Chapter 149: What Alcohol Says

It was the middle of the night when Haru opened the balcony window with his shoulder.

How he had gotten there, he didn’t really remember. How he had climbed up, vomiting the entire way, he didn’t remember either. How he had escaped the academy’s control, even less so. Maybe someone had seen him, maybe they hadn’t. But he was there, with one leg already inside the room and the other still deciding whether it believed in gravity.

The academy was asleep.

Down below, all that could be seen were the dim lights of the protocols, guards from the wing making their rounds with lanterns, and the occasional imperial guard standing at a corner, bored out of his mind. Everything was silent. Everything was orderly.

Except for Haru.

He staggered along the ledge, singing a song he’d learned at the guild without knowing how or when. The lyrics were half obscenity, half ode to some random dwarf. Who cared? What mattered was that he had a bottle of strong wine tucked under his arm.

Full.

He looked at the bottle.

The bottle looked back at him.

He wanted to pull that cork so badly that his mouth was already watering, but his hand kept failing him. He tried with his fingers. Tried with his teeth. Tried twisting the neck to make the cork pop out, the way he used to do back in the first few ti—

"But I’m strong as fuck!" He thought, offended by his own hand. "I’m not that skinny kid from Earth anymore. I should be able to open this easily. Huh!"

Then he remembered.

Mana. His mana had run out... after leaving the guild master’s office and logically deciding to have an arm-wrestling match with a dwarf. A dwarf who was, well, a dwarf. Or maybe he was just an actual dwarf. Or was every dwarf a dwarf? Or was "dwarf" a type of dwarf?

"Ah, fuck it. Who cares."

"I’ve got panties here in my pocket to restore mana." He told himself, his body rocking back and forth like a boat on a weak tide.

He shoved his hand into his pocket.

Nothing.

"Huh."

He shoved the other hand into his other pocket.

Nothing.

The memory came back in pieces that didn’t fit together.

The panties. He’d used the mana they gave him to fight someone at the guild. He didn’t remember who. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’d then sold the panties to buy more alcohol. Then he’d fought some more. Then arm wrestling with the dwarf. Then...

"Fuck."

None of it made any sense while sober.

At that moment, it made perfect sense.

"I’m going to sleep." He announced to no one.

He left the bottle on top of the bed, still unopened, like an offering.

And threw himself down.

Or at least that’s what Haru thought he’d done.

In reality, his body miscalculated the mattress by a good twenty centimeters, and he launched himself straight onto the floor, landing with the dull sound of a sack of potatoes falling from a moderate height.

"Hehehe." He laughed from the floor.

Golden had woken up the instant the window opened.

Not because of Haru.

Because of the cold.

An icy wind had cut through the entire room, slipped beneath his blanket, and awakened every inch of his skin in a fraction of a second. Then came the smell of vomit, the off-key singing, and the thud against the floor.

He opened one eye.

He saw a huge figure sprawled between the two beds. He saw the window wide open. He saw the bottle sitting on the figure’s bed.

’Damn brat... Always leaves the window open.’

He got up, walked over to the window, and closed it. He stepped over the body lying on the floor and returned to bed.

But Haru didn’t stop talking.

"Flavius..." He murmured from the floor, eyes closed, voice dragging. "You’re gay. Gay as fuck. Have you told your son yet?"

Golden clicked his tongue.

’Brat.’

Golden already knew.

That was exactly how he’d found out: his father, sprawled across the floor of the hall after a few too many bottles, saying things nobody would ever say while sober.

And Golden had been listening.

Nobody had spoken about it afterward.

Neither him nor his father.

’A drunk has that flaw... even me.’

"I’m a Gamer!"

Golden stopped.

He didn’t move.

He remained lying down, head against the pillow, staring at the dark ceiling.

Listening.

"Gamer hacker!" Haru continued, now with one hand in the air, pointing at something only he could see on the ceiling. "The best thing about this? I can handle talking to the baron. Genius... go fuck yourself."

’Gamer.’

Golden slowly sat up.

Golden liked drinking too. He drank a lot. A whole lot.

And he knew something his father had taught him without meaning to: when someone started talking deliriously in the middle of the night, lying on the floor, with their body already too exhausted to keep lying, some things eventually slipped out.

It didn’t mean everything was true.

A drunk person could talk plenty of bullshit too.

But some things...

Some things were simply too difficult to say while sober.

Golden’s father had proven that.

<Years ago, one night>

His father had been sitting on the floor of the hall, laughing to himself, talking about things he normally kept to himself.

And then he said:

"I’m gay."

Golden had heard him.

The next day, when his father was sober, he asked him directly, and the answer was a long silence.

Then:

"No."

Golden remembered being confused.

"But yesterday you said you were."

His father looked away.

"I said that?"

"You did."

More silence.

Then his father took a deep breath.

"That’s not how I wanted to tell you."

Golden never forgot that sentence.

Not because it denied what he had heard.

But because, for the first time, he understood that a person could tell the truth and still not be ready to tell it.

Since then, Golden had never treated drunkenness like some kind of truth spell.

It was more complicated than that.

Alcohol didn’t make someone honest.

Sometimes, it simply kicked open the door to their thoughts and let everything spill out at once.

Lies.

Memories.

Fears.

Truths.

<>

’Gamer.’

Golden had already heard about those people.

Who in Aethelgard hadn’t?

Villages erased. Dungeons reduced to nothing. Strangers who talked about "events" and "missions" as if the world were a game board.

Gamers weren’t merely adventurers or some unknown race...

They were variables that appeared without belonging to that world, and whenever they appeared, bad things happened.

People died.

Cities were destroyed.

Some of them fought each other as if other people’s lives were nothing more than part of a mission.

And now one of them—or someone talking like one—was lying on the floor of his room.

Golden crouched beside him.

"What are you?"

Haru turned his head to the side. He opened his eyes just a little. With difficulty, he focused on the face in front of him.

"Gamer." He answered, with the certainty of a drunk.

Then he frowned.

"Help me up, Flavius. Where’s my wine?"

Golden remained still.

It was true that he looked like his father, a younger version, harder, without the suit and without the glass.

But only a truly drunk man would confuse the two.

"Flavius..." Haru continued, smiling with half his face. "Look at the way you’re looking at me, man. You trying to mess with me while I’m drunk? Hahaha. I’m not gay, man. Come on, help me up."

"What are you?" Golden asked again, coldly.

"I’m a Gamer! Forgot about our Squad?"

Haru stretched his hand into the air, feeling around.

"Help me out, man. I need to puke."

Golden looked at the outstretched hand, then at Haru’s face.

A whole bunch of pieces began falling into place without him asking for it.

The guy who walked on walls without mana.

The guy who appeared and disappeared in the shadows.

The guy who made him see spirits with a borrowed eye.

The guy who had beaten the first test through sheer intelligence.

None of that sounded like magic and experience anymore.

’No. It can’t be.’

’It can.’

Golden felt his stomach tighten.

If Haru was just a drunk man deliriously talking, it would end there.

If it was true...

Golden looked at the door.

All he had to do was leave.

All he had to do was call a teacher.

Tell them the boy had confessed to being a Gamer.

After that, it wouldn’t be his problem anymore.

But it wouldn’t be Haru’s problem either.

It would be the problem of the entire academy.

And Golden knew what that meant.

There was no delicate investigation when Gamers were involved.

There was fear.

There was containment.

There were people who wanted to discover what they were capable of before they had the opportunity to do anything.

Golden looked back at Haru.

The boy was practically dead drunk.

’If I’m wrong...’

The thought became stuck in his head.

If he was wrong, he’d be turning in a drunk idiot because of one sentence.

But if he was right...

’Then I’m sharing a room with a Gamer.’

Golden clenched his teeth.

He didn’t know what to do...

Not yet.

He raised his fist and struck Haru across the face with all the strength he had.

The sound was dry and clean, like a branch snapping.

Haru shut down.

His head fell to the side, his mouth hanging open, a thin string of saliva running from the corner.

Golden stared at him for several seconds.

"Gamer, huh?"

Golden then went to the bathroom.

He grabbed a bucket and filled it with water.

He returned and dumped the water over him.

Haru didn’t wake up either.

’This isn’t how I wanted it to go, brat.’