If Renjun was a mouse in Jeno’s eyes, then Mrs. Huang was a rat.

But not just any rat.

You know, those rats that are almost as big as a fat kitten, with eyes red as blood and fur as dark as the night and whose appearance will make any loyal kitchen cat run away in fear?

Okay, maybe she was not that menacing, but she sure was chatty as the most chittery rodent.

She ushered Jeno in, saying apologetic words and deep condolences intermingled with reprimanding words directed to her poor son, who could only silently follow along with his skin so pale it took the colour of rancid milk.

“Please forgive my son, dear, you must be so tired from your travels already,- look what you did! This good sir’s travelling coat is now all dirty and stained,- you’re not in a hurry to your next destination, are you?”

“no, no the Inner City is my final destination. I’m planning to stay here for a little while,” as he was plopped down on a rickety wooden chair in the family dining room, Jeno forced out an amicable smile and tried to warmly reassure Mrs. Huang that everything was fine, while still maintaining the ‘good traveller’ facade that everyone seemed to hole him into, “and this coat is a sad old thing, don’t worry about it, please.”

“Darling,” her previously high-pitched voice suddenly went out as a low hum, and that sudden change in tone was accompanied with a firm hand placed on Jeno’s arm, the force it held secretly saying something in between ‘trust me’ and ‘don’t you even dare refuse’, “I’m the best laundress in this street. I can make your sad coat happy.”

There was a beat of silence that followed, in which Jeno caught the gaze of Mrs. Huang and her smile that screamed of, ‘now give that damned coat to me.’ To that, finally, he relented. He found it magical that Mrs. Huang didn’t question him for the fact that he was wearing a piece of rag coming from her own kitchen around his head, but he guessed it was because she was so preoccupied with the poor state of the garment of his.

He could feel the itchings in her hands to set right all that’s wrong on his battered coat (which, to be fair, was salvaged from one of the castle’s abandoned storage rooms, so it surely was in need of a lot of attention), when she folded it up in her arms with timed precision. At least Jeno could rest assured that his coat was in good hands. What worried him, at that moment, was not the wellbeings of his coat. Not even the fact that it was already well past sunset and he was still stuck in the middle of the Inner City, not sitting prim and properly inside his room at the castle.

He was worried for the wellbeings of the young boy who looked like he was about to puke his innards out when Mrs. Huang yelled at him, from what Jeno deduced was their laundry room, to serve the traveller the thing he’d spent all day making because the traveller must be tired and hungry.

“Mama!” He yelled back. More like, yelped back. The voice that came out of his closed up throat sounding exactly like a chirp of a tiny kitchen mouse, helpless in the face of his gigantic rat friend, “you can’t… you can’t just… do that.”

The boy then scuttled his way to where his mother was, while giving a long wary glance, and a short awkward bow, at Jeno on his way there. Unfortunately, however hard he tried to make his voice as quiet and hushed as he could, the brick walls in his house are criminally thin. Also, his mother didn’t seem to get whatever was the reason for him to be so afraid, and thus spoke in her usual booming voice.

So their conversation travelled. And Jeno only sat there in the dining room, watching his thick shadows dancing on the floor that glowed a soft orange sheen from all the tiny oil lamps illuminating the room, with two things happening inside his brain. One, his fervent sense of curiosity told him to try to listen to the domestic feud happening just one porous wall of bricks from him. And two, his common sense was contemplating on the idea that he should just ran off to the night and leave everything behind.

He caught little bits of “you are the one who wanted to make them in the first place, this is your chance to test it out!” followed suit by a quiet hush of “but mama we don’t know if he’s okay with it, you know, what if he… what if he’s not okay with… with it?!”

Yes, Jeno is a curious person, but even curious people could become suspicious of certain situations. Especially when they saw the tips of a bright red flag floating in the wind.

He felt slightly guilty thinking this, but it was inevitable, ‘this family is weird.’

Too weird for his liking.

Not saying that his family is normal when compared to them, but the intensities that each of them were capable of showing in such a short amount of time caused Jeno’s wall of cautiousness to be slowly brought up.

What is it that a boy, living inside what essentially is just a hole in a wall, could make to cause him such anxiety? Poison? Are they serial killers who target lost travellers? Luring them in with promise of hospitality only for them to die after eating a poisoned pie. Maybe the boy became so terrified because he knew he will have to poison the Crown Prince of the Kingdom in order to appease his mother. Maybe, it was time for Jeno to run.

But then he heard it. Unmistakably clear because the word was said in Mrs. Huang’s well enunciation and loud voice.

“It’s just cheese, Renjun. Cheese. Everyone and their mama knows all the commonfolks are always in the search of good cheese. What’s his reason not to be one of them, hm?”

‘Oh,’ Jeno found himself thinking and mouthing his thought all at the same time, ‘it’s just cheese.’

There goes his desire to run.

Besides, he also heard a fleeting confirmation from Mrs. Huang, saying “have some confidence in what you’ve made,” and something in the line of, “yours is delicious,” (and if he needed to trust someone, he’ll trust whatever it is that Mrs. Huang said), before the boy got shoved out of the laundry room and back into the space he shared with what he must thought was his free, fast tracked ticket to the guillotine.

“Did you hear… everything… Your Grace…?”

Jeno didn’t say anything to that question, but it was clear that the boy knew that he heard everything. If before his skin was already so pale because of his fear, by then he could’ve been considered as being transparent. And Jeno could tell that if it was possible, the boy would’ve wanted nothing more than to be transparent at that very moment.

A little sway on his feet made Jeno think that the poor little mouse was just about to faint from the lack of oxygenated blood running inside his brain. But no. Turns out, his mouse acted just like all mice do. They’re resilient. A little shock will not cause them to flop over and die. No.

A little shock was all it took for the boy to scurry his way back to Jeno’s side, before he immediately dropped himself to his knees and begged. Begged for all that he was worth for, which, as told by the tiny unreined voice at the back of his head, would’ve amounted to barely nothing to a Royalty like him. But nevertheless, he ignored that rogue opinion and listened.

“Please, please oh my god please don’t take me or my mama away Your Grace, please, I beg you. She didn’t know, she didn’t know you’re you, Your Grace. She doesn’t know anything about it, it was all my fault, I risked it all and she has nothing to do with anything, it was all my fault Your Grace. Please, please, pleasepleaseplease,-”

As panic is a type of emotion that could easily jump from one host to another, Jeno himself had started to feel a little bit of the boy’s tension, and he felt bad. Terrible, even. Seeing someone be so terrified for their life, as they were begging you for their life. Because in the person’s eyes you’re the sole person that could decide whether or not they’ll survive to see another sunlight rising over the horizon.

It truly was an awful feeling.

In his effort to calm the boy down, Jeno found himself slipping off the chair and joining him on the floor. He tried everything to reel the boy back, even if just a little bit because one, Jeno was really worried that this time the boy will really faint because he forgot how to breathe, and because truthfully, the boy has nothing to worry about.

“Hey, hey listen to me, Renjun, isn’t it?” His words were just a hush peeking in between all his calming shushes. After seeing that his usual barrage of formal reassuring words fell to deaf ears, Jeno decided to just shed off his royal pretenses and address him just like how he would address any of his closest friends, “you don’t have to worry. I’m being truly honest, nobody is going to take you or your mother away. I’m serious. I won’t tell on you to anybody, can you hear me? I won’t. I promise.”

“You promise?” There was this small window of clarity, when the boy’s mind was not fogged by his fear and panic in the face of who he previously must’ve thought as an omnipotent heavenly deity, basically. When he seemed to somehow manage to forget who he was talking to, looked up with his eyes all teary and puffed, and saw Jeno to be in the same playing field as he would have seen every other commonfolks that came to his mother’s laundry and talked to him on a daily basis, “you really promise?”

But the window was closed as quickly as it was opened when Jeno told him, “yes, I do. Besides, just a secret between you and me, I love cheese.”

Renjun was suddenly looking at him as if his skin had suddenly turned green, “but… Your Grace, you’re the Crown Prince…”

“What does that have to do with me liking cheese or not?”

“Your papa,- the King, I mean… Isn’t cheese like poison for him?” The boy said as he plopped himself down on the ground. Maybe after feeling the easing of tension between the two of them, he decided that he no longer needed to be on his knees and sat down on the floor with his legs casually folded over one another. Renjun wiped the tracks of tears running down his cheeks and it caused his voice to be muffled and distorted into what Jeno thought was the most quaint, mouse-like noise he’d heard coming out from the boy throughout the length of their chaotic meeting, “I thought because it’s like poison to him, then it’s like poison to everyone in the Royal family, and that’s why the King doesn’t want it in his Kingdom.”

“Allergy is not hereditary, it’s not passed through bloodline! I know it! Jisung told me about it once.”

Yes, Jeno remembered the day when he came running to the castle’s library after he just got home from his adventure at his uncle’s. He hasn’t even changed out from his riding clothes when he immediately rushed to find Jisung, or Minhyung, whichever one of them was free, Jeno didn’t care. He was curious as to why his father could not eat cheese (could not even stand staying in the same room as it, even), but he and his uncle’s family members could? How could his father hate cheese so much while he thought it was the best thing ever invented by humans? (aside from self heating bathtubs, that is)

Jisung, after asking Jeno to slow down a little bit so he could hear what his question was, requested to be given a day or two to answer Jeno’s question, and quickly sent him back up to his room because he didn’t want the library to smell like horse dung.

Two days later, there it was. On his bedside table, a thick scroll explaining how genetics work, written in such simplified language it didn’t take long for Jeno to read everything before the servants came in to serve him his breakfast.

“So, unlike hair colours, cheese allergy is not passed down from parents to their children. Well, Jisung said sometimes they do, but most of the time they don’t. Do you understand?” Jeno spent the last minute or so relaying the information found within the scroll to Renjun, at least what little he remembered, in the hopes that the boy would lose his belief that a Crown Prince is not allowed to like cheese. It wasn’t something that he urgently needed to do (finding a way to go back to the castle should’ve been his priority), but for some reason Jeno will always feel this nagging itch inside his brain that will only go away if he’d set things straight in regards to how other people viewed his love for cheese. And by other people, it meant everyone else but the entirety of Lords and Ladies in Lumina’s court and his parents, of course.

Jeno was hoping that the boy would at least give him a nod or something, as a way to show that he understood. But Renjun only looked at him with furrowed brows and squinted eyes, as if he was suspended in the middle of his confusion and won’t ever wake up if Jeno didn’t shake him out of his stupor. “Nevermind that,” he sighed while waving his arm dismissively, “now then, can I try your cheese?”

After hearing that request, Renjun’s squinted eyes were immediately blasted open and Jeno could once again see the slivers of panic taking hold of his eyeballs, making it ever so slightly quiver and shake while his eyelids blinked like loose curtains on a windy day.

“Please?” The boy’s gaze rapidly darted from Jeno’s pleading eyes and his hand, who was squeezing Renjun’s own with palpable urgency. If before Renjun was the one who is begging, it was Jeno’s turn to do so. Begging for all that he was worth for. And in Jeno’s case, he knew it was going to be a far easier ordeal for him as it didn’t take long before Renjun let out a defeated whimper and pushed himself up to his feet.

“I guess, then… It won’t be long, Your Grace,” he mumbled, before his body once again lurched forward in a terribly unpolished bow. Weirdly, instead of feeling sorry, or pity (or god help him, disgust), Jeno found himself having to stifle an endeared smile as he answered Renjun’s bow with a polite nod.

Well.

If Jeno stood by his theory of preparation time : taste ratio, then compared to any other cheeses he’s tried in his time of searching for that one true cheese, this ‘hole in the wall’ cheese should taste the best.

Because not even fifteen seconds have passed before Renjun was back with a clay plate clutched firmly on his hands.

Although he was quick in retrieving the food item, Renjun prolonged the process by only standing idly at the entrance to the dining room, a few arms length away from Jeno who was still sitting on the floor, fiddling with his fingers and gnawing on his lower lips like a human personification of the feeling of anxiety, “what if this kills you, Your Grace,”

Jeno waved Renjun’s worry away with one simple hand gesture, “trust me, I’ve tried worse,” and he invited the boy to get a little bit closer with another simple hand gesture. A simple flick of his wrist that was enough to make Renjun running to his side as if he was a well trained, Royal squire.

Seeing the radical reaction it caused on the boy, Jeno made a mental note to never do that gesture ever again.

He took a peek to the plate and on it was two humble pale yellow rectangle. Under the yellow cast of the oil lamps, it even looked almost white. Also, saying that it was a rectangle was a stretch, really, because they were more lumps than anything else. ‘Soft cheese,’ Jeno internally sighed his disappointment after he finished his initial observation.

“I’m so sorry for the… the sorry shape of the cheese, Your Grace. I didn’t leave it to drain long enough this time. That’s why it looks kind of… sad.”

Jeno agreed with everything Renjun said but being the nice ruler-in-the-making that he was, Jeno masterfully masked his disappointment with one of his preset amicable smile, “from my experience, the appearance of something doesn’t always correlate with its taste.”

‘Although, well, having a good presentation wouldn’t hurt if we’re talking about edibles…’

The lump of cheese was soft and pliable under his fingers when he tried to pick it up, slightly coarse due to the specks of salt dusting its surface. From the times he spent reading up about it, and hunting it down in the thicks of Lumina’s Inner City, Jeno had considered himself one of the more (if not the most, if he’s taking into account that he was born after the cheese ban was set in place) knowledgeable person in regards of cheese in the Kingdom of Lumina, but he honestly never seen a cheese that looks like this.

A cheese that looks more like sweet egg roll than cheese. How peculiar.

As he was bringing the piece of cheese to his mouth, Jeno couldn’t help but notice the sparkle of hopefulness in Renjun’s gaze, even if it was slightly smothered with the more evident sense of fear and panic. He was leaning in, ever so slightly, hands clasped together in front of his mouth as he waited in anticipation for Jeno’s reaction.

And what a reaction he got.

Or more accurately, what a reaction he didn’t get.

Jeno took a modest bite out of the cheese and a frown was instantly formed on his face. One chew, two chews… the more chews he took, the deeper his frown became. The room was heavy with anticipation and it was silent, if not for the faint sound of water running coming from Mrs. Huang’s laundry room, and the dampened sound of the chittering of mice.

The problem is, that high pitched sound was coming from within Jeno’s mouth.

“This is… so unlike what I’ve eaten before. It’s soft cheese but it’s… it’s delicious?” Jeno wondered aloud after he finished chewing his second bite on the mysterious type of cheese, “what is this?”

And he noticed, after Renjun let out a long sigh and proceeded to gulp in a big inhale, that the boy had been holding his breath for the duration of the tasting,

“I don’t know.”