Archive of Our Own

Seungmin lands his ship in the last available space in the early afternoon. He’s only planning on being on the planet of 0-325 for a few hours to pick up the pieces he needs for his ship before leaving again to go onto the next planet. 

Seungmin wouldn’t exactly call himself a scavenger, he’ just never stayed on one planet for longer than a week ever since the destruction of his home planet in the infamous war that happened years ago. Ever since then, he’s been travelling galaxies by himself, the only company he has is a robot android he found, abandoned amongst the other crap in a junkyard that Seungmin named Minho. It was easy enough to fix Minho’s wiring and now Seungmin has someone to talk to, even though Minho has the tendency to bicker with Seungmin and annoy him more than anything. When that happens all he does is change Minho’s setting to sleep mode and give himself a couple hours of silence. 

There’s also Minho’s physical features that make him slightly off putting, like the fact that half of his prosthetic skin has been ripped off his face to show the metal and wiring underneath. Or the fact that his blinking function is broken and Seungmin has never bothered to fix it so now Minho blinks twice as fast than a normal android. But regardless of all that, Seungmin somewhat enjoys Minho’s company.

The planet of 0-325 is one that Seungmin has surprisingly never been to before, after years of travelling it gets to the point where a new planet becomes rare. His only intentions are for additional parts but who knows, maybe Seungmin might stay for an extra hour or two, Minho won’t mind.

“I’m assuming that you’re going to take your sweet ass time, exploring or whatever you do while I stay here on the ship, waiting for you to come back like some frail housewife.” Minho complains as he stares out of the ship's front window, looking down at the capital city and the people, who, from where they’re situated, are ant-sized.

Seungmin rolls his eyes, “You literally refuse to leave the ship because you don’t want to be seen with me. I think that you’re the most pretentious android I’ve ever met. You do realise I literally saved your life.” Sometimes Seungmin thinks that he should have left Minho to become scrap metal. 

Minho mimics him, making his voice high and squeaky and sounding nothing like Seungmin’s. “You do realise that I don’t care, I don’t have feelings Seungmin. I’m not grateful.”

Seungmin ignores him, instead he leads Minho over to the pod in which Minho stays to hibernate whenever he’s in sleep mode. Mostly so Seungmin doesn’t have to stare at him and his wide open eyes that don’t seem to close whenever he’s in sleep mode. 

Minho gets ready in his upright position. “Goodnight, Minho,” Seungmin jokingly coos at him, putting on a sickly sweet smile that he knows Minho hates.

“I hope I don’t wake up.” He retorts, retching as Seungmin presses his sleep mode button on the back of his right wrist and Minho immediately shuts down and stands still. 

“Finally some peace,” Seungmin mumbles to himself. He grabs his messenger bag, throwing it over his head and across his body, ready to leave his ship and explore the city.

The capital city of 0-325 is filled with futuristic style buildings that Seungmin has only seen a couple of times. Tall enough that Seungmin can’t see where they end, he walks through the streets with his head facing the sky as he tries to navigate the streets. 

The sky is more fascinating than the last planet he was on, there’s at least six planets visible in the sky, all varying in colours. Seungmin recognises at least three of them as one’s he’s visited before, and decides which will be his next destination. 

The streets are lined with purple flags and decorations, there also seems to be more people on the streets creating crowds, everyone cheering and laughing. He brushes past the people celebrating on the streets, muttering polite excuse me’s until he’s away from the bustling crowd.

Seungmin stumbles upon a small market after escaping what is the busy heart of the city. This area is quieter, much to Seungmin’s preference. He walks slowly along the stalls, eyeing everything laid out on the tables. A jewellery stall catches his eye, mainly because all of the pieces for sale are accented with purple jewels. Seungmin doesn’t understand this planet’s fascination with the colour purple but he does feel drawn to a pair of drop earrings that has a purple jewel attached to a silver chain and sparkles underneath the intensity of the two suns in the sky. 

“Is there a celebration happening?” Seungmin asks the woman behind the stall, wanting to know what has an entire planet celebrating.

“Oh, you mustn’t be from around here,” the older woman laughs, “tomorrow is the crown prince's wedding. It’s the first wedding to happen in over twenty years, so a big celebration is in need. Plus, the prince’s suitor is truly lucky. The prince is such a handsome young man.”

Seungmin nods, thanking her for telling him. If the reason for the celebration is due to a wedding then Seungmin should definitely leave the planet before the evening. From what he’s seen so far, he predicts that the people’s celebrations are only going to get more boisterous.

He puts in one of the earrings and puts the other into his bag since he only has one of his ears pierced and didn’t want to be awkward and purchase one earring instead of the pair. Bidding goodbye to the woman, Seungmin leaves to look at the next stall, becoming interested in this one selling homemade jackets.

He asks the man if he can try one on. When granted permission, Seungmin removes his bag to try on a brown jacket. It fits him perfectly, the right sleeve length and thick enough to give him warmth for when he visits the colder planets. 

Just as he’s about to ask the seller for the price, Seungmin is knocked off his feet by a person rushing by, sending both of them tumbling to the ground.

“Watch where you’re going, idiot.”

So maybe Seungmin shouldn’t be cussing at strangers on a new planet, but this guy deserves it.

The guy who bumped into him appears to be frantic, wanting to hide his appearance as he has a hat covering the majority of his face. Seungmin can only see the lower half of his face as he mumbles a quick ‘sorry’. He picks up his bag that he dropped and continues rushing down the street, not even bothering to help Seungmin up. 

Seungmin brushes off the dirt that’s not even there, smiling shyly at the seller through his embarrassment of falling flat on his ass in public. Wanting to get away from the eyes Seungmin can feel on him, he pays for the jacket, not even bothering to take the jacket off. He throws some coins from his pocket onto the table and grabs his bag.

As he picks up his bag, he notices that the usual light weight of his bag is heavier than it was minutes ago. Seungmin opens the bag and to his surprise is met with a crown on the inside. Gold in colour with purple jewels decorating the points on the crown, Seungmin widens his eyes in disbelief, he looks up to see if the people of 0-325 have gone back to their own business. To his relief no eyes are on him.

He wonders when and how on earth a crown of all things managed to make its way into his bag. Then it dawns on Seungmin that the bag over his body is not his bag. The guy who bumped into Seungmin and dropped his bag, picked up Seungmin’s bag instead of his own. Now it makes sense as to why he was in such a rush, the guy had a royal crown in his bag. 

Seungmin wonders if they know that there’s currently a crown missing. Just then, a group of castle guards come charging past Seungmin and that answers his question.

He knows the right thing to do is to let the guards know that he has the crown. But then…that might make the guards think that Seungmin stole it, and he’d end up in prison with his ship (and Minho) sent to the scrap yard. With that grizzly thought in his head, Seungmin decides that the planet isn’t going to miss one, singular crown. Plus, he’s only meant to be on this planet for a few hours anyway, he can sneak off with the crown and never return.

Seungmin decides that now is a better time than ever to leave the planet. Weaving through the side streets, Seungmin can’t help but look over his shoulder, even though there’s no way the guards will be looking for him.

He’s about to turn around the corner, when he gets pulled back into the side street. Seungmin gets slammed back into the wall so that he’s faced with the man from before, his eyes half covered as he looks at Seungmin.

“I think you have something that belongs to me.”

Seungmin decides to act dumb, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The arm that’s over his throat, pinning his shoulders to the wall pushes forward, cutting off his airway for a moment before pulling back. The action is supposed to scare Seungmin, but he’s been in many situations more deadly and dangerous than this one. Like the time he had a laser ray gun aimed at his head after he accidentally knocked over a local guy’s drink in a bar and the guy turned out to be some leader of a intergalactical gang that Seungmin’s never heard of. And so was the reason why he had a weapon aimed at his head after he insulted the guy.

“You don’t know who you’re talking to, give me my bag back.” The guy demands.

“Actually, you stole my bag first so I think it’s fair that I take what’s yours in return.” Seungmin reasons, unable to hold back his smirk.

“Listen, you piece of—”

“Stop where you are.” 

Seungmin turns to see the palace guards from earlier now charging towards them. With the narrowness of the side street, they’re only able to run in a single file, but the one up front appears to be angry enough to catch the guy who stole the crown. 

Though none of this affects Seungmin because he’s not the one they’re looking for. He looks back to the guy opposite him, smirking since he’s about to watch him get caught and arrested by the royal guards. 

Except to Seungmin’s surprise, the guy returns the smirk and grabs him by the wrist. He takes off in a sprint, dragging Seungmin with him. 

Seungmin wonders why he’s the one running when he hasn’t stolen anything. 

Is he in possession of said stolen item? Yes. But that doesn’t make him a thief. 

The two of them dodge street vendors and people passing by in order to get away. They apologise to whoever they bump into and are met with fruit and whatever else items being thrown at them. 

Seungmin lets out a shriek as he dodges an orange being thrown at his head. He hears the faint laughter, soft and airy and it takes him a second to realise it’s coming from the man in front of him, who is still holding onto him and finding full enjoyment in running away from the authorities. 

From the change in their surroundings, Seungmin guesses that they’re running out of the heart of the city and towards the outskirts. In the distance he can see a sea of green and thinks that the thief is hoping to lose the guards in the forest. 

Seungmin keeps running until he can no longer feel his legs. He turns his head back to look for the guards, he lets out a sigh of relief when he can’t see them anymore. 

“Hey, I think we lost the—'' The end of Seungmin’s sentence is lost and turns into a blood curdling scream as he and the thief have unknowingly ran straight off the side of a cliff. 

The fall happens in slow motion, most likely due to the change in gravity compared to other planets. When he realises that he’s falling slowly, Seungmin begins to chuckle, happy that he’s not falling to his death quite yet. 

He looks to his side to see that the thief is overjoyed as the familiar sound of his laughter returns. It’s all Seungmin can focus on as they fall slowly, the man’s face is still mostly covered, but his mouth is visible, a wide grin showing sharp rows of teeth that look like they could easily kill a creature. 

As quickly he realised they were slowly falling, the speed in which they’re falling changes to the complete opposite. At a fast speed, they plummet down the remainder of the distance. Seungmin’s screaming again, accepting that he’s about to die and now there’ll be no one to look after Minho. 

He winces as he expects the harsh impact. Only for Seungmin’s landing to be much softer. He and the thief land on a pile of rose petals, conveniently placed, saving Seungmin from the end of his life. 

He breathes deeply, wiggling his fingers and toes to make sure he really isn’t dead. The thief lets go of him for the first time since they started running to sit himself up. 

Seungmin turns to face him and as he looks into his eyes lets out a gasp. 

The man’s hat had fallen off in the fall, allowing Seungmin to see his face fully. Not only was the thief one of the most handsome creatures Seungmin has ever seen, but his eyes— they’re captivatingly beautiful, the irises of his eyes are fully purple. Like the colour on the planet’s crest and all of the decorations that cover the city. 

If you look closely, it seems as if his eyes hold the secrets behind every galaxy. Sparkling with every blink, Seungmin wonders why he hid his eyes away underneath his hat. 

“Can you believe we didn’t die?” The thief laughs in disbelief, “I literally dragged you off a cliff, my bad, I’ll admit that was my fault.” He holds his hands up. “So now that we’re not dead I think we should do a little switch-a-roo of our bags and I’ll be on my way.”

He reaches for the strap of the bag that lies against Seungmin’s chest, but because he can do so, Seungmin slaps his hand away. 

“I don’t think so, I actually think that I should keep this bag and the contents inside it as compensation for you nearly killing me.” Seungmin exclaims, grabbing ahold of the bag strap and eyeing the man up and down to see if he’ll try to physically rip the bag from his person. 

The thief looks like he’s contemplating it, his gaze travelling over Seungmin’s face before answering. “Fine, you can have it.”

Seungmin lets out a joyous whoop, but his celebration is short-lived as the thief continues speaking. “For a price.”

Now Seungmin begins to grimace, “sorry to disappoint but I don’t have any money to spare.” All of the money in Seungmin’s pockets are for the parts of his ship, he isn’t the kind of person who has money to throw around. The items he bought at the market was with the money he’s been saving up for a while. 

“I don’t care for your money,” the man rolls his eyes, “I’ll let you have the crown if you help me stay away from the guards.”

That’s all? Seungmin thinks to himself. This guy must be a highly wanted thief if he doesn’t want the crown all that much. The deal doesn’t sound all that bad to Seungmin, he’s hoping that the guards will give up after a few hours, assuming that the thief has gotten away and then Seungmin can go on his merry way back to his ship with the crown safely secured in his bag.

“Okay, thief. You have a deal.” He lets the name slip out by accident, but regardless he still holds his hand out for the man to shake. 

The man’s cheeks turn a faint blue as he raises his hand to complete the handshake.

“So,” Seungmin drags out the word, “do I get to know the name of the man who almost dragged me to my death?”

The man’s eyes widen, the reason unbeknownst to Seungmin. “My name is Jeongin, and you?”

“Seungmin.” He replies back simply. Now that he’s been accommodated with the man he’s going to spend the next few hours with, Seungmin begins to stand. He stretches his back and looks up to the sky towards the closest planet that sparkles a deep red. “What’s the plan then? Do you have a hiding spot you wanna go to?” He asks, helping Jeongin up to his feet. 

Nodding, Jeongin begins walking into the forest, “there’s somewhere I usually go to when I’m running away from guards. They’ve never found me here before so it’ll be safe.” He looks Seungmin up and down, “it’ll probably be to your liking.”

Slightly offended, Seungmin starts to run after Jeongin to be walking at his side “what’s that supposed to mean?”

He turns to him as he smirks, “you’ll see. Also be careful of the trees. They may look like the ones from Earth but they’re actually made out of metal, so don’t walk into one.”

“Earth? Isn’t that the planet that got destroyed over a hundred years ago when the people of Miroh invaded it?”

Jeongin nods, “before the people of Miroh destroyed the planet for good they studied the lifeforms there. The people of 0-325 liked the look of trees but didn’t have any way to grow them, so they used resources that they already had.”

“Interesting.” Seungmin says, reaching out towards the passing trees that look exactly how they did on Earth, except when he grazes his fingertips over the dark brown wood, he’s met with cold, hollow metal. Confirming what Jeongin said about the trees not being real. “So are you from this planet?” He asks, deciding to make some form of small talk with the other if they’re going to be spending time together.

“Yes, this planet is my home,” he answers simply, his tone slightly bitter. But his tone switches quickly as he puts on a smile and turns to Seungmin, “and what about you? I don’t recognise you so I know that you’re not from here.”

Seungmin ducks to avoid walking into a metal branch as he answers, “There’s no planet that is my home, not anymore.” At this, Jeongin appears like he’s about to ask a question, most likely questions that Seungmin doesn’t want to answer to a stranger so he continues, “I suppose my ship is my home, I built it myself and she’s gotten me through many adventures as I travel from planet to planet.”

Jeongin purses his lips as he frowns, “does that not get lonely?”

Seungmin shakes his head, “not really, it gives me the opportunity to meet all these new people from planets I would have never met if I didn’t travel. Plus I also have Minho who lives on my ship, he’s an android.”

“Like a pet?” Jeongin gasps, his purple eyes widening as he turns fully to face Seungmin, walking backwards and managing to avoid every metal tree root and branch in his path. 

“Yeah, kinda.” Seungmin holds back his laughter as he can imagine if Minho were here and hearing Seungmin call him a pet, the android would attempt to rip Seungmin’s arm off.

“That’s so cool, I’ve never had a pet before. I’ve tried multiple time to let—” Jeongin’s words get cut off as his foot gets caught on a root, causing him to fall backwards. Reaching out, Seungmin grasps a hold of his bag strap over Jeongin’s chest and pulls him upright.

Jeongin laughs it off as he checks behind him to see the root that caused him to stumble. “Oh wow, I didn’t even see that. You would think after the amount of times I’ve walked through this forest I could do it with my eyes closed. But thank you for catching me, Seungmin.” He turns back around to face himself forward, they’re reaching an opening in the forest, one that Jeongin recognises as he reaches for Seungmin’s wrist. “We’re here.”

Here, the place where Jeongin claims to be his hiding spot from the palace guards is a tavern, in a clearing in the middle of a metal forest, where the sunlight hits perfectly on it. Like the rest of the forest, its exterior appears like it's made out of wood, with flowers decorating the sides on vines that wind all the way up to the roof. 

“C’mon, if you’re lucky enough I’ll buy you a drink.” Jeongin winks at him, grabbing his hand and tugging Seungmin forward. They pass by a creature laying on the grass underneath the window. Seungmin knows it to be a baby dragon, based on the creature’s appearance and the fact it breathes fire to burn the nearby flower petals. The creature giggles at the fire it creates, a child-like innocence that makes Seungmin view it more as a child than a pet that’s made to stay outside.

The inside of the tavern is large, larger than what its outside appearance would make it seem. There’s surprisingly people inside, some slumped over the tables asleep and others chatting to one another as they sip at their drinks. Seungmin’s surprised that they get any customers at all considering the place is in the middle of the forest.

Jeongin immediately goes up to the bar, greeting the man standing behind it. Seungmin’s eyes immediately go to his orange hair that is so bright it’s essentially glowing. 

“Jeonginnie, is that you again?” The man puts down the glass he’s cleaning, throwing a towel over his shoulder as he ruffles Jeongin’s hair over the counter. “This is what? The third time this week you’ve been here. Should you really be here?”

Jeongin replies in a language Seungmin doesn’t know, his voice hushed to avoid Seungmin from hearing him. Which is useless since Seungmin doesn’t know what he’s saying anyway.

The bartender leans back after he and Jeongin finish whispering, it’s then that he notices that Jeongin isn’t alone. “You brought a friend.” His face lights up, “who’s this.”

“Chan, this is Seungmin,” Jeongin gestures for him to come closer with the flick of his wrist, “my…companion for the day.” He says after thinking about what he and Seungmin are to each other. Seungmin would rather call them strangers who came to a compromise.

“Nice to meet you, Seungmin,” Chan waves his hand at him in greeting, putting his right arm up into the light, making Seungmin notice that Chan’s entire arm is bionic. He’s not an android, Seungmin can tell by his eyes. “Jeonginnie doesn’t usually bring any friends over, so you must be special then.”

By special he means that Jeongin is essentially holding him hostage to spend time with him, then yes, he is special.

Jeongin insists that Seungmin finds them a table to sit at while he buys the two of them a drink. Spotting a secluded table in the corner of the tavern, Seungmin leaves Jeongin to order the drinks from his friend and goes over to the table.

He tries to avoid bumping into any of the customers, but the same can’t be said for anyone else. Seungmin somehow doesn’t notice the man walking backwards in his direction, bumping directly into him. 

At least the guy has the decency to turn around straight away to apologise. Seungmin on the other hand, isn’t as polite and proceeds to scream in the man’s face. 

“Oh my goodness.” The guy Seungmin bumps into jumps at his reaction, he touches his face in a panic, “what? Is there something on my face?”

Seungmin silently shakes his head, causing the guy to let out a sigh of relief. He doesn’t have the heart to tell him that the only reason why he was so startled was because of his appearance. 

Even for someone like Seungmin who travels from planet to planet, coming across someone with only one eye is still a rarity. 

His singular eye in the middle of his forehead seems like it’s staring into Seungmin’s soul. And Seungmin can’t look away as the man blinks slowly and fans long eyelashes against the bridge of his nose. 

Seungmin goes to walk away when Jeongin decides to come up to them. 

“Jisung.” Jeongin gasps out the one eyed man’s name, holding his arms out for an embrace. It seems that he knows everyone in this establishment. “I haven’t seen you in so long.”

Jisung accepts Jeongin’s hug, chuckling lightly, “that’s what happens when you get sent to jail. I only got out a few days ago. I’m trying to stay out of trouble for the time being, something you wouldn’t know.” He nudges Jeongin a couple times, winking dramatically.

Meanwhile Seungmin is standing off awkwardly to the side wondering what sort of crimes Jisung did that landed him in jail. He also wonders if Jeongin’s ever been to prison before and that’s how he and Jisung know each other. The more time he spends with Jeongin, the more Seungmin realises that he knows nothing about this thief he’s agreed to be with. 

After he finishes his conversation, Jeongin leads Seungmin over to a table. He slams down two glasses, allowing the liquid to spill over the rim and trickle down onto the table. 

“If there’s one thing you have to do on this planet, it’s try this.” Jeongin slides one of the glasses across the table so that it’s in front of Seungmin, who hesitantly peers down at the off putting green colour. 

“Why’s your face like that?” Seungmin loses his grimace after being caught. “I’m not joking, one sip and you’ll be fucking buzzed that you think you can do anything. Trust me, last time I thought I was talented enough to get on top of the bar and sing for everyone.”

Seungmin snorts, trying to imagine Jeongin entertaining a crowd full of drunks. “That I wanna see, drink up.” He says while lifting Jeongin’s glass to his lips. 

“Only if you do it with me.”

-

Not only did Seungmin drink one glass with Jeongin. But two. 

“I’m not sure if I’m dancing ready yet,” Seungmin hiccups, his head resting against Jeongin’s shoulder. At some point he started leaning until he ended up on the other man’s shoulder, and since Jeongin never complained, Seungmin stayed there. 

Jeongin doesn’t like that answer, he leans forward to finish the last of his drink, causing Seungmin to slide away from the comfort that was his shoulder. “Jisung.” Seungmin winces at the volume Jeongin uses to yell the man’s name across the tavern. 

Jisung lifts his head up, waving over at them, “what?” He yells back, equally as loud. 

“Do you have time for a song?”

Seungmin learns from Jeongin that Jisung is a musician, who frequently does gigs at the tavern and provides the background music for Jeongin impromptu performances.

Jisung’s face lights up, “hell yeah I do. Chan, get my guitar.”

Getting up on the small makeshift stage, Jisung taps onto the microphone, “hey, everyone. We have a request for a song from Jeongin.” He says as if everyone in the tavern didn’t hear him and Jeongin yell just seconds before.

Jisung begins strumming his guitar in an upbeat tune as he taps his foot. His voice surprises Seungmin, he expected him to sound, well honestly— bad. But his voice is soft and attracts the attention of everyone in the room.

Seungmin’s attention shifts over to Jeongin, who stands up and holds his hand out towards Seungmin.

“What?” He asks.

Jeongin chuckles, “what do you mean, what? Get up. We’ve got a performance to put on.”

Seungmin definitely does not remember agreeing to that, no matter how much the drink he’s had will allow him to do it. “Absolutely not. You’ve got a performance to do, I can sit and watch you.”

“Absolutely not,” Jeongin mimics him and for a second, Seungmin is reminded of Minho. “Please, for me.” He widens his eyes and all Seungmin can see is purple galaxies that he could get lost in.

It takes him seconds to change his mind, he lets out a sigh and takes Jeongin’s hand. He gets led across the tavern towards the bar, where Jeongin proceeds to jump up on top of it with ease. Seungmin on the other hand doesn’t find it easy as Jeongin, he leans over the counter with one of his knees up. He’s about to accept his fate and learn the details of behind the bar. That is until Jeongin notices him struggling.

“What’re you doing down there?” Laughing, Jeongin helps Seungmin stand up on his feet.

Now that he’s standing on the bar, Seungmin doesn’t know what to do with himself. He feels awkward, not sure what to do with his limbs.

But like Jeongin said, he knows how to put on a performance. He already has the crowd cheering at him as he moves his body to Jisung’s voice. Even Seungmin has his full attention on the other man, who naturally can entertain a crowd compared to him. 

Jeongin looks over, noticing that Seungmin is standing still while everyone else in the tavern is dancing around. “Seungmin? Why aren’t you dancing? Come here.”

Seungmin doesn’t get a chance to say otherwise before he’s pulled forward towards Jeongin, making them chest to chest. Jeongin chuckles into his ear as he continues to dance, moving Seungmin with him so that he’s dancing with him.

Seungmin is a fan of parties, he’s attended some extravagant parties in his time travelling from planet to planet. But in that time, he’s never danced at one of the parties, preferring to be sitting somewhere in a corner with a drink in his hand.

Now, Seungmin is standing on a bar, twirling a man he met mere hours earlier. Jeongin giggles as he spins and gets pulled back to Seungmin. 

As Jisung continues singing, Seungmin feels himself slowly begin to enjoy himself, he’s careful of his steps on top of the bar but regardless for the first time in a while he’s not thinking about what his next move will be.

“There’s palace guards outside.” Someone bursts into the tavern, yelling out the statement, slurred yet there’s panic to his voice. It causes the music inside to come to a startling halt. 

Jeongin and Seungmin turn to each other at the same time, Seungmin assumes the panic in Jeongin’s eyes matches his own.

Everyone else in the tavern starts to scramble, hiding and fighting one another to be the first out of the window. It's funny that it's everyone who's the most worried when the guards are after the two of them.

“Chan, we need to get out of here,” Jeongin says as he easily jumps down from the bar, then holding his hands out to aid Seungmin in getting down safely. 

The bartender is already rummaging behind the bar before Jeongin asks him, he comes back up with keys in his hands and throws them in Jeongin’s direction. “You can take my car, go out the back, I’ll try to stall them.”

“Thank you, Chan, love you,” Jeongin says out in a rush, grabbing Seungmin’s hand in his next breath and pulls him towards the back exit.

When Chan said he had a car they could borrow, Seungmin was envisioning something with wheels, and a roof. Chan’s supposed car is more like a scooter, a one person seat and no roof to protect it. There’s also no wheels to it, meaning their only way to escape the guards is to fly.

Jeongin jumps onto the seat and starts the engine, giving Seungmin no other choice than to squeeze in behind him. He holds onto Jeongin’s waist as they start to lift into the air, higher than the trees and then away from the forest and the palace guards. 

Usually Seungmin isn’t afraid of heights, but when you’re flying over a city with no form of protection— it makes Seungmin feel a little bit on edge. He tightens his hold on Jeongin, leaning his head forward to rest against his shoulder.

They’re flying over the city, close enough to see the palace when Jeongin raises his voice to say over the wind, “would now be a good time to tell you that I don’t know how to fly this thing?”

“What?” Jeongin chuckles awkwardly as he tries to keep the vehicle steady. While Seungmin is internally panicking as he tries not to think about scenarios of him falling to his death for the second time today, “get me down. Jeongin, I swear, land this car right now or I’ll do something I’ll regret.”

With Seungmin’s threat and hearing how serious he is, Jeongin proceeds to land the car, steering downwards at a faster speed to get them on the ground, mainly so he doesn’t have to hear Seungmin’s threats directly into his ear.

As soon as they touch the ground, Seungmin is jumping off the back of the car so that his feet are touching the grass beneath them. He knows that he’s being a bit dramatic considering he didn’t even notice that Jeongin couldn’t fly until he said so. But he’s still thankful to be on the ground.

Jeongin parks the car on the outskirts of the city, high up on a hill that’s looking down on the city below them. The other side to the forest that can be seen in the horizon. There’s no sign that the guards had followed them, the air free of vehicles that could be driven by someone after them.

Seungmin feels himself relax, exhaling deeply. They’d managed to get away without the guards finding them or the crown.

The crown.

“Shit, wait, the bag.” Seungmin feels over his chest where he expects to feel the fabric of the bag strap. He recalls taking the bag off back in the tavern, and in their rush to leave he’d forgotten to go back to get it. It was stupid of him to take it off in the first place considering what was inside it.

Jeongin smirks at him and takes his arm out from behind his back, in his hand he’s holding both of their bags. Seungmin’s eyes widen as he snatches the bag from him, he checks the insides and is pleased to find that the crown is still there.

“I shouldn’t have thought any different when you’re around, Thief.” 

The smirk on Jeongin’s face drops slowly, his cheeks tingeing blue. “Yes, well, I take payment of thanks in many ways.”

“Thank you,” Seungmin says after a moment of silence between them, he’s unsure what Jeongin meant and wondering if there is a more special way to say thanks.

The answer must be yes when Jeongin rolls his eyes heavily.

“Did I do something wrong?” He asks, the last thing he wanted to do was upset Jeongin.

Seeing the worry etched on Seungmin’s face, Jeongin’s expression softens, “of course not,” he reassures him, “and you’re welcome.” Jeongin throws the bag with the crown at him, “make sure to keep it on you. You don’t want someone stealing it from you.”

Seungmin secures the bag over his shoulder, “I’ll not let it out of my sight from now on.” The sound of the city can be heard, laughter and the faint sound of music. “Well, I don’t know about you, but all this running about has me hungry. You up for a meal?” Seungmin’s been on this planet longer than he originally intended, it’s already been longer than the couple hours he thought he would be here for. But in his time on 0-325, Seungmin has had more of an adventure than he thought he would, so what difference is a few more hours gonna make?

Coincidentally, the faint sound of Jeongin’s stomach rumbling answers for him. He laughs lightly in embarrassment, placing a hand over his stomach, “I’d love to go for dinner.”

-

After Jeongin grabs his hat from the bag and places it securely on his head, the two of them set off down the hill and towards the bustling city. 

The amount of people gathered around the streets has tripled since the afternoon and it’s slightly overwhelming to Seungmin. On the other hand, Jeongin loves worming his way through the crowd based on his wide his smile is. He reaches back for Seungmin and both of them continue hand in hand. 

Once they’ve finished eating where Jeongin showed Seungmin the local delicacies of 0-325, they walk through the streets, where the quiet streets grow louder and busier. 

Jeongin’s explains to Seungmin his favourite places around the city, as a suggestion if Seungmin ever wants to come back. While he listens, the places Jeongin lists off do indeed sound interesting, usually Seungmin would visit a planet and never return. But the way Jeongin’s selling the city, Seungmin’s quite tempted to come back. For the tourist destinations.

Obviously. 

As it gets busier, Jeongin accidentally bumps into someone, who as they turn around to apologise, their eyes widen as they see a split second of Jeongin’s eyes from under his cap.

The man breathes out a gasp, “y—”

“Changbin,” Jeongin seems just as shocked to see him as the man is, he grabs the man by the elbow and pulls him to the side, sending Seungmin an apologetic glance over his shoulder and muttering that he’ll be back in two minutes. 

Seungmin knows that it’s rude to listen in on other people’s conversations, but he can only hear certain bits as he looks in the other direction, pretending that there’s something really interesting that way.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Changbin, please, let me have tonight. I’ll hand myself in tomorrow.”

Seungmin hears Changbin sigh, “okay. Are you safe?”

Seungmin knows that they’re now talking about him, he knows because he can feels Jeongin’s eyes on him. 

“Yes, Changbin, I’m safe. You don’t have to worry about Seungmin.” He says in a lower voice.

Deciding he’s heard too much of the conversation, Seungmin actually does zone out the conversation until Jeongin is saying goodbye and linking his arm with Seungmin’s, continuing their walk. 

“Sorry about that.”

“No worries, who was that guy?”

“Just an old friend, he’s constantly looking out for me, kinda like Chan and Jisung. I made him promise not to tell anyone he saw us here, so we’re safe.” The faint sound of music makes Jeongin stop abruptly, “Seungmin, wait.” He tugs on his sleeve, stopping Seungmin and making him turn to see what gained Jeongin’s attention. Out in the town centre is a celebratory dance, people dancing in circles along to the music before changing partners and continuing with the dance. 

Seungmin can see the joy light up in Jeongin’s eyes and nudges him in the side, “do you wanna dance?”

Jeongin isn’t expecting Seungmin to ask him that, he jumps slightly at the question and whips his head to the other. “Will you dance with me?”

It takes Seungmin a moment to answer Jeongin, if anyone else were to ask him, Seungmin would straight up refuse. But already one time today Seungmin has stepped out of his comfort zone and danced on top of a bar because Jeongin asked him to. 

The sparkle in Jeongin’s eyes is enough to get Seungmin to answer him, “after you.”

Upon getting confirmation, Jeongin bounces on his feet, excitement overtaking him as his hand reaches down to grab Seungmin’s hand and pulls him forward and into the circle of people dancing.

Jeongin already knows the steps to the dance, upon being a local and joins in mid step. Seungmin, on the other hand tries his best to copy Jeongin, ending up with him being two steps behind the other man.

“You look quite silly,” Jeongin laughs as Seungmin raises his arms after Jeongin has put his arms down.

Seungmin huffs, trying to match the dancing, “for a beginner, I think I’m doing very well.”

Then Jeongin twirls as he steps to the side. Eyes wide, Seungmin copies him, only for him to trip over his own feet as he attempts the move. He waits for his body to hit the ground, but as he falls Jeongin wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him back upright until his back is flush against Jeongin’s chest.

Instead of letting go, Jeongin continues to dance with one arm wrapped around Seungmin, dragging him round like a rag doll. “What were you saying about doing well?” Seungmin can hear Jeongin’s smirk as he chuckles against the shell of his ear, the only reply he can muster is an annoyed grumble.

“Get ready for a partner change,” Jeongin suddenly informs him, easing up on his grip on him.

“What?”

Jeongin doesn’t answer, he lets go of Seungmin and gently pushes him into the arms of an older woman, who beams at him and takes her time in guiding him through the steps. He continues dancing until he finds himself back in Jeongin’s arms.

“Hi, again.” Jeongin greets him, “have your dancing skills gotten any better?”

Seungmin rolls his eyes at the question, believing that he has somewhat improved on the dance that was foreign to him when he first saw it. 

Feeling more confident that he now won’t look stupid, Seungmin pulls Jeongin into the centre of the circle, continuing to dance as eyes now gravitate towards them.

“Oh my god, Seungmin,” Jeongin whines, ducking his head into Seungmin’s shoulder in an attempt to hide, “people are staring.”

“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” Seungmin says it as a joke, laughing lightly. Though Jeongin mustn’t hear the humour in his voice, because he whips his head up, eyes wide as he shakes his head, “of course not.”

Seungmin smiles at that, “good.”

He wonders by the way Jeongin quickly reassures him, that he’s had people in his life who were embarrassed by him. 

They dance until Seungmin feels like he can no longer continue, he can see that Jeongin wants to dance for longer. But luckily he sees the signs of struggle radiating from Seungmin and suggests that they leave. 

In the time that they dance it’s become late, it’s late enough that people should be leaving to head home. Instead they stay in the city centre, celebrating the nuptials of the crown prince the next day. 

Jeongin takes Seungmin away from the city, and the air around them grows quieter. Seungmin surprisingly likes it, he also likes the feeling of Jeongin’s hand in his own as he leads him back up the hill to where they’d parked the scooter.

Jeongin moves to lay down on the grass, pulling Seungmin down to be next to him. “Seungmin, lie down with me, I wanna look at the stars.”

Seungmin has never had any interest in looking at the stars, especially when he can see the stars up close as planets when he passes by them in his ship. But the look of amazement in Jeongin’s eyes as he looks up to the sky makes Seungmin want to appreciate the stars in the sky for once. 

“I’ve never really had the chance to explore other planets.” Jeongin admits, his voice sounding dejected as he keeps his gaze straight up towards the planets and stars in the sky.

“That’s surprising.” Seungmin admits out loud, meaning to keep the thought to himself.

Jeongin turns his head towards Seungmin, his eyes furrowed in curiosity. “How so?”

“Well, with your situation, I thought that you’d have plenty of opportunities to travel.” Seungmin assumes that a thief like Jeongin will travel from planet to planet, constantly escaping the authorities of the planet and moving onto the next one, somewhat similar to Seungmin; minus the theft.

The corners of Jeongin’s mouth turn downwards, “no, my parents never let me. Even if I begged them, or asked if someone else could take me, but they never agreed. I’d just love to travel and see what’s out there.” He sighs out with a deep exhale, his eyes trailing from planet to planet longingly.

Seungmin sees the sadness overtake his face, and he decides in that moment that he never wants to see Jeongin be sad again. Which is why he blurts out, “I’ll take you.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, Jeongin lets out a gasp and rolls over onto his front and leans up onto his elbows, his eyes already sparkling and void of any sadness. “Will you really? Don’t mess with me, Seungmin.”

He furrows his brows in an attempt to appear intimidating but it only makes Seungmin breathe out a chuckle at how cute he is. “Yes, I’ll really take you. Where’d you wanna go?”

Jeongin goes to speak but stops as he breathes out, his expression morphing into one of thinking, “I don’t actually know. It’s funny, for years I’ve been dreaming of being able to travel and never really thought of where I’d want to go.” He laughs to himself, shaking his head. “Tell me your favourite planet,” he asks suddenly.

“Well, there’s Levanter, they have the best ice cream you’ve ever tasted, or there’s 4-419 where the views can’t be unmatched, or Orbit, I heard recently that they’ve discovered a creature in their ocean that has never been seen before.” Seungmin lists the planets that’re some of his favourites that he’s travelled to. He hesitates when he adds on, “this planet is pretty too.”

“Pretty?” Jeongin asks, he looks like he’s holding onto Seungmin’s every word.

“Yeah,” Seungmin whispers, glancing from Jeongin’s eyes down to his lips, “very pretty.”

Jeongin gulps, loud enough for both of them to hear it. He follows Seungmin’s line of sight, making the connection that he’s staring at his lips. 

Seungmin decides to slowly lean forward, to take a chance and kiss the boy he’s met just hours earlier. Who has made Seungmin stay with him all evening when by now he wanted to be back on his ship and off this planet. But spending time with Jeongin in the past hours has made Seungmin forget about all of his plans. 

Jeongin’s eyes flutter shut, his eyelashes fanning against his high cheekbones.

Raising his hand to cup Jeongin’s cheek, Seungmin shuts his eyes and awaits to feel Jeongin’s lips against his own. 

The silence that surrounds them gets interrupted by a deep whistle coming from the sky. 

The sound makes Jeongin’s presence vanish, causing Seungmin to blink his eyes open to see the other man sitting upright and leaning back against his hands. He’s once again looking up towards the sky, his mouth dropped open into a small ‘o’. 

“Seungmin, look.” Jeongin smacks him on the arm before pointing upwards.

Seungmin follows where he’s pointing to and gasps when he sees it.

Floating across the sky is a blue whale. When he was a child he read about them in books that they lived in the ocean but also the skies, the former or latter depending on the planet. But Seungmin has never seen one in person before.

“Seungmin, do you see it, oh my god, it’s so pretty.” Jeongin almost sounds breathless as he takes in the sight in the sky. “It’s so rare for one to be here, ever since it was announced that they were endangered I thought I’d never see one. This is amazing.”

“There’s another one.” True to Jeongin’s word, they see another blue whale following the first one, taking over the skies as they pass by peacefully. “I can’t believe I get to see this.”

Seungmin finds more interest in looking at the man beside him. His eyes focus on Jeongin’s profile, he gazes over the thief’s jawline, his rounded nose. When his gaze reaches Jeongin’s eyes he finds himself mesmerised by the purple irises that quite literally sparkle with a childlike joy. 

In that moment, Seungmin is thankful for fate allowing him the opportunity to spend his evening with Jeongin. 

“Yeah, me too.”

-

Waking up with one of the suns rising from the North shining in his eyes, Seungmin squints as he looks straight up ahead into the sky. Sleeping on the ground was surprisingly not as uncomfortable as Seungmin first thought, he slept through the entire night without waking up from the noises of the forest, or from Jeongin beside him.

Speaking of, Jeongin rolls over onto his side, bringing himself closer to Seungmin. Seungmin finds himself staring at the other man’s face, mesmerised by the way the light bounces off his high cheekbones. 

As if sensing that he’s being stared at, Jeongin begins to stir. The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is Seungmin whipping his head away and hoping he didn’t get caught staring. 

“Good morning.” Jeongin says as he stretches, his nose scrunching up cutely. 

Seungmin glances over to him, “huh? Oh you’re up, good morning.” He rushes the words out, pretending like he didn’t spend the last couple of minutes watching Jeongin as he slept. 

Jeongin groans as he moves, “this will be the first and only time I sleep on the ground.”

Massaging his neck, Seungmin reasons, “it wasn’t that bad. This grass is quite comfy, though I wouldn’t recommend sleeping on stones.” Seungmin shudders at the memory. Deciding to tease Jeongin because he can, he adds, “I thought you would be used to sleeping outside.”

At that, Jeongin whips his head over to Seungmin, one eyebrow raised as he scoffs, “absolutely not, I need my bed in order to sleep like a baby.” He stretches again and this time his back makes an obnoxiously loud popping sound, causing Seungmin to wince. 

Jeongin stands first and does a routine of what seems like his morning stretches but shaking his limbs. “So, what are your plans for today?”

It hits Seungmin that he shouldn’t even be here, he should’ve left this planet hours ago, travelling to his next destination and forgetting all about 0-325. 

“I should probably head back to my ship.” He admits, he doesn’t want to imagine what state Minho will be in when he wakes him up and he finds out he slept overnight. 

For a second, he thinks he sees Jeongin’s shoulders slump in disappointment. But he blames that on his fuzzy morning vision.

Jeongin shakes his head, then extends his hand out, helping Seungmin to his feet. “We should return the scooter to Chan, he’ll never let me back to his bar if he doesn’t get his precious scooter back.” 

The sudden sound of rustling leaves and heavy footsteps catches their attention. Seungmin only manages to look up and see the palace guards come out from the trees and advance towards them. 

He doesn’t know how they found them, but he prepares himself for both of them to be taken and put in jail.

Except, they move straight past Jeongin and grab Seungmin by the arms. 

“Your highness, are you okay?”

“Your highness?” Seungmin mumbles the question aloud. He watches as one of the guards reaches for the bag and pulls out the crown, sending him a hard glare. The guard then walks over to Jeongin, handing the crown to him. 

It’s then that all of the missing pieces slot together and Seungmin understands everything. It was his own fault for just assuming that Jeongin was a thief on the run from the guards, when in reality he was the crown prince on the run. 

Seungmin whips his head to Jeongin, the prince keeps his eyes down as he places the crown on top of his head. He looks back up, pain visible behind his eyes as he mouths a ‘sorry’ to Seungmin and follows the guards back towards the city.

As he watches Jeongin’s back, his head turned downwards, Seungmin feels his chest tighten. But not like before. Now it feels like his heart is tightening to the point it cracks and breaks into pieces too small to fit it back together.

-

Of all of the planets Seungmin’s visited and the adventures he’s experienced, he’s never ended up in a prison cell. Being in a cell for kidnapping of a planet’s crown prince is certainly not how Seungmin envisioned his trip to 0-325 going.

Seungmin closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall. At least the cell he’s in is clean, from floor to ceiling the walls are a bright white that it’s painful for Seungmin to keep his eyes open for longer than five minutes. The only thing inside of the cell is a clear bench that’s uncomfortable to sit on and faces the cell door which is a ceiling high see through door, allowing the multiple guards to check if Seungmin is still there as they walk past.

“But don’t worry, I’m gonna get us out of here, I can visualise the surroundings and will be able to break through the glass as soon as the next guard passes by.”

Seungmin also has a cell mate.

Already there when Seungmin entered, the man, who was scaling the ceiling trying to find an exit, has been chatting Seungmin’s ear off about how he’s going to find a way for them to escape.

Introducing himself as Hyunjin when Seungmin entered the cell, and barely got himself comfortable when Hyunjin started telling him his whole life story. Claiming that he’s waiting for his partner to come get him out, but after waiting for so long Hyunjin is attempting to escape himself. 

Seungmin zones out Hyunjin’s voice to get lost in his own thoughts. It comes as a surprise yet makes perfect sense that Jeongin is the crown prince of 0-325; from Jeongin being surprised that Seungmin didn’t know who he was, to every detail on the planet being the same colour as Jeongin’s eyes— down to the earring that dangles from Seungmin’s ear.

Jeongin just wanted his last night of freedom before getting married, and Seungmin gave him that. 

Seungmin also tried to kiss the crown prince, he feels like that could be an illegal act, something else to add to the list of ‘crimes’ Seungmin has committed. He feels like an idiot, Jeongin was— is getting married and Seungmin spent basically all of the time he knew him admiring his beauty and wanting to kiss him. 

His thoughts get interrupted by the sound of a laser cutting through the glass wall. Hyunjin seems to recognise the man on the other side, as he stops what he’s doing and lets out a gasp.

Their saviour cuts a doorway into the glass and it falls to the floor with a loud smack that echoes in the cell.

“Lixie, you’re here.” Hyunjin jumps at the sight of a man in identical clothing to him, he runs towards him and lifts him up into his arms and spins him around.

Alongside Hyunjin’s partner is surprisingly Chan and Jisung. Jeongin’s friends wave at him upon entering the cell. Then one more figure enters, and this time it’s Seungmin who recognises them, he stands up, blinks a couple times to make sure he’s not seeing things, then asks.

“Minho?”

The android in question looks surprisingly pleased to see him, being the first to step into the cell and come up to Seungmin. He expects the android to pull him into a hug, instead Minho stomps forward and smacks Seungmin on the arm, sending him stumbling to the side.

“Ow, what the hell?” Seungmin complains as he rubs at the spot.

“You never came back to the ship last night,” Minho shrieks, “and you got yourself locked up in a prison cell, of course I was worr—” He stops his sentence mid word, not wanting to admit out loud that he was concerned about Seungmin’s whereabouts. 

Seungmin chooses to ignore it, he bites his lip to hide his smirk and decides to keep the information to himself until another day. It’s after that, that Seungmin realises that Minho is awake, something impossible without Seungmin back in the ship to wake him up. “What are you even doing here? How did you wake up?”

Minho looks at him with a blatant smirk, “you seemed to think that I actually needed charging to fall asleep when in reality I just wanted some peace and quiet away from you. I don’t need to sleep, I’m an android, Seungmin.” He notes monotonously, “so when you didn’t come back to the ship last night, I knew you were in trouble and needed my help because you’re clearly incompetent. So then I bump into a cyclops and a half android when I was walking through the streets,” he says, referring to Jisung and Chan, “who were yelling out for a Seungmin and I thought, how many other idiots are there called Seungmin? They must be looking for you too. Then they got me up to date about your adventures, about how you’ve fallen in love, whatever, and then are working out that you’re in prison, we bumped into Felix who also had an idiot to break out.”

“Yeah, I had quite the adventure,” Seungmin rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly, “but now I just wanna go back to my ship—”

“What do you mean go back to your ship, what about Jeongin?” Jisung asks, his voice frantic but also confused as to why Seungmin would be heading back to his ship without seeing Jeongin first.

“What about him?”

“Are you not going to him?” Chan asks.

“Why would I do that?”

Minho turns to them, his eyebrow raised as he lets out a loud sigh. “I told you he’s dense.” He turns to Seungmin with a stoic expression. “Are you going to stop the wedding or not?”

Stop the wedding? Seungmin has only known Jeongin for less than a day, and he doesn’t even know anything about him. Knowing that he was with the crown prince who was on the run from the kingdom would’ve been nice. 

“I can’t stop a wedding,” Seungmin says with a laugh that lacks all humour. “I still need to buy the part’s for my ship—”

“Don’t worry about that,” Minho interrupts him, “since you took so long, I went out and bought it myself, and the ship’s already fixed, so you’re welcome.” He rolls his eyes as he crosses his arms over his chest. If Seungmin wasn’t feeling ten thousand emotions at once, he might’ve thanked Minho.

“Jeongin isn’t in love with whoever he’s marrying,” Chan states like it’s the obvious, bringing Seungmin’s attention back to the main issue at hand, “his parents would rather he be in a loveless marriage for the sake of the kingdom than to marry someone he truly loves. I’ve known Jeongin since he was a teenager sneaking into my pub. I know when he’s happy and seeing him yesterday was the happiest I’ve seen him in a while.”

“I think it’s a bit too early to be throwing the word love around.” Seungmin mumbles as his cheeks grow hot. He wants to hide behind his hands.

“Shut the fuck up Seungmin, you know what he means.” Minho looks like he’s seconds away from attempting to punch some sense into him.

Seungmin does know what Chan means, even if he’s known Jeongin for less than twenty four hours, he will admit that there was some sort of connection between them.

Even though he hasn’t known Jeongin for long, he doesn’t want him to be in a lifelong of sadness. 

“Okay fine,” Seungmin’s voice raises slightly, startling everyone, “it looks like we’re gonna stop a wedding.”

They manage to get inside of the palace quicker than Seungmin thought they would. When you’re with a group of delinquents and whatever other sort of trouble this group Seungmin has joined, it’s easy enough to get by palace guards. Seungmin would stop and stare at the beautiful interior of the palace but his main priority is to stop the wedding before it’s too late. 

He ends up running ahead of the rest of the group, his steps faster than everyone else in the desperation of reaching the ceremony quicker. 

As he reaches the grand door of the ceremony, Seungmin doesn’t hesitate to swing the doors open with a strong force, causing them to crash against the walls and echo around the room.

The eyes of every person in the room stop and turn around to face Seungmin. People are wide eyed as they stare at him in confusion and slight horror for interrupting the royal wedding.

Seungmin doesn’t notice any of this because his eyes are only on Jeongin. He looks stunning from where he stands at the altar wearing a white suit embellished in purple and gold, and on top of his head is his crown that Seungmin had been carrying in his bag the day before. 

Jeongin seems surprised to see Seungmin here, his eyes wide but based on the broad smile on his face, Seungmin can guess that he’s glad to see him.

Seeing Jeongin, Seungmin forgets why he’s even there, all his thoughts go out of the window as he’s mesmerised by the Prince’s beauty.

“Excuse me,” a man’s voice booms, making Seungmin look over to the King, red in the face as he shakes in fury, “what do you think you’re doing? Guards.”

Seungmin is immediately grabbed by his arms by the guards inside of the room, they begin to pull him backwards as Seungmin pleads with them to let him talk to Jeongin.

“Wait.” Jeongin’s voice silences the murmuring amongst the wedding guests, “let him speak.” The guards ease on their grip, allowing Seungmin to step away from them.

He walks until he’s halfway down the aisle, as he walks he recognises one of the guards standing near Jeongin to be Changbin who Seungmin met last night. Now it makes sense as to why Changbin was so shocked to see Jeongin out in the town, and why Jeongin was so eager to get away from him.

When Seungmin stops in the middle of the aisle he begins his speech, “don’t get married.” He blurts out, and is met with multiple gasps circulating around the room for saying something so scandalous.

“Don’t get married,” he repeats, taking a couple more steps down the aisle, “I know we only met yesterday but I know that you don’t want this. You told me last night that you want to visit other planets and I saw the way your face lit up. I wondered why a random stranger wanted to spend time with me, but I have absolutely no regrets about it considering it was one of the best days of my life.”

Jeongin’s eyes pass a series of emotions, Seungmin can see him nervously glance at his parents and to his betrothed across from him. 

“My offer still stands if you want to take it.” Seungmin proposes, referring to last night when he offered to be Jeongin’s guide to travelling the galaxies, he hopes with his entire being that Jeongin says yes. 

Jeongin’s smile widens and Seungmin’s heart tightens.

The Prince turns to his betrothed and whispers an apology, then he turns to his parents and in a louder voice informs them, “Mother, Father, I am not getting married today.”

Jeongin walks up the aisle to meet Seungmin in the middle with his parents yelling complaints behind him. When Jeongin reaches Seungmin, both of them are shy with the eyes of hundreds of guests on them. 

“Hi.” Jeongin breathes out as he whispers the word only for Seungmin to hear.

“All this time you were a prince? And you never thought to tell me, even when I called you a thief?” Seungmin laughs lightly, he’s not mad at Jeongin for not telling him about his royal status, he’s just glad that the prince he met yesterday was Jeongin who doesn’t mind being called a thief by someone like Seungmin. 

“I thought you were flirting with me.” Jeongin admits, cheeks turning a dark blue, “I’m not very observant.”

“Yes, I believe that. You didn’t even catch onto the fact that I wanted you to kiss me. Even when we were underneath the lights of a sky full of stars and I leaned in towards you, you didn’t notice.”

Jeongin steps even closer towards him so that they’re inches apart. “What about now?”

Now, they both know what they want. 

They both lean forward into a searing kiss to the sounds of horrified gasps coming from the wedding guests and the cheers from their new group of friends. Jeongin smiles into the kiss at being the reason for causing so much destruction from running away from his own wedding and kissing another man in front of his parents.

Seungmin raises his hands to run them through Jeongin’s silky hair, he lifts his hand higher and accidentally knocks Jeongin’s crown off his head, sending it to the ground with a clatter that echoes in the room. 

It’s funny how the object that brought Jeongin and Seungmin together, and that kept them together can be easily forgotten as it rolls away from them and comes to a stop as it hits one of the wedding guest’s chair. 

As the two of them part, Seungmin rests their foreheads together, breathing out a chuckle from doing something that could send him back to a prison cell. 

“Get ready to run.” Seungmin murmurs as he pulls away.

Jeongin tilts his head, confused, “what?”

Seungmin doesn’t explain and grabs his hand, breaking out into a run and pulling Jeongin with him. They run towards the entrance, back up the aisle passing their new friends as they clap and cheer for them. Seungmin is pretty sure he can hear Jisung yell out, “yeah Seungmin, fuck up the monarchy” as they pass.

Running through the streets of the city, they weave around the people celebrating, unbeknownst that Seungmin stopped the wedding that they’re celebrating from happening. Seungmin leads them through the city until they reach his ship. Jeongin looks on in awe at the size of it as Seungmin opens the side door.

The door slides open and stairs curve outwards slowly until they hit the ground. Seungmin climbs up the steps and into his ship, he finds that he missed the familiarity of it, even if he was only away for the night. 

He turns back to Jeongin, finding the prince still on the ground, looking up the steps at Seungmin. He’s still slightly panting for the run, but his face is bright with excitement. For defying his family’s wishes and his responsibilities as a prince, as well as the upcoming adventure of the unknown that he will explore with Seungmin. Something he’s wanted ever since he was a child.

“So,” Seungmin holds his hand out, his facial expression matching Jeongin’s, “are you ready for an adventure, my thief?”

-

It’s two days later, a lightyear away, as Seungmin and Jeongin explore the red ocean of Oddinary that Seungmin realises that he left Minho back on 0-325.