As the sun rose over the horizon it brought life to another morning, another day where anything was possible. The birds started singing their sweet tunes to wake the world from its slumber. People all over rolled out of bed, got ready for their day, and grasped it firmly by the hand to insure their opportunities would not fade. However, another world laid beneath the surface of this thriving, peaceful world of freedom.

All the children awoke to their morning bell at 6 am. As a unit, they all instantly sat up, climbed out of bed, and headed to the bathroom. Each child stood in a row before their own sink, twenty sinks for twenty children, all of various ages from 3 to 12 years old. In perfect synchronization, all the children brushed their teeth, up together, then down together, over and over until each tooth had been 100 times by the bristles. They had been trained to get ready together this way to teach discipline. If one stepped out of line, there would be unspeakable consequences. After continuing and completing their morning routine they reported to their classes for the day. Not very much room was left for individuality, since everyone took the same basic general knowledge classes.

Luhan swung his legs lightly in his chair as he leaned against his hand, which propped up his head. School was the most boring experience of his life, and so he groaned about it nearly every day. Always trying to find new ways to distract himself from the boring lessons, he decided to write a couple notes. "Hey Jongin~ Taemin looks cute today, ne?", he wrote on a piece of paper, then folded it up before tossing it to Kai, whom was sitting two seats over, behind the teacher's back.

"You think he looks cute every day...", Kai wrote back, trying to toss it back to Luhan, but accidentally threw it too hard. The paper landed on Taemin's desk instead. Luhan quickly dove from his seat in desperate attempt to snatch the note from him, but just ended up falling down in front of Taemin's desk. The teacher turned around when other students started giggling. Since all he saw was Luhan out of his seat and a folded up note on Taemin's desk, he took them both to detention. Detention really was just a completely empty room, painted entirely white. The two sat on the floor beside each other as they were locked away inside. 

Luhan watched nervously as Taemin opened the note he'd been holding. "Sorry I got you in trouble Minnie. I'll kill Jongin for this...", the last part he groaned softly under his breath. Then his breath was quickly taken away by a sudden kiss. Luhan's eyes went wide for the brief few seconds that the kiss lasted. "W-Why did you d-do that?", he asked out of shock. Never in his eight years of existence had he thought about his first kiss being so soon. It was kind of magical though with the way it made his heart flutter, just as he's always imagined, and with the guy he's always imagined too.

"Isn't that what you do when you like someone? You kiss them, right? Well uh... I like you.", Taemin answered kind of awkwardly, as if he weren't too sure he had done the right thing. Luhan's cheeks flushed bright red as he nodded.

"I like you too...", he whispered back softly, as if it were a secret.

---

"Jongin... I'm getting so tired of the waiting. Do you think he'll ever be ready to settle down? Minnie trains all hours of the day. The only time I can spend with him is if I train with him. I'm tired of sparring and wrestling. I want love, romance, compassion..... But he seems to have carved out his own destiny already, and it doesn't involve me", Luhan softly sobbed as he clung to Jongin's shirt.

Taemin had watched from afar, sighing as he heard every word. A pain stung his heart to hear Luhan talk that way. As he saw the way Jongin held him, comforting him the way a lover would, the way Taemin should have, he decided that it wasn't fair to do this to him. Even though it hurt him greatly to leave, he couldn't keep selfishly using Luhan to make himself feel important while he neglected Luhan's feelings. He knew that Jongin would be the one to treat him right.

Now he could imagine what Luhan must've felt. Even though Taemin left without a trace, Luhan never gave up on him. Although many times Luhan had thought about finding someone else, or even finally taking a chance on Kai, he just couldn't get Taemin out of his head. Their souls seemed to have been intertwined from the very beginning, because neither could just let go of the other.

For a while, Taemin tried to fill the empty void where the heart that Luhan stole had once been. He tried to fill it with , money, power, all the things that he thought would make him happy, but they didn't. Although he became the king he had always aspired to be from when he could first speak, he was nothing without his queen. Out of denial, for years he would try to find the perfect queen to rule the empire beside him, but none came even close to living up to his high expectations. It was only now that he could finally give up on trying to hide his true feelings.

Taemin has loved Luhan ever since the day he first saw him. Letting his aspirations take over and make him neglect the love of his life was the biggest mistake he ever made. He felt so lucky that Luhan hung on for all these years, but now neither of them had time left to be happy together. How could he go save him in this condition? He could barely stand up with a healing bullet wound on his side and a fresh bullet wound in his chest.

"I'm sorry... For all that I've done. I'll make it right now, even if I have to die. I hope you won't be upset I can't keep my promise, but I was never going to keep it anyway", Taemin said softly to the night as he arose in it. He unhooked himself from the machines while the doctors were out of the room. Then he climbed out the window, whistling for Luna to come to him. She bounded quickly toward him at the call of her master. "This is it Luna. This is the end", he whispered to her as he climbed on her back, gripping tightly to a fistful of fur.