The Makings Of a Prince | Changlix

| Prologue |

"Go meet the love of your life, hyeong!"

Yongbok barks, laughing, pushing his bumbling elder brother as he scrambles to his feet, running off mindlessly past the trees where the freckled prince pointed out a certain squirrelly man.

In moments, his brother was out of sight and even when Yongbok could still glimpse slightly what would eventually come to fruition between the two, he wanted to give them their well-earned privacy, turning around to stare at the river instead.

Lee Minho was a good man. He didn't doubt Jisung's ability to protect his brother or vice versa. He knows that he's barely reunited with his brother, and the two practically have to begin from the bottom due to lost time, but seeing his melancholy at Jisung's disappearance was just too heartbreaking.

Yongbok had tried to get his brother to forget about Han Jisung, or at least help him with his heartache. He tried to get him a new personal guard, tried to ease him into the usual flow of royalty, even indulged his fishing desires to get away from everything every once in a while, as Yongbok often did over the years. And even though Minho always dismissed his own feelings for the sake of his royal image, Yongbok knew what was really going on in that stubborn head of his. He could see and feel how his brother must've felt.

Having to let someone go for the sake of their own well-being? His own experience wasn't too drastic, but Yongbok had some sort of truth to the experience.

"You're just staying here?"

"Maybe," Yongbok hums as a familiar guard sits next to him by the river bed, placing his scabbard between them. "You know how I am. I like to unwind like this after a long mission."

"Geez, you still have that thing?" Changbin gestures to the younger's fishing pole with a scoff. "I thought you threw it away by now. And didn't your aunt give you a new one a year ago??"

"What can I say? It's special to me, you know. Plus, it's sturdy, despite having it for about five years now."

Changbin laughs lightly, Yongbok turning to him with a smile, "I thought you'd have left them by now and return to the palace. I'm sorry, but I don't think they'd come back for you."

"I thought you'd have left me by now, yet here we are."

Changbin gestures to the pair ways away, smiling and standing before each other. A beautiful sight, Yongbok understands. Truly, he was happy for his brother. That he found someone to confide in, to trust and help him forget the loneliness of the palace. Someone who wouldn't leave him just for the sake of saving face. Someone who he could see himself in, like the river, calming and comforting.

"I misjudged Jisung, I admit," Yongbok hums, Changbin nodding as he picks up the fishing rod Minho left behind and casts it out into the river, letting the tension from their recent mission relieve itself. Yongbok was usually correct about this, that the river was a successful therapist for stress and misunderstandings. It was a way to reflect upon themselves by staring out in the water, a mirror that helped them pick out the answers. "I thought that he would be the weak link in the team."

"Then why send him at all?"

"Because you taught me to show mercy." Yongbok turns to the guard. "I knew that if he stayed, he'd have to stay in the prison. The guards might've executed or punished him then. I was hoping, being a thief and all, he'd have escaped from you by the time you reached the Silla border."

"Well, he didn't. And it's thanks to Jisung we even brought Minho safe and sound. A little bruised, yes, but he's healed, isn't he?" Changbin bubbles, laughing and giggling and smiling so brightly at the younger. It's been a while since the prince had seen Changbin smile like that because of all the tension and the stress concerning the royal family. Yongbok could never tire of it.

"I know. And thank you, too. For, staying by my side all this time. You keep saying that I saved you all those years ago, but in actuality, you saved me. And I don't just mean physically."

The two settle in a tranquil quiet, a rare occurrence with their occupations and regular lives. It had always been a run here, run there, solve a problem over there and here and under that. As a crown prince, there was never a full break where Yongbok unhinged from the responsibilities of the monarchy.

However, this moment, with Changbin, fishing in the calm murmurs of the river really brought a certain type of calm that Yongbok only experienced once in his life.

"This feels familiar," Yongbok says, nudging the older with his shoulder and a bright smile, his freckled cheeks rounding.

"Really? How?"

"Remember? 'Hello, my name is Lee Yongbok,'" the freckled prince tilts his head down in greeting, before bursting out into giggles. "It's finally calm, don't you think? Us, just fishing, forgetting everything else, and throwing caution to the wind even for just a second. We needed it, and I truly think that it's what really brought us together."

Yongbok laughs, staring out to the water, "It reminded me of when we first met."