𝐫𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐲•𝐣𝐢𝐡𝐚𝐧

twenty

a/n: aha plot b time

LEE CHAN spent most of his nights on the balcony located inside his room. sometimes, he looks down at the garden and pinpoints nearby buildings, but sometimes, he's looking at the sky. either he's looking out for any shooting star, naming all the stars present in the night sky, talking to his deceased mother and father, talking to suhae.

yes, suhae.

to say that the youngest prince was fond of min suhae is an understatement—chan loved her very much. honestly, it wasn't too much of a pain finding out that suhae was getting wedded to jeonghan, since chan knew there'd never be a way to marry the girl she likes and that he can get used to his brother being with his beloved. chan promised himself that he'd never cry for love.

how funny, promise? it was just useless when chan broke it so easily, after seeing suhae die in front of his very eyes.

he did not even get the chance to hold her as she slips away. would chan even have the guts to hold suhae in front of those people, anyway?lee chan had always admired suhae from afar, and suhae barely knew him. chan knew that it would be unexpected for him to hold her as she wilts.

it was saddening that the prince fell in love so easily with a girl who he spoke to and laughed with a few times. one could even count it with their ten fingers.

"your highness," a guard calls out, making chan turn his head to the door's direction. he finds choi seungcheol standing there, along with the landscape artist whose name chan forgot. the landscape artist scurries out immediately once he saw chan. "do you want to join dinner?"

with a sharp glance, chan firmly replied. "no."

seungcheol nods, eventually stepping inside the room and closing the door behind him, though he had just rejected the invitation to dinner—when that was the sole purpose of seungcheol's appearance in chan's room.

chan didn't seem to care, like it was a normal thing—when chan usually prefers being with his brothers or spending his time alone. ah, well, seungcheol thought wrong because chan cared. he wanted to cry, but he can't, because seungcheol is here. chan wanted to tell seungcheol off.

"your highness, you know, before i took up training for security, i was a psychology student." seungcheol walks to the balcony, with his hands behind him. he stops just right behind chan's chair, before he continued. "i may not be in the right place to say this, but it's okay if you vent out your frustrations on me. only if you'd like."

seungcheol thought that chan didn't like the idea, since the prince grimaced and knitted his eyebrows(probably in annoyance) after seungcheol spoke. seungcheol obviously read the prince's mood and he can't anger a royalty too much or he'll be fired—so, he turned around after saying: "very well. i wish for you to cheer up, your highness."

seungcheol heard the prince grunt along with some rustling in the background while he walked away, and the next thing he knew was that the prince was yelling at him.

"seungcheol-ssi!" a deafening yell, automatically making seungcheol stop on his tracks. he was ready to pack his things and move to a barrio and change his name so he doesn't get humiliated after the youngest prince expulsed him—

"c-can i hug you, seungcheol-ssi?"

it took seungcheol a while to process chan's words, eyes widening and mouth falling agape. that request didn't exactly come out of nowhere, but seungcheol didn't expect it, so thus his reaction.

and, once seungcheol got a hold of himself, seungcheol mutters a 'yes'— and, warning, the next things that will happen will be exactly like the cliches that seungcheol always sees in movies and books.

after granted permission(wow, the roles are reversed now?) the shorter back-hugs him. odd for a prince to randomly hug a guard, but anyway, anything for the prince. and, maybe, it also was comforting for seungcheol—but now's not the time for that. seungcheol needs to set his feelings aside to focus on the prince.

"your highness, i will turn around." seungcheol warns, before turning on his heel to hug chan properly.

as seungcheol's big pair of arms wrap around chan, the prince feels an overwhelming sense of sudden warmth that was brought to him both externally and internally. who knew, that an embrace from a choi seungcheol, could help the prince greatly?

it was a great coincidence. chan wondered if in another life, he and seungcheol were related deeply for his embrace to feel so comfortable that it reminds him too much of home.

hey! what if, chan were still a prince in that life, and seungcheol was some kind of worker in the lower class, and they cannot be together for long because—

"that's it, your highness. you can cry all you want."

huh. maybe it was time to stop thinking about their past lives, so seungcheol intervened in chan's thoughts(unknowingly). anyway, chan hadn't realized that he was already crying on seungcheol's suit—but chan doesn't stop. it felt nice venting out your emotions in the cozy embrace of choi seungcheol.

"suhae reminds me of marius. do you know who marius is?" chan asks, hoping that seungcheol knows the character even if the courses he took in school were totally unrelated to literature.

and, thank the heavens, he knew what chan was talking about. "ah, lès miserables? that's my favorite."

chan felt himself slowly smiling, finding the first similarity between him and seungcheol. they both favored lès miserables over anything.

"my favorite, too." chan chortled(more like choked on his sobs) and pulled away softly, looking up to meet seungcheol's eyes. "yeah, and i'm eponine or something."

worriedly, seungcheol replies. "but eponine's supposed to die."

"nope! suhae died," chan remarked, which resulted to both of them getting into a laughing fit. it was gross, honesly, snot getting on your lips as you open your mouth wide to laugh. chan wanted to stop and wipe his face first(since a prince is not supposed to look like a sobbing mess in front of anyone), but he didn't. he didn't want to ruin the moment. he can do that later.

"anyway, i thank you very much for the.... hug. i appreciate it." chan adds. "i promise that i will deal with my own problems alone next time."

"ah, no need to worry. it's not always that we can face problems alone, sometimes we need a little help. you can call me anytime, your highness, and i'll be at your service." seungcheol curtsied over dramatically to joke with chan, before turning around to leave with the sound of chan's laugh playing again and again in his head.