You stood in the great hall alone.
The candles have long been lit since the sun was no longer perched up in the sky.
Something about what the prince said stuck to you.
It has been a week since Heiryung passed away.
One day she was up from the bed, swearing on her very own life that she felt amazing.
She had even came into the kitchen to cook and spent the whole day laughing at what all the other girls had to say about the knights in the castle.
And then she went to bed and never woke up.
It hurt you, but you couldn't say that you didn't expect it.
Seokjin stuck around and called for someone to carry her out of her bedroom and comforted you until Hoseok himself didn't come to the scene along with Jimin and old sergeant Park.
"Have you moved her?" sergeant Park asked.
"I told the maids to go get a few knights to take her to the basement." Seokjin answered, arm still wrapped around your form as you cried into his chest.
It caused some discomfort in a certain someone that was also present at the scene now, but for now there were bigger issues to deal with.
"I'll do it." sergeant Park stepped inside.
"Be careful, she's already very stiff. She must have passed in the middle of the night." Seokjin warned and the man nodded.
None the less he carefully picked her up, arms folded over her stomach, just as she was laying in bed.
Seokjin then slipped away from your hold and you didn't know where to turn to not look at the corpse.
A tiny bit of panic settled in, but as soon as it rose in your body it was gone with the feeling of another hand pulling your head into a warm chest.
"It's alright...I'm here for you."
Hoseok's voice was quivering.
You suspected it was because of the grief he also felt for the loss of Heiryung, but the truth was, his hands were trembling and heart was pounding because of more gentle feelings towards you, and maybe the tiniest bit out of fear of his comfort being rejected.
When your arms wrapped around his waist instead, he folded both arms around your shoulders one hand running down your hair.
"It's okay. It's gonna be okay."
That's the second where the warmth that Hoseok showed you piqued your curiosity, but it wasn't enough for you to connect the dots that later became clearer.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
You were in the kitchen when the back door slammed open yet again, but this time, it was in the late hours of the night.
The last time you saw Heiryung was one night earlier and yet so much has changed in the last 24 hours.
Now you couldn't sleep, o you ended up sitting in the kitchen, drinking glasses of water and avoiding nightmares that you would certainly have if you went to bed.
You grabbed a knife from the table and sneaked a peek at the door from the kitchen.
"Jimin??" you stared at the young male as he struggled to carry a intoxicated body into the castle silently.
"Y/N? What are you doing awake?" he panicked, but a second later you were out, unarmed now, and helping him carry in the man who you recognized to be his father.
"My goodness sergeant! What have you done to yourself?!" you hissed as the two of you made your way to the knights hall with the stumbling man.
"Why did you let him drink so much?" you cried under the mans weight as Jimin scrambled for the keys to his room.
"I found him like this at the gate! He's lucky I was the one to run into him first!" the younger was obviously fuming, so you decided not to pry further and anger him.
You propped up the sergeant on the wall across the door and reached for your own set of keys when you realized that Jimin had no idea what he was doing.
It didn't even take you a minute to open the heavy door, but before you could there was a loud sound of parchment ripping and you looked at the end of the hall, only to see sergeant digging a dagger into his own painting.
"Father!!! Stop!" Jimin ran to him, but when he reached him the old man had already ripped the parchment to the side and revealed another layer underneath his own portrait.
"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry Ho. I'm a coward."
While Jimin rushed to carry the weeping man back into the room you stayed behind, looking at the new image.
"Ho?"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
That night you took that old paining out of it's frame and left only the ripped apart painting of sergeant Park.
You feared that for now at least, the hidden picture should stay hidden, at least until you had the time to talk to the old man that revealed this secret to you.
And today, two weeks after all of this happened, you realized it's time to dig a little deeper.
You knocked on the hard wooden door of sergeant Park's room, with a roll of parchment hidden behind your back.
"Y/N? Come in?" he moved aside, unaware of the trouble that was unfolding in your head.
"Can you lock the door sir?" you asked, dropping what you held on his desk, that sat right under the window.
Once the click of the lock resonated in the otherwise quiet room you spread the paper open.
"You have to tell me who is this man? And what was he to you...or Heiryung..." you trailed off and he dropped into his chair, face blank yet full of fear, as if he had seen a ghost.
"I...I...I thought...didn't Jimin throw this away?"
"He did, I retrieved it. Who is sergeant Jung Ho?" your fingers traced over the name signed at the bottom.
The man wasn't reacting.
"You have to tell me sir. Otherwise my guesses on the situation might take us down a worse path." you spat, hoping the small threat ill snap him out of shock and indeed it did.
"What are your guesses Y/N?" his hands ran over the portrait, tracing lines of color already cracking apart.
"I'm guessing Jung Ho was in fact the late husband of Heiryung. That's the only thing she ever told me about her past life." you leaned over the portrait, looking at the facial features of the man.
"But...but something about this man..." your own fingers followed along the lines of the painted on jaw and straight, dark hair.
"He looks so much like..." your mind wouldn't let the foolish thoughts slip past your lips.
"Like Hoseok?" the man asked, already taking notice of how many dots you managed to connect.
Someone else speaking your thoughts out loud just gave so many green lights to you, saying that you were, in fact, very correct with your assumptions.
"So...so the queen...she committed adultery?!" your eyes were trembling with shock and fear.
Fear of what might happen to Hoseok if anyone ever found out that he was a half blooded royal.
"No, she did something worse. We all did a far worse thing than we'd like to admit."
And so the tale began to be told, for the first time since it happened around 20 years ago.
The tale of three tragedies that happened in one week.
A tragedy of your own being revealed, the truth about your mothers death.
The tales of tangled ploys and deceit that lasted for longer than anyone expected.
The sad tale, the horrible tragedy of the one and only Jung Heiryung that had to live with it for all these years.
"I held him by his leg, the poor boy, those cries have never left me since that day." sergeant Park was crying, eyes red, maybe from tears, maybe from anger he threw right back at himself.
"They slit his throat right in front of the king and queens throne. I stared my best friend down as he breathed his last gush of air." sergeant Park thought back on that day when he was merely a knight under sergeant Jung's wing, following the mans every order and yet somehow managing to be close to him like a brother.
"I betrayed both him and Heiryung, for selfishly needs." you were on your knees in front of the chair he was sitting in, holding his trembling hands in his lap.
"Jimin's mother was pregnant back then, on the outskirts of the village, she had so little to eat. I needed a way to get her here, to protect her."
He sniffed.
"I was promised to get his position, that he'll be dropping down in rank after the whole ordeal, I didn't know they were going to execute him."
Your own eyes were stinging with tears as you thought about the helplessness that the royal family caused all the people included to feel.
"Mihye came to the castle a month after, when all things have calmed down, and gave birth to Jimin."
He was finally calmer, but the grip on your hand tightened.
"I couldn't hold him for half a year. He was so small and frail when he was born and whenever I tried to hold him I remembered how I swung Hoseok out of the queen's arms, holding him by his thin leg. I feared holding my own son Y/N, but I swore..."
He sighed, reaching over for a medal propped on his desk.
It was a medal Jimin received two years ago when he became the royal family's knight.
"I swore I'd teach him to be a better man than I was. And seeing him today, risking his life for a prince we are all proud of...I know I did well. I know he'll be a better friend to Hoseok, than I was to Ho."
You stared into his eyes for a second longer before getting up to hug the man.
"Heiryung forgave you...didn't she. It's time you stop beating yourself up." you said before you turned to roll up the painting.
"Y/N...be careful. When you tell Hoseok..."
He unlocked the door.
"Be careful or it might go wrong."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And so you found yourself standing in the great hall yet again.
Staring at the portrait of the king himself and knowing that there was a man that resembled Hoseok more, hidden away on a piece of paper under your bed.
A month has passed since Heiryung passed away.
You haven't seen Hoseok in a long time and he'll be coming home tomorrow, although with guests.
The princess is finally getting married to the Jeon family and only the old queen and him will be left on the throne.
You think...
"Soon."
Okay, I think I might give this story one more chapter after this and finalize it. After this I hope I'll write a alcoholic Jimin fic, cuz...why the fuck not?! Plus it was requested lol.
Today was supposed to be my graduation ceremony, sadly I didn't get to wear a pretty dress I wanted to tailor for myself.
What color dress would you pick if you were going to prom/graduation party? (the dress code is mostly ball gowns, but all like classy shit goes)
My dress was supposed to be a dark bloody red that like shined in a really bright red on the sun. It would have been gorgeous for my walk through the city center. But I'm gonna make it anyway once all of this is over, I might wear it to some wedding or something.