TBRFC 08

Chapter 08

“What?”

Still seated on the floor, I lifted my head.

Across from me, a boy who looked three or four years older than I was had fallen over.

“What the heck? You can’t just throw a door open and run out like that. I could’ve gotten hurt.”

The boy frowned at me.

I immediately sprang to my feet.

A throbbing pain shot through my palm.

I must have reopened the wound when I fell, because blood was beginning to seep out.

I heard the boy inhale sharply.

“…Blood?”

I casually wiped my hand against my clothes as if it were nothing.

Then I looked at him.

“Sorry. I didn’t know someone was outside.”

The boy stared at me like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

I hurriedly added,

“You’ll accept my apology, right? But you should apologize too. It was your fault too.”

His eyes widened.

I pointed toward the door and continued,

“You shouldn’t just open a door when you don’t know who’s inside.”

“You seriously…”

“Come on, let’s apologize! Then we can shake hands and make up.”

Then I tilted my head.

‘Wait a second.’

Now that I looked closer, the boy’s appearance was anything but ordinary.

Glossy black hair and crimson eyes.

The lines of his face—from his eyes down to his nose and lips—were impossibly refined.

‘He’s definitely not common-looking. Why does he seem familiar?’

The boy was, quite literally, stunningly beautiful.

Even at such a young age, he had the sorrowful, fragile aura of someone burdened by a tragic past.

“You. Don’t you know who I am?”

The boy asked in a low voice.

I frowned.

‘How would I know who you are?’

Still, just in case, I examined his face more carefully.

Naturally, my gaze drifted to his clothes.

A shirt woven from obviously expensive fabric.

A lavish black-and-gold vest layered over it.

Silver embroidery decorated the shoulders, and every button was made of pearl.

Most of all—

the diamond brooch shaped like a holy grail pinned to his chest.

‘Huh? Come to think of it…’

I froze.

A grail.

What did that symbol stand for again?

The imperial family, wasn’t it?

‘If that’s the case…’

Tilting my head, I muttered softly,

“…Deposed Crown Prince Tian?”

Then I immediately slapped a hand over my mouth.

Because only then did it hit me—

now that I had regressed, this boy wasn’t a “deposed” crown prince yet.

Tian Lacteas Carillonia.

He was the only imperial prince of the Taranta Empire.

But as far as I knew, he never inherited the throne in the end.

Not long after the current imperial consort gave birth to the second prince, Tian was stripped of his position.

‘I expected as much. His empress mother is dead, so of course he has no backing.’

‘But the Empress Dowager still supports him, doesn’t she?’

‘The Empress Dowager’s support means nothing to a deposed crown prince. What can an old woman hidden away in the rear palace possibly do?’

I remembered clearly the conversation the Duke of Longton and his sons had while raising a toast on the day Tian lost his title.

‘Honestly, this works out better. We might as well start siding with Consort Karin and her new prince.’

Tian was removed from his position because he was supposedly violent and unstable.

At the time, rumors had quietly spread throughout the empire—

that Tian had killed attendants,

that despite his young age he was already obsessed with women, and so on.

“Deposed crown prince…?”

As expected, an icy voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

I looked up.

The crown prince was staring directly at me, his red eyes gleaming sharply.

‘T-This is bad.’

They said Tian had been deposed because of his violent temperament.

If the stories I heard in my previous life were true, then I was definitely in trouble.

“H-Hold on, I—”

I barely managed to open my mouth before the crown prince stepped closer.

Then he abruptly grabbed my wrist and yanked me toward him.

His grip was so strong my wrist instantly began to ache.

“You know you can’t say things like that carelessly, right?”

I frantically shook my head.

Of course I knew!

That had been a complete mistake.

Ridiculous as it sounded, ever since returning to childhood, words kept slipping out before I could think them through.

Especially when I was hungry.

It felt like my thoughts bypassed my brain and jumped straight out of my mouth.

On top of that, the memories from my past and present lives were hopelessly tangled together.

“Sometimes a simple slip of the tongue is enough to get your head cut off.”

As he spoke, the crown prince suddenly raised his other hand.

‘Whoa, he’s really going to hit me!’

I reflexively squeezed my eyes shut.

But no impact came.

When I cautiously opened my eyes, I saw him using the raised hand to shut the door with a click.

Then, without explanation, he dragged me deeper into the room.

After placing me beside the bed, the crown prince walked to the window and checked outside.

Then he even drew the curtains before turning back to me.

“How old are you?”

“…Huh?”

“I asked how old you are.”

I froze for a moment before hesitantly answering.

“F-Four…”

The crown prince sighed deeply and pressed one hand to his forehead.

His other hand rested on his waist.

If he hadn’t looked so ridiculously handsome, the pose might actually have looked cute.

“Who else did you say that to?”

“…”

“I mean the ‘deposed crown prince’ thing.”

My eyes widened.

“You do know you can’t say that to anyone, right? If you’re unlucky, even a kid your age could be executed!”

He lowered his voice.

“Of course I know people are saying I’ll be deposed sooner or later.”

“…?”

“But right now I’m still the crown prince. So you need to be careful, don’t you? If a child not even five years old gets executed, then… ha…”

At first I was confused, but slowly his intentions became clear.

‘Wait… is he actually…’

“If a little kid like you got executed, everyone would just love that, wouldn’t they? Yeah. And I’d feel fantastic too.”

I stared at him blankly, utterly dumbfounded.

They said he was violent. That he lusted after women.

But the crown prince standing before me…

seemed nothing like those rumors.

“So basically, you were heading to the kitchen because you were hungry.”

“Yes.”

I nodded while chewing on the dried meat the crown prince had given me.

He smiled awkwardly and cleared his throat.

“Ahem. Then I guess you’re pretty grateful I gave you a snack.”

I stared at him blankly.

‘What’s this? Is he fishing for praise after giving it to me?’

But despite that, the crown prince looked incredibly pleased.

As if watching me enjoy the food he’d shared made him genuinely happy.

‘How does a kid like this grow up into a tyrant?’

At this point, it seemed far more reasonable that there had been another reason behind Tian’s downfall in my previous life.

After pondering for a while, I finally looked up.

There was something I’d wanted to ask him for some time now.

“But why are you here, Your Highness?”

The crown prince, who had been crouching nearby, turned toward me.

Then he fell silent.

After hesitating for a long while, he finally spoke quietly.

“Ahem, it’s nothing really—”

I perked up my ears to listen.

But then—

“Your Highness! What in the world are you doing here?!”

The door burst open and an elderly man rushed inside.

He wore the uniform of a palace servant.

“We searched the east wing and the west wing! There isn’t a single room we haven’t checked! How could you run off just because you received a minor scolding?!”

The man strode forward and roughly grabbed the crown prince by the arm.

Then he yanked him upright.

My eyes widened as I looked up at them.

“Do you have any idea how furious Consort Karin was?! And imagine how disappointed His Majesty the Emperor will be when he hears of this!”

My mouth slowly fell open.

“Come with me this instant! Because of you, I’m going to get scolded again!”

“W-Wait a second.”

In the end, I finally spoke up.

Only then did the servant seem to notice me.

I turned to look first at the crown prince’s expression.

The shy face from earlier—the one that had blushed while giving me jerky—was completely gone.

He had turned deathly pale, eyes lowered halfway, his whole body trembling faintly.

‘What kind of situation is this?’

The crown prince was four years older than me.

So he should be eight years old right now.

‘And the empress died three years ago…’

The suspicion forming in my mind was so absurd that I lost my appetite entirely.

I quickly wedged myself between the servant and the crown prince.

Then I frowned fiercely and shouted,

“Mister! What do you think you’re doing right now?!”