“Wh-Wh-Wh-What is that doing here?!” Remie screamed as he ran up to the awful thing. His cheeks flamed even as the rest of his face blanched. He hurriedly tried to block out the part which showed him, never mind the fact that it was too late, and that Kerio must have seen that picture hundreds of times already.
One of the boys at the board game table said, “We bought this from that guy in the north dorm. You know, the small one.”
The second added, “He came up to the dorm one day in disguise with that painting and asked us if he could sell it since he was broke.”
“I mean, the subjects are cute, and the art’s not bad,” said the third boy. “So we all pitched in to buy it off him.”
Remie groaned. “Heeeeeeeeeath!” The absurd final parting gift of the absentee princess (whose disappearance had been cause of Remie’s trip to the east dorm in the first place) made even mild-mannered Remie’s blood boil.
“This painting was made without my permission!” He snarled. “I’m taking it back! I’ll see to it that you’re repaid, but please give me some time for that!” Now he really needed to get a hold of Fie!
However, the board game boys frowned as Remie furiously grabbed hold of the picture frame. “Are you really taking it back...?” they asked.
This unusual reaction from its unusual source gave Remie pause. “Huh?” he said.
“The thing is, we’re really fond of it now...”
“See, at first we hung it up as kind of a joke because it’s a portrait of Queen,” another boy added, “but after a while, we started feeling like the way he looks at us is kind of encouraging, you know?”
“Yeah, and it makes us work harder during our daily training. We’d really miss that picture if it was gone.”
“Huh?” Remie said. It turned out he had gained fans without even knowing it. That is, fans of him dressed as a woman.
Remie was a people pleaser, so this put him in a pickle. He wanted to repossess that hateful painting out of embarrassment, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that in front of the other boys’ innocent, sorrowful faces. Torn between these conflicting desires, Remie turned to Kerio.
“K-Kerio, what do you think I should do?” he cried. Why he asked Kerio, of all people, was a mystery, but Remie needed advice from someone.
Kerio didn’t know the full situation, but he rubbed his chin and nodded thoughtfully anyway. “I like that painting too,” he said. “It’s like I get to see you every day.”
Remie let go of the picture frame and said, “Th-That’s good.” (Remie wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by this either.) “Maybe I’ll just let it be...for now.”
The board game boys cheered.
After being sidetracked by the shenanigans in the lounge, Kerio and Remie finally made their tea and returned to Kerio’s room. In his initial nervousness, Remie hadn’t had the presence of mind to pay much attention to the room, but he had now relaxed enough to take in his surroundings. Kerio’s room was just like Remie had imagined—very boyish, neat as a pin, and with few decorative elements. However, there was one item that didn’t match Remie’s mental image of Kerio’s room, and Remie spotted it immediately.
It was a stuffed teddy bear sitting on top of a small bureau. “I-Is that...?” Remie asked. This bear looked like it belonged in a girl’s room, but it was one of a matching set that Remie had purchased on his first ever shopping trip into town with Kerio. Its partner was the stuffed animal that Remie had brought with him tonight.
“You put it up!” Remie cried in delight.
Kerio smiled back. “Yeah, since you said I should get it.” Sure, Remie had, but at the time he wasn’t sure if Kerio would like it. That Kerio did, or at least enough to display it in such a good place, thrilled Remie. He giggled internally and sat his stuffed animal down next to Kerio’s bear. The two teddy bears now sat side by side, their cream and dark brown colors almost matching Remie and Kerio’s hair. Remie grinned as he admired his handiwork.
Suddenly, Kerio prompted him with, “You said you wanted to talk about something, right?”
Remie jumped. “Oh yes! True!” That’s right, he had come here to ask for advice, but it had completely slipped his mind.
He smothered his smile as he turned around. He had to be serious now for Queen’s sake, he told himself. He sat down, folding his legs in a girlish pose out of habit. Kerio, meanwhile, sat facing Remie with legs akimbo and composed in his usual expression.
First, Remie filled Kerio in on the Queen and Heath situation. Queen and Heath’s circumstances weren’t ones to be talked about willy-nilly to just anyone, but Remie knew that he could trust Kerio. It took a long time to explain, but Kerio listened to it all earnestly, just like he did whenever Remie talked about his stuffed animals. Remie liked that about him.
“And that’s what happened,” Remie concluded. “Although it’s all just rumors, so I don’t know any of the details.”
“If that’s all true,” said Kerio, “you’re right that it’d be a challenge for a squire to sneak in as a spy. I think you’ll need someone else’s help.”
“Yes, I agree. But the thing is, none of the older knights are willing to help us.” Normally, the adults were on their side, but this time they stymied every move Remie and his friends took. They weren’t doing it to be mean, but... Well, no matter how grown-up the squires felt in their second year of training, they were so powerless right now they might as well have been children.
Seeing the gloom descend over Remie again, Kerio asked, “Why don’t you ask the maids for help?”
“The maids?” Remie repeated in surprise.
“Yeah, they must have a good idea about what’s going on in the palace, don’t you think? They might know something about this, and at the very least they can get into the palace more easily than we can. If all goes well, they might even do our spy work for us. And we squires have a special way to talk with the younger maids. You know what I mean. That.”
“Oh! Now that you mention it, it makes sense!”
Kerio was right. The maids were in the optimal position to scope out the palace and collect information. Plus, there were definitely several candidates who would be likely to help, and there was a line of communication between those maids and the squires already. However...
Remie flushed slightly as he looked long and hard at Kerio. Kerio began to sweat under this visual cross-examination.
“Just to get it out of the way, I’ve never attended That before,” Kerio explained. “Sorry, but I won’t be any help here.”
“O-Okay, I see.”
“That” referred to having a tea party date with the maids. The boys in the north dorm had longed to partake in such an illustrious event ever since their first year of training. Their ulterior motive was nothing so wholesome as a love of tea but rather a desire to meet girls and get chummy with them.
When, after multiple failures and setbacks, the boys achieved their dream, the numerous demands from the female side of the equation meant that the east dorm boys ended up mixed into the bunch in subsequent iterations of this event. However, not every boy participated. Like Kerio said, he didn’t have any interest in these events and as such never participated—even if he was invited every time. (Incidentally, Rigel and Luka were never invited, as they would make the event a nightmare.)