35 In High Spirit
Alexander woke up in his bed with a wide goofy grin on his face. He lightly jumped out of his bed while humming a melodic tune as he prepare for another day.
Dressing in his formal daily attire, Alexander strode all the way to the dining hall of the palace as he reminisced what happened yesterday when he kissed Sophie on the lips.
Alexander couldn’t keep the goofy grin off his face all the way to the dining hall. When he came to the door, he swung it wide open and announced. “Good morning everyone!”
His siblings, who were already in their seats, got startled at their brother’s sudden arrival and high voice.
“You seemed to be in a good mood, today brother…” Christina was the first one to notice.
Alexander grinned, “What are you talking about dear sister? I’ve been always like this remember?” He walked towards her and briefly caressed her pristine silver hair. Then he leaned over and kissed her on the face.
His unexpected action was met by a slap from Christina, whose face turned beet red. “Ngh…what are you doing all of a sudden brother?!”
“Scumbag…” Tiffania gave him a piercing look.
“Brother…I want a pat on the head and a kiss on the cheek too!” Anastasia begged with a cherubic face.
“Oh alright, here you go…” Alexander gave her a pat on her head and pecked her on her cheek, completely ignoring what happened seconds ago.
“Yey! Thank you, dear brother.”
Christina pouted as she touched the part of her cheeks where his brother’s lips landed. He had never kissed her like this before, though she’s doing it to him when the situation calls it like when he’s recovering, she had never received a peck on the cheek.
Alexander didn’t seem to care about her feelings as he head next to Tiffania whom she noticed is giving off warning signs.
“Oh…don’t even dare it brother…get away from me!”
Alexander sighed. “You’re always so cold to me, Tiffania. Why do you hate me so much Hmm? It’s not like I did something bad to you…” he groaned as Tiffania is shoving his face away from hers.
“You, you disgust me! I can’t stand you! You’re so bland and common, please act appropriately to your rank…”
Alexander let out a breath and gave up on the idea of pecking her in the cheeks. She’s repulsive and cold towards him whenever they are together. But the moment Tiffania lowered her guard, Alexander took the opening and caught her in surprise.
“Hyah?!” Tiffania cried out in an abnormally girlish voice as Alexander hugged her from behind and kissed her on the cheek.
“Oh…you fiend! Get away from me you pervert!”
Alexander let go of her in an instant she said that. Tiffania, looking like she was about to cry, glared at him with startling intensity. He’s amused to see for the first time that her sister, who’s always on the defensive, gets vulnerable. Her flushed cheek says it all. And by the way, she looked cute on that.
Heading to his seat as if nothing happened and keeping his goofy look on his face, he glanced around and saw someone missing. “Where is Sophie?”
“She heading here now…” Ana said, the two remained silent. Seemingly surprised at his demeanor.
After a minute of awkward silence, Sophie arrived in the dining hall.
“Thank you for waiting,”
Alexander, who was grinning all the time, dropped the goofy look when she arrived. He can feel his heart pounding inside his chest, and he can hardly breathe as he tried to look at her, especially on her lips as it triggers a memory of a certain past.
She was looking at him with her usual smile, but her voice was nervous. “I apologize for being late. I overslept this morning.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine…I just got here also.”
“Brother you’re a liar,” Ana said.
He can feel his breath turning short as he sat beside her, his face slowly turning red, he could barely even hold his fork as it was shaking nervously.
“You okay…Alexander?”
Alexander reflexively looked to his right and saw Sophie’s face whose only 5 inches apart. Her face is truly beautiful, out of all the people he met, both in his past life and this world, she’s the one who made him feel like a teenager succumbing to love.
“Yeah…I’m fine…” He said as he looked away from her gaze.
But Sophie didn’t move her face away, but to the contrary, she leaned forward to the point where Alexander could feel her warm breath on his face.
“You sure?”
Alexander felt his face becoming hotter, he wanted to mumble a reply but no words came out of his mouth while gazing into her eyes.
‘Ah fuck whatever it is happening to me!’ he wanted to shout it out but keep it to himself.
“Oh…I see what’s going on here,” Christina commented.
Alexander stiffened and Sophie composed herself properly.
“It doesn’t take a genius to see that something happened to you two yesterday, am I right?”
“Huh? Whatever you are talking about Christina? Nothing happened in particular yesterday.” ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
“It also explains why you’re in such a high mood and is acting weird…don’t tell me…you are already in that stage?!”
Sophie was the first to react. “No…we’re not at that stage yet,” she denied, fumbling her hand.
“Oh, so you have already kissed?!” Christina pressed further.
Sophie couldn’t keep her breath as she looked into Alexander’s face. “Well…” Alexander was stunned by her statement.
“What!? You kissed already?!”
The silence gave her the answer.
“Alexander…you sure are a scumbag. Did you force yourself in as you did to me?!”
“What…” Alexander exclaimed. “don’t word it that way, Tiffania. You’re going to mislead someone.”
“Liar! It’s the truth isn’t it?”
“Alex…what did you do to Miss Tiffania?” Sophie asked with an innocent look.
“Nothing…” he lied.
‘Shit…I need to get out of this pinch or else I’ll…’
Suddenly, someone entered the dining hall. It was Rolan. He approached Alexander who was beading a sweat. The room went silent.
He leaned and then whispered. “Sir, Sergei is here to see you.”
‘What great timing!’
Alexander rose out from his seat. “Sorry guys something important came out. I’ll go ahead first, enjoy your breakfast,” then dashed towards the door to escape.
In the hallway that leads to his office. Alexander hummed as he walked.
“Sir, what happened back there?” Rolan asked.
“Things got out of hand hahaha…” Alexander chuckled, dodging the question.
“Well, whatever that be, Prime Minister Sergei is waiting for you in the office.”
…
Inside Alexander’s office, Sergei greeted him with a bow.
“Sergei, I don’t remember we have a scheduled meeting…” Alexander said, walking past him, and sitting on his chair.
“Something came up Your Majesty, I have come here with a document that requires your signature.”
“Oh? What is it?” Alexander received the document and flipped the pages.
“It’s the Emergency Assistance Act passed by an Imperial Council for the low class who couldn’t afford basic necessities.”
Alexander grabbed his pen and signed it.
“Is that it?” Alexander asked as he returned the document to him.
“About the Infrastructure Bill that you proposed has made its way to the Imperial Council.”
“Tell them to make it a priority…I want the project to start as soon as possible.”
“We are doing our best, Your Majesty.”
“Excellent…if you have nothing to say you may leave.”
Sergei bowed and exited his office.
Alone in his office, Alexander sortied papers after papers that contains sophisticated designs ranging from infantry weapons, tanks, aircraft, radars and sensors, and warships.
Most of his proposals are technology made from his past world in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. He planned to modernize the army all along, especially after the war with the Yamato Empire.
You can’t build a modern economy with a crumbling infrastructure and you can’t protect the country’s sovereignty without a proper military. This was his motto.
Now to build that hardware, he’ll have to invent something that is advanced for this world…Computers.
Not the bulky ones that have a lot of mechanical parts and are operated with vacuum tubes, which are not only slow but unreliable. It also took so much space and electricity just to solve simple calculations that could take days to solve. He has to skip that part, transitioning to transistors and introducing integrated circuits. Luckily, in this world, there are researches and topics about computers. So he’s going to need personnel he can teach to operate a futuristic technology.
And once it is introduced, it’ll be a giant leap for mankind. For technical uses to entertainment ones, like engineers using computer-aided design for their work, businessmen for keeping tabs on their business, for entertainment, manufacturing industries, solve calculations, coding, and programming.
The possibilities are endless and with just the hopes of it, Alexander had a confident grin on his face.
The invention of this technology will help reduce the time for Ruthenia Empire to modernize and catch up to the Europa’s superpowers, or even take the top spot.
‘Time to get to work.’