A Queen and Her Seven Servants {BTS}

Chapter Forty Three ~

Taehyung's face was contortioned into a look of thought as he viewed me in the mirror in front of us. A pair of scissors was in his hand that he kept tapping against his thigh out of concentration. "Do you have an idea of what you want me to do?" he asked, finally speaking.

I sighed, staring at my short hair. "Make my hair grow back," I answered glumly as I sat in the chair from my bedroom. He had moved it to the bathroom so I wouldn't have to go all the way to Taehyung's dressing room for him to fix my botched haircut.

He gave me a sympathetic smile. "I'm going to miss braiding it at bedtime. And straightening and curling it." He shook his head in disapproval. "Such a shame he did that to you. I thought maybe Yoongi-hyung and Jungkook had gotten the wrong girl when I saw you three leave." He brushed some of my wet hair into my face and tsked. "Bangs won't do. You can't see your pretty eyes."

I let out a noise of amusement before he began to cut my hair. "I'm just going to make it even first and see what we have to work with," he told me as my brown locks began to fall onto my shoulders. "There's not much we can do since it's so short. But we'll figure out something, I'm sure."

"I understand why you sew since your mom used to, but why do you do hair?" I asked him, watching him work in the mirror.

"My mom would always have her friends come over and sew with her and none of them had sons. I picked it up from their daughters who taught me. I used to grow my hair out and curl it because my mom thought it looked cute, but some of the boys in town thought I was weird," he explained. "I started to cut my own hair and whenever mom wanted a haircut, she'd ask me to do it." He swallowed, stopping his work for a second before picking back up again. "I owe a lot to her."

"She raised a great son," I said, earning a smile from the boy.

"I wouldn't say I'm great," he argued. "If she knew what I turned into after she sent me away, she wouldn't have allowed me to come back. She was a good woman and always did the best thing she could for others."

"Taehyung, don't blame yourself," I cooed. "You needed help on your own and you found it in Bangtan. That's alright."

He shrugged. "My mother would definitely disagree, but I appreciate your kind words." He trimmed the last bit of hair and looked at me in the mirror. "Maybe Bangtan was just a stepping stone to finding you and your kingdom." He smiled to himself, looking down at the tiled floor. "My mom always told me that there were kind people everywhere, you just had to look for them. She would flip if she knew I became a queen's tailor and hairdresser." He began to laugh, causing me to giggle. "I've never really thought about that, you know?"

"What? How you were just a boy in a dead town and now you're a queen's servant?" I asked.

"Not just that. Aaliyah is one of the most successful kingdoms and I somehow earned a spot on her ruler's court. Life is funny sometimes in the way it works out." He looked back at my hair and sat the scissors down. "I want to see what it looked like dry and then I'll decide on what we should do. Do you know if your hair curls when it's short?"

"Well, it's wavy when it's long," I answered.

Taehyung thought for a second before grinning. "I'll curl my hair if you curl yours."

"You're the one in charge. Besides, it might just curl on its own and I can't do anything about that," I responded.

He gave me a cheeky grin, clasping his hands together. "I am so excited to curl our hair together." His statement made me giggle and I shook my head at his silliness.

"Did you get hurt at Desdemona?" I suddenly asked. I hadn't seen anyone else there other than Yoongi and Jungkook, so I was clueless about what had happened. I hadn't bothered asking anyone exactly what went on, for I was unsure if I wanted to know how lucky I was for getting my ring at the time I did.

He came around me and leaned against the counter so he wouldn't have to view me through the mirror. He crossed his arms as he relaxed against the granite. "Depends. I'm better now, though, so-"

"What happened?" I hung onto his "better now" because something obviously happened, and he was acting like he didn't want me to know.

He let out a deep breath before looking off to the side. "I knew I had to be careful since you didn't have the ring, but I just got really overwhelmed. You know I do best at fighting from a distance – I'm not good with swords or knives. It's embarrassing, but I didn't watch what was going on behind me. I know that's something that you never do in combat because it's stupid, but I'm so used to being far away or cleaning up the already wounded enemies." He gestured to his shoulder. "I got stabbed in the shoulder and they knocked me down before I could do anything about it. And then he... he stabbed my throat? I think?"

I blinked. I couldn't even imagine the scene or try to think about it. If I had been just a couple seconds late, Taehyung might have not made it. "And you lived."

"Jimin came over and knocked him off, killing him right after, but the look of sadness that across his face as he kneeled down to me. We both thought I was a goner but Jimin said he just watched the wound close and the blood dried. There's not even a scar." He continued to stare at the floor, having trouble remembering the whole scene as it made his heart beat dangerously fast – it gave him anxiety thinking about how close he had been to dying. But since he was cursed with an unstoppable memory, the scene was able to resurrect endlessly and more vivid than the last time.

I stood and hugged him, pressing his body close to mine. He hugged back and I heard him sniffle. "I was so scared," he murmured. "I was already praying that if my mom was alive that she'd be comforted and that you wouldn't miss me too much and that the boys wouldn't be too hurt."

I pulled away and viewed his red, puffy eyes. "But you're okay, Taehyung, and that's all that matters."

"Jimin helped me back up after that and told me to just go out in the hall and make sure no one else was coming." He wiped his eyes. "But I really just stood outside the door and cried like a coward."

"Taehyung, that's okay," I sympathized. "You're here now and okay. I know you got scared, but that's understandable. Anyone would have."

"Please, don't think of me as a coward. I promise I can fight and I will if it means protecting you." He gulped. "I just wasn't ready and everything happened so quickly. The only thing I could think of was that the last thing I was going to see would be Jimin's face with blood all over it and I wasn't exactly too on board with that, either." He looked up at me, his brown eyes pleading. "Please, don't disgrace me and put this against me."

I smiled. "Taehyung, you have nothing to worry about. I would've expected anyone to act like that if that happened to them. I'm not going to disgrace you or strip you of your job here – I would lose such a valuable part of my royal court. I need you to be here, Taehyung, and don't let this incident cause you to belittle yourself. You still did your job, and I'm proud of you for that. So thank you, Taehyung."

He sniffled, nodding. "I promised you I would do my job efficiently and I will do that until I can't no longer."

I hugged him again and gestured for him to exit the bathroom. "Why don't you go curl your hair? Queen's orders."

He grinned. "Only because you told me to."

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