Seconds anyone? ^.^

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“Your majesty!! Sir Yunho is back!!” Yoochun is just settling down on the floor in the other end of Junsu’s room when a servant came running in. Eager, overwrought and querulous, the king hurriedly scrambled up and dashed out of the room, leaving an awakened Junsu alone for the first time.

Yoochun never left Junsu’s side since they returned to the fort. The king does not restrain the boy with any form of bounds, but he no longer trusts others to stay with Junsu. Not even Yunho. Not after knowing that Junsu can actually ‘abscond’ while heavily pregnant. Junsu prove to Yoochun once again, his prowess. The king will not allow anymore misjudgment.

Even the boy himself is surprised, at how he managed to run such distance, able to push his bodily limits. This causes Yoochun more unrest.

Sprinting ahead of the servant from earlier, Yoochun ran at top speed. He is not exactly looking forward to seeing Yunho, or rather; he is not that interested in finding out what his friend is up to. Only hoping that the advisor has good news, the king exhaled once between pushing open the door to the main hall. The king is not a bad friend. He knows the advisor will not die even if he is to be thrown into the middle of a desert. The man is smart. A survivor.

“Where is he?” Yoochun is startled to find no one waiting for him. He can feel his temper flaring, but told himself that he will not blow up anymore than really necessary. Allowing the servant a breather, the king waited before staring the man down and almost bellowed, but stop upon sighting a figure enter through the door.

“Waaahhhh!!!” A bawl shook the walls as an infant’s hungry cries rang melodiously, only to Yoochun at least. Only the king did not cringe.

“Sir. He is hungry. We are still waiting for a nanny. It’s late… but she will definitely come soon.” Yoochun was too distracted by the baby’s cries to give a damn about what Yunho’s assistant is saying. “Sir Yunho has turned in for the night.”

“Something happened?” Yoochun finally tears his widened eyes off the baby and showed a little concern for his friend. Yoochun knows Yunho isn’t one to sleep before catching up with him, not especially after the tiff they had earlier.

“Sir Yunho is tired from travelling and searching for the crown prince.” The assistant lied through his nose. He was given specific instructions by Yunho not to reveal to Yoochun, that the ‘kidnapper’ is caught. In fact, no one is supposed to tell Yoochun anything until he gives them the green light. The advisor’s assistant is just there to entertain the king, stand in for Yunho.

“I see…” Yoochun’s eyes wondered back to the baby in the man’s arm as he gazes at the baby’s reddened face. The baby was squalling so loud that Yoochun did not even dare to touch the small being.

Anyone can tell who that the child belonged to Yoochun, with the uncanny likeness to the king, except with Junsu’s pretty brown pupils and lighter shade hair.

“He is crying.” Yoochun said, almost as if asking a question. The assistant produced a weak smile and replied. “Sir Yunho said his last feeding is in the afternoon.”

Yoochun blinked dumbly for a moment and just stared. Subconsciously, Yoochun’s hands are reaching out to the small bundle. The advisor’s assistant senses the king’s fervor, the keenness to hold his own child, and does not hesitate to hand the baby over to his father for a good bonding.

“I can’t hold him without his arms.” Yoochun scrutinized the swaddle while the man holds the baby with outstretched arms. Imagining grabbing the fragile creature under the armpits, the king has absolutely no idea how to carry a baby. In truth, Yunho does not either, but the man learns from observation. Yoochun will too.

“Your majesty. You have to cradle him. His neck isn’t strong enough to support his own head.” The subordinate, a father of a few himself, had to teach Yoochun while the man watchs him intently, nodding dumbly. “Like this.” The man arranged the king’s hands into a satisfactory pose and placed the baby snugly into the pouch formation.

Attracted by his baby’s cries, Junsu too, got up from where he lay and slipped down the hallway. Peeping from behind the pillar, Junsu can feel his heart aching as the baby continues his wailing. The boy does not know what to do either. Both parents are at a lost.

The gentle side of Yoochun emerged and he smiled brightly. Even the advisor’s assistant is shocked to see the king smiling so tenderly. With incredibly warm eyes and gums exposed, the king rocked his knees and ankles in an exaggerated motion instead of just his arms and shoulder. He looked as though he is doing an unwieldy dance, earning suppressed laughter from his surrounding servants and subordinates.

“Pfft!” Junsu could not contain himself after watching Yoochun’s ungainly ‘performance’ and snorted. Grabbing his mouth with both hands, the boy suppressed the laughter building up at the back of his throat.

Afraid that Yoochun would see him, the boy turned to make his way back to the room slowly, supporting himself with the pillars as he went along. The yearning within him, to hold the bundle again, ate at him as he tries not to look back.

“WAAAHHHH!!!” The baby’s wail increased in volume with every subsequent step Junsu took. Freezing on the spot, Junsu could not stop his neck from snapping right, to stare at the pair of father and son, still swaying in awkward synchrony, in the dimly lit hall.

“He must be very hungry your majesty.” The few servants tended to Yoochun and the baby as some others try to appease the baby with lullabies and clown faces. Junsu watched on, undecided about what he would do. He could satisfy the baby, it is all up to him. Yoochun isn’t even forcing him.

Inhaling sharply as the boy’s eye met the king’s fierce yet fond ones, trained on him as the man watches him like a hawk. The darkly handsome man is making a face that made Junsu’s knees buckle, yet keeping him rooted to where he is. He would usually make a break for it, but the tender black eyes that held him, made him fickle.

Expecting Yoochun to approach him and demand that he plays his motherly roles, Junsu leans on the nearby pillar and tries to calm himself down, but nothing happened. Yoochun just gazed at him from across the hallway, as if willing Junsu to stay. The boy saw, for the first time, the earnestly loving and obliging smile, on Yoochun’s face.

Unable to keep his feet from moving in the direction he wanted them to, Junsu found himself stumbling clumsily towards Yoochun. Ignoring the king’s surprised stares, Junsu kept his eyes on the bundle in the man’s thick arms, anticipating seeing the small creature he saw just the other time, when he was still barely conscious and dreamy. He does.

Without speaking, the boy stood at arm’s length distance from the king and reached a thin hand towards the baby, wanting to touch him. Yoochun automatically shifted his body to face the boy, to allow Junsu full view of his baby, their baby. The boy took a step back but quickly stopped when Yoochun did.

Poking the baby’s tiny cheeks with a long finger, the diaphanous person once. Bouncy and akin to elastic dough, the baby’s red cheeks allured Junsu so much that he repeated the action, the other cheek.

“Your highness. Will you feed him? The nanny is taking too long.” The assistant saw Junsu’s hesitant yet apparent compulsion to love his own son and suggested they proceed to bond. Yoochun was about to reprimand the man when Junsu nodded slowly. Junsu nodded.

Yoochun almost died on the spot, from happiness.

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Meanwhile… in a crypt functioning as a make-shift prison…

Shifting sounds and shuffling of feet echoed off the jagged stone wall of the cold eerie wounding staircase, passage to a shady, holding area underground, pungent and fusty.

Inside the said vault sat a figure, with both wrists tied behind his back by a both constrictive and restrictive hemp rope, looped around a thick wooden post in the middle of the room. The sturdy knots were as unmoving as the figure as it remained slumped against the post. With head held low, the still figure’s closed eyes are tightly sealed as long lashes shimmered with water droplets. Wan lips, dry and chapped, stayed parted in the small slit, breath misting against the freezing stale air.

Through a tiny opening at the highest part of the room, the ghostly glow of the moonlight lit the relatively big room weakly, allowing one to see their surrounding only slightly beyond half a foot. The cold wind circulating within the unventilated area will cause anyone’s teeth to gnash violently, but the figure remained unresponsive. With exception from the occasional tremors coursing through the figure’s already bluish fingers and exposed shoulders, there isn’t much movement.

Dripping sound appears loud and over-amplified in the quiet room. Droplets hit the ground below them, flowing along the small crevices to pool beneath the figure and beside the wooden post. Though dark as the room is, with bad visibility, one can tell that the figure is still soaking wet. Wet hair and waterlogged, nearly transparent clothes is the cause of the small puddles that formed.

Above the acrid smell and stench from the moldy rotten wood, a tinge of rusting iron also wafted around, suggesting strongly, the presence of blood.

“Hurry!” A low voice can be heard as it urges the following footsteps to speed up. With dragging and scurrying of shoes, keys jingled loudly as someone tries to unlock the door. Cursing deeply as the keys fail to open the way, a voice growled as someone gave the door a hard shove, sending the old hinges and its wooden surrounding splintering easily.

“Lights!” The voice ordered and there was light. A few unlit torch burst into flames, illuminating the room and chasing the blindness into a corner, cowering in the shadows.

Holding the torches high above their heads, a few figure moved in to encircle the single wooden post as instructed by a single tall shadowed figure. Stooping down low, the tallest one brushed a hand around the wooden post and the prisoner it holds, searching desperately for an opening in the tightly twined cords. Sulking, the man finally decided to part the thick brown ropes with a single impatient motion of his sword.

With immediate effect from the release, the figure slid off the side of the circular stand and crumpled into a heap on the dirty ground. Hands still stiff and twisted in an odd angle, the barely breathing figure lay like a corpse, laterally, with his right ear resting on the cold greenish stone flooring.

A pair of big warm hands quickly lifted the lolling head by the neck and wrapped his big frame around the figure’s lissome trunk and shoulders. Hands stretched out and demanding a long piece of thick fabric from the people beside him, the tall figure wrapped the lifeless body up tightly, after stripping the sodden top layer off.

Swiftly standing and bringing the cadaver like prisoner along in a piggy back, the tall savior lumbered past the torch bearers hurriedly. The followers had to catch up and light up his path as he half stomped up the stone steps, breathing heavily.

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POV from Yunho

My heart almost stopped. Seeing him sitting on the ground with his legs bent beneath him in such a joint jarring angle… seeing how those convoluted knots held his injured hand together and in an upright position while his head dangles forward so uncomfortably. Any longer in that position and his thin neck might just break off from his shoulders.

I am appalled. Mostly at what I have done to cause him such discomfort.

He might have kidnapped the crown prince… but he is the ultimate benefactor… the only person in this dynasty capable of giving Junsu life, and bringing the baby to this world. He may have done many things ‘against humanity’, or rather, against Yoochun, but he doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. I demand leniency!!

He is ill. I cannot allow them to keep him here. He will die at this rate.

Just look at how ghostly pale he is now!! The face is whiter than my writing parchments. 

TBC

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