Me (stare): ...

Wolf: Well that's rare, you're actually quiet for once.

Me (stare blankly): ...

Wolf (raise eyebrow): I guess that exam has burnt out your already pathetic amount of brains cells.

Me (continue staring blankly): ...

Wolf (sigh): Fine. I'll do it this time - "Dear readers, this (hopeless) author has no copyrights over KKM except for this story."


Chapter 8

"You're truly beautiful."

Wolfram nearly set the bed on fire. Hands trembling, he forced himself to steady them as he glowered at the dark-haired man who just complimented him.

"Who are you." He asked again.

Black hair and black eyes. Both were features he'd seen before but never together on the same person. That was until he met Yuuri, and later on the Great Sage. He was told that this combination was common for the people called "Asians" on Earth, that it was nothing special. But here in Shin Makoku, or any other lands for that matter, a double black was so rare that it had become a signature of the Maou, a symbol of the great. It was shocking enough to have two double blacks as of now; was it purely coincidence that one other man, right under their very noses, possessed the same features as the current Demon King?

"I told you. I'm Raven." To his utmost annoyance, this Raven wasn't even attempting to answer his question. Up until now all he said was his name, giving away nothing about his identity except the fact that Lord Ethelbert was his brother.

Time to change tactic then. Wolfram asked his second question through gritted teeth, "Do you know Ryolem?"

The mention of the Xyrolia ambassador seemed to brighten Raven's mood considerably. "Ah, that jolly young human. He's an important guest of ours, what about him?" "I'm a friend of his, can I see him now?" Wolfram couldn't believe his luck. With Ryolem here he could get out of this mess with ease, just a few explanations to do and he would be out walking a free man in no time.

The smile that had never left Raven's face all these time suddenly disappeared. "I see. I'm afraid that's impossible. Like I said, he's a very valuable guest." He leaned forward, showing no signs of fear towards the fire that crackled dangerously in Wolfram's hand. "And until I find out who is responsible for two of my missing guards, I'll not trust his safety to anyone else, especially not one that my men have to take in by force."

He watched with amusement as Wolfram's already pale complexion turned a sicker white. "You wouldn't happen to know who would that be, would you?"

Wolfram shook his head, not saying another word.

"Well then, I must excuse myself now." The smile returned to Raven's face as he stood up to leave. "I trust that you wouldn't wander around without permission. I'd hate to have my man to use violence against you." He didn't wait for an answer as he opened the door to let Kid in and left.

Kid held out a glass of water. "Wolf?"

Wolfram dispelled his magic before accepting the water and thanked him. The fire on his palm sizzled and died, throwing the room back into the semidarkness before where the only light source were the few candles at the far end of the bed. He glared after the direction of the door, hands gripping the glass tightly.

Permission? I never needed that kind of thing when I stepped through your gates.

If Raven refused to let him meet with Ryolem, he will just have to go and find that idiot himself.

He took a sip before setting the glass down and turned towards Kid. "I'm feeling much better now. Do you mind showing me around?" Kid beamed. "No problem, follow me!" He ran to the door, holding it open for Wolfram before closing it after him. "You can lean on me if you want." He offered his shoulder, his big blue eyes looking up at him innocently. Wolfram couldn't believe this was the same child who tried to order him around just a while ago.

"It's alright, I'll manage." He can deal with a little lightheadedness.

It was when he stepped into the corridors that he realized that he was actually underground. That would explain why there was no windows in the room and so awfully dark in there. Were they under the mansion?

"Where are we?"

"Home." Kid added, "You know the garden? That's the way in. You go through that hole in the Big Tree then keep going down, and here we are! Brother Raven says bad people are still looking for us out there so we've to stay out of sight." He seemed to have remembered something as he turned around with a big grin.

"I know! I'll introduce you to everyone! They'll be happy to meet you!"

"Everyone…?" "Uh-huh. Asides from the guards there are four of us here; me, my brother Kay, cranky old Bard and…well, Anna." Kid counted the names off his fingers. "There used to be a lot of us, then one by one they all moved out to a better place Brother Raven found for them." Excitement was clear in his voice, "And soon it'll be our turn too! I can't wait to have my own room!"

Wolfram nodded. It looked like Raven was a rather generous philanthropist, taking in the homeless and gave them new homes afterwards. This reminded him of Yuuri. That idiot would have turned Blood Pledge Castle into a massive homeless shelter if given the chance. He shuddered.

"Come on!" Kid pulled on his sleeves, "They're on the third floor."

"Which floor we are on?" Wolfram allowed himself to be led ahead as he tried to memorize the turns they made along the way. It might be useful to know his way around when he wanted to escape later.

"The first, so we've to go downstairs." Kid turned right at the corner, "There are seven floors in total, but only the first four up here are living quarters. Brother Raven says that the rest of them used to be dungeons so I shouldn't go down there, but I've been to the fifth floor before. It was too dark in there to see a thing though. The guards found me out before I can even try lighting a match," he pouted, "Ever since then they have put a lock on it…argh I want to know what's down there so badly!"

Wolfram looked at the frustrated child as he pondered over the new information.

"Kid," He smiled with a challenging glint in his eyes, "Want to see what is on the seventh floor?"

渋谷有利原宿不利

They had been wandering around for over an hour already and there was still no sign of Wolfram.

Shinou said he couldn't 'connect with Wolfram' for some reasons, so they had no choice but to search blindly around the general location Shinou last sensed Wolfram at.

It was a horrible-looking garden – if one could call it a garden, it looked like a jungle to Yuuri – and there was this huge lock on a gate that stood in their way. Surprisingly there were no guards around so they were safe to explore the place. However they also had no way of obtaining the key. If they hadn't come across a young woman sneaking near the entrance, a very frustrated Yuuri would have already broken down the gate.

She didn't have the key, but her knowledge of a hole in the west wall was good enough for them to get in. Following her memory – yes Shinou had very conveniently possessed the poor girl – they came to a tree where there was another entrance which led to the grounds below. Since then they had been moving underground, carefully concealing their presence while looking for a certain fire-mazoku.

Yuuri was glad to have Shinou out of his head, he really was. Having that guy insulting his every move mentally was seriously driving him up the wall.

But Shinou that was given a body? He was a total nightmare.

"Hmm. Running in this body requires an outstanding level of coordination skills." Shinou – now appearing as a girl around the age of eighteen on the outside – commented thoughtfully as he grabbed the two swaying bundles on his chest that threatened to throw him off-balance.

Oh Shinou, her chest.

Yuuri almost ran into a wall. "Shinou! R-release the…release them immediately!" "Them?" Shinou gave him a confused look. "Oh, you mean these?" He even squeezed the breasts for good measure. "They're really soft…" Yuuri looked practically scandalized. "STOP! Stop stop stop! I don't want to know how they feel like!" Shinou blinked at him. Poor Yuuri was already red to the tip of his ears.

"Pfft. Ahahaha…" He broke into a laugh, finally letting go of the squishy mounds. "What's the problem? It's not like I haven't touch these before. Though I must say, I never hold ones as big as these since my mother's."

Yuuri pretended he didn't hear the part about his mother. "It's not a matter of whether having touched it before! That's someone else's body! Give her some respect!" Shinou raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that men from Earth would give anything just to get their hands on these."

Just what sort of examples were Murata setting to make him think that?!

"We don't! Those are just perverts! I've never—" Yuuri paused a little guiltily as an extremely well-endowed Cecile came to mind, "Just…leave them alone. Please."

Shinou shrugged nonchalantly. He could care less about touching another woman's breast, really. He understood where Yuuri was coming from – that no one should be groping anyone, chest or not – but here in Shin Makoku, touching a man would bring about the same consequences as touching a woman. It seemed that his young successor had yet to grasp this. "Does that mean you've touched a man's chest before?"

"Huh? My dad…"

"I mean someone who's not a family, or from Earth."

"…maybe?"

Shinou smirked at his hesitation. "And what makes you think that it's fine to touch a man?" "What's wrong with—" Yuuri's baffled expression turned into one of mortified as realization dawned on him, the memory of a furiously blushing fiancé flashing across his mind.

No. He was not having this conversation with Shinou.

"We should go…" He began weakly. Shinou narrowed his eyes at him. "Running away from it again? You've to face this eventually, Yuuri."

I know. Yuuri bit his lip as he lowered his gaze to the floor. But sometimes it's just so easy to forget that things are different here.

It wasn't like he didn't know about it. If anything there were many little things which reminded him that homosexual relationships were regarded as normal here. He had seen his fair share of intimate moments between the same genders, thank you very much. But he wasn't disgusted by them, not at all. Just a little culture shock that he tried very hard to get used to – he eventually realized how rude it was to freak out every time Yozak popped out of nowhere to give Conrad a surprise kiss – and now that he had gone and kissed Wolfram himself, he would be the world's greatest hypocrite and liar if he said that he didn't like it.

He groaned and squatted down, putting his head in his hands.

Oh Shinou, now he had done it.

It had been so easy to just pretend he wasn't engaged, that it was a silly accident his big mouth had caused back in his younger days, one that would be forgotten by everyone as time passed. But he was wrong. It wasn't lost in the four years' time as he'd expected. In fact there were constant reminders everywhere, from Wolfram's never-ending tantrums and cries of 'Cheater!' to the disapproving frown Gwendal gave him when he was supposedly 'too friendly' with anyone. People actually cared about this engagement, which meant with one wrong move he could have hurt all those he loved, and this scared him more than anything.

So he began to deny its very existence. He took on a habit of telling Wolfram that this engagement was unwanted and refused to acknowledge the blond as his fiancé. He found that this had taken some pressure off his shoulder, as not having any actual relationship with Wolfram would make things less awkward between them if everything was back to normal with the engagement out of the picture. They would remain as friends like they always were, with no hard feelings, as long he kept his distance. All he had to do was to be the good old friend he was.

"I'm such an idiot…" He moaned as he messed up his hair in one exasperated motion.

Everything was perfect except for the one and only miscalculation he made – he didn't want to be just friends. He can deny it all he liked; that his heart didn't race when he saw Wolfram, that he didn't feel this bizarre need to touch the blond, or that he really, really didn't want to hold him close when he snored away peacefully beside him in bed. But the attraction was there, denial or not, and knowing that he was the only person with the right to make the blond his was a sinful temptation that he barely managed to suppress with great effort in some of the longer nights.

He was fighting a losing battle and he knew it. He still believed that he saw Wolfram as a close friend only, so why was he having these inappropriate thoughts? Was this something solely physical? Wolfram was strikingly beautiful even for a mazoku after all…but he was never a superficial person to begin with, and no matter how you look at it, Wolfram was a guy…

That's right. Wolfram was not a girl.

This was the reason he fought back all these unwanted desires. This was why Wolfram can never be more than a friend.

'This is why I agree that you are a moron, Yuuri.'

Yuuri snapped out of his depressed musings. Shinou's voice sounded too near to be coming from around him, it was more like – "You're back in my mind again?! WHY?!" That would also explain why there was an unconscious body sprawled on the floor next to his feet. It was disturbing on so many levels.

'Well you stay quiet for a while there looking like you want to crawl into a hole and die, so I come to see if there's anything I can help with. And before you ask, don't worry, I only started listening from the part where Sir Weller came in…the mental image is rather disturbing, by the way."

Then stop reading them! And wasn't that right from the start?!

Yuuri was ready to give him a piece of his mind if he received another biting remark, Great One or not. But the voice had disappeared from his mind. There was a slight movement on the floor. His eyes widened a fraction. The girl…she was stirring awake. He leapt up to his feet in an instant, paralyzed in shock as he watched the girl opened her mouth, "I remember saying that I do not give out romantic advices to my successors, so I can only say this: if you cannot follow your heart, instead of resisting what you want, find out what it is that you really don't wish for."

What…?

"Tell me beforehand if you're going to switch back! You gave me quite a scare back there you know?!" There were so many things that Yuuri wanted to scream at him for that it was making his head hurt. Shinou didn't look the least impressed by his attitude. "It's not every day that I impart words of wisdom to another. Pay attention, young Maou."

"I don't understand what you're saying at all! And now isn't the time or place to be doing this!"

"Hmm. You're right."

"Don't you dare say that I'm right—what?" Yuuri trailed off with a look of disbelief on his face.

Shinou pointed at a door at the far end of the corridor. "I think I just found the way to the next floor."

ヴォルフ

Getting to the seventh floor turned out to be a much easier task than Wolfram had thought. For a place that should have tight security, there certainly seemed to be a lack of guards around the stairway leading to the fifth floor. Locks aside, anyone capable of evading the guards could have obtained access to the floors below. And now there weren't even any guards.

"Where are the guards?" Wolfram asked as he gave another cautious glance around, making sure that the missing guards weren't hiding in the dark, waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting intruders. Kid shrugged. "Dunno, they are usually everywhere. But I have only seen one of them so far since this morning."

Too easy. Wolfram thought as the lock came apart in his hands. Everything was going so smoothly that it was like a walk in the park. Was it some sort of a trap? Or it was just a stroke of luck? Then again, he strode down the stairs into the darkness below, motioning Kid to follow him. I could be just reading too much into it.

He casted a fire spell when it was too dark to even see the steps of the stairs anymore. To his surprise, the fire appeared smaller than he wanted. He tried again with a frown, just to come up with a fire the size of a child's fist like before.

"What…" His maryouku had weakened considerably. This could only mean—no, no, it couldn't be, he didn't experience any dizziness and his body felt fine—but the same helplessness and frustration he felt at the failure of drawing magic was all too familiar to him. "Houseki." He hissed, squinting at the dark path ahead with caution. He couldn't tell clearly with this pathetic fire he had but from what he could make out it looked like the stairs had come to a dead end.

Wait. Dead end? He moved closer and inspected the wall that stood firm in their way.

"What happened to the fifth floor?" Kid asked the same question that he had been wondering. They had walked quite some way down and Wolfram was pretty sure they should be one floor down below the fourth already. Technically speaking they were on the fifth level, but so far all they had been walking on were stairs. So there wasn't a 'floor' in the first place? Maybe Kid was mistaken about the layout of this place—emerald eyes widened in alarm.

"Who told you about it?" Kid was bending down while giving the wall a few testing knocks here and there when Wolfram's near-deafening volume almost shocked him out of his skin. "W-what?" He stammered, pushing himself up from his crouching position.

"Who told you about the seventh floor?"

"I don't underst—" The urgency in Wolfram's voice was scaring him.

"Who is it?!"

"Bro-brother Raven?" Kid blurted out in a small, uncertain voice.

I trust that you wouldn't wander around without permission.

The man's words rang in his ears as the ground below him disappeared. Kid screamed and tried to grab onto him.

The hand didn't reach him.

And he was falling.


Yo, Touhyou here.

It has been a pretty hectic 3 months, but I should be able to have a little bit more free time from now on. Hopefully.

A big thankyou to those who continue to support this (I really really really love you guys muack =3=) and a warm welcome to all new readers :)

I'm sure you know this already - favs and reviews show that you guys are actually reading this and like/hate it, so let me know what you think of it, kay?

Thanks guys *HUG*