halcyon || seungjin

07: So Soon

When Hyunjin hears that his parents are back, he's with Seungmin. It's unfortunate, he doesn't want Seungmin to have to watch him sharpen up, the muscles and ligaments in his body pulling themselves taught and his eyebrows knitting together as he processes the news. He wants to be happy with Seungmin. He is happy with Seungmin.

"I'm sorry, Seungmin, really. I need to go. I'm sorry." Hyunjin wishes he hadn't left Seungmin so soon. He could have held off for two minutes more, maybe three, before charging off and locking himself in his room, ignoring Changbin and Chan's knocking on his bedroom door while curling himself in his sheets and trying to slow his breathing. He could have spent a few more minutes in peace, learn a bit more about Seungmin's favourite childhood games, watch his face light up as he'd recall his innocent years of playing in the rain and mud with other kids.

But he's on his own now, and his parents will come seek him out any second, wait an hour if he's lucky. Their first priority is always to terrorise Hyunjin with new ally relationships to maintain and new people to meet, new responsibilities to attend to and new classes and subjects to pick up.

He hears his door click open, Chan voices out a your highness, instead of the normal Hyunjinnie, and that's how Hyunjin knows they're ready for him.

In the throne room, the ceiling is so high and the walls are so far that it echoes like a cave.

"Hyunjin," the King's voice booms through the room.

"Hello, father, mother." Hyunjin kneels before his parents in their dual thrones.

"Take a seat."

...✦

"This is stupid," Seungmin mutters to himself, his hands sweating and becoming torn from the rough bricks, "so, so, stupid."

He's never been much of a climber, aside from the trees he'd clamber up in his youth, and scaling the palace walls is much more difficult than he'd anticipated it would be. The bricks are barely elevated enough for Seungmin to use as foot and hand holds, and a fall from any height would surely leave him with a broken neck at best. His shoulders and back burn, the palms of his hands cry out in pain, and his feet slip enough times that he decides it's easier to just kick his shoes off, but he's almost there.

"Even if you wanted to try to see him, you won't be let into the hall. If they see me let you go any further, they'll throw you out and the chances are I'll get in trouble too." Chan says to Seungmin empathetically. He can see Changbin standing perfectly straight with a spear in one hand, next to Hyunjin's room at the far end of the royal family's sector of the palace. Minho mirrors him outside the door next to Hyunjin's room, expression glazed over and empty.

"Can you tell me how he's doing, at least?" Seungmin is basically begging, at this point. He knows he sounds desperate. He doesn't know why he's desperate, why he feels such a strong need to check on Hyunjin. They've barely just become friends, but Seungmin is starting to care about Hyunjin too much for his own good.

"He's not doing the greatest. I saw him an hour ago when I brought him dinner and he refused to let me leave his bed until my post changed. Whatever his parents told him, he's not taking it well."

Felix warned Seungmin not to seek Hyunjin out. Chan is warning Seungmin now. The split second of eye contact he makes with Changbin warns him not to go. Jisung would definitely advise the same. But Seungmin chooses not to hear any of them.

He grabs onto the cool metal railing once he reaches it, its intricate swirls and spikes of metal digging into his hands as he makes a final manoeuvre, heaving his torso over the railing and landing on the tiled floor of the balcony with a thump.

The curtains are closed when he approaches the doors, but a light can be seen dimly shining behind the fabric, so Seungmin knocks on the glass panes. Almost immediately, the curtains are pulled back, the speed of the movement causing the curtain rings to screech against the metal curtain rod, and Hyunjin stands in a defensive position behind the glass, a paintbrush held in one hand like a knife ready to stab, despite the fact that he looks tired with puffy eyes and a red nose that indicates that he might have been crying.

As soon as he registers that it's Seungmin, he looks... shocked? Scared? Seungmin can't read him. At first, he thinks Hyunjin might not open the door, which means he scraped up his hands and feet- and worse, disturbed Hyunjin- all for nothing, but then the glass door slides open and Hyunjin engulfs Seungmin in a hug faster than Seungmin can blink.

"How did you get here? What are you doing here?" Hyunjin asks next to Seungmin's ear, not with hostility but something like relief.

"I, um, climbed the wall," Seungmin stands unmoving, about to wrap his arms around Hyunjin too, but the prince backs up, looking down like he feels like he's overstepped some boundary. He hasn't, Seungmin wants to let him know, so he gently grabs Hyunjin's hand and walks him out onto the balcony. "I've heard it's really hard for you when your parents come around. I wanted to check on you."

"That's..." Hyunjin's voice is shaking. Seungmin rubs his knuckles so softly that he doesn't think Hyunjin can feel it at all, but he's scared to even touch Hyunjin because he sounds so delicate, his voice wavering like he'll burst into tears at any moment. "Really impressive." Hyunjin looks at him like he's sizing him up for a moment, eyes scanning up and down Seungmin's body. "And that's also really thoughtful, Seungminnie. My parents would kill you if they knew you were here." The prince lets out a breathy laugh, to Seungmin's surprise, and smiles up at him.

"I'm not too concerned. I'll use my pruning shears to defend myself." Seungmin smiles back.

"Of course you will. I've never seen anyone wield gardening tools as skillfully as you do."

"I'm not the head gardener for nothing." Seungmin sticks up his chin and puffs out his chest for the bit, but then looks back down to meet Hyunjin's glossy eyes. "So, are you like, okay?"

"Obviously not," Hyunjin sniffles, smile disappearing as his eyes water up again, "my parents really dropped a bomb on me today."

Seungmin hums, waiting for Hyunjin to continue, still rubbing his thumb over the ridges of his knuckles.

"I knew they would eventually bring this up, but I didn't know it would happen so soon,"

"What would happen so soon?"

Hyunjin exhales shakily. "I'm engaged."