me more pleasure than playing. Just like now, I learned because I wanted people to think good things about me."

He had a bitter smile on his face as he told his unasked confession. He especially wanted his sisters to be proud of their brother. He felt that everything he did was in vain when there was no one left to be proud of him.

"Did you like it too?" He broke the silence that followed his words.

"Hmph."

"Why would you react like that now?"

He hadn't looked at Yurine when he played, but he saw her watching him out of the corner of his eye. Even if she didn't want to listen anyway, there was no way she couldn't hear it.

"I think it's because you're born unable to express your feelings honestly, I get it. You mean; Daddy, it was beautiful."

"WATCH WHAT YOU SAY!" Yurine's tail straightened and she purred like a cat.

Yu laughed at the cat-eared sword fairy's anger. Even though he was on fire inside, he still followed his principles, there were two people here besides himself and Yurine, and he had to look good for them.

"WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT!"

"Yurine, your anger is sometimes scary, but sometimes it's sweet."

Usually when they were alone, a nervous Yurine would make Yu shudder, but with someone around, it was safe to see the sweetness in her anger.

"Is this piece called Moonlight Sonata?"

Yu laughed as if nothing bad had happened, but his laughter was interrupted and he turned to Lucia curiously.

"How do you know?"

"You're so serious all of a sudden!" Lucia fussed as she put her hand to her chest, as if she had said something wrong that she shouldn't have said.

Unless Beethoven was an immigrant from the Second World to the First World, the only way Lucia could know the piece was if an inter-world traveler from the First World had played it here.

"I didn't think anyone else would know this piece."

"I heard Denise playing it." Lucia sighed deeply. Her eyes drifted for a brief moment to distant memories, overcome by nostalgia. "It's been forty years since I last heard it, now he's an old person. Time passes so fast."

The rapid passage of time and Lucia's elven lifespan were topics Yu did not want to hear about. He couldn't cope with the thought that someone would live on after him and eventually be forgotten.

"Who is Denise?"

He would like to meet Denise if possible, it would help him in his adventure to talk to a world traveler like himself and hear his stories.

"Ignorant man, you don't even know the leader of the country you live in."

"It breaks my heart that you know why I don't know him, but still you speak just to insult me."

If another person had treated Yu the way Yurine did, his reaction would have been different.

But he couldn't be angry to Yurine.

Not because she was at least ten times stronger than him, but because he wanted to be nice to her.

"You are wrong. Denise is not the leader of the country, she is the prime minister. Princess Eumia is the leader of the country."

He had heard that Rolderhelm was a principality, but he had not researched the rulers.

"Ignorant man, you don't even know the leader of the country you live in." Yu mimicked her previous sentence by looking at Yurine.

Yurine gritted her teeth and looked away, avoiding the dialog. She was like Yu, she didn't like being wrong.

"And who exactly is Denise?"

"One of the heroes who fought in the Battle of Heroes. After the war he married Princess Eumia and joined the Rolder dynasty. What a lucky man."

Yu would agree that he was a lucky man. Lucia said he was a hero, he had married a princess and ruled a rich country, but his old age made Yu disturbed. One day he would grow old like him.

"Mr. Valarfin wants more details."

Lucie realized that Yu was still waiting for Lucia to say something. When he'd first learned that the calendar was the same, he'd realized that there were people traveling between the First and Second Worlds, but he hadn't expected to learn about one of them so quickly.

"What more can I tell you?"

"Where is he from?"

"Where is he from?" Lucia put her hand to her head to think. "I never asked him where he was from."

If she had, could she have learned something about different worlds? If Lucia knew about traveling between worlds, Yu would find something to talk to her about, maybe she get him to meet Denise.

"But even if I meet Denise, so what? Would I ask for help?"

And there was one part Yu left out. Denise might not be an inter-world traveler, but someone who learned the Moonlight Sonata from an inter-world traveler.

"Is he someone who just appeared out of nowhere? Someone whose origins are unknown?"

Naturally, people who were not part of this world would suddenly appear in this world. If the person called Denise also appeared suddenly, Yu would get another clue that he might be an inter-world traveler.

"I don't understand why you ask such questions with such a serious expression."

This was the part where Yu's questions were awkward, and he wasn't sure how to continue with an explanation.

"I was just curious," he said. There was already an awkward atmosphere because he was suddenly questioning Lucia and he didn't want to offend her by continuing the questioning. "Then let me play another short piece."

He took the initiative to prevent the atmosphere from falling into silence and pressed the piano keys again.