* * *
He truly never dreamt that the Crown Prince would have such a strange sexual preference.
Joel had slept with the Crown Prince only twice in total, across both his past and present lives.
In both instances, the Crown Prince had been only slightly more aggressive than average, and had never attempted anything bizarre, so Joel couldn’t have possibly known.
Meanwhile, the Crown Prince—perhaps thinking he had earned the right to be a little more brazen, given that Joel had been so stimulated last night that he even fainted—had Joel sit on his lap and was explicitly touching him here and there with his hand inside Joel’s clothes.
It was as if the emotion of shame didn’t exist for him at all.
When Joel, whose erogenous zones were being stimulated, covered his mouth for fear the coachman might hear him, the Crown Prince let out a gleeful laugh.
“St-Stop it.”
Unable to endure the persistent hand, Joel grabbed the Crown Prince’s wrist and pleaded.
It was embarrassing, and whether it was his imagination or not, his lower abdomen seemed slightly—just slightly—protruding these days, and he was worried the Crown Prince might notice it.
“Why? Honestly, you enjoyed it last night, too. So, isn’t it okay to keep giving me opportunities in the future?”
But the Crown Prince countered with a brazen attitude, and the dumbfounded Joel couldn’t offer a proper protest and just had to shut his mouth.
To be honest, having been so stimulated that he passed out, he had nothing else to say.
“Mmm, Joel…”
[A-Are you insane? Ha-ooht, what kind of disgusting, unng! Ah, stop it! Aang!]
The Crown Prince’s low, husky voice brought back the memories of the night before.
Suddenly recalling where the Crown Prince’s tongue had gone yesterday, Joel even felt the urge to jump out of the moving carriage.
While Joel was too embarrassed to even properly lift his head in the Crown Prince’s arms, the Crown Prince couldn’t stop grinning foolishly as he looked at Joel.
He had known Joel was cute for a long time, but he hadn’t known he was this cute.
For three long years, Joel had chased after him fiercely, and he had even figured out his rut cycle and tried to force himself onto him—yet the way Joel was acting now was nothing but pure innocence.
This made him doubt whether Joel could have even properly done it had his plan succeeded.
Maybe Joel thought that a baby would be conceived after just one night in the same bed?
“Are you still afraid of me? If so, I shall strive even harder as an apology.”
The Crown Prince pressed his lips to Joel’s ear and whispered nonsense in a low voice.
As he spoke, he was pinching Joel’s nipples and turning them with a sticky motion.
Joel, whose nipples were being held, felt cold sweat running down his back.
Joel glanced around, then muttered, “I’m going to get off now,” and subtly tried to slip off the Crown Prince’s lap, but he was instantly pulled back down.
“I have no idea why you’re being so reserved. We’ve already shown each other our most intimate parts, haven’t we?”
“No, wait, Your Hono—!”
The Crown Prince’s words were vague but carried a sufficiently suggestive nuance.
‘This man can’t distinguish between what should and shouldn’t be said in broad daylight,’ Joel thought, and turned to face the Crown Prince with a face that was blazing red.
What happened last night was clearly an abnormal act.
Even if he had given in to surging lust and committed such a perverted act, shouldn’t a person feel embarrassed once they came to their senses?
That is, if they were an intellectual with common sense and manners.
He couldn’t even figure out where to begin correcting the Prince’s nonsense.
While Joel was just blinking his mouth open and shut like a fish, the Crown Prince suddenly gave him a quick peck on the lips.
“It’s strange how a person can be this lovely, it’s truly a marvel.”
The Crown Prince, without any shame, uttered such ridiculous remarks.
Ever since Joel had disappeared into Benjamin’s tent without a word yesterday, the Crown Prince had been acting like someone who was broken.
Joel finally decided that a normal conversation with him was impossible.
“Hah… Fine. Just stop the carriage. I’m going to go with Benjamin. I’ll ride the same carriage as Benjamin on the way back, too. And if we ever need to share a bed again, I will unconditionally sleep with Benjamin.”
“Benjamin? Why are you suddenly looking for Benjamin?”
“Because Your Highness the Crown Prince keeps tormenting me!”
“Nonsense. What exactly did I do? I only wanted to please you.”
Joel reached out and slapped his hand over the Crown Prince’s mouth, who was babbling about how Joel should specifically tell him what was lacking in his service last night if he wasn’t satisfied.
He felt like he might die of shame if he heard any more of his lewd talk.
“Okay, let’s assume Your Highness didn’t torment me. I still want to go to Benjamin’s carriage. I just want to be with Benjamin.”
“Then what is the reason you don’t want to be with me, but it’s fine to be with Benjamin?”
The Crown Prince removed Joel’s hand from his mouth and complained irritably.
“That’s obvious. In my current situation, the only option is to ride in Benjamin’s carriage. Or do you want me to ride in the carriage with the Fourth Knight Order members, or perhaps the supply carriage?”
“No, that’s not the point. The problem is that you keep showing a strange interest in Benjamin. Like going secretly to Benjamin’s tent last night without telling me.”
“What? A-Are you suspecting the relationship between Benjamin and me?”
The Crown Prince offered no reply, but there was no stronger affirmation than his silence.
With eyes burning with jealousy, he spoke to Joel in a commanding tone.
“Do not be alone with Benjamin from now on. Do not even make eye contact, and do not talk to him. Do not call him by the nickname ‘Ben’, either. If you truly, unavoidably, absolutely must say something to that friend, you must do it through me.”
Watching the Crown Prince insist on such absurd demands, Joel felt a little strange, even as he was dumbfounded.
The one who had been anxious and made such demands had always been Joel himself.
Just a few months ago, he wouldn’t have cared if Joel was sleeping with Benjamin or anyone else—no.
If he had truly been sleeping with Benjamin, he would have been displeased that such a ‘filthy’ person as himself had ‘dared’ to cling to Benjamin, but the sight of the Crown Prince burning with jealousy towards him was so unfamiliar.
“…Why should I do that?”
“I am officially dating you, so I can demand that much. Ah, you are free to demand anything from me as well.”
To clarify once again, Joel had agreed to date the Crown Prince ‘secretly,’ not ‘officially.’
But Joel couldn’t easily argue with the Crown Prince’s words.
His spirit was somewhat broken as he recalled the memory of being scorned by the Crown Prince in the past.
Even as he saw with his own eyes that the Crown Prince, who had always ignored and been annoyed by him, was suddenly obsessed with him, he couldn’t bring himself to accept it.
How desperately he had wished to receive even a tenth, no, a hundredth slice of the attention the Prince was showing him now.
For Joel, the Crown Prince had always been a tree he couldn’t climb, a fruit hanging at an unreachable height.
“Your Highness, by any chance. Do you…”
‘Do you love me?’
Joel, who was about to ask the Crown Prince that, couldn’t bring himself to speak and let his words trail off.
He hesitated to ask the same question, having already received a cruel answer in his past life.
Even though he had seen the change in the Crown Prince’s attitude towards him.
If the Prince were to dodge the question with embarrassment like before, his heart would break once more, and he didn’t have the confidence to face that terrible pain again.
Thinking that, Joel suddenly realized that the Crown Prince had never once said he loved him in this life either.
The Crown Prince had consistently only said that he had developed an interest in him.
Joel reminded himself that the feelings the Prince had for him were only responsibility and a slight affection—and that too, affection limited to his body.
“Joel, why are you pausing like that? What do you want to ask?”
“…It’s nothing. It’s nothing at all.”
Joel firmly told himself not to harbor any vain hopes.
There was no need to make a fuss and find meaning in every little action of the Crown Prince, just because his previously indifferent attitude had slightly changed.
There was certainly no need to act pathetic by prying into whether he had come to love him.
He had given up the foolish desire to become the Crown Prince’s consort the moment he was dying in the snow in his past life.
Joel did not want to cling to false hopes anymore.
* * *
YIZZZ AN UPDATE!!