Another way (Young Royals)

Disappointment

When I woke up that Sunday afternoon I felt a little bit disappointed. I could not lie. The competition did not end as I had hoped. Nothing even close to a win. I was also exhausted. It felt like I had been run over by a truck. This time I was not even hungover. I had realised that I was a competitive person. Someone who wanted to win. And it actually bothered me that I didn't even make it to the top ten. Wile moved around next to me, still asleep. The bedroom was quite warm in the afternoon sun and I felt sweaty. If we had slept like we used to, we would have overheated. We would usually wake up tangled into each other. I picked up my phone that was charging on the bedside table and scrolled through social media. I read through some comment sections. People were writing some really nasty stuff under pictures of me. I could live with people writing that I could not sing. I knew that was not true. But personal attacks on me as a person, I did not know how to handle emotionally. Attacks on Wille. The person I loved the most in this world. That actually hurt me. Reading what people had written about us. My heritage. Either me or Wille being a golddigger. Our sexualities. But I could not stop reading what people were saying about me. Us. Wille's name appeared a lot. How could he be with a loser like me? How could I, an immigrant kid, destroy something as holy as the royal family by manipulating Wille to abdicate? By "making" him gay? And how could someone with blue blood ever see anything in someone like me? More and more comments popped up as I was reading. More and more hate turned up by the second.

"Baby what are you doing?" I heard Wille's voice behind me. I felt his arm wrap around my waist. His warm breath against my neck.

"Reading the comments on Instagram," I said, trying to avoid my voice from cracking. I was upset. More upset than I wanted to admit. And I knew he could tell.

"Darling. Don't. Put that down and come here and cuddle me instead." I put my phone down on the bedside table. Felt a single tear fall down my cheek. Felt Wille's finger wipe it away. Then he pulled me over to face him. Trapped me in his arms. "I love you, Simon. And you did so well on the show last night." I had read so much hate that I had a hard time believing what he was telling me. I felt worthless. Like my performance might just as well have been a joke.

"Not according to Europe," I said with a sigh. Wille looked deep into my eyes.

"Well, then the rest of Europe is wrong. Your vocals were on fire last night and you were so hot that I actually think I fell a little deeper in love with you," Wille said with a flirty voice. His fingers caressed my face and my bare chest. Then I felt his lips against mine.

"You are just saying that to make me feel better. Admit it," I said.

"It is the truth, Simon. And I would never lie about my very pretty boyfriend being an entire smoke show," he replied. That made me giggle. I don't think he had called me a smoke show before.

"You are crazy, Wille," I said. That made him laugh too.

"Crazy? Why?" he asked.

"Because you are," I replied. "You apparently have the worst taste in music in Europe."

"You make it sound as if you finished last or something," Wille said. "You did not. You finished in ninth place. Okay, you did not win. But you had lots of fun last night and on Thursday on that stage, right? And that is all that matters. And you had lots of fun singing by Fontana di trevi. And the tourists there thought you were a siren."

"A siren that lures sailors at sea, huh?" I commented with a grin. He was cute. A little crazy. But cute.

"Or sad princes who were forced to a boarding school," he said. "It works with those too." We laughed out loud.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you too," he said.