"Hey, you okay?," Jungkook whispered as he followed Taehyung out of the throne room, sensing that something was going on with the prince as his body language was highly uncharacteristic.

Instead of holding his head up high and proud, it was lowered towards the ground as if he did not wish to meet anyone's eyes. Adding to that, his hands were not folded neatly in front of him or gripping Jungkook's biceps, instead, they were clasped tightly together and his fingers kept twisting and fiddling with each other as if he was extremely nervous. The blueberry-haired male seemed so immersed into his own unsettling world that he didn't even answer Jungkook's question at all.

With a frown, the brunette decided to follow him quietly to let him deal with his emotions alone for a while, only deciding to speak when Taehyung had opened the doors to his chambers and the two of them were left completely alone.

"Taehy-- Prince Taehyung?" Finally, the prince's head snapped towards him, his gaze dreary and filled with many different emotions.
"Are you that scared of your dad?" Taehyung froze, sitting on his bed and looking quite miserable, as if he had just gone through five breakups. Resisting the urge to sit himself right next to him, he remained standing in front of the fancy canopy bed.

"I am not afraid of him. At least most of the time. He has his reasons to speak to me in such manners and I understand that. I..." He took a deep breath and fisted his bedsheets as if he was making the toughest decision of his life. "I just cannot imagine getting wed to a woman. And I cannot comprehend why. My brothers seem thrilled at the imagination, why am I the only one who feels discomforted at the bare thought? I am eighteen!," he exclaimed, his voice coming out thin and rather quiet.

Jungkook paused, thinking for a while. But then, a thought suddenly struck him and with an enlightened gasp, he sat himself next to him and looked at him tranquilly. "Taehyung, have you ever considered the possibility that you might be gay?"

For a while, there was silence. Taehyung tilted his head in apparent thought, taking almost half a minute to answer. "What does that mean?"

The brunette's eyes widened. "You--You don't know... You were never taught? Damn, that's harsh." He thought hard of how to explain. "So, let me get this straight. You don't want to marry a woman?" After a while, the prince shook his head, clearly avoiding his gaze.

"You never found any women attractive?" Again, he thought for a while. "Well, I would not say that. My mother is one of the most beautiful women on earth. And my sister surely is too, I have always envied her for her beauty and grace." Jungkook laughed lightly.
"No, I don't mean that kind of attractive. I mean more like, romantically attractive. Sexually attractive. That kind of attractive that makes you want to do things with someone. Makes you feel things. You see what I mean? Think about it again, clearly."

Taehyung seemed to take his orders and think about it deeply. He then shook his head. "N-No, I have never felt that way. Not about my sister's lady friends, not about all the princesses that have visited this castle. Oh, good heavens. What if that makes me an abnormity? Am I an abnormity, Jungkook? This is mad, I am certain I am simply too young and must mature properl--" The brunette interrupted his panicked ramble by laying a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

"Hey, calm down. I know exactly how you feel. I used to feel like this too and I wasted so much time and patience just lying to myself and repressing my own emotions. I don't want you to go through the same thing so it's best you listen to me. Whatever you feel and whoever you love, there's nothing wrong with you," he spoke soothingly, feeling the prince's gaze on him again.

"Really? You felt like this too? How did you mature so quickly? Teach me! I will get myself to feel drawn to women soon, then, right?" Jungkook sighed, grabbing the other's hands and turning a little so they were now completely facing each other.

"Listen to me, Taehyung. There is no such thing as 'getting yourself to feel drawn to someone'. You're born the way you are and you can't change that. The moment you'll start feeling better about it is the moment you accept yourself and find pride in yourself. You know what I think?" He felt a little something tug at his heartstrings as he saw the Taehyung sitting opposite of him: confused, desperate, frustrated, vulnerable. His uptight and powerful prince-facade crumbling.

"What?," the blueberry-haired male whispered, completely ignoring the fact that a servant had just called him by name and was currently facing him like an equal.
Jungkook held eye contact, finding it hard to maintain it upon seeing the prince's highly expressive eyes. How could one have such crazily beautiful eyes, glittering like literal diamonds? But he controlled himself since Taehyung evidently needed this sort of reassurance.

"I think you like men."
The crown prince's eyebrows furrowed, he once again looked offended.
"Is this supposed to be a joke? I am not a woman!" The brunette sighed, having expected something like this already.

"Two things you need to know. Firstly, you don't need to be a woman to like men. Secondly, not every woman likes men." He felt horrible about how something completely obvious as such seemed so foreign to Taehyung. The poor boy must've been through countless internal crises, not even knowing that there was truly nothing out of the ordinary about him. He truly felt for him.

"But--But how? You are saying two men- two women could... how? They cannot reproduce! I must be misunderstanding something! Is that some sort of disease?" Jungkook shook his head, sighing as he looked around the room as if searching for something.

"A disease- fuck, no. Of course not. I'm guessing no one told you that not being attracted to the opposite gender but the same, or both, or none is an actual, normal thing. I can see, we have a lot to discuss." Taehyung looked at him with big, round eyes and he looked so terribly lost that Jungkook once again just felt for him and simply wanted to hold him. He didn't, though.

"We?," the prince questioned quietly.
"Of course, I'm helping you through this as well as I can, it isn't like I've got anything better to do. You need that support and that talk and though you may deny it for now, I know you do." Suddenly, Taehyung huffed.

"And what would you know? You do not know the way I feel, my confusion, my fears, my pain! You know nothing. I have spent the last seven years of my life questioning myself every single day and night, feeling pressured and suffocated and not being able to change anything about my situation! How could you p-possibly help?," he exclaimed, his eyes filling with something that Jungkook would have never expected. Tears.

And before he could even respond, the first tear leaked from them, running down his cheek slowly.

"Oh, shit. No, don't cry!" The brunette was visibly panicking, not knowing how to console him. He was definetely not good at comforting crying people, he never had been. But in this situation, he felt like he had to do something and eventually decided to scoot a little closer and let the prince's head rest on his shoulder. And though he most definetely did not think of himself as inferior to royalty, he somehow felt special when Taehyung accepted his gesture and decided to use his shoulder to completely let out all of his pent-up emotions.

Words were not needed. Jungkook simply let the other cry as much as he wanted without saying anything, occasionally patting his head and mentally noting to himself how soft his blueberry-shaded hair was. He wondered how it smelled. Like blueberries, perhaps?

"It's okay," he spoke soothingly when he sensed Taehyung calm down again, heartbreaking sobs eventually transitioning into little sniffles. "Believe it or not, I know exactly how you feel. You're not alone in this world, few years ago, I felt just as helpless as you... So, ever had any crushes? Someone you found... charming?" To his surprise, the prince nodded.

"Do you recall the paintings I have shown you? The ones in my corridor? They were drawn by a man called Choi Minwoo. I was only fourteen or fifteen when he did, he additionally happened to be my gardener. He was so very kind and passionate about his work, not to mention his talent- and how tall and handsome he was. All my life, I thought I was simply appreciating him, maybe even envying him. But now I am starting to think-- Maybe I..." His voice was quiet and a little hoarse. Jungkook saw a smile form on his face, through the clouds of sadness.

"Maybe you were in love with him. So, do you still see this guy?" He tried not to feel intimidated by the sound of that guy. It seemed like the mystery man was basically everything you could wish for and suddenly, Jungkook felt horribly lazy and untalented. Though he didn't know why, this wasn't even about him!

Taehyung then shook his had sadly, wiping the tear stains off his cheeks elegantly. "No. N-Not unless I ever happen to need him to repaint the ceiling of my corridor. And I do not. Gosh, I used to have the silliest fantasies about him. Like him painting me while studying my face intensively, just as they do in romance novels. Or us sharing a bed and him holding me in his arms as one does to their lover. Of course I knew that that could never be possible due to our difference of rank, and the fact that he is a man."

It appeared that Taehyung was a bit of a hopeless romantic.

"You know, love knows no boundaries. Your rank doesn't matter, neither does your gender. As long as it's love, nothing matters. At least that's how it goes where I come from." The prince smiled genuinely, his eyes glittering with emotion. "That sounds lovely. Perhaps the common world is not as bad as I was taught." Jungkook smiled, too.

"Well, of course it depends on where you live," he said. "Our world has their complications, too. But my environment and the people I surround myself with are brilliant. I don't know why I was ever scared to be myself. But despite your rank or whatever, I think you should be yourself. Maybe that way, you'll smile more. And that's a nice sight. Love will come around someday for you, and when it does, I want you to hold on to it and embrace it." The brunette widened his eyes when he felt two arms tighten around his neck and himself get pulled into a big hug. By a crown prince. Very surprising as Taehyung did not seem like the type to just randomly give his servants a hug.

"Thank you, Jungkook," the older whispered into the crook of his neck which made him smile sheepishly, he could feel the other's still slightly shaky breaths on his skin. "N-No problem, Your Majesty," he answered, returning the hug by hesitantly wrapping his arms around the royal heir's waist.

"You may call me Taehyung. Whenever it is just the two of us, of course," Taehyung continued, surprising him more and more by every passing second. "I am starting to see you more as a friend than a servant. I know I shall not, but you are not just an ordinary servant, after all. You're from the other world, and I am starting to like how different you are from everyone else."

And in that moment, Jungkook momentarily forgot about his home back in Seoul and enjoyed his stay here.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

(A/N: still a very slow burn relationship so yeahh, patience😌 also i wanted to call the dude choi mino or minho at first but i figured that'd be too mAiNsTrEaM so i let it be and gave him a different name snjdjsj and wow that's very tmi

i legit wanted to publish this last night but fell aslee, thank you for reading this chapter as always i love you a lot💜💜)