-; Sana has had 'enough of Jiwon's bullshit', Jinyoung agrees to a compromise, and Taeyong tries not to claw Jiwon's face off.
South Korea's crown was a big position to fill, so naturally, Park Jinyoung grew up faster than all the other kids.
At ten, Jinyoung had been a sixteen-year-old in a child's body, unable to enjoy everything else a normal child would.
He was a sheltered boy, with a business man's son the only friend that was good enough for him to talk to; which was sad because their relationship had been established only because they shared the experience of their youth diminished to the general public's expectations' collateral damage.
His father said his name was Cha Eunwoo, but in one times too many, the boy introduced himself in a stuttered, immediately corrected, Lee Dongmin.
Obviously, the boy's real name was Lee Dongmin, an eyebrow raiser, as his father was a Cha, but Jinyoung put two and two together rather quickly and came to the conclusion that Eunwoo's parents were separated.
(Jinyoung thought it was sad that he found out that Eunwoo's parents were divorced before he did, but Eunwoo was eight, and Jinyoung didn't have the heart to bulldoze the little boy's innocence.)
Especially not on their first sleepover.
"So is it true that you're royalty?"
Their first sleepover... with a girl.
It wasn't ideal to participate in nightly festivities with a girl, but then again, as the future king of Korea, Jinyoung also had to have an open mind- so although it was unusual to have a barely dressed little girl tackle him in improvised wrestling matches, he kept it cool.
Together, the three of them lay in a tent Nanny Taeyeon set up in the backyard, looking at the stars while their bodies were coddled in cotton sleeping bags.
There was a constellation tonight— Jinyoung recognizes it as Cassiopoeia, he had a vast knowledge about constellations as his private tutor had an astronomer for a husband and would always tell him about stars in their free time.
"Yes, I am a prince."
Her eyes twinkle and her hands clasp around Eunwoo's shirt, tugging. She whispers something to Eunwoo, and in return, he flicks her forehead.
"Jinyoung-wangja-"
"Oppa is fine." he interrupts, "Just... treat me the same way you treat Eunwoo. There's really no major difference."
She nods profusely, smiling, "Oppa," it sounded nice coming from her, "There's a lot of difference! You're older and more handsome than him."
"Hey!"
"You have to face the facts, Dongmin!"
Jinyoung raises a brow, "So, what did you want to tell me?"
"Do you like living like a prince?" she asks, big eyes turning wider in curiosity, "It's just that, you have so many responsibilities. And you never leave your fancy palace. Doesn't that stunt your exploration phase?"
Jinyoung raises his brows, it was a legitimate question from the younger child, "Are you sure you're only nine?"
"She likes watching Barbie Princess and the Pauper," Eunwoo rolls his eyes, "Disgusting."
She, suddenly frustrated, smacks Eunwoo across the head, "All the Barbie movies are good movies!"
Nonetheless, the Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper-derived question did change Jinyoung's mind— too much for what it was, maybe, because it sticks to his brain the whole sleepover and back to his huge palace, where the question sends him in a dramatic mental breakdown: a hurricane that lead to the demise of all his established principles.
At age eleven, Park Jinyoung develops a sudden yearning to search for the meaning of his life, amidst lessons for table manners and learning chinese.
At age seventeen, he realises what the answer was.
The beauty of life was that it had no meaning. A normal person just lived not knowing what they do, but unlike Jinyoung, they had the freedom of actually doing it. A normal person would be happy. And to live well, a person should be happy.
Was Jinyoung happy?
A cigar he had stolen from one of his gardeners answered the question... or at least, made one up for him. Happiness was the exhilirating tang of tobacco, the way it burnt and engulfed his lungs in a soothing embrace, how it clamored down his throat and made him forget about diplomatic relationships with snotty princesses.
Happiness, at age nineteen, eventually dawdles onto smuggled drugs and hundreds of cases of beer. He had a janitor sneak them in when his parents had overseas trips or charities to attend to.
Happiness, at age twenty-three, was when he gets caught by a reporter in an illegal drag race— tongue out and with a can of root beer in his hands. He had no secrets left, no image to keep up. He could be as reckless as he wanted to, and his parents would still be relentless and forgiving because of their unassuming belief that this was just a phase.
Happiness was living in ignorance, without any guilt or any regrets— stepping over people because nothing mattered at all. To Jinyoung, life stayed at life, so it was natural he'd make the most of it, blunt to everyone else in it.
And then Eunwoo, nowhere, hops in his throne room and demanded Jinyoung get him some good boy points or else he'd go to hell. And because of what? A car accident?
Jinyoung only scoffed at the moment, rolled his eyes at how insane his old friend had gotten. He only wanted good boy points from his latina strippers, not the heavens.
So if Jinyoung didn't care, what was he doing in front of Eunwoo's house? Why did he, without any hesitation, change into a Balmain suit, send his strippers away, and drive his Range Rover right in front of Eunwoo's driveway?
What was he doing?
"Taehyung..." Eunwoo sounds warning, lifting his brows and inclining his chin.
There's a certain prestige in the way Eunwoo carries himself, it must be how he was raised.
"You fucking nerd!" Taeyong yells, clutching his legs, scrunching his nose.
Taeyong is the most aggravated and easily irritated. He reminded Taehyung of all the childhood bullies he'd met when he was at the farm— the ones who pointed fingers, threw rocks, and called him and his grandfather names.
"Dude..." the last one is Jiwon, Taehyung thinks.
Jiwon is the reason why this mess is happening. He is the problem child that Eunwoo thinks he can just fix with the magical power of kidnapping. Jiwon is the one who owned the gun in the first place.
Naturally, Taehyung takes him as the threat. So Taehyung points the revolver at him.
"Stop it!" an unusually high-pitched tone rings around the room.
A woman barges in from a separate door, there are red etches across her outstretched arms and her ankles. She looks the most devastated out of the three of them, with her haggard hair and her very wrinkled forehead.
"Sana!" Jiwon yells.
People had a fear of the unknown, so, alarmed by the sudden instrusion, Taehyung points the revolver at the woman.
"Jiwon—" she was halfway on running towards Jiwon, so Taehyung coughs, alerting her of the gun's barrel pointed directly at her.
"Sana..." Jiwon's voice becomes ten pitches deeper, laced with a velvety side of caution.
Taehyung stays vigilant, placing his finger on the revolver's trigger. It's light on his hands, but it's heavy everywhere else— Taehyung can tell he's sweating, he was wet and shivering all over, and his heartbeat is blaring, and his ears are numbing. He's never used a gun before, he's never even remotely threatened anyone before. He was raised a nice boy who didn't involve himself with criminals. He was supposed to die today.
"You fucking nerd—"
"Enough!"
All of the boys' attention immediately goes to Sana, who appears to be irritated more than scared. Her fists are balled and there is a vein popping in her forehead.
"Eunwoo, we had an agreement, right? You let go of me once Jiwon's here," Taehyung immediately looks at Jiwon, who is looking at the interrogating Sana. He's hurt, Taehying pities him, "Can I go now?"
"Sana... what?" Jiwon mutters. Taehyung physically fights the urge to console him with an apology.
"I'm sick of it, Jiwon! I'm sick of it!" Sana places fingers on her temple, glaring everyone in the room down, "Everytime— every freaking time I think to myself, hey, maybe it's worth it to compromise everything I have left to enjoy a life with you, your connections mess it up for me. Do you know how many times I got in trouble just because I refuse to leave you? Now, for the nine hundredth time since we've been together," she stabs a finger at Taehyung's direction, "I'm being held at gunpoint!"
Jiwon opens his mouth to speak, but Sana beats him to it, "The only thing I've ever asked from you is that you stay out of trouble. All I want is for you to just... be by my side and actually stay alive long enough to have a family."
"Sana— I—"
Taehyung thinks this is similar to a soap opera. If he could, he would grab some popcorn at the moment... but his hands were pretty preoccupied with attempting to shoot Jiwon's (probably sooner or later going to be) ex.
"Shut up, Jiwon. Just..." she sighs loudly, "...shut up. Eunwoo, he told me he wanted you to be a better person. Please... just go with him, Jiwon. I want to see you stay alive." and then she puts her nimble fingers on Jiwon's arms, thumb caressing it, "Jiwon. Let's break up."
So Taehyung's theory was right. Well. All that 'I want you to stay alive with me' crap for this conclusion? What a set-up. He trills his lips in frustration.
"W-wha—"
Now that the drama was over, Taehyung's attention span immediately redirects itself to his still gun-holding, shaking palms. And then he sticks his tongue out, swipes it over his lips, and asks: why was he so nervous?
Ah. Because pointing a gun at a person is wrong.
Taehyung shrieks, clamoring over the gun and its handle, his head swerving from left to right to beg for instructions from his other colleagues. Maybe they're handing him instructions, maybe they're trying to calm him down, but despite of his dire need of guidance, the only thing Taehyung can hear right now is his ragged breathing, his pounding heartbeat, and his grandfather's monologue about the bad place.
Think, Taehyung, think. Before doing anything rash, what would a good person do?
Shrouded with more of his grandfather's embedded monologue about the bad place and all the commodities that ran along it, only gibberish registers itself in Taehyung's humble brain. Perhaps it was due to his brain's commands, or perhaps it was his unnaturally sweaty hands, but Taehyung drops the gun.
Taehyung dropped the gun, so the issue was solved right? He wouldn't get punished or tallied against this?
No.
The force of the drop leaves the gun shooting a bullet straight at Sana's thigh. Taehyung would know, the blood splattered right at his direction.
Taeyong thought hanging out with the 1% of South Korea meant tea parties and stealing credit cards.
Taeyong, for a second, thought having come back from hell would at least garner him enough pity for a nice pedicure.
Taeyong, did not think that, despite of his dying ankle and his spiking blood pressure and just the mere fact that he was with Fucking Cha Eunwoo and Park Fucking Jinyoung (the fuckings were placed for different reasons), he'd be assisting his mortal enemy's Japanese ex in a range rover because some dumbass shot her unaccidentally accidentally.
But that's what was happening right now.
What made things worse was that Bobby sat beside him... and Taeyong couldn't choke him with his stupid leather jacket or stab him with the zipper because Taeyong's hands were preoccupied with plugging up Sana's bullet wound like he was a tampon and she was a bloody vagina. Taeyong curses. If anything, Bobby should have been the bloody vagina, it rolled better off the tongue— Bloody Vagina Bobby.
Oh yeah, and Steve was having a panic attack in the back of the car.
It was a blast, really, Taeyong hearing him make the car seats squeak when he rocks back and forth with his rock hard ass— whisper-shouting to himself, again and again, "Oh my god, I'm going to the bad place. Oh my god, I have negative points. Oh my god, I should have killed myself. Grandpa, I'm sorry."
(Whisper-shouting shouldn't be that fucking loud.)
"But hey, look at the bright side!" rich, privileged, and perfect Cha Eunwoo yells from the shotgun seat, his hands shooting up in the air, "At least we're all together now! And we're going to help each other get to better places, ain't that right, Jinyoung, old pal?"
Jinyoung, driving, replies, "Oh my god, what the hell. Oh my god."
"Good enough!"
Taeyong looks forward to the killing himself portion of the plan the most.
"Seulgi."
Jisoo swore that the strings weren't entangled before. She didn't even play with it! She may be unworthy, but she sure as heck was organized.
"Yes Jisoo?"
"Uh... hey," Jisoo points at the tangled pieces of strings together (which she did not whatsoever touch, by the way), biting her lip, "I didn't touch it. But what happens if the strings get tangled?"
Silence.
Seulgi blinks, "Oh."
"Good oh or bad oh?" Jisoo is nervous. God, what if this had just changed the fate of these five people? Did she just royally fuck up? God, just as when she wanted to prove herself to Jennie, Lisa, and Rosé. She just had to touch it, didn't she?
(Which she did NOT. It was conspiring against her.)
Seulgi's lips are in a thin line, and it gradually turns to a smile. Clasping her hands together, she leans down to Jisoo's height, lifeless eyes staring right at hers.
"Jisoo... it seems as if your chase has started."