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Alberu was minding his own business, sipping a cup of tea while looking over the notes for the briefing he was going to attend in a few minutes, when his senses prickled. Startled, he almost dropped his cup of tea and looked up in surprise.
A familiar red-haired young master was standing in the middle of his room, two kittens in his arms, and a small black dragon bobbing up and down in the air above him.
... he could already feel a headache coming on.
"What are you doing here?" he said, sighing, turning his attention back to his notes.
Cale, in response, smiled brightly, letting the two kittens jump down from his arms.
"I have some business to attend to, hyung-nim. You won't mind looking after the children for a while, right? Hans caught a cold so I can't leave them with him today."
Alberu frowned. Wasn't there the entire Henituse household and their servants who could look after them? What about Choi Han? Rosalyn and Lock were also visiting, weren't they? Were they just bits of decoration? They were capable warriors who had managed to bring down the Mogoru Empire and battle against the White Star and his allies multiple times. Surely they were capable of babysitting a young dragon and two kittens?
At any rate, he was busy. He also hadn't slept in about three days, and the last thing he needed was babysitting duty.
"No," Alberu said firmly. "I have a meeting in five minutes, and -"
Acting as if he hadn't heard him at all, Cale smiled wider.
"Thank you, hyung-nim! I'll buy drinks next time."
"Who's buying drinks, you bastard -"
Cale stepped back through the portal and vanished. Alberu stared at the three children who were sitting on his couch, staring back with big eyes. On miaowed innocently, and Hong sat down and began licking his paws.
Did they know that Alberu was weak to cuteness?
"... goddamnit."
Raon, at least, had the sense to keep his invisibility spell up. Alberu watched as a cookie from his basket floated up into the air, and began disappearing bit by bit with little crunching noises. The two kittens were walking all over his desk, and although Alberu tried to stop them, they'd already left a scattering of inky pawprints over his meeting notes.
... well, at least he could still read it. Gathering up the papers, he held back a sigh.
"I have a meeting right now. You can come with me or you can stay here, but if you come, you must be quiet. Okay?"
On and Hong purred, and jumped up into his arms, crinkling the meeting notes even more. Alberu struggled for a few minutes trying to open the door with his arms full of paper and two kittens, and eventually gave up and used magic. It wasn't like anyone would see him, anyway. Distantly, he wondered if his danger instincts were being dulled from being around Cale Henituse all the time. The thought made him depressed, and he walked through the door.
"Your highness! The meeting - huh?"
The servant outside the door looked at the two kittens in amazement. How had they gotten inside? There were guards stationed outside the crown prince's room from sunrise to sunset, and the only window was several storeys up in the air ... had they jumped down from the floor above? Why would there be kittens in the palace, anyway?
He wanted to ask questions, but the crown prince had already started walking towards the meeting room, acting as if it was perfectly normal to walk around with a strange pair of kittens in his arms and a mysterious half-cookie that was floating along behind him.
As he watched, there was a quiet crunching noise, and another bit of the cookie disappeared.
The servant gaped, baffled, but couldn't say a word. He hurried after the crown prince.
Throughout the meeting, the court officials repeatedly eyed the kittens curiously, but didn't say anything in case they accidentally offended the crown prince. In their minds, though, they had a hundred questions.
Where did the kittens come from? Why was his highness looking after them? Why were they allowed into the meeting room in the first place? Were they pets? Since when was his highness interested in pets?
Maybe he was lonely? At the thought, some of the court officials felt like shedding a tear. The crown prince had lost his mother at an early age, was ostracised by his siblings and his father as he was growing up, and was separated from his friends and sworn brother by distance and didn't see them very often outside of official meetings or battles. Perhaps he had tried to soothe that loneliness by adopting animal companions?
Alberu, who had no idea that the court officials were looking at him with teary gazes, continued to talk about kingdom matters with a steady and confident voice.
The servant standing behind Alberu looked at the inky pawprints on his notes, and the his eye twitched.
Alberu seemed completely unbothered, even by the half-eaten cookie that had followed him into the meeting room, so the rest of the court officials in the meeting kept their mouths shut and pretended not to notice.
On clambered up onto Alberu's head and took a nap, while Hong walked around the meeting table and read all of the court officials' notes. (The officials, of course, had no idea that he could read.) In the air, the invisible Raon finished off his cookie and got bored, and decided that the best way to entertain himself would be to move the inkpots ever so slightly to the right every time the scribes weren't looking.
The poor scribes accidentally wrote on the table a good few times, silently distressed about the fact that they were missing the ink pot continuously, even though they were professionals who had been working in the palace for years.
Alberu cleared his throat awkwardly, holding back a smile, and continued his report.
Alberu had to walk out of the meeting room stiffly with his back ramrod straight, because On was still asleep on his head and he didn't want her to fall off. Hong and Raon ran after him as he went back into his room and shut the door.
"... didn't you say that you would be quiet?" he said sternly.
Raon undid the invisibility spell, and crossed his arms as much as he could with his small chubby paws.
"I was quiet, crown prince! You couldn't hear me at all!"
On woke up, and jumped off Alberu's head onto the back of his chair.
"I saw you moving those ink pots ..."
Alberu somehow felt as if his dongsaeng's antics were rubbing off onto the children. Cale wouldn't have asked them specifically to annoy him, right? On and Hong were looking at him with innocent gazes. Alberu wavered.
Raon dived back into the cookie basket without a word, and Alberu put the notes back down on his desk, and sat down to sort through the two-foot tall tower of paperwork that had built up during the hour that the meeting went on for. He could scold the children about it later. Once he finished going through these reports ...
He became absorbed in the endless lists of information and reports, and only looked up once he heard an odd sort of rustling.
On and Hong - wait, where were they? There were only two human children, a red-haired young boy and a silver-haired girl -
... wait.
Alberu stared at them open-mouthed.
"You - when - huh?"
Hong looked up at him innocently, one of Alberu's ceremonial jackets over his shoulders. The sleeves were too big for his arms, and On was in the middle of trying to tie a big sash around his waist.
"... what are you doing?" he asked, even though it was quite obvious. On and Hong gave him identical grins.
"The crown prince always looks so cool with his cool outfits, nya! Hong wanted to try to look cool as well!"
"That's too big for you, though ..." Alberu sighed, putting his pen down. Raon, at some point, had already eaten half the cookies in the basket, and was cheering on his older siblings behind Alberu's back.
Hong clutched the ceremonial jacket, looking at Alberu hopefully. Alberu couldn't help but concede.
"Fine, but don't wear that. It's far too big for you. I think I still have some clothes from when I was younger, do you want to try them?"
On promptly threw away the sash and Hong quickly took of the jacket, running over to Alberu.
"Yes!"
Cale stepped through the teleportation spell later that evening. He had been a little busy, and the longer he was away, the more he felt a little guilty about leaving the children with the crown prince. The crown prince was a busy person, after all. He had looked a little tired when he left. (Probably more than a little tired - for some reason, his hyung-nim seemed to be even busier during the peaceful times than when they were literally at war. Something about court politicians getting brave enough to try and climb up the power ladder ... he really pitied him sometimes.)
Still, it shouldn't have been that hard, right? The kids were sensible kids. Alberu could probably just have left them in his room and they would have been fine, wouldn't they?
Fretting over all the possibilities, Cale stepped into the room and looked up.
"... huh?"
He had somewhat been expecting to see chaos (it sounded like the start of a bad joke: A quarter Dark Elf, a dragon, and two Beast children walk into the crown prince's bedroom) but what he saw was actually ... peaceful?
The late evening sun was falling over the floor, pooling on the walls. There was an abandoned pile of half-finished paperwork on the desk, some of which had ink blotches spilt on it that looked suspiciously like paw prints, and the cookie basket on the table was completely empty, with only a few crumbs left at the bottom. Cale approached the bed.
There was a faint snoring sound - three, actually. Alberu was going through another pile of paperwork - Cale suddenly felt bad his hyung-nim, who would most likely be buried under all the reports he had to go through (seriously, how many piles were there?) - using the pillow as a desk. Raon was sprawled out over his lap, fast asleep, his wings twitching as he dreamt. On and Hong were in their human forms, similarly sleeping while chaining Alberu down in place (so that was why he wasn't working at his desk) and ... what was Hong wearing?
Cale had a bit of an odd expression on his face. Wasn't that an outfit for a prince?
"... sorry to trouble you, your highness."
Alberu laughed quietly.
"It's fine. They didn't cause too much trouble ... although the servants probably think I'm being haunted by a cookie ghost."
Cale glanced at the empty basket with cookie crumbs scattered over it, and then looked at the black dragon that was snoring away on Alberu's lap.
"Ah ... I see. Sorry about that."
"Hong seems to like that outfit, for some reason. I have no reason to keep it anymore, so he can keep it, if he likes."
"That used to be yours?"
Cale looked at the outfit curiously. He had never thought about what the crown prince looked like as a child. The formal clothes didn't look like something children would normally wear.
"Yes. It's just been sitting at the bottom of my closet gathering dust, though. Maybe I should get On something? What does she like?"
Slightly stunned, Cale suddenly smiled.
"I'll be sure to ask her when she wakes up. I'll take the kids now, hyung-nim. Do you ... ah ... need help with your work?"
Alberu shook his head, a wry grin on his face.
"Your expression is saying 'I'll cry if you make me do it', so no, it's fine."
... was it that obvious? Cale didn't bother to hide his relief, instead picking up the kids, stumbling slightly as he tried to walk back towards the portal made by the teleportation spell with his arms full of two kittens and a sleeping dragon.
"Then, I'll be going, hyung-nim."
"Alright. Take care."
Alberu watched as Cale and the children averaging nine years old disappeared through the portal, which closed up after them with a flash. Stretching, he stared morosely at the pile of unfinished paperwork scattered over his floor.
... well, it could wait until tomorrow, couldn't it?
He settled back against the pillow, closing his eyes. Maybe he should get Cale something, too? That disrespectful younger brother of his had been working rather hard lately. Speaking of which, when were their birthdays? He felt like that was something he should probably know.
He made a mental note to himself to ask them the next time he saw them, and fell asleep.