Briar Rose - Taekook

Chapter 37

i recommend you to listen to the music while you read. 

XXXVII: Taehyung

They all look like ants from this high up.

Through the gaps of the trees, I can make out the high steeple towers that mark the middle of the bustling square, filled with people even during the heat of midday. The market area of the Sirius clan is highly renowned, and vampires from all different clans come to trade their goods. They all seem like multicolored specks on the streets, and I can almost hear them calling out the wares in their stalls. All of them are blissfully oblivious to the darkness closing in, tearing down the boundaries of my mind little by little. I grit my teeth as a bout of pain washes over me again, and I clutch onto the windowsill.

"Careful," A voice joins me at the window, and I don't even need to turn to know who it is. "Hold onto the windowsill any tighter and it'll break."

"A windowsill is easily fixable, Hoseok," I say. "My sanity, however, is not." I nod to the people below, and Hoseok peers down.

"Do you know how many vampires live in the Sirius clan, Hoseok?"

He knits his eyebrows, as if in deep thought. "A million?"

"Six million. Six million men, women, and children whose future rests in my hands. Do you know how it feels to have all of that weight on your back? It's crushing. I often wonder how other rulers bear it."

I hear Hoseok's quiet laugh. "Your aspects of ruling haven't changed in 300 years. It's because you want the absolute best for your people. Why else do you think that the Sirius is so prosperous? Trade hasn't been this good in centuries."

I shake my head. "Lisa did a better job at extending trade than I did. I just built upon her foundation after I came to power."

"Do you remember when you first came here, Taehyung?" Hoseok asks suddenly, and I look at him, surprised. He doesn't wait for my answer.

"It was just after your last killing spree. You were so small back then," he murmurs. "So full of hatred. You almost put a scim through my chest the first time we met."

My eyes harden as I relive the memory. After the monster had been let loose for the first time, I had ravaged the countryside for more than a century before I finally managed to harness the darkness. The action had taken something out of me, leaving me bone-tired and unable to go any further.

Hoseok had found me in a forest, ready to pass out from exhaustion. Even in my half-starved state, I had tried to fight him off, thinking that he meant me harm. He still had a five-inch long scar on his bicep as a reminder of the day.

"Your hair was a mess, your clothes rags, and your back...skies. Those whip marks didn't leave my thoughts for weeks." He shakes his head. "But what really scared me were your eyes. We've all heard rumors of what Bloodcrest does to people, how it warps them into heartless beings. Your eyes were full of pain, misery, and death. Too much death for someone so young. If you were anyone else, I would have felt pity for you. But that feeling of compassion had been drilled out of you long before. You would have only taken it as an insult."

"And then I probably would have killed you," I agree. "The only reason I didn't was because you had a large scim strapped to your back. I couldn't afford to take any more serious injuries."

Hoseok smiles. "And yet that didn't stop you from trying to gut me like a fish. You almost got the best of me in combat before I told you that Lisa had sent me to try and find you. You were so skeptical, and I still remember how your eyes darted around as if looking for a way out. But finally you agreed to come, though your hand never left your scim for the whole way there." He leans forward, as if about to tell me a secret. "Tell me, Taehyung, were you afraid?"