Jk's P.O.V

There's blood under my fingers, under the rim are flaky maroons. No matter how much I remove it with water, the stain will always bear on me. The stain of despair and death.

I plunge my hand in the metallic pot filled with water. The gentle sighs and swish of the water unnerve me, speaking into my head of the outcome of my choices.

I didn't have a choice. In war, there are always sacrifices. And tonight, under the harsh rays of the moon, blanketed behind with murk, my choices were disdainful, yet it was right, it was just.

My father would've said that, wisdom would pour from his lips to mark me with the heavy burden of the throne after him.

Being a king is not all luxury and kindness. Being a king is having one of your limbs bitten by a venomous snake, the only thing you could do is to cut it, to save the rest of your body.

But there was the soot, black and thick like tar, sticking to my clothes with the littlest fingers. And they felt like both limbs bitten, telling me I lost once again.

So I huff and do nothing but take in the lingering smell of stench, the wood crumbling beneath my fingers, and the blood stained on my skin.

So unpure. So undelightful. Yet it was just. I'd rather a thousand of my people over the span of their population.

This is how it ought to be. A cut limb over oblivion. I will carry the blackened burden with me, ebb it into the whitest part and morph it into the others - no one will know the difference.

The mask will take care of it all.

With the swish of the water flowing in my ears, staining its surface with sweet red, I wrench my hand out and head out to the black sky.

The sound of birds and the breeze of the cold only kept me sane, as the bright moon carries and thumps with it the misery inevitable. My feet kiss the rumbling sand beneath me as the swing of the two doors smack behind.

This is not a sin. It is a curse. The curse of a King.

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Y/N's P.O.V

Footsteps sound outside, a reminder that departing is approaching. A knock on the wood then follows.

The door opens with my silence at bay. I stay sat on the bed, like a primal animal caged. Hope mending to an object so clear - freedom.

I was excited. Too excited to come out. Apart from the king's birthday which was eventful, they let me explore the heart of the city - tonight.

The reason wasn't mentioned, but I didn't question any further.

A dimpled guy slithers into the room, lithe and graceful. I wouldn't have realized his existence if he hadn't made the slightest sound of knocking over a small vase bounty with flowers I've never seen before.

The crash was a prick on the wood and in my ears. Water and remnants of flowers scattered the wooden floor, a blotting color of black and red and damp stain the floor with bitter shades.

He hisses.

"I'm sorry," he mutters under the swish of his breath, panic flowing against his words.

"It's okay," I muster to keep my laughter at bay. The way his slicked back hair falls into disarray and the prominent battle in his mind were comical. I did not know a simple mistake could send an intimidating man scampering.

His eyes look down at his mess and up to my face, eyebrows stitched, and then he raises one as if an incorporation of his panic and calmness speaks to me. "Are you ready to go?"

I nod three times, taking in his lingering problem and trying with utter force to stop my lips to burst with laughter and wheeze.

Namjoon.

The First Prince of this shadowed kingdom. A figure meant to be formidable. Yet here he was, knocking over a vase not even in his way.

Outside, the sun is setting, orange and red blending to a dash against the sky. A blanket of black will embed the sky to a black canvas painted with gleaming and prodding stars - soon.

Freedom and fresh air is soon too.

"Are you ready to go?" His voice sears the words in my thoughts. He's standing tall in the frame of the border of my room. I hadn't realized he had taken a step back, back into the hall to urge me out.

And as if I was drawn by an invisible string I get pulled outside. The large hall lit with incandescent colors, small and big running around chandeliers lining the path to wherever your feet and imagination bring you to.

Downstairs was a much colorful bonanza, rich and creamy textures of white and gold stitch about the reposeful interior. However, the life of the party was the hanging chandelier up above our heads - the same one as the one I encountered here on my first day, watching me with eyes of prickling tears.

I hadn't even known how long it was. Time here seems to stop. I'm living and dying, there is no in between, they fight to a war with no ends, no beginnings. One seems to be worse than the other, but looking at it an angle, they are both dangerous and beautiful.

Before I could wrench my eyes away from the beauty a sound of voices swing in my ears,  floating along with chuckles and deep tones around the reverberating sickly rich dome of the main hall.

A group of snickers mark the air with dissonance and high pitches - mainly from a young fellow wheezing and producing sounds similar to a dolphin. His legs are bent together with his elbow, body folded forward - screams of dolphin sound escape through his throat.

His whole face is red like a plum, veins bulging from his skin, eyes shut close as he delivered the most weirdest sound I have ever heard from a man - a pitch so high and messy, yet there was a certain pull from him that tugs my cheeks upward.

There were men in there, five of them suited up in these black gear, as if ready to hop on a mission to death. The aura was formidable, but the laugh of the dolphin-man cut through the fragile air - like glass into wood.

I had expected a welcome greeting from them as we approached but once they saw me the air had shifted, the endless laughs of the whale-man has subsided as tension slithers through him, through his spine - it is not only him but the others too, they stood straight like long bars had been purposely attached to their backs to steady them.

Namjoon notices but he never fails to hide them, as if nothing was there to fluctuate his emotions. His steely eyes move sweepingly across his brothers, studying them with a proportion of a message divided to send to them.

A proportion I've not been shared. A message only I do not know.

"Come on, let's go," he says and plucks me from their line of sight. My thoughts vanished with the wind as he pushed me with courtesy into a slick, black car parked outside.

————

The ride to the heart of the city - a bustling town called Silver Ore - was long, and my back dredged up all stocked pain it endured to render me crippled along the way.

The air was fresh, and the taste of freedom touched my tongue.

The town was quite different from what I've expected. I couldn't explain it but it was a place of colors. All shades of colors bloomed on different stalls lined at the sides.

They were banners perched on different parts of the stalls, as if they represented something - or someone. I looked back to the path the car has used and I realised that the way from the castle - a long and narrow road - pushes to a spill of this town, of the existence of this town.

I also realised that there was only one path from the castle and to the outside of its borders as I do not see any terrain that could lead to anywhere else. The only way they could go anywhere and out the country is to pass by this town of colors.

I realized now how serious the curse must be. Aside from being cursed to the black of the night, the king cannot walk around in disguise without the announcement of his arrival.

He's stuck in his place. And I feel a little sympathy towards him.

We entered the throng of people wandering about, buying smoked and hot food from stalls or apparels of garments, things, and everything that can be named.

The night has shadowed the town into a place of blurry and swirling colors. And I breathe in the fresh freedom. It has been a long time since I have went out, and a tincture of it traces on my skin as if the strong smell of grilled fish.

The people never talked once we entered into their existence, and if they noticed that the first prince was out and about with a lady unknown, then they are too mature to shut their mouths and go along their way.

But I hear a scintillae of chatter behind me, not about me but about a certain group of people - I'm sure of that.

"Who are they? Why are they dressed in that?"

And then there they were, a pair of eyes looking at me. I do not know who or where but I skid closer to Namjoon, finding relief in his gentle breathing drowned out by the babbles of the town.

What's the curse called?" I ask casually as if all is well, glancing to him, a slight gesture to trample him with my half-carelessness. He doesn't budge at the way I asked, it seemed as though he did not hear as his eyes are trained to a specific location.

My eyes follow the dotting of his eyes, and there a horde of people surround a large area. Through the hazy outlines of their bodies I can picture out houses burned to ashes, obliterated to nothing but black soot.

But there was not fear and shock in his eyes. There was dread, pure filthy dread. As if there was a premonition of this event behind the doors of his privy.

"The curse is called Black," he says, surprising me with the fact that he heard my question flanked with shouts and screams and cries all together. "The name comes from fire."

My eyebrows stitch, my expression scarcely hidden by the moon in my face. He notices but catches my wrist with the tightest hold, pulling me to him and ambling to the side of the shattered buildings.

The freedom tinting my body has shattered to pieces as panic flows.

The smell of fresh soot and fresh death wrenches all of my other senses. A wave of chill and burn races inside me, all for winning and pinning against each other.

The hot burn was a feeling of grieving and restlessness, cursing the one who did it to burn in the darkest pit with a bodile so large to deliver death in the small space. Yet there was the utter shivers of chill, the feeling and thought that I may know just who I am cursing.

I may know who brought this adversity to the part of the city. And I shut my eyes in the hazy fog of the after-burn.

"It is the aftermath of the fire against anything," he babbles, almost too afraid to look at anywhere else other then the buildings. His eyes are still trained at the houses, but they were on the bodies of people scurrying out with burnt bodies perched on their backs.

When he spoke once again, my thoughts of who I was cursing were affirmed, "It is the soot from the fire, black and thick."

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[A/N]

I'm sorry it took so long, online classes are shitty. I'm not satisfied with this chapter - I find it boring, but what can I do? My brain is a shitty pool of muddled thoughts.

Tell me your thoughts.