A Beautiful Bromance (Raoul Christophe de Chagny)

[Aimeric Jayden Devereux]

Aimeric was travelling through the village, his eyes fixed on his book, 'The Mystery of the Yellow Room'. He walked along, not quite paying attention as to who or what was ahead of him. He suddenly bumped into a lady, and he glared at her before continuing on his way with a sigh. Imbeciles... That's all everyone was. He hated people. He hated them all with a deep, intense passion, and he didn't want to know anybody. He didn't want a single friend, and he always told himself he didn't want a wife... But secretly, he wanted a wife. He would never convey or admit that feeling though.

As he continued on his way, a single franc dropped from his pocket. He didn't notice, up until somebody picked it up and ran off with it. As he saw, he clenched his teeth at the nerve. He didn't need that franc anyways...

Right now, all Aimeric wanted was to be able to focus on his book. He should have known by then that going into town always ended badly. He could never focus, and it frustrated him greatly. Here he was, a quiet man, just trying to read a book, but then of course he always had idiots stealing from him, people bumping into him, people staring at him... He never felt comfortable in town. He didn't get why he couldn't just go into town with a book to get some fresh air with out constant bothers.

Aimeric kept on his way, his eyes still fixed on the book. But moments later, he bumped straight into another man(Raoul), stumbling back a bit. He glared at the man, and tried to get by him.

[Raoul Christophe de Chagny]

Raoul donned his Homburg and left the school building, pulling up the collar of his black overcoat. It was lunchtime and today he had a full hour until his next class. There was a nice little café a few blocks from the school he enjoyed taking his lunch at—most of the time alone, sometimes with Christine. Christine. It felt as if he was seeing less and less of her these days. Between working as an English teacher as well as an insurance broker, not to mention his law classes, his time was almost completely occupied. But he always made time for her.

He needed to ask her to marry him—as soon as possible, as soon as he mustered the courage. He kept telling himself he’d do it tomorrow, but there had been at least thirty tomorrows. He needed to do it now, before Lenoir got to her head, before he lost her. He couldn’t lose her, he didn’t know how he would be able to go on if he did. His brother’s arrival had simply complicated things. Part of him was happy to see him, and another part dreaded his presence. It seemed like he was influencing him more and more each day. He began wearing more of his old wardrobe again—his Victorian suits and his tailcoat on occasion at dinnertime. But there was one thing he wouldn’t let him change, and that was his decision to marry Christine.

The trouble was trying to find the right words to say to her. He of course had never done this before. He had no idea how he would do it, how he would say the right words—the words that would convince her to say yes instead of rejecting him. Seven months ago he would not have feared rejection, but now…things had indeed changed. He didn’t have his title, his money—he wasn’t even a solicitor yet. He was simply a schoolteacher. This wasn’t the life he had wanted to give her when he had walked into her dressing room—because he knew then that he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life loving her.

He had also known that his family would not approve. In that case he would have asked her to run away with him. And even if he had only a sailor’s salary, he had hoped that she would have been happy with him. But now he didn’t know, since the murderer who was his rival had more money than he did—money he had earned by stealing, not by power, prestige, or hard work. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair!

He was so angry about this that he didn’t even notice he was walking into someone. The man stumbled back and glared at Raoul. “Watch where you’re going next time, will you?” Raoul snapped a bit more acerbically than he’d intended.

[Aimeric Jayden Devereux]

As the man spoke, his teeth clenched slightly. "Did I say a single word to you? No. So do >not< bother me! I don't need another bother for God sakes, I've had plenty of them this past week!" He grunted, then held a glare at the man. He didn't understand, the man could have said nothing. He could have said nothing! But of course, he had to say something. Everybody had something to say. Was he a conversation magnet all of a sudden? He didn't think so, but since people were becoming so foolish, he wasn't the least bit surprised.

He held the glare for a few more seconds before fixing his hair, and looking back down at his book as he tried to get by once again. Instead of walking far on though, he sat at a bench no more than a few feet away, trying to read in peace for once. He'd rarely come across times where he could read a good book without any distractions. Children always pestered him, always picked on >him<. Not anybody else. It had to be Aimeric. And of course... Next thing he knew, a child threw an egg at the back of his head, hitting him directly on his target.

As Aimeric felt the egg, he frowned, and closed his book before attempting to wipe the gook off with a sigh. But then, soon after, he felt another egg hit his back, then another hit his back, and nother. He grunted. "Stop!" He called out, not wanting to look back to see who it was. He wasn't risking a shot to the face, most certainly. But the eggs continued, so he sighed heavily, and got up to leave from the area he was, now annoyed with a hint of depression.

[Raoul Christophe de Chagny]

Raoul set his jaw at the man’s sharp reply. “Then learn to stay out of people’s way, why don’t you?” he answered harshly, shooting a glare in his direction before setting off on his way with an annoyed roll of his eyes. Generally he didn’t have much of a problem with the villagers here—most were as friendly and helpful as possible, but there was the occasional rude seed, such as this man. But of course he dealt with that sort of thing in Paris—just not as much since his position demanded respect.

However he didn’t have that here. He was a normal middle class teacher, not a viscount. He barely felt like a viscount anymore. He considered it a mixed blessing. There was no one besides his brother who would pester him about his relationship with Christine, and how improper it was. But a lot of his self-respect stemmed from being raised as a nobleman. Not having that was like losing a part of himself. He hoped that he would earn some of that respect back when he was admitted to the bar.

“Stop!”

He heard the sound of something splattering over something else, and turned around, quirking a blonde eyebrow. A child had just thrown an egg at the man from before, and continued to throw them even after the man protested. After a while, the man stood up and walked away a bit crestfallen. Hesitating a moment, Raoul sighed and approached the laughing child.

“James, shouldn’t you be in school?” He recognized the boy from his English class. He was one of the troublemakers, and frankly he wasn’t surprised that he was skipping class.

The boy’s eyes widened and he nodded, backing away. “Yes, Mr. de Chagny—I was just…just taking a walk.”

“Well we wouldn’t want your parents to think you were skipping, would we?”

“No, sir. Of course not, sir.” The boy immediately started running back to the school.

Pleased that he had listened, Raoul watched for a second or two before turning around and starting after the man who had been assailed by the eggs. “You there—are you alright?” The question was unnecessary as he had simply been hit with a few eggs, but he was trying to be civil. “I’m terribly sorry that happened to you.”

[Aimeric Jayden Devereux]

Aimeric found himself surprised as the man told the boy to stop. Nobody ever wanted to help him out, much less did he expect it from the man he had just crossed just under a minute ago. He began picking egg shell off of his waistcoat as he walked, a frustrated look on his face. He sighed heavily, and looked around for some water to wash his hands off on. He came across a puddle, and soaked his hands in it, using the water to wash off the egg shell that had stuck to his hands. 'I hate people...' He thought to himself, groaning quietly as he picked off more egg shell.

As he heard the man's voice, his eyebrows quirked, and he looked up, over at the man. He still had an irritated look on his face that had remained. He wiped his wet hands off on his handkerchief then tucked it away. "Yes, I'm alright... Thank you.." He said quietly, not looking up at him too much. He wasn't the most pleasant man to be around, but he most definitely was very shy as well. He never really talked to anybody much at all, so he didn't have good conversation abilities. He became slightly irritated once again as the image of the boy came to mind. What a brat.. Hadn't he learned to respect his elders? Aimeric was nineteen, and he expected to be treated as the adult he was.