Skipping the Queue
19 Kharaat (October) 2021
Bingol Royal Palace
Abuyin hated queues. He was completely unaccustomed to waiting in them. The longest one he had ever waited in was the line of succession to the imperial throne of Packilvania and the only person ahead of him was Thumim V. Now, it was just him. Unlike many people who would have to wait at most a few days, he had to wait for years. It was a wait that he was settling in for. Even though Namdun III had by this time not formally abdicated, in practice, the man was on his way out and Thumim was taking an increasingly active and prominent role in running the country. Abuyin was supposed to be groomed to be the future Crown Prince, but there seemed to be hesitation from his parents and his brother.
He took this to mean that they did not want to be overt about his father’s eventual abdication. Abuyin had not expected Khimayon’s response to his request for financial assistance to be so mean. He had known that Khimayon Dohal was a tough cookie, but he had been surprised by who deeply and swiftly he had evicerated his proposals. Being a member of the Bedon Royal Family was weird. On one hand you were part of the richest family in the world. On the other, your access to the cookie jar was gatekept by people you barely even knew.
So, Khimayon put Abuyin in a queue for the family’s fortune, a queue in which he was not keen to wait. Jasper seemed to approach the task of expediting the approval of the purchase of the factory with enthusiasm. Conversations about purchasing machinery, submitting documents and going through screening, were interspersed with Jasper’s spirited allusions to being in a formal and public relationship and working towards building a life together in the Oan Isles.
Abuyin liked Jasper a lot and he had heard that queer males in other countries were prone to rushing into relationships. But seemed a bit fast paced for Abuyin by any standard. Jasper had made it a point to let Abuyin know that he would not rush him or nag him for information about his past. But his not so subtle allusions seemed to do tend towards nagging and rushing. Abuyin expected that given how much effort Jasper was putting into helping him get the ammonium factory off the ground.
The project was a fun sidehustle for Abuyin. Despite the challenges of getting to the family coffers, he was still flush and did not need the money from a quaint business. He needed a reason to keep coming here, but it had to be convincing. The Oan Isles was beautiful especially its territory called the Kohatu Isles in the Morstaybishlian Sea. It was also a place where he could be free to do what he wanted and pursue whomsoever he chose without being caught. Starting a business with reasonable chance of success would aid him in doing that. The fact that Jasper was well connected within the Kohatu space made it that much easier to get the ball rolling. Thus, Jasper helped him jump over and skip many queues that otherwise ordinary people would have to wait in.
They were able to get the papers to register the company and purchase the factory building filed and approved faster than most. They were able to get a bank loan assessment pushed through a local bank that serviced the affluent. And Abuyin simply rode on this waves, enjoying the trips to the Oan Isles that seemed to take up quite a bit of his time. The visits at first were unremarkable and seemingly invisible. With time, people who normally ignored his exploits and let him have his privacy starting asking things like “where are you going”, “what are you going to do” and worst of all “who will you see”. Abuyin was starting to get anxious and decided that perhaps it was best to stay in the Oan Isles for a couple of months in the name of building his business, so that the back and forth between there and Packilvania would not raise eye brows. Sadly, it had.