Dear Author, The King is Dead. Long Live the King. This is the only private moment he is going to get to grieve his father before the entire kingdom/country/empire/province/whatever will expect him to be the perfect picture of their newly crowned king. I’m just glad I could be there for him. He is so dedicated to his duty and is well-loved for it by his populace, I am sure he will put everyone else’s needs before his own. I’ve loved him since we were children, two sons of nobility trained and raised together. I think something more could be growing between us but we have to take it slowly as the whole kingdom, etc is watching how the new king is going to settle into his role. I am beginning to hope that our comfortable friendship could grow into sweet happily ever after, with me by his side forever. Photo Description: Two men in a private moment embracing, both are bare above the waist. One stands with his back to the audience and the other with his face buried in the first’s shoulder. This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love is an Open Road" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story. This story may contain sexually explicit content and is intended for adult readers. It may contain content that is disagreeable or distressing to some readers. The M/M Romance Group strongly recommends that each reader review the General Information section before each story for story tags as well as for content warnings.