Rhys wandered along in the direction Az had pointed him, trying not to jump when the librarian suddenly shrieked. I did nothing wrong… it’s not my fault… vanish, melt into the crowds…
Other librarians appeared seemingly out of thin air and rushed toward the desk. The library’s patrons craned their necks. Rhys craned his, too, while moving steadily in the opposite direction, giving off the air of ‘a rubbernecker who nonetheless has something important to do and can’t just stick around and watch all day’ as hard as he could. He crossed the next shelf and once more scanned the patrons, looking for the rich aura of a wastrel prince mixed in amongst the bookworms. It shouldn’t be hard, he figured; after all, most of the bookworms were, well, bookworms, and weren’t the richest or the best dressed. On the other hand, even a bookworm prince would have a bare minimum standard of dress, and if he didn’t, then his servants would see to it that he did.
Honestly, it sometimes shocked Rhys that Ryota knew how to dress himself, but then again, he supposed that a prince with no support who grew up in as much poverty as a prince could manage probably learned a few survival skills along the way.
I wonder if Fifteenth knows how to dress himself? I bet he doesn’t. I should ask, next time. Rhys quietly tucked the thought in the ‘fodder for future mocking’ folder in his brain with a smirk.
There was no well-dressed figure on this aisle, so Rhys continued cruising. Two more aisles passed, either unpopulated or only populated with shabby-looking bookworm types, and then he saw his target. The man was dressed in refined, well-crafted clothes. They weren’t gaudy nor were they in garish shades, but that didn’t matter. Rhys was well-educated in the art of quiet luxury; after all, it was where the rich pretended they weren’t super rich while still flaunting their riches on the mere mortals. It was the definition of pretentious dressing. Being pretentious was pretty trashy in his opinion, which meant it fell squarely in his domain.
The thick fabrics, in muted yet tasteful creams and charcoals. The well-crafted seams—his robes perfectly tailored to his body. The understated yet clearly custom fit of his soft leather shoes and gloves. The man was rich rich, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. Or maybe he was. Rhys had never really understood what those practicing quiet luxury were thinking. Did they want to flaunt or not? If they didn’t want to flaunt, they could always go buy t-shirts at the wall-store like everyone else. If they did, then why pretend like they didn’t?
No, no, Rhys, you’re being reasonable, logical, and practical. Be pretentious. Pretentious! The whole point is to pretend like they don’t want the thing they do want. That’s the object of their art!
Pretentious people were the worst, and he soundly hated them from the bottom of his heart. There was nothing wrong with being trash and owning it, or looking down on people and owning it, or wearing luxury clothes and owning it. Pretentious people, though, did exactly all those things, then looked down on everyone else who dared to un-pretentiously do any of those things. All they wanted out of life was to look down their noses at everyone else around them, while acting like they were perfect paragons, while simultaneously being so horrifically, hypocritically imperfect that it made him want to puke.
Of course, the worst part was that everyone else around all those pretentious people were also pretentious, and they’d tear apart and mock anyone who acted out of line, which meant he’d been the object of their bullshit many a time. And of course, since they were trash, the pretentious adults hadn’t hesitated to tear into him when he was a kid, either. Just thinking of some of the pretentious assholes he’d dealt with back home made his fists itch with the urge to punch ‘em into next week.
Ah… yeah. Even if this guy isn’t throwing away his potential, I think he qualifies, Rhys thought, eyeing the princely man who was probably a prince and also probably his target. It was only worth going all serial-killer on him if he was throwing away his potential, though, because of the massive gains he’d get if he was able to slurp up the prince’s potential, so he approached with a smile on his face. “Good evening.”
The possible prince glanced up only to instantly dismiss him. He turned back to his book.
Rude. Rhys coughed, ignoring the fact that he was rudely interrupting someone from quietly reading in the library, a totally acceptable activity, to gauge if they were worth serial-killing, a totally unacceptable activity. “Excuse me, sir.”
The man sighed and closed his book at last, though he left his finger tucked in to the page he’d been reading. “Can I help you?”
“I believe so. I…” And right there, Rhys ran out of steam. He stood in front of the prince like an idiot, with absolutely nothing to say. Internally, he facepalmed with all his might, while externally, he did absolutely nothing, which was honestly more embarrassing. How had he figured out this whole plan, helped Az with his heist, and risked getting thrown out of the library for Az to point this guy out, only to not think up a single excuse to use to get this guy all alone? Shit. If I was Rina right now, this would be so easy. All I’d have to do is waggle my lashes and be a little suggestive, and we’d have so much to talk about. Instead, we’re two dudes, just kinda… looking at each other.
He couldn’t exactly say ‘hey, are you a prince?’ Not only would it totally give up the ghost, but also, this guy was basically a celebrity. He was surely sick of the prince equivalent of idiots asking him for favors and autographs and hey can you please do that one line you definitely haven’t been asked to recite by a thousand people every day since that one movie by now. The second Rhys addressed him as a prince, he was almost guaranteed to lose all interest in anything Rhys had to say. He needed something else to talk about. Some common topic that overcame this man’s princelihood that a very ordinary person who wasn’t thinking about murder would come up to him and talk about.
Casting about for something, anything to talk about, his eyes landed on the man’s book. Exotic Plants and Where to Find Them. He smiled wide. Aha! I’ve done it! A thing we have in common! True, the potato was hardly exotic, and he was more interested in growing crops at scale versus hunting down rare plants, but it was close enough. “I am also a hobbyist horticulturalist, you see. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking a moment to walk with me and speak on plants?”
“A hobbyist,” the man sneered.
Oy, hey. What do you have against hobbyists, huh? Hobbyists do great things, dammit! He was a hobbyist cosplayer back home, but it hadn’t stopped people from asking him for pictures. In fact, once, someone had even stopped to ask him for a picture right in front of a professional cosplayer! It’d really confused the pro, and she’d walked off looking extremely miffed, and the passerby only asked him over her because he was cosplaying a meme that they liked, and her costume was by far way higher quality, but hey, it counted. Hobbyists could do great things, and that was definitely the takeaway there.
Instead of expounding at the man about cosplay, Rhys lowered his head in mock embarrassment. “It’s true, I am only a hobbyist. But that’s precisely why I approached you. Even from across the room, I could tell that you were a true devotee, a savant among horticulturalists.”
He was laying it on a bit thick, but the guy was pretty obviously preening. Leaning in to his ego couldn’t hurt.
“That’s right. I am.”
Alright, it worked. Lean in even more! “I’ve heard you have the most beautiful plants. If only I could grow such glorious…” He searched for a word. Plants? Too on the nose. Flowers? He didn’t know if this guy grew flowers. What if he was intensely into trees, or something? Mage timescales made tree-growing little more than gardening. Horticulture? That didn’t even make sense based on what he’d already said. Shit. I painted myself into a corner here. Think, Rhys, think! “…beings.”
Immediately, Rhys rolled his eyes internally at himself. Beings? What kind of bullshit was that? Who called plants beings? Besides, wasn’t literally everything a being? He’d basically just said “I hear you grow things.” It was almost the worst possible thing he could’ve said. I should’ve just gone for plants. It’s fine to be on the nose. We don’t always have to be artistic about things. We can just say them.
The man went from preening to dead serious. He stepped in. “Do you want to see?”
Uh…? Hold on. What does he think I just said? I said something stupid to bump up his ego, and I kind of thought he’d call me on saying something stupid or bask in the praise a little, not go straight to the serious, ‘so you’re telling me you actually want the threesome’ vibe? Though, I mean… Rhys put on a serious face too. “I do.”
Gods, I hope I didn’t just agree to see his fuzzy cucumber. Hopefully this guy is just really serious about orchids or something, and not serious about ‘orchids.’ There was only one way to find out. And hey, if the prince was more interested in making love than war, then that made him trash, right?
No, no. Remember, Rhys. He needs to be throwing away his potential, not just trash. Trash isn’t enough. Trash is assumed. We need the next step. The true objective! Lock in and focus. It’s vital that I ensure he is in fact being the most trash that he can be before I bother to kill him. It’s my serial killer modus operandi. That’s an important thing serial killers have, right? Modus operandi. A reason for killing. That, and uh, sexual impotence? And um… oh, they need a sub! I don’t really get it, but apparently they need a subby person to bully into also killing. It was always important on the crime shows I watched.
He paused. I don’t think any of that is going to help me decide whether to kill this guy.
The prince set the book back on the shelf. He gestured for Rhys to follow him. “This way.”
Hell yeah! I don’t know what’s happening but let’s goooo! Lfg! But actually I don’t know what’s happening. I really hope someone does! Prince, if you know what’s going on, could you clue me in, please?
The prince smiled at him, and Rhys smiled back, internally grimacing. Of course, if it was that easy to ask you, I wouldn’t be in this situation.