Chapter 41: Isekai Emergencies

“O.M.G.!” Tani shouted. “You found him!”

After meandering through the forest for about half an hour, they were finally in luck and stumbled over the others. Kai let Pepin get down carefully, and his sister rushed like a bulldozer right into his arms. The rest of the group made a circle around them, excited to meet someone from a different world. A couple of girls ran their flashlights over Pepin, exclaiming and wondering at his clothes. Kai pulled him close in a protective gesture when the girls got a little too forward and began to touch him, too.

“Everyone, this is Pepin. He’s from another world, so please be kind to him,” he said in a voice he hoped to be commandeering enough.

“Are you a prince?” one girl asked.

“No, I’m a servant,” Pepin replied dutifully.

“If servants look like this, how do princes look like? I’m totally shooketh,” another squealed in delight.

“You’re not a servant anymore,” Kai cared to insist.

“What am I?” Pepin asked and turned his head.

Kai wanted to kiss him. Yeah, totally, that was the only thing crossing his mind. “My boyfriend, obviously.”

A dreamy sigh emerged from all the girls while some guys let out a few embarrassed snickers.

“Don’t mind these guys,” he told Pepin. “They’re kind of cool once you get to know them. Not that I know them very well, but they’re into isekai, just like me and--”

Only then, he realized that he hadn’t seen someone he did actually know. “Where is Milo?” he asked Tani.

A flashlight blinded him for a moment from afar. “Where is Sebastian?” Milo asked as Kai shielded his eyes. “I looked around and couldn’t find him.”

Shoot. Now that was going to be a tough conversation, Kai thought and sighed from the depths of his soul. “Guys, thanks a lot for helping us tonight, but we need to regroup a little,” he addressed the little crowd.

“But what about the Blue Castle? And how did your boyfriend end up here, with you? Did you go there to get him? How? Show us the gate, man!”

Kai put one hand up to cool the hotheads. “We’ll talk at large about everything. Our parents have our phones, so we can only communicate while we’re in school. But now you’re with us, you know, the inner crowd, and all that, okay? I won’t leave my isekai brothers and sisters in this hour of need,” he added with emphasis. “Milo knows where to find you, right?”

There were a few murmurs of discontent, but they soon died down.

“Fine,” a girl said. “But you better not hog all that Ifigia world for yourselves, or we’re gonna be pissed.”

“How do they know about Ifigia?” Pepin asked.

“I told them,” Kai replied. “Not a lot of things, but you know, these people are totally stoked on traveling to different worlds and stuff. It’s quite the big thing for people like us.”

Pepin nodded thoughtfully and took a step forward. “Esteemed Earthians,” he said in a courteous voice, “I will personally answer all your questions about Ifigia. It must be later, as right now, I must understand the customs of your world, first.” He took a short bow at the end of his speech, which caused other squeals of delight from the girls.

“Are there girls as pretty as you in Ifigia?” a boy with a lisp asked.

“Hey, he said he’d answer everything later,” a girl intervened. She grabbed the boy and dragged him away. “We’ll see you guys soon, right?”

“Without a doubt,” Kai confirmed.

“So,” Kai began, as soon as everyone was out of earshot, and Tani took Pepin with her to walk in front, probably bent on filling the poor guy’s head with all kinds of stories about their world.

“So, Sebastian is not with you,” Milo said. He sounded confused and hurt.

“He’s not. But, Milo, man, we gotta find a way to get you to him. He’s--” Kai stopped abruptly. What if they couldn’t find it? Would Sebastian—No, he refused to think that, especially since he was pretty responsible for getting stabbed like an idiot while in the ice prince’s body. “Well, his aunt said that you must go see him or something.”

“His aunt?”

“Yeah, Galien’s mom. Fire goddess. Totally cool,” Kai explained. “Anyways, Sebastian is kind of ill--”

“Kind of?”

Kai sighed. “Because I got wounded by that Uxilan dude that time, and I was in Sebastian’s body, well, now he’s like cursed. And you’re the cure. That’s what Seb’s aunt says.”

Milo stopped abruptly. “And you’re saying it now? Let’s go back and show me what you did to go to Ifigia and get Pepin.”

“It’s not that easy,” Kai mumbled.

“What? Don’t tell me that now that you got Pepin, you don’t care--” Milo started to rant.

Kai stepped into his face. “My dad took me there.”

Milo fell silent. “Your dad?”

“Yeah. So, I’m really sorry that I cannot take you to the gate or whatever those isekai people think that exists to go to Ifigia. I simply don’t know how.”

Milo covered his face. Kai put his hands on his friend’s shoulders. “Still, that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. We’ll search for it. Your Seb is in good hands. He has two goddesses with him, not to mention Luna who surely plies him with those delicious mini cakes she makes day in and day out.” He wished he sounded surer than that. Hell, if he thought for one moment that it helped, he would spend the entire night scouting the woods for that gate. Actually, it wasn’t that bad a thought. “You know what? Let’s go where it happened that I traveled back and forth. Guys,” he called for Tani and Pepin. “Change of plans. We need to find a way to make Milo end up on the other side.”

Just as he said those words, he noticed lights through the trees. Those people were really bent on searching for the gate, apparently. Kai wouldn’t stop them if they wanted to do so. “Hey,” he started to shout. “We’re here!”

“They’re over there!”

Kai froze as that voice, grownup and authoritative, was followed by barks. Were those dogs? Just how many people were into isekai? And who—

The lights drew near, and soon they were surrounded. A flashlight scanned his face and followed to inspect the rest of them. “We found them,” the man spoke into his shoulder, and only then Kai realized that the guy wore a dark uniform. “Kids, you’re in some serious trouble.”

Officially, Pepin was a cousin from the countryside who was big into cosplay. He didn’t have ID on him, which was a bummer, but it looked like the police officers in charge of recuperating them hadn’t cared to look too much into it, as it was late, everyone was tired, and they were pretty sure that these kids were no immediate menace to the society.

Plus, the people at the police station thought that they would have it pretty bad once their parents got there to take them home.

Which left Kai with the challenge of convincing his mom that it was all right to take Pepin home with him and that without saying the word isekai once. That could be particularly daunting for Tani, but everyone was nice to her since she was just a young girl.

Milo’s parents were already there, and soon, the entrance doors flew open, letting Kai’s mom walk in. And he thought fire and ice goddesses were scary. But he was brave now, right? He went directly to her and caught her hands into his. “Mom, I know you’re mad, but we needed to go and save someone from a terrible fate,” he said quickly. “Just say that you know this guy,” he whispered quickly and gestured with his chin over his shoulder at Pepin. “He’s our relative.”

His mom hesitated for a moment, but then her eyes searched his face carefully.

“I’m counting on you, mom. He’s a good guy, and he needs us.” Also, he’s my boyfriend, I got him pregnant, and he comes from a different world, but let’s take it slowly, one shock at a time.

She didn’t say a word, but when the police officer came and asked her about Pepin, she confirmed everything, not one trace of hesitation in her voice.

Well, they were home. His mom had been silent on their way back, and Kai hadn’t said a word, either. Tani had followed his example by instinct, and Pepin had kept his eyes down, his hands demurely folded in his lap. Once in a while, his mom had stolen looks at them in the rearview mirror, and Kai hoped that she could see how calm and collected he was.

In all honesty, he was a bit scared shitless, not for himself but Pepin. They clearly hadn’t thought it through, and how difficult it would be for Pepin to integrate into their world, seeing how he was practically an undocumented alien. If the wrong people caught a whiff of his being from another world, the chances were that he would be used as a guinea pig for who knew what experiments.

Kai shivered at the thought. His mom gestured for them to get into the kitchen and then pointed at the chairs around the table.

“Well?” she asked as soon as everyone was seated. “May I know why I suddenly have a nephew I’ve never seen in my life?”

“Pepin is my boyfriend,” Kai blurted out.

By how his mom’s eyes widened at that abrupt revelation, he knew that he had gotten that ace out of his sleeve a bit too quickly. “Are you trying to pull my leg, Kai?” she asked sternly. “I’m not in the mood for one of your jokes.”

“Milady,” Pepin said in a flawless aristocratic accent, “I can assure you that your son is not joking or lying. I am, indeed,” Pepin paused for a moment, “his boyfriend.”

His mom stared at Pepin, then at Kai. “Why does he speak like that?” She seemed to be beyond puzzled.

“He’s from...” Kai racked his brain for a good lie that wasn’t anywhere close to sounding like an isekai kingdom.

“France!” Tani intervened. “Which is in Europe!”

“I know where France is,” their mom said slowly. “And how had he managed to go through customs without ID?”

“He came incognito,” Kai explained. Oh, man, the lies he was going to say ... Good thing their mom didn’t know one word in French. “He ran away from home.”

“Why? Where are your parents, young man?” Her stern voice was making Kai’s heart grow tiny.

“I’ve never known them. I was sent into servitude at the age of six, and no one ever told me about who they were,” Pepin replied.

“Servitude?” Their mom sounded stricken now. “At the age of six?”

Kai put his hand over Pepin’s to stop him from digging himself a bigger hole. “Lost in translation,” he said quickly. “The thing is that the people who took him in when he was little treated him like a servant, forcing him to cook all day and sweep the floors, and stuff like that.”

“I enjoy cleaning and cooking,” Pepin intervened.

Now his mom was staring at their guest like he was growing a second head. “I need to see that to believe it.”

“You’ll see it. Pepin makes killer mini omelets,” Kai hurried to say.

“They’re not poisoned,” Pepin said. “How are they killer?”

Their mom crossed her arms and examined Kai and Pepin quietly. “You, kids, are going to make my hair turn white before its time comes. What are we going to do with him? Where is he going to sleep?”

“In my room,” Kai said and knew that very moment that it was the wrong thing to say.

“Under no circumstances,” their mom countered. “Tani will sleep with me, and Pepin will have her room. Don’t forget that you have school in the morning,” she added. “Tomorrow is another day, and I’ll think of something by then. You do realize, Kai, that he will have to go back, eventually. He’s practically an illegal migrant.”

“No way, we need to keep him,” Tani spoke up.

“Tani, I don’t want to hear a word from you. And Kai, how did you get yourself a boyfriend from France?”

“Online,” he said quickly. “That’s pretty standard with my generation,” he added to sound convincing.

“And did you taste those killer omelets by taking a bite out of your phone?” their mom questioned further.

Ah, damn. “No, but I saw pictures. Pepin showed them to me.”

Their mom shook her head. “Head over to sleep, all of you. I’ll show Pepin where to find everything.”