52 Everyone is here!

"Trevor is my bodyguard??"

Kurt's head was having trouble processing everything.

Just when he assumed nothing could surprise him anymore after his father barged into his school, exposed his identity as the son of an emperor for the whole school, revealed that he had four other wives and other children besides Kurt and his mother, of which some also apparently happen to be individuals from his old world, and as if that wasn't enough, the first friend he ever made after coming into this new world dropped another bomb on his lap.

"So..." Trevor mumbled while playing with his fingers as he tried to avoid eye contact, "You probably have some questions..."

Kurt had many things he wanted to say, but for some reason, the first words that came to his mind were something even he did not expect.

"How much?" he simply whispered while staring at Trevor with a smile.

"Eh?"

"How much did it cost you to pretend to be my friend and to pretend to like me?"

Trevor flinched while shifting his gaze back and forth from Kurt to the empress, "That's not-"

"I bet it was a lot, right? Pretending to want to talk yo me, hang out with me, listen to me... You must have hated every second of it, right?"

"Kurt..."

"It's fine... I get it..." Kurt interrupted him, "It's like Saramin said, nobody just does something without expecting something in return... Nobody would want to be friends with me so easily after all..."

The empress watched her boy holding out a smile on his face but she could tell he was forcing himself to show that reaction. A feeling of guilt began to stab her in the chest once she realized what was happening.

Kurt always knew that there was something wrong with Trevor and his behavior.

The boy approached him extremely fast on the first day, began to act rather casually towards him, never looking like the fact that he talked to his owl, was a prince, or had a habit of picking up fight really bothered him.

Thinking back, Kurt had given many reasons for people to not want to approach him, but even after all that, Trevor still did.

A small spark of hope began to grow inside of the red-haired boy after that.

One saying that maybe, just maybe, someone was going that far just because they wanted to be friends with him, that maybe he was worth the effort, that maybe it wasn't just because of some secret deal he had made.

The empress made Kurt believe he had earned a friend on his own, something he always struggled so hard to achieve in his past life...

And now she had taken that from him.

"Kurt..." she mumbled, "I..."

"I said it's fine!" he shouted, "Let's talk about this later... We... We have a dinner to attend."

He stared at Dorothy and signaled for her to land on his shoulder, proceeded by storming out of the room.

Dorothy was once again in absolute silence as Kurt walked away from his mother and his former friend. Nala remained silent the entire time and didn't react to anything, She simply stood still like a statue waiting for someone to tell her to move.

As the boy continued to walk he began to look back on what his owl said before.

[I should have listened to you...] he mumbled using the speech from his old life.

'What do you mean?' Dorothy asked with her telepathy.

[You told me there was something off about him... But I didn't listen.]

Dorothy closed her eyes for a second and began to caress his hair with her wing, 'I... I'm sorry...'

[Youre sorry? For what?]

'That you had to go through this' she replied, 'It's my fault you came into this world after all...'

Kurt began to ponder about that fact. Dorothy did cause him to come here but she didn't force him to stay. In fact, she tried her best to get him to return home.

She wasn't the one that made his father enter into a marriage without love, she didn't make all those assassins come after his life, she wasn't the one that hired someone to be his friend and gave him false hope.

Sabiri, Lian Garen, Trevor, people that Kurt trusted or that he wanted to trust, they all kept secrets from him and gave him the impression of being something they were not, but not Dorothy.

[You know... I'm glad that I at least have you, Dory.]

'Eh...?' the small bird tilted its head, 'Where did that come from?'

[Sorry, it's just...]

<Let you go? Why? So you can return to a world of lies and fake relationships?> a strange voice echoed inside his mind as a faraway memory.

[It's just that after today, I feel like I'm gonna have trouble trusting in others... But not you! You are always honest with me!]

Dorothy gazed at him with a blank expression.

[Thank you for always being my friend, Dory!]

'... ... ... Anytime, kid.'

Kurt patted her on the head and continued walking once he saw his mother, Trevor, and Nala coming after him.

Neither Trevor nor the empress tried to say anything. Kurt was releasing a small glare that made it clear he was not in the mood to talk to anyone right now.

______

______

The group simply walked in silence until they encountered Saramin and her mother at the end of the hallway.

Just like Kurt, Sara had gotten out from her gym clothes and was now wearing a beautiful golden dress that matched her eyes as well as her mother's attire.

"Hey again, apple head" she greeted.

Kurt took another look at her and began to wonder how he never realized the small traces of his father on her face. The sharp eyes, the confident smile, the proud posture, she clearly was a child of Lian Garen.

"Hey... S- Sister..." Kurt responded. He was trying his best to get used to the idea as soon as possible but it still felt weird to him to address her that way.

Saramin on the other hand, seemed like she was enjoying it as she soon began to grin from ear to ear after hearing that word.

"Hihihi! You know, in my old life, I was the youngest of three older siblings" she commented while approaching him and rubbing his hair, "So it feels really, REALLY nice to have a younger brother! Thanks for that!"

"Don't mention it..."

"Oh! And by the way..." she then grabbed his hand and pulled him a few steps away from their mothers before whispering into his ear, "Just so you know, we have two other siblings besides Hugh. One of them is kind of an ass but he shouldn't be too hard to handle."

"Okay..." Kurt was pretty much ready to assume anything could happen by that point, so hearing about two other siblings was hardly startling news.

"The other one though... She's the worst! No matter what you do, never piss her off."

Kurt raised an eyebrow, "I... I'll keep that in mind."

Kurt then looked at his and Sara's mothers who were looking as if they were in the middle of a staring contest.

"Nice to see you again, Sabiri..." the lady with long white hair in a golden dress commented.

"Same to you, Karina..." Kurt's mother responded.

"Still trying to keep your son locked away from the world afraid that he will break like a piece of glass once he steps out?"

"I wonder... What about you? Still trying to gain the emperor's favor by using your daughter even though he clearly shows no signs of even giving a damn about you?"

"I suppose I am foolish for trying to demand affection from my own husband... Not all of us can just hide away in our rooms and pretend that the rest of our families don't exist like you."

"Oh! Don't take it the wrong way. I'm not pretending you don't exist, I just wished you didn't! There is a difference."

"Felling is mutual, my dear! I do wish your little brat would stop sticking with my girl since I don't want her to get infected by anything he might have."

"And what, pray tell, could he possibly have? A heart? Sympathy? Humility? Those are very rare nowadays, I must admit. You should be careful in case you ever get one. You may actually start to act like a decent living being!"

The two ladies kept going on with this for a few more minutes while Kurt and Sara continued to watch.

"What are they doing...?" the boy wondered.

"Oh, that's how they greet each other," Sara responded.

"How long does it usually lasts?"

"Something between five to ten minutes, give or take..." she replied while gesturing 'more or less' with her hand.

_____

_____

Once the two were done, the group finally moved towards the dining hall where they each took their seats on the largest table Kurt had ever seen.

The thing looked less like something people would use to eat and more like a pathway for models to walk on in order to display their clothes in the middle of a photo shoot.

Trevor and Nala were nowhere to be seen. Kurt wondered if they had gone home already or if they had to eat somewhere else.

Kurt took a seat with Sabiri on his right and Saramin on his left, with her mother, Karina, sitting right after her. Neither of the two kids wanted to risk sitting next to Hugh or one of the other unpleasant siblings. Karina was sitting the closest to the emperor's seat while Sabiri was sitting the farthest.

The large boy himself also had changed and was wearing a white suit just Like Kurt's as he was sitting next to his mother on the opposite side of the table, right in front of his brother.

He kept smiling and laughing while looking at him, "I can't wait for school tomorrow!"

Kurt just glared in return, "You can't wait to get wrecked like a bag of junk again? You have some weird fetish..."

"Huehuehue... I guess I do!"

The other wives were also at the table but they both were next to empty seats.

Kurt kept glancing at the door waiting to see if his other brothers would enter and what they would look like.

The two ladies were acting rather reserved during all that. Neither was trying to strike a conversation or even glancing in his direction. They would just take a few glimpses every now and then at the main seat as if waiting for the emperor to arrive.

'This is such an unpleasant atmosphere...' Dorothy commented.

Kurt raised an eyebrow, [What do you-]

'Don't speak out loud in here, they can understand you. Talk through our link!'

'Ah! That's right... Almost forgot... Thanks!' the boy muttered inside his own mind, 'But what did you mean?'

'Everyone is here for a different reason' Dorothy continued, 'Some want to gain the emperor's favor, some want to gather information, some just want to secure their own safety, and some are just curious and want to see where things are going.'

Kurt noticed that as Dorothy mentioned all that she would take short glances at each of the empresses.

'Why is that unpleasant?'

'Because... When people have in mind what they want, they tend to do everything they can to obtain it. I can't help but wonder what each one here is willing to do for it... The lies they are ready to tell, the faces they are ready to put on...'

Kurt felt like he understood the sentiment. He knew deep inside that Sabiri had the best of intentions to do what she did, but he still couldn't believe she still did it. He was pretty sure his old mother would never have kept him in the dark the way she did, even if she claimed it was for his own good.

'At what point... Does lying and manipulating others become so easy?'

'Lying is never easy...' Dorothy claimed, 'Claiming that you're lying for a greater good is though...'

'Right... I forgot...' Kurt mumbled, 'Nothing more dangerous than someone who doesn't think they're doing anything wrong...'

'Do you feel like what your mother did was wrong?' Dorothy wondered.

'Don't you?'

'I don't know enough about the situation to make any judgment...' she admitted, 'But if she felt she had a reason to lie and hurt her own son, it better be a damn good reason.'

'I suppose... My mother doesn't seem like the type of person that would resort so easily to harming me just for-'

Suddenly, many memories of Sabiri attacking Kurt with her metal scales during their training of self-defense flashed before his eyes. Many moments of him getting stabbed, slashed, smacked against the ground, or left gasping for air after getting beat up to an inch of his life.

'Wait, the hell am I saying? My mother would totally resort to harming me first....'

The doors suddenly opened and revealed an unknown face entering the room.

It looked like a young boy slightly older than Kurt dressed in a similar way as him and Hugh. He appeared bigger than Kurt ut not as bulky as Hugh. His hair was blond as if it was made of gold and his eyes looked like a pair of emeralds from how green and bright they shined.

"Evening" he muttered before walking past them without even viewing the members on the table and simply taking a seat next to one of the empresses.

"So that's the ass?" Kurt whispered towards Saramin.

"Don't whisper in here! Everyone in this table can use enhanced sense!"

"Ugh!!" Kurt flinched as soon as he noticed the blond boy suddenly smiling to himself, "I think he heard me..."

"Of course he did! Now shut up!"

"Sorry..."

Kurt then looked back at the door again and to his surprise, another figure was already there.

A young lady who also seemed to be close to his age. Her hair was blood-red, much like the emperor himself and she was wearing a stunning-looking black dress.

However, Kurt had trouble focusing on the dress as he couldn't stop noticing her massive wide-open orange eyes that wouldn't stop looking at him.

"Oh, hey! Annie is here!" Hugh shouted once he noticed her as well.

The girl seemed to have reacted to Hugh's comment as she soon began to walk towards him.

"Yo, sis! What's up?"

The wide-eyed girl didn't say anything and simply placed her palm above Hugh's shoulder, followed by launching him all the way across the hall and making him land face-first into a wall.

Kurt and Dorothy simply froze but all the other members at the table just ignored it as if nothing had happened.

"I wanted to sit here..." the girl stated even though nobody had asked.

She was now right in front of the young boy and continued to stare at him while slowly forming a rather disturbing smile.

"Uuuhhh... Hi?" he greeted while waving his hand.

"Hi!" the girl greeted back, "I'm Anomalia!"

"N- Nice to meet you..."

"Yes! Nice!" she mumbled while staring at him from top to bottom, "Very... Very nice..."

Her words made the boy twitch on his seat. The dinner hadn't even started yet and Kurt already couldn't wait for it to be over just so he could go home.

"Ah! Everyone is here!" a male adult voice stated as the entrance doors to the dining hall suddenly opened once more.

The final member of the family had finally arrived, a man who seemed to be in his early thirties with long tied-up red hair, white clothes, and a calming smile.

Lian Garen walked around the table and took his seat right in the middle so everyone could look at him at any moment.

He carefully inspected each of the faces present there.

Kurt and Sabiri, Saramin and Karina, Hugh, Anomalia, the second brother whose name Kurt was still unfamiliar with, as well as the other wives who the boy barely knew anything about.

The emperor had a look of satisfaction on his face.

"So, who's hungry?"