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If honor was a sacred thing, then Jimin would gladly let Hell consume him whole among the other innocent souls that this ‘honor’ had destroyed.
Honor meant killing, butchering sweet children and frail old people. It meant stealing. Burning villages. Destroying a beautiful world with war and rage and chaos.
All in the name of their king. A king ruling from behind the safety and warmth of his grand castle, guarded by men that were not afraid of dying (and had no will to live whatsoever, but no one was allowed question their loyalty, so Jimin kept his mouth shut). A king that barely knew how his realm looked like beyond the gates of his enormous, lush, luxuriant gardens painted in vivid colors with flowers too beautiful to be part of this disgusting mad world.
A king who didn’t care.
Why would he, when he had feasts and women and entertainers to paint his life gold with laughter, while his knights painted the rest of the world red with innocent blood and heart wrenching screams?
Jimin was a knight, and deserting meant breaking the oath, and breaking the oath meant death.
But Jimin was not afraid of dying anymore.
After all, what could be worse than ripping babies from their mothers’ chests to smash their heads while the women were raped? What could be worse than having his tongue cut off for voicing his disapproval for all this death and useless destruction?
Death would come to Jimin as a soothing dream after the disgusting bitterness of this cruel world.
After yet another burned village with no survivors left, Jimin decided that he had had enough of this. But he wouldn’t let them claim his death. He could do it on his own.
After the other knights had started the fire, he tugged on Jungkook’s hand to inform him that he would stay and burn among the butchered souls. He couldn’t tell him this, for he didn’t have a tongue anymore. Jungkook nodded because his tongue, too, was amiss.
Jimin’s tongue had been cut off because he had been caught singing. It had been forbidden a long time ago for anyone that wasn’t the king’s entertainer to sing, but Jimin just had to create an illusion of hope for better days with music and songs that were like a magic bandage wrapped around his ailing heart. They had beaten him to nothing but a raw, aching little thing, covered in wounds and bruises, but he didn’t stop.
The world needed music as much as they needed air, and he was the only one brave or crazy enough to offer it such a vital thing.
Until they had cut his tongue off. He almost choked with his own blood, but a mad little thing inside of him whispered about forbidden things like hopes and dreams and merciful gods and maybe, maybe peace and laughter and joy.
That thing was dead now. Among all the other things it dared speak about and infest Jimin’s gullible mind with words that would’ve burned his tongue had they been spoken aloud.
However, even now Jimin sometimes hummed a gentle melody just to spite them.
Jungkook’s tongue had been cut off because he dared question the king’s way. He dared talk about music like it was something fundamentally right and accessible to any peasant ears, he dared ask them to stop killing people like animals for no apparent reason, he dared talk about fairness and rightness. He dared and dared and dared, until he didn’t have a tongue to dare with anymore.
Both their tongues had been fed to the royal pigs. When Jimin heard this, he wanted to ask if the king ate his, but he couldn’t anymore, so he just choked on things lost and never to be found again.
Jungkook stayed with him in the burning village. Nobody would notice their absence anytime soon. They weren’t exactly the most talkative knights in their group.
The other thing Jimin loved about this world except nature and music, was dancing. So he wrapped his arms around Jungkook’s neck and felt his boyfriend’s on the small on his back, chest to chest, heart to heart, and they moved their legs to form the wonderful choreography of soon to be dead men.
They danced in the middle of the flames like it was the only home they’ll ever know. The fire soared around them with feral beauty, and finally warmed their frozen bones that had long since forgotten how to be warm. They cracked and whooshed and sang the most beautiful melody they’ve ever heard, a glorious song for the lost, broken souls that wish to find their home.
The burning village had a wild beauty to it, one that only chaos and destruction could achieve, the beauty of dying stars, supernovas, painting the sky with blinding light and bleeding broken whispers unto earth.
The flames roared and laughed and cried as they consumed the city, the heat so strong that it was almost hugging them like a loving mother in a lethal embrace, licking at their skin and beading it with sweat and a burning longing for a place they’ve never seen before, a place to which they’ll go so soon so they could drink their sadness and sorrow that this world had gifted them with the name of ‘life’, and in that place they’ll get drunk on them like they were the sweetest wine they’ve ever tasted, ancient and magical and made of broken dreams coming to life.
They’ll get drunk on anguish and misery so they could dance and laugh at the pain and hurt they lived, the sheer agony that will never be able to touch them again, no matter how far it will stretch its deadly claws.
They whirled and swirled and waltzed among the ghosts of women and children murdered in cold blood, their lovely houses going down in flames with them. The houses which held so many dreams and promises and laughter and sorrows and belonged to families that will never pass their doorstep again.
There won’t even be a doorstep there to pass.
The memories of little games and whispered secrets and sad smiles and happy tears will soon be forgotten, wiped away from this world forever, blown away with the ashes of the house that had sheltered and loved children and adults and old wise people that kept countless stories hidden in their wrinkles.
Jimin looked up at Jungkook’s eyes and he was pleased to see that the love that burned inside them had a wicked brightness that put the flames around them to shame.
Around them, the world burned. And they became ashes of a life that wasn’t meant to be a nightmare from which they would awoke to a sweet, blissful, burning death.
And just before their clothes caught fire and the flames scorched their skin, Jungkook leaned down to kiss him, the ghosts of their tongues dancing a choreography from a world of chaos and madness and fallen kingdoms.
After they broke the kiss and before the universe ended in glorious fires, he could almost hear Jungkook whisper in his ear, "I am not here to save you. I am here to watch your world burn." And he smiled at the sweet cruelty of the thought.