“Oh, right. I suppose you wouldn’t know.”
The Crown Prince, who had been happily caressing Joel’s lower abdomen, spoke as if he had just remembered something.
“Know what?”
Joel turned his head to look up at the Crown Prince.
Because his belly was starting to show, he had no choice but to lie flat on his back.
It was deeply embarrassing to have his rounded stomach exposed, as the Crown Prince had pushed his shirt up to keep it in full view.
Gently catching the hand that tried to pull the shirt back down, the Crown Prince said in a tender voice:
“When I received the servant contract, I sent a diamond necklace as a return gift. But strangely enough, it turned up in Count Lucas’s safe. It was quite absurd to realize someone had dared to intercept a gift sent by the Crown Prince of the empire.”
“Ah…”
The Crown Prince let out a hearty laugh, mentioning how he had been secretly hurt when Joel showed no reaction to the gift, nearly leading to a major misunderstanding.
He seemed to view the incident as nothing more than a trivial mishap, but for Joel—who had always been the target of such misconceptions—it caused a great deal of stress.
It was always like this.
He had tried so hard to correct every look full of misunderstanding, yet in the end, he remained a promiscuous, greedy, blonde idiot in the eyes of others.
While it was true he was blonde and a bit slow, he wasn’t promiscuous or greedy, and being lumped in with the likes of Count Lucas felt incredibly unfair.
Joel especially carried the memory of the contemptuous look the Crown Prince gave him during their first meeting as a lasting wound.
Noticing the change in Joel’s complexion, the Crown Prince asked cautiously, “What’s wrong?”
“…It’s nothing.”
Joel spoke weakly and turned his head away.
Bringing up the past now would only make him look pathetic.
He didn’t think the Prince would believe him anyway, so there was no need to waste his breath.
“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”
Cradling the dejected Joel, the Crown Prince began to coax him, telling him it was alright and to speak his mind.
The Prince’s questioning was persistent, and eventually, Joel began to mumble with his face buried in the Prince’s chest.
“If Your Highness hadn’t found that necklace in the Count’s safe, wouldn’t I have remained a greedy person who didn’t even know how to be grateful for a precious diamond necklace?”
“Um? That, well…”
“Don’t say no. You just said yourself that you almost had a huge misunderstanding. But for example, if Benjamin had done the same, would Your Highness have thought of him in that way?”
He hadn’t thought he was that upset, but once he started talking, three years’ worth of grievances came rushing back at once.
Though he hiccuped occasionally as his emotions swirled, Joel passionately explained that he truly had no interest in jewels or money—and that he was originally just a frugal, ordinary country boy without much of an appetite.
The point of his long lament was ultimately this:
“So… so please, don’t think of me as pathetic…”
The Crown Prince knew that he had done too much over the last three years to simply say, “I’ve never thought of you as pathetic.”
Feeling deeply apologetic, he patted the back of the sobbing Joel.
“I’m sorry, Joel. I misunderstood you. I sincerely apologize for playing into Count Lucas’s schemes and criticizing you in the past.”
Only now did the Crown Prince feel he fully understood why Joel had raised his voice in the past, telling him not to judge him so recklessly.
It seemed Joel had suffered greatly from being the target of the social circle’s scorn.
The exclusive noble society had already been eager to ostracize and reject a sudden newcomer like Joel; according to the investigation, Count Lucas had even intentionally spread malicious rumors to isolate him.
The Crown Prince knew all too well how much Joel had been hounded by gossips.
“I will never do that again. I promised not to judge you recklessly when we headed to Lord Bennett’s estate, and I’m truly sorry for repeating the same mistake. Tell me what else I’ve misunderstood about you.”
The Crown Prince embraced Joel, pitying him as he trailed off sadly, saying, “I don’t even know where to begin…”
Since his nature was far from greedy, this poor young man must have felt the injustice even more keenly.
“It’s alright, just tell me whatever comes to mind. I want to apologize properly. Even if it seems trivial to you, don’t leave anything out…”
Joel rubbed his soft cheek against the Crown Prince’s firm chest.
The Prince was soothing him as if he were a very young child.
The hand patting his back was gentle, and while Joel felt embarrassed by it, he couldn’t deny that such tenderness was comforting.
“Your Highness, remember the day we first met? The day I was crying in front of your library and ran into you… do you remember?”
“Naturally.”
The Crown Prince knew exactly which day Joel was talking about.
Joel was referring to their first encounter at the library three years ago.
That memory was vivid for the Prince as well.
On that day, the Crown Prince had received advance intelligence that Count Lucas was desperate to present his newly adopted dominant Omega.
To avoid the hassle, the Prince had intentionally traveled to the capital quietly.
Exhausted from the long journey, he had been in no mood to deal with the greedy Count.
While searching for a secluded place to rest, he headed to the library and stumbled upon a beauty sobbing sorrowfully.
To be honest, at that very moment, the Crown Prince had lost his heart to that beauty—so much so that even three years later, he remembered the atmosphere of that day clearly.
However, once he realized that ‘beauty’ was the Omega son the Count had been so desperate to show off, he couldn’t help but feel unpleasant.
His pride was wounded by the thought that he had fallen for a bait set by Count Lucas, and so he had turned away coldly on purpose.
Shamefully, until now, three years later, the Crown Prince had never considered how much that event might have hurt Joel.
“Your Highness, I really didn’t know that was your library. I didn’t even know you had returned to the country then; I was just looking for a quiet place and happened to end up there by chance.”
“I see.”
Because the Crown Prince accepted it so easily, Joel lifted his head from the Prince’s chest, looked him straight in the eyes, and emphasized it again: “It’s true. It’s true that I followed you around intentionally after that, but at least for that day, I am innocent.”
“I believe you, truly. It’s late, but I sincerely apologize for condemning you then. And what else were you upset about?”
“Hmm…”
Joel buried his face back in the Prince’s chest and thought deeply.
After a long silence, he said, “Right, and honestly, I was also hurt that you sent back the love letters I stayed up all night writing without even opening them.”
“I thought you had someone else ghostwrite them for you… You really wrote all those letters yourself?”
Remembering the three or four letters that arrived daily from Joel during their time at the Imperial Academy, the Crown Prince asked reflexively.
To be fair, given the sheer volume of letters, he couldn’t help but have such suspicions.
But when Joel’s eyes flashed with indignation, the Prince realized he was in the middle of apologizing and quickly backed down.
“What I mean is, I’m truly sorry. When we return to the capital, I’ll send you three times the amount of love letters I received as a sign of my reflection.”
Three times?
Joel’s mind raced.
On days when he was full of energy, he thought he had written about ten letters; how many would three times that be?
Even if he only wrote two a day, over three years, that would be roughly over two thousand letters.
Assuming two thousand was the minimum, three times that would be six thousand…
Thinking that far, Joel immediately tried to talk the Crown Prince out of it.
“There’s no need to go that far. If you spend that much time writing letters, won’t our time spent face-to-face decrease? You’re already so busy, Your Highness.”
“Even so…”
“I really don’t want that. When would you ever finish writing all those letters? Instead of doing that, just make sure to talk with me more often.”
The Crown Prince had truly intended to show his remorse that way, but he had no choice but to back down when Joel firmly refused.
Wiping a faint tear track from Joel’s cheek, he asked softly, “Is there anything else you’re upset with me about?”
“I don’t think there’s anything else for now.”
“Alright. We have plenty of time ahead of us, so tell me whenever you think of something. I swear I won’t take even the smallest matter lightly.”
At the Crown Prince’s affectionate attitude, Joel gave a small sniffle.
He felt relieved after letting out everything he had been bottling up, but when the Prince mentioned that they should hurry the wedding once they returned, his heart immediately grew heavy again.
Seeing that Joel wasn’t happy at all, the Crown Prince’s expression also turned worried.
