itbomm

chapter 3: spending time with family :)

How the hell did he survive until now?

His five-year streak of being lazy and acting shy had finally been diminished all in a single afternoon, thanks to Athy encountering the man who sired them and getting a near panic attack. Of course, it wasn't her fault that she freaked out over meeting her future killer — hell, he wasn't all too thrilled about it either, so imagine how much worse it must be for her!

So no, he doesn't blame her.

Does he blame himself for immediately darting off to her side at the heart-gripping fear that crawled just to let him know that something was happening to his sister? No, because he would feel like an asshole and would probably stew over it in guilt for the next few days. Does he blame her for feeling as if she were on the guillotine for encountering her would-be future murderer? No, because Claude would literally be what ends her second life if the novel were to be followed.

What he does blame himself for, however, is the fact that he ran into the situation as if his impulse control decided to pull some kind of vanishing act at the last minute. His emotions completely controlled his movements — then again, it was a fight or flight impulse caused by fear, and he chose to fight.

Sure, he knew that there were plenty of scary things that would happen for a member of the royal family, but still.

In the memories he still had of his previous life, he didn't seem to have too much fear when it came down to confrontations. Rather, he was blunt (as always), straightforward (like usual), and was pretty decent at feigning ignorance whenever necessary (which he'll just have to find out if that fact remained to be true). He was pretty sure that the same applied to his current life as well despite some minor changes — perhaps it's because he's now technically a 26-year-old (mentally) and in the body of a five-year-old?

That certainly explained the random times when he would play the cute card and ask the maids for chocolates like Athy regularly did. Not to mention his short attention span... although he rightly assumed that it was just the ADHD and him getting spoiled by the luxuries that he was becoming greedy for.

And yet here they were. Being stared at — was it just his imagination, or was the Emperor staring at his sister?

Well, he did throw his napping buddy (officially named Garfield Mittens, usually referred to as Mr Mittens out loud) at the two men, so he's not too surprised if they don't want anything to do with him. Truthfully, Athanase should be feeling pretty blessed right now just because he hasn't gained much attention from that alone, even after getting immediately stared at by Claude with what he deemed to be a murderous glare.

But instead, the Emperor seemed to click his tongue in irritation, made a rude comment about how he was as brazen as their "wench of a mother", and he ordered the knight to take him along as he picked up his stuffed animal!

Rude.

Still, it sucks that he's never going to get Garfield back. That huge plush was going to get used as a hostage, probably, and his kid brain can only hyperfocus for so long. He just knows that he'll get distracted, forget about it, and then remember by bedtime. What a shame, too — it was his favourite stuffed animal made of fancy soft material, and he's not sure if he had any other that was practically as big as him.

Suffice to say, he was surprised to have survived for this long.

'Maybe if we're lucky, this is all just a bad dream, and I'll wake up in the comfort of my bed,' Athanase briefly thought as he held Athy's hand. He could hear her stream of panicked thoughts, distracting him from the terror of the situation.