Kyungsoo’s nails dig into the palm of his fist, not hard enough to be painful, just enough to relieve some stress. There’s a fullness around his heart, a clenching about his lungs. His shoulders are too stiff. His legs hurt from standing. He resists the urge to flex his toes in his otherwise too tight shoes, afraid of swaying and drawing attention to himself.

“Kyungsoo…” whispers a soft, deep voice.

Instantly Kyungsoo relaxes. Though he already knows what Chanyeol is going to say.

“Smile,” says the other man. “Or people will think you plan a full-on assault of the grooms.” His deep chuckle belies Kyungsoo’s hidden feelings. Chanyeol knows what’s going on his head without Kyungsoo having to say it.

He nods. A moment later, Chanyeol finds his left hand, two sweaty palms seeking the other.

It’s a very non-traditional wedding they’re attending. Nobody is much surprised. One of the groom's is a royal, Minseok. The other, Lu Han, is noble born. The eccentricity of their union is a luxury partly afforded only to the rich, partly to their respective nationalities. As long as the champagne flows, there’s no one who can say anything about it.

The music processional begins, a soft orchestral arrangement which builds gradually as members of the wedding party enter the room. It’s lead by a gaggle of flower girls and boy, some young, some older. Kyungsoo’s tiniest cousins will be apart of that group, though Kyungsoo is too short to see around the heads in front of him.

“Switch with me,” says Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo moves around gratefully. He gets one glimpse of the flower party before the next set of attendants march raucously down the aisle. It’s another mixed group of some of the couple’s closest friends. They pass by to terse nods and crisp smiles, before they too stand beside the altar, the center of which remains empty.

“Is this it?” asks Chanyeol conversationally as the music changes its tone.

“Must be,” whispers Kyungsoo.

Instantly his stomach turns to knots. Breakfast was a long time ago otherwise it might be threatening a comeback. The palm entwined around his tightens, and Kyungsoo presses back even as he has the urge to wring himself from Chanyeol’s grasp and fly out of the room.

The grooms as they proceed down the aisle, however, have none of Kyungsoo’s qualms. They walk with poise and grace, smiles bigger than any Kyungsoo’s ever seen on them, well, maybe at least as big as the day their engagement was announced.

“They’ll think you’re jealous,” warns Chanyeol. “Smile.”

“I am smiling,” he replies.

“Your teeth are barred. I’m not sure that’s the same thing.”

“I just want to leave.”

Chanyeol sighs softly. The grooms are almost to their places, but suddenly the entire room feels oppressive with its stark beauty and celebratory air, the most heated reminder that when Kyungsoo said he wanted to get married, he was strictly forbidden.

“Let’s go then.”

It’s been three years since Kyungsoo determined the person he wanted to marry. And even then he knew it was a longshot. For one, people like him, people in his family like him, do not marry lightly. They don’t just get to marry the people they want. There is politics to consider, alliances to be detailed, the future of nations to be remembered. Kyungsoo may be the third born son of a prince with no claims to a throne, but that doesn’t mean he can get away with doing whatever he wants.

He was rebuked, shamed, and mocked for his selfish desires until his face turned crimson and the ground before him dotted with tears. He was sent away into reflection. A month later he returned forgiven.

“It’s not fair,” he whispers into the breeze.

Chanyeol is still holding his hand. The private balcony they retired into is all the reprieve Kyungsoo needs to get his bearings. Behind them somewhere the ceremony is ending. The reception is soon to begin.

Chanyeol doesn’t say a thing. After a while he lets go of Kyungsoo’s hand but remains by his side. Their shoulders touch. Kyungsoo is relieved, not only by receiving his warmth, but because this… this is something no one has tried to take away from him.

They can’t take Chanyeol away from him.

Trumpets blast in the distance. The tinkling of the chamber orchestra announces the imminent arrival of the newly wedded grooms into the banquet hall. Neither Chanyeol nor Kyungsoo move.

“I’ve talked to my father, you know,” says Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo doesn’t know, actually. “What do you mean?”

“He’s going to talk to your family next week.”

“What?” he exclaims, a little louder. He springs apart and turns his body, facing his friend in the shadows, and he is very, very confused. “Talk to them… about what, exactly?” Kyungsoo is a little afraid of the answer.

Chanyeol shrugs too casually, as if he’s trying intentionally not to make any promises. And Kyungsoo’s blood runs cold, not out of fear but because of nerves. He hasn’t dared hope for anything, really. Originally forbidden to marry, he wasn't necessarily barred from seeing Chanyeol, and he's grown entirely used to pretending now that they're just friends. As long as they kept up that veneer, it hadn't mattered whether or not they were seen together. Kyungsoo's gotten used to that, if not exactly comfortable with it. This though... 

“There are… some concessions your grandfather has always wanted from us. Hunting rights, fishing, etc.” His voice runs gruffly into a soft mumble wherein Kyungsoo thinks he hears the phrase ‘taxation on imports.’ He his lips, and definitely doesn’t dare to hope.

“Why would your father give any of that up? That’s been your family’s rights for two hundred years and they’ve never once considered giving even a fraction of it up.”

Chanyeol shrugs again. “Maybe… I’ve talked to him. Maybe, he’s seen how unhappy I am. How we are. He thinks, perhaps your family would change their minds if… he offers something like that. That they’d give us permission to… you know.”

And this time Kyungsoo does know. He thinks.

“He’d really do that?” he asks, voice small.

Chanyeol nods and finds his hand again in the shadows. Something blooms pleasantly in the pit of Kyungsoo’s stomach.

“Let’s go back inside,” Chanyeol suggests. Still holding his hand he drags him away from the balcony, and Kyungsoo resists the urge to pull him back and stay. All at once the memories of his father scolding him, of his mother softly reprimanding him, of his grandfather’s ire and his cousins smug looks of disdain and his uncle's furious looks... all of it hits in him in the gut, and then it melts. If he could change any of that, if he could just get what he wants after all this time...

It can’t have been easy for Chanyeol to approach his father about it. But if one thing is true, it’s that Chanyeol wants to marry him as much as Kyungsoo does.

“You’re smiling now,” says Chanyeol.

“I am?” Kyungsoo laughs, still in disbelief.

Chanyeol laughs along with him, but then his face turns serious. They’re poised under the archway that leads back into the glittery banquet room where a thousand plus people parade about in their finest attire, their most precious jewels, their most uncomfortable shoes.

“Kyungsoo, I don’t want you think I only told you this to make tonight a little nicer. Because, really, there’s a possibility it’s not going to work, and… after what we’ve been through over the last three years, I don’t want you to get all your hopes up.”

“I don’t care.” Still smiling, Kyungsoo drags Chanyeol into the hall. He’s shocked to realize that he truly means that too. He doesn’t care. Get his hopes up, let them come crashing down if they must. In this moment, he’s delighted.

Chanyeol’s trying to for him. Chanyeol’s trying so hard. Maybe more so than Kyungsoo did. And that means everything. No one can take that away from him. No, not even Chanyeol with his cautious optimism.

“I want to dance,” he says suddenly.

Chanyeol laughs, untangles his hand from Kyungsoo’s, but then puts both his arms around Kyungsoo’s small shoulders. He leans down, foreheads touching. “And I want to marry you. But we can’t do either right this second.”

“Why not?” asks Kyungsoo petulantly.

“Because,” Chanyeol smirks, “because they haven’t started the right music yet. We have to wait. There’ll be announcements first. Then drinks, dinner and feasting, then more drinks. The toasts! Then cake. ”

“I don’t like being patient,” says Kyungsoo.

“I know you don’t. Believe me, I know you don’t.”

Some of the guests near the back of the room have started to notice them. Kyungsoo breaks apart from Chanyeol, grabs his hand again, and scowls at them all. Not a few of them are distant relatives who will remember his forbidden engagement from years before.  They’re cousins and politicians who shook their heads quietly, silently chiding Kyungsoo for getting so ahead of himself with ideas . Kyungsoo doesn’t call it getting ideas though. He calls it falling in love. He’d wipe the smirks from their faces the first opportunity he gets.

In fact.

“Come here.”

Before Chanyeol can react, Kyungsoo reaches for his head. Small hands draw him down, and the expression on Chanyeol’s face is everything he could ask for. His surprise is evident, but short lived, before Kyungsoo is bringing him down to his level and kissing him like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do on earth.

Maybe it’s not as romantic as some kisses. Maybe it’s not as sweet as the one happening on the other side of the room where the grooms have finally entered, happy and blushing and getting to finally show off their love as a married couple. So what that only a few people notice Chanyeol and Kyungsoo because they’re watching the other kiss instead. Chanyeol’s mouth is warm, his lips are a little chapped, his arms flounder a second too long before he adds them to Kyungsoo’s waist. And it’s possible too that Kyungsoo may have accidentally snagged a few curls of his hair painfully around his fingers.

But when it’s all said and done, Kyungsoo is smiling. And Chanyeol is smiling. And the few people who observed them are blinking their eyes in confusion, and that’s all that Kyungsoo needs.

Hope.

A future.

Chanyeol.

Maybe the next wedding will be theirs.

“I think I can wait now.”

It’s well after the drinks and the feasting and the toasting, the cake and the dancing that Kyungsoo sits down, exhausted but still in a state of semi euphoria. He’s more than a little buzzed, and he ate too much food. His gut presses uncomfortably at the seams of his trousers so much that he’s contemplated exactly fifteen times whether it would be undignified to loosen the top button. He sighs, happy and content, and merely rearranges his suit jacket. Chanyeol’s foot nudges his under the table and more than one of Kyungsoo’s knowing relatives have begun to let up from their scandalized, judgmental looks.

Kyungsoo stares back at the last remaining brazen cousin, daring him to say anything when Chanyeol leans over and kisses his cheek.

A shadow looms above them and Chanyeol sits immediately upright. Kyungsoo scowls, slower to move. His uncle clears his throat and merely hovers there for a second too long.

“A word with you, nephew, please. Prince Chanyeol,” he adds, belatedly nodding.

Kyungsoo’s scowl increases, but he works really hard to clear it from his face before meeting his uncle’s eyes. This man, apart from his own father, had been one of the loudest dissenters. It must be eating him up alive that he’s had to come to this particular wedding and pretend to enjoy himself.

“Yes, uncle? What is it?”

Not two seconds later, a second figure steps up beside the first and s his hand atop his shoulder. Kyungsoo suppresses another smile when he sees his uncle’s height drop three inches under the weight. It’s Chanyeol’s father.

“Mr. Do, how lovely to see you,” says the king .

Kyungsoo’s uncle winces. Both their surnames are Do, but the king hasn’t even bothered to address him directly. Instead, it’s only Kyungsoo he looks at. And his son. Finally, he levels his eyes at Kyungsoo’s uncle and meets him with a smoldering smile.

“I’m told we have some things to discuss. Next week perhaps, I’ll have my secretary come around meet with your sovereign. In the meantime, Mr. Do,” this time he means his uncle, “I heard you’re into fishing? Never been much of a fisherman myself but…”

As the king expertly leads Kyungsoo’s uncle away, some of Kyungsoo’s ire leaves with them.

“I like your father,” he tells Chanyeol.

Chanyeol is nodding. “He’s… a good man.”

“He is," Kyungsoo agrees. 

“Better than his son?”

Kyungsoo takes another sip from his glass and smirks, purposefully not meeting Chanyeol’s eyes. “Guess that remains to be seen. Shall we dance?”

Chanyeol instantly groans. “Again??” he complains.

“Yes, I think so. Again.”

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