It was the curse of absolute rulers, the tendency to be complacent. As children, they are taught to not fiddle while their city burns. 

But some lessons can be forgotten. 

Chapter 7 

Their dynamic had changed in the last few days.

Jimin’s eyes drifted through the endless memos that had been placed in his daily brief folder. The cogs of government did not stop for him, and the way the government functioned adhered to the name of the form of government. He possessed absolute power, he was the final say – and he answered to no one, and no one would question it. The drawback was the very real fact that he had to sort through it all. 

All the while, he could feel Yoongi standing in the corner of the room.

Watching him.

He was always watching, he’d noticed it before – and for some reason that he couldn’t put his finger on, he was becoming more and more aware of his eyes on him.

It had happened two nights prior – when Yoongi had walked in on him in his bath.

He had never been shy, and he had never denied the fact that he was a ual creature at the heart of the matter. His family was famed for their genetics, with various urbans legends, most of which were spread by them, saying that armies bowed to their beauty. Jimin knew that men were attracted to him, that women were attracted to him.

He couldn’t help that.

Jimin supposed that he’d made it hard on the other man because of the position that Yoongi had found him in. With his hand wrapped around his , a finger in his backside.

Even thinking about then made a small chuckle escape – but that didn’t stop the fact that he was reaching the point of no return on his patience.

As the amusement of the mental picture of Yoongi’s face quickly faded, Jimin set the pen in his hand down, and turned around on the swiveling chair that he sat at.

In the corner, stood Yoongi, hands clasped across his front.

“You need to stop staring at me,” Jimin told him.

Yoongi didn’t quirk a smile, not even a twitch. “It’s my job to stare at you.”

“It’s your job to protect me,” He retorted. “It’s not your job to blend in with the furniture.”

It said quite a bit when Jimin considered the small twitch of Yoongi’s lips as an overwhelming victory. To get Yoongi to break that mask made Jimin feel as if he’d stormed across no-man’s land – dodging grenades and side-stepping landmines.

“I think I’d happen to make a good lampshade.”

Jimin blinked.

His jokes were something else, and each was as special as a present.

“It’s good to have an ideal version of yourself, but I don’t need a lampshade.”

They continued to stare at each other, until a near reluctant smile came up.

A stand of Yoongi’s blonde hair fell into his forehead as he moved his head, and let out a deep breath, relenting. “I suppose that I’m mulling over asking you a question.”

“Yes,” Jimin answered.

“Yes, what?” Yoongi replied.

“Yes, I’m happy to let you see me ,” Jimin said. “But no touching, not yet.”

The older man was obviously unamused by his answer, but he made no move to rebuke him. Jimin noted that a light stain came across the tops of his cheekbones, and that pacified him as well as any banter possibly could.

“That wasn’t going to be my question.”

“No, but I’m just letting you know,” Jimin continued, face oh-so serious. "For future reference." 

“Jimin,” Yoongi shook his head.

It was his turn to smile at that, and he nodded. “Ask your question.”

“Have you ever thought of learning self-defense?”

The question through him for something of a loop.

There had been a time when he’d mulled it over – and there had been a time when he was so determined to do so that he wouldn’t let anyone stop him. It had taken the direct intervention of his grandfather to keep him from doing it, and Jimin stopped.

It was uncouth, it was beneath the pedestal that he sat on in life.

As Emperor, he was the commander in-chief of the military, he commanded the Praetorian Guard, he was protected by the Imperial Guard. His grandfather hadn’t simply seen the need to have him taught how to fight off an attacker or use a gun.

Jimin looked down to his lap for a moment, and then back up.

“There isn’t the need to.”

Jimin hated the look that Yoongi gave him at that.

“There will come a day when you need it,” Yoongi said.

“Where will you be?” Jimin asked.

Yoongi merely shook his head. “I will be by your side for as long as you let me, but you never know what’s going to happen in this world. You are the most powerful human being alive, there are a lot of people that would harm you. I don’t want to think about what someone would do to you if they killed me and got you in a room alone.”

It was a welling feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

But Jimin could still not put the feeling with his natural logic.

He was the Emperor of the Infinite Empire, he did not need that – but he did.

“I’ll think about it," Jimin promised him. "Let's just get through today." 

Yoongi nodded. 

It was all Jimin could promise, for now.

“It’s tradition.” Jimin chirped.

“It’s a Tuesday,” Yoongi told him.

Jimin had made it clear to him that he had big shoes to fill in the form his beloved grandfather. His grandfather, who had gone out of his way to revamp the way that people saw the monarchy. For most of his rule, he’d taken delight in the fact that he’d managed to turn the crown into a symbol of peace, harmony and a real, tangible happiness. Jimin might have had the suggestion made to him that if he, and all those that followed him, did not continue to do so – the monarchy would slide backwards.

So, there were parades.

His stomach turned. 

To make the people feel as if the Emperor was a heartfelt man.

“It’s a parade,” Jimin became short. “It’s Seoul, and it’s your job to protect me.”

As his mind went back to the conversation that they had earlier that morning, Yoongi swallowed down the irony, and bit his lip.

Clasping his hands together behind his back, he nodded.

“You’ll be letting them into the plaza?” Yoongi asked.

That could be controlled.

He began to think of strategic positions to place planted officers and snipers.

The plaza could be controlled.

When he’d first heard what was going to occur, he felt the capillaries at the base of his skull tighten. There was much that could be said for the logic of government, or the lack there of, but he was never comfortable with the idea of this. The idea of parading around the most powerful man on the planet in such a public venue seemed ludicrous. It didn’t matter if it was Seoul, it didn’t matter how many times Jung Hoseok made his vaunted claims of the capital city being a fortress, a city was not a fortress.

Seoul had too many people in it to ever be considered a fortress city.

Jimin smoothed down his coat.

“No,” He shook his head. “We’ll be going to them.”

Outside of the plaza.

Yoongi’s headache returned.

“Your Majesty, I have to object.”

Jimin shook his head and walked past him. “I don’t care.”

He found himself exhaling a little too loudly, and Yoongi found himself under the direct firing line of a glare. There was no mistaking that no matter how relaxed the other man insisted on making their relationship – there were some things that he couldn’t do.

And he had to remember who Jimin was.

Yoongi answered to Jimin, but Jimin was answerable to no one.

He fought down a glare of his own and lowered his head. “As you wish.”

Jimin kept his glare affixed for a moment longer before turning away.

 

It began as a low scream.

The striking juxtaposition of the crowd gathered almost rendered Yoongi blind to what was about to unfold. The avenue had witnessed some of the most iconic moments in imperial history. It had seen everything from victorious troops returning home from distant battlefields, to the grand, lavish coronation processions of all the emperors.

Death carriages, wedding parties, countless stories had been written on its path.

The main avenue, the grand avenue, still bore the trappings of classic imperial architecture. The order had been given long ago to maintain it but to never change it.

The world-famous avenue served as a perfect metaphor for the empire.

As the motorcade proceeded down the avenue at a snail’s pace, with Jimin standing out of the roof of the limousine waving graciously to his adoring subjects, Yoongi’s attention had been going back and forth to the grand gate that was ahead.

Sealing off all vehicle traffic into the plaza, it too had been built with classic-Joseon architecture, with the gate having barely changed in the hundreds of years since it was built. It had been preserved as it had been originally built, save for the Latin inscription that had been added to the entrance only many, many centuries later.

Infinite Invictus

Infinite, unconquerable.

School aged children were taught that the addition was meant to honor the new western subjects of the Empire. The reality was that the intention of the addition to the gate was the same intention expressed in the lofty titles that the ruler bore every day.

We own you, we dominate you, you live, breathe and die at whatever graciousness that we can manage to find within ourselves.

On the other side of the grand gate, the palace district plaza.

With traffic restricted, and the whole of an entire military division prepared to protect the plaza at a moment’s notice, the confines were secure, perhaps the most secure.

He wasn’t sure if that made him feel better.

Because on the left side of the avenue, through the throngs of the tens of thousands of people that came to see Jimin, the screaming was becoming louder and louder.

His mind began to race, formulating a response as quickly as he could.

“Minjae,” Yoongi called to the agent beside him. “Weapons.”

If the limousine kept moving towards the gate, he could very well assume that Jimin’s security would be assured.

It was then that the source of the commotion was revealed to him.

From behind a screaming, writing mass of people that were jumping out of the way, in a vain attempt to prevent from being mowed down – a van. A plain, white van that was one of the many millions that trekked across the streets of Seoul every day.

Yoongi had seen the same make of van more times than he could count.

In that moment though, it was a van that was tearing through the crowd of adoring subjects and heading straight towards the nose of Jimin’s limousine.

.

“Arm yourselves,” He bellowed to his team as best he could.

He spared only a single glance to the top of the Emperor’s limousine. The car was a fortress in and of itself, explicitly designed to withstand most conventional attacks and even a lot of unconventional attacks, withstand them until aid could be rendered.

It was an enormous relief to find that Jimin had done the smart thing and sunk into the security of the limousine. The damned thing had been tested to withstand a rocket propelled grenade launched attack – he did rule most of the world after all.

Bringing his weapon up, the other members of the team began to fire at the van.

It was perfectly legal that any force could be used to protect the life of the Emperor, so any damage – and even by extension, bystanders, were of no concern. 

Yoongi gritted his teeth as the bullet riddled van contacted the front of the limousine, the impact causing it to stop and veer slightly to the right. If he remembered the specs on the vehicle correctly, the driver would be initiating the armament mode.

All semblance of being careful was tossed out of the window.

“Shoot to kill,” He ordered Minjae, who relayed the order through his mic.

It was an order that he would ordinarily prefer not to give. Yoongi would want to know who they were, but they had gotten close, far too close than what was considered tolerable. He would console himself with identifying the bodies after they were in the morgue.  

As soon as the masked men began to exit the van, Yoongi began to fire his weapon. The fact that they were heavily armed struck him as momentarily astonishing. The weapons that they carried were expressly forbidden in the city. When he crossed the back of the limousine, he was taken back by a bullet grazing his upper right bicep.

He cursed.

Switching his gun to the left hand, he fired the weapon in earnest, almost indiscriminately.

If none of them managed to survive the ordeal, then so be it.

No one took a shot at him and lived through it.

Things had changed.

Forever.

There could be no mistaking the fact that a terrorist attack on the Emperor, much less in Seoul, was an event that would reshape the landscape. It would upend the landscape between the intelligence agencies and the armed forces, ending the once seemingly endless war.

As the helicopters buzzed by, he tried his best to contain a sigh.

“Report.” Yoongi ordered Minjae, as his adjutant came to stand behind him.

“The district is secure,” The other man answered. “The plaza is sealed, the first division has been deployed, all witnesses are detained, and all injuries and fatalities have been taken to nearby hospitals.”

“The attackers?” Yoongi pressed.

“All dead, save for one,” Minjae responded. “He’s in intensive care, in a coma.”

He turned and glared daggers at him. “I want him placed on constant watch. He is not to be left alone, not until he is