Chapter 16

I am currently at a wonderful, magnificent, ridiculously massive castle. It is my second time visiting the royal palace.

Today happens to be the prince’s birthday.

Ever since Schwarz asked me, I had been diligently doing all sorts of preparations for this day. Of course, I even enlisted Will’s help.

The way that kid agreed to help the moment I mentioned it was the prince’s birthday…

My master plan was the Birthday Surprise Operation. Exactly as the name implied.

Since I had been asked by Schwarz himself, I wanted to do something special for him. Something a little different from the usual.

The idea that popped into my head with that thought was to sneak into the royal palace.

Normally, even high-ranking nobles couldn’t enter the royal palace without royal permission. However, fiancées were the exception. Only the fiancées of royalty were permitted to come and go. I still had to go through annoying paperwork, but it was far easier for me to get into the palace than for ordinary people.

Leveraging that privilege, I decided to throw a mini birthday party in the prince’s personal chambers within the palace today.

As I walked down the hallways toward the prince’s room, a sudden thought crossed my mind that this might actually be a nuisance. Still, now that I had come this far, there was no turning back. If I just slinked back home, gods only knew what Will would say to me…

I shuddered just remembering Will’s icy glare. He might be my younger brother, but he was a terrifying kid.

Keeping a wary eye out for the infamous crown prince, I followed right behind the guide leading the way.

“Here we are.”

They stopped in front of a massive, towering door.

I couldn’t help letting out a gasp of awe.

I prided myself on the fact that my own room at home was quite spacious, but as expected, royalty played by an entirely different set of rules. Well, obviously…

“Thank you very much.”

“Not at all. Please take your time.”

With an expressionless bow, the guide immediately turned and walked away. They weren’t even trying to hide their desire to get away from this place as fast as possible…

“This door is practically a wall isolating the prince from the rest of the world…”

I muttered a poetic line to myself and straightened my attire.

The prince’s treatment within the royal palace seemed even worse than I had imagined. Or was that guide just someone who harbored a personal grudge against him? Even so, there wasn’t a single sign of human presence anywhere around the prince’s room. Not a single cleaning servant was in sight along the absurdly long, luxurious hallway.

To openly show such blatant aversion toward someone who was, at least in name, the second prince—was this all because of the crown prince? The power pyramid of the royal court was a mystery to me.

Well, it had nothing to do with me as his fiancée, anyway.

I gave a cool, confident smile and pounded on the giant door with all my might. Striking a door covered in decorative ornaments was actually a bit painful.

They really needed to cut back on the gemstones.

There was no response, even after a short wait.

I tilted my head and knocked again… but still no reply. Could he possibly be visiting my house? Did we miss each other in transit?

I couldn’t dismiss the possibility and groaned to myself. To think I visited the royal palace as early as possible, only to end up missing him…

I slumped my shoulders in defeat, but walking all the way back now felt somehow infuriating.

I decided to leave some kind of prank in the prince’s room before heading home.

It would be such a waste when I had gone out of my way to bring cake, a two-player board game, and everything…

The prince’s door shouldn’t have been unlocked, but I tried turning the handle anyway.

“…Eh!? It opened…”

The door swung open surprisingly smoothly. No, wait, leaving the prince’s door unlocked was a huge security hazard, wasn’t it?

Stepping cautiously into the room, I looked around. There was a desk piled high with countless documents and a plush red carpet. The room was neatly organized overall, but only the canopy bed was an absolute wreck.

My eyes involuntarily darted away from the bed.

I had assumed the prince’s room would lack any sense of everyday human life, so I felt a guilty pang, as if I had just looked at something I wasn’t supposed to see.

“F-For now…”

Just as I placed the basket I was holding onto the tidy desk, that bed caught the corner of my eye once again.

I looked back at the bed for a closer look.

“Something’s weird… Ah.”

Looking closer, I spotted something golden gleaming amidst the blankets. Gold hair could only mean the prince’s.

Wait, could the prince be sleeping in there, whether I liked it or not…?

I panicked in grand fashion.

Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that the prince would still be sleeping at this hour. Was he actually a heavy sleeper?

Driven by a morbid curiosity, I cautiously crept closer to the bed where the prince was sleeping.

“U, aaahhh…”

After catching a glimpse of the prince’s peerless countenance, I blushed a deep crimson and squatted down on the spot.

No. This was no good. I shouldn’t be seeing this.

Just how old was the prince? He was one year older than me, so… eleven? Eh, that made no sense. Absolutely no sense. This wasn’t the kind of allure an eleven-year-old was supposed to emit.

Sleeping gracefully on the bed like a fallen angel, the prince looked… frankly, illegal.

Even in sleep, his face was gorgeous, and he wasn’t drooling at all. His shimmering golden hair was scattered so artfully it looked like it had been meticulously calculated. From the sliver of stomach peeking out from his nightwear to the way he was hugging a blanket like a body pillow, looking at him from that angle made him look nothing like royalty.

Apparently, he had terrible sleeping habits.

I was left utterly dumbfounded.

The prince… was cute…?

It was the prince’s birthday, yet I felt like I was the one receiving a reward. Gone was the arrogant prince who constantly made fun of me and wore a confident adult-like smile. Here lay a sleeping, age-appropriate, utterly adorable young prince.

Still, I desperately wanted him to stop looking so disheveled.

My own heart was starting to flutter dangerously, so I took a deep breath. I needed to wake the prince up, stat…

Since I was his fiancée, this much should fall well within the acceptable margin.

Emboldened by some strange confidence, I placed a hand on the prince’s shoulder.

“Prince, Prince. Please wake up.”

I shook him back and forth, but he wouldn’t budge. This guy had a legendary sleep inertia.

“Prince…!”

As I shook him, the prince let out a low groan and shifted around. I instantly pulled my hand back. Why did I feel like I was the one committing a crime here…?!

With tears welling up in my eyes, I shook his shoulder again.

Wake up! Please wake up! If you’re this defenseless, you’re going to get assassinated!

Why wouldn’t he wake up?

I tilted my head in puzzlement. Who usually woke him up every day? Schwarz… right? I couldn’t picture anyone else doing it.

I’d like you to celebrate Lord Dylan’s birthday.

“Ah, so that’s why.”

Everything clicked into place, and realization dawned on me.

“Lord Dylan. Please wake u–!”

I reached out to shake his shoulder once more, but that hand was suddenly caught by someone and yanked forward.

…Though there was only the prince in the room.

“Were you awake…?”

As I glared at him, he flashed a dopey, relaxed smile.

“I’m not awake. Still dreaming.”

His eyes were completely glazed over. Oh no. Convinced he was talking in his sleep, I pressed against the prince’s chest to push him away, but it had zero effect.

The physical sensation was undeniably real, so why wouldn’t he realize it?! His sleep inertia really was off the charts!

Catching sight of me trying to scramble away, he wore a teasing, mischievous grin.

“Nope. Why are you running away? This is my dream, so let me do what I want.”

His tone! His tone and his smile did not match at all!

While I was caught up pointing out his weird phrasing, the prince’s hands began making suspicious movements.

“H-Hold on, wait a minute!”

“I won’t wait. If it’s a dream, I can do whatever I want, right? First time I’ve ever experienced a lucid dream.”

“This isn’t a dream! It’s reality!”

“Then why is Bell in the royal palace… and in my room, of course?”

Strange, right? he laughed, while his hand smoothly caressed my waist. He murmured against my neck, burying his face right into it.

Maybe because he had just woken up, the scent of the prince’s shampoo hit me directly, making my head spin.

“Stop that right now!”

“Are you telling me Bell won’t listen to me even in a dream?”

He chuckled softly and pinned me down onto the bed. Above me was the prince with hazy, unfocused eyes.

“Do you know how old we are?!”

“Eleven this year.”

Would an eleven-year-old boy really pull something like this?!

Were boys this age really that driven by hormones?

“Doing things like this at our age is bad news.”

“Truth is… you really won’t do as I want, even in a dream.”

The moment I saw the look in his downcast eyes, goosebumps broke out all over my skin. Those eyes were dead serious.

Abruptly, the prince leaned in and gently bit down on my neck. My shoulders jerked up in shock. Chuckling with mischievous delight, the prince’s hand lightly brushed against my leg.

This was bad! Any further than this was genuinely dangerous!

Today was the prince’s birthday, so I had intended to let him have his way to a certain extent, but this kind of behavior at our age violated all my ethical boundaries.

Forgive me, Prince!

Offering a hasty mental apology, I snapped my eyes wide open.

The prince had his eyes lowered, so he didn’t notice.

“Hryaaah!”

“Gah!?”

A thoroughly unnatural thud echoed through the prince’s room.