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The world woke up at exactly 5:30 in the morning. It started with the distant croons of the birds shortly followed by the muffled sounds of footsteps and clacking noise of metals as servants began their work.
Beyond the enormous glass windows of the royal study, the sun emerged, soft light bled through woolen drapes, painting amber foliage on the skin of two men sitting quietly on a lavish divan. Tired, sleep-deprived, and direly in need of water--and probably a century-long rest.
Cale Henituse was the first to notice the time. He peeled his eyes off the 109th book about ancient powers. He placed it down on the floor among the towers upon towers of old textbooks. With a groan, he stretched his neck, rubbed at the swelling spot on his shoulders. He slumped against the backrest, the abused eyes shutting for a minute.
On the skin of his nape, he felt the warm touch of fingers. Soothing. Familiar. His lips curled into a small smile.
Seated beside him, Alberu Crossman feathered his hand along the back of Cale’s neck without any sense of purpose but more comfortable absent touch. The red-haired noble nonetheless relished in it with a satisfying hum, leaning further into the warmth of his touch.
“Cale?”
The Crown Prince called, eyes fixated on the pages of a thick binder sitting on his lap.
Cale gave a noncommittal sound as a response, barely enduring the temptation that was sleep.
“I love you.”
And he was awake. Wide wide awake.
Russet brown eyes opened to a jolt. He blinked. Mouth agape. Slowly he turned his head at the blond prince who was shining under the splendor of unfettered impassiveness like he did not just randomly confess his feelings to his commander out of the blue. Cale, for a second, doubted his ears.
What the fuck?
“It’s high treason to disrespect a member of the royal family, you know.” Alberu chuckled. “And it is rude to curse at someone who just confessed to you.”
Oh. Did he say that out loud?
And oh.
So his ears were functioning perfectly.
“But...but what’s with that?” he inquired, frowning like a viewer who was disappointed at the anti-climatic end of a movie. “It’s not like we’re in that kind of mood, nor in that kind of set-up.”
He gesticulated with his hands, pointed at nowhere in particular inside the room; Alberu still immaculately unfazed.
For god’s sake, they haven’t slept for two days, and Alberu was in the middle of reviewing the proposal for an advanced hose-pull traveler irrigation system while Cale had been burying his nose on these smelly old parchments from the ancient times. The room was horribly mundane and he hadn't washed his hair since yesterday.
The prince however only shrugged.
“Because I feel like saying it?” he answered.
Cale clearly didn’t buy that, so he continued on glowering insolently at the Crown Prince of the Roan Kingdom like the disrespectful bastard he was.
Alberu sighed. Head craning back as he regarded Cale with steady amusement. He looked tired, they were both tired, but the gaze he gave Cale was as soft as the morning sunlight. The skies in his blue eyes were vibrant.
“I don’t need to be in a certain kind of mood nor set-up to be reminded that I’m in love with you,” he said, hand crawling up Cale's neck to idly stroke red strands of hair.
“There’s no need to have the sun shine on a particular spot of your face for me to know how breathtakingly beautiful you are. I don’t need to witness the curls and pulls of your lips, nor the clever sheen on your eyes to realize how deeply and inescapably smitten I am...because its not like there's ever a moment when I'm not attracted to you. Wherever we may be, whatever shit we might be doing. No matter how sleep-deprived I may be. Every hour, and every second. I’m always in love with you.”
As though the words were not enough to capture his heart in a vice-like grip, Alberu offered him a smile that was so genuine and full of unabashed affection that Cale felt his chest constricting, overbrimming.
It reminded him of how his Vitality of Heart went overdrive most of the time when he was caught in yet another display of reckless abandon, heart catapulting and pumping out too much blood that he wouldn’t be surprised if he was flushed beet red right now.
“It's the same theory as to how you’re constantly scheming and brewing up chaos wherever you go. Like a permanent state of mind.” Alberu concluded, smile dilating and Cale’s frown was back albeit blushing harder.
“Huh. I’m not thinking of anything destructive right now.”
The prince only stared in knowing silence until Cale caved in.
“Okay. Okay. I get it.”
Cale averted his eyes, turning away to hide his face, pink dusting his ears, the blush creeping down his neck. Alberu stared as the color dyed the paleness of his skin, chuckled fondly, and returned back to reading.
Cale didn’t say anything after, didn’t say he loved him back.
But oh well this is enough.
At the heart of the battle in the Puzzle City, Cale threw a single button that turned out to be a fucking time bomb.
Surely, it took the ungraded monster by surprise. What with the sudden burst of blinding light that split the sky asunder followed by the deafening sound of an explosion that rippled the night with the force of its power.
Red fire engulfed it and the lion dragon staggered in its spot. Everyone watched the destruction with a mixture of awe and horror. Cale thought he should’ve aimed for its face.
Amid the after-effects of his attack, with the pained scream of the monster echoing throughout the battlefield, and the wind harshly blowing bits of dust and rocks at them, while the golden dragon narrowingly avoided the debris and ruin ricocheting their way, Cale called to Alberu beside him.
“Hyung.”
Alberu snapped his head at the latter, shock visible in his face. His hair and pajamas rustled against the wind.
“What?”
“I love you.” Cale said.
“Huh?” Alberu gaped.
His bastard dongsaeng was only grinning with absolute smithereens as his backdrop. Face and body covered in red, his russet eyes teeming with life. An agent of chaos who gave him a shrug.
Suddenly, Alberu was back in his royal study, in the quiet room, basking under the blanket of warm morning sun, his hand tracing Cale’s neck. A mood and set-up that was nothing like what they had now.
Alberu erupted in a gale of laughter.
“Don’t flirt behind my back, you idiots,” nagged the ancient dragon Eruhaben.
Afterward, Cale casually assured that it was not his blood covering him this time then revealed how he caught White Star in his golden plaque before waltzing out of there to continue his own brand of chaos below them.
Alberu merely laughed harder.
Ah, to be in love with a complete maniac like Cale fucking Henituse.