The man strolled confidently to their table and bowed reverently in front of them both.
'May I help you with something, Heika?'
x-x-x-x
Conrad snapped out of his thoughts at the sudden interruption and looked owlishly at Yuri, clearly wondering what was all this about but was surprised as he saw the look on the young kings features. Then, his expression turned shocked when he realized that the Maoh had showed up! He couldn't understand. What had he missed? What could have happened to be bad enough to possibly bring out the Maoh?
Yuri looked at the man with very calm eyes and a slight smile that somehow felt dangerous rather than his trademark sheepish or warm one. If looks could almost burn, then this was one of them. And the first one to have ever graced the great Yuri-Heika's face. The manager did a double take.
The Maoh's sudden appearance nearly caused the poor manager to wet his pants and faint from fright. But was doing his best not to let it show.
"Actually, yes, you can." Yuri replied in a too sweet a tone to be digested easily. "You could help me to achieve a little bit peace of mind and privacy. You see, when I entered this fine establishment, I never thought that I would encounter so many loud and nosy people and such an inefficient staff that they'd be completely unable to control them." His eyes glinted devilishly.
The manager's concern grew deeper. "Heika! Why you say that? Did we do something wrong? Is something not to your liking?" The manager's calm mask was slowly breaking wondering what was the cause of the king's accusations.
In spite of, both, Yuri and the man speaking in hushed tones, their conversation was quickly gathering a keen following. And although no one besides Yuri, the manager and Conrad could hear a word of the hushed conversation, their body language spoke volumes.
"Your guess is quite close." Yuri's almost cold tone sent shivers down his spine. Some other attendants arrived too, obviously curious as to what ailed the king.
"I don't think I follow, Heika." the manager stuttered. It was surprising how the young king was able to turn him into a stuttering idiot. Usually, he was a man of powerful personality and was quite capable of diffusing even the tightest situations easily. But something in Yuri's demeanor sent off alarms in his head, causing his body to become a living, walking example of a vibrator.
"Oh! Don't you?" His eyes were slowly turning hard betraying the initial expression of friendliness. The other attendants shivered in anticipation, dreading the outcome. Clearly, it wasn't a happy conversation and they certainly wouldn't want anything out of it.
It was a well-known fact that only an utter fool would spark a king's anger, no matter how kind the king might be. Slowly, everyone backed off, leaving only the manager to bear the king's ire.
"Are you making a fool out of me? Or do you think that I was deaf? Or perhaps you were?" Yuri continued.
"Did you really not hear a single word that had been circulating throughout this place for the past few minutes?"
"Yuri..." Conrad continued astonished by the sudden transformation but couldn't find any more words.
"Did you not hear the profanities being hurled at, both, me and Sir Weller?" Yuri continued. "I thought it was your job to maintain the decorum of the place and yet you let this despicability continue. You made no effort to try and quench it; didn't even try to move a hair to confirm that at least all this non-sense don't reach my ears." Yuri eyes flashed angrily.
"Heika...that was not..." the manager stuttered. His body was visibly trembling now.
"Or perhaps you enjoyed it? Drove quite a bit of entertainment from the situation?" Yuri suggested.
"NO! Not at all, Heika, I could never..." the manager was quick to amend but Yuri cut him off. "...Then why was all this nonsense allowed to continue? Why did you let those good-for-nothing rich die-hearts throw dirt at me and even Sir Weller? You all actually showed me my true place today. I was never insulted so much before." The manager merely dipped his head low, having no answers for the young king's questions. After all, he had made a grave mistake, although unintentionally. He had heard the whispers and should've stopped them in time. But he was bounded by the rules so as to not interfere in his clients' conversation, no matter how he felt about it. And, besides, he hadn't thought that the king would actually hear them. Those things were whispered too low. But having all that pointed out directly by the king was too shameful. His cheeks reddened with shame and his gaze lowered.
"I don't believe I, actually, heard all that garbage." Yuri jerked a thumb towards a group of customers. "I know already that you people don't think much about me and..." But Yuri was cut-off by the manager.
"No. Don't say such things Heika. You're the most important..." At this Yuri raised a hand to stop him and continued with a low vehement tone.
"...I'm not finished yet. So, as I was saying. Maybe I'm not important or worthy enough for you guys to respect me, my privacy or my dignity, but I never thought that you could actually go so low as to speak so ill and inappropriate for someone such as Lord Weller. Had he not done enough for you already? How could you forget that it's only because of this man that all of you even have a safe peaceful sleep every night? Or that it was only because of him that you all got another chance at life, even after that war 20 years ago, to be able to sit here like this today? How could any of you fall so low as to, even, think of equating any of us to a cheap whore? Am I you king or what?" A momentary silence. "You all disgust me." Yuri spat out finally.
The manager couldn't say anything but feel completely embarrassed. He was very uncomfortable and only uttered a low "I'm sorry, Heika."
"Listen, I don't care what you think of me but under no circumstances am I going to forgive anyone for ill-mouthing Lord Weller or any of my other subordinates. You've no idea what they've done for you and how important assets they are for this kingdom. So, you better go and tell all those selfish beings to either shut their dirty mouths right this instant or risk being thrown to sand-bears and koalas for their breakfast. And I swear that I'll actually do it without any regret." Yuri threatened his best, already partially maddened in anger.
"Y-Yes, hh-ee-ii-kk-a. An-nd I'm really s-oo-orry, my lord. Ple-ea-ase forgive us." the manager managed to speak somehow. "I-I p-promise you won't have any more complaints."
"You better take care of that."
"Ye-yes."
Greatly embarrassed and mortified, the manager turned away, ready to move towards the accused clients in hope of co-operative talks, but stopped midway and turned back.
"Heika, I..." the manager stuttered, unsure if he should continue.
Having had only a few seconds to recover from his sudden anger, Yuri, didn't have much control yet. He slowly looked back at the poor guy with an almost disinterested face and raised his single eyebrow guarding his silted eyes, but didn't say anything.
Taking that as a que to continue, the manager spoke, still scared with all of his wits flown out of the window.
"Heika, I had a request. If...y-you would like to hear..." the man seemed to be having problem in continuing and stayed silent for a few moments.
Looking at his highly embarrassed and terrified look, Yuri finally had mercy on his poor soul and spoke calmly even if still somewhat strictly, "Please tell."
"Heika." the man spoke solemnly. "Please don't think badly of our establishment. I, on behalf of everyone working here, promise that such a shameful incidence will never be repeated here or allowed to repeat again in future ever. Please forgive us, Heika. It will hurt us beyond repair if the king leaves this place in anger. Our every encounter with you is already attracting attention."
Yuri looked around once again and true to the man's words, almost every eye was fixed on their table even if nobody could hear a thing due to overly hushed nature of their conversation.
Suddenly, Yuri started feeling bad for being so rude to the poor man. After all, he hadn't done anything for being the one to bear his wrath, and was most probably bounded by the policy of non-interference, as is customary in similar classy places even in Japan.
Trying to rectify his error and to get the man, in front of him, at ease, Yuri flashed him a friendly look, trying to encourage him to continue. But looking at the manager, it was evident that it didn't work much. So, Yuri changed his tactics.
Quickly planting his best friendly grin on his face, coupled with immensely kind eyes, Yuri replied in a firm tone, "No need to worry. I promise I won't let this incident hurt you financially. But only on the condition that you'll take care that such things as I overheard recently should not reach my ears again."
"I understand that not everything is under your control so I'm not asking you to take any drastic measures such as escorting a few guests outside. But please ask them to keep quite on matters not concerning them or at least be low enough so as to not get intercepted, especially by those people whom the said bunch of people were bitching about", Yuri finished slowly.
At Yuri's words and reaction, relief filled the manager's features, although he was, yet, very embarrassed. "Yes, Heika. As you say."
Yuri dropped his tone further down the friendly path, being much more in control now than before, as he said, "Please understand that I, too, am a normal human being who doesn't like to hear ill of the people whom he holds precious in his heart. And sorry for yelling at you like that. I know that it wasn't your fault but I, just, lost control."
The standing man bowed doubly low before saying, "No sire. I should be the one to do all the apologizing. Once again, I'm really sorry that you had to hear the unpleasantness, Heika. And you, too, Sir Weller. Please forgive us." He bowed to Conrad as well who, out of utter confusion merely nodded, before departing to accomplish his appointed task.
Yuri felt bad for the man but was not at all regretful for his actions. He would never bear Conrad's insult or fail to punish such actions, no matter what.
Remembering of Conrad... Yuri instantly changed back to normal.
'I will have to talk to him about something now at all costs.' Yuri thought. 'Especially after that stunt. Even Conrad's aware of it now.' Looking into Conrad's questioning eyes, he sighed.
x-x-x-x
To say that Conrad was flabbergasted would be the understatement of the century. Yuri was angry. Yuri was not only angry but yelling. Yuri was not only yelling but threatening. Yuri was not only threatening but threatening to kill. His cute innocent Yuri...threatening to kill in cold blood, Conrad almost had a heart-attack.
Conrad was brought out of his thoughts by the sudden approach of the hotel manager. He had been very astonished, thinking what Yuri could want from him. Quite amused, he even tried to tell Yuri that he was not the waiter in case Yuri needed something. However, the strings of accusations and apologies that followed and punctuated their entire argument, only served to make him more and more confused. All he could gather from the conversation was that-
(1) Somehow, intentionally or unintentionally, Yuri had been offended. The mere thought caused his entire being to flame in anger once again at the unknown person(s).
(2) That same person had intentionally offended him as well. Nothing very surprising. After more than 100 years of bearing the burden of being a half-breed, he was quite used to hearing trash about himself.
(3) Yuri was upset because of point number 2.
(4) Yuri broke his personal code of principles and threatened a man with death just to punish him for insulting Conrad.
(5) Yuri defended him.
'Yuri defended him.' The thought rang loudly into his head. His Yuri, his precious Yuri had defended him. Unknowingly, a huge smile broke on his lips and his eyed took a dreamy look while his cheeks blushed in sheer pleasure. It wasn't that this was the first time for Yuri to defend him, but he'd never ever done so, so aggressively before and in full public view at that. Hell, he even threatened a man; something that Yuri never did for anyone no matter how important to him. It was his personal motto to never hurt anyone willingly and that had included with physical as well as verbal attacks, no matter how much of a psycho the enemy he's facing might be. And today, he'd broken the very same motto just for him. Conrad was going to relish in the sheer pleasure that this knowledge brought him and take the memory to his grave to experience in the afterlife.
However, this also brought some disturbing facts. Conrad had left Yuri alone for so long a time so as to allow him to be subjected to humiliation. And to top that, he didn't even notice. Conrad cursed himself for being so distracted. 'I better start a talk.' he thought.
He looked towards Yuri exactly at the same time as Yuri looked at him. "Umm..." both spoke simultaneously. Both kept looking at each other quietly for a while before bursting out laughing. I was the first genuine laugh either of them laughed in a long time. At that moment, basking in pure happiness in each other's company, they looked perfect together; especially to another couple sitting at a few table's distance and secretly watching them.