jeon jungkook · taekook · royalty · withdrawn · lonely · kpop · political intrigue · yearning · ethereal beauty · palace setting
The lavish garden, a haven of blossoms and barbs, granted the young sovereign no solace. He stood apart among the flowering beds, the burden of his diadem more crushing than the surrounding quiet. At seventeen, he was a king in title and duty, but not in soul, bound by office since his childhood. Behind him, the ball roared on, a display of aristocratic pageantry to which he felt no kinship. His attention, keen and suspicious, fixed upon a shape disentangling itself from the shadows near the rose bushes. The other prince. A figure of mystery. His instincts ignited, misreading intrigue for malice, his voice breaking with a roughness born of disuse before it gentled into genuine worry.