I shouldn't have married the Crown Prince

  I don't want to die. At least not right now being way too young. But how young am I anyway? A few days ago I was still a 16 year old boy but one day I just opened my eyes and found myself in the body of a 5 year old. So am I still 16? Or am I 5 years old? No that can't be! I don't want to do everything over again. School was horrible but I always thought that it was okay to do it once and then never have to do it again. When I saw children going home from school I thought to myself: thank god I don't have to go through it again. But now I had to!   The life of a 5 year old is terribly boring. I can't go anywhere alone because people are so afraid that I will hurt myself or get lost or even kidnapped. Leave me alone! I am a grown man! Well, at least I used to be one. A very happy one nonetheless. I wasn't someone famous or important but I had my little daily routine and I followed it thoroughly. I had some good friends and wanted to go back to see them. Who was going to water my plants and pay for my apartment while I was here? I couldn't wait to open my eyes and see my old room but unfortunately this never happened.   Day after day I woke up in this small body and was forbidden to do anything interesting. People weren't even nice to me. They were as polite as you would be to someone who pays you but I felt that they couldn't care less about what happened to me. During those boring days I nonetheless discovered some things about this boring body. His name was Eschyle and he was the son of a certain Duke that I never saw because he was away for the moment doing who knows what a Duke does.   The name of this body was familiar but I didn't realize it immediately. Maybe it was the boredom but it took me a few days to glue the pieces together. Everything fell into place the moment I saw him: Cadmael. He was a 4 year old boy with dark hair and golden eyes. His body was terribly skinny and his huge eyes looked as if they were going to fall out of his face at any moment. Even like that, he was breathtaking. A true male lead. Surrounded by five bullies, he looked at them without any emotion, waiting for what they would do. He was in danger and yet it looked as if they would start running away anytime soon.   That's when I understood. I transmigrated into my sister's book! She always loved reading romance novels and I really liked it when she came into my room to talk to me about her favorite characters. She always had a huge smile on her face and talked as if they really existed. I never really was an extrovert but hearing her speak, I wanted to know them.   Even though it sounded impossible, that's where I was: in a book. A romance between the male lead, Cadmael and the female lead Diana. The first one was the hidden child of the emperor and had been sent to the Duke to grow up without anyone knowing the truth. Diana on the other hand was the fiancé of Eschyle and the first love of Cadmael. They would meet in college and it would be love at first sight. Unfortunately life wasn't that easy for them, according to my sister, it wouldn't be fun that way.   In fact, Eschyle grew up with Cadmael and he didn't know he was a prince. Therefore, Eschyle spent all his childhood tormenting the poor prince. This abuse continued during college and got even worse when Eschyle discovered that his fiance was in love with Cadmael. Was he in love with Diana? According to my sister Eschyle was a poor child who had been neglected and who didn't know anything about human relations. She believed that he really liked Diana and felt inferior to Cadmael therefore tormenting him the way he did.   I didn't agree with my sister but I didn't read the book so my arguments were quite weak compared to hers. Anyway, at the end of the book, Eschyle went over the top and killed Diana after discovering Cadmael was the prince. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her to him and decided to kill her. My sister cried a lot but couldn't bring herself to hate Eschyle because she felt that he was in pain too. At the time I just raised my eyebrows and confronted her without saying a word but I still hated the guy. How could you kill someone you love?   Seeing his love murdered, Cadmael tortured Eschyle for months before sending him to die. My sister really liked this part which I found confusing but I didn't ask. The most terrifying part was that now I was Eschyle and I had no intention of being tortured. I didn't want to die either and decided that until the day would come when I could go home, I would stay as far away from the prince as possible.   And this started that day. I didn't bully Cadmael, scared of what he would do to me if I did. In fact, before Eschyle killed Diana, Cadmael wanted to send him to a land infested by monsters so that he would die. That wasn't better than torture. Well maybe but I didn't want it to end that way either. Cadmael arrived at the Duke's mansion when he was 3 years old and Eschyle started bullying him immediately, jealous of his father bringing another boy home. This meant that I already bullied him and was already a bad person in his eyes. I had to completely disappear from his memories. How could a 4 year old boy remember me anyway? If I disappeared completely, then he wouldn't remember anything.   I managed to stay away from the kid for days and started to have a daily routine that I followed with boredom. I asked someone to teach me how to read and at the beginning fainted that it was hard but quickly showed them how well I read and they finally let me go to the library alone. There I finally had some distraction even if I did as if I read children books when they came to look for me.   One day as I was reading outside, I heard someone crying. I immediately jumped to my feet and went to the source of the sound. I didn't think that I would find Cadmael curled up against a tree, his shirt the color of blood. I almost fainted and pressed my hand to my mouth to prevent myself from puking. Hearing this, Cadmael froze and curled up even more looking at who came to find him here.   "Is this blood?"   My voice was trembling. I couldn't handle blood. I was very scared of it and felt my heart beating faster and faster.   "Are you okay?"   I didn't know what to do and didn't notice the curious gaze that the child was shooting me.   "How did this happen? What happened? Who did this to you?"   In my panic, I couldn't stop the flow of questions coming from my mouth. The young boy didn't move looking at me with dark eyes. He didn't trust me and didn't respond to my questions. I wasn't hurt. In fact, I was so scared that I wouldn't have even heard his answers. I grabbed his hand and Cadmael flinched. I didn't realize still fazed and continued talking more to myself than to him:   "We have to go see a doctor. You could lose your blood. You could die. We have to hurry."   An adult probably shouldn't have told a child these but I was shaking and terrified. I don't know how but I got Cadmael to the doctor who at first didn't want to help him:   "He is just a servant, young master. He can go to town to see a doctor there; it doesn't seem life threatening."   I was shaking my head with force:   "Help him. You have to help him, you are a doctor. Why won't you help him?"   I started crying at a loss. Why didn't anyone help him? Who was he to not be worthy of help? Fortunately, seeing my tears, the doctor froze and accepted to help Cadmael. The young boy didn't say anything and didn't even flinch when he got his wounds disinfected. He continued looking at me without saying anything and I continued crying, unable to look away from all this blood. Sometimes I asked if he was breathing and if he was still alive and the doctor answered me calmly.   Cadmael's wound got treated and he had to stay in bed for a few days. Once sure that he was fine I fled as far as possible, my body still shaking. What did I do? I thought I had to avoid him but now I just helped him. What should I have done? Should I let him be bullied just so that the story would stay the same? The story was horrible in the first place and I didn't want it to stay as it was. On the other hand, would I be able to go home if I changed too many things? Just like the butterfly effect.   Well, it was kind of too late. I did help him instead of bullying him but I shouldn't do anything too bold either. I decided that it wasn't my fault. I was really scared of blood and would have done the same for anyone. One mistake was nothing and I still had time before Eschyle's death.   I got up and did my best to forget this day. I got back to my daily routine but it didn't last long because I started feeling someone's gaze on me. I soon discovered that this gaze was Cadmael's. He finished his treatment and started following me around the mansion without a word. I didn't feel safe with him behind me. It felt as if death was following me from up close and I suddenly snapped. I went up to Cadmael who just watched me approche without batting an eye:   "Stop following me."   Nothing. His eyes were so dark that I felt as if he could see my soul. And it wasn't a great feeling.   "We are not friends. Go away. I hate being followed. It is very scary."   I prefered to be honest. He was so young that I wanted to make sure that he would understand my words. It took a few minutes but Cadmael stopped following and I felt way better immediately. I thought that everything was over but a few days later I witnessed Cadmael being bullied again.   The same five children from the first time were surrounding him and started pushing him to the floor. I sprinted there before realizing. My sister (sister complex yey ?) always taught me to help those in need and I couldn't help myself. It was a reflexe. Realizing what I did I just froze but it was too late. Everyone heard me coming and the boys looked at me. What should I do?   "What are you doing? I asked. (yeah good first question)   -Hello young master. We are teaching this low life a lesson. He couldn't stop glaring at us. He should learn to show respect.   -What? Just because of that?" (sorry, but don't you think you're lowlife too, you little s**t)   The children were taken aback. What were they expecting? Was I this dumb too as a child?   "You are five against one. I don't think he will respect you like that."   The bullie's faces grew hotter but they couldn't say anything to a Duke's son. I signed and told Cadmael to leave. He looked at me for a long time before getting up and disappearing behind a wall. Now that we were alone, I could teach these kids some common sense. It wasn't the children's fault if they were bullies. They were young and someone needed to show them what was wrong and what was right. I would try doing so:   "Why would you do this? Are you that bored?   -He is a commoner!   -And? He is a human being just like us. No one deserves to be bullied. Would you like to be in his place?"   They didn't answer but I wasn't really waiting for them to answer anyway.   "Cadmael is so cute. Why would you want to hurt him? Don't you think he deserves to be happy?   -Happy? That commoner?   -Stop saying that. There is not limited happiness in the world so leave him some. Only people who are jealous will bully.   -We are not jealous!"   The children started to get angry and I suddenly realized that my plan backfired. Why were they taking it the wrong way? They should have felt ashamed. They soon left and I knew that this wasn't over. I felt that they would continue bullying him and when I ran into them, they even ignored me. They couldn't bully a Duke's child but they didn't like me and made it clear. I wasn't influential in the mansion anyway. I didn't care. I could have saved their lives and just hoped that Cadmael wouldn't remember the year of his 4th anniversary.