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gukyi · 7 years ago

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broken rings & queens and kings | kth

⇒ summary: to make a long, long story very, very short, you and kim taehyung have been sworn enemies ever since childhood, that is, until you find out that you’re betrothed to each other for the good of your kingdoms, and everything comes crumbling down.

⇒ a long (and quite frankly, unnecessary) mixture of enemies to lovers!au, royalty!au, and arranged marriage!au

⇒ pairing: taehyung x female reader

⇒ word count: 24k (ahhhhhhhhH!!!!!!!!)

⇒ genre: fluff, light angst, light smut

⇒ warnings: hate sex and strong language (when will i ever stop w/ the hate sex)

⇒ a/n: u guys don’t know how much this took out of me. dedicated to the one and only @guktwt, without whom i wouldn’t have even written this. this one’s for u, lara!!

The hustle and bustle of the town center is overwhelming to a princess any day of the week, but especially on Saturday. The center is a flat, dusty square surrounded by buildings on three sides—crumbling apartments and tiny side stores—and the park on the fourth, the most vibrant part of the city. In it lies the marketplace, the most active place in the entire area, where every day merchants and tradesmen and artisans gather and sell their goods to the rest of the town. It’s always busy, for there’s no rest for a salesman, but on Saturdays it’s outrageous, people pushing and shoving to get the best prices, old women haggling for a better deal, young children shouting for their parents and orphans scurrying around to get whatever drops on the ground.

To you, crown princess of this little kingdom, it is nothing like what you’re used to.

Everyone always gives you your damn space in the palace, servants and maids staying a respectful few steps behind you, tutors moving away to let you do your work, chairs distanced a good meter apart from each other during meetings. The personal bubble is not to be invaded while you’re in the palace, not even when you’re outside, accompanied by soldiers, but when you sneak into the marketplace, it pops before you even step foot in it.

Oh, how your mother and father would chide you for doing such a common thing like sneaking off to the marketplace, wearing old servant’s clothes and tying your hair back so no one will recognize you, going bare-faced to play up the disguise even further. Everyone always says the best hiding spot is in plain sight. The marketplace is no place for a princess, they would tell you, but when you’re in the marketplace, you’re not a princess. You’re just another customer, a girl seeking her hidden treasure.

Today, you are not looking to buy anything special. No gift from the marketplace would be an adequate gift for a royal, nothing you could buy here would ever match the palace’s unrealistically high standards, but you have money to burn and time to spare on days like these, days where your parents are too busy dealing with their own royal affairs to keep watch over you.

As you walk, swinging your basket in your hands and whistling some mindless tune you hear the stable boys singing to the horses, a little girl and her brother stumble across your path, stepping on the hem of your dress as she chases after him, squealing. You’re caught by surprise as you see them rush past, jumping back a bit before you catch their mother following them, brows furrowed with worry.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologizes to you, but you shake your head, insisting that it’s no big deal.

She manages to wrangle up her two kids within the next thirty seconds, and not long after that they stand guiltily at your feet as she orders them to apologize to the “nice young lady” they ran over. The boy sulkily says his sorry before bounding off, but the girl stays behind. In lieu of an apology, she holds out a daisy, likely plucked from the park nearby, already a little crushed in her hand.

“For you,” she tells you softly.

You lean down to take the flower from her hand, immediately resting it above your ear as you smile. “Thank you.”

Soon, she’s being whisked away by her mother, lost amongst the crowd. Even the small gesture, the daisy in your hair, has made your day.

That’s what you love about the marketplace, what your parents will never understand. Innocent acts of kindness like that don’t exist among royalty. Everything is a deal, everything is a bargain. Nothing comes free when you have a kingdom to take care of, nothing is given when so much is at stake. Little girls giving you daisies only exists in the marketplace, because commoners don’t have the weight of the world resting on their shoulders. That little girl will probably never remember that she gave a daisy to a young woman in a bustling marketplace, but you will.

You keep walking, strolling along with that empty basket of yours, when the sight in front of you makes you stop in your tracks.

He’s at the jeweler’s stand.

The jeweler is a burly man who looks something like a lumberjack, towering over most of the people in the marketplace with his frame, beard past his neck. He looms over everyone, but he makes some of the finest rings in town, from what you’ve heard. But there is one thing you know for certain about him, and it’s that he’s got one price and one price only, take it or leave it. His rings are expensive, to say the least, the price emulating the effort it takes to craft such finery, and you haven’t exactly heard very good stories about people who do him wrong.

Even Taehyung cowers under his gaze.

He looks like he’s in a sticky situation at best, and you can see the glass of the watch in his hand glinting in the afternoon sun. You take a tentative step forward to gauge the situation.

“You scratched the gem, son,” the jeweler grunts. “Pay up.”

Taehyung smiles awkwardly, hands pulling his pockets inside-out. The only thing that topples out is what looks to be a wad of tinfoil and a paper clip. Typical. You snort. “I don’t have any money.”

The jeweler looks like he’s about to snap Taehyung in half, and you have no doubts that with that large of a frame, he could do it easily. Steam practically shoots from his ears as Taehyung takes a step back, clearly worried.

“Now, you listen here, son, these rings cost me blood to make, so you better fucking give me some money or you won’t enjoy what happens next.” The man roughly grabs Taehyung by the arm before he can escape, and he almost loses it at the touch.

“I don’t have any money on me,” Taehyung pleads, practically shaking. “I can come back later and give you the money, if you just let me go.” Not even the classic Taehyung Charm will work on a jeweler with a taste for vengeance.

“No,” the man grunts, and people around you are actually beginning to go out of their way to avoid getting dragged into the conflict. It’s Taehyung’s problem, anyway. “You will pay me now.”

“But I can’t!”

This is getting unbearable. You storm up to the jeweler, a little (a lot) intimidated by his massive build, and pull out the bills in your pocket.

“How much?” You ask roughly, avoiding Taehyung’s gaze.

“What?” The jeweler asks.

“How. Much.” You repeat again, clenching your teeth.

The jeweler rattles off the cost and you hand him the money before grabbing onto Taehyung’s wrist and tugging him out of the town center. Over the screams and shouts of the townspeople, you hear him trying to explain himself, but you couldn’t care less.

Eventually you’re on a random side street, panting heavily as you stare at him with an unforgiving gaze.

“Y/N, listen,” Taehyung begins, but you cut him off instantly.

“I don’t wanna hear it, Taehyung. You think you can just waltz around the marketplace, trying to swindle the artisans of my kingdom, prancing around like you own the damn place—”

“For the record, the scratch on the diamond was an accident,” Taehyung says, as if that makes the situation any better.

“Okay, your point being? I just gave up nearly all of my funds to save your ass, and you don’t even thank me?” You ask incredulously.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “Thank you ever so kindly, Y/N,” he says melodramatically, pretending to bow like the prince he fucking should be. “How ever will I repay you?”

“You’re such a prick,” you say, frowning. “Why are you in my damn kingdom, anyway? I thought you were supposed to be back in yours, trying to charm your way into all of your maids’ pants.”

Taehyung looks affronted. “How dare you think I do that. I’ll have you know that I’ve only slept with half of my staff.”

“My mistake,” you remark.

“In any case, I’m here because my parents made me come here. They had some sort of official meeting with your parents and I was let out to have the day free to myself, so here I am.”

“Scratching the diamonds of the most skilled artisans in my kingdom, no less,” you comment to yourself.

“Hey, it’s not his diamond anymore. It’s mine.”

“It’s mine,” you correct him, snatching the ring from his grasp. “I paid for the damn thing.”

“Fine, you want it?” Taehyung asks, a single eyebrow raised. “Take it. A ‘thank you’ gift from me to you.”

You pretend to vomit in your mouth. “Ew, a gift from you? No thanks,” you say, stuffing it back into his palm. “Go give it to some poor girl in the local brothel instead. I don’t want it anymore.”

“You always think so highly of me, Princess Y/N,” Taehyung sasses.

“Aren’t I supposed to?” You retort. You reach a hand out and flick the collar of his jacket over. “God, you’re such a little asshole. Not even wearing your damn crest. You could have saved me all of that trouble if you just wore your fucking crest and told the jeweler that you were a prince.”

Taehyung points to your chest as well. “I don’t see a crest on you.”

“I had no plans on destroying marketable products today,” you tell him.

“Mistakes happen, alright? Jesus, it’s not like I was trying to scratch that diamond,” Taehyung says, exasperated.

“Sure got yourself into a sticky situation anyway.”

“Obviously.”

“Don’t you have better things to do than be rude to the crown princess of this kingdom?” You ask him, hands on your hips as you glare at him.

Taehyung scoffs. “Of course. I’m headed off to the tavern. Care to join me?”

Your mouth drops open in shock at his offer, and he bursts into laughter at your reaction to it. “Excuse me?”

“I kid, Y/N. You really think I’d want to take care of drunk you? I don’t even like dealing with sober you.”

“Fuck you.”

“You wish.”

With that, Taehyung sends you a wink that makes you want to make like the jeweler and snap him in half before sauntering off, headed in the direction of the only tavern in the town center. The fact that he knows where it is despite not even being from this kingdom has you disgusted and insulted. Like he knows this kingdom better than you do.

You compose yourself after the whole ordeal, shoving your hands into your now-empty pockets with the basket resting on your wrist. As you pass the tavern on the way back to the castle, you see the daisy from your hair fall to the pavement.

Despite the fact that the gods seem to be against you on this certain Saturday, Taehyung is thankfully not present to greet you once you return to the palace and change back into your formal dress, not there to gloat in your face about God-knows-what like he does every other time you see him. It’s as if ever since you met him, he’s just been a rash that you can’t get rid of, a fly constantly buzzing around your head. He’s a minor inconvenience at most, a couple of royal dinners here and there, a few shared formal affairs, but every time he has the pleasure of seeing you he can’t help but drive you up the wall, pushing all of your buttons along the way.

You sneak in through the back entrance, out of view of your parents, scurrying up to your room and stripping yourself of your commoner clothes, tugging on the formal outfit laid out for you on your canopy bed. It’s not long before you’re hurrying down to the main hall, still tripping over the one shoe you haven’t completely put on your foot, where your parents and Taehyung’s parents are waiting in the grand entrance, talking about trivial things.

“Y/N,” your mother chides once she notices your presence. “It’s unlike you to be late for greeting guests like this.”

“Apologies, I was caught up reorganizing in the palace library,” you fib, curtsying politely in front of Taehyung’s parents, king and queen of a neighboring little kingdom. “The books on the shelving cart had yet to be placed back in their rightful homes.”

“Always so well-read,” Taehyung’s father says, chuckling heartily. “She’s grown up well.”

“She will be Queen soon, after all.” your mother reasons, pulling you in for a side-hug. The mere thought of ruling the kingdom has your insides churning. In no way are you mentally, physically, or emotionally prepared to be Queen.

“Where’s Taehyung, Taegyu?” Your father asks, and you can’t help but smirk to yourself. You’d love to see what kind of reprimanding Taehyung will get for not being here like he should. How could he not come to greet the royal family hosting him?

“I gave him the day off today,” Taehyung’s father says, and you resist the urge to let your mouth drop open in surprise. He won’t get in trouble for this? If you weren’t there to greet the family hosting you, your mother would go into anaphylactic shock at the mere notion of freedom. “So I suspect that he is wandering about town, as kids your age do. He gets out a lot, you know,” he continues, nudging your shoulder and making you smile politely. “I think it’s good for him. A ruler must get to know his citizens.”

The fact that Taehyung gets to just meander around town like a commoner as if it’s nobody’s business is beyond you, but Taehyung’s parents have always been blessedly ignorant to the shenanigans that Taehyung seems to get up to. They don’t know that Taehyung doesn’t go out and do good deeds for others, they don’t know that Taehyung, more often than not, ends up tangled in another person’s bed, drinking until he can’t feel his own fingers.

“Still,” Taehyung’s father continues, “I do wish he were here right now. Our princess has no one to converse with.” He pats a heavy hand on your shoulder, making you jump.

“Oh, no, I’m perfectly fine,” you say as nicely as possible. “Prince Taehyung need not be here in order to maintain my happiness.”

“But surely a prince as educated as he would be intellectually stimulating?”

Intellectually stimulating? Taehyung? Just earlier today he told you that he’s already slept with half of his staff, and he’s not even twenty-five. You stifle a laugh as best as you can, muffling it by pretending it was a cough.

“I’m sure indeed, but I am content without him. We see each other so often, regardless,” you say, hoping to get the message across that you don’t really feel the need to spend time with him. In fact, if you could go the rest of this visit without having to deal with that insufferable prince, you’d be pleased. But you’re too intelligent to wish that might actually happen.

“I will ensure his return before supper,” Taehyung’s father bows to yours. “We must all sit down together and eat, like true allies.”

Your father shakes his head. “No, like friends.”

You grin as the greetings come to a close, your parents beginning to wander off with Taehyung’s to talk about matters concerning the relationship between the two kingdoms, most likely. It’s politics that you’ve gotten enough of a history about from your countless tutoring sessions, dozens of textbooks that line the bookshelf in your bedroom, and some things are just meant to stay between adults. But the mention of the word ��friends’ makes you laugh, because in what alternate universe out there in the world are you and Taehyung anything closer than mortal enemies?

The first time you met Taehyung was likely when you were babies, two young royals forcibly shoved together by their excitable parents, overjoyed by the fact that their children basically have a built-in friend.

But the first time you remember being with Taehyung was much less pleasant than that.

He is five and you are four, nothing more than mere children, having both just grown out of the toddler phase, and it is the Royals Fair. You go every year, a festival held for all of the royals in your area, from kingdoms high and low, with divine food and carnival games. It’s such a shame that you had such an unpleasant experience, because you really enjoyed going.

You’re at one of the booths with your father—still a young king at that age, one that has yet to show the signs of true aging—as he helps you, kneeling down on the ground with his hand on your arm. With one fluid motion, he helps you land the ring on the peg at the other end of the booth, making you squeal with joy as the man working the stall grins down at you, handing you your prize. It’s a teddy bear, one with a red bow wrapped around its neck, and you love it the second your hands touch it.

He begins to walk you back to where your mother is speaking with some of the other dames, duchesses, and queens, when he hears his name called. Within the next few moments, he’s leaning down and telling you that he’s going to go and speak to the people who wanted him, and that you should just keep walking back to your mother on your own. You nod, still beaming from winning the bear that’s currently in your hands.

You start to stroll back to your mother, tiny little footsteps on the freshly mowed grass, when a boy whizzes by you, making your hair blow from the breeze. He sticks out a tiny hand and snatches the toy from your arms, making you gasp.

“Catch me if you can!” The boy taunts, dangling the bear by the ear with a devilish smirk. Before you know it, he’s off, leaving only the dust from the ground behind him.

At four years old, you’re something of a little terror, according to your mother, never able to sit still and always wanting to move, so a challenge like this is nothing. You’re darting after him without a second thought, your little legs taking you as fast as they can. You weave through the people, educated royals nursing glasses of champagne as they mindlessly chat, their children running amuck just like you.

Eventually you come to the edge of the fair, where the clean-gut grass meets rambunctious wildflowers, and the boy is nowhere to be seen. The only thing in front of you is a large oak tree with a branch that extends to right above your head.

When you look up, you catch the end of a bright red ribbon, waving in the wind.

If this is some sort of challenge, then so be it.

You immediately begin to climb, the sensation hardly foreign to you, already feeling this wondrously expensive lavender dress of yours getting dirtied. You reach the top successfully, swinging your legs over the branch as you grab onto the bear, holding it tight. Take that!

Four-year-old you never had the best foresight, and even now your rash-decision making process is a bit unbounded, so it doesn’t occur to you until once you’re up the damn tree that you don’t actually know how to get down without injuring yourself.

From up here, the height is terrifying. It’s as though the ground is a whole three stories away, the drop frighteningly large for a child your size, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d camp out on the tree branch and begin wailing.

But you do know better—or, at least, four-year-old you does—and you have a sneaking suspicion, that uneasy gut feeling, that that boy is waiting somewhere, hiding amongst the trees, for you to start sobbing, and you refuse to let him hold that over you.

With the bear held tightly in your grasp, you swing your legs over the branch and find yourself in the precarious position of clinging onto the tree trunk and the tree branch, dangling your legs over the ground and ready to jump. You take a deep breath and push yourself off, totally unprepared for the ground to come up as fast as it did.

You hit the grass with an ugly thud, palms and knees landing on the greenery first, almost like a cat, before the rest of your body collapses from the pressure. When you sit back, your hands sting as blood trickles from the torn skin, and the whole front of your dress is covered in muck. Now is when you start crying, bawling your damn eyes out from the pain as your mother rushes over to you, concern lacing her features.

“Y/N! What happened to you?” She exclaims, gasping. “How did you get your dress so dirty? That’s no way to act like a princess.”

From the corner of your swimming eyes you spot the boy standing in the middle of the grass, rocking back and forth on his feet and grinning cheekily.

You decide then that you will never let anyone walk all over you like that anymore. Especially rude boys who tease unsuspecting girls like you.

So, sure, you and Taehyung didn’t get off on quite the right foot, but the grudge you held from that point onwards was so bitter that by the time you were both old enough to look past it, you already hated each other too much to do so.

Even as the years wore on, your relationship never did get much better, despite your parents’ best efforts. Taehyung grew up exactly as you expected him to from the moment you saw him. Cocky. Smug. Bothersome. Condescending. And worst of all, attractive. Nothing angers you more than the fact that Taehyung is not only uncouth, he is also good-looking. And damn, does he know it.

You probably would have known who he was even if you weren’t royal, if you were just a commoner in the streets instead, because word gets out. No one can seem to shut up about his good looks, his masculine charm, and God help you if you fall for that trap as well.

But you know Taehyung better than any of the other girls he’s slept with, better than any of his secret admirers and lovestruck maidens that he has across the many kingdoms that decorate this part of the world, and if only people would believe you when you said that he wasn’t really that much. What’s a pretty face without an intelligent, responsible mind to go with it? Why does his being handsome matter when he is completely and utterly unprepared to rule a country? Good looks don’t charm foreign diplomats like they do university students.

There are many things you don’t like about Taehyung, but most of them boil down to the fact that you are well aware that you will probably have to spend the rest of your life dealing with him, especially considering the close alliance your people have with his. Great.

You’re contemplating the meaning of human existence on your bed, silk sheets unmade and messily shoved to the edge of the mattress, when you hear something pelt your window. Thinking it might have been a poor little bird, accidentally crashing into the glass after seeing the sky reflected in it, you rush up to the frame, opening it.

Next thing you know, a rock the size of a fat blueberry comes whizzing past your head, narrowly missing your ear as it lands on the hardwood floor behind you. Two stories down, standing in the garden that your room overlooks, is a grinning Taehyung. His hair is matted and his clothes are carelessly strewn over his body, his entire figure emanating that just-had-sex kind of aura. From where your head is peering out of the window, you see that his hand is filled with little pebbles he likely picked up from stone path that winds its way through the yard, and he’s got one ready to pelt, probably at your head.

“Miss me, Princess?” Taehyung calls from below.

“You’re gonna break my window if you keep doing that!” You shout back, frowning.

“That’s kind of the point, you know.”

“Can’t you just go back to your own kingdom and bother the people there? Why do you have to come all the way here?” You politely request, expression bitter.

Taehyung simply grins back up at you, smug and teasing. “Bothering other people is not nearly as entertaining as bothering you.”

You can’t help but scoff, too speechless to say anything else. “Just don’t break my damn window, okay? I don’t have any time to arrange for a repairman these days.”

With that, you’re shutting your window and storming back to your bed. As you walk away, you hear another little clink, forcing you to sharply turn back around and practically yank open your window. When you look down, Taehyung is staring back up at you with a smile, casually throwing a pebble straight up in the air and catching it over and over. You shoot him a glare and the middle finger before slamming your window shut once more, turning around and looking down at the stone on your floor. Picking it up, you head back to your bed, collapsing on the mattress. You hold it in front of your face, staring at it, and wondering why Taehyung, despite your best efforts, just can’t seem to leave you alone.

It’s customary for, on the first night of having guests, the hosts to hold an extravagant dinner for the visitors, and your parents have spared no effort. This massively elegant dinner is always the best part of any Kim visit, mostly because you get to stuff your face with delectable food without your parents criticizing you on your diet of the day. It’s also the worst part of any Kim visit, because it’s the one time where you have to deal with Taehyung’s snarky passive-aggressive comments and pretend like they’re nothing but banter in front of both his and your parents, and it makes you want to slowly dislocate all of the bones in your body. But hey, this is typically the only time where you have to deal with him like that, so you win some, you lose some.

The maid knocks on the door to your bedroom, making you jump as you pull on one of your finer dresses. Your parents always chide you for never dressing nicely in front of the Kims, especially for the celebratory first dinner, so you’ve made the executive decision tonight to get all dolled up, just for them. With one of your arms failing to stuff itself into the short, balloon sleeve, you call out to the maid. “Yes?”

“Her Majesty, the Queen is requesting your immediate arrival to the dining hall,” the maid shouts through the door, knowing better than to come inside—not that you care, as the maids have seen you in more precarious situations before—and disturb you. After pulling on the rest of your dress, you quickly tame the mop you call your hair and grab your tiara, fixing it atop your head. You slide into your flats (fuck heels) and scurry downstairs, knowing you’ll probably get some sort of reprimanding for not being perfectly punctual, but live and learn.

When you stumble into the dining hall, a little out of breath from the rush down the stairwell, you are met with a feast. Sitting around it are your parents, Taehyung’s parents, and of course, Taehyung. He looks much more put together than he did this afternoon when he was pelting stones at your poor window, silk button-down shirt ironed and hair styled perfectly, smooth and shiny. You think you can make out a couple of silver earrings lining his lobes as well. He’d probably be very attractive, if it weren’t for that ugly smirk scrawled all over his face, the one that makes you want to tear your own eyes out.

“Apologies for my tardiness,” you say, quickly curtsying before walking over. “I had prior engagements.”

“Oh, you probably just got caught up in one of those books of yours,” Taehyung’s father jokes heartily. You’ve always liked King Taegyu, a great ruler and a friendly, welcoming man. Nothing like his son. He has also saved your ass from getting lectured by your parents multiple times. “You’ve hardly missed anything.”

You crack a small smile before making to sit down in the only open seat left (next to Taehyung, no less!), softly taking a seat as the conversation picks up.

The feast in front of you is absolutely divine, and much more elaborate than the bulk of the dinners you’ve shared with the Kim House, which has all sorts of alarms going off in your brain. There’s always a reason behind anything that happens in the royal household. No things are done just on a whim. But hey, you’re not complaining as you pile on the servings of filet mignon, rainbow trout, caprese salad, pudding, gnocchi, and escargot (among other things). It looks like the meal stretches for miles, even on this smaller table, and with the constant flow of chefs and waiters in and out of the dining hall, it seems never-ending, too.

“How have you been, Prince Taehyung?” Your father asks between bites of ribs and steak. “Healthy, I hope.”

“Very well, your Majesty,” Taehyung responds. “I’ve been kept quite busy with my thorough investigation of the mechanics of my kingdom, from a commoner’s point of view. We spend so much time on our thrones that it should do us some good to explore life from a different perspective.”

The words nearly make your eyes roll right out of their sockets. What bullshit, you think. Taehyung doesn’t sneak out of the palace to get a better feel for how the lives of his people are, he sneaks out to get drunk and sleep with maidens like there’s no tomorrow.

“Very well said,” your father responds, nodding thoughtfully. “I’ve never thought about it that way.”

Taehyung grins your way, and you fight back a sneer. He knows that all it took were a couple of eloquent words and his charm for him to get away with sneaking off like that, meanwhile you are consistently berated for doing the exact same thing. For God’s sake.

“Taehyung here has developed something of a fascination with common life,” Taehyung’s father says, patting his son roughly on the back. “If I were any more concerned, I’d think he’d abandon his kingdom just to go life live in the city streets.”

“Oh Father,” Taehyung says, and he sounds like such a little asshole, a Daddy’s boy, “I would never want to give up all of this.” He looks you directly in the eyes as he does so, and you send him back a sickeningly sweet smile.

“How are you, Princess?” Taehyung’s mother interrupts, changing the subject. Thank God, you didn’t want to listen to the rest of the parents here bolster Taehyung’s ego any further. “Not too busy, hmm?”

“I’m quite occupied these days,” you reply honestly, avoiding Taehyung’s gaze. You have no doubt in your mind that he’s probably rolling his eyes at your response. “My parents are bequeathing upon me a somewhat hefty amount of political affairs to sort through. They’d prefer it if I was already experienced in handling diplomatic matters when I become Queen.”

“I should hope that those affairs are not treating you too poorly,” Taegyu interjects. “They’re very much a large workload for a young princess like you.”

“I can handle it,” you say quickly. “Actually, I find them quite interesting. It’s as if I’m reading a novel still being written.”

Taehyung’s father shakes his head fondly. “Always with the books, aren’t you?”

You beam. Taehyung stifles a laugh.

This is typically how these dinners tend to go.

The conversations break off again, Taehyung’s father talking to your mother and your father talking to Taehyung’s mother, leaving you and Taehyung to relatively your own devices. It’s moments like these where you hate sitting next to him (like you always do), because all he does is whisper rude things in your ear that make you want to get up and leave.

“‘They’d prefer it if I was already experienced in handling diplomatic matters when I become Queen’,” Taehyung mocks, voice all high-pitched to imitate yours, or, at least, that of a stuck-up princess. “You’re so fucking full of yourself, you know that?”

You scoff, brows furrowing. “Look who’s talking, Mr. ‘Busy with My Thorough Investigation of the Mechanics of My Kingdom’,” you sass back. “I’ve never heard such a load of shit in my life.”

“At least my parents don’t care if I sneak out of the palace,” Taehyung taunts like a child, boasting about his privileges.

“At least mine actually trust me to run a kingdom,” you retort. “When was the last time you picked up a damn book and actually retained the information that you read?”

“When was the last time you actually got your nose out of a fucking book and had some fun?” Taehyung asks back. “No one wants a stick in the mud as their ruler.”

“No one wants a reckless young adult as their ruler either,” you say, frowning. “Learn to grow up a bit before you decide being King is worth your while.”

“Princess,” Taehyung says, voice all honeyed and smooth. He leans back in the velvet chair in which he sits, silk shirt unbuttoned just enough for you to be able to get a glimpse down that toned chest of his. He always knows how to push every single one of the buttons on your dress, and it’s sickening. “What’s the point in being a young adult if you aren’t reckless once in awhile?”

You can hardly bear to look at him like this, how he looks at you like you’re another one of the girls in the local tavern, poor ladies he sleeps with just for fun. You’re not some treat, some prize to be won, you’re a princess. A princess that’s going to kick his ass one day, mark your words.

“You two always get along so well,” Taehyung’s mother comments innocently as she looks over at the two of you. Taehyung’s still grinning his infamous grin, and from an outsider’s perspective, it must look like nothing but old banter between two long-standing friends, but neither you nor him know that that’s actually true. His mother elbows your father. “It’s so nice to see our two children are friends.”

You and Taehyung both crack fake, guilty smiles.

Taehyung’s mother continues, and you and Taehyung can do nothing except blink awkwardly, expressions stiff. “We’re all very pleased that the two of you get along so well. It’s so crucial to the future of both of our kingdoms that you work together and treat each other well, especially in this time of general political turmoil across all nations, all lands. Even little things like this are important.”

“Taehyung,” your father bellows, catching his attention. His back straights and he adjusts his shirt so that it’s less provocative, nodding solemnly at your father. “You are twenty-five this year, am I correct?”

“Yes, your Majesty. My birthday is at the end of December.”

“Very good,” your father says, and you do not like the path that this is going down. Not one bit, “That means that the responsibility of King will soon be bestowed upon you, will it not? Perhaps within the next couple years.”

“I believe that is customary, your Majesty,” Taehyung says, head bobbing. He looks just as concerned as you do. “Though I do believe that my father is one of the best rulers our Kingdom has seen throughout its short life.”

“You are well aware, I’m assuming, of the importance of alliances between rulers of smaller kingdoms?” your father asks, a bushy eyebrow raised.

Taehyung nods again. “Yes, your Majesty.”

“Good. As you will soon be inheriting your throne, as my daughter will mine, one of these days, I believe it is important for the two of you to build upon the friendship that you have already established with each other.”

You and Taehyung look at each other, eyes wide and brows slightly furrowed. Neither of you have the slightest clue what in God’s name your father might be alluding to, but judging by the expressions on the rest of your parents’ faces, you have a feeling it might be a thing you won’t be able to refuse, for better or for worse.

“Father,” you interrupt hesitantly, “what are you implying?”

“Your mother and I have discussed this topic heavily with King Taegyu and Queen Shinjong, and we collectively believe that it would be in all of our best interests to establish something of a personal alliance between our two lands,” your father tells you sternly.

“A personal alliance?” Taehyung and you ask at the same time before looking to each other, almost as though the both of you were offended by the fact that you both said the same thing.

Your mother’s always been the straightforward one. “A marriage, dear. That’s what we’ve decided upon.”

You almost choke on the sip of the drink you just took. You sputter, coughing inelegantly as you pound your chest, setting your glass down roughly on the satin tablecloth. Out of the thousands of things that could have come out of this royal feast, you did not expect marriage to be one. Despite how close in proximity you are with Taehyung, seeing him several times each year—if not, more—and having to waste away your precious hours next to him for the sake of your parents, you had always just assumed it would be something of a lifelong alliance, just to keep the peace.

In a way, you suppose, a marriage is sort of a lifelong alliance. Just, in a different context. A very different context.

“Marriage?” Taehyung asks, just as damn shellshocked as you. “When—when was this decided upon?”

“Last meeting,” Taehyung’s father says, beaming, and it’s clear from the get-go that he is probably the most pleased out of all four of the rulers at the table about this arrangement. “We did not want to spring it on you right then, just in case it appeared that you two stopped getting along.”

You knew there was something sketchy when you sat down at this table.

“Is it wrong of me to think that we may be a bit young for all of this right now?” You interrupt, trying to salvage any chance of calling off the wedding, cancelling it and just sticking to diplomatic alliance instead. “We both still have over half a decade to thirty.”

“Despite your age, both of you are perfectly capable to handling a wedding,” your father says sternly, and there goes your last-ditch effort to worm your way out of this engagement. “We trust you.”

Taehyung’s mother pipes up, a small woman with a very large presence in the right scenarios, “This wedding will be good for all of us, will it not? You two get along remarkably well for two young royals, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t see an issue here.”

“Perhaps, what Princess Y/N was trying to convey, is that we may be rushing into this a bit too quickly?” Taehyung asks, and this is the only situation under the sun, moon, and stars in which the two of you will band together and actually fucking agree on something. “I do not see why you felt the need to keep this from us. We still have our entire lives ahead of us.”

“Lives as rulers of your respective kingdoms,” your father reminds the two of you. “You two are under a great deal of pressure as future leaders. Once you are married, you will be able to share the responsibilities and address matters together, as equals.”

“Still, do you not think this is all a bit sudden?” You ask, turning to Taehyung with a hesitant gaze.

Your mother waves off your concern, as if it’s nothing more than a piece of dust on the fabric off her gown. “You two are, above anything else, friends.”

You and Taehyung share a pained glance at each other.

She continues. “I cannot fathom why you would be against this union, especially considering your current relationship. Even so, it’s not as if we are setting up the wedding for next week. It will be a large, public affair, and will require a hefty amount of preparing. We were thinking in the spring of next year.”

“March is hardly three months away!” You exclaim, eyes wide.

“Y/N!” Your father bellows, making the table shake. “Unless you can provide me with a legitimate explanation as to why this union is illogical, unreasonable, and unnecessary, then I want to hear no complaints from you. This is not only for our benefit, but for the kingdom’s. Both of them.”

All of your worst fears come rushing to you at once, your worrying thoughts and sudden realizations. Marriage to Taehyung. Being tied down to the man who sleeps with four people in a single day. Being tied down to your worst enemy, your arch-nemesis, for the rest of your life. You know that divorce is out of the question, especially considering the relationship between your two kingdoms. Fuck. Marriage? You’re not getting out of this one.

“I am incredibly thrilled with this arrangement,” you say as you look at your father dead in the eyes, and the words taste like bile in your mouth. “My apologies for my overreaction. It was all quite sudden.”

Everyone seems content with your statement.

You turn to Taehyung, making the daring move of taking those soft hands of his in yours, calloused in all of the right places. You’ve never touched him like this before. You look up at him, and the expression on his face is something of worry, stress, fear, and interest. He’s got the smallest smirk dancing on his lips as he looks at you, hair hanging in front of his face in thick, silky strands.

“I could not be more pleased to hear that I will be wed to you,” you say, grinning and bearing it, because that’s all you can really do right now.

Taehyung lifts your hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the skin, a move he only pulls when he’s really got someone to impress (and it’s never you). “Please, Princess,” he says in that honeyed tone of his, the one that sends shivers down your spine and makes your smile turn down, “the pleasure is all mine.”

It’s going to be a long rest of your life, that’s for sure.

Post-dinner, you decline the invitation to take a stroll in the botanical gardens that surround your palace, as the adults often do after a hearty meal, and you make a beeline for your bedroom.

In hindsight, you probably should have seen this coming. Your parents have mentioned Taehyung an awful lot these past few months—more than usual, at least—and the feast should have been a dead giveaway, but here you are, utterly astounded at the fact that you will be wed to none other than Kim Taehyung. You knew you should have just been frank with your parents back when you were thirteen and said no when they asked you if you enjoyed Taehyung’s company, because now the lie has only catapulted into something a lot more serious than just mere accompaniment.

You kick off your shoes, letting them fly to different places on your hardwood floor, flopping down on your mattress for another time as the weight of the world presses down on your shoulders. You have never felt more of an impending sense of inevitable doom than this current moment. It’s as if the universe has just decided to collapse in on itself and you’re the sucker right in the middle of it all.

Nothing tops off an elaborate royal dinner like the news that you’re marrying your least favorite person on Earth.

The mere thought of having to deal with the unbearableness that is Kim Taehyung has bile rising in your throat, an ugly taste on the tip of your tongue. Oh, how many girls would kill to be in your place. How many people you would kill just to get out of it.

All this worrying has your body heating up, nerves aflame at what is to become of you once you’re officially Taehyung’s wife, so you tumble off of your bed, hitting the floor inelegantly before opening your window.

That breath of fresh air feels like that eerie calm before the storm, that sense of peace you feel right before a massive exam, that moment where everything is good, but only for a moment. That’s what the night sky feels like against your skin, brisk breeze blowing back your hair. You take a seat at the cushioned windowsill that you’ve got by the window, hand resting in your palm as you stare out into the darkness. It would be something straight out of Romeo and Juliet, if it weren’t for the disgruntled look on your face and the fact that you are very much not excited to be marrying some guy.

A pebble whizzes by your head.

You snap up, the sight shaking you straight out of your resolve, and you look down to see Taehyung, still all made-up in his outfit from the dinner, staring at you from two stories below in the garden.

“Are you trying to take my eyeball out?” You shout down to him, accosted. You can’t believe he would have the damn gall to pelt a stone at you when you are at your windowsill, but then again, you can’t say you should be surprised. “Because if so, try harder. I don’t want to have to look at you anymore.”

“Please,” Taehyung comments crassly, “I’m quite the sight, aren’t I?”

“To your reflection, yes,” you remark to yourself, just loud enough for him to be able to faintly make out. “To others, that’s debatable.”

“Don’t act like you’re the only one who’s disappointed with this arrangement, alright?” Taehyung yells, exasperated. “This isn’t all about you.”

You scoff. “Look who’s talking.”

“Listen, Y/N, I know you’re pissed but there’s no reason why you should be taking it out on me,” Taehyung says, and even from two floors up you can see him rolling his eyes. You admit you’re being marginally unreasonable, but you’re angry, alright? Who are you going to project onto if not Taehyung? “It’s not as if I’m any more pleased than you are.”

“Thank you for confirming the fact that the dislike in this relationship is mutual,” you say sarcastically. “I was worried it was a one-way street, but I’m very glad it’s not.”

“Will you just shut up and let me finish?” Taehyung asks, clearly annoyed. “God, you’re always like this. You always have some witty remark on the tip of your tongue. I don’t wanna hear it, alright?”

“Oh, so it’s fine when you do it, but when I do it, it’s rude? Alright, fine,” you say, dropping the topic. You’d rather not deal with this today. “Continue.” You sit back, motioning for Taehyung to keep talking.

“What I was trying to tell you is that we’re going to have to learn to work together despite our massive, massive differences for our parents and our people, so we’re both going to have to suck it up and deal with it, okay? Can you do that?”

You heave a great big sigh, well aware of the fact that now you’re just being immature. You know you’re not getting out of this marriage at this point, and that even the notion of escaping and moving to the countryside is out of the question, so you can’t even say no. “Yes. If you can, I can.”

Taehyung nods, securing your response. “Good. Because we’re going to be living together until the wedding, so get used to it.”

It would take a zombie apocalypse for this day to get worse, and even that has you a bit skeptical.

At least your parents aren’t forcing you to room together. Well, not yet, anyway. The arrangement is as follows: you and Taehyung will stay at your palace until week’s end, before you go to stay at his palace for the rest of the engagement. Reason being, the wedding we be hosted in the botanical gardens of your own palace, and your parents need all of the time they can get to prepare for such a celebration. So, no matter where you go and what you do, you’re stuck with Taehyung.

Your parents expect life to go on as fucking normal, like they didn’t just spring an engagement to the one man you cannot stand and totally change your perspective on life. But if Taehyung’s willing to make things work, you suppose you are, too.

You’re in your bedroom, furiously studying one of your older books—Beowulf, it is—when your mother knocks on your door. She doesn’t really wait until you respond, simply opening up and walking in.

“Y/N, are you busy?” She asks softly.

Avoiding her gaze, eyes trained on the words of the book as you finish the four-page literary analysis your English tutor is requiring of you, you say, “A little.”

“If you aren’t, King Taegyu and Queen Shinjong came up with the lovely idea of you showing Taehyung around the town.”

Your pen drops from your hand, the ink dragging along the paper and messing up all of your hard work.

“N-Now?” You stutter out, brows furrowed in concern.

“If you’re free, yes. He’s currently in the training room. He told me he wished to have access to it to practice his fencing,” your mother says before bowing out, leaving you to contemplate your choices.

You could say no. If you really wanted to, you could say no, make up some ridiculous excuse on the amount of schoolwork you have or the royal chores you have to attend to as Crown Princess of your small kingdom, but you won’t. There are too many expectations on you now, too many things people insist on you doing, and it is unlike you to let people down. Besides, you’ll have to redo that whole page you were working on anyway, due to the ink, so you might as well just give yourself a break now. If your tutor asks, you’ll say you were busy with the wedding.

Opening your closet, you pull out your commoner garb from the corner in which it’s shoved. This is perhaps the only time you will ever be officially permitted by your parents to disguise yourself and go into town, for if you were to show Taehyung around as Princess, then you would need your bodyguards and a cavalcade and all that nonsense. Taking off that scratchy princess dress of yours, you instantly relax at the feeling of the drab cloth on your body, smiling as you remove your tiara from the crown of your head and let your hair out of its tight hold. You exchange your stubby little heels for some muddy slip-ons, and leave your room.

In the training room, Taehyung is not fencing. In fact, he’s not even doing anything remotely athletic. Instead, he’s lying with his back to the mat lining the floor from wall to wall, tossing a ball straight up into the air and catching it over and over.

“And here I was, thinking you were actually practicing your swordship,” you say as you stroll into the room, catching him by surprise. He sits up quickly at the sound of your voice, but immediately collapses back down when he sees the clothes you’re wearing.

“Oh, I thought we had something official to do,” Taehyung says casually, not even bothering to look at you.

“We do, asshole,” you sneer, going to stand at his feet. You lean over and snatch the ball mid-air before he can catch it, dangling it above his head like a prize. “As suggested by your parents, I am here to give you a tour of my kingdom.”

Taehyung scoffs. “Why would I need a tour of your kingdom? I already know it better than you do.”

You scrunch your nose. How dare Taehyung have the nerve to say that he knows your kingdom more than you do. “Excuse me?”

Taehyung sits up again, this time looking right at you, dark brown eyes boring into your soul. “That’s right, Princess. You think you know your kingdom? Think you’ve explored every nook and cranny, seen every person and walked every step?”

Your mouth opens to defend yourself. Taehyung has no damn clue what he’s talking about.

Taehyung gets up, pushing himself off of the floor and stepping towards you. The proximity makes you want to move back, keeping yourself at a comfortable distance from him, but he roughly grabs onto your wrist, trapping you in place. He takes another step, body almost pressing entirely up against yours, eyes still locked on yours.

“You don’t know your kingdom like I do,” he whispers, and you feel his breath hit your ear and send shivers down your spine. It sounds sensual, that smooth, honeyed voice he probably uses with all of the girls he charms in those taverns, but it also sounds like a challenge. A challenge you will not back down from.

You press your palms against his chest, feeling how thin his damn silk shirt is, feeling the smooth skin beneath it. You push him off of you, frown ever-present on your face. “You better get changed, Taehyung,” you hiss at him, “because I know this kingdom better than you ever will.”

It’s the first time you’ve ever walked through the streets of your land—bustling sidewalks and crowded roads all filled with shouting merchants and tradesmen—with someone by your side. Only now do you begin to pay attention to the overwhelming amount of couples throughout the town, girls and boys holding each other’s hands as they stroll through the city, giggling to each other. It gives you this weird urge to hold Taehyung’s hand, prove that the two of you are also worthy of being together, but for your own damn pride’s sake, you refuse.

Taehyung thinks he’s a genius, a seasoned expert of your kingdom, when he only visits a few times a year, when he doesn’t take the time to not only learn what is in your kingdom, but why.

He doesn’t know that the woman by the stall on the corner of the sidewalk who sells bread by the loaf built her oven by herself. He doesn’t know that the crumbling, grey building that hides right behind the pristine new elementary school is a classroom as well, as there were more students than anticipated this year. He doesn’t know that every year the daisies planted in front of your castle are put there by the first graders for a school project in April. He only knows bodies pressed up against him, bartenders that slide another drink across the counter.

You continue weaving your way through the masses, eager to get this damn thing over and done with so you can stop having to spend time with him, when you turn around to find him gone. Immediately, you have to force your way against the current of people as you struggle to find him, looking at the top of the crowd for a familiar face. How the hell can he just disappear like that?

After two minutes of fruitless searching, you stop under the balcony of a store, moving out of the line of people and catching your breath, when the crowd seems to magically clear out and Taehyung is standing right in front of you, a rose in his hand. This all feels too contrived for you to trust it.

“Where the hell did you go?” You ask, ruining whatever falsely-romantic mood there was as you storm up to him. “I was looking for you all over the damn place.”

“There was an old woman selling roses on the side of the street,” Taehyung says casually, twirling the flower in his hand.

“And you bought one?”

“You know, Y/N,” Taehyung says, avoiding your gaze as he teases the petals in front of your face, letting them drag along your nose and lips. You sputter, purposefully trying to spit on him. “Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses.”

“Wow, you sure taught me,” you reply sarcastically. “Way to go.”

“You’re so damn tense all the time,” Taehyung says, the flower falling limp between his fingers as he frowns at you. “You never know how to just relax and have fun. Isn’t that why you took me out of the palace? To have fun?”

“Your definition of fun and my definition of fun are very different, in case you weren’t aware,” you point out, reminding him that his version of fun tends to end up in some sort of bar. “I’m having fun just like this.”

Taehyung puts his hands on his hips, a skeptical single eyebrow raised. “It doesn’t look like it.”

“You don’t know what the hell fun looks like unless it kisses you on the lips,” you remark.

“If you think I kiss all of my hookups then you’re dead wrong,” Taehyung interrupts, pointing an accusatory finger your way. “Kissing is too intimate for a hookup.”

“Wow, that’s not what I wanted to know,” you say immediately, hands up in surprise. “I don’t care what you do or don’t do with your hookups. Come on. I have to keep showing you around.” You turn on your heel and continue walking, a destination soon coming to mind. Before you take more than a couple of steps, however, you immediately wheel back around, glaring at Taehyung as he brings his hands up in surrender. “And don’t wander off.”

A couple of blocks later, the two of you are stepping into the only bookstore in the heart of the city, a small wooden shop that looks like it’s about to burst open from the weight of all the novels, plays, and anthologies. When you sneak out of the castle, you visit often, always eager to see what new things the owner might have in stock. This is mostly how you’ve amassed such a collection of books in your room, all littered with notes in the margins, underlined words and arrows and comments. You’re not allowed to do that with the books you get from the palace library, because, you know, regulations. You’re something of a regular in this store, one of the few inhabitants of this kingdom that actually spends their time reading.

“Back so soon?” the owner asks from the top of the ladder where he stands, trying to stuff a couple of the thicker books onto the higher shelves. You were here less than a week ago, right before you ran into Taehyung and rescued him from getting his ass kicked by the jeweler.

“I can’t resist,” you admit sheepishly, strolling in. “Have you got anything new?”

“Just a couple of books, but I think you’ve probably read them already,” the owner says, finally stepping down from the ladder and meeting you at ground level. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is—”

“Tae,” Taehyung says quickly, holding out a hand for the owner to shake.

“He’s never been here before,” you say, not wanting to give away either of your true identities. None of the townsfolk ever know that they constantly come in contact with royalty, and you’d like to keep it that way.

“Do you like reading, son?” The owner asks.

Taehyung blushes a deep red. You already know the answer to this question. “I don’t do it much, but I’m trying to get back into it.”

“Well, this lovely lady is a wonderful place to start. She’ll tell you everything you need to know about every single book in this store, so take your time,” the owner assures him, patting you on the back before leaving the two of you to your own devices.

Taehyung looks around the little store in awe, amazed at how many books can fit into such a tiny space. His mouth is open the smallest bit as he turns in a circle, scanning the bookshelves that surround him. “Have you read all of these?”

You shrug casually, going over to pick up a book, flipping it around to read the imprint on the back cover. You finished this one last year. “Most of them.”

Your response leaves Taehyung speechless as you wander around the shop, grazing your fingers over the covers of the books on display. Nothing here really appeals to you today.

“So this is what you do in your free time? Read?” Taehyung asks, eyebrows raised.

You turn to him, a frown on your face. “Yes. Why? Are you against literature or something?”

“No,” Taehyung says, expression morphing from shock to something else, “I think that’s kind of neat, actually.”

There you stand, staring at each other from several steps away in the middle of an otherwise empty bookstore. Your hand’s limp as it touches the spine of a random book on a shelf as you gaze at him, piercing eyes looking into his, and you think that maybe, in the grand scheme of things, marrying him won’t be so bad.

That awkward half-moment you shared in the bookstore means almost nothing. Immediately after your trip throughout the city, you and Taehyung are back to your regularly scheduled bickering, snarky comments made under your breath as you begin to deal with all of the affairs both of your parents have decided to involve the two of you in. Often times, you end up wildly debating in meeting rooms, arguing over every little thing, pulling out all of the stops to ensure that you beat each other.

But it’s not long before the week is up and you’re forcibly being sent to Taehyung’s land, to reside in his castle as his goddamn betrothed, because this is your life now. You pack up a couple of suitcases and meet Taehyung and both pairs of your parents in the entrance hall of your palace. Just outside waits the carriage that will bring you and your soon-to-be-in-laws to his neighboring kingdom. You’ve packed lightly, as Taehyung’s parents have assured you over and over that they have clothes and makeup and whatnot already there for you, which just goes to show how long this whole marriage thing has been in the works. It’s unbelievable how easily they’ve kept this from you.

“Ready to go, Y/N?” King Taegyu asks as you come down the marble staircase, lined with red carpeting to prevent scuffing from those ugly heels of yours (it’s happened before). Behind you are the servants carrying your very limited number of bags, scurrying by so that they can pack them onto the carriage.

“I couldn’t be any more prepared,” you respond, coming up to stand next to Taehyung, his large, obnoxious frame overpowering yours instantly. Even his hands are huge.

“And you, son?” Taegyu turns to Taehyung, an eyebrow raised.

Taehyung nods. “I am overjoyed to be taking Y/N home with us.”

“Don’t get too excited,” you mutter under your breath, only loud enough for him to hear. In response, he elbows you in the side when nobody’s paying attention. You scrunch your nose up as you turn to him, unimpressed.

“Just because you will no longer be in our kingdom doesn’t mean you are absolved of all of the matters you have yet to take care of,” your father reminds you sternly. “We trust you to complete all of your tasks in a timely fashion along with your responsibilities as an engaged princess.” It’s the closest you’ll get to an “I love you”.

“And have fun!” Your mother adds excitedly. “I have no doubts that you and Taehyung will get along just as well as you do now, so I want you to enjoy yourself while you’re there. Spend time with him,” she suggests, motioning to Taehyung as he stands beside you. “It’ll do you a lot of good. You are getting married to him, after all.”

You and Taehyung glance awkwardly at each other, smiles too filled with teeth to look natural, forced grins in front of your parents so nothing seems out of place. This is how it’s always been.

“We’ll see you soon, alright?” Your mother says, going in for an embrace as she wraps her arms around you. “It won’t be long until we’re discussing the first batch of wedding plans!” She cries excitedly, making you awkwardly chuckle in response.

“Ready to go?” Taegyu asks as the servants begin to usher you out of the palace and onto the marble staircase that overlooks the pavilion below, two carriages waiting to take you to his kingdom. You can already see your bags strapped onto the carts behind them.

As you reach the bottom of the steps, you turn around to wave goodbye to your parents, and feel strangely at peace with the fact that you will hardly be stepping foot in this kingdom for the next few months. Your parents smile heartily in response, hands up in the small, royal wave that all rulers inevitably use, and Taehyung’s mother approaches you from behind.

“You and Taehyung shall take the latter carriage,” she informs the both of you, lips right in between yours and Taehyung’s, “and your father and I will sit in the first one.”

It seems pretty typical until, wait! You and Taehyung in one carriage? Alone?

“Just the two of us?” You ask hesitantly, trying to disguise the displeasure in your voice. Already, these next few months aren’t looking so hot. If you know you won’t be able to handle a simple carriage-ride next to him, how are you supposed to deal with the rest of your life?

“Of course!” Queen Shinjong says, clapping her hands together. “The new couple needs all of the privacy they can get.” She places a soft hand at the top of your back. “I know this is a big step for the both of you. We all want you to work it out as best as you can.”

With that, Queen Shinjong is gracefully marching off to her own carriage, where Taegyu holds his hand out for her to step inside before following suit, leaving you and Taehyung, speechless, outside your own.

He’s silent, too unsure of what to say, but he eventually makes to open the door, holding a hand out for you to take to lift you in. The little red devil on your shoulder is telling you to breeze right by him, refusing his offer and storm inside, but you suppose that you’re going to have to be diplomatic if you want this whole marriage thing to work out without you wanting to to gouge your own eyes out, so you gratefully take his hand as he gently lifts you into the carriage. Taehyung then hops inside himself as the footman closes the door behind the two of you, leaving you, once again, in silence.

Best case scenario: you make it through this carriage-ride without saying anything. Worst case scenario: you don’t. The best case scenario was already off the table the second you turned your head and saw who you were sitting next to.

“You know,” Taehyung says, breaking through the ice with that honeyed voice of his, “I really didn’t think you were going to let me help you get inside this thing, Princess. Thought you were going to blow me off and step inside yourself.”

“I had half a mind to,” you mutter as your reply, avoiding his gaze. “But I’m trying to make peace, here.”

“Me too,” Taehyung says. “That’s why I’ve decided that from now on, I will not sleep with anybody else, though I’m afraid that I’ll leave a trail of broken hearts behind me with this choice,” he says as if it’s something to be proud of, like it’s an achievement to be saying that he’ll abstain from the casual hookups he engages in so often.

“Shut up,” you frown, scrunching up your nose. “That’s so cocky of you. You might as well just draw a dick on your forehead now to get it over with.”

“Oh, Y/N, you never fail to humor me,” Taehyung says, laughing smugly. “Your wit alone would be enough to have the whole damn population on their knees for you.”

“Wow, hearing that from someone who’s definitely had half the population on their knees for him certainly means a lot,” you chide. “You sure know how to compliment a girl.”

“Only the best for my betrothed,” Taehyung muses. “It’s a real damn shame it had to be like this, you know.”

“‘Like this’?” You ask, seeking further clarification.

“I mean, to put it short, we hate each other,” Taehyung reminds you (as if you need reminding). “Not exactly how I pictured spending the rest of my life.”

“That makes two of us,” you comment, snorting slightly, It’s funny how the fact that neither of you wants to get married to the other is the very thing that the two of you can finally reach an agreement on. Strange how the world works, sometimes. “But we already agreed that we’d stick through it, right?” You ask, eyebrows raised as you turn to him.

“I guess we did,” Taehyung says, thinking back to the conversation the two of you had, with him two stories down from your bedroom window, and you, your head peering over the ledge that stood right above where he was, in the grass. It seems like such a distant memory for you, even if it was hardly a week ago. “I mean, we’ll get there eventually, right? Whether it’s before our wedding or ten years after, we’ll learn to live with each other. We have to, don’t we?”

You nod. “That we do.”

Taehyung goes back to staring out the window of the carriage, and there are so many peculiar things about this situation right now. You and Taehyung just had an actual conversation without any rude interruptions or bitter bickering, no rolled eyes or thinly-veiled threats, and it went well. Taehyung’s silent now, something he’s been a lot more, ever since news of the wedding dropped, something you never thought you’d begin to dislike. Strangely enough, you prefer it when Taehyung is boisterous, loud, uncouth, because it gives you something to lament about aloud, rather than the silence that leaves you trapped within your own thoughts, your own mind. Silence is so much louder than noise.

The journey hardly lasts more than two hours, two hours much too long when they are spent in a carriage next to a man that you hate but have to learn to love, no matter how impossible the task may seem. When you finally pull up to his palace, much bigger, more elegant, and better architecturally designed than yours, you are eager to escape the tension of the carriage, a stuffy air that weighs down on your shoulders along with the rest of your responsibilities.

The Kim’s castle has always been much, much nicer than yours ever will be, but it looks different when you approach it with the knowledge that this is your new home, rather than just a guest house. There are things in the palace you never knew before, secrets that will become revealed once you settle in your room, and for some odd reason, all of them seem to revolve around Taehyung.

“I’m sure you are extremely familiar with our abode,” Taegyu says to you as you walk inside, servants following close behind with your few bags in tow. “So please, Y/N, make yourself at home. I should have Taehyung show you the library, once that rascal gets inside, though I’m sure you’ve probably read all of the titles by now.”

You look back to the open door and see Taehyung outside, jumping off of the ledge of the carriage and hitting the ground with a soft thud. He’s still silent, but his mouth is the slightest bit open, and you watch his eyes trail their way from the dirt to the steps to the train of your dress, right up until he meets your gaze.

More than a hotel, a temporary living space, the Kim’s castle is your home away from home, you realize, the recognition hitting you once you find that you never really feel out of place within the walls of this palace, like you’ve belonged here all along.

In this castle, your room overlooks no such garden, no ground where Taehyung can stand and pelt rocks at your window at the most inopportune of times, but that’s never stopped a man like Kim Taehyung. There’s no need for him to try and catch your attention from outside the castle when he has total free reign inside of it. Over the past two days as you’ve settled into what appears to be your brand new life, Taehyung has pestered you, hooted from the hallway, knocked and pounded on your door more times than you can count on both hands. He’s always known how to push every single one of your buttons, like a child playing with a toy for the first time. He’s asked you for tea, made snarky comments about your reclusive habits, moaned and groaned about his day, all outside your goddamn door, and yet every time you hear that familiar knock, you open it.

You’d think you’d have learned by now.

You’re lying flat on your back in nothing but your undergarments—a thin, silky slip dress that clings to your figure and doesn’t leave very much to the imagination—reading one of the books King Taegyu had dropped off at your room especially for you (that you’ve already read four times) when the knock sounds, reverberating off of your walls. Taehyung likes to switch up the way he taps at your door, trying to deceive you into thinking it’s someone else, a maid or a servant, before you open up to reveal his wicked face, and this time, he has you fooled. You get up, soft bare feet on the hardwood floor, and smooth out the creases in your dress before approaching the entrance to your room, a hand on the doorknob as you turn it, not even bothering to look through the peephole to see who may be on the other side.

Tough fucking luck.

The moment your door cracks open, Taehyung is shoving his foot in between the gap and pressing the door back to reveal himself, dressed in commoner garb. He looks like the son of a craftsman, an apprentice artisan, dirt on his cheek and brown patches of mud on his clothes.

“Whoa,” Taehyung says instantly, mouth dropping open at the sight of you in nothing but your undergarments. It doesn’t take a genius to guess what he’s probably thinking. “I was not expecting this.”

You suddenly feel very self-conscious under his gaze, wanting to kick him out of your room and crawl under your covers, curl up into a ball until the sensation subsides. He’s never seen you so open like this, so exposed, dress resting at your mid-thigh and hugging every bit of skin it touches along the way. But you refuse to show your insecurities in front of him, willing yourself to stand tall and lean against the doorframe like his presence isn’t the slightest bit bothersome. Even like this, you won’t let him catch you off guard.

“What is it, Taehyung?” You ask stiffly, avoiding his gaze.

“Do you always walk around like this when you’re alone?” Taehyung asks, clearly avoiding the original topic he was coming to talk to you about as he shoves his way past you and into your room.

“Like what?” You ask, feigning ignorance.

Taehyung turns around from where he’s standing, his fingers glossing over the pages of the open book spread out on your mattress, looking at you sharply. “Like that,” he says, moving his hands up and down, tracing your silk-covered body. His eyes look like they’re practically bulging out of his head.

“Does it bother you?” You ask, a single eyebrow raised as you fold your arms over your chest. You may or may not be purposefully trying to push your breasts up, but if anyone asks, you’ll deny it. Taehyung’s gaze falters. Mission completed.

“It’s very unbecoming of a princess to be dressed in such clothing in front of royalty,” Taehyung berates you, but you could honestly not care less about what he says.

“Look who’s talking,” you say, motioning to him. “You look like you just waltzed right out of a pig pen.”

“For your information,” Taehyung says, coming close to you and pressing an accusing pointer finger at the top of your torso, right between your collarbones, “I’m dressed like this for you.”

You scrunch your nose up, pulling away. “For me?”

“I’ve been instructed to show you around my kingdom,” Taehyung tells you. “Just returning the favor, I guess.”

“So is that why you’re trekking dirt into my room dressed like a farm boy?” You ask snarkily, a smirk growing on your face.

Taehyung collapses back on your bed, clearly not getting the message about how he’s screwing up the cleanliness of your room with every move he makes. “Yes, very much so, Princess. Better get dressed before the evening rush in town.”

It’s clear that Taehyung is making no effort to leave your room, eyes locked on your as you change into the peasant clothes you brought along with you from your own castle—you had a feeling you’d be sneaking out once in a while—so you pay him almost no attention. Unwrinkling your bunched-up pile of commoner garb, you begin to pull on the dress, stretching up just enough for Taehyung to catch a bit of your underwear under your slip dress. Just enough to tease him, just enough to make him want more. Besides, you’re going to have to make a child eventually, so better get the awkwardness over and done with now.

Once you’re set, you hop over to Taehyung as you’re pulling on your other shoe, knocking on his forehead and expecting to hear a hollow sound in return, space where his brain should be. It shakes him out of whatever trance he’s in, bringing him back to reality as he stands abruptly.

“Ready to take on this town, future wife?” He asks, holding his arm out for you to link with your own.

You frown, unimpressed, and walk three steps ahead of him, just out of his reach. “If you say so.”

Unsurprisingly, you never really got the chance to explore Taehyung’s kingdom like he has yours, always needing to stay behind and deal with fucking diplomatic affairs like you’d been taught while Taehyung pranced around town, charming every human being he made eye contact with. You’ve only ever rode through his town in carriages, looking down on the people rather than looking at them.

By the time you reach the floor of the city that his palace overlooks, the sun has just started to set over the horizon, the sky turning a darker shade of the vibrant light blue it is during the day, and the streets are packed. This must be the evening rush Taehyung was talking about, the scramble to get home after a long day’s work and perhaps pick up a couple of groceries on the way, merchants and tradesmen trying to make their final sales of the evening before closing up shop, children running back to the calls of their parents after being let out to play for the afternoon.

It’s not unlike yours, this town is, same groups of people, same clockwork schedule. Taehyung acts like your kingdom and his are vastly different, can hardly be put in the same damn category, let alone be compared to each other, but it doesn’t feel that way. Sure, Taehyung knows this kingdom better than you do, better than you ever will, most likely, but from the surface, everything feels the same.

Taehyung is daring, and in order to keep him from losing you in the herds, the booming masses, he holds your hand. Not in a romantic way, like hand-holding should be. His touch doesn’t feel romantic. There are no sparks, no skips of your heartbeat. Holding his hand just feels like him.

“Your kingdom looks the same as mine,” you tell him as you reach a stopping point on the corner of the sidewalk, out of the crowd’s way. Taehyung looks up at you at that comment. “At least, it feels the same as mine.”

“Does it, now?” Taehyung asks like it’s a challenge, looming over you menacingly. “Princess, I don’t think you’d know what my kingdom feels like even if it kissed you on the lips,” he murmurs, and you are both repelled and attracted to the way his lips hover over yours.

You don’t have a snarky retort to fire back at him, and Taehyung looks pretty damn satisfied with the fact that he’s rendered you speechless, turning around with a smirk and dragging you along to whatever he wants to show you.

Taehyung manages to catch the local baker right as he’s closing up shop, a hearty old man with a thick beard standing on the inside of the store window, switching the sign to the display the words ‘CLOSED’ in bold, cursive lettering. Taehyung waves at him through the window, other hand still tightly holding yours, attracting the man’s attention. The warm smile the baker gives Taehyung in response has you doing a double take—has he enchanted everyone in this damn kingdom?

Apparently. The baker lets you and him into the store after hours without batting an eyelash, welcoming you in like he wasn’t just about to go home and take a (probably) much-deserved rest. The smell of baked goods, bread, muffins, cakes, and everything in between wafts through the air even though it’s likely been a while since the ovens were on, like the scent is just perpetually there.

You’ve never visited a bakery alone like this. Well, you’re not technically alone, as reminded by the sound of Taehyung accidentally knocking over one of those cafe chairs, but you’ve never been in a bakery without the hustle and bustle of a morning crowd. You only ever visited yours when you snuck out, pretending to be yet another young girl perusing the streets, quickly grabbing a bite to eat or sitting down to read a novel in the corner, a cupcake on the plate in front of you. Never like this.

“It’s been several days since you’ve visited, hey?” The baker asks Taehyung as you wander around his shop, paying them little attention as you take the place in.

You can hear Taehyung respond. “Yes, I got caught up. I’m glad to be back, though.”

“A new girl?” The baker asks, and it doesn’t take much of a genius to know that he’s talking about you. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see him motioning to you as he continues speaking. “Just two weeks ago you came in with that other girl, the one with the laugh, right?”

The mention of another girl has you slowly turning to face them, wanting to catch Taehyung’s response without him knowing that you’re listening in.

“Oh, her,” Taehyung replies awkwardly, clearly not wanting to be caught up in this conversation in front of you, the woman he’s engaged to, no less.

“Yes, I liked her,” the baker admits. “It’s a shame, but the new one seems nice. What’s her name?”

“Y/N,” Taehyung responds before you can open your mouth to tell him that maybe giving your real name might not be a good idea, depending on how well the baker knows his foreign leaders’ daughters. The thought seems to instantly strike him afterwards, his eyes widening slightly as they meet yours, frantic.

“Ah, very nice,” the baker nods, clueless. “Hopefully she’ll stick around longer than the last one, eh? Though I can’t count on it—it doesn’t seem like you stay with one girl for too long.”

Taehyung visibly winces at the statement, eyes locking with yours as your amicable smile immediately deflates into a frown. You raise a single eyebrow, the universal sign for ‘you’ve got a shit ton of explaining to do’, and he quickly turns back to the baker.

“No, I think she’s a keeper,” Taehyung says rapidly. Normally the words would sound romantic, a lovesick man musing about his significant other, but this time, they sound forced. Forced because you aren’t getting out of marrying him, forced because neither of you are joining together in holy matrimony out of love. He rushes over to you, bidding a quick goodbye to the baker before taking your hand and tugging you out of the bakery, only coming to rest a block away from it.

It’s interesting, how Taehyung waits for your reaction with baited breath, pausing with his mouth parted as he braces himself. He’s expecting the worst—you can tell from his expression—ready to take whatever lecture you’re about to give him.

Instead, you say this: “I didn’t peg you as a bakery boy.”

Taehyung looks, first and foremost, shocked. He sputters. “Um—”

“You know, in all of the time I’ve known you, you’ve never talked to me about dates,” you continue, acting like he hasn’t said a thing. “You’re always talking about girls, and sex, and alcohol, but never dates. You never seemed like a ‘romantic outing’ type of person.”

“I’m not,” Taehyung says quickly, beginning to defend himself. “She wasn’t anything special.”

“She was special enough for you to take her to a bakery,” you mutter.

“It was after we had met at the tavern,” Taehyung says, skipping the lurid details you know are shoved somewhere in between his words. “She had something to pick up at the bakery and I was headed there myself. We just talked for a bit.”

“Did you like her?”

“Not enough for me to stay.”

Letting his words sink in, carve a memory into your brain, you take a step closer to him, closing the gap between the two of you without ever taking your eyes off of him.

“Do you ever stay?” You whisper, more to yourself than to him, but he seems to hear you anyway, hear the questioning of your voice, the bitter tone leaving your mouth.

“I’ll stay with you,” Taehyung says, and it’s not a promise, like it should be. Nothing is a fucking promise when you’re a royal, you can’t promise shit unless you have something to back it up. Promises are made to be broken, and broken promises are costly when you’ve got a crown on your head. This, Taehyung’s words, they’re not a promise. He has no choice. He will stay with you or he’ll give up his crown, his life, his kingdom.

“That doesn’t mean anything to me, Taehyung,” you tell him coldly, harshly. Your voice is bitter and resentful and you fucking know it. “Staying with me isn’t a choice.”

“Isn’t it?” Taehyung asks, mouth downturned. “I don’t have to do all of these things. I don’t need to show you around my kingdom, accompany you to dinners, try and make peace. We could just be married on paper. We could be separate rulers joined together legally, but not physically. I don’t need to do this.”

“You don’t show me around places and talk to me for me,” you snap. “Your parents? Mine? The royal officials? They can’t catch onto this. You and I both know that we’re only pretending when we kiss each other in public.”

“Do we?” Taehyung asks, and before you can say something back, rebuke his question and scowl, he’s pressing his mouth to yours in a kiss.

You make a noise of surprise at the sudden action, soft lips on yours as his hands reach out to grab you by the waist, angry and rough, but you don’t reject him. There’s this attractive fury in his touch, an intoxicating taste on his tongue that keeps you wanting more. Taehyung feels like fire, tastes like it, too, and it leaves you breathless, senseless, speechless.

His hands rake up and down your body, the sandpaper fabric of your commoner clothes mixing with his smooth skin, but it doesn’t stop him. Yours stretch up to wrap around his neck, just tight enough to make his hot breath catch in his throat before it mixes with yours.

You’re kissing him.

You’re kissing Kim Taehyung. Your betrothed. Your enemy.

And he’s kissing you, too.

There’s a red hot burning in this kiss, a rage that both of you seem to possess, and it only ignites you further as you lean into each other, hands rough but mouths rougher. When you part with heavy pants, lips a dark red from the movements, your gazes are locked together. You look into Taehyung’s eyes and see this spark, the same one you assume must be there for every girl he sleeps with, a devilish glint that hints at a lot more than you think it should. His hands are still resting on your waist, possessive and taunting, keeping you right in front of him (where you belong).

“You never answered my question,” he says, voice thick and smooth, like honey. “Are we still pretending?”

You don’t like thinking about this. You don’t like thinking about what he’s asking you, what it implies, what it really means. You can’t seem to keep your mind straight, and Taehyung’s lips are warm and inviting and right in front of you, swollen and cherry red. And so you don’t think, turn your mind off, let all reasoning leave you, and kiss him.

This kiss is messier than the last, more teeth, more tongue, hot breath down your throat as his hands move from your waist to your neck to your cheeks, keeping you in his arms. You don’t care who’s watching, workers walking back from their jobs with their noses upturned at the sight of you two, making out on a corner street. All you can focus on his him, him, him.

It’s not long before you’re moving, running down the roads back to his castle, pausing every three seconds to push each other up against window displays just to get another taste on your lips. He’s rough and unforgiving, fury and rage rattle in his bones and you can feel it from the way his lips meet yours. In return, you’re sneaky and teasing, dodging his touch every now and then and keeping him just out of reach sometimes. It excites him further, ignites him as he takes the challenge as his own, one to finally catch you, trap you.

You dance this dance all the way back to the palace, bounding down roads as the evening rush dies down. Once you’re inside, you’re giggling as you scurry up the marble staircase to his room, trying not to get caught by maids and servants and staff alike but stopping every five steps just to press each other against a wall or a pillar or a table, kissing down each other’s necks and jawlines, tongues meeting skin.

You’re at his room, you realize as he jerks open his door with such great force that it almost makes you jump, if it weren’t for the way you’re melting into him. When he’s got you inside, he switches on the light and kicks his door close, the sound of it shutting echoing throughout his bedroom. You can’t keep your hands to yourselves, refusing to let your bodies part, taking every opportunity to explore. Taehyung wrenches the ribbon tied around your waist loose, your dress subsequently falling to the ground, leaving you only in the slip he caught a glimpse of earlier today. You’re not feeling very self-conscious anymore.

You coax him onto his giant of a mattress, taunting him with the promise of your lips, your body, and he finally caves. When he’s near you, you begin to take off this old dress shirt of his, shaking fingers undoing each button as he presses kisses to your neck and jawline, the exposed part of your chest. Eventually you collapse onto the bed together, half-naked, desperate and wanting.

Taehyung tugs off the slip dress, revelling in the sight of your exposed body in front of him, and he wastes no time getting a taste of exactly what he wants. As he licks a stripe down your chest, his fingers make their way to your core.

Within no time, his pants are off and his silk sheets are pushed down to the edge of his bed your bodies tangling up in each other. You’re teasing, he’s rough, and you clash in a perfect nightmare. There’s a fire in his room tonight, lightening and thunder mixing together in one hell of a storm.

Taehyung fucks hard, his hands press down on your body so tightly you know you’ll wake up with bruises, but you don’t care. With every moan, every gasp, he speeds up, breaths getting quicker and quicker until you’re both hitting your climaxes, crying out to each other. Taehyung comes with a groan, hot white spilling out onto your chest as you come down from your high.

When you return to his room after quickly entering his bathroom to clean yourself up, you find Taehyung totally conked out in his bed, wet towel hanging over the foot of it to dry out and the sheets nestled comfortably up to his chin.

You’ve seen Taehyung in a lot of different ways, devious smirk on his face as he greets you right after having sex, silk button down shirts and earrings and the fakest fucking smile, mouth opened slightly, involuntarily as he fucks into you, but not like this. Taehyung sleeps like a fucking baby, you realize, soft snores and fluttering eyes as he curls into himself. He reaches out mindlessly, helplessly, hand grazing over the empty side of his bed, and your heart sinks at the sight, like he wants something that’s not there. Eventually, he settles for one of his many pillows, wrapping an arm around it as he curls into it.

You can’t help but feel like you’re intruding. Gathering your clothes, strewn over the floor, you tiptoe out of his room, shutting the door softly behind you as you scurry back to your own abode.

The next morning, nothing changes. You and Taehyung sleep in separate beds in separate rooms, leading two different lives only joined together on paper. When you meet him in the dining hall for breakfast, his hair is brushed, falling in smooth waves over his forehead, his clothes are ironed and expensive, and he’s just as unbearable as he always is.

You’re sitting at the table, awaiting whatever staff that is bringing out your breakfast meal on a silver platter, when he flings open the swinging door that leads to the palace kitchens, a bagel with a huge bite out of it in his hand, crumbs gathering at the corners of his mouth, falling to the floor. He’s shouting something to one of the girls inside, voice sickeningly sweet, a smirking thank you to whoever sneaked him some subsistence. As he turns to face you, mouth grinning wide, you roll your eyes.

He takes a crass seat down across from you, not even bothering to lean over the china plate in front of him as he takes obnoxious bites of his bagel. A servant, not a moment later, emerges with a full fruit salad bowl on his tray, placing it down in front of you with a flourish and a bow before scurrying out. When you look a bit closer, you notice that it’s all of your favorite fruits. How kind of them.

Before you can use the serving spoon to scoop some onto the small salad plate in front of you (etiquette can die), Taehyung’s reaching a giant hand over to scoop out a couple of chopped pieces with his goddamn fingers, no less, popping them into his mouth in between bagel bites. You immediately recoil at the sight of it, how inelegant he’s being, hesitant to reach that serving spoon in and eat some for yourself. Who knows what the hell his hands have touched.

“Relax, Princess,” Taehyung says, sensing your distaste. “My hands are clean. Unless you’re against bagel crumbs.”

“You disgust me,” you say blankly, finally caving in and starting to help yourself to your fruit salad.

“I believe you mean ‘enchant’,” Taehyung corrects you cheekily, making you scowl as you stuff a chopped up piece of melon into your mouth.

“Don’t get your fucking hopes up, you know,” you spit.

Taehyung only chuckles, low and rumbly as he shakes his head. “Princess, don’t lie to me. We both know you weren’t thinking that last night.”

So, yes, nothing’s really changed. Only now, Taehyung’s got another thing to tease you about. Great.

It’s a month later when your parents finally summon both you and Taehyung back to your palace, where your wedding will be held in April, among the blossoming flowers as a symbol of rebirth, new beginnings, and love. All things that you couldn’t care less about (especially with Taehyung) even if your life depended on it. The worst part about this, however, is the fact that they’ve called for only you and Taehyung, not his parents, which means you will be spending the entire journey there in the same fucking carriage with no protective barrier (see: his parents) to prevent you from clawing at each other’s throats and wanting to toss each other out of the moving vehicle. But duty calls, and so does wedding nonsense, so you and Taehyung clamber into the car with spats and bickers.

“I just wish my parents could plan this whole thing and leave me out of it,” you complain as you’re on your way, collapsing in your seat and letting all notions of good posture fly out the window.

“Well, don’t you think it’s important that you have a say in your wedding?” Taehyung asks. “I mean, it’s kind of like, a binding deal. At least make it enjoyable, while you’re at it.”

“That’s exactly it,” you huff. “We’re getting married and this entire thing was set up by our parents, so why does my opinion matter now? It didn’t matter when I was trying to protest our engagement. I don’t see why my parents would think I want anything to do with this wedding.”

“Still,” Taehyung says, attempting to make you see reason. “It is your wedding.”

“It’s yours, too,” you add softly, another reminder that you’re not the only sucker in this deal, that life is a two-way street. “I’m not the only one getting married.”

“But you’re half of the couple,” he tells you. “Your opinion matters just as much as mine does. This wedding is for us.”

“No, Taehyung,” you say sternly. “This wedding is for our parents. Our kingdom. Our people,” you tell him firmly. “It’s not for us. I’m not getting married to you to have a good time. I’m not willingly participating in this wedding to make a night worth a memory. Don’t you understand? I don’t want to remember this night.”

Taehyung looks speechless, eyes wide before he sinks into his seat, trying to make himself smaller. He opens his mouth, something else to say on the tip of his tongue, but he recoils and turns away from you. Maybe you were being a bit harsh.

“Taehyung,” you say, a hand on his shoulder, “I didn’t—that’s not what I meant.”

“No, it’s okay,” Taehyung says, shrugging you off. “I get it. You don’t wanna marry me. That’s cool. I know this wasn’t necessarily your choice.”

“Taehyung—”

“You have every right to say those things,” Taehyung cuts you off, continuing to talk. “I don’t blame you. This is sudden and strange and unwanted. I get it, I really do.” He turns away from you again, the brief moment of you meeting eyes gone within a cold flash as he directs his attention towards the landscape. Perhaps you were being a bit much.

You sigh, not knowing how to resolve the tension in this stuffy carriage without making a deeper cut. Eventually, you take a deep breath, letting it leave your body and calm you down. “If there’s anything I want to remember from our wedding, I want it to be you.”

You reach your kingdom in a timely fashion by avoiding the market center most foreign chauffeurs always tend to drive straight through before getting trapped in the daily crowd, hopping out of the carriage with time to spare before your parents are expecting you.

“Miss this place?” Taehyung asks as he steps down from the carriage, a hand coming to rest on your shoulder.

You exhale. “Not really.” For some reason, nothing about your castle feels like home anymore.

Eventually, the palace doors open and your parents stand regally at the top of the entrance staircase, smiling warmly at the sight of the two of you, next to each other as though you were already married. You and Taehyung respectfully bow, tipping your heads to the rulers of this little kingdom, before approaching them as they invite you in.

“Enjoying yourself so far, Y/N?” Your mother asks hopefully.

You turn to Taehyung, whose hand is tightly holding yours as you enter your castle, walking down long hallways to get to where you need to go, feet stepping on the soft red carpet. “Yes, very much so,” you respond. “Taehyung is wonderful company.”

“That’s all I want to hear,” your mother muses, pleased.

“We missed your birthday, didn’t we, son?” You hear your father bellow as he converses with Taehyung, who looks so small in comparison to him. You remember Taehyung’s birthday. It was a mere couple weeks after you had arrived in his kingdom, and as a birthday gift, you gave him a battered copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a reminder of your conversation in the bookstore. Taehyung always did want to get back into reading.

“I promise that it was not in vain,” Taehyung responds. “You are very busy with the wedding, after all.”

“I suppose you’re right. The wedding must be our top priority, now that you’ve reached twenty-five. We do not want to keep you waiting much longer,” your father says, assuring the both of you that the wedding must proceed with speed, but not haste. April is only two months away, after all.

Taehyung gives your hand a squeeze, causing you to glance up at him, and he merely smiles. An unreadable thing, it is, the way his lips turn up, not devilish, rude, sneaky. Just a smile, just a grin your way, and even after he turns to face forward you’re left gazing at him, brows furrowed with confusion.

When your parents are presenting you with all of the options for your wedding, rather than standing back and letting them make the decisions, you and Taehyung pick together. He will suggest something, and you will agree or disagree, typically prompting some sort of compromise. Every time something is decided, something that you both like and both will find yourself enjoying come your wedding day, Taehyung looks at you, pleased and dare you say, proud. It is your wedding, after all, and while Taehyung is admittedly more the groom of your nightmares rather than the groom of your dreams, you deserve to enjoy each moment, at the very least.

And if, on the off chance that your wedding won’t even be able to indulge you, perhaps he will, instead.

Valentine’s Day was never a big deal to you until you realized that you had one of your own. Technically. The palace gardeners always grew red and pink roses during this time, cultivated in greenhouses to shelter them from the biting cold of winter, and there they were, lining the hallways in vases to celebrate your parents’ love. That was what Valentine’s Day was for you, a reminder that royalty doesn’t equal loneliness, and that love can be found even when it seems impossible.

Now, Valentine’s Day means something else. You’d never celebrated it before, paying no attention to the way the whole world seems to stop and fall in love, even with the moment, just for this one day, yet here you are.

Here Taehyung is, too, knocking on the door to your bedroom just as you rise from your beauty sleep, sun already above the horizon as its rays peek through the curtains attached to your window. You know for one hell of a fact that his parents have given you two the whole day off—unsurprisingly so, King Taegyu and Queen Shinjong have always been hopeless romantics—which equates to the two of you being forcibly shoved together to do couple-y things as bonding exercises, preparations for the rest of your life.

Taehyung’s seen you naked, so you don’t even bother getting dressed, only tugging on a loose sweater over that blush pink slip dress you always wear (how fitting for today, really, a soft pink silk pressing against your body) before opening the door. He’s standing right outside, dressed in a fantastic wealth, gold and silver littering bits of his body here and there, a ring on a finger, a choker around his neck, earrings dangling under his locks. Today, his silk shirt is a cool blue-red, soft and dark like his lips, like the blush rising on his cheeks, like the single rose he holds in his hand.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Princess,” Taehyung says, voice warm and low, holding out the rose in front of you, making you jump at the sudden action, stepping back with your mouth open in surprise. This is so… Taehyung of him. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Romeo and Juliet? Taehyung’s really pulling out all of the stops for this. You scrunch your nose up. “I don’t even think you know what that line means.”

“I try to be romantic and you shoot me down, yet again,” Taehyung says, shaking his head in disapproval. “No wonder my mother told me to get you a rose. You’re beautiful, but you’re covered in thorns.”

And, there it is, the classic Taehyung line that you were waiting for. You knew there had to be some sort of catch. You frown, swatting his shoulder with your hand as you pluck the flower from his fingers, thoughtfully twirling it in your own. The gesture is nice, but this is Taehyung you’re dealing with, and there’s always something to read between the lines.

“Ah, yes,” you muse to yourself, sauntering back inside your room as Taehyung follows, the cracks in your curtains making his gold choker glint in the sun, “you always know how to sweep a girl off of her feet.”

“Only the best for my fianceé,” Taehyung responds.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of your company at—” you glance up at the clock on your wall, “—eight-fourteen in the morning?” The rose has been cast onto your crumpled sheets, bits of its petals catching in the sun that filters through your window. You’re curling into your sweater, detesting the way Taehyung lets a draft in by not closing your door. He had one job.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” Taehyung says, like that’s a good enough excuse for this nonsense. “Does there need to be a reason behind me wishing to visit my future wife on the day dedicated to love?”

“Yes,” you deadpan, unimpressed at his attempts to woo you. He does this on purpose, these sugary tones and charming lilts, taking the parts you can’t stand about him and amplifying them. “We don’t love each other.”

Your words catch Taehyung off guard, leaving him standing right in front of your open door with his mouth open, his next sleazy remark evaporating from his lips as he processes your words for a brief second, letting them sink in. It almost looks like he’s about to challenge that statement.

“We could.”

Now, it’s your turn to be speechless. Taehyung doesn’t utter these words like he does the rest of them, a teasing tone, a smooth honey. He says them sincerely, and it’s one of the few times whatever he says doesn’t travel through one ear and right out the other. He tells you this not because he wants to taunt you, elicit a reaction from you like everything else he says does, but, perhaps if you’re going the slightest bit mad, because he wants to mean them. Who’s to say falling in love with each other is out of the question?

(Who’s to say it hasn’t already happened?)

“Is there any other reason why you’re knocking on my door with a wilting rose in your hand?” You ask, acting like you didn’t even hear him. It will do you no good to dwell on such things like that, not when you’ve got more than enough on your plate already.

“Dinner at seven,” Taehyung says, and it’s not an offer, it’s an order. “A really fancy one, too. Meet me in the entrance hall?”

You nod in agreement, almost positive that you couldn’t turn this down even if you were allowed to. For some peculiar reason, you don’t find yourself dreading this date like you would. Like you should. Taehyung smiles, pressing soft hands on your shoulders as he gently places his lips on your forehead, kissing the skin ever so slightly before standing back, blushing as red as the rose that rests on your bed.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he says before leaving, turning on his heel and closing your door behind him, hand lightly tugging on the doorknob until it clicks, leaving you standing in nothing but a sweater and a slip dress, the sun warming your back as it rises in the sky.

Being punctual is second nature to you, so it comes as a great surprise to see Taehyung already standing in the foyer of his castle, waiting for you, as the clock strikes seven. He’s handsome always, you’ll admit that much, but especially when he’s donning such a suit as he is tonight, a dark navy that brings out the caramel in his hair and the brown in his eyes. It fits him perfectly, and his jewelry, scattered along his body from his ears to his neck to his wrists, matches it impeccably. He’s been preparing for this, you can tell, from the way he’s brushed his hair to the way he’s standing, watching you come down the marble stairs with a hand gripping the railing. You were always good at walking in heels, but stairs have always and will always be Enemy Number One.

Finding a fancy dress on such short notice was mildly challenging, considering you had to fish through the belongings you brought with you and ended up coming short. In your room, you mentally berated yourself for not bringing a dinner dress like you thought you had, but you soon reminded yourself of all of the clothes the Kims so thoughtfully provided you for the duration of your stay. In the closet, stuffed at the far end, hid an electrifyingly red dress, satin and silk, frills on the one strap the dress has, the entire thing littered with exquisite gold detailing. The perfect Valentine’s Day dress.

Taehyung’s eyes are saucer wide when they see you fast approaching, slowly descending the staircase with a stiff smile on your face. When you reach the bottom, you walk up to him, heels clicking on the marble flooring, and shrug.

“Seven, you said?” You ask awkwardly, trying to make do with the small talk.

“Precisely,” Taehyung says, and you can tell he wants to say more, has so much to tell you on the tip of his tongue but he holds back, presses his lips into a thin smile as he holds out an arm for you to take.

You don’t really know what you’re expecting from this date, to be taken in carriage to an elegant restaurant in the city, brought to the dining hall for an extravagant meal accompanied by a small orchestra, but you certainly aren’t expecting Taehyung to lead you out on a balcony overlooking the botanical gardens his castle boasts, starry night and moon high above you, illuminating your features and the little glass table sitting in front of you.

Taehyung pulls a chair out for you to take a seat, and you do so gladly, taking all of this in. You’ve never had a date like this before, if that’s even what this is. He sits across from you, settling down and adjusting his uneven collar before you fall into silence. There’s a single rose in the vase on this table.

“Do you do this much?” You ask jokingly, trying to break through the ice you hadn’t even realized had settled. Since when did it get so stiff between the two of you?

“You would be the first,” Taehyung muses. “Taking girls out on a fancy date under the stars on the balcony of my multimillion dollar palace isn’t necessarily a pastime of mine.”

“I’m honored,” you chuckle. “I’ve never done this before, you know.”

“I had a feeling.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask, mouth dropping open in indignation.

Taehyung chuckles lowly to himself at your objection. “I meant, I don’t necessarily think many boys would take you out on a date like this very often.”

“Boys don’t tend to take me out at all,” you say, sighing to yourself. You’ve always been too busy, too engaged and obligated, to date anyone. There’s never been time for it, before, but now, it feels as though you have all of the time in the world to spend beside him.

“I’m honored to be your first,” Taehyung says, and you can hear the truth in his words, how much he means what he says, You find that’s become quite the trend, these days. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Princess,” he wishes you, and god, Taehyung’s always been readable but tonight his face is hazy, expression blurred and indistinct. You’ve never seen Taehyung like this.

Dinner arrives shortly, a modest meal of fish and vegetables so as not to distract you from the scenery. The flowers below you shine in the daylight but glimmer in the night, in the gleam of the moon as she looks down on them, on you.

“We’re getting married in less than two months,” Taehyung says, reminding the two of you of the real reason why you’re here, why he’s set up this elaborate date for Valentine’s Day. You’re getting married. You’re marrying him. He’ll be yours, and you’ll be his.

“Can you believe we’re getting married?” He asks, seemingly shellshocked from the realization. It’s as if it’s just hit him, the weight of it finally falling onto his shoulders as his mind reels. He’s yours. You’re his.

You shrug, sighing helplessly. It’s not like you can do anything now to change it. “I guess so. I kind of figured it would always end up being someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“I guess I should have known, really,” you say, looking back on all of these years you’ve spent by his side. There was never a time you could remember when you weren’t next to him, always Taehyung rather than any other royal you knew. Always him. “That my parents would want you as my husband.”

“Why, because I’m the son of your parents’ closest allies?” Taehyung asks, more to himself, a bitter remark because he knows just as well as you do that that’s why this wedding is even happening.

“That, and because I know you best, I suppose,” you mutter mindlessly. Taehyung’s head snaps up at your sentence. “Even if we hate each other, I don’t know any other royal like I know you.”

Taehyung leans back in his chair, mind mulling over every syllable that leaves your mouth. “It’s always been you,” he says like it’s just dawned on him, this final recognition of your constant presence.

“It’s such a shame it had to be like this.” You shake your head sadly, melancholy and wistful.

“Like this?”

You look up at him, gaze into those eyes that look even richer when paired with the navy of his suit and the twinkling of the stars. He looks back at you, eyes blinking. Desperate. “Taehyung, we’re a lie.”

It takes him a second to respond. He always has so much to say but recently you’ve been rendering him speechless, and it’s so frightening to see him when he’s about to say something, unable to come up with the right words to articulate every thought of his brain, tug of his heart. Waiting for Taehyung’s response is always the worst part of any conversation with him.

He nods, looking down and avoiding your watching eyes. “That we are.”

When the meal is long over and the moon is high above your heads, signaling the lateness of the evening, Taehyung walks you back inside before the night becomes even colder, noticing you already shivering and deciding that your time would be better spent indoors. You wrap your hand around his arm, interlocking your bodies as he leads you back to your room, marking an end to this chapter. He’s been silent this entire time, and god, if you don’t hate that feeling between the two of you, tense enough to have you worried but open enough to have you concerned. There’s a fine line between friends, enemies, and lovers, and it seems that you and Taehyung are dancing along all three, dipping your toes into each one with every passing day.

“I had the most wonderful time tonight,” Taehyung says, and you can’t figure out if he’s lying or telling the truth (or both). “Thank you, Princess.”

“The pleasure is mine, Taehyung,” you curtsey as you open your door, ready to take off these heels and call it a night. “I’ve never done this before.”

He hands you another rose, likely the one from the vase on the table on the balcony, and you smile gratefully as you take it from his outstretched fingers. It smells like him.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Princess,” Taehyung repeats, voice low and promising and warm, and you want to envelope yourself in it. With that, he leaves you, walking down the hallway with soft steps until he disappears past a corner, leaving you standing in your gorgeous red dress with a rose in your hand, and a mind that buzzes like never before.

The weather is finally warming up, the cold biting of February turning into the mildly warmer March, lflower buds beginning to decorate the botanical gardens the Kims maintain as everything slowly shifts from a biting grey to a mellow green.

There is less than a month until your wedding.

A week, actually.

And you and Taehyung have visited your kingdom so many times during the past several dozen days that you might as well just move back already. Everything is almost done. Your dress is sitting on a mannequin in the room of your castle, a beautiful thing, hand-sewn specifically for your body and your body only, lacy and frilly and soft, like a cloud. It’s not the princess gown you had always dreamed you’d have as a kid, a poofy, bouncy dress that would emulate the ones you saw in storybooks, but then again, this isn’t exactly the wedding you thought you’d have either.

You’re almost there.

Both of your kingdoms are buzzing with anticipation, eager to see their worlds join together as one when you and Taehyung both stand at the alter, staring at each other as you utter the words, “I do”, excited to see what new changes will be brought from your union. Where will your kingdoms connect? What will you make different? What will you keep the same?

More than anything else, however, is that your union is only symbolic of your shortening time as heirs. With the wedding almost certainly comes coronation, and that is an event you are wholly unprepared for. Sure, you know your way through more diplomatic affairs than you’ll ever need to worry about, you are educated and well-spoken and revered, but that doesn’t make you ready for it.

Thinking about becoming Queen makes you queasy, but don’t tell your parents that.

You and Taehyung have somewhat drifted apart these last couple of weeks, always too involved with your own responsibilities (at least, you are. You don’t know if you can say the same for him) for you to spend much time together. You have the rest of your lives for that. Even for wedding preparations you separate, needing to go to your own clothing fittings and the like. Nowadays, you and Taehyung only see each other during meals and the off-chance that he’s attending your daily lessons.

Everything feels normal, but nothing feels the same. There’s always that sense of dread in the back of your mind, an itching feeling under your skin that just keeps managing to remind you that even if nothing feels different, it is. Reminding you that you are, in fact, getting married next weekend.

It’s a binding agreement. A promise of eternity to him.

You wonder how Taehyung feels.

It’s a week until your wedding and you’re sitting at the table with the tutor the Kim’s have provided you with, lazily writing an essay on a topic you aren’t paying the slightest bit of attention to, winging your way through each paragraph, when you see something pelt the window across from you.

When you look up suddenly, it happens again. There’s a rock, and it smacks against the window before falling away. Narrowing your eyes, you continue to attempt to write when, out of your peripheral, you see a tuft of hair, and then a devious smile.

Taehyung’s standing behind the window, mud on his cheek and grass on his clothes, and he’s staring straight at you. Once he knows he’s got your attention, he motions for you to come and join him, a Cheshire Cat grin spreading across his face. He makes it seem urgent, like you have to be there because your life depends on it, but you know he’s got ulterior motives. Still, this essay is a drag and you’re pretty sure you’re just vomiting onto the page at this point, so you make up some bullshit excuse and dash out, acting like you’ve suddenly got somewhere very important to be.

You bolt up to your room, quickly changing into your peasant garb and meeting Taehyung outside, where he’s casually resting in the grass of the gardens, staring up at the April clouds.

“You summoned me?” You say as you jog up to him, trying to act like you didn’t rush to join him, eager to escape the clutches of your tutor and spend time together.

“You got here fast,” Taehyung comments as he sits up amongst the greenery, looking at you.

“Tutoring is a bore.”

“That’s why I skip it,” Taehyung says happily.

God, you hate that he can just get away with things like that. He skips class all the damn time and nobody bats an eyelash his way, he prances around town charming girls and bakers and merchants alike without a single head turning toward him.

“Why did you need me out here so badly?” You ask, crossing your arms as you look down at him, foot tapping on the ground impatiently as you wait for a reply.

“I wanted to take you out,” Taehyung tells you like it’s no big problem at all.

“I thought you didn’t do dates, Kim,” you say, smirking as you raise a single eyebrow, a corner of your mouth lifting. “What happened to that?”

Taehyung pushes a palm into the dirt to lift himself up off the ground, coming to stand in front of you as he pushes a bit of loose head from the side of your forehead. You’re still smiling smugly at him, but the small action makes your expression falter the slightest bit, mind reeling for a brief moment in time as you take everything in.

“You did.”

He doesn’t give you any time to respond before he’s grabbing your hand and running, through the gardens and past the servant’s quarters, all the way until you’re out of the palace’s view, nearing the city. It’s strange, how you feel your heartbeat increasing with every step you take, the thumping sound only growing when you look down to see your interlocked fingers. You’ve always been like this around him.

“Where are we going, Taehyung?” You ask when he slows down, approaching the entrance to the city, the hubbub of his kingdom. “Where are you taking me?”

He looks back at you and doesn’t hesitate. “Everywhere.”

Everywhere mostly means around the city, the industrial center of the land with bustling streets and crowded sidewalks. He doesn’t let go of your hand, keeping you close to him as you weave your way through the masses, akin to the first time you did this together. He’s got a marketplace just like yours, stalls and stands and tables littered with goodies, secrets, hidden treasures, and it’s the first place he brings you.

“Do you come here often?” You ask, walking next to him.

“Sometimes,” Taehyung responds, the stall with flower bouquets catching his eye. You’re surprised to see such beautiful displays so early in the season, but you suppose anything is possible. He immediately turns toward it, bringing you with him, as he ogles the many colors and arrangements.

The old woman who runs the little thing looks up at your arrival, and from the expression on her face, you can tell that she doesn’t get very many visitors.

“Looking for a flower?” She muses, catching Taehyung by surprise.

“Just browsing,” Taehyung responds shyly. Jesus, you’ve never seen him like this before.

The lady plucks a soft violet flower from one of the bouquets, pulling it out with expertly nimble fingers and handing it over to Taehyung, who blushes profusely as he takes it from her, other hand fumbling in his pocket for payment.

“Bellflower,” the lady tells you. “For her.” When Taehyung holds out some money, she shakes her head, refusing his hand.

Taehyung turns to you, handing over the flower as you smile awkwardly, taking it without a second thought. Twirling it in your hands, you bring it up to your nose, letting the aroma float around you like a hazy cloud. As you’re leaving the stall, Taehyung sneaks some coins the lady’s way, placing them in the small metal watering can by the corner.

“Bellflower,” you repeat when you’re both far from the woman’s stand, still looking down at the flower between your fingers. “That’s what she said.”

“I wonder why she picked it,” Taehyung questions aloud.

“It’s a beautiful color,” you comment, smiling lazily as your mind remembers the act of kindness. “I guess she knew I liked it.”

“It brings out your eyes,” Taehyung says randomly, as though he’s been staring into your irises all this time, like he’s been paying attention to you.

“You are acting strangely romantic today, Taehyung,” you say warily, still with a cheeky grin on your face. “I feel like I’m being played.”

“Just getting in line with the wedding, and all,” Taehyung replies, shrugging. “We’re going to have to deal with it at one point or another.”

You lose track of time in the marketplace, slowly strolling along the dirt paths made just for customers like yourselves. There are so many hidden gems amongst this town, little wooden figurines made to decorate humble homes, dogs and cats and elephants alike. Worn out books, too used to be sold in an actual bookstore, aged and archaic. Dolls, surrounded by eager girls begging their parents for just one more. Rolls of different fabrics, so many more than the constant flow of silk and satin you’re used to in the palace, different prints that your parents would faint at at the thought of you wearing them. You could spend all day standing here, flower in your hand, Taehyung by your side.

Eventually, somehow, Taehyung manages to coax you out, bringing you to the bakery you had visited so many months prior, when the weather was turning cold and you could see people’s breaths leaving their mouths, the smoke that leaves the store every time someone opens the door. Today, it is warmer, but not enough for you not to relish in the warmth you feel from the ovens when you walk in.

Taehyung brings you up to the counter, where his baker friend stands, placing a batch of freshly-baked loaves into a basket. The scent is dizzying, electrifying.

“Back?” The baker asks, looking up. “It’s been quite a while, Taehyung.”

“We’ve gotten busy,” Taehyung says, looking to you as you smile stiffly.

“You’re the one from last time, aren’t you?” The baker says when he meets your eyes, pointing your way with something of an impressed look on his face.

“I told you she was a keeper,” Taehyung says, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you close, and for some reason, this time, his words don’t sound forced.

You end up sitting at a corner table, fresh muffins in front of you, still soft and crumbling onto the plates. Everything seems so serene here, the white noise of people coming in and out, like this is a coffee shop instead of a bakery, the blur of people walking outside of the glass window. It’s a scene straight out of a book, a filler chapter right before the big event, an inciting incident or the beginning of the climax, and it has your mind whirring and silent at the same time.

“I thought you said you didn’t date,” you say as Taehyung takes an obnoxious bite of his blueberry muffin. Some things never change.

“I don’t,” Taehyung says, mouth full, crumbs dribbling down his chin.

You scrunch your nose up in confusion. “Then, what is this?”

Taehyung swallows the bite, Adam’s apple bobbing as he scarfs it down. His other hand, the one not covered in muffin dust, is still holding yours as they rest atop the table, thumb rubbing your skin. “A promise. From me to you.”

“What kind of promise?”

“A promise that no matter what, no matter what we go through, no matter where we’ve been, I will always be by your side.”

This feels wrong. Unnatural. Taehyung shouldn’t be telling you those words, stroking your hand with his thumb like it’s second nature to him. He shouldn’t be giving you purple flowers and promising his life to you, like he is. Like he always has. He shouldn’t be taking you on dates and buying you muffins and giving you roses on Valentine’s Day. You hate each other. You always have.

“That’s not a choice,” you mutter to yourself, biting and cold like the winter, unforgiving like a tempest.

“What?” Taehyung asks, mouth full again.

Your muffin is untouched in front of you, turning cold. “You don’t get to promise me that,” you tell him, avoiding his wide-eyed gaze.

“What do you mean, Princess?”

“You don’t get to promise me that you’ll stay by my side. It’s not a promise. It’s a rule.” You can’t bear to look his way.

“It’s not a rule, Princess,” Taehyung says, and he reaches his hand out to keep you close but you’re already backing away. “I want to be by your side. Not because we have to be.”

“We’re not real, Taehyung!” You exclaim, much louder than you wish, voice cracking at the seams, eyes beginning to drown. This is all too much and not enough and you wish this wedding wasn’t a thing, wish that you could live your life without Taehyung constantly interrupting it. “We’re a creation. A fabrication forced together for other people. We aren’t supposed to be like this.”

You’re standing now, muffin forgotten on the table. It’s as good a time as any to dart out, so you begin to turn, heading towards the door. You don’t wait for him, don’t want him to catch up and see you, so once your feet hit the pavement you begin to speed up.

He reaches you anyway, grabs your wrist in the middle of the sidewalk, and time slows down as the two of you meet eyes for a brief moment, but then everything rushes back.

“What’s wrong with us?” He asks, eyes pleading. “Why can’t I tell you these things?”

“Because you don’t mean them!” You cry. “They’re just lies, implications of this fuckup of a marriage.”

“We’re not fucked up, Princess,” Taehyung says, hand grasping yours tightly, keeping you there despite your efforts to wriggle yourself out, go back to the castle and lock yourself in your room for the rest of eternity. “We’re okay. We’re better than okay, actually. We’re us.”

“You don’t mean that,” you whisper to yourself.

Taehyung tugs on your hand, forcing you to look up at him, stare into his deep irises and see them shifting, gold flecks catching in the dimming light of the sun. “I’ve meant everything.”

It’s the final straw, hearing those words. Your resolve snaps in a single break, clean and swift, as does your heart. You feel it tremble within its cage, shaking with every step. You manage to break away from Taehyung’s grip, freeing your hand, and you look up at him with regret and apology and worry, hating the way he looks at you like you’re his fucking world, and you turn on your heel.

“Princess, no,” Taehyung says, reaching out to grab your wrist once more. You hear his voice break, and it makes you want to move faster. “Stay, Princess, please. Don’t leave me just yet.”

It’s too late. You can’t will yourself to stay, look him in the eyes and hear him talk to you like you’re the only thing he cares about, the light at the end of the tunnel, his life right before him. You hear him calling out to you but it turns to haze as the tears freely fall down your cheeks, and you don’t look back as you dash to the castle.

You don’t stop hiccuping until your door is closed behind you, and you sink down against it, hitting the floor with a thud as the world around you seems to cave in.

How can this happen to you? To him? When did the line between hate and love become so blurred, unclear and indistinct? When did he start falling for you?

(When did you start falling back?)

Kim Taehyung has always been attractive, but he’s crass, spoilt, smug. He gets away with murder just because he’s got a crown on his head, spends his free time charming his way into getting what he wants in the town. He pokes and presses every button you have, always able to get under your skin in the most annoying way possible. He’s teasing and taunting and never gives you a break, always got something to complain about. He’s unequipped to run a nation, never sits in for foreign meetings and always debates the topic at hand. He can’t do what you can.

But he’s kind, treating the staff with the respect they often don’t receive from other nobles and royals alike. Generous, sneaking the lady some money even when she insisted she didn’t need it for a single flower given to him. He’s endearing, well-spoken, always got the perfect thing to say on the tip of his tongue. He cares when he needs to. He’s reading again, every so often picking up a book at your recommendation, giving it a chance and actually finding himself enjoying it.

Kim Taehyung is exactly that, and it terrifies you. Things were never supposed to end up this way. You were never supposed to fall in love with him like you did, like you always have. For fuck’s sake, you’re trapped in an arranged marriage with him. Nothing about this should be exciting, yet, here you are.

You wonder where he is. He hasn’t followed you back, you know that much, he’s not in his room, contemplating the same things you are. Perhaps he’s back at the bakery, drowning his sorrows in carbohydrates. Or at the marketplace, letting himself get lost amongst the trinkets. He might even be at the tavern, getting shitfaced wasted, downing drink after drink, trying to schmooze with any girl that catches his eye. The mere thought has you sick to your stomach, leaning over on the floor as you stop the nausea. Taehyung wouldn’t do that to you, you tell yourself. Not a week before your wedding.

You don’t go to sleep that night, only lying in your bed, tears sliding down your cheeks but no cries leaving your lips. Every now and then, Taehyung’s whereabouts cross your mind, but you push the thoughts away, not wishing to think about the girls he might be with right now, the damage he’s doing to his body with every shot he takes.

Your wedding’s in a week, and you wonder how the hell you’ll ever be able to look him in the eyes and say, “I do”, when you want to give him so much more than those two words.

If Taehyung wants to tell you anything, he’s made no effort to do so as the date of your wedding draws nearer and nearer, still avoiding you at all costs even as the night before it fast approaches. You and Taehyung have hardly seen each other this entire week, busy with last-minute wedding preparations, throwing yourself into your work so you don’t have to worry about anything else.

It’s a foolproof plan, keeping your mind occupied so it doesn’t have time to dwell on the conversation you had, the way you left him pleading and begging for you to stay. It’s foolproof, but only until the night before, when everything is in order, not a hair out of place, and your only job is a to get a good night’s sleep to be well rested for tomorrow.

You haven’t had a good night’s sleep since that night.

Is it wrong of you to say that you’re dreading what tomorrow will bring? Lying in wait, anxious beyond belief at what will change once that ring is on your finger, what won’t. Your future is entirely unclear, a thick cloud of unknown in front of you, one you’re hesitant to face, but the only way to go is forward.

At least your parents haven’t caught onto the tension between the two of you yet, the stiffness significantly higher now more than ever before. As long as you smile for the cameras, kiss him whenever and wherever necessary, everything should go as planned. You’ll be married. You’ll be his. He’ll be yours.

The bellflower sits in a vase on your nightstand, beginning to wilt with age, cut off from its food supply. Even so, the petals are as vibrant as always, a brilliant soft violet that lights up your room.

It’s midnight, and you’re getting married today. In no less than twenty-four hours, you will be a new person, a new wife, a new queen.

There’s a familiar knock on your door that shakes you out of your hazy trance, your mind trapped in thought, in worry. You almost don’t want to answer it, but you can’t will yourself to ignore him.

Hesitantly, you reach for the doorknob, hand shaking as it touches the cold metal, trembling as it turns it. When the door creaks open, there he is, there Taehyung is, standing on the other side, staring at his feet, not wanting to meet your wide eyes.

“Taehyung?” You ask, getting his attention.

He glances up carefully, slowly, meeting your gaze, and only then do you see the toll your relationship (or lack thereof) has taken on him. His hair is ruffled, unkempt and messy unlike it normally is, his cheeks are sallow, hollow, and the bags under his eyes are more pronounced than you’ve ever seen him. Has he been like this, all this time? Just like you?

“Princess,” he says softly, and the word is music to your ears. To him, it’s as if a weight is lifted off of his chest, finally letting him breathe again.

“Taehyung,” you repeat, unable to bring yourself to say anything other than his name. It feels like home. He feels like home.

“You didn’t stay, that day,” he says, and the pain in his voice has your heart crumbling, quivering. What kind of a toll has this week been on him? “I was going to give you something. Tell you everything.”

“What were you going to say?” You ask.

“I mean it. All of it,” he tells you firmly, and the certainty in his unfaltering words has tears threatening to tumble from your eyes, drip down your cheeks like they do so often these days. “Every last word.”

“Taehyung?”

“If you give someone a bellflower, it means that the person on the other end has the giver’s unwavering love,” Taehyung informs you, glancing over to the dying flower on your bedside table. “I love you, Princess.”

They’re words you never expected to hear but somehow, always dreamed of. They stick in your brain like honey, but they have yet to sink in, you have yet to feel the weight of them upon your shoulders.

“Tell me again.”

Taehyung wastes no time following your request. “I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you, Princess Y/N. I always have, and I always will.”

Finally, finally, finally, you breathe out a sigh of pure, unadulterated happiness.

“I love you, too,” you murmur.

Taehyung’s whole expression brightens, and God, if that doesn’t light up your world like a thousand fucking suns. “You do?”

“More than I can say with words.” You nod, tears falling freely anyway, only this time, they’re joyful. “More than I will ever be able to express to you.”

“Then don’t,” Taehyung says quickly.

“What?”

“Don’t tell me with words.”

With that, Taehyung is pressing his hands to your cheeks and pulling you close, placing his lips firmly on yours, and nothing has ever felt more right than this moment, here in the darkness of a sleeping castle on the night before your wedding, where you and Taehyung are one. He doesn’t let go, doesn’t even give you time to fucking breathe (not that you would, anyway—he takes your breath away), moving his lips over and over and over, keeping the two of you locked together. Your hands make their way to his chest, palms pressed flat against the silk of his shirt as he brings you closer, closer, closer.

Eventually, the two of you have to part, breathing heavily with your foreheads pressed up against each other. Your hands make their way around his neck as you stand there, catching all the breath you need, only for him to take it away with a single glance.

“I have to give you something,” Taehyung says, stepping back to fish through his pockets. “I wanted to give it to you, um, back then, but I never got the chance to.”

You rack your brain for anything he might have hidden from you, any gifts he bought in plain sight just to give to you, but come up short. Instead, you watch him as he sinks down on one knee, opening a little velvet box. Inside rests a ring with a scratch on the jewel.

“Princess Y/N,” Taehyung says, clearing his throat and making you giggle, “I have loved you for as long as I can remember, but I only managed to work up the courage to confess to you now, in the dim light of the palace corridor. You are my sun, my moon, my stars, and all of the planets, my night and my day, and I will love you forever more. Will you do me the honor and marry me?”

This is how it’s supposed to be, you think as you furiously nod, too speechless to say anything, overwhelmed by every emotion in the book. Taehyung stands up with a beam on his face, taking your hand and placing the ring on your finger, the extra scratch on it making it glint, even in the faint hallway light. Everything feels strangely complete now, even with your whole lives ahead of you.

“Who’d have thought, huh?” Taehyung asks, looking from you to the ring on your finger to the Bellflower in your room.

You muse to yourself, letting him envelope you in his arms once more. “Who’d have thought.”

You’ve never been so excited to see what tomorrow will bring you.

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