#basically I’m a nuisance to them in life and will also be in death | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

catastrophe-at-sixteen · 3 years ago

Text

strawberries and cigarettes (m)

Jungkook x reader

“For a biology project, you and your class are going on a field trip to collect evidence for your hypothesis. It is all going well until the dark haired nuisance called Jeon Jungkook decides to piss you off.”

Also - a nerd. The resident bad boy. The police. Annoying friends. A loose psycho killer. What could go wrong?

This is my first time ever uploading any fics !! im super nervous haha - i'll probably post a little of each one and see how it goes !!

Jungkook x reader.

This is your classic enemies to lovers but with a slight little twist!

This is set in the 80s/90s and is your typical bad boy/nerd girl trope- but , there is a killer on the loose. I mean this is kind of based on jack the ripper (serial killer) and my teenage fantasies of falling for bad boy jungkook. I hope you’ll give it a go and tell me what you think !!! <3

Tw : cursing, killings, descriptions of death and psychopaths, masturbation , making out, smut.

WC : 11K

also a big massive thank you to @ggukkiereads for helping me gain the confidence to write and dedicate time to finishing this ! ik its been a while since we spoke but much love to u angel <3 may u always have the best !

Begrudgingly the students lag off the bus at 10pm, finally having reached their destination.

Tired and sore from their journey the teachers find no trouble in distributing bedrooms for everyone.

When your name is called out along with Tiffany you internally groan - great you think one of the most plastic girls in the school all to myself.

You grimace but make no argument as you could have gotten worse you suppose.

As you grab your belongings and ignore her protests that she doesn't want to room with a loser like you, a dark clad figure pushes past you, almost tripping you over.

Angrily you shout

"Watch where you're going you prick"!

Yet he doesn't so much look in your direction.

Under the dim moonlight you can faintly make out the low blunt of a cigarette in a tattoo clad hand - so it was the infamous Jungkook.

Honestly you didn't understand why all the girls fawned over him when he was just a rude and ignorant asshole. Sure, he had a pretty face but no good soul to match.

Calming yourself, as it was unlikely that you'd ever receive an apology from the school rebel you just head to your new room.

The school had organised a biology trip so that you could gather authentic evidence on the correlation of birds and wood growth in a certain designated area and honestly you were excited- not having enough expenses to get out of town when you were younger meant that this was a treat for you and paired with you being a biology major your inner geek was surfacing pretty quickly.

You move into your room and begin unpacking your things ignoring the chatter coming from your new roommates.

You set everything nicely, precisely -just to your liking. Maybe some would call you fussy, but you like to think of yourself as organised and classy.

You don’t have many thoughts that night as you lay down for bed, but you do hear the news playing in the background.

" a killing has not been sighted for a time breaking the pattern of the 1-week intervals in which they have been happening, but police still advise to remain on high alert at all times. "

You shudder as you think about it, a killer on the loose in the country and everyone powerless to stop him.

He fed of the insecurities of people, the fear of not being safe. He did a damn well good job at it as well.

You look outside and see the police on night duty setting up, the country while terrified also was reluctant to admit the threat and instead of protecting you properly they had merely sent police force units as glorified bodyguards to ' keep you safe '.

You sigh, as you climb under your covers those problems seem like a long way away from you as you drift off with an empty mind.

It was morning, the sun was shining brightly through the windows giving an orange glow to the room.

You were up before your roommates, had brushed your teeth and were already preparing for your project.

You had to do well, you were depending on a scholarship for university, your family could simply not afford it otherwise.

When your first signs of morning hunger begin to strike you venture outside your room in order to satiate yourself. You find that it’s still quiet only a few students up like yourself, you find a coffee machine and immediately begin to make one for yourself.

“While you're at it could you make one for me too".

a deep voice drawls out.

You almost jump out of your skin at the sound his voice breaking the silence you had been enjoying. Jeon Jungkook.

You scowl at him, choosing to ignore him carrying on making your own cup.

He whistles under his breath.

“wow, edgy or a bitch? I can’t decide".

He taunts you.

You roll your eyes at him and sigh in annoyance, his eyebrows raise at this.

“you’re clearly not a morning person".

He speaks.

You mutter under your breath.

" or maybe I’m just not a YOU person, not everyone lives to be nice to you. "

He lifts his hands up in a mock surrender.

“Okay, okay I get it it's a bad time for you jeez.... I suppose I'll have to make my own coffee".

He moves closer to you, totally invading your personal space, clearly, he had never heard of a personal bubble! You scowl and try to move away but he’s faster and is hovering over you before you know it. He looks down at you with those pretty dark eyes.

They’re so gorgeous.

Not that it matters to you because he is still an asshole, and he still ruined your morning.

“get out of my face Jeon Jungkook".

You say between clenched teeth.

You’re not some sort of pushover.

Yes, you're clever, as society classes a nerd but you're not one to let people walk all over you.

If he’s shocked, he doesn’t let on, just hums and lets you walk away, which you do, a little aggressively. You got back to your room and let out a sound of annoyance, the girls are still sleeping.

You sigh.

This was going to be a long trip.

After an uneventful morning, the wait was over and finally the teachers had called you to gather in the common area. Much to your dismay however there would be no actual data collecting until the police had secured the area, which meant that your whole day was pretty much wasted. The other students were chatting and gossiping and being idiots as per usual.

It’s not that you thought you were better than them, it's just that they were so mundane, so lifeless. They were just living on with no sense of direction. You suppose that's what you get for attending a school for rich kids though.

You could never fit in.

So, you never tried. People took pity on you every now and then offered you a smile. You smiled back but that was it. Your thoughts are running and to clear your head you decide to go outside for a little breather.

There isn’t much, just a few abandoned train tracks that seemingly lead into nowhere, a few broken fences and lots of grass. Not much time after this you head to bed.

Finally, the day had arrived, you could collect your samples.

You are so glad that it’s an individual project because you honestly cannot even imagine working with one of those air heads.

You shudder at the memory of having to work with Taehyung last semester for a chemistry practical.

You had to basically pull all the weight for your grade.

So, you get on working your way through your work and proving or disproving your hypothesis.

You’re pleased at the work that you completed. Not entirely satisfied but satisfied enough, for now.

You let out a stiff yawn, you need to stretch and need a little fresh air since you had spent the last few hours writing up your data and making graphs to compliment them.

You forgo your jacket since the weather isn’t so bad.

It’s nice.

When you go outside there are quite a few students already there, goofing around. There is also a pretty scenery, that in all honesty you had not appreciated until right now.

“Wow" you mutter under your breath.

Maybe I should try living outside my own head sometimes.

You spot some students surrounding a police officer and the curiosity gets the better of you and your soon wandering around the outskirts of their conversation.

Alas, it was merely a fruitless conversation. The police officer telling the other about his escapades and how they will be good in hands.

You lose yourself to your own thoughts again and look at the scenery. Until a little scuffle, breaks you out of your thoughts.

“What was that? There was a movement down there!! “

A boy called Josh calls out.

The police officer had also noticed it, then a sound of a gunshot sounds through the air.

The police officers curse and begin to get ready to scout the area. They want you all to go away, be safe inside but you’re all young adults- you want to see what’s going on.

Everyone gathers, watching the officers.

You scan the area; you spot the balcony that looks over the area just in front of the cabins.

Perfect you think that’s the perfect spot to see what’s going on.

So, you begin to climb up the steps to that room, when you get there, you can see everything.

You see a dead dog, a dead bird and the gun which had killed them laid out to where the officers were heading.

Fear grips your heart; your heartbeat is erratic. You think you see the shape of figure retreating into the distance but before you can look again, you feel the ground give way under you.

You let out a shriek, feeling yourself falling.

Is this truly how my life end you wonder I didn’t even get to complete my PhD?

Yet, instead of the hard fall that your body had been anticipating; your landing is softer and lets out a low grunt.

You're sure you're dead and have entered heaven.

Slowly you register a warm feeling under your legs and a secure one at your waist.

oh, this feels nice.

you think, eyes still closed until you hear some chaos in the distance.

what's happening?

Why is heaven so noisy? Are they partying because I’ve arrived? Was I actually an angel all this time am I coming home?

Ah you think this must be the angels- I knew all those days spent doing charity would help me.

You open your eyes and you’re met with bambi eyes staring back at you.

Slowly you begin to piece the rest of your angel together.

“Jeon Jungkook? “

You try and raise your voice to compliment your surprise, but it comes out in a more whisper.

“But this, Jungkook, you were an angel all this time? “you say.

His eyebrows knot together in confusion.

“What are you talking about strawberry?”

You gasp.

"Do we all get code names in heaven? You’re a pretty angel Jungkook. “

Then your eyes zero in on the scar on his cheek.

“Aren’t Angel’s supposed to be blemish free? Is that? Are you fallen? Wait.... for me? Are you my angel Jungkook? “

His eyes, which had previously shown confusion are now coloured with amusement.

“You talk a lot don’t you my little strawberry”.

You vaguely hear the sounds behind you before you begin to feel drowsy and fall limp the arms of your unexpected angel.

Jungkook was, of course no angel, your delirious ass was just doing and saying delirious things. You were going to be mortified when you woke up.

When you come to your room in a dark room, tucked into a warm bed. Your headaches aches as if someone is using a sledgehammer to hit it every second.

‘Agh’ you let out a pained groan.

What even happened? you wonder in your head.

You move quickly, getting out of bed ignoring your protesting limbs. You almost reach the doors until a pair of arms trap you.

‘woah woah where do you think you're going?’

You let out a scream, completely startled. A hand comes to cover your mouth.

‘man, you really do have a set of lungs, don’t you? ‘

You stop struggling in his embrace to match his voice to a face. Its familiar.

‘Jeon Jungkook?’ you let a little unsure and panic still evident in your voice.

‘your one and only’

You frown.

‘mine?’

He smirks at you,

‘that's right yours strawberry’.

You shake your head.

‘are you smoking something? Are you high right now?’

He pouts a little then, it changes his look completely. He looks a little cute.

‘you don't remember? ‘ he cocks his head to the side and points to himself. ‘I'm your angel’.

You scoff.

‘Please in what world are YOU an angel? You're far from it’.

Then it all comes back to you.

Jungkook watches as the realisation begins to show on your face.

‘Oh my god I had a concussion, you cannot be serious right now ‘

He chuckles.

'The words still came out of your mouth' Jungkook counters, he leans closer to you, his face way to close for your liking.

You feel your face grow warm from his proximity, but you don't give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

You scoff and push him away.

‘You're insane’.

He accepts the distance you've placed between the two of you and he chooses to smirk at you from where he is standing.

‘And you're crazy for me’.

You let out an incredulous laugh, not believing him.

‘Oh, my lord, please shut up for the sake of my sanity’.

He chuckles at your flustered state and you scramble your brain to find a change of subject.

‘okay whatever now just excuse me because I need to go back to my room’.

You move to begin walking to the door, but his voice halts your movements.

‘This is your room now’.

You whip around to face him.

‘What?! Ha as if Jeon, why would they room us together- were supposed to separate for the opposite genders- which I totally get when you're involved’ you say disbelief painting your voice. You whisper the last part though.

He puts his hands into his pockets and shrugs.

‘Protection?’

You set him a hard stare.

‘Save your lame ass men superiority talks for someone else i am having a severe case of I'm not interested’.

Why the hell would you need Jungkook for protection, it reeks of patriarchy and you hate it.

He shrugs.

‘Listen princess I don't know why either really to be honest but I'm not complaining-’

You don't bother entertaining him for much longer.

This can't be true. You cannot be paired into a room with him. He cannot be your new roommate - heck now tiffany doesn't seem so bad. Flirting asshole, you mutter under your breath as you begin searching for your teacher.

You only learn a bitter truth, due to the collapsing of the room you had to be relocated into another room and the only person without a roommate was Jungkook. They ‘trusted’ you enough that you would be able to handle it and not to do anything you were not supposed to.

‘We trust you, y/n’ was what she had told you.

You spend your time cursing out both her and Jungkook as you gather your belongings to move into your new room.

You're so caught up in your own thoughts that you don't notice a foot that comes out to trip you.

You look up and see the faces of three stupid bitches.

Tiffany Jessica and Irene.

They seemed to consider themselves above everybody else, though you've no idea why. Aside from flawless looks they seemed to live pretty empty life in your eyes. They were living definitions of empty shells walking around.

You get up quietly from the ground, you'll gain nothing from engaging with them, maybe you'd lose a few brainless. You just want to go back and rest - your head is killing you.

But to your disappointment they begin to talk.

‘Well, well well, if it isn't the school's new slut moving into MY boyfriend's room’.

You have to let a little laugh at this. This one is seriously deluded. Jungkook didn't do relationships you knew that. Everybody knew that. They had hooked up about 3 months ago and even though he does his best to ignore her she still insists that he is her boyfriend. It's just pathetic and a bit sad you suppose. Her obvious attraction to him which he just does not reciprocate.

She becomes enraged at your actions.

‘listen here you little bitch you better not even think of starting anything with my man-’ she spits out at you.

You snap back then, unable to hold your tongue.

‘I am not a slut, and I will not go after your man- which fyi he is not. He is a human and he doesn’t belong to you he never has’

She grows red at your words.

‘you little piece of shit-’

She raises her hand but just then a voice interrupts her and she halts her actions.

‘well if it isn't my new roomie, l’ll take that from you strawberry’ Jungkook says, too cheery for your liking, your still contemplating hitting Jessica.

Jessica begins speaking up, but he ignores her turning to you.

Your mouth almost drops open at his dismissal of Jessica but then again, she is annoying, and he cannot be immune to that.

‘Jungkoooook’ she whines when he doesn’t respond to her the first time.

He still doesn’t entertain her.

He moves to take your things from you, but she speaks again, latching onto his arm.

‘just leave her -cshe's just an annoying stuck-up bitch’.

He responds to this under his breath laughing.

‘reminds me of someone ’

She doesn't understand his comment.

‘huh?’ she says almost comically.

‘who baby?’ she pouts at him ‘my poor baby having to deal with such people, just leave with me and we can-’

‘no’ he sets her with a hard stare.

It's like she has forgotten that you're there, so you decide to use this to your advantage, letting Jungkook deal with them. You move to get your suitcase, but a hand stops yours. Its Jungkook.

‘I don’t think so strawberry - I'll be getting those for you’.

You turn to look at him scowl adorning your features.

‘I don’t need your help Jeon’.

He smirks at you.

‘no no - I insist’.

He dismisses Jessica with a wave of his hand and begins to walk away your suitcase in his hand, which prompts you to follow along.

‘What. Was. That. Jungkook?!’ you say when the door closes, you’re fuming because he had made it seem as though you were dating or doing things together which meant that they would keep bothering you, which is just something that you don’t want.

He turns around to face you.

‘oh, don’t get your panties in such a twist, I just needed to get the fuck away from her’.

He sounds angry and this is the Jungkook that you are more accustomed to. Not the flirty one you have been seeing. Hopefully he had given up on whatever he was trying to achieve with that. He was a rude asshole who was just to used to seeing things come out in his favour.

‘excuse me, you just fuelled her whack ass thoughts and next time don’t use me as your escape route’ you say matching his hostile tone.

‘oh, don’t be such a priss, it saved you as much as it saved me’.

An exasperated noise escapes your throat.

‘well maybe you should have kept it in your pants lover boy’.

He sets you with a hard stare.

‘oh, shut up - you don’t know me’ he grits out.

You cock your head to the side much like he had done to you earlier in the day.

‘hmmm I think I know you pretty well Jungkook, you're not as unreadable as you like to think, Jeon Jungkook the infamous bad boy who uses girls to fuel his ego and is used by girls to fuel their own ego and status quo among their own stupid--’

You do not get to finish you sentence however because you're harshly being pinned to the door. His grip on you is hard and it stings but you meet his gaze.

‘shut the fuck up y/n’ the tone of his voice is almost carnal, animal like.

You seriously had hit a nerve.

‘I go beyond your perceptions of me- you little miss goody two shoes’.

You spit back in his face.

‘I've yet to see you act more like a crazed rabbit Jungkook and to be honest I don’t plan on finding out the depths of your character either. I don’t fucking care about you’.

You push him aside and move to unpack your suitcase.

He mutters something under his breath that you can't hear, and he walks out slamming the door behind him.

‘well, that was fun’ you say and begin to take out your notes and books that you will need through the day.

When you wake up the next you feel like you’ve been hit by a ton of bricks. The painkillers had given you the illusion that you were okay. You look a mess, you're tired, you cannot believe that this happened. You had been looking forward to this for so long, they had told you that another student would be collecting your data. Your new roommate. Jeon Jungkook. He was going to be collecting your data.

This is preposterous! He would probably sabotage you on purpose! This cannot happen, but they wouldn’t budge from their choice. You huff as you look out of the window, where you could be collecting your data along with the other students. Darn you and your curiosity.

They always did say didn’t they- that curiosity killed the cat.

Your walking around the room, pacing- that’s how bored you are. You had reorganised your things 3 times and colour coded all you notes, redrew your graphs, you had done everything that you thought would keep you busy but here you are sitting with nothing to do. You look around the room see Jungkook's things laying on the ground.

You sigh into the empty room again and just lay down waiting for them to come back. You end up falling asleep.

You're stirred from your sleep, quite rudely by a book being thrown at the foot of your bed. You sit up, still groggy and look at Jungkook.

‘what the hell man’

He stares at you blankly.

‘There's your work priss’

You're not bothered by his hostile tone instead open the book and seeing what he had done, or you suppose looking at it what he had not done. The more you look at the work the more the frown on your face deepens.

‘what the hell is this Jungkook?’

He looks up at you annoyed.

‘the work? Thought you were meant to be a genius?’

You scowl at him.

‘this Jungkook? Is unacceptable a nursery kid could do way better than this !’

He rolls his eyes at you.

‘and? That’s what you're going to get priss so deal with it’.

You make an exasperated sigh.

‘you've used the wrong measurement and everything Jungkook’.

‘look - I don’t care. I didn’t want to do this for you anyway’.

‘like I wanted YOU to do it for me’.

You sigh,

You keep bumping into him everywhere, you know he is your roommate but he is always there at the cafeteria taking the last donut which you had been craving pushing in line, making unnecessary comments and he makes the room so messy!

It’s the same thing for the next few outings, Jungkook comes with the same half assed versions of the data you need.

You try, you really you try so hard to use the data sets he provided but its no use. They're absolutely useless, so you decide to take matters into your own hands.

Your going to sneak out early in the morning, you have to sneak past the guards which as you’ve gathered won't be as hard as one may think because they are not good or much invested in their job anyway.

You prepare yourself and head to set out in the morning. You quietly get up so as not to disturb or wake Jungkook. If he sees you, you know that there will be trouble.

You throw on a hoodie and grab a notebook, a pen and your watch. You have to be back before anyone can notice that you're gone. You steel yourself one last time, giving yourself a pep talk and sneak out. You hold your breath as you walk past the room of your supervisor and out the back door of the cabins.

This isn't so bad you think. Once you're out of sight of the guards and you think your safe, you let out a sigh of relief and do a little shimmy out of your happiness. You are so pleased and proud of yourself. What you didn’t know that behind you, watching your every move was a boy covered in tattoos with a cigarette in his hand watching you with an amused face.

Jungkook was, not as you thought asleep when you had snuck out. He was also outside, leaning on the side of the building a cigarette in his hand, he couldn’t sleep that night, it happened to him on most nights so he routinely wakes up to have a smoke. On this particular day there is not the usual eerie morning silence that he is used to, but a few grunts and hisses to accompany it. He furrows his brows.

Is that? He thinks y/n!?!?!?!?!?

No way he thinks what the hell is she up to?

Then he catches sight of your notebook and pen.

'Oh, what a nerd' he mutters under his breath. Then he smirks.

He can totally use this to his advantage.

He stubs his cigarette, pulls his hoodie over his head and follows you.

Your heart is still racing you honestly cannot believe that you. l/n f/n are doing this.

‘What a badass’ you say into the silence.

‘Badass? Sneaking out to do bloody work is your idea of badass?’ a voice speaks up behind you.

You shriek startled and are met with Jungkook.

Why is it always him?

‘what in the bloody tarnation's.... are you trying to kill me Jungkook?!’ you say putting your hand on your heart.

He grins pleased at the reaction he had elicited from you.

He cocks his head to the side.

‘what the hell are you doing here ?!’ you hiss at him.

‘could ask you the same thing strawberry’ he replies.

You look at him.

You were so sure that you had been quiet, how could he be here to ruin everything.

‘you do realise that I actually have name, and it's not strawberry’ you say to him.

He shrugs.

‘Yeah but you always smell like them’.

You scoff;

‘and you always reek of cigarettes.’

He frowns but then asks you again.

‘what are you doing here?’

You think of excuses,

‘I'm - I'm on a walk’ you say.

He lifts his eyebrow up.

‘a walk?’

You nod.

‘that's right for my daily exercise its been a pain to be stuck indoors’.

He snorts.

‘you're on a walk with your graph paper pad and pencil case?’

You curse inside your head.

‘yeah I am a nerd after all’ you say, hoping and praying that he’ll just let you go on your way.

He doesn’t

‘I don’t know, you look awfully suspicious to me, do tell why you're heading to the sight of our data collection points when the trail track is in the opposite direction?’ he says.

You rack your brains for an answer.

‘well, I like an adventure’ you say, standing straight.

‘oh, is that so?’ he says laughter infiltrating his tone.

‘yes’, you say meeting his eyes.

‘hmm’ he says ‘I don’t believe you’ he says.

‘do you wanna know what I think?’ he continues.

He takes one step closer to you.

‘I think that our resident miss goody two shoes is sneaking off when told specifically that she can't’ his gaze burns into yours

You feel yourself going red out of embarrassment.

‘I literally have no idea what you're talking about Jungkook' you say breathless.

He leans closer and you can feel his body heat, he continues to bore his eyes into your own and you almost fall into his gaze until you feel your book being snatched out of your hand.

‘HEY!’ you say reaching for it.

But he holds it higher than himself, opens it to the last written on page.

‘new data collection points’ he reads out ‘and oh would you look at that ! It has todays dates written on it’ he says looking down at you with a squint in his eyes.

You huff.

‘well obviously I had to do this because how on earth could I let your lame ass results and data reading be used for my final piece – I'm not looking to fail’ you say venom laced in every word.

He scowls at you.

‘there was nothing wrong with my results princess’ he grits out.

‘oh, please save it’ you snap back ‘you didn’t even use the same measurements – your hopeless’.

‘well, if I'm so fucking useless you should do my work for me’ he says.

You set him a level stare.

‘what?’

‘you heard me’ he says with a roll of his eyes.

‘and why in the hell would I do that? I don’t care if you fail Jungkook, heck I don’t care if you get kicked out’ you tell him.

He shakes his head.

‘well, I mean I could go back right now and tell Miss Taylor-’ he begins.

You narrow your eyes at him.

‘You wouldn’t dare’.

He holds a staring contest with you.

‘oh, wouldn’t I?’ he says.

You both hold each other's gazes before you give in.

You cannot believe the audacity of this asshole.

‘fine whatever asshole’ you say folding your arms and turning around.

He grins in victory and places your notebook back into your hands.

‘chop chop partner get to it’ he says.

You glare at him.

‘partners pull equal weight Jungkook ‘

He rolls his eyes.

‘I don’t really care – you just need to get a move on’.

You turn around no longer wanting to deal with his annoying ass.

You make it forward a few steps before you stop and turn around.

‘why are you following me?’ you ask him.

He rolls his eyes at your apparent dumbness.

‘well smartass, there is a killer on the loose if you didn’t know’.

You freeze up for a second,

Shit

You had almost forgotten. You don’t let him see that you're scared.

‘and? ‘ you say feigning composure.

‘what the hell are you going to do if he pops out of the woods anyway?’

He shrugs.

‘I dunno actually a lot more than you could do anyway’

You stare at him.

‘I could be a black belt in karate for all you know’.

He laughs.

‘okay princess whatever - I just need to make sure that you're not going to fuck this up’.

So, you turn going to the place you need to, to collect your data pieces.

With having to do Jungkook's work as well, it takes a lot longer to complete than you would have liked.

He is surprisingly bearable in the mornings that you both sneak off though. He doesn’t say much. Just watches you – pretends he isn't though.

You catch him once. Its been about 2 weeks since you started this godawful task, and Jungkook's notes and work were in dire need of help so its taking you time. This time however you meet his gaze before he is able to pull away.

You cock your head to the side.

‘what are you staring at?’ you say placing your hands on your hips.

He says something inaudible under his breath.

‘what was that?’

He snaps at you.

‘do you think you have tie to stand around making idle talk with me? The work ain’t going to do itself princess.’

You huff in annoyance.

How dare he! This was just plain wrong anyway I should not even be doing this, but you knew it was the only way. You couldn't risk getting caught and with Jungkook you wouldn't be surprised if he really did rat you out you to all the teachers. And if he did well, you wouldn’t be receiving a very good reference.

It was during an early morning that you hear Jungkook walk off into the distance. Probably to smoke, such a bad habit you tsk.

But you're also done for the day – so you begin to head back on your own.

You feel the grass brush against your feet as you walk back. You’re humming along to that song that was always on the radio, when you hear it. A little whimper - then a cry. You know that you shouldn’t go to look, you know that you're paying for your curiosity already and you don’t need another thing to happen, but you just cannot help yourself!

You follow the sound, going on a detour from the track.

You do consider yourself somewhat of a badass but a serial killer? Yeah, they kinda scare the shit out of you. You hold your breath and walk as quietly and slowly as you can. You hear the whimper again to your left but its deeper into the woods.

As you walk closer you see a pool of blood - your eyes widen, and your heartbeat becomes erratic.

‘what the fuck?’ you whisper into the silence.

You walk closer to the body of the animal and you can feel your knees grow a little weak you can see a white paper which has been tainted red with the blood of the animal that was killed.

You gasp, taking it up in your hands. Your hands also become stained with the redness.

It's in Morse code.

-.-- --- ..- / ... .... --- ..- .-.. -.. -. .----. - / -... . / .-- .- -. -.. . .-. .. -. --. / --- ..- - / .- .-.. --- -. .

(YOU SHOULDN'T BE WANDERING OUT ALONE)

You look at it for a while and rack your brains to be able to translate it but no such look. Your mind is busy running at 100miles per hour. As you try and clear your head and look at the note one more time, but a noise in the distance pulls you way from any semblance of concentration that you could have obtained.

You frantically look around trying to locate where the sound had come from. Your senses are all on a high right now. You shove the piece of paper into your pocket and begin to go back the way that you came. After the first few steps you begin running your head running wild with the idea of being found dead in ditch. Your nearly at the main path which you had strayed from. You make it onto the path, and you bend over catching your breath when two arms encircle you from behind.

You let out a scream.

A hand is placed over your mouth.

‘shut the fuck up y/n’.

You recognise THAT voice. Its Jeon Jungkook. Why is this motherfucker always trying to scare you? Your turn around and hit him on the chest,

‘what the actual hell Jeon, you gave me a bloody heat attack and a half’.

He doesn’t respond. He is looking at you, his eyebrows are furrowed and his eyes have a glint of anger. He is furious.

‘where the fuck did you go y/n?’ he says, he holds your wrist stopping you from hitting him again.

He holds it in the air holding your gaze.

‘I was.... walking back’ you didn't want him to know what you had found. He would probably tell you it was a bad idea to even translate it. Which it was, but what is life if not for taking risks?

You yank your hand from his grasp.

He looks at you an unreadable expression on his face.

“you’re a fucking liar “he says.

You scoff.

“oh please, what’s it to you anyway jungkook, you left me first “

He doesn’t say anything, but observes you, trying to look for signs of what you’re hiding.

He had found one too, a dead animal and a note written in Morse.

But he could read it and he knew he was in trouble

“Be careful, or your little girlfriend may be snatched from right under your arms “

He swore under his breath as he read it and immediately began to make his way back to you.

“strawberry?” he calls out but you’re not there.

You’re not there and he hates the feeling of dread that sits in his stomach.

He runs back the way you came, but he still finds no trace of you

“fucking hell where did she go?”

He almost gives up and is going to tell the police when you appear before him, out of breath and you look terrified.

He knows you’re lying, if you were where, you said you were, he would have seen you.

He narrows his eyes at you again.

“I left for two seconds and you ran off. Where the fuck did you go? “

He asks, he wants you tell him, needs you to, he’s overcome with this sense to protect you but you don’t trust him. He needs to change that.

He lets you believe that you have him fooled, that he believes your story and he begins to walk back to the cabins right before the call for breakfast is sounded. You follow after him breathing in a sigh of relief that he had believed you.

That night you find it difficult to sleep. You need to find out the meaning of the Morse code, but you don't have access to a book that will help you translate, meaning that you will have to ask around without looking too suspicious.

You decide that a police officer would do nicely, if you seem overly invested in their job, they would just give you the information.

You spot the officer who looks younger than most, you remember his name.

Park Jimin.

You approach him cautiously.

“Officer park?”

He turns around to face you, smiling softly.

Oh, he’s cute you think.

“yes miss?”

You smile at him warmly.

“nothing serious it’s just that I was wondering if you would like some company, it must be a little boring for you out here on your own “

You say to him and you’re glad you asked him because either way his face breaks out into a smile that has your heart fluttering.

“how very kind of you miss! And yes, a little company wouldn't hurt “, he grins at you.

As you strike up conversation, with the officer you fail to notice a figure dressed in black listening in on your conversation. Jungkook listens in as you try and get information out of officer. He knew it. You had also come across the same note, as he had. He wonders what yours said.

He leaves after a bit, leaving both of you oblivious to the fact that he was even there in the first place.

When you get back to your room, you see Jungkook sitting at the foot of his bed frown on his face.

You ignore him and write down the information you'd just got given by Officer Park. You felt a little bad manipulating him when he was so nice but you just had to know what it meant.

Jungkook speaks up.

“that was a nice conversation you were having with Officer Park “

He says,

You whip you’re head up to look at him and closing your notebook harshly.

“What? Were you eavesdropping on my conversation?”

He rolls his eyes

“Why would I be listening to the conservation of the school nerd with a cop? No, I just happened to hear in passing “

You let out a breath that you didn’t know you were holding.

“That’s mighty rude of y-" you begin to retort before he cuts you off

“what’s a biology nerd like you need with Morse code?” He asks.

Your mind malfunctions for a moment until you bring yourself back together.

“A little extra knowledge hurts no one you know?” you say appearing nonchalant.

He narrows his eyes

“I know it”

You look at him

“you do?”

He nods,

“why need something translating?” he tries.

You think about it, but ultimately decided against showing him the note you found.

You have no clue what it says. You don’t want him understanding before you do.

You shake your head,

“No, I don’t “

You say, deciding enough is enough and you need to sleep now to be up in the morning.

The next morning you sleep in, meaning that you couldn’t do the work that was set out for you. You stretch and moan as you get out of bed when you sit up and open your eyes fully your locks onto the Bambi ones from across the room. You let out a shriek!

‘What the hell why were you watching me you creeper!’ you say pointing a finger at Jungkook.

He rolls his eyes at you.

‘oh, please don’t flatter yourself’.

‘why didn’t you wake me up? Its so late !’ you question him.

He looks at you and says words that you don’t think that you would hear.

‘I think that we should lay off for a bit strawberry’

You look at him in shock

‘but why!?’

He doesn’t really give you much of an answer in his usual Jungkook manner.

You sigh.

Over the next few weeks, you rarely bump into Jungkook, you see him sometimes in the cafeteria and you can always feel him just watching you it makes you grow warm when you notice his staring.

Jungkook is also going crazy. You drive him crazy.

You guess that you'll have to work at the same pace as everyone, truthfully you had actually caught up with your work that was missed a while ago, you were just doing extra readings to stay ahead. One step ahead of everyone. But you guess that that is going to be changed now.

It had been a while since you had been on your morning trips with jungkook and though you hate to admit it, you kind of missed it.

He wasn't as bad company as you thought he would be, he was oddly quiet which meant that without him talking as much, you really got to admire his beauty. And good lord was he handsome, you understand why people are attracted to him, when his mouth is closed, he’s fine. Basically, you became a little horny when you saw him, it had been ages since you had had sex even masturbated, since you now had room with him.

Jungkook has such strong sharp features which sometimes go all soft, if he pouts while he’s thinking or a bird catches his attention, his eyes will go big and doe like. It's cute. Everybody had two sides you suppose, yours was your horny side (lol what)

Okay maybe, more time to admire him was a bad thing, you did not need to have sexual fantasies with him, no, that was a big no no.

It's been a few weeks since Jungkook had asked you to lay low for a while and in that time, you had been asking around about the killer to the police. You tried your best not to seem suspicious about it though, if they caught on – well it wouldn’t exactly end well. So, you make slow progress, you did make progress though, however.

You could now understand the note and while it scared you, it also ignited something in you that you didn’t even know that you possessed inside of you. You wanted to outdo him, you want to find him, lead him into a trap or something like that anyway. You want to catch him.

Something in the back of your mind is telling you begging you to stop being so stupid, but you ignore and continue to daydream about catching this bastard.

But it can only cure your boredom for a while – you get bored and what better to do when you're bored than to read erotica novels?

You had packed this book with you – the secrets of the alluring painter in France. You had taken to reading at night time on some nights.

Like tonight.

You need a wind down, so you pull out your book, and it has such racy scenes that leave you clenching around nothing.

Your sexual imagination goes wild when you read the erotica in the book and the way they make it seem so fiery, you were no virgin - you knew what sex was like, but never has it been close to the way it is in the book.

You’ve allowed yourself to fall into this horrible habit, at night, when Jungkook is asleep to touch yourself, play with yourself, pretending it is you who is being touched by Kim Taehyung the painter with many secrets.

You feel yourself growing more frustrated with each passage you read, it becomes a little irritating and, you have to touch yourself or you'll go crazy, the man in the book was doing it so well, so hot.

Kim Taehyung, he was described as an utter beauty, soft black hair and soft eyes, a deep voice that just made the reader swoon, you close your eyes and reach your hands down to your shorts, they slip past the hem.

You wish you could moan, wish that you could be vocal, like you were in your bedroom when it was just you and your pillow, but there was one big problem and that was Jeon Jungkook.

Why did you have to room with him?

You lighten your breathing and listen for signs of him being awake, but he seems to be breathing really deep, he is asleep you assure yourself.

You turn the lamp off, at the side of your bed, setting the book on the bedside table.

You trail your hand down your stomach, much like Taehyung had done to the main character, he slowly lets his fingers flutter over the top of her shorts, and you do the same. You build the tension, like it's his beautiful hands working against you.

You pause and let your fingers slip past the hem of your panties, you trace over the fabric covering you - first over your mound, stroking sensually.

How had Taehyung done it?

Right yes, he had used his nails slightly and grazed over lightly, a slight pressure but nothing that hurt - it was just enough to make you squirm under your own touch.

You feel your own wetness, feel how obscene it is in the darkness of the night.

Jungkook is right there, and while it scares you, it also thrills you, you feel a new wave of arousal and adrenaline when you remember he is there.

Slowly and as quietly as possible you shuffle, moving to take your shorts off, it's a little loud but you think that you're okay, Jungkook is out like a log. After a moment you continue to tease yourself.

Running your fingertips over your lips, pressing down on your hole and clenching, withholding the need to hiss.

You raise your hand further and your fingers land right at the centre of your pleasure.

Your clit. Oh, the beautiful bundle of nerves.

You cover your mouth with a hand to stifle the moan that you almost let out when you begin to rub small circles around the sensitive nub.

When you can’t get enough your panties are next to go, and when the cold air hits your wet centre you have to hold your breath, shaky.

You reach down and gather your slick slowly, spreading it all over your centre, making yourself drown in your own arousal, you use your middle and ring finger to slide up and down at a pace that leaves you edged and eager for more, you need to bring yourself to the very edge to get yourself the release that you’re after, you free hand travels up to your ever sensitive boobs, you play with them, brushing over the nipple, making them perk and then groping them while you rub at your clit.

A dirty thought crosses your mind, when you remember the boy who was asleep across from you.

What if, he was the one to touch, the one touching you, with those beautiful hands of his, those big hands.

You stifle another moan, as you think about him, hovering over you, giving it to you just right. You had heard that Jungkook could actually make a girl cum while having sex, that made you a little interested. It’s just he always opens his mouth and is an ass and ruins everything. But right now, in your imagination, only his looks and reputation matter, you twist and turn his character to be someone that you can gain pleasure from.

You can the pleasure increase and you begin to fasten your speed until you feel the signs of your orgasm and then you pull away. Edging yourself.

Your breathing is a little heavy and your work on controlling it, both your hands go to fondle your breasts and you unconsciously lift your hips, humping the air, you lean down again and enter three fingers easily into your own heat.

The squelching sound heard is deafening in the silent room, your cheeks burn red and you pull out slowly, so that was a no no, you would have to focus on your clit for you orgasm. Which was fine because you were so sensitive from playing with yourself, you know that it would only take a few more strokes to get there.

You press the fingers that were just inside of you, against your sensitive bud and you rub in slowly circles and then fastening your place and then slowing once more.

Jungkook comes into your mind again, ugh, now his lips, his pretty pink lips and the way he licks them, and the way they glisten under the sun. What if they were attached to your clit, if he was using his face to give you pleasure, like Taehyung had done to the main character of the novel, God it was so filthy.

Its driving you insane and you love it, the frustration will only make your release all the more powerful.

After a while you feel the fire blooming in your bottom of your stomach, and you quicken your pace to the point where you feel light and the waves of pleasure rack over your whole body.

You press your hand to your mouth again to conceal the gasps that are escaping you, you sigh and fall back onto your pillow feeling so much better and lighter.

Gosh did that feel good. You were aware that in your mind alarms were going off in your mind. You had thought of Jungkook while masturbating. It was a line you have no idea why you crossed. How would you look him in the eye now?

After a while, you pull up your panties and shorts and you promise yourself a shower in the morning.

What you didn't know was that the raven-haired boy of your fantasies was in fact awake and now painfully hard as he listened to your filthy little moans and gasps, he grabs his own member in his pants, strokes slowly. He spreads the pre-cum over his member before setting the fast pace that he liked, his breaths through his nose – to conceal the way his breathing has become strained. His hair becomes damp from sweat and it sticks to his forehead. He came much faster that he would care to admit the thought of you right there yet unreachable the fact that you were so NAUGHTY under all that good girl.

Turning him on, making him needy.

He breathes heavy, thinking of you under him as he squirts out cum into his pants, Jungkook too showers in the morning after you.

After this Jungkook stays up at night, listening to you, seeing if you would do it again, you do and, on those nights, Jungkook cums at the same time as you. He feels a little pathetic, he knows that he can fuck a lot of girls in the class right, but it wasn't you, God he wants it to be you writhing underneath him.

It’s the next morning and you're getting ready for your shower.

You're gathering your clothes and shampoo and creams into a little bundle and are about to open the door to the shower, when it is opened for you. The song that you were softly humming gets stuck in your throat when you register that the door was opened by Jungkook.

A very naked Jungkook.

Your face grows red, and your eyes wander over his gorgeous body, the tattoos that trail up his arm and a few on his waist, God they looked amazing.

Your ogling comes to a stop when he clears his throat. Oh, shit you think - I was staring. You quickly look up and your eyes meet Jungkook's.

He is smirking at you and as soon as you meet his gaze, he lets his own wander over body – taken in the skin that was exposed in your pyjama shorts and a t-shirt that had been small for you since you turned 13 years old.

He looks up and down your body brazenly before meeting your eyes. He licks his lips, and you zero in on it. God it was so annoying that he was this hot.

How could this be happening now? When you had spent a while avoiding him? And him you? Why did this happen after you were thinking of him last night? Oh god you grow red again and you think what if he had heard you? God, that would be embarrassing. You look at his lips again, avoiding his gaze again but maybe his eyes would have been a better option because as soon as you look at his lips, the same filthy thoughts come back to you - you shift uncomfortably trying to calm yourself. In that time, you don't notice but Jungkook has come closer to you.

You register his closeness when a water droplet from his hair falls onto your cheek. You move away slightly.

You don’t realise it but in your extended silence of checking each other out the both of you have moved closer to each other. There is no longer what people would call a healthy distance between the two of you anymore. He looks down at you and licks his lips again. His hair is wet and the way he runs his hand through it – he looks so good like this. Your dirty thoughts run wild again. Its only when another water droplet from his hair falls onto your cheek that you finally snap out of it. You move a step back.

“You look a little hot strawberry is anything the matter?” He asks you, a teasing lilt on his voice.

It’s way too early for this, you cannot be dealing with this right now, not when your mind has gone on a memory flashback to last night and he was right here in front you, so very naked.

Still, you feign your ever composed self.

“I’m just fine” you say through gritted teeth.

“I need to shower and your kind of standing in my way” you tell him.

He chuckles, a deep chuckle, gosh how are you this horny in the morning? Stop it y/n you think.

“I don't think you really mind though do you strawberry, you seem to have a very different secretive side” he says, cocking his head to the side.

You blush, shit had he heard you?

“I have no idea what you're talking about Jungkook” you say to him “I need to shower though”.

You move to get away from his hearted stare but just before you enter the washroom, a hand grabs onto your wrist and pulls you back.

Jungkook looks at you, a deep and confusing stare.

“Be careful, it’s quite wet in there” he says and then his tongue pokes into the side of his cheek. Then suddenly, he lets you go and walks off to his side of the room, your left in shock at his words and quickly scurry to get into the bedroom before more heated tension breaks through.

You shake your head of all thoughts and quickly go into the shower, what you don’t realise is that you accidently drop something, the note with the raven-haired boy who you had left in the bedroom.

Its later on during this day that Jungkook approaches you.

'Hey strawberry’ he says to you.

You raise your eyebrows at him, what’s with his sudden kindness.

‘hey’ you reply voice dipped in surprised.

‘Oh, shut up, I just came to talk to you’.

You look at him.

‘I didn’t say anything but okay…. talk then’ you gesture your hands between your two bodies.

He lets out an exasperated gasp.

‘The note – did you find one?’ he asks. You still in the next sip of coffee that you were going to take. You feel yourself grow cold. How did he find out?

He looks at you.

‘So, you did’.

‘I didn’t say that’ you say tone slightly higher than normal – you were a terrible liar.

He laughs at you

‘Hmm is that so?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about Jungkook’.

He looks at you, more serious this time.

“Listen y/n there's no point playing dumb, I found your stupid note anyway”.

You watch mortified as he pulls out the note that you had thought was in your pocket. Well shit then.

“I- I have never seen that before in my life Jungkook” you can't let him know; he would ruin everything - you convince yourself.

He looks at you, he’s getting annoyed that you're lying to him. He pokes his tongue against his cheek again.

“I suggest you stop lying”.

You scoff.

“Why would I ever need to lie to you your nobody to me Jungkook”.

Something akin to hurt flashes across his face for a few seconds before he slams his hands on the table.

“I don’t think you know what you're even getting into strawberry”.

You gather your belongings getting up, you need to get away from him.

“And I don't think you know what the fuck you're talking about Jungkook”.

You walk off leaving him there, but he follows after you,

“Listen I found one too, you don't need to be miss hero or anything”.

You carry on walking, not bothering to give him an answer, he would want to tell the teachers and everyone, they would cancel the trip and then how would you finish gathering your evidence? No, he was insane.

“I don’t know what you're talking about”.

‘you think your so fucking slick, don’t you? Asking around and acting unsuspicious but your wrong I could sense your stupid plan from a mile away’ he says to you, pulling you on your arm effectively stopping you so you can't walk away from him anymore. You struggle out of his hold.

‘and so, what? So, what if you know? What the hell are you going to do Jungkook? Tell on me? Are you going to threaten to tell the teachers because you know what? I’ve been thinking about it and I think they would much rather take my word for yours and all this work I’ve been doing for you – I could easily go right now and show the teachers and say that you forced me to do it!! ’

He looks at you angrily, looks like he is going to swear or curse you out but then his face relaxes.

‘you say that baby, but the truth is I have money and you don’t if I want to manipulate something I can because I have the means and power to do so, my dad's made himself something while yours totted away in the fucking garbage can’.

You feel the anger come over you and he smirks at you.

‘real fucking classy Jeon, yeah insult my parents – like it's their fault they were born into a world where people are born with silver spoons on their mouth, and at least my parents love me Jungkook’

His eyes flash with hurt

‘how do you now my parents don't love me you little bitch?’

You laugh an empty laugh at his face.

‘just look at you – you’re the very definition of boohoo my parents don't love me so I'm going to kick up a mess, so they notice me for once’.

He groans in frustration at your words then.

Somehow amidst your confrontation with Jungkook you had managed to reach your room, why are you here? Why did your feet have to leave you here?

You walk into the room and as soon as he gets in, Jungkook grabs you by the wrist and pins you against the door, your books and pencils fly across the room and while your mortified - he doesn't even bat an eyelid.

Your breathing is both heavy as you look each other in the eyes, waiting for the other to say something.

You struggle against his hold, uselessly, curse him for doing his workout routine every morning.

“You found the fucking note y/n when you went missing in the woods that day, the note that’s in Morse code, the note that you spent a week trying to decode, don't act fucking dumb” he grits out.

You still try and keep up your act,

“I have no clue in the world what you're talking Jeon, I think you're going fucking insane” you seethe out

He growls, yes, he growls.

“Your seriously fucking pissing me off now, I know you did, I know you found it”.

“Fuck off, Jungkook does it look like I care if I am fucking pissing you off”.

He looks into your eyes again and whispers something like “fucking priss” before he is connecting your lips in a kiss, a kiss that is full of ego, passion and heat. You can feel in searing through your body so fiery, setting your nerves alight.

He is relentless in his pace. His mouth against yours and God indeed Jungkook is good kisser. Before you knees grow weak you move your hands to tangle in his hair and you pull at the end causing him groan against his lips, when he does you swipe your tongue into his mouth getting a taste. You pull harder, and he groans again. It was a sound that you know you would like to hear again.

His hands move from the door and one tangles in your hair while the other presses harshly on your waist. You gasp at the pleasure and at this he takes over, he fights your own tongue for dominance and once he wins, he is rough, he wants all his saliva in your mouth, wants his taste on you, wants you to feel him in every way.

When he knows that your just as enthralled by his kisses he pulls back to taunt you - whispering the words against you bruised lips.

“You act like such a fucking little priss don't you? Act like your better than me? Lying to me? Fuck you drive me insane”.

He attacks your neck now, leaving open mouthed kisses along your ear and neck. He nibbles lightly at a few areas and when he gets to just the right place - where your breath hitches and you move your thighs together he bites down harshly without warning and you try you best to suppress your moans. Not wanting to give him any satisfaction.

“I am better than you” you say to him breathlessly, “I don’t just act like it, I am”.

He bites harder at that and you wince - Jungkook is painting you skin wine and purple and your letting him and it feels so goddamn good. He pulls you back by the hair to look at him,

“You don't look much better than me when you are bending at my will, when you're looking so fucked out and I’ve done is fucking kiss you”.

Your answer is swallowed by a moan that you let out as he takes you breasts into his big hands, and squeezes hard, you pull him up from your neck and kiss him again, his lips, your lips bruising and fighting against one another.

He trails his hand down further and dances around the hem of your pants for a while, and you place your own over his, just as your about to lead him further down a knock is heard at your door.

You both freeze

“y/n?” A voice calls out.

You calm yourself before answering, still a little shaky.

“Yes?”

“Our guest speaker has arrived, I just thought you might like to ask him a few questions before he gives his talk”.

Jungkook swears under his breath, raking a hand through his hair.

“You fucking nerd”.

He pulls you back by your pony tail and the back of your head lands on his shoulder, he tilts you slightly, so he has better access to kiss and leave more marks against your skin.

“Ah- I thank you, I’ll come in an ah- while” you say, and you hear the footsteps walk off, Jungkook spins you around and he goes to kiss you again, but you pull away.

“No, just, stop I have to go and talk”.

He looks at you “you fucking nerd” he kisses you once more, like he can't get enough of your mouth.

You pull away again.

uh what in the fuck just happened you think.

This was not meant to happen.

“Look Jungkook, I did, that is my note and I- I’ll, we can talk just not now, okay? I-I have to go. This is important"

He doesn't say anything, just watches as you fix your appearance in the mirror, an appearance he had ruined, and he smirks a little in triumph. He watches as you gather your books that had been thrown onto the floor and he watches as your ass is on display for him and God, he wishes he could grab a handful, but he doesn’t. He just watches.

You walk out the room, without so much as looking at him again and he feels oddly rejected.

He knows that you had felt good, he had heard you groan against his mouth, grind against his clothed member but he hadn't ever been walked out on before. He's not sure what exactly he is feeling. Its not a good feeling - that he was walked out on and for some old ass lecturer too.

He watches the door close, and he sits and waits for you to finish being a nerd. But truthfully it is a little hot to him that you’re so independent, you do things for yourself, your confidence and your wit, it makes you fun, you piss him off, but your company is nicer than the ones that he is used to.

He sighs what the fuck is he getting himself into.

You take a breath as you exit the room,

What in the fuck just happened? you think.

Well, when you promised Jungkook that you would talk to him you hadn't been in your right mind. Why did you agree to that like fuck? You have no idea what to even say. How do you even start that conversation like...?

"Hey, was just wondering if you would like to you know? Go on a hunt for a serial killer with me?"

Gosh this was so stupid and the kiss, gosh your face heats up as you remember the way he had kissed you - oh so sweet and so naughty!

Gosh you were in bad, as an adult you decide to deal with the problem logically, you'll just ignore him. That will work, Jungkook had a small attention span anyway. You're sure he would forget. You really hope he does.

#jungkook x reader #bts fanfic #jungkookxreader #jungkook fanfic #jungkook x y/n #jungkook x you #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook imagine #jungkook series #bts x reader #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #bts imagine #jungkook smut #jungkook #bts imagines #bts angst #bts fluff #e2l

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moonbcams · 2 years ago

Text

❃ ↷ ˊ- pelican town is all abuzz about YOON AHNA, our resident 25-year old BARISTA. you know, the one who looks like IM NAYEON? i don’t see it, but maybe that’s just because they remind me of running through fields of flowers, singing along to perfect road trip playlists, & dancing in the moonlight every time i see them at THE BEACH. word around town is that they’re increasingly FREE-SPIRITED and INQUISITIVE, but can get rather ALOOF. hope to see them around the valley soon!

hiiiii i’m mimi ( 𝕞𝕚𝕞𝕚#7025 ) and i am so very very excited to be here !! i’ve been listening to nayeon all day which very much inspired me to find an rp where i could play her beautiful face. i also just started my summer break so i’m looking forward to getting very invested and making grand plots and bugging you all all the time ok sorry in advance x.

BASIC INFORMATION

full name : yoon ahna nickname(s) : anna, nana, yoonie preferred name(s) : ahna birth date : december 24th 1997 age : twenty five zodiac : capricorn gender : cis female pronouns : she / her romantic orientation : biromantic sexual orientation : bisexual nationality : ethnicity : asian

BACKGROUND

birth place : pelican town , stardew valley hometown : pelican town , stardew valley social class : middle class father : yoon dae-min mother : cha sooyoung sibling(s) : n/a pet(s) : jae & duri ( rescue cats ) previous relationship(s) : tba.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

eye color : dark brown hair color : changes frequently depending on her mood glasses / contacts : doesn’t need them but will sometimes wear glasses without prescription for the aesthetic height : 5′4″ build : petite exercise habits : can sometimes be convinced to workout, but not often.

MANNERISMS

accent : local accent quirks : is never fully still , she is always tapping , bouncing , wiggling , or dancing , she hums all the time. . hobbies : dancing , going for long drives , thrift shopping habits : is always late to everything, looses everything all the time nervous ticks : fidgets a lot fears : heights positive traits : free spirited, friendly, charming negative traits : careless, flakey

IMPORTANT / BACKGROUND

TW: death of parents.

yoon ahna was born on a cold night in december to a middle class family. she was the only child of dae-min and sooyoung and the apple of their eye. she grew up living in her birthplace of pelican town, running around without a care in the world. life was easy. her parents ran a busy restaurant that gave them a steady income, even extra money during the summer months when the area was loaded with tourists and they had a home that was warm and welcoming to all.

ahna was always well liked. she was even considered popular in school, her free spirt and kind heart attracting people to her like moths to a flame. she was a social butterfly, spending more time in class talking to those around her than actually paying attention to the lesson and doodling in all her notebooks. she did just well enough in her studies to make it to graduation. however, she was involved in every other aspect of school life that wasn’t her studies. she was on the student council, a cheerleader, prom queen, dance committee, and even acted in theatre productions. when she wasn’t in school she could be found down on the beach, dancing in the waves, riding her convertible down the highway with the music on full blast and the sound of her laugher always echoed in her wake. ahna was a source of light.

though, she wasn’t perfect. ahna was always forgetting her curfew, she lost almost everything and you couldn’t rely on her for much. she had the best of intentions at all times but her head was very much in the clouds. she was a daydreamer and would have lost her own head if it wasn’t attached. her carefree attitude was as much of a nuisance as it was an asset. she was so free-spirited that it often appeared she didn’t truly care about anything or anyone. you wanted to be around her but you could never really know her and she never really took the time to know anyone else, everything was at a superficial level.

after graduation, she managed to get into college only a few towns over. this was huge for the yoon family who never really ventured far from their hometown. ahna had decided to study cosmetology. she was to become a make-up artist and hair dresser. it was something she was already somewhat confident with and knew it would be a successful career path. she was good at talking to people and loved the idea of making other’s feel as beautiful on the outside as they were on the inside. not to mention, everyone always talked about how she would be the perfect fit to go off and work in los angeles. it would be a dream to be on movie sets or tours, working for the stars she adored.

however, she was less than a year into her program when tragedy struck. ahna’s parents were in a head-on collision, driving to surprise her with a visit. both died on impact and the young yoon’s whole world was turned upside down. she immediately pulled out of school to return to her hometown. she found comfort in being surrounded by the community who had helped raise her and those who knew her parents as well as she did, if not better.

the first year, it was like she was walking around in a fog. she has very few memories after packing up and leaving school and packing up her childhood home and parents belongings. that first year she was far from the same girl that had left stardew valley. she had lost her spark. which was understandable. but the bright star who was off to work for the stars of hollywood was gone. she was a drifter, no plan, no job, couch surfing and having no intentions of moving forward.

though, after time it got easier and she started to find herself again. it was a slow process but being in her hometown was certainly helpful, having people to rally around her and support her no matter what. it started when she was offered a job at the cafe to keep her busy, then when she was sold a small beachside cottage at a very discounted price to make her home, then finally she would find herself smiling and laughing -- breathing made easier. it took time but ahna’s community became her family.

now, ahna can be found cheerily chatting with locals and guests as she serves them coffee. she is bubbly and still a little scatterbrained, she’s the life of the party and very reminiscent of the girl she was in high school -- but with a sadness that never fully goes away. sometimes she’ll disappear for a day or two, only to show up again like nothing happened. she never tells anyone when she’s leaving or why, she just goes.

WANTED CONNECTIONS / PLOTS

platonic ─── unlikely friends , friend from college , a nice wholesome best friend & confidant , childhood friends , a party buddy , someone who is also as free spirited as ahna and they go on adventures together , neighbours. , any other form of friendship really

romantic ─── first kiss / first relationship / first love, a past or present unrequited crush from either side , exes on good or bad terms ( eyes emoji ....... the spice ) , friends with benefits , a one night stand

negative ─── someone who just doesn't click with them ( this is probably someone more uptight who can’t stand how ahna seems to not have a care in the world ), friends who had a falling out , anything else to bring the d r a m a

#stardewtm:intro #hiiiii <3

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secretfandomrambles · 3 years ago

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I know that this has been done a few times, but I’m still going to make this outline as original as I can.

ATLA Time Travel AU

Sometime after The Last Airbender ends, the GAang time-travels due to spirit-nonsense (Sokka insists it’s Yue wanting to help them. Zuko thinks it’s some spirit getting revenge on Aang for some slight during a past life. Katara just wants them to stop arguing about it).

Zuko time travels to a month or two after Lu Ten’s death, while the others are sent to the day Aang is freed from the ice. Once he realizes what has happened, Zuko, not knowing if he is alone or not, and seeing that his sister is not yet insane, and still cares for him (even if she is somewhat difficult to understand) basically kidnaps her and drags her on her own Life-Changing Field trip. He fakes the kidnapping as a potential murder, leaving his own and Azula’s pajamas in the woods complete with animal blood (don’t ask, he really doesn't want to think about it) at the end of a trail he set earlier that day.

By the time Aang awakens and the others’ time travel, Azula is more-or-less actually functional. Zuko’s managed to help her realize that no one but their father cares if she’s perfect at firebending, and he’s a jerk anyway, so it doesn’t really matter what he thinks. He has also helped her to learn (and unlearn) behaviors that will help her in the long-run.

There are rumors circulating the Fire Nation that the Prince and Princess were kidnapped and brainwashed by a Spirit. Ozai has been forced to divert some attention from the War effort to locating his children. Iroh, when he returned from his spirit journey, was all too willing to aid the effort to save his niece and nephew, by getting a boat and crew and sailing around the world.

The Fire siblings, the Water siblings and Aang meet up at Kyoshi island on accident. Sokka throws his boomerang at Azula only for Zuko to shield her with his own body. Azula attempts to throw fire at Sokka in return, while raising her body temperature until Zuko’s skin turns red (she would never admit it, but it’s sweet when he tries to protect her. Not that she needs protecting, of course…and, wait, that stupid wooden object comes back?!)

Meanwhile, Toph is making a nuisance of herself by bending everything metal she can get her hands on into weird, random shapes, freaking other people out as they can’t understand what’s happening. She’s not sure of what’s happened, or where her friends are right now, but figures she’ll find them eventually.

Aang, who by now knows Zuko and Azula are Roku’s grandkids, introduces them as such to the Kyoshi warriors. Neither of the Fire siblings appreciate the attention they get.

As soon as they leave Kyoshi island, they go to get Toph, and then the group brainstorms what they can do to stop everything bad from happening. (Azula is agast at what she’s hearing about the not-future. Father burned Zuko! Father burned her idiot brother? Father got his bending taken from him and Zuko became firelord?! Everything else kind of gets shoved to the back of her mind. Something about a girl and a fish? Well, she’s always known that Zhao was an idiot.) When someone starts to say what happened to her, Zuko glares them into silence.

Eventually they decide to have Zuko challenge Ozai in an Agni Kai for the Throne. Zhao appears at some point, Zuko beats him in an Agni Kai again. When the creep throws fire at his back, Sokka throws his boomerang, and it knocks Zhao out. He gets found by some earthbenders and taken to the nearest City: Ba Sing Se.

While on their way, Aang brings them to Omashu to visit Bumi. He still dresses as an old man, but this time he claims Azula and Zuko as his grandchildren, with Toph, Sokka and Katara as his wards. Somehow it works. Bumi is as insane as ever. Azula and Zuko are not impressed.

Once they get to Caldera though, it ends up with Aang/Roku challenging Ozai in an Agni Kai for guardianship of Azula and Zuko, and once Ozai is beaten, only then is Zuko finally allowed to challenge Ozai for the throne.

Ozai throws lighting at Zuko, and in a panic, the prince redirects it straight at Ozai, accidentally killing him. Zuko becomes Firelord, and, while Aang doesn’t actually become his or Azula’s guardian, word spreads about the Fire Nation Avatar who “came back from the dead” to fight for his family as the old Firelord was an unfit guardian for Roku’s great-grandchildren.

Iroh is overjoyed to see his long-lost nephew and niece when he returns, and, while somewhat saddened by his brother’s death, he recognizes that if the man was willing to throw lighting at Zuko, he wasn’t the kind of father the two children deserve. Zuko sends a message to the Northern Water Tribe giving them quite a scathing Lecture that basically boils down to: ‘You need to protect the fish in the Oasis’. Arnook had many, many questions for this presumed dead prince who somehow knows about the Koi fish.

#Azula and Zuko #Sibling Relationship #Friends as Family #Time travel #atla au #avatar: the last airbender #katara #sokka #aang #toph #yue lives #Zhao dies #Ozai dies #Zuko #azula #Azula’s life-changing field trip #Unlearning problematic behaviors

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aspoonofsugar · 3 years ago

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Jaune: Zero to Hero

Pyrrha: It's not about why; it's about knowing. Understanding dark and light helps us manifest our Aura. Everyone has some of both.

Knowledge, Creation and Destruction all lead up to Aura. This is just another way to say that they lead up to individuality, which is something Grimms lack:

Pyrrha: They are creatures of Grimm, the manifestation of anonymity.

Individuality is conveyed through Choice. This is why Choice is the most important and final gift. It is symbolic of self-actualization, which is what our characters are pursuing in their coming of age story.

Jaune’s personal arc comments the group’s collective journey and marks each stage very clearly.

In which way does it happen? And what do these stages mean for Jaune’s growth as an individual?

THE IGNORANT WARRIOR

Pyrrha: Jaune, do you... know what Aura is?

Jaune: Psch! Of course I do! Do you know what Aura is?

Jaune is introduced as inexperienced and ignorant. He lacks combat experience and knows nothing about key concepts like Aura, Landing Strategy or Semblances.

His journey starts because Pyrrha shares her knowledge with him:

She awakens his aura, his very soul and later on trains him, so she helps his body get stronger:

In other words, Pyrrha is the one who puts Jaune on the right path to become a true “hero” and a “warrior”.

This is Jaune’s objective since the beginning, but he initially pursues it in the wrong way:

Jaune: I don't want help! I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero!

He is fixated on an idea of hero which is outdated and has its root in toxic masculinity:

Jaune: Cause this is always what I've wanted to be! My father, my grandfather, and his father before him were all warriors! They were all heroes! I wanted to be one, too. I was just never good enough.

This is why symbolically Jaune wants to be like his male ancestors. He wants to grow into “a real man”:

Cardin: Let's see how much of a man you really are...

And this is conveyed also through his Weapon:

Jaune: It's a hand-me-down. My great-great-grandfather used it to fight in the war.

Jaune did not forge his own Weapon, but he inherited it. Crocea Mors initially represents the legacy he wants to live up to. However, this legacy, instead of driving him, slows him down because he can’t grow until he remains in his ancestors’ shadow. Jaune needs to develop his own individuality instead.

In order to do so, he needs to grow not only as a figther, but as a person too.

As a matter of fact, Jaune’s ignorance is not only limited to the world he has stepped into, but also to the people around him:

Jaune: That's easy for you to say. You've probably got guys clamoring over each other just to ask you out.

Pyrrha: You'd be surprised.

He is so self-focused that he does not notice others’ feelings and hurts them unintentionally.

However, Pyrrha teaches him once again:

Pyrrha:Tell her exactly what you said. No ridiculous schemes, no pick-up lines. Just... be honest.

It is thanks to her that Jaune manages to become a better man:

He is even able to call Neptune out the way Pyrrha did with him:

Jaune: Then just go talk to her. No pickup lines, no suave moves, just be yourself. I've heard that's the way to go.

And as a result, even Jaune’s relationship with Weiss gets better:

Weiss: You said you were embarrassed at first. What made you come talk to me?

Neptune: You're looking at him. You got some good friends looking out for ya.

Because the girl realizes Jaune is not only after her money or her romantic attention:

Weiss: All my life, boys have only cared about the perks of my last name.

But wants to genuinely be a good friend to her.

In short, Jaune starts the story as immature both as a fighter and as a person to the point that he is considered unfit and annoying by other characters:

Glynda: I don't care what his transcripts say. That Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat.

However, thanks to Pyrrha, he is given the chance to mature.

Not only that, but while other characters see a weakness and a nuisance in Jaune’s ignorance and inexperience, Pyrrha sees it as a possibility:

Weiss: Jaune, is it? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?

Jaune: Not in the slightest, snow angel.

Weiss: This is Pyrrha.

It is specifically because Jaune is new to Pyrrha’s world that he is free from bias:

Pyrrha: That's what I like about you. When we met, you didn't even know my name. You treated me just like anyone else. And thanks to you, I've made friendships that will last a lifetime. I guess, you're the kind of guy I wish I was here with. Someone who just saw me for me.

This is why Pyrrha feels she can forge a genuine bond with Jaune. What is more, the girl has faith in his potential:

Pyrrha: It's all right. I used my Aura to unlock yours, but the energy that protects you now is your own. You have a lot of it.

She sees in him what others do not and helps him develop both as a man and as a warrior.

This is well highlighted by the metal motif the two characters share.

As @hamliet explains here Rwby has several characters linked to the seven metals of alchemy.

The goal of alchemy is to create gold thanks to a process of refiniment that purifies the metal and has it go through several transformations.

The seven metals are nothing, but a scale that goes from the heaviest and most raw metal (lead) to the most purified (gold) passing through the others (tin, iron, copper, mercury, silver).

For a story, it simply means that a character goes through a process of change that leads to self-actualization.

In Rwby this idea is conveyed through specific characters embodying a metal (Ironwood, Penny, Mercury) or even thanks to metal motifs commenting a specific part of a character arc.

For example, Yang is associated with gold:

I am the golden one Who burns just like the sun

But Adam takes her arm away and has her regress in the scale of metals to iron. This regression is not simply physical, but psychological as well:

However, Yang re-affirms herself and moves forward. The first step of this process is to symbolically make her new arm “gold” again:

When it comes to Jaune, I think that he may be the character associated with lead aka the “prima materia” that needs to be molded into gold. Even if this is not true, metal is at least definately still a motif in his arc, as it is in Pyrrha’s. This is why both characters wear metal armors, differently from others.

Pyrrha is already close to her self-actualization and she reaches it in the climax of the Vale arc, where she completes her (tragic) arc and dies a Maiden.

This is why her armor is gold, while Jaune’s is white and gray. Pyrrha is at the top of the metal scale and close to the end of her journey, while Jaune is respectively at the very bottom and at the very beginning.

He is the embodyment of the prima materia that has potential for greatness, but only if he is rightly guided and if he himself works hard.

Pyrrha takes over herself the duty to help Jaune mold himself.

This is underlined also by Pyrrha’s semblance:

Pyrrha: Well, Ruby has her speed, you have your glyphs. My Semblance is polarity.

Pyrrha can control and bend metals and she shows her power for the first time when she helps Jaune against the Ursa, so that he can overcome his self-issues.

So, Jaune starts the story as the lead and is going through a path of self-refinement which will lead him to become gold, so more similar to Pyrrha herself.

Pyrrha offers him the basic knowledge to start this journey, but unluckily leaves him too soon and now Jaune has to move forward on his own.

THE CREATIVE AVENGER

Pyrrha: I want you to know that I'm just happy to be a part of your life. I'll always be here for you, Jaune.

Even after Pyrrha’s death, this stays true:

Blacksmith: That was some fine metal you brought me. Accents the white nicely. Where'd you get it from?

Pyrrha has become a part of Jaune.

This is a recurring motif in Rwby:

Penny: I won’t be gone, I’ll be part of you.

It is the idea that grieving is a process that leads to acceptance, but also to integration with a lost one. It is a way to have the deceased keep on living through the survivors.

In Jaune and Pyrrha’s case, this is conveyed through Pyrrha’s metal being used to enrich Jaune’s Weapon.

As stated by Ruby:

Ruby: Just weapons? They're an extension of ourselves! They're a part of us! Oh, they're so cool.

Weapons are symbolic of the self, just like Semblances.

What is more, Weapons and Semblances are also a declination of the dychotomy of body and soul, presented by the series.

Weapons are wielded by bodies, while Semblances are a materialization of the soul.

In other words, Pyrrha’s gold becoming a part of Jaune’s Weapon is symbolic of Jaune’s first step in a painful process that will lead him to overcome his partner’s death and to inherit Pyrrha’s legacy.

Jaune must keep on learning from Pyrrha and become more like her. As noted by @hamliet, this is symbolized also by Jaune’s design aquiring more golden details as he goes on in his journey:

Jaune: Guess I was going to grow out of it eventually.

Ren: A sign of progress.

Jaune: Progress.

That said, grieving is not easy and Jaune must struggle with much pain and negative feelings.

This is why the changes he makes to Crocea Mors are finalized to increase its attack power:

It is because Jaune feels anger over Pyrrha’s death and wants revenge.

In the Battle of Haven he gives in to his fury and tries to kill Cinder. He is trying to superficially imitate Pyrrha’s sacrifice:

Jaune: If I die buying them time, then it's worth it. They're the ones that matter.

However, he is not doing it out of bravery or necessity, but out of recklessness and self-hate. This is why his actions lead to this:

Once again, Jaune risks to lose another loved one:

Jaune: No, no, no, no, not again! Weiss, c'mon, please!!

However, this time he is able to save Weiss thanks to his Semblance:

Jaune: My Semblance?

Nora: How else do you think you're healing her, dummy?

Jaune gives up on using his Weapon to fight and chooses to use his Semblance to cure. He chooses soul over body and Creation over Destruction.

At the same time, Jaune’s activation of his Semblance is meaningful on two levels:

Jaune: No. I don't think I'm healing her. Our Aura heals our bodies. It feels... it feels more like I'm using my Aura to amplify hers!

Nora: Wait, aren't you worried about running out?

Jaune: Pyrrha once told me I've got a lot of it. I still believe her.

First of all, Jaune’s Semblance is rooted in the idea that people heal themselves. His power is not to cure others, but to amplify others’ auras, so that they can become stronger and can heal. It is about bringing out the best in others. It is a power fit for a leader, but also an ability symbolic of Jaune’s own process of healing. He can heal himself through helping others to heal.

Secondly, Jaune’s Semblance is in itself a nod to Pyrrha. Pyrrha used her own aura to awake his and Aura Amp is simply an evolution of this idea. It is not about activating others’ auras, but it is a power that lets Jaune share his. It also makes good use of something Pyrrha noticed immediately aka Jaune’s huge quantity of aura.

In other words, Jaune ends up acting like Pyrrha in the Battle of Haven, but not because he fights Cinder, but because he shares his gift with others, just like Pyrrha did with hers.

Pyrrha is a part of Jaune both in body (Crocea Mors) and soul (Aura Amp), but Jaune must still truly understand what this means.

He makes progress in Lost:

Red-Haired Woman: She understood that she had a responsibility... to try. I don't think she would regret her choice, because a Huntress would understand that there really wasn't a choice to make. And a Huntress is what she always wanted to be.

This is the essence of Pyrrha’s sacrifice. Jaune comes to understand it and chooses to make a similar choice together with his team:

Jaune: I think... I think she knew she wasn't going to win. That she might not come out alive. But... she also knew she was the only one that could try.

Ren: So she did.

Nora: Maybe we should too.

Jaune: Yeah, we should.

In this way, it will be as if Pyrrha were fighting together with them:

Nora: Pyrrha may not be by our side anymore, but we can fight like she is.

Jaune: And in a way... she will be.

Jaune tries to overcome his anger and his sadness for Pyrrha’s death in order to keep fighting like she did.

So, once again he chooses this:

Ruby: I wanted to protect my friends.

Maria: Precisely! It is the desire to preserve life which fuels the light inside you. And to make no mistake, it is light. Preservation is an extension of creation, or, at the very least, an enemy of destruction. The Creatures of Grimm were made by the God of Darkness, but your light comes from his brother.

He chooses to protect life and this is the essence of Creation.

Once he confirms this choice, he is free to explore Creation’s potential and he does so in the land of Creation itself, Atlas.

He strengthens his shield instead of his sword:

And he trains his Semblance:

Oscar: Nice, your recovery is getting faster.

This all leads him to become stronger psychologically:

Ren: Him on the other hand... There's no fear at all. I can see it, he believes we're going to get this done.

That said, Jaune starts meeting limits to his new found strength rooted in Creation:

Jaune: Ah, sorry. No matter how much I boost you, they won’t go away.

Jaune: Did... I stop the virus?

Penny: No. It’s still there.

Jaune’s way to move forward is to heal himself through healing others. Still, what to do when this is not possible?

THE DESTRUCTIVE HEALER

Penny: No… there’s not enough time to heal me…

Penny: But there is something you can do…

What happens in Atlas is an inversion of Haven.

Penny pushes Jaune’s Semblance away and touches Crocea Mors.

Jaune is asked to give up on healing her and to speed up her death instead. He is asked to choose his Weapon (body) over his Semblance (soul) and Destruction over Creation.

This marks the characters entering the Destruction phase:

Leaving Creation (Penny) behind.

For Jaune, this means that his own self image that he has worked so much to build and to make his own:

And that has been enriched in Anima thanks to Pyrrha...is shattered:

At the same time, he is once again put in a similar spot as Pyrrha:

They both become unwilling agents of Penny’s death because of Cinder (and Emerald and Mercury in the first case):

Pyrrha: Ruby, I... I'm so sorry.

Ruby: Me too. But it wasn't your fault.

Jaune: She's right. Whoever was on that microphone... they're the ones that did this. And we have to make sure they don't take anyone else.

So Jaune’s journey to integrate with Pyrrha, to understand her and her struggle continues.

What now?

It is too soon to say because we have yet to properly start our journey through Destruction and what it is about.

That said, there are two things that are worth highlighting. The first is a motif Rwby is following, while the second is a general theme found in many stories.

1) As @hamliet has stated in many metas and as I have written here, Rwby is an alchemical story. Alchemical stories are usually marked by three important deaths. Each death is symbolically linked to a color. They are usually black, white and red. However, sometimes there can be yellow instead of the white or the red. This is the case here, where a resonant death is the yellow death aka Penny’s.

It is a death that happens while the characters are surrounded by yellow:

And it happens through a weapon called “Yellow Death” (Crocea Mors’s meaning). So, it is really not subtle. Penny’s death is meant to mark an important passage for our protagonists, just like Pyrrha’s one (the black death).

2) It is common in stories that deal with healers to explore the concept of death as well.

The basic idea is that a healer is a person meant to cure. That said, they will meet people impossible to cure and that will die on their watch. This is an unescapable truth a true healer must live with.

Let’s highlight this theme is found in works very different for genre and culture.

Let’s have two examples.

Scrubs aka an American comedy about doctors deals with this theme multiple times. In many episodes the characters must simply accept they can’t save a life, but must still not lose hope and keep on living themselves.

Yosano from the manga BSD says so:

Her backstory explores the link bewteen life and death further since it is shown that a power that cures fatal wounds can be used to cheapen life itself:

It is too soon to say if Rwby will explore a similar theme, but the fact that Jaune, (the healer) is the one that has to speed up Penny’s death might be a very powerful and poignant choice. This is true especially because Rwby does not refuse Destruction (and so does not refuse death), but presents it as a principle equal to Creation (so as a part of life).

THE CHOOSING HERO

Jaune’s arc is about living Pyrrha’s death over and over again with different scenarios and outcomes. This happens so that in the end he can finally overcome it.

So far, it has happened three times and each time has been in the climax of an important battle.

The Battle of Beacon has him witness powerlessly to Pyrrha’s death (lack of knowledge and passivity).

The Battle of Haven has him saving Weiss (creation).

The Battle of Atlas has him killing Penny (destruction).

What is more, every time Jaune becomes more proactive and conscious of what he is doing.

In Beacon he has no idea of what is happening. He works with little information and things happen to him without him being able to do anything.

In Haven his actions lead to Weiss being in danger, but he manages to save her. That said, he does not do it consciously. He unlocks his Semblance because of emotional stress. It is an unconscious choice and not a conscious one.

In Atlas he makes a specific conscious choice, but it is a choice that is forced on him because of external circumstances. It is also a choice that is meant to challenge and temporally break him.

In other words, he is slowly and painfully approaching Choice aka self-actualization. Right now, he has to face the consequences of Penny’s death, but this will probably lead him to finally enter the Choice stage and to complete his arc by becoming a “hero” aka gold (probably).

At the same time, this final choice will also be about healing and overcoming grief. It will be the final integration with Pyrrha and him being able to honor her legacy.

After all, we have been told from the beginning what Pyrrha’s fate would have been. We’ve just failed to notice:

Pyrrha: For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul, and by my shoulder protect thee.

June and Pyrrha’s bond is eternal and she is meant to be the key character in Jaune’s arc. It is only through confronting and finally overcoming her loss that Jaune can finally self actualize and become the person Pyrrha has always known he could be. Pyrrha will symbolically be with him in this struggle. Her memory will protect and inspire him.

#rwby #rwby meta #jaune arc #arkos #rwby arkos #pyrrha nikos #tw: penny's death #jaune x pyrrha #my meta

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warrioreowynofrohan · 3 years ago

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My previous post on unselfishness in characters in characters also has a lot to do with my feelings towards characters in The Untamed. [I’ve only watched the show, not read the book - and I know I can sometimes get annoyed at people’s analyses of Lord of the Rings movie characters, when they aren’t in line with the book - so if you’re an MDZS fan and not a show fan, please ignore me.] Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji are two of my favourite characters, and a lot of it because, well, they aren’t particularly inclined to get their drama all over everyone else. When someone who Lan Xichen cares about deeply is accused of terrible crimes, he doesn’t rage and storm and get horribly offended; he carries out a thorough i vestigation, follows the leads he’s given, places all his resources at the disposal of the people making the accusations, and then, when it looks convincing, goes to talk to his friend and see if he has any posdible other explanation. He’s calm and systematic. And he’s kind to people - to Meng Yao, to Wei Wuxian, particularly during the Gusu Lan Training arc - who he has no personal connection with, simply because that’s the sort of person he is; kind in a thoughtful, considerate, undramatic way. He’s a dilpomat, he’s a conciliator, he believes in and values forbearance and mercy.

Lan Wangji might have a lot going on internally, but he’s going to focus on dealing with the Yin Iron because that’s what matters, a lot more than this weird crush he’s apparently developed. On the occasions he chooses to support Wei Wuxian and is punished for it, he accepts that without objection. After Wei Wuxian’s death, he becomes the main teacher of the Lan students and the one who leads them on cultivation missions; he doesn’t let his grief stop him from doing things that need to be done.

Wei Wuxian, by contrast, positively exhults in getting his drama all over everyone else. It took me a while to warm up to him because he was just - so - aggravating during the Gusu Lan arc. You’re attending what are apparently very prestigious lectures that everyone values the opportunity to take! You shouldn’t make excuses and throw blame around when you screw up! You shouldn’t goof off and be deliberately disruptive! (Some people are trying to learn, Wuxian!) You shouldn’t blatantly break the rules and then complain about there being consequences! In fact, as we see later, Wei Wuxian is an incredibly and perhaps pathologically self-sacrificing person - in the same way that he plays up minor injuries, discomfort, and sadness, only to hide the large ones, he combines being a nuisance in the small matters with being a deeply principled person in the great ones. This does, however, sabotage him to an extent, because people who don’t know him can’t distinguish between “Wei Wuxian is arrogant and making trouble for lulz again” (and to be clear - he is arrogant and he does make trouble for lulz) and “Wei Wuxian is making a stand on principle”.

And then we have Jiang Cheng, Drama King. He is the polar opposite of the Lans. If Jiang Cheng has a problem, everyone in Jiang Cheng’s vicinity also has that problem. His personal issues, obsessions and hang-ups cannot be set aside from the rest of his life or from what needs to be done; they suffuse everything he does. He cannot be impartial; he cannot consider things from outside his point of view, and endeavour to set his biases aside. If the Lans are admirable in both personality and character, and Wei Wuxian is aggravating in personality (by his culture’s standards - and often mine) but with strong character, and Jin Guangyao has an ideal personality (by his culture’s standards - polite, diplomatic, accomodating, dignified, organized, meticulous) and bad character, Jiang Cheng is the worst of both worlds. His character is deep attachment to what is close to him, and unconcern for the moral value of people outside his sphere (as when he says Wei Wuxian should have let the other cultivators die rather than anger the Wens; as when he tells Wei Wuxuan to abandon the people who saved both their lives - and Yanli’s life - to be killed). His personality is a giant mess of neuroses mixed with anger, abrasiveness, and - in most cases, with a few exceptions - difficulty in expressing sincere affection; and a chronic inability to understand either his own emotions or those of people around him (including Wei Wuxian’s), or to sincerely communicate his emotions to others. (All of that does make him an interesting character, and fantastic fanfic fodder - many envies is one of my favourite Untamed fics, and has easily the best portrayal of Jiang Cheng that I’ve read.) (Basically, the sheer volume of both Jiang Cheng bashing and Jiang Cheng apologia out there has mainly had the effect of moving my sentiments on him from “disaster (annoyed/judgemental)” to “disaster (grudgingly affectionate)”, but it intermittently swings back to “asshole. the absolute worst.” when I remember he abandoned Wen Qing to be burned to death when she lost everything as a consequence of saving his life - and what he values more than his life.)

Wen Qing is also one of my favourite characters, because she continually takes great risks to help others at no benefit to herself simply because she knows it’s right (and is skilled and savvy enough to actually win Wen Ruohan’s respect by doing so, up to a point) - and because she knows she’s on the wrong side. In a sense, she starts out having already made the same decision that Jiang Cheng later makes - I will sacrifice all other moral principles to protect those dearest to me - but whereas he’s self-righteous about that decision (one of his more annoying traits), she knows that’s what she’s done and does everything in her power to mitigate it. And in the end she does risk everything to help the Jiangs, and loses everything, and when, after she’s done that, Jiang Cheng says I’m willing to save you but not your family or people, she doesn’t rage or resent, she just recognizes that choice and leaves; even later, when her brother has been killed because of that decision, and when Jiang Cheng tells Wei Wuxuan practically in front of her that he should abandon her and her brother and her people to death, she doesn’t get angry at him. She’s capable of understanding where people are coming from, of not treating their moral valence as something determined purely by their treatment of herself, in a way that Jiang Cheng, again, isn’t. And at the end, when she sees that Wei Wuxian is going to pay the price for the choice that she made long ago to serve Wen Ruohan, she decides that she will turn herself in and face the consequences of that choice rather than let him bear it for her. She’s a strong contender for my favourite character in the show (extreme competence is also a factor in that; that’s always appealing).

#the untamed #lan xichen #lan wangji #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #wen qing #wen qing deserved better

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everythingsinred · 3 years ago

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Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 22)

Today we'll talk about the Time-Travel Arc. Obviously, the focus in that arc is Yuka's past, so there's going to be a lot of content that I'll skip unless it's relevant to NatsuMikan. What ship/character content there is I will dissect heavily. This is just a warning that I'll be skipping even five or so chapters at time, and it might seem jarring. Sorry about that.

In this part, we'll see how Natsume and Mikan are in many ways fated, but also how selfless Natsume can be, even in the face of losing the person he loves the most forever. He's going to keep his promise to protect her no matter what happens, even if it means never seeing her again.

Chapter One Hundred and Seven

For most of this arc, Natsume and the others are merely observers of Yuka’s past. They keep the talking and interaction to a minimum. There will be some instances where Natsume does enough for me to be able to analyze him, but they’re limited to start with.

For example, when Tsubasa, Tono, and Nobara are finally able to join them, there’s a dramatic reunion.

Nobody has seen Tsubasa in some time, and his whereabouts were a mystery. Obviously he shares a meaningful embrace with Mikan, but he also makes eye contact with Natsume, who looks shocked and relieved to see him again, even if he wasn’t the one to find him. Tsubasa knows Natsume had searched tirelessly for him, so he apologizes for making Natsume and the others worry. For a moment, it almost seems as though maybe they will share the next reunion hug. But to show that everything truly is back to normal, Natsume’s demeanor shifts and he gets annoyed with Tsubasa for hugging Mikan for so long.

Thinking really hard about Natsume's love languages: nicknames, being willing to die for you one second and then pretending like you're a nuisance the next, never giving compliments so they hit like a brick when he does, just hanging around you, and physical touch.

Natsume doesn’t know how to show feelings properly. With Ruka, he can be more openly affectionate and loving, and now with Mikan he has recently (today) had the opportunity to be more honest about his feelings, but Tsubasa is different. For a very long time, he has pretended like Tsubasa was nothing more than a nuisance. Suddenly being honest with everyone would be tiresome. Besides, Tsubasa already knows that Natsume cares, since he struggled so much to find him.

If you want to hug somebody, Natsume says (or doesn’t say… this conversation seems to all be telepathic), go hug Misaki. Not my girl. It hardly matters that Misaki isn’t around and that idea is impossible to make a reality. So Tsubasa naturally shoots back that he will simply pretend Mikan is Misaki.

Natsume is a good person, as we have seen over the course of the manga. When he loves someone, he loves hard and with his whole chest. He doesn’t half-ass his feelings. Despite his occasional bouts into saying something kind and heartfelt, he is and always has been naturally a bit more reserved. His personality is one to withhold a little, and to interact with people through teases. Even at his most free, before he came to the academy, he would tease and insult before saying something sweet. His love will always be something that needs to be interpreted, because he hates being open about why he’s doing the selfless things he is. If he is too open, then people will know and then they might feel guilty or like they owe him something. He doesn’t want that. Another thing is that he just likes having fun with his friends and loved ones this way, with occasional taunts and teases. That’s just the kind of person he is.

Chapter One Hundred and Nine

We get introduced to Igarashi Kaoru, an upperclassman of Yuka’s and a mysterious figure. Yuka first met her in a compromising position, when she’s about to sleep with a boy who we will later find out is Natsume’s father. She looks very much like a more grown up, female version of Natsume, and they seem to have a lot in common when it comes to their basic personality.

Just like Natsume, Kaoru can be serious-minded and doesn’t take any shit. She’s also like him in that she shows affection through teasing.

Mikan, in this chapter, finally asks who this Igarashi person is, since she looks so familiar. Natsume sarcastically says, “Heaven knows.” I’m sure he wasn’t actually expecting to see his mother in these flashbacks. She died when she was very young and as a result she didn’t have the opportunity to talk much about Yuka. It must be a surprise to see that she played such an active role in Mikan’s mother’s life.

Heaven knows. Get it. 'Cause she's dead. Hahahaha.

To everyone else, it’s obvious that the Igarashi person is related to Natsume. Ruka might even directly recognize her from the painting he saw at the Hyuuga house that one time, but either way they look and act so similarly that it’s apparent to everyone but Mikan.

In any case, Natsume is seeing more of his mother than he ever has before. He knows very little about her, since she died when he was so small. He couldn’t have many conversations with her and he spent more time mourning and missing her than actually being with her. Not only is Mikan getting the chance to know the mother that was a mystery to her for her whole life, but Natsume is too. This is also his chance to discover his mother and get to know her, and it’s just his luck that Yuka and Kaoru actually had a strong bond.

After Kaoru intimidates Yuka at the Hana Hime den, Mikan and the gang react to the shocking scene. Kaoru is a force to reckon with, and Noda comments on how this force and tough love helped Yuka find strength in herself and confidence in her own alice.

Ruka insists on knowing more about Kaoru, and since everyone but Mikan seems to get that Kaoru is Natsume’s mother, we can see that Ruka is asking for Natsume. Natsume won’t ask. This is about Yuka, after all, and about Mikan. Natsume will see what he will of his mother insofar as she’s in Yuka’s life. Beyond that, he won’t ask for anything. Ruka knows this, so he asks instead. He wants to know about Natsume too, and what better way than to learn about the woman who seems to have so much in common with him? Natsume is touched that Ruka would go out of his way to ask a question Natsume will not ask.

Noda answers that Kaoru and Yuka will become best friends after this, and Mikan is shocked. How could someone so scary be Yuka’s best friend? But Noda explains: Kaoru has a compassionate and caring heart behind her cold front, just like Natsume, and Yuka could rely on her, even in her darkest moments. Yuka wouldn’t have gained confidence in her alice the way she did without Kaoru by her side.

That is a really fucking long red string!

And then Noda says it so even Mikan can tell now, that Natsume’s mother has always been beloved and a truly amazing person.

Chapter One Hundred and Ten

Noda further explains about Kaoru. She used her alice to spy on the academy for the HSP, and then after she graduated she continued to use her alice to expose corruption. She was deeply committed to doing the right thing and holding the academy responsible, and this commitment was inspiring to Yuka as well, who went down the path she did for the same reasons.

Somehow, their children met at the academy by pure chance, and are standing side by side now.

Here they are, standing together and in love with each other. Fate is a silly thing.

They are fated somehow. The same red string that tied Kaoru to Yuka now ties Natsume to Mikan. In fact, it’s his love for her that motivated him to go against the academy, more than his own misfortune or the wellbeing of other students or even because it was the right thing to do. The strong bond between their mothers now lingers between them, but differently, and maybe even stronger.

Natsume and Mikan are holding hands, looking at each other. Were they always meant to meet? To be together? Nothing is said out loud, but it’s apparent that they’re both thinking about their moms’ past and what exactly it means for their future.

Perhaps there's a difference between fated to fall in love and fated to be together.

Chapter One Hundred and Sixteen

Lots of chapters are getting skipped because there simply isn’t enough content, if any, of Natsume, not to mention NatsuMikan specifically.

Izumi is about to die, and everyone knows it as they watch. Mikan has just returned from falling through the time window. She wanted to warn her father, but Tsubasa was able to bring her back without much changing. Natsume immediately goes to Mikan’s side when she is safely returned and doesn’t leave. He holds her hand because what she’s about to witness will be deeply traumatizing and he knows that she will suffer all the more because she wasn’t able to stop it.

Everything happens as it is meant to, perhaps. Izumi is dying from Rei’s alice, since his own nullification can’t fight against Rei when he uses so much power at once.

I don't have anything clever to say here. He just loves her so much.

Mikan is distraught, and although Natsume first just tries to keep her from approaching the window again, once he sees her crying, despairing face, he shifts. All he’s ever wanted to do was keep her happy, keep her from sinking into even a fraction of the darkness he’s had to live in. It hasn’t always been easy, because Mikan was also destined to suffer, just like him.

Everyone else is pleading with Noda to get them out of the hole, to stop the flashbacks, but Noda can’t. The window is too turbulent and any moves on his part might be dangerous.

Protecting her no matter what doesn't only mean protecting her from physical harm, it means protecting her from seeing horrible things that she shouldn't have to see, like the death of her father.

So Natsume holds Mikan close. It is the only thing he can do, to tell her not to look and to hug her. She doesn’t need to see anymore. Natsume doesn’t just want to protect her physical safety but her mental and emotional well-being as well. He fell in love with a girl who always looks on the bright side, who is so optimistic and kind that her cheerfulness bleeds into everyone else. From the start, he was concerned that if her life darkened, her own light would fade and become tarnished.

But Natsume doesn’t need her to always smile. He just wants to protect her the best he can. If she needs to cry, then she can cry on him. He will hold her and support her and comfort her. She can’t always be happy, but all he’s ever wanted was to be there for her when she can’t be. When she needs to crumble a little, he will be there for her, because she would do the same. She comforted him too, even if she never knew she was doing it. It's not about having her be happy all the time, just minimizing the trauma. He can't protect her from all of it. Everything else is more powerful than he is. He can't keep her ignorant and blissful forever. Nobody can. But if they can't escape the flashback, then he will keep her from looking.

He can do this openly now, so he does. He wants her to know that she can rely on him and seek comfort from him. No matter what happens, he will be there for her.

So as Izumi dies, Natsume and Mikan aren’t looking. She doesn’t need to see. He keeps his focus on her, to support her, because she has to process a deeply traumatic event in a very short time. After all, the flashbacks are still going. Time didn’t stop for Yuka, and it won’t stop for Mikan.

Natsume’s shirt is probably soaked with tears. Not that he cares.

He holds her, not just through Izumi’s death, but for most of the aftermath. He stays, holding her, for as long as she needs him to. He will only let go when she’s okay to stand again. He ends up holding her for a couple chapters, and even when they stop hugging he still holds her up. He'd hold her for hours if she needed it.

Conclusion

Natsume and Mikan learned that their mothers were besties and are now struck with the knowledge that by pure chance they managed to meet and become as close as they did. Natsume confessed to the whole DA class (including Mikan) that he loves her in the last part, and he's done nothing but prove it over and over again.

We'll wrap up what is left of NatsuMikan in the Time-Travel Arc next week on Monday. His low self-esteem, selflessness, and all-consuming love will all take center stage in the next few entries.

Thank you all so much for reading so far. I hope you have a lovely day!

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#gakuen alice #alice academy #hyuuga natsume #natsume hyuuga #natsumikan #sakura mikan #mikan sakura #my meta #ga #mine #ga meta #ga meta: nm #ga meta: manga #ga meta: manga nm #let's talk about natsumikan #let's talk about natsumikan: natsume #nm song of the day is.... synesthesia by mayonnaise #i found this song through an amv for them si #its really fitting especially around this time #ga is interesting when it comes to fate #fate and time and things being the way they should... that sort of thing #i personally am not a big believer of fate irl but with fiction i go ham with it #natsumikan are canonically fated. lots of soulmate stuff. i very much believe theyre soulmates #but theres also potential in those anti-soulmate aus that i love so much #because as much as i love that theyre fated and meant to be and all that i also love that especially mikan CHOSE to be with him #theres a lot of choice involved specifically with her love for him #and although natsumes doesnt really feel like choosing as much as just falling in head first and not being able or willing to stop #he also chose her in a lot of ways.#i guess it can be both. theyre fated on accident but they still choose each other. both can be good. anyway im conflicted. whatever

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ktheist · 5 years ago

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pretty girls don’t get hurt | m

synopsis. your mom has been asking you for a grandchild - not even a son-in-law but the baby to said nonexistent son-in-law! and your dad is hitting an age where he can barely work anymore. at some point you’re going to take over his position as the chairman of the family hospital but you know nothing about medicine. that’s where kim seokjin comes in. he’ll marry you and become the chairman so you can keep your ceo position and you’ll get a child out of him too. it’s like killing two birds with one stone.

except there’s one problem: you’ve never met the man and you need him to agree to the marriage first. okay, make that two problems.

muses. heir!doctor!seokjin x heiress!ceo!reader x best friend!heir!taehyung

words. 15.6k

contents. slowburn. sexual tension. impregnation kink. daddy/older men kink. viagra is involved lmao.

warnings. matured content.

verse. knj. myg. kth. pjm. jjk. jhs. story time.

“you want my what?”

seokjin’s jaw hangs loose, brows coming together in a show of frustrated bewilderment. it’s tells you enough that he heard you the first time but then again, you’re not asking him for dinner. you’re asking him for-

“your hand in marriage.” glossed lips curl upwards underneath the pristine white cup of hot coffee from the vending machine.

you watch as his widened eyes narrow. lips smack together and finally anger settles in the muscles of his hardening expression. “you’re joking.”

it’s understandable that he’d feel offended. even more so when it’s coming from a stranger who strode right into his office and introduced herself as the chairman’s daughter - the ceo. that’s probably the only reason he agreed to spare you his time - and you’re spending it for this.

it’d be a lie if you say you weren’t surprised that he didn’t know the ceo of the hospital he’s working at but judging from the way he treats you, like he has better things to do - lives to save, you know he’s that type of person. the mad scientist version of a doctor. doesn’t attend annual dinners. doesn’t take off days. he’s perfect.

“dad’s getting old and he needs someone to succeed him but i don’t know anything about medicine - i’m more of a businesswoman and the board wants someone of a clinical background to continue the tradition. if it were up to me, medical expenses would be much higher per patient but i’m also not a capitalist so i need someone on the field to tell me how things are at the hospital so we don’t overcharge nor do we undercharge.”

his eye is twitching at the end of your words and his jaw is clenched in suppression of agitation. at this point, you’re going to have to keep it short so not to drop the whole bomb on him before he himself explodes. “so how bout it? you marry me and become the next chairman and i’ll take care of all the non-clinical related matters. if you were to decline... i can’t guarantee things will remain the same after dad retires.”

“my break is over. it’s nice meeting you miss ___ but i hope we don’t run into each other again.” the chair screeches backwards when he stands up abruptly before you can even finish your sentence. he didn’t even check the time when he swipes his phone off the table and slips it right into his pocket. his words are as clear as day: this is the first and last time we meet.

“you still have ten more minutes, doctor kim.” for some reason he hasn’t stormed off - dare you say, he’s even taking what you said seriously - good. because you’re not here for a laugh either. you meet his heated gaze with ease. “i’m not sure you understand but you’re the cinderella and i’m the prince charming.”

you take out a single midnight scented card and slide it over to seokjin. “and this is a proposal, not a blackmail. call me when you’re ready to talk about the terms for the prenup.”

it’s been a week since you left your card with seokjin.

now, sitting in your office, the scene keeps replaying in your mind like a broken record. a scream erupts in the otherwise pleasantly silent room as you slump in your seat, hands digging into your hair as though if you rub your head hard enough, the memories would fade away. “taehyung, how did i even get that confidence? a prenup? he didn’t even say yes!”

the aforementioned man spares you a glance from the couch he’s lying on before going back to typing away on his phone. it’s probably yuju - one of his recent acquaintances. if you remember correctly, she’s the daughter of sbs’ ceo.

“boys are simple minded beings, give it another day and he’ll call you.” he casually assures, this time not even look away from his phone.

the sleek back hair and black button down underneath seokjin’s white coat flashes at the back of your mind. you don’t see that many doctors wearing something that needs ironing to work that often. sure there’s a dress code but your dad isn’t strict about it - all that mattered to him is the quality of one’s work. for all he cares, these doctors can come to work in pj’s. it’s you that had to make sure they don’t come in pj’s. collared t-shirts are acceptable. so are sneakers instead of heeled shoes. but kim seokjin was nothing less of button down, a well made tie and polished black shoes.

it shows that-

“he’s a man, not a boy.”

this time, taehyung’s fingers freeze on the screen before he turns his cheeks to you with an unfazed expression - as though he’d expected this but still got disappointed when he hears it. “so it’s his age? you wanna marry him because he’s nine years older than you?”

there’s something about the way he singles out the reason you decided it was seokjin, that makes you look away in shame. but you still force out a laugh in a last ditch attempt to brush it off but it sounds awkward in every octave. “ha ha ha ha what are you talking about? he’s the most eligible marriage prospect - that’s why.”

“there’s another one.” he points out. still unconvinced, “that suho guy - he’s also a fellow. also an only child-”

you speak over him,“-but his background is so-so. civil servant parents. went to an ordinary school. you think he’ll adapt to the pressure as quick as seokjin?” suho’s smiling picture peeks from underneath the documents you’d been reviewing before the flashback of your bold proposal comes and haunt you. it’s his resume along with every physician working at the hospital for more than eight years, that you’d obtained from your dad’s secretary. “you know whoever becomes my husband and assume the chairman position is gonna get chewed out alive by the board. it has to be him - it has to be seokjin.”

a sigh echoes from somewhere across from you as taehyung sits up, brows furrowed together as he rubs his head as if it’ll make the the problem go away. “yeah, but he left the social scene a decade ago. you think he’ll walk back in just like that?”

“his records have been nothing but remarkable. he sticks around and works overtime. he’s been one of the most consistent physicians that worked on every holidays. doesn’t take off days. basically a workaholic who loves his job way too much - he doesn’t need to enter the social scene. not when i’m his wife.” a grin spreads across your face by the end of it - all this time, you’d been reading the report about him but once you’ve actually put it in words, the chances of him saying yes seems to sound more real, “he’s gonna keep working as the chairman and ignore anything the board says. he’s perfect.”

“yeah, okay let’s say he is perfect and there’s no reason for him to say no except one,” taehyung pauses for a more dramatic effect, lips twitching upwards slyly as if he knows it’s already got you on the edge of your seat, “what if he has a girlfriend he wants to marry?”

and that’s when your world comes crashing down like waves against the rocks but you don’t like the smug look on taehyung’s face, “yeah but with his schedule, it doesn’t seem like he has one.”

“you never know - they could very well be living together. plus, it’s not like he has to report his dating life to the hospital and he seems like a private enough man to keep it on the low even from his colleagues.”

his words are barely registering but the longer the second stretches on with your thoughts running wild, the faster your heart seems to race. but one thing’s for sure. taehyung’s here because you’re supposed to be discussing the partnership.

“if you’re not gonna talk about work, then get out.” your eye visibly twitches - all of a sudden your best friend since you were in diapers’ presence serves more as a nuisance than a blessing.

“you’re mad, aren’t you?” a grin spreads across his lips before he bursts into laughter - he’s the only person that would laugh in the face of death, “man you’re full of ego - i guess you should be. i mean, if all else fails, he might just say yes because of your face, right, sparky?”

he’s using that nickname he used to call you when you were kids. your love - or as taehyung would put it, obsession for shines and sparkles in diamonds peaked at the age of ten thanks to your mom’s hobby of collecting dimes. she’d sold everything off after she got bored of them and needed space for the arts she bought - her new found hobby. but you remained true to your love for diamonds and symbol of riches and bought half of her collection.

over time, he starts using it less and less and only for reasons to get a rise out of you. where did that cute boy who called you sparky because he thought you were as pretty as the diamonds, go?

all he is now is a devil incarnate. with that height and silly grin of his, he easily antagonize you. and you always give in.

“you’re supposed to be on my side and give me assurance!” you toss a balled up paper, aiming right in his face but instead of hitting the mark, he easily catches it.

“how’s this for assurance? you’re only gonna hurt yourself if you throw a ball like that.” he picks his blazer off the handrest and makes a beeline for the door when he senses the smoke coming out of your ears, “i’m late for my date, see you later!”

it’s exactly fifteen hours later that you receive a call from seokjin.

instead of meeting up at the cafeteria, he’d directed you to flower child, one of the most coveted fine dining restaurants in seoul two days after the call. it turns out he’d made a reservation - and you’re no fool to the long waiting line to get a table. he must’ve booked it some time after your first meeting.

he’s made some effort into putting on a black blazer and matching pants. hair styled to perfection. he may have cut his family off but he hasn’t completely abandoned the way he lived up till a decade ago. you allow yourself to check him out once - when he’d stood up at your arrival and pushed the chair for you.

thankfully, you’re not too underdressed. a creme blouse and grey pencil skirt suit any kind of formal setting.

“have you thought about what you want to include in the prenup?” you ask after the server leaves with your order.

seokjin seems more collected this time. or maybe it’s the incense and dimmed lighting that gives off a more suitable atmosphere to talk about marriage.

either way, you don’t expect the man to chuckle - a short, wistful one. as though he truly, honestly believes- “why would you want to marry an old man like me?”

you know what he’s asking: there’s got to be a catch. straightening your back and crossing it over your chest loosely, you decide to come clean - the full truth. “you’re only thirty-four but i won’t lie - you have a price on your head, doctor kim.”

the server comes back with a small cart and a bucket of chilled red wine. you wait until he pours a third of both glasses and goes away. but seokjin doesn’t appear all that eager for your elaboration - it’s almost as though he’s already known. or at least expected that much.

“your mother is willing to pay anyone who marries you a whooping ten million if the lucky bride brings you back to your family.” you watch as he studies the density of the wine, twirling the glass gently with a sort of tilt on his lips like a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “but i won’t make you reconcile with your family. i’ve told you my intentions - i need someone who knows the ins and outs of the hospital since don’t have any clinical background and it’d be easier if we were husband and wife.”

it’s in that moment that seokjin tears his eyes off the wine and captures your gaze. in the absence of the sunlight, those brown eyes appear more black, reflecting the dancing fire on the incense. you feel naked and bare as he wedges his fingers in and tear open the windows to your soul. “don’t you have someone you want to marry, miss___? someone you love?”

taehyung’s silly grin flashes at the back of your mind like a solar flare you can’t erase - all you can do is wait until dies out on its own. you don’t realize your unfocused gaze is directed to seokjin in the split second you wait for your thoughts to gather itself. redirecting your gaze to the wayward reflection in your own glass, you let out a breathy chuckle. “yeah, well.”

it’s pathetic and embarrassing but you can’t even conjure up proper words. instead, you bring the wine to your lips, preferring to taste the bittersweetness of the wine than that of your own reality.

all you talk about for the rest of the night is matters pertaining the marriage. what he’ll have to endure and what he won’t have to endure. he doesn’t need to attend any of the social functions even if you’re married. doesn’t also need to concern himself with matters about his family - it becomes tricky when his family catches news of their only son’s marriage and want to be there for the ceremonious day.

“i don’t know what’s going on with you and your family but they won’t be invited if you don’t want them to be.” you fix him with one of your smiles. a tilt in the corner of your lips and a languid flutter of your eyelids before meeting his gaze. it always works - takes away the essence of the conversation and makes them focus on you so if he wants to throw your words back at you, there’s a leeway you could escape to.

until you couldn’t.

“it’s fine. i’ve been running away for the last few years - it’s time i face them head on.” he looks up from the steak he’s cutting - you still haven’t recover from the time he’d look at you in the eye and effortlessly tore your defenses like it was paper but there he does it again, splaying out your scheme like a dish best served hot, “besides, they won’t be invited but you can’t- no, you won’t stop them from showing up, right?”

it’s true. his family isn’t just any normal family. his father is a ceo of one of the most prominent cell phone companies in the world after all. you’d be invincible if you’re in good terms with your in-laws. or at least, if they think you’re on their side and want to help them get their son back.

but seeing as nothing gets past seokjin, you’re only left to either evade the question or full out deny it to keep your pride intact. either way, both options will only serve to confirm his suspicion - he may already know what you’re up to but verbalizing it is a different kind of pride-crushing. your lips curl into a smile - an irony of having been cornered in every direction from the man you thought you could wrap around your fingers.

but because your pride wouldn’t allow you to look like a fool and your ethics wouldn’t allow you to tell a flat out lie (half truths are alright), you decide the first option is much better. “there’s one more thing - i want to get pregnant within the first year of our marriage.”

or else, you’re going to end up like your parents - their bones weren’t as strong as they used to be by the time they got you and their souls were withered from the works they’d put on in their better years of their lives. your mother’s life was risked by the late pregnancy. still, they tried to love you better but there were things you couldn’t do with parents who were hitting 50 before you even reached high school. you couldn’t go camping or bike riding or fishing like your grandfather brought your father to.

it seems to have caught seokjin off guard when he stares at you with wide eyes a tad longer before dropping his head and chuckling to himself, “my, i don’t know if i still have it in me.”

and that’s how you know he’s messing with you - perhaps it’s his own way of reminding you that he’s too old for you and if he’s lucky, it’ll scare you away from the idea of marriage altogether. but the fact that he’s trying to make you give up means that he’s agreeing to the marriage. you let your lips curve into a smile, adrenaline rushing through your veins and into your very core.

you absolutely can’t wait to get married.

the marriage will be held within five months - it’s the earliest you can get. it’d be suspicious if you just suddenly got married without any scandal or news of dating the estranged only child of the kim family. you’ve already hired a reporter to follow you during your first three ‘dates’ - they may very well be the only dates you go on together judging from your packed schedule. it’s been almost a week since that dinner and you’ve made plans to appear in public together - your first date.

rapping your knuckles on the door, you wait for the light on the handle to turn from red to green - a signal that the owner’s allowed you access. “hey, you ready?” is the first thing you say, even though you know he’s not.

“miss ___, i’m sorry i was working and didn’t realize the time.” he seems to be genuinely apologetic - and there’s an x-ray film and some papers strewn over his desk to verify his claim. “i’ll freshen up and -”

his brows lift in surprise when you lower yourself on his lap just as he pushes the chair backwards to stand up. the usually gelled light brown hair falls over his face in a messy middle part and his button down is less crisped than when you saw him the first time. granted your first meeting with him was at noon - it’s not enough time for the demands of his career to dishevel him. it’s evening now.

his jaw slacks just the slightest bit, resulting for his lips to part - you’ve noticed their plump fullness and it’d be a lie if you said you didn’t wonder about how they’d feel on yours. the taupe acrylic on your thumb digs into the soft pink flesh of his lips before it travels to his chin.

“may i?” two words. and that’s all it takes for something lustrous to take over his eyes. you find yourself smirking when he stares quizzically as your hand leaves his face and brings his own between your lips. his fingerpads are callous from years of surgical training but they don’t tremble under the touch of your tongue. his digits are lengthier than you expect them to be. his middle finger hit the back of your throat easily before you can get them all in but he’s not the only one that’s received training.

you switch to his ring finger, tongue gently curling around it before you drag your teeth over the ridges of its joint. as a finishing touch, you make sure to lick the bottom of your lips all the while holding his gaze. then, you allow the smile to grace your lips as though nothing happened but the way you pretend to struggle to get up, causing your ass to rub against his arousal - defeats that false sense of innocence.

either way, his surprised expression turns to an amused one as he chuckles a low chuckle - an admittance of your victory, “my, i just lost, didn’t it?”

“whatever do you mean?” you blink, lashes fluttering with feigned innocence.

articles are starting to pop up after your personal reporter uploaded hers. it’s not enough to shake the world but it’s enough to catch the eyes of secretaries which in turn tell their bosses and as a result, your phone’s been blowing up and your own secretary has been taking calls since this morning.

“___, you’re leaving already?” taeyeon cups the mouthpiece of the phone she’s been on for the last five minutes, alarms going off in her eyes at the thought of your absence. you don’t blame her - from the way the conversation seems to be going, she might just drag the whole telephone all the way to your desk and make you answer them.

business proposals must be pouring in. you feel bad for your secretary but to be frank, the instant ringing as soon as she held up the last call - has been bothering you to no end as well.

you grin sheepishly, “i got a meeting with dad.” it’s just a coincidence that your dad called you to his office today - he usually does every once in a while just to ask how you’re doing and lament about having to handle your mother’s random burst of hobbies she’s getting into ever since you moved out.

looks like nobody’s noticed the ‘rumor’ yet from the way the workers in the administration department bows and greets you on your way to the office. granted, these people are too devoted to their work to pay attention to the latest business scandals but you expected at least one person to be blowing up the group chat with pictures of you and seokjin’s first date.

there’s a familiar figure leaning against your dad’s desk but no trace of the elder man - he must have went to the washroom or something. you thought it odd when taehyung’s eyes fall on you without the usual grin he would usually offer whenever he sees you - like reflex. at first, you assume his own date with yuju probably didn’t go very well.

“hey, loser. this is the first time you’re here earlier than me.” you fix the man your own grin, happy to be able to see not one but two of your favorite persons. taehyung’s been coming over to play at your house since forever. it was normal for your dad to invite him to his office and take you two to lunch now that you two have grown up.

...until you notice your dad on the couch and another person sitting adjacent to him. it’s easy to miss people when they’re sitting down and easier to have your eyes focus on taehyung’s tall frame.

the tension almost crushes your lungs as soon as you walk through the door. it becomes apparent all too soon that taehyung tried to warn you with his eyes to not be your usual idiot self. now, you’re paying the price for it as all eyes fall on you.

the third person in the room turns his cheek towards you - seokjin. he offers a too polite smile as you come to a stop next to the couch he’s one.

“daddy?” all of a sudden, you’re a child in a room full of adults and calling your out to your dad, as if it would somehow make him explain this situation you just walked in.

the elder man releases a long drawn sigh before speaking, “i’d like a word with my daughter and doctor kim, if you don’t mind, taehyung.”

“sure, uncle.” the aforementioned man offers one of his gallant smiles, pushing himself off the desk without taking out his hands from his pockets.

you grab onto taehyung’s arm as he’s about to pass you - pleading with your eyes for him not to leave you, a mere ant, with the elephants in the room. that’s when his serious facade falls through and he’s grinning at you like a brother would to his sister when he knows she’s going to get in trouble with their parents. your temple throbs with a burst of rage but before you can say anything, he’s already out of the door.

the sweetness of the tea mrs. nam served is tasteless compared to the tangible tension in the air. it’s become apparent that while the more tech savvy staff remain clueless of your updated dating status, your father, is not.

be it as it may, guess you should give credit where it’s due - seokjin’s expression is free of any tautness. it’s perfectly neutral - it’s frightening. you know for a fact you’re not saved from a hard line on your glossed lips and a crease between your brows.

“i heard from my wife that you two are dating.” the elderly man finally breaks the silence.

he’s addressing your mom like that so to make it known that he’s talking to seokjin too - and you’re not the only one in hot water. but seeing as it’s your idea and your proposal, it’s also your responsibility to respond-

“that’s correct, sir.”

-but seokjin beats you to it. it’s not just his expression but his tone is completely at ease. almost as though he’s faced tense situations like this one too many times.

you breathe out before speaking, “i was going to introduce doctor kim to you and mom once we bought our engagement rings.”

your dad finally looks up, eyes wide and mouth slacked for the briefest second before his eyes flutter close. now’s about time for him to be rubbing his temples from the headache but instead, he lets out a sigh. for a split second, you see your dad for the age he is - not the age you remember him as in your earliest memories. wrinkles and smile lines and graying hair.

the seconds stretch on as do the silence. you can hear the distant ringing of the telephone all the way from mrs. nam’s desk from outside, almost clearly.

once your word settles in, then comes the million dollar question, “do you two love each other?”

it’s a no brainer. anyone with eyes can see and answer that for you - or perhaps taehyung already told your dad since he must have gone through a similar interrogation session. and yet, it’s only natural to want confirmation from your own daughter instead of her best friend even though he knows everything about her.

this can only go two ways: yes or no.

but you’ve never been fond of flat out lying, especially to the man who taught you such principles and you’ve talked about marrying for convenience with them ever since you realized that ambitions tend to reward but cheap sentiments like love does not.

yet your chest feels heavy having to go against your parents’ wishes and hopes for you - they want what any parent want for their child. happiness. “no, we don’t.”

“but no one enters into a marriage with divorce in mind. i don’t plan on just being a husband to your daughter just on paper. i’ll care for miss ___ and treat her the way like a queen. that much, i promise, sir.” seokjin holds your dad’s gaze - it’s haunting and charming, you would know. you’d been on the receiving end once too many times already. and you know that’s how he gets your dad.

the older man nods, shoulder line relaxing almost as though he’s been lifted off a dead weight. he’s not the only one - you don’t realize you’ve been holding your breath until you feel your own muscles loosening and you’re breathing out in relief.

until his head snaps up to point out one thing, “you’re getting married yet you’re not on first name basis?”

“sorry to rope you into family drama, i’ll be more prepared next time so you won’t have to leave your work.” is the first thing you say once you’re in the elevator. your dad has made sure to grill you to half-death with his questions. he’s gonna give the immigration a run for their money. the first name basis matter is just the beginning of a series of dread -

‘what’s my daughter’s favorite color?’

‘dad, do you even know my-”

‘shh. do you know my daughter still wets the bed at the age ten?’

‘dad!’

seokjin had taken your dad on in stride. he chuckled when your dad said something ridiculous, borderline false and he listened on when your dad went on about the sob story of a ‘poor father with an undefeatable daughter’. but the way he did it was so effortless - almost as if he was a boyfriend visiting your parents and getting told all the embarrassing stories of your childhood and would tease you about it but at the end of the day, tells you he thinks the kid-you was cute - bed wetter or not.

there’s something that restricts your airway at the thought of sharing a feeling so strong with someone. in no time, you push the intimate image away. you and seokjin aren’t like that - this is marriage is strictly convenience-based.

“i asked a friend of mine to cover for me.” so he knew it’d be long but he didn’t actually said it was okay either. marriage is a tricky subject especially for someone as work-crazed as seokjin. you’re surprised he hasn’t cursed you out for making him miss work. “is it red?”

“what?” you blink, steps halting as you stare up at him with what starts to be mindless curiosity but ends up with a stretched on pause as you study the man’s visage. the plumpness of his lips is a given- it’s the first thing you noticed about him.

“your favorite color.” the corners of his lips lifts upwards before he includes his assertion, “you’re always wearing something red - your lipstick was red when we went for dinner. you have a red blouse on now.”

even you didn’t know you have so much red. but it’s true - your functions and meetings wardrobe consists of red and black predominantly besides the more neutral pastel colors. you have a higher success rate of getting sponsors when you wear the tight fitted red dress.

but it’s not a preferred shade per se.

“no,” you chuckle, “my favorite color is yellow, like the banana.”

seokjin’s brows rises at that. he probably didn’t expect that - nobody expects the fierce and confident woman to like such a bright, clarifying color. “though i understand why you think it’s red.”

his lips curl into a smile - the kind of smile that mimics your own, not the one that he wears to charm your father. though that one was also genuine, this one makes him feel younger. like someone you can crack silly jokes with instead of the ever uptight working man.

before he manages to say anything, your name reverberates across the lobby. taehyung’s shrugged off that ugly grey checkered blazer of his and left it at the sofa as he mini run towards you. the grin on his face gradually falls off when he notices the lack of smile on your face.

“you left me for dead!”

he blocks your fist with a hand around your wrist before sighing as if you’re not just directing every ounce of energy in that punch of yours - but then again, none of your smacks really get to him.

“i didn’t know uncle was gonna ask me about that - i thought it was gonna be the usual lunch. i mean, come on, i waited for you down here even though i have work to do so i can make sure all your limbs are intact!” he looks like he almost meant it. almost.

it’s in that moment that seokjin’s remark reminds you that he’s still there, “you two must be close.”

“huh?” taehyung narrows his eye at you as though you’re no more than gum under his shoes while you whip your hand out of his grasp and scoff.

“nah, i’m her only friend.”

“it’s because he doesn’t have any other friend.”

you both say at the same time.

at least seokjin’s still able to laugh with all the intention-to-kill in the air. before you can elaborate on how taehyung kept following you around like a lost puppy when you were younger, seokjin’s hand finds its way around your shoulder, you thought it odd that he needs to pat on the shoulder farthest from him but it turns out he’s pulling you towards him but by the time you realize it, you’re already craning your neck to look at him. but you barely notice the awkward position of his lips on the spot just above your left eyebrow - his lips really are soft. and warm.

and gone.

before you know it, he’s pulling away, saying something about seeing you later - you couldn’t hear it from the blood rushing in your ears and the heat rising on your face. it’s only after you see his white coat disappear around the corner do you finally take notice of the slyly grinning fox in front of you.

“what did i tell you? simple-minded beings.”

you still don’t know why seokjin kissed you on the forehead.

sure, he told your dad he’s not planning to just be a husband on paper - okay. but he’s nowhere near a husband to you yet and you haven’t even given him an engagement ring. it doesn’t help that your heart keeps racing every time time the image of his sharp jaw and pursed lips before he kissed you, plays at the back of your mind.

he smelled good too - like aftershave and lemon and a hint of disinfectants.

before you know it, you find yourself rapping on his door eight minutes past 7 in the evening. after a whole solid minute of the red light on the door handle remaining the same color, you finally let out the breath you’ve been holding. it’s supposed to be past his shift but judging from the lack of response from the other side of the room, you know straight away that he’s still at the wards. it may have been an impromptus decision but now that you’ve walked the distance from your office to the other end of the building, you might as well go the extra mile and actually look for him.

most of the nurses and doctors that pass you recognize you, bowing briefly before hurrying to where they were heading before they saw you. you rarely visit the cardiology department - or any other department for that matter because it’s always a hassle for the staff to prepare to greet you. in that aspect, you agree with seokjin - that they could be doing something better than pushing their schedules on their colleague to accompany a sightseeing vip.

“miss ___?” a young man around your age calls, his brows furrow at the idea that his eyes could be fooling him but when you turn to him, his eyes light up in pleasant surprise, “it really is you. why - i didn’t know you were visiting today.”

“doctor kim,” you don’t forget a face easily - right before you is kim suho. the smile that stretches when you recognize him is telling enough. his past achievements are definitely to brag about and he must have attended the annual dinner if he recognizes you, “good evening. this isn’t an official visit - actually, i’m looking for someone. do you happen to know where doctor kim seokjin is?”

“seokjin?” he repeats the name with a sort of familiarity, coupled with confusion. of course, he’s probably wondering what the work-crazed doctor did to have the ceo come all the way to the wards.

“miss ___?” it’s feels almost deja vu - having your names called out by two different people within the span of five minutes. both sounding equally confused but for different reasons.

“good evening,” you fix seokjin one of your alluring smiles, heart skipping a beat - it’s probably the stethoscope hanging over his shoulder. it compliments the collared button down and white coat, look you usually see him in, “i went to you office but you weren’t there so i came here.”

“let’s talk in my office.” he clears his throat, eyes drifting to look to somewhere on his left before he stops himself. if it’s the whispering nurses at the counter he’s worried about - he shouldn’t be. because you’re about to put a ring on it.

“sorry, i was doing my last rounds but the patient was a chatty one - i lost track of time.” he says, walking into the office and setting the stethoscope down on his desk before he takes a seat behind it.

you notice the way his eyes travel from your perfectly pinned up hair down to your diamonds adorned neck down to the halter strap of your elegant maroon dress that wraps around your body flawlessly. but he doesn’t say a word - and you’re forced to school your expression to not show your surprise and hurt when he doesn’t even let his gaze linger for any longer than necessary as he meets your eyes again.

you take out the suede velvet box from your purse and place it right in front of him. “it just came in, why don’t you try putting it on?”

his eyes twinkle with a surprise not because of the foretelling shape and characteristics of the box, nor the affirmation of the silver band inside it but because it sits snugly around his ring finger when he slips it on.

“how did you get my size right?” the impressed tone laced in his voice makes your chest swell with pride and lips curl into a smirk.

it only takes him a few seconds to interpret your smirk - that time in his office. the ghost of his digit on your tongue still lingers. it wasn’t just for show and you weren’t cruel enough to put a man through that misery if you didn’t have your own reasons.

he shakes his head, ring bluntly glinting as suppresses his chuckle with his hand.

your heart is beating too loudly in your chest - there’s something in the way he’s bearing your claim but you still manage to sound leveled and collected. “since we’re officially engaged, do you mind if i call you seokjin?”

“i’d like that very much, ___.” he’s finally dropped the suffix. ms. this, ms. that. you’ve gotten used to it but it serves to enforce the invisible line between you and him when he addresses you so formally.

your phone buzzes in your purse - it must be taehyung. you didn’t expect to spend longer than ten minutes but he must be waiting at the lobby if he’s texting you now. standing up, you bid him a parting “have a nice evening, seokjin.”

he doesn’t seem like he has anything on his mind but just as your hand covers the handle of the door, he speaks up, “once we’re married, could you refrain from going to these functions?”

it takes you off guard. like a spear that pierces you just as you lay down your armor but you’re not one to let something like this get to you, “i’m afraid that’s not possible.” and that’s it. it’s final.

but you should have known when you decide to use that practiced icy tone, that seokjin wouldn’t just back off the way almost everyone would. the only people who would still have the gal to say something or dismiss it are your parents and taehyung.

“i know you expect me to be an obedient husband and become chairman and do my job. it shouldn’t matter if you attend these functions since you’re not forcing me to go with you.” and there’s those eyes again. tearing into the soul of your window and stripping you bare the way only kim seokjin could. “but marriage is about compromise - giving up one thing for the other. i’m gonna inherit my dad’s fortunes and you’re gonna get that 10 million my mom promised. shouldn’t that be enough to get the projects for the hospital rolling?"

when he says it like that, it seems so easy and simple. “no wonder you’re a doctor. you don’t know a thing about maintaining a sustainable business.” you let your lips curl briefly, “but i’ll think about what you said.”

then, you’re out of his office. heels clicking against the floor as you make your way to the lobby and into taehyung’s familiar sleek black burgatti.

“so he asked you to stop coming to these functions.” the car rolls to a stop right in front of the hall where the birthday party of seollyu’s president is held.

“in essence, yeah.” you say after he comes around the car and your hand automatically tucks itself in the crook of his arm.

“then why are you mad?” the car purrs behind you before the valet takes it somewhere to park it.

some of the reporters at the entrance calls your and taehyung’s names in an attempt to make you look at the camera. there’s too many and the lights are blinding - you just want to get into the hall quickly. at least they won’t be able to follow you past the doors.

“i just - i don’t like that he’s asking me to change, you know? just because i’m married, i won’t get to do the things i usually do before? that’s just bullshit.” you huff in frustration - not bothering to hide your stiff eyebrows and slightly pursed lips all the while you have your pictures taken. at best, they’re going to slander you with jealousy over taehyung’s new budding romance.

“i mean, he did cut his family off and stopped going to these things.” the man shrugs, “maybe he has a good reason - did you even ask him why?”

and that’s how you know you’ve lost the fight. taehyung’s too sensible - naturally, he wouldn’t have his own startup at such a young age, if he isn’t the way he is now. but you don’t want an analyst - you want a friend who would listen to you and let you vent your frustrations before finding the root of the problem and suggesting the solution.

taehyung knows this and he knows plenty of many things, having been your childhood and best friend all in one package. but because he knows you too well, he also knows you’ll end up doing something you would regret if he were too late to point out your mistake. sometimes you want to prove him wrong - that you can call the right shots when it comes to people without having him paint a picture for you to foresee the outcome but so far, there’s limited exhibits of your success. your failed past relationships being the prime examples.

“i hate it when you’re right.” you grumble, letting your hand fall to your side - usually you wouldn’t mind having to cling onto taehyung like a child. you’re all the other has in these functions - everyone has their own reason for attending and just like absolutely everyone, you approach people because of what they can give you. that’s why you see groups of people your age flocking together - they grew up trained to sniff those with ill intentions and those with a mutual interest.

and usually, they’ve known each other at a very young age - the way you knew taehyung for as long as you can remember.

you have other friends too - or rather, they’re people you single out to be of no threat to your business and could even become partners someday. like sowon - her bright amber dress making it seem as though a ball of fire is flitting across the hall. you’re about to wave at her before you notice a more furious fire burns in her eyes.

“you bitch!”

all of a sudden, your neck is craned in an awkward angle. the blaze on your cheek settles a little later than the realization that sowon just smacked you right across the face yet when you turn back to her, hands clenching and unclenching in suppression of rising anger - she’s the one with tears in her eyes. “i trusted you.”

oh boy.

the host hasn’t even made his speech and the crowd’s already excited. the widespread whispers don’t go past you - some of the people in your periphery doesn’t even bother hiding leaning into the person next to them while stealing glances your way. but you doubt the woman in front of you would notice anyone here but you.

“ladies, there’s plenty of me to go around.” taehyung speaks from next to you, his smooth baritone echoing off and reaching anyone within five feet. you know he’s doing this to cover for any other possible misunderstanding - after all, this isn’t the first time you’re trapped in a scandal between taehyung and one of his girlfriends.

sowon loathes taehyung though.

but it doesn’t matter as long as everyone thinks it’s just another day of you getting in between the budding romance of taehyung and his female acquaintance. you can already see the expressions of the guests falling - probably disappointed at the not-so-news news. but there are also those who snicker underneath their breath - probably one of taehyung’s past acquaintances. it’s no secret taehyung would choose you over them in a heartbeat - and it’s been established when taehyung appears at a function with another woman once and appear to the next five with you until a new poor soul takes that woman’s place.

what can you say? your best friend’s a charmer. but the downside is, you don’t have that many female friends at functions. and one of the few you do have, you’ve managed to piss off.

sowon’s sniffle tears your attention away from the crowd. flushed cheeks and puffed eyes. you’re not close but you’re acquainted enough to know she’s a woman of pride and confidence. she wouldn’t lose her cool over a man - well, at least not a licentious man like taehyung. and that’s the only reason keeping you from bitch slapping the pride off her. the sting on your cheek is nothing compared to the injury your pride sustains - all because what’s left of your conscience wouldn’t allow you to return the slap.

deep down, you know you deserved it and more. your insides churn painfully. all of a sudden the dress around your body is two sizes too small. it’s suffocating - the whole room is suffocating.

“after everything i told you - you had to go for him?!” her scream could almost burst your eardrums if it isn’t for the blood rushing in your ears.

it’s easy to think she’s referring to taehyung. somewhere from across the room, the crowd starts clearing out a path - looks like the host has caught wind of the commotion sowon has caused.

you want to curse her too. hurt her with words as much as she hurt you with her physical assault. but instead you find yourself dropping your gaze.

“i’m sorry, sowon.” is all you say before mr. jung and his army of secretaries approach you and bring you two to different rooms. by the time dinner starts, sowon isn’t around - it’s understandable, her pride wouldn’t allow her to let these people poke fun at her.

but you don’t survive this world you’re born in by running away - you survive it by developing skin as untouchable as scales. so you stay until desert, smiling with a sore cheek and conversing with those who you know would be neutral about the incident, like nothing happened.

taehyung sticks closer to you. he doesn’t ask if you’re okay - you’re not. but when you tug on his sleeve and timidly murmur you wish to go home, he does so without hesitation. it’s times like these you’d choose him over the world.

the tabloids love gossip. a sensational, popcorn-worthy scoop. there are two divided groups thanks to that. the first one is devoted to the belief that it’s a love triangle between you, taehyung and sowon. the other one, choosing to dig deeper than what’s on the surface, believes it goes way back. ten years back.

“sorry, i should have told you sowon was my ex-fiance - it didn’t occur to me until i saw the articles that you two might meet at a function.” seokjin finally says, the strawberry ice cream beginning to melt in its paper bowl when he asked you to ‘at least, let me cure your injury,’ - you didn’t, in a - make that ten - million years picture it to be in a form of an ice cream bowl he bought from the mini convenience store next to the cafeteria. it was to hold it on your cheek but you couldn’t just let good food go to waste.

it hurts to even smile but you can’t help it at the thought of the rumored half-mad doctor using his break for something besides working some more. coupled with a shake of your head and the plastic spoon trapped in between your lips, you look just as insane.

your heart still clenches at the recollection of the other night, “i knew you two were engaged.”

his shoulder line straightens just the slightest bit as he lifts one eyebrow, not completely surprised but neither is he unfazed. so you continue, “it was by pure dumb luck that you turn out to be the best marriage prospect for me but i thought she was over it since it’s been years.”

there it is again, the churning in your stomach. like something’s eating you from the inside. if you focus enough, you can hear the voice inside your head scoffing - even if they’d just broken up yesterday, you still would have proposed to seokjin, maybe even the day after said break up.

this time, you don’t look away when his eyes meet yours. you let him strip your armor down to your very core. show him just what kind of person you are - the person who wouldn’t let anything get in the way of her ambitions. wouldn’t dwell cheap sentiments like friendship. even if that made you - as sowon would put it - a bitch.

then, he lets out a heavy sigh - the kind of sigh a parent would do when their kid got in trouble and admitted their fault. so now he can’t lecture you on morals and ethics because you have your own principles.

if anything, it reminds you of the glaring difference in your age - the things he’s already experienced that you’re about to someday. the betrayals. the broken friendships. the choices between what you want and what you need. he’s probably seen this all before.

“is an old man like me really worth all that trouble?” the tiniest of smile graces his strong feature. eyebrows wavering with something you can’t pinpoint.

“well, there’s a doctor - kim suho.” this time, you don’t bother pointing out his not-even-that-old age. the way his eye twitches barely noticeably tells you he doesn’t expect your answer. a moment later, it becomes too apparent, from his troubled expression - brows stiffed and jaws tight, that he doesn’t like the idea of you asking for another man’s hand in marriage. you have to tell yourself to refrain from smiling, not because your cheek might hurt again but because it’s probably not a good time to tease him.

deciding to release him from his own misery, you quickly elaborate, “but he has an average background - no matter how much experience he has, you don’t just get on your knees and start slithering with the snakes. you have to be born into the family. so yes,” you place your ice cream on the coffee table, hand pushing back a strand of hair to appear more delicate and win his favor while you let a furtive smile adorn your face - and there’s a smile he’s suppressing too because he knows what you’re trying to do, “this old man is definitely worth it.”

his shoulder line seems to ease up as he tries to hide a relieved sigh by clearing his throat. but it’s short lived when the crease between his brows returns and a newfound tension settles in space on the couch separating the two of you, “yes, but suho was never the one i should be on a look out for, was he?”

you blink but he’s already shaking his head. a smile on his face, “never mind.”

things seem to settle down - everyone at the hospital knows about you and seokjin now. and you’ve managed to convince him to finally use his off days to spend it on preparing for the wedding. cake tasting. dress and suit fitting. deciding on what color the napkins should be - a month ago, you approached seokjin with the mindset to make him agree to marry you. after all, prince charming was the one who had it all - it didn’t make sense to have cinderella do all the wedding planning.

he was mad at you for some reason - it lasted for quite awhile until you directly asked why he’d been given you the cold shoulders. “you keep playing a two man game by yourself.” he sighed when he said those words - because he saw in your eyes, that you thought there was nothing wrong to be finishing what you started by yourself, “we’re getting married - we’re gonna become a team yet you keep making decisions by yourself.”

ever since then, you started asking if he wanted to join you to the cake and dessert tasting, napkin color picking. you didn’t realize how nice it was to do things with another person than decide it on your own.

and somewhere along the way, you started teasing him more.

“if the saying ‘men age like fine wine’ is a person,” a grin slips over your face as you shamelessly give seokjin is a once over, “then you’d be the embodiment of that.”

he doesn’t seem to mind - rather, he seems like he’s enjoying the attention as he chuckles and shakes his head. probably thinking there’s no saving you and your compliments now.

“come here.” it’s the way he says it - with a smile on his lips and eyes that says you’re all he sees and hand extended to capture yours, that makes you jump from your seat. the front of the dress bunched up in your hands as to not trip over it and right into his arms. just like moth drawn to flames.

he pulls you up over the platform that he’s been standing on and lets you stand in front of him, hand on your shoulder as you stare in front of the 3 part mirror in the boutique. the dress you have on is a light gold dress with a sweetheart neckline that wraps around your curves flawlessly down to your knees and flow out like a mermaid’s tail. seokjin has on a traditional cobalt blue single breasted suit with three buttons fitting around his waist perfectly. his hair is gelled back the way you specifically requested.

he gave you a quizzical look as though wanting you to elaborate on your reason for that request but you’d only left him with a kiss on the cheek and a ‘see you on monday.’

if there’s one thing you learned about seokjin, it’s that he’s devastatingly unaware of his strong features that makes every woman’s legs turn to jelly and every man’s heart skip a beat. and he chooses to hide it under that usual middle parted style.

seokjin’s reflection bends down but his eyes remains on you as he whispers against the shell of your ears, “you look exquisite.”

you have half the mind to push him off and run away in case he’d ear the erratic beating in your chest but he probably already knows from the way you shyly look away. the you from a year ago would laugh at what you’ve become - the kind of girl that gets flustered and can’t form a proper sentence in the presence of a male. but before you can respond, a boisterous voice from the sofa you were sitting at, announces, “alright, next!”

your teeth clench together as you whirl around to face taehyung’s silly grin. that cockblocker - he knew you were having a moment and went out of his way to ruin it. “what are you even here for? don’t you have something better to do?”

for once, taehyung isn’t on his phone. you wouldn’t mind it so much if he’d just ignore you half of the time whenever you hang out. “your mom tasked me to find you a perfect dress since she can’t be here.” there’s a glint in his eyes - something ratchet and devious but his lips curve like that of an angel.

you don’t miss seokjin’s tightened jaw and stiff shoulder line as he helps you down the platform. ever since taehyung showed up ten minutes into fitting, seokjin’s expression has been switching from that suave smile to looking like he has a splinter stuck in his thumb - a human sized splinter that goes by the name of kim taehyung.

you never thought you’d live to see the day when kim seokjin would harbor any sort of animosity towards someone - he’s probably a strict supervisor, but resentful? can’t be.

you chalk it up with the plain fact that anyone who’s not head over heels for taehyung would want to skin him alive on the early stages of getting to know him.

“hm? seokjin’s not here yet?” you ask once you’re back from the fitting room, having slipped into an ivory trumpet shaped dress. it’s a much simpler design compared to the one you had on which makes it a perfect counter part for the after party. “that’s a first, the lady finishing first than the guy.”

“oh, it’s not that unusual.” taehyung snickers. guess that just shows how confident he is with his skills.

“i’ve never been this tired and i’ve only tried on three dresses.” instead of entertaining his remark, you choose plop down next to him.

“sparky, does he love you?” it’s that nickname that gets you.

there are only two circumstances where he would call you that: one, when he wants to annoy you and two, when he’s feeling nostalgic. guess it’s finally hitting him that you’re no longer kids chasing each other around in one of his mansions. you’re both grown up and one is trying out wedding gowns.

“uh, me and seokjin are about to get married, taetae.” you throw in a nickname of your own just to lighten up the mood.

but all it does is lift the corners of his lips into a wistful smile. and that’s how you know you can’t be telling your half-truths. and evading his question isn’t working all that well either. “it feels like we can talk about things more openly now - but no, i don’t think he does. he’s marrying me to become the next chairman and i’m after his money and maybe get a kid out of him too.” a knot forms in your stomach - something about what you said doesn’t sit well with you but this is what you wanted. this is what you prepared for the moment you decided to ask seokjin for his hand in marriage. you shouldn’t hope for more.

the laugh taehyung lets out is reactionary. humorless. “can’t you wait for me? i know i’m in no position to ask - but can’t you?”

two years and three months ago, when you were a little youthful, had a little more stars in your eyes - maybe you would’ve said yes in a heartbeat. with every birthday you celebrate, fear rears its ugly head and reminds you that time isn’t an illusion and you know better than to bet on something - someone you're not sure you can win.

your heart aches a similar way it did two years ago - but you know now it’s not because it’s breaking to pieces. instead it’s hurting for the pieces of that young boy you could never hope to complete using yours. it took awhile but you know how to get back on your feet - but it’s not all that simple for taehyung. only he can fix his broken pieces.

“i stopped, taehyung,” you finally say, gaze burning holes inside the lace material of the dress, “the moment you told me you can’t - i stopped loving you. i’m glad i did because it wasn’t love. i was just scared to lose you like you’re afraid to lose me now,” you tug on his hand to get him to look at you and he does - all of a sudden, you’re both eight, inside your own bedroom with your dolls and his remote control cars strewn across the floor, “but you’ll always be my taetae and i’ll always be your sparky - i’m always gonna be here for you.”

you thought he’d changed. it’s nice to know he still uses a fruit scented shower gel when he brings you into a hug. the piercing sweet scent isn’t as strong as you remember it. the hug lasts a bit longer and his body is trembling slightly but you know it’s going to be okay - even if he packs up and leave for a foreign city like two years ago when you told him you loved him and you had to hunt him down through your wits and will (that damned private investigator accumulated a fortune to last him for probably ten years). at the end of the day, you’ll come back to each other. because the bond you’ve formed is thicker than the blood coursing through your veins.

“if he makes you cry, you come to me, okay?” you can’t even be mad when he ruffles your hair before picking up his blazer and shrugging it on. by the end of it, you’re both smiling - though his remains wistful, yours is sanguine.

it’s only after taehyung’s figure disappears through the door, do you notice the feeling of a pair of eyes burning holes inside your head.

“seokjin.”

the man is leaning against the door where his changing room is. you don’t need to ask why his brows are strained and the lips that would usually grace you with a smile, is pressed into a tight line.

“i never knew-” seokjin stops himself, lips pressed together as though he doesn’t want to say it, but he does with a shake of his head, “-no, i did know there was something between you and taehyung.”

you end up in seokjin’s apartment. the whole ride has been stiff silent. it’s the first you’ve seen him so disheveled. his tie hangs loose on his neck as though he’d yanked it without a care in the world and forgot about it. the first two buttons of his button down are undone. what once was his perfectly sleeked back hair disheveled from having been mussed up.

the hot chocolate seokjin made you is losing heat the longer you hold onto to it for the sake of having something to do with your hands. “i proposed to him two years ago and stopped loving him as soon as he turned me down - taehyung, he... he’s got a lot going on. that’s all i can say. i hope you don’t misunderstand what you saw.”

his eyes turn as round as saucers for the briefest moment before they flutter to their original almond shapes. shoulder line shaking from chuckling - but there’s nothing funny about any of this so you keep your eyes on him. if he needed confirmation of the truth you’re speaking, he need only search it in the windows of your soul.

“that’s very like you, ___.” he finally says.

you’re not sure what he meant but you’re not about to ponder on it either, “is there anything else you’d like to know about me, seokjin? there’s no reason for me to lie to you - we’re about to get stuck with each other for the rest of our lives. we should at least be able to talk about our past openly.”

when he doesn’t seem to have any other inquiry, you decide to let go of your pride - the reason you never asked was because you were too proud to be wrong. growing up, there were only a few people that you let poke fun at you and fewer you’d let prove you wrong. it dawned on you some time after you’re all showered and ready to go to bed one night - that you’re about to let seokjin waltz into your life and he’ll bear witness to your most intimate side. he’s about to be said one of the fewer people.

“then, my turn - why did you want me to stop attending social functions? i’ve been doing it my whole life - i’m good at it. and i’m not planning to stop just because i got married unless you have a proper reason for asking me to.”

the way his gaze drops tells you it wasn’t just a baseless request. you reach out across the counter, slipping your hands into his. that seems to have brought him back.

“my parents chose to attend a function instead of staying by my grandfather’s side even when the doctor told them he wouldn’t make it til morning - they weren’t even sorry. couldn’t even stay throughout the whole funeral.” he shakes his head almost as though being hung up over it was ridiculous yet couldn’t move past it either, “it’s ugly what too much wealth does - i just- i’m sorry i asked such a thing from you. it’s my own problem that i have to deal with, you don’t have to stop.”

it’s not hard to put yourself in his shoes. you understand where he’s coming from - you want to tell him that but somehow words are cheap. especially right in this moment.

so without thinking, you slip off the stool and walk around the counter until you reach him. the last thing you see before you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him down to your level, is his wondrous gaze.

the man doesn’t flinch away from your touch nor does he welcome it in any way. but the longer the seconds stretch on, the more you realize how idiotic and awkward it is to hug someone you barely know - it worked for taehyung but that’s only because he knew you preferred action rather than words.

“i’m not gonna stop completely but i won’t go as often - it’s getting boring anyway.” you nonchalantly say - or at least try to sound like you’ve lost interest in the function on your own. you haven’t been to any since that incident with sowon, waiting out for the rumors to die down is a better choice.

the body in your arms is unresponsive as ever - you would think you’re hugging a dead body if not for the heat of his breath fanning your delicate skin. maybe he’s just too nice to push a lady away. just as you’re about retract your arms, a warm hand rests on your hip. his touch is soft and gentle - as if he’s handling a porcelain doll while you’d just dragged him down to you without even considering how uncomfortable the angle would be given his tall broad frame.

his body vibrates when he lets out a short breath like a brief chuckle, “you’re very generous with your hugs.”

your brain short circuits when the man raises his head from your shoulder and rests his forehead on yours - it reminds you of how woman you are. even when he’s sitting he still hovers over you. his free hand cups your jaw, thumb lightly pressing on your lower lip. so this is what it felt like when your roles were switched - is he going to give you a false sense that he’ll kiss you the way you would him?

“may i?” he’s smiling when he repeats your own words - eyes trapping the ray of sunlight that pours over the wall-window like an illuminate waterfall. for the first time since you know him, you’re scared. not of what he will do but of what you want him to - but he won’t do.

your train of thoughts dissipates along with your worry the moment his lips touch yours. gentle. yet the hand pulling you into him is possessive. something in your stomach churns with butterflies.

you want to say you don’t know how you end up with your stomach pressed against his crotch or how his semi-hard arousal started rubbing into your abdomen. it’s supposed to be awkward but it isn’t and you know he’s refraining from addressing his aroused state to avoid making it uncomfortable for you - even though every time you shift and lean into him, you see his the gentle bob of his adam’s apple. it makes you want him even more. he leans into your touch as soon as you reach for him like moth drawn to flames.

“right.” he declares as if he’s been reminded of something when he comes in contact with one of the ridge of the rock on your middle finger. it’s your own engagement ring you ordered with seokjin’s. when the man spoke about getting you one, you’d held up your left hand and told him you already had one made. in fact, you never took it off since the day you put it on - which was the same day it came it.

understandably, you’re always wearing more than a ring on your hand - it’s easy to mix up between the ring from your personal collection or a ring of promise. especially when you didn’t tell him you got one made for yourself.

the hand on your cheek is warm as it brushes against your cheekbones, your rolls off his tongue like sweet honey, “what did i ever do to make you think i don’t love you?”

you blink once. you heard his words but your mind isn’t registering anything. but it seems your heart has seem to figure it out from the way it’s accelerating, you’re afraid seokjin might hear it. “wh-what?”

all of a sudden, you have this urge to pull the invisible blinds of his wall-window and hide from the peering rays of the sun. seokjin’s airy gaze. your fallen dress strap. the gentle protrusion in his pants. your own mussed up hair - you want to keep this moment all to yourself.

he pecks your forehead one last time. this lips curling into a smile - he knows you heard him. loud and clear and you have a feeling you’ll be hearing it at the most unpredictable moment from now on. so there’s no rush.

“where should we go for dinner?”

seokjin knows they call him the doctor version of a mad scientist. he knows a plenty of many things. like how he’s more strict with the junior physicians under his care. but that’s only because if he treats them below their potential, they’ll end up being that.

but the part where suho jokingly told him that he was crazy for working on holidays - maybe he was.

he’d moved out as soon as he turned 18 and eventually cut off his parents. before, even if it was just for show, he still got to see them during those functions they held.

but by the time he graduated college and started interning as a doctor - he was already erasing part of his existence. and his parents didn’t seem to notice. it made it cutting them off effortless.

but then, loneliness - pure, unadulterated loneliness started to sink its claws into him. so he turned to work even more. built his life around it.

by the time he became a fellow, he had absolutely zero social life. the only human interaction he had was with his patients - but they come and go. sure they’re grateful for him - and since the private hospital he’s working at is frequented mostly by the richest, he’d received gifts like cars or gold bars from one of his elderly patients who were convinced they were going to die - until they woke up from a successful surgery done by seokjin himself. but they eventually forget him.

and of course, he returned those gifts. he’d be no different than his parents - than the people he wished not to see anymore after he left that world. but the one thing he thought he wanted - the one thing he thought would make him happy, started to burn him out. every birthday was just a reminder that he’s half the age his soul is.

he’s worn and tired and losing sight of that man he told himself to be by a certain age.

that is, until you came along. at first, it was just courtesy that he listened to what you had to say - apparently you were the ceo. and quite literally, his boss. at first, he thought you were messing with him when you asked for his hand in marriage - no one just waltzes in and propose to someone they don’t know.

even those convenient marriages don’t go this way. but he’d accepted it anyway.

it has more to do with those eyes of yours than the chairman position. those eyes - they remind him so much of himself. the current him. except where his soul wanes, yours thirsts to thrive. like a dying cactus refusing to dry out.

you had thorns but picking them out wasn’t a problem - you’d been disconcerted at first but you’d quickly learn to use it to your advantage. telling him only the truth or nothing. since evasion and half-truths don’t work on him the way they would work on the people you probably surrounded yourself with. and he knew exactly what type of people they were.

eventually, you started telling him the blunt, honest truth. it threw him off a few times - like when you’d straight out told him that you knew who sowon was and still went for him. and that time when you admitted that he was the second man to receive your proposal - the first being that brat, taehyung. and then, you’d straight out asked him about why he didn’t want you attending functions anymore instead of ignoring his request like his parents would. or flip out of shame for having your lie found out. you were forbearing but firm. sometimes, it felt like you were much older than him.

but then you had a childish side to you too - it was food for his soul. every time he was with you, he felt like himself again. like that boy who applied for a job at the hospital with only his wits and his will backing him up. at first, he’d only saw that side of you in front of your most treasured people. your father. your mother. taehyung.

what you and taehyung have - seokjin will never come close to comprehend. a bond so strong, not even death could tear you apart. it became apparent too soon to seokjin that taehyung dominated parts of your life and he’ll only have a but a crevice of his presence in yours. your smile would always be a little brighter when you’re with the younger man. eyes always drifting away from him to taehyung.

and he was content with that but he thinks you’ve changed. or maybe it’s him that did. because you’re grinning at him now - like there’s something up your sleeves. and there is - his eyes widen at your brazenness. one minute he was admiring the way you lasted for hours in those heels that you just kicked off - you’d been wearing them starting from the ceremony to the reception and finally the after party but the next minute, you were grinning and pulling him with you down onto the velvet sheets. the your dress has ridden up to just below your knees in the process and seokjin’s caressing your exposed calf - he thinks you’re all the more delicate. your skin, too soft. he’s afraid he might bruise you.

“oh,” you speak into his mouth before pulling away without even a peck on his lips - but there’s a twinkle in your eyes when you pick up a small golden box that sat prettily on the night stand, “almost forgot. for you.”

“i didn’t get you a wedding gift.” he announces, pushing down the suspicion dominating his brain but how can he not pull out the ribbon to find out what you’ve prepared for him, when you’re looking at him like that? all grin and proud and saying something like you didn’t need one.

then his face falls and he’s looking at you deadpanned in the eye after noting the too familiar tablet of blue pills. but the frown doesn’t live long - he finds himself shaking his head. a smile wedging itself on his own face, “viagra. really?”

“better safe than sorry, right?” it's not right context - usually, a condom would be involved where that sentenced is used. but you know from seokjin’s dazed stare that he doesn’t get it - but he chooses to admire your features instead.

it takes everything in you not to bury your face in his chest just because his stare is making you feel like a high school girl with a crush. his eyes don’t make you want to reel away from him and cover every scar and lies with a thick blanket anymore. perhaps it has something to do with the fact that there isn’t any that he hasn’t seen. both your flaws and your virtue - if he wanted to run away, there were plenty of chances for him to do so but he stayed and now - now, you’ll never let him go. hold him captive in your castle, smooth criminal. you lean and press a kiss on his lips - just to make him close his eyes.

when you pull away, his lips chases yours. just like moth drawn to flames. you can’t help but giggle - it’s cut short when his hand weaves itself into your hair and bring you down to him.

you barely notice the hand that wraps around your wrist before your back hits the soft mattress. his shoulders appear more broad now that he’s hunched over you like a beast who hasn’t had a drop of water since the drought. at times like these you’re reminded of how man he is and how woman you are. a fact you seem to forget because he’s been playing along with your little games like a well-behaved child.

“hey, no fair!” lips pursed, you cross your arms in a show of protest. but he chuckles that soothing chuckle and he’s standing on his knees while the frame of his belt glints in warning.

your heart skips a beat at the sight of his arousal that was begging to be released from the confinements of his cobalt blue pants. the sigh he breathes out when he pulls down the zipper, sends shivers down your spine.but disappointment makes your face fall when he leaves it like that instead of pushing his pants down along with it.

that’s okay. you tell yourself. we’re married now-

you reach out for him only to have a hand wrap around your wrist, your fingers hovering achingly close to the gentle protrusion in his black boxers but not really touching.

you crane your neck to look at him but when your eyes meet, your words die in your throat. the smile is gone and in its place, is a tilted smirk, “are you sure? once we start i might not be able to stop.”

it’s that question that gets your heart writhing and crying to be set free from the confinement of your rib cages.

“seokjin,” the name tastes delectably sinful tonight, “i’ve never wanted anyone to fuck me this badly.”

maybe it’s the vow you’re making on the absolutely zero occasion where you’ve been this rapt by a man. maybe it’s your out of character use of the curse - that’s just how much you want this. or maybe it’s both. either way, seokjin’s gripping handfuls of your dress and you wordlessly raise your hands up for him to pull your dress off you.

it’s the way his eyes travel down your body. hunger. madness. lust. they meld together in those darkened eyes of his yet you’ve never felt so safe. he dives in for a kiss. this time, it’s raw and passionate and has no intention to stop halfway - not after he made it clear that he couldn’t and not after you pleaded for him to take you.

your white cotton bra is first to go - you only wore it because the straps won’t contrast too much with the strap of your dress. initially, you were going to tease him a bit and disappear into the bathroom to change into the lacy black lingerie set you’d specifically ordered to be custom made by victoria’s secret. but with the way he’s kneading your breast in his palm and the way you’re clawing against his clothed chest like a ravenous creature - the lingerie can wait.

“take off your clothes.” in your head, it sounded more demanding - but it comes out breathy and begging. a part of you chide yourself for waving the white flag before the game even began but another part of you is tired of being the only one bare and naked.

there’s a godless gleam in his eyes the moment he heard your request and you should have known seokjin wouldn’t make it that easy for you. this is karma coming back to bite you in your butt naked state after all those times you spent teasing the man and him accepting it without any complaint. you thought he was just mature enough to get over it. it turns out he was just a beast laying in wait to claim what he deserves, “what’s the magic word?”

“please.” you answer in a heartbeat.

that same heart stops beating the second he shakes his head. no. wrong answer. “the other one - do you really think i didn’t notice? the way you tease me - the way you know i won’t do anything about it because i’m older, i have to be a bigger person?”

that’s when your pride comes crashing in like tidal wave. walk away, it says. you take back what you said about having nothing to hide from seokjin - there’s one. and you thought you’d keep it with you. let it be buried in your grave. but he knows - like he knows every layer of your existence. your every desire and compulsion. it’s disgraceful and mortifying, for you. but seokjin holds your gaze and wait, wait, wait - he doesn’t seem to share your thoughts - doesn’t look disgusted either.

“daddy.” the moment the word leaves your mouth, you feel liberated. freed. like a long overdue confession. the pleased look on seokjin’s face is everything and more. “daddy, please.”

“as you wish.” he’s your liberator. your freer. and he’s about to grant your one carnal desire.

his clothes hit the ground within less than a minute. you can’t help but gawk at his perfectly sculpted physique. it’s like gods personally descended the heavens and blessed him in his mother’s womb and stayed by his side up until now - only for him to scorn them right in this moment. your body bounces off the bed lightly when his fingers dig in your thigh, pulling you closer like a ragged doll. a small yelp escapes you.

your panties are the last to go. discarded somewhere on the floor along with yours and his wedding attire.

the first whimper escapes the moment he slips into you, but not fully. he lets you take him in, get used to his size and directs your hand to his lips before placing it on his shoulder. as if telling you, you can hurt him, claw him until his back is raw and bleeding.

you wouldn’t at first - opting to keep your hands fisted while you try your hardest to suppress every moan that erupts from your mouth with every stroke. but then he hits that sweet spot. your back arches forward and you think it’s that moment when your fingers break the delicate skin on his back - but you can’t remember. it’s a blur - the electricity coursing from your heart through your veins and curls your toes. the stars you see in the back of your mind and the way you tighten around him when the delectable sound of his moans brushes the shell of your ear as he holds you against him.

he almost crushed him underneath his weight when he pulls out of you. the traces of his arousal pressing in between your bodies as he forces himself up by propping himself on his forearms. his labored breath fans your face and he’s all you see.

there’s still a surplus of tingle in your lower abdomen how high he takes you - almost like cloud nine. and you’re slick with sweat and body fluid but there’s no where you’d rather be than here, in your husband’s arms.

five months ago, you approached him with the objective of gaining a husband to take the chairman position and maybe give you the grandchild that your mother’s been asking you for. you didn’t expect for anything more than what you bargained for. but the first time he told you how he felt - you still didn’t believe him.

it was too surreal. and seokjin probably saw the tendrils of doubt every time he tells you how he feels - at the most sporadic moment. but he kept picking your thorns one by one like he could do this for a hundred years and more. you think i was that day when he found out about your past feelings for taehyung that he started. and he finally picked all of your prickly spikes - and now, he’s holding you like a child. head buried in between your breasts, muscled arms loosely hugging your waist. what a contrasting different to the man he was half an hour ago but so very seokjin of him.

the elated breath he lets out with his sigh is warm on your skin, “you know how to make an old man feel young.”

there he does it again. he’s been saying he’s old even though he’s only in his 30′s. at first you thought he was joking but over time - you think he truly believes he is. but when you agree with him-

“is your back okay? wouldn’t want your ancient bones breaking.” you pat his head sympathetically.

almost as if you’ve pushed a that button with a flashy warning red on it, his fingers twine around your wrist and pull it away from his head. the bed shifts as he hovers over you with an aggrieved glint, “i’m sure there are greater things that little mouth of yours can do than express your concerns for my back, sweetheart.”

your heart skips a beat.

epilogue.

you love being married.

not because you can strut to seokjin’s office and have everyone know you have every right to be there. nor because the board can’t really say anything since seokjin fits every characteristics of a chairman either. but because-

“we’ve been at it like rabbits,” seokjin shoulder line jolts slightly when your arms gently wrap around him from behind but there’s a sort of mirth laced in his voice, “you’re still not tired?”

“what ever do you mean, dear husband?” your voice is sweet but not entirely innocent.

sure, you did it an hour ago and you’re both supposed to get ready for bed but when you stepped out of the bathroom and find the bed empty, you had to wander outside. you know he’d be in the living room reviewing past years’ reports in his preparation to take on your dad’s position. he could just step up first and get familiar with his job along the way - but it wouldn’t have been very seokjin to enter the battlefield without polishing his armor.

he smells like peppermint and lavender. donning a plain white shirt and grey sweats - it’s the second most dressed down you’ve ever seen him in compared to the white-collars you’re so used to seeing him in. the first, being when he’s in bed, of course.

“okay, well, i’m going to bed first.” with a peck on his cheek, you bid him a good night.

but it’s not in your nature to give up without a fight - or rather, without sauntering in front him in your pastel pink camisole. you put on the a black and gold corset on your first monthivasery - it was just an excuse for you to try on the lingerie and it paid off. but there’s just something about camisoles - floral or plain pastels are what gets him prancing on you like a hungry beast. it looks like you’re not the only one with a fetish.

the cleaner comes in every twice a week and you’re not here enough to mess up the place except the master bedroom - like seokjin said, you have been going at it like rabbits. still, you bend down, making sure your ass is perked a little higher as you rearrange the picture frames on the rack under the tv.

a tune of your favorite song vibrates against your throat for thirty-six seconds before you straighten your back and begin to walk towards the bedroom. but something you caught in your periphery halts your steps, “did you just check out my ass then bite your lip? ‘cause if you did we’re having sex. right now.”

that seems to catch him off guard - you’ve been finding new and creative ways to get fucked. some worked. and by worked, you mean it had you moaning and writhing as he took you raw. some failed. meaning he had relented mainly because you were asking and he wanted to please you - at times like those, he was the one lying down, watching you ride him but halfway through, he’d pulled you down and started fucking you missionary because ‘you were good darling, but watching you makes me want to personally fuck you senseless. you can ride me next time, i promise.’

either way, your work life is superb and your sex life is out of this world. especially with a husband like seokjin. guess that dry spell has finally lifted and unleashed the hungry beast in him.

seokjin sighs, eyebrows coming together in a troubled frown but the lump in his pants say otherwise. “when you’re sore and need me to walk you to your office tomorrow, remember you asked for this.”

something in the pit of your stomach churns. your heart races with adrenaline as he takes two steps with those long legs of his and close the distance. a yelp escapes your lips, not expecting him to hoist you over his shoulder like you weight nothing and landing a smack on your ass like he’s reprimanding you.

“seokjin! put me down, i’m heavy!” you cry out, smacking his back in protest. when you wanted him to take you, this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind - it’d be a completely, perfect lie if you say you weren’t dripping with excitement.

“this way’s faster than your tiny little legs, darling.” you can hear the smirk in his voice before he kisses the exposed skin on your hip.

note: and that’s it. but it’s not over yet! there might be drabbles coming up on our fav couple’s adventure as they try to get preggo lmaooo also i’ll be doing a ‘story time’ where i talk about the background of this fic - what inspired me to write it, why i titled it like the way i did and i’d like to dissect and oc and tae’s relationship and so much more. send me an ask if you have something in particular you want me to address from the fic!

if you like this fic feel free to check out namjoon’s version called good guys finish last. i’m also planning to turn this au into a series for every member. taehyung or yoongi will be next!

#bts smut #kim seokjin smut #bts seokjin smut #bts #kim seokjin #bts fanfic #bts fic #bts scenarios #seokjin fanfic #seokjin fic #seokjin scenarios #kim seokjin fic #kim seokjin fanfic #kim seokjin scenarios #bts seokjin scenarios #bts seokjin fanfic #bts seokjin fic #bts x reader #bts x yn

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crushing-on-nico-di-angelo · 4 years ago

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I’m very very influenced by a tik tok that I saw ages ago by user solaryze

Who was, in turn, influenced by Minuiko on tumblr, but I would like to talk about how Nico di Angelo and Leo Valdez are not on opposite ends of an introvert-extrovert scale, and if they are, they’re not on the ends you’d think they are.

Nico di Angelo is not an introvert. If you go through and explore the way his character changed and shifted from the Titans Curse all the way to Tower of Nero (SPOILERS), it’s definitely easy to think that Nico would be an introvert. He withdraws from people, he doesn’t like to interact in a group, he’s awkward around many people. Classic introvert traits. He’d rather be alone than anything else. However, he also went through a lot of trauma. First off, just going through the time switch from when he was born (1932) to the Lotus casino for well over half a century to present day in the Titans Curse (2007) is enough to traumatize anyone, but even before that, he had the loss of a parent-- really, two parents, because after Maria died Hades dipped-- who died because he existed. That isn't even the end of it. His sister, the only constant in his life, basically abandoned him, then went on a quest and died too. Then he discovers that he has powers inherently linked to death and pain. That’s enough to scar anyone. He decides that he isn’t worth being around anymore at the mere age of 10 and runs away to gods know where. He goes into the labyrinth, alone, at eleven years old. More trauma, but he survives and proves to himself he can do things by himself. Proves he should do things by himself. How is he operate in a group now? He can’t, he shouldn’t. It only leads to pain.

but

Let’s not forget that Nico is a chatterbox. Him not trusting himself to talk doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. Remember the start of Titan’s curse, where he kept talking about Mythomagic and asking Percy question after question and generally being a nuisance to everyone around him (I say this with full love)? That is important. After that, we mainly get dark, brooding Nico who hates Percy because he loves him, so we don’t get much of that anymore. Then... tartarus. And the jar. Then we get his perspective, finally. And we can see how dependent he is on having a group of people around him to energize him. Yes, Reyna was physically supplying him with power, but she was also doing so emotionally. His health improved, despite the fact that it was also deteriorating due to the constant shadow travel. He’s learning to trust other people, so he still generally keeps to himself, but just being around Gleeson and Reyna helps, a lot. He becomes so protective of them that he ends up damning a man to hell over it, which, one could argue that since he had never done that before he may have gotten stronger from being around others. We don’t really get to see his extroverted side. But then we get to TOA 1. Nico sits at mealtime with Will and the other Apollo kids because being around other people is better for his health. Then TOA 5. (SPOILERS ARE HERE) He was well respected and got along well with the subterranean creatures who function as a huge family. Will disliked it because of what the creatures were, but recognized that they were important to his boyfriend (both for questing reasons and because Nico had another, albeit untrustworthy, group. Mainly for questing reasons though). Nico thrived once he finally had a group, a home, and a family. He got his life and his energy back because he had people around him. That’s what makes him an extrovert.

I’m going to add leo’s part to this tomorrow.

#percyjackson #heros of olympus #percy jackson #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #leo valdez #percy jackson and the olympians #character analysis #first post #fandom #this is literally my first post on tumblr #how the hell do i tag this #introvert #extrovert #fun?#whimsy's post

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prose-for-hire · 4 years ago

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Guardian of the lost soul

Pairing: Spike x reader

Request: if what the reader dress as an angel (kinda like Supernatural angels) and she finds the scoobies gang in the haunted house with the costumes magically change them. (you know the episode ^-^) only this time , Spike sees her wings and in angel terms that's a soulmate.

Requested by: @everlastingartist

A/N: Kind of a soulmate au I think? I am not familiar with the Supernatural angels (yet - I plan on actually watching it soon) I did google them and I’m still none the wiser lol. So this is my own interpretation of what was requested! I chose a guardian angel, and twisted it in my own way. It is very made up but that’s what I’m here to do!

Also I mashed up two Halloween episodes together for this one but Spike doesn’t have a chip. Not even a soul. But he finds his soulmate.🖤🦇

You loved Halloween in Sunnydale, it never disappointed. The pumpkins were freshly carved, there was candy everywhere you turned and kids really did love dressing up and making a nuisance of themselves. Even when you were running for your life the mood always picked up somewhere after midnight. And hey, being friends with a very protective Slayer had its benefits.

You were basically skipping around the streets, you were excited about going to the haunted house. You had tried to convince Willow, along with buffy to take the ghost costume off but she flat out refused. Even when you begged all the way to the party. You wanted to get to the end so you could join the party with your friends and you waited briefly for everyone to show up so you could enter together. While you and Willow waited outside, a figure in a dark cloak pushed past you. There was something about them that you recognised but they muttered some insult at you for being in their way so you decided to just ignore them. Eventually, everyone arrived and you were able

You had chosen to dress as an angel. A guardian angel. Not the stereotypical kind, one you had read of in some of Giles’ thick mythology books. You had been bored and the passages had been surprisingly interesting in an I’m-so-bored-I’d-read-the-back-of-a-cereal-packet kind of way. It spoke of the kinds of angels, of the truth about how they operate rather than those spoken of in popular culture. Some of your costume was white however as you wanted people to at least recognise what you had come as (although nobody except Willow had got it).

You went through the various rooms together and had a laugh at some of the more ridiculous spooks in the house. There had been a slight tension a few words exchanged but mostly you were having a nice time. Everyone was squabbling over which way to go next and you had lost interest, managing to break away from the others.

As you did this, you saw the hooded figure again. You were sure you recognised the flashes you had seen of the person’s face. You left your friends for a moment to tap them on the shoulder and who should turn to face you but the big bad of the moment. Spike. You hadn’t faced him alone yet but he had always singled you out when you were with the others. The conversation always turned suggestive, which annoyed Buffy to no end and made you try to hide yourself when you were with the others.

You couldn’t lie and say you didn’t love the attention though. Hope that he would catch your eye. You longed for even a moment alone with him, although you were well aware of the danger. You couldn’t help like him but there was no way you would ever admit that to your friends.

“What’re you doing here?” You asked, trying to suppress a smile.

“Thought I’d drop by… see what tasty… treats Halloween has to offer” He closed the space between you as his voice became a little huskier with every step. His hand was on the wall, palm flat against it. His arm blocking you in as he slowly scanned your body before returning to your face.

“What has the devil got in store for you this Halloween do you reckon pet?” He asked, the smirk audible in his voice, “Somethin’ naughty no doubt…” He added, biting his lip teasingly.

“I’m an angel. Always preferred them anyway” You shrugged. It had been a very low blow and when you saw his expression darkening into anger rather than lust, you backtracked – knowing better than to get him mad, “To the devil, I mean”

“Bollocks – where are the wings? The halo? And you’re not foolin’ anyone wearing that white-” he gestured wildly to the corresponding area where each item should have been with the hand that wasn’t leaning against the wall. You smiled, about to respond when someone interrupted.

“Spike!” Buffy shouted, having turned to find you in the haunted house. She was relieved to see you (as she had lost the others) but she was not pleased to see the vampire that still had you boxed in, pressed pretty close against you.

Buffy made light work of hauling him away and trying to throw him out of the house completely. She tried to find the front door but it had gone. You were now aware you were trapped inside this now truly haunted house. No, it was worse. It had turned into a murder house as half the student body upstairs had started to scare themselves to death almost before the real threat had.

Everyone was rushing past you and as Spike smelled fresh blood, he ran in the opposite direction to where the others were coming from, straight into the carnage. His stomach was rumbling and he was ready for a decent meal.

Everything was going on at once and you wanted it to slow down, or at least give you chance for a breather. There were too many threats at play tonight. As if the powers had requested it this way, a busy scene of threat and revelations for their own personal enjoyment.

As you tried again and again to leave and to help find the others, things started to get worse. You had now lost Buffy and were trying to find her by (you guessed it) calling out her name which was the best way to attract anything other than good luck. You had to fight off some cobwebs and now, your own body it seemed. You were hurting, doubled over. Something was happening. You sunk to your knees, grimacing. Nothing was going your way.

It was a strange night. The strangest Halloween you had experienced. The others were lost and at the same moment, Willow turned into a real ghost. Xander a real soldier and Buffy was now a genuine high society lady from the 1700s. It was spooky and not in a cute way.

You had managed to get to your feet, pulling on the cobwebs as they attacked your head again. As you looked down checking you had removed any stray webbing, you saw that you were glowing. Literally. You appeared human still - no wings or halos but there was a strange feeling that you had aged hundreds of years in just a few seconds. Not in appearance, that was still your skin and your face. But in knowledge. As if you had read every book known to man and then some. You felt powerful. Strange.

You walked around, able to know what was happening in every room. You managed to get places just by thinking about it. Able to protect people before they succumbed to the terrors the house had in store. You didn’t know how this was happening, but you knew better than to question it.

You had hope. You had a purpose and you were getting used to adapting to different people and their needs. That was until it came to something you needed. You turned and saw your friends through a two way mirror. They had all found each other but you couldn’t get to them. They were trying to remember who they were and come up with a plan. You started to panic, banging your fist on the mirror that you could see them through but they didn’t hear you. You hurriedly left through a side door to try and get to them seeing as your previous power wasn’t working. But you never made it to your friends. You had walked straight into someone. The one someone that you always managed to find, no matter what.

Spike had appeared. He seemed the same except... was that a heart beat? You frowned as he stepped towards you, the swagger still in tact.

“You listened to me then, pet? About time” He muttered as you looked at him confused. You didn’t understand. You looked around for some kind of clue until he spoke again, “The wings. You put ‘em on. Knew it would complete the look… not that you need to be wearing any more clothin’ items” He added, the trademark smirk on his face as he almost prowled towards you further.

“I’m not wearing any wings…” You said slowly as he came to stand right in front of you, leaving not so much as room to breath between you. He frowned, and looked behind you before looking back into your eyes. He could see the wings as clear as anything. They had a large wingspan, it was kind of impossible to miss. He reached out the touch them and you felt his fingers. You frowned, checking behind you. There they were, bat-like rather than the feathered kind you had expected and almost translucent whilst appearing closer to your skin tone. He found them aesthetically very appealing. Almost as if it were a part of you. He just stared, almost in awe as he felt they were warm the texture as soft as your skin.

It came to you suddenly. The folklore you had been researching. The mythology. The only one that may see the wings of the angel is their soulmate. Their one eternal love. It was said that every angel had a soulmate and that no matter how long they lived, they should find their soul no matter how seemingly impossible. No matter how many times they were lost, they would always be found. And you had found yours. Your love.

You and Spike had been less than useless during the fight to escape the haunted house and regain your own lives back. You were perfectly happy right here. Locked in each others gaze. A happiness neither of you had felt before until this moment. Until this revelation. You had been sharing. Talking so easily to one another. Him telling you stories of his past, and you surprising yourself with stories of your own. Ones that could match his. You felt an entrenched need to protect him. To hold you into him so that no harm could ever befall him.

The chaos going on around you was now secondary to your story. You holed up in a room together, Spike never looking away from you. The guardian angel in you was screaming for you to help the others again, but your heart was set on him. On relearning of your love. You had faith in your friends abilities anyway.

He leaned in, his thumb trailing your face and lingering near your lips. He had thought about this for so long. His usual crude quips had been founded in truth. Forged to both show how he felt and camouflage them at the same time. He felt for you so deeply his soul had made an unwitting appearance back into his life. Whenever you were around his heart felt as if it may break free from his ribcage in the hopes of greeting yours.

You closed your eyes as he did, the build up to this kiss achingly slow. You could feel his breath on his face he was so close. His touch was warm and familiar, his lips made for yours. You could feel it. The anticipation almost became too much as he finally grazed your lips.

But, just as suddenly as it was cast, the spell broke. The feeling of danger returned to your gut as you were in Spike’s presence. Your kiss never deepening. Your stomach flipping as you snapped opened your eyes. Spike’s vampire instincts kicked back in and it was resoundingly telling him that he was hungry. Your scent was so enticing to him, his face changed of its own accord. His fangs so close to you but you knew he wouldn’t kill you. You knew it as if it were fact. As if it were gravity or the colour of the sky being blue. Spike loved you and wouldn’t harm you. They were each true sentences, you had never been so sure.

Buffy, however, now fresh from being bound in the sensibilities of a woman with no aspirations other than to be pretty was ready for a fight. She had fought to escape the haunted house and now she would fight the nearest big bad in sight. Spike. She wrenched him from your neck.

But when he drew back, he had the same look in his eye as he had only moments before. Your soulmate was still right here in front of you, there was nobody that could convince you otherwise. And believe me, Spike really tried since then.

Buffy and Spike traded blows. Neither became victorious, but you were able to leave the house and Giles had somehow managed to force Ethan Rayne into reversing the curse he had put on your costumes.

After that long Halloween night, your mind barely stopped thinking about him. Sometimes you walked around after dark to see if he would come along and pretend to eat you as an excuse to just talk to you. He often wished to find an excuse to see you. Without knowing what it was, he felt it too. Deep within. Stronger since Halloween night. Sometimes he found himself standing around in places he knew you would frequent just so he could watch you. Catch a glimpse of you. Although, he had been doing this before Halloween as well.

You remembered so much more than that night, however. Memories that should have been long since buried of you and Spike finding each other over and over in other places and times still lingered as you wished his thumb still would along your jaw. You still remembered those memories and you wrote them all down before you could forget. They were like dreams, something you knew so well but struggled to recall in enough detail to satisfy.

You would forever carry a piece of his soul around with you now. That feeling just couldn’t go away, you wouldn’t let it. It was as if his soul were a locket hung around your neck. You would guard it with your life. Keep it close to your heart.

He would come back to you, you were sure of it and you were happy to wait until that day came.

#A very Buffy halloween #Spike btvs #Spike x reader #Spike x you #Spike imagine #btvs #btvs x reader #btvs imagine #btvs x you #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffy the vampire slayer imagines #gender neutral #gender neutral reader #gender not mentioned #soulmate au #kind of #Halloween #halloween fic #Halloween request

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sincerelysober · 3 years ago

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Addiction & Weak Spots

Every addict has their weak spots where it’s easy for this disease to enter your life again. I guess you can also call them triggers. I feel triggers is a concept that is beaten to death in rehab, meetings, and therapy. Basically, we all can identify at least a few of our major triggers. But I like referring to them as “weak spots” because it’s a term I have never considered before.

For me I am weakest when I am alone. I am normally a shy and quiet person, but I do like to be around people. I can be sociable and not be a nuisance while sober. When I’m alone I used to look for a drink because that feeling of being “tipsy” or “drunk” made being by myself seem more fun. When in actuality it harmed me more than I realized. If someone needs me in an emergency, I can’t get in a car to help. If someone offers for me to go over or go out, I’ll be an annoyance because I’m already drunk. When my ex-fiancé came home he was upset to never be greeted sober. I need to get comfortable being alone and learn how to handle it & my time better.

Being overwhelmed is probably the second biggest weak spot that I have, which seems like the complete opposite of being lonely. When I get too overwhelmed a drink used to calm me down and numb everything. The things I were overwhelmed about would slip away like a heavy rain on a windshield. In the end it never went well. Being drunk would lead me to either procrastinate or get nothing done at all. Only causing that overwhelming feeling to build. Hence a vicious cycle.

Going along with being overwhelmed, having anxiety is my third weak spot. Mostly this would be if I was out at a bar or a party with people I didn’t really know. I’m an awkward and shy person. I would use taking sips from my drink to busy my hands. Further than that though, I would sometimes do shots for the sole purpose of getting drunk to allow myself to loosen up and stuff the anxiety down. Thinking back though, the regret/embarrassment in the morning was probably worse than just dealing with my anxiety heads on.

#addiction #recovery #addiction journal #recovery journal #self healing #self care #Alcoholics Anonymous #addictionrecovery #sober life #sobriety

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phoebehalliwell · 3 years ago

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Ok I feel like I gotta do Prue/Jack + S4 (where Ptue doesn’t die 🥺)

hmm i feel like this is really inchresting to do because like What would the tone of s4 be if prue lives are we still doing the source as the main plot bc let’s be real a lot of that plot was just them grieving prue really the only reason the source moved that fast was he needed to strike before paige was fully trained i’ve also stated before i don’t think we’d get queen of hell phoebe without prue’s death bc i think a really crucial element of her relationship with cole as things spiralled was prue’s death phoebe needed something she felt she could hold on to a family of her own that wouldn’t die on her. so i really dk how s4 would be structured i’m just gonna say it’s a little more episodic more like s3 than s4 and um that’s all i’ve got so far

okay so basically um. prue’s last relationship was jack. & not for lack of trying there were many one time appearances sometimes the occasional two time appearance but she just like. is not finding connection with anybody

so we’ll say in a sense of like. detoxing. like maybe all these men are empty because she doesn’t know what she truly wants she’s going to take a step back from dating which is just a sorry excuse for her to throw herself more into the craft and into work she’s going like 100mph with just like no sign of stopping and both piper and phoebe are looking at her like that concerned monkey puppet giving the side eye because like. this is so not sustainable.

but like. she needs to like. not die she needs to not die before she gives her life some meaning hopefully she’ll find that in photography and you know with all this witchcraft she’s kind of secretly hoping in the back of her mind that if they defeat the source she’ll be able to find love again she’ll be able to be prue again bc lately she doesn’t really feel like anything anymore she hasn’t been sleeping much lately she hasn’t really been doing anything other than work, whether that be mortal or witchy

anyways. we’ll say there is an innocent under attack by the demon of the week n who should that innocent be other than one jack sheridan who is just like. completely floored by the fact prue is a witch. actually scratch that you know what this all makes perfect sense this is why you were always running off to disappear is this how you got that collection in the ms. hellfire episode that time you had a baby was that even your cousin like. this all makes so much sense. except for the magic part what the fuck.

and like. the have to watch him so he doesn’t die and both piper and phoebe immediately turf that duty to prue like you were the one that dated him and prue’s like no no no leo leo can you watch him and leo’s like sure : ) and then like ten minutes later like gets a whitelighter call and he’s like actually i can’t watch him and prue’s like fuck and jack’s like hey did you know that guy was born in like 1920?

and it’s just like. god prue really doesn’t want to be there because like. no. not now. dude she’s so focused she’s so honed in she can’t i mean jack no not now he’s such he’s such a distraction a nuisance he’s. she can’t do this now.

and like. jack’s well aware she’s trying to pass the job onto someone else i mean how else do you get stuck with the brother in law so he’s just like are you really that scared of rekindling old romance and prue’s like no i’m just worried that i’m going to be exposed to how insufferable you are and knowing that i dated you for a very Very brief period is going to make me die from the embarrassment of it all and jack just smiles like yeah i missed you too and prue really tries not to smile back but it’s not working which only makes jack smile more because god for some reason no one gets under her skin quite like him

and piper and phoebe are making fun of her from the doorway while also pretending to be too busy to be able to deal with that

so idk prue’s like doing witch stuff to make sure he doesn’t die and jack’s just really fidgetity because like. he hates not being able to do stuff like he always does Stuff and he can’t do anything literally this is so fucking boring aaaaaaaa and prue’s kinda laughing from her cauldron because she never really noticed how much you know jack hates being useless being stagnant because he always comes off as like. such a useless man but thinking back to their time at bucklands oh shit yeah. he is kinda like that.

speaking of work,, oh shit!! there’s a very important photography thing that she’s supposed to be doing right now but she forgot bc she’s like. babysitting her ex right now fuck fuck fuck fuck she can’t like. abandon the task at hand and jack’s like it’s okay i can handle this work thing and prue’s hella hesitant to let him bc it’s her Job that shit’s insanely important and he’s like hey do you trust me or not partner and prue’s like fine bc what other option does she have and honestly? she does really trust jack he’s saved her ass more than once at bucklands like. she trusts him

so jack does that everything goes over smoothly he poses as like her assistant yeah ms. halliwell is away at the moment can i take a message and prue’s rolling her eyes in the corner but this is really the first time jack is exposed to prue’s career in photography and he’s like prue this is really good i mean this is Really Good i mean not that i’d really expect anything else but like. wow <3

and prue’s just like yep thanks well leo’s back so gotta run byeee and jack’s like cool 😐✌ and she is outta there faster than a bat out of hell and piper and phoebe who were eavesdropping the whole time are like ???? where are you going and prue’s like to go do this to go do that you know some really flimsy excuse and they’re like?? anyone could have done thatare you running from jack?

and prue’s like no. and they’re like you totally are dude wtf i thought you were just complaining about how you can never find a spark with anybody and now they last guy you had any real chemistry with lands in your lap and you’re pawning him off on leo?

and prue’s like what do you want me to do? what, rekindle romance until the demon’s vanquished and then never seem him again? no? then what? keep him around until a demon actually succeeds at killing him why would i do that i’m not gonna keep him around just so he can die

and both piper and phoebe definitely have that awakening moment like ohh those andy scars run deep huh (but this also signals that we’re placing him on a level with andy aka signalling some endgame type shit) and prue has never really vocalized any of those thoughts hell she didn’t even quite realize she had them but like. shit. it’s true!!

and piper’s like it doesn’t have to be true and prue’s like well it is. anyone we love dies. you’re just lucky bc your husband’s already dead and piper’s like well i mean like and prue’s like no think about it think about everything that happens in this house everything we go through and you think Jack can weather that?

and phoebe’s like well does he want to? and prue just looks at her totally dismissive and phoebe’s like well no because if he wants to then i think he can like. he’s not going in blind right he knows we’re witches he knows there are demons he’s being hunted by one now like. if he’s still willing to stay after all that shouldn’t you at least give it a shot

and prue oh god she so doesn’t want to because if she does open herself up to that possibility and then jack very understandably says no this is too much i’d like to not die thank you tho she doesn’t want to do that.

anyway. we defeat the demon blah blah blah and we have prue back at jack’s house like okay well it was really good to see you great job not dying um. see you again??? because like. will she see him again? and jack’s okay the demon’s vanquished? and prue’s like yes. and jack’s like so nothing’s going to jump outta my walls and drag me to hell in the middle of the night? and prue’s like probably and jack’s like probably?? and prue’s like well i don’t want to make any major promises there’s always a slim chance that Could happen and jack’s like well okay i feel like i would kinda want a super powerful witch by my side in case that does what my chances of that and prue’s like actually, keeping me around only increases your odds of being killed by a demon and jack’s like oh. you wanna stay anyways?

and it’s a redux of heartbreak city where they just like. talk. like that’s it and it’s been so long since prue’s had a conversation this long like it’s insane how much she just like missed this how much like. like how much she genuinely enjoys being around him. n then she like. falls asleep. just conks out

and 7:30am jack’s phone is ringing off the hook and jack answers it like hello? and piper’s like hi are you still alive and jack’s like morning to you to yes i am and she’s like is prue there? and jack’s like yeah she’s alive too do you wanna talk to her and piper’s like yes

& he hands it to prue who’s still like very much asleep and she’s like mmhello and piper’s like hi?? and prue’s like is there an emergency and piper’s like well it’s past seven and you aren’t already on your third cup of coffee i was worried you had been killed or something and prue’s like ha ha. i was asleep. and piper’s like asleep?? prue you never even sleep anymore and prue’s like oh yeah hmm. bc tbh she’s still kind of asleep she’s not at full cognitive function so she’s like nothing’s wrong and piper’s like no nothing’s wrong and prue’s like okay i’m going to go back to sleep then

anyways she gets home at like. 11. and piper and phoebe are losing their Shit like prue!?!? and prue’s like what?? we didn’t even have sex (piper begrudgingly slides phoebe a tenspot) i just fell asleep whats the big deal and piper and phoebe are like !!!!!!!!!!!

idk n then they like. go on to do the casual cat and mouse type game bc neither of them wants to run back into a relationship bc well jack fell really in love with her last time and honestly he still is he doesn’t know if he has it in him to be left by her again pure on the flip side like a) doesn’t want jack to die but also b) doesn’t want him to leave

so they’re not Dating but they also just keep ending up together bc they like each other <3 but no not like that they’re not dating no just friends haha yep friends yeah just two friends who look like they’re both pining for each other but not in a not in an i’m in love with them way lol just in a you make me feel safe and comfortable like i’m at home but also you still manage to keep me on my house and you always make me smile kind of way you know pssh no big deal

idk we get a big moment where um. shure we’ll say we’re getting ready for the final battle with the source and prue’s like okay well fuck it because i might die and i don’t want to die without telling you that i love you and kisses him and jack’s like !!!! okay well you can’t die now what. and then she doesn’t <3 and they go on to live happily ever after <3

#charmed #prue x jack #💌#tbh i'm like. always a big fan of the whole to be loved is to rest notion or whatever #& i think that's at the heart of prue/jack is just like. like idk the silliness of it #it's so unlike the really hardass life prue lives #so with him it's just like. like she's able to sleep through the night like. that's where it's at

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lublycho · 4 years ago

Text

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝘽𝙚 𝘿𝙖𝙢𝙣𝙚𝙙 — CH. 2

𝓜𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓹𝓸𝓼𝓽.

⇛ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫: 2; The Queen on the Hill

⇛ 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞!𝐚𝐮, 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥!𝐚𝐮, 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬!𝐚𝐮, 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐲!𝐚𝐮

⇛ 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Lee Jeno x Reader, (some Jaemin x reader)

⇛ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Detailed and altered accounts of war and historical figures, I don’t know the dynamics of the two cities mentioned in the text so excuse any mistakes, character death(s), violence, mentions of blood, swearing (?) Also this is worth like 30k words so read at your own risk lol.

⇛ 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: You stop aging at 18 until you’ve met your soulmate, after which you’ll start again. Jeno—your soulmate—has killed you throughout your lifetimes so he can live forever. This lifetime, though, you were born remembering. It’s not everything, but you’re going to make it count.

⇛ listen to; I am hers, she is mine - got, the last the I made - Pim stones, Visions of Gideon - Sufjan Stevens (basically just listen to the playlist to add to the experience) 𝓟𝓵𝓪𝔂𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽.

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𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚, 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝. 𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙡. 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙤 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙧𝙮, 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙥 𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙬𝙣 -- 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴, 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 1, 𝘱𝘢𝘨𝘦 12.

───※ ·❆· ※───

A sullen morning welcomes you with angry pelts of rainfall, its hefty drops clinging to the window panes in their nonchalant desperation. They slide downwards, despite their initial resistance against the force of nature, and you track down their path with your fingers, losing the raindrops as you're losing your time. The clock in the corner of your room flashes an ungodly hour, your phone lying helplessly on the bed rings with a desperate call. You ignore the two nuisances effectively, until one of them grows to blare an unnerving sound, and you're left with no choice but to pull away from the window and fall back into the darkness of your room.

It's almost 3pm. You should be up on your feet now, trailing your way back to the place you met Jeno yesterday, lest you lose your chance at finding answers too. The tale of your first life is all you think about for the longest time, wondering if you were just as desperate to cling to life in your last moments as the raindrops on your window.

Chasing whimsical hopes, finding dead ends. It's been your fate since the dawn of time, you presume, picking your buzzing phone from the bed. The screen is alive with your mom's caller ID flashing in the void, its vibrations rattling down your spine. You take a deep breath and slide the green icon on the screen.

"Y/n, what is the meaning of this?!" your mom asks, her voice blaring through the speakers. You keep the phone a good distance away from your ears, not wanting the cacophonous sound to cause them any damage.

"Well, good morning to you too mom," you say, turning towards the window again.

You prepare yourself for her voice when it comes, expecting it to be nothing short of a clamour filled with agony and disappointment.

"You said you'd be coming back home today!" your mother yells, living up-to your expectations. There's shuffling on her end, and you know she's out in her garden, the only place she can dare to speak to her daughter so bravely.

She is angry about the text you sent her a week ago, the one written after a terrible nightmare broke you apart, sending you in a fit of loud cries. I'm coming back mom, you had written, and sealed your defeat when you pressed the send button.

You were lost then, in a condition worse than the day you first decided to move out of your hometown, and head out to find a life in Seoul. A new life, a fresh life. Not one tainted by stupid nightmares or nonsensical fears, as your father liked to call them.

"Yes, well, I still have one more week of college left. There's this-this extra project we have to do—" Your mom speaks before you can finish with your absurd excuse, a bad habit she hasn't overcome till date.

"Y/n, my love, I know you're hurting, I know you want to come back home. We miss you. I miss you… even your father misses you-"

"Oh, does he?" your voice is bitter with the memory of two years ago. It plays in your mind, painting a picture of the night in your room. You feel your mother's fingers against your hair, stroking them to ward off your fears, and your father's angry voice resonating in the silence of your stifled cries.

"How long will we have to bear this?!" he growls, breath fuming in the air. "How many psychologists, how many therapists do we need to take her to? Tell me, y/n, why can't you be normal like the other kids for once?!"

You remember nuzzling into your mother's arms the louder your father's voice got, the fear and shame of not being normal or the good child weighing you down until it stripped you off all the pride you held dear to yourself.

It was a strange kind of pain; knowing a boy you only saw on billboards and TVs was shattering your whole life, tittering it into sharp little pieces as you stood and watched from afar. It was the day you became nothing that spurred you into the unrelenting need to be everything. Moving to Seoul a month later, under the rightful pretense of being accepted into a good college, was the first step towards fulfilling that need. Meeting Jeno was the second. Talking to him was the third, and coaxing answers out of him was the staircase to your sanity. Albeit steep. Albeit coiled. But as long as it led you closer to your destination, you weren't one to complain.

"I'm not coming back yet, mom," you answer after moments of contemplation, slowly turning away from your window and towards the hallway of your small apartment.

"You're not getting any better on your own," she pleads, her tone making you guilty as you walk up to the base of your main door, fishing an umbrella out of the cold metal rack in the corner.

"No. But at least I'm not screaming at TVs anymore. You should tell dad so he can finally relax knowing he didn't give birth to a psychopath." Your sarcastic tone does all but tamper down your mother's frustration. You pretend not to care.

"Y/n, please, you think I can’t hear the hurt behind your jokes? I’m your mother. Come back to us. Let us help you."

Ah. There it comes. The final straw to push you to your limits. Emotional blackmail has been your Achilles' heel for the longest time, and even now you can feel your heart moving at her words, numbing down to a fearful creature in your throbbing chest.

"A week more, mom. And I'll be home."

The call ends before she can say her goodbyes, or even agree to your decision in the first place.

The rain outside is a heavy shower, and as you step out, you hope it is strong enough to numb the quagmire in your chest.

───※ ·❆· ※───

It is a foolish thing to trust Jeno so soon. You realize it as soon as the first drop of rain sizzles on your skin, escaping the small, ragged umbrella you’ve suspended over yourself. Though his story mimics what you've seen in your memories, you wonder if the rest of his tale is true. The arrow, the fire, the dagger. It seems surreal that you killed so many soldiers before going down yourself. Your frail hands can barely handle a butter knife, let alone a steel dagger purposed to kill. It is strange, and yet the story doesn't feel entirely amiss.

You make a mental note to ask Jeno as many questions as you can about your next life, before tracing the faded scar on the skin above your heart. It looks like a four sided star, contrasting your skin as it stands pale against it. It is revolting, even though it isn't the ugliest of your scars. It pulses with your throbbing heart when you step out of your home, dressed to battle the inclement weather outside.

You doubt Jeno would be there at the cafe. The weather is a perfect excuse to take back his word. Out on your street the wind surges towards you, hitting you with droplets of rain and dust alike. For a moment, you almost retreat yourself, deeming the weather a bad omen for the day. But the urge to hear a new story hurries you towards the bus stop ahead, and you board the vehicle with the eagerness set deep in your heart.

When you reach the café you aren't disappointed in the least.

Jeno stands outside the now deserted shop, leaning against its glass panels with his gaze fixed ahead. Your nerves scamper at the sight, urging you to run as fast and as far as you can from the boy. You think of it as a survival instinct from your past lives. You've been nurturing it for a while now, but your confrontation yesterday dulled it like smothering a flame. And seeing him now dulls it even further.

You clear your throat.

Jeno turns to you, standing straight. The earnest rain soaks him from head to toe, and his clothes stick to his body in awkward places.

You raise your hand in greeting, contemplating whether to wave it or not before slumping it down by your side again. Jeno does something similar, though he is less awkward. He points at the cafe next to him.

“The cafe is closed,” he says, as if the bolded ‘we are closed’ sign isn’t indication enough.

“Yes,” you nod, wondering if fifteen hundred years of being alive has roasted his brain cells,“That's what the closed sign means.”

He doesn’t seem to mind the rain. Not when it clings to his face, to his hands, and his clothes. On the other hand, you spend all your energy trying to angle your umbrella so that it keeps the wretched rain away.

“So, how are you?” Jeno asks, and the question seems as strange to him as it does to you. After all, why wouldn’t it? It isn’t like you two got off to a great start yesterday.

“I’m okay,” you tell him, the lie falling easily from your lips. “And you?”

Jeno shifts his weight from one foot to the other, feeling confoundingly cautious of his surroundings. Your overbearing presence makes his skin tingle, a contradictory feeling to what you're supposed to feel around your soulmate.

“I’m okay too,” he affirms, willing the nervousness out of his system.

You nod. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Jeno repeats after you.

Today is somehow more awkward than yesterday, and you regret not starting off with a hostile approach, if only to dissipate this problematic, difficult air between you two. Problematic because he knows you. Difficult because you don’t. It makes you feel as helpless and weak as the times you wake up, drenched in sweat from your tiresome nightmares. You hate the feeling, and you hate the boy in front of you. Or, at least, you wish to.

Up ahead, Jeno clears his throat, burying his listless hands into the damp pockets of his jeans.

“I need to take you somewhere,” he says, raising his chin while simultaneously fighting the shivers running down his body.

“Where?” you ask, confused.

A smug smile overlaps his uneasy expression, burning through his features like a wildfire. “Have you ever seen the Goryeogung palace?” he asks.

You shake your head, pouting. “No.”

Lightning flashes overhead, followed by a resounding thunder. You flinch at the sound, scared more of the thunder than of the lighting. You glance at the sky once before looking at Jeno again, the corner of his lips crinkled at your reaction. You straighten your arched spine in response.

“It's in Incheon, isn't it?” you ask, throwing worried glances at the sky to prepare yourself for when the lightning comes next time.

Jeno nods.

The rain grows heavier, hitting your umbrella with more force than before. You hold it up higher, blinking in confusion.

“Wait,’ you hold up a hand in front of him, “You want to take me to Incheon?”

The boy shrugs, the smug smile still on his face.

“On what? The bus?”

“Nah, probably too crowded.”

“The subway?”

“I think you've forgotten that I'm famous, people recognize me quite easily.”

You heave a frustrated sigh, “Well, there are no taxis in sight. The streets are swelling with rainwater. I have no idea what you intend to do.”

Jeno shoots a knowing look at the street behind him. “We can walk.”

You shift on your feet, barking out a derisive laughter.

“Yes. We can walk fifty kilometres to Incheon while it's raining,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. The wry smile on your face vanishes when Jeno turns towards the street, seeming very serious to walk the distance from Seoul to Incheon. You arch your eyebrows, narrowing your eyes at him.

“You're joking? I'm a human being, I can't walk fifty kilometres to another city.”

Your eyes are wide against the tranquility on Jeno’s face. It almost looks as if he’s having fun pestering you like this.

“There's a first time for everything.”

You bite down your lips, laughing a little to subdue your anger.

“Besides, you want to know who you were in your second life, don't you?” he adds, and you’re sold.

Jeno hits all the right notes to coax you into submission. He probably knows more about you than you know about yourself. The thought terrifies you. He registers the strange expression on your face, but makes no attempt to decipher it.

“You don't even have an umbrella,” you try to reason with him, “And I'm not sharing mine.”

He smiles, unbothered. “It's alright. I like the rain.”

You resort to glaring at him, your fuming breaths steaming the droplets of rain.

After a while, Jeno’s smile drops. “We’ll take the bus on our way, okay? At least walk till the bridge for now.”

He begins walking, glancing over his shoulder to make sure you’re following him.

Though the rain has kept most people confined to their homes, some unfortunate people like you still loiter in the streets you pass, sprinting to escape the downpour. A few of them give you strange looks, and you dab at your face to see if the crumbs from breakfast are still sticking around your lips somewhere. When that seems to not be the case, you trace the next strange look back to the umbrella you hold over you and the drenched boy walking beside you.

Oh. You must seem evil for not sharing your umbrella with Jeno. You think about offering to share it, ensuing a long debate in your mind about when, how and if you should do so. At the end you resort to slightly tipping the umbrella towards Jeno, which backfires on you because now all the rainwater that collects on its top is streaming down on him.

He gives you an annoyed look, and you bring back the umbrella to where it was.

“So,” you clear your throat, “Why are we going to a palace? Was I a princess or something in my second life?” Your eyes sparkle in amusement, finding your own joke a little too amusing.

Jeno glances at you through his peripherals. “Sort of. We’ll be diving back to the year 1274 this time, to Goryeo during the reign of King Chungnyeol.”

You recall all the history lessons you've ever taken in your life, and trace the year and its event back in your mind. “After the unification of the three kingdoms?” you muse out loud, finding it funny how your first death really meant nothing at all. The three damned kingdoms ending up joining hands in the end either way.

Jeno nods, continuing, “I had been a soldier for more than five hundred years now, still at war, still fighting battles after battles, though this one, was a decade long one, and the story begins when I return from this war with the Mongolians, and find the palace I once called home stranger than when I left it…”

───※ ·❆· ※───

2nd December, 1297 AD

The Kingdom of Goryeo

Home is a strange place. A year ago it was a battlefield speckled with crimson, a month ago it was a tavern brimming with whoremongers. Today it is the Goryeogung palace that stands before Jeno, taut against the backdrop of the twilight reigning over the setting sun. The cacophony of celebrations and exhilaration wafts in the air outside, and Jeno stands to sniff it. He hopes it would calm his scampering nerves.

The last time he was in Goryeo, the air was damper, shaky against the rain and thunder, but now it is dry, and colder than ever, seeping into his warm bones. He dreads stepping back into the palace, not just today, but every day since the past five centuries, a wave of nostalgia and nausea running over him at the sight of the colossal eyesore as it taunts him for returning alone.

He curls and uncurls his fists by his side, willing the nausea to fade. Once it does, he reminds himself who he is returning home to. A new king, a new queen, quite possibly a few of the same courtiers from a decade ago-albeit aged if they found their soulmates yet-and the girl.

The girl. He had almost forgotten about her.

“Are you going to come in, captain?”

Jeno whips his head away from the palace as one of his soldiers struts up beside him.

“Go ahead, inform the king of our arrival,” he instructs him. “I’ll be there in time for the feast.”

The soldier bows in courtesy. “As you command, captain.”

Jeno watches him vanish behind the palace doors ahead, before heading towards the rear of the colossal building. Several times, in his short path towards the meadow that resides behind the palace, he stops to think. Will the girl he seeks be there? It has been a decade since the promise he made to her; the one that bound him to return to her first, before anyone else. It would be naive of him to have expected her to wait for him all these years, but he lives in his naivety till the hard gravel beneath his feet turns to supple grass. He reaches the meadow breathless.

The scent of daphnes and roses fuses in the air, its saturation surging the farther in Jeno walks. A few stout trees weave a dense canopy overhead and their mangled roots hang from the branches like thick ropes, speaking of their old age.

Jeno finds the girl where he first saw her.

In the part of the meadow that skirts a placid lake, there stands a decrepit oak tree. With well tended branches and vines that coil up its bark like intertwining snakes, it extends its branches as if a palm facing the sky, with tender leaves as red as blood. A girl just as tender stands beneath the tree. She faces the still lake, her raven-black hair loose on her back. The gentlest wave of the wind whisks her hair away every now and then, but she pushes them back behind her, brushing her fingers over her cheeks as if dabbing at her tears.

When Jeno’s quivering feet crush a fallen leaf, the crisp sound evokes her attention, and she jumps in her skin before turning around. The girl draws in a breath; a single, sharp breath with which she inspects every little curve on Jeno’s face.

Jeno mimics her, albeit with a little frown. The girl is not as he left her. In the corner of her eyes is not the soft crinkle he loves so much, but a shadow that comes with maturation. Her smile is not one of youth, but one of sobriety, devoid of its usual mischief. She is every inch the princess she was born to be. Highborn and regal. And yet, when Jeno opens his arms for her, the magic dissipates and she sprints across the garden and falls into his arms.

“Are you real, Jeno?”

The sound of his name irks him. The last person to know and speak his name died with an arrow to the heart, and ever since he keeps his name clandestine, buried in his caged heart, until he met Princess Yeeun.

Yeeun incited in him a fire that he smothered long ago. She gave him a purpose when he was lost in the battlefields, tying loose ends, regretting past mistakes. Jeno thinks he loves her, and he has come back all this way partly for the coronation of the new king, and mostly for the girl he thinks he loves, and for something else, though he is not entirely sure what that is.

“Yes,” Jeno says, burying his face in Yeeun's flowing hair. “I’m real.”

When she pulls away, her face is moist with tears. Her eyes dart around Jeno’s body, hands patting down his sides, still in disbelief.

“I waited so long…” she laments, "there has not been a day in the past ten years that I haven't stood beneath this tree, looking out to the other side of the lake, hoping to see you return."

Her finger run across Jeno's face. He closes his eyes, basking in the soft touch.

"All those precious moments, all those little dreams we shared, all our secrets…"

The meadow knows Jeno's secrets better than he knows them himself. And what bigger secret does he have than this little romance with the king's sister? The sunken memories come rushing back to the surface. Jeno and Yeeun trading kisses in the dark, watchful of the gates to the meadow but not of their fingers exploring each other’s skin, going past the barriers they built for the world. There were times where they would simply lie down and dream. Yeeun would birth fantasies of sitting beside her brother, on a throne meant for a king and ruling with the power of one. When these fantasies would threaten to spur her into action, Jeno would kiss them away, reminding her of the bitter reality that would follow her to her death.

Yeeun was no queen. She was a princess. She would always be a princess.

“You would always dream of going back to the battlefield, even with my hand in yours.”

Ah, yes. Even the warmth of Yeeun’s touch couldn’t take the haunting memories away from him. Four hundred years ago, when he lost the last member of his immediate family, Jeno had truly been lost. Even for an orphan he had an enviable life; a castle for a house, brimming with servants at his command, and coffers of gold to last a life. But Jeno had been a peculiar boy. A smart boy, most would claim.

A thrill for killing was in his heart, and his mind was the abode of secrets and lies. He maneuvered the king’s court like any aristocrat; he smiled when they smiled, laughed when they laughed. But when they cried, he kept laughing. And when the kingdom of Silla, his home, was set on fire, Jeno bid the cursed land a teary farewell and moved to the next great dynasty.

Goryeo welcomed him with open arms. It gave him more battles than he could wish for, more enemies than he imagined he could make. The kingdom had been nothing but kind to a boy who would never age. Many kings came and went under his watch, envying his eternal youth as they met their soulmates and made their way into an early grave. Meeting Princess Yeeun was a break in the vicious cycle of alternating kings. And perhaps a little love had seeped in somewhere between the soft touches and the nightly rendezvous, blinding him to what he did not wish to see when the nights got too dark, too fiery.

Jeno caresses the princess’ face once more, devouring the relief on her face, “I’m back now, to hold your hand once more.”

Yeeun’s lips twist into a frown. “You can’t, not even a decade later will you be able to hold my hand and call me yours. My brother would never allow it.”

He cocks his head to a side, bewildered. “The decade is over, and so is your punishment,” he says. “You made a foolish mistake but the new king is a forgiving man.”

Jenp speaks of the boy he saw first in cradles, brought up under his own supervision until he became a man his age. The future king of Goryeo, to be officially crowned in a fortnight.

“Jaemin was a forgiving man. Much has changed since you last stepped foot in this palace.” Yeeun’s voice is urgent, her eyes darting towards the palace walls every other moment. “Ever since he married that cursed Mongolian girl nothing has been quite the same. A ruthless girl, that one, brought her cursed ways all the way from her barbaric kingdom. She came to this palace and I lost every right I had as the princess of this kingdom, and now I’m about to lose my mother, my brothers and my sisters to her as well. She’s hell bent on separating Jaemin from us. As if we’re a plague about to eat him alive.”

Jeno had heard praises on his way to the castle. His procession was large, with men of importance returning from a long war, and though the crowd did give an occasional cheer for their return from the long war, most of their praises were for the Mongolian queen. The one who had actually stopped the war after her marriage to the king two years ago-when he was still a crown prince.

When he inquired one of his men about this strange princess, he told him the people thought of her as a blessing. She was the reason a thousand sons of Goryeo returned home, back to the safety of their kingdom. Even her name was a gift bestowed upon her out of sheer love. Jeguk, the king had named her for the world to know. Though Jeno wondered if it was her real name, or just one given out of adoration.

"We swore an oath under this tree,” Yeeun speaks again. “I kept mine. I waited for you a year and nine more. Now keep your oath."

Jeno takes a moment to take in all this foreign information. He is reminded now why he prefers battlefields to palaces. War cries are easy to hear, simpler to register. Palace intrigues are like tangled ropes. The more you unsnarl them, the more knots you end up forming. It never really has been his strongest forte.

“I will protect you as if your life is my life,” Jeno repeats the words he spoke under the canopy of his very tree, words he knew he would come to regret. All that Yeeun has said about the Mongolian queen may be true, but he seldom believes the truths that come from other people’s mouths. Besides, from all that he has heard so far, the queen is as cunning as one needs to be in a palace so vast. Had he been in her place, Jeno’s fist move would also have been to get the king as far from the queen mother and the rest of his family as he could. Heavens knew the boy would be safer in the cradle of a pit viper than with that diabolic woman he called mother.

“I will always keep you safe, Yeeun. An oath is an oath.”

The girl smiles. “Steer clear of the queen,” she says, “and please keep an eye out for the king. Come here often, and speak to me of the festivities inside, I’ve waited long enough for you.”

With a tender kiss that lasts uncomfortably longer than Jeno’s liking, the princess hurries along the path towards the palace. She looks like a ghost haunting the edges of her own home. Pity washes over Jeno’s heart. What a sorrow it is to be so close to home and yet so far. For a small crime she committed long ago, Yeeun will forever be condemned to the edges. She would not join the festivities leading to the coronation day, she would not bless her brother as he ascends his throne. And if what Jeno has heard about the Mongolian queen has even a sliver of truth to it, then she might never be his bride like she intended to be. Ever.

A shiver trickles down Jeno’s spine. It prepares him for another ghost he is about to see. The one he lost five hundred years ago. The gentle wind blows to subdue his fears, the scent of wild flowers calms his nerves. Deep down inside, the wind and the flowers know there is nothing they can do to brace his heart for the ache to come.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Your lungs are aching by the time you slump down on a bench on the sidewalk. The rain has numbed to a steady drizzle, but it does nothing to soothe your aching muscles, set afire by the excruciating walk.

Jeno stands beside you, gazing demeaningly at your disheveled self.

"How long was it?" you ask, breathless. "We must've walked about three to four kilometres, right?"

You scrunch your nose when Jeno doesn't answer. He simply turns on his phone and shifts it towards you.

"Only three hundred metres," he announces, clicking his tongue in disappointment.

You squint to look at the screen. "You have an app to count your steps?" you ask, missing his point completely. "What sort of psychopathic behavior is this?"

Your next breath comes in a wheeze. Jeno hands you a bottle of water you never noticed he was holding, and you gulp down the water until it spills from the corner of your lips. Only once your thirst is quenched and your energy replenished do you start walking again. But with the exhaustion temporarily kept at bay, your mind conjures questions after questions.

"Okay, so," you begin through your shallow breaths, "If I'm not the king's sister nor his queen, who exactly am I? Because if you end up telling me you told this story of your century old affair with a princess for fun, I will throw up."

You're taken aback when Jeno laughs. It's not a laugh of mockery. But a genuine laugh. One contagious enough to force a small smile on your own face.

"You're about to barge into the narrative soon," Jeno answers, still laughing. He takes a moment to recover before arching his eyebrows at you.

"But who said you're not the queen?"

───※ ·❆· ※───

The small crown placed on your head tips when you enter the dining hall. Nara, your handmaiden, had warned you against its precarious nature when she adorned you with it, but you had insisted on wearing it anyway, preferring the rubies it was encrusted with to the diamonds and opals sprawling in your closet.

Carefully, you prod it back to its place with your fingers, fixing its crook, and then turn around to face the feline trailing you, with its small, padded feet.

"Go Zaya, I’ll find you later," you instruct the wild cat at your feet. The grey thing moves through the gathered crowd gracefully, leaving you to face the raised platform on which the royal family sits. My family, you remind yourself, but the feeling just doesn’t come. Even after two years of being amongst the same people, seeing the same faces, there is still the loitering feeling of animosity between you and the king’s family. It stems, without a doubt, from your origins; you’re a Mongolian, born and bred in a kingdom at war with Goryeo long before you’d even come to senses. Though the war is over now, the hostility is not.

You don’t blame them. You despise them just the same, paralleling the hate with your own fiery rage that had rattled the core of the palace ever since you stepped your foot in it. The first year was the harshest, most tiresome, but once your betrothed-king Jaemin-had opened up to you, there was no stopping the control you’d end up acquiring over the palace.

You feel the stares burning into your back as you filter through the crowd of jesters and courtiers at the base of the well-lit dining hall, though most of them barely acknowledge your presence at all, focused instead on the royal family and the person they greet ahead.

Jaemin stands at the head of the table, wearing a deep blue dragon robe wound tightly around his waist. He embraces a black-haired boy donning soldier's clothes; a silver armor matched with a black tunic. A red sigil of a bird in flight is embroidered on the shoulders of the tunic, embellished with silver glints of wind. You recognize the sigil belonging to the captain of the kingsguard, the one from the Lee clan Jaemin talked so highly of. Immediately, a surge of exuberance quickens your pulse. You ignore the flimsy, half hearted courtesies thrown at you by the lords and ladies, your aim set for the dais ahead.

"It's good to have you back," you hear Jaemin say as the soldier, still with his back toward you, settles on the seat beside him. The queen mother, clad in a satin green gown with jewels lining every edge there was to the dress, sits to the left of the crown prince, skipping over an empty seat reserved for you. You can sense the distaste she has for the soldier. She smiles at him, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes, and her meagre expression of veneration all but fades when you come into view.

"My queen," Jaemin proclaims, rising in endearment for you. Your eyes gleam with pride as you bow to him in courtesy, climbing up the short steps to join him at the table. "We've been waiting for you," he says with a suppressed smile. You can see the way his expression shifts when he glances at his mother, who sits still, with the frown plastered on her face.

"Quite a while now, in fact," the queen mother interjects, her tone soft but her words stern. "A queen must never be late, that was the first instruction I gave you in this palace." She smiles to subdue the venom in her words, beckoning you to take the seat beside the king.

You wonder how it would feel to slap the smile off of her face.

"I apologize for my tardiness," you say, moving to sit beside Jaemin. His brothers and sisters, all but one, take up the seats stretching ahead of you, and they smile to acknowledge your presence. "I did tell Jaemin not to wait for me."

It is your turn to smile now. The queen mother had frequently admonished you for calling the king by his name, despite him being your husband. A lady must always address the king by his title, she instructed.

‘If I must call him my king all the time then he should address me as my queen too, which would be a bit ridiculous,’ you had insisted and quite easily ignored the queen-mother’s words all together.

"It's alright. We haven't been waiting too long," Jaemin intercedes, eager to break the tension before waving at the servants behind him. They bring in silver dishes of exotic foods, setting them on the long table as the night's feast officially begins with a rush of euphoria in the air.

For the longest time as you gaze at the mouth-watering dishes being laid out in front of you, you almost forget there is another boy at the table, one you heard a great deal about, from Jaemin and your own kingdom alike.

"I'd like you to introduce you to someone, Y/n."

Your eyes are fixated on a plate of juicy apple pie, garnished with small slices of fruit and layers of cream, and it takes all your might to turn to Jaemin as he gestures to the boy sitting to his left. The boy with the red sigil, the captain of the kingsguard. The thrill in your heart returns as you face the boy who looks as if he has seen a ghost.

Because what are you to the boy but a ghost from his disreputable past.

───※ ·❆· ※───

There's nothing there, Jeno tells himself. I'm imagining things again.

For years after he landed a fatal blow to your heart, Jeno couldn't forget you. He would see you in every battlefield, he would feel you in every shot of his arrow. You were dead. And yet you lived somewhere inside him still.

He dreamt of you, sometimes. In the good dreams he shot arrow after arrow into your treacherous heart. He watched you die in his arms. He heard himself scream. It is your fault, his screams told you. It is all your fault.

In the bad dreams, Jeno chased after you by the edge of a river. He would hear you laugh when he caught your waist, slowly plummeting down to the soft grass below. The sweet smell of spring would numb his senses as he would caress your face, taking his time with every edge. In the bad dreams, he would kiss you and never want to stop.

Tonight is a bad dream.

Tonight, you are sitting across from him, in a flowing red dress with a crooked crown atop your head. The blood and soot from your skin is gone, replaced by an eerie glow that blinds Jeno.

"This is the captain of the kingsguard, Y/n, my closest friend and the greatest archer our kingdom has ever seen," Jaemin announces to you.

Jeno isn't sure what he searches for on your face. Anger. Contempt. Resentment. Anything but a graceful smile. He braces himself for your wrath. He waits for your recognition. Neither comes.

"It is an honor to finally meet you. Jaemin had told me a lot about you, and even in my own country there are many who praise your bravery on the battlefield," you remark, voice giddy with excitement.

Jeno feels nauseated. When he tries to speak, his voice breaks into coughs jolting up his lungs. Jaemin offers him a glass of wine. He quaffs the drink down in long, painful swallows. He looks up again and hopes to see you gone. But you are still there.

Maybe you never died... Jeno goes back to the smoke and fire, to the scalding heat of mid-summer when he held you in your arms and watched you succumb to your wounds. He saw you die. He felt you die every year as the people around him grew older while he did not. And yet.

A shadow of concern falls on your face as Jeno grasps the strange reality.

“My apologies,” he says, dabbing at his mouth with a cream white handkerchief. “My lungs are absolutely chilled by the unrelenting weather.”

Your voice comes, small and suited to a queen.“Of course,” you say, “God knows how wild the snowstorms can get in these harsh winter days. Perhaps I could ask the servants to bring some warm tea for you?”

Jeno was quite sure the ache in his lungs needed more than just warm tea to be soothed. There was a chance that you were not exactly...well, you. Sure, you had the same name, the same face, minus the soot and blood and dirt smeared on it, but it wasn’t like you could incarnate into this new person.

“That’s very kind of you, but I’ll be fine,” Jeno says, rejecting your offer politely. “Being amongst my own people has already warmed my heart. It is only a matter of time before that warmth spreads to my lungs as well.”

A little too harsh, he thinks, the warmth in his heart. He waits for the uncomfortable sear to turn towards his lungs, bracing through the pain as you smile in front of him. He never saw you smile. Or did he? Looking at you reminds him only of the fire, the blood and the hate; not smiles, not laughs, not sitting by a bonfire and making false promises. He doubts you even existed beyond your time of dying.

“There is never a day when Jaemin does not tell me stories of your time with him,” you tell him, your voice a pitch higher than usual.

Jeno forces himself to calm down. It doesn’t matter if you’re the same girl from five centuries ago, what matters is that you seem to not remember anything. That is the only comfort he draws from your menacing presence.

“Jaemin has always been a brother to me,” Jeno states, hoping the sweat cascading down his forehead is overlooked in preference to his forced smile.

It’s okay, he tells himself. This doesn’t change anything. And as long as it doesn’t change anything, it didn’t bother him.

“As I’ve heard,” you remark, folding your hands in your lap. The pie sitting in the centre of the table looks absolutely delicious, but you juggle between wanting to talk to the boy and devouring the whole thing in one go.

“I have heard no less stories about you, my queen.”

This time, Jaemin chimes in too, engrossed in your small chat. “Is that so, Captain?” he asks, amusement submerging his features. He leans in on the table, keen to listen to what Jeno has to say.

“The Queen who ended all wars, the sustainer of the realm, the flower of Mongol,” Jeno speaks, though he is sure the titles he rendered do not encompass even half of those given to you by the common people. “Out in the capital they call you by a different name, I presume,” he adds, wishing he had learnt your name on the way to the palace, just so he could be a little more prepared to face you. But that is fate, he presumes. It doesn’t give you time to prepare before shoving itself in your face. You just have to make the best of what it gives you.

“Jeguk. Jaemin gave me the name. It is my pride and my honor.” You turn to Jaemin, holding his hand over the table.

Oh, a king and a queen in love? Jeno thinks back to all the marriages he’d seen, of kings and queens and princes and princesses. Not one was of love. In fact, just a few hundred years ago Goryeo had a king who married his own half-sibling. That was definitely not love. But what was Jeno seeing here? Love? Or just a false imitation of the feeling? For some reason, he wished it was the latter.

“Y/n is very fond of your archery skills, Jeno, as anyone in this kingdom,” the king remarks, still holding your hand. “Now that you’re here, perhaps you could show her how to master the art.”

Jeno bit back a scoff. He wanted to laugh at the irony, and cry at the same time. What is this cruel turn of fate? he asks the heavens, if they existed. They don’t answer. They never answer.

“Bows and arrows are tough weapons to master,” he begins, voice strained with the need to dash out of the dining hall as soon as he can. “The Queen should start with small daggers first.”

Wonderful. Now he was asking you to master the weapon you stole from him, the weapon you almost used to kill him.

“Daggers and swords are but a child’s play now,” you answer, almost frightening Jeno with the flicker of light in your eyes. “I prefer to learn new things.”

Yes, like stealing other people’s daggers and setting camps afire. Strange hobbies for a girl.

“And so you should,” Jaemin says, interrupting Jeno’s rampant thoughts. “You won’t find a better mentor than him.”

Before the deal can be sealed, Jeno interjects. “It would be an honor to teach you, My queen, but I’m afraid I’m only here a short while. I must return to the South and rally my men. Or at least, what’s left of them.”

The war tore through half of his men, and the ones that were left were still biding their time in the south, waiting to strike if tensions rose again. Though your marriage with Jaemin did put a halt to the war, it didn’t mean all soldiers could return as soon as the word of peace got out. Wars took time, peace took even more time, and for those who returned from the battlefields, peace and war had little difference between them. For Jeno, they both were basically the same things. He was at peace with war, and at war with the peace. Neither was working out for him so far.

Beside him, he sees the king’s face fall in a frown and with the culmination of the conversation, you finally turn to the pie you had your eyes out for, before the queen-mother could get her hands on it.

Jeno looks at you for what felt like forever. He doesn’t know what to feel.

It is strange, you are strange, the palace is strange and perhaps he is strange too. Strange because he thought he still felt the need to keep the promise of safety he made to you, and strange because it had been awfully long since then, and he wasn’t sure if there was anything he could do now to settle that matter.

There was also Yeeun. Who he thought he loved. Thought. It was a difficult love, that one, and now that he felt his head threatening to burst with this unforeseen pressure forced on it, it felt even more difficult.

Jaemin leans in toward him, whilst he runs these thoughts around his mind, speaking slowly to him, “I made a promise to you, Captain. And in order for me to keep that promise, you must stay here.”

Another promise, here we go. What was this one? Jeno couldn’t remember. He was still in his thoughts, still looking at you, still feeling your dying body in his arms.

It's all your fault. It's all your fault.

Jeno squeezes his eyes shut as his king speaks over him.

“Mother, sisters, brothers,” he turns, addressing the royal family on the table. “It’s been ten years since a foolish mistake kept our beloved sister’s name from our lips. Ten years since I swore an oath to cease her punishment once I become king. Tonight, with the merry of this occasion, I formally end her years of torment.”

He glances at Jeno, who now opens his eyes to this unbidden announcement. He waits for the joy in his heart to blossom, disappointed when it doesn’t. That too, he ends up blaming on you.

“Princess Yeeun is my sister, and so she will be revered by her title. Let my people know I am a man of my word, a man of forgiveness,” the king finishes, avoiding the unnerving glances you throw at him.

Jeno watches the little changes on your face attentively, contrasting the voices of joy that rise up across the table as the word spreads through the hall. You’re not content with the decision, he can tell easily by the twist of your lips. He wonders if what Yeeun said about you is true after all.

Jaemin speaks to him again, smiling from ear to ear.

“Stay, and serve your king and queen,” he commands, “from this day and till the end of your days, Lee Jeno, you will serve me as the captain of my kingsguard. Swear to it.”

Jeno wonders if he can say no to the untimely pledge of loyalty, darting his eyes across the hall but only finding you. He understands then, that there is no escaping you. Not in his dreams, not in his nightmares, and definitely not in reality.

He turns, gradually, to his king, and says the holy words that would seal his life to him.

“I pledge my life to this kingdom, to the king and queen I shall so loyally serve.”

For as long as the queen and I last, he thinks at the end.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The rain is all but gone, leaving the streets swollen with rainwater, and the terrible, damp air that surges with the humidity. You hope the rain won’t come again as you leap over a puddle on the sidewalk, one of many in your way. It has already made so much of a mess, all with the muddy roads and the sticky atmosphere.

Beside you, Jeno’s clothes begin the slow process of drying up, still dripping from their edges, though slightly less with the rain at bay.

“You know, I'd give my kidney to see the look on your face when you saw me,” you remark, leisurely kicking a pebble that etches itself on your path. Dramatically, you wave your hands in the air, as if projecting the image in your mind. "Gosh, just imagine the look of pure horror."

Jeno stares at you, shaking his head dejectedly. "You're having fun, aren't you? I'm telling you so much important stuff and that's what you take out of that?"

You let your hands fall by your side. "What else am I supposed to focus on? You and the princess?" you ask, annoyed.

Jeno simply shrugs.

"You might want to."

───※ ·❆· ※───

The next morning, the wind is crisper than usual. You clutch your crimson cloak tightly around yourself, fighting off the cold with a hiss, “Curse the king, curse the captain of the kingsguard, curse that devil of a woman.”

A few steps behind you, Nara clicks her tongue. She follows you through the great maze of hallways, towards the vast garden in the east wing of the palace.

“You must not say such things, my Queen,” she warns, her voice hushed against the whistling wind. “You know not what may hear you.”

You wince as another cold gush of air hits you in the face. “I’ve been silent long enough, Nara. I’m no mere princess anymore. I’m a queen. I shall do as I please.” You can’t see the look of disappointment on the girl’s face, but you can imagine it. Your irritable attitude is but a poor imitation of last night’s fallout with Jaemin.

After the feast you had hastened for his chambers, hoping to confute his mistakened judgement about his sister. He had been alone, and the restlessness in his feet told you he had been expecting you. You had started the conversation with a useless talk about the feast, slowly steering it to the topic you came to discuss.

“You can’t let her come back to this palace, Jaemin,” you said, sitting beside him by a wooden desk sprawling with maps and royal seals.

“She’s my sister.” Jaemin’s voice was sullen. Surely the queen mother had influenced his words, as she had been trying to for years.

“She tried to kill you, she tried to poison your father. The king!” you spoke with a steely voice, noticing the hurt on Jaemin’s face.

He glowered at your tone, turning away in disappointment.

“She never intended to harm me, it was a mere accusation. Besides, my father was no good man. He was cruel enough to me, I can only imagine the torture my sister endured at his hands. And what did she ever want? Only the right to love and marry who she wanted? What is so wrong with that?”

The rage had been prickling your skin by that point, willing you to lash out. The sheer hypocrisy of Jaemin’s words was concerning enough that you couldn’t even register how foolish he was being. You had married him against your will, at the ripe age of eighteen before you could even convince your father of your expertise in battle. He had raised a cold, harsh hand towards you, and you had complied with his wishes. Smart people, you believed-perceived where their choices would take them. They didn't mull over forced marriages and hopeless romances. If not Jaemin, then some other lord within your own kingdom would take you for a wife to cement his ties with the royal family. With Jaemin you found a chance to rule, a chance to see the battlefield, and a little love.

“Was this what she wanted? Or was it the right to rule of the kingdom? I’m afraid I’ve heard conflicting reports." You expected a violent strike as soon as the words left your mouth. You weren’t sure why. Jaemin had never struck you, he had never done as much as to raise his voice at you. He had always been kind, always been the one to look out for you. He listened to you when no one would. You only wished he would listen to you now.

“You are my queen, Y/n. I honor you as I honor my word. If there is anything that goes awry because of a decision I made, if there is any harm that comes to you because of me, I swear to you I will rip this palace apart brick by brick. Tell me now, do you not trust me with your life?” Jaemin asked, his voice soft.

You had taken a step back. Of course, you trusted him. Of course you were willing to pledge your life to this man you called your king and your husband.

“I do,” you said, and felt Jaemin relax a little. “But you’re getting harder to trust by the day.”

He had not stopped you when you stormed out of his chamber.

You regret your words now as you brood over in silence, climbing the rolling hills that run along the edge of the palace. Jaemin was your last hope of survival in this kingdom, and now that you feel yourself losing your grip on him, it scares you.

Luckily for you, opportunities come at most hopeless of times.

The hill beneath your feet flattens into a vast expanse lined with targets, a long table of bows and arrows, and a small armory with a narrow balcony. Jeno, the captain of the kingsguard Jaemin introduced to you yesterday night, stands upright beside his king. Though, with the kind of posture he has adopted, he looks more of a king than Jaemin does.

With him you see your opportunity.

The moment you heard his name you felt in your heart what the many tales if soulmates warned about. The breathlessness, the small tug of a vein, and then, your heart began with his name again. Thankfully for you, you weren't the kind of fool most people were. You had concealed your emotions, let the boy's name run its course through your blood, making sure no one would suspect a thing. Soulmates were but a fable meant to tame one's heart. You were looking for more than just that.

If you had heard right about Jeno's rich lineage, then you were sure an alliance with him would be your saving grace. You had been contemplating it ever since you heard of his return, wondering if a boy of such importance would care to ally with a Mongolian princess.

Back then you were a princess, now you are a queen. In a week's time you would be ruling beside Jaemin. Only a fool would refuse your alliance at such a precarious time.

"You're late again, Y/n."

Jaemin's voice echoes down to where you stand, rummaging through bows and arrows of all kinds. Nara joins the servants lining the armory, shielding herself against the wind.

As promised, Jaemin had arranged for Jeno to help you practice archery. He hoped, for the kind act to compensate for his vile decisions yesterday. But a scowl from you, and he knew you it would take more than a day of archery practice to convince you.

"I'm not late," you call over, still shuffling through the bows, testing them in your hand despite having no knowledge of which one was better than which.

You look up, squinting against the dull sunlight. "You're just early."

Jaemin rolls his eyes before gesturing towards the targets.

"Pick a bow and arrow and shoot the target. Jeno wants to see how much you know about archery already."

You pick the next bow that comes into your hands, along with a quiver of arrows. While you position yourself a good distance away from the wooden targets, the two boys above continue their little conversation.

"What do you make of her?" Jaemin asks. His eyes are set on you, a mirth in his heart despite your grumpy attitude.

"I've yet to see her shoot," Jeno replies solemnly. He wonders if it is a cruel turn of fate to have you practice with the very same weapon that killed you. But then again, he is still skeptical whether you really have reincarnated into this new life of yours, or if this is all just a long, dreadful fever dream.

"I'm not talking about her archery skills. I'm asking about what you make of her."

Jaemin glances at him, a flicker of mischief in his eyes.

What do I make of her? Jeno isn't sure. Five hundred years are enough to make one forget things. And he has forgotten a lot about you.

"I don't quite...understand."

Jaemin hums in response, looking down at your first arrow piercing the air. It flies past the target, barely grazing it before anchoring itself to the ground. You wince before nocking your bow again.

"You know, when my father first told me I was to marry a Mongolian princess, I hoped she would be more… docile," Jaemin says. "I hoped she'd be tolerable enough that I could turn a blind eye to her, and pretend she didn't exist at all. I hated my father for it. I hated him more when I saw Y/n, and then I hated her for making me hate him. Hate, I learn, is a very strong thing."

Jeno nods his head. "Strong enough to start wars." Strong enough to kill your own soulmate. He squints against the sunlight. "But what does it matter? You love her now…?"

Jaemin turns his head towards the ground where your second arrow flails in the air. It meets the same fate as its predecessor.

"It was the wind," you call out, your flimsy excuse amusing Jaemin.

"It's alright," he calls back, smiling. "Try again."

You pout before aiming for the target again, this time more cautiously.

When Jaemin looks at Jeno again, his smile is all but gone.

"I love her as a king loves his queen. But no amount of love will ever make her forget the first year of our marriage. The first, ruthless year when she was rebuked by everyone, and she was alone and helpless and I never helped her. It broke some part of her," Jaemin laments as dark clouds roll in overhead.

Jeno wonders what he means to say. You're revered by the public, the courtiers pay you their respect, the servants bow to you as if you're the one sustaining them and not Jaemin. So what part of you is broken?

"I know my sister loves you."

The sudden confession leaves Jeno with wide eyes and rigid muscles. They constrict against the cold wind, throbbing with a rising ache.

"I've known it for quite a while now… and I know that it's true love, not bought by any gold or silver. I would never want for my sister to suffer from a loveless marriage. When the celebrations of my coronation come to an end, I'll put her hand in yours… if you'll have her."

Jeno waits for the joy to come. When it doesn't, he forces himself to smile. He falls to one knee, his head bowed; a courtesy for a king. "It is a matter of great honor and joy…” But where's the happiness? Jeno can't feel it. Not with you so close. Not with the bow and arrow in your hands. “But if I could get some time to recollect my thoughts and consider this proposal…” Jeno dawdles on, wondering why he said so.

"Of course. Take as much time as you want. But right now, for heaven's sake, get up and help my queen before she kills someone with a bloody arrow." Jaemin laughs, his eyes trailing back to you.

Jeno rises and treads his path downstairs, his heart racing. So many strange things seem to be happening in such a short time. Not strange things, Jeno tells himself, Good things. I'm finally getting what I've always wanted; Honor, a place to belong, the girl he loves.

Or does he? Jeno isn't sure. And it frightens him because now is not the time for uncertainty. Now is the time to make amendments. When he stands a few feet away from you, he convinces himself that you are the girl he desperately wanted to save, and he tells himself this is the way for the gods to help him make peace with you. Perhaps, now nightmares will end, he thinks, walking up-to you.

"Relax your bow arm," he instructs, standing a few feet away from you.

The intrusion startles you, sending an arrow flying into the air, striking the edge of the target again. You sigh wearily. Archery is just a poor excuse for a chance to talk to Jeno and you know you're being too competitive at this point. But there is an eerie familiarity that comes with holding the bow in your hand. You can't quite put your finger on it, but it seems that every time you let an arrow loose, you hear a shrill voice. A scream of terror, a lamenting echo, a farewell. Or perhaps it's just the wind.

"The trick is to relax your bow arm," Jeno tells you. He extends his hand before gesturing to the bow. You hand him the weapon, receding from your place.

"Too much pressure, and you'll lose your aim," he continues, taking your place with his eyes trained ahead. With one swift tug, he pulls at the bowstring and lets an arrow lose. It juts itself into the bull's-eye. You expected nothing less.

"You know what they call you back in Mongolia?" you ask him, a small smirk tugging at the corners of your lips.

Jeno shakes his head. "I never knew I was popular in your kingdom."

"People tend to remember their worst enemies."

Jeno swallows a painful lump in his throat. He squints when he looks at you, despite the darkness draped over the land by the cloudy sky.

"The Mongolian soldiers call you süns".

"What does it mean?"

"Spirit,” you answer. “They say they can't hear your arrow coming even if they're a breadth away from you. You work silently, like a ghost in the wind."

Jeno tilts his head to the side. "That's quite the title," he comments, handing the bow back to you.

You position it into your hands again, this time following Jeno's guidance. He hesitates before gently tugging your hand and moving it upwards on the bow. You shoot when he backs up, pleased to find your aim landing within the painted target this time.

“The prince told me you and him have been great friends,” you say when you're fidgeting within a quiver for another arrow.

“We still are.”

You glance up at the balcony Jaemin previously stood on. It's empty now, and your husband is nowhere in sight.

“I heard you were there when his sister conspired against the crown. Heard you convinced Jaemin to pardon her once he became king." Your words are as bare as the winter wind. Jeno bares through them with his teeth gritted. Tentatively, you draw an arrow from the quiver, gazing up at him. "Why?"

Here comes the queen Yeeun warned me of. Jeno raises his shoulders a little. "The royal family is a symbol and people respect that symbol. To see it tainted would hurt the morale of the people. Especially since we were already a nation at war. I merely wanted to protect their honor," he explains, never once losing that calm demeanor of his.

You pucker your lips, nodding. "Ah, yes. Of course. But what a generous brother Jaemin has been to let her traitor sister stay in the palace again, after all she has done."

Jeno tenses at your tone, at your words. He hadn't heard you speak a lot the last time he met you. You were too occupied with the exhausting chore of surviving and setting camps on fire. He knows now, though, that you speak in riddles. And he doesn't like riddles.

"My queen, I presume we’re here to practice archery, not to discuss the king’s family," Jeno says with a polite smile, trying not to let out the annoyance within himself.

"Oh, forgive me, I don’t mean to pry. I’m just curious."

"About?"

The servants are eyeing you most curiously by this point. Their interest piques once you abandon your aim and turn to Jeno, their whispers of silent protests hinged with the air. The boy is as unfazed by the abrupt limelight as you are. There is a tinge on his pale skin, a faint scar of horror that curves down to his shoulder. It darkens the longer you look at it, forcing you to tear your eyes away from it.

“You’re a strong man, captain, with a strong clan that backs your every move. Tell me, would I be wrong if I say you’re the most powerful man in this country right now?” you ask him.

“You would be right if you say I was. Now that Jaemin is King, I no longer hold such prestige for myself.”

Lies. Lies. Lies. So many lies.

Your voice is more insistent the next time you speak. Jeno notices the change in your demeanor immediately, taking it as a hint that you aren’t here for small talk or wasting time. You want something from him, that much is certain.

“Jaemin is being crowned king. He has no real power until these ludicrous celebrations end and he assumes his position in the throne room. Which will happen in a fortnight, and I hear a lot of turmoil gathers around this time. Betrayals, back-stabbings, people vanishing and turning up dead.” You glance over your shoulder, cautiously looking out for eavesdroppers.

“You happen to hear a lot of things,” Jeno remarks, spiking your frustration.

“No one lets me speak here. Hearing is the second best thing one can do in this palace.”

Or so he has heard. Or so he has seen. The common people may love you, but what’s their love compared to the love of the royalists? The queen mother hates you, the majority of the courtiers hate you, the servants hate you. Your only saving grace is the King’s love, and your own cunning. Perhaps the latter more than the former, Jeno thinks as Jaemin’s words ring in his head. She was rebuked by everyone, and she was alone and helpless and I never helped her. And what were you but alone and helpless when Jeno himself had found you? Shackled hands, scarred skin, bloodied clothes. He had promised you a passage to safety, but in your last moments, he hadn’t even trusted you enough to listen to you. ‘She had a dagger in her hand,’ a voice says. ‘She was going to kill you.’

Was she? Jeno asks the voice, or is this a fable I’ve created to save myself from self-created nightmares? At least Jaemin had the guts to love you and understand you and listen to you. By what right could Jeno judge him?

“What do you want?” The question is blunt, but Jeno’s voice is soft. It resonates with the warmth in his eyes and the sorrow in his soul.

“A lot of things,” you reply. “But for now, I want your loyalty.”

“I’m a sworn captain of the king’s army. You do have my loyalty.”

“Buying loyalty with century old oaths is but a poor gamble with your life.”

He shakes his head. “So how do you buy loyalty?”

“I don’t buy it. I want to earn it. I was afraid once, and stupid to think I would always be afraid. I’m no mere princess now, I’m a queen, the worst enemy one can make in this kingdom. I’ve made a choice and that choice is to protect my king and husband till the end of my days. But I can’t do that alone.”

There is a desperation in your voice, a tenacious beast clawing at your tongue.

“Understandably so.”

You hold the beast back a second more, and then you let it loose.

“I need someone strong like you by my side. When these celebrations come to an end, I want you to stand beside me and guard your king. There are people here who might ask differently of you, people who are plotting against the crown this very moment. I want to know if you stand with them, or if you will swear your fealty to the crown.”

The strong wind nuzzles past your cloak, not daring to caress your burning skin. There is a fire in your eyes that demands to be seen, to be felt. It straightens your spine, relaxes your shoulder. It makes you every inch the queen you are.

“Think about it.” You smile and the fire dies. Its smoke rises up to meet your hazy eyes, drowning you in a ceaseless stupor. “But beware, there is not much time. We always seem to have very little time.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

Seoul gradually settles into a stormy backdrop the farther you walk from the city, drifting away with its vigorous traffic and senseless discord. A massive bridge skirting the Han river rises in the horizon like a vicious sea monster, and the closer you get to it, the more sluggish your steps get, an absurd fear settling in your heart for its ominous presence.

You ignore the bridge for now, focusing on Jeno’s narration, and cutting him off to give your remarks when you wish to.

“Wow, this second me is such a bad-ass,” you comment, shaking your head with a pout. “Present me can't relate.”

Jeno takes a quick look at you, his eyebrows knitted at your untroubled attitude, a salient contradiction to your bitterness yesterday.

“How come you’re taking all of this so easily today?” he finds himself asking you. Immediately, he prepares himself for a retort in your defense, or some witty comment that backfires on him completely.

You just give him a tired smile, raising your shoulders to show your apparent neutrality on the subject.

It took a past three am battle with your own striking thoughts to muster this expression, after you’d figured there was no point in sulking through this odd journey of self-discovery (literally) and that you were better off just baring through the pain when it comes. What you can’t change shouldn’t bother you.

Up ahead the bridge is getting closer by the second, and even though you’ve sealed the matter with your indifference, you elaborate on it anyway, hoping it would serve as a distraction from the unease you feel by looking at the bridge.

“Imagine you’re watching a movie or reading a really good story-” you begin, blocking off the view in front of you by choosing to look at Jeno instead. “-and someone just told you that the main character dies at the end while you’re still in the middle of the story. Do you stop watching or reading it just because you know how it ends?”

Jeno opens his mouth to answer, but you don’t let him.

“No,” you say, cutting him off. “You sit through the story anyway, and instead of sulking and thinking about the end, you laugh at the good parts, frown at the bad, but you reserve the tears for when the sorrow comes. The end is inevitable, but who cares as long as the journey is enjoyable?”

Your chatter comes to an end the moment the bridge stands before you, an extensive, metallic sea serpent standing still above fast moving water. Your skin breaks into a sweat at the sight, heartbeat racing. If it weren’t for the boy next to you, you would’ve turned on your heels and dashed back to the city until the bridge was lost in the horizon behind you, a forgotten structure in the wild ocean of your thoughts. But there is no running from it now that is so close, so vicious.

“So, what you’re saying is, you’ll cry again when we get to the part where you die,” Jeno says, his voice a welcome distraction.

You click your tongue. “That’s… the opposite of what I’m trying to say.”

Your steps falter, and you stop to take a deep breath. There is sadness pouring into your body at this very moment, radiating from the bridge ahead, from Jeno who looks at you worriedly, and from your own heart. You can barely cope up with this demanding feeling, let alone the ache that came yesterday, when Jeno concluded your first life.

You press your hands together to stop them from shaking.

“But yes,” you say, defeated by your own nerves. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

For two weeks Jeno thought about your proposal. He thought about your eyes, he thought about your voice. For two weeks, he thought about you. And it didn’t help him that he had to see you too, at the nightly feasts and daily archery practices. You had given him a fortnight to decide, and in the time leading up to the target time you hadn’t once mentioned your conversation again.

During the feasts he would find you beside the king for the first hour, and then you would vanish into the corners of the grand hall, preferring to spend time with the bizarre feline creature you had brought from your home. The first time Jeno found himself leaving the buzzing conversation with the high lords and ladies and joining you at the table farthest from the action, he told himself it was because he was bored. The second time he told himself it was for your strange, huge cat. The third time, he had no excuse. The third time, he felt the charm of his soulmate starting to run its course within his blood. He was skeptical whether he was your soulmate in this life, but he was sure you were his. He could feel it when you’d laugh. He could feel it when you cautioned him whenever he petted your cat.

“She’s no mere cat, she’s mongolian cat. It would take one bite for her to dismember your finger if you-” you stopped when the grey haired cat—Zaya, you called her—nuzzled into Jeno’s lap, her big claws retracted to cause him no harm.

“You were saying?” Jeno remembered himself saying, and he remembered more clearly the smile that followed on your lips. He could scarcely believe, in these times, that you were the same girl who chided the queen mother whenever she would try to admonish you, who spoke with the diplomats as if you were a king yourself.

There was a child in you still, a hint of life smothered by the world. It would gleam in your eyes when he would join you at your lonely table, but it would peak everytime Jaemin excused himself from the crowd of jesters and courtiers and stole you away from Jeno. As if you were his to begin with. The girl promised to him was Yeeun, and she had returned to the festivities of the palace a week later than the king promised. Not that her return was well-received by Jeno.

The Yeeun he left behind a decade ago was delicate, and kind. The Yeeun he found now was full of hate. Hate for her brother, hate for you. Occasionally would she return to her real self, and that too only in the darkness of the sullen night. In these times she would talk of something other than dreams to sit on her brother’s throne, and Jeno would find her more tolerable than ever.

One night she told him she loved him, like any lover would, and Jeno couldn’t bring himself to say it back. He wondered if he had too much wine that night, or if he’d talked too much to you and fallen back into the chasm of darkness he built for himself a long time ago. The latter seemed more probable, considering how he would seethe in anger when he heard your name on the girl’s lips, taken in vain and resentment.

The curse of soulmates was on him again. This time stronger and more powerful than before. But you were unscathed by it. Jeno knew it because he had seen the way you looked at Jaemin, and the way he looked back at you. That was love.

Jeno realized he hadn’t even come close to that kind of love in all the time he loved Yeeun. Or convinced himself that he did. But to renounce his love now would break the girl’s heart. And for all his faults, Jeno didn’t like to break hearts. Thus, he started thinking less of you, and more of what you had asked from him.

On one hand, pledging his loyalty to you was a way to fix the broken past he shared with you, whether you remember it now or not. On the other hand it was declaring war against Yeeun and the queen mother, figuratively speaking. But Jeno had always loved wars, and if there was one that would help him quench his undying desire for closure, who was he to deny it?

He made his choice a night before the final feast, hoping to disclose it when the occasion would wrap up. But that couldn't happen.

And now, as he stands before a shrine anchoring the remains of noble lords and their families, Jeno wonders if he should've told you what was in his heart the first chance he had. Because like you said, you two seemed to have very little time.

The setting sun casts a blinding light on the stone structure of the temple-like building, within which the king pays his respect to the recently departed soul of Lord Chaesook. Around the shrine mourners gather in the memory of the old man, soldiers and common people alike, though the crowd is smaller than Jeno had expected. Lord Chaesook wasn’t the most honorable of men, everyone knew that, but he was closest to the king, his uncle and advisor when he was still a crown prince, and such an honor lured in loyalists on its own. But every dawn has a dusk. And Jeno stands before Lord Chaesook’s dusk, wondering if his own dusk would come soon, now that he met you again.

“Captain.”

Jeno veers around from where he stands at the base of the steps leading to the shrine. You strut up the vast, mournful courtyard behind him in a flurry of a cream colored gown, embroidered with a flush of scarlet to commemorate your roots. The smile on your face negates the gloomy atmosphere, and for the first time in the day, Jeno finds himself smiling back.

“My queen.” He bows, clasping his hands in front of him as you stop to stand beside him.

“It's been a fortnight. I see you're still deciding.”

It's a queen talking to him now, not the girl he met every night at the feasts. It piques his curiosity to think how many layers of yours he has yet to uncover.

“It's not an easy proposal you've put forth. I’m thinking most carefully about it,” he says, stalling his answer despite his prior intentions to let you know about it. He still has the day. He still has a lot he wants to talk to you about. “I'm sorry, however, for your loss. I hear the Lord was a father figure to the king.”

Your face falls in disappointment. “Yes. The king has had a lot of vile father figures.”

It is obvious you came today with high expectations, and Jeno’s apathetic attitude has made you bitter.

“Vile, you call him?” Jeno’s eyes are wide in amusement, though he silently prays for forgiveness for talking behind the back of a dead person.

“What else should I call a man who had been poisoning the King's mind against the Mongolians for so long? It's a pity that the men who start wars never really see it. They remain resting in their luxurious abodes while men like you fight their wars for them.”

Jeno knows not exactly what killed the lord, but he heard enough to know he hadn’t died of old age. Turmoil, betrayals, backstabbings. Your words were becoming an eerie reality by the day. It was one of the two reasons he had come to decide what he had decided about your proposal.

“Better a century of war than the butchering of an innocent at a celebration,” he says, earning a sly smile from you.

“Tell me captain, why is it more noble to kill ten thousand men in a battle, than a dozen at a celebration?”

Jeno tries to conjure an answer, but his mind comes away blank. He welcomes the distraction brought by Lord Chaesook’s wife descending the steps ahead. Her nose is a faded shade of crimson, eyes the color of thunderclouds and the wrinkles around her face seem to move when you walk up to her and offer her your condolences.

“I'm so sorry for your loss,” you tell her, a perfect imitation of sorrow on your face that leaves Jeno stunned by your trickery. “Lord Chaesook was an honorable man, we all shall remember him for his dispensable services to the kingdom.”

The woman, too caught in her mourning, doesn’t catch the anomaly in your words. She simply nods and courtesies before moving past. When you return to your place beside him again, he leans in a modest distance and whispers the word to you, “Indispensable.”

“Sorry?”

“You meant to say indispensable.”

There is a smile trying to etch up your face, but you hold it back, if only for the sake of the Lord’s crying wife.

“No. Not really.” You shake your head. “He was quite dispensable.”

Should Jeno laugh at your dark humor or should he pray for your sanity?

“You didn't like the Lord, did you?”

“I don't like people who don’t like me.”

“I hear people who don't like you don't get to like much else either.” Jeno shifts his weight from one foot to the other. The setting sun brings in the courtyard a dull breeze, freezing his warm heart. “Just yesterday I was looking into a report for a missing courtier. This morning my men found his body washed up ashore, tongue torn out with pincers. They say he served the king loyally for many years but he didn’t like the queen very much.”

He notices how your mouth twists in disgust, a look of displease killing the last of the joy you had brought into the day. Immediately, regret washes over him. To accuse you of something he has no concrete evidence of is not only whimsical, but it also diminishes the dynamic of your conversation.

“What a terrible, terrible crime. I sincerely hope you find the culprit and put him or her to justice,” you say.

Up ahead, Jaemin leaves the glistening building at last, his long, velvet cloak trailing behind him like a regal monstrosity. Though the crowd is big and variegated, he finds you easily, standing out in the scarlet of your dress. He smiles sadly, and though you have no remorse for the dead Lord, you create a little if only to support your husband.

“I've made my choice.” Jeno’s voice keeps you from extending a hand to Jaemin and walking up to him. You wait for him to continue, hoping to hear an affirmative answer. Time slows for Jeno, and it becomes completely phantom when his hand grazes yours. He looks into your eyes...and he is lost. Lost in yesterday night’s dream, where he saw himself, neither killing you nor kissing you. Instead, he saw you and him sitting on a hill, his hand in yours, a melancholy in your hearts as the sun set on a strange, dystopian world. We’ll be fine, you had said. The whistle of a wheeled excrescence swallowed your words, and a while later it swallowed you too.

A shuffling sound from afar catches Jeno’s attention. It heightens his senses. For a moment he hears every thud of footfall, every sniffle of cry and every scream of a pulled bowstring.

He steps toward you, breaching the little modest line that separated you from him. If this bold act is any surprise to you, the feeling of his hand on your waist is another element of surprise entirely. You prepare to fall away from his grip, intending to question him for his brazen actions.

You never see the arrow, where it is or how it comes at you. One moment you're standing before Jeno, eyes narrowed in anger and the next you're being swerved away with his grip on your waist, graciously pulled from the arrow's path.

It dodges you perfectly and embeds itself into Jeno's back. With his painful wince, the world comes alive in a billow of screams. The crowd hastens to take cover, all as a rain of arrows falls in the courtyard.

Even with Jeno’s hand on your shoulder, even with his face so close to yours, you turn and look for your king first.

“Protect your king!” you command the soldiers as they scurry ahead to shield Jaemin. When you face Jeno again, his skin turns the color of curdled milk, and his chest heaves with his labored, hard to take breaths. He opens his mouth to speak but you shush him up, calling for a nearby soldier to help you carry him back to your carriage. You push his body up with your hands as it threatens to collapse.

“You’re alright, Jeno. You’re alright.”

When a soldier takes his hand from yours, you hear him whisper something. The cacophony of deafening screams should be too loud to hear anything. It should be too loud to care for him, too loud to feel anything for him. But as one of Jaemin’s soldiers pulls you towards safety with a harsh tug on your forearm, you repeat the words you should not have heard on your lips.

“I dreamt of you, y/n. I dreamt we were old.”

When you finally find your way into Jaemin's safe arms, the words keep you sane through the tough journey back to the palace.

*******

"And then you died and I lived happily ever after," you speak over the rumble of a bus rolling past the road beside you. The ache in your legs has dulled now, surging up occasionally to remind you just how far and long you've walked. Any moment now you expect to hit the outskirts of the city, hoping to find a bus stop before that happens.

Jeno gives you a mocking smile, shaking his head. You grimace in response, tramping on as the flat road stretches into the long, arched bridge.

"How come I die from an arrow and you don't?"

He shrugs, grabbing a wet railing to hoist himself up the bridge. "God favors me."

You give a knowing laugh. "I never would've guessed."

You peer down the side of the bridge, reveling in the sight of the river beneath you. It weaves harshly, swallowing the last of the worn out rain, rising ever so slowly to strike the steep shores that hold it back.

You can understand why you could so easily trust Jeno all those years ago. There is a gentle feeling to him, a sense of safety like the waves of the river, crashing against the shore but never overtaking it. Just like the way they always recede before breaching their limit, Jeno does too, countering your narcissism perfectly.

"What happened, though?" you ask, stopping to lean over the railing and get a better look at the body of water. "Was there a riot or something?" Your eyes fill with fascination, a look Jeno has seldom seen on your face, but loved the most. He fights the urge to yank you away from the railing, fearing you're leaning in too close.

"I think so," he replies, eyes still fixed on you. A disturbing memory comes to him, one with you standing precariously on the railing while he watches from afar, unable to help as the river rises to coil around your body, engulfing it. His muscles tense at the vivid image it forges in his mind, and a wave of nausea hits him when he speaks again. "The King pardoned Yeeun. This was bound to happen."

"She started it?"

"I'm not sure, but I had my doubts, a lot of people sided with her after she came back to the palace."

"Was she really that bad?" You step away, culminating your daredevil observation of the river. Jeno feels his muscles relax and you start walking again. "I mean, by the sound of it, I hated more people than she did."

"Yes," Jeno agrees, "But I always thought your hate was different. You hated people who didn't make sense. You hated people who hated your survival. Your hate was justified. Yeeun hated… well, because she could."

You hum in response. "Hmm. You're right. My hate is different. Anyone else would've gutted you the moment they saw you. Yet, here I am."

Jeno raises his eyebrows, gesturing to you in agreement. "Yet, here you are."

You walk in silence for a while, leaving the wistful bridge and entering the flat roads again. The clouds overhead cut away to let the last of the sunlight caress the earth, its warmth the only solace in the cold wind that follows the rain.

"So...what happens next?"

Jeno clears his throat, and says, “Well, for the next few weeks nothing really happened. I was mostly being treated for my wounds and when there weren't a dozen medics around me I was surrounded by Yeeun, or the king, or you.”

“Me?” you ask, amused.

Jeno nods. “You came whenever you could. First with Jaemin and then alone. As much as you liked to deny it, I was still your soulmate, and so the inevitable attraction was hard to overlook... I remember sometimes I would pretend to be asleep just so I could hear you ranting about your day to me. Queen mother did this, queen mother did that. It was funny, really, until the talks became less of the queen mother and more of your own fears. Fear of the palace, fear of the darkness, sometimes even of Jaemin. It was forgetable at first, your complaining I mean, until it got louder and stonger...and then…”

“And then?”

A dark cloud rolls in the path of the sun, stealing its light and casting a dark shadow on Jeno’s bright, brown eyes. He takes a breath, the last of his high spirits vanishing within the shadow on his face.

“And then began the road to your demise.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

The sky is dark again, the morning Jeno stands outside the royal chambers of the king, three weeks after his full recovery, and two months after a supposed riot took the kingdom by storm. The patched wound on his chest convulses with a dull ache the longer Jeno dawdles in the cold, expansive hallway, clutching tightly in his hand a piece of paper. The ache reminds him of the bitter memories of the day of the riot. It’s as if he can still feel it; the blinding lights reflecting from the shrine, the blunt arrows falling upon the courtyard like a bloody hailstorm, his hand around your waist as he shielded you with his body.

In a way, that was his answer. To your proposal, to your doubts, to your very soul. I am yours, he had said when he took the arrow for you. It was another story that you had cared very little, in the heat of the moment, at least, of the arrow that pierced his chest, and more of the king’s safety. But your sympathy had come for him eventually, in the late night visits you made to his sickroom. You would pray for him by his bed, insisting prayers were heard sooner and faster at night. When he had asked for an explanation for your theory, you had given an innocent, childlike one. “Because everyone else is sleeping at night and no one is praying. God is less busy.”

Some nights he prayed with you too, though he wasn’t sure which god he prayed to. There was the god you brought in your heart from Mongolia, and there was the god who resided in the stone temples and grandiose shrines of his kingdom. Neither made much sense. But one of them had answered his prayer. One of them brought you closer to him, fulfilling the promise made to him by the universe. A soul promised to a soul. That was the way the world worked for everyone. At last, it was starting to work the same way for him.

When the cold finally starts to bite at his skin, Jeno slides open the king’s chambers, finding it empty save for your lonesome figure, perched by a wide windowsill, one hand outstretched to feel the air outside through the open window.

“The king’s not in here,” you say without looking. Your scarlet dress stands out in the grandeur of the colossal chamber; a speck of red silk in a world bathed with gold and silver. It makes you easy to find, and even easier to admire.

Jeno crosses the threshold, regarding you most curiously. “What are you doing?” he asks.

You turn to Jeno, delighted to find him at the door, and not another courtier awaiting the presence of the king. Abandoning your perch on the windowsill, you stand upright, plucking your hand out of the chill air outside. “Waiting for the snow,” you answer, smiling.

You liked snow. That much Jeno had learned from the countless blabbering you did that filled in the empty schedules for the past month. Back in your kingdom, it always snowed in winter, with the snowbeds lasting well into the last days of Summer, and sometimes they stayed till winter came again, rising to meld with even more snow. In Goryeo, snow comes unrushed. It comes when it wished, living to its own excruciating accords. Still, that never stops you from waiting for it.

“Did you bring the things?” you ask Jeno. He waves a dilapidated paper in his hand.

“Very well.” You usher him inside, taking the paper and spreading it on a wide desk in the corner of the room. A detailed map of the palace is drawn on the paper, the old ink spilt in some places, tinging the paper with black. Though, otherwise, it is comprehensible.

“You do know that the king and his guards have gone through this multiple times now, right?” Jeno questions as you carefully consider the map, hands folded, a palm to hoist your chin, looking like a mischievous child and a scheming queen, morphed into one person. “Yes and I don’t trust his guards very much. I don’t want another version of the riot playing in front of me the next time Jaemin goes out in public.”

The riot was a wake up call for many, including the King and his subjects. With the perpetrator yet to be discerned, there was a rush of paranoia in the kingdom, filling people with dread. Jeno had been on the hunt for the culprit but dead ends were all he found. Dead ends that led him back to the palace, into the rooms of the queen mother and her daughter. He had no concrete evidence, so that’s where he had to stop, though he was sure a little more digging would get him just that.

Your fingers dance on the map, hovering over the marked places. Jeno’s frustration was nothing compared to the unease you felt. The arrow had come for you. Before anyone, it was meant to strike you, and if not for Jeno, you would’ve been dead for the second time, unbeknownst to you. Adding your assistance to Jaemin’s big day-the day he will assume his position as the rightful king of goryeo in the throne room-is but a way to calm your frantic heart and make sure nothing goes wrong. After all, any damage that comes to him, comes to you too.

“Two soldiers here, at least a platoon by the front gate,” you instruct, pointing to the figure meant to represent the roofs of the palace, “And I want climbers and archers who can perch upon roofs and look out for potential threats. They should be spread across at least a 5 mile radius, and please, don’t let them be seen. People are already scared, and if we blatantly show them the heightened security they’ll think we have nothing under control.”

“But we do have nothing under control.”

Jeno’s implication should scare you, but you chuckle instead, finding humor in the tense air.

“Yeah, I know,” you say, turning to him beside you. “Everything is basically fucked.”

Jeno twists his mouth in disappointment, mimicking the way the Queen mother admonishes you sometimes. “Language, young lady,” he remarks in her tone, eerily similar to what she actually sounds like. You laugh harder, glad to lose some of your anxiety to the easy moment. You glance at Jeno, still laughing, only to see him still wearing the expression of the queen mother still. You clutch your belly when the absurdness overflows, the laughter pouring out of you non-stop. Even when you recover, a smile sits on your lips. It always seems to be there when you’re around Jeno, too frequently to be a mere coincidence. You don’t like to think about it much.

“It’s going to snow this time next week,” Jeno tells you, an hour after the map on the desk is long forgotten, instructions given and commands heard. You take a glimpse of the view outside from the wide window. The sky stands dark, the weather hinting rain. You only hope it isn’t rain, and that the temperature is cool enough for snow to fall. Rain is too messy, too demanding.

“Very fine prediction, weather man...weather person... Is there such a thing?” you arch your eyebrows, eyeing Jeno skeptically. Exhausted from standing too long, you sit by the windowsill again, if only to take a good look at the sky.

“It’s not a prediction. I’ve been around long enough to know.”

His words go in from one ear and out through the other. With the fading sunlight falling on Jeno's face, you barely register anything but him. The boy in the gleaming armor; the boy who trusted you, believed you, saved you. The boy who could’ve been yours, had you met him in a different time, before you entitled your heart to love and cherish Jaemin instead.

You would grow old with Jeno, and Jaemin would be youthful as always; a flower that would bloom forever, or until he met his soulmate. The thought makes you queasy, that one day Jaemin would wake up to your greying hair, to your wrinkled hands and broken voice, and perhaps that one day he might not come to love you anymore, favoring his soulmate over you. Perhaps in your next life he could be your soulmate instead, you wish. But somehow you know that’s not how it works. The world changes, kingdoms fall and rise, wars are won and lost, kings come and go; but soulmates remain constant. That is the only promise the universe has made that it keeps.

You hang onto that promise as you open your mouth to speak, cut-short by the doors of the chamber opening to let Jaemin walk into the vast chamber.

“What are you two troublemakers up to?” he asks, smiling his way into the room.

You glance at Jeno, willing him to keep his big mouth shut. “Jeno came to deliver a map of the palace,” you announce, your voice a pitch higher than usual. “You see, Zaya likes to roam around a lot at night and I have trouble navigating the palace, so I got myself this map,” you lie easily, pointing to the piece of paper deserted on the desk. The little cat in question prances in through the ajar door, her face pulled as if she can sense the lie you dragged her into.

“That’s very smart,” Jaemin comments, and you smile like a little child, keeping up with your facade.

Jeno shakes his head, mimicking your smile. “I’ll take my leave then,” he says, bowing once to Jaemin, “My king,” and then to you, “my queen.” You catch the look of admiration on his face, probably for your skill to lie so easily, and with that last look, he exits the room, leaving you to face Jaemin.

“You’re making friends,” Jaemin says, awkwardly settling beside you on the windowsill, “Finally.”

You look at him. “No thanks to you.”

He smiles at the little pout that forms at the base of your lips, worrying it will turn into a frown when he says, “Mother wants you in her chambers. The ladies are doing some...sewing stuff...in there.”

The frown comes deeper and sooner than Jaemin expects, ruining your mood entirely. "Ugh, not again," you groan, resting your head in your hands. "Her sewing lessons are keeping me from practicing archery."

"You’re good at sewing though," Jaemin compliments. He bites his lips through the obvious lie. You're good at many things. Sewing isn't one of them. Jaemin remembers the day you first got dragged into a lesson by his mother, and how, by the time it was over, you were sobbing like a child, your fingers pricked in more than one place. That was the day he replaced the needle in your hand with a sword, allowing you to practice swordsmanship, and any 'unladylike' activity you wished to pursue. His mother had come to protest against it, but he had convinced her it was better than having you meddle in political affairs. Though you had come to do that not long after, much to his dismay.

"You're an awful liar, Jaemin," you grimace.

He brings one hand to pinch your cheeks, "Oof, look at you. Already so cranky and it’s not even afternoon yet."

You squirm under his touch, playfully batting his hand away. "I have every right to be cranky. The royal chef isn’t making pies anymore. I can't practice archery because of those stupid sewing lessons. I feel like vomiting all the time and on top of that, I can't stop worrying for when you'll be sitting on that cursed throne," you rant, not noticing the look Jaemin shoots down to your supposedly bloated belly, and then up at your face again.

"Y/n…" he begins, eyes gleaming with the prospect of what he's thinking. "Have you…are you…?"

You sit there confused, wondering what the little movements of his eyes mean. In addition to that, there's that smile as well, swelling with curiosity.

"Doesn't it make sense?" he prods the subject, "the bad moods, the cravings, the constant complaining?"

Realization hits you later than you expect, but finally, you understand what he means.

"God, No!" you grunt in embarrassment, pulling your knees to your chest to hide your face. You've been married to Jaemin for almost four years now, yet topics like this still make you bashful to talk about. The subject rises mostly when you're amongst the court ladies, who are always ready to pry into their queen's personal affairs, asking you questions that make your cheeks heat up in shame.

"What? I could be right," Jaemin says, reinforcing his idea. He pulls your legs down tenderly, bringing a hand to rest on your abdomen. You tilt your head to a side.

“Oooooh, I can feel it. There’s definitely something wrong around here,” he says, biting his bottom lip. You bat his hand away, laughing when you do so.

“Eww, what are you doing? Imagine what Zaya must be thinking of us," you joke, gazing at the cat snuggled at the base of the bed, nonplussed by your shenanigans.

"Oops." Jaemin covers his mouth with a hand, "How thoughtless of me."

You go back to looking at the sky again, already missing your little conversation with Jeno. It’s irrational but you believe his prediction of the snow anyway. Little hopes like these are what keeps you going, after all.

“One day then, at least,” Your king says, still dead set on the same subject, “we’ll have a little prince running around this palace.”

The thought is as odd as it is compelling. Could there be such a day? You never gave it much attention, but now that Jaemin is no longer only a crown prince, you know everyone is impatient to see you bear his heirs. It didn’t help that you were more interested in bows and arrows and other dangerous weapons than in the line of succession of the dynasty. Only until now, it seems.

You glance at Jaemin, his contagious smile tugging at the corners of your own lips.

“What if it’s a princess?” you ask.

His smile widens. He drapes his hand over yours, caressing it softly. “Prince or princess, they’ll be a part of you, and I’ll love him or her just the same.”

Your chest brims with love, a tear stinging the corner of your eyes. “What about me? Would you love me the same too?”

Jaemin pulls you to his chest, resting his head atop yours, breathing your scent. The world outside drowns in its murkiness, leaving you two alone in its vastness. A young king and his aging queen, watching the sky turn its back on them.

“Of course,” Jaemin replies, holding you closer than ever.

For all your cunning, you don’t catch the twitch in his voice. His caressing hand slows, its touch numbing until it simply sits there on your palm, getting colder by the second. You blame the strong breeze for it, basking in your make-believe world for as long as it lasts.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The following days Jeno alternated between making arrangements for the King’s first day in the throne room and making sure nothing awry happened until then. He had effectively convinced Jaemin to pass the order to ban any public gatherings, under the false pretense of honoring the people who died in the riot. It had been your suggestion, given to him while you were munching on a freshly baked apple pie he had bought you from a renowned bakery in the town. You had been so delighted at his caring gesture that you had thrown all formalities out the window and leaped up to embrace the living hell out of him. Jeno had taken your unexpected hug with a surge of warmth charging up his veins, and the crimson it had painted on his cheeks followed him well into the afternoon, when he had an unfortunate encounter with Yeeun.

“Have you given Jaemin your answer yet?”

The talk of marriage was the least of Jeno’s priorities at the moment. For Yeeun, it is all that mattered. He had stalled her question by trying to tell her about the new archery weapons he’d retrieved from an old armory in the palace. But she was not you, and she had little to no interest in archery and weapons and war. The only war she cared about was the one within the palace. And unbeknownst to Jeno, she had been winning it so far.

“No, I have yet to talk to Jaemin,” Jeno answers at last, when Yeeun’s questioning gets too much. Appallingly, She doesn’t rebuke him, she doesn’t argue.She simply holds his hand, and softens her eyes, bringing an echo of the Yeeun Jeno knew back to him.

“I’m willing to make peace with the queen and my brother for you,” she says. “I love you Jeno. I really do.”

Jeno’s heart dwindles for a single second, and it ends up causing him a lot of pain. He promises the princess he would talk to Jaemin at the earliest, and relief finds him when the girl smiles, fully this time. He accepts the gifts she hands him, one for the king and the other for the queen, knowing neither would accept it if it comes directly from her. Jaemin may have pardoned her, but the bad blood still runs thick.

“Red for the king, green for the queen,” she instructs, handing him two small strongboxes, one a dark green and the other a burnished red.

“The queen prefers red,” Jeno mutters, his voice swayed by the wind. He doesn’t ask what’s in the boxes, only waits as Yeeun places a quick, chaste kiss on his lips, gone unnoticed in the vacant part of the palace they stand in. When she leaves, Jeno heaves a sigh, praying for the strength to keep his word.

The day fuses into the next, adding onto him the burden of overseeing every last preparation in the throne room. As discussed with you, he positions men in a wide arc around the throne room, following every last detail you asked him to pay attention to. The big day comes at last, and it passes in the blink of an eye. All goes well under his supervision, with not a single thing amiss and no arrows flying around like the time at the funeral. Jeno finds himself swearing fealty to Jaemin, who would now be known as King Chungnyeol, a holy name chosen by the royal astrologer. The name ‘Jaemin’ would fade, but hopefully, the friend he knows would not. When the King finally takes his seat, his long, majestic robes flowing around him, the world takes a breath, holds it, and sighs. Another king on that damned throne. But a new queen on the smaller, more edged throne beside it.

You sit in all your glory, on a throne too strange for you, and with an absurd crown on your head matched with the deep red gown you wore. At the sight of your dress, Jeno makes a last minute decision to swap the strongboxes, presenting to you the red one while giving Jaemin the green one.

“What’s in it?” you ask him, eyes gleaming at the little box.

“I don’t know. That’s not from me.” He doesn’t wait for you to ask him any further questions. Instead he places in your hand another box, this one a pitch black, encrusted with the sigil of his clan; a ferocious bird with its wings outstretched in flight. You graciously accept the gift, opening it to reveal a pair of glossy, spherical black stones gleaming up at you. They are, unlike the jewels that sit collecting dust in your capacious drawers, burnished to form a smooth surface that allows your fingers to glide over it as you hold the stones carefully in your hands. Your face lights up at the sight.

“What does it do?” you wonder out loud, mouth agape as you survey the beguiling objects.

“It doesn’t do anything,” Jeno responds, grinning at your bewildered reaction. He throws a glance at the dais next to yours, where the king is still busy with another courtier of his, and turns to you to explain the meaning of the gift. “It’s a black onyx. It holds memories.”

You nod absentmindedly, still enchanted by the sheer beauty of the stones. Jeno laughs, just a little, before retiring to his place by the king’s throne, satisfied with the gift he gave you and delighted that you seem to like it.

All through the night, as more gifts pour in and join the mountain of treasures that rises up around the throne room, you keep Jeno’s gift closer than the others, not wanting to misplace it in the uneven assemblage. You observe it every now and then, finding a pair of stones more interesting than the lords and ladies that filter in and out of the place to wish their king well. They’re all the same people you’ve seen too many times, and you regard then with little interest until there comes through the doors a lonesome crone, introduced by the royal sentry as the wife of some lord you didn't catch the name of, and an exalted soothsayer.

You have little to no faith in the divinations created by these so-called oracles, doubting an entity as powerless as a human could undertake such seraphic acts. And yet, when the woman comes up to pay her respects to the king, you crane your neck to listen to her, abandoning the black stones on your lap.

“You will be a wise king,” you hear her say, "And you will peacefully rule over your subjects for three and a half decades, at the very least, with a heavy hand on your people, and their love in your heart.”

Jaemin smiles at her prophecy, easily deluded by a few made up lines. You scoff in your seat, and he shoots you a deterrent look, holding the soothsayer’s wrinkled hand in his.

“And what of my queen?” he asks her curiously.

The woman smiles, bowing to Jaemin as she makes her way towards you on the adjacent dias. Up close you can see clearly the blotches on her sagging skin, plaiting around her face and hands like frayed twines, and the scars the etch up her neck, paling against her creamy skin. For a while the chilling marks are all you can focus on, contemplating the story behind each one, up until she smiles, and you give up, resorting to smiling back as she takes your hand in hers.

“Our Mongolian queen,” she echoes, gazing into your eyes. “You’re a difficult one to decipher.”

Jaemin, and Jeno beside him, have all their attention trained on you as they wait curiously to see what the woman has to say. You wait just as anxiously, despite your earlier resolve to not take a soothsayer’s words to heart.

She grazes your chin with a bony finger, and to your surprise, you let her, strangely enchanted by her touch on your skin. Her eyebrows arch with her squinted eyes, all as a crease forms on her glabella, deepening the longer she looks.

“You long for something," she finally says, still focused on your face. "It’s a good sign. You must stay determined for it, and never lose your path beside him."

You glance at Jaemin, immediately concluding he is the boy in question. He gives you a reassuring smile, and you miss entirely the look the old woman gives to the boy behind him.

“For all his faults, no one matches your energy but him. I can see a nexus between you two, strongest in this very moment. Steer away from each other, and it will falter, and while it may not do any damage to him, for you, it might just be fatal,” she finishes, her grip on your hand tightening to reinforce her ominous point.

“It is a good thing then,” Jaemin speaks before you can form a sound consensus about what you just heard, “The queen and I are inseparable.”

The soothsayer smiles sadly and lets your hand go, leaving the skin numb where her firm fingers grasped it. She looks at her king, nodding her head.

“Your matrimony is indeed a brief solace for the kingdom.”

This time when she glances at Jeno, you catch the look easily.

“Be easy on her,” she says, and you wonder who she said it to, denying the evident answer when it comes.

And by the time the day comes to an end, you forget about it entirely.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The rest of the night is a blur to Jeno, coming to him in pieces as he stands in the garden outside the palace, a day later, waiting for Yeeun. He isn’t sure why he came here. He isn’t sure why he’s not spending his precious time with you, instead of wasting his time here, making false promises everyday, the list of which goes beyond his memory by this point.

“Did you give them the gifts?” Yeeun asks as soon as she comes up to him, eyes shadowed by a cloud of darkness, clothes dishevelled as if she ran the way to the garden. Jeno scans her carefully, taking in her appearance, and nods.

“Red for the king and green for the queen?” she inquires, this time with a triumphant smile on her face.

Jeno hesitates, twisting his lips in a frown. “No,” he answers, and Yeeun’s face falls in a sudden look of horror. “I gave the red one to Y/n, and green to Jaemin.”

Her face pales, matching the milky color of the sky. “Why?!” she billows, anger coating the tips of ears in a layer of red.

“I didn’t think it would matter-”

“Of course it matters, Jeno. What have you done? What have you done?!”

Yeeun’s anger is bizarre, and it doesn’t come only because Jeno happened to swap the boxes. There are greater forces at play and he knows that just enough to grip the girl by her shoulder, bringing her closer to him as his face twists in a grimace.

“What was in the boxes Yeeun?” he asks and the girl falls silent. His gentle voice contrasts the rage fuming out of his eyes and his labored breaths. Even with his whole body on fire, his voice carries the logical part of him, the part that knows screaming would not get him his answer. “Tell me Yeeun,” he presses the matter, “what was in the boxes?”

Yeeun’s answer comes shaky, and a little too late. But when it comes, it takes all his might to keep himself from driving a dagger right through that treacherous heart of hers.

───※ ·❆· ※───

"Oh God," you mutter under your breath. "What was in the red box?"

You sit now in a bus that rumbles on across the countryside, making a hasty way for the bustling city of Incheon. The bus was a miracle amidst the lonely edges of Seoul, because you were sure if you hadn't found the bus stop on time, Jeno would've coerced you into walking all the way to the other city.

He stares out the window from his seat, at the highway that goes on forever.

"Daphne berries," he answers, biting his lips when he shifts his gaze to you.

You smack your own forehead out of frustration, remembering the nature of the berries from the countless botany lessons you always paid a great deal of attention to.

"They're poisonous, you complete idiot."

You are as startled by your outrage as Jeno, who stares at you with wide eyes, wondering what just got into you.

"God, I hate you so much," you groan, throwing your head against the seat. "It was so obvious that the princess was gonna pull some shit up."

Jeno holds a palm in the air, keeping you from speaking anymore. "In my defense, I was already very busy with all the shit that was going on okay? Two stupid boxes were the least of my concern at that point. Besides, Yeeun was erratic, but I never thought she would go to such extremes."

You give him a wry smile, channeling your anger into sarcasm- a typical behavior of yours.

"Didn't she try to kill her own father literally a decade ago? The girl obviously had some issues-" you stick a finger to your forehead "-in here."

Jeno rolls his eyes. “She is perfectly fine,” he argues, overlooking his change of tense.

“Is?” you ask, cocking your head to a side. “Don’t tell me she reincarnated to someone in the present time as well.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you’re not the only person in this world who was ‘miraculously’ reborn seven times, okay? It’s in the book of soulmates, get that big brain of yours to read it someday,” Jeno scolds you, and you listen like a little child, a pout on your lips and your hands obediently folded in your lap.

“That book is nothing but a thousand pages of pure bluff,” you bicker, thinking back to the first and last time you read it, the night of your first nightmare. All your life you’d been told to revere it like some holy book, to place it on a higher ground, to open it with purity in your heart and read the gibberish whole-heartedly. It was tradition, your family told you, to understand every ‘truth’ there was in its text. Unfortunately for them, you’d always been more of a science lover. Science did kind of fail in fully discovering the art behind this whole soulmate nonsense, but your hopes were high that it would find some logical answer to the whole ordeal soon enough, in your lifetime, if you were lucky enough. And then you could hit the stupid book in the faces of everyone who’d ever asked you to read it. Jeno first.

“And how many of its lies have you debunked so far?” he mocks in a deadpan voice. There is a silver of what could be anger on the tip of Jeno’s flared nose. It's barely there, and somehow you hate it already. “It says you will be born seven times, and here you are, in your seventh life. It says your heart will stop and begin again with the name of your soulmate when you see them, and here we are. It says you will never age until you meet your soulmate-”

“-and here we are,” you finish for him, staring back into his narrowed eyes. You stay like this for a while, gazing into each other’s eyes, waiting for the other to give in and look away. Neither of you give in, at least not until Jeno’s eyes flicker down to your lips, and finally you tear your eyes away from his, abashed by his brash move.

“I can’t believe I’m going to die because you thought it would be nice to match a box to my dress,” you mumble, staring down into your laps to hide the warmth engulfing your cheeks.

Jeno smirks triumphantly, listening to you even with your voice so faint. That’s the thing about him.

He’s always listening.

───※ ·❆· ※───

Jeno runs back into the palace, climbing two stairs at a time to reach you as soon as he can. The guards call out behind him, or at least, he imagines they do. He ignores them, charging through the labyrinth, desperation in his chest, an ache in his muscles. He expects to find you in your room, but finds you instead in the small courtyard outside, a hand outstretched against the chill air. Your eyes are trained on the sky, skin drained of all color.

Jeno skids to a stop, not waiting to catch his breath. Bravely, he calls out your name. “Y/n?”

When you turn to him, he sees you smiling. He's still too far for you to register the awkward fusion of expressions on his face. Still too far to want to talk about anything other than the prediction he made this time last week.

“It’s been a week,” you tell him. “Where’s your snow?”

Jeno collects his memories, seeking the one where he may have promised you of snow. It comes to him muddled by his fears, by what Yeeun has told him, and by what he thinks could have made the color leech away from your skin.

He steps tentatively in your direction, licking his lips. He ignores your playfully taunting question. “Are you okay?’ he asks instead, concern lining every edge of his face.

You scrunch up your nose, squinting your eyes as if hiding an invisible pain. When you try to move, your body lists sideways, too weak to do anything but stand, still as a statue. “Yes,” you lie. “I’m okay… I'm okay.”

“Really?” Jeno moves forward. “Because you’re repeating your words, you look pale and as if you’re about to topple over.”

His feet crunch against a bed of rigid leaves, the sound too sharp for the otherwise silent world. One step. Two steps. Three steps. The distance between you and him is elusive, a flight of fancy. A few more steps, the crisp air tells him with each infuriating step. A few more steps and you’ll be next to her. It is all that keeps him going.

On the other side, you raise your eyebrows, bringing your outstretched hand back to fall beside you.

Jeno looks strange. His figure comes blurred and distorted. In his empty hands you see a nocked bow, and within his gentle gaze, you see fury. There is nothing familiar about him, nothing but a cold ruthlessness that comes with his frenzied look. Frightened, you take a step back.

“Yeah,” you call out, to the Jeno you know, not to this projection that gets eerily real the longer you look at it, “I think you might wanna catch me.”

Your head spins, pulling your disoriented body down. Jeno's strong arms come around your waist moments before your back hits the ground, holding you up against your frail legs.

"Get a medic. Now!" he yells at someone in the hallway behind him. You presume it is Nara. There is not much you can see, not with a dark cloud sweeping the light in your eyes, submerging you in the darkness you resent too much. You hear Jeno. You hear the birds. You hear your heart. Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Y/n?"

You hear your name. Without any titles or aliases tying it down, it sounds lighter, freer than you'll ever be.

You wonder why it can't be Jaemin here instead of Jeno, why it can't be him taking your name so tenderly, why it can't be him holding you so safely, and you wonder why you prefer things this way. It's a treasonous thing to wonder.

So what if you're feeling something more strongly for Jeno than you ever did for your husband? It doesn't mean anything. You try to convince yourself but your words betray you. They always do.

No matter how hard or frequently you deny the truth, Everything stands clear now. Your marriage to Jaemin, the end of a decade of war, the return of the soldiers. It was all so you could be here. Here in this freezing courtyard. Here with your warm heart and your easy thoughts. Here. Simply here.

"It's cold," you whisper, and the sky comforts you with the first snowflake of winter, weaving gently in the air as it saunters towards the damp earth. It lands on your frozen body, on a cheek encrusted with a single warm tear. It fuses there, with its warmth, birthing life and love alike.

You smile, knowing Jeno’s prediction stands true.

───※ ·❆· ※───

You look to Jeno, as if you’re about to bawl any moment. Your lips are curled into a pout, nostrils dilating every now and then to keep the sniffles in. There is that bad habit of yours too, the one that follows you into every life; resting your face in your palm with that signature ‘y/n is about to cry’ look. Jeno has hated it all your life.

“God, Don't make that face,” he reprimands, scowling as the bus slows down in its path. “You didn’t die.”

Your face lights up like a candle.

“Really?!” you ask, delighted by the idea of not dying. Yet.

Jeno avoids your stare, nervously turning to the dulling view outside.

“No...But your cat did,” he answers, scrunching up his face to prepare for your reaction.

Silently, you clench and unclench your fists, contorting your face in a mixture of anger and frustration. “That’s it. I’m going to kill you,” you grunt through gritted teeth. .

Feeling sympathy for a dead cat from centuries ago is the last thing you thought you’d do today, and yet Jeno made you do exactly that.

“You can’t, you’ll go to jail,” he says, still avoiding your stare.

“Not if I do it the right way.”

“And what way is that?”

Pushing you down a ten storey building. Stabbing you in the thigh till you bleed to death. Wringing your neck with a sharp twist of my hand. Cutting open your throat with a clean cut of a knife.

So many ways to kill, so little time.

“My cat didn’t deserve to die,” you rebuke, changing the subject. Jeno gives you what could pass off as a sympathetic look; eyes low, cheeks flopping.

“I adopted three cats in her honor if that makes you feel any better.”

Bongsik. Seol. Nal. Brought home one after the other because they reminded him so much of the little feline you had. They were no comparison to the monstrosity your Mongolian cat was, but they made a place just as big in Jeno’s heart.

“That’s very comforting to hear,” you mock him, batting your eyes.

“It’s not like I told you to feed your cat those stupid berries.” Jeno throws his hands up in surrender. The bus scurries past a flashing green road sign, exhibiting the remaining distance to Incheon in clear, white font. He glances just in time to see the two numbers imprinted on it. Fourteen kilometres left. It was time to wind up.

“Besides, we’re wasting our time arguing about this. I need to finish telling you the whole thing before we see the palace,” Jeno adds, trying to hide the urgency in his tone. The closer you get to the city, the more fidgety he gets, shifting around in his seat to the point that his unease can be physically felt by you; especially with the way he constantly raps his knuckles against the handle of his seat, irritating you with the raspy noise is makes.

You notice his uneasy demeanor, but choose not to comment on it. Better leave it to when you’ll get to the bloody place.

“Fine,” you agree, “But cut the story short. I don't want to hear any more of that stupid princess or your stupid decisions.��

Jeno isn’t attentive enough to bother glaring at you. He just nods, continuing where he left off, though, this time, with less details than before. “After your cat died, I confronted Yeeun about, well, the poison. It was quite a fight we had, I can clearly remember it. Her fist was clenched around my collar, my hand grasping the nape of her neck. I almost killed her. I wanted to kill her. But then I remembered I did still love her, maybe not as much as I had grown to love you but still, the remnants of my perfunctory feelings were still there. I made her promise me. I made her promise that she would never try to hurt you again, and that if I finally said yes to Jaemin for our marriage, she would stop getting in your way.”

You scoff, “As if a promise was going to stop her.”

Jeno’s hand stops on the handle. You bask in the silence that comes from the almost vacant bus.

“It did,” he says. “For a while it did. At least until the day I finally grew the courage to knock up on Jaemin's chambers and talk to him about it.” He brings his hand into his lap, clasping it with the other as he presses his lips into a tight smile. “I said no.”

You shake your head, sighing. Behold the king of bad decisions. You did not expect anything better from him. “Of course you did.”

He turns to you solemnly, and if there was any humor in the air around you, any dying atom of comfort or joy, it was about to be leached away now, by his heavy words. “And I told Jaemin the reason I couldn't marry Yeeun was because you were my soulmate. Though, that didn't go so well for me. I thought Jaemin would be more understanding, but I forgot entirely about his possessive nature. He commanded me to leave the palace at once, to go south and rally the remaining of my men as I had initially intended to. I tried to argue, tried to warn him of his sister but he wasn't willing to listen. He wanted me gone, and I couldn't disobey a King's command.”

“Why?” You find yourself asking. Just moments ago he told you he and the king were good friends. Surely this sudden change in their relationship did not come simply because you turned out to be Jeno’s cursed soulmate. “Weren't you two best friends or something?”

“It was the whispers,” Jeno says, eyes caught up in a layer of darkness. “The courtiers, mostly, who had...started...well, some stupid rumors…” He stutters with his words, and the rapping comes back, more consistent this time. “Some people in the palace had grown suspicious that perhaps our relationship had been… a bit...intimate, that perhaps we were more than just friends...”

“Any particular reason for this strange belief?” you ask wryly.

Jeno’s cheeks spark up with a flush of crimson, and he chews on his lower lip to keep the embarrassing heat from spreading. “Well, it was because-because you had been married to Jaemin two years now… and now finally…”

You look up at him, your unyielding eyes demanding him to finish his sentence. He stares back, ignoring the feeling of the scalding heat raking up and down his body, and lets the words slip from his mouth in a hushed whisper.

“And now finally you got pregnant.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

You have never known anguish as you know it today, never felt wrath as you feel it today; it burns in your scampering feet, lighting a wildfire in your chest, sending plumes of pants out through your flared nostrils. Your swollen belly does little to slow your steps. It only reminds you of Jaemin’s lies, of his broken promises, and the one he is about to break now.

He stands on a dais across the long courtyard stretching to anchor the strong, weighty palace gates. A frown sits on his face when he notices you storming in from beside him, another fracture in his imperfect day, and he becomes rigid, as if chiseled from stone.

“What do you think you're doing?” you bellow, ignorant of the revolting looks the courtiers shoot at you.

A rush of whispers linger in the air, shrill as a birdsong, starker than the wind. Jaemin grits his teeth against them. He stays silent, overlooking the procession that marks the departure of his captain.

It is the right thing to do, he convinces himself. It is the only thing that will keep the whispers at bay, and his own envy will be diminished when he finally has you for himself again. You and him. It had been that way from the start, and it would be till the end. No soulmates, no fables, no myths could defy that. He was a king, and so the world would do his bidding, in whichever way he saw fit.

“Na Jaemin! I’m asking you something,” your voice comes again, closer this time. He turns and you’re beside him, standing shoulder to shoulder, a hand on his but your eyes are far away, gazing at the palace gates, at the boy who stands beyond it, preparing his horse for a long journey.

“Go back to your chambers at once,” he says.

Your eyes are still at the gates. Still so far. Still so surreal. Your hand is pleading. It is pressing against his skin, willing him to revoke his decision.

“No. Not unless you make Jeno stay,” you insist, finally looking back into Jaemin’s eyes, but it is too late now, for he has already lost you. “You’re not thinking straight, it’s quite obvious someone has ill-advised you on the matter,” you continue, every inch of your body tense with fervour, imploring Jaemin to listen.

He listens. Just not to you.

“And why would I do that?” he sneers, his pupils dilating in rage. The courtiers around him stiffen in fear. He likes it. Likes the power, the authority, the wordless obedience, and when it doesn’t come from you, it irks him beyond imagination.

“Why do you care if I let him stay or send him to the battlefields? Why does it matter to you whether I let him live or sentence him to die?” His voice rises with each syllable, echoing feverishly in the vast palace, coming alive with the smothered fright in your eyes.

He is not Jaemin. He is King Chungnyeol of the kingdom of Goryeo. He does not cater to the whims and wishes of a lost princess of Mongolia, he commands his queen, the girl who stands before him in her muddied clothes, looking less a queen and more a soldier.

“He’s my friend,” you answer him, trying to counter his ferocity, but your reason is weaker than his query, and so it falters sooner than you expect, evoking a taunting smile from the king. You’re losing this whimsical battle of back and forth banter. You have never lost against Jaemin. Good thing then, you tell yourself, that this boy isn’t him.

“You’re my queen,” the king reminds you, “and so you will return to your chambers now and come to me tomorrow with an apology for your impertinence.”

It all seems like a bad joke the universe is playing with you. You close your eyes, willing it to end. Only it doesn’t. It goes on and on, wasting your time as the palace gates start to close, sealing Jeno-who stands too far to see or hear you-from you.

Your hands curl by your side, a frantic energy enlivening them. It travels down to your legs and sizzles with the impulse to run. You glance at the king, losing his grip in your hand as you scour the long, broad stairs leading to the courtyard, which stretches for what seems like a mile before crashing against the iron gates.

It is safer to stand and watch, or so your observations implicate. Jeno is a gone case. It is time to plan beyond the safety he provided, to start from scratch in this palace of horrors.

And yet the energy in your body is fighting to flail in the air. It aches for a release you’re not giving it, yearning for a look, begging for a touch.

You take a glimpse at your king, hoping for him to break his facade and return Jaemin to you, safe and unharmed. For all the time you stare at him, he never looks back; his face a shadow, heart a stone.

With a prayer in your heart, which goes unheard amidst the cacophony of a thousand others, you kick off on your feet, descending the stone laden stairs two at a time. You think you hear your king say something, you think you hear him roar in anger. His voice falls in the air as it carries you across the never-ending courtyard, your sprightly run an imperfect match to the pace of the closing gates ahead.

You crush beneath the scuttle of your feet your honor and your safety, perfectly tied to what little love Jaemin had given you that you salvaged in this place. It carries negligible weight, only spiking your pace with its hollowness. Though, it does prick your feet like a sharp thorn, and for a moment, with the ache and the blood coursing through you like a cascading river, corroding your very soul, you think you won't make it.

The ground starts closing in on you. Your lungs inflate, almost failing you. Your own blood blanches against your skin. When everything seems to be deceiving you, the songbirds open their ears to you and make from your agony a chilling song, which they then bear to the edges of the palace, singing it to the boy outside.

Jeno waits to listen. His wait is all you want. All you need.

A stride, and you’ve slipped past the gates. A shout and Jeno turns to you.

You're a mess of ruffled fabric, teary eyes and wobbly legs. But for him, you are a wounded bird, cupped in his hand, your song slowly coming to its end. Jeno’s eyes are wide, his shock visible in the clean cuts of his face. Dread fills his chest; not for himself, but for you.

“Don’t go,” you whimper, your legs shaky as withered leaves, but your voice surprisingly steady. The palace gates are behind you, shutting with a thud that sends the birds flying in their flocks from the nearby trees.

The gates will open again shortly. They will open to take you back and lock you in their iridescence.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Jeno echoes, glancing at the soldiers behind him, and at the road beyond stretching towards the main city.

“You’re not one to tell me where I should be,” you argue, moving closer to him.

“True that.” Jeno watches you closely. He hopes you will move closer, that you will take his hand in yours and everything will be fine again. “A soldier can not command his queen.”

You take a step forward. “I’m not your queen.”

“No," he calls back. "You’re not.”

You are before his eyes not as his queen, or friend, or enemy, or prisoner. You stand as yourself. There isn't a form of you more beautiful than the one he stands with, all with your bloodied feet and your dirt-laden gown.

“I don’t belong here,” Jeno says, his voice lost, his soul lost even farther.

You shake your head. “Neither do I. We can’t always be where we belong.”

“My soldiers need me-”

“I need you more.”

“Jaemin waits for you-”

“Not anymore.”

“You have your crown,” Jeno rebukes, tipping the jeweled eyesore on your head with a finger. It stands its ground, crooked as always. “And you will be a queen mother soon.”

His eyes fall to your belly, swollen ever so slightly to mark the second month of your pregnancy. It is what started this chain of violent, vigorous reactions that led you two here, stripped of your honors and under the suspicions of being more than what either of you could hope for. You already hate the baby you bear within your womb, and you hate yourself more for hating it. As always, there is no end to your hate.

“I will die without you,” you mutter, feeling the exhaustion of your long run starting to settle in your weak bones.

“No, I made sure you won't.”

Eight of his own, most trusted men stationed by your chambers day and night, a taster to render any more attempts at poisoning you a fiasco. The threat that came from Yeeun and the queen was subdued as well, the former because Jaemin had finally come to his senses and shunned her from his court, once again, and the latter because the winter winds were quickly catching up to the old queen-mother, and she had but very little time to pesture you any further.

You were powerful now. You didn't need him anymore. He wished to believe it, he desperately wanted to believe it.

But the moisture sparkling in your eyes tells him otherwise.

“I thought you were different," you say, unblinking, because you know the tears will flow if you blink, and you'd rather die than cry in front of the flurry of soldiers behind Jeno. “But you’re just like the others.”

Not quite, Jeno thinks. But yes, I'm exactly like the others. Cruel. Wrathful. Stupid. The list never ends.

"Little red bird," he calls you, another alias to weigh you down, you think. Except that this one gives you wings, setting you free from your cage of horrors.

The road behind him is long and lonesome, and he swallows to loosen the knot in his throat, keeping him from speaking. He's losing you again, willingly as he straightens his spine, jutting his chin up in defiance. For all his unforeseen arrogance, his voice is still mellow as he slowly let's you go, supposedly saving your honor, by breaking your heart instead.

"Go home."

───※ ·❆· ※───

The Goryeogung palace is smaller than you expected it to be. It stands in the epicentre of an extensive land, sheltered by thick, resinous pine trees. With a curved roof that towers over its main iron gates, it’s high enough for you to catch a glimpse of its burnished peaks from your place on the curb outside. A handful of tourists flock its entrance, and you step forward to join the mass, stopped only by Jeno’s hand coming gently around your wrist.

“We’re not going in,” he says, tugging you away from the entrance.

You stand your ground, bewildered by his sudden change of heart. “But you said you wanted to show me the palace.” You throw your hands in the air, and if it makes him any more aware of your evident frustration, he doesn’t show.

“You have ten seconds.” He folds his arms on his chest, nodding towards the gated palace. “Get a good look.”

Shaking your head dejectedly, you scoff, “What in the world is wrong with you? You dragged me all the way to another city and we’re not even going in-”

Jeno glances at his empty wrist. “Time’s up.”

He begins his trek on a stony path veering sharply around the palace walls, not waiting for you to follow. You take a second’s worth of a glance through the half-open palace gates, imprinting the image in your mind.

The palace opens to the courtyard Jeno told you about, the one-you assume-you darted across to get to him. It's a long distance for someone so desperate, enough to make you queasy as you replay the image of the lengthy stairs leading to a raised dais, picturing yourself in a queen’s attire, pleading your king for Jeno.

Jeno. You scoff to yourself. Of all people. This queen version of yourself may have had the guts, but she certainly did not have the brains.

“Ugh,” you groan, sprinting to catch up to the boy you risked it all for. “I ran all that way for you?” You step ahead of him, walking backwards so he can see the look of pure revulsion when you repeat your word.“You?!”

Jeno rolls his eyes, trying to stop the smile that slowly washes out his exasperation.

"It was actually pretty funny because your belly was swollen-" he waves a hand in a wide arc around his stomach "-till here and you were hacking up a lung by the time you reached me."

"Oh, you think it was funny?" You bat your eyes at him, voice pitched in sarcasm. "I ran all through that awfully long courtyard and you told me to go back home. Really? Was that the best you could do?"

The remnants of the dimming sunlight graze your eyes, and Jeno looks just in time to notice the eerie glow it gives you. As the ground beneath him transforms from flat land to a curved, sloping hill, he glances frequently at you, welcoming the glint of memories that come with the little looks.

"I did it to save your honor," he professes, quickening his pace as he strides over the hill. The restlessness in his hands returns, though this time he has no surface to release the nervous energy on, and that makes him all the more frustrated. He scans the small hill, scouring every edge to find what he seeks.

You shrug by his side, not yet noticing his agitation. "Pfft. Doesn't matter, though. You're gonna come back to kill me anyway."

He hums his response. Was it towards the east? He asks himself. No, no. There was that tree. The big, oak tree. That's where it is.

"I came back when I heard news about you from the palace. They said the queen was getting weaker by the day, her pregnancy weighing her down. Then I got a letter from the palace embedded with the King's royal seal. I thought it came from Jaemin, but the words written on it weren't his."

An old, weary tree that matches the description in Jeno's mind comes up on the horizon, gradually growing larger the closer you get to it. Despite your poor vantage point, you can clearly see it nestled alone on the crest of the hill, isolated from the cluster of trees dotted all across the hill.

"It was me," you say, dragging your voice as Jeno slows in his steps. He squints at the tree, not at its voluminous branches or its blackened bark, but at its base. You follow his gaze down to the little worn out stone structure erected beneath it.

'The days are short and the nights are steep. The sorrow sings and the world seems to weep. On this weary earth I stand knee-deep.’' you had written, and in a heartbeat, I veered my horse and strode for the palace.

───※ ·❆· ※───

You can’t remember the last time you dreamt. Maybe it was yesterday. Maybe it was last year. Maybe it was the last time you slept. The rings of gloom environing your eyes tell you it has been very long since that. Sleep is an old friend, she doesn’t visit you often nowadays.

You have many old friends who no longer visit you. Most of them hate you now. You can’t blame them, there isn’t much of you left to love anymore. Your hands are calloused from clawing at your own skin every night, voice brittle with disuse, legs shackled to a vanity and a pair of bloodshot, wizened orbs hung where your eyes should be. The medics say you’re sick. They say the child you carry in your womb is leeching onto you, sucking the life out of you the stronger it gets.

The medics lie. The servants lie. The king lies. They would know you’re not sick if they cared to pay your rusting chambers a visit. The last time the King came, he came with a frown and brazen iron manacles to tie around your ankles. It was for your own good.

The manacles would keep you to your chambers, leashing you and your brazen opinions to the confines of these walls, where they will be devoured by the stale air. The air has been doing an excellent job so far. If only it would devour the whispers as well, the ones in your head, the ones warning you of ersatz dangers. They landed you in these bizarre circumstances in the first place.

The servants stationed at your door speak of it sometimes; when they think you’re asleep. They say it started with small arguments, feeble tantrums. You would fight with the king every night, be it in his chambers or his courtroom, you would call him a coward and a fool, and he would punish you accordingly; leniently at first, and then more harshly.

Your retaliation began soon after. You couldn't hurt the king. But you could hurt his people. It started with his servants, the ones who served him most loyally and those who whispered behind your back. Most of them had their necks wrung, others died more easily. When people would ask what happened, you would blame it on the wind, on the darkness, on the monsters that lurk in the shadows. The king overlooked the matter for the longest time. For all his honor, a few dead servants meant nothing to him. Laughing at the queen mother’s funeral, however, hit his nerves pretty badly. It wasn’t your fault. The joy was just too overwhelming to contain within your small chest.

Everyone who hated you was dying so easily, but you weren’t feeling any better. You are strong, but you are lonely. You are formidable, but you are missing something.

It’s been a month since you wrote to that boy. The one whose face is a mystery for you, melting from your memory like the little patches of snow under the summer heat. You wait for him everyday, by the large oak doors that open to your chambers, wondering how you will recognise him when he comes.

“It's time to rest, my queen,” Nara says one night, when the waiting gets too much. She extends a hand and you take it wordlessly. It goes like this everyday. You wait and wait and wait and once the owls start hooting in the distance, their shrill discord nothing like the birds who sing all day, you stand and follow your handmaiden to your bed.

She hands you a glass filled to the brim with a dark brown liquid; an elixir meant to induce sleep. You settle on your bed and wait, not taking the glass from her.

With a drowsy sigh, she brings the glass to her lips, taking a small, measured sip. A second passes. She stands unharmed, albeit with a stain on your lips where the liquid met her mouth. No poison.

You quaff down the drink, wiping its remnants from the corner of your lips, and lay back on the bed, tired of the wait. Sleep greets you finally, and you welcome her to numb your rampant thoughts. Somewhere between slumber and wakefulness, Nara frees your ankles of their restraints. A small mercy.

When you wake up the next day, the restraints are back again, though looser around the edges. Your mind is groggy from the after effects of the elixir, but you can clearly hear the clank of steel against steel, the sharp scream of a drawn sword, and it comes from outside your room, louder and more real than you could ever imagine.

You push away the warm blankets draped over you, reaching against the length of your shackles for the letter opener sitting on a long desk by a window. You tuck it under your sleeve, comforted by the brush of its honed edge on your skin. It is better to face what comes your way with some sort of weapon in your hand.

Clank. Thud. Clank. Thud. A step, and the steel, and then finally a creak.

The doors open when you sit on your bed, fists clenched, body prepared to react. What will it be today? More chains? More bars jutted into the windows? Or maybe a clean cut of a sword, driven into your heart?

You expect the worst.

Through the open space, however, comes the boy you hadn’t hoped to recognize. Nara is hot on his heels, her hushed whispers pleading the boy to leave, but he stands his ground, heaving breaths that grow shallower the longer he looks at you.

Jeno is as you last saw him. Taut spine, beady eyes, a flush of silver armor; every inch a soldier he was born to be.

You realize must look awful in comparison; a ragged concoction of drooping eyes and frowning brows, nothing like the queen you were just a few months ago. You expect to see disgust on his face, perhaps some disappointment in what you have become. But all that comes from him is concern.

He steps in your direction, eyes falling to the shackles on your feet, widening when they turn to you again. He shakes his head in disbelief.

You hunch your shoulders, smiling through the pain. “I told you," you begin, recalling the words from-what seems to you-like centuries ago, "I’d die without you.”

“And I told you I’ll make sure you won’t,” Jeno says, and you wonder what he means. If this is not death then what is? You don’t sleep, you don’t speak, you don’t think anymore. What more did one need to lose to be dead? Perhaps breathing was the problem. You breathe so you live. But even your breaths fail you as an inane fear puts its roots down in your lungs, leeching the color from your skin, and you wonder if now you are truly dead.

“Does the king know you’re here?” you ask Jeno, swallowing loud and clear.

A frantic energy in your heart comes to tell you you’ve made a mistake, that stealing the king’s seal from his chambers and sending a letter to the man he banished from his palace was truly a doltish decision you made. You never expected him to come. You were too used to being unheard, to being a lost voice in the cacophony of your own violence.

“No,” he answers, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. He keeps his distance from you, occasionally gazing at your manacled ankles and then at the withered state of your body.

He has so much to say, and yet nothing at all. He thought about it the whole ride to the palace; what he’d talk about, what he’d say to you, which hand of yours he’d hold first. But the manacles beat him to it, lodged around your wrists like the little bird you are.

“I’m sorry,” he hears you say, and just as your eyes well up with tears, he rushes up to embrace you, regretting the moment he left you to fend for yourself, and hating himself for trusting Jaemin with his very soul.

“It’s alright,” he whispers in your ears. You clutch his body tightly, hanging onto it like dear life as the sobs leave you in a drizzle of tears and pent up sorrow.

"I was scared and tired… I should never have sent you that letter...I'm sorry...I'm sorry…" you cry out, each word tearing through your lips, leaving a cold trail down your throat.

"It's alright."

That's all Jeno says. Because that's all he knows. It is what his mother said to him the night she took her last breath, whilst succumbing to a decade old illness. He can still hear her voice, breathing through his own as he repeats the words to you. It's alright. Even though nothing really is alright. Or was ever alright. Not since the night he met you in the storm, by the six wagons piled next to each other, with the stench of blood loitering in the air. He'd faced the storm, and he'd been off balance ever since.

Jeno tugs at your wrist, bringing the iron holding them down forward.

Your handmaiden lingers nearby, watching the scene unfold wistfully.

"Take off her manacles," he commands Nara, the tone of a soldier slipping into his otherwise gentle voice.

She darts her eyes across the floor, remembering the orders Jaemin gave her: Anyone who dares free her will be as though he or she has committed treason against me. She shudders, debating whose word to give more weight to.

"But the king-"

"I will speak to him myself!" the captain rebukes, his hands going back around your wrists, rubbing the sore spots materialized from the graze of cold metal against soft skin.

"Stand upright, Y/n," he tells you, gently raising your chin with his fingers. "You're a queen. You will always be a queen."

───※ ·❆· ※───

Jeno steps into the King's throne room wondering where he went wrong. He had seen Jaemin grow from an infant to an adult, looked after him as if he was his own brother, and despite his own violent ways, taught him patience and kindness when he could.

So, where did he make the fatal mistake? What had gone so awry in the King's upbringing that makes him narrow his eyes in fury the second Jeno walks past the sentries and guards stationed outside the great, big room, before coming to stand before his eyes.

He comes with his own nurtured rage, gathered within seconds of listening to you. You told him of the horrors, of the darkness that sometimes came over your room, and how you were only occasionally let out of your confined space. You weren't sick, you told him. And he listened. Like always.

Jaemin stands in his seat, curling his hands into fists. "You shouldn't have come-

Jeno's anger comes, fast and relentless. "You ruined her! You put her in chains! You caged her in that cell!" he roars, sending the cold air rattling away in fear.

The guards beside the king tense, their hands moving to the hilts of their sword, awaiting a command. Jaemin holds his hand up, and they stay in their place.

"How could you?" Jeno's voice breaks. It never has before. Not in the battle cries, not in his mother's dying arms, but here, and for you. "You told me you loved her!"

Jaemin scoffs, settling back into his throne.

"How dare you question me about love?" he asks, laughing wryly. "The man who bartered off the girl he claimed to love in mere months of being with my queen has come to talk to me about love?"

"She's my soulmate."

"Oh curse you and your soulmate!" Jaemin's voice thunders across the room, and for once in his life, he sounds truly like a king. "What good has being your soulmate?"

Jeno takes a step forward. "What good has marrying you done to her?"

"She killed seven people, seven servants who served me loyally, only out of sheer hate," Jaemin argues, jabbing his finger at Jeno. "She's sick!"

"She's going to be the mother of your child. For heaven's sake, she needs help."

The king shifts in his seat, nostrils flared as he looks down at his captain. "And I'm helping her," he says through gritted teeth.

Jeno shakes his head.

"No." Shackling you and putting you in a cage was not helping. You were sick of the loneliness, sick of not being loved or cared for. He had seen it in your eyes. "You're killing her."

Jaemin simply leans back, gripping the handles of his throne until his knuckles pale against them. "Go back to where you belong, captain," he commands.

Had it been any other year, decade, or century, Jeno would've gone scampering back to the battlefields, taking his king's words to heart. Today, he finds himself betraying his very self.

"I am where I belong," he says, standing firm in his place. "And I will stay. And I will help her. Consider it treason, consider it an abrogation of my oath to you, consider it whatever you want, king.".

The title feels like dry sand in his mouth, parching his tongue and his throat.

Jaemin raises an eyebrow. He gestures to a guard nearby, whispering something in his ear that Jeno can’t decipher. The guard leaves his place by the throne, exiting the room for a few moments. When he returns, he is not alone.

“I'll give you a month then.” The king beckons to the guard, palming the item he brought with him. “If my queen gets any better, you win-” He rises from his throne, palming the item his guard brought with him. “-but if you can’t help her until the day she gives birth to my child,” He descends the steps of the raised dais and saunters with light steps towards Jeno. His free hand wrenches the boy’s wrist, placing in it the small vial he carried in his closed hand.

“If you fail, Jeno-” His hand rests heavily on Jeno’s, its weight almost pulling his entire body down. There is a glaze of what could be sorrow on the young king’s face, a hint of helplessness in the way he clutches his captain’s hand. But in his eyes is a shroud of mist and it is so easily mistaken by Jeno as animosity, and what the king says next cements his unfound belief. “-you will pour this into her mouth...and watch her die.”

Jeno feels his blood run cold beneath his skin. The cold charges down to the glass in his hand and hits him with an uncanny realization of what may be inside it. I would never let it come to that.

“I pray the gods may help you, Jaemin,” he murmurs, heaving a long breath to numb the pain in his heart. His fury recedes, swiftly taken over by pity for the deluded king.

“Because now you are truly lost.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

You’ve been striding up the hill for five minutes and the tree is still a speck in the horizon. It refuses to let you come closer, the same way Jeno refuses to pay heed to your many protests against the king’s ‘unjustified character development.’

“-just a few moments ago you told me he loved me,” you whine, trudging up with far less ease than him.

“Well, that was when I was still in the palace.” Jeno buries his shaky hands in his pockets. “For all I know he could have grown tired of your constant bickering.”

You chew on your lower lip, breathing heavily through your nose.

“You’re one to talk, king of bad decisions.” Jeno looks less than pleased with the epithet, but you keep talking anyway. “You failed, didn’t you?”

“Define failing.”

“You couldn’t help me get any better and had to kill me in the end.”

Isn’t that the end of every life? Sometimes an arrow, sometimes a knife. This time a little poison.

“Yes, I failed.” Jeno quickens in his pace. “But I did try.” He glances at you, surprised to see no more annoyance on your face. “You were just too corroded by years of hate and neglect and constant power struggle to be saved. Maybe if I hadn’t left, maybe if the king had still loved you, maybe if you had gotten a little more love from the people around you.”

You glance down at your feet. You realize, by the little swelling that seeps in around your heels, that you’ve walked too far today. The despondency comes with the realization. It settles in the way you press your lips into a thin line, reminding you of your resolution to not take things too seriously.

“Poor me,” you whisper, and this time when you look up, the tree finally lets you come closer, growing in size as it swallows the sky behind it, standing proudly at the summit of the hill.

“Poor you,” Jeno echoes after you, taking in the blinding sight before him.

You rinse your blood of the pain and the sorrow, hardening yourself against Jeno’s gaze when it comes. With an eccentric grin that takes everything for you to muster, you turn to him, voice an octave higher when you ask, “Can we skip to the dying part now?”

───※ ·❆· ※───

The screeching cries of a newborn fill the damp air of the birthing room, sealing the month allotted to Jeno, and marking his failure. The vial of poison dances between his fingers, waiting.

You’re somewhere in the room as well; in the part closed off by thick curtains, which do a bad job at hiding your sweat-draped, bloodied body, and an even worse job at muffling your cries of agony.

It’s been hours since the midwife pulled the baby out of you, but your pain seems to not end. It only grows by the hour.

Jeno wishes it would end soon. The past month was not easy on him. For all his protests, Jaemin had been right. You were sick. Perhaps not in the way the medics or the king claimed, perhaps not with any plague settling in your weak body. The sickness was simply in your mind. It came in the nightly terrors, in the small, scared smiles you gave him, as if there was something holding you back and tormenting your soul.

There were only a few days on which you showed signs of marginal recovery; when Jaemin would permit you to visit the city with Jeno. You would smile the brightest outside, under the festival lights and the wafting smell of street food, with your terrors temporarily forgotten in the songs sung in the taverns. They would return when the time came to go back to the palace.

You were damaged beyond repair by now, angered by the hate, weakened by your failing lungs. You were going to die anyway. The poison was just a quick and easy death, a solace compared to what fate had in store for you.

That’s what Jeno thinks to comfort himself, to drive away the thoughts of this whole ordeal being a punishment for his sins. Fate saw fit to make him kill you a second time, so who was he to question the predetermined affairs? He could only hope and pray you would come back to him again. Not as queen or a prisoner he could not save, but as you. Only then would he finally come out of the storm he stands in.

He silently watches the hasty movements behind the curtains. You moan in pain, the sound fragile and a bit hazy. Your handmaiden, Nara, pushes away the curtains, your newborn baby cradled in her firm hands. Her body shields your image behind her, and she lets the drapes fall back, tentatively stepping forward. He beckons to her, extending his arms in an inviting gesture.

He doesn't trust himself around children. Especially not around babies born mere hours ago, but he holds your child still, his rough, battle-hardened hands softening for the little boy in s hands.

For many the baby was a monster who was killing her own mother, devouring her from inside her womb. They said he would have claws in the place of fingers, a red eye in the center of his head, and fangs to cut open through your body. Jaemin believed them all, and hated the unborn child more than anyone could. And why wouldn’t he? A baby was easy to blame for all his shortcomings, for he could not speak to defend himself nor did he have his mother to speak in his stead.

He cries now—the little baby—in Jeno's arms.

"Shhhh," Jeno cooes in his ears, hesitantly caressing him over the thick fabric draped across his small frame.

There are no claws on the baby's hands, no red eyes or sharp fangs; just a small nose, rosy cheeks and brown, beady eyes—like his father's. There’s so much of Jaemin in him, and so little of you.

Would he be a prince or a future king? The royal astrologers debated, some fearing he would die before the decision could be made, while others deemed he would be too weak to hold either of the titles. But Jeno knows it is too young to tell the boy’s fate, especially with the end of his mother approaching at this very moment.

"What of the Queen?" Jeno asks Nara. The young girl darts her eyes across the ground, shivering to control her fear. Even with a baby in his hands, Jeno is still daunting as ever. Her breath hitches, and she shakes her head.

Jeno can feel the pain in her teary eyes, a strain in her voice as she whimpers and holds her hand to him, glancing at the vial in his hands. Her offer is considerate, but one he can’t accept. He shakes his head in denial.

“Fetch me a glass of water,” Jeno commands, and the girl nods in understanding, exiting the room with muffled cries.

Despite the midwife's persistent protests, Jeno pushes past the curtains ahead, his eyes lazily scanning the mess you have become. You sit up straight, your flimsy back supported by a tower of pillows. Your porcelain gown is stained red from the waist down, the grotesque hue painting your face and your hands. He has seen your blood before. Hell, he had even spilled it himself, fertilizing the earth with your pain. But somehow this is worse.

Someone jostles past Jeno— a maid—bumping his shoulder as she reaches over to rub your back. You haven't noticed him by the doorway yet, too focused on the soothing touch of the maid to give thought to little else.

Jeno sucked in a harsh breath, startling that baby in his arms. The boy gives small, high pitched cries, tugging at your attention. The wailing almost makes him want to hand the baby over to the maids. It is too loud, too filling. The emptiness in his chest can’t bear its weight.

He sees you whispering something to the maid beside you. The maid pauses, as if wanting you to change your mind. Your unwavering expression makes her hasten towards the door, taking away the midwife with her. Even with death looming over her, a queen's orders are to be obeyed.

"It’s a boy," you tell Jeno as he nears your bed, your voice weak, throat hoarse. He takes light steps towards you, careful not to disturb the eerie silence. He sits by your bed, on a wooden chair previously occupied by the maid.

"Well... is he the monster they say he is?" you ask.

"No…,” Jeno glances at the baby. “He's just a baby."

You laugh. The pressure in your lungs turns into a wheeze, forcing you to bend over and catch your breath. You grasp the bed sheets, trying to numb the pain. Once the ache settles into a dull throb, you slump back against the pillows again.

You motion toward Jeno, opening your arms for him to hand you your child. He thinks twice before handing you the baby, doubting your frail arms would be strong enough to hold him.

You look at him expectantly. “Let me hold him then...Before they take him away too."

Jeno sighs, handing the crying baby to you. As if he knows he is in the arms of his mother, the little baby ceases his shrill cries immediately, mollified by your warmth. Jeno glances at the door, and then at your smiling face. Streaks of blood cling to your face like dried paint, and a fresh drop flows from a wounded lower lip.

"I wanted to name him Yongshin," you say, licking away the blood oozing from your lips, frowning when it is replaced by another feverish streak.

The name sounds familiar, but Jeno’s rusting memory fails to connect the dots.

You open your mouth to speak, interrupted by a wave of pain nudging your lungs. You wince to hold it back. A few more minutes, you seemed to be asking death. Just a few more minutes.

Nara comes in behind Jeno, silently handing him the cup of water he had asked for. She holds her arms to you, and reluctantly, you hand her the baby, assuming she is taking him to the king.

“Can we go to the town square again? After this is all over?” you ask Jeno when the handmaiden leaves the room, for the last time now.

“Of course,” he smiles, opening a glistening vial that you never noticed was in his hands.

“And to that bakery? The one with all those sweet things?”

Jeno nods absentmindedly, pouring the red liquid from the vial into the glass of water. It swirls in the clear liquid, fusing its venom generously.

“I really want to see the lights again,” you add, “and the people, and the fireworks and the songs. I loved the songs.”

It happens sometimes. You talk and talk of old events, your lips moving against an empty mind, without any recollection of time and space. Another sickness, a small plague that haunts Jeno as he holds the glass of water to you.

“For your pain,” he says, and hopes you see the lie in his eyes. He hopes you’ll kill him right here, free him of his misery that runs deeper than yours, unchain the iron shackles that bound you to him all those years ago.

If only he had let you live then. If only he had waited, and listened and loved and protected you. He would’ve been at peace, his body decaying in a grave, old and rotten but peaceful.

“For the pain?” you ask him, and he thinks you’ve seen it through. He waits, but the fury never comes. You drink the liquid heartily, not noticing the moisture that blinds Jeno’s eyes.

He holds your hand. That is all he can afford to do with the tears that trickle down his face, and the sniffles that cause another pang of ache to shoot up your chest.

“It's not your fault,” you tell him.

Jeno knows you know. For all your sickness, for all your pain, you’re still a smart girl. You know what you’ve willingly drunk, and you know the pain it is causing Jeno. You hold him as he cries with his head buried in your chest, his heavy sobs drilling a hole into your heart.

“Shhhh,” you whimper in his ears, “It's alright, I’ll be fine.”

If you’ve judged the nature of the poison correctly, it will take you within minutes. A quick and easy death, one you’re sure you don’t deserve. For all your bravery, the fear of death instills itself in your bones, rattling them with feverish shivers. You hope it will all be over soon. You’ve been in pain long enough, in the sorrow that chased you from your castle in Mongolia, that found you when you were young, befriended you with its treachery, tricked and lied and led you here. In the arms of evil. Maybe it was a cruel way of finding Jeno. A pathway preserved for you. And you alone.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno wails, and you hold him closer, more tightly. "I'll try to find you sooner next time."

You don’t know what he means, but nod nonetheless. For all the reassurances you keep giving yourself, Jeno’s actions come, still, as another betrayal. Another lie. You thought you had had enough of them in this place. But even in your last minutes, you were afflicted with palace intrigues. Except that this one hit home, for it came from within yourself.

The pain brims within your small body, but you conceal it with a strained whimper. It leaks from your hacking lungs, finding solace in your suffering. It laughs in your face. You can hear the mockery in its voice. Look at yourself, y/n. Look where you got yourself.

“Bury me.” The words come hurried and shrill. Jeno stops crying if only for a minute. You take his hand, holding it to your heart. “Don’t let them burn me. I hate the fire. I hate it, it-it scares me,” you blabber on, eyes distant in fear.

You clutch his hand once more. “Promise me, Jeno,” you plead.

He looks at you, at the fearful tears that flow endlessly down your cheeks.

“Promise me.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

There is a grave on the hill of the Goryeogung palace. No one knows who it belongs to. No one knows which ill-fated man or woman was buried so far up, in a place people seldom come across. It is overshadowed by a gnarled oak tree, the age of which scours centuries. It sits alone on the desolate land, its tombstone worn and rusting from years of neglect. Unlike the great tombs that hold the remains of kings and their queens, this one is small and simple; unfit for any monarch.

You stand over it, trying to decipher the grainy epitaph chiseled carefully into it:

‘𝔒𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔤𝔯𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔭𝔬𝔬𝔯 𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯, 𝔩𝔢𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔟𝔢 𝔫𝔢𝔦𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔢 𝔫𝔬𝔯 ��𝔞𝔪𝔭. 𝔏𝔢𝔱 𝔫𝔢𝔦𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔟𝔲𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔣𝔩𝔶'𝔰 𝔴𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔟𝔲𝔯𝔫 𝔫𝔬𝔯 𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔞𝔩𝔢 𝔰𝔦𝔫𝔤.’

What am I doing? Mourning my own dead body on my own grave? The idea is as humours as it is haunting. You laugh nonetheless, at your twisted fate and the irony of it all. No matter how many times Jeno kills you, you keep coming back.

When the stale air leeches the humor out of you, you take a moment to hope it was easy, the death more than the life. This queen version of you is but a fragment of you, someone who only comes to you in her moments of death. She is you, yet she is not. There's still so much to know about her.

Jeno, who stands a few feet away, doesn’t want to continue the story, claiming he has told you enough. It is enough. More than enough, in fact. You saw your home, your palace and your grave. This is more than you could stomach for a day.

“We’re going to miss the bus,” Jeno calls out, and you descend the hill together, leaving what could very well be your fossilized remains under a pile of mud. You follow him to the bus that stands in the street next to the palace and board it without saying anything, still wondering what to say, and if you should say anything at all.

"Is there a life of me any less depressing?" you ask Jeno as he settles on the seat beside you.

You watch him smile, just a little, considering the circumstances.

"The next one," he answers and gazes out through the window at the haunting night.

But that’s tomorrow’s story, you tell yourself. When you close your eyes, you fall asleep easily, burdened by another death.

───※ ·❆· ※───

"Y/n?” You feel Jeno nudge your shoulder slightly to wake you up. The bus stands still by a stop near an unfamiliar apartment building, the lights from which blind your sleepy eyes. “Come on, let's get off."

He beckons you to move out, and just by the feeling of the air outside you know you’re in your own city again.

"So, this is it then,” you say, stifling a yawn as the bus rolls away behind you. “For today."

Jeno doesn't answer, only gazes at you curiously. "Are you gonna go home alone? It's late, I could walk you."

You shake your head, waving a hand dismissively in the air. “It’s just 9pm.”

This part of the city is unfamiliar to you, though you try your best to convince yourself you won’t get lost in the labyrinth of concrete spread out in front of you.

"You can come up with me,” Jeno offers, gesturing to the building behind him, which you assume is where he lives, “We haven’t eaten anything since morning, I know you must be starving right now. I’ll make you something."

You raise your eyebrows. "I probably can’t, though. You live with what? Five other boys?"

He shrugs. "They'd be out cold right now." Hopefully.

You glance at the dark street ahead, and then back at Jeno. What would be more dangerous? The d lonesome streets, or the boy who killed you, two times now? You debate on it for the longest time, and then, like the idiot you are, turn to Jeno with an accepting smile.

"Fine,” you say, and let him lead you inside the building and into the elevators. He pushes the button for the 9th floor, and slowly, the elevator begins its ascension.

"So…” you begin, breaking the silence. “What are the names of your band mates again? I know one or two but not the rest."

Jeno tenses beside you. He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling them to cover his nervous laugh.

"Which ones do you know?"

You pucker your lips, recalling the names you’d seen and heard.

"There are the two Chinese boys, Chenle, I think, and Renjun. There's you, and the boy with the sweet voice, Haechan? Who are the other two again? I always end up forgetting their names.”

Jeno bites his lips, his body breaking into a sweat. He should’ve broken the news to you a lot earlier. But then again, what would he have said? Oh hey, you know your dead brother and the king who forced me to kill you are kinda my bandmates and despite our rough past, we're pretty good friends now.

He shakes his head.

“Jaemin and Jisung,” he mutters, thankful for the distracting ding of the elevator as its doors push apart to reveal the 9th floor.

“Jaemin and Jisung…” You roll the names on your tongue, feeling queasy as Jeno steps out, waiting for you to follow. “The names sound so much like-”

You tilt your head, eyes wide in realization.

“Jaemin and Jisung,” you say, louder this time.

Outside, Jeno presses his lips into a thin line, offering you his hand.

For the first time, in a very, very long time, you take it without question, letting him lead you to your wicked husband and murdered brother from centuries ago.

───※ ·❆· ※───

A/N: I kinda have a love-hate relationship with this chapter simply because it took so long to write and I kinda died writing it. And even now I’m nervous that I could’ve added some more scenes into it because I’m afraid I might’ve rushed it too much asdfghjkasfhg But regardless, I will be waiting for your precious feedback (assuming you’ve read till the end!) I read every reblog, tag, comment etc. so don’t hesitate to lmk your thoughts! Also, a few disclaimers: The epitaph on the reader’s grave is actually on the grave of a Mughal queen called “Nur Jahan” in my city, lahore. And the dialogue ‘why is it more honorable to kill a thousand men in battle...’ was taken from my favorite game of thrones scene. So yeah, this is getting too long lol, I should probably stop. (P.s I’m sorry for making Yeeun evil in this but I needed someone close to Jeno to portray that role. I’m sure she’s a sweetheart irl hehe.)

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