Once Ryder woke up, he didn’t hesitate to get ready for the day. An announcement was made that Ryder had found his love and he planned to search for said love. Once his carriage brought him to the middle of town, Ryder got out carefully with the vase of deadly nightshades in his grip and looked around to see if he would find Jason. Ryder went to various houses and, whenever he asked for Jason, some of the denizens of the different houses hesitated and asked if he’d rather be with any of them instead. Ryder rolled his eyes in a disgusted manner whenever someone made such a remark and left for potential help from another house.

At some point during his search, Ryder sat on a fountain in town and just stared at the vase in his grasp. He knew that plenty of guests at the Ball were desperate to get with him, but he never thought they would be desperate enough to try to discourage his search for his love altogether. He started to wonder if Jason even wanted to be found at all. The worry made Ryder even more determined to find his love and prove his feelings to him.

At one house he approached some time later, he knocked on the door and was annoyed when he saw some girls he recognized had tried too hard to impress him.

“Prince Ryder! I knew you wouldn’t get enough me!” Missy greeted.

“No, he’s here for me!” Debby countered.

“Actually, I was wondering if you knew where I could find this man named Jason?” he politely asked.

“Jason? There’s no way he could’ve been at the Ball last night! He would’ve left a crater in the middle of the ballroom!” Missy stated.

“Yea, unless you want someone to inhale your leftovers, why would you want to look for someone like him?” Debby asked.

Once again, Ryder felt disgusted at the remarks and closed the door as the two continued with their laughter and their mean jokes. As he continued searching from house to house, someone shouted for him.

“Hey, excuse me, wait!” Ryder heard.

When he turned around, Ryder recognized the man as the guest from the Ball who won Lawrence’s heart.

“Excuse me, but did I hear you say you were looking for Jason?” the man asked.

“Yes, we spent time together in the garden last night and bonded. I also have reasons to believe that I also met him in the woods the other day,” Ryder answered.

The man squealed and did a little dance with glee before saying, “My name is Philip and Jason is my best friend”. Ryder smiled at the thought of actually getting help finding his love.

“Can you bring me to him?” Ryder partially begged.

“Of course I can,” Philip answered.

He waved Ryder over to follow him and talked about how happy he was for Jason. When Ryder found himself heading back to the house that held the two girls with the disgusting jokes toward Jason, he hesitated. Philip turned around as soon as he heard the footsteps behind him stop.

“Um, are you sure Jason lives here?” Ryder asked.

“Yes. Unfortunately, he has to put up with that harmful stepmother and her daughters. They seem to act like it would kill them to show Jason genuine kindness,” Philip explained before he waved Ryder around the house.

As the two made their way around to the space behind the house, they saw the plump Jason sitting against his tree. Ryder stared from a distance before he muttered “I knew it”.

“He, um, had a lot of work done for the Ball last night, but it wouldn’t last forever. Honestly, I prefer him without the work done anyway,” Philip told the Prince.

“You know what? So do I,” Ryder confessed before he slowly approached Jason with the vase in his hands.

Ryder felt butterflies in his stomach as he made his way closer to his love. He felt excited at the knowledge that he was correct in his suspicions and that his personal wish came true at the Ball.

“Jason?” Ryder stated when he was finally next to the bigger man.

Jason looked up in shock as he heard the familiar voice and responded, “Ryder?”

“May I sit next to you?”

“Oh, sure, you can if you want.”

Ryder carefully at down without wanting to ruin the flowers.

“What are you doing here?” Jason asked curiously.

“Well, it was recently announced that I had found my love. This love of mine seemed to be really excited when seeing deadly nightshade flowers, so...”

Ryder slowly gave the vase of flowers to Jason and the latter slowly took it while his face was red.

“Thank you. I’m surprised you acknowledged my interest in these flowers, but I’m more surprised that you even wanted to see me again after noticing I’m not...exactly small.”

“Hey, even when we met in the woods that day, I wasn’t one to judge. Besides, I prefer you like this since it means there’s more of you to love.”

Jason’s eyes widened as he heard Ryder’s remark. Memories that were buried under years of insults and self consciousness came flooding back to him and he set the vase aside before he sobbed in Ryder’s chest. Ryder wrapped his arms around the sobbing Jason and pulled him closer.

“Is something wrong?” Ryder asked with fear that he had said something wrong.

“The last person who ever said that to me was my father,” Jason answered.

Ryder continued to hold Jason close and found it difficult to imagine himself ever letting go. Philip smiled as he watched his best friend experience something he never thought he deserved. As he was watching the two, he couldn’t help but think of what Jason’s Fairy Godfather told him: although Jason’s voice asked for him to be skinny, his heart asked for him to be loved for who he was without the insults he had grown accustomed to.