Ignis hated blatant flattery.
I’d had my answer a minute ago, watching the servants at the board game try to butter him up and get wrecked for it.
The maid who’d cheated on her card and tried to pull one over on him had taken a bucket of water to the face. The footman whose flattery landed badly had lost his fringe.
If I started greasing my tongue just to look good in front of him, I might get branded as the kid who worked his brain purely to squeeze something out of people — and then go up in flames.
So what I needed right now wasn’t pretence. It was pure, honest sincerity. I let every muscle in my face go as soft as it would go and arranged myself into something gentle and guileless.
I had no idea how convincingly a soul this worn down by the world could fake a bright, lively gaze, but I decided to put my faith in this young body and its clear lenses, unspoiled by a lifetime of screens.
“The servants talk about you sometimes, hyungnim. I was always wondering what you’d be like in person.”
Of course, there was no chance of me having any pure, honest sincerity to offer, so I had to blend just the right amounts of truth and lie until the mixture looked plausible.
I cast my mind back over the things the servants had occasionally let slip about my brothers.
‘If you should ever happen to run into him, don’t meet his eyes, be careful not to make a sound with your feet, and get away.’
‘Going anywhere near him would be a disaster. You must never, ever visit the other palaces!’
How to put it... gathered up and laid side by side, the collection read less like palace gossip and more like a Napolitan creepypasta. Still, the part about having heard about him was, strictly speaking, true.
The key here was to praise him based on facts that actually existed, without inflating anything, and to deliver it through my own subjective impressions and experiences.
Because embroidering my own feelings is far more persuasive than trying to deceive the other person outright.
“They said Ignis hyungnim had hair as red as the sun, and that he was cheerful and bold, and now that I’m seeing you myself, it’s exactly like they said. Getting to meet you like this feels like a dream!”
Nightmares are dreams too, so it wasn’t entirely a lie.
I laid both hands carefully over my chest, as though my feelings were simply too much to hold in. My heart was hammering purely out of terror, but I told myself it was the suspension-bridge effect and worked hard at the self-hypnosis.
I was so much shorter than him that it put me in a looking-up posture, which let me naturally claim the least threatening position available.
Ignis watched me like that for a while, then tilted his head and asked, as if something didn’t add up.
“Yeah? If you wanted to meet me that badly, why’d it take you until now to come and see me?”
It was a sharp question, jabbing straight at the flimsy part of my story, but there was no need to panic. If anything, it was the perfect moment to bring out the card I’d prepared.
“Well, that’s...”
I fidgeted with my hands as if I were hesitating to raise the subject, then quietly began.
“I’ve been very sick all this time.”
You never cared enough to know your own little brother existed, but as a matter of fact, your little brother had a terminal diagnosis.
There was no need to overact it, coughing on purpose to play up the illness. It was enough to wear the faintly worn-out look of a child who’d been sick for so long he’d given up expecting otherwise.
“I get a fever if I push myself even a little. And I can’t go outside whenever I want without permission, so, you know, today’s actually the very first time I’ve ever come this far?”
I quietly caught my breath, then slowly lifted the gaze I’d let fall so forlornly and looked at Ignis.
Something must have landed as genuine, because Ignis’s eyebrows had risen a fraction, the way they do when someone hears a fact they weren’t expecting.
“Today I was doing better, so they let me take a short walk. But then I was going down the corridor and I heard laughing, so I just happened to look out towards the garden, and...”
And the instant I had him in my sights, I broke into a radiant smile. As bright as I could manage, as happy as I could manage!
“And there you were, hyungnim! The second I saw you my feet just started moving on their own and carried me all the way here.”
Still beaming, I abruptly added a worried little coda, as though it had only now occurred to me that he might not like it.
“I-I wasn’t trying to spy on your game or anything. It’s just that everyone looked like they were having fun, and I wondered what you were doing, that’s all...”
I fidgeted anxiously with my fingers, left a small beat of silence, then put the question to him.
“Did I interrupt you?”
That should do it. I’d made it clear I liked him, in reasonable measure, and I’d accounted for why I was standing here. From here on, how I responded would depend entirely on how Ignis chose to play it.
As things stood, the best possible outcome was him simply letting me and my attendant go. Whether I’d get my wish was another matter.
Ignis’s pupils dilated slightly, like a camera lens, then narrowed as they pulled sharply into focus. His features were closer to a reptile’s, but the motion belonged to something feline.
He swept over me from head to toe as if scanning me, then hitched up one corner of his mouth like a man who’d just finished a calculation.
“Nope? You came at just the right time. Things were about to get interesting.”
Where the appraisal had been, nothing was left but raw, primal curiosity.
It was the reaction of a cat with no bell on its collar spotting a mouse that moved in a curious way. No intent to take a life, but no hiding the instinct to bat it around for a while, either.
It seemed he had no intention whatsoever of quietly letting me go.
Ignis flicked a hand, and one of the empty chairs slid over to sit beside him.
The chair floated gently through the air, and the moment it settled onto the ground he gave the seat a couple of pats with his palm.
Somehow I’ve got a very bad feeling about this...
No sooner had I foreseen my future than Ignis’s eyes, fixed on me, curved into two crescent moons.
“Come here. I’ll deal you in. Play with us.”
The instant I heard the offer, a chill went crawling up my spine.
Th-this much I really hadn’t asked for. Inside I was thoroughly rattled, but on the outside I let hesitation show, as if an unexpected honour had just been dropped in my lap, and asked:
“Can I really... play too?”
“Obviously. You finally meet the hyungnim you’ve been dreaming about and then leave without even getting to play with him? That’d be a shame.”
Ignis quoted my own words back at me, dressing the whole thing up as generosity. The smile never left his face, but the low question that followed carried a small warning in it.
“If you weren’t lying, you’ll say yes gladly. Right?”
I didn’t dare make a peep. I nodded at once.
“Of course! I’ve been waiting for this day for the longest, longest time!”
“Sit. I’ll explain the rules.”
Honestly, from the second I caught his eye, I’d had a fairly good idea this was where it would end up... I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
The moment I reluctantly sat down, my attendant, who’d been hiding all this while, crept carefully out from behind the rose bushes and took up a position near me.
He couldn’t keep the gloom off his face, the look of a man dragged into loyalty purely because his master hadn’t run. One glance at him and my guilt started itching.
I’ll share my fruit jelly with you when we get back, so please just hold on a little longer...
My silent apologies aside, Ignis didn’t spare the newly arrived attendant so much as a glance. From the very beginning, his interest had been aimed at one person only: me.
“You’re even smaller up close. How old are you?”
“Ah, I turned eight this year.”
“Do they not feed you? It’s not just that you’re short. Your face is small, your hands are small.”
Exactly how many times is he planning to say the word ‘small’? Something hot rose in my throat for no good reason.
Ignis pinched my cheek and ran his own unauthorised assessment of my nutritional state, then played with my hair, putting his hands on me as casually as if I were a stray cat.
Either he didn’t know that touching another person without permission is rude, or he knew perfectly well and simply didn’t care. This appallingly ill-mannered prince was definitely the latter.
Every time his hand came near me, I could feel my attendant flinch behind me, terrified I was about to be hurt.
“Not as soft as I expected. It looks just like cat fur from the outside.”
Obviously. However fine human hair might be, it was never going to be that soft.
If the texture’s so disappointing, he could just let go. But he didn’t stop, winding my platinum-blond hair between his fingers and stroking it.
Once he’d mussed my hair to his heart’s content, Ignis remarked that I’d do well to put on a little weight and nudged the afternoon tea set lightly across the table towards me.
“Waah... thank you, I’ll eat it all up!”
It felt less like offering food to a guest and more like throwing feed to a starving animal. But I couldn’t let any of that show, so I pulled my mouth into a delighted little curve.
“Now then, nobody minds a new player joining, do they? Sit down, quickly.”
Clap. Ignis brought his hands together.
With the game back on, the servants around us took their seats the way people swallow something bitter they can’t spit out. Every one of them radiated resentment, yet not a soul there dared question his decision.
Ignis’s eyes were still pinned on me, so I couldn’t get a proper look, but luckily the footman whose fringe had gone up in flames seemed only to have a reddened forehead rather than any serious burn.
The psychological damage, on the other hand, had clearly landed hard. He looked utterly hollowed out. For now, all I could do was quietly pray that his hair follicles had survived.
The maid who’d been drenched in mud wrung out her clothes and managed, barely, to sit down as well. Whether it was the cold from the water or sheer terror, her whole body was visibly trembling.
“The game’s already started, so I can’t deal you a hand of your own. You’d better be on my team instead. You’re my little brother, so nobody minds us playing together, do they?”
Ignis flicked a glance around the table as he asked, and the servants nodded like clockwork.
Looking thoroughly satisfied, Ignis tilted his head towards mine and whispered in a low voice.
“The puppy draws the cards. In exchange, you take the penalty with me.”
Swallowing down my nerves, I stole a look at the state of the deck in Ignis’s hand.
Then, under the table, I clenched my sweat-slick fingers into a fist.
...What the hell kind of hand is this bastard holding?
1. A ‘Napolitan’ is a Japanese internet horror genre: short, mundane-sounding anecdotes whose details don’t quite add up, leaving an unexplained sense of dread.
2. The ‘suspension bridge effect’ is the psychological phenomenon of mistaking fear-induced arousal for attraction.
