A Lifetime

[Jongup/Zelo]

"Don't go."

On any other day, Lieutenant Moon's primary concern would have been Prince Zelo's safety - "Your Majesty, you should not run away from the castle at this time of night" and "Your Majesty, please stay with your guard during such dangerous times, we are in the middle of a war" - but not tonight. For the first time in his entire career as a soldier in the Army, Lt. Moon Jongup places something else above Prince Zelo's security.

"Hey, baby boy," he says, loving, caring, pouring forth twenty years worth of emotions into his words as he advances towards Zelo. "Don't be sad."

Zelo bats away the hand Jongup raises to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

"Don't go," he says petulantly, imploring, begging. "I'll tell General Bang to order someone else to do the job. Not you, hyung. It is too dangerous. I know it is." Zelo breaks down in hysterical sobs interspersed with cries of, "Not you" and "Don't go".

It tears at Jongup's heart to see Zelo like this, crouching in a corner of Jongup's modest abode, his body shaken by the great sobs breaking him down. He has never seen Zelo this miserable, not even when the Prince's most favourite kitten had died giving birth.

He tries to console Zelo, hold him, caress his golden locks, tries to stop the incessant flow of tears, but Zelo kicks and punches him, all the while wailing pitifully.

"Please, Junhong-ah," says Jongup at last, defeated and broken. "I need you. I need your support. I love you, Junhong-ah. Won't you smile for your hyung? Give him a good memory before he leaves?"

Zelo looks at him, eyes red from crying, snot and tears mixing and looking so helpless and lost that Jongup has difficulty believing that the other is merely a year younger to him.

"Teach him something," Prince Himchan, Prince Zelo's older brother, often said to Jongup. "He is such a wild, wilful thing! He only listens to Bang and you. And Bang is too much of a softy towards him (God knows how he manages a whole damned army). You are our on