┌••────── ⊱✦⊰──────••┐

Chapter five: My Desire

└••────── ⊱✦⊰──────••┘

Luna

The next days passed swiftly, but not without their share of discoveries.

Jieun let me borrow some of her clothes, offering me a pair of boots that she proudly announced she'd stolen and a tunic that was loose enough to conceal my breasts. The garment stopped shifting once I tied a leather belt around my waist.

The more complicated part of the ensemble were the breeches. My fondness for wearing men's pants was immediate.

I relished the comfort of the timeworn garment, the freedom of moving without restriction, without layers of heavy skirts. I also seethed with jealousy that fate permitted men to dress like this every day.

However, leaving the tent was another matter. The breeches outlined my hips and legs to a mortifying degree.

I refused to come out of Jieun's tent until Jimin lost patience and carried me out to the cheers and whistles of the rest of the group.

Taehyung stopped clapping when he got a good look at my outfit. The expression on his face filled me with agitation, delight, fear.

Deciding what feeling mattered most proved too daunting a task, so I let them fuse together.

Outwardly, I did what I do best. I pretended not to care what he thought.

The following day, we rose at dawn to distribute the loot Taehyung's band had collected, including my ring.

I journeyed with them to the village, concealing myself in the bushes and watching as Taehyung moved deftly from house to house, flinging palm-sized sacks of coins and jewels toward the front door of every cottage.

It took hours, but the gleam of joy and gratitude on people's faces tapped into my heart, confirming an unfortunate truth.

Taehyung and his gang were good. They went about their business unlawfully, but their intentions were pure.

Betraying them would require betraying these cottagers. Imprisoning Taehyung Kim and his band would strip them of a necessary source of survival.

Could I go through with it? What would Seokjin do to Taehyung once he was locked in a cell?

The very thought of that boyish face battered and bruised and broken terrorized me in a way nothing ever had before.

Could I tell them the truth? We might be able to to hatch an alternative plan to overthrow the monarchy...but what about my sister? My family?

Seokjin already knew that Taehyung had me. If we rebelled, the king would conclude I had something to do with it.

He expected us to breach the palace, which meant we wouldn't have the element of surprise. And if we failed, my family and Busan would suffer.

The king would punish them all. Too many lives that I cared about were at risk. I couldn't gamble their future. Taehyung's gang of thieves were decent people, but they were also strangers.

I had to choose. My home over his.

I despised myself. I kept moving forward, hoping not to get attached but finding that more and more difficult.

Each person in Taehyung's group possessed a tent wide enough for a sleeping cot, a container of personal items, a water basin, and a supply of candles.

I couldn't help musing that their camp had taken time to build, and it was hardly mobile. Not at all suitable for a quick getaway. They'd become used to being hidden. Perhaps they didn't expect anyone to ever find them.

Jieun grudgingly let me share her cot, but she tossed and turned worse than my sister. She also talked in her sleep, puffing out Jungkook's name more than once. I didn't know how to interpret that.

Until I saw them kissing. It was my fourth morning with them. I was passing by when it happened, carrying wood that I'd helped Hoseok gather.

Jieun and Jungkook had been fighting over whose turn it was to feed the horses, lashing out insult after insult while Jimin kept score as though it was a jousting match.

Out of nowhere, Jieun stopped, fist on her hips. She pinned Jungkook with a smirk while his mouth wreathed into an angry smile. They stared at each other with a hostile playfulness that puzzled me to the ends of the earth.

"Get over here," he said.

They collided like beasts in heat, arms tangling, lips locking. I dropped the firewood.

Jimin groaned. "It's about time. They've never held out this long."

I resisted the childish urge to point. "They...they, um...they're..."

"Oh, and how," he said, staring at the couple as openly as I was. "They bicker until they're sufficiently aroused, and then we don't see them for hours."

Prudence told me that I should look away, but I couldn't. I'd never witnessed such an intimate moment between a man and a woman.

I'd also never been kissed. Watching them peaked my curiosity, entranced me, stimulated parts of me that I didn't know existed.

It made me think of someone else. Someone I shouldn't be thinking about.

Someone who chose that instant to exit his tent, bow and arrow in hand. Noticing the passionate moment between his friends, Taehyung's eyes found mine, catching me in a moment of unguarded, greedy fascination.

I felt like I'd been spying. I felt embarrassed. I felt hungry. I turned away, afraid my thoughts were written all over my face.

Jimin elbowed me. "No need to act coy. Are you that pure?"

What to say. "I...I..."

"Looks like fun, doesn't it?" he purred. "Want to try it?"

"She's coming with me," Taehyung interjected, striding away and expecting me to follow him.

The arrogant gesture nettled me and replaced the warmth I'd been feeling a second ago.

All the same, I tailed him into the woods. I kept my distance from him, schooling myself not to stare too hard at his body as it moved through the trees.

His cape flapped in the wind, making me think of light, feathery touches.

He was so fixated on the path ahead of us that I wondered if he forgot he wasn't alone.

Silent and dexterous, he hopped onto a log that extended over a lake. I climbed up behind him, feeling about as graceful as a fork.

Together, we shuffled across the narrow beam and halted at the halfway point, where Taehyung knelt.

My treacherous gaze traveled to his thigh muscles beneath the thin cloth of his pants, rekindling that feral desire I felt earlier.

"Come here," he murmured, indicating for me to perch in front of him.

I maneuvered to the spot he'd specified, grateful that I didn't have to look at him anymore.

And then we waited. I endured fifteen minutes of silence before I couldn't take it anymore. "What are we doing?"

"The first thing you need to know about hunting is this: Be quiet."

Hunting? I surprised myself by getting excited, clamping my lips shut like a good student.

The thought of being useful delighted me. No man, not even my father, would have let me perform an unrefined, male-dominated activity.

I craned my neck, scanning the woods with the same enthusiasm I remembered having as a little girl when Jisoo and I used to play hide-and-seek.

Yet I felt an unmistakable tension between this boy and myself. It swelled into a physical thing I could practically reach out and touch.

I failed to understand the unfamiliar sensations he awoke in me, the newness of them, the doubts and insecurities and anticipation they stirred up. They thrilled me. They scared me.

Above us, a twig snapped. I shifted and froze as Taehyung's arm slid across my collarbone from behind.

He pressed a finger to my lips. Then he used that same finger to point toward the other side of the lake.

A doe. Beautiful. Proud. Delicate. Its body moved like a mechanical apparatus, its snout rising to smell the air, its fur slick and glossy.

Taehyung crept closer to me and positioned the bow and arrow in my grasp, careful not to put pressure on my wounded arm.

He situated my quaking fingers in the right spot, pausing briefly to curl one digit against mine.

Was it a message or an innocent gesture? His body encased mine like a pearl tucked into a shell. It was all I could do not to let my head fall back against him.

"Relax you shoulders," Taehyung whispered.

I did.

"Follow the line of the arrow."

I did.

"Pretend it's an extension of your arm."

I did.

His lips parted, expelling a breath against my nape. My own mouth fell open, wanting to capture that breath and swallow it, swallow a piece of him. The buds of my toes curled.

His voice dipped lower, barely audible. "And...release."

The arrow soared.

It hit.

The thud of the animal's body sent a cluster of birds scattering from their branches.

Taehyung turned to me and grinned. "Not terrible."

Another feeling swept through me. Pride. It made me ponder what else I was capable of, what talents I could master if I let myself try.

Out here, I didn't have to limit myself to the rules of the sexes. I didn't have to occupy my days with the mechanics of curtsying or needlepoint.

I could be someone different, someone wild, someone stronger.

Ever since my father had placed me on the marriage market, I lost myself.

My world was reduced to a humdrum routine of mindless courtship and soulless endeavors such as learning to bat my eyelashes and listening to Soojin preach about swaying my hips to catch a man's eye.

Taehyung had just brought me back to life, reminded me that the future could still hold promise and discovery. I would always owe him for this moment.

I craned my head up at him. "Thank you."

A long look smoldered between us. Our faces were so close. Taehyung cleared his throat.

On our way home, he carried the doe over the bridge of his shoulder while unbidden thoughts plowed through my mind.

I became jealous of that animal for capturing so much of his attention. I wanted him to track me the same way. I wanted him to catch me.

I fretted over my sanity. This boy may be honorable, but I had to label him as the enemy. Anything less would threaten Busan.

We feasted that evening. As my teeth tore through a piece of meat, a droplet of grease oozed down my chin. I chuckled as Jimin swiped at it with his thumb, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

My mirth deflated just as soon as it had come. I wished I could just detest them all. Every second in this camp pulled me in two directions.

The sun set. Jungkook retrieved his lute and flicked his fingers against the strings.

"Will you sing for us?" Hoseok asked.

It took me a second before I realized he'd singled me out. The request astounded me, not only because I hadn't expected it, but also because it came from Hoseok.

He didn't make the effort to speak unless he had something important to say.

"Yes." Jimin slapped his thigh. "Please, m'lady. Quench our thirst for merriment and entertain us with a tune. I need to see how your mouth moves when you do that."

I shifted on my seat. "I haven't sang in ages."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Taehyung concentrating on his meal, chewing with a tightly closed mouth.

What ruminations galloped through his mind as he ate? What did he fear most? What was his favorite color? Did he like music?

"Very well," I said. "What do you want to hear?"

"Maybe something from your home," Hoseok said.

That was easy.

"There's a famous song about busan. Do you know it Jungkook?"

Jungkook began to play, the sinewy melody vibrating like crisp leaves skipping across the ground.

The tune triggered something in me. I longed to indulge the group and give them the brightest rendition possible. I put my entire body into it, retracing my steps to my childhood, when I'd first learned the words.

Hymn of Busan (부산찬가)

(a/n) this is the song if anyone is interested.

Taehyung's head snapped up. My lids shuttered closed so that I wouldn't look upon him.

I missed home. I missed my sister.

I missed the feel of that bow and arrow. Already, I missed hunting with him.

When the last note slipped from me, I opened my eyes.

Silence greeted me. Jungkook balanced the instrument on his lap and grinned. "I've missed that song."

"Well," Jieun said, trying to mask her regard. "That wasn't annoying."

They clapped, and Hoseok thanked me, and Taehyung...

Taehyung stared at me in a manner I didn't understand.

Hoseok was the first to retire. And then Jieun and Jungkook, still basking in the glow of their lovers' display from that morning.

Taehyung followed soon after, heading toward his tent without giving Jimin or me a passing glance.

Disappointed, I focused on Jimin with renewed determination. I couldn't lie to myself.

I enjoyed flirting with him. It felt harmless enough, and I was desperate to connect to someone, to quell my loneliness.

Our conversation veered toward the subject of love.

"You know, my lady, if you're nervous about your wedding night, I can help prepare you," he hinted.

I refused to take the bait. Over time, his comments shocked me less and less.

"Are all of you boys this relentless with girls or is it just you?" I asked. "What makes you so eager?"

I never anticipated he would take the question seriously.

His features bent under the weight of a mysterious sadness. "Pleasure is a very effective means of avoidance."

Intrigued and concerned over Jimin's change of mood-had I offended him?-I waited for an explanation.

The fire from our meal crackled and flicked the air like fingers reaching out for something they couldn't have.

"Once you've loved, you'll either be in constant bliss or recovery. I could be in recovery, but I prefer bliss," he said, puzzling me even more with his cryptic answer.

He seemed to be musing to himself now. "Hoseok simply hasn't found a girl yet. Jungkook's found a girl, but he can't seem to hold onto her longer than one night at a time. I had a girl but lost her. Her name was Yoona."

"What happened?" I probed.

"She lived by the ocean. She was the ocean, this girl who thrust herself toward life, smelled like salt. You know how the tide can sneak up on you and get your feet wet before you realize what's happened? That was Yoona. She snuck up on me." His tender laugh sounded as though it had been conceived amongst the waves.

"I was going to marry her, but she loved to swim a bit too much."

I gasped.

"The tide just took her. Just like that. I wasn't there."

"I'm sorry," I said, aware that it did him no good.

"I mean no offense, Lady Luna. I seek women out because if I don't keep myself occupied, my body will continue to ache for the one person it will never be near again."

His forthrightness stunned me. I couldn't produce an adequate or soothing response.

"But in your case, I'm not trying to compromise you. And I don't think you're seeking my attention," he went on.

"I'm merely jesting because it's easy and amusing, and I think you're letting me for the same reasons. And others." His eyes roamed over to where Taehyung had been sitting.

I felt myself blush. "I'm...I'm not trying to...I don't know what I'm doing."

"You're alone, living with strangers. You're a flesh and blood woman, and he's a man. It's natural, but there are greater things at stake."

"I know."

"No. I don't think you do. You and I-we may be toying with each other, but Taehyung is a different story." He considered his next words carefully. At what point had we tripped into such a deep discussion?

"After Yoona died, I left home, wandered around with no will, nothing to care for. Then I met Taehyung and Jungkook and Hoseok. They were lost souls, too. Tae's mission to save the poor reminded me that no matter how much you lose, someone else is always worse off, and you still have something left to give them, to share if you search hard enough within yourself. Tae's exact words."

I didn't want another reason to like Taehyung Kim, but it was too late.

"He taught me there's always hope," Jimin said. "I just wish he would follow his own advice..." He trailed off, reluctant.

I couldn't let him stop there, so I played dumb. "What do you mean?"

Jimin set his jaw. "Taehyung had a girl once, too."

I sat up straighter. The heat from the fire seemed to increase.

"He may not act like it, but his heart is deep as a canyon and just as open. Jennie sunk her claws into that heart pretty quickly. They grew up in the same village somewhere up north. He devoted himself to her." Even in the dark, I noticed how Jimin's face clouded. "Jennie deceived him."

A battle erupted inside me. Remorse clashed with an unbridled bout of protectiveness, which made no sense.

I barely knew Taehyung. Fate had demanded that I should barely like him, because I was no better than this Jennie girl.

My emotions began a dangerous loop. The more Jimin spoke, the less I wanted to hear, yet I became powerless to resist his tale.

"She pretended to love him publicly, but only to look desirable another," he conveyed.

"When that friend proposed, Jennie cast Taehyung aside. That was around the same time both his parents died. He left home in the same manner I did, with nothing holding him back. That was a year ago. He was seventeen."

Jimin turned to me in earnest. "I wouldn't betray this information to you except...Lady Luna, Tae has had a hard time trusting people ever since Jennie. That's why it's phenomenal that he gave in and accepted you so quickly. Forget about all the sense you made. His deal with you proved that he still believes in honesty. He wants to trust again." He lanced me with a deadpan expression. "Tae is my truest friend. Whoever he trusts, we all trust."

Did Jimin doubt my integrity? Did he suspect me? Or was I projecting this due to my guilt? He'd been the first one to endorse me, after all.

Or maybe he was clever that way, employing his charm to get me to let my guard down, then stabbing me with his warning.

How shallow I'd considered his character until now. How much I'd underestimated him.

It wasn't unusual for him to be looking after his own. It's what I would have done if an outsider had nudged their way into my family's domain.

I swallowed , praying he couldn't see right through me. "I'm honored you're giving me a chance."

He smiled, returning to his usual, smooth self. "There's nothing more alluring than an honorable girl."

I bade him goodnight and went to bed, though sleep was impossible. At first, my restlessness stemmed from the impact of Jimin's story.

I was planning deceive Taehyung, just as Jennie had. The only difference was Taehyung wasn't in love with me, nor I with him, but this fact didn't make me feel better.

The second reason I couldn't rest had to do with the primal sounds Jungkook and Jieun started making from inside his tent.

Their moans cut through the camp. I pinched my eyes closed, feeling like an intruder even though they weren't being quiet about it, distressed because of the way my hips moved against the blankets in response.

Was I the only one hearing this? And...what was it like? Did it hurt as much as Soojin had said-dear God, I still cringed at the memory of her sauntering into my room, sitting my sister and I down and presuming to lecture us on the worth of our innocence.

She'd used a metaphor involving a sugar cube ("This is your virtue") and hot water ("This is what happens to your virtue when you make undignified choices. It dissolves.") that neither my sister nor I could take seriously, much less comprehend.

Soojin had then drawn a diagram-a diagram-illustrating what happened between a man and a woman on their wedding night. After our chaperone left the room, my sister and I buckled into laughter and fed the drawing to her pet goat down in the carriage house.

Lying in my cot, something awful happened. I had a vision of Seokjin above me, claiming ownership of my body before I was ready. I'd been enduring nightmares about him for days, but now those nightmares invaded my consciousness, too.

I recoiled, my fists bunched, and I twisted my face into my pillow. I needed to escape, if only for a little while.

Remembering the lake Taehyung had taken me to that morning, I swept off the covers and reached for my breeches.

_________________🏹_________________

Taehyung

The moans were driving him crazy. He envied Jimin and Hoseok's talent for snoozing right through the colorfully ripe sounds of sex that buzzed through their camp.

He also envied the good time his best friend was having. Not because it was with Jieun, but because of the happiness it brought Jungkook.

And the fact that Jieun would never turn her back on Jungkook afterward, regardless of how much they bumped heads. They were mad, literally, for one another.

It lifted Taehyung's spirits as much as it broke him. Requited love wasn't a luxury he'd had in a while. Or ever.

To this day, he couldn't say he regretted his fake romance with Jennie. It may have been a tryst for her, a ploy to win the heart of someone else, but it had been real for Taehyung. Looking back, her lack of affection for him was more obvious now.

Although on one spring night, he' made her feel the same thing Jungkook was making Jieun feel. He had been play-chasing Jennie in a field when it began to rain and he sprained his ankle. She helped him into a cave nearby, and they stayed there until morning, until it was dry enough for her to get help.

Sometime between him declaring he knew everything about her, and her uttering the word "forever," she'd slid on top of him. The rest of the memory revolved around the chirping sounds of her rapture. Beneath her, he'd joyously fallen apart like a flower.

During the act, he pretended not to hear another boy's name on her lips. That part Taehyung couldn't forgive himself for.

At least Jungkook wouldn't suffer that fate. Taehyung didn't want to begrudge his friends' enjoyment, but he had spoken to Jungkook once before about keeping it down. Being notorious required sleep.

Taehyung wondered if Lady Luna could hear his friends panting and what she thought of it. Then he began to wonder other things. What kind of noises her spicy voice made when...never mind.

He scrutinized the canvas ceiling. That voice. Her singing had punched him in the heart. He hated her for it.

She'd gotten friendly with Jimin over supper. In spite of Taehyung's efforts not to watch them laughing and humming with energy, he did nothing but gnaw on his food and notice too many things about her.

The bend of her slender knuckles. The gaping and empty and very real space between her knees. The music of her giggles, so unrehearsed and raw, as though happiness was a rarity in her life.

Taehyung had listened to their banter until he grew too tired to put up with it. And now this.

If history was correct, Jungkook and Jieun's mating ritual wasn't going to end any time soon. Escape was essential, if only for a little while.

Taehyung needed to dunk himself head first into a frigid pool of water before his hand crept any further down his stomach.

It was one thing to fantasize about random maidens. It was another thing to fondle himself to the tune of his own friend's orgasm. He would not lower himself to that level.

He got out of bed and snatched his pants off the floor.

_________________________________

(a/n)
And that's that.
Anyway a spicy chapter is next so stay tuned for the next one.
Leave me ur thoughts please, they're always appreciated. xx