Kim Minho
In the middle school library at New Dawn International;
Astrol and Bora were searching for books that they needed to borrow before it was closing time. "Have you found that Bio textbook yet?", Bora asked with a tired expression. "Nope, any luck?". "If there was would I be asking you if you've found it?", Bora asked with lifted brows. "Sorry, I think I'm losing my mind going through all these books. The library really needs to change their arrangement style", Astrol replied with an exasperated sigh. "Speaking of which, how come all the library staff are busy? even the volunteers. We'd grow old before we find what we're looking for in here", Bora spoke irritated. They'd both been in the library for almost thirty minutes looking for the stupid textbook, and it was starting to get really frustrating.
Bora turned to Astrol to complain some more but immediately stopped, seeing Astrol's dark expression. The only thing she could do was to trace Astrol's line of sight, and her face instantly drained of color seeing the face on the library tv screen and the headline attached to it. Astrol was busy looking through the shelves and turned to check the one behind her, when her gaze fell on the big TV screen at the center of the library which was high enough it could be seen from anywhere in the large space. The volume was always low since it was a library but that didn't change anything as her eyes zeroed in on the headlines and the proudly smiling face on the screen. Her entire being froze, and a dark aura clouded her from her head to her toes as her eyes turned unforgiven.
'Jaehyun Go once again proves what a capable king he is as the Hae empire reaches higher heights', Astrol didn't know how to feel as she reread what was written on the screen.
When last had she had to hear his name again. Growing up, she tried as much as possible to avoid anything related to that empire, and the one time she did, they had the guts to attach the bastards name to it!. Astrol was fuming, she was slowly being engulfed in rage as the dark energy spread through her. Her aura turned deadlier each passing second she kept her eyes glued to the screen. Bora started sweating nervously as different emotions passed by Astrol's face one at a time, but the only constant emotion that remained was that of HATE. Bora couldn't help but feel it was her fault. She was the reason they came here in the first place. Astrol wanted to leave earlier when they didn't find the book but she'd insisted on looking for it.
"Capable king?! Ha! He isn't even capable of handling his own family! All these royalties, they are just good for nothing...a dumb publicity stunt! The world would be a lot better with a pure democratic system that disregarded royalty, anyone could be born into it after all, even horrible people... especially horrible people. The only thing they're good at is oppressing people with their power! There's no humanity at all....they don't care about the people, the only thing they cared about was power, and they didn't mind going through any means possible to get it! Royalty... empires
...bullshit! They're all bullshit!", Astrol burst all at once, before Bora shook her lightly and brought her back to her senses and out of the dark void she was in. She was so irritated that she didn't realize she had said all those things out loud. She even forgot the library and Bora's presence. Luckily enough they were the only people in that part of the library.
Bora let out a sigh of relief the moment she saw Astrol calm down a bit. That was indeed close. She couldn't imagine the kind of trouble they would have to go through if anyone witnessed her outburst. Astrol turned around and started walking towards the check out booth as soon as they found a random Biology textbook. "Astrol, you need to get a history textbook as well", Bora knew that that wasn't the right time to bring it up, but they had a history test tomorrow. "Yes but the test is based on an empire legendary for it's monetary system. I don't mind not acing the test, it won't affect my overall average anyway", Astrol replied nonchalantly and Bora just let out a helpless sigh as they made their way out of the library.
Unknown to them however, a pair of silver grey gun metal wide eyes had witnessed what had happened and was still staring at the exit they walked out from. He was stunned, being an understatement, but what surprised him the most was her dark expression while she spoke. It wasn't his first time hearing someone voice out their displeasure over royals, but hers was just different. Others normally spoke like that out of envy because of the privileges involved with being royalty, while the rest said so out of pure opinion. However she...she spoke of it like it was a fact...like she had gone through enough to prove it. And for some reason, she looked oddly familiar. Those crystal clear blue eyes struck him in such a way he knew he'd seen that face before but he just couldn't pinpoint where exactly.
"Kim Minho! What are you doing getting so lost in thought like that?... You're meant to be helping me put back these books properly", Nari complained with a pout. Kim Minho was her very close family friend in grade 9, and as his name implied, he belonged to the Kim empire - one of the most, if not the most powerful, influential and dangerous empire in the whole of South East Asia located in country V. A whooping five empires put together couldn't compare to half of the Kim empire; everyone wanted to be on the King's good side because of the empire's importance and significance.
That was of course before the king got arrested for high level domestic violence and other underworldly allegations thrown against him. Minho's dad was really a beast...he was such a monster that tortured Minho and his mother a lot, though he was actually a really good and exceptional king to his people. The ironic was that in as much as Kim Minho hated and feared ever being like his father in any way, he got a lot of his features from his father, except for the eyes, and ended up resembling him a lot as he grew. 'But heck, if that meant him looking drop dead gorgeous then there was a little benefit to being his son wasn't there?', Nari thought with a silent squeal as she exited the library with him after they were done sorting the books.