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“What are you smiling at like that, Your Highness?”
Ian had asked it casually, but the question lingered in the warm afternoon air of the balcony.
Below, the palace courtyard stretched wide and orderly, guards changing shifts, attendants crossing with trays, banners fluttering lazily. And there, cutting through all of it without trying, walked the second prince.
Calian rested both elbows on the railing, chin propped on his hands, eyes soft in a way they rarely were for anyone else.
“My brother,” he answered dreamily. “Look at him. Doesn’t he look unbearably cute today?”
The attendant went very still.
For a moment, Ian genuinely wondered if he had misheard. The two words that should not be in the same sentence.
“…Cute, Your Highness?”
“Yes, cute,” Calian repeated, as if this were the most obvious truth in the empire. “Pea always looks cute when he walks like that.”
Ian’s soul left his body briefly.
Pea...?
His Highness did not use that nickname in public. He had learned that much. Yet the tone alone made it clear this was the same person.
Below, Plantz moved with his usual composed stride, blue hair catching the light. It was thick, slightly unruly, and the wind dared to toy with it despite the careful combing.
“Look at his hair,” Calian continued fondly. “It’s so fluffy. He tries to make it behave, but it refuses. It just sits there like it has opinions.”
Ian stared at the back of the Plantz’s head. He saw… hair.
Green eyes, sharp and focused, scanned the path ahead. His posture was straight, steps even.
“And those eyes,” Calian stated, sighing softly. “They’re so pretty. He doesn’t even know. When he’s thinking, they go all distant and quiet, like he’s carrying the whole world inside them.”
Ian had, admittedly, never described those eyes as pretty. Intimidating, yes. Cold, often. Difficult to read.
But pretty?
He wisely kept his mouth shut.
To be honest, he was not particularly fond of the blue haired prince. Ian remembered too clearly how Plantz used to treat Calian, how cold and cruel he had been. He had never forgiven that entirely.
But Calian was smiling like he was watching the most delightful thing in existence.
“He’s stubborn too,” the young prince went on, gaze drifting upward to the sky as if replaying a private memory. “So stubborn. If he decides something, that’s it. No persuasion, no threats, nothing works. He just furrows his brows and digs his heels in.”
Ian had witnessed that stubbornness. Had been on the receiving end of it far too many times. It did not inspire words like adorable or cute.
“But when he does that little frown,” Calian said, voice lowering fondly, “it’s so cute I want to smooth it away. And when he goes quiet because he’s thinking, you can practically see the gears turning. He won’t answer until he’s sure. Isn’t that precious?”
Ian did not trust himself to speak. He stared straight ahead. At nothing. At everything.
Below, as if summoned by the weight of a gaze, the second prince slowed.
He tilted his head slightly, eyes lifting upward.
There, framed by stone and sunlight, stood his younger brother waving with unrestrained enthusiasm.
Calian’s smile brightened instantly. He waved both hands now, as if worried his brother might somehow miss him.
Plantz stared.
Flat and unamused.
Then he clicked his tongue, turned, and resumed walking as if the balcony and its occupant had ceased to exist.
Calian gasped softly, clutching Ian’s sleeve.
“Did you see that?”
“…I saw, Your Highness.”
“That tch,” Calian cooed, leaning forward again. “He only does that when he’s pretending to be annoyed. It’s his ‘I care but I won’t admit it’ sound.”
Ian’s expression remained professionally blank. Inside, he was rearranging his understanding of reality.
For him that sound served as a warning before violence. Nothing more or less.
“He does that look too,” Calian added eagerly. “That flat stare. Like I’m the inconvenience of the century. It’s adorable. And when he gives me that annoyed look? I feel so special.”
Ian truly...did not know how to respond to that.
“He’s persistent,” came the next point almost immediately, feverently. “He never gives up. Even when he’s exhausted, he keeps going. It’s frustrating. But it’s also…” the voice softened. “It’s admirable.”
Silence fell for a moment.
Then red gaze drifted upward, away from the courtyard, toward the open sky.
“You know,” he murmured more quietly, “when he sleeps, he looks so soft. All that sharpness disappears. His hair falls over his eyes and his lips make this tiny shape… like he’s about to complain even in his dreams.”
Ian stiffened.
“And when he scolds me,” Calian went on thoughtfully, “his mouth curves just a little at the edge. It’s the cutest thing. Sometimes I just want to kiss him.”
The air stopped moving.
Ian’s mind very respectfully exited the room.
“…Your Highness?” he managed, voice thin.
Calian blinked, then turned to him with an unapologetic grin.
“Oops,” he said cheerfully. “Forget I said that.”
The brown-haired male nodded slowly.
He was not reassured.
There had been no embarrassment. No flustered denial or scrambling correction. Just a cheerful request to erase something that clearly was not accidental.
Which meant...
Ian chose not to finish that thought.
The balcony doors opened behind them with a firm push.
Both turned.
Plantz stood there, framed by the doorway, green eyes narrowed slightly. There was the familiar furrow between his brows. The faint tension in his shoulders. The expression that said he had walked in on something and was not pleased about it.
Calian lit up instantly.
“Pe— Brother!” he corrected smoothly. “You came!”
He hurried over without hesitation, warmth radiating off him.
Plantz regarded him with that same flat stare.
“…Why are you waving like a fool from the balcony.”
Calian beamed up at him. “Because you look exceptionally adorable from above.”
A pause.
A faint, dangerous narrowing of eyes.
Ian stood silently, witnessing history unravel in slow motion.
The smile never left Calian’s face as he moved even closer, utterly unbothered by the glare aimed at him.
“See?” the youngest prince turned, mouthing softly to his still frozen attendant. “Isn’t he the cutest when he does that?”