10 Shadow.
King Min Yun Ki.
The man who had locked his heart into the depths of a jungle best known to him, had started searching for the key.
The key to his heart.
The key to his cold and stiff heart, that had been groomed to accommodate none.
'Tigers don't think with their hearts, they think with the piercing edge of their sword.'
That's all he'd been taught since his early days at the swordsmanship training he'd been receiving alongside his other brother, his twin.
The twin, who's name was a forbidden word in the Kingdom.
A name that hadn't left his lips a good 14 years.
A name he'd forgotten but a face that mocked him and reminded him of his other half, who shared the same physiognomy as him.
He'd always been mocked by his twin, who was older to him by 7 whole minutes.
Been tormented, humiliated and belittled to the extent that it was no longer a banter between 2 siblings, it was more like a Rivalry, a run for blood.
He was the youngest, the most pushed around.
He even had too big a nose, apparently.
Yun Ki didn't know what his brother wanted from him, at times.
It was the 7 minutes his twin twisted and turned in the name of authority and used against him.
An onlooker would listen to the tone in their relationship and believe that perhaps, they were separated by 7 years.
That was how powerful and dominant his supposed self-proclaimed elder brother was.
What he hated most about his monozygotic half was how great of an influencer he was, how great of a switch he'd bring into his personality the minute the two of them stepped into the gates of the Kingdom on weekends, away from their training centre and back into their family nest.
He had this aura of being the sweetest, most charming, most gentle and intricate child and made Yun Ki look comparatively weaker before their parents.
The Queen, however, was always more attached to Yun Ki and steered clear of his twin.
Yun Ki strongly believed that his mother had an eighth sense about the twins.
Of course, he was unaware that The Queen knew all too well about how her two sons would turn out, as had been sealed by fate itself.
His other half would play out the role of an obedient son, a responsible older brother and a dutiful dongsaeng to Seokmin, their eldest Hyung.
Their oldest brother, Seokmin, was humanity refined.
He was what a man wanted to be.
In the eyes of the two 10-year olds, he was their hero, their messiah.
He had a sharp face with the perfect features, eyes so bright, they'd irradiate your soul, if you looked into them.
Nose so sharp, it was deemed 'lucky'.
In the Kingdom of Baekmin, the character of a man was directly proportional to how the ridge of his nose ran down its tip.
A sharp nose meant the highest order of character- chivalrous, majestic.
A blunt/curved or crooked nose symbolised a sluggish character, someone who bore a slow paced outlook in everything, met with a grimace.
The elders in the rural parts of the Kingdom said, 'If your ridge can't take a straight path, your life won't either.'
Yun Ki had heard this all his life, growing up.
His twin, however, was spared from the genetic defect of a crooked nose.
His was much like their elder brother's.
He hated that.
If being younger by 7 minutes wasn't just the biggest punishment ever, his big curved nose had little to attribute to his sinking self esteem.
He agreed to be pushed around, played with like a rag doll in the hands of the one who was supposed to be standing right by his side, like a shield and yet to him, he was the biggest mistake.
Master of Manipulation (MoM), he'd refer to him as.
They were pole opposites.
Yun Ki was more subtle, soft.
Had a feminine side to him.
Bore appreciation for the finer arts, poetry and had even accomplished having some of his literary works published as he turned 10.
The people of the Kingdom didn't quite know which of the two twins was the blessed and endowed one and most certainly, Yun Ki's twin, never allowed them to know either.
"You're a weak dongsaeng. If Hyung dies, I'm taking over and the first thing I do is turning you into an Eunuch." He'd scream into Yun Ki's face.
"I'm not your dongsaeng. We were born on the same day." Yun Ki would protest, in a hushed submissive tone, an inaudible grumble almost.
His twin would wrap a sly arm around his shoulder and spew the words that continued to echo in yun Ki's ears to the very day, in some of his worst dreams.
"Be grateful we're in public. Had we been behind closed doors, I would've shown you what you really are. You, Yun Ki, are my shadow. You're living as one now and you'll die as one too, for as long as you and I are compelled to share the same face."
A shadow.
He despised the word so much, he refused to step out of his chamber in the afternoons, when the sun was cast so high, it casted an ominous shadow, behind him.
His inferiority complex pricked at his soul but his meagre heart, worked through it.
Seokmin Hyung would never let his twin take over the throne.
Hyung was invincible in 10 year old Yun Ki's eyes.
Hyung loved Min Yun Ki just as much as he loved him.
He was his little Kyong.
Kyong that meant, brightness.
Yun Ki loved that word.
It disassociated him from the name his corrupt twin had given him, Shadow.
And on days when Yun Ki's self esteem crumbled and his heart blossomed roses who's thorns pierced the pericardium, surrounding his heart, he found comfort in the loving embrace of his Hyung.
"Kyong-gie, he's only pushing you around because he thinks you're weak. He sees so much good in you that it sets him ablaze. You and I both, can see through his counterfeited facade and sinister ways. Don't ever let yourself be so weak that someone walks all over you. That's not who a good King is. A Ruler rules, he bows before no one. Always remember that."
And he did remember that, long after his Hyung's death or as he saw it, murder.
Yun Ki's soul had been dragged to hell and back, while he was in exile.
Or when he was forced into exile by his scheming twin who'd managed to pull of his Master of Manipulation manoeuvres.
Yun Ki had been tried and tested, treated like a caged lion in his own home, denied basic eminities, beaten for retaliating.
He'd been treated so poorly, he'd locked his own heart away knowing how his own near and dear ones, could turn their backs on him.
What do you expect of an 11 year old, forced into captivity, in the years that could make or break his personality?
"I rue the day Yun Ki was born." His father would say loud and clear, as he refused to even look his way, past the confines of his room, that had no privacy or enclosure.
He'd forgotten his youngest son and after a point, even Yun Ki stopped trying.
You mess with a tiger, you'll be met with his claws- was what Yoongi lived by.
But really, he was just a lamb, who'd outgrown the claws of carnality and had transformed himself into a Tiger, in essence.
A mind filled with poison could only poison others.
And when the reigns of The Kingdom shifted into his arms, he gave his people a show to look at.
He masked his insecurities, his big nose and his scar.
His scar, that was a different story, altogether.
He'd lived with that scar for so long, it'd become a part of him.
He barely paid any attention to it.
But his People?
They'd badger him with names that would remind him of the old days when he was forced to live as a mere shadow.
But, the tables had turned and Yoongi was as confident as ever, walked the halls of his Empire with his head raised, a permanent smirk plastered over his face.
Well, half his face since he wore the mask.
As for his nose, youth had taught him how big of a blessing it was, in disguise.
As his desires to trample and oppress the weak began to rise within him, so did his desire to claim the love of each and every woman, through their bodies.
Courageous women told him how well endowed he was.
A big nose was a sign of how big he really was.
He was big and once he'd heard that, there was no part of his inflated ego that could be restrained.
Sexual escapades had become his new favourite thing.
They not only allowed him to engage in heated power play but even provided him with an outlet to blow off some steam, that rose within his chest and in his loins, with the rise in his responsibilities.
Running a Kingdom wasn't easy, was it?
So he kept himself entertained, one body at a time.
The women in his Kingdom were so intimidated by him.
He enjoyed the look of fear, panic and menace their tender eyes and shuddering plush lips gave him.
So threatened and terrorised by him, his big hands and his hips that snapped with every mighty thrust into their delicate womb, with the speed of light.
He was so vain and self-absorbed in his own pleasure, he'd forget how insignificant he made the women he engaged with, feel.
He toyed them around, fondled them, as and when his heart desire, at the oddest hours of the day.
One gave up? He'd have another kept on standby, outside his chamber, that reverted and resonated with high pitched moans and screams every night.
He'd mastered the art of Intimacy.
What he was yet to master was love.
Love, that had shut its doors on him.
Love, that was a word so foreign, he absolutely despised it with all in him.
Love, a feeling he craved so bad in secrecy, it was easing up the locks over his heart.
The locks that had perhaps become rusted after 14 years of constant pain.
Locking horns with Soojin was different.
His elephant sized ego refused to give in to her and yet, he'd find himself softening up to her.
He hated hurting her, no matter how much self loathing the sadistic part of his being, gave him.
He was warming upto her and there was nothing that could stop that- neither his mother and nor his ego, which was the biggest part of his personality.
Yun Ki believed in Karma.
What goes around, comes around.
And for Yun Ki, it most certainly had come back, to honour him with a bedazzled crown and a throne to one of the 3 most powerful Monarchy's to ever exist.
