The Velvet Masters

Chapter 21

The Mind Kingdom

Everyone went silent. It wasn't usual for the Reality King to be somewhere else besides his own Kingdom. He wasn't there when there was a catastrophy, nor was he there when there was a festivity. He was a private man. He kept it to himself. People only knew him from pictures and it had been awhile since he'd appear in the news so the pictures were of him younger. But as he stepped towards the Mind King, there was no denying. That man reeked of power. The Mind Kingdom people's eyes widened before turning to each other and whispering. Bohyun's face was laced with what looked like sadness. The people who knew him beter knew that it was unmistakably fake. When those words came out of his mouth, Jinki forced a small smile for him and shook his hand. They bowed to each other and Bohyun spoke once more.

"I would like to give your Kingdom some money to help you get back on your feet." The people gasped and cheered, applauding his statement.

It was very hard to trick a Mind half-god. Since they could read anyone's thoughts they barely trusted outsiders. You would have to have great brain skills to block your thoughts from these half-gods. Unfortunately, Bohyun was able to block his thoughts from anyone. Fortunately, so could the Kings.

The girls tried to hide their shock as everyone seemed so happy. The Kings forced a smile and got up to meet the King. As King Taemin was getting up his wife pulled him in.

"What are you doing?"

Taemin gave her a little smirk. "If the bastard wants to play, let's play." He stood straight and brushed his suit, following Minho and Kibum.

Minho's face was harsh as he neared Bohyun, who held a smile on his face. Minho's pace was fast and steady, when he got closer it almost seemed like he was going to punch the man but he didn't. Instead, his hand grabbed the man's and gave it a strong shake as if declaring its dominance. His frown turned it to a large grin.

"Welcome to the ceremony." He squeezed his hand but he didn't budge. Minho turned to the people. "Mind Kingdom people, please welcome the Reality King."

Everyone applauded and whistled. Kibum held a tight fake smile on his face and greeted Bohyun with a bow. Taemin, on the other hand, ignored completely his existence and went to stand beside Jinki, right on his left.

Bohyun's smile never left his face as he turned to look back at the people. "Your King was right in his speech, for the time being you'll have to be very careful about who you trust." He looked at the Kings smirking. "People may surprise you."

Jinki's smile dropped a bit but then turn back to its usual glow. He looked at the people. "Well, let's take the festivity inside, shall we? Let's start the feast."

The Mind Kingdom's new architecture was basically exactly like the old. King Jinki's orders. Their big social gathering place was what they called the barn. Many animals lived there, the ones that didn't have a place to stay or belonged to the King stayed in the barn, it was big enought to fit one football field. In there they would have many parties and festivities. After the attack on the Kingdom the barn was destroyed. Fortunately, the animals were able to escape and survived the fire. Afterwords, they weren't able to go to the Soul Kingdom like the people and stayed in the Kingdom while they were rebuilding. The building they were entering now was like an upgraded version of the barn and they couldn't be happier. The animals were in the back, in the stables while the people started sitting down on the large tables. There was a smaller one for the royal families.

"Unnie." Minyoung ran to Sooyoung. "This is so much bigger now, I'm so happy." She giggled to her sister.

"I know sweetheart but you can't be far from me, understood?" She smiled at the young girl and patted her hair. Her face became more serious as she looked at Bohyun and she clenched her fist.

On the other side of the room he stood with the other Kings on the special table. With Jinki in the middle, Taemin was standing right across Bohyun and he could feel his wife's nervousness so he held her hand and gave it a small squeeze. Minho and Kibum were next to Jinki as Seulgi, Joohyun, Minki and Wonwoo were watching the scene in front of them. Yerim wasn't sitting at their table but was with the other girls instead since the people still didn't know the heiress of the Reality throne was alive and well. Minho looked at the four girls at a table a few feet away from them. Sooyoung and Seungwam were playing with Minyoung's dolls as Yerim looked lost. He thought he should have a word with her afterwords. Minho looked back at his table and sat down while looking at an embarassed Jinki and an impatient Bohyun.

Jinki cleared his throat and turned to Bohyun. "I'm sorry we didn't prepare a seat for you, we weren't expecting your arrival." He brought his glass to his mouth to drink.

Bohyun nodded slowly with a straight face and then gave a little smile. "It's alright." 

Jinki immediatly called for some staff to bring Bohyun a seat and a plate which was scooted over next to Jinki. Then he arrogantly sat down without thanking the servers and looked straight at Seulgi.

"You look beautiful tonight Seulgi-shi."

She almost felt like throwing up in but kept it to herself and faked a smile. "Thank you, your highness."

"Beautiful and polite." He turned to Kibum. "Your daughter would make a great wife. Maybe prince wonwoo would make a great candidate, she could become a Queen." He looked at Naeun and she ignored his stare and played with her food as Taemin looked concerned yet angry.

Kibum almost choked on his food. Everyone knew he was only faking it for the people. It was like their little play. They had to play along too.

"She is still too young." Kibum responded almost snappily.

Bohyun chuckled. "Well, of course maybe you're girl would have to marry first Taemin. How old are you sweetheart?"

"I'm 28, your highness." She gave her the least genuine smile she could managed, but she didn't stop there. "But I don't think women need a man to rule beside them. You see, I'd rather be a single Queen than marry a man who would only use me for my power, you know?" She smiled prettily.

His face was bitter but he didn't mutter a word and he only drank some more wine. "Well, maybe I should get going." He smiled while getting up. "A nice day to you all." Everyone got up and bowed as he left, no one else noticed a thing besides that family since there was so much noise. "Ah," He stopped midway and turned around. "next time tou visit me give me a heads up girls, I'll serve you dinner." The smirk on his face lingered the room as everyone felt the need to grab him by the hair and drag his poor self back to the table to teach him some manners.

When he was out of sight Joohyun got up, Seulgi immediately grabbed her. "We'll catch him." She reassured her. "Just not today. We can't mess this up."

Joohyun sighed but agreed with Seulgi and sat back down. When she looked at her mother her expression softened. "Mom, are you okay?" She touched her hand.

Her mother's eyes were swollen and she could see them tearing up. "Yes, I'm just going to the bathroom." She got up as fast as she could and before Taemin could follow her his daughter stopped him and took the lead, following her mother.

The tension was everywhere on that table. Jinki clapped his hands and looked at everyone. "Please, continue eating or it will all go to waste." He let out a small chuckle trying to lighten the mood but as Minho shook his head slowly, telling him to stop silently, he got quiet and focused on his food.

On the other table, Sooyoung could feel Yerim's struggle as she was reading her mind. She touched the younger girl's arm, grabbing her attention. "Sweetie, I know it's hard but you have to please try to block your thoughts."

"What?" Yerim looked confused as her voice only allowed to let out only a whisper.

"I mean, no one's paying much attention to anything right now. But I heard your thoughts just now." Sooyoung sighed.

Yerim looked around trying to find someone looking at her. When she didn't find anyone she felt relief but was still concerned. "What can I do to block them?"

Seungwan seemed curious also and leaned in to listen. "Well, when I don't want any other mind readers to read my thought I try to confuse them."

All the girls looked confused as hell, even Minyoung, who had joined in the conversation. "Confuse them?" Her small voice asked her sister but as soon as a friend of hers asked her to go play she went after him.

"Yes. Imagine you're thinking about something personal and you don't want anyone to hear you, you add feelings. Mind half-gods can guess what you're feeling by your expression, a little better than humanes and other half-gods, but they can't exactly hear your feelings, understand?"

Yerim and Seungwan looked at each other and when Sooyoung thought they were going to nod their heads, they actually shook them.

Sooyoung sighed. "Okay, for example. When I was 16 I had this huge crush on this guy from my class. I had to block my thoughts from him so that he wouldn't know. So while I would think about how cute he was I would stop mid sentence to tell myself how that made me feel. It would be something like this 'goddess, he just asked me for a pencil *happy*' or 'he asked that other girl out *sad*'. Once you master this, your thoughts will become more and more difficult for people to read."

"Oh." Yerim nodded in understanding and looked down, when she looked up again at her unnie she smiled. "Thank you."

Seungwan also looked enlightened. She elbowed Sooyoung to grab her attention. "So, do you always read our thoughts?" She looked worried.

"Oh, no. I don't want to invade your privacy." Seungwan seemed more relaxed. "I just like to take a peak when you look more sad, or perhaps..." Sooyoung grabbed the girl's waist making her blush. "Flustered."

She got up as Seungwan was trying to form a sentence. Yerim looked at them with a wide smirk. 

"I'm going to the bathroom, please watch over Minyoung." Yerim nodded as the older girl left.

Seungwan finally came to her senses. "She's really something uh?" She said as she stared at the girl's back while she walked.

"You would know." Yerim took a sip of her drink.

Seungwan got up as she tried to cover her embarassment. She searched around for Minyoung and when she found her she pointed at her and looked at Yerim. "I'm going to play with her, be right back."

Yerim laughed at the girl and watched as she went. When she was alone she immediately dropped the smile and put on a straight face. Yerim grabbed her necklace and stared at the jewel. She thought carefully about it just like Sooyoung had taught her. She knew she would have to speak with King Minho about it. If he was one of the people responsible for her hiding, he should know about her necklace. Yerim looked at where he sat, next to the Kings and got up to meet him. She arrived at the table and she noticed that Queen Naeun and Joohyun unnie weren't there. The others noticed her presence.

"Princess." Kibum smiled at her and she gave him a shy smile. Seulgi also waved at her and Yerim blushed a bit.

King Minho found weird that she was there so he spoke. "Is everything alright?" His voice laced with concern.

"Actually, I would like to speak with you, privately."

…

AN: Hey babes! How are you all? Did you like this chapter? Bohyun is still a , am I right? Hope the queen is alright though.

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