ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗥𝗧𝗬-𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗘
─◌✰್ 𝖺𝗍𝗍𝖾𝗆𝗉𝗍
❝𝘄𝗵𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗿, 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗿, 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗿... 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗗𝗢 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴?❞

The day after Hyunjin and JJ's date, Minho was getting ready to head down for breakfast. Yesterday, Yeonjun had announced that they would get today off from competing for dates as well, but Riley and Christopher were scheduled for their date this evening. So Minho had moved with extreme leisure, sleeping in an extra hour, and showering long after Hyunjin and Seungmin had left.

He hoped that taking so much time would decrease the chances of running into you at the dining table. Not because he didn't want to see you. Hell, he actually missed spending time with you. Seeing your beautiful face, your secretive, sarcastic smile. But he knew that if he did, he wouldn't be able to help himself, and he would spill the secret that he'd been desperately holding onto for the past couple days.

Right when Minho was about to stand up from his vanity mirror and go downstairs, the door burst open, and Hyunjin strode in, a look of exasperation and stress on his face.

Minho frowned at the duke. "What's up?" he asked, confused.

Hyunjin sighed, sitting behind Minho on his own bed. "We need to talk," he finally said. "About a couple things."

"And what would that be?"

Hyunjin paused, clearly hesitant to continue the conversation he'd just started. "Well first, Tessa talked to me."

That had Minho sitting up straight real quick. "She did? What did she say? When?" He couldn't help firing questions at the poor man, who probably had no idea the inner turmoil he was facing by not talking to you.

"She wanted to know why you haven't spoken to her." Hyunjin pursed his lips. "She originally asked me at the party, when she was drunk off her ass. A few seconds before you so rudely interrupted us."

Minho groaned under his breath. With all that was on his mind, he'd forgotten about his outburst two nights ago. "Yeah, about that. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you, I was just... I'm under a lot of stress."

"About what?" Hyunjin prompted.

Now, it was Minho's turn to pause. He wasn't sure how much was safe to tell Hyunjin. After all, he still didn't know him that well. Outside of his strenuous skincare routine and love of white noise that consisted of bird calls, he truly knew nothing.

"You can't tell Tessa anything that I'm about to tell you," Minho said.

Hyunjin nodded reluctantly. "What should I tell her, then? She's asked me a total of seven times to talk to you, I can't come back empty-handed."

"Just tell her that I'll talk to her, okay?" Minho said impatiently. Now that he'd come to terms with the fact that Hyunjin was going to find out his secret, he just wanted it to be out in the open.

Hyunjin nodded silently, waiting for Minho to continue.

"Well, after our date, Yeonjun approached me in the lounge," Minho began. "And he basically dropped the biggest possible bomb on me. It's something that I can't tell Tessa, no matter what."

Hyunjin's brow wrinkled. "Why not? The two of you are married, right? And supposed to be in love? Shouldn't you be able to tell her anything?"

Minho silenced him with a glare. "He told me that he's Tessa's father."

He was met with silence, as Hyunjin opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, trying to formulate a coherent thought.

"Huh?" Was all he came up with.

Minho nodded grimly. "I know. I don't know if it's true, but I don't see why he would lie about something as insane as that. And somehow, he knew that I wouldn't tell Tessa."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Hyunjin burst out.

"I know!" Minho agreed. "How could someone that looks so young be a parent? Let alone a parent to someone who's almost the same age as him? Do you think he's lying?"

"No, not that!" Hyunjin rolled his eyes. "Okay, well you have good points, but that's not what I meant. What doesn't make any sense is... why you're not telling Tessa. She should be the first person to know, not me! Am I the first person to know?"

Minho's silence was answer enough.

"Well, I think you should tell her," Hyunjin plowed on. "She was pretty distraught that night, and I don't think it was just because of the alcohol. She's not an idiot, Minho. She could tell immediately that you were ignoring her, and she's gonna keep pestering you - pestering me - until you tell her why."

"I know," Minho murmured. His mind drifted to an image of your face. His heart warmed at the thought. That was what attracted him to you. Not just your looks, but your mind. The way you thought about things. You weren't afraid to tell the truth, even if it was objectively offensive or hurtful. He admired that about you.

And now he was doing the exact opposite to you. Talk about selfish and disrespectful.

"I will tell her," he said, more to himself than to Hyunjin. "I just need you to keep it a secret, for now. Until I can figure out a good way to explain it. I've waited too long as it is, and shes gonna be pissed off if she finds out from anyone else but me."

"From what you're telling me, she's gonna be pissed off either way," Hyunjin not-so-smoothly observed.

Minho rolled his eyes, but had no good comeback.

"Anyway, now that that's out of the way," Hyunjin continued, not noticing, or caring, that Minho hadn't responded. "I have something even more important to talk to you about."

Minho grimaced. "How could something be more important than my wife and her wellbeing?" he demanded, his words coming off ruder than he would have liked.

Thankfully, Hyunjin ignored that too. He shoved his hands into his pockets, a look of discomfort crossing his face. "So uh... you know how you want me to keep a secret for you? I'm gonna need you to do the same for me. But like... forever, if possible."

"Uh... sure. Depending on what it is." Minho's curiosity was too strong to question Hyunjin's request. How bad could it really be?

"Well... I don't know if you noticed, but JJ didn't come back with me from our date yesterday," Hyunjin began, his voice wavering the slightest bit. "And, erm, that's because she never came back, at all. She ran away."

"Where did she go?" Minho queried. "Why would she run away from your date? Was it that bad?"

"Well, it wasn't great." Hyunjin barked out a laugh. "In fact, it was probably a date from hell. For her, at least."

"Okay... what counts as a date from hell?" Minho pressed. "Just because it was a date with a stuffy duke, doesn't mean it was hell, right?"

"What if your date tried to kill you?" Hyunjin broke through Minho's bemused comments.

Minho stopped all jokes and jests, eyeing Hyunjin with suspicion. "What do you mean, Hyunjin? Are you saying you tried to kill JJ?"

"See, that's where the secret part of this conversation comes in," Hyunjin hustled the conversation along. "I didn't want to kill her. I don't want to kill almost anyone. But I was hired to kill her. And I thought- well, I thought that it would be just as easy as every other job."

"As in, you've been hired to kill people before?" Minho said slowly, desperately trying to take in all the information being thrown at him.

Hyunjin nodded gravely. "Yes, that's what I'm telling you. I'm an... assassin." He spat the word like it was bile in his mouth. "And predictably, when I tried and failed to kill her, she ran away."

"Has anyone tried to find her?" Minho prompted. "We could go after her, you know."

Hyunjin shook his head, a miserable look coming over his face. "Yes, of course they did. But she refused to come back. She's at her parents home, they called Soyeon early this morning. But she said she doesn't feel safe enough to come back. And Soyeon can't exactly force a duchess to do anything, you know?"

Minho watched Hyunjin carefully. It seemed like he was actually starting to care about JJ. How crazy was that? He had a sudden desire to laugh, but he forced it down. The world was truly a fucked up place.

"Well, I guess all I can say is that neither of us can give relationship advice to anyone." Minho slapped Hyunjin on the back. The man mustered a weak smile in response.

"I feel genuinely terrible," Hyunjin admitted, shoulders slumping. "I know it might sound insane, but when I started to get to know her, I really liked her. I wasn't the nicest to her back in school, or even in the mansion, but she was never mean in return, not without cause. And at dinner, she was nice, like she wanted to get to know me."

Minho chuckled. "Yeah, probably because she was scared for her damn life."

Hyunjin sighed wistfully. "I guess I didn't think about that. That makes me feel even worse."

"Sorry man," Minho smiled apologetically. "Clearly, I'm not the best at comforting people."

"Guys!!!" Now, it was Seungmin's turn to barge through the door.

Minho supposed it was about time for his roommates to have a heart-to-heart. He shook his head bitterly. This was exactly what Yeonjun had wanted when he assigned the rooms, wasn't it?

"What, Seungmin?" Minho stifled a sigh, as Seungmin jumped onto the bed next to Hyunjin.

"I need your opinions on something," he said seriously. "I would have asked you guys earlier, but this is the first free time we've had where we aren't surrounded by those fucking cameras."

"Don't remind me," Minho said bitterly, mentally punching Taehyung with his mind one more time. It would never be enough.

Seungmin smirked at him, before continuing. "Well, during the soccer game, Renee told me something really big. And I've been thinking about it ever since."

"You've held onto this for that long??" Minho said disbelievingly. "I can't believe you didn't just blurt it out right then and there."

"Excuse you, I can be secretive," Seungmin huffed. "Besides, I assumed you would have known already. Renee told me that Robin told both Tessa and her who she had tried to poison. You know, with her love potion. And you won't believe who it was."

"Let me guess, you?" Minho said tartly. He didn't mean for his voice to sound so upset, but he was annoyed. Why hadn't you told him about this? He thought the two of you had decided on telling each other everything you heard around the mansion. Plus, he'd been there when Robin had almost confessed to Renee outside the kitchen!

Not that he'd given you any time to share. And not that he was being fully honest with you, either...

Seungmin deflated, but nodded. "Yeah, how did you guess??" he exclaimed, pulling Minho out of his doomsday thoughts. "Anyway, she said that Robin finally confessed to poisoning me. Why the hell would she do that??"

"I dunno." Hyunjin also shrugged. "Are you gonna tell us?"

"No, I was asking!" Seungmin frowned. "I want to know what you guys think. Why would Robin feel the need to poison me? I've done nothing to her! Actually, I thought that she liked me, you know, as a person. So... after a lot of thinking, I could only come up with one reason why she would try to do this to me."

"What's that?" Hyunjin asked curiously.

"Well, you know how I mentioned during that game forever ago that I thought my family was up to some suspicious stuff?" Seungmin said. "Well, I think that this might be part of that. What if my parents are doing something that might make Robin's family feel threatened, and that was their way of warning my family?"

"Honestly," Minho paused, eyeing Seungmin skeptically. "That's not a completely insane conclusion."

"See??" Seungmin threw his hands up in the air. "Renee and I have been trying to brainstorm ideas too, but we couldn't really come up with anything."

"What do you want us to do about it?" Hyunjin frowned. "I don't know jackshit about your family."

Seungmin shrugged, sighing. "I dunno, I was just hoping maybe you guys could help. Minho, your parents are the king and queen of Obsidian! There's no way you guys don't have anything against my family, right? Do you know anything about them?"

Minho frowned, trying to delve deep into his memory. He'd read quite a bit on every family in his kingdom, but since Seungmin was from Moonstone, there was less likelihood that he knew anything. "No, I can't think of anything," he admitted. "We didn't really focus a lot on Moonstone, to be honest. Or at least I didn't."

"Oh my gosh, Minho!" Hyunjin covered his mouth, eyes wide. "I just remembered something that I wanted to tell you, about me trying and failing to kill JJ!"

"You did what??" Seungmin exclaimed, stunned. "Why would you try to do that? Why would you say that?? That's my best friend!"

Hyunjin flushed red, averting his gaze. "I'm sorry, Seungmin," he mumbled. "I swear, I didn't want to. But this might actually help you. It might help all of us!"

"Okay, tell us." Minho nudged him, frowning. What could possibly change the game, and help both him, and Seungmin? Weren't all of these things - JJ's potential murder and Seungmin's family - completely unrelated?

"Well, if you thought the fact that I'm assassin hired to kill JJ was a big secret," Hyunjin began, "then this is top-secret, completely confidential information. It makes all the other stuff I've told you look like a walk through the park."

"Just tell us!" Seungmin demanded. His face had turned blotchy and red ever since his best friend's attempted murder had been mentioned.

"The person who hired me," Hyunjin glanced at Minho, and then averted his gaze.

Minho felt his stomach flip over on itself. Was it someone he knew?

"It was your parents."

laska's note —
eek! 🤭 i know this chapter was a bit of a recap on what's happened but it's not just the girls who can gossip! our men are trying to make connections and come up with theories, and i'm here for it! why did minho's parents hire hyunjin to kill jj?? they're not even from the same kingdom! and now seungmin knows that robin was hired to poison him, but she claims that she didn't poison jisung? i wonder why she didn't! and minho is digging himself deeper into a hole by not telling tessa the secret he knows. even hyunjin knows before she does! 🤣 how do you think that's gonna end? do you think they'll keep uncovering more of the weirdness going on? i sure hope so!

𝖭𝖤𝖷𝖳 𝖴𝖯：
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