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Two royal guards stand by a pillar, leaning ever so lazily and talking with a tone that annoys Donghyuck. “The queen asked if I could watch over the princess,” one of the guards say, laughing.
“Fucking hell, man! For real?” the other one laughs in response, chuckling between breaths. “Does she plan to get rid of—”
Donghyuck exhales while he walks past them. He shouldn’t engage.
The two guards notice him and they see the way he clutches his hands into fists and walks with a straight face. “Aw, is this little queer boy gonna fight us again?” they laugh, as they always seem to do when talking about him.
Even as Donghyuck walks away and keeps to himself, he hears the laughter echo throughout the hall, never silencing nor fading as he grows further and further away from them.
When he turns a corner toward Mark’s room and sees that no one is near, he takes a moment to breathe. He keeps his back against the wall, eyes shut and tears threatening to flow out of him. He will forever hate this feeling.
As his hands relax and his breaths take on a steady and calm beat, he reminds himself. Today has to be the day he tells Mark. It’s now or never. The day will never come again where he has the courage to face his fate and accept it. If it’s not today, he’ll keep on wishing, praying, and touching this burning star that was never meant to be his. It burns. But it’s what he believes — what he knows — is best.
He walks slowly with his hands shaking ever so slightly toward Mark’s bedroom. He eases himself as much as he can, not wanting to startle Mark immediately.
When he knocks, he does it slowly and in three beats — a knock for every word in I love you.
Mark answers almost instantaneously — opening the door for Donghyuck. (Donghyuck would always scold him for opening the door, saying that it was his duty as a royal guard to open doors for him, but he lets it slide this time — this very last time.) Mark looks at him with sparkling eyes as if the world wasn’t crumbling around them. “Hi, Donghyuck,” he giggles, pulling the boy inside before practically jumping on him.
“Hi, my love.” The royal guard holds Mark tightly in his arms, too scared to let go.
And as if it was any other normal day, Mark kisses Donghyuck’s cheeks — well, to him it’s a normal day, but Donghyuck fears that’ll change soon. “What brings you here?” Mark says in small chuckles, “I thought you had training and someone else would stay with me for the night.”
“You know I refuse to leave you with anyone so easily, plus, I’ve had enough practice for today and I missed your face.” Donghyuck kisses his lover’s forehead. Seeing Mark like this has never been so easy. A bit over a year ago, Donghyuck was sneaking through the halls just to even look the prince in the eyes. A bit over a year ago, he would stutter every time he was assigned to watch over the prince, and every time, Mark would giggle at his unease and awkwardness. A year ago, they were kissing in shushes and behind curtains, cheeks ever so red and hearts ever so full. A bit less than a year ago, Donghyuck told Mark that he will want him until hell freezes over — forever, in other words. He’ll want Mark forever.
Six months of knowing each other were six months of Mark building the courage to tell his parents he liked boys — that he loves a boy.
Ever since then, Mark has had his parents breathing down his back but as honest as he can be, he couldn’t care any less than he does. All he has ever needed is Donghyuck and with his lover beside him, what could ever go wrong?
However, there is a side that the prince does not see. The side that Donghyuck knows very well.
Donghyuck hears and sees what Mark does not. Mark doesn’t know the way the guards spew words of disrespect about the two of them. He doesn’t know how they keep on calling Mark a princess instead of a prince — and Donghyuck will confess Mark is his little princess but the other guards don’t say it with the same intention that he has toward Mark. The other guards can’t help but be so outright homophobic and it disgusts Donghyuck. Mark doesn’t know how Donghyuck is alienated, how he chooses to sleep in an empty closet instead of their corridors because all the guards do is torment him. Mark doesn’t know how the king and queen ignore him, how they put the sword a bit too close to his skin during ceremonies, and how they shake their heads and scoff at him. Mark doesn’t know the fights he has gotten into, the bruises on his stomach from the punches, the red imprints on his cheeks from the slaps, and the pain of the world all on his shoulders. Donghyuck makes sure Mark sees nothing, makes sure he is blind to all of it.
Donghyuck loves Mark and that means hiding the horrors of the world from him.
“I love you.” Donghyuck confesses for maybe the 802nd time, maybe even more.
Mark smiles bright, “I love you too.” He cups Donghyuck’s cheeks lovingly, never ever wanting to be separated from him. When he sees his lover sigh and tilt his head down, he wonders what’s wrong. “Are you okay?” he frowns this time.
“I…” Donghyuck doesn’t know how strong he can be any longer. “I don’t know if this will work.”
The prince furrows his eyebrows, “Will what work?”
Donghyuck places his hand on Mark’s, right on his own cheek. Mark’s hands are cold. “Us. I—” he clears his throat, “I don’t know if we can last like this, with the whole world plotting against us.”
“Who gives a shit about the world?” Mark pouts, because when has Donghyuck ever cared about what everyone else thought of them?
“You’ll rule eventually, my love, and I’ll be in the way of that.”
Mark shakes his head, “Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true.” Donghyuck’s legs start feeling weak but he doesn’t say anything about it. “You know more than anyone how your parents are acting. I don’t want them to hurt you.”
Mark’s eyes start shaking and his hands drop from Donghyuck’s cheeks. Donghyuck catches them, holding his hands and keeping them warm. “I couldn’t care any less about them. I can stand for myself, I don’t care about what they say.” He tries reasoning, tear falling down his cheek, “You— you keep me burning, Donghyuck. Knowing that it’s you I’ll come back to at the end of every day is what helps me go on, it fuels my energy, it takes my heart and keeps it safe.” Mark pleads, ever so helplessly, and he prays on every wishing star that Donghyuck will stay.
The younger boy has a smile that looks like the very opposite of happiness and he sighs. “You burn me, Mark. I will always, always yearn to get closer to you, to touch you and tell you I love you but it burns too much—”
“You have me, you always have me— why would it burn to have me, Donghyuck, when we’ve fought through so much to be together— please.” Mark cuts him off in heaving breaths and a painful chest.
Donghyuck shakes his head and pats Mark’s hand gently. “You have me but I barely have you. The world is against us in every way so why try fighting it any more when we’re both so tired and worn out? You call us fated but we aren’t the closest bit of it. Fate is not something we can write, it’s something we have no choice but to follow, Mark. And I love you, I really do, but it might just be burning even more than that.” It’s the first time Mark finds a tear falling down the boy’s face. “I can touch you and feel you and love you all I want but the more I do the more it burns, the more the world pulls us apart, the more your parents tug on my arm and pry me away, the more the rest of the royal guard whispers and puts me to shame that I have to cut out their voices while I walk the halls. When I kiss you good night and your eyes shine into mine, all the more do they put your name in vain and curse you when you don’t deserve any of those words directed toward you. I can handle the hurt, the pain— the storm of words they puncture to my head, but I cannot for one second handle you having to be in that position, Mark. The fights I’ve gotten in to teach those guards to not lift their tongue to disrespect you are too much— too useless. The only way to protect you, Your Highness, is by leaving you. I love you, I always will— ever since I’ve known you and silly enough, even before that, and I will love you until the sun stops shining and the world stops spinning and our universe stops expanding, until the world all crumbles and the darkness swallows us all again, I will be calling, yearning, pleading, and loving you. I love you, Your Highness, and I won’t stop.”
Mark looks at him with his mouth agape, shocked at everything he’s hearing, with tears that will forever stain his face. “I’m sorry, I— I didn’t know, Donghyuck, I—”
“Shh,” the royal guard soothes him, but Mark continues to tear up.
“I’m sorry for hurting you—”
“Hurt me?” Donghyuck sighs in the sweetest way possible. “Your Highness, you could never hurt me.” His hand falls to Mark’s warm cheek — slightly wet from tears, but the red in them never dies. Donghyuck looks at Mark as if he had never known love before meeting him. “Destroy me? Maybe. Shatter me? Pretty close. Burn me? Hell yeah. Disassemble me piece by piece and craft me in your name, rearranging my every part to make me remember you, to make me forever crave your touch, to forever ruin everyone else for me, and to always love me? Yes, in all ways possible, yes. But hurt me? Never, you could never hurt me, Your Highness, never.”
Mark’s hands grip on Donghyuck’s wrists that are so close to his face. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why would you let yourself be disrespected like that, Donghyuck?”
“‘Cause they don’t deserve your attention, Your Highness.” Donghyuck answers simply. “I swore to protect you — it’s my job to — so let me protect you by doing this too.”
Mark sniffles, “By leaving?”
The royal guard’s nose scrunches slightly before he slowly nods his head. “By leaving.” He repeats, sternly and almost surely.
“What can I do to make you stay?” Mark pleads, “Please? Do I have to beg on my knees for you? Kiss you the best I can— Donghyuck, please.”
But a prince should never beg. He should never plead and his knees should never touch the ground. “Your Highness,” he warns.
“Protect me, Donghyuck. Protect me and my heart from breaking like this.” Mark wants to raise his voice but he never can when he faces the boy he so preciously and softly loves. “Keep me safe— safe in your arms.”
Donghyuck will admit it’s tempting. His wobbly knees are bound to fall and kneel down to Mark any second, ready to give in to all he asks. But he stays standing tall, yet with a heart yearning for Mark because in full truth, he’s too soft for it all. He shakes his head, ignoring how red his eyes must be.
“Please—” Mark’s grip on the boy is tighter, his cries even stronger. “When I rule, I’ll rule right,” he sniffles. “Off with their heads or whatever the fuck will keep their mouths shut. I— I just want you with me, Donghyuck. I want you and only you.”
Donghyuck has to close his eyes to not look at Mark’s state — to not remember it, memorize the exact shade of red Mark’s eyes are, the intensity of which his tears are falling down, and to not play this scene back over and over while he tosses and turns in bed for the rest of his nights. “Stop, Your Highness—”
“Donghyuck, that isn’t my name.” Mark’s breaths are heavy and his heart is ticking.
“Your Highness—”
He shakes his head. “I won’t let go of you until you say my name.”
Donghyuck sighs, eyes still closed, but he tries, “Mark,”
Mark still shakes his head and his grip grows tighter around Donghyuck’s wrists.
A beat passes. And Donghyuck opens his eyes. “My love,” he exhales the breath that suffocates him.
The prince’s hands on him are looser but still there.
“I love you, remember that forever. Everyone will be off your back when they hear I left, my love, and that’s what is important to me. I’ll leave this kingdom and find another. I’ll serve there either as a guard or a regular person, but I will live there with my heart always yearning for you. I’ll keep my eye on you with newspapers across kingdoms and whispers across servants— I’m not leaving you behind.”
Mark pulls him into a hug immediately, accepting, even if his tears will soak Donghyuck’s uniform, even if Donghyuck stays standing still.
Donghyuck runs his hand along Mark’s back, calming him as best as he can. “My love,” he says, before Mark is bringing their foreheads together.
“You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. I’d move mountains for you, fight kingdoms if it meant seeing you — even if I met you on the battlefield —, I’d turn the Earth on its axis if the sun was shining too bright, I— I love you, my Donghyuck. My teddy bear, my knight in shining armor, my forever love. I’ll cross the rivers for you, search kingdoms for you, and I’ll find you once I’m king, I promise you that. I love you, so preciously, so delicately, and so sincerely.”
Donghyuck manages to smile, “I know,” he caresses Mark’s face.
“Kiss me?” Mark hooks his arms around his lover’s neck, ready to pull him in. When Donghyuck nods, he does exactly that. He kisses him the best he can, the sweetest he can. He kisses him like he won’t be able to for the next couple of years. And he feels warm. Warm in Donghyuck’s every touch, in his every love. He feels like he’s home.
But when Donghyuck walks away and leaves the door closed behind him with his breathing too shaky to be considered normal, Mark is left breathless in the middle of his room. He’s left feeling so cold.
He closes his eyes, "Why does it feel like hell has frozen over?"
Outside of his door, Donghyuck leans against the handles, trying to match his breaths to the beat of his heart but it fails because his heart beats all too fast, all too quickly for and because of Mark. Exhaling, he thinks, hell will never be frozen over.
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