Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7899874.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      방탄소년단_|_Bangtan_Boys_|_BTS
  Relationship:
      Jeon_Jungkook/Park_Jimin, Jeon_Jungkook/Min_Yoongi_|_Suga, Min_Yoongi_|
      Suga/Park_Jimin, Jeon_Jungkook/Park_Jimin/Min_Yoongi_|_Suga
  Character:
      Jeon_Jungkook, Park_Jimin_(BTS), Min_Yoongi_|_Suga
  Additional Tags:
      Anal_Sex, Rough_Sex, Blow_Jobs, Noble!Yoongi, Concubine!Jimin,
      Concubine!Jungkook, Nipple_Play, Barebacking, Royalty, Blindfolds,
      Restraints, Anal_Fingering, Dom/sub, Power_Play, Spanking, Public_Blow
      Jobs, Submission, Dominance
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-08-28 Updated: 2016-12-27 Chapters: 7/? Words: 60119
****** Frozen Flower ******
by Kookie_andCream
Summary
     Jimin is a concubine in the court of Min Yoongi, the controversial
     ruler of Goryeo equal parts admired and hated for his flaunting of
     his eccentric preferences towards his own sex. He is a prisoner to
     the court, the world of vindictive blue-bloods, and his "duties". But
     when Jungkook arrives as the newest concubine, young and
     heartbreaking in his innocence, cracks form in the sphere of Jimin's
     sheltered, miserable life which has been the same for eight years.
     Jungkook throws open the windows and lets in the light, makes Jimin's
     scarred heart begin to stitch itself back together again, and maybe
     for once, Jimin wouldn't trade his life for anything else.
***** The Lord of the Flies *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The doors of the throne room slam open. All eyes in the room turn to the three
people who enter: two imperial guards dragging in a boy, maybe a teenager, who
kicks and struggles. His face is lowered, so Jimin is unable to see what he
looks like, but judging by the plain, faded gray hanbok he wears, he would
hazard a guess that he is a farmer’s son. A villager.
He fights desperately to free himself, and his foot connects with the guard on
his right, dealing a blow to his thigh. The guard grits his teeth and tightens
his grip into what looks like a painful vice on the boy’s arm. Jimin assumes
from personal experience that he itches to hit him, but he is reluctant to scar
his face or leave bruises in case it displeases the prince.
The boy is dragged in front of the prince’s throne. The prince’s face is cold
and immobile as stone. His name is Yoongi. He is king to the kingdom in all but
name, supposedly serving as regent to his incapacitated uncle. Rumors run
rampant in the court that Yoongi poisoned his uncle on purpose so that he, as
the only surviving male member of the royal Min family fit to rule, would
inherit the throne, but he was not entirely successful. He lets them. Probably
because they are true.
The guard delivers a savage kick to the back of the boy’s knees, and he is
forced to kneel before the throne, his head still bowed. Yoongi looks
impatiently at the guards. A little nervously, one kicks the boy’s back,
hissing, “Show your face, boy.”
He keeps it downturned. Most likely because he knows he is safest that way.
“Do it!”
He still refuses, defying the command. He kneels, unmoving, on the wooden
ondol-heated floor. At this point, everyone in the court is shifting
restlessly, curious as to what he looks like and the reason he keeps his face
hidden. Surely it must be out of the certainty that his face is what will damn
him, that his looks are the reason he was doubtless plucked out of his life as
a villager by the bounty hunters.
Finally, the guard loses patience. He strides forward and grabs his hair
painfully, yanking his head up. His face is revealed, and even contorted in a
grimace of pain and smeared with dirt, a gasp ripples through the court.
He is lovely.
Jimin sees soft black hair falling into beguilingly dark doe eyes and a finely
shaped face. His are not the crude, thick features typical of villagers, nor
the rough, tanned skin—his complexion is fair and smooth, and just looking at
him, Jimin envies him it. His jaw is finely cut, more chiselled than the most
carefully etched gem, and his cheekbones shape his face beautifully, a straight
nose, rounded at the tip, placed perfectly in the middle of his face. But his
most remarkable feature is his mouth. His top lip is what some might call thin,
at a stretch. But his bottom lip is deliciously plump and heavy, complementing
his thinner top lip and finishing off his whole face with a flourish. His lips
are pink and lush and look so alluring everyone in the court unconsciously
shifts forward slightly. He is the most beautiful boy Jimin has ever seen.
He even has the normally disinterested prince sitting up straight, leaning
forward slightly. Now Jimin understands why he previously wanted to hide his
face—with beauty like that, he is doomed. But he is brave, perhaps stupidly so.
He stares defiantly back at Yoongi from underneath long, fine lashes.
“What is your name?” Yoongi’s voice rings clearly through the throne room. The
nobles and courtesans, Jimin included, immediately straighten to attention at
his cool, cutting tones.
Even the boy knows not to directly defy the prince. “Jeon...Jung...kook,” he
says through gritted teeth, and Jimin sees then that the guard still has a
fistful of his hair in his hand. Once the words are out of his mouth, his hair
is released, and Jungkook falls forward, catching himself on his hands,
breathing heavily in anger.
Yoongi tilts his head, rolling the name around his mouth. “Jeon Jungkook.”
Jungkook’s jaw clenches like he hates the sound of his name on his tongue, but
he simply glares at the floor. Yoongi narrows his eyes. “Guards,” he raises his
voice, “strip him.”
Jimin’s stomach plummets.  No, no, not to a boy that young,  he pleads
silently, but Jungkook is forced to his feet. Jimin’s heart breaks at the
hesitating hope in his eyes.  He must not understand what’s happening. He must
think that he’s being released. Rejected.
Jimin wants to step out from the crowd and scream at him to run. Only when the
guard has nearly completely undone the sash of his robes and is about to pull
it off, met with no resistance, does the realization dawn in his eyes. With a
desperate spurt of strength, he twists away from the guards and runs for the
door. Immediately, two more guards come in through the door and slam it behind
them. He looks around wildly, caught between the four advancing guards. But
there is nowhere to go. Of course there is nowhere to go.
He fights them, throwing punches while holding his hanbok closed, but they
eventually subdue him. They shove him back into place, two guards holding his
arms apart while two more yank the hanbok off his shoulders.
Jimin admires his strength. He really does. But the hanbok falls down to
Jungkook’s waist, revealing a muscular chest and back, the chilly air hitting
his skin, and he lets out a sob, struggling to pull his hands out of the
guards’ grip and hunching to cover himself. He suddenly looks young,
frightened, not at all the defiant man he was a minute ago: a scared and
whittled-down shred of a boy against the harshness of the court. It tugs at
Jimin’s heart.
The hanbok slips the rest of the way down and pools at his ankles. Jimin tries
to avoid looking, but his eyes trace over his toned abdomen and the faint V of
his hipbones. All he has left on now is a baji, the baggy pants men wear under
their hanbok, and a guard bends down, careful to avoid his kicking feet, and
pulls it all the way down.
Complete silence reigns in the court as everyone devours his body hungrily. He
has given up struggling and stands tall, spine straight, barely flinching as
greedy gazes run up and down his body. His legs are long and wonderful, his
thighs muscled and lusciously curved. Jimin cannot help it—his gaze strays to
Jungkook’s manhood. It surprises him: longer and thicker than villagers’, who
typically do not get enough to eat, normally are.
Jimin’s are the only pair of eyes which watch Yoongi next, with a fair amount
of dread. His blood runs cold when a small, cruel smile curves his lips. He
knows what comes after.
“What do you say, court?” He spreads his arms wide. “Should we keep him?”
The hungry, cruel court roars its assent, and the room fills with hoots and
whoops. Jungkook’s courageous façade crumbles in an instant at the terrifyingly
animalistic sound, and his eyes dart around the room, searching desperately for
a friendly face, a sympathetic gaze. He finds Jimin.
Jimin’s face is a mask of horror. He fails to believe this is happening to a
boy so young. Their eyes lock, and a shining tear wends its way down Jungkook’s
cheek. His face is painful to watch, like running a finger over the edge of
shattered glass. There is so much fear and pain in his eyes that it all comes
crashing back, the first day Jimin was brought and forced into the terrible and
heartless world of the court, the day he lost his innocence and certainty that
the world was good and kind. The day he realized that not all strangers would
give him sweets and pet his hair, that some wanted what he should not have been
made to give.
The proceedings have become unbearable. Jimin pushes his way through the crowd
and out a side door, throwing himself into the corridor and stumbling and
tripping over his  hanbok.  He doesn’t pause until he reaches his room. Then he
collapse on his knees on the wooden floor, tears of pity dripping off his chin.
He is ashamed. Ashamed of having to be one of the faces which will herald
Jungkook into this new punishing, merciless life of abuse and rape. Ashamed of
being a part of the court at all, a link in the glittering jewel-studded net
which traps countless, innocent boys a year in its clutches like spiders
weaving a web. Kneeling on the floor, he prays for the first time in years,
reaching out to a God he has never really felt to help Jungkook.
As he cries there, ensconced in extravagance and luxury and clothed in the
singular kind of loneliness you can only feel when surrounded by people too
eager for your company, Jimin wonders how Jungkook came to be here, but he
thinks he knows. Jimin arrived here himself when he was too young to understand
enough about anything, and he left behind a village burned to the ground, the
only things he possessed the clothes on his back and memories of his family and
friends being killed before his eyes. His small village had just been raided
and looted.
The prince had just risen to the throne at the time. It was the worst-kept
secret in the kingdom of Goryeo that Yoongi had… unconventional  tastes in
bedroom companions. He had been born into the cruel Min family at a time when
the kingdom was headed towards economic desolation, the result of being ruled
over by an ailing, sick king, Yoongi’s father, who was unfit for the throne but
had no other choice but to keep it due to the lack of an heir. When he died on
the ninth day of the third moon at the age of sixty-one years, everyone in the
kingdom both rejoiced and was seized with unease. His collective menagerie of
concubines and the queen had only ever managed to produce daughters, and never
a son.
The kingdom hung on the end of a thread for a few days, power unsteadily
swerving from noble to noble and small battles being fought as members of the
court struggled to get their hands on the throne, until it was announced by the
royal herald that there was, in fact, an heir to the throne. His name was Min
Yoongi, and he had been born on the same day his father, who had left behind a
pregnant queen the doctors had originally thought would bear yet another
daughter, had died.
The villagers heaved a sigh of relief as sense was seen and the throne was
handed over to the queen while the baby prince grew—an extremely rare
occurrence, unheard of before in Goryeo, but which had happened once in China,
the great empire to the north, with one empress named Wu and another who wore
shields on her fingers to protect her long nails. The queen turned out to be a
surprisingly good and level-headed ruler, managing the kingdom with an iron
will and severe crackdowns on defective nobles who thought they could take
advantage of her feminine ‘condition’ to seize power.
A few relatively peaceful years passed by, and then a decade. The kingdom was
prospering, quietly recovering from its previous economic depression under
Empress Min’s wise decisions and good rule, and the crops were growing and the
rains were coming regularly and the prince was growing up safely within the
high walls of the palace, not a single time in his life seen by the public.
Until a gang of teenage hooligans from the nearest village, Jimin’s village,
decided to climb the palace wall into the royal garden and saw Yoongi kissing a
boy, reportedly pushing him against the wall with his hanbok pooled around his
ankles, wrists gripped in long, pale fingers which didn’t see enough sunlight.
The prince didn’t see them—“too absorbed in his male companion” added Jimin’s
mother disapprovingly—so they ran all the way back to the village bursting with
excitement and their story, about how the long-awaited heir was wrong in the
head. It spread across the kingdom like wildfire, and by morning, everyone knew
that the prince, in the honor of whom fireworks had been set off and banquets
held, kissed boys.
Rumors and theories were being bandied around like spare bunting in a
hurricane. That the prince was a “bad-luck son” because he had been born on the
same day his father, the king, died. That he was born under an ‘unlucky star’.
That Yoongi was really a daughter whom the queen had told the public was a son
in a last-ditch effort to produce an heir to the throne before the kingdom of
Goryeo went to shambles.
Soon after, the queen was found hanging from a rope from a cherry blossom tree
in her private garden. There were no theories as to why she took her own life.
Shame is a powerful motivator.
Yoongi was deemed unfit to rule. The official, announced reason was his young
age, but everyone knew it was really because no one wanted a twisted boy who
kissed other boys to rule the kingdom, however wise and fair a ruler he could
be.
His uncle was selected to be king instead. It was possibly the worst choice in
the history of Goryeo. His uncle was widely known to be a slave to drink, and
infamous for constantly being drunk and cruel. He was a horrible king, making
bad trade decisions for the momentary bulge of his coffer which could be used
for more bottles of  soju,  and before anyone could blink, businesses were
failing, traders were making increasingly infrequent visits, and the kingdom’s
future was looking bleak again. This continued for a year.
And then suddenly, Yoongi’s uncle was found in bed, gasping and blue and unable
to breathe. They managed to pull him back from the brink of death by bleeding
the poison out of his body, but he was forever bedridden, unable to participate
in any physical activity even as strenuous as walking due to his permanent
incapability to breathe enough air. In a terrible turn of irony, the doctors
said that his condition only afflicted those with alcohol-weakened bodies.
At last, there were no other alternatives. The shunned and blacklisted prince,
the subject of whispers on the street and hurriedly scrawled signboards
plastered with profanities which appeared in marketplaces overnight, was the
only male in the Min family left. The day of his coronation was the first day
the whole of Goryeo apart from that gang of boys ever saw him.
Jimin’s mother was an avid storyteller. He still remembers her telling him
about the coronation over their meager dinner of rice and vegetables the night
of the day Yoongi was crowned, in the contraction-rich language of the
villagers Jimin has now been taught not to use as a member of the court. The
price of meat had been too high those days for villagers to have it regularly,
maybe once a month if they were lucky, and their scratched and chipped plates
only held two small scoops of low-quality coarse white grains and bok choi.
“You should have been there, Minnie,” his mother said, eyes wide. “We would
have brought you if you hadn’t been so sick.”
He coughed weakly, still irritated that she had thought him too sick to attend
the coronation.
“It seemed like the whole of Goryeo was at the coronation, all grouped like
sardines in that huge cobbled courtyard in front of the palace.” She
gesticulated with her plain, splintered wooden chopsticks which really should
have been replaced weeks ago. “It was the most people your Appa and I had ever
seen in our lives.
“We were all talking, and all the old rumors about the prince’s…condition”—her
face took on a look of disapproval—“were arising again. And then the great
gates of the palace opened and a covered palanquin was carried out, and,
Minnie, you would have gasped if you’d seen it. It was purple and embroidered
with threads of gold, and it was made out of that special expensive cloth from
China, the one that comes out of worms, what’s it called? Silk?”
The last question was directed at Jimin’s father. He nodded briefly and resumed
dipping a clump of rice into soy sauce in a sad attempt to make it more
flavorful. He was a man of few words and would have been a scholar if he had
been offered more opportunities. But of course, as a villager, he was consigned
to a fate of breaking his back working in the fields, up at the crack of dawn
and in bed far too late. That is all villagers are good for, it seems: growing
rice and potatoes to be imported overseas, and fattening the nobles’ coffers,
donating to the expansion of the palace already bigger than all the huts in ten
villages put together every time we are raided. That is all we matter for.
“Yes, silk. The whole palanquin alone was worth more than all our possessions,
our land included.” She pauses to shake her head, lip curling. “These nobles.
They sit on embroidered cushions and drink imported tea, while we villagers eat
a meal a day and go to bed hungry so our children can grow.”
Hd looks at his bowl guiltily, then at his parents’. He suddenly realizes with
an unpleasant jolt that they each have less rice than he does. He shifts
uncomfortably.
“The whole of Goryeo held their breath, waiting for the heir who had been
surrounded by controversy and shame to reveal himself to the public after
fifteen years of seclusion.” He wants to snort at how dramatic she sounds, but
he’s too curious, hanging off her every word. “And then he stepped out, and
complete silence hung over the nation. The birds stopped chirping. The sun
shone harder as if to illuminate the prince to our eyes. And we stared.
“He has short hair, and it’s all wrong. It’s long in the front, almost to his
eyebrows, and isn’t even past his ears. Who cuts their hair that short?” She
gestured wildly, indignantly. “It’s unheard of. I’ve never even seen anyone
with short hair. It was an atrocity, and that alone was enough to shock us into
silence for another minute.
“It wasn’t only the short hair which appalled us. His eyes were outlined with
some—some thick black stuff, almost like ink—and he’s so pale, so white, like a
ghost. It was obvious he’s never done a day’s work in his life. It’s like the
sun has never touched him. He flinched as the curtains were moved aside and the
sunlight landed on his skin, but then brushed it off like annoying bees.
“And, Jimin”—she broke off to stare at him, even reaching out across the
scratched and worn surface of the dinner table to grip his wrist—“you won’t
believe what he was wearing.”
He grips her hand back soundlessly, eyes wide as he’s drawn into her account of
events.
“He was wearing  black  robes,” she says in a scandalized whisper. “Black!
Completely black, even the baji and sash! I’ve never seen anything like it.
Standing there and squinting into the sun like he’d never seen it before, with
his black robes and black-outlined eyes and white skin, he looked like a
spirit. A ghost. People don’t even wear black at  funerals.”
Jimin shivers.
“There was complete silence for over a minute while we stared and the poor
palanquin-bearers sweated in the sun. The prince met each of our eyes
arrogantly in turn. I’d never felt so inferior and small in my life. When he
looked straight at me, I felt like he was peeling me like an apple and exposing
my soul, sneering at all the hard days of work I’d spent helping your father in
the fields and getting my hands dirty while he lounged in the palace.” Her eyes
glazed over in recollection. “And then he spoke. And you know what he said?”
Jimin shakes his head vigorously, enraptured.
“He said, ‘I do not care that you know I prefer boys over girls. I know that is
all you have been talking about for the past year, and I do not care what you
think of me.
We stood in shocked silence while he walked up to the noble with the crown in
his hands, the crown of Goryeo, and can you believe what he did next? He took
the crown from the noble. He took it in his hands and lifted it for us to see,
tossed it carelessly from hand to hand like it wasn’t worth more than twenty
villages put together.” Maybe Jimin’s mother was exaggerating. Maybe she was
not. “And then he said, ‘And you can make yourself content, kneeling in your
dirty huts and praying to your beloved Buddha, thanking him that you are not
twisted and wrong in the head like Prince Yoongi. That you love your wife or
husband, that you have never touched a member of the same sex beyond
friendliness.’” Jimin’s mother paused for breath, looking shocked and wide-
eyed, eyes practically rolling. “Do you know what he reminded me of in that
moment? He reminded me of a fish you buy in the marketplace.”
Jimin blinks, confused at the comparison. They had a fish ruling over their
country?
“His eyes were cold and dead and glassy inside that dreadful ghostlike outline
of black ink, and it was so clear that he felt nothing at all as he spoke to
us. It chilled me to my soul.”
His father shakes his head and puts down his chopsticks, and Jimin know his
mother isn’t exaggerating anymore.
“And then he said, “Well, guess what? Who holds a crown in their hands? Who has
power at their fingertips?” He looked long and hard at us. ‘My uncle has let a
great kingdom nearly crumble to dust,’ he said. ‘Our trade connections are
nearly gone, and all because he was a husband to soju. You think my love for
boys is evil? How about his love for the bottle?’”
Jimin’s eyes boggled. His mother went on, “We couldn’t believe he was so
disrespectful towards his uncle, his hyung! But what happened next really
shocked us. He said, ‘I do not know you people. Frankly, I have been a prisoner
in the palace for fifteen years. But I will make a vow to you today, on this
despicably sunny afternoon, on my fifteenth birthday, a decade and a half from
the death of the father I never knew. I will raise this kingdom from the ashes.
I will restore Goryeo to her former glory and replace the potential my uncle
wasted. I will be your savior.’ He paused. ‘And I will prove to you, once and
for all, that just because I want boys more than girls does not mean I cannot
be a good ruler.’
Jimin’s mother paused for breath.
“What happened next?” Jimin asked, shaking her. “Eomma? Tell me what happened!”
“And then…” She widened her eyes at him. “He put the crown on his own head. He
raised it and lowered it onto his horrible short hair, and before we knew it,
he’d crowned himself. He was regent to his uncle, but everyone knew he was
king.”
Jimin’s jaw dropped.
He fell asleep that night wondering whether he’d ever meet the prince, whether
he’d ever meet this uncaring and fearless boy who stood up to a whole nation of
whispers and shaming and put the crown on his own head. Whether he’d ever be
someone worth this shocking boy’s notice.
He should have prayed for Yoongi’s eyes to never rest on him.
Possible exaggerations aside, Yoongi lived up to his vow, and continues to do
so today. Yoongi is a good ruler, some say the best the Min family has ever
turned out, and under his rule, Goryeo rose from the ashes like a phoenix as he
said she would and is now a large, prospering empire.
But at the age of thirteen, Jimin could not spare a care for politics. He was
preoccupied with himself—with the strange desires the prince’s outrageous
speech had triggered in him, the wayward questions he tried to quell.
Two years later, when he was the same age the prince had been crowned, a boy
kissed him.
He was the son of a friend of Jimin’s father, and he was two years older than
Jimin, teaching him how to use a hoe and turn soil. Jimin was struggling to
budge the infernal implement, and the boy eventually rolled up his sleeves and
did it himself, the muscles in his arms bulging and flexing as he leaned his
weight on the handle.
And suddenly…Jimin knew. It hit him like a fist to the gut as he watched the
boy’s muscles rippling, his broad shoulders tensing, listened to the small
grunt tripping out of his lips. He realized what all the strange urges which
woke him in the middle of the night were, why when he woke up with a tightness
hanging heavy between his legs and tugged himself to ecstasy to guilty thoughts
of the giggling, long-haired village girls in the outhouse, it wasn’t quite as
satisfactory as he knew it could be. He liked boys. He liked boys, pure and
simple.
The boy straightened and saw him staring. Jimin looked at his body like he’d
never seen a male body before, fascinated by the sheen of sweat on the tanned
expanse of chest exposed by his hanbok, which had fallen open, pulled in by the
way his arms bulged when he drove the tool into the soil. He studied Jimin,
giving him a strange look. “Jimin?”
“I…you’re beautiful,” he blurted out, in the coarse speech of villagers he had
not yet been tutored out of in those days. He forced his gaze up to meet his
bewildered eyes, pushing away the horror threatening to instil panic in his
heart. “You’re just really beautiful.”
He stared at Jimin.
It did not happen instantly. At the time, the boy just laughed at him and
turned away. But several dim evenings later, the sun setting over the distant
hills and the heat of the day lifting to unveil a sweet, cool breeze as night
fell, Jimin found himself pressed against the boy. And as if it could ever be
that simple, the boy kissed him.
Jimin felt it, the gears finally biting, the cogs finally turning: his life,
his whole worldview, shifting and changing. There were no fireworks, no
fanfare. It was a quiet sort of epiphany. But in the gentle stroke of the boy’s
hands through his hair and the brush of his thumbs over his cheekbones, wound
like ribbons between the rustle of crops around them and strengthening as the
light faded and hid them from the prying eyes of the village, Jimin found
sense. Peace of a kind he did not know he was searching for, the type no one
knows they are searching for: peace with himself and who he was.
Their fledgling, cautious relationship was a secret for about two moons. Jimin
met him in the fields occasionally, where they pretended to farm at first but
then dropped their tools and kissed instead. He learned the guilty pleasure of
a boy tucking his hand down his baji, the feeling of being grasped and touched
by someone else until Jimin was hanging off his broad shoulders and gasping
into his mouth and his baji was wet with white stains he could not explain to
his mother, and so washed out himself in the dead of night.
But after he turned sixteen, everything changed.
One day, his father came home from a long day in the fields with his jaw set
and his eyes furious. He strode into their tiny hut, eyes immediately landing
on Jimin, and reached in the corner for the cane which had not been used since
he was a disobedient seven-year old.
He was crying even before the first strike of the cane landed on his skin. The
tears only came faster and hotter as the length of rattan struck again and
again, bruising his skin and leaving red streaks, the sound of it slicing
through the air like a whip pure terror to his ears, and Jimin wondered how a
father could possibly justify beating his own son to himself.
Jimin saw glimpses of his father’s face through the pain, through the searing,
flaying agony burning over his back and arms and legs, and he looked like how
his mother had described Yoongi on the day he crowned himself: like a dead
fish. His eyes had absolutely no feeling left in them, blank and empty as the
paddy fields after the harvest. In that moment, he was not the man Jimin knew.
He was not the comforting, benevolent, quiet presence who had taught him how to
plant seedlings and read the farmer’s almanac. He was a stranger beating
someone else’s son because he had kissed a boy.
He wondered, through the pain crawling under his skin like snakes making him
want to tear at his hair and claw out his flesh, how his father and his mother,
standing silent and stone-faced, just as expressionless as her husband nearby,
could just turn their love for him off like that. How they could harden their
hearts in seconds, forget the place he had in theirs and they in his, for the
single reason that he liked boys.
Because surely they loved him. Surely all the times they had went to bed hungry
and stayed out working longer in the fields than they should have were acts
done out of love. Deep down, a tormented part of him whispered that there was a
difference between loving your family and knowing your duty to it, however
misguided that duty may be, and Jimin knew it was right.
Jimin’s mother told him later, in a disgusted voice and with a repulsed
expression, almost reluctantly dabbing at the cuts his father had opened up,
how it had happened. How the sister of the boy Jimin met in the fields had seen
the very first kiss play out and stayed silent, and finally, yesterday, had
broken down and blurted it all out to their father.
Their father had beaten his son until he confessed whom he kissed: Jimin. He
stormed up to Jimin’s father in the fields, screaming accusations for the whole
village to hear that Park’s son had corrupted his own with his deviant lips and
sinful hands. Then Jimin’s father came back and beat him for shaming him in
front of the whole village, because Jimin was twisted, Jimin was wrong, Jimin
did not like girls, and that was something to be ashamed about. It was a chain
of hateful hands cracking lengths of rattan against vulnerable backs, and no
one had ever benefited from the penance of a beating.
That night, Jimin made a vow like Yoongi had. He vowed to not listen to the
couple who called themselves his parents, to never be ashamed of who he was
like his parents, who forgot they had ever loved him because their reputation
was on the line. He was proud of who he was, he told himself, and he would
prove himself like Yoongi had. But he would not do it while being ridiculed and
beaten.
In the morning, he would run away.
He woke up while darkness still claimed the world, and he laid out on a cloth
the provisions he would bring: some food and a gourd of water. He tied the
edges together and hung it on the end of a long, wooden broom handle, hefting
it on his shoulder. Then he slipped out the door just before the sun rose and
his father rose with it, heart filled with a savage, sort of bitter
satisfaction that the sun would rise on a village with one less lonely boy
struggling to be who he was.
He had not yet shut the door when he caught sight of the cavalry of bounty
hunters on horseback grouped right in front of the village’s huts. Their leader
was dismounting from his horse, but he froze when he saw his onlooker, and so
did Jimin.
He knew they were bounty hunters immediately. He recognized them by the long,
matted hair and the missing teeth, the obvious air of carelessness and dishonor
which hung around them. Loose groups of bounty hunters had formed all over
Goryeo once Yoongi had let it be known that he would pay a good price for
‘pretty’ boys around the kingdom: boys with a feminine touch, but not too
much—or just enough—that they could be mistaken for women. His soldiers and the
bounty hunters had seemed to be confused by the description, and they regularly
brought him a number of flat-chested girls whose hair had been cut short. They
were, of course, turned away. Yoongi wanted boys, not girls.
At the time, every single one of them had been turned away. None had been
suitable for his singular tastes. The bounty hunters rode across the kingdom on
horseback and devastated the peasants, raiding villages and taking any boys
they thought would fetch a reward.
They still do.
Jimin’s hut was the first one would see if one approached the village from the
southward road, from the direction of the palace. It would be the first to be
raided. No one was panicking and no one had raised the alarm, because everyone
was still sound asleep in their beds.
Jimin turned and ran back into the house once he was able to jolt his body out
of its shock-induced paralysis, slamming the front door shut like it would
hinder the bounty hunters and yelling at the top of his lungs to wake his
parents. Suddenly, as he heard the men’s shouts and the flimsy, rotten wood
splintering as the door was kicked in, a great, choking wave of darkness roiled
up inside him. He was scared. He wanted his parents to protect him, hold him,
make everything alright again. Even if they had beaten him and it had been
misguided, he still loved them. It was not as easy to cut off familial ties as
he had thought it was: they were still his parents. He was still their son.
Their bond had been damaged, but it would take more than that to break it.
What a time to realize that one has been blind.
Jimin’s parents came stumbling into the common area just as the bounty hunters
rushed in. He ran into his mother’s arms, and she pulled him close, letting him
bury his face in her shoulder even though he was as tall as she was.
“Please, take what you want,” Jimin heard his father say. “But don’t hurt my
family.”
The bounty hunters leered and laughed, and the leader barked out orders to his
men. They started ransacking his family’s pitifully small hut, opening drawers
and cupboards, taking anything of even remote value. They even found his
parents’ emergency stash of coins, hidden in a niche in the dining table. He
was more afraid than he had ever been in his life, more afraid even than when
he kissed the boy in the fields and the fear of being caught lurked heavy in
the back of his mind, blotted out by the feeling of lips moving against his and
muscles tensing under his fingers. Because this time he was not just afraid for
his own life. This time he was afraid for the lives of the two people he loved
most in the world, indeed the  only  people he loved in the world.
And then it was over, and they were standing in front of Jimin’s family with
their ugly gap-toothed smiles and rough burlap sacks filled with their
possessions. One circled too close to them. Jimin’s arms tightened around his
mother’s waist.
“Look how big this one is already,” he mocked, pointing at Jimin. “Big and
strong, yet he hides behind his mother.”
Jimin squeezed his eyes shut.
“I’ll show you what to hide behind,” he sneered, and there was a smooth scrape
of metal as he pulled his sword out of its scabbard. Jimin heard a thick
chopping sound before he could react, and the arms around him went limp. He
opened his eyes slowly. His mother—his mother’s  head —stared at him from the
dirt floor. Jimin looked up slowly, in horror and dread and gut-churning fear,
as her body sagged in his arms. That meant—that meant—
He could vaguely hear his father sobbing, horrible, inhuman, guttural sounds
which a human being should never make, before the wet, meaty chopping sound
came again and he fell silent. Jimin stared at his mother’s head, rolled on its
side on the dusty ground, and then at the bloody, raw stump of her neck. He
opened his arms. Her grotesque, headless body slid to the floor along with his
father’s.
Jimin turned slowly to the bounty hunters and closed his eyes, jaw set. The
shock and grief had not yet set in, and he believed firmly in the fact that
they were still alive; he just had to die himself to join them. He clenched his
jaw and prepared for the release of cold metal cutting through his neck like it
had done to so many others’. “Do it,” he gritted out to the bounty hunters.
“Kill me.”
But instead, there were grimy, rough fingers on his jaw, turning his head from
side to side. Jimin opened his eyes to see the leader frowning into his face.
“I think the prince would want him,” he said to his men, his foul breath
washing over Jimin’s face, assailing his nostrils and making him want to gag.
“He’s a pretty one.”
And so he was dragged, kicking and screaming the entire way, to the palace,
where he was dumped in front of the throne just like Jungkook one day would be.
He went still and stopped resisting. If he failed to catch Yoongi’s fancy, he
would be killed, and then he would be able to join his parents. And why would
the prince, whom had never known anything but a life of gems and gold, want a
boy with dirt streaked over his face and blood running from numerous cuts on
his body?
But Yoongi did take a fancy to him.
Jimin did not know the harsh realities of what transpired in the bedroom then.
He was timid, but he went into Yoongi’s bedroom willingly. Yoongi was only a
few years older than him then, Jimin sixteen and he eighteen, but he already
had the desires and hunger for another body everyone comes, in time, to
possess.
The guards deposited Jimin right outside Yoongi’s bedroom door. Yoongi was
sitting on his massive four-poster bed, hands folded in his lap, shoulders
drooping slightly. He looked rather small, human, and not at all princely. But
when he heard Jimin’s panicked attempts to get away, he looked up with an
encouraging smile on his face. Jimin hid, pressing himself against the wall,
but it was no use: Yoongi knew he was there.
“Hello,” he called. “Jimin?”
He knew his name. The guards must have told him—they had asked Jimin his name,
and he had not seen the point of refusing, so he told them.
The great Min Yoongi, prince and savior of Goryeo, who kissed boys and flaunted
it to the whole kingdom, knew his name.
Jimin closed his eyes. He didn’t want to go in there. His mother had always
told him to stay away from people who teased, because all jokes are at someone
else’s expense, and a core of cruelty spins in the center of whomever makes fun
of others. Now she was dead, and Jimin was going to carry out her wishes to his
last breath.
“Why are you hiding from me, pretty?” he asked, pretending to be offended. “You
don’t have to be afraid of me.”
Jimin shook his head silently, mouthing his mother’s name for strength.  Eomma,
he called silently.  Eomma.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” And then he had gotten up and was
walking closer to Jimin. Jimin wanted to dart down the corridor before he saw
him, but the guards appeared at the end of the sumptuously carpeted hall in
warning, and Jimin shrank back from them. He hated their harsh grips and cruel
jibes. He backed away—and straight into Yoongi’s chest.
Jimin froze. Yoongi’s hands came down and rested on his shoulders. Jimin was a
head shorter than him then. He struggled, trying to pull away, but Yoongi
gently pulled him back. Yoongi drew him into his bedroom while Jimin shook his
head mutely, afraid to comply, but afraid to refuse the famous, powerful
prince.
Yoongi shut and locked the door, tucking the key into his robes, and then he
let go of Jimin and sat down on his bed. Jimin fled to the other side of the
room, crouching in a corner. Yoongi watched him sadly.
“Why are you afraid of me?” he asked softly. “I’m just Yoongi. I won’t hurt
you. You’re too pretty to hide your face.”
At that age, Jimin was still susceptible to compliments, and he peeked at
Yoongi timidly. He thought that what he saw was quite attractive. With his
height, long legs, and fair skin, he looked so much better than the crude
village boys, better even than the boy Jimin had kissed in the fields, whom had
taken on an almost godlike status in his mind. But here was a prince telling
Jimin he was pretty. Jimin knew he liked boys. Did he like…Jimin?
Yoongi saw the shift in Jimin’s demeanor from fear to timid curiosity and put
out his hands, palms upturned beseechingly, the way one would approach a wild
animal. “Come here,” he said, still using that same soft voice which seemed to
stroke Jimin like a feather. “I have something to give you.”
Jimin took a small step forward, but then shrank back again.
“Don’t hide behind your hair.” He kept his hands where they were, making no
sudden movements. “It’s so pretty, so soft and long, but your face is prettier.
Won’t you let me see your beautiful face, at least?”
Jimin gasped a little. He had called him beautiful. A prince thought Jimin was
beautiful. He swallowed and stared at him, lips parted slightly, wondering what
Yoongi wanted with him.
“Come on,” he encouraged. “Come closer so I can adore you better. You’re
striking from a distance, but even closer, you would look like an angel. I want
to see those beautiful eyes up close.”
And that was how he lured Jimin into his bed, advancing in cautious, slow
steps, with compliments and admiration. Finally, Jimin was standing in front of
him, hunching slightly. Yoongi reached out and took his wrists, drawing him
closer until his knees bumped against his. Jimin flinched involuntarily when
they came into contact. Yoongi reached a hand up and brushed his hair out of
his face, the backs of his knuckles tender and caressing, and Jimin melted into
the touch like clay. A boy. A boy was touching him.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “So beautiful.”
Jimin blushed under his compliments. He liked being told he was beautiful, he
realized. Something in him lit up like a torch at the words. Especially when
they were spoken by this tall, ethereal prince, whom Jimin thought was
undeniably prettier than he was.
Yoongi’s hand dropped down, and he reached behind him, bringing his hand back
around clenched in a fist. Jimin watched it curiously. His fear of Yoongi had
ebbed away, the tide drawing back before a tsunami. How could he harm Jimin in
any way, when all he had done for the past ten minutes was shower him with
compliments and adoration?
He patted the bed next to him. “Will you sit for me?” he asked softly. “Then
I’ll give it to you.”
Jimin meekly sat down a foot away from him. Yoongi beckoned him closer, moving
closer himself, until his thigh touched Jimin’s. Jimin drew his legs in
protectively, his knees touching, as Yoongi held his hand between them. Jimin’s
gaze riveted on it as he wondered what Yoongi could be holding. A ring? A
brooch? A gem?
“Good boy,” he murmured adoringly, and then he opened his hand.
It was empty.
Jimin blinked in confusion. Then he felt a hand cupping his face, a mouth
abruptly pressing against his. He jerked back, crying out in surprise, but
Yoongi leaned in, moving his lips gently. After a while, he pulled back, his
hand never leaving Jimin’s  face.
“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he whispered. “Beautiful boys like you
deserve to be kissed.”
Jimin blinked, eyes wide. He was not beautiful. But he put up no resistance
when Yoongi leaned in again, his lips meeting Jimin’s softly. Jimin was
breathing quickly, tensed up, but Yoongi’s other hand came up to cradle his
face, and all at once, he relaxed. He felt safe, suddenly. He liked the feeling
of a mouth on his. He liked that he was desirable enough to a boy as good-
looking as Yoongi that he wanted to kiss him and called him beautiful. Jimin’s
eyes fluttered closed as he surrendered to him and threw caution to the wind,
trusting innocently in him.
Yoongi tilted his head and kissed Jimin a little harder, the pressure making
his lips part. Jimin wondered if he could touch him, because he wanted to, a
little. He wanted to know what it felt like to touch another boy, another
person,  whether their bodies would be the same or different. The boy in the
fields had never really let Jimin touch him.
One of Yoongi’s hands slid down Jimin’s cheek and settled in the curve of his
waist. Jimin inhaled sharply as Yoongi cupped his hip, next. He’d been
fascinated by his body when it started changing, staring at himself every day
in the one little mirror his family owned and watching the burgeoning muscles
which became more apparent every day. Yoongi seemed fascinated by them, too. He
kept running a hand up and down his side, tracing his lean muscles, soothing
Jimin with his touch.
He stopped kissing Jimin, who frowned a little, but then Yoongi’s mouth met his
neck and he gasped in surprise. He hadn’t known how good it felt to be kissed
there. He delighted in the new, puzzling sensations which ran through his body
every time Yoongi’s lips touched his skin. Yoongi dipped lower, kissing his
collarbones, and he let out a long, pleased exhale.
Jimin knew he should have been resisting, but it felt too good to ask Yoongi to
stop. Gentle, slender fingers rested on the sash of his hanbok, and then Yoongi
was undoing it and pushing it off his shoulders before he knew what was
happening. Jimin gasped and crossed his arms over his chest, the little fat on
his belly, but Yoongi stuck his lower lip out indignantly, pouting his cherry
lips. Jimin giggled, and Yoongi reached in and gently uncrossed his arms.
“Lay back,” he said softly, and Jimin did so willingly, wondering what Yoongi
would do next. His bed was so much softer and more comfortable than the straw
pallet Jimin had slept on before. It had layers and layers, not just a single
thin, ratty blanket: a cover of purple brocade with golden dragons embroidered
into the thick cloth, and a yellow silk throw, cool to the touch, laid over
smooth black cotton sheets.
He tapped Jimin’s hips with a long, slender finger to get him to raise them,
and he obeyed, but then flinched when he realized Yoongi was pulling his
clothes off completely. He crossed his legs, panicking, as the last of his
clothes were dropped over the edge of the vast bed and he was left naked and
exposed.
“Shhhh,” Yoongi hushed, even though Jimin hadn’t said anything, and he smoothed
his hand over Jimin’s belly, the warmth of his hand oddly comforting. Jimin
relaxed back on the soft mattress. He pressed soft, tender kisses to Jimin’s
belly, and Jimin arched his back reflexively, trying to get more of that warm,
wet heat.
The fact that Yoongi had taken his own clothes off escaped Jimin’s notice until
Yoongi moved back up his body and Jimin’s hand brushed against bare skin. Jimin
froze in surprise, eyes opening slowly as Yoongi mouthed at his jaw, and moved
his hand timidly again over Yoongi’s body. He was touching his back. Yoongi
didn’t protest as Jimin explored the rest of his body, lightly touching his
biceps and shoulders and chest, avoiding looking at what hung between his legs,
even though Jimin knew he had the same things. Then the thought occurred to him
that he should take the opportunity to check whether the rumors of him being
female were true. Bracing himself for the worst, Jimin peeked between his legs.
No, he was definitely a man.
Vaguely, Jimin registered Yoongi’s hands running over his body, soft murmurs of
nothing in his ear, something slick and slightly cold being rubbed between his
legs which Jimin did not really want to think about. Jimin tried to look down
at what Yoongi was doing, to see what the substance his slender fingers were
spreading around was, but Yoongi’s body was blocking his view.
He was being so gentle. All of Jimin’s walls and defenses collapsed with a soft
thud, baring himself in all his vulnerability for Yoongi to take what he wanted
from him. But his eyes flew open when the bluntness nudging against him which
he had been vaguely aware of pushed inside him. And…in a place he had never
thought anything could or would enter, a dirty, private place he never gave any
thought to except when nature called. The pain was immediate and demanding,
burning and tearing and uncomfortable, although it was not as dry as Jimin
would have expected it to be. It hit him with a sickening lurch: a creeping
suspicion of the purpose the slickness between his legs served.
Jimin broke away from Yoongi’s lips, turning his face to the side as his face
contorted in discomfort, then in pain as the large, ungainly invasion moved in
deeper. “Stop,” Jimin gasped, batting weakly at his arm. “I don't like it, it
hurts, it hurts!”
He shushed Jimin again, but he didn’t stop. Then there was something all the
way inside him, in one of the most private places of his body, and Jimin wanted
it out so badly that he would have torn his own skin apart to be rid of it.
Even when Yoongi was completely still, Jimin could still acutely feel it, the
pain of skin which should never have been stretched being stretched beyond what
it was used to; the pain of a body trying to accommodate something it was not
built for, not meant for. The need to get it out of his body screamed in his
ears. It did not feel right at all, nothing like the careful, hesitant touches
Jimin had experienced in the clandestine dusk of the fields, the inevitably
blissful release which always followed. Jimin could see no way at all that this
would ever get better, that this would ever hold any rewards for him.
Yoongi pulled out and thrust in again, and Jimin’s face crumpled in pain. The
worst conceivable thing then would be if he moved. If he stayed still, Jimin
could just bear it. But his pleading fell on deaf ears, and Yoongi pushed in
and out, panting softly, hands gripping his wrists tightly to hinder his
struggles. The prince’s body tensed and relaxed above him. The atmosphere had
flipped from pleasantly enjoyable to terrifyingly excruciating in an instant,
and Jimin wished he had knocked down the guards and ran, wished he had gotten
far, far away from this bedroom when he had had the chance. He hated this. It
felt too wrong.
“Please,” Jimin cried as Yoongi sped up, his lip caught between his teeth,
“stop, you’re hurting me!”
Jimin did not think Yoongi even heard him at that point. His fingers dug into
Jimin’s waist, his nails scoring his skin, and Jimin realized with a sickening
flood of panic that he could still be so much more rough than he was being now,
could hurt Jimin so much more than he was. He could rip him apart if he wanted.
He could break him permanently if he cared even a little bit less. Jimin felt
it in the taut power of Yoongi’s biceps and the tension of his hips snapping
against his body. Now, he was being gentle. He was holding back.
The realization was terrifying.
Tears streamed down Jimin’s cheeks, and he stopped trying to hold back in
respect for the prince, instead shoving at his chest and trying to wriggle out
from under him. Yoongi grunted in frustration as the thing inside Jimin slipped
out, but choirs in Jimin’s chest surged to life and crowed in elation. He
glimpsed a blindingly hopeful shred of opportunity, pushing Yoongi away. But of
course he had no chance—Yoongi caught his wrists and shoved him forcefully back
down onto his bed, the back of Jimin’s head hitting the wooden headboard
painfully and the air getting knocked out of him with a gasp.
Jimin couldn’t move. Yoongi’s body weight was pinning him to the mattress, and
Yoongi was holding his wrists with his free hand so he couldn’t push at him.
Jimin’s jaw clenched, gritting his teeth in pain, as Yoongi’s nails raked down
his side and he groaned. Then Jimin felt a hot rush, heard a grunt—and it was
over.
The grip encircling Jimin’s wrists eased, and Yoongi rolled off, lying on his
back beside him and panting. Jimin bolted immediately, snatching up his hanbok
from the floor and wrapping it hurriedly around his body, then running to the
door and tugging futilely at the handle. Yoongi opened his eyes, checking the
bed, and saw that there was blood on the sheets.
Jimin’s blood.
He smiled in satisfaction, watching Jimin from beneath lowered eyelids with
vague disinterest.
Jimin considered trying to kick the door down—his father had taught him a
little Taekwondo before he was…before he was taken—but he was shaking and
crying, and he could feel something warm trickling out of him, and he wasn’t in
any state to kick a solid block of wood down. He finally gave up and sank to
the floor, curling in on himself with his back to Yoongi, his body convulsing
as he sobbed.
After a while, Jimin heard the bed creak and felt a touch on his shoulder. He
flinched away, feet scrabbling at the wooden floor, and he threw himself
against the far wall, nostrils flared in fear as he stared at Yoongi. Jimin was
afraid of him—for what Yoongi had done to him, for what he stood for, for
everything he was. He wanted to go home. He wished he had smeared his face with
mud so the soldiers would not have seen his face and taken him here, and his
head would be rolling on the ground alongside his parents’. He wished he had
never seen this lavish, extravagant palace standing arrogantly amongst the poor
villagers’ huts as they struggled to feed their children and froze in winter
while Yoongi slept on a four-poster bed with golden knobs on the bedposts and
warmed his feet on ondol-heated floors.
Yoongi paused, considering, but he didn’t come after Jimin. Instead, he said,
“How old are you?”
Jimin winced at his words. Every word which came out of Yoongi’s mouth was like
a strike to the face.
“Answer me,” Yoongi said, and his voice had turned hard and cold. “Answer me,
or you will regret it.”
Jimin’s hands trembled. Finally, he said in a whisper, “Sixteen.”
“Do you like men?”
“I…” He remembered, suddenly, his vow to be true to himself. It seemed so long
ago now, and he was bombarded by a mass of confused, disgusted feelings. To
think that he had made the vow in Yoongi’s honor. “Yes,” he said hesitantly.
From the way Yoongi had treated him, lying would not extricate him from his
predicament, anyway.
“Perhaps you will like this job more than most will, then,” he said, smile
twitching at the corners of his mouth. Jimin did not know what he meant by
‘this job’. He just wanted to escape.
Yoongi turned, picking up a key from his bedside table—how had Jimin not seen
it before?—and unlocking the door.
Jimin’s feet remained rooted to the ground. He could not go. Yoongi was
standing in the doorway, and Jimin was never willingly getting that close to
him again.
“What now?” The prince sighed impatiently, then stepped aside. Jimin ran out
the door.
~
The next time was worse in some ways and better in others.
~
Jimin was pushed inside Yoongi’s bedroom, his heels squeaking against the
floor, and he immediately turned to run back out the door. It had already been
locked. Jimin’s shoulders sagged, then he slowly turned and regarded Yoongi
warily, assessing his chances.
He was, again, sitting on the bed and blinking disinterestedly at Jimin. His
hands were folded in his lap. He waved next to him. “Sit down.”
Jimin was never going that near to him again. He remained motionless.
“Have it your way.” Yoongi shook his head, and then he said, “It is obvious you
do not know what you are here for.”
That was true. Jimin didn’t.
“Therefore,” he continued, “I am going to explain what is expected of you here.
Listen carefully. I am not going to repeat myself.”
Jimin stayed silent.
“You are now a concubine. Your only purpose here is in my bed. There is no
point resisting when your duties are required, because it is your job.”
He could not accept that. He could not.
“You will live in my palace, and you will come to the dining hall when the gong
is rung for meals. I noticed that you were not present at dinner yesterday.
That is unacceptable. You must not starve or grow weak, or you will not be able
to carry out your job properly.”
He had been too busy crying in his room. He had vaguely registered the distant
sound of a gong being rung, but he had thought nothing of it.
“I assume you have been shown to your room.”
Yoongi waited impatiently, and it took Jimin a moment for his terrified mind to
process that he wanted some kind of affirmation. He gave a series of hurried,
vigorous, frantic nods.
Yoongi seemed satisfied. “First,” he went on, “you are under no circumstances
allowed to lie with another man besides me. If one forces you to do so, then
you must tell me. Second, you are to keep your body in good condition. Do not
get fat. Do not eat too much at meals. If for some reason you do, you are
required to purge to rid your body of the excess food. That means you must
force yourself to vomit it out. You would not like that, would you?”
Jimin shook his head. He hated vomiting. The acid burned his throat on the way
up, and he was left with a horrible taste in his mouth.
“Third, avoid falls or knocks, because those would leave bruises or cuts. Do
not get too thin, either.”
That was going to be a hard one. Jimin was naturally clumsy. Then he caught
himself. Was he accepting this life, these rules?
“Lastly, you are not allowed to kill yourself, or to ask another to kill you.
You would be caught, and then you would be punished.”
Jimin had not even considered it. But now that Yoongi mentioned it...it was a
good idea.
And then Jimin was forced into his bed, and he just stopped thinking. It was
the only way to deal with what was happening to him. To his innocence.
Jimin is roused out of his memories by a noise. He wipes the tears off his
cheeks and slowly gets to his feet, wondering what it is. He hears a faint cry,
and then a familiar creak.
The creak of Yoongi’s bed.
Yoongi has other concubines, of course, all male—Jimin was his first, but
Yoongi soon realized he needed others when Jimin was treated too roughly one
night and cried every time he was made to move, subsequently rendered unable to
carry out his duties. Everyone knows Jimin is by far his favorite. All the
other concubines compete for the title because of the gifts and privileges
which come with it, but Jimin is above that: he is used to being shoved into
corners with a fist in his collar while being meaninglessly challenged to
fight, the other concubines taking advantage of the fact that he hates conflict
of any kind and would rather give in and stay silent than defend himself. But
Jimin would gladly hand the title it to them. He thinks the reason he is
Yoongi’s favorite is because he has still not given himself over entirely to
his fate as a concubine, even after five years. Yoongi enjoys feeling like he
is spoiling Jimin all over again every time he has him in his bed. Jimin
suppose it does not hurt that he also happens to be one of the younger ones,
although he has spent the longest time as a concubine.
Jimin shakes his head. His room shares a wall with Yoongi’s—the short distance
means it takes hardly any time for him to arrive in the royal bedroom when his
duties are required. He can usually hear what goes on in there, especially if
the concubine is a particularly vocal one—there are some who like to play it up
and exaggerate the noises they make. Jimin is not the kind to be vocal. Yoongi
has to work hard to wring sounds from him, and Jimin thinks he likes that, in a
strange, indirect sort of way.
Everyone has been uneasily sidestepping the topic of an heir to the throne up
until now, meaning at some point, Yoongi will have to take a female concubine
or wife and impregnate her. Jimin cannot conceive how he will manage that. He
does not look at women the same way as other men. He passes them by, his eyes
sliding right over the princesses who make themselves pretty and dress
themselves in their finest gowns in the hopes that Yoongi will forget his taste
for men and make them an exception, and straight on to their male bodyguards.
It is the one thing he and Jimin share in common.
All the concubines like men, the same as Yoongi. Jimin was an exception—he was
not asked his sexuality until after Yoongi used him—because he was the first,
and Yoongi was not quite sure how to manage him. But it is standard procedure
now—not that there is much of a standard procedure when it comes to recruiting
male concubines—to ask the concubines whether or not they have a taste for male
bedfellows before they are hired. It is a kindness they are afforded, that
Yoongi would not force them into something there is absolutely no possibility
of them ever enjoying.
Jimin...does not like his job, but it is not always unpleasant. The first time
he came from being with Yoongi was when the prince was in an exceptionally good
mood. His armies had managed to invade, after a year of fighting, a bustling
seaside harbor town which insisted on keeping itself independent from Goryeo
because its people said Goryeo was not giving them their fair share of the
profits received from taxing the merchants who docked there. It had been like
an itch he could not scratch for ages. Jimin knew because he talks to him about
his troubles, after Jimin has done his duty and is laying on his back next to
him, relaxed and loose-lipped in the aftermath of orgasm. Jimin is quite
possibly the closest friend he has.
That day Jimin was not quite sure what to do, after Yoongi called him to his
room with an uncharacteristic, gummy smile on his face which Jimin grudgingly
found endearing. The prince chattered excitedly for a few minutes about how his
soldiers had finally won the battle by a strategy which Jimin had no hope of
understanding, something involving infiltrating the small palace in the heart
of the town through the irrigation trenches of the neighboring farm and
capturing the independent king. The whole plan had been devised by Yoongi.
Jimin listened in fascination. He had to admit that it was a genius plan.
Regardless of how he treats his concubines, Yoongi is a brilliant strategist
and a good ruler.
He suddenly broke off in the middle of explaining and said, his words running
together in excitement, “I’m sure you’re wondering how this relates to you.”
“Um…” Jimin shifted slightly, the expensive sheets of Yoongi’s bed rustling as
he changed his sitting position. “Yes, Your Ma—Yoongi. I am a little confused.”
He said this all carefully, trying to mimic the clipped, formal speech of the
court he had been taught to use at all times.
“Well…I’m in a good mood.” He shifted closer to him, and Jimin leaned slightly
into his chest, used to his proximity by now. He loves being held, and
sometimes Yoongi complies. Jimin tries not to think too hard about the ins and
outs of their relationship—does he like him, does he hate him, is he
neutral?—or he unfailingly develops a splitting headache and is left with
confusion and apprehension he really has no use for. That day, Yoongi must have
been feeling accommodating, because his arms came up around Jimin, pulling him
towards himself until Jimin’s back was pressed against his warm, thin chest.
“And I want to reward you for last night. You were so good.”
He had tied Jimin to the bedposts and made him beg. It was not something they
normally did, something he knew was out of Jimin’s comfort zone and would
surely lead to a reward—perhaps a new robe or an excursion into town—so Jimin
had acquiesced without question. Jimin looked hopefully at him, interest
rekindled. What gift would it be this time? A bird in a cage? A new room?
Perhaps even a puppy, which he had been asking for since he knew Yoongi gave
him gifts in exchange for sexual favors, but had never been allowed?
“Thank you,” he said cautiously.
Yoongi looked contemplatively at him for a while. “Take off your clothes and
lie back,” he instructed finally.
Jimin did so, accustomed to being naked in front of him now. He wondered
whether his present would come after Yoongi was done with him.
He placed his hands on Jimin’s knees and spread his legs open gently. “Try to
relax,” he said softly. Jimin felt fine hair brushing his inner thighs a split
second before there was a mouth on him, on his cock, and his head went blank as
pleasure crashed through his mind. He could hear someone crying out as Yoongi
hollowed his cheeks and sucked, and it took a few frantic heartbeats for Jimin
to realize it was himself.
It was so warm and wet and perfect, and it was ultimately too much. Jimin did
not have a single hope of pacing himself, having had no practice before, and he
came in only a few minutes. He felt like Yoongi had handed him the key to
heaven. He seemed to rise from the bed, borne up on wings of pleasure,
throbbing ecstasy racing between his legs. The boy from the fields had never
used his mouth on Jimin, never used anything but hands, and Jimin had not known
release could feel this good. He writhed and cried and screamed, and Yoongi let
Jimin buck into his mouth, swallowing every drop of white which spurted down
his throat.
When Jimin could see again and the fireworks popping in his vision had faded,
Yoongi moved back up and pulled his shaking, panting body into his arms,
resting his chin on top of his head. White starbursts of lingering pleasure
danced behind Jimin’s eyelids. He couldn’t stop making panting, breathless
whimpers.
Yoongi put his mouth to Jimin’s ear. “Be good,” he whispered, “and that is what
you will get.”
These days, Yoongi lets him come on rare occasions, but mostly it is just him
and his hand in the shadows of night whenever the need arises.
JImin is not sure whether Jungkook has been asked whether he likes men. Perhaps
Yoongi was too impatient to have him and bypassed the formalities. It would not
be out of character.
Jimin usually just ignores the sounds and continues what he is doing, but then
he hears an unfamiliar grunt. It is not one he knows: higher and breathier,
nothing like Yoongi’s harsh, low tones.
His eyebrows draw together, and he walks over to the wall he shares with
Yoongi, putting an ear against it. He hears desperate scrabbling, then a
frustrated growl—Yoongi’s this time—and his voice commanding, “Will you just
stay put?”
Then a small whisper. “No.”
Heavy footsteps, and then, “Jungkook, if you stop fighting and cooperate, this
whole thing will be over faster.”
So Jungkook is the one trapped in there.
After a few more minutes of desperate scrabbling, Yoongi sighs impatiently, and
then he says, “Wait here. Do not bother trying to get out. The door will be
locked.”
JImin hears Yoongi’s bedroom door opening, closing again, and then his
footsteps tapping down the hall.  Where is he going?  he wonders, and Yoongi is
nearly outside his door when Jimin realizes that his footsteps are quickly
approaching. He throws himself away from the wall and into an awkward sprawl on
his bed, bruising his elbow on the footboard. He hurriedly stands up, bowing
and smoothing down his skirts, when the door is thrown open and Yoongi appears
in the doorway.
He looks impatient and frustrated, his mouth a hard, thin line, as it always is
when he is upset or angry. He jerks his chin in the direction of the hall.
“Follow me,” he says shortly, and then he sets off without checking to see that
Jimin is behind him. He hurries to follow the prince, forced to take two steps
for every one of his long strides.
He stops in front of his bedroom door, and Jimin blinks in confusion. His
duties will not be required now, will they? Jungkook is already in there.
But Yoongi unlocks the door, shoos him in, and quickly locks it behind them.
Jungkook is curled up against the headboard of Yoongi’s bed, nostrils flared,
looking desperate and terrified. His eyes widen slightly, recognition shining
briefly through the fear when he sees Jimin, but he makes no move. He reminds
Jimin so much of how he must have looked on that first day he was here five
years ago that his heart breaks.
Jimin looks questioningly at Yoongi. What is he supposed to do here? Are all
three of them going to share his bed, as he has done before with another
concubine?
Yoongi gestures at Jungkook. “Go on.”
Jimin frowns, tilting his head. Yoongi looks back at him expectantly. At a
loss, Jimin steps closer to him and stands on his tiptoes to whisper in
Yoongi’s ear, because Jungkook seems to startle at the slightest sound. “What
do you want me to do?”
Yoongi leans into him, and Jimin feels absurdly like they are a married couple.
His feelings grind to a halt, confused. He has known Yoongi for a long time,
and he probably knows him better than anyone, but they aren’t friends or even
acquaintances. They are…in a professional relationship. He asked Jimin to stop
calling him ‘Your Majesty’ a year after he  became his concubine, because “it
makes you sound like everyone else”. Jimin still cannot fathom what to make of
that.
“I think he might be unused to me because I’m the prince,” Yoongi says softly.
“So maybe you could…break him in first.”
He makes Jungkook sound like a horse,  Jimin thinks, but he turns slowly.
Jungkook peers at him from underneath feathery black bangs which fall over his
eyes, more curious than fearful. Yoongi is right. He probably doesn’t see
Jimin, a delicate boy just under average height with a long, almost feminine
fringe of hair over his eyes, as threatening.
“Perhaps you would like to sit down, Yoongi,” Jimin says quietly to him. He
nods and lowers himself into a comfortable armchair. No one else knows Jimin is
on first-name terms with the prince—for some unspoken reason, they both keep it
a secret. It feels bizarrely intimate at times. A different kind of intimate
than when Jimin shares his bed.
He walks slowly towards Jungkook, still in a ball on the bed. The sheets are
rucked up, a sign of the struggle which doubtless took place before Jimin
arrived. He pauses at the foot of the bed, considering, and then he unhurriedly
tugs the sash of his hanbok untied and shrugs it off his shoulders. It pools in
a silken bundle around his ankles. He wears nothing underneath, not even a
baji. He stopped bothering after he found that things would be over quicker if
he just got rid of all underclothing.
Jungkook’s eyes widen, and he lifts his head, boggling at him, his eyes raking
up and down his body. It occurs belatedly to Jimin that this is probably the
strangest conceivable situation for him—a naked boy standing at the end of the
bed, and the prince watching from an armchair in the corner. He would like to
console him, but he does not know any assurances which could possibly ring
true.
Jimin crawls onto the bed and makes his way towards him. Jungkook slowly
presses himself against the headboard, still staring at his body. Jimin kneels
in front of Jungkook and looks at him for a moment.
He really is lovely,  Jimin thinks, as he takes in his doe eyes and strong
eyebrows and beautifully shaped mouth. Then he feels a twinge of regret.
“I wish we did not have to meet under these circumstances,” he says softly to
Jungkook. Jungkook jumps slightly, surprised that Jimin has spoken. He blinks
his long lashes at him.
“Forgive me,” Jimin whispers. Steeling himself for rejection, he leans forward
and kisses him.
Jungkook flinches away immediately.  Of course,  Jimin thinks. He brings a hand
up to cup Jungkook’s face, straddling his legs, but Jungkook’s hands push
against his chest, trying to shove him away. He does not want Jimin. He does
not like boys. Some small part of Jimin knew this would happen.
Jimin pulls back after minutes have passed and he has not worn down his
defenses at all. “Look, Jungkook-sshi,” he says, quietly enough that Yoongi
cannot hear, using the rough villagers’ dialect, “this whole thing will be over
quicker if you cooperate. I don’t want the prince to punish you, and I
certainly don’t want to get punished myself. I don’t want to force this on you
like this, either, but if you don’t cooperate we’ll both suffer the
consequences.”
His eyebrows draw together in confusion, panic. “Are you evil, too?” he
whispers, his voice so wrecked and hoarse and purely, desperately  afraid  that
Jimin’s heart breaks.
“I’m not.” Jimin meets his eyes levelly. “I’m a concubine. This is my job. And
it’s yours as well now, so I’m sorry, but this will be happening regularly.”
He closes his eyes, and it is obvious that he is fighting back tears. Jimin’s
heart gives a pang.
“Come on, Jungkook-sshi,” he says softly. “You like girls, right? Pretend I’m a
girl. Think of the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen, with the pinkest lips and
the softest hair and the biggest breasts.” He blushes.  Oh Lord,  Jimin thinks.
How young is he?  “Close your eyes and pretend she’s touching you, and this
will be over before you know it.”
He screws his eyes shut. After a long moment, he nods tightly and says in a
small voice which breaks in his effort to sound brave, “Okay.”
Jimin presses forward and kisses him again before he can change his mind.
Jungkook is unresponsive for a long time, although he does not push Jimin away,
and Jimin begins to despair. But then his lashes brush Jimin’s cheekbones as
his eyes flutter shut and his lips move hesitantly against his, and victory
blooms in his chest.
Jimin allows myself to think about how it feels now the first obstacle,
Jungkook’s reluctance, has been cleared. His lips are even softer than they
look, softer by far than Yoongi’s, and it feels like bliss when they move
against Jimin’s tentatively. Jimin tilts his head to kiss him deeper. Jungkook
gasps when Jimin’s tongue parts his lips and enters, hands scrabbling at the
bedsheets before he slowly relaxes again.
Jimin knows why the soldiers took him to the palace—for his looks, for his
delicate features villagers aren’t often gifted with. Jimin has never tried to
use them to his advantage, since his whole life, all they have ever done for
him is land him in trouble. But in that moment, maybe he is a little—just a
little—glad that he is pretty enough that Jungkook doesn’t mind kissing him.
Jungkook’s hands find their way into his hair and wind in the strands, and he
tugs Jimin closer, groaning slightly into his mouth. Jimin can already feel
something hardening below him. He is enjoying this, he realizes. He is enjoying
being Jungkook’s first, judging by the grasping, novice hunger lacing his every
movement, savoring his reactions and taking pride in all the gasps and soft
whimpers he draws from his mouth.
Jimin knows what to do next from five years with Yoongi. He reaches down and
rests his hand on Jungkook’s hip, whispering, “I’m going to touch you now. Is
that alright?”
Jungkook nods, in a daze, unconsciously shifting so he rubs against Jimin’s
inner thigh. Jimin slips his hand under the folds of his hanbok, a child
tucking his fingers beneath the wrapping of a present, and his fingers meet
skin, sending an illicit thrill through him. Jungkook is warm, but muscles lay
taut under his skin. Jimin would guess they come from tilling the fields and
working livestock. Jungkook’s palm cups his cheek, and Jimin feels callouses,
his hand roughened from labor.
Jungkook mouths clumsily at his lips. Despite his lust being an advantage,
Jimin feels a twinge of sympathy for him: young and naïve enough to respond to
a complete stranger giving him attention. Jimin wishes that he could pull away,
sit him down, tell him that people do not always have good intentions even if
they are gentle with you. That people can become monsters in the blink of an
eye.
But he has a job to do. And that job does not involve dispensing life advice.
He can almost feel the innocence leaking out of Jungkook as he bucks his hips
sloppily against Jimin’s, seeking quick and gratifying friction. Trying to do
it as slowly as possible and not break the kiss, Jimin pulls his  baji  down
past his hips.
Jungkook freezes only for a moment. Jimin feels him tensing up, and he hates
myself for having to do it, for having to pollute his body forever, but it has
to be done. He curls his hand around Jungkook’s manhood, instinctively
adjusting his grip from memory. Yoongi is nowhere near as large.
He gasps, melting into a panting bundle of lust and eagerness, and his hips
jump into Jimin’s hand, forcing himself further into his grip. Jimin pumps
slowly, wondering idly whether he has ever even touched himself before. He
buries his head in Jimin’s shoulder, hot breaths of air fanning across his skin
with every soft, stifled moan he makes. The sounds which trip out of his open
mouth are delicious. Jimin can almost feel them pressed into his skin, warm and
sweet with the loss of innocence, the discovery of pleasure.
Jimin breaks away from his lips to kiss softly his neck, keeping his teeth out
of the way but using his tongue to smooth over the skin. Jungkook breathes in
and out sharply, stuttering breaths making his chest rise and fall against
Jimin’s, and his head lolls back against the extravagantly carved headboard.
His eyes slide shut. He whines, a pathetic, needy sound, when Jimin sucks
lightly on his throat.
Jimin presses closer to his body, because Yoongi never lets him do this. Yoongi
is always the one demanding, always the one controlling, and Jimin would not
voluntarily do it anyway. But Jungkook is attractive. He pulls Jimin in with
his wide-eyed innocence and surprised reactions, with his breathy moans and
broken gasps, and for the first time in his life, Jimin is kissing someone with
his own enjoyment as well as theirs in mind, not just to submit.
Jimin smooths the thumb of his free hand over the vein in Jungkook’s neck, his
pulse hammering under the pad of his thumb. His lashes flutter wildly when
Jimin tugs faster at his length, his hips snapping. He has obviously not heard
of pacing himself in exchange for more pleasure, only has the intention of fast
and immediate release on his mind, but Jimin is still surprised when Jungkook
groans into his shoulder—a high, slightly squeaky sound approaching a panicked
sort of ecstasy—and warmth spurts over his hand and onto their bellies in
sticky white streaks. Jimin’s eyes snap down, caught off-guard. Jungkook’s cock
throbs, jerks, his come dribbling weakly down the sides after his belly has
been thoroughly painted in a coat of sticky white. His hips still roll up into
Jimin’s hand as he milks himself automatically.
Jungkook slumps against the headboard when his cock has softened in Jimin’s
grip, all huffing whimpers and quiet panting. Jimin stares down at his hand. It
was not his intention to tip Jungkook over the edge—he only wanted to show him
the way, bring him close enough to release to kindle the inherent need for
another body everyone hides. He only meant to make him desperate and willing to
do anything to sate a newly hungering urge. But how could he have predicted
that Jungkook would come that fast?
He glances uneasily over at Yoongi. His legs are spread, and he is using a
cloth to wipe at himself. It takes Jimin a moment to realize that he has found
his own release.
Jimin reluctantly gets off Jungkook, who does not seem to notice, and walks
over to Yoongi, bowing quickly. “Sire,” he says nervously to be safe, although
he knows Yoongi does not request it of him, “forgive me. I did not expect him
to come so fast. I should have been slower, I should not have—”
“No need to worry.” He blinks slowly at Jimin. “This one time is alright.”
Jimin bows gratefully.
“I will take care of Jungkook.” He looks at Jungkook, already snoring softly
and curled up in a loose ball of limbs on the bed, an expression of bliss on
his face. “For now, you are dismissed.”
Chapter End Notes
     I'm currently in the process of changing this story from first person
     to third person. For this reason, the next chapter and onward is told
     in first person whereas this is told in third. I've received comments
     from many of you begging me to continue this. However, I haven't
     continued it because at the time I began this, I still wrote in first
     person, but I have now switched to third. I didn't want to force
     myself to write in first person because it feels awkward now, and I
     didn't want to abruptly switch the story from being told in first
     person to third person.
     That whole bit probably doesn't mean a thing to you guys, but what
     does matter is that by the time I'm done editing this story to third
     person, I'll start writing chapters again. I felt so bad because
     there are at least twenty comments in my inbox asking me why I
     haven't continued this story. It'll be a pain in the ass to edit
     58,847 words, but I'll force myself through it for you.
     I was once very passionate about this story. However, some things
     happened and that passion kind of died out. But I've reread the
     story, and though I'm a different person now and my writing style has
     changed—for better or worse—I feel that I have a responsibility to
     myself and you all to finish this. I know how this will end. I just
     have to plan better and work out what happens in the middle.
     Please be patient with me…I'm doing my best to edit quickly so I can
     actually start writing again. Forgive any mistakes or
     inconsistencies. Thank you for keeping interest in this story even
     though I haven't updated since December of last year <3
***** All Things Bright and Beautiful *****
Chapter Summary
     We find out a little more about Yoongi.
Chapter Notes
     Yoongi's been the source of many comments from you guys so far, so I
     hope this clears things up or maybe just confuses you more XD I don't
     know. I kind of lost the flow of the story up until the smut and then
     picked it up again about halfway through, so I don't know if the
     chapter as a whole was affected or not.
     Thank you so much for giving me the encouragement to pull through
     this.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“Excuse…me?”
Jimin turns, surprised to be startled out of his contemplation. The garden is
quiet in the evening, the sun setting low over the hills and everything green
and soft-edged. The air is cool, a little chilly, how he likes it, and the
trees wave gently in the slight breeze, scattering blossoms over the grass. The
stone of the bench is smooth and cold beneath him. The colors are soft, dark
blue and green, the sky streaked with pink by courtesy of the setting sun.
Jimin would have preferred to lie back on the grass and watch the stars come
out. But if anyone had seen him out the window, they would have chastised him
for being unseemly, and he did not want to be disturbed.
He expected to be left alone.
But Jungkook is standing some ways away from him, slightly outside the door
which leads back into the palace, looking awkward and uncomfortable in the rich
silk hanbok he was given. His old hanbok would have been thrown away, but he
wanted to keep it. A remnant of his past.
He comes around the bench, bare feet sinking into the soft grass, and stands in
front of Jimin, fidgeting. “Can I sit down?” he mumbles.
“Of course,” Jimin says. Jungkook sits carefully, trying not to rumple his
luxurious, expensive clothes.
“I just wanted to ask you a few questions,” he says after a length of
uncomfortable silence elapses while he studies the ground intently. “About.
Life. As a concubine?” His voice pitches up, hesitant and questioning, and
Jimin feels a twinge of affection for this boy whom he does not even know.
“Okay,” he says, letting himself slip into his old village dialect, his tongue
embracing the coarse syllables.
“Um…I—you—it sounds like—” Jungkook grinds to a halt, words stumbling over
themselves in his hurry to get them out, and his face contorts in frustration,
his hands clenched in his lap.
“One thing at a time,” Jimin cautions.
“You…you have the same dialect as my village,” he says haltingly. “Busan.”
“Your…village? Your village is Busan?” Jimin frowns. “I was taken from Busan
five years ago. I watched it burn down.”
“What…? I—” His mouth forms a silent ‘o’ of realization, lips making a perfect
circle. “You were the boy kidnapped in the raid,” he says in growing excitement
at having made the connection, his speech flowing more now as he stops trying
to emulate court speech and slips back into dialect as Jimin has. “When the
bounty hunters came and looted everything, I remember they took a boy back to
the palace. I was twelve. I escaped with my family—I was lucky. But a lot of
people didn't.”
Jimin’s brow furrows, his skin prickling uncomfortably. “Wait…what?
People—people escaped?”
“Yes!” He gestures wildly. “My uncle, he was a brewer of soju. He kept the soju
in big wooden barrels which he called casks—a Western concept, he said. We hid
in these empty casks when we heard that the bounty hunters were coming, two to
a barrel. One cask could fit three of us children. We thought we were done for
when they found my uncle’s hidden cellar, but they eventually got too drunk on
soju to think straight. After we were sure they weren’t alert anymore, a few
men crept out of their barrels and…” He falters, the excited expression
slipping off his face as his eyes grow dark with memory. “Killed…them. In front
of the children.”
This is too much for Jimin to take in. People  escaped?  His mind was too
clogged with grief and pain as the bounty hunters went around raiding the other
houses, like filth blocking a ditch—he supposes it could be possible that he
failed to notice the absence of a number of villagers. And Busan was a rather
large village. It is entirely possible that he never met Jungkook. “Are you
serious? How many escaped?”
“A few families.” He is talking slower now, pain clear on his features.
“I…um…friends of my uncle’s and some neighbors. My uncle managed to contact
them in time.”
“Wait, but this doesn’t explain why you still have the Busan dialect.” Jimin
shifts closer to him, intrigued. “So I guess you escaped safe and well with a
bunch of other families. Then what happened? You seeked asylum in another
village?”
“No. We…we rebuilt the village again from the ruins. We had enough different
families that we could keep the Busan bloodlines going again, although a few
people from other villages were brought in to diversify a little.” He catches
Jimin’s shocked look. “Haven’t you heard this all before? Busan is even bigger
than she was before you were taken now. She’s a bustling seaside harbor town,
no longer a village.”
“I haven’t had much access to the outside world,” he says slowly, still trying
to process that some villagers survived,  his people are out there.  He thought
he had no proper place in the universe, and the shock of it being returned to
him rocks his whole worldview. It was terrible, knowing he was cut loose like
that, with no one who loved him or really even knew him. He felt like a kite
without a string. Like a boat bobbing aimlessly on hungry waves, unmoored and
without direction except for heading into a storm. “I don’t go into town very
often. I live in the palace. I don’t receive much news.
“Wait.” Jimin looks up. “That doesn’t explain how you were taken. How did you
end up here?”
“Oh.” The pain returns to his features, a soul-shattering mixture of grief and
agony and fear and hurt which pains Jimin’s heart to see. “I…was kidnapped. I
was working out in a field around the outskirts—we still do a little farming,
although the main trade is fishing and trading, that sort of thing—and I was
just minding my own business until these rough-faced men on horseback passed me
on the road beside the field and slowed down. I took no notice of them, because
a lot of people pass through Busan to stock up on supplies on the way to other
villages. But then they drew their swords and came closer, and I realized that
they—that they meant me harm.
“I turned, but they’d already circled behind me. I was trapped.”  He swallows,
forcing the words out with difficulty. “They…they said if I didn’t cooperate,
they’d kill me. And I tried fighting them off, but, well. They knocked me out
or something. And when I woke up there was someone slapping me awake, and I was
only half-conscious when I was dragged into the throne room.”
They are silent for a long time. The world gets quieter as night falls, color
retreating from the sky and the birds retreating to their nests. Soon people
will come out to light the lanterns on the poles erected at intervals through
the gardens. The water of the river which Yoongi had made glistens in the faint
twilight.
“Jungkook,” Jimin says finally. “We have to talk about this.”
“What?” he can tell from Jungkook’s wary voice that he knows exactly what he
means.
“Being a concubine.” Jimin hurriedly tries to smooth it over when he sees him
flinch at the word  concubine.  “Look, I’m sorry for what happened last night.
I…I had no choice, and it’s no excuse. But you have to realize that it’s only
going to get worse. You’re a male concubine now, to a man, and I really hope
you’re gay because it would make this whole thing easier, but even if you’re
gay it’s still torture.” He takes a deep breath. “What I did to you is tame
compared to what will happen between you and Yoongi, eventually. You can put it
off as long as you want. Yoongi won’t touch us if we’re sick. But eventually,
it’ll have to happen.” He examines Jungkook’s expression. He looks as if he is
swallowing broken glass. “Do you know how…how gay sex works?”
“I don’t,” he says, the volume of his voice climbing rapidly in hysteria,
“because it  doesn’t.  It’s against nature for two men to love each other, and
the same goes for women. I don’t know anything about gay people and I don’t
want  to. All that can be done for them is prayer, and, and, the rest is
between them and God. It’s wrong to lay with a member of the opposite s-
sex”—his tongue stumbles over the word as his cheeks redden, but he forces
himself to go on—“outside the sanctified bounds of marriage, but laying with a
member of the same sex is wrong under any and all circumstances in the eyes of
God.”
He takes a deep breath, filling lungs drained by his tirade.
Dread settles like a cold stone in Jimin’s stomach. He resists, with
difficulty, the urge to leap up from the bench and yell in frustration at the
darkening sky. He has met these kinds of boys before: boys who stand at the
entrances of temples and greet visitors, future monks and saintly children of
proud parents. Round cheeks shining with gentle devotion to heaven and
holiness. Eyes large and earnest, lips fervently shaping oft-spoken prayers.
He should have known that the light Jungkook seems to shine with could not have
come from anything but faith.
He swallows back the skepticism threatening to rise out of his throat in the
form of words he will regret later and says instead, “Let me guess. You go to
the temple regularly, you know all the monks like family, you light incense,
you thank Buddha before every meal…?”
Jungkook stares at him. “I don’t have to know them like family. They  are
family. One of them, anyway. My dad used to be a bhikkhu, but then he met my
mom and left the monastic order to marry her. He still raises us like a monk,
though.”
Jimin passes a hand over his eyes. “Look, Jungkook…maybe you think you can
escape, and until then you can avoid doing anything your dad would frown upon.
I hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to happen.”
His eyes flash stubbornly. “It will!” he says indignantly. “This can’t go on.
It’s wrong, royalty just kidnapping male concubines like this. My dad still has
influence with the monks. They’ll do something. They’ll take me away.”
Jimin stares at the last sliver of sun visible between the distant hills,
watching it sink lower and lower until it disappears. “It won’t happen. Yoongi
is the  prince.  He rules Goryeo. All the monks in the kingdom can’t stand
against him.”
“It has to,” Jungkook mutters. “If God wills it.”
“God will not save you now,”  Jimin spits, rounding on him. He only realizes
how forcefully he said the words when Jungkook’s face takes on a shocked
expression. “I mean,” he amends, trying to alleviate the blow of the words, “if
God really had a say in things, I wouldn’t be here. Yoongi wouldn’t be here.
You wouldn’t be here. Nothing wrong ‘in the eyes of God’, as you put it, would
exist.”
“Tests,” he mumbles. “They’re tests.”
“You can only argue that so far,” Jimin insists obdurately. “I’m trying to help
you. Sitting down and waiting for some higher power to notice us little people
and save us is not going to work. What will work is being prepared for what’s
coming, so you can harden yourself against the blow when it does happen, and
you won’t break.”
The boy next to Jimin is quiet for a long time. When Jimin sends him a sideways
glance, he sees that Jungkook has fixed him with a strange look, a mixture of
admiration and disgust he is not ready for at all, for all his talk of
preparation. “How do you live like this?” he whispers. “How do you just accept
this?”
Jimin’s mouth tightens. “I don’t,” he says quietly. “I stopped living five
years ago.”
~
“I want to hate you,” Jungkook wails from under the covers. Jimin is visiting
him in his ‘sickbed’—he has told Jungkook repeatedly that putting off the
inevitable appointment in Yoongi’s bedroom will only result in it hitting him
harder when it finally does happen, but he stubbornly told Jimin that if he
really wanted him to be hurt as little as possible, this is the way.
Jimin caved. He ended up vouching for Jungkook’s ‘sickness’ while he coughed
weakly in the background. He has only known Jimin for just over a day, but
already he seems to have an inherent sense on how to capitalize on his
weaknesses.
“Why?” Jimin asks distractedly, looking around Jungkook’s bedroom. It is a
little plainer than Jimin’s, but definitely more luxurious than the one
Jungkook must have had at home, with its sumptuously upholstered furniture and
delicate, wooden-framed rice paper screens.
He does not doubt that Jungkook would give up this bedroom and a million others
to have his old one at home back.
“You’re gay.”
Jimin looks back at him sharply. All he can see of Jungkook are his feathery
black bangs and his long-lashed eyes, peeking out at him from under the
blanket. The rest of him is covered. The sight makes Jimin want to pat him on
the head, smooth back his bangs and tuck him in and touch his cheeks. “That’s
not something to hate someone for,” he says cautiously.
He sighs. “Come on, hyung. Let’s not have that argument again.”
“You started it. Don’t hate me. And for that matter, don’t call me hyung
either.” Jimin shifts, pulling his legs up so he sits cross-legged on the end
of his bed. Jungkook eyes him suspiciously, and he can see him measuring his
proximity by sight. Jimin told him he was gay while Jungkook was stripping
down. He promptly froze and dove under the covers as if that would protect him
from Jimin’s gayness. Jimin would be irritated, resentful even, but with
Jungkook he just finds it cute.
“How do you even…know you’re gay?” he asks slowly, brow furrowed in
incomprehension. For some reason, the way the scowl looks on him reminds Jimin
of toddlers imitating adults’ angry expressions when they are put out.
“A boy kissed me when I was fourteen,” Jimin replies absentmindedly, picking at
a loose thread in the rich gold-embroidered satin of the bedcovers. “I kissed
him back. I liked it. I knew I was gay.”
“You kissed a  boy?”  His eyes bug out comically. “How did you know he was
gay?”
“I told you, he kissed me first,” Jimin says, mildly annoyed. “And don’t ask me
how he knew how I was gay. Gay intuition. Straight people don’t have it.” He
pokes Jungkook’s toe. Jungkook scrunches his nose up and kicks him back weakly,
his foot bouncing harmlessly off his arm.
“But you’re  living  in  sin,”  he persists. “How do you do it?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Jungkook,” Jimin says sarcastically. It feels strange. He
has not talked this much to anyone since he arrived here. Even when Yoongi
talks to him, it is always a one-sided conversation, the air filled only with
his words while Jimin remains silent. “It’s not like I  like  Yoongi. I hate
this job. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I automatically want to…bang”—the
slang comes to him after a pause—“every guy I see.”
Jungkook blinks at him, then looks down at himself. “But isn’t it easier to…to
do it, since you’re gay?”
Jimin narrows his eyes at him. “You really know nothing about relationships, do
you? It doesn’t work that way. Like…you’ve had a crush before, right? Not too
holy for that?” Jungkook bites his lip, unsuccessfully trying to stop the
immediate blush which colors his cheeks from appearing. “Imagine if you had the
same job we do now, but with her instead of Yoongi. Wouldn’t you hate it
anyway?”
“I don’t know, I mean, she was pretty—” He cuts himself off, scrunching his
nose up. “Of course I know nothing about relationships. I’ve never been
kissed.” He falters. “Um. Before you.”
“Not even by a girl?” Jimin asks.
He puffs up his chest in pride. “Nope.”
“What, do your Buddhist values not allow that?” Jimin shoots back, trying not
to sound bitter.
He frowns. “There’s nothing wrong with being Buddhist.”
“I know, I know.” Jimin sighs. “Whatever works for you, I guess.”
“You were lying, right?” He says immediately after, continuing a conversation
they had hours ago.
“About what?”
“How se— it  with a man would work.” He eyes Jimin warily. “He
wouldn’t…really…put his thing up there. Right…?”
“You can’t even say  sex,”  Jimin says, exasperated. “Come on. Grow up.”
“You’re not answering my question!” His face crumples in frustration, aghast.
“Yes, it works that way. It sounds wrong and sinful to a goody-goody-two-shoes
like you who grew up in a Buddhist household, I’m sure, but that’s how life
works.”
He tries to glare at him. “You’re mean.”
Jimin chews the inside of my cheek. “I have reason to be.”
“Leave me alone,” he whines. “I’m sick.”
“Says he who begged me to come back to his room with him.”
“At least be quiet,” he mumbles. “I just don’t wanna be alone.”
“You were just asking to be left alone.”
“Don’t be difficult.” His eyebrows draw together. “Jimin.”
“What. And thank you for not calling me hyung.”
“I’m scared.”
“You’re…” Jimin trails off. “Oh.”
He says nothing, face crumpled with upset.
“It’s okay to be scared.” Jimin stares at the blanket. He is not used to giving
comfort. “I was scared.”
“You’re strong. You’re stronger than I am.” Jimin glances up, and he feels a
stab of horror at the dullness in Jungkook’s eyes. Eyes like his were made to
sparkle: with innocence, with excitement, with happiness. They were not meant
to hold a glaze like they are dead inside already. “I’m weak. Look at me.
Hardly anything has happened yet, and I’m already breaking down. I can’t live
without my family. I can’t live without God.”
“I thought that I couldn’t live without God, either,” Jimin says, smiling a
bitter kind of smile. “Until everything was taken away from me and I realized
that I never was.”
~
Jimin feels no surprise when the servant finds them in the garden a few days
later, where he and Jungkook spend most of their time nowadays, and informs
them that Yoongi requests their presence in his bedroom now that Jungkook has
gotten over his ‘illness’. In other words, Jimin dragged him out of bed because
if he feigned it any longer, Yoongi would realize that he was bluffing and
would not be lenient when Jungkook was really sick.
Jungkook is pale as a sheet. When they pause outside Yoongi’s closed bedroom
door and Jimin grips his arm, he can feel him trembling. “Jungkook,” he
mutters, “it’s gonna be okay. Whatever happens in there, you’re still the same
person. God will forgive you. This is not consensual.”
“I don’t want to go in there,” he mumbles, skin waxy and eyes darting around
frantically. “I don’t want to be here, Jimin, I don’t wanna go in there, I
don’t—”
“You will be okay,” he says firmly. “You can do this. You are strong.”
He closes his eyes. “I’m not strong.”
“You can do this,” Jimin repeats again. He tugs on his arm gently. “Come on.
Let’s get this over and done with.”
He feels Jungkook’s body lock up, but then he takes the first hesitant step
forward and a glimmer of hope shines through. Perhaps he really will be able to
make it through this.
Jimin pushes the door open and bows to Yoongi, seated in an armchair. He nudges
Jungkook insistently, and he reluctantly does the same. He closes the door,
then says, making his voice deferential and respectful: “You wanted us,
Yoongi?”
“Yes.” His eyes flick between him and Jungkook, at the way Jungkook huddles
closer to him in the large, sumptuous, unfamiliar room and clutches at his arm
for reassurance. “I have decided. You are going to take Jungkook’s virginity.”
Jimin pales, eyes snapping immediately to Jungkook, small and defenseless in
this huge room of luxury. Jungkook raises his eyes and stares blankly at
Yoongi.  “What?”
“Yes,” Yoongi says evenly.
Jungkook blinks, uncomprehending. When he finally understands, he shoots Jimin
a look of such betrayal and pain that Jimin feels like curling up into a ball
and dying.  I’m going to do this?  his mind screams.  I’m going to inundate him
into years of rape and abuse?
This is the worst trick.  His heart shrivels as Jungkook lets go of his arm and
backs slowly away from him, pain stabbing through his chest like an icicle.
This is the worst possible thing which could happen.
“If I may ask,” Jimin appeals desperately, “why?”
“Do not question my decisions,” Yoongi says sharply, a steel edge to his voice,
and he flinches.
“I—my apologies.” Yoongi sits back in the armchair, expressionless again, and
he exhales with relief. Then he notices that Jungkook has pressed his back to
the door, getting as far away from him as possible, and he is washed by an
overwhelming wave of guilt. He stretches a beseeching hand out to Jungkook, but
he shrinks away, shaking his head mutely.
“Jungkook.” Jimin wills his voice to keep from shaking. “I’m so, so sorry,
but…you have to come here.”
He shakes his head again. “Don’t t-touch me.” His voice trembles. “Don’t come
near me, Jimin.”
He glances back at Yoongi, who stretches out lazily like a cat and settles
back, content to watch the drama unfold. “Jungkook,” he tries again. “This will
be over quicker if you cooperate.”
“I won’t  cooperate!”  His voice cracks. “This isn’t just a little thing to
cooperate with! This is my life! This is my  body!”  He turns to Yoongi, face
desperate, lashing out like any cornered animal would. “How do you  live  with
yourself, enslaving boys like this? How do you sleep at night knowing how many
people you’ve broken for your twisted pleasure? Do you ever stop to think when
you’re with one of your  boys  who loved them, who mattered to them, who they—”
“Jungkook, quiet!” Jimin warns threateningly when Yoongi’s expression becomes
dangerous.
“No!” he yells. “This is all wrong! This is all sinful, you’re living in a nest
of sin, and when God comes and—”
Jimin leaps across the room and slaps a hand over his mouth before he can say
anything more, because he knows how much Yoongi hates any and all concept of
religion, especially when used against him. But it is too late—Yoongi is rising
from his armchair, face stormy already. “Jimin,” he says, voice dangerously
low, “I thought you tamed him already.”
“I am not an  animal!”  Jungkook shouts, but it is muffled by Jimin’s fingers.
“He is a bit…he has a mind of his own,” Jimin explains apologetically to
Yoongi. “Forgive me. He has not had much time to adapt to this way of life.”
“Make sure he does,” Yoongi says, voice hard.  “Now.”
Jimin shoves Jungkook against the wall, trying to be gentle and make it look
like he is knocking some sense into him at the same time. “Jungkook,” he hisses
at him, “you’re landing us both in trouble. Cut. It. Out. Or we’ll both pay the
price.”
“I don’t care!” he says loudly, and Jimin shushes him. “I don’t care,” he
repeats angrily. “Anything is better than what he wants you to do.”
“It’s better this way,” he says before he can stop himself, and he knows it was
the wrong thing to say when his face changes, a horrible mixture of incredulity
and revulsion.
“Better?” He splutters.  “Better?”
“It’s better me than him,” Jimin whispers. “Okay? I’ll prep you as much as I
can if you bottom. It’ll hurt, but it’ll hurt more with him. The first time he
used me, I bled. It’ll be better if your first time is with me.”
“I don’t want my first time to be with anyone!” he fights. “I don’t like men! I
don’t want sex, I don’t want anything except, except—I want Busan and my home
and—” He takes a gasping breath, eyes rolling alarmingly. “And this isn’t
right, I’m not used to this, no one tells you when you’re little that you’ll
end up in the palace as a goddamn  concubine—”
Jimin shakes him by the shoulders. “You’re panicking,” he says, trying to keep
his voice steady despite the fear lurking at the back of his mind, intensifying
the longer they keep Yoongi waiting. “Jungkook, you have to calm down.”
He closes his eyes, tears caught on the ends of his long eyelashes. “At least
make him go away,” he mumbles. “I'll do whatever he wants if he goes away.”
Jimin glances at Yoongi, sitting expectantly in his armchair. “Yeah, but,
see…that's not what he wants.”
Jungkook starts to struggle again, yelling at the top of his lungs like a child
throwing a tantrum. “I'm not doing it! I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it, I'm
not—”
“Jungkook, please,” Jimin says desperately. “Or—”
“He wants me to leave?” Yoongi’s cold, cutting tones carry over to them, and
they both freeze. Yoongi levers himself out of the armchair. “Fine. I will
leave. But make sure you do what I asked you to do, and that next time this
does not happen again.”
He strides over to the door and opens it, then shuts it again. Jimin hears the
key turning. They are locked in.
The moment the door closes behind him, Jungkook jumps to attention. “I just
said that to get him to go away,” he says in an urgent whisper. “Do you know
where the key is? Now we can run and—”
“No!” Jimin shouts forcefully, pushing him back into the wall. “There is no
key! There is no escape! There is no  hope,  Jungkook. The sooner you learn how
to accept that, the easier it'll be for you.”
He waits to see the flame extinguish in Jungkook’s eyes, but instead, it only
roars higher. “Maybe not today,” he says stubbornly. “But it  will happen.”
Jimin sighs, giving up, tired of arguing with him. “Whatever, okay? Whatever.
But this is happening  now,  on direct order from the prince. This has to
happen.”
“But this won't be like the first t-time.” His voice quivers. “I know you now.
I can't just pretend like last time.”
Jimin’s resistance crumbles. “Do you have to?”
Jungkook stares at him, wide-eyed.
Before he can open his mouth to formulate a reply, Jimin leans forward and
kisses him, trying to be gentle, trying to be chaste. He does not move, but at
least Jimin does not get pushed away. His soft, untouched lips give under
Jimin’s. He is unresponsive.
“Jungkook,” he murmurs, “come on.” He clasps his hands around Jungkook’s waist,
pushing him gently back into the wall. His head knocks against the wood. He
does not seem to care. His eyes are open and blank, staring at nothing behind
Jimin’s shoulder.
It feels like eternity while Jimin gently kisses him, no tongue or teeth or
anything, trying to get him to open up, before his lips press back once against
Jimin’s. The movement is tiny, nearly imperceptible, and his eyes are still as
worryingly dull as an old, scuffed marble, but Jimin feels that soft, reluctant
movement. It is enough to give him hope.
He moves his body so it presses flush against Jungkook’s, their hips pressed
together and their stomachs touching, and there is so much warmth, so much body
heat. Jungkook radiates warmth like a fireplace. His body is soft in places and
hard with muscle in others, and the contrast heightens Jimin’s hunger to a
fever pitch.
He grips Jungkook’s waist and shoves him back hard against the wall, the wooden
frame creaking under the impact. Jungkook whimpers. But it is not a fearful
whimper. Hands scrabble at Jimin’s where they grasp his waist, and for a second
Jimin thinks that Jungkook will push him away. But Jungkook’s hands close over
his, wordlessly urging him to hold tighter, be rougher, and Jimin feels a
thrill rise through him like smoke.
Jungkook swallows nervously, the gulp audible, and then there are clumsy lips
mouthing tentatively back at Jimin’s, shaking hands stuttering over his hips.
Jimin’s chest fills with victory. He cups Jungkook’s face, stroking his thumb
down his smooth cheekbone, and licks at his tongue. Jungkook’s eyes finally
snap into focus at the feeling, landing on Jimin for a brief moment. Their
gazes connect for a split second before they flutter shut in surrender. Jimin
grins, pushing a little harder with his mouth, and he gasps.
Jungkook’s hands curl around the back of his neck. Jimin pulls away to catch
his breath, and Jungkook chases after him desperately, but he does not know
how: their noses collide painfully, chin bumping. Jimin tuts softly before
angling his head to the side and kissing him with parted lips, Jungkook’s
tongue meeting his before he can even search for it.
The kiss is wet, messy. Filthy. It is not enough for Jungkook, even now when
half the spit in Jimin’s mouth is probably his, and Jimin feels large, strong
hands grab his ass hard, yanking his hips closer. Jimin falls into Jungkook’s
body, which slams back into the wooden frame of the wall with a loud  thwack.
Jungkook pulls him forward until his legs are forced to spread around his
thigh, the friction of the tensed muscle rubbing against his crotch making him
want to scream.
Jimin slides his hands up Jungkook’s chest and pushes his hanbok off his
muscled shoulders. He runs his hands over Jungkook’s body, all firm biceps and
corded shoulders and strong chest, and he melts. Jungkook seems to figure out
the best way to use his mouth while he is distracted—he pulls Jimin’s lower lip
between his teeth, sucks on it, and bites down. Jimin moans, startled and
pleased.
Jungkook manhandles him to the bed and shoves him down. Jimin moves to the
center while Jungkook rids himself of his clothes, crawling up Jimin’s body to
nose his way to his mouth when his hanbok and baji are forlorn heaps of cloth
on the floor.
Jungkook’s thumb swipes heavily over his lower lip, coming away wet with spit,
but Jimin has other ideas. He leans up and bites into Jungkook’s neck, tugging
at the skin with his teeth before licking over it and kissing it. Jungkook’s
body sags bonelessly, and he whimpers, hands scrabbling for Jimin’s, fingers
interlacing in his and squeezing as Jimin mouths at his throat. He is
surprised, but gives his hand a small squeeze back anyway. This is different.
This is strange. Strangers do not hold hands, friends do not hold hands…
couples  hold hands. Somehow, it feels more illicit and sinful to have
Jungkook’s palm pressed against his than to have his tongue practically down
his throat.
Jimin works his way up his neck, paving his path with the nip of teeth.
Jungkook squirms away when he licks into his ear, squeamish, but whines
pathetically when he bites the corner of his jaw just below it. Little by
little, Jimin maps out his body, discovering which buttons to press and which
buttons to smash with all his strength, and Jungkook grows more agitated by the
minute. His lips pull away and reconnect faster and faster until Jimin can no
longer keep up, their tongues reaching to meet and wrap around each other
before their lips even touch. The sounds are obscene, wet smacks as their
mouths drag away from each other only to collide with increased vigor, loud,
lascivious panting filling every crevice of the room. But Jimin knows he could
still be doing more. There are unlimited reserves of ecstasy within Jungkook
which are yet to be tapped into, and Jimin is intent on finding just the right
way to touch him and rile him up until he can tear down his walls and drive him
mad.
Where is it?  Jimin thinks as his hands scratch and run over Jungkook’s lithe
body, muscle tensing and jumping delightfully under his palms as he smooths
over fever-warm skin. He spreads a palm on Jungkook abdomen over his bladder
and presses down—a dirty trick—and listens to Jungkook cry out at the pressure,
arching his back to get closer. But that is not it. Yoongi’s are behind his
ears. And Jungkook’s…
Entirely by chance, his right hand brushes over Jungkook’s bare nipple, and he
yelps, biting down on Jimin’s lip, body jolting closer and away at the same
time. Jimin jerks away in surprise, lip stinging from the unexpectedly hard
clamp of his teeth. He might have drawn blood.
But he forgives it readily, biting and sucking at Jungkook’s neck while he
rolls a nipple experimentally between his fingers. Jungkook’s eyes roll back,
falling shut. He bucks and moans while Jimin teases his nipples to stiffness,
pushing his chest closer to his hand.
Jimin leans up and sucks his nipple while it hardens under his lips, flicking
his tongue over it, and Jungkook’s body writhes. Moans spill in a constant,
filthy stream from his mouth, and he looks so deliciously broken that Jimin
would find it ridiculous if it were not so thrilling. He pulls away to inspect
his work, appreciating the shine of candlelight on Jungkook’s erect, spit-slick
nipples, before desperate hands tangle tightly in his hair and push his head
back down. Jimin nibbles on them. Neither of them can get enough.
In a rush of whispering silk and fumbling fingers, Jungkook tears Jimin’s
hanbok off and exposes his body to the chill of the air. He grasps Jimin’s hips
and squeezes hard, letting out a surprised shout when Jimin sucks on his
nipples until his cheeks are hollow. His voice breaks when Jimin bites down,
petering out into a pathetic, high-pitched whine as he shoves his chest closer
to his mouth. The sound sends a bolt of arousal through Jimin stronger than he
knew he could feel.
Jimin looks up at Jungkook’s face as he licks the stiff bud in his mouth,
pinching the other one cruelly. Jungkook’s face crumples, back bowing as he
sobs, and satisfaction bursts savagely in his chest.
His whole body grinds against Jimin, hips rutting up against him until Jimin’s
smaller frame judders up the bed with every thrust and their cocks drag over
each other unbearably. Jimin looks down and feels his mouth water. He has never
properly looked between his legs, but Jungkook is beautifully endowed: flushed,
leaking head peeking out from the foreskin, the tiny hole begging for Jimin to
lick it dry with his tongue. His balls dangle heavily beneath the shaft, and
from the look of it, the vein would throb against the cradle of his hand. Jimin
wants it in his mouth, down his throat, wants it jerking in his hands and
spurting warm, sticky come all over him. He wants Jungkook to soil him with it,
taint him with it. He wants Jungkook to make him absolutely goddamn filthy.
He reaches for it greedily, wrapping a hand around it. Jungkook gasps like a
fish on land and spreads his legs wider. Jimin spares a few seconds to
appreciate the thighs on either side of his hand, because thick isn’t barely
enough to cover them, before he tugs Jungkook’s length. He giggles when it
throbs, swiping his thumb over the head and delighting in the gush of slick
which pumps out.
“Lie on your back,” Jimin tells him.
Jungkook looks heartbroken to stop even momentarily, but they switch positions.
Lying on his belly between Jungkook’s legs, Jimin has more freedom to play, and
play he does: rolling Jungkook’s balls in his hand while his thighs tense and
relax rhythmically on either side of him, jerking his cock just slowly and
gently enough to madden him with frustration. Jungkook cries in displeasure,
spreading his legs and thrusting his hips uselessly upward so his cock bounces
against his flat belly, and Jimin has to swallow back his saliva. No point
holding back anymore.
He pins Jungkook’s hips down and sucks his cock into his mouth, moaning in
pleasure. The taste will never actually get better, but Jimin loves what you do
to someone once you have them in your mouth, loves the way their hips jump and
their mouths fall open and their eyes roll back as they lose any and all
semblance of self-control. Jungkook is thick and throbbing in his mouth, just
the way he likes it, and he makes his throat feel  full.  Jimin moans again,
but this time the tip of Jungkook’s cock is shoved down his throat, and he
feels the vibrations. Jungkook screams, thrashing weakly, panic clouding his
face when Jimin swallows to keep him down. The panic disappears as the
tightness eases, eclipsed by a hunger which darkens his features so quickly
that Jimin is quite frankly impressed.
His hips roll up, fucking into Jimin’s throat, and Jimin lets him. Yoongi has
fucked his throat roughly enough before that he couldn’t speak for days. His
gag reflex is a forgotten figment of the past, forcefully discarded since it
was either ignore it with an iron will or throw up all over the prince of
Goryeo, and Jimin hates the way he gained that talent, but he is thankful for
it now. Because Jungkook is beautiful when he moans, fucking  adorable,
forearms thrown over his face as he huffs out whiny whimpers of pleasure. The
heel of his right foot digs into Jimin’s back, using him as leverage to thrust
up harder. It buries an ache in his spine, but Jimin allows it. He keeps up a
constant, low hum in his throat, swallowing as often as possible, and
Jungkook’s cock swells and flexes in his mouth, bucking again and again only to
be trapped in place by his tongue.
But Jimin is not stupid—Jungkook is about to come, any idiot could tell, and
that will not do. He gives the tip one last, enthusiastic suck, accompanied by
a yelp from Jungkook, before pulling off. He presses soft kisses up and down
the sides, gripping the thick base tightly in his hand to push back Jungkook’s
orgasm, while Jungkook groans in displeasure. His free hand reaches for the
bottle of oil on Yoongi’s bedside table and squirts it onto himself, spreading
it around his entrance and scissoring experimental fingers inside himself to
see whether he’s stretched out. Yoongi fucked him hard last night, and he’s
still loose enough that it doesn’t burn too much. Good. Satisfied, he gives one
last squirt of oil for good measure, replaces the bottle, then sits up, mouth
leaving Jungkook’s cock.
Jungkook immediately begins whining,  please  and  no  and  hyung,  but Jimin
straddles him, rolling his hips so his ass rubs against his length, and watches
Jungkook’s face blank out. He plants his knees securely on the bed and puts a
hand on Jungkook’s chest for stability, Jungkook’s expression morphing into
excitement as he reaches below himself and lines himself up.
He sinks down, sliding all the way to the base with a obscene squelch. Jungkook
lets out a hoarse yell, but Jimin fucks his hips down onto his cock, mouth open
and eyes closed. His hands slide up and grip Jungkook’s muscular shoulders. Oh,
God.  He’s seeing stars. He’s seeing heaven. Yoongi is at least half an inch
shorter, and while that may not seem like much, it means the difference between
brushing his prostate and jamming right into it. His rim flutters and clenches
around Jungkook, muscles contracting as he exhales slowly. It feels so fucking
good.
He barely hears Jungkook, who lets out tiny, panicked whimpers with every
slight movement of his hips, hands resting uncertainly on Jimin’s waist. Jimin
gives up on holding back and starts bouncing up and down in earnest, moaning
like a slut, and Jungkook nearly screams. Jimin does exercises every day to
tighten himself up—it takes dedication to not fall as loose as a sack when one
is used as regularly as Jimin is—and he has never been more grateful for it
than now, clenching hard around Jungkook until he can feel every blissful inch.
Jungkook’s balls slap against his ass as he rides him hard, whimpering as
loudly as he can just because he likes how dirty it makes him.
And then, miracle of miracles, Jungkook’s hips thrust up to meet him. The
movement sends his cock punching right into his prostate, unleashing a flood of
electricity so intense through Jimin’s body that he screams and has to dig his
nails into Jungkook’s shoulders to stay upright. “Yes, yes, like that, don’t
stop,” he babbles, fucking himself open on Jungkook like tomorrow will never
arrive, anything to keep the ecstasy coming. And Jungkook does not fail to
deliver—he sets a punishing pace, hips smacking against Jimin’s ass and cock
driving into his prostate. The way Jungkook makes him feel makes him want to
pray. And that says a lot, coming from him.
Jimin leans back and grabs his own cock, jerking himself hard and rough the way
he likes it. But it’s dry and uncomfortable, so he holds out a hand in front of
Jungkook’s mouth. Jungkook stares at it through sweat-matted bangs and dilated
pupils, not understanding.
“Spit,” Jimin pants.
Jungkook’s eyebrows draw together, but he spits on Jimin’s palm. He watches
curiously, then in mingled horror and lust, as Jimin smears the wetness over
his cock and begins pumping himself. Jimin feels Jungkook’s cock throb inside
him and smirks, rewarding him with a squeeze. So he does have an effect on
Jungkook.
He can never last long if he is being filled  and  touched. Yoongi has only
done that for him once, pulling clumsily at his cock with his non-dominant hand
while he curled his fingers inside Jimin with the other. But it was never
anything like  this— a cock slamming into him, pounding his sweet spot until he
screams, his hand yanking on his cock and fisting the base when he comes too
close.
After a minute or so, Jungkook reaches forward and strokes Jimin himself, and
Jimin sobs at the rasp of his callouses on his sensitive skin, leaning back and
squeezing Jungkook’s thighs to steady himself as he bounces up and down.
Jungkook’s hand is larger than him and can touch more of him at once, and it
has no idea how to edge or tease. Jimin closes his eyes a split second before
the heat between his legs tips from desperately urgent to mind-blowingly
euphoric.
The first spurt of white flies out of his cock, and he feels a rush of
immeasurable relief. He knocks Jungkook’s hand out of the way and takes over,
tugging himself hard and moaning wantonly as he fucks himself down until his
ass slaps loudly against Jungkook’s hips. More come lashes onto his belly like
cream, but Jimin is surprised when Jungkook grabs his cock and angles it
towards his face.
Jimin’s body seizes in another heavenly clench, and his cock jerks in
Jungkook’s grip, splattering sticky come onto Jungkook’s slightly parted lips
and shut eyes. Jimin clenches hard again at the sight, squeezing Jungkook’s
cock probably agonizingly inside him, and Jungkook wails. He lets go of Jimin’s
cock and grabs his hips, yanking them down to meet his own while he slams up
into him. Jimin lets Jungkook use him to milk the most out of his orgasm,
whimpering in pleasure when Jimin clenches and works a few more spurts of
warmth into himself. Jungkook shudders, hips stilling as he buries himself
fully in Jimin, and then he goes limp and his head thuds back down.
Jimin collapses onto his chest, spent. Bruises will litter his hips and
ass—Yoongi will dislike that—and he will probably be sore to tears tomorrow,
but he cannot bring himself to care very much. He just had the fucking of his
life. Jungkook’s cock still nestles snugly inside him, softening between his
walls, and in a while he will find it gross, but for now it is alright.
He snuggles up against Jungkook, slinging an arm around his shoulders and
nosing into the warm, sweet-smelling space beneath his chin. He hums in
contentment. An arm comes up around him, patting weakly over his back and
sides.
“Out,” Jungkook grunts after a while, when the limpness inside Jimin has begun
to feel a little repulsive. Jimin raises his hips slightly and feels Jungkook’s
soft cock flop out of him. Body accustoming to being empty again, he clings to
Jungkook like a koala, wrapping his arms around his waist and his legs around
his hips. He turns his head to the side, pressing his ear to Jungkook’s sternum
and listening to his slowing heartbeat. His eyes slip slowly shut. He is
content.
Jimin counts fifty heartbeats before rolling off Jungkook and retrieving a
cloth from the ever-convenient bedside table. He carefully wipes them both
down, mopping the come off Jungkook’s face with mingled guilt and tired arousal
and cleaning the drying coats of white on their stomachs. Jungkook mumbles his
thanks. Jimin replaces the cloth and lies down on his back, not touching
Jungkook, certain that by now he wants nothing more to do with him.
He is used to cold sheets, chilled skin when he wakes up, the other side of the
bed empty. He is not used to the warmth which curls against his side in the
form of Jungkook, wrapping his legs and arms around Jimin, too spent to pull
the sheets over them. Jungkook pushes his face into the crook of Jimin’s neck
like Jimin did before, nosing around as he makes himself comfortable, breath
coming in warm puffs on Jimin’s overheated skin. He sighs, lashes fluttering
and tickling the side of Jimin’s neck as he falls asleep. He is out like a
candle in a storm.
Jimin holds him tentatively, stroking his hair down and looping an arm around
him to pull him close. Jungkook murmurs in his sleep and snuggles closer. Jimin
does not know how to deal with a body clinging to him, wrapped around him. He
does not know how to sleep like this, being touched by someone else, their
breath on his skin and their heart against his body. But he likes it. Warmth
seeps through his chest, trickling into his veins and melting the ice away, and
he wants it, perhaps selfishly. He wants all things bright and beautiful in the
world, everything sweet and brilliant, in the manner of someone who has been
given one wonderful thing and is foolish enough to think he can handle the
rest.
His eyes close. He dozes into the muted colors of dreams.
~
Yoongi finds them like that later, quietly letting himself into the bedroom and
watching the candlelight play over their spent, slumbering bodies. He stands
over them for a long time, eyes open and vulnerable as Jimin has never and
indeed did not see them, emotions battling on his tired face which suddenly
looks years older than it is. He cards his hands through their hair. He blows
out the candles so they can sleep better. He pulls the sheets over their
bodies.
And then he leaves, closing the door softly behind him and taking his secrets
with him.
Chapter End Notes
     So, what do you guys think of Yoongi now? ;)
     12 July 2017: I'm currently in the process of changing this story
     from first person to third person. For this reason, the next chapter
     and onward is told in first person whereas this is told in third.
     I've received comments from many of you begging me to continue this.
     However, I haven't continued it because at the time I began this, I
     still wrote in first person, but I have now switched to third. I
     didn't want to force myself to write in first person because it feels
     awkward now, and I didn't want to abruptly switch the story from
     being told in first person to third person.
     That whole bit probably doesn't mean a thing to you guys, but what
     does matter is that by the time I'm done editing this story to third
     person, I'll start writing chapters again. I felt so bad because
     there are at least twenty comments in my inbox asking me why I
     haven't continued this story. It'll be a pain in the ass to edit
     58,847 words, but I'll force myself through it for you.
     I was once very passionate about this story. However, some things
     happened and that passion kind of died out. But I've reread the
     story, and though I'm a different person now and my writing style has
     changed—for better or worse—I feel that I have a responsibility to
     myself and you all to finish this. I know how this will end. I just
     have to plan better and work out what happens in the middle.
     Please be patient with me…I'm doing my best to edit quickly so I can
     actually start writing again. Forgive any mistakes or
     inconsistencies. Thank you for keeping interest in this story even
     though I haven't updated since December of last year <3
***** Our Other Halves *****
The Buddha looks down benevolently on the hunched figure in front of it, hanbok
pooled around the figure’s folded knees on the wooden ondolfloor. The figure
holds gently smoking incense sticks in front of him towards the statue. They
slowly release the scent of frankincense into the air, thin white ribbons of
smoke winding towards the statue’s carved wooden visage.
I stand silently near the door and watch Jungkook murmur reverently under his
breath, feeling awkward and out of place. I do not belong here in this room of
God, with the wooden statue of the Buddha which seems to smile on Jungkook but
look down on me, condemning me for the sins I had no choice in, but apparently
commit simply by existing. I cannot remember the last time I prayed.
Who I am stopped bothering me a long time ago.
Jungkook begged me to stay with him in the prayer room after I took him here,
caving in to his persistent pestering. How ironic, that the same palace which
enslaves boys has a prayer room with a huge statue of Buddha.
I have been in here once before, in a last-ditch, desperate effort to escape
from the hell of my life as a newly kidnapped concubine, fresh out of the
raids. I knelt in front of the statue and lit the incense sticks stored in a
discreet cupboard in the corner and watched the fragrant smoke waft into the
air.
But I had the distinct feeling that the Buddha did not like me. That it was
pushing me out of this place, because it knew that I secretly liked boys, and
no matter what other good deeds I did, I could never pay enough penance
what—who—I was.
So I got up, smoothed down my hanbok, threw the useless incense sticks away,
and walked out. I never looked back. If even the supposedly all-forgiving
Buddha could not help me, then I was no longer going to try.
This is why I do not believe in God. The statue is right there. If God had any
power or even existed at all, then He would do something. All this is going on
right below His heavenly nose.
I eye Jungkook critically as he mumbles fervently, voice too low for me to make
anything out. I wonder when he will be done.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity and the incense sticks have burned
down, Jungkook rises. His shoulders look lighter, and he gives me a genuine,
grateful smile. “Thank you for staying.”
I shrug.
We walk silently back to our rooms, minds preoccupied with their own burden of
thoughts. Just as we reach the junction in the corridor where we will have to
go our separate ways, I hear the distant but definite sound of the dinner gong
being hit.
Jungkook attempts to slide away, but I snatch his arm before he can manage to
disappear. His skin is warm. “Not so fast,” I warn. “You’re coming to dinner
tonight.”
“No,” he whimpers. He tries to tug his arm away; I hold fast to it. “I don’t
want to go. I’m not ready to meet everyone. They were so cruel.”
“You can’t hide in your room forever,” I argue.
“Yes I can,” he says determinedly.
“Then starve. I’m not bringing you food anymore.” I let go of his arm and head
off in the direction of the dining hall.
“No, wait!” He runs to catch up. “Why won’t you bring me food? Why do you want
me to come so much?”
“Because you’re too sheltered,” I snap. “The sooner you see how cruel the court
can be, the better.”
“You talk about it like it’s one thing,” he says, bewildered. “One person. One
entity. But it’s not.”
“It is, because all the members are cruel and greedy. And that unites them.”
“I don’t wantto!” He looks ready to stomp his foot.
“Then starve.” My heart is panging with how cruel I am being to him, but it has
to be done. “Jungkook. I’m serious. I won’t bring you food anymore.”
“I don’t wantto,” he says murderously, almost yelling. “I’m not going to!”
I give him a long, hard look.
“No!” His voice trembles.
I raise my eyebrows.
~
The dining hall is in chaos as the nobles file in and find their seats. It is
the largest room in the palace, dominated by a single long wooden table laid
with plates, chopsticks, and little saucers of soy sauce and other sauces.
Yoongi lounges at the head of the table in an extravagantly carved chair with
cushions nailed and sewn into the wood. The walls are made out of ricepaper
supported by wooden grilles, and the floor is wooden, ondol-heated as always.
I drag Jungkook to a seat at the far end of the table, as far away from Yoongi
as possible, but a servant catches hold of my elbow and says, “His Majesty
requests you two’s presence at his right and left.”
I look at Yoongi, dread settling in my stomach. The two seats on either side of
him are vacant. He is reclined in his chair, legs carelessly flung over an
armrest as usual, but he is watching us with the eagle-eyed gaze of a predator.
I nod tensely at the servant and walk Jungkook back up the long length of the
table, not nearly as fast as before. It seems like the walk to a hanging tree.
I sit on Yoongi’s left and Jungkook’s sits on his right after a moment of
hesitation. Yoongi takes his legs off the armrest and faces forward, tipping
his head back and closing his eyes. He settles his arms on the armrests and
purses his lips. We remain in a small, still bubble separate from the servants
hurrying to dole out the food.
“What have you two been up to?” he asks, eyes still closed.
I exchange a look with Jungkook. “N-nothing, sire,”I falter a little. “Just
walking around. Jungkook prayed a little.”
His lips curl in a smirk. “Prayer.” He opens his eyes and stares at the
ceiling. “How quaint.”
Jungkook looks confused. I watch Yoongi warily.
He sits forward abruptly, almost violently. Jungkook nearly leaps out of his
seat, white-knuckled fingers clutching the armrests. I do not move a muscle,
used to Yoongi’s sudden movements and changes of mood by now.
“And you?” he demands of me. “Are you getting along with Jungkook?”
“Yes,” I answer as calmly as possible.
I see Jungkook peek around Yoongi, eyes wide and frightened.
“Perhaps getting along better than usual?” Yoongi watches me.
I press my lips together. Finally, I reply, “I am not sure what you mean,
sire.”
His eyes bore into me. We both well know what he means.
He exhales and turns away from me, the bored expression returning to his face.
I heave a private sigh of relief. “Forget it,” he says carelessly. “I am tired.
Not thinking straight.”
“It’s alright,” I say so softly it is probably lost among the din of chattering
voices and clinking porcelain.
He gives me an indecipherable sideways glance. Then he whips around to face
Jungkook. Jungkook startles horribly and tries to shrink back into his chair.
“Jungkook,” he barks.
Jungkook swallows and opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He tries again and
manages a small, terrified squeak. “Y-yes?”
“Do you like men?” Yoongi asks shortly. It is like him. Brief and straight to
the point, not bothering to mask delicate topics with small talk.
He has never seen the point.
“No,” Jungkook sputters. “No! I—my father would s-say—”
I make a warning face at him behind Yoongi’s shoulder, shaking my head
vigorously and making frantic X signs with my arms. His eyes slide over to me,
panicked and indignant.
“I…” he trails off, mumbling, “nothing. Never mind.”
“That’s a shame,” Yoongi says, and he sounds genuinely disappointed. He reaches
out and cups Jungkook’s face, thumbing at his high cheekbone and then running
his thumb over his lush lower lip. “I could have shown you so many things you
would enjoy if you were.”
Jungkook looks down at Yoongi’s hand, lips parting automatically at the
pressure, and he sucks in a ragged breath. But he does not push him away or
turn his head in another direction. He raises his eyes shyly, and his gaze
locks with Yoongi’s. He does not protest when Yoongi’s thumb slips between his
lips and inside his mouth.
Yoongi leans forward and kisses him right there, in front of the whole court.
No one really notices. He cacophony does not cease as their lips move against
each other, Jungkook squeezing his eyes shut and only hesitating for what seems
to me like a moment before he gives in and opens his mouth to Yoongi’s tongue.
Yoongi’s teeth visibly clamp down on his lip, and Jungkook whimpers, scrabbling
at the front of Yoongi’s hanbok and leaning closer.
They finally pull apart after my stomach has dropped to my feet and I want to
look away but I cannot, Jungkook’s eyes dazed and his lips kiss-swollen, their
lips shiny with spit. Jungkook’s hands slide slowly down Yoongi’s chest. Yoongi
grins, lazy and dangerous, and Jungkook stares at the floor, a blush rising on
his cheeks.
“Still sure about not liking men?” Yoongi asks in a soft, teasing voice,
tracing a finger down Jungkook's jaw and throat.
I look away and swallow a lump in my throat which tastes too much like
jealousy.
~
“We need to talk.”
Jungkook jumps and looks around, hands clutching his hanbok. “What?” He asks
nervously. “Why?”
“You're gay,” I say, trying not to sound accusing.
“No!” He denies immediately.
“Yes.” I stare at him. “You kissed Yoongi back.”
“What, that or get killed? Of course I'd kiss him back.” He avoids my eyes. He
is a terrible liar.
“Jungkook, you know that's not true.”
“It is.” His lip wobbles. He presses them together.
“You wouldn't get hard when I touched you if you weren't gay.”
“That's different! It doesn't mean I'm gay!” His face crumples. I know I am
pushing him, but again, it has to be done. “I've never been touched before. Of
course I would react like that!”
“No you wouldn't,” I shoot back. “I wouldn’t react like that if a girl touched
me.”
“That's because you're gay.”
I shake my head. “Just accept it, Jungkook. God never helped anyone. Let go of
your false values and accept who you are.”
“Don't tell me who I am,” he whispers, and there are tears glimmering in his
eyes. Regret and guilt trickle sickeningly into my chest suddenly, and I back
off.
“Just think about it.” I start walking away towards my room, footsteps tapping
on the wooden floor. “God can only do so much. He can't save you.”
“He will,” Jungkook yells defiantly after me. “Maybe he won't save you, but
He’ll save me!”
I relent and walk off.
Long after I have gone, he stands still in the hallway, arms hanging limply at
his sides. He closes his eyes, and a tear trickles down his cheek, shining
briefly in the groove of a small scar. “He’ll do it for me,” he whispers, as if
he is trying to convince himself. “I’m not beyond saving.”
He looks over his shoulder.
“Yet,” he says softly.
~
I look down at the lengths of cloth Yoongi is holding out to me, soft silk
pooled in the cup of his palm. Then I look back up at him, confused. “What do
you want me to do with this?”
Yoongi thrusts his hand at me impatiently. “Take it.”
I do so reluctantly, the silk whispering and sliding coolly between my fingers.
“Now what?”
Yoongi gestures at Jungkook, curled up in a nervous bundle on the bed with his
arms looped around his knees and his back to the headboard. He is already
undressed. It was hard to watch Yoongi do it, dazzling him with compliments and
soft praise the way he did to me so long ago so Jungkook would not protest as
he was stripped. “Tie him up.”
“To...the bed?” I say uncertainly. “But...you have not even lain with him
before, Yoongi. If I might make a suggestion, maybe put these away for now
and—”
“Not to the bed,” he interrupts. “To that.”
I follow his pointing finger to an X-shaped frame nailed to the wall. I did not
notice it before, but now I note with a sinking feeling that it is the height
of a man and has padded grooves where the person’s wrists would be. There is a
groove at about knee height as well. I instantly know what the frame is for.
I look at Yoongi and open my mouth. But there is really nothing to argue with.
It actually looks comfortable, the wood strong and the padding a strangely
considerate touch. It must have been custom-made.
I sigh, then start to walk over to Jungkook. He stands before I can get there,
hovering awkwardly before taking a few tentative steps towards the frame. He
puts his back to it. He looks panicked and trapped, but also...excited, in an
apprehensive, reluctant way.
We are going to have so much fun with him.
I reach for his wrists, but Yoongi says, “Blindfold him first.”
Oh. He wants me to play a game.
I nod in understanding and take Jungkook’s shoulders, turning him gently
around. I loop a length of silk around his head, making sure it is securely
covering his eyes but that he can also breathe comfortably, and then I guide
him to stand so his back is against the frame again. I bind his wrists to the
frame, then kneel to do the same to his knees so his legs are forcibly spread.
And then I step back.
Jungkook looks around rapidly, taking short breaths through his mouth. “Jimin?”
He looks down at his body as if he can see through the blindfold. “Where are
you?” he calls uncertainly. He tries to pull at his hands, but the bindings
hold his wrists in place.
Yoongi gives me a sideways smile and puts his finger to his lips. I nod.
He steps forward, pausing a moment and taking a moment to admire Jungkook.
Jungkook is the image of temptation, naked and bound, helpless, to the frame,
his fringe falling over his eyes and the blindfold tied over his face. He takes
short, shallow breaths through his mouth, lips parted and head turning from
side to side nervously. He is still standing on his own legs, but his legs
tremble slightly, spread wide at an angle just on the edge of being painful.
His cock hangs between his legs.
Yoongi reaches out and traces a finger over Jungkook’s stomach, running over
the ridges and planes of his abdominal muscles. Jungkook’s reaction is almost
ridiculously severe; his back shoots upright, his muscles tensing and his head
straining forward. He takes a ragged breath as Yoongi’s hand dances dangerously
low, following the faint line of hair extending from his navel to the dark
thatch below his waist. Yoongi brushes his hands over his inner thighs, and
Jungkook moans, low and desperate, his voice on the verge of breaking. The
sound shoots straight to my groin, and I quietly discard my clothes.
When Yoongi steps back to rid himself of his clothes, tossing the expensive
cloth into a careless pile, Jungkook whimpers, pulling hard at his restraints.
The frame remains stable. It must have been built for stress.
I curl my hands into fists to prevent myself from taking my fill of him. This
is a game, and it must be played slowly.
Yoongi moves forward and presses his body against Jungkook’s first, grabbing
his waist and holding him up, pressing him against the wall. Then he catches
Jungkook’s chin and kisses him. Jungkook gives in immediately, opening his
mouth, letting Yoongi push his tongue into it. By the time they part, lips
flushed and swollen, Jungkook’s cock is rapidly hardening. He has begun to
unconsciously grind against Yoongi, hips jerking to make up for his limited
range of movement. Yoongi steps away with a small smile on his face.
“No,” Jungkook whines. He strains against the ties. “Yoongi, come b-back.”
So he can tell the difference between the two of us, I note.
“Please.” He looks around wildly, blindly. “Jimin? I know you’re there.”
I look beseechingly at Yoongi. He nods silently and I step forward
triumphantly, considering how to savor my turn, how to best reduce Jungkook to
a sobbing wreck.
I fall to my knees and blow a puff of warm, moist air over Jungkook’s flushed
manhood. He cries out, wrists yanking at the restraints, and his cock gives a
hard twitch. I brush my hands over his thick, smooth thighs, savoring the moans
he makes and wondering how they would sound muffled by a gag, and then I lick
the pink head of his cock.
He makes a sound somewhere between a sob and a scream, so loud I am sure it can
be heard throughout the whole palace. His hips jerk into my mouth, but I pull
away, licking the salty taste off my lips.
“J-Jimin,” he whimpers. “Please.”
He is already begging , I think. How far can we push him?
I curl my hand around his stiff, thickened cock, tugging with sharp, abrupt
flicks of my wrist, and the sound he makes is beautiful. My mouth envelops just
the tip, sucking and licking, his precome already dripping down my throat. His
body is shaking with lust, torn apart by his moans, and his legs can barely
hold him up. I hold his hips to steady him. They start moving reflexively. I
take that as a signal to pull away.
He does not beg this time. Instead, he pants and swallows, futilely pulling at
his bindings. The muscles in his arms flex beautifully, his shoulders rippling
and broadening, and he looks so beautiful that I thank fate and curse it at the
same time that it brought him here.
I smooth my hands over his shoulders and up his neck, his Adam’s apple moving
against the palm of my hand as he gulps. He thrusts his jaw forward needily,
and I acquiesce, leaning forward and pressing my mouth to his kiss-swollen,
bitten, slightly chapped one. Our tongues slide over each other. It is so, so
wet and so, so warm.
I pull away eventually after Jungkook begins covertly, hopefully grinding his
hardness into mine. The friction is tantalizing and nearly irresistible, my
entire being focused on the wonderful rub of skin on skin at my crotch, but I
am willing to sacrifice it to prolong this sweet torture. Jungkook chases after
my mouth as I draw away, but I know the rules of the game. It is Yoongi’s turn
now.
I step away as Yoongi takes my place, tipping Jungkook’s chin up and rubbing
his thumb over his lower lip. Jungkook opens his mouth immediately, sucking it
in and lavishing it with his tongue. Yoongi’s eyes grow hooded and dark as he
replaces his thumb with his third and fourth finger and Jungkook unhesitatingly
gives them the same treatment.
Jungkook pushes his jaw forward, and Yoongi pulls his fingers out of their
mouth. They kiss for a while, Yoongi slow and teasing and Jungkook desperate. I
fix my gaze on the far wall, realizing with a jolt of uncertainty and
discomfort that I dislike watching them.
I look back when Yoongi murmurs, “Do you want to come, baby?” He brushes his
hand over Jungkook’s cock, fingers dancing over the length, and Jungkook nods
furiously, gasping when Yoongi digs his thumbnail into the slit. I chew the
inside of my cheek.
“What would you give to come?” Yoongi says lowly. He pumps Jungkook leisurely,
grip loose and relaxed, and Jungkook’s hips buck forward in search of more
friction.
It is too little. He whines, “Anything.” His voice cracks with desperation,
with pure need, and I think it is the most erotic sound I have ever heard.
“Anything?” Yoongi runs a finger down Jungkook’s chest, pinching a nipple,
looking at him as if he were art when he moans. And he isart. If art is defined
as a work which evokes feelings, then Jungkook is the best and most intricate
artwork ever created. “Could you be quiet? Hold in your pretty little voice?”
Yoongi pulls, and Jungkook’s body arches. “And then I will let you come,
alright?”
“I’ll t-try,” he gasps. He used to blush, I realize suddenly. But now he
accepts the sin, blooms in the vulgarity, lets himself be tainted by the black,
black words dripping off Yoongi’s tongue. He is no longer consciously bothered
by it.
“Good.” Yoongi’s voice is fond. “Jimin and I, we are going to take turns with
you, alright? Is that alright?”
Asking as if he cares.
Jungkook opens his mouth, then remembers and nods.
Yoongi looks at me and jerks his chin in the direction of the bedside drawer. I
understand immediately and scramble hurriedly. Hardly a moment later, the slick
oil is barely kept from dripping off Yoongi’s long, slim fingers and Yoongi is
murmuring into Jungkook’s ear in a way which makes me feel like an intruder
watching them.
“I know Jimin has already stretched you out,” he says softly, “so this will not
hurt as much. But it will still hurt. I promise it gets better.”
He is being so gentle. It is uncharacteristic of him. I have never seen this
side of him before, and I stand, perplexed, and watch kindness lend a softness
to Yoongi’s face.
“It’s okay,” Jungkook whispers. “Just do what you’re gonna do.”
Yoongi nods, then stops and frowns, realizing Jungkook cannot see him. He
smiles absurdly, a self-depreciating, gummy smile, and I am so confused I want
to shake him by the shoulders to make him show more of this side of him I have
never seen before but which Jungkook seems to see nothing but of. Yoongi
steadies himself with a hand on the wall and kisses Jungkook, and somewhere
between the first and the second kiss, he pushes his fingers into him.
Jungkook does not make a sound. For once, the room is silent, everyone holding
their breath. Jungkook’s lips are relaxed. That is a good sign, I decide. He
usually presses them together when he is uncomfortable.
Yoongi pushes the second finger in.
The corners of Jungkook’s soft mouth harden the tiniest bit. I think that he is
taking it remarkably well until I notice that his nails are digging into his
palms so hard they leave angry red crescent-shaped marks, and I rush forward to
prise his fingers apart. I can see that his legs are shaking from the strain of
holding himself up once I get close enough, and I touch Yoongi gently on the
shoulder, saying softly, “Yoongi.”
He understands. He grasps Jungkook’s waist, supporting him against the wall and
taking most of the burden from his legs, and Jungkook sighs out in relief.
“Move,” he says in a small voice, surprising us both.
“What?” Yoongi asks, taken aback.
“Move your...fingers. I like being—being f-full.”
We stare at Jungkook. He cannot see us, but he is blushing so hard I have no
idea how the rest of his body is faring without the necessary blood. It all
seems to have rushed to his cheeks and between his legs.
“Please?” He asks in a timid voice when Yoongi does not reply.
“Yes—yes,” Yoongi says, a little disbelief tinging his voice, and he scissors
once, experimentally, making Jungkook gasp, before pulling his fingers out and
pushing them back in.
I cannot describe how Jungkook went from reluctant and even outright adamant at
times to the writhing, panting mess he is within minutes, trying to spread his
legs wider and force his hips down deeper onto Yoongi’s already rapidly moving
fingers. Yoongi shifts closer so they are chest to chest, thrusting three
fingers into him hard and curling them, and Jungkook screams.
Yoongi stills, shocked, but Jungkook starts babbling, an incoherent mess, all
“please” and “I’ll do anything” as he bucks his hips desperately. Yoongi grips
Jungkook’s hips, holding them in place as he curls his fingers again, and
Jungkook is practically sobbing, the frame trembling as he yanks at his wrists.
Yoongi meets my eyes and looks at Jungkook’s wrists next. I nod in
understanding and untie the bonds spreading Jungkook’s legs first, then move to
his wrists and wince when I see the red, chafed skin.
Jungkook’s arms drop immediately, and he sags into Yoongi, knees buckling.
Yoongi catches him in surprise, his hands cupping his elbows and Jungkook’s
hands caught awkwardly between their chests. He is obviously unaccustomed to
holding someone, to being someone people physically lean on for support. I see
his eyes widen as Jungkook’s head lolls against his chest, his hair brushing
the place where his jaw and neck meet.
That has always been my favorite part of Yoongi. Not his cock or his legs or
anything like that, but the angle his jaw and his chin make where they meet.
Sometimes I will pass a room where a royal meeting is being held, and I will be
able to recognize Yoongi’s silhouette in profile just by that curve, that angle
no one else seems to quite possess. It is the softest, least severe part of his
body, not constantly tightened or strained by stress. I never fail to be struck
by how vulnerable it looks, like the chink in a turtle’s shell or the
underbelly of a porcupine.
I have kissed him there before, during one of the few times I have willingly
kissed him. The skin was salty with sweat, his chest rising and falling
rapidly. It felt so right, kissing him gently instead of a quick fuck like
usual or a rough session which left me sore and unable to walk left next
morning. But it felt so wrong, so jarringly unusual, for kissing him to
actually feel right that I pulled away and turned on my side, away from him,
unable to forget how it felt to actually kiss someone without being forced to.
Yoongi lays Jungkook gently down on the bed, Jungkook releasing a relieved
exhale as the strain on his legs disappears, and he beckons me over without
looking. I perch on the end of the bed—there is plenty of room for me—and watch
Jungkook climb on top of Jungkook and lean down to kiss him, smoothing back his
bangs and brushing his thumb over his cheekbones. He seems fond of doing that.
Jungkook kisses back, lashes dark and fluttering against his cheeks and eyes
closed. He holds Yoongi’s waist, touching his hips and thighs lightly,
reverently.
Yoongi arranges himself between Jungkook’s legs. Jungkook does not even protest
when he slips in, his fingers digging in tighter to Yoongi’s waist the only
indication of change. Yoongi waits, something he has never done before, and I
watch, openmouthed with shock, as he kisses Jungkook softly and murmurs praise
into his mouth. Jungkook thrives on it, pulling Yoongi closer, a small, pleased
smile dancing on his lips.
I try not to watch them. I stare at the far wall and imagine a wall around me,
the moans and obscene slapping off skin bouncing off it the way their bodies
are bouncing off each other and not reaching me. I do not care much for, in
fact, I positively dislike the cold feeling seeping into my chest.
The worst part is that Jungkook sounds like he loves it. To my cynical ears,
his whimpers are more often, his moans louder, his gasps more desperate than
when I lay with him. What is it about Yoongi that is different? I think, an
uncomfortable sort of bitterness winding around my veins. Why am I not good
enough?
An especially wailing sob from Jungkook, a deep grunt from Yoongi a moment
later, and I know they have finished. I shuffle towards the pile of my clothes
as Yoongi pulls out and collapses next to Jungkook, expecting to have to finish
myself off in the privacy of my own room, but Yoongi pants, “Jimin.”
I stop and look back questioningly.
Yoongi gestures at Jungkook. “His thighs. You can...finish yourself with his
thighs.”
What?
I look at Jungkook, trying not to look too pleading and pathetic. It takes a
moment for Jungkook to open his eyes and realize I am awaiting his permission.
“Oh, it’s f-fine,” Jungkook gasps out between breaths. He reaches out a hand to
me. “Come here, Jimin.”
I hope I do not look overeager as I climb onto the bed and kneel in front of
him. I look around for the bottle of oil. Yoongi hands it helpfully to me, and
I dribble the appropriate amounts between his thighs. I look down at my cock.
There is enough precome slicking it to make the oil unnecessary.
I bend Jungkook’s legs slowly, pushing down bit by bit until his knees are
nearly touching his shoulders, and he smiles at me encouragingly. He does not
mind.
I stroke a hand down his cheek. He turns his head into the touch, closing his
eyes briefly and kissing my palm. My heart breaks and heals in a single
instant.
I slide between his thighs, and my mind goes blank.
It is so tight, so wet. I did not look at his thighs and imagine I would be
treating them this way, although admittedly they have been the cause for many
halfhearted fantasies, but this...this is new and amazing and mind-blowing.
I grip his thighs tightly, my fingers most probably leaving marks. “Jungkook,”
I grit out, and a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.
“Jimin,” he echoes timidly.
My eyes fall shut. “A-ah,” I gasp, and his thighs jiggle beautifully when I
snap my hips. He judders up the bed, lopping his own arms around his legs to
keep them in place.
All the blood in my body feels as if it is migrating between my legs. I am so
aroused my precome is dribbling onto Jungkook’s stomach, onto his cock, and I
know it will only be a few thrusts more before I cannot hold it in anymore.
A few minutes later, my hips are jerking uncontrollably and my hand has found
Jungkook’s somehow already stiff cock, tugging in time with my thrusts. His
eyes are screwed shut and his moans mingle with mine, a beautiful harmony in
the otherwise silent bedroom. I barely manage to force the pleasure down until
after he has come all over his own stomach, and then I let go, giving in to the
incomparable, agonizing pressure, and spurts of white lash across the clearer
drips on his stomach.
I hold onto his legs tight and move a few more times, greedily snatching the
most out of my release, and when the last echoes of ecstasy have faded away, I
slide out from between his legs and collapse next to him, spent and exhausted.
If I am tired, Jungkook must be near unconsciousness, but he still finds the
energy to curl up against my side. He drapes his limbs over me, arms and legs
thrown haphazardly over my body, and he has barely snuggled into me and settled
down when his soft, peaceful breaths of sleep reach my ears.
I want to turn my head to check up on Yoongi, to ask him why he was so gentle
to Jungkook. But I do not have any energy left to brave Yoongi’s cold demeanor.
I let my eyes slip shut.
Maybe tomorrow.
~
Yoongi watched us. He still is watching us.
He wants to sleep. His body always wants to shut down, to let go of life, to
just end and give into the blackness which never ceases its efforts to take
him. But he has a kingdom to run, hundreds of thousands of lives depending on
him, and he cannot just let all of his work to get where he is now be for
naught like that.
But as his eyes run over the two slumbering bodies next to him, sharing his bed
but still worlds away from him, he knows deep down that he does not really care
for those peasants’ lives. Not because he is an unkind person—he is not,
although circumstances have forced him to—but because their significance to him
simply pales in comparison to Jimin, and, recently, Jungkook’s.
He remembers Taeyoon.
He remembers Taeyoon, with Jimin’s high, sweet voice, his graceful movements,
his small but strong size. With his soft, wavy hair and his smile which made
his eyes disappear. The smile he fell in love with.
Sometimes he had managed to persuade Taeyoon to sing. Taeyoon was shy, but once
or twice Yoongi had wheedled and coaxed him into a song. Yoongi had sat,
entranced, and watched as Taeyoon closed his eyes and lost himself in the rise
and fall of his voice, light and as high-pitched as Jimin’s, thankful for the
opportunity to stare at Taeyoon as much as he liked.
Yoongi had to say, he did not usually take in boys like Jungkook. Boys who
fought, boys who raised their voices at him, boys who were not already broken.
But the guards had not dragged in Jungkook. They had dragged in Taeyoon.
Jungkook resembled Taeyoon so much that Yoongi had not been able to believe it.
At first, he had thought that it was some apparition, that it was Taeyoon come
back from the dead.
Then he had come to his senses. He had watched Taeyoon die, watched his body
jerk and thrash through eyes blurred with tears as the rope around Taeyoon’s
neck wrung the life from him. He remembered his mother screaming at him, how he
brought shame and dishonor to the Min family name, how when he had shouted back
that she was just to scared to accept that her son was actually comfortable
with who he was, and later, she was found hanging in the garden, he had felt
too little regret.
He had made a point. That was all he wanted.
In hindsight, they should have been more careful. They should have found a room
in the palace away from the stables where Taeyoon worked as a groom and away
from Yoongi’s mother who always expected too much from him. Then they could
have built a new world for themselves between the sheets. A world where they
did not have to be people they did not like, where Taeyoon did not get whipped
by the overseer of the stablehands whenever he forgot to brush the horses’
coats until they shone and Yoongi was not the heir to the kingdom he would
gladly see burnt to ashes.
The kingdom stands for too many bad memories in his mind. For pain. For love.
For shame—never of who he was, but his mother’s’ shame of who she had brought
into the world.
Taeyoon is dead. And no matter how huge he and Jungkook’s doe eyes both are,
how uncannily similar their mouths are, with the thin upper lips and the plump
lower lip, and how much resemblance their bunny teeth bear, Jungkook will not
resurrect him.
But Yoongi is determined to fix the mistakes he made with Taeyoon right with
Jungkook. No one will ever know about what he and Taeyoon had, but they do not
have to.
They even both protested at first, but then gave in. Taeyoon had lectured him
too, about things he had never cared about but suddenly wanted to know a great
deal about once the words passed Taeyoon’s lips. Long-winded speeches about how
best to brush horse’s coats and how hard it was to get equine manure stains off
cobblestones (that was an especially...enlightening one).
Yoongi fell in love with him like that. In the spring, when the stifling summer
heat had passed and the cherry blossom trees were in full, defiant bloom.
Watching Taeyoon’s eyes flash as he propped his chin on one hand and stared
into the distance, not really caring what his full lips were saying as long as
they were moving and he could memorize what they looked like forever.
Yoongi would not say theirs was a great love story.
Because, in truth, every love story is a great love story.
But he would say this: theirs was a story doomed from the beginning.
Who thinks that while it is happening, though? Who pauses while the events are
in motion to ask what is really going on? Who halts in the middle of the play
to question the script? Who stops in the midst of joy to think about how it
will end?
Not Yoongi. And when Taeyoon kissed him first, hesitant and eager, hands
fluttering as they cradled his face like Yoongi was something precious which
needed to be held, Yoongi was too happy to stop and wonder how this fluke would
conclude. He did not think that barely a month later, guards would be
restraining him as he was forced to watch the boy he loved die.
Jungkook surprised him, with his brave, furious words about finding God and the
cruelty of enslaving boys. Yoongi supposed they were true. He believed in God,
or the gods. He just did not believe that they had ever liked him enough to
help him.
If the greatest of beings could perform miracles but could not save Taeyoon,
then they were forever lost to him.
Sometimes Yoongi passed a body of water and did not recognize the man staring
back at him. Sometimes, in the middle of a session with Jimin or one of the
other concubines, or even in the middle of the night, just staring at the
ceiling, he would realize that he did not like who he had become.
If he were to meet himself, he would detest himself.
Yoongi knew he was cruel in taking concubines. But then again, all rulers did.
The only reason he had gotten so much attention was because his were male.
He knew, deep down, that that was no justification for rape.
He also knew, deep down, that he was really searching for love.
For someone to not look at him with awe, fear, or both in their eyes. For
someone to see him as a person, an actual person with a heart and feelings and
the ability to love, not the ruler of Goryeo or the person who held their life
in his hands.
He knew he had a difficult time showing himself to people. He knew he was cold,
distant, irritable if prodded, sometimes dangerously. He knew no one really
knew him, least of all himself, and that the possibility of finding someone to
love and them actually loving him back was close to zero.
But he had to try. Because is that not what we are made for? To find our other
halves. To find our soulmates. To find someone around whom we do not have to
pretend.
Yoongi looks at Jungkook, tangled in Jimin’s body, hair mussed and cheeks
flushed, mouth slightly open.
He cannot make a mistake this time. This time, he will not let him go.
Or he does not think he would ever forgive himself.
***** Property *****
Chapter Notes
     Yes there are a ton of technical Korean terms in this chapter! I
     wanted it to be as historically accurate (to the Goryeo dynasty) as
     possible so here's a glossary of sorts in order of appearance. Feel
     free to skip this now if you tire of Korean jargon or dislike
     spoilers, then open this in another tab and refer back to it during
     reading.
     I'm sorry if one of you guys happen to be a specialist in the Goryeo
     dynasty and find an inconsistency! You can rage at me in the comment
     section or ask questions if you like.
     Also, I did a ton of research for this. Teachers might hate Wikipedia
     but it sure as hell is helpful.
     Namgyeong - The capital of Goryeo, where the palace was located
     satoori - accent/dialect
     hyejang - In the Goryeo dynasty, there were two main types of shoes:
     hwa and hye. Hwa were shoes which extended above the ankle, something
     like boots, and hye were shoes which did not cover the ankle,
     something like slippers. Hyejang are the manafacturers of hye.
     susubori - brewery/winery (I hope)
     sul - alcoholic beverages
     yangonseo - A yangonseo iwas a special building palaces featured
     where sul (refer above) was made for special occasions.
     beolddok ju - Okay, this is bizarre and I know it. I was browsing the
     surprisingly interesting Wikipedia page on Korean alcoholic beverages
     when a picture of what looked like a bottle capped by a wooden dick
     caught my eye, complete with a disturbingly jolly grinning face. It
     was beolddok ju, a rice wine believed to increase male "stamina" wink
     wink. Apparently, it translates to "spring-up wine". Enough said.
     cheongju - "A clear rice wine similar to Japanese sake."
     maesil ju - plum wine
     daegun - I have Wikipedia to thank for this again. 'Your Majesty' or
     "your Highness" or "sire" didn't seem to be the right title for
     Korean nobility. So I did some Wikipedia digging and I came up with
     daegun, the title given to the royal prince born to the queen. It
     translates to Grand Prince of the Blood, because why not. If you're
     like me and have never heard it in your life, then I hope it's used
     like hyung. I know its usage is kinda awkward in the one paragraph
     it's employed 3-ish times. Just roll with it.
     Aaaaaaand that's it! We've gotten through it!
     Thank you so much for having patience with me.
“Tea?”
The fine, expensive jasmine tea flows soundlessly into the porcelain cup. The
blue designs on the sides are delicate, hand-painted. It would probably be
enough to buy a field.
The servant steps back, teapot steaming gently from the spout in his hands, and
melts into the shadows as he is taught to. Jungkook, flustered, bows his head
to the servant in thanks. He looks taken aback.
Jungkook lifts the cup with both hands and takes a tentative sip. He peeks over
the rim at Yoogi, sitting on a cushion on the other side of the low table. I
nurse my own cup.
“I summoned you because I am going on a trip,” Yoongi says, sipping his tea.
“And I want you two to come.”
Straight to the point as always.
“But...I never come on trips,” I say uncertainly. “And Jungkook is new. New
concubines are not usually brought on trips.”
“Then this is an exception,” Yoongi replies.
I blink. “Well, of course we would be happy to come.” Jungkook looks at me for
my lead, watching mutely. “How long will this trip be?”
“Two nights.” Yoongi sets the cup down on the table. “We arrive in the evening.
The next day, I have a meeting with the town leaders about a band of rogues
terrorizing the town, which has become a major problem and so is now under my
jurisdiction. Our host, the town leader whose house we are staying at, will
throw a dinner feast for us that night. At dawn the next morning, we will begin
the return journey to Namgyeong.”
“Alright.” I chew my lip, sneaking a glance at Jungkook, who has gone stock
still. Something which looks too much like hope flickers in his eyes. I hope he
is not entertaining the thought of escaping. “That is fine by us. We will be
glad to accompany you.”
“Very well.” He examines his nails. “If that is all, then you are dismissed. I
have business to attend to.”
“Sorry, if I may ask,” I say hesitantly, and Yoongi looks up. “Where are we
going?”
“Oh, I forgot to mention that.” He plays with his cup disinterestedly, frowning
at a tiny chip in the rim. “Busan.”
My heart stops.
~
“Jimin, this is perfect,” Jungkook hisses at me in a low whisper. We are hiding
under my blanket like two children. It is late into the night, and everyone is
asleep except the guards patrolling the grounds and garden surrounding my
bedroom. “We’re going to Busan! We can escape!”
“Escape where ?” I whisper back fiercely. I knew this would happen. I knewit.
“We have nowhere to go!”
“We do. My family would take you in. I know it.”
I rub at my eyes tiredly. It is far too late for this. “They’d find us. They’d
find us, and we andyour family would be punished. Then we would be brought back
to the palace and it would all be for nothing.”
“This is the best opportunity we might ever get! Don’t you understand?”
“Look, you haven’t been here for a long time,” I hiss back. “But I have. I know
what happens to runaways. Do you know?”
Jungkook is silent.
“They’re castrated.”
“What?”
“Yes! They’re castrated, so Yoongi can still use them but they have hardly any
chance for deriving pleasure. I know how painful it is. I had to watch.”
I still remember when a concubine and a maid fell in love. They ran away, but
they were caught. The maid was executed in front of everyone. The concubine was
not as lucky.
I remember the blood running down his legs, the screams, the rivers of red
flowing through the channels between the cobbles. The raw, bloodied stump
between his legs. The useless, severed appendage which was tossed to the dogs
in front of his eyes.
I know how the Red Courtyard in the south wing of the palace got its name. How
now all it is ever used for is executions, because the bloodstains refuse to
budge from the cobbles however hard the maids scrub at them, and there is no
point bloodying another courtyard when there is already a stained one.
“Don’t even think about it, Jungkook.” I shake my head. “It’ll save you less
pain. I don’t want to have to watch you be punished.”
“I have to try!” His voice breaks with desperation.
“I promise it gets easier.” My voice is pleading now. “The thing about humans
is that we adapt. After a while, sleeping with Yoongi won’t feel so bad
anymore. Besides our duties, we have a good life here at the palace, don’t we?
We get regular meals and a luxurious home. We want for nothing.”
“Except love. And freedom. And, and, a life. And our families,” he says
defiantly. “I want my family!”
“You can’t.” I look away. “Your family stopped existing when you were caught.
You aren’t anything now, Jungkook. None of us are. We’re nonentities. We don’t
have a place in the world anymore.”
It is raw, pure pain when I see Jungkook’s shoulders slump in defeat. He takes
a deep breath, then blinks hard a few times. There are tears caught in his
lashes, but he forces them away. He falls silent.
Why do I have to be the one who breaks him?
~
Someone else packs our clothes for us.
They are stuffed into crates and sent ahead so that they will arrive at our
quarters before we do. Jungkook is stiff and silent during the carriage ride,
sitting opposite me, staring vacantly out the window with his mouth a hard
line. His hands are fisted in his hanbok.
I hate seeing him like this.
When we reach Busan, the sky is already darkening in the east. A light drizzle
is falling. A servant holds a delicate wood and paper umbrella over our heads
for us as we scurry into the mansion, a lantern swinging precariously from his
other hand. I find that Jungkook and I share a comfortable room, spacious but
slightly bare.
We serve our duties. Yoongi is not feeling generous today, so we do not come.
Jungkook’s eyes are dead.
Before we go to sleep, a servant comes into our room holding collars. He tells
us to put them on in the morning. I examine them after he has left. They are
made out of leather, the inside lined with silk. There is a metal tag on them
with the inscription 민윤기의 재산. Property of Min Yoongi.
We are property now.
But then again, were we not always?
~
We are sent out into the marketplace along with a few guards with a few coins
each in the morning. Yoongi is away at the meeting, so we are told that we can
buy whatever we want with the money.
Jungkook is chatty again. The night’s sleep with him curled as far away from me
as possible, on the other side of the bed, seems to have cured him of his
morosity.
He points out all the attractions. People recognize him—the noisy fishwives
hawking their wares, the quiet old man selling vegetables, the kindly old
ajummas browsing the goods. Even small children run up to him, tugging on his
hanbok and asking him where he has been.
He smiles at the children. When the adults ask, he points at his collar.
They read it. And the smiles slip off their faces.
At that point they unfailingly falter, then push their wares into his hands,
insisting that they are “on the house” when Jungkook tries to pay them for it.
Then they squeeze his hands and give him sad smiles, watching us go with
pitying gazes.
I cannot stand their pity.
In this fashion, we walk out of the marketplace saddled with three umbrellas,
two bolts of silk, a raw fish, a number of cabbages and carrots, and even a
live chicken in a wicker cage which only the burliest guard can carry. When we
pass the butcher’s and the butcher steps out to enthusiastically pat Jungkook
on the back—Jungkook is well-liked and well-known here—we almost leave with a
whole roast pig, but when he sees how much we have to take back to our lodgings
already he promises to send it ahead to the mansion free of charge.
It feels strange. Jungkook never really dropped his Busan satoori , but here,
talking and mingling with the locals, its full fruity, drawling tones come back
to life. I recognize it, of course. I am from Busan myself. Every now and then,
we pass an old, twisted tree I remember used to stand outside a medicine man’s
house but now grows outside a busy hyejangfrequented by dainty women fanning
themselves and hiding under fragile paper umbrellas from the summer heat. They
emerge with richly decorated boxes padded with wool, the beautifully crafted
shoes secure inside.
But the city is bustling now, nothing like the quiet village of my origins.
Busan was burnt to the ground and rose bigger and better and indestructible,
resplendent as a phoenix in its importance.
This is not my village.
Over the crate of roasted corn he is carrying, I notice Jungkook stealing
longing glances at a shaded path which leads away from the marketplace. He
begins to lead us there once or twice, then falters and retreats.
I nudge him. “What is it?” I whisper, my voice difficult to be heard over the
cacophony of the market. “Why do you keep looking there?”
He hesitates. “My...parents,” he eventually says haltingly. “They run a shop
there.”
Oh. “Do you...want to go see them?” I ask gently.
He casts his eyes down to the cobbles. “Yes,” he says quietly, “but I think it
would be harder for me to leave if I did.”
I do not have anything to say. So I sling an arm around his shoulders and pull
him against my side gently, trying not to bruise the Korean pears I am juggling
in my right hand.
~
“I have great news.” Yoongi beams at us, flashing the uncharacteristic gummy
smile which he does not often show. Jungkook grins back, ever glad to be
sharing in someone else’s happiness although he does not know why.
“Yes?” I say, more cautious.
 
“The meeting with the town leaders went brilliantly.” He steeples his fingers,
smiling. “The rogues have been dealt with by my men. They were not rogues. They
were too distinguished for it. They were spies from Daejeon, that port town on
the east coast. We think they were spying out Busan because they knew I was
coming and they planned to take me hostage or some such. It is quite pathetic,
really.” He sips his tea. “Daejeon constantly defies orders from the palace,
and now we finally have a solid reason to make a crackdown on its chief. Once I
get back to Namgyeong, I will send out orders for my men to bring the chief
back and  nicely  ask him what his intent with all this is.”
It is true that Yoongi does not interrogate men.
But there are other methods he uses to force what he wants from people.
The thought sends chills down my spine. I shiver and grip my cup of tea harder,
warming my hands and inhaling the fragrant steam, and hope that Yoongi will be
lenient with the chief.
He goes on, “You two are from Busan, no?”
Jungkook nods enthusiastically, glowing with patriotic pride.
“Then you must know the best  susubori  here.”
Jungkook’s smile freezes.
“To celebrate, I want you two to get  sul .” He takes a jingling velvet pouch
of coins and pushes it towards us over the table. “The best  sul  you can find,
better even than the  sul  the  yangonseo  back at the palace makes. The cost
does not matter. Just make it good.”
I bow. Jungkook’s face is still as stone. I poke his side, and he ducks his
head slowly.
After Yoongi has left us, I shake Jungkook’s shoulders. “Jungkook. What’s
wrong?”
He stares at the far wall.
“Jungkook? Jungkook!”
He finally giggles softly, deliriously. “I know a  susubori."   He chokes out a
laugh. "I kn-know a susubori," he repeats.
I cradle his face and study his eyes worriedly, not understanding why they brim
with tears.
~
Jungkook asks the guards to wait outside.
They loiter restlessly on the doorstep, weapons at the ready, casting
suspicious glances after us while Jungkook pushes the door open. A bell jingles
merrily. I chatter nervously at Jungkook, unused to the absence of the steady
stream of words he usually keeps up: giggling a little at the bottle of
beolddok ju  topped with a wooden penis with a smiling face (I used to call it
“happy pew pew” wine as a child, do not even ask me why), what a coincidence it
is that the sign above the door reads 전의 수수보리, Jeon’s  Susubori,  similar to
his last name, how I wonder how they keep the inside of the shop cool, it must
be so the wine will not spoil, maybe—
“Hay,” Jungkook says suddenly.
I pause. “What?”
“Hay.” He moves vacantly among the shelves, tracing his finger over the bottles
on display. “The walls and roof are stuffed with hay, and a special clay was
used to make the roof tiles so they don’t absorb heat.”
“Oh,” I say lamely. He looks like he belongs in this place to me, his eyes
filled with familiarity, his shoulders relaxed as if he is coming back home. He
scans the labels of the bottles as if he half-knows what they read already.
“Where...where are you taking me?”
“To the back.” He sets a bottle carefully back in its holster. “To the
manager.”
“Wait, why are we seeing the manager? Couldn’t we just pick out a  sul  that we
think—”
I trail off. Jungkook is not listening. We emerge from the maze of shelves, and
we end up standing in front of a long counter, the top veined marble which
looks expensive. Sitting on a stool behind it, a thin, worried-looking lady in
a  hanbok  which looks fine but wrinkled scribbles in a ledger and frowns at
the label on a bottle. She turns it from side to side, letting the light shine
through the clear, sloshing liquid.
“Eomma,” Jungkook says softly.
What ? I have time to think, before the lady looks up and her expression goes
slack-jawed in shock. The bottle of wine slips from her loose, trembling
fingers.
Jungkook lunges forward and dives, catching the bottle just before it hits the
ground. He inspects it carefully for cracks or signs of leakage, then brushes
the dust off the front of his  hanbok . He sets it on the counter well away
from the edge, chiding the lady gently, “You should be more careful. This is an
expensive brand of  cheongju .”
“Jungkook,” the lady says, voice shaking unsteadily, staring at his face.
“Jungkook? How is this possible?”
She comes around the counter and touches Jungkook’s face, running her fingers
over his chin and jaw, turning his head from side to side, staring an
especially long time at the scar on his left cheekbone. “What happened to you?”
she whispers. “Where did you go? I was so worried, you were just here one day
and then gone the next—”
She catches sight of his collar.
She fingers it, staring in disbelief at the tag. “No,” she mutters. “No, no,
no. ‘Property of Min Yoongi’? The prince? What is this?” She looks back up at
Jungkook’s face. “What have you—what have you become?”
Jungkook looks torn. “It doesn’t matter,” he says softly. He catches her hand
and squeezes it. “I’m still here, aren’t I? I’m still safe. I’m still your
son.”
The lady is Jungkook’s  mother ?
Jungkook’s mother reels. She looks just as shocked as I feel. She plucks at his
expensive  hanbok  with thin, quivering fingers. “Who gave this to you?” She
fights to keep her breath steady. “The prince? Do you live in the palace now?”
She swallows. “Are you...are you...working there? Like Taeyoon?”
Jungkook’s eyes widen at the name.
Taeyoon ? I sway on my feet, suddenly dizzy, my mind a roaring abyss of
questions.  Taeyoon? What do they know about Taeyoon?
He shakes his head, gripping his mother’s shoulders. She looks frail and small
next to Jungkook, who stands a good head taller than her. “It doesn’t matter,”
he says firmly. “I’m safe. I  do  live in the palace, but I’m safe. I’m not
going to...what happened to Taeyoon isn’t going to happen to me.”
What happened to Taeyoon? What happened to you?
What made you leave me alone in that cruel, cruel village?
Why did you never come back to me?
“Oh God,” his mother whispers, going pale as a sheet. “You’re a concubine,
aren’t you?”
Jungkook blanches. “It isn’t what you think—”
“You’re a concubine!” She screams shrilly. “What has the prince done to you?
What has that bastard done to my son?”
“He hasn’t—I’m still—”
“You’re not.” She trembles with fury, with panic. “He’s drawn you into his bed,
hasn’t he? You’re another one of those boys who disappear and never come back
now. You’re—you’re the prince’s  pet .”
Jungkook flinches. “It’s not like that.”
“It is, it is,” his mother moans. She sinks to the ground, all the fight
seeming to drain out of her. Jungkook kneels with her, trying to support her.
“You’re  property . You wear a  collar . This isn’t—this isn’t what I thought
would happen to you, my beautiful boy—”
She breathes heavily. “What will your father say when he finds out?”
Jungkook reels back. “Appa? Where is he?”
“He’s in the vineyards, surveying the workers.” She grasps his hand pleadingly.
“But he’ll be back tonight! You can stay here. Stay here with me. Then you can
meet your father again in a few hours’ time!”
“No, you don’t understand.” His voice is desperate, breaking. “I have to—I have
to go back to the palace. I can’t run away. They’ll find me.”
“No,” she says hoarsely. “No. Don’t leave me again,  please !”
“I have to.” He tries to let go of her hand; she grips it harder. “Please
understand. I can’t stay. I—I have to go.”
“No! Your father would want to see you if he—if he knew—”
“Are the blue bottles of  maesil ju  still the most expensive wine in the
shop?” He interrupts.
“Don’t leave me, Jungkook!” The raw pain in his mother’s eyes hurts to look at.
He presses the whole pouch of coins into her hands as if she had not spoken.
“I’ll take it. Buy Junghyun’s children something nice with this, or fix the
hole in the floor at home that Appa never got around to patching up.” He smiles
wanly. “I love you, eomma. Send my love to appa.”
“Don’t leave me!” Her voice pitches up hysterically. Jungkook tries to stand,
but she clutches at the hem of his  hanbok . Pain flashes, raw and acute, in
Jungkook’s eyes. “Jungkook, please stay.”
“This might be the last time I see you.” Jungkook steps back reluctantly,
towards me, and his mother struggles to her feet, hair dishevelled and eyes
desperate. “Please don’t make it difficult.”
She reaches out a pleading hand. “ Jungkook .”
“I love you,” he says falteringly, tears shining in his eyes. Then he grabs my
sleeve, clutching it for dear life, whisks a beautiful dark blue bottle of
clear liquid off a shelf, and, pulling me along, turns and runs out of the
shop.
~
“Jungkook,” I say for the millionth time, rubbing comforting circles in his
back as he sobs, curled up on our bed with his head in my lap. “Jungkook, it’s
okay.”
“I left her,” he whimpers, drawing his arms and legs in as if he is trying to
disappear. “She begged me to stay, but I left her.”
I stroke his bangs back from his forehead. “It’s okay. Let it all out.”
“Why do you have to be so calm?” he wails, pounding on my chest, and it kind of
hurts, but it is nothing compared to the pain he is feeling. I know it is not
really directed at me. “Don’t you miss anyone?”
I swallow. “Of course I do.” I feel his forehead; it is feverish, hot. Jungkook
gets fevers when he is upset. “It’s just that everyone I knew and loved,
everyone from my past...they’re all dead. So it doesn’t really hurt anymore.” I
force down the painful thickness rising in the back of my throat. “It’s easier
to be alone than to be separated. Like—like you and your family.”
He moans wordlessly into my  hanbok .
“Jungkook?” I say hesitantly. “Can I ask you a question?”
He remains silent.
I take that as a sign to go ahead. “Who is...who is Taeyoon?”
“Taeyoon.” He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling, sighing. “Jeon Taeyoon
was my cousin. The son of my uncle—the same uncle who ran the  susubori  my
parents run now, the one who helped us hide out in barrels during the raid.
There was this huge scandal because he was caught kissing this boy in the
fields. My uncle punished him, I think, because he was a very reputable
susubori  and Taeyoon had basically tarnished his name in one fell swoop. So
Taeyoon ran away.” His gaze is far away, lost in memories. “No one knows what
happened to him beyond the fact that he managed to get work at the palace as a
stablehand. And then there was just...silence. But there were rumors flying
around that he was hanged. The rumors weren’t clear as to why.”
Taeyoon .
The name brings back so many memories for me, memories I had thought were well
and buried in the past. Masculine arms which I could not tear my gaze away from
straining at a shovel. Sweat shining on skin painted yellow by the sun setting
over the vineyards Taeyoon’s father owned and which I had been hired to tend.
Slightly chapped, soft lips, fumbling clumsily at mine while a calloused hand
stroked over my face and his other hand curled around my length until I would
never have any need for  beolddok ju .
And less happy, darker memories too: a cane landing on my back. Cowering in a
corner of my family’s tiny hut while pain rained down on my body and crawled
beneath my skin, making me want to claw it off. Searching the vineyards for
Taeyoon the next day and not finding him, worrying and worrying about where he
was, whether he was alright.
Taeyoon was Jungkook’s cousin.
Jungkook goes on, oblivious to my furrowed brow and widening eyes as I make
more and more connections between our pasts. “After he ran away, no one wanted
to buy  sul  from my uncle’s  susubori  anymore. My uncle and aunt eventually
moved away to take his business elsewhere, but he left all his  sul  here—he
said it was cursed or something. So my parents took over the shop with his
permission and brought it back into business again.” His mouth tightens. “And
here they are.”
“Oh.” I put my past aside and focus on the immediate matter at hand: Jungkook,
agony rolling off him in waves, his beautiful face twisted in pain. I cradle
his face. “Jungkook, everything will be okay, you hear me? Everything will be
okay. You’ll recover.”
He closes his eyes. The despair in them haunts me.
~
The sharp sound of a clap rings through the dining room, and the cacophony of a
hundred voices—the entourage Yoongi brought with him from the palace—dies down.
All eyes turn to the man who clapped, seated at one end of the long table,
Yoongi at the head and he at the foot.
He is our host. His name is Ma Yonggun. I dislike him. He seems greasy and
cruel, his small eyes sunk inside unhealthy, sallow eye bags and constantly
darting around, scheming and cunning.
“First of all, I would like to thank  daegun .” Yonggun bows his head at
Yoongi, who nods slightly back. “We are honored to be in  daegun’s  presence.
The  maesil ju  and various other food  daegun  contributed to this feast,
especially the roast pig, was exquisite.”
Jungkook stares into his cup. His eyes are puffy and bloodshot from crying.
“And now we have a special dish, imported from China for this occasion.”
Yonggun motions to the servants, and they speedily come around, ladling a
steaming orange sort of soup into our bowls. I frown curiously at the thin
white tendrils floating in it. I have never seen anything like it before.
“This is called shark fin soup.” Yonggun lifts his bowl slightly. “It is an
expensive Chinese delicacy and is made from the spines inside shark fins, which
give it an excellent texture. The spines are obtained by catching the sharks,
slicing off their fins”—Jungkook visibly pales—“and then throwing the sharks
back into the water. Unable to swim without the fins, the sharks sink to the
bottom of the ocean where they eventually die. The sharks pose a problem to the
local fish industry, so this is killing two birds with one stone—or should I
say fish?” He chuckles, and everyone laughs with him. “It is great sport.”
Jungkook gags and pushes his bowl away. I sit still, revolted. How can they eat
something which was made with such cruelty?
“Please enjoy,” Yonggun says with an oily smile.
I jump at least a foot out of my seat when a loud slamming sound reverberates
through the room. The laughter immediately ceases as everyone looks towards
Yoongi, who is fairly incandescent with rage. He has slammed the palm of his
hand into his table, overturning his bowl of shark fin soup. It soaks into the
white tablecloth and spreads slowly.
“What is this?” he says, voice dangerously low. “You sit there and laugh at the
suffering of living creatures, brought about for the enjoyment of the likes of
you ?” The last word is directed at Yonggun, who flinches. “How would you like
it if I cut off your limbs and you were forced to lay helpless on the ground,
slowly bleeding to death, unable to move? Would you laugh at that? Would you
call it ‘great sport’?”
“I—” Yonggun stammers, sweat shining on his brow.
“No. I do not want to hear your voice. You have said enough for today.” He
points a finger at Yonggun, rising to his feet. “You are lesser than those
sharks whose death you so flippantly disregard. Anyone who revels in the pain
of others is lowlier than a worm.”
He picks up his bowl of shark fin soup and hurls it at the wall. It shatters,
and everyone flinches. “Get this out of my sight,” he spits, and he storms out
of the room.
Slowly, his advisers push their chairs back and scurry after him, worried
expressions plastered on his faces. The chair legs scrape on the floor as
everyone gets up and hurries out of the room. I tug on Jungkook’s arm, and we
exit the room along with everyone except Yonggun, sitting alone at the foot of
the table laid with food which will all go to waste, shaking with terror.
Perhaps Yoongi is not so cruel after all.
~
My eyes fly open.
I sit up, panting from a nightmare of running, running, running from a dark
figure which was getting ever closer. I feel around for Jungkook, who fell
asleep next to me, but my hand only meets cold sheets.
I blink and squint into the pitch-black darkness of the night, too dark for my
eyes to adjust. I pat my hands blindly over the feather mattress. He is not
there.
I sweep my hand over the bedside table, where I set the lantern down after I
had blown it out. The surface of the table is bare.
It does not take me a long time to piece what I know together. Jungkook is
gone. He took the lantern with him.
I leap out of bed, my yelped curse puncturing the silence as I stub my toe on
the dresser.  He ran away . I shuffle forward with my hands in front of me,
hopefully serving as a warning before I bump into anything.  I told him not to
run away. But he did.
But...he was all I had. I cannot—I do not think I can take being alone again.
After a while of rummaging, I manage to find a lantern and a book of matches. I
lift it, swinging precariously from my trembling hand, and look wildly around
the room.
I am alone.
I sob disbelievingly, running to the door and throwing it open. I lean out and
look both ways up and down the corridor, but there is no sign of Jungkook.
I drop the lantern on a desk and sink down onto the bed, dropping my head into
my hands. I had one chance. I had one person to look after, one person to keep
safe, one person who  mattered  to me, and now he is gone.
I stay there for what seems like forever, shoulders slumped. A sudden thought
occurs to me.  We leave after dawn , I think in horror.  How many hours are
there left before dawn? How long does he have before his absence is discovered
and Yoongi sets the hounds on him?
Where is he? Is he okay?
The door opens and closes quietly.
I look up.
Jungkook stands just inside the doorway, looking wrecked. He shuffles towards
me, limping slightly, and winces as he sits down on the bed.
I tackle him. “Where were you?” I whisper-yell, the panic dissipating and
relief washing over me in waves. “How could you just leave me here?
“Do you know how worried I was?” I hiss. “Do you know how much I—” I exhale,
then I pull him into a tight hug, squeezing the life out of him. “I hate you,”
I say, muffled in his shoulder. He stays still, limp and unresponsive. “Leaving
me like that.”
Eventually, I pull back and look at him, really look at him, and I frown at
what I see. I swipe at the tear tracks on his cheeks, touch the bite marks on
his lips. “Jungkook?” I ask, the worry returning. “What happened?”
He stares back at me, leaden. There is so much pain and loneliness in his eyes,
raw and sharp, that I want to look away. He opens his mouth to say something,
but a pathetic whimper trickles out instead. He slowly falls forward, crumpling
into my body, and I feel my clothes grow damp with his tears.
“What happened?” I ask, panicking. “Jungkook? I can’t help you if you don’t
tell me what’s wrong.”
He clutches my hands, interlacing our fingers and squeezing until it hurts. “I
w-went to see my father,” he hiccups. “I told him everything. About what had
happened to me. That I’m a c-concubine now.”
A feeling of dread sinks in my stomach. “And?”
He stays quiet, sniffling into my chest.
“What happened?” I prod gently. I try to rub his back, but jerk my hand back
when he cries out in pain. His fingernails dig into my thigh.
“What’s wrong with your back?” I ask, brow furrowed. “Are you—are you hurt?”
I push his  hanbok  slowly off his shoulders. “Don’t,” he mumbles weakly, but
when the material slips off his shoulders and I gently push it down to his
waist, a chill runs down my spine.
His back is a mess of open, bleeding cuts and scars, fresh bruises forming on
the expanse of broken skin like a child who was careless with a few pots of
paint. My hand hovers over them, shaking in horror. Jungkook’s body quivers in
my lap, and he buries his face deeper into my chest.
“What happened?” I force out through the horror and the pain and the anger,
fighting to keep my voice down. “Who did this to you?”
“My…” his voice breaks. “...father.”
“He  whipped  you?” I blink the tears of fury and pain out of my eyes.
“He was...angry. Because I’ve been made a—a concubine, and he said the right
thing to do in this case would be to kill myself. And I tried to explain. But
he brought out the w-willow branch and there’s nothing I can d-do when he looks
like that—” he gasps for breath. “I couldn’t stop him. I...maybe I shouldn’t
have, anyway…”
“Don’t talk like that!” I touch one of the cuts, as lightly as a feather
landing, and he cries out in pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I hastily apologize.
“But no one deserves to be whipped like this. Like—like a  horse .”
“He’s my father,” Jungkook moans. “I have to do what he says.”
“Are you saying that you’re…” I trail off, unable to entertain the possibility.
“Are you saying that you’re really going to—to kill yourself…?”
“He told me to.” He swallows, gulp audible. “But I don’t want it to hurt, so
maybe you could...maybe you could help me…?”
“No!” I yell, and when Jungkook flinches, I lower my voice. Because a boy this
beautiful and this innocent does not deserve to believe that he should die.
That he has no right to live. That it was justifiable that he was whipped
because of  circumstances .
The utter brutality and cruelty of it all is too much for me.
“I’m not going to help you commit suicide,” I say, my voice trembling with
fury. “I'm supposed to help you heal.”
He looks at me blankly in the way only people who have been hurt beyond
breaking point can look.
I get up and search for the softest  hanbok  I have, pulling the sash, which is
a convenient red color, free. I sit back down on the bed and dab at his cuts as
gently and lightly as possible, but he still winces, burying his face in my lap
and digging his nails into my thigh.
I do not really mind.
“Don't ever leave me again,” I say, voice trembling. “Promise me. Don't leave
unless you take me with you.”
He is silent for a long time, hands clenching as I wipe the blood away from an
especially long cut. “I promise,” he mumbles finally.
“And don’t go to see your parents again,” I say, voice breaking. “Please. You
don’t know what they’ll do to you next time.”
He is quiet for longer this time.
After I have mopped up most of the blood, he whispers, voice cracking, “I’ll
try.”
I do not know what to say to an admission that hopeless.
I dab at the last spots of blood, trying to avoid the worst of the welts, and
survey what his back looks like now. It looked worse than it was with the blood
everywhere, but that does not mean much, because it looked absolutely horrific.
Now it looks terrible.
“I think you need more treatment than this,” I say, voice thick with concern.
“Like alcohol.” he flinches. “Or bandages.”
“But you can’t ask for them,” he says softly. “Or you’ll have to tell them why.
And I’ll have to explain the cuts. Yoongi won’t be pleased with my parents.”
I am surprised at the amount of certainty in his voice. “What makes you so
sure?”
“I’m property, right?” He smiles bitterly, his plump lips twisted and unnatural
with pain beyond his years. “Yoongi cares for his property.”
~
Jungkook sleeps on his front next to me. It is too painful for him to sleep on
his back, so he turned onto his stomach.
His head is resting on his folded arms. I note with some alarm that he does not
look peaceful in sleep anymore. His brow is slightly furrowed and his mouth
tight, his hands slightly clenched. He is not the carefree boy who arrived in
the court that fateful day, shining in the gentle, wondering glow of his youth
and innocence.
Yoongi has finally broken him.
I do not know whether to be angry or sad, or both. I reach over and brush the
hair out to his eyes, the soft black tuft of hair slipping over my fingers as I
move it aside.
“I can’t sleep,” he says suddenly, and I jerk my hand back in surprise.
“What?” I ask shakily, with more than a little guilt as if I have been caught
red-handed.
“I can’t sleep.” He opens his eyes tiredly, bruised circles already forming
below them. “I’m too tired.”
I understand.
“Just try,” I say, although I know that ‘just try’ is the worst advice which
has ever been dispensed.
“I have.” He reaches up to rub at his eyes, wincing as his arms lift and the
cuts on his back stretch open. “For the past hour.”
“Think of pleasant things,” I try.
His face takes on that despairing look I am coming to hate. “I don’t know about
you, Jimin,” he says quietly, “but pleasant things seem very far away right
now.”
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
He sighs then looks at me. “What about you?” He blinks slowly, blearily. “Why
are you still up?”
“I’m just thinking.” I chew the inside of my cheek. “Like how long it’ll take
for your back to heal.”
His mouth tightens. I wish I could smooth the pain out of his face. “How does
it look?”
I glance at his back. “Better without the blood. But still worrying.”
He closes his eyes briefly, then pushes himself up onto his elbows, crawling
over to me. I make a muffled squeak of surprise as he lies on top of me,
drawing the blanket over us and wrapping his arms around my shoulders. He lays
his head on my chest.
“What are you doing?” I ask in bewilderment.
“Trying to go to sleep,” he replies.
“On  top  of me?” He closes his eyes carelessly. “I can hardly breathe, you’re
heavy!”
“Get used to it,” he mumbles.
In truth, I am not protesting because he is heavy, although he is. I am
protesting because I can feel his body pressed against mine, the warmth of his
bare chest burning through my  hanbok  and into my skin, his legs lying between
mine. I can feel his heart beating, his chest rising and falling, his slow
breaths on my skin. Jungkook is the epitome of temptation. But I don’t want to
hurt him any more than he already has.
“Hyung,” he says softly.
“Don’t call me hyung, I say automatically.
“I think I like men.” He does not open his eyes.
“Oh,” I say dumbly. I knew all along, I suppose, but him admitting it is a
different matter entirely.
“I realized when my father was—was beating me,” he says slowly, painfully.
“When I tried to stand up for myself and he wouldn’t let me, and I realized
that what I was fighting to make him accept had...stopped bothering me. That it
felt okay. That it  feels  okay.”
He takes a deep breath. I feel it more than I hear it.
“It’s just…” he trails off uncertainly. “It feels so nice to be full. It’s like
the most wonderful sort of ache. You can’t explain it to someone who’s never
felt it. And maybe it  is  wrong, to look at other men like that...like—like
bodies which can give me pleasure and which I can take pleasure from—but it
doesn’t really feel wrong. And maybe if it doesn’t feel wrong, then it isn’t.”
He opens his eyes and stares off into space. “It doesn’t make our job any less
painful, not really. But I’m sort of happy that it made me realize what I—who I
am. Maybe I’m going to hell for it. But no one bound for hell ever regrets the
actions which cause it.”
He looks at me. “Do you get it?” he asks tentatively.
I nod. That is all that is sufficient.
He exhales in relief. “Okay.” He clings to me like a drowning man clinging to a
piece of driftwood. “Okay.”
I am not quite surprised when I feel lips on mine. My hands reflexively come up
to hold Jungkook’s bare sides as he kisses me and I kiss him back, our kisses
quiet and slow. We have always been desperate. We have always been rushed. But
now, we just take the time to enjoy it, to close our eyes, to lose ourselves.
To make peace with the fact that the world might never accept us, but at least
we do.
And that is more than enough.
I resist the urge to roll us over. I am unused to being on the bottom, to being
the one with weight on top of me. But I will adapt. I will adapt to anything if
it means Jungkook hurts a little less.
His mouth fumbles over my cheek, then my jaw, then my neck. His lips are clumsy
on my throat, his hands uncertain on my chest. I do not mind. It is perfect
enough like this, with the sound of our mouths soft, our breaths unhurried. Our
bodies move over each other, curious and exploring.
Exploring who we are in a world which has never let us.
I keep my hands careful, never straying further up than his sides. Because I do
not want to touch his scars. I do not want to remind him of the pain people
leave on others, the marks of hate we leave on each others’ bodies. We are
alone, but even now, suffering intrudes.
“Please don’t leave me,” he mumbles fervently into my sternum. His hands find
their way to mine, his fingers interlacing with mine and squeezing. “Don’t ever
leave me.”
“Of course I won’t,” I say, shocked that he would even  think  something like
that. I squeeze back at his hands. “I won’t leave you.”
“Everyone does,” he mumbles. “Everyone gives up on me.”
“I won’t,” I say firmly. “I promise.”
He looks at me with tears caught in his eyelashes.
~
“I’m sorry, I know it’s cold,” I apologize hurriedly as I run my fingers over
him and he shivers, his legs trembling. “It’ll get warmer.”
I tip a little more oil into my palm and spread it around. I do not want him to
get hurt. He does not deserve it.
I push the first finger in and he shudders, his legs spreading a little wider.
He is on his hands and knees in front of me, facing the headboard.
At first I was reluctant about taking him, with his back still a heartbreaking
mass of welts and cuts. But he was insistent to the point of begging, and I
cannot be expected to resist when a beautiful boy is pleading with me to please
him.
I hold his thigh to steady myself, the fat and muscle giving way under my
fingers. I curl my finger a few times. It does not take much before he is
pushing his hips back onto my hand. It seems like penetration hardly causes him
any discomfort by now.
I add another finger. I find his sweet spot after a while, and his eyes fall
shut as he gasps, half a moan and half a whimper. His hands clench in the
sheets and he bites his lip.
A few minutes later, I am three fingers in and Jungkook is whining for more. He
mewls when I remove my fingers, but smiles disconcertingly innocently when I
hold his hips and line myself up, nudging his body against me.
And then I am inside him and I lose track of time. I wish I could see his face,
want it so much while I am delirious on the heat and the wetness, but I do not
dare ask him to lie on his back. So I grip his hair while he moans, tip his
head back so I can carefully, carefully lean down to press kisses to his neck,
and take what I can have. Sometimes we must.
He arches his back and moans into the sheets, his hands clenching. He falls
onto his elbows.
I do not have to reach around and touch him this time before he comes. He bites
down hard on his lip, whimpering, and then all of a sudden lashings of white
spurt across his stomach and he cries out at his release.
He clenches. I groan, and before I know it the tightness in my stomach is too
tight and it releases, unravels, explodes in a burst of pleasure. Our skin
slaps together as my hips jerk convulsively. The sound seems distant, far away.
I pull out and collapse next to him. His body sags without anyone to hold it
up, and he slowly crawls towards me, curling up on to of me with his head on my
chest like a child.
I think that there are worse things in life than having someone fall asleep
listening to your heartbeat.
~
The carriage ride back is different, far different from the carriage ride from
Namgyeong. Jungkook sits on the same side as me and falls asleep against my
shoulder, his mouth open slightly and his breath warm puffs against my skin.
His fingers are interlaced loosely with mine and rest on my lap.
I almost feel bad to wake him up when we arrive at the palace. But he wakes up
himself, blinking groggily and smiling slowly as he sees me, and it feels like
the sun has risen in my heart again.
We walk to the palace too closely together, giggling idiotically when our hips
bump together. He follows me back to my room like a puppy and yanks me onto the
bed, kissing sleepily at my lips before his eyes close and he falls asleep.
My slumber takes me with my hands halfway through stroking his hair. My head
lolls back against the headboard and Jungkook stirs once in my arms.
~
Yoongi’s footsteps are brisk as he strides down the hall. He has not seen
Yoongi and Jimin all day. He never sends a servant to call them for their
duties, but rather he prefers to summon them himself. He does not quite know
why.
He has checked the dining hall and the garden, where they are usually to be
found, but they were deserted. On a normal day, he would be irritated. But he
is in a good mood today.
Now he is headed for Jimin’s bedroom. Perhaps Jimin will know where Jungkook is
to be found. They are usually together, after all.
He opens the door without knocking. As far as he is concerned, it is not his
job to knock on doors. It is his job to rule the nation. Knocking on doors can
well be delegated to someone else, and if that someone is not around, then
privacy will just have to suffer.
He freezes when he sees them.
They are not naked. They are not even awake. But they are sleeping together,
not having sex but just  sleeping together , Jungkook’s head in Jimin’s lap and
Jimin’s hands caught in Jungkook’s hair. Their eyes are closed, their breaths
peaceful, and their bodies are relaxed.
The position is so intimate that for a moment Yoongi recoils.
He opens his mouth to snap, to wake them, but then he hesitates. Perhaps it
would not be good to be selfish in this case. Jimin does not have many friends,
if any, and he cares for Jimin, in his own way. He wants him to be happy.
Waking him from a rare moment with Jungkook would not be wise.
So he takes one last look at them, at this idyllic image of comfort and
friendship. He allows himself, for a brief moment, to long for things like that
himself. Then he reminds himself that he has a kingdom to run and closes the
door.
After he has walked a foot away from the door, he pauses and his hands clench
into fists. He wonders whether they would mind if he walked back in and curled
up with them.
No. There is no place in him for tenderness. He was raised to be stronger than
steel, colder than ice, and softheartedness is not what crowned him king.
He  is what crowned him king.
He runs his hands through his hair, a rare gesture of agitation, of
vulnerability. Then he forces his fists to relax and walks away.
 He wishes, oh how he wishes that he did not resent who he has become.
***** Brother Let's Cry, Cry, 울고 말자; 슬프믄 잘 모르지만 그냥 울래 *****
Chapter Notes
     The title is read as: Brother let's cry, cry, ulgo malja; seulpeumeun
     jal moreujiman geunyang ullae
     It means: Brother let's cry, cry, and get it over with; I don't know
     much about sadness but I'm going to cry anyway
     Kinda long, I know. It's taken from Jungkook's solo song in the Wings
     album titled Begin. It's a beautiful song about loving your older
     brother or someone you consider close enough to you to be your older
     brother so much that you hurt whenever they hurt and are sick
     whenever they're sick. I strongly encourage you to give it a listen.
     Anyway, this chapter hopefully clears up the chronological issue to
     do with Yoongi's Taeyoon and Jimin's Taeyoon being the same (they're
     not anymore). If you do find a further problem, please feel free to
     tell me in the comments!
     Also, I know there's a lot to keep up with in this chapter. I'll
     abridge and summarize it in the end notes if you can't remember.
     I'm sorry for the blunder I made in the last chapter and if this one
     is a tad far-fetched...
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“One more.” The midwife squints underneath the blanket and reaches between the
knees of the pallid, pained woman on the bed. The woman already holds a wailing
baby in her arms, hastily dried off by a man whose arms are muscled from
hoisting barrels full of sul.
“One more?” The woman groans. She looks tiredly at the man next to her. “How
will we —” her voice is a tired whisper, but she breaks off in a scream as the
next wave of pain hits. “How will we p-pay for it?”
“The susubori is doing well. But it’s not enough to raise two children.” the
man twists his fingers worriedly, unable to help as he watches his wife writhe
on the bed. “I-I don’t know.”
“I just want it out of me.” The woman’s eyes are sunk deep into the hollows of
her skull after nearly a day of labor, pleading with the midwife. “Please,
halmeoni. Get it out of me.”
That’s not how you think of your child , the old lady thinks, but she has
birthed babies since she was fourteen, knows how the tongue sometimes says
things the heart is not proud of later when its owners are in pain. Her name is
Mrs. Lee, but the couple don’t know that. To most people, she is simply
halmeoni, the old midwife willing to come out at all hours of the night to
birth a baby. “I’ll see what I can do,” she says, gritting her teeth. She holds
a cup to the woman’s lips. “Drink.”
She sips and gags at the bitterness. But her back arches as another crack of
pain rips through her body, scream rebounding around the room, and the
bitterness is forgotten.
~
Half an hour later, the woman holds two identical babies in her arms, both the
same size and both bawling. She pulls open her hanbok and lets them feed, tired
but proud of what she has brought into the world as all mothers are.
She looks up at her husband. “What do we do?” She whispered. "We are not well-
off enough to raise two young men. We only planned for one child.”
“I had no idea,” the midwife murmurs, staring at the mother’s still-swollen
belly. “Twins.”
“I don’t know what to do,” the husband said hopelessly. “I—they—” He reaches
for a baby. It curls its tiny fist around his index finger. His eyes soften.
“They’re both perfect.”
“Do you think...there could be someone willing…”
His head whips up at his wife. “What? What are you suggesting?”
“Perhaps someone could take one,” she says carefully, nervously. “Raise them as
their own.”’
“But they’re both perfect. Identical.” Her husband looks horrified at the
thought. “How could we choose one to keep and give away the other?”
“It has to be done,” the wife argued. “Better one child have enough to eat and
another have an uncertain life then both suffer.”
The husband recoils. “How can you think like that?”
Her eyes grow hard. “Don’t look at me like that. I am being logical. Realistic.
Think about it. How much does the susubori bring in every day? Not enough to
pay for three meals for four people.”
“They’re still babies—they won’t need as much as grown children—and when
they’re grown, the susubori will be bringing in more money.” The husband
fumbled for excuses, desperate to keep both his perfect children. To not raise
one in the loving arms of his own family and throw another away to a risk.
“You’re not thinking this through. That isn’t going to happen.” She shakes her
head tiredly. “Not with the blasted tax collectors raising taxes to keep our
village ‘safe from attack’. They suck the blood out of us, you know that.”
“But how could we do that? How could we give one of them away?” The husband
cradles the small head of one in his hand. It opens its eyes and stares at him
with rapt, wondering fascination in the manner of babies everywhere.
“It has to be done.” The wife steels herself. “We are parents. As parents, we
have to do this. For the sake of our children.”
The husband presses his lips together. They tremble.
“Will you do it? Will we do this together, or will I do it alone?”
The sands of time slip unbearably into the bottom half of the hourglass.
“ Answer me.”
The baby smiles and gurgles.
“I’ll do it,” the husband says, his heart breaking, tearing itself apart.
The wife smiles. She is relieved she does not have to fight in her present
state. “Now we just have to find someone. Who would be willing to take a
newborn baby boy…?”
“I know someone.”
They look at the midwife, who stands, agonized, in the corner, determined to
help give this unwanted child a home.
She clears her throat. “I have friends. My niece’s family. The Jeons, just like
you, but they’re not related to you, and they live some ways away. They cannot
have children—they have been trying—and they would be eager for a son. There
are herbs which would let the wife be able to feed your son.”
Fate sighs and rewrites itself. One of the babies will not be the heir to a
susubori. They will not be one half of twins. They will grow up away from
Busan, with a midwife grand-aunt with a terrible secret.
“It is done, then.” The mother exhales. “Those Jeons will take one of them.”
“Which one?” The husband says desperately, well aware that he has lost control
of the situation and can only watch helplessly.
“I don’t know.” The wife gazes down at them for a moment, then looks up at the
midwife. “You choose.”
The midwife steps forward hesitantly. She touches the babies’ backs, their soft
skin and hair, notices which one looks up to smile toothlessly at her and which
one ignores her and continues suckling at his mother’s breast.
“This one.” She rests her hand on the head of the baby who smiled.
“Alright.” The mother looks at him one last time, then offers him to the
midwife, who takes him carefully. He does not protest as he is pulled gently
from his mother, staring up into the kind, wrinkled face of the midwife.
The husband leads her out. Before she goes, the wife calls out, “Halmeoni.”
She turns. “Yes?”
“Taeyoon,” she says after a pause. “Their names will be Taeyoon.” She looks
down at the baby remaining in her arms and bounces him. “Jeon Taeyoon. The
twins.”
~
“Jungkook?”
I stick my head into his room. It is deserted, the bed unmade and messy. I pull
my head back out and look both ways up and down the hallway. He is nowhere to
be found.
“Jungkook,” I call softly, even though I cannot see him anywhere and he could
not possibly hear me. “Come on. You said you’d show me the constellations.
Dusk’s already falling.”
I reach the junction of the corridor and decide to turn right, in the direction
of Yoongi’s rooms. Maybe he is there, although I cannot imagine why. If he is
not, I will not disturb Yoongi.
As I approach Yoongi’s private lounge, voices drift towards me and I pause. I
look to my right. I can see shadows through the rice paper, silhouetted against
flickering candlelight. I reach out towards the handle of the door and
hesitate.
“No, hold it like this. So your fingers form a half circle,” says Yoongi’s
voice.
“Half circle…?” Jungkook this time.
I slide the door open the tiniest bit and peek through.
Yoongi and Jungkook are sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a table,
with Jungkook looking bemused and Yoongi leaning forward to position his
fingers on a calligraphy brush poised over paper. He makes a small huff of
frustration as Jungkook’s stiff fingers move wrong. “Like this, see,” he chides
gently, putting his own hand on top of Jungkook’s.
He draws back and smiles approvingly at Jungkook’s hand position, which is
finally correct. Jungkook beams.
My heart inexplicably drops to my feet.
“Now try writing...Namgyeong.” Yoongi sits back as Jungkook clumsily dips the
calligraphy brush in a pot of ink and starts carefully writing the first
letter. “Careful on the strokes. Don’t apply too much pressure or it’ll become
all blobby.”
Jungkook finishes the first syllable block and looks at Yoongi hopefully.
Yoongi bites his lip skeptically, then smiles at Jungkook although I can see
that the strokes are distorted and clumsy. The clear mark of an amateur.
“Now try gyeong,” Yoongi encourages.
Much bolstered, Jungkook enthusiastically, heavy-handedly scribbles it out.
“Careful, careful!” Yoongi puts his hands out, laughing softly. “You pressed
much too hard for the last letter. Circles are supposed to be drawn like this,
lighter at the end…”
He takes the brush from Jungkook and writes a perfect circle. Jungkook watches
him, openmouthed. “How did you get so good, Y-Yoongi?”
“Practice.” He hands the brush back to Jungkook. “Now you try.”
Jungkook presses his lips together in concentration and makes an admittedly
much improved attempt. At least this time there is actually a visible hole in
the circle. He looks at Yoongi worriedly.
Yoongi smiles, and my heart plummets at the uncharacteristic tenderness in his
eyes. “Much better.”
Jungkook bites his lip, suppressing a smile, and leans into Yoongi. Surprise
flickers across Yoongi’s features before his shoulders relax and he lets
Jungkook rest his head on his chest. His long, pale fingers brush Jungkook’s
bangs off his forehead.
Jungkook sighs happily, snuggling into Yoongi’s chest, and I see the hard, cold
eyes I have always thought of as dead soften. An unconscious, fond smile curls
his lips as he hesitantly strokes his fingers through Jungkook’s hair. Yoongi,
the ruler of Goryeo, hesitant and shy for Jungkook, a boy who has enough in him
to change the world.
I swallow and close the door. Jungkook forgot about his promise to show me the
constellations.
He forgot his promise.
~
Jeon Taeyoon squints into the bright Busan summer sun.
“Go.” His mother’s words ring in his head. “Go to the Bukgu market. It’s a nice
meeting point in between Busan and Gimhae, and we’ll be sure to get a good
price for our wines there, with all the Gimhae merchants who’ll be wandering
around.”
He hefts the bag of bottles higher on his shoulder, the bottles clinking
against each other, and pats the horse’s neck. It starts off on a trot on the
road to the annual Bukgu marketplace.
~
But he is not the only Jeon Taeyoon headed to Bukgu that day.
Jeon Taeyoon, a villager from the Kim-riddled village of Gimhae, has also been
harassed by his mother until he agreed to walk to the annual Bukgu marketplace
to buy flour. Apparently the flour they get back home in Gimhae isn’t good
enough, and she, as a baker, needs the absolute best top-quality flour.
He was annoyed for a while, but he felt the anger slip away as everything else
does to him, slip away into some unknown part of him. He’s good at that, at
hiding things and taking things in and making peace out of tension. His friends
say he can resolve any fight. His mother says he can’t be trusted for anything.
Everyone knows Jeon Taeyoon has secrets. But no one is willing to go to the
trouble of finding them out.
He hardly knows himself. He’s the sort of person who is comfortable with
silence, with absence, with not knowing something. But one thing is absolute
and one thing is definite: he likes men.
Taeyoon has never had a problem with this. He didn’t know it was wrong until
when he was ten and his friends started joking around, making fun of two boys
when they looked at each other too long, and he realized that it wasn’t normal
to like boys.
He’s good at fading into the background, too. So he let that part of himself
fade away. He feels no particular need to tell anyone. He knows, and that is
enough.
He pushes his hair back and pats the horse’s neck, setting off to Bukgu.
~
“Why are you being so quiet?”
I look at Jungkook. He’s staring at me, concerned.
“Quiet? I’m not being quiet.”
“You are. You’ve retreated into your shell like a snail.”
“Thank you, that’s a very flattering compliment,” I say sarcastically.
“Don’t avoid the question. You’re being quiet.” He eyes me worriedly. “Did I do
something wrong? Did something happen?”
I sigh. I told myself I wouldn’t let it affect me, but it’s hard to pull myself
out of the depression I’ve created. I only realize how much effort it takes to
be happy when I’m down.
“The constellations,” I say finally, reluctantly. “You said you would show them
to me. But you were busy doing calligraphy with Yoongi.”
I try to keep the hurt out of my voice, I really do. But Jungkook hears it
anyway. His eyes widen briefly, and he hits his own forehead.
“I’m so sorry!” he gasps. “I completely forgot!”
“It’s alright.” I draw circles on my thigh.
“But you’re so down.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m just —other things going on.”
“Like what?”
He caught me out there.
“Look, hyung, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, okay?”
“You don’t have to. And please don’t call me hyung. We’re equals.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he continues, ignoring me. He nods to himself. “Once
I get the chance.”
I cast my eyes down.
“Actually—” he smiles hesitantly. “We’re on a bed now.”
I look around at my bedroom. “Yes. So what?”
“So I can make it up to you.” He looks hopefully at me.
“No, don’t—”
He climbs onto my lap. His thighs squeeze around my waist, and I gasp. His lips
find their way to my neck, brushing over my Adam’s apple, and I swallow. “Shh.
I’ll do all the work.”
He guides my hands to his hair and gets to work on my neck, kissing and
sucking. I hardly feel it and feel it magnified all at once, and I stare over
his head, wondering why the thought of proximity suddenly turns my stomach.
His hands slip underneath my  hanbok , roaming over my chest. I like the
warmth, and the touch, but I do not want him to touch me, suddenly. I just want
to be alone and stop contaminating my body.
No . Why am I thinking like this? Sex will not... pollute  my body. I have
never had any qualms about it if it is consensual. But why can I hardly think
about it without wanting to run away and hide in a corner now?
Jungkook mouths at my collarbones, his tongue slipping into the dip between
them, and that is too much. I push him off almost reflexively, and he tumbles
off me, his arms slipping from around my shoulders, his expression confused and
disappointed. My stomach lurches when I notice that there is already a bulge in
his pants. I am not sure whether it is from arousal or repulsion for what it
means.
“What is it?” He blinks, disoriented. “Do you not...want me anymore?”
He has become so used to instant sexual gratification, just like that, in the
blink of an eye. He has become a slave to his body. A sexual creature.
What have we made him into? What has he become? What happened to the innocent
boy he used to be?
Even as I stare at him in horror partly at what he was so easily going to do
and partly at my rejection of him, I realize that even he has changed. The fat
has melted off his cheeks, and his face is more chiselled, more defined, his
chin more pointed. He styles his bangs so that they still come over his
forehead, but do not cover his dark eyebrows.
He even looks at me differently now. When he came, when I talked to him he used
to keep his eyes on my face, my eyes, but now his eyes slide over me, caressing
my lips and neck and body. He looks at me like I am something which can yield
pleasure and which he can bestow pleasure to in return. Like a person, yes, but
also like...a vessel.
“No, I do, I do, it’s just that…” I fumble for the words. “I want...it...to
mean something. When we sleep together. Not just like something to make me feel
better. Like a pick-me-up. That makes it so meaningless.”
He withdraws. “Meaningless?”
“I didn’t mean it that way, I meant…” I have no idea what I meant. There are
some things words are not talented enough to express. “I meant I don’t want it
to feel...insignificant. Without weight.”
Something strange glints in his eyes. “But sex  is  without weight for us now.
Meaningless.” I flinch. “We’re concubines, right? We have to accept that our
bodies are not ours. So why not enjoy them while we can before we head to the
next hell?”
“Jungkook,” I whisper, “don’t speak like that.”
“But it’s the truth.” He smiles oddly, a bitter twist of his lips. “The truth
can be hard to swallow, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s the truth.”
I almost want to back away from him, suddenly. He is not the Jungkook I
befriended. No longer the innocent boy without a single wayward desire in his
body, so easily hurt by the careless flights of fate.
I hardly recognize the man on my bed, hands folded in his lap over his bulging
crotch in an utter lack of shame and back hunched slightly, a display of tense
power waiting to be unleashed. He has no curves now, only sharp, hard edges not
as easily hurt as the soft boy who arrived here.
The court has changed him.
For the worse of the better, I cannot say.
~
Jeon Taeyoon of Gimhae isn’t looking for anyone in particular. But the boy
catches his eye.
Not because he’s particularly handsome, but because he’s irritatingly,
naggingly familiar. Taeyoon frowns, a rare expression for him, as the boy
weaves his way through the crowd. He feels at once as if he has never seen him
before and also that he has known him all his life. A confusing, illogical
oxymoron.
Irrationally, he thinks at first that he’s looking at a reflection. And then he
wonders why. And then it hits him: the boy looks exactly like him.
At the moment he realizes, the boy hefts the satchel on his back and spots him.
His eyes widen.
He rushes over. “What’s your name?” he demands, as if it were a personal
offence to him that Taeyoon happens to look like him. “Why do you look like
me?”
“I’m T-Taeyoon,” Taeyoon stammered. “I don’t know! Why do  you  look like me?”
The boy scowls and grabs Taeyoon’s sleeve. “Come with me. We need to talk.”
“What —?” Taeyoon stumbles, narrowly avoiding falling flat on his face in a
puddle as the boy drags him towards a quiet corner. “Why?”
“Because we have a problem.” The mad face-thief with anger management issues
glares furiously at him. “I’m Taeyoon too.”
~
“They didn’t tell us. How was I supposed to know?”
Jeon Taeyoon of Busan watches the other Taeyoon carefully, measuring him. He
looks remarkably calm for someone who just found out that they have a long-lost
identical twin, which they deduced after weighing the possibilities which would
facilitate a situation where they both had the same age, face, and name. It was
extremely disorientating for Taeyoon of Busan. He wasn’t quite sure who he was
anymore, not with someone else walking around in Goryeo with his name and face.
“Why aren’t you more angry?” he asks.
“Why would I be angry?” The Gimhae Taeyoon shrugs. “We’re identical twins. So
what?”
“What?! My whole world has just been turned upside down, and you say so what?!”
“No point stressing.”
“You’re my brother! I’m yours!”
“Yes.”
He glares disbelievingly at him. He gives him a small smile.
“At least we know we’re not similar in personality, thank God.” Taeyoon of
Busan sits back cautiously. “Or I wouldn’t know what to make of myself.”
“I say we be friends.”
He gives him another look which says clearly, “you’re unbelievable”. He replies
with a smile, as he seems to with most of the things he says. It’s a little
annoying, but Taeyoon of Busan is admittedly kind of impressed.
“Friends?” he says carefully, rolling the word around his mouth. He doesn’t
have many friends. He makes people back home uncomfortable with his silence.
They take it as alienation, hostility, but it’s not. It’s just that there are
so many irrelevant words said already and he doesn’t want to add to them.
Although compared to his almost saintly, calm, patient twin, he’s positively
extroverted.
“I say better friends than enemies.”
He frowns and presses his lips together. He’s been told it makes him look
severe, but he’s really just thinking.
“Okay,” he says finally.
The other Taeyoon smiles his easy smile, as if he has enough smiles to give to
everyone and he isn’t going to be stingy. Taeyoon of Busan doesn’t think he’s
seen his lips in a flat line since he first spotted him; they’re always curled
up at the corners as if he’s laughing at a joke he remembered.
“But,” Taeyoon of Busan says, “we shouldn’t tell our parents.”
Not much reaction from the other. His smile didn’t drop. “Why not?”
“Because if they kept it from us, it means that there’s a reason we shouldn’t
know,” Taeyoon reasoned. His mind spun with possibilities: he was a love child,
he was secretly royalty whom had been given to a peasant family to be kept safe
while assassins hunted for him, he had Japanese blood.
He shrugs. “Okay.”
“But for the record, I think my parents are ours. Not yours. I look like my
father.”
The Gimhae Taeyoon thinks about his own parents, how he’s always wondered where
he got his height and slender frame from when his parents are stocky and short.
“You’re probably right. Mine must be adoptive.” He chews his lip. “Are we going
to meet up, then?” He leans over the table. “Or are we going to bid our
goodbyes once your wine has been sold and I’ve found my mother’s flour?”
“That won’t do.” Taeyoon of Busan shakes his head. “I can’t just leave you like
that.”
“We meet up, then.” He sits back. “But we can’t meet at a midpoint. It would
take us two hours to get here and back, and that’s before adding the time we
talk for.”
Taeyoon purses his lips. “Could you just make the ride once? Next time? I’ll do
the same, and we could figure it out. I can’t think right now. I have to be
back soon, and I haven’t even sold a single bottle.”
“You’re right.” He nods. Practical, sensible. He gets up and stretched. “I have
to find my mother’s flour, too.”
They shake hands.
“Until next time, Jeon Taeyoon,” Taeyoon of Gimhae says with his trademark
small smile.
“Until next time.”
Taeyoon of Busan watches his twin walk across the marketplace until he
disappears around the corner. Only then do betrayal and anger start to churn,
hot and clenching, in his gut. All these years. All these years he’s had a
brother, and his parents have known, and his parents have hid it from him.
He has a little sister. If they gave his twin away, how come they kept her? Is
she even his real sister? Or did they make some sort of twisted trade with his
twin’s adoptive family? Suspicions are growing in his mind, wild assumptions
fed by the poisonous flames of anger.
He pushes his hair back and storms across the marketplace. He may be good at
keeping secrets, but he’s not going to sit back and let his parents hide a part
of his life from him.
~


Jungkook leaves early for dinner after hardly eating anything or speaking to
me. I tell myself I will not follow him, but when he disappears out a side door
and I find myself distractedly dipping my  tteokbokki  in my tea, I give up,
abandon my food, and push my chair back.
I open the door Jungkook disappeared out of and look up and down the hallway.
It is deserted. I frown, considering that maybe I saw wrongly, but then I hear
a high, feminine giggle and my skin prickles.
I tiptoe around the corner. My stomach drops, and I dart back behind it.
Jungkook is caging a slim, young, pretty courtesan in against the wall. He
leans in to whisper something in her ear, and she gasps, a blush rising on her
cheeks.
I doubt he even knows her name.
They lock eyes, and he licks his lips. Then the next thing I know they are
kissing, and Jungkook is cradling her jaw and tilting his head and I can see
their lips moving against each other and I can hear the courtesan making small
whimpers into his mouth and I think I have never been sicker in my life.
She curls her arms around his neck, and he moves in even closer, something I
had not previously known was even possible. Her breasts flatten against his
chest, and their stomachs press against each other as if they want to be even
closer than they already are. She has to tilt her head up to kiss him.
His hand slides up from her stomach and cups her breast. I choke as she catches
his hand, pushing it away, blushing, and whispering something.
He nods, smiling. He kisses her, hard, and then takes her hand and pulls her
down the hallway.
I follow as quietly as possible. Some part of me is repulsed by them, but
another part of me does not want Jungkook to do anything I do not know about.
I know it is invasive of his privacy and a terrible, jealous thing to do, but
my treacherous feet carry me quietly after them, my heart lurching at the sight
of his hand tightening around her smaller one.
They trip into his room. They do not even close the door. Jungkook pushes her
down onto the bed, moving on top of her, and she pulls him down. Their mouths
meet again, and he draws it away to kiss at her neck, mouth at her collarbones
while she moans breathlessly.
But it is clear, after a while, what he is really the most interested in. He
unties the sash of her  hanbok  almost eagerly, fingers deft and quick, and she
pushes it off her shoulders herself.
I see what she has to offer and avert my eyes. It still does not stir anything
in me.
But Jungkook clearly thinks otherwise. He cups her breasts, fascinated,
blinking in surprise when her back arches as he squeezes gently. He bites his
lip tentatively, then leans down and kisses the nipple.
She cries out, and he pulls at it with his teeth, sucking to relieve the sting.
Her hand flies to his hair and tugs on it. He looks up at her from beneath his
lashes, suckling like a baby.
My feet are rooted to the ground in horror. I watch, half-terrified and half-
disgusted, as Jungkook reaches down and slips his hand between her legs. She
throws her head back, groaning his name, and it breaks the spell.
In an almost reluctantly considerate gesture, I close the door quietly so no
one passing will see them. Then I run, run, run, down the hallway and away from
them, tearing into the garden with the tears already slipping down my cheeks,
collapse on my knees under the apple tree and cry for a reason I know not.
~
“I’m leaving.”
“What?” Taeyoon of Busan glances sharply at his twin, caught unawares.
Taeyoon stares pensively into the distance, chewing his lip. “I’m leaving,” he
repeats. “My parents are getting old, and I’m old enough to work. I’m going to
the palace to find a job so I can send money back to them. In the palace, I’ll
be given quarters, and they won’t have to support me. Maybe they can rent out
my room to travellers for a little money.”
His eyebrows draw together in incomprehension. “But...why?”
Taeyoon stares for a long time at him. He shifts uncomfortably. Finally, he
says bluntly, “Some people aren’t born into a family with money, Taeyoon.”
He immediately feels guilty. Blood rushes up his neck and into his cheeks. Of
course the prospect of working at his age would be inconceivable to him. All
his expectations are are that he will take over the susubori when he is old
enough. He cannot imagine going out to work and earn extra money for the
family.
Taeyoon sighs. “Or some are. But mine didn’t want me. So it doesn’t count.”
He feels the urge to say something comforting. He starts to reach across the
table to take his twin’s hand, but he seems distant suddenly, unreachable. He
withdraws his hand. “Taeyoon…”
“It’s alright.”
“I’m sorry if I sound selfish,” he says hesitantly, “but...I only just met you,
and I barely know you. And now...you’re leaving.”
His brother looks regretful for a moment. “I wish I could get to know you
better too. But times are hard. The tax collectors are raising taxes as usual,
less and less people are coming to the bakery in favor of rice…and my parents
are growing weaker. I can’t just stand my and watch our money trickle away. I
have to help.”
“I understand, of course,” he says sadly. “I just...wish things could be
different.”
He gives him a long look, without judgment or enmity.
“Don’t we all,” he says softly.
~
“What’s going on?”
Jungkook has found me. He stands over me. I am sitting slumped against the
apple tree, watching the sun set over the palace wall. He air is turning
chilly, but it cannot compare to the freezing cold in my chest.
I look up at him listlessly. He looks good enough to eas always, hair falling
over his eyes but not in his eyes, lips plump and pink in the light of the
setting sun.
I look back at the sun. When I am in a bad mood, I do not feel like talking.
“Don’t ignore me.” He sits next to me.
“Go away,” I say. “I want to be alone.”
He looks hurt. I cannot find it in myself to care. I am pleased instead, in a
twisted sort of way.
“You don’t mean that.” He leans against me. I shake him off. He frowns. “What
did I do?”
I breathe in quickly through my nose. “You  know ,” I begin quietly, “that
concubines aren’t allowed to have sex with anyone besides Yoongi—”
He sighs loudly. “This is about  that . That girl.”
“You don’t...even....know...her name.”
“You left me unsatisfied. I wasn’t just going to resort to my hand and my
imagination.”
“ I  left you unsatisfied?  I  left you unsatisfied?” I turn on him, going from
depression to incandescent anger in seconds. “You’re honestly making it my
fault that you jumped on me like a wild dog and got hard and so  had  to go
stuff your dick in some poor girl besotted with your looks?”
His face twists, irritation pricking at his features. “I never said it was your
fault. But I had to take it out somewhere.”
“If you’re going to take it out somewhere, go panting to Yoongi.” My hands
clench, ripping out fistfuls of grass. “Not some giggly little idiot who’s
never even spoken to you before.”
“There are things  she  can give me that you and Yoongi can’t,” he says
pointedly. “You don’t understand. You’re gay.”
I dig my nails hard into my palms. I know that well enough. Memories of the
high, exaggerated, fake moans and curves which so entranced Jungkook still drag
their nails down the inside of my head. “Do you not care about what would
happen if someone found out at all?”
“Why are you acting like this? We had sex before and you were fine with it.”
Then the realization dawns on his face and my stomach plummets. “Oh. I get it.
You’re  jealous .”
“I’m not jealous!” I yell.
He presses his lips together. “Well, you’re sure as hell acting like it.”
I feel my lip curl. “Fine. You won’t listen to me. But don’t expect me to have
to watch you being stupid and then come crying to me when they castrate you.”
Anger flashes across his face. “I don’t need you.”
“Really? Tell that to the innocent little boy who came crying to me when he
couldn’t accept that he was the prince’s fucktoy.”
“I am  not  that boy anymore.” His fists clench as well. “And you can’t expect
me to take some vow of celibacy to anyone but you and Yoongi just because
you’re too  bitter  to want anyone.”
“Bitter?  Bitter? ” I let out a cracked little laugh. “Okay. Sure. I’m bitter
as bile, I admit that. You’ve really got me there,  Kookie .” I shake my head.
“Go fuck all the girls in the court if you want.” I stand up. “I don’t care
what happens to you anymore, seeing as you don’t need me. Independent young man
and all.”
Uncertainty appears for a brief moment on his face, and he opens his mouth to
say something, eyebrows drawing together. But I turn and walk away.
Because he’s right. Because the clawing feeling in my stomach  is  jealousy,
and I despise my heart for turning on me like this, for wanting something I
cannot have. For thinking that I can really have a solid relationship with
Jungkook, when really all which happened was that he was feeling needy and I
interpreted it as affection.
No more. No more will I protect him and stand up for him when I’m betrayed just
like that.
~
Taeyoon of Busan isn’t sure whether to be worried or not that the boy he kissed
on a whim is weighing increasingly heavily on his mind.
He wonders what Jimin is doing right now. The shy boy he meets in the fields
every once in awhile. They don’t talk about what they have, this strange
arrangement which allows for kissing and pleasure along with their friendship.
They just stay quiet, walk out into the fields until they’re too far from
everyone else to be seen, and fall against each other naturally like crashing
waves.
He likes Jimin. It’s not exactly a new feeling. He knows Jimin has a problem
with his tendency towards men and doesn’t like to speak about it, but Taeyoon
has always known that he likes men himself, sort of, the fact that he looks at
men longer than women hovering at the edge of his mind. He understands that he
is better at staying quiet than Jimin. That he is better at keeping secrets
from people although Jimin needs reassurance.
Once, in a rare moment, while they lay on the grass and stared at the falling
dusk, Jimin talked about himself for a moment. Taeyoon stayed silent and
listened, because it wasn’t often that he showed what was going on his head,
and Taeyoon wanted to know what he thought of, who he thought of, how he
thought.
“I think I’ve always been like you.” He fidgeted with the frayed sleeves of his
hanbok, avoiding Taeyoon’s eyes. “Like...I’ve always known that I like b-boys,
you know? I’ve always wanted boys more than girls. I’ve always looked at them
longer. But you were the first one who looked back.”
Jimin gave him a hesitating smile, and Taeyoon took his hand then, rubbed his
thumb over his knuckles. Jimin liked it. He could see it in the high flush on
his cheeks.
“I didn’t want to admit it to myself,” he said quietly, watching Taeyoon press
circles into his knuckles. “Because I’m not good at hiding things. Not like
you. And I knew I’d crack if I admitted it to myself.”
He looked at Taeyoon then, his eyes full of pain. “What are we gonna do?” He
whispered. “The world doesn’t accept people like us. It doesn’t like people
like us. How will we live like this?”
He was silent. He wasn’t good with words. He was good at looking into Jimin’s
trusting eyes and thinking about how lucky he was, how lucky he was to be able
to make Jimin press gasps into the crook of his neck as he reached inside his
baji, the pants men wear under their hanbok, how lucky he was to be here with
Jimin alone in a field at dusk.
“We’ll manage,” he said at last. “We’ll adapt. We’ll pretend. Because that’s
what humans learn to do.”
~
If there is one thing I have learned from my sad, sorry excuse of a life, it is
that opportunities come so fast, and are so easily wrecked.
We only have one chance at so many things. Friendships, relationships. But we
ruin them so quickly, so often. How many people are friendless and hurting out
of regret, out of an opportunity missed and wasted because of anger and
betrayal and jealousy?
I watch Jungkook from the other side of the dining hall and take at least a
little satisfaction from the fact that he does not look his usual self either.
He pokes at his food, hardly eating, and leaves early. He no longer sits next
to me or talks to anyone.
That pretty courtesan has tried to strike things up with him again, but he
quite obviously pushed her away. I watched her walk away with tears welling in
her long-lashed eyes.
This whole charade is utterly ridiculous. The only reason we have not smoothed
things over is because of our pride, our egos. And every second spent apart in
frigid silence is more damage dealt to our relationship.
Well, if he is going to be foolish one here, then I suppose that  I  will have
to make the compromise.
I catch ahold of his sleeve in the corridor. He tries to shake me off,
beginning irritably, “I told you, I don’t want—”
He realizes it is me and several expressions flash across his face at once.
Relief at first, brief and so quick I almost think I imagined it. Confusion.
Anger. And lastly, cool hostility.
“What?” he snaps. “Come to lecture me about sleeping around again? I’ll have
you know that I cut things off despite  very  determined efforts on her end
to—”
“No,” I say, summoning all my patience and reminding myself that he is still
angry (although I was never in the wrong). “I came to talk to you because this
whole thing is stupid and I want to be friends again.”
He looks taken aback. “What?”
“Look, we’re really all we have here,” I say slowly, forcing the words out and
stamping down my ego. “Each other. And to just—to drift apart because of some
argument we won’t even remember later isn’t worth our friendship. At all.”
He looks at me suspiciously. “Are you trying to—to fix things? Is this an
apology?”
“It’s not an apology per se,” I say delicately, “but it  is  an admission that
it wasn’t really my business to go off on you because you slept with her,
although of course there  were  risks and it was an  extremely —anyway,” I say
hurriedly when he opens his mouth to argue, “what I’m saying is that this is
stupid and it should stop.”
He eyes me skeptically. “No apologies needed?”
“No. No apologies.”
He chews the inside of his cheek, deliberating, and for one terrible moment I
think that he is going to refuse.
And then he nods and says, “Okay. We were being stupid. But, like, you more,
you know?”
I grin and punch him on the shoulder. “Whatever. Let’s just...not talk about
this again.”
We set off together, headed in the same direction now, talking easily, and I
wonder about all the things which were not mentioned. The jealousy. The things
he said. The things I said. The things we both said, and the truth within them.
But it does not matter, No apologies are perfect, and ours least of all.
~
Jimin shudders once beneath Taeyoon, his hips stuttering. Taeyoon waits for the
familiar warm, sticky rush and the almost desperate groan of relief before he
rolls off of Jimin onto the grass. He stares at the clouds painted pink and
orange by the sunset.
He hasn’t talked to his twin for a long time. He’s lost track of the months.
But he can feel a hollowness inside himself he didn’t realize was paining him
until his twin filled it. United in the womb, separated at birth, only to meet
and part ways again.
It is so unfair Taeyoon wants to yell at the sky for the injustice of it.
Jimin’s chest rises and falls quickly beside him. He eventually reaches for his
clothes, sitting up and pulling them on, but seems reluctant to make another
move. Neither of them want to leave.
Finally, once the light has turned from yellowish to twilight blue and a chilly
bite has made its way into the air, a cold wind ruffling the crops, Taeyoon
gives in and says, “We should go.”
Jimin nods. They stand, shiver a little in the chill of the wind.
Taeyoon pulls him close and kisses him. Jimin clings to him, his broad
shoulders, and only lets go when he pulls away.
They part ways silently, headed in opposite directions, Jimin to his home and
Taeyoon to his, the floor above the susubori. He pushes aside the crops and
finds the dirt path again. He kicks a pebble out of the way, then looks up and
nearly jumps out of his skin as he sees a small girl with thick black hair
hanging over her face standing motionless in the middle of the road. His life
flashes before his eyes, memories of the village boys scaring him with tales of
the little ghost of the girl who haunts the fields and kills you if you don’t
play with her, then he recognizes the skinny frame and button nose. “Hana,” he
snaps. His sister. “What are you doing here?”
She says nothing, staring at him as if she doesn’t recognize him.
“Hey, what’s up with you?” He walks towards her and lifts her fringe to peer
into her eyes, not without an easy brotherly love. They are almost afraid of
him. “Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
She opens her mouth. Her lips tremble. “You kissed him,” she whispers.
Taeyoon’s smile slips. “What?”
“That boy. That Park boy.” She swallows. “You kissed him and then got on top of
him and sort of rolled around...but you kissed him.”
His cheeks burn with mortification and horror that his sister had to see that.
“I—I never—”
“Don’t deny it. I saw you.” She backs away slowly. “I’m telling Appa.”
“No, don’t!” He calls desperately. “Hana. Don’t.”
She turns slowly. “Give me one good reason.”
Nothing comes to mind.
She shakes her head and starts walking backwards, stumbling in her effort to
keep her eyes on him. Out of options, he takes the intimidation route and
warns, “Don’t meddle in my business, Hana!”
“Why? You can’t stop me.”
“You’re not even my real sister,” He spits, flipping from concern to anger in
the blink of an eye. “So why don’t you just shut up, stay put, and forget what
you saw instead of going blabbing to Appa?”
Her eyes widen. “I’m not...your real sister?” She whispers.
“They...they hid him from me,” He mutters mostly to himself, meaning Taeyoon.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they traded him for you or something.”
Her eyes well with tears. “Traded?”
“Don’t tell him,” he threatens, “or you’ll regret it.”
“You can’t stop me,” she repeats stubbornly. “You can’t, you can’t, you can’t!
So stop talking to me like that!”
The prospect of losing Jimin flashes, real and imminent and terrifying, in
front of his eyes. He makes a lunge for Hana, and she stumbles out of the way
and runs.
“Hana!” But he can’t compete with her. She goes tearing through the fields, her
smaller size working to her advantage as she weaves through the stalks and he
is forced to fight his way through, destroying the crops in the process and
cursing as their leaves slap him in the face. He eventually loses sight of her
completely, but he keeps going anyway, the seed of a new idea germinating in
his mind.
He’ll take his things. And he’ll run away.
He’ll find somewhere to go. Perhaps Taeyoon’s adoptive parents would take him
in. He doesn’t like the idea of relying on basically a perfect stranger’s
charity like that, but he witnessed Taeyoon giving his entire lunch of steamed
buns to a few beggar children. He knows that he has a heart bigger than Goryeo,
and an infinite kindness and patience encompassing all living things. He must
have learned his compassion from someone.
They are twins, but so starkly different.
But reality pours over his head like a bucket of cold water as he runs
automatically, feet pounding the dirt road and heart thudding in his chest. His
twin left the house to work, so that they wouldn’t have to support him. They
couldn’t take him in.
But he has to try. He’ll work if he has to. Anything to escape the inevitable,
imminent aftermath.
He slows before he reaches their susubori. He crouches underneath a window and
listens to gauge the scope of his father’s wrath, his father’s enraged yells
carrying out the window and into the street. A neighbor sticks her head out the
window to listen.
“Kissing a boy?” He roars, his words slurred, and Taeyoon can tell that he’s
been at the alcohol again. He’s always worse when he drinks, all his worst
qualities like his bad temper and tendency towards violence magnified and
overshadowing his better ones. “Kissing a boy? I won’t let this stand! This
will not go on in my household! Not under my roof!”
Taeyoon thinks he sees the silhouette of his mother and sister cowering in the
window.
“My own son!” He bellows, and the crash of something breaking reaches his ears.
It sounds valuable. “My own son! Under my very own nose! You just wait until I
get my hands on this mysterious Park boy, whoever this son of a bitch is—”
Taeyoon chews his lip, what his father just said not quite registering or
permeating the shell of numbness around him. He can’t go upstairs and get his
things unnoticed, not while his father is like this. He’ll have to try another
tactic. He very, very quietly opens the door, stepping into the darkened shop.
It’s stupid, unimaginable, walking closer to the epicenter of the earthquake,
but necessary.
“I’ll talk to that useless father of his!” His drunken, furious shouts are
louder still, right above Taeyoon. Taeyoon reaches silently for a water gourd
and what looks like leftovers from dinner wrapped in cloth, stuffing them into
the same satchel he took to Bukgu and carefully selecting the most expensive
bottles of wine he can find. He slides them into the satchel soundlessly. “I’m
sure he knows. Letting his own son carry on like that and—and— infect  mine.”
Taeyoon opens the door. His foot is hovering outside when he hears his father
curse and vow, “I’ll make sure that faggot son of his will wish he was never
born. Expose him in front of the whole village, embarrass him, so he’ll go home
and whip Park son of a bitch until there’s no skin left on his back.”
Taeyoon freezes.  No. Not Jimin. They can’t touch Jimin.
He pauses, caught in a web of indecision. Stay with Jimin and suffer the wrath
of his father? Or leave and escape it all?
His concentration broken, he loses his balance and sets his foot down
carelessly so he won’t fall and create a racket. He remembers for a horrible
moment what’s going to happen before the creakiest floorboard in the entire
building creaks loud enough to carry up the stairs.
He stands stock still, paralysed, hoping against hope that he couldn’t be heard
over his father.
Something else breaks, and he thinks he hears his mother whisper, “Please
stop.”
He’ll miss his mother. She wasn’t so bad.
He has just lifted his foot when a small voice behind him says, “Taeyoon?”
He turns and sees Hana, eyes wide and afraid, standing at the bottom of the
stairs. She must have crept down them without him knowing. Her slight frame
didn’t make a sound on the steps.
“Hana,” he says, fighting to not let the panic make his voice wobble, “please
be quiet and be a good girl, oppa’s just going out for a while—”
“Appa’s shouting about you,” she says, body shaking with fear and shock. She
points above her with a trembling finger and winces as another crash shakes the
house’s foundations. “They’re angry.”
“It doesn’t matter. Just be a good girl and be quiet, don’t tell them I’m here,
and I can leave peacefully—”
Taeyoon knows it is the wrong thing to say the moment the words leave his
mouth. His sister’s eyes widen in panic, and she raises her quavering voice.
“Eomma?” she calls. “Eomma, he’s down here!”
The noise stops abruptly. Taeyoon’s heart rate starts beating frenziedly in
fear. He can already imagine the expression on his father’s face, can already
feel the strikes of the cane—
“Hana?” his mother calls back. Her voice is weak and terrified, but determined
to not sound that way. “Who’s downstairs?”
“Taeyoon,” she says, and Taeyoon’s heart sinks.
Everything’s a blur from then on. His father thunders down the stairs, face red
from alcohol, and grabs Taeyoon, shoving him down the stairs into an
underground room used to store the wines for aging. Vaguely, he admires his
foresight. Down here, they won’t be heard.
A cane appears in his hand and lashes across his body. His father’s face is
ugly, distorted through a blurry wetness which just might be Taeyoon’s tears.
Someone is screaming. It could be his father, it could be him, it could be
both. Their voices are similar. Taeyoon is revolted, suddenly, at how alike
they are.
His father beats it out of him in the end. Jimin’s name. Taeyoon curls up on
the floor, trying to protect himself from the lethal length of rattan, but
nothing can protect him from the red-hot strikes of agony. His father resorts
to kicking him, and he coughs out Jimin’s name along with a spatter of blood,
knowing even as he says it that he will be doomed to hell forever for betraying
him.
His father finally leaves him. Taeyoon curls into a tighter ball, shaking and
sobbing, and the silence and darkness settles around him.
He deserves it. He deserves it all.
~
It is just as well that we’ve made up, because Yoongi calls us into his
quarters that very night.
I squeeze his hand gently before we enter his room, then release it and push
the door open.
Yoongi is lying on his back on top of the covers in his magnificent four-poster
bed, the drapes drawn back and the golden dragons sewn into the fine silk of
his bedcovers baring their flashing teeth at us. Jungkook walks right over to
him and gets onto the bed, curling towards him and smiling playfully. “Yoongi.”
He turns his head and smiles almost fondly. “Jungkook.”
I feel strangely as if I am intruding on a private moment and shuffle awkwardly
towards a plush armchair in the corner, but before I have settled myself into
it, Yoongi calls, “Jimin. Come over here too.”
I push myself back up again, Jungkook tracing a finger over Yoongi’s chest, and
by the time I have sat down on the edge of the bed they are kissing.
I press my lips together and look away. This ordeal will never get comfortable
for me. Kissing is something utterly personal, not meant to be witnessed by
anyone not involved in it. I try not to look at their lips moving against each
other, Jungkook’s plump, pink lips eager on Yoongi’s thinner ones, try not to
listen to the soft gasps Jungkook makes into his mouth.
But then Yoongi pulls me over too, and Jungkook turns his head to kiss me. I
gasp in surprise as he mouths at my neck. The last time he kissed me was before
that whole altercation happened. That whole mess of truths and untruths.
I pull at his hair, and he returns to my mouth, immediately dominating and
commanding. He kisses so differently from when he first came to the court. I
used to have to coax him to open up, persuade him to open his mouth and tilt
his head and move his lips, but now he forces his tongue into my mouth, hardly
letting me breathe as he kisses me hard enough to bruise.
Time flies by, everything soft lips and hard kisses and touches somewhere in
between. Before I know it, our clothes are all in a pile beside the bed and
Jungkook is somehow managing to keep us both satisfied at once. I notice that
we have formed a strange ‘chain’ of dominance: I at the bottom in a position of
utmost submission, Jungkook dominant to me but submissive to Yoongi, and Yoongi
at the very top, presiding over us both.
“Lay down,” Yoongi grunts at Jungkook. He acquiesces obediently, arranging
himself so his back is against the headboard to the bed with his knees bent in
front of him as Yoongi instructs. Then, to me, he says lowly, “Use your mouth.”
Oh, I will enjoy this.
I settle in between his knees and hold them gently apart, kissing at the soft
fat on his inner thighs and relishing his squirms. I nip at the sensitive skin
gently, and his hips jump. I suck to soothe the pain, and he shifts restlessly,
nudging his hips forward slightly. It kills him to have my mouth so close to
where it should be, but not quite.
God, if he exists, was kind to Jungkook. He is shaped beautifully, long and
thick with a slight curve, the vein running down the side deliciously
prominent. He fits in my hand just right, and in my mouth even better.
Finally, he makes an impatient noise and fingers tug at my hair, pulling me
closer. I grin. He broke.
I wrap my hand around his stiff length, lying flushed and leaking against his
flat stomach, and lick at the slit first, the taste of precome salty on the tip
of my tongue. Jungkook makes a stuttering moan, helpless, and I lap it up,
sucking just at the head and then pulling away.
His hand pushes me back down almost immediately, and I relent, taking him
completely into my mouth. He makes a quiet, sighing sound in the back of his
throat. I coat his whole length in spit, my tongue swiping over every spot at
least once, noting his gasp when my tongue drags over his frenulum. Then I
begin to bob my head up and down in earnest, hollowing my cheeks and opening up
my throat, smiling faintly at every groan.
Long fingers suddenly dance over my hips, lifting them up, and I absentmindedly
raise them so I am on my knees like a dog with my hips high in the air and my
knees spread apart slightly. I know it must be Yoongi, but I am not quite sure
what he is planning until something inexplicably warm and wet flicks over my
opening and I choke on Jungkook.
We both moan as Yoongi kisses at my opening, long-fingered hands spreading me
apart. Jungkook’s length slips in deeper than I normally let it, and I swallow
around the obstruction, trying not to let spit dribble out of my mouth.
Jungkook’s hips raise briefly, and he screws his eyes tightly shut, his mouth
falling open and a huffing noise falling out of it. His hand fists harder in my
hair.
I try to suck Jungkook off properly, but it is incredibly hard to concentrate
with Yoongi’s mouth working on me. My legs tremble, and my nails dig into
Jungkook’s thick thighs. Yoongi pushes his tongue inside me, and I moan, the
vibrations racing down Jungkook’s length. His body tenses, back arching off the
bed, and he presses his lips together desperately.
It does not take long, not with Yoongi mouthing at me and leisurely tugging at
my length and I unconsciously sucking harder and harder at Jungkook as my
release bears down on me, my stomach clenching unbearably tight. Jungkook’s
hips jerk upwards uncontrollably, forcing himself deeper, and then a flood of
salty, tangy warmth rushes down my throat. His nails scratch at my scalp. The
breathy, husky whimpers he makes are enough to push me over the edge too, the
tightening in my stomach releasing in a burst of blinding, colorful ecstasy. I
spill onto Yoongi’s covers, the white glistening against the silk, and my knees
finally give way. I pull off Jungkook, falling beside him on the bed with a
thump and curling against his body.
We pant for a while, and I have almost forgotten Yoongi is there until he
shifts and gets off the bed. He comes back a while later with a cloth, wiping
at the splatters of come around my mouth carefully. The expression on his face
is strange: hesitant concern, as if he is unused to making that expression.
Then he turns to leave. But something hits me.
“Yoongi,” I croak. He turns questioningly. “You didn’t come.”
He shakes his head, oddly mute, and moves away.
“Yoongi, come back, you didn’t—”
“It’s alright,” he says, voice low and strangely husky. He pulls on his clothes
with his back to me.
“But—”
He shakes his head again and walks out. The door closes quietly behind him.
I half sit up, puzzled at his sudden change, but Jungkook pulls me back down,
murmuring, “It’s okay.”
“But we didn’t earn our—”
“It doesn’t matter. Go to sleep.” He sounds pleasantly exhausted. “Aren’t you
relieved, anyway, that he didn’t make you…?”
The unsaid words hang, clear and unequivocal, in the air.
“I suppose,” I say reluctantly. I lay back down slowly.
Outside the room, Yoongi straightens up, taking his ear away from the door,
bites his lip briefly, and walks away.
~
Taeyoon wakes up still curled on the floor of the dusty, windowless room. He
coughs and makes the mistake of stirring, gasping in pain as his whole body
protests in the form of aches and stings and pain.
It comes back to him immediately. Running into Hana as he walked back home
after seeing Jimin. His father’s drunken rage. Being beaten and left in the
room.
He grits his teeth and pulls himself up with the aid of a nearby rack of
bottles, nearly crying out at the pain as his skin stretches over the cuts and
bruises on his body. He can’t stay here. He is not going to live in a house
where he knows he is hated, forced to cower every time he sees his father under
the threat of a beating.
He will run away.
He meets no one as he ascends the stairs to his room although he doesn’t bother
being quiet—his body hurts too much for him to tiptoe. He coughs, his chest and
stomach aching even from that simple gesture, as he staggers painfully towards
his room and takes the few belongings which are actually useful to him.
He doesn’t turn back as he leaves his bedroom for the last time. He thinks he
sees a flash of long black hair around the corner. Hana, darting out of his
path and hiding.
He doesn’t pursue her. He never wants to see her again. He never wants to see
any of his family again after they let his father whip him like a mule.
Downstairs, he reaches for the satchel he dropped last night, but then a
strange, floaty numbness overcomes him. He lets go of the satchel and the
things he took from his room; they thud onto the floor.  I won’t need these,
he thinks calmly, slightly delirious as the pain eases and everything all of a
sudden makes sense.  I won’t need these where I’m going.
He walks straight out of the building for the last time, not looking back at
the home he has known all his life. He feels strangely light as he walks out of
town towards the forest with only the clothes on his back. People recoil and
whisper when they see him. His face must be bruised.
But he is utterly at peace. In a moment, everything will be over. He hardly
feels their horrified stares.
He reaches the forest and finds the path, walks with his back upright and arms
straight beneath the trees stretching over him and forming a protective canopy.
Everything will be alright,  their rustling branches whisper to him.  You’ll be
alright.  After about ten minutes’ walking, he hears the faint sound of rushing
water.
He smiles. Nearly there.
He walks off the path, feet sinking into the thick grass as the trees grow
thicker and closer together. But the sunlight never wavers. It dapples his
skin, warms him, fills him with confidence to do what he’s about to do.
Gradually, the trees start petering out until he emerges from them altogether.
He reaches the cliff and looks down at the boiling whitewater river far below,
crashing and beating itself against the jagged, merciless rocks. He doesn’t
feel scared, as he has on the other occasions he has dared to stand this close
to the edge. He feels complete, the most certain of himself he has ever been in
his life.
He upturns his face to the sunlight and smiles through his dry and split lips.
No one will miss him. No one will know. No one will find him.
It is hardly a conscious decision.
He steps off the cliff, heart soaring wonderfully as his body falls. He is
flying, flying, flying. He can feel it already, can feel the eternal release
from pain and life, can practically taste it. So this is what happiness feels
like. So this is what it feels like to be beautiful.
He spreads his arms and laughs.
He closes his eyes before he hits the rocks.
Chapter End Notes
     So basically there are two Jeon Taeyoons, identical twins, one in
     Busan and one in Gimhae. They meet, but the Gimhae Taeyoon leaves to
     the palace to find work, where he meets Yoongi. The Busan Taeyoon
     meets Jimin afterwards, is beaten, and commits suicide.
     More on the Gimhae Taeyoon and Yoongi's relationship developing in
     the next chapter.
     Sorry for the long wait! You can rant at me on Tumblr as long as
     you're prepared for a rant back at kpop-fanficarchive.tumblr.com
     ;)
***** Blooming Innocence, Blooming Pain *****
Chapter Notes
     Smut interspersed with fluff, but most of the time some weird
     cocktail of the both of them XD
     I don't know about you guys, but I'm in a Christmassy mood already.
     It's not even Halloween yet but I spent like an hour looking up the
     perfect Christmas desktop background and determinedly postponing
     writing until here I am at 11 p.m. posting the chapter. It's kind of
     a mess. I'm sorry.
     Ah...Christmas. I love Christmas. Red and green. Gingerbread. Snow
     (which I've never seen before, incidentally). Baubles. Carols. I
     never get tired of listening to carols and jingle-y songs. BTS doing
     special Christmassy things like releasing a Christmas version of Run
     last year (good lord, the time flew by) and treating us to Jungkook
     frolicking around in leather pants and antlers and a black shirt
     which shows off far more of his collarbones than is appropriate,
     sonny (I'm lying, I could eat him alive when he looks like that)
     along with a Jikook Christmas song collab. My mom telling me Santa
     Claus isn't real and I'm not getting presents as a result. Curling up
     with a good book and hot chocolate and turning on the air conditioner
     so I can pretend it's snowing outside. Good times, good times.
     Anyway I'm getting all nostalgic on you. Eurgh, just read this
     horrible chapter before I start crying.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“I haven’t seen you around before.”
Taeyoon, formerly of Gimhae and now of the palace stables —the only Jeon
Taeyoon left in the world now, although he has no idea—looks up in surprise. A
pale teenage boy with short black hair contrasting sharply against his white
skin stands right inside the entrance of the stable, watching Taeyoon with an
unreadable expression on his face. Taeyoon can tell immediately that the boy is
nobility. His robes are clean, made of expensive silk, almost glowing amidst
the grunginess of the stables. Taeyoon wipes the sweat off his brow and leans
on his shovel. He feels irritable. He’s been breaking his back all day
shovelling manure all day, his face and hands are filthy, and now this blue-
blooded boy comes in looking down his nose at him.
“I could say the same for you,” he says, annoyed and just managing not to snap.
He’s stuck here for God knows how long, after all. It wouldn’t do well to get
into a member of the court’s bad books, even if he’s only a teenage boy.
Knowing the spoilt manners of most of the people in the palace, he’ll go
scurrying right back to his parents to report Taeyoon at the slightest hint of
disrespect.
“I don’t come here often.” He looks around and wrinkles his nose. Taeyoon feels
a surge of dislike for him. “It’s filthy.”
“I’m sure it is.” He resumes shovelling savagely, resisting the overwhelming
urge to toss the horse manure at the boy’s finely woven robes. “Compared to
your nice cushy room in the palace.”
He doesn’t reply to this. “My mother told me to ask you whether the palamino
has been groomed,” he says.
Taeyoon glances at the said horse, eating hay from the rack. “Um...yes,” he
lies. In truth, he was supposed to groom it about an hour ago, but quite
frankly that horse has kicked him into the wall of the stable before and he for
one doesn’t enjoy being flung into a hard, solid wall of wood. He preferred
shovelling manure.
The horse glares out of the corner of his eye at him, eyes shining with equine
malice. Taeyoon looks away hurriedly.
He realizes the boy is still standing there, looking useless. I don’t see a lot
of children or teenagers around here except if they’re working, he thinks. And
this boy is obviously nobility.  “Who are you?” he asks, curious despite his
irritation.
The boy smiles for the first time, but it isn’t a proper smile. It strikes
Taeyoon as rather bitter, resentful even. “Never you mind.”
Taeyoon turns away, losing interest and rolling his eyes. He goes back to his
shovelling.
After a few minutes have passed in silence, he looks up to shake his hair out
of his eyes and nearly gets a heart attack. The boy is perched on a straw bale
barely a few feet away from him. Taeyoon thought he’d left. He can’t fathom how
he’d managed to get up there so quietly.
“What are you still doing here?” he snaps.
The boy doesn’t respond for a while. Finally, he says with an odd note of
honesty in his voice, “I don’t want to go back to the palace.”
Taeyoon bites his lip for a moment. He sounds strangely vulnerable, honest
even, and he’s reluctant to make him go back to the palace if he doesn’t want
to. The note in his voice is so  human  that even Taeyoon has to look past his
deeply-ingrained distaste for nobility and stop bothering him about it.
He knows it’s petty. He doesn’t care.
“Whatever,” he says sourly, and he goes back to shovelling.
At that moment, the man who was forced to take Taeyoon into the stables charges
in. His name is Donggun. Taeyoon grits his teeth and shovels harder, pretending
not to notice that he’s there. His back still stings from last night. He had to
throw away one of his good shirts because it got torn open.
Maybe he could have passed off the bloodstains as spilt wine or something…
“You!” he barks at Taeyoon. Taeyoon’s proud of himself; he doesn’t flinch.
“Have you groomed that palamino yet?”
No point lying. “Not yet,” he mutters. “I’ve been busy shovelling.”
The boy, still sitting, unnoticed, on the hay bale, makes a faint affronted
noise, realizing that Taeyoon lied to him.
“Get to it, boy!” Donggun looms over Taeyoon, not spotting their audience, who
looks like a pale, faintly offended ghost floating on top of the bale of hay.
“That horse isn’t going to groom itself, that monster...no idea why the empress
likes it so much…”
“Excuse me,” the boy says delicately.
Donggun spins around, face contorted in fury at being interrupted, but then he
sees the boy and his face goes slack. His eyes widen briefly.
“Oh, it’s—it’s—” he stammers, then bows in grovelling servitude. Taeyoon
abandons his shovel to frown in confusion at him. “My apologies,” Donggun
mumbles, and he backs out of the stable, still bent nearly double in a
ridiculous bow.
Taeyoon looks accusingly at him.
“What?” he says coolly.
“What just happened?” he says suspiciously. “And who are you really?”
The boy smiles bitterly. “I’m Yoongi.”
“Yeah, but...what—who are you? Why did he bow?”
“Noble’s son,” he says shortly, and Taeyoon gets the distinct feeling that he
doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Are you just gonna sit there and watch me shovel shit myself?”
“Yes, actually,” he says, and he smiles an actual smile which makes his nose
wrinkle up and his eyes disappear. It’s surprisingly sweet.
He’s actually rather good-looking, definitely the best Taeyoon’s seen around
this infernal palace...maybe he has a thing for pale, arrogant twinks…
He blushes hard and finally gives up on shovelling, walking to the hay bale
Yoongi’s sitting on to reach for one below it. Yoongi’s legs dangle carelessly
above his head, Taeyoon’s face is almost between them, oh God why does he think
like this he’s just met the boy…
The hay bale finally shifts, and Taeyoon yanks it out in overwhelming relief.
He takes the pitchfork and swings the hay into the depleted hay rack of the
palamino’s stall—it goes through hay like nobody’s business. He’s hoping the
hay will distract it.
He glances around at Yoongi. “How would you like to witness the indignity of a
man getting kicked onto his ass by a horse?”
Yoongi grins. “I would like it very much.”
“Then let the show begin,” Taeyoon says grimly.
He tiptoes into the stall, armed with the grooming brush, carefully sidling
over to the horse. It’s currently occupied with the new hay, but as Taeyoon
eyes its practically dinner-plate sized, lethal hooves, he doesn’t doubt that
if he gets behind it it won’t pass up the opportunity to kick him back to
Gimhae.
He takes a deep breath. He can do this. He can do this. It’s just a horse. He
can do this.
The brush touches the horse’s coat.
It spins around and glares at him in pure malice, eyes rolling in rage,
snorting in fury. Taeyoon is sure that if horses could roar, this one would be
roaring right now.
The horse charges, and Taeyoon throws the brush out of the pen—no way in hell
is he coming back in to retrieve it—and makes a run for it. He prances around a
steaming mountain of manure, ducks and wheels around as the horse’s foreleg
whips out, almost spraying his brains over the wall, and vaults over the closed
gate in one smooth motion.
Unfortunately, he lands in an exceedingly slippery pile of newly shovelled
horse manure. He slips and flails his arms, windmilling them desperately, as
his shoes skid in the fresh manure and he falls straight onto his ass.
There’s no winning. If the horse kicks him, he falls on his ass. If he escapes,
he falls on his ass.
“Shit,” he mutters darkly and aptly, glowering at Yoongi, who has nearly fallen
off his hay bale in laughter.
~
“Get under the table,” Yoongi murmurs lowly to me as we approach the dining
hall for dinner.
“What?” I say, utterly taken aback.
“Under the table, in front of that chair.” He points at it. “Jungkook will be
sitting there.”
“Wait…” A nasty suspicion is dawning on me. “You want me to…?”
Yoongi grins.
“Does he know?” I ask, mouth suddenly dry in excitement. I swallow. That won’t
do.
“He has no idea.”
I bite my lip and nod.
There aren’t too many people in the dining hall yet, but to be safe, I pretend
to drop a fork and duck under to get it. It would look odd if I were to just
crawl under the table like that, anyway.
I sit  cross-legged and wait. It’s good I’m not particularly tall, or it would
be uncomfortable. At my height, it’s quite roomy under the table, really, and
the top of my head just barely brushes the ceiling.
Slowly, the dining hall fills up. I watch  hanbok  skirts swish and take their
places in chairs around me. I perk up when I hear Jungkook’s voice.
“Yoongi…” A pause. “I mean, my lord...do you know where Jimin is? We usually
come to dinner together, but I can’t find him anywhere.”
“Not to worry, he has informed me that he will be joining us shortly,” Yoongi
says smoothly, and I giggle softly. “But for now, please take that seat.”
I watch Jungkook’s legs slide into the seat I am positioned in front of. He
sits down, and I grin like a fool in anticipation.
After a moment, Yoongi clinks his teaspoon against his cup and says, “Let the
dinner begin.”
The usual dinner chatter takes over as the courtesans begin to talk and dinner
is served. The plain white  hanbok -clad legs of the servants bustle around as
they carry around the dinner trays and dishes. Jungkook sits on his hands and
kicks his legs nervously like a little child, narrowly missing kicking me. He
must be looking for me.
“Jungkook,” a female noble says suddenly, and Jungkook startles, pulling his
hands out from under him and clutching the armrests instead. I grin. The coast
is clear. “How are you adjusting to life at the palace?”
“It’s good, noona,” he says formally. “Of course, it’s not what I’m used
to...much more luxurious...but I adapt. The prince is good to me.”
“And where were you from before?” Her voice is kindly. I would say that she is
around 45.
“Busan.”
“Ah, but didn’t the prince just make a visit there a while ago?”
“Yes,” he says slowly. “He was gracious enough to allow me to accompany him.”
“And I suppose it was nice seeing your hometown again?”
“...yes.” Only someone who knew him well would detect the faint fall in his
voice which means he is upset. It is present now.
She moves onto another subject. “And I’ve been meaning to ask you for some
time, what  do  you do to your hair? It looks so soft.”
“O-oh,” Jungkook stammers, and I can imagine him blushing. He likes praise,
perhaps a little more than is proper. “I just...wash it? But I don’t comb it
after while it’s wet, I comb it before while it’s still dry. I find that it’s
less frizzy that way.”
I jiggle my leg impatiently, waiting for the interruptions to be removed.
“Interesting,” the noble says thoughtfully.
“Jungkook,” someone cuts in, and I recognize Yoongi’s cool tones. “Is Jimin
here yet?”
“No.” He sounds worried. I feel touched. “I don’t know what he’s doing.”
“Maybe he is being held up. You know how he can be sometimes.” He raises his
voice. “Now, if I could tell him something right now, I would tell him to  get
a move on.”
A moment of silence from Jungkook. “Okay?” he says, confused.
I jump and reach out. That is a blatant cue if ever I have heard one.
“Has Jimin given you that salve for sore muscles as I told him to, Jungkook?”
“Not yet, no—” he breaks off as I move his  hanbok  aside and hook my fingers
in the top of his  baji.  “What—?” He struggles, trying to push me away and
look under the table at the same time.
“Jungkook, if I could give you some advice, I would tell you  not to look down
or you  would not enjoy  the journey,” Yoongi says quickly, the emphasis
glaringly obvious.
He stills. “What?” he asks, bewildered.
“And that the  people we miss  are often in the places we  least expect them to
be ,” he says, voice heavy with implication. If even Jungkook fails to catch
the hint by now, I will honestly give up on the boy.
“Are you saying—” I struggle to pull his pants down, met with little
resistance—damn him and his thick thighs (or not). “Are you saying that Jimin—?
Is right under—?”
“He  could  be,” Yoongi says delicately, “but operating on the completely
hypothetical situation that he is, I would tell you to lift your hips so he can
get on with what he’s doing, not look down, and try to enjoy it.”
Jungkook lifts his hips obediently, and I pump my free hand in victory. “But
we’re—there’s so many people here,” he says in something approaching panic.
“Exactly. It’s all down to you to control yourself, Kookie. Jimin  is  awfully
good with his mouth, after all…”
I beam at the praise and take Jungkook’s cock in my hands, licking at the tip.
Jungkook makes an odd noise above me and shifts, hips twitching.
“Is he…” he breaks off in a small grunt as I take him into my mouth.
“How...long…?”
“As long as it takes. Again, it’s all up to you.”
I dig my tongue into the slit, trying to get him to loosen up, and his cock
twitches unmistakably against my tongue. It’s almost pathetic how quickly he
gets hard.
And so it begins.
“Don’t go all quiet, Jungkook, people will think there’s something wrong,”
Yoongi drawls, clearly having the time of his life. “You’re looking all
strained.”
Jungkook’s fists clench in his lap as I suck at the head, smiling as a tangy
drop of precum trickles out. I haven’t even touched the shaft yet.
“I’ll...talk,” he says with some difficulty. “What...would you like to talk
about?”
“Hmm. Do you think I should deal with the spies from Dojeon or some troublesome
bandits on one of my trade routes first?”
“Ban... dits ,” he gasps. I tug at his heavy balls as I lick up and down his
shaft as if it is the most delectable ice cream.
“Why?”
“Because...because…” he seems to have trouble collecting his thoughts as I suck
him down my throat and swallow as hard as humanly possible. Something drips
down my throat. It tastes faintly salty. “The b-bandits...pose a bigger threat.
You already have the sp-spies captured.”
“Interesting point. And how do you think I should deal with these bandits?”
“Death, I sup-pose,” he grits out as I pull of with a pop and suck lightly at
his balls, running my tongue over the seam between them. The vein of his cock
throbs against my cheek. I am thoroughly enjoying myself. “Or if you’re feeling
generous, m-my lord, you could let them off with a…warning.”
“Another question: should I choose to import Chinese tea or Japanese?”
“I would say Chinese, because our relations with the Japanese aren’t so— ah!”
he cries out. I have begun bobbing my head up and down, tightening my throat
and swallowing as often as possible, fisting and pumping whatever I cannot
reach.
“What were you saying, Jungkook?” Yoongi sounds as if he is smiling.
“Relations aren’t so g-good right now?” His voice is oddly high-pitched and
sounds like a question.
“However, the—ah, here is the second course. Soup.”
“Yes,” Jungkook says slowly. I flatten my tongue against the vein and drag it
up and down slowly. I love having him stuffed down my throat, falling apart in
my hands. “S-soup.”
“Does this meat taste off to you?”
“No, it tastes... fine ,” he moans. I am spasmodically closing and opening my
throat around him. I can feel him, hot and throbbing, in my mouth and against
my tongue.
“You haven’t even taken a bite out of it.”
“That’s right,” he says, distracted. “I— unh.”  His hips are rolling, slowly,
into my mouth, making his cock slide in and out. The drag of his heated skin
over my tongue is addicting. “But I’m sure it tastes good.”
“These vegetables, however,” Yoongi continues, deliberately ignoring Jungkook’s
growl of protest as I pull off his length and grip the base of his cock hard to
stop him from coming. We’re not even into the third course yet, but his slick
precome has leaked all over my chin, and a string of saliva stretches between
my lips and the flushed head of his cock. “These vegetables are almost
certainly wilted.”
“They’re a tiny bit limp, yes,” he grits out, his hands tangling in my hair and
pulling my head back onto his cock. I smirk and resume my too-slow licking up
and down the shaft. “A little yellow at the edges.”
“Perhaps it is due to the fact that the rains have not come for weeks.”
“ Yes,”  he hisses as I let my teeth scrape over his sensitive skin. I take him
down my throat again, and his hips jerk reflexively. “Haven’t come. Yes.”
“I hear that it is worse in Incheon, however,” Yoongi says, audibly amused.
“There has been no sign of rain for many months.”
“In- deed .” Jungkook’s voice is shaking now, erratically pitched. He holds my
hair, keeping my head in place, as his hips thrust into my mouth. I moan as low
as I can for the effect of the vibrations and watch in satisfaction as his
stomach muscles clench and unclench helplessly.
“If that is the case, then I suppose the kitchen staff cannot be blamed.”
He makes a low grunt of assent. His hips jerk faster.
“Not yet, Jungkook,” Yoongi chides. “Wait at least until the third course
comes.”
I grip the base of his cock again, halting his release. He growls in
frustration and reluctantly releases my hair, his hips stilling.
“And when the grass is orange the cows come home.”
“Yes,” Jungkook replies promptly and dutifully, still sounding rather put out
at my second denial of the dinner, clearly not processing what he just said.
“You’re not listening to a word I say, are you.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” I moan again, wanton and dirty, and his chest rises and
falls quickly, his cock throbbing, agonized, deep in my throat. “He  is  really
good with his mouth.”
“He is,” Yoongi says with something akin to pride in his voice.
“Third course!” Someone announces, and the sound of clinking plates and dish
lids being lifted off drifts towards me.
“Duck,” Yoongi says approvingly. “Very nice.”
“Can I—?” Jungkook says hopefully in a pleading voice. “You said at least until
the third course—”
“Oh, very well,” Yoongi sighs. Presumably to a servant, he says, “Bring me a
brush and a piece of parchment.”
Jungkook needs no more encouragement. He grabs my hair again, practically
shoving me onto his cock. I groan as loudly as I dare, and he moans desperately
as the vibrations make his cock throb again.
“Quiet, Kookie,” Yoongi scolds. “We don’t want people finding out about our
little game.”
I smile and take him so deep I nearly choke until my nose hits the line of hair
below his navel and swallow hard. It cannot go any deeper, but he thrusts his
hips anyway, a gratifying stream of quiet, muffled moans issuing from above me.
I wish I could see his face. I content myself with pulling at his balls,
squeezing slightly.
His hips jerk one last time, and then he comes hard as a result of all the
edging and denial, tangy, sticky streams of white spurting into my mouth and
down my throat. “F-fuck,” he whimpers above me, barely audible over the noise
of the dining hall, but it’s there nevertheless. I suck harder, imagining his
soft, plump lips forming that dirty, dirty word dripping like sin from his
mouth. His hands fist harder in my hair. “Oh, Jimin,  fuck .”
I hold onto his thick, delicious thighs, greedily swallowing every last drop of
his release. I do not particularly like the taste, but I have come to associate
it with pleasure.
The gong rings, and dinner is over. The chatter begins to fade as people push
their chairs back and stand up, leaving the dining hall. I give Jungkook’s
softening cock one last suck and pull off with a pop, wiping the back of my
hand over my mouth. Jungkook slumps in his chair, panting.
Yoongi passes me a slip of parchment under the table.
Come to my bedroom after this for your reward.
~
Ever since the failed monster-horse-grooming episode, Yoongi and I seem to be
on better terms.
I still don’t quite know who he is, and why he lives in the palace—it’s
uncommon for the children of nobles to live in the palace unless they are
royalty. I’ve asked him before whether he’s blue-blooded, but he only gave me a
vague “sort of” in reply.
It’s alright. He keeps his secrets and I keep mine.
But we are both grateful for each other’s company, all secrets aside. I don’t
have anyone my age to talk to around the palace who’s willing to fraternize
with a lowly, grubby stablehand, and I get the feeling that Yoongi doesn’t have
many friends either. He seems lonely all the time, with the air of introverted
silence hanging around him that people develop from having no one to talk to
from a young age and being alone most of the time.
He also has strange gaps in his knowledge. Sometimes I’ll be in the middle of
telling a story, and he’ll interrupt me to ask what a perfectly mundane thing
is.
“So he waded into the lake,” I gesture animatedly, “and from the shore, we saw
him start to—”
“Lake?” Yoongi echoes blankly.
I pause to stare at him. “You know? Lakes? Great big bodies of water?”
He blinks.
I frown. “Haven’t your parents ever taken you to swim in one?”
“I can’t swim,” he says slowly, a little reluctantly.
“No one’s ever taught you?”
“No.”
I bite my lip. “So you’ve never been to a lake?”
“Never seen one.”
“That’s sad, Yoongi.”
He is silent for a long time, and I suddenly regret it. It seems like a sore
subject.
“I’ve never…” his voice sounds odd, choked and too high. He coughs. “I’ve never
been out of the palace.”
“What?”
“I’m not allowed.”
I stare in utter incomprehension at him. “By...whom?”
“My mother.”
“That’s way too overprotective.”
He sighs. “That’s my mother for you.”
“You couldn’t sneak out?”
“No. Believe me, I’ve tried. But the guards stopped me. And I…” he hesitates.
“I don’t think I could survive. In the outside world. I’ve been confined to the
palace for so long and I’ve never even seen beyond the walls. I have the finest
education, the best tutors, I learn about geography and the countries of the
globe, I know more than any villager, but…” he kicks at the ground. “I’ve never
even seen the ocean.”
He sounds heartbroken.
“I’ve never seen a body of water bigger than the fake river which runs through
the palace,” he says, voice dwindling and becoming quieter and quieter. “I’ve
never been in a place more crowded than the throne room. I’ve never been to a
forest, or a village, or a market, or fields. I’ve never seen any animals
besides horses and birds.”
I think about all my dearest experiences—running through a field at night with
my arms spread, wind and stars in my hair, leaving a trail of laughter behind
me—swimming in a waterfall and ducking under the cool water, the joy I felt
when I realized I could see all the way to the bottom and I could stay
underwater as long as I wanted as long as I was calm enough to forget to
breathe—shrieking with mirth as my father pushed me in a wheelbarrow down a
hill in autumn, feeling infinite, feeling powerful, feeling eternal as I tore
towards the bottom—and think about how Yoongi has never known anything like
them, probably wouldn’t even be able to recognize the settings I’d describe if
I told him.
I cannot imagine anything sadder.
“I’m sorry.” But it doesn’t seem to cover the fact that he’s missed out on
life. We both know it.
“It’s okay.” He sighs. “When I become a legal adult, I’ll leave this palace and
go into the outside world. And I’ll learn. I’ll have to.”
I look at him.
Perhaps he is even lonelier than I thought.
~
I push open the door and look towards the bed expectantly, but no one is there.
I look around, confused, and see Yoongi reclining in his armchair like always
before spotting the work of art on the floor.
It is Jungkook, kneeling, blindfolded with what looks like the sash of his
hanbok  and gagged with a knotted length of cloth. His hands are bound behind
him, as are his ankles. He is completely naked. His cock twitches against his
stomach, flushed and hard. He must be getting aroused off the position of
submission.
His feathery black fringe falls over the blindfold as he looks around wildly at
my entrance, hearing the door open and close but unable to see me. He says
something, but the gag blocks it. It sounds like a question. He growls in
frustration and pulls futilely at his bound wrists, straining towards the
sound.
In this position, he is utterly vulnerable and helpless, completely at my
mercy, the bonds restraining him from moving or seeing or making a sound. I
have never seen anything more tempting in my life.
“Relax, Jungkook. Jimin is here,” Yoongi says, amused.
I walk closer to Jungkook and touch his bound wrists. He jerks horribly at the
unexpected touch and tries to say something around the gag. It sounds like my
name. “You’re good with knots,” I say softly to Yoongi.
“Thank you.”
I trace a finger lightly down Jungkook’s jaw and down the column of his neck,
over his frantically bobbing Adam’s apple and down his chest. I spread my hand
over his stomach. “Beautiful,” I murmur.
Jungkook flushes in pleasure, as always melting into putty at the first sign of
praise. He tips his head up towards me.
“I can have my way with him?” I ask Yoongi.
“Whatever you want,” he answers.
I kneel, kissing at his neck, my lips sinking into his soft, heated skin. He
moans through the gag, sounding muffled and desperate, and tips his head back,
baring his neck. I hold the back of his head and suck at his Adam’s apple. It
bobs erratically under my lips.
I lower my head, kissing at his collarbones and sternum, then make my way to
his nipples. He jolts and keens as I take one into my mouth, sucking and
flicking my tongue over them. They are already erect and pebbled.
Jungkook has the most sensitive nipples of anyone I have ever met. I pinch the
other one as I lick one, and he arches his back, whimpering. Before, he used to
hold in his noises and only make a few grunts at most, but he seems to have
given up on the pretence, reverting to letting his moans and whimpers issue
unabashedly and freely. He is a wonderful submissive.
“Kookie,” I mumble, kissing at his stomach and enjoying the way the muscles
tense, “you’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
He nods and makes furious, enthusiastic muffled sounds through the gag.
“Good enough to suck me off?” I smooth my hands over his inner thighs, savoring
the way the tendons flex and then relax, bending low to kiss and nip at the
thin, sensitive skin. He yelps as my teeth clamp down and his hips shift
restlessly.
“What was that, Kookie?” I stand again, my mouth leaving him, and he whimpers
wordlessly in protest. “Don’t want my mouth on you?”
He nods his head vigorously, trying to force words through the gag. I untie it,
depositing it on the bed, and he gasps, “I want it.”
“How much?” I slip my fingers into his mouth, and he looks, sightless, up at
me, his tongue laving over my fingers and sucking on them. I suppress a shiver
of arousal. His mouth is warm, wet, perfect.
I pull them out, and he gasps, “So much.”
I slap my cock against his cheek, and he turns his head blindly to the side,
trying to press his lips against it. I hiss as his mouth makes contact, wet
with spit. “You’re such a slut.”
He whimpers and chases after my cock as I draw away. I trace it over his lips,
and he sticks his tongue out, licking the head.
“Do you wanna come, Kookie?”
“Y-yes,” he keens pleadingly.
“Suck me off and I’ll let you come.”
“Yes, hyung,” he says obediently. For once, I do not mind the formal title. All
is fair in love and war. And sex.
I nestle the head of my cock against his lips, and he opens his mouth eagerly.
I slide in. He lets me slip down his throat, sucking at my length greedily. I
am glad that he cannot see my face as I bite down hard on my lip to prevent
making a sound. His mouth is perfect, his throat even better, fluttering and
closing tightly around me as he swallows.
I tangle my hands in his soft, feathery hair and clench my fist tight. He
moans, the vibrations racing like pure ecstasy through my body. He likes the
burn on his scalp.
“Moan like the slut you are,” I grit out, bucking my hips purposely, and he
gags, whimpering. “I thought you were innocent when you first got here, but
you’re so fucking needy.”
He whimpers again, a helpless blush rising on his cheeks. He swallows around
me, throat squeezing mind-blowingly tight, and I hum in pleasure.
Encouraged, he takes me down even deeper than he should, and I bite down hard
on my lip, wishing it could be his skin between my teeth. My hips jerk a
little, and he chokes suddenly, struggling to breathe.
My senses catch up to me and I pull out immediately, the loss of tight, soft
warmth and wetness rather disappointing. “Don’t hurt yourself,” I reprieve. He
coughs weakly, panting. He bit off more than he could chew. Or took down more
than he could suck, depending on how you look at it.
I kneel and distract him with more neck kisses—he loves them, the skin warming
beneath my lips as a pleased flush appears on his neck and he moans—as I bend
to untie the restraints tying his ankles together. “Stand up, Kookie,” I say
softly, and he struggles to get to his feet without the use of his hands, legs
wobbling unsteadily.
I guide him over to the bed, which he climbs onto clumsily, still unable to see
anything because of the blindfold. I sit down cross-legged and he tumbles into
my lap, eagerly winding his arms around my neck and pressing our lips together.
We kiss for a while. His lips are irresistibly soft. They fumble a little, as
if he is unsure how long I will allow him to kiss me. The power Yoongi handed
over to me is heady, dizzying. So this is what it feels like to have authority.
But I know it could not last forever. I am not made for power. That is why
Yoongi is ruling the kingdom and not me, I suppose.
The warmth and softness of his body in my arms is intoxicating, the soft
snuffles he makes in the back of his throat like the most beautiful music. I
feel almost drunk on him, on his scent and skin and sounds, until I notice
Jungkook shifting every few seconds in a particular way and realize he is
rolling his hips against my thighs, trying to seek friction.
I pull away. “What’re you doing?” I ask, tapping his hips.
He freezes.
“Only a slut would hump me like that, Kookie,” I say softly. “And sluts need to
be punished.”
He shakes his head frantically.
“Lie down over my lap,” I order.
He arranges himself clumsily, ending up with his nose touching the bedcovers
and his feet dangling over the edge of the bed, thighs, butt, and lower back
remaining in my lap. His heart thuds crazily against my left thigh.
I trace my fingers over the creamy skin of the backs of his thighs, following
the curve where they meet his ass. Jungkook shivers and pushes himself a little
closer to my hands.
The first slap is completely without warning, not too hard, but Jungkook’s
muffled yelp is exquisite. I admire the red mark forming on his skin, the
jiggle travelling down over his thighs.
I bring my hand down again, harder this time, and Jungkook jolts, pressing his
face into the bedcovers in shame as he moans. There is a definite flush over
his ass now, fading into the creamy white, so, so pretty. My hand descends
again and again, and I feel Jungkook’s teeth digging into my thigh as he
muffles himself in my skin.
If you were to tell me a few days ago that I would find myself in Yoongi’s bed,
with Jungkook laid over my lap, panting and moaning, while I spanked him like a
naughty child, I would be horrified. But it is all different once it actually
happens. Jungkook actually likes it, whimpers and pushes his hips up higher and
closer to my hand if I wait too long between spanks, his cock throbbing and
twitching against my thigh.
The little masochist.
Finally, I start feeling bad and relent, leaning down to press my mouth to his
reddened, flushed skin. His chest rises and falls rapidly, and his wrists tug
at the restraints. I catch a glimpse of the skin beneath and see that it is red
and chafed raw.
“Get up for me, Kookie,” I say softly, and he straightens up onto his knees.
I untie his hands and tie them in front of him instead, making sure to tie them
a bit looser. I direct him to rest his body on his elbows and knees. I tap his
hips. “Hips up.”
He raises them eagerly, legs trembling a little.
I reach for the oil.
~
“I got you this.”
Taeyoon brings his hand out from behind his back and shows Yoongi the small
glass globe in his hand. Yoongi stares at it, confused, before taking it slowly
and watching the tiny white flakes swirl inside it like snow and settle on a
miniature painted model of the village, mesmerized. He shakes it gently, and
the snow flutters hypnotizingly down again.
“What is this?” Yoongi looks up at Taeyoon.
“It’s a snowglobe. I got it from the market.”
“This...this is the village?”
“Yes. That’s Namgyeong.”
Yoongi inspects it hungrily, turning it from side to side and studying the way
the soft spring sunlight falls on it. Around them, the cherry blossom trees are
in full, defiant, beautiful bloom. A pale pink blossom drifts down gently and
settles in Yoongi’s black hair. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“What’s this?” he points.
“It’s a waterwheel.”
He stares at him uncomprehendingly.
“It...um...channels water. It turns in real life, see, and the water from a
river or whatever is carried up and over, and sometimes it turns a windmill…to
grind wheat into flour or that sort of thing…”
“Oh.” He squints. “And this?”
“That’s...a wheelbarrow. For transporting things. Farmers use them a lot.”
“Oh.” He looks upset that he doesn’t know all these ordinary, mundane things,
suddenly, and Taeyoon wonders belatedly whether it was a good idea to get him a
birthday present which would only remind him of his separation from the outside
world.
Thank goodness he has another one for him.
“I, um...also got you this.” Taeyoon fumbles behind his back on the bench and
his fingers close around a slightly wilted bundle of stems. He withdraws a
rather messily and inexpertly arranged bunch of flowers, as varied in color as
he could find them. The forest has a shocking lack of flowers in any color
besides white, pink, or somewhere in between (typically Korean), so Taeyoon was
forced to brave a thicket of thorns before stumbling upon a life-saving meadow
of red, purple, and yellow flowers. The white flowers which look as if they
have blood spreading through the white in their centers make up the outer rim.
He thought Yoongi would like them. The whole bundle is held together with a
thin, leafy vine which he hopes looks artistic because he didn’t have any
string which wasn’t either grubby or frayed. “I took a forest path on the way
to the market and picked a few and thought you might like them.”
He says it casually, as if he just happened to stumble across a field of
prettily colorful flowers and not as if he’d hunted over what seemed like the
whole of Namgyeong for those delicate blue flowers with the tiny petals even
he’s never seen before. He hopes they aren’t poisonous.
Yoongi reaches out from the flowers slowly, and Taeyoon nearly thrusts it at
him, babbling nervously, “But they’re kind of wilted...and smell a little like
horses…because I kept them in the stables for a bit, you know...”
“You  smell a little like horses,” Yoongi murmurs, and Taeyoon laughs.
Yoongi’s face lights up as he takes the flowers. Taeyoon thinks it’s because he
at least recognizes some of them. He smiles a genuine smile as he turns them
around, examining them as if they’re a work of art.
It occurs suddenly to Taeyoon that giving flowers is something a lover would
do, and his face reddens inexplicably. But it’s too late to take them back, and
Yoongi doesn’t appear to have thought of his gift that way, so he doesn’t want
to bring it up and call attention to it.
He shouldn’t even care, anyway. They’re just friends. It’s perfectly normal to
give your friend who’s never so much as walked in a forest before a bunch of
flowers. Your platonic, completely straight friend…
Taeyoon shakes his head a little. Just because he’s gay and Yoongi is the only
eligible male he’s interacted with for months doesn’t mean that he should fall
in love with him.
But he watches a gummy, adorable smile spread across Yoongi’s face and wonders
whether it means anything that he never looks at girls when Taeyoon’s around.
~
Jungkook muffles his cries in the pillow, his hips shaking as I slide in. I
grip his hips, keeping them steady, and fall back into the normal rhythm. I
nearly forgot what it was like to take Jungkook. Lately it has been the other
way around.
I almost wish I had thought to put the gag back into his mouth just so I could
listen to what they sounded like garbled by the knotted cloth. He moans into
his forearm and cock smearing precome on his own stomach and dripping onto the
bedcovers, and I think,  What a waste.
I look around for Yoongi.
To my surprise, he is not even touching himself. He is sitting in his armchair
with his legs crossed over the other, fingers twisting in his lap, and he is
watching us with an odd expression on his face. Almost wistful, resigned, as if
he knows he cannot join in.
But that does not make sense. We are his concubines, not the other way around.
I feel almost sorry for him. He looks the most human I have ever seen him.
“Yoongi,” I say softly, and he looks at me, a little surprised. It occurs to me
suddenly that I am as comfortable around him as I am with Jungkook, but I
hardly know him. The strangest paradox.
“Yes?” He hurriedly smooths over his expression and his face returns to its
normal unreadable mask.
“Could you come here?”
He blinks. Then he gets up, smoothing down his already impeccable  hanbok,  and
walks over to us. Jungkook looks around, trying to gauge Yoongi’s position and
missing by a few feet.
I pull out of Jungkook, who lets out a rather pathetic whimper at the loss, and
rearrange our bodies so my head is pointing away from the headboard. I take
ahold of Jungkook’s hips and pull him down slowly. He bites his lip and smiles
a pleased, warped kind of smile as he sinks down onto my cock, placing his
hands on my chest and bouncing up and down like a kid in a candy store.
I gesture at Yoongi, who comes closer hesitantly. With some instruction and a
little awkwardness, we end up with Yoongi kissing Jungkook, who is evidently a
little confused that he is riding me but still has someone kissing him, but
takes it happily anyway. Yoongi’s knees are splayed on either side of my head,
and I lick my lips at the sight dangling above me before taking him into my
mouth.
He gasps a little, spreading his legs further so he can sink more into my
mouth. It probably looks like some bizarre form of torture, my body trapped
under two others, but I could not possibly be more content. I love giving
pleasure as much as I love receiving, and in a position where we are all giving
and receiving, I am in heaven.
I am hardly surprised when Jungkook is the first to give, not after Yoongi
reaches out and tugs at his flushed, neglected length dripping pearly precome
onto my stomach. He makes these small, huffing moans like sobs, clenching
maddeningly around me, and then he cries out, nearly a scream, and comes.
Most of it lands on his own chest and Yoongi’s. But some splatters on my
stomach. I reach down and run my finger through it, putting it in my mouth for
a taste.
He sags, body tightening agonizingly around me through the aftershocks,
whimpering into Yoongi’s mouth. I decide  that it is high time for Yoongi to
find his release too and dig my tongue hard into his slit, thrusting my hips
languidly up into Jungkook’s as I chase my own. Yoongi gasps and spills down my
throat without warning, nails raking down my chest and leaving behind red
trails.
Yoongi is mostly silent. He likes expressing himself with his nails more than
his mouth.
I close my eyes as I come, enjoying the fireworks display behind my eyelids and
the throbbing bursts of pleasure between my legs, dizzying and intoxicating.
Jungkook moans in oversensitivity as the warmth floods him. The best release I
have had in years.
We lay there for a bit, all panting, my cock going limp in Jungkook and
Yoongi’s softening on my tongue. Then Yoongi makes the first move, pulling out
of my mouth and standing up, and we all remember what we are doing and start
cleaning up.
I reach to untie Jungkook’s wrists. He flexes his fingers in relief, and I
wince at the chafed skin. Then I reach behind his head to untie the blindfold,
guilt flooding over me as I see that his cheeks are wet with tears.
“Oh, Kookie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean all that…” I mumble, fussing over him and
trying to kiss the tears off his cheeks.
He just shakes his head, blinking away the tears and smiling weakly in
exhaustion at me. He looks thoroughly fucked out, hair messy from being pulled
and lips swollen and eyelids drooping, swaying tiredly as if he is going to
collapse at any moment. My own exhaustion hits me with the force of a gale, and
I blink hard, turning to Yoongi and asking blearily, “Can we sleep here?”
He jumps, head whipping around in the act of pulling on his robes, then says
uncertainly, “Um...yes. Sure.”
I bite my lip, then go over and wrap my arms around him. He looks like he needs
it for some reason.
The awkwardness is palpable. I have never hugged him before. It appears to take
him some time to realize that he is being hugged, and he squeezes back a
little, patting my back like a grandma. He is still warm despite his cold
exterior. His body is softer than Jungkook’s. Human.
I kiss the fat under his chin, as always my favorite part of his body, taking
him by surprise, then go and curl up under the covers with Jungkook, not
bothering to put my clothes back on. Jungkook wriggles back against me,
slinging his leg over my hip and pulling me as close as humanly possible. He
buries his face in the crook of my neck, squirming until our chests and bellies
are pressed flat against each other, even our crotches. He smiles sleepily. He
loves cuddling.
It would be so easy for me to close my eyes and go to sleep, but the very
careful silence of someone trying not to make noise blares in my ears, and I
look up. Yoongi is hovering around the far end of the room, looking unsure,
with only his  baji  on and his pale chest still bare.
I beckon him over, and he pads uncertainly towards the bed with his bare feet.
Using very determined sign language on my end, I manage to get him to lie down
so his chest is pressed flush against Jungkook’s back, his chin resting in the
crook of his neck. Jungkook actually lets out a small moan of contentment,
trying to throw his head back onto Yoongi’s shoulder and pull me closer at the
same time. He must feel like a sandwich, but he is still trying to twist closer
to both of us as if his dearest wish were to wrap himself in us. He can never
resist human contact, the wonderful, warm feeling of skin on skin.
Yoongi meets my eyes over the blissful, euphoric expression on Jungkook’s face
as he finally stops trying to pull us closer, shutting his eyes and falling
asleep immediately. Yoongi’s expression is unmistakably grateful over
Jungkook’s soft, snuffling breaths.
I smile tiredly at him. And I close my eyes.
Chapter End Notes
     DO check out Glass Diamonds by GinForInk. My instant reaction to
     finding a damn good fanfic is spreading the word so we can all
     fangirl together (or fanboy), and Glass Diamonds is a damn good
     fanfic. Oh God, I was already dead but the three works of fanart at
     the end killed me further.
     I honestly love you guys and the ARMY fandom. Some people might think
     fanfiction is "deviant" and "unhealthy", but it's a lovely, safe
     community of us all sharing our love for the boys and helping each
     other grow positively as fans. If I could give you all hugs and sing
     Christmas carols with you and do embarrassing stuff with you I would.
     Trust me.
     Until the next chapter!
     Love
     Author-nim
***** What They Don't Understand *****
Chapter Notes
     Wow, it has been a longggggggggggggg time since I've updated this!
     I took a month-long break to, you know, write a book. I'm sorry. I'm
     a terrible person.
     Anyway, this chapter is completely narrated from Taeyoon's point of
     view, and it's basically just to illustrate how Taeyoon and Yoongi's
     relationship grew.
     I've started to imagine Taeyoon as Taehyung at this point. I don't
     think it's a coincidence that the first syllables of their names are
     so similar—it was probably my subconscious trying to tell me
     something. By all means, imagine Taeyoon as Taehyung too.
“We were twins,” Taeyoon says, staring at the night sky, the stars twinkling
far above him, with Yoongi’s familiar, steady, comforting presence beside him.
Yoongi’s stretched out on his back, arms behind his head, skinny legs flung
out. His and Taeyoon’s toes just touch. “We realized we were twins, and
then...I had to leave. And now I have no idea what’s become of him.”
The great thing about Yoongi living in the palace and Taeyoon being a
stablehand is that they can stay up as late as they want. Taeyoon asked him
whether his notoriously overprotective mother would mind, but Yoongi said
bluntly that she wouldn’t care if he flung himself off the palace roof as long
as he never left the grounds.
Which Taeyoon, personally, doesn’t understand, but they aren’t friends because
he asks questions.
It’s probably far enough into the night now to be considered morning. It’s a
little chilly, but it would be a lot colder if Yoongi hadn’t somehow managed to
get his hands on blankets. For that reason, they’re lying on a comfortable,
expensive, finely-made feather-stuffed quilt laid over the grass, the grass
stains it must have by now, Taeyoon doesn’t even want to  think  about, and
they’re sharing a thick, warm blanket. They huddled closer together so it would
cover all of their bodies. Taeyoon can feel Yoongi’s body heat radiating into
his skin even though they’re not touching. For such a pale, ethereal, fragile-
looking person, he gives off a surprising amount of warmth.
Yoongi is silent. He’s a good listener. Taeyoon likes the fact that he doesn’t
barge in when he’s telling a story, doesn’t try to say “I’ve been there” or “I
know how that feels”. Because no one really knows what it feels like to be in
your shoes, no one but yourself. We’re unique, human beings, and the world
appears differently to us all.
“I wish I knew him better.” Taeyoon closes his eyes briefly, regret pulsing
coldly in his chest. “I wish I remember how he smiles.”
“But you have the same face,” Yoongi says softly.
“But everyone smiles differently,” Taeyoon counters. “I wish I had the time to
—to do useless, mundane things with him, things that no one thinks about,
things that we would have been able to do as brothers if we hadn’t been
separated. Like laughing at stupid jokes. Like arguing for no reason. Like
teaching each other things, like...like...I would have wanted to teach him how
to recognize the constellations.”
“Teach me instead,” Yoongi says.
Taeyoon looks at him.
“Okay,” he says.
~
“That’s the Southern Cross?”
“No,  that’s  the Southern Cross...how could you be so blind, honestly?”
“Every star in the night sky forms a cross,” Yoongi grumbles. “I could pick
literally any four stars, and they would form a cross.”
“But it wouldn’t be the  right  cross. For the last time,  that  one’s the
Southern Cross.” Taeyoon takes Yoongi’s long-fingered, pale hand, positions it,
unresisting, so it’s pointing with his index finger, wriggles closer to Yoongi
and puts his head next to him so they’ll have the same point of view, and
points with Yoongi’s hand. “That. That one. There.”
“That?” Yoongi draws a cross between the four stars.
“Yes.” Taeyoon exhales in relief. “And you can tell which direction south is
by…”
He explains the whole process to Yoongi, who finds it way too complicated and
seems personally offended by its complexity.
“So there’s two other stars now? The Pointers? And I have to make sure that at
the point where imaginary lines sprouting from the end of the Southern Cross
and the exact middle of the Pointers meet, there’s  another  line which goes
straight down to the horizon, and that’s south?”
“Yup,” Taeyoon says, beaming. “Easy, right?”
“No! Not easy! Not easy at all! I’ll just bring along a compass!”
“But what if you don’t  have  a compass?” he asks wisely.
Yoongi rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Teach me more constellations, lowly servant.”
“Okay,” Taeyoon says easily. He kind of likes it when Yoongi bosses him around,
although he’ll never admit it. “Look over there. Orion. The hunter. He’s really
easy to spot because of the belt.”
“What? You mean those three stars in a row over there?”
“Yes! If even your abominably small eyes can spot it, then that means it’s
really  obvious.”
“Shut up,” Yoongi hisses without malice. Taeyoon chuckles and pinches his
cheeks. He kind of likes pissing Yoongi off too.
“He’s called the hunter because the stars look like a man in a tunic holding a
shield and sword,” Taeyoon explains. “Look. Can you see it?”
“I think so. That sort of curve is the shield...right?”
“Yeah. And that star over there, in his belt—” Taeyoon’s still holding Yoongi’s
hand; he uses it to stab at said star. “It points to the brightest star in the
night sky: Sirius.”
“This one?” Yoongi points at a feeble star miles off.
“No.”
“This one?” he indicates a moderately shining star.
“No!”
“This…” he begins uncertainly.
“No! You’re really crap at stargazing, you know that?” Taeyoon points at
Sirius. “There.”
“Oh. The bright one.”
“Hence ‘the brightest star in the night sky’,” Taeyoon says sarcastically.
“Which I said three seconds ago.”
“Shut up.”
“This one here is the Big Dipper,” Taeyoon says hastily, before Yoongi can hit
him. “It’s part of a bigger constellation called Ursa Major. The handle of the
Big Dipper forms the tail of Ursa Major, which is a bear. And you can tell
where north is from the edge of the pot of the Big Dipper—the edge furthest
from the handle.”
Yoongi sighs heavily and wrenches his hand out of Taeyoon’s grip. “I give up.
When am I ever going to use this, anyway?”
“If you ever escape the palace, you’ll need to know what direction you’re going
in, right?”
“If  I ever escape this place,” Yoongi says quietly. His lips tighten. “I’m
just lying to myself. I’m never going to escape this place. I can’t leave.”
Taeyoon looks at him. Is he going to tell him why he’s here now? Why he can’t
leave? Why he’s the only blue-blooded teenager around? “Yoongi?” he asks
tentatively.
Yoongi looks at him, blinking fast. Taeyoon isn’t sure, but he thinks the
moonlight reflects on the tears in his eyes. “I’m a prisoner,” he says, voice
choked. “I have no freedom. I’m stuck here, stuck here forever.”
Taeyoon pushes himself up onto his elbows, trying hard not to frown in
confusion and instead attempting to school his features into a sympathetic
expression, encouraging him to open up. “Yoongi...is there something you’d like
to tell me?”
He takes a ragged breath, sounding like a sob. “I wish…”
And then he remembers something, and his vulnerability slides away, replaced by
the customary, usual coldness.  No,  Taeyoon thinks.  I was so close to
unravelling the mystery.  He reaches out to touch Yoongi, but he stands with a
violent motion, the blanket sliding off his narrow shoulders. He swipes at his
eyes, turning away. “Goodnight, Taeyoon.”
“But...hold on, wait a minute…” Taeyoon says desperately, scrambling to follow
him.
“Goodnight,” he repeats, the loneliness and resignation in his voice as acute
and definite as drops of blood on white skin. Then he turns and walks quickly
back into the palace, shivering in the chill but walking tall as if he thinks
that he deserves it.
~
“Take the horse, boy,” Donggun yells at Taeyoon as he passes the door to the
stables. “The palomino. Take it to the front courtyard and harness it to the
carriage. The queen and the prince are waiting, so get to it!”
Donggun looks around, presumably to check whether Yoongi is listening, then
exhales in relief and hurries away.
Taeyoon blinks. He’s never met the prince. If the rumors are right, he’s about
his age. Taeyoon’s kind of curious as to what he looks like. Whether he’s a
decent person, or already spoilt and haughty.
Probably the latter. In his experience, being royalty does not exactly do
wonders for one’s sympathy.
Then he comes back to earth. The palomino?  The palomino.  How in hell’s name
is he expected to be able to lead that vengeful beast all the way to the front
courtyard while still retaining all his bones in their proper condition,
preferably intact?
He turns his head slowly towards its stall, stomach heavy with dread. It eyes
him nastily, eyes seeming to shine red in aggressive suspicion.
~
“It’s...here,” He pants, struggling to pull the beast towards the intricately
decorated and sumptuous carriage in the middle of the courtyard. He managed to
slap a noseband on it while it was distracted by sugar cubes, so it can’t bite
him, although clouds of steam and mucus spout regularly out of its flared
nostrils as it snorts in fury. Its legs aren’t restrained, though, so Taeyoon’s
performing a funny sort of dance to keep out of the way of four lethal pistons
of muscle and bone. One of the nobles asks another in a hushed tone whether
he’s a dancer. “The bloody thing’s here.”
“Rig it up, then,” a servant says to him as he hurries by carrying a cushion,
motioning to the carriage.
Damn.  He was hoping someone else could do it. He drags the kicking, thrashing
monster to the front of the carriage and grabs the bridle in his fist, hastily
tying the ropes to the carriage and yanking them tight. He doesn’t want the
thing breaking free and running off, because if it does, then it’ll be on his
head.
Just as he tugs the last knot tight, the servant hisses, “What’re you doing
still hanging around the carriage? The queen and the prince are coming
already!”
He jumps, panicking. “What? What? Where do I go?”
He huffs in exasperation and grabs Taeyoon’s elbow, pulling him into a line of
servants beside him. “Bow when they get here,” he says under his breath. “Don’t
make eye contact.”
He stumbles into line, ducking his head and trying to covertly peer at the
queen and prince, whom he’s never seen up close before. The queen is wearing a
veil and black robes to honor the husband she never stopped mourning. Her eyes
are shadowed beneath the thin fabric of the veil, smudged underneath with dark
circles caused by the strain of ruling a kingdom, and ruling it well. The
prince walks beside her, an oddly familiar silhouette in beautiful dark blue
robes.
The moment they are close enough for them to see the gold embroidery on their
hye,  the line of servants bow. But Taeyoon’s frozen. He can’t believe his
eyes. Because it’s Yoongi walking beside the queen, scowling against the
sunlight and flipping the hair out of his eyes, and the two starkly different
sides of his life are so hard to reconcile that for a moment he just blanks
out.
What’s he doing walking beside the queen? There must have been a mistake of
some kind. Where’s the prince?
He half-starts forward, intending to catch at Yoongi’s sleeve, ask him what in
hell’s name is going on, but the servant beside him grasps his elbow and yanks
him down into an awkward stoop. He makes a forced bow just as the queen’s eyes
sweep over him.
Yoongi is lagging behind. The queen is helped into the carriage, and Taeyoon
straightens up immediately, hissing, “Yoongi!”
Yoongi turns and sees him, a brief look of surprise and panic crossing his
features. The other servants look at him like he’s crazy, half in shock and
half in terror. “What are you  doing?”  one hisses. “Do you want to get us all
killed, calling the prince like that?”
“What—what  prince?”  he splutters. He waves his hand at Yoongi dismissively.
“He’s not the prince.”
Yoongi’s eyes dart between Taeyoon and the servants, looking as if he’s stuck
between a rock and a hard place and trying to decide whether to stay in the
frying pan or jump into the fire.
“Have you gone mad?” The servant whisper-yells at Taeyoon. “That’s the prince,
you idiot! Keep your head down and shut up!”
“No,  you’re  mad.” He looks at Yoongi, laughing a little. “You’re not the
prince. Of course not.”
Yoongi hesitates, a battle of indecision and guilt raging on his face. “I…” he
falters. “The thing is…”
The smile slides off Taeyoon’s face slowly. “What?”
“I...I’m…” He kicks at the ground. “He’s not...wrong.”
“You’re...the prince?” Taeyoon frowns hard. “No, no, that’s not right. You
can’t be the prince. You’re...Yoongi. You’re my friend. Not the savior of the
kingdom.”
Yoongi smiles a bitter little smile. “Think, Taeyoon. What do you know about
the prince? He was born on the ninth day of the third month. He is fatherless.
He has never been seen by the public, because he has never been outside the
palace.”
“Yoongi!” the queen’s voice calls from inside the carriage. He ignores her.
“My birthday is on the ninth day of the third month,” he forges on
relentlessly, tearing down everything Taeyoon thought he knew about him. “I
only have my mother, no father. I have never been allowed outside the palace.”
“You’re...not…” Taeyoon stammers. “No, you can’t be…”
“I am.” His jaw clenches. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But I didn’t think
you’d want to make friends with the prince, and you’re my only friend.”
“Where  is  that boy?” the queen says impatiently.
“You’re the prince?” Taeyoon whispers. “Min Yoongi? Heir to the kingdom?”
He looks at him, and for the first time, he sees the weight resting on his
shoulders. He understands the tired look on his face, the expression beyond his
years he has sometimes, as if he can see all the troubles and pains of the
world, and he’s expected to fix them, too. He glimpses the unimaginable strain
of impending responsibility and suffocatingly high expectations which have been
placed upon him, and the toll it’s taken on him.
“Yes,” Yoongi says.
“Min Yoongi, if you don’t get in here this moment, I’m leaving without you!”
“I’m coming, Mother.” He turns and makes to leave.
“Wait!” Taeyoon cries. “Where are you going? How long will you be gone? You
can’t just walk away from this!”
“I’ll be back in a fortnight. We’ll talk then.”
“A...a  fortnight?”  He splutters. “You can’t just sit on this for months
without telling me and then let me find out like this and leave for a
fortnight!”
“I’m sorry, but this is how it goes.”
“Yoongi,” he pleads, as a last resort. “Don’t...don’t leave me.”
He stares at him. He cups his cheek briefly, thumb resting on the corner of his
mouth. Then he lets his hand drop. “I really have to go.”
“But—”
“I’ll see you.”
He hovers for a tortured moment.
And then he runs to the carriage, boosting himself up, and the coachman cracks
the reins. The palamino begins to trot away and the carriage rattles out of the
gates. Taeyoon is powerless to stop it as suddenly, it’s gone.
~
Yoongi returns two weeks later to a changed Taeyoon.
“I’ve thought about it,” Taeyoon says, sitting on a hay bale after Yoongi
walked into the stables as he knew he would. “About you being the prince and
all.”
“And…?” Yoongi asks cautiously.
“And I’ve come to the conclusion that I won’t treat you any differently,”
Taeyoon says, enjoying the fact that he can look down on Yoongi from his
elevated height atop the hay bales. “Because you’re my friend. And you being
the prince shouldn’t change that.”
Yoongi’s good at hiding his feelings, but Taeyoon can see from the way his
shoulders sag slightly that he’s relieved. He comes over and struggles to get
himself up on the same hay bale Taeyoon is sitting on. After a moment of
watching him scrabble to dig his fingers into the tightly packed straw, Taeyoon
relents and gives him a hand up.
Yoongi flops onto the top of the hay bale like a stranded fish. “Ugh,” he
grunts, wiping away a bead of sweat which is creeping down his forehead.
“Physical activity.”
“Poor little princeling,” Taeyoon says unsympathetically.
Yoongi glares at him and moves as if to get off. “I  will  get off this hay
bale.”
“No, you won’t,” Taeyoon says easily. “You can’t get down without my help.”
Yoongi considers this. “Damn,” he finally mutters. “You stack them so high.”
“Just doing my job, princeling.”
Yoongi whips his head around to scowl at him. Taeyoon leans back and closes his
eyes, unfazed. He’s used to it by now.
“Why do I keep you around?” Yoongi asks him. “I should have you beheaded for
committing treason against the prince. And castrated. Castrated, then beheaded.
And fed to the dogs.”
“You know you love me,” Taeyoon replies, eyes still closed. He doesn’t see
Yoongi’s tortured expression.
“Yes,” Yoongi says softly. “I do.”
~
Taeyoon is put out when Yoongi doesn’t come to see him a few days later.
They have a routine. Taeyoon wakes up and starts shovelling shit in the
stables. Yoongi wanders over, saying that he has nothing better to do, so he’ll
come annoy Taeyoon. Taeyoon pretends to be annoyed. Yoongi watches him do his
chores for the rest of the day, throwing insults and getting them back in full,
and then when Taeyoon is finally done, they wander around the palace and talk.
Taeyoon doesn’t think there’s been a day since he met Yoongi that they haven’t
seen each other at least once a day except the fortnight he left with the
queen. Now, he’s almost painfully aware of the silence in the stables without
their constant stream of banter, the chink of the metal edge of his shovel
hitting the cobblestones and the thump of horse manure hitting what Taeyoon
fondly dubs the Shitpile the only sounds disrupting the quiet. He finds that
without Yoongi distracting him, he halves the time taken to finish his work.
Once he’s done the last chore of the day—washing down the whole stable with
wooden bucketfuls of water he hauls from the well himself, thank you—it’s
evening already, and he throws the bucket aside with a clatter and goes
marching out of the stable to look for Yoongi.
But not before coming back and righting the bucket, setting it neatly on its
bottom in the corner of the stable. The bucket hasn’t done anything to him. It
doesn’t deserve to be kicked around. Taeyoon’s conscience will not let a
mistreated piece of wood be treated unfairly.
Taeyoon finds Yoongi sitting on a bench near the artificial river. It isn’t a
very big river, just on the edge of being called a stream—the only reason it
was made was to complete the picturesque scene of a river flowing under the
curved bridge some ways away. Taeyoon slides into the bench next to him. “Yah,”
Taeyoon scolds, “you never came to see me. You know how lonely it is shovelling
horseshit all by myself?”
But Yoongi doesn’t respond. He’s staring at the slowly flowing water, pumped by
a waterwheel which was recently obtained and is tucked discreetly behind a tree
out of sight. Taeyoon doesn’t like how he looks—as if he’d like to drown
himself in it.
“Hey, princeling.” Yoongi flinches, and Taeyoon knows he’s gone too far. “I
mean—I mean, Yoongi. What’s wrong?”
Yoongi turns his head to look at Taeyoon. His eyes are dead, empty, as if a
rice paper screen has been slotted in behind them and separates him from
Taeyoon. “My mother,” he says in a flat monotone, “the queen—she wants me to
get married soon.”
[Author’s note: In those times, people married young. Especially royalty.]
“Well,” Taeyoon says cheerfully, although he’s wilting inside. Once Yoongi gets
a wife, he won’t have time to see Taeyoon. “That’s good, then. Get yourself a
lady.”
Yoongi stares at him as if he’s said something insensitive. Taeyoon shifts
uncomfortably on the bench. “Um, did I say something wrong?”
“Taeyoon,” Yoongi says slowly, “I don’t want to get married.”
“Then don’t. I’m sure you could explain it to your mother—” Taeyoon sees his
look. “Okay, maybe not. But no one can force you into marriage.”
“Actually, she can,” Yoongi murmurs. “She said if I didn’t find a bride for
myself, then she’d just find a princess to marry me to, whether I liked it or
not, and one day I’d wake up to a woman I’ve never seen before on my doorstep
and the wedding would be held that day itself.”
“Oh, that’s…” Taeyoon doesn’t know what to say. “That sucks, Yoongi. I’m
sorry.”
“That’s not the problem,” Yoongi says, clenching his jaw, as if he’s steeling
himself for something.
“Well, um…” Taeyoon feels as if he’s wading through a swamp blindfolded, hands
outstretched: utterly lost. “What exactly, um, is the problem?”
Yoongi sighs. “I’m gay, Taeyoon.”
Taeyoon actually reels back at this. It feels like a slap across his face—he
can feel the impact of it, and he actually feels winded. He never suspected. He
wouldn’t pick Yoongi as the gay one if he were in a line of the straightest men
in Goryeo.
Yoongi watches his face with a faint smile curving his thin lips. “Repelled by
me already, huh?”
“No, I—” Taeyoon doesn’t know what to say. “I just never—I never expected this.
This is completely out of the blue.”
“If you want to disassociate yourself with me, that’s fine,” Yoongi says
tonelessly. “Although I would like to state that homosexuality is not
contagious, I understand that my word does not convince most people, and I
won’t blame you.” A pause. “Actually, I will blame you, very much. But I blame
everyone, so it makes no difference.”
“No, of course I won’t disassociate myself from you!” Taeyoon says, shocked.
“Why would I—? I’d never do something like that to you. You’re my best friend.”
Yoongi’s lips part slightly, and for the first time since Taeyoon’ known him,
he looks the faintest bit surprised. And a little hopeful. “…Really?”
“Yes, really!” Taeyoon feels the urge to shake him by the shoulders. “There’s
nothing wrong with you! Anyone who thinks being gay is wrong is a blind,
ignorant fool! People are afraid of what they don’t understand, and just
because we’re something they don’t understand, gays are persecuted and
discriminated against!” Taeyoon’s hands clench into fists. “Why hate someone
for liking people of their own gender? Why boycott someone for being different?
I say that anyone who thinks being gay is a disease of the mind is someone who
should be paid no mind to themselves. They feed off attention to their cause of
hate, and it’s society’s duty to give them no thought.”
He pauses, breathless from delivering his impassioned speech. But Yoongi has
gone completely still.
“You said ‘we’,” he says, brow furrowed. “‘We’?”
“What?”
“Just now. When you were saying all that stuff. You said ‘just because we’re
something they don’t understand’.”
Taeyoon realizes his mistake too late. “Oh, um…did I? I meant they.”
But Yoongi has fixed him with a critical stare, the one which has always makes
Taeyoon feel like he’s on the wrong end of a bow and arrow.
“Taeyoon,” he says, using that disappointed ahjumma voice. Taeyoon has no idea
where he learned it from.
“What?” he asks defensively.
“You’re lying to me,” he says bluntly.
Taeyoon tries to deny it, but he feels like it’s fruitless; he can tell that
with every stammer, Yoongi already knows.
“Alright, fine,” Taeyoon says, giving in. “I’m—I’m gay too.”
When he sneaks a glance at Yoongi, he is baffled to see a gummy smile.
“What?” Taeyoon asks. “What did I do?”
“You just made being gay a thousand times better,” Yoongi says.
“Oh, really? I’m honored.”
“I wondered where you got all that stuff about people being afraid of what they
don’t understand.”
“Yes, well.” Taeyoon clears his throat. “I am—ah—eloquent.”
The smile slips off Yoongi’s face. “Shut up.”
“There he is,” Taeyoon says dryly. “The Min Yoongi we all know and love.”
Yoongi gives him an unreadable look.
“What is it now? Got another confession to make? Are you the child of fairies
now?”
“No, you idiot.”
Taeyoon laughs and returns his gaze to the river. “Seriously, though.” His face
becomes more serious. “That really sucks. Needing to get married.”
“I know.” Yoongi sighs. “How am I going to find a bride? I’m 100% gay. I
wouldn’t even be able to look at her face.”
“Maybe you could find a gay princess. I think they’re called lesbians. Then you
wouldn’t have to look at each other’s faces.”
Yoongi blinks slowly and disbelievingly at him.
“They  do  exist.”
“Say I actually manage to find a…lesbian princess, which is impossible, how
would we bring about an heir, then? That’s the main reason my mother wants me
to get married. To— produce —an heir to the throne.” He says the word ‘produce’
with distaste.
“Oh.” Taeyoon exhales slowly, slumping down on the bench. “There is that.”
A moment passes while they contemplate ‘that’.
“What do you think it’s like?” Taeyoon asks eventually.
“What?”
“You know— that.  Sex.”
The world seems to flinch at the forbidden word. The birds stop singing, as if
in reproach, and the gurgling of the river seems to be chastising.
“I don’t know.” Yoongi shifts uncomfortably. “I know, like…the mechanics of it.
Where things are supposed to go. But I can’t imagine how it would feel like.”
“The village boys used to sneak out with girls and do it in the fields,”
Taeyoon says. “They say it feels really good. Like—like a slice of heaven.”
“Well,” Yoongi says, “God knows we all need a slice of heaven.”
“How would it work, though?” Taeyoon props himself up, now in full curiosity
mode. “For us? Gay guys?”
“I don’t know,” Yoongi says, shifting uncomfortably. “I’ve never been outside
the palace. I only found out I wasn’t the only one who liked guys in the world
until…well, until you told me you do too.”
“I wonder,” Taeyoon says thoughtfully. “Where stuff goes.”
He actually knows exactly how it works, but he enjoys seeing Yoongi squirm.
“Right,” Yoongi mutters. “We all…wonder. Yes.”
“You’re so awkward,” Taeyoon says, unable to resist a jab. “You’ll be the
awkwardest king in the history of Goryeo.”
Yoongi growls and swats at him. “And you know what you’ll be?  Not  a king.
You’ll be shovelling horseshit while I get my slice of heaven.”
“You haven’t even found a bride yet,” Taeyoon reminds him. “Which is unlikely
to happen, actually, because you aren’t allowed out of the palace. I doubt
you’re getting even a crumb of heaven anytime soon.”
Yoongi’s shoulders slump. “Actually, I don’t have to leave the palace. My
mother said she’ll be selecting prospective wives out of all the princesses and
nobility in Goryeo and inviting them to the palace, where I have to pick.”
“Oh.” Taeyoon falls quiet for a moment. “Say…say you were allowed to take a
husband instead of a wife, who would you pick in the entire palace?”
He expects him to mention the handsome boy who comes to the palace to drop off
milk or the one who the palace hires to tend the garden when the normal
gardener is sick or takes leave. But instead, Yoongi says without hesitation,
“I’d pick you.”
This throws Taeyoon off. “Wait…really?”
“Yeah. I mean, I know you, and I don’t want to marry a stranger.” Yoongi
glances at him. “You…don’t look that bad, actually.”
The moment feels fragile, precious, like a pearl as easily breakable as
porcelain. Taeyoon can’t look away.
And then he breaks it by saying sarcastically, “Wow, what is this? A
compliment? From the great Min Yoongi, heir to the kingdom of Goryeo?”
Yoongi’s face, which had softened for the briefest of the moments, breaks into
a scowl. “Ass. I take it back. I’d rather marry the Shitpile than you.”
“You’re not that bad either,” Taeyoon says, laughing as Yoongi shoves him. “As
prickly and nasty as you are.”
“Thank you, I really appreciate being compared to a cactus.”
“You’re welcome, princeling.”
Yoongi grabs Taeyoon’s shirtfront suddenly, yanking him closer. Taeyoon finds
himself an inch from his face. He tries to lean back, but his body…doesn’t want
to comply.
“Call me princeling like the filthy little slut you are,” Yoongi whispers,
breath hot on his face.
Taeyoon recoils, but something dark is curling in the base of his stomach,
something hot. “Yoongi, what the fu—”
But Yoongi doesn’t let go. His gaze slides down to Taeyoon’s lips for a moment,
slow and deliberate, and for a second which feels like it’s balanced on the tip
of a needle, Taeyoon thinks he’s actually going to kiss him. He almost says
‘princeling’ just to get him that one inch closer, just to close the space
between them—
And then Yoongi shoves him away, just as quickly as he pulled him in. “I’m just
messing with you,” he says, laughing one of his rare laughs.
But Taeyoon doesn’t feel like that was a joke. He feels way more affected than
he should, and suddenly, he’s thinking about what he thought when he saw Yoongi
for the first time. How he’s delicate, but radiates an aura of power which
is…irresistible.
“You called me a slut,” Taeyoon says, affronted. “I cannot believe you called
me a slut.”
“I know, right, I’m giving out  so  many compliments today.” Yoongi puts a hand
over his heart, shaking his head. “I’m…I’m touched. By myself.”
“Argh, you dick. You’re so full of yourself.”
“That’s right. As you disturb me, I get bigger.” He winks.
[Another author’s note: This is a lyric from Rap Monster’s song, Glory.]
“Ewww. No one would want to marry you even if you were straight.” Taeyoon
pushes him.
“Whatever,” he says dismissively. “It’s not like the ladies are fighting for
you, either.”
Taeyoon raises his eyebrows. “Oh, you wanna be like that?” He cracks his
knuckles. “I won’t stop even if you beg for mercy. You asked for it…”
They spend the rest of the day flinging insults at each other, neither noticing
as it grows dark. Anyone looking at them would be able to tell that something
is different now: the way they look at each other. The way they talk to each
other.
But no one is looking. And that, unfortunately, cannot be helped.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!