silver blades | taekook

09

"So as I said, I'm the successor. My parents - as you hopefully figured out - are the king and queen. I was always kept away from the public because, well.. me and my brother were little rebels. My parents were basically ashamed of us, so we had to grow up within strict rules. Our adventures almost never existed within our childhood. If we couldn't behave, we wouldn't be revealed to the public." He explains, leaning against the table.

"I didn't want this type of life - all this fancy, royal stuff. Sure it's nice, but incredibly boring when you can't act as you please. I spent all of my time with two people who always supported me no matter what - one of them was my brother. At most times, he was the best thing out there. We loved breaking rules together.. which is why the rules always became tighter and tighter. There came a time when I could only spend half an hour a day with my brother."

Taehyung's eyes met with Jeongguk's, but the other soon looked away. Taehyung doesn't know why, but he felt his heart become unsteady. No, he wasn't in love with Jeongguk or anything, but.. what was Jeongguk thinking of Taehyung now?

"My parents barely visited me; only my father would check up on me to see if I'm meeting their standards. When I wasn't, I received a slap to the face and the same words over and over again - 'man up'. So when I was sixteen, I decided to leave that place. My brother completely agreed with my idea and we essentially stole money from our parent's accounts. We had the cash, so we just got out of there one night. I left a note saying that I wanted a break from everything - it was too suffocating. After that, we decided to live somewhere where they wouldn't find us."

Taehyung walked over to Jimin and gently held onto his shoulders, looking down at the older one. "This rascal here also helped us escape. He was one of the other people whom I trusted in the palace. He was sort of.. like a student teacher who used to give dancing lessons to me and my brother. We had no idea on how to dance in ball rooms, so our parents hired him. Jimin was in the process of training to be a professional dance teacher, so they figured it would be good to have somebody around our age.

"Eventually, we got to know each other over time. We met in secret along with my brother and honestly, it was fun. We snuck into kitchens, game rooms, parents' meetings. We managed to become stealthier over time. Those were some of the good times we had, I guess. When me and my brother ran away, Jimin offered us a place elsewhere.. we still live here to this day, but my brother went away after a while."

Taehyung stopped speaking for a bit to catch his breath as he was quite into this 'story' so far, so Jimin decided to continue.

"As some of you know, I have paranoia. It's not easy to talk about it, but I think you should know about how I gained this." He glanced down at his thumbs and taehyung squeezed Jimin's shoulder lightly to say that's it's alright.

"I constantly feel like I'm being watched by somebody - like a guard from that palace. As if they follow me everywhere I turn and look. They could be dressed in black or gone undercover, it just doesn't feel safe. In all honesty, they're not as innocent as they seem; they're awful. I once demonstrated on Taehyung how to do a certain step during a dance because he constantly got it wrong and I was.. beaten to a plump. Their excuse was that it was a "homosexual act." They assume easily and treat us outsiders like trash.. it's just- disgusting."

They nodded silently along to what Jimin said and he could feel the sympathetic looks on him.

Soon after, taehyung continued with the story. "They announced this all new heir thing without giving me any prior notice. I can only assume that they knew I would be watching the TV, so I suppose that I happened to be informed about it that way. My father contacted me a while after, so I knew it was time for me to take the role of the king."