Chapter 7: The Vanished Hangover
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The bell announcing breakfast tolled across the Academy. From beyond the doors, which sprang open as though everyone had been waiting for this moment and nothing else, came the rush of students streaming through in a flood.
"You skipped dinner last night too. What are we going to do with you?"
Eli looked down at Bayul — who couldn't so much as stir under the lingering fumes of drink — with helpless pity.
"Want me to run and get you some hot soup?"
"Isn't that against the rules?"
"Are the rules really what matter right now? The kid looks half dead."
"Where would you even get it? Do you have a bowl?"
"I'll just pull one of the cafeteria ladies aside and ask. What, you don't know how popular I am?"
More often than not the handsome face was a nuisance, but every once in a while it did prove useful. When Eli pounded his chest and boasted grandly, as if to say just leave it all to me, Aidan nodded and conceded the point at once.
"Fair enough — if anyone could pull it off, it's you. Respect!"
Such was Eli, who boasted the finest looks in all the Academy. He had always lived up to his model-student image and kept every rule, but he could hardly pretend not to see a friend suffering through a hangover.
"Just wait here. I'll be right back with it."
"No, Eli, you don't have to. My stomach's churning too much right now — eating doesn't sound great."
"That's exactly when you need to eat. That's how you get your strength back."
"I'm fine, honestly. You two hurry off and eat before you're late."
"Don't move a muscle. I'll scarf mine down and bring the soup straight back."
Bayul's protests did nothing to bend Eli's stubbornness — not that arguing seemed likely to get him anywhere. In the end, Bayul relented with a single slow blink.
"You're not coming?"
Eli, one foot already out the door, turned back toward Quinn.
"You need breakfast too, you know."
"Not interested."
"You mean to starve, then?"
What's with the meddling all of a sudden?
Quinn's scowl laid his inner feelings bare.
"Now that I think of it, I don't believe I've ever once seen you eat breakfast. Have you?"
"Neither have I."
At Aidan's chiming in, Eli's expression turned grave.
"Don't tell me..."
"...?"
"You've got food stashed away somewhere, haven't you?"
"What?"
The absurdity of it strangled even a laugh. Hide what, exactly?
"You've had the room to yourself all this time, haven't you? Dragging yourself to the dining hall first thing in the morning is a chore and a half. You've just been sneaking good food in your room where it's nice and comfortable. Admit it."
"Is that really the thing to say right now?"
It isn't, right? He's joking — he has to be joking.
That he was being subjected to such a misunderstanding at all left Quinn utterly dumbfounded.
"Well, believe what you like."
Leaving Quinn trembling where he stood, Eli sauntered blithely out of the dorm room.
"...I'm sorry, Quinn. We share this room, and I've gone and made things awkward for you over nothing."
"No, I'm just relieved you're all right."
"And... thank you."
Quinn, who had been winding up to fire back something icy, stopped short.
"For carrying me back the day I collapsed. Thanks to you, my body's in this decent a state."
If not for Quinn, Bayul might well have slept the whole time in that cold spot with not even a blanket over him. There was no telling what might have become of such a frail body had he done so. It was a genuine mercy that nothing had.
"You can't very well be hauled off to the temple on your first day at the Academy. Word like that would have everyone back home worried sick..."
And not just his father, either.
"I'll make it up to you someday. Thank you, truly... Quinn..."
Before he knew it, the demon of drink came creeping back. His head felt close to splitting; his stomach still burned, and the sour reek of liquor rose from his lips. Praying that one more nap would wash it all away, Bayul sank back into sleep.
"..."
Quinn was torn.
It has nothing to do with me. Whether that fool suffers through his hangover or not is none of my affair.
If that was one half of his heart, the other half was busy recalling the terms of the wager the man had made with Jared the night before.
"Well, well. Looks like I've reeled in another one."
Scarcely had the words left Jared's mouth than a drink sat waiting in front of Bayul. The violet liquid filling the clear glass to the brim swayed with an ominous shiver. It was a taste he could never bring himself to get used to, no matter how many times it passed his lips.
"What, having second thoughts?"
When Bayul silently lifted his head and held his gaze, Jared flashed a smug, ingratiating smile.
"I see the offer's caught your fancy, then?"
"I told you I wouldn't ask twice — but I suppose I could make a special exception."
"An exception?"
"That's right. How about coming over to my side, even at this late hour?"
Jared's eyes gleamed like a demon's.
Serve under him, fawning like those upperclassmen do?
He remembered the man's words — that only those of a matching rank ought to keep company. And with them, the memory of how he had heaped insults on Quinn.
"And if I lose."
"What?"
"Oh — so you're saying you'll join me, then?"
As if that were precisely what he'd been hoping to hear, Jared's face lit up.
"But if I win, then I have a condition of my own."
"What condition?"
"Stop insulting Quinn. From now on."
"What?"
"Not confident you can manage that?"
"No, of course I can! Fine! I'm going to win anyway, so have it your way."
Jared swallowed Bayul's bait whole. Lifting the glass to his lips, Bayul offered one final word of caution.
"I expect you to keep that promise. That is, if you're a man."
If the man had been the sort to honor such a promise in the first place, he would never have staged a midnight kidnapping to begin with. Quinn could have staked the Eye of the Ocean itself on the certainty that not one whit of the man's conduct would change.
Why? What possessed him to make a wager like that?
At first, he had been dumbfounded by the sheer gall of a man who dared to name him a stake without so much as asking leave. As the prince of the Mermaid Kingdom, being made a plaything for mere humans had stung his pride raw.
But watching the man fight so desperately, his feelings had soon turned strange. Part of him had wondered, too. Why would Bayul strive so hard on his behalf?
Faced with Bayul playing chess for his very life, barely able to keep himself upright, Quinn had ultimately been unable to turn away midway and had no choice but to watch it through. In the end, he had even carried the man back to the dormitory on his back.
And then I'd had to endure his drunken carrying-on on top of it all.
"Uwaah......"
As Bayul lay back into bed, the first thing his slurred tongue sought out was his brother — the twin said to have drowned.
If there was ever a moment when being merfolk felt like a birthright of superiority, it was moments like this. He had never once said it to anyone's face, but every time he was held in contempt for the sole crime of not being human, Quinn had wanted to argue the point.
And yet they can't even breathe underwater.
And yet they can't live anywhere but on dry land.
But for this one moment, he could not lay hold of those feelings. The voice calling for its brother was simply too pitiful to bear.
"I'm sorry... sob... I'm so sorry..."
The man had worked himself up to outright weeping.
Sorry for what, exactly?
Thick veins rose and faded on Quinn's forehead as he tucked the blanket over him. He did not like the sight of that face, streaked and blotted with tears. How could the son of the man hailed as the Empire's hero carry so many tangled sorrows? He was not the kind of human Quinn had braced himself for.
"Damn it."
He fetched a handkerchief and wiped the tears away. He was disgusted with himself for doing it, yet somehow he could not bring himself to leave well enough alone. Just then, the man sobbed again.
"Father, I'm sorry. Sob... it's all my fault."
Fault?
Quinn's hand, still resting against Bayul's face, went still.
A moment ago he had been begging his brother's pardon; now he was pleading with his father for forgiveness.
Don't tell me his brother died because of him?
Was that why his eyes had looked so sorrowful?
It was pure conjecture, but Quinn had always trusted his instincts. If it were true, the man would have to go on living with a weight too heavy ever to lay down — one he might never put off even in death.
Right. This is just me feeling sorry for him. Nothing more than that.
Quinn turned on his heel and came back to Bayul's bedside. He had assumed a night's sleep would leave the man looking somewhat restored, but the sight of him was ridiculous. Never mind the paper-white face — his breathing was alarmingly ragged. Frail as he was said to be, this was on another level entirely.
After a long silence spent staring down at him, Quinn's hand drifted to the man's forehead. Perhaps a knock from when he had crumpled onto the table — the center of it was swollen and faintly red.
Quinn closed his eyes and focused, gathering himself. His blue hair steeped into a deeper shade, just as it had before. The air around them drew taut, as though an invisible tidal wave were bearing down.
Before long, the swelling on Bayul's forehead began slowly to subside, the reddened skin reclaiming its natural color. Life crept back into his pallid cheeks, and his ragged breathing evened out before anyone could mark the change.
The strange one, this time, was Quinn. Perfectly hale a moment ago, he suddenly pressed a hand to his temple as if a headache had ambushed him and went to lie down on his own bed. On his forehead bloomed the same faint redness Bayul had worn just moments before. He even gave off the smell of liquor — as though he had taken Bayul's symptoms onto himself, wholesale.
How long did it go on like that? The closed door burst wide, and Eli strode briskly inside.
"Bayul, I'm back!"
True to his word, he carried a bowl of piping hot soup in his hands.
"How's the body holding up? Still rough?"
Pressing a palm to the forehead of Bayul, newly woken, Eli swept a keen gaze over him from head to toe.
"Fever's gone, and your color looks decent enough..."
"I feel a lot better after sleeping."
"Yeah? And your stomach?"
"Mm... my stomach feels fine too."
Even as he said it, Bayul found it strange. Right up until he had drifted off, he had felt near death — yet his body had returned to normal as though by magic. If anything, he seemed in better shape than usual.
Sleep was supposed to be the best of medicines, but could it really mend a person this completely? After drinking that much?
"Whoa! Bayul, you can hold your liquor!"
"...Huh?"
"That stuff you drank — it's lethally strong. Blood of Dragon, right? That's what Jared likes to bring out for his little chess games. How many glasses did you have?"
"About ten?"
"Wha—!"
Eli's jaw dropped clean open.
"Now that I look at it, you're a regular drunk! You may be the only person alive who could drink like that and be right as rain by morning!"
"...Is that what that was?"
"Obviously! Seems a weak constitution and liquor tolerance don't have anything to do with each other. Man, and here I was worried over nothing."
"Sorry."
It wasn't as though an apology was called for, but the word slipped out of Bayul all the same.
"Aidan spent the whole meal worrying himself sick over you, you know. He's going to feel so deflated when he finds out."
"Did Aidan head back to the dorm?"
"Yeah, he had class to prepare for. You should eat this up and get ready too."
Eli set the soup down on the table and beckoned him over.
"Come sit, quick, before it gets cold."
The moment the lid came off, the nutty aroma of the soup pricked the tip of his nose. His stomach, empty since the previous evening, suddenly raised an uproar, demanding to be fed.
"Hey, Quinn. Going back to sleep? I brought yours too. Get up and have a bit."
There was far more soup than Bayul could finish alone.
"Why's he not answering? Is he dead to the world?"
Head cocked, Eli started toward him — and Quinn, lying there with a hand pressed to his forehead, answered in a low voice.
"I told you I wasn't interested."
"What, you were awake? Then why answer only now?"
"It's a bother. Don't make me talk."
Quinn turned over altogether and showed him his back.
"Still, you should really..."
"Tch, forget it. Leave him be. If he doesn't eat, the loss is his — like it's ours."
Bayul made to offer once more, but Eli waved him off. Time was short — and he knew full well the man wouldn't eat no matter how the two of them pleaded.
"Here — spoon."
"Thank you."
Bayul still could scarcely believe he had a friend who fussed over him so warmly. Who else in the world would share such affection in the space of a single day? He was grateful, truly, and grateful again.
"It's delicious!"
The moment the steaming soup touched his tongue, it felt as though his whole body were melting. He ate faster and faster, until before he knew it, all that soup had begun to show the bottom of the bowl. Eli watched the sight with eyes full of quiet pride.