Chapter 8: What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

Gapon could not understand the deluge of letters that had been pouring in like mad lately.

-I would like to know how I might speak with Professor M.

-If at all possible, could the Professor be invited to London?

-If an invitation is impossible, then please, at least a sequel to his last contributed article…

Had the article he’d sent really been that remarkable?

Of course, he knew it was nothing a 7-year-old could possibly have come up with, and that it was an extremely profound discussion.

But that was as far as it went.

Gapon had polished the material Mikhail gave him into presentable sentences, but he had no idea what situation the socialist activists currently found themselves in, nor what dilemmas weighed on their minds.

So there was no way he could know that what Mikhail had written struck with pinpoint accuracy at the very problems facing Lenin and the other socialist activists.

“Hah, what on earth is going on here….”

As he sighed over the letters piled up in his room, there came a sudden knock at the door.

“Georgy! How have you been?”

“Pavel, what brings you here?”

Though his friend had a foot in the socialist movement, Gapon himself did not share the ideology, so the two of them never argued deeply over their beliefs.

They were closer to old friends of many years who met now and then to catch up.

Still, since Pavel had been the contact courier he’d used to send Mikhail’s article to London, their friendship ran fairly deep in its own way.

“What brings you here?”

“Well, there’s something I absolutely have to ask you.”

The moment Pavel sat down, he leaned forward and opened his mouth.

“Georgy. That article you asked me to send to London the other day.”

“…What about it?”

“You know, don’t you? Who this M person actually is.”

Gapon blinked.

Now even this fellow was coming at him with this.

“Well, that’s… but didn’t you say last time you weren’t all that interested?”

“That was before I’d read it properly! The comrades in Petersburg are in an absolute uproar right now. Ever since that article ran, London hasn’t stopped writing. Let us speak with this Professor M, invite him to London, it’s complete chaos over there. You must have received the requests too, so surely you know?”

“And that’s why I told you last time that M cannot go.”

“That’s why I came in person, isn’t it? Who on earth is M? A scholar? Someone from one of the universities?”

Gapon was at a loss for words.

…As if I could ever tell him that.

No, wait. Honestly, would he even believe me?

‘That Professor M you’re so curious about is, in fact, a seven-year-old boy.’

If he told the truth, Pavel would obviously either treat him as a madman or assume he was joking.

“Pavel. I’m sorry, but I cannot tell you anything about his identity. Please understand.”

“Georgy. Aren’t we on the same side? When it comes to keeping secrets, I’m even more thorough than you….”

“No, no. That’s not the problem. Truly… I am simply not in a position to say. Please bear with me.”

Pavel studied Gapon’s face intently, then finally sighed and nodded.

“I see… so that’s it. For a priest like you to keep his mouth shut this tightly… you learned of him through confession, didn’t you?”

“Hrk… hmmm.”

“Ah… so that was it. Forgive me, that was terribly thoughtless of me.”

No, that wasn’t it either.

He had only hesitated because his private meetings with Mikhail had always used confession as the pretext.

But since he had to keep the secret even at the cost of his life, if Pavel chose to misunderstand things that way, there was no need to correct him.

As a man destined for the priesthood he could not speak a lie, but if the other side drew the wrong conclusion all on its own, wasn’t that all the better?

Yet even after Pavel left, the deluge of letters did not stop.

If anything, the pile that accumulated each day only kept growing.

When this much correspondence was flowing back and forth, no matter how careful one was, it was bound to catch the Okhrana’s eye eventually.

Young Master Mikhail was a child and would never fall under suspicion, but he himself was another matter.

The letters were all coming to him, so if this got out, wasn’t he the one who’d take the fall for everything?

In the end, there was only one way to quiet that clamor.

“Young Master… would the sequel to that article you sent last time happen to be ready, by any chance?”

“Of course. I’m writing it now.”

Right. Once the next installment was sent, those ravenous wretches would surely settle down.

…There was a time when he believed that, too.

Sadly.

* * *

Naturally, telling Gapon I would give him a second article was no lie.

But according to Seong-jun’s knowledge, publishing the next piece called for taking my time a while longer.

The timing of when the socialists, Lenin in particular, would need a revelation had to be measured that much more perfectly.

In the meantime, I could keep up my act as the greatest prodigy the world had ever seen and earn the imperial family’s trust.

Since I no longer needed to hold back, I showed off my knowledge freely in the lessons I shared with my younger sisters.

And in my private lessons with the Chief Procurator, who had been visiting noticeably often of late, I deliberately dropped the bait that the reason I studied so hard was that I had a dream.

“Misha, how do you solve this one?”

After the Latin lesson that had by now become practically a daily routine, Olga held her textbook out to me with a face that said she couldn’t make head or tail of it.

I skimmed the sentence she pointed to and explained it on the spot.

“This verb here takes an ablative object, so the ending of this noun changes like this.”

“Wow! I see. Misha, you’re amazing! How do you know it right away like that?”

“Um… it’s just in the book, that’s all.”

“Misha reads so fast. I think Misha reads five pages in the time it takes me to read one.”

“Misha, you’re a genius!”

Tatiana, listening beside us, clapped along and smiled innocently.

-Ooh, look at you… getting props from a bunch of seven-year-olds. Guess you really are a genius.

Seong-jun’s voice needled inside my head.

-So how’s it feel, getting compliments from seven- and six-year-old Russian princesses, genius big brother Misha?

I’d ribbed him recently about his strategy being useless, and now he was openly trying to get back at me?

-No, I’m just describing the objective situation. This subtle little picture of a seven-year-old being hailed as amazing by another seven-year-old.

Let’s get the facts straight. I’m still seven too, you know?

Thanks to some damn ghost’s memories, my brain alone got force-aged an extra 30 years; strictly speaking, I’m the same age as Olga.

-Huh, is that right. Now that I actually think about it, that’s kind of sad, man.

The nerve of him, talking like it’s somebody else’s problem.

Olga stared at my face, then tilted her head.

“Misha, what are you muttering to yourself? And why is your face like that?”

“It’s nothing, Princess Olga.”

“Hehe, Misha makes weird faces by himself sometimes. It’s kind of cute, though.”

…Cute, she says.

I am very much your older brother, I’ll have you know.

-Misha, how’s it feel being called cute by your little sister?

Better to just ignore him.

Pay him any more mind, and I’m the one who ends up looking like a weirdo.

And so the peaceful days kept piling up.

In lessons I solved every problem the tutors set before me without a hitch, and in conversations with the Chief Procurator I picked out exactly the words Russian conservatives most wanted to hear.

Until the news of just how hard I was studying flowed naturally all the way to the Tsar’s ears.

And a few days later, a rare family dinner was held with the Empress and all four daughters in attendance.

“So Misha has come too. Here, sit down.”

As a servant showed me in, the Tsar warmly gestured toward the empty seat.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Olga and Tatiana waved at me with delighted faces, and three-year-old Maria waved her tiny hand from her nursemaid’s lap.

The only person without any expression was the Empress across the table.

The cold gaze she turned on me was the same as ever.

At first it had sent chills down my spine, but now all I could think was that she’d better watch out for dry eye; people really are creatures of adaptation.

When the meal had progressed a fair way, the Tsar abruptly tossed a question at the children.

“How are your studies these days? None of you finding it too hard?”

“It’s hard for me, Papa! Latin is really difficult!”

Olga puffed her cheeks slightly as she complained, then glanced over at me.

“But Misha is really smart. Whenever I ask him something I don’t know, he answers right away. And he studies so hard, too. The servants said they saw him reading books until dawn.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Misha is really amazing!”

When Tatiana chimed in as well, the Tsar’s face lit up with a contented smile.

The Empress beside him, meanwhile, dabbed her mouth with her napkin and spoke in a tone of admiration so exaggerated anyone could see through it.

“My goodness, to think you study that hard… how impressive, Young Master Misha. But is there a reason you push yourself quite so hard? Could it be… you have some great dream you wish to achieve?”

…So she asked after all.

After all my earnest appeals to Chief Procurator Pobedonostsev, of course she couldn’t help but take notice.

Her tone was affectionate, but the thorns hidden in that loaded question were plain to see.

Why is a child driving himself this hard, what is he after, she was dying to know, and it showed far too nakedly, didn’t it?

The oblivious Tsar, of course, just sat across the table smiling in satisfaction.

“Ho ho, indeed. I’m curious too, Misha. May we hear what your dream is?”

With both Their Majesties personally asking, how could I not answer?

Ahh, and I hadn’t wanted to reveal it in a place like this.

Listen well, then, and don’t go repeating it anywhere, because it’s embarrassing.

I quietly set down the fork resting on the table and raised my head.

“Actually, His Excellency the Chief Procurator has always asked me that as well.”

“Oh? Did you tell him?”

“No. I was too embarrassed to say much. The truth is, while doing my volunteer work and my studies, I realized something. There are far more bad people in the world than you would think.”

A momentary silence fell over the table.

“…So what is your dream, Misha?”

The Empress’s voice dropped a register.

“Yes. I want to become a policeman. I heard there are police who catch the people spreading that bad ideology called socialism. My dream is to become someone like that, someone who can protect Your Majesties and the Princesses.”

“…….”

“Misha…….”

The answer must have been beyond anything he’d imagined, for Nicholas II stared at me blankly.

Even the Empress seemed genuinely surprised this time, her lips slightly parted, unable to continue.

“Wow! Misha says he’ll protect us.”

“A policeman! Misha, so cool!”

Only the praise of my two innocent little sisters embroidered the hushed dinner table.

A son who had lived his whole life in poverty, devoting himself to his studies night and day to become a secret policeman, all to repay the kindness of the father who had taken him in.

“Truly… truly, thank you.”

Nicholas II, his eyes already bloodshot, nodded fervently.

“You can become one. Of course! Of course you can.”

Honestly, no parent alive could hold back tears at that.

“Papa, are you crying?”

“Don’t cry, Papa. Waaah.”

“No. Papa isn’t crying; I just laughed so much the tears came out, that’s all.”

“Really? Hehe, Papa, you’re amazing! So tears come out when you laugh too much.”

“Hahaha! Of course, of course! I’m in such a wonderful mood today.”

Laughter rang on in the Alexander Palace late into the night.

And as I watched them, a faint smile gradually spread across my face as well.

What could I do.

Flawed as they might be, everyone here was my family.

Bound together in the shared fate called Romanov, all I could do was design a future where we all made it out alive together.

And I, no one else, would drag that future into reality.