Eins x Ernst | The Prince's Chambers Continuation

Continuation Part II

*third day*

Ernst couldn't find his hat.

And it was beginning to be a serious problem.

He had backtracked, searched, and asked around. No one had seen it. And it had been lost since yesterday.

He tried asking Eins, because, after all, the prince was the one who had taken it off. Eins had said that he hadn't seen it, then said he needed to finish important papers. Ernst could swear he saw Eins’s diary (no matter how much Eins denied it and said it was an ‘entry journal for everyday and personal matters’, it would always be a diary) tucked into the desk.

After hours of wandering the palace ground looking for it, Ernst was about to give up and just buy another hat. Sighing dejectedly, he stopped at a window and looked outside.

He nearly swore aloud.

There was his damn hat, on the rose hedge. Ernst nearly swore again, because he knew his beloved hat would nearly destroyed from the sharp thorns. Still, he opened the window and put his feet on the ledge, preparing to jump off to rescue his hat.

Eins’s sharp voice nearly stabbed Ernst in the ears. “Ernst! What are you doing?!” Ernst winced. Apparently there was something sharper than rose thorns, and he'd never heard the prince raise his voice with so much…     Feeling? Passion? Whatever the word was, Eins had never raised his voice.

“Ah, Prince Eins…” With an audience of other servants around, Ernst very well couldn't just call him ‘Eins’. He smiled, not really a normal smile but more like a smile formed of pain, making the servants in the vicinity scurry away. “I'm going to retrieve my hat.”

Eins stepped over to the window, leaning out. “Ah, so you finally found your hat.”

Ernst had been together - well, that sounded wrong - with Eins for so long that he knew the invisible changes in expression. Now, Eins was staring at the hat like it was some amusing pet that finally did the trick correctly. Expressionlessly.

“Eins!” Ernst exclaimed over his newfound discovery. “You were the one who destroyed my hat, didn't you!”

“No.” Eins tore himself away from the pitiful sight of his High Steward’s hat. Of course, he was telling the truth, as it was the rose thorns that did the destruction.

Eins said it so much emotionless tone in his voice that Ernst was tempted to believe him, but then decided to drop the matter. After all, one did not argue with the stone-like prince. Even if it was over a beloved hat.

“Fine.”

“What are- Ernst!” Eins’s eyes widened as Ernst prepared to jump.

“I'm going to retrieve my hat.” Ernst said it cheerfully, yet he knew that his hard, red wine-coloured gave it away that he would jump.

“You shall most certainly not.” Eins fastened his arms around Ernst’s middle. Ernst let out a surprised gasp when Eins buried his face into his white overcoat. “I won't permit it.”

This whole scene gave Ernst déjà vu. He remembered when he and Eins were still small, something like this happened, including Eins hugging his waist. Excluding the hat, window, and jumping, of course.

Eins only showed his vulnerable side to Ernst.

“Of course.” Ernst allowed himself to be dragged off the window ledge by Eins. Hat or no hat, he supposed, his childhood friend was more important. Maybe.

“You are to never do something like that again.” Ernst wasn't listening as Eins scolded him, but he remembered everything that happened afterwards. He'd remember even if he forgot his own name.

Roughly Eins shoved his face into Ernst’s - despite being nine centimeters taller - and their lips connected. Eins must have been just as surprised as Ernst, because for the next eight seconds neither of them moved.

Eins finally pulled away, his cheeks almost violently red. Ernst supposed that he ran out of breath, and that he was also blushing as madly as the prince.

“Ah, Eins…”

Without replying Eins turned around and walked away.

Ernst, probably still blushing, stood for a few seconds, unmoving, then remembered the artes of movement and looked at the clock besides the window.

11:11. Ernst smiled. It looks like I didn't need a wish today, he thought cheerily as he walked away from the spot.

Word Count: 714