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Lloyd Frontera idly transferred the quill sketching pen from one side of his mouth to the other and then found himself biting down on it until it cracked.
Turning twenty seven felt… weighty somehow
At this age even Kim Suho should have been finally entering a decent company and singing Friday night karaoke with bleach-blonde bar hotties or something. OK, maybe not karaoke on account of the weaponizable tone-deafness.
Like, how the hell have I wasted my precious mid-twenties conning people and running from fire ants and accidentally becoming an intermediate sword master?
At least he’d also managed to build a lot of awesome shit.
And somehow still not get a single love letter. Alas, dusty middle aged traveling scholars writing praises to his aqueduct didn’t count.
What would rich people back in Korea have done by now?
Hired a matchmaker or something? As if he’d know. He’d been born as a result of an authentic working class meet-cute aka. because his parents had both worked the same graveyard shift at their second job.
God, he needed the opposite - an anti-matchmaker
Someone to handle all those marriage letters from people who didn’t even know what rebar was. Talk about wanting something for nothing! If they were smart they’d have at least cracked an engineering textbook first. Did engineering textbooks exist here? He was probably going to have to write them. Fuuuuck. What a hassle.
I mean the only people who gave him that sweet sweet direct validation were scores of sweaty men, sweaty buff orcs, sweaty buff elf women, and his sworn knight.
(Who was admittedly also buff and occasionally sweaty but it was clear dewy sweat from main character powers that only made him glitter in the sunlight like a goddamn Twilight vampire.)
I mean, the last one was fine.
Arosh and Moira weren’t bad either, once you got some beef in them.
Anyway, anyway.
Lloyd figured that he should probably solve the marriage problem. That was one of those things that poor isekai deuteragonists tended to get solved for them if they didn’t make some kind of effort themselves. The way shit was going now there was probably still an open romance route where he ended up Queen’s Consort and no offense to Alicia and her lovely rack and absolutely terrifying brain but hell no. That sounded like a one way ticket to a lot of council meetings that could have been a letter chain via carrier pigeon. Also 5D machiavellian plot chess, while kinda fun, wasn’t really his idea of foreplay.
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Therefore after spitting out the sad remnants of the crunched quill pen Lloyd started procrastinating on the marriage issue immediately. He did this mostly via browsing through his skills tree, just looking at ye olde character build, trying to see what he could buff to make it through the next inevitable wave of novel plot-related bullshit he soon found the perfect excuse to stop thinking about romantic matters altogether.
Five minutes later he had a spring in his step and a Cunning Plan(™).
Incidentally, said plain also gave him an excuse to bother Javier.
His boot heels shuffled across the Frontera estate carpet in a pre-emptive victory dance.
Bingo. A+, let’s fucking go.
Javier was in the garden under the magnolia tree, his silverblue hair like a candle flame against the backdrop of waxy pink blossoms. Like all its shredded predecessors before it his blue wool tailcoat was lovingly tailored, hugging his slender waist and fluttering sedately in the breeze.
A handful of petals rained down around him and then bounced off of his unconscious swordmaster aura of coolness.
He must have been just finishing up a perimeter check, or maybe just spacing out, or maybe staring at the little black squirrel that lived in that particular tree because Lloyd’s one man army of a knight had a soft spot for cute things.
At this point in their relationship Lloyd had pretty much given up on any kind of teeth-grinding jealousy at Javier’s propensity to look handsome and pensive like a novel cover at a moment’s notice and was just left with letting himself enjoy the view.
Still fun to try and make him pull faces though.
“So I’m your emotional trash can?!” and the attendant disgusted expression was immortalized and lived in pride of place on the living room walls of Lloyd’s brain. Come to think of it, there were a lot of pictures of Javier there-
Nevermind, trolling called.
“Hey Javier!” he yelled “Gimme your main character energy, I wanna get in on this posing sexily on a cliff action!”
Javier turned around, bangs perfect and expression bland.
“Try again, with 50% less bullshit.”
Lloyd sighed. “Jeez you drive a hard bargain there, pal.”
And then he tried again, with 50% less bullshit. With some honesty, even.
“OK so the problem is: I can’t take my shovel to balls.”
Ok that got Javier to crack a grin and then primly hide it by turning his head away and tucking his chin into his perfectly flowing lace cravat.
“Actually I could have sworn-”
“Har har. To someone’s balls, yes, that has happened. Several times. They all freakin’ deserved it.
But you know. Etiquette! Cravats! Noble crap! Aka that stuff that you’re somehow way better than me at, JFC someone seriously swapped our character models in the simulation and now they’re laughing in sysadmin hell-” Lloyd waved away his knight’s inevitable adorable head tilt of ‘you are saying weird modern words again’ “-Look. Soon there will be a fancy dress ball.
Inevitably. Which we’ll get invited to. Because it’s us.
Shit will go down.
Also inevitably. Also because it’s us. And then I probably won’t have my shovel on me.”
This very sensible explanation got him a reluctant nod.
“Right? So that’s why I need a dress sword. And some intermediate fuckin’ clue of what to do with said dress sword. Otherwise I’ll just have to cobble up something from all my random skills again and it could get embarrassing. Like ‘being saved by an army of undead kitchen rats’ embarrassing, get it?”
Javier, who had spent the tail end of their first formal ball together passed out on the Empress's carpet sweaty, shirtless and covered in blood after exceeding his bodily limits (and chopping off that Kevin dude’s arm, hence more blood) seemed to finally be seriously considering this.
“All right.” he said. “I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”
Score!
“Also, back to the cannibalism, could I maybe eat your mana again? I’m trying to level up this absorption skill.”
“We will begin tomorrow.”
“Cool. I’ll pencil you in after mom’s morning tea.”
“Traditionally, training knights get up at dawn.”
Lloyd squinted at him.
‘You’re enjoying this aren’t you. You closet sadist.’ Translated the System window over his head.
Javier raised an eyebrow.
‘Look, serving a guy like you, I have to take every chance I can get.’ Translated the window again.
Wasn’t it cute how they could understand each other so well now?
Anyway Lloyd shrugged, went back to his drafting table and then made sure to herd his bodyguard into the giant overstuffed deluxe recliner that sat by his bed for premier assassin-intercepting purposes at 9pm sharp.
“Isn’t this rather early?” Javier said, nevertheless obediently slipping his feet into sleeping slippers.
“Hey, we’re getting up at dawn, right?”
Of course the bastard somehow looked happy about it.
One day Lloyd was going to smother him with a pillow. Or get him a matching pink baby blanket. Extra fuzzy. Just to mock him. Or make him a little attached knight bed because no matter how comfy his little Bangul-shaped pink smashmallow-brace-thing looked, middle-aged Javier was going to hate his younger self for insisting on sleeping in a chair.
--------------------------
Predictably, intermediate swordsmanship sucked.
Mana absorption training however was going swell, so well it was actually making him a little suspicious.
Lloyd metaphysically licked his lips, slurping the last tendril of fresh green mana down into his own manaheart and its purification system and then stared pointedly at Javier, lying a foot away in the grass.
“Wait wait wait, last time I tried to vore your mana it didn’t go that great.”
“As far as moderately powerful living things go, willingness plays a large part in mana sharing.” His knight said modestly, looking back at him, dawnlight shining off his stupid pale eyelashes.
Pffff, ‘moderately powerful’ look at that humble brag!
“OHhhh so it’s cause you like me now!? Cause you’d die for me?” Lloyd couldn’t help himself he wriggled closer and made a few choice Faces and was going to poke Javier really hard with a dirt-covered fingernail in his perfect porcelain cheekbone except when the pad of his thumb touched it he noticed that his nail was ragged and turned it into a weird sort of caress instead to keep from scratching him. Damn his jaw was smooth. Did swordmasters not get stubble? Unfair.
Javier took all this attendant weirdness in stride.
Actually he stared back directly at Lloyd and shrugged.
“Probably.” He said with infuriating casualness. Just straight up admitting it. I mean a 51 point official positive approval rating didn’t lie. But still!
What demon face could keep up with that level of earnest cringe? Lloyd wasn’t sure what his face was doing now but it might have been pretty sappy.
Yep. It was high time to turn away a little bit to save his manly dignity and maybe stare at some trees.
“So that means nature is just always willing to donate mana? Yikes. Should have had a stronger privacy and protection clause in their contract. Crap, now I gotta be careful so I don’t drain our cute county’s precious resources-”
And now he was muttering awkwardly and Javier was looking at him in a way that could only be described as fond. At least there was a touch of ‘why the fuck am I fond of you, you jackass’ in there too. Just to prove he hadn’t been possessed or anything.
Lloyd coughed fakely into his hand. “Ok, that's enough philosophizing and junk. Now lie still, my pretty little mana battery!~”
So that worked.
Javier’s mana was bracing and refreshing, like an iced lychee boba scraped together from pocket change after a brutal summer shift hauling bricks. It was actually kind of a struggle not to like…suck him dry. It was just that tasty.
All in all a totally productive morning.
He upgraded his vore skill and then, because stoic McMainCharacter over there was looking a little wilted and woozy Lloyd tried putting a hand on his shoulder and then just kind of giving some mana back. Of course by then it had been through his nifty purification filter and had synchronized with his own mana so it was kind of like ‘haha, gotcha sucker! I got my magic cooties on you!’ but seeing the swirl of soft purple meet spring green inside Javier’s body had been…pretty. Kind of satisfying too, ngl.
It also made a new skill pop up: ‘Loyal Companion Mana-Link’
OKaaaay, Corny name but it sounded useful.
It kind of made him think.
I mean, what happened if two manahearts touched and they weren’t fighting?
An explosion… probably. But maybe not.
Not if it was me and him.
Watching Javier get his (admittedly limited) color back Lloyd put a pin in that ‘inventing fancy partner magic’ idea, picked a leaf out of his hair and then dragged him back to the manor for breakfast.
--------------------------------
And then when he ducked back into his room to change out of his regrettably not-dewy-just-sweaty morning workout shirt Lloyd caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and had to do a double take
So apparently mana-voring your fave homie had side-effects. Awesome side effects.
First off his annoyingly persistent eye bags were gone. I mean they went away if Javier snuck out of his chair in the morning and Countess Frontera bribed the maids to let him sleep in with leftover croissants. But who had time for that when there were fresh contracts to review.
Second of all, his skin looked awesome! Like he’d been using retinol and snail cream and whatever crazy steam treatments idols did before a big interview.
Lloyd looked around shiftily and then for a few seconds he let his guard down and let himself preen.
Look, the whole meatsuit situation wasn’t bad.
He had a pert nose and a decent jawline and a cute side bang and his hair had these little wispy shoujo manga tendrils that could probably make him look winsome if he spent more time standing around outside with his sleeves rolled up past his awesome chiseled shoveling forearms and less time cackling over Lacona’s interest rate on the water bill.
The ‘find someone to marry’ plan had a reasonable chance of success. Possible victims were a little thin on the ground though…
Javier poked his head through the door.
“Did you forget, you said you wanted to supervise the lock installation on the canal today.”
Lloyd suppressed a proper maidenly desire to flush and cover himself and instead threw his sweaty shirt at him.
------------------------------------
Things continued apace. Taking the Pacific Rim Kaiju Incident formula Lloyd figured he had a few weeks of breathing room before some minor nonsense reared its head, a few months until the start of another major story arc. Or god forbid the novel could take a hint that it wasn’t getting its grim lone wolf protagonist back anytime soon (like, ever) and maybe give up. That’d be nice.
The canal and barge stuff was fun to mess around with but not terribly taxing.
They were getting trade from the neighboring kingdom now whose sultan decided that instead of waves of monsters he was going to try and upend their textiles market. Which was like, ok, try it bruh. I dare you~ What’s the worst that could happen? Trade as a stabilizing influence? A more unified continent? Peace and prosperity for all? Javier in clingy silk shirts?
Julian wrote him a letter saying he was coming back for spring solstice holiday break signed with ‘so you better buy me lunch again, you big shit’ which made him snort. Experimenting half-assedly with mana transfer unlocked a minor ‘Materials Repair’ cantrip where using a thin layer of mana like ‘glue’ he could encourage small objects to knit themselves back together.
Which clearly called for some low-stakes shenanigans.
He spent the afternoon ninja-ing around the manor finding opportunities to practice - fixing a gouge in one of the Count’s wooden carvings and a chip in the Countess’ favorite teacup. He also may have frankensteined some bent forks into a horrible fork ball sculpture but what the maids couldn’t find shoved behind the stove couldn’t hurt them.
Somehow he ended up in Javier’s room, which was weird, like why did he even have a room if he slept in Lloyd’s all the time. But I guess the identical blue tailcoats had to live somewhere, with all his formal vests and ruffled shirts.
Otherwise it was pretty empty though. Ok for his next birthday Lloyd was going to buy him a giant tacky painting or something. Of himself. The bare walls were too depressing otherwise. Nothing on them but a sad brass candelabra and a mount with a toy wooden sword that had once been snapped in half.
What the heck was up with that? It was one of those little details, of the sort that lived on the periphery of everyone’s real actual lives but clearly hadn’t made it into the novelization. Still, something about it made him itch.
Anyway, it was high time for some light mischief.
First he fixed a spidery crack in Javier’s desk lamp. Ugh working with porcelain made his teeth itch. Then a disturbingly well-thumbed book of poetry that looked like it had been gnawed on by Ppodong in a fit of boredom.
Then he tried to fix a hole in the soles of some old leather boots he’d found under the redundant bed and screwed it up a bit and ended up fusing them to the floor. Welp that’d show him! God knows he paid Javier a living wage, dude should have thrown those out years ago.
And then, because it was still bugging him, Lloyd carefully took down and fixed the little wooden sword and replaced it in its mounting thingy and then fucked off giggling evilly to himself, wondering how long it would take Javier to notice.
---------------------------
Of course Javier was a huge party pooper who didn’t say anything the next day at all, gawd he just stared at Lloyd and maybe parried his sad attempts at strikes a little less harshly, but the day after that at dawn he showed up to the practice meadow with a long thin package under one arm.
And apparently one good sword deserved another.
“Hey,” Lloyd blinked “what the heck is this fanciness?”
Javier looked completely nonplussed, shoving the ornate scabbard into Lloyd’s only mildly protesting hands.
“It has the proper degree of ornamentation befitting a ceremonial sword.”
Alas, the power of ooh shiny compelled him. Before he knew it Lloyd had the thing in his greedy little mitts and was eyeing the quail-egg sized gem in the pommel with an appraising eye.
“Did you swipe this from the dragon? Ballsy.”
“He wasn’t using it.” The pale eyelashes swept up and down. “It’s topaz… matches your eyes.”
No fucking way.
“Dude, my eyes are brown.”
“Topaz is brown.”
Like hell it was. This was some kind of opaline hazel shot through with amber. If he had eyes like that someone would have definitely written him a genuine love letter by now.
The actual blade part of the sword looked really dependable though. Even if it was way too fancy for a guy like him.
The delicate engraving on the basket hilt said ‘Lloyd Frontera’s Backup Shovel’ which startled a laugh out of him.
“Ok this part is fucking great. Good job.”
Javier looked pleased in his standoffish stray cat way and then rolled his eyes at Lloyd flourishing the thing around like a chuunibyou and slid gracefully into a guard stance.
Lloyd sighed and budgeted time in the orc sauna for his sure-to-be-sore everything.
At least he’d probably look cool swinging it first.
---------------
Inevitably they got a ball invitation.
Unfortunately this involved a half a day’s carriage ride to some ambitious viscount’s already overcrowded mansion and whose butler clearly hadn’t read Lloyd’s performance rider because their guestroom didn’t have so much as a rocking chair, just some sad three legged stool that was eyeing Javier’s 190-something musclebound frame and crying for its wooden mommy.
At least the bed was a queen. In theory. A very small queen. More like a princess.
“Yep. Okay.” Lloyd said wearily, eesh Viscount-watshisface’s roads suuucked. He was going to have to expand wasn’t he- “Total trope moment. Let’s get this over with.”
“I’d hate to impinge on my Lord’s dignity.” Said Javier sarcastically but he was eyeing the three legged stool right back.
“You’ve bled on me. I have literally eaten your hair. Dignity is a thing of the past.”
So there they were lying back-to-back Javier still with his pants on because he was a masochist with a misplaced concept of chivalry and Lloyd in his underwear and an oversized nightgown.
It was boiling hot under the down comforter. Ughhh.
Lloyd gave up and soon the nightgown went sailing over to land on the stool, which creaked alarmingly under its nonexistent weight.
Of course then their naked shoulder blades were touching which was probably a first, despite a confirmed history of tackling each other out of the way of mine explosions, giant lobster things, and assorted magic missiles.
Lloyd did what he usually did in the face of unexpected intimacy which was panic a little and start shit talking. Shit-whispering in this case.
“Mwahaha! Give up! Though you are the finest knight in the realm and the most beautiful man on the continent no maidenly bosom awaits to soothe your manly protagonist angst, nay this plain and servant-like face will be the last thing you see before you fall asleep and the first thing you see every morning!”
“I suppose you are right.”
Javier said, turning to face him, putting all their limbs under precarious threat of entanglement.
His stupid pink travel pillow has gotten fuzzy with wear. The moonlight limed the side of his neck and the angle of his naked shoulder.
Lloyd could build a dam and chug the resulting reservoir and never get rid of that dry feeling in the back of his throat.
And now Javier was reaching over to tuck the blanket more firmly around them, the calloused pads of his fingers skating along Lloyd’s collarbone.
“Goodnight, my Lord.”
“N-night” Lloyd choked out in a pathetic sort of whisper. The bastard had stolen his breath.
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When he woke up Javier was already dressed leaning pointedly against the windowsill like he was watching the birds instead of staring at Lloyd like a creeper.
“What, did I snore?” Lloyd asked, rubbing his eyes and scratching at the back of his neck, trying valiantly not to think about how the motion might have pushed his pecs out in a vaguely slutty fashion.
Javier said nothing.
“Next time if I snore you can roll me over. Full permission and whatever.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Oh what was up with that smile? OK. Fine, clearly it was time to follow last night up with a full round of ‘this isn’t awkward at all’ where Lloyd got up, shaved at the washstand, tilting his neck back and forth and letting the soapy water droplets roll down his naked chest and get caught in the fine brown hairs of his happy trail until Javier opened the window, mentioned something about checking for assassins on the roof and dove out of it.
Checkmate, asshole.
-------------------------------------
The ball went fine.
The first half anyway. Smug off this morning’s victory Lloyd surreptitiously fed his favorite mana battery a sickening amount of macaroons and candied chestnuts off his plate because Mr Valiant Knight was too embarrassed to get them himself and flaunt his sweet tooth in public.
The musicians played gavottes or whatever. Lloyd side-eyed the queue of corseted young ladies asking Javier to dance and made do with the elderly matriarchs who were very amenable to getting their idiot sons/brothers/etc to fix their damn bumpy-ass roads with the reasonably priced aid of Frontera’s Construction Company.
And then an evil sorcerer showed up before the second course and Lloyd got to stand there with his new fancy coat all billowing and his ceremonial sword raised dramatically in his outflung hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen! I, Lloyd Frontera, Her Majesty’s Warden of the West Borderlands do hereby implore you all-” he gestured rudely at the robed figure floating in the middle of the parlor “-does anyone have a clue who this fucking clown is?”
Their partycrasher had the total nerve to look offended.
“I am the Dark Wizard Elbert Raines!”
“Never heard of you!” Seriously. Not even a footnote in the original novel. Not even NPC energy. Skill issue.
“I will avenge my master-”
Lloyd tuned him out as he went down memory lane. Wait, this was some flunky of that guy who kidnapped Officer Greg. From, like, two years ago? Wow, talk about late! WTF had he been up to all this time? Hand-stitching all the goat heads and pentagrams on his shitty cult robes?
“Oh man, umm. So this is awkward but when he was lying his ass off saying he was gonna repent he didn’t even mention you. Like, not once. Back me up here-”
Javier nodded.
“You are woeful and forgotten. Meaningless revenge will not aid you! Surrender now and you might live.”
Aww Javier was too honest for this business sometimes but seriously it was heavy on the ‘might.’ They had a pretty good track record of squashing these minor villains like silverfish with a slipper.
Elbert Raines, the third rate conjurer, was looking at them from right to left. A few of the braver nobles were already sticking out from behind their cool back-to-back pose brandishing fireplace pokers, daggers etc. An elderly lady who had pinched Lloyd’s cheek and called him a nice young man had a very tasteful winch crossbow with a matching maroon ribbon on it.
Lloyd watched him take in the odds, decide to be fully delusional about them and prepare to be an asshole anyway.
And that was like wow. Back up, buddy. You’re in Frontera country. I’ve got that on lock around here.
--------------------
In the end some ugly paintings, a carpet, a parlor wall or two and Javier’s frock coat were the only casualties.
Elbert Raines the now vaguely decapitated had first summoned a bunch of devilbats, which had mostly damaged hats and hairstyles of all assembled, and then a battalion of minor imps who after trying to act hard and getting a couple non-essential things chopped off for the trouble changed their tune real quick and in the end asked Lloyd to write them a promissory note so that their CO down in Hell wouldn’t dock their pay for an unscheduled summoning.
Military grunts were military grunts everywhere, Lloyd vaguely felt sorry for them.
Less so when he turned around and found Javier frowning down his sword which had gotten the worse end of a dragonskin bucker and now had a giant nick in it.
“Oof, that sucks.” Lloyd said, patting his shoulder sympathetically. And then immediately twirling his own pristine blade. “Mine’s still great though, seriously, good job.”
Javier though didn’t even look bummed out.
“How many times have I broken this sword in your service?”
A little bit of golden hour sunlight came through the broken parlor wall, framing his artfully disheveled hair and regrettably not-that-ripped white poet shirt. He was smiling.
Dear god. Lloyd didn’t even want to make fun of him.
“Don’t worry about it.” he said softly. “I’ll always replace it with something stronger”
“What next, then, orichalcum?”
“Pshh no, I’mma round up some dwarves and that lazy dragon and make high-carbon steel. Orichalcum could never.”
Anyway just because a dark wizard had been thwarted there was no reason to put the cap on a nice free buffet.
People picked up the chairs. The ladies tucked their daggers back into their garters and went to the powder room to freshen up. A small fleet of maids got most of the rubble out of the way. The musicians picked up their instruments and started playing a waltz again with the resigned look of people who had been paid in advance.
The carpet was still smoldering under their feet when Javier asked him to dance. But then again, so were they.
-------------------------
Whispering followed their steps. I guess these were mostly C and D tier country nobles who had yet to get caught up in anything major or witness the patented Llojavi dark magic disposal service.
But also, like, damn right y’all should talk. Lloyd had slurped mana on the fly to make an awesome green shield when that giant chandelier had fallen and he’d practiced that riposte for weeks.
Most of it was about the magic though, which threw him for a loop.
“So wait, not everyone can mana share?”
“Didn’t you hear the whispering, my Lord? Not even the first Emperor and Empress were so in sync with their magic. Apparently we’re destined lovers.”
The way he said that with a straight face. Lloyd wanted to kick him in the shins. Clearly another round of gay chicken was called for. I mean he already had his arms around his waist and everything.
“You know what, I'm kind of sick of this sad bachelor vibe anyway. Hey you’re my bodyguard, right? You promised to save me, right?”
“I did.”
“Can you save me from loneliness?”
Javier looks down at him(bastard height difference) and pretends to think about it.
“You’ve already saved me from that. So I guess I could return the favor.”
He’s smiling, softly radiantly. A little smugly. Like he knows something about the future that Lloyd doesn't. It honestly pisses him off. That’s what that burning feeling under his ribs is, right?
“You guess?” he mutters, clinging to his shoulder. “Jackass. Say it properly.”
Javier’s smile gets even wider. He leans over and breathes into Lloyd’s ear, making him shiver, and when he starts to whisper “I am yours forever-” Lloyd grabs his face between his hands and kisses him before he can say anything even more cringe.
--------------------------------
So apparently eating his new boyfriend’s mana had some other weird side effects.
Like oh the way every little brush of skin on skin over sensitized from post-battle adrenaline felt like heaven.
The way looking into Javier’s eyes gave him tunnel vision, like he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, echoed dependably by the heart in the man beside him.
Or maybe that was from how he had totally fallen for Javier in the years they’d spent together. Little by little, ever since his was the first face he’d seen from down in the dirt, haloed by moonlight on the cold night he’d fallen into this world.
“As I recall, you gave me permission to roll you over.” Javier said when they got back to the room.
Oh it was on. They struggled briefly, playfully, like two childhood friends. And then of course Javier pinned him against the mussed-up sheets and that vibe went out the window.
His hair was falling onto Lloyd’s forehead in waves like a perfumed curtain, his lips were hot against his temple, his hands around Lloyd’s wrists were like iron bars.
Fuck, speaking of iron. The way their lower halves were pressed together was. Was.
Lloyd arched his back and that made everything worsebetter. Of course then he was making sounds - soft vulnerable gasps and Javier, with a look of predatory rapture in his blazing eyes, was licking them right out of his stupid virgin mouth.
Yeah OK. Goodbye Kim Suho’s theoretical heterosexuality. And don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out!
----------------
Anyway there was only one proper step any honorable noble son could undertake after ::cough:: masterfully seducing and dragging his favorite servant to bed.
Lloyd was forced to interrupt his parents’ morning tea.
“Dearest Mother and Father, I need to speak with you.”
Then he got to his knees.
Count and Countess Frontera both looked properly appalled. Mother’s teacup wobbled as she set it down.
Ughh. Well there was no way to sugarcoat this. Might as well rip the bandaid off.
“Look I’m sorry but Julian is gonna have to continue the family line. This whole loveless political marriage thing? I just can’t. I don’t want to make some poor lady miserable. And more importantly, I don’t want to be miserable either.”
But seriously, don’t worry about it! Julian’s whip smart and cute as a button.
Anyway let’s be honest, he’s got much better chances of getting married anyway. You kinda gave me resting thug face, dad. Sorry, but it’s true.
Besides, I’m… honestly happy with my work.
And, you know, I kindofrealizedI’minlovewithJaviersobasicallyit’shimornobody.”
Dad Frontera looked downright feelsy at that shpiel. Lloyd felt his own tear ducts itching in sympathy.
Stupid transmigration. Stupid found family. Stupid old man who knew he wasn’t his original son but still loved him.
“My dear son, with how hard you’ve worked for the sake of this family, what kind of father would I be if I denied you the single selfish wish of your heart?”
And Mother was right behind him.
“Oh sweetheart. I know it’s the frontier but we’re a progressive place. Of course you can marry your knight!”
“Oh.” Lloyd rocked back on his heels, mind spinning. “Huh.”
For some reason he hadn’t thought it would be that easy.
---------------
And that’s how Javier Asrahan, the undisputed protagonist of “Knight of Blood and Iron,” ended up in the nobility.
Before he was twenty five, even! That was waaay ahead of the end of the original novel where he’d been pushing thirty and full of mangst and the whole thing had felt sort of like a shitty consolation prize.
Hell of a shortcut, huh! He ought to be thanking him, really.
Meanwhile Lloyd got an end to the flood of those dumb, insincere marriage proposals. In fact. It was time for him to bombard the realm’s inadequate nobility with smug, exquisitely-lettered invitations to his dreamy spring wedding to the handsomest man in the land.
Uno reverse, bitches!!
It was going to be great. He was already planning to build the family mansion a portico with fancy Roman columns and a new water fountain and to have the elves plant magic cherry blossoms in a row down the aisle.
You had to have cherry blossoms! The tailor was making him a powder blue suit. He was going to force Javier to wear white even though it would probably wash out his complexion! Mwahaha!
Though, as if. That bastard could pull off anything.
And when that was over with, he’d be legally guaranteed to be able to take sips of that sweet sweet mana for the rest of his long, lazy life.
God, he was gonna save so much money on skin cream.
~