The Princess and the Thief
Jimin
Jimin hated princesses more than he hated himself.
And that was saying something.
Under the flickering neon lights of the Undercity’s Level 42, surrounded by a scent of fecal matter mixed with petrichor, stood a woman in an A-line, sparkling pink gown topped with a silver tiara that caused her hair to frizz. A princess. A princess getting hands on her shoulders, her hips, and even her backside by the howling hyenas known as the Undercity’s population.
Men wore strings of fabric they called clothes, though Jimin saw bare chests and private parts dangling from the holes in their makeshift trousers. Some urinated without a care in the world, right onto the cracked, wet (either from human waste, rain, or both, Jimin didn’t know) concrete pathways of Level 42.
The princess attempted to pry the attention from her, though her gown had too much shine to be ignored. The shine seemed more like diamonds than anything else, and that when combined with the slums in the vicinity made for bad life decisions. How a princess could be so stupid was beyond Jimin, though he decided against questioning it.
Jimin sat in front of the nameless (nothing had a name in the Undercity) market with rotting oranges and meat (which he hoped wasn’t human) dangling from rusted hooks hanging from the top of the tiny space, the wind the Undercity was known for causing the slabs of crimson to drift back and forth. Brenda, the market’s owner, chewed some seaweed-like drug Jimin didn’t know the name of, and she swung her elbow on the wooden, splinter-infested countertop, her puffy black jacket protecting her from taking damage.
“Aye, you know this panitai?” Brenda’s voice had a drawl Level 45 dwellers possessed: deep, raspy, and featuring a rugged accent that tugged on the n sounds she made. Her lips were full and darker than Jimin’s hair, and her pale face contrasted them. Her eyes had bags larger than Jimin’s death wish.
“You think I know Court dogs?” Jimin snorted and tossed her a silver coin, not bothering to thank her for the steaming beef soup she had given him minutes prior. He slurped down the rest of the flavorless broth from the green and gold ceramic bowl before he hopped off the stool, cracked his neck, and sighed. “How much you think she’ll pay?”
“Panitais don’t give a rat’s ass about Undercity dwellers. Ten coins max.”
Jimin smirked and cracked his knuckles next. “I can hustle her for more.”
“That will make her pay you less, Park.”
“Yeah, until she walks another ten feet and gets more dogs on her. I’m sure that’ll go splendid for her.” Jimin rolled his pretty eyes and pushed off the counter. “Two coins says she’ll pay me more than ten.”
“Aye, I ain’t takin’ that bet from you of all people.”
Brenda had learned. After years of “friendship,” if anyone in the Undercity had that, Brenda had the experience to know one trait of Park Jimin’s. Outside of his stubbornness and gorgeous face (if that was a trait, though Jimin considered it one), of course.
Park Jimin never lost a bet.
Jimin beamed, saluted to Brenda, and ignored the way her thin black ponytail bounced as she shook her snot-infested face. He darted down the narrow sidewalk with homeless lining the inside of it. The outside, or the left side, where the railing preventing them from falling to their deaths was, had nothing but a chasm below it and a distant view of lights from Level 142 across from them, and the other levels below them.
That was how the Undercity was: split into two sections, the right and the left. The right was labeled 0-99, and the left 100-199. They were separated by a chasm going down thousands of feet, and each level was below them. Jimin was on Level 42, but below him was Level 43, Level 44, and so on and so on.
The deeper you go, the darker it gets.
Jimin didn’t want to think about that, though. Darkness had been his strongest fear since his childhood. Ironic, considering where he grew up.
The princess had been sobbing and begging for the last two minutes while Jimin had watched. It was his turn to get a hand on the princess, but for a different reason.
“Alright, leave the panitai alone, fellas,” Jimin said, his voice louder than he expected, though his had no drawl.
The four men encompassing the princess hissed at him like animals. To be fair, they weren’t far from that. Some of their dangling private parts had less dangle and more stiffness, and Jimin opted to ignore that and focus on the princess’s cries.
“We haven’t had a panitai in a long time, Mr. Park,” one of them—a man with shaggy brown hair and a scar over his left cheek—said. Jimin had no clue who that man was, but he knew Jimin.
Like everyone on Level 42 did.
“Exactly why you leave her for me.” Jimin grinned and crossed his arms over his chest, his thin, hooded jacket sleeves brushing together as he did so. “Buzz off.”
“Only if we can get Brenda instead,” another—a man with a Level 50 drawl, featuring a lighter, higher pitch and squeaks in every other word—said.
All four of them had little to no clothes, mirroring the homeless watching the confrontation with their calloused hands stretched out for coins. Jimin didn’t pay any of them and kept his attention on the enemies in front of him. None of them were armed. Shaggy over there had a gash on his left leg—which Jimin could see thanks to the lack of clothes—that had a tint of pinkness to it that stood out against his ghost-like skin.
Most on Level 42 downward had lighter complexions due to their lack of sunlight. The hole above the Undercity leading to the Royal Court was almost invisible, though for Level 50 downward, it was gone altogether. That meant all four of them looked like ghosts on drugs with their beady eyes and shaking hands. One of them—yet another man, since all four of them were, with a missing upper lip and a chipped front tooth—chewed the same substance Brenda did.
“You mention Brenda again, you won’t be happy, and I don’t like making people sad, fellas,” Jimin said, holding up his gloved hands and waving them. He paused to chuckle. “But you know the one thing I hate more than making people sad? It’s people who don’t listen. So you gonna listen, or are we gonna have a problem?”
The shaggy one approached, opening his thin lips to speak, but Jimin didn’t let him. He grabbed the taller man’s throat and squeezed, whipping out a pistol from the thigh holster hidden under his long coat that went down to his black pants’ knees. The muzzle of the metal hit the forehead of the man, and without missing a beat, the bullet pierced his skull.
Jimin watched the man’s brown eyes fade, the pupils going from wide to narrow like the sidewalks. Blood squirted on Jimin’s face, and the body in his grasp went limp with the head tilting downward and the jaw slacking. Fingers curled up, steam from the pistol lifted to match the steam from the vents circling Level 42, and laughs rang out from the homeless clapping and cheering for yet another source of free entertainment Jimin provided them with every other day.
Jimin tossed the corpse over the railing and didn’t bother watching it plummet thousands of feet. His pistol raised to the one with the missing upper lip and a dick that had gone soft.
“So,” Jimin said, wiping his mouth with the back of his dark glove, smearing blood over his cheek. Strands of blackness fell in his face, and he blew his mop-like hair away before grinning. “We have a deal?”
The remaining three scattered, and Jimin twirled his pistol as he snapped it back to its holster. The princess stayed frozen with trembling bare hands decorated by golden rings on six out of ten fingers. Jimin didn’t have the same luck; his left hand didn’t have its pinky, and his right didn’t have its ring.
“Hey, pretty thang.” Jimin whistled and pressed himself on the chain railing not doing much to prevent him from falling to his death. As much as he feared heights, he pressed on and cleared his throat, gazing at the princess’s wide eyes and mouth that babbled nothing more than stutters and incoherent whispers. “Relax, I’m not gonna hurt ya. For a price.”
Jimin extended his hand and batted his eyes at her.
“Twenty coins for the protection, an extra ten for continued protection. I’ll guide you through the Undercity, wherever you wanna go. And I’m a man of my word. Ask anyone, they’ll tell ya how good I am.”
“You’re a...” The princess found her voice but lost it a beat later. She swallowed and cowered away. “Psychopath.”
“Awh, sweetheart, you really mean that?” Jimin waltzed around her and took in her appearance—narrowed gaze, clean hands lacking callouses, and not a single blemish, as if she had been chemically engineered to shine. Jimin couldn’t say the same; his cheeks had soft freckles, bags sunk his eyes, his forehead had a mole, and his front tooth was dented and chipped at the bottom. “Don’t flatter me. It won’t get you a discount.”
The princess straightened her posture, and after a beat, she fished into her dress’ pocket and gave him the desired coins he was quick to stash away. Then, her voice came out sharper than before. “I demand you to take me back to the Royal Court.”
Jimin stiffened at that, his smirk falling for longer than he meant it to. “Up? You want to go up, not down? Doll, I don’t know if you’ve looked around, but going up is suicide. The higher you go, the more weapons they got, and the more they want to kill you. Welcome to your new life in the Undercity, sweetheart. You’re not getting back to your Court-”
“I’ll give you two million coins and a job at the Court.”
Jimin shut up at that. Like the corpse had, Jimin’s jaw slacked, and he processed her words. No one had ever fathomed two million credits. Not even the upper levels. Well, granted, none of the levels were “rich,” though the upper levels were richer than the lowers. But Level 1 had maybe a hundred thousand coins in its system. Two million could buy the entire Undercity.
Jimin would never have to worry about anything ever again.
Anything.
He could move to Level 1, eat more meals than anyone else, buy a place for Brenda, and get a dog. He had been wanting one since he had been a kid. Mom used to say he would get one, but he was in his thirties and hadn’t gotten one yet. How long would it take?
Maybe not much longer.
“Forget the job. Gimme those credits and you got a deal,” he said, breathless. He sent himself a mental curse for sounding an ounce weaker than normal.
“Why would I trust a criminal like you? Job first, then payment. Get me there and you get at least two million. Maybe more, depending on effort.”
“Fine.” Jimin patted himself down and sighed. “Then stay close to me, princess.”
“It’s Y/n. Princess Y/n L/n of the Royal Court. It’d do you well to show some respect.”
“Alright, princess,” Jimin said, spitting out the title. He got in her face, his forehead brushing by hers. The warmth of her breath tickled his nose. At least she smelled like fruit, giving his senses a reprieve from the constant shit smell the Undercity was known for. “Here’s how this is gonna go: you listen to me and me alone. You do everything I say. You don’t judge me for anything I have to do to get you out of here alive. Getting you up instead of down is the most dangerous thing a smuggler can do, yet I’m doing it since I’m just such a swell guy.”
And the coins didn’t hurt.
“So you listen to me. You argue, you cause a scene, or you do anything other than what I say, the deal’s done and I’ll shoot you myself for risking my life like that. Got it?”
The holier-than-thou Princess L/n set her jaw. “Got it.”
Jimin backed off and ran his pinky-less hand through his long locks. They were sweaty, like everyone in the Undercity was.
He glanced up and saw the massive hole leading to the surface. The Undercity was named that for a reason: it was under the Royal Court, their governing party that visited once in a blue moon.
From the hole came pounds of rain that soaked most levels but died off the deeper it went. The Undercity itself was a massive entity with every level being its own city, ranging hundreds of miles with countless shops that went out of business every couple hours. And he had to traverse up.
Up.
Smugglers brought shit down, not up. Everyone knew the golden code: don’t go up. Of the few that had gone up, they were traumatized and almost died. Exhibit A: Brenda. She had aimed to go to Level 1 and start a new life but stopped at 42 due to losing a foot and needing a peg leg.
Jimin didn’t want to admit it to the princess, but he was beyond terrified. The coins were the incentive, but he questioned if they were worth it. Then again, he could never buy a dog and a real home if he didn’t take the opportunity. So, he had little choice. No one passed up an offer that good, no matter if the pay was up front or at the castle.
He hadn’t lived a true life. Princess L/n offered him one. That had him shaking his head as he glanced back at Brenda, and although she hadn’t agreed, he said it anyway.
“You owe me two coins.”
