The Royals [Boarding School Juliet]

5. The Sports Festival And A Dance

One would assume that the prince of Touwa might be interested in the sports festival; an annual event that gave the Black Dogs and the White Cats an official battlefield. But the prince wasn't. He aimlessly wanders around Dahlia Academy with his roommate, the teenager with a heavy secret. 

At the break of dawn, Hasuki had somehow managed to wake up the entire dorms and convinced them to start preparing to defeat the White Cats. 

And here we are, the Black Dogs run laps around Dahlia Academy. Most of the boys had been persuaded, more like seduced, into participating. At the other end of the academy, Scott leads the White Cats to run laps and they sing an encouraging song to motivate themselves. A song which was actually insulting the Black Dogs.

The White Cats were running and had just run below a bridge. The very bridge from which Inuzuka Romio jumps at that very moment and lands on Scott. On the other hand, his roommate gracefully lands on the earth, and not on any poor soul.

Scott and Romio get into another spat when Yukikaze takes a moment to look towards one end of the bridge from where he had jumped. Chartreux Westia stands there staring at him with an utterly plain look. Yukikaze raises an eyebrow at his own inability to read the princess and finally sighs.

He looks at Romio who was conversing with a White Cat couple and looks back at the princess. She was still staring at him. With a sigh, he decides to go and ask her. Walking towards the large group of White Cats and Romio who immediately acknowledges his presence, he turns towards Romio.

He runs towards them and uses one of the White Cats as a stepping stone to jump up to the bridge. Once again, he lands elegantly in the middle of the bridge and looks at the princess who was still staring at him. He walks towards her while observing her.

The usual uniform.

The usual hairstyle.

The usual tiara.

The unusual stare.

"Why are you staring?" He asks. It was absolutely discomforting for him to be stared by the wicked witch of the west without being able to deduce her intentions.

"Why do you care if I stare at you?"

"It's uncomfortable."

"Why should I care if it's uncomfortable for you?"

"Shouldn't you refrain from acting so hostile towards me?"

"You are a Black Dog."

"Not just any Black Dog though. And you aren't just any White Cat." There is truth in his words and Chartreux doesn't like it. She wishes Yukikaze was just Yukikaze and not Tsuchimikado Yukikaze, the crown prince of Touwa.

Chartreux stares at the young man who seems to be an incorrigibly annoying creature to her at the moment. With a huff, she spins on her heel and walks away. Yukikaze looks down from the bridge to see a man kneeling on one knee before Juliet Persia and sees Romio's murderous aura emerging. 

He looks up at the sky when the wind blows; ignoring the commotion below the bridge. When he looks down once again, a fight almost erupts between Romio and a girl only to be stopped by the former's secret lover. 

"Both of you, stand down!" She speaks as she stops Romio's punch and the girl's kick simultaneously. "You can settle this next week at the sports festival." 

Yukikaze wonders why Chartreux Westia is the princess and not this girl. This girl who does not take the dispute between the two kingdoms to heart and desperately wants a change. Such neutral behaviour is expected from a royal and he doesn't see any in the one who actually is the princess of the West Duchy.