Chapter Text
The afternoon sun filtered through the glass walls, washing the tearoom in warm, heavy amber. Outside, the lake fractured the light into a thousand golden shards. They swayed with the wind, casting a rippling, liquid galaxy across the ceiling.
Isagi Yoichi sat tucked into an armchair by the window. The tea cupped in his hands had long since gone tepid. He wore a light grey turtleneck today, the knit sleeves pushed casually to his elbows to expose the relaxed line of his forearms.
Sitting across from him was Kurona Ranze, his cheeks carrying a faint, dusty pink as he eagerly mapped out the shores of his hometown for the prince. It was a world entirely out of Isagi’s reach—a life of salt and sand he couldn’t experience firsthand. That alone was enough to keep him captivated.
“So they only appears in those crevices of the rocks when the tide rolls out. The shells are this… delicate periwinkle, like the darkest stretch of sky right before dawn breaks,” Kurona explained, his hands gesturing. A lingering nervous energy hummed beneath his skin, bringing Isagi’s mind back to the hesitant first words they’d exchanged, and a fond smile curved the dark-haired prince’s lips.
Kurona didn’t notice. Swept up in the rhythm of his own story, he forgot to worry about his royal audience. He traced a small arc in the air with his finger, mimicking the shape of the shells. “When I was little, I’d always run out at first light to hunt for them. Once, I almost got caught by the rising tide. My mom was so furious she made me hand-copy all three volumes of the village’s safety guidelines.”
Isagi found the image impossibly endearing. He’d been prone to his own reckless excursions as a child—so much so that his mother used to sigh and declare him far too hyperactive for a kid who cried so easily.
Propping his chin on his palm, Isagi pictured a tiny Kurona furiously scribbling down rules. A soft chuckle escaped him. “The safety guideline, huh? Did you actually finish it?”
“Took me three days,” Kurona admitted, the tips of his ears burning a telltale red. “But I still snuck out afterward… I just made sure to learn how to read the tide charts first.”
“God, I was exactly the same. I used to terrorize the palace grounds,” Isagi laughed—a genuine, breathy sound that made Kurona’s flush deepen all the way down his neck.
“The Crown Prince… used to be a terror?” Kurona stammered.
“What, is the grand illusion shattered?” Isagi teased. There was a profound, effortless ease to being around Kurona; he simply couldn’t resist poking at the boy’s earnest reactions.
Predictably, Kurona bolted upright, shaking his head so fast his signature braid whipped against his left cheek. “No, no! I just—I think it’s amazing. Everyone online sees this flawless prince, but you have this side to you, too…” He paused, his fingers nervously twisting the end of his hair. “It feels… I don’t know. Like I actually understand you a little better now. Like you’re a little closer to me.”
Something warm in Isagi’s chest went agonizingly soft. The meticulously crafted armor of The Crown Prince slipped, just a fraction. Conversing with Ranze possessed a quiet, unassuming magic that coaxed the tension right out of his spine.
This was their second scheduled Date of the week. By the rules of the selection, every candidate was allotted one forty-five-minute block alone with the prince. They could request more, as Kurona had, but in these early stages, most of the other participants were… entirely too preoccupied with their own agendas to bother.
Isagi’s mind flickered to the heretical ships currently hijacking the social media trends—pairings that thrived on the very friction the production team was milking for ratings. This was, after all, a televised spectacle designed to find him a consort; shipping the candidates with one another fundamentally broke the game. Yet, the editors were shameless, relentlessly manufacturing that exact brand of starcrossed angst to whip the public into a frenzy over the fresh-faced rookies.
It made a certain cynical sense. After all, what kind of raw chemistry could the audience possibly project onto a starchy prince who spent his nights reciting dry legislative updates to a teleprompter?
Logically, Isagi understood the calculus. This selection wasn’t a fairy tale; it was a high-stakes auction where exposure, alliances, and political leverage were the only currencies that mattered. He had spent his youth buried under mountains of legislation and statecraft, sacrificing his own adolescence to the machinery of the kingdom. Yet, despite the exhaustion, he had walked into this farce with a vulnerability he probably shouldn't have allowed himself. He’d hoped, perhaps naively, for a genuine connection—a single soul who saw the man instead of the title.
The Prince saw the tactical merit in their presence; he recognized the hunger for prestige in their eyes. But Isagi Yoichi, the nineteen-year-old boy, felt only the sharp sting of being used as a ladder. It was a bitter pill to swallow that his true feelings were ignored, and the suitors were only looking for a platform.
His schedule was dictated by clockwork. Nine in the morning to six in the evening, back-to-back appointments, with strict fifteen-minute buffers for transit and paperwork. The protocol officers had drilled it into the candidates: punctuality was paramount. Arriving five minutes early or late meant a severe penalty in the daily evaluations.
For all three of their meetings, Kurona had arrived quietly, always a few minutes early. He never presumed; he simply sat in the waiting area, a silent fixture of the hallway until the attendant gave the formal cue to enter.
And Isagi noticed.
He noticed how, when their time concluded, Kurona didn’t just stand and leave. He would gently guide his used teacup back to the exact center of the table, ensuring no stray drop marred the lace. He would tuck his chair back into its original position with such practiced, noiseless care that it was as if he had never been there at all.
These were the kind of infinitesimal details the reality show’s hungry lenses overlokked, and the hurried attendants failed to register. But Isagi caught them.
If he didn’t bear witness to this unpretentious grace, it would simply evaporate into the palace air—unseen, unrecorded, and utterly unloved.
Their conversation drifted effortlessly, a bridge built between the sterile luxury of the capital and the rugged pulse of the coast. Isagi spoke of palace autumns; it was a sharp, silent contrast to Kurona’s seaside. Out there, autumn was a physical force that smelled of biting salt winds. They traded memories: seasonal delicacies for childhood mischief, the weight of the crown for the freedom of the sand.
Time seemed to lose its teeth, the minutes slipping through their fingers, carried away by the steam of the tea and the rare, unburdened warmth of shared laughter.
“Do you have harvest festivals out there, too?” Isagi asked. He reached into the porcelain tin between them, sliding a single almond cookie across the table toward the other boy.
Kurona took it, but he didn’t eat. Without a second thought, he carefully snapped the cookie in two and offered the larger half back to Isagi.
It wasn't the practiced gesture of a suitor trying to impress; it was the instinctive reflex of someone who simply didn't want to enjoy something unless his partner was enjoying it, too. In that small, fractured piece of dough, Kurona offered a level of sincerity Isagi hadn't felt these days.
The prince’s gaze softened into something vulnerable, his fingers brushing Kurona's as he accepted the offering.
“We do, but it’s a world away from the inland galas. We honor the Sea God,” Kurona explained, leaning in just a fraction, his orbit drawing closer. “The offerings’re the fresh catch and sun-cured fish. At night, the whole town spills onto the beach. It’s a… massive, chaotic food fair. We light bonfires that turn the sand into glass, and the elders sing these sea shanties that sound like the wind.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, a sheepish, endearingly lopsided smile tugging at his lips. “I’m not good at singing, so I usually get relegated to grill duty. But at the end of the night, everyone—no matter who they are—dances around the fire until the sun comes up.”
“That sounds incredible. A far cry from the stifling galas I have to endure,” Isagi murmured. His voice had dropped into a low register, heavy with genuine longing. He let himself sink into the vivid, grounding imagery Kurona painted—the smoke of the bonfires, the grit of the sand, the smell of the grill. It was more than a story; it was a desperate, beautiful reprieve from the overwhelming glitz of a life in palace.
Over the past two weeks, Isagi had endured too many suitors. They came either armed with rehearsed, sycophantic flattery to climb the social ladder, or ruthlessly transparent about using him for screen time and fame boost. But Kurona’s stories weren’t pitches or ploys. They were simply the earnest offerings of a boy who genuinely cared about the existence of Isagi Yoichi, eager to share a slice of his world with a boy his own age.
For the first time since the Selection began, the crushing weight of the “Prince” persona felt a little lighter. Isagi found himself leaning into the warmth, his own heart stirring with a hunger that had nothing to do with duty and everything to do with the boy in front of him.
Outside the heavy oak doors, the attendant gave a polite cough. It was the scheduled warning; only ten minutes remained.
Isagi’s gaze flicked to the clock. 3:25 PM.
His next appointment wasn't until 3:45. In the calculating world of royal scheduling, those twenty minutes—ten remaining for the session, ten for the transition buffer—were supposed to be a hollow space. He had planned to spend that time buried in a stack of dry, taxing policy documents, yet another brick in the wall of his ivory tower.
But then he looked at Kurona. He looked at the way the light caught the soft pink of his hair and the earnestness in his wide eyes, and the thought of doing paperwork faded away.
“Do you want to see the glass conservatory in the West Wing?” Isagi asked. He tilted his head, his voice losing its formal edge and softening into something more private, more real. “There are a few exotic orchids in full bloom right now. It’s an eight-minute walk through the gardens; we could finish our talk on the way.”
Kurona blinked, his breath hitching. The selection rulebook forbade any extended contact outside of the official slots. But as the Crown Prince leaned forward, the very air in the room seemed to shift, warping the rigid boundaries of the palace into something secondary.
“If… if it doesn’t break protocol,” Kurona whispered. His fingers knotted together in his lap, showing his hesitation.
“Rules are just ink on paper,” Isagi said, his smile widening into something genuinely mischievous.
Before Kurona could offer another protest, Isagi reached across the table. It was a devastatingly unscripted movement—no cameras to capture it, no attendants to log it. He reached out and lightly tapped the tip of Kurona’s nose. It was a playful, startlingly intimate gesture that sent a jolt through the room, leaving the boy wide-eyed and stuttering, his carefully maintained composure dissolving in a heartbeat.
The Prince offered a slow, wicked wink, his eyes sparkling with a freedom he rarely allowed himself to show.
“And I’m the one reading the ink. Come on,” Isagi stood, his hand lingering near Kurona’s as if inviting him into a conspiracy. “The one who needs to worry about the date log aren’t you. Let’s just go.”
Isagi rose, and Kurona immediately followed suit. Yoichi’s fingers had barely brushed the light jacket draped over his chair when the heavy oak doors of the tearoom blew open with a bone-rattling thud.
The doorframe rebounded against the wall, sending a sharp gust of air sweeping through the quiet room. A split second later, a figure blew inside like a hurricane.
“Yoichi—!”
The voice was bright, lilting, and vibrating with a brand of joy that felt entirely too loud for the amber-lit afternoon. Bachira Meguru was a splash of vivid sunflower-yellow against the muted palette of the palace. He looked every bit the eccentric, manic artist in his messy cardigan and paint-streaked shorts, his hair a chaotic nest as if he’d just sprinted blindly through the gardens to reach this specific coordinates in space.
In his hand, he clutched a heavy sketchbook. The suitor was radiant, playful, and utterly feral—the kind of affectionate stray you couldn’t possibly bring yourself to scold, no matter how much of the furniture he shredded.
Isagi froze. His eyes flicked to the gilded carriage clock in the corner: 3:27 PM. It wasn’t Bachira’s appointment until 3:45.
“Meguru,” Isagi began, his voice dropping into the leaden, dead-level tone of a man who had been through this cycle far too many times. It was a voice born of battered force of habit. “Your scheduled time isn't for another twenty minutes.”
“I know!” Bachira chirped, entirely unburdened by anything resembling guilt. He didn't just walk; he bounded into the center of the room, his eyes crinkling into blinding golden crescents that seemed to demand Isagi’s undivided attention. “But I finished my painting early and suddenly I just really wanted to see you! The urge was so big it nearly knocked me over, so I came early! Look, look—I brought something new!”
With a theatrical flourish, he flipped the sketchbook open, thrusting it directly into Yoichi’s personal space.
It was a charcoal study. Smeared across the expensive grain of the paper was a boy sitting in profile by a window, his hands cupped around a teacup. The strokes were wild and frantic, yet terrifyingly precise. It captured the exact, heavy languor of the afternoon—the specific way the light had hit Isagi’s shoulder before Bachira had even entered the room.
Isagi’s brow furrowed, a tiny, rhythmic twitch starting in his left eyelid. Technically, "loitering, observing, or haunting" the Prince during another suitor's time was strictly forbidden. But Bachira had never been one for reading, especially not things that didn't have pictures.
To call Bachira’s concept of time a "disaster" was an insult to actual disasters. Disasters at least had the courtesy to be predictable.
This was, tragically, becoming a theme. In the first week, Meguru had barged into his 11:00 AM slot ten minutes early, loudly declaring that he was "too bored waiting" and that the hallway wallpaper was starting to judge him.. By the second week, he had swung the pendulum the other way, arriving fifteen minutes late with zero apologies and a wet watercolor of a dragonfly as a "tardy tribute." And then there was three days ago—the legendary "No-Show." No warning, no message, until a servant arrived forty minutes later with a scrap of parchment featuring a doodle of a crying kitten.
The Monster’s in a bad mood today, so I can’t come out, the note had chirped. I’ll make it up to you with double time tomorrow!
In two weeks, he had successfully mediated three shouting matches, dealt with one suitor that was now dismissed from the selection, and managed a mountain of scheduling nightmares that made him feel more like a high-end babysitter than a future monarch. Bachira’s whimsy was exhausting, yes, but it wasn't malicious; he simply hummed at a frequency the rest of the world hadn't learned to hear yet, and he naively assumed everyone was enjoying the music as much as he was.
But right now, he was trampling all over Ranze’s time. And that, Isagi realized with a jolt of protective heat, was where he drew the line.
Isagi glanced to his side, expecting a protest, or at least a frown. Instead, he found only a void where Kurona’s presence had been.
Kurona stepped back; he had softly untethered himself from the conversation. He had receded two silent steps, practically folding his slight frame into the shadow of a large, leafy monstera in the corner. He didn't look angry, or look annoyed, even. He simply lowered his gaze, his long eyelashes casting delicate shadows as he stared intently at the grout between the floor tiles.
It was a retreat so quiet, so devoid of entitlement, that it made something in Yoichi’s chest twist with a sharp pang of guilt.
In a palace full of people screaming for people’s attention, Kurona was the only one trying to make himself invisible so Isagi wouldn't have to choose. He was yielding the floor to the louder, brighter star without a single word of complaint. It was too much selflessness; because Isagi was far too observant for his own good, it was currently breaking his heart.
“Meguru,” Isagi tried again, dropping his voice into the warning octave usually reserved for misbehaving hunting hounds or particularly stubborn parliament members. “I am currently in a session with Ranze. Your time is at 3:45. Please wait in the hallway…”
“Ehhh? But I’m already here!” Meguru pouted. He leaned in with zero regard for the concept of personal bubbles. “Just look at the drawing, Yoichi! You were stuck in my head the whole time I was sketching—it was like a buzzing in my ears! I couldn't help but run over. Can’t we just start early? I mean, Ranze-kun’s time is basically up anyway, right?”
He turned his radiant, unblinking gaze toward the corner, flashing a smile that was so innocent it was practically a social assassination. “You don’t mind, do you, Kuro-nya? You guys have probably talked about everything you wanted to by now, yeah?”
A suffocating, high-tension silence fell over the tearoom.
The sunlight pooled across the floorboards with mocking serenity. In the gardens, a distant bird chirped a cheerful tune that felt like it was laughing at Isagi’s misfortune. By the door, the royal attendant stood in a state of total neuromuscular paralysis; by the book, he should have already escorted Bachira out. But after Meguru’s breathless, live-broadcasted “soulmate” declaration during the premiere, the public had decided they were the star-crossed lovers of the century. The staff lived in absolute terror of the PR nightmare that would follow if they so much as touched a hair on the popular "eccentric artist."
That familiar, leaden exhaustion crawled up from the pit of Yoichi’s stomach. As the Prince, he desperately wanted to say, Actually, I do mind, and for the love of the crown, follow the damn rules for once.
He wanted to file a formal complaint with his own palace. He wanted to give Kurona the twenty minutes of peace he had actually earned.
But the words died in his throat. Bachira was looking at him with those shimmering, wide eyes, practically vibrating with a desperate, childlike need to share his soul through his art. The black-haired prince knew a harsh rejection wouldn't just be a “no”; it would be a world-ending catastrophe that would leave Bachira wounded and confused, and it certainly wouldn't teach him a single thing about professional boundaries. Besides, underneath the headache, Yoichi didn’t have the heart to crush one of very few people in this manufactured circus who actually treated him like a human being instead of a throne with legs.
Isagi let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to age him approximately forty years in a single second.
“Ranze,” Yoichi murmured, his voice dropping into a register so achingly soft it was almost a secret. He moved with a sudden urgency to close the distance, catching Ranze’s hand in his own. It was a brief, anchor in the middle of the chaos. “I am so sorry. We’ll have to cut today short. But let’s find another time for the conservatory—a real time, just for us. Alright?”
Kurona lifted his head. His expression was a masterpiece of placid obedience, the perfect mask of a candidate who knew his place. “It’s alright. Really, it is. I will take my leave now.”
He offered a shallow bow. But even through the poise, Isagi caught the microscopic fracture in his composure. The boy couldn’t completely swallow the profound disappointment pooling in his eyes. It was a sight that made the muscles in Isagi’s chest tighten with a sharp ache.
Oblivious to the fact that his heartbreak had been witnessed, Kurona turned on his heel. He walked away with that same quietness, his footsteps making no sound on the heavy rugs. The attendant pulled the door open, and as Kurona stepped out into the cold, vaulted hallway, the heavy oak clicked shut with a soft thud.
Only Isagi and Bachira remained.
Bachira didn't even glance at the door. He immediately bypassed the empty guest chair, sidling right up to the Prince’s side, his shoulder brushing Isagi’s as he splayed his damp sketchbook across the table. “Yoichi, look, look! The lighting turned out great, didn’t it? I caught the way the gold hits your hair!”
Isagi sank back into his seat, the leather creaking under his weight, but his gaze refused to settle on the charcoal lines. Instead, his eyes drifted past the sketchbook, out the curved glass, and down to the gardens below.
There, a small, solitary figure was navigating the stone path along the lake, heading back toward the suitor annex. Bathed in the sprawling, dying light of the afternoon, Kurona’s silhouette looked painfully isolated—a lone planet drifting out of orbit. Even from this height, Yoichi could feel the heavy aura of dejection radiating off the boy’s shoulders.
The clock let out a metallic chime. 3:30 PM. There were still five minutes of "Ranze’s time" left on the clock.
When he opened them a second later, the Isagi Yoichi who had laughed over almond cookies was gone. His face was fixed with a mild princely smile. He shifted his weight, sitting squarely opposite Bachira. Gone was the relaxed slump he had shared with Ranze; his spine was now a rigid line of royal steel, his shoulders squared, and his hands clasped with bloodless neatness in his lap. He was the textbook image of a monarch performing a duty.
“It’s beautifully drawn, Meguru. You have an incredible eye,” Yoichi praised before he sighed. “However, you and I need to have a very serious conversation about boundaries.”
…
Kurona pushed open the heavy door to his quarters and slipped inside, the silence of the room greeting him like a cold shroud.
The space was modest. It held only the bare essentials: a single bed with neatly tucked sheets, a writing desk, a heavy oak wardrobe, and a small round table by the window. A few borrowed books from the royal library sat in a precise stack, their spines worn and familiar. Outside, the palace training grounds were deserted, save for a few crested banners snapping lazily in the sharpening autumn breeze.
He sank onto the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumping as he stared blankly at the floorboards. When he brought a hand up to prop his chin, he froze. His fingertips still carried the faint, ghostly scent of the almond cookie. It was a warm, grounding aroma—sweet butter and toasted nuts, undercut by the sharp, lingering astringency of Yoichi’s black tea.
It was the smell of a moment he wasn't supposed to have kept.
Kurona told himself he didn’t mind leaving early. He really didn’t. Bachira Meguru was a person born to soak up the sun, a creature of such high frequency that the very air seemed to vibrate in his presence. The second he had burst in, the light in the room had shifted, dancing around him like he owned the spectrum. Someone like that looked effortlessly flawless standing next to the Crown Prince—a chaotic burst of gold against Yoichi’s composed navy. It was no wonder the public was obsessed; they looked like a masterpiece in progress.
But what about him?
Kurona looked down at his own hands. They weren't the hands of a consort. His fingers were long, but the knuckles were prominent and scarred; the webbing of his palms bore the thin, pale calluses of a boy who had spent his life swinging a wooden sword against the salt spray of the coast.
He smoothed the fabric of his shirt. It was a simple, pale blue button-down—the one his mother had spent a week’s wages on before he left for the capital. "This color brings out your eyes, Ranze," she had whispered. He had believed her then. But here, compared to Meguru’s radiant, eccentric wardrobe and effortless magnetism, he felt terribly, hopelessly washed out.
He shook his head, physically trying to dislodge the heavy thoughts.
Moving to the desk, he pulled a leather-bound notebook from the drawer. It wasn’t a log for sword techniques or a ledger of political allies. It was, embarrassingly, the quiet archive of a boy who had fallen too far, too long.
Prince Yoichi asked about the sea today. He leaned in to listen.
I brought the dried fish Mom sent. I thought it was too common for a palace, but Yoichi tried it. He told me it tasted like a memory. He even had the kitchens grill it for dinner.
He looks so handsome when he’s just being Yoichi. His eyes are the exact color of the ocean when the tide is high and the sky is clear. He’s so incredibly gentle with me... my heart stays in my throat the entire time I’m with him.
Kurona picked up his pen, the nib hovering over the crisp, cream-colored paper. He added a new line beneath today’s date, his handwriting small and careful:
He invited me to see the glass conservatory. He said we could talk together on the way.
His hand stalled. He couldn’t bring himself to write the ending, where the door flew open and the invitation was revoked by the mere presence of someone brighter. His throat felt thick, a dull ache pulse-pointing behind his eyes.
Closing the notebook, Kurona walked over to the window. Down on the training grounds, a few attendants were drifting through the afternoon sun like shadows, putting away the day's equipment.
A quiet, suffocating melancholy settled deep in his chest, heavy as a fog rolling in off the coast. Of course he was disappointed. He was only human—who would willingly watch the person they loved turn their attention toward someone else? But as he stood in the center of the room, Kurona realized he simply didn't have the vivid armor required to compete in a place like this.
Bachira might not have carried a prestigious bloodline, but he possessed a undeniable genius. He had a magnetic pull that turned every chaotic whim into something charming, something spectacular.
And Kurona… Kurona just felt like the quietness of a background.
If only he were braver. If only he could navigate this terrifying, glittering palace with the same effortless bounce in his step. If he could just find the voice to loudly, unabashedly declare the years of quiet devotion he’d carried for the Prince like the way Meguru shouted his affections for the cameras to catch; would the public see him? Would they root for a boy who only knew how to wait?
The shark-teethed boy let out a long, shaky breath that hitched in the back of his throat. At the very least, he hadn't made things difficult for Yoichi today. That was his small, silent victory. If he had thrown a jealous fit or shown even a flicker of his own hurt, it would have only added another pound of pressure to the Prince’s impossible burden. Bachira was a creature of momentum; trying to force him to stop would only have caused a bigger wreckage, and Isagi would have been the one left to sweep up the glass.
Kurona didn't want to be the one who broke things. He wanted to be the one who held them together.
Turning away from the window, Kurona pulled his practice gear from the wardrobe. The fabric felt cool and familiar against his skin as a grounding weight. His session had ended early, and the silence of his room was becoming too loud to bear. He might as well go run drills until his muscles burned and his mind went quiet. Agonizing over a game he didn't know how to play was useless.
…
Unsurprisingly, Isagi’s attempt at a serious conversation had been a spectacular failure.
For the last twenty minutes, Bachira had bounced erratically from discussing his “artistic philosophy,” to his “childhood trauma,” and finally to “the oppressive nature of reality television.”
Isagi maintained a flawless listening posture the entire time. He nodded at the right intervals. He offered polite, encouraging questions. Indulging the candidates was his solemn duty, and he genuinely appreciated that Bachira gave him one hundred percent honesty. Isagi liked him. He truly admired the boy’s unbridled imagination and absolute freedom—luxuries Yoichi would never possess so long as he wore the crown. But even as a friend, as Isagi smiled and nodded through another wild tangent, he couldn’t help but feel hopelessly drained.
The clock chimed for 4:15 PM. A full forty-five minutes had evaporated since Bachira’s arrival. Isagi finally decided it was time to step in and stop the boy from monopolizing a slot that hadn’t belonged to him in the first place.
“Meguru, your slot is over,” Yoichi stated, a trace of bone-deep exhaustion finally bleeding through his royal veneer. “I hope you start taking these rules seriously. This Selection isn’t just a stage for personal exhibition; it’s also a test to see if you can survive the grueling machinery of palace life. Constantly running late, or blowing past the guards to interrupt someone else’s time—these infractions are all going on your official record.”
Bachira propped his chin on his palm, tilting his head like a curious puppy. “But the urge to see you just bursts out of nowhere! I can’t predict it!” he whined, dragging out the syllables. “Why don’t you just change the rules, Yoichi? Make the schedule flexible. Get rid of the timers altogether.”
“Because that would be entirely unfair to the suitors who actually respect the schedule,” Yoichi cut him off, his tone noticeably sharper. “Meguru. We are friends, and I have covered for you more times than I can count.”
Meguru blinked, bolting upright as if struck by a sudden revelation. “Wait… Yoichi, are you actually mad?” he asked, his eyes widening. “Is this about Kuro-nya?”
“I’m not,” Yoichi replied stiffly. He genuinely didn’t believe he was angry. After all, with the sole exception of Meguru, the vast majority of the candidates managed to be punctual. Even the ones who ran late at least had the decency to fabricate an excuse and notify his staff beforehand.
“You are,” Meguru insisted. He leaned across the table, invading the prince’s space to stare directly into his eyes. “The Monster inside me told me so.”
Seriously, what ‘monster’ is he always talking about? Yoichi thought, a dull ache beginning to throb behind his eyes. He wisely decided that unpacking Meguru’s imaginary friend would do absolutely nothing to help their current standoff.
“I merely want everyone to be treated with a baseline of respect, Meguru,” Isagi sighed, the sound heavy with weariness. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed for a brief, flickering second. “I deeply admire your talent—you know I do—but your genius isn’t a free pass to trample over everyone else's time. Please. For the next session, just be there when the clock strikes. And if the 'Monster' brings you here early, wait in the hall. Don't break the door down. Can you do that for me?”
The dark-haired prince paused, his gaze softening as he looked at his friend. His voice dropped, losing its authoritative edge until it was barely a whisper. “As… a friend? Please?”
It wasn't a command; it was a plea, raw and dangerously sincere.
Bachira froze, staring at him as if seeing the person beneath the crown. Suddenly, the manic, buzzing tension melted from his frame. He slumped dramatically across the table, all his kinetic energy replaced by a sudden, quiet gravity. He seemed genuinely moved, a faint, dusty pink blooming across his cheeks. Reaching out, he snagged Isagi’s hand and, with a startling lack of hesitation, pressed the Prince’s palm firmly against his own cheek.
“Jeez, Yoichi… you’re just too captivating when you speak like that,” he mumbled into Isagi’s skin, his voice muffled but warm. “If you’re going to beg like that, I guess I’ll have to try my absolute hardest.”
“Good,” Yoichi exhaled, his shoulders finally dropping as the tension bled out of his spine. “I’m holding you to that.”
“Oh—wait.” Isagi leaned forward, fishing a small object from his pocket. With a deftness born of years of formal dressing, he captured Bachira’s wrist and fastened a vintage-style quartz watch around it. The worn leather strap and brass casing perfectly complemented Bachira’s outfit. “A gift. Think of it as a compass for your day. It’ll make it a little harder to lose track of the minutes, right?”
“Whoa!” The artist couldn’t contain the explosion of joy. He leaped up, tackling Isagi into a massive, rib-cracking hug that smelled faintly of turpentine and indigo. He examined the watch with buzzing excitement, absolutely enamored with the ‘bribe.’ Mollified at last, he finally gathered his sketchbook to leave, just as Isagi had requested.
However, as he reached the threshold of the heavy oak doors, the whirlwind stopped. Bachira paused, glancing back over his shoulder.
Isagi was still seated at the table, his profile turned toward the window where the light was beginning to fail. The waning sun cast fragmented, delicate shadows through his eyelashes, and though he was smiling, the line of his jaw remained pulled taut with the day's residual stress.
“Yoichi,” Meguru said suddenly. The playfulness was gone, replaced by a hollow, ringing clarity. “The real reason I came early today... it’s because I had a dream about you last night.”
Isagi turned his head slightly. “A dream?”
“Yeah. I dreamed you left me behind,” Bachira whispered. “You just... vanished. You walked away into a vast, endless field of drifting pink flowers until I couldn't see your blue eyes anymore. When I woke up, I had this terrifying feeling that I had to see you right now. Just to make sure you were still real. Just to make sure you were still here.”
The effervescent cheer had completely drained from his voice, exposing a lingering terror. Isagi’s expression went soft. He didn't offer a royal platitude; he offered the truth of the moment. “I’m here, Meguru,” he assured him gently. “I'm not going anywhere yet. You can go back and rest easy.”
Bachira let out a breath, smile rushing back into his eyes. He waved once, and then pulled the door open and bounded down the hall.
With Isagi finally left entirely alone, a profound, ringing silence settled over the tearoom. The Prince slumped back into his armchair, exhaling a long breath. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to massage away the pulsing ache at his temples.
The protocol officer slipped quietly into the room and began clearing the porcelain tea service. “The schedule is currently ahead of its mark. Shall we move the next appointment forward? You have a council meeting scheduled for 4:55 PM.”
“No,” Yoichi replied. He paused for a long moment. “If he is in his quarters, inform him there is a matter I would like to continue discussing, and ask if he would be willing to see me in my private study.”
The attendant offered a deep bow. “Right away, Your Highness.”
“And one more thing,” Isagi added. He sat up, his spine snapping straight. “Starting tomorrow, move the waiting area to the side hall. It needs to be separated from the meeting room by at least two corridors. Anyone who arrives early will wait in the side hall, and their presence will be formally announced by the staff. There will be no more unescorted walk-ins. Add that to the Selection’s supplementary guidelines and distribute the mandate to the guard detail immediately.”
“Understood, sire.”
Once the attendant had withdrawn, Isagi stood alone by the window. The lake’s surface was still glittering, but the blinding, aggressive heat of the mid-afternoon had already burned off, bleeding into a softer, forgiving wash of warm gold. His mind drifted back to Ranze’s description of a seaside dusk.
It was the scent of the mundane. The aroma of a lived-in reality—a profound luxury that someone born into the gilded cage of the royal family could never hope to touch. Those tiny, grounded fragments of a hometown and a normal childhood were things Isagi suddenly found himself fiercely envying.
Isagi lifted his hand, examining his fingertips. A phantom smudge of charcoal stained his skin—a messy souvenir of Bachira’s latest chaotic sketch. He reached into his jacket pocket for a handkerchief to buff it away, but his fingers snagged on something small, hard, and cool to the touch.
He pulled it out.
It was a scallop shell, which was painfully ordinary. Its surface bore undulating ridges like frozen water, worn soft by the sea. Ranze had pressed it into his palm during their second meeting, his face flushing a bright, stuttering red as he looked everywhere but at the Prince. “It’s nothing valuable,” he’d murmured, the words tumbling out in his quiet, way. “Just... the first intact shell I ever found when I was little.”
At the time, Yoichi had accepted the gift with a polite smile, slipping it into his pocket and promptly burying it under the weight of his duties.
Feeling its weight now brought the memory rushing back with startling clarity. He rested the shell in the center of his palm, holding it up to the waning light. The sun filtered through the fragile calcium, illuminating a hidden, iridescent pulse deep within the grooves. It wasn't the brilliant flash of a diamond; it was something softer, more secret.
The memory of Ranze’s sheepish, earnest expression surfaced again, pulling a genuine smile onto the Prince’s lips.
Isagi tucked the shell safely back into his pocket. He didn’t linger. The prince turned on his heel and strode out of the tearoom, his pace quickening. He went down the long corridors with a newfound purpose, heading straight for his study.
Kurona Ranze was running basic sword drills.
One strike. Two strikes. Three.
The heavy wooden blade cleaved through the air, letting out a rhythmic whistle. His movements undeniably lacked the fluidity of a professionally trained knight; with every aggressive recovery, his center of gravity wavered, forcing him to take a jagged half-step to restabilize. But he didn’t stop. Sweat rolled down his temples, dripping into his eyelashes and stinging his eyes. He haphazardly swiped a damp sleeve across his face and reset his stance.
Twenty strikes. Thirty strikes.
The training grounds were entirely empty, leaving him alone with the echo of his own ragged breathing.
To the outside world, he was a fool. A background character pushing himself to the point of breaking when there wasn't a single reality TV camera around to document his "dedication." But it didn’t matter. He hadn’t come here to be seen. He hadn’t come here for the lens.
Entering the Selection had been a cosmic accident; it can be called as a fluke of the tide. When the royal decree had finally drifted into his sleepy coastal town, the mayor had simply submitted a blind roster of every eligible youth. Kurona’s name was just one more ink-blot on the list. He had passed the screenings, scraped through the written exams, and survived the physical trials, navigating the entire process with a dizzying momentum until he was deposited here: inside the massive, oppressive lungs of the capital palace.
He was a deep-sea fish swept up in a gilded net, gasping in the thin, expensive air of the nobility. And then—he had found himself face-to-face with Prince Isagi Yoichi.
Isagi. His long-time, salt-crusted pining made flesh.
Their first encounter had been a blur of marble and perfume at the welcome banquet. Isagi had stood at the center of the grand hall, encased in a navy suit so sharp it looked like armor. His voice, amplified by the microphones, had been steady—perfect.
“I hope this Selection will not merely be an evaluation, but a process of mutual understanding,” the Prince had said. “Please, relax. Show me who you truly are.”
Kurona had been shoved all the way to the back row. Lacking the height to see over the sea of broad-shouldered heirs and ambitious sons, he’d had to strain on his tiptoes just to catch a glimpse of the crown. It was the first time he’d seen his "dream" in person. But before the expected flutter of infatuation could even take root, what bloomed in Kurona’s chest was a sharp, grounding ache of sympathy.
Stripped of the broadcast filters and the flattering angles, Prince Isagi looked… tired.
He only found out later that Isagi had sat through three consecutive council meetings before the banquet, then delivered a grueling report to the royal advisor, Mr. Ego. But there on that stage, Isagi had fought tooth and nail to bury his fatigue, offering his undivided, burning attention to a room full of new-coming suitors.
Then, Kurona dedicated himself to follow the rules. He would stay in the lines. He would never, ever be a complication. Without a prestigious pedigree or a blinding talent, there wasn't much he could offer a future King. But Kurona loved him—quietly, steadily, like the tide. And he couldn’t bear the thought of adding a single ounce of weight to a Prince who was already carrying the world on his shoulders.
He didn't need to be the Prince's favorite. He just wanted to be the one thing Isagi didn't have to worry about.
“Candidate Kurona Ranze?”
A voice called out from the entrance of the training grounds. Kurona halted his swing, his chest heaving, and turned to see a royal attendant offering a polite bow. “His Highness Prince Isagi requests your presence in his study, if it is convenient for you.”
Kurona froze. He looked down at himself. He was wearing the most basic training outfit imaginable, and the fabric was soaked through with sweat. His pink hair was a tangled mess plastered to his forehead, and his hands were currently blistered from gripping a wooden practice sword.
“Right now?” Kurona croaked, mortified. “But I look like…”
“It’s Okay. If you are willing, you may proceed directly there. His Highness is waiting.” the attendant replied warmly.
Kurona hesitated. A frantic voice in his head screamed, Go! while another scolded, You can’t show up to the royal study looking like a feral street dog. Ultimately, he dropped the wooden sword onto the dirt and grabbed a towel draped over the railing, aggressively scrubbing at his face and neck. “Please wait just a moment. I’ll go change my clothes, I promise it’ll be quick—“
“His Highness said there is no need to change. You may come exactly as you are.”
Kurona blinked, entirely thrown off balance. After a brief internal war, the desperate desire to see Yoichi again won out. He nodded, throwing the towel aside, and followed the attendant away from the training grounds.
…
The royal study was massive. Three of the walls featured towering, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with heavy literature. The fourth wall was composed entirely of arched windows looking directly out over the glass conservatory. The setting sun was currently hitting the panes, refracting a wash of warm, tangerine light that made the entire room feel as though it were suspended in amber.
Isagi sat behind a sprawling mahogany desk. A mountain of documents was spread out in front of him, but he wasn’t reading them. Instead, he was idly spinning a small, white scallop shell between his fingers, his gaze lost out the window.
A knock sounded at the door. “Come in.”
The heavy wood clicked open, and Kurona stood rigid on the threshold. True to his word, he hadn’t changed. He was still in his sweat-soaked training clothes, his hair was an absolute disaster, and his cheeks were flushed a violent pink from exertion.
Sitting at his desk, Yoichi couldn’t hold back a sudden snort of laughter.
Kurona’s face instantly burned an aggressive shade of crimson. Panic visibly washed over him, his expression screaming a regretful I knew I should have changed clothes!
“I, uh—the attendant said I didn’t need to change, so I just came!” Kurona stammered, bowing frantically. “I’m sorry, so sorry…”
“Come in, it’s completely fine,” Isagi said, his voice thick with a fond, fighting smile. He simply couldn’t deny how endearing the boy was. Any other candidate would have insisted on showering and styling their hair to perfection, regardless of what the attendant said. He was just so painfully earnest.
“Take a seat.”
Kurona walked in hesitantly, perching nervously on the very edge of a plush leather sofa. The study smelled of old parchment and rich sandalwood, but cutting through it all was a crisp, incredibly distinct scent that belonged entirely to Isagi—a clean blend of cedar and sharp citrus. Just breathing it in made the pink-haired boy’s heart hammer violently against his ribs.
Isagi rounded the desk and sat down on the sofa beside him, entirely unbothered by the sweaty training outfit. “I apologize for what happened earlier. Even though Meguru didn’t do it maliciously, he still encroached on your time.”
“No—Your Highness, please. You really don’t need to apologize,” Kurona stammered, his head shaking in a frantic blur of pink hair. He was desperate to give Isagi an exit, a way to dismiss the guilt. “I completely understand. Bachira-kun... he had urgent business. I’m just a...”
The Prince cut him off, not with a command, but with a gentle, steadying look that made the words die in Kurona's throat.
“It’s unfair to you. Unless it’s a matter of state security, nothing else qualifies as ‘urgent business’,” Isagi said. His expression sobered, laced with a microscopic trace of helpless exhaustion. “Unless it’s a matter of state security, nothing in this palace qualifies as ‘urgent.’ Talking with you... it’s just as important. Please, stop putting yourself beneath the others. The fact that you are sitting here, in this room, proves you are exactly where you belong.”
Kurona jerked his head up, his eyes widening for the gentle words Isagi gave him.
The black-haired prince pulled the scallop shell from his pocket, resting it in the center of his palm. “I’ve been carrying the gift you gave me. The things you tell me… I find them genuinely fascinating.”
He traced the ridges of the shell thoughtfully. “You arrive early, you wait quietly, and you always tidy up after yourself. Even when you were interrupted today, you didn’t argue. You just perfectly managed the things within your control.”
“I…” Kurona opened his mouth, his throat suddenly terribly dry. “I just didn’t want to be a burden to you.”
“You are not a burden,” Yoichi replied with grounding certainty. A faint shadow of protective concern bled into his voice. “The way you move through this world is wonderful, Ranze. But... sometimes I worry. People see selflessness and they mistake it for a weakness to exploit. I don’t want them to do that to you.”
He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. In that moment, stripped of the flawless royal veneer, Isagi looked like nothing more than a normal, tired young man.
“This Selection is exhausting,” Yoichi murmured. “Seeing a different person every day, evaluating motives, constantly managing egos. Everyone is putting on a show, and it’s impossible to tell what’s real and what’s manufactured. But you… you never need to feel like you can’t compare to them. You are wonderful exactly as you are.”
Isagi turned his head, his blue eyes catching the amber light of the setting sun as he looked softly at the boy beside him. “Being with you… it gives me a kind of peace I rarely get to feel anymore.”
A profound, heavy silence settled over the room—the kind of silence that held more weight than any confession. For a moment, the palace and the Selection felt a world away.
From outside the window, the distant, echoing chime of the courtyard clock tower drifted in.
It was exactly 4:30 PM.
“In truth, being genuine… this is the most precious commodities within these walls.”
The angle of the sun shifted, the light pooling directly across Kurona’s face. He kept his head bowed, his eyelashes casting dense, trembling shadows against his cheeks. The tips of his ears glowed a translucent, burning red. Watching him, something soft and yielding in the very center of Yoichi’s chest quietly caved in.
Over the past two weeks, the Prince had met countless individuals: the brilliantly talented, the ruthlessly ambitious, the breathtakingly beautiful, and the politically untouchable. Every single one of them was desperate to prove their superiority, yet they only brought chaos in their wake, leaving Isagi with a perpetual, throbbing migraine.
Only this boy had arrived carrying nothing but an earnest heart and a handful of mundane stories about a small seaside town.
“Ranze,” he called out softly, prompting the boy to finally look up.
Isagi shifted, sitting up straighter as he leaned into the narrow space between them. Under Kurona’s bewildered gaze, he reached out and took the boy’s hand. Because Kurona had just come from grueling sword drills, his palm was flushed and feverishly warm, the thin, rough calluses of a swordsman grazing lightly against Isagi’s pale skin.
The Prince didn't look away. He lowered his head; the black-haired boy pressed a deliberate, impossibly soft kiss directly to the back of Kurona’s hand. His lips made full, lingering contact with the damp skin, anchoring there for one, two, three seconds.
Kurona stopped breathing. The world fell into suspended animation; he could feel the ghost of Isagi’s steady exhale against his knuckles, a warmth that rivaled the summer heat. The pressure of Isagi’s lips was as light as a falling feather, yet it felt heavy with intent. It was a scene far beyond anything his coastal fairy tales had ever dared to conjure—breathtakingly beautiful, devastatingly intimate, and entirely surreal.
Time stretched until it frayed at the edges. Everything narrowed down to a dizzying hyper-focus: the scent of old paper, the salt on his skin, and the heat of the Prince’s lips.
Isagi finally lifted his head, though he didn’t relinquish his hold on Kurona’s hand. He looked up, his eyes dyed a bottomless blue by the setting sun; the color of the ocean right before a storm breaks.
“I really shouldn’t be granting private meetings this late in the day,” Isagi murmured, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips. “But I think I owe you some penance for the earlier interruption.”
Kurona’s lips parted, his lungs struggling to remember their basic function. Any coherent response he might have possessed had been scorched away, leaving his mind an incandescent blank. The only thing that remained was the searing imprint of Isagi's lips on the back of his hand, a phantom heat that seemed to sink through his skin and brand itself directly onto his bones.
Isagi finally relinquished his grip, straightening up. He took a deliberate half-step back, granting Kurona the air he so desperately needed to keep from fainting.
“Go get some dinner,” the Prince murmured, his voice dropping into a low, conspiratorial hum that made the study feel suddenly, dangerously small. “Then, sneak back here. Don’t tell a soul—not even your guards.”
He leaned in just a fraction closer, his eyes glimmering. “This time, I’ll make sure the world stays outside the door. No interruptions.”
Kurona finally found his voice, though it emerged as a fragile, breathless thing. “Th-thank you… Prince Isagi! I… I’ll be quiet. Definitely!”
“You’re a suitor, Ranze.” Isagi reached up to scratch his cheek, a sheepish, lopsided grin breaking through his composure. For a fleeting second, the royal mask shattered completely, leaving behind nothing but the boy that was too vulnerable, hopeful, and entirely too charming.
Yoichi glanced toward the window, watching as the horizon began to bruise with the deep, aching violets of twilight. “See you later.”
Kurona swallowed hard, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He took a gamble, his voice small but steady. “See you later… Yoichi.”
The name felt like a prayer and a transgression all at once.
Kurona didn’t just walk out; he practically fled, his footsteps feeling utterly weightless, as if the floor had dissolved into clouds beneath his boots. He felt buoyant, a kite caught in a sudden, warm updraft.
Standing by the desk, the Prince watched him go. He thought of the dejected boy who had slumped out of the tearoom earlier that day, and decided that this flustered, glowing, and vibrant version was the only one he ever wanted to see again.
Isagi stood motionless as the setting sun stretched his silhouette into a long, dark ribbon across the floorboards. He raised a hand, his fingertips ghosting over his own mouth. His lips, the ones that had just claimed the back of Kurona’s hand, still hummed with a radiating warmth, a lingering heat that carried the faint smell of sweat.
A relaxed smile pulled at the corners of Isagi’s mouth. For the first time since the trumpets had announced the start of this ordeal, he thought that if the price of admission was meeting Ranze, perhaps this gilded circus of a Selection wasn’t such a disaster after all.
Outside the arched windows, dusk finally claimed the capital. Below in the courtyard, the gas lamps flickered to life one by one, a terrestrial constellation of amber sparks falling into the mortal realm.
Isagi turned away from the view, walking briskly back to his desk. He sat and dove into the towering mountain of accumulated paperwork with a sharp focus. Amidst the aggressive scratching of his nib gliding across policy documents, he would occasionally pause, the ink still wet on the page. He’d recall the searing heat of that kiss, and the way Kurona’s eyes had blown wide, dark and startled and beautiful.
The endless sea of state affairs no longer felt like a drowning weight. He found himself looking forward to the moment Kurona finished his dinner—to the quiet click of the door, and the shared peace of the orchids under the conservatory’s moonlit glass.
The curtain had only just risen on the board. There were exactly five months and fifteen days left until the final consort would be chosen.