‘How did I end up here?’ Minho thought as he looked through the double doors that led onto the ballroom floor, which a certain fairy prince was, once again, occupying.

He had started out from the East Garden in the direction of the guards’ tower, fully intent upon speak with his Captain of the Guard. Somewhere along the way, however, his thoughts had turned to his date afternoon spent with Taemin the bratty bug and before he realized what was happening he had found himself in the hallway leading to the ballroom. It was very indirect way to the guards’ tower but, as he was about to turn around and take a shorter route, he found himself compelled toward the ballroom by the music and voices that drifted from the open doors. Now he crouched and peeked from behind the doors to where he was completely mesmerized by the dancing form of the Fairy Prince. Only this time he was not alone. His advisor Kibum was dancing with him which seemed to make Taemin even more stunning as he fed off of the energy of his partner.

An intense pang hit the frog as he watched the Fairy Prince joyfully dance with someone that wasn’t him. ‘He’s my husband! He should be dancing with me!’ Minho eyes widened from the shock of the thought, ‘What the hell am I thinking. Taemin is a guy and a bratty bug and obnoxious and manipulative and fun to talk to and sweet and a gorgeous dancer and shy a times and absolutely adorable when he ‒ ’ Minho stopped his train of thought wondering what was going on in his head today.

“Key Umma, what’s wrong?” Taemin’s concerned voice brought Minho back to his present situation where the two fairies had stopped dancing and hovered above the center of the dance floor.

“Hm? It’s nothing Taebaby,” Kibum smiled although even Minho could tell it was forced.

“It’s not nothing,” Taemin pouted also seeing right through Kibum’s façade, “You’re worried about Jonghyun, aren’t you?”

Minho cocked his head at the mention of the name, ‘Whose Jonghyun?’

“No, I’m not!” Kibum huffed. Obviously, Taemin had chosen correctly.

“If you’re worried, why don’t you just go check on him?” Taemin prodded.

“Because I’m not worried! Besides he’s probably just sleeping anyway.”

“Umma,” Teamin scolded, “you’ve been off step the whole time we’ve been dancing. Even if you’re not worried about him, you obviously aren’t yourself without your four legged shadow.”

Key scoffed, “I am not that pathetic. I’m perfectly fine without my four-legged shadow.”

‘Four legged?... Oh!’ Now Minho realized they were talking about the fairy advisor’s pet dog. ‘What’s wrong with it? Is it sick? Injured?’ Minho wondered. Then the frog contemplated offering his help, but realized that he would have to admit to eavesdropping if he did. So, he stayed quiet.

“Fine,” Taemin sighed as if in defeat. “Key Umma, I’m really worried about Jonghyun. Please, for my sake, won’t you go check on him?” Minho smirked at the plea realizing that Taemin wasn’t giving up, he was changing tactics.

Key gave Taemin an ‘I know what you’re up to’ kind of look, but Taemin returned it with a doe-eyed innocent expression. After what seemed like a five minute stare-off Minho heard Key let out a sigh and then his shoulders slumped in defeat, “Alright, I’ll go check on the Dino, but only because you’re worried.”

“Thank you Umma!” The fairy prince said launching himself at Key and giving him a kola hug.

“Umph, okay, okay,” Key pat the prince’s head. “Are you going to stay here?”

Minho found himself hoping the fairy prince would say ‘yes’. Man his thoughts were going to strange places today.

“I don’t know yet?” Taemin shrugged, “I might go see if this place has a dungeon.”

Key chuckled, “Whatever for?”

Taemin’s eyes gleamed with mischief, “To make sure I can cage a certain frog if he really irritates me, since I’m not allowed to use magic on him. Now go, Umma,” Taemin said shoving Key away.

“I’m going, I’m going,” and with that Key left the room by flying through one of the second story balconies. Minho watched as the fairy advisor left, slightly dazzled by how quickly he flew.

“What are you looking at, Peeping Frog?” Minho, startled by the voice, jumped forward and collided with the fairy prince who had been hovering just in front of his face. This action resulted with the two tangled on the floor.

“Gah, you slimy frog! Get off!” Taemin wriggled underneath Minho trying to extricate himself from the frog’s legs.

“You know, I don’t really feel all that inclined to move right now,” Minho stated letting more of his weight fall onto the fairy.

“What?!” Taemin pushed against Minho’s stomach, “Ugh, you heavy slim bag, you’re crushing me!”

“Serves you right for scaring someone, especially your King.”

“You are not my King,” Taemin spat, “For one, I told you before I would not defer to you as superior and besides that you don’t even want to be married to me so what gives you the right to be my anything!”

The jovial expression that was on Minho’s face, vanished as if it had been slapped off by Taemin’s comment, even though it was true. It was still true wasn’t it? He didn’t want Taemin as his husband, he didn’t want a husband at all, he needed a princess, right? A huff from the fairy underneath him reminded Minho of his position and he sedately untangled himself.

Taemin got up and as he hovered above the floor he brushed himself off, well as best he could with frog slime covering him. He looked at Minho from under his lashes and the anger he had had a moment ago, dissipated into nothing. The frog had the expression of a very confused kicked puppy which gave Taemin the urge to hug, which he suppressed. Why would he want to hug the frog? It’s not like he remotely liked him, right? Mentally giving himself a shake Taemin asked, “So, what are you doing here, anyway?”

Minho cocked his head, “Um,” why was he here again? And where had he been headed? “I…Do you want to come with me this afternoon to visit the northern border defenses?”

Taemin looked as surprised as Minho felt. That was not what he was expecting to come out of his mouth.

“I,” Taemin started about to refuse the out-of-the-blue invite but then, “would love to,” came out instead. He had a confused expression on his face as if wondering where the words had come from.

“Um, well great. It’s, um, going to take us the afternoon to get there so, um, we won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon,” Minho said haltingly feeling as if he was asking Taemin on a date. Which he so wasn’t, right?

“Oh, um, then I should go grab some traveling clothes and, ah, leave Umma a note. Yeah, definitely leaving him a note,” Taemin said mumbling the last bit under his breath.

Minho nodded in agreement, “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll ah, meet you at the ah, the ah, barracks. They’re, um, next to the ah, practice grounds I showed you ah yesterday.”

Minho seriously wished his anatomy allowed him to smack himself because his inability to form coherent sentences was becoming beyond embarrassing.

Taemin, however, didn’t seem to notice. He just nodded his head while saying, “Sounds good, I’ll meet you there,” before flying off the same way Key had.

Once the fairy was gone, Minho shook his head, trying to come out of his daze. He then turned and left the ballroom making sure to keep his thoughts on his intended destination this time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey guys. So I'm super sorry it's been so long since an update. I started college again, and it's a different one from last year so, yippee a whole new system to figure out. Anyway, I swear I've been writing this chapter for two almost three months and it's still short! I fail you as an author, but I only seem to find time to write in the twenty minutes of free time I have between my Monday and Wednesday classes. So I'm sorry this chapter doesn't seem to get anywhere but hey Minho ask Taemin out and the two of them seemed to have lost the ablity to use words and other words are popping out of their mouths. What on Earth could be going on I wonder? hehe. This was unedited because I figured you guys waited long enough. Also I hope you all are still enjoying this and I promise I will finish the story some day so comment and subscribe if you want because it's nice to know people like the story. Thanks for reading.