Between our choices and what life forces us to do is a vast distance; metric oceans stretching on a planet without land, only waters that drown righteousness and float injustice and terrible deeds.

Choices are a luxury more often than not, hard to afford; they drain the heart before pockets with regret and reprimand; the right to choose is an indomitable power, and not everyone can wear the crown of such an empire; not everyone can be the king, the ruler.

And Taehyung was no king; could afford no saying when a regent more potent than him paved the way he was forced to tread.

In this kingdom, life is the queen, and destiny is the king. Taehyung was a mere peasant in the fortress, a pawn on their chessboard.

He had no choice, be it in putting you in this situation or the consequences of what brought you to where you've ended.

"Seems like you got the wrong idea; you're not the owner; I'm stepping aside and letting you manage only because of the electoral campaign; a decor, that's what you are, don't get ahead of yourself."

Taehyung definitely had no choice in what he did to you or what life forced upon him.

"I won't forget my place, Father."

He was indeed an ornament. A beautiful celadon in his father's castle, hard to break by foreign hands but easy to shatter by his old man.

Ten years ago, Taehyung dreamed of exhibiting his first art collection. He had the talent mixed with skills rarely found in modern art - they died in the era of Da Vinci and Picasso; never had the greed to own what his old man accused him of wanting to steal, but his dream dissolved into thin air, just as a midsummer breeze is smothered by the heat of the scorching season, and so he found himself in a tie and double-breasted suit, adopting a style that always failed in portraying him.

And it was when old man Kim found out about the stunts his son was pulling behind his back. He had sent him abroad, to the U.S. to be precise, to study business administration, but after not having his son by his side for a year, paternal instinct kicked in and drove him to pay a visit to the pupil of his eyes, only to find that their Los Angeles home had not hosted any guests for years, let alone the few days of absence he had granted in doubt to account for the emptiness of the residence.

Taehyung did, in fact, take a plane to Los Angelos. The only variant is that he took another one immediately after landing and flew across the Atlantic to Paris, the city of art.

His application to La Sorbonne had been accepted, but he knew that the application of approval he had submitted to his father would never be accepted, so he took matters into his own hands and made his choice.

And that became the last time he made a choice of his own.

What happens to a peasant when he disobeys the king's orders is well known, but what happens to a prince when he disobeys the king is left to the imagination and wild chimera of every ruler.

So the prince had been exiled to a room in one of his father's hospitals to receive medical treatment for several broken ribs and a dislocated jaw.

Given the size of the wound on his head, the doctor had performed several MRIs to rule out brain damage; fortunately for him, no impact on his brain was detected, and his stay in the hospital only lasted six weeks; he wouldn't have taken it any longer; the food sucked.

"I didn't recruit you to be my advisor," Jung-Woo continued as he stood in front of Taehyung, who had his head lowered and his eyes fixed on the ground, "You are here to follow orders, no backtalk, Taehyung; do not be fooled by the chair you are sitting in and commanding this bunch of losers from; I can take it away from you at any time."

Taehyung hadn't had the choice to continue his dream study, nor did he have any say or control over Namjoon's erratic actions.

He had told him to avoid pursuing you, had told him that his apologies would not mend the rift, had explained that if he showed himself near you, you would run away in fear, and that would be disastrous; he had you followed with your knowledge and consent - after all, he could not have you running around as if you had not witnessed anything - and had promised that neither he nor the doe-eyed fairy nor your dear friend would show up in your premises as long as you kept quiet; but Namjoon, despite explanations about what your possible disappearance might entail, defied the order and did the forbidden.

"Yunjae!" Shouted Namjoon as he managed to hold onto your wrist after a long period of unprompted running, "I said I don't mean to harm you; don't you trust me anymore?"

See, the thing is, every time you run, you end up getting caught, whether by your fate, your misery, or the disasters that never once broke their pledge of allegiance, so yes, you ran out of your house like a thief in the wee hours of the morning, your feet protected only by slippers and your body warmed by the rough fabric of your manly hoodie; you thought Namjoon was coming with his master, ready to finish you off, for you often wondered when their flow of money would dry up, and they could no longer afford guards to track your movements and prevent you from acting dumb. So, overwhelmed by fear and the thought of death far more miserable than your life, you ran without paying attention to your erratic breathing, evading Namjoon by fleeing down the service stairs instead of using the elevator you assumed he took to get to the twelfth floor of your condo; you ran without once paying attention to keeping your six under control until life proved to you that when you run, you must not let fears keep you from looking at your surroundings, that you must not turn into a racehorse with blinkers.

"Trust?" You scoffed with a fake grin; although your breaths still caused a lump in your throat, you just could not bring yourself to admit fear or defeat, "I trusted you. Look where that got us, Namjoon."

Yes, you didn't want him to taste the flavor of power, didn't want to leave this world without giving him a taste of your sour poison; he still hadn't paid for what he had done to you, and you reckoned that you could use this chance to get what you owned.

"See," you pursued as you threw away his hand and regained composer, "if it hadn't been for those guards, I would have reached the first police station in sight, and believe me, it will not be a matter of filing a complaint against your friend," you moved closer to his standing figure, pressing your index finger against his chest as your eyes burned his with glazed fire, "because even though he's a bastard, he protected you for the sake of friendship. So, yeah, I'd blame you for everything that happened and gladly watch you rot in prison like the little rat you are, Namjoon."

Namjoon heaved a sigh full of complicated feelings that he could not explain. He agreed with every word you said and wished he could let you know; after all, Taehyung indeed cared about friendship, protected his beloved, while he failed at that miserably.

"So here's my proposal," you continued as you adjusted the collar of his shirt and patted down his vest while tracking his unsteady figure with your eyes, a mischievous grin settling on your lips before you parted them to continue, "Tell your master that I've never seen him before in my life, that I am willing to sign an NDA if he agrees to give you in counterpart. Tell him that Yunjae sends kind regards, dear Namjoon, and gives him a choice between freedom and friendship."

Bluffs.

To the core, you were afraid, afraid of a bleak future that might not even see the light of dawn, afraid of breaking through your masquerade of bravado and standing there naked, exposing your discomfort and scattered emotions, afraid of the weight of your words and the load they carried, but most of all, afraid of yourself and what your stubborn mind might bring upon you.

There was no guarantee that Namjoon came alone, no guarantee that he came just to talk, either. And yet, without worrying about the water first, you swam into the mud, even though you were sure that the alley you were standing in might become your grave.

"I understand you completely; what I did is very wrong, and I should've known better," Namjoon's face was more expressive than his words; had always been; he wasn't a particularly talkative person; instead, he often communicated with actions, the reason you trusted him with your secrets and problems; he was there for you, an ear ready to delve into your stories, to solve any complicated issues you had no solutions for, "but would not it be worse to ask for my head than my deed? Where does that leave you?"

Exactly. Where will that leave you? How different from him would you look if you employed your fists?

Morals.

These were aspects you refused to live without because you were convinced that they were the only difference between an animal and a human being. But your view began to change as life began to bring more animals in human form into your world, which made you feel more like a veterinarian than a plastic surgeon.

Life is complicated, a series of puzzling riddles that you have experienced firsthand, and no one would argue otherwise.

But as you thought about these morals and the way he used them to manipulate your thoughts to save his ass, you realized that the only way to deal with people like him is to take an elevator and descend to their level, strip yourself of your principles and beliefs to let them taste the bitterness of their actions, and push the elevator buttons to the top floor.

Your floor.

"In the same place as you, Namjoon, and believe me, I don't mind. I suggest you do as I said if you want to keep your little secret; otherwise, get ready for the wave that will sweep you off your feet."

Hands trembled, soaked with perspiration caused by complete nervousness. You remained steadfast, not a muscle twitching, betraying how you actually felt, not even when he enclosed the space between your standing figures and rested his palm on the wall behind you, trapping you in a cage from which you wished to break free.

"But you aren't like me, Yunjae. You're a good person and should have stayed that way instead of playing the baddie card." His hand reached for his pocket, from which he pulled out his phone and listened to the static: "Bring the car to the location I'll send; gather the men; we're leaving."

Alert, you stood there, your mind running faster than a gazelle in search of escapism. You were not sure what he meant, but you couldn't help but think of the worst; after all, Namjoon had become the epitome of danger for you.

"I've come to apologize, Yunjae; I've come to tell you that I didn't plan any of the shit that happened; in fact, I wasn't even aware of the condition of the person you treated; I proposed a deal, and you accepted it without discussing the details, and I can't see or understand how I am to blame for that," he grabbed you by the shoulders and looked you straight in the eyes to deliver every missed emotion that his words failed to array, "I wasn't aware what the consequences of the situation might be, and had I known, I wouldn't have called you that night," he let a bitter chuckle escape his lips, followed by a sigh, after which he resumed, "but now you are deliberately throwing me into a blazing fire, and I can't let that happen; I can't let you ruin what I have spent years building. I will protect what is mine, Yunjae, even if it means losing a friend."

Still trying to decipher his words, Namjoon tugged at your forearm as the car stopped in front of you, forcing you to follow his lead and get in.

"You're making the wrong choice, Namjoon; you're playing with fire," you yelled as he forced you into the car with another man sitting next to you, leaving you no way to escape.

"I know, but I'm gambling; you've given me no choice."

"Where are you taking me?" You asked when you lost familiarity with the streets where the car was going.

"To facilitate my master's choice," he replied without looking at you, engrossed in the details of the rising sun and the warmth it radiates, wondering why he was still cold until he came to terms with the fact that his poor choices are indeed the source of his coldness; his illness. "To tame loose ends."

Between our choices and what life imposes on us, there is a sea of wrong decisions, no islands or rocks for options to cling to for dear life; they are crushed again and again by the high waves of selfishness until they drown and never see the light of chosenness.

And you were rich in wrong decisions and bad timing. That was your trademark, which you wore with pride, not caring about judgmental eyes or big mouths.

Your friends were wrong decisions; Namjoon was your wrong decision.

The night was long, and Taehyung's eyelids swelled with fatigue and frustration; the night was long, and his eyes refused to blink, let alone find restful sleep; he had tried to wash away the anger between Katarina's embrace; fucked her to a double orgasm to cover up his failure to reach his own; thought that after the effort he'd feel as tired as a donkey after a long trip in the mountains, except that donkeys carry no heavy thoughts; no heavy balls either.

Katarina was the bright shade of clarity in Taehyung's life, a dusty white canvas that possessed the same beauty he found in vintage sailcloths, the land whose war he did not want to lose; for Taehyung, Katarina was the promise of a smiling tomorrow, a mother's caress on a child's wound; Katarina was the place where his inner child grew into a mature man, and as he watched her sleep, unclothed and dressed in shades of purple left for him to boast about his possession of her, he figured that his father's words had messed with his head big time for him not to come undone from the mere touch of her body, let alone the way her head bobbed as her mouth circled over his shaft.

The frustration increased when the sun's rays tickled his face in a way he did not like. Taehyung had lost count of the time he had spent on the porch, had forgotten to put on his shirt just as he had forgotten to look at his watch, and concluded that the goosebumps were not intrusive enough to regain his attention.

But the buzzing of his phone was. Perhaps even more insistent than he would have liked.

He had ignored the notifications for quite a while, thinking that the one who called him would eventually give up and leave him to find the kind of peace that refused to sit on his lap, and when hope abandoned him to despair, he downed the rest of his Russo Baltique and accepted the call.

"What is it?" He spat, one hand clutching the phone while the other lit a cigarette, "Keep it up; I'll be there in a few."

Choices are an expensive luxury that no currency but wisdom could buy.

Making the right choice is a sign of maturity. That's why we get this luxury when we reach an age that society deems appropriate to distinguish between wrong and right, when we carry our heads over our shoulders.

But as with everything in life, we take this right for granted. We abuse it until it bleeds with mistakes and unbearable regrets, and only realize how far we have gone when our bad decisions pile up and ambush us all of a sudden, just as Taehyung invaded the warehouse where you were held captive under the pretext of a negotiation.

Your former bravado seemed ridiculous and stupid as it stood before you, useless and utterly cowardly, drawing a sharper contrast than black and white; the weight of the words that had left your mouth crushed you as Taehyung sat before you in all elegance and a composure far removed from your discomfort, "Doctor, long time no see; I hear you have a business deal for me, what a surprise. I must admit I am thrilled."

Namjoon had informed Taehyung about everything, so you didn't have it in you to entertain his tantalizing moment and rather kept silent.

The silence was sweet but short-lived, for Namjoon's voice broke through it, but it failed to break the contest of looks between you and Taehyung; it was intense, so intense that your eyes actually burned and demanded a blink, which you refused to give in to for fear that it would betray your true feelings, that it would expose you to further harassment, to make you the prey.

"You were right, Kim; loose ends are to be tamed, and I guess I helped you alleviate the trouble my mistake caused." Asserted Namjoon.

"You took big steps, doctor; should've thought twice." Taehyung offered.

Between our choices and what life imposes on us lies a vast distance, deserted lands covered with sands of regret.

Between our choices and what life imposes on us, there is a polar iceberg of 'what ifs' that would never melt.

But your choice was made, and there was no room for regret nor pitiful tears; your choice was made, and there was no other option for you but revenge.

"I might have, but I kept my word," you began, resting your elbows on your knees as you propped your body up to look more closely at his face, intent on planting your tantrum in the depths of his orbs, "whereas you broke yours; sending your dog after me in the middle of the night to forcibly bring me here wasn't a part of our agreement, Mr. Kim."

Between our choices and what life forces upon us, there's an undiscovered land of knowledge that we enter only when the choice is made.

And you made yours. For you, Taehyung was the antagonist, the villain, next to Namjoon.

But your choices blinded you, clouded your vision, just like your fears, and forced you to see things in parallel, without sidelong glances; a racehorse, that's what you were.

"It's time to wrap it up, Kim; this is becoming a threat." declared Namjoon.

"You're right; it's time to tame the loose edges," agreed Taehyung, rising from his seat and towering over you without breaking eye contact. His lips twisted into a mischievous grin that quickened your already rapid heartbeat by a beat or two, and before you could improvise or register his next move, you had fallen from your seat from the hard impact caused by Namjoon's crushing body, "or did you say loose ends?" Taehyung asked a growling Namjoon.

His brogue kept pressing on Namjoon's shoulder as his hand extended to help you stand up, and for a moment, you considered bipolar disorder as a diagnosis for his case due to the grin that was plastered on his face again after having left for a split second when he landed the blow on Namjoon, "please excuse the miscalculation, I should've been careful."

"For fuck's sake, what's wrong with you?" Yelled Namjoon, his voice laced with pain.

"That was for lying to me, Namjoon, and you can take it personally if you insist." He pressed his foot with extra force as he exchanged the grin for a serious expression, "I really hate to contradict your expectations, doctor, but I am a man of my word, so I suggest you do not test my patience lest you see how much of a promise keeper I am."

A/N

Sorry, people; I know I'm late with the updates, but I faced quite a slump, so...

This chapter is totally unedited, and it is very late, and I'm so tired, so ignore the typos or missing punctuation, or any dumb mistake I might have made.

I would love to read your theories or/and expectations; please be generous. If not for me, do it for my sleep-deprived brain T_T

Anyway, love you a lot ❤️