Chapter IV

«Here he is! Here he is!»
«Our beloved!The violinist chosen by Darkness!»

Taemin woke up with a start, with shortness of breath and a sweaty forehead.
Why having a dream like that, all of a sudden? Maybe drinking hot chocolate milk before sleeping was not a good idea.
His blonde hair was damp on the hairline because of too much sweating and he was feeling like his head was about to explode. It hurt so much. 

A strong light started bothering his still sleepy eyes and that was when he realized that the window was fully open. Did he really sleep like that?
He mumbled, feeling dizzy while getting up from bed. As he walked to the bathroom he looked at the clock on his bedside table. 
It was 11:56 am and he was quite sure he had never slept so much in his entire life. Everything seemed so out of place that morning. Even himself.

Despite everything, however, his mind seemed not to waver even for a moment while remembering the night before. He had played his violin and that evening had been the most profitable ever.
Profitable, not only in terms of money. He remembered that he had met a person. Someone who like many others had complimented him, but unlike everyone understood him.
'Jongin', only by repeating that name in his head he felt like a shudder right through his body. And if he looked in the mirror at that moment, he would have also seen himself as he smiled.
Was it possible, a feeling like that? The desire, in some way, to play his violin again and to do it in front of those obsidian eyes, to see that rapt expression for a second time and maybe being able to transform it, again and again.

Never in his life he had wanted to play for someone. Just like no one had never wanted to listen to him playing.
He and the violin had always been alone, around them there was no one who understood, who wanted them around. They were like an engaged couple that no one recognized.

He shook his head at the thought, holding back a laugh as it was an absurd comparision.
But still, deep inside he remembered and he knew, there was not much difference. 

"Taemin." His way of pronouncing his name was always the same. The same cadence in the tone, the same attitude of those who expected an answer immediately. Because he spoke once, and only one. If you missed to answer, he would have told one of the servants to refer the message.

He opened the door of his bedroom, but he did not dare entering. He stood still on the threshold made evident by gold ts, as well as every detail minutely studied by the mind of his mother in the days when the villa was restored.
Taemin was sitting on his canopy bed, legs crossed to ruffle the sheets and arms to grip the violin. He was already wearing clothes for yet another gala of that week. The man looked at him as he did every time, annoyed.
"What is that?" That was the question that annoyed Taemin the most. Because it was always the same, it was obvious, and that man looked at his violin with disgust.
"A violin, father." Coming to think of it, Taemin had never looked so cocky. 
"You know, the one stringed instrument that is played by placing it on the shoulder and passing a bow on the stri-". "Do not tease me, Taemin. You do not have the right." He interrupted. He always did it.
He pulled his right hand from the inlaid doorknob to get closer, and Taemin was almost certain that he had not blink an eye yet. The ticking of the soles of his lace in black leather on his feet bothered him.
"I thought I told you that you are not allowed to play that instrument." Taemin rolled his eyes, then went back to focus in his father's: he was not afraid, and he knew how the speech was going to follow.
"You have to study, to be ready for when it's going to be your time to take the reins of this family, of our business. You do not have time for distractions, Lee Taemin. The less I'm going to let you play an instrument so close to the nemesis of God. 'The instrument of the Devil', can you realiz?" His father was very religious and he was looking at Taemin with anger.
Taemin was perfectly aware, and he liked it. He didn't believe all those stories, especially those which were referred to religion. For him it was all nonsense rubbish imprinted in the minds of a mentally anachronistic people.
How much pity he felt, for all of them. How much pity he felt for the man who stood before him. "I don't bring harm to anyone, father. And I think I have the right to-."
"Right!" He did it again. Taemin wrapped his fingers around the neck of the violin, so strong as to whiten the knuckles.
"He talks about rights! Everything you know is how to strum the strings of that ridiculous thing and you would like to talk to me, your father, in my house, about rights!" He was looking around with a mocking smile, as he was seeking for approval from the walls. Old fool.
Taemin found himself with his gaze pointed to his father's belly, bandaged with a lightly laced shirt. Tight lips and clenched teeth. He had acid on the tongue and fire in his eyes.
"Get rid of that violin, Taemin, unless you want me to do it." He crumpled that threat and threw it into the garbage in his mind. He did not look at the older man as he was turning to leave.
However, with the corner of his eye, he was pretty sure he saw the figure of his mother, hidden behind the door.

[...]

"Where were you last night, Jongin?" Joonmyeon was standing right beside his own armchair, his cold fingers running through the edge of the back, as if to get pleasure from the feeling that the embossed seam gave under his fingertips.
Only a few lights were on in two corners of the room that, for this reason, was quite dark. Sure the artificial lights