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… And the Beast (Yonji Vinsmoke x Reader) Chapter VI

Synopsis: You thought your little crush on Prince Yonji was a well-kept secret. Yonji is mean enough to exploit your eagerness to please in the face of his unrelenting cruelty; the thought of actually developing a soft spot for you never even crossed his mind.

Word Count: 7.4k

Tags/Warnings: Dark themes ahead, including graphic violence, gore, and Dark!Yonji. Please consult AO3 for more specific tags. Chapter ends with extreme fluff for balance.

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI

Notes: Those with a sensitivity to war, POW situations, and gun violence are advised to proceed with caution. The gore tag applies to unnamed characters. MC is not harmed by Yonji.

If you would like to skip the graphic violence, please skip to the first ***. I will provide a summary of the section in the bottom notes.

The crying seemed as never-ending as the blackness, and every so often, you could hear pained moans and scuttling off in the distance. There was only the cold, wet concrete flooring below and the breathing of phantom bodies somewhere in the abyss.

You weren’t sure how long you had been there. You hardly knew who surrounded you. Even when the lights came, with how delirious and exhausted, you weren’t even sure if the people crammed into your cell were the same people who had always been there.

The golden light from the torches would pass through the dungeon, illuminating your surroundings.

You had known the girl across the aisle when you were first taken. You had gone to school together. You thought she was from the class below you. She was even still wearing her uniform. You could see sharp cheekbones on her malnourished face. Too many of the girls you saw in the dungeon were wearing their school uniforms, and too many of them disappeared not soon after.

A man beaten so severely that he couldn’t close his mouth took her place, and by the next time the lights passed, he too disappeared. And as time passed, it almost didn’t seem to matter who he was replaced by. It was always another frail, malnourished body with beaten flesh and barely any air in the lungs.

Whenever you closed your eyes, you could see the mangled faces of the rebel forces that had been gunned down right in front of you and how they fell in the same spot they stood to defend their homes. And when you opened them again, there was nothing but darkness.

Small batches of prisoners were pulled out of the cells every few days. Or perhaps it was a few times a day. You couldn’t say for sure. The most visibly vulnerable were taken first: the youngest, the oldest, the visibly injured, and the ones the occupiers had stripped of their mobility aids. The ones making too much noise often went with them, along with those who tried to escape.

And if the unfortunate few selected weren’t immediately beaten in the broad aisle between cells, they were taken upstairs. Their agonized cries could be heard through the ceiling, and they were never returned to the cells.

It was a cruelty you never understood, even as the brutal swing of the baton struck your side. Boots crushed your fingers and frail flesh, making pain ring out across your body. It was a loud, dull ache that wormed under your skin, popping and cracking like a ringing alarm.

You curled the best you could in the face of the barrage of hits. You could feel their impact in your bones. The sting and force of them were nowhere near as gut-wrenching as the sheer velocity of the strikes as solid met soft.

Real adrenaline had long stopped coursing through you. You remained still and weak, hardly able to properly defend yourself as you lay on the floor. A range of sensations melded together simultaneously, disrupting your thoughts and scrambling your head.

It all just hurt. The pain of the blows eclipsed the sensation of the hits that came before, creating a dull numbness.

It hurt, and you wanted it to stop.

You didn’t want to get even. You didn’t want to fight. You just wanted the pain to stop. And yet, a tight, fearful pit welled in your chest, leaving little room for flaming anger. You were too tired for anything more than a wish. Too tired, too weak. Even at full health, you weren’t sure you had it in you to take revenge even if you wanted to.

The thought of it flashed across your mind, abstractly and incoherently. It simply occurred to you between kicks like a creeping fog over your head.

Fight… back…?

Fight back…?

Fight back?

You almost frowned to yourself in the midst of it all. No, doing such a thing wasn’t quite in your nature. It wasn’t quite in your nature to harm others, even if you were the one hurt first. You weren’t even sure what it would look like.

Your muscles were too frail to grab the baton and wrestle it away. Your knees shook too nervously, even on a good day, to pick yourself up and stand your ground, and your voice was far too quiet to shout. And even if you found it in yourself to do any of those things, then what?

Your limbs were intact, and so were your dirty clothes. That’s what mattered.

And just as you began to resign yourself, the dungeon flooded with light. The ground below you shook, jerking your body with terrifyingly powerful, godly force. White light flooded the room, and at that moment, you thought you died.

The light came with a bang, followed by several other explosions and crashing sounds all around you. Each one shook the ground. You could feel debris falling all around you, yet the gust of open-air made you want to sit up and open your eyes.

You cracked them open, but the brightness of the light made you scrunch them closed, no matter how hard you fought. You cast your closed gaze down, crawling to your knees and huddling your face in the crook of your elbow.

The sunlight was intense, and the chaotic movement around you kept you crouched close to the ground. Cries and frantic screams filled the air as a gust of air passed. You opened your eyes under the protection of your arm, blinking a few times as your lids squeezed shut before you batted your lashes again. You didn’t know when the last time you saw sunlight was.

You raised your head, the details of your surroundings coming into focus. Your foot moved forward so that you were crouched on one knee, ready to stand. You caught a glimpse of black and green before bowing your head again as the wind swirled around you. It whistled, blowing past your hair and blinding your ears.

Someone ran past you, tripping as their knee met your shoulder. You were forced back, falling to the ground as you tried to catch yourself.

Your eyes shot open by instinct, only to find the dungeon completely leveled. The walls had collapsed, leaving little more than empty holding cells and chunks of concrete and metal. The tops of them appeared to have been almost cut, leaving them uniform in shape.

You spotted to top of the facility in the distance. It was larger than you ever could have imagined.

You stood, clutching your worst injury as prisoners who could run ran. You trudged forward in direct opposition to the current, bumping into countless people as you went.

Limbs stuck out from under the fallen debris. Blood seeped into the uneven concrete that had cracked during what you had assumed was an explosion. The noise around you sounded deafening, yet you couldn’t hear a thing. Something dragged you forward, and when you least expected it, the crowd completely vanished.

You broke through, stumbling into an open space. A bloodied baton sat at your feet. A stream of crimson-red spatter stained the ground. You could barely focus on the vibrant color of it as you followed it with your eyes to the sound of cracking upon wet impact.

It was a person. Two people technically, you supposed. Neither of them looked much like people.

It was a boy, you quickly gathered. He looked like something out of the future, like a character out of one of the comics you used to read. Perhaps he was a revolutionary. A dark cape cloaked his shoulders. His hair was a color you had never seen before: a vibrant lime green. You could hardly remember what he looked like that day, but you could probably remember every inch of his gloves.

His knuckles were stained all shades of dark red and whaled into the man under him. It took you a moment to realize it was a man. You could tell only by the hand that rattled near the caped boy’s knee with every floor-shaking strike of his fist and the guard uniform you had been so accustomed to seeing.

His punches made a terrible sound as if he were punching into a pie filled with walnut shells. The guard’s face had wholly caved in. The entire front of his face was wet, red, and spilling out over his ears. It was an unbelievable gore. The man was already dead, and yet the figure on top of him kept on punching.

Wham! Crunch. Splat.

Wham! Squish.

Blood flew everywhere. The cracking of bones rang in your ears. It was an unbelievable gore, and yet, you couldn’t look away. The bodies of the other soldiers littered what used to be the isle between the cells. Crushed teeth. Sunken chests. Blunt force damage you didn’t even think a bear could replicate.

“What are you lookin’ at?”

You had zoned out, and the caped boy in front of you had risen to stand. He had one booted foot on the torso of the faceless corpse. Tiny spatters of blood marred his pale face. They littered his entire body, the tails of the spatter marks pointing outward. He was tall, hulking, and massive for his young features. He wiped his hand across his cheek, leaving a thick, scarlet stain in his wake. His eyes were still wide, and his grin stretched across his lips from the good work he had just done.

He couldn’t have been much older than you.

And just behind him, one of the guards picked his head off the ground. You thought you recognized him as the soldier from earlier who carried the baton. His arm moved forward, dragging his body slowly across the broken concrete below. You didn’t even have time to be fearful of the beast in front of you, too distracted by the movement in your haze state as the guard’s hand slowly reached forward to the rifle that sat on the ground.

Your lips parted, but no words came out. They stalled in your throat as you held out a palm, your body moving faster than your voice. Your eyes met the caped boy’s gaze.

You tried to warn him without reason. You wanted to tell him against your better judgment, in the face of his blood-stained gloves as he stood on the body of the man he had just brutalized with nothing but his fists.

And yet…

The rifle went off with a bang.

It nearly sent you tumbling back toward the ground.

BANG!

You let out a loud gasp of surprise, the ugly-sounding wind squeaking in your throat as you flinched back. The adrenaline was still pumping through your veins as you heard a panging sound. The explosion of gore you thought would fly toward you never came.

BANG!... Pang…

You had brought one arm to shield your head, and as you slowly emerged, your opposite hand was still pointing toward the soldier on the ground. Your single, extended index finger tremored violently even as you began to look up.

The caped boy stood tall exactly where he had been before, seeming to be completely intact despite the deep scowl that contorted his face. He turned on his heel. The soldier on the ground’s eyes went wide as he approached. The soldier cocked the gun up, moving to take another shot before the rifle was wrenched out of his hand.

The caped boy threw it to the ground behind him. The metal had a distinct impression where his fingers were, warping the metal and making the weapon unusable. He cocked back his fist. The soldier’s squirming and pleads did little to prevent the powerful punch that sank into his head at a velocity unseen.

The rest of the body flew up at the impact. The limbs slammed back down against the ground. A terrible crunching sound reverberated through the air. And just like before, the caped figure began whaling on the corpse below, a broad grin on his lips.

You watched as the punches flew, continuing to produce terrible noises as you clutched your own injuries. Your thoughts came to your foggy mind like an abstract cloud. The stinging of the large gash on your lip throbbed, a subtle reminder of what had happened before this green beast came. You could feel the breeze against your back where your shirt had been torn. You didn’t even know how long it had been like that. The breeze and the sharp pain in your gut reminded you of what could have happened.

It had to have been the revolutionary army. No one else could have this much strength, let alone use it to save your poor country.

You watched as he continued to brutalize the men who used to be your captors. You kept your eyes on him like watching someone else devour a delicious meal.

With every punch, your much smaller arms tensed.

Brutality might not have been in your nature, but it was in his.

After a short time, he seemed to grow bored. When he stood, he incidentally met your eye. He had a narrow gaze and expressive eyes that could widen and narrow with feral expression. His nose crinkled right above sneering lips, and his curled eyebrows scrunched his forehead.

He was self-satisfied and covered in blood that wasn’t his own. The body of the man he just murdered lay popped open on the ground.

You were pretty sure you fell in love right there.

He hardly regarded you much more as he began to trudge in the other direction. You ran after him.

“Wait!” you yelled as loudly as your weak lungs could. You stumbled on the broken terrain.

The boy continued a few steps longer before he finally turned. He looked upon you with disgust and acute confusion. You ran up to him, heaving at the first laborious exercise you had done in what felt like forever.

“How do I join?” you cried.

He looked you up and down and let out a tremendous laugh.

“HAHAHAHA! Yeah, right!” His boots ignited with a blue flame, and just like that, he was gone.

*** Graphic content is finished, gun violence continues in scene II

An unfamiliar ship was at the dock, so you ran for the coast. It had to be the ship he came from. You could see the dark spiral towers in the distance, and it seemed like they never got closer, no matter how fast you ran. Still, you continued, pumping your legs as fast as they would go with your eyes only in one direction.

The country had been plunged into utter anarchy. White-clad soldiers combed through the countryside with high-tech rifles, gunning down your navy-blue uniformed oppressors on sight. You gasped, managing to slide behind a piece of broken wall. A bullet ricocheted off the brick before the next one struck a soldier behind you.

Your passage was suspiciously easy, despite the bullets flying across the terrain. You continued to run, and the white-uniformed soldiers allowed you to pass through the war zone. They ignored you almost outright, focusing only on the opposing forces. You moved from solid fixture to solid fixture, only running larger distances when you gained cover from the foreign soldiers through happenstance.

Things became less chaotic as you made your way into the trees. The firefight seemed to be behind you. Explosions sounded somewhere in the distance, always accompanied by the sound of gunfire. Pop, pop, pop. Pop, pop, pop.

A few patrols draped over bushes and branches and slumped at the bases of trees, but the white-uniformed forces appeared to have driven the occupying troops back. Not a single soul stood out among the stretch of woods. The cone-shaped turrets only grew more prominent as you ran.

You emerged from the tree line, exploding from it with an unstopped velocity. You bounded through the trees, trying to skid to a stop before tumbling over. A line of white-uniformed soldiers drew their weapons, standing militantly and ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

A tall man was on the dock with two far smaller figures in tow. They turned at the noise, each staring as you picked your upper body off the ground. The soldiers surrounded you swiftly, ordering you not to move farther.

“A civilian?” the boy near the tall man remarked plainly. He was clad in red from head to foot. Like the green, caped figure before, he didn’t seem much older or younger than you.

“I want to join!” you cried. The girl, who also stood near the tall man, quirked a slender brow. “The revolutionary army’s always looking for new recruits, aren’t you? I want to join! Please put me to work or something, anything! Just take me with you!”

No one said a word for a moment. The sea breeze was a foreign sensation to your skin, and the mild heat from the full sun above felt blazing, almost as fiery as the three sets of eyes trained on you.

The tall man’s mouth opened to speak.

***

“Hey, hey.”

It was blurry when you opened your eyes, and nearly jumped when you saw Yonji standing over you. You shot up, your spine cracking from the stiffness of the awkward position in which you had somehow dozed asleep. He took a step back, hands on his hips and lips tugged downward in acute annoyance.

You swung your legs over the edge of your chair. The chandelier in the center of the ceiling lighted the library. You hadn’t even noticed Yonji flicking it on when he entered the room. You must’ve been fast asleep and out long enough for the sky outside to turn pitch black. You supposed it was cloudy; not a single star shone in the distance.

You immediately stood and bowed, your mind a bit fuzzy from sleep.

“I apologize for my negligence, Prince Yonji. How may I serve you?” You looked at him, trying to hide how you blinked in fatigue. But Yonji’s eyes acutely narrowed, and you knew nothing was getting past him.

“How long have you been passed out?”

“I’m sorry; I’m not sure,” you admitted, glancing off. “I definitely started organizing the stock back onto the shelves—”

Yonji let out a loud laugh.

“You took a fat catnap, huh? I should punish you for that one. Make you walk a plank or some shit,” he barked.

Yonji turned and glanced at the table, where the books you had bought earlier were arranged neatly based on some system he didn’t care to learn. The compilation appeared smaller since he’d last seen it by a negligible margin, but seeing one of the spines on the shelf behind the table deepened his frown. You followed his gaze as it made a quick sweep across the area around you.

“I’m gone for the rest of the afternoon and evening, and you haven’t even read any of them?” Yonji scoffed. His thick arms coiled across his chest. It took you a moment to piece together what he was talking about.

“I wanted to organize the new resources onto the shelves,” you tried to explain. “To keep things organized. If the way they’ve been shelved displeases you, I can go back and—”

Yonji’s head snapped toward you, his weight shifting as he leaned slightly forward.

“I dropped a fuck ton of cash for you to read ‘em, and you’ve been down here all day passed out on the job,” he huffed with a roll of his eyes. And when they finally settled on yours, you couldn’t help but notice the second his eyes widened. It was a millisecond, and the distance his brows retreated his eyelids must’ve been the most subtle of distances before he tore his gaze away in favor of some other part of the library. His lips pursed in a straight line.

Yonji turned around, his shoulders inflating as he breathed in.

“You slept through the entire evening, huh?” he mused with a sigh. “What happened to the food you brought back with you?”

Yonji had ordered so many dishes at brunch that there was too much for you to eat in one sitting. There was more than you could probably eat in several sittings, but you brought it back as leftovers when you came back to the ship.

“It’s in the fridge,” you said in a quiet voice.

“Downstairs?”

“Yes, Prince Yonji.”

He turned, making an exaggerated wave as he gestured you toward the door.

“C’mon, what are you waiting for?” Yonji grumbled, already growing impatient as you skidded forward to obey his unspoken order. You bounced out into the hallway as Yonji assumed the lead.

“If I knew you’d want the leftovers as a late-night snack, I would have given them to you, Prince Yonji,” you affirmed, not before walking directly into Yonji’s back. He had stopped in the middle of the hall, pivoting with narrowed eyes and a scrunched-up nose. He scrutinized you for a second.

“Aren’t you supposed to be smart?” he sneered, sliding his arm around your shoulders to push you forward by the palm splayed out between your shoulder blades.

He ushered you out of the southern tower, and the double doors shut behind you.

***

The entrance below deck was in an unfortunate part of the snail and consisted of a single set of cellar doors leading down a short stairwell. There was an entrance through the shell from where the snail was captained, but most domestic staff came for meals and to their quarters from the heavy cellar doors.

Yonji looked out of place sitting at the kitchen island. A harsh, rectangular light hung down to illuminate the counter space making you feel like you were in an odd dream. The light cast down on him, saturating Yonji in comparison to the darkness of the rest of the floor.

You heated some of the leftover food, arranging it neatly on the plate. You weren’t much of a cook; you definitely couldn’t plate food as nicely as Cosette, but you did what you deemed acceptable before placing the plate across the counter in front of Yonji. You reached into the top drawer at the corner of the kitchen space to pluck out a few utensils before delicately placing them in front of him.

Yonji, for his status, never seemed like the type to ever want to step foot in any servant corridor. And yet, he not only sought you out in the central kitchen, but now he sat below deck in the archival snail. You just assumed that Yonji’s appetite far surpassed pickiness when it came to kitchens.

He moved the plate to the side before he stood, reaching across the counter to the drawer of utensils. Yonji was just barely able to pinch the knob between his fingers to flick it back open. He reached farther, now partially on the counter in front of him as he plucked out a fork and slapped it on the space in front of you before retreating to his stool.

You looked at it as it sat, placed haphazardly in front of you, and then to Yonji. He sat with his cheek in his palm, studying the other fixtures around the open floor. The plate had been pushed toward you.

“Don’t you gotta test it for poison or something?” he grumbled. You let out a light laugh.

“Considering that this was lunch from earlier, I think you’re safe from poisons, Prince Yonji,” you hummed, leaning against the side of the counter. Just the corner separated you.

“Yonji,” he spoke. His voice grew just a touch softer despite his almost annoyed and resigned tone. He dug his fork into the food on the plate. “Call me Yonji when we’re alone.”

Your eyes flickered around you. The kitchen and the darkness around you were as still as when you retreated down the stairs. The domestic crew had gone to bed long ago, and those piloting the ship and on watch were far away in their respective stations.

“I thought you said I was only allowed to call you that outside Germa.”

“I’m telling you now,” he spoke with his mouth full, but his words remained soft. He swallowed, but it wasn’t the gulp that made you feel like he seemed hesitant. “That you can call me Yonji when it’s just us.” His eyes met yours, and for once, his face was devoid of scrutiny.

The skin around his forehead and nose, which was typically scrunched up in annoyance, was relaxed and smooth. His eyes were naturally wide, round, and a brown so dark that they were almost black. His lips sat in a neutral line. A genuine-looking expression looked out of place on him, just like he appeared out of place in the servant’s kitchen.

You held his gaze, nodding slowly as you spoke,

“When it’s just us,” you said, “You want me to call you Yonji.”

You had to pause before you spoke his name. You had called him by his name before, and truly there was nothing different about addressing him when his name happened to have the word “Prince” in front of it. And yet, the word came out like a foreign object, one that you had to contort your lips and tongue for like blowing the word into a bubble.

“Yeah, and don’t—”

“Don’t tell anyone, or you’ll gut me,” you said, and the words took up more space in the air than either of you had anticipated. They expanded softly, fluttering out into the darkness with a mutually unspoken sense of what resembled reluctance.

“Yeah,” he said singularly. Yonji’s shoulders seemed to deflate as he gingerly held your gaze, and the kitchen was quiet.

Yonji tore his stare away first, pushing the plate toward you again. He took another piece with his fork and swiftly plopped a bite into his mouth.

“Weren’t you in the middle of checking this for poison or something?”

You let out a light laugh, leaning on the side of the counter as you dug your fork into your first bite. You stood like that in relative silence, eating from the same plate. Your body almost seemed to shake, tingling with something akin to anxiety as you avoided Yonji’s eye.

Moments of silence weren’t foreign to you, and you could recall several times you sat with Yonji in them relatively comfortably, but something about this one was different. You had been serving him for quite some time. You were sure that all royalty let up with the formalities with their lead attendants. But as your gaze glazed as you stared at your fork, a new, mixed feeling began to bubble up in your chest.

“It’s a shame… ya’ know?” Yonji’s voice snapped you away from a potential rabbit hole of thoughts. When you looked at his face, Yonji was also fixated on the plate, his mind somewhere else as he spoke. You supposed that the both of you were a bit lost. “I, uh… I tried looking for your book. Like at the port… and, uh… I didn’t see it.”

The prongs of his fork scratched against the near-empty plate, toying with a bit of food residue. You set yours down neatly. There was one bite left.

“What book?”

“The one my brother had you toss. I know you like to read it after dinner,” Yonji said. He also set his fork down, crossing his ankles under the stool before coiling his arms across his chest. He leaned against the counter, gaze cast downward. “I thought I would be able to find it.”

Yonji looked out of place once again. His hulking form was hunched over, and his forehead was knitted in acute ponderance. You let a small smile grace your lips as your eyes averted to somewhere in the darkness. The actual weight of his words didn’t hit you.

“That’s okay, Pr—Yonji.”

“You might think it’s fine, but I’m pissed about it.” Yonji’s shoulders straightened out suddenly as he sat up and slammed his hand down on the counter. The noise shook the surface with a singular bang, rattling the plate and utensils. Your eyes immediately darted around the blackness, wondering if any of the domestic crew was roused. “Leave it to Ichiji to be all business.”

“Prince, uh, I mean, Yonji,” you hummed nervously, drawing little circles on the countertop with your nail. He regarded you with a raised brow. “About the book, I, uh, Master Ichiji only said that it didn’t belong in the library, so I, um, put it not in the library.”

You met his dark irises guiltily, contrary to the widened expression of pride plastered over Yonji’s face. He shifted his weight to lean forward, head in his palm as a wide grin contorted his lips.

“You little sneak—”

“I apologize for my indiscretion.”

— “You’re brilliant! HA! You really are my aid after all!” Yonji shot back, slamming his hand on the counter again before he stood. “C’mon, I wanna know where you stashed it—”

— “It’s in my quarters.”—

“Well, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. We’re already below deck, aren’t we?” Yonji was already tugging you in a random direction, despite now knowing his way around. You absentmindedly placed your hand over his, stopping short as he turned to question you.

“About that…” You glanced toward the stairs. “My quarters are actually upstairs.”

Yonji’s face scrunched with visible confusion.

“Upstairs?” he questioned rudely. “There’s nothing up there but books, isn’t there?”

His hand was still wrapped around your wrist, but he allowed you to slip your hand from his grasp to grab his fingers. You ushered him to the stairs leading above deck.

“I’ll show you.”

***

While most of the domestic staff had their designated areas below deck, you had made your space in the tallest room of the southern library. Out of the cellar doors, through the main doors to the library, past the main chamber, and all the way up a winding flight of stairs, the ship rocked below you. You held onto a banister as you climbed.

The staircase wound up several flights, growing warmer as you ascended.

“Oh shit!” The snail hit a large wave, causing the whole ship to rumble and shake. You slipped on the stair you were on, crashing back-first into Yonji’s chest. One arm instinctively wrapped around you, holding you firmly as his other hand clutched the banister. Yonji’s shoulder smushed against the wall as the ship creaked.

Every part of him was sturdy, from the arm that crossed completely from your shoulder to the other to the mass of muscle that was his chest that you could feel on your back. The motion was instinctual but one that had taken you aback as you dared consider the movement professional.

Although, perhaps you shouldn’t have been surprised. Considering Yonji’s line of work, you were sure that keeping you from falling down some stairs was the least exciting save he’d ever performed. It made you wonder how many people Yonji had served as a bodyguard for. He had undoubtedly used you for target practice a fair number of times, but you had never truly seen Yonji in action.

Only when the ship began to settle did he slowly release you, positioning himself behind you to ensure you wouldn’t tumble off.

“You really do this every night?” he grumbled.

“You get used to it!” you laughed, quickly bounding up the stairs ahead with your hand on the railing.

The top of the turret was exceptionally tiny, consisting of one circular room partially split into seven sections by shelving. The shelves jutted out from the walls, each just a wingspan in width, separating the limited space into little nooks. Old files sat amongst them, each set wired or corded in place so as to not be disturbed by the shifting waves.

You took off your shoes, placing them to the side, and to your surprise, Yonji did the same.

Two shelves extended out of the wall directly ahead at a diagonal angle. One of the diagonal shelves and a straight one that branched out horizontally from the left-hand wall created a corner nook at the far end of the room. You quickly disappeared into it.

Yonji followed. The movement of the waves was more intense upstairs, and yet the solid foundation of the turret mitigated a significant portion of the violent bobbing. As Yonji walked across the short room, he couldn’t help but note in acute astonishment how calm it was. A cool breeze blew from the section you disappeared into.

You nearly bumped into Yonji as you emerged with the book, but the missing library book of fairy tales was far from Yonji’s focus. He stood with his hands on the two adjacent bookshelves staring into the corner at the little space you had made for yourself. A tiny mat sat on the ground with neat sheets and a pillow. It took up a majority of the space. From what Yonji could see, you hardly had any personal effects. A few items sat tucked amongst the corded-up files. An open window sat to the left on the wall. It was a good-sized window, letting in the cool evening breeze.

“Here’s the book you wanted,” you said, growing wary when Yonji didn’t respond. He didn’t look at you, keeping his eyes only on the space behind you. You awkwardly shifted, a subtle heat rising to your skin as you sheepishly spoke, “Master Ichiji told me that it didn’t belong in the library, but he didn’t say anything about the annex.” You laughed lightly.

“This is where you live?” Yonji just about gasped breathlessly. His voice was laced with complete and utter disbelief as he pushed forward, knocking you back as he stepped into what amounted to your room. It barely had room for the both of you to stand, something that Yonji must’ve picked up on quickly as he unceremoniously plopped himself down on your bed. He hit the mat with a thump.

“Ow,” he grumbled. The force at which he dropped wasn’t kind to him in the face of your mat, which had very little cushion to it. “No wonder you can knock out on that chair downstairs. This thing is like a rock.”

“I would’ve thought you’ve experienced worse on the field.”

“Well, yeah, but I can still enjoy a comfy bed, you know?” he snorted, shifting his weight to get situated as he sat. He placed your pillow behind his back as he leaned against the stone wall, a visible scowl on his face.

The ship hit a large wave head-on, and you were thrown forward before you could catch yourself. For a second time that night, Yonji caught you, but not before letting your nose smack into his solid chest first. You were sure you broke it.

“Whoa there! How the hell do you live up here?” Yonji laughed as you clutched your nose. It felt intact, and no blood was running from it from what you could feel. “I think sleeping below deck might be less of a hassle. Keep you in one piece, you know? I can’t have my only aid tripping down some stairs and dyin’ on me.”

You sat on the cot on your knees between Yonji’s thighs, your heels propping you up as his touch slowly retracted from you. The book was still clutched close to your chest. Yonji sat up a bit to take it from your grasp. Even despite his height, Yonji could barely see over the windowsill.

“I made my home up here before things were as established as they are downstairs. I like it up here anyway.”

Yonji regarded the book in his hands, thumbing through the pages in quiet thought.

“Before things were established downstairs?” he repeated with a scrunch of his lip. “When did you come here again?”

“Probably not important.”

“Probably.”

Yonji let the mass of pages run over his thumb, and when he reached the end, he combed through the book another time. Your bookmark was missing from the compilation.

You sat before him, watching as he buried himself further in thought. Moonlight passed through the window above, casting your little nook in blue light. You reached toward one of the lower shelves to flicker on an electric lamp. It was a tiny bulb that gave off a warm glow, contrasting the cool pigments of the night with an inviting orange color.

Your eyes met Yonji’s in the lantern light.

His eyes were round, just like they were in the kitchen. And a beat passed where the bobbing of the ship seemed to still, and the silence around you became deafening. Yonji lowered the book to his lap, the pages flipped to a familiar one. His finger held the spot as if he were afraid to lose it.

Your eyes flickered to the open page and then to his stark gaze.

“Yonji?” you called softly, the word falling from your lips smoother than it ever had before. Yonji appeared equally taken aback, a glint of something sparking in his dark irises.

“Yeah?” he whispered.

You didn’t know what to say next.

There hadn’t been anything you wanted to say.

You had just wanted to say his name.

“How did you know I read this after dinner?” You glanced away from him to the open pages. Their familiarity once again struck you. The pages were arranged almost exactly where you left them. And when you looked back to Yonji, you could catch the tail end of him following your gaze.

He moved to close the book, and in a moment without thought, you moved forward to place your hand between the pages. You kelt on all fours, one hand splayed across the open book in his lap while your opposite grasp planted in the sheets at Yonji’s side.

“Wait.” The word slipped from your mouth.

And he did. Yonji said nothing as he stared forward in acute shock. His lips parted to speak, but for once, Yonji closed them.

You tugged at the book, only feeling a second of opposition before Yonji quietly relinquished it to you.

You read the page number and heading and skimmed a few paragraphs. It was exactly what you thought.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Your gaze wavered, unsure of whether you should look at Yonji directly. He sat stiffly in your periphery. You could see the tension in his shoulders. The way his arms crossed over his chest spoke enough to you as he seemed to morph into the wall.

“Just read.”

His voice was as gruff as usual, but his words came out quietly, almost like a plead.

There was a moment of shifting as Yonji moved to the side. You scooted in next to him, pressing the back of your shoulder to the cold stone wall. You curled, one knee over the other, as you brought the book into your lap. Yonji also turned his shoulder a bit to the side, pivoting his body to face toward yours.

And you did are you were told; you read. You read from where you had left off with the cook’s children— you hadn’t read to them for quite some time now— until the end of the story. They were relatively short, and when you reached the end, you looked to Yonji for approval.

He stared off somewhere amongst the files, and with little indication of his thoughts, you started on the next story.

You read deep into the night, occasionally shifting on your mat that wasn’t good for lounging. And at some point, you found Yonji’s head resting in your lap while you splayed your book out over the left side of his chest. You leaned a bit to the side, distributing the weight of him over your side-saddled thighs as your forearm splayed diagonally over his torso.

You could feel as he breathed, steadily in and out, and every intake of breath that you took at the start of a new sentence inflated your side against his.

You read until your voice was hoarse. But even as you began to fizzle out, Yonji remained silent. His eyes had closed a bit ago. You weren’t even sure he was awake. His head was heavy, but you didn’t mind.

You closed the book, placing it to the side. The little reading light was too far to reach with your legs pinned down. Your back pressed against the pillow Yonji had relinquished, reinforcing the little nest of blankets you amassed. You curled, slumping back and letting your head rest.

You didn’t know how much time passed before you began to drift to sleep…

“Our mom used to read those to us.”

Yonji’s voice cut through the silence, waking your tired mind. Maybe you had been sleeping for longer than you thought. Your reading light had timed out, leaving the nook in relative darkness, only interrupted by the bluish glow of the night that cast through the window.

You stirred with a hum, only partially processing your surroundings.

“Well, not really us, I guess. I had this older brother, like, years ago… He and Reiju would visit Mom when we were all really little, and she’d read these stories,” Yonji said. You hummed, just barely processing what he was saying. “I think we, uh—like me, Ichiji, and Niji— decided we were too cool for it, but, uh… we’d always sit in the hall outside to listen. We never said a word about it…”

The ship continued to rock on the waves. The evening conditions were calm, creating a lull perfect for sleeping. You could feel the sea waver in your bones, and Yonji’s words filled your ears.

“Do you miss her?” you asked. Your mouth felt stale from stillness, like wrenching open a door after it had been shut for a long time.

“I don’t think so,” Yonji admitted, letting his words fizzle out in the stillness of the atmosphere. “I don’t remember her too much. Mom was kinda someone who was just there.” You felt his shoulders shift to accent his words.

“I’m sorry.”

You didn’t know what else to say.

”Nothin’ to be sorry about.”

***

It was warm. The air around you was acutely humid, and the sun beams had reached near burning. They woke you up unceremoniously and ungracefully as you peeled your eyes awake. Your muscles were heavy, pressure laced through your limbs from sleeping awkwardly on them for the entire night. But the unease in your body was sidelined by the tight tension wrapped around your throat.

Yonji lay behind you, sound asleep with his elbow wrapped around your throat, functionally trapping you in a headlock. He buried his face in the top of your hair, his large form almost enveloping you as he curled around you.

A deep sense of dread struck the center of your chest and reverberated throughout your entire body. You struggled to release yourself from his grasp but to no avail. If anything, the more you struggled, the tighter his arm seemed to coil around your neck. You tapped his forearm, grasping his wrist as you tried to shake him.

“Prince Yonji! Prince Yonji!”

He hardly stirred, groaning something under his breath as he buried himself deeper in your hair.

“Prince Yonji, you’re late for breakfast!”

Breakfast. That was the word that caused Yonji to immediately shoot up, only to be met with a face full of sunbeams. He flinched at the sudden light, shielding his eyes. The sun was far higher in the sky than it had ever been when you woke him up to shoo him off to breakfast.

“Ah, shit!”

Yonji scrambled up, and it was only then that you noticed that Yonji had lost his shirt somewhere over the course of the night. You rifled through the messy sheets before finding it kicked to the bottom of the bed. You hardly said anything to each other while you unceremoniously threw it to him as he headed out of your nook. Yonji caught it without having to look, throwing it over his shoulders before bolting down the stairs.

Thank you to all who liked, reblogged, followed, and supported. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.

Summary of scene I: MC is a prisoner taken during the country's revolution where they are held in captivity for torture/beatings at the hands of a cruel, unnamed occupier. Yonji is the one to destroy the facility and takes great pleasure in brutally mutilating the occupiers who beat MC. MC has always had a softer nature, and felt a strong sense of gratitude to Yonji, who was able to fight cruelly when MC never perceived being able to do such a thing on their own.

Summary of scene 1 & 2: (cont.) MC runs through a war torn battlefield to a Germa ship at the port. Thinking they're the revolutionary army, they beg Judge to let them join. Young Ichiji and Reiju witness this. The answer given is not shown before MC wakes up from their flashback.

Author's notes: It's the "roll credits" chapter! Not in the sense that it's the last chapter, but that I have finally dropped the title in the story hahahaha. For once, I don't have the next chapter queued up, but I still appreciate any support. I will try to have things ready for our usual 100 combined likes and reblogs, but give me a little wiggle room!

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI

#rebloging this agains because im fucking bonkers ovee this man

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