However, the moment Ian turned around, he caught sight of a head of fluffy hair.
A child who had been running toward them from a distance spotted Ian and immediately began waving enthusiastically. Seeing this, Kyle stepped closer and grinned.
“Well, well. You made a friend?”
“…”
“Hm? It’s [Shu Cream][1].”
Oblivious to Ian debating whether he should simply punch that teasing face of his, Kyle recognized the approaching boy and waved back at Shu.
Then, lowering his voice, he whispered,
“Look at his hair and eyes. That one’s a chocolate shu cream.”
He was insane.
“Come to think of it, how do you two even know each other? No, wait. Do you know each other’s names? You probably don’t, right? Of course you don’t. You can’t talk.”
Kyle glanced between Shu, who had finally reached them and was now panting for breath, and Ian, muttering as though he found the whole thing fascinating.
Being able to insult someone so casually without a trace of malice was a talent in itself.
Fortunately, Shu was too busy catching his breath to have heard him.
“Alright!”
Kyle suddenly clapped his hands as if he had come to a decision. Pointing at Shu, he began the introductions himself.
“This is Shu. Even if you’re not interested, you should at least know his name.”
It was completely unnecessary meddling.
Shu, however, clearly did not think so.
After catching his breath, he abruptly lifted his head.
His face was filled with such obvious anticipation that anyone could have read it. In truth, Shu knew absolutely nothing about Ian—not his name, not his age—so naturally, he was curious.
Noticing the sparkling gaze fixed on him, Kyle smiled fondly and opened his mouth.
“And this here is our prince. What’s his name, you ask? Why are you curious when you can’t even say it?”
“…”
“…”
If there were a championship for saying terrible things in the most harmless tone imaginable, Kyle would have won it with ease.
Perhaps sensing Ian staring at him with a look that questioned his very character, Kyle let his smile fall and adopted an aggrieved expression.
“Our Shu Cream doesn’t even know Shettian.”
Ian looked at him as if to ask what that had to do with anything.
As though he had been waiting for precisely that reaction, Kyle continued.
“He can barely write his own name. Teaching him the prince’s name would just be cruel, don’t you think?”
It sounded like nonsense, but for once, it was surprisingly close to the truth.
Since Shu could not speak, Victorian had once tried to teach him how to write instead. But even that man, who doted on Shu like a younger brother and patiently taught him all sorts of things, had given up after only a month.
No matter how many times simple words were repeated, Shu could not remember them, and he seemed to possess no desire to learn in the first place.
Whenever Victorian asked, Do you understand?, Shu would merely giggle.
Victorian must have nearly lost his mind from frustration more times than anyone could count.
As if he had understood what Kyle was saying, Shu nodded vigorously and hurried off to pick up a nearby stick.
After Victorian had insisted that he should at least learn to write his own name, Shu had somehow managed to memorize a single character.
Drrrk.
With the scratch of wood against dirt, Shu crouched down and began to write.
A single syllable.
He did not even have a surname.
“Mm!”
Proudly displaying the only name he knew how to write, Shu beamed and quickly turned toward Ian.
But Ian, who could not even write his own name, could only stare blankly at the crooked letters he could not read.
At that exact moment, the word Cream was swiftly added beside Shu’s name.
Kyle straightened up and dusted the dirt from his hands as though he had done absolutely nothing.
Then he declared with great satisfaction,
“See? He’s perfectly content with this. For a moment there, you doubted my generous heart for sparing him unnecessary homework, didn’t you? Huh?”
It was nothing but teasing, yet he spoke as though making some grand proclamation.
Unlike Ian, who simply looked away as if the words were not worth answering, Shu had been listening intently to Kyle’s sophistry and seemed to agree with him to some extent.
This is why everyone treats him like an idiot.
Ian reached out and lightly flicked Shu on the forehead.
Shu’s eyes widened.
When Ian looked down at him as if to say, What are you staring at?, Shu merely tilted his head, looking both confused and unfairly wronged.
Kyle did not miss the opportunity.
He casually held the stick out to Ian.
Ian looked at him as if to ask why he was being handed it.
Kyle grinned.
“Still, what are you going to do if you don’t know each other’s names? Tell him yourself. Your name.”
“…”
“It’s not that difficult a name. Even Shu Cream should be able to memorize it, right? Right?”
The person being told that did not even know those supposedly not that difficult letters himself.
Ian looked from the stick now in his hand to Shu, who was staring at it with sparkling eyes, and let out a sigh he could not suppress.
What am I doing?
He had no desire to involve himself in something so trivial, but Shu had pressed himself right up beside him, his expectant gaze too intense to ignore.
Still, no matter how hard Shu stared, letters Ian did not know were not going to magically appear in his head.
Ian was about to toss the stick aside and leave.
Then he had the distinct premonition that Shu would simply follow him, pitter-pattering along behind him.
So he changed his mind.
After all, Ian was a foreigner in this country.
He had been told to write his name.
No one had said he had to write it in Shettian.
Having swiftly arrived at that conclusion, Ian bent down and drew a long diagonal stroke beneath Shu’s name.
What language I use is up to me.
“…”
But after drawing what looked like an ‘I,’ Ian stopped.
He stared blankly at the ground for a moment, then drew a circle to its left.
Beside it, he added another circle and a small stroke jutting sideways.
Then, without stopping, he drew an angled line underneath while both Shu and Kyle watched intently.
ㅇI 언
Perhaps fascinated by seeing Ian’s name written in [Hangeul][2], Shu remained crouched there, staring at it as though trying to memorize that those strange round and angular shapes meant Ian.
Kyle was staring down at it too.
But his expression had changed.
There was something peculiar about the way he looked at the writing.
He examined it again and again, as though he had just witnessed something deeply strange.
He was just parting his lips to say something to Ian when—
“If you’re back, report to your superiors first.”
At the rigid voice from behind them, all three naturally turned away from the ground.
The man approaching from the direction of the entrance seemed to have only just arrived, and his face was rather familiar.
Blue hair tied high.
The cross-shaped mark on his forehead.
Neat features beneath an utterly expressionless face that looked as though it would not so much as twitch even if someone stabbed him.
It was Vice-Captain Claude, the man who had ridden with Ian to the village on the day Ian had left with the procession.
“Oh, if it isn’t Claude? What’s this? Did you miss me so much that you came running out for morning training? That’s a little disgusting.”
“Must I respond to that?”
“Agh. So now you won’t even deny it?”
Their exchange came easily, as though they knew one another well.
Unlike Kyle, who was overflowing with obnoxiously friendly charm, Claude approached at an unhurried pace and replied in the patient tone of someone explaining something to an idiot.
“Training begins at eight o’clock sharp. I always arrive five minutes early. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Is that so?”
Despite Claude’s frosty response, Kyle’s grin never faded.
They clearly knew each other.
They also clearly did not get along.
As though long accustomed to scenes like this, Shu politely bowed his head to Claude, then repeatedly tugged at Ian’s sleeve.
Let’s write our names together!
The meaning was obvious even without words.
But beside them, the atmosphere between the two men was rapidly turning frigid.
Ian had heard each of them mention the other in passing before, but this was the first time he had seen them together.
“Right. I believe I’ve told you about a thousand times by now. Even a half-wit son of a bitch would have a better memory than you.”
In truth, aside from Ian, who was practically a newcomer, everyone in the knights already knew about the relationship between those two.
Kyle, who acted according to nothing but his own whims.
Claude, a man ruled by principle.
Even judging solely by the reputations attached to them, the two were complete opposites.
One was a former slave whose words carried no sincerity whatsoever.
The other was the second son of a noble family, raised to bear responsibility for every word that left his mouth.
Their very natures could not have been more different.
Worse still, both were elite members of the order.
They were often required to carry out the Grand Duke’s orders together, and whenever they crossed paths, they clashed without fail.
Neither cared in the slightest what anyone else thought, so plunging the entire order into an atmosphere of thin ice whenever they met had practically become a shared hobby.
“What?”
And now, Kyle was staring at Claude in apparent shock.
He’s not the kind of person who’d be hurt by an insult like that. What is he planning to say now?
The thought had barely crossed Ian’s mind when Kyle cried out indignantly,
“Apologize to the puppy!”
What kind of bullshit is that?
Ian wondered.
But what came next was even more spectacular.