Tainted | Kuroshitsuji ✔️

Chapter 40: His Earnest Heart

City of London – The Royal London Hospital.

The single robin blue eye belonging to the young earl darted from side to side.

The hospital corridors, he noticed that was a norm for a place like this, carried a solemn and stiff air. The familiar undertone of bleach in the air made his nose twitched. Before his family massacre, he had visited this hospital a number of times with his mother to see his late aunt, Angelina Dallas who worked as a doctor here. He hated this smell ever since his first visit.

The walls were magnolia and were scraped in places from the hundreds of trolleys that had bumped into them. Cheap, dull paintings that decorated the walls did nothing to make the corridors look more warm and cheerful.

Ciel Phantomhive who was currently going with the name 'William Bentley', turned back to the front and quietly watched the conversation as it went back and forth between his 'father' and the doctor, following the two adults in front like a son he was supposed to be at the moment as they paced down the corridor to visit his 'sister'.

It was only last night when they reached the hospital doors with Estella who was bleeding her life out – luckily, there was barely anyone in the hospital and no one even turned their heads when they entered, minding their own business which he preferred and was grateful for. Thankfully, no one recognized him. While their casualty was in the operating room of the emergency unit, they made a quick trip to his townhouse, just six streets down, to catch some sleep while waiting for the visiting hours to be opened.

Presently, they were back into the hospital with fresher and mundane-looking attires as well as their cover and in his opinion, a very unlikely story that some hunter mistook his sister as a deer while they were playing in the forest and shot her by mistake. It was a story he hastily came up with on the spot while they were filling a form over the reception. He was still surprised how readily the story was accepted. Or either that, no one bothered to know what really happened.

Strolling down the corridor to the assigned ward, Ciel eyed the two in front with a poker face and saw the doctor shook his head to something Sebastian had said.

"Mr. Bentley," The doctor turned to Sebastian with a frown on his face, "I have no rights to say this, but... I advise you to keep an eye on your daughter." The doctor's eyebrows furrowed even more. "She was very close to...passing."

Ciel froze in his track briefly before taking another step forward, with hands curling into fists in his pants pocket. Although he was aware of that mentioned fact, the last bit of the doctor's comment still struck him. Hard in the chest, like a harsh blow from a hammer.

"...I'll keep that in mind. My son was clearly not doing his job when I told him to look after her sister."

Ciel glanced up and saw two pairs of eyes on him, and that snapped him back to full focus on the adults.

Sebastian had a stern, disapproving look on his face. His chin was raised and his jaw was set. "Will! Didn't I asked you to look after your sister?" To everybody else in the corridor, they saw Sebastian as a father who was reprimanding his son.

But all Ciel saw was his demon butler toying with him. Typical, this was just another entertainment for him to play along with, the young man thought seethingly.

For a brief moment, Ciel flickered his eye over to the doctor who was fidgeting awkwardly with the stethoscope hanging from his neck, seemingly looked to be feeling out of place to be caught between this father-to-child lecture.

Even though he was the one who decided that their cover were necessary for safety, he despised needing to act like a foolish, immature teenager son he had seen at times when he was out of his manor. His butler was clearly enjoying this. Very much.