looking through your eyes + three
authors note: wow! omg, thank you all so much for the kind words of support for this story! it really does mean a lot to me, cause i know the content is pretty heavy.
also, if anyone has read the acotar series, i imagine the dynamic between roman and the twins to be a bit similar to the bat boys. and yes, we'll def see more of the twins moving forward.
in addition, if you want to be tagged, you have to explicitly ask as such. the last thing i want to do is tag someone i thought wanted to be tagged and didn't, and they end up triggered. :(
if any cw/tw’s are missed, please let me know, and i will add them!
cw/tw: language, violence against women, trauma responses (nightmares/night terrors), hints at suicidal thoughts, references to traumatic past
song inspo: 'looking through your eyes’ by leann rimes
words: 9k
Roman doesn’t come back until the wee hours of the morning, and he’s out the house again before the sun is even up.
Solana knows all of this because she doesn’t sleep that night.
It’s not for lack of trying. She spends nearly two hours twisting and turning before finally accepting that sleep isn’t in the cards for her. She instead finds herself sitting on the floor of her bathroom, door locked, writing away in her journal. No letter to mom this time, just pure word vomit, all of her thoughts and feelings about everything that’s transpired.
There’s as many tears as there are words, and like always post–writing, she feels a tad bit better. The best and only release she ever has is in her written word, all of the things she could never say aloud, melted from her head and sealed into paper.
When she’s done writing, Solana opts to read a book in her Kindle Library. Doing so makes her realize that she still doesn’t have her stuff from back home. It’s not that she has a lot, but the items she was told to pack just for the first few nights will only last just that—for a few days.
But, Solana doesn’t think it’s a good idea to ask Roman about that. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea to ask him for anything, not after she’s clearly and understandably upset him. She’ll just….she’ll just have to make do until it's noticed she's essentially living out of a suitcase.
And Solana has a thought, an idea, that getting up early to fix him breakfast could be a good thing, something to tame his anger toward her. It’s the least that she can do.
But one look around Roman’s massive kitchen indicates he’s every bit the stereotypical bachelor. There’s only a couple of ingredients, not enough of anything to make an actual meal. There’s also a lot of “meal prep” meals, which makes sense. She can imagine he’s insanely strict with his diet and fitness. One can’t look like Roman Reigns without an intense amount of focus and dedication.
It makes her wonder just what kind of dietary restrictions and preferences she’ll have to learn about him to make meals that he can actually consume. Another question she needs to ask but doesn’t know how or when considering he already has very little to no interest in having anything to do with her.
It’s another thing she knows she’ll have to figure out but tries her best to focus on anything else besides the fact that she’s now married to a man who can’t stand her, the same man her family wants her to somehow assassinate.
Yes…..other things is a much better seat filler.
Solana briefly wonders how she’s going to get to work considering her car is still back at her dad’s house, but just when she’s considering calling an Uber, she’s met in the living room of Roman’s massive estate by none other than his right hand man and cousin.
Solo Sikoa
All he says is, “ready?” And she realizes that this is how she’s to get to work, that he is to escort her. Him and another set of large men, guards as she realizes. A separate set of guards, not the ones who roam and patrol Roman’s mansion.
Being around so many men….it’s a different kind of experience. Leaning more on the side of uncomfortable than anything.
But, she’s at least a bit more at ease when Solo only opens the door to the back of the SUV and doesn’t join in, instead sitting in the passenger seat.
She's grateful for that.
Solo is almost the same exact person as his cousin. Large, strong, stoic and scary as hell. The only difference is that she’s not sure Solo is capable of sentences that include more than 1 to 3 words.
It’s obvious he’s not thrilled about being assigned as her personal guard, and she can’t blame him. There can’t be anything exciting about watching her boring life and making sure nothing happens to her during said boring life.
But Solana can’t deny there’s a small part of her that feels a small sense of comfort at having someone to look out for her. Even if she partially questions his loyalty to said job. Something happening to her wouldn’t do anything to anybody. At all.
She’d just….cease to exist.
And lately….that hasn’t seemed like the worst thing ever.
But, it’s when she arrives at work, goes into her office to start to prepare for the work day only to find her brother already waiting that that comfort is obliterated.
“Sis.” Wes' smile is tight and inauthentic, his eyes darting between her and Solo. “Sorry to scare you. I was just hoping we could talk.”
Talk….
Wes never wants to talk to her, not unless it’s him berating and screaming while he beats the shit out of her.
“Alone.” He gives Solo a faux sympathetic expression. “Family things….you understand, I’m sure.”
Solana doesn’t know if Solo understands or he doesn’t, but she does know that Wes' kind and friendly tone is all smoke and mirrors. She knows he’s pissed that he didn’t catch her off-guard, didn’t catch her alone, that he couldn’t corner her like he always does.
And for a second, Solana believes she’s safe, knows that Solo won’t let Wes lay a hand on her. It’s….it’s his job to keep her safe, right?
But just as that hope is present, it’s extinguished by the reality she knows is inescapable. Solo won’t be with her 24/7. She won’t be protected forever. She’ll eventually be around both Wes and her father alone. And the price she’ll have to pay for denying him in this moment….
It’s not worth it.
Roman’s words to her father about not touching her are nice in theory, but she knows better. Xavier Miller does what he wants, regardless of what’s said and by who.
“O–of course,” Solana mumbles, fingers dancing at the side of her pants. She turns to Solo. “Please….give us a few minutes.”
For the first time since she’s met him, Solo actually shows some type of emotion. It still stems from anger, maybe a branch of irritation, but it's still something different. “Tribal Chief said I’m supposed to watch you, so that’s what I do.”
She swallows. This is going to require a level of assertiveness that’s almost foreign if not non-existent. “I–I understand, but….Wes is my brother. He—” It’s almost impossible for her to even get the words out. “He would never hurt me.”
Solana almost immediately wants to vomit. That’s all this man has ever done.
At least since the murder of their mother.
Solo is struggling but wavering, she can see as much, so she continues. “It’s okay,” she assures, even mustering up a small smile. “Please….just a couple minutes. I won’t—I won’t say anything to Roman.”
Solo still looks torn but eventually agrees, leaving her alone with one of two men who hate her most on this earth.
The door is barely closed when Wes has her pinned against the wall, hand slapped over her mouth, a knife pressed to the base of her throat.
“You stupid bitch, don’t think for one second that being married to Reigns changes shit,” he snarls. “He doesn’t give a fuck about you. He just doesn’t like people messing with his possessions.”
Solana knows all of this, knows that anything Roman may do that seems to be for her benefit is just him asserting his dominance. She doesn’t need to be reminded of this.
“Wes, you’re hurting me.” She suddenly feels so stupid saying that, telling him what he already knows. Of course, he is. That’s the whole point. Still, she stupidly believes she can plead to whatever humanity is left in him. If any. “P–please.”
“Shut up,” he hisses, shoving her head against the wall. Solana winces quietly, mindful of Solo who stands outside the door because of her. Because she told him to, because she welcomed this violence onto herself.
“Reigns told dad you won’t be available for a couple weeks, so I suggest you start doing what you need to do to change that. We need to be able to communicate with you.”
This startles her. Why would Roman say that? Did Roman say that? Wes is a master manipulator, and she doesn’t put it past him to be playing mind games.
“I—I don’t know what you want me to do.” And it’s true. Solana has no idea what to do in any of this, how she’s supposed to kill a man who’s more or less impossible to kill, how she’s supposed to win his favor when it’s obvious she already annoys him. It’s all so confusing and overwhelming.
“Did you fuck him last night?”
It’s a question she hoped no one would ask, didn’t believe would be asked because there’s no one who would care enough except for Roman himself.
And while Solana knows being dishonest with her brother won’t turn out well, in this moment, she doesn’t know how he’ll respond if she tells the truth.
So, she lies. She lies to live to see another day, for what reason, she doesn't know. It’s not as if any other day will provide her some sense of solace or security. But, it’s just what she does.
“Y–yes.”
Wes looks understandably pleased. “Good.” She gaps in fear when he drags his knife against her skin, gently trailing it across, just light enough to avoid drawing blood. “That’s all you’ve ever been good for us for anyway.”
A frown falls upon her face. What….what does that mean?
“Just keep contact open, you understand?” No, she doesn’t, but she has no choice but to pretend that she does. Nodding, Wes shoves her into the wall one more time at an angle that causes her shoulder to take the impact. Wincing, she holds onto it as he releases her and walks out the door. “Don’t fuck this up, Solana.”
Easier said than done. Much easier said than done.
It’s when he leaves her alone that the tears pool in her eyes. But, it’s when Solo walks in, studying her that she sniffles and wipes at her eyes. “I–I’m fine.”
She’s not.
She’s far from fine.
————
The day ends up slightly, maybe even moderately, improving. It’s to be slightly expected though as it’s Monday, the day that Solana runs her reading club with the younger kids. It’s always a highlight to see their bright, smiling faces, answering all of their fifty million questions.
It’s a break from a very bleak reality that is her life, immersing herself in their world of pretend and minimal worries.
Sometimes, she finds herself a bit jealous. Jealous that they still have their innocence, that their view of the world hasn’t been painted in red and blood like hers.
But, it’s when Solana is in the back taking her break, journaling, that that improvement takes a deep dive. Because a single knock on the door is followed by the large intimidating frame of her husband entering her space.
Naturally, her stomach knots. She hasn’t seen Roman since last night, since he helped and scolded her in the same brief timespan. She understands it though and doesn't entirely disagree with what he said.
She’s far from the perfect picture of mental stability.
Swallowing, Solana stands up and opens her mouth to address him when his eyes go from her face to her wrist. Following his line of vision, she sees why. There’s a blueish/greenish obvious bruise starting to form, beyond that initial point of formation really. It's just a straight up, fully developed bruise.
Roman slowly walks over to her and reaches for her arm. Solana naturally tenses. He hesitates for a second but still takes her wrist, lifting it so that it's at her eye level but still close enough for him to assess.
She closes her eyes and acts quickly to think of an excuse. “I—umm—”
“Who?”
His voice is quieter than she anticipated and as much as she wishes she doesn't know what he means, Solana knows exactly what he’s asking. She just doesn’t answer.
“I’m only going to ask you this one time and one time only.” His brown eyes are burning into her as he perfectly enunciates each word. “Who fucking touched you?”
Solana winces at his tone but eventually answers. “Wes....”
Roman drops her hand, and Solana brings her arms to her chest, head dropped.
He’s pissed.
That seems to be the only emotion he experiences around her, because of her.
His nostrils are flared as he demands. “Where was Solo?”
Making him wait for a response is clearly something that sets him off even more, so Solana does her best to answer in a timely manner. “I—I asked him to leave. Wes….Wes didn’t want him in the room.”
“Of course, he fucking didn’t. Why would you—” Roman pinches his nose. A day. It’s been less than 48 hours, only a day in, and this marriage shit already has him fucking stressed out. Being married to this damn girl is like having a fucking child to look after. “From now on, I don’t give a fuck what your idiot brother and poor excuse of a father tell you, you’re not to be alone with them.” Roman’s command is a lot easier said than done. Denying her father or brother has never done her any favors. Solana isn’t sure how to verbalize this to the man in front of her who’s already six different shades of annoyed. “I thought I made that clear to them at the wedding, but obviously, they need a reminder.”
Solana feels every bit the scolded child, murmuring a quiet, “I’m sorry…”
Roman looks at her, and for a slither of a second, maybe even less than that, he feels bad for her. Feels bad because it’s clearly not her fault that she’s so fucked up. With a dad and brother like Xavier and Wes, what chance did she have?
He then briefly wonders about her mother, wonders what the dynamic was like there. But that’s a short lived trail because his mind then goes to his own mother.
And Roman can’t have that, can’t go down that road for a variety of reasons, reasons that may not be that different from Solana’s.
“Send me your work schedule.” Redirection is always a good strategy. That and fucking. Obviously, only one is an option for the woman in front of him.
Panic builds in Solana’s stomach. Why does he want that? Her mind starts to race, arriving at only negative conclusions. Does he want her to quit? That thought kills her.
Working at the library is the highlight, the only highlight, of her days. She doesn’t know what she would do without that outlet.
“It won’t get in the way of my duties to you.” Solana typically isn’t the one to advocate for herself. Ever. But this….she can’t lose this, and it scares her to think of what mental decline could happen if she does. Nothing good. That’s for certain. “I—I can get up early and–and make your breakfast and meal prep lunch. A–and I’ll make sure your dinner is ready too by the time you come home—”
Rubbing his temple, exasperated, Roman asks, “what are you talking about?”
She’s not above begging. In a pleading tone, she begs, “please don’t make me quit my job.”
Roman isn’t quite sure what to make of the fact that the most words he’s heard leave Solana’s mouth are practically her begging to keep her job. He can understand it though. He would bet that her only time away from her family was when she was at work. “You can work as little or as much as you want. I don’t care about that.”
His words create instant relief. “Oh–I’m sorry, I thought—”
Roman runs his hand over his face. “You don’t have to apologize for everything.”
“Sor—” Solana drops her head as he exhales. Loudly. It’s not even noon, and he’s already over and done with this damn day.
“What time do you get off today?”
Solana licks her lips, answering. “Three.”
“I’ll meet you then.”
He can see she wants to ask but has decided against it, most likely recognizing his irritation. “We need to get your stuff from that house.”
And in the midst of her anxiety in this conversation, she finds a glimmer of hope. She’s thankful that this isn’t something she had to initiate to ask him about.
Something tells her Roman doesn’t like being questioned a lot.
Or at all.
“O–okay.” Is the answer she finally settles on, not wanting to say too much, vowing, “I’ll make sure I’m done by 3pm sharp.”
On one hand, Roman enjoys and respects punctuality, but something tells him Solana’s is based more on fear than anything. “Whenever is fine.”
Nodding and pushing her hair behind her ear, Solana watches Roman walk over to the door, preparing to leave when he asks, “is your brother right handed or left handed?”
His question takes her off guard, and she doesn’t quite know why he’s asking this in the first place. “W-what?”
Roman clearly doesn’t like repeating himself, because his tone takes on an edge. “Is he right handed or left handed?”
Solana swallows. She’s made him mad. Again. “R–right.”
Without another question, he leaves. And once the door shuts, he snaps at Solo, demanding, “why the fuck did you leave her alone with him? I told you to watch her!”
Roman knows his cousin well enough to know that Solo is doing a brilliant job masking his embarrassment at his failure. “She said—”
“I don’t care what she says. You don’t answer to her. You answer to me. Understood?”
Solo keeps his head high, acknowledging, “yes, my Tribal Chief.” Roman wastes no time in exiting the library and entering the SUV waiting for him, slamming the door shut. He pulls out his phone, selecting one of his most recent contacts, hitting dial.
Jey answers on the third ring, but he’s immediately yelling to someone else, “slam my door one more fucking time, Nicki, and see what happens!” Roman’s jaw clenches, another new source of irritation being presented to him. “Ayo, Uce, now’s not a good time—”
“I don’t care.” Roman’s hot headed cousin and his equally hot headed wife arguing is nothing special. The fight. They fuck. They make up. And do it all over again. It’s not pressing news or even news at all at this point. “The Miller boy. Send him a message. A clear message.”
“I’ve got—”
“Did you hear what I just said?” There must be something in the air or the water, because Roman having to repeat himself is fucking asinine. He speaks once, and everyone should jump immediately. The fact that that isn’t happening is only pissing him off more. “And his right hand…make sure it’s broken.”
Jey sighs on the other end of the phone. “Aight. Me and Jimmy will have it done by the end of the day.”
Roman ends the phone call before his cousin can feed him any more excuses. Head tilted back against the headrest, he tries to settle himself. This day so far has been nothing but inconvenience after inconvenience.
There’s nothing that pisses him off more than having to repeat himself, having conversations extend longer than they should, and that’s all this day has been thus far. He’s had to over explain and reiterate himself more than Roman feels necessary.
And the day isn’t even halfway over.
He needs an outlet.
Roman switches apps, finding one of his more recent contacts and sending out a message.
Roman: Come over tonight.
As expected, her reply comes almost right away.
Samantha: Lol. That didn’t take long.
Samantha: See you then.
————
Solana always struggles with a level of anxiety when entering the home she grew up in. For a myriad of reasons. Most, if not all, being completely valid. Nothing good has ever happened for her in that place. And more often than not, she’d barely be in the house for more than a couple of minutes before she was either being berated or beaten.
Usually both.
But this…..this is different. A lot different, because she’s not walking into hell alone, she’s walking along (behind) Bloodline guards and the 6’3, pure muscled leader of said Bloodline.
Roman Reigns.
Who also happens to be her husband.
Playing around with the wedding ring on her finger, Solana tries again to remind herself that this is real, that she’s married, that she’s married to Roman Reigns of all people.
The reality definitely hasn’t set in.
Roman is about to knock on the door again when it swings open. Solana naturally steps back, something Roman takes notice of.
Xavier looks pissed, his fiery gaze landing on her first, but just as quickly as it was present, it's gone, settling into an almost pleasant smile. Directed at Roman, of course.
“Tribal Chief,” he greets. Solana’s gaze is on the ground now, focused on her painted toes instead of the man before her who she’s certain would be unleashing hell on her if not for the multitude of much larger, much stronger men surrounding her. “I wasn’t expecting—”
“I don’t care,” Roman interrupts, voice reeking of indifference. “She needs to go get her stuff.”
“Oh.” Solana can only imagine the difficulty her father is having in not throwing a fit. “Well, we can arrange for it to be delivered—”
“No.”
She means more to think it than to say it, but that intention falls short, because she definitely says it aloud.
And most of her regrets it, but there’s a small slither that doesn’t.
Solana knows her father. She knows him very well.
Roman has done nothing but piss him off from the very beginning of this whole ordeal, pushing and pushing him. And Solana has always been the object of her father’s anger, but Roman seems intent on making sure that doesn’t happen.
That means he’ll have to get creative with his punishments.
If he can’t hurt her, he’ll go after the things she loves.
The few items in that home that she holds near and dear, items that belonged to her mother.
She knows he would dispose of them all so that all that would be retrieved by the movers would be clothes.
And the thought of the only things she has of her mother being discarded like trash makes her sick to her stomach.
She can’t give him that opportunity.
Looking up, she’s met with two sets of eyes on her. One indicating irritation and the other, curiosity. Swallowing, she stutters, “I’m sorry. I—”
“No.” Roman’s interruption is stark and to the point. “We’re already here. She gets it now.”
“But—”
“Move.”
Xavier’s jaw ticks, but he does as such, stepping to the side. Roman looks back at Solana, motioning for her to walk in.
Instantly, she’s going to the key holder. She has to make sure she gets her mother’s stuff before anything. But, the key to the attic, the key that’s sat in the same spot since she was a girl, is suddenly missing.
Her stomach drops.
Without hesitation, she turns to her dad, asking, “wh—where’s the key to the attic?”
Solana knows before he even says anything that she’s not going to like his answer. She just doesn't realize just how much she’s not going to like his answer.
“Oh, I put it in your old room on the dresser.” Solana’s chest is immediately tight, her stomach dropping. Xavier gives that sly smile and little shrug. “Figured there’d be some things you’d want to grab as well.”
It’s hard for Solana to not start crying right then and there, standing between her father and her husband. Two men who dislike her for very different reasons.
And maybe dislike isn’t a strong enough word to describe the feeling her father has toward her. Because one has to have an inhuman level of vitriol toward another individual to put her in the situation he just did.
That room….Solana hasn’t been in that room in years and planned to never enter it again for as long as she lived. And he knows that. Knows that there’s nothing in there she wants. Knows that she’d rather walk on burning coal barefoot than enter that space of horrific memories and unspeakable horrors.
“I–I—”
“Is something wrong?”
Roman, watching this whole exchange closely, is instantly annoyed. It’s obvious something is wrong, there’s some story with this old room of hers, because she looks just as terrified as she did last night. And something about this pisses him off all over again, because this man is still trying to defy his orders, still trying to find ways to inflict his torture without lifting a finger.
“Where’s the room?”
Solana doesn't expect that question to leave Roman’s mouth, but it instantly brings on another layer of dread. He doesn’t know why she can’t go in that room, and he can never know, but that not knowing is probably going to result in him pushing her to hurry up so they can get the hell out of here.
But, that doesn’t happen. He steps towards her dad and repeats in a calm voice. “Show me.” It’s then she realizes that he’s asking so he can retrieve this key for her.
And that confuses the mess out of her because why? He doesn't have to, doesn’t need to. It doesn’t benefit him in the slightest.
So why?
But for Roman, it’s simple. He’ll take any opportunity presented to piss off this son of a bitch, and undermining every attempt Miller takes to mess with Solana presents an opportunity for Roman to assert his dominance.
And it’s obvious by the pure terror that crosses Solana’s face that, for whatever reason, she has zero desire or even ability to enter this room. It does cross him a bit strange that she would have such a reaction to her childhood bedroom, something that typically holds special memories for people.
Until he enters said room.
Immediately, there’s a darkness about the aura, something heavy and unsettling that he can’t necessarily describe but most definitely feels. It’s a stark contrast to the design and decoration, lots of pink and girly shit, a couple of stuffed animals sitting on the top of the dresser. It’s on the dresser he notices a shattered picture frame that in picking up he sees a photo of a young woman, dark curly hair, beautiful, light eyes and a breathtaking smile. There’s something about her that reminds him of Solana. Her mother. This has to be her mother.
For reasons Roman doesn’t quite understand, there’s something suddenly uncomfortable by looking at this photo, a ghost, someone from the past. A person cruelly and violently ripped away from her family.
It….it hits too close to him.
Laying the broken photo frame down, Roman continues to assess the room and suddenly notices scratches on the door and the wall that holds the door. But, they’re not scratches that come from furniture being moved or kids being rough, they’re clearly nail marks. As if someone was dragged and the scratches a testament of their fight against whatever attack they were facing.
Snatching the key off the dresser, he then redirects his attention to the poorly cleaned splashes of dried blood on the carpet near the bed. He’s suddenly frowning of sorts.
There’s a story here. A story that paints a dark, grim picture. One that makes Roman slightly curious about just what the hell this girl has really been through in this hellhole?
Not wanting to stay in that creepy ass room any longer than necessary, he walks back out into the living room and ignores Miller’s obvious irritation to reach Solana the key.
Accepting it, she offers the first smile he’s probably seen on her since their first meeting. “Thank you.” Her voice is the usual mixture of soft and quiet but also….grateful. She’s probably the only person in history to ever be so happy at being given something as simple as a key. But Roman isn’t stupid. He recognizes the deeper meaning.
Nodding, he motions for a few of his men to follow her as she heads for wherever the attic door is located.
That leaves Roman alone with his least favorite person in the world.
“She can’t take everything, you know.” Xavier shares. He reminds, “she has a brother. My son and I deserve to have something of my late wife to—”
“I don’t care.” And he doesn’t. He honestly, truly doesn’t. “She can take whatever she wants.”
“I understand that she’s your wife, but she was my daughter long before she became your wife. And you’re standing in my house.” Xavier doesn’t skip a beat to contend. “I think you should also remember that, Tribal Chief.”
To be fair, Roman would like to think he’s done a half decent job all day managing his temper. He’s yet to maim or kill anyone which is commendable for him, in and of itself. But something about Xavier pisses him the fuck off to the point where he doesn’t give a damn about controlling his temper.
And that’s exactly what happens.
In a matter of seconds, Roman has Xavier by the throat, pinned against the wall, squeezing so tightly he can practically feel the man's bones pressing against his fingertips. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Xavier’s eyes are nearly bugging out of his head as he helplessly grasps at Roman's grip, which only makes the Tribal Chief squeeze harder. “Don’t ever fucking forget who runs this. I run it all!” As much as Roman enjoys playing the long game with this bastard, there’s only so much he can put up with. Miller needs to know Roman is not his daughter, but he damn sure will dictate that any interactions with said daughter go through him. “You see Solana when I say you can see her. You talk to her when I say you can talk to her.” Intensifying his grip, Roman notices the color draining from Xavier’s face. And it’s probably the best thing he’s seen all day. “You live because I allow it. You’re still fucking breathing because I will it.” Recognizing Miller is at the door of unconsciousness, he finally lets the man go, enjoying the sight of him coughing violently, nearly laying on the floor. “Don’t you ever fucking forget that shit.”
Xavier, wisely, doesn't say much after that. And neither does Roman, who simply makes sure his men help Solana gather all she needs, which isn’t that much outside of clothes. He starts to ask her about her car, but something tells him it’s under Xavier’s name, which is why he decides against it.
He’ll just get her another one.
Roman doesn’t want her to have shit to do with this family, largely because he doesn’t want shit to do with this family.
And he knows what the first step toward initiating that separation will be.
—--------
The Warehouse has always been Roman’s escape.
17,000 square feet of escape, completely revamped and redone by him in his early twenties. It’s a massive compound that serves as both a place to train and compete. The former of which being why he’s present and needing to speak to the one person who he has in charge of all the day to day workings of the Warehouse.
But, that’s all she’s interested in outside of competing herself and only training those with some fire to them.
It’s why he’s not surprised when Nia takes one look at him, then Solana, and with a snort and roll of her eyes, simply says, “no.”
Roman isn’t an idiot. He knew his cousin would immediately decline, would know what he wanted to ask before it could even leave his mouth.
If only he cared about her objection.
“Wait here,” he mutters to Solana who only nods, hugging the jacket around her body. Solo remains nearly inches away from her. She looks so out of place, a small part of him can’t blame Nia for declining.
Nia continues to walk the balcony, eyes clearly checking in on the various sets of people training. Roman does as well, just not nearly with the same amount of focus and attention. That’s what he has Nia for.
His blood cousin and close friend since they were kids, there’s few people in this world that Roman trusts, and Nia is grouped in that category. She’s a worthy member of the bloodline and a hell of a person to have alongside you in a fight.
It’s why she's the perfect person for this task.
“Nia.”
“I said no, Roman.” She turns to him, smirking, taunting him in a way only she and his close family can. "You know, that word that you hate?”
It actually makes him chuckle, a speckle of amusement in a day full of anything but. “If you know I hate it, why are you saying it?”
“Because unlike the rest of the world, I’m not your bitch.”
It’s partially true. Nia has never been one to shy away from being completely and, often, ruthlessly honest with her cousin. It’s something Roman sometimes appreciates, enjoying the occasional challenge and differing perspective.
This isn’t one of those times though.
He again reiterates. “She needs to be trained.”
It’s abundantly clear that Solana has no backbone, and he can’t entirely fault her for that because it’s also clear that she’s never really had the chance to develop one. But, that’s no longer the case, because while he can deal with the stammering and quietness, her fragility has to go.
She has to learn to stand up for herself.
She needs to learn how to fight back.
Nia turns around with a sarcastic chuckle. “You really think that girl can be trained? I saw her at the wedding. She looked terrified the entire time. You breathe too hard in her direction, and she’ll probably have a fucking panic attack.” Roman is briefly taken back to last night. Nia hasn’t the slightest clue how true her words are. “She’s not built for this life.”
Roman doesn’t entirely disagree. If there was ever a person who’d do well and significantly better in something cookie cutter, white picket fence type shit, it’s Solana. But she’s here now, this is her life, so they need to make the best of it. She needs to learn how to survive in this life. and he expresses as such. “Regardless, she needs to learn to defend herself to some extent.”
Nia shrugs, leaning back against the railing and crossing her arms. “So teach her.”
“I don’t have the time. Or the patience.” It’s almost entirely true. There are already so many hats that Roman has to wear. Adding on another one that includes teaching a traumatized young woman how to fight is not an option. Even more, something tells him that Solana would do better training with a woman. She seems most skittish around men.
Nia scoffs, pointing to herself. “And you think I do?”
“Nia….” As much as he enjoys sparring with his cousin from time to time, his patience has grown thin. His tone darkens. “I’m not asking you.”
While tempted to continue to push back, Nia isn’t a stupid woman. She can recognize when Roman is about to lose his cool. “Fucking hell….” With a heavy sigh and shrug of defeat, she accepts. “Fine. I’ll do it, but don’t expect me to like her.”
“I never expect you to like anyone.” He chuckles, adding. “And Nia…..take it easy on her at first.”
Nia curses, instantly accusing, “You think coddling her will help?”
“I know being too rough with her won’t.”
A hard exterior is built from experience and tolerance. Roman fully believes that. However, something tells him his new wife has had enough experiences that anything more could push her closer to breaking point. So approaching it almost gingerly would probably wield the best outcome.
Nia is, justifiably, vexed. “Whatever. I don’t have time for your weak ass wife. I’ll have Naomi teach her the basics, and once she learns how to actually throw a punch without crying, I’ll take over her training.”
Roman has no issue with this. Solana seemed to be fine around Naomi at the wedding, so it might actually be a good match. “Fine. Just keep me updated with her progress.” Roman adds, starting to walk away.
“Do I have a choice?”
Instantly, he answers. “Nope.”
Nia’s laughter behind him brings a small smile to his face.
Rejoining the group, he finds Solana looking just as nervous as he left her. “Let’s go.”
He turns and so does Solo, Roman deciding he’ll talk with Solana about starting training back at the house. But, her small voice calling his name, the first time he’s heard her say as such draws his attention.
Turning around, he asks, “yeah?”
She swallows and starts that damn stammering. It’s hard for him to not snap at her to just get it out. He hates that beating around the bush bullshit. “Umm, can we—uhh, stop somewhere?” Roman does his best to hide his irritation. Where the fuck does she need to go? “I just—-I noticed you don’t have a lot of ingredients at the house, and—and I need some things so I can cook.”
Initially, Roman’s first reaction is to tell her no, that she doesn’t need to cook. He doesn’t need her to cook for him. He does just fine on his own, but that’s the thing that makes him pause. He’s not on his own anymore. She needs to eat too.
So, he agrees, “fine.”
“Ayo, uce!”
Jesus Christ.
Roman needs a vacation. A week long vacation, because the way the past 24hrs has drained him more than anything he’s experienced in the past year is criminal.
The twins jog over, exchanging what is an undeniably awkward acknowledgement to Solana. And he doesn't blame them. She’s so damn docile that they probably don't know how to interact with her.
“Let us catch that ride with you.”
Roman shuts his eyes. “Why?”
Jimmy is the one to answer. “You wanted us to debrief you on that thing from earlier, remember?”
Roman realizes they’re referring to the message he had them send Solana’s brother, which he does want to hear about but not necessarily now.
“She needs to stop at the store before we head back to the house,” Roman informs, hoping the twins will just take a car back to the house to meet him their to debrief.
But that’s too much like right, because they end up in the same SUV as him and Solana, seated in the back, while he sits in the middle with her. And it’s not missed upon him how she’s practically tucked in the corner of the SUV, notebook out as she writes away while his idiotic cousins go on and on in the back about whatever.
The old lady from the library wasn’t kidding. This damn girl is always writing.
When they arrive at the grocery store, Roman reaches for his wallet, sliding out his black card and handing it to her. “Here. Use this.”
Roman hadn’t thought about this until just now, thought about the need to make his money available to her. He makes a mental note to have his accountant add Solana to all of his accounts and have cards mailed out with her name. In the meantime, she’ll have to deal with using his.
“Thank you.” She accepts the card, quickly asking, “what’s my limit?”
“What limit?”
Her cheeks redden as she explains. “Like….like how much I can spend?"
“There is none,” he answers with a shrug. “Just get what you need.”
Jey suddenly leans forward, tapping Roman on the shoulder. “Ayo, Big Dog, lemme run this by you.”
“No.”
Of course, the word goes in one ear and out the other. “So, I’m trying to explain to her that it’s not what she thinks. I don’t even care about that bitch, but she’s not trying to hear me. Going on and go about how I ain’t shit, I don’t treat her right—you know, the usual—-and so finally, I just snap on her ass cause who the fuck you think you talking to—”
Jimmy agrees. “She acting like you ain’t got no options.”
Jey sucks his teeth, “man, that’s what I’m saying. Like, I ain’t gotta put up with that shit!”
“Hell naw!”
The idea of grocery shopping doesn’t appeal to Roman in the slightest, but neither does listening to his dumbass cousin complain about his marriage problems to his equally dumbass brother. So, it’s the lesser of two evils, really.
“Fuck it,” he mutters, unbuckling his seatbelt, and opening the door. Solo and Solana’s eyes fall on him as they’d yet to enter the store. “I’ll go with her.”
Solana looks expectedly surprised as Solo simply nods and gets back in the passenger seat.
“I’ll make it quick.”
Roman says nothing, walking alongside her, still providing enough distance to not make her uncomfortable.
As long as the twins are harping on and on about stupid shit, she can take as long as she wants.
Once in the store, Solana pushing the cart, Roman realizes she was writing down a grocery list that she uses to track the needed items as they peruse what feels like endless aisles. Granted, he hasn’t been inside an actual grocery store in probably close to two decades, if not longer, so maybe this is normal for a grocery store.
It’s when they reach the produce section that she seems a bit stumped, chewing on her bottom lip, clearly perplexed.
He starts to ask her what’s wrong, but she walks over to one of the workers and takes him slightly by surprise when she starts speaking in a different language. Spanish, he eventually settles on. It’s also the first time he thinks he’s ever seen her smile. Outside of when he gave her the key And laugh. That one is definitely a first. Both small and quiet, but still, a first. She seems to know or at least be familiar with the worker who digs around the produce and reaches over a packaged bag of whatever produce it is.
It’s when she returns to place the produce in the basket, continuing to walk, that he asks, “you speak Spanish?”
She looks up at him, but not for too long, as if doing so is forbidden, explaining. “My—my mom taught me. She was originally from Mexico.”
Roman figured as such from the picture he saw in her room that Solana’s mom was Hispanic or had some type of Central American ancestry. He’s also surprised by her answering with more than just 3 to 5 words, providing more information than he asked.
It’s not something he necessarily cares about, but it doesn’t annoy him like it typically does when people give him a longer answer than what’s necessary.
“Are—are your cousins always like….like that?” Again, she takes him by surprise, up until the point where she immediately goes into apologizing. “I–I don’t mean it in a bad way. I would never—”
“Yes,” he cuts off her rambling. It’s unnecessary because the answer is simple. “They are.” With a mutter, he adds, “they never shut the fuck up.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees it. That smile smile, this time conjoined with a small laugh that she does a decent job trying to suppress. And it’s like she catches herself, changing the subject as she asks, “umm, are you—like—allergic to anything? Or is there something you don’t like? I can learn—”
“I can eat anything.” It’s a simple, truthful answer. It also seems like something she’d been wanting to ask but only built the courage to do so at the end of their current conversation, even if brief as hell.
Solana doesn’t say much after that, and it confuses Roman when she tries to grab items on shelves much higher than what exceeds her reach. It confuses him because it would be significantly easier for her to just ask him to reach it. Granted, something tells him just her asking to be taken to the grocery store seems to be her daily quota for requests.
So he takes it upon himself, hand on the small of her back, ignoring how she tenses at his touch, to tell her to step aside as he easily retrieves the item. With a tuck of her hair behind her ear and a small “thank you,” she continue shopping but this time actually, still with that same irksome gentleness, asks him to reach items that she cannot. It’s not a lot, just a couple.
And it’s not long before she’s done, checking out with his card that she makes sure to give back to him immediately. He gets the sense that that’s something she thinks is important to him.
It’s not.
The worst he can see her doing is going crazy at fucking Barnes and Nobles.
Roman has his men load the trunk for her, something that also seems to take her off guard. Like she’s not used to the assistance.
And she probably isn’t.
————
Samantha Irvin has been on Roman’s revolving roster of women since he was in his teens. The longevity being that It’s always been the easiest with her. Sexually, at least. Their compatibility in that one area, the only one he really (only) cares about, is astronomical. But lately, more in the past few months than anything, she’s dropped a comment here and there about wanting more.
He’s ignored them everytime.
Roman has never promised Samantha anything more than what they currently are: fuck buddies. She knows this, just like she knows she’s not the only woman he’s fucking. Nothing about that should indicate him wanting more with anyone, including her.
Well, other than the wedding band now on his finger.
Samantha’s gaze falls on that wedding band, a bitter chuckle leaving her mouth. “I still can’t believe you actually did it.”
“Yeah,” he mutters. Discussing his shitshow of a marriage is the last thing he wants to do and far from the reason he left Solana in the middle of the night to come see her, to come work off his frustrations.
The same reason he invited her over tonight.
Last night was a dumpster fuck, without a doubt. But today with Solana was….decent. Not amazing. Not awful. Just some strange space in between. Even as they arrived back at the estate and she went straight into cooking, creating something he can’t pronounce but can honestly say was delicious, a meal she delivered to him in his office. There was something manageable about that, this level of she does her thing, he does his, and if their paths cross in the process, he can deal with that.
The intimacy though….that’s something he’ll have to figure out, have to navigate, just not now. Not tonight.
Right now, he just needs Samantha’s talented mouth on him.
She moves her hands up his chest, biting on her bottom lip. “She’s just a little girl, baby. You need a woman who knows how to please you.” Roman knows the other side of what she’s saying or rather what she’s not saying. Another subtle, or not so subtle depending on how you look at it, hint that she’s the one he should settle down with.
In all honesty, he has, or had, zero desire to settle down with anyone.
Especially not with Sam. She’s the kind of woman that’s good for fucking and nothing else. As much as Solana’s extreme passivity annoys the shit out of him, he’d pick that over the bitching Sam would do. He just knows she’d be on his ass about stupid shit like fucking other woman and not paying her enough attention. Like she’d think she’s somehow above him doing who and what the fuck he wants just cause he put a ring on her finger.
Way too needy.
But at least he can actually fucking touch Sam.
Kinda hard to make a baby with someone who has literal fucking panic attacks just from being touched.
It builds up his frustration again, hence Roman grabbing Samantha by the back of her head, forcing it back. She hisses, both from pain and pleasure. It’s another thing he does actually enjoy about her. She lets him be as rough as he wants and needs.
“Why are you still talking?” There may be a slight dim in her eyes at his question, but she hides it well. “I don’t give a fuck what you think.” He releases his grip and shoves her to her knees. “Put that mouth to actual good use.”
If she’s hurt by his brusque tone, she doesn’t show it, simply bringing her hands to unbuckle his pants. “I got you, daddy…”
She gets his zipper down when a scream sounds throughout the house, causing her to freeze in her motions as she shoots Roman a confused look.
“What the hell?” Samantha’s obvious irritation is the last thing he hears before adjusting himself as he heads out the room and down the hall.
For some reason, Roman already knows what to expect before he even reaches Solana’s room. Opting against knocking, he opens the door and finds her twisting and turning in the bed, eyes shut, chest moving up and down, a light sheen of sweat on her forehead.
Yeah….just as he expected.
Sighing, he walks over to the bed, sitting on the side. “Solana.”
“No.....” she’s crying in her sleep, clearly in the midst of a nightmare. Or night terror. “Mom, please…don’t leave me.”
Roman tenses. Immediately, he knows exactly what her nightmare is. He brings hands to her shoulder, shaking her. “Solana, wake up.”
“No…..”
He says her name again, a bit louder, firmer, “Solana, wake up.”
“No!” She screams again, shooting up from the bed, immediately fighting and pushing against his body. “Leave me alone!” She’s crying, clearly fighting against the demons one faces once in life but forever battles, even when they’re gone.
It’s a permanent scar on the soul.
“Solana,” he says again, still stern, but somehow gentle. “You’re fine. You’re safe.” It’s the ‘safe’ word that seems to trigger something for her, mouth still ajar, painting heavily but no longer struggling against him. “It was just a bad dream.”
There’s a fleeting thought he has about pushing some of the flyaway hairs out of her face, but it’s gone before he can really process let alone act on said thought.
Solana looks at his hands on her forearm and immediately tugs them back to her body, hugging herself. She drops her head, eyes closing, “I’m—I’m sorry.”
His eyes take her in, studying her, “it’s fine.”
“I—I need some air.” She kicks the blankets off her body and swings her legs over the bed, hurriedly grabbing a notebook off the dresser and rushing out of the room past a smirking Samantha.
Roman shuts his eyes and runs his hand over his face, ignoring the strange array of emotions, or something like that, he’s experiencing.
He hasn’t been this exposed to this kind of behavior in years.
This may be more complicated than he realized.
And it’s as he stands up from the bed, walking near the door that Samantha smirks. “Did she seriously say mom?” His eyes snap to her as she runs her hands up and down his chest. “What a fucking child.”
Her words take him back, reframe things so that it’s not Solana the child crying for her mother not to be taken from her. It’s a young boy. Burned, bloody, and beat, fading in and out consciousness, the gaze of fiery flames in his peripheral vision, the smell of burning flesh invading his nostrils, the sound of wails and sirens all mingling together from the shock of it all.
Roman catches himself, forcing those buried memories back where they belong in the very back of his mind. He then looks at Sam for a good five seconds before demanding, “get the fuck out.”
She pauses and then asks with an uncomfortable laugh, “what?”
“Get the fuck out of my house,” he repeats, shoving her hands off him.
“What did I sa—”
“Get out!” Roman snaps, volume and tone making her jump. He probably scared her. He also doesn’t care. He just wants her gone. And she does as such, walking away without another word of protest.
Left alone, he tries to gather himself, moving back to his room.
So much for a fucking distraction.
—-----
Roman finds her out back on the patio.
He needed to clear his head, get back into his tunnel vision focus, and the gym he had included when he built the house is the perfect place to do that. Two hours later, recentered and showered, he readies to call it a night. But, he realizes he probably shouldn’t do as such until he makes sure Solana is at least partially stable enough to be left alone.
And she is.
She’s laid out, sleeping on the rattan lounge chair, a closed notebook tucked into her side. Roman recognizes it as the same one she was writing in that day at the library as well as the one she used for her grocery list just earlier in the day.
He settles down on the chair next to her, studying her. Even in her sleep, she looks….sad. And for the first time in the midst of all these strange experiences with her, Roman understands. He understands her sadness, understands her difficulty, understands the memories that clearly haunt her.
The same way they used to haunt him.
His hand goes to his tatted arm, intricate tribal tattoo hiding permanent remnants of that night of hell. The night that he once had the same kind of night terrors about.
Noticing the breeze, he walks back into the house, grabbing one of the throw blankets on the sofa. Roman is careful to not directly touch her as he lays it over her body. A part of him is tempted to carry her back to her room, but he remembers these kinds of nights. The kind where it’s a challenge to escape the memories, let alone find a place and mental space to turn your brain off enough to just sleep.
So he leaves her alone, allowing her to enjoy the only escape she clearly has in this life.
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↳ 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 ♡
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