The name rang between the three of them. Namjoon looked resigned, Jin looked faintly guilty and Jimin… well, Jimin just felt confused.

 

“Who is…?”

 

That’s as much as he got out before the door slammed open with a crack of noise and the ping of broken seals. Jimin barely got an impression of someone taller and slim and graceful before said person ploughed him out of Jin’s arms with a pouncing hug. He ended up on his back, shocked and confused, and threw up his hands to protect himself as his back ached. The parquetry floor was beautiful, but hard.

 

Moments passed. Then, very gently, a set of fingers worked delicately between his until they were matched palm-to-palm and the person pulled them away from his face. “Hi!” the young man said happily, uncaring that he was straddling his waist. “I’m Taehyung – just call me Tae or Tae-tae, okay? We’re going to be good friends, I promise.”

 

Jimin stared, fascinated. The young man looked to be about the same age as he was, but had brown hair with more than a tinge of red in it, a wide, boxy smile and ethereal features. His face was small and a little sharp. His body was thinner than Namjoon or Jin’s stockier builds, but he could feel strength in the grip ‘Tae’ had on his hands, and he had enough weight that it’d be irritating to try and buck him off. Though he had human ears, two tails wove in the air behind him, flicking as he leant down to bury his nose in Jimin’s neck.

 

It didn't help that he was as sharply beautiful as a crescent moon.

 

“…help…” Jimin croaked very weakly.

 

“Let him do it or he’ll moan forever,” Namjoon said, voice still thick with resignation. “Jimin-ah, this is Kim Taehyung, the son of the queen here, and my hell-beast of a pupil. Tae-ah, get up, we talked about this, you can’t just hang off whatever or whoever takes your fancy.”

 

Tae pouted as he pulled back, but he was all smiles again in the next second as he dove for Jin instead.

 

“Gently,” Namjoon said again. “His hands are troubling him today.”

 

“Namjoon-ah, stop tattling!” Jin scolded as he lifted an arm for Taehyung to shelter under. “Tae-tae, you still look so thin, have you been eating as you should? Also, don’t you think you should help Jimin up? It’s only polite.”

 

'Tae-tae' peered over his shoulder at Jimin with a faint trace of guilt before he reached a hand out to help him up. The other settled on Jin’s thigh without any problems at all, though he moved it seconds later to wrap gently around Jin’s closest hand. “Sorry,” he said happily.

 

Jimin patted himself down and moved to his pillow again, clearing his throat as he settled down. “Park Jimin,” he said with the seated bow that princes deserved – at least as far as he could remember. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Taehyung-naeuri…”

 

“It’s Tae,” Taehyung insisted with a grimace. “People are people, whether they in silk or hemp.”

 

“Namjoon-ah,” Jin said with a tired sigh. “Are you infecting him with your proletariat leanings again? No more panda tea for you.”

 

“I…!”

 

A servant knocked and stuck his head inside. “The Queen is ready for them now,” he said with a great deal of respect. “Please ready yourself.”

 

Jimin watched, baffled, as the other three in the room waited until the servant had left before offering heavy sighs.

 

“Come on,” Taehyung said as he slipped away to his feet, bouncing on pristine white socks. “We might as well go see what Eomeoni wants.”

 

After his presentation Jimin stumbled out of the audience room, left with the impression of rare, costly furnishings and a white-haired woman of such beauty that he couldn’t look directly at her. Her aura hurt his eyes, never mind that it wasn’t polite to look at her directly, and though she had been kind she lacked the warmth that her son had. She had been very pleased with the carved goose that he handed to her, much taken with the fact that he had done it by hand, and equally as happy with the gift basket of enormous pears Jin had brought. He hadn’t even known that gourmet fruit was a thing.

 

Toddling along, he listened to Taehyung ramble on about everything and nothing, from the colour of the leaves to Jimin’s hanbok to some kind of conflict in a nation somewhere across the sea that wasn’t Japan. Very slowly, instead of getting more confused, the chatter calmed him, and he was able to take a deep breath once they stepped out of the palace walls to traverse the river bridge again. He had just about gotten his bearings back when, in front of them, Namjoon stumbled over what looked like empty air, and the flash of autumn sunlight off a suggestion of scales dazed his eyes.

 

He wasn’t in Bukhansan anymore but somewhere dark and scary, standing on a precipice above a midnight ocean. It was dark; there were so many churning clouds in the air that he couldn’t see the stars or the moon. Distantly, way out into the ocean, lightning danced and hissed, stirring up waves. He screamed in fear as his body decided to walk off the precipice and onto open air, but he didn’t fall. There was nothingbeneath him, and yet he still didn’t fall.

 

Panicked and more afraid than ever before, he ran out across the sea. All around him cold spume soaked him as the waves thrashed to reach him, soaking him with icy salty water, and he didn’t dare look down in case he saw monsters beneath the water. There were monsters there, he was sure of it. He ran and ran, off towards a distant, odd glimmer of light.

 

A sudden break in the clouds allowed him to see the moon shining like a lantern-filled orb above him, and he reached out to pluck it for protection – oddly, it came to his hand, and he looked down at it, seeing a gigantic peach-pink pearl resting in his hands. It was as large as a small ball, but a wounded roar pulled his attention back up to the sky. He rocked back at the sight of the moon there now, bloody and shedding pink-hued light. He wasn’t sure why it frightened him so, but it did, and he ran again, ran on and on with the pearl in his hands until he came to another cliff.

 

There was a shape on it, humanoid in form, but he couldn’t see anything of it beyond the person’s eyes. Somehow they lightened his heart, as cruel as they looked, and he wanted to fall forward and trip into them, disappear forever into the figure’s depths for protection. He watched, wondering as streaks of light reflected in the eyes that were as black and mysterious as painting ink, pinprick stars that started falling endlessly, endlessly, endlessly…

 

“You’re not ready yet,” a deep voice said and the figure reached to pull the pearl from his hands. “You have to go back.”

 

Jimin screamed and flailed as a force pulled him away from the cliff and the figure there, fought against his grip. It pulled him down-down-down into the wicked sea, drowning him in its depths. Light and dark splintered in his eyes, until they cleared and he could hear concerned shouts around him. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe…

 

“Take him through,” Namjoon said with rising urgency. “You have to get him back to shielded grounds, Jinnie, right now…”

 

“I can smell sea water, why can I smell the sea this far inland?” Taehyung whined. “It’s wrong, it smells bad… is something wrong with him? Why is he convulsing like that?”

 

Faintly, like a hook in his gut, Jimin felt the gate pull at him as Jin carried him through, and he knew no more after that.

 

It was much later that evening that Jimin woke up, burrowed in his warm bed with Jin close by. Muji was on his chest like a stone, and he could hear Jin chanting and praying softly in his lovely voice. Jimin listened to it for a while, until the slow up-and-down of the tones reminded him too much of the sea he had almost drowned in. It was futile to try and sit up against Muji’s weight, he simply didn’t have the strength for it. The moment he twitched his head sideways though, water gurgled in his throat, thick and salty, and he coughed up what felt like half an ocean.

 

“Let it out,” Jin urged as he stopped praying, moving onto the bed instead to support his shaking body.

 

“What happened?” Jimin managed to ask. “What was that? It was… it was…”

 

“Hssssh, it’s okay, you’re safe now,” Jin crooned to him, one hand ceaselessly his hair. “Hyung is here, you’re ok.” He helped Jimin wipe his mouth before he answered. “You had a vision, Jiminie, a particularly powerful one, but you were in too deep, way too deep. I thought you would be okay with a short trip to the palace, I’m sorry, but I should have thought about the fact that the shields here are different than there.”

 

“Shields?” Jimin got out with a thick tongue. “You mean like at the perimeter?”

 

Jin eased him back onto the pillows. “Not quite. I am a healer, so the complex here is especially set up to promote healing and relaxation for my patients, especially in my ritual space. My ancestors protect us from malign influences here. Have you had any nightmares or visions since you came here?”

 

“No, hyung, but I thought it was because I was here now.”

 

Jin clicked his tongue. “Aish, I should have checked as well. To complete the answer, the palace is shielded, but not against mental influences because that’s how a majority of the spirits there interact and communicate. I wonder… can you tell me what you saw?”

 

Jimin swallowed against the bitter taste in his throat, but even thinking of drinking water to ease it made him sick. Instead he sheltered into his hyung’s shoulder, arms curling around Muji for reassurance. “I was on the sea. The moon fell from the heaven and turned into a pearl,” he got out. “But it was still in the sky and it turned red and I ran from it, until I ran into someone. I couldn’t see them except for the eyes, and the stars falling in them. Falling endlessly, like shimmering bubbles of light. I felt safe for a second, but then something tugged me back and tried to drown me in the sea, like I was drowning on fear. I was so afraid, hyung, and so lost.”

 

“You’re safe here with me,” Jin said quietly. “Hyung will protect you, I promise. Try to sleep now.”

 

Jimin nearly cried out when Jin shut the bedside lamp off, but managed to control it when the man crawled into bed next to him, wrapping him in strong arms. Muji came crawling back too, bracing him from the other side, and purred the two of them to sleep.

---

1. So here we go, the first appearance of Taehyung in this story. Finally we know the identity of the two-tailed fox shadow way back! Tehyung, however, does not behave as one would expect a prince to behave... but then he refers to his mother very respectfully.
2. Jimin, relaxed and amongst friends, doesn't remember that things usually happen when they are least expected. Poor guy. Perhaps he should have had more panda tea.
3. Just like their clothes, the price of gourmet fruit in Korea is scandalous, but always a very welcome visiting gift. On a side note, geese are most traditionally given as a pair for weddings, but I believe they're seen as good luck singly as well? Long story short, always bring a gift when you visit someone's house in South Korea.