Chapter 20: Anagram

After the long-dead silence, I took off the hat I was wearing then I bent my body at a ninety-degree angle. "Your Highness," I formally greeted.

He held me in my arms and made me stand up straight. "The organization I was talking about was the Maharlican government. That's what my family does. That's what I do. And soon, I will take over the throne."

He slid his hand from my arms down to my hands. He touched the ring on my finger and moved it circularly. He dropped his gaze on my hand with the ring on it. "I'm telling you this right now to give you a chance."

I also looked down at the hand he was holding. "Chance on what, Your Highness?"

"Chance to run away."

"You're telling me to give up on us?"

He nodded his head as an answer and unexpectedly it stung a bit. He made me promise earlier not to leave him even after knowing the truth, but now he's asking me to do the opposite.

"If we don't give up now, can you see what will happen?"

I couldn't bring myself to answer him because we probably have different scenarios in our heads of where this relationship is heading to. While in my head we're heading to that tragic ending where I would kill his father and we would end up breaking up.

And in his head, we'd probably be a happy family.

"There's only one end. If you don't let go of my hand right now, I won't either. And I will never let go anymore and I will ascend to the throne with you, make you my queen, make you the mother of my princes and princesses, and will make you run the government with me. There will be no exit or any back door."

He tightened his grip on me and stared at me more deeply. "Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Now is your only chance to get away from me."

If he wants me to run away, why is he holding my hand so tightly?

"I am scared of you leaving me. I wanna hold on to you so badly. But I don't want to pull you into the kind of life you don't want."

"I don't wanna run away, Neuron. I don't wanna go anywhere without you." I avowed. "But Neuron, don't you think it's too early to have marriage in mind?"

He had a dismayed look on his face. "Why? Are you dating me right now just to dump me in the future? Am I just a passing fancy to you?"

I couldn't say yes, because I know my feelings are not just fleeting. But I also couldn't say no, because I know we are bound to break up.

Instead of answering I circled my hands on his waist and hugged him. "You know what, you should sit down."

I pulled out from the hug, placed the hat on the table, held his hand, then pulled a chair and made him sit down. I walked to the other side of the table and also sat down. "You're a prince of Maharlica, noted.'' I enumerated it on my finger. "You want me to run away from you, noted. However, if I don't run away, you'll marry me and that'll make me shoulder the burden of being a queen. Noted."

I could see he is quite taken aback by how easily I am taking this. "You know what, let me think about all of those logically and thoroughly." I decided to deal with it as cool as I can to brighten up Neuron's gloomy mood. "Do you know what I need right now, Your Highness?"

He stared at me cluelessly.

"Food. I'm starving, Sir."

He just nodded his head. "We can only order drinks, bread, and pastries here. Is that okay? Or shall we go to a restaurant for a proper meal?"

I shook my head. "Anything's fine."

He stood up and said, "Wait here."

He left me to order food. I brought my gaze to the monochrome painting of Mirando, the person I loathe. The person I wanna kill with my own hands.

I am so confused. I don't know what to do anymore. Neuron and Mirando are two different persons, it doesn't matter if Mirando will get hurt. I just need to protect Neuron.

But...

I can't help but dwell on the fact that the two are family. Father and son. In what way will I be able to kill Mirando without hurting Neuron? There's no way it'll be possible, right? And not only that, by killing Mirando, Neuron can no longer be king.

Neuron returned quickly to our table. "Did you notice that this table is out of sight from anyone?"

"Yah, obviously."

"That means we can do anything here. Anything." He had that naughty grin on his face which relieved me. He's back to being playful.

I rolled my eyes at him. "By anything, what do you mean, Your Highness?"

"Anything," he said, raising his eyebrows up and down. "Even the nasty."

I took one rose from the centerpiece of the table, broke the stem to take only the flower without its stem, and threw it at his face.

He cackled. "Careful," he then warned me. "Did you just throw a rose on a prince's face?"

I straightened up. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry!"

He clasped his hands together on the table and stared at me sharply like he's scrutinizing me and is about to judge me.

"Now that I think about it, you've been immensely rude to me. You throw things at my face when you have a chance, you hit me anytime you want."

I gulped.

"You punch my arms when you feel like it. And verbally, there are many instances I can think of where you were rude to me."

I cleared my throat. "Really? I can't remember anything though," I claimed while feigning innocence.

"You threw up on me during the first night we met. Ah, I remember another! You even pretended you were pregnant. And--"

"Stop!" I shouted and glared at him. "Will you really go on doing that?"

He grinned. "Kidding."

My jaw dropped when the food arrived. "This is too much. How are we supposed to finish everything?"

I couldn't close my mouth as the server continued to place platters of food. Pasta, cakes, pies, tarts. This is too much!

The table is full of food and I can't even enumerate everything because there's just too much. "You said you're starving."

"And that's why you ordered a whole table of food?" I uttered in disbelief. Sometimes he's just too impractical. Perks of being rich and pampered. I totally cannot relate.

He nodded while wearing a wide smile on his mouth.

"I have a lot of questions about you being the prince. But I'm restraining myself right now. I came to the conclusion that given the fact that your family hid your entire existence from the public, there must've been a good reason why. And that's why I'm stopping myself from asking, so behave yourself, Your Highness."

From playful, the atmosphere between us switched back to being serious. "Where were you last night anyway?" I casually changed the topic for two reasons. First, to start a normal conversation. And second, to know a hint about why he's in the station yesterday.

"I was at Prego Station," he quickly answered, and then he fed me a spoonful of carrot cake. I took it. I was actually surprised by how quick he was when he answered my question. I thought he'd be a little anxious about it.

"Why?"

"I was supposed to meet a friend."

A friend?

Liar.

"Why at the station, though? There are a lot of better places to meet a friend." He fed me again with a spoonful of cake and I gladly took it. These trivial things that Neuron does for me really warm my heart all the time. It makes me wanna curl under his care.

"It's hard to explain. I was supposed to meet my long-lost friend at the station. I looked for that person for a very very long time and I've only heard about that friend's existence recently. I thought, at last, I will find that friend. But we never got to meet."

I don't understand what he's talking about.

Friend? The informant specifically asked to hand the file to the former president's daughter. And that's me. What friend is he talking about?

There's a possibility that Neuron pretended to be both the informant and the courier as well. To meet the former president's daughter? But why?

Is this just a made-up story? Why, though? He could've just lied about his whereabouts yesterday. Why go this far by making up a story? This is getting really confusing to me.

The way I understand this is that Neuron is actually the informant who tricked us and asked for the former president's daughter to meet the courier. Then he pretended to be the courier to meet the former president's daughter.

And if he's telling the truth, then I must be his long-lost friend. But how? How on earth was I his friend? I don't recall any memory of the prince when I was little.

There are many unanswered questions in my head. One thing is for sure, Neuron knows about Soma's existence and the fact that the person he is looking for, which is me, is part of Soma. He knew exactly what to say in order to make us take the bait. He pretended he had the file which is supposed to be evidence to bring Mirando down. He knew! He already knew! This could entail that His Majesty already knows about our existence too.

And this means Soma is in danger. Real danger.

"What happened to this friend of yours? Why did he disappear?"

I deliberately used the pronoun 'he' to make it look like I really don't have any idea about what he's talking about. I don't even know if I really am that friend he is talking about. Plus, I don't even know if he is telling the truth about his supposed-to-be long-lost friend.

"Because His Majesty failed to protect her. I failed to protect her."

Those two sentences from him stirred up hundreds of ideas in my head. Thoughts are running wild inside my head. His Majesty failed to protect her? Who? Me?

"Her?" I repeated for clarification. "That friend is a girl?"

He nodded. "And do you know what's more interesting? I find it so intriguing that when I rearranged your name Rathna, I arrived at her name."

A loud thump from my chest started to make me deaf because of too much tension and nervousness.

"W-what's-- what's her name?" I stuttered.

"Thrana."

I felt explosions around me and I felt like the world spun for a moment. I got dizzy because of the shock.

"Isn't that cool? Her name is an anagram of your name," he added.

As I'm staring at Neuron's deep coffee brown eyes, I battled against holding my tears from falling down.

That name. Thrana... It's been twenty years since I heard that name.

My real name.