AN: Came back from my break and realized that I messed up and gave the previous chapter the name that this one should have had >< Whoops.

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  Sien’s pyful flirting was abruptly interrupted a few minutes ter by a maid timidly knocking on the door and announcing that it was dinner-time. As he usually did while in the pace, Sien opted to have dinner brought to his room. Ritt marveled at the amount of specialty meats that adorned the table. He’d grown so used to seeing most of his dinners with Sien dominated by various vegetable and fruit dishes that seeing so many meat options was absolutely mind boggling. However, once he swallowed the spit that was building up in his mouth and regained his mind, Ritt immediately turned to look at Sien, worried that such a meat-heavy selection might upset him. But when he saw that Sien didn’t look particurly phased, and that he had even chosen a bit of meat and was forking it towards his mouth, Ritt couldn’t help but speak in his surprise.

  “Ah, Sien!”

  “Yeah, Ritt…?”

  “But… But isn’t that meat?”

  “Yes? …Oh!”

  Sien’s puzzled, scrunched face quickly turned into a teasing expression, and before Ritt could continue speaking, Sien quickly stuffed the forkful of meat into Ritt’s mouth with a chuckle.

  “Here, see for yourself!”

  The rough movement made the fork clink against Ritt’s teeth uncomfortably, but that didn’t matter once the truth of the meat that was in his mouth was revealed. He blocked his mouth with one hand as he messily chewed through the thin, cool meat, hurrying so that he could quickly talk to Sien again.

  “...It’s not cooked!”

  “Yup, almost half of the meats on this table aren’t.”

  “Ah… I-is that safe, though?”

  Ritt was certain that he himself would be alright eating raw meat, simply because his body had been made to become so resilient. However, even though the Duke had told him that the Fae preferred such raw meats, he didn’t know if Sien, who was half human, would be affected negatively by them.

  “Yeah, it should be fine. Whenever I come here the Emperor makes sure that there’s plenty of safe meat around to feed me with. I highly doubt he’s willing to sacrifice one of his prized chefs to me by having one poison me for no reason, lethally or otherwise. He’s not that bold of a guy.”

  “Mmm…”

  Ritt turned his gaze back to the many uncooked meats, scrunching his brows up in worry for a moment. Eventually he decided to take a small amount of each of them, so that he could discreetly perform the role of a food tester for Sien. After all, even if he would be perfectly fine eating raw food, that didn’t mean he couldn’t detect if there was something that could cause harm inside of them.

  ~~~

  Every bit of food had been both delicious and safe, proving that his overly cautious worries had been for not. After tasting every dish and finding them to be satisfactory, Ritt had spent the rest of the meal carefully observing Sien while he ate. While the dishes seemed to be perfectly fine for the human body to consume, there was no way for Ritt to know if they might pose any problems for Sien’s special mixed body. If anything should prove a problem, he was ready to jump in and heal Sien at the drop of a hat.

  Despite his misgivings about what foul py might possibly be going on, Ritt couldn’t help but smile gently at the fact that he was finally seeing Sien eat meat. It was something that he’d often wanted to share and feed to Sien, but had proved quite difficult until now. He’d always worried that Sien wasn’t eating healthily enough; From what he’d learned in Brissilica, meat was supposed to be very important for development and growth, and eating too much of one thing without enough of the other was also supposed to be quite bad. He’d never seen Sien's father or mother, but he’d seen plenty of one of Sien’s uncles, and had had a brief meeting with the other; If genetics were anything to go off of, Ritt believed that Sien should have actually been quite a bit taller and less lean than he was. Of course, there was always the chance that Sien’s father was quite short and lean, skewing him away from that build, however.

  Ritt’s soft smile and wistful look was easily noticeable to Sien. In fact, the way that Ritt was staring was starting to make Sien feel a bit bashful.

  “...Why are you smiling like that…? Was the food super tasty this time or something?”

  “Mmm, it’s because seeing you eating meat makes me really happy.”

  Sien blinked bnkly at the reply that was practically oozing out happiness, and a moment ter his face went through all kinds of bewildered comical expressions as it grew redder and redder. His mouth fpped, trying to formute what to say in response, although he seemed to repeatedly abruptly stop himself as soon as he made any sound.

  In the end Sien was forced to press a hand against his face to calm himself down, and change the subject.

  “Look, didn’t you want me to tell you about what happened in the ballroom earlier? How about we talk about that now?”

  Ritt’s face shifted into a serious expression immediately, realizing that he was about to hear something important.

  “Yes. Please go on.”

  “Sure. Mmm-”

  Sien leaned back, looking a bit more rexed, although his expression drooped a bit as he considered what exactly it was that he should say, causing Ritt to worry about what was going to come out of Sien’s mouth next.

  “Well, I guess I did it because the Emperor told me to?”

  Ritt clenched his teeth, surprised and displeased that the Emperor was the reason behind Sien’s sudden and erratic behavior. His mind raced with all the awful possibilities of what such a fact might entail. Sien easily picked up on the darkening of Ritt’s expression, however, and quickly waved his hand, looking a bit embarrassed.

  “Oh no wait, I promise it’s not how you’re thinking, Ritt! It’s just that sometimes the Emperor finds out a bad thing or two about some of the nobles, and he lets me clean them up for him in a way that’s not, you know, too incriminating for him or anything.”

  Ritt’s brow furrowed even further, clearly not pleased with what he was hearing.

  “Sien, that doesn’t sound any better… If anything, it sounds like-”

  “Yeah yeah, I know already; It sounds like he’s forcing me to have a bad reputation just to clean up his trash. Of course it does!”

  “Hmm… Is… Is it not like that, then?”

  Sien tilted his head onto his shoulder, seeming as if he were pondering over something for a moment, and looking a bit unsure. He threw a few gnces towards Ritt in worry, wondering if he should say what he was about to say, but in the end he gave in and admitted the truth to him.

  “Well, when I was younger… You heard what uncle said. People liked to lie to me all the time, or try to use me somehow since I’m technically royalty. It didn't take me very long to get tired of it. You saw how those stupid nobles were acting in the ballroom; You understand how infuriating they can be when it comes to me.”

  Ritt nodded along, staring almost unblinkingly at Sien as he waited for him to continue.

  “Er, so, well… One day I couldn’t take it anymore, you know? There was a party, I had a sword, and I used it. Honestly, it probably would have never happened if my mom was there. But you know, by that time, she was already so sick and bedridden, so… Anyways yeah, that’s when the Emperor summoned me over, and I thought I was definitely going to get in trouble. But as it turns out, the guy I ended up cutting down was actually pnning a rebellion, and was someone that the Emperor was secretly about to get rid of anyway; I was just lucky that the timing on everything lined up. And after thinking about things for a little while, the Emperor made me an offer.”

  “...And that’s when he started using you to get rid of people he doesn’t like?”

  “Eh, you say get rid of, but it’s mostly just open harassment. Violent harassment. Not everyone ends up dead, just the unlucky ones.”

  “But Sien… That’s still bad, isn’t it? You’re being made into a monster just like they think you are, all because the Emperor told you to…”

  “Haa… Ritt, you’re not getting something here.”

  Ritt’s eyes, which had been narrowing in worry, quickly opened up in surprise at the sudden change of Sien’s tone. He’d previously sounded embarrassed, almost like he was trying to ugh away something shameful that he’d once done before. But now his tone had turned icey, and even though his head still remained leaning on his shoulder, and even though the expression on his face hadn’t changed, somehow Sien’s eyes were shining with a particurly malevolent light.

  “I was the one who got tired of it all and attacked first, and I was the one who accepted the Emperor’s proposal. He never ordered me to do any of this; He never even had to bother to use my true name to make it happen, either. This happened because I was tired of all the nobles and their stupid bullshit, and I was tired of pying along with it all. What the Emperor gave me was just an excuse to run wild like I was already going to do.”