"Jackson, I need your help."

Jackson glanced up from the mirror, where he was currently slathering his hair full of gel to achieve the suave Prince Eric look. He didn't technically need to make the effort—the deep V of his white shirt was good enough at capturing everyone's attention with an alluring glimpse of his wild and y chest—but he liked to go the whole way for the sake of the children who wanted him to be as true to the original as possible.

Mark, decked out in his full Prince Charming get up, was standing there with a bundle of clothes in his hands and looking like he always did whenever Jackson saw him: stressed. Handsome, but stressed. Jackson was never sure what their hiring manager had been thinking, sticking such an uncommunicative guy in a role where he'd have to talk to people for the entire day, or why Mark had applied for the job at Hong Kong Disney in the first place. His beautiful face made him a perfect Prince Charming in theory, but then he opened his mouth and the illusion was gone... or more like he refused to open his mouth in the first place, making him come across as a sullen lump next to the beautiful Cinderella.

"What, did you get your zipper stuck again?" Jackson asked, surveying Mark's costume. Regardless of his personality, he really did suit the royal get up perfectly.

"No." He lifted up the bundle of clothes. "Jinyoung accidentally put his Prince Philip costume in my locker."

"And?"

"And...?"

"What do you want me to do about it? It's not my costume. Just give it to him."

"He's not here yet."

"Then give it to him when he gets here."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't talk to him."

Jackson rolled his eyes. "Look, I know his Chinese isn't the best, but yours isn't that great either, so you have no right to make fun of him for it. All you have to say is what you just said to me: 'You accidentally left this in my locker'."

"It's not that," Mark said, shifting uncomfortably. "I can't talk to him. When I open my mouth, it's like I don't remember how to speak."

"Yeah, that seems to be a common problem with you. Look, you don't have to even say anything. Just grunt and hand it to him. He'll get it."

"I can't even do that. Just being around him...it's like I have a mental breakdown, and I don't want him to see it, he'll think I'm some kind of freak." He the clothing into Jackson's hands. "Please do me a favor just this once. Give it to him."

Jackson tilted his head. "Wait. This is a little much, even for you. Have you been personally victimized by Park Jinyoung, or do you have a little crush on him or something?"

Mark instantly turned bright red, telling Jackson all he needed to know.

Jackson's face widened instantaneously into a smug grin. "Ohoho, has Christmas come early? Prince Charming is hot for Prince Philip?"

"Shut up," Mark grumbled. 

"No, seriously, I want to know how this happened. Tell me everything."

"I can't. Jinyoung will be coming any second, and I seriously have to go. I told you, I can't be around him. I start sweating and my heart starts squeezing and I don't know what kind of language comes out of my mouth, but it sure isn't Chinese or English."

"Come on, at least give me some details to go on. Tell me, or I won't give him his costume and he'll get reprimanded by the boss."

Mark glared at Jackson furiously. "FINE. I saw him dancing with one of the plushies in the merch store after hours and he was singing 'Once Upon a Dream' and it was just so disgustingly cute that it made me notice how disgustingly cute he is, and once I noticed, I couldn't stop noticing." They heard a noise outside of the locker room, and Mark's eyes widened in panic. "Look. I have to go, just give it to him, OK?"

"OK, OK. But seriously, you should try talking to him. I'll set you up, if you want."

"NO. Just stay out of it." With another warning look, Mark turned and fled out the back exit before Jinyoung could step inside and see him.

"Would you look at that," Jackson murmured. "Prince Charming running away from the ball."

A moment later, Jinyoung walked into the locker room, his eyes instantly settling on his costume in Jackson’s arms. “Why do you have that?” he asked. Jackson couldn’t tell if the stiffness in his voice came from his still basic Chinese skills or from annoyance that by all appearances, it looked as if Jackson had stolen his clothes.

“You left it in Mark’s locker,” Jackson informed him. “I’m giving it back. Here you go.”

Jinyoung accepted the costume, his expression still a little blank. “If it was in Mark’s locker, why do you have it?”

“He had to run off to his station, so he gave it to me to give to you when I saw you.” Jackson paused, waiting for Jinyoung to respond. “You could say ‘thank you’, you know.”

“Thank you.” Jinyoung’s expression remained a little tense, so Jackson amused himself thinking of him dancing around the merch shop with a plushie. The image did a lot to soften him—not that Jinyoung was a stern person; he simply was serious and a little awkward, which Jackson couldn’t necessarily blame him for considering that he was living in a foreign country where he hadn’t fully mastered the language.

Without saying anything else, Jinyoung trooped over to his locker to begin putting on his Prince Philip costume. Just like Mark, he didn’t need the slightest bit of styling to look like a fairy tale prince, and without even glancing in the mirror or running a comb through his hair, within seconds he looked completely ready to fill his role at the theme park.

“Um, Jackson?” he said finally once he was dressed.

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking…Mark really doesn’t like me, right?”

Jackson didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or sigh in pity for this poor, unfortunate soul. He wished he could just outright tell him that Mark had it bad for him, but since he’d once seen Mark throw a replica glass slipper at Taecyeon, the resident Gaston, for simply accidentally eating Mark’s precious leftover pizza, Jackson wasn’t about to chance his legendary wrath.

“Nah, he doesn’t hate you,” Jackson said instead. “He’s just shy. And doesn’t usually talk to people unless he has to.”

“He talks to you.”

“That’s because I once threatened him that I’d never stop bothering him unless he responded to my attempts at conversation. So in Mark’s mind, talking to me is still kind of an obligation.” Jackson finally tossed his hair gel back into his locker. “You want to talk to him? My advice is to just do that. Talk to him. It might take him a few weeks, but eventually he’ll respond.”

“I don’t want to become friends with anyone against their will.”

“I wouldn’t call it against his will…” Jackson smiled to himself, deciding it wouldn’t be completely interfering to give Jinyoung a pro tip. “He’s addicted to the popcorn, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

“The caramel popcorn. The kind sold at the purple cart that sells the specialty Dumbo buckets? He goes there a half-an-hour before Cinderella’s castle opens and binge eats a bucket before he has to go up to the castle and do his whole ballroom-dancing-and-photo-op thing with Fei Fei. Just a fun fact.” Jackson shut his locker door. “Speaking of, you and I should be heading to the character breakfast.”

Jinyoung gestured down at his feet, which were still wearing the pair of black leather shoes he’d arrived in. “You didn’t give me back my shoes.”

“Mark didn’t give them to me. Check his locker.”

Jinyoung opened it and stared into it for a moment. “They’re not here.”

“Are they in yours?”

Jinyoung shook his head.

“Well, we don’t really have time for this, do we? The shoes you’re in now are good enough. Trust me when I say that no one is looking at your feet when you have a face like that.”

Mark’s favorite people at Disneyland were the children. Children were smart and knew that princess were better than princes and typically outright ignored him in favor of posing with Fei Fei in her gorgeous blue Cinderella dress. And if they wanted him to flirt with his princess, usually a gallant kiss on her gloved hand was enough to satisfy them before he faded back into the background.

It was the teenagers and adults he had to watch out for. The older girls who posed for the photo ops always tried to snuggle up to him or demand he do something princely to woo them, and if not that, they wanted him to outright kiss Fei Fei on the lips to get a perfect, romantic Cinderella Instagram shot. Mark was in no way contractually obligated to kiss anyone and had gotten good at worming his way out of all these annoying situations, but he usually dreaded the part of the day when he had to go to Cinderella’s castle and he couldn’t just run away to another part of the park when people showered him with attention.

To get himself ready, he always went for caramel popcorn. It was his tradition—the stuff was addicting, and though he technically wasn’t supposed to eat in front of the customers, he’d gotten away with it thus far and was planning on continuing as long as it helped him get through the day.

He held out his Dumbo bucket for the staff to refill, and as soon as it was filled to the top, he turned to slink off to one of the remote benches where he could possibly go unnoticed. But this time, someone was standing in his way.

Prince Philip.

Mark almost dropped the popcorn onto the ground at the sight of a fully prince-like Jinyoung standing right in front of him, smiling with that sweet, gentle smile of his. “Hello, Prince Charming,” Jinyoung said, sweeping his rose pink cape. He looked so handsome that Mark wanted to frame the picture in his mind and drool over it for eternity, but at the same time he was so flustered at the situation that he could barely focus. An irresistible urge to sink into the floor or possibly die overwhelmed him.

“I…um…uh,” Mark said back eloquently.

“You like this popcorn, too?” Jinyoung asked pointing to his own Dumbo bucket. “Caramel is the best flavor in the entire park.”

“Mm,” Mark said, wincing. This wasn’t going well. Would Jinyoung think he was a sane person if he just turned around and fled the scene?

“Want to go somewhere and eat? There’s a nice bench right over there. Come on, let’s go.”

Without waiting for Mark’s response (not that Mark was capable of responding), he gently grabbed the sleeve of his thick Prince Charming coat and led him towards the bench in question. Mark’s feet somehow moved him forward step by step until he was sitting down beside Jinyoung, feeling the puffy sleeves of his costume pressing into the sleeves of his own and shoving his mouth full of popcorn so he wouldn’t have to talk.

They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, the only sound the rustle of their hands in their popcorn buckets as they ate. Mark’s mind was in a whirl of unintelligible thoughts and emotions. Part of his body was physically elated to be so close to Park Jinyoung, the figure that had been occupying his thoughts and obsessions for the past few months, but the other part of him was lingering in fight-or-flight panic mode in case he did or said something more embarrassing than he’d already done.

“So,” Jinyoung said, a bit feebly, when the silence got to be too much, “I think I’ve already been stopped three hundred times for pictures today. How about you?”

“I-I don’t know,” Mark said. Progress. These were actually words.

Jinyoung also looked encouraged. “Probably more than me. Prince Charming is the icon of all Disney princes.”

“He’s the most boring one.”

“I think he’s just quiet with his charms. What made you decide to work at Disney, anyways?”

“I was scouted,” Mark admitted.

“No kidding? I can see why. You’ve got a Prince Charming face.”

Oh my god. Mark was pretty sure his heart was setting off fireworks at that. He’d been told he was handsome for as long as he could remember, but it sounded completely different when the right voice was saying it to him.

“For me, I was recommended by Jia,” Jinyoung said, referring to the girl who played Aurora. “We go to university together, and when the previous Prince Philip was getting ready to leave, she told me I should apply.”

“Oh,” Mark said—his previous eloquence was seeping from him thanks to his excited nerves over Jinyoung’s earlier compliment.

“It’s pretty fun, isn’t it? The children are all so adorable, and even the grownups… it’s like we’re their childhood heroes, and it’s so cute when they get all excited to see us.”

Mark nodded. It was nice sometimes. He liked it when they said meeting Prince Charming and Cinderella was like their dream come true. There was something exciting about making people happy so simply by just existing.

“Actually, I had the same feeling when Jia first brought me to Disney,” Jinyoung continued. “You probably don’t remember since it was months before I was hired, but she took me to Cinderella’s castle while she was showing me around. I saw you and Fei Fei ballroom dancing and everything… it just looked so magical, like the real story. It completely took my breath away. So I guess I kind of have you two to thank for making me want to apply here so badly.” He took out his phone. “We actually took a picture together. See?” He opened a picture of himself sitting on the throne of Cinderella’s castle, Fei Fei standing to his left and Mark standing on his right. Jinyoung was wearing a face mask, so it was a bit hard to tell it was him, other than the tell-tale eye whiskers.

I want this, Mark’s mind instantly informed him. The only pictures he had with Jinyoung in the same frame as him were cast pictures, usually where they were on opposite sides of the picture and their arms were locked around their respective princesses. In this picture, their bodies were kind of leaning in to each other, and there was something appropriately ceremonial about this being their first meeting.

“Can you send this to me?” Mark asked before he could stop himself.

Jinyoung instantly beamed. “Of course! But, um, I don’t have your phone number.”

Mark’s heart pounded wildly—exchanging phone numbers was serious business, even though they were coworkers. But he had to have that picture, so there was really no choice. He accepted Jinyoung’s phone when it was offered to him and punched his phone number into the contacts page.

“Thanks,” Jinyoung said gratefully. “I really hope we can be friends. I know you don’t like to talk very much, but…you know, it’s kind of also my childhood dream to be friends with Prince Charming.”

Mark was pretty sure he was two seconds away from spouting out a long stream of nonsense words in his shock, excitement, and outright anxiety, so he was for once grateful when two teenage girls frolicked up to him, their phone cameras already open.

“Ohmigosh, TWO princes!” one of them said, practically squealing in excitement. “You’re so hot!! Can we take a picture?”

“Sure,” Jinyoung answered on behalf of Mark who was still shell-shocked and trying to process the fact that not only did Jinyoung not think he was a freak, but also wanted to be his friend. “Come pose with us, my lady.”

“No, no, no, I have like ten pimples today,” the girl protested. “You pose together. I just want a proof shot that I met you.”

“All right…” Looking at Mark uncertainly, Jinyoung placed a hand on his shoulder and turned to face the camera.

“Can’t you do something flirty?” the second girl protested.

“Yeah, like, Prince Philip is so cool,” the first girl added. “He’d definitely do something cool like how he started singing and dancing with Aurora during ‘Once Upon a Dream’.”

“This is Prince Charming, not Aurora,” Jinyoung reminded them.

The girls refused to be dissuaded. “Come on, do it!” They both started singing the familiar song together: I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream…

That had been the song Mark had caught Jinyoung dancing to in the merch store, the moment when his feelings of want had first budded in his heart. That was the memory flooding Mark’s mind when Jinyoung took his hands and began slowly turning him to the tune of the music. Mark, who had to ballroom dance every day with Cinderella in the castle, automatically followed the dance movements up until his body froze when the realization hit him: I am dancing with Park Jinyoung and he is holding my hand and waist and how am I supposed to function now?

The girls snapped the picture before Mark’s mental breakdown commenced, and now they were both squealing over it together. “So this is love, mmmm, so this is what makes life divine,” they started singing, switching over to Cinderella’s song. Mark was pretty convinced at that moment that a human person was capable of dying of embarrassment and that he was only two seconds away from it.

“I need to go,” he said mechanically. “Now.”

“Wait,” Jinyoung said, grabbing his arm. “Can we meet here again tomorrow?”

“I…I… fine, yes,” he said, just for the sake of saying something so he could leave. When the fact that ‘yes’ had been one of the words he’d spoken registered, his face lit up in embarrassment a second time, flustered by the fact that Jinyoung wanted to see him again, and also that he would have to go through this somewhat happy trauma again tomorrow.

“I’ll look forward to it,” Jinyoung said, smiling his heart fluttering smile. He let go of Mark’s sleeve and waved. “See you next time, Prince Charming.”

“Sooo,” Jackson trilled. “What’s on your phone?”

Mark hastily shoved his phone back into his pocket. He’d just finished scanning the Hong Kong Disney hashtag to see if he could find the Instagram picture the girls had taken of him and Jinyoung and safely saved it (and set it as his phone’s wallpaper). If he had to go through the humiliation of it in the first place, he at least wanted to enjoy the reward of freaking out over it in his spare time. Still, he absolutely didn’t want Jackson to see it.

“Nothing,” Mark said, a little defensively.

“What, did you manage to get Prince Philip’s number? I saw you two enjoying yourself over popcorn today.”

“Did you have something to do with that?” Mark asked suspiciously.

“Who, me?” Jackson said innocently. “Anyways, if I did, it’s not a big deal, right? You seemed to be having a good time. Plus you were actually talking. You may have unlocked the ‘not a complete failure at existing’ achievement after all.”

“Shut up.”

“The boy is into you, Tuan. Might as well get over yourself and go after that tail before he wises up and realizes there are better catches around. Me, for example.”

Mark glared at him. “Don’t you dare.”

“Out of respect for our friendship, I’ll resist. But still, seriously. Ask him out. If you guys are going to be making heart eyes at each other anyways, might as well add making out to the mix.”

“Do you seriously think he’s into me?”

“He took the bait of meeting up with you for popcorn as soon as I suggested it. Either he’s hardcore into making friends, or he’s interested in something more. I say, go for it.”

“I don’t think I can,” Mark said, though Jackson’s words did make him feel a little hopeful. “The longest thing I’ve ever said to him is ‘can you send this to me?’. That’s not a foundation for a relationship.”

“Yeah, but for you that’s a huge start. Maybe next time you see him, you can graduate to ten word sentences. Within a few days, you’ll have spoken more than Prince Charming speaks in the entire Cinderella movie.”

“Thanks.” Mark opened his locker door to throw his costume inside when he spotted a pair of boots at the bottom. They were part of Jinyoung’s costume—he’d completely forgotten to hand them over to Jackson that morning when asking him to return it. “Did Jinyoung not ask about his boots?” he wondered out loud.

“His boots?” Jackson tilted his head. “Yeah, he asked about them. He even checked your locker and said they weren’t there.”

“…they are, though.”

Jackson glanced over Mark’s shoulder. “Right in plain sight, too. There’s no way he could have missed them.”

“Then why didn’t he take them?”

Jackson considered for a moment, then grinned. “Looks like our wily prince planted his costume in your locker to give you an excuse to talk to him.”

“You… you really think so?”

“Yeah, he was pretty ticked when I was the one who returned his costume. He’s probably waiting for you to return his boots and get another conversation with you out of it.”

Mark couldn’t hold back a pleased smile, but at the same time he felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. If Jinyoung wanted a conversation, would Mark would ever be able to deliver one to keep Jinyoung interested in him? He didn’t want to be a bumbling fool around Jinyoung, but he really didn’t know how to be otherwise.

“Mark, I’m serious,” Jackson said, smacking on the back. “If you blow this, you are going to regret it. I’m expecting you to prove to this poor guy that you’re worth the effort he’s making to get close to you.”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Mark asked desperately. “I at this kind of thing.”

“I know. I think he probably knows that, too. If he likes you in spite of that, you should put as much effort into liking him back openly. A nice gesture or something? You’ll think of it if you turn on that dormant brain of yours.”

“Great,” Mark groaned. “I’m probably just going to make it worse.”

Jackson shrugged. “Then at least make it entertaining. I’ll be watching from the sidelines.”

As promised, Jinyoung was waiting for him at the caramel popcorn vendor the next day. He had such a warm smile on his face that Mark felt his heart melting. And his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. How was he supposed to formulate words around this kind of person?

“I’m so glad you came,” Jinyoung said brightly. “I kind of worried you wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I get the feeling that what happened last time embarrassed you, you don’t like talking to people, and you find me completely annoying.”

“You’re not annoying,” Mark mumbled. “You can talk to me. I don’t mind.”

Jinyoung sighed in relief. “I’m glad to hear it. I really don’t want you to hate me. Anyways, even though the circumstances were kind of embarrassing, the picture those girls took was really cute” He opened his phone and showed it to Mark.

“You saved it, too?” Mark blurted out.

“Too?” Jinyoung’s eyes widened. “You saved it?”

“Ummmm…” Mark stared down at his feet. “It was…I thought we looked nice.”

“I think so, too! I’m glad they got the picture before you started looking like you would be sick on my shoes. You’re almost kind of smiling.”

“Mmm.” He knew this would be a good time to say something sweet to Jinyoung, but he didn’t know how to edit what was running through his mind (“You looked so absolutely adorable in that picture that I stared at it for an hour last night before going to bed and I’m considering printing it out and framing it so I’ll always remember how it felt like to dance with you”). Instead he just wound up saying nothing.

“Anyways, even though it was awkward, I liked dancing with you,” Jinyoung said. “You looked so amazing the first time I saw you in Cinderella’s castle, so to be able to dance with Prince Charming for myself…”

It struck Mark at that moment that Jinyoung possibly was like all the girls in Disney who had their Prince Charming fantasies, since he seemed to be more focused on viewing Mark as a prince instead of the boring idiot he was. It was a little disheartening—if Jinyoung liked a version of him that didn’t exist, there was no way he could deliver up on it.

“I’m not like that,” Mark said frankly. “At all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Prince Charming. He’s just a character. I’m nothing like him.”

“But you look—”

“That’s just my face. I’m not cool. I’m not charming. I’m not romantic. I’m just…” He waved his hand vaguely. “I’m just a guy in nice clothes.”

“No,” Jinyoung said firmly. “You’re more than that. Do you know how I know?”

Mark shook his head.

“When I first saw you, I liked your dancing. I thought it was cool to see someone who matched to Prince Charming so well in person. But it wasn’t your dancing or clothing that impressed me the most. It was how gentle you were with the children who wanted to take pictures with you and dance with you. On the day I was there, there was this little girl dressed as Cinderella, and you danced with her as if she was the most precious princess in the world. There was a granny who watched Cinderella every week since it came out, and you listened to her sing ‘So This is Love’ to you and clapped when she finished as if it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever heard. That wasn’t just you being a character, because it was obvious when you were just clamming up and playing pretend around some of the teenage girls who got too clingy with you or when you had to flirt with Fei Fei. That was you being you.”

Mark stared at him in surprise.

“And I’m not Prince Philip either,” Jinyoung said. “I probably couldn’t swoop in and slay a dragon or break a curse with just a kiss. But I like to think that if I want something, I do what I can to get it. Even if it involves running through a wall of thorns to make it to a castle that doesn’t want to open its doors to me.”

Oh…

“But you saved our picture,” Jinyoung said, smiling again. “Maybe the doors are opening up a little?”

“I…I…” Mark stammered. Come on, why is it so damn hard for me to talk?

“It’s OK. You don’t have to force yourself to talk when it’s hard for you. I’m happy that you’re willing to meet with me at all. Let’s keep meeting, and you can talk to me when you’re ready, OK?”

Mark nodded numbly. It amazed him a little that someone was willing to have the patience to put up with him until then. Would he really manage not to make Jinyoung bored while he tried to become a coherent human being?

“Right. Then let’s meet tomorrow. Same time, same place?”

Mark nodded again, and Jinyoung granted him with another adorable smile.

“Thank you. See you here, then.”

When Jinyoung walked away, Mark could hear him whistling. But if I know you, I know what you’ll do, you’ll love me at once the way you did once upon a dream…

They continued to meet every day for popcorn at the bench, and little by little Mark started to talk. They were short sentences at first, with pretty scant information. He told Jinyoung about his studies at school. He talked a little about his family and hobbies.

He listened to Jinyoung talk about himself, and fell in love with his stories. Jinyoung had a beautiful voice, for one, but he talked in such a way that it soothed you and pulled you in. Amusingly enough, he wasn’t as purely as sweet as he appeared on the surface either. He was teasing and sometimes even sassy with Mark, unafraid of giving him a (gentle) hard time about his fragmented sentences while still encouraging him to open up little by little.

And Mark did find himself opening up at Jinyoung’s urging. His five word sentences expanded into ten words and sometimes longer. His responses got a little less clumsy. When Jinyoung complimented him, he was sometimes even able to compliment him back, though he couldn’t quite stop his face from turning red as he did so.

It was easier not to be nervous when the happiness overwhelmed his anxiety. It was his first time in his life feeling like this, like he didn’t have to be terrified of his own words and the consequences of speaking them. Jinyoung made him feel like even his shortest sentences were important, and hung on to his longer ones with a full amount of interest, like he really, deeply cared about what Mark was saying.

Before long, Mark wasn’t stammering. He wasn’t counting the words in his sentences. He was just speaking as the words came to him and laughing when the laughter came to him. Every part of his life felt brighter, and it seeped out into his work, too. Even Fei Fei was surprised that she now had to share the attention of the adoring public with Prince Charming, who had largely been her mostly silent accessory up until then.

“See?” Jinyoung said after one of their meetings as Mark was getting ready to go back to the castle. “I told you Prince Charming has his charms. They’re quieter, but there’s no doubt that he has them.”

“I’m glad someone saw them,” Mark with a small smile. “And not just someone. You.”

Jinyoung flushed in pleasure. “So… I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, then?”

Mark nodded, waving as Jinyoung headed in the opposite direction. All of a sudden it struck him how hard it was to watch him walk away and have to wait until tomorrow to talk to him again. He wanted there to stop being gaps between when they saw each other. He wanted to hang out on days off. He wanted to go out for dinner after work. He wanted to invite Jinyoung over to his place and…

…and kiss and hold him in his arms and smell his hair and wake up in the morning with him still there. He wanted to see him outside of his costume and become Jinyoung and Mark instead of only Prince Philip and Prince Charming in their magic fantasyland. He didn’t want it to be a fairy tale or a fantasy. He just wanted it to be real.

And he couldn’t just wait for Jinyoung to make that happen—Jinyoung had been making everything happen from the beginning. It was time for Prince Charming to take initiative and chase the love that wasn’t running away from him, but patiently waiting for him to claim it and make it his own.

“Jackson, I need your help,” Mark said.

“You always do,” Jackson said, sighing tragically. “What’ll it be this time? Passing Jinyoung a note that says ‘Do you like me? Circle yes or no!’”

“Not that, but could you give him this invitation?” Mark passed him a blue envelope.

“What kind of invitation is this? An invitation to your heart?”

“Something like that.” Mark smiled to himself. “Just make sure he gets it.”

“Come on, man, I need the details! Spill! You guys have totally been swooning over each other even more than usual. Any kissing? Or have you already gone all the way?”

“Shut up,” Mark advised him. “I have to go. Just give it to him, OK?” He slipped out of the locker room before Jackson could ask him anything else.

A minute later, Jinyoung walked into the locker room, yawning a little.

“Look alive,” Jackson said. “I think you’re about to be invited to a ball or something.”

“Hmmm?”

“Prince Charming wants you to have this.” He handed Jinyoung the invitation. “Since I’m being errand boy again, you better let me read it, too.”

Jinyoung tore it openly eagerly and began reading the contents. As he read, his smile grew wider and wider.

“What does it say, what does it say?” Jackson asked eagerly.

“Sorry, but it’s private,” Jinyoung said, stashing it in his locker once he’d finished reading it. “But it seems like good news. Do you think I’d make a decent boyfriend, Jackson?”

“Uh, yeah, sure?”

“Good, because I’m pretty sure I’m about to become one.”

Mark usually practiced his ballroom dancing with Fei Fei before Cinderella’s castle officially opened for tours, but today he’d managed to bribe her to stay away from the castle until they both absolutely had to be there. Right now he was in the throne room by himself, waiting for the footsteps to echo on the stairs and put him out of his misery.

It wasn’t long before he heard them, his heart leaping up to his throat. It was time, and though he was nervous beyond belief, he was pretty sure he was ready. He wasn’t the exact person he’d started as: he was the person he’d always had it in him to become once he overcame his fears and set himself free without worrying how that self would be received by others.

Jinyoung walked into the throne room, meeting Mark’s eyes and smiling gently. “I’m here to respond to my royal summons?” he asked tentatively.

Mark smiled back. “At last. I’ve been waiting for you.” He gestured to the throne. “Would you mind sitting?”

Jinyoung nodded and took a seat on the throne. “I hear you needed help finding your one true love?”

“Yeah. A while ago, the man of my dreams left a pair of boots in my locker and I’m trying to find him. I thought you might be a good candidate because you’ve been stubbornly going around with the wrong shoes on for the past few months, but I wanted to be sure.” He gestured to Jinyoung’s feet. “Will you…?”

“Of course.”

Jinyoung untied the laces of his shoes and pulled them off. Mark grabbed the boots he’d brought with him and slid them easily onto Jinyoung’s feet, holding his eyes as he did so. “Would you look at that?” he murmured softly. “A perfect fit.”

“And here I thought you’d never give them back,” Jinyoung whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you all this time.”

“I’m sorry to have made you wait.”

“No, don’t be. I’m glad you waited until you were ready for me. I would have waited for longer than this, if you needed.”

“But you weren’t the only one waiting. I didn’t want to wait any longer than this either.”

“Glad to hear it.” Jinyoung lips curled up into a smile. “So I take it this means I’m your one true love, then?”

“Seems like it.”

“We’re just missing one thing. Prince Charming seals things with shoes. But Prince Philip…” He leaned down, cupping Mark’s chin in his hands. “This Prince seals things with true love’s kiss.”

A kiss to awaken—that was Prince Philip’s kiss. But Mark felt like this one was different, like he’d already been woken up little by little by Jinyoung and now that was a kiss to welcome his full awakening rather than to start it. But most importantly, he could feel the purity of the love behind it. True love wasn’t just a fantasy concept that saved the day at the last moment: it was a part of real life, and it really did save those who it touched. It gave the kind of power that couldn’t be received from anything else.

“So this is love,” Jinyoung hummed as they broke apart. “So this is the miracle I’ve been dreaming of.”

“And that gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam,” Mark said, grinning. “Hey, Jinyoung?”

“Yeah?”

“Want to go on a date outside of work?”