To think that the man was compared to the Little Pearl even for the briefest passing of moment repulsed Jean even more. Before he knew it, Jean spoke in a mocking tone.
“There will be food to satiate your hunger in the banquet, Your Grace. Unlike them.”
The words brought silence in the coach. Maximillian maintained the smile on his face, studying Jean. And Jean was unable to avoid the gaze. They were in each other’s eyes. Soon, Maximillian smirked.
“You speak as though you know hunger.”
The prince murmured. Jean squirmed his eyebrows.
“...Your Grace assumes I don’t?”
Jean’s words preceded his warning to himself. Maximillian was now watching him, sitting in an impudent position.
“Does a catamite in a duke’s mansion learn hunger?”
Maximillian asked, seemingly quite fascinated. Jean found the question so ridiculous he had to laugh.
“Hunger, Your Grace, is not something you learn. It is something that comes.”
“I assume that you have learned those refined words while feeding yourself with foie gras that the duchess indulged you with?”
“...”
The open derision silenced Jean. He gathered the surging memories of his past and his rage of the present and stuffed them in a corner of his heart. One wrong word, and he felt like he might yell.
Maximillian, unaware of what was happening inside Jean, looked without a care in the world. The prince even had a piece of smile on his face, resembling one of mockery. The way his eyebrows were slightly elevated seemed to be challenging Jean. Jean didn’t back down. He returned the gaze just as daringly. Jean saw them all at once—the man adorned in the garment made with his gold, the man’s beauty and the wretchedness it entailed, and the man’s ignorance toward the life of others. Jean spat through his teeth.
“There is nothing I have learned from the House of the Duke of Erhardt, Your Grace.”
Maximillian narrowed his eyes. His shoes touched and parted from Jean’s shin. Jean did not let it affect him.
“Nothing I know now came from any of them, just like how the flesh of my person is no longer made from the bread they once supplied.”
Maximillian didn’t respond. He merely watched Jean with fascination. Jean did not speak anymore either. Silence briefly reigned. Jean followed what Maximillian had done earlier—he looked out the window. Folk with their hands and ears wrapped in cloth passed by them. Their faces had no expression but only a dark shadow.
“Then, where?”
It was when Jean was studying each of those faces. The man sitting across from him asked such a question. Jean lifted his gaze to find Maximillian’s face without a trace of any smile.
“Then where did the present you come from?”
It was perhaps because Jean was so accustomed to the prince always smiling and grinning that he found Maximillian’s expression so icy that it scared him. Jean recalled the Maximillian who smiled at him, stepping over the autumn leaves, walking backward. He found the disparity in the temperature astonishing.
“I was fortunate enough to have found myself a patron, Your Grace.”
Slowly, Jean answered.
“Ten years ago, my patron had paid a great sum to the House of Erhardt to free me. He had me attend an academy in a foreign land.”
Jean tried to speak in an impartial manner, but he couldn’t hide the deep affection in his tone. Just like he always did whenever he spoke of his Little Pearl. Jean’s voice had turned tender without his knowledge. He had to clear his throat.
“All that constitutes my present self comes from that individual.”
Then, Jean continued.
“Everything belongs to that person.”
It was a solemn confession. Jean stopped speaking. Maximillian’s stare pricked him. Could it be because Jean had implied a different master before the Imperial Crown Prince? Jean ought to have exercised greater prudence. What he did was impetuous. In hindsight, what he said could be considered disloyal and blasphemous to the throne. He hurried to clear his throat, but that was when Maximillian scoffed.
“They are of the same bread from the basket, then. Just as the duchess paid to have you in her possession, your patron paid money to acquire you.”
The prince’s tone was filled with subtle derision. Jean abruptly lifted his head. He was faced with Maximillian’s narrowed eyes. Jean creased his brows. He didn’t hide his discomfort but looked straight at the prince. Maximillian scoffed upon receiving the gaze, as if he found it so very trivial. But Jean did not retrieve his glare.
“It bothers me not how you think of me—how you treat me—Your Grace.”
Jean did not move his mouth much as he spoke. His voice was as soft as a whisper. Maximillian’s eyes moved slowly. Jean could feel the prince’s gaze studying him. He continued speaking.
“However, most Noble Prince.”
His anger could not be hidden. It planted spikes at the edge of his tone. Jean doubted not that Maximillian could feel them as well. Jean also knew that it would take one mistake for him to slip and show his true intentions to the prince. And justly, the circumstance demanded the identical sense of alarm he had experienced barely moments prior. However, that sentiment failed to surface this time. Instead, it concealed its presence entirely.
“I ask that you do not speak ill of my patron,” Jean continued.
He would rather be caught than allow his Little Pearl to be slandered. It mattered not that he could be punished for blasphemy against the throne.
“My patron had given me freedom, choices—”
Slowly, Jean stopped speaking. Outside the window, the path was covered with late autumn leaves. Jean looked at the scene for a moment before returning his gaze to the man across from him.
“—and I have chosen my patron to be my owner.”
Jean wondered what the man must be thinking. Upon hearing Jean’s words, Maximillian’s lips contorted unattractively, then resumed their usual form repeatedly. Jean watched clearly how the man looked at Jean, how he met Jean’s eyes, and how he slightly lowered his gaze. It was the briefest of the moment, but Jean was confident that Maximillian avoided his gaze.
And at that moment, for reasons unbeknownst to Jean, Chantelle Francis’s voice rang in his head once more. Maximillian Joachim, the Little Pearl... Her words and Maximillian’s voice that mocked the Little Pearl crossed Jean’s mind. Jean turned his face away entirely. Yes, of course, I am right. It couldn’t possibly be—Jean thought to himself.
He resumed looking out the window. The coach stepped in the trails of the sun, and where once contemplation had lingered, it was now replaced by recollection. It was ten years ago, on a day exactly like the present one, that Jean had left the House of Erhardt.
✦ ✦ ✦
Ten years ago, winter