Love Fiction

Chapter 4

            My jaw practically dropped and my eyes popped out of my sockets. This guy’s kidding, right? Not only is he a pervert or a pedophile but also my stalker? I guess he knew that I was totally in love with For the Sake of My Lord, and he was totally convinced that he was Prince Arion.

            “What the hell is he talking about?” Hiro asked incredulously.

            “Th-that would be the plot of For the Sake of My Lord.”

            Hiro stayed quiet and then cursed quietly in Japanese. He shot a look at “Prince Arion.” “So, you’re Arion?”

            Prince Arion looked surprised. “How rude. Is that how people of this country speak to royalty of another? I know I do not look the part now, but-“

            “Please prove it, ‘Your Highness,’” Hiro spat, dripping with sarcasm.

            Prince Arion raised his eyebrows and said, “As you wish.” And he began to strip off his top.

            “O-oh-“ I began in a loud voice, backing away.

            “What the hell-“

            But we stopped as we saw it: the branding of a picture of fire on his flesh. It had been done where his heart would lie, probably when he was a child.

             “What’s that supposed to mean? You weirdo. Like I said, I’m calling the cops-“

            I couldn’t help myself; I touched the mark.

            “Clara!” Hiro yelled, confused.

            “It’s the symbol of the royal family of Leyash,” I murmured and I looked up at Hiro. “It’s real. This branding is real.” And then I looked into this man’s…Prince Arion’s eyes. I believed him.

            Hiro’s face twisted into more confusion. “…But it could be that he’s just some psycho that did some makeup work on his skin or actually branded himself. That second thing could make him a total psycho, which means we definitely need to report him.”

            “Hiro, this thing looks like it happened when he was a child, not weeks or months ago. The book that Prince Arion is from was published only a year ago,” I explained quietly.

            “That’s-“ Hiro started, dumbfounded, but the prince cut him off.

            “Excuse me, but what are you talking about? What ‘book?’”

            Hiro and I looked at each other. It looked like it was our turn to explain. I cleared my throat and said, “Prince Arion, now that we believe you…” I eyed Hiro to see if he had any objections, and when his eyes met mine, he only grunted. I looked back at the confused prince. “It is your turn to believe us.”

            “Are you familiar with fairytales? Or the stories your mother would tell you as a child?” Prince Arion nodded. “Well…you are from a sort of fairytale. Honestly, I don’t know how it all happened.” His reaction was a blank face. He truly didn’t get it. I hastily said, “Okay, well, imagine you’re reading a children’s story about a troll and a villager as a child in the castle, right? And all of a sudden, that dragon and that villager appear before you out of their book. You’re able to touch them and talk to them. They’re real. That’s…kind of what’s happening right now, I guess.”

            The prince furrowed his brow and opened his mouth to speak but then closed it. He stayed silent for a while and then said slowly, “So… I’m not real?”

            “Yeah… No! Well, I guess for right now you’re real.”

           He stayed silent but then spoke.  “But that means I was never truly ‘real.’ Nothing that I knew was ever real.’” His head hung low, and I could see that his normally clear blue eyes were clouded with deep sadness and disappointment.

            My heart ached for him, so before I knew it, my hands reached for his and held them tight. “…Your hands are warm,” I said, smiling. Prince Arion looked up at me, surprised at my sudden touch. Our eyes connected and I blushed, mustering all of my willpower not to look away so that I could say what I wanted to say properly. “You may just be a character from a book, but whatever you felt in that book was real, wasn’t it? To you, that book was the real world. The life that you led, the hardships you faced, the people that you met, the care that you received and gave, and especially… The love that you experienced,” I chuckled as he blushed pink. “Don’t think that I don’t know. So, um, anyway, in that way, you are real.” With a final squeeze, I let go of his hands. I never knew that a man’s hands could be so huge.

            The prince had a stunned look on his face, but he soon exchanged it for a smile and laughed a little, “Thank you. Thank you so much. Dear child, thank you…” He looked down, trying to contain his grin.

            Wait. Child? No, no, I thought, shaking it off. Now’s not the time for that.

            “Are you done?” said a low, sarcastic voice.

            And with that, both of us turned to an astonished Hiro. “Hey, I am disgusted by what just happened, but that wasn’t me.”

            “Too loud. All of you.” We all looked around and then found the source of the voice. It belonged to the guy with no shirt. “The whole scene was too sickeningly sweet. What are you, a theatre troupe trying to get into Broadway?”

            A happy voice chirped, “But it was getting pretty good. You forgot all about us being here! Maybe next time I can join in? I love to act, you know.” It was the soccer kid.

            “Um… Perhaps we can leave behind all of this small talk and focus on what we should do now,” said the guy in the scrubs hesitantly.

            In my head, I began to connect the dots. If this blonde guy is Prince Arion from For the Sake of My Lord, then that means these other three guys are…

            I gasped.

            “You just figured that out. Wow,” Hiro said, trying to put it in a way that said “you’re an idiot,” trying to make this seem like it was no big deal and that it was not out of the ordinary. But his unsteady, despairing voice gave way to the gravity of the situation.