It seems like I wasn’t hearing things because everyone turned to look at the Prince.

He also realised that he had said that out loud and covered his mouth in surprise.

"Ah! Umm... What I meant was... The sweets are really beautiful, Mother!" He choked out quickly.

The Queen giggled, "Fufu~ I think this is the first time you even paid any attention to sweets, Hisami~"

The prince turned to the Queen and pouted at her, "Mother... Please..."

"Fufu~ I am just teasing~ What do you think about the sweets, Lady Aster?"

"Hmm? Oh! They are really delicious! Thank you for letting me taste them! And as the prince had said, they are really beautifully made too!"

"Fufu~ I’m glad you think so, Lady Aster."

"Oh! And the tea as well! It’s really, really good! It goes perfectly well with the sweets!"

"Fufufu~ If you really like it, I can teach your maid how to brew this~ Would you like that?"

"Eh?! Would that be alright? I thought this might be your secret recipe or something!"

"If it’s something that Lady Aster likes, I do not mind giving it to you~ After all, it is obvious that you have good tastes in your palate so it would not be wasted to give it to you~"

I’m not too sure what she meant by that but I won’t say no to knowing how to make this!

I could even share this with Emilia and get her to start a fruit tea business! This would surely be profitable!!

Ah... Would this be a patent issue? I guess I should ask first...

"Queen Asami? Would it be alright if I end up commercialising this? Because I feel that I might be able to make a product out of this tea and introduce it to the people.

She tilted her head, "Oh? But to brew this requires very careful preparation though? It would be difficult for you to make enough of this to profit from it considering the time that you would need to make one."

"I might be able to find a way around it."

"Fufufu~ In that case, feel free to use it however you like, Lady Aster. Tea is meant to be shared after all~"

Oh that’s music to my ears!

The Queen then turned to Katsuki, "Would you like to learn now, Miss Katsuki? I have another tea set prepared in the side room that I can use to guide you~"

Eh? Right now? And it sounds like she will be bringing Katsuki somewhere else for some reason?

Katsuki tilted her head, "My apologies for the rudeness, your Majesty. But might I ask why the lesson cannot be held right here?"

"Hmm~ That’s because it would disturb the sanctity of this tea party, Miss Katsuki. I hope you can understand. Now, shall we? I’m afraid that I can only offer this once~"

I read between the lines and I realised the Queen basically wanted to decrease the number of people around here, probably so that the Prince could be in the centre of attention or something?

Oh, I get it! I just have to look at it from a mother’s point of view!

Just like what Mother does to me, she most likely wants Prince Hisami to experience more things in life and we already know he’s quite reluctant to participate in this tea party!

From the interactions I had with him, outside of fighting, he seems to be rather awkward in social interactions which would be terrible for him as a future King. So these tea parties serve as some kind of lesson to teach him how to properly talk to people!

And since I’m an outsider and someone who wouldn’t try to use this against them, I was the perfect teacher for him!

No wonder she’s fine with giving me the technique of making this tea! This was actually payment for helping her with this!

Don’t worry, Queen Asami! I’ll make sure to properly help your prince get better at talking with people, so I’ll be counting on you to teach Katsuki the tea making technique, ok?

Katsuki turned to me and I nodded at her, indicating she should just go along with the Queen.

She bowed her head in understanding before the both of them left the table to head towards a side room.

That left only myself, Prince Hisami and Minnera seated around the tea table.

I smiled at the prince and he averted his gaze.

That’s no good, Prince Hisami! You are the Prince of the Nekinumi Kingdom here! As the person with the highest authority, you need to lead the conversation! The people around you would not dare to speak before you for fear of being out of turn!

Hmm... What can I do to hint that he should start the conversation?

Oh right! Let’s just drink the tea and maybe he might say something about it!

I brought the cup up to my lips and took a sip from it, making sure that I did it deliberately and slowly so that he could see everything.

His gaze shifted back to me and I pretended not to notice and just slowly sipped away on my drink.

Now... Let’s hear it, Prince! Say something!

...

...

Hello? Anything?

I peeked at him and he was quite literally just staring at me drinking the tea without saying anything.

Oh, maybe he’s waiting for me to put the tea down first.

I took the cup away from my mouth and placed it back on its saucer before smiling at him again, fully expecting him to start talking.

But... He averted his gaze once again.

What... Come on!! I’ve already done this much so at least try!

Fine, I guess I should try a more direct approach.

"The tea is nice isn’t it?" I said aloud.

"Yes, it is indeed very nice," Minnera answered me without missing a beat.

Ok... Minnera? That was not for you to answer.

Also, can I just point out that she hasn’t even touched her sweets nor her tea this entire time?

From the moment she sat down, she had been busy sketching away in her sketchbook while ignoring everything else.

I had even intentionally not said anything about it in order to avoid drawing attention to her which seemed to work since neither the Queen nor the Prince said anything about it.

Yet here she was drawing attention to herself despite all my efforts...

Thankfully, the Prince didn’t seem to mind and he merely just took a sip of his own tea instead. But that wasn’t what I was aiming for...

I guess I should try a more direct approach to get him to talk.

I cleared my throat, "Ahem... What do you think, Prince Hisami? Do you drink the tea your mother makes often?"

In hindsight, I should have just waited for him to finish drinking the tea because he suddenly choked on his drink and started sputtering and coughing.

It honestly took everything I had to stop myself from laughing at the sight because it actually looked really funny watching him trying to cough out the tea that had gone down the wrong throat.

"Cough! Cough!! Ahem... Ah... Umm... Cough! I... I usually, ahem... I usually don’t join Mother’s tea parties... And I’m not very sure about tea stuff either so... I don’t know too much about this..."

"Mmm... I see. But do you like the tea though?"

"Ah... Ummm... Yes. It is very nice."

Ok, this topic isn’t leading anywhere so maybe I should change to another one just to get him to talk more.

"So what do you usually do in your free time, Prince Hisami?" I asked with a slight tilt of my head.

He hesitated for a moment, "I... I usually just train myself and... Umm... Study to be the next King..."

"Oh? That sounds pretty tough~ Do you like it though?"

"I... Umm... Like the training but studying... Isn’t really my thing..."

"Ehehe~ I fully understand the feeling. Sometimes you just want to move your body more instead of just reading books, right?"

"Ye... Yeah..."

...

...

Prince? Come on... You need to keep the conversation going at least!

I can’t just keep carrying the conversation like that!

At least now I see why your Mother really wanted my help with you... I guess I’ll just help out a bit more.

"So... Err... You mentioned something about sparring with me--"

"Yes!! Please! I would like to spar with you at least once, Lady Aster! For you to actually make my father fight you seriously and you even managed to last a while against him must mean that you are really skilled!! For me, despite training and sparring with him for so long, I still can’t get him to fight me with his full strength so if I can get some pointers from you as well, that would be perfect! Should we go now? Or maybe we can do it later? And maybe after that, I can show you around the city too?!"

...

I guess you just need to find the right topic with this prince huh?