The Day With Wolfram, Chapter Three
Cake
The next booth that they stopped at was tamer than the others. The owner sold little cakes with hearts on them, similar to the Maou steamed buns Yuuri had seen when he first came to New Makoku.
Yuuri and Wolfram stood in front of the stall for a few moments.
Wolfram cleared his throat.
Yuuri blinked.
Wolfram motioned towards the cakes.
Yuuri stared.
Wolfram rolled his eyes. "Buy me one."
"But they have HEARTS on them…"
"YUURI!"
"Fine!" Yuuri scowled as he took a few coins out of his pocket. "How much for one of the cakes?" he asked the stall owner.
The old, round man chuckled. "Oh, they're not for sale."
"Eh?"
"I can see that you're new here." The owner smiled at Wolfram. "These are called 'love cakes'. They're free, but you and your loved one have to split it."
"Oh…." Yuuri said. They looked pretty good, but he didn't want to share one with Wolfram. "Then, can I have that one?" He asked, pointing to a cake decorated with a yellow heart.
The owner put the cake in a paper bag, face-up (as Yuuri had seen some Japanese vendors sell food) so that only the heart was visible, and asked, "Do you know what yellow roses mean?"
Yuuri blinked. "Don't they mean love, or something?"
"Hmph." Wolfram took the cake from the man and glared at Yuuri. "Yellow roses mean beauty. I see that you've finally noticed me, Yuuri." He looked away and started to munch, killing Yuuri's hopes of being able to eat an uncontaminated cake.
"Thank you for your business!" The owner said. As Wolfram started to walk away, Yuuri turned back to the stall owner and whispered, "Please let me have another one."
"No way."
"I'll pay."
"Festival rules." The owner squinted. "What, did you pick the wrong one? He is pretty, for a young man…well, he seems irritable, so maybe maroon…"
"YUURI!" Wolfram shouted when he realized that his fiancé was lagging behind.
"Forget it. Thanks," Yuuri said as he ran to catch up to Wolfram.
Wolfram glared at him for a moment, and then he smiled an evil smile.
"You weren't cheating on me with that old guy, were you?" He laughed, and then said through a bite full of cake, "He looked like a plush that my brother would make."
Yuuri smiled and tried to hold back a laugh. "Gwendal does make some rather demented-looking plushes." He remembered that Greta had said something about Gwendal making her a stuffed animal in return for helping him for something.
"Say, Wolfram, have you seen the plush that he made for Greta?"
Wolfram nodded, and wiped his mouth. "It's called an elephant, I think. It was pink and there were two stars on its face. Maybe they were eyes…."
Yuuri still wondered what the favor had entailed.
"Do you know why he made it for her?"
"Yeah, he's been worried because his plushes never look like actual animals, so he asked her to help design it." He thought some more. "I think that Mother had a hangover as well, so maybe he was trying to keep Greta busy with quiet activity so that she wouldn't make Mother go into a pained wailing bout…"
Yuuri suddenly felt his pants leg being tugged. He turned around and saw no one, and then he looked down at his leg.
A small boy with blonde hair and dark brown eyes looked back at him forlornly, ready to cry.
"Whoah!" the Maou shouted as be backed away. "Hey, what are you doing here? This festival is for adults!"
The little boy's face contorted and he started to sob.
"Yuuri?" Wolfram asked. He turned to his fiancé, who was panicking and looking at him helplessly. "Don't be rude," he spat at Yuuri. Wolfram knelt by the boy and put his hand on his shoulder.
"What's wrong?" he asked softly. "Where are your parents?"
The boy turned to Wolfram, and said, through wracking sobs, "They—came—here—and—I don't—know—where—they—went!" He sobbed again. "Where—are—they?"
Wolfram gave him a rare, kind, comforting smile. "Well, we'll help you find them then." He took the boy's hand and glared at Yuuri. "That had better be okay with you, wimp."
/How am I a wimp in this situation/ Yuuri wondered.
As he watched Wolfram and the boy walk in front, still holding hands like Yuuri did with Greta back at the castle, Yuuri couldn't help but think that maybe, Wolfram would be a good parent.
No, was! Was//No more children. I don't even know how we would—I mean, how any others would come about. Unless if he adopts and has his OWN kid then./
The boy stopped crying so loudly after a while, and looked around at the stalls. He pulled Wolfram over to one stall, where more 'love cakes' were being handed out.
/Yuuri probably wants one of these./ Wolfram thought. He knew that Yuuri didn't like the festival tradition of sharing the cake…or rather, that he just didn't want to eat after Wolfram—
/Ah/ Wolfram thought. /It's not that, it can't be that./ There was no way that Yuuri wouldn't love him, after all they'd been through. He mentally kicked himself for thinking so weakly. /Well, since that wimp didn't eat any of the other cake/ he told himself//then he would probably appreciate the gesture if I gave him one./
He looked behind and saw that Yuuri was lagging, looking at the booths and lost in thought. If he had been sharped, Wolfram would have realized that Yuuri had ripped his gaze away from Wolfram and the boy as soon as Wolfram had turned his head.
But Wolfram, being Wolfram, didn't notice. Instead, he wondered//What's that wimp looking at/ He shut he fears out of his mind, fears that Yuuri was looking at girls.
Instead, he tugged on the boy's hand and said, "Let's go get some cakes."
The boy didn't smile immediately, as Wolfram had expected. Instead, he looked off in much the same manner as Yuuri had.
Wolfram gave him a concerned look. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"Um…I forgot something over there." The boy pointed to an area where they were fewer stalls, and less people.
Yuuri caught up to them. "What's up?"
Wolfram spat out, "Nothing. I'm going to get another cake, and then we need to help him find something he left somewhere."
"Okay, okay, calm down…" Yuuri looked away again. Wolfram glanced at him one last time before kneeling in front of the boy.
"Look, this guy isn't good for much," he said in a cheery voice, "but I need you to stay with him for a moment."
The boy looked up at Yuuri, then took a hold of his pants leg again and nodded.
Wolfram approached the crowded stall a little nervously. /Yuuri doesn't really understand this, but the different cakes have different meanings. They're meant to signify the quality of the relationship of the couple who splits them./
He saw four colors: yellow, pink, red, and maroon.
/Yellow is beauty; it's compliment. Pink is meant for friendship…for a very new or very old relationship. Maroon is irritability, but it also means a 'lustful' relationship./
The last was red, the simplest love. He decided to bring that one to Yuuri.
As Wolfram returned, he saw that he boy had started sobbing again and Yuuri was doing his best to comfort him.
"What did you do?" Wolfram asked him irritably.
Yuuri glared at him. "I didn't do anything! He just started crying and saying that we need to go right away."
"If—we—don't—go—my—mom—and—dad—'ll—get—mad!" The boy sobbed.
Wolfram's eyes opened in shock. "Did they BRING you here?"
The boy nodded.
"But they should have known that this festival is off-limits to children!"
Yuuri rolled his eyes. "I said that before."
"Hush." Wolfram held the cake as lightly as he could, still nervous about giving it to Yuuri. "Well, when we see your parents, I'm going to scold them. Jeez, I thought you just followed them here!"
The boy grabbed Yuuri's sleeve and tugged desperately. "It's over here."
"It?" Yuuri raised an eyebrow but he followed the boy anyway. Wolfram caught up to them.
"Yuuri, wait."
"What is it?"
They were out of the crowd by then, away from most of the noise, and Wolfram could hear his own words, no, his own heart much, much more loudly than he wanted to.
He started to hand the cake to Yuuri, but the boy screamed. "My mom and dad!"
Wolfram blushed. /How inconsiderate of me—well, damn it/ "Where are they?" he asked, hoping Yuuri would just take the cake while he was looking at the boy. No such luck.
The boy walked up to Wolfram. "If you don't follow me now, I'm going to scream."
Wolfram panicked now, and Yuuri couldn't help but smile. /That sounds a lot like Wolfram, actually./ He thought.
"Well, we're going to follow you! Where are they?"
The boy started to run off again, but before either Yuuri or Wolfram moved, Wolfram shoved the cake close to Yuuri's chest and said, "Just take this!"
"What's that about?" Yuuri looked at it for a second and ran after the boy. "Come on!"
Wolfram felt like his head was going to explode. He chased after Yuuri, and noticed that the little boy had started to run faster. He bumped into a few people, earning him a few rude remarks, and then they were out of the crowd and in an unfamiliar part of the city.
"Yuuri?" Wolfram asked when he saw that he was alone. Hadn't he just seen the Maou running by this way? After a few moments of silence, he shouted, louder, "Yuuri?"
He heard a muffled response a few meters away, and followed it, taking a few turns. At last, he found Yuuri.
Yuuri was lying on the ground, with the little boy standing off a ways. Wolfram looked from Yuuri's unconscious body to the little boy, horrified, and asked, "How did this happen to him?"
The boy looked close to tears, and Wolfram ran up to him and knelt in front of him, grabbing his shoulders.
"Where are the people who did this to him?" The prince started to panic. He didn't have his sword, Yuuri was out of commission, and the worst part was how disturbingly quiet the boy was being.
Then, he heard footsteps and stood to look behind him. The footsteps stopped immediately, but he could still feel the person—no, not one. There were several people in the area, and all were still.
Wolfram's panic increased, and in a desperate last hope he knelt by Yuuri and tried to shake him awake.
"Yuuri! Wake up, you stupid wimp! You CHEATER!" He shouted, for no reason at that moment other than his own fear. "Come ON! Wake up and become the Maou!"
The boy started to cry, and then he ran down another alleyway.
"Wait! Hey, WAIT!" Wolfram screamed at him. The boy disappeared.
/What's happening to me/ Wolfram thought. He could hear more footsteps. /I don't even have my sword…but I'm a brave Mazoku soldier/ He steadied himself as the footsteps drew nearer, but his enemies were still out of sight.
/Think/ His heart thundered in his ears, and he grabbed Yuuri's hand in both of his own. /I've got to save Yuuri./
Whoever was behind him had stopped walking, and Wolfram started to turn around, to see his assailant, when he heard the man say, "Found you," and then felt something very heavy and very hard hit the back of his head.
As he blacked out, he thought//We're in Mazoku territory…should've used majutsu……/
The last thing that Yuuri had remembered seeing was the boy. The boy had stopped walking suddenly when they had found themselves in a part of town that looked like the setting for a 'vampire attack' in a movie, the kind of place a woman would walk down, think 'oh, where am I?' and then run into a vampire. Or a mugger. Or a rapist.
/Uh./
But now, Yuuri as Yuuri awoke, what he felt was the strongest sensation of pain that he had ever felt before in his life. The arrangement of his body parts didn't make sense when he first came to—it hurt too much! And why couldn't he move? After a few moments of panic, he opened his eyes.
He was in a dungeon or a prison of sorts, chained to a wall in a standing position. /That explains the pain./ The back of his head throbbed, so he guessed that he had been knocked out. He was pleased to find, at the very least, that he was still dressed—even his shoes and money pouch had remained untouched.
He looked around more, and saw that the room was furnished with a bed. That perplexed his sleepy mind for a moment, and then he became angry.
"Who chains an unconscious person to a wall when there's a bed nearby?" He asked no one in particular.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Yuuri found the source of the one sound that filled the room: the ceiling was leaking what Yuuri hoped was water, and a puddle had formed that stopped a short ways from his feet. There was a small window in the room, but Yuuri couldn't see anything through it. On the other wall was a door.
Yuuri hoped that there wasn't a guard behind it.
"Hello?" he asked softly, trying to not be too loud. If there was a guard close to his door, he would be heard; if not, he didn't want to get any one else's attention.
"What is it?" The guard barked.
/Damn./
"Um, well…where am I?"
"Don't ask stupid questions. You're here." He could imagine the guard smirking.
"Where's the other boy who was with me?"
"Who? The Maou?"
Yuuri almost corrected him by saying, "I'm the Maou!" but then he realized that he might have been given an opportunity. "Yeah."
The guard was silent for a moment, and then he said, "I think that Sir Balint is in with him."
Yuuri's breath caught in his chest. His throat tightened, and he suddenly wasn't sure of which question to ask next.
"Balint?" was all he could think of. "Is he the lord of this castle?"
"How many questions do you have?" the guard spat.
Yuuri held his tongue. /I wonder what's happening to Wolfram./
He became aware of a muffled sound in the next room. It sounded like two voices…one was calm, and the other excited and angry. The calm voice would say something incoherent and quiet, and the other would reply by shouting.
/Wolfram/