Extra S*ave Saves the Crown Prince

He got up, went to the bedside table, and got something.

It was my medication.

He even gave me water with it. I didn’t want to take it, but I didn’t have the right to refuse what he was giving me.

I took a gulp of water, swallowed the pills, and gulped down the water again.

It was tasteless.

I desperately remembered the corn from earlier.

“Tasteless.”

He was still expressionless, but I could see the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. It looked like he was smiling, and it sent a shiver down my spine.

I wondered if this was what it would be like if a perfectly carved statue suddenly smiled. A bright light suddenly shone from behind him.

‘His Highness must be very fond of you.’

Suddenly, the words rippled through my mind again. It kept making me look at the crown prince with that premise. I fiddled with my ears with one hand, realizing they were reddening unnecessarily.

When all traces of dinner were cleared away, the light from the window had already darkened considerably. The crown prince went out while the table was being cleared, then came back in and unfolded a piece of paper.

It was a blank sheet of paper, and I could tell it was for writing something down. I paced, unable to sit or lie down, and looked out the window in vain.

“I—Your Highness.”

I opened my mouth with difficulty.

My body didn’t want to, but my rational mind told me this wasn’t right.

“You may lie down.”

The crown prince said without even looking at me. Seriously, I almost fainted at his words. There was no way I was going to crawl back into bed in this state of brazenness.

“I, Your Highness. I’ll sleep somewhere else tonight, and my arm feels better now.”

He paused as he casually undid the top button of his shirt. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but somehow I felt like I had. His eyes narrowed slightly.

He stood there, staring at me. I looked down, unable to meet his gaze.

Swoosh.

A breeze blew in through the slightly open window and ruffled the paper. I, too, was dressed in thin clothes, so I absentmindedly hugged the other with one arm.

Druk. There was the sound of a chair being dragged, and he stood up and closed the window. With the wind gone, an even heavier silence descended.

“I’m coming out. So rest.”

He took a moment to pick up his jacket, which he had hung on the armrest of the couch.

“Your Highness!”

A slave kicking a crown prince out of bed to rest how bold is that? I wondered if the setting had been broken since I’d been enslaved to this world, and that was why the original author had come after me in such a terrifying form.

As he grabbed his jacket and walked toward the door, he paused and looked back at me.

I didn’t mind being with him. In fact, it was quite comfortable. Not that I’d say that as a slave, but it was quite flattering and nice to see the original male lead in action, and I didn’t want to be left alone in this room.

“Well, then, if you’ll excuse me, with all due respect, I’m very sorry.”

He nodded.

“Thank you, your highness. You have been so good to me, and I will not forget it.”

I bowed deeply at the waist. I thought about bowing down, but then realized he wouldn’t like it. But my gratitude was genuine. I hope it came through.

“Rest.”

It was a very embarrassing experience. Walking into the crown prince’s bed with him in front of me. Rustle, when had the rustling of the sheets ever been so loud?

He said, “Rest,” but there was no way I could rest. It would be best to lie still, breathing like a doll.

I saw him put his jacket back on and take a seat at the table. How dare he sit down, and I, a slave, be able to rest just because he says ‘rest‘.

Of course, I hear it as an order, but it only makes me more uncomfortable.

Obviously, I’m going to be stiff all over and stay put.. But first, shall I close my eyes…?

⚘

Hot.

I woke up to the heat of my body wrapped in the duvet. I didn’t think I’d be able to rest, but I must have fallen into a deep sleep. It was quite a feat.

As the night wore on, my body was hot again, and so was the futon, which reflected the heat. But I didn’t hate it. The heat that enveloped my body was comforting in itself.

I hadn’t felt this calm since I crossed over to this world. I smiled slightly, feeling as if I hadn’t fully woken up. I don’t know when I’ll feel this comfortable again. I might as well enjoy it while I can.

I rolled over onto my side and faced him. I don’t know how much time had passed, but in the silence of the room, he was still writing something down. The way he dipped his nib into the ink and while writing down was perfect. I’ve never seen his handwriting before, but I’m sure it doesn’t deviate too much from the norm.

“The crown prince himself wrote much of it.”

That’s what the priest of Salt Island had said when describing the book on demons. It was likely that he was still writing about his own encounters with the demons himself.

“It is still night. Get some more sleep.”

It was some time before I understood what he meant, for he spoke without disturbing his posture at all. How did he know that I was looking at him?

But if you think about it, he was beyond the scope of normal humans.

“…Aren’t you tired?”

If I say this while lying down, it’s only because I have a slight fever.

He’ll forgive me for that because I’m not dreaming right? I don’t actually want to escape the bliss of this hot blanket for as long as possible.

The squawking stops, and I see him slowly put the pen down. He lifts his face and looks in my direction.

He leans back in his chair fully and crosses his arms in a slow motion. Should I get out of the futon now? It felt absurd to take over the bed and ask if he was tired.

“You always say a lot of unfamiliar things.”

Yes, there’s no way anyone has ever asked him if he was tired while lying in bed. It’s ridiculous.

Creak. I did my best to pull myself up, pulling the covers over my head.

“Lie down.”

Once I was away from the heat, reality finally set in. It was time to vacate this place. With great determination, I pull the blanket completely off to the side.

BAM.

He rushes over and pulls the covers back up. Then he nudges my shoulder and forces me to lie back down.

“Huh?”

I leaned back again in a ridiculously effortless motion. He brushed the back of his large hand across my forehead again.

“You have a fever.”

The most accurate way to take a fever is to grab the wrist or place the palm of your hand on the forehead. But all he did was run the back of his hand across my forehead by the tiniest of margins. It was obvious that he was doing his best to avoid touching my body.

“Even now, are you still scared of me?”

He pulled the covers up to my neck, and I said, “Eh,” and laid back down. He said that I had a fever, and I could feel it all around me.

He watched me lie there and then sat down in the chair next to the bed. He didn’t say anything, so I felt like I was just melting into the heat. At this point, I thought I might fall back asleep.

“Yes. Very.”

He spoke, and my sleep was immediately stolen by the answer.

“…Because you think I’m going to hurt you?”

“No. On the contrary it’s the opposite.”

The crown prince spoke each letter slowly, so I understood the words slowly. And as soon as it was fully understood, my heart sank.

For a moment, I thought of his past in the original story, which I hadn’t remembered because I was caught up in reality.

「You killed the princess」.

He’d been told since childhood that the empress needed him to disappear, and I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to hear that from the mother who gave birth to him.

In the novel, it was just a ruined past, but when I saw him right in front of me, even his emotionless face looked pitiful. He was a man who had cut off his emotions from an early age. As a reader, I knew this better than anyone.

Even the moment he said he was scared, his face was completely expressionless. But that made it all the more powerful.

That he meant it.

The heat reached my eyes, and the insides of my eyes burned.

“I, uh, I can’t tell you everything, but I actually have an ability.”

“An ability…?”

“So I’m not as weak as you think.”

Of course, the moment I use that ability, I will have to hide myself forever. My secret that I was an Ephiro would be discovered.

“Seeing the future, huh?”

“…Ah.”

Oh, right. I had completely forgotten to mention that I could see the future.

‘I can see a little bit of the future. That’s why I knew that the salt island was about to explode….’

It was the only way I could explain it at the time. It was just something I said out loud, and I felt the heat in my throat again because I realized that he still remembered something I had forgotten.

The emotion rose up to me again when he believed me.

He was the only one who believed me when no one else would. He’d said, “I’ll come get you.”

Even when he was bleeding profusely like that, even when he was fighting his own pain he would still rather than listen to me.

Suddenly, my vision blurred, and I could barely make out the crown prince’s face.

‘Seth. Pull yourself together.’

Ever since I got whipped for the first time, I would always grit my teeth and take it all in stride.

I’ve been through so much, and I’ve experienced a lot more pain than this, and I can’t believe I’m in this much agony from just a simple cut on my arm. So I bit my lip tightly.

I heard him take a deep breath. I knew it would be more embarrassing if I rubbed my eyes with my hands here, but I couldn’t help myself, so I put more pressure on my eyes.

“…I’ll call the doctor.”

I could see him rising slowly from the chair. He was pulling at the straps on the side of the bed. I unconsciously grabbed his wrist.

He looked down at my hand, or more accurately, his wrist, in slow motion.

“Oh, it’s okay, you didn’t have to call one.”

I said, “You’re like a statue, picturesque like a well sculpted sculpture.” And he actually turned into a statue. He remained frozen in place, looking down at his wrist.

Something in the air was off, and a slight chill ran down my spine immediately.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

It was crazy. I quickly pulled my hand away. I should have just gone to sleep.

When I got up, he seemed very upset. At this point, I wouldn’t dare to say anything more, if I did. I might not be able to lift my head up anywhere in the palace.

A slave holding the arm of a royalty would be a laughingstock to anyone in the Empire.

No joke, there was no such thing as a slave in the world.

The crown prince slowly sat back down in his chair. Reaching for the wrist I held with his other hand.

“Hah.”

He exhaled deeply, as if he hadn’t breathed in a long time, his heart was pounding so fast even as when his back was slumped back against the chair.

There was nothing I could say to him, no matter what punishment he cast on me, I deserved it.

He closed his eyes and remained still for another moment. He looked like a man enduring something. I curled up the blanket while staring at him enduring his silence.

“Seth.”

He called out hoarsely, and it was a long time before he opened his eyes again. His golden eyes were sunken so deeply that it made me nervous just to look at him.

“Yes.”

My voice was slightly cracked. The back of my head felt heavy from constantly checking his mood. It was tingling even more.

“You’re—”

His hand moved towards mine. It reached for a stray strand of hair and stopped short. His fingertips trembled for a moment, then curled into a fist.

Every movement was slow and deep in my eyes, and I felt a sense of isolation, as if he and I were the only ones left in the world in the depths of the night.

Paradoxically, it wasn’t lonely and fearful, but a comfortable, peaceful isolation.

“Your fever is high. Get more sleep.”

I pay every attention to the words that follow, and then the tension suddenly dissipated.

He sits up abruptly, pulls back the covers, and without breaking eye contact, leaves the room.

Thud.

The door slammed shut and I slid back under the covers like I was a soft liquid.

My breath caught in my throat. The deeply sunken golden gaze made my entire body tingle. The hot tips of my ears must have been from the heat.

I crawled under the covers, feeling numb from head to toe, then leaned back in the darkness.

That night, I had a ridiculous dream in which the prince was running away from me, claiming I was too scary, and I was chasing after him.