Chapter 27: As Strange As Love

Kai put the stirs into the horse’s sides while begging him in a whisper not to neigh or do anything that would give him away while he still managed to put as much distance between him and the camp behind.

“Good horsey,” he said and patted the animal’s head as the horse appeared to understand that language pretty well.

He had to be a horse trained for battle, and while he was nothing like Sebastian’s Thunder, he appeared to be sturdy enough to hold a rider and all that heavy armor on him.

Soon, Kai had managed to guide the horse to take him over the crown of the hills, so even if they noticed his absence at the camp, it would take them a while to realize what had happened and start looking for him.

At least, he didn’t need anyone else to show him the way to Uxilan as ash and a foul smell rose in the distance. “You and me, horsey, we’re going to make history for Ifigia today,” Kai said, full of importance, even if he only had a horse as an audience.

“Did you get hit by a truck?” Tani asked as she leafed through her manga volumes and books spread on the bed.

“A truck? No,” Sebastian replied. “There are no trucks in my world.”

“Hmm.” Tani narrowed her eyes and continued to search for that elusive information they needed for him and Kai to switch places back as they were and see about their lives as before. “Do you remember dying or something like that?”

“Nothing of the kind. I was in bed with my concubine, just waking up from --”

A night of passion, he wanted to say but stopped in time. Tani looked at him expectedly, but seeing how he remained silent, she turned her attention toward the materials in front of her.

“Then it looks like I must have been right the first time,” Tani concluded. “It has to do with love.”

“But how?” Sebastian asked. “At the time I switched bodies with your brother, I had no idea who Milo was.”

Tani grinned and threw him an all-knowing look. “So you admit that you’re in love with Milo.”

Why did this little girl have to be so bothersome whenever she felt like it? But was there a point in denying it, after all? “Yes,” he replied coolly.

Tani slapped her hands together. “Then that means that it has everything to do with Milo. You need to confess to him.”

“I already did,” Sebastian pointed out. “But, of course, he believes that it was his friend Kai who did so.”

Tani scratched her head. “Hmm, so we must make him see that you’re not Kai.”

“As I told you, he doesn’t believe me. That path is closed. The explanation must be somewhere else. Is this everything your books say?”

For a couple of moments, Tani remained lost in thought. “Did you happen to make a wish when the switch happened?”

Sebastian frowned. Tani’s question triggered a particular memory, but it was one with the shape of a ghost that didn’t speak for itself. “I don’t remember such a thing.”

“When exactly did it happen?” Tani asked again.

“The day you came to take me to your home and I was behind the school with Milo,” he replied promptly.

“Right, right, that was when you first started to act strange,” Tani agreed.

“I wasn’t acting strange. I was just being myself,” Sebastian countered, a bit miffed.

“That’s true,” Tani admitted. “Gosh, looking back, it was so funny. Well, what else do you remember? What did Milo say or do?”

Sebastian opened his mouth and hesitated. Suddenly, those moments felt private, as that had been the time when he had first set his eyes on that beautiful boy who would make him believe that a thing as strange as love could exist.

“He was saying something about a date,” he eventually said.

“Ah, so that must be,” Tani concluded. “You secretly wished to go on a date.”

“That would be silly,” Sebastian retorted. “At the time, I had no idea what a date meant. I believed it to be a quest of sorts.”

Tani sighed and caught her cheeks in her palms, puffing them out. “I can’t stop thinking that all this switcheroo has something to do with feels.”

“Well, for the sake of the argument, let’s pretend that it is true. What wish could your brother have had at the same time? Because I didn’t just happen to transfer to this world on my own,” Sebastian said.

“If I know anything about my brother, it must have been something stupid like wanting to be an isekai hero. And,” Tani became more animated, gesturing, “because he expressed his wish at the same time with you, bang, you two switched.”

“That sounds like a rickety explanation,” Sebastian expressed his doubt. “And I don’t remember making any strange wish.” The feeling from before that something was slipping through his fingers came back, but he shrugged it off. What was the point of dwelling on something he didn’t remember? It couldn’t have been significant. And Tani was swimming in the dark with all her theories.

Kai decided to dismount and let the horse go free when he reached what appeared to be a border between the land dominated by the House of Uxilan and Ifigia. The black land stretched as far as his eyes could see, and that foul stench was more pungent. The horse had snorted and even sneezed a few times, so it was time to let him go. Kai patted his back and urged him to go back, and the horse didn’t hesitate, breaking into a gallop right away.

What was that thing that he had once read about horses sensing danger? Well, it wasn’t like Kai was blind. The danger lay right ahead, waiting for him to step up and solve the ultimate quest. With a long sigh, Kai turned and looked behind at the rolling hills of Ifigia and the blue sky above, the same color as a pair of eyes that had seen through him like he was nothing but a piece of glass.

“I guess this is goodbye, Pepin,” he said and cleared his throat. Now that he thought about it, Galien was on to something about his voice. It sounded ... well, not weird, but he was pretty sure that Sebastian’s voice was usually deeper and lower. Maybe he had caught a cold. He coughed a few times for good measure, and then he placed his hand on the pommel of his sword. “Conrad, Galien, I’m going to miss you guys, too, even if you’re both a pain in the butt.” He hadn’t intended that last pun, but that was that.

Goodbyes now said and done, it was time for him to win against those jerks and return home.

Sebastian ran his hands through his hair and placed them behind the back of his neck, stretching to work some kinks in his muscles. “Assuming that what you’re saying is true, Tani,” he began, “what should I do next?”

Tani pursed her lips and moved them around while appearing to be munching on her thoughts. “I think,” she started, “that we need to make Milo see who you really are.”

“How do I do such a thing? You believe me but only because you saw a part of the real me with your own eyes. And is it a good idea? No, I don’t think so,” he decided. He had disturbed the course of Milo’s life too much already.

“It is the only idea,” Tani insisted. “I mean, c’mon, you’re an ice prince with royal concubines and yet you need to come here to fall in love with Milo. If that’s not fate, I don’t know what it is,” she added, speaking in a tone that sounded like she was merely reciting things she had read somewhere else.

As little as he could trust in the girl’s abilities to solve a thing as complicated as the strange curse cast upon him, she was currently his only ally. It meant that he needed to rely to some extent on her knowledge.

“Wait, are you in love with your royal concubine, too?” Tani asked.

Sebastian shook his head. “I am never in love.”

Tani grinned, and her eyebrows shot up. “Just as I thought! You were so cursed to find love, Seb!”

“Stop calling me Seb. It’s a little grating.”

“Nope,” she said and stuck her tongue at him.

Sebastian frowned slightly. “People in this world are incredibly disrespectful.”

“Sorry about that,” Tani offered. “But in a way, you’re like my brother.”

“How could I be like your brother? By what I’ve managed to learn about him, he appears to be a klutz and an airhead. What could I possibly have in common with him?”

Tani nodded thoughtfully. “You’re both good guys,” she said promptly. “And it’s just as easy for me to annoy him as it is to annoy you. So there’s that.”

Sebastian shook his head. Then he remembered the dream and Reya again, along with her warning. “I must find a way to go back home and save Ifigia.”

“Ah, by the way, how do you know that? Do you feel it?” Tani asked.

“No, but my mother appeared in a dream and told me so.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing. “She was quite adamant that I must give up on Milo.”

“Oh, no, your mom doesn’t agree with your chosen,” Tani said and slapped her cheeks while her mouth turned into an ‘o’.

“I tend to believe that her warning was well-grounded. What I must do is to forget about Milo so that I can return.”

Tani shook her head and frowned. “Your mom is kind of a jerk, no offense.”

“A jerk?” Sebastian couldn’t suppress a smile. “I suppose so. But what can I do to forget Milo? Are there any methods to remove one’s memories in this world?”

“Not approved by safety and regulations boards, at least,” Tani replied. “Forget about that. No way that’s what you must do. You’re here for love, and you’re not going to leave without it.”

“You are much convinced by the many romantic notions that you must have plied your mind with by reading all these materials.” Sebastian gestured at the spread books on the bed. “But Milo and I can never be. We belong to different worlds.”

Tani waved like that was just a tiny detail. “And yet, here you are. And well, Kai is over there, getting freaked by bishies being all over him.”

That, indeed, begged an important question. “Tani, do you believe your brother could have had romantic feelings for Milo?”

“Who, Kai?” Tani seemed to consider it for a moment, but then she snickered. “No way. They’re like best bros.”

“But Milo confessed that day without knowing, of course, that he wasn’t confessing to his best bro,” Sebastian explained, taking after Tani’s manner of speaking with a lot less difficulty than when he had landed here for the first time.