My Childhood Friend Is An Archmage Chapter 133
Translated by d6y (ko-fi)
Chapter 133
"As you know, my old coachman was fired after I first met you, Princess. And even now, I still don't have my own coachman."
"Ah."
I remember my first meeting with the Viscount. He had a sh*tty coachman who belittled me.
"He's a coachman hired from a shop, and I'm afraid I can't leave him in your mansion, Princess, because I'd have to pay him night shift wages."
I tilt my head. "Where did you hire him from?"
"Francesca's."
Oh, there. Luckily, it's the shop of someone I know. It's also the shop with the most branches in the capital.
"Francesca and I know each other, I'll speak to her and send your coachman back."
"What? And what about the extra cost?"
"I have plenty of money."
"...Princess, I hope you know how excited I am right now."
‘Okay, okay. This is crazy. Princess, please be in charge of me and spend money on me!’
"No." I glare at him.
He doesn't say anything else as he steps into the carriage.
"Return to the duchy first. I’ll follow after."
The servants climb into their carriages without a word, knowing full well that once I have made a decision, I don't change my mind.
Having received the Viscount’s home address, the coachman gives a signal for the horses to move forward.
"Prince Cade." I call out to him over the clattering of the carriage wheels.
"Why do you call my name in such a pretty voice? It makes my heart flutter." He smirks, sitting across from me.
I sigh. "I had no such intentions, so hold on to your heart."
"Then what did you intend? Squeezing me into a carriage with you and all." He asks.
I cut to the chase. "Prince, the other day, you said I already knew how to break the curse."
"Well, technically, that's what my grandmother said. What of it?"
"I've been thinking about it for days and days." I let out a deep sigh. "But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't figure it out. Your grandmother never mentioned anything to me about how to break the curse."
"Hmm." He eyes me curiously, but says nothing else.
After gauging his reaction, I speak again. "So I decided to change the direction of my thinking."
"How?"
"I thought again about what I had asked your grandmother to do for me," I say, recalling the past. "At the time, I thought Lancer liked me simply as a friend, so I was ashamed of myself for having unrealistic expectations of a romantic relationship with him, and I was tormented by the thought that he didn't like me in the same way."
"...I see." His voice drops into a quiet sound.
"That's why… I asked her to let me know what he was thinking."
Sure enough, I got my wish. But what I got back was something else entirely.
I heard other people's thoughts, not Lancer's. Contrary to what I had hoped, instead of Lancer, I began to hear other people's hidden thoughts after another. The hotel staff who were acting kindly but cursing me under their breath. The servants' complaints and gripes hidden beneath their smiling faces. Phoebe, who I always thought was nonchalant about me, but cared about me more than anyone else.
But no matter how patiently I waited, I could never find out what Lancer was thinking.
"And then I met the Crown Prince." I pause. "When I first met him… he offered me a contract of some sort."
"I see." Despite my vagueness, the Viscount doesn't comment on it. He's only listening to what I have to say. I'm very grateful for his kindness, but I don't show it. I'm afraid that if I do him a favour, he might mistake it for romantic attraction.
"I didn't hear the Crown Prince's thoughts at all."
"Really? That's odd."
"I thought the same thing, but as time went on and I saw him more and more, I began to hear his thoughts."
So I thought, what's different about the Crown Prince now than when I first met him? There are so many things that have changed. People don't always stay the same.
But if I had to pick one thing that has changed the most, it would be when we first met, the Crown Prince didn't hide anything from me.
He summoned me purely to enter into a contractual engagement with me, and he made no secret of his intentions. On the contrary, he blurted out his hidden thoughts when I didn't ask, and even gave me a sly nudge to talk about my own.
The first time I met him, I was quite taken aback. I was puzzled, as he must have been, having spent nearly half my life listening to other people's thoughts, and, suddenly, here was a man whose thoughts I could not hear besides Lancer's.
At first I thought it was because he was royalty, or some other special reason. But now I could hear his thoughts all too well. I was able to learn all the plans he had tried to hide from me.
I reflected on this sequence of events.Why was it that Phoebe's inner thoughts were always heard by me? Why was it that I could hear the Crown Prince's thoughts when I couldn't before?
Why had I never been able to hear Lancer's thoughts?
After much hypothesising and thinking, I came to this conclusion. "Prince, I think I can hear what people are really thinking when their words don't match their actions."
Or, to put it another way…
"But I've never heard Lancer's thoughts in all my life, so does that mean that he's never… hidden anything from me all this time?" I glance at the Viscount, as if searching for an answer through him. My fists tremble in my lap. It's a possibility I've never considered before.
I thought since Lancer was an archmage, I couldn't hear his thoughts…. Was I wrong? And if so, has Lancer always been open with me?
When he first told me he liked me, I asked him this. “So… you don't just want to be friends with me forever, you want to live in the same house as me one day, wake up next to each other, start the day at the same time, and grow old together?”
And I remember him saying something like this. “...What's the difference?”
At the time, I simply thought that he didn't know the meaning of love yet. I thought he was just saying those words to keep me as a friend for life. I thought he had hurt me beyond repair, and I used that to deny my feelings at every turn, pushing him away when he tried to get close to me.
But…
I understand now.
In Lancer's world, I was his only friend and companion. So he must have been troubled by my confession to be more than friends, to be lovers. He could never imagine a world without me.
Because I was his everything.
"...." The Viscount stares at me, staying wordless. I desperately hope he says something, anything, to break this silence. Yet he's uncharacteristically quiet at this moment.
Thump, thump, thump. The wheels of the carriage roll over the ground. It's the only sound to be heard between us. I hate this chilling silence.
The guilt of pushing Lancer away for no reason, over a flimsy misunderstanding, seeps more clearly into my mind.
"...Prince, what am I supposed to do now?" I thought I was doomed since falling for Lancer, as I also thought that his definition of ‘like’ was different from mine. I was mistaken.
"What am I supposed to do now? He's never hidden anything from me, and I've misunderstood his feelings all by myself. How do I break this curse…?"
"Princess." The Viscount smiles gently at me. "Do not tell me about another man's feelings."
"...." I can't say anything in response.
His eyes sparkle in the light reflected through the window. He's as still as a statue, not moving an inch. Only his magical gemstone earring dangles from one ear. There's none of the Viscount I know, the one who nags me with his overbearing presence. He's unusually calm.
"How cruel of you, Princess. I really didn't want to know that Lord Lancer was in love with you long before I was."
"...." It dawns on me that the Viscount might still be in love with me. I'm surprised. I can't imagine how it'd feel if the one I loved brought up their own loved one’s feelings for them.
"...Jealous?"
Still, my pride wouldn't let me say sorry.
He chuckles. "Me, jealous? No, that's for selfish people. I mean, I really respect you as a person, not just as a love interest, so I want to see you make the choices you want to make and live the life you want without regret."
"...."
"If I couldn't control my expression just now, it's because I was thinking of how it could've been if I was born here instead of the Hebnia Kingdom." He winks. "If I had been born a prince of this empire, you know, like that bastard Dandelion, I'd be able to have a chance with you, maybe...."
"...."
"Anyway, forget my nonsense, Princess." He slides open the small window. Then, without a second thought… "
Excuse me, coachman," he says. "Princess is dying to see Lord Lancer at once, and she wants to turn the carriage round to the Soli Duchy."
And with that, he passes the message to the coachman.
