The Crown Prince’s eyebrow twitched at my proposal.
“Hmm. Are you saying you suspect me?”
“Suspect, Your Highness? Heavens, no. I only meant we should guard against the possibility that the orbs were mixed up somewhere along the way. It would be inefficient to have to redo things.”
He was still a slippery one. Did he think I would fold that easily?
When I met him smile for smile, the Crown Prince let out a low, amused laugh. He gave a small nod.
“True enough. A deal ought to be done properly.”
At my insistence, he pressed his hand to the vision orb — and a projection bloomed into the air above it.
My hand flew to my mouth before I could stop it.
This — this is—!
What appeared the moment the orb activated, right there before me, was a four-year-old Axel, sitting in the middle of a thicket, crying.
Round, pale, chubby little cheeks puffed out at the sides. The back of his head — perfectly round — was so unbearably adorable that I pounded my knee with my fist.
He’s too cute!
I leaned in closer to focus, and heard a small, hiccupping sound.
Hic — sniff…
Clutching a rabbit stuffed animal to his chest, little Axel sat on the ground while clear tears welled up and spilled from his eyes in fat drops.
My heart ached — and at the same time, the corners of my mouth kept twitching upward in treacherous little leaps.
“B — brother, where are you… Stop playing tricks on me…”
The Axel in the video was searching for someone with the most heartbreakingly plaintive expression.
Now that I noticed it — the camera angle of this vision orb looked as though someone had been hiding at a distance, watching in secret. From the orb came a laugh — similar to the Crown Prince’s, but younger, a little less polished. Whoever was holding it was clearly fighting desperately not to make a sound, because the image itself was shaking from the effort.
I lifted my eyes to look at the Crown Prince. My gaze sharpened.
“Don’t tell me — Your Highness made him cry on purpose?”
How could anyone deliberately make that precious little creature cry—!
At my question, the Crown Prince only shrugged.
“He’s adorable. And besides — if it hadn’t been me, no one would have caught that on a vision orb. Would you really be all right with that, Lady Melberine?”
My expression wavered. Not seeing it…?
“No.”
The flat certainty of my answer earned me a told-you-so look from the Crown Prince. There was nothing particularly satisfying I could say to that.
In the vision, the Crown Prince had apparently decided he’d had enough teasing — the image began to move. The frame slowly drew closer to Axel.
Sensing someone approach, little Axel wheeled around, and then — eyes still brimming with tears — came tottering toward the camera at a run.
He threw himself at the Crown Prince’s legs and clung there like a small, determined sloth, showing no signs of letting go.
“Bro — brother…”
In that moment, I deeply envied the Crown Prince in the vision. If watching this on a recording made my heart swell like this, what must it have been like to experience it in person?
The Crown Prince, watching the vision alongside me, suddenly let out a long, mournful sigh.
“When he was small, he called me brother and followed me everywhere… then he grew up a little and just stopped. Won’t even call me that anymore.”
He looked exactly like a father lamenting a teenager who had outgrown affection. He even produced a handkerchief from somewhere and dabbed at the corner of his eye.
“He was so adorable back then.”
I understood the feeling completely — the heartache of a child who suddenly turns distant — and for the first time in my life, I felt a genuine flicker of sympathy for him.
The vision, which had been quite long, finally reached its end. The Crown Prince looked at the darkened orb.
“Well then? Was it everything you hoped? Enough value for the trade?”
I gave him a firm thumbs up in response. No words were needed. It was the finest vision I had ever seen. Worth every single photo card.
“More than enough, Your Highness.”
Honestly, I had half expected him to try something underhanded. This exceeded all expectations — a clean, good-faith handover, and footage of this quality on top of it.
“Then shall we make the exchange now?”
I was about to nod — but then I reached back into my travel bag and rummaged around. If you received something good, the right thing to do was to return the gesture in kind.
I pulled out a few more photo cards from my personal collection and offered them alongside the agreed-upon trade. The Crown Prince looked at me with a mildly surprised expression.
“Oh. A gift?”
“Yes. The vision orb was far better than I expected. I felt this much was owed.”
“Well, if you’re offering, I won’t refuse. Thank you.”
Both of us satisfied with the result, we exchanged a quietly pleased smile. I tucked the vision orb safely into my bag and began to gather myself to leave.
“You’re not leaving already?”
“Hm? Isn’t this the end?”
“You’d really just take the item and go, just like that? Isn’t that rather cold?”
He added it with a note of injury in his voice, and I awkwardly lowered myself back down into my seat.
“I remember us getting along rather well last time — or was that only on my side?”
It wasn’t. Even I had been surprised — we had genuinely enjoyed ourselves that day, talking fan content together. But right now, I had very good reason to be somewhere else quickly.
“Ah — it’s not that. It’s just that the Grand Duke may be waiting for me.”
The meeting with the Crown Prince had already taken more time than I’d planned. I was thinking I ought to hurry in case Axel was waiting.
“Can you not stay just a little longer?”
“…That was far too fast. Could you at least pretend to think about it before answering?”
“Hmm… No. I really should go now, Your Highness?”
My perfectly unchanged answer earned a hollow laugh from the Crown Prince. He adopted an expression of studied gravity, like a man preparing his final trump card.
“I wasn’t going to say this, but…”
“?”
He extended a finger and pointed past me. My gaze followed it naturally.
“Look at that place carefully. Lady Melberine. Does nothing come to mind?”
Does nothing come to mind?
All that was there was a wide, unremarkable garden. I was frowning at the Crown Prince, baffled by his riddle, when something about it tugged at a thread in my memory.
It looked familiar, somehow. As though I had seen it just recently.
I stared at it for a long moment, and then I let out a small sound.
“Your Highness — is this… the place where the Grand Duke used to live?”
Apart from the patina of years, it looked exactly like the location in the vision orb. The Crown Prince said nothing — only nodded.
My mouth fell open.
That was why everything I’d seen had felt so strange. No wonder there wasn’t a single servant in sight.
This is the place where Axel’s years were spent?
A sharp breath escaped me. This was no time to be sitting still — I wanted to explore every corner of it immediately.
Who knew what traces of a younger Axel might still be hidden here, unknown to me.
“Your Highness, I’ll stay a little longer — could I go inside that building for a look? Or perhaps you could take me in and introduce me to the space?”
“Hmm — and why would I do that?”
He turned to me, and there it was — that familiar glint of mischief dancing in his eyes.
Damn. Wrong move.
“Didn’t you just say a moment ago that you had to be somewhere? I’m thinking I’ve selfishly kept you quite long enough. All right — much as I hate to see you go.”
“Ah — no, Your Highness, that’s not—”
“Go on, you said it yourself?”
The Crown Prince smiled at me with the face of a perfect angel.
So that’s how he wants to play it. My face was trembling, but I hauled it into the closest approximation of a smile I could manage.
“I’ll add two more photo cards.”
“Three.”
“I was just trying to remember what I have on the schedule later today… I might need to get going—”
“…Four!”
That, apparently, was sufficient incentive for the Crown Prince to look at me directly for the first time, eyes turning away from the middle distance.
You absolute fox of a man.
