Music Inspiration: Dark Vampire Music
Words Count: 1,414
Status: Unedited
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The slender figure of a man in the black suit weaves his way into the crowd with the golden yellow lights reflect on his masqueraded face. The white and gold masquerade mask adorned his pale face; the intricate gold design covers his high nose bridge and his cheek bones. His soft brown hair sways along with his movements as he makes his way to the V.I.P tables upfront with sophisticated grace and a dignified aura. Despite the looks he was getting from the spectators, the man remains expressionless and his deep dark eyes scan through the V.I.P area, looking for his assigned seat. His black eyes look through the people around him as if they weren’t worth his time; he stops only when he reaches the most upfront table. Everyone who looks his way hitches their breaths and stops staring immediately as they realize who the man is.

The table was long narrow and decorated with gold table cloth contrasting the dark red decoration in the room. There were already three people presented at the table, a lady with a pure white masquerade mask covering her face, a black haired man with a black and gold mask on his pale face, and another man with a dark red hair and a dark navy suit stood behind the black haired man. The red haired man was the first to notice his arrival and bowed slightly at the presence of the man.

“Prince Suho.” The man speaks with a firm and deep voice, lowering his eyes and head. His deep voice makes the other two turn to the prince who was still standing.

“Commander Chanyeol.” The prince nodded and Chanyeol rises from his bow.

“Queen, Crown Prince.” The prince said softly as he takes the seat on the right of the black haired woman.

“Quite an entrance wasn’t it, dear brother.” The black haired man speaks with a smirk on his face when Suho settled in. The black and gold mask on his face covers only the left side of his face, making him looks like a Cheshire cat when his lips twisted into a smirk.

“You do know I hate these kinds of events and you still love to invite me knowing fully well I cannot reject your generous offer don’t you, dear brother.” Suho was still expressionless when he looked at his elder brother, Kim Minseok, the crown prince.

“It was my doing this time, Prince Suho.” The lady talks as she kept her eyes stilled at the stage, sipping on her glass of red wine as she listens to the music being played on stage.

“It’s been awhile since you’ve make an official appearance as a royal, don’t you think?” She continues as she turns to him, smiling tenderly. However, Suho knows the Queen is far from the image she portrayed to the public.

“I have no intention of bearing the namesake of a prince or a royalty; it does not mean anything to me now.” Suho speaks in a harsh tone, but the woman smile again and turn her face back to the entertainment on stage. As she turns, strands of her black hair which was cascading down her face moves along. She looked really young despite being in her fifties, a baby face with a stern expression that shared an apparent resemblance to the crown prince.

“You do know of the late king’s will, Prince Suho. I advised you to stay a royal if you do not want everything to fall with a snap of my hand.” The Queen calmly sips her wine again as she twisted her lips into the same Cheshire smirk her son had harbored moments ago.

The crown prince hums a tune as he watches the two exchange words while the red haired commander stayed stoic and expressionless behind them. Suho stayed silent after her words, of course he had known of the King’s will. It was just that he didn’t understand why the King had made such decisions. It was stated in the will that the crown prince may become King as long as the second prince, Prince Suho remains a royal. If the second prince decides to abandon his position, the third prince was to become King and harbor the power instead.

While his adorable and naïve younger brother, Baekhyun has brush it off saying he does not want the authority, the Queen and Crown Prince didn’t seem convince at all. It was to the point that they used the third prince’s life to threaten him. To Suho, Baekhyun was his only family left.

When he was younger, he had used to think that his father and his mother was the perfect couple. It was only when he had become old enough to understand that his father had two other wives and sons, and that his mother and third Queen were considered as the King’s mistresses who got lucky because they had harbored a son for the King. He also had come to understand and know of the first Queen’s hatred for the other two queens despite the fact that his mother and Baekhyun’s mother got along pretty well.

When the third queen passed away due to chronic illness, his mother had asked his six years old to stay quiet, knowing that he knows the reason for the third queen’s illness. Her mother took care of Baekhyun, who then was only three years old and didn’t know what was going on. Growing up, he and Baekhyun were joined to the hip while the crown prince preferred to keep it to himself. Everything was fine until one fateful day that took away his mother’s life.

He only remembers it vaguely now about the accident. He was on the car with his mother and Baekhyun, driving to the King’s birthday event at the castle when they went into the accident. He was only eight years old back then and Baekhyun was five. He didn’t know what happened as he was unconscious for a week. When he came back to it, he saw Baekhyun crying by his side telling him their mother had died and his father looking relief on his other side, telling the servant to fetch the royal doctors.

The accident did not only scar his right shoulder, but also his mental state. He began to become cold and distant towards his family. He had begun taking his lessons seriously and had often surpass the crown prince in many areas, which probably why the crown prince began hating him. After graduating from his university as a valedictorian, Suho started his own pharmaceutical business and stopped living in the castle. When he was asked, he’d say that it was for convenient and change the topic to his business instead. Over the years, he had only attended big events, presenting himself as the second prince only when he needed to. More or less, the public knows of him as the young and sole owner of his company, the empire he had built from scratch on his own.

Things moved along and remained peaceful until the king’s death and his will. From then, the Queen and Crown Prince had managed to threaten the third prince’s safety whenever the second prince wanted to abandon his position in the royal family. Baekhyun was seemingly oblivious to all of this because unlike Suho, Baekhyun feels that family is much more important than anything else in this world and that family should stick together.

It had only been one month since the king’s death and the crown prince’s coronation day is just around the corner, therefore, Baekhyun, being the third prince had often host the charity auctions where rich dukes and duchess or powerful business men gather to buy rare and ancient items, and all the money would go straight to charity organizations throughout the country under the name of the person who wins the auction.

Suho sips on the wine when the bands stopped playing and Baekhyun with a gold masquerade mask appears on stage with a bright smile on his face followed by his Chinese secretary, Zhang Yixing, who was in a pitch black suit and a pitch black masquerade mask.

Zhang Yixing, Suho thought the man looks awfully similar to one of the mysterious duo he saw at his mother’s graveyard, save for the fact that the man he saw at the graveyard was nothing like Baekhyun’s clumsy secretary who had only start working for Baekhyun a month ago.