Saudade (1/1)

“I’m off to Grandma’s!”“Your highness, please don’t forget your scarf!” Kim Junsu, Prince Jaejoong’s personal butler, calls after his young master.“But, Su-ah, this scarlet thing makes me look like a girl.” Despite the pout distinctly forming on his face, Jaejoong takes the piece of fabric being offered to him and wraps it around his head and neck, making a hood out of it.“You know it’s for your own good, right?” Junsu tells him with an expression full of nothing but fondness. “We can’t have the heir to the royal family’s throne being seen wandering alone into the forbidden forest now, can we?”Jaejoong doesn’t say anything to that, but instead lets out an overly dramatic sigh.“There, there.” Junsu plays along to appease the young prince, patting his back in a comforting manner. “You wouldn’t have to wear this if you’d let me come with you, you know?”“But you’re always with me, Su-ah.” Jaejoong slumps his shoulders, and Junsu lets out a chuckle. “It’s not that I’m getting tired of you-” The butler raises an eyebrow at that. “Okay. Maybe a little. But I just want to be alone at times, you know?”“Yes, yes. I understand, young master. You don’t need to explain.” Junsu ruffles the other’s hair in assurance. “After all, we can’t have you depending on me forever. I’m glad you’re becoming more independent.”Jaejoong perks up at that, raising his head, doe eyes twinkling. “You’re the best, Su-ah!” He says while hugging his butler’s upper torso tightly.“Be back before sunset, or your father will have both our heads for breakfast.” Junsu bends down once the other has let go of the embrace, and fixes the prince’s scarf, making it tighter.“Roger,” Jaejoong says with a salute and a proud grin. “I promise to make sure my raven-colored hair is well hidden all throughout.”“Pinky swear?” Junsu narrows his eyes at the other, and Jaejoong knows the elder is being serious now. “Pinky swear.”They intertwine their little fingers for a brief moment, and the next thing Junsu knew, Jaejoong’s petite figure was running further and further away from him, after he had helped the other sneak out of the palace and into the woods..“Halmeoni?” Jaejoong excitedly calls out upon entering the small house. He closes the door behind him and takes a look around. Everything looked normal, but somehow something seemed odd. “Halmeoni?”“In here, Jaejoongie!” The old woman finally answers in a slightly hesitant tone. “And keep your voice down.”Something was surely up now. Grandma Kim would only ever reprimand Jaejoong for being too loud whenever something was wrong.“Is something the matter?” the prince asks worriedly as he enters the guest bedroom, opening the door with utmost care.Before the old woman could reply, Jaejoong had already let out an audible gasp at the sight. His eyes widened in shock, and both his palms covered his mouth in disbelief.What greeted him was what appeared to be a semi-transformed werewolf, still young but most probably older than he was. It, or he, was covered in bandages almost everywhere, each one visibly stained red.He didn’t know why, but he wanted to come closer and take a look. His grandmother’s warnings fall deaf on his ears.Minutes pass by and still he couldn’t fully comprehend how it was even possible to look both a human and a wolf at the same time.“Jaejoongie, now is probably not a good time for you to be here.” His grandmother stands up from beside the creature and approaches him. He knew she was going to coax him out, but something in him didn’t want to leave.Stalling for time, he diverts the attention to the injured being instead. “Do you know what happened to it?”Seeing that her grandson didn’t look the slightest bit scared or horrified, Grandma Kim chooses to answer the question despite her initial apprehension. “Not really. I just found him lying unconscious by the tree near the fence around back. You know how my ears are sensitive to the slightest sounds?” Jaejoong nods his head but continues to stare at the stranger. “Well, I heard these small gasps followed by a thud, so I peeked out the window to have a look.”Upon hearing that, Jaejoong spins around to face her with a hint of anger evident on his face. “That was dangerous, Halmeoni! What if it was a trap? You should have called us, and we would have rushed right over!”“Calm down, child. I’m old enough to know what I should and shouldn’t do,” the old woman answers with an amused laugh. “Plus, I’m a witch. They’d be long dead before they can even lay a finger on me,” she ends with a wink.Jaejoong’s temper drops back down as laugher rises up from within him. He had to hand it to the old woman. She still had that spunk he’d known her to possess ever since he could remember. It was one of her many charms.“Alright, but be more careful, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt or something,” the fourteen-year old prince says while pouting at the king’s beloved mother, who was almost six decades older than him.“C’mere,” she opens her arms out to him for an embrace, which Jaejoong gladly snuggles into.“How is he?” he then gestures with his lips over to the bed.“He’ll live. I got to him in time. It looks like he was a human who was transformed into a werewolf just very recently. His body is still getting used to the changes.”“But why is he covered in blood?”“From what I’ve heard, when you’ve been bitten by a wolf or a werewolf, you either die if you’re not eaten first, or become one of them.” Jaejoong visibly shudders within his grandmother’s hold at the mental images. “I’m guessing he was probably attacked to be eaten, but had fought back, which explains the multiple wounds all over his body.”Silence filled the room afterwards. The young prince didn’t have the heart nor the stomach to want to find out more.“Come, I’ll make us some tea. Let’s let him rest for now.” Grandma Kim takes hold of Jaejoong’s hand and pulls him into the kitchen..It was a week later when Jaejoong was able to come back. This was so as not to arouse suspicion within the palace, no matter how much he wanted to watch over the creature his grandmother was nursing back to health.This time around, however, it was finally awake.Jaejoong found him sitting on one of the stools by the kitchen counter, swinging his legs while watching the old woman cook on the stove.“Wow, you look… normal.” Jaejoong greeted the other with a bit of disappointment. Not a trace of excess hair, ears, fangs, and the like… could be detected. If it wasn’t for the mole above his upper lip, Jaejoong would have thought this was just another normal boy.“Jaejoongie, be nice to uhm…” Grandma Kim trails off for a second as her grandson eagerly waits for her to continue. “I think we need to name him. He seems to have lost his memories.” “Doesn’t he have a name? Don’t you have a name?” Jaejoong directs the question first at the elder woman then to the boy standing a few feet away looking sheepishly at him. “For a part wolf, you look very timid.”The older boy’s face suddenly darkens at the mention of “wolf”, looking as if something within him was triggered. Jaejoong could already see the beginnings of pointed ears and teeth, when Grandma Kim suddenly holds the other by the wrist. “Dear, stop. You’re not fully healed yet. Please forgive, my grandson, Jaejoongie for being very insensitive.”All the slight changes to his appearance then reverted back to normal just like that.“Yunho.”Two pairs of eyes turn to Jaejoong as he repeats the word. “Yunho. Let’s name him Yunho.”While both were still in confusion, the young prince finds a small piece of parchment and a quill from the things nearby. He scribbles two words in Hanja, “允浩”, before holding it up proudly. “It means ‘a wonderful eldest son’. I’ve always wanted a big brother.”Grandma Kim laughs heartily at him, but then turns to the other for approval. “Is ‘Yunho’ alright with you?”The older boy nods as a blush rises up to his cheeks.“Great! I’ll be calling you ‘Yunho-hyung’ from now on then!” Jaejoong declares as he forcibly shakes the other’s hand..A few weeks pass before Yunho finally began to speak. Both Grandma Kim and Jaejoong were so used to understanding him by gestures and facial expressions by then that when he uttered his first word, the old woman almost had a heart attack.Jaejoong was walking down the back porch’s steps to get to his grandma and Yunho, both of which were gardening, when he tripped over his own feet and landed face first on the ground.Yunho had laughed loudly, before muttering a soft “clumsy”. The young prince really did amuse him to no end whenever he had come to visit them.Jaejoong was too happy to even care that the other was teasing him that he ran over to Yunho and tackled him to the ground. “I’m so proud of you!”A tickle fight ensues, but before long, they were already being reprimanded by Grandma Kim for dirtying their clothes, and were then forced to get up and have themselves cleaned.“I’ve been able to talk since I was almost two years old, your highness. And besides, I’m older than you are,” Yunho says as he helped Jaejoong out in preparing for supper one late afternoon.“Well, it’s the first time we’ve heard you talk, so it’s a REALLY big deal!” the other says before tasting a spoonful of the soup that he was cooking. “Oh, and just call me ‘Jaejoong’.”Yunho shrugs at that, then carries on with the conversation. “I was afraid to talk after…” It was obvious he was struggling to say anything about that night, so Jaejoong waited. “-everything that had happened. But at that moment, I had this huge urge to make fun of you.”The young master ignores the other’s chuckle after his own statement, and asks something instead. “Do you remember anything now?”“No. Nothing from before, only those after. And I guess that’s fine. My home is here now.” Jaejoong then turns his head to the side and catches Yunho looking genuinely content with the way things were currently.Warmth suddenly spreads across Jaejoong’s chest, and to distract himself of the feeling, He grabs the nearest edible thing that his hand could reach. “That’s just your hunger talking.”He then laughs heartily as Yunho simply starts munching on the bread that was force fed to him without even a slightest bit of complaint.“This is why I can never win with you.” And this time, the laugher was mutual..It takes approximately twenty-nine and a half days for the completion of a lunar cycle. And every month, Jaejoong would insist that he would stay for the night with his grandmother, so that they could both wait for Yunho to come back the next morning.It was a dangerous task to do, and for a barely teenage boy, it wasn’t something Grandma Kim or Junsu could allow, even if the young master sulked for a whole day because of it.Yunho lived as a normal human boy on ordinary days, but once the moon was full again, he becomes an animal. Nothing and no one could hold him whenever it happened. And both Kims could only pray that he would be unharmed and back to them after sunrise as if nothing ever happened.It took a year before Yunho could gradually control his transformations, but he was still a long way from being able to keep his sanity when in wolf form.He finally made his decision to fight it and not give in anymore when Jaejoong cried to him one day. The prince had rushed there immediately, first thing after he was done with his duties in the palace, after having found out that Yunho was almost killed by a hunter the night before.“You can’t die yet, you hear me? I will find a cure for you!” The young prince says, shaking him by the shoulders.Yunho didn’t want to make any promises he wasn’t sure he could keep, so he resorted to changing the topic instead. “You know you look more beautiful when you smile.” He then brushed the bangs out of his face and the tears away from his eyes.Jaejoong cried even harder, now speaking in between sobs, “A prince is supposed to be handsome not beautiful, stupid Yunho-hyung”. He had meant for it to be more forceful, but all he managed was a soft punch towards the other’s arm.Yunho simply laughs and tugs the other towards himself into an embrace, warmth enveloping them both..Five years have now passed. Five years since Jaejoong was bitten. Five years since Yunho disappeared.No one ever found out about what had happened that night. Grandma Kim had successfully healed Jaejoong in a matter of hours and brought him back to Junsu, without anyone ever noticing anything. That following morning, she had all her things with her and declared to everyone in the palace that she had decided to come live with them again after so many years of staying in the forest.Her reason being that she realized she didn’t want to be alone anymore.If anyone found it odd, no one dared say a thing. Instead, the people rejoiced, and the king even threw a banquet in honor of his mother’s homecoming.In truth, she feared that Jaejoong would turn into a werewolf as well, and that the boy would need her if such a time did come. But it never did.It was Junsu who first noticed the changes in Jaejoong, then came Grandma Kim. And to that day, it was an unspoken secret shared by the two of them that the child had indeed developed a split personality instead. It wasn’t quiet noticeable unless you were with the prince all the time, and it usually occurred whenever he was triggered by anything related to Yunho, or when the moon was full.The bite mark on the prince’s shoulder had long been healed by now, but a scar was left behind as if an awful reminder of that disastrous night.Jaejoong held no memories of whenever his other self would emerge, and neither his butler nor his grandmother wanted him to ever find out about it.One thing they also couldn’t help but notice was that even Jaejoong’s normal self was growing too interested with werewolves. At first they thought it was still for researching on a cure for Yunho, but then the young prince, who was turning twenty in a few days, was showing signs of someone with an unhealthy obsession.They chose to ignore it, thinking it was only a phase he was growing through, that it was still a part of his healing process. But little did they know, Jaejoong was already planning something wicked for his birthday..“I knew you’d come. I’ve seen you visit every year without fail.”Yunho was backed up against a tree, not being able to say anything after being caught by Jaejoong lurking behind tall bushes outside the palace.“I- I just want to make sure you’re doing fine.”“Fine?” Jaejoong laughed mockingly at that. “Is living as two different people trapped in one body fine to you? Is that why you made me like this?!” He closed in on Yunho, face mere inches from each other.“What happened was an accident, Jaejoong. I, of all people, know how it is like to be overpowered by something else inside you that you can’t control.” Five years and still Yunho couldn’t raise his voice against the young prince.“So what you’re telling me is that it was all my fault?”“No.” Yunho shakes his head ferociously in denial. The last thing he wanted was for Jaejoong to blame himself.“That one night I finally disobeyed and snuck out to want to have helped you or grandma in case you guys needed me, if I hadn’t done that, all of this wouldn’t have happened, huh?”“No. No, Jaejoong.”“Yes. I’m right, aren’t I? Say it, Yunho. Say that it was all my doing. I made us both monsters that night.”The prince’s eyes filled with anger were boring into his, and Yunho couldn’t look or even move away having been put in a binding spell.Both are then met with silence when the other’s face goes blank. “Stop it, Jajeoong. Don’t let it win.”In a second, the prince is back to reality, but there is a noticeable shift in his manner and posture. It was now more confident and an eerie vibe was coming off of him. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re here in the present. And from now onwards, we’ll be suffering together.”He then presses his lips against the other’s in a rough kiss, before pulling back looking quite victorious.Yunho is suddenly weak in the knees, but Jaejoong catches him and is holding him up by the torso.Despite his mind now slowly becoming hazy, he doesn’t miss the smirk on the other’s face.He can feel himself struggling to remain conscious as Jaejoong leans down to whisper in his ear the last thing that registers in his mind, “I’m going to make you mine.”And then everything turns black.