aiko's otter den

raise your weapon - Dusk threw away his past, his life, everything, to become a spy to preserve order. He’s now got to don the look of a family man and get a wife and child, all to prevent a war! Meanwhile, Bam is a beleaguered law secretary, struggling with identity. Miseng is a child looking to stop running. Hijinks will ensue. SxF au

Now with art by yole!

---

Chapter 9

After a few days, Miseng discovers an interesting thing about her school: it quiets people’s minds!

Well, the walls mute people’s minds. Or maybe it’s the lessons. Her first full day of classes is long. There’s so much that she doesn’t know. Verdi is kinda helpful at least… when she’s not talking about dolls. There are words she doesn’t know in there too. She writes them down. Papa helps her spell them correctly at home.

Still, it’s nice to think and learn stuff for real. At the orphanage, no one got to do that. Papa was right! Being better than stupid Prince was the most important thing.

Maybe it’d make him stop staring at her from the other side of the room. His face has a bandaid and gauze on it, which makes her heart sting a bit. He shouldn’t have said all that stuff! It was mean! He needed to know it was mean. And he’d already gotten punched. She didn’t have to do anything else.

Unfortunately, the homework was hard. The pages were words she hadn’t grown up around, unlike everyone else.

Miseng bites her lip and looks around the classroom. Everyone else is paying attention. For her, the professor’s voice is so boring. He drones on and his words jumble together. Whoever taught him to teach didn’t teach him very well. Hmph. This is dumb.

Still, school is doable, and people aren’t as mean as the other orphans told her. She gets to watch cartoons! (If she does her homework). Papa checks it every night and corrects her. (His thoughts get weird and muddled as he goes over it, pulling things like from a cabinet or something. It’s weird, but he knows the answers!)

Daddy doesn’t know as much, but that’s okay. They often solve problems together. Uncle Hatz is smarter, he says, but he has weird thoughts and is super impatient. Miseng doesn’t know if she likes him or not.

Everything is great! She thinks. Other than a Cursed Eye on her uniform anyway that she can’t get rid of. Well, the dumb Prince has one too, so it’s fine!

Everything is going to be just fine! She’s going to make world peace happen! For sure!

… Or she’ll break Prince’s nose next time. He needs to stop staring!

---

Prince Jahad has never lost before.

Everything he has ever studied at home with tutors, every sport he’s ever played, every single thing he takes care of himself, he’s succeeded in, no matter what it was. He’s had no choice but to be.

He thinks of the rain on a lonely April day and an empty casket. Wangnan’s larger hand holding his, a promise in his eyes. It’d just been the two of them then. Karaka had exams. Michelle had been gone for two years. He didn’t know of any others. They wouldn’t have cared, anyway.

Wangnan had piggybacked him home, like a real older brother. Like he mattered a lot.

Karaka always told them, in place of father, that all of them mattered, all of their accomplishments, their failings. The whole of them, or something.

Wangnan had good grades, but they weren’t as good as Michelle’s or Karaka’s. He spent his time in commoner places, like pubs or something. Gross. Most of his friends were commoners, but there was a girl he liked that was a noble. Or maybe it was a guy. He didn’t care. His brother was nice, but also so gross.

He was kind, Karaka had warned him, too hopeful in this dark word.

But that’s why I’m here. He thinks but doesn’t say whenever this comes up. It’s rare because Karaka-hyung is almost never here, especially now. He’s been so busy, but he used to be around at least. Now it’s just him… and Wangnan sometimes.

Maybe if he does well, Father will come.

Prince carries that idea in his heart. If he does well, like the others did, Father would come and approve. Even Wangnan did that. But in order to do that, he’d have to be top of his class over and over and get into the elite of the elite.

Wangnan hadn’t managed it after all and had gotten his stars through his behavior and not grades. Prince couldn’t risk doing that! No, he had to be the best of the best, as he always has been. He needed to prove it now. Which he could, duh. His grades are great and he’s not in trouble.

The problem was… that commoner girl!

Just thinking of that girl and her bunny hair clips… Prince kicks a rock, startling Nia and the others surrounding him. Nia gives him a scolding look, and Prince ignores him. Of course he does. Nia is just his minder. He gets paid to look after him! He doesn’t know anything!

He kicks the rock again and goes back to his lunch. Miseng and Verdi laugh together on the other side of the yard. They’re trading lunches. What a downgrade. What was so good about a commoner’s lunch? He left those behind for a reason.

“If you want to talk to her, you just should.”

Nia stares at him, arms crossed, green eyes unfazed by his glare. He’s always scolded and ignored any changes in their lives just because they both came from different places. He says “it’s for Wangnan!” But it’s just because he’s jealous. Nia is older and had to learn more. They have to bully him or something.

“I don’t want to talk to her,” he grunts, turning away.

Nia coughs. “Okay. I’ll go be friends with her then.”

Prince snaps his head up. “Wait why?”

“She’s a girl,” Nia says reproachfully. “Not an alien.”

“She punched me,” Prince says. The bandage is off now. There’s no bruise anymore, but it still sucked. He never got punched like that before… ever!

“You were bullying her.” Nia says as one of the other kids glares at him. “You said something rude about her parents and others. You deserved it.”

Someone gets up. Prince doesn’t see who. He’s still busy sulking into his own lunch. He’s not all that hungry; his stomach replaced with a lead ball. But they’re trying to loom over Nia. Nia just frowns at him. Then he gets up with the rest of his lunch and walks away, nose in the air.

“Hey!” He shouts, but Nia ignores him. Hmph. Fine, ruin your reputation with those people. He didn’t care! He didn’t care at all!

---

He cares a lot.

His other friends are fine. They talk about money a lot, and things their parents have bought them. No one buys him anything themselves, but he’s already seen all the things they like and more. Nothing is amazing and new to a son of a king.

But it’s not like he’s forgotten moth eaten cushions and a drafty squeaky window either.

Prince resists the undignified urge to tug on his hair. Someone would notice. He’d get in trouble acting so undignified. Everyone packs up around him, oblivious to the way he looks at the rest of his notes.

He needs to get going. His chauffeur is waiting. He’s supposed to try something Wangnan made. He needs to get going. Just get up. Get up.

“Hey!”

Prince’s head jerks up with a yelp and he almost nearly topples backwards out of his chair. That weird girl stares at him, eyes wide, backpack tight on her shoulders. Verdi, right next to her, is laughing at his misfortune. She’s always been weird!

“Are you okay?” Miseng asks, like she didn’t punch him or disagree with him or anything. She’s biting her lip, looking harmless. Nice. Like she’d never punch anyone, ever.

Prince, what are you thinking? She’s not cute!

“What’s it to you?” he says rudely, crossing his arms.

Miseng’s eyes flare up and she makes a face before taking a huge breath and letting it out. “I’m just being nice,” she says. “You should get going. They gotta clean in here.”

Gosh she even talks like a commoner. Still, she has a point. “Right. Thanks.” Prince hurriedly packs his bag, his pens and pencils hitting the bottom of his bag. He’s keeping Wangnan waiting or something, ugh he’s going to worry.

As he finishes stuffing everything into the bag, Miseng says, “W-wait.”

He turns to look at her, facing big brown eyes with so much sparkle and emotion he’s surprised they don’t just explode.

“What?” Prince says, drawing on his toughest Karaka-hyung voice.

Her fists clench and unclench and then do it again until she says. “I’m sorry I hit you.” She keeps looking at him, even though Prince himself isn’t looking at her. This time, he can feel her staring. “I was mad, and you said awful stuff, but that didn’t mean I should hit you. So I’m sorry, and I want to start over and try to be friends again.”

She’s lying, says a long paranoid, undying voice that kept him and daddy safe.

“I don’t want to be friends with a commoner,” Prince says abruptly, trying to shut that voice up because hah, she can throw a punch and can not get expelled. It means nothing.

“I don’t want to be friends with you either!” She says you like he’s a centipede.

Her eyes burn with tears, but she keeps meeting his eyes. Most kids don’t do that. They look away, stutter, mumble, because he’s strong. She meets his gaze without hesitation and continues, like she hasn’t taken Prince and punched him in the heart! Not literally! He’d punch back this time.

“I don’t wanna to be friends with you either. You’re mean and hate my parents and you don’t know them! I don’t like you! But we’re gonna be classmates and it’s important to world peace so… I’m gonna try no matter what! So….” She glares at him, eyes sparkling and pleading all at once. “So, can we try again?”

Prince stares. She stares back, and it’s like a puppy, not one of the guard dogs at home but a bumbling brown puppy who didn’t realize how powerful she was.

It was cute. He had to be honest. She — commoner — Miseng — was cute.

His face warms, cheeks burning the brightest. He thrusts his hand out before he can think better of it, pointing as ferociously as he can. “I’m not losing to you! I’m going to beat you and prove you don’t belong here.”

Miseng puffs up, her cheeks somehow rounder in offense. It’s really cute, but she might cry for real. He doesn’t want that, no matter how much he doesn’t like her.

“But!” Prince continues. “If you can just as good of grades as me, then you’ll be worthy of being my friend.”

Fear and dismay crosses her face. “Beat you?”

“Yeah!” He grins. “But I’m top of the class. There’s no way you can beat me.”

Her dark eyes light up. “I’ll do it,” Miseng declares. “And then we’ll be friends and save the world.”

She may be cute, but what is she talking about?

---

Prince gets outside, only to hear a cheerful, familiar voice calling his name where his chauffeur would be. Prince runs over at once, bag bouncing on his back. His friends are already gone, shepherded away because they have curfews (unlike him, father would need to remember him for that).

Wangnan beams at him and hugs him as Prince grabs onto his legs. For a moment, he wishes his brother could pick him up and hug him like before bed. But he knows better. It would be undignified. Adori-noona would never let it go. He’d just… wait until he got home. “Hey,” he says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you. Karaka said he was in the area so I wanted to catch him to take us out to dinner, but of course he wandered off again, so it’s the two of us.”

Prince pretends the prospect of dinner without his stuffy older brother is a disappointment. “What about Adori-noona?”

“She’s off to a different sector all day,” Wangnan explains, opening the car door. He pauses, looking up to see Miseng — ugh. He’d thought he’d left her in the classroom. “Oh, hi! Are you one of Prince’s friends?”

“NO!!” Prince snaps, offended enough that his hair bristles. The embarrassment still stings. “She punched me.”

“Did she?” Wangnan casts an amused smile in her direction. “Did you say sorry? I’m sure he made you mad, but my brother’s a nice kid, honest.”

“Wangnan!” Prince starts, but Miseng hasn’t answered at all, staring at his brother without blinking.

Then she turns and runs away, bolting towards the bus without a word.

“She’s shy,” Wangnan says as she goes.

Prince crosses his arms. “She’s weird. Can we go now?”

“Yes, yes,” Wangnan says with a laugh, and helps him into the limousine.

Prince huffs and puts the weird girl out of his mind for the rest of the day. No way she’d catch up to him anytime soon, if ever.

← previous - next →