CHAPTER 3: Friend

"𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙣... 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙝𝙞𝙢?"

Kiel stared at the window with blank eyes as Yor's words repeated on his mind.

Friend? He already has one... although that friend is a pony who understands everything he said to him.

Ekiel pressed his lips tight as his eyebrows furrowed. He then burried his face at the book infront of him and sighed as if he did something difficult for the day that tire him down.

Friends.... what if that incident happens again..?

"Is there anything wrong?" Marinell, the lady tutor asked as she peeked from the book she was reading.

"..."

"You can tell this Marinell if something bothers you, young master Ekiel." Marinell said as she placed the book on the table. "And if you wont, i wont let you study for the day if you're really bothered about something."

Ekiel raised his head and looked at the lady with caramel hair and brown eyes.

"I met a new kid.."

"I see."

"And i didnt asked for his name and just ran away."

"..."

Hearing no response, Ekiel sighed as he looked at the book full of words written in ink. His sullen face looked more visible as second passes waiting for the tutor to answer him.

"That's understandable, young master Ekiel. You shouldn't worry about that." Marinal hurriedly said as she flashed a visible forced smile on her face.

"But your face just now—"

"No! I mean, you're probably just nervoys since you haven't saw any kids for 5 months– yeah, that's probably it."

Ekiel sighed.

♡︎♡︎♡︎

The next morning came, Ekiel fiddled on the hem of his sleeves as he hid from the stable as soon as he arrived. As if on cue, he instantly heard the boy's voice giggling from the back of the stables causing Ekiel to peek from the back.

"You are so lovely, Din." The boy softly said as the pony continued to nip on its gray hair. "Dont pull my hair too much. It'll hurt."

Din, the pony, only snorted but complied, anyway. The boy continued to laugh as the pony attempted to bite its clothes but ended up its teeth getting stucked by a string.

"Oh, Im sorry about that." The boy said softly and carefully untagled the string from his cloth that was stucked on Din's teeth.

But the string cant be removed immediately. The action of attempting to remove the string just made the pony cry in pain and slowly panic.

"Im sorry, im sorry. The string really clung on your teeth."

Din only whimpered in pain when the boy attempted to remove it again.

"It'll hurt Din if you do it like that." Ekiel finally stepped in with the scissors on his hands.

"Ah. Im sorry about the—"

"Its okay. I can remove it by the scissors." Ekiel smiled as if his nervousness immediately vanished and was soon changed into confidence.

But his confidence immediately vanished when Din cried loudly just by seing the pair of scissors on Ekiel's hands.

"Ah!"

"Din! Im sorry, shh..."

Ekiel immediately hid the scissor and raised both of his arms to prove that he's not gonna hurt him. Meanwhile the other boy carefully caressed the pony's Muzzle as a sign of comfort.

"Its okay, its okay." The boy's soft voice and carefull caresses soon calmed down the terrified pony. "Let him cut the string, okay? He's your friend and he wont hurt you."

Ekiel gulped.

He slowly showed the scissor and waited for Din's reaction for a few minutes. Din on the other hand, stopped moving too much and just reluctantly rested its head on the other boy's shoulder to seek comfort.

"Alright, Din. Don't look." Ekiel said and finally stepped close beside the boy infront of him and searched for the source of the string.

It was from the torn part of the boy's clothes.

"Can I cut it?" Ekiel asked as he held the ragged part of the cloth. The other boy nodded softly in response and smiled.

Tuk!

"There we go." Ekiel smiled and carefully pulled out the string from its teeth and patted the muzzle of the pony softly. "What a good boy."

Din huffed and pushed away Ekiel from him and nuzzled its head on the boy's neck making Ekiel look at him in astonishment.

"Eh? Im your bestfriend, but now you're pushing me away from you." Ekiel huffed as he frowned at the pony.

Din snorted again.

"Im hurt."

Ekiel and the pony continued to exchange glances. The boy in the middle of the fight only bursted in tiny laughter that made Ekiel blink twice.

Somehow, the boy's laughter sounds so nice. Ekiel unconsciously loosened up and inched closer at the foreign boy beside him.

"Im sorry, uh-" The boy soon apologized as he realized who was he laughing at. Its face was now flushed as he looked down the floor.

"Its okay.... and im sorry from the other day. I got...shy and ran away instead of listening to your introduction." Ekiel awkwardly scratched the back of his head and smiled sheepishly.

"Well... I get that young master Ekiel seemed to be very shy with new people so its okay." The boy smiled. "Rather, I should be the one to apologize for coming here on your stables unannounced. I trespassed—"

"No!—I mean, well, yes, but don't worry about that!"

"???"

"Uh, I want to..." Ekiel blushed as he looked at the boy's face. "Know your name."

"..."

"D-dont get me wrong! I...i have no friends and I wanted to have one because I feel so lonely everyday aside from having fun with Din on the field..."

"Then, shall we redo our introduction from the first day?" The boy suggested as the Din removed his head from the boy's shoulder and snorted.

"Introduction...?"

"Yes. Since we both failed to introduce ourselves properly so..."

"A-ah..."

Ekiel bit the insides of his lips as the awkward atmosphere soon filled the area between them. It was so quiet to the extent where Ekiel can exactly hear their stable breaths and the other horses' noises from inside the stable.

Ekiel internally cried and collected his courage to speak first as soon as he saw the emotion from other boy's eyes. It was filled with interest and excitement.

"Uh, I am Ekiel Ulyss. You can call me Ekiel or whatever you want to call me–I mean, Im fine being called with any names."

"Then, I am Owen Koneb. I am from the other continent across the east sea. Its nice to meet you, young master Ekiel."

"L-likewise."

Then again, after the introduction, another awkward silence dominated the atmosphere. Ekiel can literally hear the disappointment and embarassment from Din's snorts.

"Anyway...!" Ekiel shook off his awkward posture and finally loosened himself. He needs to be a little bit more confident in front of others aside from the servants and knights from the mansion. If he'll continue to be like this, then he'll be having more hard time in the future if he'll be finally acknowledged as the young Baron of the Ulyss domain.

"Do you want to have fun with me? Like, riding with Din on the fields."

"Fields? Horse riding?"

"Yes! It'll be fun."

"But I haven't tried horse riding before, so I—"

Ekiel suddenly pulled Owen's hand softly and guided him on the horse.

"Its okay, I can teach you if you want."

"Really?"

That day, Ekiel Ulyss who was the first son of the deceased Baron Ulyss finally had a friend after 5 months of cutting off any connections from the other noble kids. Ekiel's smile grew wider since then.

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𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿!!

𝐎𝐰𝐞𝐧 𝐊𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐛 (𝟏𝟐)

-Has a gray hair, black onyx eyes. His skin is a little bit pale. He just moved in the town a month ago.

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐆𝐨𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐚 (𝟐𝟔)

-Black hair, black eyes. Ekiel's tutor on every academics and in Etiquette. Was an old acquaintance of Ekiel's uncle and a graduatee from the academy with highest merits.