"Tch... this tastes awful..."
I took a bite on a piece of sandwich I was grabbing. Although it couldn't taste more bland, I didn't want to take a detour just to get something to eat from the kitchen. I decided I would just go and eat somewhere outside the castle.
I moved my feet which felt heavy knowing where I was supposed to go. It was 9.12 in the morning, and I could've spent my time better on my bed sleeping instead of having to face him again. The long corridor I was walking on was basically as big as one could expect, being inside a castle. The constant light phasing through huge windows compiled of stained glass along the corridor walls also hurt my eyes. It was awfully sunny and bright for a morning that day.
Followed up after a while from behind, I heard footsteps from behind, slowly catching up with mine. I didn't bother looking behind since I already knew whom those footsteps belong to.
"Sly..."
"Flow, who made this awful sandwich?"
"..."
His silence triggered my respond to look behind. All I saw was his usual expression with the closed eyes, even though I was pretty sure he was staring... no, glaring would be the better word, at me. I was thinking of retorting, but brushed it off since Flow answered right after.
"...I don't have a clue. I don't really follow the schedule of the ones in charged of the kitchen."
"Heh, so our "top butler" here doesn't really know everything, huh? Sorry I asked."
"Uh-huh..."
To be perfectly honest, his casual scoff at my blatant taunt kind of ticked me off, since it felt like I was losing a battle I wasn't even trying to win. That was how it always been with Flow; I couldn't really remember when it started, but for some reason I found his mere presence irritating.
Decided to stop, I continued taking another bite from my sandwich without further complain. There was nothing but silence between us both. Only sounds from our footsteps, the plastic wrapping my sandwich, and my chewing that could be heard, but not a single word spoken between us the whole walk.
The silence was finally broken after we both stopped our feet right in front of a door. The door was massive, so massive I thought that was a giant's room. That massive door was the entrance to the throne room; the room my old man sat all day like the old man he was. I wasn't looking forward to the conversation I knew I was gonna cut midway again.
Flow made the first step to knock on the door, but I was faster and opened the door myself. I was getting impatient and wanted the whole ordeal to be done sooner.
"Sly..."
"Hmph."
On the other side of the room, sat the one person who called me.
"Old man."
"Sly! Next time, announce yourself first before coming in."
"Apolo-" Before Fly could even say anything, I butted in.
"Screw that! This room's too big for you to hear me from the other side anyway!"
I continued to walk towards the throne to approach the King while shrugging off my shoulders. Flow followed immediately in a professional posture as expected.
"So what was all this "summoning" all about? Don't tell me it's the usual stuff."
"But you already know the importance of the future of this empire. You have to understand how the empire works and-."
"I knew it was gonna be about this again. I already told you I don't want to."
"But you have to! You won't be ready when you're taking over the throne or-"
"Then I'll just learn all of it later. What's so hard about giving orders and sitting your ass off all day long in a big, comfy seat, anyway?"
"It'll be too late by then. You have to understand, Sly. This isn't-"
""This isn't for me, it's for your own good" Yeah yeah, I've heard that enough times I don't need it to go through my ears one more time. But no means no. I don't want my freedom to disappear."
At that point, I was already moving my body and no longer was my front facing the throne. I noticed Flow's half opened eyes looking at me, but I bore no mind to it and kept walking towards the door.
"Sly!"
It seemed like my Old Man wasn't going to let me go. I was already beyond annoyed at that point that I accidentally let out the one thing I didn't want to mention.
"I'm leaving. Ya'know, Dad, ever since Mom left us, you've been robbing me of my freedom much more."
"Sly-"
"Flow, calm down."
Flow looked like he couldn't take it anymore. I assumed he was going to grab my collar by his unfamiliar aggressive gesture but stopped himself due to interference from my Old Man.
"...!"
Flow stopped his movement right there and then, quickly apologizing to the one he served.
"...apology, Your Majesty."
"Heh."
I couldn't help but laugh at the sight.
Swearing loyalty at the cost of his freedom, how stupid is that?
I fixed my gaze back to my Old Man's while retaining myself from saying anything. The same went for both him and Flow. The silence continued for an uncomfortable amount of time.
"Sly...," my Old Man started talking in a pained way. "I..."
"That's enough. I'm leaving."
Flow tried to stop me, but was told to let me go. Again, looking at how obedient he was to Old Man pained me, who embraced freedom, to no end. Not only him, the same went for the other butlers and maids in the castle. Honestly speaking, there was only one rule I respected that my Old Man applied, which was also some sort of a dying wish from my late Mother; it was to order all servants over 30 to stop serving under his reign. The reason for the rule, at least what I heard from Mom herself, was because they wanted their servants to be free and to be able to choose what they wanted to do. Apparently, that was also the reason why the top butler and maid respectively, Flow and Crystal, who were both 18, were so young despite the number of servants in the castle.
Due to my Old Man's benevolence, quite a number of senior servants wanted to continue serving him even after 30, but he declined. For whatever reason even after Mom passed away, he still stubbornly refused all requests. For all I know, I could just assume that's his showing respect to Mom's last will.
"...whatever."
I started my steps again after some thoughts. I expected Flow to come with immediately and was somewhat preparing myself to his possible lecture again. But that expectation soon came to break as the last thing I heard before the stupidly big door closed was Flow being commanded to stay.
I couldn't care less about what my personal butler was going to face.
Instead, I looked forward while deciding what I wanted to do for the day.
***
"HAH!"
I heard a scream.
"HYAH!"
No... not a scream.
"TOH!"
A kiai, huh...
"SEIYA!"
Different voices... I heard two different pitch of voices with those kiais. The two voices I recognized after a bit of recollection.
So these two were always practicing in the morning over here, huh.
Practicing there were two of the young butlers serving for the castle. Although being called butler, these two in particular were holding swords made of wood for each one. The earlier kiais were let out every time they swing the swords or when they collided to spar. They also had different body builds; one was shorter than me and he was pretty thin yet muscular, the other was towering over even Flow, who was 4 cm taller than me, complete with his bulky muscles. It seemed like the two of them were best friends, and would probably be great if fighting together, akin to partners.
I walked towards the two with no real intention in mind, but it soon changed into releasing a bit of irritation from the talk earlier.
The moment I got close enough, I could see one of them making an unfavorable expression as he looked at me. Seemed like the other one noticed and turned around. Although in contrast, the one with a bigger body stopped what he was doing and immediately straighten his posture, facing me.
"Good morning, young master."
Contrary to his big build, his voice was a quiet one. The tone he used was also pleasant and professional. Ironically, I didn't find it good either due to my ideology.
That was also the reason why I didn't bother to answer him back.
"Answer Em when he greets you, ungrateful bastard...!"
I jumped a little when the other one suddenly screamed at my face.
...that caught me off guard. Contrary to Em, the one with the smaller build, has a voice with an ear-shattering volume. I remembered sometimes Crystal would complain about him every once in a while.
"...it's okay, Frost. But you should be more careful next time when speaking to young master."
"I don't care about that. I don't have any respect for this little shit."
"Frost...!"
"Heh." I couldn't help but let out a laugh.
"What's so funny, huh!?"
"I appreciate your honesty, Frost. I'm not even gonna lie to you, even with that level of disrespect you're showing, I don't feel mad at all. Hell, I even feel kinda refreshed!"
"...!"
I took a look at Frost's expression and surely it was filled with anger. It seemed to me that Frost took my statement as sarcasm and a provocation. Considering the tone I used, it was to be expected.
Though, what I said was actually the truth. I was not angry about his blatant disrespect towards me. I wasn't even irritated. To be able to see a person who knew my identity as the King's son, let alone one of the butlers who serves in the castle, talked to me without any filter and fear whatsoever was extremely refreshing.
Despite the misunderstanding, I found it more amusing to leave the situation as it was.
Frost's stare got more intensifies as he walked towards me. He lifted his left hand making a fist.
Ohh, he's gonna punch me.
"Frost, stop!"
Oh, the big guy's raising his voice now. Guess that's enough for now. I don't want to stir up unnecessary problems.
"Let me go, Em! I need to punch him so he gets it...!"
"...!"
I stood there witnessing Frost trying his hardest to release his hand from Em's grab to no avail. After a bit of struggling, Frost finally gave up and calmed down, convincing Em to release it.
"Tch...!"
"I apologize for our unsightly behavior, young master. I will be more careful next time."
"Hmm..."
As usual, I couldn't careless about such things even if he was genuinely apologizing.
"Haha. I'm outta here. Thanks for the interesting performance."
"You...!"
I turned my back towards them and walked away. I looked back to see Frost unexpectedly holding himself back from saying anything to me. Heh heh... I like his guts.
I turned my head towards where I walked and continued my steps...
...until someone accidentally bumped into me on the corner.
"...!"
"Hm..!?"
Who the hell...!?
"...!!"
She gave me a stare.
Shock? Anger? Embarrassment?
I didn't know what the stare was all about.
For a couple of second I took a look at her clothing, she was wearing the castle's standard maid attire. Huh, so she's a maid here, I thought. I moved my eyes towards her face. She had a fair complexion and facial features that was quite uncommon around the castle. Her eyes were quite big, and coupled with her round face making her look pretty cute. She also looked quite young, same age? A year younger, perhaps?
Then something struck me.
I was confident in my memory. It was because I had memorized all of the butlers and maids serving for my family. So I knew I would recognize one when I see them, especially the ones around my age since I see them so many times.
Which means...
"Are you new?"
She flinched. Ah...seemed like I was correct.
Seemingly coming back to her senses, she quickly stood up and bowed multiple times. After a bit of more bows, she noticed the papers that were lying on the ground due to the bump earlier. Immediately she folded her skirt to slouch down, taking the paper one by one.
...she's properly trained, too. I guess she was just shocked from the fall.
She continued to pick up the paper one by one as I looked. Due to of her posture, I could get a good look on her face one more time. Something about her appearance felt familiar.
"You..."
She responded to me by raising her head.
"What's your-"
-name, was what I wanted to ask before being interrupted.
"What are you doing this time!?" A loud bang of a voice came from behind me. It was Frost, again.
"...what?"
"So after you're done with us, you're now onto the weaker one? How low can you be!?"
"Hm...?"
I couldn't really catch what he was implying until I observed the situation I was in.
A maid on her knees picking up the papers lying down on her own, without me helping.
...I see now.
"Oh."
"Don't 'Oh' me, you shit. Why don't you move your ass off and help her!?"
Frost was fuming with anger, stomping his feet while approaching me. Followed by a panicked Em behind him.
"Frost!!"
"Don't stop me, Em! I've had enough of this bastard!"
He sure wasn't going to be stopped by Em. But he was stopped anyway, this time unexpectedly, but the maid that I thought was behind me.
"...!"
She didn't say anything, instead tried her best to stop Frost by spreading out her hands towards him. She then slowly shook her head as if to imply that everything was a misunderstanding. Seeing this, Frost once again pulled himself together and clicked his tongue once more to let out his frustration after being stopped twice.
I wasn't feeling like standing around any longer, so I decided to speak without too much tone change.
"Well, it's like what she's trying to say. I wasn't trying to threaten her, it was all misunderstanding, though I don't really care whether you'll believe me or not. If you were so mad about me not helping her, then you do that. I didn't feel like it, still don't. That's it, I'm going, see ya."
I left without waiting for responses from any of them. I didn't bother looking back anymore since I spent too much time inside the castle. My stomach was already grumbling due to hunger. The bland sandwich earlier that morning didn't help at all.
As I walked toward the main gate, a flash of light suddenly appeared, followed by a thunder. The wind also got stronger as the sky grew darker with the increasing volume of raining clouds.
"Huh...?"
I guess due to all the commotion, I didn't notice the low temperature and less-than-sunny sky.
"Good thing I wore my hoodie. Now then, since it seems like it'll rain, and the temperature checks out too. Guess I'll go there to eat."
Since I knew where to go, I picked up my pace as I could feel small droplets dropping on my exposed arms due to the short sleeves on my hoodie.