Meh, imo it's wrong to straight up say he chose to leave. It feels more like he ran away from his feelings if anything. He's a coward in his own right and to an EXTENT he kinda deserved to be dragged around a bit, especially since he didn't only leave his lover behind in the capital, be abandoned his whole life there.
I won't defend ML's overall actions, bc dragging your ex back and pushing him around IS manipulative. The reason why he brought him back was most likely to protect MC - his alarm bells must've rang when the people involved in ML's supposed money scheme started dropping dead. And it makes me so mad that he's not being direct with MC and communicating that.
On a sidenote, I can already smell that at some point they're gonna have some dumb non-communication issues and misunderstandings bc MC is stubborn and ML schemes behind his back for no reason.
But man he's such an asshole to mc. Like idc if it's justified or whatever but if you know thw whole truth already, and you still choose to say shit that yk isn't true just so MC would feel pressured to come back to you and the royale palace, you are not a good person. Esp not if mc were to end back up with you. That's manipulative. Mc deserve to live his life based on his choices regardless if he was previously manipulated to do so. He is an adult that can make his own decision isn't he? Yea im picky as hell but god stop it with the constantly used plot line already.