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– Chapter 3 –

“Ahhh!”

At the boy’s scream, all the children walking ahead turned to look back. But Rinea didn’t stop. She kept hitting the boy with the bat.

“Take it back.”

“Ow! Aagh! Stop, stop! I think you hit my bones…!”

“Take it back. You liar? Take it back. Take it back!”

Rinea kept mumbling as she struck the boy repeatedly with the bat. She didn’t care where she hit — his arms, waist, legs, or head. It was Yurik who finally intervened.

“Stop it!”

Yurik ran over, snatched the bat from her hands, and stepped between them. Rinea stood there panting, drenched in sweat, and looked at Yurik. Her eyes were completely expressionless.

“You’re the worst.”

“What?”

“H-He just hit His Highness the Crown Prince!”

Everyone was horrified, but Rinea didn’t care and kept lashing out.

“When the other kids were getting bullied, did you ever step in even once? Is it only painful when you’re the one getting hit? You’re the one who let things get this bad. You’re the worst.”

Then Rinea pushed Yurik aside and strode straight into the Imperial Palace.

No one dared stop her.

From that day on, Rinea stopped following Yurik around.

A letter came from home a few days later, but thinking it would be full of nagging about the incident, she didn’t even open the envelope and tossed it into a corner. Strangely, doing that made her feel better, even liberated.

“I want to go to the library.”

Rinea looked her attendant straight in the eyes and said so. Though surprised, the attendant obediently escorted her to the library.

The Imperial Palace library was vast, quiet, and peaceful. Among the visitors, there were no other children like her, but Rinea didn’t mind and quietly settled in a corner, burying herself in books.

Meal times also became easier.

There was no more bullying for eating too fast or too slow, no one stabbing with forks or dumping leftovers on her. Rinea ate at her own pace, read in the library afterward, then went to sleep.

Not only the boy she beat up with the cricket bat that day, but all the other children also stopped talking to her. They acted like she didn’t exist. That was fine. She had always been alone, and her only friends were the spirits, so she didn’t feel lonely.

Then, after a week, Yurik appeared before her.

At first, Rinea sensed someone approaching with her usual sensitivity, but she ignored it. After all, with adults around, no one could easily bother her. But this person didn’t harass her. He just loitered for a while and then left.

The next day, she was reading by the window in her usual quiet spot when she felt the presence again. She was about to ignore it when—

“Hey.”

A blunt voice. Rinea knew he was talking to her, but she didn’t look up. Then he started poking her with his finger.

“Hey.”

When she turned her head, it was Yurik.

That was the first time she noticed his red hair shimmered gold in the light. His deep blue eyes were beautiful. Rinea stared at him with her violet eyes and opened her mouth.

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“What are you doing here all day?”

“Reading.”

“Is it fun?”

Rinea didn’t answer and turned back to her book. Yurik quietly observed her.

With her pale brown hair, violet eyes, and fair skin, Rinea seemed calm and composed, as if she had something hidden deep inside. Yurik, still a child, couldn’t grasp that it was loneliness, trampled pride, and denial of her very existence.

To him, she was simply an unusual girl unlike anyone he’d met before — and that piqued his interest.

Until now, the kids around Yurik fell into two categories: annoying sycophants trying to win his favor or pitiful insects crawling around trying not to be noticed.

At first, he thought Rinea was the latter. But she broke that mold. Even now, she sat regally with the sun at her back, reading lazily as if he didn’t exist. Yurik awkwardly cleared his throat.

“Uh… I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes?”

“What you said…”

Is he here to scold me about that? A bit late, isn’t it? Or did it just now make him mad? Rinea remembered how her brother Evan used to get mad over similar things.

But Yurik looked at her seriously.

“You were right.”

“……”

“When the others were being hurt, I brushed it off as just playing. I knew they were being really cruel when I wasn’t around, but I thought it had nothing to do with me. But it was. It all happened because of me. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

Rinea looked straight at him, and Yurik didn’t look away.

“I apologized to the other kids too. Sent letters to the ones who went home, even gifts. I came to you last.”

“……”

“I know a simple apology won’t fix it, but… I’m really sorry. I was wrong.”

It was an attitude shockingly mature for someone raised to be the next king.

“…Why…”

Rinea moved her lips.

“Why haven’t the ones who bullied me come to apologize?”

“I told them to.”

“They didn’t.”

“They didn’t? Not even one?”

“No.”

“Those bastards…!”

Yurik turned to storm off, but Rinea grabbed his sleeve.

“Why?”

“I don’t need it.”

“What?”

“I don’t want apologies from kids like that.”

Yurik stopped, and Rinea let go of his sleeve. As she turned to look back at her book, she hesitated, looked up at him, and tilted her head.

“…Did you have more to say to me?”

“Huh? Oh, no, uh… no.”

“Okay.”

Yurik hesitated a bit more, then turned and left the library.

Rinea didn’t turn the page for a long time.

It was the first real apology she’d ever received in her life.

After that, Yurik started visiting the library every day. His tutor was overjoyed, nearly in tears — but it wasn’t really for studying.

“What book is that?”

“An Imperial Plant Encyclopedia.”

“…Is it fun?”

“Yes.”

Yurik, bored, flipped through a few pages of the Empire’s military records and yawned. Despite the library’s vast and impressive collection, there weren’t many books suited for children.

“Hey, if you’re stuck in here all day, you won’t get any sunlight…”

Rinea pointed quietly at the window behind her. Sunlight poured in brilliantly. Yurik fumbled, embarrassed, then continued awkwardly.

“I mean… it’s dusty and bad for your health! Anyway, let’s go outside, yeah?”

“If that’s an order, I’ll go.”

Rinea placed a bookmark in her book, closed it, returned it to the cart, and came back. Yurik threw down his book and grabbed her hand without hesitation.

“Let’s go.”

Despite Rinea’s flinch, Yurik dragged her out.

She wondered if he was going to make her play soccer or something, but all he did was take a walk with her through the palace garden.

“What about the other kids…?”

“I told them not to come. Too annoying.”

Yurik answered simply. Rinea tilted her head, then quickly forgot about them — she didn’t care anyway.

“You like reading, so why didn’t you go to the academy?”

“…My parents said someone as slow as me would fail the entrance exam, so there was no point.”

“You don’t seem slow at all. That book’s full of complicated stuff, and you just read it — without even a dictionary. Are you going to be a scholar?”

Rinea shook her head. No one had ever called her smart before.

“I actually want to be a musician, not the crown prince. But everyone says no.”

“….”

“Why are you looking at me like that? I mean, I’m not good at any instruments yet, but I will be! Want to hear me play?”

“Once you’re good at it, please do.”

When Rinea said that and fell silent, Yurik grumbled — so you won’t even listen unless I’m good at it? — but when she didn’t respond, he shut up too. After walking a while in silence, he spoke again.

“Hey… do you like being alone?”

“Yes.”

“Even when it thunders?”

“Yes. Are you afraid of thunder?”

“I’m not scared of stuff like that.”

Neither was Rinea. Thunder, lightning, storms, wildfires — she had never feared nature.

“Then… is it uncomfortable being with me now?”

“Yes.”

“….”

Yurik pouted and muttered something under his breath.

And watching them from afar, following in secret, was another boy.

“That stupid girl…”

He bit his nails while hiding behind a pillar. He was the one Rinea had beaten with the cricket bat.

After the cricket incident, the boy had also been beaten by Yurik.

He and the others were forced to apologize to that girl. When they tried to fake it, Yurik found out and hit them again. That alone was a price he could accept for the rosy future of possibly becoming the Crown Prince’s aide.

But the real problem was that ever since then, Yurik had stuck to Rinea and completely ignored the rest of them.

Whatever game they suggested, he was uninterested. As soon as he finished eating, he followed Rinea around. This was a crisis.

“Our family’s future depends on you. Don’t disappoint your father.”

His parents, calculating that sending a fifth child to the academy wasn’t cost-effective, had tossed him into the palace as a playmate for the prince with those half-hearted words.

The boy, who worshipped those words as sacred, was now in despair. If this continued, he might be sent back home. How could he face his parents then?

Grinding his teeth in secret, the boy whispered bitterly,

“Rinea Shuhebers…”

A half-blood noble with a grandfather who wasn’t even a real noble.

He couldn’t hide her things or play tricks on her anymore. If he did, she’d tell Yurik, and he’d just get beaten again.

So what could he do? How could he get her away from the Crown Prince? How could he reclaim his position?

“…Just wait.”

From the shadows, his eyes burned with a hatred far beyond his age.

Title: Please Disappear from My Life