Chapter Text
Song Mingi belonged to the crown.
Not metaphorically, like he felt an emotionally deep connection to it. Not loyally. Not even particularly willingly.
He belonged to the crown in the very literal, deeply inconvenient sense that his blood had been magically bound to the royal family for several generations, and therefore, he didn’t get a say in the matter.
Which was bullshit when you consider it because the oath wasn’t even his.
As far as he knew, some ancestor of his, an absolute idiot who never stopped to consider the trauma they were inflicting on their offspring and their offspring’s offspring, made a blood pact with a long-dead king for god knows what reason. The magic stuck to his bloodline like a hereditary disease, and now every descendant born with the right affinity became property of the throne. And Mingi happened to have that magical affinity.
Lucky him.
He was very young the first time it activated. Young enough that he didn’t actually remember life before it. Didn’t remember what it was like to have a mother and father who loved him instead of a keeper and tutor who were tasked with him or a master that used him.
Owners, in all but name.
He remembers a ceremony. Royal blood in a silver bowl. Someone pressing his hands into it. A voice speaking words he didn’t understand. And then the magic had settled into his veins like it had always been there. It was all very icky and unsettling for an eight-year-old boy.
The rules were only explained afterward. It’s not like he would have fully understood them at eight anyway, but they were told and retold to him every day during his upbringing and, worse, were enforced by his very own magical core.
They were simple rules, all things considered. Commands given by royal blood must be obeyed.
Disobedience was… unpleasant.
He learned what that meant the first time he tried to refuse.
He was twelve.
The king, well, he was the prince then, had ordered him to demonstrate his touch on a servant to see what it could do. Mingi would belong to him when he ascended the throne anyway, so why not get a handle on what he could do now?
Mingi had refused.
He’d lasted almost six seconds before his magic had twisted through his body like his veins were full of broken glass. He’d collapsed on the floor, shaking and choking and begging for it to stop. And it did, eventually, when the prince had finally revoked his command, after minutes of Mingi crying out for release.
They were separated after that. His keepers claimed it was to limit temptation, that his power should only be used in “appropriate circumstances.” Better to remove the temptation from the young prince until he was ready. What a bullshit excuse for a deliberate act of cruelty.
Regardless, after that day, Mingi had become significantly more cooperative.
He remembers the first time he’d actually killed someone.
That part he wished he didn’t remember.
He’d been fifteen.
The old king had sent him. Mingi had never quite liked the king, but he didn’t actively dislike him as he did the prince. That feeling changed after.
The target had been a man who sold information to the wrong people. Mingi had walked right up to him and touched his throat with intent, the way he’d been taught.
The magic had moved through the man like a winter storm, stopping his heart instantly, a look of surprise still etched in his eyes as his body crumpled.
Mingi had stumbled away and thrown up behind a carriage stand, hands braced on the wood as his whole body shook.
For a while, he tried to hold onto that reaction. The horror. The guilt. The feeling that this was wrong.
But the assignments kept coming as the years went on.
And the prince, now fully king and still deeply unpleasant, never ran out of people who needed quietly removed. The cost of royalty he’d said. The cost of peace.
Empathy, Mingi eventually discovered, was not compatible with his employment.
He didn’t get to be the kind of person who cared. So he’d stopped.
Or at least he packed those feelings away somewhere deep enough that they stopped interfering with his work. Deep enough that he could ignore the disgust and self-loathing and the terror.
It was easier to pretend he didn’t have a conscience than deal with the fact that he did.
Death, self-imposed or otherwise, was elusive to people like him anyway. His magic saw to that. So, survival was all that was left.
It became easier, in a way. If he couldn’t leave and he couldn’t stop killing, there wasn’t much point in dwelling on it.
The cage only felt smaller when you kept testing the bars.
So he stopped testing.
The current king, incidentally, was a dick.
He had always been a dick, and time and responsibility had not seen fit to change that. This wasn’t treason. It was simply an observation.
Now, the thoughts that Mingi had late into the night of turning his powers against the man. Of defying his orders and the magic in his blood. Letting the magic tear him apart instead and taking the king with him-
That part might be treason. But no one needed to know about that part.
Besides, it wasn’t like Mingi could do anything about it.
The oath didn’t care about personality. Orders are orders. It didn’t matter if those orders came from a pompous, unfeeling, paranoid, power-hungry narcissist. Royal blood was royal blood.
Which is how he ended up ten days' travel away from the capital in a town so small it barely qualified as a town.
The king’s latest command had been brief: A name. A potential location. A simple set of instructions. Kill him. Bring proof when it’s done.
Mingi had received less information than that for previous assignments, so he really hadn’t questioned it.
Not that questioning helped. The magic didn’t really love when he delayed executing an order. How it knew the difference between hesitation born of reluctance vs delay due to one of a million possible logistical difficulties that could arise in pursuit of the target was something that Mingi didn’t think he’d ever understand.
The town itself was almost aggressively unremarkable. Uneven cobblestone roads. A handful of shops. One inn. One tavern.
Mingi had been traveling for days already.
He didn’t usually take this long with a target, but the distance was unexpected, and the man he was looking for didn’t seem particularly eager to be found. He’d been to three villages before he’d finally found this one.
He’d spent that time doing what he always did. He asked questions.
Casual, harmless questions. Over drinks and conversations. At first, it led nowhere, but the further south he got, the more people started recognizing the name.
And that’s when things got mildly inconvenient. Because every single person he asked had something nice to say.
“Oh, Yunho?”
“He helped repair my roof last winter.”
“Good kid, that one. Always offering a helping hand. Sweet boy.”
“Works hard.”
“Made sure old Mrs. Han got what she needed from the market when she was holed up sick as a dog.”
Mingi listened. Nodded, thanked them politely. And mentally filed the information under deeply irrelevant. Nice people died just as easily as unpleasant ones. Easier even.
It took him until the fourth night to actually find the man.
The tavern was crowded and warm with conversation. Lantern light glowed against the wood beams, and the smell of cheap alcohol hung in the air.
Mingi was seated in a shadowed corner, halfway through a drink when he walked in.
The target made his way over to the bar, where he met two other men who were laughing at something one of them had said. They both broke into wide smiles when they saw him, glasses and voices raising.
For a moment, Mingi just watched.
Observation was important in his line of work. A target’s habits, temperament, drinking tolerance, these were all relevant operational details.
The man in question was taller than most people around him. Lean, Mingi might even call him slight, but strong and loose-limbed in a way that suggested he was comfortable in his body.
His hair was slightly messy. His eyes were big and bright. His smile…
Mingi paused.
His professional assessment process halted abruptly.
Hot.
There’s a brief moment where his brain attempted to process this information. Hot, hot, hot. He sighed internally. Great. Sent to kill a man in the middle of fucking nowhere and he just so happens to be extremely attractive.
Very inconvenient.
Mingi took another sip of his drink and watched Jeong Yunho laugh, loud and bright, elbowing one of his friends as he did. His smile was wide and easy. It was the kind of smile that probably convinced many, many people to forgive him any wrongdoing. It did something strange to his chest.
This was, objectively speaking, terrible luck.
He could simply kill him quickly. It wouldn’t even be difficult. Just cross the room, a brush of skin against skin…And it would be over.
Quick. Efficient.
Mingi considered it. He really did.
Then Yunho smiled again, and Mingi’s traitorous brain supplied the unhelpful observation that he probably smiled like that in bed, too.
Mingi closed his eyes at the thought.
“Well,” he said to himself under his breath. “That’s unfortunate.”
Okay. The practical reality is this: He has to kill this man. There’s no way out of that.
The king’s orders were not suggestions, not to him at least. So the outcome of tonight was not in question.
Jeong Yunho was going to die. That part was settled.
But…Mingi found himself looking again. Lingering.
Life was fleeting. He knew that better than most people, and it had been a long time since he’d noticed someone like this. Since he’d felt this physically drawn to another person. A very, very long time. Long enough that he’d almost forgotten what that pull felt like.
His gaze traced the line of Yunho’s shoulders, the loose way he stood, the way people leaned toward him without thinking. Like being near him was easy.
Something in Mingi tightened.
He didn’t tend to allow himself that indulgence. Intimacy was…complicated for him, what with the fact that one touch has the ability to stop a person’s heart if he wasn’t careful. Not that he was that careless. He wasn’t. He could control himself outside of royal decree, but he also fucking hated himself most days, which didn’t really translate into a quest for romance.
All that to say, intimacy was usually a non-starter, which meant attraction was…inconvenient to say the least. And not something that he usually felt so keenly.
Because now that he’d noticed it, ignoring it felt like a waste. And really, if he was going to have to get Yunho alone anyway, well…There’s no reason they both can’t enjoy the evening first.
Mingi straightened slightly in his chair.
Yes. That seemed reasonable.
He was going to kill the man regardless. But perhaps he could have a pleasant last memory before that happened.
Mingi was nothing if not considerate.
Decision made, he finished his drink and set the cup down. Across the room, Yunho was still talking to his friends, leaning comfortably against the bar, charming the bartender when she came over to ask his order.
Up close, he’d probably be even better looking.
Mingi stood.
There was a small flicker of something in his chest, something he vaguely remembered feeling when he was young and green…anticipation. Ignore it. This was a job.
He crossed the room in a few quick strides, slipping through the crowd until he reached the bar.
Up close, his earlier assessment proved to be extremely accurate. Yunho was, in fact, even more attractive than initially observed.
Mingi stopped beside him. He saw Yunho see him out of the corner of his eye. A handsome flush started at his cheeks and made its way to the tips of his ears before he was able to disengage from his conversation and turn Mingi’s way. Cute. Damn it.
When Yunho finally turned towards him, their eyes met and held. Mingi felt it, sudden and disorienting, like he’d stepped half a pace too far forward and hadn’t realized it until it was too late.
He ignored the way his chest tightened.
Just vertigo. Nothing more.
Yunho blinked once, clearly taking him in. Then his mouth curved into the beginnings of a smile.
“Hi,” he said. Mouth still curved, highlighting the softness of his cheeks.
“Hi,” Mingi returned.
“You’ve been staring for a bit now. I was wondering if you’d ever work up the nerve to come over.”
No use lying. “You’re very distracting,” Mingi said calmly. There’s no hesitation in the answer. No apology, either. Why would he?
Yunho blinked at him. He seemed unused to this type of attention, which Mingi thought was crazy because he was so damn pretty. People should have been lining up to throw themselves at this man.
“…I am?”
“Yes.” Mingi didn’t elaborate.
Yunho let out a small, embarrassed laugh and rubbed the back of his neck, pressing his lips together, clearly trying not to smile. “You’re very honest.”
“It's faster.”
Yunho lost the battle and laughed quietly. Up close, his laugh was even more striking than Mingi had realized from across the room.
“So,” Yunho said, shifting his weight against the bar, “is there a reason you came over here, or were you planning to just continue the staring portion of the evening from a closer proximity?”
“I have a reason.”
Yunho waits. “…Yes?”
“I think we should sleep together.”
Yunho choked on his drink. Beside him, one of his friends made a loud, delighted noise and smacked him on the back. “Oh my god,” the friend said. “Yunho-”
“Shut up,” Yunho hissed without looking at him.
He coughed once more, regained a little dignity, and looked back at Mingi. “You really don’t waste time, do you?”
Mingi shrugged. Why waste the time they had? Not that Yunho knew that, but Mingi wasn’t going to beat around the bush. “You haven’t thrown your drink in my face or told me to fuck off, so you don’t seem too offended.”
Yunho huffed out a laugh. “I’m mostly surprised.”
“Is that bad?”
“No,” Yunho says quickly. He looked slightly embarrassed by how quickly he’d said it. “I mean…no, it’s not bad.”
Mingi nodded. Good.
Yunho glanced away briefly, clearly trying to compose himself. When he looked back, there was a small, crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “Does this approach usually work for you?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t really tried it before. Does it?”
That made Yunho laugh again. “You’re unbelievable,” he said, but there was no edge to it. If anything, he sounded… pleased.
There was a small pause where they both just looked at each other, the pull between them immediate and unmistakable.
Yunho cleared his throat. “So,” he said, attempting a casual tone that almost worked, “what’s your name, mysterious stranger who propositioned me within thirty seconds of speaking to me?”
“Mingi.”
“Yunho.”
The other man reached out to offer his hand. Mingi hesitated for just a second before taking it into his own. He had big hands. Rough. Nice.
“You’re a bit strange, Mingi.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“No, I’d imagine it’s not.”
Another small pause stretched between them. Yunho glanced back at his friends, who were doing a piss poor job at pretending they weren’t heavily invested in the outcome of the conversation happening right next to them. His eyes shifted back to Mingi, moving up and down his body, assessing, before he exhaled a quiet laugh.
“Well, Mingi,” he said, pushing away from the bar, “you did come all the way over here to stare at me.”
A nod, “I did.”
“And you were very polite about asking for what you wanted.”
“I try.”
Yunho shook his head, still smiling, before he downed the remnants of his drink and tilted his head towards the door.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s see where this goes.”
When he moved, Mingi followed, ignoring the quiet, unwelcome thought that for the first time in what might be decades… he actually wanted to.