A/n: So, a new plot twist is about to come! Tell me what you think about it. Thank you!

From the day that Prince Kousei was found failing in his grades in school, Watari Ryota and Tsubaki Sawabe had no chance to actually chat with him privately since he had to keep up with his studies and even just a few, his father still gave him easy ceremonial duties like cutting up ribbons in the opening of new museums around the Empire of Atlantis and being the Emperor's Representative in many noble parties around many villages and cities ruled by an aristocrat or member of the Royal Family.

Whenever they find him free outside the Silver Throne Room Building, he would always be around some boys the same age as him. They knew by just staring at them that they were his cousins and friends. They would try going close to him at those times but when they hear them talking about their royal lives and a culture they're not familiar with, they would back away and leave disappointingly. They would always tell themselves that their friend's different from the Arima Kousei they knew.

Watari Ryota and Tsubaki Sawabe does not want to interfere with them. They mostly chat with Kaori in her home in West Greenfield City but there was also a time that they found Kaori serving tea with some noble females. They could always hear the female nobles visiting her that she's a very pretty girl and too lucky to be found in Japan by Prince Kousei.

They went back home in Japan to continue their last year of senior high school after they found the college that fits them in the Empire of Atlantis without telling Kousei. They were only able to say goodbye to Miyazono Kaori at the East Atlantis Airport at the end of September in Atlantis. As Kousei's girlfriend, she was already able to get used to having bodyguards surrounding her since the whole empire sees her as a prospective wife of the Crown Prince. It's a delight to the Royal Family and of course, Prince Nathan 'Kousei' Arima that after a few years, the public accepted her as a fellow Atlantian and his lover even if she only has a drop of it coming from her maternal grandfather.

Kousei does hope that the Senate Circle, the Royal Circle (Emperor's Royal Advisers) and the Phoenix Dynasty Circle (Royal Relatives) agree to have her as his first wife.

He still does know that he needed to marry a pure Atlantian woman to give birth to pure Atlantian Royal heirs. He doesn't know though if he'll ever find a woman that would make that possible but he knew that the three circles cannot force him to marry another girl but that would still mean giving birth to more heirs with more Asian blood rather than Atlantian.

He's a Half- Asian and even if the public accepted Kaori, he doesn't know if they will accept royals that look more Asian than Atlantian. Kaori's very Asian even if she has blonde hair. She only wears gray contact lenses but the true color of her irises are brown. She also bears small eyes. It was at that Saturday night of March when Kousei had heard the return of his friends back in the empire. He successfully passed a lot of his exams, thanks to Kaori's perseverance to support him. Kousei's about to be eighteen in a few weeks already. Everyone's excited to meet him again.

...

A few days before Kousei's eighteenth birthday, Watari Ryota was invited by one of Kousei's female messengers to go at the Golf Course. While he's being guided by a female servant, he's slowly hearing Kousei talk to some people.

"Well, I'm about to be eighteen. Dad's making it as if I'm female. It's only the beginning of my time as a politician but not yet a Coming of Age Ceremony," spoke Kousei to his cousins, Stephen and River.

"You know uncle, Kousei. When it's you, he always gives his best. You know so well that uncle always give you the best clothes first even at the time your brother was alive," Stephen said to him.

"Even at Royal Dinners, you're the one sitting at his right side while Leonardo's at his left," spoke River. "You don't know, do you? You're more important to Uncle Richie than Leonardo."

Kousei took his golf club down after he swayed it to touch the golf ball. They watched the ball fly until it reached the hole meters away from where they were standing. "My brother's the first child from his first wife, Empress Adrianna. I'm just a son from his second wife."

River took a deep breath at that time. It was at the time he accidentally saw Watari Ryota standing behind them already. He laughed a bit by how Kousei's friend look at that time. He and his brother were wearing violet royal tunics while Kousei's wearing his comfortable silver royal tunic. He actually couldn't believe that Ryota's only going to wear a white shirt and blue old pants to meet their cousin. Stephen saw it, too. He gestured Kousei not to look back at where they're standing for a while since they still find it funny that a commoner like Watari Ryota would face princes looking as if he's a peasant.

"Hey! What are you all doing? Why can't I look where you're staring at? Is Watari Ryota already here?" asked Kousei while Stephen's holding his back tight.

"Yes. He's here. You'll find your friend looking funny," he said to him.

"What do you mean?" he asked them.

Stephen let go of Kousei and at the time he let go of him, he was able to see why they weren't making him look.

"What are you wearing?" asked Kousei. "You're going to be here and you wear something inappropriate?"

Watari Ryota stared at himself after he knew that his presence had been known already. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

Stephen folded his arms. "You're in the presence of three royalties. What are you doing?"

Kousei took a sigh when he heard his oldest cousin say it. His cousin is ten years older than him. He had just turned twenty- eight years old in January. "You don't need to curtsy or bow, Watari Ryota. You should have done that without my older cousin Stephen reminding you about it."

"Why did you call me?" he asked him.

Kousei cleaned his eyeglasses and put it right back around his eyes. "I want to introduce you to two of my closest cousins. I heard that you would be studying in West Greenfield University and you plan to study the Atlantian Constitution and take Political Science," he said to him. After that, Kousei introduced his cousins. "The one with the red scarf behind me is my eldest cousin, Prince Stephen while the one wearing a necklace is my second eldest cousin, Prince River. They're my uncle's sons."

"Prince Christopher's sons," spoke Prince River. He's the most lively one among the three princes in front of him.

After he introduced his cousins, he introduced him to them. "He's my best friend in Japan, he's a commoner, though. His name's Watari Ryota."

He shook the hands of the two cousins of Kousei after the introductions end.

"Want to play golf?" asked Prince Kousei to him. He was able to smile happily when his best friend from Japan joined them in the field and played it with them.

...

It was a few hours later when the four of them chose to rest at the back of the Silver Throne Building where Kousei put a hammock on between two trees. He was fast asleep on it while his elder cousins and Watari Ryota watch over him. "He's growing so much better than Leonardo," spoke River. "Should we tell him that he's really should have been the Crown Prince from the very beginning?"

"Shhh! The commoner might hear you, River! You know that his father and our father kept that secret from almost everyone, right?" whispered Prince Stephen while they were hiding behind a tree a few meters away from where Kousei's asleep and where Watari Ryota's standing while checking up on Kousei.

"He can't know?" asked Prince River to him. "Why can't we just blast the bomb?"

"If Kousei discovered that Leonardo killed himself not because of Lady Veronica but because he learned about his true ancestry, he will be very surprised and hurt," spoke Prince Stephen. "It's better to leave it at that. Kousei can't know that his father adopted Leonardo secretly after he married Lady Adrianna."

"He will discover the truth no matter what we do," spoke Prince River. "There's no such thing as secrets that stay a mystery forever. No lies ever stay as truth for a very long time."

...

Emperor Richard III never had a male heir from Lady Adrianna, his empress, so, he looked for another woman in case the empire discover who Leonardo really is. He found a Japanese Pianist by the name of Arima Saki and had fallen for her. He married her and gave birth to a small baby they named Nathan. To let the boy feel his Japanese ancestry, they gave him a Japanese Nickname. 'Kousei' was chosen by Saki since it meant 'navigation' and 'life'. It's also a rare name for a baby.

The Empire of Atlantis rejoiced at the time he was born just like how the empire believed that Lady Adrianna gave birth to Leonardo. She knew so well, though that there will come a time that it won't be Leonardo who would be 'Emperor' and not one from her children will inherit their father's throne. She also gave all of her love and attention to him when he was very young making Leonardo wonder why two ladies of the Emperor and even the Emperor himself gives him more attention rather than him.

Despite Leonardo's anger and sadness, he didn't hate Kousei. He chose to be close and love him. It was that time that Emperor Richard III chose him to be the Crown Prince when he reached the age of twelve while Kousei's six years old.

The Emperor had never told him the truth until he began his political life at the age of eighteen. He had a lot of political rivalries and rumors about who he is truthfully began growing around the Atlantian Senate Circle after he went at the Spanish Royal Family who seemed to resent the Atlantian Royal Family for sending him as representative.

He went back and forth in Japan after he had discovered that Kousei's mother passed away. He had tried persuading the Emperor to take him back home but it was at that time that he knew who his true father is. He learned that he wasn't an Atlantian Prince but rather should have been a Spanish Prince.

Emperor Richard III took him in as his own child after his female best friend went back home carrying an illegitimate child of the Spanish King, King Fernando. He chose to raise Leonardo as a Prince rather than make him feel bad that no one recognizes his blood.

He hid the truth to Kousei, his adopted younger brother for years and let him live alone full of regret inside him. The truth that he isn't related to him and he should be the heir turned out to be a hidden scar that slowly grew inside him.

It had been deeper at the time he saw Lady Veronica and Prince Felipe, his biological brother who treated him as a brother secretly turned out to be snakes. They bit him right off the bat in Japan. They don't know that he constantly visits Kousei from time to time.

Due to what he discovered, he hated his life and had forgotten about the responsibility he would give to Kousei at the time of his death but his suicide is also guilt- ridden since he believed that he doesn't deserve such a role. He took his own life by bringing his own car to crash six years after Arima Saki passed away.

...

Kousei woke up the next day on his bed and while he's on his bed inside his Royal Chambers, he was shocked to see his Half- British grandmother, Empress Dowager Victoria sitting on the piano stool, waiting for him to wake up. "Grandma!" he spoke happily. "Why are you here?"

The empress dowager smiled at him and hugged him quickly. "How was your life in Japan? Was it difficult? I never wanted to bring you there alone."

"I wasn't alone. I was with mom for a few years," he explained to her while he stare at her gray eyes. "She taught me the piano."

"I heard that for a few years, you didn't touch it," she told him. "I'm glad you look so much better now."

"It's all thanks to Lady Kaori Miyazono. She put me right back up," he explained to her. "I can marry her when I'm twenty one already, right?"

"Of course, my lovely grandson! I heard that you were looking through why Prince Leonardo took his life," she told him. "Did your father say anything to you?"

"With an order from my father, my friends from Japan informed me about Lady Veronica's disloyalty to my brother. Even so... I'm not satisfied," he replied back to her. Kousei stared closely at his grandma that day and found her a bit angry. He tried to understand his grandma's facial expression but she couldn't decode it.

"I'll be back with your father, soon," she said to him while she stand up. "Vow to me that you won't do any harsh judgments after your father finally inform you about everything. You need the truth. It can help you in your political career."

"Thank you, Grandma," he said to her while he watch her leave. Kousei closed the door of his room after his grandmother had left. When he's alone again, he mused on the words his grandmother had left. He became nervous, frightened, lonely and afraid at the time he realized that his father had always known why Leonardo took his own life.

Why did father hide the truth from me?

Why am nervous to hear the truth from dad?

...

A/n: New chapter out! I hope you like this chapter!