Chapter 27

After I gently enveloped the baby bird with the handkerchief and placed it in my pocket, I looked up at the tree. I could see something that looked like a nest quite high up there.

Is that its nest?

I firmly gripped on the tree trunk and smoothly climbed my way up.

“Hey, that’s dangerous.” The ikemen1 called out to me in a bit of panic, but it was actually okay, I was quite a monkey after all.

“No problem. I’m an expert in climbing trees.” Just like that, I continued until I reached the spot with the nest, and I brought out the baby bird in my pocket to return it back to its nest.

The baby bird behaved once it was back to the nest, probably it was relieved to have returned. In the nest, there were another three baby birds—its brothers. From my movement on the tree, they mistook my presence as their parents and everyone of them opened their beaks wide, begging for food.

So cute.

Well then, I needed to get away from here soon before their parents actually came back. I carefully climbed down the tree. Compared to climbing a tree, it is more dangerous when you go down after all.

Under the tree, the ikemen looked up solemnly at me. He seemed to be worried. What a good person. I then climbed down slowly.

I had climbed down quite a bit, but it was still quite high to just jump down straight to the ground. While I was in that position, suddenly my head felt a pain.

”

”

“Eh, that hurts, what’s this? Waaaah-”

Apparently the birds’ parents had returned. They attacked me who had entered their territory. I was helpless under their coordinated attack. The birds were quite big. Maybe around the size of pigeons.

It hurt, and it was scary. Wanting to cover my face, my hands subconsciously let go of the tree.

“Uwaarghh” I fell down just like that, and the tragedy happened—not.

“Eh?” I was expecting a heavy impact on my body as I closed my eyes, but only time passed, yet there was no impact nor any pain.

I cautiously opened my eyes and what I saw was a zoomed-up figure of the ikemen.

“Whoa!!”

“Are you okay? Did you hurt anywhere?” The ikemen sounded worried, and when I realized it, he had me in a princess-carry.

No-no-no, no matter how chibi I was (and I certainly don’t acknowledge myself as one), there was no way one could just catch a falling boy in this pose. However, the fact remained that I was carried that way by him. So embarrassing.

“Urm, urmm, thank you so much. I’ve inconvenienced you. It’s okay now. Please let me down.” I felt so embarrassed that my face was flushed red, so I cast my gaze downwards.

It was a regular occurrence for me to be princess-carried by Al, but to have a stranger who I just met for the first time do that to me, I was embarrassed to death. No, it was also embarrassing when Al did it to me.

“Wow~ Here is a bashful and pure maiden~ Just what is this, what is with this cuteness? This only makes one’s desire to protect to overflow~” Sara yelped in the background2.

Sara, you were really being noisy! Was there even a need to shout like that?

“Ah, yeah, of course. Can you stand?” The ikemen gently let me down. However, his arm was still around my waist.

Really no, I’m not a lady, so could you please release your hand there?

“You got wounded, there’s blood.”

“Hmn?” I didn’t notice it myself, but from when the big birds were pecking me, I got wounded on the back of my hand with blood seeping out.

“No big deal, just this much, it’ll heal just by licking it.”

‘Hahaha’, I lightly waved my hands and wanted to just chuckle this matter away, who would’ve thought that the ikemen would grab my hand and licked it like it’s so natural!!

“Whaooo!”

“It’ll heal when you lick, right?”

How could you sexually harass someone with such an utterly solemn face? Um, it was not called sexual harassment if between two guys? No-no, that was not the issue here. More than that, to lick someone’s hand, wasn’t that simply harassment? And here I thought he was a good guy, did I offend this ikemen somewhere?

“Wowww, another step forward. Will the flower of love bloom here… Anyhow, it’s the unwritten law that the heroine should be dense. Just one more push. Only that one more push, or you can’t expect things to advance~” Sara raised her voice like she was doing a live commentary for a professional wrestling match.

I wondered what the hell was wrong with Sara. It only made me turn my head in bewilderment.

“Your Highness~” “Your Highness, we’ve searched for you.” Several males scurried over here.

Mn? Your highness? Were these people calling for this ikemen? I subconsciously looked at the ikemen, and his face turned awkward.

“No, no way.” If talking about the royalties in this academy, there was the Second Prince Alfred, and then, Al’s older brother, the First Prince Andrew.

“Pr-prince….” I muttered absent-mindedly.

I was the son of a Duke, so around me they were always people of lower status than me, so I acted high and mighty. To think that this person was actually a royalty…

“No, it’s nothing like that, I didn’t mean to hide it from you.” The ikemen waved his hand in front of his face in panic and said his excuse, but I was in no state to bother about that.

I took advantage of when the ikemen let go of his hand from me, and quickly created a distance between us.

“I-I’m very sorry. Please pardon my rudeness.” I bowed my head as down as I could.

And then….

“Sara, we’re going.” I grabbed Sara’s hand and made up my mind to dash off.

This is bad, bad, bad. This is no bueno3. He can accuse me with lèse-majesté with what happened to him.

I would never think a prince would actually be alone. I even thought of him as a gentle and a good guy. I went pale and ran away while dragging Sara along.

“I can’t anymore. Stop, I can’t run anymore~” Sara cried out, and then I finally stopped.

“Sara, what should I do…”

If only I didn’t butt in back there… Even if I couldn’t escape the punishment, now even Sara would get dragged along.

“Aaaaahn, that distressed appearance, you only evoke more protective desires.”

“Quit it, Sara. This is no time to joke around!”

“Fufufu. It’s okay. You’re not gonna get punished.

“Eh, what do you mean?”

I was truly angry when seeing Sara fooling around, but Sara only winked at me.

“That, just now, that was an event, you see. An event from the otome game. It’s the one called ‘Under the tree’ in Prince Andrew’s route. In that event, the heroine happened to walk in the scene where Prince Andrew was troubled as he picked the baby bird, and they got closer from this event.” Sara joyfully looked over me.

“Eh…. An event from the otome game?”

“Yep. Where the degree of intimacy between the heroine and Prince Andrew shoots up. However, when I look back now, Prince Andrew-sama, he didn’t notice my presence—the heroine—at all. Fania, you really did a good job!” Sara chuckled and smacked my back.

That dully hurt, alright.

It reminded me. The time when the BL game event also turned weird. In the BL game event, ‘The encounter at the entrance ceremony’, the Second Prince Alfred was supposed to encounter the MC Louie, but it changed into an encounter between the son of a Duke, Jade and Louie.

What did this mean? The story that I failed to change no matter how hard I tried, just by having both BL game and otome game exist at the same time, can the story actually change?

I could only rack my brain but nothing came out.

author’s note: Al doesn’t appear. The PDA between Al and Fania…… It’s a bit lonely without them.

chocolala: Another prince accidentally sucked into the mix!