He was sure he must have looked odd, just standing outside the pub with his head tilted to peer inside, like some sort of stalker.
"Are you waiting for someone too?" The voice was small and fragile, seemingly like glass. But, even though the words were smooth and harmless, he jumped slightly at the words. He'd been so consumed by his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed the little kids sitting on the bench outside the pub.
"...No. I am..." Ryo started to answer, but the words were left in the back of his throat. What was he doing here? He enjoyed entering the village to look around and forget who he was for an hour or two, but what was he doing outside of a pub? Was he actually debating whether to go in or not?
"That's okay. You don't have to answer her questions. She asks a lot of them," The other kid spoke up. His voice was rougher than his sisters; slightly raspy but still full of youth.
"You told me that wasn't a bad thing!" The fragility in her voice was gone, but the smoothness remained. She spoke well for a peasant child. Her words were pronounced clear and sharp, without a blur of the consonant or vowel sounds. How old was she? It was dark, but from what he could see the girl must have been around eight or nine years of age. The boy was older, perhaps ten or eleven years of age.
"It's not..." He answered, pulling the girl closer to him. The bench was long, but the night was cold, and he seemed like a good big brother. It was then that Ryo realized that sitting on a bench outside of a pub wasn't an activity that children tended to do, especially after the sun had set.
"Why are the two of you sitting here?" Ryo looked back at the pub, full of boisterous laughter and shouting. He heard some profanities, the slang of the peasants, and grimaced as he looked back at the children.
"Papa is in there. We're waiting for him. Mama doesn't let us in the house without him," She laid her head on her brother's shoulder and let out a soft yawn before playing with the hem of her little dress.
Ryo didn't know how to answer that. He'd never really dealt with kids before. He knew the basics, but...what do you say when the parents were clearly neglecting their children?
"You don't need to worry about us, sir," The boy spoke up now. His voice was still raspy, but there was a sort of resolve firm in them that Ryo wasn't expecting from a child of ten years. He was tempted to just leave, ignore these little peasant children and their little problems.
But he didn't move. He just stood there for a few minutes. He could leave. Why wasn't he? Why was today so confusing? Why was he moving toward the bench? Why was he sitting with these children? Why was he asking them what their names were?
- An excerpt from “The Reflection of Eternity” gooo check it outttt (Various yandere x reader slow burn fanfic set in prince and princess times - read on Quotev)