Chapter Text
Growing up sorrounded by royalty isn’t easy.
But growing up and having Chenle by his side made it a lot easier. Most days they felt like two normal boys who just had more space to play. When they were young, the thought of Chenle becoming king one day became an inside joke. How absurd - they were just normal boys who ran through the castle with their wooden swords and pretended to fight enemies. Two boys far too young to take the throne alone. There had always been hints from the adults, slight nagging when one of the boys held the sword incorrectly or when they were joking in class instead of paying attention. Only as they got older did the certainty begin to become a part of their life, like a silent promise that one day must be kept.
As the years slipped by, the hours they spent together became fewer and fewer and just a few days after Chenle's sixteenth birthday they were finally shown how different they were. Chenle was the first to be introduced to adult life and thus to the life of the future king - history lessons, defense lessons, he was even told exactly how to behave. His days became more and more stressful, even Jisungs began to get longer and longer. Although he grew up in the castle, he is by no means royal. He was just lucky that both of his parents worked for the king: one as a doctor and the other as a cook. His father, Doyoung, is the king's closest confidante and one day jisung wants to be like him. Not because he loves him more than taeyong, that couldn’t be further from the truth. However just like Jisung, Doyoung grew up here in the castle with the king. Best friends who became closest confidants. And no matter what others said, Jisung liked the thought of continuing to stand by Chenle and help him become the best version of himself. He strongly believes that there is no one better to support Chenle than him.
As they were both incorporated into their own roles, they didn't realize at first how far apart they had grown. They still found time to sneak into the kitchen and steal Taeyong's freshly baked cakes or to just lie in the garden at midnight, watching the stars. In Jisung's eyes it was just a phase that will come to an end as quickly as it came. There were paths that everyone had to go for themselves and while one was doing this, the other was doing something different, but in the end they are best friends and jisung was sure that their paths would meet again. Only when the first "I have to tell you something" slowly turned into "you have no idea how exhausting my day was" did Jisung have to admit that it might not be a phase that will pass quickly after all. And when the knock on his door didn't come hours later, he accepted it, because he knew the burden that was on his best friend. At some point the knocking stopped completely. And Jisung knew – that’s it. So he stopped - he didn't visit the garden anymore because he knew that nobody but the gardener would be there. He refrained from walking through the corridors at night in order to "accidentally" run into Chenle, because all that came towards him was the silence of the night. The only place he continued to go was the kitchen. Because if there was one place where someone was waiting for him (next to his own home, of course) it was his father who was still baking cookies even after midnight. He calls it "stress baking", in reality it means that Doyoung is working overtime again. They had many conversations in the disused kitchen - about Jisung's future and much more. His father was a quiet listener, where Doyoung would give him advice, Taeyong just listened and asked questions until Jisung could solve his problems himself. The only time he said anything was when Jisung was completely desperate. "The life of a king will be lonely, you may miss him now, but one day you will be the one he goes to first. Look at your father, everything he talks about is the king as if he didn't have his own family right in front of him. " Everyone knew he was just kidding, but sometimes Jisung thought he heard a sadness in his voice that had been lingering there for years. "All you can do is to be there, when he needs someone to lean onto.”
"If there's one thing I'm good at, it's being there for Chenle." Was the only thought running through his mind. He will be there for chenle whenever he needs him – even if that means that he has to wait for him. For him, he will wait.