He Looks Up Grinning Like A Devil | Sunghoon X Jungwon

Devils Roll The Dice

[Jungwon]

"We'll be fine."

"Say that again, but more convincing this time," Jungwon responds without glancing from his book to the figure lying haphazardly on his bed.

"You're so mean," Sunoo pouts. Jungwon just knows that his brother is pouting even when he's not looking. "This is why everybody calls you—"

"—The Heartless Bastard. I know," Jungwon interrupts. He grew up with the title and has since then learned to wear it like an armor instead of recoiling from it. 

There's a small pause and then Sunoo huffs.

"I was gonna say The Cold Prince but whatever."

That gets Jungwon's attention and he finally lifts his eyes to level a piercing gaze to his brother. Half-brother.

Sunoo looks away.

"I'm no prince, Sunoo."

Unlike his half-brother, Jungwon is a bastard. Hence, the Heartless Bastard title. Their father, the King, had a drunken stumble with a nameless wench from the brothel years ago. Sunoo's mother, the late Queen, was eight months pregnant then but the Seer foresighted the death of the first born prince. It was what pushed the King to the brothel in the first place. The Seer, as it turned out, was full of bullshit because a month later, Prince Sunoo was born. Healthy and all.

Two years after the birth of Prince Sunoo, a sick woman begged at the gates of the castle for an audience with the King, bringing with her a one-year old Jungwon. No one was able to deny her because Jungwon has the King's eyes.

The woman died not long after and Jungwon was taken and raised in the castle as the King's bastard. His appearance made a rift between the King and the Queen's relationship, eventually causing the Queen to fall ill and die eleven years later.

Although Jungwon was raised alongside Prince Sunoo, he's no prince himself. But despite that, he embodied the King in almost all aspects starting from his piercing cat-eyes down to his no-nonsense attitue and his sword-handling. But those are not enough to warrant Jungwon in wearing the Kim family brooch.

In all honesty, Jungwon doesn't give a flying fuck about his royal blood, or the lack thereof. Years and years of drilling into his head that he will never be a royal from the Royal Subjects and the nobles scrapped away any desire to beg for his father's attention and approval. If not for his half-brother, Jungwon would've left this drastic place to become a squire in the neighboring town.

Only Sunoo made him stay. Because despite everything, despite losing his mother and losing his friends for befriending Jungwon, Sunoo still chose to be with him. 

"That's because you're my baby brother and you're mine," Sunoo has answered when Jungwon asked why he doesn't hate him.

And for Jungwon, that's enough. He can endure everything for his brother's sake.

Including temporarily moving to the Palace.

Their father has announced his marriage ('alliance', as the King likes to address it as if he hasn't been undressing the Continental Queen with his eyes everytime they attend the annual gathering in the Capital) to the Continental Queen a week ago. 

The Continental Queen's consort, a noble knight without a trace of royal blood, has died a year ago. Ever since then, the four Kings across the continent, the North, the South, the West and the East (Jungwon and Sunoo's father) were vying to be the Continental King, never mind that three out of four kings still have their queens. To be the Continental King is to be the ruler of all four kingdoms and not just the borders.