Chapter 80: The Father-in-Law
“Welcome back,” Yue said with a smile as he and Mai walked over to the entrance where Viktor was talking to his mother who had returned from the commencement ceremony she was speaking at.
“Good morning,” Elena said and smiled, “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it, did Andrei at least join you all for breakfast?”
“His majesty has been in his office since dawn,” Anya reported to Elena who just sighed in response.
“Well…Can’t be helped,” Elena murmured and went over to Mai and Yue and locked arms with them.
“Come on now, we have to talk about that engagement party.” She giggled and walked with them. Viktor smiled helplessly as he followed them.
—
“I’m fine with anything.”
“That’s the third time you’ve said that,” Mai murmured and nudged Yue. They were looking at different kinds of flowers for the party.
“It’s true though…I don’t have any likes or dislikes or any sort of preferences when it comes to stuff like this,” Yue said and smiled sheepishly.
“So should we have these?” Viktor asked with a sly smile as he showed Yue a picture of a flower arrangement.
“If you want—wait no!” Yue was going to agree until he took a closer look.
“See you do have a preference. No Chamomiles.” Viktor chuckled and watched Yue rub his nose subconsciously
“That’s not a preference, it’s just an allergy,” Yue murmured.
“Huh? You have allergies?” Elena asked, shocked.
“Y-Yeah is that weird?” Yue asked, a little confused.
“I’ve never heard of an auspicious beast having an allergy… Does Huy have allergies?” Elena asked Mai.
“Not that I know of…” Mai murmured. She had never thought of Yue’s allergy as a weird thing but after thinking about it for a while, it seemed, quite strange. A dragon with an allergy?
“How did you find out you had that allergy?” Mai asked, looking over some of the options for flowers again and separating her favorites from the rest.
“I don’t know, it suddenly developed one day when I was just picking some for my Shijie so she could make tea and I was sneezing a lot and my eyes swelled up. I never had a problem with them beforehand though.” Yue explained.
“The previous Azure dragon had a similar allergy.” Anya suddenly said as she walked into the room.
“Really?” Yue asked, surprised.
“Yes, a follower of the Azure Dragon temple once said so when we set up tea for their first meeting,” Anya explained, passing Yue some more flower bouquet examples.
“Interesting…” Elena murmured, “I guess it’s an Azure Dragon thing then.”
“Also, The king wants to see you, Your highness,” Anya said and turned to Viktor.
“…Alright…” Viktor murmured before getting up and hesitantly walking out of the room. The four that were left in the room stayed silent for a few moments after Viktor left until they were sure he was no longer close enough to hear.
“… Why don’t they get along?” Yue and Mai both immediately whispered to Elena.
Elena chuckled awkwardly, she figured this would be their question.
“…A mix of reasons and misunderstandings.” Elena sighed, “They used to be much closer when Vitenka was a baby but things changed quickly.”
“…I won’t tell you to try to fix them but just know that Andrei does love Vitenka, and he’ll treat you well because of that,” Elena said and patted Yue’s head with a smile.
“O-Okay…”
—
“Yue, My father wants to see you,” Viktor said with a sigh as he entered the room again after a while.
“Hm? Okay…?” Yue murmured after freezing for a second. Elena looked at him with a slight smile and Mai just whispered ‘Good luck’.
Anya walked out with Yue and started leading him to Andrei’s office.
“I won’t say that you shouldn’t be nervous but this probably is about your hair and not some sort of “Don’t get married to my son” type of thing,” Anya whispered before they got too close to the door of Andrei’s office.
“Hah…That’s good…” Yue said and with a slightly relieved expression.
Yue entered Andrei’s office and awkwardly stood in front of him. How were they supposed to address one another? Andrei seemed to be wondering that too.
Yue was Viktor’s fiancee, and he was much younger, but he was also Azure Dragon and would become much more powerful than him in the future. He also couldn’t wrap his head around calling him Miss Yue or Miss Xia, partially because it still felt very formal and because he saw no point in calling Yue in a feminine way when they were in private.
“Uh, You can just refer to me as Yue…Sir…” Yue murmured, walking over to sit in the chair in front of him.
“Alright,” Andrei responded dryly, he was thankful that Yue made the decision for him but it didn’t show on his expression.
Andrei stood from his chair and walked around Yue’s sitting figure, examining his hair.
“I had thought that your hair was always like that, but the white section has increased in size since we first met,” Andrei murmured. He walked over to his desk and pulled out some scissors from a drawer.
“May I? It will only be half an inch of both a white section and a black section.”
“Yeah… That’s fine.” Yue responded.
Andrei grabbed a few white strands of Yue’s hair and cut half an inch off and then did the same for some of the black strands. He analyzed the strands and sighed. He sat down and looked at Yue with a serious expression.
“I’ll be blunt. You and Viktor aren’t good for each other.” Andrei said.
Yue didn’t even get the chance to feel outraged after hearing that, he was just shocked. His mouth was agape and all he could think was, ‘Anya! You told me that this wouldn’t happen!’
“I’m sure you have heard of Viktor’s curse…It gets worse the stronger he gets and because of his unique mana constitution, he is constantly getting stronger. The ability is usually fussy and doesn’t like taking mana from weak things so he’s been doing alright despite being in the Academy but you’re making it worse,” Andrei’s words were straight to the point. He likely didn’t mean to sound so cruel but every word was like a slap in the face for Yue.
“Your hair is turning white because Viktor’s mana constitution is eating away at your mana, specifically the Archives of your transformation magic,” Andrei explained.
“W-Wha—“ Yue stuttered, what was he supposed to do with this information? He was making Viktor worse? Viktor was harming him?
“I’m not telling you to cancel your marriage. You currently aren’t feeling any other effects of this so it’s not that bad. And I’m working to get rid of Viktor’s curse so things are fine as they are now.” Andrei murmured, “I just want you to know what’s going on... If I told Vik this he’d only resent me more.”
Yue awkwardly looked down at his hands.
“Can’t you tell me just what is going on with Viktor…?” Yue mumbled.
“I think it’s best I don’t. Viktor is already upset that everyone in our family knows what’s going on with him except for him. I don’t want you two to be at odds with one another.” Andrei said and sighed.
“His grandfather is a curse expert, he’ll be fine. Just…go about your life like normal and notify me or Elena if something goes wrong.”
Yue was still uncertain. He didn’t know how to feel about all this. He wasn’t being asked to do anything differently so he kind of wished he didn’t know. ‘How can I live normally while I’m knowingly hurting him….?’
“You’re not doing as much harm as you think so don’t feel too burdened. Once all of your hair turns white you won’t be harming him anymore and the hair will likely begin to grow back as black again after some time. Don’t worry.” Andrei said and Yue felt like he could breathe after hearing that.
“Ah…That’s good…”
—-
Yue was awkward as he went back to the room where the others were waiting.
“What happened?” Mai asked, she was curious because of Yue’s expression.
“The most awkward conversation of my life…It’s fine though,” Yue murmured, chuckling a little to hide how awkward he still felt about it all.
“Haha, Andrei is like that. Come on, we still have lots of things to pick out.” Elena laughed while Viktor just looked at Yue with an apologetic look.
—
“Was everything really alright when you talked to my father…?” Viktor asked, hugging Yue from behind as they entered his bedroom.
“Yeah…He just doesn’t know what is going on with my hair either,” Yue said and turned around, he felt worried since Viktor’s face was right near his hair.
Viktor took that as a sign that he wanted a kiss and smiled, pecking his lips.
“Sorry, I’ll figure out what’s going on,” Viktor reassured Yue with a worried look.
“No, it’s fine. It's not like it’s making me feel sick or anything. I’m fine as I am now, I just blend in with your family a little more.” Yue laughed. He worried that Viktor would find out that his hair was changing because of him and that he’d feel burdened because of it, just like he was.
Viktor chuckled a bit, Yue looked good regardless but he still couldn’t help but feel worried. He then sighed a little upon remembering that they would soon return to Academy city and Yue will be back in the dorms.
“Hehe I can tell what you’re pouting about~” Yue giggled and kissed Viktor’s cheek.
Viktor grumbled a little but then he seemed to have remembered something and brightened up.
“The last expedition is coming up…” Viktor said with a smirk.
Yue stared at him for a second before turning red, “D-don’t joke around, it’s in a forest.”
“Hm? Whatever do you mean, my love?” Viktor said with a sly smirk, “I just meant that we should share a tent together.”
Yue was still bright red as he turned around a fled from Viktor’s arms. Viktor just giggled and went after him.
--
The expedition came very quickly and Yue finally started to feel like the year was almost really over. Everyone in the class was actually graduating this year, apparently, this usually wasn’t the case but most of the first tier class had been together since their first year. Usually, classes were full of people graduating at different times because the school worked on merit, instead of credits. Yue didn’t expect to be graduating this year until he heard of the graduation requirements around the time of their expedition in Austria. He and Mai had earned enough Merit to graduate in one year but it had taken Viktor 4 years? That didn’t make sense to him, so he decided to ask as they shared a horse on their way to their destination.
“Why did it take you 4 years to graduate?”
“4 years is the maximum amount of time that you can be a student in the Academy. I’ve had enough merit for a long time, I just never felt like leaving.” Viktor explained.
“So you wanted to laze around?” Yue giggled.
“No, I just didn’t have anything to do if I didn’t go to school and I didn’t want to be bored.”
Yue felt like that was an exaggeration, he was sure there were monsters to fight in Belarus or Russia that would be entertaining to Viktor.
“And if I hadn’t entered the school? What would you have done after graduation?” Yue asked.
“I probably would’ve found some roundabout way to bend the law in Belarus to let me become a Lord. Just so I had something to do.” Viktor murmured.
“…What are we going to do after Graduation? We have things to take care of but what about after that?” Yue murmured, realizing they didn’t really have a sense of direction.
“…I have an idea you might like. But I need to talk about it with my father first.” Viktor said. Yue could hear the tone change when he spoke about his father and laughed.
“Alright then.”