Free // BTS AU //

Chapter Fourteen

Namjoon glared at his parents as he watched them welcome the Princess' family into his home. He didn't want to marry at such a young age. He didn't want to be forced into a marriage either, he wanted to go out into the world and find someone to love that he wasn't forced to spend the rest of his life together with. 

His knight, almost his body guard, but most of all his best friend stood beside him. "If it's any consolation Namjoon, I don't agree with it either." Seokjin spoke softly to his best friend, hand on his sword in a non-threatening way. He nodded in respect to the family that walked past him, Namjoon trailing behind like a lost puppy. 

Seokjin couldn't help but chuckle at the boy he had grown up with and treated like a younger brother despite the class difference. He couldn't look more miserable about the situation if he had tried. As he followed behind with the other royal family's knights, he heard Namjoon mutter something to himself.

Namjoon walked, frowning the entire way, to the dinner hall. It was bad enough that these clothes his maid had picked out itched everywhere, but now he had to deal with two practically carbon copies of his parents and a girl who was eyeing him up as if he was to become her next meal. He sat down, didn't even offer to pull out the chair for the princess who was sat beside him which earned a glare and a scolding clear of the throat from his father.

Namjoon didn't care. He didn't care anymore.

He hated this, moreso than anything else he had partaken in ever. 

The meal began and boy did he bathe in the awkward silence. The girl tried speaking to him but he didn't entertain her, her father looked at him in disappointment and his mother was warming up to the person who acted the same as her.

He felt Seokjin's presence behind him, and he only hoped the knight would prove to be useful.

"Talk back to her." He whispered as he bent down to Namjoon's ear. Namjoon swatted him away as if he was a fly, he didn't need that advice right now. He didn't want to talk to the ditzy princess, let alone marry her.

"Can I be excused?" Namjoon spoke, looking at his mother and father who both gave him disappointed looks before nodding. Namjoon stood up, sending the chair scraping across the floor and causing the princess beside him to flinch and he walked out the room. He beelined straight for his room, Seokjin in tow after he had apologised to Namjoon's parents.

"Why won't you speak to her? I know you hate the idea of marrying her, and I know speaking to her is at the bottom of the list of things you want. But at least entertain your parents for a small while. They might get off your back." Namjoon threw open the heavy wooden door, the hinges complaining loudly as if they were about to break and Seokjin caught them as they bounced back towards him. 

"Because I won't entertain something they're forcing onto me. If they see me remotely entertained in the idea they'll force it more. You know how my parents are." He began to remove the awful and itchy clothes. 

He was meant to be royal, one of the highest classes. So why were his clothes so goddamn itchy?!

"Yes but that poor girl looked heartbroken-"

"I don't care. I'm leaving tonight and I have no plans on returning." Namjoon retorted, pulling on a new cotton shirt over his bare torso. "You know you won't be able to stop me. So you have two options. Come with me, or make a cover story for where I am."

"Namjoon-"

"If you're going to stay here please leave my room. I don't want you knowing what I'm doing because then you're unlikely to tell them what I'm doing and where I'm going."

Seokjin walked towards the open door and held the brass handle. He looked at the prince behind him, who was running his hands through his hair which was an obvious sign of his stress and he sighed and closed the door after walking through the door frame and leaving the room. 

Namjoon watched the heeled boots of his friend leave and his heart broke more than it would've over any other circumstance. His best friend, and someone he deemed to be a brother had left him at a time he needed him most.

Namjoon pulled on comfier pants and laid on top of his covers for a few hours until he had determined that every one else had fallen asleep by the moonlight that had seeped through the window. He got up and grabbed a pouch from his writing desk and he walked out his room and tip-toed through the hallways of the castle and down the spiral stairs until he reached the kitchen. There he took a few loaves of bread, a block of cheese and a canteen with water in. As he prepared to leave the kitchen the door opened quietly and there he saw Seokjin, no longer in his formal attire, no longer parading the family badge on his chest. On his back there was a bow, on his side arrows and in his hand a pouch that seemed larger than Namjoon's.

"I figured you'd be here." Seokjin kept his voice to a whisper. "So are we going or not? They're about to do their rounds."