The Untouchable Prince | A Norenmin FanFiction

一百一十四

One Hundred Fourteen

Updated: July 29, 2024

Swish. Swish. Swish.

From dawn to dusk, that's all that Shotaro did. He swept the streets of Guanghua with an old beat up broom, carrying a straw basket on his back. He cleaned the streets, sweeped up leaves, and picked up trash, and not once did he bother to clean himself, covered head to toe in dirt and grime. The only thing he kept clean was the streets and the white silk handkerchief tied around his left wrist.

Even though he was pardoned, pardoned by the Great Emperor Himself, Shotaro forced himself to work and clean. He dragged himself across the city, sweeping and cleaning because he felt it was right. He felt that this was how he could make up to the Emperor... for doing so much... dumb shit.

Swish. Swish. Swish.

He bumped into someone.

"Watch it!"

"Sorry. Sorry," he mumbled, bowing his head in apology before continuing.

The man he bumped into suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder. "Wait a minute." He leaned in and studied Shotaro's dirty face, taking in all of his features. "Aren't you that criminal that poisoned and kidnapped His Majesty when he was a Crown Prince?"

Shotaro pulled away gently, lowering his head in a few more bows. His hands tightly gripped the old broom. "No, Sir. I think you have the wrong person."

"Hey! It is him!" Confirmed an onlooker. "His face was all over town!"

Then, there were also times like this. When the people of Guanghua recognized his face and remembered his crimes.

"I heard His Majesty pardoned him!"

Shotaro turned to the people starting to gather around, bowing to them. "You really have the wrong person. That isn't me. I-"

Crack. A soft yet hard object hit him in the head and a wet, slimy substance dripped down from his head to his arm, a yellow center and a greenish white outside. Brown shells were mixed into the substance, and a horrid smell came from it, but Shotaro couldn't do much but shake the substance off onto the ground, only to be sweeped up by him anyway.

"I can't believe a traitor like you was pardoned!"

"You should've been executed!"

"His Majesty should've killed you!"

"You should've been fed to the wolves!"

"Your whole family should've been executed!"

"How dare you harm His Majesty?! You're a monster!"

Another rotten egg was thrown at him, hitting him in the chest.

"Go kill yourself!"

More and more things were thrown at him. From rotten eggs to rotten vegetables and trash, but Shotaro couldn't really do anything to stop them. He could only stand there and take it, slowly trying to sweep up the mess being made. He deserved it after all. He deserved it for being an idiot.

It was an embarrassing sight. People circled around him in crowds, laughing, insulting, and throwing things at him like he was dumb circus animal. They shouted at him to do 'tricks'—to drown himself, to hang himself, to suffocate himself, to behead himself. And, Shotaro could only stand and take it the a dumb circus animal. If he said anything or did anything to defend himself, the insults would only be worse and the people would start throwing knives at him.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!"

Shotaro continued to sweep the mess around him.

"Stop that! He was already pardoned!"