The next day, a knock could be heard downstairs and Gideon rushed down to answer it before Stephen could.
"Someone's excited" Stephen sarcastically says as he walks by.
Gideon didn't immediately open the door and shot a look at Stephen. The latter only rolled his eyes and came closer to Gideon to pat him on the head.
"Take care and don't stay out too late. If anything happens, just call me"
Gideon was reminded of how his dad would always do this to him whenever he was about to go to a friend's house. Stephen did not know about his feelings but he was really thankful to be able to experience this sort of thing again. He could only hope that his sister Alice was doing okay.
Stephen finally leaves him alone and that's when Gideon opened the door to a…
"You are?"
There was a stranger wearing a hood instead of the prince who promised to pick him up personally. The stranger was confused for a second and realized something before taking off his hood.
"Sorry, It's me Kaiden" The moment the hood was taken off, his appearance faded into Kaiden's natural blond hair and lavender eyes.
"Oh! How did you do that?" Gideon was really curious and he walked closer to examine Kaiden.
'It changed the moment he took off the jacket's hood, maybe it's the jacket'
Kaiden blushed a little the moment Gideon walked closer to him. Gideon looked really good today even though he was just wearing a simple sweater, jeans, and sneakers. Kaiden on the other hand was wearing a button-up shirt and a jacket on top. He also had simple jeans and sneakers. At a glance, you could still tell it was the high-quality ones.
Gideon was fiddling with the texture of the jacket when Kaiden coughed a little to get his attention. Upon realizing that he was technically committing sexual harassment by suddenly grabbing Kaiden's clothes, he backed off.
"I'm so sorry! I was just curious"
Kaiden shook his head lightly with a smile and altered the magic on the jacket by a bit so that it no longer affected Gideon when he put on the hood.
"I'll tell you about it on the way, I brought my car" He pointed to a car behind him and Gideon felt like he got punched in the stomach upon seeing what it was.
It looked similar to the luxury cars in his old life. At this rate, Kaiden was flexing his status and thus he could only frown a little before glancing at Kaiden. Kaiden blinked and tilted his head in confusion about why Gideon was upset. Does he dislike this kind of car? Should he have brought a different one?
He and Gideon got into the car to leave for their destination. It was at this moment he noticed Gideon's expression, it was a weird one that you can't tell if he was judging it or not. Gideon kept looking around in awe but at the same time, he just feels like he was not worthy of sitting inside one of these even despite back then his father did own a fancy car when he was a kid.
"Um, do you dislike this kind of car?"
"What? No. The car is nice, really nice if you ask me"
"If you like it then, I can give it to you"
The idea of getting a car gave Gideon a scare because he feels like he's taking advantage of Kaiden. And besides that, he didn't want to be in debt even more towards him than he already is.
"No no! I'm fine with my scooter, anyways where are we going? You've been driving for a while now" He glanced outside and they were still in the capital. The area was still familiar to him.
"It's a surprise" Kaiden kept his eyes on the road as he continued to drive.
The car was silent except for the quiet hum of the engine. Maybe it's because of the expensive car but Gideon didn't feel any bumps or whatnot as Kaiden drove. Kaiden didn't bother turning on the radio since for him the music was terrible. But he could tell Gideon was finding it a bit stuffy. They drove for a while more until they reached the checkpoint going to the southern region of the capital. Kaiden didn't bother to lower the window and perhaps the guard was already made aware of the arrangements that he lets them pass.
Gideon fell asleep sometime during their drive and in his dream, he was standing in an unfamiliar field of flowers. He heard someone calling out his name. He looked around and saw a familiar face in his dreamscape.
"Alice…" He called out softly, his eyes felt watery.
"Deon, why are you crying?" Alice walked up to him, nothing changed about her.
He tried to reach out to her but he felt restricted. He could not reach her but he felt Alice hold his face as she wiped away his tears.
"Don't cry anymore, Deon… I'm here" She smiled at him.
Gideon could no longer hear the words Alice was saying. Slowly his dream faded into nothingness and there he heard Kaiden's voice calling out to him.
"Gideon, don't cry anymore"
He felt Kaiden wipe his cheek and slowly he fluttered his eyes open. His vision was a bit blurry and his face felt wet. He was still unsure if this was a dream or reality so he grabbed Kaiden by the wrist.
Kaiden was surprised by this and let go of his face. Gideon was still adjusting himself a bit and had also let go of Kaiden's wrist. He was awake, this was reality and he just grabbed Kaiden rashly again.
"Sorry"
"It's fine, there are tissues in the glove box I think? I won't ask if you don't want to tell but we arrived"
Gideon looked around and he did not recognize the area at all. The area looked like it was heavily influenced by Mediterranean revival thus only meaning one thing, they were in the southern region of the capital. He opened the glove box and there were tissues in there that he used to wipe his face.
"Why did you pick this area?"
"Weren't you born in this region?"
This was the first time Gideon heard about the original cannon fodder's origins. Nobody dared to talk to him about his background. Most also assumed that he forgot about his past due to the head injury incident 11 years ago. So he took that opportunity and continued living on pretending that he forgot about it when he never knew about it in the first place.
"I must have forgotten about it when I hit my head back then"
Kaiden was silent for a moment because he still knew that it was his fault that Gideon got into that accident. It even changed Gideon's personality but no one noticed it except for him.
"I'm still sorry about that"
"Haha no need, I also thought it was a good thing that I forgot don't you think?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Well I'm alone now, so there must be a reason for that. I don't want to know why so I'll just leave it at that"
He might not know why this cannon fodder was alone. But for him personally, he knew that it was due to some freak coincidence that got him to transmigrate here. He should have either lived or died when he got hit in the head by those perverted teens.
"We shouldn't be talking about this, I thought you were going to tour me around?"
Gideon quickly changed the subject and the two got out of the car to explore the town they were currently in. Kaiden wore his hood but now he could still clearly see that it was still Kaiden.
"I think the magic on the hood is gone"
"It's still working perfectly fine, if it wasn't then everyone around us would have bent on their knees"
Now that Kaiden mentioned it, the people continued to ignore them as if they were any other person roaming around.
'Kaiden must have changed the condition of the hood then?'
"How did you do this? I thought your specialty was concentrated energy and healing?"
"It is, but it's Amias' power"
Kaiden explained that the moment he returned after his surprise visit yesterday, he called for Amias to ask about something. He requested something that could conceal his appearance so he could roam around freely. Of course, this request came with a price and that being said Kaiden now has more workload to do the moment he returns. On the question of why Amias would still agree, no one knows. Perhaps he had an idea that he was meeting up with Gideon or the fact that it meant that he can commit debauchery without consequence.
"I never knew he could also do that"
"Neither did I since all I know is that he could teleport and fuck around with people both figuratively and literally"
"Pfft" Gideon bursts out laughing at the insult. Although it was rude, it was nothing but the truth.
"Oh yeah, what should I call you? I know your hood can hide your appearance but what about your name?"
"You can still call me Kaiden. Even if they recognize the name, they won't recognize my face"
"True"
The two walked around and talked about the things they found interesting in their exploration of the southern capital region. Kaiden bought some of the things Gideon liked from the stalls such as local street food and handcrafts being sold as souvenirs. Gideon felt a little tired so he sat by a bench. Perhaps it's because he absentmindedly stared at a family that was buying a flower from a child that Kaiden excused himself to buy some flowers from the kid.
"Why did you buy this?" Gideon asked
"Didn't you want it? You were staring at it for a while now"
"Oh, thank you. I'll pay you back for everything"
"No need for that, I took you out here so I'll handle everything"
"Kai-"
"You two look like a wonderful couple! We have a promo in our restaurant for couples if you would like to avail" a teenage girl butted into their conversation and held out a flier to them.
'What' Gideon stared at the teen that was smiling brightly.