It begins the moment they're a good way off from the fortress, impossibly far from anyone else's hearing but their horses'. Riding ahead, Wolfram casts a glance over his shoulder, and it's only when Conrad meets his scowling green eyes that he speaks up finally:

"You're in love with Yuuri."

Conrad feels his hands tighten on his reins. He opens his mouth but can't decide on something to say in return -- something untrue, something appropriate. All he seems able to do is feel the rush of some implacable emotion that is a heavy thrum in his ears and a battering in his throat. He looks back at Wolfram in surprise --

but Wolfram wrenches his gaze off him, as though repelled.

"I knew it," Wolfram snarls.

With Wolfram's back to him, Conrad can see nothing apart from Wolfram's left hand trembling around his own reins, but with every fiery word that gushes forth from Wolfram's mouth Conrad is almost certain he wouldn't be able to bear the look on his face if he saw it, in any case.

"I can carry out such a paltry task as coming to get Yuuri by myself but you insist on coming every time even though you don't have to. You keep saying you have to be there to protect Yuuri but you and I know you just can't wait to see him again! And you have the gall to do this around me, your own brother, engaged to the very person you're -- Well I'm telling you now, Sir Weller: I'm the one to marry Yuuri, it's all but written in stone. And you can bet your last horse I'm going to do everything I have to do to make Yuuri happy with me!"

Conrad thinks back on every arrow shot and sword thrust he's ever taken, every time that he's hit the ground or shattered a bone, every word relayed to him of someone's death, someone important to him, but he cannot remember any of them being any more intense, any more thorough, than the stark twinge in his chest right this moment.

All the same, Conrad can find no words to oppose Wolfram's, nor does Conrad deem it his place to say anything, above all.

Against the fury of Wolfram's words, the burning truth of his assertions and the heat of his oath, Conrad cannot bring himself to disclose that the foremost reason he insists to be there every time Yuuri returns from Earth is Yuuri has asked him to do so.

Thus Conrad remains silent around Wolfram, Wolfram and his impassioned heart and unwavering mind, until they reach Shinou's Castle, until Yuuri emerges from the pond and smiles brightly up at Conrad before anybody else, and Conrad says, smiling tenderly in return, "Welcome back, Your Majesty."

Wolfram stomps forward to show Yuuri his own brash -- yet heartfelt -- welcome, and for all of several minutes Conrad can only look on and wait as the two bicker and scrap tirelessly before everyone there. He doesn't break it up, doesn't try to take away from Wolfram's time with his fiancé.

What Conrad does instead, later, is squeeze back Yuuri's hand just before Yuuri climbs up on the horse with Wolfram...

and then sit next to Yuuri on a bench, laughing effusively at Dacascos and his little ragtag team on the baseball field...

and then weave his fingers in Yuuri's hair just after Yuuri draws his mouth from his, their first kiss in weeks, around that dim corner to the main hallway.

Yuuri holds Conrad's palm to his cheek and breathes, smiling, into Conrad's lips, "Conrad. It's so so so good to be back here, with you," before pulling him even closer for another kiss.

And this is more than enough to take away the twinge in Conrad's chest, to let Conrad know that, already, Yuuri is happy with him.

END