What if I did an incredibly evil thing and DIDN'T write part 4 yet? How mad would you be? Probably enough to send me to an early grave. Will I do that? Well who knows.

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Li Jie's POV

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Wait, what? DaeHyun...kissing me?

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DaeHyun's POV

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A pair of hands on my chest confused me for a second, but soon enough I was being shoved away. Li Jie backpedaled fast, bumping into his bed and sittimg down, staring up at me with eyes as large as dinner plates. I swallowed down the bile climbing my throat and faced him calmly, nothing on my face betraying the torment I felt inside (you got good at that being a prince after all. Always look good for your people). For a long, long time neither of us said anything, the tension filling the air so thick I nearly choked on it. I jutted my chin out, practically daring him to say anything.

"Sire, I..." he began, but I cut him off quick.

"Don't 'sire' me," I demanded, hoping it sounded more like an order and less like a plea. "Not right now." The servant part of him jumped at the chance to obey my orders. The friend part of him, though, looked two seconds from bolting out of the room. "That...wasn't what I was expecting," I added quietly, the weight of my actions finally slamming into me. I buckled, and Li Jie jumped up and helped steady me. "God Jie that wasn't supposed to happen at all." He guided me to his bed and helped me sit. He sat beside me, though now there was many centimeters between our bodies when a few days ago there wasn't. It was almost enough to drive me to tears.

"What did happen?" he finally asked me, twisting so we were face to face. "What was that Dae?" I closed my eyes and said nothing, not trusting my vocal cords to work anymore. My silence must've been enough, because I felt him rock back. "I... I'm flattered DaeHyun. Really, I am. But I don't... I don't like you that way. I'm sorry."

No.

No please.

"Okay," I said, wincing when my voice cracked over the word. "Sorry for bothering you."

"Dae..." But I didn't wait for him to finish. My body carried me away before my brain could catch up. Out of his room. Out of this hallway. Out of the palace entirely and into the sparse wilderness beside it. Finally I collapsed to the ground when my legs couldn't keep me up anymore. I heaved a couple times, but nothing came out. Naturally. The universe couldn't even give me that pleasure. I curled up on my side, my knees to my chest, shaking. No. No. My love wasn't supposed to reject me. We were supposed to live happily ever after like dad and pa. We were...

I wasn't sure how long I stayed there. Long enough for the sun to begin to sink below the horizon. Usually dusk was my favorite time of day, and I would marvel at all the pretty colors of the world. But right now it felt like a slap in the face. The world could still be so beautiful when I felt dark inside. How unfair.

"DaeHyun?" I sat up quick when my name was called. "DaeHyun, where are you?" I clawed myself to my feet and ran out of the small woods, immediately plowing into dad and pa. Each wrapped their arms around me. "Li Jie called us," dad said, running his fingers through my hair, an action he hadn't done since I was small. "Oh pumpkin..."

"It hurts dad," I croaked, burying my face in his shoulder and screwing my eyes shut. "It hurts so bad." I felt his hold on me tighten ever so slightly. "I was stupid and reckless and I blew it dad. I blew my chances clearcout of the water. He's never going to love me now."

"Don't say that," pa scolded. "You don't know that for certain. Don't beat yourself up over it you hear." I could only nod, and pa's tone soften after that. "I'm so sorry Dae. We know all too well rejection feels."

"It hurts," I repeated. It felt like something inside me fractured, never to be fixed again. I'd braced myself for the worst, just in case. But even then I hadn't been ready for the amount of guilt and sorrow I felt. I really hoped I still had my assisant when I went back inside. If I lost him entirely... I wasn't sure how I'd handle myself. "Where's ChaoXing?" I finally asked, looking around.

"Back at the palace," pa replied. "Probably talking with Jie honestly." At his name I crumbled all over again, sandwiched between my dads, where I could do that kind of thing. "Let's go inside baby boy." And so they led me inside, neither taking their arms off me as they did it. We stumbled up the stairs as one unit too, finally emerging to our floor after what felt like eons. Dad swung my bedroom door open, and I broke away from them and made a beeline for my bed. "Do you need anythimg from us Dae?"

"I want to be alone," I reaponded, pulling the covers over my head. "I want to wallow in my own pity." Silence greeted that, and I could picture the pair of them exchanging looks, having an entire conversation without saying a word. Freaky dad powers I tell you. I felt the bed dip after that and heard a set of footsteps leave the room. I peeked out to see dad sitting on the edge, his back to me, seemingly zoning out.

"I know better than your papa I think," he said at last, running his fingeds over my sheets absent-mindedly. "I always had it slightly worse than he did, in a way. He made moving on seem simple when it wasn't." I sat up and scooted back until my back hit the headboard. "We've never hid our complicated past from you. But when you were little we didn't tell you everything. Not that your papa didn't suffer because he did. But it was a lot harder for me to move on at the time than it was him. I never got over him, actually. Even when we were apart."

"How'd you handle it?" I questioned. Dad turned to me. I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. "You're together now, yeah?" He gave me a rueful sort of smile.

"It took a lot of years," he said, reaching over and squeezing my knee. "But I love that man. Sure, at one point we resigned ourselves to our separate fates. But we never truly gave up, did we? We found each other time and time again. Don't give up Dae. Maybe he doesn't like you like that. But he's still your servant. He's still your friend."

"Yeah..." I trailed off, glancing out of the palace windows, catching the stars winking into existence, albeit faintly. Sure. I had that I guess.

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Li Jie's POV

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I hovered just outside the room, dressed in my pajamas, debating whether or not this was a good idea. But when a few hours of tossing and turning without rest finally had me rising and finding comfort in one of the few places I could find it. After all, I'd done it so many nights in the past. Why would tonight be any different?

I cracked DaeHyun's door open and peered inside. I caught sight of his folded form, tucked neatly into one corner of his mattress. I sucked in a breath as I tip toed inside and shut the door, wincing as it creaked. I held my breath as he tossed around behind me, mumbling something in his sleep before settling again. I slunk to the side of his bed. Then I peeled his covers back and slid into bed beside him. Already I felt better. Even after the events of today... being here, with him, was comforting. It always had been.

I didn't have a great many friends. Sure, a lot of the staff paired off and made themselves a new batch of staff. But I was never particularly close to any of the newest palace kids. And we often didn't go to town ourselves, usually accompanying another member or the kings themselves. My schooling went right alongside DaeHyun's, though as we got older mine became less of running a country and more of falling into my role as his assisant. The fact that I'd met Mei Zhen on a random night out had been nothing short of a miracle. But no, my closest friend in life definitely fell to the Korean prince. We'd grown up side by side, hitting all our milestones together. There even existed pictures of pop bathing us in the same tub (great blackmail for later he'd tell me).

It kind of sucked that I didn't feel the same way as he did. Because in hindsight it seemed like such a natural thing. And maybe I should have seen it coming from a kilometer away. After all, I was supposed to know him inside and out. Just like pop knew King Yixing. But his sudden attack on me today caught me off guard. It wasn't...bad. I just wasn't expecting it.

"Who's there?" I jumped when a voice suddenly spoke directly next to me. "Jie?" DaeHyun questioned. I waited in silence while he shook off his sleepiness. "What are you doing here?" What was I doing here? Good question. One I didn't have a concrete answer for. "About earlier..."

"Don't," I cut in. Every instinct in me screamed to get out of here before we ruined this. But we'd never get anywhere if we kept avoiding each other. Besides, this boy was still my happy place. That hadn't changed. Actually... "I couldn't sleep. You know you're happy place." That must have shocked him to silence, because no reply came. I turned to my side so I could face him. He mimicked my pose, leaning close so our foreheads touched. I closed my eyes. All stuff that had seemed normal until today. Until I realized his intentions behind them. But I wouldn't stop them. They made up DaeHyun, and I did love him. I loved him exactly the way he was. "I'm sorry," I blurted. He flinched away, and our eyes locked. "I'm so sorry Dae. Today's been..."

"It's my fault anyway," he whispered. "You have Mei Zhen, for starters. She adores you, you know. It's written all over her whenever you're near." I frowned as he talked. "But this is what I get for falling in love with someone who I can't be with in the long run."

Falling in love with someone...

"I do love you," I argued. "Maybe just not in the same way you love me." He averted his gaze after that. "As for Mei Zhen... She's nice. Very nice. I do like her a lot." He deflated before my eyes. "Who knows what will happen though. We're still young."

"Yeah..." He didn't seem very convinced. "Why did I have to fall in love with you, huh? This just complicates things." My heart gave a little kick at that, but I batted it down.

"It doesn't have to," I said. He closed his eyes again, resuming our previous position, his hand finding mine under the covers. Without thinking twice about it, I twined our pinkies together. We laid together quietly after that, with him dropping off shortly thereafter. I felt tired too, but forced myself to stay up a bit longer so I could study him when he wasn't conscious and staring back at me. There were many nights like this one under our belts, with one of us finding solace in the other. A habit we could never break ourselves out of as we got too old to do it. Luckily DaeHyun's bed was more than big enough for the both of us.

It's not that I hadn't thought it was a possibility. Us, I mean. I'd briefly thought about it when we were both thirteen and I'd been grappling with my own sexuality (finally told mom and pop I was bisexual, which they didn'thave any problems with, thank god). But it had been a fleeting thought at the time. A person of royal blood liking a servant boy? Absurd. Except... Now it wasn't. It felt very real all of a sudden, and I wasn't sure how to handle any of it. Sometimes life went at warp speed before I even had a grasp on it.

"Goodnight Dae," I whispered when I finally couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Hesitantly, I brushed my lips against his. I hoped something inside me stirred this time. Anything. But all that happened was my heart gave a little extra flutter.

Maybe some day, I thought as I finally lost my battle with the sandman. Maybe someday.

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I dunno. Is this even good? Lol. I wasn't really sure how to end all of this. So I guess we'll leave it here for the time being.