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I shake my head. Then we round the corner onto the main commercial boulevard, where the high-end boutiques and bakeries take over the street front. Across the street, standing directly under the pastel-pink awning of an absurdly expensive French confectionery shop, is Ilya.

And clutched in his arms, piled on the cafe table beside him, and stuffed into three canvas totes hanging from his shoulders are bags.

Dozens of them.

At least thirty bags.

A literal mountain of concentrated diabetes.

He is currently trying to shove a massive plastic container of sour cherries under his arm while aggressively stabbing a straw into a giant iced drink that looks like liquid radioactive strawberry.

A thoroughly filthy grin spreads across my face.

Akira and Yuma stop when I stop. They look at me, then follow the direction of my stare across the crowded street.

Yuma’s eyes go wide. “Kento? Why are you smiling like that?”

Akira’s eyebrows knit together in suspicion. “Your face looks weird.”

“Who is that?” Yuma asks, squinting through the pedestrian traffic. “The boy fighting the sugar bags? Why does he have so much candy? Is he having a party?”

“No,” I murmur, my eyes tracing the furious line of Ilya’s throat as he kicks the cafe door open with the heel of his boot because both of his hands are completely occupied with baked goods. “He is just angry.”

“Who is he?” Akira repeats, stepping closer to my side, his hand dropping near his jacket pocket. “Do we know him?”

“That is my prince,” I say softly.

“Your prince? Is he your lover?!” Yuma gasps, his hands flying up to cover his mouth.

“Soon to be,” I correct calmly, watching Ilya violently wrestle with a paper sack that is threatening to tear at the seams.

“He looks angry,” Akira notes, watching Ilya scowl at a pigeon that had the audacity to land near his boots. “He looks like he would cut your throat.”

“He would,” I say. “Wait by the bench,” I tell them, stepping off the curb with my eyes locked onto the green-eyed storm across the street. “I will be right back.”

“Don’t get stabbed!” Yuma calls after me, grinning from ear to ear.

I cross the street, weaving between two idling cabs, and step up onto the curb right as Ilya’s paper sack suffers a catastrophic structural failure.

A bag of strawberry marshmallow twists slips from the crook of his elbow, but I catch it three inches from the pavement.

“Hi, prince.”

Ilya freezes. The pink flush across his cheekbones flares darker, and he murderously lifts his face. His emerald eyes are narrowed, his teeth clamped around a bright red plastic straw.

“Don’t,” he says around the straw.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t speak. Don’t breathe in my direction. Don’t exist in my perimeter.”

“Tough rules,” I say, stepping into his space until his coat brushes against my chest.

Before he can take a defensive swing with his free elbow, I reach out and hook my fingers through the handles of three canvas totes dragging his left shoulder down. I strip them off him, then pluck two bulging pink boxes balanced precariously on his chest.

“Give those back,” he snaps, his voice dropping into a vicious hiss.

“You are carrying thirty pounds of sugar, sweetheart. You look like you need a little help. Are you in a bad mood?”