Luck was never really on Jaebeom's side, as far as he could remember. However, between getting Jinyoung to trust not only Mark, but Jaebeom himself, along with the fact that their plan to heal the Prince of Darkness and plant just the smallest seed of doubt in Youngjae's mind went smoother than expected; everything seemed to be looking up.

Until he stepped out of a dodgy bar at 5 a.m and suddenly felt like he was, quite literally, burning up from the inside.

The Ice Prince was nearby.

Panic spread throughout his body as he acted on pure adrenaline and sprinted down the dirt road.

No.

He could not be here.

Not yet.

Clumsily bumping into things as he ran, he finally made his way to his run down home, climbing the stairs frantically. He reached the top floor and immediately got to his knees, sliding painfully on the hard brick floor.

“Mark, wake up!” He whispered harshly. He placed a hand on the other man with the intention of shaking him awake, only to pull back as Mark let out a pained gasp and quickly shifted to place a hand over the bright red patch of skin where he'd just been burned.

“Ow! What the are you doing?” The light elemental hissed through gritted teeth.

“Sorry.” Jaebeom replied, standing up and keeping his hands to himself because Jackson's presence was clearly affecting him, “You have to get up, we have a problem.”

A soft whine sounded from next to Mark, and Jaebeom, in his frantic state, just noticed the shock of black hair and, oh yeah, the Prince of Darkness was their new roommate for a while.

“What's going on?” Jinyoung mumbled sleepily, peeking out from under the blankets.

Mark turned toward him, expression softening, “It’s nothing, don't worry. Go back to sleep, there's still a couple hours ‘til the sun comes up.”

Jinyoung seemed to accept that and closed his eyes again. He sighed in contentment as the other man placed a soft kiss on his temple, gently his hair.

“That's cute. But we have no time for your honeymooning right now.” Jaebeom interrupted before turning on his heels and making for the stairs, “Get dressed and meet me downstairs.”

Mark groaned in annoyance, making sure that Jinyoung was asleep before he reluctantly pulled the blanket off of him and rolled out of the makeshift bed. He picked up his strewn about clothes and put it on quickly.

He suddenly noticed something shining out of the corner of his eye and spotted Jinyoung's ring lying innocently in the corner of the room. With one last lingering look at the Prince of Darkness sleeping peacefully, Mark bent down and picked up the ring before running downstairs.

“What's wrong?” He asked, spotting Jaebeom on the lowest floor, leaning against the wall.

“Icey's in town.”

Mark frowned, “Why?”

“Looking for his boyfriend that you stole, I assume.” the other man replied, moving to stand on one side of the open doorway and looking around outside.

Mark joined him, leaning against the opposite side, “So what do we do?”

“You have to get rid of him somehow.” Jaebeom spoke, “He can't find me or the prince now, or our whole plan will be ed.”

The other man sighed, “This isn’t exactly ideal, but I'll… try to find a way to get him to the boat monument and keep him there as long as possible. You need to get everything done tonight, we obviously can't stall any longer.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Mark stretched, stepping outside, “Ok. In the meantime, you can get Jinyoung some breakfast.”

“What do I tell him when he inevitably asks where you are?” Jaebeom questioned, eyebrows raising.

The light elemental paused before replying, “Tell him the truth. I'm almost positive he won't care too much.”

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

“Your Majesty…”

Jackson turned in the direction of the voice, spotting a man nearby, down on one knee with his head bowed. “Yes?”

The man looked up, his sparkling eyes locking with the prince's, “I… uh… I have information.”

“Information about what?” He asked, eyebrows drawing together in intrigue.

Mark stood, glancing around to make sure none of the other townspeople were nearby enough to hear them before he continued, voice soft, “I assume you're looking for Ji--… Prince Jinyoung.”

The Ice Prince narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Nobody had said a word about Jinyoung to the general public yet. There had been no announcement or rumors or anything, so the fact that this guy knew that they were looking for the Prince of Darkness meant that he must have really known something.

“How do you know that?” he asked softly, beckoning the guards closer to listen in.

“I saw him last night.” Mark replied equally soft, trying his hardest not to break character because, yeah, he saw a lot of him last night, “He was with Jaebeom and they were talking about going over to the next town because this one was becoming unsafe.”

Jaebeom. There was that name again. Jackson had been hearing way too much about him since this whole thing started, “Did they leave?”

“I don't know.” The other man spoke, “I assume so, I haven't seen either of them this morning.”

“Take me to the next town.” Jackson suddenly demanded, causing Mark's eyes to widen. He hadn't expected it to be that easy.

“Your highness,” a guard piped up behind him, “We should take a carriage and make our way there on our own.”

The Ice Prince crossed his arms, ignoring him and still facing Mark, “Is the next town far from here?”

The other man nodded, “Uh, on foot it's about… two to three hours away? Something like that.”

“Do you travel there often?”

“Yeah, all the time.” Mark lied, making things up as he went, “I was born there, so most of my family is there.”

“So you know the place quite intimately then.” That was more of a statement than a question, “That's why I want you to take us there. We'll have more luck and cover more ground with a local by our side. Even if you're only half-local.”

“Um…” Mark looked around unsurely.

The Ice Prince took a step closer to him, dropping his voice even lower, “That's an order. If you don't assist us, that entire town will be wiped off the map in the blink of an eye.”

Mark just barely resisted the urge to laugh or make some sort of sarcastic 'ooh scary’ remark and instead bowed his head, “Yes sir.”

This worked out a bit too well for him, it was almost suspicious. But he figured that Jackson was subconsciously feeling Jaebeom's presence and his automatic reaction was to get as far away from him as possible.

Not that Mark was complaining.

“Besides…” Jackson continued, “I can't count out the possibility that you're in cahoots with them too, so I want you in my sight at all times.”

“Fair enough.” Mark shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking past the prince, “Follow me.”

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

Jinyoung woke up with a start at the loud voices shouting somewhere near him. He scrambled to throw the blanket off of him so he could go on the offensive, only to wince and squint at the too bright light of the mid-morning sun. Calming down a little once he realized that the slowly fading voices sounded like just a friendly, albeit excited, conversation between people walking down the road outside, he sighed, stretched out and took in his current state.

He was still in Mark's bed, still and still a fugitive. He was tired and his lower back ached from sleeping on the floor rather than in his comfortable, soft bed. But he was also alone, which was not something he was used to, never mind being alone in a strange, run down town where anyone seeing him could compromise his position.

The place was unnerving without Mark there. Even though it was broad daylight, Jinyoung still felt anxious.

He tensed as he heard the sound of heavy footsteps making their way toward him and instinctively covered the entire room in a veil of darkness in an attempt to hide himself, putting his guard up.

“Relax, Prince, it's just me.” Jaebeom's familiar voice called calmly through the dark fog.

Jinyoung let out a relieved sigh and slowly let the darkness dissipate. His eyes landed on Jaebeom standing at the top of the stairs and holding two brown bags. He flashed the prince a crooked grin, stepping forward and tossing one of the bags at Jinyoung.

“Breakfast.” Was all the other man said as he moved to the wall opposite the bed, dropped his bag and immediately pulled his shirt off, chucking it down the stairs to the lower floor, “How you feeling?”

“My back hurts…” Jinyoung admitted off-handedly, eyes scanning over all the scars and marks decorating the other's body, fascinated for no real reason other than he'd never seen anything like it, growing up with a healer and everything. He didn't really get to see Mark last night, thanks to the blanket, but he had to assume that this was a common thing for a lot of people.

“Enjoying the view, Prince?”

Snapping out of it at the sound of the voice of the man he just realized he was ogling, Jinyoung shook his head, “Sorry. The ‘view’ is nice and all, but I was just…”

“‘Just’..?” The other prompted, wearing a suggestive smirk, “Fantasizing? Thinking dirty thoughts, your majesty? I can help with that, you know.”

“I bet you could, but no thanks.” The prince replied simply, “I mean, you're good looking. And you've got a nice body… but you're not Mark.”

Jaebeom’s smirk morphed into a smile as he sat down against the wall and grabbed his paper bag, “That's good. Because I don't steal from family.”

Oh. Right. Jinyoung had meant to ask about that.

“So, I assume Mark told you everything. About the elemental oppositions.” The other started, pulling out his sandwich and biting into it.

“He did tell me some things,” the prince replied, “but I still have so many questions.”

“Ask away.”

Jinyoung took in a breath, trying to collect his thoughts, “Firstly; you're… you're Jackson's… opposite, aren't you?”

Jaebeom gave him a thumbs up, swallowing the food in his mouth before replying with a “Correct.”

“So that means you're a fire elemental, right?”

“Correct.”

“Ok…” the prince glanced down as if committing that to memory before moving on. Looking back at Jaebeom, he continued, “How… is that possible? Fire elementals, light elementals… as far as I know, they don't exist. But you and Mark are living proof, so… just… how..?”

Jaebeom chuckled, “Well… to put it simply… the court that you guys blindly follow has been lying to you your whole lives. Well, not just you, everyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“From what you know, there's only four elements. That's a lie. There are eight.”

“Opposites…”

“Exactly.” Jaebeom clicked his tongue, “So, thousands of years ago… or maybe hundreds, I dunno, but… a long time ago, some in the palace realized that having two opposites in the same or close vicinity was highly unpredictable and made the very moral decision that, in order to keep the peace, four of those elements had to be permanently eliminated.” He shrugged, “So they killed them. And then went on like they never existed.”

“How were they unpredictable?” Jinyoung questioned, sitting and listening like a child at school.

“I don't know for sure. But take us, for example.” The other man continued, “You and Mark, darkness and light; the entire world is a combination of darkness and light, they can't exist without each other. So you two are drawn to one another because you need each other to be complete, you can't fully exist unless you're together. Mark wasn’t nearly as lively and… happy before he met you.”

Jinyoung tilted his head, “I was the same. That's… really weird to think about.”

Jaebeom nodded, “On the other hand, fire and ice can't coexist, one will always overpower the other. Because of that, my default feelings for the Ice Prince is to melt him before he puts me out. Basically. That's why he instinctively hated me the other night.”

“So you feel as strongly about him as I feel about Mark… but in a different way?”

“Uh-Huh.”

“So, are there any water and earth opposites?”

“There most likely were, at some point. I don't know if there's any living at the moment.”

The Prince of Darkness pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, a little overwhelmed by all the information but soaking up every word. “Ok. This is a lot to take in. You know what;” he opened his eyes again, seeing spots for a few seconds, “I'm gonna need time to think about all that. For now, let me ask you an easier question; how are you and Mark related?”

“The short answer; he's my brother.” Jaebeom replied simply.

“What's the long answer?”

“You said you wanted an easy question.” The other man teased, “The slightly longer answer is that he's my half-brother. We share a father.”

“Oh. So… your father was an elemental?”

“Hmm… kind of? But not quite.”

Jinyoung frowned in confusion but said nothing, obviously trying unsuccessfully to put the pieces together.

Jaebeom chuckled, “Alright, story time, Prince. Make yourself comfortable.” He cleared his throat, “I assume you've heard of the princess that caused the elemental genocide.”

“Of course.” Jinyoung replied.

“Well, did you know she was a dark elemental?”

“Yeah, I think I did hear that at some point.”

“Aaand, do you remember when she everyone?” Jaebeom sing-songed, noticing the realization slowly creeping up into the prince's expression.

“After she… fell in love with someone…”

Jaebeom grinned, “Any idea who that someone might have been?”

“A light elemental…” Jinyoung's voice was at a near whisper as a legend that he'd heard of his whole life suddenly became so much more real, “But… why would she want to kill everyone?”

The other man shrugged, “No idea. That's between the two of them. They obviously planned everything together and went on a murderous rampage.”

“But they were caught before they could kill everyone, weren't they?”

“Mmm… yes and no.” Jaebeom answered, “They finished what they set out to do. They killed every adult elemental in some way.”

Jinyoung frowned, “Just the adults?”

“Yup. Eight elemental children survived. Years later, some of them had kids and those kids had kids of their own and one of those kids… is you.”

“Right. I figured as much. But that doesn't explain your heritage. Or why the Princess of Darkness let the kids live.”

The other shifted, “Why do you think she wouldn't want to hurt the children?”

“Did she have a child of her o--...” He paused, mouth open in realization, “You're related to her?”

“Patience, Prince, one step at a time.” Jaebeom smirked, “But you're right, she was pregnant at the time. A few months later, their baby was born. This child was the only known person to be born to two opposing elementals. She could have easily been the most powerful person to ever exist. But… she grew up with foster parents and chose not to use her power. Ever.”

“What happened to her real parents?”

“They weren’t captured like all the history books say, they willingly gave themselves up to the court. Then they were both executed. Eventually, the child grew up and had two kids; a girl and then a boy a few years later. As you may know, elementals can only have one elemental child. That’s like the one true thing you guys were taught, by the way. Um, the older child, the little girl, was clearly an elemental. However, their family lived here, in the rundown part of town, and couldn't afford good medical care, so when the girl got fatally ill, they couldn't afford to save her and she died at around four years old. Her younger brother grew up normally, with no elemental power and no connection to the palace, just a normal guy. But… Prince, what happens to children in the palace who are not born with any elemental power?”

“They get cast out for being useless.”

Jaebeom grinned, “Did you know… that non-elementals born to elemental parents can still have elemental children? In fact, based on my family, they can have multiple elemental children.”

“So that was your father.” Jinyoung deduced, trying to keep track of the family tree he was being described.

“Yeah. So… my dad wasn't… the most standup guy. He married a woman, my mother, but was cheating on her with another woman, Mark's mother. They both got pregnant a few months apart, hence, y'know, the whole half-brother thing.”

“So maybe… it's not that non-elementals can have more than one elemental child. Maybe it's just… they can have multiple kids with multiple partners?” The prince theorized.

“Maybe.” Jaebeom replied, chuckling, “That's not really the important part of that story though.”

“I'm just curious ‘cause I know of someone who was cast out for being non-elemental.” Jinyoung admitted, “He was a year or two older than me, so he'd be old enough to have a child, I guess. If he's still alive, obviously.”

“So there's a chance there's a little baby elemental running around, huh? That's interesting to think about.”

“Wait, I have another question.” The prince started, tilting his head, “If you and Mark are brothers, how do you have different powers?”

“My father had the blood of light and dark elementals in him. Mark inherited the light side and I got fire through mutation.”

“Mutation?”

“You know about mutation, Prince, your healer has mutated powers.”

“Well yeah, but… oh… this is… something else that's been a lie my whole life, isn't it..?”

“Of course.” Jaebeom laughed, lifting his index finger, “Let's see… ‘Only dark elementals can have a mutated child and that child can either be one of the four elements or a special mutation, such as teleportation, time control, etcetera’. Is that about right?”

“That's what we were all taught.”

“Yeah. No. Dark elementals can have mutated children of any of the eight elements or a special mutation. But even regular elementals can have mutated children, the only difference is that those kids always mutate into the opposing element. Hence why you haven't heard of it.”

“That… makes sense. There were a few instances where kids just mysteriously died in the palace shortly after birth. Did they… was the court murdering children with opposing elements..?”

“Most likely, I'd assume.”

“Oh god…”

Silence reigned between the two. Everything Jinyoung had known his entire life was crashing down around him and he had no idea how to handle it. How he could somehow make it right.

“Don't think too hard, Prince.”

Jinyoung ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it in frustration before sighing deeply, “So, uh, where's Mark?”

“He's… uh… with…” Jaebeom stuttered somewhat nervously before clearing his throat, “He's with the Ice Prince.”

“What?” Jinyoung asked, brows furrowed, “Why?”

“He came to the town with a bunch of guards looking for you and we can't have that until you figure out what you want to do from here, so Mark is trying to keep him away for as long as he can.”

“How does he plan to keep him away?” The prince asked suspiciously.

“He's not gonna hurt him, if that's what you're worried about.” The other man assured, “He’s gonna take him to the south and try and stall him there. Waste his time a little and maybe get him lost so he’ll take longer to find his way back here.”

“How would he do that?”

“He's a light elemental, Prince, he's not exactly the aggressive type. He's cunning, he'll find a way.” he took a deep breath, “Trust him.”

“Yeah, ok…” Jinyoung glanced down, noticing he hadn't even touched his breakfast. Even though he distanced himself from Jackson, and as much as he loved Mark, he never wanted the Ice Prince to get hurt; either physically or emotionally. Jinyoung was pretty sure the engagement was off, but Jackson had been his best friend for his entire life and he still cared deeply for him. And now, with everything he’d learned, he hoped Jackson would understand. He hoped he would forgive him.

In the meantime, however, there was someone else he owed his life to. And a long overdue explanation.

He looked back up, locking eyes with Jaebeom, “Could you do me a favour?”

“What?”

“I need you to help me with a promise I made to someone.”

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

•┈┈┈••✧✦✧••┈┈┈•

•┈┈┈••✦✧✦••┈┈┈•

A/N: Whew, I hope that long- explanation scene made sense lol
        Also, I am a fool and had to re-upload the previous chapter, so I lost the A/N OTL Sorry about that.

Thank you to everyone who subscribed/read/upvoted! I hope you guys are still enjoying~