Minho gazed up Jinki from his spot on the floor. There was a crown fashioned out of thin piece of cardboard and covered in gold flecks, something Minho had put together as a gift.

It was December 14^th. Lee Jinki’s 26^th birthday.

The two of them had to celebrate by themselves. The others were at a very important meeting somewhere lost in Seoul. They’d decided collectively to stop calling one part Eden and the other Gehenna. Seoul was Seoul. It had been Seoul under King Taehyun and if they had their way, it would be Seoul under King Jinki.

Minho didn’t try to understand what is was that Jonghyun, Kibum and Taemin did. All he knew was there was plenty of meetings, underground, in dark places, shielded by anti-monitoring devices, working the details of an eventual rebellion.

Nothing was holding them back now. They had their Royal Heir.

However, going by Jinki’s temporary identity, they actually had Park Yejun. It had a ring to it, Minho guessed. So he, and ‘Yejun’, celebrated the Royal Heir’s birthday the only way Minho knew how to––with lots and lots of liquor.

Jinki stood on the couch, his mix-matched socks digging into the cushion. The cardboard crown was slanted on his head and the same threadbare blanket that had warmed Jinki’s days before, was thrown over his shoulders like a cape. In his hand was a spatula that he used as a scepter.

“I am the King of the Forest!” Jinki yelled–sang as he waved his “scepter”.  He swung, facing Minho on the floor.

Minho took a long swig of his soju, the grin on his face wide as he moved to sitting, then he teetered as he struggled to get on one knee. “Your Majesty, if you were king, you wouldn't be afraid of anything?”

Jinki pondered for a second before shaking his head. “Not nobody! Not nohow!”

“What about a rhinoceros?”

Jinki pointed his scepter at Minho. “Imposerous!”

Minho tipped his head back and laughed, barely able to get his next sentence out. “What about a hippopotamus?”

Jinki slash his scepter in a giant X, almost falling off the couch as he did. He righted himself back up and put his hands on his hips. “I’d thrash him from top to bottomus.”

Minho felt he couldn’t breathe as much as he was laughing.

Jinki took a wobbly step from the couch to the floor and stood above Minho. “Ho! Ho! How dare you laugh in the face of your Prince?”

"Because my Prince is perfectly entertaining,” Minho managed to get out, hiccupping. “I have a surprise for you.”

The scepter dropped at Jinki’s side and his face lit up. “Really?”

“Really,” Minho said as he struggled to stand. “I’ll be right back.” Minho began his trek to the kitchen and heard the sounds of footfalls behind him. He paused and rounded on Jinki, who took a step back. Jinki’s face was washed in childish curiosity and Minho bit his lip to keep from smiling. He fixed his face in a stern frown.

“Now I know you’re my Prince and everything, and I am but your loyal and ever faithful bodyguard, but you’re going to have to sit down and stay put.”

“But you said it’s–“

“Have a seat, my Prince.”

Jinki did so grumbling. He reached for a fresh bottle of soju and popped the top off. “Yeah, yeah.”

Minho rushed into the kitchen and grabbed his surprise out of the refrigerator. He reached above the stove and grabbed a set of matches out of the cabinet above it, using it on his surprise before pocketing it.

Minho didn’t have a lot of money, which wasn’t surprising since he was jobless. His last check had gone to his parents and brother, making sure they were out of Eden before Theo came looking for them. The good thing about Theo’s reign was it was absolute in Seoul but only moderately affluent outside of it. China was one of those counties where he wasn’t the most popular. Why these outside powers hadn’t stepped in and ended the downpour of Theo’s insanity was beyond him. He wasn’t a politician for a reason.

When he reached the living room, Jinki was staring at the label of the soju bottle, a look of contemplation on his face. “This is my first time having something that isn’t ceremonial wine. It’s different. I like it.”

“A lot of people like it. You’ve got good taste.”
 

At hearing Minho’s voice, Jinki’s raised his head. He looked at what was in Minho’s hands and gave it the same look of contemplation as he had the soju bottle. “What’s that?”

Minho’s smile of anticipatory glee, his imagination of what Jinki would look like when he presented his surprise, waned, then disappeared altogether. “You don’t know what this is?”

“No. That isn’t a royal custom. There was plenty of food but never a cake that was set on fire.”

“It’s not on fire. It’s a birthday cake and these are birthday candles. Us common folk,” Minho said with bite of sarcasm, “use it to celebrate birthdays.” Minho walked the cake over to Jinki and set it down on the table in front of him. “It has twenty six candles. They say,” Minho said as he took a seat beside him, “that the candles on a birthday cake were meant to represent the light of the moon and the smoke they let off would carry any dreams or wishes you had to the Gods. It’s not a thousand paper cranes but I thought they would make a good substitute.”

Jinki brought his face closer, staring at the cake curiously. “So, these candles will grant me a wish?”

“Yeah, when you blow them out.”

Jinki glanced at Minho before looking back at the cake. “I wonder if there is a difference between wishes from cranes and wishes from candles. Maybe I’m being greedy but one day I’ll finish my cranes and get that wish…but today…I want something different. Something I was scared of having in the past.”

Minho canted his head to the side. “What is it?”

Jinki stood suddenly, his one hand going behind his back. His other hand instinctively rubbed together as if he still had his prayer beads. “I’m not supposed to be selfish. But haven’t I been the absolute opposite of selfish all my life? All I do is pray for Seoul, for its protection because I don’t have the power to save it. But…I want something for me?” He began to pace. “Something that isn’t sweet cakes, or a pile of books I’m not supposed to own, or to be a spiritual martyr for a country that doesn’t know I’m alive.”

“Jinki?”

Jinki turned to him abruptly. “Why did you kiss me? Before we escaped. Why?”

Minho looked at him from the couch. Honestly, he thought Jinki had forgotten about it. But he remembered how Jinki reacted to it. He remembered Jinki kissing him back. “Because I wanted to. It’s all I ever wanted to do,” Minho said, his voice low and sincere.

“Why haven’t you kissed me since then? Why have you been acting like I’m some sort of white sheet that you’re afraid to touch? Afraid to get your fingerprints on? If it’s all you’ve ever wanted to do, why haven’t you touched me?”

“You’re my Prince,” Minho said slowly, quietly, “One day, you’ll be my King. I’m…a nobody. I’m common and you’re right. I have been treating you differently. I shouldn’t be touching you. I don’t deserve to.”

“That’s the thing, Minho. I want you to. I dream about you. I dream about you, every night.  I don’t even know what the dreams mean but you’re there, you’re always there and everything is muted and softly lit and you are touching me and it feels so good and I never want to wake up because in this world you touched me once and then denied me the fact that it ever happened.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do,” Minho said quietly.

“But that’s what you did!”

Minho was silent because Jinki was right.

“I don’t know what love is, Minho. All I do is read about it, so I get it in an abstract way. But those chemical reactions––serotonin or oxytocin or whatever that book said––I feel them now. And––“ Jinki paused, bent over and blew out his candles. “This is my first birthday cake. This is my first wish.”

Minho stood, his knees a little weak, his heart working overtime to keep up with his thoughts. “I shouldn’t touch you. These hands…they don’t belong on you…but I want to. I want to touch you, hold you and never let go. But I can’t. I can’t. When all of this is over… I can’t keep you. So I don't. I don't touch you because I can't. ”

“And this might not work out at all!” Jinki yelled, exasperated. “I may have to continue living as Yejun for the rest of my life but that’s okay if I can keep you. I want you to have me. I don’t want to be, a Prince or a commoner, without you. I’d move heaven and earth to have you. I’d destroy the sun.”

Minho felt the air rush out of his chest. “You are the sun.”

Jinki looked him in the eyes, unwavering. “And you are my moon.”

His reservations became meaningless. He stood and crossed the space between them, not knowing if the journey cost him seconds, minutes, hours, Lee Jinki’s freedom or his heart. He didn’t care.

Jinki met him half way and they crashed like waves, all lips and tongue and teeth. Jinki tasted like soju, bitter, hints of the fruit the nibbled on. Minho tried to touch him everywhere he hadn’t been allowed to touch him before, sear his fingertips on Jinki’s skin.

Minho pressed forward, both of them tumbling on the other couch, Jinki’s back bouncing off the springs as they landed. Minho wanted to be patient with him, show him the things he’d learnt from fumbling in the dark with a classmate, or how an older woman had taught him the correct way to use his tongue, but Jinki was moving faster than patience could allow and Minho fell in line with a command Jinki didn’t realize he was giving.

Minho doesn’t do what he wants to do. He doesn’t undress Jinki slowly, he doesn’t savor it the way his heart is begging for because this wasn’t about him. He kissed Jinki like he was cold and Jinki was hot as the sun, accepting his warmth, knowing that without it he would freeze to death. He yanked off Jinki’s borrowed shirt because it was unnecessary. He tasted Jinki’s skin like it was the sweetest sin.

He pressed him into the couch as if it was the only way to make him understand exactly how much he meant to him.

Minho sat back and looked at Jinki, good and well, from his flushed skin to his lips, red and bruised, to his hair failing over his shoulder. His face unobscured by his satgat veil.

Slowly he hooked his fingers in to the hem of Jinki’s pants and began to lower them. Jinki reached out and stopped him, his warm soft fingers wrapping around his wrist.

“Is something wrong?” Minho asked. “Do you want me to stop?”

Jinki shook his head. “I…I just––you make me feel like I’m not imaginary. Like I’m not a ghost.”

Minho moved back up Jinki’s body, passed skin he still wanted to taste, lips he wanted to capture to rest their foreheads together. “You can’t be imaginary. You are everything.”

Jinki pulled him closer, on top of him, and kissed him, deep. So deep he could breathe for Minho if he needed it.

“Show me. Show me I’m real,” he whispered against his lips.

Minho savored it. “Yes. Yes, Your Highness.”



Because they were human and humans needed food and they couldn’t live off of birthday cake alone, Minho decided that he would make a quick trip to the corner market and grab them some noodles.

As he left, he heard Jinki whisper sleepily from the couch, “That was so much better than a e in Vegas,” to which Minho threw his balled up shirt at him, laughing.

He didn’t take long at the market. He did pick up some bottles of wine because admittingly wine was a little more romantic to the post- palate than the cheap soju they’d consumed. He hurried back taking the back streets instead of main road. Most of the university and surrounding apartments were enclosed within itself, like its own community and the chances of someone spotting him and knowing who he was was rare. University students were too involved in their studies, crazed with fall exams, too absorbed in their own lives to worry about fugitives of the law living amongst them.

Their hideout was four flights up and Minho always took the stairs back up on the rare occasions he left. He jogged up them, the two bottles of wine clanging against each other as he did and Minho slowed a bit, not wanting to break either of them.

He had something he wanted to say to Jinki and he had to try four times to get the key in the lock due to his excitement.

The door swung open.

Jinki stared back at him from the couch, his eyes wet with tears. A figure sat on the arm of the couch, his fingers softly carding through Jinki’s black hair.

“Hello, Minho.”

Two bottles of wine crashed at his feet.

“No,” he breathed.

Theo.



There hadn’t been much time to leave Jonghyun or Kibum a note. Not that he would if he could. He wasn’t going to be personally responsible for giving Theo an easier way to track down any other member of Jonghyun’s Brotherhood. He did manage, just before the two of them were forced out of the apartment, to press the relay button on the anti-monitoring device. He hoped Jonghyun got the message.

Stay away.

They rode back to Gehenna in the back of a limousine, its windows blocked off by thick velvet curtains. Minho threaded his fingers in Jinki’s as they both sat across from Theo. In Theo’s hand was a black shiny revolver, the kind Minho had seen in a Western movie before. It fit Theo’s style in the repugnant outdated way that he dressed. Today’s suit was sea foam green and white seersucker suit.

“How did you find us?” Minho asked from his seat. He glanced at Jinki. His face was blank, unresponsive, even as he stared down the barrel of a gun.

“Is that really important? If I told you, would that…somehow make this easier for you? Make you feel better?” Theo laughed. “None of it matters. It doesn’t matter that you thought you could hide from me and it doesn’t matter that you kidnapped him in the first place. The only thing you’ve done is delay the inevitable.”

Minho felt his throat clench.

“Oh, I had such high hopes for you Minho. You showed such promise. I explicitly told you not to get attached and what did you do?” He glanced down at Minho’s and Jinki’s intertwined hands. “What a disappointment. Not only to me…but to your family!” Theo sighed like Minho was his greatest disappointment. “Let’s talk about consequences shall we, Minho?

“What are you going to do to me?”

“To you?” Theo chuckled. “That was almost cute enough to be funny. Not to you, Minho. Your family. First, I’m going to have your parent’s and brother’s visas revoked. Any whispering of terrorism will do that even if The Republic of China would rather gnaw their own arm off than help me.  Once that’s done, I’m going to have them jailed, caned, and exiled as conspirators. It’s the least they deserve for having a second son who is so boldly arrogant and insubordinate as you.  Then I will wake you up one morning, have you dragged out of your bed, where you will bear witness to Lee Jinki’s execution.”

“Please don’t,” was all Minho could manage, his voice small and vulnerable.

“I don’t like beggars, Minho.”

The shadow of Gwanghwamu––the main gate loomed over the limousine. “Ah,” Theo said as he placed his revolver into his holster. He smiled at Jinki. “Home sweet home, your Highness.”



Gyeongbokgung Palace
Ten days after December 14^th; Christmas Eve

Minho had thought of forty ways to escape and forty times he had failed. There was no way to contact Jonghyun. There was no way to get a warning out to Kibum. There was no way to tell little Minhwa that the ghost she believed in was a real man, a real man hours away from being murdered. Minho refused to call it execution. Jinki had done nothing wrong. He’d done nothing wrong but exist and because of that they were going to…

He resettled Jinki in his arms. They were being kept in Hamwonjeon––the very same room that Theo had used to cull Jinki’s power out of him. The part of Jinki’s ‘prayer’ ceremony that he’d never seen was being played out in front of him. A priest, dressed in all black stood before a fire, his whispered and fevered prayers causing the embers in the fire part to whoosh every now and again.



This morning, when, as promised, Theo had Minho dragged from his bed, he’d been surprised when they ended up in Hamwonjeon. Jinki was already there, situated in a series of circles outlined on the floor. Four urns were positioned, north, south, east and west of his body. He was dressed in all white again, the only thing missing was his veiled satgat.



By noon, Jinki had already been through two prayer ceremonies. And it was at the culmination of the second that Minho realized how Theo planned to kill Jinki.



He’s going to drain the life out of him. 



Theo sat in a corner, a bored look on his face as the priest muttered over his fire. A chalice of wine was in his hands as if this was so sort of sporting event, something for his amusement and not that fact that he was ordering the death of a member of his own family. Then again, Theo had murdered many members of his own family. This was just one more.



“Minho,” Jinki whispered from his arms. Blood stained his all white hanbok, his lips, his teeth. “Minho,” he said again, reaching up and touching his face with a gentleness Minho didn’t think he deserved. “You’re crying. You’ve been crying all morning.”

Minho hadn’t realized he had been crying. All of his attention was locked on Jinki, his attempts to be strong as whatever power ripped the life from him caused him to scream out in pain. During the ceremonies, Minho was forced to sit outside of the circle. But how he wanted to reach across those chalk lines, hold Jinki’s hand, let him know that he was here and that he knew he was strong, he was so strong.

And that he loved him.

As soon as a ceremony would end, Minho would rush inside of the circle and gathered Jinki in his arms.

“I always knew I was going to die,” he said softly, his voiced coated in a lethargy that Minho couldn’t heal. He coughed and more blood bubbled at his lips. Minho took a cool towel and wiped it away. “Even with the cranes, I always knew, so I never had hope. But then I met you and you…you gave it to me. Hope felt so good.”
 

“Don’t talk. Please don’t talk,” Minho whispered, anguished as more tears crested against his eyelids. “Save your energy.”

“Shhhh, that’s silly. I always knew I was going to die. I just want to die already. I’m so tired. I’m so tired, Minho. I don’t want to be in pain anymore,” he whispered.

“Jinki, no,” Minho sobbed.

“I’m sorry, Minho.” Jinki smiled, the corners of his mouth barely moving, but Minho knew it was a smile. He’d recognize Jinki’s smile even if he were blind. There was the sound of a gong that rang out over the Palace and Minho clutched Jinki tighter in his arms. “I said you could keep me…that I could have you…but I don’t think that’s possible.”

“You did,” Minho said brokenly. “You do. You have me.” Minho kissed his cheek, kissed his blood spotted lips. “I’m right here. You have me.”

“I do…don’t I? Jinki chuckled softly. “I was a bird, Minho. For a moment in time I was a bird. You gave me feath–feathers.”

Minho could feel Jinki shaking in his hands, so he rocked him, gently. “I didn’t give you feathers. You always had them.”

A hand landed on Minho’s shoulder. He looked up and saw the solemn face of the priest. “It is time.”

“No,” Minho said, his voice deep with defiance. “Get away from him.”

The priest nodded once before the grip on Minho’s shoulder tightened and before he knew it he was being pushed back, forcibly and with strength Minho didn’t know the old priest possessed.

The priest took out a knife and sliced the soft skin of Jinki’s palm, the new cut fitting alongside the other two. He slid Jinki’s hand over the chalk outlining, the blood smearing the lines and tinting them red. He dropped Jinki’s hand and then retook his position in front of the fire.

Theo laughed from his seat. “The last one is going to be oh so good, Minho. See, I’ve never done more than one of these at a time, let alone three. The first two were primers. This one? It’s the real thing,” he said, his eyes alight.

“Why are you torturing him like this!” Minho yelled from the floor.

“What?”’ Theo tilted his head. “Should I put a bullet through his head like I did his father? His mother? That stupid , Eunsook? No. I can’t do that. Jinki has to die and he’ll do it in service of these…idiots in Eden, the ones he loves so much. I’m sure the people would love to know their Prince,” he spat, “would and will die for them. It’s just the way of the world.”

“You mean your world?”

“Same thing. At least with this, I’ll have gathered enough of his power to keep the storms weak for a few more months.”

“And after that?”

“Why do you care? You won’t be around to see that, now will you? But don’t worry. I have plans. Plans that don’t require him to be alive.”

Minho thought he heard Jinki sob from the circle.

“Although, there is something I want to do before that.” Theo stood from his seat. “I thought long and hard about what to do with you, Minho,” he said as he paced over to where Minho kneeled on the floor. “I thought about how I was going to enjoy seeing you locked up in the Towers. Seeing you amongst the very people you guarded but…I can’t do that, can I? You are the biggest threat I’ve ever encountered. Jonghyun is definitely dangerous but you? You have the ability to instill hope in people and I simply won’t allow that. Jinki,” he said finally, turning towards the circle.

The third ceremony had started and Jinki was low in his throat, a groan of pain as the candles began to flicker around him. One of the urns shattered and with that Jinki screamed out in agony, his body contorting, his back bowing off the floor. The urn pieces vanished and reappeared in front of the priest, whole.

“I know you can’t hear me all that well, with you dying and everything but I wanted to let you know something.” Theo reached into his jacket and withdrew his revolver. “I’m sending your little lover here with you. Isn’t that comforting? To know you won’t die alone?”

Even as Jinki strained against the pain, a small “D––don’t touch him,” escaped from his lips.

Theo laughed. “You don’t get to make those demands, my pet. Are goodbyes necessary in situations like these?” Theo pressed the gun up against Minho’s chest. “I’m going to find great pleasure in making your mother scream,” he growled.

“Don’t!”

Theo’s finger began to squeeze the trigger and Minho averted his gaze from the dictator in front of him, to Jinki’s body at the center of the circle. They locked eyes, Minho’s wet with tears, Jinki’s red with blood.

“I love you, Jinki,” Minho mouthed.

“No!” Jinki yelled. White light began to pour from Jinki. The urns sitting in front of the priest shattered. When they did the light from Jinki intensified to it was almost blinding.  The fire roared out of the pit, the flames almost the ceiling. Wind whipped all around Hamwonjeon.

Theo shot Jinki a glance, the fear evident in his eyes before he turned back to Minho. He pulled the trigger.

There was pain. Then there was darkness.