Chapter 6

“I’m not making a fool of you.”

I blurted it out before I could stop myself, but the prince’s expression didn’t change. The wind blew, making the flowers rustle and sway.

Taking advantage of the fact that the prince didn’t object, I pressed on without missing a beat.

“And it isn’t pity either. I’m well aware that I’m in no position to pity Your Highness.”

This time, I stared right back at the prince, glaring at him.

Fabrications never worked on someone like this. Laying bare whatever you were thinking without hiding a thing was the most effective approach.

However, blurting out honestly that it wasn’t pity would probably backfire on a prince who was practically bordering on people-pleasing levels of distrust. If it came to that, I’d never win his trust.

I could say it wasn’t pity, but I understood his feelings. Even so, that sounded far too like a fairytale. The most likely outcome would be him thinking, What could a pampered, happy young lady raised in absolute luxury possibly understand about this?

I needed a phrasing that didn’t involve lying, yet wouldn’t invite pushback either. I pulled the words I had prepared straight from my head.

“It’s entirely for my own sake.”

When I said that with the implied meaning of this isn’t pity, the prince’s clouded pupils narrowed in a twisted curve.

“How on earth does saving me benefit you? Aren’t you just trying to rescue the poor me so you can intoxicate yourself with your own righteousness?”

Stuck with a smiling prince spitting poison, I froze with that very smile still plastered on my face. Even my little brother had been somewhat purer at this age. This was far worse than I had imagined. The heroine was truly a saintly powerhouse.

While I stood there in stunned silence, the prince bit his lip as if regretting that he might have gone too far.

The wind picked up, howling as it blew stronger.

Just how much high-maintenance trouble was this prince, anyway? Seeing him look remorseful like this, he at least seemed aware that he had crossed a line.

I couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly at a prince whose vibe was so completely different from when we first met. His pride-and-joy mask was shattered into smithereens—would he even be okay? Still, seeing a somewhat childish side to him gave me some relief.

If he had just brushed me off with a masked, polite smile, my heart would have completely broken.

The prince lowered his head in a look of inner agony, keeping his eyes glued to the ground while occasionally sneaking glances in my direction. Since I was staring right back at him, our eyes kept meeting, whereupon he would look away awkwardly… only to start peeking at me again a moment later.

That behavior—like a child gauging the mood of a parent they had just angered—was enough to stir up a powerful protective instinct. He was sly.

As I was inwardly agonizing over this, the prince stopped looking my way. The wind grew even harsher, and before long, the maids might wander over to check on us.

I straightened my spine once more and tucked my chin in. This was the make-or-break moment.

“I do have an ulterior motive for wanting to get along with Your Highness, you see.”

At my words, the prince’s shoulders quivered as if startled. Taking a deep breath, I continued.

“I don’t really have any friends. That’s probably only natural since I’ve never attended a party, but I don’t have any siblings either, so I’m always by myself.”

When I mentioned being by myself, the prince raised his head slightly.

“If I had to name things I can do alone, it would be reading books or studying, but doing that all day long gets boring, obviously. Besides, in another two or three years, my education to become crown princess will start, and far from reading books, I won’t have any free time left at all.”

“…That’s true.”

Having raised his head completely, the prince gave a solemn nod, his face wincing with a look of apology.

By the time I turned eleven this coming year, I would surely be surrounded by countless tutors and heaps of study materials. Since I was marrying into royalty, it was something that couldn’t be helped, but it was remarkably gloomy. That lifestyle was bound to be an absolute hellish daily routine…

The memories of my test-prep cram days from my past life flashed across my mind. It would probably feel a lot like that.

“So, I gave it some thought. What could I do to enjoy myself while I still can? If I’m going to do something, I want to do things that won’t be possible two or three years from now.”

The prince tilted his head in bewilderment.

“Like what?”

“Umm, games like tag… Ah, no, hide-and-seek! I want to play hide-and-seek.”

“Hide-and-seek?”

I had almost said tag and hastily corrected myself. I was still a child and hadn’t undergone much education as a lady yet, but doing that would honestly be crossing a line. Would running around the garden and having the prince get hurt result in execution or something?

I wanted to play it, but my life was worth more than that.

“It’s a game where one person hides in the garden or inside the mansion, and the other person looks for them.”

“Ah, I see. So it’s something you can only play with two people.”

The prince smiled in understanding.

“If that was the case, you should have just told me right from the start. It’s partly my fault that Bell has to undergo princess education in the first place, after all. I’ll join you in whatever you like.”

Having apparently returned to his usual demeanor, the prince smiled brightly.

No. That wasn’t what I meant at all. It wouldn’t mean anything unless the prince and I got reasonably close. A game of hide-and-seek where he just humored me wouldn’t be fun in the slightest. If the prince didn’t have fun enough to make him forget the passage of time, there was simply no way to distract him from his loneliness.

“It doesn’t mean anything unless we’re friends!”

“Eh? Why is that?”

“B-Because, if we aren’t friends, Your Highness remains just a prince. Um, well, since you’re a prince of the royal family, I naturally feel like I have to walk on eggshells around you, and Your Highness hasn’t opened your heart to me yet either, right? I thought it would be better for the two of us to get to know each other a bit more.”

Even I lost track of what I was trying to say halfway through, but I conveyed it anyway with the general vibe of let’s just relax and get along easily.

When I glanced at the prince, I saw him freeze with his large eyes widened even further than usual. I panicked, thinking I might have said something wrong, and scrambled to backtrack, but I couldn’t find the right words.

“Um… I apologize for speaking out of turn…”

“P-Pfft, hahaha!”

I stared in surprise as the prince suddenly burst into laughter.

Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes as he laughed harder than I had ever seen him laugh before. Completely bewildered, I floundered in confusion.

“Ah, sorry, sorry. It’s just that Bell, you were looking so dead serious that it was funny.”

“Wha—!”

Feeling as though I was being made fun of, I raised my voice with a reddened face. Of course I was dead serious! I hadn’t expected the prince to be this formidable!

The prince laughed even harder at the sight of my flushed, embarrassed face.

“Alright, fine. Friends… was it? But well, in the end, Bell wants to get along with me, right? If so, does it really have to be as ‘friends’?”

Wasn’t he just way too sharp…?

Seeing me fall silent, the prince placed a hand on his chin as if pondering deeply.

“After all, Bell is my fiancée, and I’m royalty, sort of. Starting out as friends is an option, but…”

Watching the prince deliberate with a hmm, hmm expression, I suddenly started feeling guilty. Had I perhaps meddled in something completely unnecessary?

“Did I do something I shouldn’t have?”

When I asked, the prince blinked a few times, then broke into a soft, gentle smile.

“No. You were thinking of me, weren’t you? Thank you.”

Seeing him smile like that, I let out a relieved breath.

Though I had no way of knowing whether it was the prince’s true feelings or not.

“Still, I never would have thought Bell would care this much about me…”

It was the first time the prince had smiled with genuine happiness.

It might not have been a complete success, but we probably got a bit closer than before. I hoped this would be the start of us getting even closer.

“It looks like I’ll be able to get along just fine with you, Bell.”

At the prince’s lively, bright smile, I broke into a full grin as well.

It turned out a little different from the result I had expected, but if the prince was having fun, then all’s well that ends well.