Lovers in the Night | Yang Jungwon

XXXIII

A few days later, the royal family was met with an ordeal. "I'm bored," Jungwon frowns.

The painter awkwardly looks up from his painting. "Prince Yang, do you mind smiling a bit?"

"Do not frown," Queen Yang lectures. "You should not want to frown in our royal portrait. It will get added to the picture."

Jungwon and his parents had been posing for the past hour now, unmoving so that the painter could get every angle and detail correct.

Since he was a child, Jungwon was never fond of doing these. They took too long and everything about it was uncomfortable, from the outfits to the poses. Plus, his once curly hair was drenched in hair spray due to their Royal stylists straightening it. "I can't hold this pose any longer, Mother. It's 2022, can't we just take a selfie?"

"Yang Jungwon," she hisses at her son without looking at him, frozen in place.

"When you become king, son, you will have much more royal portraits than usual," King Yang states, holding the sceptre that he was instructed to hold.

"When I become king, I will popularize selfies."

He was testing his mother's patience at this point, "Jungwon."

"I seriously want to bust a move right now."

"Yang Jungwon!" his parents annoyedly yell in unison. The painter nervously laughs at the bickering royal family in front of him.

He would rather be practicing for the attack he was planning on Rose than this. In disbelief, he huffs.

It is when the door is opened by a guard. He bows to the family before announcing, "Your highnesses, Jungwon's friends have decided to visit."

The guard moves out the way, and eight friendly faces show up. At this, Jungwon's face lights up.

The king smiles, "Welcome, my sons." Although they were adopted, he never thought of them much lesser than his biological son. It was simply the protocol for the painting to include only biological members.

"Hello, father and mother." They all bow.

"Lookin' fancy," Jake points out.

Niki bursts out in laughter at the sight of Jungwon in slicked back hair and tight suit, "WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU?!"

"You look like you'd approach me to talk about my car insurance!" Jay laughs at his buddy.

Jungwon's ears begin to turn red, a bit shy. "Enough, guys. He looks adorable," Danah comes to his rescue.

"Biased," Sunoo raises a brow at the Human girl.

"You guys are interrupting the picture!" Minji states and they shut up.

Naturally, Jungwon locks eye contact with Danah. "You look beautiful today," he compliments her.

Danah blushes, "Look at you, my prince. You look amazing."

"I don't feel amazing," he purses his lips into a thin line. "I'd rather be sharpening my sword for ten hours than doing this."

Heeseung notices the discomfort in his friend's expression. "How much longer will this take?" he asks the painter. When he leans over to see that the painting was only a quarter finished, he instantly regrets asking.

Jungwon had already been posing for two hours. "Well, the prince had been moving throughout this process, so it will have to take another four hours."

"WHAT?!" Jungwon exclaims and Queen Yang begins pinching his ear. "Ow, mom!"

=

A little later, Danah was walking through the hallways. The royal portrait had been taking a while, so they all excused themselves out the room.

Danah, taking a break from training, decided she simply wanted to admire the Vampire castle even more. The history behind everything piqued her.

However, she wasn't able to enjoy them in peace because every room had multiple lines of guards staring down at her, frozen in one position like Jungwon was.

Poor men, she thought to herself. "Do you guys enjoy just standing around like that?" she asks the entire room.

They look at each other, wondering who was going to respond to her. It wasn't in their protocol to entertain people who weren't from the royal family. "Should we say something?"

"It's not professional, she's not a Royal."

Still, they were familiar with Danah. "But she is Prince Yang's lover."

"Right," he decides at this moment to respond. "No."

"Ah," Danah nods. Then, the sound of a door closes. She snaps her head in its direction to see Jungwon on the other side of the hallway.

Seeing him, Danah softly smiles. "The royal portrait is done?" He nods. "Good."

He hadn't been able to move for longer than expected, so he was excited to see her. "I had been stuck in that position for half of the day."

"I can tell the portrait is going to come out really nice," she assures him as she observes his Prince outfit. It made him 10x more attractive than he already was.

"The process was awful, though." She chuckles at his pouty response.

Danah then looks at all the guards lined up on both sides of the corridor, holding spears and staring straight. "At least you aren't a guard. These poor guys have to hold these poses the whole day everyday."

"I am thankful for them, of course. I definitely acknowledge my privilege as Prince," he shrugs.

"Yes," Danah grins. "You can do anything you want."

I can do anything I want, Jungwon thought to himself. Thus, this motivates him and he begins quickly walking towards her, yearning for her touch.

"What are you doing?" she notices his quick pace towards her.

"Something."

She decides to tease him, "Sheep—"

"It's been a while since you called me that." When they're near, he doesn't waste a second to grip her waist with his hands and kissing her. He uses his finger to lift her chin up.

Danah quickly kisses him back and her lips form a smile as she does so. He stops kissing her and moves forward, causing her to walk backwards.

Jungwon playfully pins Danah against the nearest wall and nuzzles her face into her neck. Danah squeals, "Stop, people are watching us!"

The guards around them stiffen up even more, clenching the swords in their hands. They weren't allowed to move due to Royal protocol and were stuck watching the lovestruck couple.

"I don't care," Jungwon continues placing multiple kisses on her neck. "I'm the prince, remember? I can do anything I want."

"I'm uncomfortable," the guard on their left sends a telepathic message to the guard across him.

"Remain unemotional," the other one responds.

"This is giving me flashbacks of the King and Queen when they were in their youth," another joins in.

"Nonsense. Their's was much more worse to watch," one states, recalling the morbid scenes.

"Young people are insane."

In the middle of their makeout session, Jungwon sends her a telepathic message. "What do you think of making half-Vampire, half-Human babies? I do need an heir one day."

Danah gasps, and her head instinctively moves back. "Jungwon!" she squeals once more.

"I was kidding," he proceeds to wink. "Maybe. Hurry, follow me." Then, he grabs her hand, rushing them to his chamber.