#i think i need to learn to follow my heart and my path | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hyukascampfire · 2 months ago

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𝒯𝑂: 𝑆𝑂𝑀𝐸𝑂𝑁𝐸 𝐹𝑅𝑂𝑀 𝐴 𝑊𝐴𝑅𝑀 𝐶𝐿𝐼𝑀𝐴𝑇𝐸 ༉

𝓘N THIS STORY 〃 a life lived as a human among the fae is one hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.

you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.

wc ➳ 23.2k

pairings faerie!taehyun x human!reader, faerie!yeonjun x human!reader

warnings angst, unprotected sex, voyeurism, orgasm denial, jealousy, angst again, dubious intentions of multiple main characters... poor mc has no idea who to believe

playlists ⑊ yeonjun ˒ taehyun ˒ series

…🪶ashlynn's note this part, i put my heart and soul into! i rewrote so many parts and agonized over following the path that i most wanted the story to go down—i hope it shows! xoxoxoxo, love ya! again, this is a long one, so pls let me know about spelling mistakes :,)

← ⑊ →

You had hoped that learning of Yeonjun’s relationship with the same crowd who have made attempts on your life would be enough to rattle your brittle heart into sense. You really had. As you watch Taehyun, bent over the war strategy table, though, you wish you had more time to sort it out in your head. You hate the thought of settling on half-baked answers and information all for the fact that time is not on your side. When had time ever really been kind to you, though? It had not made exceptions when you were small and innocent in your cradle, had not slowed down to allow you to at least cherish your final moments a normal child with her human parents. You can only fantasize who you would be if you had been given just enough time to know that gentle love. Even now, time makes your choices for you.

Taehyun looks over those metal figurines as if searching for something in them. There are more of them stood and strewn out on the map. It reminds you how you are now faced with a plethora of newer, more powerful players.

You miss when this had been a simple spying mission—when your path forward had been unobscured and clear. You envy that version of yourself: able to believe that bad things presented themselves as such. The world had been clean-cut. Evil had jagged teeth and foul breath, and good had soft edges and sweet smiles. You’re not sure where that distinction lies anymore.

“How’s your shoulder?” you say, making your presence known. You’re sure he had been keen to your presence from the moment you’d entered the estate, though; not only thanks to his better hearing, but also because Taehyun is constantly assessing his surroundings. The smallest insect could hardly sneak up on him. You push off the doorframe and enter the room.

He nods his head once in greeting, but he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the table’s ensemble. “It’s doing fine.”

Sighing, you decide not to push it. The sight of that puncture had been ghastly, and it wreaks havoc in your belly every time you replay it, but the tick in his jaw when you mention it tells you enough of how he feels about disclosing whether or not anything might hurt him. How many times in the past few weeks had you forced him to do just that? It’s no wonder that the two of you butt heads so terribly. Allowing you to stitch him up must’ve been the extent of how far he’d let you see him in need of help.

You gesture toward the table. “Have you decided when we leave?”

Taehyun answers you with a strained sigh out through his nose: a testament to how he’d been mulling it over. He levies those figures a few more moments of his gaze as if they might speak an answer for him. They don’t. He concedes to their lack of direction and turns to you. “Every moment we spend here, we risk our identities further,” he starts, crossing his arms over his chest.

You wince. He still believes that you’d at least contained some of your identity by taking out those three faeries. You know better. Even the bard in that tavern had known what had happened; it’s why Yeonjun ended up finding out in the first place. Even if not all of them had been a part of that rebellion, it’s reckless to assume that there were no more than that.

Continuing, he says, “And judging by what we’ve picked up, we need to get it all back before the solstice.” He doesn’t pace as he thinks. Only the faraway look in his eyes betray the noise in his head.

You hate the way it sounds like he’s going to demand that you leave immediately, and you hate how it sieges your tongue and makes it dance into a pitiful ploy to stay. To give yourself some credit, it’s better that Taehyun knows every bit of information you have. This moment is desperate for informed decisions.

“I saw Yeonjun this morning,” you blurt. The words bubbled and bubbled behind your lips until they’d found the tipping point and spilled out. You’d agonized over what to make of it all for hours: that Yeonjun had been as deceitful with you as you’d been with him, that you are a sorry human girl that had wedged her way into the cross-firings of a war much beyond yourself, that you still have the gall to consider your own feelings despite its grandness... None of that worrying had led you to a conclusion that both your heart and mind would agree on.

Taehyun’s gaze snaps to you, contained and remote aside from the twitching at the corners of his lips. The intensity of it makes you waver, but you have no time for wavering.

“He’s... been made aware of our purpose here. He knows that we’re spies,” you say. As you watch him try to piece that together, you add, “He’s part of their rebellion.”

Now he laughs, barbed and full of mock and disbelief. “The prince is rebelling against his father? He thinks he’ll find the throne like that? What’s his plan for when this falls through? For when his father hears of his mutiny? The prince will lose his head.”

The thought makes you nauseous, despite how Yeonjun’s image has grown to be something murky. You don’t know what Yeonjun’s intentions are in aligning with the rebellion here. You hardly know anything about his relationship with his father and the High Court aside from the fact that he feels suffocated by his life back there. You’d assume that there’s a lot more to his reasoning, but you’ve learned your lesson about assuming that you know who people are. The inability to lie comes with the need for secrets. The thought that perhaps Yeonjun is only making a shady attempt for power crosses your mind, but either your own reasoning or your own stubbornness shoves it down. Nobody in faerie would hand their fealty to a prince who’d taken the throne of a long-standing king by those sorts of means. He’d be a king with no denizens to preside over.

You interject Taehyun’s parade of scoffs. “He told me that war is coming, that it’s been coming.”

His face drops, and he straightens up. “Of course it is. It’ll begin the moment we return with what we’ve found.”

Your lips go a bit numb, and then your fingers follow. You know that this is your duty—it’d been this all along. It should come as no shock to you that he intends to relay this all to The King. But that was before you allowed your heart to make its home here. How simply he demands that you return to those lands with information that would kill Yeonjun... it has acid crawling a path up your throat.

You make your best effort to ensure that your voice doesn’t falter as you speak. “He offered us protection as long as we stay here,” you say. “We don’t have to leave now.” You try to catch his gaze as you add, “We don’t have to leave at all.”

You know that Yeonjun plays a part in the rebellion, but you don’t know how deep his devotion goes, and you also don’t know to what ends you can trust his intentions. How far do his loyalties to the rebellion go? And, where do his loyalties to you stand? The thought that he may have never loved you at all... it’s been a plague to your heart and mind from the very moment he’d revealed the truth to you this morning. Your guilt has chipped away at you without mercy—you’ve spent so many awful nights wishing you could unload your deceptions in front of him. How had it ended up so trivial in the grand scheme of things? How are you the one left feeling betrayed?

You really, really cannot imagine having Yeonjun’s blood on your hands. He is one of them—a creature deception, and yet you still cannot shake those stolen nights from your bones. He had been your first. He’d made this place a home for you, where you had never had a home. It’s pitiful to search so deeply in someone else for your own strengths; even you can see that. Nevertheless, you do it. You suppose that a pair of warm arms and sweet words will do that to someone, no matter if you know that they could rot you like sweets do the tooth. It’s not unlike drunkards who find their day’s comfort in their drinks, even as it rots their body and mind away. Anything for a stretch of belonging and bliss. You're desperate for it.

Taehyun’s sinewy words rattle your wandering mind back to reality. “He tells you that he is a member of the same group of people that have tried multiple times to kill you, and you believe him when he says he’s going to protect you? Still?” he spits, shaking his head. “What makes you so sure that he’s not just keeping us from running? That he isn’t handing us on a platter to his rebel friends? You’re going to get us fucking killed.”

Blood roars like frothy-white rapids in your ears, warring with the echoes of his honey-glazed exclamations of love. To some capacity, he had to have meant those words. Faeries can’t lie, and he had said it so plainly. He loves you.

“We can’t leave yet,” you say, stepping toward him on legs that you fear might collapse beneath you. “You said it yourself; we can’t return without the whole story. If we return now, we could be missing something.” You study the frosty set to his face and suck in a stabilizing breath. “Please, Taehyun. Please trust me on this.”

You sound desperate and pleading, but you don’t reel it in at all. You are desperate and pleading. You have no intent of returning as some successful spy and continuing a life of deception and violence. It’s not who you are; it’ll never be who you are. Maybe this world tries to ask it of you, but you refuse to concede to it.

“Part of our job is staying alive,” he says, his body rigid. He doesn’t like where you’re going with this, you can tell that much.

“Is that what you want? To be a pawn of war? Isn’t that what we are if we bring this information back?” you challenge. “Don’t you think that if the prince of all people has turned against him, then serving at his hand is the wrong choice? I don’t know The King—I’ve never even seen him! Why should I be excited to serve him?”

“The prince has more reason than anybody to want his father off his throne.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you say, stepping further toward him. Though, it does make you revisit those thoughts. If vying for the crown is really Yeonjun’s intention, you suppose he’d have no problems pleading with you to stay in order to tie off loose ends. You wish you could see it all from somebody else’s untainted eyes. “What I’m saying is, do you want to be a spy? What has The King ever done for you to earn your loyalty?”

Taehyun looks at you with disbelief, the corners of his mouth tilting down. “I don’t care about the damn king,” he snaps, and then gestures down at the table with all those figures. “The Queen operates on necessary evils. Where she can find a string to pull, she will pull it. My father was her general for a reason. Do you think she would keep him unless she approved of his violence? There is no good side to this war—just sides. If you’re suggesting that we stay here and try to forget that we came as spies, then you can forget it.”

You glance over at the war table and wonder how you’ve become a moving piece in ancient faerie politics when all you’d set out for was a purpose. You’d been so warped by your bitterness with your upbringing that you’d failed to see how anything could be worse than that. You’d been so excited that you jumped willingly into dark water without knowing how deep it was, and now your feet can’t touch the ground. Is this the purpose you want?

“Leave, then,” you say, stepping back. “You can leave. Just let me stay here. Please.”

Something in Taehyun’s expression flips, so subtle that you can’t name it. It unsettles you, your hair standing on edge. There is something in his eyes that you do not like.

“So, that’s it?” he says, his voice odd too. “That’s all it took for you to hand your future over on a leash to him?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you stammer. The only ones with a collar around your neck are the spies. They’re the ones who insisted on that geas—the ones who needed to compel you with their faerie magic to ensure your obedience.

“It means that you got all the way here, uncovered a whole rebellion, and made a life for yourself, not handed to you by a prince, and you’re going to trade it in. It means that you’ve let him convince you that you are weak and need to be coddled.”

Your fists curl tight and dig your nails into your palms. “I never wanted to be a spy,” you grit out. Yeonjun is not the reason you want to stay here. He may be part of it, but you’ve come to be utterly unwilling to return to that spy den like it’s your home, or something. It’s not. You’d slept there for one night. Beyond just your word and that geas, what reason do you have to return?

“You didn’t? And yet, it’s what we are, isn’t it?” he says. “Do you think that I dreamed of being a spy? That I do it because I love it? Actions have their consequences.”

“Then, what do you do it for, Taehyun?” you say. “When do you begin living your life for you? Doing what you do because it’s what you want?”

Taehyun seems to consider your words for a few long heartbeats before settling into something in his head. You allow yourself to let go of some of the tension in your shoulders as you watch his expression morph into something much less poisonous.

You hadn’t expected him to react like that.

“Do you have any weapons on you?” he says.

Faltering, you sputter out, “What?” You look over the room. The last time you’d been in here, you’d sparred. Does he intend to properly fight you in here now? Had you pushed him too far? Shaking your head and feeling at all the places you usually tuck your blades away, you say, “No... I don’t.”

“Get some. Where we’re about to go...” he trails off, as if reconsidering, but then he continues, “I’ll get you a hag stone.”

You furrow your brows, not taking off to do so. “A hag stone?” you echo, thankful that he isn’t trying to duel you, but wary at the need for such a faerie ward. Hag stones are of the more serious class of wards used to protect humans from faerie enchantment or glamour. Most often, humans would string theirs up with a bit of thread through the hole of it and wear it around their necks as a pendant. Unlike turning one’s clothes inside out or taking red berries on your person, hag stones protect against the more devastating faerie magic. You shudder simply wondering what you might need a hag stone to protect yourself from.

He nods a bit solemnly. “Kelpie do not let a meal or trick pass them by when they wait so long to have them.”

You look at him with wild eyes, hoping to see him laugh or play his words off as a joke. He does not, but of course he doesn’t. Taehyun doesn’t waste his words on jokes.

“Why... Why would we be going to a kelpie?” you ask him, laughing around the ball of fright in your chest.

He lends you a wretched look. “I have old debts to call on.”

❆

The forest in which Taehyun leads you is untamed. At some point, the sound of nature’s buzzing tapers off, and you know that you’ve entered a deeper forest than you ought to be sticking your nose in. When the forest goes silent, it’s only for one reason.

You’d grown up here. Maybe you’d been born elsewhere, but that does not negate the fact that you had grown up scared every day of the powerful creatures that inhabit this world. Your fear has ruled you for your whole life, and you let it. You’d be a fool not to. It’s how you survive in this world. Your limbs tremble; they plead with you to listen to everything you’ve ever known—do not mess with what is bigger than you.

You step around frost-capped puddles and dance between briars, careful not to snag yourself on their claws. It unsettles you further that this part of the forest is so untrodden and overgrown. With no folk coming through, you fear how the kelpie might behave when you make an audience before it. Will it climb straight from its frosty swamp and drag you back down with it? Is the hag stone you clutch at your chest enough to keep you safe?

“I don’t understand why we’re doing this, Taehyun,” you say, delicately avoiding any tumbles as you speed up to gauge his feelings by his face. You’re not fond of the remote blankness in his eyes, nor the staunch determined set to his jaw. “That thing might kill us, and your shoulder is hurt. You shouldn’t be out here; you should be letting it heal.”

“I know my limits,” he says.

Grimacing, you return his curt tone. “Taehyun.” You grab at the material of his sleeve with urgency. When he stops to look at you, you continue. “I want you to actually listen to me. You’re being unreasonable. Yeonjun said he’d use his pull to protect us. Both of us. We have no reason to be out here, you’re just putting us in danger.”

He lets your words stew in the air for a moment before saying, “I’m the one putting us in danger? Me?” He scoffs. “We are about as safe dealing with a kelpie as we are living off his promises. I’m doing what’s best for us. Trust me.”

You’re winded by his choice of words. You’ve become wary of dealing out your trust so frivolously. Those two words ring alarm bells.

“But where is this coming from? You didn’t want to stay.” Your breath furls out in a plume of white smoke in front of your face as you speak.

He looks as if he doesn’t want to answer that. It only makes you more apprehensive. Your limbs fill with lead, planting you where you stand. “Taehyun, I’m scared,” you say. “Isn’t finding help from a solitary faerie a bit too far? How is trusting Yeonjun any more dangerous than that?”

Taehyun steps toward you. “He is going to kill us. It’s not if, it’s when. That bastard is going to hurt you. This... This is for us. We are self-sufficient; we don’t need his protection shit.” A bitter tang colors his words. “I know that you’re scared. I won’t let it hurt you; I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise that you’ll be okay. You want to stay, don’t you?”

You nod. You would even make deals with a kelpie for it.

“Okay, then, let’s go,” he says, taking off with those words, effectively punctuating the conversation.

You follow him.

You grow more anxious the deeper you trudge into the forest without any consolation as the daylight begins creeping away. Following behind Taehyun, the wind whips at the perfect angle so that his form takes most of its terror, allowing you a respite from at least some of the brutal cold. You don’t feel any remorse using him as a shield against the elements—frost runs through his veins. He doesn’t shiver or wince at it.

Taehyun stops a few feet before a wintry mire framed by crystallized cattails and reeds. Your heart stutters as he looks around to ensure that this is the right spot. The water is dark and deep. You stay a healthy distance away from it. You do not want to find out just how deep it is.

“Where is it?” you say, keeping your voice low as if the beast might lunge from the water and snatch you up if you don’t.

Taehyun surveys the forest surrounding you and then the body of water as he always does, and when he looks to you, you already know he’s calculated and planned. He doesn’t face a situation without thought—that notion soothes you, even if it’s to the slightest degree.

“It won’t come until I call it,” he says, gesturing at those murky and horrible watery depths. Swallowing hard, you consider how close you stand to it. You take a shuffled step back. “When you see it, you need to stay calm. Don’t let it see your fear. It’ll find it amusing and latch onto you. Do you understand?”

A rush of heavy dread spreads from your core and seizes your lungs at his words. You’ve made it this far. You want to stay. You want to stay, bad. If this thing outsmarts you, you will not go down without swinging this time. You have your daggers, and you know how to wield them. Bravery is most of the battle, isn’t it?

You muster a nod, trying to give yourself a brave heart, but Taehyun shakes his head. Your eyes must betray how stricken you are. “Do you understand?” he repeats, his voice sharp and grave.

“I do.”

He accepts your words, pressing on. “It will try to trip you over your words and spin you into a trap with tricky words. Do not entertain it, even as it tries, okay?”

You’ve been terrorized by faerie tricks your whole life. You can handle their schemes just fine. “Okay.”

Taehyun frees a blade from its hiding place and brings it to his palm. He slides it there, slicing it open. Crimson creeps from the slit, running in between his fingers and trickling onto the snow. He’d cut pretty deep.

“Why are you—Taehyun?” you say, stepping toward him as he curls his wounded hand into a fist over the water, shaking it so as to let the droplets down into the black water. You regret those steps you’d made toward him as something comes crashing through the surface.

No, rather than emerging from under the surface, the beast is born from the water, manifesting from it as something gangly and wretched. From its pointed ears to its hooves, it pushes up from nothingness until it is standing there, real and terrible before you. Its skin glistens with a thickness like oil and its hair and tail hang in heavy, seaweed-like tendrils, plastered against its body. The scum floating on top of the water clung to its hair and pelt as it rose, twigs and the like poking from its withered body. A bridle cages its head, leather reins dangling down. Of all its awful things, you believe that its eyes are the worst—bone-white and piercing, they send a terror down your spine that solidifies in your bones. You know you will not soon forget the ancient soullessness that lives there. The folk do sometimes resemble the places in which they hail from; you suppose that the kelpie bares striking resemblance to the swirling water that sits at its feet.

You try not to choke or gasp or react in any way at all, but it isn’t easy. You focus your adrenaline on keeping your breathing as even as you can manage.

“It has been a long time since I’ve found a human at my doorstep,” the creature says, steam blowing from its nostrils as it snorts. How long might a long time mean to a faerie, especially one you know is so ancient? You hope that your presence does not intrigue the beast at all.

Taehyun swoops in before you can speak, and you are boundlessly thankful for it. “I’ve come to call on the debt you owe me,” he says. He doesn’t leave any room for any familiarity or playfulness.

“Is it that time?” the kelpie says, placing one hoof down onto the snow. It had looked so incorporeal and liquid that you half expect it to burst and turn to water as it does, but it climbs out just fine. Very real.

Taehyun eyes the kelpie as it makes land, dribbling with water and its kelp hair swinging. You swallow hard as it disregards his presence to observe you. You’re used to the folk disregarding you, not this. How many years had you yearned for their attention? Right now, you scare under it.

“For what do you need my help, boy?” it says, voice gurgled, “And why do you bring this human along? Is it for her? Or, rather, have you brought her as your peace offering?”

Your legs tremble beneath you.

“I don’t owe you any peace offering, kelpie,” Taehyun says, his head held righteously high. “You’ll offer me what I ask, or you’ll suffer for it.”

Shifting under the tense atmosphere, you still don’t speak. In Faerie, debt is law. The folk live by a law that is, like many other things about them, foreign to you. Whatever natural laws by which they govern themselves are vastly lost on you—but of keeping promises and respecting debts, you are very aware. They hate to be indebted—you’re sure it’s why this kelpie is so peevish. You hope that the folk’s need to balance their debts is enough to keep it hospitable.

The kelpie makes a rumbling and throaty sound that mimics that of a laugh. It rumbles the ground below your feet. “Just as rigid as the last time we met like this,” it says. “I wonder if it's because you’ve inherited your father’s stone heart, or because you fear me?”

The kelpie remains playful with its intonation, but tension lies thick and dangerous beneath both of their words. You know well enough that the beast is not being light-hearted.

Taehyun holds his face firm. He refuses to give an inch. “Do not try that with me. You have your word to upkeep for my help.”

Shimmering under the moon’s light now, the beast treats us with a long moment of hostile silence. You can feel its malintent despite how hollow those eyes remain.

“What do you ask of me?” it finally says, whipping its drooping tail behind it.

“There is a rebellion here,” starts Taehyun, shoulders relaxing to the slightest degree as the kelpie defers, “The north is uneasy. I’m optimistic that you’ll lend us your protection and hand, whenever I call on it. Regardless of it being in my interest, I’m sure that you aim to keep your lands peaceful, no?”

“Rebellion? For what would anything of the courts be in my interest? Of their rebellion or even just their ridiculousness, I do not care. I’ve left your gentry to you, leave me to mine.”

Taehyun’s nostrils flare. “I’m not asking you to care about the courts, I’m asking you to lend me your help when I ask of it,” he grits out, “Or, rather, I’m not asking. I am informing you that I am expecting you to uphold your debt to me, and you’d better be ready to do so. This is just courtesy.”

You feel the kelpie’s offense in the hollow quiet that follows Taehyun’s demands. Among many things, the fae are prideful creatures. Your stomach is in terrible knots. Taehyun is just trying to regain the power in the situation. You know that. It doesn’t make you any less scared for your life. With an ancient creature like a kelpie, it is paramount to earn its respect, or else it will push you around.

Worse than that. It will drag you down into its waters and make your soul into a meal.

“It’s a pity you think that hag stone will save you from me, human.” The kelpie turns its attention back on you. You bade your knees not to crumple. “It takes much more than that to protect you in places like these. Perhaps you’ll be safe from petty enchantment, though.”

Taehyun shoves his words in before you can give the kelpie any sort of reaction. Not even a tremble. “Understood?”

“You’ve made deals with our kind before. The magic reeks on you. It’s lousy enchantment, I could dissolve that geas for you. All you’d have to do is climb up on my back, and I’d grant you your freedom.”

You can’t help but perk up. The prospect of ridding yourself of the geas placed over you is a painfully delicious one.

Bristling, Taehyun steps between you and the kelpie. Whether he does it to fight off the beast should it lunge at you or to prevent you from approaching it, you’re unsure. “Do not,” he says.

“Wasn’t going to.” You say it, and of course it’s true. The kelpie is poking around to see what will most entice you. Regardless, you can’t deny how awfully you wish that geas were gone. It’s the one thing that you fear will tether you to The King’s bidding. No matter how you armor yourselves from the rebellion here in the north, what’s to stop the spies from tugging on the enchanted leash? One command from Cricket, and your body would betray you and walk the whole way there itself.

Though you don’t verbalize your interest, the kelpie no doubt sees the interest alight in your eyes. It pounces accordingly. “Unless you’d prefer that I give you a whole other enchantment. Protection against any of our kind’s glamours? Permanant true sight? A touch to my pelt would be all it would take for you to make yourself free.”

Taehyun clicks just the hilt of his sword free from the sheathe. “Stop with the tricks. You can find your fun elsewhere.”

Like the swampish water behind it, the kelpie stands there totally still, studying Taehyun. You really wish this altercation could wrap up at any pace faster than it currently is. You’re itching to escape those white eyes. They’re much more intimidating as night settles in. What sort of thing had Taehyun even done to indebt a creature like this to him? Once again, you’re left confronting how little you know of him and his past. By the time you’ve come to terms with the last thing, the next arrives to remind you that the folk lead much longer lives than you do.

It finally speaks again. “Why have you brought this human with you, Lord?” Its furls out the term like a weapon. This bitter intonation that you’ve seen be used multiple times to speak of Taehyun’s title sticks with you. The title is a taunt. In this case, the you know it comes from the kelpie’s place of utter indifference and lack of obeisances toward whatever sovereignty the Courts may claim. The kelpie only answers to the land.

“Because I needed you to know that your protection will extend to her. Know her face, learn it so that when I call on you, you’ll play your part correctly.”

“I fail to see why you dote over her safety. Who is the human to you?” The kelpie takes a step forward, its powerful muscles rippling with the moon’s white light on its ink pelt. You mirror it with a step back. Taehyun stays put. “I owe her no help. That’s not how this works. I concede that I am bound to your help, but I do not repay double. You overestimate my generosity.”

You watch as Taehyun takes on a posture that you’ve come to recognize as his offensive posture, potent adrenaline twisting up your stomach and sending your heart into a fit so fierce that you feel it in all your pulse points. You’re sure that swords are a laughable matter to the kelpie. Iron, though, you’re sure would still burn. Turning your hands to fists, you make a conscious effort not to find your iron weapons. If the kelpie were to see that, it may escalate things. You do not want to escalate.

It’s only smart for you to consider your disadvantages: Taehyun is wounded. He had literally been struck by an arrow last night. You’re so far into the woods that running would consist of stumbling over roots and avoiding thorny bushes. Taehyun might know them, but you’re fully unfamiliar with a kelpie’s weaknesses, or if they even have any at all. You’re better off appeasing the beast.

“Taehyun,” you warn.

He pays it no mind. “I said,” he snarls, “stop with the tricks. You owe your very ability to draw breath to me, and beyond that. It was my neck on the line to grant you that. What I did for you was worth many debts. If you want to settle it all to even, you’ll do it. Don’t play this like a fool.” He doesn’t address the kelpie’s first question.

Taehyun creeps toward the kelpie. You’re not sure where he sources all that fearlessness from inside himself. He’s way too close for your comfort. “What are you doing?” you hiss, quiet and meant for just him. There is no way he intends to fight this thing right now. You’d prefer taking the risk of trusting Yeonjun’s word over this any day.

“Even the general”—the kelpie spits that word with a similar distaste as he had Taehyun’s title—“knew when he was in over his head. Ask a more respectable payment of me.”

You suck in a breath. “Let’s just go,” you tell Taehyun. “We don’t need to do this; we didn’t need to in the first place.”

As Taehyun takes one last step toward the kelpie, he reaches a sword’s distance from it.

Really? Is this happening right now?

“I’m giving you grace right now, kelpie,” he says, his voice pure warning, “My father is the one who landed you like that. It’s humorous that you’d even speak of him while we’re sorting out the debts that you incurred because of him. I suggest that you give up the sly act.”

Once again, a charged and meaningful pause rings throughout the forest. The silence speaks volumes of how the kelpie takes his words.

It’s a flash of movement, the two dark figures like blurs as Taehyun’s hand flies out to grab a hold of the reins that hang from its head and the kelpie rears back with a bone-piercing, harrowing whinny. He braces himself on its side and uses its flank to push off of. The creature bucks fast, but Taehyun is faster.

The rage that it bellows with guts you. The forest ground trembles with its frantic clambering, hooves battering the snow.

The kelpie’s frenzy ends as Taehyun takes the reins in both hands. It doesn’t make any more attempts to send him off, nor does it stumble about wildly. It settles. The kelpie bows its head. Your hands cover your mouth. They’re ready to muffle your scream. You wait for Taehyun to become one with the beast’s figure and for it to drag him down to the depths of its water that don’t see the sun’s light. Nothing happens. Instead, he slips off the back of the kelpie without any trouble, landing with a thud back on the ground.

“Fix your appearance,” Taehyun commands.

You allow a sound of surprise to slip as the beast melts down, shedding water to the ground and crumpling over. You watch it shrink all the way down until, where once the gangly beast had stood, the form of a faerie man stands. He unfurls from the forest floor to his full height, taller than Taehyun and reedy in his limbs. His hair cascades down from his head in shaggy, damp brown locks with twigs and leaves tangled in. Sharp faerie ears protrude from it. It confirms to you that this is just another form of the kelpie, not someone else entirely.

“You’re a fool,” the man says, turning on Taehyun with wild eyes.

You join his confrontation on Taehyun. “What the hell is going on?” you say. You’re still jittery with the urge to run.

Taehyun entertains only you, saying, “I hoped that he’d just make things easy in the first place.”

The man, dripping with water from his tattered, sopping rags for clothes, sneers. “I would not serve you if you fucking killed me. Of course you had to take my bridle.”

You give Taehyun an expectant look. You’re in dire need of being filled in.

“His bridle,” he says, grabbing the reins that still hang from the man’s face even in his human form and tugging him into a walk into the forest, “I grabbed it. He serves me, now. He can hate it all he wants, but he’ll do what I ask.”

The thought makes you deeply uncomfortable, but you can’t pin exactly why. It lives somewhere around the place inside you that loathed the way the folk made your kind into their glamoured servants.

“We’re just going to bring him back with us?” You trail them tentatively back through the woods that you had arrived from. “Like a prisoner, or something?”

“Exactly like a prisoner,” the man says, excited to get a hit in on Taehyun. Of course, he’s unhappy.

He stumbles as Taehyun tugs him forward by his bridle. “Shut your mouth,” Taehyun says. It’s more commanding than angry. “What’s your name?” he asks him.

The man looks as though he wants to deny him that knowledge. Names are a powerful thing to a faerie. They spend their lives hiding them away—to give away their real name would make them totally vulnerable to the whims of whoever knows and uses it. However, you assume that whatever hold Taehyun has over him now works in a similar way, and his lips move despite his revolt.

“Beomgyu,” he answers, eyes full of bite.

You climb between a pair of close-resting, gnarled trees. “Does he have to keep that thing on, Taehyun?” you say, struggling with the sight of him being dragged along. It’s unsettling. “Like, does it work without that?”

Stopping, Taehyun reaches up to pull the bridle off and around from Beomgyu’s head. He lets it fall to the snow. “You can use his name if you need to command him and I’m not around. He’ll have to do what you say.” Pushing Beomgyu into a walk, he says, “You’re going to protect us if in any case we need it. That includes her. You’re going to stay within my estate, unless one of us brings you somewhere. You won’t try your hand at any escape, and you won’t make any attempts to harm us either directly or by omitting something you are aware will do so.”

You rub your hands together to generate heat as he lists his commands. Why would he even need those precautions, if Beomgyu is supposed to be his compulsory servant now? Would that not mean that he’d be unable to harm him? Either Taehyun is being extra precautious, or the command he has over him is weaker than you had thought at first. Beomgyu scowls the whole way through. Perhaps if Taehyun had not spoken those exact words, he would have lunged at him.

As the kelpie stalls, Taehyun urges him forward once again with a shove. “Walk,” he snaps. “You did this to yourself. If you’d been a respectable man, I’d have only asked for your help when we needed. Now, you’re following us everywhere.” He allows him to stew on that for a little before saying, “You do your job well and I’ll let you return to your waters. I’ll forget I even made you my servant, and you’ll live knowing you’re no longer in my debt. You’ll not have to worry that someone might tame you again, because I already had, and I won’t even utilize it. We’ll never even make each other’s acquaintance again. You’ll be free to toil in your forest, and I will stay far away. All I need is for you to keep us alive and unharmed.”

At least he doesn’t intend to keep him forever as an eternal servant. Most faeries that fall into debts work their long lives as living servants. Your years as Nut-hatch's worker taught you how that life whittles your soul down. Hundreds of years of just that is unfathomable. Maybe that is the cost of betraying honor here, though.

“So be it,” Beomgyu says, teeth gritted.

You continue to trudge through the forest behind them.

❆

Once you’re within the walls of the estate and Beomgyu is given a place to stay, you turn to Taehyun. “What part of that was safer than trusting Yeonjun?” you say.

His eyes drop closed and he sighs. “It was worlds safer,” he grits out. “I knew what I was doing. You had that hag stone, and I’d have cut him down if he tried anything.”

He stretches out his shoulders, shifting them uncomfortably under the fabric of his tunic. You know that his sewn-up wound bothers him. Could it be getting infected? You hope not—an infection this early on would most definitely mean it would be a nasty one. If only he weren’t insistent on pretending that it’s nothing. “I don’t think you could”—you gesture at your own shoulder—“you’re going to infect your shoulder. I don’t know how to treat an infected wound that big.”

“I wouldn’t have even gone there if I thought I couldn’t handle it. I had a plan. I can protect us just fine.”

Us. You’ve been wondering what your purpose here might become once you abandon returning to your duties. Would you be staying with Yeonjun? If he betrays you, and Taehyun were to push you out now that you’re no longer partners in duty, where would you go? Crawl to the doorstep of some random faerie to place yourself in their services, just to find yourself a warm place to stay? Taehyun now makes it clear that he still sees the two of you as a pair, but why? You still can’t understand why he’d suddenly switched up the moment you said you’d stay here even if he left. Realistically, he should’ve killed you for being a traitor to the king that he serves. You know that his intentions are more complex than that, but you fail to grasp where they lie. His actions and his words clash.

“And when Yeonjun doesn’t betray us? What will all of this be for?”

“This doesn’t stop at the prince,” he says, “there are more players than just him and The Queen. Any one of them could determine that we’re liabilities. Don’t you think that we should prepare for that? We came here as spies infiltrating their court from the very king that they rebel against; of course they’ll have plans for us. It’s still best that you stay your distance from the prince from this point on, regardless, unless you bring the kelpie.”

Your mouth drops open, brows pinching. You don’t like the thought of being chaperoned at all. If Yeonjun is to betray you, then it’ll be your own fault. You can take the consequences of your actions just fine. “I think I can make that decision for myself,” you say, voice low. “And I can protect myself, too. Are you saying my skills aren’t up to your standards? Well, I didn’t spend that time working on them for nothing, and I don’t plan on stopping. I know I’m not perfect, but I think I can at least use a dagger adequately.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Taehyun says, eyes flat with frustration. “You can protect yourself well. I know that. What I mean is that you shouldn’t rest your life on his integrity. I have no doubts that you’d be able to protect yourself from him alone. He’s delicate. The King doesn’t pamper his children, but I have no doubt that the prince hasn’t wielded a sword anywhere other than in sparring. But you don’t know if you’ll ever truly be alone, and you don’t know whether or not he’s setting you up. I think you can at least agree that it’s best that you can acknowledge that and behave accordingly, no?”

“I rested my life on your integrity today. Am I supposed to trust you blindly, too? What if you’re just stringing me along until you kill me for my treason to The King? You were his spy, no? How many years did you serve him? Why have you given it up so easily? Why are you staying here? None of it makes sense to me, but I still trusted you. Was I wrong for that? Are you a liar, Taehyun? Does your tongue tell lies?”

His eyes crystallize, a few degrees colder than you’d seen them all day. “I can lie,” he says. “But would I have done what I did today if I intended to kill you? It’s time that you see that actions tell you so much more than words ever will.”

Again, he treads around your questions about his intentions. “Why are you staying here?” you repeat, studying him with your suspicion.

He’s quiet.

“Answer me,” you demand.

“Is this not my home?” he says.

Unsatisfied, you press more. “I thought you hated this place. Why would you want to stay here? Don’t you have an awful reputation here?”

His eyebrows shoot up, but his face stays hauntingly blank. You’re used to his blank mask, but this feels different. “If you think that I left here because of my reputation, then you’ve fooled yourself.” He begins making for his quarters. “I have obligations to fulfilling my father’s role as Lord of this estate,” he says before turning and ending the conversation on his terms.

That leaves you just as confused. If he cared about his responsibilities here, he would’ve never left them in the first place to become a spy under The King. It makes no sense. Whether or not it’s true, you’re positive that you aren’t getting the whole story. You sigh and drag your feet bed-bound. You hope to never have another day as unending as today again.

❆

You dodge Beomgyu for the entirety of the day, not sure what to make of a new presence around the estate, even if it’s an indebted servant beast of a presence. You’d half expected Taehyun to rope him up in the horse stalls outside, making that his permanent residence, but he’d given Beomgyu a place somewhere in the servant’s quarters. You’re glad of it—you may be wary of him, but you don’t wish anything like that for him. Now that he has a more human form, you find yourself able to empathize with him more than you were when he was a hulking, killer water horse. He doesn’t necessarily run around much—without a doubt because he’s not the happiest about being forced into Taehyun’s servitude. You don’t blame him.

Despite your efforts, he enters the kitchens while you’re alternating between chomping on a slice of bread and a platter of dates. He eyes you. Though in this form his eyes are not as piercing, they’re still heavy.

You offer him a slice of the bread and push the platter toward him. “Hungry?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t eat the way you do.”

Then why’d he come to the kitchens? Either he’s exploring, or he came looking for you. “Not even like this?” you ask, gesturing down to his form.

“I eat when someone is foolish enough to come to my waters,” he says. “I thought I’d be eating yesterday, but the Lord subverted those plans, didn’t he?”

You laugh a bit, though it’s absurd to laugh about being eaten with the same creature that had intended to do so.

“I sometimes go for more years than the entire span of your human life without eating,” he says, tilting his head to one side. Shaggy locks of hair follow his head with it. It’s unkempt and in dire need of a washing to rid it of dirt.

You gesture at his dirt-smudged cheek. “Do you want to clean up? I’m sure Taehyun has some clothes to spare for you. There are some pretty nice bathing quarters, here, too. The kind that makes you reluctant to get out.”

A wry smile cracks across his face, a bit feral like the rest of him. “I’m not afraid of some dirt. These are my clothes. I’d go naked before dressing myself in his.”

“Okay, then,” you snort, shrugging. “No baths.” You rip a bite out of the wrinkled fruit in your hand. “How did you even end up... in debt to Taehyun?” you ask, eager to fill yourself in. If Taehyun insists on not telling you anything, you’ll find it in other places. You’d picked up that it had something to do with his father, but you need to know more. The more you’re able to piece together, the better you’ll be able to make sense of Taehyun’s behaviors. You hope so, at least. He holds is truths very close to himself, and almost everybody else seems to harbor a poignant distaste for him.

Beomgyu’s face sours up again. “I had a dispute with his father. The General was going to raze my forest and kill each one of us. I’d called on him and asked for his help. I’m not sure what he did, but The General never came. If I knew it’d land me like this, though...” He grimaces. “I’d have just let him make me history.”

Reigning in the laugh that bubbles in your chest at his resentment, because you’re positive that you finding humor in his misfortunes would ruffle him, you nod and pocket that information. “Then, why didn’t you just agree to help when he tried to collect your debt in the first place?”

“I was going to,” he snaps. “He’s just a prideful creature. No patience. If he’d waited a few moments, I’d have agreed.”

Humming, you don’t tell him that he’s definitely the one who wound himself up like this. Taehyun had made it clear multiple times that Beomgyu needed to stop playing around.

Taehyun’s voice comes from the doorway, cutting into the conversation with its matter-of-factness. “Speaking bad on my name while I’m away, kelpie? Should I amend your list of commands to include watch your mouth?” His tone is bare and humorless.

Beomgyu bristles beside you, about to rebut him before you spy the weapon at Taehyun’s hip and interrupt before they can come to verbal blows. “Where are you going?”

Taehyun rips his icy gaze from Beomgyu to you. “To Court,” he answers, plain and as if it were obvious.

Furrowing your brows, you say, “Court? Why didn’t you tell me we’re going? I don’t want to get ready in a rush.” Your mind turns. You weren’t even sure what you’d be doing now that you’re no longer here as spies. There’s no need to infiltrate Court, now. Would you just be attending as revelers? Not to mention that Yeonjun no doubt has no clue that you’re even staying. You hadn’t seen him since you’d ran to him yesterday morning and had your world thrown for a loop as he revealed his truth. How had so much happened in one day?

His mouth hardens. “You’re not attending with me,” he says, knuckles turning white over the pommel of his sword. “You’ll stay here with him today.”

Your heart thrums in your chest; not with fear like it had been doing so much over the span of the last few days, but with anger. “What?” you say, shock straining your voice. “No. I’m getting ready; wait for me, or don’t. I don’t care.” You spin on your heels to do just that, gritting your teeth. He thinks he can tell you what to do? Is that it? You don’t care what he’s done for you, or what power he thinks he has over you because of it. You’d left your life of taking commands behind for a reason. This was supposed to be new beginnings, not just your past life under a new skin.

He catches your upper arm frantically. Whipping your head to him, you rip yourself away from him and back off. “I said, no,” you grit out, lips twitching into a heavily emotional scowl. It’s not just that he’s telling you to stay back today: you know that what he’s doing is much bigger than that. It sends memories of a life in a seamstress’ cottage flooding back. You struggle to keep your head afloat, to keep yourself from drowning in it, but they’re old and deep wounds.

“Oh, look at that,” Beomgyu croons. “You are just like him. Except, your father was a general, so at least he had some reason to believe that folk would obey him. You? Not so much.”

Taehyun’s head snaps to him. He barks a command. “Leave.”

His eyes flash and he reels against it, but Beomgyu’s body moves against his own will. There’s a spark of ravenous hate smeared across his lips and in the glare he gives Taehyun as he leaves.

“So, you’re just going to hand out commands and expect them to be followed now, huh? Because you’re suddenly just... taking up this role as Lord? Well, you’re not my Lord. You’re not his, either.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Stop that.”

Laughing a bitter laugh, you spit, “Stop what? Oh, I’m sorry. I should just obey you like a good human does, huh? ‘Cause that’s what we’re for, right? My bad, I’ll get a head start on working around the estate—what would you like for dinner, my lord? Or, do you need me to press your clothes? Go ahead and place your glamour over me, so at least then I won’t have to serve you consciously.” Your words are angry, but you choke toward the end around the lump of emotion in the back of your throat.

He takes both your arms into his hands, his brow furrowed hard. “Stop it,” he snarls. “Stop it, damn it. Don’t do that. You’re not a servant here. Don’t you try to cry to me, I expect better than this from you. That’s not it at all.”

You shove back on his chest, putting some distance between you. “I’m not crying,” you say. “And, so what if I was? There’s nothing wrong with it. Really, I think it’d do you a little good to cry some time.”

“It’s weak,” he says. “Pitying yourself just ends up making you into a fool. If you just sit around and wallow, you’ll stay where you are. The only thing you can do is act.”

That sounds about right coming from his lips. “Is that what your father taught you?” you ask. “Well, he was wrong. You can cry and try and take care of things at the same time. Crying is not the weaker emotion.”

“I’m just asking you to stay back today,” he says.

“Why?” you say, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “Tell me why? It’s not like we’re spying around or have some sort of mission to keep secret. Why can’t I just go enjoy it like that for once?”

“Can you just do this for me?” Taehyun says, jaw tight. “I just need you to stay.”

You’ve become sick of him not telling you things. Being in the dark never feels good, but it especially feels like shaky ground now. If he thinks you’ll be attacked, so what? You’re the one who wanted to stay here. Let you come. You’re better off being attacked as a group of three than he would be by himself, no?

You decide to lean into his own concerns to appeal. “What if they’re waiting for you? Wouldn’t it be better that Beomgyu and I are there? Isn’t that why you did that whole thing yesterday?”

He shakes his head. “If they are, then it’ll be easier for me to slip out if it’s just me.”

Crossing your arms over your chest, you determine by the solemn lines to his face that he’s not going to give. “Fine,” you say. “I’ll stay here today. If it’s so necessary, I’ll stay here. Do you want me to stay inside the estate, too? Could I go see Yeonjun?”

“I’d prefer that you stay here,” he says, slow and measured and veiling tension.

You shake your head, pairing it with a tired laugh. “Yeah, right, I forgot. He’s a threat too. Well, you have fun then.” Turning and departing from the kitchens, you leave behind your bread and dates. So much for lunch.

❆

Reaffirming Taehyun’s ability to lie, it was not just that one day. The next day, Taehyun slipped out for Court, sword on hip and pleading with you to stay in the estate on the terms that he believes they still might have an attack planned for you. It turned into a week that you were cooped up in the estate, and then two. The same walls you’d once looked at in wonder for their beauty became the ones you stared at mindlessly during the most boring of hours.

You spend most of your time listening to Beomgyu drone on and on about the ways he’d tricked faeries and humans. He’s quite odd, but it’s not like you can blame him for it—most of the folk are odd to you, and he’s an ancient beast among them. You feel like that warrants a spunky personality like his. He’s nice company, anyway. Such a long life lends you an impressive wealth of stories.

You can’t help but think about Yeonjun. He’s got to have seen Taehyun at Court by now. If there haven’t been any incidents at this point, doesn’t that mean that he doesn’t intend to betray you? The images of him thinking that you’re avoiding him makes you want to slip out to see him. You not sure why you don’t. Maybe the lies that sat between you affect you more than you thought they did. You’re quite the hypocrite, though. You’d kept secrets just as much as he had.

You miss those stolen nights you two had shared. A knot, queasy and pessimistic, sits in your belly each time you lay in your bed and remember them and tells you that you’ll never see anything like that again. You’d allowed a girlish part of you to blossom beside him—a part of you that could throw caution to the wind and melt into the fun things in life.

As you rot your days away in that estate that has become more like a dungeon than an estate, you allow yourself to miss him only a little. Once it begins transforming into a certain impending doom about how you’d thought that staying here would be everything you’d ever wanted, you find something else to do. If you aren’t toiling around by yourself or listening to Beomgyu drone, you’re practicing your combat skills. The times that Taehyun stops in to help you, it ends with you insisting that you’re fine to make appearances in Court by now, or at least see Yeonjun with Beomgyu in attendance. He never agrees. Each time, it’s the same awful excuse: Tensions are worse. He doesn’t know if they’re planning something. When you ask why he demands that he can attend, but you and Beomgyu can’t join: He’s a lord. It’s his duty to attend Court.

The solstice is nearing, too. You’d looked forward to it, honestly. Hopefully Taehyun will let you attend by then.

You sit crisscrossed on the hardwood flooring, running your fingers through your hair. Beomgyu is stood a couple feet away, and makes big gestures as he explains the one time he’d been called to attend Court as a solitary faerie. Moments like this have kept you grounded over the weeks.

“And the stupid crone tried to say that I was wrong for catching him,” he exclaims, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head as if the ancient memory were still as fresh as day one.

You laugh. “What did you even do to end up there, anyway?” you ask. You can hardly picture Beomgyu in the setting of Court, even more so meeting with The Queen and her council. Moreover, you’re intrigued to know what he’d said to talk himself out of trouble. You’re amazed that he managed to make a sufficient enough case to save his life.

“They said that I’d been taking too many of their folk—hah! I must eat too, you know? Oh, the pretention! Do they expect me to starve? If a fool lands themselves on my pelt and then in my waters, it’s only natural that they’re eaten. I’m simply freeing them from one more mud-brained fool. The Courts are full of those, too. It’d take me a millennium to eat them all. What are they so worried for, I wonder? They do the very same to their own people.”

“Aren’t they ridiculous?” you say. Like you, he’d been an outsider in Court. Though you’re sure that it’s just as, if not more, intricate to those well-versed in it, to the ones like you two... It’s odd to see. You had grown used to it in the time you spent there, but you still know what the first day had felt like. Anyway, you hadn’t spent as many days there as you feel you had. All that had happened had bloated that time in your memories. “To be quite honest with you, your kind are all so odd to me. I grew up among you, but still... my instincts are always kinda at odds with my surroundings, you know?”

Beomgyu considers that for a moment, as if trying to view the fae from a human’s eyes. “Even when we look so similar?” he asks you, grabbing at a lock of his hair and making a round gesture over himself.

You nod. “Even in this form, you just... I don’t feel like I’m looking into the face of another human. Maybe that’s because I watched you turn to this from a horse, though.”

“A kelpie,” he corrects. “What gives it away?”

“Sorry, a kelpie,” you snicker. You look over his face. It’s so close to right, but somewhere in your mind you can decipher that something is not right. Like all of the fae, though, there’s an unspeakable beauty there, beyond explanation. It demands your human attention. Even the most terrifying are beautiful. “Well, for starters, your ears. They’re pointy. All of you have that, and none of us do. And then... I guess”—you narrow your eyes—“your eyes? They’re just different. And your limbs are pretty lanky, too.”

He frowns as if he’s unable to see it. “You don’t sound so sure,” he says, joining you on the floor. “I’ve had quite some time to look at myself in my life. I don’t think I ever saw any of that when I was in this form...”

“I’m sure you did,” you say, lips turning up in a playful mock. A water creature no doubt has an eternity to stare into the water at themselves in its rippled reflection. “Did you do a lot of that?”

Scowling, he huffs. “No. But I’m sure you would, if you looked like this, huh?”

You roll your eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” His face morphs from dismay to careful concentration. Frowning, you look around and ask, “What?”

“I hear somebody,” he answers, pushing off the floor.

Your spine tingles, but you search for the logical explanation. “Like... Taehyun?”

“No... the walk is definitely different.” He strains to listen. “He’s usually pretty quiet. This one... they don’t conceal their footsteps.”

Neither of you can get to a window to scope anything out before there’s three heavy knocks from the door, the metal knocker ringing. You shoot him a wary look and tilt your head toward the door. You mouth the word, answer?

He considers for a moment and then nods. Well, he’s the one able to hear their approach. You trust they’re at least not imminent danger. You pull the door open. A breeze of frost comes rushing in as you do, blowing your hair and as jarring as a hit to the face might be. You’ve been cooped up in here for so long you’ve forgotten how bitter the cold here is.

Behind the door your eyes lock with a pair of inky ones, settled into a pinched and snooty face. “Letters from the palace I have for you, my lady,” she says, her voice mousy. She holds out a stack full of letters to you, all held together by some twine.

An errand runner. You furrow your brows down at her and accept them. The little hob wrings out her long fingers. “From who?” you ask her.

She bows her head to you hurriedly. “Oh, from the prince, my lady! He sends these for you!”

You look down at the stack in your hands, and your heart begins to run amok in your chest. He’d sent to you? You thank her. She scurries off in the snow and you close the door, sharing a look with Beomgyu.

“The prince?” he says, brows shot up. “Meaning, The King’s son? He’s sent letters for you?”

Nodding, you hold the stack close to you. Your feet ache to find your quarters and to begin tearing into each one; you’re ravenous for any sort of word from him. Does he hate you? Does he miss you? At least he still thinks of you. You’d worried that he might’ve found another lady of the court to dote on in your absence...

“Yeah,” you say over your shoulder, more interested in tearing the letters open than explaining to him why the prince would be sending you letters. Curiosity sits in his furrowed brow. You hadn’t exactly prattled on about Yeonjun to him. Had you even mentioned him at all?

He tags along as you head to your room and plop onto your bed. You don’t tell him to leave you; opening these letters alone... You appreciate his presence in some odd way.

Unstringing the pile, you pull the first one out and run a thumb over the wax seal that identifies it as definitely from the High Prince—a fine silver dusted over white wax and branded with the image of Yeonjun’s insignia, the fox. It’s uneven and dribbled, clearly sealed by Yeonjun himself with the insignia ring he often wears on his finger. You pry it open and then unfurl the parchment inside.

𝒟𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝓊 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝒹 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑜𝓊𝑟𝑡? 𝑃𝑒𝑟ℎ𝑎𝑝𝓈 𝑤𝑒 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑚𝒾𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟. 𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝒾𝓈 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒. 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝓃𝒹𝑒𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒. 𝐼𝑓 𝑚𝑦 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒𝓈 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘. 𝑀𝑦 𝑑𝑜𝑜𝑟𝓈 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝓊.

𝒯ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝓈 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛.

𝑌𝑒𝑜𝑛𝒿𝑢𝑛

Beomgyu’s gaze burns holes through you as you read this first one. You sigh, pressing your lips into a thin line as you reach for the next one. This one twists a hot knife of guilt into your belly and up into your heart.

𝐻𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝓈𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔?

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙'𝑠 𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝓃𝑑 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝓈𝑖𝑑𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑠, 𝓎𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝓇 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒. 𝐼'𝑚 𝑢𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝓈 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒. 𝐴𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ, 𝑝𝑒𝑟ℎ𝑎𝑝𝓈 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝓎𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑎𝑏𝓈𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝓈𝑒.

𝐼𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝓈𝑒 𝐼 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝒾𝑑𝑒𝓃𝑡𝒾𝑡𝓎? 𝐼𝑠 𝒾𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝓊 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝑢?

𝐴𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝓊𝑡𝑚𝑜𝓈𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟: 𝐼 𝒹𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡. 𝐼 𝒹𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑡 𝐼 𝑐𝑜𝓊𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑓 𝐼 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑑. 𝑌𝑜𝑢'𝓇𝑒 𝓆𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝒶𝑟𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑒𝓇.

𝐼 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝐼 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑟𝒾𝒹𝑖𝑐𝓊𝑙𝑜𝑢𝓈, 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑜𝓇 𝓈𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔. 𝐼 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝓇𝓈𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡. 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝒶𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑏𝓇𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝓇𝑡, 𝑟𝒾𝑔ℎ𝑡? 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑡. 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑢𝓈.

𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑚𝒾𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑠𝑎𝓎 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝑠𝑜 𝑒𝒶𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝒾𝑐𝑘𝑙𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛'𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝓈𝑡. 𝐼 𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝓈, 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑡 𝑖𝑡.

𝒟𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝓇 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝒾𝑡 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝓉 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑒𝑦𝑒𝓈 𝑚𝑒𝑡, 𝑡𝑜𝑜? 𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑜𝒹𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝒾𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝓈𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑜 𝒹𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝒾𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝓎𝑜𝑢, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝓈𝑜 𝑓𝑎𝓇 𝑏𝑒𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝓎𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝓉 𝒶𝑙𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝓊𝑟𝓈𝑒?

𝑃𝑙𝑒𝒶𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑒, 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝓉𝑦. 𝐼𝑓 𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒, 𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝓊𝓇𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝓉 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝓇𝑒 𝑜𝑘𝒶𝑦.

𝑌𝑒𝑜𝑛𝒿𝑢𝑛

“What do they say?” Beomgyu asks, timbred voice whipping you from the words that had settled a quaking ache in your chest.

You’re not entirely sure how to tell him that they’re desperate letters of the High Prince’s love for you, a worthless human girl that had avoided him on purpose. He probably wouldn't believe you, anyway. Leaving behind your old life, you had pleaded with the sky to make your life something worth note. It seems that it had answered. Fate works in odd ways like that, granting your wishes in the last way you might expect.

“A lot,” you say, brushing him off. Your voice cracks with it, though,

Hearing the veiled emotion, he frowns, inching forward to take a peek. “Why are you upset?” he pries, and then gasps as a thought formulates in his head. “Have they called you to be tried by the council?” He considers his own suggestion for a long moment and then shakes his head. “You hardly have gone anywhere enough to cause that degree of trouble, though.”

You let your face drop into your hands. Is the tremor in your chest from laughter, or from crying? You couldn’t say. Maybe it’s both.

The kelpie makes an unsure sound, clearing his throat. “I... uh, I jest...”

Collecting yourself, you say, “No. I’m not being called in for trial.”

Dried up rose petals come fluttering out with the next letter. The flower of love.

𝐻𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝓉 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝓇𝑡ℎ? 𝐶𝑜𝓊𝑙𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝓈𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑎𝑡 𝓎𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝓈𝑜? 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑝𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝓎 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒𝓈𝑜𝑚𝑒. 𝐼 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑤𝑒'𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒. 𝐻𝑎𝑑𝑛'𝑡 𝓎𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝓈𝑡𝑎𝑦 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑚𝑒?

𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝓈𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝓇𝑒𝑠𝑖𝒹𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛 ℎ𝒾𝑠 𝑒𝓈𝓉𝒶𝑡𝑒, 𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝓇𝓈 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐼'𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝓊𝑟𝑒 𝒾𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦'𝑙𝑙 𝓇𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝓎𝑜𝑢, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑜, 𝐼 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐷𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼'𝑑 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑛𝓎𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔?

𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝑚𝑒. �� 𝑏𝑒𝑔. 𝐿𝑒𝑡'𝑠 𝓉𝑎𝑙𝑘. 𝐼 𝑗𝑢𝓈𝑡 𝑤𝒶𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑤𝓇𝑜𝑛𝑔.

𝑌𝑒𝑜𝑛𝒿𝑢𝑛

Why hadn’t you at least gone and told him that you’ve stayed? How had you allowed yourself to feel fear when you think of him? You don’t deserve his love. You don’t even know if you deserve love at all. All it would’ve taken was one night of slipping out. He deserved to know that you’re okay. You don’t remember being this selfish. When had it happened? Maybe selfish is what becomes of you when you’ve wasted a lifetime expected to serve others before yourself and then are granted the freedom to consider yourself first. You don’t want to be selfish, though.

The one you pull open now is more raw. Hurt. The paper, scrawled in writing that becomes less elegant and more frenzied as you read down it, crumples in your hand.

𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝐼'𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝓈𝑜𝓇𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝒶𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑙𝓎 𝑓𝑜𝓇𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒'𝑣𝑒 𝓈ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑, 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑡. 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊. 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝓊. 𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝒶𝑟𝑚𝓈. 𝒯ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝓇 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝓇 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝓈𝑜𝑜𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑡.

𝐷𝑜 𝐼 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝓈𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝓇𝑒?

𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝓊, 𝑑𝒶𝓇𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔. 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑚𝒶𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒 𝓈𝑖𝑐𝑘

𝑌𝑒𝑜𝑛𝒿𝑢𝑛

You stuff the letters back in their envelopes and shove them into a box in your wardrobe. If you don’t, you’ll read them over until you’re ill. Once over was enough for you.

❆

“The Lord would have my pelt if I let you leave,” Beomgyu, crossing his arms firmly over his chest, says. “Let alone by yourself.” Realizing that his words insinuate that Taehyun holds any true power over him, he backtracks. “If it weren’t for the harness, I’d be unconcerned with his anger, but... Of course, you know, I’m obligated by my imposition to his word, so...”

Tugging your boots on, you say, “So, tell him I commanded you to stay. You’ll be fine.”

You had waited for Taehyun to leave for Court, anyway. You have hours of the night to sly-foot your way around him.

You’d moped around for a few more days, your gut heavy with stones each time you remember Yeonjun’s letters. Stuffing them into a box, no matter how deep into the corner of your wardrobe, still could not wipe those words from your mind. You’d turned them over and over until you couldn’t handle imagining him writing those letters with a hopeful heart any longer.

The solstice is only a few days away now, too. You’d been bound to the estate for weeks. Although you’re unsure what Taehyun’s real intentions are in boarding you in, you can no longer even care if leaving will end up getting you attacked. You’ve become a bird with clipped wings.

Even if your wings are out of order, you’ll walk your way to your freedom. Hell, you’d crawl there. It just so happens that Yeonjun’s doorway feels like freedom in this moment.

Like he’d always said, the doors remain unbarred. You don’t even have to use the metal knocker; you just push through the doors of swirling white engravements. Just as if nothing had changed. He’d been waiting for you.

Instead of Yeonjun in his quarters, you find a brownie diligently working on doing up Yeonjun’s bedding. When she turns to you, her hands continue their efforts.

“The prince is not here right now, dear,” she says, snout twitching. Round eyes recognize you before you can introduce yourself. “He’s only just made for Court, though. You should catch him quite quickly, if you mean to.”

It seems he hasn’t given up searching for you in Court, either. You offer her your gratitude and slip out from his room. Picking up the hems of your dress, you race to catch Yeonjun before he’s arrived at Court. Once he does, things get more sticky—if Taehyun spots you... Pushing down the anxiety that bubbles up at the thought, you cross your fingers. Let luck be on your side.

Your Court dress, though heavy, feels nice on your skin. Although you often look down on court goers for their pompousness, you can’t deny how good it feels to fit in. That’s perhaps the reason you cling to Court the way you do; you’re beyond desperate for belonging.

On the plush, snow-dusted bits of the forest’s floor, you spot a set of footsteps. They’re quickly being filled with the flurries. You clasp your hands in an overwhelming bout of gratitude—luck had listened, this time. Those tracks are as fresh as can be. You double your pace.

Around a bend, you’re overjoyed to see his figure walking there. Finally hearing you coming over the roar of snowfall, he spins. His face pinches and then drops as he recognizes you.

“You... You came?” he says. Disbelief flips his lips into a frown. “You got my letters?”

“I did,” you answer, catching your breath. “I’m so sorry.”

A few feet float between you, the space not yet closed but so magnetic. His cheeks are tinged pink with the cold. Yours must be too.

“I’d thought you left. I thought I’d never see you again.”

Your chest caves in a little at the hurt in his voice and the way it clashes with the longing in his eyes. He wants to be angry; he wants to yell at you. He can’t do either when he’s just thankful to see your face. You had missed his just as much.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

Yeonjun approaches you and takes your face into his hands. His fingers are ice on your skin. He swallows in your face, soft black eyes darting from your eyes to your lips and around the rest of it; just like he’d begged you to let him do in his letters.

“Why?” Yeonjun asks you, brushing your hair back with his fingers like he’s just testing the feel of it.

You don’t know how to answer him. You could tell him a lot of things: Taehyun told me to stay away. He had told me that you’d hurt me. I’d started to believe him. I became scared of you. We had lied to each other. None of them feel adequate in this moment, so you shake your head.

His eyes harden to a degree as you don’t answer. “Why wouldn’t you come talk to me, pretty?” he urges. “If something was wrong, why couldn’t you come to me? We can’t leave things broken. I sent you weeks of letters. Weeks.”

Weeks? You’d only seen four.

“Finally, I got smart enough to send them when he’s at Court. And then you show up here. Tell me, how am I to think that you’re okay? When he won’t even let you speak with me?”

You blink once. Twice. Taehyun had been intercepting letters. A pit of anger flares in your belly. Whatever this protecting thing he’s doing really is, you’re sick of it. Since when had he become your keeper? He’d demanded that Yeonjun was trying to do just that, but here he is, and you have no clue why he’s doing it.

“I didn’t know you’d sent letters until yesterday,” you tell him. “I should’ve come and seen you.”

Running his thumb over your cheek, he murmurs, “You’re not going back there. Please, tell me you’ll stay with me. If you’re to stay here in the north forever, let it be with me. We can’t slip around like this forever.”

Shaking your head in his hands, you pull back. You can’t decipher the dread that washes over you at his suggestion once again. Your heart is wary with the need to do just that—to not return to the estate where you’d become some sort of prisoner. Something washes over you and tells you that it won’t go the way you’d wanted, just as most things in your life hadn’t.

Seeing the way you retract, Yeonjun becomes more desperate. “Please,” he says, hands finding your shoulders to hold you as if you’ll leave him there.

“We’ll figure it out,” you say. “Just give me a few days to think about it, okay?”

His face stays drawn as if he wants to argue it, but he relents. Taking your frozen hands into his own and wrapping them up in attempts to warm them, he says, “Okay. Okay, let’s get away from this blizzard, then. I’ll wait for you, love.”

Your chest sizzles. The cold isn’t so bad, today. In a way, you’d missed it. You nod.

Yeonjun brings you to his chambers and urges you to settle into a plush seat. You run your hands over the embroidered whorls of thread on the cushions as you watch him rummage through a chest. “What are you looking for?” you ask him, drinking in his figure. He’d switched his Court shirts for some more comfortable wear, but even in those he looks princely. He’s so pretty. Your heart flutters as he fishes out what he’d been searching for and turns to you with a smile. He settles beside you carrying a leatherbound book and a miniature wood sculpture of a girl.

“These,” he says, setting them down on the cushion between you.

You pick up the wood thing, looking over its painted pink cheeks and feeling the carvings that make its face. It’s fitted with a dress; one unlike any you’d ever seen. Your brow furrows. “What’s this thing?” you ask.

“It’s called a doll,” he says explains. You feel his eyes on you, watching your reaction, not on the thing in your hands. “Human girls carry them around to play with. They change the dresses and stuff. They even make things for them to hold, but... I couldn’t get ahold of any of those.”

Heart stuttering, you look at the wood-carved thing. “Human girls?” you ask, imagining a life where you too could have worried only about what dress your toy would wear. You revere the resilience your younger self had to have. At least you didn’t know any better; you didn’t know how you could’ve had it. That ignorance saved you. The painted eyes of the doll stare back at you.

“Kinda cute, huh?” he says, smiling and scooting closer to fiddle with the thing’s hair. “They even do their hair up all pretty.” Looking back up to you, he says, “It’s a shame that no human who has ever grown up here knows of things like these. Simple joys.”

You nod, a little choked up. “Yeah. I wish I had. It would have been nice to have something like this as a girl.”

He tucks some hair behind your ear to get a better look at your face from the side. “How did you ever end up being a spy?”

Tearing your gaze from the doll to meet his, you find a sadness there despite you not even having told him yet. It’s as if he knows it’ll hurt him already. You fiddle with the little doll’s dress as you recount. “I was a servant to a seamstress,” you start. “A royal seamstress, too. She was favored well by the gentry. She brought in hordes of clients and made dresses and Court clothes for them—but, really, her work mostly ended at being there to hear what they’d want and inlaying the dresses with her magic when they’d ask for it. The rest was my work. Taking their measurements, making their dresses... I worked her shop as soon as I became able to.” Memories of cruel and wicked faces that snickered at your expense or those who found it entertainment to scare you come back, as fresh as ever. Those memories never leave you; the ones so early on that they’d calcified into permanent parts of your personality. That terrified little girl will always be somewhere in your mind. She surfaces quite a lot, these days.

“There was this one time...” you say, trailing off to trudge up a more awful memory. “A Lady had come in to have a dress made. She brought a guard along with her. He was this massive troll with grey skin like a toad.” You’d recall his details without any trouble for the rest of your life, you think. “I’d ran off to grab some fabric for the Lady, and he followed,” you say, voice wavering just how your little heart had wavered as you had turned around from the bolts of fabric to see the goblin stood there. “He yanked me around by my hair until I sobbed, and then he had me get on the floor and beg him to let me live.” You know now that of course he wasn’t going to kill you—he wouldn’t want problems with Nut-hatch—but you hadn’t known it then. You thought you were dead. “When he had enough of his fun, he let me go. When the other two saw how hysterical I was, all I got was being asked why I’d left them waiting so long.”

Yeonjun asks, voice soft and tender, “The seamstress allowed that?” His eyes are heavy with a mixture of emotions. You see sadness and anger there, but also something a bit more.

“Nut-hatch?” you say. “Of course.” They’d known what he was doing in there, of course. Even a human could have heard it. As long as you served your purpose, the folk could not care less.

He looks taken aback at that, recognition turning his brows up. “Nut-hatch? You worked for Nut-hatch?” he asks.

Nodding, you hum. You had no doubt he’d know her name. Her work was well-renowned in his father’s court and beyond. “I did.”

His eyes rake over you for a long few beats before he turns your face up. “Their names?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“The goblin and the Lady. What are their names?”

You try to tug at the threads of that old memory. “I don’t remember,” you say. Much of it is fresh, but you hadn’t committed their names to memory. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of it. “It’s okay. It’s passed now.”

He doesn’t look very convinced, mind wheeling behind his eyes. You don’t want to stay on this memory for too long. Pushing it back into the dusty corner where it stays, you continue explaining. “I accepted that as my life for a long time, but... At some point, I just wanted more. I imagined all the ways I could find a new life as a human here. There are so many other things I’d preferred, but the only one I could manage was that. Even that, I was wrong about. I’m not really made for that, you know?” You lighten your tone in hopes that it’ll make your chest feel lighter as well.

He listens intently and then leans forward to press a kiss to your forehead. Pulling you into his chest and keeping you notched under his chin, he says, his voice smooth to your ears, “I’m so happy you’re here now, pretty.”

Letting out the weight in your lungs in a long, meaningful sigh, you melt into his touch. It’s difficult not to when his body is so warm against yours. You revel in it for some time, just letting him smooth over your hair and rub your back. You try your best not to let any old, sad emotions pour out through your eyes; this is a happy moment. You’ve made it. Perhaps things had been harder than you imagined they’d be, but you knew it’d be a long journey when you escaped that sewing cottage anyway.

Peppering a few last kisses to the top of your head, he releases you to pick up the book he had also grabbed from that chest. On the front it reads: Pride & Prejudice.

“A book?” you say, looking over the brown leather and gold printing. It’s an unfamiliar name to you, but you never read much anyway.

He nods and pries it open. The spine crackles with age. “It’s also from the human world.” Thumbing through the pages, he adds, “It’s a story. I read it often, it’s quite a nice one. I want to give it to you so that you can read it too; it’s a beautiful love story.”

You lean in to take a look at the words, too perfect to be handwritten. “Where do you get all this stuff?” you say. It reminds you of he’d brought you to that market for human goods. He seems to be interested in things that are human. Perhaps that includes you. Either that or he continues to show you these kinds of things for your sake.

“I lived in their world for some years,” he says, flipping through the pages. “It’s quite different. Though... I found myself not wanting to leave. When the time came, I brought these back with me to remind me of that time.”

Lived? Not just visited, but Yeonjun had lived in the human realm? Your heart flurries with a lifetime of wondering what your true home was like. How ironic is it that he knew more of humans than you? That you’re the one asking him questions about your kind? “How long?” you ask first. “And why were you living there?”

“Just for something my father wanted me to do,” he answers, “Somewhere around a decade, I believe.”

He’d spent ten years there. Multiple things click into place—no wonder he’s so able to understand your human emotions. No wonder it feels as though you’ve been seen to a different degree by him than you’d ever known before. He’d spent years with your kind. “What is it like?” you say, not sure where to begin with your questions.

He smiles fondly. “You wouldn’t even be able to believe me, pretty. You’ll just have to see it.”

See it. “You’d take me there?” you say.

“Of course,” Yeonjun says, frowning. He takes one of your hands into his, pressing a kiss to it. “You deserve to see it.” He presses another kiss to your skin, now at your wrist. The hair on your skin raises at the contact. His eyes find yours as he begins a slow ascent of kisses up your arm. Each is warm and sends your spine blazing. Once he reaches your shoulder, he slows down, leaving a long moment between kisses. He continues this pace—one that both makes you wish he’d slow down and that he’d hurry and quell your want—right up the juncture of your neck and up the column, too. His controlled breaths puff out like fire on your skin where his mouth lingers. You let your head back to help his path up. He places one final kiss at your jawline before his lips land on yours, drunken and in no rush at all.

You can’t help the visceral urge to run your hands over his soft skin, to check if the warmth there was real or if you’d manifested it in your longing. Yeonjun breaks this lethargic kiss just to laugh, but he’s quick to recapture your lips. He meets your hand and brings it under his silken shirt, guiding you up the soft planes of his abdomen.

Pushing you back, he whispers into your mouth, “I missed you so much, pretty.”

You rememorize the gentle muscles of his stomach beneath your palm. “It was only so many days,” you tease, “you’re just horny.”

He lets go of your hand to begin slipping down your dress from the shoulders. “Yeah?” he hums, gobbling up each inch of skin that he reveals. “I suppose I am. It’s a gift to be able to love you in this way.” Once the fabric is clear of your hips and he’s tugging it down your legs, his face turns sly. He studies your wettened core. “I think you missed me too, though, love.”

You drag your bottom lip into your teeth. You had. Your chest thumps rhythmically in your chest, syncing like symphony with the throb between your thighs.

Blood sings in your veins when he places his palm right on the boundary between your lower belly and your cunt. Your stomach soars, too, so excited by his touch so near where your body craves it. He runs it up, feeling the curves of your body, up to your breast. You expect him to stop and pay attention to your chest, but he presses his hand down right over your heart and feels its beating against his palm. His eyes flutter to a shut, and he leaves his hand there for a few moments, relishing in it.

“What other purer form of love can I show you?” he says, tapping on your hip. “On your hands and knees, baby.”

You flip, your limbs a bit clumsy in anticipation. Once you’ve found your way there, he dances his fingertips on the small of your spine.

“Did you think of my touches while we were apart?”

“Mhm,” you hum. Especially on the nights when the estate seemed the emptiest. Some nights, your fingers were just not enough to save you, and you’d contemplate making a big escape to find him.

“Well, I shouldn’t make you wait too much longer then, huh?” he coos, running that hand down to ghost touches over your slit. Though minimal, you jolt. You’d been so ravenous for this. He’d worked his shirt off so that when he leans forward to meld his chest to your back, it’s his skin that touches yours, not fabric. His hand stays ghosting touches that leave you softly gasping.

He teasingly pinches your clit, laughing in your hair at the sharp hiss it draws from you. “So reactive,” Yeonjun muses. His fingers find their way to your hole. He dips the middle two in. “Just like the first time we made love like this. Your lovely face is burned into my mind, pretty. You have such hungry eyes.” As he pushes his fingers in, he uses his free hand to tilt your face against the cushion so that he can better see your eyes.

You sigh, shuddering and breathy, as he begins to curl his fingers. It only takes him a few curls to rediscover that spot that has sparks flying behind your eyes.

“There?” he asks, chin on your shoulder. “That feel good, darling?”

Your muscles tremble at their own accord, rendering your huffs trembled as well. “Yes,” you answer. Each meaningful curl hits its mark, knees unsteady pillars that dig into the cushions. “So—so good. Please don’t stop.”

He maintains a sickening pace—your muscles twitch around his giving fingers, just enough so that your entire body buzzes and your stomach twists, but not enough to send you shaking yet. You collapse down from your elbows, chest in the cushions. He brushes back the hair that obscures your face with the movement, adamant to see your face.

He eggs you on by curling deeper; faster. Your answering groan is shaky and tense—you can’t get enough of the knot he curates in your belly, but at the same time, it’s daunting. He sits back, but his fingers don’t falter. His free hand explores, feeling your body up for all the time he couldn’t.

Stomach taut and brimming on your peak, you suck in a breath. Your orgasm sits so close, running a line of electricity from between your legs up to your spine, raising goosebumps on your skin.

Your eyes fly open, mouth ready to scold, as Yeonjun pulls his fingers from you. Your chest bubbles up with frustration, your orgasm drifting off to somewhere else. “Why?” you ask, cheeks burning. It slips and slips away from you, hole twitching around nothing as if seeking out just enough stimulus to bring it crashing back. “I was so close.”

His hand soothes the loss ever so slightly by circling your cunt, but he does not make the mistake of offering you any touch where you most need it. It only prolongs the float down, keeping you suspended. You abhor it.

“Please,” you whine.

He doesn’t entertain your whines. He only continues to deliver just enough to torment you until he’s sure that you’re not so wound up that you’ll cum the moment he touches you, and then he slides his fingers back in and begins building up a more tense knot with pointed curls. Your insides delight in the return of attention, falling almost instantly back into a brutal climb. Yeonjun doesn’t bother with languid, teasing strokes now. He aims for your ruining.

You writhe against the cushions. Your heart is a fluttering bird in your chest, trilling at the prospect of your release. It’s so close—so close that you might be able to just touch it. It tastes like honey on your tongue, painting your words sweet. “Love you,” you tell him. “Love you so much.”

Yeonjun rewards your sweetness with his free hand on your throbbing clit, sending your hands gripping at the cushions. You wiggle your hips helplessly in search of just the right amount of friction that it’ll finally give you want you’ve been wanting. “Yes,” you mewl. “Yes, so close—”

“Wait, baby,” he commands from behind you. “It’ll feel so much better. I promise. Hold it back.”

He reins in his touches once again, not stopping like last time. It’s not enough to put a stop to the orgasm rippling right under your skin, right at the edge of ripping through you. You can’t hold it back; it’s right there.

“No,” he says, once again ripping his touch from you. It doesn’t stop anything—you go rigid just before it crashes over you, and then you’re shaking without his hands even on you. You cum with a vengeance—body reclaiming twofold what he had denied you.

“Holy shit.” Yeonjun groans watching you come unraveled without his help. “So riled up that you’re cumming by yourself, pretty,” he says, running a hand around to feel your belly muscles twitching and the way they roll along with the twitches of your hips. He eggs on your orgasm with gentle touches at your clit, sending you jolting, until you’re a panting mess and he can tell that you’ve had enough.

You attempt to push yourself off your chest, but he gently guides you back down with a palm against your back. “Stay there, pretty. You can handle a little more, right? You did so well, I know you can. Let me make love to you, darling.”

The cushions are awfully warm against your skin and you’re still dealing with the waves of pleasure that drift up from your cunt, but you nod your head for him. “’Kay,” you say.

The rustling behind you tells of how he’s slipping out of the rest of his attire. You lay boneless as he does, focusing on the waves running down your thighs. It’s ecstasy in its purest form. It floats through your veins, addling any consciousness and breaking you down into what you are at your core.

The familiar prod at your entrance jolts you back to life. As he presses in, he presses a hand to your flushed cheek. It’s a welcome temperature difference—you feel set ablaze in some sort of languid flame, one that takes its time to consume you. He laughs softly. “You’re burning up,” he says as he bottoms out, as if the feeling of him filling you up isn’t rendering you jittery in anticipation. “Ready for me, pretty?” he teases, taking your hips into his hands. “I need you to make those pretty sounds for me. I want to know that they’re just as sweet as I remember them.” He punctuates his sentence with deep rolls of his hips, aiming where he knows will have you singing.

You’re helpless to the chorus of ‘Oh's and ‘Yes’s that he draws from you, the smacking of his hips and your sweet moans much too loud for you. You dread the thought of his servants hearing you and push your face into the cushions, muffling the array of sounds that bubble over. It’s all you can do—you could hardly contain your sounds.

Your scalp strains as he tugs your head back, tugging your face from the cushion. “None of that, love. I waited too long for that. Don’t hide your pretty voice.”

You shake your head. “Too loud,” you pant. “They’re gonna hear.”

“I don’t care who hears you. Let me hear how good I’m making you feel, or I’m going to stop. Do you want me to stop?” His fingers cling to your soft hips, betraying how much this is affecting him. You know that he hardly wants to stop.

You’re turned to mush, though. In this moment, being heard feels nowhere near as awful as Yeonjun ceasing those dizzying thrusts. You shake your head, scalp aching against the movement. “No,” you say, breathless.

“That’s what I thought,” Yeonjun taunts, letting your cheek drop back into the fabric. “Let them hear our love. Let them hear how real it is, darling. Louder.”

You tentatively let your sounds out into the thick air, but he decides that it’s not enough for him. Taking his hand off your hip to brace himself on the seat’s plush armrest, he doubles down his thrusts, feverish and desperate to guide you both to a beautifully explosive end. Your mouth drops open, unfiltered words and sounds spilling out from your chest as you grab at the cushions for help. With the hand that he doesn’t use to deliver those wild thrusts, he encases your hand in his own, threading his fingers between yours.

For a few more incandescent moments, Yeonjun’s room only consists of your unabashed cries, his alternating grunts and whines, the rhythmic and hollow smacks of his hips to your skin, and the musk of your passion. Frantic bodies dance against each other, skin against skin in the purest way. Your thighs tremble pathetically, his cock brushing against your sweet spot until you squeeze your eyes shut and ride out the quivering of your cunt around him. You squeeze his hand as you shake.

“Yes,” his pretty voice whines, “Just like that.”

Picking up his pace, he chases to join you in your orgasm. He pants behind you, desperately fucking into you until his hips stutter and he stills, falling into your shoulder to deliver needy rolls and shooting warm spurts of his release into you.

You two stay like this for some unhurried moments. You focus on his heartbeat; feeling it thudding against your back reminds you that he is real, and he is love. You hold his hand in yours a little tighter.

❆

“I doubt that this will go exactly as you believe it will,” Beomgyu says, watching you do your hair up. Your eyes meet his in the vanity’s mirror.

Arms burning as your hold them over your head, your words come out clipped with the ache. “It worked yesterday, didn’t it?” you say. You push a filigree comb into your hair to secure it up. “I got back hours before he did.”

“I’m not saying that Taehyun is right,” he says, “but I think that it would do us both a favor if you practice a bit more precaution.”

“What, are you afraid of Taehyun?” you ask, raising your brows at him in the reflection.

Your taunt hits its mark, Beomgyu shifting in your bed and scowling. “Of Taehyun, never,” he parries, “of the fact that he could ask me to do anything and I’d do it, yes.” He shakes out his lightly matted tresses, a habit you’ve noticed over the passing weeks. “I played a little too closely to the fire with him once, and it landed me like this: no longer the owner of my being. I’d sooner chew off my own fingers than become his obedient dog, but I believe you also know that it’s best to soar low with this, no? Are we not together in this?”

You press your lips into a thin line. In a way, you’d come to an alliance of sorts with Beomgyu. Despite his being a kelpie, the two of you are not so different now. Both confined to these walls, listening to Taehyun when he commands it. You don’t want any of your actions to snap back on Beomgyu, though. With you attending Court today, it’s almost definite that Taehyun will see you. You turn to face him. “Why don’t you join us, then?” you offer. “I’ll tell him myself that I commanded you to come with me. I’m sure he’ll be less upset if I have you there with me.”

He gives it a thought, his eyes looking as tired and sunken as they always do. “I’m not one for Court,” he says.

“But I’ll be there,” you plead, unable to help the twitching of smirk on your lips. “If we do it together, it can’t be so bad.”

He frowns, but you can see that you’ve won. “I grieve for how the forest left me to my own,” Beomgyu grumbles.

You surge up from your seat, eyes bright. “You’ll go?” you say, giddy to return to the thrill of faerie revelry and also to see the strange kelpie in the center of it.

Grimacing, he answers, “I will join you.”

You take his hands into yours and press a cheeky kiss to his forehead. “You’re not so scary as you try to paint yourself,” you tell him, watching as he catches bait. You laugh as he glowers.

“Don’t push it.” He climbs off your bed. “I’m scarier than you should imagine, girl. I do this for my own reasons.”

You pull a patronizing frown and nod. “Of course, I know.”

You don’t have to wait for him to get ready to any capacity; he tells you that he has no intentions of making any impressions, and you’ve seen faeries in far more drastic states of disarray. Many show up for their reveling in just their skin.

Beomgyu drones on about how he detests the audaciousness of the gentry folk while you make for the hall. The forest around you is as quiet as you remember it being when you’d first met him. It reminds you that, no matter how used you become to him, he is a creature to be feared. The little folk are right to hide away. For you, though, his might is a relief: should Taehyun be right, you’ll be safe. He moves at your beck and call. Though, the thought of forcing the kelpie to carry out your will is an uneasy one that you do not strive to fulfill.

Once the buzzing of Court comes into earshot, wonderful faerie music along with it, you breathe it in. “First time in... how long since you’ve shown your face here?”

“Perhaps four-hundred-something years,” he answers, looking over the scene with as much distaste in his face as his voice. “We solitary folk don’t make ourselves known here unless to bow to a crown. I do not bow to any crown.”

Itching to find your prince, you gesture toward it. He should be fine—Court is supposed to be an insouciant place. “Don’t they host anybody who decides to come? Faerie hospitality, and all that? You’ll be fine.”

“It’s all hospitality until you step foot from those trees,” he says. “And even hospitality is sometimes betrayed. You know how capricious we can be, I’m sure.”

You approach the warm lights, but his words remain with you. It beckons you to remember that their minds are fickle and fundamentally different from yours. However you think they may act, they might act in the complete opposite way. You should at least let that guide how you conduct your actions a little bit.

As you breach the pillars of trees and are finally surrounded once again by their pinched faces and gangly limbs, you search for both Taehyun and Yeonjun. You see neither, and so you make your way to the tables to seek snacks. You scour them for something sweet to chew over as you wait for him to appear. He’d said he’d be coming around this time, right? You surely hadn’t mistaken the time he’d told you?

Beomgyu speaks from beside you, observing a hag that loiters nearby. “Is he not here?” he asks.

Shrugging, you say, “He’ll be here soon.”

You watch the hag inching closer, bent over with age; though, you assume that’s she’s been old for the entirety of her life. Her pointed ears droop from her thin tresses of silver, cuffed with gold.

Turning from her, you gesture over the cavorting crowds, more frantically chasing their merriments than ever before. The solstice arrives tomorrow; they welcome its presence with their excitement. “This is all for the solstice?”

He offers you an affirmative nod. “Just some excuse to entertain themselves like this,” he explains, “the solstice will arrive whether they encourage its coming or not. I believe that they just enjoy this debauchery too much.” His hollow eyes rake over the throngs. “Anyway, many of them are just here because it’s the only time that they’ll see Court. Otherwise, only the gentry gather here.”

“What makes you any different than them?” you ask. “What makes you so averse to offering your allegiance to the High Courts? Would it not be nice to have their protection, and to keep them off your back?” You seek Yeonjun once more in the crowds, but still, he doesn’t appear. “You know, so they don’t call you in for things like eating too much?”

“I do not surrender my sovereignty to any. Come they to my doorstep and demand that I do, I could not care. I’m content with the way I make my life.”

His refusal to do just that must be why Taehyun’s father had come to claim his life. You’re sure that it’s also why the coming of the General’s son to steal his autonomy must’ve made him so angry. You don’t blame him.

Why would The Queen demand fealty from the solitary folk? You’d thought that, like the High King, she’d leave them to their forests. If they’re all as adamant as Beomgyu, it seems like a lost cause.

“Well,” you say, “I’m glad that—”

A gnarled hand, fingers knobbed against your skin and skin about as soft as tree bark, tugs your arm. You spin to find who owns it.

The hag’s eyes remind you of Beomgyu’s, piercing and dull with the weight of a long life. Though, hers are much more unsightly than his mud-brown ones, saggy eyelids drooping over a pair of eyes with ink-black where the whites of her eyes should be. She pulls you toward her by your skirts.

You tug yourself back, pinching your brows. “Who are you?”

She points her clawed, grey hand out at you, bangles of gold and chunky beads jingling as she does. “You, girl,” the hag says, urgent. Her voice is harsh and it crackles as she speaks. She reaches inside of her furry robes and produces a wood trinket from it. In her palm that she shoves at you lays a bit of wood carved into the shape of a wolf, painted in black. Its shaggy black fur reminds you of the kind Taehyun would sometimes wear over his shoulder.

“I don’t need that,” you say, rejecting her hand. Nothing in faerie comes for free—the hag just sees a human girl that she can offer free things to in hopes that you’ll know no better and take. Then, you’d be in her debt, and she’d demand something from you. You do know better, though.

“Oh,” she says, shaking her head as she draws out the word. “You do, girl. Take it, take it. You need it, I know it. Take it, I won’t hold it to you, girl, just have it.” Razor teeth appear behind her curled lips. “It is dormant with me. But, in your hands... Take it.” She shakes her jousted hand out at you each time she demands that you take it. “It offers you protection. It would do no good in my possession. It beckons me to give it to you, its pleas are so loud—loud, loud, loud! Take it off my hand, won’t you?”

Her urging unsettles you, but so do her words. You assume that it’s inlaid with some sort of protective enchantment. Why would you need protection? Although, she could also just be fooling you. She could be holding a perfectly plain hunk of carved wood in her palm for all you know. You shoot a look at Beomgyu. If she were any trouble, he’d tell you.

He looks about as lost as you do, shrugging.

“Oh, sakes!” the hag grumbles, clutching her robes to her body. She takes Beomgyu’s hands and places the thing there. “There. I have no reasons to be here fooling humans. Useless debts, what could you give me? Nothing I need.” She points a sturdy, twiggy finger at you. “Keep it on you, girl, else it won’t do its work.”

With those final ill-boding words, the hag hobbles off, her curved back disappearing between the gaps in the crowd.

“Here,” Beomgyu says, regarding the trinket with his observation. “That hag really wanted this to be yours, so I think it ought to be in your hands.” He tries pushing it off to you.

Laughing, you don’t reach out to take it, darting his hand with your whole body. You hang your hands in the air. “I’m not taking that thing,” you say. “She handed it to you, so I really think it ought to be in your hands.”

He deadpans. “I’ve just been collecting myself a heap of debts, haven’t I?” He closes it into his fist for his lack of pockets. “What’s this one to add?”

“Does it... feel like it has anything bad on it?” you ask, remembering how he’d identified your geas. “Like a curse, or a bad enchantment, or something?”

Shaking his head, he says, “No. I feel it does have a protective purpose, but the magic there is... odd. Hard for me to decipher. Probably that hag’s.”

You purse your lips, nodding. Regardless, whatever protection that thing might have offered you, you’ll be fine without it.

Shaking off the odd interaction, you resume perusing the snack platters in your wait. You skip over glazed pinecones. Those would be terrible on your human stomach and teeth. You can only imagine how they’d jab at your gums. You opt for a helping of braised fiddlehead ferns. Chewing on the furled thing, you entertain yourself with the revelers. Littler folk dart in and out of legs. Long-limbed gentryfolk with flowers in their hair spin with interlocked hands at the center of the clamor. Sharp-eyed faeries with even sharper mouths speak in clusters, no doubt scheming. In all its oddness, you’d missed it.

A silk-smooth voice steals your attention. “A kelpie?” Yeonjun says, regarding Beomgyu beside you. “Now, how did you manage to befriend a kelpie? Even better, how did you drag it here?”

Your chest lights up. “Long story,” you say, brushing his curiosity off. “What took you so long?”

He’s dressed in his Courtly best—cuffs made of ruffle and an array of rings decorating his fingers. They catch light as he brings his hand up to run a hand along the expanse of your collarbone. He hesitates to answer for a split second. “I ran into Kai on my way,” he explains. “He’s performing here today and for tomorrow's solstice.”

Accepting his answer, you go to tell Beomgyu that you’re going off, but he’s not even there as you turn. He must’ve wandered off as Yeonjun had arrived.

“Want to join them?” he asks, tilting his head toward the dancing bodies. Soft black strands drift over his eyes.

Shaking your head, you offer him some of the sweets you’d been eyeing, knowing that he’s got a knack for sweets. “Not today. I think I want to remember all of tonight, and, well...” Memories of the way you’d danced uncontrollably until it’d fade to black lick at your mind. You want to revel in your return to normalcy fully, not with a buzzing mind. You can’t deny the allure of that tingling in your bones as you hear the faerie music, though. It curls a wild finger at you, beckoning.

An uncomfortable look passes through his eyes, gone as fast as it had come. “All right, darling,” he hums, accepting the sweets. “Does the Lord know you’re here?”

Lips tugging into a faint frown, you say, “Not yet, I think.” The quick expression doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Unlike the ice the Taehyun offers you, Yeonjun wears his feelings all over himself. It’s just one way that they are fundamentally different. “Is something wrong?”

Yeonjun looks taken aback at your asking. “I’m doing just fine,” he says. “Why do you ask?”

He does not say nothing wrong. You know it is because he cannot lie. You look him over. What had happened? And, why is he averse to telling you the truth? “Just thought you looked a bit upset.” You shrug. “Did you want to dance?”

His nose crinkles with a laugh. “No, pretty. I’d be in your presence doing nothing and still be content.” He takes your hands into his, the metal on his fingers biting cold against your skin. “How about we go listen to Kai play?”

He leads you to where the musicians work at concocting their works, claiming a chalice of some drink from a table on the way. Kai, of course, stands away from the rest, back to a tree while his fingers dance on the strings. You look around for Taehyun from here, but still, you don’t see his face.

Yeonjun holds the chalice’s neck between his middle two fingers, sipping from it. “It’s nice to know that even as this season ends, I won’t be forced to go back there.”

His pretty lips wrap over the edge of the chalice as he drinks from it. “Won’t your father know something is up when you don’t return?”

Nodding slowly, he grimaces. “I suppose that time has finally come.”

You squeeze his hand in yours. “We both sacrificed things to be here, huh?” you say. You don’t know a lot of what Yeonjun’s life back in his home court was like, but you know that it would be hard to revolt against your own family for anybody. Even for the prince of Faerie.

He captures your eyes, his soft brown ones making crescents with his gentle smile. “We did,” he muses.

“Remember our first night in Court?” you say. You’d been so uneasy, searching for a place to fit in. Then, from the crowds of overwhelming faces, he’d appeared, all charm and welcoming smiles. How couldn’t you have let your heart fall?

Another flash of disconcertment, his smile faltering. He hides it behind another sip of his drink. Swallowing, he nods, laughing off-kilter. “I do. I think watching you dance that time was the best thing I’ve ever seen.”

Odd, but you don’t push the issue. If he says that he’s fine, it must just be something to little effect. “What made you come up to me that night?” you say, remembering how confused you’d been when such a pretty gentry boy had taken interest in you. You’d agonized over why he’d done so for long, and sometimes you still, but you’ve made some peace with it by now.

His lips are tight. “I... It’s hard to explain.”

You accept that answer at face-value and let your head fall into his shoulder while you watch Kai dutifully work at his songmaking. Among those making the music for Court, his contributions stand out as the most enthralling. Faerie music is too elusive for you to decipher why, but perhaps it’s just his lazed passion. “I understand,” you say. His shoulder is tight and less cushy than you expect it to be. Looking up to him, you frown to see how he’s looking down at you, eyes stormy. He looks like he’s sick to his stomach. You go to ask if he’s going to be okay, but he speaks before you can.

“Pretty, I... I have to tell you something.” He pulls you off of him to look into your eyes. He’s always been so steadfast and sure, but now his gaze wavers. “I’m so sorry.”

Your stomach drops. You don’t like the way he’s looking at you. “What?” you say, a tingle in your spine telling you that something isn’t right; that you’re not going to like what he’s going to say. “Yeonjun, you’re making me nervous. Is something wrong?”

You know it’s awful and you’re not sure why you do it, but for a split second, you inspect the hall for possible attackers. A terrible bout of potent adrenaline makes you want to run or cry. Beomgyu is here, right?

He swallows hard, face a ghostly pallor. “I can’t keep doing this,” he says, voice trembling. “I need to tell you the truth, it’s... it’s been eating me alive. I can’t look into your sweet face and know...”

Acid climbs up your throat. Your heart joins it, thick in your throat and choking you. “What? Know what Yeonjun?” you ask, lips trembling. Your skin prickles, hair raising. You may throw up. He looks stricken in place, not answering you. “What?” you demand.

“I didn’t come up to you for no reason that day.”

Your heart, still caught in your throat, bursts. It’s a horrifying, bloody affair. “No,” you say, shaking your head. You feel so removed from your body that you can almost envision how your blood-drained face might match his.

“I knew that you were the spies the moment I saw you. It was....” He sucks in a breath. Your world spins around you as you wait. “I was supposed to determine who the spies were. I was supposed to have them killed, but pretty, I knew I couldn’t do that the moment I saw you. I thought it was just going to be some... some random faerie that I’d...”

If your world was spinning before, it’s now flipped upside down and inverted. “No,” you repeat, a guttural plea that you know won’t change anything. It’s the only word that your mouth will make for right now, though.

You’re hurt. You’re scared. You’re angry. You’re frozen.

Yeonjun grabs for your hands, but you rip yourself away from him, your glaring eyes so at odds with your wobbling lips. “It doesn’t change anything,” he says. “It doesn’t change how I love you now. You know I love you. You know I love you, right? I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you. I did my best to protect you. Please, I never wanted to hurt you,” he rambles, frantically grabbing for your arms as he falls down to his knees before you.

A few faeries around you gasp, and a blur of their commotion forms around you. The crowned prince of Faerie just went to his knees. Your eyes dart wildly around their guffawing faces, and between a space you spot a familiar face: cold eyes and a cracked mask of indifference. He looks right at you.

What on earth is going on? How is this life right now? You snap back to Yeonjun in front of you.

“Please, don’t look at me like that, pretty,” he pleads. “Please.” His voice cracks, eyes frantic. “Slap me. Tell me you hate me for it. But please, don’t look at me like you’re scared of me.”

Tears scald your cheeks.

“I know that it’s selfish of me to ask you that; I know, I know it—but please, I can’t handle it, love. I was never going to let anything happen to you, I knew it the moment I saw you. I felt it right here”—he gestures to his beating heart, the one your hand had felt and cherished so only last night—“I knew that no matter how big my ambitions were, they would never be bigger than that.”

You can’t listen to any more. His words pour out onto your skin, but they all slip off like rain upon a beast’s winter pelt. None can penetrate the ringing in your ears.

Yeonjun sees how retracted you’ve become. “Pretty, please,” he says, slower and more dire now. “Say something."

You don’t know what to do. Your feet are rooted fast to the ground, but you know that you have to leave, or else you’ll start creating excuses for him. You know yourself too well to let that happen.

Picking up your skirts, you manage only a few words to part him with. “Though your kind can’t lie,” you say, “you have been the biggest liar I have ever known. You said you loved me.”

“I do,” he says, shaking his head, eyes twinkling. “I do.”

Maybe love is a different thing to a faerie.

You take off. He calls for you, but it’s muffled by the restlessness of the folk around you and the still-playing music. You dart between openings and bounce off bodies, lights and angry faces a blur in your frenzy. Most folk don’t spare you even a glance; nothing could pull them from their merriment. But others gawk at you like you put on a performance, greedy eyes drinking in any amount of fanfare. Their eyes itch under your skin. Crossing the expanse of the hall has never felt so arduous.

You’ve become their spectacle.

Breaking into the cold night air, you don’t run home or collapse to your knees in a sob. You hold your dress hard in your hands, the one he’d gifted you among so many others, its fabric bunching in your fists, and stand there as if frozen staring into the tree line ahead. You don’t move and you don’t think; both would remind you that this is real and that you are a fool. You just allow the bitter air to swaddle your skin.

You don’t even know if you doubt that he loves you. You don’t even know if he actually never intended to hurt you. Had there been times where all you’d done was look at him with starry eyes, and he’d look at you deciding whether or not to have you killed?

Why are you even here? There is nothing left for you. Whatever simple joys you thought you’d found, they’re gone. You’re so far away from home, and you’ve nobody to call home. You’d left behind your beginnings of a purpose, and now the only purpose you serve is to rot away in Taehyun’s estate because you demanded that you stay here.

All that time you’d spent worrying, and still, you walked yourself into this. You’re a joke. And now, you’re fully serving your purpose as one—to be laughed at.

White breaths unfurl into the night air before you, floating off to join the snowflakes and heavy fog. You just watch those fluffy flakes fall for a while.

Snow creaks under a few footsteps behind you, someone letting you know that they’re there. “You’ve gotten awfully good at sneaking around,” Taehyun says.

You let your head fall back, sighing slowly out through your nose. Turning to him, you spit, “I understand. You were right. I got it, okay? I don’t need you to come here and rub it in.”

Beomgyu approaches from behind Taehyun.

Taehyun doesn’t say anything for a bit, ice-hard eyes darting all over your face. “Take her back to the estate,” he tells Beomgyu.

Glad to escape him, you begin your way on your own. You know that he’s only looking at your break down as pathetic. Perhaps it is, but recognizing that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Wind lapping at your wet cheeks have them stinging as you walk.

Beomgyu awkwardly trails behind you as you follow the path that had become trodden in the time that you and Taehyun have been here, foliage and shrubbery broken down to make somewhat of a path.

He doesn’t speak; you don’t expect him to. Instead, you break the quiet yourself, unable to stand only the sound of wind twirling between trees. “I should’ve taken that ridiculous charm thing,” you say, laughing through your tears. That hag had absolutely been able to feel what was coming with you with whatever intuition that the magic in her bones lends her.

“But then,” Beomgyu says, “you wouldn’t know the truth.”

That’s true. Not knowing the truth doesn’t make it untrue, but at least it spares your fragile heart. “I don’t know if I’d mind that,” you tell him. “I think I’d prefer it.”

Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes.

❆

You don’t remember falling asleep. You remember climbing into your bed, dreading that you’ll be in your head all night, but to some mercy, you’d found sleep not long after that.

You’d pulled yourself from bed, no matter how it had grown a gravitational pull and insisted that it’d hold you warm while you weep. If you hadn’t, you might not have gotten up at all. As a girl, you’d force yourself into the day’s routine when you had your worst days. It’s the only way that you live through it. You’d also made an effort to walk past your wardrobe. It carries so much of him: the lovely things he’d gifted you, his letters, and that book he’d lent you. It’s not that you don’t want any of these things; to wither away in your bed, to go through his things and wonder how someone who’d showered you so had meant to be your killer, to drag your feet... It’s that you can’t.

You poke your needle through the fabric. On the cut of white fabric stretched inside the embroidery hoop, you’ve embroidered a dozen woven wheel stitch flowers of different colors and types. Your bottom aches against the hardwood flooring and your lower spine strains, but you don’t pay any mind to their complaining. You just continue to embroider the little flowers. Some are poppy, some rose, and some you’d made up just to have more to stitch.

A knock resounds through the war room from the doorway. You look to see Taehyun there. He’s dressed in his Court attire.

“You should get dressed,” he says. “It’s almost midnight. If you want to make it in time, you’ve got to get ready now.”

Since when had he decided that you’re okay to go? It’s as if this elusive threat that’d he’d been so careful has up and disappeared. “You can go. It’ll take me too long to get ready.”

Truth be told, you’d go sick seeing Yeonjun’s face, and you know without a doubt that you would.

“It’s the solstice,” Taehyun says, stepping into the room. He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t.

Despite how much you had wanted to see it, your heart is too apathetic for it to be worth anything now. Returning to the same faces that had seen your demonstration and no doubt now talk of it... You’d rather finish your fifth rose. “I know.”

He hesitates, studying you while gears turn in his head. “Hadn’t you thought that something would happen on the solstice?” he says. “Come on. It’s worth seeing how this unfolds.”

“Why? We aren’t spies anymore. I don’t care what happens in their conflict. It’s well beyond my control as a human here.”

He grimaces, but you don’t recognize the look there to be anger, more a rigidness. He rests his hand on his sword as he always does. “Then we’ll stay here.”

You furrow your brows. “Huh?”

“We can celebrate the solstice here,” he elaborates. “We don’t need to do it there. Plenty of folk celebrate on their own.”

It dawns upon you that this is his stilted attempt at comforting you. It’s the only way he knows how. You push off the ground. You couldn’t ignore this sliver, however little, of tenderness. You’re not sure if you’d ever see it again if you did. You’ll take anything to distract your mind, as well. You can’t escape the image of Yeonjun’s eyes as he’d pleaded with you from the ground. “I’m not sure Beomgyu will join us, though. He doesn’t believe in the need to celebrate the solstices.”

“He will if I command it,” he says.

“What, you’re going to command the poor kelpie to sit and watch a bonfire with us?” you say, imagining how he’d brood.

The north is wickedly cold at all times, but it’s especially so after night falls. You shuffle closer to the bonfire that Taehyun had built. It’s multitudes smaller than the bonfire you’d sat around with Yeonjun, but it’s warm enough for just the two of you. You quickly shove down those tainted memories before they sting. A lump of emotion forms in your throat before you can, though. You clear it. “Is there anything special that you’re supposed to do?”

Feeding one last log into the flame, he watches it catch. “We started this really early,” he says. “The fire is supposed to keep you warm and represent the sun’s warmth until sunrise...” He trails off, sliding the cuffs of his shirt that he’d slid up to his elbows to tend to the fire down and sucking in an awkward breath. He looks between the fire and you as though he’d not fully thought out his offer when he’d made it.

You face your palms to the orange flame, letting the roiling waves of heat warm them. “It’s nice like this.”

The flame sizzles and pops, spewing sparks and eating up the wood, for a few long moments. You’re not in a talky mood, and Taehyun doesn’t seem to know where to begin on conversation with you that isn't functional. No snow falls around you, and any wind is cut by the estate. This—a place to lose yourself to your mind—is both the thing you need and what you most should not have.

Taehyun stands watching the fire twirling, his arms over his chest.

“Is your shoulder healing fine?” you ask, once the air starts feeling a bit heavy with the weight of the prolonged quiet. “Are my stitches holding up fine? No infection, or anything?”

His gaze flicks up to you. “You stitched it up pretty well,” he answers. “I saw the flowers you were making. You’ve got a good hand.”

Frowning, you say, “You didn’t say it’s not infected...”

“It’s not infected,” he says.

That could be a lie or the truth, you know. But... this sort of deception, you’re more comfortable with. Your human mind can pick up on these subtleties, can catch the careful intonation of somebody trying to hide something behind a lie. “Could I see it?” you ask him.

He hesitates, expression flat as his eyes convey the extent of his consideration. “You can.” He grabs at his tunic, the fabric the only thing his frost blood even needs to wear out in the cold, and pulls it over his head.

You swallow hard and fight the flush to your cheeks at the sight of his scar-flecked flesh, his muscled abdomen disappearing as he turns around to show you his back. When you’d last seen his bare skin, you’d been so high on your fear and adrenaline that you’d barely flinched.

Blinking, you focus on the arrow puncture at his shoulder blade. It’s done some healing, but tinged by an angry red and visibly swollen around the stitches. You curse.

Of course, he’d rather let his shoulder rot away than admit that he needs any more of your help than he’d been forced to allow. That would require admitting that he’s not just an impenetrable wall of ice. “That is definitely infected,” you say. “Were you just going to let that kill you? Infections like that are beyond help once they get in your bloodstream.”

“I’ve had infected wounds before,” he says, preparing to put his shirt back on. “This one is nothing. It’ll take a bit longer, but... It’ll heal up fine.”

You grab his arm. “Just let me clean it a bit,” you insist. “It’s not that big of a deal. You’re not scared that it’s gonna hurt, are you?”

Sighing, Taehyun says, “I thought you wanted to enjoy the solstice.”

The hopeful girl you’d been had wanted that, but now it’s just a reminder of everything you don’t want to remember. You wave your hand in the air dismissively. “We did. Come on.”

You find a bucket to fill with water and cloth along with some stash of ancient spirits in the kitchens, their containers lined with a layer of dust so thick that you know they’re left over from Taehyun’s father. He watches you gather it all.

You beckon him to turn and show you his shoulder again. He does, bracing his arms on a counter and letting his head hang. You spill out some of that strong liquor into the wound. You’re not really sure if it’ll work as a disinfectant, but as a girl you’d seen an older woman pour it over her wound once, and it’s all you know.

Gently dabbing at his shoulder now with the water-soaked rag, swollen except for where the stitches sinch it, you say, “You should’ve been going gentle on this thing.”

Taehyun doesn’t make any fuss as you prod at the wound. “I had more important things to concern myself with,” he says plainly. You press the wet rag to the wound and hold it there, and he begins to try and redirect the conversation to anything other than about himself. “What did the prince say to you at Court?”

Your stomach drops. “It was nothing.”

“I know that’s not the truth,” he says, picking up his head to try and look over his shoulder at you. “Tell me the truth.”

You take the long, torn strips of cloth and begin wrapping it around the expanse of his broad shoulders in a sloppy and amateurish wrap. As long as it shields the wound, it’ll work. “That’s rich coming from you,” you say. “There’s plenty that you lie to me about. You even lied about this.” You tap his shoulder.

Turning now that you’re done, Taehyun eyes you. You don’t know if he’d been able to hear anything over the sounds of Court or if he’d heard it all with his better hearing ears. You can’t tell which it is.

“I’ll hear it from some Court gossiper anyway. I think you’d prefer to tell me it yourself.”

The thought of that scene being a topic of Court gossip makes you ill, but you know that it’s true. The folk love the show, especially one that includes a prince of Faerie on his knees in front of a human. Red-hot embarrassment takes a leisurely stroll up your spine. Your biggest fear has taken flesh in the cruelest way possible.

Well, if he’s going to end up knowing anyway... You’d prefer it’s from your mouth. You don’t know what sort of conflated half-truths the folk might come up with, since they have no more idea what happened than what they saw. “He was supposed to kill us,” you say, chest too tight to explain it in any depth. “Or, at least, find out who we are, so that we could be killed.”

Taehyun doesn’t look shocked. He nods. “So, they anticipated our arrival, then. The odds had been stacked against us from the beginning.”

You nod. Would you have been able to escape? If things had never become entangled between you and Yeonjun, would you and Taehyun lived beyond the first day? Taehyun is strong and you know that he’s no doubt survived plenty in his life, but you’d have been caught completely unaware. “Yeah.”

“I told you that he’d show you his colors eventually.”

You want to fight him on that, but you can’t. You have nothing to say. He’d been right.

What’s left for you now that he has?

…🪶 ashlynn's note RAHHH! like i said, this part gave me a bit of grief because part 3 was left so open ended—i had so many options and paths i could follow, but ultimately, i chose this one! how do we feel?

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beargirlmj · 2 months ago

Note

an idea for the next story about Kim Minjeong. I really like her in 'Drama' and I'd like a story where she's cold, like she's a troublemaker, you know? Everyone thinks she is mean to the reader, but Winter is very needy in private. It's just an idea, if you're going to write, you can write at your own time :)

Oh, my first request! I loved the idea, so here it is.

Behind the Ice.

genre : fluff.

warning(s) : none.

At school, Kim Minjeong was the kind of person no one dared to contradict. She walked the hallways as if she owned everything, with a closed-off expression and cutting words always at the ready. If you crossed her path, you’d likely receive a chilling glance or a sarcastic comment that would linger in your mind for hours. It was hard to believe that someone like her could have any trace of vulnerability. At least, that’s what everyone believed.

Except you.

When Minjeong passed by you at school, it was always the same scenario. An "accidental" shove, a provocative look, and, of course, a biting comment in front of others. “Don’t be a nuisance, Y/N. I don’t have patience for you.” The laughter around was inevitable, and everyone at school assumed you were her favorite target.

But when classes ended and you were alone, everything changed.

After a long day of provocations, you went to the study room where, once again, you were bound to encounter Minjeong. She was there, as always, already waiting for you. As soon as you walked in, the cold air seemed to vanish almost instantly.

“Finally,” she grumbled, but her voice lacked the sharpness from before. Without waiting for any response, Minjeong stood up from her chair and walked over to you with an expression that was almost... needy.

Before you could react, she wrapped her arms around your waist and pulled you into a tight embrace. The chill from moments ago seemed to have completely evaporated. She buried her face in your neck, and you could feel the warmth of her breath on your skin.

“I missed you,” she murmured against your neck, her voice soft and full of need. You froze for a moment, still trying to process how the girl who had treated you so coldly moments before was now clinging to you as if you were her safe haven.

“Minjeong, you treated me badly all day,” you said, your voice almost confused but not really trying to pull away.

She simply sighed, holding the embrace a little tighter. “I do this because I need to maintain appearances,” she whispered, her lips brushing lightly against your neck. “But here... here I can be myself.” Without warning, she pressed a gentle kiss to the side of your neck, causing an instant shiver to run through your body.

“You’re so strange,” you tried to joke, but your voice trembled slightly with the closeness.

“Shhh,” she mumbled, trailing her lips up to your cheek and leaving a loving kiss there as well, followed by another. And another. It was as if she was trying to make up for all the distance she displayed at school with an overwhelming intensity when you were alone.

“You’re so mean in front of everyone, and then you act like this with me? How does that make sense?” you asked, half laughing at the situation.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice low, still with her face pressed against yours. “But... I need you, Y/N.” Her words were so sincere that for a moment you forgot all the provocations and cold looks you had endured throughout the day. Minjeong pulled you even closer, as if afraid of losing you, and murmured again: “I need you.”

Before you could think of any response, she tilted her head and placed another kiss, this time more lingering, on your neck, making your heart race. You knew Minjeong was needy, but the contrast between her cold demeanor and the desperate way she clung to you in private was something you were still learning to handle.

“Minjeong...” you began, but your voice was interrupted as she continued to place a series of soft kisses on your cheek, her arms still firmly around your waist.

“Don’t say anything,” she asked softly, now with her face buried in your shoulder. “Just stay here with me.”

You sighed, wrapping your arms around her and returning the embrace. In the end, no matter how complicated and confusing Kim Minjeong’s dichotomy was, you knew that deep down, she just wanted to be loved – even if she didn’t know how to show it to the outside world.

#aespa #aespa winter #kim minjeong #kpop #kpop gg #aespa x fem reader #winter x reader #kim minjeong x reader #winter x fem reader #gg kpop #cute #fluff

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amsgrey · 2 years ago

Text

Useful Skills

Shadow Summoner! Fem Reader x Kaz Brekker

SPOILERS for Wylans story arc and season two of shadow and bone.

Slow Burn with Kaz because he deserves someone willing to go his pace.

Synopsis: Kaz needs new blood and it comes in the form of Wylan's childhood best friend. A powerful Grisha.

warnings: angst, I did my best to be accurate to Kaz but show Kaz is a little different from Book Kaz so I'm still learning, general angsty crap, and mention of the reader being related to the darkling (trying to make it a little accurate to the books/show)

You had known Wylan Van Eck for almost 8 years, your mother was a maid in his house. You and your mother lived in the servant's quarters on the Van Eck property, meaning you spent almost all your time around him and his family. You never went to a proper school, your mother didn't want you to when you lived in Ravka in case the Grisha testers came. She kept your abilities hidden until you moved to Ketterdam where Grisha testers wouldn't find you.

Your mother died a few years ago, and you left the Van Eck house and found work as a server in a Pub. It was not a job you were happy with but it kept a roof over your head so you would suffer through it for now. You lost touch with Wylan until one day when he entered the pub with three other people.

You almost didn't recognize him, he hadn't grown much from when he was a child but he looked a little more confident. He was sitting against a lanky zemeni boy, exchanging hopelessly smitten glances. Opposite them was a woman dressed in a beautiful gown and a man clad in all black with almost no skin showing. They were in complete contrast to Wylan and the Zemeni boy, sitting as far away from each other as possible.

It was the end of your shift when another server seated them in a booth at the far end of the pub. You knew you had to walk past them to get to the back, where your bag was stored in a small closet away from customers, but walking past meant possibly being recognized.

You hadn't left the Van Eck residence in good faith, having lost your temper at Wylans father for working your mother into the ground and causing her death. When Wylan had tried to speak with you, you had snapped at him and stormed away. Did he hold that against you and would he be hostile? Why was he here of all places?

You tried not to think about it, walking straight passed the table and through the back. You stumbled around the chefs and untied your apron, shoving it in your bag. You took a deep breath before heading back the way you came. You opened the door and stepped out, sidestepping around another waiter serving food at a table close by. As you tried to walk past the table Wylan was seated at, a cane blocked your path.

You stared down at the black cane blocking your path, following it to the gloved hand which held it. You didn't have to remember his name to know who he was.

The man clad in black stared at you, "Y/N, take a seat."

You almost laughed, stopping yourself before offending the bastard of the barrel, "And why would I do that?"

"Because your skills are wasted here."

You would be lying if you weren't interested. But how did Dirtyhands, leader of the Dregs, know what skills you had?

The Zemeni slid over a little more on his side of the booth, dragging Wylan along with him. You hesitantly sat down, avoiding eye contact with Wylan.

"Hi," Wylan squeaked out, offering a shy smile. Your heart melted slightly Wylan was the kindest soul you had ever met. He wouldn't dare hurt a fly and didn't deserve the mistreatment he got from his father.

"Hey,' You replied, feeling any tension resolve. You offered him a smile, watching the anxiety melt away from his face. To further remove any tension, you stole a piece of bread from his plate that sat untouched in front of him. Picking off a piece and eating it casually.

The girl on the opposite side of the booth giggled, following your lead and humming an appreciative sound at the taste.

"So..?" You turned to Brekker, "What is it exactly that you think my skills are?"

Kaz's eyes flickered from you to Wylan next to you, "Wylan tells me you have a unique talent."

You paused your movements, turning to narrow your eyes at Wylan, "Did he just," You grumbled. You had shown Wylan your summoning when you were both 15. He was your best friend and swore he would never tell another soul, he was the only person you knew who wasn't scared of shadow summoning.

Wylan stumbled over his sentence, "I didn't, uh, tell him everything."

Kaz's face morphed into a scowl.

This time you did laugh, "So you came here on a whim?"

Kaz opened his mouth to speak but was beaten by the woman.

"We need your help to break someone out of Hellgate."

Your face gave away your surprise, you had never been anywhere near Hellgate but you knew the stories, "Hellgate? As in the most secure place in Ketterdam?"

"Wylan seems to think you can help us," Kaz said.

You looked at your childhood friend, thinking over the specifics. You just might be able to help but summoning meant exposing yourself and your abilities. The Fold and The Darkling were gone, but how would people react to another shadow summoner?

"So," the Zemeni spoke, his arm draped over Wylans shoulders, "You in?"

Stepping into the Slat for the first time felt strange. You hadn't been in a warm, dry place for years. Finding it now in the middle of the barrel felt counter intuitive. You weren't expecting it, but once you stepped past the threshold you were hit by a wave of warmth.

You were somewhat jealous, your own room in the boarding house was never this warm. And you lived on the outskirts of the barrel and the financial district.

The bottom of the slat held a bar that had seen better days, to say the least. Kaz led the way to another booth, clearly the group's go-to planning table. Maps of Hellgate and various scribbled notes were perched on the wood.

You slipped into the booth and sat next to Nina, who had talked your ear off the whole walk to the Slat about Matthias the (former) Düskelle and love of her life. You didn't mind, enjoying listening to something more upbeat than the drunken rambles of patrons you were used to. Besides, it was clear she was head over heels and you always tried to help out fellow Grisha.

As Kaz went over what he was planning, you listened intently. He had fleshed out almost every part of the plan, but kept on ending up with one key factor.

"We'll be seen."

You shared a glance with Wylan.

"I can help with that."

Kaz quirked an eyebrow, waiting for you to explain further. You were hesitant, they could fear you and kill you on the spot. Or you might have to kill them.

You looked around the room, by now it was so late into the night that even the bars would be closing. There was no one else in the Slat. The last Dregs had crawled in half an hour ago and were nowhere to be seen. It didn't mean anyone couldn't walk in at any time.

Nina could feel your heartbeat grow more erratic, "No one is around." She said, trying to assure you with her small science.

"The Dregs won't interrupt us while we're in here," Kaz spoke, for a second you thought you saw curiosity in his eyes.

"Just-" You took a shaky breath, you hadn't shown anyone your powers since Wylan. Only using them in hiding to avoid growing weak. For the longest time, your mother scolded you for using your powers, teaching you the dangers of summoning anywhere that wasn't in private.

"Never tell anyone," She would mumble, wrapping you in her arms as you both curled up on the small bed in your room in the servants quarters of the Van Eck Mansion, "Your powers are your gifts, but they are your crimes too, Milaya. If anyone finds out they will punish you."

You broke the rules she set out only once, with Wylan. Were you ready to risk your comfortable life for these people you just met?

"It's hard to explain," You leant back against the booth, twisting your fingers nervously, "It's easier to show."

Kaz gestured impatiently, waiting for you to show them.

"Wylan said your Etherealnik," Jesper said flippantly, "We have a heartrender," He gestured loosely to Nina, "A wonderful durast," He grinned and gestured to himself, "About time we add an Etherealnik.”

You smiled, "Well if you're so sure."

You pressed your palms together, pausing for a second and then pulling them apart. Twisting your hands in opposite directions, your fingers moved independently to call the shadows to you. For a fleeting moment, it was like the world was losing colour, and then darkness was gathering around your hands, amassing between your palms.

You heard Nina gasp but ignored her to focus on your shadows. They reached out in tendrils, spreading up your arms as they tried to block the light from you. You pressed your hands back together, and the shadows expanded quickly and overcame the room, plunging space into pitch black. As soon as the darkness overcame the room, you called it off. Returning the room to its usual light.

Once the room was back to what it was before, you glanced around at the faces of the Crows. Wylan had the same impressed smile he had all those years ago, forever in awe of your powers. Nina was staring wide-eyed at the table, a slightly unreadable look on her face. Jesper's jaw was slack, mouth agape and blinking rapidly.

You were surprised to see Kaz wasn't at all shocked. He had the slightest smirk, not an ounce of fear or hesitation on his features.

"Those skills," He said with the same smirk, "are definitely of use."

Getting into the Hellshow hadn't been an issue. You and Nina had gotten on a boat and calmy taken seats towards the back of the crowd. Nina had to keep her face somewhat hidden, deciding on tailoring herself slightly to avoid Pekka's gaze. She had told you briefly about the last time she was here, trying to deliver the pardon Nikolai Lanstov convinced the Kerch government to write. She had been thrown out on Pekkas orders, pardon ignored. She was forced to leave not knowing how Matthias was.

You felt bad for her, it was hard to be separated from those you loved. Not that you ever had anyone other than your mother, but when she died you would have done anything to bring her back.

"So," You turned to Nina, squished up against her to avoid being too close to the drunken men beside you, "What exactly is the hellshow?"

Nina's brow furrowed in disgust, "The prisoners fight for better living conditions, food, a visit from family. It's barbaric."

She was looking over the crowd, eyes filled with silent fury. You followed her gaze to where a bearded man sat surrounded by burly prisoners. She pointed him out, "Rollins." Her voice held a hatred you hadn't thought possible of her.

You had stopped Kaz the night before, asking him what you were thinking again now, "Why don't we just kill this Pekka Rollins?"

Kaz had given you an annoyed look - although almost all of his looks were annoyed. He gave you no answer, but Jesper had filled you in on how Kaz had something personal against Rollins, something about Rollins running a con that lead to his brother's death. The specifics he didn't know. Kaz was a mystery, even to those that he seemed closest with. He seemed to like it that way. In the week it took for you all to plan the heist, you had learnt very few things about the bastard of the barrel.

Almost immediately you noticed how well he kept his thoughts and emotions hidden. At first, you had jokingly declared you would hate to play cards against him and Jesper confirmed he yet to win against his boss. Then you started to admire him, the calculated look in his eyes and the strength he projected made him the force The Barrel knew him as. Every now and again you could see a crack in his resolve. The way a corner of his mouth would quirk up for a fleeting second when Jesper made a particularly terrible joke. The quick flash of a solemn emotion - regret? pain? - when he was accused of being heartless by Nina or Per Haskell.

The other thing you noticed was entirely by mistake. It was obvious how Kaz was never without his gloves, it was the first thing you noticed about him. You didn't need to know why, everyone had their cruxes. You kept your own hidden, you assumed he did too. Then you noticed how he kept himself away from others. He never stood too close or flinched away from others' touch. You noticed it quickly and adjusted, trying to respect his boundaries. To you, it was the least you could do after what he had done for you.

You didn't think the boy had noticed, but he had. Kaz had been interested in your mysterious nature too. You kept hidden well, he hadn't expected you to shadow summon even though Wylan had warned him you were uniquely talented. He had to make assumptions about you, you looked quiet and well-mannered. But he had been surprised to learn you were anything but. You spoke your mind with little regard for manners or etiquette. Kaz grew to admire it. Not many people argued with Dirtyhands, or offered different plans from his own, but you were constantly challenging his ideas and in many ways, making them better.

Kaz couldn't, however, find your crux. It infuriated him, he found himself watching you and trying to learn more. That infuriated him more.

He could see you seated in the bleachers now, but you couldn't see him. He had slipped into the arena unnoticed by Pekkas men, hiding away from their gazes.

The plan was set in motion when Wylan and Jesper made their first move. You and Nina would then find Matthias' cell and Kaz would lead Jesper and Wylan to you. The plan was to break him out of the cells and smuggle him hidden in your darkness. Nina had told you how Matthias had been unlearning Druskelle's ideas, but he still might be hostile towards you. It made you nervous, using your power in public for the first time with the risk of Matthias messing you up. It was a considerable risk. Nina had tried to reassure you she would prevent him from interfering.

There was a far-off rumbling, then a muffled boom. You and Nina pretended to be startled like the other patrons, adding to the panic as fog started to fill the arena. As the crowd panicked and headed for the exits, you subtly summoned your shadows to extinguish the lamps around the room. The darkness drew more panic. You and Nina used it to slip past the crowds and into the hallway leading to the cells.

You almost stabbed Jesper as he came barreling around the corner in his guard's uniform. He reeled back, hands over his chest in surprise as the sudden blade.

"Saints," You swore, pocketing the knife and reaching to steady the boy, "I thought you would be slower."

“Change in plans,” Kaz said with no further explanation, "Wylan's bombs will distract the guards for a time. We need to find the frejdan quickly."

You nodded, resuming your position and following Nina as she searched for Matthias' heart. Occasionally you would clasp your hand around her wrist - a gesture not missed by Kaz. Nina had figured out quickly you were an amplifier, allowing you to help her search more efficiently. She hadn't told anyone else, because she knew what it meant. A shadow summoner who was also an amplifier? It was undisguisable the relation there.

Your group halted at a large bolted door, Nina mumbled out how she was sure Matthias was in a room beyond.

"What about guards?" Wylan spoke quietly, half hidden by Jesper, who had his pistol in hand. Wylan was in a guard's uniform too, but it looked much bigger on him, giving him an almost adolescent look.

Nina paused, "Three."

You turned to Kaz, watching him as ideas turned around in his mind.

"Wait-" Nina spoke again, crossing her hands together, "There's more than just guards."

"How do you mean?' You pressed.

"There are men in the main space," She explained, "Prisoners perhaps?"

"Rollins." Kaz hissed. None of you could know for sure, but it seemed likely. This changed everything, you had all been operating under the assumption that the prisoners were locked in their cells during security breaches. At least, that had been what Kaz's inside source had told.

"Jesper and I should go in," You said, offering a plan before Kaz could, "I can hide us, Jesper can open the door and-"

"No," Kaz interrupted. You were taken aback, he didn't even let you finish.

"Matthias doesn't know you," Nina said desperately, her voice slightly louder than the whispers in which you had all been conversing. "He won't go with you."

You shook your head in frustration, "I can't hide all of us. Even if I could, we don't have a plan.”

"Everyone stop talking," Kaz snapped, his brows pulled together in concentration.

You bit back a smart remark, it wouldn't do any good now anyway.

"Nina, Jesper," Kaz started, "You take Wylan and create a distraction, explosion or whatever." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a watch, gesturing for Wylan to bring out his own, "When the minute clock is on the 8, something big that ensures we can slip out. Then you go back to Ketterdam, as quickly as possible."

That gave you all 25 minutes but meant Nina wouldn't see Matthias. Nina looked disheartened but waited for Kaz to finish.

"Y/N and I will get Helvar. We'll use the distraction to get out, and meet you back at the Slat."

"How will we get Matthias out of a locked cell?" You hissed.

Kaz fished something out of his pocket, opening his palm to show you the small silver lock pick.

"Of course," You sighed dramatically, "I should have known you know how to pick locks."

Kaz gave you an amused smile and a look that read, Do you even know me?

Nina reached up to her neck, unclasping a necklace she always wore, "Give this to Matthias, so he knows you are with me."

You nodded, tucking the necklace in the pocket of your skirt to keep it safe.

Kaz sent the three away but not before Jesper worked his Durast science and unlocked the door.

You turned to Kaz, "I can hide us, block the light, but I can't disguise sound."

Kaz followed your gaze to his cane, nodding once in understanding.

You took a deep breath, it was now or never. Kaz pulled the door open as quietly as possible, watching your face contort in effort as you called shadows to you to surround the both of you.

You turned to Kaz before stepping into the room, "You'll have to stay close."

You didn't wait for his response, just took a dubious step into the room and pressed against the wall. Nina had said Matthias was in the 5th door on the left, but once you had entered you realized just how open the space was.

The fifth door was in the middle of the circular space, the only cover would be from Pillars of stone that held the roof up. You spared a glance at Kaz, who was standing mere centimetres away from you on your back, his cane held firmly in his grasp off the ground. Standing so close to him felt different, you hadn't expected him to be so cold. It was like he was drawing your heat away from you, which you welcomed. You were always too warm, something about the effort of summoning made you overheat easily. Your mother used to say your skin always felt feverish. Now for the first time, you felt balanced.

Kaz felt it too. How heat rolled off of you in waves. Being so close to you warmed him, which seemed impossible. He hadn't felt warmth since he was a boy, since before the Queen Lady’s Plague. You sensed his unease, looking at him and offering the smallest of apologies, your voice so quiet he hardly heard it.

He nodded for you to continue, trying not to get caught up in the feeling of being close to you. You both counted the doors as you inched along, stopping as you reached the fifth door. Kaz slowly bent down, and you spotted a flash of pain as he moved his leg. He faced the lock and started working while you stood beside him watching the courtyard.

Nina was right, there were more than three men in the room. At least eight were seated around a makeshift table, sitting on the table itself was one Pekka Rollins. You could hear the vulgar conversation he was keeping, it made you think about how much Kaz hated him. You startled when there was a soft clang, the noise echoing off the cobble walls. You turned to look at Kaz, who was silently cursing himself and staring at the lockpick resting on the floor.

"What was that?" A rough voice groused.

Rollins climbed up from his seat, he took a few slow steps towards where you were hidden in the shadows. The lanterns on the walls weren't lit, you had made sure to block the one that was nearby on a pillar to avoid any obvious shadows. Rollins was staring into the darkness like he could see you, it made you so nervous you could feel your heart beating out of your chest.

Rollins snatched a lantern from the table, holding it up and taking a few more slow steps. You tried to step back slightly but only nudged Kaz. If he noticed, he didn't react, still working on the lock. As Pekka drew closer, the lock clicked open, allowing Kaz to push the door open. He blindly reached out, grabbing your wrist, pulling you into the cell, and shutting the door behind you as quietly as possible. Almost as quickly as he had held your wrist, he let go, stepping away as you held your palms facing up to draw the shadows back into the room to avoid Rollin's suspicions.

Thankfully, it was only Matthias in the cell. He had stirred from sleep at the sounds of footsteps, when he opened his eyes you stumbled around Kaz to shove your hands over Matthias' mouth to stop any words from coming out. The Frejdan made a disgruntled noise, sleep leaving his eyes and his hands locking onto your wrists with a deathly tight grip.

"You alive in there, Helvar?" Rollin's accent gave way to his chuckle, he kicked the door, causing it to rattle and groan.

You and Kaz stared at Matthias, urging him to keep his mouth shut. With any luck, Pekka would leave and chalk it up to the sleepy groans of a prisoner. You should have known luck was not on your side.

"Helvar," Rollins barked, this time bringing his fist against the door.

You pulled your hands away from the druskelle. Mouthing "Please" to him.

"Leave me be," The Frejdan spoke hoarsely.

Rollins let out an ugly chuckle from the other side of the door but after another few tense moments, you heard footsteps moving away.

You stepped back, accidentally bumping into Kaz in the cramped space. Matthias moved from the cot, fixing you and Kaz with a dirty glare that made you even more nervous.

"Who are you?"

"We're friends of Nina," You tried to explain, beating Kaz to speak because you knew he would only escalate the situation.

Matthias' face turned sourer, within a blink of an eye he was moving. You had no time to react as he grabbed you and pushed you against the wall, his forearm pressing against your throat. He put enough pressure to limit your air, like he was trying to warn you, not to hurt you. You quickly touched your hands together and reached out to summon. Matthias grabbed your wrist and slammed it against the wall. It made a sick crack, pain blooming through your wrist and hand. You let out a string of curses, biting your tongue to avoid being too loud.

Kaz used the crow end of his cane to press against Matthias' neck, "I suggest you let go, Helvar."

Matthias let out a soft growl as he spoke, "Who are you?"

His accent was so pronounced, every word he spoke in Kerch was thick with the Frejdan accent he would never be rid of.

"Friends of Nina," You insisted, "In my left pocket, Nina gave me her necklace."

Matthias loosed his grip slightly, looking from your face to your skirt's pockets. He let go of your wrist, but you daren't move it. He slowly fished out the necklace, holding it up to study the delicate chain. He slowly moved his forearm off of you, stepping back and staring at you with wide eyes.

As soon as he was the step back, you pulled your wrist to your chest. Kaz's eyes flickered from you to the giant Frejdan in the middle of you.

"Can you..?"

You shook your head, "Maybe," you pulled your wrist away from your chest and flexed your fingers. Pain shot up your arm, causing your face to twist in a grimace.

"You are..." Matthias paused, "...Grisha."

You nodded, "I was our ticket out of here."

Kaz scowled at the Frejdan, something about his look made you think he might leave the Drüskelle here after all.

"I'll make it work," You said, pushing the pain to the back of your mind to continue with the job.

Kaz looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't. He tried to move over as much as he could letting you shuffle past and stand in front of the door.

You turned to look at the druskelle, "Don't make any noises, they will hear it."

Matthias' brows pinched together, he looked to Kaz for an explanation but the boy just ordered him to stay close.

You took a deep breath, forcing your broken hand to open so that you could summon. Moving your fingers was hard, they were reluctant to dance like usual when you summoned. You pressed past it, drawing the shadows to conceal your group, opening the door slowly and sneaking out. Kaz and Matthias stayed close behind you, following you all around the room back to the exit. As you solely opened the door, a far-off bell started to sound.

"Jesper," Kaz said quietly.

You nodded, quietly slipping into the corridor and ushering Kaz and Matthias in too. You dropped the shadows once the door closed, ignoring the incredulous stare Matthias was giving you. Kaz led the way back through the corridors and winding hallways, leaning heavily on his cane as he walked. You knew that the time he had spent off it must have caused him pain, you felt bad that the plan had gone so terribly wrong.

Kaz seemed to always have a backup plan because he led you and Matthias out of Helgate like a man on a mission. You stumbled along behind him, keeping your wrist held to your chest. Kaz led you and Matthias down a stairway, the door at the end lead into the night air. You were surprised to find a small balcony, a rotten wooden platform perched on the rocks. The saltwater had eroded away the wood on the front, making it creak and flake dangerously under your feet. Kaz made quick work of slipping down the platform and onto the rocks, he pressed his palm against the wall to steady himself. He turned back to you and Matthias waiting impatiently for you both to follow him. Matthias went first, stepping down easily, making the drop look like a small step. You tried to step down with some sense of balance, but your foot found a slippery rock and you tripped forward. You hit into Kaz, who steadied you with a hand to your bad arm. You hissed and recoiled, watching Kaz's face change.

"Sorry," You whispered, noticing how he swallowed thickly, panic barely contained in his eyes.

Kaz took a moment, looking at your genuine expression. He knew that you knew, but you made no move to ask about it his weakness. For that, he was grateful.

Kaz pushed out of his haunted thoughts, turning and leading the way across the rocks and around the outside of Hellgate. You had been walking for ten minutes when the rocks started to mix with chunks of rubble. Walking on the rocks with the rubble moving underneath your feet became harder. You all slowed down and clung to the wall for the extra support it gave.

"Saints," You murmured when you came across the gaping hole in the wall made by Wylans explosives.

"Wylan knows what he's doing," Kaz quipped, slight amusement in his tone.

It took your small group at least two hours to get back to the Slat. The majority of that time was spent in a tiny row boat getting sloshed by freezing water. You were sat next to Kaz while Matthias rowed, you had offered your help but he had huffed in Frejdan something that seemed like 'I can do it myself'.

By the time you all had entered the Slat, there had been no one on the streets and you were freezing. Matthias seemed to be dealing with the cold best, no doubt his childhood in the icy Frejda had trained him well. You and Kaz were shivering as you stumbled along, all of you were damp from your trip on the sea. Your skirts were soaked, making them heavier and heavier as you walked.

Stepping into the Slat would usually warm you up, but this time it didn't. You could see Wylan and Jesper sitting at the bar, watching Nina pace up and down. They all snapped to look at you when the door slammed shut behind you. Nina let out a tiny squeal, running and throwing herself into Matthias' arms. You and Kaz looked on briefly before stumbling further into the room.

"Saints," Jesper looked both of you up and down, "We thought maybe you'd died."

You let out a chuckle, "You can't kill weeds."

Kaz looked at you surprised and you offered him a smile.

"What happened?" Wylan asked, watching Nina and Matthias approach arm in arm.

Kaz fixed Matthias with a glare, "Your oaf broke Y/N's wrist."

Nina looked from Matthias to you, then stepped forward to assess your wrist. You offered her your hand without complaint, letting her heal it the little she could.

"It was a mistake," You defended Matthias, mostly from Kaz's dark stare.

Later that night, which had turned more to early morning, you sought out Kaz in his room. You had changed into dry clothes, your wrist wrapped to keep it steady until morning when you would find a healer. You walked up to Kaz's door, then hesitated. What if he was asleep?

You knocked anyway, gently so as to not startle him.

"Yes?"

You pushed the door open, stepping into the room slightly. Kaz didn't even turn from his perch at his desk to look at you.

"I- uh," Your voice came out much quieter than you were expecting, almost sounding broken.

Kaz stopped scribbling on the paper on front of him.

"I just wanted to ask," You spoke clearer this time, "If you were okay?"

Kaz turned to look at you this time, surprised. After a few days with the bastard of the barrel, you had gotten better at reading his subtle emotions. Even the ones he tried to hide deep in his eyes. Like the anxiety when you touched him, or again on the boat.

Kaz didn't answer, he didn't have to.

"You don't have to answer," You said after a moment of silence passed, "Everyone has their..." You searched for the right word.

"Weaknesses," Kaz said.

"Weaknesses." You agreed.

You took a small step forward, testing the waters. Kaz didn't tell you to back off or look fearful.

"We all have them," You continued.

Kaz nodded once, "And you?"

You smiled, "Dirtyhands doesn't know?"

Kaz looked away and sighed in exasperation.

You stepped closer, approaching the desk, "It's this."

You summoned your shadows, forming them into a small tangled shape in your palm. The shadows reached up your arm, trying to tangle their way around you. You dismissed them, staring at the empty space above your palm.

Kaz thought about how wrong you were.

"If you ever need to share," You took a step back, "I'll be here."

You left him at his desk, exiting the room and closing the door behind you. Maybe it would take some time, but you were willing to wait if it meant becoming someone Kaz Brekker could rely on.

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gatorbites-imagines · 11 months ago

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Hello!

I've been getting very into DC again, from all the comics I had in my attic.

So i would like to request a "meeting the batfam" like think.

Being Bruce's new boyfriend and meeting the kids and how would they react.

Have a nice day! (You're the only think keeping me from commiting a crime/jk)

Bruce Wayne x male reader

Headcanons

Ive been on a kick lately of making half-god characters, so reader is the son of a god, hehe ^^

You were the son of Ares, a half god, and the son of a god most feared, and that the Justice league had fought many times.

So, by relation, many people didn’t trust you when they learned about your parentage. Had you been any crueler of a person, that might have driven you down a path where you followed in your fathers’ footsteps, but you weren’t.

You ended up inheriting many of his powers, even gaining his clairvoyance and precognition in dreams. Said dreams had been your first sign that you were more than just your average person, as you foresaw many of the larger disasters around the world.

There ends up being a sense of duty in your heart as your dreams keep warning you about an invasion of earth, becoming more and more detailed every night. It reaches a point where you think you are going mad.

As a last-ditch effort, you end up in Gotham, where you spend days trying to find any of the bats, just trying to find somebody to believe you. In the end, you stumble across Bruce, who probably thinks you are on something because of the less than put together state you are in.

That is until you spill everything you have been dreaming about, and how its all happened, and how this dream keeps haunting you every night.

Bruce of course listens to everything you have to say, and takes you as seriously as anything else he would. He keeps your warning in mind and gets prepared, and when your precognition comes to pass, he is ready.

From then in, Bruce passes by your place every now and then, as you end up moving to Gotham as Batman is the only hero you feel takes you seriously.

Hes the one to help you figure out your true parentage, and gets you in contact with some people who can help you deal with your new developing powers. You two end up bonding a lot, and over time, fall in love.

You both make each other feel like a full person and like you are understood. The relationship is kept quiet on Bruces end, not because he doesn’t trust his family or anything, but because he just wants to keep it to himself for a bit.

It does get a bit hard to hide the hand shaped bruises on his hips or torso when your godly strength slips out, but Bruce has lived with worse aches and bruises in his life, so its not something people notice.

You never went out of your way to become a hero, even with your godly powers. You are happy living your life and being together with Bruce, much of your stress gone since you know Bruce will believe you when it comes to your dreams.

When the day finally comes where you go to meet his family, you can’t help but feel a little nervous. Sure, you’ve met them in passing as their vigilante alter egos, when they’ve followed Bruce during his meetings with you, but this will be as Bruces lover.

Bruce is endeared by how hard you want to make a good impression, how you fuss with your hair and your clothes to be most presentable. When you ask him if you need to bring a gift or something, he just laughs a little and kisses your forehead, telling you to stop worrying as he’s sure they’ll love you.

The family all know Bruce is bringing his lover that night for family dinner, but they all don’t know who it is, even Alfred is in the dark.

They are all a bit on edge, as Bruce doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to partners. And since he didn’t tell them a name, they assume its not the people he’s normally been with, like Selina or Talia.

Imagine their surprise when Bruce arrives with you on his arm, from your civilian clothes to your sheepish smile, to you looking downright nervous to meet them as you clearly want to make a good first impression.

It might take a bit for any of them to recognize you, as only a few of them might have met you in passing, but you probably end up telling them during dinner when they ask how you and Bruce met.

I can’t see them being against you more than they would any other partner, especially when you go out of your way to use your dreams and abilities to help as many people as possible.

Cass is most likely the one to warm up to you first, as she can easily read that you are a good person who loves Bruce very much, and Cass’s approval makes the others become less tense and more open to the idea of you.

Alfred is also happy that Bruce has found someone who isn’t a criminal or assassin for once, even though they all know you could punch a guy to smithereens if you wanted too, thanks to your godly strength.

But your personality makes it clear that’s not something you want to do, so that gives you extra points in their books. They most likely use their knowledge from Diana and her parentage when it comes to you, incase you end up doing something a little too godly without realizing.

They’ve all been around many different kinds of people and beings, so I don’t think anything you do put them off. They’ll all just need time to warm up to you, and see with their own eyes that you truly do love Bruce, and that Bruce loves you back just as much.

It would take a while, as they were all trained by Bruce and are all suspicious of anybody and take forever to trust. It starts to make you think they’ll never like you, even when Bruce tells you they will, they just need time.

You know you’ve gained their trust when they start showing up in your apartment, be it after patrol, during the day, or any other time, they’re likely to just appear. This also means you end up learning a lot more first aid than you thought you’d ever need.

The last to trust you is Damian, but you can tell you scored a win when he demands you learn self-defense, as your form is horrible, and he drags you down to the cave to walk you through the basics.

Bruce feels like his heart could burst with love when he sees his family accepting you, and he couldn’t be any happier. The batfam is pretty damn happy too, as Bruce starts taking care of himself because of you.

Can’t have a date if he hasn’t slept in days, or if he’s covered in bruises or has broken bones. You probably end up spending a lot of time at the manor too, since Bruce can’t just go into town to spend time in your apartment during the day, or else the paparazzi would find out about the relationship almost immediately.

So, all in all, his kids would like you quite a lot after they got enough time to learn what kinda person you were, and what your morals were. They might even start seeing you as a safe person to go too when they need someone to talk too or just need some company.

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milkbobatyun · 2 months ago

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till death do us part

pairing: jiaoqiu x gn!reader

genre: fluff, angst

summary: your dream was to be a healer, his was just to follow you, so how did it end up this way?

word count: 1.1k

a/n: wrote this before 2.5 was released (because i loved him the moment i saw his release) , this is just my own headcanon about why jiaoqiu "withdrew from medicine with a broken heart", hope yall enjoy (,, . ̫. ,,)

for as long as you could remember, a certain, teasing pink furred foxian stuck to your side like a burr. he followed you everywhere, like a shadow, though the jiaoqiu then would protest otherwise. he was your protector, he would huff, cheeks puffed out in indignation.

sometimes, jiaoqiu led you through the warbling creeks and rustling bushes, on a mission to help you find herbs. other times, you led him by the hand, playing general and soldier in the streets. the locals knew, if they wanted to find either of you, spotting the other half of the duo would often lead them to the person they wanted.

your childhood aspiration was to practise medicine and become the best healer, while his was more simple-minded. he just wanted to follow you, to be with you.

“to the ends of the planet?” young jiaoqiu’s head wobbled forwards and back fervently in agreement. “but what if i die?” hearing those words, jiaoqiu’s busy hands froze, eyes growing comically large, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. his soft ears flattened against his head in displeasure, sticky fingers reaching out to pinch your baby fat. “no! stop thinking like that!” he chided.

your tinkling laughter hugged his fluffy ears. “im just kidding, no need to look so worried.” you dismissed easily, turning back to sorting your herbs.

jiaoqiu’s nose crinkled as he looked down at the pile of bitter-smelling herbs, before his shoulders slumped in despair. they all looked the same, how was he ever going to learn them all?

seeing his face, you quietly chuckled into your hand.

“silly goose!” you teased. “you dont need to study medicine if you find it so hard.”

jiaoqiu pouted, feigning sadness at your teasing, tail drooping sadly towards the floor, a frown surfacing on his face.

he only hoped that there wouldn’t come a day that he would regret not taking up medicine.

the wintery cold lingered in the air, jiaoqiu’s sensitive nose picked up the hints of the scent of spring. time had flown by quickly, his initially small and pudgy figure shooting up to an unfair height, his face sharpening, growing into those classic foxian features. it was down right injustice really, how such a man had a wonderful and pleasing face as his.

though you didn’t realise it, your own height had lengthened too. if you asked jiaoqiu, you looked as striking as your youth, if not even more. every time he saw you, his heart would beat quicker. your touch sending sparks flying on his skin, the warmth lingered after your hand was long gone.

jiaoqiu could only thank the aeons that his ears were not the colour of a tomato, though he doubts his soft cheeks could say the same. whenever he saw you, a cloud of red dusted his cheeks.

the loud, red firecrackers boomed in the courtyard of the yaoqing. cheers of joy and sobs of relief echoed behind.

today was the graduation of the yaoqing healers. after so many years of hard work in the pollen and dust filled cabinets of the yaoqing medicine storage, you were glad to be out of the stuffy old place.

though jiaoqiu didn’t outwardly express his joy like you, his secretive smile and curved eyes told enough of his happiness. he was proud of you, fearlessly taking on every challenge learning medicine had thrown at you and creating your own solutions.

when you eagerly ran up to him, he engulfed you in his warm embrace, one tooth-achingly sweet grin from you cracking jiaoqiu’s mask, a suppressed grin of amusement and adoration surfacing from beneath. with your signature clap and handshake, the two of you made your way home, you skipping along the path, while jiaoqiu sauntered behind you, listening to your cheerful chatter.

how did it end up this way? it was supposed to be a routine round…

you were merely assigned to patch up wounded soldiers. so how was it that you were now bloodied, clinging to that thinning thread of life?

the rain poured down, a witness to the tears of jiaoqiu. his arms cradled your fragile body close to his chest, his warmth a campfire that roared against the encroaching cold.

the droplets slapped across your cheeks, a harsh reminder that you were clinging onto the edge of consciousness. the world was a blur of rain and darkness. you were vaguely aware of a warmth pressing against your cheek. you peeled open your tired eyes, trying to gain a sense of where you were. last you remembered, the encampment had been attacked.

“jiaoqiu?” you whispered out feebly, the words barely escaping your lips, which were slowly turning blue. “im cold. i feel so cold… i think im bleeding somewhere, it hurts...” you nestle in towards jiaoqiu’s warmth, seeking warmth as the cold seeped deeper into your bones. “you’re warm…” you trail off, the chattering of your teeth drowning out the rest of your words. your thoughts began to fade away, slowly bleeding out, like the blood from your wound.

how did it end up this way?

jiaoqiu’s trembling fingertips frantically tapped against your cheek, eyes wide with fear and desperation, in an effort to keep you awake.

you blinked up weakly at jiaoqiu, focusing your energy on staying awake. “jiaoqiu?” you meekly called out. “you look better when you smile, smile for me…please?” you pleaded quietly.

through the raindrops and tears that coated his face, jiaoqiu tried to smile, the corners of his lips twitching into a sad smile. seeing him give you a feeble grin, your face mirrored his, a shallow smile etched on your face.

‘if only i knew how to stop the bleeding…if only i learned, instead of giving up halfway, maybe i could be more use.’ jiaoqiu thought bitterly to himself, scorning his own stupidity.

with an effort, your shaking hand reached up towards jiaoqiu’s face, cradling his cheek. “dont be sad, smile for me. thank you for being with me.” you whispered.

“please dont leave me.” jiaoqiu pleaded, his voice cracking with sadness. “we still have so much to do. you’re gonna be ok.” jiaoqiu chanted the last 4 words like a mantra, a prayer that the aeons turned a deaf ear to.

the surrounding din of the world faded away, your life playing back before your eyes. you thought of all the moments you had shared with this sly foxian, wishing for just one more day, nay, even a second and you would be satisfied. but jiaoqiu was here, holding onto you and that was enough.

a final sighing breath slipped from your lips, your eyes losing their spark. your hand fell away from his cheek, head lolling to the side. in death, you were serene, a faint smile on your face—an angel taken too soon.

the rain fell harder, as though the heavens themselves were mourning your death, while jiaoqiu bowed his head, tears cascading like a waterfall of sorrow.

taglist (open): @yeonjunsfox

#honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #jiaoqiu #jiaoqiu x reader #honkai star rail x you #hsr x you #jiaoqiu x you #hsr #hsr jiaoqiu #honkai star rail jiaoqiu #x reader #jiaoqiu angst #angst #hsr angst #hsr x gender neutral reader

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brummiereader · 5 days ago

Text

Binding Love (Part Three/ Dark!Tommy)

Summary: An evening of drinks gets quickly interrupted by your husband's paranoia and demand for answers. How far will Tommy go in his quest to keep you as his wife? And will you ever learn of the sinful acts he's kept buried?

Warnings: Dark!Tommy, language, violence, psychological mind games, controlling behaviour, toxic relationship, manipulative behaviour, psychological abuse, mutual pining, angst, murder.

Word Count: 4.5K

[Masterlist] [Previous Part] [Trailer]

"So drinks on you, yeh Tom?" Arthur sniffed with an eager grin, rubbing his hands together as Tommy pulled the key from the ignition, silently surveying the dimly lit bar until his eyes found you sat behind the foggy window with a glass of wine perched between your fingers, your plump lips smiling to the unknown man accompanying you.

"What's with him?"John quietly muttered, resting his arm on the back of Arthur's seat as he cocked his head to your husband whose lack in response had both brothers regretting the night they had planned in the Garrison for an evening with Tommy's sour mood, and now, questionable motives.

" Y/N" Arthur mumbled back, following with a huffy sigh as Tommy's heart began to rapidly thud within his chest, a cold film of sweat settling on his creased brow as he took in the gutt punching sight of you sat in an intimate setting with somebody that wasn't him.

And then it came, a hand to your back, a brush of a thumb over your clothed skin. The catalyst that would stop him watching silently on the sidelines with gritted teeth, impatiently waiting for you to become aware of his presence before all restraints were lost, and he made himself known in true, Tommy fashion.

You had lied to him, Tommy's jaw clenched as he threw open his door, slamming it shut with enough force to rattle its metal frame before his heavy steps stormed along the cobbled path to the small, rickety tavern door. Lied.

" I'm sorry for wasting your time, Mr Wyatt" you looked into your glass, swirling the last of your Bordeaux into a crimson whirlpool as you regretted each spoken word that had your future slipping away from you.

" I just don't think I'm quite ready after not having worked for so long. And then there's my daughter, she needs me" your cheeks reddened with embarrassment, doubting your ability with a cascade of excuses, that you, you, would be a valued employee in a reputable company your husband would see it met its demise if you dared to take the job without his consent.

" I understand" the suited gentlemen replied with a brief, reassuring hand to your back.

"The position is yours, for when you're ready" he promised, giving you a way to enter the workforce as an independent woman, free form the constraints of your husband after things had settled between you both.

" Thank you, really" you replied with an appreciative smile, tucking a rebellious lock behind your ear as you brought your handbag into your lap.

" One for the road?" The raven haired man suggested, nodding to your glass as he scooted of his wooden chair to his feet.

" Oh...ok, why not" you nervously clutched your fingers around your clasped bag, eager to leave after having wasted his day, to get through the barrage of questions without hassle you knew awaited you when you returned home.

Eyes scanning the room, you held your breath as your gaze darted from every lone man to every darkened corner, expecting to see one of your husband's henchmen keeping a watchful eye on you.

But with the absence of Tommy and any punter sporting the infamously coiffed cut, you breathed a sigh of relief as a sense of normality to your evening relaxed your nerves.

Maybe Tommy had truly meant what he said? That he would try harder, change for the best? your chest filled with hope, dousing the flames of frustration you had with your husband's constant attempts to control your every move as you let yourself settle comfortably into your chair next to the crackling fireplace illuminating the lowly lit room.

Closing your eyes, you basked in the warmth of the flames heating your cheeks when a gust of wind followed by a scattering of crisp leaves drifted into the bustling pub as the paneled door swung open to the ring of the bell hovered over its frame.

Clutching your body from the sudden rush of cold, your eyes opened to the sound of the landlord lowly greeting his newest customer as a familiar, gravelly voice seeped its way through the rowdy laughs of men and women spending their weekly pay. Tommy.

"Fuck sake, 'ere we go" Arthur mumbled, faced with Tommy's true intentions for the night as he ushered John to the bar for the double whiskey, urgently calling his name.

With glaring eyes and long determined strides, your husband closed the distance between you as your spine stiffened with readiness, head nervously darting back and forth between Mr Wyatt and Tommy's feral stare, weighing him up with each heavy step when his attention snapped to you as you rose to your feet.

" Sit" he commanded as he pulled out the chair opposite you, calmly reaching in his suit jacket for a cigarette as you slid down into the wooden stool with widened eyes.

" Tommy i..." you stopped yourself as you watched him blow a billow of smoke to the ceiling, the fumes momentarily clouding the empty space between you until you were met with his darkened stare silently staring back at you like a disappointed parent would with their unruly child. The sight alone, enough to have your heart plummet to your stomach with dread.

For a silent Tommy, a scheming, concocting Tommy, was the worst version of your husband anyone would have the unfortunate pleasure of facing.

And yet here you were, your status as his wife not enough to save you from his anger and the torturous wait you'd endure until he finally snapped.

" I brought you here, remember? Our fifth date?" he broke the heavy silence that had settled above you both as you swallowed back your apprehension to talk, nodding to the memories he wanted to indulge in.

"Was quite eager to get out of here by the end of the night" his lips creased with a boyish smile, tapping the ash from the coiled cylinder of tobacco into the glass tray next to him.

"And if my memory serves me right, so were you" he leaned back in his chair, pointing to you with his cigarette perched between his fingers as he exuded the charm and allure you fell for all those years ago, your cheeks blushing at the glimpse of the man you had married.

With knowing looks mutually shared, you let yourself slip into the memory of that evening as Tommy's hand reached for yours, thumb brushing longingly over the indent where your wedding ring once sat, his hooded eyes drifting up to the soft smile dimpling your cheeks as your fingers danced in unison around his.

" And now that night's been stained" his mood suddenly changed as he dragged his hand along the wooden table away from you, the seething tone of his voice ambushing the foolish sentiments you still had for him, the shift away from his former self you'd spend nights yearning for brutally snatched from your hands.

" We were just having a celebratory drink, Tommy. I got the job, but...but..." You let the rest of your words fall to the back of your tightening throat, knowing the unconvinced cock of your husband's brow enough to come to the quick conclusion that he not only found your explanations feeble, but laughable. Convinced that your limited skills and work experience weren't adequate enough to get you a job you wouldn't have to flirt your way through for.

" Our daughter was asking after you, asking where you were before she went to bed" his brow of judgment lowered as he snapped his head away to the burning fire, abruptly changing the course of conversation to one that would have you feeling another dose of guilt for the day's events.

" Didn't have the heart to tell her that her mum's out fucking another man, ripping our family apart. Too busy for us, too busy to read her a bedtime story, give her a kiss goodnight. What are you not busy for, eh? he scoffed, knowing the exact combination of buttons to push to cause upset as he waited, watching your reaction in the corner of his eyes.

" Tommy that's not what's happening, it was just a drink" you began to panic, fearing the lengths your husband would go, the divide he'd drive between mother and daughter to get his way.

" I've not been with anyone, you know that" your eyes began to well with tears, feeling defeated by your six year olds name being brought into the conversation, from the heavy allegations he was now accusing you of.

" That so?" a small paper bag of ground ginger got tossed to you along with Tommy's rapidly seeping anger.

"You've been in my room?" Your eyes darted from the satchel of spices to the searing glare of your husband boring into you.

"Our room" he was quick to correct you, refusing to acknowledge your new living arrangements for what they really were.

" I can't sleep, I can't sleep because of you, Tommy. Because of you, because all of this, day in day out!" You snapped, throwing the bag at his chest as you stood up to leave, only to be dragged back down with a sharp pull of your arm.

"Here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna go outside and throw this shit up..." he seethed with disdain, wavering the packet in front of your teary eyes as he continued to believe his version of events.

" I won't" you interrupted, unwilling to cater to his paranoia as you whipped your head away from him.

" And if you dont...If you don't, eh?" He leant over the table, capturing your chin between his fingers, forcing you to acknowledge him. "I'll fucking make you. Understood?" you struggled with his tightening grasp, attempting to get away from his raging jealously and the spiral of paranoia he was adamant on bringing you down to meet him in the pits with.

" It's to fall asleep, Tommy. I'm not...I haven't been with anyone else" You shook your head of the tears pooled in your eyes, desperately trying to reason with the insanity that had overtaken any rational thought he had left.

"I won't have you seeing another man, do you understand me? I won't have my daughter around another fucking man, Y/n! Your dating life ends tonight" he abruptly pulled you into the table by your arm, his anger raging into your ear through gritted teeth.

" I'm not your wife, anymore. You don't get to do this, you don't get to tell me what I can and can't do!" the sting of your ribs hitting the wooden table, bubbling enough anger within you to bite back.

"But you are, sweetheart. By law, you still are" his fury rapidly sizzled out with a smug smirk as he let go, settling back into his chair as calmly as he first had.

" Excuse me, who are you?" Mr Wyatt suddenly appeared with two glasses of whiskey as you and Tommy stared each other down, your shaky body and tear-stained cheeks only a minor cause of concern for your husband, whose cold eyes continued to scold you.

" Here" Tommy pulled a note from the rolled bundle of cash within his jacket, sliding it into the man's chest pocket before taking the two tumblers of liquor he downed in succession.

" Go on then, fuck off" Tommy settled into his chair, ushering the man away like he was nothing but a busboy, slaving sixty hours a week taking orders from junked-up businessmen for minimum wage.

" I don't think he's listening to me, darling" Tommy's brow creased as he eyed up the man from head to toe who was stood momentarily stunned by the stranger who had not only taken his seat but whose brash attitude had just insulted him.

" Is this man bothering you, Y/N?" Mr Wyatt turned from the challenging stare of your husband to do the unthinkable, touch you.

Within the blink of an eye your husband snapped. Too quick for Arthur and John to react, too quick for you to pull him back. For in the mere seconds it took, Tommy had the man pushed up against the bar, a fist full of his collared shirt scrunched between his hands.

" First name basis, eh?" What were your plans with my wife tonight?" Tommy's fist began to twist the fabric of the man's shirt within his hand, cutting the oxygen from his heaving lungs.

" Tommy! Enough!" You screamed, trying to pull your husband from the man that had shown you nothing but respect, nothing but kindness.

" Fellas, fellas. Alright, come on now, ay?" Arthur settled his hand on his brother's straining arm, calmly nodding to the landlord behind the bar, that he, the eldest of the Shelby clan, had everything calmly under control for once.

"Nice suit" Tommy scoffed, patting down Wyatt's crumpled shirt before releasing his hand, taking in the terror he'd caused the fumbling man with a satisfied smirk.

"Here, have one on me" your husband tossed a coin to his feet, giving the man no choice but to lower himself to Tommy's game and pick up the penny in what one could only assume was your husband's way of belittling him even further.

Scoffing at the weak sight before him, Tommy's smirk quickly dissipated as he watched the gentleman who had accompanied you to the bar shoot you a look of both concern and mercy that you'd help him make it home unharmed.

" That's enough for tonight, ay Tom? Tom?" Arthur shook his shoulder with a firm shake, shaking him from the heavy silence that had descended over the room, that same concocting, scheming silence that had everyone tethering on the edge as to what your husband would do next.

Snapping his eyes away, Tommy turned to face the fear laced within yours as he rolled his shoulders, stare sheepishly darting away from you to clear his throat in attempt to recompose himself of the fury that was one stroke of a match away from igniting once again.

His anger with you had been laid bare for all to see, and as your husband waited for you to say something to mask the horrified face staring back at him, all you could do was stay silent. Concocting...scheming your way out of your dreaded marriage Tommy was hellbent on dragging everyone but himself down with.

Leaning the weight of your body onto the wooden table of your foyer, you kicked off your shoes one by one, silently glaring at your husband whose hooded eyes watched your every move over the tumbler of whiskey gripped between his fingers.

"How longs your silent treatment gonna last this time then, love? A day, a week?" A scoffing chuckle lowly rumbled from his chest as he swallowed back the last of the liquor, teeth baring at its sharp notes seeping down his throat.

"S'pose I deserve it" his brows rose to crease the thin lines on his temple as he settled his glass on the table beside him. The twisting pout of his lips enough to convince you that his version of taking the blame was in fact, a pitiful attempt to have you thaw the cold shoulder he didn't believe he deserved.

With no patience left to cater to his change in mood to one of self-pity as he brushed off the night's events, you turned for the staircase with determined steps in an attempt to distance yourself from his brooding temper.

" That's it then, eh? We're not gonna talk?" His eyes followed you as you reached the second floor of your home, catching the scoff that left your lips. A small show of defiance that had him bolting up after you within seconds.

Adamant on checking your daughter's well-being, you turned onto the dimly lit hallway with quiet steps when your course of trajectory got abruptly pulled in the opposite direction to your master bedroom.

"Eh! " He continued his attempts to have you face him, storming after your beeline for the adjoining bathroom as you removed the blouse that had started the argument as Tommy's reaching hands met with the slam of the door you had closed your self off behind with the turn of the lock.

"Y/N listen to me, you need to understand" he jostled the door handle with a frustrated sigh, eyes darting for something sturdy enough to pry it open as he kicked your discarded top to the side while you slipped your trembling body into your dressing gown.

He could kick it down, he thought to himself, settling his hands on his hips, deciding that he would be the better person and proceed like an adult instead of following the bratty behaviour you had shown.

" Darling I'm having a hard time with this, you're giving me a hard time. Open the door so we can talk" He rested the weight of his body with both hands laid flat on the bathroom door, shoulders looming over the dark shadow cast beneath him.

"You've lost yourself, Tommy" your sobbing response finally set itself free, the weeping admission enough to have your husbands clenched jaw grind away the truth he refused to face into passing words that held no weight.

" That man did nothing wrong, I did nothing wrong" you rested your body on the mahogany barrier separating you, head tilting back with a thud as your tears flowed free.

" I'm keeping you safe darling" a heavy sigh left his lungs as he propped his frame against the door.

"Y/N?" he waited on your response, hearing your breath drop with disappointment when a surge of nervousness heated your blood at the question that had suddenly crept into your thoughts after having seen Tommy's unpredictable temper that night.

" Tommy?" You turned on your side, cheek pressed up against the door as your trembling hand settled on the polished wooden, nervously picking at its carved frame as a wave of panic suddenly hurtled towards you.

"What...what did you do to that officer? Tell me?" the worst of your imaginative thoughts, of the potential horrors your husband could have inflicted, flashed before your eyes.

"You know his partner's been hounding me, don't tell me you don't. You have me watched every second of the day. Tommy?" You pleaded for answers as Tommy's pulsing veins ignited with irritation, his fingers curling into clenching fists at the mention of the man he was sure you had only accepted his offer of dinner to get under his skin.

" Open the door, sweetheart" Tommy calmly replied, fooling himself into believing he had a hold over his bubbling anger as you demanded answers for the whereabouts of the gentlemen you had spent mere hours with before his men put an end to your evening.

" What did you do?" You slowly opened the door to be met with your husbands glaring stare, shoulders broad on guard as his tunneling eyes spoke his guilt for him. "Tom?"

"Tommy?" came a sudden knock to the bedroom door, jolting you from the shackling feeling of you feet adhered to the flooring as you waited on bated breath for his response.

"Yeh, go on?" Your husband cleared his throat, head snapping to the sound of one of his men's voices from the landing.

" Cars outside" the peaky informed, dutifully waiting on his next orders.

"Bring it around to the fields" Tommy's eyes flew back to you as the sound of his henchman's feet drifted away, your opportunity for explanations drifting away with them.

" Hey?" He turned back to face you, slowly approaching as you ran your fingers through your hair, turning from his sudden need to comfort you, his need to have you forget the questions that plagued you.

"C'mere, come on" came your husband's soothing voice, seeing the beginnings of a steady stream of tears well in your eyes as you swayed your shoulders back and forth, trying to shrug his attempts to calm you away.

" Enough, eh?" He insisted pulling you into his chest as you internally battled back and forth with your pining for him, until you let your body fall into the warmth of his strong frame, satisfying the yearning as his hands soothingly ran through the locks of your hair.

" What happened to us, hm?" He lifted your chin to up to his softening gaze, gently brushing the tears from your cheeks as exhaustion took over every ounce of energy you had left. Too tired to fight with him again, too tired to release the internal screaming that was shouting his role in the downfall of your marriage.

" I'm just keeping you safe..." His lips hovered over yours, your body rippling with a layer of longing to feel close to him as his fingers brushed down the curve of your cheek, dragging his thumb over your parting lips as he took his chance to soothe the mutual want to reconnect with a kiss to your lips.

Stifling the climbing moan from within your throat, you let yourself be free of your tangled emotions, leaning in to his hypnotising hold on you as your husband's own needs intensified.

Fingers trailing down your spine, you body stepped in unison with him pulling you back to the edge of the bed as a throaty groan left his lips.

"I can't stand this anymore. Fuck sweetheart, let me back in..." his breathy declarations heated your lips as his fingers squeezed the flesh of your thighs between his fingers.

But as the sudden feeling of his bucking hips met yours, seconds from being pulled into the plush fabric covers that awaited your bodies, you stumbled back.

What was wrong with you? Had he that much of a hold over you, that you'd be so weak to give in? Forgetting everything he'd done? you thought to yourself, mumbling words of regret as you shook your head.

" You're playing with me" Tommy raised his brows, finger pointing accusingly as he matched your slow steps back to the safety of the bathroom.

" I'm just one big fucking game, to you eh?" His voice began to turn, his straining need for you left unsatisfied as you fumbled with the door handle behind you.

"Hey!" His voice snapped, body lurching forward as you threw open the door, slamming it shut with the turn of the lock.

" Fuck!" You felt the shudder of his hands slamming against the wood as your chest heaved.

Perching yourself on the edge of the bath, you buried your head in your hands, pulling at the strands of your hair in frustration for having led him on, for making him think you had suddenly overcome the six months worth of stress he'd inflicted on you as Tommy's hollering voice reemerged with furiosity.

" Give a woman your hand she'll take your fucking arm, eh Y/N? I spoilt you! " He continued his onslaught of newly founded revelations, fueled by the frustration he felt about having been turned down by his own wife.

"You don't need me now, is that is? Want to make it on your own? Then go ahead, darling. Have at it!" he snatched your blouse from the floor, throwing it at the doors of your wardrobe before pulling all your clothes out to join it.

" No need for me anymore, eh? No need for these clothes, this jewellery!" he tossed the ceramic tray of diamonds and gemstones on top of the pile of your belongings before pulling the empty suitcase from under your bed.

" Giving you a head start, Y/N. Cleansing you for this new fucking personality you've adopted, your new fucking life!" he bellowed, snapping out each seething word as he crammed your clothes in the small bag.

Handles of the suitcase clutched firmly between his straining fists, Tommy's chest heaved as he came down from the surges of anger that had spurred on his outburst as his eyes darted to the bathroom door, waiting for you to emerge and reconcile.

"Fuck it" he mumbled under his breath, storming from the silence that had returned.

" Good luck ,sweetheart!" The slam of the bedroom door had his rage abruptly come to an end as you let your body cave in on itself, the bellowing voice of your husband replaced with a wave of dread that you had landed yourself in an even more dire situation than before. Shit.

" Tommy" the stocky Irish man handed him a flask of whiskey your husband downed the last of within seconds as his frame shadowed the beaming headlights of the car behind him.

"Jesus, mother Mary. Not again Tom" Johnny Dogs lifted the car boot to see the beaten body of a man drifting in and out of consciousness as Tommy pulled the cuffs of his leather gloves around his wrists with a stretching snap.

" Do I get to know what he did before I commit my saintly soul to hell for a second time this month?" Tommy's trusted friend probed as your husband dragged Mr Wyatt from the car boot into the darkened woods.

" Looked at me the wrong way" Tommy replied, heaving his body with strained grunts to the empty grave Johnny had dug at the back of your grand home.

" That so, ay Tommy?" Dogs questioned who exactly looked at who. Sharp enough mind to know the demons that had taken over his friends troubled soul, loyal enough to turn a blind eye to the lengths both he and Tommy had gone to conceal his jealous rages.

" A hand, John boy" Tommy's reply fell short, knowing his explanations would have him questioning his slipping paranoia as his friend grabbed the arm of Mr Wyatt, pulling him with Tommy into the six foot earthy hole.

" Jesus Tom, it's starting to look like a bleeding cemetery down here" Johnny pulled a smoke from his waistcoat, observing his handy work he spent five hours digging.

Looming over the unfilled grave, Tommy waited as the man who had interviewed you began to stir, waking up from the blow to the head one of his men had inflicted on him in the struggle.

" No...no, no, no! Help!" He began to scream, hands digging at the freshly unearthed mud as Johnny handed Tommy his gun.

" Nobody will hear you all the way down here, Mr Wyatt" your husband filled the chamber of his weapon, the click of the safety releasing sending a haunting echo into the stary sky. "Not for long, that is"

" It was just a drink, I...I" he mumbled his pleas for mercy as Tommy knelt down, resting his arms on bent knees as a cloud of chilled air fogged his face.

" That's what they all say, don't they?" he scoffed, darkening eyes staring down at the sobbing man below him.

" You see Mr Wyatt, my wife doesn't understand the dangers of this world. She's too kind, too forgiving...naïve" he shifted the toe of his boot from the man's scrambling hands with a smirk of enjoyment as Wyatt desperately tried to pull himself out of his impending death.

"And as her husband, it's my duty to keep her safe from the wickedness of this world. Sniff out the good from the bad" the man's attempts to escape suddenly came to an abrupt stop as the twisting face of your husband began to seal his fate.

" And you Mr Wyatt, well..." He lifted his nose to the night sky, peaked cap shadowing the taunting smile as he played out the decision he had already made.

"I can only smell bad" he abruptly rose to his feet, shooting the victim of his paranoia point-blank in the head as a breathy exhale of satisfaction left his lips.

As the sound of Wyatt's lifeless body hit it's final resting place, Tommy's shaky fingers, pulsing with adrenaline took the cigarette waiting for him from Johnny's weathered hands.

" Fill her up Johnny" Tommy gave his final orders as his eyes darted to the bag of clothes he'd dragged down for their own ceremonial burial.

" Those too" he pointed to your belongings, to the blouse tucked within your clothes that had the night's events take a deadly turn.

Tossing his gloves onto the hood of the car, Tommy wiped the splattered blood sprayed on his face with the back of his trembling hands as he came down from his murderous high.

Best not to look your demons in the eye, he said to himself as his gaze drifted down to the bloody image of himself staring back at him in the reflection of his wedding ring.

Shake hands with the devil and walk past him, the words of his Aunt justified his sins as he turned on his heel and left, coat casting a gloomy shadow over the grave of his victim being filled next to the drying soil of the one feet from it.

Two graves, two dead bodies. Land enough to fill a whole field of those that came between your marriage. Tommy would stop at nothing to keep you as his wife. Nothing.

Next Part coming soon!

Tag list: @peakyswritings @justrainandcoffee @garrison-girl-08 @meadows5 @lavender-haze-01

@strangeobsessed @ttae-yong @lemonwithstupidity @lindsay00000 @mischievouslittlecreature

@jbrownta @lau219 @whereismymindnow @honeymoon8 @bruhidkjustwannaread @strrvnge

@paintedinpinks @edgyficuselastica

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withleeknow · 5 months ago

Text

wishful thinking. (07)

chapter seven: built to break

summary: the instruction was plain and simple: no strings attached. but you should’ve known from the beginning that it could never apply to you and him.

pairing: minho x f!reader rating: 18+ (minors dni) genres/warnings: friends to lovers, friends with benefits au, college au; fluff, angst, smut; the gorlies are fighting...?, not much for warnings in this chapter ig word count: 4.3k note: i finally got off my ass and wt is finally back lol. i had a last minute change of plans and thought "oh! you know what would be pretty neat? if we prolong the angst so everyone can be sad for longer!" <3 and this is how i announce that the next chapter is not wt8 but wt7.5 and it's written from his pov <3 merry christmas

as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

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I’ll hold my breath as I wait for your answer I’ll leave it up to you Tell me whether it’s yes or no Baby, love me or leave me tonight

Love Me or Leave Me - Day6

The warning signs, they're there. You can see them before they materialize. You know your own tells.

Your metaphorical bags are packed, your shoes are already on. You're about to run again, leave a half empty house before it has the chance to become a home. No one has to tell you that you're a flight risk; you're well aware of it yourself.

Wednesday Min: got plans tonight? You: booked and busy with ze old canvas Min: tomorrow? You: same thing probably. sorry Min: u're working hard lately You: yeah this one is just driving me crazy and i need it to turn out decent Min: it'll be perfect. it's u

Thursday Min: running errands at the store Min: want me to bring u anything? that caramel popcorn u like?

Friday Min: don't work too hard. remember to eat

That was three days ago, the last time you'd heard from him after you left him on read. It wasn't a complete lie; this project is driving you kinda crazy and you do need it to end up a decent piece, but you weren't exactly holed up in your apartment to slave over your painting. And you suppose Minho didn't find it all that suspicious because you tend to do this sometimes - disappear for a couple of days and force yourself to focus whenever you had a project to finish, before you come back to everybody again. You've come back to him before; it stands to reason that you'll do it again.

It's been about two weeks since you'd seen him, though the memories of that evening are still fresh in your mind - the evening of the group dinner, when he'd kissed you goodnight and left for his parents' house the following day. True to his words, he did send you pictures of the cats - ones of Soonie wearing a matching hoodie with him, a few of Doongie and Dori napping at the foot of his bed. There was an accompanying text - The kids miss you - along with a frowning emoji, and it made you wonder if what he really meant was I miss you.

You wanted him to miss you, because you missed him too.

The photos brought a smile to your face despite the predicament you found yourself in. A smile that was short lived, a smile that was soon wiped off when you realized your heart shouldn't be swelling with that much affection for him. It shouldn't, but the truth was that it did and you don't know how to live with it.

Love isn't something you've ever learned to hold.

It's beautiful yet full of thorns, and your hands are too clumsy to ever keep it from slipping from your fingers.

You remember when you first met Minho. Freshman year, at some popular senior's house party.

It feels like forever ago when you were just an awkward freshman at orientation who didn't have a single clue on how to make friends. Jess was your first friend in college, and you'll always be grateful that you got along well enough that she adopted you into the group with the rest of the guys.

You didn't cross paths with Minho until you were already acquainted with everyone else. On the night of the party, you remember being enamored with him for those couple of hours, and it wasn't the side effect of too many solo cups of cheap beer. Who in their right mind wouldn't be infatuated with him? He was beautiful, absolutely alluring, and you would always tell him as much.

Back then, he had brown hair, slighter shorter than now but it was tinted with the most gorgeous shade of red. You didn't know much about Minho, only been told that he was pretty quiet and might be off-putting to new people. It was sort of true; that night, you were intimidated by the aura he exuded. Mysterious, couldn't be bothered, didn't seem to give a shit. He looked like a scary little thing, while you were the new kid who was only trying to observe everyone's dynamics, not wanting to overstep any unspoken boundary.

To this day, you're still not sure what really happened, how you two immediately clicked and he's been one of the most important parts of your life ever since.

Maybe it was just him. Maybe it's always been him.

Minho, the one who makes you smile when all you want to do is curl up and cry. The one who makes you laugh when you look for joy but the search comes up empty. The one who grounds you every time you lose your way. Your anchor, the safe harbor you can always return to. The light at the end of a long, long tunnel.

You don't know where you stand, don't know where it goes from here now that everything is changing. He told you so himself, that nothing changed for him, but how could he possibly know that everything is changing for you? And it infuriates you to no end because you don't even have anyone to talk about this with. You're the only person whose world is being turned upside down after all.

You can't tell your friends because they can't know about you and Minho. You can't tell Minho because what would you even say? That you think you're in love with him? That the implications of what it means are devastating to you?

For the first time, you regret everything. Kissing him that night, sleeping with him, becoming whatever this is with him. Letting down your guard and falling for him somewhere along the way and you didn't even stop to notice it. You regret all of the decisions you've made up until now, because they've only led you to the point of no return, the point of losing him. You made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision, until you couldn't anymore. All along, there's been no one else to blame but you.

Maybe it hasn't happened yet, but it's inevitable. You will lose him. You are going to lose him.

There's no other ending, no other alternative that you can imagine. You're going to leave because you're a coward and it's what you do best. You ruin things before they get a chance to hurt you. You leave because if you don't leave then you'll be left behind, and you'd rather not bear the brunt of it.

Now, when you think of Minho, the thought is always accompanied by a painful reminder - Nothing changed for him.

When you get to the cafe, Hyunjin and Seungmin are already seated in a corner booth, three drinks in front of them, one of which they'd ordered for you before you arrived.

You slide into the seat next to Hyunjin, smiling at him appreciatively for the drink. There's still over half an hour before you have to walk to your shared class, over half an hour before Seungmin parts ways with you two to do whatever or whoever it is that Seungmin does on his off days.

"I still think it's Nara," Hyunjin says, casually sipping his iced coffee.

"Nara from your Lit class last semester?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

"I saw them talking at a party once."

"Okay. And?"

"And what? That's it."

"That's... all the evidence you have to back up your claim?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

You wave your hands in front of them. "What are you bozos talking about?"

"He’s still trying to figure out who Minho is hooking up with," Seungmin is the one who answers you without missing a beat, then he turns back to Hyunjin. "Anyway, it can't be Nara. She's dating Jaehyun on the basketball team."

The friend next to you flails his arms like a petulant child, like he couldn't have possibly seen this coming, like he was so sure that he had finally solved the mystery. "Great. I'm back to square one again."

You straighten your back and reach for your drink, tentatively gulping down the beverage as if it'll hide the fact that you've gone stiff the second this topic is brought up. You feel bad about it, sure. These are your friends that you're lying to after all. They don't have to look anywhere far; the answer to the secret is right in front of them.

"We're still on about that?" you ask in the calmest, most nonchalant voice you can muster. You usually consider yourself a believable liar (which, to be honest, isn't really a flex at all), but whenever someone mentions this little arrangement between you and Minho that shouldn't be common knowledge for anyone else, you feel like you're been put under a spotlight for the whole world to scrutinize.

"Duh," Hyunjin says. "You know, I'm kinda surprised that you don't know. You two are like, attached at the hip sometimes."

You give him a thoughtless shrug, your hands fiddling with the sticker on the plastic cup as you avoid looking at either of your friends. "Maybe he just wants to keep private things private, y'know? You wouldn't like either if all of us is suddenly all up in your business. And besides, what if it's just casual?"

Hyunjin scoffs. "Please, I'm an open book. I tell you guys everything. I tell you every time I hook up with someone."

"Yeah, but you see, literally no one needs to know that," Seungmin says.

The taller one only scoffs, waving his hands around dismissively in Seungmin's direction before he turns to you. "If it was just casual, would he save her name as - oh my God, I forgot what her contact name is. Freaking bird person or something."

You make a face. "What?"

"Dude, seriously?" Seungmin rolls his eyes. "You forgot one word? Dove? What is the matter with you?"

Perhaps it's the half-hearted teasing judgment in Seungmin's voice that makes Hyunjin take offense and drop the topic. The conversation veers off course when they start bickering like children in the busy cafe. You suppose it works in your favor, but you can't focus. You drown it all out.

Your hand is still on the cup but the sticker has been left alone and forgotten, half peeled off, half still clinging to the plastic underneath the condensation.

The single word repeats itself in your mind, over and over and over again.

The entire time you're in class, you don't really focus on anything. You can't bring yourself to listen to whatever your professor is saying, not after what Hyunjin and Seungmin told you earlier. At some point, your friend has to nudge your shoulder to bring you back down to earth when usually, you're the one who has to remind Hyunjin to pay attention. Class ends soon enough though; time tends to fly by when your mind is lost elsewhere.

"What's wrong with you today?" he asks with his bag slung over his shoulder, slowing down his steps to match your speed as you walk out of the lecture hall together.

You scratch the back of your neck sheepishly. "Nothing's wrong. I was just tired."

"You wanna grab dinner with me and Felix?"

Any other day, you would've agreed in a heartbeat. But today, you want to be alone. Sometimes, you'd rather wallow in your own misery than settle for a temporary distraction.

You're still stuck on the conversation from earlier, on the small detail that Hyunjin and Seungmin had let slip in the cafe.

Dove.

His dove.

Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Perhaps it's only a nickname that he's assigned to you out of mere platonic fondness, but it makes you conscious about the dove on your own wrist nonetheless, the one that you feel compelled to hide from your friends underneath your long sleeve.

"No, it's okay," you tell Hyunjin. "I'll just go home and sleep it off."

"Okay. I can walk you for a bit," he says. "Just wait with me here. Minho's coming to give me back something he borrowed."

"Minho's coming?" you ask too quickly for it to sound casual. There's a panicked edge that you can hear in your own voice, though you don't think Hyunjin picks it up as he unlocks his phone and types something on the screen.

"Yeah, he was at the library. He's coming over right now, should only be a couple minutes. Then I'll walk back with you."

You shift on your feet uneasily, but you cover it up by rubbing your hands on your arms to pretend like you're just cold. There's no excuse that you could think of that would justify why you can't stand here with Hyunjin for just two more minutes, without giving it away the fact that you're avoiding Minho.

You take in a quiet breath, put on your best brave face. Casual, nonchalant. It's just Minho. Just Minho...

He comes up from behind, where you can't see him. A warm hand gently lands on your shoulder, and it takes everything not to shy away from his touch. It takes even more not to lean into his side.

You've missed it. You've missed him.

"Hey." He smiles at you while Hyunjin only gets a nod in acknowledgment.

"Hey." You return the smile, though you're sure you look a little rigid. You can tell there's an inkling of confusion in his eyes when he senses that your energy is off, but you're thankful he doesn't comment on it, at least not in front of Hyunjin anyway.

You don't notice the paper bag in his other hand until he hands it to your other friend with a simple Thanks, to which Hyunjin just nods along in a silent You're welcome.

"I was going to walk with Y/N for a bit and then meet Felix for food," he tells Minho. "You wanna get burgers with me and Lix?"

"No, thanks. I'm not hungry, I had a late lunch. I'll take the walk though."

You didn't plan on being alone with Minho today, even though you knew you had to talk to him eventually. You just thought you had a little more time, at least until you got your shit together and face him with a brave façade.

Minho's hand brushes yours the entire time you walk, and it's nothing if not confusing. It's unbearable, the way your fingers twitch with the urge to intertwine them with his.

It persists even after Hyunjin has waved you goodbye to you two and turned to head wherever he and Felix agreed to meet. You think Minho would hold your hand now that it's just you and him, but he doesn't. He lets your skin continue to brush, lets you suffer alone and wanting in your sunken disappointment.

It has very little to do with him and everything to do with you, the conflicting thoughts inside your head piling up one by one the more time you spend in his presence.

Dove, the brief display of jealousy at Yeonjun's party, the way he looks at you sometimes that you can't really decipher the meaning behind, how he kisses you so tenderly that it can't possibly be strictly platonic. You want these things to all mean something, and yet...

You want him to hold your hand, but you know you'd wave it off if he tries to reach for your fingers. You want him to stop you right then and there to kiss you breathless, just as he had that night two weeks ago, even though you're sure you'd only dodge his lips and push him away. You want to stay, you want to leave. You're terrified of things changing, but you wish that something, anything, would be different for him; that you aren't the only one who's spinning out of control. You love him, but you wish you didn't.

Eventually, Minho asks, "You okay?"

It's not until now that you realize this is the first time you've ever been this quiet around him. You purse your lips, glancing down briefly at your feet as you keep on treading the rest of the way home. "Yeah, all good. I'm just tired," you tell him, visibly unenthusiastic despite the smile you try to fake. "I just need to sleep it off."

"The project stressing you out?"

"I guess, yeah."

"And here I thought maybe you were avoiding me," he says, half a joke, half inquisitive. "Were you?"

"Was I what?"

"Were you avoiding me?"

You give him a weird look, one that's meant to be dismissive and call his question ridiculous even though you know you've been caught. And maybe it's the over-the-top glance that you throw his way and the way your pitch goes higher when you reply, "Why would I be avoiding you?" that makes him stop walking.

On the other side of the street, there's a couple of kids in high school uniforms, exchanging shy glances and sharing fond giggles.

Minho calls your name softly, and it's like you're just waiting for the ball to drop. You don't want to turn back and look at him, but what other option do you have? What else is there to do?

You can't decipher the expression on his face. He's still calm, but the air has turned serious, the silence of the mostly empty streets surrounding you only serves as the soundtrack of your impending heartbreak. The tender and innocent laughter fades away when young love moves further and further from where you stand. "What?" you ask with faux nonchalance as you look at him, another attempt at stalling. Biding your time even though a few more minutes aren't going to do any good for your case.

Anyone with half a braincell could tell that clearly it's not the truth, let alone someone who has learned to read you better than the back of his hand. He doesn't look like he believes you, though he doesn't push it, much to your surprise.

"Okay," he says after a moment of studying you, and this should be the part where you heave a sigh of relief because he's letting you off the hook for now, but your chest doesn't feel lighter at all. Your head is clouded with dread, with the anticipation that you're only delaying the inevitable.

You walk the rest of the way in awful silence, because you know that he knows something is wrong. You try your best to appear composed, but he sees right through you. You know he does.

You must look like a frightened animal, one that's about to take off running any second now.

When you reach your building, Minho is quick to keep you with him before you can make up a lame excuse and bolt.

"Hey," he starts, his voice so impossibly gentle that it hurts. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Heavier and heavier, it weighs you down until you feel like your chest is going to collapse. The nerves gnaw on you, clawing into you until you feel your heartbeat quicken, the overwhelming dread simmering low in your belly.

"I know," you say, but deep down, what you're really thinking is, Not this. This is the one thing I can't tell you.

"Is everything okay?"

It's the way that Minho's got his gaze set on you with those deep brown irises, the concern so apparent in them that it hurts you. It's the way he looks like he wants to reach out and touch you - a comforting hand on your shoulder or your back like you're so familiar with - but he has to hold himself back or you might slip away.

It's him, how he always puts you first, how he cares about you in ways that you've never been cared about before. He understands you, he sees you. It feels like it could be love if you let the lines blur just enough.

Is love supposed to hurt? Like this?

Maybe it's not that you don't know how to hold love. Maybe it's because you're not meant to hold it at all. Insignificant, unlovable.

And... it's the reminder that cuts through the dread like the sharpest knife.

You leave his question unanswered, because nothing is okay and you can't tell him any of it. You can't lie to him either, because it's the last thing that you want to do to him.

Instead, you ask, "We're good... right? We're okay?"

"What do you mean?"

You gesture between the two of you, though you're not sure what that's supposed to signify. "Just...," you trail off for a second, hesitant. "Nothing's changed, right?"

Minho doesn't answer right away. He looks at you for a moment, searching for something in your eyes that you can't tell if he's able to find.

He nods, seemingly wistful as he says, "Nothing's changed."

He seems unsure about it, at least more than he was just a few weeks ago when he told you the same thing in your apartment with his fingers wrapped around your wrist. The tug between his brows - though barely noticeable - tells you as much.

Is it because something is different now? Or does he only sound uncertain out of concern, because of you and how you're acting?

Then he continues, "For me, at least."

And there it is.

It's the confirmation this time around that turns you inside out so his simple words could cut into you.

You swallow thickly, put on a smile like you're pleased with his answer even though you're trying your hardest to stop yourself from shaking. Whatever energy you had left is instantly drained from you just because of a few words.

Your sentences get smashed together, tangled up like barbed wire and they only make you bleed when you try to pull them apart. All your nervous tics coming out to play despite your best efforts to keep them at bay. A frustrated hand running through your hair, gripping at the roots a little harshly. Your bottom lip pulled between your teeth and your eyes turning glassy for a split second before you blink the moisture away, because you can't let Minho see you like this. See you trying to keep your pathetic heart intact while he's none the wiser.

He's fine. And unlike you, he's going to be okay when this is over.

Unavoidable and inevitable, the end will come whether you like it or not. You're the only one who won't make it out unscathed, and it will only shatter you into more pieces the longer you drag this out.

Just rip the bandaid off. Salvage whatever you can. Stop digging the grave even deeper for yourself.

One second, then two, then three. You don't speak until you have enough faith that your voice is even enough to carry out a few sentences.

"Okay, uhm... I think I need some time for myself. We should..." But it isn't, and you crack halfway through. The sound is deafening to your own ears. "We should take a break. We should stop this."

Minho doesn't question if you mean the secret between the two of you, or your friendship entirely. Instead, he asks, "Why?"

"I told you." You clear your throat. "I need time for myself."

You can't tell what he's thinking, but the knife twists inside of you nonetheless.

He takes a step closer, you take a step back.

You watch as his face falls, and the same feeling mirrors itself within the confines of your ribcage. Your heart drops at the sight of his eyes, deep brown irises stained with a little confusion, then a little hurt though it lasts for only a few seconds. The slight slump of his shoulders, the absence of the familiar playfulness he always sports when he's with you.

He blinks.

"Time for yourself, or time away from me?"

You say nothing.

You don't address his question directly, and your reluctance to do so is a loud enough answer in and of itself. "Why does that matter? What's the difference?"

"It matters if I did something to upset you."

"You didn't."

"Okay. So?"

This is confusing, because he's not letting you rip the bandaid clean off and you don't know why. "Nothing's changed, right? If it didn't mean anything to you, why can't you just drop this?"

Minho is quiet for a beat. His eyes are searching again, but this time, you think he finds something.

Everything is still and you hate it - the silence of the streets, the scrutinizing orange glow of the streetlights as if they're watching the scene unfold, even the innocent cat that's sitting by itself on the balcony on one of the floors higher up. You hate all of it.

"I never said it didn't mean anything," he tells you.

It makes you a little angry for some reason, and there's enough red to cloud your vision because his words are contradicting and you're tired, you're so exhausted that you can't focus on what it is that he's really saying.

"So you lied to me?"

"I've never lied to you."

"I asked you before and you said nothing's changed. Now you're saying whatever this is didn't not mean anything. Make up your mind."

It gets redder when he keeps his eyes fixed on you, still so calm despite the frown that has returned to its place between his brows. Still so collected, while you're being pulled apart at the seams.

The ball doesn't drop the way you expect it to. It keeps falling so insufferably slowly, hanging over you like it's mocking you for being stupid, like it's milking every second of suspense to make you implode.

Until Minho speaks next and suddenly, it feels like the air has been sucked out of your lungs. His voice, still so soft and tender. His eyes, reading something in yours that you can't bear to admit out loud.

"You really don't see it, do you?"

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