Wonderland - TyThan Oneshots

Royal

"How much is it?" Tyler asked, searching the pockets of his vest for his wallet. Again smiled the boy, sitting down and putting his head in his hands.

"Nothing. It's free. You can't have someone without flowers on the Flower Festival of Maruva!" The boy had dimples – Tyler had to look away from that one. He could feel his teacher scold him.

"Have fun out there," the boy grinned.

~

Tyler was standing on the side-lines, watching the other people have fun walking around between stalls and buying useless stuff. It all seemed so weird from a royal's perspective. He was supposed to understand his people, not view them as weird. The music became louder and for some reason everyone stopped with talking.

The song changed, the people all walked towards the middle and started forming pairs. Tyler recognized this – he had to follow dance lessons ever since he was a kid.

For a couple of minutes everyone was awkwardly shuffling together, but Tyler soon saw a pattern. Women with long braids with flowers woven into them, men with soft smiles. What Tyler noticed was that women also danced with women and men danced with men. That never happened at the palace.

"Aren't you going to dance?" a soft voice called him from behind.

Tyler turned around, seeing the flower boy.

"I've never been here before," he confessed. The flower boy, as Tyler now officially called him, looked at him for a few seconds.

"Now that you mention it, I've never seen you around before either. Are you a traveller?"

"Something like that."

The flower boy laughed. Bright, without a care in the world. Tyler almost felt jealous, jealous of that carefree outlook on life that he could never have.

"Well, you're here tonight, Mr. Traveller, so you should live a little!" Flower boy turned around so that his back was facing Tyler, humming along with the song. "You should dance!" He twirled, his face as bright as before if not more. "May I have this dance, Mr. Traveller?"

Tyler felt the corners of his mouth tugging up, for the first time that night completely relaxed.

"Yes, you may."

~

Even though Flower Boy was the one who asked Tyler to dance, the taller man was the one to offer his hand. Tyler lead, Flower Boy followed. Hands folded together as one. Flower Boy looked up at him with a playful gaze.

"You dance quite well."

Tyler chuckled, thinking of his teacher. No matter how Tyler tried, there was always something wrong with. Tyler didn't mind. Always room to improve. But for Flower Boy to compliment him while Tyler was aware of every imperfection was wonderfully ironic.

"You're not too bad yourself."

They were quiet for a while, swirling around like there was nobody else around them. Tyler vaguely recalled the music changing, but he as blocking everything out. Everything except for Flower Boy. There was no thinking, no worrying. Tyler felt never this free, never this relaxed.

"You know, I don't think I ever caught your name," Flower Boy broke the silence.

"Does it matter?" Tyler replied with a smirk.

"I guess not," Flower boy retorted with an equally as playful – and perhaps, flirtatious? – grin. "But that means I'm going to call you mister traveller from now on."

Were Tyler's eyes deceiving him or was the boy flirting with him? He laughed. Scandalous.

"That's fine with me, Flower Boy."