"Are they going to exile my brother?"
"We don't know, Yerin." Hoseok sighed. In annoyance or repentance? Only he knew.
"Will you quit pestering me with the same question?"
Three of them Namjoon, Seokjin and the man of the hour- Hoseok, were eating a bland dinner at Yerin's servant quarter (being the only safe place for this rather odd group to assemble at without suspicious glares) for a discussion on the heavy failure of their allegedly unequivocal plan.
"With all due respect sir, what you three did with me was nothing short of a betrayal. If your word was to be taken, I by now should have been with my brother. Settling a new life far away." Yerin tried to keep her poise despite the slight wavering of her voice.
"I'm aware you strived your best to execute the plan you three had, however it is clear as a day to me that you are all only maneuvering my brother as a ladder to help ascend your beloved prince, who I do respect with all my heart. Yet-" she breathed again to gather a collected mien.
"Yet the least you could do in barter of your untruthful promises, is give me answers." her voice dropped from the dissimulation of confidence to a mere mumble.
"He is my only family" gulping, she uttered.
"Tell us what you're hiding. Not only from me but from Sir Seokjin and Namjoon-ssi too. I'm positive you are."
Hoseok dropped his spoon back on the plate shrinking under the now three instead of one scrutinizing gaze.
"I have a hunch." he uttered dubiously.
"A hunch?" Jin chipped in now completely forgetting the bread that never procured an interest in the first place.
"Yes, a premonition. I- I think Sir Yoongi knows."
A shatter echoed the small room as Namjoon's trembling hands fumbled to assemble the hunks of his broken cup.
Any other time, Jin would have presented him with a piece of his mind; however now, ostensibly, Hoseok's sentence broke more things than just a cup.
"K-knows ab-about?" Jin asked again.
"I don't know. But- but just.. You.. hyung, you have been in this palace longer than any of us. Pay heed to this.. When - when has Sir Yoongi ever changed a scheme last minute? And that too in a situation that is so... So.. "
"Afflictive" Namjoon's hushed voice impeded in.
"Afflictive." Hoseok nodded.
"You are right, Sir Yoongi should have been back by now, like all of you are. Yet he is not. Almost like he is obdurated that Taehyung will be found in the north."
"Yes. And I... I think he mayhaps has an acumen about Jungkook too."
"How is that possible?" the virility in Seokjin's voice had raised a few pitches too high, almost on the brim of loosing it.
"Before we left last week, I went to his office for my one last attempt at a mutiny, if you may. I then came to know that he had left earlier than all of us. And- and there was Jungkook's duty almanac on his table, which I can swear was not present there the night before."
Yerin and Namjoon breathed in a sharp inhale while Jin's head indigently fell into his hands.
"Me, Namjoon, Yerin.. even Jungkook. Taehyung was the one who found us, however Jin-ssi and Sir Yoongi have witnessed him augment into the teem of love he is today. He loves that boy to death, even though he is not expressive."
He finally lifted his gaze from the floor, eyes abated off the usual clout, and looked at Yerin, resigned.
"So, I shall not give you a hope made of glass that may plausibly break by the first gush of wind, dear. The very moment Sir Yoongi gets a grapple on them, he may perhaps kill your brother before one release of breath."
******
"Just one more week? Please?"
"We've overstayed our welcome already. I'm afraid shall we not move this morning, we may end up loosing the deals in Brell."
"Two days? Oh that won't be much. Do this much for Granny. I will be gone all day today. Moreover, you have to give something back to the old woman for all the food she gave you. I only ask a day more." the woman was apparently a 'virtuoso' in persuasion, so much so that even Jeon Jungkook couldn't help but fall a prey.
"Alright." he sighed. "I reckon we can stay for tomorrow. However before the sunrise of the next day, we leave and you will do nothing other than bidding us farewell."
"Terrific! Aren't you my sweet little Appie." she pulled his left cheek harshly. "And pull the scarf up honey, you don't want to scare the little children here." she patted his cheek again, smiling.
One week. They had apprehended the kind but crass woman's cottage for an entire week. All three had fallen into a conscientious schedule feigning a domesticity as if there were no predicaments hanging at their necks- waiting for an onslaught.
But Jungkook knew better. By now he was irrefutably convinced that something was not right.
Hoseok was supposed to bring Yerin four days ago. Four days!
Either the three men had beautifully fooled him or there was something else very very wrong.
As granny gets away grabbing her basket to leave, Jungkook glances to his far right.
He fish eyes the boy who was sitting with a little puppy in his lap holding up it's front two paws making odd actions with them.
Despite the significant distance between them Jungkook's ears could catch a mild harmonious sonority. Ever since the prince had revealed his
gravitation for the art of music Jungkook made sure to utilize it to his advantage.
Every night, he would now fall into slumber basking in the melody of his lover's silk voice.
He had always thought how Taehyung's voice was too deep to accord with his baby-like features.
Now however, when he allows his brain to fall repleting in the hymn that the prince recites, he surmises how mistaken he was.
Taehyung's deep voice was never supposed to rapport with his face, rather his heart.
Deeper than the ocean itself, he was the freshness of the seagrass, patience of a coral reef, yet raging passion of a high tide.
He was a symphony himself.
He sits behind the boy and embraces him placing his chin on the shoulder. "Hello Jungkook-ssi. Nice pet you have here."
"Apple, meet Senpai. Senpai say hello to Apple." he raises one paw of the puppy (who was rather distracted in nibbling on the corner of his sleeve) and babied his voice. "Hello Apple. I'm afraid you look more like a Pineapple, although."
Jungkook chuckled at the spoof and lovingly pecked the boy's neck. Taehyung looked at him with eyes emulating that of the animal he was holding. "Can we keep him? I mean I will understand if you say no, but if you allow me I'll take the entire responsibility-"
"You can keep him, petal. Since we never called-off the pretense of being married, we can let him be our pretend-son."
"Yes! I love you!" Taehyung scooted back to land a chasté peck on the older's cheek but the other tilted his head in time and captured the lips catching him off guard.
Thier relationship was in it's spring season. Everything seemed like a flourished oasis. However while Taehyung was inundated with the shower of colours for them, Jungkook breathed every breath in the dread of approaching autumn.
"You know, we have the house for ourselves today. What do you suggest we do?" Jungkook mumbeled against the skin of the royal's roseate skin.
"Let me go take a bath quickly, then we can decide on that." Taehyung got up after a little kiss on the other's cheek but before a further step he was pulled back by a gentle but firm grip on his wrist into the chest of his lover.
"On a second thought, perhaps must we bathe together, you know, save granny some water?" Jungkook seductively whispered in the younger's ear, taking the earlobe between his teeth after.
"It's been a whole week of torture of having you at an arm's distance and restraining all my... Promiscuity."
"Do you ever only think of that?" Taehyung giggled with a faint hit on his chest. A sigh nonetheless escaped his parted lips when the other began marking his territory down his jaw.
"So we are to pretend that you don't?"
"Ofcourse I don't." humming to this Jungkook dauntlessly stretched the hem of his shirt's neck down to the arm, landing his bare teeth on the now brazenly exposed shoulder.
A lewd senseless sound eluded from the prince's mouth, making him grip the other boy's sun-bleached hair in his fist, griping a hard tug at them. "Alright m-maybe I do a l-little."
"Mhm" the next second his shirt was yanked over his head as he was effortlessly dumped on the broad shoulder swinging like a big fish.
Jungkook smacked he hand on the other's bottom and started walking towards the bathroom smiling in the relish of the most precious sound- Taehyung's laughter.
"Byeee Senpai!!"
******
"NO NO NO NO!!" Yoongi whacked away another one of the thousands failure reports that this time arrived from the kingdom of Brella.
For the longest time he had withheld his composure, patiently awaiting a lead. Since every attempt seem to fail he was now more and more indignant by the minute.
"He is here. My instincts have never failed me. NEVER!!" he paced around in the tent tugging his hair away from the scalp trying to recollect his haywire of a brain.
In midst of this astringent meltdown a call was heard from outside his tent by his guard. He wrenched away the curtain and stepped outside to find one of the guards with an irking smirk on his face.
"Tell me you have a good lead or I wouldn't think twice before slaughtering this sneering head of yours."
"I do, sir. But I'd rather show than tell."
He stepped aside pulling from the carriage a rather short heighted robust man with a sack covering his face and hands roped behind his back.
With one solid kick the man was by Yoongi's feet, kneeling. The guard, after a nod of approval, snatched away the sack off his face.
A now smirking Yoongi squatted down afronting the frantic man with a bleeding face.
"Well, well. Look who we have here." he turned to face his guard again "Remind me to urge the king to announce this as a catch-the-run-aways month."
Turning back to the terrified face, he harshly grabbed the man's chin and gritted his teeth.
"Long time no see, sergeant Jiwa. I hope you know you're in for a big treat."
"S-sir.. Sir I- I beg you s-sir. Plea- please forgive- forgive my... Please forgive my blunder." Jiwa barely managed to croak out a sentence in between his vexatious sobs and hiccups.
"Now, now. Why must I do that?"
"Bec- because s-sir. I -I know where Prince Taeh- Prince Taehyung is."
Yoongi's eyebrows arched so high they disappeared in his hairline.
He grabbed the glass of water and grimly splashed it on the man's face.
"Compose yourself and talk proper. And you better be meticulous or you wouldn't wish to know your fate!"
Jiwa gulped with closed eyes and heaved a few long breaths before looking back at the penetrating eyes of the general.
"S-sir I'm not certain about his current whereabouts. I.. I was in the adjacent kingdom's ration place where I saw a boy with an old woman. At first I was convinced it was him but then I rendered it illogical."
Gulping again he continued. "Now when I came to know about your purpose.. I.. I-"
"How are you so insistent that it was him and not a mere proletarian?"
"B-because, Sir, Prince Taehyung's aesthetic is unmatched, even when he was loitering in rags. Nobody can second him."
Yoongi fisted the man's hair from behind his head and yanked his head backwards. "Take us to the place. And if all this is some cooked up bullshit-"
"It's not sir. I swear."
*******
"You can let me down now, Kook." Taehyung giggled swinging his dangling legs as Jungkook carried him to the kitchen, like a groom carries his bride.
"No. You must be sore. You are not moving a muscle in my watch." he placed the boy on the kitchen counter and kissed his lips. "No argument." he kissed again. "Okay?"
"Okay." Taehyung smiled and swaddled his arms around the older's neck loosely and reconnected their lips.
Every second that they managed to afford fortified from the bejudging eyes of the world, they relished it connected to one another. In all ways the mind can wander to.
Each time before the elope, they sneaked into Taehyung's chamber snuggled up in his lavish bed and Jungkook cherished every moment of the luxury.
However with the turn of events, now as he coils his arms around the slender frame, he realizes how the luxury was not the comfort of the silk sheets, posh decor, fluffy pillows or opulent mattress.
This boy in his embrace was the luxury. He is the comfort.
It was right here right now that Jeon Jungkook feels like he is living a dream and yet feels more real than ever.
Love is blind, they say.
How is it then that out of the entire world, only his lover saw the person that was hidden scared beneath the hideous scar.
An aberrant rattling noise from outside made them break out of the bruising lock of lips. Taehyung leaned his forehead on the older's.
"I better go check on Senpai before he arranges me some more of granny's scorn. You make some good lunch for me and my husband. You low-life!"
"Yes, your highness."
Snorting endearingly Taehyung walked out of the kitchen as Jungkook whipped out the knife to chop the onions.
However before he could begin to do so, a loud shriek made him halt for a brief minute and barrel out to check on Taehyung the next.
What his eyes gathered in that moment of extreme consternation, made his nerves freeze like an ice and still feel like his entire being was set on fire.......
*********
About ten days ago.
Yoongi gasped as he woke up in cold sweat again.
He offhandedly tried to grip the bottle of water on his nightstand but in the onyx of the chamber and his thoughts, ended up pushing a glass off the edge.
The laconism of the night made the noise tenfolds causing the peacefully sleeping woman to jolt awake.
"Honey, is everything alright?"
"Yes, dear. The same nightmare, nothing new."
"Oh honey." she sighed pitifully and rubbed the man's back, moisture now permanently permeated in her once breathtaking hazel eyes.
"Do you wish for some tea?"
"No. Please you take rest. I will just.. Just go for a quick run to distract myself. Don't worry about me. It's you who needs care."
"No Yoongi, we both do. Wake me up if you crave some tea after your run. And be careful-"
"Yes. Yes. Same old. Now you go back to sleep." he helped her lay down again quickly pecked her forehead before cladding on his shoes readying to sprint around the borders of the palace.
Why do I keep seeing it?
The human with no name, no face, no gender.
His human. His unborn child.
His unborn deceased child.
It's funny how someone thinks of 'birth' and 'child' and the first associated word with it is 'mother'.
That is what everyone did when heard of his wife undergoing stillbirth.
"Oh is Kayra alright?" "Are you making sure she's okay?" "Oh we hope she recovers from the setback."
It's funny how nobody heeds a father's wounds. It's like they don't exist.
When will the world understand a father has a heart equally loving. Only less articulate.
With a whirlwind of emotions he escalated his speed but halted abruptly on seeing the lamp lit in Taehyung's chamber.
"Why is he awake at this hour? Did that witch admonish him agai-"
His whisper seemed to hook somewhere in his vocal chords as the window to the prince's room was jarred open revealing the back of someone definitely not Taehyung.
Yoongi rushed behind the first oak tree in his sight and peeped to take in this outlandish scene. He frantically looked around for any weapon-like object to take down this intruder.
For the first time in a while he felt deceived by his eyes when the stranger leaned in and landed a kiss on the prince's forehead, the prince smiling in consent, and then in one swift motion jumped out of the window.
His blood ran cold when the man on the ground stood up and he finally saw who that figure was....
*/*/*/*/*/*/*/
"Jeon Jungkook. Put down the knife and kneel down with your hands up!"
"Your highness, it will be for the safety of both you and your companion that you cooperate or we shall not refrain from chaining you too."
================================
*Hides away behind the table*
T-thank you for sparing your time?
Bye- bye
🤚👋🤚👋🤚👋🤚👋🤚