Disclaimer: This story is not mine. I'm just here to share it. Author's name is DIDI :)

Chapter Thirteen: The Perspective
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Minho shut the door none too gently, watching as Luna sat up slowly in the bed, blinking exhaustion from her eyes. She eyed him warily, knowing a predator when she saw one. "Let me guess, Taemin was the good cop and now good old Minho is coming to play the bad." She smirked disparagingly. "Spare me. I was raised by Changmin remember? Nothing you dish out can ever compare."

He shook his head at her, feeling the rising anger built, reveling in it. "You know what Luna, this isn't about you and Taemin anymore. This is about you and me?"

She raised a brow at him, remembering to keep herself in a role that did not include allowing him to intimate her. "Oh? What could you and I possibly have..."

"You lied to me," he hissed from between his teeth.

Giving a snort of amusement, she pinned him with her blue eyes haughtily. She had to convince him of her indifference, he was Taemin's best friend. He could influence Taemin into leaving her here. "I lied to everyone. What makes you so special?"

He walked to the bed, looming over him in the most oppressively dangerous manner in could remember. "Cause you lied to me first?"

A spark of puzzlement flashed in her eyes for a moment. "How do you figure that?"

He leaned over her, caging her with his arms on either side of her. "You were explicitly told to stay in the sanctuary. And did you? Where did we find you? In the middle of a blood bath." Minho felt like shouting with joy as shock blinded her. "You promised me that you weren't going to do anything stupid. You swore on your mother's grave that you were going to be good and stay with my soldiers, not just for your sake but for Taemin's... or I should say King Taemin’s sake."

It was as if someone all the air from her lungs. "Minho... did you..."

"Yeah," he leaned back and watched her absorb in the information slowly. "I remembered."
 

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Taemin sat leaning against the wall, his eyes somewhere a thousand miles away within his soul. He couldn't hear anything in the other room, but that was all right. Somehow he knew that whatever Minho was saying to her, he probably would be better off not knowing. It wasn't that Minho was cruel; he was just brutally honest. Sure, Luna’s feelings and sensibilities might be bruised in the process, but it was better than being dead. Besides, it's not as if Luna wasn't use to Minho's attitude by now.

It has always been that way. Taemin was the soft one, the one that played the diplomat, the reasonable good one. While Minho played the devil's advocate with his sharp as nails comments and pinpoint accuracy at cutting to the bleeding truth of situations. How many times have they avoided conflicts in that matter? *The minister of B'lorna certainly was right when he say that we were two sides of the same coin. Both moving toward the goal but in our own manners and we merely had the good fortune of always being able to play on each other's strengths.*

Taemin blinked for a moment, feeling a sickening nauseating feeling in the pit of his stomach. He did not know the minister of B'lorna. He didn't even know what a 'B'lorna' is. But then again... No, Lee Taemin did not know a Pinealor, Minister of B'lorna, third planet in the Trimar system. But King Taemin certainly did... Taemin remembers Pinealor when he attended the royal wedding, where the honorable minister gave his only child to the King of Antar.

"You okay?"

Looking up, it took Taemin a moment or two to recognize her. Sulli, innocent naïve child of Earth, third planet from the Single-Star system. He blinked at her, still processing information from some faraway place. He could see the purity in her, the goodness that drew him like a moth to a flame. But that brightness, that goodness that had once seemed like his salvation no longer tugged at his heart the way it once did.

A part of him knew that the innocence of his ignorance was lost now. And that part of him that loved Sulli had grown up and remembered another lifetime, with another woman. Perhaps a part of him always knew that Sulli wasn't the other half that completed him, perhaps that was why his soul had been so restless even when he was seemingly content with her. His soul knew what his heart and mind did not, it remembered the past... it remembered Luna.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he forced himself not to grieve for the innocent, untainted future he once thought he could have with Sulli. The one he now knew would never be enough for him. "I'm all right, Sulli. I'm not the one dying."

Choi Sulli could never be called a dummy. Seeing him in this pensive mood and after witnessing the possessiveness he exhibited when speaking of Luna and the baby, she saw that the end was near. "Minho will talk her around," she reassured him as she took a seat across from him, knowing instinctively that he would not welcome any physical comfort she had to offer right now. "If nothing else, he'll do this best to shake the truth into her."

He looked up startled then saw she was teasing him. The smile came reluctantly and briefly. "Minho always was more convincing than I ever could be."

"You mean Minho gets away with throwing his attitude around while you chose to be the negotiator in any situation." She smiled remembering numerous times they've clashed over issues. "But you two have always made a good team. Maybe you softened Luna up enough to hear what Minho has to say?"

Taemin gave a dry ironic laugh. "You aren't the first person to say that."

"Who else?" glad to see him at least smile.

"No one you know," Taemin assured her with a shake of his head. He knew that he shouldn't put it off, shouldn't let her think that there was a chance. "Sulli..." He didn't know what to say. How many times has he tried to be with her? How many times did he reject Luna's open hand and heart for her? How often did he reassure her that she was the only girl for him, despite their DNA differences? "Sulli, I...."

"Shh..." she touched his lips with her fingertips, willing herself not to cry, "I know," and failing miserably. The first hot tear hit her cheek and made its way to her chin. "I know," and she got up and walked away.
 

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"Sulli," Krystal struggled to her feet as she watched Sulli rush out the front door with Taemin still sitting here, silently watching her leave with regretful eyes. Jonghyun caught Krystal just before she could go after her best friend. "What's the big idea?"

Jonghyun turned his head and watched Sulli run across the street toward the hotel. "I think she needs a minute or two alone before you go to her."

For a moment, Krystal looked torn. But in the end, Jonghyun's reasonably sober tone made the difference. "What do you think Taemin said to her?" she asked glancing over her shoulder to where Taemin still sat, now with his forehead resting against his bent knees.

Having watched Taemin since the first moment the would-be king entered the cramp room, Jonghyun had a pretty good clue what just went down. "I think Taemin finally saw what Luna has been trying to tell him for the better part of a year now."

Puzzlement etched itself onto Krystal's brows. "And what's that?"

"That you can't fight destiny," he murmured softly as he turned his eyes to the still shut and silent door. "I wish I knew what's going on in there."

"Don't we all?" Krystal replied, her eyes too straying to the shut door. A tiny part of her already knew what Jonghyun had been trying to tell her. She had sense the change too, the slight shifting in the winds. Minho had been too.... Too distracted earlier. Like he was...She didn't want to consider the possibilities.

"What's going on?" Minjong asked as he joined his son and Krystal by the front door. Having been absolutely of no help in the kitchen, he thought the living room would be a better place for him to be. "Where's Sulli?"

"She left," Jonghyu said softly, eyes on Taemin who has yet to move. "After talking to Taemin."

Kim Minjong looked at the exhausted teen and back at his son then at the door toward the hotel. "Look Jonghyun, I know that you want to be here for Luna and all..."

Jonghyun did not need his father to finish the request. "Sulli shouldn't be wondering around alone. Krystal and I will keep her company."

It wasn't the first time Minjong has notice that Jonghyun was becoming more and more in tuned with him and the world. *My son is growing up to be a fine man.* The father within him puffed up its chest and grin proudly. "Thank you."

"Keep us informed for any changes?" holding up his cell phone as he followed Krystal out the door.

"I will and be careful."

"You too, Dad." Jonghyun paused briefly at the last step. "If you get to see Luna, tell her..." he blinked for a moment before grinning. "Tell her that she's still my favorite Martian."

Knowing a private joke when he saw one, the sheriff nodded. "I will."
 

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"What are you going to do if Minho forces her hand?" Amber asked quietly as she arranged the salad to her liking, remembering not to add the Tobasco sauce until the others had a chance to get some first. How humans ate such bland food is beyond her.

"He won't," Key replied, pouring juice into tall glasses with strawberry designs on the side.

"He won't?"

"Taemin won't let him," he paused a moment, glancing at the sandwiches. Deciding that Luna would more likely to eat it if he cut it into small pieces. "If Taemin was going to force Luna to submit to the healing, he would have done so already."

Amber watched him for a moment, cutting the sandwiches diagonally once than twice, making neat little triangles. The Key she once knew didn't know how to handle blunted scissors without hurting himself. He's changed. Grown up. "Key, I..."

"Sulli!" Krystal’s voice called out, distracting them both in time to see Choi Sulli run down the front steps and away from the cabin.

Puzzled, Amber pushed the dingy curtains by the window away to watch her friend continue to flee down the street. "What was that all about?"

"What else? Taemin." Key picked up the plate loaded with little sandwich wedges and a glass of juice and placed it on the breakfast tray. "How long do you think Minho will be?"

"Key," Amber said rather exasperated. "Will you for one moment stop thinking about Luna and talk to me?"

He set the tray down and leaned against the counter with a sigh. "What do you want me to say Amber? You want to hear me say that I made a mistake, cause I didn't. I don't regret doing what I did and I don't have to justify it to you or Taemin or Minho or anyone else. This isn't your life, it's mine and I will choose to live it any way I see fit."

"And to hell with the rest of us that grieved for you, that cried every night for you, that sat at midnight by your gravesite so that you wouldn't be alone." She murmured as she rearranged the salad once more.

Shaking his head, he thought about not responding. But he knew that it wasn't him. He could keep his big mouth shut, really he could, but know that he couldn't. Picking up the tray, he leaned over and whispered his perspective on her thoughts. "On the grand scale of things Amber, your few tears cannot possibly compare to the three lives that were willing to disappear from the face of the earth for your future happiness."

She turned and stared after him as he approached the door and was quickly stopped by Taemin.