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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: How the Prince Makes Friends
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"Will he hate me?"
"We hit him with the carriage, Your Highness. I really thought he was a corpse. Even if that kid's some kind of saintly gentleman, he's not going to like the person who nearly killed him."
"Yeah, I figured..."
"And before that... I never expected you to confess like that out of nowhere. For a second there, I thought you'd fallen for the kid and nearly had a heart attack."
"I just really want to make a friend... and it was my first time actually asking someone to be friends, so I got nervous..."
Sir Evan shook his head with a sigh and continued.
"He's a wandering orphan to begin with. A literal beggar, one of the common folk. Not someone who can be friends with a prince."
The prince nodded vigorously. It wasn't wrong.
I'm a prince, and he's a beggar, so we can't be friends. That's just how it is.
"But I asked him first. So if he says he wants to be friends with me, I have to let him."
"Pardon...?"
"It'd be one thing if he said no, but since I asked first..."
"And you didn't exactly confess right either, Your Highness. He already turned you down."
"No."
The prince was firm.
I didn't get rejected.
It definitely wasn't a rejection.
He'd lost so much blood and had just come to, so he was probably half-delirious.
Besides, I didn't even introduce myself properly. You have to introduce yourself when you first meet someone, but I skipped that part.
I'm a prince, even if I'm a powerless one!
He probably just doesn't know who I am yet. Once I tell him I'm a prince, he'll be honored and beg to be my friend.
"He was just startled because I confessed wrong. I just need to introduce myself properly first."
"But Your Highness, we can't bring a commoner into the palace even as a play attendant."
"Then what do we do?"
"Even if we treat him well, servant's the best he can hope for."
"But he's too young to be a servant, and they won't take him without papers anyway. And I want to be friends with him, not use him as a servant. What if he says he doesn't want to be a servant?"
"He does seem like the type who'd refuse to do servant work. In that case, we'd have no choice but to hand him some compensation and send him on his way."
"What?"
"We can't help it. It's impossible to bring him into the palace. We can't exactly lock him up and raise him in secret like some wild animal. Just give him a generous payout."
"But...!"
But he got hit by our carriage because of me—he nearly died!
I said let's be friends, then hit him again to knock him out and dragged him into the carriage on my own whim. I can't just kick him out on another whim.
Whether he understood my confession as "let's be friends" or not, I acted selfishly, so kicking him out selfishly now would be wrong.
Yeah, this is about a prince's pride!
"Absolutely not!"
"Why not?"
"He has no home, no clothes, no food. It's still cold out there, and bad people might steal whatever money we give him! What if he barely survives only to die again soon after?"
He hadn't died yet, so talking about dying "again" didn't make sense, but the prince pushed on firmly.
This wasn't about wanting to be friends—it was a matter of princely pride!
"I told you, if you can't take responsibility for a little animal, don't pick it up!"
"That's exactly why we shouldn't have picked him up recklessly. We should send him away."
"We already did pick him up and put him in the carriage. So we have to take responsibility."
Sir Evan let out a deep sigh.
The kid in the carriage might not even want to be friends, but it looked like our baby kitten had taken a liking to him.
Still, judging by his attitude—speaking so casually to a prince who clearly screamed nobility from head to toe, on top of his foul mouth—he wasn't the easygoing type. It would be a disaster if bringing home this feral wildcat ended up hurting our tender-hearted kitten.
"He might've been doomed to freeze to death in this late frost anyway. Even if he hadn't gotten hit by the carriage today, his belly might've swollen from starvation, or he could've been beaten to death for stealing food. Your Highness doesn't need to take responsibility. It was mostly his fault for jumping in front of the carriage to begin with."
"But... but..."
Our baby kitten seemed unwilling to let go of his new find, fidgeting restlessly and repeating "but..." while muttering "the world's dangerous out there."
"Your Highness, as a knight, my gut says that kid might have a rough life ahead, but he won't die easily. He's pretty enough that if he wants a job, he can get one no problem."
He's probably out there wandering because he doesn't want one.
"Pretty enough to get a job easily?"
The prince tilted his head. If being pretty meant easy jobs, surely this kid could snag one right away. Everyone would want him.
"People like pretty things, don't they? Well... like in a brothel or something..."
"What?"
The guard knight's mention of a brothel was a mere whisper, but the sharp-eared prince caught it clearly. He jumped up and flung open the window toward the driver's seat, smacking the knight's back repeatedly. It probably didn't even tickle the knight, but the prince wanted to make his feelings perfectly clear.
He quickly shut the window again, worried the cold wind might bother the injured boy, but he sternly warned the knight not to say such things.
"That's life for the common folk. Powerless ones who are pretty get kidnapped and sold, or dragged off by their own parents and sold, or maybe they catch some pervert noble's eye and end up as a page, doted on and all."
Though they'd be raised like birds in a cage.
"Why can he be a noble's page but not my play attendant? And why does it have to be a pervert noble?"
"We can't because there are other royals in the palace. As for the pervert part... something about him seems feisty. He wouldn't do page duty unless he was kidnapped or something."
"Then just tell him to be my friend!"
"I told you, it's impossible inside the palace."
"I don't wanna be a prince anymore."
"Your Highness, even so, a commoner won't do."
Why can't a commoner work?
I just need someone to talk to.
Someone who speaks my language.
The prince felt hurt that even his one and only guard knight wouldn't understand his feelings and spoke so firmly. Tears started welling up unbidden.
I'm not asking for much. Just one real friend.
"I... I don't wanna be royal anymore. What's the point of being royal... I can't even make friends my way, the nobles are too busy watching the queen and Tesaurus Duke, the play attendants all run off crying 'sorry,' my wet nurse died from poison because of me... instead of me... And today at the duke's mansion... Older Brother... sob, I got tricked again like an idiot. hic, I just wanted a friend to talk swordsmanship with... sob, waaah!"
"Whoa, Your Highness, are you crying?"
"Waaaaah!"
The knight in the driver's seat panicked hard. This was the boy who always stifled his sobs alone no matter how upset he got, but now he was wailing loud enough to shake the carriage.
He was crying so pitifully that the knight, still holding the reins, could only glance back helplessly, unsure what to do.
"Even my guard knight's like this! I'm a prince, but Sir Evan's my only guard. No one volunteers to protect the unsupported 2nd Prince... Older Brother always has two with him, but me, me! sob, waaah!"
Sir Evan, the prince's sole guard knight, finally had no choice but to stop the carriage. He'd just realized too late that he was the only one who could comfort him.
He'd thought silently guarding the quietly weeping prince was enough, but clearly not.
He was a prince, sure—but still just a 7-year-old boy.
All that pomp about upholding royal dignity was worthless. It wasn't about commoners or slaves; the prince just needed someone of his own.
The moment Sir Evan hopped down from the driver's seat to soothe his wailing kitten and opened the carriage door,
Whoosh—
Something flew past with a whoosh and covered the prince.
"Your Highness!"
Sir Evan reached out in alarm, but what had covered the prince was none other than the prince's own cloak.
"Shut up."
A hoarse, cracking voice drew their eyes.
The prince had worried about hypothermia from all the blood loss and personally draped his cloak carefully over him, yet this feral wildcat they'd picked up—who'd been on death's door moments ago—had gotten up and promptly flung the cloak back at their precious prince, showing the peak of ingratitude.
"You ungrateful wretch! How dare you treat the prince like that!"
"Ungrateful? You hit someone with a carriage and now you're yapping."
"Gasp, hic."
Startled by the sudden cloak attack, the baby kitten clutched it tight, peeking out with eyes like amber and emerald, blinking.
He was still hiccuping a little, but whether from surprise or whatever, Sir Evan glared at the rude wildcat as the kitten's crying nearly stopped.
He'd been about to comfort him himself, but the wildcat had stopped the tears in such a rude way—it felt like his role had been stolen, and he was annoyed.
The prince's heterochromatic eyes darted about busily. Whether embarrassed at being caught crying, or remembering how he'd knocked the boy out, he alternated glances between the black-opal-eyed kid sitting across from him and his sole guard knight, rolling his eyes to gauge the mood.
A brief silence fell. Just as Sir Evan stepped in to smooth things over, the impatient kitten mustered his courage and spoke up again.
"I-I'm a prince."
"...So?"
"Wanna be my friend?"
"No."
Oh, Your Highness...
The lone guard knight who witnessed that brutally short exchange let out a sigh and buried his face in his palm.
You rotten kid, you heartless jerk. Couldn't you at least pretend to think it over? Did you have to reject him so bluntly? How dare you turn down our adorable prince asking to be friends!
Our clumsy kitten, so bad at making friends, had been shot down twice today alone.