“Seungcheol, get your out of that bed right now or else I’ll roast you to death.”

Hearing such loud voice early morning should be illegal, Seungcheol swore to all the gods and deities up there. Should he, like, tell his older brother to create rules against waking people up this early in the future? His father would probably kick him out of their house if he did. Ah really, when could he have peace and quiet in his life for once?

With Boo Seungkwan’s presence, he guessed never.

“I told you Seungcheol, you need to –”

“I know Seungkwan. Just shut up and give me a minute,” Seungcheol groaned from his position on the bed, cursing the younger under his breath. He slowly found sleep once again and he was already there – so close - when he was thrown straight out of the bed and on the uncomfortable wood the floor was made of.

He finally found his senses when he felt his torso aching. “What the , Boo Seungkwan?”

Seungkwan, who didn’t give a damn care if this was the second prince he was talking to, pulled the other up by his collar and shouted at the top of his lungs, “You need to get ready now, Your Highness! The king is coming in, like, an hour. He wants to meet you and I will be dead if you’re not by his personal study room by the time that he comes. Come on, come on –”

The older still hadn’t grasped the fact why the younger man woke him up at an ungodly hour just because the king of their country is coming. Of course, he didn’t forget to voice out his thoughts, “And why do you need to wake me up if the king is coming? I mean he couldn’t probably need me this early –”

“That’s where you are mistaken,” Seungkwan clicked his tongue as he pushed Seungcheol roughly inside the bathroom.

“I can’t understand you –”

For the nth time today, the younger cut off Seungcheol’s words, “Your father personally asked for you. He’s going to tell you something, I think. Ah, I don’t know! You keep on asking too many questions.”

Finally entering the bathroom, Seungcheol turned around and stared at the young butler as if he heard incorrectly, “You said he wanted to talk to me.” A nod. “He personally asked for me.” Another nod. “But doesn’t he usually ask for Siwon instead?”

Seungkwan rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe how idiotic this man was. If he wasn’t working in the royal family’s house and didn’t know the other, he probably wouldn’t know that he was one of the princes of their country. “I told you, I don’t know! Why don’t you just get ready and ask him in an hour instead?”

“Come on, someone must have gave you a clue and you’re just hiding it from me. What is it?” The prince continued to bug the other, taking his shirt off in the process and exposing his body to the cold and peering eyes of Seungkwan who just had to cringe. “Is he finally announcing the date for the formal crowning of Siwon? I bet it must be it, huh?”

“No, he’d probably scold you for being a lazy- and not attending the events you are ought to go to.”

“Love you, Seungcheol,” Seungkwan immediately scrambled out of the room, but not without closing the bathroom door, when he saw Seungcheol reaching for the shampoo bottle beside the tub, probably to chuck at him. The prince could be a hell lot terrifying when he was serious, to be quite honest.

Left alone inside the bathroom with silence engulfing him, the prince couldn’t help but rest his head on the edge of the tub, silently mulling on what his father needed from his bastard of a son, which is him. It had been a while since they decided to talk with each other. Weeks? Months? He didn’t have any idea.

Having the chance to talk with his father is clearly not making him excited. He just wanted a silent life and sleep for eternity, for god’s sake. Should he go and jump out of his window just to avoid him? It sounded like a brilliant idea. Their guest house in Busan must looked lonely this time of the year. What if –

“Choi Seungcheol,” he heard his young butler saying from outside of the bathroom. “Don’t even think of getting out of this house or else you’ll die with my own hands. Get that?”

He guessed he couldn’t go with his plan now.

“So you mean to say, this is where we’ll be dispatch to?” Jihoon had to cringe at the loud voice of Seokmin as he was sitting at the passenger’s seat of somebody’s car. It was early in the morning and he was being boisterously loud and the shorter man had a very short patience especially during early mornings.

Jihoon’s glare didn’t stop him from blabbering nonsense though and he had to stop himself from strangling the other man, whatsoever.

Though, he guessed the other’s loud outburst was only right because the house of the royal family in front of them was really humongous. It was new to them, even though they were used to having missions connected to high officials in their country, especially to the other six judging by his team’s jaw dropping and gaping beside him. He was not impressed though. He bet all these came from the sweat and blood of other people.

He had to scoff loudly at that. And, apparently, it got the attention of his whole team. “What’s wrong, Jihoon?” Of course, it had to be Seokmin the smiley guy.

“It’s either 034 or leader, 050.”

“Boohoo, boring,” the older fake gagged, much to the amusement of his other mates aside from Jihoon and the ever so grumpy Jeonghan. “Why would I call you that? Let’s be comfortable with each other. That will be the secret on why our teamwork will be awesome, Jihoon!”

Cringing at his name being called once again, Jihoon opened his mouth to retort more but of course, Seokmin just had to cut him off. “Okay, Jihoon. What should be our next move now? Are we going ninja-like?”

“I can’t believe you’re comparing our job to ninjas, Seokmin. You’re ing impossible,” someone, Mingming was it, deadpanned from behind him.

“Anyway,” Jisoo, who was situated behind the steering wheel, halted their bickering after noticing Jihoon’s furrowed eyebrows. He guessed the younger wasn’t used to this. He couldn’t blame him, though. “No, Seokmin. Not ninja-like. We’re actually going to be decent people in this mission. You know, like normal bodyguards.”

“Well then, why couldn’t they hire actual bodyguards then? I bet they’re a lot less pain in the and will actually serve them better than us,” Jeonghan, who kept mum during the whole ride, finally spoke. Wow, and Jihoon actually thought he was mute already. The latter noticed Junhui and Mingming nodding from his peripheral vision.

“I guess our attractiveness tumble down those of our nation’s guards?” Seokmin just had the audacity to joke right now. “I mean, we’re actually the best in our group in terms of –”

“Just shut up, Seokmin,” the three guys on the third row, Mingming, Doyoon and Junhui, said in unison.

“Okay! I’m just trying to lighten up the mood.”

“Well, I guess we’ll only know the answer to that when we’re already inside, right Jihoon?”

Jihoon just hummed under his breath, his eyes still observing their surroundings. As he thought about it himself more and more, it was slowly really becoming odd for the royal family to hire their services when they had the whole force of South Korea backing them up. It just didn’t sit well with him. This was the royal prince they were talking about. His protection was ought to be exceptional.

When Jisoo parked their car inside, they slowly went out and was welcomed by probably a hundred of South Korea’s armed forces. No, he was probably mistaken. There were probably thousands member of the private military in front of them and the thousand somber faces staring at them gave Jihoon slight chills.

“Thinking about it, Jeonghan was right. If they had this many soldiers, why are we even needed?” Junhui mumbled from under his breath that got him a glare from Jisoo, asking for him to be quiet.

One member of the large group who looked like he was already in his thirties went closer towards them and instead of being greeted with a sneer or anything along that, the man actually smiled at them. What a breath of fresh air. “Good day. I am Lieutenant Colonel Kim Taehyung and I will be the one escorting Mr. Lee Jihoon. The rest shall follow Major Min Yoongi towards the private room.”

Jihoon immediately perked up when he heard his name, “Wait, what? I’m meeting the king alone?”

“I don’t like repeating myself, Mr. Lee. So, if you could please follow me?” Taehyung’s box-like smile now irked him.

Nevertheless, he followed the other without looking back at his teammates. He didn’t want to see Seokmin near-panicking beside Doyoon, thank you very much.

While being led to god-knows-where, he decided to continue looking around and noticed that they were entering a really dark hallway. Was he supposed to ready his revolver already?

As if sensing his distress, Lieutenant Colonel Kim looked back at him, specifically at his hands now resting by his side, and said, “You better relax. I’m not going to kill you or anything, Mr. Lee.”

“You could have fooled me.”

They finally stopped in front of a huge door in the middle of the house with the writing ‘King’ carved on it. This must be the king’s study room.

Before any of them could do more aside from standing, the door quickly opened with a loud bang and out came someone whose face looked really familiar to Jihoon. He couldn’t pinpoint where he could have saw it.

“I don’t accept! I will never accept and you should just go to hell,” the still unknown man shouted at the top of his lungs towards someone from inside the ro