* * *
Although he had decided to casually date the Crown Prince during the inspection tour, it was solely to cut off his last lingering attachment.
His plan to leave far away and start a new life remained unchanged.
Thus, there was no need for him to feel newly disappointed by the fact that the amount of the Crown Prince’s affection could not be equal to his own, yet Joel still felt sadness rising.
Meanwhile, the Crown Prince, noticing Joel’s sudden gloomy look, was completely wrong, wondering, ‘Is he so reluctant to keep his distance from Benjamin?’
The Crown Prince knew that Benjamin was the only person Joel could call a friend.
But could he guarantee that the two were truly just friends?
The truth was, Benjamin had been showing an unusually great favor toward Joel all this time.
Now that he thought about it, Joel seemed excessively sad about the instruction to keep his distance from Benjamin, and there was more than one suspicious point.
Even though Benjamin was an Omega, Joel was so cute that the Crown Prince couldn’t feel at ease at all.
Without realizing that he was becoming increasingly absorbed in a line of deduction only a fool would take, the Crown Prince reiterated his resolve to thoroughly guard against Benjamin in the future.
It did feel a bit cruel to remove Joel’s only friend based solely on suspicion.
But he couldn’t help it, as he hated the thought of Joel being interested in anyone other than himself.
If Joel really needed a friend, then couldn’t he just be his friend?
The Crown Prince thought arrogantly and hugged the Joel in his arms even more preciously.
He had more than enough confidence to be Joel’s good lover and his only friend.
The Crown Prince suddenly realized that his possessive attitude resembled the former Joel and let out a small laugh.
“…Pfft.”
“Why are you suddenly laughing?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
Replying in a nonchalant tone, the Crown Prince shifted Joel in his arms.
But he was already lost in reminiscence, recalling the previous Joel who had burned with cute jealousy.
Over the past three years, Joel would become uncontrollably upset whenever the Prince so much as exchanged glances with an Omega at a social gathering.
Not only short conversations with Omegas, but even shaking hands with Betas or Alphas was viewed with cautious eyes.
Of course, even when angry, he dared not show it to the Crown Prince himself, and could only manage to glare fiercely at the other person.
Anyway, back then, he had found that Joel merely tedious and tiring, but thinking that Joel must have felt this same way now made him feel somewhat apologetic.
But wait a moment. If that was the case, could Joel perhaps be feeling bored and tired, just as he himself had back then?
At the possibility that suddenly arose, the satisfied smile on the Crown Prince’s face vanished.
Honestly, he himself had found Joel annoying back then, so he couldn’t guarantee that Joel wouldn’t feel the same.
Imagining Joel looking at him with exasperation made the area around his heart ache sharply.
He hadn’t known that receiving a cold stare from the person he loved could be so hurtful.
The Crown Prince, realizing the pain he had inflicted on Joel in the past, belatedly regretted that he hadn’t been a little kinder to Joel.
Since he couldn’t undo the past, the mistakes he had already made could not be retracted.
The only way to atone to Joel was to cherish and love him more in the future.
The Crown Prince firmly resolved never to hurt Joel again.
From now on, he would treat Joel more preciously than the jewels passed down through the Imperial Family, handling him carefully as if he were a delicate flower.
Unaware of the future Joel in his arms was dreaming of, the Crown Prince began to meticulously map out the days ahead he would share with Joel in his head.
“Ugh.”
Smelling the potato, Joel suddenly started dry heaving.
The startled Crown Prince quickly wrapped the potato back up in the cloth.
It was only when he didn’t stop there and even threw the potato far away that Joel’s dry heaving finally stopped.
Abe, who had been diligently roasting the potatoes, would have been sad if he knew, but this was no time to worry about such things.
It was a relief that the dry heaving had stopped, but this time, Joel froze rigid with a look of embarrassment.
He seemed mortified by the sudden retching.
‘It seems he really did dislike potatoes after all, so why was Joel so obsessed with them all this time?’
The Crown Prince thought suspiciously while soothing the frozen Joel.
He couldn’t understand why Joel had to make a staple of potatoes, which he disliked so much that he retched just by smelling them.
Of course, Joel might just have been full, and the smell of the potato was momentarily repulsive, and he didn’t usually dislike it that much…
But to just let it go like that felt strangely unsettling.
If Joel had truly been starving all this time, was it really of his own accord?
At the sudden thought, the Crown Prince felt the arrow of suspicion pointing towards Count Lucas.
It was a well-known fact that he had adopted Joel with the intention of using his Omega pheromones.
Count Lucas was a greedy and cunning man, and there was no way the innocent Joel could have withstood his sly tongue.
If that old fox was the one who drove the poor Joel to this state, he would not stand by idly.
The Crown Prince resolved to thoroughly investigate Joel’s activities since his adoption once they returned to the capital.
The memory of his first meeting with the Crown Prince was still clearly embedded in Joel’s heart like a thorn, even three years later.
It was about two months after he had entered the Royal Academy.
At the time, Joel was embroiled in a conflict with the group of recessive Omegas.
Since he wasn’t smart enough to handle their provocations diplomatically, his own recklessness kept being highlighted as the disputes continued.
If he approached them to complain about their habit of whispering with scornful faces, loud enough for him to hear, he was met with accusations of being uncouth.
The group of recessive Omegas who were jealous of Joel scorned his impulsive actions as showing his common origins, and the children of other noble families watched the situation with an air of elegance, giving tacit agreement.
In truth, they felt that Joel’s reaction of taking offense at a few whispers in a social setting and raising his voice was excessively aggressive and violent.
But there was no way Joel, who had lived freely among commoners for the first seventeen years of his life, could understand the mindset of those high-ranking nobles.
He never backed down from a challenge, but he swore he never started one either, so Joel was frustrated to the point of madness.
‘No, then are they saying I should just ignore them whispering and giggling behind my back?’
Especially when he knew full well what kind of malicious rumors they were spreading about him.
Because the etiquette tutor his stepfather had hired didn’t correct Joel’s frivolous actions, Joel’s situation quickly worsened.
Far from correcting Joel’s faults, the tutor even subtly encouraged him while pretending to be an innocent bystander.
He could dare to do so because his stepfather, Count Lucas, was in agreement.
In his past life, Joel had genuinely believed that his stepfather was taking his side, and sincerely sought comfort in having his kind stepfather by his side.
But if he had truly been on his adopted son’s side, he would have taught Joel how to properly handle social criticism and worked to restore Joel’s damaged reputation, instead of encouraging him to act like a reckless child.
After regressing, and with a more objective perspective, Joel could finally see through his stepfather’s dark and sinister intentions.
His stepfather wanted him to be an outcast.
If he had nowhere else to turn, he would believe his stepfather was his only ally and depend on him, and he would also cling even more desperately to the Crown Prince.
In fact, in his past life, Joel became a puppet, exactly as his stepfather intended.
He blindly followed his stepfather, starved for affection, and even while being used as a pawn on a chessboard, he didn’t want to believe that his stepfather was using him until he had fulfilled his purpose.
Anyway, even the stepfather who had stood by and let Joel run rampant couldn’t help but impose a week of house arrest when Joel, in a fit of anger, grabbed one of the recessive Omegas by the hair.
When he returned to school after a week of house arrest, Joel felt the tangible cold shoulder and was greatly discouraged.
If the atmosphere in the social circles had previously been neutral bordering on negative towards Joel, it was now clearly established as one of outright exclusion.
Even the obligatory invitations to social gatherings, which had occasionally flown in out of consideration for his stepfather’s reputation, completely stopped, and no one spoke to Joel first.
Far from speaking to him, everyone completely ignored even the words Joel offered despite his embarrassment.
This harsh atmosphere was too great a hardship for the originally innocent Joel to endure.
Having lived for seventeen years receiving only boundless affection from his father, the servants, and the people of the estate, Joel had never imagined that someone could dislike him before.
It was never easy for Joel to be hated.
In fact, even returning the hatred he received was a heavier burden than a feeling of satisfaction for Joel.
Joel grew increasingly exhausted by his precarious life in the capital, like walking on thin ice.
Every morning when he woke up, his first thought was to quit everything and return to Baron Bennet’s estate, but he forced himself out of bed with the sole determination not to disappoint his stepfather and birth father with an irresponsible choice.
However, the extreme pressure only intensified day by day, and Joel was frequently found sobbing alone in secluded places, both during the day and at night in bed.
It was on one such day that Joel was crying miserably by himself at the entrance of the secluded East Wing library building.
[It seems something has upset you.]
Someone suddenly spoke to Joel in a gentle voice.
Joel, who hadn’t noticed his presence because he was crying, felt embarrassed and annoyed, but also a slight curiosity.
The reason was that it was the first voice he had heard in almost two months that didn’t carry contempt or hostility towards him.
Joel felt a little relieved that the voice was unfamiliar.
At least it didn’t seem to be from the damn recessive Omega group, which was a relief.
If they had caught him bawling pitifully for his deceased mother, they would have one more thing to ridicule him about for ages.
When Joel continued to keep his head down in embarrassment even after stopping his crying, the man held out a neatly folded, pristine white handkerchief.
The handkerchief Joel had been using was already soaked with tears and snot, and he had just tossed it into the woods.
Joel took the handkerchief the man offered.
And it was when he lifted his head to thank him.
[Gasp…]
The moment his eyes met the owner of the handkerchief, Joel was startled and froze in place.
The person who had handed him the handkerchief was none other than—Crown Prince Carlyle.
He hadn’t introduced himself yet, but Joel recognized him instantly.
The reason was that his stepfather, Count Lucas, had dragged Joel in front of the Crown Prince’s portrait at least three times a day, emphasizing that he must catch this person’s eye by any means necessary.
[Hmm? Is something the matter?]
Even when the Crown Prince asked that with a slight look of perplexity, Joel could only stand there foolishly.
He was so surprised and flustered that he couldn’t even breathe.
He had heard from his stepfather that the Crown Prince had been dispatched as a foreign ambassador and was conducting diplomatic duties.
His stepfather had clearly told him that he wouldn’t be able to meet the Crown Prince until summer, so how could he be standing in front of him?
It was a strange feeling, as if the flow of air had momentarily stopped.
Joel remained frozen like an idiot for a long time.
While his surprise at the sudden encounter with the Crown Prince was part of the reason for his foolish behaviour, the bigger reason was that he was simply overwhelmed by the Crown Prince’s handsome appearance.
Until then, Joel hadn’t even guessed that the Crown Prince would be so good-looking.
To be honest, every time Joel looked at the Crown Prince’s portrait, he inwardly scoffed, thinking the court painter’s flattery had gone too far.
In a way, it was only natural for Joel to think that.
Court painters generally beautified their subject’s appearance to the best of their ability, and the Crown Prince’s looks in the portrait were on a non-realistic level.
* * *
WATER. THAN LYOU THANK YOU THANK YOU