What It Means To Be King

Chapter 59: Brilliance Of The Writer Precedes Its Cover

Shao Long was supposed to ask Leo about Anubis right after dinner, once he could get himself alone with him. See? He was being the very good and very considerate friend there, so it wasn't his fault that the second Shao Long called out for Leo, the boy just barely glanced at him before disappearing into the corner. When Shao Long raced to see where he went, the guy was nowhere to be found. And he didn't even stop there! Sparing a quick glance to Anubis, who looked pained at his not so subtle attempt, Shao Long figured he needed to do more, just out of spite. Anubis wanted to hide, then he, as his good friend, should of course, do everything in his will to stop that from happening. 

It really wasn't his fault that Leo locked his room that night and wouldn't answer to his calls like he would when he was particularly high in his project to be bothered by the existence of any other human being, so long as a select few were not actively dying on the other side of his door. Shao Long's wasn't so inclined to stabbing himself just so that Leo would come out of his room, rather he had a feeling that if Leo realized his trick, he would leave Shao Long to bleed out to death gladly. So he knew when to give up, and that was what he did. 

He turned around just in time to see Anubis fleeing into his own room, expression constipated and trying very hard not to meet Shao Long's gaze. When he looked at Gion and Livio, the two of them shrugged and pretended not to know anything, when it was obvious as all hell that Shao Long was being avoided. 

Shao Long found that he needed something to punch. 

He let out a groan when he realized that he really shouldn't be doing that or anything similar, because today was his middle-of-the-week rest day, and that meant he was going to spare this night not exhausting himself. He had caught up with a lot in the past week, from his homework to the Student Council work, to all his company work back in China. Or at least, he had met the quota that could save him intense working practice for at least a few days. The best thing to do tonight was to finally sit his ass down and sleep early. 

So Shao Long set himself down on his bed, legs tucked in his thin blanket, back against the headboard and readying himself to start feeling drowsy. It was difficult with all that pent-up energy wanting to unleash in moments, keeping his eyes wide-awake and his muscles too light to settle down. He needed a bedtime story, the most boring he could find, the one that would knock him out cold within five minutes of reading. Preferably something educational, like say, history or something. It was 9.30 am and he was going to finally rest without feeling his whole body aching. That was it, that was all he needed to do. 

Rummaging through his bad, all Shao Long managed to fish out was an object that looked to be too hideous to ever belong to him. 

That damned book Sir Andy gave him. 

God forbid he ever ended up actually reading any of it. It looked older than Shakespeare for goodness sake, Shao Long had seen books published in the 1900s that were in better condition than this one. And Shao Long bet that — sniff sniff — yup, it smelled musty as all hell. 

The perfect bedtime story. 

Shao Long looked at the clock, noting that it was precisely 9.31 pm, and laughed in his heart. He was going to sleep super early today, he thought as he slipped the first page open.