A/N: I am using this part to set up the story/world and give you insight on Taehyung. Please wait patiently for the next update where there will be VKook interactions.

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In the year 3145, black snow was a common occurrence. It fluttered continuously down from the sky that was painted a permanent black and any sources of light (that were used to mimic how the world was like many, many years ago) were artificial. The sources of artificial light, of course, were not nearly as powerful to mimic the slightest effect that the Sun’s rays would have on Earth.

Light from the closest star in the solar system, called the Sun, as they were taught in school, never penetrated through the atmosphere or reached anyone on Earth anymore. Almost a millennium ago, a group of scientists realized that mitigating the effects of global warming was a lost cause unless they did something drastic to prevent the effects from being realized.

Technology did not exist at the time to reverse the damage done to planet Earth and humanity, at the time, did not care for events that would not affect them. After all, it was a motto to "live for now, and worry later". They did not need to worry later, so thus they only lived for then.

The group of scientists were able to build a non-heat conducting structure to encapsulate the Earth and protect it from the rays of the Sun, which was trapped as heat in the Earth's atmosphere because of the greenhouse gasses. With that structure, they built channels that allowed for harvesting the Sun's energy, in hopes of creating a world that would be powered by clean energy. As a result, the world had artificially cooled down, causing a man-made Ice Age to occur.

Many animals died in a mass extinction event right after the start of the man-made Ice Age. Their carcasses were readily taken and preserved, placed into Museums to educate the world about what had once existed. Those who were saved were bred in zoos and animal sanctuaries but even now, it was a race against time as inbreeding within small populations of animals has caused many of the animals to begin to die from genetic diseases.

Plant diversity, however, had been preserved to some extent and agriculture still flourished, though now it was under artificial greenhouse lights with artificial heating, as heat was nowhere to be found on Earth. It had helped that there were numerous seedbank projects before the Earth was encapsulated that had come together to provide a cohesive range of plant and crop flora to further sustain humanity.

All in all, although there were massive losses to biodiversity of Earth, there was still the ability for humanity to continue and humanity would do so, trudging alongside an ominously ticking clock.

The hope of the scientists then was that eventually, the inhabitants on Earth would come to find a way to rid the Earth of the greenhouse gasses that hung high in the atmosphere and repair the damage done to the ozone layer. Perhaps, some would muse, that all their hopes were naught.

Not much has changed since the Encapsulation Event.

Humanity had not learned—rather, Taehyung’s father, had not learned, and neither did those who invested in his coal mining business, or those who were employed by him and bought coal from him to heat their homes. He was still harvesting coal using energy from burned coal bricks to power almost ninety-five percent of District One-Twenty-Seven and about seventy percent of the world. Arguably, even a millennium later, coal burning was still probably the cheapest way to produce energy, and Taehyung’s father had been adamant years ago to create a transnational monopoly of coal mining and production of energy from what was mined (and he succeeded).

The only product of all the scientific engineering to encapsulate the Earth a millennium ago was thus just this—black snow. There was no new enlightenment of humanity, no new research to help solve the dilemma that scientists and humanity faced years ago, and there was no saving humanity now.

Black snow was the only outcome of encapsulating the Earth that would be written into the history textbooks, a small blurb in comparison to hundreds of pages about wars, poverty, global warming, and mass starvation.

It snowed because it was cold from the absence of the Sun’s warm rays, and the black colour of the snowflakes came from the coal and polluting particles that still lingered in the Earth’s atmosphere. There were, of course, still more polluting particles being emitted everyday, no thanks to Taehyung’s father.

The black snow, pretty and ominous as it was, was dangerous to many. Many children of the generation that was just born were allergic to the black snow. There were some from previous generations that were also allergic to the black snow but not to the widespread degree seen in the youngest generation to exist now.

There were new drugs on the way that scientists were promising could possibly lead to anti-inflammatory reactions to the black snow. But parents wanted the answers now and they wanted change. They wanted the pollution to stop, no longer wanting to seal their children from the world in fear of it snowing black snow (which was, if meteorologists had to be conservative with their estimate, about once every four hours), worried that their children would eventually be killed after numerous allergic reactions mounted by their immune systems.

The parents argued that it was basically waiting for a slow death for their children, unless their children did not walk out into the snow. They wanted solutions to their dilemma now.

However, that was of no concern to Mr. Kim, President of Coal Mining Trading Company.

And Taehyung could only agree cruelly that there was nothing much that could be done. He had read the literature himself after he heard of the widespread occurrence of children who had allergic reactions to the black snow—even if Mr. Kim were to reduce the carbon emission rates, it would not stop the black snow. It would snow black snow for at least the next two millenniums.

Furthermore, Mr. Kim only saw profit and profit only. Besides, there were hardly any winds after the encapsulation of the Earth and water and wildlife in their natural forms were considered so precious that it was against humanity’s interest to build dams. Solar energy could only do so much as Earth was far too far from the Sun for the energy to be harvested efficiently. So, there was only coal left.

What was very much ironic to anyone who had known Mr. Kim before his ascent into his position at Coal Mining, was this: he had once been a scientist. And he too, had once sought for the solution to clean energy and eventually releasing Earth from the capsule. He had studied nanotechnology and information systems, far different from what he was doing now. But no one really knew, of course, except for a few select people.

However, the rumours in District One-Twenty-Seven were very diluted to the point that it was just known that Mr. Kim was some sort of scholar that had studied energy consumption and forms in his studies after high school. But that was hearsay, for no one knew where this Mr. Kim originated from or what was his story. They just knew he provided energy to most of the world and that he was awfully charismatic.

No one knew what happened behind closed doors.

Taehyung himself, barely knew, and he was considered one of those who was most in the loop, which was what was scary.

(He had no idea that secretly, Coal Mining Trading Company had many subsidiaries, many whom owned “clean” energy power plants and that he basically owned all the energy supply in the world.)

(And if one were to think a little bit more, one would realize that perhaps this company controlled everything in the world, for without energy, nothing could operate.)

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“Sir, your bath has been drawn and the temperature is at what you would deem acceptable,” his assistant said, opening the door to his bedroom that was unlocked, after rapping on the door in a brisk manner. Taehyung turned to face him, nodding his head to his assistant. He gave a small wave with his left hand lazily to dismiss his assistant. Noting that Taehyung didn’t want to speak, the assistant had just nodded his head and gave a small bow. Then he left, leaving the door open in his wake.

Taehyung sighed a little, facing the black snow that billowed down like a waterfall from the sky. It was going to be a pain to travel to the function tomorrow that his father had wanted him to attend that was going to be held in honour of the political parties that were running for leadership in the upcoming election.

There were not many political parties, if Taehyung had to be honest. Most of the political parties had dissolved over the years after realizing that the Libertians that were currently and had been in power for the past fifteen years had a strong name in the District. Many of those politicians of the other political parties ended up assimilating into the Libertians and were often great spokespersons for the political party.

It was oddly peculiar that so many people would change their loyalties rather easily, and Taehyung couldn’t put a reason to how that was possible, but he figured that perhaps all of those who ended up assimilating into the party that his father backed, often saw that what the Libertians preached were reasonable.

Taehyung himself did not see any sort of solution for the bleak situation that was facing humanity. In such a world today, it was everybody for themselves. It was far too much of a privilege to even think about the consequences of their actions for the future generations. They could only live for the present and let the future generations worry when it affected them.

Pulling off his necktie in a swift movement and throwing it onto his bed, Taehyung made for his bathroom that was the room adjacent to his bedroom.

Almost immediately after entering the bathroom, he was hit with warm, humid air. He breathed in, immensely satisfied with the heat. He closed the door behind him with a quiet thud! And began to strip of his clothing, after making sure that there was a change of clothes laid out for him by his assistant, and a fresh towel was hanging on the hook on the wall, right by the light switch.

Once submerged inside the bathtub, occasionally ducking in and out of the water as he shampooed his hair, he let his thoughts wander towards what had transpired during the day.

After graduating from university, his father had promoted him to spokesperson for the company. Throughout his time as a teenager and young adult, before he had become involved with the affairs of the company, he often found himself plastered on the headlines of the morning newspaper on the slower days.

He was often praised for his good looks and polite manners, though Taehyung would say that the tabloids obviously had nothing else to write about if that was all they could say about him. He was more than his good looks and polite manners—not that anyone would care to look further than that anyway.

He had visited the city’s only orphanage per his father’s request, in order to maintain good public image. He always enjoyed going to the orphanage to hand out toys and to play with the children, but he disliked the accompanying pouts that occurred when he was getting ready to leave.

“Why are you never around that much? Come more often!” Jaemin had pouted and stomped his foot.

Taehyung had quite the morning at the orphanage. The children had decided on tag and a tea party, and Taehyung had first played “it” for the entire game and then he played the role of maid for each respective game-play.

“I’ll be back before you know it Nana. Take care of yourself and look after the others,” Taehyung had softly said, giving the younger boy a hug and kiss on the forehead before turning his back at the doorway of the orphanage. He did not look back.

He always hated leaving. It was always his favourite “event” to attend, though his father found it useless and didn’t often schedule it for him.

It was easy to be around children who didn’t lie and were simple human beings that showed their emotions as they came and go. He didn’t like politics or skirting around sensitive topics in formal settings—it was just too suffocating for him.

But this was the life he had accepted, being the son and perhaps the only possible heir to the coal mining industry.

Taehyung doubted that his father would allow for anyone else to have control over the monopoly after he decided to step down.

In the end, his father still wanted some semblance of control over the monopoly, and what better way would there be to control a monopoly, if not to just hand it down to a son who did not engage in politics at all, was a cynic at heart, and had long closed himself off to the suffering everyone but children.

“Don’t overdo it,” his father had said. “Don’t go so often that people think you’re doing it for show.”

So, Taehyung only visited once a month, though he obtained a good reputation with the children who have been there for almost years now.

It was usually the case, as many people did not want children anymore, in fear of bringing a life into the world at such a tumultuous time and being inadequate in providing what children needed to thrive under such abysmal conditions that had been laid forth by the product of humanity’s greed.

Then the latter half of his day was spent at a conference about caring for the environment. Ironically, it was all about how citizens were responsible for the Earth and the amount of pollution that was being emitted into the atmosphere. They were encouraged to use public transportation and walk whenever they could instead of using private transportation methods that required fuel.

It was all a fool’s joke—Taehyung was unsure who even believed what was being said at the conference. Perhaps the new graduates from universities, ready to change the world, only to realize a few years down the line that it was impossible. Humanity was walking towards the cliff of extinction and Taehyung could not see any other fitting end other than that.

It was all because of the pollution the industries were putting out into the atmosphere without care that the clock for humanity had sped forward once again, after the Encapsulation Event. One measly, average human barely had enough to heat their home, let alone afford their own private transportation. By far, there were little that were well-off enough to have their own private transportation like Taehyung did.

It was all a scam.

All a bid to blame the people but not the government and not Mr. Kim.

But Taehyung was not one to be involved in politics—he had developed too much apathy to care anymore.

He took a deep breath in of the minty shampoo and body wash he liked using that filled the air with their scents. He then gathered all his willpower together (it was difficult to leave the warm and quiet bathtub) and lifted himself out of the water, splashing water into the surrounding floor tiles.

He gave no notice to the excess water that had spilled onto the tiles as he quickly dried himself off with a towel and pulled on the clothes that his assistant laid out