“Fine. I’ve actually known since earlier. Your intention behind bringing up things like the Empire’s respect and history.”
“Ah….”
I let out an exclamation without realizing it. I had only thought William was confused, but I didn’t know he understood that far.
He really is clever. No wonder… He didn’t give proper answers to any questions and kept talking in circles. There was a reason for everything.
I looked at William with inward admiration. William sighed and said.
“What can I do. Since I lost… no, honestly speaking, I don’t want to look like a bad prince to my Omega, so tell me. What you think should be done with Kalroy. You said you wanted me to become Crown Prince, so you’re not saying to just leave Kalroy alone, right?”
He was right. Separate from feeling sorry for Kalroy’s situation, for my own safe future, William absolutely had to sit in the Crown Prince’s position.
“Yes. Of course not. As I said, I believe Your Highness, who is intelligent and magnanimous, should ascend to the Crown Prince’s position.”
William let out a deep sigh.
“Then what are we supposed to do? You seem to be mistaken, but I still don’t have power. Only His Majesty can decide Kalroy’s punishment. Even if I wanted to show mercy to Kalroy, if His Majesty makes a decision, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Couldn’t we ask Lord Aren for help?”
Even as I said it, it was a pathetically inadequate conclusion. However, in the current situation where we were both young children, Lord Aren was the only person we could lean on. Just because William’s position had risen didn’t mean we could just grab any noble’s hand.
“That’s true, but…”
William trailed off and stared directly at me.
“But what?”
“Actually, I don’t understand why I should help Kalroy. He was desperate to kill me.”
I was a fool for thinking I could save Kalroy by relying on William’s mercy. But that didn’t mean I was disappointed in William or had come to hate him. From William’s position, having been abused because of Kalroy, it couldn’t be helped.
Was there no way to save Kalroy?
The Emperor was too indifferent to his children to hold any hope that he might spare Kalroy. He was the kind of person who could eliminate any of his children at any time if they got in his way or became bothersome.
“Why can’t you answer? You’re thinking the same thing as me after all.”
I snapped to attention at William’s words. Since things had come to this, I had no choice but to try everything I could.
“Your Highness is right. His Majesty the great Emperor of the Stamili Empire will take care of it himself. Then shall we stop this headache-inducing talk and go to bed? It’s already time to sleep.”
William smiled brightly and nodded, then immediately narrowed his eyes. I avoided William’s gaze and tidied the table. I could have called the attendants, but I pretended to clean the dishes to act oblivious because William was trying to figure out my true intentions.
However, William was quick-witted, and before I could even finish clearing a few dishes, he rang the bell, so the attendants who had been waiting outside came in and cleared the table at the speed of light before leaving.
William began looking at me with strange eyes again. His perception was extraordinary.
“What scheme are you plotting?”
“What scheme…”
“Every time I suggested we sleep in the same bed, you showed clear signs of dislike. Even when telling bedtime stories, I know you did it reluctantly because you had no choice, even though you didn’t want to.”
I didn’t dislike it; I was just uncomfortable using the same bed as the Crown Prince when I had my own room, but William must have been inwardly hurt by that.
“It’s a misunderstanding. It wasn’t because I disliked it, but because I felt a bit burdened.”
“Burdened?”
“Yes. It takes time to think of bedtime stories, but Your Highness would rush me.”
William hit his forehead with his hand and said.
“I did that.”
Then he approached me and pulled my arm. Due to our different body temperatures, heat rose warmly where our skin touched.
“If I promise not to pester you for stories anymore, you won’t show signs of dislike, right?”
As I spoke, I felt like I had dug my own grave, but I had no choice but to nod. Anyway, even if I disliked it, I couldn’t avoid it when the prince wanted to sleep together, so I decided to think positively about it.
Later, when I got the chance, I could casually mention it to Aren. About how it might be good to bring in a noble Omega who could support His Highness Prince William.
“Good. It’s a promise!”
William spoke with a smile, but I couldn’t smile along with him.
***
“Today’s story I’ll tell you is about Brother Tiger.”
“What? Tiger? I can’t stand that!”
I was lying in bed as usual, about to start a story that would move William’s heart. I could hear William swallowing his saliva.
“Once upon a time, there lived a kind woodcutter…”
Click, at the sudden sound of the door, I turned my head to see Behern standing there with a shocked expression. Although we were lying side by side, William had turned to his side and was clinging close to me with his leg resting on my stomach, which seemed to be why he was reacting that way. I avoided Behern’s gaze feeling strangely guilty even though I hadn’t committed any crime, and William, who was frustrated that the story had stopped just when it was about to get interesting, looked at Behern with a deeply furrowed brow.
Behern stammered, not knowing what to do.
“I-I was just… preparing things so Daniel could serve Your Highness properly…”
“I don’t need any preparations! None! Get out right now!”
William got angry loud enough to make the room ring. This was the first time I’d seen him get this angry, except for when he threw a tantrum in front of the Prince’s Palace about not wanting to take in an Omega.
Well, it made sense that William, who especially loved tigers, would be angry at being interrupted just before starting the story.
However, the problem now wasn’t William’s anger. The problem was that Behern was completely misunderstanding the reason for William’s anger.
Sure enough, Behern didn’t leave despite seeing William’s rampage for the first time in a while, and instead bowed his head toward William.
“I’ll just confirm one thing and then leave.”
William’s shoulders trembled slightly. I held his hand to calm him.
Behern spoke to me.
“Y-you… weren’t you a Recessive Omega? I’ve heard that among Lower-class Omegas there can occasionally be Superior Omegas, but I know that’s maybe one in ten thousand. It’s not something like that, is it?”
He must have completely misunderstood William’s outburst as an Alpha’s rut.
“No. How could that be. His Highness William is angry because…”
I tried to correct the misunderstanding right away, but William cut off my words.
“I told you to get out immediately, so why aren’t you leaving and instead chatting with my Omega?”
“Your Highness, now that I know everything, I absolutely cannot leave. Although he’s been promoted to Regular Omega, Daniel is still just a young child. He needs to be bathed clean and educated about Imperial Palace protocol…”
William smiled with twisted lips. Whenever he made such an expression, I got chills from his un-childlike face. Behern must have felt the same, as he couldn’t continue speaking.
“Behern, didn’t I just say it? That I don’t need any preparations. Isn’t it too late to worry about protocol now?”
“But Your Highness…”
“You knew I had promoted Daniel to Regular Omega, so whose responsibility is it that you didn’t educate him beforehand?”
At William’s sharp point, Behern’s mouth closed. Even I, sitting beside them, was appalled.
“The promotion order came so suddenly that there wasn’t time to provide education.”
I lost the will to correct the misunderstanding and just looked at William. He came close and put his arm around my shoulder as he spoke.
“Education isn’t necessary. So I’ll overlook Behern’s mistake.”
“Th-that is…”
“Do you have anything else to say?”
“No. I’ll withdraw now.”
As Behern left, William’s arm that had been on my shoulder fell away.
When I turned my head, William, whose eyes met mine, smiled slyly.
I felt dizzy from William’s attitude changing so many times in such a short period.
“Now, the troublemaker is gone, so Danny, hurry up and tell me the tiger story. What happened to the kind woodcutter? Did he meet a tiger while cutting wood?”
Looking at William gazing at me with bright, sparkling eyes, I felt like I was possessed by a ghost seeing his completely different appearance from what he had shown just moments before.
As I sat there dazed, William grabbed my hand and began pestering me.
“Why aren’t you telling the story quickly and what are you doing!”
Right. Let me stop being confused. In the original work too, William often showed a fickle personality, so there’s nothing strange about it at all. What’s important is that he doesn’t become a tyrant.
I tried hard to force myself to understand William’s incomprehensible behavior. What was important now was turning William’s heart with bedtime stories, my only weapon.
“Although he was poor, he had everything he needed to live while caring for his mother.”
I decided to adapt the story of the woodcutter who met a tiger and escaped danger by calling him “brother” to fit the situation.
“That day too, he was diligently cutting wood in the mountains when he encountered a hungry tiger.”
“Eek! Wh-what to do. Tigers eat people! Did it say ‘Give me one rice cake and I won’t eat you’?”
William asked with wide eyes, so I answered with a smile.
“No. This time it’s a woodcutter, so it wouldn’t ask that.”
“Th-then? ‘Give me one piece of wood and I won’t eat you’?”
“No, wood can’t be eaten, so it didn’t ask that. It said this right away.”
I made my hands into circles, raised them in the air, and reached toward William, imitating a tiger.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
