Disclaimer: I don't own KKM.
The First Out of Three
Three sons and a mother. Some thought it odd that a woman so desirable and so very desired as Cheri, the ever marriage-hungry ex-Maou, had trouble keeping a husband in the house. The first of course had died in battle, a very noble and honorable death for a very noble and honorable man. The third had died in an accident, an event the nation mourned primarily out of sympathy for the young boy that was fatherless, now the third in a row. As for the second, no one had bothered to keep a record of how he had died, or even where, or when. They just knew that he had died, and good riddance to that. Konrad's father was a mystery that most people had never bothered to unravel, but the fact was that one of Cheri's children knew more than he cared to know about the man, and it wasn't the son that it probably should have been.
Konrad was perhaps the only person in the kingdom that had felt the want of knowing just a bit more about his father-- it was only through his good nature that he came not to hate Gwendal for the knowledge gap between them and the chance that he had taken in Konrad's stead. Gwendal wasn't often sociable of lighthearted with his brothers, but that didn't make him a stupid. He never mentioned much of what happened if he could, but there were times when it had been made obvious just what Gwendal held above his brother's head.
Konrad was twelve when his brother first mentioned it, snide words that were almost uncharacteristically cruel of him. Gwendal was one to keep his irritation to himself most times, very disciplined with himself, and certain to have a future in diplomacy. It was an accident when he said it.
"You're always in other people's business just like your father! I don't care what you think is girly, get out of my room!"
It wasn't as if Konrad had cried himself to sleep, but he had been bitter for days, and had had Cheri worried that something was seriously wrong.
The next time was at a birthday of his, a smiling friend of their mother insisting how happy his father would have been to see him all grown up. "Naa Gwendal, don't you think so? Wouldn't he just be so proud?" She had been drunk of course. Anyone who ever spoke of Dan Hiri always was. Gwendal had looked angry, offended, and embarrassed all at once.
"I fail to see how I'm the automatic authority on the man," he had said harshly, disgusted by the immediate association. Noticing his brother's face a second later, it was all he could do to mutter something like, "sure, he'd be proud," and find a new group a rich politicians to please.
The third time had been no accident or slip of the tongue, Konrad had simply wanted to know. They had had quite a bit more time on their hands with this new Maou-- every day Yuuri spent absent to the other world was a day the majority of the castle spent in inactivity. Gwendal and Guenter had taken on some of the responsibilities that would originally have been the Maou's, but the kingdom still occasionally lacked the authority to make certain decisions or proceed with certain projects at times when the Maou was not present. Konrad had simply had too much time to think this round.
"Why?"
"Konrad, don't ask stupid questions." Gwendal hadn't been amused. They weren't children anymore. Some things need to be forgotten over in time, not dragged on. "You're asking the wrong person. I'm the farthest person there was from understanding him."
"But Gwendal haven't you even thought abou--"
"Let it die!"
Gwendal was rarely so openly aggressive against his family or others in the castle, but he had little patience for his brother (and the sensible one, at that) poking into things that deserved no attention. Gwendal had gone that day because he had been ordered to by the spouse of the Maou. It wasn't something he had volunteered for.
Konrad was calmer. "I have the right to know, Gwendal. I want to know what happened and why. Why he had raised me on horseback only to leave me at the castle."
Gwendal laughed at him. Even through his resentment at being interrupted and bothered with such business, that had finally amused him. "Konrad, you're father wasn't thinking about you when he was dying." As if it were obvious. As if Konrad were the only person in the world not to have known. "Your father was thinking about the best way to preserve himself."
"Why?"
"Don't ask me 'why .' As if he would have given me the satisfaction of understanding him. I don't know."
"You've thought about it just as much as I have. You know by now; you've had a lot of time to think."
Gwendal sighed. He knew somewhere in his brain, the part that held all the information he denied, that not all of Konrad's good points came from the Mazoku side of him. This determination, for one, Gwendal recognized.
"He asked me to accompany him, Konrad, because I hated him so much more than you could have even come to love him. Dan Hiri hadn't minded being a father, but what he had wanted was to be immortal." Konrad had gotten what he had come for, just like his father. "Now get out."
Contrary to what Gwendal had told him, Konrad was certain to never let it die. He never mentioned it to Gwendal again, but if immortality is what his father had been searching for, he could have very well found it.