2
Nine days later.
Crossweil glanced at the clock on the wall of his home.
“…Why am I even keeping an eye on the time?” he commented.
The rendezvous had been thrust upon him without his consent. He had work that day, of course…or rather, he should have been at work. They’d ended up leaving in the afternoon. The Imperial higher-ups wanted another inspection, and so, he and the rest of the miners had been shooed away from the site.
“Can’t help but think it’s the Crown Prince doing something behind the scenes…”
It was three in the afternoon. He’d gone every time he’d been called by the prince, but he had a growing suspicion their relationship was warping into one of servitude. That was when he’d started to get cold feet.
“…Tsk. Fine. If he just wants to meet, then I’ll at least do that.”
He stood up, his body leaden. He decided to buy a snack on the way from one of the stalls. Crossweil wondered how the prince would think of a commoner’s snack.
“Hey, Crow.” As he was thinking that, Eve returned home. “Could you repair the roof?”
“What?”
“According to the weather report, there’s supposed to be a big storm tonight. That spot you fixed up earlier came loose, and we’ve got a draft coming in.”
Wait, he almost said out loud, barely stopping himself. The timing was just awful.
“Um, but I have plans right now…”
“Your priority should be fixing up that roof.”
“…”
He couldn’t say anything.
She was right. He knew about the storm forecast, too. The patch coming off and resulting draft were both his mistakes, after all.
But he had plans…
“We’re counting on you. Alice and I are going to shop for tonight’s dinner.”
“……Got it,” he said. His voice was weak, but that was all he could say.
Just like his sister had said, the roof was leaky. He finished in half the time, likely because he had experience now.
However…
It was five.
By the time he put away the tools, it was too late.
“…”
The sky above was full of bulky, gloomy rain clouds.
He couldn’t tell when it would start pouring. Even the passersby on the main road were walking quickly, as though they were wary of the rain.
“I never managed to make it…”
It was an hour after the meeting time. He’d stood up the Crown Prince. The prince also was so busy he only had the chance to sneak out of his residence after a nine-day wait. There was no way he would have been able to stay more than an hour for the meeting. He probably wasn’t there at the empty lot anymore.
As a commoner who stood up the prince, after they had already waited days for their schedule to open up, Crossweil had likely used up all the Yunmelngen’s goodwill.
Yes. It was the prince’s first outing in nine days.
“Uh…wait.”
But then he realized there was another way of thinking about it. Until then, he had only been seeing it from his own perspective, so it hadn’t fully occurred to him.
…He decided on the time without even asking me.
…And I’ve even complained about how he never takes my schedule into account.
In that case, had Crossweil ever thought about the Crown Prince’s schedule?
“He made time in his busy schedule…and he chose to spend that time with me.”
The prince’s limited free time was more valuable than even an entire fortune. Considering that, how could he just write the prince off and assume Yunmelngen had gone straight home?
Crossweil had no idea if Yunmelngen had already left.
“Uh!”
Before he even realized what he was doing, Crossweil had practically kicked down the front door and sprinted outside.
He ran as fast as he could down the main street. He ran past the workers and families on their way home, toward the Eleventh Avenue dead end, and was out of breath.
“Haah…ugh…haah…uh……”
It was half past five now.
He arrived at the dead end’s small clearing just as it was growing dark.
There crouched Yunmelngen, unmoving and surrounded by kittens.
“…”
Crossweil had no idea whether it was his ragged breathing or footsteps that gave him away, but
the moment Yunmelngen noticed he was there; the prince raised his face.
Crossweil couldn’t tell if the prince was angry or forlorn. His eyes were filled with an eddy of emotions that never quite tipped to one side or the other.
“Um…”
As those giant eyes stared straight at Crossweil, he could only scratch the back of his head.
“…Sorry. I ran a little late.”
He didn’t bother mentioning the roof he had repaired. The excuse would have meant nothing to the prince, after all.
“This is a first for us,” Yunmelngen murmured in a small voice. He sighed. “This is the first time in our life this has happened, that anyone has reneged on a promise and made us wait for eternity.”
“…”
“I see. So this empty feeling is what it feels like to have a promise broken. We have learned something new today…and that some things are better left never learned at all. We will consider this new insight to be enough for this meeting.”
The Crown Prince looked up at the rain clouds. Droplets were falling down onto his blue bangs.
“It’s raining. Did you finish repairing the roof in time?”
“……Huh?!”
“Well, of course we would look into who you are and where you live. We would never simply meet with a person we didn’t know.” Finally, finally, Yunmelngen’s lips formed a slight smile. “But we must go home now. We are quite busy and have yet another meeting to attend this evening.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Really now.” The prince sighed.
He had produced a comm contained in a tasteful small box.
“We had someone buy this for us. It’s the LinLin-X6, the newest model available. If you plan on being late, you ought to send an apology.”
The prince thrust it at him.
“…This is for me?”
“Make sure to keep it with you always,” Yunmelngen continued. “We have also inputted our private address in the contacts.”
Crossweil hadn’t been expecting this at all. He had thought the prince would cast him aside, but instead he made it easier to meet each other.
“Also, as you know, we are the Crown Prince, so the vassals will become suspicious if you call us too often.”
“…I wouldn’t just ring you up,” Crossweil said.
“You must answer within five seconds of our call,” Yunmelngen added.
“Now that’s unreasonable!”
“And you may not include any other addresses in the contacts.”
“Those are some unreasonable demands! …Then again, I don’t have anyone else I’d call regularly.”
His sisters wouldn’t have an expensive comm like this. Neither would his friends at the excavation site.
“Then until next time,” Yunmelngen said. “Two in the afternoon, eight days from now!”
As the rain began to pour down, Yunmelngen ran toward the main street with only his hat to protect him from the rain.
Crossweil saw the eccentric prince off, then headed home in the pelting rain.
“I’m home,” he said.
“What the heck, Crow! Where did you go in the middle of this downpour?!”
“Why, you’re soaking wet, Crow!” Alice shouted.
The sisters rushed to his side as soon as he entered.
“What’s gotten into you?! We need to get you changed before you catch a cold!”
“I-it’s okay, I’m fine,” he said as Alicerose handed him a towel. On the other hand, Eve let out a lofty chuckle and her eyes had an odd glint to them.
“I know what happened, Alice!” she declared. “It must be a girl! He’s just come back from a secret lovers’ tryst!”
“Crow was with a girl?! So you were out on a date, then?!”
“No!”
He’d just been talking. There hadn’t been any dating involved. He also wasn’t even certain whether the person he was meeting was male or female.
“I see. Uh-huh. So you’ve got a girlfriend. Hee-hee. You’ve grown up, Crow,” Alicerose said. “Agh! I think I feel more embarrassed than you do about it!”
“…Wait, why are you blushing?” Crossweil asked. “And also, I don’t have a girlfriend to begin with.”
“You’d better introduce her, Crow. And tell us who she is!”
“Like I said, there’s no one!”
That night, Crossweil was further interrogated by his bright-eyed sisters about the person he was meeting.
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