After Dark || vmin

chapter 8: trust

⋆┈┈｡ﾟ❃ུ۪ ❀ུ۪ ❁ུ۪ ❃ུ۪ ❀ུ۪ ﾟ｡┈┈⋆

things really did change after that one morning.
everytime jimin meets taehyung's eyes he smiles at him instead of looking away. when taehyung accidentally touches jimin, he doesn't flinch away anymore but instead almost leans into the touch.
taehyung doesn't want to admit it, but he really likes it.
he likes being treated just like a normal person, after spending way too much time locked away in the king's prison.

it hurts to admit but as much fun as he's having now, being outside also has its flaws.
the young man's blood has become even darker, having to kill and torture some people who are out there to hurt the prince.
but as the king said, taehyung's job is to protect his son's life and meanwhile make sure his blood stays pearly white.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

it's been about a week and taehyung is standing guard by the prince's door as usual, when he hears how the other man yawns quietly, stretching his limbs from his body.

"good morning, jimin", he happily greets the prince and closes the distance between them with a few big steps.
"i hope you didn't forget, but today your schedule was cancelled and you're free to do whatever you want."

jimin just stares at him with an empty glance, still too tired to think.

"leave me alone, i want to sleep", he complains, but the way his hair is standing up in every direction makes it hard for taehyung not to laugh at him, pointing at his head.

"hey stop it!", jimin exclaims while hurriedly trying to adjust the mess of hair on his head, "you wake up way before i do! i never see you sleepy, i always see you looking perfectly perfec- perfectly fine!"

the prince blushes a little as he noticed what he just said and quickly corrects himself, but that doesn't help the fact that taehyung heard it anyways. he decides to ignore it, for jimin's sake (is what he tells himself)

he chuckles softly and then sighs, "so what do you want to do today? it's your free day,
you can do whatever you want."

the other man thinks for a moment, rarely having time to himself due to his royal duties, so when he does he really needs to decide carefully, as to use his time to its fullest potential.

"how about we go on a walk and i ask you a few more questions about-"

"about my blood?" taehyung interrupts him, knowing full well what this is going to be about.
"again, jimin? how do you have possibly more questions after everything you've asked me so far?", he scolds the prince jokingly but then smiles at him.

"do not worry, i'm not angry with you," taehyung reassures the prince and then reaches out for his hand, wanting to get him out of bed, so they can spend the day together.

he doesn't want to admit it, but finally having someone to talk to is nice, even if it's the prince of their kingdom and taehyung is nothing but a mere guard.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺

after jimin got ready they finally go outside, into the garden of the castle. it's beautiful, flowers taehyung can't even fathom to name scattered everywhere and he has to repress the urge to stop at every new one he finds, wanting to smell it and acknowledge its beauty, but the other man is eager to walk them towards the pavilion, standing right in the middle of the yard.

taehyung has come to genuinely enjoy their little walks towards the pavilion, he loves the way it looks and adores to sit there, surrounded by roses, that are climbing the lattice and making sure to provide some shade to hide from the sun.

"so tell me again, what did you do to make your blood become so dark?", jimin asks, wanting to know more about the story, even though he already knows most of it.

taehyung's glance darkens a bit at that and then he sighs, "i don't think i've been entirely truthful with you."

the prince's eyes widen and he turns fully towards the other man, eager to finally find out what the reason for the guard's black blood is.

"my blood isn't entirely black yet. i'm pretty sure i still have a little bit of time left before it turns that dark, but not much. when i was young, i had to hunt a lot for my family, killing innocent animals as a child already made sure my blood was light red by the time i was 11. after that i began pickpocketing the richer folks i met among the street, feeling angry because they had everything i never got to experience."

taehyung sighs and glances over towards the prince, feeling a little bitter as he recalls his memories, but then he decides to continue.

"i was pretty good at it, which also means my blood got darker and darker and then one day i was caught. i tried to steal from a man who looked decently wealthy to me but it turned out he belonged to a group of criminals, some of them even wanted dead. i was scared to death, but tried my best not to show it, i didn't want to seem like i feared him."

taehyung's voice becomes more and more quiet and the prince notices, reaching out to him to take his hand, wanting to show him he's safe here.

"he was genuinely impressed i wasn't scared of him, so he recruited me and made me do the dirty work. at first i just kept on pickpocketing, but the more time passed the more dangerous things i had to do. i had to break into houses to steal, had to kidnap people and then one day they made me torture a man. i hated it so much, but i couldn't leave, jimin. i couldn't, i was way too scared of what they would do to me. at 18 i was a wanted criminal and at 20 they caught me after i was officially known as an assassin."

taehyung stops talking and breathes in deeply, feeling the prince squeeze his hand.

"it's okay tae, it's fine, i'm not mad at you. now i know it was never your fault and you never wanted to actually hurt anybody. you were a child and you were scared. but now it's over! now you're safe with me", jimin smiles at him as if he didn't just tell him the most gruesome story he could ever think of.

"thank you..." taehyung mumbles and squeezes the prince's hand as well, pulling him in for a hug, which jimin happily returns.

"no, thank you."

"for what?"

"trusting me."

and jimin is right, taehyung notices. he really does trust him.

⋆┈┈｡ﾟ❃ུ۪ ❀ུ۪ ❁ུ۪ ❃ུ۪ ❀ུ۪ ﾟ｡┈┈⋆

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AN: I FINALLY HIT THE 1K WORDS MARK GUYS !! <3 i hope u enjoyed a little bit of taetae's backstory and the vmin friendship blossoming :] see you soon!!
also thank you sm for 80 reads, ik it doesnt sound a lot but it means the world to me