Disclaimer ½ Prince and all of the characters—aside from my OC's—belong to Yu Wo


The day was sunny, the air was warm, the contract over-seeing, during which I oh-so-helpfully stood in the corner and watched it get signed and closed, went smoothly, and I finally had some time to rest. Not that I'd done anything that made me particularly need a rest. But it was nice, regardless.

I'd told the two women I'd pointlessly forced to come with me that they could do as they pleased; go home or wander about T City. Whatever they felt like doing. We had the rest of the last day of the trip to waste, so they might as well waste it doing something they wanted. I supposed that they were simply relieved to get away from me, their boss, at last.

As for Heng and I, we decided to explore the city for a little while, and then return home a bit early. After all, Second Life was waiting for us there, and I thought perhaps I was going through flying withdrawal. The air there on the ground felt oddly stuffy, and I kept catching myself straining my shoulder muscles as if I could whip out a pair of wings and fly off whenever a particularly large group of people came down the sidewalk toward us.

When Heng and I had left the hotel, I hadn't been very pleased to discover that, even though it was early Thursday afternoon, there were still many people of the younger persuasion wandering around the streets, looking thoroughly relaxed. I knew there was a university somewhere nearby which I assumed most of them attended, if not all, but really.

I couldn't remember ever being so leisurely during my university years. If anything, each day was impossibly packed with studying and lectures, leaving me barely any time to sleep or eat. I probably would have died from starvation if my father's hired servants hadn't reminded me to eat regularly. Not that I'd listened to them, sometimes.

My days had been horrendously busy, yet here were many older teens and young adults lazing about as if they didn't have a care in the world. But I tried to ignore them, since the weather was nice, and I was in a bit of a good mood for once seeing as how I could finally relax to a certain extent now that Heng and I were away from the people who might cause trouble if they saw us acting friendly with one another.

It probably would have been easier for me to ignore the passerby if many of them hadn't waved animatedly at me as we passed each other. Or complimented me on my haircut, not that I had gotten one recently. Or asked me why I was there, to which I didn't respond, since I had no idea what they were talking about. It was like getting approached by that dark elf at the Star City restaurant, only exponentially worse.

Heng's little amused smiles and stifled laughs every time it happened weren't helping, either. He seemed to think the whole thing was a colossal joke, though I was getting increasingly uncomfortable. Walking directly behind him seemed to block me from view a little, but people still managed to spot me in one way or another.

"Dib," I grumbled in annoyance after someone else greeted me. I held myself back from glaring at the person as they left. "Hurry up and pick a coffee shop, so we can drink the coffee, so we can leave, so we can go to the airport, so we can fly home."

"But this is fun," Heng snickered, waving at someone for me. I wished very much that he would stop encouraging them. Though I didn't suppose they would stop, even if he and I attempted to pretend like they didn't exist.

"I didn't know you were so popular around here," he commented with infinite entertainment, and then grabbed my arm, dragging me to the edge of the the crowded sidewalk and pointing at something with his other hand. "Let's go in that one."

"I've never even been here before," I denied as I tried to keep up with him while he hurried us across the busy road. I wished that we'd just flown home and gotten coffee there, rather than here in the stare-fest. There was very little that I wanted less than being the center of attention. All of the people were making me feel self-conscious as if I had something on my face and didn't know it. But numerous checks at my reflection in the windows of the places we'd passed told me that my suit and I were still neat and tidy, exactly as they had been earlier in the hotel room that morning.

We slowly walked past the large front window of the coffee shop Heng had been aiming for, and I turned my head to take a quick look inside out of curiosity, and out of a want to see how crowded it was. My eyes widened in horror, and I wished I hadn't looked. Or perhaps I was extremely relieved that I had. Either way, I definitely didn't want to go inside anymore.

Five student-looking people were sitting right inside the window, staring at me as Heng and I passed by. Three waved energetically, one smiled in a twitchy way, and the last…

"Dib," I gasped hurriedly, putting my hands on Heng's back and pushing him away from the entrance. "I don't want to go here, let's pick a different one."

"What? Quit shoving," he said indignantly, looking over his shoulder at me as the door handle slipped out of his fingers. He stumbled a few steps away from the door and planted himself firmly on the sidewalk, refusing to go any further until I explained myself. "Why not this one?"

"That guy is in there!" I explained in a whisper as if the man inside could hear me, regardless of the other people talking around us, and the fact that there was an entire wall between us that would let very little sound through.

"What guy?" he asked, trying to look back over my head. "Where? Geeze, Al! Quit pushing me already yet!"

"That dark elf from Star City, the one who wanted to know my name! He's glaring at me again!" I snapped, pushing him as hard as I could, though he still wasn't going anywhere. Why did he have to be so damned strong, even in real life?

Heng's eyes widened and he stepped to one side with a suddenly serious expression. I nearly fell over, since I'd been leaning on him, but he grabbed my arm, pulled me upright, and proceeded to drag me back toward the window.

I hurriedly shook myself out of his grip and he walked over by himself. "Oh, you're right. What a coincidence," he remarked after a long moment of staring inside. He suddenly started waving at them, smiling brightly. "One of his teammates, too, it looks like. That guy that had the fan."

"Dib, come back here!" I hissed, pressing myself against the wall of the coffee shop to get out of the flow of people. "Please, let's go somewhere else!" I could clearly imagine what those sitting inside were thinking, suddenly being waved at by a random man on the street—people had been doing it to me all morning. Though if I was too self-conscious, Heng was anything but. He would probably be able to dance down the middle of a busy road, singing at the top of his lungs, and he wouldn't get embarrassed.

With a small sigh, Heng obediently returned to my side and frowned slightly as he looked down at me and crossed his arms over his gray suit jacket. "It's not like he's going to murder you, you know."

"I know," I agreed uneasily, not really believing that he wouldn't as I inched away from the entrance, anyway. There were plenty more cafés around the area, I couldn't understand why Heng was so hell-bent on going in this particular one. Especially since that intimidating person was inside, looking like he would try to stab me to death with his coffee cup's little spoon if I got within arm's reach of him.

Heng sighed again and nodded with a roll of his eyes. "Okay, fine. Let's find somewhere else if you're that reluctant."

"Thanks, Dib." I smiled with relief and gratefully patted his sleeve as we walked away from the shop, feeling much better now that I didn't have to go in there and get glared at while attempting to drink coffee.

Glancing down at me briefly, he looked back up with a resigned expression and began searching for somewhere new to go. "You're never going to make more friends with an evasive attitude like that," he scolded quietly after a moment. "If we'd just asked him what his problem was, I'm sure everything would have been cleared up in no time, and we could have had a nice cup of coffee together."

I shrugged slightly at his words. "I don't care if it gets cleared up or not. It's his own business if he wants to hate me for no reason." I ignored Heng's look of pity at my apathetic attitude as we crossed the street again. Perhaps it would have been better to listen to the man's explanation as to why he seemed so angry with me, but even if Heng thought I should get more friends, I didn't particularly want to be friends with someone like that. Misunderstanding or not, he was very rude.

Staring down at the ground as we walked up onto the curb, I continued, "Anyway, I've got you now."

Heng was quiet for a very long time as we walked down the sidewalk. That was bizarre. Heng never had nothing to say. Where was the purposefully annoying back slapping and loud cheering that he was happy to be my friend, too? Maybe he was angry that I wasn't attempting to improve my nonexistent social skills. I was just telling the truth. He was the one who said I should express myself more.

Feeling slightly worried at his silence, I glanced up at him and halted in surprise to see that his face was bright red and he had a hand over his mouth. He looked like he was choking on something, though he hadn't been eating anything.

"Are you okay?" I asked, feeling extremely concerned at his wide-eyed expression. Forcefully turning him around to face me, I looked up at him. It seemed like he didn't want to look at me, however, and his eyes wildly darted about as he stared at things over my head. I yanked his hand off his mouth and frowned at him. He was smiling, not at all angry—or choking, for that matter—like I thought he might have been.

"What's wrong with you?"

Heng finally gave me a brief glance, but immediately looked away again, smiling even wider. "Geeze, Al."

"What?" I asked again, feeling extremely confused at his behavior. What was there to get all worked up over? Of all the times we reaffirmed our friendship, he'd never acted like that. It was similar to how he looked when I first met him and agreed to become teammates, though at the time, I'd thought he was just a hyperactive kid. But this situation was completely different.

"Nothing," Heng replied with a deep laugh, and waved one of his large hands at me as he slowly started down the sidewalk again. He rubbed his still-red cheeks for a moment and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye before shaking his head and repeating, "Just nothing. You're so… Geeze…!"

The whole time we were walking, and drinking coffee at last, and even on the plane ride home he refused to tell me what was going on. He did look extremely happy about something, however, so I tried to brush off his reluctance to say whatever it was he was thinking about.

Still, he was being hypocritical. He was always telling me to be more open and honest when he himself was holding things back. Not that I was expecting him to tell me every single little detail of his life, since I was nowhere near comfortable enough to say such things myself. I supposed even without saying a lot of things out loud, we still seemed to get a general understanding of one another. Or he did, anyway.

We took a taxi away from the airport after we landed, and decided to drop me off at home first. I was relieved to be back at last, though the trip itself hadn't turned out at all like I'd thought it would—it had actually been fun, unlike all the other trips I'd taken in the past. But with Heng there, it seemed as though whatever we did it would be fun.

Though I really could have gone without getting ogled at for an hour.

Regardless of the discomfort it had caused me, I was burning with curiosity, wondering who it was all of those students had mistaken me for. My brother was, naturally, the first person to come to mind during my musings. But since he hadn't contacted my father or I after he'd left home eleven years ago, I had no idea where he was living, what he was doing as a profession, or anything else. For all I knew, he was dead and the person I resembled was a complete stranger who just happened to look like me. So much like me that everyone was fooled. It seemed like too much of a coincidence to all be an accident.

However, if it really was my brother, I could see why my father had sent me to T City, rather than going himself. A lure to draw him back home, or something of that sort, I supposed.

As our taxi pulled to a stop outside the gigantic front gate to my house, I slipped out of the car and waited as the taxi driver got out to open the trunk where my luggage was. I glanced through the thick bars of the gate, and sighed, turning back toward the car. I couldn't quite decide whether I wanted to be happy I was home, or a bit depressed.

Heng climbed out as well to say goodbye, and I cheered up slightly as he helped pull my luggage out of the trunk. Not that I'd needed help.

He gave me a quick hug before I rolled my luggage away toward the gate. I paused halfway and looked back, feeling somewhat reluctant to go inside now that I was actually there. "Goodbye," I called, if only to delay myself even more.

Heng waved a hand and smiled slightly before stepping back to the open door of the waiting taxi. "See you later."

I turned away and once again headed for the gate. I was about ready to enter the security code in the gate's electronic lock, but it suddenly opened on its own as I neared. Someone in the house must have seen my arrival through the gate's security cameras.

Hesitating a moment more, I looked back again. Heng was still there, watching my slow progress with an amused smile.

Feeling a bit reassured that he hadn't ridden off right away, I hurried to the house at last. My feet didn't seem to want to move me forward as I watched several servants pile out of the front door and quickly walk toward me. My pointless luggage carriers. They never seemed to notice that I was a grown man, perfectly capable of carrying things on my own. My bags had wheels, for goodness sake. How difficult could it possibly be for me to roll them about by myself? I felt like I was being treated as an invalid. Then again, it had always been like that.

The front door shut behind me with a dull thud and I took a deep breath of the familiar, cold air of the spacious entryway before starting up the steep stairs. One of the maids followed me at a slow pace, dragging the luggage awkwardly up the steps behind herself. It took me quite a bit of self-control to keep myself from turning around and snatching them away from her.

"Zian."

I almost tripped as the deep voice harshly boomed out above me. It reverberated oddly in the silent hall afterward, and I looked up to find my father standing at the top of the stairs. My face paled slightly as renewed flashes of my nightmare flew into my mind, though he did look quite a bit less demonic in real life than he did in my imagination.

Blinking slowly, I resumed my ascent and stopped a few stairs down from him. "I am home, father," I said quietly.

"How did the signing go?" he asked promptly as I finally dared to stand on the landing with him. "I trust there were no problems?"

"No, it went perfectly." I tried to calm my pounding heart. I hadn't been expecting to see him here, and I definitely hadn't been expecting him to ambush me on the stairs.

"As it should have," he added, and turned away. I watched as he walked toward the enormous, circular window overlooking the front grounds of the mansion. I was about to retreat to my office, though I doubted he was finished with me just yet, when he abruptly turned back around and stared at me. "Zian," he called again, in a much colder tone than before.

"Yes, father?"

He was silent for a moment, and then looked back out the window. "Why did you return early, in a common taxi, much less with your employee in tow?"

I couldn't think of anything to say in reply. Well, I could, but nothing he would deem justifiable. It was probably better to stay silent in this sort of situation to avoid making him even more angry than I knew he already was. One wrong action and who knew what would happen afterward.

He finally turned around and briskly walked toward me. I stared at him as he stopped in front of me and gave me a disgusted look. "I arranged your departure for tomorrow morning, yet you felt the need to do this?"

"I am sorry, father," I said quickly, attempting to take a deep breath. "It was thoughtless of me, it will not happen again. I promise."

"Of course it will not happen again," he snapped angrily, raising a hand. I flinched as he roughly shoved me backward, and I stumbled into the carved wooden banister, catching myself to avoid falling over. "Stupid as you are, you are still the heir to my company. I will not have you humiliate me further than you already have by gallivanting about the city with the likes of that employee of yours.

"You are getting far too close to him, and are not to talk to him again, aside from when necessary. I will not hesitate to fire him if anything else happens like what just did outside," he informed, and walked away without another word.

His evenly-spaced footsteps echoed down the hallway for what seemed like years before they were muffled as he went into his rooms. Standing still for a moment, I tried to get my breath back. His words always had the mysterious power to suck all of the air out of my lungs.

I slowly went to my own office a few minutes later, and dismissively waved away the maid. She dropped the clothes she'd been unpacking, and bowed herself out of the room. I locked the door behind her and went to my bedroom. Not bothering to change into my sleepwear, I fell face-down onto my bed, attempting to block out the dull pain starting to grow in my left hip where I'd collided with the banister. What was I supposed to do now?


There are certain developments developing that I never meant to develop… Oh, geeze.