"Here you go!" The waitress arrived, carrying some sort of alcohol...and my wimpy apple juice.
"He'll have apple pie," Dominic said, pointing at me.

I blushed.
"You sure like apples, don't you?" the waitress winked at me. "Kind of like the Prince!"

A wave of awkward silence wafted between us three. Deny it? No, I couldn't; my father had always taught me to embrace my royal heritage, so denying it would be disrespectful. Confirm it? That would cause pure chaos. Since those two options were out of the picture, I just stayed silent and scrutinized the very interesting tablecloth.

Leave it to Dominic to pick out the one spot where they've got an extremely smart waitress. The girl's eyes widened.

"Oh my god, you're –"

Dominic stood up abruptly and clasped his hand over her mouth to hush her. "Yes, it's very exciting. Please don't say his name."

"If that's…Then who?" the girl asked once Dominic deemed it okay to let her speak again and removed his hand from her mouth.

"His fiancé," Dominic answered.

She squealed, earning her a few confused glances from people at other tables. Dominic was now seated, and I glared at her. Composing herself, she brushed imaginary dirt off of her clothes and cleared her throat.

"Okay, so one apple pie, and…?" She carried on as if nothing had happened.

"Steak. A big piece," I answered for her. "Dominic loves his meat."

Dominic nodded. "He's my favorite kind, though." He jerked his head towards me to signify that was who he was talking about.

Of course, I blushed again.

The waitress giggled and then rushed away with our order. Silence encased us for a few seconds, I, taking a sip of my damn freakin' manly drink and eyeing people walking into the restaurant while Dominic scrutinized me.

"Oh! Dominic, he looks strong. I bet he's your type." I prodded his elbow then pointed to the man who had walked through the doors.
"Nah," Dominic waved away the comment and then looked straight at me. "Smart is more my type."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I'm smart and you don't like me!"

"Alright, I give up. Congratulations, all divine beings or otherwise, you win. I forfeit – game over!" Dominic stood up. "I'll be leaving to smash my head into a wall."

"No!" Reaching up quickly, I grabbed Dominic's arm. "What's wrong? Why are you mad?"

Perhaps it was just me, but I could find no reason as to why Dominic was mad. Did I say something? If I did, it wasn't intentional – I was legitimately going to do this 'trying' thing. Of course, knowing me, I'd screw it up without meaning too. And then on top of that, I was apparently 'naïve' as well.
He stopped, facing away from me. "I'm not mad."

"Liar." I tugged his arm, prodding him to sit, and sit he did.
"I'm not mad. I'm frustrated."

"At what?" I asked.

"At who," Dominic corrected.

"Okay," I paused. "Then who are you mad at?"
"Somebody," was his answer. It was vague and didn't help any, but I left it.
"…Right. Why, then?" I pushed forward in the conversation.
"Well…they don't understand that," Dominic stared pointedly at me, heavily emphasizing the rest of his words, "I. Like. Them."

Something weird happened, then. Approximately where my heart was, a sharp pain appeared. Never, in my entire eighteen years, had this happened to me before. This pain wasn't like getting a paper cut or a gash in your knee from falling, no, this was a different sort of anguish. It made my chest ache and feel hollow. Like…my chest had imploded and it was threatening to take the rest of me as well. To be honest, it rather scared me. More than this being confused, even.

"Oh!" I put on a fake smile and a fake exuberant façade. "Who is it? I'll tell them for you! Maybe get you a date?"
Dominic made an irritated noise, and began hitting his head on the table.
I frowned, poking him. "Dominic?"

He didn't acknowledge me, but he at least stopped hitting his head on the table. That was good, because we were getting odd stares.

"Are you okay, Dominic?" I asked, genuinely worried. "Dominic? Dom, I just want to know if – "

I heard an exasperated sigh and Dominic looked up slowly. "Look, Jasper I – shit."
The second Dominic said 'Jasper', the entire restaurant went deadly silent. I swear, I could hear pots boiling in the kitchen – and I didn't even know where the kitchen was located.
The reason was this – the King had banned anybody from naming their children Jasper, Caelum or Dominic for the sake of the royalty being the only ones with that name. That way, when somebody talked about a 'Jasper' or 'Caelum', they'd know who it was.
Unfortunately, that probably wasn't thought through very well, as it does have its downsides.
Whispers of 'Jasper? Did I hear Jasper' and 'Who said Jasper? Where's Jasper?' as well as 'Is Jasper here? Prince Kairo?' rippled through the restaurant. I find it absolutely astounding how people can hear almost anything when they want too, and it's usually at the most unfortunate of times, too.

I glared at Dominic, gesturing vigorously in anger. "You asshole!" I snarled. "Now what?"
Dominic scanned the room, looking at all the people. "Hmm, how many knives do we have?" he teased.

"Now is not the time!" I yelled in a whisper. The murmurs were steadily growing louder, meaning we had to get the hell out as soon as possible. They'd realize...
"Well, we have to run, obviously."
"No shit! But how? We're in the freaking middle!"
"Do you think Quin would mind if we used some of his knives?" Dominic asked, completely serious.
"We are not going to murder innocent civilians with kitchen knives!" I scolded, glaring at him.
Dominic smiled, grabbing Quin's box of knives.

"I'll just use the butcher knives, then." His smile ran shivers up my spine. The doubts I had that he would actually kill a person brought a grand total of none.
"Put the knife down, Dominic," I said flatly. It wasn't funny – actually, it frightened me.
"The one with the cloak, maybe?" a voice in the crowd suggested, sounding eager.
Oh shit.

"What do we do?" I poked Dominic repeatedly out of panic. Never had I heard of somebody being assaulted to death but anything could happen.
"Well…" Dominic looked at me. "Run."

"On three?" I asked.

Dominic nodded, grabbing the box of knives. Hopefully nobody would get hurt as a result of me letting Dominic carry the knives.

"One…" I counted.
"Two…" Dominic leaned off the edge of his chair, ready to run.

"IT'S HIM! PRINCE KAIRO!" a woman towards the upper level yelled, pointing at us.

"Three!" I screamed, and we both shot out of our chairs and hauled ass up the middle isle.

The people…There were no human attributes I could use to describe them. Probably the closest one could get was animals at feeding time with only one crumb to feed five thousand after two months of starvation. Hands down, I was surprised at the ferocity of the villagers. Never would I have thought that the simple peasants of my soon-to-be kingdom would be this trivial. From then on, I would definitely have trouble viewing them the same way.
Dominic had no trouble running against the crowd, who were all rushing to the middle of the restaurant. Everybody avoided the suit of armor. As soon as they spotted him, they sent odd looks his way and then moved so they wouldn't be run over.

I, on the other hand, had many problems. Cloaks weren't as odd. Hence, not a lot of attention was drawn to me. In return, nobody moved out of the freakin' way! I had to duck and swerve, as well as push people out of the way with an 'excuse me'. You'd think that would be considered potential suspicious behavior, but nope, nobody thought that. It was probably because of my manners – nobody would think a Prince would say 'excuse me'. I ran past all the strangers. Morons, the lot of them.
Luckily, since most people were confused and didn't see who exactly was apparently Prince Kairo, Dominic and I got out of the restaurant quite quickly, with very few injuries and little to no damage to the innocent civilians.
"No, he's the one with the cloak!" somebody yelled.
Eh, so maybe they're not all morons.
Dominic saw me a ways back and grabbed my arm, dragging me. I thought the limb was going to be torn off – I couldn't keep up for the life of me!
"For the record, if I die, it's your fault!" I shouted.
"You won't die." His eyes were determined, and I almost thought that I could get out of this with no problems. But fate was not kind.
We fled onto the streets, closely followed by a riot of people screaming and yelling things about me being here and a hooded cloak. Have I ever mentioned I hated people? Well, I do now.

Within moments, Dominic and I were surrounded, trapped by the immense amount of people who had gathered upon hearing that I was in town. The people were all in a sort of defensive pose, ready to strike at any moment, at any sudden movements. I imagined them snarling, frothing at the mouths, eyeing us like pray.
"Dominic?" I whispered out of the side of my mouth, afraid to turn my back to the peasants. Dominic's back was pressed up again mine, and we were staring opposite directions at the crowd.
"Yeah?"
"It's been nice knowing you."

Dominic nodded. "Same."

All at once, as if by some unheard cue, everybody ran towards us at the same time.