Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Employment? You? Need? I'm sorry am I hearing these things right?" the sarcastic laugh merged with pure hilarity is radiating from the phone on Doyoung's ear and since there is not much that can be done about that for a) TaeYong is a wench and has the area responsible for feelings, courtesy and the like permanently numbed out from his cortex and b) Doyoung is quite a hopeless bugger at the moment; having to resign from his job despite a long line of qualifications sitting on his resume.

He bites down his lips. Just this once he's going to let TaeYong have his entertainment.

"I need a freaking job, TaeYong. And this is the last time I'm calling you for favours–screw that, this is the last time I'm calling you for anything," he says, so annoyed that if you’d put a thermometer on his forehead it’d probably blow up the bulb.

"Pssh everyone knows I'm your nanny and you need mittens from my supply once in a while," TaeYong snickers, leaving Doyoung fazed with how the guy has the audacity and spirit to insult people every two seconds. Maybe that’s why they pay him the big bucks for being an editor of notable standing.

As much as Doyoung would like to run past security and barge into TaeYong's office, all to give him a lecture on how he is most certainly not dependent on him, he knows all brawls end in the same way: TaeYong mentioning that one time he'd gotten lost in a farm enclave and crying so miserably, even calling TaeYong ‘mommy’ when he came to rescue him from a herd of enraged pigs.

Okay, maybe Doyoung admits he's been quite well looked after by TaeYong so far.

That, precisely being one of the reasons why he wants a job of his own. One that paid enough so that he could move out of Ten's apartment and leave him to make out with Johnny at peace, one that would give him a sense of independence, privacy and freedom. Such nice words- in his head only, of course.

Currently, Doyoung is met by a waitress smiling flirtatiously at him and he's too pissy to return it, TaeYong's choked laughter is injuring his ear drum even though two tables behind him is a guy blasting one ok rock from a boom box. (seriously boom box?)

"How about this, you give me a blowjob and then I'd consider it," TaeYong says and Doyoung's cheek unfortunately pressed speaker at the word blowjob.

This guy is impossible.

The waitress slams Doyoung’s breakfast on the table, splattering the tea onto his croissant and simultaneously making the flower vase sputter some water out of it too. Doyoung is not shocked, TaeYong likes to form disgusting innuendos and like all best friends do, he bears with it.

"Gross TaeYong, nobody's gonna give you a blow even in your fantasia slash afterlife," Doyoung says, already developing a migraine.

"Then forget about your job bro."

"You are an incredibly useless best friend," Doyoung says and hangs up before TaeYong can reply with a buoyant 'thank you! I'm glad to have been of no service since that’s what I intended in the first place!'

Rather uselessly himself, Doyoung eenie-meenies his fingers over the stack of novels on the restaurant table which he'd just bought. He could use some inspiration, having often thought about writing a book. But he sure as hell won’t send it to TaeYong’s publishing house. They're basically comparable to leviathans on man hunt.

Doyoung has to refrain from asking how the restaurant even allowed people to bring in boom boxes once the annoying music begins blaring louder from behind him. He figures his in-dire-straits situation needs some emo so he moons over nothing while picking on the bits of croissant.

Doyoung is not an early riser. He’s tried though, to mimic how TaeYong wakes up at 4 sharp and runs around spraying disinfectants on the floor, wall, ceiling and emptying the bottle of air freshener till everyone else in his house wakes up suffocating and puke-ish.

But then his previous job required him to be present at seven thirty at the least and for Doyoung, who gets up at something between a nine and eleven, it just counted as one of the many things unappealing about his job. Sure he was an assistant to his favourite designer but as misfortune deemed, his favourite designer happened to have a thousand assistants on the same footing as him and never acknowledged any of them.

Doyoung needs a job where he'd be appreciated, so he figured TaeYong was the right person to ask because well, he's unarguably on the better end of the social spectrum. Even though he could protest that TaeYong has an insufferable personality, it’s not like his current acquaintances have known him since preschool like Doyoung does, they’re all usually after his money.

Somehow, by sorcery or powers unknown, last year, TaeYong managed to conjure up a very impressive glamour of amiability and hit on his boss' son. He hasn’t been successful since.

As nature would have it (and Doyoung felt it was very just) TaeYong's boss' son, a consultant for royal constructions and a rather posh though amateur architect named Nakamoto Yuta, happened to take inexplicable delight in putting all the roses that TaeYong kept sending to court him, into shredding machines.

In Doyoung's opinion, both think too highly of themselves to ever get together. It's not like he cares but it'd finally get TaeYong, who constantly pleads for Burnout Paradise sessions every Friday with him, off his back for once. A game isn't fun if your best friend keeps beating you at it.

In amidst his pitiable state, the cryptex of his life might have gotten one combination right, he happens to have one friend who still has all the screws intact on his head. He might live miles away, but he's withal, reliable.

He texts Hansol on the way to the park in the morning and prays for a reply as he jogs, breathing in cold morning air that makes his nostrils strain.

I need to learn how to be an early riser, Doyoung reminds himself with every jog, in favour of improving his work ethic; letting the rhythm of his fast paced heart match with his steps but then a book drops on his head from the sky.

"OW! TAEYONG!" he yells after realising he was on the pavement under TaeYong's polish looking house. He couldn’t see why he lived in this neighbourhood which ridiculously looked like a ctrl+c children’s picture book, with pastel coloured buildings and flower pots under windows and whatnot.

TaeYong defensively urges his hands through the window above him, "Just wanted to check if it was really you this early in the morning! Sorry!"

"You better make up for this!"

"Will waffles do?"

Doyoung doesn’t notice his phone vibrating with Hansol's text.

"You need to fix this disgusting habit of yours," Yuta says, arms crossed over his chest and looking infuriated.

Doyoung walks in to TaeYong sitting on the bed with his face facing the floor, looking very guilty and apologetic that naming the expressions Kim Dongyoung has never had the privilege enough to see on his face until now. He's never seen Yuta angry either, since he's always so bright and smiley in those pictures TaeYong often used to excitedly thrust into his face while gushing over him during continuous hours of facebook stalking.

"I understand, I won’t do it again," TaeYong mumbles honestly.

"Really now that’s childish, is this how you treat your friend? Godammit apologise if you still want to meet my mom!"

Previously occupied by being delighted by TaeYong's kicked face, it now strikes Doyoung hat he is in TaeYong's room with there’s a very angry looking Nakamoto Yuta obliterating TaeYong with his gaze and he can’t help but notice Yuta's wearing nothing but TaeYong's crumpled seaweed coloured shirt and the place reeks of sex and oh.

Ignoring the fact that Doyoung is now officially free from his obligation to spend Fridays with TaeYong, the human embodiment of a headache, since he now has a boyfriend, he jumps with joy inside because Yuta's commanding TaeYong to apologise to me, this is the fucking best day of my life.

"Fine. I'm sorry Doyoung-ah. You will no longer be annoyed by me it's a promise," TaeYong begrudgingly mutters and then his face crumples up with the bitter taste of those uncharacteristic words.

"I want a bond not a promise," Doyoung blurts and then goes over to shake Yuta's hand who retracts it. Once Doyoung gets why he did that and he shudders visibly, making them both laugh.

"I know we've just met but please marry him, it'll do the whole world a lot of good," he says, after introductions neither needed. Yuta's known Doyoung as the only decent person besides himself who’s willing to put up with TaeYong and Doyoung knows Yuta fairly well, TaeYong's been quite in love with him for two years for his best friend to not know.

Yuta laughs too loud at that last remark and TaeYong, green with jealously aside from the fact that he can't really stand anyone making fun of him so he protectively pulls Yuta to his side and flaps a hand in front of Doyoung, "Okay kid, I'll find you a job. Waffles are in the kitchen, relationship and job details tomorrow, you can watch TV downstairs-"

"TaeYong that's not fair!"

"Hello? The love of my life is here and you expect me to pay attention to you?" TaeYong insinuates in a way that makes Doyoung question how Yuta even breathes in this dude’s presence when he gives him pathetic monikers like ‘the love of my life’. He would so get dumped for this if it was him.

"I thought you didn’t like him, heh," Doyoung wonders out loud and Yuta clarifies. "I knew he wasn’t going to ask me out and keep sending me roses I’m allergic to so I asked him out last night. And here we are." The last part sounds cringe-worthy though euphoric and it's actually convincing, if the picture of them both hadn’t looked as perfect as it does.

By this time, Yuta's found himself a place on TaeYong's lap on the bed and he probably shouldn't interrupt them, TaeYong's finally got what he’s wanted for so long.

And look at him; he's still searching for a job that could satisfy him since he’s still muddled up in beliefs of his own.

Why does TaeYong have to get everything? The universe has always been biased towards the richer perhaps.

"But tomorrow, you’re buying me food– lots of food or I disown you," Doyoung warns while making an exit and after waving bye to Yuta.

TaeYong scoffs, “We all know who's going to suffer the most if you do that, I fucking brought you up son."

Doyoung doesn’t hear that, he's at last, getting a job he assumes will be good enough for him, not like the time when he was Do Kyungsoo's assistant among the assistant army– all too damn eager to wipe his shoes and flick an imaginary speck of dust off his shoulders.

Good things happen in the mornings, he celebrates. I’m gonna be a fucking morning bird for life.

"So what do you think you'll do after tomorrow?" Johnny asks him, once they're picking up vegetables and the like from the grocery. Doyoung is quite drowsy this evening; he blames it on waking up too early and presently he mutters an incoherent response while toppling an entire rack of Nutella into the cart.

Johnny tsks and laboriously retrieves them, save for one and makes it a point to grab coffee for Doyoung too, since he seems out of it tonight.

Doyoung groans a groan that sounds like a donkey's bray. He's definitely rethinking the morning-bird-for-life resolution.

"...ouse," Johnny hears from his mouth before he catches him from collapsing over the arranged pile of mops. "Mouse?"

"I'd go looking for a house maybe..." Doyoung replies, droning and making Johnny worry.

"Alright, but why? If I ask..."

"Hyung what do people do with houses? Live in it and that’s the common sense behind why I want one," Doyoung says before adding, "I think it’s time I stopped being third wheel, mixing fettuccine with spaghetti and fighting with Ten about it."

"Doyoung," Johnny says putting a hand over his shoulder, "We're still here if you need anything-"

"That's what I don't want," he snaps and then apologises once he catches the hurt look on Johnny's features.

"Hyung, it's exhausting really-I don’t wanna talk about it. Let’s just go home," Doyoung exhales, taking a step towards the counter and Johnny cannot really fathom why he'd be acting like this all of a sudden, beaten up on the inside still pigsty on the surface, pale and shagged.

"You need better friends, I'm washing my hands off you," Johnny jokes once they're loading the bags into the car.

"Did you just degrade yourself, hyung?" Doyoung humours and Johnny playfully punches him as they fall into cheerful laughter. It has been a long time since Doyoung had last smiled, so spent out in his stressful thoughts.

Johnny pats his head as Doyoung leans on the window. Before his eyes close for sleep, Johnny starts the car.

He does look strong and snarky but he's quite a bunny, Johnny thinks. He's tired, therefore Johnny decides to drive slowly so that he can sleep longer on the way back to Ten's apartment in which the three lived.

When a discordant sound bursts in the silent car, Johnny grimaces, pulling over. Doyoung springs up and fumbles for his phone.

"What is it, idiot," he says, instantly picking it up, knowing who was calling because the crazy frog ringtone is set only for TaeYong.

"Hey Doyoungie, do you have any idea where the book I threw on your head would be by now?" His words echo through the car for Johnny to hear as well.

'You threw the fucking book you should know," Doyoung says but regrets his snap once TaeYong lets out a worried 'oh' right after and changes to be reassuring, "I think I have it on my desk, what about it?"

"Thank god and uh it was the one which uh - LOOK IT WAS THE ONE WITH YUTA’S LATEST PROJECT AND IT’S A REALLY A BIG DEAL TO HIM ‘CAUSE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO TURN IT IN PERSON TO THE KING TODAY AND I’M SCREWED I CAN’T FUCK UP WE’VE BEEN TOGETHER FOR A DAY YOU’VE GOTTA HELP ME.”

"I'm not going to, who even wants to visit the Neoarian Palace at this time?" Doyoung replies into the phone, calm from his exhaustion or maybe he’s quite used to being completely different to TaeYong in the approach to calamitous situations as these. “I’m sure all the visiting tickets will be refused and do you even know how long they take for security checkups? I could watch three cosmos documentaries in that time."

"Look I don’t want you to go just hand the damn book to me and I’ll give it to the King."

"Where’s Yuta?"

"He’s sleeping and the gates close around eight..."

"And Yuta’s sleeping. How unlike him..." by this TaeYong knew Doyoung was being a condescending prick and he probably should let him be, cursing the fact that Doyoung knew him too well to know something more than Nakamoto "Punctuality" Yuta hadn’t submitted a project. And they were talking about the top of the monarchy triangle here.

"Okay I may have gotten him a little bit drunk today so he’s passed out and just get the book and hand it to me, alright? Kindly do what I say, I'll bake you whatever you want, please."

"But you said the deadline is eight it’s seven fifteen and the palace is an hour’s drive from your place you’re never gonna get there in time unless you have a heli which you don’t so why–"

"I’LL MANAGE JUST GET IT TO ME."

"Alright alright. I’ll call you."

"I don’t want you to call me just get the damn book."

By now Johnny’s driven them before the apartment complexes and Doyoung rushes inside with him, fetches the book and checks for signs of damage (not like he could get them fixed but he checks because he’s a careful person just like that) and then turns to Johnny who is already frowning, "He is an idiot isn’t he?"

"Of course. But we’re best friends."

"And you’re tired. Doyoung."

"I’m okay, I’m okay," he says and rubs his eyes. Exhaustion grapples his shoulders and the back of his highs are already giving in to the rest of his weight. He had spent a rigorous time packing stuff up to leave and his books are a handful on their own.

He lives quite close to the royal residential block which had a nonsensical posh name he doesn’t remember anymore and was a place which was big enough to be called a city on its own. Doyoung saw no point in returning the book to TaeYong when he could turn it in himself.

Soon, after a few traffic lights turning green to his advantage, Doyoung’s arriving at the luxurious part of the city, he passes the lush green lawns and drives his beaten up orange car through the streets paved with gold bricks or something.

The gates are open, and even though the security is strict, he doesn't worry because his task is pretty easy. Neither do parking spots seem an issue, there are only few tourists besides him and within a few minutes he’s shaken awake from his prior drowsiness by the bright gallery lighting that adorns the entrance of the palace.

Staff...staff...where the hell? There should be a help desk where do I go?

He manages to pull off his multilingual skills in getting a few tourists to tell him the directions to a common help desk. Doyoung shuts his eyes in sheer dramatic fashion.

Please have more than just audio guides and promotional pamphlets to offer, just please, I need sleep.

There’s a floor to ceiling glass wall, which is an anomaly in the entire building which was itself constructed as a skeleton of bricks but with an encasement of glass. Doyoung supposes that’s where he should be; following the instructions from earlier.

He takes a step. The Neoarian palace lights up into life as the glasses glow in polychrome. Doyoung chokes in awe.

This lit shit is techno.

"Woah," in not so silent astonishment, Doyoung sees multiple beams of lights scanning him down quite like a light show before they let him pass through, leading him to a doorway at the other end of which stands a tall, beautiful and admittedly quite a receptionist with a severe case of an RBF.

Doyoung’s eyes involuntarily narrow as he places his hands on the counter once his sleep deprived head is making his ears siren. The receptionist is definitely judging him, eyeing his attire and demeanour more than once and showing a visible grimace in repulsion.

"I need to see the King. It is urgent," he says and her eyes widen, she’s probably not used to people expressing demands so unusual as these in informal language before her.

"Excuse me?"

"The King? K-I-N-G? I've got a blueprint that he’d asked today? And I’d like to leave it here if he could pick it up."

The receptionist, 'Sooyoung' as the name tag says, basically sasses him while she checks the book thoroughly for who knows what. Doyoung rolls his eyes, "Can I leave now?"

"What is your name?"

"Kim Dongyoung but I came here to give this book in place of Nakamoto Yuta," on looking at the flabbergasted expression she made, he voiced out in incredulity, "Hey he works here you should know that!"

Miss Sooyoung, he supposes, didn’t like to be told in the face that she’d straight out forgotten employees’ names. Must have a tough place on the royal roster, he muses as she taps a few buttons and moves around to fetch her smartphone elegantly.

"Let me send him a message," she says coldly and Doyoung could sit on the floor, knees burdened and giving into fatigue. He wonders what sort of adult he is when can’t survive awake till 9 and still gets up late. Sooyoung keeps swiping on her phone and then turns forward with a glare that would put Emily Blunt to shame.

"His highness wants you to hand it to him. He doesn’t like getting things on a platter so off you go."

Doyoung cringes. He’s asking to meet a complete stranger? Just like that? The King must be complete bollocks if he just agreed to.

With the way Sooyoung has one hand planted on her hip and an infuriated aura making the air suffocatingly dense, Doyoung might as well be done with this fast enough and get away. The view of the overpriced houses is pretty distracting from the glass walls.

Nevertheless, the more polite and eloquent part of his brain shuts down when the caffeine from earlier isn’t enough to support it. He slams the book on the counter making Sooyoung touch her sleeve.

"Am I getting escorted? And why don’t you go hand it to him I need to get home before the gates close for good and I spend my night in my car, I don’t flipping know this place okay?"

Sooyoung sighs, arrogantly as she tells him, "Most of our faculty has gone with the King's sisters so my work is to stay nailed to where I am. We’re understaffed, sorry to say."

"Okay...where do I go?" He asks helplessly, though not expecting much that would help him.

Sooyoung suffices his expectations once she opens her mouth to reply with a, "Directions are confidential, I can’t tell you."

"Oh for fucks sake-"

"You’ll find your way. This is the royal palace please mind your language."

No I won’t mind it, he wished to bite back but the moment he sees a hallway with a thousand identical doors Doyoung knows he’s in for shit.

The King, he guesses looks every bit like an important person, he’s quite a revolutionary monarch as what papers speak from the dedicated columns they reserve for him on every page. He is a king, not without people who dislike him albeit a public favourite. Doyoung keeps no opinion of him, people who could live off with much less than they have are of little concern, he reasons.

So to say, he isn’t exactly thrilled he’s getting to meet the king. Sure, people dream of getting into the palace. But it’s really a normal building, quite like a rubix cube made of glass. Doyoung thinks Yuta could design something much more better– so it’s great that he’s getting the attention he deserves for his work. Doyoung understands how much the diagrams binded in his hand are worth.

After a third walk touching the four corners of the cube on the first floor, which was not open to the public, Doyoung catches the sight of the night lit city, stricken conscious that he needs to get home or else Johnny and Ten would worry.

Why is this place see-through again? He asks himself only to be standing before a door that led to the centre.

He pushes it, breath held to anticipate the element of surprise and he is very fascinated at the fact that in there is another world in there, stairs openly connecting the floors, mirrors before shelves of books illusioning space and the complex is a pleasant contrast from the outside monochrome because it looks vintage and fit for a king.

Doyoung walks around, it’s pretty dark, save for a few dim lights placed in the centre of the perfect square walls. Portraits of rulers on either side of the lights eye him inquisitively as he staggers from wall to wall.

Doyoung doesn’t bother paying heed to the paintings. His objective is to get some sleep before he can grill TaeYong the next day and for all of that, he needs to find the king.

Doyoung’s steps falter once he notices a man coming out from behind one of the shelves, holding a picture book that most certainly bears the image of peppa the pig and Doyoung chokes himself while trying to contain his laughter because it’s the King before him.

In pjs and holding a children’s book– he repeats in his head. Completely contradictory to what his royal blue suits guarded with gold had shown him to be.

And that valedictorian image just flew out of the window to Doyoung the moment he sees him, hair tossed, blue striped pyjamas a la mister meddle and who the fuck wears Santa hats with a jingle on the end?

The King stares back, his cheeks colour in embarrassment, it’s not like he’s good at hiding it; he’s also a commercial icon often praised for his pale skin.

"Uh..." the King drones and Doyoung straightens, the book almost flying out from his arms.

Even in the shitty lighting of the Victorian room, where the friezes disappeared into the dark ceiling, he could see that even though the picture of the king in striped pyjamas and a noddy hat with a children’s book is downright ridiculous, he can also see the outline of exquisite muscle poking from underneath the fabric.

Okay, pjs are now hot. Totally.

Maybe he never knew things out of television looked this good until the King dressed up like this happened. Since Do Kyungsoo interviewing him, he’s never met another celebrity up close, and even if he would, they’d have nothing on the King's visuals.

"The book, your highness," Doyoung says, arm protruding like a bad keyed toy mechanism reflex.

That ’ s it. Perfectly smile, shoulders straight. That ’ s what mum said when you visit the dentist or the king.

King Jaehyun looks to the book and then to the visitor. He’d been wondering why Yuta hadn’t informed him earlier that someone else was leaving the prints and guessing he might’ve just been joking, he had let the visitor in, thinking it would be Yuta.

The boy before him bites his lips before his mouth bursts into an enormous smile showing an excess of gums. The book hangs in between them, oddly the king is jittery for the first time. Something he’s never felt before even while addressing masses.

And here he is, too nervous to take a simple book without his fingers shaking.

"How do you know Yuta? if I may ask," The King inquires, taking the book nattily and walking away from Doyoung. Doyoung remains standing where he is, letting the King continue to patronize him since he's refusing to face him.

At least he could acknowledge me and stop being a bratty arrogant kid, Doyoung is quick to judge once the King doesn’t bother to look even show that he's listening while Doyoung explains how he knows Yuta.

He is so Miranda Priestly; what a waste of God ’ s good looks.

"May I leave?" Doyoung pipes up the most important question.

"Where did your honorific go, you must address me properly."

"You’re not speaking to me properly either,” Doyoung bites back and the King looks amazed. “You can’t just wander off while somebody’s speaking to you and well, you are younger to me I don’t see you addressing me with respect sire."

I take no bullshit from men in jingle hats.

"I am King," the King flares at him, nostrils bloated out and fiery rage emanating from his eyes.

"Are you going to use that as an excuse now?"

Within two minutes of meeting the King, Doyoung doesn’t realise how he could be exiled for sassing the King and frankly he believes that in his defence– he’s right.

Doyoung is always right.

The king fumbles over words and then hyperverbally erupts, explaining without much context as to how that isn’t an excuse but is relevant. And Doyoung couldn’t care less. Both seem to be equally feisty but his eyes are closing from the tiredness.

Doyoung’s eyelids are on the brink of closing to shut out King Jaehyun’s nonsensical ramble when he spots a red blink of light flash between them.

Panicking, he leaps on him, knocking him to the ground. "Get down!"

The next few barely perceptual things escalate in seconds. The sound of glasses breaking, the wall to the east end throwing bricks at them from amidst an inferno which blazed like an enormous red flower.

A brutal attack and Doyoung quickly rises to his feet, pulling the king with him to escape, coughing out dry air and moving rapidly to force away the slashes of heat on his face.

He's dragging him, hand held firmly and he doesn’t know how he could be saving this guy when it’s probably the latter who’s bulkier and more likely to save them but he follows him in silence as Doyoung finds one room which actually has proper walls, the library. He puts a hand over the king’s mouth holding him tight like a kidnapper until he hears footsteps. The king flails, jingling that hat and Doyoung throws it on a nearby couch. “Those are my bodyguards let me go!”

Still pressing the King to the wall protectively, Doyoung says through gritted teeth hoping he’d just shut up while Doyoung tried to get them out to safety. “How could you be so sure they’re your body guards dammit!”

The king turns them around his hands secure on Doyoung’s elbows as he traps him against the wall, the pitter patter of footsteps sounding evident against the sound of flaming fire consuming everything, leaving Doyoung shuddering from the close proximity as the king hovers over him, too hot for comfort. "How do I know you’re not a shooter either?"

"Really now? I jumped in front of bullets to save you and you’re being a complete thankless idiot! Are all you royalty like this and– leave my arms!"

Jaehyun hadn’t thanked Doyoung for jumping in and saving his life but he does think himself worthy of some thanks from Doyoung because the next second the room beside theirs blasts in a blazing fire and he luckily has him in his arms, convulsing pale and rolled him away from the floor just in time. Those weren’t footsteps, that was the stumbling of grenades. There is no common exit, he can hear sirens and the heat is making him lose focus.

Doyoung is shivering and frightened and Jaehyun feels responsible for all of this even though he could very well argue that it was Doyoung’s fault he came at this odd hour to deliver a book and lost his way around. Jaehyun holds him tighter, "They know how we're moving," but before he could think of anything, the room south to theirs blows up.

"Run you idiot," Doyoung mumbles before his features strain and he falls limp in Jaehyun’s arms. Jaehyun feels for Doyoung’s torso to get him to stand but when he looks at his palm that had just touched Doyoung, he’s shocked because it is bloodred.

He got shot because of me.

"Hang in there!"

Doyoung’s blood comes out in geysers making Jaehyun grip the wound with his palm, trying to stop the bleeding. There was a clock ticking inside his head, he didn’t know what it was for. But fortunately, he knew his own secret passages, constructed solely for moments like these.

“I’m not letting you go,” he says and gets down towards a sliding door, the thin railed staircase has a deep drop, but Jaehyun jumps four or five once he feels Doyoung panting in his arms, desperate to get some air and showing all signs of lifelessness. You need to stay with me, Jaehyun thinks, adrenaline almost pushing him fast enough to find himself in the back of the premises bordered with dense trees and he can’t run or else they’d shoot him but he can’t delay either because Doyoung is becoming paler by the second, breathing loudly and Jaehyun fears it might stop at some point. In Doyoung’s pocket, the phone vibrates and Jaehyun picks up, hurriedly.

“ Doyoung! Are you alright?"

"This is the king," Jaehyun breathes, "Doyoung is injured–bleeding and I need someone to fetch us from the Neoarian 4rth gate...to the hospital."

“I’m sorry it was my fault I’ve been a terrible mother, I never should’ve asked you to–” TaeYong stops speaking and weeps next to Doyoung almost wetting his hospital gown.

“Shut it TaeYong. You got me to the hospital and if we start with ‘never should’ve’s its all gonna round off to my mum should’ve never given birth to me and then any of this wouldn’t have happened. I’m glad you didn’t get shot in my place, had you gone.”

He’s glad TaeYong and Yuta are here in his shabby hospital room, the post-operative trauma was probably working wonders in one way; that being making him forget about the fact that he almost died saving the king of his country. He doesn’t want anyone coming in and telling him how he’s so lucky to have survived and how sorry they are. It wasn’t anything big now that Doyoung has a nice load of stitches running over his skin and a wound from a blow on the head. He does remember something about the King rescuing him or something but it’s all a hazy blur.

Yuta shuffles his feet beside TaeYong. And before he can apologise, Doyoung silences him too. “Yuta-hyung, it’s okay. I’m the dumb one here. But it’s all good, none of you guys are hurt.”

The door opens and surprisingly, Sooyoung from the palace enters, a part of her is burnt at the ends, and she looks equally tired. Seeing her gives Doyoung the relief that not many people would’ve gotten injured from the blasts. Sooyoung walks over to his side-table, making a little space and is nice enough to leave a flower in a porcelain vase but isn’t nice enough to say hi to his other two friends.

“All of you are leaving flowers left and right as if I’m dying,” Doyoung humours but Sooyoung keeps her stone face intact, “Those aren’t from me, they’re from the king.”

TaeYong and Yuta raise to their feet, “He’s here?” They sound shocked but Doyoung doesn’t want himself to react in anyway, he understands his need for rest although he can’t deny he does feel weird, the flowers from the king are weird. They look like ugly poison flowers.

Sooyoung looks down on the other two, her heels giving her the supplement of height, “Yes he is and he’s waiting for you two to leave–”

“WE’RE OUT–BYE DOYOUNGIE!”

And Doyoung sighs, regretting his decision of being friends with Lee TaeYong in the first place. He closes his eyes tight, applying as much pressure to his cornea as he could to rid his head of that piercing headache. He doesn’t hear the door open and shut, too focused on getting himself to relax after.

“I’m sorry,” he hears a voice say, Doyoung doesn’t open his eyes, thinking this was probably the end for him. He got slices on the stomach by a propelling shard of glass so of course he must’ve died by now, no question.

“God?”

“You can say that but in this world they call me Jaehyun the immaculate.”

Doyoung lets his eyelids fly open, there’s a glare already shaping itself but Jaehyun is smiling from over him, holding even more flowers.

“Goodness, I didn’t die. Throw them,” Doyoung says and Jaehyun doesn’t throw the flowers, proceeding to sit on Doyoung’s hospital bed, his fingers drawing circles on Doyoung’s leg under the covers. Doyoung never really realised when kings became so casual with commoners, Jaehyun is clothed comfortably in a black jacket over a red bon jovi T-Shirt and his mouth is curved into a sad, yet relieved smile. He also wonders when had he become so comfortable, words and small talk seem to be urging to be forced out when with him.

“Are you hurt?” Doyoung asks, concerned. Jaehyun looks up to face Doyoung, but his hand keeps playing with the covers, wandering inches from Doyoung’s free hand, bandaged over a minor cut.

“No, I’m not. Except for a few scratches here and there,” Jaehyun says, his voice bringing a fuzzy feeling to Doyoung’s chest, making him melt back into the mattress behind his back.

“I don’t know how to thank you. If there was anything–” Jaehyun starts and a buzzer goes off in Doyoung’s head. No you didn’t just say that.

“Look dude, I didn’t save your life because you are the king, I did it because you were the only person on that floor. Are you that same bratty prince who didn’t come to visit his mum when she was dying? And you’re here to give me an apology for what happened, by a lame medal of honour or something- I don’t want it,” Doyoung says spitefully, quite overwhelmed by how a person he almost took a bullet for is merely treating it as a light thing Doyoung was meant to do because he was a subject.

It ticks him off.

“Doyoung,” the King says and for a second he feels all his anger could disappear into thin air because of his voice if he continues, “Are you mad at me?”

Doyoung mocks a laugh, “Now this sounds too normal, are you really the king? Shit you’re asking me if I’m mad at you? I had a fucking glass cut through my abdomen because I was saving your royal arse!”

Jaehyun steers himself up, imperiously, and goes straight to what his officers might have told him to say in order to keep it on the safe side of the media for interacting with a complete stranger, “Is there anything-”

“I just wanted a job and now I'm stuck in the hospital with nowhere to live and nothing to live for and I might just fake depression and live here forever and make you pay for it I am so mad. You see how mad I am at you? How do you royal people sleep at night thinking of all the innocent lives that have been gone because you guys are too high and important–"

“You can say the same to every political figure too, are you really going to take your anger out his way? I’m trying to come up with compensation–”

“Then just go away,” Doyoung says, “I saved your life your highness. You needn’t repay me although you feel obligated to.”

Jaehyun walks to the door and turns back with glassy eyes, “You should think who got you out of a flaming building, equally risking his life, tied your bleeding self and got you a ride to the hospital; before you assume things.”

Heart laden with guilt, Doyoung watches the door slam, but the Jaehyun’s words and the sound of the door hitting its place kept echoing in his head for as long as he was in the hospital.

Once Doyoung is fine enough to get his freedom from shitty hospital food, he’s welcomed by the group with a celebration that’s so flashy it outshines Christmas. They find him a two room apartment, and even decorate the interior and everything for him. Doyoung gets emotional at the touching pictures hanging on the rows of threads, Taeil cries. In Doyoung’s room, there is interesting vinyl art by none other than TaeYong. Yuta helped fix the furniture while Johnny and Ten chose the place. Hansol couldn’t make it, he lives miles away anyways, no one blames him for that.

TaeYong stacked a lot of books in another room with ample amount of beanbags and lights besides coffee tables ‘for Doyoung’ as he said, but it really looked like he was planning to crash here whenever he could. Doyoung didn’t mind.

The king somehow had paved a way to his life but he was quite insistent on getting in. Doyoung constantly deletes his messages, whenever he can without reading a letter. It’s a favourite thing to do in leisure. The contact has a picture of Casper which is ridiculous, (and also creepy because when did he do that?) but he doesn’t opine on the king’s taste for cartoons.

A week in and Doyoung, notices the message he’d received from Hansol what seems ages ago, on the day of the accident.

Hansol-hyung

I’m thinking of letting the house go, the roof just fell off, you know that costs a fortune to repair. And there’s a ton of undiscovered rooms yet to fix. I don’t think I can do this. It’s best the royal authorities take care of that.

Albion may be miles away and his abdomen may pain a bit still, but Doyoung packs up his things to leave for the next day.

This shouldn ’ t be happening.

The crosstown buses are not a suitable choice for Doyoung, the road is bumpy and hence neither is car. They’d all induce too much nausea. Doyoung jumps the train, looking over the hills laden with forests hanging while travelling to his pastoral destination.

The last year in college was when Hansol, Taeil and Doyoung decided to renovate a rather ancient house that called to them when they we’re strolling when lost on a trip. Surprisingly cheap, it also happened to be a heritage site, not yet under the light but then they desperately wanted the experience of putting an effort to bring it back and so they started fixing it.

Apparently Hansol’s last text showed that he wanted to give up on their four year long project just like that.

First it ’ s Taeil-hyung, and now him.

Doyoung is attached to the house, he’s spent time and money on it, raised it like he would a child. It is the driving force behind why he needed a job and he cannot let wisteria and weeds engulf it and make it no less than the bushes in the road side.

More so, his recent incidents with the hashtag ‘royal’ haven’t been the best, he’s most certainly against the idea of letting the house go to those who didn’t even care about it in the first place.

Quite a needle through the thimble.

“Hey hyung,” Doyoung says when he finds him hunched over a carpenter’s desk, still sweating from the insufferable humidity of the place.

“Hi,” Hansol says quietly, getting up to give him a hug, making him flinch because the wound is still there. “You look good,” he says to which Doyoung replies sharply, “I always look good.”

Hansol laughs but it’s apologetic. Doyoung feels the walls of the place crumble away in sorrow of potential abandonment.

“Since you’re handing all the work to me–I’ll just take a tour myself,” Doyoung says, the words coming out colder than expected.

Hansol gives him a weak smile, reaching over to pat his head, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m sorry this house is why you’re delaying your engagement,” Doyoung says, smiling up as Hansol blushes.

The elder offers to walk him up the hilly terrain; he stacks their bags with building materials, knives and rods of all sorts. Doyoung stays in Albion for the latter half of the year, working against the cold chilly wind while Hansol stays for the earlier half. The work had been getting too hectic, with the weather always humid in the countryside. Frequently dismantling the wooden frameworks were also the cold evening winds.

“You sure you’ll be alright? I haven’t fixed the front porch and the garden, so there’ll be a ivy hitting your face every two seconds,” Hansol tells Doyoung once they reach.

Doyoung gives a nod before leaving him to wander around the parts of the house which still needed amends.

If he was a six year old kid, he’d probably run yards away with a presumptive fear that the house was haunted but it’s become a hobby for him. Doyoung keeps clicking pictures here and there; he’d get to Hansol’s place and thoroughly inspect them on his laptop.

Afternoon birds chirp as Doyoung continues ravishing the house, meticulous clicks ringing and making resting bats fly out from the darker spots. Hansol is gardening, Doyoung realises that he’s going to have trouble with that on his own since he’s not good with plants.

After a click to a beehive buzzing on one the decaying walls, Doyoung looks down to see how the pictures turned out. He catches a glimpse of a blue cape from the corner of his eye.

For the first time, although he isn’t six, he still feels like running yards away, consumed by fright.

He remembers Hansol wearing a black shirt and he most certainly had a belt like always to have his shirt from flying out, nothing blue.

Doyoung looks around, and cautiously begins retracing his steps, most of the place is dripping, with a veil of moss over stones, he’s got to be careful before he slips–

He slips and falls into a small pit, right when he undeniably sights the blue cape again, scared out of his wits.

“I thought my luck was bad,” Doyoung says out loud in annoyance. His voice reverbs in the slippery pit.

“I think you’re straight up cursed,” he hears a familiar voice say.

Doyoung waits for the kings face to peek from above, if it is the king and not some medieval ghost who happens to have the same sexy voice.

Doyoung slaps himself. I did not just admit that King Jaehyun’s voice is–oh it is him, never mind, whatever.

Jaehyun peeps into the pit and Doyoung is huffing, warm air filtering out through his nostrils.

The king remarks, “Oh hello there! Fancy seeing you in a pit!”

Doyoung tries not to remember how much he owes the king for saving his life and doing a lot of heroic shit that had all flooded back into his memory a few days after the accident. It wasn’t like him to apologise, besides if he did call him and apologise he would be pretty sure the king’s advisors would get him convicted for being inappreciative to him besides the obvious treasonable offence of spitting insults at him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Doyoung says, eyeing the king and he does have a blue cloth tied around his neck good lord it wasn’t a ghost.

The king flips his hair and Doyoung tries not laugh. He explains, “I came for a visit to my villa–”

“This is a cottage.”

“–cottage and also because...”

“You wanted to show off your new superman suit?”

“It’s a pleasure you noticed I’m wearing a cape. And superman’s cape is red not blue. I did not wear it for the likes of you to see.”

“It’s not like I care to be honest. I’m stuck here because of you, now help me up.”

Jaehyun sits down, legs folded, and then gives Doyoung his smile of mockery, “I’m actually thinking of conducting an experiment here.”

“Not interested in the least, your highness,” Doyoung says, trying to push himself up with the help of some stones on the floor of the pit. It isn’t that deep, he needs one big push and a hand that’ll be all. Unfortunately the biggest and most efficiently sized stone is right under where Jaehyun is sitting so that’s the last stone he’s be getting on.

“I’m thinking...how many insults you can actually come up with before I put a lid on this pit.”

“I haven’t even insulted you yet! And get me out you clotpole!”

Jaehyun pushes up his index finger for Doyoung to see, the smug look never leaving his face, “One insult down–”

“You are terrible,” Doyoung says and steps on the stone to pull himself upwards, he realises he can’t really reach and is expecting a fall once the mud underneath his fingers disintegrates but Jaehyun places a strong hand on his arms steadying Doyoung and hoisting him towards himself.

So close.

“I won’t let you slip,” Jaehyun whispers against his lips and for once Doyoung trusts this man enough to let him pull him to the top.

Doyoung’s heart beat drops, only to come back as a thundering sound, heightening his senses as he realises that his fingers are digging into the king’s thighs, he notices how afternoon heat makes Jaehyun’s cheeks rosy. Their eyes are locked, unable to look away, Jaehyun looks through his soul and Doyoung almost wants to ask him what he is staring so much at. He looks away once he finds himself staring at the king’s lips.

“Thank you, your highness,” he mutters hastily and speeds away, he feels he wasn’t acting like himself.

Hansol works though the evenings and assures Doyoung that he’d be fine on his own, finishing a few things and then he’d call him to take over the place. Doyoung sadly smiled and shook his hand.

“Did you meet the king?” Hansol asks with a reticent glint in his eyes.

“Trust me, I’m actually thinking that the king is a walking bad luck zone.”

Cinematic music is Doyoung’s favourite thing to listen to when walking down Albion, the trees and damp grass always provides him a picturesque scene to watch along. So when a car gives an unattractive honk from behind him, he finds his peace disturbed tremendously, shaken like an when Johnny knocked him out once.

Doyoung ignores, tearing up the volume on his iPod and walking faster, but the honker in insistent, the honks go from once to twice to one whole continuous blare.

Doyoung turns back to shout, “I’M NOT EVEN IN YOUR WAY WHY CAN’T YOU FUCKING DRIVE?”

Out of the blue, it’s the king’s Mercedes.

Bet he ’ s got a posh name for it like Louis or Paulo.

Doyoung cringes in the absurdity that is a king alone in the countryside and no security, completely ignoring that he’s wearing sunglasses in the rainy weather but that’s passed off because he has absolutely no dressing sense. Before he can think of creative ways to dispose off his body, the king interrupts, “I need you to drive me to my palace.” Even if it is a polite request the amount of suave he puts in when he says ‘my palace’ is like a spear to Doyoung’s ear drum.

Doyoung bites his lips and forces himself to look down, a car seemed much more comfortable that the brick hard seats of the train, so he agrees.

The sunglasses hide how Jaehyun’s eyes light up and another thing that Doyoung doesn't notice is that strange look of determination alighting.

I said I won't let you slip away.

“I’m Jaehyun,” the king says, enthusiastically placing a hand for Doyoung to shake before him. Doyoung looks bummed, quizzically alternating narrow stares to the king and then to his hand and how ridiculous everything was because they’ve fairly known each other, introductions we’re practically useless unless...

Doyoung gapes at the king’s smiley face.

Unless he was trying to make an acquaintance, but why would he want to associate himself with me?

“I already know that,” Doyoung says, proceeding to shake his hand and retracting it away after it burned- a good kind of burn which made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. “Kim Dongyoung.”

Jaehyun, (Doyoung felt much more comfortable addressing him as Jaehyun in his head) giggled a bit at that, making Doyoung almost run over a wandering goat crossing the road.

“You know Dongyoung...there is a debutante ball and I’d like you to go with me.”

Is his head alright?

“No chance. I can’t dance.”

“Well then, it’s your loss,” Jaehyun laughs and Doyoung curses inside yet again.

If I take my attention off the road, I ’ ll probably end up in the hospital or jail and I don ’ t want to. Not for this brat of a king. Not for his sickeningly beautiful laugh.

“Hey...but your friends don’t call you Dongyoung,” Jaehyun comments and Doyoung wants to hit his head against the steering wheel since he can’t contain the urge to jump him if he continues with that low toned voice that makes him feel like it’s running over his skin.

“Actually they do, when they’re making fun of me,” Doyoung says, “Could you be quiet I’m trying not to kill us both here.”

Jaehyun, who had expected a more heartfelt conversation, spent the rest of the ride looking out the window and staring at how the pink sky became black from the medium of purple and then blotted with stars. Doyoung tried not to think too much into it, the king was, no matter how accomplished, still younger– he could excuse him for being sad for being told off once in his life and oddly...

Doyoung does admit, after stealing two glances just to have the image of Jaehyun sleeping with sunglasses dangling down his side burns, imprinted in his memory; that he does find Jaehyun adorable.

The guards look very suspicious once Doyoung drives Jaehyun’s car past them, but they don’t stop them because it most certainly is Jaehyun’s car, with the fancy crests n all. “Hey. Wake up.”

Jaehyun doesn’t just wake up, he jumps up. Jumps up so bad that he hits his head from the glass. Doyoung laughs and almost opens the door for him to get out. Jaehyun immediately gestures him not to.

“Thank you,” Jaehyun says, taking his time to smile at Doyoung, he feels unrealistically energized after a long car ride.

Doyoung smiles back making Jaehyun’s breath hitch, it’s the first time they seem convivial, it’s the first time Jaehyun has seen Doyoung smiling honestly and naturally– it’s nothing like the sarcastic smirks or the gummy forced one.

Jaehyun likes it.

Streetlights from above them, created like vintage lamps tint the ground yellow and Jaehyun shifts from foot to foot, unable to meet Doyoung’s eyes, shying away.

Doyoung looks back at him, suddenly, “May I leave, your highness?”

Jaehyun should nod and let Doyoung go but then he just heard from Hansol that the cottage will be left to ruin and besides that, he doesn’t know when and where he’d find Doyoung.

“Come inside will you?” Jaehyun invites him to the palace, hand resting on the grill. Soldiers on the either side in the watch houses suspiciously look at them but really they are mushy over the scene.

“Oh no, too much happened in there the last time, I’ll leave you to face the danger yourself,” Doyoung says, almost wanting to punch himself for bad humour. The bombings had become a fast-fading blur; Doyoung doesn’t want to remember it.

“Very thoughtful,” Jaehyun observes, leaving him like that time he’d moved to exit the hospital room.

For some reason, it stings.

Doyoung knows it would hurt like last time if he left the conversation hanging like this. He doesn’t understand why he feels as if he has a lot to say to Jaehyun.

“You know I don’t mean that,” Doyoung confesses, making Jaehyun turn around. “I’m sorry I–I know it must be hard to be in a place where you never know when your life’s in danger and I–I thought you deserved my rudeness and I still do but it’s not my place to judge–” Doyoung stops to see if Jaehyun’s even listening to what he’s rambling since he looks stoned.

“You can probably execute me for being rude which I was–”

“I want to see you again,” Jaehyun says, interrupting him and Doyoung completely loses his train of thought. He smiles, somehow being a king means that they’re inept at the act of asking, so used to demanding. He smiles as if he doesn’t care how much trouble Doyoung got him into, first saving his life and then to find him when Yuta said he wasn’t at home and had left city earlier this morning.

Doyoung has no clue what Jaehyun is smiling so contentedly for.

“Keep a picture then,” Doyoung jokes but the king is dead serious. Turning to walk away, Doyoung thinks that’ll be all but he hears Jaehyun call for his chauffeur to drop Doyoung.

“I’m waiting,” Jaehyun says imperiously.

Doyoung hides his face in his hands and asks him, thoroughly embarrassed as he gets inside the car.

“You really don’t take no for an answer do you?”

A black tux has always proved to be a major fail for Doyoung, it does nothing to bring out the green tint in his eyes and his orange hair looks even worse when coupled with the combination of a white shirt with a bowtie.

Yuta comments he looks fine but TaeYong is downright sweating because he thinks he’s somehow responsible to the king for dressing his date up. So far, none of the resources they’ve pulled are nearly good enough and TaeYong gave up, going for a classic black tux in which Doyoung looked less weird than he did in the other suits.

Yuta’s eyes gleam and TaeYong sighs once they manage to get him properly dressed because the guy is really hopeless, he had precisely three suits–all for work.

It bothers TaeYong, “Don’t tell me this is the first time you’re going to a ball.”

Doyoung brushes threads off his shoulders nodding as he does so.

“What am I going to do with you?” TaeYong wails and Yuta rolls his eyes.

Very reluctant to let Doyoung go to the ball just because he wasn’t dressed to perfection, TaeYong still had to. Doyoung kept sighing as he entered the palace, wondering why all the maids were whispering and giggling, running away like school girls when Doyoung turned an inquiring eye to them. Shifty. This time, he knew his way around, the palace was closed for tourists; in the occasion of the ball that Doyoung doesn’t even remember the name of.

If there was something like ‘Citizens have a duty to go to the ball with the king’ listed in his fundamental duties he would actually have not been so nervous right now.

Doyoung catches a glimpse of himself in the glass. Oh gosh, I look terrible.

His hair is standing too up, he’s probably having the third static hair day, the tux fits snugly but he’s lean so to him it looks like a poor drawing of a stick figure.

Doyoung sighs. Too late to run back now. But he’s already prepared his speech to Jaehyun, knowing how things get when the two of them are left together, the palace burning down, Doyoung falling into the pit, friendly stupid conversations that make Doyoung’s heart beat at astronomical rates that can only be explained as a would be symptom of a heart condition...

Reciting his ‘I’m chickening out speech’, Doyoung keeps walking to the king’s chambers. “Your highness, number one, I can’t dance and you asked to come to the ball with you so once I reach there I will be free to find a corner for myself–”

“What?”

Doyoung turns to his right to Jaehyun, who is leaning on the wall and he almost swears because one, Jaehyun is undoubtedly infuriated, two, Doyoung very stupidly voiced out his thoughts loud at a wrong time.

And three, Jaehyun looks amazing.

The king looks every bit of a king, his cufflinks shimmer in sync with the precious stones sitting on his fingers, Jaehyun notices his hair is away, showing a high forehead and brown ringlets curling down gracefully and as if his perfect face wasn’t enough, the eyeliner was put to kill.

Doyoung stutters once Jaehyun moves slowly towards him, biting his lips and his eyes raking up and down Doyoung’s frame and he’s never felt so conscious of himself until now. Not even when he was running around his block in mickey mouse boxers.

“What do you mean you will find a corner? This is a social event!” Jaehyun says, flaming.

“Don’t be a lava. If you take me I’m probably going to make you look bad,” Doyoung says honestly. Jaehyun raises an eyebrow as if to ask why.

“Y’know you’re the king, who actually looks really good in old fashioned formals and I look like a hideous stalk ripped off the tree,” Doyoung explains and Jaehyun bursts out laughing.

Doyoung turns purple and then blushes red. “See? I told you I look weird. You probably–”

“You are hilarious,” Jaehyun says, looking at him with overflowing fondness, “You look perfect.”

Doyoung stares part appalled and partly amused, it’s Jaehyun’s turn to blush.

“I mean, you look perfect for the ball. Definitely not a tree stalk, come on,” Jaehyun corrects himself and spends a good twenty seconds looking eyeing some inarticulate thing beside him.

Doyoung zips his mouth and looks down, standing before the king gets more and more awkward each day. Jaehyun grins, “You’re supposed to say thank you,” he ushers.

Doyoung rolls his eyes at his cheekiness, sticking out a middle finger making Jaehyun laugh yet again as they descend the Victorian stairs before setting out for the hall.

Taeyong the great

I bet they kissed

Tenyson

Probably grabbed each others y’know what

Suh the Mighty

I second that

Dodo ’ s aren ’ t extinct

Gross Ten get out you’re worse than Taeyong

Yu senpai

Nah Taeyong's worse

Dodos aren't extinct

Taeyong if you don't marry him I'll marry him

Tea-yong

Back off kid. And for hygienic purposes please throw the empty packet of lube in the third dustbin I set up for you

Dodos aren't extinct

WHY DO YOU GUYS THINK I'M DATING THE KING WHEN I'M NOT!

Moon cakes

We don't think you're dating the king, we just think you two are fucking

Dodos aren't extinct

Thanks hyung. Very helpful.

Tea-yong

Taeil hyung replies once in 300 messages and he's still funnier than doyoung lololol

Yu senpai

Now I see why doyoung doesn't like you

Tea-yong

But you love me! I could fight with a real octopus to make takoyaki for you

Yu senpai

Please don't

Tenyson

Is anyone else who's bored with Taeyong's love life now that he's finally got a boyfriend after hooking up with a thousand people

Suh the Mighty

Yeah tae we're happy for you bro. Now shut the fuck up.

Yu senpai

A...thousand?

Tea-yong

Thousand’s just a number babe!

Dodos aren't extinct

Taeyong was a massive playboy in highschool through college

Dodos aren't extinct

I wonder how I still have my brain intact and not corroded

Tea-yong

Look at you acting all high and haughty just cz the king asked you to the ball

Tenyson

Don't forget us when you wave from the balcony

Suh the Mighty

Don't forget to repay us for all the takeouts we've gotten you

Tea-yong

Interest implied :>

Casper

I'll make sure he doesn't :)

Dodos aren't extinct

What did I tell you about emoticons? Use the colourful things!

Casper

But tea-yong used them! Why can't I? :(

Tenyson

Doyoung who's Casper?

Dodos aren't extinct

I forgot to tell you guys, I added jaehyun

Tea-yong

Please tell me this is another jaehyun and not who I think it is

Suh the Mighty

How is he just Jaehyun to you huh?

Casper

Is there another jaehyun?

Dodos aren't extinct

This is the king guys. Say hello.

Suh the Mighty

Goodbye

Tenyson

Oh my god

Tenyson

Did he see all my tweets about his abs?

Yu senpai

It's extremely dumb to point that out when he's in the chat

Casper

Yes I did! It's nice to know my workout is appreciated

Tea-yong

I think the king is cool doyoung get out we don't need you

Tea-yong

Your highness, might you do the honour of exiling doyoung to a Polynesian island please

Casper

That's against the law

Dodos aren't extinct

BUUURRNN

Suh the Mighty

I came back to say good night your highness, an honour to have you in the chat room

Casper

You too :) If Doyoung doesn't know things than who will tell me what ten was talking about grabbing each other's something? And why Doyoung's username is like that? :o

Dodos aren't extinct

Stop. Using. Emoticons. Jaehyun.

If Jaehyun would have asked Doyoung to ever add him to his chatroom, Doyoung would have blatantly declined because well, his friends emit harmful rays of idiocy that could induce an ox-killing migraine from metres. And that's exactly what Doyoung did when Jaehyun asked, so in turn, Jaehyun used his royal authority to force Doyoung.

Taeyong barges into Doyoung's apartment and begins to berate in a thousand ways why he's obligated to tell him what happened at the ball and whether Bae Joohyun wore this season's McQueen or something else– but he was dying to know especially of all things how the King ended up in their chatroom. He didn’t get how Doyoung was so buddy-buddy with him.

Doyoung gave up and began narrating. Taeyong flicked on his recorder.

The first thing Jaehyun did was to let Doyoung enter the car first. Everybody around them had stared.

"I'm not your date, Your Highness," Doyoung had muttered under his breath and Jaehyun smiled one last time to the crowds waiting outside the boundaries before answering jovially, "I didn't hear that."

The second thing Jaehyun did was to offer Doyoung his hand while they arrived at the hall, beautifully decorated and thankfully, also had its name lighted up before the entrance, lest he should feel the need to escape, Johnny's number already on speed dial (if he hadn’t put it on silent to make out with Ten)

Doyoung eyed Jaehyun's hand and looked at him as if to ask what do I do with it?

Jaehyun had read his thoughts and had explained, "Hold my hand."

"But why?" Doyoung wondered out whining.

"It's traditional, don't embarrass me," Jaehyun replied but Doyoung, hurt, retracted his frame, cowering away.

"I don't want to hold hands," he said and threw a resentful front. "And if you think I'm going to embarrass you, go alone." A body guard came closer alarmed at how Doyoung raised his voice.

Jaehyun pinned him by the shoulder, and apologised earnestly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

Doyoung hadn't even entered the hall and he had begun to feel out of place already. And he couldn't exactly be like this, he didn't have a book of posh etiquette for dummies. He looked at Jaehyun, nervously, eyes beseeching.

The third thing Jaehyun did was understand how Doyoung was feeling even if he hadn't said a word.

"We're not stepping into an iron maiden," he whispered soothingly. "You're going to be absolutely fine."

The fourth thing? Well just maybe the King decided it was alright to ditch tradition and escort dates inside with a hand around their waists and not holding hands like the olden times.

He felt refreshed, much less nauseated and an involuntary smile made its way to Jaehyun as he was pulled close. "Better?"

Doyoung smiled letting his own hand graze over Jaehyun's on his waist as he led them in.

The best feeling I've had so far.

The fifth thing had to be how Jaehyun immediately found them a private place on the balcony upstairs and before Doyoung could yell at him for treating him as if he was an embarrassment, Jaehyun shushed him.

"You didn't want to socialise right? We can stay here," Jaehyun said, grinning from ear to ear.

Dumbfounded, Doyoung stutters, "B-But you–shouldn't you be there? People expect you to be attending the ball!"

"And I expect them to understand that my date is quite exclusive and I don't want anyone else to dance with him," Jaehyun says cheekily, making Doyoung stare, astounded.

"So you are attracted to me, huh," Doyoung joked and it took a moment for the words to seep into Jaehyun's head.

The balcony made the view of the city seem like an arch. The tips blocked out the moon, Doyoung cursed how he had to bend forward to see it, but what is Gothic architecture without arches.

Jaehyun sat at one of white eggshell painted tables, the skyglow added a pastel light and there was refreshing wind in his hair.

"I wanted to make a friend," Jaehyun said to him, making Doyoung look back from the railing, "I'm only trying to be friends with you."

"You know that's impossible," Doyoung hisses, "You've got so much baggage...you have political responsibilities your highness, you can't afford to waste your time on me."

"I can afford to waste time on anything, I'm rich. What do you think we have prime ministers for?" Jaehyun counters but Doyoung doesn't laugh. The glass doors behind him show buzzing people. He somehow wonders why Jaehyun asked him out of all the noblemen out there when he's just an assistant designer out of a job.

"Is this your sick idea of Roman Holiday?" Doyoung says, irritatedly.

"I'm not following," Jaehyun says, in disillusionment.

"I don't understand why you're asking me to be friends with you when-when look, you're famous and everything okay? People are not going to be happy that you're friends with a guy who doesn't even have a fancy keychain to put on his car keys."

Jaehyun looked dismayed.

"I'm not asking you to be friends with my lifestyle, I'm asking you to be friends with me," Jaehyun sought, making Doyoung's heart leap in anticipation as he walked closer.

"But all of that is a part of you," Doyoung argued, "You're always going to be King Jaehyun."

Jaehyun takes a deeps breath and his eyes boldly meet Doyoung's.

"I'm that guy who walks around during night to the library because I can't sleep without an optimistic bed time story. I'm that guy who is still holding on to pieces of my childhood because I'm afraid of discovering new things, aspects of myself," Jaehyun spoke, verbose and nothing like the king who could only come up with menial quarrel monologues.

"I may be a King, there may be a crown on my head but that doesn't make me special, that just gives me a baggage, like you said. A baggage of politics, fame, wealth but never that one thing..."

Doyoung held his breath.

"...happiness, I've never really known what it's like. You, Doyoung, almost took a bullet for me and I may have thousands of bodyguards but none of them would do that. No one came to rescue me the day of the fire," Jaehyun weakly smiles and Doyoung is left with no choice but to stare at how he's so much like a glassed portrait, falling apart revealing it's natural hue and texture to see.

"At the end I'm just that guy who wants to know you. I've read how people give up their lives for things that I have, I've been shot before because somebody didn't want me to have the things I have but I just want to know you. Somehow I feel you don't expect me to be kingly, that's a first," Jaehyun says dryly, coming close beside Doyoung and leaning on the same railing.

"Don't hold it against me that I'm someone who's trying to find happiness in another way," Jaehyun confessed and Doyoung didn't have the pluck to turn away. His heart ached.

Doyoung reached out and squeezed his hand reassuringly. Jaehyun's gaze detached from the scenery to their hands and then to him, "What was that for?"

"It's traditional," Doyoung replied and Jaehyun smiled, it looked hopeful yet had a tinge of sadness.

That sadness disappeared once Jaehyun looked fondly at their clasped palms, moving closer to intertwine their fingers.

"And gentlemen, that was the ball. For those who genuinely care about me and not my familiarity with the king, I finally learnt the samba," Doyoung says, grinning proudly after he finished his narration. Taeyong clicks the recorder off. His face quite unamused.

"What is it TaeYong?" Doyoung asks, worried.

TaeYong turns back and gives him a presumptuous glare. "Nothing. I just realised that you don't see that the king likes you."

"Well I like him as well, he's not half bad of a friend," Doyoung says but TaeYong frowns.

"That's not what I meant Doyoung–never mind,” TaeYong shakes it off.

Doyoung looks blankly into his book. That's not what I meant either.

TaeYong snickers for no reason as he shuts Doyoung's bedroom door, pointing to the Tupperware box full he'd brought for him earlier, "I'm gonna go distribute cookies, tell me if I baked them right."

"Will do," Doyoung says, letting his body sprawl on his chair. TaeYong tsks as he runs down the stairs on a one man stampede.

Outside, it begins to rain once he arrives to the ground floor and TaeYong curses his inability to remember to have brought an umbrella.

He suddenly sees Yuta's car arriving beside the pavement, immediately making him smile.

"Are you even going to get in? The food might suffer y'know," Yuta shouts and TaeYong doesn't mind getting drenched if he gets to see Yuta smile like that from this angle.

"Have I told you I love you?" TaeYong asks and Yuta pulls his jacket off once he enters the car.

"Too many times," Yuta replies and TaeYong turns his face by the chin to press their lips together.

"Once more wouldn't hurt."

"This is HELL," Jaehyun groans, trying to drag his feet up the cursed hill which he thinks should be under scientific inspection since it seems to have a higher gravity pull. His feet have never felt heavier.

"No, your highness this is a hill," Doyoung comments from where he is already ahead of him. Jaehyun's attuned to the fact that Doyoung likes to call him highness as mockery.

"How do you even get up here?" Jaehyun asks running using up the last visage of energy and loosely falling on Doyoung's back. He doesn't think he can go further.

"Walking, you should try that sometimes," Doyoung says and steers ahead, leaving Jaehyun alone yet again. "Should've brought a car," he grumbles.

"Says the man who wanted to have a complete aesthetic experience...we're here!"

Doyoung runs excitedly though a gate hanging loosely by the hinge into what Jaehyun sees as a near-derelict house, familiar since he's been here a few times already but those visits were only compulsory, since he had to put a seal of approval on the projects they were wishing to fund. The house was so ruined, Jaehyun didn't want anything to do with it.

But now, now he sees Doyoung's dedication. He can see it in the way Doyoung shakes his backpack of his shoulders, calls up some workers and how he wholeheartedly has done enough for the house. He doesn't miss how Doyoung's eyes are resplendent at the sight of the house.

It just needs additions in a few places, otherwise it's good, he deduces.

He doesn't notice when Doyoung walks towards him, orange sun-kissed hair falling over his forehead, "I'm going to go inside. There's a sand pit over there if you wanna play," he tells him.

"Really now, sand pit? You make me a child Doyoung," he imputes.

"In my defence you are a child. You'll get bored," Doyoung says.

I could just watch you work, Jaehyun wants to say but he figures it would sound inappropriate even though that's what he'd be completely okay with doing the whole day. But he can't pass for a useful man without doing anything.

"Let me help you," Jaehyun offers. "I could put that horticulture degree to some use, there's a lot of plants here..."

"Oh thank goodness! I hate plants!" Doyoung yells in glee. Jaehyun's mouth falls agape, "You hate plants?"

"I mean I hate gardening but enough talking I'll get you Hansol-hyung's toolbox you are a lifesaver," Doyoung rambles and runs to fetch it.

Jaehyun's legs are in the worst condition and he isn’t really looking forward to pulling out unwanted shrubs but he figures it’s part of making progress.

He's enjoying something new. He doesn't hate it as much as he hates being told what to do in the palace.

Doyoung returns back with a huge box full of muddy instruments, a huge grin plastered on his face.

It's that gummy smile that makes Jaehyun think that agreeing to come with him was a good decision. He can't help but let it penetrate through his mind, it makes him feels lighter and happier.

"Do you like carrots or turnips?" Doyoung asks suddenly coming out after Jaehyun put his sweat into ridding a tiny corner of the lawn bordered with useless plants for an hour or so.

"Are you going to make me porridge?" Jaehyun enquires, sounding delighted with his own idea.

"No I want you to plant either of them," Doyoung says with a steel face.

"Bananas," Jaehyun answers disinterestedly.

"But bananas can't be–oh wait you don't want to work I see. Lazy arse. Fine. Go chase some pigs, shoo," Doyoung says with both hands on his hips and a worker’s apparel now huddled over his frame. Jaehyun shouldn't stare but he does because Doyoung seems to be unaware of it.

"Why would you go for growing vegetables anyway," Jaehyun remarks, confused. "I'm pretty sure this part was initially made for planting flowers, not as a kitchen garden."

Doyoung remains silent for a while, he presses his lips in deep contemplation and thoughtfully runs over words in his head. "When I first came here to work on this falling house, I mean when Taeil-hyung, Hansol-hyung and I first came here, there were a couple of locals who really welcomed us and gave us an idea about the landscape and climate before we actually begun. They always joked about how they always wanted a kitchen garden of their own someday,” Doyoung says and Jaehyun cannot rip his eyes off him, utterly mesmerized.

“They were really supportive people. We even stayed at theirs for weeks straight and they were nice enough not to throw us out. They wished to see this house back to how it was in the old days..." and Jaehyun notices how Doyoung's tone runs down into sadness.

"What happened to them?" He asks curiosity gaining control over his mouth.

"Avalanche," Doyoung says without a hint of emotion. Jaehyun knows that's the worst kind of tone, so completely devastated on the inside that it strips you of feelings.

"I just think this is the right thing to do before I give it up to the royal authorities," he continues. "This little patch is for them, and then I guess this house will deteriorate to dust and debris."

"I don't think we would do that–"

"The house has been rejected so many times for funds from the government–you precisely, I don't think anyone's willing to get it repaired and I don't have a job to finance this."

"But you've worked so hard–"

"It's life, really," Doyoung says, laughing without mirth, "You put your heart and soul into it but you have to let it go."

It tears Jaehyun apart to see Doyoung so crestfallen but then there's the clear-cut fact, if Doyoung has moved to a state of acceptance, there's not anything Jaehyun can do for him. No matter how much he wants to.

"I'll be finished in a few hours, it's not like you have to help me," Doyoung tells and Jaehyun's fist clenches and unclenches, wishing desperately that he'd know how much he's going crazy with the need for his company.

"And you should've brought a car to be honest, you can't take the train home and my car is a disgrace in the vehicle world to you," Doyoung says, his lips curving upwards. Jaehyun is quite confused, "What are you going to do then?"

"I...have an engagement party to attend to," Doyoung answers.

"Can I come?" Jaehyun asks and Doyoung's lips seal. "Why do you ask questions I have to say yes to? You misuse your royalty, your highness..."

"Can I come? As a friend at least," Jaehyun still asks, persistent as fuck and indifferent to the sarcasm.

When Doyoung was narrating the ball episode to TaeYong, he kept mentioning 'things' that may have seemed like paragraph separators but Doyoung was just noting the little 'things' Jaehyun did.

The things Jaehyun did that didn't just seem like normal acts of geniality. The things that made him feel like he was the centre of Jaehyun’s world. Doyoung didn't want to think excessively into what Jaehyun’s eyes wanted to tell him, he didn't want to know because he was afraid he would be laying a foundation for expecting something he doesn't even know he wants.

Jaehyun moves in a heartbeat, hugging Doyoung from behind and it's one of those things.

It's one of those things that make Doyoung feel like a dozen arrows of spontaneous affection hitting him.

"I really want to go," Jaehyun requests, squeezing him a little and the happy hormones explode in his chest. It's that feeling, although he cant pinpoint it.

"You'll have to go by my car though."

"Anything for you."

Doyoung's friendship with the king is in some way a mass of potentialities. He doesn't know what Jaehyun gains from being friends with a nobody, what he finds so fascinating about him when he's met intellectuals and probably people with a high wit quotient from every corner of the earth.

He doesn't understand.

Neither does it strike him that asking him why was a terrible idea until he does it.

Jaehyun arrives, dressed up and in secret to Doyoung's apartment. Doyoung pulls a beanie over his curled mop of poodle hair and shoves sunglasses over his eyes.

"I'm excited," he chirps as Doyoung dresses his face just like a masked vigilante. "You sound very excited, your highness," he says, fixing up his collar.

"Who do I have to congratulate?" Jaehyun asks and Doyoung let's out a laugh.

"The person getting engaged doesn't know he's going to get engaged, it's all a surprise so act surprised. I hope I can count on you to do that," he tells him.

"Of course you can. I'm the king," Jaehyun grins.

"Out of context."

"I do not understand you," Jaehyun observes. Doyoung's steps stop, he turns back to face him, the silence of the hallway is deafening. He takes the plunge, because his mind is forcing him to.

"You wanted to know me, has it helped?"

Jaehyun runs a hand through his hair, scrubbing it. "Yeah," he hears and it's vague to Doyoung. He assumes Jaehyun doesn't want to tell him more, he lets his eagerness go at that realisation.

"But I think there's a lot more to know," Jaehyun elucidates, stepping into his space and not letting Doyoung have a moment to stop him from letting his palm overlap Doyoung's cheek.

Jaehyun breathes slowly and to Doyoung it's like his senses have been amplified, he's getting everything, Jaehyun's cologne, his cheekbones prominent under the light from the fogging window above them, how Jaehyun's heart hammers audibly, the shift in temperature making his mouth part for more air because he can't breath when Jaehyun is pressing their foreheads, eyes wanton and suddenly expressive.

"I really want to know–do you feel this?" Jaehyun asks, his hold on Doyoung's face gentle enough not to hurt but strong enough to show he doesn't want to let go.

"Feel what?" He asks back, he hopes the dispirited look on his face conveys to Jaehyun that he should back off before their eyelashes touch and before he forces Doyoung into saying things like he wants him.

Which he fearfully does, he's accommodated this foreign craving for Jaehyun into himself, hazardous though welcome.

Jaehyun smiles, which is probably the most pathetic sight Doyoung's ever beheld, Jaehyun's smile is a sad dying flower speaking it's last wishes before wilting into air.

"If you felt it, you would know."

Thirty seven.

Thirty six.

Thirty five.

Thirty four seconds for the deadline to almost have been reached and Ten loses it.

"God Hansol-hyung aren't you going to propose?" he shouts, Johnny grips the table, saving it from flinging off.

With everyone seated at the round table in TaeYong's house, it was extremely easy for all to unanimously capture Hansol in a bone-chilling stare. Kun and Taeil were the last ones to reach, with Taeil in his musical reverie oblivious to the world with headphones. Kun shudders at the mention of Hansol. TaeYong cannot control his stupid smirk and gets elbowed by Yuta for breaking acting rules.

"Who's going to be proposed to? That's not fair no one told me–" Kun starts but then Hansol is already on one knee beside him.

While Hansol stumbled over his words many times before finally asking Kun in stuttering syllables to marry him, Doyoung realises he should really concentrate on this live showing of his hyung's engagement.

But all he can look at is Jaehyun, all he can think of is how only moments before a car ride back from Doyoung's place had he been impossibly close.

It's like a fleeting dream.

Jaehyun looks ecstatic, cheering along with the rest of them as Hansol slips the ring on Kun's finger and that smile he has seems as if he hadn't shaken up Doyoung's world with added leverage to that potential concept of them both together at all.

Doyoung forgets to clap as the confetti TaeYong had packed inside a self bursting Pokémon piñata falls down on them.

Out of the blue, his mind is battered with possibilities, he doesn't want this transition. He doesn't want to experience feelings, that too for a monarch who obviously has better interests.

Suddenly the idea of Jaehyun having somebody waiting on him is the most  unappealing thought ever, suddenly he wants to take Jaehyun to behind the mountain near the cottage, show him precious moments under the sky white with stars and make him know that he's special enough and maybe the feeling will refract. Suddenly, it makes sense to want to spend more time with him, why he was so drawn to Jaehyun even in his thoughts.

This isn't inertia, this is love.

A camera flashes him back to the celebration, Doyoung fakes a smile, and somewhere Jaehyun notices. He wants to talk to him but TaeYong puts an arm on his shoulder.

Don't, he's told. You'll make it worse right now. Leave him be.

Even though Jaehyun has been in the practice of listening to what others tell him to do, this time he's just going to listen, not follow.

He's reaching a breaking point, Jaehyun can see Doyoung's back and before he can ask what is up Doyoung drags him aside, "What?"

Button eyes look at him, inquisitive, imploring and Jaehyun stutters.

"I want to...to leave," he says, his breath on hold and it gets suffocating, nostalgic even, since Doyoung is next to a wall like he was the bombing day.

His heart jumps in fear. I could have lost him that night.

He's so thankful, he could cry. Imagination didn't serve its purpose when it came to envisioning a world without Doyoung.

Doyoung smirks, "Johnny and Ten snogging non stop already grossed you out?"

Jaehyun's eyebrows raise, "Profoundly," he enunciates. Doyoung chuckles before whispering, "I'll get the keys." Then he staggers off to the rest of the group shouting something like he needs to get him home before being executed for the treasonable offence of bringing him to party with cheap entertainment to which TaeYong shouts, getting laid aren't you?

Jaehyun can't conceal his smile. Happiness is like a butterfly perhaps, it comes when you least expect.

Doyoung walks up to him, "Sorry, they're disgusting." Jaehyun doesn't pay attention, his chest is swelling up in gratitude.

You are everything like the butterfly I would've wanted.

"No they're fine. I like them," Jaehyun says. And Doyoung wraps an arm around his shoulders, "You won't once they give you nicknames of an extinct bird." To this Jaehyun laughs, he laughs and feels complete. No hollow of regret in him.

I'm glad that butterfly came my way.

"Good night," Doyoung says, not getting out from his tattered orange car and waving half heartedly. Jaehyun purses his lips and gets inside again, making Doyoung flail.

"South side," Jaehyun says imperatively, and Doyoung gawks. Are you serious?

"Just drive!"

"Okay okay!"

Jaehyun's possessed, Doyoung thinks as he eyes him while driving from the side of his eyes, they're still in the palace area and Jaehyun looks oddly like sunshine. It's not dangerous, Doyoung thinks, as he drives him to the back of the cube box building.

Jaehyun points to an old fashioned fountain by the elongated pond and Doyoung stops. "I want you to see this," he tells him and Doyoung gets out, curious to see what exactly.

"When they buried dad, I used to come here a lot... spent most of my time alone because I thought I was putting people in danger because I'm king. That's why...I wanted to say thank you for including me today, I'm really grateful– your friends are fun people," Jaehyun says, looking up at the sky and it tints his white shirt a watery blue.

Doyoung joins him to sit on the boundary of the fountain. "Them? Idiots honestly. But yeah, wonderful people at the end of the day. And they are your friends too. They love you already."

Jaehyun smiles, looking at Doyoung and cool breeze hits them. "You don't have to tell me things to let me know that I'm not alone," he says, eyes piercing into him.

Jaehyun holds his hand, "Because I know I'm not. Not anymore."

He hopes Doyoung gets it. He hopes Doyoung understands what he's trying to convert, but there's an unutterable confession hanging in between–Doyoung feels as if he's being stifled. Too much.

He jolts his hand away from Jaehyun's, it hits against the cold air in pain. Not physical but completely another thing.

Jaehyun frowns speaking disappointedly, "So you don't feel it."

Doyoung turns around, averting his eyes from the garden but not quite meeting Jaehyun's as if it were lethal, "I figured you'd understand by now that I've no idea what youre getting at–"

Jaehyuns stomach keeps getting the sensation of being painfully twisted, "I apologise...maybe I just wanted–"

"Then make me feel it," Doyoung says, "Make me feel whatever you want me to feel."

Jaehyun opens and closes his mouth, confoundedly. "I dont think I can force you–"

"Tell me is it love?" is the question Doyoung asks and it is the answer to that, that Jaehyun is too afraid to give.

"Love," Jaehyun says, getting up to walk towards Doyoung and sounding every bit of a scientific cynic outsmarting an imaginative theorist, "is an unexplained phenomenon. I d-don't know...yet."

Doyoung hangs tough, his black orbs digging into Jaehyun's and he feels submissive all of a sudden, "Not until you've felt love, Jaehyun. It makes things clearer."

"I..." Jaehyun starts but never finishes. The garden gets swallowed by the sound of the water pouring out of the statue of Aquarius pouring water from her jug.

"Maybe if you stopped fighting against that compulsive instinct to ignore that you feel like you love me then it you would understand," Doyoung grumbles, so soft that it's barely a whisper.

"I don't know! Alright?" Jaehyun shouts, everything they're trying to figure out by saying irritates rather than explains and Doyoung gasps a bit at his anger.

Jaehyun softens, "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have yelled–"

"It's okay to not know. It's okay to not understand– you need rest Jaehyun, don't think too much," Doyoung says voices. You don't have to think so much about me.

Jaehyun stands before him, brows knitted and arms hanging loose by his sides. "Doyoung what is happening to us?"

"Nothing. We're probably just lost in translation."

We're probably bloody idiots, Doyoung thinks.

No...I'm an idiot. I'm a blockhead who is stupid enough to fall in love with the king, the unbelievable guy who walked around at night wearing ridiculous PJs, looking devastatingly handsome, sporting the deepest dimple I've ever seen.

I'm an idiot.

Doyoung breaks the awkward silence, "I'm going to be busy with Kun for a while, with the wedding and stuff."

"Alright," Jaehyun says and flexes in the direction of the palace. Doyoung guesses that's where he puts a stop to hanging out with the king. He can see the palace staff ignoring their work and watching, as if a drama is playing before them and it is pretty sick because all of this is a bad scripted drama. Doyoung walks back to his car, he's okay is what he prepares to say to TaeYong, but he's really not.

Jaehyun pressed his lips in determination and turns on his heel, running back to Doyoung, jerking him off the ground in a hug. "This doesn't mean goodbye, I hope," he says under his breath after squishing the life out of him.

"No it doesn't," Doyoung says, pulling Jaehyun firmly once he puts him down, just so that he could return home with the fragrance of his cologne embalmed into his own jacket. Jaehyun hugs him, his breath warm against Doyoung's neck, he spends time nuzzing the skin left uncovered by Doyoung's sweater with his nose and Doyoung, though slow to adapt, holds on, arms cradling Jaehyun's head.

I'm holding you but the thought of leaving makes me miss you already.

Once a Siberian king had a tradition to give gifts on his birthday.

TaeYong and Yuta decided to spend Valentine's day watching sasunaru fanvids while cuddling on the couch, Hansol and Kun were on a honeymoon part two, Johnny and Ten we're making out like always, Taeil was busy composing something— this left Doyoung alone, but not that alone.

King Jaehyun wanted to follow up, immensely inspired by the tradition, he decided that getting Doyoung on an hour long drive with a blindfold on was the best way to cover up a surprise.

"Where are you taking me, your highness?" Doyoung asks and Jaehyun raises a hand to quiet his driver from answering.

"If I wanted you to be aware of it, I'd have taken the blindfold off," Jaehyun says quietly, trying to look out of the window to stop himself from staring at the man beside him because Doyoung in a blindfold was already doing slipshod things to his system.

"This is probably your kink," Doyoung says and his voice melts into Jaehyun's ear. Gosh, this is not helping at all.

The bumpy ride is driven at varying speeds and Doyoung can't really guess where they are, having lost track of turns and traffic stops. His count and visualization was steady, until Jaehyun began to speak and the setting in the stuffy car was making things uncomfortable.

"Stop the car right there please," he hears Jaehyun speak and feels the car hauler gracefully.

Thank goodness. I thought I'd be flung from my seat.

"Are you beheading me?" Doyoung asks curiously and Jaehyun doesn't reply, turning him by the shoulders and just telling him to walk. The blindfold is big enough to cover his nose for the most part, and he still can't figure out where he is.

"Slowly open your eyes," Jaehyun says like a they're at séance.

"My eyes are open your highness, just get the damn blindfold off," Doyoung answers and Jaehyun does as he's told.

And there, before him is his little cottage, no longer a derelict building in ruins but now absolutely complete. Doyoung is struck dumb in awe, he leaves Jaehyun behind, wandering closer. He pinches himself five times. This can't be. It looks so beautiful.

Jaehyun warbles from the back, "I added the kitchen garden bit but justice for flowers so flowers are at the back, I got another garden constructed. Liking it?"

Doyoung leaps on Jaehyun, and Jaehyun luckily catches him, returning the hug.

"Thank you, I–I don't know what to say, just thank you," Doyoung says, Jaehyun's eyes are shining in this silent sunshine and he's pretty sure he himself is crying.

I love you. You made a dream come alive, I can't love you more than I do right now.

He wants to rip his lungs out screaming that he loves him but he's caught up in how Jaehyun smiles, a most content smile playing upon his lips.

"Well there's one more thing," he says and his hands move down Doyoung's sides in a way that makes Doyoung mad with how the man he loves is a complete tease. "You can divorce TaeYong, someone wants to film a drama here, and I guess you can keep it open for tourists now– congratulations."

Jaehyun says all of these things like it's the most casual thing on earth and he has absolutely any idea about how much all of that means to Doyoung. He hugs him tighter, clicking them together.

"Thank you," he says over Jaehyun's chest and Jaehyun embraces him, softly rubbing his back.

"And this is the part I kiss you," he whispers and Doyoung looks up, quizzically, "Jaehyun your staff and guards are here..."

Jaehyun grins, "Speaking of which, could you film this Sooyoung-ssi?"

Before Doyoung can even let out one sound in protest, Jaehyun's dipping the hell out of him, those lips over capturing his own and had he not been occupied with the enlivening kiss, he'd probably be screaming god yes.

He tastes sweet, Doyoung finally gets a touch of that brown curled hair as he lets his fingers course through it. He gives in to this feeling because it feels like he has everything. Jaehyun pulls away, looking breathless and eyes slightly savage, and Doyoung swears he has never been so obsessed with anyone's lips before.

"Is this the part where you tell me–" Doyoung starts only to have Jaehyun cut him.

"This is the part where I give you the keys the the house," he tells him and then sheepishly adds, "which is where we're probably going to stay for a long time."

Doyoung beams and pushes the key in with Jaehyun tailoring behind, hands interlocked because they never left.

Years pass, Doyoung and Jaehyun spend most of their time throwing pranks on the royal staff, Sooyoung assists, she's grown kinder to Doyoung and turns out she's got a lot of Vinyl records Doyoung loves listening to. TaeYong doesn't have the guts to ask Yuta to marry him so in the end the whole group does it for him, shouting after Yuta won a alumni soccer meet, "WILL YOU MARRY TAEYONG" sounded terrible against the backdrop of sweaty soccer players and hollering spectators but that one look of happiness on Yuta's and TaeYong's faces had been worth it. Hansol and Kun decided to assist Taeil in his studio, the album that was already good turned amazing.

If one would ask Doyoung if he had any regrets to enter the palace when he was jn the hospital, he would have answered affirmative. But now, as he stares at the rose gold sitting on his finger, he would say, "Regrets? What regrets?"

He's had no regrets, and he knows he'll have no more. He doesn't regret the night he decided to help TaeYong by delivering the book. He doesn't regret getting a glass piece inside his abdomen even though the scar still hurts. He doesn't regret any of the moments, good or bad or confusing, spent with the king.

There's hope, a promise and the thrill of what's ahead, Doyoung thinks as he takes Jaehyun's hand before they step into their home.

And as for Johnny and Ten, they just made out.