My Dear Duke(BL)
Chapter 42: Arrived

Chapter 42: Arrived

"Asher, wake up. Hey!"

Asher heard a familiar voice sounding close to his ear but was way too lazy to pay attention to. However, then, he felt a warmth in his forehead before the pain woke him up completely.

"Aah!"

Asher jumped up and saw the duke sitting at the edge of the bed.

Asher rubbed his forehead as it still hurt and glanced at the duke as he knew the duke did something.

"You haven’t eaten anything. You can’t sleep all day. Here. I brought food for you."

Asher silently stared as the duke pointed to the plate filled with all the good food he had, placed on the chair.

"You shouldn’t have bothered, duke."

Asher was getting worried the duke might soon get sick of him because obviously, their roles seem to have got reversed. It should be the other way. His duke should be resting and he should be bringing this plate to him.

"Sigh...Just get up and eat it."

"...Have.. the duke eaten?"

"Yeah. Grandduke wanted to have dinner together. So I went with him and brought this for you."

"Dinner?"

"Yeah, it’s nighttime now. You slept for a long time."

"Shit!"

"Don’t curse."

"I am sorry."

"You don’t curse around Anne, do you?"

"No! Definitely not duke!"

"Mmm...get up now."

Eventually, they fell into silence and Asher enjoyed the food as he finished everything slowly.

...

Felix was feeling good throughout the whole day despite his sick feeling of going to an unknown place at the end of this peaceful trip. It bothered him what would be waiting for him there. However, he couldn’t help but appreciate how the outside cold wind made him feel relaxed.

He was away from the place he had bad memories...

That must be why...

’I would love to bring Anne on a ship one day. I must let her enjoy this too.’

Felix thought about Anne for a moment. He wondered if she was asleep by then. He was not worrying about her misbehaving though as she had said her revenge was done.

This one time...he will trust her for this one last time.

"Duke...Can I go outside for a moment? I need some fresh air."

Asher hesitantly asked the duke and then as he nodded, Asher immediately left.

There were some lights but they were not the brightest. So he had to be careful. But the cold breeze running around was so refreshing even though the floating feeling was making him feel slightly dizzy.

He should consider himself lucky for having a chance to go on a nobleman’s large ship.

Asher closed his eyes for a moment and felt the wind was too strong and it was too cold. Maybe because it was chilly at night.

He then went back and saw the duke sitting on the bed.

"Asher, are you sleepy?"

"No duke. I slept more than enough."

"Mmm...Then I am going to sleep here."

"Okay duke. I will lay down later."

"Dont go outside. Stay inside, understand?"

"...Yes duke."

Felix laid in the bed and fell asleep very quickly. He wasn’t feeling uncomfortable or sick unlike Asher. It wasn’t really hard for Felix.

Asher watched the duke sleeping and then put the carpet, laid down on the ground.

When they wake up again, they would be stepping into a land very away from where they came from. It was quite scary but since he had the duke, he felt a bit reassured as he believed the duke would not make his life there hard.

Even though he slept a lot, he still fell asleep again just as his eyes shut. The sound of sea waves, that rhythm of them hitting their ship, sounded relaxing. He was concentrating on that sound when he fell asleep unknowingly.

...

The next day arrived.

Felix who woke up saw Asher was asleep but didn’t disturb him. Felix wanted to clean himself up but it was cold and wasn’t the most comfortable place. So he just changed his clothes and decided to take a good bath once they arrived at their destination.

After changing his clothes, he woke up Asher and asked him to get ready as he knew they would be leaving the ship soon.

After some time, the ship arrived at the port and they left the ship.

For the festival, there were a lot of respectful guests coming from different empires. While it could be hard to take care of a lot of guests, the North Archen empire didn’t seem to find it a problem as they had even assigned each person to take care of the groups of guests arriving...

’They are well organised.’

Their group followed the person that came to welcome them. The middle aged man invited them to get on a carriage and they left for the royal palace’s guest house.

This empire was definitely bigger and more powerful than theirs. Their royal palace was thousand times more luxurious than theirs and Felix couldn’t help but praise everything in his heart.

The guest rooms seemed to have no limit. It was almost as if a total another castle just for the guests.

Everyone in awe, followed the man and found the rooms separated for them.

Upon finally getting their room, Felix and Asher went inside. Asher almost gasped out when he saw the big room they were in.

They even got a servant for each person from the place for guidance since they were not familiar with the area. Felix had got a male servant who seemed very young. It seemed like he was a child.

Maybe around age 14.

Definitely older than Anne but not very older.

Asher felt some sadness to watch the boy’s nervous face as he kept his head down, maybe not knowing what to do next in fear.

Asher watched the duke turn to the boy and say something in a different language to which the boy raised his head in surprise and then looked at Asher.

Asher was dumbfounded as he didn’t understand anything and the boy was staring at him.

"I told him to stay with you."

Felix said and looked out of the big window. They were on the third floor, so Felix could see the big garden filled with rose flowers. It was beautiful.

’They maintain everything really well.’

Felix looked around the room and saw everything looked really clean. They must have paid time and attention to please the guests.

"Asher, the boy doesn’t understand our language. But he can understand if you try to sign something."

Felix said when he saw Asher watching the boy with curious eyes.

"I see...So what do you want us to do?"

Asher asked him and the boy exchanged glances between the two since he didn’t understand anything..

"Nothing really. I want to take a shower. You two can wait here."

Felix grabbed a bath towel from the cabinet and left for the washroom in frustration and in a rush as he really wanted a bath... He was quite the clean freak so taking a shower after a day was like the best feeling.

When he came back out in a bathrobe, Asher was quite embarrassed because the duke’s chest was slightly exposed. Asher secretly looked at the boy and saw he seemed shocked.

’Sigh...Trying to traumatise the kid.’

Asher covered the boy’s eyes and Felix soon noticed he was covering the boy’s eyes. Felix then silently went back into the bathroom with fresh clothes in his hand.

’Damn, I was in a hurry and forgot to bring clothes. I am not in my room and these two are here too.’

Felix thought to himself and soon came out fully clothed. His hair was dried well, but it was a mess.

So Asher offered to do his hair and Felix let him as he sat on a chair in front of the mirror.

The boy silently stood back while handing things over to Asher when he pointed at it. When Asher finished, Felix looked at his styled hair and gave his approval with a nod.

Then, he turned to the boy and had a conversation with that same language from before.

When it ended, Asher saw the boy leaving the room.

"What did you talk about duke?"

Asher was quite curious and asked him.

"I asked his age."

"How old is he?"

"16."

"...16? He looks even younger. Very thin."

"He is a slave sold to the prince. I kind of guessed he must be from Solnev with his looks. As expected he was."

Asher didn’t have anything to say though. Why would people be sold like this? Anne also almost got sold like this, didn’t she? It was scary to think about.

"It’s not here language?"

"No, it is his mother tongue. I have learned some foreign languages including the language here in Archen and also Solnev."

"Ahh... that’s very impressive."

Asher said, praising the duke. Felix didn’t say anything.

"You can have a bath too. You will feel good afterwards."

"H-here?"

"Mm...you don’t have to go and stay at the servants house. Grandduke asked us to keep the servants at our rooms because not knowing anything about here, the servants here might take advantage of you."

"But...is it okay?I don’t think servants are allowed to stay in the guest room..."

"No...we can decide about it since we brought you here. So now go and bath. Take a nap if you want. Thankfully, the bed here is big so both of us can sleep on it at night. You can lay down if you want. Don’t worry about anything. I’m going out to meet the granduke. Do anything you want but don’t go outside without me."

Felix left the room leaving Asher stranded in the room. The granduke was right next door, thankfully. So he entered his room and saw the other dukes were also there. Felix silently stood behind.

The grand duke reminded them of the meeting with the emperor in the evening. They would be visiting him to hand the gifts and thank him for their hospitality and have a talk.

As they arrived after many more countries’ guests, the emperor had already met them and they still haven’t. The granduke was notified the emperor invited them for the evening meeting right on that day.

It would be only their group in this meeting as the emperor had already met other guests separately to show his appreciation for their arrival.

After the grand duke said everything, Felix came back to his room and sat on his bed.

Asher seemed to be in the washroom.

Felix laid on the huge bed and closed his eyes for a moment.

’I hope I won’t see that pervert in the evening at the meeting.’

Even though he knew he would definitely be there since he....was the third prince of the North Archen Empire.

His red glowy eyes still disgust him to this day and all his good mood vanishes when he thinks about him and their interaction in the past.

’Disgusting bastard. I want to kick him in the face real bad.’