Alexei sighed, albeit softly.

“Let’s just say… even I thought Fortree was safe. Guess it’s not, after all,” he began.

“I got attacked right in the city. It’s a miracle I was able to even summon all my Pokémon that time and have them get help,” he continued to explain quietly.

Fidgeting with the tiny little crown sitting on William’s head, he sighed again.

“It was actually a secret I kept to myself the moment I arrived here, all those years ago. Only my sisters knew of it, but then… this happened.”

He gestured to his right hand, still bandaged and to the foot he’d propped back up.

“Oh, but it doesn’t end there…”

He knew he wasn’t going to hear the end of this, but he decided to face the music head-on anyway. Tilting his chin up, he revealed a swathe of bandages that were also wrapped around his neck.

“Stabbed in the leg and my hand, and my neck… someone pressed a blade into it. Drew… s-so much… b-blood,” he recounted quietly.

“N-normally, anyone would recover in t-time from this. In my case, Mattie, it’s… it’s different.”

He took a deep breath as his left hand continued to mess with the tiny, jingling crown softly.

“There’s… there’s something wrong with my blood. And… there’s no cure to it.”

“At first they thought I was anemic.”

Shit, how was he going to explain all this without the bluenette losing his cool? His fingers idly toyed with William’s crown, the jingling noise serving to distract him for a few moments.

“But then when I started getting paper cuts, bruises—you know, typical kid shit we all get into while growing up—it took forever and a half for the bleeding to stop. For the bruises to heal.”

He sighed again, this time a little harder.

“The doctors called it he—hemo—something, they said that ‘royalty’ often get plagued with this shit. They wanted to trap me at home. Back home, in Mistralton. Keep me there, ‘safe’, forever. But I didn’t want that.”

Another deep breath.

“I ran away from home when I was sixteen. I got here a year later, and that was around the time we first met.”

And then, the follow-up.

“I’m no prince on the run, don’t worry about that,” he added with a weak chuckle. “Do I even look Galarian to you? I don’t even have the snotty attitude most of the royals over there do.”

And then, there it was.

The dreaded question.

His fingers stopped fidgeting with William’s crown for a few moments as he looked away, unable to give a direct reply.

How was he going to break this to Mattie?

“I—I didn’t want anyone to worry about it,” he began quietly, unable to face the bluenette. “I didn’t want to give off the impression that I’m weak. That people would constantly be fussing over me for all the wrong reasons.”

He then bit his lower lip for a few moments, trying to rein in the panic that was bubbling to the surface.

“I didn’t…want…something, an affliction, a sickness, to define who I was. Who I am. It’s… I don’t want to be the weight that keeps everyone down when they realize me getting injured is a terrible idea.”

And then… the dam burst.

It wasn’t the loud kind of outburst, it was more on—the quiet, sniffling kind of cry.

“I don’t… want to hold people b-back, y-you know.”

“I al—also want to p-protect e-everyone, which is why…which is why I never told anyone else a-about this. I didn’t…want to be a burden…” he continued, rubbing his eyes with the back of his bandaged right hand.

Oh, no.

“I w-want…to be brave, you know. Be s-strong, face e-everything h-head on, w-without any…without anything holding me back. O-only instead, th-this? This? this condition of mine…it feels like it’s got me t-tied down, unable to do anything without…without getting seriously hurt in the process.”

There was so much more he wanted to say, however the rest of the words died on his lips when he felt something on his shoulder.

Never mind if William was between the two of them, dozing like the little monster he was—Alexei gently shoved the normal-colored Wooloo out of the way and just literally collapsed into the bluenette’s personal space, trying not to have a massive combined freak out and break down.

Alexei didn’t care if the two Wooloo were unceremoniously evicted from the couch (he was certain they would find ways to sneak into the guest room to sleep with Mattie eventually, knowing the two), Alexei needed to space to—

Just crack and be vulnerable.

Normally he would keep everything bottled up and just let that bottle adrift elsewhere with nobody else finding out about it. However—

The only thing the bluenette would hear would be the sound of quiet crying. He wasn’t that much of an angry, loud crier—preferring to keep things subdued.

“I just—” he began quietly after he’d gotten most of the emotion out of him, feeling so wrung out.

“Th—thanks for being here,” he added once he’d rubbed his eyes again with the back of his hand.

And for listening to my crazy talk, he added to himself in the back of his head as he got up to his feet, a little shaky.

“Y—yeah, I b-bet the Wooloo would want to sleep with you tonight.”

The bleating noises from the guest room confirmed that.

“S—see you in the m-morning,” he continued as he picked up the salad bowl and kept it in the fridge, before, returning to turn off the television and grabbing the cane.