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Every world needs fairytales. Every world needs a fantasy on which to base the mythology of the land on, of which children can dream about at night, to keep in the back of one’s mind like a fond memory.
There’s one such fairytale in Jaemin’s land. They say that sometimes, when stars fall to earth, they emerge from the cratered ground as humans with constellations drawn on their faces. They eat and breathe and love just as humans do, but on their skin are the remnants of the star systems they were born in. They say that those stars turned humans are beautiful, ethereally so, and that they glow from the inside when they’re in love.
They say that if you can catch a star, if you can pierce its heart while it breathes, you gain the blessing of eternal life, the gift of superhuman strength, and the right to be king.
That’s all bullshit— an old wives’ tale meant to make housewives swoon at the thought of a musclebound man carrying them away into the heavens, or to make lonely men dream of a waifish blonde falling into their arms.
Stars don’t exist, at least not the ones that turn into humans and walk among Jaemin’s people, and he doesn’t need one to become king. He’s the crown prince of the kingdom: star or no star, he’ll become the king anyway.
The palace is stifling. When Jaemin’s king, he’s going to abolish all of the stuffy centuries-long traditions, all of the antiquated hierarchies, all of the tired rules that prevent their monarchy from properly functioning. When he’s king, he’s going to make sure that everyone in their kingdom has a say, no matter if they’re a human or a faerie or an elf or a dwarf.
But for now, he can’t bear staying there for too long. Jaemin tugs his cloak around his shoulders, ducks into a hidden passageway, and makes his way out of the castle and into the world around him. The sights are vibrant and multitudinous, and the sounds are loud and they hurt Jaemin’s ears, and he loves it. He feels alive in the market, surrounded by people who don’t know who he is, who don’t have to cater to his every whim, every need. Their kingdom’s populated mostly by humans, but Jaemin sees the occasional flash of faerie wings or the point of elven ears or the tuft of a dwarf’s beard when he’s in the market like this.
He makes his way around the market, marveling at what they have in stock. There’s a wizened old man hawking equally wizened reptiles, a faerie with translucent purple wings calling out to prospective customers to buy gemstones with fire locked inside them, and— the most wonderful, enticing smell Jaemin’s ever encountered. He follows his nose, weaving through the crowd and accidentally knocking over a dwarf’s seven hats, all stacked precariously on top of one another (“Oops, I’m so sorry, here, I’ll help you up”) until he finds the source of the scent.
It’s coming from a small stall, tucked into one of the tiniest corners of the market. There are flowers upon flowers upon flowers crammed into that stall, and Jaemin can’t stop staring at how vibrant and beautiful they are, a rainbow in a dull and dreary world. He sees roses and lavender, daisies and marigolds, lilies and tulips, but there are so many blooms scattered among the ones he knows that he just can’t place.
“Do you need help?”
Jaemin startles at the sudden voice. There’s a boy watching him, his elbows propped up on the table, and there’s a small, lilting smile playing across his lips.
“I— ah, no. I was just admiring the flowers you have here.” It’s not a lie. It’s also not the entire truth, because if there’s one thing he needs help with, he can’t pull his eyes away from the boy’s face, from the boy’s hair. It’s a shade of blond so light in color that Jaemin feels like it’s almost white, and he swears that he even can see the noontime sunshine reflecting off of it. He steps closer, pulls the hood of his cloak down, and lets it fall to his shoulders. “My name is Jaemin. What’s yours?”
“I’m Jeno,” the boy says, and— oh, when he smiles, his eyes curve up into tiny half moons. It’s striking. He reaches a hand out past the ivy growing on the sides of the stall, and Jaemin grasps it, shakes his hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Jaemin. Are you from around here? I haven’t seen you before.”
Well. Jaemin was born in the palace roughly eighteen summers ago. It’s safe to say that he’s been here for a long time, unless the boy— Jeno, Jaemin amends, his name is Jeno— means the market itself, then no. Jaemin usually only sneaks out once every few months when the changing of the guard occurs. It gives him the cover he needs to escape, and he’s usually back before anyone even notices he was gone in the first place.
“Yes, but I don’t go to the market much,” Jaemin answers, smooth, and Jeno accepts the answer without question. Score one for Jaemin. “And you? I feel like I’d definitely remember seeing a handsome face like yours here. Not to mention all of the flowers. They’re beautiful.”
“My brothers and I just came here two months ago. We’re used to traveling around, see, and we decided that the capital might be a good place to settle down. It’s nice and busy here. We like it a lot.” Jeno arranges some of the flowers in their ceramic vases. “It’s a lot nicer than some of the surrounding territories.”
“Oh, really?” Jaemin hasn’t been around to a lot of the neighboring areas. He’s most familiar with the land that the castle sits on and the grounds within. “Can you tell me more?”
Jeno’s face lights up, and he starts recounting his adventures, starting from the time he and his brothers had to escape from carnivorous camels in the desert and saw a flock of giant meter-wide butterflies in the forests. Sometimes, Jeno pauses in his narration to help another customer out with an order, but after they leave, their bouquets and arrangements in hand, Jeno turns his attention back onto Jaemin. Jaemin’s had to listen to his fair share of lectures in his lifetime, but this feels like anything but, especially with the way Jeno waves his arms around excitedly to punctuate points he makes.
“— And then, I told Donghyuck that there was no way he was going to be able to carry all of that by himself, but he did! Anyway, Minhyung and I lost ten silver coins because we bet that he wouldn’t be able to carry all of our seeds through the checkpoint. Listen, they aren’t just regular seeds. They’re really, really heavy, especially when you have a lot of them. I can—” Jeno’s attention cuts off abruptly, and Jaemin’s attention hones in on the way Jeno’s eyes are staring somewhere into the distance. He’s looking at the sunset. “Ah, it’s almost nightfall. We have to pack up for the night. Sorry, Jaemin. Thank you for keeping me company today.”
Shit. He’s right. Jaemin’s sure that he’s been reported missing by the palace guards by now, and he has to get back. Before he does, though— “I’d like to purchase a bouquet from you. Anything, whatever’s your favorite.”
Jeno blinks at him before he’s plucking some stems from their homes, bundling them up in his hands before he wraps a thin sheet of tissue around the stems and expertly ties it tight with a flourish. He hands it off to Jaemin, a proud grin on his face. “Here. For you, one bronze coin.”
“What are these?”
Jeno brings the bouquet back closer to him, examining the flowers and pointing them out. “There are a lot of daisies here. Some hibiscus, there’s a few petunias over here in this corner. Some marigolds. A couple of begonias, too. How is it?”
“I like it,” Jaemin says, and he chances to wink at Jeno. Jeno’s unfazed, simply blinking at Jaemin. He reaches into his pocket, fishes out some coins. They’re gold and silver coins, but whatever. He dumps them all onto the table, and Jeno’s eyes go wide.
“I can’t take this,” Jeno says, hushed, and he starts trying to push the coins back to Jaemin with the hand that’s not holding the bouquet. Jaemin rests both his hands on Jeno’s, his fingers curling around and making Jeno’s close around the coins.
“Keep it,” Jaemin urges, and he takes the bouquet from Jeno’s hands. He takes a last look at Jeno, at his eyes, bright and dark at the same time, at his skin, so pale that he almost seems to glow in the darkening twilight. Jeno is nothing but beautiful. “As thanks for the conversation and the stories you shared with me.”
That night, once he’s safely wrapped in the blankets in his own bed, the flowers prettily arranged in a vase on his nightstand, he stares out of the window and wonders if Jeno is looking at the stars and thinking of him as well.
Jaemin decides to go down to the market once more. It’s hardly been a week since he met Jeno, but he’s antsy. He’s bored of the councillors and the advisers yapping into his ear about this is how you need to act to be a better crown prince, Jaemin and this is how you’re supposed to eat your steak, Jaemin and don’t fall asleep when we’re talking to you, Jaemin and he needs to get out, to be anywhere but stuck within these stone walls, so he tugs his cloak on and leaves just before sundown, sneaking past the guards.
He finds the flower stall easily enough, pushing through the crowds the same way he had before, but when he’s there, it’s a completely different boy standing behind the stall. He’s a bit more tanned and a bit shorter than Jeno was, and there’s a shock of bright red hair that curls around his face. When Jaemin gets closer, the new boy waves, and his fringe flops precariously over his eyes.
“Hey there. You must be Jaemin,” the new boy says, brushing his fringe aside, and Jaemin stares at him.
“You’re not Jeno. Who are you?”
“Wow, he’s a smart one,” the boy scoffs before muttering, under his breath, “Jeno has shit for taste.”
“I heard that,” Jaemin says, affronted, and he considers just dropping everything and leaving. He doesn’t, though. He steps closer, and the boy watches him with no small amount of wariness as he approaches. “So what’s your name? You know mine, isn’t it only fair that I know yours as well?”
“I’m Donghyuck,” the boy says, and he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Oh, so you’re the one who set off a firecracker and scared off a pack of lions?” Jaemin remembers Jeno telling him about this when they first met. “Isn’t that a little illegal? Lions are a protected species in the grassland territories.”
“You’re damn right I was,” Donghyuck snorts. “Listen, illegal or not, if I hadn’t done that, Jeno and Minhyung would’ve been tasty lion food. You should be thanking me for saving their lives. The lions were quite hungry. Not that Jeno would’ve tasted that great, anyway. He’s mostly just a bag of sticks.”
“Charming, aren’t you. So, where is he?”
Donghyuck leans forward, his face bracketed by the flowers blooming all around the cramped corners of the stall. There’s a sharp expression playing at the angles and curves of his face, and Jaemin isn’t sure whether or not it bodes well for him. “Why do you want to know?” And Donghyuck pauses, clearly for dramatic effect, before he says, “Crown Prince Jaemin.”
All of Jaemin’s instincts, honed by years of royal swordplay and assassination attempts, are screaming at him to get out, but he stands his ground, fixes Donghyuck with a level stare. “He’s just a friend of mine, and I was just curious as to his whereabouts. How did you know who I was?”
Donghyuck doesn’t move, but his gaze relaxes. “It’s really not that hard to pick someone like you out of a crowd. I’ve seen you before, anyway, so I just recognized your face.”
“Oh, really? Where was it?”
Donghyuck hums, idly twirling a ribbon around his fingers as he thinks. “It was when your father— the king, I guess— announced that your kingdom would be opening up trade with the elves and the fairies. I remember the dwarves got pretty pissed about that. You were wearing this blue robe with golden lining, weren’t you?”
Jaemin was, but that’s not the detail he’s honed in on. “That happened a few years ago,” Jaemin starts, his mind slowly working to piece the facts together, “but Jeno said you only arrived in the capital two months ago. How did you know that happened?”
Donghyuck’s eyes sharpen for just a split second before he goes back to the genial expression he’d been sporting earlier. “Ah, maybe I was wrong. Memory is a tricky thing sometimes. But Jeno is out in the marshes today, picking flowers with Minhyung. Moondrop flowers are tricky to get, since you have to find them when the full moon is the brightest and highest in the sky. I suspect they’ll be out for quite a while.”
Jaemin’s silent, his mind still trying to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together. Maybe Jeno just misspoke or forgot when they arrived in the capital. But that wouldn’t explain Donghyuck’s sudden defensiveness. It’s clearly a topic that Donghyuck doesn’t want to broach, though, so Jaemin leaves well enough alone.
“Would you mind letting him know I’d like to see him again?” Jaemin asks, and Donghyuck rolls his eyes.
“I’m not here to be your personal courier or a matchmaker,” Donghyuck snaps. “I’m a florist, and we’re closing up shop soon. At sundown.”
“I was just getting to that.” Jaemin places a few coins on the stall between them, sliding the gold pieces over to Donghyuck. “Any chance I could get some flowers today? Whatever you want is fine, I don’t particularly mind.”
Donghyuck casts him a suspicious glance before he reaches around to take a handful of sunflowers out of their settings, expertly tying them together with a quick flourish of the ribbon he’d been toying with earlier. “Here you go, but if you’re trying to butter me up so that you can get to my brother, it’s not working.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jaemin says, and when he leaves the stall with his sunflowers, he can feel Donghyuck’s eyes following him until he disappears from sight. He’s unusually cautious, that one, and Jaemin wants to figure out exactly why.
The sunflowers wilt, and once their petals have all curled in on themselves, no longer looking to the sun but to the ground, Jaemin goes back to the market. Jeno’s manning the stall again, but he’s not alone this time. There’s another boy there, one with bright blond hair that curls in small waves away from his face, and Jaemin would be more starstruck if it weren’t for the person next to him. Jeno’s hair, still stunningly snow-white, falls around his face in a fluffy mess, and Jaemin wants to reach out and touch him. But that would be rude, so he reins himself in, tamping down the sheer interest he knows must be showing on his face.
“It’s been a while,” Jaemin ventures, stepping closer to the stall and feeling his heart skip a beat or ten when Jeno looks up.
“It’s only been a few weeks,” Jeno replies, but there’s a small grin curling on his lips.
“I suppose so,” Jaemin says, and he leans on the stall, “but I missed you all the same.”
Jeno raises his eyebrow, but there’s a light dusting of pink above his cheeks. The other boy coughs into his fist. “I see why Donghyuck was complaining,” he says dryly. “He’s kind of insufferable.”
“Tell me about it, I’m so glad we were out when he came by last.”
“Hey, excuse me,” Jaemin gasps, offended. “I’ll have you know that my company is worth kingdoms.”
“Just ignore him. I’m Minhyung,” the other boy says, offering a hand to Jaemin, and when he moves, the bells strung up around the stall ring out bright and clear. “Jeno’s brother. Thanks for talking to him, he gets lonely sometimes.”
“In that case, I’ll be sure to come by more often from now on,” Jaemin says, shaking Minhyung’s hand, and this time, Jeno does flush, luminescent even in the shade of the flower stall. “Is he free? I think one of the witches is doing fortune tellings in the center square.”
“If you want to, go ahead, Jeno. I’ll hold down the fort until Donghyuck comes back.” Minhyung casts Jeno a sidelong glance, and Jeno unties the laces of the apron he’s been wearing, tucking it into a nook underneath the stall. He pushes the door open, stepping outside, and this is the first time Jaemin’s seen him in his entirety.
He can’t help if his mouth goes dry. Jeno’s handsome, long legs and a thin waist, and he reaches forward to take Jaemin’s hand in his with a smile on his face. “Let’s see what the heavens have to say about us then, Jaemin.”
They find the witch’s stall easily enough, and when Jaemin sits down in front of her and asks for a reading, she looks up at Jeno instead.
“Five white roses from the deadlands as payment?”
“You’re being more generous than usual,” Jeno says. “I’ll bring them over later.”
“It’s only because you’ve brought along a guest this time. Do you mind waiting until sundown? I’ve been having a bit of a gnome problem lately, so they might try to attack you if you come by before it’s dark.” Jeno nods, and the witch takes one of Jaemin’s hands in hers. She traces a thumb along the lines of his palm, murmuring to herself, and Jaemin darts a quick glance over to Jeno, who’s been watching with his hands folded behind his back.
“Just wait,” Jeno mouths at him, so Jaemin does.
“You lead an interesting life, young man,” the witch finally says after a protracted silence. She looks up at Jaemin, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “I would love to know what other secrets you’re keeping to yourself, but you’ll soon learn that you’ll often get more than what you bargained for. You’ll have the most luck with your heart’s desire on a day the moon swallows the afternoon sun.”
Jaemin blinks. He’s understood absolutely nothing at all, but when he looks over at Jeno again, he’s paled, his skin nearly matching the shade of his hair.
“And you,” the witch starts, turning her attention to Jeno, “be prepared to look for a blue child when the night sky is dark and devoid of stars. The wolves are circling.”
Jeno nods, stiff, and the witch turns back to Jaemin before she claps her hands together. “Be good, child, and you’ll find the answers you seek.”
“Let’s go,” Jeno says, resting a hand on the crook of Jaemin’s elbow and nudging him to stand. “There’s more to see elsewhere.”
“You’ll be fine, young one,” the witch snorts, but she waves her hands at them to leave all the same. “Just don’t go where the light from above can’t reach you. Remember, five roses from the deadlands, and don’t come before sundown unless you want a gnome biting your ankle off.”
Jeno’s quiet the entire time that it takes them to make a circuit around the market, and Jaemin can’t figure out why. Not even the loose circle of Jeno’s fingers around Jaemin’s wrist is enough to quell the discomfort he feels radiating from every bit of Jeno’s existence.
“What’s wrong?” Jaemin finally asks, sidestepping a warlock with a cane made out of flower petals. He turns to Jeno, swinging his wrist in a small pendulum and hoping that Jeno will play along. “What did the witch say? Are you alright?”
Jeno nods, a quick and jerky motion, and the smile he offers is wan, tired. “I’m alright, thank you. She just— she just said some things that I’m still thinking about. Tonight’s a new moon, isn’t it?”
Jaemin’s momentarily thrown off by the abrupt change in topic, but he tries to remember what phase the moon is on right now, and Jeno seems to be right. “I believe it is. Why?”
“Just wondering,” Jeno says in a tone that means that he was definitely not just wondering. “Shouldn’t you be heading back now?”
“It’s still quite early,” Jaemin huffs. Time is ticking, but he’s not about to waste an opportunity to spend more time with Jeno. He’ll deal with his guards later. “Can’t I spend more time with you?”
Jeno’s smile is more genuine, more relaxed, and the lines of his shoulder that had been so rigid before loosen up. “Well, don’t blame me if anything happens. Oh, here, come look— there’s a traveling merchant who makes the objects he draws come to life!”
That night, Jaemin settles into bed with a vase of flowers and his nightstand full of trinkets and knickknacks he’d collected from the market. He arranges the golden ring he’d gone back to purchase from the witch next to the forget-me-nots Jeno had pressed into his hands when he left, and he smiles.
He props a pillow under his elbow and stares out of the window to fall asleep, as he always does, and he realizes that he can’t see the moon at all. It really was a new moon, then, Jaemin thinks, and he watches as a shooting star streaks across the night sky, its trail long and thin, and if he looks closely enough, he can almost delude himself into thinking that it looks like it’s falling straight down to earth.
Jaemin tries to go to the flower stall again a few weeks later, but it’s not there anymore. The shops around it have taken over the space it used to be in, and it’s almost as if the stall and its owners never existed. He asks around the marketplace, asks for Jeno and Minhyung and Donghyuck, and he’s met with only blank stares and confused smiles. No one seems to remember them at all, and he’s almost certain that he’s going crazy until he feels the cold metal of the golden ring in his pocket.
Jaemin grits his teeth. They were real. He just needs to find out where they are.
He’s gone through the entire marketplace, chased down far too many witches and elves for a lifetime, and he’s close to giving up when he remembers the one person who might be able to help him, and he makes a mad dash for the witch who read his fortune so many days ago.
“You’ve lost something special to you,” the witch observes, and Jaemin resists the urge to laugh in her face.
“I have,” Jaemin says, his heart heavy. “Do you know where I might be able to find him?”
The witch’s eyes twinkle again, and it’s only then that Jaemin realizes that he can see constellations in her eyes. “I do. What will you give me in exchange for information?”
“I don’t have anything to give you.”
“I could ask for your birthright, son of kings,” the witch says, and Jaemin tenses, his hand going for the dagger holstered at his hip. Apparently, his disguise wasn’t as good as he thought it would be. Either that, or the kingdom’s citizens actually pay attention to who the ruling family is. He supposes the latter would be a good thing. “Be calm. All I ask is that you bring the boy home safe and sound.”
“How would I do that?”
She smiles at him, small and mysterious. “In time, he will come to you, but it will be your task to convince him to stay.”
Jaemin leaves the marketplace with more unanswered questions than he came there with, and when he turns to look at the witch one last time, she’s already disappeared.
Jaemin waits for Jeno.
He waits for a week, drumming his fingers on the windowsill at night and feeling, strangely enough, like a spouse waiting for his beloved to return home from war. It’s stupid and irrational, and it’s not even like he likes Jeno that much— he just wants to know more about him, wants to hear more of his stories, wants to see him smile again.
Okay, so maybe he does like Jeno a little bit.
Just a little.
It’s on a night when the sky is speckled with dots of light that Jaemin turns in early. He’s had an exhausting day of swordplay and etiquette lessons, and he’s sore everywhere from when General Seo had knocked him to the ground, chiding him for being distracted during his lessons. He’s barely put his head on his pillow and closed his eyes when he hears, out of the silence, footsteps.
Jaemin tenses.
He has no idea how this intruder got in past all of the palace guards, and when he’s done dealing with whoever it is, he’ll have to have a talk with the security around here. There’s a knife under his pillow, and he shifts just slightly, disguising his movement as a sleep-addled stretch, so it’ll be easier for him to reach it. He counts the seconds as the intruder moves closer, as it gets easier and easier for Jaemin to hear their slow and measured breaths.
And then he feels a hand reach for him, move to brush against his cheek, and he jolts into action, grabbing the intruder and flipping them down onto the bed and pressing the blade of his knife against their throat.
He breathes, heavy, and he tries to figure out the features of the intruder’s face in the dim light. “Who are you?”
“Hi, Jaemin. It’s me.” He hears a laugh, light and airy, and Jaemin feels his heart unclench at the noise. He knows that voice. His eyesight sharpens just enough that he can make out Jeno’s eyes, his nose, the shape of his lips.
“You’re insane,” Jaemin says, and he leans back enough that he can let Jeno scoot backwards against the wall. “You’re absolutely insane. How did you even get in here?”
“Magic,” Jeno says, offhanded in a way that means he really means it, and that only serves to confirm Jaemin’s suspicions. They’ve been growing the entire time Jeno’s been gone, and now, he can finally get the answers to his questions— why Jeno was so secretive, why Donghyuck was so cautious, what the meaning behind the witch’s words really was.
“You certainly do look like one, but you’re not human, are you?”
Jeno’s smile curls, and for the first time, Jaemin feels a curious thrill run down his spine. There’s just something so enticing about the unknown, about treading into waters he obviously shouldn’t, and, well. His tutor Doyoung’s always called him an interesting kid, someone who’s never failed to break rules.
“What are you?” Jaemin presses on.
“Would you care to guess? Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dare eat you even if you get it wrong.”
Jaemin thinks back to all of the instances he’s felt like something was off, and then it hits him. Jeno’s reluctance to stay out past sundown, the witch’s comments about him, and the almost ethereal appearances of him and his brothers. It’s an answer that runs counter to everything Jaemin’s ever believed in, but barring a sudden knock on Jaemin’s head causing him to hallucinate, it’s the only answer he can realistically come up with.
“You fell from the skies, didn’t you?”
Jeno grins, beatific and bright, and he snaps his fingers. A tiny glowing ball pops into existence, hovering around him and illuminating his face. “You’re a smart one, Jaemin. I told Donghyuck you weren’t an idiot, so thank you for proving me right.”
“Did you know who I was from the beginning?”
“Of course I did. Donghyuck said he’s known about you for quite a long time. He was the one who told me you were the prince. He saw you when you were just a kid, you know that?”
“I do now,” Jaemin says, dry. “But you being a star and falling down to earth. How does that work?”
Jeno hums. “I was sleeping for a long, long time, and then something knocked me out of my spot in the sky, and I fell down onto this rock. Minhyung was the one who found me. He and Donghyuck both. They’ve both been here longer than I have, but we just picked up a new one.”
“The blue child? The one the witch told you to find?” Jaemin guesses, and Jeno nods. “So that’s what I saw falling from the sky.”
“It was him. We found him when he fell to earth and gave him the name Jisung. He’s quite prickly and kind of unused to walking, but he’s been a good kid so far.” Jeno sighs, straightening up and making to leave. “Well, I only wanted to see you one last time before I left, so thank you for indulging me for a bit.”
“You’re leaving? Just like that?” Jaemin scrambles forward, tugs at Jeno’s wrist. “What? Why?”
“People are looking for Jisung. Some of the rumors you may have heard are false, but the one rumor that’s actually true is that if you kill one of us, you’ll be blessed with unimaginable power. Minhyung and Donghyuck and I have been able to stay on the run this long only because we used the flowers to wipe the memories of everyone we met. Jisung doesn’t have that same luxury.”
Jaemin’s mind spins. “That’s why no one at the market remembered you. But how come I still remember you?”
Jeno’s gaze turns to the nightstand, to where the vase of forget-me-nots is still as perky and fresh as it was a few weeks ago. “They told me not to, but I couldn’t resist. I didn’t want you to forget me.”
“Thank you,” Jaemin blurts out. “I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to forget you, either.”
“Those flowers— as long as they never die, you will never forget me.”
Jeno smiles at him, small and fond, and Jaemin takes Jeno’s hand. It’s dry and almost overly warm to the touch, and when Jeno starts to pull away, Jaemin understands the witch’s last words to him.
In time, he will come to you, but it will be your task to convince him to stay.
“Please don’t leave. I know you’re on the run, but please. Stay here with me. You and Minhyung and Donghyuck and Jisung— we’ll have rooms for you. This is a castle, after all. We could sequester you in the gardens as hired help, and no one would dare defy the royal guard in order to kidnap some small boy. Please,” Jaemin urges. “Don’t leave.”
“I don’t want you or your loved ones to come into harm’s way.” Jeno shakes his head. “I want you to live on and to be happy. You should never have come to the market that day. Your life would be so much better without us in it, I can guarantee you this.”
“Untrue,” Jaemin says. “What would happiness be without you?”
Jeno snorts.
“I mean it, I really do. I— listen, you really don’t have to leave. We’ll take care of you, and I can tell my caretakers that you were orphan boys who ran a flower stall that had to close down. You’ll be safe here with us. I won’t tell anyone your secret, and if something does slip out, I will take full responsibility. I swear on my life.”
“This sounds too good to be true. What if you’re planning on cutting me open and stealing my heart?”
“I would never,” Jaemin says absently. “You’re far too cute for that.”
The blush on Jeno’s cheek is luminescent, an effect only strengthened by that hovering ball of light that keeps whizzing around their heads.
“You won’t need to want for anything, and you can even continue running your flower stall by the castle grounds if you would like. It’ll be much safer here than anywhere else in the continent you could go to.” Jaemin squeezes Jeno’s hand. “Please. You still have so many more stories that you need to tell me.”
And for the first time, Jeno looks at him, really looks at him, and he must see something that he likes because he huffs out a quiet laugh and says, “Alright, I suppose I’ve only gone through a tenth of my stories.”
When Jaemin leans in to kiss Jeno, a spark of electricity jumps between them, and Jaemin nearly jumps off of his bed.
“I’m sorry,” Jeno mutters miserably. “Sometimes that just happens.”
Jaemin tries his best to wipe down all of the goosebumps on his arms. He grasps Jeno’s arms, and he presses a light kiss to the corner of Jeno’s mouth, missing only because he’s so nervous. He tries again after that, and this time, he succeeds, licking across Jeno’s lower lip before tugging Jeno closer and tilting his head to the side and kissing him. Jeno whines into the kiss, and he reaches up to bury his hands into Jaemin’s hair.
Jaemin brushes his thumbs over Jeno’s cheekbones when they pull apart, and the first thing he notices when he looks down at his hands is that there’s a small dusting of powder on his fingertips. He doesn’t know what they are until he notices Jeno staring at him.
“What is this?”
In response, Jeno takes Jaemin’s hand and uses it to brush away a spot at the corner of his right eye, and once enough powder’s been rubbed off, Jaemin can see that on Jeno’s right cheek are two beauty marks, one just below Jeno’s eye and one sitting on top of his cheekbones.
“We use powder to disguise them,” Jeno says, a little happier now that he’s gotten to take it off. “We all have little marks like these on our faces. They’re supposed to represent our home constellation in the skies, and everyone who falls has them. Just a little reminder of home, I suppose.”
Jaemin sits there, comprehending the information he’s just been told. “Oh,” he says, “you’re really quite pretty.”
“You’re lying,” Jeno says. “Minhyung is prettier.”
“He is not. You are.” Jaemin tilts Jeno’s face this way and that, and he brushes his fingertips over the marks on Jeno’s face. He traces out the shape of the constellation that Jeno’s marks resemble, and he makes a mental note to look for it the next time he looks out into the night sky. “You’ll be staying with me from now on, right?”
“I suppose so,” Jeno sighs. “But it’s really only because some annoying prince from some annoying country asked me to. He’s quite a handful. I don’t know if you’ve ever met him, but he can be quite a lot to deal with at times.”
“Excuse me,” Jaemin scoffs. “Is this really how you treat people who are offering jobs to you and your brothers?”
Jeno grins, taking Jaemin’s pillow and idly tugging at one of its loose threads. “Fine. You’ll come visit me even when I am confined to the gardens, yes? If you say no, I’ll have to reconsider staying.”
“Already making demands, I see. Count your blessings, it’s not every day I sneak out of the palace to buy flowers.”
“Count your blessings,” Jeno retorts. “It’s not every day I get knocked out of the sky to become a puny human like you.”
“Consider my blessings counted,” Jaemin says solemnly. “You should tell me more about what it was like to be a star.”
“It really isn’t that interesting. It was just cold and boring and quiet most of the time, except on the days a supernova happened.”
“I’d like to hear about them anyway,” Jaemin says, “and I’ll tell you all about what it’s like to be a puny human prince if you’d like.”
Jeno, Jaemin notices, is glowing just a little bit, the edges of his silhouette glimmering, and when Jaemin smiles, Jeno grins in response.
“I think I’d like that.”