My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Chapter 9

"Am I not attractive to you?"

The concept seemed to grate against his mind.

Jimin would be the first to admit that he was a vain person. Vanity was encoded into his genes, he had been reared into a functional human being on the idea. He had been raised to view himself as superior to everyone else. He had been raised with an overwhelming sense that he was somehow better than the billions of other people occupying the world. The world, he'd been taught, was his to rule. Quite literally, it was his world and the people occupied it out his graciousness. That vanity, that overwhelming ego was a part of him, and the idea that someone could not be consumed by it was irritating. It unleashed within him a frantic, if enraged, need to understand why it was.

The laughter that escaped Yoongi did nothing to quell the fire that was rising inside of him.

"Are you laughing at me?" Jimin demanded, stepping closer. "Are you laughing at me?! You have some nerve!"

There was a time in the distant past where laughter, in this situation, would result in Yoongi being drawn and quartered.

He had half a mind to order that anyway, if Yoongi kept up with this routine.

Before he understood what was happening to him, the older man grabbed him by his forearms, spun him around and pressed him against the wall. In a near daze at the sheer nerve of the man, he didn't even have the awareness to even protest the fact that he was being pressed against the wall. He only vaguely realized it, and felt some strange, far-off outrage over the fact that he was the Emperor, and he was being treated like a common human being.

The thoughts were only vague and wiped away when Yoongi's smile slackened.

Yoongi released his grip on his left forearm and held a finger up to him.

"Will you shut up for a moment and let me get this out?" Yoongi questioned.

The choke that he suppressed could not be understated, but he found that he could force himself to acquiesce to the man. The onrush of romance that he'd felt was gone, but he felt that they needed to have this moment. Jimin, perhaps in a moment of awkward clarity, would regret it if they didn't air all of this out now. Whether it ended in all being settled, or with him entertaining his security attaché in his bath, he couldn't truly say.

But he felt as if he was meant to hear this.

"Will you?" Yoongi questioned again.

"Yoongi," Jimin groused, unamused.

The older man sighed, and nodded, stepping back and releasing Jimin from his position against the wall. He stepped back, making a show of rubbing his forearms and sending an offended little look his way. Yoongi either didn't notice, or wouldn't take the bait as he himself looked away, and began to form something of a pace on the mat. Back and forth, he walked the width of the mat in front of Jimin, clearly summoning up the nerve to talk.

Jimin didn't move and he was careful not to say a word.

He merely stood there, arms hanging lamely at his sides, waiting for it.

"I'm not used to having to do this," Yoongi said after a moment, not stopping his movements, but turning to look at him. "The lifestyle I've led hasn't let me do this."

He blinked, still saying nothing.

But that didn't mean that he wasn't hanging on every word. As it had always been with people that aroused his interest, he tended to chew on every single word that crossed from their lips. Jimin had been taught from a young age that it was the quickest way to understand someone. A simple admittance could determine the path of the future, it was the quickest window into the character of a person. People who were liars, people who habitually told the truth, people who were attempting to advance themselves or some damned crusade, words were the catalyst of all of that and he'd been taught to listen.

Yoongi stopped pacing for a moment, and then turned to give him an earnest look.

"You're used to this, you've had the opportunity to do this more than once."

He had to suppress the urge to correct him.

"Or, you're more open about it," Yoongi seemed to correct himself. "You're beautiful, brilliant and important, you make no attempt to hide it, I mean, why would you do that?"

Jimin felt his cheeks burn at the complements and he almost chuckled at that feeling.

It had been quite a long time since a mere complement could make him blush.

He would be keeping this one close to him, no matter what he had to do to keep him.

"I'm none of those things," The older man reasoned matter-of-factly after another moment and looked away from him. "I'm a commoner, I'm not special, not in the way that you're special. I'm special in ways that are beneath you, ways that aren't good."

Jimin blinked at him, at the seemingly heartfelt confession, and he felt his stomach flip-flo