[✔] kingdom come • jenlisa

viiii

The gypsy community welcomed them with open arms. They were in a secluded enough area that Jungkook didn't fear Chanyeol's soldiers finding them. Jennie was currently being tended to by Jisoo. One of the gypsy healers had given them supplies to bandage and treat the wounds. Jungkook waited in a different area. He doubted that him hovering over would help them work.

He had left the noble alpha with the group, though after hearing him apologize to Jennie. The sorrow and regret in his voice made him feel bad for ever questioning if he was trustworthy. The lyonesse noble clearly cared a lot about his country. He talked a lot about not letting right or wrong motivate him, but Jungkook doubted that he was ever not in the right. He knew his sister-in-law would forgive him. He was just trying to stop a war with the least amount of deaths as possible. That's what they all were doing.

Jungkook was pulled away from his thoughts by the object of them sitting next to him. He didn't know why Taehyung wasn't still with Jennie and Jisoo or the other soldiers they'd brought with them. They seemed better company than the catered beta.

"How are you holding up?" Taehyung asked him.

"Fine."

"Really?" The latter raised an eyebrow.

"No," he confessed. "I'm angry."

"Yeah," Taehyung sighed. "Me too, kid."

Jungkook bit back his impulse to inform his companion that he wasn't a kid. He hadn't been for a long time.

"Here," the noble alpha put a piece of bread in his hands. "One of the gypsies thought we'd be hungry."

"I don't have much of an appetite," Jungkook told him honestly.

"Me neither," he nodded. "You should still eat though. It'll help to have something in your stomach when we join them."

"Right," the nivan prince nodded. He took a bite of the bread. It wasn't as dry as he thought it would be.

"She's going to be alright," Taehyung added. "Princess Jennie, I mean. As lady-in-wait, Jisoo said she should make a full recovery, she just needs rest."

"She needs for us to win," Jungkook sighed.

"We all do," Taehyung chuckled.

They had to wait for the end of the battle to know their fate. If Chanyeol won, all of them were doomed. Taehyung explained to him that he was certain that lust for power had made Lord Chanyeol lose his mind. If Lisa and Namjoon's army didn't beat him, he would kill all of them. That put a pit in the beta's stomach. While he'd been on many battlefields before, he knew this was the closest he'd been to losing it all. He voiced this to the latter.

"You fought during the war then?" Taehyung asked.

"Yes."

He knew that this should be a sore subject, but Taehyung didn't seem bitter. He seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say. That wasn't something that Jungkook was used to from people who look and fought like him. Maybe it was just because of the situation, or because they had nothing better to do, but Taehyung didn't have to pay this much attention to him. He knew that this really wasn't the time for him to sort out his attraction, but the way Taehyung was looking at him- like he actually cared about what he had to say- was flattering.

So Jungkook told him about the war. He told him about his family, and how he almost hadn't been permitted to fight alongside his sister because they feared he wasn't skilled enough. He'd used anger to motivate him for so long, so now that fear was the main thing he was feeling, he didn't know what to do.

"You'll be alright," Taehyung told him.

"It's not me that I'm worried about," Jungkook replied. "Well, that's not completely true. I am scared for me, but I'm also scared for my sister, Chaeng, Jennie- and heck, even Jisoo."