SPOILT ROYALS | JAEYONG NCT

19: A Week Alone

It was weird now being in a relationship, Taeyong thought, but most importantly, it was new. Everything felt entirely different, from their words to their touches to the way their eyes lingered on each other. Donghyuck had told him it was so cute that it was sickening and honestly, Taeyong would agree. They had tried to keep everything under wraps for both of their sakes, Jaehyun because he was a Prince (and Taeyong didn't exactly want the King and Queen to have his head chopped off), and Taeyong because if Haein got wind of it he might have used it against him... Haein was a problem in and of itself but he chose to pocket that thought for another time.

The keyword in all this was tried because they couldn't help but giggle at each other like lovesick fools all the way to Jaehyun's chambers. Well, Taeyong giggled, Jaehyun was too busy wrapped up in him to be laughing at Taeyong's (not-so-shitty-but-not-funny-either) jokes.

"You seriously don't like the name Muffins?" Taeyong leaned over to him, his laugh spilling out of his the space between his fingers. "What's so wrong with it?"

"What is with your obsession and naming me after food?" Jaehyun frowned, Taeyong had awful nicknames for him. He worried for (their) future child. "What if I called you sweetpea? Or lemon? Or beans on toast?" Taeyong rolled his eyes at the last one. Sweetpea seemed nice enough though. "I'm a man - a Prince lest you forget. Jaehyun the great, Jaehyun the mighty? Your picks are terrible."

Taeyong wound his eyes shut, despite the arrogance that clearly fueled his choices (which were just as bad, if not worse than his, in Taeyong's correct opinion), the Prince was onto something. He could work with Jaehyun. He said it silently at first, rolling the letters off his tongue as he walked over and sat down on the Prince's bed. Jaehyun went on to collecting some extra things he had placed in places where the palace maids wouldn't have dared to reach.

"Jaehyunnie.... hyunnie... honey!" Taeyong's eyes lit up and he clicked his fingers. "I'll call you honey."

Jaehyun grimaced at the name in efforts to mask how he reveled in the sound of it. He wouldn't normally have been such a fan of it either but something about it appealed to him, at least when it came from the nectarine lips of Taeyong. It melted him just a bit, making him soft and smooth, buttery under Taeyong's words. But all of this was masked with a scowl because how else could he keep himself from falling too hard, too fast?

Jaehyun looked away as if contemplating before grumbling a low, "It shall do, I suppose."

And Taeyong grinned from ear to ear. Even with Jaehyun's evasiveness he could tell that he had liked it if his cherry red ears and puckered lips were anything to go by. And he found it crazy to think that he knew these things, knew the small changes in posture, tone, expression that he could well enough tell what Jaehyun was thinking. The thought startled him, just how much he knew.

Taeyong watched as he retrieved some of his things but was unwilling to let him go yet; A conversation maybe, he needed to come up with anything that would draw out their time before the Prince inevitably had to leave - Well, his boyfriend, had to leave (and in spite of the unease, he giggled to himself like a schoolboy).

"We're official now then," Taeyong said wistfully. "The last step was pet names."

He leaned back into Jaehyun's inviting mattress, soft to touch and pliant underneath his fingertips. The sheet was ruched in a certain spot, not at all neat, clean, tidy like the rest of the room, sorely out of place. Taeyong's fingers brushed over the bunched fabric and the reminder of yesterdays (almost-nearly-sort-of) happenings caused his face to burn. And somehow, it was always as if Jaehyun knew what he was thinking.