♠️ Exceptis Centrum ♠️ ✔︎

Chapter 5

Yao took a sip of his tea whilst trying to process what his King had just told him. It sounded like something a child would come up with, but then again this was Alfred and half the time he acted like an overgrown one. Still the young King did appear to be troubled and it was something he couldn’t ignore.

“Like I said,” sighed Alfred as he leaned back into his chair, “I just randomly end up in this other place where some lonely man lives and no one seems to notice.”

“And this has happened... how many times?” Yao wanted all the facts so he could try and put it all together and make sense of it. “Tell me when and where these trips of yours happen.”

“Three times now,” explained Alfred, “the first happened in my sleep right after the tree ceremony, the second time was when I was doing all that paperwork with the planner, and it happened again whilst we were arguing over the flowers just now.”

Yao gave Alfred a puzzled look. “Are you sure you’re not just dreaming?”

“The same dream three times in a row?” scoffed Alfred, “and it can’t be, the last time it happened I was wide awake.”

“Maybe it’s stress?” suggested Yao with a shrug.

“I don’t know,” huffed Alfred, slapping his hands onto the arms of his chair. “It can’t be an illusion or a dream... it feels too real.”

Yao didn’t seem to have an answer for his King, and this whole thing didn’t make any sense to him. When Alfred called to him for his advice over the flower situation he didn’t disappear from his sight, though he did notice a change in his attitude in that split second. One moment he was understandably stressed and then the next second he looked completely lost before suddenly giving out commands like a proper king. It was almost like he had gotten away to calm himself down, only he didn’t go anywhere.

He wasn’t sure if Alfred was making it up or if it was all in his head due to stress, but Yao found that he just couldn’t make any sense of this tall tale. One didn’t just vanish into a whole other world without anyone noticing. Also this world he described sounded strange, well not overly strange but still. A man who lived by himself with a garden surrounded by a large stone wall? Maybe this was just Alfred’s way of trying to get out of work and he was trying to be creative about it.

“Look, maybe you just need a full day to yourself to get this out of your system,” suggested Yao. “Why not visit the spa? I can book an appointment for you?”

Alfred blew some air passed his closed lips. It sounded like Yao didn’t believe him and he couldn’t exactly blame him, who would believe a story like his. He still couldn’t believe that this was all some illusion, but what was it? His mind playing tricks on him? He had hoped Yao would had some sort of suggestion of what it was, but even he didn’t any idea and assumed it was just something born from stress.

“I know it’s hard to believe Yao, but that place... that person... it just felt real,” sighed Alfred.

“Oh really?” Yao sipped his tea again. “Apparently you can’t touch anything there?”

“Well... yeah,” admitted Alfred.

Yao raised a single eyebrow. “And yet it feels real?”

“Yes,” insisted Alfred, sitting up and placing his clenched hands onto his desk. “It was where I got the idea for the roses.”

“Everyone knows about roses, even you, they just didn’t think of it until you mentioned them,” retorted Yao, looking at Alfred with an unconvinced expression, “you expect me to believe that in that split second you went into another world where some person suggested that to you for a full hour? I was looking at you Alfred and you went no where.”