#Fear? Doubt? Longing? Loneliness?

[uuuhshiny]

Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma

Touch

[nhlclover]

𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄 | 𝐀𝐃𝐀𝐌 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈

summary: after feeling isolated by the lack of support from your own family and friends during your pregnancy, you found a sense of belonging among Adam's friends

warnings: pregnancy, technically teen pregnancy, use of made up people who do not exist irl

word count: 1.33k

You had never felt so alone.

When you found out you and Adam were expecting, you were over the moon. It wasn’t in your plans as a couple, but the two of you were more than ready to begin your family. The initial shock quickly turned into joy as you imagined the future together, holding your little one in your arms, and sharing the excitement of each new milestone.

However, when you told those close to you, your friends and family, their reactions were not what you had hoped for. Your parents had been disappointed, worried about what those in the community would think about them now that their daughter was a teenage mom. Their choice of words left you feeling like a failure. Your mother’s disapproving gaze and your father’s silence were more hurtful than any words could be. They seemed more concerned about their reputation than the new life you were bringing into the world.

When you turned to your friends, hoping that their reactions would be supportive and at least slightly better than those of your parents, you were left hurt and alone. They either distanced themselves or openly criticized your decision to keep the baby. The whispers behind your back, the judgmental glances, and the sudden exclusion from social gatherings cut deeper than you could have imagined. It felt like you were being punished for your happiness.

It seemed like everyone had an opinion, and none of them were supportive. The isolation was overwhelming, and each day felt heavier than the last. The weight of their disappointment and judgment bore down on you, making the already challenging journey of pregnancy feel even more daunting.

Now, at seven months pregnant, you had been navigating the rocky path of motherhood almost completely alone. Adam had been a rock throughout the entire thing, his unwavering love and support providing you with some solace in the storm of criticism. He held you through the nights of tears and doubt, whispering reassurances that you were strong. His family, although from a distance, were also supportive, sending messages of encouragement and little gifts for the baby.

However, even their unwavering support felt like it wasn’t enough. The absence of your own family’s acceptance left a void that was impossible to fill. You longed for your mother’s comforting words, your father’s steady presence, and the camaraderie of your friends. Instead, you faced a future that seemed more uncertain and isolated than you had ever imagined.

The journey of impending motherhood, which should have been filled with joy and anticipation, was overshadowed by the loneliness that engulfed you. Each day was a struggle to stay positive and to believe that you could be the mother your child deserved. As the due date approached, the fear of the unknown mixed with the pain of rejection, making you wonder if you could ever truly overcome the loneliness that had become your constant companion.

So when Adam suggested you go to brunch with his friends, your anxiety skyrocketed. You didn’t know these people well, and the thought of facing more judgment was almost too much to bear. Yet, Adam had assured you they were kind, understanding people, so you trusted him.

As you arrived at the quaint restaurant, your heart pounded in your chest. This morning had been a better one in terms of morning sickness and pain, which gave you a sense of ease that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, but still, your anxiety loomed.

Adam gave your hand a quick squeeze as you approached the table, most of his friends already seated. You were greeted by a melodic chorus of friendly voices and warm smiles. Adam’s friends and their partners welcomed them eagerly, pulling out chairs and making space for them at the crowded table.

“Y/n, right?” the girl next to you asked.

“Yes, hi,” you said softly, your voice trembling slightly as you took a seat.

“Adam’s told me so much about you, it’s so nice to finally put a face to a name!” she said sweetly. “I’m Lilly.”

Her warmth and genuine smile were a stark contrast to the reactions you had grown accustomed to. You felt a small spark of hope flicker within you, and you mustered a polite smile in return. "It's nice to meet you, Lilly."

As the conversation flowed around you, you found yourself slowly relaxing. The group was vibrant and welcoming, chatting animatedly about their lives, sharing jokes, and asking you questions that made you feel included rather than judged. Lilly in particular seemed to take you under her wing, engaging you in conversation and making sure you felt comfortable.

"So, how are you feeling?" Lilly asked gently, her eyes filled with genuine concern. "I know it must be tough sometimes."

You hesitated, unused to such kindness, but her sincerity made it easier to open up. "It's been challenging," you admitted, feeling a lump in your throat. You glanced at Adam, who gave you an encouraging nod. He’d kept an eye on you the entire evening, making sure you were staying comfortable and making sure you didn’t want to leave. He’d truly been amazing through everything. "But Adam has been wonderful, and I'm trying to stay positive."

“When are you due?” Tyler asked.

“Early August,” you replied, your voice steadier now.

“That's so exciting! Have you thought about names yet?” Sarah asked, her enthusiasm contagious.

You and Adam exchanged a glance, and for the first time in a long while, you felt a genuine smile spread across your face. “We have a few ideas, but nothing set in stone yet.”

The weight on your shoulders seemed to lighten, as you felt that there was a developing support system that you hadn’t expected. As the brunch continued, the questions kept coming, but they were all filled with kindness and genuine interest. They asked about your cravings, your experience with morning sickness, and even shared funny stories from their own lives. You felt yourself relaxing, your earlier fears melting away.

“We're all here for you, you know," Lilly said at one point, her eyes sincere. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask. We’d love to help now and after the baby arrives.”

You didn’t know if it was the overwhelming gratitude you were experiencing, or simply pregnancy hormones, but you found yourself getting emotional, tears brimming in your eyes. “Thank you. That means more than you know.”

Lilly gave you a sweet smile, reaching over and giving your hand that rested on the table a supportive squeeze. The meals came and went, stories were told, and Adam kindly paid for the tab. After you said your goodbyes and well-wishes, you walked to the car with Adam's arm around your shoulders.

“So…” Adam said hesitantly. “How was that?”

You let out a deep breath, a smile appearing on your lips. “They were amazing, Adam,” you said. “They’re so nice.”

You felt the pregnancy hormones coming back again, the tears now spilling over. Your emotions had been on a rollercoaster, with the highs and lows often blending into a confusing blur. After being abandoned by your friends and family, feeling like you were practically alone in this journey, the isolation weighed heavily on you. Each day had been a struggle, each moment a reminder of the support you lacked. The once-familiar faces that should have been by your side had turned away, leaving you to navigate this overwhelming experience in solitude.

But now, a shift was happening. You now finally felt like there were people on your side, people you could lean on and fill the void that had been left by those who had abandoned you.

Over the next few weeks, you began to see more of Adam’s friends. They checked in on you, invited you to small gatherings, and even helped you prepare for the baby. Lilly became a close friend, always there with a listening ear and helpful advice. Slowly but surely, the loneliness that had once seemed insurmountable began to ebb away.

[lila-lou]

✨Beyond saving✨

Summary: Dean became a demon and left you overnight. Three months have passed since then, in which you wanted nothing more than for him to finally come back. However, when he returned, it became painfully clear that he could no longer be saved.

Pairing: Demon!Dean x Reader

Warnings: 18+ only! Smut, Rape, Language, Angst, Hurt, Violence, Humiliation - it´s just pure darkness

Word Count: 4289

A/N: English isn’t my first language, so please be lenient. 💙✨

You sat alone in the bunker, your breaths shallow and pained, the echoes of recent battles still reverberating in your mind. Sam, fueled by determination and desperation, had embarked on a relentless search for Dean, accompanied by Castiel. Left behind, you nursed your injuries.

Your ribs ached with every breath, a testament to the encounters with some demons in your relentless search for Dean. Each shadow seemed to whisper his name, taunting you with his absence.

Cradling your injured side, you sank into the cold embrace of a chair, the weight of uncertainty pressing down upon you. How long had it been since Dean had disappeared into the night, consumed by the darkness that had claimed him? The minutes stretched into eternity, each tick of the clock echoing the ache in your heart.

Outside, the world continued to spin, oblivious to the turmoil within the bunker's walls. But for you, time stood still, trapped in a limbo of fear and longing. Every creak of the floorboards, every gust of wind, raised hopes that Dean would materialize before you, his familiar presence a balm to your weary soul.

But as the weeks slipped by, despair threatened to overwhelm you.

In the depths of your despair, a voice whispered a gentle reminder: hope. It was a fragile thread, woven with memories of shared laughter and whispered promises.

With each heartbeat, you whispered a silent vow to never give up on Dean, to keep fighting until he was safely by your side once more.

Two long weeks had passed since Sam and Cas had departed, leaving you to grapple with the silence that hung heavy in their absence. And three months had slipped by since Dean, consumed by the darkness of his demonic transformation, had vanished into the night, his departure leaving a void that seemed impossible to fill.

As you made your way to the kitchen, your movements slow and deliberate, the pain in your ribs flared with every breath.

Reaching the refrigerator, you paused, your hand hovering over the handle as a wave of loneliness washed over you. The prospect of facing another day without Dean, without the warmth of his presence, felt like an insurmountable burden. But you couldn't afford to succumb to despair, not when there was still a glimmer of hope flickering in the darkness.

With a determined exhale, you opened the refrigerator door, the cool air washing over you. Amidst the assortment of food and beverages, your fingers closed around a cold bottle of beer, the familiar label offering a brief respite from the ache that threatened to consume you.

Bringing the bottle to your lips, you took a long swallow. For a fleeting moment, you allowed yourself to linger in the memories of happier times, when laughter had filled the air and the future had seemed full of endless possibilities.

That’s when you heard heavy footsteps echoed through the silence, sending a shiver down your spine as they drew closer. Your heart pounded in your chest, a mixture of fear and longing coursing through your veins. You knew without a doubt who stood seconds later right behind you, his presence a familiar yet chilling presence that sent a tremor of apprehension rippling through your body.

Dean.

The name hung heavy in the air, laden with the weight of everything that had transpired in the months since his transformation into a demon. Three long months had passed since you had last seen him.

And now, as he stood mere inches away, his chest pressed against your back, you couldn't bring yourself to turn around. The air crackled with tension, thick with unspoken words and the palpable sense of danger that surrounded him.

You felt his breath ghost across the nape of your neck, a chilling reminder of the darkness that lurked within him. The urge to turn and face him, to confront the demon that wore Dean's face, warred with the instinct to flee, to put as much distance between you and his darkness.

But as the seconds stretched into eternity, you remained rooted to the spot, paralyzed by the fear that gripped you like a vice. Dean wasn't here to do nice things, of that you were certain. He was a harbinger of chaos, a reminder of the perilous path he had chosen.

And yet, despite the fear that coiled in the pit of your stomach, there remained a flicker of hope, a tiny ember that refused to be extinguished. Deep down, buried beneath the layers of uncertainty and despair, you held onto the belief that somewhere within the depths of the demon that stood behind you, a fragment of the real Dean still existed.

But as the moments ticked by, the silence stretching taut between you, you couldn't shake the nagging doubt that whispered in the recesses of your mind. Would Dean ever be the same again? Or had he been consumed entirely by the darkness that now held him in its thrall?

With a trembling hand, you reached for the bottle of beer on the counter, the cold glass a tangible anchor in the storm of emotions that raged within you. And as you took a fortifying sip, steeling yourself for whatever came next.

Dean's voice cut through the silence like a blade, his words laced with a dark edge that sent a shiver down your spine. "Sweetheart", he drawled, the term dripping with mockery, a cruel reminder of the tender endearments he had once whispered in your ear. "Missed me, did you?", he taunted, his tone sending a chill down your spine.

You could feel his presence behind you, his breath warm against your ear as he leaned in closer. The sensation sent a wave of unease washing over you, his proximity a stark reminder of the danger that lurked within him.

But even as his lips brushed against your ear, sending a shudder of revulsion coursing through you, you couldn't bring yourself to pull away. The memory of the man you had once loved, the man buried beneath the darkness that now consumed him, lingered in the recesses of your mind, a faint echo of a love that refused to die.

And as his lips lingered against your ear, his touch a visceral reminder of the danger that surrounded you, you felt a flicker of defiance ignite within you. Steeling yourself against the fear that threatened to consume you, you squared your shoulders and met his gaze head-on.

"Dean". you murmured, your voice barely above a whisper, "this isn't you. I know you're still in there, somewhere"-. It was a desperate plea, a faint glimmer of hope in the darkness that threatened to engulf you both.

But as you spoke, the shadow that lurked behind his eyes seemed to deepen. And though you longed to reach out and pull him back from the brink, to save him from the darkness that haunted him, you knew that the battle ahead would be fraught with peril.

For Dean wasn't just fighting against the darkness within him; he was fighting against the very essence of his own soul.

Dean’s words struck you like a barrage of bullets, each one piercing your heart with a searing pain that threatened to consume you.

“All I want is to fuck that tight little pussy of yours”, he sneered, his voice dripping with venomous lust. “Tried so many girls these past few weeks, but none of them felt like you”.

Your breath caught in your throat. His words were like a dagger to your soul, shredding any remaining fragments of hope or love you had clung to.

As he pressed you against the unforgiving surface of the kitchen counter, his touch rough and unforgiving, you felt a surge of pain shoot through your body. Bruises blossomed beneath his fingertips. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, but you refused to let him see your weakness.

You were overwhelmed, broken by his actions and his words, but you refused to let him break you completely.

“Stop talking”, you whispered, your voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

Dean's laughter echoed off the walls of the kitchen, a cruel symphony of mockery that reverberated in your ears like a relentless assault. The sound of it sent a shiver down your spine.

"Aw, sweetheart, don't tell me you're jealous", he taunted, his voice dripping with derision as he leaned in closer, his breath hot against your skin. "You wanna know how I fucked all those other girls while you were out there playing the hero, searching for me?".

The words hit you. You had risked everything to find him, to believe in the possibility of redemption, only to be met with scorn and betrayal.

But despite the pain, despite the overwhelming sense of despair that threatened to consume you, you refused to let him see your weakness.

"Go ahead", you spat, your voice laced with a bitter edge. "Show me. Show me just how little I meant to you. How easily you threw away everything we had".

And as he smirked, his features twisted with triumph, you braced yourself for the inevitable onslaught of pain and humiliation. Dean wasn't the man you had loved; he was a monster, a demon wearing the face of the man you once knew.

But even as he moved closer, his hands reaching for you with a hunger that made your skin crawl, you refused to back down. You were broken, yes, but you were not defeated. And as you stood your ground in the face of his darkness.

Dean's eyes gleamed as he leaned in closer. "Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea", he snarled, before he gripped your wrists with a force that made you flinch.

"I'm about to show you just how hard I fucked those sluts", he continued, his voice low and menacing. "Hard enough to land them in the hospital. They begged for it, you know. Begged for the touch of a real man".

The bile rose in your throat at his words, a sickening mixture of disgust and despair threatening to choke you. How could he speak of such violence with such casual indifference?

But even as the questions raced through your mind, you knew there would be no answers. Dean was lost. And as he moved closer, his hands trailing down your body with a possessiveness that made your skin crawl, you knew that this was about to get messy.

Dean's voice dripped with disdain as he sneered, "Where's your motivation, huh? You call yourself a hunter, but here you are, doing nothing to stop me". His words cut through the air like a whip, each syllable laced with hate.

You gritted your teeth against the surge of anger that threatened to consume you, meeting his gaze with a defiant glare. "My motivation", you spat, your voice trembling with suppressed rage, "is to stop you from hurting anyone else. To stop you from causing any more pain and suffering."

Dean's laughter echoed off the walls of the kitchen, a cruel mockery. "You really think you can stop me?", he taunted. "At the end of the night, sweetheart, I'll get what I came for. And there's nothing you can do to stop me".

“You´re pathetic, Dean”.

Dean's hand struck your cheek with a brutal force, the sharp crack of skin against skin echoing through the kitchen. Pain exploded across your face, a searing heat that radiated through every fiber of your being. You stumbled backward, the force of the blow sending you crashing against the wall, the impact jolting your already broken ribs.

Stars danced at the edges of your vision as you fought to regain your bearings, struggling to draw breath through the haze of pain that enveloped you. But even as you gasped for air, the taste of blood filling your mouth, you refused to let him see your weakness.

Dean loomed over you, his features contorted with a twisted mixture of triumph and cruelty. "Is that fire I see in you now, sweetheart?", he sneered, his voice a low, menacing growl. "Good. Because I want something to burn while I fuck you".

Your fists pounded against Dean's chest, each blow fueled by a desperate fury that threatened to consume you. But his laughter only grew louder.

"Aw, sweetheart, is that the best you can do?", he taunted. "I expected more from a hunter like you. But I guess I overestimated your abilities".

With a primal scream, you launched yourself at him once more, determined to land a blow that would wipe the smirk from his face.

But before your fist could connect, Dean moved with speed, his hand closing around your wrists with a vice-like grip. Pain exploded through your body as he squeezed, the bones in your wrists grinding together with a sickening crunch.

You cried out in agony as he pushed you against the kitchen table, the unforgiving surface digging into your spine. Tears welled in your eyes as you struggled against his iron grip, but it was futile. Dean was stronger, more powerful than you could ever be.

"Look at you, all fire and fury", he sneered, his breath hot against your ear. "But in the end, you're just a weak little girl, aren't you?".

With a trembling hand, you tried to push yourself up from the table, but Dean’s hand came down with a force that sent shockwaves of pain radiating through your body. You cried out as he pushed you back down, the unforgiving surface digging into your stomach, leaving you gasping for air.

“Oh, princess, don’t strain yourself”, he mocked. “You’re much prettier when you’re lying down”.

“You know, sweetheart”, Dean taunted. “I always did like a woman who knows her place. And your place is right here, beneath me”.

Dean's laughter filled the room like a sinister symphony, his eyes gleaming with pleasure as he towered over you. "Oh, sweetheart, look at you", he taunted. "All bruised and broken, yet still trying to get up. Admirable, really".

You winced as pain shot through your broken wrists and ribs, rendering you helpless against his looming presence. Every movement sent waves of agony coursing through your body, but you refused to let him see your weakness.

With deliberate slowness, Dean reached for his belt, his fingers tracing the buckle with a predatory precision. "You know, princess", he murmured, his voice low and dangerous, "I've been looking forward to this. Been craving it ever since I left".

Your heart pounded in your chest, a sickening mixture of fear and revulsion churning in the pit of your stomach. You wanted to scream, to fight back with every fiber of your being, but the pain held you captive, a prisoner in your own body.

As Dean slowly undid his belt, a smirk played across his lips, his eyes alight with twisted desire. "You're going to love this, sweetheart", he groaned, his voice laced with a dark promise. "I'll make sure of it".

You knew what was coming, but you were powerless to stop it.

Dean's grip tightened around you as he pushed you further down the table, his movements rough. You winced as your broken wrists bore the brunt of his force, each new position sending fresh waves of pain shooting through your body.

With a smirk, Dean reached for the waistband of your shorts and panties, his fingers trailing along the fabric with a slowness that made your skin crawl. "Let's see what we have here, shall we?", he mused, his voice thick with anticipation.

As he pulled them down, exposing your dry folds to his leering gaze, a wave of humiliation washed over you. You felt exposed, vulnerable, as if every last shred of your dignity had been stripped away.

Dean's eyes alight with amusement. "Well, well, well", he taunted, his voice dripping with disdain. "Looks like you're making this harder than it should be, sweetheart. What's the matter? Not as wet as you used to be?".

You wanted to scream, but all you could do was lie there, exposed and humiliated, as Dean continued to mock and degrade you.

"Oh, sweetheart, this is going to hurt", he chuckled.

"You always did have trouble taking me, didn't you?", Dean jeered. "But don't worry, sweetheart. I'll make sure you feel every inch of me".

His words struck you like a physical blow, a reminder of the intimacy you once shared, now twisted into something dark and grotesque.

You lay on your stomach on the table, your breaths coming in shallow gasps as you braced yourself for what was to come. Your ass faced Dean, vulnerable and exposed, as he hovered over you.

With a chuckle, Dean reached for his jeans and boxers, pulling them down just enough to free his throbbing length.

"Oh, sweetheart, look at what you're missing out on", he taunted. "You used to beg for this, didn't you? Beg for me to fill you up until you couldn't take it anymore".

As Dean moved closer, his hands tracing the lines of your body, you felt a surge of panic rise within you. But even as you struggled against him, you knew that resistance was futile. He was too strong, too powerful, and you were helpless to stop him.

With a hard thrust, Dean tried to shove himself inside you, but your tightness proved too much for him to handle. The pain was excruciating, a searing agony that threatened to consume you from within.

"Fuck", Dean cursed, his voice strained with frustration as he tried to force himself deeper. "Why do you have to be so fucking tight?".

Tears welled in your eyes as the pain intensified.

"Looks like I'll have to make do," he sneered, his voice thick with contempt as he spat down on his cock. "All because of you, princess. Can't even get wet for me anymore".

Dean gripped your hips with a brutal force, before he thrust himself forward once more. The pain was unbearable, a searing agony that threatened to consume you from within.

"Please, Dean, stop", you pleaded, your voice raw with desperation. But he only laughed, the sound ringing in your ears like a mocking taunt.

"Stop?", he scoffed, his grip on your hips tightening even further. "Why would I stop when we're just getting started, sweetheart?".

Tears streamed down your cheeks, knowing that there was no escape.

With a grunt of effort, Dean pushed himself inside you with force.

You cried out, the sound muffled by the unforgiving surface of the table beneath you, as he filled you with a brutal intensity.

"Fuck", Dean groaned, his voice strained with exertion. "You're so fucking tight".

As Dean continued to thrust into you with a relentless determination, the agony intensified, threatening to overwhelm you completely.

Your body bore the marks of Dean's brutal assault, bruises already blossoming across your skin despite his relentless onslaught having barely begun. Each movement sent shockwaves of pain rippling through your broken form, the agony etched into every line and contour of your battered body.

Tears streamed down your cheeks, silent yet relentless, as you fought to endure the torment that Dean inflicted upon you.

With a cruel grip, Dean pressed your head tighter against the table, his hands exerting a crushing force that threatened to suffocate you. "You're not enjoying this as much as I am, huh?", he taunted.

And then, with a suddenness that left you reeling, he pulled out completely, leaving you gasping for air as he prepared to thrust into you once more. "Let's see how much you can take", he growled.

The table shuddered beneath you as Dean drove himself into you with a brutal force, each movement wracking your body with a searing agony that threatened to consume you whole. "You like that?", he sneered, his voice laced with amusement. "Or do I need to go harder?".

Your pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears as Dean continued his assault, his grip tightening in your hair, pulling your head up with a violent force. "Tell me how much you missed my big cock", he demanded, his voice a menacing growl as he forced you to look him in the eye.

You winced as your ribs cracked even further under the strain, the pain nearly unbearable as you struggled to form words through the agony. "Please", you gasped, tears streaming down your cheeks. "I can't...I can't do this anymore. Please, Dean, just stop".

But he only laughed, the sound sending a chill down your spine as he forced your head back down, his hands like vices around your hair. "Not good enough, sweetheart", he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. "Tell me you missed it. Tell me you've been dreaming about it every night since I left".

You choked back a sob, the words catching in your throat as you fought to resist his demands. But with each tug of his hands, each crack of your already fractured ribs, the pain became too much to bear. "I missed it", you whispered, your voice barely audible over the sound of your own ragged breaths. "I missed you".

His smirk widened at your admission.

"That's right, sweetheart", he groaned. "You missed me, didn't you? Missed my big cock pounding into you, making you scream".

With each brutal thrust, your cries of pain mingled with his laughter, the sound a symphony of torment that echoed off the walls. "Look at you", he sneered, his hands gripping your hips with a punishing force. "Crying like a little bitch while I fuck you senseless. You love it, don't you? Love being my little whore".

Dean's voice dripped with satisfaction as he hovered over you. "You feel so fucking good", he purred, his words like venom as he surveyed your broken form. "None of those other bitches could compare to you. None of them had that perfect ass and tits. None of them were as tight as you".

You winced as the pain in your ribs intensified with every thrust, each movement sending shockwaves of agony coursing through your body. It felt like your lungs were being crushed, the pressure unbearable as you struggled to draw breath.

Your face was red and swollen from being shoved over the table, tears mingling with sweat as you fought to endure the torment.

With a cruel grip, Dean pulled you around, forcing you to sit on the edge of the table. Your body felt heavy and limp, your senses dulled by the relentless onslaught of pain. You barely registered his rough handling as he grabbed your jaw with a painful force, forcing you to look into his eyes.

"Look at me", he snarled as his eyes transformed into pools of endless blackness. "I want you to see exactly who's doing this to you".

You whimpered weakly, your gaze meeting his dark, soulless eyes as he pushed himself inside you once more. The pain was blinding, a searing fire that threatened to consume you whole, but you were too far gone to fight back. Each movement leaving you teetering on the edge of consciousness.

"You're pathetic", he scoffed. "All this pain, and you still can't look away. You really are mine, aren't you?".

Tears welled in your eyes as you struggled to stay upright, your body wracked with pain and exhaustion.

Dean's grip tightened around your neck, nearly choking you as he held you up to keep you from falling. Your vision blurred, the edges of consciousness slipping away as the pain and lack of oxygen overwhelmed you. Yet, you remained trapped in his grasp, unable to break free from his cruel hold.

"You're still in love with me, aren't you?", Dean sneered, his voice dripping with disdain as he mocked your lingering affection. " You actually think there's redemption for me. How sweet".

Your breath came in ragged gasps, each word he spoke a dagger in your heart. The weight of his words, combined with the physical agony, threatened to crush your soul entirely.

Dean chuckled darkly, his grip on your neck tightening even further. "I'm going to come inside you. Every last drop. So that even when I'm gone, you'll still have a piece of me to remember".

As Dean's lips crashed against yours with brutal force, you felt the sting of his bite on your lip, drawing blood as a surge of pain shot through you. With a loud groan, he released himself inside you, his body trembling with the force of his release.

Through the haze of pain and exhaustion, you felt another rib give way under the pressure, causing agony to lance through your already battered body. But you were trapped, unable to move or escape as Dean held you there to steady himself.

"You took me so well", Dean murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction as he kissed your forehead tenderly. "You always gonna be my favorite".

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as he finally released his grip on you, leaving you slumped against the table, broken and defeated. "I'll come back for you", he whispered, his voice filled with a promise of further torment to come.

Before he left, Dean turned back to you, his eyes cold and devoid of any trace of humanity.

"Stop trying to heal me", he commanded, his voice laced with a chilling finality. "I'm beyond saving".

His words hung in the air like a heavy weight, crushing your hopes and shattering your illusions of redemption. With a heavy heart, you watched as he disappeared into the darkness, leaving you alone with your pain and despair.

As Dean's words echoed in your mind, the world around you faded into darkness. The pain, both physical and emotional, overwhelmed your senses, pulling you into unconsciousness.

———————————

A/N: Please let me know what you think.🥰 I'm thinking about turning this into a multi-part Story. You up?

-

Part 2

[a-d-nox]

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pile 1

they lack self-confidence to get close to you - they might even not trust themselves around you. they might fear acting up or looking foolish around you. they are very apprehensive about taking action and you not accepting them as they are.

they find your personality very sexy. it's like they enjoy when someone takes charge - you don't mind taking up space and making your presence known and they adore that. your ambition, drive, and authoritative personality is addicting to them.

of course, they find you attractive - they worry that you don't find them attractive... they think that you won't take a chance on them and that you might not be open to a relationship/date with them because of how they look.

you are supportive. maybe you supported them or encouraged them in some way, or maybe they have seen how you interact with the people you care about. they can tell that you are a genuine person.

its wild; i feel like this person has a very active imagination. they might dream of marrying you or what being married to you would be like. they like the idea of walking with you on their arm. i feel like they wonder if they wait long enough and linger in the background that perhaps you will make the first move. they really like you. they think about the timing very often - they believe that you are the one for them. they really hope that you feel the same and are attracted to them. this is beyond lust for you - they love you.

pile 2

this is going to be a by chance meeting - you aren't going to run into each other everyday. you'll have a very positive few days with this person then it will be one of those things where it's like do you or don't you. perhaps this will be a "the one that got away" moment.

i feel like the connection is moving too quick for there to be much visibility into whether or not they even know much about you. so this connection has to make its own hold pattern - slow down a learn a bit more about each other. if someone peaks your interest, ask for their number.

i feel like you are out of your element with this connection. you don't see your beauty like they see it. you probably don't think they are attracted to you. you just need some confidence - trust that you are beautiful and make your move; stop waiting for masculine energies to make the first move.

they see that you lack confidence despite you being pretty and deserving attention. you are careful about what you do and what you say - this intrigues them. they are so curious about what you would say/do if you had the confidence to do so.

i feel like, unfortunately, no one will make a move in this situation. so you will keep to yourselves and spend time in solitude. stop thinking about what could have been and make it happen. you don't have to be unhappy with your present circumstances. start making a shift in your beliefs. you can put an end to your feelings of loneliness; you just have to change your mindset - abundance awaits you.

pile 3

they doubt themselves around you. i feel like you are rather close to them in their day-to-day life, but they don't think they can gain your attention. they tried - believe me, they have, but they just don't feel they are getting anywhere like they hoped they would.

they have been getting to know you for quite a bit of time. they love how passionate you are about the world around you. they also enjoy that you are building something for yourself.

you are very lovely to them. you are just at the beginning as your beauty journey too - you are going to continue to blossom and bloom.

you hold back which intrigues them. you can resist what others indulge in, which attracts their interest. you celebrate the small wins in very minimal ways, which they adore.

something is changing in the near future. you have to accept this connection as it is - i feel like you guys could be great for one another in the romantic sense, so why not try it? you can build a future together. this person wants to help you to grow in new and exciting ways. pay attention to subtle hints and messages from those around you. communication, fresh perspectives, and opportunities are ahead of you.

[aphroditelovesu]

Hi, can you please write a Yan!Daenerys prompt 27?

[27]; "My dark nature is a reflection of the depth of my love for you. I know I'm a monster, but I'm your monster."

❝tw: mention of death, mildly angst (?) and obsessive behavior.

The smell of ash and blood filled King's Landing almost like a plague. The screams of those burned by Drogon, once so excruciating, became just uncomfortable memories in Daenerys' mind.

For that was all they would eventually become. It wasn't right but Daenerys didn't care. She no longer cared about becoming what she became. As long as she had you in her life, the entire world could be consumed by dragon fire.

You were all that mattered to her.

Daenerys watched the devastation around her, her eyes fixed on the smoldering ruins of the city that once represented the heart of the Realm. Her expression was a mix of cold determination and a rare tenderness reserved only for you.

She did it for you. All for you.

"I did this for us. For you." Daenerys whispered in awe, more to herself than anyone else. Your presence beside her was an anchor amidst the chaos, a shining light in the darkness she had created.

You looked at her as if you no longer recognized her and, in a way, that was true. This was no longer the Daenerys you knew and once loved. This was a shell of what she once was.

A woman dominated by grief and the fear of losing someone else she loved. And only the gods knew what Daenerys would do to the world if something happened to you.

"Some things need to be destroyed so that others can flourish." She continued, turning to look at you. "They would never understand. They would never accept the world I want to build."

You felt the weight of his words, the intensity of his gaze. There was a deep pain there, a loneliness that only you seemed able to alleviate. Even with all the power and destruction she commanded, Daenerys was, deep down, a woman looking for love and acceptance. And she wanted that from you, just you.

Her gaze, although filled with burning passion, had a coldness that hadn't existed before. The glow in her eyes was now more intense, but also emptier, as if an essential part of her humanity had been consumed by the fire of her own despair.

And it hurt. The sight of a person you loved, maybe still love, being destroyed like this was too much to bear.

"You didn't have to do that." You tried to say, trying to reach the real Daenerys that remained somewhere inside her. "You didn't need to destroy King's Landing, you didn't need to burn all those people and destroy their home. There was another way, there always is."

But your words seemed to be lost in the freezing winter wind, swallowed by the distant sound of echoes from a city in ruins. She lifted her head and the strength in her voice left no room for doubt. "I can't go back anymore." She declared. "What's done is done. And now, you're all I have."

There was a palpable fear in her words, a fear of what might happen if you walked away, a fear that made her cry out for your presence, not just as a partner, but as her anchor in a sea of ​​uncertainty. Not that she would let you get away, but she wouldn't want to hold you prisoner.

Daenerys looked at you with an intensity that mixed love and despair, her voice a painful whisper filled with truth. "My dark nature is a reflection of the depth of my love for you. I know I'm a monster, but I'm your monster."

Her words seemed to hang heavy in the air like a sentence of condemnation and devotion at the same time. She was not just revealing herself, but giving herself completely, displaying her scars and shadows as if they were a sign of absolute love.

What was left of Daenerys, the woman you loved and feared, was desperate to hold on to what she still could hold, even if it meant sacrificing the world around her. And when you looked into her violet eyes, you knew there was no going back.

She was your monster. Your queen. And she loved you so hard that she would be willing to burn the world to the ground, even if that wasn't your desire. It didn't matter in the end, though. Daenerys would always hold on to you.

[hansensgirl]

summary. | Your dad’s best friend doesn’t like your attitude.

prompts. | Andy Barber + Dad’s best friend + “I just want to take care of you.” + Daddy kink, requested by Anonymous.

pairing. | dark!dad’s best friend!Andy Barber x fem!reader.

warnings. | NON/DUBCON, age gap, delusion, Daddy kink, bratty/rude reader (inwardly, mostly), manhandling, andy holds the reader down, allusions to spanking, and more. 18+ MINORS DNI!

author’s note. | this is a part of my Dark Concepts (2023) request form. thank you for taking part in this event! please enjoy and don’t forget to reblog. MINORS DNI, 18+ ONLY! taglist: @hansensfics

A familiar voice calls your name, and you wonder what he could possibly want this time around. It’s Andy, your father’s best friend.

You sigh as you get up from your bed, an oversized sweater falling down to cover your upper thighs. You make your way downstairs and spot the older man at the bottom of the steps, blocking your way. He smiles when he sees you, and you forcibly return it.

Hatred isn’t the word you’d use to describe how you feel about Andy. Discomfort is far more accurate. You’re baffled at how he’s managed to insert himself into your life, even when your father isn’t present. He has a key and always seems to drop by over every little thing. Sometimes, his reasonings are genuinely absurd. 

You suspect it’s the loneliness of the divorce and subsequent moving away that did it. You feel bad for Andy at times, but the dark looks he gives you make those feelings dissipate, replacing them with both fear and arousal. 

“You busy?” he asks, a slight smirk on his face. It reads as a midlife crisis, or perhaps you’re just being too harsh. You prefer being on your lonesome, anyway. “Uh, no, not really. Why?” you ask, stopping at the last step. He’s wearing a green button-up, and his hair is slightly tousled.

When you watch him more intently, you notice his eyes are blown out. Lust or happiness? The former seems more likely than the latter. Your thoughts make you shiver, and he furrows his brows.

“Cold?” he jokes, but you simply hum. “I can’t see why,” Andy husks, smiling up at you. He refers to your outfit, which you realize isn’t the most appropriate thing to wear in front of him.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to watch a movie with me,” he tells you, and you nod your head. If you say no, he’ll surely tell your father somehow, and you can’t afford your allowance getting cut. Not until you find a decent-paying job, anyway. 

“Oh, uh, what movie did you have in mind?” you ask him, leaning on the railing. “I’m fine with anything, really,” he admits, shrugging as he stands up straight. 

“Alright, I’ll be back in a few. Maybe you can make some popcorn, get some candy?” you offer, turning just a bit so you can head back to your room.

“Where are you going?” Andy asks, crossing his arms. He’s got a serious look on his face, one you’ve never really seen before. “To my room, so I can change,” you say, a bit confused. There’s an awkward laugh laced in your words, but nothing appears to amuse the ex-lawyer. 

“Why would you do that?” he questions, and you furrow your brows. “I don’t have any pants on, and, like you said, it’s a bit cold. I’ll be quick,” you promise. Although you swear you have complete control over your body, you don’t move. It’s like you’re waiting for his approval. 

“I think your outfit is perfect, actually. Come on,” your father’s friend urges, and you scoff. “I won’t take long, Andy, I swear,” you continue, knowing the man has a bit of a temper. 

“I doubt you won’t, but I don’t see why you need to change. It’s perfect for what I wanna do to you,” Andy growls, grabbing your hand. You yelp as he drags you to the couch with ease, throwing you onto the cushions. His words make your stomach drop.

You barely have any time to run off. The older man is on you quickly, holding you down to the seat. Your sweater has now risen up, giving him a perfect view of your panty-clad ass. 

“C’mon, Daddy hates it when you’re being a brat. I know you can be good,” Andy grunts, straddling your thighs. “Get off of me!” you demand through gritted teeth, but your attempt is futile. 

“Shh, shh. It’s okay. Daddy’s got you. I just want to take care of you,” he whispers, left hand keeping your upper body pressed into the sofa. “But I can’t do that if you’re a bad girl, right?” Andy continues.

You feel his large, rough hand pull down your underwear, your soft flesh rippling from his harsh movements. “That’s fine. Daddy will just have to spank the attitude out of his little girl.”

[yan-lorkai]

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ A/N: I'm back at my Azul lover era. Azul never did a wrong thing in his life, he is just a silly little octopus and oh so generous to help people in need. His hair looks so soft too, I kind of wanted to pet his head and put stickers on his cheeks without him realizing.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Warnings: Soft yandere content, gn!reader, Azul's insecurities, fluffy.

Azul sat at his desk, scribbling some notes and making calculations for his latest business venture - or so he told you. In fact, you knew he was just writing down information about the new students to use at the most opportune moment. Distracted, you took to observe him, his soft smile that graced his face, the twinkle on his eyes, hair slowly cascading over his eyes momentarily as his glasses slipped through his nose.

He was so handsome, so cute when he was focused on something, you couldn't help but squeal and giggle, feeling your heart swell with love as the seconds go by.

He looked up, without a doubt being capable of feeling a distinct pair of eyes fixed on him and he found your gaze, lingering, intense and filled with an emotion he couldn’t quite place.

"Is there something on my face, angelfish?" He asked, trying to keep his tone light but unable to hide the nervous edge in his voice.

Your attention made him acutely aware of every little flaw he imagined in himself. Memories from his childhood surfaced, of taunts and jokes about his weight, the sting of rejection and the loneliness that followed making him isolate himself till he met the twins. To this day, he had worked hard to change his appearance but those scars ran deep and the insecurities lingered. You knew it.

And it hurt you to know that he may not think much about himself because of his fears. He was perfect in every way.

"C'mere, take a little break." You motioned for him to sit beside you.

Gathering his courage, he stood and made his way over to where you sat. You were smiling warmly but he could only feel his heart beating loudly.

You shook your head, still smiling. "No, nothing at all."

"Then why do you keep staring at me like that?" He pressed, his voice softer now, filled with an uncertainty that made your heart ache.

You reached out, gently taking his hand and pulling him to sit beside you. His cheeks flushed slightly at the contact, his fingers trembling ever so slightly in your grasp.

"Azul," You mutter, your voice tender and reassuring, "I look at you because I find you incredibly cute."

He blinked, taken aback by your words. "Cute?"

You nodded, releasing his hand to cup his face, your thumb brushing lightly over his cheek. "Yes, cute. You’re handsome and intelligent, but more than that, there’s something about you that’s just... endearing. I love seeing the way you concentrate, the way your eyes light up when you talk about something you're passionate about. The sound of your voice is so smooth and soothing. I love to hear you talking about your day and the things you've done."

Azul felt his heart swell with emotions he rarely allowed himself to feel. He searched your eyes for any hint of insincerity but found only warmth and affection.

Before he could find the words to respond, you leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. It was soft, brief, but it conveyed everything you felt. When you pulled back, you saw the surprise and happiness in his eyes.

"I... I don't know what to say," He admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.

"You don't have to say anything," You replied, guiding his face to rest over your chest as you played with his hair so gently and calmly, twirling the strands. "Just know that I love you, Azul, exactly as you are."

He felt a weight lift off his shoulders, the insecurities that had plagued him for so long fading just a little under your gaze. For the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to believe that maybe, just maybe, he was worth loving.

[mochiwrites]

Scar feels numb when he hits the succeed button.

He stands alone before the Secret Keeper, staring up at it’s blank face with an equally blank expression. The shock is still in effect, his brain still attempting to process it all.

He’s alive.

But no one else is.

He stands at the monument of the server, the center point of everything. The wind blows, and it feels wrong. He gains five more hearts. A new book appears before him. There is no one to cheer as he hits the succeed button. There is no one to yell ‘fail’ in his ears for someone else.

It’s just Scar, and his task, and a graveyard littered with holes. Pearl’s voice is still ringing in his ears, the way she sounded up until she died.

“How did the guy with no friends win?”

He doesn’t know. The Secret Keeper made him the villain of the server, he had no friends, no matter how hard he tried. His tasks always got in the way of it. Maybe it was easier that way, not having any true alliances. He knows first hand what it does to someone when they have to kill a partner to win.

Scar is alone now, truly alone. He turns around, keeping his back to the Secret Keeper as his eyes survey the spawn before him. It doesn’t sit right, the lack of people gathered around. Sure, their numbers had dwindled a bit during the last few sessions, but it wasn’t by much. The group got smaller, and now it’s just him. Just Scar, the villain.

A laugh bubbles out of his lips, and suddenly Scar can’t hold it in. His task falls out of his hands, hitting the ground and his arms wrap around his stomach as he doubles over with laughter.

“This is— this is one heck of a funny joke guys!” He’s laughing so much it’s hard to breathe. “I wasn’t even trying to win!” That’s what he had told Pearl. He didn’t think he’d survive this long. That’s only happened one other time and…. Well.

His laughter dances on the air, filling the space of nothingness. If he pretends, he can hear the others laughing with him, alongside him.

“You did all that to make me the bad guy. You kept me from making any friends!” A hand covers his face, holding it as his laughter shakes his body. “You guys made me the villain of the server and somehow I’m the last one standing!”

It’s so ridiculous. Maybe there’s some kind of irony in there, Scar can’t be bothered to look.

“How did the guy with no friends win?”

He doesn’t know, but it’s kind of funny. Scar stands alone at the end of the world, with nothing but the things in his inventory and a server full of craters. The big statue behind him stares down at him, but he doesn’t care about its gaze. He continues to laugh, because if he stops, he fears what’ll happen.

“No one thought this would happen, everyone doubted me.” Scar was with them. He didn’t think it’d happen either. Him? Scar? Winning a Life Game? Three hours ago he wouldn’t have believed it. “But what do ya know! Villains can win too, sometimes!”

He’s not sure if he can call this a win. He’s alone on an empty server, with no one around. Scar thought he knew what loneliness was, a cold mountain with deepslate walls and wooden ceilings. But this? This is real loneliness. There isn’t another person around for miles. Every base is destroyed and empty, carnage left behind.

There is nothing here for him.

Scar’s laughter slows to a stop. His stomach hurts. So does his face. He straightens, standing tall as he takes a deep breath. He looks down at his task on the ground.

Win Secret Life.

“Is this what it’s like?” He addresses his question to the sky. There is no one to answer him, but he knows his question will be seen. Scar looks back to the server.

It doesn’t feel much like a win at all.

[setsugekka]

↳ Forever was simple: meet a man you love, and live happily ever after.

A hope built on lies, and when it all comes crashing down, you find a new faith inside of the atrium at the countryside.

painter!lee minho x fem!reader/prince!hwang hyunjin x fem!reader (side pairing) — arranged marriage au, historical au. royalty, slow burn, angst, idiots in love, sexual content. [26k wc] cws: themes of vaguely period-typical sexism, themes of loneliness, (heavy) pining + the poor decisions that sometimes result from that, themes of social anxiety + using alcohol to cope, heavy sexual content.

𝕀.

Everything around you glitters in the ambient light of the evening masquerade ball.

Tables lined with beautiful cloths sit along the edges of the ornate hall, piled high with decorative and delicious foods. Amber, bubbling drinks flow and occasionally spill out of long, crystal glasses held by perfectly manicured hands holding them just a little too excitedly.

The kind of night life that you have grown so accustomed to.

Your dress is stunning and perfectly to your tastes, hair styled to match and draped in decadent jewels to showcase yourself with. The suitors are dressed much in the same, though in far more drab colors as men tend to do. This is of no consequence to you, because your eye is set on only one in particular.

Crown Prince Hwang Hyunjin.

You watch him from across the marbled floor, through groups of guests who might as well not even be present with how rapt your attention is on him. He is tall and broad, far from lanky but toned enough to give the impression of a certain kind of sturdiness that has always edged a particular curiosity in you. Hyunjin's hair is black, tied back from framing his face with its length, and you watch him laugh through conversations with other women who likely desire the same thing as you.

Engaging in private rendezvous with potential suitors is strictly against the royal code, all the more reason that no one must ever find out about the edge above the rest that you have taken for yourself in regards to him.

The memories date back to the summer—winter now—a late night out with other women that you've mostly grown up with and set as your entourage. The first time, running into the royal Hwang entourage without prying eyes to watch you felt like something of a hint, and the second, more of a blessing as the night ended with soft hands against your skin, and plush lips pressed against your own.

These secret encounters carried on through the months, as well as implicit promises in relation to the royal choices soon to be made. Between the sheets and with warm breaths of air exhaled against the shell of your ear, Hyunjin has promised time and time again: "You will be my choice, you have nothing to fear, my love. It's all for show and display, isn't it?"

You believe him.

"Are you going to spend the whole evening in the corner by yourself?" A woman steps up beside you with a knowing grin, and you offer your elbow to her side lightly in response.

"I've no particular interest in showing myself off like some prized cut of meat for men to fawn over, you know this, Sana."

This woman, a friend since your earliest days, looks out across the crowd not unlike yourself just moments before, and then offers yet another smile of understanding before speaking.

"Not for men, perhaps, but for a man," she says. "Are you really so sure that you only carry interest in Crown Prince Hwang? There are so many other perfectly acceptable suitors to choose from."

You sigh, taking a small sip from your glass. "I do not doubt that there are, but when have you ever known me to be the type to spread myself so thin between any such possibilities in life? I have always been something of a single-eyed woman."

"That much I do know, yes," Sana says with a small laugh, "but I don't want you to be left with nothing in the event of things not turning out the way that you wish them to. The Prince has many hopefuls, and while he is the only prince, would it be so bad to consider a life outside of the royal court? You've never much cared for the excessive nature of their goings on, anyway."

Turning to look at her, you cast Sana a questioning glance, "I have grown up in the lap of luxury, it is all that I know, are you to imply a step down is what suits me rather than a step up?"

"I would never, but there are many levels between poverty, and royalty."

"Anything other than a step up, is a step down," you say firmly, pressing the rim of your glass to your painted lip again. Your eyes wander out towards Hyunjin once more, and a slight curve upwards takes them, perhaps some enjoyment in the fact that you know something that even your closest confidants do not. Perhaps some enjoyment in the fact that you have already won a game that the others still insist on competing in. "Besides, do you think not of me as future Queen?"

"I wouldn't dream of such a thing, just remember me and all of our times shared once you begin lobbing off the heads of people who dare to oppose you."

Feigning horror, you reel exaggeratedly, "Now who is assuming things?"

Sana's hand finds the small of your tightly bound back, and lightly pushes you forward.

"Go dance with your future husband, would you?"

𝕀𝕀.

While far from unusual for your nights to end up like this, perhaps after everything that this one has presented, the aura casts something different, something intangible and strange that you can't quite grasp despite its familiarity still.

The masquerade ball winds down three levels from where you reside now. People still dance and laugh and shout amongst themselves, though the largest collective of guests have long since begun their journeys back to their own homes. Your entourage awaits you somewhere outside for much of the same, though they have long since learned not to bother coming and finding you in the event that you have disappeared.

For that, you are thankful, because nothing good can come of being discovered like this.

The room is small—a sitting area with little more than a table, chair, window, and tall bookshelves filled to the brim with just that. Moonlight shines in as the only illumination, faint and appearing cool to the touch if one were able to. Only enough to find one's way, and plenty to remain hidden in the darkness while people engage in their disagreeable deeds.

Lips hurriedly find your own, teeth nipping at them with a needy hunger. Palms graze up the outside of your legs, dress hiked up and leg eventually along with it. The door is pinned shut by your back firmly pressed against it, your head tips back with a small thud, Hyunjin chuckles under his breath at the sound, and then drives his hips forward to give the both of you what it is that you've been waiting all evening for.

"I saw you speaking with Lady Sana this evening," Hyunjin whispers, mouth feathering against your neck. "Am I wrong in suspecting that you were speaking about me?"

He presses himself forward, pulls your body down and against the effort simultaneously, ensuring no space is left between your figures. You gasp at the feeling, and he smiles at the sound, fingernails digging into the flesh of your thighs and hips in places that you don't dare let any of your house staff see.

"You would not be wrong," you reply, forcefully maintaining some semblance of composure. "Only good things, of course."

Chest pinned against your own, Hyunjin pulls back, then presses into you again. The glide is smoother this time, and you can't help the moan that escapes you suddenly.

"Have you told her?" he asks, drives quicker and less shallow than before. "I must announce my decision tomorrow afternoon, not long to wait now."

The ability to converse is leaving you with each steady roll of Hyunjin's hips. Your fingernails grip tightly into his suit jacket, though it grants you little purchase with the smoothness of it. Harder, faster; the tell-tale signs of nefarious activities beginning to be heard in rhythmic fashion against the wood of the door, as well as the explicit, unmistakable sound of skin meeting skin.

"No," you manage to say, though barely, "I would never, would never jeopardize what we have waited so long for."

Hyunjin's lips trail up your neck, along the edge of your jaw and settle lightly against your own. He kisses you gently, then merely sits there to drink down the gasps and whimpers of you accepting him. There is little time for this—something that the both of you know—rolls and snaps of his hips become quick, erratic in order to meet his end, and so he does with the kind of rapidity that leaves you terribly wanting and wishing for more.

There is a parting kiss left to you, and Hyunjin readjusts himself so that he can reemerge into the public. Smoothing your dress and slipping out from the doorway, he cracks it open to leave but looks back at you with a smile that you can only assume to be full of sly adoration for you, and for this. The joys of engaging in such things unbeknownst to others, the excitement of deception.

"A shame that tomorrow we will put an end to this, isn't it?" he says.

A shame indeed, you think to yourself. And then he is gone.

𝕀𝕀𝕀.

Just as you had anticipated it would, the city streets come alive for the naming of the Crown Prince’s companion.

Bodies crowd around you by every inch, music performed with accompanying dancers displaying their crafts as well as shop setups lining the way selling beautiful merchandise; hand crafted with care that shines blindingly under the sunlight above.

As you move along your way, the numerous scents of charred meats and grilled vegetables infiltrate your senses, all encompassing and inviting in a way that makes you almost wish to give up on what it is that you are meant to do today. In order to keep your mind set, you remind yourself that soon you will be at the receiving end of royal chefs and all that it is they have to offer you. There is charm to the street cooks and their home grown and cut ingredients, but nothing matches the knowledge and adeptness of the throne.

You have dressed simply today, not wanting to draw attention to yourself nor wanting to appear expectant. Reaching closer to the stage, the bodies are packed in far more tightly, as do the frequency of other potentials come more into vision. So many women; hair stacked high and curled in such a lovely way, all standing in wait in their best dresses with moderate jewelry. It is cold today, and the lavish, heavy coats that hang around their shoulders allude to as much, but you are warm with a deep understanding of what you are to gain this afternoon.

 A few rows back from the front of the stage, you find Sana as well as another friend shared between the two of you, Tzuyu. A beautiful woman wrapped in dark vermillion red with black hair that hangs so opposingly to Sana's blonde. They both smile and greet you, as do you, to them.

"Are you anticipating the naming as much as the rest of us are?" Tzuyu asks, a bright, cheerfulness to her tone that gives her something of a charmingly juvenile expressiveness. "So many women are here in wait, I do wonder what His Highness has in store for us."

"A difficult choice awaits him, no doubt," Sana adds, glancing up towards the place where he will soon call his decision towards the people. "I question how these sorts of decisions could ever be made through matters of the heart, but I suppose when it comes to royalty, the heart is of the least concern."

Pulling your coat tightly against yourself, you force back the smile that wishes to take your lips. "I trust that he will make the right call, do you not?"

"I'd sooner disappear into the forest, never to be seen again than dare speak ill of the royal house and their choosings," Sana says through a laugh. "Besides, I would be banished to such a place for doing so, anyway."

"You speak in theatrics," Tzuyu scoffs, a roll of her eyes punctuating it. "The rulers of our country are not so sinister."

"One can only hope, but knowledge of the Crown Prince and his ways are not well known to the people, only time will tell if he is as benevolent of a ruler as His and Her Majesty are," Sana says.

You look at her questioningly, "You suspect otherwise?" you ask, but she is quick to shake her head.

"No, but I am realistic in all of the possibilities that lie before us. Quite the contract, in fact, I have heard rather good things."

Sana's tone is peculiar to you in a way that you find difficult to pinpoint as she speaks on the intricacies of Hyunjin's personality. Her face is simplistic enough to not give anything away, but the sound of her voice carries a sort of inflection when referring to him that settles a strangely ire spark within your chest.

You are given no time to question it further, however, because the royal guards set themselves perfectly in place along the stage, and the arrival of the throne is loudly announced from beyond.

His and Her Majesty step forward first, luxuriously sparkling with expensive jewels and fur coats that you would otherwise never hope to afford, not even from your own place of incredibly comfortable class. The two of them settle in the background, and without wasting any further time, the man that you have grown to love and adore enters the stage in long, tall strides that exude confidence and elegance both.

Thankful for your place in the crowd, you gaze up at him and await his eyes to meet your own. A scroll is handed to him by one of the royal staff from just outside of the main stage, and he slowly unfurls it for all waiting eyes to see.

Hyunjin, all white in attire and garnished with a stunning sash that weighs heavily with brooches and sigils, inhales deeply and then looks out towards the crowd. You stare expectantly, because this is your time. So many nights shared hushed and secret between the two of you, discussed between sheets and pillows of just this very moment that will be granted unto you. His eyes do not find yours, but it is of no particular concern to you, as there will be so many more times for adoring moments to be had between the both of you from this day forward.

No more secrets, no more hiding your love for one another.

"Thank you for gathering here today, it is an honor for me to be able to share this with the people of my country. I do not wish to take much of your time, as there are far more convivial activities for you to be partaking in, aren't there?"

Gentle laughter resounds through the crowd, and Hyunjin smiles ever so slightly at the sound of it before glancing down at the paper in hand once again.

"With my greatest pleasure, I will announce to you the future Queen of the Hwang throne…"

Excitement flows through your veins, head light and nearly dizzying as you await the call. You clutch tightly to your robe, knuckles white and forcing your breath steady as the seconds pass by you like decades until the name is called.

A name is called.

"Minatozaki Sana."

A name that does not belong to you.

From just beside you, a shriek falls from Sana's lips but is forced back halfway through, presumably as to not embarrass herself. Tzuyu clutches at the friend’s shoulders and the two of them celebrate with covered mouths, wide eyes, and hushed shock. The world dulls into a kind of unfelt, nonexistent quietness around you as you stare forward and towards this man; this man that you have shared your body and a bed with, so much of your time and trust with.

He has betrayed you.

You can no longer hear the other women around you, shrouded in disbelief as you gawk at him. Something within you wishes to disappear—humiliation beginning to thrum up and across your skin—there is a small token of solace in the fact that no one else knows of your engagements with him prior as it is widely and heavily frowned upon for the both of you, but this knowledge does nothing to ease the pain that swiftly starts to replace all of the other initial feelings that have befallen you in these seconds passing.

The dizziness begins to set in faster and heavier, you realize that you must take your leave now. You take a step backwards, bumping into another saddened hopeful, but don't even have your wits about you enough to apologize for having done so. Sana and Tzuyu grab at you, say something, but you cannot hear it through the thick blanket of betrayal that casts so heavily between you, and them. Perhaps you congratulate her, words leave your lips but you haven't the slightest clue of what they are. Sana is smiling, crying, so perhaps they have been adequate enough.

Another step back, and you look up towards Hyunjin again. This time, his eyes find yours, and all he offers you is the faintest of wicked grins.

You take your leave quietly, without another word. Heart hanging heavily and not allowing him to take the tears from you that he has so evilly and rightfully earned.

𝕀𝕍.

You are not given time to grieve your loss, as if to intentionally add insult to injury.

Unfortunately, your parents can only be as understanding as information granted allows them to be. The first month, you are given space to wade through your reasonable disappointment, but past that point in time, questions of your next potential suitor once again begin to find themselves at the forefront of discussion amongst the dinner table. You did not know this man, I understand your disappointment in not being chosen, but it's high time to look forward and set your sights towards other potentials, your mother says. Royalty is not everything, there are plenty of other perfectly well-to-do men to take your pick from, your father says.

You tell them that you will look, with no intention of truly doing so. Once the second month passes by with little more progress, you begin to find the signs around the house of your parents taking matters into their own hands.

Letters line the desk of your father’s library room, and one in particular causes the hair at the back of your neck to stand on end.

Only partially sticking out from beneath the stack, you just so slightly pull the corner to unearth more of the words that bring a sickness to your stomach. 

"Would be honored to be chosen as your daughter's suitor. The estate is grand and well-kept, though rather empty of life—" the sentence is cut off, you skip to the next area that you can read. "Staff around the clock. Any endeavors she wishes to engage in will be made available—"

The spin inside of your stomach has you reaching forward and clutching at the sides of your father’s desk. It has only been two months, and already there are discussions of having you shipped out and elsewhere, to a strange man that you have never met, and will be expected to placate in all of the ways that one might. While these sorts of scenarios are nothing new to you—the knowledge well known—this was never supposed to be you. No, you were to marry into the royal house, to be made Queen, and having done so through a shared love. 

Not pawned off to a stranger who intends to keep you as a moderately cared for pet. You have heard the stories of other such arrangements before; the best that you can ever hope for is a perfectly tepid and boring man who has no interest in your being there, and has only accepted it for the offerings that such an agreement carries between the families in a monetary and societal sense.

How could your parents do this to you? The truth of the matter, however, is that they do not know the intricacies of what it is that they are doing to you. The details of your prior goings on. They must never know, and god forbid potential suitors were to ever find out about your involvement with the Prince beforehand…shunned and displaced, you will forever remain.

Turning towards the doorway, you begin to take your leave. The wheels are in motion and there is nothing left for you to do. Moving forward, you will await the day that your father comes to you with the news of having come to an agreement with a man for the arrangement of your marriage, and you will grin and bear it as daughters of high class households are told to do. In the meantime, you will hope and pray that the man chosen by your father is a kind one, a simple one. Dull and uninteresting and with only enough attention to give to his own things.

𝕍.

Writing takes you by the soul, and always has for as long as you found yourself able to hold a pen.

Your timing in finding out about your father’s misdoings an impeccable sort, because it is only two days later that he finds you in the large study of your manor and informs you of the news. A decision has been made about your future—one that you have had no part in making—and you will be sent off in two weeks time to the northern countryside to live with a man who he describes as "kind, albeit a little eccentric from what I can gather." The documentation has already been signed, and as far as you are concerned in a legal sense, are now married to someone whose name you do not even know.

"Lee Minho," your father says quietly, and you can't help but wonder if the airiness to his voice is of true sadness in having done this to you, or a feigned one, only given because he believes it to be what you desire of him. "He's a painter, quite gifted. A very well-off man, you shouldn't worry about wanting for anything in the absence of our affluence."

Hand gripping the pen tightly, still pressed hard against the paper, you find yourself indifferent to whether or not he can see the displeasure washing over you.

"Understood, I'll have my belongings packed by the handmaidens in proper time."

Your tone is simple, offering nothing more than the most basic of expressions. He does not reply to you with any sort of swiftness, and instead sighs as he turns to make his exit.

"I'm sorry it had to come down to this," he says suddenly, and with no warning. "As you know, you are coming up on your age and—"

"I know, father," you reply, just as flatly as before and continuing with your work along the page. "It is understood."

He leaves, and your scribbling comes to you with a slightly more erratic speed.

𝕍𝕀.

The goodbyes shared with your family carry little weight, and while there is a large part of you never wishing for this day to have come, there is another area that finds solace in no longer having to live under the roof of people who have done so wrongly by you, and with such great ease.

All you needed was time, and you were not given that. Is it so difficult to carry empathy for people who are hurting? To cast aside asinine traditions of age and worth for the sanctity of caring for those that share blood? 

Sitting in the back of the carriage as it plods along, you stare out of the small window and contemplate just that. What is family, if not the people meant to care for you above all else? Hyunjin betrayed you with a kind of extravagant ease, but your family, he was not. What excuse do your parents have to cast you aside so eagerly? All but sell you off to a man and for no other reason than to maintain social appearances. Yes, my daughter married that famous painter, Lee Minho. How exceptional and prized such a partnership is. 

The journey is a long one, and you hope to have settled in your anger by the time that you arrive. You have no interest in maintaining any sort of exceptional appearances with this man, but perhaps at the very least, he does not need to be on the receiving end of your indignation.

Instead, you fantasize about the perfect life you may be able to cultivate upon your arrival. Perhaps there are perks to him being involved in such a solitary way of life; you imagine two sides of the same mansion, one for you, and one for him. The painter and the writer, and never shall they meet.

𝕍𝕀𝕀.

Nighttime falls upon the land before you make your arrival, and late into the evening do you come. 

The estate is seen long before you come upon it, with a handful of lights standing out against the otherwise stark darkness of the countryside surroundings. You recall a mention of the home being relatively lifeless, and so few lights on inside certainly give truth to that. Barren trees line the street and as far as the eye can see given how deeply into winter it still is. There is little snow piled up into little hills along the ground, but it is impossible to see the vastness of the land without proper daylight to guide you.

When you arrive, a handful of house staff are there to greet you. Three women smile and bow, help you out of the carriage and then move along to retrieve your things. One remains with you, and you pull your jacket tighter so as to not allow the frigid air to touch you.

"It is much colder in the countryside than what you are used to," she says gently. "You'll get used to it in due time, but it can be frightening at first."

You glance at her, though not for long. It feels strange to be attended to by staff other than those that you are used to being handled by. This strange woman—older but softer in demeanor—smooths a hand down your arm with little more than a feather-light touch, and then offers you a slight yet understanding smile.

"My name is Mai, I am the head of the housing staff, you'll be seeing me around quite often, so I hope that we can grow comfortable with one another quickly. I understand that this is difficult for you, and strange, so please take your time. There's no rush to become acquainted with myself or the estate grounds."

It's only then that you come to realize the stark lacking of someone else's attendance to your arrival. You glance around slightly, perhaps you have missed him? But there are no men, and so, you ask the question, "What about Mr. Lee?"

Mai's features drop ever so slightly, like she feels some level of sympathy for you. Her hand smooths over your arm again, then gently tugs you towards the large doorway.

"The Master of the house will seldom make himself known, I wouldn't worry too much about that, dear."

"He didn't even come to welcome me, a strange sort of fellow to not bother greeting his wife upon her arrival," you say pointedly. It garners another, particular sort of look from the woman bringing you inside.

"Yes, the Master has been referred to as strange before, this would not be the first time. Please don't take it personally, or as some sort of slight towards you individually. I'm sure that given enough time, the two of you should meet and become acquainted with one another."

You chuckle under your breath, "Husband and wife, acquainted with one another. What have my parents done."

Though your wish upon arriving has ultimately come true, you sift through the confusion in your feelings regarding Minho's disinterest in finding you. The woman that he has taken into his home, agreed to marry, surely expected to have children with—yet with no apparent interest in your being there whatsoever. Stepping inside of the home, it shines and exudes beauty, almost like a museum. Pieces of painted art and statues sit at every inch, as far as the eye can see, but all you can think about is the absence of the man who has beckoned you here.

"I apologize for the darkness of the estate, as you know, it's quite late. I hope that you will take it upon yourself to wander tomorrow during the day. Everything is yours, please make yourself at home." Mai extends a hand forward and towards the large staircase, then points upwards at the centered emptiness created by the winding steps. "At the highest level is the atrium, the only place that is strictly off limits. The Master does most of his work up there, though it's difficult to simply stumble upon, no cause for concern as far as that goes."

Continuing to gaze up at what feels like forever, you slowly bring your attention back down and then fully towards Mai.

"Why has he brought me here?" you ask.

A single corner of her mouth perks, as if contemplating offering a smile that may or may not be apt. Besides that, however, the only expression of feeling you can find amongst her features is that of compassion, and perhaps, maybe even pity.

"As you know, these sorts of things tend to be about maintaining appearances…" Mai trails off, likely on account of having nothing more to add to the fact. It is plenty enough, and indeed, you are very well aware.

"I'd like to be taken to my room now."

There's a hazy numbness that finds your limbs as the staff take your things and begin moving towards the stairs. This is your new life, your new normal for the rest of your life. A loveless existence, a loveless marriage with a man that you will scarcely meet. You wonder, albeit briefly, what you have done to doom your existence to that of such fleeting tenderness. 

Hyunjin did not love you, but he was willing to pretend, and while your body was beneath his, you could so easily believe it.

Minho does not love you, and will not even grant you as much. No willingness to try, no interest in feigning the possibility of as much. You are not so foolish to expect to fall in love with this man, but is it so wrong to wish for moments that offer themselves to the fleeting fantasy of it? Infrequent dinners, shared glances from down the hall, and if all goes well, even a kind of friendship developed amongst incapable lovers.

Your bedroom is stunning and immaculately decorated. Mai informs you that anything that you wish to have added or removed is yours to have, and that she will see to it being done swiftly. The walls are lined in a dark, royal blue and accented at the corners with incredible, gold fillings that make the estate feel more like a castle than a simple home for only one man and his house staff. 

The thought is appreciated, but you truly cannot fathom wanting for more, not in the physical sense of owning and acquiring physical things. The emptiness inside of you is so much heavier and deeper than the shade of the walls, or the perfectly waxed oak of the floors.

"Thank you," you say. The words are small, and sound far more defeated than you would like them to. Mai is heavenly, everything that you could ever want from someone that you're likely to be spending the majority of your time here with. "What time shall I come down for breakfast in the morning?"

Mai smiles in the doorway, her light gray dress swaying with every slight movement that she makes.

"Eight is standard for the house, but whenever you prefer. If you are an early riser, we can see to it that it is ready and waiting for you by the time you find your footing."

You glance at your handbag, manuscript of your writing sticking out by the corner from it and make your decision going forward.

"I am something of an early morning type. I like to write, I find that I do my best work before the rest of the world begins to stir," you say, forcing a small smile into your lips. "I don't require much, especially just for one person. Just some small breads with butter and coffee will suit me just fine."

Mai nods happily, so obviously delighted by your willingness to allow her to do what she does here. "Of course, anything you wish. If you need anything else in the morning, please don't hesitate to inform any of the staff, we want to make your transition here as smooth and seamless as possible."

"Thank you," you say again, and Mai takes her leave.

Sleep does not find you well that night, despite the weariness of your body from the travel. Instead, your mind races with possibility and wonder about the ghost that you now share a home with, and when you finally do find rest, all that is there to greet you now is the dark, faceless silhouette of a man that you may never come to meet.

𝕍𝕀𝕀𝕀.

Time at the estate feels as though it crawls, and yet slips away and through your fingers in ways that make it feel as though it doesn't really exist at all.

Another month passes you by, a new routine set into motion not unlike yours from back home. Different settings, different foods offered; scents that arrive to you like they are foreign and fabrics against your skin that feel entirely different from that which you have become accustomed to. Life here is easy, and for that, you are thankful, but the dull ache of listlessness begins to take hold of you faster than you might have anticipated it to, and your curiosities about the manor creep up and make themselves known to you without much of an ability left in you to fight them off.

You have yet to meet Minho, even in all of your time here. A month is not long to spend in one place, but feels like a lifetime to not have met the person that you live with, the man that you are married to and meant to spend the rest of your days alongside.

Writing, at the very least, comes to you with incredible ease while cased inside of these walls. Your manuscript—a sort of anonymous autobiography of your life—grows and grows like it is showered with all of the sunlight and nutrients of a lovingly kept garden. There is nothing else for you to do here, after all.

These routines come to you naturally, not one to stray from those things that come naturally and comfortably to you. In the mornings, you wake early to head downstairs to eat warm, buttered bread and take your cup of coffee; leaving towards the large study that sits looking off into the flowerbeds with a large, never dirtied window to grant you such a view.

Books surround here, as do their smells. You could never hope to read them all, though you might like to. When particularly down about your circumstances, you consider the fact that you have ample time to begin such an endeavor, as nothing else inside of this building will ever bother to ask for time from you.

One day after the mark of a month from your arrival, you stay up a little later than usual and slowly sip an aged, red wine from the shined lip of a glass. Your nighttime gown already drapes from your body, but you have no such intention of finding sleep any time soon.

For one reason or another, the atrium calls to you silently in the ambient darkness of the house.

The house staff is long asleep, nobody lurking the corridors to ensure that the inhabitants are not allowing the whimsy of curiosity to get the best of them. You step out and into the hallway, small candles lining the way and towards the stairs that lead further up, guiding lights beckoning you, asking you to follow them, telling you to take liberties not truly afforded to you.

So you do. Up so many flights, a climb that feels endless at points, until of course, you reach the top. 

Perhaps you had expected too much, built up the possibilities so much in your mind that whatever it is that you might find here never standing a chance in living up to your imagination. There is little that greets you once you climb the last step; no warning signs, no guards or traps set for intruders stumbling upon this place. Instead, you find an incomprehensible mess along the large and wide expanse of floor. Canvases sprawled as far as the eye can see—some still basking in their unmarred perfection, others splashed with color or linework—paint pots and filthy brushes, palettes that appear as though they've never seen the loving touch of water to clean them.

Furthest away from where you stand, you find a table and a single chair, though it would not seem to be used for its intended purpose with the way items have been set against and atop them. There are papers sitting on the wood, however, and your budding curiosity gets the best of you even more as you carefully step forward and over all of the belongings that coat the floor.

The floor beneath you is sturdy, and for that, you are thankful. There are no creaks of footsteps to alert anyone of your presence here, and when you arrive at the table, you find piles upon piles of letters pinned down beneath dirty, likely forgotten jars of water.

The penmanship of one draws your attention, familiar and loud as it stares back at you. It is from your father.

This date is recent, one of the few things that you can make out from where it sits. You care little for maintaining your invisibility here now, and pull the sheet out from within the others so that you can read it in full.

You realize quickly upon scanning it that you did not know what to expect, but what it is that you have found now somehow sits even more strangely in your chest. Your eyebrows furrow as you take in the words from your father—they are nonsensical in every sense of the word—incomprehensible when paired with the realism of your life at this place.

One part reads: I am happy to hear that the two of you are getting along so splendidly. Of course, it is impossible to say when putting together such matters, but I had something of a feeling that it would be right, and I am so blessed to find that this meeting has been a successful one.

He has been lying to your father ever since your arrival here.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

Your attention shoots up from the letter, which drops from your hand on account of the shock in being found. What jars you from your thoughts much more than having been caught, however, is not that fact in and of itself. Rather, it is the fact that it is the voice of a man that has questioned you.

And looking up from here, back towards the stairs, the moonlight shines in from the glass ceiling panels of the atrium, down onto the face of a man with somewhat long and relatively unkempt black hair that curtains in front of his eyes delicately. His jaw is strong, sharp; outlining narrow eyes and lips that settle into a somewhat upturned position when not forced into another shape.

Could it be…?

You do not respond right away, and neither does he press you further for a reply. Instead, the man carries himself forward and kneels down in front of a particular pile of painting supplies. Perhaps you hadn't taken careful enough notice of them, the way that the paint is still fresh and wet, now that you look at it.

His shirt is white, sleeves rolled up along his forearms and cuffed carelessly at the bend of his elbow. He appears strong, not at all the dainty, frail image of an artist type that one might typically assume someone like this to be. Somewhere within you swims the possibility that this is not the man that you are married to, merely some other person who also is granted the ability to use the atrium for its assigned purpose, but the thought seems asinine with the evidence presented in front of you.

He grabs a brush, takes a palette into hand and dips the bristles into something dark. One stroke, then another onto a canvas that has already been seen by his hand previously. He ignores you for many long moments, and as a result, you merely stand there in silence and watch as he continues on.

The brush dips into a jar of water, swirled around and faintly clinking against the glass. Then, the man looks up at you again.

"Is there?"

Forgetting that there has ever been a question posed, your mind races to catch up to what it is that he's asking. Nervousness catches your limbs, not knowing what to do with your hands, your feet, the expression on your face when suddenly and finally addressed. 

But you have no interest in answering his inquiry, and instead, pose one of your own.

"Why have you been lying to my father?"

"Ah," he says, the sound quiet and coming out with a knowing exhale. His attention drops back to the canvas and colors in front of him. "Do you make it a habit of reading other people's mail, then?"

"We've not even met once since I moved here, yet you're telling my father that we're getting along swimmingly, why?"

"Are we not?" Minho says, his engagement in the discussion confirmation enough of the fact that this is him. "No arguments, no raised tones or names called. As far as I'm concerned, we're getting along as well as one might hope, all things considered."

"We have never even met!" you nearly yell, dropping your volume at the tail end with the way that you know voice carries through the halls of the estate. This is a discussion meant for the two of you alone. "The least you could do after all of this time is introduce yourself to me, especially if you're going to be lying to my parents about the goings on out here!"

Minho looks up at you then, but his face is empty of feeling. "This is why I thought it best that we not meet, now I have to tell him that things have taken a turn," he says.

His face does not allude to it, but his tone very much does in the way that the faintest hint of amusement can be discerned throughout his words. Hearing such coyness does nothing to calm your growing resentment towards him, if anything, only adding fuel to the budding fire.

"Do you think this is funny?" you ask, anger laden in your voice. "Is that why you brought me out here? For your amusement, so that you could laugh to yourself in the late hours of the night about the woman that you're keeping holed up while I rot away inside of these walls and lament what my life might have been if my father had only allowed me a little more time?"

Stare unwavering, your eyes remain locked onto Minho's once you finish speaking, and he is not quick to reply in any fashion. Silence slips in between the two of you, only the faintest ticking of an old, antique clock stationed off to the side heard between the nothingness growing inside of the atrium.

Then, he sighs.

"I brought you out here because of the nature of our society and the expectation of certain norms therein. You know this as well as I do, what is expected of us by certain ages. Unfortunately for you, both of our time is nearly up and as a result, this is how fate would have it."

He explains it so matter of factly that the entire concept of these arrangements feels strange and foreign to you, despite its familiarity. Minho is right, and what he says to you is true, but it does little to make you feel calm in the matter. He offers you no comfort, no easiness or soft words to sort any pain that you may be feeling as a result of it. Perfunctory in delivery, Minho only gives to you precisely what it is that the two of you already know; nothing more, and nothing less.

You know this, but the dull ache of pain inside of your chest does not wane. It grows instead, so much so that you find yourself losing the ability to maintain disdain for him, or the fact that he brought you here, at all.

"Did you reach out to my father, or did he call out to you?" you ask, voice timid and broken. The details of the arrangement are of little consequence now, but you find yourself questioning it all the same. Perhaps they have only both ended up here by chance, and if so, is that the best possible outcome of all?

Lips thinning straight, it's a sort of forced smile that barely ever comes through, and Minho breaks eye contact once you present the question to him like he is aware that nothing he has to offer you will ever be enough.

The brush handle rattles against the glass once again, the sound sharp and jarring, bothersome to your ears now.

"He reached out to me," Minho says plainly, "and for that, you have my condolences."

𝕀𝕏.

Two weeks go by without so much as a sighting of the man that lives among you. In that time, however, a letter finds you from your mother. Late in the morning on a particularly dreary day, Mai comes to you in your study and hands off the envelope with a gleeful smile, seemingly thrilled to be offering you something instead of your husband.

"I was hoping that they would write to you soon," she says. "The early stages still require much conversing between the Master and your parents, but it's good that they have found the time to reach out to you now, as well."

"Yes, very good," you reply, forcing the sound of pleasantness through the words. You wonder if she knows about your meeting with Minho not so long ago, if she has been informed of your snooping and the knowledge you gained therein. "Thank you, I'll read it quickly."

Mai takes her leave and you are once again left to your things. Your finger slides beneath the flap of the envelope and pulls the seal apart, nimbly releasing the letter inside from its confines. Heart beating rapidly and not knowing what you will find, you attempt to steady your anxiety and land your eyes onto the page.

The words penned across it are happy ones, and that shifts your nerves at a sudden pace. She expresses her joy at all of the things your father has informed her in regards to his constant speaking with Minho; how well things have been going between the two of you, how worried she had been at the possibility of otherwise, and how proud she is of you. The words feel empty and as if they are not meant for you—how could they be? There is no truth held inside of any of it.

Once finished, you slip the letter back inside and tuck it away beneath your manuscript, opting instead to turn your attention towards the garden that awaits you just through the dampened window. Rain lightly pelts it, a calming sound that is very much needed in the aftermath of this reminder. 

Recalling your conversation with Minho in the atrium, you hone in on the specifics of it now. In particular, his stoic interpretation of this combination between the two of you. It was not he who intended to seek you out, and rather, the both of you share the difficulties of age and societal expectations that have been casted upon you at birth. A loveless marriage it is, convenience, even; but circumstances that the both of you are flattened beneath the pressure of.

You had once wished for him to be a man with no interest in you, and that is precisely what you have been graced with. Minho does not care for your presence, does not wish to spend time with you or converse with you in any way that people who share a home tend to do. This is what you had wanted for, so then why now does it feel so rotten to be on the receiving end of it?

A flash of lightning in the far off distance comes to pass, and it is at that moment that you come to your decision: you will make your way to the atrium once more.

𝕏.

Shadows flicker and dance across the darkness of the walls and bookcases lining the crescent shaped sides of the atrium, seen long before you reach the topmost step. There is no sound besides faint rustling, and the occasional, familiar clinking of wooden stick against glass rim.

Minho is there.

You reach the top and find him; on his knees and hunched over not unlike your last meeting in this place. His shoulders and back flex against the tightness of the white blouse that holds him, deceptively firm muscles that you are only now able to see from this angle. He stills briefly, silent acknowledgment of his knowing that you are there, but carries on with his task for a while before bothering to utter a word.

"You shouldn't be up here."

An expected warning, but it does little to deter you. Instead of turning back, you continue forward, towards him, and stop only a few more strides away. Distance given out of the goodness of your heart, and because you accept wrongdoing in ever having come here in the first place.

"Why?" you ask.

With busy hands, Minho remains fast at work, splashing blues, pinks and purples across the white canvas. His features do not twist or contort in any sort of way that one might expect from tortured artists who suffer at the hands of their crafts. Quite the contrary; he appears at ease, calm and collected in this place that is meant only for him and the creations that pour from his skilled fingers.

"For no other reason than it being my working space, and working spaces must be maintained as such." He pauses finally, drops the bush into the water sitting just beside and then looks up at you through messy, loose strands of black hair. "It is no place for conversing, especially if you wish to fight with me like before."

The reluctance in his voice, almost pained in the way that he says it, has your eyebrows pressing together with rather intense confusion. While it is true that you had been far from pleased with the discoveries made the first time you made your way up here, to call it something of a fight feels rather excessive to you, in hindsight.

"I wouldn't say that we fought, can you blame me for feeling the way that I had felt then?"

"Not at all," he admits with ease, "but you shouldn't go through my things, and you shouldn't raise your voice at me in regards to matters that are just as much out of my control as they are your own."

That rubs you wrongly, and your eyes narrow as a result of it. "They are not equally out of our control. You desired a woman to live idly in your home and that is what you received. I desired only the smallest allowance of time in order to get my surroundings back on track, and in the end, what I received was nothing more than being the aforementioned idle woman."

Minho sighs heavily, then turns back to the canvas in front of him. "How many times must I apologize for that? It's not as if I had known when the inquiry was sent to me that you would be so displeased. Is it not enough that I do not force you to engage with me?"

"That's not—"

"I ask nothing of you," Minho continues, a newfound pointedness to his voice. "I do not request your company in any capacity, no expectation of you to entertain me in any way. I do not bother you, I do my best to stay out of your way. Anything you desire, it's yours. Money, gifts, luxury cloths or even the most expensive art pieces from all across the globe…any of it can be yours, should it suit you."

His voice wavers as he reaches the tail end of his words, and the weight of it hangs heavy on your heart. Minho sounds sad, defeated in a battle that he hadn't even bothered to take on. 

Then, he looks up towards you again. 

"If a lover is what you wish to have, you may take one. I understand the difficulty in meeting people so far out in the countryside, but I'll see to it that the staff will accommodate your needs in any way."

Once he finishes, you stand silently just off and to the side of him. Your stares towards one another rest in the balance, you anticipate him saying more, but the words never come.

You frown at him, just slightly.

"What do you know about me?" you ask.

The question seems to take him aback, eyes widening slightly at the suddenness of it being presented towards him. His eyes fall from yours then, cast around the floor between you as if the answers sprawled out somewhere there. Eventually, he accepts his fate, and looks back up towards you.

"I…I don't know. Nothing, I suppose. Not beyond what your father has told me throughout our correspondence."

"My father knows nothing about me, not beyond the perfected image of daughterhood that I am expected to present. You know all about expectations, don't you, Mr. Lee?"

His watching you continues, but no words dare to be uttered by the man.

"Perhaps instead of holing yourself up here your whole life, you come down and do what is expected of you." Turning back towards the stairs that brought you here, you begin your descent down—one, two—and then pause to turn back for your final parting words.

"A man is expected to be seen by his wife, is he not? To talk to her, to know things about her, to learn. More than that, a husband is expected to do all of that, and even more. I refuse to allow you to use my invisible presence here as nothing more than a story that you can tell people while you're away presenting your art pieces. You wanted me here, and so I am. You will have to do better, because I have nothing left to lose, and the humiliation of returning home from a failed marriage is a far cry from the things I have already endured."

Minho does not reply.

𝕏𝕀.

The next morning, just as any other, you maintain your routines.

Exiting your bedroom, your feet pad along the floor one after another—simple slippers that adorn them, keeping your toes warm—the sound of it is one that you have now grown accustomed to, the echo as it carries through the emptiness of the estate.

Thankfully, as you draw nearer to the lowest level and towards the kitchen, the gentle music of other inhabitants fondly make themselves known to you. Scents mix in as well, cinnamon and coffee and vanilla all whirled together in the air that you can't help but find peace amongst it all. When you enter, you are greeted brightly by Mai, as well as the other housekeepers lending their hands to ensure a seamlessly run ship.

You offer your thanks, and head along your way towards the study. The door hangs ajar, just as you always leave it. No concern for whether or not Minho will make his way down and curiosity will get the best of him upon catching sight of your belongings; a man who has made it more than clear that he holds no such fascination in you.

The large seat situated in front of the window awaits you. Today is sunny, the short rain that tells a tale of spring soon to come, having since passed during the nighttime and bringing after its having gone bright skies and pristine white clouds. A good day, a nice day. You sit, opening the drawer inside of the desk and pulling from it the notebook that holds your manuscript. So many years of work, so personal and encompassing everything that makes you. 

With your back towards the door, you only vaguely hear the sounds of Mai's hushed utterance from just within the kitchen. Some exclamation of surprise, though it disappears with the same swiftness that it seems to have caught her. Perhaps a bug, or a misplaced knife settled within the wrong drawer—anything could be the case—and for that very reason, you brush it off and focus instead on the pen and paper before you.

Then, there's a knock at the wood of your door.

"Yes?" you call back out at it, unsure of what the housekeepers could be wanting from you. Your typical routine with them has been more or less concluded, no obvious reason for anyone to be looking for you now. "I've not finished with my first coffee yet, I'll come when I have, you need not wait on me and worry yourselves sick."

"Does the Lady of the house have a moment of her time to spare?"

Before you can so much as fathom it, your body whips around and you nearly wholly twist in your chair to look back at the place that the masculine voice has come.

As if what awaits you there could be anything else, anyone else; Minho stands in the small crack of the doorway, barely enough for him to fit half of his body through. He does not dare attempt it, waiting outside for your word of affirmation. His face is downcast, looking up through eyelashes at you like he is doing something entirely wrong of the both of you. Anticipating being turned away, expecting to be berated for having the gall to make such a brave attempt.

"Y-yes, of course, come in!" you reply, biting back the eagerness in your tone at the end of the sentence. Suddenly, you become painfully aware of the space around you and how unkempt you have allowed it to be. "I apologize, it's something of a mess. I only come in here to do some small tasks to keep myself busy and then I leave so I don't think much of keeping it tidy."

Minho steps inside, though the effort is barely there. Two steps into the room, and then he stops; looks around it like he has never been here before. Eventually, you come to understand that he is not so much looking at the things he keeps and rather, that he is avoiding eyes that belong to you.

"It is yours, you may keep it as you wish," he says. His hands dance between being cradled in front of himself, to similarly behind his back. Forward again, thumbs craned into his pockets, then out and to his sides—strangely, uncomfortably. He does not know what to do with them. "I apologize for intruding on your time like this, I—" he pauses, stops looking around once he realizes he has seen all that there is to see, and then has no other option than to look at you. This action is short lived, however, eyes quickly falling to the wood beneath his feet. "I believe that you were correct last night, in your assessment of me and our arrangement. For that reason, I want to make an effort. I want to…do what is expected of me."

Silence blankets the room, his eyes cast upwards again; "If that's all right, of course."

"Yes, yes of course it's…what I would prefer, I think." Once again, excitement that betrays your unwillingness to give too much, too fast. Even if he weren't looking at you, the glee would be heard in your voice. "At the very least, an effort made to get to know one another on a more personal basis. We may never fall in love, may never become lovers…it's impossible to say if we will ever even become friends, but I think it best for the both of us if there is some level of acquaintanceship here."

Minho nods once, swallowing so hard and through a throat so dry that you swear you can hear it. "Understood. Though I must say, I do…" he trails off in thought, returns to it only moments later, "I still intend to spend the majority of my time in the atrium, for work. I must insist that even with our new arrangement, you do not come up there. I will instead…make myself more common down here, or if you request my presence—not that I suspect you will—please inform Mai, and she will retrieve me."

"I accept these terms, but in the inception of such, it is only fair that I forge those of my own."

Eyes widening in shock, Minho seems surprised by your candor. Though you do not know him well, one thing you are thankful for is his seeming unwillingness to abide by much of the traditional social construct that exists around the expectations of the way that men and women are meant to engage with one another. You speak loudly and brashly with Minho, a man that you barely know, and he accepts as much with grace. When he wishes for you to not engage with him in such ways, he calmly asks it of you, rather than demands it through authoritarian fear.

When you wish to push back, he takes a step backwards of his own in order to grant you the space to do so.

"That indeed is fair," Minho agrees, a barely-there smile curving into the corners of his lips. "What does the Lady seek?"

"We have a meal together, most days. Breakfast or dinner, it is of no particular consequence to me. I do not know if you prefer the morning or evening hours, but based on your artistic habits and the dark circling beneath your eyes currently, one can only assume that breakfast is out of the question."

Your own smile perks up, and along with it, Minho's widens. He turns his head, looks over in an attempt to find the nearest reflective surface. Only a silver vase, his face coming out all wobbly and distorted as he looks at himself against it. The truth of your words is still found, however.

"I accept," he says. "Dinner. Let's have dinner together tonight."

You grant him a nod, and he cumbersomely turns towards the door to take his leave.

"One more thing," he adds, paused perfectly within the doorframe but choosing not to look back at you. "Perhaps we should…prepare for the conversations that will be had. It would be awfully unfortunate to waste our time together among the dead of an otherwise quiet night."

Charmed in all of the most fascinating and incomprehensible ways, you see straight through the veil that Minho has attempted to hold up. A million questions run through your mind already; regarding him, this estate, his work, where he has been, and you cannot fathom the possibility of him not experiencing the same. Rather, the second likelihood swims within your thoughts, humorously intriguing, and serving as the catalyst for your ability to begin putting the pieces of him together into something far more recognizable.

Lee Minho is reserved. Locked away in the countryside and borderline cripplingly timid in the face of anything new and not easily understood—made sense by the dabbing of colored paints onto a canvas, dragged and splotched into something that his eye can really and truly see.

Later that evening, Mai and her staff spend far more time and effort preparing a meal than is truly necessary. You worry to yourself slightly watching the lot of them hustle about—there are only two of you, after all—but Mai insists each and every time that she finds the concern spread across your features that she is actually quite thrilled to be doing something such as this for once.

"The Master does not have company often, and for that reason, does not frequently take a proper meal in the evenings," she says, delight dripping from her voice.

Comically to you, however, is the fact that Minho is here and seated at the table across from you already; spoken about as if he is not even in the room. You look him over when Mai admits as much and his features pan, somewhat pained by the truth of it all, you suppose.

"I'm busy in the evenings, more often than not, you are well aware of this, Mai."

"That's no reason not to allow us to have some fun in this kitchen." Her fists ball up at the tops of her hips, and then a handful of other staff begin making their way over to set dishes atop the table.

"You shouldn't say it like I don't permit you to do so," Minho says. He glances up at you briefly, as if to gauge how you're taking all of this. Worried you might think him to be an evil ruler of the manor. "You can, it's just—"

"Wasteful!" Mai finishes with a knowing nod, and then disappears from your side of the table altogether. Her next words are spoken from quite a ways away, down the hall and out of the dining area. "Enjoy your meal! Call for us if you need anything!" she says.

And then the room is silent.

The smells of roasted chicken and glazed vegetables quickly beckon your attention. Buttered dinner rolls in wicker baskets and already poured glasses of wine await each of you. The serving of food has already been completed, your plate piled high with items that drown in delicious looking gravy and topped with garnishes. 

You reach towards your wine glass, and make short eye contact with Minho along the way.

He clears his throat, shuffles uncomfortably in his seat after it, and then picks up his eating utensils.

"Some men," he starts, then waits, like he isn't sure that it's so much of a good idea, "some men can be strange about the types of food, or the amount, that their wives eat."

You continue staring at him, because what is the point of this?

Minho reaches for his glass, takes a large sip from it. "Uhh, I'm not like those men, so please, have your fill."

"Are you informing me that I am permitted to not go hungry for appearances?" you ask flatly.

"I—" he begins, short and cut off, not sure where to go from here. "Yes, I suppose that I am. I just wanted to be clear, in case there was cause for concern."

"With all due respect," you say through a light chuckle, "we're in the middle of nowhere, and I've not left the estate since I came. Who am I really intending to impress?"

Minho does not respond to that. He seems to be willing to relent to the conversation at just about any turn, which amuses and also confuses you. Watching him, he cuts into a piece of potato and carefully puts the chunk between slightly crooked, off kilter front teeth. Sort of charming, one of those quirks about a person's appearance that grows on you over time.

He looks up at you suddenly, then takes another sip of the wine.

"What do you do here? How do you spend your days?"

That is unexpected, though you can't quite pinpoint why. Perhaps it is the brashness of finally asking something so quizzical, so personal; a true attempt at learning something about you in a way not before seen or expressed by him. You do not answer right away, nor does he press further. Only the scraping of silverware against fine porcelain is heard throughout the space for entirely too long.

Might he think you strange for your habits? Is he someone safe to tell?

It's worth the chance, and you will yourself to be unbothered by any negative reaction that he may have.

"I…um, I'm writing a book," you say, steadying the tremble that punctures the words, "I do a lot of writing. In the mornings I wake up early, have my breakfast, and then I write in the study by the garden."

You remain nervous about Minho's reaction, but for no discernible reason you come to find. His eyebrows perk up, attention rapt by what it is that you've said. "A book? That's quite impressive, how long have you been working on it?"

"Oh, many years." Stumbling through the strangeness of his sudden exhilaration, you attempt to maintain your composure. "It is something of a memoir, so I have been collecting moments of my life for as long as I can remember."

Minho shakes his head, evidently stunned by such a possibility. "Writing is such a magnificent craft, everyday I wish that the gift of language and written word is the one that had come to find my hands."

"Painting is an incredible art, so few people are creatively capable of mastering the concepts of color or line like you have. Anyone literate can write a sentence."

Minho looks up and the two of you meet glances. It is a moment shared between people who have a newfound understanding amongst one another, and as a result, it feels special; magical. He smiles slightly, and you can't help but match it, too.

"Well, anyone can scribble color onto a canvas, but I think we both know well enough that there is much more that goes into the arts than that," Minho says, a newfound casualness that you feel as though you have only just unlocked to his tone. "Are you looking to publish someday?"

"I think I might like to, if the opportunity were to arise." You stop, reconsider the content therein, and correct for that. "Anonymously, or under a penname. Not my own."

He nods in acceptance of that, then takes another bite of food with his vision cast down towards the plate. In times like this, Minho reminds you of a small child, poorly socialized and unsure of how to move about the world with other people in it. He tries his best, has only the best of intentions, but it never quite feels as though it's enough.

Little by little, you're peeling through those layers. All things considered, so far, the journey isn't half bad.

"I'm pleased that we've decided to do this," Minho says, focused solely on pushing the broccoli around on his plate idly. "Spend time together, I mean. Getting to know one another."

Thus far, perhaps there is a part of you that cannot help but agree.

𝕏𝕀𝕀.

New routines unearth themselves throughout the estate.

Spring washes over the land in waves; flowers in their fullest blossom, live with color and birds that joyously scour the land for new perches to rest their tired wings atop. The trees fill in once more with lush greens and fruits that begin to fill in along the firm branches.

Minho makes himself more often seen throughout the manor corridors, though often brief and insistent on his having some other place to be. You learn not to take it to heart—his insistence in giving himself an out of the conversation—as it would seem that conversation with others is not a skill that comes naturally to him.

Still, you appreciate the effort. Some mornings, Minho slinks down the stairway and into the kitchen, long before his usual rising hours, and asks you about the agenda for your day. You often do not have much to offer him, but Minho watches on as you fill him in with his chin cradled in his hands and eyes that sparkle under the barely breaking dawn that washes in from the windows. He always smiles; somewhat crooked, with one side pulling ever so slightly higher than the other. It isn't a lot, but for now, it will do.

The month is April, and out of the study window you find Minho tending to the garden.

The outside grounds are not well traveled by you, partially on account of arriving to the countryside in the dead of winter. Now that the breezes have warmed and the snow has melted, it's as fine a time as any, and you carry yourself off towards the side door in the kitchen to take your first few steps into the garden that you have adoringly watched all of these months.

"Decided not to keep yourself cooped up in there, did you?" Minho asks playfully, only briefly glancing up towards you from his bent and knelt position in the turned soil. His hands are dirty—no gloves to be seen—but his forearms flex and pulse with strength as he rips at weeds and digs his holes. "People are going to start to think I don't permit you to leave."

"People? What people?" you reply. "Even my own parents have grown bored of writing to me. I don't think you live in any fear of what the people might think. Perhaps they assume that we are wildly happy together, no interest in sharing that with the rest of the unworthy world."

"Aren't we?" Minho says, chuckling lightly. 

You make an effort to ignore the question, as well as the way his muscles all appear taut and well attended to beneath his moistened white shirt. Minho is a good looking man, in ways that are a little surprising to you and even in spite of his lack of social character, but even as your husband, he is a stranger. A man that you now live with because it is nothing more than convenient for the both of you, not someone to be lusted after.

Hyunjin comes to mind suddenly. Every time you find yourself missing the touch of a man, it's him that torments you still.

"Of course." You make an effort to ignore the thoughts, and change the subject. "I didn't know you had an interest in gardening. Perhaps I wrongfully assumed it to be something kept up with by the staff."

"Wrong indeed," he says, wiping at his forehead with the rolled up sleeve of his shirt. His skin glistens under the spring sunlight, hair collecting the moisture of his face within its strands. 

You are only lusting after him in this way because you wish to be touched by a man again, you barely even know him, you reason. Some reason.

"It's something I picked up a good many years back, when I was shoved deeply into the success of my career. I spent even more time locked away with my work and my paintings, if you could even believe it," Minho says, smiling at himself at the memory of it all. "So, I had to find a reason to get out of the house. Not too far, or for too long, but something. Additionally, I enjoy the act of creation…" he pauses, picks up a small vegetable bulb and holds it up for you to look at. "What's more creative than life?"

You smile, wide and with teeth in a way that you don't remember having done in such a long, long time. Minho laughs at your reaction, and then carries on burying the plant into the ground as originally intended.

"You like to play God in the garden, then?" 

"I wouldn't say that."

"What would you say?"

Minho looks up, a surprisingly thoughtful expression etched into his features, as if really, genuinely giving the question an ample amount of thought. "I would say that I like to create!"

A beat of silence passes between the two of you, and Minho continues on with his task. You cock your head to the side, watching him quietly as he moves as if an incredibly bizarre exchange hasn't just taken place. The truth of the matter, you know without so much as even having to ask, is that the discussion is more than likely not strange to him, at all. A perfectly fine chat, nothing out of the ordinary.

Naturally, in the midst of moments like these is when Minho seems most at ease.

"You're a bit odd, Mr. Lee," you say. Calmness is heavy in your tone, marking down the potential distaste that might otherwise accompany such words. "Do you often hear that?"

"Yes, but my oddities and eccentricities are what make the mind tick, the art work and come to life. If I were anything other than myself, who knows what may come of it. I'd rather not find out. Oh, that reminds me—"

Setting his tools down and wiping his hands uselessly on his brown trousers, Minho pauses all of his toiling about to give you his full attention for the words that he is intending for you. His face appears somewhat disappointed, but there's something else mixing within the emotions that you might easily name that you can't quite pinpoint.

"At the beginning of the summer, around June or so, I will leave you to carry on with a showing. I will be gone until autumn time, perhaps November…it will be cold again when I return."

Your stomach drops, and that feeling shocks you.

"Of course, the estate is yours to do as you see fit, and you may leave it as frequently as you wish, too. All of the staff will be yours. It is all yours."

Your lips thin into a frown, and as it would seem, the reaction surprises Minho. He looks up at you in confusion, and perhaps quickly works through the thoughts by himself, because his eyes dip down and away from you, unable to share his gaze with your own with how displeased you appear.

"I'm going to be alone here…for months…"

"Well, you won't be alone…" he says quietly, offering nothing.

"We've finally begun the process of getting to know one another in a meaningful way, and now you're leaving until autumn…it'll be as though we're strangers all over again when you return."

"Surely it won't be that bad…" Minho forces himself to give you answers, but none of them quell the feeling that presses against your chest. "I'll return before you even notice I'm away. For a long time upon your arrival, it was as if I wasn't here at all."

"And I hated it!" you reply quickly, brashly. The words come out loud and honest in a way that you have not intended. Your eyes sit wide on your face, and finally, Minho slowly looks up at you again with eyes not unlike your own.

Neither of you speak for a long while, until Minho sighs and has no other option but to do so himself.

"I apologize, I…did not anticipate that you would feel this way about it, but nevertheless, there is nothing that I can do. This is a part of my work, I often must leave to do such things. The year after this one will be no different, and if it is, then the futility of fame and the fickleness of the human intrigue has finally caught up to me." He quiets again, continues trying to wipe the dirt caked onto the skin of his hands off and onto his pants uselessly. A pointless endeavor. It feels not unlike wanting to be loved. 

"I can…try to come home sooner, at the tail end of things. Sometimes it wraps up earlier than anticipated," he says, looking away from your disappointed eyes. "I've not bothered to rush home before, with nothing waiting for me. Not to imply that you are…waiting for my return…"

"I would like that," you say, simply put. "Suppose then we should make an effort to make these last two months together count, yes?"

Minho doesn't look up at you, too socially strangled to do so. It's not necessary, however, because the small perk at the corner of his mouth as a result of what you have proposed says plenty.

𝕏𝕀𝕀𝕀.

"Another lovely dinner, thank you, Mai."

She nods to Minho kindly, accepting the compliment, and then finishes up her small cleaning tasks to head out and away from the dining area. You look out and across the living room at the large window that leads into the garden—not unlike your study—and bask in the way that the moonlight shines down onto the glistening, wet leaves and petals that have since come to bloom.

"Have you been out yet? In the evening, I mean." Minho turns to you when he says it, notices where it is that you've been looking, but you shake your head.

"No, too busy with my writing, I suppose."

"You'll find an excuse forever if you allow yourself to, come on, let's go."

Minho doesn't touch you, but he waves his hand towards you and then back into the direction of the side door that leads into the garden. You follow along without much argument, wanting just as much to see what the grounds have to offer you, and perhaps now is as good of a time as any.

The nighttime breeze is cold, and you are not at all dressed to be traversing it with only a thin shawl draped over your shoulders. Immediately upon stepping down and onto the cobblestone pathway your arms fly up to cradle yourself, attempting to hug back the warmth that escapes. Minho seems far less bothered by the pricking of cold against his skin. He is never dressed in anything special or extravagant for as long as you have known him; a plain, white button down shirt with brown, fitted pants suited for not much more than becoming dirty without a care. 

Regardless, you push through. It is not often that the two of you partake in anything other than a dinner, or a coffee together. Two people so wrapped up in their own things that they nearly forget about the existence of the other. You make an effort—Minho is getting better over the weeks—but only so many hours in a day.

The two of you slip around the gray, brick corner of the home; grand in its stature. As far as the eye can see sit beds of flowers, ornate bushes, and the shining droplets of rain from earlier in the day that still collect on each. It's a beautiful sight, the way that they twinkle, and when Minho turns to look back at you, a rare and wide smile pulls at his face.

And then it falls.

"Are you cold?" he asks, concerned and rushing towards you instead. "You should have said something, only now do I realize that you're not dressed for the evening breeze."

"I'm fine, really," you insist, something of a lie with the way that you tremble. He must not be thinking clearly, too wrapped up in the sight before him to thoroughly consider all of his options. Minho reaches for you, presses smooth, warm palms to your arms and runs down them carefully before grasping gently at your wrists and pulling your body against his. He wraps his arms around you—he is firm, both in body and embrace—and he smells like the strangest combination of paint and cinnamon.

Indeed, you are warmer now.

You are not unfamiliar with the touch of a man, and it is not that in particular that dredges up the nervousness in your stomach. Rather, you have never shared a touch with this man, and this man is the one that you live with, are married to. You wonder if it is only natural to have considered the possibility of wanting him; handsome, smart, kind, who wouldn't at the very least enjoy the fantasy of such a thing.

But never to touch.

Minho's hands, surprisingly strong and confident, inch down your back to pool at the small of it as distance is created between the both of your bodies. You crave the kind of intimacy that being like this gives you, but still it feels wrong when it comes from him. Accepting this arrangement as nothing more than a marriage of convenience cements certain ideas for the remainder of your time with this man, and one of those, unwaveringly, is that love and love making will be strictly absent from it.

Yet you enjoy the way that he touches you now.

In the dark of night, and just outside of the manor, Minho pulls back from you slowly and it's like this that you are finally able to see him up close, the tiny, charming intricacies of his face otherwise missed due to proximity. A small freckle on his nose, the ever so slight crookedness to his front teeth that—while you have noticed—are so much more handsome and real like this.

His eyes sparkle looking at you, and there's a pause before anything more happens. In your mind, you beg. Loudly asking for that which you seek, no matter the outcome. You can deal with that when it comes, and perhaps you don't even know precisely what it is that you desire from him now. Still, you beg; please, please, please…

Minho's eyes fixate on yours, and then drop down, down, to where your lips sit. His own part, as if with intention to speak, or a desire to taste, one you prefer far more than the other. He does neither, however, finds eye contact once more, but his fingers grasping harder into the loose fabric sitting at the small of your back sends chills down your spine in a way that the meeting of your lips might not even manage.

Do you want, Lee Minho? Do you crave, as well?

"We should go inside," he says, a whisper that shakes. His gaze finds itself fixated down towards your lips again, and all concern aside, you want in that moment for him to have you. "You're not dressed to be out here, you'll catch a cold."

If Minho has ever desired you, even for a moment prior to this, never has he shown so much as an inkling of it. Now, he stands unraveled, pulled apart and bare for you to see. You wonder if he aches, you cannot help but wonder whether or not the need will be sated.

"Yes, let us do that," you answer, but only because you should. No part of you wishes to find warmth within the walls of the estate. 

The following weeks bring a sort of comfortable bliss to the previously cold, ominous interior of the home. One morning, however, that all changes.

Early mornings are warmer now than they once were, each passing day cutting through the chilly breeze. The grounds come to live in lush greens and colorful petals; you've even begun taking trips out of the countryside and into the nearest, small town. It has little to offer besides functional necessity, but leaving the estate is a breath of fresh air that rejuvenates your senses.

You hope to make that journey today, but first, there is work that must be done.

The manuscript is coming along, words filling each page like they've always meant to be there. With your coffee in hand, you make your way towards the study that keeps your things like an untended vault. Secrets hide inside, but no one dares to seek them out—or so you thought.

You push the door open, and what you find is nearly enough to drop the cup from your hands and to the floor completely. Your heart stops similarly instead, and for a brief moment, you cannot believe your eyes.

Minho looks up at you from inside, standing by the desk from which you often work. In his hands sit all of your deepest, innermost secrets. Things you wish not to share with him now, perhaps ever, but the look on his face is one of someone who now understands everything.

He is difficult to read from here, his feelings incomprehensible from just what his features have presented as the two of your eyes meet.

You rush inside, though the damage is done, you know. "What are you doing?" you ask, making little effort to mask your feelings on this matter. Once you reach him, you snatch the pages from his hands and shove them back inside of the drawer from which he got them. "That's not yours to read!"

He does not respond right away, and instead, the room fills with a heavy silence. Minho's hands drop slowly to his sides as he watches you, lips pulled thinly across his face. He appears neither angry, nor sad. He has the appearance of nothing, at all.

"I only wanted to understand you better, get to know you more than what we already have, I thought…" he trails off, eyes falling away from yours, "I thought this to be the best way, suppose I was not mistaken."

You don't dare make an attempt to find his gaze, not looking at one another. It's better like this. Anger bubbles up inside of you, as well as the humiliation of everything that has led you to this point, to this place with him. "So, now you know. Now you know everything."

"I don't…" Minho starts again in response, once again there are words that he cannot seem to find with the same sort of urgency that he needs them. "If it is some concern about my feelings on the matter, I'm unbothered by what you've done, by your history."

"And why should you care?" you ask, the words coming out biting and spit like a kind of venom. "We are not involved in this partnership in any typical sense of the word. This is a marriage of convenience, and convenient it shall remain." It feels bad when spoken, as if betraying your own self-interest. What you feel it to be instead is the most logical course of action given the circumstances; neither serving you nor your heart as far as any potential, budding relationship between the two of you is concerned.

Minho's eyes dart up at that and find your own, but you continue on. "A wife for show, am I not? And for show I will continue to be. No one else knows, you will never experience the same sort of humiliation as I have, if that is your concern."

"It's not." His face twists at the words you've said to him. "That couldn't be the furthest thing from my concern. Do I come off as someone who loses sleep over the opinions of people?"

There's more fight in his voice now, something you're not used to hearing from him. It rattles you, but only slightly, because you are not frightened of him or what he may do. Rather, it serves as a sort of reminder of just how little you appear to understand about him. Most men, most husbands, in these situations would be livid, and demanding of the dissolution of a partnership from which has been built upon deception. This, however, would seem to be far from Minho's interest.

"I would be dishonest if I said that I didn't wish you had told me, of course I do, but I am reasonable enough to understand why you have not," Minho says. "You have lived a whole life before ever having met me, your path leading you elsewhere. That is neither my business, nor my concern. My concern is…"

He does not complete the thought and instead turns away from you once more. Minho makes his way towards the door of the study, but gives pause just before making his exit.

"I am to leave in a week's time, perhaps the space will do us well, after all."

The reminder of all of the time that you will spend by yourself hangs grossly dense inside of your heart. Everything about this feels so wrong, not as it was meant to ever be. Birthed from some incomprehensible place is the desire to beg him to stay, to not leave you here alone despite knowing that he cannot. So much progress has been made between the two of you, only to be spoiled by this; left to fester for the summer months, and you cannot fathom a scenario in which he returns having missed you now.

𝕏𝕀𝕍.

When Minho leaves for his trip, you do not bid him farewell.

Instead, you watch from the window of your bedroom as bags and canvases are piled into the carriage. Minho, Mai and the rest of the staff all smile and say their goodbyes—you can't help but wonder if he wishes you were there alongside them.

It is unimportant. What must be done carries on regardless, and Minho sits himself inside, the carriage pulls away, and down the pathway he eventually disappears; not to return until the leaves on the trees begin to color and fall away with the soon to be onset of winter air once more.

You wonder if you will miss him, only time will tell.

The passing months bore you, and offer you little to placate your wandering mind.

Summer is in full swing, it comes and works its way to closing before you have much of a moment to enjoy it. You make many trips into town to partake in the fresh bakeries and even engage with the folk who enjoy their lives there. They seem happy, you can't help but wonder what that must be like.

Though the manor had been lonely upon your first arrival, there is a stark difference between then, and now. The knowledge that Minho was there—somewhere—within the halls somehow serving as just enough of a comfort to take the edge off of the blanketing nothingness, now gone; and worse than that, you do not know what awaits you when he will return.

Mai offers you kindness, and that is appreciated, but her dedication to her job makes it so that the line towards friendship never truly becomes crossed. You have not seen your parents, and they do not write to you as often as you might like them to. Tzuyu has sent a letter or two, but they are as infrequent as the others, as she is busy with the courtship process herself after the announcement from the prince.

Seven days into September, there is a knock at the door.

Sitting in the vast living room area, surrounded by old paintings, books and other such decorations, the sun begins to set on the home and the summer heat finally starts to wane. The book in hand—one Minho had recommended before his departure—is one that tells the tale of an old painter who traveled all around the world, and gifted a canvas of his art to every person that he met along the way. You wonder if this is the life that Minho wishes for, you wonder if eventually, you will be left behind for good as nothing more than another collectible that he has accumulated inside of the estate.

"Miss…" 

Mai comes up from behind, wringing her hands strangely, unlike anything you've ever seen from her before. Nervous. "You have a visitor."

"I do?" you question, reeling. You are not expecting anyone. "Who is it?"

"I think it might be best if you come quickly."

She has never appeared so concerned to you, and thus, you make haste to follow her and trust her word. The strides past the kitchen and through the small hallway are quick and long, there's a kind of worry bubbling up inside of you. All of the worst potential things begin to muddle your mind; what if your parents have passed away and someone has come to deliver the news in person? 

But turning into the foyer puts a different kind of nail into a different kind of coffin.

Three men stand in the doorway, one on each side of the person intended to be the centerpiece of their arrival. A simple, loose black shirt draping over broad shoulders and a thin, lithe torso, cinched at the waist and carelessly tucked into the matching black trousers there.

He nearly gives the appearance of someone normal, everyday. Just a spot above Minho's own, usual look. Fascinating, the way your mind instantly moves to compare the two.

"Hello, darling," Hyunjin says. Then, he turns to his guards. "You may go."

You feel Mai's eyes on you, and quickly turn to acknowledge them. "Please, leave us."

She nods, and you can only imagine the questions running through her head. You have not a clue how you intend on ever addressing them in the future, but there are many things that you do not understand yet in front of you.

"Your Highness," you say, and then begin to take your bow. Hyunjin steps forward with a gentle scoff, and quickly waves the display away, instead setting his hand atop your shoulder as he moves past you and into the direction from which you came. 

"That's not necessary, let us leave the theatrics of royalty for the streets, where the people might see them, shall we? I think we are a long way away from requiring that between us."

And so you do. The two of you make your way back into the common area of the downstairs and each take an end of the lengthiest couch. Hyunjin sits leaned forward, hands clasped together and resting against his knees. His hair is still long and dark, you thought he might cut it to relinquish such a boyish, juvenile look, but you find that has not been the case.

"I must admit," he begins through a sigh, "I was a bit taken aback when I heard who it was that you ended up being married off to."

"Yes, well, suppose I experienced much of the same when it came to you," you reply curtly.

To that, Hyunjin smiles slightly and stares down at the floor between his feet.

"Fair play. Unfortunately, there are certain expectations…"

"Was everything a lie? Did you never have any intention of marrying me? Did you never love me? If there are expectations then surely you knew when we began our private affairs what could come of it all, so why…"

"It's not so simple," Hyunjin says slowly, turning to look at you now. "My parents have the majority of say in who gets chosen. How lovely it would be if falling in love were enough."

You look at him, but frown. The possibility that the choice be wholly out of his hands is not one that had ever crossed your mind, too busy cursing him for a choice that may have never been his to begin with. Your eyes rake over him, his face; and perhaps there is something of a sadness behind his eyes if you dare to give him the grace of seeing it.

"Where is Sana?"

To this question, Hyunjin sits back with a heavy, loud exhale. "At home, perhaps shopping with her friends as she tends to do. Where is Mr. Lee?"

"Away for work, until the end of autumn."

"It must be lonely, being cooped up here in the countryside alone for so long."

"I…" you hesitate, unsure of how much of yourself you wish to indulge in a man who has already hurt you so gravely in the past. "I make do."

Looking towards you again, Hyunjin's gaze is heavy and narrow, full of a silent contemplation that he has not yet shared with you. Talking to someone that you know so well feels comforting, welcomed. You feel at home. He is disarming.

"Does he suit you?" Hyunjin asks.

You hadn't thought about it in such simplistic terms before. Does Minho suit you? you question yourself in your mind again.

And then you give one, single nod. "He suits me enough, I suppose. Our partnership is a bit…unorthodox perhaps, but we find joy in each other's company."

His eyebrow perks up at that, catching the hint of something unspoken hidden between the words.

"Is that so? A loveless marriage then?"

You scoff, shifting uncomfortably in your seat at the mere mention of it, regardless of how much truth there may be in the statement. "I think loveless makes it seem so much more harsh than it is. I believe we have begun to care for one another in some fashion, over the months. We talk, we have meals together—"

"But he doesn't make love to you."

Stilling your awkward movements, you slowly turn to look up and meet Hyunjin's curious gaze once more.

"No. We've not…reached that point in our relationship, if we ever do." Your eyes fall away. "Surely you are familiar with marriages of convenience, and that very much is ours. We are both at peace with it. Minho is kind, he is accepting of my interests and allows me to do as I please in order to maintain a sense of self, I couldn't ask for more."

As if taking your words as an invitation, Hyunjin slowly begins making his way down the length of the empty couch and towards you. A wry smile tugs at his lips, and though the better part of you knows better than to entertain the possibility of whatever it is that this man may have to offer you, there does still remain the wicked loneliness of a woman who misses—craves—the adoring, wanting touch of a man who desires her.

You tell yourself to create more space between your bodies as Hyunjin comes near, to stand to your feet, to ask him to leave. You are not frightened of him, not an ounce of concern laden in you that he may wish to take something that you are unwilling to give him; no, the horror lies within the fact that you very much do wish to give to him.

Hyunjin's hand finds your leg. The touch is light, tentative and testing. You do not pull away.

"That is no way to live the rest of your days, my love."

It should be harder, you imagine, to give in to his whims. The consideration should weigh heavier on your chest, not handed over so easily once his lips find the skin of your neck, and shortly thereafter, your own. Hyunjin's hands smooth up your legs and beneath your dress, laid back against the sofa. He hovers over you with long, black hair that curtains the both of you inside of this moment. Unsure whether or not it is right, or wrong. For him, the answer is a simple one, but suppose these sorts of things are commonplace among men of a royal standing; after all, who exists to cast down judgment upon them?

His touch is electric against your skin, even more so with the first, slow press of himself into you. You gasp at the feeling. Indeed, you have missed this more than even you had known.

Still, you think of Minho.

When Hyunjin takes his leave once more and bids you farewell, new thoughts and feelings run rampant through your mind as you smile and wave down the cobblestone walkway. Perhaps there had been a kind of truth in his words—that this is no way to live forever—but you cannot fathom any other way, either.

Falling into Hyunjin's touch is easy because it is one that is so familiar. The same motions repeated time and time again and to a kind of perfection, however; something is missing, something that you cannot quite put your finger on.

𝕏𝕍.

The weeks continue to draw on, as does the day of Minho's return in November.

Leaves begin to change their colors, falling away from the branches that they once called their home. The flowers litter the ground, browning and dying to spring anew in the following year. It reminds you of your first arrival upon this place, though snow covered the land then. Not yet has it fallen for the first time this season, but soon it shall.

You keep busy, trying to put out of your mind the happenings in his absence. It is of little consequence to you what has happened in Hyunjin's brief visit, and perhaps the worst part of your soul considers it a kind of unearned payback towards a friend who had taken everything you had hoped for from you. It is unfair, not the kind of person you wish to be, and you put the thought to bed just as quickly as it comes to you. You do not expect to see him again, and in kind, you decide to never delve in such foolish and unbecoming behaviors regarding him even in the event that you do.

Written off as closure, there is some semblance of peace therein. 

On the day of Minho's return, the house is alive. The keepers of the manor all rushing around to ensure that everything is precisely as it should be for the moment that he steps inside; it fascinates you to watch them, knowing full well that Minho is not the sort of man to be bothered by the occasional, misplaced item or a spec of dust left upon the mantle. Of course, this is their job, and they take it upon themselves to make sure that it is done to the best of their ability. You wait just inside the foyer as good wives do when his carriage pulls up, and the quick, anxious beating of your heart comes to be a far more unexpected guest than the man of the hour is.

The doors open and he enters. Two other men are with him and aiding with his belongings, a sight that reminds you of Hyunjin's visit, and you are none pleased by that fact. Minho is dressed differently than you are used to seeing him; far more put together, and with a heavy coat sitting atop his shoulders. Hair less unkempt, it makes you wonder if someone had their hand at his appearance before he left to begin his journey.

He greets the staff first, those that arrived with him handing off his things, and then, he turns his sights towards you.

"Welcome home," you say, fighting back the shake of your voice. "Was it a good trip?"

"It was, but long. Too long for my liking," he admits with a smile. "I'm happy to be home, and not looking forward to having to do much of the same next year, but we'll take it as it comes."

The two of you step towards one another, and to your surprise, Minho takes your hand into his.

"How have things been while I've been away? Hopefully not too dull."

His eyes are gentle as he looks at you, and there is a part of you that wonders if he even recalls the events that took place only just before his embarking. If he does, he shows no signs of it; only a captivating adoration for you.

"Things have been fine…good," you say with a nod, eyes forcing themselves away from his own. Your nervousness and secrets catching up to you, making themselves known within the room. "The days passed as they do, I took many trips into the small town down the way, worked on my book…you've not missed much along the way."

You can feel Mai's eyes on you as you tell the half-truth, and for that reason, you continue on. Perhaps a wild assumption that you would be able to keep this large a secret strictly under lock and key.

Squeezing his hand lightly, you smile ever so slightly at him and say, "We should talk, there are some things. It would be best that way, once you're settled in."

"Of course, I only need a short while. A rinse off and a change of clothes from being cooped up in travel for so long, and then I'm all yours."

Pulling his hand away to attend to his things, you wish deeply to hold on tight—afraid that this may be the last time Minho ever offers you such a genuine, cherished moment.

Later into the afternoon, the changing colors of the sky can be seen through the windows. Hues of blues, purples and oranges that decorate it so beautifully, informing all of those who can see it that the sun is soon to take its rest along the horizon.

You stand in the kitchen, a bowl of fruits sitting before you. Apples, cranberries and persimmons give off their assortment of shades to choose from when Minho quietly makes his way inside.

Eyes meet, and smiles follow after.

Minho's hair is damp from water, strewn about his head and face, entirely uncared for in appearance. He is back in his usual attire; pants with paint stains that not even Mai has managed to defeat, but that function perfectly well as far as he is concerned, you reckon.

Leaning against the counter beside you, he pops a cranberry into his mouth and then cocks his head to the side inquisitively. "You wanted to speak to me?"

Moments like this make it so much harder. You'd not wanted to disclose this to him in any case, but have since decided it better to do so. The guilt weighs so heavily on your chest—has ever since the day—and you wonder if it is selfish to put that onto a man who does not need to carry the burden. Minho is your husband, yes, but in title and legality alone. He has given you permission to carry on as you please, explicit permission to take a lover if that is what you so wish to do; so why is it that having done so feels so regrettable?

This is not a situation that you have ever found yourself to be in before, and thus, you do not know how best to navigate it. You are not one to mince words, however, and so you make the choice to simply come out with it.

"While you were away, Hyunjin was here."

Minho's chewing slows, all softness in his face melting away once the words finally come together as something that he understands the meanings of. "Here? He came here?"

"Yes, to see me."

"He came here…to see you…" Minho says slowly, thoughtfully. "If he knew to come here, then surely he must know that you've been married." He pauses briefly, thinks it through just a bit more before continuing. "As has he."

You nod affirmatively and then say, "Yes, all of this is true. He wanted to see me…I think…there was something of unfinished business between the two of us, as you know with the way that things turned out. It was a brief encounter, he was not here long. I do not think we will meet again in the future."

Minho looks at you tentatively, and you can nearly see all of the questions that beg to be asked swimming around behind his eyes. Surely, he fights back the urge to do so with all of his might for your sake alone, and instead chooses to stomach the brunt of this knowledge by himself, no matter how much discomfort it may bring.

But you do not escape them all.

"You say the encounter was…brief," he starts, though his eyes are unable to meet your own as he presses forward with what he must know. "I have little interest in prying into your personal affairs, I understand what this is—between us—just as well as you do, but I must know; did you—"

"Yes."

Rather than making him say it, you put an end to the entire thing abruptly. Minho blinks through the acceptance of it, a little awe struck, you can tell. He gives two, small nods and then swallows down hard.

"Thank you for telling me," he says. His voice is level, but you can tell as well as anyone else might that it is a facade. Minho turns towards the hallway and says, "If you don't mind, I have work to attend to. Have a good evening."

He does not appear outwardly angry or upset in the ways that you are used to men expressing such emotions, and thus, you are unsure of what to make from all of this. You watch him take two, three steps towards his exit before you rush around the corner of the marble counter and towards him. A hand reaches out towards his arm, but you do not dare make contact—unsure of what may happen if you do. Minho does not scare you, nor has he ever shown aggression, or violence towards you, but you must at all costs aim to protect yourself in such precarious circumstances.

The movement must catch his attention and he stills in place, seemingly waiting for you to reach him. Minho turns to look at you from over his shoulder, unwilling to fully give himself to your insistence of such.

Your chest feels impossibly tight, the struggling burn of discomfort creeping up and into your throat. Are these tears that threaten you? Why, you wonder. You care for him, yes, but there is little between you, and in most recent times not much more than some sort of contention. What is there to care for? And more than that, when has this man ever bothered to express as much towards you?

Still, you press forward. "Are you upset with me? It was thoughtless, but you have said before that I am able to do such things. Don't punish me for the allowances that you have offered!"

"Punish you?" Minho says, tone questioning. "I have no interest in punishing you for anything that you have done in my absence. Your personal matters are your own. If you wish to sleep with the prince then who am I to tell you not to."

"I do not wish to sleep with the prince! I wish to sleep with—"

It comes out faster than you have the chance to pull it back. Dripping with pure emotion and absolutely unbridled truth, you manage to cut it off at the tail end, though you fear that the damage has been done. The heat of humiliation curls up your spine, you take a step back and away from the man in front of you.

Too much silence creeps up between the two of your bodies, and Minho offers nothing to you in the immediate aftermath of the words. Wordlessly, you beg him to say something—anything—to cut through it, even if it is condemnation that sits at the tip of his tongue.

Much to your surprise, however, Minho turns back to face away from you fully with something of an awkward shift to his stature. He does not look at you, but the more that he chooses not to, the less you believe it to be a sign of displeasure and more so one born from a kind of strange unsureness of how to move forward, where to go with this from here.

He clears his throat loudly, one by one cracking the knuckles in his fingers as if to fill in the empty space between your bodies. Finally, he says, "Perhaps we simply move on from this, as if nothing ever happened. In any case, I'll be in the atrium, should you need to find me."

A curious thing to say from the man, one that has you reeling in shock upon hearing it. 

"Is that…an invitation?"

And to that, Minho sighs aloud.

"Must you make me speak everything into existence? Surely you've noticed I lack the capabilities for these sorts of things."

It's not perfect, but you'd not expected to leave this particular discussion with a smile pulling at your lips.

𝕏𝕍𝕀.

The atrium smells of cinnamon, paint thinner, and alcohol.

Rum, in particular. You're not able to make out its particular scent until you're much closer to the man that it emanates off of, pungent and impossible to ignore. You try to recall any other time that you've been aware of Minho's drinking, but you cannot.

Tonight must be a special night for him to be partaking.

There's a soft spot in the wooden paneling of the floor, and it creaks beneath your weight. This is enough to finally alert Minho of your arrival to this place, having not noticed you before. He glances at you from over his shoulder—not unlike the hours before—and then carries on with the mixture of colors that have already been dabbed onto the bristles of his brush.

"You came," he says.

"You drink."

Minho sighs at your response. "You know this, we have shared wine at the dinner table before."

"Yes, but not like this."

Hunched over and knelt onto the floor, Minho ignores this and instead continues painting. You opt out of pressing any further on the matter and instead, bring yourself to his side in order to see what it is that he is working on.

The canvas is wide rather than tall, with hues of blue, white and green masterfully splashed across the majority of it. The beauty of the ocean and the waves that live within it perfectly captured in time by his hand—a small ship depicted amidst it all.

"I spent some time by the harbor on this trip, and spent a good deal of my time there thinking about how my life might be if I ceased to exist here, the way that I have been, the way that I do."

You look down at him, but he does not look up. He continues with his work.

"The truth of the matter, is that there isn't much keeping me here, is there? Not much would change. I could be anywhere in the world doing this. No reason it must be here."

"Is that why you painted this? Your wish to escape it all?" you ask.

Minho stops his strokes, then drops his paintbrush into the muddied mixture of water just beside him. He stands to his feet—albeit wobbly—and stares down at the piece of artwork as if it's something not crafted from himself. A strange existence that has somehow found its way into his home, into his thoughts, but not of his own doing.

"I'm not sure that I even wish for it," he says. "I'm unsure of a lot of things. I make decisions largely because they are expected of me, because I see what everyone else does, and so I emulate it. It's easy to assimilate like this, I don't have to think about it all that much."

"Like taking a wife."

Minho looks away from the painting then and over towards you. You meet his eyes, but feel a sense of nervousness under the intensity that sits behind them tonight. 

"It has always been difficult for me to set my anxieties aside without the aid of warmth that the bottle brings. I don't partake often, I know it's unhealthy, so I keep to myself and suffer alone." Minho's hand reaches towards yours, and while you're happy to allow him to take it, that is not all that he does. Quickly you feel the gentle tug of his strength, inching you closer to him. His warm, soft palm tracing up the outside of your arm until it disappears behind your back to rest there. Now the scent of alcohol is strong on his breath, but you cannot find it within yourself to care when proximity is so tightly held between you.

Minho's finger traces down the middle of your back, an action that sends chills up the very same place. You fight back the shudder that threatens to shake you while in his grasp, and your own hands find their placement at the front of his broad, firm chest.

The alcohol indeed must be making him brave, lowering his inhibitions and the torrent of thoughts that otherwise might bar him from ever attempting this. For that, you are thankful. You glance at his lips, then up at eyes that are already watching you. Minho's thoughts and feelings are nearly indiscernible on his face; still thinking, thinking, thinking, no doubt.

He leans in towards you, so short and small that you nearly miss it entirely if not for how rapt with attention to him you are. A tentative gesture to test the waters, to see if you will pull away.

But you will not.

And so, he presses forward again, slowly still, as if to give you ample time to escape him. You couldn't imagine yourself a world where you might; heart beating hard and fast within your chest in anticipation of this, fingers gripping tightly into the fabric of his shirt with each passing second between the two of you. Truthfully, you have been wanting this, for so, so long. Longer than you could ever fathom to allow him to know, the kind of dull, anticipatory, hopeful desire that rests dormant often, but never completely able to be ignored.

It's hard to pinpoint the moment in which Minho became more than just a concept of a husband in your mind, muddied even more once his lips finally find your own. Careful and warm, he kisses you like he's afraid to break you, but the hand gripping at the small of your back tells a different story; one of forced back desire, of bitten back need. It presses your body more firmly against his, it informs far more than his words will allow for now. 

When you do not create space, the kiss becomes heavier too. Testing, unsure lips that at first only ghost against your own then expose their want for you in the careful turn of his head and ever so slight nips of teeth at the bottom of your lip. Harder, faster with every moment that passes in the atrium; you forget to breathe and gasp into his mouth, Minho finally relents in tasting you so ravenously.

Physical desire is nothing new to you, but never have you experienced it quite like this.

Minho's free hand comes up to cup your face, thumb grazing lightly against the skin of your cheek as he looks at you. Both just slightly out of breath, you can't fathom how wrecked you appear just from a kiss.

His lips part as if to speak, and then close shortly thereafter. Once again; thinking, thinking, thinking. The alcohol is incapable of disposing of it all. Then, they part again, and Minho pushes forward with the words that fail him so frequently.

"Do you still love the prince?"

The least that you can do is answer his question honestly.

"I don't know."

And though it may not be the ideal reply, Minho still appears pleased by it. Everything that you have learned about him since your arrival here points to the very same conclusion, because he smiles ever so slightly, and gives a small nod in acceptance.

𝕏𝕍𝕀𝕀.

Though not spoken of, the kiss lives on in every interaction shared between the two of you going forward.

You wish deeply for the conversation to come to a head, but by now you know Minho and the way that he functions well enough to know that that will more than likely not be the case. Still, you manage to find solace in this fact; his nervous mannerisms and the barely there catch in his voice when speaking to you on occasion, as if the memory of such has just caught up with him in real time. You smile through these instances, pleased by them in some capacity. Pleased knowing that it is not a thing that has simply come and gone.

The only person that Minho answers to in his life is his agent, and his agent insists on having a holiday party at the estate.

On the day of, it is a week into December. Snow has begun to fall, though not heavily yet. It sprinkles like sugar from the sky, only lightly dusting the windows and grounds. It is a beautiful sight, but you're thankful for not having to be the one traveling within it, and when the guests start arriving, you realize just how grossly unprepared for this volume of guests the home truly is. Not enough coat racks, not enough space for wiping off their shoes. Hats are placed wherever it is that they can go; Mai scuttling about the hallways with her staff in an attempt to make it all work.

To your surprise, Minho makes himself seen. No doubt a push by said agent, but his displeasure at doing so resides heavily within his stature.

First laying eyes on him is a sight to behold. His hair is more put together, set into place purposefully. He wears all black, but the front panel of his coat is garnished with the sparkle and shine of dark jewels that bring it to life. It's a little unlike him, you have to admit, but Minho wears it well.

Quickly, you finish up a conversation with people that your husband barely knows, that you have barely been partaking in, and go to him. He, too, is amidst something of the same, though handling it far less gracefully than you have.

You put on your widest smile, and curl your arm firmly around his own from the side.

"My sincerest apologies," you start, tone dripping with a sweet edge, "I'm afraid I must take my husband from you, if only for a brief moment."

The man smiles and nods happily, understanding of whatever situation it is that you've made up in your head in order to rescue Minho. It's late into the evening and you've not been keeping a watchful eye, but the smell on his breath of alcohol is one that you're quite familiar with, and disappearing into the halls towards less-traveled passages, you can't help but wonder what this instance has in store.

Minho drags along, but doesn't say a word. He stumbles slightly once, you try not to ascribe it to his drunkenness unfairly. You have just the place in mind, and once you reach the old, empty study at the far, opposite end of the hall, you push Minho inside lightly, and then close the door behind.

"Are you rescuing the damsel?" Minho asks, cheeky and with a smile. "Was it that obvious?"

"Only to someone with the eyes to see it," you reply. "I know that you don't enjoy these sorts of busy situations."

"One might say I hate it, in fact." Minho steps towards you, and you take a step back. Only there is nowhere left for you to go, and your back is up against the door from which you came. "Indeed, I much prefer quieter moments of peace, just between myself and another…"

His hand finds the outside of your thigh, only the thick layers of your dress between skin. He closes the space further, as much as he can, until his body is pressed tightly against your own. You've been holding your breath—for how long? you wonder. A sharp inhale takes you, though it's ragged and shudders at the feeling of being with him like this. Everything that Minho offers you feels white hot, regardless of the clothes that keep you separated, and when his mouth finds the line of your jaw, you cannot help but melt into the touch.

You ache for him. A dull throb that makes itself known, impossible to ignore. His other hand snakes around your waist to pull you closer—as if closer is physically possible. You could beg for him to touch you elsewhere, drunk with want not unlike his own intoxication.

"I don't care if you love another man," he says suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere. The abrupt mention of Hyunjin sends something of a cold chill to your otherwise hot skin. "I'm happy that you're here, I love having you here…" His lips are still lightly mouthing against the flesh of your jaw, voice low, nearly a whisper. "I love…you. Even in the event that you love another, that is of no consequence to me. Not really."

Desire has waned, flushed away quickly as if it had never even been there. You gently push Minho away so that you can look him in the eyes, but all that you find is the slightly drunken, but incredibly sincere glean looking back at you.

"You're drunk," you say, rejecting his advances for this to go any further. Now is not the time. "You always say and do such things when you're intoxicated."

"Do you assume me to be more intoxicated than I am so that you don't have to acknowledge the words?"

You don't respond to this immediately. Minho does not deserve to be told a lie, and thus, you say nothing.

He continues on. "In the atrium that night, you assumed that I was making poor choices, outside of the realm of my own logic? Things that I would never do just because of the drink? And then now, you think the same? Do you truly believe that, or is it easier than the words? Because no one understands that feeling better than I do."

"Is that why you drink, then? To say and do all of the things that you can't do when you're sober?" You scoff lightly. "You can't drink through every step of your life."

"I don't, I won't," Minho says firmly. "Think of it more…as a coincidence."

Stepping towards you once more, Minho closes in on you all over again. His lips mere inches away from your own as he gazes down at you.

Then, the door opens from behind you, and he pulls it open to fashion himself an exit.

"If you don't believe me, then you're more than welcome to nurse my hangover in the morning hours, since you'll be awake!" he says loudly, far too cheerfully for everything that's gone on. 

You smile at him, and hate that you do. This annoying, eccentric, strange man that has buried himself so deeply beneath your skin. An unshakable, ineffable and unquantifiable shine to his mere existence.

Minho disappears back down the hall and towards the guests that await him, nearly skipping as he does so. You watch from the doorframe, make an effort to steady the quick beating of your heart, and replay the words over and over again in your mind; unremittingly.

"Good morning, darling."

Bent over the kitchen counter, chin perched up against your palm, you cock your head and smile at Minho as he slowly, carefully enters the shared space. Eyes narrow, like any light pains his entire being.

"Shall we take you for your bath, then?" you add, walking towards him and circling your arm around his.

A light steam rises from the water as Minho's sore body sinks into it. You reenter just moments later with a set of clothing in hand, and sit yourself just beside the porcelain tub to aid him in his recovery.

"You shouldn't drink so much," you say, obviously.

"I know," he admits through a groan. "Every time I do this, I say it'll be the last. Then another social event comes up."

"There was no such social event in the atrium that evening."

"Sure there was, you were there."

Silence falls between the two of you in the following moments, and you watch as Minho closes his eyes, sinks his body deeper into the water to the point that only his head sticks out from the top. You take it upon yourself to lightly remove strands of hair stuck to the dampness of his forehead, and then, Minho inhales with intent to speak.

"I apologize for last night, as well as for the evening in the atrium. I apologize for…parts of them, but not everything." He pauses, eyes still closed, but forces himself to continue on. "The truth is: I do not care about your history with the prince, no matter how recent it has been. I understand there is a complexity there that I may never be able to grasp, nor do I think it necessary for me to do so. What is necessary of me—as your husband—is to be kind, understanding, and perhaps if there could be space for it; loving."

You still completely, allowing the words to wash over you and sink deeply into every crevice of your being.

He speaks again. "Suppose what I had hoped for; some starry-eyed, hopeless romantic sort of expectation in all of this that was left unspoken, is that regardless of your feelings for him, your history with him, that you might still find space in your heart to someday love me too."

An immediate reply escapes you, and you lose sight of just how tortuous such a wait can be until Minho cracks one, single eye open and peers at you cautiously through it.

"Please, say something. Put me out of my misery, if you must," he says.

Your senses come back to you quickly, shaking your head in the negative. "No! No, Minho…have you truly not noticed? Let us not forget who it was that insisted upon the two of us becoming more than strangers who share a home together…"

"Living with strangers is, well, strange. You could have meant anything by that."

You try not to roll your eyes, but fail. Instead of pressing further on this particular endeavor, you decide to revisit the original one, as brought forward by him. The entire thing remains fascinating to you—the density of his capability to understand things that come to you with such ease.

"I probably can," you say, acknowledging his hope for the openness of your heart. "I probably do."

Minho closes his eyes again, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. The tension that collected at his shoulders amidst all of this falling away like weights strapped to him. You are calmed watching him unravel before you.

"Let us share an evening meal tonight, something special. Think about all of the things that you wish to say to me in earnest, and I will do the same," you offer quietly.

"I would like that."

𝕏𝕍𝕀𝕀𝕀.

Minho enters just as the large, antique clock begins to sing its tune of nine in the evening.

Candle light flickers against the walls of the dining room and illuminates the table where all of the dishes that Mai has hand crafted herself sit. A beautiful display, though hardly what you're taking an interest in tonight.

He takes his seat across from you, clears his throat gently, and averts his eyes as much as he can until it seemingly dawns on him that he cannot do so for much longer. Reluctantly, Minho looks at you, and though his appearance is not unlike his usual self, something new makes itself apparent within him.

Mai comes over and pours your glass of wine, then makes her way around the table towards his. However, Minho does not accept the gesture. Watching you the entire time.

"You're not having wine with your meal?" you ask.

"No, I've decided to come off it, at least for a time."

"For a time?"

"This time."

Surprisingly confident and almost sinister sounding, Minho no longer makes an effort to avert his eyes from you and as a result, the weight of them rests heavily on your form. There is a sort of humor to this, you find, desiring nothing more than for him to see you for so long and now feeling as though you should shrink away from beneath his gaze. Why is he looking at you in such a way? Why is it that you feel like prey?

You steady your nerves and smile. "Well, there will be other times."

"Do you wish to remain married to me?"

Your attention pulls towards him quickly and with a confused earnestness. "What? Why are you asking me such a thing?"

Minho leans forward against the table. "We agreed to have this meal together and discuss such things. I think…I have not done much to aid in the ease of your comfort here. I think we have grown a lot together, maybe even enjoy our time shared. Perhaps it is time that we decide on just how much of a married life we wish to have with one another. Thus, do you wish to remain married to me?"

"Is there really an alternative?" you question, somewhat humorously. "Of course, marriages have ended before but we hardly meet the sorts of societal requirements for such a thing."

"You have not answered my question," he insists.

You press your palms abruptly to the table, fed up by his ridiculous pushing on the matter.

"Yes! I wish to remain married to you! My goodness; we've shared meals together, our thoughts and dreams and hopes for the future together, intimacy together! As if I've not made it clear where I stand on the matter while I drag you along through all of this kicking and screaming the whole way…you don't exactly make it easy on a woman!"

"So you are happy."

"Yes!" you quickly bite back.

"Content."

"Yes, Minho!"

"But you want more," he continues on, the rapid fire back and forth between you now mounting the anticipation of where this is meant to go.

"Of course I do!"

"You desire more of me."

"Yes!" you reply, exasperated by the questioning but barely even having a moment to register what's been laid out before you. The affirmation slips out from your lips unwillingly, but it's too late to bring it back. Instead, you watch Minho's eyes narrow mischievously as a result of the grin that tugs at his lips. He must be pleased with himself.

"We should eat." Hardly convincing when you say it. Still, you pick up your utensil. "The food will get cold."

"We can eat any time," Minho says, still playfully persistent. "Is there anything that you wish to ask of me?"

"Yes! What has gotten into you?"

"You, us; the concept of it, the possibility of it." Minho pushes his chair back then and stands, makes his way around the table and towards you. He takes your hand gently, timidly, and pulls you up towards him. Protest dies in your throat before you have the chance to make it heard, because his hand slips around your back and as a result, your body rests flush against his. "Admittedly, I am slow on the uptake of such things. My thoughts get the best of me, second guessing every interaction, every word…" He trails off, the hand at your back slipping to settle at your waist, and then it tightens. "Every touch."

Minho's face dips over to the side of yours, lips edging at the shell of your ear and then he whispers against it, "But you say you want more of me, more that I've not yet given. More that I can give."

Your head swims, warm breath tickling your skin in such an enticing way. Minho's grip against you does not relent, nor do you want it to. You've quietly yearned for what appears to be now presented before you; his touch, and in ways, so much more than that.

"I've still not seen where you sleep," you say quietly, pointedly. "Only ever the atrium."

"Some husband I am, making my darling wife wait so long for such a thing." Minho's hand then slowly falls from your waist down to your hip, then further more to your thigh. His palm settles atop the front for a short moment before he then continues the journey between them, bunching the fabric of your skirt where his fingers rest. "I've not been doing my due diligence, have I?"

Knees nearly buckling at the touch, you clutch onto him by the shoulders, breath hitching as you attempt to answer him. "No, you certainly have not."

This is your best attempt at maintaining composure, but truthfully, you stand in his grasp, disoriented with want for him. Minho's lips graze your jaw, teeth bared within a smile. He says, "Allow me to make it up to you, then."

The large, ornate door to his bedroom closes, and with no more time to waste, Minho's hands begin to artfully search for the flesh of your body.

His lips hurriedly find yours, as if the only thing he ever wishes to taste is within them. Fingers adeptly unfastening the buttons and clasps of your dress while you, in turn, do much of the same at those that hold the fabric of his shirt in place. The race is won by you, and your mouths part only long enough to remove the hindrance from his body—but he follows just after—and your garment falls away, exposed to the ambient chill of the room, though not for long.

Minho leads you with a gentle urgency back towards his bed. There's a haste behind his motions that alludes to a dormant kind of desire that has been held inside of him for far longer than you have been aware of, not at all unlike yourself. As your back finds the mattress, Minho follows you over it; mouth only leaving your skin for the briefest of seconds before finding it once again.

Your legs fall apart to fit his body between them, and his hand slips beneath your last remaining undergarment soon after. Deft fingers that glide between your folds, ample pressure that has you gasping into his mouth for him to drink down and arching your back up to meet the firmness of his chest. Minho smiles against your lips as you do so, slowly and methodically unraveling you for his own viewing pleasure.

He pulls back, slinks down the length of your body and trailing his lips along the way. Warm, wetness circles at your chest before he continues further down.

Hands grip firmly into the plush flesh of your thighs, prying them apart for him just that much more. You glance down, but cannot stand to look at the sight of him; his face mere inches away from just the place that you wish for him to touch again. Minho does not leave you wanting, perhaps he cannot bear to do so, and his tongue finds you, mouth pressed flush against your own lips. The gasp that escapes from you is horrid, far too telling of how much you've been wanting to have him like this. 

Minho pulls off of you, but his dominant hand finds the place he has only just left instead. The wetness pooling is nearly humiliating if not for the comfort that you feel in his presence, and his fingers delicately trickle downward further, carefully driving into you. He watches your face as he takes you apart just that much more, but you do not have the sensibilities to muster up much for words.

"Do you like this?" he asks, the first words spoken since entering the room. The press of his fingers against you is slow, rhythmic, testing. Before you find it within yourself to respond, his mouth reattaches to the place just above where his hand works you open.

Yes falls away from you, though you're not sure how you've managed it. It appears to please him, however, and he continues on with a newly found enthusiasm. He pushes deeper, and a moan escapes you with every drive. A sheen of sweat collects atop your skin, strands of hair matted against you, fingers curling tightly into the sheets beneath your grasp.

Your skin prickles, warmth spreading across your body and muscles stiffening as he continues on. Breaths to take in become shorter and faster, the grind of your hips against the way that he works your body less and less within your conscious control. You slip a hand down between your legs, gently carding fingers through soft, black hair. His fingers curl inside of you, and as a result of it, so do yours atop his head. A whimper slips out from between your lips, and following immediately after, come the desperate pleads for him not to stop.

And he has no intention of doing so. Minho does not stop until your pleasure peaks and ravages your body within his hold. You shake and cry out; wounded gasps and moans that avalanche from you thoughtlessly, the only thing that you can manage through this feeling. Once satisfied, he slows to bring you back down gently, and once delicately seated, he removes himself from you and the bed entirely to finish the act of disrobing.

Chest heaving with exhausted breaths, you nearly miss his doing so, only alerted to the fact once the bed dips again, signifying his return to you. Minho crawls between your legs and up the length of your body just as he did the first time; kisses your chest, your neck, your jaw, only to then settle atop your lips. Teeth faintly find the bottom of your lip, already well and truly bitten raw from your own abuse. Still, you reach up to feel the warmth of his skin under your hands and revel in the way that his body feels against your own. Though release has found you once this evening, you are not truly satiated by him yet.

Minho's hand slips down between both of your bodies to hold himself in place. You feel him against you; wet and solid, enticing and teasing. You move almost involuntarily against him, hopeful to receive what it is that you desire from him now, but he is unwilling to relent to your neediness just yet.

You gasp lightly against his mouth, and Minho happily accepts it into his own, delighted by the way you come apart beneath him.

"Have you thought about it before?" he asks, a coy whisper shared only between lovers. A question that does not require further expansion, for you know precisely what it is that is being referred to.

"So many times," you reply.

At that, Minho begins the slow, precise drive of himself inside of you once more. "Apologies for keeping you waiting then."

He sinks into you, body accepting him with ease. Minho's mouth hangs slightly ajar as he does so, taken by the feeling, and settles momentarily once his hips meet flush against your own before his hips pull back and he repeats the process once more. The thick drag, hard and strong is dizzying and nearly disorienting to your senses—your fingernails dig into his skin, and for the first time, Minho groans with a sort of primal lust that has the hairs across your skin standing on end, and the fire inside of your abdomen burning just that much hotter than before.

With the ease in which your body accepts him, Minho is able to find a quick and strong rhythm. Harder and faster his hips find your own, the urgency needing this moment for so long finally coming to a head between the both of you. Your whimpers and moans echo off the walls, losing sight of the once prominent thought in your mind that the staff may hear you; instead, you beg and plead for more of him, anything that he is physically capable of giving you—he does.

Body tightening beneath him, you feel once again the familiar promise of release. Your hands glide over hot, damp skin; muscles that flex and move with every drive of himself inside of you. Minho kisses you—a sloppy attempt—but you meet it happily, and his face falls away to the crook of your neck to nip into the skin there. One, strong hand slips down to grip at your thigh, pulls you apart further and wider for him to work your body open with his own. Hard, methodical strokes; one after another, whimpers and whines punched out of you with each. You beg for more, continuously beg as if never satisfied, and Minho continues to give relentlessly to you until his own ability finally falters and gives way; rhythm shifting, failing, wavering. He hisses against your skin, choking out a pained groan, and you find your end just alongside him in bitten back cries and a final, deep sinking of himself within you.

Chests heaving and basking in the afterglow for many, long moments, he does not hurry to separate your bodies, and instead, his lips begin to work at the sensitive skin of your neck once again. You close your eyes to simply enjoy the feeling of this, of him, and hold tightly in your arms the man that has somehow come to be precisely what it is that you have always hoped for someone to become.

"Stay here tonight," he says quietly. "Don't go."

You smile, barely there. Mustering up all of the energy within your bones that you have left to expend and say, "I wouldn't dream of it."

𝕏𝕀𝕏.

The new year brings new cheer, as well as new prospects to the household.

It has been a year since you've been back to the city center, and though covered in snow and the dreadful darkness that winter brings, you feel some semblance of ease having returned.

You remember the days that you spent dreaming of being inside of these very same castle walls, though now that you're here, you can't help but feel as though they glitter less brightly than what it is that you had imagined.

Beside you, Minho stands with a forced and feigned confidence. He glances at you, perhaps having felt your eyes upon him, and offers a nervous smile that does nothing to placate your concern for him. Indeed, not all things change with ease—and some may never—but having the comfort of those who love you shouldering much of the burden instead. 

In arm, he holds a wrapped painting. One that you know well; a small ship atop a vast, brightly colored sea.

You hear the echo of doors opening from behind you, and when you turn, you are familiar with what you see.

Methodical clicks of shoes being the only thing that cuts through the silence, you watch as the prince makes his way towards the two of you—a smile on his face—and most certainly a genuine one. You've never known Hyunjin to be particularly petty, or mean-spirited; and despite all of his shortcomings, he likely does feel softness in his heart for you and the happiness that you have found.

"Your Highness," Minho says with an accompanying bow, but Hyunjin is quick to put a hand up and wave away the gesture.

"I do believe the three of us are well past the need for such things." Looking at you, Hyunjin smiles. "I see things worked out in the end, then?"

With half a mind to question how it is that he knows, you instead chalk it up to a sort of intangible, understood aura that simply exists between lovers; people who are madly, deeply in love with one another. You couldn't fight back the smile if you tried, and so, you don't. Instead, your hand finds Minho's free one, and you nod.

"Yes, indeed they have."

"Splendid news! Perhaps someday I will find myself to be so lucky," Hyunjin says, though there is a particular bite of discontentment in the words that you feel you understand far too well. "Nevertheless, you've brought the painting! I wish I could express in words how eagerly I've been anticipating receiving this piece…ever since it was put up into the auction, I simply knew I had to have it."

"I appreciate your kindness," Minho replies, squeezing your hand lightly. Just another, small offering shared between lovers.

"You will be paid handsomely for this. I am aware of what the asking was but I feel as though it is worth far more, and I'll see to it that you receive precisely that which you are deserving of."

Eyes widening in surprise, Minho glances first at you—but you merely shrug, unmoved by Hyunjin's antics—and instead, he defers to the prince, himself. "Your Highness, that's not—"

"Aht! It is. You creatives truly must value yourself higher, the world moves and exists and revolves around these crafts. Without art, we have nothing. We are nothing."

Hyunjin calls for his housestaff to take the canvas from Minho's grasp, and as they disappear down the hall, the man smiles widely at the two of you as if pleased with himself, with everything that has taken place today.

"Perhaps next in line is getting that book of yours published."

You shake your head, a sort of nervousness striking you that isn't commonplace. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea, you know, there is much of you written inside of those pages."

He waves his hand in the air again, unbothered by the fact. "So be it, I'd rather like being not just a part of history, but a part of art, as well."

"Strange fellow," Minho says, walking beside you through the city streets and long after having bid the prince farewell. "Not sure what it is that you ever saw in him."

The comment is pointedly comedic, and you judge him playfully with your elbow before responding in words. "He's handsome, and royalty. Suppose for a long time I didn't consider there to be much else outside of those things. What else could a man have to offer me?"

"As it would seem, only having one of those things is plenty to suit you," he jokes, slinging an arm up and around your shoulders as the two of you carry on. "You have been taken by my confusing whimsy and cumbersome charms."

"So it would seem," you reply, watching the sprinkle of shimmering snow collect atop a difficult, complicated head of black hair that you have incomprehensibly grown to love.

a/n: thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed it! no pt. 2, and kind words are always much appreciated ♡

[keen-li]

What you need | 01

Synopsis: everybody needs, but how do you define need?

Do you even know what you need.

Genre: best friends au, angst, fluff, smut, slow burn.

Jungkook x reader.

Prev | next

-

The last thing you’d want to being doing while going through a break-up, is walking into this building and putting more energy, which you don’t have, into pretending like you’re okay.

When you’re in fact not.

You have to deal with a raging hangover, because you thought it would be a great idea to drown your misery with some alcohol. All night long. loneliness has its gross skinny little fingers around you.

This break-up is fucking you up sideways. If not in all ways.

‘’what happened to you?’’ your head throbs harder at the sound of that heavy voice.

‘’what do you want?’’ you murmur out and your fingers get to work with rubbing your temples.

‘’i wanna know what happened to you?’’ you know his question is far from caring or interested in your well being.

Your tiny office feels more claustrophobic with the way he just seems to hover over.

‘’look hoseok, I’m a little out of it today’’ you don’t even stare at him ‘’so i can’t provide you with any witty comeback, sorry’’

For a split, single particle of light second; he feels bad for you. But then he remembers:

‘’whether you’re in or out of it, you’ve got work.’’ He slaps a file on your table ‘’get working’’

You know hoseok is one of your headaches and he always proves how he’s so great at it.

You stare at your desk as your head pounds with another problem.

You’ve stayed so long at this desk you can draw every inch of it from memory. And you’d be a master at adding the little cracks, dents and scratch details. Plus every memory of hoseok’s nagging witty remarks linger in this office area everymoment.

You really want a new office. And you day when you do get one, you’ll make sure hoseok never visits it and contaminates it with his presence.

Urgh

You groan as you pick up the file he’s just given you. This headache’s probably gonna kill you before you get a chance to.

-

‘’well, well well’’ jungkook rolls his eyes ‘’look who decided to come to work today’’

‘’good morning Isabel, you didn’t have to do all this but i appreciate the warm welcome’’ jungkook spits out sarcastically in a sing-song voice.

Isabel scoffs.

‘’is your mother feeling better now?’’

‘’what are you talking- oh’’ jungkook catches himself, but it’s too late.

‘’oh my gosh i knew it’’ she declares ‘’you’re such a liar’’ she lets out a soft chuckle.

‘’i knew you weren’t asking for a day off cause your mother was sick’’

‘’how could you have known that’’ jungkook says taking off his shirt and Isabel can’t help but ogle.

‘’i just know’’ she folds her arms over her chest, her long straight hair getting caught in her arms.

‘’why didn’t you tell me you needed a day off, you don’t have to lie’’ she stops herself from licking her lip in fear of ruining her red lips.

‘’you know i can do that for you’’

Jungkook grins as he pulls up his work suit pants. It would’ve been uncomfortable if jungkook wasn’t used to Isabel being around while he got dressed. He secretly believes she does it on purpose to be in the dressing room when he’s getting dressed.

‘’well i did cause a friend needed me, i doubt those grounds stand for a day off’’ he finally just says it knowing she won’t do anything about it.

She hums ‘’which friend?’’

‘’does it matter?’’ he throws a white tee over his head.

It doesn’t, but she just wanted to know if her thoughts are right.

‘’YN’’

She only hums, her perfectly tweezed eyebrows rising. He can’t decipher what the meaning of it but it doesn’t matter. She’s heard your name from him but never seen you, he talks so fondly of you she’s just so curious to meet you.

‘’okay then get to work making up for the day you missed. A client’s coming in with his car’’

Jungkook already knows cause said client called him a million times to find out where he was.

‘’so about asking for a day off...’’ jungkook puts on his best charming smile.

‘’it’s not gonna happen jeon’’ she turns to walk away. But not without biting her inner cheek, if she was staring at jungkook she would fold.

‘’what happened to the ‘you know i can do that for you’ ‘’ she blushes.

‘’it’s never gonna happen. Not today at least’’ she whispers the last part.

Jungkook laughs and licks his lips as he watches her walk away. Sometimes it was fun coming to work.

-

‘’and that’s why this model’s perfect for you and your family’’ you walk around the car to the open door. ‘’you can place up to three car seats in the back’’ you stretch you arm to point and direct your client’s eyes to where you want them to be.

You stare at her blank face and you know she’s not convinced. But that’s your job; to convince and sale.

‘’if you’re worried about clean up, the interior material is one; even liquids. vacuum away from clean and the seats are wipeable’’

‘’actually the carpet, does not stain’’ you add.

‘’oh that’s really nice, cause my kids are messy when it comes to food.’’ She laughs and you laugh as well.

Most of the time you laugh only because you have to. You hear the same things every day and speak to the same type of people everyday. You know every type of person that walks through those glass doors.

‘’i think I’ve heard enough, I’m convinced’’

‘’i’ll take the car’’ those words are like music to your ears and medicine for your headache.

‘’Great, then let me just get the papers ready’’

This was one of the reasons you liked and preferred to work with women, they’re are easy to convince when it comes to buying a car and are great listeners to what you say. Unlike men who just want to argue and question your knowledge on cars. It always makes you laugh when you see them try and show you that they know more than you (not that they do, you’ll always one-up them)

And in all fairness women loved to work with you cause they know they can trust a woman. And men only want to work with you to put you down and ogle at you.

Even hoseok knew this and that’s why he always gives you female clients. You’re shocked he doesn’t give you only males just to piss you off. If you never knew him well you’d think he had a heart.

You’re walking back to your desk when you see hoseok approach you from the corner of you eye.

‘’You don’t need to worry i sold the car’’ you say not stopping in your tracks.

‘’im not worried i knew you would’’

You pause.

‘’is that a compliment Mr Jung’’

He doesn’t respond but that doesn’t stop you from swimming in his rarely spoken compliments.

‘’what do you want? it’s lunch time’’ you go back to your bickering tone.

He stares at his watch.

‘’are you having your lunch from outside of the office’’

‘’yeah, why?’’ you pick up your purse. He knows you always have lunch from outside of the office, so why is he asking.

‘’i have a very important client to give you’’

You really wanna go out and have lunch, cause even though it doesn’t seem like it you still have a headache. But if hoseok said he had an important client for you, then he did.

You honestly need important clients right now.

‘’can it wait for after lunch’’

Hoseok let’s out a bitter chuckle.

‘’this client doesn’t live in Seoul. So he doesn’t have the time to wait’’

He? Ugh.

Who is he for hoseok to be kissing up to him so bad.

‘’if you really want that promotion as bad as you say you do, you’re gonna take him nooow.” He drags out the last word.

He says it so eagerly that now you have to rethink your lunch routine.

Lunchtime is the main time you get in the week to actually see jungkook, since you’re both so busy. It’s like a little routine you both have; helps you spend more time together.

But now you have to reconsider it. jungkook would understand though, since you’ve got a promotion on the line.

‘’yn? Do you want this or not. If not i can-‘’ hoseok presses but a deep hallow voice steps in.

‘’hoseok let her go for lunch, i can wait’’

You both turn and your eyes are met with the most glorious figure of a man you’ve ever seen.

Tall, beefy and muscular. When you stare at hoseok, in question, you can swear he’s ogling too.

Wouldn’t blame him so are you. This man is fine.

‘’Namjoon, you don’t have t-‘’

‘’please, i can move my flight. Let her have lunch’’ your eyes meet as he ends his sentence. You skedaddle your gaze to another part of the room, avoiding his eyes. and your teeth immediately meet your inner upper lip.

You’re not the best at eye contact, it makes you nervous cause it feels like the person can see all the little things you’re keeping secret.

Namjoon smirks as he walks out, ‘’I’ll be waiting when you get back’’

Hoseok doesn’t say or look at you before he’s out too.

-

‘’fuck inishiwekfuoaovw’’

You furrow your brows at a jungkook stuffing his face.

‘’what the fuck are you saying’’ you chuckle out.

He swallows.

‘’ i said, i’ve been thinking this the whole day’’ you wouldn’t have guessed that’s what he was saying.

‘’ i assume you’re talking about your lunch’’ you take a bite of your own, your eyes on jungkook as he lifts his gaze.

If you finish this meal it would be the first full meal you’ve eaten since yunho.

‘’i mean i’ve been thinking about lunch with you too’’ he stares at you from under his eyelashes with wide eyes.

You can't help but smile.

You give him a once-over and can tell by his tan skin he’s been in the sun.

‘’did you carry your sunscreen?’’

He gasps ‘’shit, i forgot. Is my tan obvious” you give him a yes-no nod.

‘’but it looks good’’ you mumble out.

‘’you like it?’’ he lowers his eyes at you and gives you a cheeky smile.

‘’i mean i don’t hate it.’’ Your eyes run across his skin, jungkook can feel your eyes on his skin.

You release a cough, to reset the air. You like it, you won’t say to not give him a bigger head.

‘’i think i should get going’’ jungkook furrows his brows at you then over at your plate.

‘’you haven’t finished your food though ’’ he warns.

‘’i have someone waiting for me at the office, so-‘’ you dare to explain.

‘’-so they can wait until you finish your food. Plus you still have time to eat’’ he points to the clock in the restaurant. You’ve only been here for fifteen minutes.

‘’kook it’s an important client’’ you whine.

‘’and i understand that, but i know you haven’t been eating’’ jungkook sits back in his chair. You have no argument to give, you both know that he’s right. So, you stay silent.

‘’have you?’’ he questions even though he knows he’s right.

‘’jungkook that’s not the point’’ you roll your eyes.

‘’sit down and eat’’ he demands, ’’please’’ he pleads.

You can’t say no, especially with his pleading doe eyes. So you sit and try to finish your food.

You know that he’s doing this cause he cares about you and wants to make sure you’re doing well. But it makes it just much harder to wallow in your misery when he’s baby-ing you

‘’what’s so important about this client anyways’’ he goes back to stuffing his face, the taste of the food encapsulating his taste buds once more.

You hear jungkook speak over your internal turmoil about having to down this food.

‘’hoseok told me its a chance for me to up my chances on a promotion’’ you say informingly. When you actually put your mind to eating the scent of the food causes your stomach to growl. It's savoury taste makes you internally moan as you take it in. Food actually tastes good when you put your mind to it.

‘’Bunny that’s great” he cheers. “Why don’t you sound exciting though’’

You glare at him, ‘’cause you’re forcing me to eat.’’ You’re glad he made you made cause it taste like heaven.

‘’don’t be a baby.’’ He runs his teeth over he’s lower lip.

‘’im not being a baby’’ you mumble out as you pout and prove his point.

Jungkook doesn’t respond and instead watches you eat. His eyes soften at the sight of your cheeks stuffed with food. He knows there’s only so much he can do to help you get over yunho. But whatever he can do he will do, just to see that smile you have on your right now; many more times. He watches you look out the window, and the sun hits you beautifully. And he can’t help but gawk.

‘’what?’’ you smile at doe eyed jungkook, who can’t seem to move his gaze from you.

He shakes his head. ‘’nothing’’ he turns back to his food, the smile not leaving his face.

You roll your eyes. Jungkook’s smile would’ve widened if he saw that. He loves teasing you.

You both appreciate how your friendship has developed from you two avoiding each other and then finally finding comfort in each other’s presence. Jimin really had a tough time getting you two to talk, you’re behaving like two high schoolers he said in his own words. Yes you were but it was more like two high schoolers who’ve never even looked at each put on a class project. But now you’re eating lunch together because you can’t stop talking. You wouldn’t stop being friends with him for anyone.

‘’i forgot to tell you i found a date for you?’’

Jungkook groans at that. He’d hoped you’d forgotten, but you seem more determined than ever.

He gives you a displeased looked.

‘’don’t give me that’’

“if you want me to go on a date, then you’ll have to come watch me train” he declares proudly.

“in what? Boxing?” your brows draw together. Is he actually trying to get you to watching him box.

“Yeah” he hums out enthusiastically.

“Nope” you deadpan.

“Then I’m not going ”

You narrow your eyes at him and he gives you a mischievous smile.

“I’ll see.”

-

♡

[deathbxnny]

hihi! platonic argenti with a fischl/chuunibyou teen!reader who acts like royalty and basically declared him their knight the second they saw him (maybe they were even inspired to follow the path of the beauty due to his influence)

I have finally finished the last story quest and have regained my love for the game, lol. I'm sorry for taking so long, Anon, and thank you for the request!!<33

Content: Teen reader, platonic relationships, slight angst?, essentially two delulu besties exploring the universe together lol, sfw

Reader has no set pronouns!

((Not proofread))

When Argenti first met you, he was amazed by your inspiring determination and insistence of being a part of royalty. Whether your claims were true or false didn't matter to him, especially as he respected your identity as you did his once he shared it with you. He didn't mind you declaring him as your knight on the spot either, deciding that this must've been a sign of his God.

You traverse the world together, seeing breathtaking sights and meeting beautiful people alike, yet ultimately, the loneliness that you both experienced before finding each other is what brought you closer as family. Despite calling him your knight, deep down, past the fake identity you've created to cope with your life, you saw him as a big brother. He takes care of you well and protects you with his life, often simply saying that he was just doing his duties for you in order to make you happy.

Deep down, the fear of never finding Idrila was still present, but you two eventually learned that you ultimately didn't mind looking forever for her, if it meant for you to stay under his care. He gave you a home despite having been alone for so many years.

And on days when he did have doubts about his lifestyle, he wondered if it wouldn't have been better for you to live a normal, secure life somewhere, far away from this endless search. But seeing you smile and feel safe with him enforces his beliefs, as he takes a vow to simply let his god lead him and accept the blessing that was you in his life. No matter where your journey took you, and even if you died, never finding Idrila, it was okay for you in the end.

[redroses07]

Promise//Sam Winchester

Sam Winchester x Fem!Reader

Summary: Sam is having doubts about reader going on hunts with him and Dean, but they finally decide to come to an agreement that will make them both happy.

Warnings: Swearing, kissing, oral (fem! receiving), fingering, subby Sam, angsty Sam, death, violence (the basics lol), mention of Jess.

WC: 1.5k

A/N: Hey guys!!!! Sam is my baby so I wanted to write something for him! Anyways I really like this fic and plot so I hope y’all enjoy it too! love y’all ♡

Sam was always hesitant to take you on hunts, after all you only knew about the business because of him.

Sure there were parts of his job that were rewarding, which made it worthwhile; but there were also parts that he resented. Such as the constant danger, the danger that he tried his best to keep you away from. His worst fear was you ending up like Jess…and that it would all be his fault.

At first you were content with staying behind while Sam and Dean did their thing. But as you learned more about what they did, you grew tired of the lonely hotel rooms. You became restless every time they left, unable to sit back while your boyfriend subjected himself to such horrors.

This is what prompted the argument the two of you were currently having.

“Sam, please let me come just this once!” you retorted.

“I want to be there, I understood at first, but I know what I’m getting myself into now!”

“I’m prepared, you and Dean have taught me everything you know.”

Sam pressed his fingers to his furrowed brow, frustrated.

You could see you were upsetting him, but did he really think you would never have to have this conversation?

“Jesus, Sammy! Let her go, we need an extra pair of hands anyways.” Dean argued, rolling his eyes at his brother.

“I said No!” Sam snapped.

Sam turned around and sat on the edge of the bed, letting his head fall into his hands.

You gave Dean a look, as if to say ‘get out, we need some privacy’.

Surprisingly, he understood.

“I’ll be in the Impala, y’all let me know when you’re ready so we can get to work.”

Dean gave you a nod as he walked out the door, swiftly shutting it behind him.

You took a deep breath, gathering your thoughts.

This was a sensitive subject for Sam, you had to remember, and one that came from a place of love.

“Sammy, love, I know you’re worried, but think of everything you and Dean have survived. Why would I be any different?” You spoke softly, almost as if you were afraid someone might hear.

Sam looked up, his eyes tinged with red, and tears forming around the rim. It was a look of loneliness, of longing, and you knew he needed you the most in this moment.

You walked over to him. You remained standing while he continued to sit.

Sam leaned his head against your stomach.

You could feel his short breaths through your thin shirt, and you knew he was fighting tears. Vulnerability was hard for Sam, and you wanted to do everything possible to make him comfortable.

You wrapped your arms around his head, pulling him even closer. You traced your fingers through his messy, yet soft, brown locks.

Sam sniffled, and you knew by the wet spots you felt on your shirt that he has finally let the tears fall.

You finally decided to sit down, bringing Sam's head up to your shoulder as you did.

"I love you, you know that's why this is so hard for me right?" Sam said finally.

He lifted his head off of you in order to look you in the eye. His bangs hung loosely in front of his face, almost as if they were trying to hide his sad eyes.

"Baby, I know, but you can't let fear control our lives." You moved his hair out of his eyes, and cupped his face with your hands.

Sam nodded as he sank into your touch.

"I know...but I guess, I guess I don't know how."

"How about I promise you this."

Sam looked at you in curiosity.

"You let me come along, but when something becomes too dangerous, you say the word and I'll step to the side."

Sam thought about it for a moment, running a hand through his hair as he did.

"Okay, but you can't let your stubbornness get in the way."

You gasped playfully.

"Sam Winchester I can't believe you're calling me stubborn!"

The two of you shared a moment of laughter before the heavy reality settled in.

"I promise." You pressed your forehead to Sam's as a way to seal the promise, your personal spin on a pinky swear.

Only then did you notice the tension between the two of you, and the urge to feel his lips on yours.

Sam pressed a finger to your lips, his warmth seeping into the soft flesh. You took it in your mouth, running tongue and teeth over it, tasting him.

Sam was the one to break the invisible barrier between the two of you, smashing his lips against yours.

It was a hungry, fiery, passionate kiss. You couldn’t remember the last time you two had shared one like it.

Sam pushed you back, your head hitting the crappy motel mattress. You didn’t care. You needed him, to feel him everywhere all at once.

You gasped as Sam finally removed his lips from yours, but only to move down to your neck and collarbone.

Sam’s hands snaked down your body, reaching your hips and eventually the rim of your jeans.

“Wanna make you feel good, baby.” Sam said breathlessly as he began to fool with the button.

“Aww you don’t have to, you’ve already made me feel so good.” You replied softly.

“Well then I wanna make you feel better than good.” Sam mumbled as he pulled your jeans off your hips. Now there was no way to hide how soaked you were.

Sam gave you a knowing look before removing your panties.

He wasted no time getting to work, shoving two of his fingers deep inside you. He always knew exactly where to put them, hitting that spot that made you roll your hips into him.

“Jesus.” You gasped, the sudden wave of pleasure was almost unbearable.

Sam pumped his fingers in and out of you, and you were surprised by how fast you were reaching your high.

Sure, it had been a while, especially since Sam had been so busy recently; but you didn’t realize how much you had missed this until now.

Sam pulled his fingers out, licking the remnants off.

That must have made him want more because he immediately shoved his face into your pussy.

Sam licked up your wetness before moving to circle his tongue around your clit.

You moaned loudly and reached your hands out to tangle them in his. You pulled softly, giving you something else to focus on other than the fact that you wanted to scream out in pleasure.

“You’re doing so good baby.” You mumbled, making sure he received some much earned praise.

You were so close to your climax when you heard the door swing open.

You knew it was Dean before you even saw him, and you rolled over quickly shoving Sam off of you.

“Jesus Christ. Put your Goddamn clothes on and get your asses in the car.” Dean shouted before slamming the door.

You stopped scrambling to get dressed and let your heads fall into your hands with embarrassment.

“Don’t be embarrassed, I’ve walked in on him in much worse positions.” Sam laughed.

“One time when-“

You cut him off.

“I’m gonna stop you right there because I would prefer not to learn about your brothers extra curricular activities.”

You shared a moment of laughter before you stood up and finished putting your clothes on.

“I’m glad we had this talk.” Sam pulled you into his chest and kissed you on the forehead.

“Are you sure it was the talking part you liked?” You looked up at him.

He eyed you suspiciously as if to say “you know what I meant.”

You responded by giving him a quick peck on the lips, deciding not to think about the fact that you could still taste yourself on him.

“Let’s go before Dean kills us.”

You grabbed Sam’s hand and dragged him behind you, still ever intent upon keeping your promise.

[7s3ven]

ATHENA'S GIRL. luke (pjo) - pt 3

trailer > part 1 > part 2 > part 3

( master list )

IN WHICH... Luke has to finally acknowledge his growing fondness for Y/N while she does the opposite and pushes her feelings down in order to fit her mother’s expectations.

"Have you forgotten to turn off your heart? This is not you. I see you changing from how I've designed you. Have you forgotten your purpose?"

Warnings : Y/N swears a lot

—

Y/N was the talk of the town after Athena oh-so dramatically claimed her. She didn’t even have to spend a single hour in the rowdy Hermes cabin.

The H/C-haired girl turned her head, looking around at her surroundings. Her heart almost did a leap of joy when her gaze landed in the rows of books that seemed to fill the cabin up to its capacity.

“Excuse me, which bed should I take- Oh. Okay. You’re walking away. Yeah, just act like you don’t hear me. It’s fine.” Y/N watched as the young girl brushed past her without a single word, ignoring her question. Judging by the state of some of the beds, Y/N assumed the neater mattresses were the ones available.

She set her things down on the squeaky floorboards, sighing. She didn’t have much with her; only a novel and some spare change as well as her school textbooks. It looked like she wouldn’t be needing this anymore.

Y/N sat in the edge of the mattress, pressing her lips into a thin line when she felt a spring break. “Man, I hate it here already.”

Y/N felt even lonelier at meals. None of her so-called siblings wanted to associate themselves with her. She could feel their envious stares on her as they constantly whispered how they could’ve easily solved a murder case. Finally, Y/N had enough.

She placed her silverware done, tensely smiling while clasping her hands together. “Are you guys familiar with Nabokov’s work?” She piped up, catching the attention of everybody at the rickety wooden table. They each turned to each other, confused.

“He’s like… a German poet, right?” A boy replied, furrowing his eyebrows together as if Y/N’s inquiry were stupid.

She shook her head. He was the stupid one. “I found a clue in one of his books. And the nationality of the writer helped quite a bit in unpacking it. But none of you seem to know Nabokov so I doubt you could’ve solved the mystery. I solved a crime in under an hour, slayed a dragon, and easily killed a happy. What have you guys done? Made friendship bracelets?”

One of the kids hid their untidily made bracelet, thickly gulping as if he was self-conscious.

Y/N was about to turn back to her food before someone else spoke up. “Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian author, best known for his work Lolita. Or rather, infamously known because it’s quite a controversial piece.”

Y/N’s eyes flickered to the kid with pretty brown eyes and long, braided hair. “Three movie adaptations were made, all of them equally hated to no one’s surprise.” The younger girl added, causing Y/N to smile.

She stabbed a string bean as she shrugged, “It’s always the Russians pulling some sort of weird crap.”

“Language.” Another teenager uttered. Y/N turned her head to stare at the boy, unimpressed. She raised her brows in an almost pocking sort of way.

“Fuck… off.” Y/N tauntingly smiled, causing Annabeth to lightly snort. “Don’t you guys fight monsters? I’m sure you can take a bit of swearing. Can't you?" She leaned forward, "Listen here, you little bitch. I dealt with Castellan's shit for months. You think I can't take you and your stupid ass now?"

"Colorful language you've got there, writer. As always. You gonna use it in your next global article?" Luke placed a heavy hand on Y/N's shoulder as he quietly chuckled. "Hey, Akut," The Hermes boy turned his attention to the teenage boy, "I wouldn't mess with this one. She's fierce. And she was best friends with Clarisse for a while."

A flash of fear crossed Akut's face at Clarisse’s name. “I was only teasing. Jeez.” He grumbled to himself, shrinking back. “She doesn’t have to be such a whiny bitch about it.”

Luke clicked his tongue, knowing exactly what was coming next.

“A whiny bitch? Oh, I’ll give you a whiny bitch, punk!” Y/N grabbed her plate that still had a decent amount of food on it and slammed it into Akut’s face. “How’s that, huh?!”

“She could be Ares’ kid with that anger.” Chris whispered to Luke.

“She’s probably still adjusting to camp… you know how it is.” Luke’s gaze stayed glued on Y/N as she whacked Akut across the place with a goblet. His eyebrows raised in partial surprise but he did nothing to stop her. Akut was asking for it anyway.

Luke felt Annabeth tug on his sleeve and he slightly leaned down to listen to her over all the shouting because some other Athena kids were trying to pull Y/N off Akut. “I like her.” Annabeth murmured, “She reminds me of Thalia… a little bit. Thalia never had such strong rage, though.”

Luke chuckled under his breath as he ruffled the young girl’s hair. “Guess it’s time to finally stop this before she ends up killing poor Akut.” Luke grasped the back of Y/N’s orange shirt, pulling her back. “Chiron and Mr D are gonna have a mean jab at you, writer.”

Y/N merely scoffed as she wiped away the blood smeared across her chin. Akut had blindly punched in her direction and landed a lucky shot. “He deserved it.” She muttered, eyes flickering to Akut’s bruised face.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s get you cleaned up before Chiron whoops your ass. You, get Akut some nectar.” Luke sternly pointed at a nearby Ares kid before he dragged Y/N towards the infirmary. He had patched up Annabeth enough to know what he was doing.

Y/N was silent as Luke wiped her lip with a towel soaked in alcohol. She quietly winced but that was the only noise she made. Luke gently dabbed the cloth against her split skin, being mindful of how hard he pressed.

“What? Not gonna snap at me this time? I’m waiting for you to tell me that I’m holding the towel wrong.” Luke joked but Y/N simply shrugged and let him continue.

Luke’s gaze raked over her suddenly soft and deer-like features. In this moment, she almost seemed peaceful. He had seen many different versions of Y/N. The stressed one, the annoyed one, and the bloodied one. But never calm version until now. Without the biting remarks and sharp tongue, Luke couldn’t deny that she was beautiful.

He heard Y/N clear her throat. She raised her brows, as if questioning why his actions suddenly halted. “Y/N… you’re pretty. Did you know that?” He found himself accidentally whispering his thoughts but the look of shock swirling around in Y/N’s eyes made it worth it. Her eyes softened slightly before she looked away.

“Are you just gonna stand there like an idiot, Castellan?” She asked, glancing at him again.

“You’re just too good-looking, writer.” Luke teasingly uttered before going back to cleaning Y/N’s small injury. “You better behave yourself after this, though. Chiron will end up punishing you for attacking Akut, even if he started it with words.”

“He just got on my nerves. Everybody does. They all whisper and say they could easily do the stuff I did, knowing fully well they probably couldn’t.” Y/N’s lips curled into a scowl, “I just got ripped away from my life, from my school, and probably from my dream of attending Harvard. How did you think I’d react?”

“To be honest, I thought you’d be less violent. Must’ve been all your pent up rage.”

Y/N’s angry eyes turned to Luke and for a moment, he was scared she’d attack him. But they softened and suddenly, Luke was aware of how close they were. He could easily lean down and kiss her.

The duo were interrupted when Annabeth walked through the open door. She took in Luke’s wistful expression and Y/N’s slightly flushed cheeks but didn’t comment on it.

“I thought I’d come and introduce myself.” She uttered, “I’m Annabeth. You’re pretty good at fighting, did you know that?”

“The orphanage was run by a strange woman… she taught us how to fight and all sorts of crazy things.” Y/N clicked her tongue.

“Well, anyway, I think what you did was your quest was impressive. Rarely any newbies can say they slaughtered a monster, let alone two.”

Y/N lightly smiled at the young girl. “Thank you.”

Luke pouted, poking Y/N’s shoulder. “How come you aren’t this nice to me, writer?”

“Because you’re an idiot, Castellan. And you merely existing annoys me.” She sent Luke a pointed look while Annabeth muffled a snicker. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Y/N hopped off the bed, “I’m going to finish Akut or whatever his stupid, hideous name is.” She walked out of the infirmary before Luke could grab her.

“Are you going to stop her?” Annabeth questioned, raising her eyebrows.

“… Nah, I kind of what to see how this ends.”

It did not end good. Akut ended up needing stitches and Y/N was dragged into Chiron’s office while Mr D and a few Ares kids betted on who would win in a fight; Y/N or a random Aphrodite girl. The answer was obvious.

Y/N lay in her bed, half asleep yet half conscious. She rolled over, hitting her forehead on the wall next to her but she didn’t bother to open her eyes.

She wasn’t sure when she ended up in a temple made entirely out of white marble with pink veins running through the slabs of stone. Fluffy clouds floated around and Y/N waved them aside to see who the two figures standing in the distance were. She instantly recognised Athena but the short woman with beautiful locks of curly blond hair standing next her was unfamiliar.

“Mom?” Y/N carefully called out, causing Athena’s head to turn.

“Back so soon, my dear?” She asked in that calming, silky voice.

“Where are we?” Y/N questioned, furrowing her eyebrows. Athena didn’t get the chance to reply because her companion, whose blond hair was now brown and pale skin tanned, answered for her.

“You’re in my temple, of course!” She joyfully clasped her hands together while Athena kept her calm composure.

“It seems you are unfamiliar with the goddess of love, my dear.”

Everything seemed to click in Y/N’s mind. “Aphrodite.” She breathed.

“That’s why she’s your daughter and not mine, even with how pretty she is.” Aphrodite let out a giggle, gracefully grinning and showing off her pearly white teeth. In the beautiful goddess’ presence, Y/N felt inferior.

“Um… if it’s not crossing a boundary, I’d like to ask why I’m here.” Y/N piped up as she stepped closer to the deity duo. “Every time I fall asleep, I end up in different places.”

“Something seems to be troubling you. Oh, is it love problems? Because I can solve anything!” Aphrodite, as gleeful as ever, beckoned Y/N forward. “It’s that Hermes boy, isn’t it! Aw, I knew you two would end up in a thrilling and cute romance!” Aphrodite jumped around as she gushed over what Y/N and Luke could possibly become.

Y/N stole a small glance at her mother only to flinch at Athena’s furious facial expression. “Aphrodite, some privacy please.” Athena uttered, lifting a hand that seemed to hush the goddess of love.

“Oh…” Aphrodite seemed to hesitate before she nodded, “Of course.” Her body faded away into a mass of pink glitter and Y/N was left alone with her mother.

“So, you and this Hermes boy?” Athena quirked an eyebrow which made Y/N shrink back.

“We’re nothing, mother. I don’t even like him that much. To be honest, he’s annoying and he talks too much.”

Yet, Athena was not convinced. “I have created a clear pathway for you, my dear. Annabeth is a bright girl but I want you to be my star pupil. However, if you choose not to follow in my footsteps, then you will merely be only another disappointment.”

Y/N stiffened. Failure was her worst fear, whether it be within a school exam or being unable to meet someone’s expectations. She had never failed and she was not about to start now. With reluctance, she turned to Athena. “What do I have to do?”

Y/N quickly opened her eyes, quietly panting. She found herself back in the cabin and a sigh of relief slipped past her lips. She lay awake in her bed for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. She could hear light snores coming from her siblings and while the crackling sound of fire was supposed to calm her nerves, it didn’t. Eventually, Y/N rose.

She made an effort to keep quiet as she slipped past the cabin’s front door and into the chilly night air.

“Can’t sleep, huh?”

Y/N almost let out a loud shriek when she turned around only to almost crash into a certain Hermes boy. He had oh-so coincidentally been standing on the Athena’s cabin porch.

“What are you doing here?” She quietly hissed, on edge from both her dream and seeing the very boy her mother despised.

“I had a feeling you couldn’t sleep. The first few days are always the worst. You’re homesick and you’re also stuck with the realisation that you probably won’t ever go back.” Luke’s grin was visibly in the dim light coming from his lantern. “If I’m being honest, I was just on patrol duty and you happened to step out while I passed by.”

Y/N fidgeted with her fingers as she slowly sat down on the squeaky porch, wincing as it creaked. “What was the first night like for you?” She slowly questioned, staring up at Luke.

He shrugged. “Hard. I missed my mom and my friends and, well, Thalia.”

Y/N tilted her head to the side at the mentioning of Thalia’s name. “Who’s that?”

Luke paused before he glancing over at the lonesome tree on the hill. “This is going to sound stupid to you but she’s that tree. She was my friend while I was on the run from monsters. We then found Annabeth. Our satyr guide led us here but we were being chased by monsters. Thalia fought some of them off but there were too many… she would’ve died if it were for her father, Zeus, saving her.”

“He turned her into a fucking tree.” Y/N deadpanned.

Luke quietly groaned, “That’s the same ready Percy had as well. Why did the king of the gods turn his daughter into a tree of all things to save her life? I don’t know. I ain’t Zeus. Yeah, a tree is stupid but hey, at least she’s not dead.” Luke sarcastically smiled while Y/N remained unamused.

“I would rather die than become a tree.” She replied, “Imagine all your leaves falling during winter. You’re basically bald then.”

“If you were a tree, I’d cut you down.” Luke snapped back before he could still himself.

“So, Thalia. Tell me more about her.” Y/N abruptly switched topics.

“She was a little fiery and prideful but that’s expected of Zeus’ daughter. To be honest, she was a little bit like you. She seemed to have a soft spot for Annabeth. I think she preferred Annabeth over me.”

“Wow, what a shocker. I prefer Annabeth too.”

“I was young back then but I’m pretty sure I had a crush on Thalia. She could get me to do anything with one look.” Luke slowly trailed off while Y/N bit the inside of her cheek. Her heart felt unexpectedly heavy and for a moment, she thought she was sick.

“I should go to bed now. I’m feeling tired.” She stood up, stretching her stiff limbs. “See you later, Castellan.” Y/N walked back into her cabin before Luke could reply. He watched her disappear, leaving him standing alone in front of the porch.

He sighed. “Good night to you too, writer.”

Y/N was in the bathroom, washing her face tired face, when somebody else entered. They awkwardly stood behind her for a few moments before clearing their throat.

Y/N opened her eyes and wiped away the beads of water that dripped down her chin.

“You did some mean damage on Akut.”

In the mirror’s reflection, Y/N could see a pretty Ares girl with long, curled hair and a camp t-shirt a size too big. She was shorter than Y/N, not by much, but the H/C-nette still had to look down.

Clarisse had changed a lot but Y/N could still recognise that familiar glimmer in her old friend’s eyes.

“So this is where you disappeared off to?” Y/N questioned as Clarisse stepped closer. The brunette was now standing beside Y/N, leaning against the sink next to her with her arms folded over her chest.

“I never thought I’d see you again.” Clarisse uttered, her gaze looking Y/N up and down, “You’ve grown… a lot.”

“So have you, Clari. You look good.”

“You look better. You might turn me lesbian. It’s a shame you like Luke.”

Y/N paused and furrowed her eyebrows. “I don’t like Luke.” She said, but it was mainly to reassure herself. She heard Clarisse laugh.

“He’s all you look at. For a daughter of Athena, you aren’t too smart on this topic.”

Y/N remained stone-faced as she calmly turned to look at Clarisse. “I don’t like him.” She repeated, this time firmer.

Clarisse hummed as if she wasn’t convinced. “He’s always looking at you, by the way. You being claimed means he sees you less and I think he misses you. But you shouldn’t care. You don’t like him.” She teasingly smiled as she applied a heavy layer of gloss onto her lips.

Y/N said nothing as she looked away, splashing another handful of cold water onto her face.

“You probably remind him of Thalia. Headstrong and stubborn.”

Y/N let Clarisse’s words sink in before she opened her mouth. “I’m not Thalia.” She quietly muttered. “I remind Luke of Thalia. I remind Annabeth of Thalia. But I’m not her. My identity is not tied to Zeus’ half-blood daughter.” Y/N clenched her hands into fists. “It was nice catching up, Clari. Next time we talk, we should tell each other about our lives after we parted.”

Y/N dabbed her face with a soft cotton towel as she walked back to the Athena cabin, almost groaning at the sight of Luke. “What are you doing here? Again?” She demanded, kicking his ankle.

“Woah! Hey, I’m waiting for Annabeth. I’m not here to annoy you. Yet.” Luke grinned as he leaned against a wall. Or he tried to, at least. He underestimated the distance and ended up falling.

“Smooth, Castellan.” Y/N sarcastically said as she towered over him.

“Thanks, writer. I try.” Luke coolly played his embarrassing mistake off while Y/N rolled her eyes.

“Luke, what are you doing?” Annabeth pushed open the door, arching an eyebrow at the boy who was sprawled across the floor.

“Y/N pushed me.”

Y/N scoffed, “I did not. You fell by yourself, Castellan. Like an idiot, might I add.” She brushed past Annabeth.

“You like her.” Annabeth blurted out as soon as Y/N was out of earshot. It was more of a harsh statement than anything else.

“I do not.”

“You do. What about Thalia? Why don’t you like her anymore?”

Luke furrowed his brows as he glanced at Thalia’s tree. “Thalia’s a tree, Annabeth. I have to move on at some point.”

Annabeth clenched her hands into fists as she glared at Luke. “I don’t want you to move on!”

Luke was confused as to why Annabeth was acting this way. He knew she missed Thalia but she had never burst into a fit. “Annabeth… I have to. You said you liked Y/N.”

“I do… but she’s not Thalia.”

Y/N woke up covered in a thin layer of sweat. She quietly panted. Her dreams were all the same now and depicted Athena ruthlessly lecturing her over and over again to the point where Y/N felt a little scared.

She heard someone shift in their bed. “Are you okay?” Y/N heard Annabeth whisper from across the room.

Y/N gave herself a moment to catch her breath before she sighed. “Yeah… just a bad dream, you know? I’m going outside for a bit.” Y/N kicked the covers off her body, shakily standing up.

“Thalia wouldn’t do that.” Annabeth muttered, “She doesn’t like going outside after nightmares.”

Y/N bit back an annoyed huff. “I’m not Thalia, Annabeth. I never will be her. You and Luke should let it go.” She walked out of the cabin, resisting the urge to slam the door.

“Oh, wow. This is just creepy. Are you sure you aren’t stalking me?” Luke grinned while Y/N sarcastically smiled. She sat down on the steps.

“Does Annabeth always go around and comparing people to Thalia?” She was straight forward and blunt. Luke clicked his tongue as he took the spot next to her.

“Not really… no.“

“Do you see me as Thalia?”

“I see Thalia in you but I know how to tell the difference between you too. Listen, Annabeth was attached to Thalia. And with new things coming to light, she’s on guard.”

Y/N turned to look at Luke, gazing at him in confusion. “New things?” She questioned.

“New… feelings.”

“… New feelings for Thalia the tree?”

Luke held his face in his hands as he groaned. “How are you a daughter of Athena? I’m giving you all the hints, writer.”

Y/N only raised her eyebrows. “I see no hints. All I see is your infatuation with a tree that was once a girl.”

“I like you.” Luke blurted out, unable to withstand any more of her obliviousness. “I don’t like Thalia. Maybe I did before but like I told Annabeth, I have to move on.”

Y/N was silent. She stared ahead while Luke awaited her reaction. Finally, Y/N said something. “You can’t like me… you don’t know me, Luke.”

“But I do! I know your favourite food and I know your favourite book. I know when people ask what your favourite colour is, you say it’s stupid to have one but your favourite colour is actually (insert)! I know you hate parties but you also want to feel like a normal teenager. And I know your favourite drink is (insert) yet the best one you’ve tried is in that cafe across from the school. I know things you didn’t know that I knew”- Luke cut himself off with a small sigh. “My point is I know you!”

“Did you mean you know things I didn’t know you knew about me?”

“Yes!” Luke quietly hissed, not wanting to be too loud in case he woke up the Athena kids. They wouldn’t be too happy about that. “And I know that you like correcting people’s grammar because the only paper you scored a B on was because you made grammar mistakes. You think you’re helping people but they think you’re a know-it-all. Though, when you explain your intentions, they realize you were only trying to help.”

Y/N stared at Luke with her lips parted. “Are you stalking me?” She murmured.

“No… yes? It was part of my quest, writer. I had to.”

“Well, that’s not creepy at all.”

“Are you even listening to what I’m saying? I just said I like you and you called me creepy.”

“You are for knowing all that information about me!”

“Okay, okay.” Luke held his hands up in surrender, “Truce. I really do like you, writer.”

“And here I thought you hated me. What was up with all our bickering then?”

“It was the only way to get your attention. And, I must admit, I did feel a little jealous of you. You were so good at everything… and I’m only good at swinging a sword around.” Luke’s gaze flickered to the ground. He thickly swallowed before lifting his head again. He quickly realized how close he was to Y/N, their foreheads almost butting against each other.

“Do you really like me, Cast-Luke?” Y/N quickly corrected herself. Luke could feel a grin stretch across his lips. Y/N had never called him by his first name before. It was always Castellan this, Castellan that.

“I do. I like you, Y/N. I really, really like you.”

“Okay.” Y/N whispered, slowly leaning forward. She was afraid of what her mother would say but when her lips met Luke’s, suddenly she didn’t care.

All that mattered were Luke’s hands trailing up to grab her waist and the smile that spread across his face like gleeful wildfire.

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[nodusomnis]

title: screened affections pairing(s): itoshi sae x gn!reader word count: 2.5k+ synopsis: watching a somber film won't halt your tears' flow, and you'd rather your swollen eyes remain unseen to him, you know.

As the sun danced high in the sky, casting a warm glow upon the world, Sae's day unfolded in the typical rhythm of his routine. The morning had seen him through his training sessions, the sweat glistening on his skin as he pushed himself to his limits on the field. With the midday sun now reigning supreme, Sae found himself in the quiet interlude between tasks, a time when he could steal a moment to himself.

But in this moment of respite, his thoughts wandered to you. Across the miles that separated you, he wondered about your day, your activities, your thoughts. His phone lay nearby, a silent sentinel waiting for any sign of your presence. It had been hours since he last heard from you, since your message had danced onto his screen, promising an evening of entertainment, of shared moments even in the distance.

Yet, as the minutes stretched into hours, a flicker of impatience began to gnaw at him. Why hadn't you responded? Had something come up? Was the movie captivating you to the point of forgetfulness? Sae shook his head, knowing he shouldn't let such trivialities bother him. You had your own life, your own rhythms, just as he did. And yet, despite this rationalization, a sense of unease lingered.

With a sigh, he glanced at his phone once more, hoping to find a new message waiting for him, a sign that you were still there, still thinking of him amidst the distractions of the day. But the screen remained stubbornly blank, devoid of any new notifications.

Still, Sae persisted in his patience, knowing that you deserved the same understanding that you had always shown him. Despite his own shortcomings, despite the times he had kept you waiting, you had always greeted him with warmth and affection, your smile a beacon of light even in the darkest of moments.

Sae's thoughts swirled with a mixture of gratitude and guilt as he reflected on the dynamics of your relationship. He couldn't help but acknowledge the asymmetry in your efforts, the way you consistently showed understanding and patience even in the face of his shortcomings. It weighed heavily on him, this awareness of his own failings juxtaposed against your unwavering support.

The distance between you, both physical and emotional, seemed to amplify the complexities of your connection. Each day brought its own challenges, its own moments of doubt and longing. Sae couldn't deny the pang of loneliness that occasionally gripped his heart, the ache for your touch, your presence, so far beyond his reach.

Yet, amidst the distance and the doubts, there was a profound sense of appreciation that blossomed within him. He cherished the moments of connection, however fleeting they might be, the messages exchanged, the gifts given, the shared laughter and dreams that transcended the miles between you. It was these small gestures, these tokens of affection, that served as lifelines in the vast expanse of your separation.

But alongside this appreciation lurked the shadow of insecurity, the fear that one day you might tire of his flaws, his inconsistencies, and choose to walk away.Indeed, Sae embodies traits of coldness, indifference, and rudeness. Were he in your shoes, he would likely grow weary of his own demeanor as well. It was a thought he couldn't shake, a whisper of doubt that haunted his mind in moments of solitude. 

Yet, even as this fear plagued him, Sae found comfort in the knowledge that you had chosen to stay, to weather the storms of his temperament with grace and understanding. He knew he didn't deserve you, didn't deserve the way you loved him despite his faults. And yet, there you were, a light in the darkness, a reminder of the goodness that still existed in the world.

With a heavy heart, Sae made a silent vow to do better, to be more present, more attentive, more deserving of the love you so freely gave. For in you, he found not only a partner, but a mirror reflecting back the best parts of himself, urging him to strive for greater heights, to be worthy of the love he had been blessed with. And for that, he would be eternally grateful.

As Sae's thoughts swirled in the quiet of his surroundings, the sudden ping of a notification jarred him from his reverie. With a quick glance at his phone, he felt a wave of relief wash over him as he saw your name illuminated on the screen. Despite his outward calm, a spark of anticipation flickered within him, eager to see what message awaited him from you after hours of silence.

You: I've finished watching the movie. I have a favor to ask. Could we refrain from calling at this time?

As Sae read your message, a sense of displeasure crept over him, overshadowing the relief of finally hearing from you. Your request to postpone the call raised red flags in his mind, triggering a subtle but concrete sense of suspicion.

He furrowed his brow in instinctive concern, his curiosity piqued by your vague explanation. Why did you suddenly want to delay the call? What were you hiding? Sae's mind raced with possibilities, each more troubling than the last.

Sae: Tell me  a credible explanation as to why we should refrain from calling at this moment?

You: Well, there are certain matters… that require my attention and preparation at this time…

Sae's intuition had become finely attuned to the nuances of your words, to the subtle shifts in your tone and demeanor that betrayed the truth beneath the surface. Over the years, he had learned to decipher the language of your heart, to recognize the telltale signs of deception or concealment.

It wasn't just a matter of familiarity, but a deep understanding born from years of shared experiences and intimate moments. Sae knew you better than anyone else, perhaps even better than you knew yourself. He had witnessed the full spectrum of your emotions, from joy to sorrow, from anger to affection, and he could read them like an open book.

So when your message arrived, cloaked in evasion and half-truths, Sae's instincts immediately kicked in. He sensed the hesitance in your words, the reluctance to reveal the full extent of whatever was weighing on your mind. And though he couldn't pinpoint the exact nature of your deception, he knew enough to recognize that something was amiss.

Sae: And that thing is?

You: Confidential! 

Sae's frustration bubbled to the surface, his jaw clenching as he read your message. The very idea of you keeping something from him, especially under the guise of confidentiality, struck a nerve deep within him. After all, honesty and openness had been the pillars of your relationship, the guiding principles that had bound you together through thick and thin.

The notion that you would go against your own principles, that you would hide something from him when you had always been so transparent, felt like a betrayal of the trust the two of you had built over the years. Sae couldn't help but feel a surge of indignation, a righteous anger that burned hot in his chest.

You were his partner, his confidante, his rock in times of need. And he had always believed that you would share everything with him, no matter how difficult or sensitive the topic. The idea that you would choose to keep something from him, to shut him out of your thoughts and feelings, was almost incomprehensible to him.

Since Sae had enough of this game of cat and mouse, he didn’t hesitate a second to call you. As the phone rang in his ear, Sae's heart pounded with a mixture of apprehension and urgency, but remained composed. With each unanswered ring, his worry deepened, eclipsing his frustration with a sense of impending dread. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, that you needed him at this moment, and he was failing to reach you.

With a furrowed brow, Sae clenched his jaw, his fingers tapping anxiously against the phone as he waited for you to pick up. Each passing second felt like an eternity, stretching out into the abyss of uncertainty. What if you were in trouble? What if you needed his help and he wasn't there for you?

The thought sent a chill down his spine, driving him to redouble his efforts to reach you. He dialed your number again, the urgency in his movements disclosing the depth of his concern. He couldn't bear the thought of you being in distress, of facing whatever challenges lay ahead without him by your side.

Sae: (Name), answer right this instant.

Once more, Sae's call came through, lingering in the air as the phone rang persistently. After nearly half a minute, you finally answered.

“S-Sae… I was in the bathroom a while ago. I didn’t know you called.” Your voice tinged with an apologetic tone as you explained your delayed response. Meanwhile, on the other end of the line, Sae's calm demeanor masked a subtle hint of authority.

As you spoke, there were faint sounds of movement, suggesting you were adjusting your position. Then, in a soft yet firm tone, Sae remarked, "I can't see you."

There was a pause, filled only with the distant sounds of ambient noise. Eventually, you responded, your voice slightly muffled, indicating that you had turned away from the screen. 

"I prefer not to show my face right now."

Sae's forehead creases deeper, a subtle sign of frustration evident in the way he clicked his tongue in disapproval. "After all these years together, you're still embarrassed for me to see your face during our calls?" he questioned, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice.

He couldn't help but scoff at the irony of the situation, but your response was only a timid whimper, revealing your discomfort.

"I don't want to..." you trailed off, your voice barely above a whisper.

"(Name)," Sae sighed, his tone gentle yet probing. "Why are you so reluctant for me to see your face?"

He shifted his position on the couch, leaning back and resting his head against the backrest. The monotony of your ceiling, the only thing visible to him on the screen, began to wear on him. He had been eagerly awaiting this moment for hours, eager to see your face after fulfilling his responsibilities. Yet now, when he finally had the chance, you seemed adamant about hiding yourself. It left him perplexed. It couldn't simply be shyness. There had to be something more, some underlying reason driving your reluctance.

"It's because..." you began, but trailed off, briefly glancing at your phone. In that moment, Sae caught a glimpse of your forehead and your swollen eyes before you hastily averted your gaze, returning the screen to its previous view of the ceiling.

"That's the reason! Now you've seen me!" you cried out, your voice tinged with anguish.

So, the reason you didn't want Sae to see you was because you had been crying. He had a suspicion it might be related to the movie you watched. But this wasn't the first time tears had stained your cheeks in each other's presence. The memory of past conflicts and misunderstandings lingered, casting a shadow over your relationship. Some of those tears had been shed because of Sae himself, a fact that weighed heavily on his conscience.

His reaction to your tears was complex. Despite his outward facade of indifference, he couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt whenever he saw you in distress. It stirred a deep-seated sense of inadequacy within him, a belief that he was somehow to blame for your tears. Beneath his stoic exterior lay a turbulent sea of emotions, swirling with remorse and self-doubt.

In those moments of conflict, Sae's instinct was to act swiftly. He would seek reconciliation, eager to mend the rift between you and offer a sincere apology, regardless of the cost to his pride. His concern for your well-being was genuine, rooted in a profound appreciation for your presence in his life. Despite your reassurances that you could handle things on your own, Sae couldn't shake the feeling of responsibility that weighed heavily on his shoulders. 

Your influence on Sae was undeniable. You had touched his life in ways he never imagined, prompting him to confront his own shortcomings and strive for personal growth. Despite his flaws and occasional bouts of unpleasantness, he was willing to go to great lengths to ensure your happiness.

"(Name), have I not previously conveyed to you that there is no need for secrecy between us?" Sae's voice was gentle yet firm as he spoke, prompting you to glance at your phone screen once more.

"Yeah... I'm just embarrassed that you'll see me with swollen eyes because of a movie," you admitted, sniffling softly.

"I've witnessed you in more dire conditions than this. There's no reason for you to feel ashamed. It's not as though it poses a threat to your life, you see?"

"Whatever," you retorted, rolling your eyes, eliciting a faint smile from Sae. "I know you're just going to say it's only a movie and whatnot."

"And yet, here you are, treating it like it's classified information when it's really something trivial," he chuckled, observing your pouting expression.

"That's why I didn't want to call, because you're just going to tease me!" you protested, your bottom lip jutting out in a pout.

"You're a bit of a goof sometimes," Sae shook his head, amusement evident in his tone. He glanced at his screen, finally able to see your entire face as you pouted. Your eyes, still swollen from crying, met his for a moment before you averted your gaze to the side, avoiding him.

Your eyes were still swollen from crying over the movie. Sae couldn't help but wonder what kind of film had evoked such a strong emotional response from you. His lips curled upwards imperceptibly as he pondered.

"So, tell me what happened in the movie?" 

As you began to speak, your voice filled with enthusiasm and passion, Sae couldn't help but be drawn in. Instantly, he found himself captivated by your words, hanging on every detail of the film's storyline as you painted a vivid picture with your descriptions. Your eyes sparkled with excitement, reflecting the joy that bubbled within you as you delved into the intricacies of the plot.

Watching you come alive with each word, Sae felt a warmth spreading through his chest, a feeling of contentment settling over him like a comforting embrace. Despite the weight of earlier worries, seeing you so animated and happy brought a smile to his lips, banishing the shadows that had clouded his thoughts just moments before.

As you spoke, your gestures animated and your laughter contagious, Sae found himself swept up in the moment, his own worries fading into the background as he basked in the glow of your happiness. For him, there was no greater pleasure than seeing you so alive, so full of life and vitality.

In the end, it wasn't the film itself that mattered, but the way it brought you joy and excitement. And in that shared moment of connection, as you shared your thoughts and feelings with him, Sae couldn't help but feel grateful for the simple yet profound pleasure of being by your side.

[justlemmeadoreyou]

Trepidation^

Summary: (this ask) i was wondering if you could write one where harry feels a bit neglected when reader has an important meeting coming up or something, so she's missing date nights and stuff, a little angst if you please.

Word count: 2k

Pairing: boyfriend!harry x reader

Warnings: angst, fluff, swearing

masterlist | ask box

Harry sat alone in your dimly lit apartment, a heavy sadness weighing on his heart. He had been feeling neglected lately, as your demanding job had taken precedence over your relationship. It seemed as though each passing day brought more missed date nights and canceled plans, leaving him with a growing sense of loneliness and insecurity.

Tonight was supposed to be your special date night, a chance for you both to reconnect and forget about the outside world for a while. But once again, you had been called away for an important meeting, leaving Harry to face the emptiness of their once vibrant love life. Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at the untouched dinner on the table, a painful reminder of what could have been.

Feeling a deep ache in his chest, Harry couldn't help but wonder if he was no longer enough for you. Thoughts of inadequacy and doubt filled his mind, tormenting him with the fear that he was being replaced by your demanding career. The anguished silence of the apartment only amplified his sorrow, as every passing second felt like a confirmation of his deepest fears.

His mind drifted to the countless nights you both had spent together, laughing, talking, and sharing their dreams. How you would hold your hands in his and you both would just lie in your shared bed, relishing in the comfortable silence and presence of each other. You had built a life together in the two years you had been with each other, promising to always prioritize each other's happiness. But now, it seemed as though those promises had been forgotten, lost in the chaos of your professional success.

He didn’t oppose your work, it was one of the things he respected the most about you. But, lately, it was all you cared about. You were about to get a promising position as a promotion in your job, and you were working day and night to make sure you got it. He supported you in that too. He started to stay home longer to take care of your dog, oreo. He even prepared meals for you throughout the day, making sure you got the proper nutrition for working so hard. He sent you multiple texts, checking in on you throughout the day.

But, completely prioritising your work might not have been the best idea. You had not been able to spend any time with your boyfriend, let alone sit and relax with him, in quite a while. It wasn’t your intention, but it had all gone south and you had to give all your time to your job. It was like Harry was the only one in the relationship now, and he felt like a one-sided lover.

The weight of his sadness grew unbearable, he questioned whether you still loved him or not. The ache in his heart was not just from the missed date nights, but from the sense of abandonment that had settled in your once warm and loving home, that shone with your love that lit it up.

Harry longed for the days when your presence brought him comfort and joy. He yearned for the laughter and the stolen moments of affection that had once defined their relationship. Now, all he felt was the sting of neglect and the bitter taste of unfulfilled promises.

He yearned for your presence, your touch, even a proper look at your pretty face.

As the night grew darker, Harry couldn't help but cry out silently, his tears blending with the shadows that engulfed him. He wanted nothing more than to be seen and cherished by you, to be loved by you, to feel the warmth of your love once again.

In the depths of his broken heart, Harry hoped that you would realize the pain you were causing and make a change. He yearned for the day when they could rediscover the love that had brought them together, and finally mend the broken pieces of your neglected relationship

Harry felt you slipping away, and he didn’t really know how to catch you.

With hot tears streaming down his face, he took off the jacket of the tuix he had worn for tonight. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the tiny box that held all of his feelings for you. Opening it, he revealed the shiny diamond ring that he had bought two months ago, before your relationship fell into a messy blunder.

A tear fell into the soft foam beneath the ring and he tried to wipe it off aggressively. He wanted to keep it safe and shiny and pretty, so he could give it to you when the time was right, and ask you to marry him. Now, he wasn’t even sure if you wanted that.

If he wanted that.

. . .

You came home quite late, and it was around 2 am on the clock. With a tote bag stuffed with bottles of alcohol and a smile that wouldn’t go away.

You had gotten the promotion.

“Harry?” you called around the house, as soon as you entered.

You reached the kitchen, where you found the table arranged, with plates and wine glasses.

Fuck.

You and Harry had a date.

How could you forget? You both had been planning this for so long, finally being able to make a plan and spend the night together. He had even gone shopping over the weekend to make you your favorite pasta, even though it was his holiday after a whole week of work.

How could you forget?

You reached the table and put the alcohol aside, looking at the casserole full of food.

He hadn’t eaten.

You felt heartbroken, all the happiness and glory you were carrying for the past few hours, fading away into a dull ache in your heart. He had put so much effort into making this night special and perfect. He bought the red wine you loved, made dinner for you, set up plates and was probably waiting for you for hours.

And you couldn’t even be bothered to text him.

A tear escaped your eyes, and you started to search for Harry throughout the house.

Entering the bedroom, you saw him there, sitting at the foot of the bed. He was wearing a suit.

A damn suit.

He had put so much effort, and all you had done was get drunk over a stupid promotion. You had completely ignored him, just caring about your job and the money you were going to get. All the while he cared about your relationship.

You did not deserve him.

You walked over to him, taking a look at his face. His cheeks were tear-stained, and he looked so broken and sad. In pain. That you had caused him.

He was crying, and had probably passed out on the floor, waiting for you.

Sitting down beside him, you pulled his hand into yours. You were drunk and sad, and he was asleep. You just decided to talk to him like that, so he wouldn't have to see your awful face.

"I'm so sorry, Harry. I’m so so sorry. And not just today. Everything. For every bit of pain that I have caused you, for every tear that rolled down your cheek because of me. I ignored you. I neglected you. I ignored our beautiful relationship. I ruined it."

Proper tears were flowing down your eyes now, clouding your vision enough to not realize that he had woken up and opened his eyes.

"I had it. I had you. I had fucking everything in my hands. And I ruined it. I just-I just can't keep good things when they come to me, can i? I just always have to go ahead and fuck everything up. Throw everything out for just a bunch of money? God, how pathetic is that? And you know-I wasn’t just doing it to earn some extra money. I did it because-because my working hours would be reduced and-and I would have to work less. Less work. More you. More Harry." you giggled at your sappiness, before continuing, "And I'm sorry, Harry. So fucking much. I really am. for ruining our relationship. For making you cry. For all the perfect efforts you did for us, and I-I just let it go down the drain. I'm so so sorry."

"And you know, I understand. I understand that you are angry with me, and don't ever want to talk to me ever again. For how bad i fucked up. And I" a few fresh tears flew down as you prepared yourself to say ``I-I would I would get it if you want to break up. Even I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with me."

"Hey! How could you say that!" you flinched, his raspy voice making you shiver.

"What-I thought you-you were asleep."

"I was. And thank god I woke up, because the one time you properly talk to me, is when you are drunk and I'm passed out."

You weren't sure if it was a joke, but it made your heart break even more.

"I'm really sorry…" you started to sob, and he quickly pulled you into his arms.

"Shh. Don't apologize. You've apologized enough. I get it. I really do. When I neglected our relationship-when I was releasing my new album or going on tour, you stayed strong throughout. You never made me feel like I was ruining our relationship. you helped and supported me, when I needed it the most. I wanted to do the same too, but I just-just kinda broke down today. It just all came crashing down on me."

Your face formed a pout, and he kissed you sweetly on your lips.

"It's alright. I understand. Don't think too much about all that stuff you just said. I mean-I was a bit sad, because I thought that I wasn't your priority anymore. I thought you loved your work more than me. And I do too, you know, sometimes. And I'm sorry if I made you feel like you aren't enough."

"So you won't break up with me?" you asked, another quiet sob escaping your lips.

"No, silly. Why would I break up with you? I want to support you even more now. Throughout your work till you get the promotion, I will be by your side. I won't let you feel less again. Ever."

You sat up straighter, wanting to give him the good news.

"About that. I-I uh, I got the-the promotion."

His face softened, and he looked so fucking happy.

"WHAT!?" He exclaimed, and pulled you in for a tight hug, that knocked out the breath from your lungs.

"Yeah. I got the promotion today. My project was finally approved and my interview was last week and I cleared it."

He was smiling so big, and there were tears flowing down his cheeks.

Not sad tears, happy ones.

Because of you.

"My sweet girl. I love you so much. And I'm so so proud of you. Gonna love on you so much tonight."

You smiled at his happiness, finally feeling the ache in your chest go away, into loads of butterflies from the way he was looking at you.

He held you tightly in his arms, his chest now swollen with pride for you. How much you have achieved. How much you worked hard, all the rough times you had to go through, but it was all worth it in the end.

After a few moments of holding each other, your stomach grumbled.

"You hungry?" he asked, swiping his thumb across the apple of your cheek.

"Yeah. You made pasta?"

"Mhm, your favorite. You are gonna love it."

"I know. I always do. And I love you, Harry."

"I love you too, sweet girl. Now go and clean yourself up. I'll put the food in the microwave and heat it. Hurry, I have lots of things I want to do tonight." he said, his left hand swiping across the ring box in his pocket.

. . .

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[merbear25]

Patience is a virtue

Learning to trust isn't easy, especially when you're still picking up the pieces from the past. Even though the desire to get to know you is a nawing persistence, he values your boundaries. Whenever you decide to open up, he'll be waiting.

a/n: idk I just have a lot of feelings.

Sanji, Ace, Corazon

CW: SFW, gn!reader, angsty(maybe?), fluff, mutual feelings

Sanji: You'd grown quiet around him. The both of you had just been starting to chat a little more. It felt nice to hear your soft laughs as he told you jokes about what had happened that day. But then, the angelic laughter came to a hault, leaving him to question what he'd said to bring such sorrow to your lovely complexion. Even without knowing what he'd done to upset you, he apologized―pleading, in a way, to move past this and get back to seeing you smile.

You needed time though. You didn't have to say it ―it was written all over your face. Backing off was a choice made with much heartache, but he did so nonetheless: deciding that persuing you in the matter would only push you further away from him.

Distancing yourself wasn't something that you'd necessarily wanted to do. However, those buds of elation and adoration sprouting were also accompanied with the bitter cold of past rejection that stifled any pursuit of happiness you were hoping for.

The erosion of the hole in you was swallowing your very being, but when this had shown to be too troublesome for others, he was still there: he didn't pry, he never rushed you, just waited for your return to him.

This was someone worth pushing those doubts aside for. The next time you spoke to him, your heart lead the way, despite your fears trailing closely behind. His warmth helped melt the frost that'd been collecting over the years.

Ace: He was growing accustomed to you rather quickly. You were certainly kind-hearted and nice to have a laugh with, all of which made him start gravitating towards you whenever you were present. There was surely an interest in you, one that he had not fully become aware of. Just as he was discovering his feelings for you, you changed gears: avoiding him, reverting back into your shell. Despite how hurt he felt, he couldn't demand you to tell him the reason―it wouldn't be fair to you.

If you needed time away from him, he would give you that. He wasn't going to force his friendship on you. That being said, this time apart was good for him, as well. Thoughts of you came and went, but many of them stayed: something interesting or funny would happen and he wanted to tell you about it but felt like he couldn't.

This time away from each other only echoed your longing for companionship; you were left with nothing but the same loneliness that'd surrounded you each time prior. Tears brought on by thoughts of the flame lit between you eventually burning out stung your eyes. Even in solitude, fear of abandonment intruded on you.

There were small glances he threw your way, none of which were harboring resentment. Instead, they showed concern. Anticipation for a row that wouldn't come: you stood there wondering what made him different.

How can I learn to trust? Can you help me? Seeing you make your way to him was the remedy he needed for the flickering flame he'd worried was losing its luster in your eyes. However, you were both sure now that it'd never go out.

Corazon: Taking the leap of faith to reveal his secrets to you was terrifying: you were, in fact, different from the others, but something like this wasn't an easy choice to make. That being said, nothing could replace the memories you two were creating together. Each day that passed, regret for the secret he'd let you in on didn't come. The bond he was under the impression you two had been forming was faltering though. It wasn't important for him to know what he'd done exactly―he just knew he wanted to make it up to you.

Your body language did the talking for you: your sunny disposition had clouds rolling in and the gloom of a storm was on the horizon. Even though he longed to come to your aid, he understood that pushing you into a conversation wouldn't fair well for your blossoming relationship.

You wanted to shield this budding love from the harsh storm brewing within. Your frail body could only do so much though when caught in this hurricane. Gale force winds, rain that lashed at your skin: abrasions which came with each potential relationship.

No stranger to the torment this world had to offer, he could see the wear and tear of your inner termoil on your soft face. It took each bit of inner strength not to go to you and tell you everything would be alright. He wanted to give you the freedom to choose to share your burdens with him. In spite of the distance between the both of you, his eagerness to rescue you from yourself was unmistakable.

I can't carry on through this storm alone. Can you be the one I lean on? Finding your way back to him, he instinctively held our his arms to wrap you in the warmth you'd been in desperate need of, yet unable to secure it up till now. You were now fully prepared to take your own leap of faith.