(Separation)(Part 1)

"Take care of yourself, Kyrano." Keyron said grimly, and though both of them knew that it wasn't going to be an easy journey ahead, Kyrano had been through worse.

"I am simply going back to the Main House for a short while. I will have to trouble you to help Butler Maiko look after Miss Louise." Kyrano said formally, but both of them knew what he meant beneath the surface. In front of Maiko, who stood at the side, silently observing the procedure of departure, the Reyes Brothers had to make their words sound formal and normative. Beneath the surface, however, Keyron knew to read into a deeper meaning.

"I will." Keyron nodded to show that he had received his brother's message –both implicit and explicit. "Leave her to us."

"Then, this is farewell." Kyrano nodded and climbed into the backseat of the awaiting car. It would send him straight back to the Main House, where Kyrano would undoubtedly face his punishment.

"We will be waiting for you." Keyron bade with strength in his belief, passing his brother an encouraging smile as he kept the door open with a hand. "Come back refreshed as a new butler."

"I have every intention of doing that." Kyrano nodded, and then there were no more well-wishes for each other as Keyron closed the door and stepped back. There was a single second of hesitation, and then the car drove off from the school's drop-off point, rounding around the beautiful fountain, and making a beeline straight for the entrance.

Standing at the window of her room, Louise leaned heavily against her window, ignoring the fact that both Maiko and Keyron could see her standing there. Tears streaked from her eyes as she followed the car off with her eyes, until it disappeared into the distance, taking her faithful butler along with it.

Kyrano was leaving, and there hadn't been a single look backward at all. Ever since receiving the letter from Main House, stating her uncle's decision to take her butler back for punishment, Kyrano hadn't looked back at Louise. It was like the butler that she fell in love with had resigned himself completely to his fate –and that he had finally found his legitimate excuse to be away from her, to erase those same feelings that she knew he harboured as well.

"Have faith in him." The voice that sounds coming from behind her reminds Louise that even though the person who had first captured her heart was on his way back to the Main House, part of her heart was still on its steady progress to being enamoured by another more appropriate target. Brandon walked up till he stood behind her, offering the support that Kyrano no longer was giving. "If there's anything I can safely say of Kyrano, then it is his dedication to you. He won't be gone for too long."

"And yet he was so eager to leave." Louise's answer was made grimly. "Kyrano knows how harshly he will be treated once he returns to the Main House, and yet he returns without a word or a look left behind him."

"He is a butler. Furthermore, he is a butler of the Reyes family." Brandon replied softly, wrapping his arms around Louise. Though they were no longer engaged –thanks to Oscar's declaration of annulment –but it didn't mean that Brandon had lost all feelings for the capable woman. They might not be set up to marry each other anymore, but it didn't mean that Brandon couldn't try to woo the woman back into a marriage. After all, he didn't have to fear his famiy rejected his lady love for her status, because Louise was the best candidate, after all, to boost his family's reputation as well.

Louise made no reply as she took Brandon's warmth against his back, his arms providing the support that had been taken away from her by just a letter. Both of them watched as Keyron and Maiko –Louise's new butler and Crawford's Head Butler –conversed shortly, and then the both of them made towards the dormitory. Soon, they would appear at the door, and Louise would have to start putting up a front pretending that she wasn't affected. She needed to be a Crawford again –something that she had never felt so seriously in her bones whenever Kyrano was with her. With Kyrano, she was just Louise.

Now, and for the days and weeks to come, she needed to be Crawford.

It was punishment; the fact that Kyrano had been taken away from her. She was sure that her uncle knew exactly how reliant on Kyrano she was, and this was punishment for the both of them. Oscar hadn't even needed to do anything to her; all he had needed was simply to remove Kyrano from her side, and she was already hurting from the thought.

"Keyron and I will still be here by your side." Brandon encouraged softly, almost as if he were reading her thoughts. She felt a soft loving kiss pressed on the top of her head, and melted a little more into this warmth and love spread upon her. She was utterly sorry that she could not love Brandon with the same dedication that her heart had been invested into Kyrano, but equally grateful as well that the man hadn't given it a single care. All Brandon wanted was to support and love Louise; even if it meant holding her up while she waited for her butler –her love.

Louise was past the point of caring so much at the moment as she turned around in Brandon's embrace and buried her face into his chest. Brandon didn't smell at all like the clean, fresh scent of Kyrano. He didn't have the same lean frame as Kyrano, and everything about him wasn't like Kyrano at all. But Louise couldn't afford to choose anymore, as she let her tears fall, trusting Brandon to hide her tears as he stroked her hair soothingly over and over again as they stood by the window.

Shortly thereafter, polite knocks on the door announced the arrival of the pair of butlers that had been missing since they entrance into the dormitory. Brandon had anticipated that his ex-fiancee might have needed some time to cry, and thus had told Keyron to bring the new butler Maiko on a tour around the dormitory to orientate the man officially. While they couldn't exactly trust Maiko as much as they did Kyrano, appearances still needed to be kept.

"Wash your face, Louise." Brandon said softly, as he drew her gently out of his embrace. "Don't let Maiko see you distraught. He works for your uncle, and your tears might only increase Kyrano's punishment in the Main House."

The reminder seemed to settle quickly into the woman's fast-paced brain, and she stiffened at the idea. Nodding to show that she understood, she wiped away the last of her tears then left wordlessly to the bathroom to wash up. It would be hard to hide the puffy red eyes, but Brandon had resolved himself to help the woman where she needed it.

Like her, he knew exactly how painful it was to remove his personal butler from his side –particularly when the butler in question was someone in the calibre of a Reyes Butler. Back in his past, when they were younger, Keyron had allowed Brandon to lose his step and go tumbling down the side of a hill. This neglect, even though none of the fault lied on Keyron's head, had ended up with Keyron in minor punishment –and somehow it felt as if Brandon was the one being punished instead because it felt like a limb had been cut off from him without Keyron's presence. It was only when Brandon cried and made a fuss that the family understood his reliance on Keyron, and the punishment was cut thanks to Brandon's insistence.

Now at a ripe age of 19, Brandon ccould not imagine a single day without Keyron. And yet, this was happening to Louise and her butler Kyrano, who definitely served her much better than Keyron served him.

A second knock reminded him that the butlers were still waiting patiently outside and thus he called them in. Maiko's eyes immediately swept around the room professionally looking for his mistress before it landed on him still standing by the window facing them. Keyron's polite smile looked a little forced, but it was all pretences that they now had to put up with the new butler.

"Mr Greaves, it is an honour to meet you." Maiko announced politely as a bow was made reverently. "Once again, I apologise for the shame that our Mistress Louise has put upon you."

"There is no shame at all." Brandon prounced, meeting Maiko's eyes with a cold glare. "There is no fault in a love between master, mistress and butler. My family does not take insult from a love between mistress and butler, because if so, both I and Keyron will be badly punished, and still we will not repent."

Maiko's face seemed to drain a little of color at his strong declaration.

"If you have to report back to your master, then please do tell him that I, Brandon Greaves, think that this is all bullshit, and that Kyrano and Louise should not be punished for being man and woman biologically." Brandon continued, even though he knew that his words were meant for the wrong audience. Butler Maiko, after all, was simply a messenger. The real mastermind was, after all, Oscar Crawford and his rigid conservative views on the conduct between a lady and her butler.

"Mr Greaves..."

"You will be seeing much more of me around, Butler Maiko. The engagement might have been annulled, but I do not intend to let Louise go." Brandon cut off sharply, then decided that it such aggression was probably enough for the day. It would definitely not be good if Brandon's words ended up harming Louise somehow. Worse, it might be bad if Butler Maiko took Brandon's words wrongly, and end up with Oscar Crawford's decision to extend Kyrano's punishment.

"Keyron, let's leave Louise with her new butler for today." Brandon turned to his own butler, who held a hint of a disapproving frown at his actions. Both of them knew that he had lost a little control of himself there, and that it might reap bad repercussions. But Brandon couldn't help it –he had been hiding it ever since reading the letter that he had received in the morning.

Other than his annoyance that his engagement was annulled was suddenly as it was decided, there was also his anger and irritation at the Crawford Household for being so rigid and traditional in their view. There was indignance for Louise's sake, for having her suffer, for punishing both her and her butler for being human. Did the Crawfords want to create children that were inhumane and unfeeling? It certainly felt as if Kyrano had been exactly like that when Brandon first met Kyrano. But he had watched as the butler became more and more human as Kyrano fell in love with his mistress.

He had enjoyed the journey, and now it was nipped.

Of course Brandon was pissed. He wouldn't be Brandon Greaves if he wasn't pissed.

________________________________________________________________________________

"I don't like him." Brandon announced as he lathered a good amount of soap over his arms and chest, rubbing nicely.

"Well, neither do I." Keyron answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "But you really shouldn't have. On their views, we are no longer part of this. We can't go around trying to interfere with their family's problem because you're no longer engaged to Crawford."

"I know." Brandon huffed as he scrubbed himself. "But I was really annoyed, and I don't like his face."

"Funny you should say his face." Keyron answered with a distantly amused tone, passing the bottle of shower gel over mildly when Brandon seemed to need a little more. "Because there's something about it that really strikes me off."

"Other than the fact that he's working for Oscar Crawford?" He answered, turning to take a look at his carefully thinking butler. Keyron leaned against the side of the sink, on the other side of the frosted glass that separated the shower from the rest of the washroom.

Thanks to Brandon being the only male in a school full of females, Brandon's room was a teacher's room that was changed to fit his needs, and he found himself relatively isolated in a corner of the Iris Dormitory. Still, he couldn't complain about the daily long walks he needed to talk to get to his fiancée, now ex-fiancee's room in the Rose Dormitory, because he had already asked for much when he forced himself into the school. He couldn't complain about the lack of a bathtub as well if he wanted to stay by Louise's side at this time. Neither could Brandon complain about the lack of a separate room for his butler, considering the fact that his family had found out about the school that he had gone and enrolled himself in, and yet still allowed him to stay there on the promise that he would behave himself as the heir to the Greaves family foundation.

"Other than the fact that he's working for Oscar." Keyron confirmed. "I think I might have seen Maiko before during my younger years, and he might not have been a butler at that time."

"From what I heard from Papa, Oscar brought in Maiko shortly after your father passed on. Your grandfather Kiran wanted to come out of retirement to go back serving the Crawfords to uphold the rule that only Reyes could serve Crawfords, but Oscar said no. When the master says no, Kiran couldn't say anything, so could only watch as Oscar brought in a new guy with no background. Kiran trained Maiko as best as he could, but Oscar rushed the process, and had Maiko as the officially Head Butler in two months."

Both of them were silent for a short while as Brandon stilled underneath the spray, turning over all that he had said over in his head. It didn't make sense at all, now that he had thought about it. It might seem normal to some other family –the fact that the Head Butler could be brought in from outside and trained within a month or so. But this was the Crawfords family they were talking about, and both Brandon and Keyron knew it.

"Do you remember where you saw Maiko?" Brandon broke the silence as he poked his head out from the other side of the frosted glass, his eyes piercing through his butler who stood equally frozen. The thinking expression affixed on his face, Keyron didn't react for a long time as Brandon waited patiently.

"It's a vague remembrance..." Keyron frowned. "And I'm not exactly sure if the person in my memory is really Maiko or not."

Brandon turned the water off, turning the volume of running water down so as to facilitate their conversation even though soap was still running down his wet skin.

"It's not a good thing." Brandon guessed, and even though it wasn't a question, Keyron nodded in confirmation.

"It isn't a good memory."

"Is Louise in danger?"

Keyron paused. Then, "I don't know."

"Research on him, Keyron." Brandon ordered quickly as he turned the showers on again, wanting to rush through it now. He knew that he didn't like Maiko, but that had only been on the premise that he didn't like Oscar and everyone in relation to him and his rigid traditional values that was hurting Louise and her butler. But if the vague memory of Maiko from Keyron's past was going to make his own butler frown at the remembrance, then maybe Maiko was more dangerous than he initially thought.

And anything dangerous around Louise needed to be watched after.

After all, he had promised Kyrano that he and Keyron would watched over Louise while the Butler in Black was gone.

He wasn't going to go back on that promise.