—Noray…

The Emperor's irritated sigh was interrupted by a thin stream of smoke rising from the tip of the smoking pipe held by the man glued to his thighs.

—…how many times have I told you not to bother me while I'm reading the ambassadors' scrolls?

Oh, he'd said it a hundred, probably a thousand times already…Noray definitely remembered those warnings, but, God, who needed them? He didn't care about his master's words.

Noray Tsuru…the one who was usually called 'one of the Emperor's trusted men' in the imperial palace, who didn't take a step to the side. A guard? An advisor? A doctor? No. Noray was probably just…an pet for His Majesty Shouta. A stubborn, impudent and self-confident crane, always raising his 'beak' upward. no, he really was a hybrid of a crane, which the emperor found in his courtyard, with a wounded wing.

oh, gods, no one remembered how many years had passed since that day when this impudent fellow, comfortably located right next to His Imperial Majesty, did not leave the palace, having settled here as if he had always lived.

—come on, don't be a bore.

he chirped in his low voice, casually waving the smoking end of his pipe right in front of Shoto's face, releasing a gray cloud of smoke from his lips, laughing