Royal Duty [Minjoon]

22nd part

When Jimin went outside in the early morning the next day, the sky was colored by a deep, overtaking orange. He had never really fancied orange, he couldn't help thinking as the color burned in his tired eyes. Nonetheless, it felt as though there was something pulling him to look towards the source of it.

As he once again got a glimpse of the color, he had a realization of why his dislike of it may be. In his opinion, there had always been something cruel about the color's intensity. It forced your eyes towards it, despite you never having a plan to look. Like the way it was obnoxiously forcing his eyes now.

Today especially, there was something menacing hiding its bright glow. His eyes were watering from the intense burn of what met him. Despite his growing dislike of it, somehow, Jimin once again found himself staring into its very soul. It had been impossible not to see its bright glow in the morning, and even more impossible to look away when he had first been lured in.

An ocean of orange, of flames, spread out before him. He was not afraid of it, had seen it way too many times before to be so. There was no danger in their clawing hands. After all this fire was not unhinged. This was a fact he was painfully aware of. It was collected and restricted. Lit with intention by the human hand and though he feared not for his life as he stared into their dancing souls, there still was a tightness in his chest, a burn in his eyes, and his throat was clogging from smoke.

It might not have been the first time he witnessed this tamed and intentional fire, yet he knew that this was the first time it had been done on his order. His fault.

When he got to the fireside, the fire had already lasted for a while. The wood had turned gray and ashy. It was no longer possible to distinguish the man burning inside of the flames. As the glow of orange died down, Jimin was somehow able to force his eyes away from the scene. He didn't want to look. No matter how distorted the body in the flames was, he still knew who it belonged to and he very much regretted putting it there. His thoughts had been running back and forth for hours trying to catch and assemble all the events that had occured and were occuring. His mind was a whirlwind, filled with jumbled words and forgotten intentions swirling around at a pace he could not keep up with. No matter how strong the wind, no matter how overlapping the voices in his head were, in the heart of the whirlwind, regret still blared through all else. Making the events which he tried so desperately to catch, seem all too far away as it was all taken by the storm in his mind.

Namjoon hadn't deserved this, he thought to himself as he watched the final sparks die down. He had already thought so many times over the past day. This decision had been one made through stress, anger and rashness. It was one he knew would leave a scar in his mind forever. Even if Namjoon had been a sorcerer, even if he had done something evil, the prince knew for certain that there had been more to him than that. He had been a hard worker, had a smile that could make everyone feel better about their day, and made friends with close to everyone he met. There was more to Namjoon than the crime he had committed. Jimin wished he had realized that before it had been too late to turn back.

He had always told himself that he would not be like his father. As he looked upon the ashes of the dead man in the dying fire, he couldn't help but dread the reflection he saw of his own blood in it. A shiver went through him.

His father was not a bad king, he knew how to rule, how to take control and who to belive. Still, this did not take away from the fact that his throne was built upon the corpses of falsely convicted men and women, of which none had deserved to die for the crime they had committed. Jimin had always tried to tell him that they should start fixing these issues at their core. Try to remove the great divides in society, improve the living standard, also for those who lived in the poorest part of their village. Provide those who were desperate enough to steal or plunder, with what they need to survive. Like that they could separate those who had a choice, from those who didn't. Those who committed crimes out of selfishness and want, from those who did so for survival.