“Man, Prince Phillip, you sure are a lady-killer.”
“I’m not a prince.”
The moment we left the room, Rex turned to me with a huge smile and placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Considering you have Viola, I worried that the princess was in love with you and that we’d have to deal with a really problematic love triangle. I guess I was anxious over nothing.”
The princess in question was a five-year-old kid. It was clear that Princess Adele didn’t have any romantic feelings for me and simply wanted to be my friend. If she was someone closer to our age, then things might’ve been a lot more troublesome, like Rex feared.
“Kids are so cute, dreaming of princes from fairy tales,” Rex said.
“Yeah.”
“Phillip, you’re not a fan of kids?”
“I neither like nor dislike them. I simply don’t know how to interact with them.”
However, Princess Adele’s smile earlier sort of reminded me of how Viola used to smile when she was younger. That was why I couldn’t help but nod when she told me that she wanted to be friends.
“Speaking of which, I heard that until last year, the third princess of the Samarind Empire was sick and stuck in bed. Those rumors were probably about Princess Adele.” After Rex said that, he turned and looked back at the door to the room for honored guests.
“Thank you for picking this up. This is a very important hat to me.”
I vaguely recalled the girl I handed the hat to in Samarind had been in a wheelchair. She’d seemed so energetic earlier that it was hard to believe she’d been sick.
“That’s probably why they decided to listen to Her Highness’s request, even if it’s a bit selfish. She’s made a full recovery now, but she was probably telling the truth when she said that this is her first international trip. So make sure you play nice.”
“All right...”
After hearing that story and after seeing how brightly she’d smiled at me, there was no way I could be cold to her. Besides, it was part of our job to act as their tour guides while they were here.
It’s going to get even busier tomorrow. With that thought in mind, I returned to the meeting room. However...
“Phillip, let’s go for a walk together! Oh, and here’s a snack! And let’s eat dinner together tonight! That’s a promise, all right?”
It didn’t get busier the next day. Instead, it got busier only several hours after meeting her and I had to spend the rest of my day at Princess Adele’s side.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Heyo, Vivi.”
One night, a week after Jamie and I visited the palace, Rex suddenly appeared at my house. Exhaustion was evident on his handsome face. As soon as he sat down on the sofa in my room, he let out a deep sigh.
“Ahh, I’m so tired. Seriously. I don’t wanna be a human anymore.”
“What do you intend on becoming, if not a human?” I asked.
“I wanna become a parrot whose only job is to bully Phillip,” Rex replied. When I didn’t say anything in response to that, he continued, “Doesn’t it sound super fun?”
Rex always acted in such a breezy and lackadaisical manner, so it was rare to see him so weary. I could tell that the past few days had been extremely busy for him. There were quite a few maids under my family’s employment who were fans of Rex, they’d surely be sad if they saw him in this state. That was why I decided to pour him some tea myself. I chose leaves that were supposed to be good for recovering from exhaustion.
After I prepared the tea, Rex took a sip and said, “Huh? It tastes normal.”
His surprise was rude. Not even I could burn tea or make it explode. All I could do was render it flavorless sometimes.
“Thanks for the tea,” he said.
“You’re welcome. Has work really been that difficult lately?”
Rex nodded multiple times. “The old farts higher up on the ladder have been saying that they want the younger generation to take center stage in this year’s ceremony. But in truth, they’re just pushing the work onto us because it’s more convenient for them. I’ve been slacking off whenever I can, but you know how serious Phillip is. He takes on any task they give him, so I’m worried that he’ll explode from the stress soon.”
Like Rex said, Phil was usually a very earnest person. I worried that Rex’s prediction would come true and Phil would end up collapsing from overwork.
“You know, Phil was supposed to come today. But the princess grabbed him before he could,” Rex continued.
“The princess?”
“Yeah. They’re probably eating dinner together by now. You haven’t heard anything about Her Highness?”
“I’d heard that he was busy spending time with her...”
Like I’d thought, the princess really liked Phil. In a letter he wrote me a few days ago, he’d mentioned that he was really busy not only with his usual work, but also with guiding the princess around the kingdom.
“The princess—still—Truthfully, I—From dusk till dawn, I have to be in the palace and—always with the princess and—That’s how I’ve been spending my days. I’ve been busy with her and work—”
Granted, on the day that the aforementioned letter arrived, a storm had caused a small flood in the carriage containing it. The water had blotched out the ink, erasing parts of Phil’s words. Even so, I was able to grasp the general idea of what he wanted to say, so I didn’t think too hard about it.
“Actually, those two are really funny together. I really wanna show you their interactions, Viola,” Rex said.
“The princess seems like a very cheery person.”
“Yeah. She and Phillip are both as innocent as children, with hardly any common sense between them. Her Highness is super cute.”
Rex often said that all women are cute, but it was very rare of him to compliment a specific woman with that word. Considering he used the word “innocent,” the princess must be a very straightforward and adorable lady.
For this visit, the princess arrived as an official ambassador for the Samarind Empire. Since this could affect the future relationship between our countries, we couldn’t afford doing anything that would offend her. There was still a little over a month and a half until the ceremony. Considering how much work Rex and Phil had to put in during that time, I couldn’t stop worrying about their health.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.
“Your most important job is to raise Phillip’s spirits. He keeps complaining about how much he misses you. Well, he complains, like fifty times a day, so I don’t even respond to him anymore.”
“Hee hee. Tell him that I want to meet him too.”
“All right. We should be able to get a day off next week, so give him as many hugs and kisses as he requests then. I’m gonna get some shut-eye, ’kay?”
After Rex said that, he collapsed onto the sofa and within seconds, I could hear the slow and steady breathing of sleep. I knew he was exhausted, but I didn’t realize just how tired he was until now. I carefully placed my jacket over Rex and then started to pen a letter to Phil.