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Chapter Text

When the first gunshot echoes across the cemetery, the flowers crumble from Mingyu’s grasp.

And it’s a shame, too. He’d woken up early to get to the florist’s, had picked out each and every bloom carefully, had meticulously arranged and rearranged them until they were exactly right. It was his mother’s fiftieth birthday after all, and she deserved nothing but the best bouquet in the entire land.

Eomma had always loved lilies. In his somewhat hazy childhood memories, she is singing to him and there is a single white lily in her hair, smelling like the supple embrace of home. He misses her, every single day. 

But now, the lilies lie scattered on the hard, snow-capped ground - their reds and whites and blues mixing with the greys and browns of the soil beneath his feet - dirt and stale snow seeping into their delicate veins. Pretty metaphoric of the way this morning is shaping up. 

Someone shouts - perhaps his father, perhaps a member of the royal security detail - but Mingyu’s senses feel too sluggish, too dizzy to catch up to what’s happening. Another figure shoves itself in front of Mingyu, attempting to shield him, perhaps. But it only makes him dizzier, makes him sway on his feet in an effort to keep himself upright.

 A steady, persistent pain is shooting up his right arm, but he hardly even registers it amidst all the commotion. He presses his other hand to the wound in an attempt to inspect it, but before he can do much, another shrill gunshot echoes across the cemetery, and he is suddenly shoved from another direction. The impact makes his vision go blurry, makes the blood from his wound ooze and pool underneath his best woolen coat. 

The cold breeze feels even colder, setting his teeth clattering. His nerves are so overstimulated - clambering in every direction to make sense of the chaos that surrounds him - he doesn’t notice the errant pink lily that gets stuck to the bottom of his boot, that makes the already slippery ice even more slippery. In one fell swoop, it dislodges his precarious sense of balance, and this time, he can’t stop it from happening.

When he pummels headfirst into the foot of the cool, unrelenting granite of his mother’s gravestone, the blood from his right arm has splattered everywhere around him, the air smelling of gunpowder residue and cruel January snow. 

The shouted voices around him reach a melting crescendo, drowning out his last, whispered, “ Happy Birthday, eomma.” 

And then everything goes dark.

----

“Mingyu-yah? Mingyu-yah, can you hear me?” 

“Appa...” Mingyu stirs, the panic in his father’s voice cutting through his subconscious state, slowly bringing him back into the real world. 

He’s somehow back in his bedroom, back within the confines of impersonal palace walls that lack character or warmth, but he’s too groggy to question the how of it. Besides, when you’re the apparent heir to the throne of a constitutional monarchy (even a constitutional monarchy where your family’s royal status is slowly losing its favour among a sizable chunk of the population), things like this magically occur anyway. 

Things are just done for you. You are taken places. You are given things you haven't earned and probably don't deserve. 

More often than not, it makes every cell in Mingyu’s body cringe.

Mingyu’s eyes flutter open wider, and that too requires herculean effort. He attempts to get up, but his father (otherwise known as His Royal Highness Kim Moonshik) places a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back down in bed. “Don’t exert yourself, Mingyu-yah,” his father says. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

The last time Mingyu saw his father like this - despair and worry etched in every inch of his face - Mingyu was twelve, and his mother was in her sickbed breathing her last. Her cancer had been brutal and sudden, and not even the best doctors from all across the world had seen it coming, not even the full might of the royal family’s resources had been able to save her. Moonshik broke that day almost irreparably, and perhaps, Mingyu broke too. Except, Moonshik used that pain to lock his heart away, to drown himself in work and forget everything else, while Mingyu… Mingyu has spent the past ten years trying to embody even a fraction of his mother’s courage and compassion. He’s tried to live up to her legacy, her brazenness, her spontaneity - he knows he will never come close to it, but he tries, every single day.

Mingyu’s present injury is hardly as fatal as her condition was; in fact, after the initial state of disorientation, he doesn’t even feel that lightheaded anymore. Though he’s only slowly regaining his consciousness, he can sense that the gunshot wound is mostly surface-level. He probably only lost consciousness because he hit the ground too hard.

Though, he tries to move his right arm and-

Ouch, that hurts.

Okay, he needs some more recovery time. But who doesn’t?

The last thing Mingyu wants is to see his father like this, fidgeting at the edge of Mingyu’s bed, holding  onto Mingyu’s (uninjured) hand tighter than usual, looking, for all intents and purposes, like his whole world is ready to collapse once again. 

Twelve year old Kim Mingyu had promised himself he was going to be strong for Kim Moonshik. Not just His Royal Highness Kim Moonshik, but Mingyu’s father Moonshik, who would read adventure stories to him every night when he was little; who taught him how to ride a horse, how to tie his shoelaces, how to shave his first stubble. 

Mingyu had promised to be strong for him because no one else in this family would. And it’s time to make good on that promise.

“‘M  gonna be fine, appa …” Mingyu manages to squeak out, but his own voice sounds feeble to him. He tries to smile in compensation, but perhaps the pain medication they gave him was too strong. He can hardly make his mouth work properly. 

“Really, appa. ‘S nothing,” he tries again, and thankfully, it comes out a little less fragile.

Moonshik sighs, his grip on Mingyu’s uninjured hand tightening further, “You just got shot at, Mingyu,” he says, voice both stern and mellow, “In broad daylight. On your late mother’s birth anniversary. You are allowed to be not fine.”

“Nah, I really am. ” Mingyu insists, determined to appear strong. Even though he feels a sharp stab of pain shoot up his right arm yet again, even though he winces as he tries to turn to face his father properly. “What’s one assassination attempt in the grander scheme of things? Bet every royal heir has had one. It must be a rite of passage at this point.” 

“This is not something to joke about, Mingyu,” Moonshik’s hands are shaking against Mingyu’s, his eyes growing darker, and Mingyu suddenly regrets saying what he did.  “You could have d-”

“Appa,” but Mingyu has to interrupt before his father can finish that sentence. Even if he doesn’t want to upset his father, he definitely does not want Moonshik to catastrophise this situation further. Right now, he doesn’t care about the uncomfortable truth in Moonshik’s unfinished sentence, he just… doesn’t want Moonshik to worry.

He grits his teeth and finally gets up despite the screaming ache in the right side of his body, and doesn’t let Moonshik push him back down in bed again. Mingyu is strong. He has to be. For eomma.

“Nothing happened to me, appa,” he says, a determined set to his mouth. “I’m alive, and I will be back to normal soon, okay?”

It doesn’t help that yet another pinprick of pain shoots up his arm, and Mingyu can’t hold back his resulting groan - it kind of derails his point, but Mingyu holds his ground.

Moonshik just looks...deflated. His shoulders sag, his grip on Mingyu’s left hand slackens just a tiny bit. “You can be really difficult sometimes, you know that?” But there is no bite to the words, only a somewhat fond resignation. 

Mingyu gets what his father means, but right now, he doesn’t regret it. If being difficult helps his father not spiral into panic at the thought of whatever happened in the cemetery, then he’ll be even more difficult about it. Mingyu just smiles sheepishly. At least, he thinks it’s a smile - he still can’t tell until the fog of his medication properly fades.

“Your grandmother thinks we should have you lay low for a while, avoid any sensationalised press coverage.” Moonshik says after a beat, “And your uncle thinks this is just a stray incident, that you should simply go back to your usual routine once you’re fit enough to.”

“And what do you think, appa?” Mingyu never really cared about anyone else’s opinion anyway.

A ghost of a smile flickers on Moonshik’s face, like he was expecting this question. 

“I think that no matter what anyone says, I won’t be able to stop you from doing what you want to do.” His father replies, “But I still want you to be safe, Mingyu-yah. I won’t be at peace until I know there’s someone always protecting you.”

Wait.

“Please tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.” God, Mingyu should have seen this coming. He despises nothing more than federally-sponsored watchdogs shadowing his every move. It makes his skin crawl, makes him feel sick to his very stomach. He doesn’t like being watched like that, doesn’t like having people around him controlling every minutiae of his life.

So far, he’s been able to keep them from assigning him personalised security somehow, by charming his way out of it, by physically evading various security personnel to sneak out whenever he wants to, by befriending palace chief-of-staff Yoon Jeonghan and bribing him with enough popsicles.

But if his father insists upon it, then that’s an entirely different story altogether.

Moonshik knows Mingyu can never say no to him.

“Mingyu-yah,” his father says, “I know you don’t like me suggesting this, but it’ll be for your own good, you know? I can’t just sit back and do nothing when someone just tried to kill you.”

“Oh, come on, appa, ” Mingyu protests, “I just told you I’m alright, and I will be alright. I’m twenty-two now, appa, and I can take care of myself without needing-”

But before he can even finish that sentence, Moonshik’s hand suddenly squeezes Mingyu’s once again, so tight and urgent and imploring that it makes the words die in Mingyu’s throat, makes his heart nearly stop.

“Please, Mingyu-yah?” And in that moment, Moonshik sounds far too much like when he was begging at Mingyu’s mother’s deathbed for her to stay just a little bit longer. Broken, but still praying for a miracle. “Please agree to this? For me?”

And Mingyu can only sigh in response, feeling his resolve fading with every drastic emotion crowding the edge of his father’s eyelids, with every shudder of concern Mingyu can gauge from his father’s startlingly cold hands in his. What else can he do, really? 

He remembers his promise to himself. Remembers, that he has to be strong, that he can’t let his father fall apart, not for him. Not like he did ten years ago. And then it’s the guilt curling in his gut, reminding him how all his discomfort around surveillance is nothing but selfish, that he has to learn to make more and more sacrifices for the sake of his father. 

“Fine, I’ll do it.” Mingyu replies, past the bile that wells up at the back of his mouth, “But on one condition.”

“Mingyu…” Moonshik begins, but this time Mingyu is the one who interrupts.

“I want you to pick this person.” Even if this is a sacrifice, he wants at least the tiniest shred of his morals to remain intact. And he hopes his father will allow him this much. “And he can’t be hired with royal coin. You have to pay him using our private finances…you can use the money eomma left me after she died.”

Moonshik looks conflicted for a minute - Mingyu knows this is a big ask, that Moonshik will have to jump through quite a few hoops to convince the president’s cabinet to allow this - but if this thing has to happen, it will weigh on Mingyu’s conscience severely if it happens on taxpayer money. 

Some principles aren’t up for sacrifice.

And perhaps, Moonshik knows that too. 

After another agonising minute, Moonshik offers the slightest of nods, and Mingyu finally lets himself breathe. He falls back in bed and gives in to sleep, hoping it will drown out the million misgivings that are beginning to build somewhere in the vicinity of his chest.

He can focus on only one sort of ache at a time.

---

PRINCE MINGYU SHOT FOR BEING A TRAITOR TO HIS OWN FAMILY?
South Korea Herald, 6th January 2020

Royal heir Prince Kim Mingyu reportedly became the victim of a shooting on Sunday, January 5th, while he was paying his routine respects at his mother’s grave along with His Royal Highness King Moonshik. Though Prince Mingyu seems to have sustained only a single gunshot wound and is expected to make a full recovery, the shooter is still at large, yet to be apprehended by the police. Hence, much speculation around who the culprit might be (and why they would target Prince Mingyu in the first place) has gripped the general public.

The charming and humble Prince Mingyu is known for his dedicated charity work - often donating and volunteering for charities that work in the realm of women’s rights, labour rights, and fair pay - and enjoys a certain popularity among the youth and the working classes. But as we all know, South Korea is currently in the midst of a major national political debate. Conversations have been building around whether the royal family should continue to enjoy its ‘royal’ status, considering the royals are mere figureheads, and it is the legislative and executive bodies of the government that have all the lawmaking power. One section of the country’s citizens, led by charismatic politician Choi Seungcheol (the youngest to ever be elected to the National Legislative Assembly), is supporting what has come to be known as the Dissolutionist Movement; i.e, a movement which advocates for the total dissolution of the royal family’s special privileges so they go back to living as civilians, and the country is transformed into a democracy from its current status as a constitutional monarchy. The other side of this debate is led by both the conservative party as well as Prince Hyungshik, the king’s younger brother, who argue that the royal family is the foremost symbol of the nation’s  rich cultural heritage and should hence continue to be preserved.

There have also been talks of Choi Seungcheol introducing an official ‘Dissolution Bill’ in the Assembly’s upcoming Winter Session to legitimise his stance against the royal family, but it is yet to be seen if legislation like that could actually pass, and gain the public’s support.

But what does Prince Mingyu have to do with all this, you ask? Well, Prince Mingyu, despite being the next in line to become King, has been reportedly seen fraternising with Choi Seungcheol more than once, and sources close to the palace believe that his loyalties might lie with the Dissolutionist cause rather than the Royalist cause. Does that make him a traitor to his own family? Have his liberal beliefs gone too far? Is that what ultimately led to the attempt on his life?

We might not know for sure, but what we do know, is that the people’s prince Kim Mingyu seems to have ‘won the internet’, and many of his self-proclaimed fans and well-wishers have taken to social media to wish him a speedy recovery and offer their love and support.

“Kim Mingyu, reading a centrist newspaper? I expected better of you, my friend.” The teasing lilt of Choi Seungcheol’s voice interjects, and Mingyu smiles, folding his yellowing copy of the Herald and shoving it back in his jacket. The paper is nearly two weeks old now - Mingyu found it at a shabby newsstand on his way here from the palace - and the only reason he couldn’t resist picking it up was that wildly amusing headline. The centrists who run the Herald might be objectively terrible, but at least they were good at coming up with sensationalised clickbait.

“What can I say, hyung?” Mingyu teases in response as Seungcheol pulls up the seat right next to him on the bar counter. “Being injured and bedridden for two whole weeks has been impossibly boring. I simply had to spend my first night of freedom drinking at my favourite bar and catching up on every single conspiracy theory they’ve made up about me while I was out of commission.”

Seungcheol chuckles, and signals briefly to the bartender to pour him a whiskey sour, and pour Mingyu another one. “How is the arm, by the way?”

Mingyu shrugs, merely pointing at his sling in response (It’s meant to come off in two more days, but Mingyu couldn’t resist the urge to sneak out tonight regardless. He’d been growing increasingly restless being cooped up in the palace, subjected to his uncle’s constant atrocious political opinions.) “Doesn’t hurt that much anymore, but the bandages do make me look mysterious and wicked.”

“Nah, it just makes you look less posh,” Seungcheol chuckles again, this time also clapping his back good-naturedly, “Makes you look more like yourself.”

It’s stray banter, but the comment warms something deep in Mingyu’s heart. He likes being told he doesn’t look posh. He hates looking posh. 

“Thanks, hyung,” he replies with a toothy grin, and Seungcheol grins back, raising his glass as a silent toast before taking a large gulp of his drink.

Mingyu doesn’t remember when this became something of a tradition - wandering into this East Itaewon bar at odd hours of the night, so far away from the polished locales which surround the palace, in a neighbourhood his grandmother would call questionable at best and beneath our station at worst. But he does remember the first time he came here, desperate to catch a glimpse of the infamous Choi Seungcheol - then barely out of college, a young activist contesting an election where he seemingly stood no chance of victory. But Mingyu had followed Seungcheol’s activism closely, had studiously watched all his speeches on wage inequality and democratic rights online - had even snuck out to one of Seungcheol’s pre-election rallies. He’d heard rumors about Seungcheol being a regular at this bar - a shining establishment of Seungcheol’s constituency, though a bit worse for wear - and Mingyu hadn’t been able to resist the opportunity of actually meeting the man in person.

And so, Mingyu had turned up one night on an impulse - causing half the patrons of the bar to stop whatever they were doing to gawk at him, sticking out like a sore thumb in his fancy jacket and shiny boots -

(Mingyu doesn’t wear things like that anymore, though. Especially not when he’s in East Itaewon. Currently, he’s dressed in a hoodie that’s at least three years old and tight around his shoulders.)

- but Seungcheol had taken one look at Mingyu and grinned his patent lopsided grin, offering him a bottle of soju with a, “Was hoping to run into you sooner or later, Prince Mingyu.”

And that had been it.

Since then, Seungcheol and Mingyu had forged an unlikely friendship, and Mingyu had followed Seungcheol’s career even more avidly, constantly being inspired by the things he does. His clandestine late-night trips to east Itaewon multiplied tenfold, and so did his quiet support for Seungcheol’s election campaign (and later, all the policies he championed as an elected Assembly representative).

“We’ve missed you around these parts,” Seungcheol says with a certain fondness, taking another sip of his whiskey. “Been worried about you.”

But that...that’s like a bittersweet sting. It’s nice to know that Seungcheol (and the others here who know Mingyu) missed him while he was recuperating and confined to his bed, but Mingyu has already worried his father enough. He doesn’t want to worry his only real friend too.

Mingyu doesn’t like it when people worry about him.

“I’m fine, really,” Mingyu parrots, like he’s been doing for the entire duration of these past two weeks. “It’s not even a big deal.”

“You sure about that?” Seungcheol says, a touch serious, “I’ve heard some whispers, Gyu. There are people out there who’ve seen you at my anti-royal rallies and I can’t imagine they like it. You’re not as good at keeping secrets as you think.”

“Oh come on, hyung,” Mingyu scoffs, “You literally sound like a reporter from the Herald right now. Even if people saw me support the Dissolution, no one’s gonna want to kill me for it.”

Seungcheol gives him a pointed look, like he’s being deliberately obtuse. “Things are heating up in the Assembly, Gyu.” Seungcheol says, “More and more parliamentarians are realising the merits of my Dissolution bill, but no one really wants to go up against the royals. But, even if they fear your father and your uncle, when it comes to you, they…” 

Seungcheol trails off, like he’s thinking about something else, something larger than this bar, than this conversation. “If you were seen supporting our cause, Gyu-yah, it would change the game entirely. Believe it or not, people like you, they’ll follow what you say.” He continues after a pause, “It could put a target on your back.”

“You know I’d support the cause openly any day, hyung.” Mingyu replies, “It’s just, Jeonghan hyung won’t let me make a public statement. Like, I’m not scared of what my family might think, but...”

“Are you listening to me, Mingyu?” Seungcheol says with a huff, his posture suddenly very serious, “I’m saying it’s possible there’s a target on your back. I don’t care about your vocal support, I just want you to be-”

“Safe, I know I know.” Mingyu feels like a petulant child, but he’s tired of hearing this. Even if Seungcheol’s wildly improbable theories were to be true, he doesn’t like being coddled like this. Contrary to popular belief, Mingyu can take care of himself. He’s been taking care of himself ever since he was twelve. 

But he looks at  Seungcheol, the concern in his eyes yet again echoing the concern Mingyu had seen in Moonshik’s, and Mingyu feels a familiar pang of guilt. At the end of the day, Seungcheol cares about Mingyu, and no matter how much he may disagree with Seungcheol’s theories, no matter how much he hates to worry Seungcheol, Mingyu cares about him too. Mingyu can humour him this much.

“I promise I will be,” Mingyu says, looking straight into Seungcheol’s eyes, hoping that’s enough to be reassuring. “Now can we stop talking about this so you can buy me another drink and catch me up on all the political gossip I’ve missed while I’ve been away?”

There’s the tiniest pause, during which Mingyu can hear nothing but the background bustle of the bar, the other patrons laughing and yelling, the jukebox playing the opening notes of a SNSD song - but it doesn’t last long. At the end of the day, Seungcheol is a softie, especially when it comes to Mingyu. 

Seungcheol heaves a long, weary sigh, but Mingyu knows him well enough to tell that it’s all exaggerated, that there’s no real weariness there - at least nothing that’s directed at Mingyu.

“Anything you say, prince,” And as he gestures to the bartender to pour them two more drinks, Seungcheol’s lopsided grin predictably returns, equal parts kind and playful like it always is.

---

Something’s not right.

Which is strange, considering how right he usually feels in this neighbourhood. 

Some days, East Itaewon feels more like home than the royal palace ever has, it’s bars and bylanes and convenience stores always more alive and vibrant than the endless opulent hallways he’s grown up in. It’s residents have always been warm and accepting, always stopping to greet Mingyu, to ask him which books he’s been reading, which plants he’s been growing in the small makeshift personal garden Mingyu maintains in the palace backyard. 

But tonight, there’s a prickling sensation at the back of his neck that he cannot shake off, and it’s been looming over him since the minute he said his goodbyes to Seungcheol and stepped outside the bar.

It’s nearly three am, and the streets are predictably deserted. The streetlights above him flicker on and off, the cold January breeze sending an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. He snuggles closer into his worn hoodie, adjusts his facemask so it’s tight and secure over his mouth. 

But there’s a shadow behind him that’s not his, accompanied by muted footsteps he doesn’t recognise. There’s something oddly sinister about it, even though Mingyu cannot really comprehend why. This is a public street. Literally anyone could be behind him - any random person who’s also out late like Mingyu is, and is also walking towards the nearest subway station.

Briefly, but only briefly, he recalls his father’s imploring eyes. The barest hint of a crack in his voice when he said, I want you to be safe, Mingyu-yah. He recalls Seungcheol’s warnings at the bar, the way he had said, it could put a target on your back - like he was genuinely afraid for Mingyu .  

But no, Mingyu cannot afford to spiral into this abyss right now. He can’t let them get in his head. Their concern means everything to Mingyu, but there really is no grand conspiracy against him. No one’s trying to deliberately kill Kim Mingyu. The footsteps behind him mean nothing. 

And besides, who would even want him dead? Mingyu isn’t even the most controversial member of the royal family, he’s hardly even been linked to an actual scandal. Except maybe getting shot in broad daylight. Or possibly being spotted at a leftist rally. 

But neither of those things mean anything, do they?

Do they?

The footsteps are getting closer, and Mingyu can’t help but suddenly feel on edge. Though the rational part of his brain is still telling him that he’s overthinking, that there is no real danger here, Mingyu objectively recognises what the situation looks like. A dark, deserted alley in a so-called “shady” neighbourhood. No other witnesses. No one else in his family aware of Mingyu’s present whereabouts.

If something were to happen, then-

No.

Mingyu’s not going to consider it.

And yet.

He picks up his pace, begins walking faster. There’s another alley ahead, and if he truly is being followed, he can perhaps evade his potential attacker by taking a sharp turn and heading towards a shortcut that he knows well. 

But as Mingyu nears the turning, something unusual happens. The footsteps abruptly stop, startling him so much that he comes to a stop too. 

For a second, everything is eerily quiet - not a single sound penetrates the air, no rustling of leaves, no din of cars, only Mingyu’s steadily quickening pulse. He’s rooted to the spot, but at the same time, the adrenaline hits him like a steady rush. He has to get out of here or else he’ll lose his fucking mind.

And that’s when he makes his fatal mistake. He runs.

He runs, but his legs are too long and uncoordinated, his sprints not fast enough, his breath already fogging over with the heaviness of exhaustion. In a flash, the footsteps have caught up with him again, and there’s someone grabbing him from behind, and shoving him against the nearest wall. It’s too dark to make out his attacker’s face, but what Mingyu can see are a pair of bloodshot eyes boring right into him in a way that makes his stomach churn. There’s an elbow pressing itself against Mingyu’s throat, almost cutting off his oxygen supply, and there is another hand holding a knife to the side of his neck, poised at the tip of his jugular.

Mingyu tries to struggle, but it only causes the sling in his right arm to snag and pull, triggering that excruciating pain in his arm once more. He winces and whimpers, but that just makes it worse; the elbow on his throat digs deeper, threatening to dispel all the oxygen from his breath. He tries to scream, but the assailant is quicker than that, stuffing the fabric of Mingyu’s facemask into his mouth to resemble an effective makeshift gag. The more Mingyu tries to push back, the more his arm hurts, the more his breath gets stuck in his constricted throat.

Oh my god, he really is going to die, isn’t he? 

In a deserted alley, with no witnesses around. With no opportunity to say his goodbyes to his father or to Seungcheol.

Fuck.

The edge of the knife grazes his skin, and he feels a droplet of blood trickling down, settling in the curve of his shoulder, staining the pale white fabric of the sweater he’s wearing underneath his hoodie. Mingyu shuts his eyes and thinks of his mother, praying to her for strength, resigning himself to his fate-

But then.

There’s a scuffle, and another set of footsteps approaching - more urgent, more nimble. Before he can even process what’s going on, the man holding the knife to Mingyu’s neck is suddenly pulled off him, and Mingyu hears a loud thud, eerily reminiscent of the sound of someone being slammed to the ground. 

It feels oddly like deja vu. Like that day in the cemetery, when he was too shell-shocked to even move. Now, too, Mingyu can’t even open his eyes, his brain only belatedly catching up with the realisation that his throat is now no longer being stifled by his attacker, that his arms are free (though the sling on his right one has come loose, continuing to hurt like hell) and he can take off his facemask, can finally breathe.

When the fresh air finally hits his nostrils, something in him loosens. The sounds of scuffle around him continue, and Mingyu is still trying to gather himself, to shake off the initial shock of being attacked. His heart is still beating a mile a minute and the adrenaline is making his brain haywire, but Mingyu finds the courage in him to finally , finally open his eyes and look around.

The first thing he sees is his attacker, lying on the ground unconscious, his knife (still coated in droplets of Mingyu’s blood) lying beside him. But there is also another man - much shorter, but objectively handsome even under the dim flickering streetlights - towering over the attacker, his gaze focused on making sure the latter is truly knocked out. 

This man’s dark hair is scruffy and strewn everywhere, making him look like some kind of gothic hero, and his tight, almost formal-looking shirt accentuates his muscles, something out of an urban legend.

He’s panting, for sure, but Mingyu can tell even in the relative darkness of the night that he’s hardly taken a beating - whereas the other man (the man who had attacked Mingyu) is totally incapacitated on the ground.

Whoever this man is, he’s strong.

“Stand back,” the man says, and Mingyu realises a minute too late that he’s the one being spoken to. Mingyu is too dumbstruck to question anything right now, so he obeys. He stands back. 

“He’ll be unconscious for a bit,” the man continues, gesturing at the listless body of Mingyu’s attacker, “But not for long. I’ll have to call the police right away."

“NO,” Mingyu says far too vehemently for someone that’s still recovering from the shock of a near-death experience. “No police, please... please...”

The man turns to face Mingyu directly then, his eyes sharp, stern, but betraying the barest hint of confusion. 

“You nearly got stabbed,” he says, putting uncomfortable emphasis on that last word, “and you don’t want the police to get involved?”

Mingyu sighs. Where could he even begin to explain? Involving the police would mean the secret service finding out. The secret service finding out would mean his father finding out. His father finding out would mean…

More panic. More brokenness in Moonshik’s eyes. 

And Mingyu cannot deal with that again.

But the man is staring at Mingyu incredulously, waiting for a response. Despite himself, despite the peculiarity of this situation, Mingyu can’t help but notice that there’s something oddly reassuring about how steadfast the man’s gaze is.  How it almost makes Mingyu feel safe, which is possibly the most insane thought he’s ever had. Maybe the constant series of near-death experiences have truly made Mingyu lose his sanity, or maybe it is his self-preservation that he’s actually lost, but whatever it is, Mingyu realises he actually trusts this man. 

This man, who literally appeared out of nowhere to save him from getting stabbed in the neck.

“Okay, you can call the police,” Mingyu sags against the wall, letting all the remaining tension evaporate from his body. Giving in, at last. “But promise me, first you will let me call Yoon Jeonghan. I don’t know if you know who that is but-”

“I know who that is.” The man cuts in. “He’s the one who told me where to find you.”

He… what?  What does that mean?

Mingyu’s brain is reduced to a pile of mush again, trying to catch up to the fact that this man… this stranger who came out of nowhere and tackled Mingyu’s attacker to the ground within seconds…He’s…

“What the fuck?” Mingyu blurts out, and his head hurts now. The fear, the confusion, the exhaustion, and the sharp pain still in his right arm catching up with him all at once. “Who are you? And how do you know the royal chief-of-staff?”

There’s a pregnant pause, and a crinkle in the bridge of the man’s eyebrows. For a split second, he almost looks a little sheepish, a hint of a flush colouring his ears. It feels totally at odds with his entire demeanour, but Mingyu finds he cannot look away from his face.

“I guess I should have introduced myself earlier,” the man says, like he’s pulling out each word painstakingly, like he’s almost skittish about how the revelation would go down. “I’m Lee Jihoon. And I’m your new bodyguard, Prince Mingyu-sshi.”

What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” Mingyu repeats, this time, meaning every word.

Chapter Text

This is going to be a long night.

That had been Jihoon’s very first thought when he stepped inside the royal palace - specifically, when he stepped inside the palace chief-of-staff’s office, after losing his way nearly five times (the palace is fucking huge). 

Dear god, had been his second thought. Yoon Jeonghan (said palace chief-of-staff) was staring back at him with wild eyes, a mixture of frantic concern and steely determination. Jeonghan’s features are delicate, almost nymph-like, but in that moment, he looked daunting, alert, unshakeable. Like one does when they are in crisis mode.

“Sorry for calling you in so late, Jihoon-sshi,” Jeonghan had said, “I know you were supposed to start tomorrow morning, but there’s been a...situation. Your services are urgently required.”

Jihoon had enough experience from his time in the military (and from his decidedly less action-packed years working in private security) to decipher what Jeonghan’s stilted words truly implied.

This was an emergency, and something was deeply, deeply wrong. 

Jihoon hadn’t imagined even in his wildest dreams that he would ever be appointed personal bodyguard to a prince, much less the very heir to the nation’s (constitutional) monarchy, and yet, he’d miraculously landed the job. 

Though one never quite knows what to expect from an assignment like this, Jihoon had imagined it to be quite cut-and-dried. He’s done this before - been a bodyguard to rich kids - and he expected this would be the same. Be the glorified babysitter to said rich kid as they go around blowing off their parents’ money. Usher them from one fancy event to another. Drive them around when required. 

Sure, Jihoon had been briefed about the previous assassination attempt, but he hadn’t been warned that this would become a...common occurence. That he would be thrust in the very middle of the fray, would have to rescue the prince from the clutches of possible murder on his very first day (or in this case, night ) itself.

“Of course, Jeonghan-sshi,” Jihoon had replied, “Tell me what you need me to do.”

And that’s how he ended up here. 

Following Jeonghan’s extremely vague set of directions (which Jihoon was sure was obtained from questionable sources), he stumbled upon the heart of this undeniably eerie neighbourhood. The thought of a posh, probably-elitist prince voluntarily ending up here, of all places, seemed totally improbable to Jihoon, but that’s the intel Jeonghan had given him. And if Jihoon had learned anything in his line of work over the years, it was to always trust the intel.

He doesn’t remember how long it took him to navigate the dank, deserted alleys, to follow his instincts in tracking down every sign of movement, every hint of trouble. 

And when he had successfully located the source of trouble, he’d realised, with a flash of blunt paranoia, that Jeonghan’s fears hadn’t at all been unfounded. The sight of the future king of South Korea shoved against a wall, knife against his throat, had numbed Jihoon’s very bones. No matter what happened tonight, he would not let the heir’s blood be on his hands. That too, before he’d formally begun his job.

Everything about this night was long and totally unprecedented - the prince’s location, the prince’s attacker, the way Jihoon had taken him down - but the most unprecedented of all was Kim Mingyu himself.

“What the fuck?” the prince is currently saying, and Jihoon almost empathises. As strange as this night is turning out for him, it must be a million times worse for Mingyu, who’s reeling from yet another close brush with death (or at least, with serious injury).

Jihoon’s chest throbs painfully at the thought of what could have happened if he’d found Mingyu even a minute late. Jihoon had mostly acted on reflex, letting muscle memory and years of martial arts training guide him into knocking out the attacker without much effort - it helped that he had the element of surprise, that his opponent hadn’t seen him coming and crumbled easily - but he cannot deny the millisecond of despair he felt when he first saw the knife arched on Mingyu’s jugular, Mingyu’s eyes shut like he’d almost resigned himself to whatever was coming. 

You always care too much, Jihoonie, his father had once told him. And that’s always been true, isn’t it? It’s not that he cannot maintain professional distance from whoever he’s assigned to protect, but he’s always taken their safety a little too personally. He’s always felt like if he hasn’t succeeded in saving a life, that’s on him, not the thing which put that life in danger in the first place.

And perhaps, that is why he gets it, Mingyu’s shock. That’s why he humours it.

Mingyu deserves this much.

“I wish we had met under...better circumstances,” Jihoon replies, again a little sheepish, “But yeah.”

“Does my father know you’re here?” 

And that’s...not a question Jihoon was expecting.

Kim Mingyu has just been nearly stabbed, is possibly still scared, still apprehensive of the stranger who just swept in and took down his attacker without much preamble. Jihoon expects Mingyu to cry. To scream. To panic.

Not to ask about his father.

Jihoon doesn’t know much about the prince, doesn’t really keep up with tabloid gossip or news articles about the royals. When he was first told he’s been hired, he was given a massive dossier containing every single detail about Prince Mingyu - starting from which posh boarding school Mingyu went to (Yonsang High), to which ice cream flavour he likes (mint chocolate chip) - but Jihoon has barely glanced through it. He’s expected most of the information to be banal and extraneous to his actual job. All he really needs to know is Mingyu’s daily schedule, and that he has already memorised.

But now that he’s actually met Kim Mingyu, even if under unusual circumstances, Jihoon realises that perhaps, he should read the dossier after all.

Perhaps, only then will he be able to unscramble the seemingly baffling puzzle pieces which make up Kim Mingyu.

“I don’t think so,” Jihoon says, “At least, not yet. Not until I confirm your location to Jeonghan-sshi, which I’m about to do now.” As if to make his intentions clear, he fishes out his phone from his pocket and holds it up so Mingyu can see it.

“C-can you dial his number and give that to me?” Mingyu says, pointing to Jihoon’s phone. The stutter in Mingyu’s voice makes Jihoon uncomfortable for reasons he cannot pinpoint. It’s vulnerable, but not in a way Jihoon can quantify or describe, evoking a primal instinct within him that he cannot name. “M-my phone died earlier, and I need to talk to hyung.”

Jihoon doesn’t know any other way to respond but to nod, wordlessly dial in the digits and hand over the phone.

Mingyu’s hands shake only the slightest bit when he takes it from Jihoon, and he turns to face away from him once the call connects. Jihoon gives Mingyu his privacy while he talks to Jeonghan, and takes this moment to instead focus his attention on the unconscious man on the ground. He knows this is technically the police’s job, and that Jihoon’s fingerprints can risk contaminating the crime scene, but his fingerprints are probably on the man already, and curiosity (or rather, a gnawing suspicion of something not at all being right) gets the better of him. He wraps his hand in a handkerchief he finds in his pocket, and leans down to search the unconscious man’s body for possible clues.

Jihoon already has a million questions about why Kim Mingyu was here in the first place, so far away from the palace, roaming around at an ungodly hour, but those are for later. It’s the attack itself that is rubbing him the wrong way, not purely because of the nature of it, but that it comes merely two weeks after the shooting, that too (if Jeonghan was to be believed), on Mingyu’s very first night out after the injury. Then remains the question of how Jeonghan came to know Mingyu’s whereabouts, when no other member of the royal family seemed to be aware of it. Did Mingyu tell him he was going to be here? If yes, then why would Jeonghan allow him outside without any security personnel at all, and call Jihoon in only at the last minute? And besides, how did Jeonghan know to send Jihoon over at the exact right minute, the exact moment of danger?

And finally, the most pressing question of all: why did Jeonghan trust Jihoon to do this in the first place? Jihoon wasn’t even on the official royal payroll for another twelve hours. And he’s sure Jeonghan has an entire posse of royal guards that he commands at will. Heck, Jeonghan could place one call to the secret service and a special agent would show up in seconds. Why specifically ask for Jihoon? Why him?

Jihoon suddenly feels like he’s caught up in something bigger than himself. Bigger than just playing bodyguard to a heir-in-danger.

But his rummaging of the man’s clothes sadly offers up nothing. Not even a wallet (which, again, strikes him as odd). It’s like this man is a clean slate, not a single identifier pointing to who he might be and why he would want Mingyu dead.

“Here, hyung wants to talk to you,” Mingyu’s voice interrupts Jihoon’s search, who has now turned to face him again and hold out the phone (Jihoon can’t help but be a touch relieved when he notices that Mingyu’s hands are no longer shaking). Jihoon gets up from where he was crouching, shakes the dust off his trousers, and takes the phone from Mingyu. 

Their hands brush for a millisecond, and Jihoon nearly stumbles backwards when he feels the unexpected set of sparks sizzling at the edge of his fingertips, but he forces himself to ignore it. It’s probably just static electricity.

“Jihoon-sshi,” comes Jeonghan’s unmistakable voice from the other end of the receiver, “Mingyu told me what happened. You did well tonight.”

“Thank you?” Jihoon doesn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but it ends up sounding like one, all the same. 

“I want you to drive Mingyu back home,” Jeonghan continues, “And I want you to be discreet. Don’t come via the main palace entrance, take the Eastern gate. Mingyu will know where it is, ask him to give you directions if you get lost. Tomorrow I’ll give you a detailed map of the palace grounds so you are able to navigate on your own from next time.”

“And what about the attacker?” Jihoon asks, “Shouldn’t I be handing him over to the police first?”

“You don’t worry about that, I’ve already taken care of it.” Jeonghan replies, and there’s something ominous in his voice. Not for the first time that night, Jihoon gets the feeling that Jeonghan often talks in riddles, often masks the true intentions behind his words. Jihoon has enough self-awareness to admit that he’s mildly terrified of Yoon Jeonghan.

“You just get Mingyu home, Jihoon-sshi,” Jeonghan finally adds. “He’s what’s important.”

And with that, there is a click on the other end of the receiver and the line goes silent.

Jihoon looks at Mingyu - properly looks at him, up close - taking him in for the first time since he laid eyes on the prince. There’s that vulnerability again; in his eyes, in the way he is holding himself. He’s clutching his right arm with his left, perhaps in pain, but he stands straight, upright. Composed. Looking Jihoon directly in the eye.

Mingyu is even more handsome than he’s in pictures, even like this, when he looks all roughed up, when his face mask is undone, when his hoodie is bloodstained. But the one thought Jihoon has in that moment, his third most prominent thought of the night, is:

Kim Mingyu is brave. 

Braver than Jihoon ever imagined him to be.

This is going to be a long night, but Jihoon suddenly doesn’t regret that.

---

Later, after they’re already halfway across the city in Jihoon’s run-down sedan, Mingyu says:

“Thank you.”

It’s so quietly uttered, Jihoon would have missed it if the car windows weren’t all drawn up, if the silence between them hadn’t been stretching uncomfortably throughout the entire duration of this car ride.

That unusual sense of vulnerability persists in Mingyu’s voice, continuing to pierce into Jihoon’s soul in ways he did not foresee. Jihoon has to tighten his grip on the steering wheel to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid. Like actually asking Mingyu about it. Like actually wanting to get to know him, to unscramble Kim Mingyu’s puzzle pieces one by one - not just by reading royal dossiers.

But Jihoon is a professional.

“I should have said it earlier,” Mingyu is saying, voice still small yet unwavering. “But I was kind of...distracted.”

Jihoon is focused on the road, but he doesn’t miss Mingyu’s bashful half-smile from the corner of his eye. It lights up the prince’s features, makes him look oddly child-like, innocent. 

Jihoon gets it now, why his youngest sister (aged 15) squealed so loudly when he first told her he got the job. Prince Mingyu!! she had exclaimed in a dreamy, hysterical tone, and yeah. Jihoon understands the appeal. Though, of course, he doesn’t quite share his sister’s...enthusiasm.

And yet, what Jihoon cannot stop fixating on is Mingyu’s bravery. Here he is, after his second near-death encounter in two weeks, smiling self-deprecatingly about it - almost a little blasé, but in a strangely humble way. In all the rich families Jihoon has previously worked for, he hasn’t ever seen anything like this.

“You don’t have to thank me, Mingyu-sshi,” Jihoon replies, because what else can one reply to such a thing? “I was just doing my job.”

“No, but still,” Mingyu insists, “Jeonghan hyung mentioned on the phone that you were officially supposed to start tomorrow, which means you didn’t have to come all the way to rescue me so late at night, and yet you still did. Thank you for that.”

Jihoon has to tighten his grip on the steering wheel once again. What the fuck. Jihoon wasn’t prepared for this much sincerity.

“And,” Mingyu bites his lip, a tad shyer, even more self-deprecating, “I’m sorry for causing you all this trouble.”

Jihoon lets go of a breath he didn’t realise he was holding in. “Please, Mingyu-sshi,” he replies, eyes continuing to stare straight ahead but still painfully aware of Mingyu’s every movement. Even though it’s dark, and Jihoon is yet to figure out where the Eastern Gate is, his attention can’t help but be constantly fixated on a certain prince. 

“It wasn’t any trouble.”

“But-” Mingyu begins, and gets so eager to refute Jihoon’s protests that he attempts to turn around in the passenger seat to face Jihoon. But before he can, he lets out an audible wince and then immediately widens his eyes, like he didn’t intend to do that out loud.

“Oops,” Mingyu says, another bashful smile playing on his lips, but he’s gripping his right arm like it’s a lifeline, his eyes noticeably watery. Fuck, Jihoon thinks, Mingyu’s in pain.

“Are you okay?” Jihoon asks, and suddenly regrets not asking earlier. He knows Mingyu is injured. The blood on Mingyu’s neck has dried, but it’s noticeably there, and the pain in Mingyu’s arm must be there too. But Jihoon is hardly good at these things, is hardly good at inquiring after his clients’ wellbeing without caring too much. And so, he tries to keep away. To not bring it up.

But Mingyu is different from all his other clients already, and Jihoon doesn’t know what to do with this realisation.

“I’m fine,” Mingyu reassures him, but Jihoon can tell it’s a blatant lie. Mingyu’s eyes continue to water, and the smile on his face now looks an inch forced, his teeth looking like they’re gritted together. But he’s putting up a brave front, once again. “It’s just my arm being stupid. It’ll be fine once I sleep it off.”

Jihoon isn’t too convinced, but he doesn’t say anything more. It’s better to draw the line here, he thinks. Better not to get tangled in too deep.

The silence stretches between them once more, and Mingyu goes back to staring out of the window of the passenger seat, though the car windows are tinted and the view outside must be blurry at best. They drive past deserted roads (Jihoon takes the shortcuts), past gloomier downtown locales, until they enter the posher, more urban cityscapes. The lanes leading up to the royal family’s residence.

Jihoon shouldn’t try to break the silence between them. He really shouldn’t. They’re almost there, merely a couple of minutes away from the palace. He should simply keep his mouth shut until he has safely transported Mingyu to the palace grounds. Until he has debriefed Jeonghan and wrapped up his duties for the day. That’s where his job description ends.

And yet. Yet.

 It slips out.

“Mingyu-sshi, you shouldn’t apologise for being rescued. To me, or to anyone else.”

And fuck, there he goes. Doing the exact stupid thing he was straining so hard against. There are consequences to this, he knows it. But Mingyu’s I’m sorry for causing you trouble had stung deep in his gut, again for a reason he cannot fathom (it’s just been one night, and there are already so many reasons he cannot fathom when it comes to Kim Mingyu). It's suddenly imperative to let Mingyu know that his life was as worth saving as anyone else’s. That Jihoon would do it again in a heartbeat, even if they barely know each other.

Mingyu’s gaze snaps to Jihoon, penetrating into him like the sharpest of knives. Jihoon wills himself to keep looking at the road, to not let Mingyu’s inquisitive, confused, yet continuously sincere eyes affect him more than is necessary.

For a long minute, all Mingyu does is stare, and Jihoon swallows hard, trying to school his features into something nonchalant. And then, before Jihoon can shift the car into second gear and finally make his way inside the palace grounds, Mingyu sighs, loud and tired.

“Oh, Jihoon-sshi, you still have a lot to learn.” Mingyu's words are as quiet as a whisper, and he sounds so wistful, Jihoon’s heart nearly seizes up in its aftermath. “Now, take the dirt path on your left so we can enter the Eastern Gate without being spotted.”

---

ROYAL PAINS: MORE ATTACKS ON PRINCE MINGYU, AND THE LOOMING THREAT OF DISSOLUTION

South Korea Herald, January 27th, 2020

Though the palace has attempted to keep it hush-hush, sources say that Prince Mingyu was attacked yet again on the night of January 22. Since there were no witnesses on the scene, details of the attack or the attacker are unclear, but what we do know is that the people’s prince (as he is often fondly known) has sustained no new injuries, and is safe. The royal family has refused to make any official statements to the media about the alleged attack, and in fact, continue to deny that it even happened. However, there have been reports of a new personal bodyguard being hired to protect the prince, and the timing of it coinciding with the multiple attempts on Kim Mingyu’s life doesn’t make it difficult to connect the dots. Surprisingly, though, the bodyguard seems to be associated with a private security firm, not the secret service. Does this mean King Moonshik is paying for the bodyguard’s services out of his own pocket, and not from official royal coffers? If that’s indeed true, this will mark the first time the royal family pays for something without using the government’s or taxpayer’s money. Is this truly for the sake of Prince Mingyu’s safety and wellbeing, or is it a last ditch attempt on the part of the royals to appeal to supporters of the Dissolution Bill? 

The bill, which was introduced for debate in the National Assembly two days ago by Choi Seungcheol of the leftist party, received an immediately divisive response from other Assembly members. The ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes were equal in number, causing the debate to reach an unexpected impasse. As a result, the speaker of the house - in agreement with the president - announced that the bill would be voted on by a plebiscite (or a ‘public’ vote). I.e, the decision of whether or not to ‘dissolve’ the royal family’s privileges now lies in the hands of the people.

 Only time will tell where the needle will turn, but with the economy presently in recession, the royal family’s draining of the country’s financial resources (without actually contributing to any lawmaking) has definitely alienated the working classes. Perhaps their royal status isn’t as secure as they would like to think.

Meanwhile, it is still to be determined who Prince Mingyu’s attackers are. The police have reportedly taken a suspect into their custody, but no other major leads have been found. A previous report in the Herald had speculated upon a possible friendship between Prince Mingyu and Choi Seungcheol, of Prince Mingyu’s support of the Dissolution Bill, and of this support possibly endangering the prince’s life. Given recent events, one can’t help but wonder if these speculations actually hold true. Is there a larger conspiracy against Kim Mingyu? Will his new personal bodyguard be able to save him? Most importantly, will the royal family continue to remain standing once the nation’s citizens have voted on the Dissolution Bill?

---

Lee Jihoon moves into the room next to his on a Saturday morning.

His luggage is brought up quietly, but Mingyu can still hear him outside in the hallway, conversing with Jeonghan in hushed tones, thanking the butler for bringing the luggage up. Inside his room, Mingyu sinks further in his bed and groans into his pillow, suddenly regretting every minute of this.

(Later, there will be an “orientation” of sorts, where Lee Jihoon will be officially “introduced” to every member of the royal family, even though introductions are no longer necessary at this point. 

Lee Jihoon, in his meticulously-tailored suit, will look even more handsome than Mingyu remembers. He will be bombarded with a million-and-one questions from His Royal Highness Kim Moonshik, with endless pointed whispers and titters exchanged among royal cousins, uncles, nieces. But Lee Jihoon will stand his ground; will smile politely, will say the exact right things at the exact right moments.

Lee Jihoon’s eyes, however, will always linger on Kim Mingyu, sometimes daunting, sometimes assessing, but often inscrutable. Mingyu will deny the shiver running down his spine every time their eyes will meet across the room, but his heartbeat will quicken nevertheless.)

---

Because the universe is hell-bent on kicking Mingyu when he’s already down, the Saturday Jihoon moves in also coincides with his grandmother’s monthly Saturday dinners.

The Dowager Queen Kim Jiyeon’s Saturday dinners are a long-standing tradition in the Kim household - though it is more a mandatory monthly contingency meeting where every member of the extended royal family gathers in the palace dining room to discuss political and financial goings-on, than a wholesome family meal.

Needless to say, Mingyu has always hated it with every living breath. 

Not only does the dinner constitute being in close proximity with every last cousin and uncle who he can hardly talk to without completely losing his patience (much less maintain anything akin to a relationship with), it also means sitting through hours of political talk that is so vehemently opposite to the very grain of Mingyu’s belief systems, it makes his skin physically crawl.

Usually, if he’s too quiet, his family forgets he’s even in the room. His grandmother is always busy attempting to mediate a fresh verbal tussle between Uncle Hyungshik and his father over tax cuts and healthcare and other economic policies that they don’t technically have any influence in but like to lobby for regardless. Then a different uncle always pitches in with equally horrible ideas, and then another aunt starts complaining about the price of diamonds, and then cousin Jungho continues to whine about how he wants a bigger allowance so he can buy the latest model of a sports car. From there on, the conversation always gets predictable. Bank balance. Tax breaks for the rich. Misguided political lobbying. Rinse, and repeat. 

When his grandmother has worked through her fourth consecutive glass of soju, and his father is too busy debating an issue that will hardly amount to anything, Mingyu always finds a way to slip out of the door unnoticed and escape into the night.

But tonight, that seems to be entirely out of the question. Ever since the incident at East Itaewon, Jeonghan has become unnecessarily strict about Mingyu’s...nightly excursions. Earlier, Mingyu would override palace security systems with practiced ease (he routinely bakes cookies for Junhui, the chief of security, and in return Junhui lets Mingyu sneak out whenever he wants to, as long as he comes home before dawn) - but lately that’s become close to impossible, now that Jeonghan has strictly instructed Junhui to not yield under the force of Mingyu’s puppydog eyes or baked treats. But what is an even bigger deterrent to Mingyu’s nightly adventures - a far greater thorn on his side - is Lee Jihoon, watching his every move, shadowing him like a hawk, getting under his skin. 

Even now, Jihoon is perched on a settee in one corner of the room, barely a few paces away from where Mingyu’s seated at the massive dining table. Having him here is utterly surreal; not only because Mingyu is still getting used to the concept of a personal bodyguard following him around at all times; but because of how exclusive his grandmother always considers this gathering, how even distant relatives sometimes aren’t invited. Moonshik must have made a really strong case to the Dowager Queen to accommodate Jihoon’s presence at the dinner, and as sweet as that is, it also annoys Mingyu a little. If his father truly wants Mingyu to be followed around everywhere, it means he’s worrying about Mingyu again (has been worrying about him more and more ever since the attempted stabbing), and if there’s one thing Mingyu definitely doesn’t want on his conscience, it’s his father’s constant concern.

Ugh.

Mingyu fidgets in his seat, trying his best not to physically squirm as Uncle Hyungshik loudly bashes the leftist party in between taking large swigs from his glass of scotch. Mingyu can feel Jihoon’s gaze on him, as steadfast as a drill boring into the side of his neck, but he refuses to give in to the temptation to stare back at him. He shouldn’t be feeling so fucking self-conscious. After all, Jihoon is just doing his job; which is to protect Mingyu, to keep an eye on Mingyu; and if Mingyu has had to make his peace with the notion of having a bodyguard in the first place, he should also make his peace with being watched by said bodyguard. 

But Jihoon is in a perfectly-tailored suit again - the dark grey fabric hugging his lithe form in all the right places, accentuating his shoulders to make him look almost majestic - and Mingyu is inordinately affected by it. He hates how much he is affected by it.

God, how terribly he wants to get out of here right now, away from unnecessary thoughts of handsome bodyguards. He wants to be out there, breathing in fresh air, drinking with Seungcheol, celebrating the potential of a new and exciting future. Of a future where he could be free from the shackles of royal responsibility.

Instead, he’s stuck here, in the middle of a family squabble of truly epic proportions.

The reigning subject of today’s mandatory family dinner is - to no one’s surprise - the possibility of Dissolution. The public vote that will determine the royal family’s fate is in less than two months, and everyone is in panic mode. His father has been constantly in and out of meetings in the past few days, and Uncle Hyungshik has been livid, never going a single moment without cursing at Seungcheol and other leftist party politicians, calling them all sorts of bigoted, classist names (Mingyu always has to try terribly hard to restrain himself from saying anything in retaliation; he knows it will serve no real purpose). His grandmother has been drinking more than she usually does, and has been snapping at the maids everytime they mess up even the tiniest of things. But judging from tonight’s dinner, every other aunt, uncle, cousin or distant and not-so-distant family member hailing from the Kim lineage has also been gripped with equal amounts of distress. Everyone except him, that is. 

Various members of the Kim family have been attempting to out-yell and outmaneuver each other from the moment this dinner even began, all of them scrambling to put forward their ‘grievances’ in front of King Moonshik. And between Jihoon’s persistent, piercing gaze and the general chaos unfolding around him, Mingyu feels the beginnings of a headache coming on.

“But surely the people will not vote to dissolve our powers,” says a cousin whose name Mingyu can never remember - he has way too many of them - totally missing the irony of the fact that they never really had any powers in the first place. Maybe their great-great ancestors did, but not them . Never them. “They can’t take our titles away just like that!! Can’t you do something, samchon?”

“I-” Moonshik begins, raising a palm in a desperate attempt to get people to settle down, but before he can finish, another one of Mingyu’s paternal aunts cut in, “He’s right, Moonshik oppa! The people love us, don’t they? They line up in front of the palace every year for your birthday just to see you wave at them! They won’t vote us out, that can’t happen.”

Mingyu’s headache is building, and the sheer ignorance of them all, the sheer lack of perspective and self-awareness of them all, it grates on him in a way that he cannot contain within him anymore. On any other day, Mingyu would remain quiet, would keep his head down until he finishes his bulgogi and bottle of soju and then maybe find a way to escape from the palace and meet up with Seungcheol. Perhaps it’s the fact that he can’t do that now, that he feels caged-in and trapped like a bird in a net, even though it’s for the sake of his own ‘safety’. Or perhaps it is Jihoon’s gaze on him, which refuses to waver, refuses to make his pulse stop throbbing on his wrist. For once, Mingyu cannot hide his visible scoff.

“Actually,” Mingyu says, “The royal family’s approval rating has been at a historic low for months.”

An audible hush falls across the room. Everyone who had so far been busy outraging and yelling, wordlessly falls back into their seats, almost freezing into place. Mingyu never talks at these dinners unless he’s being specifically addressed (which happens rarely, considering most of his extended family don’t seem to like him much), and clearly, no one had expected him to say anything tonight too.

From the corner of his eye, he can see that Jihoon has shifted in his seat, has leaned just the tiniest bit forward. Almost as if… he’s genuinely interested in what Mingyu has to say. Almost as if...he wants Mingyu to keep talking. 

Mingyu doesn’t know why, but it emboldens him. Suddenly, he wants to rebel a little more openly than he usually does. Suddenly, he wants to spring to the challenge that’s been dangling over him ever since he was twelve. It’s what eomma would do, he thinks.

“The recession has hit farmers and labourers the hardest,” Mingyu continues, voice more confident and steady now, “The country’s GDP has fallen by 3%, which is the sharpest decline in our economic growth in nearly thirty years. And then last month Jungho hyung and his wife bought a new mansion in Jeju Island - that’s...not gone down well with the public, you know.”

“How dare you?” cousin Jungho snarls in reply, and it’s almost like the spell is suddenly broken. Every Kim family member who had fallen into silence suddenly descends back into chaos again, whispering amongst themselves, glaring darkly at Mingyu. “You keep your nose out of my business, you ungrateful little-”

“Now, now, let’s be civil-” Moonshik intervenes, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening. Mingyu can tell Moonshik is getting tired of dealing with this, and he can very much relate to that sentiment.

“I’m just stating the facts, Jungho hyung,” Mingyu continues once more, holding onto his earlier burst of courage. He steals another glance at Jihoon from the corner of his eye and Jihoon is nearly on the edge of his seat, the side of his lips are pulled up in the semblance of an almost-smile. Okay, Mingyu may be projecting a teeny tiny little bit, but nevertheless: he hopes it’s a smile.

“I can show you the official reports and statistics from the National Economic Survey to prove it,” Mingyu adds, “The people really aren’t happy.”

“And what makes you the authority to decide that?” It’s Hyungshik who intervenes this time, fists banging on the table so hard, it makes all the china plates clatter in response. “Just because, what, you’ve read a few books? Because you go around volunteering at your no-good charities and mingling with filthy royal-hating leftists, you think you suddenly know every damn thing about politics?”

It’s okay, Mingyu tells himself. He should have expected that - the anger, the retaliation, the jibes at the expense of his volunteer work and his leftist friends. Mingyu knows what his uncle is like, and over the years, he’s developed a thick skin to all the bigotry, to the easily ignited temper, to the low-blow remarks. He can’t afford to be ruffled by it, especially not now, not when he needs all the willpower to fight back.

His attention inevitably spills towards Jihoon again. He can’t control it; it’s a defense mechanism at this point. A deep-rooted instinct.

Jihoon’s fists are clenched, his ghost of a smile suddenly vanished. He seems to be poised for battle, ready for the word go before he can tackle yet another one of Mingyu’s attackers to the ground. Mingyu has to once again remind himself that this is Jihoon’s job, that Jihoon is trained to snap into alertness at a moment’s notice, to be ready to jump in the line of fire at the drop of a hat - and yet. The knot in Mingyu’s stomach loosens by an inch, the tightness in his shoulders dissipates by a smidgeon. If Jihoon can be prepared for a fight, so can he.

“I’m not claiming to know everything about politics, Uncle Hyungshik.” Mingyu replies, sterner than before, totally uncharacteristic of how he generally speaks to his uncle. “I’m only saying that... maybe, instead of worrying about how we can hold on to the wealth and titles that have been handed to us by our ancestors, that we haven’t quite earned - we could all see this as an opportunity for change. As an opportunity to do something good.”

“Oh, is that what your  commie scum friend’s been telling you?” cousin Jungho intervenes again, his voice so full of bile Mingyu has to hold on to the edge of his chair so he doesn’t physically recoil. “Putting all these ideas in your pretty little head that’s nothing but vile propaganda.”

It takes the clenching of every muscle in Mingyu’s body to keep from openly defending Seungcheol, but he knows he can’t do that right now. So far, his friendship with Seungcheol has been mere conjecture among the rest of his family, something they privately speculate about, snort about, taunt him about. Only Jeonghan knows how close they truly are, but if his family knew too, the consequences could be seriously dire for Seungcheol and his party.

Mingyu has to remind himself to not rise to the bait. It’s okay, he thinks again, and suddenly Jihoon’s steady, unwavering gaze on him is no longer a piercing drill, but a comforting salve.

“It’s not propaganda,” Mingyu tries his best to keep his voice from shaking, “There’s actual evidence in what I’m talking about-”

“It’s not worth it, Jungho,” This time, it’s his grandmother who cuts in, talking over Mingyu like his words don’t matter at all, like his existence doesn’t matter at all. Her eyes are dripping with disdain even behind the fog of her intoxication, and though she addresses Jungho, she stares straight at Mingyu when she says, “After all, he’s cut from the same cloth as his mother. Not a single grain of respect for the family that raised and sheltered him.”

“I think that’s quite enough.” Moonshik looks pained, white as a sheet. It comes out rough, almost terrifyingly austere. But he doesn’t say anything further.

“Well, it’s the truth isn’t it?” Hyungshik says with a snicker, “His mother never did raise him right. She’s the one who put all these ideas in his head in the first place, and you never stopped her, Moonshik hyung. That’s what happens when you marry below our station.”

Every word lodges itself into Mingyu’s chest like the sharpest shards of glass, tearing apart that thick skin he once boasted of, dismantling all his temporary reserves of courage. It was all an illusion, wasn’t it? All that composure, all that strength - demolished in seconds. At the end of the day, he is nothing but a sparrow caught in a net, struggling against it but never quite managing to break free. Reduced to nothing but a pile of feathers at the mere mention of his mother.

They never deserved her. They cannot-

All these faces, staring at him in complete contempt like he’s a circus show. But that’s not what matters to him. His mother. The only one who ever saw him.

A fundamental sense of exhaustion floods his bones. He feels like he will suffocate if he stays here even a minute longer. 

Mingyu gets up abruptly, dropping his napkin onto his empty plate. “I think I’m done with my dinner,” he says, and for once, he doesn’t have the strength to look over at Jihoon. He just hopes Jihoon doesn’t think he’s a coward for walking away. “I’ll retire early tonight. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your meal.”

“Mingyu-” Moonshik begins, but Mingyu interrupts before he can finish that sentence. “It’s okay, appa. I’ll be alright.”

Yet again, he doesn’t want his father to worry. Moonshik has bigger things on his plate right now than his son’s hurt feelings over a stray mean comment. Mingyu doesn’t need to become yet another burden.

And with that, Mingyu does what he has always dreamed of doing but has never quite had the strength (or the occasion) to do before: he storms out of a Compulsory Monthly Saturday Dinner while his entire extended royal family watches. 

Nobody stops him.

---

“Loser, ” Jungho sneers, as soon as Mingyu’s gone. The words crackle across the room, populating the air with more suppressed snorts, with more not-so-suppressed sneers. A bunch of Mingyu’s cousins seated parallely to Jihoon clink their glasses and guffaw. 

“What a sorry excuse for an heir.”

Another set of words, seemingly innocuous, yet nothing but the turning of a knife in an already open wound. More guffaws from across the room.  It rankles across Jihoon’s entire being, making his heart shrink in his chest. So much hostility, so much disdain - just for Mingyu? Jihoon may have met Mingyu only a week ago, but even in this short span of time, he knows - without a single inch of doubt - that Mingyu doesn’t deserve this. That if anything, Mingyu is ten times the heir anyone else could be. That if anything, Mingyu is fundamentally good.

Oh, Mingyu, where are you?

Jihoon’s thoughts are a persistent refrain, but he is again out of his depth. Every instinct within him is screaming at him to go after Mingyu, to find him and make sure he is indeed alright (Jihoon hadn’t believed him for even a second when he said he would be), but Jihoon doesn’t know the protocol here. Is he allowed to leave as unceremoniously as Mingyu did, or will that be considered a breach of royal etiquette? Even if he’s on Mingyu’s side here, he doesn’t want to piss off his employers the very first day he moved into their house.

But then Moonshik is saying (albeit, stiffer than before), “Okay, can we get back to discussing business?” and it’s like a switch has been flipped. Everyone descends back into the chaos of before, resuming their complaints and general whining around whatever it is they were whining about, as if nothing had happened at all. As if none of the hurt and disrespect they had levelled at Mingyu mattered.

And that clinches it for him.

Jihoon gets up at last, mumbles a “I’ll go check on Mingyu” which he’s sure no one really pays attention to (though Moonshik does acknowledge it with one brief, curt nod), and he strides out the door.

But as soon as he’s outside, he realises he has no way of knowing where Mingyu went.

The palace is huge, and Jihoon is still getting used to its endless hallways and staircases and winding passages - Jeonghan had given him a map of the premises, but Jihoon is still yet to wrap his head around it all. Whereas Mingyu has lived in the palace all his life and probably knows it like the back of his hand. He could literally be anywhere.

But Jihoon isn’t one to give up easily. He keeps sprinting across the corridor, pausing only to peep inside the rooms on each side, but finding them either locked or empty. By the time he’s combed the entire floor, his breath is swelling up and down, his nerves gradually mounting. Fuck, he really should have memorised the maps. Jihoon is hardly ever like this, hardly ever anything less than immaculate at his job, but what is it about protecting Kim Mingyu that continues to trip him up? What it is about protecting Kim Mingyu that renders every rulebook useless, renders every inch of his past training inadequate?

But before he can berate himself any further, an unmistakable crack cuts through the silence of the air. Jihoon hears something that can only qualify as a groan, and an oddly familiar one at that. He slips back into alertness, beginning to scope his surroundings again for any signs of life. There is a large ornate set of doors left slightly ajar at the very end of the passage adjacent to him. Moonlight filters in through it’s gaps, illuminating the otherwise dimly-lit surroundings, motes of dust swimming around it. 

Something pulls Jihoon towards that door, and with every step he takes towards it, his pace picks up, hope swells in his chest. Finally, when he flings open the heavy wooden door with all the might in his body, he finds a balcony - offering an unhindered view of the palace grounds, the full moon casting a strange ethereal glow over it.

But that’s not the only thing Jihoon sees.

Gripping the balustrade, his right leg swung towards the edge so he looks like he’s almost straddling the precipice, is none other than Prince Mingyu.

“What in the world are you doing?” Jihoon can’t help but exclaim, because it is truly the most singularly surreal sight he has ever witnessed.

For a second, Mingyu startles, but when his eyes finally meet Jihoon’s he only glares, gripping the railing even tighter. “What does it look like I’m doing!” he exclaims right back at Jihoon, “I’m trying to climb down this balcony!”

“With all due respect, Mingyu-sshi,” Jihoon replies, desperately trying to keep his voice as even and calm as possible, “Why the fuck would you try to climb down the balcony?”

Does Prince Kim Mingyu well and truly have a death wish?

The fact that he could go from smart, self-assured and argumentative, to hurt and vulnerable, to now stupid and impulsive enought to attempt to climb down a fucking second floor balcony gives Jihoon whiplash like nothing else has. Yet again, Kim Mingyu defies his every expectation. Yet again, Jihoon feels like he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

But also, the primal instinct in him that’s been rigorously trained to prepare for every contingency kicks quickly into gear. He walks over to the edge of the balcony slowly, but steadily, getting closer and closer until he’s nearly face to face with Mingyu.

“Because I want to get out of here, okay?” Mingyu replies, and his voice is surprisingly subdued now, something palpably rueful simmering underneath it. Now that Jihoon can see Mingyu’s face more closely, the tear tracks are hard to ignore, the redness around his eyes, around his nose, are hard to miss.

Fuck, Mingyu has been crying.

Jihoon had guessed that Mingyu would be upset, but he is wholly unprepared for the sight of a Mingyu who is reduced to tears. Even back in East Itaewon after nearly losing his life, Mingyu had held his own. He hadn’t given in, had been remarkably, admirably brave. To see him fall apart like this, right now, makes Jihoon’s heart clench even further, turns his stomach upside down. What is it about Kim Mingyu, Jihoon thinks again. What is it about Mingyu that makes him empathise so viscerally? What is it about him that triggers this need to protect not simply because Jihoon’s job dictates it, but because it comes from within, because it makes Jihoon shudder at the mere sight of a Mingyu in disarray.

“Mingyu-sshi, I can’t let you jump off a balcony,” Jihoon replies, no longer succeeding in making himself sound detached and collected. He places his hand over Mingyu’s, where it is currently holding on to the balustrade’s top railing, and gives it a squeeze - despite himself, despite knowing this is a boundary breached further than he is allowed. “You can get seriously injured. And your right arm-”

“You think I don’t know that?” Mingyu sounds peevish now, though his voice is still wobbly, throat still thick with unshed tears, “I’ve done it before and I’ll be fine.”

And Jihoon again has a million different questions. What does he mean by done it before? Does posh and protected Prince Kim Mingyu make it a regular habit to climb down balconies and scale palace walls? But why would he even need to “get out of here”? Where does he go when he gets out of here?

But even as Jihoon ponders these questions, the answers to at least two of them seem starkly clear. Everything that had happened at the dinner table - the easily lobbed snide remarks, the complete dismissal of everything Mingyu had to say. Everything that had happened in East Itaewon - how Mingyu had ended up in a deserted alley at an ungodly hour of the night, how well Mingyu had known the way back, like it was familiar territory. At least some of it begins to fall into place.

Jihoon sighs.

He knows he has to de-escalate, even if a part of him almost wants to help Mingyu escape. But the other, much more dominant part of him, wants to see Mingyu safe and sound, and very much under Jihoon’s vigilant supervision. 

So he does the only thing he can do right now: he squeezes Mingyu’s hand one more time. 

“Mingyu-sshi,” he begins, voice soft and pleading, “You know this is not going to solve anything, right? Even if you were to successfully climb down this balcony and try to escape through the palace gates, the security system is up and running. It’ll immediately send an alert to Jeonghan-sshi, and then to your father and your uncle. That’s not something you want, right?”

For an achingly long minute, Mingyu is quiet. He stares back at Jihoon with tear-tracked eyes, face surprisingly unreadable despite the evident pain written all over it. A stray sniffle escapes his nose and he tries to wipe the resulting snot with the sleeve of his expensive-looking silk shirt. Even like this: bare-faced, red-nosed, illuminated only by the pale late-winter moonlight; Kim Mingyu looks impossibly beautiful. Jihoon feels a sudden, involuntary need to touch, to wipe away the tear crawling down Mingyu's cheek with the gentlest brush of his finger, to hold Mingyu and tell him, you’re brave, you’re always so brave.  

But Jihoon knows his limits. He knows he can't.

Another agonisingly long minute ticks away and Jihoon wonders whether they will forever remain suspended in time like this: Mingyu hanging half-off the ledge of a balcony, Jihoon staring straight at him, one hand precariously poised over his.

But then, without much preamble, Mingyu’s shoulders slump. His grasp on the railing slackens, and he lets out a long, tired exhale, as if unburdening all the pent-up tension in his muscles. 

Slowly but surely, he pulls his right leg back inside of the balcony, but abruptly loses his balance in the process. If it weren't for Jihoon's razor-sharp reflexes, Mingyu would have stumbled and bludgeoned straight into the ground, but Jihoon catches him with practiced ease, steadies him until he's back upright and their faces are merely inches apart. The difference in their heights is suddenly striking, and yet, Mingyu's presence is almost dwarfish, like he's deliberately trying to make himself smaller. His eyes are still-swollen, still-simmering with barely concealed hurt, and every cell in Jihoon's body craves to wipe it all away, to make it all okay. 

“I’m always such a menace, aren’t I?” Mingyu murmurs, so quiet that Jihoon would have missed it if the air around them wasn’t so still. “All I’ve done since the minute you met me is give you trouble.”

Mingyu’s words are like a devastating blow to the gut, and Jihoon is transported yet again to their conversation the other night, the image of Mingyu mumbling apologies for being rescued trickling into his bloodstream like slow poison. Perhaps it is that irrational surge of protectiveness only Kim Mingyu has so far evoked in Jihoon, or perhaps it is a more fundamental instinct, one that cannot be quantified; but Jihoon knows with startling certainty then and there that he hates this. He hates hearing Prince Mingyu apologise simply for being himself.

"You're not, Mingyu-sshi," Jihoon replies, perhaps with a little too much decisiveness. But he hopes that it drives home just how much he means every word he's saying. "In fact, I think you were quite brilliant tonight."

Mingyu cracks a smile at that, though it is wistful, bittersweet. "That's nice of you to say, Jihoon-sshi, but we both know that's not true." Jihoon opens his mouth to protest but Mingyu continues, not letting him get a word in edgewise. "I know I'm pathetic for still being so sensitive about my mother. It's been ten years since she passed for god's sake and yet-"

"But what they said was unfair," This is personal in a way Jihoon never allows himself to be around any of his clients. This entire conversation is out of line. Him holding Mingyu so close is out of line. Him wanting to personally wipe every tear on Mingyu's face is out of line. But right now, Mingyu's entire unwavering attention is focused on Jihoon, and he is already in too deep. He can hardly see the sun, can hardly wade out from the ocean of Mingyu's heart-wrenchingly sincere eyes. "You didn't deserve it, and neither did her late highness."

Mingyu smiles that bittersweet smile again, but now it's laced with a kind of grief that Jihoon hasn’t seen before. Slowly, Mingyu untangles himself from Jihoon's arms and Jihoon quickly lets him go, eager to respect Mingyu's physical boundaries. They'd already been standing like that for longer than should be appropriate for a prince and his bodyguard.

Mingyu turns around to look out at the gardens, staring off at a distant spot like he's suddenly transported somewhere else, and Jihoon matches Mingyu's stance, standing right beside him.

"I don't know if you know this, Jihoon-shhi," Mingyu begins, soft and resigned, "But my mother didn’t come from wealth or nobility. She was a primary school teacher when my father met her - she'd been volunteering at the children's library my father visits every year on Christmas day to read to underprivileged children, and they were immediately taken with each other."

Though Jihoon hadn't been born by then, he's read about it all. It had caused quite the stir back then - Kim Moonshik, the first ever Korean monarch to court (and eventually marry) a ‘commoner’ as they say. The royal family being up in arms about it, but not quite succeeding in dissuading the young king from marrying her. But Jihoon also remembers reading that the marriage had boosted Moonshik's popularity tremendously among the public, had made him seem a more palatable, a more humane king. Her highness Kim Soojung has always been remembered as a kind and compassionate queen, a worthy partner for King Moonshik. 

He can only imagine how hard it must have been for Mingyu to lose her at such a young age.

"Halmeoni hated her," Mingyu continues, "Eomma was never easily impressed with royal protocol and always stood up for what she thought was right. I think halmeoni hates me for the exact same reason. I’ve always wanted to be like my mother."

As Mingyu says this, his smile lights up by a fraction. Gets less bitter, more sweet. 

Mingyu looks so much younger when he smiles like that. Impossibly handsome in a way that threatens to steal Jihoon's breath away.

"I can't bear to hear them say all those horrible things about her, you know?" Mingyu says, soft as a whisper. "They can say whatever they like about me, but I can't bear it when they insult eomma. She was ten times the person any of them could hope to be."

So are you. The thought comes so easily to Jihoon, he is rendered speechless for a moment. He shuts his eyes and gathers himself. 

No, he thinks. Despite all of this, despite this entire conversation and of how close they are standing beside each other right now, despite how badly Jihoon wants to hold Mingyu’s hand again. Despite his stuttering heartbeat, the wealth of emotions welling under his ribcage. Jihoon has to stay professional. Jihoon has to keep it together.

When Jihoon doesn't answer for a while, Mingyu's ears turn red. He fidgets with the metal of his cufflinks, gets oddly bashful.

"Wow, I overshared, didn't I?" He says, not meeting Jihoon's eyes, "God, I can't believe I keep making a total fool of myself around you. I promise it won't happen again, Jihoon-sshi."

"Mingyu-sshi, you have nothing to worry about." Jihoon can't keep the tremor out of his voice, can’t keep himself from being blatantly obvious about how drawn to Mingyu he is, in this moment. "All you have done so far is make me respect you."

Mingyu’s gaze snaps to Jihoon with alarming quickness, his eyes a tad wide, like he’s startled by Jihoon’s compliment. Like he didn’t expect it at all.

Jihoon’s heart does that ridiculous little thing once again - that thing where it only wants to tell Mingyu how brave he is, only wants to protect Mingyu from everything. Jihoon can’t keep it in check no matter how much he tries.

“Y-you really mean that?” Mingyu asks, and the question is so painfully earnest, Jihoon has to grit his teeth so he doesn’t evaporate on the spot.

“I do, Mingyu-sshi.” Jihoon says.“I really do.”

Mingyu’s smile grows, grows, grows until it is blinding, until it is brighter than the moonlight shrouding them from the darkness outside.

“You’re so strange, Jihoon-sshi,” Mingyu replies, and there is a hint of teasing there. Perhaps even a hint of fondness. “But I’m strange too, so it’s okay.”

Chapter Text

When Jeonghan’s phone lights up with a notification, it’s nearly midnight.

He’s up late in his office again, poring through sheaves upon sheaves of paperwork various members of royal staff have put together about the Dissolution plebiscite. Jeonghan has been looking at this particular file so long the words almost swim on the page, his head pounding in the aftermath. The days leading up to the public vote have been inundated with press briefings and public appearances and subtle and not-so-subtle campaigning to make sure people don’t vote the royals out of their wealth,  and Jeonghan feels like he’s already hanging by a thread, like every hair on his head will turn prematurely grey simply because of the amount of things he has on his plate right now. Not that he isn’t used to this job being hectic, but nothing quite prepares you for the possibility that the very institution you have dedicated pretty much all your adult life to could collapse like a pile of bricks with the merest nudge.

And as if all of this wasn’t enough, there’s the constantly looming threat to Prince Mingyu’s life, with no easy resolution on the horizon. Even with a personal bodyguard keeping an eye on him, Jeonghan still can’t help but spend every waking moment terrified for Mingyu’s sake. He knows Mingyu, knows how careless he can be about his own wellbeing, always so desperate to put others before himself. If something were to happen to him…

Jeonghan can’t even consider that thought without his blood turning ice-cold.

And so, when he unlocks his phone and sees the blinkering green of his message icon open to:

need to talk. meet me @ our usual? i’ll be waiting

Jeonghan is almost flooded with a sense of relief. Which is crazy, because the message should be cause for even more concern, if not active paranoia - it’s more cryptic than he’s used to, and there’s no way to interpret it other than apprehending bad news. But the one thing Jeonghan does know is that whatever it implies, whatever lies on the other end of need to talk, it’s definitely aeons better than sitting here and going through strategy upon strategy on how to make the royal family look good in the eyes of the public. 

He needs a break anyway.

Jeonghan gets up more eagerly than he should, grabs his coat and phone, walks out the door without wasting a single second. One major perk of being in charge of pretty much everyone who works for the royal family (even if he’s younger than half of them) is that he can bypass palace security without a hitch. Mingyu might have to be extra discreet when he does it, but Jeonghan has to barely press a command on his phone to get the Eastern Gate to open for him. He could slip outside the palace walls and disappear into the darkness of the night like a chameleon, and no one - let alone Junhui - would ever know.

Again unlike Mingyu, he does take his car when he has to covertly sneak away into the heart of the city. His car is far less flashy (though the king has offered more than once to buy him a Porsche, he has declined every single time) and hence, blends in seamlessly  with the swarming traffic. He drives past burroughs and bylanes, speeding only the slightest bit so he can justify it because he’s in a rush, but can’t help but bask in the thrill of it regardless. It’s always freeing to just...escape from his responsibilities for a while. To escape from being Yoon Jeonghan, palace chief-of-staff, and be Yoon Jeonghan, the twenty-seven-year-old who never quite got to be reckless and wild in his twenties, who’s still figuring out his footing in life.

He kind of gets why Mingyu does this so often.

When he finally parks in a deserted alley somewhere in the endlessly elusive depths of Yonsang-gu, his phone lights up with another notification.

nice paint job, the message says this time. is it new?

Jeonghan rolls his eyes as he turns off the engine, finally stepping out of the car to face the strikingly familiar figure lounging against the wall right opposite him.

“You know it’s not new,” Jeonghan says with a pointed glare, but it lacks any real heat, “I don’t like getting paint jobs, and I don’t like my car looking fancy.”

Choi Seungcheol’s face breaks into a rakish lopsided grin, that very same grin he often directs at Jeonghan - that he has directed at Jeonghan for almost a year now. The very same grin which makes something inexplicable flutter at the pit of Jeonghan’s stomach, though he wouldn’t admit it even if he was being held at gunpoint.

“I know,” Seungcheol says, withdrawing a hand from the pocket of his coat and running it through the curls of hair, ruffling them up even further, “But it’s fun to tease you anyway.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” Jeonghan replies humorlessly, leaning against the frame of his humble and very-much-devoid-of-fresh-paint-jobs hyundai. The alley is quite narrow, and Jeonghan’s car takes up most of the space, not leaving enough distance between the two of them despite the fact that they are standing a few paces apart from each other. Seungcheol has a penchant for picking meeting spots like this - a little too intimate, a little too caged-in. Jeonghan never can quite tell whether the subtle acceleration of his pulse is from a fight-or-flight reflex, or from being close enough to Choi Seungcheol that he can smell his earthy cologne, can count each eyelash.

“Is that why you made me drive halfway across town?” Jeonghan forces himself to say so his train of thought doesn’t veer off course, “Because you wanted to make fun of me?”

 Seungcheol chuckles, and Jeonghan refuses to let his mind linger on the sound, on how handsome Seungcheol looks even in a dimly lit alleyway with his coat collar popped out and his left hand in his pocket. 

“Not technically,” Seungcheol replies, “But I do consider it an added bonus. You’re just so easy to rile up, Jeonghannie.”

Jeonghan grunts and kicks a stray pebble in frustration, hauntingly aware of how right Seungcheol is. He’s usually not this easy, in fact, is quite the opposite. He can charm countless men with a single bat of his eyelash, can maneuver someone’s opinion on a subject through the mere use of a word or sentence or an arched brow. But Choi Seungcheol sets everything out of balance, renders all his carefully-honed incubus-adjacent powers useless.

God, as beautiful as Choi Seungcheol is, he is a million times more infuriating. 

“Whatever,” Jeonghan replies, hoping it sounds stern and business-like, “Can we get to the point now? What did you want to talk about?”

As soon as he says it, Seungcheol’s demeanour shifts into something more serious. His grin remains intact, but it becomes decidedly less rakish, becomes more subdued, almost a little uncertain. He’s still lounging against the wall, but he stands up straighter, removing his left hand from his pocket to idly adjust the hem of his coat. It seems like he’s gearing up to say something unsavoury, and Jeonghan’s heart briefly sinks, hoping against hope that it isn’t something totally disastrous.

“It’s about our mutual friend.” Seungcheol says, and there it is.

Of course that’s the reason Seungcheol wanted to talk. That’s always the reason he wants to talk. It’s what their whole agreement is based on in this first place, isn’t it?

(In another winter - exactly a year ago now - Jeonghan had tracked Seungcheol down with a frantic intensity, fully intending to grab him by the collar and warn him to stay far far away from Mingyu. Perhaps, Jeonghan hadn’t been thinking clearly; perhaps, he’d been too deep in the throes of mingled fear and rage upon discovering that the royal heir’s new best friend was none other than the very man who was the face of the anti-royal movement. He was scared of the scandal it would cause if word got out, he was angry at Mingyu for being so fucking careless. 

But more importantly, he was worried about Mingyu. He was worried that this Choi Seungcheol person would only use sweet, naive Mingyu for his own ends.

 But by the time Jeonghan had shown up at the bar Seungcheol and his cronies frequented, and had walked up to said Choi Seungcheol all ready for battle, the man had only smiled softly. 

“What do you want from Mingyu?” Jeonghan had asked, exasperated.

“I don’t understand that question,” Seungcheol had almost frowned a little, though his smile had continued to be kind, soft. “We’re just friends, Jeonghan-sshi. I just want to be his friend.”

Jeonghan had desperately wanted to not believe him. Jeonghan had desperately wanted to grab the nearest drink and throw it in Choi Seungcheol’s face. But Seungcheol’s tone had been sincere, his eyes warm and compassionate, and Jeonghan wasn’t cruel. Neither was he stupid.

“Okay fine,” Jeonghan had replied, letting the tension in his shoulders bleed out, “I’ll allow you to be Mingyu’s friend, but on one condition. You have to report back to me with updates on whatever it is you two are upto, because Mingyu sure as hell won’t tell me anything.”

Seungcheol had looked at him a little weird, like he was trying to suss out whether or not to trust Jeonghan. But something about him must have passed that assessment, because the next thing Seungcheol had said was a little too friendly, perhaps a touch in the realm of banter. “I can’t promise you any of the juicier details, but I’ll make sure you know the basics, Jeonghan-sshi.”)

And so be it. Another clandestinely arranged meeting simply to discuss Kim Mingyu, and that’s all. Not like Seungcheol would want to see Jeonghan for any other reason. He probably doesn’t even like talking to Jeonghan that much. After all, all Jeonghan ever does is glare at him.

“I’ve been looking into both attacks on Mingyu like you had asked - very hush-hush, of course, nothing that can be traced back to me,” Seungcheol is saying, and Jeonghan has to mentally slap himself to pay attention to the actual cause of this meeting. Mingyu, and his wellbeing. “But there’s something odd that’s been bothering me.”

And that’s enough to make Jeonghan snap into alertness. If there’s one thing Jeonghan has learned about Choi Seungcheol in all this time (even if he can only grudgingly admit it), is that Choi Seungcheol’s instincts are almost never wrong. When Seungcheol doesn’t have a good feeling about something, chances are there’s something fishy going on indeed.

Jeonghan does his best to not let the nerves show on his face when he asks, “What’s wrong?”

Seungcheol straightens even further, his grin fading into a small frown, “I think someone’s been tampering with evidence, or god, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the police being paid off to do away with evidence and not follow due diligence? Whatever it is, they’re clearly not doing enough to get to the bottom of this.”

Jeonghan’s heart pounds in his chest. On some deep subconscious level, he always suspected a conspiracy. The attempts on Mingyu’s life in such quick succession of each other, the resulting lacklustre police investigation. The general attitude within the royal family (or at least, everyone except King Moonshik) of wanting to brush this under the carpet rather than treat it with the kind of seriousness it deserves.

But to hear actual confirmation of it from Seungcheol…fuck. It shakes Jeonghan to the very core.

“Take the stabbing incident for example,” Seungcheol continues, getting more worked up by the second. Perhaps he’s as terrified about this whole thing as Jeonghan is, “We had the guy - he was in fucking police custody! But what did the police do? They interrogated him for a few days and then let him go with a warning. The official report says that it’s a ‘mugging gone wrong’, which is bullshit and everyone knows it . The fact that the palace refused to even acknowledge that it happened just made it easier for the police to cover it all up.”

Seungcheol stops for a breath, pinning Jeonghan with a gaze that betrays none of his earlier mirth. It’s swirling with naked concern, with a sense of gravity that Jeonghan didn’t anticipate. It feels so much real now, the threat to Mingyu’s life, and Jeonghan regrets not doing anything more substantial than getting Jihoon to look out for Mingyu and asking Seungcheol to investigate on the side. It’s literally his job to look after the members of the royal family and yet Jeonghan has been so lax when impending danger has been building and building until it could no longer be ignored. He feels like a fucking failure.

“So what’re you saying?” Jeonghan replies, trying to keep his voice steady but not quite succeeding, “That the police are deliberately trying to foil this investigation?”

“I don’t know, Jeonghan,” Seungcheol sighs, his shoulders drooping by an inch, his head falling back against the wall, “But my guess is that the people trying to hurt Mingyu have friends in powerful places, which means they can get away with anything. And perhaps they’re also relying on the royal family’s...apathy towards Mingyu to help them keep it as quiet as possible.”

“You don’t know anything about the royal family and what they feel about Mingyu,” Jeonghan bristles at the implication, though even as he makes his rebuttal, he knows it’s disingenuous. Rising to the royal family’s defence at every turn of the way is an instinct that’s been built deeply into him for years, but that doesn’t mean he’s an ignorant puppet. Seungcheol, as always, is right.

“Maybe I don’t,” Seungcheol smiles wryly, nothing like his rakish grins or soft smiles. This one’s a bitter little thing, crawling under Jeonghan’s skin in a different kind of way, making his head hurt once again. “But even an idiot can tell they wouldn’t hesitate to leave Mingyu in the lurch if they had a choice.”

Jeonghan sucks in a deep breath, swallowing down that terrible instinct that is telling him to once more defend the royals, to refute Seungcheol’s harsh words. But Jeonghan knows there is nothing to defend here. Nothing to redeem the royals from.

“Fine.” Jeonghan says ultimately, “So what do we do now? How do we save Mingyu?”

“I have no fucking clue,” Seungcheol says, but his gaze is more mellow now, more forgiving. “But we have to try our best, don’t we? Mingyu’s like a brother to me and I won’t sit by and let something bad happen to him if I can help it. And if I know you, Yoon Jeonghan, then you won’t either.”

With this Seungcheol pulls himself up from the wall, his body taut with a mixture of determination and something else Jeonghan can’t read. He takes a step forward, and then another, closing the distance between them inch by inch until he’s barely a hair’s breadth away from Jeonghan. Despite the shuddering late-winter chill, Jeonghan feels an unfathomable heat curl around his spine, settling in the base of his neck. His chest rises up and down in a breathless rhythm, and he is tethered to the spot, incorrigibly under Seungcheol's spell.

“Do you want to do this together?” Seungcheol asks, voice barely a whisper, “Track down Mingyu’s perpetrator without getting any authorities involved?”

Jeonghan swallows hard. The heady scent of Seungcheol’s cologne is way too close again, wrapping itself around him like a gentle blanket. Jeonghan’s eyes trace the shape of Seungcheol’s lips, the crinkle at the edge of his eyes, the distinct curve of his nose - and a peculiar sensation continues to bloom in his stomach. 

This time, he can tell it’s not a fight-or-flight reflex.

“When can we start?” Jeonghan whispers in reply, and Seungcheol’s rakish lopsided grin is once again incandescent, once again doing things to Jeonghan he wouldn’t admit to even if held at gunpoint.

Chapter Text

The thing about Kim Mingyu, Jihoon is swiftly finding out, is that no official dossier can begin to sum him up.

The morning after Jihoon stops Mingyu from climbing down the balcony, Mingyu knocks on his door at five am. Jihoon has been up already, midway through his early morning stretches on his somewhat dilapidated yoga mat, but it startles him regardless. Shouldn’t royal princes be accustomed to lying in bed until they absolutely have to be up? Surely, there should be no need for anyone to call on him so early, much less the prince himself.

And yet, when Jihoon opens the door, there he is. 

Kim Mingyu, freshly showered and dressed in a crisp white shirt, looking as resplendent as the first beams of sunlight on a frosty winter morning. Jihoon suddenly feels severely underdressed in his ratty tank top and exercise shorts, but Mingyu doesn’t seem to mind. He gives Jihoon a very unsubtle once-over, but breaks into a smile as soon as their eyes meet.

“Come on,” Mingyu says, “It’s time to tend to my plant babies!”

Plant babies?

The official princely schedule Jeonghan had given Jihoon is dotted with charity luncheons and royal tea parties and countless other social gatherings and public appearances. But this is none of that. This is Mingyu standing at Jihoon’s doorstep with an oddly expectant (yet unquestionably beautiful) smile, rocking on the balls of his feet with bubbling enthusiasm - and all Jihoon can do is nod. All Jihoon can do is to quickly shrug on his trousers and jacket before following Mingyu out the door. 

(It is only later that it dawns on him how easily he’s willing to go along with whatever Mingyu wants him to do. How easily he would follow Mingyu to the ends of the earth and won't hesitate to do it again, and again, and again.)

Mingyu guides Jihoon through a narrow passageway into a section of the palace he doesn’t recognise, but judging from the uniforms of the people milling about, Jihoon can guess these are the servants’ quarters. 

Yet another Prince Mingyu fact not covered in the official dossier: the prince being more at home here than he was back at the family dinner. The prince loitering past the rooms of each member of the palace's domestic help, stopping to greet and make conversation with them, to ask meaningful questions about their day. The prince, dropping by the kitchens to share inside jokes with the cook, to ask the housekeeper how her son is doing, to ask the butler whether his bad hip is feeling any better. The prince, finally leading Jihoon down a cramped staircase and into what appears a secluded spot in one distant corner of the palace backyard, like he’s divulging a well-guarded secret. 

Jihoon is entirely spellbound.

Not simply because of how genuinely fond Mingyu seems to be of the help - perhaps even fonder than he is of his actual biological family - so uncharacteristic of anyone born into infinite wealth, so bafflingly Mingyu. Not simply because of Mingyu’s unfailing earnestness, his passionate intensity.

What truly takes Jihoon’s breath away is the little makeshift garden before him. A patch of unpredictable beauty amidst a forgotten landscape.

Three tiny rows of flowerbeds lie parallel to each other, and to their right, a humble vegetable patch. The reds, whites, blues, and purples of each little bud and petal stand out with startling vivacity against the expanse of a backyard otherwise devoid of character. The little tomatoes and pumpkins of the vegetable patch look endlessly inviting, like someone has nurtured them with the utmost care. And Jihoon can guess who.

“There they are, my babies!” Mingyu says, and though it’s uttered like an exclamation, there’s a lingering shyness underneath the words. Almost as if Mingyu is as embarrassed as he is delighted to show them off to Jihoon. “I started planting them back when I was sixteen, but look how well they’ve grown! Look how pretty they are!”

Almost like he’s submerged in a completely different world, like he’s too impatient to wait for Jihoon’s reply, Mingyu rolls up his sleeves and leans down to inspect one of the flowers, caressing its petals with unbridled reverence. He lowers his nose to brush against the thin stick of pollen peeking out from between the petals, inhaling its scent. The flower engulfs his smile, and for a second, it seems to Jihoon that this is Mingyu’s real kingdom, not the world outside.

“Yeah,” Jihoon replies, mesmerised, “Really really pretty.”

And Jihoon isn’t just referring to the flowers. It’s the sight of Mingyu among the flowers, as vivid as the hues that surround him. It’s the sight of Mingyu in his true element, basking in pure, effervescent joy.

Mingyu beams wider as he looks up to meet Jihoon’s eyes, “They’re all lilies. My mother’s favourite.”

And Jihoon finally has the courage to smile back, to let his heart melt further under the onslaught of yet another surprisingly endearing Prince Mingyu fact that is far beyond the scope of official dossiers. 

“I think you did an amazing job with them, Mingyu-sshi,” he says, unable to keep the tenderness out of his voice, “Your mother would have been proud.”

The briefest hint of an unnameable emotion flickers in the depths of Mingyu’s eyes, but the prince continues to smile at Jihoon with unrestrained delight, continues to burn brighter than the sun. 

“Want to help me water them?” Mingyu asks, and Jihoon feels like a fish caught in a line, being drawn upwards and upwards relentlessly. Resistance is utterly futile, but Jihoon finds he doesn’t quite mind. He’s not strong enough to resist anyway.

“It would be an honour, your highness,” Jihoon replies, attributing the slight waver in his voice to the chill of the morning air. Even though he knows, deep down, it’s not.

“Oh pssh, that’s what they call my father, not me,” Mingyu is quick to correct, “I’m just plain old Mingyu. Just call me Mingyu, Jihoon-sshi.”

There’s nothing plain about you, Jihoon wants to say. But he refrains. Even if he is utterly helpless in resisting Kim Mingyu’s incessant lure, even if right now, all he wants to do is tell Mingyu that he’s the most interesting person Jihoon has ever met - he still knows his boundaries. He is only the bodyguard, not Mingyu’s trusted confidante. And definitely not Mingyu’s friend.

But.

“Then you have to call me hyung,” It slips out anyway, no matter how much he tries to stay within his limits. It’s too much, too informal, perhaps even too vulnerable, but-

Mingyu’s responding giggle is even more carefree than his earlier smiles, the sound piercing deep into Jihoon’s soul. Jihoon knows his blush is far too obvious, far too revealing of the tremors Mingyu has caused within his heart, but there are some things Jihoon can’t hide, despite his years of training and experience. But perhaps it’s worth it, when it makes Mingyu’s entire being light up with joy, when it makes Mingyu laugh so hard, his head thrown back with the force of his mirth. 

When he comes to, looking up at Jihoon again with those eyes that contain galaxies within them, his gaze is honey-warm. And if Jihoon was allowing himself to be bolder, he would interpret it as something akin to fondness. 

“Okay, hyung,” Mingyu replies, amused, “Now will you get me the watering pipe? Gardener-nim keeps it behind that fountain.”

The hyung - laced with the barest hint of a lisp - does unprecedented things to Jihoon’s stomach, but he forces himself to not dwell on it. Instead, he complies with Mingyu’s request, turning around to head towards the fountain Mingyu points out to him. But not before he sneaks one last glance at Mingyu.

A stray butterfly has settled on top of Mingyu’s nose, and Mingyu is once again giggling in delight. Placing a gentle hand over his nose, he cups the butterfly so it can crawl onto his palm. For a long second, Mingyu stares at it with evident affection, cooing and clucking at it. But in the next second, he slowly jerks his palm upwards as if prompting the butterfly to fly away. The butterfly hesitates for a moment, teetering on the edge of Mingyu's pinky, but before Jihoon can blink, it’s gone in a flash of brisk insect wings. 

Mingyu giggles one last time, mouths, cute , as he watches the little creature circle back in the early morning air. 

But then, without warning, his eyes land on Jihoon, catching him staring red-handed.

And Jihoon should look away, he really should - should at least muster up a modicum of shame, if nothing else - but all he can do instead is to stare back, to keep staring, to keep being fascinated by this baffling prince who upends Jihoon’s expectations at every turn.

The smile Mingyu directs at him is again honey-warm, and yeah.

That wasn’t in the official dossier either.

Maybe Jihoon has breached a boundary already.

---

When Moonshik had insisted Jihoon not only move into the palace, but move into the room literally next door, Mingyu’s first instinct had been to protest.

Though, of course, his protests had been futile. 

Moonshik had been far too distraught after the incident at East Itaewon, determined to make sure Mingyu didn’t end up in a situation like that again. Mingyu couldn’t tell him that he’d been there voluntarily, that the neighbourhood Moonshik was so ready to label ‘dangerous’ was a place where Mingyu felt far more comfortable in his skin than he did at the palace. So after a point, Mingyu had given in, had accepted the inevitable: Lee Jihoon becoming a permanent fixture in his daily life.

Albeit, Lee Jihoon turned out to be nothing like the gruff, unfriendly bodyguards Mingyu had been expecting - on the contrary, he was handsome and competent and almost unfathomably kind - but Mingyu had held on to his reservations about being watched, about being under constant supervision. Even if that supervision came from the very man Mingyu did not hesitate to trust from the moment he met him. Even if that supervision was for Mingyu’s own safety.

But something had changed that night on the balcony, something about being held so gently in Jihoon’s arms - arms that could tackle a man twice its size to the ground within seconds - something about being heard, being empathised with. Something about being called brilliant. 

Jihoon had looked at Mingyu like he was a real person, flesh-and-blood rather than merely an empty symbol, merely a prince. It had been oddly exhilarating.

And perhaps, especially now, when he is once again confined to the palace in the most unbearable of ways, a bird in a net until Jeonghan relents and allows him his nightly excursions - living in a room right next to Lee Jihoon isn’t quite so unbearable.

With hardly anything to do beyond attending mindnumbingly dull social events on behalf of the royal family (where his grandmother has forbidden him to say anything remotely ‘controversial’ about the Dissolution Bill), Mingyu has been focusing all his energy in tending to his garden. And Jihoon has become his unlikely companion.

After that first morning, it becomes a comforting routine. Every day at five am sharp, Mingyu will knock on Jihoon’s door, and Jihoon will be ready for him, dressed in neatly ironed khaki pants and linen shirt. Mingyu will try to ignore the subtle swooping in his stomach at how handsome Jihoon looks even outside of a well-fitted suit, and they will trudge along to the backyard together to work in companionable silence. Jihoon has deft hands, calloused from physical combat but impossibly mellow when handling the flowers, when digging through the mud to weed out overgrowth or stray insects. Mingyu will be entirely unable to keep his attention from lingering on those hands, on the veins running up Jihoon’s arms, disappearing into his rolled shirtsleeves. Jihoon will sometimes notice Mingyu staring, will look up to meet Mingyu’s eyes, will go slightly red in the ear. Mingyu will deny that it’s endearing, but that strange swooping in his stomach will return, suggesting otherwise.

These days, Mingyu is attempting to add a new strain of lilies to his garden - the tiger lily, rarely found in Korea, but still harvestable with the correct type of soil and planting conditions. When Mingyu isn’t reading up extensively on the Dissolution plebiscite (and texting Seungcheol for minute-by-minute updates on what’s happening on ground), he devotes every bit of free time researching soil compositions and horticulture techniques. It’s nothing out of the ordinary - he’s not a stranger to consuming book upon book on gardening methodology and then attempting to implement that knowledge in his backyard - but now, perhaps, it means a bit more.

Now, he has someone to share it all with.

Now, at this exact moment, Jihoon is eerily close, working side-by-side with him as they settle into a rhythm, digging a new row in the flowerbed, planting each tiger-lily seed in its place. Jihoon’s sleeves are rolled up once again, exposing his toned forearms, and Mingyu has to focus extra hard not to slip on the mud under his scuffed boots.

“The ground’s a little too wet in this spot, isn’t it?” Jihoon asks, snapping Mingyu out of daydreaming about strong veiny arms, “Are you sure that’s good for the seeds to grow?”

Jihoon often surprises Mingyu with insightful questions like this. Perhaps his attention to detail, his quick picking-up-of-skills, is a byproduct of his martial arts training, but it never fails to impress Mingyu every single time, never fails to make him see Lee Jihoon in an all new light.

Jihoon doesn’t have to do this, doesn’t have to humour Mingyu to the extent that he not only helps with the gardening but also invests enough energy to actually care if the plants will grow. But Jihoon does it anyway. Jihoon humours Mingyu anyway.

It’s a completely new experience, but Mingyu finds that he quite likes it.

“Don’t worry,” Mingyu replies with a smile, “It’s still winter, so the weather will be dry for the next few weeks. The extra moisture from the soil will seep out.”

Jihoon smiles back, shoveling soil over a planted seed, “You’re really good at this aren’t you?”

Mingyu simply shrugs, but he can’t help but feel a little giddy at the compliment, “What can I say, hyung, I’m a man of many talents. And you still have a lot to learn.”

Jihoon’s responding chuckle is quiet, but incredibly warm. Mingyu feels it in his very toes. “I’m sure, I’m sure.” Jihoon replies, “I wouldn’t expect any less from the people’s prince.”

Ever since Jihoon gave Mingyu license to call him hyung, it slides off his tongue easily, carrying with it a sense of familiarity Mingyu only accords to his closest friends and confidantes (which are, unfortunately, few in number). Jihoon was the last person Mingyu had expected to warm up to like this - and yet, here they are. Mingyu, drawn in irresistibly by Jihoon’s gentleness, Jihoon, making it so easy to talk to him, so easy to slip into indulgent banter.

“I’m glad,” Mingyu replies, and perhaps it comes out more sincere than he intends it. Jihoon pauses his seed-planting to stare at Mingyu again, his smile melting into a different kind of look, heartstoppingly tender.

“Did you really learn it all on your own?” Jihoon asks, like he genuinely wants to know. No one, not even Seungcheol, has asked him this question, has taken interest in parsing out why Mingyu - someone born into the luxuries of a royal title - would want to take up something as seemingly trivial as gardening in the first place.

“Not really,” Mingyu replies, a tad reticent. It’s been years, and yet it’s still hard to talk about this, to think back to the first moment when he vowed to himself that he will do this, even if it sends his grandmother into an early coronary. He will do this, even if his father shakes his head at him in resignation. “My mother, she...there was a greenhouse that she once personally maintained, right in this very spot. She-”

She used to love it so much, that humble glass-house that she built with every bit of her blood, sweat and tears, where every bloom and every strain of plant was a product of her endless love and nourishment. Mingyu remembers being barely a toddler and watching in unceasing admiration as she sang to her plants while watering them, as she paused her singing only to tell little Mingyu new and interesting botanical facts.

“After she died,” Mingyu continues, lost in another time, “My grandmother and uncle decided that the greenhouse would take up too many resources to maintain-”

He almost laughs bitterly at the thought - the very people who would gladly purchase expensive mansions in the middle of an economic crisis, dismissing one small greenhouse as a waste of resources-

“And they had it demolished.” Mingyu sighs, staring at the soil so Jihoon won’t see the hint of redness at the edge of his pupils. He doesn’t want to cry and make a fool of himself around his bodyguard again. “The worst part is that appa just let it happen. He didn’t even say anything.”

The atmosphere between them has suddenly shifted, the lump in Mingyu’s throat making it harder to slip back into the banter of before. He hates that he’s still so deeply affected by anything to do with his mother, but it’s hard not to when the grief still governs every bit of who he is as a person, when the lack of closure makes it hard to breathe on some days.

But Jihoon - infuriatingly kind Lee Jihoon - is as tender as ever. He abandons the soil in his fingers to reach for Mingyu, to place a mud-coated finger atop Mingyu’s shaky wrists. “I’m so sorry,” Jihoon says, “That must have been so difficult.”

Mingyu exhales a long, ragged breath. “Yeah, I, um -Yeah.”

“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t need to talk about it if it’s-”

“No, I want to.” Mingyu reassures, “I actually don’t talk about this at all and it feels good to get it off my chest. I-”

Jihoon’s finger on his wrist is both fragile and firm, both steady and vacillating. Mingyu doesn’t know why this keeps happening, but the touch calms him, making the air in his lungs flow a little more freely.

“After they tore down her greenhouse, I wanted to do something to remember her,” Mingyu finds it in himself to continue, his resolve trickling back into circulation, “That’s why I planted this garden here, in the exact place where her greenhouse used to be - you can call it a rebellion, maybe, but it’s more a tribute to her than anything. Most of my family don’t know it even exists, they hardly ever come to this backyard.”

Mingyu keeps looking down at the ground, where he’s finished burrowing the last set of tiger-lily seeds, where the soil is a dark brunet, almost the colour of ink. Jihoon is quiet, only the sound of his even breathing permeating the air, and something absurd and perplexing ferments in the pit of his stomach, taking on a daunting shape. But Jihoon’s mud-stained touch is continuously addictive, continuously the very epitome of heartstopping tenderness. Mingyu can only sigh.

“I stand by what I said the other night,” Jihoon finally breaks the silence, his tone petal-soft, “You’re brilliant, Mingyu-yah.”

And there it is again, that terrible tugging in his heart, that terrible swooping sensation in his intestine. 

But he doesn’t think he can ignore it this time.

---

There is an added chill in the air tonight, not unusual for late-February, though that’s not why Mingyu is nearly vibrating out of his skin.

As Mingyu walks down the familiar street leading to his favourite bar, it’s anticipation that is sizzling through his veins, that particular feeling of freedom he only experiences when he’s here, far far away from the palace. 

Here, where his people are.

(He’d begged Jeonghan to let him come out tonight, even if Jeonghan had been totally opposed to the idea at first. Mingyu had to keep insisting he would be extra careful, that he would dial Jeonghan’s number the minute he found something amiss, that he would let Seungcheol keep a strict eye on him. 

Perhaps it was the mention of Seungcheol’s name that had finally convinced him, or perhaps it had been the desperation in Mingyu’s eyes when he had all but prostrated himself, “Please, hyung? Please let me have this for just one night?”

But Jeonghan had ultimately given in, letting out a long and exhausted  sigh. “Fine,” he’d replied, one hand massaging his temple and the other loosening his tie. “Take Jihoon with you, though. I’ll make sure King Moonshik doesn’t get to know.”)

Surprisingly enough, Mingyu doesn’t resent Jihoon being here with him tonight. It's bizarre, considering how under any other circumstances, with anyone else, Mingyu would immediately feel out of sorts about it. This is not a life Mingyu likes sharing with those who see him within the confines of the palace, those who see him day in and day out as Prince Mingyu, royal heir . Not even Jeonghan. 

This, right here, is reserved for something else. Something real, beyond any trappings of dynasty or personal history. The people here have never, for a single moment, been impressed by his title or his station in life, and perhaps that is the very thing which is so utterly liberating about this place. Here, he is just Mingyu, the twenty-two year old boy who wants to soak up all the knowledge the world has to offer, the twenty-two year old boy who just wants to be young.

Sharing it with Jihoon feels like he’s making himself dreadfully vulnerable, raw and exposed in a way Mingyu rarely allows himself to be. And yet, like everything else about Jihoon, it's surprisingly easy. 

As easy as that night at the balcony, when Mingyu had opened up about his mother, and Jihoon had understood every last sentiment, had held Mingyu like he was something worth holding. As easy as their times in the backyard garden, where Mingyu has begun to unfold parts of himself he never thought he could concede, never thought he could disseminate.

“Come on,” he beckons to Jihoon beside him, “It’s right around the corner!”

Jihoon follows diligently, easily keeping pace with Mingyu despite the longer strides he’s taking. Mingyu rushes towards the run-down establishment like a bird finally released from his net, and he can’t afford to slow down. He can’t stymy the infinite reserves of adrenaline pulsing through him.

Jihoon, however, doesn’t seem to be fazed by their surroundings (or by Mingyu’s visible excitement) at all. His eyes are carefully scanning the perimeter for any potential threats, ever-meticulous and ever-alert, and yet there is an indulgent smile on his lips that Mingyu finds unquestionably beautiful. Jihoon isn’t that expressive around him - perhaps because he’s trained to be steadfastly professional - but Mingyu likes seeing these little glimpses of emotion, these subtle inroads into his endlessly fascinating personality.

“So this is where you come when you sneak out of the palace?” Jihoon asks when they’re at the bar’s entrance, but the words are brimming with genuine curiosity, far from the kind of condescension Mingyu would receive if anybody else associated with the royal family found out he comes here.

“Most of the time, yeah,” Mingyu replies with a self-conscious smile, “Do you like it?”

Jihoon only nods, but his responding smile broadens by an inch, thawing the very depths of Mingyu’s heart. Mingyu doesn’t know why Jihoon’s approval matters so much to him all of a sudden, but he is inordinately glad to be on its receiving end.

Without further ado, Mingyu guides them into the warm, inviting interiors of the bar, bubbling with the din of it's Friday night crowd. Immediately, the tightness in Mingyu's chest that has persisted like a burr in his side in the days he spent cooped up in the palace, evaporates. 

"Mingyu, there you are!" Seokmin bellows, bounding over to envelop him into a hug. "I'm so glad you made it!"

"I'm glad I made it too," Mingyu smiles into the hug. "Happy birthday, Seokmin-ah."

He first met Lee Seokmin - Seungcheol's half brother - nine months ago, at this very bar. Seokmin was in the second year of his political science degree then, bright-eyed, deeply passionate, and assisting on Seungcheol's election campaign. They bonded not only because they were of the same age, but because Seokmin too had similar aspirations about helping people, about working towards real change, about demolishing oppressive structures that further economic inequality. He too frequents the bar, and Mingyu always loves hanging out with him whenever they're here at the same time, loves basking in Seokmin's endless optimism and generosity. 

That's why it was so important for Mingyu to come here tonight, of all nights - Seokmin was turning twenty-three, after all. His boyfriend Minghao was throwing him a little birthday party here at the bar, and Mingyu couldn't have missed it for the world, even if it meant begging and pleading before Jeonghan a truly embarrassing amount.

"And is this the infamous bodyguard?" Seokmin asks once they separate from their hug, eyes curiously assessing Jihoon.

But Jihoon continues to be unfazed, continues to smile at them indulgently. "I'm Lee Jihoon," he says, extending his hand for Seokmin to shake, "Not as infamous as one might think, but definitely the bodyguard."

Seokmin chuckles at that, eagerly shaking Jihoon's hand. "You didn't tell me he was funny, Mingyu-yah," he says, and Mingyu is flooded with an inexplicable sense of warmth and satisfaction, his toes tingling at the prospect of Seokmin taking a shine to Jihoon. He doesn't want to examine why his friends' approval of Jihoon matters to him too but once again, he decides to simply accept it, revel in it.

"Mingyu!" comes another enthusiastic shout, equal parts frantic and sweet - a welcome shower of rain after a terrible, terrible drought. Before he can even properly look up to greet the person the shout belongs to, he is enveloped into another tight, overwhelmingly affectionate hug. "How are you?” The shout melds into a gentle whisper, “You got here okay, right? No sign of trouble?"

Mingyu smiles even brighter, tightening his grip around his hugger's waist and leaning into the hug for a little longer. "I'm okay, hyung," he murmurs in reply, "Please don't worry about me."

Seungcheol disentangles himself from Mingyu and looks at him with a gaze that clearly betrays he's not buying it even one bit. "You keep saying that," Seungcheol replies, "But the last time you told me not to worry about you, you nearly got stabbed barely two lanes away from here."

"Now, now, hyung," comes another voice, the hangul tinged with a recognisable twang, "Let's not talk about such morose things on Seokmin's birthday, yeah? Gyu just got here!"

Minghao, as slender and radiant as ever, beams at Mingyu. "We're just glad you're here to celebrate with us, Gyu-yah." Instead of a hug, Minghao tiptoes up to kiss Mingyu gently on the cheek, because Minghao is delicate like that. "Cheolie hyung's been kind of on-edge about this whole thing, but he just loves you. We all do."

Sometimes, Mingyu doesn't know what to do with all the affection that surrounds him here. He's perpetually convinced that he's done nothing to deserve it, has done nothing to earn the love and concern of all these wonderful people, but he allows himself to bask in it anyway. It feels like the greatest privilege, the most valuable of treasures. 

"I love you guys too. All of you." he says, meaning every word, "It feels like ages since I've seen all of you together at the same time."

"It sure has," Seokmin is the one who replies, his smile as soft as Minghao's. Seungcheol’s concern is still distinctly present in every curve of his body language, but that lopsided grin Mingyu loves so much is playing at the corners of his mouth, casting his handsome face into spun gold.

Mingyu finally feels like he's home.

"Come along, everyone's been waiting for you," Seungcheol says then, ushering them to a booth towards the back of the bar. "You too, Jihoon-sshi."

So far, Jihoon had been quietly witnessing the entire exchange, standing back to let Mingyu have his private moments of reconciliation with his friends (because Jihoon is awfully perceptive, because Jihoon knows exactly when to give Mingyu space, knows how to anticipate Mingyu's emotional needs), but this is his cue to rejoin their little circle, to nod in response to Seungcheol's request.

But Jihoon sticks close to Mingyu as they follow Seungcheol and the others to their booth, his presence both a pleasant salve and a heady rush. As they turn the corner to the cramped table piled with plates of fried chicken and pitchers of beer, they are met with a series of even more excitable shouts and warm welcomes.

"Ah, Kim Mingyu-yah, the apple of our eye!" Soonyoung barks, and Wonwoo laughs along beside him. Joshua's there too, getting up to give Mingyu yet another tight, loving hug.

"So, there you have it. These are my friends," he leans in to explain to Jihoon once they have finally settled down, bodies flush against each other on the leather couch that's currently at full capacity. Mingyu is trying hard not to notice how close Jihoon is seated beside him, how clearly he can trace the piercings in Jihoon's ear as he murmurs into it, "You must know Seungcheol hyung already, and you met Seokmin earlier - who's the birthday boy, by the way - and his boyfriend Minghao, the next greatest photojournalist from China."

"Oh you flatter me too much, Gyu-yah,” Minghao interjects, “I still haven’t even graduated journalism school!” But Mingyu shushes his protests, eagerly lathering praises on these lovely bunch of people he calls his friends. He tells Jihoon how Minghao has just bagged a big internship, and how proud Mingyu is of him because of it. Jihoon’s smile keeps expanding with every word Mingyu says, his gaze glinting with a deference that makes Mingyu feel even more giddy inside than he already is.

"That's Soonyoung hyung and Wonwoo hyung," Mingyu continues, pointing to the two men in question, "They went to college with Cheol hyung and eventually became the chief advisors on his election campaign. After hyung won his Assembly seat, they’ve been his top political strategists."

"Ah, but we're friends before we're colleagues, Gyu-yah!" Wonwoo replies, but his tone is full of mirth, his eyes kind as he reaches to shake Jihoon’s hand.

"Noted," Jihoon replies with a smile, and Mingyu’s veins buzz with that peculiar sense of thrill - the thrill of watching Jihoon get along with some of his favourite people in the world.

"And finally, this is Shua hyung," Mingyu adds, pointing to Joshua, who offers a tiny wave in response. "He's Seungcheol hyung's communications manager and is crazy skilled with languages."

“Yah, Mingyu-yah,” Joshua whines playfully, “I only speak three languages.”

But before Mingyu can insist otherwise, Jihoon is the one who cuts in. “That’s still impressive, Joshua-sshi,” he says, the genuine admiration in his tone making Mingyu’s toes curl, “You must be very talented.”

“Thank you,” Joshua flushes an adorable shade of pink, and the entire table erupts into another set of loud cheers - Mingyu the loudest of them all. 

"And this," Mingyu finally adds, this time pointing at Jihoon, "is-"

"Lee Jihoon, yes we know." Soonyoung says, reaching over to clap Jihoon on the back. Jihoon smiles again, biting his lip bashfully. Mingyu doesn’t want to be endeared by it, but he is nevertheless. "Nice to finally put a face to the name, Jihoon-sshi. Mingyu keeps talking about you on the groupchat all the time."

“Soonyoung hyung!” Mingyu protests, and it’s his turn to pinken now. He’s far too aware of the curious glance Jihoon throws at him, though of course, his smile is still intact, still unbearably indulgent.

“All good things, I hope.” Jihoon says, so mild and sweet it makes Mingyu’s veins buzz again.

“Oh you have no idea,” Soonyoung replies and everyone laughs knowingly. Mingyu’s blush is probably blatantly obvious at this point, his heart beating faster, but Jihoon’s steady presence by his side - his leg brushing against Mingyu’s under the table, barely-there but so tangible - grounds him, like it always has the tendency to do.

“Okay, okay, that’s enough teasing,” Seungcheol intervenes, “Let’s get another round of drinks, shall we?”

Everyone nods enthusiastically and Seungcheol gestures to one of the servers, ordering them an insane amount of soju and more fried chicken. Mingyu seamlessly descends into the easy, amicable banter that is commonplace among them, asking after what each of his friends have been upto while Mingyu has been stuck in the palace, listening to Minghao complain about a paper he has due next week, listening to Joshua’s stories of his recent trip to Los Angeles, listening to Wonwoo talk about the book he’s currently reading. Jihoon listens too, but he’s more of a quiet observer than an active participant. He chips in with occasional responses, but for the most part, he’s content to sit there and watch, because that’s what Jihoon does best, doesn’t he? Mingyu is getting more and more used to it, is learning to relish in it rather than feel drawn and quartered in its wake. 

Mingyu has learned to read Jihoon’s silences too, the meanings behind his soft smiles, behind his careful touches, his subtle movements. Mingyu can tell Jihoon is enjoying himself.  

Seungcheol keeps staring at Jihoon with open scrutiny, his brows slightly furrowed like he’s assessing a possible threat. Mingyu throws him a look that he hopes will convey, stop it, you can trust him, he’s saved my life before. But Seungcheol can be a bit stubborn when he wants to be. He reminds Mingyu of his father sometimes (though, sometimes is the operative word here).  

Mingyu decides to change the subject - or rather, decides to bring up the one subject he’s been itching to broach this entire time, the one thing that’s been constantly on his mind lately.

“The public vote’s just three weeks away now, isn’t it?” he begins, “How’s the campaigning going?”

The bustle on their table multiplies, everyone (except Jihoon, ofcourse), scrambling to get a word in edgewise. Each person on this table has been intimately involved with the Dissolution Bill from the very beginning. Wonwoo and Soonyoung had helped Seungcheol conceptualise and draft the bill in the first place. Joshua had helped Seungcheol find the right words to both present it to the National Assembly as well as to the general public. Seokmin and Minghao had helped too, going door-to-door to distribute pamphlets and educate each citizen of Seungcheol’s constituency about what the Dissolution would mean, and why it was so necessary. Sometimes, Mingyu gets a little sad that he can only be a bystander to this process, that these people get to be personally engaged with advocating a legislation that is so meaningful, that could turn this country into a democracy at last, while Mingyu can’t even give a public statement about his actual stance on the bill without fearing his family’s wrath and downfall. Nevertheless, Mingyu feels invariably lucky that he at least gets to be around these people, living vicariously through the amazing work they do, constantly learning from them and being inspired by them.

“It’s been an uphill task, I’m not going to lie,” Seungcheol replies after the bustle has settled down an inch, “But I think we’re making some headway, you know?”

“Yah, don’t sell yourself short, hyung!” Wonwoo chides with the gentle nudge of an elbow, and then turns to address Mingyu, “The recent polling numbers are encouraging, Gyu-yah. We’ve had the 18-29 demographic in our favour from the start, but we’re slowly gaining ground among middle-class boomers too. The recession’s hit the stock markets and your cousins keep buying expensive things, so that’s kind of been helping our case.”

Mingyu laughs dryly. How characteristic of his horrible cousins to have zero understanding of the major economic descent the nation is on the verge of. Or perhaps they do understand, but don’t have a single care for it, and that’s characteristic too. Well, at least, their apathy is proving to be of some use.

“We’ve been doing our best to reach out to as many people as possible,” Seokmin adds, “But we need more traction, you know.”

“Mmhmm,” Soonyoung nods in agreement as he takes a long swig of his drink, “Which is why I think Shua hyung’s plan will work.”

“Ooh, what plan?” Mingyu leans forward, nearly jumping out of his seat in anticipation. Jihoon stares at him in mild awe, but Mingyu doesn’t let himself dwell on it, doesn’t allow the swooping of his stomach to reign. Right now, Mingyu is way too caught up in the excitement of clever political strategy.

“It’s nothing much,” Joshua replies with a timid smile, “I simply suggested that we rely on our best asset - Choi Seungcheol and his brilliant speeches. We’re thinking of holding a rally at the Myeongdong night market.”

“A rally!” Mingyu claps his hands together in delight. Oh gosh, he’s missed this terribly. Almost a year ago, when Seungcheol was still an up-and-coming leftist party candidate with barely any prior experience of holding office, he’d won the election almost purely on the basis of his rousing, eloquent speeches. Seungcheol is just so good when he’s up there on a podium, marvelous at commanding a crowd, his passion for social change always reflecting in his passionate words. Mingyu has lost count of how many times he snuck out to attend Seungcheol’s rallies in the months leading up to the Assembly elections, standing there in the crowd entirely rapt by every note, every tenor of everything Seungcheol said. It’s what continues to inspire Mingyu to hope for a better, more equal world.

It’s been a while since Seungcheol spoke at an actual rally, putting forth his political beliefs in precise, yet thoroughly moving terms. Mingyu suddenly doesn’t want to miss a single minute of it.

“Can I come, please?” He says in his most persuasive tone of voice, but before the words are even out, he’s met with a chorus of “Nos”, firm and insistent. Both uttered by Jihoon and Seungcheol.

Seungcheol and Jihoon exchange an inscrutable look - and for a second, Mingyu almost regrets that this is the thing they are finally bonding on - but it’s Jihoon who clears his throat to speak. “Myeongdong market is a major public place, Mingyu. It’ll be hard to secure the perimeter without involving the royal guard.”

And Mingyu immediately deflates, knowing that Jihoon has a point, that he needs to be careful until the police catch the people who’re trying to assassinate him, that involving the royal guard would mean...his father getting to know he’s at a Seungcheol rally. The press getting to know he’s at a Seungcheol rally. A royal scandal of epic proportions.

And yet. There’s that feeling again of being trapped like a bird in a net. Of being unable to contribute anything concrete to a cause that means so much to him.

Perhaps Mingyu’s sulking is a little too evident, because he feels Seungcheol’s reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” Seungcheol says, his voice dripping with empathy and gentleness, “There’s always next time, yeah? And besides, Joshua will be livestreaming it on our social media and Minghao will be taking lots of pictures. You wouldn’t miss out on anything.”

“Okay,” Mingyu relents, sagging against the sofa. He takes a forlorn sip of his drink, but it’s not enough to help him ignore the way Jihoon is looking at him now - a mixture of curiosity and concern and apology rolled all into one. Mingyu doesn’t know how to deal with it. “Guess I’ll just watch the livestream.”

Perhaps the shift in Mingyu’s mood is palpable, perhaps everyone senses it - the resentment, the disappointment - or perhaps they’re already way too used to seeing it all the time. Either way, Wonwoo pours some more soju into Mingyu’s glass, and Joshua places his hand over his on the table, “I promise, Gyu-yah, it’s not a big deal. It’ll just be Seungcheol rambling about the Dissolution Bill, and we’ve all heard him do that a million times before, haven’t we?”

Mingyu knows that Joshua is severely downplaying the importance of the rally. That it’s not easy to get a spot at the Myeongdong market, that the outcome of this could significantly impact the plebiscite. But weirdly enough, Joshua’s reassurances do help. “Yeah,” he replies with a wry smile, downing his drink. “We have.”

“Wait a second,” Soonyoung suddenly interjects, voice slurring only the slightest bit in the aftermath of his fourth shot in a row, “So Jihoon-sshi only wants you to miss the rally because of security reasons, not because, you know, it’s a literal Dissolution rally? ”

He knows Soonyoung is drunk and probably just good-naturedly ribbing on Jihoon, but Mingyu suddenly gets a little defensive anyway. He dreads where this is going. “What do you mean, hyung?” he asks with a frown.

“I mean,” Soonyoung replies, pointing a half-eaten chicken wing at Jihoon, “Doesn’t Jihoon-sshi take objection to the fact that this rally is basically meant to question the very institution that employs him?”

“Hyung.” Mingyu says again, his heart in his throat. He’s never had this conversation with Jihoon before, and truth be told, he’s been afraid to have it. Jihoon has become...an unlikely comrade within the palace, a lungful of fresh oxygen in a space where he often feels like he can’t  breathe freely. He trusts Jihoon too much, already. He-

likes Jihoon. Admires him.

He’s been scared to ask, do your political beliefs coincide with mine? Will you ever be able to support the dismantling of this archaic institution the way I do? He’s been scared of the inevitable no, Mingyu. Your father pays my bills, how can I ever oppose the crown he holds?

And he’s definitely not ready to hear it now. Not now, when it can break his heart into a million pieces, can pulverise the hope that’s been burgeoning in his system since that night in the balcony. Not now, in front of the very people who are spearheading the very movement in question. Not now, not in front of Seungcheol.

“Oh come on, Mingyu,” Soonyoung is saying, “Don’t you want to know where Jihoon-sshi stands on this issue?” he’s still staring straight at Jihoon, eyes awash with a challenge (albeit friendly). “Tell us, Jihoon-sshi. Where do you stand on the Dissolution Bill?”

For a prolonged moment, Jihoon is eerily quiet. The tension in the atmosphere is taut like a rubber string, threatening to snap any moment. Everyone is looking at Jihoon now, their drinks momentarily forgotten, waiting for the make-or-break verdict. Mingyu sneaks a brief glance at Seungcheol to find that his fists are balled on his lap, like he’s poised for the worst. Mingyu can only shut his eyes and send a prayer up to his mother. Please, he thinks. Please say the right thing, Jihoon.

After what seems like an eternity, Jihoon clears his throat again.

“I don’t claim to be very well-versed in politics,” Jihoon says, voice surprisingly even despite being unexpectedly put on the spot, “But I think that, as long as this helps people, as long as it makes systems of government fairer, I’m no one to oppose it, am I?”

“So you’re saying…” Seungcheol’s fists loosen, and so does the knot in Mingyu’s throat.

“I’m saying that I think you should continue the good work you’re doing, Seungcheol-sshi,” Jihoon’s smile returns, and it is somehow warmer, undeniably earnest, “I admire your dedication.”

And just like that, all his misgivings fade. Mingyu feels light as a feather, floating like a cloud in a clear June sky, his entire body tingling with relief and euphoria. He feels foolish to have ever doubted Jihoon, to have worried that Jihoon would turn out to be anything less than unfailingly good. After all, even before Mingyu properly knew him, even before Mingyu had even come around to accepting the idea of having a personal bodyguard, the one fundamental truth he had known about Jihoon was that he’s good. He has always been good.

And now his friends know too. 

Soonyoung’s body language changes completely, melting back into unhindered mirth and camaraderie. He reaches over to pat Jihoon on the back again, says, “ That’s more like it, Jihoon-sshi!” The others smile too, clinking their glasses to toast to Jihoon’s declaration. 

But Mingyu can’t help but look over at Seungcheol, and - his curled fists are fully unclasped, his lopsided grin as incadescendent as ever. He meets Mingyu’s eyes and offers only the most imperceptible of nods, but Mingyu understands what it means. Seungcheol finally approves.

And Mingyu’s heart soars.

“Okay, enough politics talk,” Seokmin says after everyone has taken their turn to pile Jihoon with their thank yous and loud compliments, “It’s my birthday, you guys! We should dance!”

The bar jukebox is playing an old romantic song from the nineties and the tiny dance floor at the other end of the bar is all-but-empty, but Seokmin is unstoppable when he’s decided on something. His words are met with loud bellows of agreement from nearly everyone, and Seokmin takes this as a sign to walk up to the jukebox and cue up a Shinee playlist. Soonyoung and Wonwoo both let out matching squeals of joy and all-but-carry each other to the dance floor. Joshua shakes his head at them with a fond chuckle, but follows them anyway. Seokmin heads back to the table to dramatically extend a hand before Minghao with a, “May I have this dance?” (to which Minghao blushes a bright scarlet) and pulls him onto the dance floor too. 

For a few minutes, it’s just Mingyu and Jihoon and Seungcheol at their table, watching their friends goof around on the dance floor with identical doting smiles, but then Seungcheol’s phone pings with a message and he excuses himself from the table - apparently it's a work thing he can't ignore.

And that leaves only Mingyu and Jihoon, sitting limb-to-limb, nursing their nearly empty glasses. Jihoon has refused to consume any alcohol, insisting from the very beginning that he’s still technically on duty and should refrain. But the others had demanded they buy Jihoon at least one drink, so he had settled for a coke. Mingyu, on the other hand, is three shots down and verging on the territory of comfortably tipsy, which means-

He’s staggeringly aware of every point of contact between him and Jihoon, can feel the muted brush of their pinkies reverberate under his ribcage, can perceive every last muscle underneath the fabric of Jihoon’s trousers, where their thighs are currently touching. 

It’s more intoxicating than all the soju in his system.

“Do you dance, Lee Jihoon?” he intends it to be playful, bordering on friendly banter, but it has the entirely opposite effect. There’s a suggestiveness to it which sends a thrill down his own spine, makes him want to get closer and closer to Jihoon until he can feel Jihoon’s touch everywhere, magnified to the point that it's the only thing his body can focus on.

“Oh, um...not really?” Jihoon replies, and it’s the first time Mingyu has seen him blush properly, his entire face turning red and self-effacing. It’s nothing like the Jihoon of the night when they first met - that Jihoon, who was so precise, so menacing. And yet, that was the same Jihoon who had looked at him with unfathomable empathy, who had told him not to apologise for being rescued. That was the same Jihoon who…

Who is here with him right now, blushing to the very tips of his ears because of a stray question which may or may not fall within the realm of flirtation. Mingyu’s senses are like droplets of foam escaping into thin air.

“Will you make an exception for me, then?” Perhaps the alcohol is emboldening him, or perhaps, there really is something in the air tonight. The song has shifted into something slow - a ballad Mingyu vaguely recognises from the soundtrack of a popular drama - and on the dance floor, Minghao and Seokmin are locked in an intimate waltz, looking desperately smitten with each other. Soonyoung and Wonwoo are wrapped around each other too, except they’re less subtle with their display of affection, kissing and embracing openly. Joshua is there as well, dancing with a handsome stranger Mingyu doesn’t recognise, but giggling into the man's arms, fluttering his eyelashes coyly.

Mingyu knows the implications of asking Jihoon to dance with him right now, knows that it goes against every protocol Jihoon has been trained to follow. And yet, he can’t stop thinking about Jihoon’s hands, can’t stop craving to be surrounded by them once again.

“Please?” Mingyu implores, pouring every inch of that craving into his request. Hoping against hope that Jihoon will see through his sincerity, like he always seems to do.

“Okay,” Jihoon replies, after a pause, and it’s brimming with something Mingyu can’t quite identify, but still comprehends on a primal level.

An invisible magnet is tugging Mingyu deeper, deeper, deeper into Jihoon’s orbit, and Mingyu can no longer resist it. 

---

On the dance floor, Jihoon is unexpectedly stunning.

His movements are awkward at first, measured, like he’s thinking about them too much. Far from his practised ease when he’s in combat, when he’s working out at the gym or punching a boxing bag effortlessly. But Mingyu finds this even more attractive, finds that he likes it when Jihoon isn’t so sure-footed, when Mingyu is behind that lack of sure-footedness.

Jihoon’s hands are on Mingyu’s waist, and Mingyu’s are thrown over Jihoon’s shoulders, their bodies merely inches apart from each other. Despite Mingyu being the taller one between the two of them, Jihoon, who is infinitely strong, whose taut muscles are constantly evident under his formal work-shirts, isn’t often dwarved by Mingyu. But right now, he looks tiny and delicate, that earlier blush still colouring his face, his lips a little chapped from him frequently biting it. 

It’s cute.

Lee Jihoon is cute, and the realisation twists Mingyu’s heart several different ways.

“Jihoonie hyung,” Mingyu says, the term of endearment slipping out unbidden, like it has always been simmering at the edge of his tongue. It feels right, even if he knows he shouldn’t be saying it. “Thank you for coming with me tonight.”

Jihoon’s brows furrow a little at that. He opens his mouth to say something, but Mingyu interrupts, wanting to say his bit first. “I know you don’t like it when I thank you for these things. I know you’ll say, I was just doing my job, Mingyu-yah-”

Mingyu’s little Jihoon impersonation makes the latter smile, the furrows between his eyebrows disappearing.

“But I really really am glad you’re here,” Mingyu concludes, “I still think you’re strange for being so nice to me always, but it makes me happy.”

Jihoon’s hands tighten around Mingyu’s waist, and Mingyu’s breath hitches in the wake of it. “I’m glad too,” Jihoon replies, and his smile is almost a little fragile, a little too honest, “I’m glad I can make you happy, Mingyu-yah. You deserve to be happy.”

Another slow, romantic ballad croons from the jukebox, the notes engulfing the two of them. They’re still surrounded by his friends - Minghao’s head resting in the crook of Seokmin’s neck as they sway gingerly, Soonyoung and Wonwoo exchanging heated kisses in between spinning each other around, Joshua still fluttering his lashes at his mystery man as they both laugh at some sort of inside joke. Seungcheol has returned to the scene too, is somewhere in the background chatting animatedly with a bartender about wage equality. And yet. Mingyu can only concentrate on Jihoon. Everything else is a distant haze, reduced to mere white noise. Everything but Jihoon’s arms wrapped around him, everything but Jihoon’s exquisite half-blush as he tips up his head to look up at Mingyu.

Happy.

It feels like such an alien word sometimes. Mingyu doesn’t remember the last time he truly felt it, felt like he was allowed to bask in happiness without having to constantly escape into a different world. But when he’s with Jihoon, it doesn’t feel quite so out of reach.

And when Jihoon says it like that, when Jihoon continues to insist, again and again, that Mingyu deserves things-

Mingyu doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Hyung.” he whispers again, low and unobtrusive, but the words evaporate in his mouth. Right now, nothing he can formulate feels like the right thing to say. This moment between them is brittle, precarious, and the last thing Mingyu wants to do is to jeopardise it. He just wants to stay here for as long as possible, the feel of Jihoon’s solid arms holding him close, their uneven breaths nearly mingling.

“Mingyu,” Jihoon replies, sounding equally awestruck, sounding like he too doesn’t want to jeopardise the moment. And he leaves it at that, letting the silence build between them, letting their bodies do the talking as they move in unison. Their noses collide and Jihoon lets out a soft breath, but there’s that smile on his face again - fragile, but always unmistakably indulgent. 

And perhaps, Mingyu doesn’t need anything else right now.

This is enough. Being here with Jihoon, dancing with Jihoon at his favourite bar.

The chorus swells, and his heart beats along with it. Jihoon looks at Mingyu like he hung the moon and stars, and it is strange, yet so, so right.

---

It’s nearly the break of dawn when they finally pull up through the Eastern gate - their trip back from the bar fortunately uneventful this time. Jihoon expertly circumvents palace security to lead them both inside, but when they reach the corridor where their rooms lie adjacent to each other’s, Jihoon hesitates near Mingyu’s doorstep, fiddling with the edge of his shirtsleeve.

“Can I ask you something?” His voice is uncharacteristically unsure, and it does something to Mingyu, triggers in him this inexplicable urge to erase all that uncertainty from Jihoon’s frame. “You don’t have to answer if it’s too personal a question, though.”

Mingyu smiles, feeling brave enough to hold Jihoon’s hand again, to pull him in until they’re again standing barely inches apart, until Mingyu can count the smattering of freckles under Jihoon’s eyes.

Jihoon lets out a tiny gasp of surprise but doesn’t protest, doesn’t make a single move to disentangle himself.

“Ask away, hyung,” 

“I..I was just, uh, curious...” Jihoon’s stutter is cute too, and Mingyu has to actively stop himself from preening to focus on the question at hand. “Have you..uh...have you thought about what you’ll do if the Dissolution does happen?”

Oh.

Mingyu should have expected it, honestly. It’s not an uncommon question, and not an unwarranted one either, considering what Jihoon has just witnessed. But it’s asked with a disarming innocence - again, far from the condescension with which anyone else in this situation would ask it. The implication isn’t you’re stupid to want throw away your royal privilege, are you even ready to face the real world? It’s- 

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to be invasive.” Jihoon bites his lip again, his eyes a little wide, “You really don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”

And Mingyu’s chest lightens, because how can it not, when Jihoon is so perpetually kind? 

“It’s okay,” Mingyu reassures, rubbing a thumb along Jihoon’s knuckles, “It’s a very valid question, actually.”

For a second, Jihoon looks down, all bashful and sweet, like he’s embarrassed. Mingyu is endlessly endeared, feels his heart beat even louder, feels like he wants to overshare yet again like he always seems to end up doing around Jihoon. 

He knows Jihoon will understand. He always does.

“When Seungcheol hyung first told me his plans about the Dissolution Bill, I was blown away, you know?” Mingyu says, “Not only because the cause felt so right, but because it felt like...hope. You were there at that dinner, hyung. You’ve seen what my family is like. I just-”

“You don’t want to end up like them.” And Jihoon does understand. God, Mingyu can cry in relief that his instincts weren’t wrong, that Jihoon continues to be so good to him, even if he’s far from deserving of it.

“Yeah,” Mingyu sighs. “I thought, if this were to happen, I can actually live a normal life - away from the trappings of the crown, out there doing actually meaningful things. Helping people, rather than holding on to a title that means nothing and is so detached from the real issues.”

Mingyu blinks away the moisture that threatens to well up in the corner of his eye, but perhaps Jihoon sees it. Because Jihoon presses Mingyu’s hand tighter, the touch breathtakingly calming. 

“Now that the Dissolution is truly on the verge of happening,” Mingyu continues, “I realise, I don’t quite know how to live a normal life. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been told to conduct myself a certain way, to follow a strictly carved path. While the prospect of breaking away from that is immensely tempting, I honestly don’t know what’ll happen to me once I do it. What if I make a complete mess of everything?”

“Mingyu-” Jihoon begins, possibly to counteract what he just said (Mingyu might still have a lot to learn about his bodyguard, but he knows Jihoon is always ready to counter him whenever he says anything remotely self-deprecating), but Mingyu silences him with a finger pressed to his mouth. Not now.

 “But this thing Seungcheol hyung and the others are doing is bigger than me,” he carries on, eyes piercing into Jihoon, “It needs to happen. My self-doubt doesn't figure into it.”

For what seems like an eternity, Jihoon simply breathes into the finger Mingyu has pressed against his mouth, his gaze inscrutable in the dark. Mingyu lets himself revel in the feel of Jihoon’s breath against his finger, lets his heart flutter some more.

But soon enough, Jihoon places his other, unclasped hand over Mingyu’s finger, slowly, steadily pulling it away. His touch is a gentle breeze, a shifting of the seasons. It sends an inordinate shiver down Mingyu's spine

“You’re so brave, Mingyu, you know that?” Jihoon's voice resembles a feather hitting the ground. Barely making a sound, but unquestionably beautiful. “That was my very first impression of you, and I stick by it. It takes courage to be able to do the right thing when your own future is uncertain. But you’re always doing it.”

Mingyu smiles diffidently, trying not to blush under the weight of Jihoon’s praise, but failing miserably. “I’m honestly not doing half of what the others are,” He whispers quietly, “You met Seokmin earlier. He’s applying to law school this year so he can study to become a human rights lawyer. Now that’s something real, hyung. I wish I could do the same.”

“You can,” Jihoon says, oddly determined. “You still can.”

Mingyu only laughs bitterly. “Oh, but Kim children don’t go into professions like that - lawyers are too pedestrian, after all. At least, that’s what my grandmother says.”

“How does that matter, Mingyu-yah?” Jihoon persists, so earnestly that it nearly breaks Mingyu’s heart. “You are allowed to follow your dreams. If anyone can become a human rights lawyer and fight for what’s right, it’s you.”

There it is again, Jihoon’s uncanny ability to completely undo Mingyu. To make Mingyu feel like he’s worth something, that he’s flesh-and-blood, more than an empty symbol. More than the people’s prince.

“You really believe in me that much?” Mingyu says, even more awestruck than before. “You are continuously strange, Lee Jihoon.”

“But you are too, aren’t you?” And the slow, ineffably kind smile that takes over Jihoon’s lips is so gorgeous, Mingyu has an irrational urge to kiss it.

And that’s a thought he isn’t expecting at all, a thought he has to file away and lock up tight in several drawers.

Oh no, he thinks. But Jihoon is still smiling at him, their hands still entwined, his breath still casting earth-shattering shadows on Mingyu’s face.

“Yeah.” Mingyu finally replies, and there’s more to the words than he intends, more emotion than he ever intended to experience. It’s the sealing of his fate. “Yeah, I am.”

---- 

THE BATTLE HEATS UP

South Korea Herald, 21st February, 2020

With the public vote on Dissolution barely a few weeks away, leftist Assemblyman Choi Seungcheol has been ramping up the anti-royal propaganda. From going door-to-door distributing pamphlets to holding meetings with various stakeholders and special interest groups, Choi Seungcheol and his team are leaving no stone unturned in making sure his message reaches far and wide. While his approval rating has bumped up by 8% as a result, many of his critics and fellow Assembly members have called him ‘irresponsible’ for ignoring other  issues plaguing his constituency in favour of this. Though data suggests that he has been equally diligent in lobbying for higher minimum wage (one of his foremost campaign promises) and addressing the concerns of the workers and families that have been hit badly by the recession.

The latest feather in Choi Seungcheol’s cap, however, is the major rally he is planning to stage next Sunday at the Myeongdong Night Market. It’s a strategic move, considering the night market attracts a very diverse crowd, and is an accessible enough space that anyone can come attend the rally and listen to what the leader of the Dissolutionist movement has to say. Organising a rally of this scale and magnitude is unprecedented for any elected member of the National Assembly, but perhaps Choi Seungcheol is far too desperate to see the royals ousted from their metaphorical thrones. But only time will tell whether or not this rally proves to be a success, and has any actual impact on the results of the public vote.

The royals, on the other hand, have been far less aggressive in their approach. Both King Moonshik and his brother Hyungshik have been seen courting the nation’s rich and powerful, inviting them for fundraisers and royal gatherings in an attempt to lobby and campaign. They’ve done a few press interviews and public appearances too, but those have sounded stiff, formal and oddly smug - Prince Hyungshik, especially, continues to imply that the royals feel secure in their position and are confident that the vote will swing in their favour. Strangely enough, Prince Mingyu, heir to the throne, has been surprisingly quiet and subdued in the midst of it all. Either the prince has totally eschewed any public statements on the issue, or he has only offered painfully diplomatic sound bytes to the press - neither confirming or denying his alliance with the royals. Some conspiracy theorists believe that he’s under a gag order from the Dowager Queen and is being barred from being vocal on the issue, but nothing is confirmed. Considering Prince Mingyu is the only member of the royal family who still enjoys a sizeable popularity among the people, any strong declarations of allegiance from him could turn the tide of this vote entirely. But will we ever get to know what’s truly going on in his handsome little head? Or will he continue to toe the official line?

---

Always think with your heart, Mingyu-yah, his mother had once told him in her final days, bedridden yet strong-willed, But never stop thinking clearly.

Then, Mingyu was too young to understand what she meant, was too caught up in his grief and his desperation to hold on to her for as long as he could. But the words stayed with him afterwards - after he had to put on a brave face at the funeral, after he would run away to the kitchens to be able to cry his heart out because the one time he broke into quiet sobs at the dinner table, his grandmother had sneered at him, had labeled him weak and pathetic. After the cook would offer him her special home-made bungeoppang and rub his back until his sniffles calmed down.

But he gets it now, more than ever.

Here is a fact:

His heart is hooked to a string that inextricably leads back to Jihoon, pounding and squeezing under its onslaught. All it takes is the corner of Jihoon’s mouth turning up because of something Mingyu said, all it takes is Jihoon’s careless brush against his finger over a gardening shovel, all it takes is Jihoon watchful eye on him, always assessing but never invasive. And Mingyu unravels.

And here is another fact:

Mingyu knows what this means. All the signs were there from the start, long before they were dancing in a cosy, ramshackle bar and Mingyu’s breath lingered against Jihoon’s lips. He’s read about it in stories, has seen it among his friends, between his parents - back when they were in the prime of their youth, always smiling at each other in the softest of ways. But this is the first time he feels it, that elusive emotion splayed across his being, pumping through his veins. All because of Lee Jihoon.

He’s thinking with his heart, he knows it. 

In the mornings, when they work in harmony in the palace backyard, Jihoon caressing the flowers as gently as Mingyu does - perhaps even gentler. In the afternoons, when he is forced to attend endlessly monotonous royal luncheons, but doesn’t feel quite so despondent because Jihoon is in the room too, right behind him, constantly watching him, constantly offering reassuring glances. In the evenings, when Jihoon pulls weights in the palace gym and lets Mingyu watch, lets Mingyu admire from afar. In the nights, when Jihoon escorts him back to his room after dinner and they talk about everything and nothing, Jihoon always patiently listening to Mingyu’s many meandering diatribes about the nation’s state of affairs. And even later, when he’s in bed and wondering what Jihoon is doing next door, whether Jihoon is up late too, whether Jihoon is thinking about him too.

He knows he is thinking with his heart, and the knowledge is utterly devastating.

But thinking clearly? That’s easier said than done, isn’t it?

On Monday morning, Jihoon is the one who knocks on his door.

Mingyu knows Jihoon is an early riser, but still, theirs is a perfected routine. It’s always the other way round, always Mingyu on Jihoon’s doorstep with his heart on his sleeve. But today everything is off balance, it’s ten minutes before the clock strikes five, and Jihoon’s shirtsleeves are rolled up like always, his hands resting on Mingyu’s doorframe. 

“Good Morning,” Jihoon says, and Mingyu has to force himself to look away because it’s too much. Jihoon’s smile is a careful little thing, but it has the strength of a thousand supernovas.

“Hi,” Mingyu replies, hoping his blush doesn’t show on his face. Hoping his feelings aren’t too obvious.

“Before we go gardening today, I wanted to give you this.” Jihoon says, holding up a hardbound book that looks old and faded, the gold lettering on the cover cracked in parts. 

“What’s this?” Mingyu asks, his hands shaking only the tiniest bit when he takes the book, feels the warmth of its brittle pages.

“My mother, she, uh. Used to be a lawyer.” Jihoon replies, suddenly hesitant, suddenly a little pink around the ears. “She’s retired now and sometimes teaches a class on legal ethics at a local college in our hometown. I...persuaded her to send over some of her old law books. Thought you might find use for it.”

“You...uh...what?” There is so much to unpack in this one small gesture, Mingyu can’t even begin to wrap his head around it. 

He thinks back to that other night, when he had cautiously bared his soul, thinks about Jihoon’s firm yet gentle cajoling, you are allowed to follow your dreams. Mingyu can’t believe that Jihoon remembered, that Jihoon meant what he said that night. That Jihoon really does believe in him.

No one has believed in Mingyu before, not like this. He’s always thought it was impossible to live a life beyond this, to break out of the cage that holds him down so cruelly, to truly experience the real world outside stuffy palace walls. He knows Seungcheol has his back, but even Seungcheol often sees him as that plucky, overeager kid who showed up at the bar on a whim, fish out of water. Even Seungcheol underestimates him sometimes, even if it comes from a place of unconditional love.

But Jihoon...Jihoon still doesn’t know so many aspects of Mingyu’s history, of his present, of his future, and yet, Jihoon believes in him. Yet, Jihoon persuaded his mother to send over her books simply for Mingyu. Yet, Jihoon looks at Mingyu like Mingyu is capable of conquering the world.

Oh no, Mingyu thinks again.

But maybe Jihoon interprets his stunned silence as rejection because the next thing he says is, “I’m sorry if I’m overstepping.” The hand pressed against the doorframe drops, moves to the pocket of his khaki trousers, “You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.”

“ No, ” Mingyu adamantly refutes, eager to let him know that that’s not the case at all. That Jihoon can overstep as much as he wants with Mingyu. “No, of course I want to read. I love it. Thank you so much, hyung. And thank your mother for me too.”

The grin that spreads across Jihoon’s face is unbelievably radiant, a mixture of relief and delight. Again, there is that swooping in Mingyu’s stomach. Again, there are butterflies swimming underneath his sternum. “I will,” Jihoon replies, “She’ll be glad.”

There are so many questions swirling at the tip of Mingyu’s tongue. Why did you go out of your way to do this for me? Why do you keep doing these things for me? Why do you think I’m worth it?

But they are too much within the realm of thinking with his heart. Too little in the realm of thinking clearly. He can’t ask them, he knows he can’t. But there are crinkles around Jihoon’s eyes in the aftermath of his quiet, effulgent mirth, and for the first time in his life, Mingyu wishes he didn’t have to think clearly.

Instead, Mingyu asks: “So, your mother was a lawyer? You’ve never told me about her before.”

“Ah” Jihoon bites his lip - that adorable little habit of his. “I didn’t think you’d be interested in random facts about my family.”

Mingyu swallows hard, but the emotion he is trying to swallow gets stuck in his throat anyway. “I am,” he says, “I am always interested, hyung. Please tell me about them?”

For a brief second, Mingyu is afraid that this too is thinking with his heart, this too is crossing a line he shouldn’t cross. But then Jihoon releases his bottom lip from between his teeth, and nods. The crinkles around his eyes return. 

Mingyu feels like the book in his hands, brittle, yet glowing.

Chapter Text

Jihoon isn’t usually a light sleeper, but tonight, he’s unnaturally restless.

He’s in bed, tossing and turning for what seems like the fiftieth time, and yet he can’t pinpoint the exact reason why his spine seems too erect, why his synapses simply won’t stop buzzing. It’s nearly midnight, and the palace hallways outside his door are quiet, as they usually are. He’d walked Mingyu to his room earlier, bid him goodnight like is routine - and sure, dinner had been especially difficult, cousin Jungho had been there again and he and Hyungshik had exchanged snide remarks about Mingyu that made Jihoon wanted to punch them squarely in the jaw, but Mingyu had hardly flinched. Mingyu had seemed eerily unruffled on their way back to their room, had chattered away about all the law textbooks he’s been reading lately, but Jihoon hadn’t missed his stray sniffle, the subtle spot of red in the corner of Mingyu’s eye. Mingyu was being brave again, even braver than usual. And perhaps that’s why Jihoon is on edge. 

It’s always Mingyu, isn’t it?

Every tiny creak of a floorboard, every tiny sound of the late-winter breeze hitting his windowpane, feels magnified, feels like a visceral blow. He turns again, curling an arm around his pillow, forcing his eyes shut. And yet, sleep evades him. 

If only he could check on Mingyu…

But he discards the thought even before he can even formulate it. Jihoon may have breached countless boundaries with Mingyu already, might have forged something akin to a friendship, an attachment that is already too personal, too dangerous; but checking in on him in the middle of the night, when Mingyu was most probably in bed-

That's an entirely different boundary altogether, one he can’t afford to breach at any cost. Even if all he can do with his eyes shut is to think about Mingyu, the particular sensation of dancing in his arms, the depth of his gaze when their noses were too close, within enough distance to-

An abrupt squeaking crudely disrupts his train of thought, and for a split second, Jihoon doesn’t know whether he’s grateful for it, or utterly disappointed. He jolts upright in bed, immediately clicking into the alertness he has been scrupulously trained for, listening, with all his might. It could possibly just be some kind of hallucination, his brain conjuring up white noise to feed his restlessness further, but Jihoon wants to be sure. Mingyu is right next door, and if there’s even the hint of real, palpable danger out there, Jihoon won’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t do something about it.

The air goes still again, offering no other answers, no follow-up noise. His windowpanes continue to rattle, the coldness of the breeze slipping through its cracks, making Jihoon shiver under his loose nightshirt. The adrenaline is still racing in his veins, refusing to calm down even though there seems to be nothing amiss. Even though the sound has died down long ago.

But if there’s one thing Jihoon has learned over the years, is that his instincts are never wrong. And soon enough, the follow-up he had his ears peeled for arrives in the form of another squeak, followed by a quiet grunt, possibly uttered under one’s breath.

Jihoon springs up from his bed and dashes outside in a jiffy, his heart hammering in his chest although muscle memory has already kicked in, his body ready for combat. But what he finds is no adversary, no cantankerous villain. No natural disaster.

Only Kim Mingyu, dressed in dark grey from head to toe, mask securely tied over his mouth, lying facedown at Jihoon’s feet.

He looks up at Jihoon, pulls his facemask down, says with the sheepish grin of someone who just got caught red-handed, “Ah, hyung, I just had a little fall. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Despite the adrenaline continuing to pump in Jihoon’s veins, he extends a hand out of pure instinct, and Mingyu takes it, using it to pull himself back up.

“What are you doing up so late?” Jihoon asks, eyes sweeping Mingyu up and down, making sure there are no injuries, no signs of pain that the prince is always so willing to suppress, “And why are you out in the hallway? What happened?”

“Uhh…” Mingyu begins, one hand reaching up to scratch the back of his head. He’s rocking on the balls of his feet, barely looking Jihoon in the eye. “I just...tripped on my untied shoelaces and fell?”

“Mingyu,” Jihoon hopes he doesn’t sound too impatient, “You know that’s not what I’m asking.”

Mingyu sighs, the tips of fingers tangling and untangling against each other in a nervous tic, “I, um.” He  begins, still avoiding eye contact with Jihoon. “I may or may not be trying to...sneak out?”

He tentatively looks up at Jihoon then, offers another timid smile that conveys, please don’t be mad at me? No matter how adorable the smile might be (no matter how adorable Mingyu might be), it does nothing to quell the adrenaline pumping in Jihoon’s veins.

“Mingyu.” The warning in his tone is unmistakable, perhaps even a touch intimidating. But right now, if this is what he has to resort to, then so be it.

“Hyung, please? ” Mingyu’s eyes are wide, puppy-like, shining with so much sincerity that Jihoon’s heart nearly stops beating under its onslaught. “It’s the big Myeongdong rally tonight. I can’t miss it.”

“It’s not safe out there, Mingyu-yah.” Jihoon tries to let him down as gently as possible, but it’s hard when Mingyu is looking at him like that.  “Even Seungcheol-sshi said so, didn’t he?”

“But hyuuuuung-” Mingyu’s lips curve into a petulant pout, his tone uncannily in the realm of whiny. Jihoon doesn’t want to be endeared, he refuses to be endeared, and yet- “I don’t just want to sit in my room and watch a stupid livestream while my best friend is out there making history! This can change the course of the entire nation! It’s important and I want to witness it firsthand!”

God.

And what is Jihoon to say to that? How is he supposed to say no to the infuriating ( lovely ) prince who never fails to enchant him with his raw passion and honesty, with the unquestionable pureness of his heart? How is he supposed to deny Mingyu anything, even if he asked for the moon and stars?

A pause, and then Mingyu’s fingers untangle from each other, drop to his sides. “Please let me go tonight?” he implores again, lips continuously pouty, voice tinted with that lisp Jihoon absolutely cannot resist. “I promise I’ll be safe. I’ll even text you my location if you want.”

And that settles it. Once and for all.

“Fine.” Jihoon replies, giving in to his worst impulses, all because of his infuriating (lovely) little prince. “But I’m not letting you go alone. I’m coming with you too.”

For a moment, Mingyu goes utterly still, the rocking of his feet stopping in an instant. His eyes go wider too, but only by a fraction, only if you’re looking.

But then, a slow, satisfied smile unexpectedly takes over his face, making his pupils twinkle, making his entire being look like it’s glowing in the dark. Jihoon’s heart does a somersault in his chest, a familiar occurrence at this point.

“I can live with that,” Mingyu replies, and the mirth in his voice is unmistakable, “As long as you don’t tell Jeonghan hyung. This has to be our little secret.”

“Okay,” Jihoon readily agrees, because at this point, he can hardly do anything else.

“Good.” Mingyu replies, smiling even brighter, “Let’s go then.”

And once again, Jihoon feels like he’s in over his head, has bitten off more than he can chew. But that feeling doesn’t hold dread anymore. It’s the whisper of a promise.

---

The night market is more crowded than Jihoon remembers it, and he wonders how much of it is because it’s a genuinely busy Sunday and how much of it is because of Choi Seungcheol. 

Jihoon keeps up with the news as much as the next guy, but he’s hardly as knowledgeable as, say, Mingyu, who can rattle off unexpected nuggets of political information at the drop of a hat. He knows that Seungcheol is popular, that his side of the Dissolution argument has been steadily gaining more and more ground, but the amount of people currently surrounding the podium where he’s supposed to speak in a few more minutes, holding banners with various anti-royal slogans, is an experience he truly was not prepared for. But of course, he isn’t prepared for literally anything about tonight, hasn’t even worn his bulletproof vest or his holster, doesn’t even know what to do but to look out for his prince, to glue himself to his prince.

Beside him, the said prince can barely stand still in excitement, his hand securely wrapped around Jihoon's. By now, it's not an uncommon occurrence for Mingyu to instinctively reach for Jihoon’s hand whenever he needs support (for Jihoon to do the same, when he wants to offer comfort), but it’s never not shudder-inducing, never unlike that spark of electricity he felt the very first time their hands connected. They too are among the crowd that has surrounded the podium, though much farther back, attempting to blend in as much as possible. Mingyu has his mask pulled up over his face again, a pair of large, round glasses on top of it as a (somewhat weak) form of disguise. The hood of his sweatshirt is drawn over his head, though some strands of dark, wavy hair do stick out from underneath it (Jihoon has to drown the urge to tuck them behind his ear, to pat them back into place). 

From every possible angle, Mingyu doesn’t look like a prince at all in this moment, doesn’t embody even a tiny bit of the restraint he practices when he’s in the palace, when he’s at an official royal gathering; but to Jihoon, Kim Mingyu has never been more beautiful. Jihoon finds that he perhaps likes Mingyu best when he’s like this - without a single hint of artifice, gleaming with indomitable passion, doing what he loves the most.

“Do you think it’ll be a dead giveaway if I start chanting ‘down with the royals’?” Mingyu whispers to him with a giggle, leaning in closer to avoid getting shoved by the group of banner-wielding feminist activists who are currently doing exactly that, chanting various slogans including but not limited to: down with the royals , down with heirarchy! ; freedom for the people! freedom for human rights! Another crowd behind them is cheering thunderously for Seungcheol, screaming his name over and over again.

“Maybe ‘redistribute your wealth and save the dying economy’ would be less obvious, don’t you think?”Jihoon smiles, letting himself revel in the feel of Mingyu against him, letting himself indulge in the banter that always comes so easily between them.

Mingyu laughs again, the sound rumbling against his facemask, “You know me inside out, don’t you hyung?”

And his eyes are twinkling with a challenge, with perhaps something more, which Jihoon is too afraid to unpack. But his heart, as always, is a traitor.

“Yeah,” he whispers back, and it’s another one of those moments when their eyes only circle each other, when, despite being surrounded by hordes, they can only focus on each other, can forget everything else. Mingyu’s hands feel extraordinarily warm in his.

But the spell is soon broken. More slogans break out around them, followed by a bevy of shouting and applause as Seungcheol, dressed in a white button-down shirt, finally graces the podium. At the exact moment he begins speaking into the microphone, greeting the crowd and introducing himself, another shout echoes around them, this time more familiar. 

“Gyu?” It’s Minghao, camera around his neck, pushing through the crowd and making his way towards them, Seokmin tagging along behind him. “You came?”

For a second, Mingyu freezes up beside him, a deer caught in the headlights. On their way to the rally, Mingyu had rambled on and on about how it was imperative that none of his friends spotted him tonight, that none of them found out he was even attending. “They’ll just worry about me,” he had said, “And right now, they have bigger things to worry about. I don’t want to add on to it.” 

Every cell in Jihoon’s body had itched to counter that statement, to remind Mingyu once again that he was worth it, that he was loved, that he could never be a burden. But Jihoon had kept quiet, had simply nodded in silent agreement.  

“Uh...Hi?” Mingyu replies, diffident, trying to play it casual, but Jihoon can sense the underlying hesitation. Minghao and Seokmin are standing right next to them now, wedged between the surrounding crowd. Minghao is eyeing Mingyu’s terrible disguise with mild amusement, Seokmin reaching over to shake Jihoon’s hand. 

Jihoon knows this is no real threat, that even if Mingyu didn’t want to be found out, these are Mingyu’s friends, they won’t really do or say anything terrible. But regardless, he can’t help but feel a little off-kilter about Mingyu’s presence being discovered, can’t help but tighten his grip on Mingyu’s hand. At this point, it’s an instinct.

“I told Cheol hyung, you know.” Minghao says, tone pitched low so no one else around them would hear, “I told him you’ll somehow show up anyway because that’s what you always do. And here you are.”

“ Hao-yah .” Mingyu begins, that same adorably whiny tenor Jihoon finds so irresistible returning to the edge of his voice, but Minghao interrupts before he can continue any further. 

“Don’t worry, Gyu-yah, I’m not scolding you. I mean, it was stupid of you to risk coming here, but atleast you brought Jihoon-sshi with you.” He smiles then, a delicate and mushy little thing, and Jihoon can finally relax, can physically feel the relief coursing through him. No matter how stupid the risk is, it’s good to be reminded that Jihoon isn’t the only one who thinks about Mingyu’s wellbeing, that he isn’t the only one who wants Mingyu to be safe and happy always. 

“I’m glad to see you, actually,” Minghao adds, softer. “Though, don’t tell Cheol hyung I said this.”

“Same here,” Seokmin says with a blinding grin, “Don’t tell Cheol hyung I said this either, but all evening I kept wishing you would come. I’m so happy you ultimately did.”

And that’s enough to make Mingyu laugh again, to make him quiver with glee and excitement all over again. “Me too,” he says, “The atmosphere here is electric.”

And it definitely is. Seungcheol is still speaking on the podium, currently alternating between measured discussion on the provisions laid out in the Dissolution Bill and rousing rhetoric invoking the need for total democracy. The crowd responds maniacally, going wild everytime Seungcheol lands a particularly brilliant point, which seems to be happening at every five-second interval. Jihoon can spot Soonyoung and Wonwoo on the sidelines too, cheering for Seungcheol, egging on the crowd to clap louder. Joshua too is out there, taking turns filming the entire speech and passing around pamphlets to every single person he can find, regardless of whether they’re actually part of the rally. Mingyu is right - the atmosphere is electric. Jihoon finds that he quite likes it, being amidst this insane throng of people who are clamouring for the dismantling of the nation’s longest lasting governing institution. Their energy is kind of infectious.

The minutes trickle by surprisingly fast. Mingyu applauds and hoots and whoops in response to nearly everything Seungcheol’s saying, and pauses only to exchange running commentary with Seokmin and Minghao beside him. Jihoon, for the most part, doesn’t say much. He’s content with just observing, both impressed by Seungcheol’s gravitas and utterly fascinated seeing Mingyu in his element, so animated and alive. More of Mingyu’s hair has slipped past his hoodie, delicately framing his forehead, the streetlamps dousing him in an effervescent glow. Even though Mingyu is so caught up in this moment, is so fired up by the speech and by Seokmin and Minghao, he doesn’t forget to look at Jihoon from time to time, the sides of his eyes crinkling with the smile concealed by his facemask. Jihoon’s traitorous heart thumps and thumps and thumps.

And that’s when it happens. 

The gruesome mistake, one that he should have seen coming from miles away, and yet, didn’t. Because-

“You always care too much, Jihoonie,” his father keeps telling him, has repeated with more and more frequency every time Jihoon calls home lately. The thing is, his father’s training is even more meticulous than his - the man is a retired military general, has devoted years of service in direct line of combat, has fought off countless adversaries, can assess situations in a way Jihoon can only dream of. He knows Jihoon inside out, knows about the caring, warns him about the caring (but only in the most compassionate of ways). 

And he’s agonisingly right; Jihoon cares too much, puts too much of his heart on the line. But Mingyu-

Mingyu has been different from day one, has spurred a different kind of care altogether, bottomless and unquantifiable, embedded so deep in his soul that he can no longer ignore it.

So, when the gunshot pierces through the air, past the synergy in Seungcheol’s words, past the roaring crowd, Jihoon doesn’t even see it coming.

And that’s it, that’s the mistake, the fatal pitfall of caring too much: he’s so mesmerised by Mingyu, so wrapped up in the way Mingyu’s eyes twinkle, he’s forgotten to check the perimeter. He’s forgotten to keep an eye out for trouble. He’s forgotten, Mingyu’s life is still in undeniable danger.

But the deafening pop of a bullet being launched into the night, the unmistakable smell of metal and gunpowder that his practised nose is far too sensitive to, is his cruel awakening. Without a second thought, he throws himself in front of Mingyu, his body an impromptu shield between Mingyu and the impending danger at large. Their faces are nose-to-nose yet again, but now Jihoon’s heart is racing for entirely different reasons, his eyes searching every nook and cranny of Mingyu’s body to gauge whether or not he’s sustained any injuries, especially in his already-frail right arm. Mingyu’s pupils are drawn with barely concealed fear, all traces of his earlier mirth and excitement disappeared, and his hands reach far too quickly to encircle Jihoon’s waist, to hold on tighter than he’s ever held on to Jihoon. 

“You’re not hurt?” Jihoon decides to verbally confirm anyway, the paranoia building in his veins and refusing to calm down. He needs Mingyu to say it out loud so he can breathe easy, so he can make his brain work again, so he can figure out a way to tackle this situation. He cares too much, too much.. .

“I think so,” Mingyu mumbles, though it comes out shaky and high-pitched, “I think I didn’t get shot.”

Jihoon lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, “Good. Now we need to get you out of here, okay? Don’t panic and follow my lead.” 

Mingyu nods, his grip on Jihoon’s waist steady, but Jihoon himself doesn’t know how to stop panicking. Fuck. He’s fucking trained for this exact situation, and yet, everything is an utter mess. He doesn’t have a weapon. He doesn’t have backup. He doesn’t have an escape plan. The shooter is still somewhere out there, launching his bullets into the night, and nobody is safe, especially not Mingyu.

Meanwhile, the crowd has erupted into sheer cacophony, with everyone scrambling to find cover, screaming in despair, their banners discarded, the rally forgotten. Minghao and Seokmin too are hovering around them, trying to check on Mingyu, but Mingyu is shaking their head at them, telling them to run for cover too.

“But Mingyu-” Seokmin is saying, but Mingyu interjects, “Not now, Seok-ah. Go, make sure Cheol hyung and the others are safe.”

Seungcheol is still on stage, his speech abandoned in favour of giving the crowd instructions on how to get to safety, directing them towards finding shelter until he can make arrangements to resolve the situation. But no one’s really listening, the dispersed crowd merely scurrying here and there and crying for help. Meanwhile, Soonyoung and Wonwoo are gesturing at him to get off the podium, imploring him to stop risking his life, to get out of there.

“I have Jihoon hyung,” Mingyu is saying, “He’ll take me home. Cheolie hyung needs you more than I do right now.”

Seokmin and Minghao exchange a pained look, but just then, another gunshot rends the air, pretty much making the decision for them. Seungcheol is looking increasingly frazzled, yet he refuses to listen to his friends, refuses to leave until he’s made sure no one is hurt. No wonder Mingyu likes him so much, Jihoon thinks. Seungcheol is as selfless as Mingyu is. 

Minghao swallows hard, but ultimately nods, grabbing Seokmin’s hand and turning away, but not before saying, “Please text us later, Mingyu-yah. We’ll be worrying about you.”

The second gunshot has sent another wave of frenzy around the entire market, and there are people rushing both at them and away from them from all sides. Minghao and Seokmin disappear into this swelling sea of people far too quickly, as if they were never here, and Mingyu’s hands on Jihoon’s waist tighten even further, if that was even possible.

“Okay,” Jihoon says, trying his best to get his head straight, to summon up every last bit of resolve his training has instilled in him to attempt to hatch some kind of escape strategy - even if the feel of Mingyu’s quickening breath against his mouth is rattling his nerves, is continuously hindering his ability to remain objective, to remain calm. “I’m going to let go of you now, just to look around and try to find a quick and easy way to get back to where we parked my car. Is that fine?”

Mingyu looks stricken, but he does nod, the motion jerky and unsure. Jihoon disentangles himself slowly, pulling Mingyu’s hands away from his waist to hold them in his palms, to channel the touch as a steady reminder that Mingyu is still here, still alive. The shooter seems to have momentarily stopped, but that has done nothing to lull the chaos of their surroundings -everyone is still screaming, still scrambling. Jihoon scans the perimeter, checks everywhere, and there’s too many scared civilians, too much exposure, too many chances of being spotted, of being accosted. 

And yet.

“I know that alley,” Mingyu whispers quietly, startling Jihoon out of his scrutiny. Jihoon looks over at him curiously and finds that Mingyu is gesturing at this tiny crevice - so inconspicuous and hidden from plain sight Jihoon hardly noticed it before - leading to a narrow, winding alley. “It’s a shortcut,” Mingyu adds, “It takes you outside Jung-gu, we can, uh. Use it maybe.”

Jihoon gapes at him for a miniscule moment, wondering yet again, how Mingyu knows so much about so many things, whether this knowledge is simply a result of his avid reading or yet another one of his nightly adventures. But these questions are for later. There’s no time for all that now.

“Okay,” Jihoon replies, “Lead the way, then.”

Mingyu complies with alacrity ( Brave, Jihoon’s mind again supplies, always so brave ), holding Jihoon’s right hand and pulling him along in the direction of the crevice. Strangely enough, the coast around them seems relatively clear, everyone running in the opposite direction rather than this one. They’re just a few paces away from the turning which leads to the alley, just a few more steps and they’ll be outside of this market, he will have escorted Mingyu to safety, his heart could stop beating like it wants to escape his very chest.

Mingyu picks up speed, and so does Jihoon, running, running side-by-side until he can feel the wind in his ears, until-

“Hyung,” Mingyu begins, and Jihoon shouldn’t. Shouldn’t feel this stirring in the very core of his being, this terrible uncontrollable urge to only cater to Mingyu, to only listen to what Mingyu has to say.

Even though they’re running for their lives, Jihoon waits for Mingyu to finish that sentence, waits, waits, until-

There’s another gunshot, louder this time, and there goes Jihoon, making that same old mistake. Falling prey to the vagaries of his same old traitorous heart.

“Hyung,” Mingyu says again, but it sounds strained, it sounds distant, it sounds-

Jihoon nearly stops breathing. Mingyu’s hand has slackened in his grasp, and when Jihoon turns to check on him, to steady him, he’s-

There’s blood, soaking Mingyu’s dark grey hoodie. His mask is undone, his eyes, no longer stricken, just tired. Just spinning away from Jihoon, from the world itself.

 The bullet has hit its mark.

And all the care coursing through Jihoon’s nerve endings, his entire being, comes to its boiling point, threatening to tear him apart.

---

This time, it’s not the first gunshot that gets him. It’s the third.

Well, Mingyu thinks to himself hazily, at least that’s some kind of progress.

Except, it fucking hurts. It hurts like death.

The blistering metal has penetrated his bloodstream, has already wreaked too much havoc. Mingyu can no longer hold on to Jihoon’s hand, however much he tries, however desperately he doesn’t want to let go.

“Hyung,” he gasps again, the words barely making it past his lips. Hyung, do you know how much you mean to me? Mingyu wants to say. Hyung, do you know that you stole my heart the very first night you saved my life?

But all that comes out is a breathless pant of air. His head is spinning, spiralling out of control, and he’s falling, everything around him a garbled blur. All the shapes, colours, sounds fading into nothingness.

All he can feel are Jihoon’s arms, that have somehow stopped him from hitting the ground, that cradle his listless body, one hand behind his neck, another hand caressing his back, pressing the spot where the bullet entered his skin, keeping pressure on his wound. Lee Jihoon, always his saviour.

All he can perceive is Jihoon’s face poised right above him, his brows knit together in concern, his eyes so frantic that Mingyu wants to decimate all its fears, all its worries. But of course, Mingyu is the source of that worry and fear, like he always is. That’s his lot in life, isn’t it? Burdening every single person in his vicinity with his very existence.

“Stay with me, Mingyu,” Jihoon is whispering to him, “Please, Please. ”

I want to, Mingyu wants to say. I want to stay with you forever.

But when he opens his mouth, he only coughs up blood, his tongue heavy and sluggish.

“Hyung,” he manages to sputter for the last time. “Hyung, I-”

“What is it, Gyu-yah? Please talk to me, stay with me.” Jihoon asks, voice so heartbreakingly gentle, moisture welling up in his eyes. 

No, Mingyu frowns. This can’t happen. Jihoon isn’t supposed to cry, especially not because of him. He’s never once seen Jihoon cry before, and it’s just wrong, everything about it is wrong. Jihoon is tough, steadfast, reliable. He doesn’t break this easily. Mingyu won’t let him break this easily.

He reaches up to brush the tear that’s spilling onto Jihoon’s left cheek, wants to reassure him that it’s okay, he’ll be okay, everything will be okay-

But Mingyu can barely move his arm, can barely even feel it. He tries to take in a breath, but the air is too sharp, hitting his lungs like a violent ambush. Fuck, he thinks, and his eyelids are shutting of their own volition, his senses are slowing down, his pulse is so faint he can’t even hear it, doesn’t even know if it’s still beating.

And then, like yet another cruelest of deja vus, everything goes dark.

Chapter Text

The hospital is cold.

Jihoon doesn’t know if it’s because of the general smell of death and disease that hangs over the place, or the broken heating, or the way the nurses talk to him in clipped, overly formal tones, but it’s cold. Everything seems cold.

Jihoon sits in the waiting room, Mingyu’s blood still smeared all over his shirt, all over his hands; slowly turning from flesh-red to dried copper-brown. He’s lost track of how long he’s been sitting here, how long since they hauled Mingyu into the ICU, and a bevy of doctors kept rushing past him, eager to tend to the heir to the country’s constitutional throne. They haven’t allowed Jihoon inside - he’s not family, neither is he next of kin - and he feels distraught, like steam building in a pressure cooker, threatening to burst any moment, pushing against its own heat for release. He can barely feel his own hands, his own limbs, can only replay, again and again:

The sound of the gunshot, the look in Mingyu’s eyes when he sputtered in Jihoon’s arms, when he could barely string together a single sentence. 

A nightmare he cannot get rid of, static on loop, throwing all his resolve into disarray, reducing him to nothing but a hapless shell of a being. He’s numb, every part of him, doesn’t even know if his heart has any capacity left to beat on it’s own. This can’t be happening. Not like this. Not on his watch.

He can’t lose Mingyu.

He can’t-

“Lee Jihoon!” a voice clamours from across the hospital aisle, shocking him out of his miserable train of thought. He looks up to find none other than King Moonshik striding down the hallway with his entire posse - half his security detail, his brother Hyungshik, and Yoon Jeonghan to boot - all bustling medical staff parting in the middle like the red sea to make space for him, gawking at the king like they’ve seen a ghost. Of course, Jihoon had seen this coming. He knew he had to answer to Moonshik at some point, to confront the very man who had hired him to look out for Mingyu and explain why he failed to do so. But he also knew he had nothing to answer for. Nothing to mask his utter failure.

 No plausible excuse for his incompetence except for, I was too enamoured by your son. I got too deeply involved with your son.

  “Pardon my language,” Moonshik is directly facing him now, his gaze steely and implacable. Jihoon stands upright to greet him; bows, because he may be in the midst of a crisis of epic proportions, but he hasn’t forgotten his manners or protocol. This is the fucking king. “But what the fuck? Why was Mingyu out so late at night, that too at an anti-royal rally? Why the fuck did you willingly put him in harm’s way by encouraging this?”

“I knew it, hyung,” Hyungshik snarks from beside Moonshik, “I knew something wasn’t quite right with the bodyguard. I’ve been noticing him get a little too pally with Mingyu, always trying to get in his good books. I bet the guy’s a left-wing plant, I bet he was planning to take down our poor little Mingyu all along.”

“Uh...I..” Jihoon gulps, completely at a loss for words. He’s usually not cowed by an entire squadron of daunting men staring him down, ready for battle, but right now, he has no fight left in him. Right now, he can’t even muster the energy to look at Moonshik, much less try to refute Hyungshik’s ludicrous claims, his patronising diminutive for Mingyu. 

And besides, who is he to refute anything? What grounds does he have, to defend himself, when all of this is his fault? He did let Mingyu come in harm’s way, even if it’s the last thing he intended.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” It’s Jeonghan who intervenes, coming to Jihoon’s temporary rescue, “This is not the time to point fingers. Mingyu is in there seriously injured, and that’s what we should be focusing on. Isn’t that what we’re here for, your highness? Shouldn’t we go see him?”

There’s an excruciating pause, in which Moonshik pins Jihoon with a gaze equivalent of a million daggers breaking past skin, drawing blood. But Jihoon can also see the hurt simmering underneath Moonshik’s impenetrable eyes, notices his ragged breathing, the pulse jumping in his temple. Moonshik’s anger is only born out of an extreme worry - Jihoon knows this, because he’s seen consistent proof of it, has seen how much Moonshik cares about his son even if the king attempts to hide it - and he gets it. After all, nobody understands better than Jihoon what it’s like to care about Kim Mingyu, to care way too much about Kim Mingyu.

“Fine,” Moonshik says from between gritted teeth, “But I’m not done with you, Jihoon. I expect a full debrief first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, your highness,” Jihoon replies quietly, head hung low. Jeonghan gives him an odd look, but doesn’t say anything, only leads Moonshik, Hyungshik and the rest of the royal possé to the room right beside them, where Mingyu lies unconscious in a cold, cold hospital bed.

Jihoon sags back into the hard, metal bench, continuing to be undeviatingly numb. The sound of the gunshot, the look in Mingyu’s eyes when he sputtered in Jihoon’s arms- 

The images are splinters stuck to each crevice of his body that he cannot dislodge. A nightmare playing on loop. There is a clock ticking somewhere; he’s too distracted to locate it, but the persistent clicking of its hands is the only thing that grounds him, that makes him remember that he’s still breathing, even if it feels like he’s not. 

More doctors come and go, and he can hear frantic whisperings and the unmistakable echoes of Moonshik’s impatient bellows. He catches bits and pieces of conversation:

“We were able to extract the bullet, but there’s been a lot of internal bleeding, your highness…”

“Is my son going to be okay?”

“We can’t tell yet, your highness. We have to keep him under observation-”

And Jihoon has to shut his eyes to tune it all out, to swallow the bile rising at the back of his throat. The inevitable what if swims in the horizons of his mind, floods him with molten-hot despair:

What if he loses Mingyu?

What if-

A solid, warm hand clutches his shoulder then, again bringing him back to reality, drowning the steadily spiralling wretchedness of his internal monologue. He looks up to find Yoon Jeonghan staring at him in his characteristic impenetrable sort of way, constantly assessing, but laced with a strange sort of tension. Jihoon sees it only because he’s used to seeing past carefully-constructed defenses, has observed Yoon Jeonghan enough by now to have memorised his tells, his stray slip-ups; but there it is - that worry. That care. 

Jihoon recalls the affectionate tint in the way Mingyu always talks about Jeonghan, that sense of endless compassion and brotherly love, and Jihoon gets this too. Gets the way Jeonghan’s hand trembles, but only the slightest bit.

“Will you follow me for a second, Jihoon-sshi?” His voice is surprisingly even, but Jihoon still sees the hysteria skittering under the surface, barely concealed. 

Jihoon nods.

Jeonghan leads him past the hallway of the deluxe wing (where Mingyu is being kept) to an emergency staircase that winds down into a darker, frankly shady-looking storage room. He knocks twice on its dilapidated wooden door, and the entire thing feels so mysterious, Jihoon is momentarily transported to his covert military mission days. There’s a millisecond interval where Jeonghan seems to be gathering his breath, balling and then unballing his fists in preparation for whatever’s on the other end of the door, and then the door swings open and Yoon Jeonghan is back to being an unreadable enigma, his invulnerable mask slipping back into place.

But Jihoon doesn’t even have time to reflect on the subtle whip-quick changes to the palace chief-of-staff’s body language, he’s too busy gaping at the person on the other end of the door.

“We meet again, Jihoon-shhi,” and Choi Seungcheol - still wearing his white button-up shirt from the rally - flashes him another one of his trademark lopsided grins, except this one is less friendly, more cautious.

“Uhh...What?” Jihoon fumbles, truly at a loss for words. That seems to be the running theme for tonight. “What are you doing here?”

“We don’t have time for pleasantries,” Jeonghan says, rough around the edges, “Just answer our questions and then you can go.”

“Wait, how do you two-”

“Jihoon-sshi,” Seungcheol interjects, voice much calmer than Jeonghan’s, “Tell us what happened at the rally. Please. Tell us every detail.”

Us.

The word sticks out like a sore thumb. 

Everything about this situation is already far too overwhelming, and Jihoon is exhausted to the bone, already broken and on the verge of crumbling even further. He can barely wrap his head around Mingyu being shot, on his watch, lying in a hospital bed battling for his life - and on top of all that, there is Choi Seungcheol, appeared out of seemingly nowhere. But this - the way Jeonghan and Seungcheol seem so in-sync, like they are telepathically linked, like they speak the same language. There’s something in the way Jeonghan’s body is curved ever-so-slightly towards Seungcheol, an air of comfort, of solidarity sparkling between them; it breaks past the fog of Jihoon’s grief-stricken mind, triggers his well-honed reflexes, his carefully cultivated skills of observation. 

Seungcheol and Jeonghan share a brief perplexed look, and there, that’s enough for the cogs in the wheel to turn, that’s enough for the puzzle piece to settle in Jihoon’s thorough examination. Everything about the way the two of them are communicating without even having to say anything out loud, the way in which Seungcheol is the deliberate soothing antidote to Jeonghan’s diamond-hard will - it hints at them being seasoned comrades. Two men who have fought alongside each other in battle for a long, long time.

“Oh my god,” Jihoon can’t stop himself from exclaiming out loud, “It all makes sense now.”

“Jihoon,  I said we don’t have time for pleasantries.” Jeonghan sounds impatient, fidgeting with the hem of his coat.

“That night...my first night as his bodyguard... when Mingyu was in danger, and you sent me after him,” Jihoon’s thoughts are racing a mile a minute, the syllables falling on top of each other in his rush to get them out, “I wondered how you knew his exact location. But now it all makes sense. Seungcheol-sshi is the one who told you, isn’t he?”

Jeonghan stills abruptly, clears his throat. His ears are bright red. Seungcheol’s grin drops by an inch, and they exchange another look that conveys volumes without uttering a single word. But Seungcheol seems to mellow quicker than Jeonghan, the latter still seeming on edge.

“Yes,” Seungcheol lets out a deep breath, “Jeonghan and I...correspond from time to time to make sure Mingyu is always safe. That night he was on my turf, and of course I had to-”

“ Seungcheol,” Jeonghan warns, a surprisingly frazzled tinge to it. Jihoon has never seen Jeonghan look like this before, almost a little nervous, embarrassed. 

“Oh come on, we had to tell Jihoon-sshi at some point,” Seungcheol reassures, “You’re the one who said we can trust him.”

“But-” Jeonghan whines, straight-up whines. (Jihoon has to pinch himself to make sure this isn’t a dream, that this really is the same Yoon Jeonghan who can make Jihoon quiver in his boots with a single glance.)

“Jeonghannie,” Seungcheol says, and the nickname is ardent on Seungcheol’s tongue, hovering on the territory of a familiarity that feels awfully potent. Jihoon is discovering way too many new things tonight. “You’re forgetting that I’ve seen them together before. Lee Jihoon has nothing but Gyu’s best interests at heart.”

Something in the bottom of Jihoon’s stomach stirs, reminding him that it’s still there, still as startlingly potent.

But before he can ponder what it is, Jeonghan sighs dramatically, huffs out a “Fiiiiine!”

The smile Seungcheol aims at Jeonghan is so subtle, Jihoon feels like he’s hallucinated it. Yet it’s still there on his face when he turns his attention back on Jihoon, says, “For more than a month, Jeonghannie and I have been attempting to track down the person that’s trying to hurt Mingyu.”

“And every lead we’ve had so far has gone cold.” Jeonghan continues with sigh, finally giving in to the prospect of involving Jihoon in whatever unconventional partnership they have formed here. “And now, with the shooting...it complicates things even further. We need to find this person as soon as possible. We need to stop him as soon as possible.”

“Which is why we need you to tell us what happened Jihoon,” Seungcheol continues from where Jeonghan left off. “We need to know how the shooter even got there. How could he have known to find Mingyu there? Why did he want to hurt Mingyu so badly that he opened fire in the middle of a crowded night market, putting countless other lives in danger?”

For a minute, Jihoon stares between the two of them. They look determined, poised for combat, but then - he can see it here too, always flickering around them like an invisible halo, connecting all three of them with a single untenable string. The care.

They care about Mingyu.

They’re willing to do this for Mingyu. Seungcheol, whose entire political career could be at risk by merely the fact that he’s friends with Prince Kim Mingyu (heir to the very monarchy he’s trying to dismantle), much less independently investigating Prince Mingyu’s attempted assassination. Jeonghan, who is bound by countless rules and protocols as the palace chief-of-staff, who could easily have gone down the path of Mingyu’s uncle, his cousin, his grandmother, could have easily neglected the prince like most people in the palace do. And yet, he didn’t. Yet, Jeonghan has always cared about Mingyu, is willing to risk his own job to track down Mingyu’s attacker.

And then there’s Jihoon. The bodyguard who failed to protect his prince, his heart a dithering mess of a muscle, always beating in tandem with the prince’s every word, every breath, every gesture, every rhythm.

How could he not do his bit to help?

“Before we left for the rally tonight, Mingyu made me promise to not tell the two of you anything.” Jihoon says, “But then again, I guess that ship’s sailed now.”

“Yep,” Jeonghan nods, “Mingyu is an idiot with no sense of self-preservation.”

“Exactly.” And for the first time since Mingyu collapsed in his arms, Jihoon finds it in himself to crack a smile, to find a purpose amidst all the mayhem. “Which is why I’ll have to break my promise. I’ll tell you what happened.”

---

THE PEOPLE’S PRINCE, FINALLY FELLED?

South Korea Herald, March 2, 2020

When Choi Seungcheol announced a pro-Dissolution, anti-royal rally in none other than the Myeongdong night market, we expected drama for sure. But what we did not expect is a potential dead prince.

Yes, it’s true. Kim Mingyu was found to be in secret attendance of a rally that was essentially aimed at criticising and challenging his very own family. But within just an hour of him being in attendance, an unknown shooter began opening fire, injuring five civilians and yes - Prince Kim Mingyu himself, who has sustained a near-fatal gunshot wound. He was immediately rushed to the nearby Seoul St Mary’s Hospital by bodyguard Lee Jihoon, who was also present at the scene; though hospital authorities have been tight-lipped about the progress of Prince Mingyu’s recovery. 

While the internet has exploded with an outpouring of messages hoping for Prince Mingyu’s return to the peak of health, public sentiment around the Dissolution vote has made a swift turnabout. While up until a few days ago Choi Seungcheol’s side of the movement was clearly poised for victory, today, he has become the very target of the public’s ire. Rumours are floating around that this was some kind of elaborate ploy on his part to take the heir out of the picture so the future of the royal family is weakened. But even those who are skeptical about believing such conspiracy theories have no love lost for Choi Seungcheol. Prince Mingyu is, after all, the people’s prince - the one man everyone loves, regardless of their political leanings - and the fact that it was Choi Seungcheol's rally that put him in danger has brutally affected the leftist Assemblyman's reputation, even among his own constituents. 

While Choi Seungcheol is taking every opportunity to disavow his intention or involvement in any harm caused to Prince Mingyu (and in fact, is blaming the royal family for neglecting the prince’s wellbeing), royal uncle Kim Hyungshik too is leaving no stone unturned to hurl accusations at Choi Seungcheol. Though, of course, no official charges have been pressed yet.

We all suspected that the battle for Dissolution was going to get ugly, but none of us really wanted it at the expense of our beloved Prince Kim Mingyu, did we? We only hope and pray that he comes back hale and hearty, and keeps giving us more swoonworthy fashion moments and more photo-ops of him volunteering at charities to save hungry children.

---

Mingyu gets two separate surgeries in the next forty-eight hours, and yet, doesn’t regain consciousness.

Under observation, is still his official status, but Jihoon sees the aghast looks the doctors exchange everytime they check Mingyu’s chart, take his vitals. Jihoon has to constantly bite back the urge to scream right in the middle of this hospital room, his brain a syncopated beat of Mingyu Mingyu Mingyu.

Jihoon doesn’t know how, but Jeonghan manages to convince Moonshik that none of it was Jihoon’s fault, that in fact, without Jihoon rushing Mingyu to the hospital in the nick of time, Mingyu wouldn’t even be alive. And so by some unseen miracle, Moonshik agrees to let Jihoon stay at the hospital to keep a constant, vigilant eye on him; even gets him the adequate clearance to physically enter and leave Mingyu’s room whenever he needs to. Moonshik insisted on staying too (Moonshik doesn’t trust him, Jihoon can tell, but at least he trusts Jeonghan), but unfortunately, the king has a million different social and political commitments to attend to - the media storm over Mingyu’s shooting, the Dissolution vote, which is barely a few days away, the ensuing discord within the royal family itself in the aftermath of everything. Jihoon only hears bits and pieces from Jeonghan, but apparently, Hyungshik is already trying to convince Moonshik to appoint a different heir in case Mingyu truly doesn’t recover, but Moonshik is firmly standing his ground, refusing to do anything until the doctors officially declare him dead.

Honestly? Right now, Jihoon doesn’t have it in him to give a damn about politics - both within the royal family and outside it. All he does is sit by Mingyu’s bedside, trying not to cry at the sight of the ever-bright, ever-scintillating prince unconscious, plugged to a heart monitor that beeps only feebly, an IV that drips so slowly it makes Jihoon feel like he’ll go insane. Seungcheol doesn’t visit - his presence in Mingyu’s actual room might raise way too many eyebrows, may cause both his and Mingyu’s reputations irreparable harm - but he does send Seokmin and Minghao on his behalf. They bring Mingyu flowers (lilies, Mingyu’s favourite), and look so sad and apologetic, Jihoon has to be the one to comfort them. 

“If only we hadn’t left you two alone-” Seokmin says, eyes tremulous, on the verge of tears.

“Don’t fall down that hole, Seokmin-ah,” Jihoon has to lay a calming hand on his shoulder, “We can’t change the past, so let’s just hope for a better future, yeah?”

But it feels like a false promise. He doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince - Seokmin, or himself.

When no one is around - the nurses on break, the doctors not on rounds, the visiting hours over - Jihoon takes Mingyu’s listless hand in his, and holds it up to his lips, breathing in the intoxicating scent of everything that symbolises Mingyu (kindness, light, endless lust for life despite all adversity, love ). In those quiet hours, he lets himself shed the tears he doesn’t feel brave enough to shed otherwise, hopes against hope that the doctors are all wrong, that the heart monitor will beep a little louder tomorrow.

Despite his ridiculously busy schedule, Jeonghan drops by too. He coaxes Jihoon from Mingyu’s bedside, pushes him to the nearby bathroom to shower, forces him to make his way down to the hospital cafeteria to grab a sandwich and coffee.

“If you don’t look after yourself, how will you look after Mingyu?” he says, gentle like Jihoon has never seen him be, sympathy written in every expression that crosses his face. 

Maybe Jihoon really is that pitiful, that obvious. Maybe the unquantifiable extent to which he cares is like a blaring red signal on top of Jihoon’s head, constantly announcing to the world: here lies Lee Jihoon, forever under Kim Mingyu’s spell. 

But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he’s being obvious if these are the last moments he gets with the prince who captured his heart, who taught him how to love fiercely and unconditionally, who defies all dossiers, all expectations. Who burns like the brightest star in the galaxy.

And so, Jihoon sits by Mingyu’s side like a rock, like an anchor, desperately trying to lure him back to the shore. Hoping he’ll listen, he’ll come back, for Jihoon, the silly old bodyguard who cares too much.

--

The only time Jihoon does take a break from despairing over Mingyu is when Jeonghan and Seungcheol send him updates from their ongoing independent investigation.

The morning after their first conversation, Jeonghan adds him to a groupchat with Seungcheol, titled “Prince Protection Patrol” - Jihoon would be amused by the alliteration, if he didn’t feel so despondent every minute of every day - and through it, they send him a steady stream of information on the steps they’ve been taking - pulling strings to get hold of incident reports, discreetly interviewing witnesses, looking into any criminal organisations that might want a royal dead. Jihoon feels a little guilty for not being out there actively investigating alongside them, but he can barely make himself budge from Mingyu’s bedside, unwilling to leave him alone for even a minute. So he does what he can from the hospital itself, helping them review evidence, offering suggestions wherever possible, giving them names of old military contacts who might be willing to help divulge confidential information.

It is through the combined effort of one such old military contact and Seungcheol’s political heft that they have finally managed to procure the official CCTV footage from the day of the shooting. There was something fishy about the official footage the police logged into evidence - major chunks of it missing, not offering a single clear view of the shooter’s face. But the footage they have now is the real thing, not the one in evidence lockers, procured only because Seungcheol and Jeonghan are willing to go to scary lengths to bring Mingyu’s perpetrator to justice. A copy of it has been sent to Jihoon’s phone, and all afternoon, Jihoon has spent looking at it with a raging intensity, fast-forwarding, pausing to zoom into places.

The shooter was stationed on the rooftop right above where he and Mingyu were standing, which is scary in itself. Were they being followed that night? Had Jihoon been careless enough to not check the perimeter properly? Had he really messed up this bad?

But the shooter disappears from view of the CCTV camera as soon as he fires the third gunshot, and Jihoon keeps rewinding and rewinding to that point of the footage to watch it incessantly, yet it yields no answers.

When he’s in his fifth consecutive viewing of the footage and about to tear his hair out in frustration, it’s something else that makes him halt right in his tracks.

A rustle of sheets. A soft, murmured, “Hyung?”

The heart monitor, beeping louder, more consistent.

Jihoon immediately springs out of the sofa across the room,  rushing to stand right beside Mingyu, reaching to hold his hand purely out of instinct. 

Mingyu is stirring. Shifting against his sheets, his eyebrows crinkled, like he’s trying to find a comfortable spot. Little “mms” and “aahs”, sounds that are music to Jihoon’s ears, erupt from him as he tries to accustom himself to his present position, gradually, bit by bit, his consciousness trickling back in.

And Jihoon’s heart is hammering away, just like Mingyu’s heart monitor currently is - it’s green lines rising like sharp cliffs, at the pace of Jihoon’s own breathing. 

And then, with slow, assiduous effort, Mingyu’s eyes flutter open, long lashes fanning out against his bronze skin. He’s still adjusting to the sudden outburst of light, frowning just the tiniest bit, blinking a few more times until his eyes settle on Jihoon. All the lines on his face instantly soften, melting into the honeywarm glow that is so characteristically Mingyu, that always illuminates him from head to toe, that always renders him resplendent.

“Jihoon hyung,” he whispers, and his voice is rough, small. But his lips curve into a luminous smile, manifesting gossamer-soft crinkles around his eyes. “Y-you’re really here.”

And Jihoon inhales a sharp breath, coming entirely undone. All the knots in his body, all the splinters lodged in his the vicinity of his chest and pressing under his ribcage dissolve in mere seconds, leaving behind only his earth-shattering care, the critical mass that are his feelings for this utterly magnificent boy, his prince, who is smiling up at him like he’s something fascinating. 

Mingyu came back for Jihoon. He heard all the silent prayers Jihoon whispered day and night, and swam back to the shore. He’s here, pulsating flesh-and-blood; his hair all mussed from lying in a hospital bed for four days, face exhausted, puffy under the eyes. And yet, he’s the most beautiful person Jihoon has ever seen, the only person Jihoon has ever wanted to cherish and protect.

Has ever wanted to love.

And that’s when it dawns on him, so clearly it feels like his body is moving of its own accord, that it’s his heart that’s wrenching him forward, the rudder to his aimless ship. He’s leaning down, down, down, until -

His face is lowered right above Mingyu’s, their mouths merely a breath apart. Jihoon is enveloped in Mingyu’s scent - which is still somehow floral and vibrant despite him being confined to a hospital bed, which is always, unfailingly, dizzying. They stay like that for a boundless minute, Jihoon taking in the expanse of Mingyu’s face: the tapering slope of his nose, his slightly chapped lips which are now parted in anticipation, his left canine jutting out in the cutest of ways. 

“Hyung?” Mingyu says again, and Jihoon feels it resonate across his skin. A benediction, a litany healing his very soul. “Are you gonna kiss me?”

He’s so earnest in the way he asks the question, his lisp slipping out again, his eyes resembling that of a puppy’s, unbearably innocent and sweet. And how is Jihoon ever supposed to resist this man? How is he ever supposed to keep his feelings from spilling out, scattering everywhere, crashing into each other until they are lying on the ground, free for Mingyu to do with whatever he wills.

Kim Mingyu has always been devastating to the state of Jihoon’s composure. But he no longer minds. Jihoon will let Mingyu wreak havoc on him as much as he wants.

And so, as the heart monitor lets out another resounding beep, Jihoon finally, finally closes the distance. He brushes his lips against Mingyu’s in the gentlest of kisses - tentative, yet entirely deliberate, channeling into it the complete breadth and length of his care, of the love that he can nurture at last. It’s an invitation, a promise, and Mingyu, as always, rises to the occasion. Mingyu kisses back fiercely, colliding against Jihoon like a meteor, tongue teasing past teeth, pulling a ragged moan from Jihoon. 

Jihoon feels like he’s weightless, untouchable. Even though Mingyu is the one currently injured, currently recovering from life-threatening injury, Jihoon feels healed from deep within. The taste of Mingyu’s lips is the cure to every ailment, to every terrible thing he has ever been plagued with, and Jihoon can only gasp, can only hold on to clumps of Mingyu’s messy hair for purchase. Mingyu raises the arm that’s not currently hooked to the IV to cup Jihoon’s cheek, to pull him in closer so he can plunder Jihoon’s mouth, can shatter every last boundary between them. Jihoon doesn’t know how Mingyu does it, how, despite having woken up from the haze of a terrible traumatic injury, he has the enthusiasm to kiss like this, like his entire life is dependent on it. But Jihoon isn’t complaining. Jihoon isn’t complaining when, despite their somewhat awkward angle, Mingyu fingers are roaming all over his face, Mingyu’s lips are devouring Jihoon’s mouth with a hunger that nearly makes him lose all balance.

When they finally part for air, Mingyu smiles up at him again, except this is a different kind of smile altogether. It’s coy, it’s dazzling. It’s like nothing Jihoon has ever seen.

“Whoa,” Mingyu says, breathless. He’s still a little pale, still a little exhausted from having survived yet another near-death experience, but there’s a hint of mischief in the way he stares back at Jihoon. “Now that’s something, huh?”

“Mingyu, ” Jihoon makes a noise at the back of his throat, something between a whine and a surrender.“I-”

“Wait, don’t say anything yet.” Mingyu presses a finger against Jihoon’s lips, like he had done once, a long time ago (or at least, it seems like a long time ago). “If this is a dream I want to savour it a little longer.”

“It’s not a dream, Mingyu.” Jihoon whispers, kissing the finger against his lips for good measure. Because he wants to. Because he feels brave enough to. “That really happened. We really kissed.”

“And you really wanted to kiss me? It wasn’t just out of pity, because I nearly died?”

Heck, Jihoon's heart is already on his sleeve. Might as well go the distance.

Jihoon sucks in a breath, nods. “I really did.”

For a moment, Mingyu is oddly quiet, and Jihoon is suddenly terrified that he’s reconsidering everything, that he’s going to say this was all a mistake, that he was still recovering from the gunshot and had acted out of character. That he was imagining someone else in Jihoon’s place when he asked for the kiss.

But Jihoon’s fears are unfounded, because in the very next second, Mingyu withdraws his finger from Jihoon’s lips to stroke it up and down the side of Jihoon’s face, pinning him with that same honeywarm gaze. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you, hyung.”

“Mingyu-”

“This is maybe the worst possible time to be saying this,” Mingyu cuts in, and there’s a single-mindedness to his voice, even if it continues to be a little hoarse. “And honestly, the only reason I even am saying this now is because I nearly died in your arms without having you know this, but-”

His finger stills on Jihoon’s jaw, and he swallows hard, his adam's apple bobbing in response. “I think I’m in love with you, Lee Jihoon. Actually scratch that, I know I’m in love with you.”

“Mingyu.” And for the millionth time that week, Jihoon is reduced to utter speechlessness, all his senses amplified, threatening to explode.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. In fact, you don’t even have to say anything at all. I just wanted you to know, because I’ve felt this way for so long now, I can’t hide my feelings anymore. You are just so wonderful, hyung. Before I met you, I had no one who would stand up for me, who would genuinely believe in me and not just think I’m a waste of space, just a pretty face and nothing else. The night we met - you didn’t even know me, and you still told me I was worth being saved. I just ...hyung... hyung, you make me believe I’m worth it, you make me-”

Mingyu doesn’t get a chance to finish the rest of his rambling because Jihoon is leaning down again, capturing his mouth into another fierce, uncompromising kiss. Jihoon isn’t good with words, can’t express the magnitude of emotion that Mingyu makes him experience, but he can channel it all like this, pour it all into the way their lips connect, the way he never lets go of Mingyu’s IV-laden hand. He kisses and kisses until his body is a mere shell, until every last ounce of care and longing and unadulterated love has seeped out of him and into Mingyu. When they part this time, they are both panting, Jihoon having to hold on to the edge of Mingyu’s bed to keep himself upright.

“Mingyu,” Jihoon whispers again, utterly mesmerised by the way Mingyu’s pupils are wide and dilated, the way his lips are spit-slick and swollen, “You are always worth it. I will always strive to make you believe you are worth it, till my dying breath.”

“God, hyung. How do you say things like that and expect me to not love you?”

That makes Jihoon crack a smile at last, and he leans down to press a chaste kiss on Mingyu’s forehead. “I’m in love with you too, Kim Mingyu.”

“R-really?” Mingyu’s eyebrows shoot up in disbelief, and underneath the hospital-issued blanket, his chest rises and swells, the heart monitor proof of his sped-up heartbeat. Even after all this time, after Jihoon has bared his soul, has kissed Mingyu with everything he has, Mingyu is still shocked at the revelation that Jihoon might return his feelings. That Mingyu can be loved.

And Jihoon means it, he means it when he says that he will dedicate every living, waking moment to wipe that disbelief off Mingyu’s face, to insist, with his words, with his actions, with every breath he takes - that Mingyu is worthy of being loved. That Mingyu is unquestionably loved. 

“I think I’ve loved you from the day I met you,” Jihoon continues, because suddenly he doesn’t want to hold anything back, boundaries be damned, “I tried not to. I tried to keep things professional, tried to remind myself that you’re a client and getting my feelings involved would make things complicated. But the thing is, Mingyu, it’s impossible for me to not love you. Every time you would smile at me or do something frustratingly selfless or be the most intelligent and kind human being I have ever known, I would just fall further and further. I am hopeless when it comes to resisting you.”

“Hyung,” Mingyu groans, a tear slipping down his cheek. He shuts his eyes, lets the tear curl past his nose, fall onto his collarbone. The lines in the heart monitor are still steep, as bright green as ever. “You’re sure this isn’t a dream? You sure I’m not hallucinating because I'm on sedatives and painkillers?”

Jihoon chuckles, so ridiculously endeared. This boy, this magnificent boy, his prince. The most wonderful boy on earth.

He leans down to kiss Mingyu again, slower, much more deliberate. Taking his time to explore every corner of his mouth, to mark his territory. “It’s real, Gyu-yah” he murmurs into the edge of Mingyu’s bottom lip, “All of this is real. I love you, for real.”

And Mingyu beams against Jihoon’s mouth, quietly exuberant. Jihoon thinks he doesn’t want anything more in life but this, kissing Mingyu silly, submitting every bit of himself to his prince.

---

As it turns out, the bullet had missed his spine by a pretty big margin, saving Mingyu from permanent brain damage, long-term coma, or, of course, death.

The only lasting aftermath of the wound is the terrible, near-debilitating pain in his right shoulder and arm, but it’s nothing Mingyu can’t recover from. In fact, Mingyu prides himself on his threshold for physical pain, doesn’t even fuss when the nurses come every few hours to change his dressing or when the physiotherapists try to make him do shoulder exercises in the evenings.

But waking up after being unconscious for four consecutive days also brings with it the other kind of pain - the one that comes without any physical markers. And his threshold for that leaves much to be desired. As soon as the royals receive word of Mingyu regaining consciousness, they all rush to the hospital to see him; even his grandmother, who hardly ever leaves the palace unless strictly necessary. But as they crowd around Mingyu’s hospital bed, all they do is prod him with a million invasive questions, none of which are about his health. 

What were you doing at the rally? Did Choi Seungcheol lure you in under false pretences? Is he the one who’s behind the shooting? We bet he is - did you know he’s been foul-mouthing the royal family more than ever in every press interview? He even implied that we don’t treat you right? The audacity of him-

It’s only Moonshik who shushes the cluster of voices trying to one-up each other in this strange back-and-forth interrogation that’s making Mingyu’s shoulder hurt even more.

 “This is a hospital,” the king growls. “If you can’t be quiet then wait outside.”

That somehow seems to do the trick - after all, nobody truly has the courage to defy a direct order from His Highness Kim Moonshik. Not even the Dowager Queen. 

They fall silent, resorting only to whispering amongst themselves and throwing Mingyu the usual cutting, scornful look. Uncle Hyungshik mutters something under his breath that sounds uncannily like “pathetic”, and his grandmother takes an irritable swig from her hipflask (which Mingyu suspects is definitely not allowed inside a hospital, but of course, she's the fucking Dowager Queen, he wouldn't put anything past her). Mingyu feels like he’s back at a monthly family dinner, where he’s nothing but a spectacle, nothing but the sideshow everyone points and laughs at. 

It feels worse than it did when the bullet grazed his skin.

But Moonshik does approach Mingyu’s bedside, runs a hand along Mingyu’s hair. “How are you feeling, Mingyu-yah?” 

And the tenderness in his voice makes the knots in Mingyu’s stomach loosen, if only by an inch. “I’m good, appa.” he says, offering a small smile. “Don’t worry about me.”

“You always say that.”

“And I always mean it. I don’t want you to worry about me.”

Moonshik simply stares down at him, weariness written in his entire frame, the bags under his eyes far too prominent. He seems to be assessing something about Mingyu, but then - there’s also a note of resignation, like he doesn’t want to fight this battle anymore. Mingyu understands, but feels a stab of guilt nevertheless. 

He’s always such a burden to his father, isn't he? Especially now.

But Moonshik doesn’t say anything further, and neither does Mingyu. He leans down to kiss Mingyu on the cheek, mumbles a, “Take care of yourself, yeah? I’ll be back to see you soon.”

And then turns around, gestures to everyone to leave alongwith him.

Except Jihoon. The only constant anchor keeping him rooted, keeping him whole.

As soon as the room is empty again, Jihoon bounds over to Mingyu’s side, takes his hand and kisses it. “You okay? Want me to ask Jeonghan-sshi to bar your family from visiting? I mean, everyone except his highness, of course.”

Mingyu chuckles, pushing himself up by the elbows so he can sit up in bed (trying not to wince as the movement tugs at the bandages around his shoulder). Jihoon is so sweet, so perceptive too. Mingyu never quite had to explain in detail his complex relationship with his family, yet Jihoon always understood it in a way nobody else does, has always offered comfort in the most unexpected of ways. Just like he is doing now.

“It’s okay, hyung,” he brings their joined hands to his lips, because now he can, “I can just ignore them, like I’m used to doing.”

“Okay,” Jihoon says, settling on an empty patch in Mingyu’s hospital bed, drawing himself as close to Mingyu as possible, “But I want you to know that you can ask me for anything, yeah? If you want me to scare away your annoying cousins, or to make sure your uncle doesn’t misbehave-”

“Hyung,” Mingyu interrupts, “It’s fine, really. I don’t care what they say. I just care that you are here with me.”

And he means it. 

He never expected Jihoon to return his feelings, to make him this deliriously happy every waking hour of every day, despite him being confined to a hospital bed. But ever since he came back to his senses, ever since Jihoon leaned down and melted all the unseen boundaries between them, closed the unseen distance and took his lips into his, Mingyu has felt like the luckiest person alive. The same old Mingyu, who was once a bird in a net, feels like he can finally flap his wings, can rattle against his shackles. 

In a way, Jihoon has been taking care of him from the moment they met, but now, his care feels so much more precious, so bewitching.  He’s there to kiss him softly, a tangible reminder that what they have between them is something more, something substantial, a slice of glittering heaven. He’s there to feed him gentle nibbles when Mingyu’s arm hurts too much to hold up his chopsticks. He’s there to help Mingyu change into his clothes - always keeping his eyes respectfully averted from Mingyu’s bare chest, but his pinkening cheeks betraying the effect Mingyu has on him. It makes Mingyu’s heart soar, makes him feel admired like he hasn’t felt before.

(Mingyu tries to take care of him in return, even if Jihoon can be a little stubborn sometimes.

“Have you not gone home at all since you brought me here?” he asks one time, and Jihoon shakes his head, tells him, “I couldn’t leave you here alone.”

The words wrap themselves around Mingyu’s heart, showering it with endless warmth, but he basks in it for only a second before insisting Jihoon go out to at least eat a full meal that’s not from the hospital cafeteria. Jihoon complains, but Mingyu silences him with a kiss, convinces him with a batting of his eyelashes. 

And yeah, maybe Mingyu hasn’t had as much practice in taking care of a loved one , but he’s making the most of whatever he can. He’s trying to show Jihoon he wants to be there for him too, wants to shower him with warmth too.)

At night, Jihoon insists on sleeping on the hard wooden bench that’s across the room, says he’s been sleeping there for the past four days and that it’s okay, he’s not uncomfortable at all. But Mingyu can be adamant when he wants to.

“Come sleep here, beside me?” he wields his pout like a weapon. Perhaps it’s a little selfish, but it’s also not. He can’t bear the thought of Jihoon getting a stiff neck just because he refuses to leave Mingyu's side and go home to his actual bed. 

It works like seamless magic. 

“Mingyu,” Jihoon huffs, but Mingyu can tell his resistance is dwindling, “That bed is hardly big enough for two. And besides, what if the nurses walk in on us?”

“But hyuuung, I’m cold and touch-starved! Don’t I deserve some cuddles?” Then, after a pause, his lisp worming its way out, “ Please? ”

Jihoon rolls his eyes, but the gesture is entirely affectionate. All the tension in his frame slowly, subtly, seeps away, and he walks over to Mingyu’s bed at last. Takes off his socks, climbs in where Mingyu has scooted over to make space. 

In moments like this, Mingyu hates that he is so tall, that his limbs are so gangly and massive that they are scattered everywhere, that his arms are like big uncoordinated spider’s wings. All he wants to be is the little spoon, nudged in the middle of Jihoon’s broad, beautiful chest, his strong, sinewy arms wrapped all around him. But the tubes stuck to Mingyu's arms, the IV on his left wrist, makes it all a bit logistically inconvenient, makes him want to pout all over again, and not because he wants to entice Jihoon into his bed.

And yet, Jihoon makes it all so perfect. He is heartstoppingly gentle, as he always is - settles in to spoon Mingyu so gingerly, not a single tube or suture on Mingyu’s body is disturbed. His hand spools onto Mingyu’s waist, holding him close, and Mingyu tries his best to curl into as little a ball as he can, revelling in the solid weight of Jihoon’s chest behind him, breathing in Jihoon’s haunting musk-scent. Jihoon reaches up to kiss the edge of Mingyu’s hairline, says, “Happy now?”

Mingyu smiles, even if Jihoon can’t see it. “Extremely.”

They stay there like that for a while, falling into a comfortable silence that’s interrupted only by the telltale beeping of the heart monitor. Jihoon hums a lullaby under his breath - perhaps subconsciously - and it penetrates the very depths of Mingyu’s soul, enlivening all the dark places within him that have been gathering cobwebs ever since he was twelve.

“My mother used to sing to me too, every night,” it slips out almost involuntarily, that caged bird within him angling for release, “After she died, I- I could never really sleep well without her lullabies. That’s why I started sneaking out in the first place, you know? Because it was better than lying in bed awake till late at night, crying because I miss her so much.”

Jihoon kisses Mingyu again, this time right above his ear, lips travelling past his barely-there sideburns to the curve of his cheek. “I’ll sing you to sleep if you want, Mingyu-yah,” Jihoon whispers into his skin, sending an unbidden shiver down his spine, “I used to sing to my little brothers and sister all the time when I was younger. I’ll sing for you too.”

The butterflies flood Mingyu’s stomach again, making him nearly choke up with the wealth of emotions bubbling inside him. Why does Jihoon constantly, constantly do this to him? Why does Jihoon make him feel so much, so much love, so much happiness?

“I’d like that very much, hyung,” he replies, and despite all best efforts to hold it back, a tear slips down his cheek anyway.

 God, Mingyu is so pathetic. All it takes is one sweet romantic gesture from this handsome wonderful man and he’s reduced to a crying mess, a barely-human pile of unrestrained emotions. He’s got to get his shit together, or Jihoon will think he truly is that desperate - even though he is, even though no one has treated him the way Jihoon does, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it ninety-nine per cent of the time.

But Jihoon simply brushes his tears away like he had done just a few hours before, bearing the salt of it on his tongue as he leans down to kiss Mingyu’s cheek again, holding him tighter. “Do you want me to sing now?” 

Mingyu sniffles, tries not to embarass himself by crying any further. But he knows that if Jihoon does start singing, Mingyu won’t be able to keep the dam from breaking, won’t be able to prevent the waves of his emotion from coming crashing to the surface. 

“In a minute,” he decides to stall, “First I want to know about your siblings. I want to know everything about you hyung.”

Jihoon chuckles, and Mingyu feels it in the vibration of his chest, leans into it like it’s an essential lifesource, “You already know all the things about me that truly  matter, Gyu-yah,” he kisses Mingyu once more, under the wedge of his eyes, “But if you must know some more, I’m the eldest of four children. I have two younger brothers and a sister. They’re all back in Busan, my hometown.”

“And that’s where your mother teaches law too?”

Jihoon chuckles again, “Yes, Mingyu.” Another kiss, placed softly on the top of Mingyu’s eyebrow, “I’ll take you there sometime, maybe during Chuseok. I think you’ll like Busan.”

There it is, one more time. The emotions churning within him again, threatening to spill out, threatening to flood everywhere. There's another tear welling up at the corner of his eye and god he is truly so pathetic. It's only an innocent invitation, offered so casually, yet Mingyu can't even handle this much. He feels vanquished, wholly at Jihoon's mercy, picked and pulled apart.

Mingyu has never experienced a functional family. Even when his mother was alive, royal family gatherings were far from pleasant - his grandmother always throwing disapproving looks at his mother, always pointing out how she didn’t fit in; his cousins always shoving him around or finding other, crueler ways to bully him. But the way Jihoon talks about his family is the complete opposite; it's burnished with a special sort of connection, camaraderie, love.

Mingyu thinks he'll be a terrible intruder in the midst of it all, yet, he feels so inordinately grateful, so overcome with joy. Of all the privileges he's been granted all through his life, being invited to share in the warmth Jihoon's family shares feels the greatest of all.

"I think I'll like it too," he whispers back to Jihoon, shifting in closer, IV be damned. "Thank you."

"Hey, what have I said about thank yous?" Jihoon leans down, presses his nose against Mingyu's temple.

"That I don't need to say them," Mingyu breathes out, "But I want to, hyung. I want to thank you for everything you've done for me. I love you."

Jihoon goes quiet at that, but Mingyu can feel the perennial rise-and-fall of his chest, their bodies moving in unison in the wake of it. He wishes he could see Jihoon's face, but he also dreads it. What if Jihoon suddenly changed his mind? What if Jihoon really thought Mingyu is too pathetic to be invited to Busan, to be held and loved.

But then, Jihoon is kissing him again - his cheek, his earlobe, the junction between his chin and neck - and Mingyu's fears are put to rest once and for all. He shudders with the love Jihoon showers on him, sparkles underneath it all. "I love you too, my sweet Mingyu," he says, and Mingyu feels it to his very toes, filling him with endless warmth, "Get better soon, okay? I'll take you everywhere you've ever wanted to go. I'll give you everything."

And as Mingyu shuts his eyes to process the wealth of implications that declaration brings, he feels, for the first time in his life, like he has a future out there waiting for him with open arms.

A future with Lee Jihoon.

---

Perhaps it's the fact that Jihoon is so adept at kissing all his pain better, or perhaps it is the excellent medical care he receives, or perhaps, it's his own unexpected self-discipline - but Mingyu does recover at alarming speed.

He's diligent with his physiotherapy exercises, and even more so with his medication. Every afternoon, he takes walks around the hospital quad with Jihoon's hand clasped in his, taking slow deliberate steps in tandem with his bodyguard's and learning to get back on his feet. Jihoon cuddles him to sleep nearly every night, and that's a whole other salve altogether, healing him to the very core of his being, making him desperate to get back to the peak of health so they can do more, so Mingyu can convince Jihoon to pin him into the mattress and ravish him like he wants to be ravished. But of course, he's been advised against 'excessive physical activity' for at least ten more days, and Jihoon is painstakingly conscious of it - which is equal parts sweet and frustrating. Jihoon holds Mingyu with so much gentleness, makes him feel so cherished and loved, kisses like the blooming of rose petals, mellow, addictive and beautiful. But when their breaths get too heavy, when Mingyu's hands begin roaming in the vicinity of Jihoon's belt buckle, when his hardness is painfully obvious, Jihoon always pulls back.

"We'll have time for that, okay?" he always whispers with a tender smile, "Recovery comes first."

And Mingyu knows Jihoon is only thinking about him, is only worried that Mingyu will hurt himself in the process of that more they're both so desperate for. Jihoon's own hardness is often evident, straining against his tight cotton trousers when Mingyu bites a little too hard at his bottom lip, pulls at the strands of hair at the nape of his neck - and has to often excuse himself to go to the bathroom to cool off. Mingyu craves to be the one to take Jihoon to his climax, and gets a little grumpy about the situation even if Jihoon always kisses him later, tells him that there will be time.

Truth is, he's not used to this - receiving love - and now that he's had a small taste, he wants everything. He wants Jihoon's deft hands all over his body, taking Mingyu apart and then putting him back together like he does when he turns soil in the backyard garden. He wants to lay Jihoon bare, to run his tongue over every ripple of muscle lining his chest, his ribs, his waist. But then, Jihoon calls him sweet names, holds him close every night and sings him lullabies, and Mingyu feels this is enough too, this is more than enough. He'll treasure any little crumb of Jihoon that he gets. 

He could want for nothing as long as Jihoon is with him, kissing him and calling him pretty.

In a few more days, he passes his final physiotherapy test, and gets cleared to go home.

But before he even has a chance to rejoice (or a chance to change out of his hospital gown) Jeonghan rushes into his hospital room, looking exceptionally weary and overworked with his unruly hair and under-eye bags.

"There's a whole media circus out there," He tells Mingyu and Jihoon (who is standing at a respectable distance now that Jeonghan is here), loosening his tie in resignation, "Lots of news vans and cameras. They all want a piece of you, Gyu."

Oh fuck.

Honestly, Mingyu hadn't even thought about this. He's been so caught up in the euphoria of Jihoon, in all the alone time they've been spending together, all the nights they've been intertwined in each other both literally and figuratively, kissing like the world outside didn't exist - it's been easy to forget that he's triggered a major scandal for his family. Prince Mingyu, the heir to the monarchy, not only caught in the middle of an anti-royal rally but also gunned down, with no one but his bodyguard there to catch him.

He's seen some of the news headlines, of course - Jihoon brought him his phone the very day he regained consciousness, and every morning he spends hours scrolling through the news websites, reading every last bit of conjecture and propaganda the media has concocted around the incident. But during the same mornings, Jihoon would be stroking his hair, kissing his forehead, feeding him little bites of banchan from the breakfast tray, and Mingyu could lean into it all, could pretend he's entirely detached from the storm brewing outside. That he's not the same Prince Mingyu the tabloids are talking about, that he's just a boy blossoming under the unconditional regard of the man he loves.

He's texted back and forth with Seungcheol too, but even then, their conversations have hardly veered into the territory of politics (which rarely happens). Mingyu has been too afraid to broach the subject, has been too afraid to say, I'm reading about how they're trying to twist this entire thing against you and make you seem like a criminal. I'm reading about how this is affecting the people's support of the Dissolution. I'm sorry I've done this to you, I'm sorry I'm always the one who screws things up, please tell me you're okay.

Mingyu knew he had to face the music at some point, but he just wishes things were different for once. He just wishes that at least this one time he got to bask in his happiness a little longer without being cruelly reminded of every single thing he's botched up incomparably.

"Fuck," Mingyu says out loud, "I'm sorry I should've-"

"Why the heck are you apologising," Jeonghan counters impatiently, and Jihoon nods beside him. Of course Jihoon would agree. After all, he is the number one proponent of the stop-Mingyu-from-apologising-all-the-time agenda.

"The only reason I'm telling you this is because we have to leave through the back entrance," Jeonghan continues, "Jihoon-sshi, you stay by him, watch the perimeter closely. I'll have the car brought around, okay?"

Jihoon nods, looking serious, and for a second, Mingyu wishes they were alone again so he could hold Jihoon's hand. They've made a conscious decision to keep their relationship a secret for now, to avoid any kind of obvious displays of physical affection when they have an audience. If the royal family found out the two of them were...doing whatever it is they are doing...none of them would hesitate to fire Jihoon on the spot. And Mingyu cannot afford to lose him, not him, not another person he loves with every fiber of his being.

So for now, all he can do is get changed and follow Jeonghan while Jihoon walks behind him, maintaining that same respectable distance. The nurses and doctors stare like they often do when Mingyu walks about in the hospital corridors - he's still the prince, and they regard him with the apropos awe and reverence. But he's always determined to not let that regard be one-sided and terribly hierarchical, so he bows to each one of them politely (like he often does), and waves them soft goodbyes.

The back entrance is mercifully deserted, though Mingyu can hear the faint bustle of reporters on the other side - can hear the camera flashes near the hospital's main entrance. A black limousine pulls over, its tinted windows rolled up, and Jeonghan ushers him inside, Jihoon dropping into the seat next to him.

"You good, Mingyu-yah?" Junhui smiles from behind the wheel, his handsome smirk greeting him through the rearview mirror.

"What're you doing here, hyung?" Mingyu frowns in confusion. Junhui is the chief of security, the commander of every single person who has anything to do with the royal security detail or securing the palace from external threats. He is far from the chauffeur, hardly ever the person assigned to driving the prince around.

"Had to keep this little gathering private, didn't we?" Junhui says, smirk broadening, and Jeonghan hums in agreement. "Jeonghan hyung may pretend otherwise, but I'm the only other person he trusts in the palace. And with good reason too."

"But how does that have anything to do with...?" Mingyu trails off, confused even more. He looks from between Jeonghan to Jihoon - who's suddenly uncharacteristically self-conscious, fidgeting with the hook of his wristwatch - but as Junhui turns the key in the ignition and starts the car, pulling into a street that's a detour only someone like Mingyu would know from his nightly adventures, his injury-addled brain catches up to who's in the passenger seat.

"Hey there, Gyu-yah," Seungcheol says, turning around to flash Mingyu a familiar lopsided grin, "I thought I'd catch a ride with you."

"What the-" Mingyu's eyes are round as saucers, his jaw nearly dropping open at the sight. Out of pure instinct, his hand reaches for Jihoon's, and he doesn't even care who sees. He needs something to ground him, needs the incessant comfort of Jihoon's touch to make sure that this isn't some kind of lucid dream. Jihoon blushes a little, probably self-conscious about the fact that Jeonghan is shooting them an odd look, but he doesn't protest. He takes Mingyu's hand gladly.

"How did this- how did you..." Mingyu stutters, "What if someone sees! The Dissolution vote..."

"This car has tinted windows, Gyu-yah." Seungcheol replies, "And besides, we're taking the longer and quieter route - the one I taught you how to navigate when we first met, do you remember?” Mingyu remembers it like it was yesterday. “There’s always less people here. Less chances of getting spotted."

"But why take the risk anyway, hyung?" Mingyu all but yells, "Things are already a fucking shitshow and you're getting all this bad press just because of me. It's...I...we could have found another way to meet."

"Perhaps," Seungcheol hums as Junhui maneuvers the car into another deserted bylane, "But right now my reputation is the last thing I care about, Mingyu-yah. The reason I'm here is something else, something far more pressing. Jeonghannie, would you like to explain?"

Jeonghan clears his throat, and there's a faint brushing of pink around the tops of his cheeks, which is interesting to say the least, because Mingyu has hardly ever seen his hyung openly blush, that too merely at the fact that Seungcheol addressed him with a direct endearment . Mingyu files this discovery away for later, determined to wield it at some point in the future when his mind isn't spiraling away at the prospect of having Choi Seungcheol in the same fucking royal limousine as him.

"Well you see," Jeonghan begins, "Seungcheol and I have been, uh...communicating for a while now."

"Oh I know that," Mingyu replies, indignant.

"You knew?"

"Oh come on, hyung, how could I not?" Mingyu rolls his eyes. He may only be a twenty-two year old who has barely explored the world, but he's not totally obtuse. "You've both been so obvious since day one. Jeonghan hyung only letting me go out if Cheol hyung was gonna be there, him always knowing what time I was coming home without me ever telling him.... Cheol hyung subtly asking me questions about what Jeonghan hyung is like - which, by the way, weren’t subtle at all- "

"Okay, okay, we get it." And Seungcheol is blushing now too, his paler cheeks catching colour more vividly. He tries to mask it with a cough, but it’s so obvious Junhui laughs beside him, and Jihoon cracks a tiny smile too. Jeonghan continues to blush, and it would be genuinely amusing if only Mingyu didn’t feel a sudden anxious churning in his belly, this sense that something terrible and ominous was coming. "But that's not the important thing here."

"He's right." Jeonghan agrees, schooling his features into something more neutral, his blush slowly fading. "The reason Seungcheol is here right now, is because we all wanted to be present when we tell you this, and we know it's probably a bad time, because you've only just recovered from your injury but- we need to act on this as quickly as possible."

"What is it hyung?" Mingyu is nearly holding his breath, gripping the edge of the car seat. Jihoon’s touch is the only thing keeping him sane, the only thing keeping him from completely losing his composure.

"We've been - all four of us, Junhui and Jihoon included - trying to find the person who has repeatedly attacked you. The whole thing was fishy from the start, and we could no longer trust law enforcement to do their job because we suspect quite a few of them have been paid off."

Oh.

Mingyu doesn’t know what to think. 

In a way, he has always been quite blasé about the assassination attempts, worried more about how it might affect those around him than himself. But now that he’s emerged from a closer brush with death than ever, he knows that it is a very real and substantial threat, knows that there is genuinely somebody out there who won’t stop until Mingyu’s corpse is buried in the ground. But the fact that Jeonghan and Seungcheol and Junhui...that even Jihoon... have been investigating it, possibly risking their own lives in the process? Without Mingyu’s knowledge? 

He doesn’t know how it sits with him.

He just feels like a burden once again, causing them more and more hurt and inconvenience purely by existing. Making them do extra work that they shouldn’t, especially not when they all have bigger things to worry about.

"We got hold of CCTV footage from the other night, Mingyu,” Jeonghan is saying, “And while the footage itself didn't yield answers, we did find this."

Jeonghan fishes out a briefcase from underneath the car seat, opens it to brandish a yellow manila folder. "Here," he hands it to Mingyu,"These are some images from another security camera we found near Myeongdong. And uhh, we think you should take a look at it."

"What’s in them?" Mingyu’s voice sounds winded to his own years, his chest heaving with cascading dread.

"Just open it, Mingyu-yah." Seungcheol is the one who urges, but he sounds both small and steely at the same time. Full of purpose, yet full of a deep-seated sympathy. It scares Mingyu.

As he takes the outstretched folder from Jeonghan, his left hand trembles. But Jihoon is still holding on to his right hand, his fingers stroking the underside of Mingyu’s palm, conveying strength, love.

Mingyu swallows hard, trying to muster up all the courage that he can. All this while, he’s been downplaying the danger to his life, almost welcoming it, because what does he have to lose, anyway? Even if he died, what's the most that would happen? Perhaps his father would mourn him. Perhaps his friends back in East Itaewon would miss him. Perhaps Jeonghan hyung would grieve too. But they'd all move on eventually - after all, Mingyu has only ever been at the periphery of their lives, never quite at the center of it; secondary to everything else. After a point, they wouldn't even miss Mingyu, and Mingyu wouldn't have much to miss about this world either.

But then, Jihoon came along and everything changed. Now, Mingyu wants to live, wants to run towards that future he envisions with Jihoon, the future that is slowly, surely taking shape, a fragile pearl in an oyster shell.  Them, together. Spending their nights and days immersed only in each other, growing old together, loving together, living together. 

Jihoon taught Mingyu to dream, to hope for a better life, to break free from every  net that ensnares him. 

Yet here it is in his hands, the threat that's still not defeated. That is still as potent as ever, because Mingyu can never quite have nice things. Mingyu can never quite hope for escape without being brutally penalised for it. Inhaling a deep breath, he decides to rip the band aid off once and for all. He tears through the manila folder, and a pair of black-and-white photographs slip out. They're grainy, barely legible, but Mingyu can clearly make out what they depict.

After all, the figures in the photos are starkly familiar.

It's them, Uncle Hyungshik and Cousin Jungho, leaning against the fancy new sports car Jungho purchased last month, exchanging what unmistakably looks like cash with a masked man who has an automatic rifle strapped to his back.

The shooter.

"Fuck." Mingyu says, and Jihoon lets go of his hand to now wrap an arm around his shoulder, holding him steady.

"We did more digging," Seungcheol continues, but his voice is tinny, like it's at the other end of a dark, dark tunnel. Mingyu feels like he’s going to be sick. "And it turns out, they bugged your room, Mingyu. That's why they always knew when you were sneaking out, where you would be."

"There's no paper trail of them hiring the hitman," Jeonghan adds, and it seems tinny too - distant, like he isn’t even here. Mingyu is flailing in subterranean space, spinning away from reality, and nothing about this is tangible to him, nothing about this is okay.  "So our only proof is those photographs and the listening devices we found in your room. But I think that should be cause enough for your uncle's arrest."

"I know the commissioner of Seoul Metropolitan Police. We were in the army together." Jihoon finally speaks, quiet and sombre, his arm tugging Mingyu in closer, his nose resting on top of Mingyu’s head. "I know she'll help if we take the evidence directly to her. They'd get the jailtime they deserve, and your life will no longer be in danger."

And that’s it.

That’s enough.

Mingyu can’t do this anymore.

"No," Mingyu says, firm and unyielding, straightening up so Jihoon’s face jerks away from his head, though his arm still stays securely around Mingyu. 

The car abruptly skids to a halt, Junhui turning around to stare at him with quizzical eyes. “What are you saying, Mingyu?”

“I’m saying no,” he replies, and it comes out hoarse, hysterical. He’s breathing hard, his exhales raspy and pained, and Jihoon’s hand travels to the small of his back, tries to soothe him. But it helps only marginally.

"Mingyu-" Jeonghan starts, but Mingyu interrupts, "You're not going to the police with this. None of you.”

“Oh come on -” Junhui groans, an edge of frustration coating his words. Seungcheol just stays quiet, but his unyielding gaze speaks volumes. Mingyu can see the impatience simmering underneath.

"I appreciate what you have done for me, all of you.” Mingyu somehow manages, despite the air in his lungs slowly deflating. “And I can't thank you enough for it. But taking this to the police will make matters even worse. They're my family, and I've put them in the middle of enough public attention with the Dissolution vote and the shooting. They don’t need yet another scandal. It'll break appa. It’ll…ruin the family."

“Now that’s bullshit, Mingyu,” Seungcheol growls, and now he looks pissed like Mingyu has never seen before. “You’ve been supporting the Dissolution cause from day one, and that’s not gonna ruin your family but this will? Stop being so fucking self-deprecating all the time. It’s not cute anymore, it’s just stupid.”

“Seungcheol-sshi.” Jihoon warns, his voice sharp. But the damage is already done. 

The words sting deep in his heart, and Mingyu won’t admit it even on his deathbed, but they’re true. Seungcheol is right, he’s stupid, to put his family’s reputation before his own safety, his own life, but-

He has to. His father has poured his entire life into keeping this family together, and this-

No.

“It’s okay, Jihoon hyung,” Mingyu whispers. “Cheol hyung wants the best for me, and I appreciate that, I do. But this is between me and Hyungshik samchon and Jungho hyung. I don’t want anybody else involved. Especially not the police.”

"But-" Jeonghan starts again. And Junhui looks unconvinced too, exchanging a dark look with Jeonghan.

Seungcheol continues to look angry, but his shoulders are hunched in resignation, not a single hint of lopsided grin in sight. There’s disappointment written all across his body.

"Can you take me home, please?” Mingyu sighs, leaning into Jihoon’s side. It probably looks incredibly coupley - just like every other physical gesture he’s shared with Jihoon on this car ride - but he really is past caring at this point. Jihoon is the only solid, constant thing that feels like a consolation, that feels his. He wants to hold on to Jihoon for as long as possible. “I'm tired, I just want to sleep."

Junhui and Jeonghan exchange another silent, inscrutable glance, which only leads to Jeonghan shrugging and Junhui turning around in a huff, clicking the key into ignition once again. Seungcheol’s shoulders continue to be slumped, and he avoids Mingyu’s gaze, no matter how much Mingyu tries to catch it. 

“Are you okay?” Jihoon mumbles quietly into Mingyu’s ear when the car begins to wind past another familiar, deserted alley, finally heading in the direction of the palace.

Even though Mingyu nods in response, they both know he’s lying.

Chapter Text

Later, after they drop Seungcheol off in a suitably clandestine location, after they circumvent all the reporters crowding the palace gates to finally get Mingyu home, after Jihoon safely carries an increasingly sleepy Mingyu to his bed, tucks him in and wraps him in many fuzzy blankets, unable to  keep from being amused at the way the prince keeps pouting and asking Jihoon for cuddles (“Later, jagiya,” Jihoon murmurs into his skin, “You sleep now, yeah? I’ll be back soon.”) - Jeonghan accosts him in the hallway. 

“I’m not giving up,” Jeonghan says, lips pursed in the way Jihoon remembers from when they first met, equal parts terrifying and agitated. “What Mingyu’s trying to do is noble, but I’m not giving up. I’m going after the people who tried to hurt him.”

Jihoon totters on the edge of indecision. On the one hand, there is Mingyu’s frenzied plea to leave this alone, to not involve a third party, to especially not involve law enforcement. It’ll ruin the family, he had said, so wrecked and overwrought it had demolished every bit of reason, every bit of resolve in Jihoon’s body. He couldn’t bear to see Mingyu like that, so small and scared.

Mingyu’s family has done nothing but dismiss him, ignore him, disrespect him, and, as it turns out, attempt to murder him, and yet Mingyu put them first. Yet, Mingyu was ready to forsake his own life, his own safety, just so the royal family wouldn’t be caught in another scandal.

On the other hand, there is Mingyu. The man who he is finally opening his heart to, who broke down all his walls, all his boundaries, who he wants to cling to for as long as he can (for a lifetime, if Mingyu would have him). Perhaps Mingyu is far from selfish, but Jihoon wants to be on his behalf. 

Jihoon wants to be selfish enough to keep Mingyu all for himself, away from every entity that endangers his wellbeing. Jihoon wants to be selfish enough to protect Mingyu and only Mingyu, every other detail or nuance or hurdle be damned.

And that’s all he needs to make up his mind.

Heart over head. It’s how it’s always been for Jihoon, hasn’t it?

“Yeah,” he replies, letting out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, “I’m not giving up either”

---

Slipping into bed with Mingyu comes as spontaneously as muscle memory.

It’s hilarious, really. The Jihoon of a month ago - or even the Jihoon of two weeks ago - would shudder at the prospect of sharing a bed with Mingyu, no matter how much his heart, his every instinct, his every desire, screamed out for it. He’d remind himself of professional boundaries, of the endless complications that come with getting emotionally involved with the person he’s been hired to guard, but now, all of that is redundant. They’re extraneous, unimportant details. 

Jihoon’s body craves closeness, gravitates to Mingyu like a moth to a flame, like something inevitable, even if it has the potential to burn him to ashes. Perhaps, it’s desperation, a consequence of having Mingyu nearly die in his arms, but he can’t hold himself back anymore. If every night he isn’t curling up against Mingyu’s tall, gorgeous frame, having him fold against Jihoon’s chest, sighing in satisfaction as Jihoon paints lullabies onto his skin, showers butterfly kisses until they’ve both drifted into sleep - Jihoon feels incomplete, a musical note left unsung.

Mingyu is still asleep when Jihoon climbs in beside him, arms encircling the prince’s waist and pulling him close. Mingyu moans, tiny and drowsy, but leans into Jihoon’s touch like it’s second nature, like they’ve been doing this all their lives, though it’s only been a little over a week since Jihoon made a habit of this. It triggers something primal in his gut, heat pooling all across his body, but as he’s promised Mingyu again and again, there’ll be time to explore that later. He knows it’s probably premature to be conceiving a later, to be thinking of their label-less relationship as something permanent, stretching out into infinity, but it feels right. When Jihoon closes his eyes and imagines a forever, he can only see Mingyu’s glorious smile beckoning to him, bathed in effervescent light. He hasn’t felt this way before for anyone else, and he suspects he never will. Mingyu is it for him, the only person he will ever care for with every cell in his body, with everything that makes him who he is.

For now, he only kisses the top of Mingyu’s head, throws a leg on top of Mingyu’s and tangles their bodies into an interminable knot. He’s never felt like he belongs anywhere like he does right now, spooning Mingyu like his life depends on it.

That night, he finally sleeps, after days spent lying awake in Mingyu’s hospital room worrying himself sick. He knows the threat hasn’t been defeated, that he still has to protect Mingyu at every turn of the way, but at least they’re here together, so close their hearts are beating in unison. And that’s everything he needs.

Surprisingly, it’s Mingyu who wakes up before him, stretching into a languid yawn in Jihoon’s embrace, carefully turning around so he can face Jihoon.

“Mmm, morning sleepy,” Mingyu hums into the edge of Jihoon’s bottom lip, “We have to go gardening.”

For once, Jihoon is reluctant to wake up so early, wants to stay here longer - just him and Mingyu tangled together. He could get used to this, waking up with Mingyu in his arms, having Mingyu kiss him first thing after their eyes slowly open, morning breath forgotten.  “You have to rest your shoulder, Mingyu-yah,” he whispers back, but not before capturing Mingyu’s mouth into a slower, deeper kiss, feeling Mingyu’s resultant shiver cascade through their joined bodies. “Gardening can wait for a few days, yeah?”

“But my plants!” Mingyu whines against Jihoon’s mouth, “They’ve already been neglected while I’ve been away at the hospital! I don’t want them to die!”

“Uhh, about that…” Jihoon bites his lip, looking up at Mingyu from between his eyelashes. His heart thunders in his chest.

“What is it hyung?” Mingyu props himself up on his elbow, but winces when the motion tugs at his bad shoulder. Jihoon immediately reaches to gently rub the spot, trying to soothe away as much of the pain as possible. “What did you do?”

And Jihoon is at a bit of a loss for words, unable to keep his cheeks from colouring. “Come see for yourself?”

Mingyu gets ready in a whirlwind, pulling on a pair of trousers and a jacket over his cotton nightshirt. Jihoon gets up too, but elects to stay in his nightclothes - a ratty sweatshirt and pyjama pants. Mingyu races down the corridor to the servants’ wing, to where the staircase leads down to the backyard, clutching his right shoulder all the while. Jihoon worries he’ll hurt himself, and tries to call out to him to be careful, but of course, Mingyu is hard to get through to when he has such relentless focus. It’s one of the things Jihoon likes best about him, even if it can sometimes intensify Mingyu’s blatant disregard for his own safety.

Mingyu rushes down the stairs before Jihoon can, and stands at the cusp of the flowerbeds, panting in the wake of all the excess physical activity that the doctors have advised him against.

“Oh my god,” Mingyu breathes out, and it’s laden with evident awe, with utter disbelief. Jihoon allows himself a small smile, revelling in how adorable Mingyu looks with his mouth pulled into a delicate ‘o’ of surprise. “You...did this?”

“Well, technically not me, since I was at the hospital with you most of the time, but uh. I may have asked Gardener-nim to water your plants for you. And add extra manure to the soil so that-”

But the rest of his sentence dissolves into the near-feverish kiss Mingyu culls him into, lips melding so hard and thorough, Jihoon forgets how to breathe, forgets how to stand upright, how to retain any of his human functioning. He has to bring a hand to the nape of Mingyu’s neck just to hold himself steady, just to make sure he doesn’t lose every semblance of physical and emotional balance.

“Thank you, hyung,” Mingyu says when they break apart, his eyes a little watery. “Thank you for making my lilies bloom.”

And that’s exactly what has happened. The parallel lines in Mingyu’s flowerbed where they had once planted seed after seed of the tiger-lily plant has blossomed a stunning bright orange, precious magic in a desolate landscape. The flowers are barely a few inches tall, tiny sprouts rather than full-grown entities, but they sway in the early-morning breeze, alive and astonishingly vivacious. They feel symbolic of the flowers that are budding across Jihoon’s entire soul, nourished by Mingyu’s all-consuming love, by his breathtaking presence in Jihoon’s life.

“They’re your babies, aren’t they?” Jihoon replies, thumbing away the moisture that has pooled at the corner of Mingyu’s eye, “I had to make sure they were looked after.”

“Tiger lilies don’t grow so easily, hyung,” Mingyu is tremulous, so precious and beautiful in Jihoon’s arms, “But you made them grow. They’re your babies now too.”

And Jihoon will never get used to it - this feeling that fills him from within, that kindles sparks of desire everywhere, transforming him into a beacon of endless light. This feeling which is only a product of Mingyu’s unabashed affection, which expands with every touch, with every promise shared between them. Which renews him, transforms him into more than just his corporeal body - trained to diffuse conflict and jump to defense - into something fundamentally capable of being cherished.

“They’re my babies too,” Jihoon repeats into another kiss, and he hopes that it is enough to convey the love swelling inside him, refusing to be cowed.

---

The euphoria of their early morning revelation fades into the extreme discomfort of family breakfast.

Mingyu should have known not to get too elated, not to bask too much in Jihoon’s eagerly bestowed kisses. At the other end of it always lies his family, the people who continue to make him feel like a bird caught in a net, chafing against his shackles but only hurting himself in the process.

Usually, the family hardly gets together during breakfast - everyone has different times and schedules according to which they wake up and go about their day - but it’s the first morning after Mingyu has been discharged from the hospital, and every last cousin and uncle and aunt has seized this opportunity to pin Mingyu at the stake, to wield their verbal daggers and find newer ways to wound him. At the hospital, their interrogation had been cut short by Moonshik’s chastening, but now Mingyu no longer has the protection of his hospital bed. He knows what he’s going to get, knows, especially, what he has to answer for.

“So what were you doing at the rally that night?” Of course, Jungho is the one to lob the first question at him, never bested in his pursuit to crucify Mingyu.

You know already, don’t you? Mingyu wants to reply, You’ve had my room bugged for months. But instead, he just fiddles with his chopsticks, keeps his eyes downturned.

Hyungshik and Jungho have been sitting right opposite him from the moment he settled at the breakfast table, alternating between ignoring Mingyu entirely and throwing him sharp, withering glances. They keep whispering to each other too, and that just puts Mingyu further on edge, sweat sticking to the back of his neck despite it being the fag-end of winter. The blurry photographs Jeonghan had shown him continue to swim in his mind’s eye, reminding him that everything Mingyu has ever been afraid of is real.

His uncle, who, in Mingyu’s entire twenty-two years of existence has never let go of a single moment to reduce him to a speck of dust, to make him feel like he’s nothing but a waste of space - really is willing to go to any length possible to wipe him from the face of this earth. His cousin Jungho, who, from when they were kids, has done nothing but viciously mock him, call him names for being born to a civilian mother, taunt him for his interest in books and gardening over anything more athletic - really does want Mingyu annihilated in every sense of the word.

In a way, he supposes he should have seen it coming. He should have known that no one would want to physically harm him this bad except for his very own family. After all, it is always them who’ve inflicted the most debilitating wounds. Though, this time, the wounds aren’t invisible, the evidence etched into the broken skin around his right shoulder.

“Grandson,” the dowager queen barks impatiently when Mingyu is silent for a second too long, her morning glass of wine already half-empty, “Answer the bloody question.”

Mingyu looks up from his plate, swallowing hard, and finds that every pair of eyes crowding the massively long dining table are trained on him, narrowed and rapier-sharp. The chopsticks fall from his trembling hands and he clears his throat, hoping that’ll buy him time. Jihoon is standing in one corner of the room - where the other members of the royal guard are - back ramrod straight like it always is when he’s “on duty”. But Mingyu notices the way his gaze softens around the edges when it meets Mingyu’s, can see the short, almost indistinct nod he offers Mingyu, a tiny reassurance, yet going a long way in soothing his skittering heartbeat.

“I was there to support my friend,” Mingyu doesn’t know what it is that ultimately emboldens him to tell the truth - the quiet strength Jihoon siphons towards him from the across the room, or the churning in his stomach at the way Jungho and Hyungshik look so apathetic, ready to mount their jibes like nothing has changed, like Mingyu is still the impressionable twelve-year old they take great pleasure in bullying. Whatever it is, it makes his blood race, makes him suddenly want to hold them personally accountable for every hurt they’ve inflicted.

He knows he technically can’t, because his father is here too, shoulders hunched in exhaustion, lips drawn, and Mingyu knows he’s the reason behind all that pent-up tension. Knows that he has only exacerbated the list of problems Moonshik has to deal with on a daily basis, and he hates it, he hates every bit of it. And yet, some strange inhuman force keeps him soldiering on. 

(Perhaps, getting near-fatally attacked three times in a row truly has changed him. After all, third time’s a charm.)

“Actually not just to support a friend,” Mingyu continues, “I was there to support the cause too.”

As he had expected, the table immediately erupts into a furore, multiple cousins and uncles berating him all at once, his grandmother’s glare deepening and deepening.

“I warned you, Moonshik hyung,” Hyungshik bites out, “I warned you that he’ll be our downfall. Look at how fucking proud he is of disrespecting our family and heritage!”

“It’s that commoner blood isn’t it?” His grandmother laughs humorlessly, “Always showing it’s true colours. Always taking after his mother.”

“No wonder he got shot,” Another cousin helpfully supplies, “No one likes you, Mingyu.”

The last sentence is almost spat at his face, with so much disdain that it almost makes Mingyu physically recoil. He tries to keep his breathing in check, sneaking a glance at Jihoon (who has become his only source of comfort, healing, willpower). Jihoon looks murderous, his fists balled beside him, his glare sharp enough to cut through glass. 

And, like during that one disastrous family dinner, it’s everything Mingyu needs to continue to soldier on, to not be strong-armed into surrendering this time around. Jihoon’s constant willingness to fight for him is an incomparable rush, never ceasing to invigorate him, fashioning him into a completely new being.

“Thanks for that, cousin Dahee,” Mingyu snarks back, “The feelings are mutual.”

Dahee gasps in response, and another series of mutinous grumbles breaks out across the table, many of which are more insults - both subtle and unsubtle - directed at Mingyu. Across the room, Jihoon breaks into a tiny smile, mouths, “you’re doing great”. Mingyu feels warmth pool in the middle of his chest, and suddenly, none of the harsh jibes buzzing around him matter, as long as Jihoon believes in him, as long as Jihoon thinks he’s doing great.

“I’m telling you, hyung,” Hyungshik turns to Moonshik, who is at the head of the table, “Mingyu is no longer fit to be the heir. He’s been brainwashed by the leftists! You have to disown him.”

His plea is met with almost unanimous agreement from across the table, and if this were a regular day (a regular day where Mingyu hadn’t just emerged from the third attempt on his life orchestrated by his very family, a regular day where he didn’t have Jihoon’s unconditional support to propel him), Mingyu would have been terrified. He’s always had a complicated relationship with his family, has resented them and has felt betrayed by them. But he’s never wanted to be estranged from them, has never quite had the courage to cut off ties permanently. 

But that was before. 

Now, the only emotion the prospect of being disowned triggers is a sense of extreme relief. He’s been shackled by this family - by this title - for far too long. He’s squandered away his entire life hoping for desperate release, clasping at any uneven straws that can help him climb out of this dark and desolate hole. But now that he has Jihoon, now that he has the dream of a possible future, a future that doesn’t quite seem impalpable - being disowned sounds like a gift .  

If this is what it takes to escape this family for good, he’ll gladly accept it.

But Moonshik doesn’t seem so easily convinced. He raises a stern hand to silence the rambling of his family members, and like clockwork, they all fall back into their seats. 

“I need to talk to my son,” the king says, tone gruff and inscrutable, entirely unlike the Moonshik Mingyu knows and loves, “Alone. ”

And with another gesture of his stern hand, he beckons at his family to leave the room, who comply with alacrity, abandoning their meals and filing out one by one. Mingyu swallows hard, suddenly irrationally nervous about facing his father on his own, but he tries to muster up whatever grit he can by watching every member of his extended family leave, followed by their bodyguards. When it’s Jihoon’s turn to go, he teeters on the doorstep, turns around to flash Mingyu a consoling smile, but Mingyu mouths, “i’ll be okay, don’t worry,” hoping it’s discreet enough for his father to not notice. Hoping it’s strong-willed enough to placate Jihoon.

“Oh, Mingyu-yah,” Moonshik sighs once it’s just the two of them, “This is a complete mess, isn’t it?”

“Appa, I can explain-”

“You’ve always been your own person, Mingyu,” Moonshik continues before Mingyu can mount his defense, “And I admire that about you. I’m not a fool, I know what you think of this family - and perhaps you’re entitled to thinking that way. I also know where you stand on the Dissolution, and maybe that too is because of the bitterness you hold for this family, so I get it. But this has put you in danger, Mingyu, more than once. I thought you would be sensible enough to at least care about your own safety.”

And Mingyu has had it. He’s had it with the patronising and the protectiveness that feels hollow when it completely lacks any understanding. He knows his father does care about his safety, but Mingyu is tired of being spoken to like an unreasonable child who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“If you think that I only care about the Dissolution because I hate this family,” Mingyu has to almost laugh at how ludicrous it sounds, “and if you think I won’t stand up for what I believe in just because my life is threatened, then maybe you don’t know me at all, appa. ”

“That’s not what I meant, Mingyu.” Moonshik has gone abruptly still, his knuckles white over the thick hardwood table.

“What do you mean then, appa?” Mingyu hates the way it comes out, hates that he’s losing his temper, that too in front of his father, the only person in this family who has ever treated him like a human being after his mother died - but his patience is wearing thin. For once, Mingyu needs to do this for himself, and Jihoon’s spirit is continuously siphoning off courage into his heart even if he’s not physically present in the room, continuously repeating ‘ you’re doing great’. It’s all he needs.

“I love you appa, I really do, and I have genuine respect for the fact that you want me to be safe and alive,” He continues, steeled against whatever lies on the other end, “But you’ve never really asked me what I want . I know you’re bound by countless kingly responsibilities and I have never for once begrudged you that, but sometimes I wish you’d ask me why I like Choi Seungcheol’s policies so much. Sometimes I wish you’d ask me whether I even like being a prince.”

“Mingyu-” and Moonshik’s eyes are flickering with emotion, his lower lip quivering with both rage and hurt. 

Mingyu hates this, god, he hates this. Everything he’s ever done since he was twelve has been an attempt to make things easier for his father, to look after his father after suffering an interminable loss - and now he’s breaking that promise to himself. To his mother.

 He’s hurting appa.

But hasn’t he been hurt too? Over and over again until he’s barely become a shell of his former self - brought to life only by Jihoon’s touch? Doesn’t he deserve some justice too?

“If you want to disown me for being publicly spotted and then shot at an anti-royal rally, then go ahead, appa. I really will not hold it against you,” Mingyu soldiers on despite it all, his breath is coming in gasps, stuck in his throat like taffy, “But at least talk to me. At least be the appa you used to be when eomma was still alive.”

Mingyu refuses to cry, refuses to break down in front of his father when he’s worked so hard to get all that off his chest. But he feels the tears coming anyway, already simpering down his nose.

He needs to get out of here.

He can’t bear to look at the wreckage he’s caused. He can’t bear to look at his father anymore.

---

Mingyu does break down, though, but only in the privacy of his room. He’s barely shut the door behind him when the tears spill out in full force, and he sags against the wood, desperately trying to quieten his sobs.

“Gyu?” A knock from outside cuts through the haze of his emotional spiral, “Are you okay, baby?”

Damned Jihoon and his sweet pet-names, always the cure to every ailment, making him feel seen and heard and loved even in his darkest moments. Damn Jihoon for being the only good thing in his life, for being the only person who has ever truly understood him.

How can he resist?

He cracks the door ajar and Jihoon barrels in, immediately pulling Mingyu into his arms, crushing their bodies together. 

“Oh, my sweet baby,” he coos while Mingyu cries into the fabric of his shirt, hopeless and pathetic, “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” Mingyu manages, and the words are muffled against Jihoon’s chest, barely audible, “Why is standing up for yourself so hard? I never want to do it again.”

“Oh Mingyu,” Jihoon murmurs, mellow like butterfly wings, “Look at me, come on, love.”

And it feels like hell, but he does bring himself to pull his face up from Jihoon’s chest, to look at his beautiful bodyguard despite being all snotty-nosed and teary-eyed.

“You were so brave today, Mingyu-yah,” Jihoon whispers, placing a kiss atop Mingyu’s reddening nose, “You are brave every day, but today you did something even the bravest of men often can’t do. You’re right, it’s not easy standing up for yourself, but you did it. I know it hurts right now, but it’s worth it. It’ll be worth it.”

That just makes him cry even more, because gosh, it’s unbearable. It’s unbearable how sweet Jihoon is, how much he believes in Mingyu, how much Mingyu just wants to run far far away with him and never look back at the palace, never ask for anything more. 

“Hey, don’t cry,” Jihoon’s hands cup his face, dabbing away at the tears gathering on the tops of his cheeks, “No matter what happens, I’m with you, yeah? I’ll always be with you.”

There’s conviction dripping from every inch of Jihoon, steady and unflappable. Mingyu has always seen Jihoon as this refreshingly steadfast presence, this boulder plunged in the very center of the ever-changing, ever-tumultuous ocean that is Mingyu’s life, refusing to budge even in the wake of the most violent waves. And right now, too, he feels like everything.

Everything Mingyu has ever been missing.

That stunning, inexplicable force that always keeps him in place, that makes tiger-lilies bloom even in the fag-end of winter.

“W-will you r-really be there with me?” It comes out as a stutter, still a touch hesitant despite that familiar hope cascading across his chest.  “A-always?”

“Yes baby,” Jihoon kisses the underside of his nose, the curvature of his lip, “I’m your fellow plant-parent now, aren’t I? You can’t get rid of me so easily.”

Mingyu smiles, despite himself, despite the mist of tears. “Be my boyfriend, then?”

“I thought I already was,” Jihoon smiles back, the prettiest smile Mingyu has ever laid eyes on, “I’ve been all yours from that very first kiss, Mingyu-yah. Maybe even longer than that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Jihoon whispers, finally reaching up to join their lips, to kiss him slowly and desperately until Mingyu can no longer tell where he begins and where Jihoon ends. “Really.”

Really.

And suddenly, Mingyu wants to make a habit of standing up for himself. Perhaps, it is not so terrifying. 

---

“Here, it’s for you,” Jeonghan says, holding out a phone that Mingyu has never seen before. Mingyu stares at it, caught off-guard by its sudden presence shoved right under his nose, then stares up at Jeonghan.

Jeonghan seems as enigmatic and business-like as he is when presiding over his weekly staff meetings, but the edge of his top lip is pulled up in the hint of a smile, the briefest sign of encouragement. He cocks his head forward, and when Mingyu keeps staring without saying a single word, huffs impatiently, “Go on, take it. It’s not anything bad, I promise.”

“How did you know I was here?” Mingyu does take the phone, slowly, tentatively, but doesn’t press it to his ear. Not yet.

Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “I’ve known you since you were thirteen, Gyu-yah. I know where you go when you’re missing your mother late at night.”

Mingyu lets out a tired exhale, leaning against the balustrade of the very same balcony Jihoon once stopped him from climbing down. He doesn’t know why this particular balcony among all the endless balconies crowding this house always reminds him of eomma - he’s pretty sure she didn’t even like it that much - but from here, you can see the endless rolling expanse of the palace grounds, spreading out, out, out, until it disappears into the horizon. You can smell the freshly cut grass near the western gazebo, can hear the comforting murmur of the fountains that line the driveway - where his father addresses the gathering crowds every year on his birthday. If you strain your eyes far enough, you can even see the backyard garden, the miraculous burst of orange that now decorates it - glorious tiger-lilies blooming like his love for Jihoon. Standing here, looking out into the breathless landscape suspended in the lull of crisp night air, it gives you the illusion that perhaps, this place isn’t always the ever-confining prison that it seems to be. Perhaps, there is some beauty in it.

And if anyone ever saw beauty in even the most broken of things, it was his mother.

“Things just got...tense with appa, ” Mingyu exhales, figuring there’s no point beating around the bush. Jeonghan must have heard it anyway; nothing that ever happens in the palace gets past him. “I can’t sleep again. Needed some air.”

“Well at least you didn’t try to sneak out again.”

Mingyu giggles. How typical of Jeonghan, not asking any of the difficult questions. None of the, what happened? Are you okay? What will you do now? None of the pitying glances that’ll only make Mingyu break down again.

Jeonghan pretends to be tough and unruffled all the time, but underneath that carefully-crafted veneer his heart is marshmallow-soft, glowing with endless empathy and understanding. Jeonghan always knows when to push and when to give Mingyu space. And Mingyu has always loved him for it.

“I would,” Mingyu says with another giggle,  “but this time Jihoon hyung won’t let me go so easily.”

That hint of a smile at the edge of Jeonghan’s lip erupts in full force at last, turning into something more knowing, “Speaking of which, where is Lee Jihoon, by the way? He’s always stuck to you like glue these days.”

And well, sometimes Jeonghan does push when Mingyu isn’t ready for it. But it’s only a friendly push, a harmless push. Nevertheless, Mingyu can’t keep the blush off his face no matter how much he tries. 

“He’s asleep.” 

“In your bed or his?” Now Jeonghan’s smile has slipped into a smirk, awash with the evil mirth of a cat that got the cream.

"Stop, it’s not like that.” Mingyu feels mortified, his blush deepening to print splotches of red all over his face. Jeonghan laughs, straight-up laughs, and wow, Mingyu is not ready for this conversation at all. 

And yet, this is his Jeonghan hyung, the only person who’s constantly looked out for him since he was the quiet, grieving teenager still grappling with the loss of his mother. The only person who ever knew about him gallivanting halfway across the city late at night and understood why he needed to do it, understood his need for escape.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Mingyu grunts out, deciding there’s no point keeping secrets anymore. Besides, he suspects Jeonghan will have his back with this too. “We’re...um, um...”

“Hey, Mingyu-yah,” Jeonghan places a hand over Mingyu’s, evil smirk fading into a kind whisper, “I’ve always thought Jihoon-sshi was good for you. I’m happy for you two.”

“Oh,” is all Mingyu can breathe out, still red all over and rendered awestruck. His heart beats resoundingly, and all he can think of is Jihoon is good for me. Jihoon is good for me.

“Now, please will you answer the phone?” Jeonghan points to the phone in question again, and Mingyu almost involuntarily puts it to his ear, feeling stupid for forgetting that the phone was in his hand all this while, too distracted by thoughts of Jihoon in his bed. 

“H-hello?” he says into the receiver, unsure of what lies on the other end.

And this is yet another instance of Jeonghan knowing when to push, only to propel Mingyu in the right direction. Of Jeonghan giving him exactly what he needs in this moment. He smirks at Mingyu again - no longer evil, but still knowing - flashes him a thumbs up, and then disappears out the door to give Mingyu some privacy.

“Mingyu,” Seungcheol’s familiar satoori greets him from the other end of the receiver, and Mingyu has to shut his eyes to bask in it, suddenly hit by just how guilty he feels for having let Seungcheol down, for how true his words had rung back during their shared car ride. “I’m sorry I’m calling like this, but I didn’t want to call your number just in case Jungho bugged it too.”

“It’s okay, hyung,” Mingyu breathes out, “How are you?”

“I should be asking you that. How’s your shoulder?”

“Still hurts a bit, but it’s better.”

For a minute there is awkward silence, and Mingyu thinks this is it, this is probably how conversations between them will be from now on. Seungcheol probably still hates him for not wanting to go to the police with the evidence they  painstakingly collected, still thinks Mingyu is pathetic for caring about keeping his family together despite the active threat they pose to Mingyu’s life. He probably still-

 “I’m sorry,” They both say it at the same time, both of their apologies sounding rushed and a little desperate.

“Why are you saying sorry?” Seungcheol says, and Mingyu can almost hear his frown, can spot the telltale signs of frustration penetrating his tone.

“Because I always make things difficult for you, hyung,” Mingyu can only sigh, his resolve trickling out of him bit by bit, “I’ve been making things difficult for your campaign from the start, haven’t I?  I was so stupidly eager to be a part of it somehow, to help do something good, but our friendship has always caused you more trouble than it did me. And then I had to go and get shot at your rally even though you specifically told me not to come and now all that the tabloids will talk about is how you’re somehow the bad guy instead of focusing on the actual politics of the Dissolution vote! And on top of that, you spent all that time investigating the attacks on me and I let it all go to waste. I’m so sorry, Cheol hyung. If you never want to talk to me again, I’ll understand-”

“Wait, wait, stop,” Seungcheol interrupts, and the frustration in his tone is still there, but it's a different kind of frustration altogether, “First of all, you’re my best friend, Mingyu - always were and always will be. I’m not going to stop talking to you. And second of all, you have to know that I don’t blame you for coming to the rally, yeah? And I absolutely don’t blame you for getting shot - that’s not on you, that’s never on you, and if you think that way again I’m gonna have to grab you by the collar and shake some sense into you, okay? I only investigated those attacks because I worry about you. I wanted to do my bit to protect you, Gyu-yah, because you do so much for me all the time.”

“O-Oh?” Mingyu is suddenly dumbfounded, unsure of what to say. But he turns over Seungcheol’s words in his mind, lets himself believe it, lets himself believe - once again - that he’s worthy of that much love and care.

“Yeah,” It’s Seungcheol who sighs now, weary and a tiny bit sad, “I’m the only one who should be saying sorry, Gyu-yah. What I said in the car...I was being an asshole. Do I sometimes get frustrated by how you undervalue yourself? Yes. But I also understand it. I understand why you don’t want to hurt your family.”

“Hyung.” Mingyu wishes he could be more eloquent, wishes he weren’t once again close to tears, but this is all he can manage. He’s just so grateful to have Seungcheol in his life, so grateful that Seungcheol continues to be his best friend.

“Jeonghan told me about what happened between you and your father,” Seungcheol says, another weary sigh escaping him, “And I feel responsible, Gyu. Maybe the rally itself was a bad idea.”

And. Mingyu can handle a lot of things, can mentally eviscerate himself in countless ways, but the one thing he won’t stand for is Seungcheol falling into the same trap of self-doubt that constantly plagues Mingyu. Seungcheol is intelligent and pure-hearted and always striving for good, and Mingyu will not have him believing otherwise.

“Now who’s undervaluing himself!” Mingyu replies a little adamantly, “I was there that day, hyung! The turnout was more than any speech, any rally, any event you’ve ever conducted in the past. People were listening to you, they were cheering for you. I know it eventually went to shit once the shooter started firing, but that doesn’t change what I saw. There’s people out there who do support the cause, and that’s what counts, doesn’t it? The vote’s next week - next week, hyung - and the Choi Seungcheol I know won’t give up so easily.”

“God,” Seungcheol exhales from the other end, breath audibly fanning against the receiver. “I can’t believe I called to apologise to you and you turned this into a pep talk. That’s so typically you, isn’t it? Always thinking about others first.”

Finally, finally  Mingyu smiles, light and free. “But did the pep talk work?”

“It did.” He can hear Seungcheol smiling back too - it always has a very specific cadence that’s hard to miss, even on the phone. “Did the apology work?”

“You never had anything to apologise for, hyung.” And Mingyu means it. He really does.

There’s a pause, but not an uncomfortable one. It’s them reassessing their emotions, recalibrating their bond and emerging even stronger. Mingyu keeps smiling, all the numerous little invisible burdens he’s been carrying around all this while slowly melting away.

“Hey Mingyu,” Seungcheol says at last, low and benign, “I know I don’t say this enough, but you’re kind of like family to me, you know? If Jihoon ever breaks your heart, he’ll have to face my wrath - I don’t even care if he knows twelve different martial arts techniques.”

“Oh my god, ” Mingyu groans, but he’s laughing. Seungcheol talks big, but he can barely hurt a fly. Besides, judging from the tendrils of amusement in Seungcheol’s voice, he can tell Seungcheol too is happy Mingyu found Jihoon.

Jihoon is good for me. The only thought that matters. A fundamental truth of his existence.

“Now, hand the phone to Jeonghannie again, will you? I have to ask him something.”

“Jeonghannie, huh?” Even though Mingyu can’t see it, he knows Seungcheol is blushing on the other end of the phone. For all his confidence and charisma when he’s addressing a crowd, Seungcheol is as hopeless with his crush as Mingyu was with his own. That’s another thing the two of them have in common. “You are so unsubtle, can’t believe Jeonghan hyung hasn’t caught on yet.”

“Shut up.” It’s Seungcheol’s turn to groan now, and Mingyu laughs again, deriving great pleasure from the fact that Seungcheol’s feelings for his hyung truly are as serious as he suspected them to be.

Mingyu sags against the balustrade, looking out at the darkening scenery before him - the muted moonlight dusting the palace grounds in a pale ghostlike glow, the stars twinkling brighter than he remembers them, the one giant oak tree at the very edge of the gardens under which Mingyu has spent nearly all his teenage years secretly reading books on democratic revolutions - and feels something click in place. It’s Seungcheol’s voice, cracking the slightest bit across telephone wires, insisting that no, him and Jeonghan are just friends, actually. It’s the memory of his mother, singing to him with a single lily in her hair, telling him to always think with his heart. It’s the thought of Jihoon, currently sound asleep in Mingyu’s bed after having kissed Mingyu relentlessly, after having insisted over and over again that he’s the bravest person Jihoon has ever met. 

It’s the dream of that elusive future pulling at his heartstrings and multiplying in size, finally taking tangible shape, finally becoming more than just a dream.

And yeah, things aren’t ideal right now. Yeah, his uncle and cousin are trying to murder him. Yeah, his father might never want to have anything to do with him again. But right now, Mingyu feels okay.

Right now, hope blossoms like vivid tiger-lilies.

Chapter Text

Kim Moonshik doesn’t often spend Saturday nights cooped up in his private office, pouring himself a desolate glass of scotch from the emergency decanter he keeps in his desk cabinet. Yet here he is.

You could say it’s because the plebiscite to decide the fate of his family, his title, his own position as monarch, is merely four days away. Or you could say it’s because he has to attend two major press conferences in the span of these very four days, where not only will he have to defend his family’s right to the Crown, but also field questions on why his firstborn (and only) son, his heir, had wandered into a rally meant to call in question the very existence of the Crown his family lays claim to. You can also say it’s because he misses his late wife, the only person who once understood him, the only person who would know how to help him right now.

But none of those things are the real reason why he’s drinking away his sorrows all alone on a Saturday night, and at the same time, all of them are.

He lets out a deep, guttural exhale, taking a larger swig of his scotch than he should. It all comes down to Mingyu, doesn’t it? As it often has, since the day Mingyu was born.

Moonshik remembers it, the first time he held infant Mingyu in his tentative arms. 

Mingyu was so tiny then, tinier than the average newborn, his eyes glistening with endless wonder, his staccato laugh beautiful and bright. Moonshik was barely twenty-five - not much older than Mingyu is right now - and only three years into ascending the throne (only a year into his marriage), the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. Yet, when Mingyu had wrapped an infinitely small fist around his forefinger, had focused those round wonderstruck eyes on him, Moonshik had felt like he could conquer anything. He could decimate every hurdle, could live through every storm, if only he could be surrounded by his gorgeous little son, by his lovely Soojung and the way her eyes lit up every time baby Mingyu squealed in amazement.

But Moonshik was also too naive then, too naive to not realise how quickly the ground beneath your feet could fragment into a million debris. How quickly the love of your life, the person you defied your entire extended clan to marry, your lovely and transcendent Soojung, could disappear into the clutches of death before you can even blink. How derelict and hollow it can make you, how terribly it can tear your entire existence apart until you can no longer remember the look of wonder with which the infant in your arms had once regarded you, until you become a soulless machine, rattling off paeans about duty and responsibility that have always been utterly meaningless. 

Until, the very same bright-eyed boy who was supposed to be the center of your universe, who was supposed to give you the strength to battle every extremity, looked you straight in the eye and told you, at least be the appa you used to be when eomma was still alive.

In the week since their heated conversation (or perhaps, 'argument' is the better descriptor), Mingyu has hardly made eye contact with him, much less utter a single genuine word. When Mingyu was younger, he would often hover around Moonshik’s study, his office, or the second floor conference hall where Moonshik often convened meetings with various bureaucrats and politicians - if only to get a glimpse of what Moonshik was upto, if only to seek out even the smallest bullions of attention, to tell Moonshik everything about his day, all the interesting books he’s been reading, all the interesting places he wants to see. Some days, Moonshik would indulge it, would listen to tiny excited Mingyu rambling about whatever it is that had inspired him, but on other days, he would have to rush to his next meeting or review the next set of policy documents and could only nod absently without truly listening to what Mingyu was saying. 

Deep down, Moonshik always knew that Mingyu only sought him out because he was terribly lonely, because ever since Soojung’s death, Moonshik had plunged himself far too squarely in his work to keep the grief from completely consuming him. But the consequence of that had been...hardly having enough time to spare for Mingyu, of willing himself to ignore the way every other member of the Kim family glowered at Mingyu with open disgust.

Now, Moonshik regrets all those days when he didn’t listen, when he chose his kingly duties over his son’s excited rambling about a new sub-species of lilies he had encountered in his botany books. Now, Mingyu won’t even look at him, no matter how much Moonshik has tried to catch him in the hallway, to knock on his bedroom door, to address him during family meals. Now, Mingyu only responds in monosyllables everytime Moonshik asks how his shoulder’s recovering, what species of plant he’s reading about, why he keeps sharing fond looks with his bodyguard over breakfast. 

(Okay, Moonshik hasn’t quite asked that last question, but he definitely wants to.)

Moonshik sighs into his glass, wondering where everything went so wrong. Except, he knows exactly where it did. Him. The blame rests solely on his deplorable kingly shoulders. He couldn’t be a convincing enough monarch, couldn’t be a good enough father, couldn’t live up to the promises he made to Soojung on her deathbed. He’s shattered into smithereens the only two things he’s ever had - his title, his family.

If Soojung were still here today, maybe she wouldn’t want to look him in the eye either.

He drains his glass of it’s final sip of scotch, realising that none of it has quite worked. Considering he still feels as horrible as he did when he decided to drink his sorrows away, he might as well just utilise the remainder of his time to go over the media strategy his press secretary had handed him earlier this morning, the bunches of paper which currently sit untouched on his desk. God, how absolutely woeful his life has become. Who would have thought Kim Moonshik, once the youngest and most promising monarch to ascend the throne, once the beacon of a new era, would be reduced to this.

But as soon as he’s bending down to pull open his desk cabinet to put the decanter away, there’s something else that terrifies him.

It’s the sound of light footsteps - and yes, there it is again, unmissable, conspicuous against the uncanny quiet of the corridor outside -and ten different warning sirens go off in Moonshik’s mind.

This part of the office wing is reserved solely for the highest-ranking members of the royal family. There’s his office, and then Hyungshik’s beside him. There’s the office Soojung used to occupy when she was still alive, and there’s his mother’s office too - which she hardly uses anymore but still visits from time to time. No one else is allowed here after eight, not even the cleaning staff, not even members of the royal guard - it’s one of the few areas of the palace that’s completely off limits to outsiders, completely inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t have the right passcode and security clearance. There shouldn’t be footsteps outside, especially not at - he checks his watch - one fucking am on a Saturday. 

Are they intruders? Burglars come to steal classified documents? Murderers come to hunt Mingyu down again - though if that were the case, what are they doing in the office wing? Is this espionage? Foul Play?

Heart hammering louder than ever, Moonshik decides he can’t just sit here and do nothing. Slowly, surely, he tiptoes to the door, tries to look through the eyehole - but it’s too dark to make out who’s outside, no matter how much he squints. They turn off the corridor lights here after nine (and perhaps that’s why Moonshik had decided to drink here of all places, the darkness symbolic of the state of his soul).

But then.

He hears voices. 

“Didn’t you say you had the passcode to Hyungshik’s office?”

“I did, fuck. But he added an extra layer of encryption, I can’t crack it.”

“Fuck.”

It’s whispers, mere whispers, and Moonshik wouldn’t have caught it if he wasn’t straining his ear against the door, if the corridor wasn’t quiet enough that even the drop of a needle would be magnified.

He knows those voices. Especially the second voice - it’s owner the very person he trusts with the functioning of his entire household, of his entire staff -

What the fuck.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Moonshik barks, unlocking his door and finally stepping into the hallway. He fishes his phone out of his pocket and directs its flashlight at the two figures that are currently hunched over the digital keypad beside Hyungshik’s office door, and sure enough, it’s who he suspected.

Jeonghan freezes the moment Moonshik’s flashlight hits him, back immediately straightening and hands falling to his sides. But Jihoon looks far from intimidated, his eyes still carefully trained on the keypad, the cogs in his mind visibly churning. They do turn around to face Moonshik though - both of them - even if Jihoon only looks mildly inconvenienced for being disturbed, while Jeonghan is as pale as a sheet.

“Y-your highness,” Jeonghan squeaks out, “I-I can explain. Uhh, we were just, we were, um-”

“You better have a good enough explanation for why you’re trying to break into my brother’s office without authorisation, Yoon Jeonghan,” Moonshik growls, a vein in his temple beginning to throb, “And you,” he points to Jihoon, “This is the second time you’ve messed up. If you can’t give me a good enough reason for this you’ll be out of here first thing in the morning.”

“No!” Jeonghan sounds strained yet vehement, his left hand fiddling with the hem of his shirt, “It’s not Jihoon’s fault! It’s um, I-uh. Actually, we, uh. The reason we were trying to-uh,”

“We’re collecting evidence,” Jihoon cuts Jeonghan’s fumbling short, and there’s an impatient frown crowding his face, again giving the impression that he’s irritated, that Moonshik is some kind of burr in his side. 

Moonshik has always found this man far too unassuming for a bodyguard - too short, too polite - but right now, he understands what Jeonghan saw in him when he passionately advocated Jihoon’s hiring. When Lee Jihoon wields his implacable glare, it can make the most dangerous of men tremble. And Moonshik isn’t immune to it either.

“We’re here collecting evidence,” Jihoon repeats, still irritated, “Because we have definitive intel that Kim Hyungshik was involved in ordering Mingyu’s assassination.”

Three things happen all at once.

Moonshik’s heart nearly plummets to his stomach, his blood pressure steadily rising (he can feel it). Jeonghan grabs Jihoon’s arm in a vice-like grip, looks at him imploringly; says, “Don’t do this, Jihoon.”

But the third and most important thing: Hardly sparing a glance at Jeonghan, Jihoon reaches into his jacket to pull out a yellow manila folder.

“With all due respect, your highness,” Jihoon continues, his glare as steely as ever, Jeonghan still holding on to his arm, “What’s happened between you and Mingyu is none of my business, but I know that you care about him. I know that you’ve always wanted to protect him from the people who’re trying to hurt him. That’s why you hired me in the first place didn’t you? That’s why you went along with Mingyu’s request to not hire someone using taxpayer money and hired me. You want a valid reason why we’re here? The reason is Mingyu. The reason is Jeonghan and me both wanting to see Mingyu’s perpetrators brought to justice.”

“Wh-what are you saying?” Moonshik can’t stop his voice from shaking, can’t stop his hands from shaking. What the fuck, just what the fuck.

“I’m saying that Jeonghan and I, and a few others who only want the best for Mingyu, have been investigating the attacks. We’ve finally figured out who’s behind it, we just need…” Jihoon pauses for a breath, and suddenly his gaze softens, becomes more sympathetic. The pitch of his voice lowers. “We just need to find an official record of the fact that Mingyu’s room was bugged by his own uncle.”

No.

This can’t be happening.

This can’t be-

“Here, your highness,” Jihoon finally hands him the yellow manila folder, even if Jeonghan is vigorously shaking his head beside Jihoon and muttering, “You’re gonna get us all fired.”

Moonshik collects the folder almost on autopilot, willing his hands to stop trembling, willing his heart to stop attempting to burst out of his chest, but it’s all futile.

“This folder contains photographs that show Kim Hyungshik and Kim Jungho paying off Mingyu’s shooter the night of the rally.” Jihoon finally says, a sigh coating his words, “There were also listening devices found in Mingyu’s room, which we believe is what they’ve been using to spy on Mingyu for months. The audio recordings from the device might still be on Hyungshik’s office computer, considering it has the maximum levels of encryption and security. We were trying to get our hands on those recordings tonight, your highness. It’s the only way we can conclusively prove that Hyungshik-sshi has been...trying to murder Mingyu all along.”

“No,” Moonshik says out loud this time. No. This can’t be true, can it? Lee Jihoon is an outsider, an interloper who’s been in the palace for mere months! He knows nothing about this family, knows nothing about Mingyu. He has no right to come strutting in here and accuse Hyungshik - his brother - of wanting to kill…of… 

This. Whatever this is.

Except. Jeonghan’s shoulders are sagging now, like he’s giving up, the hand that was gripping Jihoon’s arm finally falling away. Jeonghan, the boy Moonshik has seen grow up before his own two eyes, who belongs to a long line of Yoons that have served this palace for generations and generations. Jeonghan, who followed in his father’s footsteps to become the youngest assistant chief-of-staff of the palace, and then youngest chief-of-staff, dedicating all his crucial formative years to the royal family.

Jeonghan isn’t an outsider, neither is he an interloper, and yet Jeonghan believes this too. Yet, Jeonghan is the one who finally says, “Take a look at that folder. Please.”

And, Moonshik realises with a jolt, he doesn’t even have to.

He believes them.

He thinks about Hyungshik putting up the most visceral fight when Moonshik first expressed his intentions to marry Soojung. How Hyungshik never spared a single opportunity to mock Soojung’s ‘low birth’; hurling blatant disrespect even after Soojung got sick (“that’s what happens when you marry beneath you, hyung” Hyungshik had snarked, “they only bring death and disease”). How Hyungshik had despised Mingyu from the beginning, had refused to ever visit Mingyu in the nursery, had always found excuse upon excuse to try to disprove Mingyu’s competence as heir. 

He thinks about all those times he spotted the redness around Mingyu’s eyes after Hyungshik said something deliberately mean, how Mingyu always insisted that he was fine even though his barely-concealed sniffles told an altogether different story. 

All these years, Hyungshik kept inflicting blow after blow after blow on Mingyu’s self-esteem, and Moonshik was complicit, because he forced himself to ignore it. Because he thought he was being the bigger person. Because, he’d been allowed only one rebellion in his lifetime and that had been marrying Soojung; now he had to go back to being the model son, the model king, who stands by his family no matter what. Who encourages his family’s blatant abuses of power. 

Except, he failed in being the model father. Except, he failed to protect the one person who has always looked at him with eyes full of untarnished wonder, come hail or storm. 

And now it’s too late. Now, Mingyu has realised that Moonshik has never been deserving of that wonder. Now, Mingyu has begun resenting him as much as he resents himself.

The folder in his hands feels like a ticking time bomb, raring to explode and ravage everything in its path. But perhaps, some explosions are necessary.

“D-does Mingyu know?” Moonshik doesn’t know why he asks, but in this moment it feels imperative, like this is the very last assurance he needs.

It’s Jeonghan who nods. “We told him a while ago, but he said he didn’t want us to continue the investigation.” He pauses, shares a long look with Jihoon until Jihoon lets out another impatient grunt and picks up where Jeonghan left off.

“Mingyu doesn’t want the family to get involved in another scandal,” Jihoon says, voice no longer soft, “He thinks that with the shooting and the Dissolution vote only a few days away, he’s caused enough trouble for the family already and doesn’t want to do any more damage. His exact words were, I believe, “It would ruin appa””.

There’s a look of raw judgement in Jihoon’s face, like he’s holding Moonshik accountable for every terrible thing he’s let silently happen to Mingyu in the past ten years (even longer). And it has the exact effect it’s intended for - it worms it’s way into every dark, repenting corner of his soul and destroys him, tears him apart from limb to limb.

Oh Mingyu, his beautiful son, who has never had anything but the purest of hearts. Who has only ever wanted Moonshik to treat him like his own person, like Soojung was - vivacious and magnificent. Who is twice the son, twice the person Moonshik can ever hope to be. 

But there’s the folder in his hands, and the infamous Lee Jihoon glare searing into him, Jeonghan hesitantly looking between the both of them. And Moonshik suddenly knows what he has to do.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” He whispers, and Jihoon’s frown deepens while Jeonghan's eyes widen. “You’ve done good work here, and I commend you for it. Thank you for looking out for my son, but I’ll take it from here.”

“W-what does that mean?” Jeonghan’s voice is back to being barely a squeak, stricken, “Are you firing us?”

“No I’m not firing you, Jeonghan. I’m thanking you for helping Mingyu. But your part here is done. The rest is up to me, okay?” He hopes it sounds firm enough to reassure them.

“What are you gonna do?” Jihoon’s retort is steel, but there’s also curiosity lurking underneath it. There’s also….an odd sensation of mutual trust.

“What I should have done all along.” Moonshik replies, teeth gritted, “I’m going to do right by my son.”

There’s a long minute in which both Jihoon and Jeonghan simply stare back at him, expressions blank and assessing. But then.

In the flash of a single blink, Jihoon’s glare melts away, replaced with something entirely different.

It’s a smile. He’s smiling.

And Moonshik feels the ends of his lips curve up too, itching to return it.

It’s time, Moonshik thinks. It’s time to make Soojung proud again. It’s time to be Mingyu’s appa, for real this time.

Chapter Text

When Mingyu texts him in the middle of his weekly security debrief with Junhui, the last thing Jihoon expects is:

wear something nice this evening and meet me in my room at 7!! I have a surprise for you (✿◠‿◠)

Here’s the thing: Jihoon doesn't usually like surprises. There are too many arbitrary variables involved, the possibility of countless unforeseen outcomes. Jihoon's training has been all about the precise, about parsing out the unparseable, about dealing with hard facts to chalk out combat strategies and exit routes. But without any of that concrete information, all his training is coloured useless. Surprises are a fluke, a minefield where you can step on a live grenade any second. 

But this is Mingyu after all, Mingyu who can never be anything but indubitably good, indubitably generous. Mingyu, who Jihoon is incapable of denying, incapable of not giving in to.

Maybe surprises don't have to be so scary when someone like Mingyu is on the other end of it, when Mingyu lavishes him with multiple excitable texts all throughout the day, going on and on about just how much he's looking forward to this evening.

And so, Jihoon does put on the best thing he can find in his closet: a green turtleneck, and his dark leather jacket for good measure, accompanied by a liberal spritz of cologne. He hovers on the threshold of Mingyu’s room, fidgeting with the zip of his jacket, but Mingyu opens the door before Jihoon can even knock.

And all the air promptly whooshes out of his lungs, reduced to threadbare strings in the wake of his resplendent prince.

"Tada!" Mingyu’s smile is lustrous, surrounding him in a joyous (sublime) glow, "They took off all my bandages today!"

Mingyu has always been an attractive man - Jihoon has been painfully aware of it since the minute their eyes met - yet today, he looks stunning in a way Jihoon is utterly unequipped to handle.

Mingyu’s shirt is sinful taffeta, its top three buttons left tastefully unbuttoned to dip into the chisels of his chest, to tease at the endless treasures that lie underneath. A peach-tinted lace choker sits squarely around his neck, brushing against his adam’s apple in the most vexing of ways, as if daring Jihoon to kiss it right off him, to tear it apart with tongue and teeth (and perhaps that’s a thought he can file away for later). Mingyu’s obscenely tight jeans are ripped in exactly the right places too, hugging his long long legs, making Jihoon dizzy with want. 

And this is a minefield indeed, but of a different kind, an entirely welcome kind. Jihoon will willingly let himself combust in wild flames if this is what a surprise looks like.

As if sensing the naked hunger in Jihoon’s roving gaze, Mingyu’s smile shifts into a glinting smirk, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. Like he planned this all on purpose.

“Do you like it, hyung?” His voice is deliberately coy, his eyelashes batting exaggeratedly. “Do you like what you see?”

Jihoon is only human. He can only muster up merely this much resistance, can only stop to take in a single frayed breath before he’s wrapping his arms around Mingyu, pulling him down to fuse their mouths into a kiss. It’s sloppy and frantic, all tongue and teeth, but Mingyu moans like this is everything he’s ever wanted - and maybe he has, considering how long they’ve both been blueballed, thriving only on innocent touches. And Jihoon finally realises what the surprise actually is, the realisation curling itself around Jihoon’s throbbing heart. 

“Fuck,” he mumbles against Mingyu’s bottom lip, “ Fuck, you’re so fucking pretty, Gyu.” 

Mingyu wheezes adorably, breathing a rush of hot air into Jihoon’s skin, but his face is already flushed, delectable and glorious. “Eloquent.”

“Shut up,” Jihoon whines, “You can’t look like that and expect me to retain the ability to form coherent sentences.”

“Says you, ” Mingyu leans in for another kiss, but this one is chaster. “The leather jacket.. .god, hyung. You look like all of my horny teenage fantasies rolled into one.”

Jihoon can’t help it anymore, he just has to hook his fingers around Mingyu’s belt buckles and drag him even closer, their chests flush against each other, the lace around Mingyu’s neck directly in Jihoon’s line of vision. He presses wet kisses along Mingyu’s clavicle, nosing at his bared buttons until there’s more delectable bronze skin for him to discover, more glistening territory for him run his tongue all over-

“Jihoonie,” Mingyu’s moan should be certified illegal, perennially dangerous to the state of Jihoon’s sanity, and fuck. This is the first time Mingyu has ever called him that, the honorific deliberately forgotten, and he never thought it would be this sexy, that it would damn near make him lose his mind. “ Gosh, we’re still in the corridor. Anyone could walk in on us.”

But Jihoon is like a man possessed. “No one will,” he mutters inbetween sucking at Mingyu’s collarbones, nudging a tentative palm underneath the silk of Mingyu’s shirt. “I’m good at checking perimeters. There’s no one here.”

“Ugh,” Mingyu moans again, hands grabbing onto the hair at the base of Jihoon’s neck. “No, wait, I was gonna give you your surprise first.”

Now that piques Jihoon’s curiosity, enough that he pulls up his head to look into Mingyu’s heat-dilated eyes, “So this is not the surprise?”

Mingyu blushes again, cheeks rosy red, beautiful and sweet. “Uhh…well, that’s part of it? But not the full thing!”

“Okay then, show me the full thing.” Jihoon straightens, withdrawing his hand from under Mingyu’s shirt and using the other to smoothen it into place (though still leaving the top buttons selfishly open). “Surprise me.”

Mingyu, who was, for the merest millisecond, looking oddly bereft at losing Jihoon’s touch all over him, immediately perks up at that. “Okay! Come with me!”

Without much preamble, he grabs Jihoon’s hand and sprints him along, and no matter how much Jihoon tries to remind him to not overexert his shoulder even if it is currently bandage-free, Mingyu barely listens. He only stops when they’re back at that familiar staircase which leads down to their backyard garden, flashing him a sneaky little smile which does strange things to Jihoon’s stomach.

But the garden is entirely transformed, almost unrecognisable except for the orange tiger-lilies lining the earth before them, vivid even in the pale moonlight. There are fairy lights decorating the entire place, some hung from trees, others winding through the ground, almost reaching into the flowerbeds. Right beside the vegetable patch, there’s a table lavishly laid out, candlestick illuminating the array of bowls that surround it.

“You-?” The word fizzles out on Jihoon’s mouth, too awestruck by the sheer magic that seems to envelop this place tonight.

“I just thought…we haven't officially had the chance to go on a date yet," Mingyu rambles a mile a minute, hand still firmly tangled in Jihoon's, "And since I technically can't take you out because I still have to be on bedrest for a few more days even if my shoulder is really quite healed - I just thought…umm"

Mingyu clears his throat, drops another tiny chaste kiss on Jihoon's lips.

"I just thought we could have our dinner date here, in the very place where I first fell in love with you."

God, there it is again. Blazing sunshine crowding Jihoon’s entire being, filling him with endless light, making him invincible. What did he ever do to deserve someone as wonderful and perfect as Mingyu? 

But whatever the answer to that question be, Jihoon is no longer complaining. He leans into every earth-shattering emotion Mingyu has incited in him since the very moment they met, and simply admires the man before him - Mingyu, bathed in the twinkling fairy lights, the exposed skin underneath his top buttons molten bronze, his eyes replete with unconditional devotion.

Even if things aren't perfect, even if Mingyu's culprits are still at large, even if Jihoon doesn’t quite trust King Moonshik to do the right thing, he gets to have this. 

He gets to have Mingyu, the prince of his heart.

"I love it," Jihoon breathes out, pulling Mingyu in for a deeper kiss, pouring within it every bit of his gratitude. "Thank you for doing this for me."

Mingyu's smile is shy and stunning, but there's also a hint of moisture lining his pupils, a telltale sign that Mingyu is as overwhelmed as Jihoon is. 

"Thank me only after the date, hyung!" 

He pulls out a chair, gesturing Jihoon to sit and Jihoon promptly complies, even if it feels a bit strange to be the one who's being attended to rather than the one doing the attending. Mingyu then quickly bounds over to the opposite end of the table, pulling up his own chair and settling into it, vibrating with an excitement that is somehow so quintessentially Mingyu but still takes Jihoon by complete surprise. Perhaps that’s the magic of tonight.

Mingyu lifts the lids of the bowls one by one, nudging them towards Jihoon. "Here, try it hyung!"

"Wait, you cooked all this?" Jihoon can’t help but ask, inordinately curious based on how eager Mingyu is about the spread laid out before them. The very thought of Mingyu going to all this trouble just for him makes the adoration in his veins spin and explode.

"Well not all of it!” Mingyu replies, again bashful and humble in that typical Kim Mingyu way, “Cook-ajumeoni helped me grill the meat and make the kimchi!"

"Wow" Jihoon mutters more to himself than Mingyu, piling some of the said meat onto his plate. "How did you even…Where did you learn to cook?"

Mingyu blushes at that, looks down at his own plate like he’s almost a little embarrassed. "I, umm…” he trails off, teeth fidgeting with his gloss-smeared bottom lip,  “After my mother died I was just very alone.”

There’s a pause, where Mingyu seems to be measuring out his words, and Jihoon simply waits patiently, giving him all the time he needs. He reaches over across the table to hold Mingyu’s hand, a gentle assurance that he can tell Jihoon anything he wants, that Jihoon would always listen with the deepest compassion. And that seems to make the decision for Mingyu. 

“I would often run away to the kitchens to avoid my grandmother or my uncle or my cousins,” Mingyu continues, tentative, yet he’s squeezing Jihoon’s hand in warm acknowledgement, “And I'd sit there for hours, watching Cook-ajumeoni and the other kitchen staff knead bread and make kimchi. It was really calming, in a way. After a point, Cook-ajumeoni took pity on me, I guess… one day I was in a really bad state, crying and lonely and missing my mother terribly, and ajumeoni offered to teach me how to make garaetteok. ”

A wistful smile tugs up the corners of Mingyu’s lips, almost like he’s lost in a different time. Jihoon smiles too, bringing their joined hands to his lips, kissing it with as much tenderness as he can muster.

“From then on, I just kept learning,” Mingyu continues, much softer, “I'd often hoodwink my terrible tutors and skip the day's lessons to bug ajumeoni to teach me something new."

Jihoon chuckles breathily, “You’ve always been a little rebel, haven’t you?”

Mingyu chuckles in return, “Not as much of a rebel as I would like to be, unfortunately.”

“Hey,” Jihoon kisses Mingyu’s hand again, not taking his eyes off Mingyu for even the fraction of a second, “You have been. You have. Every single thing I learn about you just makes me admire you more and more."

"Oh pshh," Mingyu blushes some more, but doesn’t let go of Jihoon’s hand. “I’m not...I’m not that great.”

"But you are, Mingyu. You suffered a terrible loss when you were so young, you were neglected and mistreated by your family. Yet you never let any of that make you bitter. You continued to hold on to the sincerity and passion in your heart and found ways to always be yourself, to always learn and grow and be endlessly compassionate. That’s a rebellion too, you know? You’re so brilliant ...I've never met anyone like you before."

"Jihoooooonie," Mingyu groans, and he's disentangling his hand from Jihoon’s only to cover his face with both his palms, red all over in response to all that ample praise. If Jihoon wasn't halfway into chewing a piece of beef, he would reach over to kiss every red splotch on Mingyu's face, to keep repeating how brilliant he thinks Mingyu is until Mingyu isn’t embarrassed by it anymore, until Mingyu truly believes it.

"So is this gonna be a thing now," Jihoon says instead, trying for levity - yet unable to keep the smugness off his smile.

"Is what gonna be a thing?" The words are muffled behind his palms, making them sound infinitely cuter.

"No hyung, just Jihoonie?"

At that, Mingyu’s hands drop from his face in an instant, his eyes adorably round, as if he didn’t even realise he’d discarded the honorific, "Oh shit, I’m-" He hastens to reply, “I didn’t mean to-” 

But Jihoon stills him by taking his hand once again, by stroking circles along his fingers.  "I like it," he says, voice pitched soft. "It’s, um. It’s hot."

Jihoon’s blush almost matches Mingyu’s, bright crimson with the vulnerability of his confession. Yet, there’s something poetic about it all - him, giving Mingyu unhindered access to have his way with him, to shatter this final boundary between him and wrap him in every bit of familiarity he craves for.

Mingyu beams once more, as radiant as ever, and this time he’s the one kissing Jihoon’s hand, his mouth lingering on the veins winding down to his wrist.

“Noted,” Mingyu whispers into the skin right on top of Jihoon’s pulse, and right then and there, sitting in the very garden where Jihoon had first realised Kim Mingyu was more than just what official dossiers stipulated, more than just someone he was hired to protect - the garden where currently, every inch of his hand is lovingly being caressed by the very same Kim Mingyu who reigns over every inch of his heart; where he’s eating the food Mingyu has cooked just for him, on their first date, of many more dates to come. Jihoon feels like this is his destiny.

This is how he wants every single evening of his life to look like, doused in magic and everlasting love.

---

Later, after they’ve finished their meal and Mingyu has tugged him back up the stairs, still as enthusiastic as he was in the beginning of their date, they fall back into Jihoon’s favourite place in the whole world - Mingyu’s bed.

Mingyu climbs on top of Jihoon, kissing him with an unrelenting fierceness, his fingers already shrugging off Jihoon’s leather jacket, shoving it to the floor. Jihoon feels numb with how much he wants - how much he wants Mingyu’s hands to devour his bare skin, to touch him everywhere until Mingyu’s name is branded into his skin. He’s prided himself on his patience so far, on refraining from going too far until Mingyu was completely healed, but now he’s the man in the middle of a vast unending desert who has finally glimpsed an oasis, who cannot wait to plunge into its pristine, cool embrace. He writhes and moans underneath Mingyu, completely undone in the onslaught of his searing kisses, forgetting to breathe while Mingyu's hands travel underneath his sweater, palming at his abdomen.

"Jihoonie," Mingyu moans, equally breathless as Jihoon, "You're so beautiful...I've wanted you- I've wanted you for so long."

"Me too," Jihoon shudders, the heat building and building beneath his trousers. He can't handle it anymore, he has to pull off his turtleneck too, the weight of it proving vice-like, begging for release. And then Mingyu's pupils are entirely dilated, swimming over the expanse of Jihoon's skin like he's memorising every nook and cranny, like he's exploring new ground, finding Atlantis.

Jihoon has never felt beautiful. Working out, building muscle - it’s more utility than aesthetic to him, it's about staying in the perfect physical condition to be able to do his job. But the way Mingyu is looking at him...

He feels revered. He feels beautiful.

"Fuck," he mutters, reaching up to capture Mingyu's mouth ravenously, kissing him so hard that he's sure his teeth will leave marks on Mingyu's bottom lip, that Mingyu’s lipgloss is now smeared all over his mouth. But Mingyu doesn't seem to care, he kisses back with equal fervour, hands stroking the tip of Jihoon's nipples, making him whine and shimmy and squirm all over in response.

"Wow," Mingyu says once they break off from the kiss, and Jihoon can already feel the bulge under his pants, "I never thought... it would feel like this."

But something about the way he says it gives Jihoon pause, makes him frown. 

"Wait, do you mean..." He has to focus on keeping his breathing even, "You haven't done this before?"

"I-" A delectable blush colours Mingyu's face, one of those gorgeous little things that shroud him from forehead to chin, making him glitter even more than usual, "I guess you could technically call me... uhh... a virgin?"

His tone is playful, but Jihoon can sense the hesitation behind it, can hear the slightest of quivers in its inflection.

Does Mingyu seriously think this will be a dealbreaker? Does he seriously think his inexperience will in any way make Jihoon less inclined to want him?

Well, Jihoon has to assuage all those fears immediately.

"Mingyu-yah," he murmurs, running a finger along his cheek, stroking the corners of his blush, "Do you want me to take the lead, baby? Do you want me to make you feel good?"

For a second Mingyu's eyes go timid and avoidant, like this one question has turned him inordinately shy. Jihoon has to marvel at the dichotomy of it all, that this is the same Mingyu who dressed deliberately sexy tonight, who wore that maddening lace choker that is taunting Jihoon even now, perched delicately around his neck. 

Jihoon is so incurably in love he feels a little deranged with it.

And then, slowly, inexorably, Mingyu nods, says: "I....I just didn't know how to ask for it."

"Oh Mingyu," Jihoon murmurs into another kiss, his heart bubbling over with fondness, like it always does whenever Mingyu is involved, "I told you before, didn't I? You can ask me for anything. Literally anything."

"Hyung," Mingyu moans, and Jihoon has to smile at how easily he slipped back into the honorific, how easily he has unravelled, "Hyung, I have...condoms in my drawer...lube too..."

"Wow, you're prepared," Jihoon giggles, nuzzling against the buttons of Mingyu's shirt, undoing the remaining buttons with his teeth.

"N-no, I was just," Mingyu breathes sharply, his hands still on Jihoon's nipple, stroking them in a way that's making him go nuts, but he’s trying to hold on to whatever smidgeon of composure he can. This is Mingyu’s first time, and he has to do everything in his power to make it as memorable as he possibly can.

 "I jerked off a lot. Thinking about you." The shyness lingers in Mingyu’s desperate grunt, and it shouldn’t be so endearing, but it really really is.

"Fuck, Mingyu-"

"Hyung, please, this is already so embarrassing.” Mingyu’s hands tremble only the slightest bit against Jihoon’s nipples, “I wanted to be so much smoother tonight."

"Oh jagiya," Jihoon has finally successfully unbuttoned Mingyu's shirt, slides it off him gently and gingerly, his bronze skin now in complete titillating display. The gunshot wound in his shoulder looks far less scary now that it's reduced to just a scattering of scabs, skin sewed tight and only mildly pink - but Jihoon still makes a point to press sweet kisses against it, willing it better, even though he knows it already hurts much less than it once did.

"You're always smooth, my dear Mingyu-yah." He whispers against Mingyu's skin, kissing a dark-brown line of fading bruises,"Do you know how crazy I'm about you?"

Something dark and desperate flickers in the depths of Mingyu’s near-flagrant eyes, like a primal urge has been unleashed, all signs of shyness evaporated. It punches the wind out of Jihoon until he is finally over the edge, until there’s no impediment left in him, until it’s only him and Mingyu’s parted lips, exhaling air into Jihoon’s shudderingly alert skin. With a single, swift motion, he turns them over, reversing their positions, and now Jihoon is on top, with Mingyu spread out tantalisingly under him. Jihoon drops down to kiss the scars around his shoulder again, channeling into it all the love and devotion that rages in his soul.

"Is this good, Mingyu-yah?" He murmurs, his hands now settled squarely on the zipper of Mingyu's jeans, "Is this what you want?"

Mingyu groans, a sound so totally guttural and sensuous, it goes straight to Jihoon’s groin. "Fuck me, hyung." he says, and Jihoon is suddenly startled into a giggle at the frankness of it all, at the pure unadulterated sincerity of it. "Just fuck me."

"As always, I'm at your service, my dear prince," Jihoon replies, undoing Mingyu's jeans at last, but not before placing another kiss at the junction of Mingyu's jaw, at the spot right below where the lace encircles his neck, "I'll make you feel good, baby."

Mingyu smiles up at him, his hair spread out against the pillow, silk against silk. His bare chest is rising and falling, coated with beads of sweat, so gorgeous that every coherent thought dissipates from Jihoon's brain. Finally, finally, when Mingyu's jeans have come off in another swipe of his arm and Jihoon has leaned down to kiss the inside of Mingyu's thighs, this feels like his destiny too.

This is how he wants every single evening - nay, every given moment - of his life to look like too, doused in magic and everlasting love.

---

There's a persistent knocking on the door - has been for the past ten minutes - and Mingyu whines against the arm Jihoon has tightly wrapped around him.

Last night had been so perfect, more perfect than Mingyu could have ever imagined. Jihoon had taken his sweet time devouring Mingyu, making him come again and again and again until he was left panting and entirely demolished (but in the most welcome of ways). And then, Mingyu had felt brave enough to return the favour too, lowering himself onto Jihoon's hardness to take it into his mouth, making up for in enthusiasm what he lacked in experience, and judging from Jihoon’s gloriously wrecked gasps, he’d done a decent enough job of it. 

Practice is what makes perfect, after all, and Mingyu vows to never miss out on a single opportunity to keep practicing, now that he’s dipped his toes into this brand-new spectrum of feeling.

But right at this moment, there’s no scope to make good on that promise. Right at this moment, there’s someone outside who simply won't stop knocking, cruelly interrupting the blissful morning-after of his night of boiling passion. Mingyu had conjured up such romantic plans - of waking Jihoon up with sweet kisses, of taking him down to the kitchens to personally make him an elaborate breakfast spread (with Cook-ajumeoni ’s permission, of course), but instead, he has to let out a long-drawn sigh and slowly disentangle himself from Jihoon’s tight embrace.

"Someone's at the door," he whispers, gently nudging Jihoon’s bare shoulders as the knocking outside his door gets louder and more frantic than before. "We have to wake up, hyung."

Jihoon makes that irresistible little noise at the back of his throat he often makes first thing in the mornings, when there's sleep still crowding his eyelids even though his senses are slowly kicking into gear. Mingyu has witnessed it so many times now, but he’s always hit anew with how utterly adorable it is, with how much it makes Mingyu want to kiss him once again.

But of course, there’s no time to linger on any of that now. 

"For god's sake, you two can canoodle later!” And there it is, the voice of the very person Mingyu had suspected was on the other end of that door. No one cared enough to knock as adamantly on his door as Yoon Jeonghan. “This is an emergency!"

That seems to finally make past the fog of Jihoon’s consciousness, because Jihoon springs to alertness in the quickest split second, sitting up plumb-straight and nearly colliding with Mingyu in the process.

“Did someone say emergency?” Jihoon chokes out, raspy and hoarse from having just woken up, “Is something wrong?”

Mingyu sighs, feeling thoroughly deflated. “I hope not. But I guess we’ll only find out once we open the door.”

Jihoon gives a single curt nod and climbs out of bed, pulling on his discarded trousers and turtleneck from last night. He gets like this when he’s in (what Mingyu calls) ‘attention’ mode - swift and precise and matter-of-fact - and Mingyu wishes that he could have witnessed the soft, endlessly loving (and Mingyu’s favourite) Jihoon instead of this Jihoon first thing in the morning. Not that there was anything wrong with this Jihoon - Mingyu loves every single of facet of Jihoon with equal depth and sincerity - but the softer Jihoon is just easier to coax back into bed, to convince him to take Mingyu apart like he’d done the night before.

He gets the sinking feeling that all the romance of this morning is in the process of going entirely down the drain, but somehow musters up the energy to get out of bed too. Though unlike Jihoon, he only throws on his pyjamas and a nightrobe, refusing to put any more effort into looking presentable. If Jeonghan guesses what Jihoon and him got up to last night by the state of his dishevelment, then so be it.

“What is it?” Mingyu asks when he finally opens the door. And he wants to sound irritated, he really does - Jihoon is far too alert beside him, standing preternaturally still despite the yawn he’s trying to stifle - but all signs of his irritation fade into mild panic when he takes in Jeonghan’s appearance, which is somehow far more disheveled than his. Though for far different reasons, Mingyu suspects.

Jeonghan’s usual carefully-coiffed hair is in total disarray, and his shirt is buttoned entirely the wrong way, with no sign of a tie to go along with it (that never happens, Jeonghan never steps out in the mornings without a tie). The laces of his boots are untied, his nails look half-chewed and his eyes...his eyes are so visibly puffy and sleep-deprived that Mingyu almost wants to reach for his forehead and check his temperature. Is his hyung suddenly ill? Is that what’s happening here?

“I promise, Mingyu, it wasn’t me.” is the first thing Jeonghan says, restless and out of breath.

“What wasn’t you?” Mingyu frowns, “Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

“Oh fuck,” Jeonghan mutters, and as if it’s only then that something pivotal is dawning on him. He looks from between Mingyu - bare-chested underneath his flimsy robe - to Jihoon, dressed and ready to jump into battle, yet with the particular air of someone who has gotten out of bed with the greatest of reluctance. 

“Oh fuck, you were....last night....” Jeonghan runs a frantic hand through his hair, makes a pained, incoherent sound, “No wonder you haven’t seen it.”

“Seen what, hyung?” Mingyu has to focus on staying as calm as possible, on taking short, even breaths, no matter how much Jeonghan’s current state is freaking him out. “Use your words.”

Jeonghan gives him a long, hard look, but instead of using his words he merely sighs - though it sounds more like a frustrated grunt more than anything else. With excruciating slowness, he fishes out his tablet from his suit jacket and hands it to Mingyu.

 “Like I told you, it wasn’t me who did this. It wasn’t Jihoon either.”

“What-”

“Just read it!” Jeonghan says, as hapless as his knocks were sounding earlier, and Jihoon stiffens beside him even further, his entire body subconsciously moving closer to Mingyu so he can read over his shoulder.

With dread steadily building in his throat, adam’s apple bobbing in its aftermath, Mingyu does exactly what he’s told. He reads.

BREAKING NEWS: THE PRINCE’S ATTACKERS UNMASKED!

South Korea Herald, 25th March, 2020

The Herald has received exclusive evidence from a source very close to the royal family that the culprits behind the multiple attempts on Prince Mingyu’s life are - yes, you’re reading this right - his very own uncle Kim Hyungshik, and very own cousin Kim Jungho.

It sounds something straight out of a drama, yet it’s completely and conclusively true. We have unearthed CCTV images that show Hyungshik and Jungho paying off a hired assassin, and that’s not where it stops. Illegal recording devices were installed on Prince Mingyu’s person, and his movements and private conversations were scrupulously tracked - all of which violate South Korea’s strict privacy laws-

“The police are here too,” Jeonghan interrupts,voice rising in pitch. “I honestly do not know how they-”

“Is Nayoung on the case?” Jihoon asks, and Mingyu doesn’t know how he’s composed enough to be thinking about logistics while the entire world as Mingyu knows it is on the brink of collapse. “Please tell me Nayoung is on the case.”

Why Prince Mingyu’s own family would want to kill him surely calls for speculation of the highest degree, but we at the Herald have a few theories of our own. After closely following the timeline of events from Prince Mingyu’s first attack to now, all of it can be traced back to Prince Mingyu’s alleged endorsement of Choi Seungcheol’s Dissolution Bill-

“Sh-she’s the Commissioner of Police, right?” Jeonghan stutters out, “The one who you said is your friend?”

Jihoon nods. 

Mingyu feels like his head is spinning, like this is all some kind of sick, twisted nightmare, his terrifying punishment for daring to dream of bliss, for daring to stand up to his father...

His father.

Fuck. His father.

This is the exact thing Mingyu was afraid of, the exact thing that would tear this family apart, the exact thing that would destroy his father like his mother’s death did-

“Yeah it’s her, I think.” Jeonghan confirms. “They’re downstairs now, in the atrium.”

Mingyu inhales a harrowing lungful of air.

With the Dissolution vote only forty-eight hours away, it remains to be seen whether or not this important revelation skews the result. Is this the final nail in the coffin for the royal family’s reputation? Will they ever recover from the terrible scandal of plotting to murder Prince Mingyu, the people’s prince, the hero of the (leftist) internet who survived three assassination attempts back-to-back-

“No.” Mingyu doesn’t know what he’s refusing, who he’s refusing. The ground beneath him is slipping, crumbling to pieces. The paintings of all his ancestors that line the walls of the corridor seem to be mocking him, pinning him down with their cruel, patronising glares. This is all his fault, all his fault...

“Mingyu,” Jihoon turns to him with concern written all over his eyes, wrapping a comforting arm around his waist, “Hey, it’s okay.”

“Appa... I want…” Mingyu breathes, even though his throat feels like it’s all but constricting, “I want to see appa.”

Jeonghan and Jihoon exchange a prolonged look, and Mingyu hates the heaviness of it, the underlying sympathy of it. But then, Jeonghan does nod.

“Okay, come with me,” Jeonghan says, and it feels like a death knell, scarier than being hit by a bullet.

---

Of all the regions within the palace that Mingyu sorely despises, the atrium has always been the foremost.  

There is something about it’s sheer vastness that makes him feel simultaneously exposed and insignificant - like he’s reduced a useless speck of dust, yet displayed before the entire galaxy to be picked apart, to be pulled to shreds. The looming arches, the ornate walls, the thick, marble pillars don’t help - they only make the air all the more suffocating, make the spick burnished floors feel like quicksand. You could stand here and feel like an invisible force is sucking you into the ground; no matter how much you struggle, you can’t anchor yourself to a single thing, can’t find a single moment’s respite.

In a way, the atrium is the palace’s first link to the outside world - the first place through which one enters (or escapes) the palace, the first or last glimpse into this suffocating world which only seems shiny and pristine from the outside. This is where the King or the Dowager Queen addresses civilians, holds press conferences, or bestows special medals and royal decrees during special occasions or festivals. This is where Mingyu had to stand, as a scared twelve-year-old, to greet blinding camera flashes the day of his mother’s funeral. This is where Mingyu has had to stand again and again and again ever since, at press conference after press conference, at civilian-greeting after civilian-greeting, at formal meeting after formal meeting, only to feel like the most desperate of birds caught in a net, noose dangling around his neck.

The palace atrium has only ever driven home the fact that he hates it here, that he feels so terrified here.

Now, though, that feeling is somehow multiplied, even if (for a change) he’s not the one being picked apart and scrutinised

“Sir, you need to come with us,” a woman in a prim pantsuit is saying, “If you don’t cooperate we will be forced to handcuff you.”

“How dare you threaten me!” Hyungshik barks in response, his thundering voice echoing along the archways, “You have no right to take me anywhere! Do you know who I am?”

“I do, sir,” The woman is saying, her tone professional yet scalding, “Currently, you’re someone convicted of attempted murder and breach of privacy - both of which are serious charges that call for imprisonment - and I’m the commissioner of Seoul Metropolitan Police. I outrank you, sir.”

Jihoon grins beside him, leans in to whisper, “That’s Nayoung. I’ve known her since we both signed up for the military back when we were 18. She’s always been a tough one.”

And Mingyu wants to grin back, wants to delve into this fascinating new nugget of information about Jihoon, wants to ask him everything about why he enlisted so young and how he became friends with Nayoung. But right now, Hyungshik and Jungho are standing with their arms crossed, adamant and angry, squared up against Nayoung and the uniformed police officers that flank her side - and that feeling of dread constricting Mingyu’s throat keeps extending until he can barely breathe. Instead, he clutches Jihoon’s hand for moral support, despite the fact that they’re in plain view of not just a frazzled-looking Jeonghan, but his uncle, his cousins, half the Seoul Metropolitan Police force, and also a significant population of the royal staff - both domestic and official. The atrium is always fair game, always the one place where residents and staff alike can gather to witness whatever it is that’s going on without any qualms. And right now is no different. Hyungshik’s raised voice, and Nayoung’s equally firm rebuttals, is attracting a sizeable audience - the palace has already been bustling with staff members and bureaucrats alike with the Dissolution vote only forty-eight hours away, and nearly all of them have paused their day’s work to gather around and witness the commotion.

But Mingyu’s eyes are looking for only one man - the one man who’s still nowhere to be seen-

Fuck, does appa even know what’s happening? Mingyu faintly remembers that there were press briefings his father had to attend today, what if he’s at one now? What if he’s accosted by questions about this entire situation without even knowing what’s happening? He already has enough probing questions about Mingyu to deal with, and now this-

“Where’s my father?” he whispers to Jeonghan, who’s on his other side, but Jeonghan barely listens. He’s staring transfixed at the scene in front of them, at the way Hyungshik’s fists are shaking with barely concealed rage.

“Bullshit! This is bullshit!” Jungho is the one yelling in Nayoung’s face now, “My uncle and I are being framed! What do you even have on us? Some blurry CCTV photos? That doesn’t prove shit! ”

“Actually, it does,” Nayoung says, and Mingyu has to admire the way she’s totally unfazed by Hyungshik and Jungho. Even after two decades of dealing with their jibes, he still isn’t immune to any of it. “You have the right to a lawyer, and you’ll have a trial to argue your case, of course. But right now, we have enough evidence to convict you.”

“Don’t you dare-” Hyungshik sneers, at the exact same time Jungho registers Mingyu’s presence and turns the entire combined force of his fury and frustration on him. 

“This is all happening because of you, isn’t it?” Jungho takes a menacing step towards him, eyes red with rage, hands flexing. Mingyu gasps and steps back, the dread in his throat manifesting into full-blown fear - Jungho has never physically hurt him in front of an audience, always careful to find secluded corners to inflict his blows, yet now, Mingyu is not so sure he won’t. He’s never seen Jungho so totally frenzied and out of control.

 He almost braces himself for an impact - for a slap, a punch to the face, anything - and his grip on Jihoon’s hand gets even tighter, even more desperate. As if immediately sensing his panic, Jihoon squeezes his hand back and steps in front of Mingyu, shielding him from Jungho’s wrath, scowling at Jungho in equal measure.

“I would like for you to step back, Jungho-sshi,” Jihoon says, curt and equal parts intimidating. “Don’t do anything you will later regret.”

“Jihoon is right.” A figure appears from seemingly nowhere- and not just a figure, but the figure. The person Mingyu has been looking for all along.

“Appa.” Mingyu whispers, more to himself than anyone else, and sure enough, it’s Kim Moonshik, striding from the other end of the atrium, determined and austere.

“Leave Mingyu alone,” Moonshik says again, glare narrowed squarely on Jungho, “He has nothing to do with this.”

“But he’s the one who’s caused all this nonsense, samchon!” Jungho whines like a scolded child, “He’s the reason why the fucking police are trying to arrest us! Tell them, Moonshik-samchon, tell them that they can’t arrest Hyungshik-samchon and me!”

“I can’t.” Moonshik says, and the word echoes across the entire atrium, met with collective gasps from all the staffers gathered around. “Or rather, I won’t.”

“What the fuck, hyung?” Hyungshik barks, while Jungho begins to splutter comically.

Mingyu’s heart is thudding against his chest, his breaths coming in gasps.

“You okay, Gyu-yah?” Jihoon murmurs to him, sharp concern still evident in his eyes. But Mingyu doesn’t know how to reply, doesn’t know how to digest the open disdain in his father’s words.

Moonshik walks up to Hyungshik, their faces aligned, his gaze utterly unreadable.

“I won’t stop Nayoung from arresting you,” Moonshik repeats, “Because I’m the one who pressed charges.”

What.

“What!” Jungho bellows, ironically echoing the maelstrom of emotions currently crashing around in Mingyu’s head, heart, soul. 

His father? His father pressed charges...against his own family? For Mingyu?

This can’t be right. This has got to be some kind of sick lucid nightmare.

“Hyungshik-ah,” Moonshik is saying, voice entire unrecognisable with how vicious it is, “I can easily put together the pieces of this puzzle. You hatched this elaborate scheme to have Mingyu murdered, and roped in poor Jungho-yah because he hates Mingyu as much as you do and would pounce at every opportunity of becoming the next heir. But what I can’t piece together is the why. Why assassinate Mingyu now, when you could have done it before too?”

“He was going to ruin everything, hyung!” Hyungshik almost screams, frenetic and vehement, “I saw Mingyu, okay? I saw him sneaking around to hang out with Choi Seungcheol and his cronies. He was supporting the Dissolution, hyung! He was going to gamble away our titles, our wealth that we’ve built for generations! He’s a traitor! I was just trying to save this family! And it was working too, wasn’t it? The shooting was turning things back in our favour-”

Mingyu’s heart is again in his throat, beating away at breakneck pace. He’s a traitor. He’s a-

“Fuck that,” Moonshik replies, with impossible conviction and severity, “My son is no traitor to this family - you are. Mingyu is an independent, strong-minded, and an impossibly kind-hearted kid. He’s a million times the person anyone else in this family can ever be, including myself.”

“Appa-” Mingyu gasps out, but it's barely audible, gets lost in the tangle of his uneven breaths. Jeonghan places a gentle hand on his shoulder, while Jihoon tangles their fingers together even deeper, stroking the edge of his thumb. It helps, if only a little, like it always does.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Moonshik continues, “I’ve had enough of you berating my wife, of you trying to murder my son, and for what? A title that actually means nothing? I’d gladly abdicate the throne and all the privileges that come with it, if being King has to be at the cost of losing my son.”

“Hyung, you’re making a big mistake.” Hyungshik’s teeth are gritted, his eyes bloodshot.

“Actually, I think I’m finally doing the right thing.” There’s a glimmer of a smile at the tail-end of Moonshik’s lips, the gloss of something unmistakable in his eyes. It dislodges the dread stuck in Mingyu’s throat, even if he’s unsure whether this is cautious optimism, whether this is still a lucid dream. Then, Moonshik turns to Nayoung with a sense of finality, “Take them into custody, commissioner. If they don’t cooperate, you have my full permission to use any force necessary.”

Nayoung flashes him an oddly smug smile in return - like she will truly relish this - and bows, low and obsequious. “Absolutely, your highness.”

Without further ado, she handcuffs Hyungshik and Jungho despite their loud and colourful protests, handing them over to the other police officers to escort away to the police cars outside. She follows them outside too, but not before stopping to throw Jihoon a wink, to mouth “we should catch up over drinks.” 

Jihoon grins back at her, but doesn’t let go of Mingyu’s hand, his thumb still taking turns circling each one of Mingyu’s tangled fingers.

But Mingyu can’t even concentrate on any of that. He can only gape open-mouthed at his father, who stands there staring off into space, like he himself can’t quite wrap his head around everything that just happened.

“Appa, you… you-” Mingyu struggles to find the words, to articulate the plethora of emotions currently storming his mind. He lets go of Jihoon’s hand, but only so he can walk over to his father, one heavy step at a time.

“Mingyu-yah,” Moonshik startles out of his trance then, finally turning around to face Mingyu, to look at him with tremulous eyes, “I’m sorry I have been such a terrible father to you…”

“No you haven’t, appa,” Mingyu can’t help feel a little tremulous himself, but these tears don’t prick him like they usually do. These tears are a release, like finally breaking out into the surface.

“But I have,” Moonshik insists, “All those things you said about me the other day...they were true, Mingyu-yah. And I’ve...I’ve been thinking about them ever since. I’ve been thinking about how I can make amends.”

“Oh appa,” is all he can utter from in between his choked sobs, so overwhelmed that he feels like his heart will burst, “You don’t have to, please. I just…I want you to be proud of me. That’s all.”

And that finally breaks the dam, unleashes the entire breadth of His Royal Highness Kim Moonshik’s sincerity and emotion - he cries, like Mingyu has only ever seen him cry for eomma, and Mingyu can’t stop himself. He wraps all six-foot-two-inches of himself around his father like he used to do when he was a toddler, too scared of getting on a horse. Back then, his father would always pick him up, kiss his forehead, tell him that it was going to be okay, that he would never fall from his saddle as long as appa was there with him. Right now, Mingyu is too old and too big to be picked up by his father but Moonshik embraces him anyway, as tightly and comfortingly as he once used to.

“I am,” Moonshik says, and it’s muffled against Mingyu’s shoulder, “I’m so proud of you, Mingyu. I always am. Please know that.”

God, what a sight they make. Mingyu, a grown twenty-two year old man crying into the arms of his father - the king -  square in the middle of the atrium, as his bodyguard (or rather, boyfriend), his Jeonghan hyung, and an entire crowd of royal staffers look on. 

Jihoon flashes Mingyu an encouraging smile from over his father’s shoulder, and Jeonghan smiles too - finally looking more like himself after a morning spent completely on edge.

And Mingyu can finally breathe again, can finally feel all his shackles unbuckling, one by one. A bird in a net, but the noose loosening, his wings spreading, raring for flight. 

“I love you appa,” Mingyu says, when they separate, “I just...I just want you to be a part of my life. That’s all.”

And Moonshik smiles too, a real smile, genuine and sweet, breaking past all carefully-crafted kingly facades Moonshik has honed over the years. A real smile, like how he used to smile when eomma was still alive, when eomma would sing for them, when Mingyu finally mustered up the courage to ride a horse without stumbling even once. 

Mingyu hasn’t seen that smile in years.

“I want that too.” Moonshik says, wiping the tear that crawls down Mingyu’s cheek. “More than anything else in the world.”

And maybe, just maybe, it’s possible.

Maybe, in the future he pictures for himself with Jihoon, his father could carve his niche too, occupying a warm little space where they’re all genuinely happy. Where the crown isn’t so heavy on appa ’s head, where no net ensnares Mingyu and keeps him from soaring.

And maybe, just maybe, there will be a few hiccups in their way, but the prospect doesn’t seem so impossible.

Maybe, just maybe, it’ll make eomma proud too.

---

Thursday finds Mingyu, Jihoon, Jeonghan and Moonshik gathered in front of the massive flatscreen television on the second floor palace lounge. 

It’s a little bizarre to be sitting here in the company of his boyfriend, his almost surrogate elder sibling, and his father all in one room - all on the same sofa, to boot - but it’s a little bit of a bizarre day anyway. The moment calls for it.

The past forty-eight hours have been insane enough, what with the arrest of his uncle and cousin, what with finding out that it was his father who had catalysed their arrest, and now, there’s this. The one day Mingyu seems to have been poised for, from the very minute Choi Seungcheol had declared to him grand plans to bring down the country’s archaic monarchical institutions over a glass of cheap beer at their favourite seedy East Itaewon bar.

Yet it feels oddly anticlimactic to be watching the results of the public vote unfold merely on television, like a regular citizen whose entire life hasn’t upended on its very axis because of it. 

This is where it all started, didn’t it? This is why his uncle began plotting his demise, why he tried to have Mingyu killed more than once, yet somehow always narrowly missing. This is why Mingyu met Jihoon, his bodyguard, his destiny; who was meant to simply protect him but ended up doing so much more, ended up becoming an inextricable part of his life. This is what ultimately made his father sit up and take notice of everything he’d been neglecting, of finally, finally embracing Mingyu the way he’d always wished to be embraced. In so many ways, the Dissolution has already been earth-shattering, dimension-bending, immensely cathartic in every sense of the word - and the public verdict hasn’t even been declared yet. 

But it feels okay, it really does. He knows what he has to do, even if the results skew against him. 

He’s already picked out the law school brochures, has already started preparing for the Legal Education Eligibility Test (with help from Jihoon’s mother’s textbooks, of course). He’s already asked Jihoon to move in with him if this dream does ever convert to reality, if he ever successfully frees himself from the palace walls, living in his own little apartment in walking distance from his university - and Jihoon didn’t even hesitate before saying yes, kissing him so soundly it sent tingles all over Mingyu’s body.

All that remains is telling his father. 

But he’ll get there in due time. He has a sneaking suspicion that the odds are no longer stacked against him.

“God, can they just announce it already and get it over with,” Jeonghan groans, fiddling with his tie. Weirdly enough - or rather, predictably enough - he’s the polar opposite of Mingyu today, getting more and more antsy as the evening has progressed, even more so as the four of them settled in front of this giant television screen, eyes peeled on every graph and every projection that the newscasters are pointing to. “Why do they need this long to count some bloody votes!”

“It’s not an easy decision, Jeonghan-ah.” Moonshik replies, pragmatic yet  amused. “The future of the entire country rests on this. You’ve got to give them some more time.” 

And this is yet another bizarre thing about this day.

Mingyu had expected Moonshik to be out there on the streets like Seungcheol and his friends currently are, rallying the very last of their resources to turn the outcome in his favour - except, Moonshik seems weirdly blasé about it all, like the results hardly matter to him anymore. And as much as this has utterly baffled Mingyu, he’s been scared to ask why, scared to disturb the precarious balance they’ve established between them since Hyungshik and Jungho’s arrest. 

One one level, it’s kind of not been precarious at all. As it turns out, Moonshik had been the one to leak the evidence to the press. His strategy had been clever and effective - cause a major public stir that would leave Hyungshik incapable of seeking out the help of his law enforcement contacts, so Nayoung could sweep in for the kill. It was quick and executed with alacrity, made possible only because Moonshik knew exactly how to curb Hyungshik from pulling any more dirty tricks, but-

Mingyu has the niggling feeling that it’s jeopardized the royal family’s chances of winning tonight, once and for all. A scandal of this degree is not something any family recovers from, much less a family that was already on the brink of losing all its power. And it all happened because of Mingyu.

Yet, for the past couple of days, his father has seemingly not been bothered at all. He abruptly cancelled all his press briefings, forgoing all that last-minute anti-Dissolution campaigning time to instead seek out Mingyu’s company, to take him on long walks along the palace grounds. It’s as if, overnight, all of Moonshik’s priorities have shifted.

Mingyu doesn’t want to be dramatic, but it just feels incredibly good to have his father back. He feels like he can truly, sincerely talk to appa again, to tell him the minutiae of his day, about what he’s been reading, even (finally) about his backyard garden, and the tiger-lillies that are blooming in it as effulgently as ever.There’s still so much about himself that he hasn’t told his father - about the full extent of his bond with Seungcheol and his friends back in East Itaewon, about the true nature of his relationship with Jihoon, about how terrified he felt the day the bullet hit him on his right shoulder - but he’ll get to all this in due time too. After all, the odds are no longer stacked against him.

That doesn’t mean Mingyu isn’t curious about his father’s sudden change of attitude around the vote, that he doesn’t feel the residual prick of guilt on being the entire reason behind the imminent collapse of his family’s fortune, even if this is what he wanted all along.

“How come you’re so calm, appa,” Mingyu asks, as a news presenter drones on about the high voter turnout for the tenth consecutive time, “Aren’t you worried what’ll happen if….you know...”

Moonshik only smiles, that very same smile that’s reserved only for Mingyu. It doesn’t betray a single hint of apprehension, a single bit of regret.

“I told you the other day, didn’t I?” Moonshik says, past the two anchors squabbling over facts and figures on the television screen, “If I have to give up the crown in exchange for my son, I don’t care anymore. I always pick you, Mingyu-yah. I’m glad I have you.”

Gosh, Mingyu really does not know what to do with so much blind, unconditional faith. How can he, just a boy, a bird barely out of his net, compare to a family legacy that’s been built over generations? How can his father be so willing to forsake the one title he’s held since the tender age of twenty-two, the one job he’s worked tirelessly towards all his life, for Mingyu of all people? What has he even done to deserve it?

As if sensing the turmoil within Mingyu’s heart, Moonshik reaches over to ruffle his hair. “Hey, now don’t go crying on me again, yeah? It’s an official royal decree. I’m still the king for some more time, so it stands.”

Mingyu laughs despite himself, blinking away the tears building up on his eyelash. His father is right, this day - as bizarre as it is - isn’t for tears. It’s for new beginnings, no matter what the news anchors behind the television screens announce in the next hour. From across the other end of the sofa Jihoon shoots him a soft little smile, and despite his father sitting right beside him Mingyu can’t help but smile back, suddenly realising how lucky he is to get to have both. Jihoon, the man who stole his heart, and his father, the person he’s idolised for as long as he remembers.

“Aargh, I can’t do this! I can’t just sit here and wait! ” Jeonghan sighs in frustration, perhaps the only person in the room who isn’t quite so resigned to whatever lies on the other end of this news broadcast. In a way, Mingyu gets it. Jeonghan has been assistant chief-of-staff since he was eighteen, chief-of-staff since he was as young as twenty-three, the youngest in several generations. No matter how much Jeonghan has supported Mingyu’s involvement in the Dissolution movement, no matter how close Jeonghan is to Seungcheol, this is still his entire livelihood. The uncertainty of what lies ahead hits him more deeply than anyone else in this room, not even King Moonshik.  “I think I’m gonna go finish some paperwork.” 

“But hyung!” Mingyu whines as Jeonghan gets up to leave. He knows this is hard, but he also doesn’t want Jeonghan to be alone tonight, especially while all of it goes down. “You can stay for a-”

“It’s okay, Mingyu-yah,” Moonshik says, nodding at Jeonghan sympathetically. “Let him go. He’ll be alright.”

Mingyu sighs and sinks back into the sofa, watching Jeonghan disappear out the door as the news-anchors on screen launch into a detailed breakdown of the final tally of numbers. Jihoon is still sitting at the very opposite end of the sofa, the spot which Jeonghan just emptied now leaving only a few inches of distance between them, yet Mingyu feels oddly bereft for not being able to scoot closer, not being able to hold his hand immediately. Jihoon does grin at him again though, eyes shimmering with endless promises of what they can do when Jihoon climbs into his bed tonight, and hopefully for the rest of eternity. Right now, Mingyu has to be satisfied with just staring at Jihoon while his boyfriend’s gaze shifts back to the television screen, intently following every graph and diagram the news anchors are projecting on it.

Not that Mingyu isn’t equally interested in the news, in whatever outcome this vote brings - it’s just that, Jihoon is really so beautiful, the collar of his shirt slightly askew, the planes of his face simultaneously sharp and soft under the glare of the television screen. Mingyu will never get tired of looking at Jihoon, of taking in his fill until his heart vibrates with the need to touch, to worship every inch of skin on display.

But that particular train of thought is cruelly derailed when his father clears his throat beside him. Loudly.

“Did I ever tell you,” Moonshik says, a teasing lilt to his tone, “That your mother and I actually had a torrid secret affair the first few months we were together?”

“Appa, ” Mingyu whines. He loves hearing stories about his parents from their younger days, but this particular story is veering into a territory he really doesn’t want to explore.

“No seriously,” Moonshik trudges on, “Both our families were against our relationship, so we did it all - the sneaking around, the stolen kisses, the secret longing glances when we thought no one else was looking...I know all the signs.”

Jihoon suddenly sits up far too straight, back into his damned ‘attention mode’, turning around to face Moonshik with an unreadable look on his face that would be terrifying if Mingyu didn’t know that it was only a sign of nervousness, of him being caught in the headlights.

“I don’t know what you’re implying, your highness,” Jihoon says, so formal and stilted that Mingyu almost wants to hug him and reassure him that it’s okay, there’s nothing to be nervous about. “But I assure you that it’s not what it looks like-”

“Oh, it’s okay Jihoon,” Moonshik interrupts before Jihoon can finish that sentence, “You don’t have to explain yourself. I was just trying to say that...I don’t want to be the shitty bastard who doesn’t let his son fall in love with whoever he wants to. That’s all.”

“Appa…” Mingyu promised himself he won’t cry, goddamnit, so why is his father being so fucking nice today? Why is he hell-bent on making Mingyu cry?

“Not that I even want to control what Mingyu can or cannot do in the first place,” Moonshik quickly clarifies, his smile growing wider, his left eye dropping into the subtlest of winks, “He’s an adult, and he can choose to do whatever he wants. I will always support him.”

Jihoon’s eyes go hilariously round, like he truly cannot believe Moonshik just said that, and Mingyu would laugh, he really would, except he feels the tears threatening to spill over, utterly overcome by his father’s belief in him, by how much of an effort he’s making to love Mingyu the right way.

“Appa,” he repeats, stifling a sob, “I’m applying to law school this fall.”

“You’re...wait what?” 

“I...um,” Mingyu stumbles, struggling to find the words to explain this from the very beginning. Like a miracle, like a persistent benediction that never stops working its magic, Jihoon’s hand crawls over across the sofa and captures his, grounding his very core like it’s become a habit, an inevitability. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, but I...I’m finally gonna do it this year.”

There’s a moment, where all Moonshik does is stares between Mingyu’s flushed yet thoroughly decisive face, and that empty spot on the sofa where Jihoon’s hand is curled over Mingyu’s, joined together in perfect harmony. Then, after what seems like an entire millenium, Moonshik’s face breaks into another smile, somehow even more radiant than before.

And it is at this exact same time that all the excessive graphs and figures disappear from the television screen to give way to only a single newscaster, reading from an ominous looking piece of paper in her hand:

 “We are finally ready to declare…”

The weight of Jihoon’s hand on his, the warmth of his father’s approving gaze.

Nothing else is left to conquer.

---

THE PUBLIC HAVE DECIDED AT LAST

South Korea Herald, 27th March, 2020

After months and months of anticipation around the Dissolution Bill, the nation has finally reached a firm and near-unanimous decision . With a resounding majority, the result of the public vote has declared that the royal family’s powers be officially dissolved, and that South Korea becomes a democracy at last.

This is a massive turnaround from earlier this month - after news of Prince Mingyu’s shooting just broke - when polling data everywhere was showing that Choi Seungcheol is losing his stronghold on the public imagination. Yet, with the recent shocking revelations surrounding who Prince Mingyu’s culprits actually were, it seems the public has once again sided with Choi Seungcheol, with even the high-income, upper class, conservative populations voting mostly in favour of the Dissolution. This victory is unprecedented, and even we at the Herald admit that it will go down in our history as one of the most significant political movements of our time.

Choi and his team have already begun working in collaboration with the President's cabinet to make sure that the transition process takes place as smoothly as possible. This will mean the re-allocation of all the resources currently taken up by the royal family into relief funds and economic policies that will help farmers and workers who were hit hardest by the recession. There’s also a clause in the Bill that will allow for the present royal staff to be re-employed in government jobs with adequate pay, using their valuable expertise to help spearhead South Korea’s first foray into becoming a fully-functioning democracy.

Well, what can we say, interesting times lie ahead! Yet, we cannot help but keep wondering about our very favourite, the one and only people’s prince. Is Prince Mingyu happy with the outcome of the Dissolution? If yes, what will see him doing next? Keep reading the Herald to find out, as we bring you the latest updates on the royal family, always - even though they’re not royals anymore.

-----

“Happy Dissolution!” Seungcheol shouts out, his rallying cry echoing across the entire bar, all its patrons responding with loud, thundering cheers. “Drink up tonight, everyone! It’s on me!”

And that’s met with an even louder set of cheers from everywhere around them, people raising their glasses with howls of “Viva la revolution!” or clinking bottles of soju with equal fervour. Mingyu has been a regular patron at this bar for over a year now, yet he’s never seen so many people crammed together in this place, all of them here to celebrate Seungcheol, to celebrate everyone who put in back-breaking, sweat-drenching effort into making this a reality. He feels privileged to be able to witness this, to be invited tonight to share in the happiness.

They’re all here, perched on the bar counter in plain view of everyone. Seungcheol, who keeps having to stand up to greet every person that comes over to thank and congratulate him, Seokmin and Minghao, arms wrapped tightly around each other, Soonyoung and Wonwoo, also sitting eerily close, leaned into each other’s personal space (Mingyu really hopes they’ve stopped pretending they’re only just friends with benefits and nothing more. If Mingyu can get his shit together, so can they), and Joshua, swirling around his glass of wine. And then there’s him, of course, plain old Mingyu - no longer a prince - finally holding hands with his gorgeous boyfriend in public, finally curled up on said gorgeous boyfriend’s lap in the middle of a crowded bar, taking turns sipping soju and nuzzling his Jihoonie’s neck.

“I knew you two were gonna be disgusting when you finally got together,” Wonwoo retorts, “But god do you have to be this bad?”

“Pot, kettle,” Mingyu rolls his eyes, dropping a kiss on Jihoon’s cheek for good measure, just because he can. Jihoon smiles back, the crinkles around his eyes endlessly enthralling. “Not like you’ve taken your hands off Soonyoung hyung all night.”

“Nooo, we’re just uhh, we’re uhh-” Soonyoung sputters, hastily dropping his hand from Wonwoo’s thigh, and everyone on the counter laughs, including the bartender that’s serving them.

“It’s okay, Mingyu-yah,” Joshua says with a kind smile, “You’re young and in love, you’re allowed to be a little disgusting.”

Mingyu mutters, “See, Shua hyung gets it!” more to Jihoon than anyone else, brushing an errant finger against Jihoon’s bottom lip. Wonwoo groans beside him and the others all laugh, Seungcheol looking particularly endeared.

“Yeah, he does, doesn’t he?” Jihoon murmurs back, reciprocating Mingyu’s touch by angling in for a kiss - it’s a brief, chaste little thing, but it sends a shiver down his spine nevertheless, every nerve ending in every corner of his being coming alive.

The patrons cheer again, chanting Seungcheol’s name over and over, and Jihoon’s arms encircle Mingyu, the taste of Jihoon’s kiss mingling with the soju on his tongue. It’s perfect, so perfect.

“Hey, Gyu-yah,” Seungcheol interrupts, however, his voice dropping a few octaves, “Do you, umm, have you heard from-”

“What’s that, hyung?” Mingyu somewhat unwraps himself from Jihoon - though not enough to relinquish his spot on Jihoon’s lap - leaning forward to be able to hear whatever it is Seungcheol’s asking amidst the commotion that surrounds them.

Seungcheol gulps, looking suddenly unsure, which is odd considering how he’s literally the man of the moment. He just brought down the fucking monarchy, leading this nation into the modern age, finally laying the foundations of a true democracy. If anything, Seungcheol should be strutting around with requisite confidence, not nervously running his hands through his hair.

“I-actually.” Seungcheol bites his lip, “Ugh, never mind. Have another drink, I’m paying.”

“Nope,” Mingyu insists, popping the ‘p’, “Not until you tell me what’s bothering you.”

“It’s really nothing...It’s silly and stupid,” Seungcheol looks away, and the tops of his cheeks are unmistakably pink, “You’re here to celebrate, have a drink, enjoy your time with Jihoon and the others.”

“But hyung-”

Though, before he can even finish that sentence, an audible hush falls across the room. It’s an abruptly stark contrast from mere seconds before, when the place was engulfed in sheer chaos, people howling and barking in joy and revelry. But now it’s almost everyone is silent on cue, their attention drawn to something else entirely.

Mingyu frowns, turning around to get a better look at the source of it, and nearly falls off Jihoon’s lap in pure shock at the sight before him. Jihoon has to cling on to the hem of Mingyu’s hoodie to keep him from going tumbling to the ground.

Here, in the very same seedy East Itaewon bar where Mingyu has repeatedly found a haven, found a place where he feels truly like himself, is none other than Yoon Jeonghan, striding across the bar with a resolute set to his jaw, until he’s standing directly opposite an utterly shellshocked Choi Seungcheol. Jeonghan’s tie is once again missing, his top buttons unbuttoned, yet his suit is impeccable, not a single crease in it out of place. There’s an unusual fire in his eyes that Mingyu has hardly seen before, that’s equal parts intimidating and ....betraying an emotion Mingyu never thought he’d witness in his hyung.

Seungcheol looks completely stunned in the wake of it, his eyes wide, his lips parted in naked amazement.

“Jeonghannie,” he breathes out, sounding awestruck in a completely unrecognisable way, “You...you came.”

“Of course I did, you infuriating idiot,” Jeonghan counters, irritation written all over it, yet each word accentuated with a simmering heat, “Do you know how much paperwork your annoying little bill has left me with? And not to mention all the angry moronic royal cousins and uncles and aunts and grandmothers that I now have to deal with all on my own because of course King Moonshik delegated it all to me!! ”

“Jeonghan, I didn’t mean to…” Seungcheol looks both bewildered and awfully apologetic, torn between a whole multitude of conflicting emotions. (Mingyu doesn’t blame him, because he himself is equally torn, equally unable to wrap his head around even an iota of what’s happening.)“I just wanted to celebrate with you, that’s all-”

“You’re damn right you did,” Jeonghan replies, and now, his tone is suddenly lighter, the heat churning and churning until it comes to the surface, dripping like molten lava. Until it all finally clicks in Mingyu’s mind.

And then, Jeonghan is grabbing Seungcheol by the collar and pulling him into a sweltering kiss, crashing their mouths together as the patrons of the bar all erupt into thundering applause, engulfing the place once again in chaos and cacophony.

“What the fuck?” Jihoon mutters beside Mingyu, but Mingyu only chuckles, thoroughly amused at how on-brand this is for Jeonghan. His lovely Jeonghan hyung, who’s all soft and mushy on the inside yet tries so hard to repress all of it, tries so hard to project this entirely untouchable persona. It’s so understandable that he would lose control like this, that the only way he’d confess his feelings is by blathering Seungcheol’s ear off and kissing him in the middle of a crowded bar.

Mingyu smiles, clapping along with the audience. Seokmin, Wonwoo and Soonyoung wolf-whistle, Minghao and Joshua laughing indulgently. Jihoon sits there dazed for a minute, but when Seungcheol lets out a wrangled moan into the kiss, he smiles too, whispers a “Good for them.”

“Fuck,” Seungcheol says when they finally part, his entire face flushed, his hair a mess of unruly curls, “Does this…does this mean you like me?”

Jeonghan makes an impatient noise that’s half groan, half enamoured-sigh, “Yes, I like you, Choi Seungcheol. You finally wore me down.”

Seungcheol’s lopsided grin is brighter than all the barlights combined, brighter than the full moon outside. “And you’ll also consider the job offer I made you? I really need a new political strategist now that Wonwoo’s decided to run for an Assembly seat this year.”

“Yah! I haven’t told everyone yet!” Wonwoo yells from behind them, “Way to steal my thunder!”

But Seungcheol ignores him, looking up expectantly at Jeonghan, eyes inordinately puppy-like.

“Ugh,” Jeonghan groans again, “I’ll think about it, okay? Now get me drunk and kiss me some more. I thought this was a celebration!”

“Always so easy to rile up, aren’t you, Jeonghannie?” Seungcheol is smirking now, gesturing to the bartender to pour them  drinks, and Jeonghan finally smiles, tender and sweet and completely lovestruck.

They’ll be alright, Mingyu reckons, settling back into nuzzling Jihoon’s neck with a sigh.

“Hey,” he whispers, feeling the soju swirl around in his insides, feeling the intoxicating energy in the air envelop him, feeling true happiness after so, so long. The jukebox is playing his favourite melody, heady and familiar, and a sudden thought strikes him.

“Do you dance, Lee Jihoon?”

Jihoon chuckles, the force of his quiet laughter rocking through Mingyu’s body, beating a permanent tattoo against his skin. “Not really,” he replies, echoing the same answer he’d given once long ago, at this very bar, when Mingyu had coaxed him onto the dance floor for the very first time. 

Right now, the dance floor is equally crowded, with Minghao pulling a very drunk and very clingy Seokmin up for a waltz, and Wonwoo and Soonyoung too following in their wake, finally looking into each other’s eyes with equal parts tenderness and hunger. Seungcheol and Jeonghan are cocooned in one corner of the bar counter, lost in conversation and in trading kisses, their shared laughter echoing across the room, eclipsing this night with unequivocal love.

And everything about this just feels right.

“Will you make an exception for me?” Mingyu hopes his voice can express the depth of his ardour, the bustling of his heart, the eternal promise of their future together. And it probably does, given the way Jihoon smiles back at him, the way he holds Mingyu like he’s impossibly precious.

“Always.” Jihoon whispers, the word a permanent imprint on their joined lips, “Always.”

It’s a promise.

Chapter Text

WHERE ARE THEY NOW: THE FORMER ROYAL FAMILY OF SOUTH KOREA

South Korea Herald, 12th February, 2021

Who knew we’d make it this far? Almost a year since the Dissolution, and a democracy that continues to thrive, an economy that’s finally booming, with the highest citizen happiness index in the world, with worker’s rights getting addressed with constant new reforms. With Choi Seungcheol’s name being floated as the country’s next prime ministerial candidate, even though we don’t have any confirmation yet.

We at the Herald have been pleasantly surprised, to say the least.

But in the midst of it all, where are our once-beloved royals; they, who faded from the limelight like a gust of wind, forced to live their lives as lowly civilians without hefty royal allowances?

Well the one person who seems to definitely be enjoying his time post-Dissolution is ex-king Kim Moonshik, who has spent the past year converting the once-exclusive royal palace into a heritage hotel which would boost South Korea’s tourism economy, with all the money earned going straight into governmental social reform schemes. He has also been the one who cooperated the most willingly when declaring and giving up all his royal assets, as the Dissolution Bill had mandated him to. In his spare time, Moonshik maintains a garden in the palace backyard, which is rumoured to have originally been planted by our very own and very beloved former people’s prince.

Kim Jiyeon, ex-dowager queen, has turned completely recluse in the wake of the Dissolution. No one really has seen much of her since the Dissolution, and sources close to her have been heard saying that apparently she has been "stricken with unbearable grief and betrayal" at Kim Moonshik pressing charges against his own brother (though the ex-king has only rolled his eyes when asked to comment on the statement). However, recent unconfirmed paparazzi shots have shown her checking into a famous rehab centre in the suburbs of Seoul. 

Kim Hyungshik and Kim Jungho continue serving their jail sentence, after the Supreme Court declared them guilty of attempted murder and privacy theft five months ago. They are in the process of undergoing ten years of imprisonment, so we guess we won’t be seeing them in a long, long time.

But that brings us to our favourite young ex-royal, still the people’s prince in our hearts if not in title, sticking true to the epithet in everything he has embodied even after the Dissolution. Alongside completing his first successful semester of law at the Seoul National University, Kim Mingyu has continued to work with multiple non-profits, while simultaneously interning with a human rights law firm. He also continues to be seen as a bit of a legend in the neighbourhood of East Itaewon, where he currently rents a small yet cosy one-room apartment with his ex-bodyguard and longtime boyfriend Lee Jihoon. Lee Jihoon officially resigned as Mingyu’s bodyguard the day after the Dissolution vote, and has been repeatedly quoted saying that he enjoys being Kim Mingyu’s beau far more than he enjoyed being his official bodyguard. Presently, Lee runs his own martial arts coaching centre for young underprivileged children.

Kim Mingyu and Lee Jihoon are often spotted around town hand-in-hand, looking as blissfully in love as ever, and while the former heir’s sexuality has received more than its fair share of backlash from a certain section of conservative netizens, he still remains the darling of the internet, with new message boards dedicated to him continuously cropping up each day.

Though he isn’t technically an ex-royal, we at the Herald would also like to take a minute to talk about one Yoon Jeonghan, who was once the youngest palace chief-of-staff in history, but has now raised eyebrows everywhere by becoming Choi Seungcheol’s political strategist and close right-hand-man. Considering Yoon Jeonghan was once considered the face of the palace, him taking up employment with what one might colloquially term the palace's very ‘opposition’ is curious indeed - attracting both intrigue and criticism from various sections of the public - but what’s even more curious are the ongoing rumours that his relationship with Choi Seungcheol might be more than professional, that the two of them might even be cohabiting together. Both Yoon Jeonghan and Choi Seungcheol have neither confirmed nor denied the rumours, yet judging from the constant sweltering looks and lingering touches they share both in front of cameras and away from it, it doesn’t seem like they're trying to hide anything, does it?

---

“Is my hair okay?” Mingyu asks for what seems like the millionth time, running his hands through it as he stares intently into the side mirror of Jihoon's run-down sedan.

Jihoon giggles from the driver’s seat, where he’s currently pulling up into the driveway of his family’s house, shifting gears so the car can skid to a halt. Crisp Busan air winnows in from the half-lowered car window, mussing up his own straw-blonde strands (which he dyed a few months ago on a whim, much to Mingyu’s endless delight), bringing with it the distinct sensation of home - the scent of the sea mingling with the wafting incense of frying siat hotteok. As he turns off the ignition, he just sits there and inhales for a few minutes, revelling in the particular nostalgia of the place he grew up in, where he spent the formative years of his life.

“You look flawless, Gyu-yah,” he does say, though, if only to make his boyfriend of eleven months stop squirming and fidgeting in the passenger seat, “I told you, you have no reason to be nervous.”

“How can I not be!” Mingyu squeals in response, his hands moving from his hair to the collar of his - unnecessarily formal, given the occasion -navy blue shirt, smoothening it even though it’s perfectly smooth already. “I’m meeting your family for the first time, hyung! First impressions are the last impressions! What if I do or say something stupid and they hate me forever?”

Jihoon laughs again, unfailingly endeared by Mingyu’s earnestness. A lot of things have changed in the past year - where they live, what they do, how their relationship has continued to blossom, no longer caught up in professional formalities and boundaries - but Mingyu is still as sweet, as humble, as full of love and light as he always has been. And still a little self-deprecating too, but that’s okay. That’s why Jihoon is here, to remind Mingyu how brilliant he is.

He reaches across his seat into Mingyu’s personal space, cupping his boyfriend's cheek as gently as he can. “That’s impossible,” he whispers into Mingyu's slightly parted lips, "It's impossible not to love you immediately."

“Hyuuuuung,” Mingyu whines, that specific lilt of voice which has never for once failed to destroy every bit of Jihoon’s willpower, “you’re only saying this because you’re biased.”

And well, Jihoon isn’t one to give up so easily, not when he’s dedicated the entirety of his time with Mingyu memorising every trick, every piece of strategy that can get Mingyu to capitulate, that can get his insecurities to fade, even if by a portion.

Jihoon presses his lips against Mingyu’s, pulling him into a kiss that’s equal parts pliant and ravenous, taking his time to explore the terrains of Mingyu’s mouth, to funnel into it all his reassurance and admiration. Mingyu pants under his onslaught, his chest heaving and falling as he tangles a finger into Jihoon’s blonde locks, pulling him closer.

“So unfair, hyung,” Mingyu moans once they part for air, “You’re way too good at distracting me.”

It startles Jihoon into another laugh - and that’s so indicative of all his time with Mingyu isn’t it? Always full-to-the-brim with bubbling laughter and spontaneous love - but before Jihoon can lean in to kiss him again, a loud knock on the hood of his car interrupts them.  It’s his brothers, Jihwan and Jiwook, sporting matching knowing smirks.

They immediately separate, Mingyu going charmingly red from forehead-to-chin, like he always does when he’s thoroughly embarrassed. “Oh my god,” he groans, “Now they’ll definitely hate me.”

“Relax,” Jihoon replies, unlocking the car doors so they can get out, “It’s just my idiot baby brothers. They’re harmless.”

“Hey, who are you calling babies!” Jiwook says as he beats Jihoon to the other side of the car so he can open the door for Mingyu, “I’ll have you know that I turned eighteen this year and also got my driver’s license.”

“And I’m in my second year of studying mechanical engineering at Dongseo University!” Jihwan insists, as he also runs over to join Jiwook in helping a very flustered Mingyu out of the car, “ I’m very grown, thank you very much!”

“Yes, yes, you’re both big boys and no longer need me to sing you to sleep, I get it!” Jihoon says, only fondly exasperated. It’s always quite marvelous to see how well his younger siblings have grown, how much they’ve learned while Jihoon’s been away, how they keep embodying the good manners their parents have instilled in all of them while they fall over themselves trying to make sure Mingyu is treated well. Jihwan is already beginning to unload their luggage from the trunk of Jihoon’s car, ignoring all of Mingyu’s protests about how he doesn’t want to be a bother, about how he can carry his bags inside on his own.

“Are you two idiots already bugging the prince?” The front door opens, and another (tinier) figure appears, arms crossed around her chest, “It’s not even been two seconds since he set foot in our house, for god’s sake-”

Lee Jiyoung, Jihoon’s babiest sibling (though she too would argue that she’s no longer a baby, what with her sixteenth birthday coming up next month), walks over to where Mingyu - still slightly red-faced - is desperately trying to grab his backpack from Jiwook’s grasp, though to no avail. 

“Hi I’m Jiyoung, and as you can see I’m the only sane member of the Lee family,” She beams a bright, decadent smile, extending a hand for Mingyu to shake, “It’s so nice to meet you at last, Prince Mingyu. You are far more handsome in person than in the pictures.”

Jihoon smiles secretly to himself, recalling how this had been his first impression of Mingyu too. Images can never do justice to the complete extent of Kim Mingyu’s ethereal beauty, especially now, as Mingyu’s hair glitters under the midday sun, as the redness of his blush deepens at the compliment, simultaneously unfurling into a devastating peal of laughter.  

“I-I’m not a prince anymore, p-please just call me Mingyu,” Mingyu stutters out, slightly breathless, but he does shake the hand Jiyoung had offered, “It’s nice to meet you, Jiyoung-ah. Hyung talks about you a lot.”

“And he doesn’t talk about us?” Jihwan and Jiwook complain in unison, “This is blatant favouritism!”

“Suck it, you two!” Jiyoung levels a glare at them that is all fondness and playful sibling bickering, not a hint of actual malice in it. His siblings bicker a lot, but they’d die for each other in a heartbeat. “I’m always Jihoon oppa’s favourite!”

Mingyu looks thoroughly enchanted by the entire exchange, but stops to clarify, “Hyung talks about you guys too, by the way. I heard you graduated high school with distinction, Jiwook-ah! You must be so smart!”

Jiwook blushes furiously, which is personally extremely hilarious to Jihoon because very little fazes the little guy, very rarely is he touched so thoroughly by a compliment that he’s reduced to a blushing mess. But Jihoon can’t blame him - Mingyu’s unadulterated regard and admiration does have that effect, it worms its way directly into your soul. He’s glad to find that nobody in the Lee family is quite immune to it. 

“ Aigo, you children! Will you let Prince Mingyu come inside at least?” Jihoon’s mother has appeared in the doorway, looking a little bedraggled from all the cooking she’s probably been doing since morning, but no less exuberant. She always has this habit of making too much food when they have guests over, but now that Mingyu’s here - the very person she’s been nagging Jihoon to bring over since the minute Jihoon mentioned that the wonderful prince wanted to study law, and could she send over some of her old textbooks for his reading pleasure - she’s probably gone all out. Jihoon’s father flanks her, a little too upright as he always tends to stand, a remnant of his years of service as military general - but the smile on his face mirrors that of Jihoon’s mother, open and excited. 

“My apologies, Prince Mingyu-sshi,” his mother is saying, somehow managing to bow despite bounding over to the driveway two steps at a time. His father still stands in the doorway, his recent rheumatism doesn’t quite allow for excitable movement anymore. “My children are all terrible at remembering their manners-”

“Eomma!” Three sets of voices interject, but their mother is a force of nature. Once she’s zeroed in on a candidate for her affections, she’s unstoppable.

“-you come inside, Prince Mingyu-shhi- no, no please leave the bags here, Jiwook-ah and Jihwan-ah will carry them… please, you’ve come to our house for the first time, we can’t let you do all the work! Here, come in, I made you and Jihoon some citron tea, it must have been such a long drive for you-”

Mingyu looks like a deer caught in the headlights as he’s maneuvered along by Jihoon’s mother, eyes large and mouth half-open. He flashes Jihoon a look of utter bewilderment but Jihoon only laughs, fully aware of just how much adulation his mother is about to shower on Mingyu, how bashful it will make Mingyu at first, yet how happy he will be by the end of it. “See, she loves you,” he drops down to whisper to Mingyu, fully within earshot of his mother, whose smile grows brighter.

When Jihoon had first called her up to tell her he’s bringing Mingyu over to Busan for Lunar New Year, his reigning instruction had been only this: Give him the complete Lee family experience. He deserves all the love, eomma.

And this is only a subtle reminder, though judging by how taken she already seems by Mingyu, Jihoon has nothing to worry about. She’d accepted Mingyu as her own from the day Jihoon had told her what a passionate and dedicated lawyer Mingyu would make someday. She always has a special soft spot for the passionate ones.

“Actually, I’m not a prince anymore-” Mingyu tries to intervene between her excited rambling. “You don’t have to bow to me or call me that...”

“Oh pssh,” she shushes him, “You’re still our prince!”

“Actually, the entire point of Dissolution was that unnecessarily hierarchical titles be abolished- oh! ” Mingyu can barely finish that sentence before she literally yanks him into the house, helps him shrug off his jacket, and then pulls him along for an impromptu house tour. But when Mingyu turns around to flash Jihoon a thumbs up, his eyes are all crinkly with the warmth of his smile, Jihoon can only smile back, blowing him a brief and tiny kiss that Mingyu pretends to catch in his palms. 

As Jihoon stands there, watching a still-quite bewildered yet inordinately gleeful Mingyu being affectionately dragged around by his mother, he feels a steady, familiar presence beside him.

“I can see it,” Jihoon’s father says, his thick-set voice tinged with mirth, “I can see why you’ve always cared about him a little too much, Jihoon. He’s a good one, isn’t he?”

“The very best,” Jihoon agrees, fondly looking on as his mother shows Mingyu their family garden and Mingyu exclaims in delight, already launching into a tirade about which plants grow best this time of the year, “I’m going to marry him someday.”

His father lets out a breathy chuckle. “You never do anything by half-measures, do you Jihoon-ah?”

Yeah, Jihoon thinks, as he watches Mingyu move on to describing every aspect of his law classes in full and painstaking detail, gently nagging his mother for academic advice. Jihoon has never done anything by half-measures, especially not where Mingyu is concerned. His care has only protracted, has taken on infinite shapes and sizes, drowning in unceasing devotion.

And now, he gets to go to bed with Mingyu every night, gets to wake up every morning to the sight of a bare-chested Mingyu tangled all around him, to the sensation of diligent morning kisses that make him shiver from head to toe. Now, he gets to pack Mingyu his lunches (no matter how much Mingyu insists on making them himself) before he leaves for his daily university classes and Jihoon leaves to teach judo to his lovely batch of young kids. Now, he gets to have romantic dates every other night - given Mingyu isn’t drowning in coursework or the million cool internships and charity projects he keeps taking up - gets to make Mingyu unravel in bed and be unravelled in return, gets to see Mingyu in his rawest, sincerest form. And sure, it isn’t perfect - Mingyu can get far too in his head sometimes, convinced that the whole world despises him; and Jihoon can get bad with vocalising his feelings, hurting both himself and Mingyu inadvertently. But they always figure it out. They always circle back to each other, hold each other and love each other with their entire hearts. 

All of it, Jihoon wants to have all of it, for the rest of his life. Nothing by half-measures.

Later that night, after Mingyu has charmed the socks off everyone at dinner; after he has lovingly cajoled Jihoon’s mother into letting him grill all the meat and has rattled off enough impressive facts about modern military history that has left Jihoon’s father slack-jawed, after he has befriended all of Jihoon’s siblings with the ease of  someone who only radiates kindness and compassion, has gotten them to spill all the secret gossip on their respective crushes; he sinks into Jihoon’s embrace with a long, satisfied sigh. 

“They’re all so wonderful, Jihoonie,” Mingyu whispers against the crook of Jihoon’s neck, sending gooseflesh springing all across his skin in shuddering pleasure, “Can we come back again? Please?”

Jihoon places a soft kiss on the top of Mingyu’s head, letting his lips linger, breathing in the fruity scent of Mingyu’s shampoo, “Anytime you want, baby. This is your home too.”

Mingyu looks up at him, eyes silken with the light of a thousand stars. “You are still so strange, Lee Jihoon,” And there’s a hint of mischief in the smile playing at the edge of his lips, “But I am too. I love you, thank you for loving me too.”

No, thank you, Jihoon wants to say. Thank you for letting me into your heart, for showing me entire galaxies.

But Jihoon isn’t good with words anyway. He’d rather show Mingyu his gratitude, he’d rather kiss Mingyu until they’ve both lost their breath.