NO ONE REMINDED ME TO UPDATE THE LAST CHAPTER. T^T I'M SORRY. I'M REALLY BAD AT REMEMBERING THINGS LIKE THIS. Anyway, here's the final part! I hope you all enjoyed reading this, and if you're interested in more of my work you can find me at goldintheshadow.livejournal.com. :D

—

Jaejoong’s return to the palace is almost quiet.  Few people had known that he had been found and was returning, so the party manages to slip under the radar and keep the focus on Changmin, who looks like he’s losing way too much blood.  Junsu had called ahead, so there were medics waiting for Changmin’s immediate removal to the military hospital nearby.  Jaejoong accompanies him, not because he’s allowed to keep him company or even know how the spy is, but because he needs to undergo a full physical of his own to make sure his weeklong stint in the mountains hadn’t damaged anything permanent.

He escapes several hours later and goes searching for Changmin, only to be told that the man only recently came out of surgery and is in the ICU—no visitors allowed for another two days.  The orderlies are supremely unimpressed with Jaejoong’s royal weight when he tries to throw it around, so he’s reduced to pacing restlessly up and down the hallways, waiting for news.

“Jaejoong-hyung,” a voice says, and Jaejoong turns to see Junsu standing at the end of the hallway, looking at him with knowing, compassionate eyes.

Jaejoong’s eyes, completely unwillingly, fill with tears.  “Susu-ah…”

Junsu leads him to a bench and they sit, Jaejoong furiously wiping his eyes clear.  “Sorry,” he mutters, sniffing.  “They’re just…reactionary.”  He tilts his head back and stares at the ceiling.  “What am I going to do if he dies, Susu-ah?”

“I don’t know, hyung,” Junsu replies quietly.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do either.”

“I slept with him,” Jaejoong says, now staring at his hands.  He rubs at a yellowing bruise absently.

Junsu is silent for a moment.  “You…what?”  He sounds astonished.

“Well,” Jaejoong amended, “we slept with each other.”  He sniffs again, still not looking up.  “He…he’d found a hot spring, and we were cleaning up because it had been days, and he was so beautiful, and it was fantastic, the best of my life, but then he got really quiet and then he told me we were being followed and now he’s shot because he came to rescue me…” Jaejoong takes a deep breath and stops talking.  “I love him,” he confides quietly.

There is a pause.  “You’ve never told me that,” Junsu replies just as quietly.

Jaejoong smiles a bitter half-smile.  “I’ve never even really admitted it to myself, Susu-ah.  I know…I know we can’t, I know I have to get married and everything, but…I just want him to be mine.  Is that so much to ask for?”  He huffs out a self-deprecating laugh.  “What am I talking about.  I don’t even think he likes me.  He’s certainly avoided me for long enough.”

“Don’t make assumptions about other people’s feelings,” Junsu says a little sharply.  “And don’t give up before you’ve even tried, hyung.  If you really worked at it, I’m sure you could find a way.  I know you.  You’re one of the most resourceful people I know.”

The two brothers sit in silence after that, waiting for their important person to wake up.

—

Changmin is released from the ICU three days later and transferred to a private room with a large window and bright, cheerful curtains.  It makes the spy nervous, and he asks to be transferred to an inner room if possible, one with no windows.  His wish is granted, and his new room may be smaller, but at least there’s only one entrance and exit.  Changmin settles in for an extensive healing process and the most acute case of boredom he’s had since the last time he was in the hospital.

Jaejoong doesn’t visit until the fourth day after Changmin was released from ICU, a week after they escaped the mountains.  Changmin tells himself he’s not depressed about it.

When he does finally visit, he looks tired, a small smile lighting his too-thin face as he pulls up a chair next to Changmin’s bed.  His face is almost fully healed, only a few fading bruises left.  He’ll probably have a scar in his lip from where it was cut open, but Changmin thinks it gives his handsome face even more character.

“How are you feeling?” they ask at the same time, and Jaejoong chuckles.  “I’m the only one allowed to ask that,” he says mock-angrily, “I’m not the one who got shot rescuing me from kidnappers.”  He leans back in his chair, deceptively relaxed.  Changmin’s eyes settle on the exposed line of the prince’s throat, left bare by the undone button of his dress shirt.

He is not for you.

Changmin looks away.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t visit sooner,” Jaejoong says, and Changmin looks back at him.  Jaejoong has a strange (gentle?) expression on his face.  “I had to do a lot of press releases after my prodigious return, and then there was dealing with the remaining kidnappers, and all of that that goes along with being heir to a country.”  He sighs and rubs a hand over his face.  “But that just sounds like excuses.  I really am sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

“It’s okay,” Changmin replies, surprised that Jaejoong seems to care so much.  He looks down at his blanket-covered lap and almost fidgets with the comforter, but stops himself.  Spies don’t fidget.  It’s a dangerous sign of weakness.

“Changmin,” Jaejoong says abruptly, “what do you think of me?”

Changmin’s head snaps up and he stares at the older man, an unpleasant shock twisting his insides.  “What?”

Jaejoong waves a hand impatiently and runs his other hand through his hair, looking…a bit cold and haughty, which if Changmin remembers correctly is the face he wears when he’s nervous or off-balance.  “Sorry.  That was unfair.  Um.”  He takes a breath and then leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees, eyes intent on Changmin’s face.  “I,” he starts slowly, “have been in love with you probably since we were very young, and would be honored if you would consider becoming my boyfriend.”

Changmin stares at him.

Then his brow furrows.  “What?”

Jaejoong frowns too.  “I confess my love to you, and all you say is what?”

“Well…” Changmin is at an utter loss.  “What on earth should I say?”

“Give me an answer, idiot!” Jaejoong shouts, rolling his eyes up as if exasperated with everything that is Changmin.  Even so, the spy’s sharp eyes catch the prince’s hands fidgeting, twisting his official rings around and around his fingers as if unable to remain still.

“You…you’re serious?”  Changmin cannot believe this.  This is not supposed to happen.  He’s supposed to watch Jaejoong from the shadows and nurse his forever-broken heart, carrying the memory of the one time they had together close to him as he watches Jaejoong marry and have children and leave him behind.

In no scenario is Jaejoong supposed to confess to him.

This doesn’t make sense.

“Changmin-ah,” Jaejoong says quietly, and Changmin’s attention is drawn back to him, sitting earnest and open in the chair next to his hospital bed.  “I love you.”

Changmin stares blankly at him, and then stares at his blankets.  “You have to get married.”

“I’ll marry for Korea, not love, and I’ll only sleep with her long enough to have children.  Could you be okay with that?”

Changmin’s fingers trace the seams of his bedding, mind whirling with thoughts.  In all honesty, he wants to grasp this with both hands and never let it go, but his practical, guarded, calculating side forces him to face the truth.  “The country would never agree with a male lover.”

“Then it’s a good thing the country has nothing to do with it, isn’t it?”  Jaejoong reaches out and takes Changmin’s hand, twining their fingers together.  “Changmin, if you don’t love me, or don’t think you could ever come to love me, then I’ll leave you alone.  But if you do, or could, then please…say yes.”  Jaejoong presses a kiss to the back of Changmin’s hand, brown eyes entreating.  “Please.”

Changmin blinks, and then his vision goes blurry for some reason.  “,” he chokes out, turning his face away.  “You’re a ing bastard, you know, getting kidnapped and terrifying me out of my wits, and then waltzing in here and confessing to me like, like it’s no big deal, when I’ve been waiting for ten years—” he’s cut off by Jaejoong’s lips as the older man crawls on top of the bed, propping himself on his elbows over Changmin’s prone body and devouring his mouth.

Changmin kisses back ferociously, biting and and as if Jaejoong’s going to be torn away at any second.  When Jaejoong finally pulls away they’re both panting as if they’ve run a marathon, and Changmin stares up at Jaejoong’s beaming face.

“I haven’t seen you cry in years,” Jaejoong comments, wiping away a stray drop with his thumb.

“Shut up,” Changmin mumbles, scrubbing at his face.  “It’s the medication, I swear.  ’s making me more emotional than a girl.”

“I think you were crying over me,” Jaejoong croons, kissing his cheeks quickly before he pulls back to beam at Changmin again.

Changmin punches his prince (lover?) in the chest, before hissing and arching, hand going to his side.  Jaejoong scrambles off immediately, apologizing profusely until Changmin threatens to hit him again.

“Yeah,” Changmin finally replies, eyes staring firmly at his blankets again, “I think I could be okay with something like that.”

Jaejoong has to restrain himself from crawling on top of his boyfriend again, confining himself to very enthusiastic kisses from the side of the bed instead.  “I knew you’d want to be my boyfriend,” he says, grin so huge it’s almost splitting his face in two, and Changmin rolls his eyes.  But he knows he’s grinning almost as widely.

—

They have their first couple fight not even a minute later, when Changmin refuses to quit his job as a member of Black Ops.

—

“So,” Junsu says archly days later, as Changmin, scowling fiercely, rolls himself into his office in his wheelchair, “I hear congratulations are in order.”

“ you, hyung, I’m not getting married,” Changmin snaps grumpily, and rolls slowly around the room, trying to do his normal sweep for bugs without getting out of his chair.

“I also hear that you’re refusing to take your pain medication and that it’s making you cranky,” Junsu sighs, flipping through files on his desk.  “You wouldn’t hurt so much if you took them, you know.  That’s what pain meds are for.”

“Meds mess with my brain and I hate it,” Changmin snaps, swiping a random book from the shelf and checking behind it.  “Jaejoong understands.”

“Jaejoong is also gone on state business most of the time.”

Junsu can see Changmin visibly deflate.  “I know.  Don’t remind me.”

The Commander General props his chin on his hand, watching his best friend roll around aimlessly.  “You knew it was going to be hard when you agreed to date him,” he points out quietly.

“I know.  I just didn’t think about the actual situation.  He’s off running a country, and I’m off killing the bad parts of the country, and we’ll probably never see each other ever.”  Changmin sighs and rolls back to Junsu’s desk, bumping into it and using it as his brake.  Then he gives Junsu a sharp look.  “Besides, you can’t give me advice about my love life before you fix up your own.”

Junsu looks baffled.  “What do you mean?  I don’t even have a love life.  What—”

“You’re so dumb, hyung,” Changmin sighs, and then wheels to the door.  “You’ve got work to do.  I’ll go bother the trainees and practice my marksmanship sitting down.”  He pats Yoochun on the hip as he passes.  “Good luck.”

Junsu stares at his closed office door, utterly baffled.  “What?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” Yoochun says, straight-faced.

—

Jaejoong pushes the door to his room open wearily, exhausted and barely able to keep his eyes open.  He strips lazily, draping his clothing over a chair for the servants to pick up in the morning, and crawls into bed after pulling on a pair of pants.

The only problem is, there’s already someone in his bed.

“Jaejoong,” Changmin whispers, sounding far too awake for this time of night.  Jaejoong supposes that he’d woken up as soon as the door opened.  Stupid spy senses.

“Hmwuh Changmin,” Jaejoong slurs in reply, looping an arm around his lover and pulling him closer.  “Why you in m’ bed?”

“Wanted to be with you,” Changmin whispers back, and Jaejoong smiles sleepily.  “I figure the only way we’ll be able to see each other is if I sleep in your room.”

Jaejoong yawns widely, pulling Changmin even closer and nuzzling into his shoulder.  “Smart baby.  My boyfrien’ is the smartest.  Come sleep in my bed all the time.”

Changmin smiles into the dark, and Jaejoong’s hair.  “Go to sleep, silly man.”

Jaejoong smiles faintly again and slips into slumber, arms and soul wrapped around his lover.