"Your Majesty," Tamura dropped into a bow so deep her forehead nearly touched the floor. Around the restaurant, others followed---some gracefully, others with the panicked clumsiness of people who'd forgotten proper protocol.
"Huh?" Lone looked around, confused, a dumpling still hanging from his mouth. "Why's everyone on the floor? Did someone drop something?"
Patch grabbed Lone's coat, yanking hard. "Bow, Captain! That's the King!"
Donut had gone completely white. His massive frame was shaking again, but this time it wasn't fear of combat... it was something deeper. The King's eyes hadn't moved from him.
"Stand," the King said, and his voice carried the weight of someone who'd never been disobeyed. "All of you."
The crowd rose uncertainly. Lone straightened up, swallowed his dumpling, and waved cheerfully.
"Hi! I'm Lone Einstein! Are you here for the noodles? They're really good! Donut's paying!"
One of the royal guard, a woman with a scar across her nose and a sword that hummed with barely contained Admiral Force, stepped forward with murder in her eyes. "You dare address His Majesty so casually---"
"Reina," the King's voice was soft, but the guard stopped mid-step as if she'd hit a wall. "Stand down."
"But Your Majesty---"
"I said stand down."
The guard retreated, but her hand never left her sword.
The King walked forward, his crimson coat trailing behind him like a river of blood. He passed by Lone without a glance, passed by Patch who'd gone very still, and stopped directly in front of Donut.
The giant was trembling so badly his tea cup rattled against the table.
"Dun," the King said, and there was something in his voice... something that made Lone's vacant cheer falter, made Patch's street-sharp instincts scream danger, made every person in the restaurant lean forward despite their fear.
"F-Father," Donut whispered.
Patch's eyes went so wide they looked ready to fall out of his skull. "Father?! Father?! You're... you're---" He pointed wildly between Donut and the King. "He's you're, what?!"
Tamura dropped her serving tray. The crash was like thunder in the silence.
"Prince... Prince Dun?" She staggered backward. "I've been serving... I've been collecting payment from... oh ancestors preserve me..."
The royal guards' reactions were even more dramatic. Reina's sword actually fell from her grip, clattering to the floor. Another guard, a massive man with a beard like steel wool, made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a choke. A third simply sat down where he stood, as if his legs had given out.
"YOUR HIGHNESS?!" They shouted in unison, and as one, all twelve guards dropped to their knees, fists pressed to their hearts in formal salute.
Lone blinked, then blinked again. A noodle slowly slid off his chopsticks, landing with a sad plop in his bowl. "Wait. Donut's a prince?"
"Prince?!" Patch grabbed Lone's shoulders, shaking him. "Not just a prince! The prince! The heir to Layer 7,841! The Crown Prince who disappeared three years ago after the Academy incident!" He spun to face Donut, his voice climbing to a pitch that could shatter glass. "You're... you've been, we thought you were dead!"
Donut couldn't meet anyone's eyes. His massive hands gripped the edge of the table so hard the wood groaned. "I... I didn't..."
"You didn't tell us," the King finished quietly. His expression was unreadable. "Just as you didn't tell us when you left the Academy. When you abandoned your training... when you let your people believe their prince had fallen into a Rift."
The restaurant's patrons were losing their minds in whispers.
"---I insulted him earlier, oh gods, I'm going to be executed---"
"---explains the Soul Anchor, those are usually reserved for---"
Lone looked at Donut, then at the King, then at his bowl of noodles, then back at Donut.
"Soooooo," he said slowly, his brain visibly working overtime, "that's why you had so much money to buy food?"
The absurdity of the statement cut through the tension like a knife through butter.
Reina made a sound like a dying goose. "That's your takeaway?! That's what you focus on?!"
"Well, yeah!" Lone looked genuinely confused by the reaction. "I was wondering how he could afford to buy everyone's meals! That's like... a lot of money. But if he's a prince, then he probably has---" he paused, counting on his fingers, "---at least seven million. Maybe eight."
Patch slapped his own forehead so hard it echoed. "Seven... million?! What are you even counting? He's heir to an entire Layer, that's more wealth than... than the entire Lower Sky combined!"
Lone tilted his head. "So… like… more than nine million?"
Patch nearly fainted.
"That's not how money works!" Patch was pulling at his own hair. "And it's not the point! The point is, he's... you made the crown prince your first fleet member! Do you understand what that means, Captain?!"
"It means my fleet has a prince?" Lone said hopefully. "Is that good? That sounds good."
Donut didn't laugh, didn't even flinch. He just stared at his trembling hands on the table. His voice was low, almost too quiet for anyone to hear.
"I didn't want to be a prince, father."
The King's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "And yet you are."
Donut looked up, finally meeting his father's gaze. "I wanted to be… useful on my own... not because of my blood. Not because of the crown, that's why I worked on the Sky Ship docks. That's why I built ships with my own hands, earned every coin by sweat. For once… I wanted to prove I could stand without the throne holding me up."
The King's jaw clenched. His crimson coat swayed as if the air itself bent to his will. "And in doing so, you let your people believe their hope had died. You let your father believe his son was gone."
The silence that followed was heavy, until Lone raised a finger.
"Wait, wait, wait. So you're saying Donut---" he pointed at the giant---"is royalty. But instead of living in a shiny palace with, like, golden toilets---" Patch choked, Tamura fainted. "---he decided to, what, hammer wood and scrub grease like a commoner?"
Reina snapped, her voice laced with fury. "You dare belittle His Highness's struggle---"
"Actually," Patch cut her off, eyes still wide but voice suddenly steady, "that's exactly what he did."
Everyone turned to him.