Feigning Ignorance
“Mmph! Mmph!!!”
“Why is this damn brat so strong?!” the man hissed, clamping his hand even tighter over Jill’s mouth.
It wasn’t that she was strong. She was thrashing like this because she had seen with her own eyes what happened to the friends who had been dragged away by these bastards.
Seya always makes them drop with a single kick.
Jill tried her best to mimic Seya, whom even the neighborhood adults couldn’t handle, but her flailing amounted to nothing more than desperate struggles. Her strength was rapidly fading. With the stamina of a child who hadn’t even had a decent bowl of gruel, the most she could do was slow the man down.
Jill mustered every last ounce of her strength and kicked out one final time.
Thwack!
“Aaargh!”
A scream erupted from the man, accompanied by a sound far louder than any impact her foot could have made. The hand clamping her mouth shut slowly went slack. Did it work? Am I actually a natural at fighting?
While her oxygen-deprived brain conjured up such nonsense, a voice she had desperately missed echoed from a distance.
“Hey! You crazy bastard! Let go of Jill!!!”
Jill snapped her head up at the sound of her name. The man who had been dragging her away was now clutching his head, doubled over in pain. And right next to him lay a jagged rock of a size that was impossible to ignore.
The moment she registered the scene, Jill smiled as a powerful yank pulled at her arm. This time, she didn’t need to dig her heels in and resist. Dragging her trembling legs, Jill ran with all her might, following the round head of her savior.
“Seya!”
As long as the neighborhood’s mad dog was on her side, she had nothing to fear. While the man was still reeling from the impact of the rock, the two of them managed to slip into a narrow alleyway and hide.
Once they caught their breath, Jill smacked Seya on the back as he stood scanning their surroundings, still holding her hand.
“Hey! What happened? You’re alive? How are you alive? No, wait, how did you even get here?”
“Shh. Keep it down.” Seya scratched his stinging back and pressed a finger to his lips.
“You keep down!”
Jill snapped back, still reeling from the shock of escaping death and the sheer adrenaline of reuniting with a friend she thought was dead. She wasn’t completely oblivious to their danger, though, as she kept her voice as low as possible. To make up for her hushed tone, she channeled her unvented emotions into hitting Seya’s back again.
“If you were alive, you should’ve told me! You and Mir both vanished, and I was so... so...”
Seya, who had been taking the blows quietly, suddenly grabbed both of Jill’s hands.
“Mir is gone? Looking for me?”
“Yes! My little brother threw a fit when you went missing.”
“You should have stopped him!”
“Do you think I had the chance?! He doesn’t even listen to me when you’re not around.”
Seya clutched his head, his mind spinning. He had been lucky enough to cross paths with a kind-hearted young master and survive, but Mir would have undoubtedly headed straight for the soup kitchen. He had suspected as much, but he hadn’t expected the boy to move so quickly. If he ran now, could he catch up? If Mir had already been captured, there would be no way to get him back. At least, not as far as Seya knew.
But if Mir went in willingly, it means he has a way out.
Step.
“Shh.”
Seya’s sharp hearing caught the sound of footsteps just as he was trying to gather his thoughts. He looked down at his friend, who still hadn’t realized what was happening. Though her eyes were clear, showing she had recovered some of her senses, it was obvious her legs were still weak. Jill might force herself to run out of sheer grit, but she wouldn’t make it far.
Thud. Thud.
The footsteps grew loud enough for Jill to hear them too.
“You little rat. I’m going to catch you and make sure you die the most painful death possible,” a venomous voice spat.
Jill silently clutched Seya’s sleeve. Her legs were trembling, and her breath was still ragged. It was absurd to expect a child raised on starvation rations to outrun grown adults in the first place. Jill had clearly spent every ounce of her energy confronting the man and running.
Seya’s stamina was significantly better than Jill’s, but after spending the day running around to lose Jack and rolling out of a moving carriage, he was in no great shape either. He could manage to escape on his own, but there was no way he could drag Jill along with him. Should they both get caught, or should they choose a path where at least one of them was guaranteed safety?
“Jill. Can you run?”
She wanted to say she could run forever, but Jill knew her own limits too well.
“Just a little... If I rest just a little, I think I can run fast.”
So please don’t leave me behind. Seya wasn’t dense enough to miss the desperate plea filling her eyes. He squeezed Jill’s hand once. When you don’t like the choices given, find another one. That was another thing Mir had taught him. There was also a path that offered guaranteed safety for one and a chance of rescue for both.
“Okay. Just rest here for a bit.”
“What?”
Jill gasped as Seya suddenly sprang to his feet. She had expected them to rest together before running, and his abrupt movement terrified her.
“Hey! Are you crazy?!”
“Rest for a bit, and the moment that guy and I get further away, run!”
Jill desperately reached out to grab Seya’s hand, but she was too ordinary and weak to catch a boy who moved like a wild horse. Her hand clawed at empty air, leaving her in agonizing suspense. Seya’s figure vanished rapidly down the alley. Jill sat there blankly, tears streaming down her face.
“You little bastard, stop right there!”
“Only an idiot would stop when told to!”
Shouts were exchanged, and when the sharp clash of blades finally rang out, she couldn’t help but cover her ears with both hands. Jill, who had been whimpering with her head bowed, quickly snapped out of it. This was the chance Seya had bought her. She couldn’t afford to waste it by lying here. As soon as her trembling subsided, the girl scrambled to her feet and ran in the opposite direction Seya had gone.
The shadow cast by the towering temple spire across the street offered her cover. Though she stumbled, constantly feeling as if someone was about to call out and chase her down, she didn’t stop.
Thud!
But the moment she turned right at the next fork, she collided with something massive and tumbled backward. The impact was hard enough to bring tears to Jill’s eyes, but she was certain of one thing: this was a man far larger than the one who had captured her earlier. And he was reaching out toward her.
“Aaaaaah!” Jill screamed, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Whoa, kid, calm down.” Standing before the screaming Jill, who had no idea she was finally safe, Jack broke into a cold sweat at the sudden appearance of yet another child.
“The Prince is acting a bit strange, isn’t he?”
Anna tilted her head at the oddly familiar question. Her fellow maid, Lin, was doing the laundry with a remarkably serious expression.
“Oh, really?”
“No, he definitely is. The other day, when I brought him breakfast, he actually smiled.”
“He always smiles. Like this.” Anna smirked, pulling up one corner of her mouth.
“No, no! Not a smirk like that, but with both corners of his mouth pulled up.”
At Lin’s words, Anna clapped her soapy hands together and grinned as if she finally understood.
“Like this?” This time, she tucked her chin and stretched both corners of her mouth wide. With a touch of delinquency added to her crooked grin, her expression looked far more menacing than the single-sided smirk.
“Anna... you look surprisingly terrifying when you smile like that.” Lin let out a mix of genuine awe and horror before shaking her head to snap out of it. “No! That’s not what I mean! He really just smiled! Like, a proper grin! And he was all by himself!”
“Well, if it wasn’t a smirk and it wasn’t a grin, then it wasn’t anything at all!” Feigning annoyance, Anna went back to rinsing the soap from her hands and the laundry.
“There’s a subtle difference that’s hard to put into words. Seriously.”
Anna shook her head, still unconvinced.
“Maybe you saw wrong. It’s not like anything particularly good happened, so why would he suddenly smile? Anyway, I’m going to hang these up.”
Reaching her conclusion, Anna picked up the basket piled high with clean laundry and walked away. Behind her, she could hear Lin shouting, “Do you really not see it?!” but Anna ignored her and quickened her pace.
In truth, the sharp-witted Anna had also noticed a shift in the Seventh Prince’s demeanor. If even others were picking up on it, there was no way Anna would miss it. He spent more time with a blank expression than before, but he also frowned far less. He seemed somewhat restless, yet at the same time, preoccupied with worry...
Her decision to play dumb with Lin was a petty revenge against her coworker, who had never believed her in the past, but it was also a small gesture of loyalty as someone who shared a quiet understanding of the Seventh Prince’s secrets. Anna knew there was someone who had recently entered his daily life. Selos Abaran. The younger brother right below the Seventh Prince.
She had heard that the Eighth Prince used to come by to torment the Seventh Prince, but she had only witnessed it firsthand recently. She had even ended up strangely entangled with him, despite her vow to never cross paths with him again. *I suppose having a close sibling softens a person.* Anna figured the shift in the Seventh Prince’s mood must have occurred after his relationship with his younger brother grew a bit closer.
But she had no intention of blabbing about it. The Prince clearly didn’t want it publicized either. Why else would he have sent her so secretly to the Eighth Prince’s Palace just to deliver a single squirrel? Contrary to the rumors of the Eighth Prince’s tyrannical behavior, the fact that he hadn’t thrown any tantrums here convinced Anna that the brothers’ relationship had truly improved.
Sending his precious squirrel is proof enough!
Her misunderstandings piled up, layer by layer, much like the laundry in her basket.
“Isn’t it about time you revealed your true form?”
Making a mockery of Anna’s assumptions, the squirrel was currently held fast in the Seventh Prince’s hand, its large eyes darting around as it avoided his gaze. The tiny creature, snatched up without warning in the middle of a delightful breakfast, chewed on the nuts stuffing its cheeks, looking utterly bewildered.
“I’m trying to have a conversation here.”
“...Squeak?”
Only then did the creature lift its head to meet the human’s gaze. Its dark, beady eyes were filled with bewilderment and suspicion. Ran delivered the final blow.
“If we’re going to talk, you need to return to a state where you can speak human tongue. Just like you did in the forest.”
The single chestnut held delicately in the creature’s tiny paws slipped out, rolling across the desk and clattering to the floor.
On the day they had hidden in the hollow of the tree after pushing his limits, Ran Abaran had, surprisingly, managed to cling to a thread of consciousness. Even though his body had felt too heavy to move a single finger. This meant he had heard a human voice conversing with a wolf. It also meant he had realized the squirrel he had been carrying around was no ordinary animal.
The options available to him could be broadly divided into two.
First, unleash a torrent of questions: Who the hell are you, how can you turn into a squirrel, why are you following me, and is the person you’ve been waiting for actually me? In other words, openly reveal that he knew the squirrel’s true identity.
Second, play dumb and pretend nothing had happened, just as he had done until now.
For him, it wasn’t a difficult choice at all.