Chapter Text

Yeonho tensely watches in silence. He doesn’t dare to move or make a single sound as he waits for what might happen next. Right now, one of his friends is in grave danger. If Yeonho could help, he would, but his friend’s fate is in his own hands. Literally.

“Ya, are you gonna play or not?”

Minchan ignores Dongheon, not taking his eyes away from the cards in his hands, as he has been doing for the past five consecutive minutes. “I’m still thinking,” Minchan tells his opponent.

“Whatever you play, you can’t win,” Dongheon tells him matter of factly while leaning back in his chair. He gestures down to the cards that lie purposefully on the table. Dongheon’s setup was done so well, and luck was on his side on top of that.

With a shaky hand, Minchan finally chooses a card and slides it face up on the table before picking a new card from his deck. Yeonho can see now that the card reads ‘Underdog.’ So that’s what he’s doing… Yeonho realizes Minchan’s risky strategy.

With a smirk, Dongheon shakes his head. “I can’t believe you wasted your turn with that.” Dongheon dramatically throws down a card titled ‘Heart Attack.’ “You take 8 points of direct damage.”

Despite the rest of Minchan’s health and then some being diminished, he pulls out another card, still looking hopeful. Dongheon suddenly sits up in alertness when he gets a look at the card he placed in the middle of the table. Minchan reads its description, “‘Get Away: You barely escape a fatal hit, taking only half damage.’”

Yeonho gasps at this turn of events. Taking only 4 damage leaves Minchan with just one health point. And if that’s the case—

Minchan flips over a facedown card on his side that was already in play. He reads, “‘Trigger: If you survive an attack with one point of health, your opponent’s turn ends immediately for you to retaliate.’ And I’m attacking with ‘Thunder.’”

Dongheon quickly draws his own card: ‘Undercover.’ “‘A creature of your opponent is now working for you and will take damage in your stead. If it survives, it will stay on your side. Can be drawn at any time.” He goes to place it over Minchan’s Underdog creature, but Minchan grabs his wrist.

“Not so fast.” Minchan pulls out his own card. “‘Hold Me Tight: Can be used to keep a creature from being taken by your opponent. This creature then immediately attacks your opponent.’” Minchan taps the description on the ‘Underdog’ card.

Yeonho leans in to read it. ‘If your opponent has double the amount of health than you, this card does double damage.’ Combining that damage with Thunder means… “Oh my god…”

Dongheon sits back in defeat, looking completely shocked that he lost this game of Magic Hour.

“Woohoo!” Minchan cheers.

“Minchan-a! Why’d you have to win? I had such a lucky start this time and you still beat me!” Dongheon whines, putting his head in his hands, “I was so close…”

Minchan shakes his head, wearing a smug grin. “I had it all under control the whole time. I didn’t even think I’d lose for a second.”

“No way!” Kangmin suddenly yells.

“Okay, maybe I was worried for a little bit there—”

“No, not that,” Kangmin sits up on the sofa and turns to face the others at the game table in their clubroom. He shows everyone his phone screen.

“‘Our Spring Renaissance Faire?’” Dongheon reads. 

“It’s this weekend,” Kangmin excitedly explains. “I already have my costume ready, and it’s pretty close by!”

“Aren’t we already going to one next weekend?” Dongheon turns him down, “We were all saving up to go on a trip to a much bigger fair… You really want to spend your budget on this place instead?”

“W-well…” Kangmin stops as he forms his reasoning, “Because it’s close to campus, there’ll probably be a lot of other students who go to our college, and then we can find more recruits!”

Yeonho nods, thinking that’s not a bad idea. So far, their tabletop gaming club has only had four members since they started it this school year. Not that Yeonho is sick of his friends already, but having new faces around could be nice. 

Minchan starts cleaning up his deck of cards from their game. “I like our club as it is. I mean, it’s small, but isn’t it nicer that way? It’s better for us to all hang out, and what if someone we don’t like wants to join?”

“Anyone should be able to join as long as they’re interested,” Yeonho comments.

“So does that mean we’re going to the faire?” Kangmin looks between them in anticipation before looking at their club president for the deciding vote.

After another moment of thought, Dongheon approves, “Okay. If we get more people, we could have a bigger budget for games and host tournaments. Let’s go to the Our Spring Faire.”

“Yes!” Kangmin jumps up a little too enthusiastically, which he realizes too late before trying to act more nonchalant.

“Why do you want to go to this faire anyway?” Yeonho finally bothers to ask.

“Mewtater will be there,” Kangmin confesses.

A while back, Kangmin had made a friend he first met on an online forum discussing his favorite sci-fi television show. Kangmin has never met this person—who goes by the username ‘mewtater’ within the fandom—and neither has any of his irl friends, including Yeonho. 

“Why are you blushing?” Yeonho teases the freshman.

Kangmin feels his cheek. “I’m just excited to finally get to meet her.”

“Mewtater’s a girl?” Minchan asks.

“I don’t know, I never asked.” 

“Kangmin-a, how do you not even know if you’re meeting a man or a woman?” Dongheon calls him out. “How can you meet up with someone you hardly know anything about?”

“I get it,” Minchan mumbles, “I’ve often been too busy discussing fictional characters to bother talking about our personal lives too.”

“I know lots about her!” Kangmin argues. “She’s funny and nice and cute—”

“Have you seen her?” Yeonho questions.

“N-no, but—! She’s super cute, I’m sure!” Kangmin declares, “I’ll like her no matter what she looks like!”

“Kangmin-a… You don’t know who’s going to show up to meet you.” Dongheon sighs, “Just stay by Hyung, I’ll protect you.”

“Mewtater isn’t some weirdo… I know her better than anyone, and I’m going to confess as soon as I see her!” Kangmin pouts at the others’ disapproval, which causes Yeonho to chuckle at the overreaction. “What?”

Yeonho shrugs. “I just don’t get how you could fall in love with someone without even seeing their face.”

*

“Why do you guys look like that?”

“It’s Masquerade Weekend…”

Yeonho looks at his friends, each of them wearing an interesting mask, before noticing almost everyone else around the ren faire is wearing one too.

“Hyung, I already told you to bring a mask. You listen to everyone but me!” Kangmin complains, his childish demeanor taking away from the elegant look of his white feathered mask that is replacing his usual white rimmed pair of glasses.

“It’s because you pronounce masquerade weird, so I couldn’t understand what you were talking about.”

Minchan laughs at Yeonho’s comment, though his smile can’t be seen. It’s hidden behind a colorful and detailed full-face mask that suits his eccentric personality.

“Yeonho-ya,” Dongheon, wearing a stylish mask that covers just the left side of his face, gestures for Yeonho to follow him.

They stop at a nearby stand selling an assortment of accessories. Dongheon quickly finds and picks up a simple yet high-quality dark eye mask. 

“How’s this?” 

Yeonho takes it to try it on, checking out how he looks with a nearby mirror. He notes that this mask gives his soft face a more mature look. “I like it.” After a moment more of appreciating the mask, Yeonho just barely catches Dongheon paying. “Hyung.”

“If you don’t want to be indebted to me, buy me one of those,” Dongheon points over to an oversized turkey leg stand.

Feeling like he had lunch forever ago, Yeonho could go for one too. “Okay, I’ll buy.”

“Get me one too,” Minchan requests with a pat on Yeonho’s back before making his way to a tent that’s selling various card games. 

Kangmin doesn’t have to say anything, as Yeonho can hear his stomach growl.

Submitting to the situation, Yeonho ends up paying for everyone’s turkey legs using the money he borrowed from his sisters. He wanted to spend it on a new set of dice or maybe a booster card pack, but he can always borrow more to spend tomorrow—though convincing his sisters this time may be harder.

“Thanks, Yeonho-ya~” Dongheon tells him before leaving with two turkey legs to catch up to Minchan.

Yeonho and Kangmin each take their own and decide to leisurely walk around as they eat, looking at all the different tents selling interesting items and all the people dressed in theme, making this ren faire feel lively and immersive.

“Weren’t you supposed to meet your friend here?” Yeonho finally brings up. “Mewtater?”

“I am.” Kangmin tries to hide his giddy smile with another bite of his turkey leg. “We told each other what mask we’d be wearing so we could find each other. She said she’ll be wearing an eye mask with little cat ears and whiskers. Doesn’t that sound so cute?”

“I dunno. Is she dropping hints that you’re actually being cat-fished?”

“She’s a real person, and she’s so nice. You’ll think so too.”

As they continue walking, Yeonho suddenly spots a choreographed sword fight happening between two masked men: one dressed in black and the other dressed in scaled green armor.

“Whoa!” Yeonho watches in awe as the man in green quickly spins around, swiftly slashing his sword low to the ground for the other man to jump over.

When the man in green stands back up, showing off his height, Yeonho gets a look at the mask he dawns. It’s a dragon-shaped scaled green masquerade mask, matching his armor. It makes him look powerful and elegant. The sunlight shines off of the metal and briefly hits Yeonho’s eyes. Yeonho blinks to regain his sight so he can watch the dragon scaled man again. 

The two performers clash swords a couple more times before the man in black turns around to step off a tree and do an impressive backflip, his mask falling off in the process. As it lay on the grass, Yeonho finally gets a good look at it. It’s a cat-shaped mask with simple features.

“Wait— Isn’t that—?” Yeonho turns to look at Kangmin. Judging by his shocked reaction, that performer must be the friend he’s supposed to meet. To Yeonho’s surprise, he’s a handsome man with a charming beauty mark below his eye.

Kangmin’s mouth hangs open, and he suddenly steps back.

“Are you disappointed mewtater is a guy?” Yeonho asks.

“No…” Kangmin looks over at his online friend, who reaches for his mask to cover his face again after their choreographed fight ends. “Hyung, he’s too good for me.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t meet him yet!” Kangmin reaches for his own mask, clumsily taking it off. Without it, there’s no way mewtater will be able to recognize him as his online friend. 

“Kangmin, what’re you doing?”

“I knew I’d like him, but what if he doesn’t like me?” Kangmin thrusts his mask and turkey leg into Yeonho’s hands.

“Kangmin-a!” Struggling to hold everything, Yeonho tries to call out to his clubmate, but he continues to run away, leaving him alone. Yeonho clicks his tongue in annoyance and looks around for his other two friends, but they’re nowhere to be found. Putting everything into one hand, Yeonho takes his phone out of his pocket, but because of his greasy fingers, it suddenly slips out of his grasp. “No—!”

Before it can fall to the ground, somebody suddenly catches it for him.

Yeonho sighs in relief. His new phone was hardly a week old. “Thank—” When Yeonho sees the shiny scales of a dragon in front of him, he stops.

The man wearing the dragon mask hands him his phone back.

Yeonho’s just about to ask why he approached him when he realizes he’s standing underneath a tree where someone’s bag and scabbard is lying. “Oh, sorry,” Yeonho steps out of the way so the man can get to his stuff.

The man smiles and takes out a water bottle. After taking a sip, he gives Yeonho a look over.

“Oh— I’m holding this for a friend,” Yeonho explains. “I’m not eating two turkey legs at the same time, that would be insane.”

“I assumed as much,” The man points to the feathered mask in Yeonho’s hand, “You don’t look Polycephalic.”

“Poly-what?”

The man lifts his bag over his shoulder and points to an enamel pin on it of a two headed dragon. “Polycephaly is having multiple heads.”

“Oh…” Yeonho nods at the cool fact, making a mental note to use something like that for their next tabletop roleplay gaming session.

There’s a moment of silence where the scaled man puts away his fake sword in his scabbard, and Yeonho is trying to think of how to tell him that his performance was the coolest thing he’s ever seen. But something about this guy’s confidence makes Yeonho nervous.

“Y-you’re The Prince of Dragons!” A couple of girls dressed in medieval gowns suddenly approach the scaled man with their phones out. “I follow you on TikTok! Can we take a picture with you?”

The prince agrees, giving a polite nod to Yeonho before turning away. 

Seeing that this guy even has fans, Yeonho’s finding him to be pretty impressive. No wonder his presence made him feel nervous. It’ll be weird to stick around longer, but Yeonho can’t help but wish he could talk to the intriguing prince some more.

“Yeonho-ya,” Dongheon approaches him with Minchan following behind. “Why aren’t you with Kangmini?”

“Ask him,” Yeonho answers. “He’s the one that ran away like a weirdo.”

Minchan looks around, turning in a circle. “So where did he go?”

*

“Kangmin-a!” 

The boy looks up as Yeonho runs up to him, finally finding him just as the sun begins to set. “Hyung, I said I wanted to be alone.”

“The faire’s pretty much over,” Yeonho tells him. “Everyone’s packing up their tents and going home. We couldn’t leave you lost in the maze.”

“I’m not lost…” Kangmin denies, looking up at the hedge maze surrounding them. “But how did you find me?”

“We stopped by the psychic tent—”

“She’s really psychic?!”

“She told us she actually saw you run in here.”

“Oh…”

Yeonho sits down next to Kangmin on the grass. “I also got a tarot card reading done. My future looks like the four of wands.”

“Is that good?”

“I don’t know, it sounds pretty good to me.”

“Maybe I should get a reading” Kangmin picks at a blade of grass. “I want to know if mewtater will really like me or not.”

“Why do you care so much about that?”

Kangmin unlocks his phone, and Yeonho leans in to read his messages over his shoulder.

mewtater: where are you?

quantumin: sorry! i couldn’t go today

quantumin: will you be at the faire tomorrow too?

mewtater: yeah

mewtater: i’m excited to finally talk to you in person 

quantumin: me too 😊

“Ya, why’d you lie?” Yeonho points to his message.

“I didn’t lie! I am excited to talk to him, but…” Kangmin locks his phone again. “Hyung, what if he sees me and thinks I’m a lame nerd?”

“He hangs out on forums for a sci-fi show. Isn’t he a lame nerd too?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do!” Kangmin pouts, not elaborating further.

Yeonho tries his best to comfort him, “I know he looks really impressive and athletic now. But I guarantee that he’s just a guy who started out practicing moves he saw from an anime with a plastic katana alone in his room so he can look cool and mysterious.”

“Just because Minchan does that doesn’t mean everyone does.” Kangmin leans back on his hands and sighs. “It doesn’t matter what you think of him. It’s about what he thinks of me. I really like him—I’ve liked him for a long while without even knowing what he looks like—but what if he sees who I am and wishes I were someone else?”

Yeonho can’t help him with that hypothetical question, but he came prepared to help in another way. He finally hands him the violet mask he was holding on to. 

Kangmin takes it in confusion. “What’s this?”

“I thought you could wear this instead when you talk to mewtater for the first time,” Yeonho suggests. “Then you won’t feel pressured to live up to his expectations as quantumin. And if he turns out to suck, you can just remain anonymous.”

Kangmin turns the mask over in his hands, admiring the deep purple embellishments.

“Dongheon bought that one for you when I told him my idea. You should thank him too. He’s like your fairy godmother.”

“Thanks, Hyung,” Kangmin leans in to put an arm around Yeonho’s shoulder for a hug. “But where’s the mask I came with?”

“Um…” Yeonho tries to remember where he last put the feathered mask. “Maybe Hyung took it?” Yeonho stands up, wiping dirt off of his pants. “Now let’s get out of here—”

“Hyung,” Kangmin stops him. “Isn’t the exit this way?”

“I came from that way.”

“You came from over there.”

“You never completed the maze, so how would you know where the exit is?”

“I don’t, but I feel like it’s this way, Hyung.”

“Then let’s split up and see who gets out fastest.”

Going their separate ways, Yeonho finds the green walls of the shrubbery to be familiar. This would be a bad thing, suggesting that he’s going backwards, but this whole maze honestly looks the same everywhere you go. Yeonho kneels down at a dirt patch with a footprint in it. “Was I here before?” 

While checking under his boot to compare the pattern of the prints, another person enters the same row of hedges as him. Spotting the scaled mask, he realizes—it’s the prince of dragons.

Yeonho stands up straight.

“Are you lost?” the prince asks.

“No, I— Well, a little,” Yeonho admits. “Do you know which way the exit is?”

“No… but I’ve been following the left wall. It takes a while, but it’s a trick that’ll eventually lead you out.”

“I should have been doing that…”

The prince pauses before offering, “Want to walk with me?”

Should that question have made Yeonho’s heart skip a beat like it did? Shaking off the feeling, he accepts, “Better than wandering around aimlessly like I probably was…”

Yeonho awkwardly walks side by side with the prince as they stroll through the maze, turning with the tall hedges to their left. The sun continues to set, but Yeonho doesn’t feel the need to rush. He doesn’t know what to talk about with the prince at first, but once he gives in to the silence, he finds their walk to be relaxing.

“Are you getting tired?” the prince suddenly asks.

“Huh?”

“I noticed you started slowing down.”

It occurs to Yeonho that his feet are hurting from walking around all day in these boots, but he hadn’t noticed it when walking side by side with the prince. “I didn’t mean to hold you back. Go whatever speed, I’ll keep up.”

The prince shakes his head. “I think I’ll take it slow. It’s a nice night out.” He smiles up at the pink sky.

“You’re probably more tired than me,” Yeonho observes. “Your sword fight was really cool earlier.”

“Thanks. I had a lot of practice.” 

The prince beaming at the compliment is enough to make Yeonho smile back. It makes him want to see what the rest of the dragon prince’s smiling face looks like.

“You know, the maze trick doesn’t work with all mazes,” the prince suddenly comments. 

“So we could just be walking around forever?” Yeonho questions. But before the prince answers, they make a left turn only to finally spot the maze’s exit. Yeonho can’t help but feel disappointed. Despite his feet hurting and night beginning to fall, he had hoped the maze would have lasted a little longer. As they approach the exit, Yeonho spots his friends nearby. 

“This is where we part ways,” the prince says.

“I guess so.”

The prince politely smiles before stepping away, and Yeonho returns to his group.

“I told you, Hyung. You don’t listen to me,” Kangmin complains.

“What?”

“I found the way out quicker.”

“Yeah, but I was walking slow on purpose,” Yeonho adds, watching the dragon prince in his scaled armor leave the faire grounds in the distance.

“Ugh, I can’t wait to get home,” Dongheon says aloud, seemingly speaking to himself.

“Hyung, are you still mad about earlier?” Minchan asks him.

When Kangmin looks at them in confusion, Yeonho explains, “Dongheon entered a card game competition, and he lost.”

“I didn’t just lose either,” Dongheon passionately adds, “The guy I was up against then had the audacity to correct my pronunciation of one of my own cards.”

“You did always say it wrong though,” Minchan mumbles. 

While those two continue talking about the competition, Yeonho looks around for the prince one more time, but he has now disappeared. A thought suddenly popping into Yeonho’s head causes him to quickly unlock his phone and open TikTok. He searches ‘dragon prince’ and then ‘prince of dragons,’ but nothing relevant to the man he met today comes up. Figuring that he must go by a different username, Yeonho disappointingly puts his phone away.

“Ugh, well it’s over now, so we should move on,” Dongheon concludes.

“It’s been over for a while now, Hyung,” Minchan points out.

Dongheon ignores him, “So, did everyone get new recruits for our club?” After everyone looks amongst themselves, a little embarrassed that they were so wrapped up in the excitement of the faire that they forgot to complete the mission they came here for, Dongheon continues, “Me neither. We’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Yeonho repeats, in hopes that it’ll mean he’ll get to meet the prince of dragons once more.

*

To support his purchases at this second day of Masquerade Weekend at the Our Spring Renaissance Faire, Yeonho knew he needed to borrow money from either of his two sisters, if not both. But that was easier said than done.

“You didn’t pay us back last time, why should we give you more?” they had asked. Yeonho had an answer. He suggested he’d carry out all of their errands for the week, and he was determined to get them all done before the ren faire tonight. 

But while he was in a rush to get stuff done, he threw his own ren faire costume from the washer and into the dryer on a hot cycle for almost an hour.

“Hyung…” Yeonho answers a sudden phone call, still not able to keep his eyes off of what used to be an adult sized costume that now looks like it belongs to a kid. “It shrunk. I ruined my costume…”

“It wasn’t that good looking anyway,” Dongheon comments.

“Hyung, what am I supposed to do?”

“You’re home right now?” 

Yeonho can already hear rustling from over the phone. “Yeah.”

After ten minutes of getting back to his chores, that’s when Yeonho hears the knock on his front door. He puts his duster down and opens it.

Dongheon suddenly rushes in, holding a costume on a hanger with a tape measure around his neck. “Hold this.”

Yeonho grabs onto the costume as Dongheon takes off the tape measure and puts it around Yeonho’s shoulders. “Why?”

“This is one of my costumes from a few years ago. I want to make sure it fits right. My shoulders are more…” Dongheon trails off as he takes the measurements.

“Okay, I get it. You work out and I don’t.” Yeonho takes this time to get a better look at the costume in his hands. Compared to his previous outfit, this one is an improvement in every way. Before, his costume had a more medieval peasant vibe, but this borrowed one looks like it belongs to a renaissance prince. As a bonus, the quality details and dark fabric look like they’ll match his mask more.

“Lift your arms.” Dongheon takes a few more quick measurements before taking the costume back and spreading it out on the closest table. “This’ll be done in time. Shouldn’t take too long.”

“We said we’d meet there at five, right?” Yeonho goes to check the time on his phone, thinking now’s a good time to go out. “I have to go get my sister’s dry cleaning.”

“Dry cleaning…?” Dongheon mumbles. “You should’ve done that too.”

“Yeah, I know that now,” Yeonho says.

*

The dry cleaning has been picked up and is hanging in the back of his mom’s car, which Yeonho got permission to drive today. As he’s on his way back home, his eyes stop at a convenience store. Thinking that getting some treats for Dongheon as he works might be a good way to start thanking him, Yeonho parks at the curb.

There’s only a couple people inside the small store, so Yeonho can quickly grab what he needs and check out. After putting chips and sodas into his basket, he suddenly gets a phone call from Minchan.

“Hyung, what’s up?” Yeonho quietly answers.

“Can you get online right now?”

“I’m at the store right now. You want anything?”

“I want you to do this dungeon with me.” From the familiar sounds coming through the phone, Yeonho can tell Minchan is playing their favorite MMO. “I’m playing with a rando from our guild but he sucks!”

“Maybe he’s a newbie,” Yeonho suggests while eyeing a new Magic Hour booster pack that caught his eye on his way to checkout. He half listens to Minchan and half considers if he should spend some of his faire budget on this instead.

“No, his account was made a while ago…” After a few mouse clicks, he adds, “Oh, there it is. This guy is new to using a fighter class. But get this—he has a high leveled healer! His skill tree is optimized too…”

“He probably makes a way better healer,” Yeonho comments while giving in and grabbing a booster pack. “Invite him to join our party. We’ll need a healer for the upcoming event.”

“His name is flownsquirrel… I’ll send a friend request—” Minchan suddenly screams in surprise. “He died!”

Yeonho can’t help but laugh, “It’s your fault he died because you were goofing around when he clearly needed your help. I’m sure he appreciated it. Make sure you loot his corpse and take his money too—” Yeonho stops midjoke when he realizes there’s someone standing next to him.

The man, who seems to be about the same age but a couple inches taller than Yeonho, just looks at him curiously with a raised eyebrow. 

“I was talking about a game,” Yeonho starts to explain out of embarrassment to the handsome stranger but quickly realizes two things. 

The first is that this guy probably doesn’t care. He looks fit and strong, like he isn’t one to sit and play video games for days at a time. And in his reusable grocery bag looks to be organic foods, which contrast completely from what Yeonho is carrying. Yeonho knows immediately that this guy is entirely different from him and just wouldn’t get it. 

And the second thing Yeonho realizes is that he’s probably blocking this man’s way when he’s just trying to get his grocery shopping done.

“Sorry,” Yeonho tells him before quickly leaving to enter the short checkout line. “Hyung, I gotta go,” he says quietly into the phone so as to not disturb the others in line.

“Wait, since you’re already out, can you get this flier printed? I’m sending it now.”

“What flier?”

“The ad for our club. I figure we can put them around the faire so we don’t have to make guesses about who goes to our school or not.”

“Yeah, I’ll get them printed,” Yeonho agrees just as the man from earlier steps into line behind him. 

A moment after the phone call ends, the man speaks up, seemingly talking to Yeonho, “I’m glad the weather is so nice this weekend.”

“Me too,” Yeonho agrees with a nod, thankful that he can have a rain-free ren faire. 

Glancing at the man now, Yeonho notices a detail he hadn’t before. He’s wearing a t-shirt with the logo from the university that Yeonho goes to. Yeonho takes a second to consider what Minchan said. He finds himself in a conversation with someone who goes to their school, but there’s just not enough reason to believe this guy would be interested in joining a tabletop gaming club. Yeonho decides that he’d rather not waste the man’s time, knowing he’d have better luck finding people of their kind at the ren faire anyway. 

With that thought in mind, Yeonho opts to just quietly stand in line before getting his stuff checked out at the register.

*

“Can we post our flier here?” Yeonho shows their ad for their tabletop gaming club to the lady dressed as an elf who’s attending a tent selling various handmade soaps. Once given permission, he tapes the flier to the tent pole.

“I’m out,” Yeonho steps over to inform his friends that he ran out of fliers and sees that the others’ hands are also empty.

“We’re all done,” Kangmin declares, “Now let’s have fun!”

“Ah!” Dongheon suddenly stops and points. Where he’s looking is a man wearing a black eye mask, fake elf ears, and a hooded robe over his civilian clothes walking towards the flier that Yeonho last put up. “That’s the annoying guy from yesterday!”

“You mean the guy that just corrected your pronunciation?” Yeonho asks.

Dongheon nods, “It was the way he said it. I can tell he’s a mischievous person. Ya,” Dongheon grabs onto Minchan’s tunic, “Don’t let him see our ad, I don’t want him joining our club.”

“Why don’t you stop him then?” Minchan asks, baffled about how strongly Dongheon is blowing this rivalry out of proportion.

“I don’t want to talk to him. Go, distract him, and get him out of there!”

Minchan reluctantly steps away from the group to go confront the man. With the bustling faire and distance, Yeonho can’t hear what the two are talking about, but it seems very nonconfrontational. In fact, they both seem pretty excited.

After a few minutes, Minchan returns with a smile. “Guys, it turns out that guy is flownsquirrel—the healer I told you about from our guild. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Whoa, what are the chances…?” Kangmin mutters, glancing over at flownsquirrel in shock.

“I saw his shirt had the game’s logo, so I asked about it. I gave him some tips on his new class, but he said he’d be our healer for the event—”

“Chan-a,” Dongheon says with a sigh, “You didn’t turn him away.”

Yeonho glances over to find flownsquirrel taking a photo of their flier with his phone.

“I hope we don’t see him on Monday…” Dongheon shakes his head.

“He seems like a good guy,” Minchan defends him.

“Earlier today you were complaining that he sucked,” Yeonho points out.

Minchan clarifies, “He sucks as a fighter.”

Yeonho looks over at Kangmin, who is dawning the same costume as yesterday but with his new violet mask. Minchan meeting someone from online must have reminded him of his own situation because Kangmin’s looking around the faire, no doubt for mewtater.

“You’re really going to meet mewtater like this?” Yeonho asks. “If you just meet him how you said you would, I’m sure he’d like you.”

“This is your idea. And even if I wanted to, I can’t,” Kangmin pouts, “Because you lost my feathered mask.”

“Oh, right…”

“But this gives me the chance to meet him without any pressure—” Kangmin suddenly stops, grabbing Yeonho’s arm in excitement. “Over there!”

He points to a crowd of people gathered around the open area. As Yeonho and his friends approach, they can see what everyone’s watching. Today, like yesterday, mewtater and the prince of dragons are performing a sword fight for onlookers.

“Whoa!” Dongheon exclaims when mewtater does a flip, this time his cat-like mask staying on.

“You missed this yesterday, Hyung,” Kangmin excitedly tells them. “It’s so cool!”

Much like last time, Yeonho watches in awe. Their performance differs slightly today, but with similar feats of athletic ability that only someone with dedication and hard work can pull off. The dragon prince is especially breathtaking in his shiny armor today as well. Yeonho watches even more closely this time.

The two performers clash swords a few times, the dragon prince backing up, as if he’s being overpowered. But then suddenly and swiftly, he spins around mewtater, catching him off guard. With great strength, their swords connect once more, shaking under the force. After a few seconds, the dragon prince shouts as he throws mewtater’s sword from his hands. As it lands in the grass, the prince kicks mewtater’s knee out, and his opponent drops down, at the mercy of the prince’s blade at his neck.

The crowd cheers as the performance finishes, and the prince puts his arms up and shouts, “Dragon victory!”

Yeonho and his friends are clapping as well, thoroughly amused. After a minute, the crowd begins to disperse. “Now’s your chance,” Yeonho whispers to Kangmin when he sees mewtater is alone.

After checking that his new violet mask is secure, Kangmin confidently hurries away to approach his online friend.

Mewtater turns in time to see Kangmin jogging towards him. He suddenly calls out with concern, “Watch your step—!”

Kangmin suddenly trips over a tree root that’s sticking out of the grass and falls right down on the ground.

Yeonho sighs while watching this embarrassing sight. He turns to his friends to joke, “Should we get Kangmin another mask so he can start his first meeting with mewtater over again?”

Minchan shakes his head and enthusiastically points over at the two.

“Are you okay?” Mewtater kneels down to help Kangmin, who looks too defeated by embarrassment to stand up rather than being hurt. 

“I’m fine—” Kangmin finally dares to look at the man in the cat mask, finding that he’s holding his hand out to help him up. Kangmin takes this offer with a little hesitance. 

“The ground over here is pretty uneven,” mewtater generously says in Kangmin’s defense.

“But your sword fighting was so smooth, I didn’t even notice…!” Kangmin can’t stop himself from complimenting the man.

“Thanks,” he smiles back.

With a natural meeting like this, they easily transition into casual conversation. But since Kangmin failed to make a good impression due to falling on his face, Yeonho can’t imagine he’ll end up revealing his true identity to his online friend after all. His mask that keeps him anonymous will allow him to discard this first meeting, as if turning back time, and things will be how they always were between him and mewtater online. Yeonho sighs once more at how unfortunate it is, but also, the mental image of Kangmin wiping out five feet from his crush is still funny enough to warrant a belated laugh.

“Ya, let’s give Cinderella some privacy,” Dongheon grabs Yeonho and Minchan by the shoulders to turn them away.

While Yeonho follows Dongheon’s lead, he notices the dragon prince standing not too far away. Their eyes meet, and the prince waves. When Yeonho’s sure he’s not waving at someone behind him, he awkwardly waves back, a little surprised that the prince recognizes him in his new costume. Yeonho’s glad he could at least keep the same mask.

“Today’s the last day of the faire,” Dongheon reminds them, “Let’s go explore more before it’s over!” 

*

They have a good time at the faire, and masquerade weekend finally ends as the sun sets. But when Yeonho spots the dragon prince helping a nearby shop owner with packing up their supplies as they take down their tent like the other vendors, Yeonho feels like the night is only beginning. As Yeonho is walking over, the dragon prince spots him.

“Can I help?” Yeonho offers, taking the box from the prince so he can pick up another one.

The shop keeper, an older lady dressed as a pirate, notices and exclaims, “Thanks to you boys, I’ll be able to get home on time!”

Side by side with the prince, Yeonho continues to pack every box away into the lady’s car in the nearby parking lot. When his friends find him doing this, Yeonho waves them off, signaling to leave without him. They shrug but eventually walk away.

“You can go home if you want,” the prince tells Yeonho. 

“I don’t mind. I don’t have anything to do after this.” 

By the time they finish cleaning up, almost all of the vendors are gone. The empty park looks different like this: string lights along the path are giving off a soft glow, and the sound of crickets and the trickle of the nearby stream are the only noises that can be heard alongside their slow footsteps.

“There’s my stuff,” the prince stops at his bag that he had left under a large tree while he helped pack up. He stops, noticing the second scabbard. “I forgot to give that back to the person I was performing with.”

Yeonho thinks back to when Kangmin distracted the guy in the cat mask. He must have forgotten to pick his sword back up after he lost it in the fight.

The prince crouches down and partially unsheathes the fake sword. “I was worried I might’ve chipped it earlier. We clashed harder than we meant to.” He pulls out a cloth from his bag and sits down on a nearby bench to wipe down both of the swords.

Yeonho follows him, watching with interest.

“Want to hold it?” The prince asks, handing him his own sheathed sword.

“It’s lighter than I thought it’d be,” Yeonho comments after sliding the sword out of the scabbard and wielding it for the first time.

“It’s aluminium,” the prince explains.

Excited to feel half as cool as the dragon prince looked during the performance, Yeonho takes a grounded stance and carefully slashes the air in front of him. Now he’s the guy practicing moves he saw so he can look cool, but even if he looks dorky, it at least feels epic and powerful.

“Want me to teach you some moves?” 

Yeonho is too excited to answer right away. Although he only first witnessed their performance the day before, it feels like a dream to be taught choreography by the prince of dragons. 

The prince stands up and readies the sword he holds in his right hand. “Bend your knees a little more,” he instructs. “You want to feel sturdy. And put your left foot back.”

Yeonho does as he says, feeling a little nervous, as if they’re actually about to spar.

“Now slowly swing your sword at me.”

“Which way should I do it?”

“Whichever way feels natural.”

Yeonho hesitantly brings his sword towards the prince, and the prince moves his own sword to block the slow attack.

“Did you see what I did? You can use your sword to block and then redirect your opponent’s attack,” the prince explains. “Now I’ll do the same and you block me.”

The prince carefully swings his sword towards Yeonho, who gently clashes their swords together, as instructed, before leading the attack away from his body.

“Now that you redirected my sword, I’m left vulnerable.”

Yeonho understands his prompt and slowly swings his sword at the prince, who blocks it at his pace.

“Very good, just like that.”

Yeonho shyly smiles. “Am I really doing it right? I don’t think I’m making it look that cool.”

“You’re doing it exactly how we do. It just looks cooler when you speed it up. Here, let’s go a little faster,” the prince suggests. “I won’t hurt you, so don’t worry.”

“What if I hurt you?” Yeonho asks out of concern.

The prince chuckles, “I’m pretty fast. You’ll be fine.” He waits for Yeonho to make a move.

With a little hesitancy, Yeonho takes a step to slowly bring his sword down on the prince, who quickly parries. He considerately pauses before his slow counterattack so Yeonho can get his bearings. Yeonho blocks, stepping back out of nervousness, and tries to attack a little faster. When the prince counterattacks, his forward lunge makes Yeonho back up. The moves that Yeonho thought were so impressive are being performed by the prince right in front of him. The amount of power and charm that the prince of dragons exudes makes it hard to focus.

Yeonho is trying to keep up as they get faster but, at the same time, is getting overwhelmed to the point that he’s instinctively backing up. The prince smoothly follows to keep the same distance, and their steps become in sync, almost like a dance.

Deep in focus, Yeonho isn’t aware of where he’s heading until he takes another step back and his foot starts to slip on mud.

“Ah—!”  

The prince lunges forward and grabs onto Yeonho’s arm with his free hand, stopping him from falling back into the creek.

“W-whoa!” Yeonho finds himself leaning back, not able to find his balance nor his footing on the edge of the slippery creek. “Don’t let go!”

The prince’s worried expression turns into a smile. With one sudden movement, he pulls Yeonho close and holds him around his waist with one hand, his sword still equipped in his other.

Yeonho had already thought that the prince of dragons was so dashing—his confident yet humble demeanor was endearing, and his athletic ability and strength made him breathtaking to watch. But now, being this close to the prince, Yeonho can’t stop his heart from racing. 

The prince doesn’t let go or step back. There must be something he’s also busy thinking about, as he is just as still as Yeonho. But he couldn’t be thinking the same thing as him. Because Yeonho is thinking about how incredible it would be to kiss him.

“Are you okay?” the prince asks in a low voice, followed by a chuckle when Yeonho fails to immediately respond.

“I’m fine,” Yeonho assures him unconvincingly due to the crack in his voice.

The prince tilts his head and hums in thought. “Are you sure? Your ears are turning red…”

Yeonho reaches up to touch his own mask that covers his warm cheeks, surprised that the prince observantly clocked another sign of his blushing. He lets out a chuckle, half in embarrassment and half in amusement at his own reaction to the dragon prince.

“I’m sorry,” the prince suddenly apologizes. When Yeonho looks confused, he continues, “I almost made you fall into the creek. You’re embarrassed because of that—”

“No, that’s not it—” Yeonho barely stops himself. What is he going to do? Confess to a perfect stranger on a whim? He doesn’t even know what this guy’s face looks like…

The prince having yet to step away, his arm still around him and their faces close together, Yeonho dares to reach up. His fingers brush the prince’s dragon scaled mask before he puts his thumb under the bottom edge. The prince doesn’t move, letting—or even encouraging—Yeonho to unmask him—

A sudden ringing of a phone interrupts them. Yeonho reluctantly removes his hand to take out his phone. The prince finally steps back, giving him space as he answers the call. Yeonho finds Minchan’s voice greeting him with a mix of stress and excitement.

“The raid starts soon! Are you ready?”

“The raid…?” Yeonho repeats, beginning to remember the special event on their MMO starts tonight. “Do we really have to play the very second the event starts?”

“The first 50 teams to beat the boss get exclusive armor, remember?”

Yeonho sighs. He did really want that armor set more than anything.

“We need you in our party for the rest of us to have any hope of beating it,” Minchan pleads. “The server maintenance will be over soon. Are you coming on or not?”

“Ah… I want to, but…” To find out if he can even make it back home on time, Yeonho checks his phone’s clock. There’s just barely enough time, but he’d have to leave right now. “I’ll be there.” Yeonho hangs up and turns to the dragon prince, quickly explaining, “Sorry, I have to go!”

Having no time for anything else, Yeonho runs out of the park and heads home.