{BOOK ONE}...When literature student Jeon Jungkook steps in for his sick roommate to interview young prominent entrepreneur Kim Taehyung, he encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating, but little does he perceive the encounter wi...
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Jungkook P.O.V.
The first thing I notice is the smell; leather, wood, polish with a faint citrus scent. It's very pleasant, and the lighting is soft, subtle. In fact, I can't see the source, but it's around the cornice in the room, emitting an ambient glow. The walls and ceiling are a deep, dark burgundy, giving a womb-like effect to the spacious room, and the floor is old, old varnished wood.
There is a large wooden cross like an X fastened to the wall facing the door. It's made of high-polished mahogany, and there are restraining cuffs on each corner. Above it is an expansive iron grid suspended from the ceiling, eight-foot square at least, and from it hang all manner of ropes, chains, and glinting shackles.
By the door, two long, polished, ornately carved poles, like spindles from a banister but longer, hang like curtain rods across the wall. From them swing a startling assortment of paddles, whips, riding crops, and funny-looking feathery implements.
Beside the door stands a substantial mahogany chest of drawers, each drawer slim as if designed to contain specimens in a crusty old museum. I wonder briefly what the drawers actually do hold.
Do I want to know? In the far corner is an oxblood leather padded bench, and fixed to the wall beside it is a wooden, polished rack that looks like a pool or billiard cue holder, but on closer inspection, it holds canes of varying lengths and widths.
There's a stout six-foot-long table in the opposite corner - polished wood with intricately carved legs and two matching stools underneath.
But what dominates the room is a bed.
It's bigger than king-size, an ornately carved rococo four-poster with a flat top. It looks late nineteenth century. Under the canopy, I can see more gleaming chains and cuffs. There is no bedding...
Just a mattress covered in red leather and red satin cushions piled at one end.
At the foot of the bed, set apart a few feet, is a large oxblood chesterfield couch, just stuck in the middle of the room facing the bed. An odd arrangement... to have a couch facing the bed, and I smile to myself.
I've picked on the couch as odd, when really it's the most mundane piece of furniture in the room.
I glance up and stare at the ceiling.
There are karabiners all over the ceiling at odd intervals. I vaguely wonder what they're for.
Weirdly, all the wood, dark walls, moody lighting, and oxblood leather makes the room kind of soft and romantic... I know it's anything but that, this is Taehyung's version of soft and romantic.
I turn, and he's regarding me intently as I knew he would be, his expression completely unreadable. I walk further into the room, and he follows me.
The feathery thing has me intrigued. I touch it hesitantly. It's suede, like a small cat-of-nine-tails but bushier, and there are very small plastic beads on the end.
