Royal Temptations

Bonus Chapter 7

I'm finally going to do that idea I mentioned three chapters ago. It's... A but different than the rest of the chapters. You'll quickly see what I mean.

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Baekhyun's POV

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While I definitely appreciated the fact my best friend was off across the world getting himself the love of his life, the least he could've done was bring me with. My palace offered no entertainment to me anymore, not after traversing the globe over by Junmyeon's side. Though I did miss seeing mother and father, and being back in their presence was comforting. There were only two people that could complete my perfect little picture. Though the likelihood of seeing either was slim to none.

Kyungsoo I understood. We'd finally reconnected after several months of silence, and Kyungsoo merely told me he'd been studying abroad for awhile and didn't want to upset me with the news. In many ways I understood his twisted logic. In other ways I still felt hurt over the fact. But it was what it was. He said the next time he found himself in Seoul he'd make the trek down to see me and explain better in person. I tensely told him I'd look forward to it. We talked in scattered conversations now.

But Chanyeol... Damn it all I fucked up so bad with him. Park Chanyeol was the son of a multi millionaire inventor (what he invented, I never could figure out. Chanyeol never said). We met when father drug me out of the house to a convention for the rich and noble, where all anyone did was swap stories and drink way too many fruity drinks. I'd been ready to blow my brains out. Or strangle myself with my tie, whatever happened first. Then Chanyeol quite literally fell into my life, tripping over his own too large feet and crashing into me, toppling us both. He was clumsy and apologetic and adorable and my heart damn near stopped the second I laid my eyes on him.

We discovered many shared interests between the two of us that night. A love of older video games and counsels. A mutual loathing of the positions that lay ahead of us in time. Chanyeol didn't have the same savvy with plants as I did (mother always claimed I'd popped out of the womb with a green thumb), but watching the way he handled the tiny seedlings like they were the most fragile things on the planet always spread a warmth through me. Chanyeol was goofy, sweet, lovable, cuddly. Overall a good person.

I'd been so hopelessly smitten with him it wasn't even funny.

Junmyeon made it look so... Well, not easy, per se. Effortless. Loving Yixing came so natural to him, like he'd never thought of doing anything else with his time. He made it seem like it wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe that was what pushed me into suddenly diverting his attention away from the game and kissing him. Junmyeon and Yixing made it look so flawless. It couldn't harm anything, right?

I doubted I'd ever forget the look on Chanyeol's face afterward. He sat, frozen, his mouth slightly open and eyes wide. The controller tumbled from his hands and onto the floor, long forgotten. He opened and closed his mouth like he wanted to say something to me, but no words came out. Something flashed across his face, a look I still couldn't decipher, and he was on his feet in an instant. Then he bolted. From my room. From my home. From me. I sat in my room so long after that, slowly breaking, wishing I had someone to talk to but not knowing where to go. Why did everyone good in my life have to leave me? We still hasn't spoken properly, several months later, aside from a random text reminding me not to miss this event or that gala or a million other things I didn't care about.

"Baekhyun?" I glanced up from my sketchbook, arching an eyebrow at mother framed in the doorway. She leaned heavily to one side, a small clay pot between her hands. She presented it to me. "The beginnings of a new cherry blossom tree," she said proudly.

"No way!" I exclaimed, throwing my book aside and springing up. "We've been trying to get them to take for years. How'd you do it?" Mother's lips upturned at the corners. I strode across the space and peered down, taking in the tiny sapling. I gently brushed my thumb along a little branch. "How'd you do it?" I repeated.