IKIGAI l KIM TAEHYUNG

Chapter 3: Taehyung

2 DAYS AGO

The hotel room looked pretty luxurious, even for me. I heard him come in.

"What are you doing here?" He asked. I could hear the superiority complex in his voice.
"Room cleaning, sir. I will be done in a few minutes. So sorry for the inconvenience." I bowed and fixed my tie.
Oh the things I have to do.

He sat down on a sofa and within a few seconds, two men came in. They were holding a struggling girl. Her head was covered by a black bag.
"Please spare me." She cried.

He just laughed. I turned my back on him, not wanting to see the innocent girl cry.
"Nobody is here to save you, honey. You two, leave." He told the men. I heard the shuffling of the black bag, assuming he had taken it off of her head.

"Now, be a good girl and get on your knees. If you satisfy me in five minutes, I might let you live." He gestured to the floor in front of him with his gun. I heard the girl sob.

This is too much.

As I was about to turn, I heard a thud.

I snapped my head to see that the man was clutching his groin. Whimpers were leaving his mouth. Then I looked up at the girl.

Her.

She was holding his gun.

"You should teach your men to tie better knots, you know? Now, if you don't satisfy me in five minutes, the thing that hits you won't be my hand anymore. How does a bullet sound to you?" She said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"You. Don't move if you want to live." She gestured at me.

Move? I was frozen at my place, unable to say anything. Unable to do anything.

"Now, where were we? Oh yes. How many men of yours are there in this hotel?" She asked.
"A hundred." He choked out.

"What were you planning to do here?" She asked again.

I knew the answer to that. He was planning to meet me this evening, for a deal. I like to check my business partner's ethics before striking a deal with him. So here I was. House cleaning.

He instead, just stared at her whimpering. In return, she broke two of his fingers.

"How about now?" She smiled.

"I was- I was meeting Taehyung." He said, between his cries.

"Looks like you're no use to me then." She smirked before she shot him in the head.
"Now, what are we going to do about you." She tilted her head. It wasn't a question.

I was still frozen at my place.

Then she hit me in the head with the back of the gun. Darkness.

I woke up tied in a dark room with nothing in sight but her.

"Didn't expect you to wake up that quickly."
"Yeah well, you could say I heal pretty quickly." It was the truth.
"So Mr-House-Cleaning, I found two sharp knifes in your back pocket. Care to tell me who you really are?" She smiled sweetly.
"It's indeed a privilege to know your hands were on me." I smirked.
"Stop messing around." She said so calmly, it was almost like the silence before the storm.
"I wasn't messing around, but to answer your question, I'm Taehyung. Kim Taehyung."

I received a brutal punch to my jaw.

"I told you to step messing with me." She snapped.
I just chuckled, spitting blood out of my mouth.
"This wasn't the way I imagined our first meeting to go."

Just then, we heard gunshots outside the room.
"Look sweetheart, I'm all for the bondage kinks but this has to stop now." I said as I watched her pick a gun.
"Shut up."
"Stay away from the door." I told her sternly, ignoring her comment.

Bam.

The door blew open. My men gushed out the door in no time and untied me. She pointed her gun at me.
"I will shoot him if you don't step back this second." All of my men pointed their guns at her as she said this.
"No, you idiots. If a bullet so much as grazes her skin, I will skin you all alive. Don't touch her." I spoke. She clearly was surprised.

"We will meet again, sweetheart. No need to worry. Your colleagues are fine. My men don't kill anyone innocent."
With a last look at her, I walked away.

Funny. She was wearing emerald green when we met today.

I looked at the girl who was admiring the paintings from afar, a glass of wine in her left hand.

Go talk, Taehyung.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please excuse me. The dance starts in five minutes. Find a partner and I will see you there." I bowed to the people sitting at the table as I got up from my chair and walked to her.

She was extremely beautiful. The color emerald green complimented her skin. The dress hugged her curves and her curls fell loosely on her back.

She saw me walking towards her and tilted her head in mild intrigue.

"Excuse me, May I ask for your name, Miss?" I asked as I gently held her hand as a display of respect.

"Velma. Princess of The Sol Empire. And you are?" She asked with a polite smile.

"I am Kim Taehyung, Prince of the Aether Empire. It's my pleasure to meet you." I smiled widely.

I watched as she realized that she was talking to the person who had organized this ball in the first place. A red tint colored her cheeks slowly.

"Oh, please excuse my clueless self, prince." She apologized as she bowed out of courtesy to the prince.
"No, no. It's not a problem at all." I shook my head slightly, before continuing, "Say, do you wish to go and have a dance with me? It's about to start. You don't have to, of course."

Her smile widened as I said that.

"I do." She chuckled. I took her hand and led her to the dance floor, carefully pacing around the huge crowd.

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soooo i hope you all found the two references i left here. one was about squid game and the other was about the one and only mr warner.
remember to vote if you liked this chapter :)