Started reading 昨日の友 today! First story in the second F&B外伝. I’m two chapters/parts in, not sure how far through in total. This is another set-before-F&B1 story, again from Nigel’s POV. Not sure yet precisely it falls in between the others (not that it matters a huge deal, granted).
We’re starting off with cabin boy Nigel getting hit on by another sailor onboard while he works. Geoffrey comes by to save Nigel (by flirting with the sailor, of course), and Nigel reflects on his need to become stronger so he can avenge Geoffrey and his doing this stuff with filthy sailors by getting to the point where he can make them flee by himself. (He mentions wanting to be able to scare sailors just by glaring at them; glad to see these goals early. )
Step one: be more comfortable climbing up in the rigging. Nigel has nice topman Ren to help, but to be honest, Ren is giving me some serious vibes here. He’s waaaaay too touchy-feely with Nigel, and I’m surprised Nigel hasn’t called him out on it. We shall see where this goes…
Finished 昨日の友! It shouldn’t have taken me this long, I was so close to the end already with my last update.
Anyway, Geoffrey gets wind of Nigel hanging out with Ren, so he employs some tactical charm to interested and find out Ren’s intentions. Surprise surprise, Ren was indeed flirting with Nigel, and Geoffrey has to take him aside and just tell him flat-out. Nigel’s kind of shocked anyone would like someone as gloomy as him, but he shakes it off pretty easily and asks Geoffrey to help him train instead.
I was a little surprised, as this felt like it ended rather abruptly; I was expecting one, maybe two more chapters out of it. It wasn’t bad or anything, just felt like it had a bit less meat on it’s bones compared to the other prequel stories. I’m still not sure if it falls before or after 妖精の分け前; not sure if we’re really given enough information to tell, but it’s not a big deal.
鍵盤: Kazuya POV, woohoo! Now that we’re more-or-less done with that arc as of volume 18, hopefully he gets the spotlight more often! Anyway, this was a cute piece of Kaito playing the piano and Kazuya ruminating on how much he enjoyed Kaito’s playing. Fluff.
硝子: More fluff, even moreso than the last. Kaito POV. He’s cleaning up one of Geoffrey’s sea chests and finds a glass bead, which he asks for from Geoffrey. The latter makes it a romantic gesture, of course.
古傷 finished. Geoffrey POV; short cute fluff about him reminiscing about the side wound he got during the events of ミニアと呼ばれた男 and Nigel being worried about him.
Finished 魔物; I really enjoyed that one! It’s set some time after 疑惑 (so probably in between vols. 3 and 4) from Ewan’s POV. There are rumors swirling onboard Gloria of a demon that stalks the ship’s head at night. Determined to get to the bottom of this, Kaito and Ewan stake out a spot at night, eventually running into Nigel and Blackie. After some shenanigans Kaito realizes the “demon” is Yuki, a baby goat that came onboard with it’s mother, who Drake sent so they could use her milk for Blackie. Cue some cute scenes with everybody x Kaito, haha. Ewan definitely loves the kid (though it feels more like a familial kind of love), and it’s also so sweet seeing through his POV.
Some neat points from this story in particular:
Amazingly, I think it references the drama CD グローリア号航海記; it’s been a while since I last listened to it, but I’m pretty sure Kaito and Ewan’s reference of Nigel being a bit of a scary-cat due to some sort of test of courage in searching the ship’s hold happened there. Time for a re-listen, sounds like~
Ewan apparently knows that Kaito’s sleeping in Geoffrey’s bed.
Interestingly, apparently neither Kaito, Nigel, nor Geoffrey use the ship’s head, instead using chamber pots when nature calls.
I’m pretty sure Kaito making a pinky promise with Nigel is a reference to another short story, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you which one. :S
Finished 小鳥 as well. Alonso POV, probably set during the same time period as 融解, i.e. between chapters 8 and 9 in volume 9. This one’s definitely more on the angsty side of things; Alonso’s hanging out with Kaito, Vicente trailing behind, and he muses about Kaito missing England, Vicente’s love for Kaito, and his own feelings Leo and Vicente (specifically that he thinks the former is cuter than Kaito and and his own admiration for the latter).
He tries to get Vicente to loosen up some, but alas; the man is a rock wall.
Finished 一途な瞳! This was our first Leo POV as far as I can remember, and it’s well-deserved. This is set after Kaito’s poisoning but before the group leaves El Escorial, so somewhere in the first three chapters of volume 11. Fun tidbits from the story:
Vicente has been to the new world multiple times as a guard for the treasure fleets.
Kaito really likes milk (goat or cow).
Vicente hand-feeds abandoned kittens he finds on his ship.
We get some nice insight into Leo’s jealousy towards how much Vicente likes Kaito; the poor kid is constantly reminding himself it’s only because Vicente sees Kaito as a helpless little animal he picked up, and how Kaito depends on Leo as well to look out for him. Leo gets a bit of recognition at the end of the story, but it’s so interesting to see Leo’s jealousy here, as it’s something Vicente’s commented on in later books (about how his troubles with Kaito shouldn’t have him ignoring Leo’s needs), even though Vicente really needed someone to point it out to him.
And Leo thinking about how, once he and Vicente leave to fight with the Armada, Kaito would be left all alone in the palace with no one to look out for him and how he decides he has to make sure Kaito gets healthy again no matter what was really sweet. As much as I would’ve loved to see
(end of vol 12 spoilers)
KaitoxVicente becoming endgame, there are quite a few logistical difficulties (such as Vicente not taking Kaito with him wherever he goes) that would’ve need to be ironed out. Kaito remaining as a slave in El Escorial being one of the bigger ones.
Overall a much denser story that I was expecting; I’ve read so many fluffy ones for this volume I was expecting more of the same, but this was really good. I would love more Leo perspective, especially in post-vol 12 scenarios. One short story left!
Alrighty, finished 王侯貴族の愉しみ. Unlike the previous drama CD booklets, we had only one POV (Kaito) and his observations of three different men. This is set during the Spain arc, somewhere in the first three chapters of volume 11, so those men are of course Leo, Alonso, and to a small extent Vicente. (This might be set after 一途な瞳?)
We start the story with Leo fussing over Kaito like normal; they make such a great pair of brothers, I’m glad Kaito has someone he thinks of as an 弟 other than his actual brother. Leo gives Kaito some water buffalo cheese to eat (would that have been a thing back then? I don’t know much about water buffalo…), which Kaito uses to wow Leo with his culinary skills after adding a little bit of olive oil. Vicente eventually enters, and after some back-and-forth Kaito decides to watch Leo’s sword practice with パチェコ, one of the guards at El Escorial.
Well, パチェコ is just coming back in after an outing with Alonso, who immediately pounces on the idea of giving Leo a few lessons, which Leo and Vicente vehemently turn down, lol. Kaito inadvertently suggests a contest to see who has the better sword skills, Alonso or Vicente, to cheer Alonso up after all the ribbing, which he pretty much immediately regrets after he sees how badly Leo’s going to take it to heart after Vicente inevitably loses. (Neat callback here: Kaito realizes that Alonso’s style is just like ベナルール・ド・アルトヴィッチ, that French envoy we met back in volume 6. Both trained in an Italian style, apparently.)
So attempting to salvage the situation, Kaito realizes that Vicente’s best chance of winning lies with the maneuver Geoffrey pulled back in volume two’s La Rochelle when he disarmed Vicente. At a certain point of the fight he calls out 「ラ・ロシェル！」, which causes Vicente to freeze up and lose the match. Leo explains the dirty trick to Alonso, who immediately cottons onto the idea and starts showing パチェコ how to do it so they’ll be prepared against the dirty Englishmen using such tricks. Everyone ends up happily at the end sans Kaito: Vicente’s touched that Kaito wanted to help him win, Leo’s happy with Vicente’s honorable loss of not using cheap tactics, and Alonso has a new trick to play with.
Kaito, on the other hand, has been spending the entire story feeling anxious over his growing affection for the Spain gang and not wanting to betray his England friends, and this latest thing just really compounds it all. He’s worried that if Geoffrey or any of his English friends ever have to meet Alonso in battle, they’ll have already lost their one chance of not dying since Alonso will be on the lookout for it. The story ends with him slowly starting to accept that he loves both groups of people, and just really doesn’t want anyone to die in war.
This whole story was pretty depressing. All of Kaito’s POV Spain arc stuff is; for admittedly good reason, but one day I want to read the AU where he’s happy to be there.
)
vibes here. He’s waaaaay too touchy-feely with Nigel, and I’m surprised Nigel hasn’t called him out on it. We shall see where this goes…
Leo explains the dirty trick to Alonso, who immediately cottons onto the idea and starts showing パチェコ how to do it so they’ll be prepared against the dirty Englishmen using such tricks. Everyone ends up happily at the end sans Kaito: Vicente’s touched that Kaito wanted to help him win, Leo’s happy with Vicente’s honorable loss of not using cheap tactics, and Alonso has a new trick to play with.
All of Kaito’s POV Spain arc stuff is; for admittedly good reason, but one day I want to read the AU where he’s happy to be there. 