Checking behind him one last time, Taemin heaves a quiet sigh of relief as he scampers away from the silent palace. The darkness of the night is not enough to stop him from running. As deathly afraid as he is of the darkness, his want for a moment of freedom and quiet to himself takes over everything else.

He is breathless, already, as he trips over himself in his hurry to get away— away from his trying father, away from his unkind tutors, away from his ruthless trainers, away from his accommodating maids, away from everything. Royal duties may wait, he convinces himself, at least for this evening, at least for the moment.

He reaches the vast, grassy field, the pasture that he had been gazing at from his bedroom’s window. It was perfect, just as he had imagined. When he was supposed to be reading the century-old books that his adviser had assigned to him, ones that he had nearly learnt by the letter, he had only looked out his window in boredom and longing, watching the lake and the sun and the sky.

It looks magical, is all that he can think as he steps further onto the open field of grass and wind and peace and quiet. The stars, he finds out, look much, much better when they seem to be miles within reach but still close to the touch, not blocked by a palace’s walls and windows.

He cannot tear his eyes from the sight of the stars and the moon, even as he keeps walking forward, a quiet excitement making itself known in his chest. His face hurts from how he has been smiling under the cloak he had filched from the maid’s chambers. He keeps walking, keeps smiling up at the dotted vastness of the evening sky.

“Ow!”

Taemin all but jumps backward, yelping in surprise when he registers the man on the ground who was rubbing at his forehead fiercely.  He instinctively wraps his cloak tighter around himself, frantically patting down the hood atop his head. “I- I apologize!” His father would have shaken his head in disappointment if he had heard Taemin’s stutter. “I didn't think anyone would be- uh- May I ask what you were doing lying on the ground?”

The man stops rubbing his forehead, and sits up. With an eyebrow cocked, he says, "I was taking a nap.” The reply does not actually explain anything for Taemin, but he chooses to let it go, for the man is eyeing him too curiously for his liking at the moment. ”Now, may I ask what you were doing creeping about on a field in that giant cloak?”

The patronizing tone in the man’s voice sounds foreign to Taemin. He is not used to it, at all. But he does not get upset because it is alright to be spoken to that way, because tonight, he is not who he has to be during the busy hours of the day.

He sticks to how he really is, if only for the evening. He is shy, he is timid. “Uh- I was- uh..."

"It's alright; you don't have to tell me." The man is not looking at him anymore, instead gazing up at the sky, probably like he had been doing prior to Taemin’s abrupt disturbance. He looks very much at peace as he leans back on his hands, quiet and pensive, as if already dismissing Taemin.

But Taemin cannot seem to will his feet to move from where they are rooted on the ground. The stars seem nice to watch, and the crickets seem nice to listen to while sitting on the grass. Picking at the hem of his cloak’s large sleeves, he shrinks further into his large garment.

"Do you want to join me?" Minho finally asks, regarding him with an all-too-amused quirk to his lips.

"Yes, please.”

They talk aimlessly, they laugh, and they make shy jabs at each other’s features that are loosely visible to them under the moonlight and the stars. The darkness of the evening is not as lonely as Taemin had thought it to be. Not when there is someone of the man’s presence beside him, that is.

“Do the stars get tired?” He says incautiously, because he does not feel that he has to try to be careful with this man. When all that reaches his ears is the sound of the crickets’ chirping and the wind’s whistles, and no sign of the stranger’s deep voice that he had contentedly been hearing since the beginning of whatever this is, he turns to look at the man.

The man’s eyes are closed, concealing the dark, wide irises that Taemin had imprinted into his excellent memory. His chest’s slow up and down movements are signs of enough that the man had dozed off.

Taemin smiles, bitterly envious of the sleeping man’s peaceful expression.  It takes a while of effort and pulling, but he eventually escapes from the confines of his cloak. He carefully drapes it over the stranger, careful not to let the cloth land too suddenly. He manages to really see the man's features because the sky isn't as dark anymore. The prominent jawline, the small, appealing little scar below the left eye, the dishevelled hair—

And that is when he realizes that the sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon and that he has to get back, before his handmaids find that the lump under his covers is simply a cluster of feather pillows and not at all him.

His cloak is left behind on the pasture, as is his freedom that evening.

---

He returns the next evening, making certain that he arrived the same minute that he had arrived on the evening before. Again, he is breathless as he ventures further on the grassy field, as he keeps his eyes out for anyone lying on the ground. Disappointment comes easily enough when he does not accidentally step on someone, no matter how much effort he put into his searching.

"I'm upset with you.”

He jumps in surprise, just as he had the evening before. Spinning around, he is certain of whose voice it is. He had only had the pleasure of hearing it for a few hours last night, but those hours were enough to have its richness and soothing tone stored in Taemin’s mind.

"You left me.” The stranger’s voice is quite cold, very unlike how it was yesterday. “Without even telling me your name. Without so much as a note."

Taemin keeps his head down, ashamed and guilty all at once. "I had no parchment with me.”

He flinches when the stranger scoffs, almost rudely. "You could have woken me up. At least to say goodbye.”

"I'm here again, aren't I?” He can only take so much harshness from the person he had thought to be gentle and kind, so he tries to make things better with his words. His adviser had always told him that he was good with his words. He meets his pleading gaze with the man’s stern one. “I really am sorry.”

The stranger uncrosses his arms then, and that is when Taemin notices the cloak in his hands. The man walks over, with that small quirk to his lips and that gleam in his eyes. “You are forgiven.” Offering the coat, he says, "Thank you. For this.”

The grasses bend against the creeping wind that blows by. Shivering (he had always had a problem with the cold- another one of his father’s problems about him), Taemin shakes his head. "You may have it. It's cold tonight.” He pushes the cloak towards the man again, to which the man’s lips stretch into a wide smile.

"Will you be watching the stars with me again tonight?"

"Do you not want me to?"

The stranger quickly shakes his head, taking Taemin’s hand and pulling the both of them down to sit on the ground. "Do not leave without a word again."

Taemin can only nod, guilty at his lack of manners last evening. Also, he does not comment on the much too obvious lack of space between them. He indulges in it, actually, as he throws away all other cares in the world and rests his head on the stranger’s shoulder.

"What is your name?" he absently asks.

Under the cloak that he had once again taken from his maid’s chambers, his skin tingles when he feels an arm wrapping around his shoulder and, in the slightest of movements, pulling him closer.

"You may call me Minho."

"Mm." Taemin nods, satisfied with the way the name sounds in his head, satisfied with how nice and fitting the name is. “Minho.” He says to himself, more for the sake of hearing it than for anything else.

"Won't you tell me yours?"

Taemin lets his eyes droop closed. Identities and names aren't all too appealing for him.

"No."

The boyish laugh that Minho makes is tucked into Taemin’s memory— one of many of Minho’s traits that he had already taken note of. "How sly of you.", Minho says. "May I call you a name of my choosing, then?"

He does not think much of it, and so he mindlessly nods, too far-gone in the chirping of the animals and the blows of the wind.

"Princess.” Minho laughingly says as he pokes at Taemin’s side. “I shall call you Princess."

Taemin is quick to scoff in response. He raises his head, glaring at Minho. "Princess?! I am not a woman! I am a-" He was about to say Prince, about to ruin whatever this is, this thing between him and Minho— but he saves himself quickly enough. "-Uh- I- I am a man!"

"You say you are a man, and yet you are even more beautiful than any other maidens I have seen in my lifetime. You refuse to tell me your name, therefore I am allowed to call you whichever name I so please."

He cannot stop the burning that he feels in his cheeks. The idea of a beautiful prince is ridiculous, silly. Unthinkable. But hearing it from Minho's lips makes him want to believe that it is not all too bad, to be called as such.

As loathsome as the name is, he does not bother to argue about it any further. It would take too much effort to argue with Minho, and he is too tired from today's lessons and trainings to do anything other than to rest his head on the other’s shoulder. His eyes droop closed, and he does not try to force his tiredness away.

When he wakes up later, he finds that he had somehow snuggled his way into Minho's side. It feels too natural; the way that his head is cushioned by Minho’s arm, the way that his own arm is over the man’s torso, comfortable in its position there. The cloak from yesterday is draped over the both of them. He is sufficiently covered from the cold, up to his feet from the cloak’s cloth, but he is not certain if could say the same about Minho. The man was unusually tall.

It is still dark, with the stars still blinking high above them. But he cannot risk falling asleep again in the warmth underneath his cloak and in Minho's arms, so with an undeniable heaviness in his chest, he tears himself away from the dozing man and forces himself to return to what he had learned to dub as his home.

(But he cannot help thinking that there on the grassy fields, underneath his cloak, is where home feels more like.)

---                                       

"Your actions beg me to think that you are a liar."

"Minho-"

"That, too. For I have yet to know your name. Yet you know mine." Minho has his arms crossed again, like how his arms were crossed the last evening, when he was also fuming over the same reason.

He predicted that Minho was going to be upset again. Taemin was quite afraid of going back to this field; for fear that Minho may be much too angry this time around to allow him to nestle in his arms again while they act as if they still only came there to watch the stars.

Taemin's shoulders sag under his large cloak. Despite the beauty of the stars above them, everything just seems dull and bleak.

After a while of only animals chirping and breezes whistling, he stands a tad straighter, determined. He sits cross-legged in front of Minho, lowering the hood of his large cloak.

"Taemin." is what he says.

At that, Minho's attention snaps to him; for the moment Taemin had sat in front of him, Minho had decided that the ground was far more appealing to look at. Breathing in deeply, Taemin continues.

"My name is Taemin."

"Taemin?” Minho asks, disbelief etched in his voice, “As in Lee Taemin? The Prince--"

"Please don't say it. Not you. Anyone but you."

"But-"

"You can call me Princess, you can call me anything. Just not that." Taemin shakes his head, shrinking into his cloak, just as he always does. It feels colder, even under his cloak, because now he feels exposed. Identities and names do not appeal to him. "I hate that.”

"Taemin," Minho says dreamily, to nothing in particular, as if trying it on his tongue, seeing how it feels as it comes from his own lips. Tilts Taemin's chin up with one gentle finger, he leans forward, smiling. "I can call you Taemin."

Taemin almost whimpers in timid gratefulness, so unlike how someone of his status is demanded to act. He cannot help it though, when he had just realized that he had just perhaps stumbled across the person he hadn't known he had been looking for, on a grassy field that he had opted to go to on one very lonely evening.

He does not try to fight it when Minho urges him to sit by his side. When they are contentedly side by side, Minho lays the both of them down on the ground, backs against the familiar, soft grass. He pulls the cloak over both of them, allowing Taemin to further nestle into his arms.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Taemin.” He says into the night air, a wistful, lovesick undertone colouring his voice. “Truly."

-and for them, their evenings continue like this- until the day that the sun threatens not to set and the moon not to rise again.

I love medieval!2min AUs