TW: Mentions of violence, suicide.
If you would like to, ask in the comments and I will write you a summary.
Xiao Xun and Cecil walked down the country dirt road, both dressed in the grown-up clothes they had at home.
Cecil tried to stutter something about how his parents must have gotten confused in the closets and taken the children's clothes with them instead, Adam just nodded through all his nonsense.
[He really put work into making his lie believable, huh?]
Xiao Xun began a policy of ignoring the system until it told him exactly what the contract contained. Instead, he turned to Cecil.
"Stay close to me, don't run around." Edmund's small body took on the role of the adult, the seven-year-old boy commands the nine-year-old boy with a serious face looked very funny from the side.
"I will, no leave." However, the nine-year-old boy who nodded quickly was very happy to be subservient to his junior.
"We need clothes and basic products, it is better to buy meat and fish than hunt them directly; I don't want to work you to death. I would also like to buy books, can you read?"
As expected, Cecil shook his head bashfully.
"No worries, I'll teach you. We can teach each other all sorts of interesting things."
In this cliche-otome world, Xiao Xun was 99% sure that Cecil's abnormal power was from some magical source. With a little persuasion, he was sure his yesman would agree to teach him everything after he said he didn't see him as a monster and such.
Investing in teaching him to read and write would be worthwhile, he reasoned with himself.
"Little kids, you want to study?" A muscular guy suddenly intervened in their conversation: "There's a small school at the edge of the village that I run, you can learn a real profession!"
"No." Cecil pushed Edmund as fast as he could.
Normally he would stop after a refusal, but seeing the children's patchless clothes (even if they were too big), he knew that as long as he convinced them he could make a nice profit.
"Don't be like that, some of the kids even went to the some of those pompous academies in the capital! Even if you don't succeed, you will surely be accepted as an apprentice by someone important if you know how to read and write! It's a life skill!" He followed Cecil, who pulled Edmund forward faster and faster, almost at running pace. "Only five copper coins of each! Some of the smarter students study in a month!
He statched Edmund's other hand. "Hey, maybe your brother doesn't want to, but it's not fair for him to hold you back. Why don't you go to your parents and..."
"Don't touch him with your filthy pig hands!" It is not known if Cecil went out of control because someone else touched Edmund or because someone reminded him of his previous family, but this person had become a terrible nuisance in Cecil's eyes. He pushed the human away from Edmund, sending him flying a few feet through the air until he crashed into a tree.
Xiao Xun followed Edmund's character and ran after the man anxiously, "What did you do?! Hey, hey, can you hear me sir?"
He lightly slapped the man's cheek, trying to get him to respond to no avail.
[You really put your heart into your acting, I am impressed. Yet his ribs had already punctured his lungs; he would never survive with the lousy technology of this world~]
All this time Xiao Xun had been trying to think how a seven-year-old would react to such a situation, and the chatter of his useless system annoyed him so much that he wished he could put a valve on her non-existent mouth.
'Will you shut up?!'
[Yay~ you have responded~]
"Edmund, I'm sorry." Cecil walked in his direction. "Can you s-stop touching that man? Are you punishing me like this? Do you want to leave me to-too?"
His stuttering has completely disappeared in the last few days, but it seems that in stressful situations he has a regression.
"Do-don't touch that man, okay?"
A seven-year-old child would most likely run away and tell the other adults in the village. He could play idiot before, but now it would be completely out of character to do anything else.
As long as the child makes something up or tells some nonsense, he can believe it. After all, children are gullible.
Just come up with something, anything, I haven't started taking advantage of you yet!
"I'm, I'm sorry Edmund- don't go..."
Edmund, his face covered with saliva that he had smeared on himself to make it look like tears, stood up and began to run at an excruciatingly slow pace towards the village, waiting for Cecil to come up with something.
"I'll-I-ll kill myself!" This made Edmund turn around.
Cecil took a stone and raised it near his head. "I will beat myself with a rock until I die as long as you leave now! Do not leave me!"
There were no tremors or stutters in his voice this time.
Jackpot.
Xiao Xun immediately stopped in his tracks and wore a terrified expression. "Don't…don't scare me."
In normal times Cecil would be heartbroken to see his expression, but right now he simply said, "As long as you're a good boy nothing bad will happen, just keep walking with me like before."
Edmund took small steps to Cecil's side, trying his best to ignore the large man's corpse under the tree.
"We- we should get clothes and food and, b-b-books." This time it was Edmund's turn to stutter, clearly frightened.
"Yeah" Even though Cecil cooperated, he continued to hold the stone in his left hand. "We can get sweets after that; I heard it tastes good."
They walked as before, laughing and chatting.
Only the discerning observer could see Cecil's trembling hand and Edmund's restrained sobs.
No matter what happens in the future, they will never be like before.
...
The stone finally dropped out of Cecil's hand as he carried their shopping back.
The nine-year-old boy didn't even break a sweat as he carried dozens of bags, filled with everything needed to be isolated from society for months.
"After we get back, I promise to try and make something that tastes good, okay?"
Edmund nodded, repeatedly licking the candy and trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible.
Cecil's anger for some reason was raised by this small action: "I told you I was sorry! Why are you still avoiding me!"
Edmund stuffed all the candies.in the bag into his mouth, refraining from speaking.
Xiao Xun made a mental reminder to himself to gargle salt water after that. The lack of basic consumer goods was especially noticeable in some worlds that he had the dubious pleasure to experience.
He had already learned how to prevent himself from suffering too much, cavities included.
Cecil tried to control his anger as he saw Edmund staring off into space again, thinking of other things than himself.
Was he not enough? Why must he always ignore himself?
He must get their relationship back to where it was before, at this rate Edmund will leave...
He remembered the first time they met, the beautiful boy covered in blood looked like a fallen angel with torn wings in his eyes.
The pity and affection he felt were immediate and powerful, the very second he met his gray eyes, full of pain.
If he could make himself look the same, would Edmund feel the same way?
Walking through the woods, Cecil saw an opportunity to test his unseemly theory.
"My brother died a few hours ago, The village drunkie said it was your doing." The young man waiting for them in the trees didn't really think that, as the village drunkie described, the little boy had thrown his 1.90 meters tall brother into the air, But he planned to scare the children to investigate the incident.
After all, these children were never seen in the village, so it is likely that the village drunkie was at least partially right if they did witness the situation.
"I don't know what you're talking about-" Edmund began, sounding as believable as the character allowed him to be.
"I did it."
Well, you can sound as believable as you possibly can and it still won't do you any favors with a suicidal teammate.
"No bullshit kid, what happened there?" The hot-headed young man held the collar of Cecil's oversized shirt.
Cecil tried his best to stop himself from slipping out of the shirt while warming up the other guy: "I killed him, on purpose. I slowly opened his very empty skull."
The young man punched him in the face, "Say it again you little shit?"
"I killed your stupid. cheap. brother."
The man had lost all reason, he had already forgotten his previous misgivings about the village drunkie's testimony, all he wanted to do now was to make that boy's filthy mouth shut up.
Punches landed on Cecil's face, who didn't resist at all.
"Pow!"
"Pow!"
"Pow!"
Why wasn't he fighting back? Does he worry that Edmund's opinion of him will worsen?
Xiao Xun decided to run away; this is very consistent with a seven-year-old's character and, at the same time, will give Cecil a chance to fight back carefree.
The man didn't notice the other boy who disappeared at all, only Cecil saw out of the corner of his darkening eyesight the one he tried to touch on his heartstrings had disappeared among the trees.
He closed his eyes, letting his body sink into the pain.
Please come back, Edmund... that's all I want... Even this is too much to ask?
Xiao Xun did come back, yet he couldn't see it.
Because when Xiao Xun returned, all that was waiting for him was a young corpse, covered in blood.