Chapter Text
On a beautiful early March morning, South Korea’s Crown Prince leads the quiet and solemn retinue to the beautiful private ceremony held in honor of His Royal Highness, Kim Hyojang, at Bundang Memorial Park.
On this day - the one year anniversary of his father’s death - Crown Prince Taehyung has a full day’s schedule, from attending the parade ceremony in his late parents’ honor, to the official palace’s press conference for the event. But for now, in the early morning chill, he is free to pay his own respects to his father at his grave.
Of course, it is not so private, considering the number of press photos that inevitably end up in the papers, of the devoted and proper prince, kneeling in somber observance before his father’s resting place in the private reserved grounds for the royal family. The photos - some from official newspapers, others from a variety of paparazzi tabloids - capture a flattering photo of him (as always), dressed in a sharp black suit, supported by his closest friends standing beside him.
Kim Namjoon, the older cousin to the crown prince, son of former King Hyojang’s younger brother; Kim Seokjin, model and former schoolmate of His Highness Namjoon’s; Park Jimin, son of tech conglomerate CEO Park Sungho and prince Taehyung’s classmate; and Jung Hoseok, champion and gold medal equestrian sports athlete.
These faces, well known and extensively documented in the media as part of Crown Prince Taehyung’s exclusive and close cohort since their youth, have once again made the papers as visible in the background, standing quietly behind the prince at his father’s grave.
Of course, what isn’t documented in the papers, is how, just minutes before exiting the standard escort black Range Rover, Jung Hoseok held open a plastic bag as Crown Prince Taehyung unceremoniously vomited into its depths, as Park Jimin held back his hair.
It also is not documented, how the night prior, prince Taehyung had gotten rip-roaringly intoxicated as the last in a series of such nights, growing increasingly worse with the impending proximity to his father’s death anniversary. Nor was it captured by the paparazzi how, this morning, his highness Namjoon had had to drag prince Taehyung, half-drunk, into the shower, as Kim Seokjin prepared the suit into which they would eventually wrangle him.
Never let it be said, that the South Korean royal family’s publicity team, is not the absolute best in the field.
———
Prince Taehyung - dressed neatly in his finely tailored suit, commissioned specially from Armani just for this occasion - subtly shifts in his seat in his grandmother’s preferred parlor room. Despite the picture-perfect visage he’d presented to the cameras this morning, it is now nearly one o’clock in the afternoon, and the hangover - held valiantly at bay with frequent doses of Seokjin-hyung’s "miracle cure" concoction - is creeping closer and closer.
In short, he feels like absolute, utter shit.
Namjoon had accompanied him all the way up until the door to the room, at which point he’d promptly given Taehyung a sympathetic glance, and all but fled. After all, the Empress Regent’s current ire at Taehyung is not unknown, and frankly, not a single soul in the universe would ever subject themselves to the terror that is Her Royal Highness’s wrath.
The Empress enters the room now, shadowed by two of her security guards, dressed in a magnificent hanbok that has long been the preferred, traditional style of dress of the older members in the royal family.
That’s one of the biggest differences between the old and new guards, Taehyung has always thought: the fashion.
Taehyung, in his own bespoke Armani suit, seems to project a humorously overdone contrast of traditionalism versus modernity when sat across from his grandmother.
His grandmother - current Empress Regent; formerly the Queen Regnant, and the Queen mother thereafter during his father’s reign - looks at him silently, with pursed lips, for a long, long moment.
"I see the boys managed to pick you up off the floor in time for this morning," she comments, sounding entirely unamused.
Taehyung swallows down a wince.
The Empress sighs.
"Taehyung," she says, sounding more like his grandmother than the Empress Regent. "I arranged this meeting for us today, because I had something of importance to discuss with you. But now, looking at your state, I don’t know if you are even in the state of mind to be able to have such a discussion."
Taehyung, despite the stoic expression he’s maintained thus far, is without a doubt, breaking out in a sheen of light, cold sweat; an unfortunate side effect of dousing one’s liver with alcohol the night before.
"I’m fine," he murmurs, raking a hand through his hair. "What is it you needed to speak with me about?"
The Empress stares for another moment longer.
She has been worried about Taehyung ever since his mother - the former Queen - passed away when he was merely thirteen. The prince - formerly a rambunctious, free-spirited child who’d drive the entire palace staff mad with his shenanigans - had slowly, but clearly, begun to withdraw into himself ever since her passing, growing cold and stoic in turns whenever not in the presence of a select few.
He still maintains a perfect demeanor for the world, and in that, she cannot find fault; after all, the entire nation has been positively enchanted with their resident ‘Prince Charming’ since Taehyung turned fifteen.
But for those close to him, it has been clear to see that in the days since the Queen’s unfortunate passing, the Crown Prince had lost that dazzling smile that had once been a common vision around the palace.
And after his father’s - the Empress’s own son - death, just one year ago, she’s only become increasingly worried.
Taehyung who, despite maintaining an impeccable facade to all his peers - including stellar grades, an eloquent history of interviews that have only had the populace falling all over themselves for him, and a constant revolving presence in both newspapers and tabloids alike - has only grown more and more detached, a solitude of his own design.
Now, the only people he ever spends time in the company of, is the same group of four boys he’s known since he was a young child. Even then, he hardly ever smiles, and spends increasing amounts of time, squirreled away, lost in his own thoughts. His nights, he now spends drinking and partying, no doubt a coping mechanism kept out of the papers only by the sheer force of will by the palace PR team.
The Empress sees so much of her deceased son in her grandson, and the sight of him - growing colder by the day - is one she cannot stand, any longer.
"It’s a matter regarding your succession."
Taehyung looks up.
He sits up.
"As you know, I have been reviewing the official procedures and requirements for your succession to the throne." Taehyung, as the only son of the former King, is the next in line of succession following his death; as it is, he is just eighteen, one year shy of his coming of age, and the former Queen Regnant had stepped up as Empress Regent in the meantime.
For Taehyung, whose entire life has been built upon the premise that one day, he would succeed his father as King - and for whom his parents’ passing has only doubled his desire to become the monarch his parents had always expected of him - the matter of succession is just about the only sacred thing in this world.
"You are aware," she continues. "Of the betrothal contract your father signed, seventeen years ago?"
Taehyung pauses.
"…You mean, that utterly ridiculous joke?"
"It is not a joke."
Taehyung laughs, short and clipped. "Um, yes, it is."
"No, it is not. It’s a valid and enforceable contract, as assessed by the palace’s legal team."
Silence.
"…Are you trying to say, that the delusional, unrealistic contract my father signed, to marry me to the child of his best friend, is real?"
Kim Hyojang, the former King of South Korea, had grown up with a man he regarded as his brother. There had been his real brother, of course, Namjoon’s father; but there was another man, the son of a wealthy and affluent, old, traditional family, whom had been raised side by side with the young King.
And when this best friend’s wife gave birth to a child, just one year after Taehyung was born, the two men agreed: they would solidify their familial bond, through the marriage of their children.
Taehyung had been told the story as a young boy, but like any young boy when presented with such a notion, had merely regarded it as, well. A joke.
His grandmother’s continued silence speaks volumes.
Taehyung finds his heart rate spiking.
"You- you can’t be serious. What does that even have to do with me?"
"Well, you are the one betrothed, Taehyung."
"By my father! Who isn’t even alive anymor-" Abruptly, Taehyung bites himself off, looking away.
There’s a moment of heavy, riddled silence between the two individuals, who have grieved over the King more than any other.
"Yes, Taehyung," the Empress Regent speaks, solemnly. "And this contractual agreement, because it was signed by your father, I will honor."
Taehyung can’t breathe.
"This- this has got to be some sick joke, you can’t-"
"I can. As the Empress Regent, it is fully within my purview to set the requisite parameters before I relinquish the throne to you."
Taehyung stares, as though struck. "You- you’re going to force me to marry some random kid, or else- or else I can’t succeed?"
"Tradition states," she answers, in a completely calm manner that drives Taehyung mad. "That the King Regnant be married at the time he succeeds the throne."
"That’s- that’s just ancient practice, it isn’t an actual rule—"
"It is unrealistic, and absurd, for an individual to bear the weight of the crown alone," the Empress says, sharp enough that it quells Taehyung momentarily.
"I- It’s not as though I would ascend to the throne immediately, anyway, there is no issue with me finding my own spouse-! Marriage contracts are absolutely nuts, they’re archaic and-"
"Your parents were wed through such an arrangement, you forget."
"That was ages ago, it’s not 1985 anymore, marriage contracts can’t still-"
"You are the Crown Prince, Taehyung."
That stuns Taehyung into silence.
Taehyung’s entire life - from his birth, to his every breath - has been dictated and shaped solely in consideration of his status as the nation’s Crown Prince. He had been raised to understand, intimately and singularly, that his personhood was synonymous with that of the nation’s monarchy, and has spent his entire life emulating the ruler he watched his father be.
When his mother, the former Queen Consort, passed, this sense of duty as identity had only intensified - and again, after his father’s passing.
He does not need to be reminded, that he is Crown Prince Kim Taehyung.
He knows, all too well.
The Empress, expression no less severe, but just a margin softer, continues. "I understand this is difficult. But be that as it may, the Crown comes with duties above and beyond those expected of any normal individual. As a valid contract signed by the former King - my son, and your father - the only appropriate course of action, is to honor it."
Taehyung stares at the floor, defeated and quiet.
It’s a dirty tactic, for the Empress to use that wording against him; to cite it as though avoiding the contract, would be the equivalent of Taehyung failing to honor the memory of his father - when all Taehyung has done, with every bedraggled, exhausted ounce of his being, is to try to live up to his father’s legacy.
"So now, I am to be wed, for the rest of my life - to an utter stranger." His voice is hollow.
The Empress is quiet for a long time.
"Two years," she says at last.
Taehyung looks up.
"You are to honor the arrangement, for at least two years, until your twentieth. If, at that time, you absolutely cannot go on, then I will allow you to end the marriage."
Taehyung gapes.
The Empress shrugs. "As you said, Taehyung; it’s not 1985, anymore. There is no reason why a prince cannot get divorced." A pause. "Highly, highly frowned upon, of course, but. Not impossible."
The Empress sighs, sounding, for the first time, her age. She has lived through three generations of reigns, and the death of her own child; she did not think that she would have to run a nation once more, let alone raise another prince. But life, as they say, works in mysterious (terrible) ways. "You are about to come of age, in less than a year, whereupon your official preparation to eventually succeed the throne must begin. What’s more, is that you are dead set, in ascending to the throne as young as possible."
Taehyung wants to be ready to take over by the time of his twenty-fifth birthday, at the latest.
He wants to do his parents proud.
It’s the only thing he has left of them.
"Never has there been a monarch who has ascended to the throne, without a consort. You cannot bear the weight of the throne on your own, Taehyung, as much as you may wish to."
There is a saying, among the members of the royal family - sometimes said as a joke, and sometimes, as an admonishment; always, always, with more truth than any of them find true humor in.
Heavy lies the head that bears the crown.
"If, in two years, you find this arranged marriage truly so reprehensible that you cannot endure it, then I will allow you to break the contract. But until then, you must honor the agreement - your father, and my son’s, agreement."
———
It takes Taehyung approximately twelve hours for reality to set in, whereupon he has what Namjoon likes to call, "a princely fit." What that entails, is a lot of gesticulating, and angry ranting, and overall, a bit of a temper tantrum that often results in a bedroom that’s turned upside down.
Namjoon arrives at his bedroom door in an ironed Oxford-collar shirt and well-fitted charcoal slacks, his glasses still tucked into his shirt, from where he’d had to hurriedly wrap up his research project in lieu of dashing over. Generally, when one of the palace staff alert him with the signal that Taehyung is having one of his fits fit for a prince, he likes to get here sooner, than later.
Though, since Seokjin had started "secretly" (not at all covertly) replacing his wardrobe, one item at a time, Namjoon has found that even his underprepared moments have been surprisingly well dressed.
He sighs and lets himself into the room, expression wry as he takes in the mess: clothes strewn everywhere, pillows hurled against the walls, and, pointedly, the portrait of Taehyung and the Empress that usually hangs along the wall, turned over and face down.
Still.
Always, unlike the rest of the mess, turned carefully over, rather than flung, as if even in the height of his short-tempered anger, Taehyung can never bring himself to truly damage a family photo. And if that isn’t the Crown Prince’s personality, in a single summary.
He finds Taehyung, face down in bed, his face buried into the silk sheets.
"What is it this time," Namjoon asks casually, picking up a crumpled sweater off the floor with a wrinkled nose.
Taehyung doesn’t reply.
Must be bad.
"Another press interview?" Taehyung particularly hates those; he says they make him feel like a zoo animal dressed up for display.
Silence.
"Meeting with the Russian diplomats?" Another thing Taehyung doesn’t particularly enjoy, given that his tolerance for vodka is the equivalent of an infant’s.
More silence.
Growing slightly concerned, Namjoon picks his way over to the bed, and heaves Taehyung over. The boy flops over, eyes blank as they stare at the ceiling. "Taehyung. What is it?"
Taehyung doesn’t reply, and this time, Namjoon simply waits.
Several minutes later, Taehyung closes his eyes and throws an arm over his eyes.
"‘M getting married."
"What?"
"To some kid."
"…What?"
"I’m contractually obligated."
"…What??"
———
Predictably, Namjoon’s initial reaction, is much the same one as everyone else’s, when Taehyung finally tells them. (It’s a little hard to have any other reaction, given the bewildering circumstances.)
As it is, Taehyung can barely relay the story himself, as if speaking the words would somehow bring them into existence. This is why it falls on Namjoon, to wearily - dressed in a smart grey sweater, this time - explain it to the rest of their friends.
"He’s what?!" Jimin chokes, the juice he’d been sipping at promptly spraying outwards.
Hoseok reels back, a look of utter disgust on his face, before Namjoon’s words register with him, too. His head snaps to look at Taehyung, eyes bugging out of his head. "You’re what?"
Both of their voices are reaching particularly shrill notes.
"Engaged?" Seokjin shrieks, more shrill than both of them put together. "Before me?!"
This time, Namjoon chokes.
Hoseok and Jimin shoot him a dry, unimpressed expression, mirror images of one another.
Seokjin coughs. "I mean. What? You’re engaged?" He tries again, politely.
"Taehyung’s been betrothed to the son of a family friend, since he was a year old," Namjoon says, still half-recovering from Seokjin’s outburst. "The families both signed the contract. It’s binding, apparently."
Jimin chokes and spits out his juice again.
"Stop drinking the fucking juice," Hoseok snaps, and tugs the cup out his hands.
Jimin, paying absolutely zero attention to him, rounds on Taehyung. "Since you were one? So you’ve known you’re engaged for seventeen years, and never told us?!"
"To be fair," Namjoon says mildly, in that unnervingly calm way of his. "We thought it was a joke." Namjoon possesses the kind of constancy that would look around a room on literal fire, and calmly proceed to the directed exit after quietly assessing which route would work best.
"So you’re getting married?!" Jimin demands. Jimin is the kind of individual who might choose the immediate option of attempting to throw himself out the window, were he in a room on fire.
"To whom?" Seokjin asks the only sensible question. (This is why Seokjin is the love of Namjoon’s life, and not Jimin, who asks ‘You’re getting married?’ to the statement that one is engaged.)
Taehyung shrugs, stretched out as he is on the chaise lounge, an arm thrown over his face; he hasn’t taken that arm off his face in nearly an entire day. Namjoon imagines, pragmatically, that being engaged might render a different view of the world than one is accustomed to.
"Some kid. From, somewhere." Taehyung flaps his free hand dismissively.
Hoseok chokes on the juice he’d stolen from Jimin. "You- a kid? Is that- how the hell is that legal?"
Namjoon closes his eyes. "Not a literal child, Hoseok. He just means, someone we do not know, but of appropriate age where a marriage contract at the moment would not effectively be a criminal act."
"Oh."
And then, a moment of silence, as everyone attempts (unsuccessfully) to digest the rather alarming piece of information.
"Well," Jimin asks, shrugging. "Are they hot?"
———
As utterly, completely, ridiculously moronic as Jimin’s question had been, Taehyung hates to admit- the kid is, indeed, ‘hot.’
Jeon Jungkook, seventeen years old, raised in a small, provincial fishing town on the outskirts of Geoje-do. A small town hick, as Jimin had helpfully voiced aloud Taehyung’s private thoughts, when they’d looked at the scant amount of information Taehyung had had prior access to.
Who had, inexplicably, apparently, managed to charm the goddamned Empress’s socks off, in her initial meeting with him, last week.
Taehyung’s going to admit, begrudgingly; this is not what he had expected. At all.
He’d expected some frumpy, pan-faced bumpkin, with awful hair and crooked teeth and dressed, possibly, in whatever outfit a life ruiner would wear. (So alright; perhaps Taehyung had allowed his resentment at the overall situation, to strongly color his visual imagination of what his fiancé would look like.)
As Taehyung had sat, alone in his grandmother’s favored canary blue parlor room, waiting for the momentous one on one meeting with his future spouse, he’d allowed himself to conjure all the most unsavory images possible. He’d crossed his legs, one Italian leather Oxford shoe crossing the other, dressed in a tailored Saint Laurent blazer, and expected the human equivalent of a mud field, or worse.
He had not expected…well.
Jungkook.
Jungkook, who had more stumbled into the room (after having struggled with the door’s handle) than walked, and unceremoniously came to a tripping stop a mere few feet from Taehyung’s wide-eyed gaze.
Who had shown up here, with a crown of shining, black hair curling around his neck, pale-skinned and doe-eyed, looking- looking far more attractive than he had any real right to be, considering his existence had singlehandedly ruined Taehyung’s.
Who had appeared, wearing an oversized plaid shirt, crumpled jeans, and, to Taehyung’s strangled consternation, oh dear lord, Birkenstocks. [1]
The worst part?
The worst part isn’t that this Jeon Jungkook is, apparently, somehow more attractive than anyone Taehyung’s ever seen at his elite, privileged school of polished, metropolitan chaebols.
It isn’t that he has the gall to stumble in here, like some endearing, bumbling, clumsy boy of Taehyung’s worst nightmares (best dreams).
It’s that, of all the unholy things in this world, he has the audacity to wear Birkenstocks and somehow pull them off.
Taehyung stares, open-mouthed and horrified, at the row of ten little toes (which Taehyung will absolutely swear, up and down, to his grave, are not adorable), peeking out from the atrocities on the boy’s feet.
Kim Taehyung — His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince of South Korea; teenage heartthrob of young women all across the globe; whose eloquence and blue-blooded manners have earned the critical acclaim of nearly all South Korean publications and news outlets — upon his first meeting with his fiancé, as the first words he ever speaks to him, says: "Are you wearing Birkenstocks?"
