The Perfect Knight and the Illusionist (BL)

LEO

I was more sad than angry when I saw the boys steal.

I just couldn’t understand.

I gave them money so they could buy the candies. I knew things were more expensive in the capital, but surely it would have been enough for them to get something to share among them, even if it wasn’t much.

So why...?

At the same time, I couldn’t bear the thought that they would get caught and be sent to Sergeant Becker. Stealing was a crime wherever you were in the Empire. They were clearly in the wrong and they would be punished, although I didn’t exactly know how.

It was probably right that they get punished.

Not just because of ’rules’ as Mario liked to talk about. Stealing something from someone was simply wrong. I couldn’t approve that either.

But...

I remembered the boy tapping on the wooden wall at the back alley when he said that was his home. And I remembered the mother and the child inside that house.

If—and I believed he was telling the truth—that really was his house, it meant being caught now might mean he won’t be able to go back home.

I couldn’t bear to think that’d be what might happen.

"Guys, put the stuff back on the stall and run."

That was the first thing I told the boys.

"Huh? You are from before—" one of them said.

"What do you mean?" the other one said.

"We did nothing wrong," the one who stuffed his pockets said.

"My... friends saw you taking stuff. Return the goods now and run away...please."

It was then that I noticed, from the corner of my eye, that Isabelle stood up from her crouching position while Dorian looked over at where Mario said he would be.

There was no more time for talking.

"Run—that way. RIGHT NOW," I told the boys, pointing at the safe direction.

The boys looked around, got startled, and immediately took off.

I then looked over at where Mario was before. Thankfully our eyes didn’t meet as he had already started running after the boys with Beatrice following behind him.

Then I looked over to the side where Dorian was, and I was puzzled to see that while Isabelle was running directly after the boys, Dorian was headed in a slightly different direction.

But things quickly clicked in my mind.

Dorian wasn’t playing catch. He saw it as a game of hide-and-seek, so he was going somewhere he thought the boys would run to.

I had no more time to think further, so I ran after Dorian.

We mostly ran through narrow back alleys of the area. Each time we reached points where we had to decide which street to take, Dorian paused for a brief moment, looked at each side, and swiftly decided. Each street we ran into felt like it would be a good place to hide, and the more I followed him, the more certain I became that Dorian would eventually catch them.

And catch them, he did.

We literally ran into them as we turned one corner and they were turning into the street we had just come from. Dorian was very quick to grab one of them by the collar with one hand and another by the wrist, and the third one froze on the spot after seeing his two friends get caught. It was the boy whose sibling and mother I saw before—the one who actually had stolen goods stuffed into his pockets.

I was conflicted in my mind about what to do, as the boy stood there hesitating whether to try to help his friends or run away, but my body moved on its own to use the window of opportunity to go around him to block his path.

Now he couldn’t run away.

"Please—let us go! I will return everything!"

The boy pleaded.

"That’s not how it works," Dorian said, laughing through his nose.

"Please, Mister," the boy said again, his voice trembling with desperation.

I could see that he was close to bursting into tears as he said once more to Dorian while pointing his finger at me,

"I swear. I will never do it again. I will return the goods like he told us to."

Then he broke into sobs.

Dorian stood silently but without losing his grip on the two boys he caught. He blinked, looked at me with intrigue, and asked,

"You told them to ’return the goods’ and just go?"

I felt like I got punched in the chest. It was as if I was the one who got caught stealing something.

But I couldn’t lie.

"Yes, I did."

"Why?" Dorian asked calmly.

"He—he has family back home."

"What does that have to do with anything? Why does it even matter?" Dorian asked, a faint smile rising at the corner of his lips.

"I... don’t know," I said.

"Sympathy? Pity? Kindness? What made you think it’s okay to steal and get away?" Dorian probed me further.

"Please, Mister—I just panicked and ran away because he told us to. I know it was wrong to take all this," the boy took out the stolen sweets from his pockets, pointed at me, and said, "but maybe all this could have been avoided if we just returned them to the seller on the spot. But then he told us to run away so we got scared and ran!"

"What?!" I yelled, unable to believe how the boy was putting the blame on me.

Then Dorian burst into laughter.

"Haha, I like this," he said.

"Ha... haha... can we... just return these and leave now?" the same boy who was accusing me of being at fault asked Dorian.

Dorian was smiling, or more like, smirking, and asked me,

"What do you think now? You helped them. They stole. You helped them again. Now you are being accused. Shall we still let them go?"

At first I was disappointed, but then I found myself slowly getting angry—

At the boy, at the situation, and at myself.

For a brief moment, I imagined us dragging the boys to Sergeant Becker and them being taken away to wherever they deserved to be sent. I thought about the boy’s mom and the sibling crying for the boy that’d never return home again. There was a small part of me that found satisfaction in this brief imagination.

And I hated it.

"Please, let them go," I said before I could think any further.

"Seriously?" Dorian asked. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

"Yes. Make them return the goods and leave," I said again.

Dorian tilted his head slightly from side to side, once, and said,

"Interesting."

After that, he told the boy with the sweets,

"You heard it. Put them all on the ground first."

"Thank you, Mister!" the boy exclaimed.

"Shut up and do as you are told," Dorian said, his voice calm and cold.

The boy then emptied his pockets. Dorian let go of his two friends, and they scurried away, and as they did, the boy I tried to ’save’ earlier turned and looked at me.

He grinned as our eyes met.

I didn’t know what to make of it.