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Alberu Crossman, Crown Prince of the Roan Kingdom, tried his best to hold in a sigh as he looked at the stack of papers on his desk. It was even taller than he was. It made him exhausted just to look at it. Unfortunately, there was a subordinate standing in front of his desk, so he couldn’t slam his head against the desk repeatedly.
“Yes?” He asked, a polite smile on his face.
“Sire, there are rumors that there is a princess stuck in a tower guarded by a dragon in the Forest of Darkness. It is thought to be Princess Rosalyn of the Breck Kingdom who went missing sometime ago. You might finally be able to find a bride!” The man said, smiling brightly back.
Directly ignoring his last sentence, Alberu leaned back in his chair, considering. The Forest of Darkness was in the Henituse Territory, which had had some stirrings about the title’s inheritance recently. Something about the eldest son, who had always been a piece of trash, suddenly waking up one day and becoming hyper-competent, and then disappearing? And now there was this rumor… Maybe he should make a trip down to the Henituse Estate. If the rumor was true, he might be able to talk the dragon into defending the Roan Kingdom’s border with Norland in the name of defending his lair. And ifPrincess Rosalyn actually was there, and he could talk the dragon into letting her go, he would be able to negotiate with the Breck Kingdom from a better position in the future.
‘Yes,’ He thought, giving a decisive nod. ‘I need to visit the Henituse Estate.’
Several weeks later, Alberu stood in front of a tall black tower. He circled it carefully, but there was no entrance that he could see, and the dragon didn’t come out to warn him away either. He now stood and stared at a long red rope that hung out of the only window he could see on the tower. After a moment of careful deliberation, Alberu grabbed the rope and began the arduous climb.
After about ten minutes, he reached the window and easily hauled himself up and through it before looking around him. The room he was in appeared to take up nearly the entire top floor of the tower. He had entered a lavish bedroom, with a ridiculously large bed that took up nearly a third of all the space. And on that gigantic bed lay a young man with long red hair that was looking at him blearily.
“Oh,” He said, blinking languidly. “That’s why my head was hurting a bit just now.”
With a dawning sense of horror, Alberu traced the ‘rope’ he had just been climbing to its source.
“Was I climbing up with your hair?!” He asked. The shock had made him lose his composure enough to let surprise and embarrassment color his voice.
“Yeah.” The young man said, still lying motionlessly on the bed. Alberu considered pointing out how disrespectful he was being, but decided to let it go on the grounds that he had just used the other’s hair as a rope to climb up a tower.
Instead, he smiled politely. “I apologize for just barging in like this. I had just heard some rather concerning rumors about this tower and I wanted to check them out myself. My name is…” Alberu paused. This man didn’t appear to know who he was, and it would be bad for his reputation if this incident was spread around. “My name is Bob.” He finished with a smooth smile.
The man smiled back in the same way. “I’m Cale Henituse.”
Alberu had been shocked more times in the past few minutes than he had in the past year. “Cale Henituse? Are you Count Henituse’s eldest son? The one who disappeared in the succession battle a year ago?”
The man’s expression finally changed into an aggrieved grimace. “There was no succession battle! I never wanted to inherit to begin with. My dream is to be a peaceful slacker! It’s why I built this tower in the first place!”
Alberu blinked. But before he could address that, a door on the wall in front of the bed burst open, letting in two kittens and… was that a baby dragon??
“Human! Human! The plant actually grew fruit! There were apples! I wanted to bring one to show you, but Choi Han said that they weren’t ripe yet and wouldn’t taste good, even in a pie!” The young black dragon said in an excited rush as it landed on Cale’s lap, the kittens jumping up to lie next to him.
The three adults who entered the room next were far more wary of Alberu. They stared at him vigilantly. Alberu looked over. There was a strong young man with black hair and black eyes, a thin young boy, and… was that Princess Rosalyn? She actually was here??
“What are you doing here?” The black haired young man asked, his hand already moving to unsheathe the sword at his waist.
“My apologies for coming in uninvited like this. I had heard some worrying rumors about this place, and I came to see whether they were true or not.” Alberu said, trying his best to look as harmless as possible. He didn’t want this to devolve into a fight.
“What kind of rumors?” The boy next to the swordsman asked.
In lieu of answering, Alberu looked over at Princess Rosalyn. “Your highness, your family has put out a reward for if anyone finds you, and there are rumors that you are being held here against your will. It may be in your best interest to clear this up as soon as possible.”
Princess Rosalyn let out a grin that looked downright feral. “Thank you for letting me know. I was already planning on… dealing with my family, but it seems I’ll have to speed up my timeline.”
Alberu just smiled faintly, feeling as though he were about to go nuts.
As he exited the hidden entrance to the tower, Alberu turned around, taking it in. This tower held the strangest slew of people he had ever met, as he had found out in the past few hours. An incredibly young sword master, a runaway princess who wished only to be a mage, the boy who was expected to become the Werewolf King in the future, two children from the Cat Tribe, and a young dragon. And, at the center of it all, a blunt young man who could be incredibly powerful if he so wished it, but chose to lounge around all day instead.
Alberu felt his lips rise in an involuntary smile. Maybe one day, he would come back.
And he did.
He came back often enough that the youngest swordmaster became just Choi Han.
That the future Werewolf King became just Lock.
That the runaway princess became just Rosalyn.
That the Cat Tribe kittens became just On and Hong.
That the young dragon became just Raon.
That the strange young master became just Cale, and then just became ‘dongsaeng’.
And, perhaps most importantly, he came back often enough that he himself went from ‘Bob’ to ‘the shining sun of the Roan Kingdom’, to just ‘hyung’.