After their partners had all woken up and there was no one else left to worry about Elena, Yue, and Huy all collapsed at once. They were all actually very exhausted after their transformations and they had been holding back the true effects of their change in forms for a while, especially Yue who had been awake for days.
They all moved into Elena’s parents manor since the followers could not comfortably care for other beasts who weren’t Elena while the servants of the manor could.
“So…This is your future wife?” Arseny asked as he walked into Viktor’s bedroom and saw him stroking Yue’s head as he slept.
“Yeah.” Viktor said and smiled.
“…you seem happy, I’ll allow it.” Arseny chuckled.
“Like you have a choice.” Viktor laughed, “He’s one of your gods Y’know.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Arseny murmured.
“How was the little tea party I set up for you?” Viktor chuckled, turning to look away from Yue and to Arseny with a smirk.
“Oh so entertaining,” Arseny said, 100% sarcastic.
“Leonid Delov wants to fight me, I just know he does but there were more candidates than expected so we have to duel as part of the selection process anyway.” Arseny sat down as he spoke.
“Any news about Mark while I was gone?” Viktor asked quietly after hearing Arseny speak of Mark’s brother.
“Oh yeah, Ever since your wife beat that one instructor from the academy the two of them have joined together to spread rumors about him.”
Viktor immediately seemed upset to hear that.
“What kind of rumors?” He asked through gritted teeth.
“Well…many are saying that she is brutish and uncivilized and that her duel with the instructor was more of a sneak attack than anything. Also a completely false rumor that last month she was seen flirting with a nobleman when she was clearly not in this realm last month.” Arseny explained, “His majesty was dealing with it but then…he got whisked away into that realm as well so the rumor has only festered because the royal family has yet to deny it.”
Viktor sighed exasperatedly.
“I’ll bring it back to my father’s attention. You need to defeat Leonid as soon as possible and as completely as possible. If they become Lords then I can’t touch them.” Viktor murmured after a while of silence.
“…Y’know I honestly thought you’d give in and marry Mark one day.” Viktor’s disgusted look made Arseny smile.
“I’m glad it didn’t happen, I feel like I’d be letting my mother down if I let you live such an unhappy life.”
“Geez, it’s not even because I’m your best friend? What a mommy’s boy.” Viktor teased.
“Takes one to know one.” Arseny chuckled.
Yue stirred after they talked about unrelated business for a while longer. He realized someone else was in the room but he didn’t seem to care and pulled himself up to hug Viktor and hide his face in the crook of his neck.
“Vityaaa…”
“You’re up?”
Arseny kind of smiled a bit as he watched Viktor immediately end their conversation and pay attention to Yue. He quietly left and just chuckled to himself as he walked.
—-
“Vitya, are you in here?”
There was no verbal response, just a strong sense of killing intent. Not enough for any normal person to notice but enough to make someone like Arseny shudder a little.
“Woah Woah Woah…It’s just me, Senya…” He was a bit surprised by the coldness suddenly aimed at him.
The killing intent immediately died down.
“I thought it was someone else, sorry,” Viktor murmured.
15-year-old Viktor was laying down on the sofa of what was actually Arseny’s dorm room. Arseny, despite only actually being 2 months older than Viktor, was a year ahead in the military academy. He lived in the dorms of the academy while Viktor just used the teleport pad to go to the Ivanov manor whenever he pleased.
“Who else would it be?” Arseny asked with a confused expression.
“A fly has been buzzing around me since the first day, calling me Vitya as if we have any sort of relationship,” Viktor murmured and glared at the ceiling.
“Hmm…Should I inform his majesty?” Arseny asked, sitting on a sofa across from Viktor.
“There’s no point. He’s from an allied family, that guy wouldn’t touch him no matter what he did.” Viktor spat, rolling his eyes.
“Is that why he’s sticking with you?” Arseny asked.
“No, he’s sticking beside me because he’s a pervert.”
Arseny blinked a few times, trying to process what Viktor meant by that. He stood up after an upsetting thought came to mind.
“Has he overstepped his bounds?”
“Once again, you can’t do anything about it.” Viktor evaded the question and rolled over as he lay on the sofa.
Arseny was frustrated by the response but he couldn’t do anything about it.
-
One day not too long afterward Arseny was on his way to his swordsmanship class when he saw a glimpse of white hair down a hallway he was walking past. He hadn’t seen Viktor in school for a few days so he intended on greeting him but then he noticed a blonde boy clinging to him and immediately furrowed his brows.
He began walking toward them but after watching the blonde boy push forward to lean in and give Viktor an unsolicited kiss he rushed forward immediately and pushed him away.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing to his highness?!” Arseny yelled and immediately drew his sword.
Viktor seemed surprised to see Arseny and the blonde boy seemed like he was going to say something impudent before he watched Arseny draw his sword and realized that he was unarmed and at a disadvantage.
“...Thanks...but don’t dirty your hands like this,” Viktor murmured and walked away while the blonde boy could not follow him. Arseny sighed internally, he figured this was the fly Viktor had spoken of.
“He is not someone that you have the right to touch.” Arseny spat and quickly walked away, he was actually being quite rude but the blonde boy did not know anything about Arseny so he could not really say anything about his status–not that it would’ve worked, Arseny’s father was a relative of the tsar.
Arseny left after scaring the blonde boy off in the opposite direction of Viktor.
He and Viktor were close…though no one was ever truly close to Viktor when he was this age. From age 10 to 22 he was completely unapproachable. He could smile with his sister and mother but even to them, there was a barrier. It was often attributed to teenage rebellion and after his coming of age, he learned to mask his cold nature from the public.
As children, they were truly close though. Viktor would tell him everything, even about his secret little crush on Azure Dragon and Arseny would also tell him everything. Their relationship had been labeled as ‘master and servant’ because of Arseny’s affiliation with the black tortoise temple but in reality, they were more like family. Not quite brothers but as close as Viktor got.
–
“Vitya has found love.”
Arseny dropped his fork and stood up immediately as he heard his father read that out from a letter Anya had sent him.
“With who?!” Arseny thought it was completely inconceivable for Viktor to actually love someone who wasn’t Azure Dragon.
“She says it’s a girl in his class who has a mythic core.” His father responded, reading ahead a little.
‘Is it just for the sake of having an heir in the future? No…Mother wouldn’t call it ‘love’ if that was the case…’
‘A mythic core….’
–
“What if Azure Dragon is different from what you expect? What if he’s like Mark Delov?” Arseny asked suddenly. It was the night after the first day of Viktor’s last year in the military academy– Arseny had already graduated and they lay on the roof of the Ivanov manor staring at the sky and talking. They somehow got on the topic of love since Viktor rejected yet another proposal.
“...I wouldn’t care. I would rather have him than anyone else in the world.” Viktor said, staring at the bright full moon with a smile.
“How did you fall for him…?” Arseny asked, he wasn’t surprised that Viktor smiled, he could almost only see it when the topic was Azure Dragon.
“...I come from a long line of people who fell in love at first sight y’know?” Viktor laughed, a real laugh that Arseny hadn’t heard for years and somehow this conversation felt like a good omen because Arseny felt like laughing too, but he just smiled.
–
“The Ivanovs are all fools when it comes to love.” He chuckled as he walked back to his bedroom.
