Seokjin chucks the gun at Han Yookyung with all of his strength. A part of him starts doubting his life choices as soon as the gun leaves his hand and he curses himself for not (at least) trying to shoot the gun. Who the hell just throws a gun?

He does. And he can't believe his luck when the action catches Ha Yookyung off guard and the gun yacks her right in the face. Seokjin silently thanks the heavens that actually worked and takes this opportunity to dart past the soldier and sprint up the stairs.

"Yah!" she shrieks from below. Seokjin doesn't look back, doesn't slow down. He just runs even when he hears the bullets go off and just brush past him.

Bad idea to basically give her another gun.

Making it outside, Seokjin doesn't stop. Stopping once could mean the death of him. And several people have already made an effort of keeping him alive. His feet push themselves, he's on automatic mode, completely fueled by adrenaline. He sees no one as he runs. The courtyard is empty.

Why the hell is it empty?!

He spoke too soon, someone appears around the corner, someone in a military uniform, a guard. Seokjin is already sighing in relief until a bullet slams into the guard right as he catches sight of him. It slams right into his head, making him fall back. Seokjin feels sick but doesn't stop to check on him even though his conscience was killing him for it.

Maybe now he thanks the courtyard being empty. Another person dead because of him was the last thing he wanted. 

Still, where was everyone? How come no one is reacting to the sound of bullets?

He's thinking too much as he runs, thinking of a plan, anything that could help him. What day is it today? Was it still the day of his funeral? Was everybody still mourning? Did they all move to another palace?

No. He thinks to himself. Lee had said something. Something about Seokjin yesterday ruining his plans, meaning—

The Q&A. Today was the Q&A. That meant that everyone must be at Geunjeongjeon Hall, at the other side of the palace. Yeah. That's it. That's where he needs to go.

But he can't go through the courtyard, he's too exposed, too out in the open.

Underground. It's quicker to get there underground. The tunnels.

The air zinged, a bullet slams into the ground beside him. A near miss, but he keeps moving, finally finding his feet again after freezing from the initial shock but now cutting sideways in a zigzag pattern. He glances back over his shoulder just once. Shit. She's too close. He needs to disappear. Now. 

He ducks behind Gyotaejeon Hall. It was the closest thing to him. It gave him a few seconds to think. Gyotaejeon Hall was the queen's quarters. And where there's a royal family member's quarters there had to be an entrance to the underground safe room.

He starts knocking on the tiles like crazy as he had seen Namjoon and Soobin do before. He's desperate now, feeling that at any moment Han's daughter was going to blow his brains ou—

Found it. There's a tile that sounds hollow.

Huffing, he chucks it away. He's about to jump in just as he sees Han coming around the corner. Nope. Seokjin launches himself down, holding on to the ladder for dear life as he scurries down. Then runs once his feet hit the ground.

He has no idea where he's going. He can't see a damn thing. All he knows is that he keeps bumping into walls and the sound of feet running behind him is so loud that he feels like that crazy woman is going to find him soon.

Also, the loud thumping of his heart in his ears is so not helping right now.

Patting the walls down to give himself a feel of the place as his eyes adjust, Seokjin follows just any random tunnel to where hopefully he could find a way out and lose the lunatic.

If only he could fucking see!

Then miraculously a light shines in the tunnel. He almost says thank you, but then it occurs to him that the only other person down here with him was—

"Shit." He ran, felt bullets whistle past his head as he runs down the tunnel. He turns a corner, turns another and another and stops. Waits.

Running was useless. She was military trained. Seokjin could barely breathe right now. He was at a huge disadvantage and if he weighed down his options, then he might as well fight instead of playing this game of cat and mouse.

He was bigger than her, there was a small chance he could overpower her.

So when the light comes close and Seokjin can almost hear her footsteps next to him, he lurches forward.

Seokjin grabs the gun, pulling it away from him in an attempt to steal it. She struggles and pulls back, both of them in a fight of tug of war with the gun until Seokjin is sick of it and just slams his head into hers.

She hisses, stumbles back and lets go of the gun and her phone. And Seokjin, before he can even react to what he's doing, fires it away in her direction. The sudden fire makes the gun ricochet in his hands and he falls back against the wall, hard. He bites down a yelp, just reaches for the gun again when he hears a footstep and fires again, one shot after another after another—

Till there are no bullets left. His heart goes into a frenzy, until he hears it. 

A grunt, then a thump. Then silence. Seokjin keeps his eyes closed.

He's shaking now. His head is throbbing again and his back aches, his chest heaving up and down and it doesn't feel like his lungs are getting filled. He doesn't want to look up, doesn't want to open his eyes, but the silence tells him what clearly happened. He just shot someone and chances were, that someone was dead.

His stomach starts churning. The need to vomit was there.

Placing his hand on the walls, he pushes himself up. Dares to open his eyes, then he almost vomits when he sees all the blood.

Shakingly, he reaches for the girl's cellphone, also for her gun. He does this slowly, hoping this wasn't like those horror movies where the dead person grabs him or anything.

Thankfully, she doesn't.

Seokjin feels the whole place spinning, he thinks it's the adrenaline wearing off. He doesn't feel good, but he just walks. He needs to get out of here but has absolutely no idea which direction he should go to to get out.

There was also the issue that he really couldn't keep himself up.

He glances at the phone in his hand. He could call somebody, but he didn't know anyone's number except Tae's, Hobi's and Jimin's. And their cellphones were still confiscated since they were still in the competition.

GPS. That should help, right? Cellphones have internet nowadays for a reason.

He follows the little blue dot, trying his best not to sway from the sudden drain of energy his body was giving him, the adrenaline no longer fueling him. He felt dizzy. Guesses it's probably a concussion at this point. Either that or his body was telling him he strained himself way too much today.

Or both.

The dumb thing about GPS, is that the underground tunnel doesn't really show up, so when he reaches the point of the fourteen division paths, he has no clue where to go. 

Damn. Why hadn't he paid attention when Soobin had brought him here last time.

Because you didn't think all of this would happen, he reminds himself. There had been no way of knowing that he would run into a man with a gun planning on taking the queen's life.

Seokjin closes his eyes, leans against one of the walls. He was never getting out of here was he?

For a few minutes, only the sound of breathing can be heard in the tunnels. Then he hears something else. He opens his eyes, glances around while shining the light down several tunnels.

Nothing.

Still, the light buzz of a sound rings in his ears. He shines the light to his right, where he hears the sound the loudest from. 

Biting his lip, he debates whether to head towards the noise or not, feeling like his luck was coming to an end for the day.

Well, time to push for a little bit more of luck.

As he walks down the tunnel, the sounds gets louder. He can make out muffled voices, then a roar like the sound of rain, before it stops and the voices return. Approaching the end of the tunnel he can hear it clearly.

"Next question is for Jung Hoseok" a voice booms above him. Seokjin tilts his head. Could he really be so lucky? "You have two minutes to answer this question."

Seokjin doesn't bother listening to the rest. He grabs on to that ladder and all but yanks himself up on it, climbing with all of his might as he reaches the lid.

"And for Kim Seokjin-ssi," he hears the announcer state. Seokjin pauses to listen to the question. "What is the most important lesson you've learned in your life? And how would you apply it during your reign as the king's spouse?"

As soon as the announcer finishes announcing the question, Seokjin moves. If the same rule as the other applied to him then, two minutes. He has two minutes to get up there. So he slams the lid up with all of his might and tosses it aside without even bothering to place it back in its place. He dashes across the throne hall, over to the doors, pulling on them. 

Locked. Damn.

He searches around. The window. He could open a window. Taking in a deep breath, he dusts himself off and walks over to the closet window, slowly pulling it open and stepping over the frame and glancing around to find the mic. Several people in the crowd see him, they freeze and stare at him as he walks up to the podium, he gives them a smile.

He grabs the mic and clears his throat. The most important lesson you've learned in his life. This question. This question he could answer.

"The most important lesson I've learned in my life," he says, into the mic. His voice booming, "is learning how to love myself."

Heads turn at the sound of his voice. People stand, others freeze. All of them going through the same process of doubting their eyes. Seokjin doesn't let it faze him. He continues.

"We sort of grow up being too dependent on other's opinions of us. Always trying to be the perfect version of ourselves to please everyone. But the thing is, when you're focused on pleasing others, you're never focused on pleasing yourself. Also, the perfect version of yourself never exists, because you, like I, have flaws and those are a part of us as well. We try to hide those flaws, but we should embrace them. Because self-love isn't about loving yourself when you're perfect, it's about loving the you right now so you can improve yourself and speak yourself." He steps back a bit from the mic and smiles. "Thank you."

The room is silent. The reporters, the candidates, the royal family, everyone is staring at him as if he were a ghost on stage. All of them with their mouth's wide open and eyes looking ready to bulge out of their sockets.

"What?" Seokjin asks, cocking his head innocently, knowing very well that he looked like an absolute mess at the moment but decides to play it cool. "Was my answer not good enough?"

Then the room just turns into utter chaos. People shouting, reporters crossing the red line and moving forward to ask him questions and take his picture.

Jaehwan grabs Seokjin by the wrist and hauls him out of there before the media gets him. Seokjin protests, looking back as he hears his name. Several people were shouting his name. Seokjin glances back, sees Taehyung running after them, sees Namjoon trying to push through the soldiers that are telling him to go inside as the cameras and microphones get all up in his face.

"Seokjin!" Namjoon keeps shouting, "Kim Seokjin!"

"Hyung!" Tae's voice shouts, "Jin-hyung!"

Their voices start fading in with the rest of the crowd's. Seokjin turns, shoves his hand away from Jaehwan's hold. "Wait," Seokjin says, "Taehyung, I want to see Taehyung."

"First, we get you somewhere safe," Jaehwan says, already grabbing Seokjin by the wrist and pulling him again. He glances back. "It's too dangerous in a crowd."

"This way!" someone shouts. It's all a blur, Seokjin just sees green spots. A military uniform. "This way!" the voice says again. "Get away from the crowd!"

Seokjin pulls back. He's too tired. He wants to see Taehyung. Wants to hug Hoseok and Jimin. He just wants all of this to be over with already.

Jaehwan turns towards him, eyes firm, leaning down a bit so that Seokjin can hear him over the noise. "Jinnie, just fucking listen to me. I—"

A single gunshot, then, the dull thud of a silencer. Jaehwan collapsed to one knee, clutching his side. Seokjin freezes, eyes glued to Jaehwan before they rise and he sees who shot the gun.

Minister Lee is surrounded by soldiers, one of which has a gun pointed in his direction. The guy who he had previously seen aiming at the Royal Queen Dowager. Screams erupted from the building. An alarm soared into the air, people ran wild.

For a moment, the world slowed; going silent. He sees the guy change the magazine, re-aim, can almost imagine the guy already moving his finger to pull the trigger—

Then someone steps in front of Seokjin, blocks his vision for a moment. He sees the face, sees the mop of silver hair and then Seokjin reacts as panic brings the adrenaline back to him. 

Seokjin pulls Jimin close to him, slamming their chests together before he reaches into his back pocket pull's out Han's gun and—

A cut in the air. A bullet entered the man's shoulder. High impact, high velocity—he was blown off his feet, fell back onto the ground with a thud. 

Seokjin hadn't even pulled the trigger.

"Jin-Hyung!" is what he hears before he falls to his knees, shaking. He feels two small arms attempt to hold him up. Jimin's eyes are scanning him, checking him for bullet wounds, then embracing him when he realizes that no bullet grazed him. Seokjin goes limp, body now way too weak to move.

His eyes glance at Jaehwan on the ground. His friend is now laying on his back, biting on his lip and his chest rises and falls from the pain at his side.

Their eyes meet.

"Is it over?" Jaehwan grunts, wincing as he smiles.

Seokjin gives him an equally weak smile. "Please," he begs.  "I don't want any more of this."