The autumn wind is a relief for Ryo. It’s also a reminder that this trip to the Blackwoods is almost over. His father had been busy day in and day out for the past few weeks. He’d only gotten to see his father during dinners with the Blackwoods or early in the morning when he woke up in time to catch him before he went upstairs to the lab.

He and Edward made up and hadn’t fought again, much to his relief. The brunette is happily munching on apple tarts this morning, babbling away without a care in the world.

“…and that’s how I discovered apple tarts are the best things in the whole wide world!”

Ryo stifles a yawn. He never knew Edward had such a passion for food. The boy had been talking about his chef’s culinary skills for the past ten minutes. He swears he can hear James, the chef, preening from the kitchen.

“So what’s your favorite dessert, Ryo?”

Ryo blinks. “I don’t usually get to eat dessert.” Can’t afford to.

Edward freezes. The brunette scoops up a handful of apple tarts and proceeds to shove them down Ryo’s mouth.

“I didn’t— umph!” Ryo wrestles Edward’s arm away. Correction: he tries to wrestle Edward’s arm away. “I shtill get to eat dessher— augh! Shomdimes!”

“Not another word until you swallow it all,” Edward threatens. 

Ryo deadpans, his cheeks bursting like a chipmunk’s.

“Edward,” Richard’s voice calls, entering the dining hall. “I’d like to introduce you to— what the bloody hell is going on here?”

Edward momentarily stops forcing Ryo to eat apple tarts. Ryo himself tries to swallow and lets out a little chuff. They blink at Edward’s father, who stares at them equally dumbfounded. Behind Ryo’s father, however, is another kid they’ve never seen before.

Said kid with a face full of freckles and round glasses framing orange unruly hair gapes at them too.

Ryo finally manages to swallow the last bit of food in his mouth and Edward slinks back to his seat across the table. 

Richard blinks. “As I was saying, I’d like you to meet Matthew. He will be the new hall boy and in time, perhaps your aide, Edward.”

Matthew bows. The boy is taller than them both and Ryo would put him at around two or three years older than them.

“What’s an aide?” Edward asks.

“Like an assistant of sorts,” his father replies.

“Oh. Cool.”

Rich kid, and he doesn’t even know it. Ryo playfully glares at Edward with the disdain reserved for an ungrateful brat. 

Which the boy kind of is.

Matthew mostly answers the door and sweeps the floors. Ryo and Edward sit atop the stairs leading down to the grand front entrance of Blackwood manor, watching the new kid work.

“What do you think of him?”

Ryo startles. “Too soon to have an opinion?”

Edward continues to watch. “I wonder why Father hired a kid.”

“Maybe because he thinks you’re lonely without me.”

Edward socks him in the shoulder. “You wish.”

“Where did Matthew even come from?” Ryo questions.

“I don’t know how it is in Japan, but here kids from poor families have to work when they’re little. Maybe he worked for a different family before?”

“I lived on th’ streets,” Matthew says, his voice echoing in the big hall. “Ran away from th’ orph’nage.”

Ryo and Edward startle. 

“You know I can hear you two up there, right? Gossiping ‘bout me.”

Edward covers his mouth. Ryo sheepishly averts his gaze.

Matthew continues, pausing his work momentarily to look up at them and leaning on the broom, “Lady Adelle came by ev’ry now an’ then. Picked me right up an’ off the streets. Now here I am.” The boy bows. “Pleased to serve.”

Edward’s face pales. “Oh. I see.” He hastily gets up and makes his way further inside the manor. “Excuse me.”

Ryo nibbles his lower lip, awkwardly glancing back at Matthew.

Matthew frowns. “What’s his problem?”

“Edward!” Ryo pants, finally catching up to the brunette. The kid sure walks fast when he wants to— they’re in the Blackwood library, a whole wing away from the entrance. “What was that about?”

“Adelle recommended him.”

Not this weird aversion to his stepmother again. “Edward, I don’t think he means you any harm.”

“You don’t know that. My friend knows lots of things and they told me to be careful around Adelle. And Matthew was recommended by her.”

“I just think you should give him a chance. I mean, I’m gonna be leaving next week. And, well…”

“Say it. What?”

“Is your friend here right now?”

“No, they’re sleeping.”

“I’m a bit worried about you and that whole business with your, um, invisible friend.”

Edward floats a book off the shelves and sits himself down at one of the darkwood tables to read. “I like that you don’t think they’re imaginary anymore.”

Ryo sighs. They’re like that for some time and he keeps opening his mouth to say something before he stops himself.

“What is it?” Edward asks without stopping his reading or looking up.

“How can you be so sure that everything your friend says is true?”

Edward stares at him like he’s grown another head. “Um, because they taught me how to do stuff like this?” He flicks his finger and an image shimmers in the air of the front entrance. Matthew is in the image, polishing the shoes now.

“No way,” Ryo whispers. He waves a hand through the floating image in the air and it doesn’t go away. He stares at his hand, noting that everything is fine. Matthew places one pair of shoes back on the shoe rack and takes a pair of boots to polish next. “No way,” Ryo repeats. “Is that him right now?”

Edward nods.

“You’re kidding. We can see what he’s doing over there right now?”

“Yup. And that’s why I believe every word my friend says.” Edward looks at him unimpressed, an eyebrow raised. “I mean, can you do that?”

“Well, no.”

“If my friend was a liar, how is what I’m doing possible?”

He’s got a point, Ryo grudgingly admits with a grunt.

“But you’re right.”

Stunned, Ryo wordlessly glances towards the brunette.

“Maybe I was a bit rude earlier,” Edward admits, a glint in his eyes. “I guess I could give him a chance…”

“Edward, you are not going to show Matthew your dead animal skull collection.”

“Really? But it’s clean. I even used soap when I washed the skulls last Saturday!”

“That’s not the problem.” Ryo facepalms.

“O-okay, well how about just the crow skull?”

“Other kids are not like me, Edward. They wouldn’t just run away, they’d scream.”

“Huh,” Edward remarks, lips turned down in a firm frown. “Then maybe I could tell him the story of how I—”

“No, the story is the problem, Edward. That’s not how you typically make friends.” Nobody needs to know about how you killed that crow, Edward.

They stare at each other.

“Let me do the talking,” Ryo volunteers.

“Yeah, sure.”