XII.

with you ; na jaemin

yuri swore she could hear her backbone cracked after the guards forcefully dragged and pushed her into a cell that was said to be the "deepest dungeon". if it weren't for the cloth that was over her head, she thought she'll be able to escape somehow. 

"don't ever try to escape. this place is highly secured. even the strongest person would never be able to leave this place." one of the guards threatened. yuri didn't felt threatened at all. she believed that once the princes realise she's missing, they will be able to save her, using all of the wise brains that they have. 

that's the only way that she can calm herself down from this ordeal. 

yuri seemed calm, but internally, she's afraid and felt the weakest; being away from taehee, away from jeno, away from the princes, away... from jaemin. there's no one by her side to tell her that everything's going to be alright. she could feel her body starting to shiver in fear, pinching herself and trying to motivate herself, hopefully stopping the internal anxiety she's experiencing.

jaemin, please save me.

____________________________________________

"good job, guards. now, never let her out, until i said so. i might want to make use of her." the guards reported the 'king' of their new duty and dispersed, leaving him and the queen on their own again.

caressing her milky, white cheeks, he said "i fell in love with you again after i see those lovely eyes again. too bad, it lasted for a moment. for our sake." his lust got into him from his forceful kiss onto the queen's cold lips. but it was disturbed by a knock and the opening of the door. the fellow immediately apologised and close the door behind him, quickly kneeling to greet the 'king'. he tried to avoid eye contact with the 'king'.

"later." as he wiped both his lips and the queen's. he quickly neatens himself before sitting down on his throne.

"jeonghan, what did i tell you about barging through the door without permission?"

"sorry, father. i would not do that again." the 'king' approached the kneeling jeonghan and slapped him without any warning.

"again, i'm king here. not your father. why are you making too many mistakes?" jeonghan's heart, yet again, crashed into a million pieces. for years, he's been trying to fulfil his father's needs, but he was never satisfied. his mother left him when he was a toddler. hence, only his father could give him the attention he needs from a parent.

all his father's doing are all wrong. very wrong. but jeonghan let his selfishness get into him and perform whatever duties his father assigned him to do, to get his father's approval as his son. he loves his father, despite all of these.

"call the princess' guard, what's his name again? minjae, right. now, go." jeonghan nodded and walked his way to find 'minjae'. jeonghan barely met minjae, but he knows roughly, how he looked. he's too busy dealing with his father's orders. 

especially finding those damn flowers.

it took a while, but jeonghan finally saw minjae hanging out around the garden, along with the princess' maid of honour. looking from far, they seemed pretty close. jeonghan felt the jealousy. jealous that they at least have a friendly relationship. not only he's not close to his father, but he also has no friends. even the guards who are working with him seems not to want to be with him too. he wondered what did he do to repel people around him. or maybe he's not good enough as a person. before he drowned into his thoughts, he remembered what his father instructed and called upon minjae.

"hey, minjae. fa- the king wants to see you." jeonghan prayed that minjae didn't hear his mistake. thankfully, not as minjae listened to the fellow's order and immediately walked towards the king's room.

leaving jeonghan and the maid of honour alone. quite awkward but, jeonghan decided to start a conversation. maybe he could make a friend too.

"umm, so, you and minjae are close?" 

"who's- ouh yes, minjae. yes, we are close, like siblings."

"cool, cool."

awkward silence. jeonghan honestly didn't know how to continue the conversation.

"never really seen you around the castle often. busy with the king's orders?" she continued.

"yeah, orders outside the castle." 

"interesting. like what?"

"sorry, i can't say it." jeonghan was so close to telling her more, but if his father finds out, he's dead. but he's glad that someone is finally making some conversation with him, despite the awkwardness. the maid of honour understands what he meant and just nodded.

"i've got to go. i have to clean up the princess' room." 

"y-yeah. of course, see you around soon." she gave a smile and waved him goodbye. 

after she left then jeonghan realised, he didn't get her name.

he wishes to be able to talk to her more, hopefully soon.

____________________________________________

"thank you for your service. you may leave the castle. here is your pay." jaemin didn't understand what the king meant by that. there are too many questions. why is his 'job' done? why is it so sudden? 

where is the princess?

jaemin tried his best to be in character as minjae despite clenching his fist and teeth so hard. he knew the king or 'the king' did something to the princess. he wanted to question the king, but he held back. so he just faced up to look at the king, and make the most real smile that he can do at that time, showing his 'thankfulness' and 'gratefulness' for 'the king'. 'the king' approached jaemin to pass his pay to him personally. he grabbed jaemin's gloved hand and placed the bag of cash on his palm. jaemin was still questioning what's happening, but he only remembered what was his last mission when he finally got close to the king.

the royal imprint.

unfortunately for the king, he had forgotten to use his unusually large golden bracelet that often covers the wrist where the imprint is supposed to be. lucky for jaemin, he noticed the change and briefly peeked on that area.

the princes' predictions were right after all.

there's not even the slightest colour of the emerald on his wrist. not even the shape of it.

jaemin is fighting with himself to continue being minjae and oblivious to any situation in front of 'the king'. jaemin kneeled again to show respect and leave the room to 'pack his things from his room'. he didn't want to show panic in his face, so he kept a straight face till he sneakily reached the princess' room.

"taehee noona." taehee was done cleaning the princess' room and almost jumped when jaemin suddenly entered the room without knocking.

"the princess... i think the king did something to her."

jaemin shared with her the situation that happened in the king's room, and he could tell, taehee was worried — worried about the princess. the more he went into his story; the more jaemin felt like he's wasting his time saying it. he kept thinking of the worst. the princess might be somewhere, shivering in fear. jaemin eventually bit his nails, almost digging into it.

none of them knew of her whereabouts. the last place that they assumed she was at was the king's room. what could've possibly happened that may have triggered the villain to do something to her?

as much as taehee is equally as worried, she's sane enough to calm the prince down.

"jaemin, let's go to the base, immediately."

____________________________________________

jeno punched the table into half and instantly grabbed onto jaemin's collar. jaemin knew this was going to happen when he breaks the news to the princes and seungcheol.

"i trusted you, jaemin. i trust you to protect my sister, and this is what happened. and now, we don't even know where she is."

jaemin was equally disappointed at himself. he's disappointed that he let the princess go by herself to meet the king. he's disappointed that he didn't follow his gut feeling when he knew something's up. he's mad that the princess might be left alone somewhere, possibly getting hurt. his one job is to protect yuri, and he already lost her — someone whom he fell so hard for.

"i'm sorry..."

with this, he doesn't mind if jeno decides to punch and kill him in an instant. and that's precisely what he did. almost.

since renjun is there, he managed to stop jeno by controlling his anger and the other princes using all of their strength to hold back the angry jeno.

"jeno, being violent is not the way to find the princess." renjun reprimanded him. only he can soften jeno's heart. 

"now, everyone here, let's think this through together, okay? we already did well about predicting that the king isn't 'the king' that we knew. so we have to think of possibilities that might've triggered 'the king' or... i don't know, 'the unknown'? let's stick with that name." everyone was into the discussion that it didn't bother them about the weird nickname mark gave the fake king.

"i mean, the princess is pretty naive, so she might've been too honest said how ugly the king is?" this time, chenle said something ridiculous and jisung had to smack his head, not too hard. 

"i'm a hyung!"

"that's what you get for saying something dumb." 

"well, i thought what chenle said might be right." of course donghyuck will be thinking the same way.

while the other princes were brainstorming what could've possibly triggered the 'unknown' to put the princess away, jaemin still cannot get over the fact that he had disappointed the other princes; well, that's what he thought. the princes are more focused towards trying to find a way to save princess even though how jeno reacted states otherwise. it's just typical jeno and his habit of letting his emotions take over him before his actions. however, jaemin, still stressed that he might not be able to save her since so far, none of them knew of the 'unknown's' strengths nor his weaknesses.

"hold on your thoughts, princes. i had to tell all of you what i have researched so far from the castle." taehee cut off the princes' conversation and took out a bottle of dark, shiny or glittery looking liquid. she then proceeded to drink it till empty. 

"i'm not sure if you heard about dark flowers, but they are mighty for people of no royalty blood. when consumed, they possess powers or abilities equally as strong as royalties' abilities. so, i want all of you to close your eyes for a while."

all the confused faces of the princes could be seen but listened and closed their eyes, including seungcheol. taehee then made the hand gestures to allow the 'magic' to happen.

"alright, now, open your eyes, my royal highnesses." they slowly opened their eyes, expecting incredible right in front of them. all they see is just them, sitting down in the base with the princes, seungcheol hyung, and also the princess. that's all.

...

...

...

wait, what?

jaemin, with no hesitation, immediately ran towards the princess and hugged her so tightly, ensuring that she is safe with him. he felt himself slowly shaking from the thought of the worst things that yuri experienced while she was gone.

"i'm sorry, yuri. i'm never leaving you alone ever again." his tears started to roll down his cheeks.

"prince jaemin, i'm sorry. but it's me, taehee noona, not princess yuri." jaemin expecting the princess' voice to be by his ear but he heard taehee's voice instead. he slowly released his embrace and realised that it is really taehee. taehee honestly felt so bad because she temporarily forgot about how jaemin thought about this situation, even though the other princes had a similar shocked reaction as jaemin.

"h-how did you do that?!" jeno exclaimed.

"i shared with the princess regarding this discovery i had from the castle's garden. the dark flowers in that garden possess the power of illusion. i experimented further about this flower, and finally tried out this ability today." taehee then kept apologising to everyone, especially jaemin for creating yuri's illusion on herself. of course, jaemin felt pretty embarrassed since he reacted like that just by the sight of the princess. his feelings are out there now.

"does that mean, the 'king' used this power to change the way he looked too?" taehee nodded from mark's question.

"there are some experiments that i have yet to try. however, the possibility of it having the power of hypnotism is high since it has to do with playing around with your minds." again, more startled faces from the boys.

"and jeno," taehee then gulped her saliva out of nervousness before continuing.

"i believe your mother is a victim of his hypnotism too."

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stellarevelations
#1
Chapter 10: Kinda late to this since I'm a fairly new subscriber but:
1. Your story is so good as entertaining and I know you haven't updated in a long time but I'm hoping you continue it.
2. Absolutely nothing boring about your story!!
3. Nothing confusing and I love the whole royalty au and the fact that Jaemin is a prince. :)
stellarevelations
#2
Chapter 9: Loving your story, the amount of fluff is so cute and love Jaemin's character here :)
tiny_smalltiny
#3
sounds interesting..... IMMA READ IT