That day, you had forgotten to give him the sweet treats you had packed. And even as the next day rolled by, you found yourself forgetting — again. All you had brought then was a flimsy little stack of cards that you guys had played merrily with. Silas had won every round, much to your chagrin.

So the next day, as you made your way to the palace once more — this marked your fourth meeting with Silas — you consciously reminded yourself to bring the food out.

You were spending an awful lot of time with Silas. Your father's business meetings in the palace stretched for a long period of time. You found yourself in the palace with Silas for five to six hours, with him occasionally disappearing to do random things. Silas told you that he had to show his face at times to assure people he wasn't up to no good — for example, burning the palace down. You were slightly alarmed by that, but you didn't pay it any mind.

But this time, much to your relief, you had brought the fruits and biscuits.

"I brought food," you told Silas.

You would have expected for the Imperial Palace to be surrounded by guards, but to your surprise, Silas and you were completely alone, if not shrouded by bushes. It was peaceful and quiet — at that moment, all you could hear was the occasional chirping of birds as well as the rustling of leaves. You two had made your way to your usual spot, which was a small spot in the Imperial Garden.

The garden was scenic, and you plopped down on a wooden bench, gesturing for Silas to take a seat too.

"Fruits?" Silas echoed, "was that what you were carrying in your bag?"

"Yeah," you nodded your head. "My mom packed some peaches, mangoes, and apples. I took some sugar cookies."

Silas didn't react — but a darkening of his expression told you he wasn't pleased. Which was strange, because which child didn't like sweet things?

"You might want to check that out," he said softly.

"Huh? Check my fruits out?" Needles to say, you were confused.

"It might be poisoned," Silas clarified, before his eyebrows knitted together. "You said that you were older and that you would guide me along. But really, you're so naive."

"And you're so rude!" You shot back, incensed by his words; "did anyone teach you manners?"

There was silence, and Silas narrowed his eyes and looked away. "No. But I learnt from books."

You stared at him, jaw agape.

Now you felt terrible — was this considered bullying? You had unwittingly hit a sore spot. Here you thought your family's relationship was skewed and even dysfunctional, but Silas didn't even have anyone to teach him manners! Was he a child from a fallen noble seeking refuge within the walls of the palace? How had he stumbled here?

But either way, you were now more convinced than ever that Silas needed you. After all, you were taught to serve people. Though Silas would not be the person you served in the future, it would be good to practice a little bit of what your father had taught you, right?

"I can teach you manners." You volunteered.

"You were just angry a while ago," Silas looked at you strangely, "and now you're offering me help?"

"We're friends," you emphasized, before you sighed. He's probably hungry, you thought, if Silas had no family, how does he eat?

You shuddered. Don't tell me he eats the plants!

"Eat first," you said hurriedly, opening the little parcel that your mother had given you. "There's plenty of food."

Your mother had conveniently cut up the fruits into little squares. It was her habit to put two toothpicks into the parcel when she packed the fruits in, for you had a silly habit of losing them. But in this case, it would work out perfectly: you would be able to give the extra toothpick to Silas for him to use. Your mother had arranged it beautifully, and the apples were lined up perfectly, and so were the mangoes and peaches.

The smell was sweet, and you could tell this particular batch of fruit was especially ripe. And tucked away in a little compartment, were the cookies that you had smuggled.

Silas looked at it. You gave a triumphant smile, gleefully watching his reaction. And you were rewarded with the tiniest of an upturned smile, as Silas poked a mango and placed it in his mouth. He chewed it slowly, before he commented, "it's sweet."

"You like mangoes?" You asked conversationally, "I like them too. They're sweet, right? But because they're fruit, they don't feel that unhealthy. Which is good, because —"

"You talk a lot," Silas murmured.

"Well, you smile a lot." You frowned. "And yet you don't seem happy. What is wrong with you?"

What is wrong with you? Such an innocent question from your lips. But were you truly asking the future Emperor of the Empire what was wrong with him? Silas was childish enough to feel indignation at this, but instead of retorting, he shoved another mango slice into his mouth. Which cemented your theory of mangoes being Silas's favorite fruit.

"Try the cookies too," you said after a stretch of silence. "I baked them."

"Alone? You're eight."

"And you're six." You were obviously touchy about the subject of age, for Silas seemed to be more intelligent than you despite being two years younger — "well, I baked them with my mother."

Silas smiled briefly so as to entertain you, before he obliged, chewing off a small piece of the sugar biscuit. His expression was unreadable before he swallowed, nodding his head slightly.

"...It's nice. Do you have a good relationship with your mother?"

"Yup!" You said enthusiastically, "I do. She teaches me a lot of things that I'm interested in — unlike what my father teaches me. I don't want to learn how to fold a napkin, I don't want to learn how to make six different types of tea — I think I just want peace."

"Peace," Silas commented, seeming almost wistful then, "I like peace, too."

"Dammit," you mumbled under your breath, "you just had to know what that word meant, right? And here I was, thinking I could have a teaching moment."

"I read a lot." Silas said simply, "I like reading."

"Do you learn swordsmanship?"

"I learned some." Silas shrugged his shoulders easily, and to your pleasure, you saw him reach for another cookie. "But the instructors refused to teach me after some explosion happened with my mana. Some people died," he added off-handedly. "But I don't care. In fact, it was rather nice to see them dead and motionless."

Silas waited for your response. He remembered saying this casually to some random servant, who had then passed out from shock and fear. How would you react?

"...Oh dear," you said after a pause. "Well, you weren't hurt, right?"

"I'm still here."

"That's all that matters, right?" You kept your voice upbeat and enthusiastic. "Er, my condolences to the other people. But you must have been scared. A mana explosion involving a six year old? I would have cried if I were in your shoes."

Sympathy. Silas, to his amusement, realized you were sympathetic towards him, a mass-murderer. And a detail he had conveniently left out was the fact that the mana explosion had been on purpose. The instructor had been getting on his nerves, so everything was premeditated. But sympathy...yes, it felt nice. Even if Silas was utterly cold blooded and demonic, he was still human. And now he felt human.

"You're really strange." Silas murmured under his breath. This time round, he reached for a peach. You had already sampled a peach and it had been delightfully juicy and tasty — but personally, you preferred peaches to mangoes. "Did anyone tell you that being kind can be dangerous?"

You deflated. "My father does."

"And you don't listen to your father?"

"I try to," you said haltingly. "But his values don't align with me. I mean, what's wrong with making someone's day a little brighter? I don't think there's anything bad about that! See — I made you smile!"

"You said I'm always smiling," Silas deadpanned.

"No—" you giggled, "you gave a proper smile just now. It was small, yes, but it was still a smile."

"Are you like this with everyone else?" Silas said, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not able to be." You said meaningfully, "you're my first friend. So you're the first one to receive this kind of treatment. Besides animals, of course."

"I see."

What other things would you dismiss about him? Silas had already committed murder in broad daylight right in front of you. And you hadn't cared. Silas had technically admitted that he took joy from the suffering and demise of others. And you had asked him if he was okay. Silas had learnt that you were genuinely kind, but your niceness would cause you to be exploited by people.

Namely, him.

Silas often starved in the palace. He didn't want to eat any of their filthy food — to him, the servants and his distant relatives — even the officials — were nothing but grimy blobs of fat lurking around him. They didn't even seem real or human to Silas, but more of automated machines, for all they did was repeat the same thing to him, over and over again.

Your Highness! Do this! Do that! Don't kill! Don't —

How awfully tiresome.

Your food was somewhat fresh. It was still pleasant to taste, and the sweetness had dissipated on his tongue.

Yes, so Silas would use you.

A "friend" — that was what you had said he was. But even if Silas was the one who proposed such an idea, Silas himself didn't believe in the notion of friends. In such a cutthroat world, it was killed, or be killed. And if you were truly bait for him, if you were truly trying to kill him quietly...Silas would kill you first.

You couldn't be his friend. That word didn't exist.

Your voice interrupted Silas out of his morbid thoughts. He found a cloth being held to his lips, before you gently wiped his mouth with the napkin, giving him a smile.

"Remember to wipe your mouth."

...?

"Wanna learn how to fold a napkin into a bird?" You asked, starting to lay another napkin flat on a clean surface, smoothing it out. "My dad told me how."

Your dad is the butler, right? Silas thought to himself, it would make sense why you have such random skills.

"...Sure," Silas decided to entertain you.

"Okay," you said, pleased. Silas, even though it was his mere fourth time meeting you, had already learnt how to gauge your reactions. (He had already spent approximately sixteen hours with you. That was akin to sixteen days of meeting you for an hour.)

Silas had learnt that if your cheeks turned rosy, it would mean that you were happy. And now it was apple-red.

"So take one corner, fold the napkin in half diagonally to form a triangle," you continued. "And do it neatly."

Silas did so obediently.

"Then you take the two bottom corners of the triangle and you fold them up to meet the top corner. This should create a diamond shape," you instructed. "Then you'll need to fold the sides in — fold the two sides of the diamond inward, so they meet in the center."

"Not that fast." Silas murmured.

Hah! You thought, so I'm still better at folding napkins than him! I mean, it would make sense. I'm older, obviously.

"Okay—" you paused your instructions for a while, allowing him to quickly fold the napkin the way you wanted it to be — "next, fold the bottom point of the napkin up to form the bird's tail. Then you'll want to fork the wings — fold the top two corners down slightly."

Silas furrowed his eyebrows with frustration. Seeing that he needed help, you quickly helped to fold the napkin with quick and precise movements, such that it looked immaculate and sharp.

"You can form the bird's head now. Fold the top corner of the napkin down a few centimeters...and look! Voila! Done!" You exclaimed, quickly adjusting the wings, tail, and the head to make it seem more realistic — "a bird napkin! Cute, right?"

Isn't this a really useless skill to have? Silas wondered. Well, he had a pretty good skill to show off, too. Swiftly, he tapped on the napkin-bird, muttering a small chant under his breath. And swiftly, the napkin transformed into a red life bird, giving several melodic tweets as it cocked its head.

You stared. "The bird! It just came to life!"

The bird nuzzled its feathery head against your finger, and you gave a delighted laugh, immediately swiveling towards Silas to grin hugely at him.

"Did you just see that? Silas, that's amazing!"

Your words had been embedded with so much genuine sincerity that Silas, for the briefest moment — felt appeased. Slowly and tentatively, he reached out towards the bird, slowly petting it. "Is it?"

"Let's name it," you said joyfully, "it could be our pet! Is it a boy or a girl?"

Pets. Hm. Someone had given Silas a pet before, so as to somehow foster a sense of empathy — but that effort had gone down the drain for the pet had actually been trained to kill him. It had been another assassination attempt, done crudely.

"It's made by magic. So any name would do."

Magic...how wonderful. You desperately wanted to learn magic, but you would only learn it in the later years when your father would teach you the basics of being a butler.

"Okay —how about Elias, then? Similar to your own name," you suggested, watching as the bird gave a little jump at that — "nice, right?"

"Alright."

Silas decided to go along with your playful whims. He could humor you for now — after all, you two were simply children. Nothing would happen in the future, and for now, he could allow this.

"I'll be the dad," you said quickly, "you'll be the mom. I'm older. I get to pick."

"What?" Silas interrupted, "I'm clearly the father."

Oh...maybe he wants to be the father since he lacks that, you thought, trying to understand him — "fine. You are the father. I'll be the other Dad."

"Fine."

In hindsight, even with Silas's brooding, menacing thoughts, this made for a rather cute scene.

And it was during this childish period, with millions of moments to follow after that — your name would start to hum underneath like a warm, sweet pulse.

—

as someone who frequently writes established relationships... it pains me to build their relationship up brick by brick

but also very fun.

if my writing is lacking/poor, I'm sorry — let me ease into this kinda flow lol.  trying my best here

but thank you for the support so far! please vote and comment!

how was it?