I’d Give Up The World For You - Chapter 224

Amy regarded Rukelion hesitantly, as if she didn’t want to bring something up. “That might not be as true as you think.”

He blinked at her in surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I…don’t get angry, but are you aware how popular you are? The version of you from the novel. You have to be at least slightly aware because of how often people point out you looking like yourself.”

Rukelion’s eyes flashed dangerously. She was quick to add, “I only bring it up because you might have a willing audience who would hear you out about your family and your country. You might not have to lose out on that after all. With the prequel coming out, people are more interested in you than ever.”

This derailed him. He hadn’t expected her to go in that direction when she brought up that awful book.

“But people don’t think I actually exist. How would that work?”

Amy took a deep breath. “I want you to do those breathing exercises we talked about as I tell you so you don’t set my office on fire. Can you do that?”

Rukelion did as she said, wondering how bad it was that she was that concerned about him starting a blazing inferno. He got his answer a moment later and even with the breathing exercises he still caught fire though it wasn’t as large as it would have been otherwise.

“There’s this thing called fanfiction. Don’t ask me how I know about it. People who are fans of fictional worlds like yours write stories either about the characters or about the universe the original work is set in.

“Your character specifically has a large enough fanbase that if you were to tell the truth under the guise of it being fanfiction people would eat it up. You would be able to honor your homeland that way without anyone else being the wiser.”

First he was furious. More people who didn’t know him at all were writing about him? Could he not get any privacy or respect in this horrible world?!

But a moment later it hit him that this might be his only chance. He was going to have to take it. Anything would be better than nothing at this point. He had been agonizing over abandoning his responsibility to his family and his people and this might help him make amends somewhat.

These people—these FANS—wouldn’t have to believe him. They would think it was all fake but they would still know about the land he had loved and his family. Doing this would be incredibly painful for him but he had to at least try.

“Tell me what I need to do,” Rukelion said resolutely.

“I honestly don’t know much about it myself though I did a little research before presenting this idea to you…” Amy trailed off. “But I can recommend a few places to start.”

And she did. She told him about a few websites to try and added that he would need to be sure to use hashtags so the fans would be able to find his work. She also mentioned that he should wait until after the prequel was released to do this to get maximum exposure.

Rukelion thought of another reason to wait. If he wrote about things that lined up too much with the prequel before it came out people would question why. The most low-key way to do this was to wait until after when he could believably be working off of what was already published.

He left therapy with mixed feelings. He had about an hour before his next class so when he got to school he sat in his car, downloaded the Tumblr app, and made himself an account with the username actualrukelionblaze with a great sense of irony.

He was going to regret this but he searched his name in the hashtags Amy had told him about. A lot of the posts were hype or speculations about the prequel or complaints about how two-dimensional he was in Down in Flames. He hadn’t read it—obviously—but he knew Juliet had a very narrowminded view of him so that was no surprise.

His fury was about to boil over before he saw something that shocked him so much it fizzled out. He began seeing posts about fans saying he was misunderstood. That he deserved better. That they wished he would have gotten a happy ending after having such a tragic backstory.

Were these the people Amy had been talking about? The ones that would probably listen to him about Katalya?

Rukelion wasn’t exactly validated by seeing this. He still felt incredibly violated knowing there were people out there talking about him all the time without knowing anything concrete about him.

He didn’t even want to touch the links to fanfictions people had written about him and quickly scrolled past. Some of them were short enough that they had been posted in their entirely on Tumblr instead of somewhere else and he tried to scroll past those too until one caught his eye.

It was an exaggerated retelling of when he had learned to drive but there was enough fact in there that only one person could have written it. Wasn’t it enough for her to make money off of him, now she had to make fun of him too?!

He left an angry comment on the post. “I was not that bad and you know it!”

Rukelion angrily stowed his phone away because he had to get to class but his head was reeling. That blog gave no indication it was the actual author of the book. He had clicked on it and it looked like any other Down in Flames fan blog. She was hiding her treachery for some reason or other but it had to be her. He was certain of it!

He got a notification in between classes. iraforever, the account that posted that ridiculousness, had sent him a message.

‘Is this a joke account messing with me or is it actually you?’

So Juliet had the same suspicion he did. She worded it vaguely enough that if it hadn’t been him she could have played it off as thinking a friend of hers was pranking her. She wouldn’t want anyone thinking he was crazy.

‘What do you think, Juliet Gallagher?’ Rukelion replied.

‘That’s what I thought. What are you even doing on Tumblr? Isn’t this the worst place for you to be?’

Yes but she didn’t need to know that. ‘I don’t have to tell you anything. But if you write another word about me I will kill you. I can’t believe you had the nerve to write a prequel after everything you did to me’

Juliet replied immediately and defensively. ‘Hey, I wrote the prequel before I ever traveled to your world. That’s what brought me there in the first place! What I wrote got replaced by what actually happened and when I tried to fix it on my document I got zapped into the capital of Mirea’

Rukelion narrowed his eyes. So that was what happened. It didn’t explain a lot of things—like why she had been brought to Mirea—but at least now he knew how.

It didn’t excuse what she did after getting back. She knew he wasn’t the monster she painted him to be and still dared make money off of villainizing him! In a way this was even worse. She knew what she did and didn’t care, plowing ahead regardless.

‘You disgust me’ he typed back in a rage, unable to fully articulate how he was feeling.

That was the basis of it all though. Everything about this woman disgusted him. He felt sick to his stomach thinking of all the people who would read a book going into greater detail about how he became a villain that destroyed the world.

‘I doubt this will make you feel any better but I didn’t submit my original draft. I modified the changed one to make it fit the story more but more or less I told people what actually happened’ Juliet wrote back.

Rukelion was stunned. How was that supposed to make him feel better?! Telling the truth was even worse than making up lies because people would judge him for what he had truly done instead of whatever nonsense she came up with.

‘You better pray I never see you again’ he typed back before blocking iraforever.

He was so furious it took every scrap of his willpower and the breathing exercises he had been taught not to set the entire school ablaze. It was very lucky he was hiding out in a forgotten back corner of the library where no one could see him freaking out.

How dare she? HOW DARE SHE?! After everything Juliet did, why did her tiny brain come up with the terrible idea to tell the truth?

She should have considered herself lucky to be alive and left it at that. She shouldn’t have messed with things that were absolutely none of her business but she was always an evil little busybody determined to ruin his life solely because she wrote him to be a villain.. Her prejudice was ruining his life yet again.