IDHT 38

Chapter 38

“Friends? We’re calling ourselves friends?”
“Yeah, friends. I think that sounds good.”

Alexei snorted, but Angelina clapped her hands in delight.

“You’re saying you want to be friends with some foreigner whose origins we don’t even know?”
“What a hurtful thing to say, Your Highness.”
“Think about it, Alex. Siblings have to match stories down to every little family detail, but friends don’t.”
Angelina offered her reasoning with surprising logic.

“You actually make a good point.”
“Even so…”
“Besides, Franz doesn’t really feel like a younger brother.”

“It’s just because my face got tanned in the sun. I look exactly my age.”

Despite Franz’s protest, Alexei merely nodded, apparently convinced by Angelina’s explanation.

Franz felt oddly offended, though he couldn’t show it.

In any case, things were moving in the direction he wanted.

“Let’s say we’re moderately close hometown friends. I came because I admired the Tordi Empire. We need to earn points with the people here, right?”
“Sounds good.”
“You should say ‘Sounds great.’”
“Huh?”
“Even if it’s a made-up story, we’re still supposed to be friends. Stop using formal speech and talk casually.”

Franz was startled by the bold suggestion. He had brought up the idea first, but only for when other people were around.

“Angel, that’s…”
“We can’t afford mistakes. If Franz slips up, we’ll all be in danger. Right?”
“……”
“And if someone catches on by accident, it’ll be over. Better not give them any opening in the first place.”
“How could I possibly speak casually to the Crown Prince? Though perhaps the gracious Crown Princess would be another matter.”
“……”
“If it’s too much for Alex, then maybe just with me?”
“Should I?”

Watching the Crown Prince’s expression change by the second, Franz laughed inwardly.

He could understand it logically, but emotionally he couldn’t accept it.

Someone raised within a rigid hierarchy couldn’t simply cast it off overnight.

Knowing that, Franz had no intention of following Angelina’s proposal.

He only wanted to tease Alexei a little.

“I was going to, but honestly I think I’d be too uncomfortable. I’ll just try my best not to slip up or get caught. Trust me.”
“Can’t be helped.”

Unlike the disappointed Angelina, Alexei regained his composure. He cleared his throat before adding,

“At least drop the title ‘Crown Prince’ when we’re alone.”
“Alright.”

The meeting continued in a gentler atmosphere.

“Let’s say our hometown is a rural village in the Kingdom of Rio. We’ll each come up with our own family circumstances. But we should know the basics about each other.”
“Right now?”
“We still have time before reaching Is.”

Alexei believed no time should ever be wasted.

Tick-tock. Time passed in thought.

“I’ll go first.”

Angelina volunteered first.

For her, it was easy. She didn’t need imagination. She only had to embellish reality a little.

“My parents run a chicken farm. My older brother left for the city because he didn’t want to inherit the family business. I was left drowning in endless housework and poverty. My father drinks heavily sometimes, and when he’s drunk, he gets rough with his hands. But generally, he’s a good person.”
“That counts as a good person?”
“That’s what my mother always said. She said Father was kind because even when he broke things, he never hurt people.”

The two men had no response. They only wondered why her story sounded so painfully real.

“Who’s next?”
“I’ll go.”

Alexei stepped forward.

“My father is… ill.”

Amen.

Angelina clasped her hands together, and Franz made the sign of the cross.

Despite their playful gestures, Alexei remained serious.

“My mother manages and oversees my father’s business. Someday I’ll have to take over.”
“The son of a businessman being close enough to travel with the daughter of a chicken farmer?”
“Our mothers are acquaintances.”
“Ah… so the businessman’s wife and the chicken farmer’s wife are friends.”
“My mother has done charity work for years. She believes people matter more than class.”

“What about you, Franz?”

After a brief pause, Franz spoke.

“I don’t have parents.”
“Ah…”

The two let out quiet exclamations as Franz continued.

“I’ve been alone for as long as I can remember. I don’t even know when or how my parents died.”
“That’s a lie. They would’ve sent you to an orphanage.”
“Even for a fake story, that’s unrealistic.”

After Angelina, even Alexei reacted skeptically.

“That’s all you have to say to such a tragic story?”
“I did feel a little emotional. If your goal was to provoke sympathy, then you succeeded.”
“I don’t like stories that try too hard to squeeze tears out of people.”

Alexei crossed his arms.

“I’m not done yet. I lived alone… well, with my nanny.”
“Wasn’t she actually your mother?”
“She really was my nanny. She was a kind person. She also had nowhere else to go.”
“Hm…”

“We survived by helping with village work. Then two years ago, she died from illness, and I became completely alone.”
“This story is way too depressing.”

Angelina summed it up with a gloomy face.

“Yours aren’t much better, you know.”

The daughter of a drunkard. The son of a ruined family. And an orphan.

Somehow, their backstories had turned into a competition over who had suffered more.

“Anyway, good enough. To summarize: three people sick of their lives heard romantic stories about the Tordi continent and impulsively boarded a ship. How’s that?”

The two men agreed with Angelina’s conclusion.

“We should come up with a code word. Something only we would know.”

This time, Alexei spoke.

In this place, practically a battlefield, they needed a way to identify each other. They also had to prepare for the possibility of being separated by unexpected accidents during the journey.

“Diamond.”
…was the beginning.

“Cuckoo.”
“Crow.”
“Magpie.”

They threw out all kinds of bird names.

“Analf.”
“Franalex.”
“Alexrina Angelatz.”

Even combinations of their names appeared.

“Ellen Street.”

Angelina suggested the name of the street where their carriage had departed. It was the fateful place where the three of them had decided to undertake this journey together. After hearing her reasoning, the two men agreed.

Before long, the carriage reached Is.

Now they needed somewhere to stay.

The three visited several inns. Since it was late at night, every place was full.

Then came the seventh inn.

“There is exactly one room left.”

The innkeeper looked the three of them up and down.

“Want it?”
“That’s really the only room?”
“Or you could share with another guest. Some people prefer that. Saves money, and they get someone to talk to.”

She wasn’t thrilled by the idea, but neither could Angelina suggest sharing a room with the two men, so she reluctantly agreed.

“Right this way.”

The moment the innkeeper opened the door, a face popped out.

“Oh my goodness.”
“Darling, I’ve been waiting.”

Gasp.

The face was pretty, but the appearance was unmistakably male.

“She likes dressing as a man.”
“……”
“She’s not a bad person.”
“That’s right, darling. Just lonely.”
“Oh, stop smiling at people like that. You scare them off right when they’re about to step inside.”

Even while being scolded by the innkeeper, the cross-dressing woman kept smiling flirtatiously at Angelina.

“Save me.”

Pale as a sheet, Angelina turned toward the two men. They shouted at the same time.

“One room is fine!”
“More than enough!”

“She really is a good person though…”

The innkeeper reluctantly handed them a single key.

Uncomfortable, but what choice did they have?

She did say it was a somewhat large room. And it wasn’t the first time they’d shared a room anyway, right?

Thinking that, Angelina opened the door.

The one remaining room had exactly one bed.

There were three people, but only one bed. And it was a single bed at that.

“So who gets the bed?”
“Obviously Angelina should use it. She’s a woman.”

Alexei answered Franz’s question.

“What does being a woman have to do with it? Let’s settle it fairly with rock-paper-scissors.”

Angelina thrust out her fist.

“Best two out of three.”

In truth, it wasn’t exactly fair.

Though it looked like a game of luck, rock-paper-scissors was really a battle of wits.

And Angelina had never once won at it.

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

Alexei won all three rounds cleanly.

Yet he refused to accept the result.

“Angel, you use it.”
“But you won.”
“Exactly. So you use it.”
“Then what was the point of playing?”
“The fact that you ended up getting it makes it meaningful to me.”

As Angelina struggled to find an appropriate response—

“Then I’ll take it.”

Franz flopped dramatically onto the bed.

“You two can get along nicely and sleep on the floor.”