Loyal • Muse | NamMin || BOOK 2#

XX. Proposals and terrors that do not end.

"I see you've been painted. They are very good."

"My lord Namjoon has been a bit pushy on the subject. I'm starting to worry that I'm going to get him poorer for it." Jimin lets out with slight amusement and Jungkook laughs through his nose, wrinkling it.

"I don't think so. He's too careful looking after the royal treasury to neglect his own money" opines the general and Jimin shrugs. "How strange to call him that. Doesn't he give you permission to call him by name?"

"We don't talk much."

"Don't you?"

"No."

"Wow."

"He brought me to study Soo and that's where our relationship dies. Once they are done studying her he'll bring me back to Kisaengs house." announces Jimin drinking the tea he poured. Jungkook disagrees.

"I highly, highly doubt he'll be able to let you go. Not a man who is barely able to take his eyes off you."

"Hum..."

"What's wrong?"

"It's not the same person. The one you see, it's not Namjoon.

"Maybe you'll help him come back."

Jimin gives a tender laugh.

"Alas, my lord, I do not possess such importance to accomplish like this. You flatter me, but someone like me could not."

"I would say yes," Jungkook insists, stubbornly. "I see no reason to cling to the idea that you will be abandoned. You're not a child now, less a dog."

"Maybe not, but when you've already been abandoned as one, it's tricky to think it won't happen again." Jimin drinks more of his tea.

His parents abandoned him. Though that was unintentional.

Namjoon abandoned him.

Jin abandoned him.

Agust abandoned him.

Jungkook abandoned him.

Everyone who has been important in his life has abandoned him. As Jungkook told him, he is no longer a little boy and therefore, he will no longer delude himself that this time it will be different. That way it won't hurt when it does. Jungkook reaches out his hand and takes Jimin's hand, gives it a gentle squeeze.

"It's going to get better. It really will be different." assures Jungkook quietly.

"I would believe you, except you're also a liar and you also left me." Jimin gently pulls his hand away.

Jungkook knew where he was.

Jungkook knew what Agust and Namjoon were planning.

Jungkook could include him, could take him home instead of letting him go to Kisaengs house and he did nothing! He went to travel, fulfill what they asked for him and left him. Jimin did not ask him to stay, nor to take him with him on his travels. Only that he would save him from continuing in the only thing that was going to be his destiny there, and on the contrary, Jungkook turned his back on him. Jimin expects nothing from anyone. Not even with these conversations.

Nothing apart from them chasing away the silence that haunts him.

~ * * * ~

"It's nice. It always has been."

Namjoon nods in agreement. Agust asked to see one of the paintings that were done of Jimin. The emperor looked at it at length and Nokssek lady handed Namjoon a box in the meantime. A gift for the kisaeng like last time. Namjoon approaches and quietly asks the emperor what he supposes, motivated such a sudden expulsion. Although Agust is silent, Namjoon is able to decipher his answer easily.