253 Tree
A young man with long white hair was sitting on top of his bed in his room. Crossing his legs, he picked up the cup that was handed to him by a butler and sipped the tea on it. He smiled as the pleasant taste of the tea filled his mouth and took another sip of the tea while watching the butler walk back and stand beside the closed door.
A few minutes passed like that. In the silence of the room, the man drank his morning tea and his butler stood beside the door and gazed at him in silence.
“My lord.”
The butler opened his mouth after a few minutes. The man’s tea was almost finished by then. The butler bowed toward the man a little bit and continued to talk.
“Will you be leaving today?”
The white-haired man smiled. He raised his cup towards the butler. The butler moved towards him, received the empty cut, and mover back to the door once again.
“Yes. I will be going this night.”
“When will you be back, sir?”
The butler asked again as soon as he received his first question’s answer as if he had already prepared the spoken words.
.....
“Who knows?”
The man simply shrugged.
“Shall I prepare for your departure?”
“Prepare?”
The man said with a slightly confused face as he got up from the bed. He strolled towards the mirror and looked at himself. He touched his hair. The waist-long white hair was messy beyond words. Sighing to himself, he sat down on the chair in front of the mirror.
“Won’t you be taking anything with you for your trip, my lord?”
The butler spoke after he handed a wooden comb to the man.
“Nope. There is no need for that. I’ll just go like this.”
The butler, looking at the man combing his long hair, opened his mouth with hesitation.
“Then, who will accompany you on this trip, my lord?”
“Accompany? I don’t need anyone.”
The man kept combing his hair.
“My lord will be traveling alone?”
“Yes.”
As if slowly getting tired from all the conversation he had, the man glared at his butler with an annoyed gaze. The gaze made his butled shut his mouth and lower his head, but he opened it again after a few minutes and talked again while carefully choosing his words not to say anything wrong.
“But sir, wouldn’t it be safer to at least take someone with you?”
The man didn’t even look at the worried butler’s face. His brows frowned and he raised his voice a little bit.
“Who do you think I am? Do I look like someone who will need another’s protection? Do you assume me to be that weak?”
“My lord, that wasn’t-”
“Enough!”
SNAP
The wooden comb in the man’s hand snapped in half. Seeing the scene, the butler quietly gasped and bowed down.
“I apologize, my lord!”
Cold sweat was formed on the middle-aged man’s forehead and his body was slightly trembling due to fear.
“Just don’t bother me again.”
The man waved his hand in the air in a gesture that asked the butler to get out. The butler obeyed the order and hurriedly stood up and left the room.
Slam
The man looked at the closed door and scoffed.
“Hah! Take someone with me! As if you fools would even understand where I am going!”
Looking at the comb that was broken in half, he sighed again and leaned back.
“I should’ve asked for another comb before he left...”
He mumbled to himself with regret. But that didn’t matter that much anyway. He was mostly done tiding his hair. He put the broken comb on the table and picked up a ribbon instead, tying his hair into a ponytail with the red ribbon.
“Seriously, these people and their annoying concerns...”
He mumbled again as he got up. Walking at a slow pace and with elegant movements, he strolled towards the closet and looked through his clothes.
“What should I wear~”
He looked at the beautiful and expensive outfits one by one.
“I should wear the best clothes~ I’m going to meet a prince afterall~”
Humming to himself, he observed all of his clothes. Thinking about his meeting with that person made him get even more excited. With a light mood, he moved around in the room, thinking about how that person would react once they meet again after so many years.
Would he be happy?
“Haha! No way!”
He would be anything but happy.
“Will he try to kill me?”
That was the most probable answer.
If that was the case then it was good. They could finally spar a little bit after so many years. He was looking forward to it.
“This one!”
He finally decided on what to wear. He took out an outfit and looked at it with a pleased face.
“Red~”
The outfit was a mixture of black and red. A long black and red overcoat, a black shirt to wear underneath it, a red tie, black pants, and a pair of red-black gloves.
“Is it too much?”
He wondered. The clothes were too eye-catching. He didn’t really like to go around wearing things like this.
But it was just once! He was going to meet that person after such a long time. He thought it wouldn’t be bad to wear these kinds of things once in a while.
“I’m sure he liked this color so much~”
A smile formed on the man’s face thinking about the person he was going to meet.
. . . . .
Sitting on his chair in the middle row of the chairs in the room, Kairen was silently looking at the bunch of kids who were performing a show.
“.....”
He was actually only staring at one specific kid. A kid who didn’t seem to have realized Kairen’s gaze on him.
‘Why is he...’
Kairen thought.
‘What’s with that rule...’
His face was all blank.
After the little girl said her words and ran to the back of the stage, other kids started to walk out one by one. As they did, they started to quate their dialogs and play. The more they played, the more children joined.
Kairen had been waiting for Ariyan this whole time, wondering what kind of role he had for him to take so long to come to the stage.
And now, after about 15 minutes, he knew his answer.
‘Why is he a tree!?’
He stared at the kid in brown and green clothes that was standing in one corner of the stage and had the rule of a tree that did nothing at all. Its only job was to be something that the characters leaned on when thinking.
‘Ariyan, dear, what kind of role is this?’
How could you accept something like this? Wasn’t there anything else? Really? You could at least be a passerby nobody! Anybody but a tree that was used like that! Aren’t your friends heavy? Why do they lean on a kid what if he falls down under the weight of those other kids!?
Ms. teacher of the kindergarten! Was this fair? How could you do this to a little cute child??? Just look at his face! How could you ignore such cuteness and give him the role of a tree instead of the main character?? Even if he didn’t have such a cute and adorable and absolutely loving face, you shouldn’t give such a role to him!! What would happen to the kid’s self-confidence? Have you ever thought of that?
Kairen didn’t take his eyes off of the tree that was standing still on one corner of the stage.
Still, the tree was such a nice tree! Look at it! Where could you find such a cute tree? Ariyan was playing his role so well that anybody would be fooled that he was a real tree! He was standing there for a long time! Which kid could do such a hard thing? No one! Perhaps, there was no one who could manage to perform this role better than Ariyan! It must be one of the hardest roles to play. He even shook his branches when the winds blew!
Kairen wanted to cheer the tree loudly, but he held himself back. He didn’t want to make a scene in front of everyone. He was sure that Ariyan wouldn’t like that at all.
.....
It was at that moment that the kid finally turned his head towards the chilly gaze he was feeling on himself. His lips parted, eyes widened, and his face paled upon seeing his uncle, who was not even supposed to be here, glare at him as if he wanted to beat him up at the moment. The kid hurriedly averted his gaze and looked somewhere else, trying to focus on being the most natural tree one could see in their lives. He did his best not to make eye contact with his angry uncle, unaware that the anger was not directed at him but someone else.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l