#xreader kpop

[toruro]

— ✧ isohel

i·so·hel (noun) a line on a map connecting points having the same duration of sunshine

pairing. hong joshua x reader

description. fairytales can be rather misleading, can't they? when you and your mother are ripped away from your life at the castle, you spend over a decade resenting the royalty. so naturally, when you find prince joshua at your doorstep, you’re more than eager to shut the door on him. but as your life takes twists and turns, you happen to find yourself in the arms of a man you never thought you'd have to see again.

genre. slowburn, modern royalty au, angst, fluff

tags. prince!joshua, developing relationships, slut shaming, allusions / references to greek mythology, dialogue heavy, implied se

fic playlist

w/c. 26.2k

a/n. lwk don't like the beginning but i swear it gets better🙄 thank u @cheolhub for beta reading & @jeonghantis & @gyuswhore for reading it over and helping out w this bc i think i was going insane over this story by myself >_<; ... i highly suggest listening to the song isohel by eden! it was a major inspiration for this whole story and i think it encapsulates the vibes really well c: hope u enjoy!

The sound of glass shattering isn’t foreign to your ears.

It’s common in the sweltering heat of the summer when the air is hot and sticky. Maids running around to tend to the evenings balls and parties only for the sweat to breach their fingers and suddenly their stack of fine china goes tumbling to the ground.

A bed of hyacinths sits in front of you as you bring up the hose and spray them down, watching through the tinted glass as two male helpers rush to the woman on the ground, quickly helping her clean up the shards of glass.

Turning your attention back to the plants in front of you, you turn the hose off and roll it back into the corner as you skip to the end of the greenhouse where there’s your mother’s desk space. It’s a measly little space but she hardly sits there anyways, always tending to the gardens in the courtyards, leaving the floral and herbal greenhouses under your care while she’s away.

After all, your mother is a gardener and botanist in the Hong palace, and having been a trusted employee for the past half decade since your father passed, she exudes the little privileges of getting to bring her daughter to work.

At least that’s what you think, because you’re only nine years old and naive.

She teaches you well—you’ve only been accompanying her on the weekends when you don’t have school, but you’ve already picked up on how to tell the differences between an infected plant and an unaffected one, the characteristics of a good caterpillar and the characteristics of a bad one, the exact amount you should water each species, and exactly when you should let the vapor run down.

It’s easy work, and you love it.

You love sitting at your mother’s desk and imagining what it’d be like to be her—successful and working in the castle, doing what you love instead of working some stupid nine to five. You love looking out the glass of the greenhouses every few moments when you pause reading your book. You love the rare moments when you get to lay your eyes on one of the members of the royal family walking by.

You’ve started to pick up on their characters in the small frame of time you get to see them when they pass by. The Queen has kind eyes, the King is a bit intimidating, and Prince Joshua … Prince Joshua has soft features you can’t quite read.

“He’s only a year older than you!” one of your friends from school said when you told her that you stayed at the castle during the weekends to help your mother. “You should marry him and become princess!”

You had to push her away and watch her disappointed eyes when you told her that you hardly get to see him for more than ten seconds, even on the rare occasions that he crosses your vision.

The sound of glass shattering isn’t foreign to your ears, but hearing it more than twice in one hour does have some alarms ringing in your head. When you glance back up at the window, time stops.

Your mother is on the ground. Limbs sprawled out with eyes wide in horror, she scrambles against the rough stone path as a man looms over her. He dons a deep purple robe—the kind that belongs to the advisors of the Court—and your young mind races through the possibilities of what warrants the disgusted look on his face.

“Sneaking around with royal blood. Who do you think you are?”

A man watches, dark and brooding from the corner, and then you recognize him. Advisor Lee. He stops by the greenhouses sometimes—a high advisor of the Counsel and distance relative of the King’s. You’re nine years old and naive, but you are not dense.

Something had happened between your mother and Advisor Lee. Something tells you it’s more than you can understand, but in this moment, you feel you understand perfectly.

“You whore,” the man in the dark robes spits out, punctuating his disgust with a stomp of his feet right by your mother’s leg.

You’re only nine years old, but that is old enough to know that that is not a nice word. Nine years old, and you know that that means a very bad thing. Nine years old and when you look at your mother’s grief stricken face, you are certain that everything is about to change.

Your house was always on the edge of the town. Before the affair between Advisor Lee and your mother, it was because she liked having the space to open a garden in your backyard. The city is crowded and full of bustling roads and buildings—it’s no fit for the small cottage that she wanted.

Now, after the affair, your house is on the edge of the town for a different reason.

The first day after your mother is fired from her position at the castle, you go to school with your head hanging low. It’s in the city, and for the first time in your five years of schooling, your mother tells you to go alone.

“I can’t—I shouldn’t drive you anymore,” she tells you as you pack your backpack. She walks you to the bus station and hands you a paper telling you which stop to get off at and how to walk to school from there.

You’re not sure what you’re expecting when you two walk up to the little stop by the street, but when you approach the small crowd of people waiting for the next bus to come in, their chatter hushes. Sparing glances at you and your mother, they whisper—some hushed, some blatant, some sad, some angry.

That’s where she stops and puts a heavy hand on your shoulder. “You can take it from here, yeah?” she asks, but you know it’s not really a question. Nodding, you slowly walk towards the crowd of people as the next bus parks in front of the stop.

You don’t turn around and look at your mother because you know that’d be a mistake. Instead, you let your neck droop, following the quiet crowd as they pile into the bus, clutching the strings of your backpack.

There aren’t any places to sit, so you reach for a pole but suddenly the bus starts and you lurch forward, falling to the ground. There’s black and brown dust on the palms of your hand as you push yourself up, no one saying a word or bothering to help as you keep your head down and grip onto a pole.

The knees of your stockings are dirtied, and it’s the only thing you look at the whole ride, it’s the only thing you look at when you silently take the walk to school, and it’s the only thing you look at when you make your way onto campus.

It’s the whispers again, and as you quietly sink into your normal seat, you hear them louder.

Did you hear about her mother? She isn’t allowed in the castle grounds anymore. What did her mother do? I can’t believe she showed up, I’d be crying at home. I wonder what she’s thinking—

Nothing. You think nothing when your teacher announces that class will be starting. All you focus on is the board and your notebook. You spend your recess and lunch at the school’s library, and as soon as the final bell rings, you scurry off campus and towards the bus station.

It isn’t like the morning—people don’t hush and stare, but nine years old is smart enough to know that it’s because they don’t know you’re your mother’s daughter. There aren’t any empty seats just like the morning but this time, a nice gentleman offers you his spot.

You can tell he isn’t so sure of his decision though, when you finally get off at your stop and you run off to your mother who’s waiting for you by the bench. From the corner of your vision, you watch the man through the bus window, jaw tight and gaze cold as he watches you slip your hand into your mother’s.

Your mother doesn’t talk on the short walk home. She doesn’t ask you about school and she doesn’t ask you about what the other kids said. You figure that she doesn’t need to hear it anyways, and so you purse your lips together.

You have a lot to get used to.

Your life doesn’t change much, and you get used to it.

School days are spent with your head buried in a new book with every break you have. Your time at home is nothing but studying and your mother teaching you how to tend to the garden in your yard.

Soon you are graduating and moving on with your life as you make the transition to college, although you can’t say much changes. You study, you read, and occasionally you commission a project. It’s usually just renovating a citizen’s yard, sometimes it’s designing a public garden, but it’s never anything too serious.

Right now, you’re perched on a wooden stool, elbows leaning on the counter as you swipe your thumb over your tongue to flip the next page of your book. The paper is worn through, soft under your touch as a show for all it’s been through—bought second hand from your boss.

Your boss is a kind old man who happened to be a friend of your late grandfather’s, and when his little bookstore was teetering on the edge of being forgotten, you couldn’t refuse the offer to step in to work.

You’re around halfway through the book when you hear the familiar ringing of the bell above the door, head snapping up only to see your boss at the front door with a few envelopes in one hand, a plastic bag in the other.

“Holding up the fort, I see,” he greets with a low chuckle as you stand up and walk over, taking the bag from his hand to help out.

“As always, Mr. Min,” you reply, setting the bag of books down on the counter. “Are these—”

“They’re your mothers. I was walking by your house this morning and she asked me to take these and add them to our stock, since she said she doesn’t need them anymore.”

“Huh,” you say softly, taking out the various books about plants. “Not sure how big the market for gardening books is anymore, but I’m sure I can add it to our catalog after hours today,��� you mutter, setting them on the table behind the register as he places the letters in his hand.

“Your mother also told me to give you this,” he says, his tone an octave lower as he plucks out one the envelopes and hands it to you. You knit your eyebrows together, wiping your dusty hands down on your pants before taking a look at it. “It’s from—”

“The castle,” you whisper, holding the envelope closer to your face to make sure you’re seeing it correctly. “Oh my god—it’s from the castle.”

“Yeah. Must be important if your mom felt the need to send it through me instead of just waiting for you to come home and take a look at it.”

“A-are you sure this is meant for me?” you manage to ask, flipping the envelope over a few times to make sure you read your name correctly.

“Yup,” Mr. Min replies, pointing down at where the intended recipient is listed. Sure enough, it’s your name listed in dark and bold ink in one corner, and then there’s that stupid royal emblem of the sun in the other corner.

Your heart sinks to your stomach at the possibilities of what could be inside, raking your mind for an answer. Was something wrong? Was it about your mother? Or was this just some big mistake?

Dear Madam,

The Hong Royal Counsel wishes to find you well, as we present a request.

Your reputation with your mother’s work as well as the operation of your own gardens throughout the city, along with your academic achievements at our very own Hong University have reached our ears, and we believe you possess the skills required for a special project we have in mind.

You will have the opportunity to lead this project as you please and earn a notable financial sum in payment for your efforts.

Please indicate your acceptance by replying to this letter at your earliest convenience. We eagerly await your response and sincerely hope that you will be able to grace our kingdom with your talent and presence.

Thank you,

Hong Royal Counsel

You don’t have to read the letter more than once before you scoff, tossing the crisp paper and letting it drift down onto the counter before muttering under your breath, “Who do they think they are?” Crumpling the envelope and letter up, you throw it down into the trash can by your chair.

Knocks on your door aren’t normal. The delivery and mailmen know better than to do that, leaving your packages and mail by the doorstep and doing no more than that.

Knocks on your door usually mean Mr. Min is here for something—picking up some of the veggies your mother grew because the store prices are too high, dropping off a book, or indulging in some pleasantries and casual small talk.

It’s eight in the morning when you hear the soft rapping against your front door. Your mom is in the kitchen and your room, right next to the foyer, has walls thin enough to let the sounds through. You’re on your bed though, and it’s comfortable, warm, and it’s too early to be out and about anyways. You’ve just spent the past nine months laboring away at college, so you’re granting yourself these few moments of peace in the morning.

Pressing your head into the pillow, you try to drown out the noise of your mother conversing with Mr. Min this early in the morning. After you hear the door open, there’s a silence and for a moment, you think you’ve succeeded in plugging your ears well enough.

You’re about to smile to yourself and drift back into a heavy sleep before you hear a loud gasp.

It takes a lot to surprise your mother—you’ve come to learn that in recent years. It takes a lot to stun her, to have her gasp as you just heard. Scurrying out of bed, you press your ear against the wall in hopes to catch a glimpse of what’s going on.

All you hear is silence.

It hardly takes a second for you to shove off your blankets and throw yourself into the hallway, rushing towards the foyer where you see your mother standing in front of the open door. She stays unmoving and you wince for a few moments, eyes still adjusting to the morning light as you make your way closer to the door to see what exactly has her so shocked.

And then you catch it: a glint of that wretched, golden sun emblem stitched onto a purple velvet coat.

“What the f—”

Your mother’s hand flies up and grabs your wrist tightly. It’s the first time you see her move, and as she turns around to face you with dark, warning eyes, you press your lips shut as you glance over her shoulder. In front of your doorstep is a man you never thought you’d get to see in person again, not after that day.

Prince Joshua is just as handsome as the tabloids and social media make him out to be, and his presence in your life also seems to be equally infuriating.

“What is he doing here?” you hiss, pulling your mother closer to you so she’s close enough to hear you.

Her eyes are somber, and you silently wonder how she can be so calm, so docile, so—so tame. “They’re here for you,” she whispers, turning her whole body so her back faces the prince.

“What are you talking about? Why would—”

“The letter sent to you from the kingdom. I thought you told me it was a mistake.”

“It was,” you mutter, eyes glancing at Prince Joshua behind her. His gaze is averted, presumably out of respect for the conversation you’re having with your mother right now, but you can’t find it in yourself to appreciate him for it.

“Then why is he asking for your name?”

You gulp anxiously, eyes flickering between your mother’s eyes and the floor. “I don’t know.”

“Talk to him. It must be important,” she orders, walking forward and toward the kitchen and you grab her shoulder quickly.

“Are you kidding me? Why—why would I talk to him? Why would I talk to any of them?” you argue louder than you intended, and your mother swats your hand away sharply.

“They’re royalty,” she says, voice strained with caution.

“And? It’s not medieval times where they actually rule over us so—”

Your mother sighs heavily and then it hits you that no matter how much logic you try to expend, it’d be futile. “Talk to him. It isn’t quite like you have a choice.”

“You of all people shouldn’t put up with this,” you state and the second the words leave your lips, you regret it. Her face hardens and there’s a cold feeling that sinks in your stomach as she frees herself of your grasp and marches away.

You’re left watching her back fade into the rest of your house as your eyes are wide and you’re becoming increasingly aware of the presence of another person behind you. A person who is very important and very famous and very much a representation of all the things you loathe.

Turning on your heel, you don’t bother to push your lips up into a morning grin facing Prince Joshua with tired eyes and frown etched into your mouth. Taking a deep breath, you glance back at your mother who is in a far off room, deciding that whatever he needs to say to you, she doesn’t need to hear.

Slipping on some slippers, you quickly walk out of the house and close the door behind you, putting you right in front of Prince Joshua who waits for you with bright eyes.

“Hi,” he greets, voice airy and light as he takes a few steps back so he can bow, of which you begrudgingly return. “Sorry to bother you so early in the morning, I was just taking care of some work in the area and was told to stop by and talk to you about something.”

He sounds sincere, and his lips curve into a pleasant expression when he speaks, and you wonder if he’s plain stupid playing dumb to save you the humiliation of the situation—a royal prince speaking to the daughter of ‘a slut who seduced the royal advisor.’

So unable to decipher anything about his true intentions, you ask bluntly, “Is it about the letter I got from the kingdom two weeks ago?”

Prince Joshua chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of his neck and you catch the fancy white fabric of his buttoned up shirt underneath the coat. “I mean, yes it is and—”

You scoff, crossing your arms over your chest. “Why do you guys even bother sending letters? It’s the 21st century, you know? Emails exist.”

His face reddens, looking away before pursing his lips together. “Some things are just kept out of tradition,” Prince Joshua reasons quickly. “But I totally understand that, we’ll keep emailing in mind. But for the meantime, that’s, uh, kind of what I’m here for. We didn’t hear back a response, and I would like to take your answer back to the castle for you.

“Isn’t no response enough of a response?”

“Well—”

“My answer is no, if that wasn’t obvious,” you say, turning back to the door. “Is that all?”

“Wait!” he exclaims, grabbing your arm with his white leather gloves. It’s a bit surprising, really—he seems awfully timid for a prince and you’re a bit unnerved by how he hasn’t reprimanded you yet for being disrespectful. “Is there a reason why you don’t want to take on the job? If there are some specifics, maybe we can adjust the arrangement so it’s more to your liking.”

Your eyes widen, bewildered. “What? No I—I don’t care for anything like that, I won’t take the job.”

“Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine,” he mutters under his breath before his eyebrows knit together as he looks at the ground, seemingly trying to figure something out. “Is it the money? We can negotiate your salary,” he offers and you shake your head.

“No, it’s not the money—I don’t care about the money,” you say harshly. “It’s not any of that, I just don’t want to.”

“Can you tell me why? It’s just, I’ll have to report this back to the Counsel and if I’m not able to recruit you, they’d at least want some reasoning for why.”

Inhaling sharply, it takes all your self control to not let your eye twitch and slam the door in his face. “Are you really asking me why I don’t want to?” Pursing your lips together, you glare at him harshly. “You were there that day, weren’t you?” you ask more quietly, and for a moment you see Prince Joshua falter. “Not that I’d expect you to care but surely you can at least understand why I don’t want to.”

“I-I’m sorry, but I really can’t change the past.”

Scoffing, you turn on your heel and open the door. “I’m not asking you to.”

“Wait—just wait a sec’!” he calls out, stopping the door with his palm before you close it. “You’re in your second year at Hong University, right?” He doesn’t wait for a response before he continues. “We’ll pay for the rest of your tuition.”

The air in your lungs seems stuck for a passing moment, and you shake your head to yourself, stepping into your house and turning around one last time with cold eyes and a deep frown. “No.”

The prince looks around hastily before blurting out, “We’ll do all of it!”

“All of what?”

“We’ll pay for all of your tuition—reimburse you for what you’ve already paid.” You don’t care. You shouldn’t care. “All of it, plus your hourly wage,” he adds, and you don’t even have a chance to think before you feel your mother’s hand on your back.

“She’ll do it.”

Your mother chuckles as she helps you tie the lavender colored robe around your waist. You’re not sure what she finds so funny about this, but you bite your tongue when you start to catch on how she ties the ribbons with such ease.

Over ten years of being away from the castle can’t erase the time she spent there, tying her own robe every morning before she was stripped of her title, and in turn, also the life she worked so hard to build up.

As you look down at the smooth fabric sent to you a week earlier from the castle, you’re forced to begrudgingly admire the intricate embroidery. The collar and ribbons are decorated with a darker purple stitching that runs in all sorts of twists and turns and swivels around the curves of your body.

“They’ve made them look nicer since I’ve last seen them,” she thinks out loud, matting her hands down your shoulders to smooth the fabric down one last time before taking a look.

“I don’t understand why you’re still so—” You inhale sharply and press your lips together, warning yourself to not say anything more when she shoots you a cautionary look. “Sorry,” you mutter, turning away so you can glance at yourself in the mirror. You do look pretty nice, if you had to admit.

“Just think about the money,” your mother encourages. “They’re covering the cost of all your schooling—all those days spent at Mr. Min’s can now go towards things you enjoy, rather than paying for your university.”

“I guess,” you grumble, adjusting your hair one last time before grabbing your phone and keys, walking towards the foyer.

“You know the way right?” your mother calls out as you slip on your shoes and walk out onto the front porch.

“I wish I didn’t,” is all you say, low and under your breath as you make your way to the car.

The castle lies in the heart of the city, so it’s quite the drive. You’re careful as you try to keep your robes clean, bunching it up to your thighs as you drive, and once you’ve made your way to the castle, you’re sure to make sure the hem of the bottom doesn’t hit the ground.

Reporting to the entrance that was given in your email (why they send emails for instructions but not the actual invitation to your job still remains a mystery to you), you carefully tuck your phone into a crevice of your robes.

The entrance starts at a gate on the east end of the castle, and you make your way to the little hut that sits at one end where a woman in a lavender polo and dress pants sits at a desk. Knocking on the window, you smile nervously as she looks up from her papers.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes!” you say, holding up your phone and pointing to your first day instructions. “It’s my first day here, and I’m not sure how to get inside and all.”

“Did they give you a code?”

“Uh, yeah let me check again,” you murmur, looking back at your phone to find the 5 digit code you were sent. “It’s, uh—32423.” The lady hums and nods, checking something on her computer before looking up at you with a smile.

“That’s correct. From now on you can just come through the smaller gate on the side—it should be to the left of this big gate, and just put in whatever code you have. It changes every few days but you’ll be notified with the new password every time it does.”

“Thank you,” you say, glancing over your shoulder to look at the gate she’s talking about.

“For now, just follow me. Since it’s your first day, I’ll show you the way to the … where was it you need to get to?”

“Right here it says the Advisory Quart?”

The girl’s eyes widen as she sits up from her seat and walks out of the hut, leading you toward the smaller gate. “Seriously?” she asks as she punches in the code, the gate automatically opening once she’s done.

The gate leads to a narrow pathway that runs slightly uphill in the midst of a lush field of trimmed green grass and sparse flowers that was previously hidden from you by the large stone halls. You remember the scene vaguely, but it’s a lot lovelier in person than you remember. Glancing up the pathway, you catch sight of the large castle in front of you, and the vision has an uneasy feeling floating in your stomach.

“Uh yeah, is that surprising?” you respond, hoping the small talk will distract you, even if it’s only a little.

“I mean the Advisory Quart is no joke. Those people work like crazy dogs—” she says with a laugh before looking at you with wide eyes. “Wait, I’m sorry—please don’t tell anyone I said that, they’ll—”

“Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. But please do continue—what were you saying? I haven’t been in that castle in a long—I’ve never been to the castle before, so I’m not up to speed with all the different Quarts and sectors and stuff.”

“Oh well, it’s just that the Advisory Quart does a lot of work … I swear they’re always running around, talking about some new project they’re working on,” she says as you follow her up some steps, nearing an entrance to a building connected to the castle.

“What kind of projects?” you ask curiously.

“Oh gosh, everything, I tell you, they do pretty much everything. From helping the King with his own decisions to doing absolutely random, huge projects, there always seems to be someone who’s on top of everything. I remember I had a friend whose husband worked up there—they were working on designing a whole new ballroom and no one had any idea why! So what are you going to be doing there?”

Chuckling nervously, you aren’t sure if you should tell this girl that you don’t really know. “One of those random projects, I assure you,” you tell her because you’re pretty sure it’s true. After all, you’re almost positive they won’t have you be doing anything that’s worthwhile.

“Ah, well you’ll probably be swamped either way,” the girl says with a sigh as you reach a large wooden door. “Anyways, we’ll part ways here. Just go through these doors and there’ll be a big hallway. Ignore all the different corridors and doors on the side, and just go straight and you can see there’s an open room at the end of this hallway. That’s where your check-in will be, and the people there will direct you to wherever you need to go.”

You blink a few times, taking in all the information before nodding meekly, bowing and thanking the girl for her time as she walks away. Taking a deep breath, you open the door with a loud creaking noise, stepping into the grand hallway.

The walls are beige with ornate accents lining the bottom and top, intricate designs carved into the ceilings that hang chandeliers in intervals. Your sandals clack against smooth travertine marble as your eyes roam the entrances to different corridors and rooms, doors dark and wooden, similar to the one you just entered through.

There aren’t many people in the long hallways, passing by only a few others who seem to have their attention busied by papers or their phone. Some of them are wearing similar fashioned robes to yours, while most of the others are wearing the same lavender colored polo and white slacks as the girl who brought you here.

Smoothing the fabric below your waist one more time as you near the large open room you were directed to, you glance around and find a desk with a kind looking receptionist talking to a man wearing your kind of robes.

Quietly approaching the desk, you stand a few feet behind him, patiently waiting for them to finish so you can step up. Neither of them seem to notice, being caught up in a conversation that seems a bit of a mix of professional and leisurely.

Twiddling with your fingers behind your back, you rock side to side on your feet as you wait for the two to finish up talking about how they’re excited for the next ball that’s coming up, not bothering to think about who these people might be and why they’re even invited to it.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the man at the counter calls out, “I can help you.” He smiles and waves you over before nudging the other man on his shoulder. “Seokmin, go—you’re distracting me.”

The man he pushed is a handsome looking guy, light brown hair falling just above his eyes as he turns around and gives a small smile, stepping to the side but not fully backing away. “Ah, sorry about that. Go ahead, we were just catching up.”

“No worries,” you say quickly, walking up to the receptionist. “I’m here to find the Advisory Quart I think? I was told to report to this entrance, and the lady at the front told me to come here—it’s my first time here so—”

“Your first time in the castle?” the other man asks you with wide eyes.

“Uh, well—”

“Don’t mind him—Seokmin, you know better than to mess with the newbies,” the receptionist murmurs, and you frown at the word. He catches on and looks up at you, holding a hand out. “No offense.”

“N-none taken. So could you help me—I’m really not sure where to go.”

“Yeah of course. Does your email say who you’ll be reporting to?”

“It says here ‘Mr. Park.’”

“Oh okay, his room number’s going to be 77, right down that corridor right there,” the receptionist tells you kindly, pointing at one of the side hallways you saw while walking here. “Since it’s your first day, I’ll let him know that you’ll be coming down so he can be ready. I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

“Thank you so much,” you say bowing, quickly telling him your name. So caught up in the kindness of these peers, you almost forgot why you were so reluctant to come here in the first place, but no worries, this receptionist does a good job of reminding you.

His lips press into a thin line as raises a brow, asking you to repeat your last name again. When your answer slips from your lips, it’s much quieter. A heavy cloud sinks over you as you realize that even after years away, your family name is still tainted.

“Okay,” the receptionist finally says briskly, and you’re taken aback by how cold his voice has become. “I’ll let him know you’re coming down. You can proceed now.”

He doesn’t give you a ‘good luck,’ or a ‘have a nice day,’ or a ‘do you have any questions,’ despite his cheery attitude from before. Now he’s looking at you with an expressionless face and eyes that won’t meet yours as you shamefully turn away.

So caught up in the disappointment, you hardly notice how the other man—Seokmin—is still watching the scene unfold. As you walk away from the open room, there’s a hand on your wrist. Whipping around, you’re faced with a Seokmin whose face seems unreadable, just like the receptionists. Except something is … different. He seems sincere, and you feel safe.

“You might get lost trying to get there,” Seokmin says rather casually, letting go of your hand and walking next to you. “Come on, I’ll show you the way—I’m working under Mr. Park too actually, I’m his intern—so I know the way pretty well and can fill you in on what he’s like.”

You wonder why Seokmin isn’t acting like the receptionist. Your family name is still somewhat taboo in the city outside the castle, so you were pretty confident when walking into the actual place of the ‘crime scene’ that you’d be even more … generally disliked.

Seokmin seems to be different though, and you can’t quite figure out why.

Seokmin lets you know Mr. Park is mean when he wants, which seems to be always. Direct with his words but also, you have to read in between the lines sometimes if you don’t want to get scolded. You’re not sure what to do with that information, because Seokmin doesn’t tell you much else.

You walk down the corridor with him before stopping in front of a wooden door to your right, labeled with that familiar sun emblem and a golden plated plaque reading ‘77.’ “C’mon, he should be in here right now,” Seokmin says, pressing against the frame and pushing the door open.

Inside is a room unlike the others you’ve seen before. The ceiling is much lower and baskets of plants hang from it, vines lining the limestone walls, and pots and beds of plants sit by the smaller desks that litter the area. There’s a larger desk at the end opposite to the door, and you see a man with grey hair and firm eyes sitting at the ornate chair, reading through a stack of papers.

“Ah, Seokmin,” he says, standing up when he notices the two of you by the door, and it’s not you realize that this man is Mr. Park. Both you and Seokmin bow hastily. “I was waiting for the two of you to arrive.” His gaze then turns to you, and it’s sharp. “What took you so long?” His tone is harsh and you almost wince. “It isn’t your first time in the castle,” Mr. Park says bluntly, and for once you are taken aback because no one has addressed the cloud hanging over your head so directly yet.

“I’m sorry sir, I haven’t been here in—”

“No excuses. Don’t be late again.”

“Y-yes sir,” you reply meekly, faltering in your step a little.

Mr. Park sighs heavily and looks at Seokmin, waving him off. “Go to the Ballroom and ask around to see if they need anything for tonight. Don’t be slow like last time.”

“Yes sir! Right on it,” Seokmin says with a nod, quickly turning on his heel and scurrying out of the room.

“And for you …” Mr. Park mutters as he takes in your figure with an unnerving look on his face. “I need you to lead a project.”

Your eyes bulge out of your head. “Lead a project? I don’t even know what—”

“Word has it that the Prince himself had to bribe you with a whole four years of Hong tuition to get you here. Surely you didn’t think you’d be given light work.” people knew about that?

“Well, I didn’t know much about anything and I don’t even know what work I’m supposed—”

“You’ll figure it out, soon enough,” Mr. Park tells you briskly, walking over to his desk where a large chalkboard sits to its left. Using a stick, he points at a word written in a corner. Garden. “The Queen has a courtyard that she no longer likes the look of. It’s been stripped down, and you’re in charge of turning it into a garden of her liking.”

You knit your eyebrows together. “A-a whole courtyard?”

Mr. Park raises a brow. “Are you saying that it’s too much for you?”

“N-no!” you exclaim quickly. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I don’t get why I would be chosen to do this.”

Mr. Park huffs, and you wonder how such a tiny old man can fit so much sass in him. “If you must know: the Queen loved how your …” he pauses and within a fraction of a second you have a feeling where this is going, “… your mother designed the gardens on the West end.”

Mr. Park walks towards his desk and sits down, not looking at you as he cards through a few binders. “The Queen wants a similar style for this courtyard but since we can’t exactly have her back …”

You wince for real this time as you conclude, “… you tried to get the next closest thing.”

Mr. Park nods, not returning a snarky comment this time, much to your pleasure. “I’m the head of Design & Architecture, by the way, if you have any questions ask me—as long as it’s not stupid. You lead your project—design it and plan it. When you need people to work on it just talk to Seokmin and he’ll assign someone. You have three months to finish it. If you need an extension, you’ll have to get it approved by me.”

“Okay,” you respond quickly, trying to take in all the information at once. “Is there, like, a theme? Anything she wants in particular?”

“That’s a stupid question,” Mr. Park says bluntly and you frown as he points at a desk behind you. “Your desk is there. Any information you need will be there.”

“Y-yes sir, thank you,” you say, bowing and turning on your heel to sit down at your new chair. The desk is dark, wooden, and completely barren except for a thin folder set in the middle. Opening it, there’s a single paper inside with only a few bullet points typed out, and it hardly takes you a moment to read through all of it.

It’s vague—your only real requirements are the adherence to the kingdom’s symbolic purple colors, and inclusion of a general theme throughout the courtyard.

You furrow your eyebrows at the lack of guidance—were you really left to make such major decisions about such a large space in a castle you haven’t been in years? There’s so much room for error and disappointment and rejection, and after the past years of being treated like your family was nothing but a mistake, you aren’t sure if you can handle any more of it.

Closing your eyes, you absentmindedly nod to yourself in a silent promise. Closing the folder, you stand up. “Mr. Park, sir, do you know where the courtyard—”

“There is a map on the wall. Figure it out.”

You huff, glancing at the large map of the castle next to the chalkboard. This is going to be harder than you thought.

You run into Seokmin just as you leave 77, and he helps lead you to the courtyard. “So you’re working on this one, huh,” he says under his breath as you both appear in front of a large plot of land surrounded by castle buildings on all sides. You’re both standing on the East entrance to the courtyard, and there are four adjacent and opposite entrances on all other sides.

“Uh, yeah,” you say steadily, glancing back down at your minimal instructions before looking back up at the courtyard. It’s a square, and if you had to estimate, each side would be around 50 yards long, leaving quite a great deal of space for you to work with it.

“Pretty big project, huh,” Seokmin says, although his tone seems much more lighthearted than your mood. How the hell are you supposed to transform this in three months?

“Yeah,” you mutter, squinting at the bright sunlight as you analyze the plot.

“You know, I can totally help if you want,” Seokmin begins to say, and you take note of how quickly he talks. “I don’t know if Mr. Park told you but you can basically ask me for help on anything and like, I’m really doing this whole interning thing for fun—” Who the hell works as an intern for Mr. Park, for fun? “—so I’d be happy to help.”

“Thanks. I’ll ask if I need anything.”

“Great!” Seokmin cheers, clapping his hands together before looking behind your shoulder and letting his smile brighten. He waves at someone behind you and you purse your lips together, wondering if you should brace yourself for yet another salty interaction.

“Minnie!” a deep voice greets and suddenly, your feet seem glued in their spot. You know that voice.

“Shua, hey!” Seokmin says cheerily, and you silently cringe. “Crazy running into you here, gosh, I haven’t seen you since last week!”

Prince Joshua laughs, and it reminds you of all those years ago when you watched him from inside the greenhouse. You hate how you remember.

“Yeah, my fencing instructor let me off earlier so I thought I might browse around the castle for a bit,” he explains, and when it all goes quiet and you realize that he must be looking at you, but you don’t dare to turn around.

“Oh,” Seokmin exclaims, as if he’s just realized that he forgot something. You feel a tapping on your shoulder, and for a second you debate just running the other way and never letting yourself return to the castle but for something, you’re planted in your place. “Hey, look,” he says quietly in your ear, “It’s the Prince.”

Like you don’t fucking know that. Nodding, you slowly follow his lead and turn around, eyes trained on the ground as you bow.

“Oh, well if it isn’t that little ray of sunshine,” Prince Joshua says, and it takes everything to not let your eye twitch as you finally look up at him. He’s wearing the same royal uniform you say to him when you showed up on his doorstep and his eyes are crinkled as he smiles widely.

Your face burns as Seokmin’s eyes flicker back and forth between you, and your lips are pressed together in an awkward silence. “You know each other?” His face displays nothing but perplexion for a few moments but then it seems that some of the cogs turned and his lips open wide into a large ‘o,’ and Seokmin waves his finger while nodding. “Oh you’re the girl Shua said he had to offer four years worth of—”

“Seokmin,” Prince Joshua interrupts, putting his hand over his friend’s mouth after catching the look of mortification on your face for bringing it up. “Mr. Park was calling you, I’m pretty sure.”

“Ugh, are you kidding me? I thought this would be fun for the summer but he actually has me doing stuff!” As the two converse casually, you wonder how hard it’d be to quickly slip away.

“Not sure what you expected,” Joshua chides his friend before Seokmin groans and you hear the heavy footsteps of him walking away. He calls out your name once and your eyes shoot up as you bashfully wave your hand at him, bidding goodbye.

You’re left in this corridor with the empty thoughts in your head and the goddamn prince of the kingdom. You half expect him to just wave at you and go about his own business, but it seems like you still have a lot of learning to do.

After all, Prince Joshua is a fickle man. “It’s nice to see you again, Sunshine,” he greets, and you think you might pass out from embarrassment. Glancing around, you see a few maids overhear him using the name and murmuring their own whispers amongst themselves as they rush away.

“H-hi,” you say nervously, suddenly aware that much attention is on you now that the prince is speaking to you.

“So this is what you’re working on?” he asks curiously, not paying a single mind to your awkwardness, walking toward the door which leads to the East entrance to the courtyard.

“Yes sir,” you murmur. You could be snappish outside the walls and in the boundaries of your own home but here, you’re bound by royal courtesy and witnesses that surround you. Compliance is all you can manage out in the open.

“Don’t call me sir—you’re around the same age as me, so it feels weird,” Joshua says dismissively, and you furrow your brows at how casual he’s being. “So,” he starts, looking out at the empty yard of dirt, “you got any idea of what you’re going to do with it?”

“Not a clue,” you reply honestly, keeping your answers brisk. Joshua seems to catch on and he pouts at you. How can a man act so childish? The thought lingers in your head for a moment before he starts talking to you.

“So cold. Brighten up Sunshine. I’ll stop in soon to see how it’s going here—I’m interested!” he says cheerily before stepping back and nodding. You bow as he walks away, waving to you one last time before leaving you in the corridor with not a single thought in his mind.

There seems to be a distinct odd air around the prince, except you can’t quite place why that is.

It’s been three weeks since you started working at the castle—time passes quickly when you have loads of work to do and not much time to do it. You spent the first week hunched over at your desk simply raking your mind for ideas, for anything that would give you even a smidge of inspiration.

77 is rather sparse. It’s only really you and Mr. Park actually working in there, with the occasional Seokmin running in and out to tend to everyone’s miniscule needs.

And then there’s Jihoon, who is the only other person who actually works at his desk, even if it’s only for an hour a day. Jihoon is slightly brooding and always has his nose buried in some work, but he seems standoff-ish to just about everyone. He isn’t unkind though, just … just reserved, and you feel thankful that there’s another person somewhat like you here.

77 is kind to you and your heart. Everyone works on their own schedule and is in their own head, and no one seems to treat you extraordinarily different. You wish the same would go for the rest of the castle.

On the second day of your work, the embroidered name on the fabric over your right breast was clear enough for people to start learning who you were and recognize your face.

But you’re used to the stares—both the subtle and obvious ones—and you are used to the whispers, the guessing games about whether or not you’re a slut just like your mother was.

You’re not, by the way, but you’ve had enough experience with these kinds of people to know that they can guess all they want but you know the answer, and the truth will come to light at some point. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, they'll figure it out on their own. Eventually.

By the second week, you figured out a plan and needed to get to work on executing it. Seokmin seemed to be pleased when you asked him for help on that.

“I need people who can build a pathway,” was all you needed to tell him and then he was on the phone, and then the next day you had ten men ready for you by the dirt field ready to work. “I want stone tiles and it needs to curve exactly like this,” you told them, showing them a scaled down map of the area with a long, curvy line running from the North to South ends, and another even more curvy one running from the East to West end.

They didn’t ask questions, which you’re grateful for, because coming up with it was a whole feat on its own. Explaining it would be a whole other story.

As you walk up to the castle’s entrance today, you catch sight of a girl who sits in her little hut in front of the East gate. She’s the same girl who helped you on the first day, you realize. She was kind then, you remember, but now as you meet her gaze, she turns away and pretends to go back to her phone.

You don’t frown or let the gesture sear your heart because in all honesty, that’s exactly what you’re expecting. Sighing, you make your way to the smaller gate and walk the small way up to the actual castle grounds before heading straight to 77.

Jihoon is sitting at his desk but is just about to get up, sending you a quick nod as he stacks his files and walks out of the room. Mr. Park isn’t here, for once, although you did overhear some information about a ball happening tonight so you figure he must be busy.

You’re thankful Seokmin is here, and you catch him watering one of the plants. “Hey, what are you doing?” you ask him hastily, walking up behind his back before grabbing the watering pot from his hands.

“Um … watering … the plants?”

“These are yarrows,” you emphasize, pointing at the white flowers he was just watering.

“Okay … I am really not sure what to do with that information,” Seokmin says slowly as if he isn’t quite processing your words.

Huffing, you tell him, “Yarrows don’t need a lot of water. You aren’t watering them … I think a better word would be drowning.”

“Oh,” Seokmin mutters, looking down at that pot that’s now rich with soaked soil. “Sorry, I, uh, didn’t know,” he apologizes, and you purse your lips together because he does sound sincere.

“It’s okay … sorry for being mean about it,” you add quietly, returning the pot to his hand. “I can send you a list later—of all the plants here and how much water they need.”

Seokmin’s ears perk up. “Really? Thank you, but you seriously don’t have to, you know.”

“I know, but I enjoy talking about plants and stuff. And I’d rather the ones in this room be taken care of nicely, so the least I can do is help you,” you offer before retreating to your desk. “I think I need your help by the way, so can you come with me?” you ask, pulling out a measuring tape from a drawer.

Seokmin nods, dropping the watering bucket by his own desk and following behind you as you leave the room. The journey from the Advisory Quart to your courtyard, which is located near Royal Residence Quart, is quite the walk, and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t a little bit pleased that you had someone like Seokmin as company.

“How’s the project turning out?” he asks as you make your way down the long hallways. You catch a few other workers spare the two of you glances and you try to hold your head up and look forward when you respond.

“I’m a little behind,” you admit. “But the construction manager told me that they should be finished with the pathway today, and I asked them to start tilling some other parts of the field so I can get some flora in there soon.”

“Oh really That’s nice—I stopped by the place just the other day and the pathway was looking pretty cool—the color fit in really well.”

“Hm, that’s good … I was worried about that,” you murmur to yourself thoughtfully, pulling out your phone so you can glance at the list of things you need to get done before heading back to 77. Tucking the device back into a crevice of your robe, you smile as you near the East end courtyard entrance. “I gotta get a plaque up here or something,” you remind yourself, looking at the empty space above the entrance.

“You want me to get on that soon?” Seokmin offers and you shrug.

“I guess. I’ll still have to come up with a name for this place …” you say, walking into the courtyard.

“Wow,” Seokmin mutters as he follows behind you. “The pathway looks great!” He pats your back and you throw him a small smile when you look over the two twisting paths that connect the 4 ends of the courtyard. “What was it that you needed my help with again—Oh hey! Shua!”

Oh for fuck’s sake—

“Seokminnie!” that familiar, smooth voice appears from behind you as Seokmin turns on his heel and scurries toward his friend. Slowly and carefully, you tuck your hands behind your back and bow when you turn around and are met with the sight of Prince Joshua. “Sunshine,” he greets with a smile after exchanging his casual pleasantries with his friend.

“Good morning sir,” you murmur as Seokmin bounces up and down on feet from a newfound excitement. How does he have this much energy at nine in the morning?

“I thought I said don’t call me sir,” Prince Joshua tells you, scrunching his face up when you let the word slip from your mouth. “Feels weird.”

“I’m sorry but you’re kind of the prince. I don’t think there’s anything else for me to call you other than ‘sir,’” you huff lowly before slapping a hand over your mouth. You’re not scared of what Joshua might do, per se, but the thought of someone else overhearing your snarky remark has you reminding yourself to be more careful.

Joshua only chuckles. Is there anything that bothers him? “You’re funny,” he comments. “You can call me Joshua, like Minne over here,” he tells you, patting Seokmin’s shoulder affectionately.

Your face sours and you shake your head, “I’m sorry that doesn’t feel right.”

Joshua rolls his eyes playfully, choosing to ignore what you said and instead looks around the courtyard. “Nice pathway. It’s cool that it isn’t straight—is it supposed to be something?”

“Sort of,” you say, turning around to look at the stone on the ground. “It’s confusing.”

Joshua scoffs. “Try me.”

You furrow your eyebrows. Why Prince Joshua—or as he would like you to call him, just Joshua—is so curious about a random courtyard is beyond you. “They’re just lines that follow the movement of sunlight. I guess. I don’t really know how to explain it.”

“That’s cool,” Seokmin chimes in when he sees you pulling out a roll of measuring tape. “Oh yeah, sorry, I didn’t get to hear what you said you needed help with.”

“Oh yeah, I just want to measure a—”

“Sorry for interrupting,” Joshua says, and you frown when he pulls out a buzzing phone, holding it up to Seokmin’s face. “What did you do this time—why is Mr. Park calling me?”

Seokmin’s eyes widen in panic as you watch the scene unfold. “What?! I haven’t done anything wrong recently. Well I don’t think I did and I’m pretty sure—”

He’s cut off by Joshua pressing his finger over his lip, effectively shutting him up. You almost laugh at the way Seokmin complies so quickly, but hold it back as Joshua holds the phone up to his ear. The sounds that come from the call are muffled but you can vaguely make out the voice of your boss before Joshua sighs and ends the call.

“What are yarrows and what did you do to them?” he asks his friend, and this time you actually do stifle out a giggle. Joshua glances at you as you quickly press your lips back into a fine line, both of you turning your attention back to Seokmin whose ears are turning bright red, shoulders tensing up.

“Oh no—I really don’t want another scolding!” he whines.

“Well buckle up, because he’s asking for you back at 77 right now,” Joshua shrugs as Seokmin huffs, stomping off back into the corridor and presumably back toward the Advisory Quart. “Sorry,” he says, turning to you, “I keep sending your assistant away when you need him.”

“It’s fine,” you say gruffly. “I, uh, I can still do this all by my stuff so it’s not really a big deal.”

Joshua narrows his eyes. “Are you sure? I don’t have fencing for another …” He glances down at his star studded wrist watch for a second, “… thirty minutes so I can help out.”

To say you’re mortified by the offer is an understatement. A prince helping out you? He must be fucking with you because—

“Stop giving me weird looks. I know how to help out around here, you know?”

“Duly noted, but I’m not sure how it would look on my end if the prince was helping me out with—” you gesture to the field around you, “—yard work.”

Joshua laughs, and once again you’re left in perplexity. “Weren’t you the one who reminded me that this is the 21st century? I don’t just sit around and do nothing, you know that right?”

“But still,” you mumble.

“Okay fine. If you’re so obsessed with this royal hierarchy thing, then I, as Prince Joshua, am officially requesting you to let me help. Surely you won’t turn that down.”

This man is so weird.

“Fine,” you relent, holding up the measuring tape. “You see that little circle in the middle where the pathways sort of curve around? I need to measure the circumference of it.”

“That’s it?” Joshua asks casually, grabbing one end of the measuring tape as you make your way to the plot. “Oh, I mean I guess it’s kinda big,” he adds, glancing down at the measuring tape. This one only goes up to 15 feet.”

“You’re right,” you mutter to yourself. “Okay here, let’s just use this,” you say, pulling out a roll of thin string and handing one end to Joshua. “If you stand here I’ll just circle it around and measure the length of the string,” you explain, unraveling the roll and walking around the outer edge of the circle, trailing the string behind you.

Joshua just stands in the spot that you placed him, holding the string and frowning. “I feel like I’m not helping much.”

“Trust me,” you reply under your breath. “You’re helping me just enough.” You don’t mean it to come out bitter, but it does anyways.

“What happened to all the royal hierarchy stuff that you were on about?”

Your eyes harden on him as you’ve made it halfway around the length of the circle, pausing to make sure he notices your subtle glare. “If you didn’t know, this is kind of my job on the line, and while you’ve made it clear that what I say doesn’t affect you, I’m not sure the same could be said for what other people see. So I’m sorry if I don’t want people looking at us and getting the wrong idea.”

“What do you mean the wrong idea?”

Huh. And here you thought that with all those royal tutors, the prince would be smart. Too bad for Joshua, but right now, he’s coming off as just about the densest guy alive.

You’ve been working at the castle for five weeks now. Since your last meeting with Joshua (he insists you get rid of the ‘Prince’ and ‘sir’ so diligently now that even in your head, you’ve removed him of those honorifics), you’ve only seen him twice.

The first was three days after he helped you measure the length of your soon to be pond. You were on the phone with a construction contractor in 77 when Joshua popped in to say ‘hi’ to Seokmin (how and why the two are friends, you don’t know, and you don’t care enough to ask). Noticing you were here past the regular working hour of six, he waited for a few moments to let you finish up your call before walking up to your desk.

“You know you don’t get paid overtime, right Sunshine?” he asks, confused on why exactly you were still here.

“Well work needs to get done,” you sigh heavily, taking a few seconds to clean up your desk and throw away a few old designs you sketched earlier.

“Hey, those looked cool, why’d you trash them?”

“They didn’t work,” you tell him, rummaging through more papers to find the few that you actually wanted to keep.

“Told you,” Seokmin comes up from behind Joshua, patting his shoulder. “She’s a tough judge��even on herself.”

“I get what you mean now,” Joshua murmurs, nodding along with his friend.

Your eyes snap up. “Why are you talking about me as if I’m not here—wait, why do you guys talk about me when I’m not here anyways?”

“You’re like the only one that’s nice to me in 77! Well, sort of,” Seokmin reasons with you.

“I mean you do kind of suck as an intern—”

“Hey! I just happened to get distracted a lot. I’m an honest worker, trust!”

You huff, finally finding the paper that you were looking for. It’s a design for a couple plaques that you want posted above the entrances, and you tuck it into a folder.

“Is that in Latin?” Joshua piques when he catches a glimpse of the wording.

“Uh, yeah—you know Latin?”

“He’s a prince. Of course he does,” Seokmin tells you, turning around to nudge his friend on the side. “This spoiled brat has been learning Latin since he was six!”

Joshua scoffs. “Who’re you calling a spoiled brat? You were in those classes with me too!”

You consider wondering about who exactly Seokmin is and why he was in those classes with a prince, why he’s so close with Joshua, and a plethora of questions run through your mind, before you remind yourself that you really don’t care.

“Yeah but—” Seokmin tries to reason with his friend before you stand up and both of their attention are directed at you.

“You’re right Pri—Joshua. I don’t get paid overtime, so I’m gonna get going now.” You bow at him and then Seokmin, grabbing your folder and bag before pushing in your chair and heading to the exit. Awkwardly, the two boys say bye to you before glancing at each other.

“That was weird,” Seokmin says, and Joshua shrugs.

“I guess.”

“Did you actually understand what she wrote or were you just bluffing? I don’t remember shit from those Latin lessons.”

Joshua rolls his eyes and nods. “Yeah, but I only got the second word. Said ‘invictus,’ I think.”

“Huh, cool. Got no clue what that means.”

“It means undefeatable, dipshit,” Joshua groans. “Seriously, how’d you pass that class!”

“Hey, I was a great student—I just have, uh, bad memory,” Seokmin pouts.

“Yeah I can tell … seriously, how did you manage to fuck up the yarrows even after she,” Joshua gestures behind him as if to point at where you exited just a few moments earlier, “sent you all those instructions and all!”

“God, don’t remind me. I actually feel really bad, ‘cause Mr. Park yelled at her too for giving me ‘the wrong instructions,’ but I really just forgot what she told me.” Cringing at the mental image of both you and Seokmin being scolded by Mr. Park, Joshua shakes his head—that is not a pretty scene.

Joshua sighs, the two of them making their way out of the empty 77 and walking down the corridor towards the Royal Residence Quart. “Why’re you even interning for him? You don’t need a job, especially not as one being an assistant.”

“My dad’s pissed at me, remember?” Seokmin tells his friend gruffly, and Joshua purses his lips at the mention of the older man.

“Right.”

“Wanted to punish me for the summer or whatever, but I guess it’s not too bad. The staff are actually pretty funny, and your Sunshine girl is really bossy so she gives me a lot of work to do.”

“I can’t tell if you’re complaining or celebrating.”

“Both, I think,” Seokmin replies, the two of them laughing together. “Why do you talk to her so much? She’s even snappier to you than to me, and trust me, I can be pretty damn annoying.”

“Like I don’t know that,” Joshua mutters teasingly, earning him a punch on the arm. “But anyways, she seems interesting. Like cool, you know what I mean.”

“I guess,” Seokmin says absentmindedly. “Wonder what my dad would say about that.”

“Okay well your dad isn’t the King so I don’t really think it matters what your dad says about it.”

Seokmin raises a brow. “You sure? My dad almost had me transferred out of 77 because he heard I had to work with her.”

“Well that’s his own problem I guess. Just don’t let him bring it up with my dad because I’m not keen on having any more drama in this castle,” Joshua mumbles, stopping in front of the big door that leads to the residence.

Seokmin nods at one of the guards standing by the door, and she presses a code to a small box on the wall and the doors open. “You coming? Dinner’s about to be served,” he calls to Joshua when he walks forward but realizes his friend isn’t by his side.

Smiling, Joshua shakes his head and waves Seokmin off. “I’m gonna take a breather for a bit. Tell them to start dinner without me.”

Seokmin laughs. “You know they won’t do that.”

“I know, I know, but it’s the gesture that counts anyways. I’ll be back in twenty, trust.”

The second time you saw Joshua was yesterday evening just as you were just leaving 77 to head home, your arms full of papers to look through in the night. After getting the pathways cleaned up, you needed to work on adding more structures to the courtyard, but were at a loss of what to make and what to make it with.

With your stack of papers that were littered with different possible materials and architectural structures that you promised yourself to get through by the end of the night, even if it meant pulling a whole damn all nighter.

“Is Sunshine leaving at a normal time for once?” Joshua asks with a faux gasp as he comes across you in the hallway.

With the paper’s digging into your arms, you can only manage to grunt out a short, “Thankfully, I am,” before increasing your pace so you can get all this stuff to your car as quickly as possible.

“Hey, wait!” Joshua calls out from behind you, and you almost whine because your arms are killing you and you aren’t sure how much more of this you can handle. “Do you need help? I can—”

He’s cut off by the sound of your phone slipping from your pocket and crashing to the ground. “Shit,” you whimper under your breath as you try to balance all the papers on one hand while crouching down to pick up your phone with the other. You’re wobbling under all the weight, and you have half a mind to give up right here and now but then a larger hand is pushing itself into your vision.

“Here,” he says, quickly turning over the device to check for any cracks on the scene. In that fraction of a moment, your phone turns on and flashes your very bright and very embarrassing lock screen. Your face burns as you snatch the phone from his hands and tuck it back into your pocket. “Is that Percy Jackson?”

Adjusting the papers in your hand, you shuffle your feet and start walking toward the exit. Joshua follows, as expected. “Uh, yeah—I know it’s embarrassing but—”

“Uh, you did not just say that,” Joshua scoffs, and when you catch the oddly offended look on his face, your annoyance dissipates for a moment. “Percy Jackson is not embarrassing. Those books were like the defining character of my pre-teens.”

You chew on your lip, wondering how you should respond to this. “That’s cool. I used to like the stories too …”

“Seems like you still do, considering it’s like, your lock screen and all.”

“Look, I just have it ‘cause it looks cool,” you tell him bashfully, speeding up the pace of your steps in hopes that it’ll bring this conversation to end faster.

“Uh yeah, sure. Totally believe you.”

“I’m serious,” you huff. “I liked the books ages ago, but now I’m only interested in Greek mythology. It just so happens that the best art of Greek gods comes from Percy Jackson fan artists.”

“Sure. sure,” Joshua says blankly with a smirk teasing at his lips. “Again, totally believe you.” You don’t know why his subtle teasing has you gripping onto your papers so tightly, why it has you gritting your teeth together. And then you remember who this is and it all makes sense.

Joshua is playful and lighthearted, but he is still the Prince, after all.

Your sixth week at the castle, and you’re nearing the halfway mark for your project’s timeline. You’ve spent the past week working on getting some stone benches built into the courtyard, and just this morning you sent in an order to get some plaques engraved.

Mr. Park stopped by when you were checking out your progress earlier, glancing at the pathways and the nearly completed seating. He didn’t say anything, simply nodding and walking along, and you figure that that’s the best you’ll get from him.

Your day goes by fine, for the most part after that. When you take your lunch break at the cafeteria, Seokmin tags along and you’re pleased that for once, you won’t have to eat alone. He has to leave soon after though—apparently Jihoon called for his help, and so you’re left to take care of this afternoon’s work by yourself.

Not that you mind—people let you be in the castle, and it’s actually quite nice for getting work done. When you return to 77, it’s only occupied by Mr. Park who, as always, pays no mind to you. Taking a look at your schedule, you aren’t sure if you feel like smiling or frowning when you see your next activity lined up.

Visiting the greenhouse.

There’s an odd feeling that blooms in your stomach as you walk there. You haven’t been to this side of this castle yet, partly because you don’t need to, but mostly because you don’t want to.

It’s when you leave the walls and take your way out to the Northeastern gardens of the palace that the pathways start ringing bells in your head. The familiar green bushes that you remember your mother tending to. The fields of daffodils, and the little built in canals that lead toward the row of greenhouses—it’s all flooding back to you, and you can’t figure out if you like it or not.

When you first came to the castle, you figured that you could avoid confronting the remnants of your past, but you should’ve known that everything eventually goes full circle.

Which is how you find yourself standing in front of the greenhouse where everything—your life, your mother’s life, all of it—ended on that day over ten long years ago.

Taking a deep breath, you go up to the door of the largest greenhouse ,tentatively tapping on the blurry glass before pushing it open. Peeking inside, you’re met with the familiar sight of flora arranged in neat lines of soil beds.

As you step in, the air is moist and stuffy—when you inhale, you’re reminded of those early Saturday mornings where you sat by your mother’s desk and watched her tend to the plants. The humidity was usually uncomfortable, but you learned to love it. Right now, you learn how much you missed it.

“Can I help you?” a gruff voice interrupts your thoughts, and you whip your head around to find an elderly woman glaring up at you.

“Hi, I called earlier and you said I could take some of the hyacinths. I just wanted to ask which greenhouse they’d be in because—”

“31C,” she says bluntly, immediately turning back around to tend to whatever she was doing earlier.

You watch her for a few seconds blankly, before snapping out of your haze, “O-okay, thank you.” Pursing your lips, you let your head hang low as you start walking toward the door.

“That damned slut,” the woman mutters quietly. You don’t think you want to hear it, but you continue to listen anyway. “Thinks she can just send her daughter over and—”

“And?”

You don’t think you’ve ever been more happy to hear Joshua’s voice.

Looking up, he’s just entered through the entrance you were about to exit through, and while you would usually mull over the possible reasons he would be here, you’re far more focused on watching the bewildered look on this woman’s face

“Nothing sir!” she replies quickly, back straightened as she presses her hands behind her back. 

“Good to hear,” he says simply. You watch from the side as Joshua gives her a look that you can’t really gauge before turning to you with a brighter look on his face. “Seokmin told me I would find you here?”

“I—yeah, he was right.”

“Well I can see that Sunshine,” Joshua chuckles and waves your hand in a gesture to follow him. You don’t have any other choice than to follow him out the greenhouse and into the much freer, lighter air. “What’re you doing here anyways?” he asks when you start finding your way to 31C.

“I need to look at some flowers.” Joshua asks you quite a bit about the courtyard, and although you don’t really get it, you’ve learned that it’s easier to just reply to his questions honestly than try to avoid them.

“For the courtyard?” he piques as you finally find the smaller greenhouse, opening the door to thankfully find it empty of anyone else.

Your gaze lands on a bed of hyacinths as you reply, “What else?”

“Okay, you need to stop answering all of my questions like I’m stupid.”

Huffing, you pull up a pot from under the bed and fill it up with soil before digging your hands into the dirt around one of the hyacinth plants. Your fingers search under the earth before feeling against the roots and carefully pulling out the plant.

“Maybe stop asking stupid questions then,” you suggest.

“Seeing as you think I’m dumb … do you want to tutor me?”

“What?” you deadpan, looking up at him with your hands still in the dirt. “Why?”

“I mean like, you’re smart and all, plus we get along—”

You click your tongue, finally pulling the plant out of the soil and pressing it into the pot. “Not so sure about that second part.”

“Okay well we have some shared interests and stuff—”

“Like?” you counter, walking over to a sink so you can wash the excess soil off.

“Percy Jackson. Greek mythology?”

Your ears perk up at that. “You like Greek mythology?”

“Yes! See! That’s like, already two common interests, Sunshine.”

“More like only two. And one of them is a book series I haven’t read in about nine years so I’m not even sure it counts,” you rebut.

“Oh no, it definitely counts,” Joshua counters, watching you pick up the flower pot and head towards the greenhouse exit. “Wait, we’re diverting from the point here.”

“What is the point again?”

“You need to tutor me!” he whines as he follows behind you, up the pathway back to the castle.

“I need to? Uh, sorry, but I don’t think tutoring the Prince is under my job description.”

“This is a different job though!”

You knit your eyebrows together. “Am I getting paid?”

“You might,” Joshua smirks. “I’ll pay you by the hour.”

Pondering, you chew on the inside of your cheek, before you finally respond, “How much are we talking?”

Joshua grins, shaking his head. “Should’ve known money was the way to your heart Sunshine.”

“Money is not the way to my heart. It’s just the way to get me to tutor you. Don’t mix those two up.”

“Don’t worry Sunshine, I wish you all the best in finding your sugar daddy husband eventually.”

Glaring, you chastise him. “Joshua!”

“Why did you ask me to do this again?” you ask, stepping into the room Joshua has just led you to. It’s near the Royal Residence Quart of the castle, and you’re a bit on edge. Joshua assured you earlier that no one would question why you of all people would be here with him, but you’ve also noticed that the boy can be a bit distant from reality.

“Because,” Joshua starts, watching you look around the room (it is a very nice room; bookshelves line the walls and there’s a grand desk in the middle, a rolling chalkboard on one end and a vintage map on another rolling board scattered off to another end). “I don’t like the royal tutor they have, and you’re smart,” he says casually.

“You can’t ask for another one?” you murmur, raising a brow as he moves to the desk and hands you a folder.

“I could, but my mother would get upset if I keep running through them. I’ve changed my tutors far too many times by now.”

“Ah,” you say dryly. “The extreme difficulties of the royalty. How unfortunate.”

“Sunshine,” Joshua grins, ignoring your snarky comment. “Can you at least pretend you want to be here?”

“Um, I’ll think about it,” you reply honestly, pursing your lips together as you glance at his chalkboard which has a list of things he needs to go over. “What is it that you need help on?”

“Well I’m good at math and stuff but Literature and Chemistry are quite literally killing me,” Joshua says with a sigh, sitting down at his desk.

“Literature?” you ask with narrowed eyes. “You’re the Prince—isn’t Literature supposed to be like, I don’t know, your forte?”

“Who told you that?” Joshua asks with a pout, pulling up a packet of papers and letting it down on his desk with a thud.

“I don’t know, I guess I just assumed they’d be having you read Machiavelli or something like that from the age of two.”

Joshua scoffs, holding up the book so you can read out the title. Oh, it’s The Waste Land. “Okay I get that this is a kingdom and all but seriously, who even uses Machiavellianism anymore? That’s from like six hundred years ago.”

“Less than that,” you correct, but shrug anyways and sit down at the chair on the other side of his desk. “But whatever, you need help with The Waste Land?”

“I mean, yeah I’ve read it a bunch but I just never get it and my mom is obsessed with it for some reason and I really don’t want her to make me sit through another read of it so I really need to write up something good on it that will satisfy my Literature instructor and my mom so I can get it out of the way.”

“A paper?”

“Yeah, you know: analyzing themes and stuff.”

“Okay I know what a paper is,” you snap and Joshua rolls his eyes.

“Look now you’re just picking fights over everything I say. Just relax and—”

“I am relaxed,” you huff, but the tension in your shoulders says otherwise. To be honest, you’re still not sure why Joshua decided to choose you of all people, as if you haven’t made it clear multiple times that you weren’t his biggest fan.

You can respect the effort, you guess, but the way he seems so unbothered by your snarkiness is getting a little bit irritating.

“Whatever you say Sunshine,” Joshua says with a shrug, turning the packet and handing it to you. The poem is littered with annotations, underlines, and highlighter marks all over, and you squint for a moment trying to remind yourself of what you remember from the last time you looked at the work. “You read it before? The Waste Land?”

“Uh, yeah, ages ago though. Like back in high school,” murmur, flipping through the pages to jog your memory.

“Why were you reading The Waste Land in high school? Seems like too much, no?”

“Well not everyone was granted the freedom to do as they please with whoever they please,” you tell him, eyes flickering between Joshua’s curious face and the packet in front of you.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Joshua asks, and his voice is slightly whiny.

“It means that people didn’t want to talk to me so I had to spend my time reading. Even if it was ‘too much,’ or whatever you said.”

“Oh,” Joshua’s voice is quiet. See, you remind yourself, clouded from reality is what Joshua is. “Well I—”

“Forget it. I think I’m going to have to go home and reread The Waste Land if you want me to be of any help. What else do you have to work on, or do you just want to do Chemistry?”

“Uh, sure we can move onto Chemistry,” Joshua replies hastily, tucking the paper back into his folder haphazardly before shoving it into a drawer and pulling out a much thicker notebook. “I kinda need help with a lot of it. Like—I’m sorry I just don’t get it—what the hell is an electrophile and a nucleophiles and why the hell I need to know them for alkanes and—”

“Slow down,” you say, sticking your hand out. You grab the notebook from his desk and skip over the contents before looking back up. “If you want me to do this for you, we’re going to have to start from the basics, okay?”

Joshua gives you a look which tells you he doesn’t think he needs to do that, but you open the notebook to a new page, pulling out a pen. Begrudgingly, he nods and leans his head in to see what you’re writing.

He’s oddly compliant when you ask him to be, despite his jumpy and bubbly personality, and for a fraction of a second, you wonder about his potential. Quickly, you push that thought out of your mind.

It’s late afternoon when you reach the courtyard, smiling at the progress. You told the workers to get started on digging up the pond this morning, and you’re pleased to see that there’s already a large dugout in the century.

“Good work!” you chirp to Jungho, the contractor you talked to over the phone. He seemed nice enough over the phone, but you soon realized within the first time that you two met in person that he was just as standoff-ish as the rest. “But we’re going to need to get the insides patted down and compressed so when we put the water in, the soil won’t just soak it up,” you try to tell him casually.

Jungho points his thumb behind him at some of his men. “Yeah we have a guy for that,” he says gruffly, not even meeting your gaze.

“Thanks … maybe have it finished within a week?”

“Okay. Anything else?” Jungho looks around awkwardly, before adding. “Want us to get the water in there too? Then we can get outta … outta your hair and stuff and don’t have to keep coming back.”

“Uh, no—there’s some lining I want to do with the pond, and I’ve got to do that before there’s water in it. But it’s something I want to do myself, so you can just take care of compressing the soil and I’ll take it from there.”

Jungho gives you a weird look but you brush it off. “Alright. We’ll have it finished by tomorrow,” he finalizes, and with that he turns on his heels and walks back to his workers who you can tell were watching him from the corner of their vision.

“Why are those guys looking at you like that?”

You whip your head around, seeing Joshua standing just a few meters away from you on the pathway coming in from the East entrance. He glances around and finds a marble bench that’s just been made, sitting on the edge casually.

“Joshua, you’ve seen people look at me like that before and I think you know exactly why,” you mutter, walking over to where he sits. Joshua doesn’t respond and instead averts his gaze to the ground.

There’s a stray kitten bouncing around at his feet, and he’s quick to drop to his knees on the pathway and engulf her in his large hands. It would be an endearing sight, you think. Sorta, you guess.

“Whatever. You’re still coming in on Sunday right? My instructor prepared this stupid Chemistry exam for me on Tuesdays and I know you can’t help out on Mondays so I kind of really need you to help me on Sunday so I can prep. So please, please, please—”

“You know I’m gonna come in, so you don’t have to pester me so much about it,” you say with a sigh, putting your folder down and crouching on the ground so you can pet the kitten. She’s cute, with wide slanted eyes and soft brown fur, the wet kitten licks feeling warm against your palm.

“But you put up with it, don’t you?” You roll your eyes but Joshua still grins when you don’t disagree.

“I don’t understand you,” you mutter, truthfully speaking your mind as the kitten rolls around in Joshua’s lap. You smile without thinking, and Joshua carefully watches your usually taut face unravel in front of him.

“Are you kidding me? I’m literally an open book. You know Sunshine, you can find my whole life on Wikipedia.”

You giggle. You fucking giggle at that, and it’s hard to tell who is more surprised between the two of you. “You know that’s not what I meant,” you murmur, struggling to hold back another laugh, the kitten jumping out of his lap to play around on the ground under the gentle hands of you and Joshua.

“Not that I would know. You think I’m stupid anyways.”

“What? No I don’t.”

“Oh my god, please don’t even try to counter that. When I told you I didn’t know why helium was named helium, you looked at me like I was the dumbest person to ever live.”

“Okay that’s only because you say you like Greek mythology! How could you not put that together—it’s so obvious! Helium and Helios sound totally alike, and everyone knows helium is like, one of the most abundant elements in the sun.”

“Maybe you know that. You’re also insanely smart,” Joshua counters.

“Whatever you say. But for the record, I don’t think you’re stupid. Maybe a little dense, but that’s it.”

Joshua pouts. “Aren’t those basically the same thing?” You know he’s only being playful, but something about the way he says it makes you think twice. He’s being sweet. So sweet, it feels almost bitter.

“No. You have a smart head, Joshua. Honest. I think you just gotta learn how to use it,” you tell him, more softly this time.

“Thanks Sunshine,” he replies gruffly and you frown, realizing that your attempts to make him feel better haven’t quite worked.

“I’m serious. What? You don’t think I’m serious?” Joshua shakes his head, and you roll your eyes when you pick up the kitten yourself and pull her into your lap.

“You’re mean. So no, I don’t think you’re being serious.”

You gasp, using the hand that isn’t playing with the kitten to place it over your chest dramatically. “I am not mean. I’m just honest. I’m being honest right now.”

“Whatever,” Joshua quips, turning his nose and looking away pettily.

“Okay, are you actually upset?” you groan, cradling the kitten up to your chest. You aren’t sure if you’re more annoyed because you can’t tell if Joshua is upset, or because you might be the reason he’s upset.

“Who knows. Not that you would care.”

“I obviously care, because I’m asking,” you deadpan, letting the kitten roll around in your arms, letting out a squeak of surprise when one of its claws gets caught in the belt of your robe, making a tear in the silk.

Joshua gives you a funny look when he says, “You can be quite pestering when you want to.”

“Congratulations! You now know how I feel.”

“See what I mean! You’re mean. I want the kitten back.”

You clutch the little close to your chest and nuzzle your face into her neck. “No can do. I’m afraid she’s mine until you admit you know I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Oh my god, is this how it feels when I annoy you?” Joshua grumbles, throwing his head back. “Remind me to never pester you again. Ever.”

“Self awareness is great and all, but like I said, you’re not getting her until you admit it.”

“Fine. I don’t think you think I’m stupid. Happy?”

You hum and shake your head. “Mm, no. Gotta sound more convincing.”

Joshua knits his eyebrows together. “If you’re so insistent on this, then I guess it must be true. I don’t think you think I’m stupid,” he repeats, but his tone is gentler this time.

“Good work.”

Joshua stands tall on a hill. His broad shoulders are sharp with his straightened back and taught jaw. The sky is orange and you watch him from below, the clouds moving slowly above his head in the background.

He’s looking out at something, but you can’t quite tell what. It’s off in the distance, but his eyes are dilated and unwavering for a few long moments.

Wind whistles in your ear, and then the sky grows brighter and brighter until it’s no longer orange and suddenly turning yellow and then white. So white that it hinders your vision and you’re wincing through the light until you realize Joshua is not on the hill anymore.

You look around frantically to no avail—you can’t see anything but white with black spots in your vision and you feel like you’re going blind. And you want to scream but when you open your mouth no sound comes and the blowing of wind grows louder and louder until it sounds like you’re at the beach.

Looking around, you see your legs knee deep in ocean water and you’re no longer hearing the rampage of wind and instead the crashing of waves against rocks. There isn’t a hill anymore, there’s a cliff, but still no sight of Joshua.

It’s still so bright, so bright and you close your eyes tightly again until you feel a shade fall over your figure. A gasp escapes your lips when you see what’s above you.

Wide wings, ornate with white and golden feathers, perched over Joshua’s back as he hovers above you. He’s not looking anywhere else now, only you.

His face glows and then he smiles and you close your eyes one last time but when you open them again, all you see is darkness.

You’ve never been great at remembering dreams. More often than not, you wake up with no remnants of the life you lived in your head the night before, and on the rare occasions that you do happen to recall something, it’s only just random snippets that also hardly make sense.

Last night was no different, although you do wake up with an uneasy feeling, not because of what you dreamed about—you don’t remember that—but because you know you dreamed about Joshua. It’s just the wake up call you need to tell yourself that maybe, just maybe, you’re spending more time with him than you should.

It’s a Saturday morning as you trudge out of bed and to the kitchen, trying to settle the weird feelings that course through your veins when you see your mother brewing a pot of tea. “How’d you sleep?” she asks, not looking up from the boiling water.

Shrugging as you grab a home-grown orange, you respond, “Well enough.”

“Can’t believe they have you going to the palace on the weekends too … I never had to work on Saturdays or Sundays.”

You wonder how she brings up her time at the castle so casually—you don’t know if you’ll ever understand her. “I really don’t have to—I can work on my own schedule basically whenever, as long as I get the courtyard finished by the end of three months.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Behind schedule. Obviously. That’s why I’m heading in again.”

Your mother smiles and walks over, ruffling your hair. “I’m glad you’re working hard on this—I can tell you’re enjoying it, as much as you didn’t want to go there.”

“It’s nice, I guess. I get to be creative, and get paid. Really, getting the money is all I care about,” you tell her casually, taking the peel off the orange and popping a piece into your mouth.

“You don’t talk about it much, but I’m assuming people don’t give you that hard of a time? You always come home fine.”

They do, it just doesn’t happen to be anything you’re not used to. Your mind flashes to Joshua and Seokmin for a moment, and you’re once again reminded of the unnerving fact that you did dream about the former, and you can’t even remember what it was about. “Things are fine.”

You’re three tutoring sessions in with Joshua, and it’s finally the day that you pull out your own copy of The Waste Land. “Oh thank god,” he says with a breath of relief when he sees it. “This paper has been bugging me forever—if we didn’t get started on it soon I might’ve combust.”

“I appreciate the vivid imagery,” you say dryly, “but I really did not need to picture that in my head.”

“Sorry,” Joshua says with a shrug as you sit across from him. “So what’re we gonna do today, Sunshine?”

“Hmm, get through the first part hopefully. We can read it back and forth and talk about it together, so you can take notes. It might be easier that way, so you can get all your thoughts and ideas out, and then it’ll be easier for you to write that paper.”

“Sounds boring.”

“I guess I’ll just pack my stuff and—”

“Okay! Okay! I was just joking. Let’s start, please,” he complies easily, and you smirk as you sit back down.

“Good to hear. Read this part.”

You’re around an hour and a half into the lesson, still working through the first part as Joshua frowns when you finish another stanza.

“Do we have to keep going?” he whines.

“Yes we do. Let’s work with this part now. Read it out for me,” you instruct, pointing out a stanza on your own paper.

“Why—” You give him a look. “—okay fine.”

‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could notSpeak, and my eyes failed, I was neitherLiving nor dead, and I knew nothing,Looking into the heart of light, the silence.Oed’ und leer das Meer.

When he’s done, Joshua looks up at you blankly. “If I’m being honest, I have zero clue what this means.”

You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “You’ve said that every time you read a new section, but I know that’s not true, because you literally always come up with something.”

Joshua scrunches up his face and slaps his hands to his cheeks in frustration. “But now I’m being serious! This is making no sense to me—I hate Literature, okay? My brain is dead right now and I don’t think I can do any more Sunshine.”

“We’ve been doing this for less than two hours,” you say bluntly. “Look—you said you like Greek mythology right? Try and draw some connections. Maybe that’ll make this more enjoyable.”

“I hardly think T.S. Elliot could produce anything I enjoy,” Joshua huffs as he tilts the page so he can read it better, “But fine. I still don’t get what about this has anything to do with mytho—oh!”

“Finally! You get it?”

“Hyacinthus!” You nod eagerly, gesturing your hands to tell him to go on. “Uh, it was that story with Apollo. Shit, what was the story again?” He looks up and taps at his chin, but when you open your mouth to help him out, Joshua sticks a hand in front of your face and shakes his head. “No wait, I remember. The one where they were in love but Apollo accidentally killed him when they were playing a game!”

“You’re right. The blood of Hyacinthus was eventually turned into flowers by Apollo to honor his death or something like that. In the context of this poem … the giver of the hyacinth flower is almost like a sign of—”

Joshua snaps his fingers in the air and grins. “Forgiveness!”

“Well, not exactly giving forgiveness, but asking for it.”

“Kind of like … saying you’re sorry?” Joshua smiles brighter when you nod. “Holy shit, maybe I do enjoy T.S. Elliot.”

You roll your eyes and point at his notebook and pen. “Good, now write that down. You are going to have to write about this, remember?”

Joshua pouts, but picks up the pen nevertheless. “Whatever you say Sunshine.”

“Joshua told me to tell you that he thinks T.S. Elliot sucks,” Seokmin says, coming up to you in the cafeteria as you polish off your own tray. It’s a large and grand area—an old ballroom that turned into a commonplace for the workers.

Large mirrors plate the walls, and across from you, you can watch Seokmin’s reflection as he sits down next to you. Rolling your eyes, you turn to look at him, “He’s only saying that because I told him to write the paper himself.”

Seokmin furrows his eyebrows as he places a white box, a little larger than the size of your hand, on the table. Glancing around, you catch people in the mirror watching you with wavering gazes before turning away when they find you looking at them.

Huff lightly, you turn your attention back to Seokmin. “What’s this?”

“Joshua told me to give it to you.”

That’s new. Tentatively, you lift the lid a little to peek inside, only finding a haphazard mess of stuffing paper with something purple concealed underneath. “Would it be a smart decision to open it right now?”

“Oh my gosh, it’s not an explosive or anything.”

“You don’t know that!”

Seokmin rolls his eyes himself this time. “Yes I do. I packed it.”

“Ugh, even worse. I’m not opening it if you’re around. That’s embarrassing.”

“Is not! I think that you should—” Seokmin is cut off by the sound of his own phone ringing, cursing under his breath when he sees the caller ID. For a moment, you consider peering over and taking a look, but Seokmin stands up too quickly. “I gotta go for a second. I’ll catch you before you leave!” he calls out when he’s already pushing his chair in and rushing off into the distance.

You laugh at his hurry, wondering what could possibly ensue such nervousness from the boy, but you quickly remind yourself that this is Seokmin and he gets the jitters when he even has to think about being around Mr. Park for more than twenty minutes.

Soon, you start to clean up your area yourself, putting your trays away and throwing away your trash in the weirdly fancy bins they have scattered around the hall. As your lunch break nears its end, you grab the oddly light box, your phone, and make your way back to 77.

The room is empty, safe for Jihoon who’s got his head buried in his laptop, and you think it’s a good time to check what’s inside. If it is an explosive, you’ll just have to apologize to Jihoon in the afterlife.

Opening the lid, those same, crumpled papers lay on top, but this time you notice a little white card in the middle. Pursing your lips, your eyes flicker to your side to see if Jihoon’s watching (he never is, but it doesn’t hurt to check), and when your privacy is confirmed, you flip the paper over.

There’s a message written in purple pen, adorning a handwriting that you can distinctly recognize as Joshua’s.

Thank you for all the help. I really owe you one.

You aren’t quite sure what he’s talking about, and you make a mental note to ask him about it when you see him later. Right now, you rummage through the papers, hands feeling the space beneath them before they land on a smooth layer of fabric.

Confused, you pull it out, only to see it’s a ribbon, much like the one tied around your own waist. Same color, same material, same emblem, the only difference being …

You glance down at your own robes where the ribbon has a small tear at one end from where the kitten had pawed at you. You have to blink a few times to realize what Joshua’s intentions were, and when you do, you can’t help the warm smile that begrudgingly makes its way onto your face.

Quickly, you tug the ends of the ribbon around your waist and let it unravel, taking the new ribbon and tying it just as your mother taught you. It’s the same thing as the one before, yes, but this is different. This is a gift.

Donning Joshua’s (your?) ribbon, you start to clean up your desk space and tuck your old ribbon back into your bag. You forgot to tell Seokmin you’re tutoring Joshua this afternoon, so as you pack up you text him a sincere ‘thank you’ message, and let him know that you might not be able to see him before you go. You don’t get a response, which is slightly odd since Seokmin seems to always be on top of things, but you shrug it off and remind yourself that he’s busy.

Today, you make your way down the smaller halls with a little skip to your step. Joshua showed you this pathway earlier so it’d be easier to get to his study room without being seen; it’s a nice little series of corridors that are a little dimmer and narrower, but still hold the lavish feel you always get walking through the palace.

You can hear the voices of a few people, but it seems quiet, hushed, and somehow a little heated—in other words, caught up in their own world. Being in the castle for almost two months now, you’ve learned to realize what kind of situations need your caution and which ones don’t. This is the latter.

You smile to yourself, smoothing your palms over the new, not-torn silk ribbon around your waist, as you near the second entrance to his study, about to enter another hallway to the final stretch and—shit.

When you turn a corner, your heart stops.

You turn back and run down the corridor. You don’t know if Seokmin saw you, and quite frankly, you don’t care.

It didn’t take you more than a second to put two and two together and suddenly you’re pushed back into your nine year old body—you don’t really know what’s happening or why it’s happening, all you know is that it hurts.

You’re going to have to apologize to Joshua for flaking on him. Surely he’ll understand that you were just a little bit upset by the sight you had to see.

After all, you did just witness Seokmin, quite literally your only real friend in this damn castle, speaking to Advisor Lee, the man who tore your mother’s life down. And now is when everything starts to click, because you realize that Seokmin is Advisor Lee’s son.

Of course he was close with Joshua—he probably grew up on these very castle grounds. Of course they attended the same classes—his father was the King’s advisor and cousin.

It makes sense now, and in your bleary haze as you make your way back to 77, you’re not sure what to do. You rush past a few other staff members murmuring under their breath when they see you, and you usually wouldn’t be bothered by the sight but now you remember that this is the first time you’ve cried since you got here, and it’s all because of that man who started this all in the first place.

As you lock yourself in one of the staff bathrooms, you catch your disheveled appearance and furiously wipe at your cheeks. Fuck. You shouldn’t be crying. You can’t be crying over this, because god knows you did not spend years thickening your skin for it to be cut open like this.

You should’ve known. Should’ve fucking known.

You try to stop your tears, telling yourself that they’re all the same. That you shouldn’t have expected anything more from these people, that you should’ve picked up on how Seokmin was definitely someone important, that you should’ve never fallen for his and Joshua’s sweet games.

“Shit,” you gasp out as a sob rips from your throat, and you clutch the side of the sink as uneasiness bubbles up in your stomach and spreads through your limbs until you’re trembling.

Maybe you let him get so close because you thought he saw you for something else. Maybe you believed that he saw you as more than a pity project. More than someone who was defined by their past.

Joshua and Seokmin—they knew. They knew everything this whole damn time.

And now you’re angry—you’re so fucking angry. Tugging at your hair, ripping up your clothes, and thrashing your limbs around kind of angry. The kind of anger that poisons your bones and makes your body ache until you can’t take it anymore. The kind of anger that wraps its hand around your throat and squeezes the air out of you until you can do nothing but relent. The kind of anger that has you looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking, what the fuck.

The worst thing is you can’t even be mad at him. You want to be mad at him and you want to be mad at Joshua. You want to have the will to go up to them and slap the smiles off their faces because how dare Seokmin be the own flesh and blood of Advisor Lee, and how dare Joshua know and not have the guts to tell you.

Because after everything, Seokmin and Joshua were your friends and—fuck—they were some damn good friends. Your best friends, maybe, if you ever had the liberty to even know what that means.

And it wasn’t because they were overly nice, or excessively cheery, or because Seokim was always grinning and Joshua was always smirking, but because when they talked to you, they were talking to you, and not some shell of your past.

Finally, now, when you press your face into your hands as your last attempt to calm yourself down, you feel like you can breathe. You’re not sure where your head is at, and something tells you that it’s gonna take a damn long time to figure it out.

You’re a little lost.

You were just trying to get to the South end entrance of the courtyard but you must have taken a wrong turn or something because you’re walking down a corridor you’ve quite literally never seen before. It’s similar to the hallways of the rest of the palace, but it’s slightly taller and a bit more narrow, and the workers walking through wear faces that you aren’t familiar with. You’re a little nervous about where your feet are taking you, and you consider just turning around and retracing your steps when you hear a voice.

Seokmin’s voice is loud when he calls your name, and you press your lips together tightly when it rings in your ears. “What are you doing here? You usually don’t come down to the South e—” he starts to say when walks up to you from a corridor to your left.

“Nothing,” you reply briskly, turning on your heel so your back is pretty much facing him. “I was just leaving actually.”

“What—hey! Slow down! Where’re you going?”

“77,” you mutter under your breath as you speed up your pace.

“Slow down!”

You don’t relent. “Seokmin, don’t you have stuff to do right now instead of following me around?” You can’t see the look on his face, but you can only imagine it’s one of defeat.

“I—” his voice is quieter this time, “Okay.”

The footsteps that were one following you die out, and as you browse the corners of your vision, you conclude that he’s finally left you alone. You should feel relieved—happy that he’s not bothering you now—but sometimes uneasy churns inside of you, and you aren’t sure what it is.

The rest of your day goes as it usually does in a palace. You tend to your work and as it hits late afternoon, you start making your way to Joshua’s study. Once again, you’re not sure where your head is at.

“Is everything alright?” Joshua asks you the second you walk in. “Seokmin told me you looked upset and wouldn’t talk to him so I—”

You inhale deeply before, putting your hands up in a stopping motion. “I can’t tutor you anymore.”

Joshua looks at you weirdly. “What, why?”

“Or talk to you,” you add.

“What—”

“Just—just don’t talk to me. Or ask me to tutor you. Or ask for my help, or ask to help me—you know what just like—I dunno, stay away from me.”

“Sunshine, where is this coming from?” Joshua pinches the bridge of his nose, and you don’t think he’s understanding the weight of his words.

“Why do you even talk to me?” you snap. “Like seriously, if you can bother any worker in the castle, why does it have to be me?”

Hurt flashes in Joshua’s face for hardly a second before he frowns deeply. “I—what’s going on?”

“Do you and Seokmin think this is funny? Being nice to me like—” You throw your hands in the air. “—like I’m some kind of joke?”

“What? No, Sunshine, what are you even talking about?”

“I know who Seokmin’s dad is.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” you scoff. “So if Seokmin still wants to know why I don’t feel like talking to him, maybe consider telling him that I’m not interested in being around someone whose father is literally the reason me and my mom’s lives have been so fucked up.”

Joshua winces at the last statement. You’ve been irritated with him, annoyed with him, and all that petty stuff, sure, but this is different.

“Seokmin isn’t like that, okay? He isn’t—you know—like that.”

“And how would you know?” you snap. “Prince Joshua, what do you know about having people be, quote unquote, above you? You have everything in front of you, and when people look at you and Seokmin it’s not ‘cause of some fucked up scandal which pinned your mom as the kingdom’s slut of the century, it’s ‘cause they literally bow down to your presence and—”

Something tells you to stop yourself. Maybe it’s the fact that you know you’re not actually angry at them. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re so fucking tired of being angry all the time that you can’t take it anymore. Maybe it’s the fact that when you finally look him in the eye, Joshua looks sad.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says meekly. “Seokmin should—we should’ve let you know earlier. I promise we didn’t be your friend just ‘cause of that,” he rambles. “I mean obviously we knew about it but we didn’t wanna bring it up because everyone was bringing it up and—I’m sorry. You know Seokmin isn’t like that.”

“And you?” you quip, but you know your retorts hold no weight. “How do I know you aren’t like—like that.”

Joshua falters and you watch him gulp. He looks tired and his lips are red from how hard he’s been chewing on them as you speak. “Y-you know,” his voice is quiet, “You know I’m not.”

You have your answer before you even have to think about it, but you pause for a few moments, waiting to respond. All that comes out is a shallow breath as you look down and squeeze your eyes shut. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I just—” You sigh weakly. “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.” Joshua doesn’t respond—he knows you’re thinking.

You wonder what to do with yourself. You’re not angry. Not sad either. Uneasy? Maybe. It’s the uncertainty of it all. You don’t understand why you’re not mad, and you don’t understand why you want to forgive him so easily, but you’re starting to realize that you should stop trying to understand the things that might never make sense.

Finally, you nod. “It’s fine.”

“Sorry again. I guess we didn’t wanna make that whole thing all about you. Because like, you’re you, and whatever happened is separate.”

You purse your lips and nod. “Thank you.”

“Was that sarcasm?”

You glare at him. “Dipshit, no it wasn’t!”

“I’m taking this as a sign that you’re feeling better. Am I correct?”

You bite back a smile and shrug. “I guess.”

“Cool, ‘cause I think you’d like to know that my mom stopped by the courtyard the other day.”

“Oh yeah? What’d she say? This is all for her isn’t it—hopefully she liked it.”

“Yeah no, she said it was great. She thought the patterns of the pathway were cool and so she asked me if I could figure out why they were designed like that and I said no. By the way, why did you design them like that?”

“There’s this song I like. It’s called Isohel, and when I first heard it, I liked it a lot,” you explain. “Searched up what it means and stuff and then a few weeks later I was taking some filler class for the credits and my professor goes on some tangent about god-knows-what, and somehow he brings up pictures of an isohel map. An isohel—it’s basically a line which maps out the places that have the same duration of sunshine. Pretty cool, I think.”

“Is that what the pathways are? Are they—what is it—an isohel?”

“Mhm. On an isohel map, they’re not always just lines—they come around full circle sometimes so it looks like these funky, squiggly ovals sometimes,” you ramble. “So I took one of those circle-ish things and broke it up and pieced it together like a pathway.”

“That’s really smart.” Joshua pauses. “You’re really smart.”

It’s not the first time someone’s told you that. Fuck, it’s not even the first time Joshua’s told you that, but it feels different now. He means it, you know it in your bones.

“I-I dunno,” you stammer. “I guess. It just relates to the theme of the sun. My mom taught me about it when I was younger—I loved the sun.”

“So that’s what the theme of your courtyard is? Me and Seokmin have been betting on that for ages.”

You scoff, “You guys bet on that? Seriously, do you have nothing better to do with your time?”

“Clearly not!” he shoots back, causing you to laugh. “Are you really feeling better now?” Joshua asks sincerely, and when you smile and nod, he grins. “Hey, I just realized you talked to me about your feelings—”

“Don’t mention it,” you snap gruffly, crossing your arms over your chest.

Joshua clicks his tongue and chuckles. “There’s the Sunshine I know.”

It’s the next day when you walk into 77. Jihoon’s desk is empty, Mr. Park is just about to leave as you enter and you bow to him quickly as you settle in your desk. Seokmin is in the corner watering the yarrows, seeming to not have noticed you yet.

You watch him closely, smiling softly when you notice he stops before he can overwater them. Quietly, you set your stuff down and Seokmin begins to talk. “Oh, Jihoon, Mr. Park was just looking for you—oh,” he cuts himself flat when he turns around and sees you.

You’re not sure what to do, because Joshua didn’t exactly tell you if he told Seokmin about your conversation and what not, but the look on Seokmin’s face is telling you that he’s just a little behind on the news.

“Hey,” you say casually, throwing a hand up to wave at him as you set your bag down on your desk. Seokmin opens his mouth and then closes it a few times, as if he’s searching for the right words but they don’t quite come out for a few moments.

“Joshua told me that, uh, you know that—” He pauses and glances at you, trying to watch for any hints of anger on your face, but none comes.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say with a shrug, and Seokmin has to blink twice because he’s not sure he heard you correctly at all.

“W-what?”

You narrow your eyes at him. “I said don’t worry about it,” you state again, and then add more softly, “You’re not your father. I get it.” You get it more than anyone. “Anyways, did you get the workers to start planting the hyacinths?”

Seokmin shakes his head once to snap himself back into reality and then shakes his head again a second time. “Wait no, I mean—wait, yes! I mean yes! I did do that—I should go remind them to get on that,” he rambles quickly, clearly a little flustered.

You chuckle. “It’s good to see you’ve been watering the yarrows properly now. Mr. Park finally beat it into you?”

“Y-yeah I guess. I’ve been getting better at remembering them all,” he tells you, starting to fall into a more casual tone. It’s normal, you think. Nice and normal. Nice and normal and just what you need.

“What are you doing here?”

When you turn around with your bag slung over your shoulder, you’re surprised to see Joshua. “Um, working?”

“It’s a Saturday night,” he states, lips pinched together in a funny expression, like he can’t figure you out.

“I think I know that,” you chuckle. “I didn’t know if I could come in on Monday—I need to stop by the university campus for something—so I just came in today to take care of some stuff.”

“You’re a dedicated worker huh … you should just work here forever—the pay is great.”

“Mm, I’m not sure about that,” you say honestly as you look him up and down. It strikes you now that Prince Joshua truly is a handsome man. Dark velvety robes that are even more grand than the ones you’re used to seeing on him, well fit dress pants against his legs and shiny leather shoes that seem to fit his image perfectly. “Anyways, I heard there’s a ball tonight? You’re not going?”

Joshua shrugs as he turns around and starts walking, waving you over to follow him. “C’mon follow me.” You contemplate your choices before telling yourself, what’s the worst that could happen, scurrying on after him. “I left—it got boring, so I got about twenty-five minutes before someone calls me and asks me to come back. My bets are on it being Seokmin ‘cause he’ll get bored.”

You snort at that as the familiarity of this route starts to sink in. “Hey are we going to my …”

“Yeah. Seokmin told me you finally got it named, and I want to check it out.”

“Uh, yeah,” you murmur bashfully—you hadn’t expected Joshua to be that interested in it. You walk through the empty corridors to the hallway that has the North entrance of the courtyard, and Joshua cranes his neck up to look at the golden plaque that rests above the entrance.

“Sol Invictus, huh.”

You nudge him on the side playfully. “You know what that means, Mr. Latin Genius?”

“Of course I do,” he retorts with a roll of his eyes. “Sun god, or whatever,”

“God of sun, but you were close enough I guess,” you mutter as you walk through. The courtyard looks different in the night. It’s nearly done, and as the little warm lights you had placed in intervals along the path light up the scene, you can’t help but feel overwhelming pride with how well you’ve done.

“C’mon, let’s sit here,” he says, pointing down at the circular patch of grass that surrounds the pond in the middle. Joshua sits down first and you watch him carefully before quickly sitting next to him as well.

The grass is cool under your skin, but as a comfortable silence envelopes you and Joshua, you start to think you really don’t mind.

“I think lots of people think I’m stupid or something,” Joshua finally speaks up, and some uncomfortable feeling boils in your stomach at the words. “You know, the only thing people usually compliment me on is my fencing, really. And fencing is one of those things that, if you’ve been doing it as long as I have, you sort of gotta be good at it.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“I know. Thank you.” There’s a silence as he reaches over the stone lining of the hyacinth beds, plucking a few from the shrubs.

“Joshua!” you complain. “I had those planted just last week.”

“It’s fine,” he mumbles, handing the two he plucked to you. You don’t hesitate to keep your palms open for him, his fingers brushing over the skin of your arms as he does so. You rub the smooth petals between your fingers and a thumb, bringing one close to your chest before taking the other and handing it back to Joshua.

He looks at you, eyes clearly confused, but holds it to his own chest anyways. With your hands behind you on the ground, you lean back and look up at the sky, letting your shoulders relax. The night air pinches at your skin, but the soft fabric of Joshua tuxedo is warm as it brushes next to you.

“Why’d you name this pond Eridenus?” Joshua asks, pointing at the plaque by the pebble lining which spells out the word in fancy lettering.

“You don’t know where it’s from?” you sigh, lifting your head so you can shoot him a stern look. Joshua rolls his eyes and nudges your cheek with his shoulder, motioning you to lean back down at him.

“You know I’m a rascal—I’m forgetful. Tell me what it means.”

“It’s confirmed: you’re a fake mythology fan. I’m suing the universe.” Joshua chuckles and pokes you, egging you to go on. “Do you remember the story of Phaethon?”

Joshua hums. “Uh, son of Helios. Didn’t believe that he was his son. Asked to ride his carriage but lost control and almost burned the Earth?”

You shrug. “Well that’s most of it I guess. He’s racing down to the earth and everything is chaos—rivers boiling, forests on fires, people turning to ash—and so Zeus throws his bolt at him and kills Phaethon right in the sky.”

“Kind of like the story of Icarus. But the opposite I guess. Instead of getting too close to the sun, he brings the sun too close to the earth.”

“You could put it like that. They have the same meaning, I think. But anyways, Phaethon falls out of the carriage and as he dies he falls into this river called Eridenus.”

“Oh.” Joshua’s voice is quiet as you both watch the gentle water lap back and forth in front of you. The small waves hitting the stone barriers of the pound is the only sound that permeates the night sky, besides your shared breaths and the occasional whistling of wind.

“It’s kind of like—” You.

“Don’t say it.” Joshua’s words are crisp and short, and he doesn’t look at you. You want to say the words—I’m sorry—but they get stuck in your throat and ripple through your limbs as you scoot closer to him.

“Anyways,” Joshua finally says, but the word is only followed with silence.

“I think you need to get back to the ball,” you tell him quietly, lifting your head from his shoulder. Your skin burns from where it was previously pressed against him and you silently chide yourself for letting yourself get so close.

Joshua finally turns to face you, and you’re surprised when he chuckles. “So eager to get rid of me, Sunshine?” You scoff, pushing him away gently.

“I-I just don’t want you to get in trouble!” you stutter as you push yourself off the ground, Joshua following suit.

“Aw, so you care about me?” His eyes crinkle up in that familiar way when he says it and you can’t help the childish grin that makes its way onto your face.

“More like I don’t want you to complain to me about how you got scolded!”

“Mm, sounds a lot like you care about me,” Joshua counters, returning your smile with one of his own. You roll your eyes and carefully skip in your dress toward the exit on the North end of the courtyard.

When you almost trip over your robes, Joshua catches you and his rough palm presses against the small of your back as you regain your balance, the two of you giggling together as he drops you off at 77 before heading to the ballroom.

It’s almost laughable how happy you are. Silly you for forgetting that fairytales don’t happen in real life.

The walls look brighter, the chandeliers that hang from the ceiling seem to glitter a bit more, the ground seems smoother; you enjoy walking through the castle in a way you never thought you could.

It’s a normal evening and you’re nearing the end of your time at the castle, but you choose to ignore the odd feeling you get when you think too long about leaving this place. There’s still more work to get done, and you don’t want to spend your time focusing on things that you know will only distract you.

You’re in the middle of Sol Invictus today, looking through a paper and phone as you go through some old plans and checklists, trying to figure out if there is anything you should do before you pack your bags and head towards Joshua’s study.

Just as you’re about to unclick your pen and tuck your things away and head back to 77, someone speaks to you from behind.

“A lovely courtyard we have here.” You know this voice. Everyone knows this voice.

Your blood runs cold as you turn around and face the King, neck craning down immediately as you bow down, stepping away while you hold your hands behind your back.

“G-good evening sir,” you stutter, almost tripping over the stone of your own pathways when you stand up and straighten your back. It’s your first time in years seeing him in person, and you tell yourself as your stomach churns that this was bound to happen at some point.

“Care to tell me about what you’ve got going on here?” he asks, walking around the little stone circle that surrounds Eridenus. “You’re the head of the project, is that right?”

“Yes sir,” you reply quickly, bowing again slightly when he finally goes full circle stopping next to you. His hands are behind his back as you watch him look over the almost complete fields of flowers. “I—uh—it’s called Sol Invictus,” you say. “The—”

“God of Sun.”

“Y-yes sir. Apollo and Helios,” you begin to explain. “Which is why I’ve used these flowers—they’re from one of Apollo’s love stories. They’re quite beautiful, if you ask me, and they fit the kingdom’s colors well.”

The King hums in response. “That’s interesting,” he finally tells you, looking down at Eridenus in front of you. You follow his gaze, staring down at the clear water as you feel your heart rise to your throat in anticipation. You don’t really know what you expect, but if you were preparing yourself for anything, it wasn’t the King saying, “It’s my understanding that you talk to Prince regularly, is that right?”

Your breath hitches in your throat and lodges there along with your heart. “Well, I wouldn’t say—”

“I was speaking to Mr. Park just yesterday.” Oh. “You seem to be a very smart, professional young lady, and it shows in your work.” This can’t be good. “However, I am obligated to remind you: there are boundaries within these walls between the family and its staff.”

“Of course sir. I understand.”

The King watches you carefully, and just when you think he's done, he continues. “There are guards around the castle at all times. there isn't much they miss, I’m sure you know.” This isn't good. This really isn't good.

“It's quite impressive,” you agree, thumbs pressed against each other behind your back. You hear the king take a deep breath, and you wonder if he sucked the air out of you doing so.

"I've heard the pond here is named Eridenus.”

"Y-yes sir."

"Interesting," he murmurs. "Phaeton asked for a bit more than he could handle, didn’t he?" the King chuckles but you hardly hear it over the way your heart pounds. "Let mistakes be learned from, alright?"

You feel your knuckle might buckle. Is this how your mother felt? All those years ago?

The King’s words aren’t nearly as harsh as the advisor who berated your mother, but still, your body sways—you can’t tell if it’s all in your head with all the thoughts that race through, or if it’s the sheer weight of his words that has you almost stumbling.

“It was good to meet you. I’ve enjoyed what you’ve done with this space,” he comments finally, and you step away to face him 

“The pleasure was mine, sir,” you bid, bowing as he turns and walks back to his assistants who whisk him away. You watch the King fade into the distance and disappear to the North end.

He spoke to you for a reason, and the King was right. You are smart. You are smart and professional, and tonight, you know exactly what you must do.

“We need to talk,” you state firmly, closing the door behind you in Joshua’s study. You’re supposed to tutor him tonight, and he doesn’t look up at you as he writes away in his notebook, a smirk making its way onto his face as he starts to speak.

“That’s all I get, Sunshine? No ‘hi,’ ‘hello,’ ‘how are you?’” he teases, but then he looks up at you and catches the grim look on your face and the sound of him dropping his pen echoes through the room. “What is it?”

He stands up so quickly that his chair falls down, but Joshua pays no mind to it, his hands gripping the end of his table as his eyes bore into yours. “What is it?” he asks again and this time he’s hissing it. You know he doesn’t mean to be harsh, but your heart sinks even further than you could imagine.

“Joshua,” and when you say it, your voice is meek. You shouldn’t cry over this—fuck, you hate crying, especially if it’s because of his people. You’ve done more than enough crying over them in your life—you can’t cry over any of this anymore.

“Sunshine, what’s going on? You’re scaring me,” Joshua eggs you on worriedly, moving away from his desk so he can walk over to you. One hand cups your cheek, and you’re struck by the realization that this is the most intimate he’s ever been with you.

What unfortunate circumstances, you think.

“Your father,” you say, having half a mind to push his hand away from your face, but you keep it there because you don’t think you’ll have the will to keep on talking if he’s not touching you.

“What about him?” Joshua asks hastily, grip on your jaw tightening.

“He knows, Joshua, he knows.”

“What are you talking about?” Joshua furrows his eyebrows and asks the question but there’s that voice in his head telling him that he already knows the answer.

“A guard saw us at the courtyard and—”

“We didn’t even do anything,” Joshua tries to protest and with just one look at his face, you can tell he’s trying to figure out ways to rebut whatever that stupid guard saw that night.

“Joshua, you know we can’t do anything about this,” you say exasperatedly, your voice a little louder now that you clutch the elbow of his arm that’s holding your face. “I overheard him talking to Mr. Park.”

Joshua’s eyes widen. “Mr. Park knows? What about your job? Are you going to get to finish the project? Are you—”

“Joshua,” you choke out, and for once you cannot stop your tears. “I don’t care about my goddamn project, I care about you.”

“You love that courtyard,” Joshua argues, and you wince at the way he’s still thinking about that damn courtyard. You brush his hand off of you and for a second it looks like his heart has just broken in two, but then you reach for his face and hold his cheeks with your own two hands.

His skin is smooth and supple with the light grain of stubble that itches against your palm near the underside of your jaw. “Joshua,” you whisper, and it’s now that you feel the warm drops of water hit your skin. Joshua is crying and you don’t think you’ve seen anything that saddens you more. “Don’t cry, please don’t cry,” you beg, fruitlessly wiping away his tears as he silently cries into your hands.

“Why’re you acting like this is the end?” he hiccups and he must hate the sound because he slaps a hand over his mouth and buries his face into it.

“Joshua, no,” you murmur and pull him into you so that his hands can fall and you can cradle his head into your neck, letting your own tears drip onto the silk of his shirt. “It’s not the end,” you try to reason, but he pulls his head away to look down at you with glassy eyes.

“You—you’re lying to me,” Joshua says harshly.

“What are you talking about, I don’t—”

“I know you. I-I—fuck—I fucking know you,” he spits out, causing you to falter backwards. “Why do you think we can’t work this out? I’m the prince, I can—I can change everything and we can be together—”

“Your father —”

“Who gives a fuck, I’ll be king soon anyways and—”

“What if he does something?! What if he revokes your title?”

You’re met with stillness and you think Joshua might just comply with your silent plan but suddenly he’s shaking his head vigorously.

“Okay, then let him. I don’t care about being prince, I—”

“You can’t throw your life away Joshua, not for me!” you protest, holding his face again so you can focus his gaze on yours.

“It’s my life—why, why not?”

“Because I love you. And you can’t sacrifice this—this amazing life—for me!”

“I-I can’t—I don’t,” he stumbles and searches for words as tears fall from his lashes and roll down your hands, your wrists, your arms, “—can’t do it, not without you.”

“You’ve been doing it for years, Joshua, you’ll learn,” you tell him, using one hand to grip his cheek, the other to wipe away at your own.

“You don’t love me,” he chokes out. “You—you wouldn’t do this to me if you loved me.”

“Don’t say that, please.” You press your forehead against his and close your eyes because you can’t bear to look at his tear-streaked cheeks any longer. It’s quiet for a moment, and you can’t help but think that this is the calm before the storm.

“We’ll work it out,” Joshua finally whispers, pulling his head back and cradling the back of your neck with his hands. You don’t say anything, and Joshua doesn’t give you the chance anyway. “Let me have you,” he begs. “We’ll work everything out and it’ll be okay,” he says over a strangled sob, “Just—just be with me tonight.”

And so when you nod, he wipes his tears and pokes his head out of the study to make sure the corridor is empty before tugging your wrist and pulling you to his room. It’s big and grand, just as you’d expect for the prince but Joshua doesn’t want you to look at the intricate walls or the tall ceilings or the golden furniture.

Joshua makes you focus on his burning touch and lets you explore his mouth, his body. And stripped, your bodies are so hot and with wet lips against sheen skin, you feel you might melt into each other’s bones.

Teeth against teeth, nails scraping against skin so hard it digs into the muscle, bruising holds, and sloppy kisses—the feeling is so intense and it crashes onto you and Joshua so hard that you have no other choice but to grip onto each other as you would a lifeline.

And your bodies move so languidly through the sheets, like waves against a shore, or like the wind whistling through the air, until you're trembling and drifting off in each others’ arms.

It would have been perfect. Perfect, if only Joshua had woken up and you were next to him.

Joshua is lost.

After a frantic hour of running around the palace, asking if anyone had seen you, looking for Seokmin to see if he had any answers, Joshua finds himself in the middle of Sol Invictus. And he racks his brain for answers, for a smidge of anything that gives him a reasonable explanation as to why you weren’t in his arms this morning.

Joshua is lost.

He’s staring at the ground now, and all Joshua can wonder is if it was all a dream. If that moment you both looked out his glass window at the stars before you kissed him on his bed was just a figment of his imagination.

He wonders if you actually did thread your soft fingers through his messy hair and hold him close as both hit your peaks together, and he wonders if your lips really did ghost over his skin as he drifted off into sleep.

Joshua almost doesn’t feel Advisor Lee’s hand on his shoulder. He only hears his voice, really, and when he does, the sound grates against his ears.

“She’s gone.” Advisor Lee’s voice has always been harsh, and Joshua wonders how the same man could’ve produced something—someone—as lovely as Seokmin.

“What are you talking about?” Joshua is good at feigning ignorance, but his voice still quivers.

“I know. Your father and mother know too.”

Joshua is lost.

Joshua’s eyes snap up and suddenly his hands are at Advisor Lee’s collar. When the older man doesn’t seem surprised, Joshua sags. “What the fuck do you know. What—” He inhales sharply as he lets go and steps back, inching closer to Eridenus. “—what did you do to her?”

“She left herself.”

“What are—” Joshua heaves. “What?”

He’s doing it before he even realizes it. Stumbling toward Eridenus with his lungs and heart mushed together so tight he’s got a hole in his chest, Joshua steps over the stone lining and crashes into the shallow water.

Seokmin’s face pales when he walks in on the scene. Coming into the courtyard from the South end, he sees Joshua’s figure before he even recognizes it’s him.

That’s not Joshua, he thinks as he watches his father stand in front of Eridenus where the prince sits. That’s not Joshua.

Joshua’s shoulders are always sharp and his eyes are bright. Joshua’s smile is full and his hands are always ready to love.

This isn’t Joshua, and Seokmin feels it in his gut when he approaches Eridenus.

Joshua sits in the middle of the pond. His knees are bent and the cold water stops at the middle of his chest, leaving the upper third of his body dry. His royal coat and velvet pants, his polished shoes and silk button up, are submerged and rub against the algae coated rocks on the bottom of Eridenus.

Advisor Lee doesn’t speak as Seokmin stands next to him, Eridenus in front of the two with the prince in the middle. Joshua doesn’t say a thing. In fact, it seems like he doesn’t even know Seokmin is here now. His neck is tilted down and he stares at his soaked slacks blankly.

Seokmin is stunned.

This can’t be Joshua, because Joshua’s shoulders are always sharp but now they are hunched over and hardly moving, even as he breathes short breaths through his pale lips.

This can’t be Joshua, because Joshua’s eyes are always bright but now they are dull and dead. Seokmin knows Joshua’s eyes are always bright, but he failed to realize what exactly it was that was lighting them up.

Seokmin thought it was the sun but he was wrong, because even now, as Joshua sits under broad daylight, he is still and his eyes are dull.

Two weeks since you’ve seen Joshua’s face and you miss his smile.

You miss his smile, the one that crinkles up all the way to his eyes when he laughs at one of your snarky comments. The one that shines his teeth and the one that seemed to never leave your sight when you were with him.

You miss his smile, but his laugh still rings in your ear, early in the mornings when you blink awake and late in the nights when you gasp in hearty breaths and try not to cry. When you take the walk through the city to your work at Mr. Min’s bookshop, the ringing of the street vendors’ bells are bright and cheery, and sometimes you can hear Joshua’s laugh in the mix.

One month since Joshua last looked you in the eye and he wishes he didn’t know why you left. He wishes he was oblivious, because then he could be angry at you—he could have a reason to forget, to move on, to stop loving you.

Joshua knows why you left and it hurts more than anything because this is nothing like a betrayal at all. You left because you love him, and Joshua cannot dispute that—not now, not ever.

Sometimes he walks through Sol Invictus and plucks a hyacinth, letting it blow off into the wind. He hopes you’ll find the lost petals one day.

Two months since you’ve been in the castle and your life is normal. Well, as normal as it can get for you.

Your first semester of the new year started a few days ago, and you’ve since moved into an apartment near your campus. Your mother thinks it’ll be good for you, and you understand her sentiment but you don’t think she understands.

Ironic, you think. You’ve gone full circle, really. Maybe it does run in your blood, like all the whispers said.

You realize you’re okay with that. Maybe you made a mistake with Joshua, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you almost royally fucked up your reputation more than it already was (thankfully, the Royal Counsel was better at keeping it under the wraps this time), maybe no one cares. Maybe your life is a little bit more messed up now, but again—you’re okay with that.

You miss Joshua. You don’t think you’ll ever stop missing him. You’re also okay with that. You’re starting to realize that you’re okay with pretty much anything when it comes to Joshua. And once again, you’re okay with that.

Six months since he’s seen you and Joshua’s chest aches. Partly because he was distracted during fencing and took a jab straight in the middle but mostly because he misses you.

He stands on the balcony of the royal dining hall, waiting for lunch to be served as he looks over the palace and the kingdom that spread beyond. Joshua sees the tall buildings, the rows of houses, and the infamous Hong University that lay in the middle of the commontown around the hill the castle sits on, and he wonders.

You told him you’d be taking an astronomy class this semester, which should have started a month ago. Joshua is old enough and smart enough to know that collegiate astronomy is more than just the moon and the sun and the pretty little dots that button the sky, but still, he wonders.

The sun and its sunlight, rotations and revolutions.

Will you think about him?

Joshua doesn’t need to wonder—he knows.

The sun is bright today and even though it’s winter, the clouds are nowhere to be seen. It’s a bit of a rare occurrence for the cold months, but Joshua doesn’t mind. When he looks at the blue sky and briefly glances at the sun, his shadow on the stone floor, the reflection of light against the railing, Joshua breathes in the chilly air, filling his lungs deeply.

He knows.

Eight months and you still hear Joshua’s laugh.

You hear it when wind whistles in your ear as you walk to a flower shop to buy a pot. You hear it when you look up at the sun and imagine you’re in the middle of Sol Invictus. You hear it when you crouch down on your balcony, placing the little hyacinth into the pot and packing soil around the base.

You miss Joshua, you miss his smile, and more than anything, you miss his laugh. Right now, as you bathe in the memories of a man so far yet so close, you realize that you can miss him all you want, but you won’t forget. You can’t ever forget.

Ten months later and Joshua’s chest still aches, but he’s okay with that.

He sucks in heavy breaths as his lungs search for air on the fencing match, his trainer leaving the room, leaving Joshua after his request to take a break. Through the rush of blood in his ears, Joshua hardly hears the door behind him open.

“Mingyu told me you’ve been struggling with fencing recently,” his mother says, approaching him. Joshua shuffles in his fencing gear, throwing his helmet to the side.

“I’ve just hit a stump.”

“Something tells me this is more than just a stump,” she inquires as Joshua kicks off his boots.

Joshua scoffs, “What makes you say that?”

“Joshua, what’s wrong?”

He pauses, about to pull off his gloves when he looks up at the Queen. “Everyone in the Royal Counsel knows. I’m sure you know too.”

His mother sighs heavily when he stands up, and she follows him out the training room and toward the Residency Quart. There’s a silence that gaps the mother and son—not that Joshua isn’t used to it. He still smiles and grins, he hugs and he bows, and oftentimes it is genuine, but there’s a silence that always follows. A silence that he never forgets.

A silence he holds when he watches the same kitten you held cross his path when he walks through Sol Invictus, slightly bigger but just as nimble and heart warming. A silence he holds when his eyes gloss over the set of Percy Jackson books in the shelves of his room. A silence he holds when he sinks into his covers and presses his nose to the sheets, wondering if he’ll ever be able to taste your skin on his tongue again.

“I won’t ever understand what went on between you two,” his mother finally says.

“There isn’t anything for you to understand,” Joshua tells her, heading towards his room, but his mother stops him and he narrows his eyes. “What? I felt bad for her, alright? When I saw her all those years ago when it all happened out in the gardens—”

“Joshua, what are you talking about?”

“That’s what you want to know, right? Why I talked to her? Why I—I love her?” His mother gives him a stern look, but Joshua doesn’t relent. He’s starting to realize he’s been too comfortable with this silence. “I never asked you to understand it, but I’ll tell you anyway. Maybe because I pitied her or felt sorry for her or all the same stuff, and maybe I didn’t think she deserved to be ostracized for something she never did but—whatever. I’m not asking you to understand, but I am asking you to leave it alone.”

“You’re my son, Joshua.”

The Queen is Joshua’s mother and she doesn’t understand. She may never understand, and Joshua is okay with that because if he’s being honest, he doesn't think anyone will ever understand. He’s okay with that too.

You will understand, and for him, that’s enough.

You get two letters from the Royal Counsel in your lifetime. You received the first over a year ago—the one you opened with Mr. Min standing across from you in his little bookstore under dingy lights and over the dusty counter. The one you crumpled up and tossed into the dustbin without as much as a second though. The one that led you down a long, winding path which brought you to Joshua.

You receive the second now, standing in your apartment as you look down, except this time you aren’t staring at a paper, you’re staring at the screen of your laptop. You giggle quietly to yourself; Joshua must have taken the Royal Counsel up on still sending letters.

You’ve only looked at the subject of the email so far. It’s got your name and the word “request” written in bold, and you wonder what they want.

Glossing over the text, a wave of nostalgia washes over you. “The Hong Royal Counsel wishes to find you well, as we present a request.” Same shit, huh? “You will have the opportunity to lead a project as you please and earn a notable compensation in payment for your efforts.” Yeah, pretty much.

It’s the same thing, you realize. They want you back—for what, you aren’t sure, but you have a feeling that it doesn’t really matter. Because signed, at the bottom of the email isn’t the usual, “Hong Royal Counsel,” but instead is, “Hong Royal Family.”

The little sun emblem sits below the signatures of the King and Queen, and you press your eyes shut and hold the screen close to your chest, silently praying under your breath that is not a dream.

You don’t know what happened, don’t know what Joshua told them, but to be frank, you don’t care. You’re smart enough to read between the lines.

I don’t understand, they're telling you, But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

It’s your first day at the castle. Well, your second first day.

When you park your car at the base of the hill, you smile down at the silk over your waist. You abandoned the new ribbon sent to you by the Court, instead donning the one that came to you in a little white box ten months ago. Sometimes, when you hold it close enough, you still think you can smell Joshua’s skin.

You wonder how long you’ll have to wait for him, but as you look up at the sky, you have your answer.

Something speaks to you when you return to 77. Mr. Park is still gruff and cranky but you swear you see the peek-a-boo of a smile on his lips when you walk in. Jihoon’s there too, he greets you regularly.

And of course there’s Seokmin who is hugging you so tight, it reminds you that he is a full grown man and not a child trapped in a large body. You think he almost cries when he laughs with you about how he almost killed the yarrows again (but he brought them back to life! Trust!), and then he beams and tells you that you gotta check out Sol Invictus.

It’s beautiful.

Bright hyacinths that line from east to west and your heart is happy because Seokmin told you he’d get everyone to finish planting them and he did. The purple petals let wind whistle through its stems and leaves, the rustling echoing off the walls of the castle that surround Sol Invictus.

The water of Eridenus gleams under the sun, the stone of your pathways glows brightly, and as your eyes flicker around, you notice something new. In each corner field of Sol Invictus, sits a medium sized sculpture, each of a pegasus but all slightly different in pose and manner.

And then you see him, his back facing you, standing in front of one of the statues that sits in one of the fields on the west end.

Walk the line.

Tracing the pathways—your pathway—from East to West with your shoes clacking their short heels against the tiles—you know he can hear you, but still, he doesn’t move. His hands are neatly holding each other behind his back as his neck tilts slightly upward to stare up at the pegasus.

“Aethon, Aeos, Pyrois, and Phlegon,” Joshua says when you finally stop next to him, shoulders barely brushing against each other. “This one is Pyrois.”

“Helios’ pegasi,” you murmur, glossing over the fine details and intricacies of the statue.

“I thought you might like them.”

You don’t say anything for a moment and grin, watching his eyes light up from the corner of your vision. “I love them.”

“Thank god. You were taking so long to respond, I thought you were going to yell at me for fucking up Sol Invictus.”

You laugh and shake your head, both of you shuffling as you face each other.

“Hi,” you say so lightly it comes out as a breathy laugh when you both finally look each other in the eye.

“Sunshine.” Joshua smiles, holding out his hand. The light is warm when it hits your skin, and Joshua’s dark hair glints a light brown under the beams. You take his hand and run your fingers over the calluses of his palm; his skin is warm when his fingers grasp around yours and as you look at his eyes, you feel it in your bones.

This is Joshua, this is Joshua, and every path you follow will always lead you back to him.

find an alternate ending here!

edit. thanks 4 making it this far! if ur interested i expand on the concept of an isohel more here and little tidbits here, and it's honestly just a ramble but i hope it makes clear why i made some decisions w the story if ur interested :3 a/n. aaah it's done! as per em's request, i will be posting a one-shot of these two and their lives in the future bc i feel like i robbed u guys of a possibly fluffier ending so keep an eye out for that ... anyways, i hope u enjoyed, comments / reblogs would mean the world to me and >_< thank u for reading!

taglist. @synthetickitsune @ixayjun @leejihoonownsmyheart @dahliatopia @gyuswhore @hoeforcheol @5xiang @hajimelvr @miriamxsworld @blinkjunhui @lixiel0ver @josefines-things @mimisxs @kawennote09 @bbyjjunie @rubyreduji @todorokiskitten @98-0603 @hipsdofangirl @minnie-mouser22 @minhui896 @whippedforjihoon @nishloves @woozarts (strikethrough could not be tagged)

[stayteezdreams]

Rigged

Plot: During the harvest festival on your university campus, you get the chance to play a game, the prize being a date with a familiar face.

Pairing: Kim Sunwoo x Gn!Reader

Prompts: Visiting a Pumpkin Patch + College AU Carnival Game; Bobbing for apples but the apple you get indicated who you go on a date with.

Warnings: A kiss at the end but thats all

Words: ~5.5k

The campus was bustling as the Harvest festival was in full swing. It was the last day of the event, and everyone was still having a great time.

You had been helping your club with their booth over the festival, but during your free time you had been wandering around enjoying the festivities yourself.

Your best friend had their arm linked through yours as you walked across the campus. Hearing a loud cheer and a few screams, your eyes following the ruckus to a large group forming nearby.

Your friend tugged on your arm, "Let's go see what it is."

Letting them pull you along, you recognized the group was in front of the university's most popular frat house. They were confidently the most attractive group of guys, and unlike a lot of the other frats on campus, they were actually nice.

Your friend, ever determined, managed to pull you to the front of the crowd, where you saw the frat's leader Sangyeon trying to get the more .... excited, fangirls to be quiet so he could explain what their event of the day was.

Out of all the frats and sororities, they had by far been the most successful in raising funds for the school. Not that it was a competition, but it was definitely a lot more than your club got.

As Sangyeon explained the game, you couldn't help but laugh to yourself, he was clever you'd give him that.

It was a classic game of bobbing for apples, but, each apple had a number tag on it. And each number corresponded to a prize. And 12 of these apples would be a "grand prize"; a date with one of the frat members, all of which had a secret number they were aligned with.

You knew there were plenty of girls in the crowd, and a fair share of guys, who would blow their paychecks to get as many chances at a date as they could.

Excited murmurs ran through the crowd around you, and you chuckled softly again. Looking around at the guys, as they smiled to themselves, some appearing a bit nervous, your eyes caught on a familiar set of dark brown eyes.

Sunwoo.

The one from the frat you knew the most. Mostly because you ended up sitting beside him in a class last year.

He was kind, funny, and worked hard, and even you could admit he was gorgeous.

You became friends during the class, even going to get snacks afterwards a few times. You never really hung out outside of class besides those moments, but you would have had the opportunity arisen.

As your eyes locked, his eyes widened in recognition and he grinned at you and you smiled in return feeling butterflies swirl in your stomach.

It had been a while since you had seen him. Honestly you kind of missed being around him, he certainly knew how to entertain you during the more boring parts of the semester. Plus, you were pretty sure you developed a bit of a crush on him during the class, not that anyone would blame you really.

You tore your eyes from his as your friend tugged your arm, "Should we do it?"

You let out a soft scoff, "You can, I think I'll sit this one out. I don't really want to get my clothes wet."

Your friend hummed, having not really thought of that. Though it turned out to not be too much of a problem, as you watched the first few people go, and after all getting regular prizes, were handed free shirts to change into.

This was enough to convince your friend to give it a shot. You repressed a smile as her disappointment at not getting a grand prize apple quickly shifted to happiness as she received a $20 gift card to Starbucks.

Standing in the crowd as you waited for them to come back from changing, you weren't aware of the intense gaze on you from the sidelines.

As you saw your friend approaching, you were going to leave the crowd, but Jacob's loud voice caught your attention.

"And now! For the special Free try!" There were murmurs in the crowd as he continued, "One person will randomly be selected to play the game for free!"

'Huh, interesting choice.' You thought as you were preparing to walk away again.

"You!"

You halted as Jacob pointed directly at you. You blinked a few times as murmurs around you filled your ears as some people clapped and cheered you on.

You pointed at yourself and Jacob, who you knew from your first year grinned and nodded before telling you to come up.

Glancing over at your friend, who was watching from nearby, gave you a thumbs-up and an encouraging cheer.

Not a fan of attention, you shyly knelt in front of the troth of apples. You grimaced slightly at the idea of sticking your face into a water basin nearly a dozen people had already done the same in.

Seeing a larger apple sticking out a decent amount, you did your best to grab it by the stem. Succeeding, you pulled it out before quickly wiping your mouth. You still got water dripped down your shirt and you silently groaned.

Jacob quickly snatched the apple from you, and you stood nearby awkwardly as you waited for him to announce your prize.

As the members of the frat all cheered in excitement, your heartbeat picked up. They hadn't been this excited for any of the prizes so far, so what did you win?

Jacob grinned at you, "And we have our first grand prize winner!!"

The group cheered, as some girls audibly whined and groaned, the chances of them receiving one dropping.

Your heart was racing as you swallowed nervously. Your eyes drifted to Sunwoo who was standing nearby, you missed how he narrowly avoided getting caught staring at you.

As some of the people in the crowd started asking who, the guys started giving a dramatic drumroll before Jacob yelled out, "Sunwoo!"

Some people clapped while some were obviously disappointed. You were stunned at the coincidence, as your heart raced.

Your eyes met Sunwoo's as he was grinning at you, seemingly happy it was him. Butterflies filled your stomach as he waved his hand for you to follow him.

Getting further back from the group, Sunwoo smiled brightly at you as he laughed almost shyly. "Long time no see."

You smiled and nodded, "Yeah it's been a while. And this isn't exactly how I thought we would see each other again either."

He chuckled as he pulled out a shirt for you, "That is true. Though honestly," he hesitated a bit, appeared a bit shy, "I'm glad it was you. I was a bit apprehensive about this whole thing."

Your heart flipped in your chest, but you smiled at him with a soft chuckle, "What, you weren't excited to go on a date with a stranger who paid for the chance?"

He laughed, "Not really no."

Handing you the shirt you thanked him as you shuffled a bit on your feet. "How have you been?" He asked, killing the awkward silence.

You nodded, "Good, you?"

He laughed and nodded, "Also good."

You hated how awkward this felt, you weren't expecting to feel so shy around him after not seeing him for a while. But now there was the added heaviness of a date lingering over your head.

As Younghoon started to bring back another girl who played the game, Sunwoo gently grabbed your arm and led you away from the group and more towards the frat house.

"You don't have to go on a date with me by the way." You said quickly, though you almost immedietely regretted it.

When his face fell a bit, "Why not?"

"Oh. I just- since you were a bit anxious about this whole thing."

He shook his head, "I'm not. Not if it's you, I mean."

Your ears burned as your heart pounded painfully. "Oh."

He smiled shyly. "I mean we're already friends, plus we never really got to hang out much outside of class, right?"

You nodded, having had the same thought earlier. "That's true."

"So, I want to. And I'll plan the whole thing okay, don't worry about it."

Not wanting your voice to betray your growing anxiety and racing heart you nodded, letting out a soft reply, "Okay."

He grinned and your stomach swirled. "Okay!"

Just as the silence began to settle your phone alarm went off and you quickly turned it off. "I have to be at my club's booth."

"Oh! Yeah, go ahead!" Sunwoo said with a smile, though his chest tightened in disappointment. "I'll text you later about the date, okay?"

You nodded with a smile, your heart racing at the use of the word 'date' again. Saying your goodbyes, you left, heading to meet your friend, who was waiting eagerly nearby.

Sunwoo's heart raced wildly as he watched you leave. His breath was uneven as he let out a long breath. He couldn't believe his last-minute plan worked.

When he saw you in the crowd, his heart nearly burst from his chest. He had been trying to find you all over campus during the festival. Ever since the last semester ended, he missed being around you. Seeing you became the best parts of his week, as he had fully fallen for you. Since the moment he looked over at you as he sat in a random seat, and you smiled politely at him. His heart flipped and he was lost in your presence. As you slowly became friends over the semester, he fell harder and harder, adoring you.

During finals week you ended up getting different time blocks to take your tests and then you vanished.

He had hoped you would end up in another class together but was painfully disappointed when you didn't. He texted you a lot, but it wasn't the same. He hated your beautiful laugh being replaced by emojis, and your detailed talks turning into short replies hours later as your classes caused you to always miss each other in the moment.

So, he decided to look for you when he was walking around campus. He had seen you in the distance a few times, managed a few smiles and waves, but it was never good enough timing for him to actually talk with you.

And now you were right in front of him, looking at him, smiling at him, and his chest felt tight. There was no way he could let you go without speaking to you. Looking around, he knew he couldn't approach you without drawing attention to himself.

Suddenly he had an idea, and hoped his friends would help him out. They all knew about you and his massive, puppy-dog crush on you. Something he had been teased and borderline bullied about many times.

Tugging on Jacob's sleeve he pulled him aside, drawing the attention of Eric, Younghoon, Hyunjae and Chanhee as well.

He pointed you out to them and they started to tease him, but he quickly shut them down and told them his idea. To get you to play the game somehow, so he could go on his date with you.

Jacob quickly grabbed Kevin and asked if Sunwoo's number was in the current apple batch. When he said no, they decided that they would secretly switch the numbers with whatever number you got and say it was Sunwoo's.

Now, to get you to play the game.

"Easy." Jacob said as he walked up to Sangyeon.

Slyly, he took control of the mic, and a confused Sangyeon wandered over to the group, grinning excitedly after he heard what was going on.

Sunwoo nearly collapsed in relief as you agreed, though reluctantly, to play the game. And when Jacob announced you would be going on a date with him, he couldn't repress his grin as his eyes met yours.

Jumping as someone clapped his shoulder, he looked back at Hyunjae who chuckled. "So?"

Sunwoo let out a soft breath before he smiled brightly, "So, it looks like I have to plan a perfect first date."

At the end of the final day of the harvest festival, your body was rocked with exhaustion. The sun was setting as you were helping pack everything up with the rest of your club members.

Feeling your phone buzz, you pulled it out with fear that you might be requested to help with something else. But seeing Sunwoo's name appear on your screen, your heart started racing with a different form of anxiety.

'Hey Y/n! Is tomorrow, around 11 a good time to meet up?'

You let out a long drawn-out breath as you typed out your reply. Having gotten so busy with the festival you had almost forgotten about your date with Sunwoo.

'That works for me.'

Now with nothing to distract you from your thoughts, your anxieties about tomorrow kept you company for the rest of the night, and all the way through the next morning.

Sunwoo texted you a few more times over the evening. You were going to meet up by the theater and he was going to drive you to your date. Which he was decidedly keeping a secret.

All he told you was not to plan anything for the rest of the day. Which made you wonder, just how long was this date going to be? Or maybe it was far away?

Without any idea of what it was you were going to be doing; you had no idea what kind of outfit would be appropriate. After struggling for a while, you finally decided on a casual yet cute outfit with shoes you could walk in, just in case.

Before you began second-guessing yourself, you left to meet up with Sunwoo. Upon seeing him, you felt relieved of your outfit choice, as he wasn't dressed too differently from you.

Upon seeing you, he grinned and waved happily. His smile making butterflies rampage your stomach. Why did he always look so happy to see you? It did not make your feelings any easier to ignore.

Sunwoo was just as nervous as you walked up to him, his heart had been on a rampage in his chest since he left his apartment earlier. He was excited, yet terrified of how today might play out.

"Are you ready?" he asked excitedly after you greeted each other.

You nodded with a soft smile, "As ready as I can be since you won't tell me where we are going." There was an accusatory, yet amused tone to your voice and Sunwoo chuckled.

"I promise it'll be fun, okay?"

Taking his word for it, you went with the flow as you sat in his car and drove towards the edge of the city. You listened to music and chatted the whole way, becoming more comfortable with Sunwoo again. Something you missed from when you had class with him.

Turning down an unpaved road, you saw a large pumpkin patch come into view. Huge fields of different types of pumpkin and squash, various people littered around. And as you pulled into the parking lot, you spotted various booths and vendors selling food. Also scattered around, were tables with people carving their newly bought pumpkins and eating various foods.

You looked over at Sunwoo to see him watching you closely, trying to gauge your reaction. Grinning at him, he let out a soft breath, relieved at your apparent excitement at your surroundings.

Admittedly, Sunwoo panicked in trying to figure out where to take you. He thought, and over-thought some more, before he stalked your Instagram and social media trying to get any hints of something you might like.

Seeing your various liked Autumn posts and comments on other friends' pages, he gathered, you really loved the fall and its various aesthetic activities. So, he thought you might enjoy something Autumnal, date-wise.

After scouring the internet, he found this large pumpkin patch and its booths and activities. Deciding this was his final choice, he spent the next countless hours worrying it was the wrong one.

Because of your reaction to the pumpkin patch as you excitedly looked around, his anxieties were slowly being subdued.

"You like it?" he asked as he stood beside you as you looked around.

You grinned as you shook your head, your voice holding a light since of awe. "I heard there was a pumpkin patch out here but I didn't realize it was like this."

He smiled and nodded, "I didn't realize it until last night when I was trying to find where to take you."

You smiled as you teased him lightly, "You did research for this?"

He smiled shyly as his ears burned a bit, "Yeah, I wanted you to have fun."

You grinned as you bit the inside of your cheek as you looked away from him, the butterflies in your stomach persisting.

Sunwoo grinned to himself at your reaction before he cleared his throat lightly, "Come on."

Following him, you spent a short time walking around before heading into the fields. The two of you tried your best to find perfect pumpkins to carve.

You took photos and videos of each other, even playing a classic childlike game of 'this is you' when pointing to the ugliest pumpkins you could find.

Your enjoyment with Sunwoo rose the longer you spent time together. You were comfortable around him, feeling like you had known him for much longer than you did.

Sunwoo gasped as he pointed out a tall skinny white pumpkin with a patch of black at the top. Taking out his phone he took a picture before grinning. "It looks like Younghoon."

You laughed at his revelation, watching as he sent the photo to the intended victim. Spotting a large white pumpkin close by you walked over and inspected it.

Turning it around you looked at Sunwoo, "This one is perfect!"

Coming over, he inspected it as well before approving of your choice.

After another wander around, Sunwoo decided on a large bright orange pumpkin to carve. Grunting as he picked it up you giggled at his effort.

"Are you sure you want that one?"

"What? Why not?"

He saw you repressing a laugh at his struggle to carry the heavy pumpkin, and he let out a chuckle, "Just wait, you'll be jealous of how it turns out."

You nodded encouragingly, "Sure, sure."

After purchasing your pumpkins and renting some carving tools, you found a table and began plotting your designs.

Sunwoo looks around before getting an idea, "I'll be right back!"

You watched as he ran off before you started inspecting your pumpkin again. As Sunwoo came back you looked up as he set a mug of hot chocolate in front of you.

Grinning you looked over at him, "Thanks!"

He smiled and nodded, his heart flipping at your cute reaction. "Do you know what you are going to carve?"

You nodded, "Jack Skellington. I realized this pumpkin is shaped perfectly to be his head."

Sunwoo grinned as he approved, and when you asked him what he was going to carve he smiled suspiciously, "It's a surprise."

You let out a soft chuckle at his secretive expression before you handed him his carving tools. "You and your secrets."

The two of you began your projects while talking casually. Discussing your classes, clubs, Halloween, anything that came and went as the conversation flowed naturally and comfortably.

The comfortable atmosphere was disrupted as Sunwoo suddenly let out a sharp gasp as he dropped his carving knife and gripped his hand.

You quickly dropped your own tools as you turned to him, "Are you okay?"

He nodded with a soft hiss, "Just a small cut."

"Let me see." Taking his hand gently, he grimaced as you looked at the cut. You hummed, "It's not deep but we should clean and bandage it." You looked around before getting up, "Hold it, I'll be right back."

As you ran off Sunwoo put down his head in embarrassment, this was not how he wanted this to go. Sulking with his head down, he looked up as you came back over, out of breath.

"Luckily they have these on hand for any accidents."

Sunwoo watched as you set down a first aid kit before gently taking his hand. He watched as you gently cleaned the cut before applying ointment and a bandage.

As he watched you, his heart beat rapidly in his chest, his neck burning hot. Your concentration and gentleness as you cared for him making him bashful. Maybe it wasn't such a bad turn of events after all.

You looked up at Sunwoo to see him staring intensely at you, your own heart skipped a beat as you felt a bit timid under his intense gaze.

"All done!" You said after a moment and Sunwoo let out a soft breath as he looked at his bandaged finger. "Better?" You asked softly and he looked from his finger and back to you.

"Almost."

"Hmm?"

You saw him fighting a grin as he spoke, lifting his finger towards you, "You didn't kiss it."

You blinked in surprise as your heart stuttered in your chest. Letting out a soft laugh you gently pushed his arm away, making him laugh in response.

Trying to avoid his gaze, your eyes caught on his pumpkin. You tilted your head and Sunwoo noticed quickly covering the pumpkin. "Wait I wasn't done!"

You quickly looked away with a laugh, "Sorry, sorry, I swear I didn't see it."

"Liar." He said with a frown, and you giggled.

Your ears burned as you paid attention to your pumpkin, trying not to look over at Sunwoo as he finished his carving. It took you a moment, but you caught on just as he hid the pumpkin from your view. It was you.

When he was finally finished, he gave you an almost bashful look as he turned it towards you. You looked at it as a smile slowly spread across your face.

Sunwoo took art classes for a reason, and though it wasn't exceptionally detailed, the outlines of the features made it obvious it was you.

You looked at him and let out a soft laugh, "Now I feel bad about mine."

Sunwoo's eyes widened as he leaned forward, "No yours is so cool! It totally looks like Jack, and the back is awesome!"

You had decided the Skeleton King's face was too simple, so on the back of the pumpkin you carved a scene of Jack and Sally, with additional accents added.

You laughed, "I'm kidding Sunwoo, but thank you. For complimenting my work and feeling inspired enough to use me for your pumpkin."

He let out a soft laugh as his ears turned a bright shade of red you couldn't help but notice and find rather cute.

He scratched the back of his neck, "You like it then?"

You nodded with a smile, "I love it. Can I take a picture?"

He nodded happily, "I want to take some too!"

After your mini photoshoot, you took your pumpkins to the car. The two of you decided to get some food from the vendor trucks before leaving. As you walked back into the patch Sunwoo cleared his throat softly.

"You had fun, right?"

Looking over at him, you could see the nervousness and apprehension on his face. He really wanted you to have a good time, huh?

You smiled brightly at him, a sight that never failed to make Sunwoo's heart beat a bit faster.

You nodded your head, "Yes Sunwoo I did. I really enjoyed today."

He grinned as he looked down at his feet, "Good, I'm glad. I know it's probably not your ideal first date, but ya' know."

"I don't think I have an ideal first date."

He looked back over at you, "Really?"

You shook your head, "I just think, doing something that can be fun, and not something that is solely dependent on conversation is the best idea for a first date. And this fell perfectly into that."

Looking back over at Sunwoo you felt your heart skip, his eyes were bright, and his smile showed his genuine joy. You looked away, too stunned by the gaze.

"I'm glad. I really wanted you to enjoy this date." He nodded softly as he looked away from you, biting his lip.

You walked the rest of the way in timid silence before you got your food and sat down. While eating, your eyes drifted to his hand, where you saw that his band-aid was coming loose. You figured it had gotten damp from the pumpkin carving.

Sunwoo watched as you suddenly began digging through your purse. As you pulled out another bandage you motioned for his hand, "Let me change it."

Checking the bandage, he saw what you meant. "Oh, okay."

Reaching out his hand, he watched with growing fondness as you changed the bandage, but not before wiping his hand off again with a damp napkin.

After you wrapped the new band-aid around his finger and smiled at him he hummed as he looked his finger over. "I don't think this one will stay on either."

"Hmm?"

He smiled at you, "Because you didn't kiss it before! I'm telling you that's the secret to it really getting bet-"

Smiling and rolling your eyes as he started again, you gently grabbed his hand, and before he finished speaking, you pressed a gentle kiss to his wounded finger.

Sunwoo's voice died on his lips as you did this, his eyes widened, and mouth remained agape. If you listened any closer, you would probably hear the sound of his heart beating out of his chest.

Looking at his stunned and shy face, his ears and neck grew noticeably red. His eyes flicked to yours and you couldn't repress a laugh as you covered your mouth.

"Ah-hah, hey! That was-" He stuttered out as he let out an embarrassed chuckle.

"Ohh." You reached out and tugged his ears and poked his cheek, "I've never seen that shade of red before."

He clapped his hand over his ear as he opened his mouth in shock. "Hey! Don't make fun of me!" He gently rubbed his own cheek, feeling how hot his skin had gotten.

"It's your fault!"

You giggled, and even through his embarrassment he felt a boost of confidence.

"You should fix this too!" He pointed to his reddened face.

"How?" You chuckled.

He bit back a grin as he leaned closer, turning his cheek towards you as he pointed at his cheek, indicating that he wanted you to kiss his cheek to make it better.

You held your breath at his sudden confident antics. Your stomach swirled almost violently as your heart beat painfully hard.

"Sunwoo!"

You gasped out and he laughed, as he realized he was probably pushing his luck. Leaning away from you he grinned, making you chuckle. You hoped your own burning ears weren't noticeable to him.

Your nerves returned as Sunwoo walked you to your door once you returned home. Your pumpkin was in your arms, and you set it down at your door before turning to Sunwoo.

He smiled softly at you as he had his hands shoved in his pockets. Swallowing he hesitantly began speaking, "I wanted to tell you something."

The tone of his voice made your chest tighten, it seemed serious. "What is it?"

His eyes shifted around nervously, "I... rigged the game."

You frowned. "What game?"

"The game yesterday, when you got the apple."

Your heart skipped. "Oh. I mean...how?"

"I asked the guys to help me get you to play the game. Which is why Jacob suddenly called you forward to play for free. It was on purpose. And the number you got wasn't actually my number, we just said it was."

You blinked a few times as you thought over his words. "Okay. But, why?"

"Because I wanted an excuse to see you again. To spend time with you I mean, outside of just passing by each other on campus. I like you Y/n, I have since we first met. And I've been wanting to see you again since the semester ended because it was driving me crazy not being around you anymore, so the first chance I got, I wanted to grab it, no matter how I did it."

You were stunned at his confession, not just by the fact that he had feelings for you, you were starting to pick up on that on your own, no matter how surreal it seemed still. But you were more stunned at the fact that he went out of is way to rig a game to go on a date with you.

You let out a soft incredulous laugh, "You, you like me? Like... more than a friend?"

You felt awkward asking for clarification, but your heart and mind were telling you different things. Your heart telling you to die of happiness, while your brain told you you must be misunderstanding.

He nodded, "Is that so hard to believe?"

"I- I mean, I don't know. I-" you swallowed and took the jump, "I like you too Sunwoo." You saw his face go from apprehensive to stunned, "I just...guess I never imagined you might...feel the same."

He stepped a bit closer as his eyes widened, his tone exasperated, "You like me too?!"

You nodded as you bit your lip, "Y-yeah?"

He stared at you in stunned silence before a grin slowly spread across his face. This caused you to smile softly in return before chuckling softly at his dramatic response.

"I- I. Wow." He chuckled awkwardly as he suddenly went into a soft rant, "I thought I would be the one with unrequited feelings. I mean, I never thought you would see me like that, I mean I hoped you would, I really, really did, but I didn't want to delude myself into thinking someone like you might be interested in-"

"Sunwoo" you said softly causing him to go quiet.

You let out a soft giggle and he chuckled, "I'm rambling, sorry."

You shook your head, "It's okay. It's cute."

The sudden compliment made Sunwoo's heart pulsate as his ears and face became noticeably red once again.

You repressed a laugh as you reached out and gently touched his cheek, causing him to realize what was happening.

He groaned as he put his hands on his cheeks again and clenched his eyes shut. His mind was racing, and he felt as though he was going to go on another embarrassment and adrenaline-based rant. But as he felt your lips suddenly press against his cheek, his eyes shot open, and his mind went blank.

Stepping away from him, your own heart racing at the sudden confidence you felt to do something like that. You watched as Sunwoo stared at you in shock before a smile broke out on his face.

You giggled, "I don't think that helped fix it at all, it actually looks like it made it worse." You teased as his ears only got brighter.

Sunwoo clenched his eyes shut as he let out a dramatic sigh before he grinned at you and stepped forward, suddenly wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into a hug.

You were shocked by the sudden action, and frozen as he held you tight. Slowly, you gently rested your hands against his back, and you heard him let out a breath against your neck.

"I really like you Y/n."

You smiled to yourself before you whispered in reply. "I really like you too Sunwoo."

After a gentle moment of silence, you felt his grip tighten slightly. "Can we go on another date?"

You let out a soft breath as you smiled and nodded, "Yes."

"Can we go on a date as a couple?"

Your heart jolted as your breath caught for a second before you forced out a breath and nodded once again. "Yes."

Pulling away, his soft starry eyes gaze met yours and he smiled softly. His eyes flicked down to your lips as he brought his hand to cup your chin.

"Can I kiss you?" You asked in a whisper, making a chill run through you.

You nodded and replied with the only word you seemed able. "Yes."

Leaning in, his lips met yours with a passion that took your breath away. Your lips seemed to meld together perfectly as he tilted your head to deepen the kiss.

The hand wrapped around your waist pulled you closer to him, as his other hand glided to your cheek before he cupped the back of your head. You brought your hands to his chest as you gripped the fabric of his sweater.

For the first time the whole day, your thoughts were silent. You embraced the moment with each other and the joy your heart's pulsated with.

Your first date really did turn out to be perfect.

xx End xx

<3 <3 <3

🌼 Taglist Form 🌼

General Taglist: @otsilliak, @brattybunfornct, @bahng-chrizz, @otakutrash669,

@tinyelfperson, @pinievsev, @teenyfinds, @everythingboutkpop,  

@shymexican, @stillwjk-channie-lixie, @alexxavicry

@luckypaintertyphoon < tag doesnt work

[ericshoney]

Made for me ~ Yandere!Bang Chan

Warnings: Yandere!BangChan, obsessive Chan, possessive Chan, creepy behaviour, jealous Chan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a normal day. You had just finished work and was off to meet your best friend Chan. This was a normal day for you, the same routine for the past couple years, when you finished work you would walk over to Chan's place for a catch up and sometimes dinner. You had known Chan since you moved to the city, the boy instantly became connected to you and made you feel supported.

But what you didn't know about were his dark intentions and thoughts. Chan instantly fell for you the moment he met you, he thought it was love at first sight. But he never went for it. At first he was shy about it, but over time those thoughts and feelings grew, and he always felt especially jealous when you spoke to other males. He wanted to whisk you away from them, but was just waiting for the right time to do it. If he rushed, he could lose you forever.

So when you arrived at Chan's place, only to see his younger brother Felix leaving and the way you hugged the younger boy, Chan's jealousy rose. He was practically green.

"Hey it's great to see you!" Felix exclaimed cheerfully as he hugged you.

"Likewise, bud. How are things?" You asked.

"Great I-"

"Yeah he's great and was just leaving."

You looked at Chan, to see him leaning in the doorway of his apartment. His arms crossed as he looked at you, a stone cold expression on his face. You felt confused, why was he being so cold suddenly?

"I'll text you later. Don't stay too long." Felix whispered before he left.

You watched as he walked down the hall, a sudden confusion hit you at his words, why wouldn't you stay too long? You then turned back to Chan, the sudden coldness was gone, the warm Chan was back, he smiled sweetly at you and moved out the way, letting you into his apartment. You wasn't sure if to ask him about what Felix said or not.

"How was work, darling?" He asked sweetly.

"It was the same old." You answered plainly.

"Of course it was. Well I ordered some food and it should arrive any moment, I got your favourite~" He sang.

"Sounds good. While we wait I have a question." You said, taking a seat on the sofa.

"Ask away, babe." He said, sitting next to you.

"Why were you so rude to Felix just now?" You asked.

Chan looked at you blankly before laughing. Yes, he laughed. As if you just told a joke.

"Oh your so funny, I wasn't rude to him. It's just brotherly love." He said, defending himself.

"No, you were rude." You responded.

Chan stopped laughing and looked at you again. This time, you saw a dark glimmer in his eyes.

"I just told you, sweetheart, I wasn't rude, he was leaving anyways." He said, a visible change in his tone of voice.

You felt your blood run cold at his dark tone. Chan had never spoken to you like that before. Weirdly enough, there was a small part of you that liked it.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. You knew it was the food. Chan got up to go collect it, giving you a moment alone to think. It wasn't long enough to think about much as Chan soon arrived with the food, a smile on his face.

"You okay?" You asked softly.

"Of course, let's eat." He answered.

With that, you two both started to eat. You were happy Chan remembered your favourite food and ordered it for you. You quietly ate and watched the TV, when suddenly, your phone rang.

"Hello?" You called as you picked up the phone.

"Y/n, are you still with Chan?" It was Felix.

"Uh yeah, we're just eating." You told him.

Chan looked at you with a dark expression, his now empty plate placed on the side table.

"Hang up." He mouthed to you.

"Y/n get out now. I'll explain later but you need to leave, Chan's crazy!" Felix exclaimed down the phone.

"What are you tal-"

Your phone was suddenly taken out of your hand and thrown across the room. You looked at Chan in shock.

"I told you to hang up." He said with a chuckle.

"You....You just threw my phone!" You shouted in shock.

"You should have listened, darling~" He said.

"I was trying to listen to Felix!" You exclaimed. Big mistake.

"Felix this, Felix that. What about me!" He shouted.

You looked at him. What about him? When you didn't reply, Chan scoffed and shook his head.

"Do I really have to break it down, sweetheart? Your mine. I don't like when you talk about or to Felix, or another man in general. Your mine! You were made for me!" He exclaimed.

"I'm your friend, Chan. You can't own me." You said. Mistake number two.

Chan chuckled darkly. He thought you were so funny. He knew he would have fun breaking you.

"Oh sweet Y/n. Yes I can, your mine and only mine~" He said in a sweet tone.

You glanced at the door, thinking you could make a run for it. You were quick to make a dash for it, however Chan already thought of that, he locked the door with an extra tight bolt after the delivery guy arrived. You tugged at the handle but it didn't budge one bit. Chan laughed and clapped from behind you.

"Just relax, my love~" He whispered.

Chan quickly grabbed you, pinning you to the wall. You tried to fight, but Chan was too strong. As you fought, you didn't see him pulling out a wet cloth with his free hand, until it was too late.

"Night my honey, just remember, I love you."

Those were the last words you heard before darkness over took and you collapsed into Chan's arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lovely little request from my cassieroll, I hope I did your idea justice and you love it! 💓

[spiceofvy]

BTS Rapline - Reader getting hurt during sex

cws: gender neutral reader, nsfw, comfort, no angst, reader getting hurt, blow jobs (Yoongi)

Yoongi: He was casually fucking your throat, head thrown back against the back of his studio chair, whispering soft praises between his moans. Softly guiding your head up and down his dich while he pets your hair. When all of the sudden close to his orgasm he thrusts up his hips to suddenly making you choke on his cock. It doesn't hurt too bad, but you still cough just a bit. Yoongi feels so bad, petting your hair to console you. Later the two of you can laugh about it though.

Hoseok: It was during one of the sudden position changes that he loved so much. For him there can't be enough positions during one session. The crazier the better. He is just very energetic lover in bed. When suddenly he somehow propelled you off the bed. You just lay there for a couple of seconds, shocked before you start laughing. But he gets so stressed out about it, apologizing a hundred times, checking you over and over to make sure you're not hurt too badly.

Namjoon: i've wrote a whole drabble about that concept for Namjoon check it out here

[cococunchy]

miss me, miss me, now you gotta-

pairing : myung jaehyun x reader

(no gender pronouns used (i hope) but i might've wrote them more like a girl since im a girl 🥲 sorry)

--------------------------------------------------------

"miss me, miss me, now you gotta kiss me~" you teased playfully with a phrase you've heard so many people say, you didn't even know the origins anymore.

jaehyun just rolled his eyes, aiming another paper airplane right towards you, who was standing right in front of the class during their free period. which, inevitably, missed as well and brought upon another round of that excruciatingly annoying phrase from your mouth.

"so what if i actually kissed you, huh?" he asked, his chin resting on the palm of his hand as he looked at you, eyes filled with unmistakable affection. he didn't mind the class hearing him, because he knew that the two of you weren't ever the type to mind onlookers onto the relationship.

but that didn't mean you weren't allowed to be annoying about it. "you're not gutsy enough for that" you grinned, waiting for him to get up from his ass to see if he'd kiss you like he threatened he would.

the two of you had been dating for a little while now, having been lucky enough to have requited love instead of the unrequited ones everyone and their dogs were reading fanfiction about.

and you were glad for that. the last thing you wanted was the hanahaki disease during the prime time of your life.

jaehyun threw another airplane at you, then another, then another, and walked up to you as you were too preoccupied dodging all the planes. you could see him coming, but where's the fun in following him with your peripheral vision when you could be surprised?

as you dodged the last airplane he threw at you, you once again began saying that irritatingly catchy phrase. "miss me, miss me, now you gotta-" you were stopped right at the end when his lips gently colliding with yours.

"still gonna say i'm not gutsy enough to kiss you in class?" he smirks, after breaking from the, unnecessarily short, kiss.

"i will if you don't do it again"

--------------------------------------------------------

guy we don't talk about how no one uses this phrase

i heard one of my classmates say it SO LONG AGO but the idea had been planted

unrelated song, but pls listen

[sunoovamp]

[ar1suu]

𐙚 — ENCHANTED!

PARING! enha!hyung line x fem!reader

synopsis. catching the attention of one of your idols at a concert is already a long shot, so when someone tweets about how an engine managed to catch the attention of not just one, but four members of the band, it seemed downright impossible.

or in which a pretty girl got them enchanted

the best duo + kai

yn

20 yo

fan #2 of enhypen

been a fan since Border: Carnival

all of the hyung line is her biases

current concern: what to wear to enhypen concert

molly

21 yo

certificated lesbian

has know enha since I-land

Jake is her bias, her love for puppy boys is massive

loves yunjin

current concern: does she looks lesbian enough?

kaiser

21 yo

doesn’t understand the hype of kpop

been friends with yn and molly since high school

although he doesn’t like kpop, one of his favorite bands is wave to earth

current concern: when will the next manga of hxh will be released

mlist — next

taglist! ( open )

@rosas-in-the-garden

[h0ldup]

THERE ARE SO MANY NSFW WRITERS REPOSTED UNDER THIS BLOG. MORE THEN HALF OF THESE POST SAY MDNI AND IT WAS COMPLETELY IGNORED. BE SAFE EVERYONE, WRITERS AND MINORS. WE CAN’T STOP YOU BUT WE DID WARN YOU.

[xmhaoluvr]

‘ SECRECY (with you) ’ xmh x reader

a short prompt/headcannon (´◡`)

-your brother vernon, has bought over his good looking best friend after almost a year, finally. you were starting to miss his angelic face, according to your thoughts-

•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

the moment he entered, you felt your heart light up. minghao is finally back in you and your brother's abode. only the heavens know how much you missed that angelic face of his. you smiled at him as soon as he entered and he did the same. your brother was oblivious to the exchange and went straight to the kitchen, “i'll cook us food. what would you two like?” and when minghao was about to answer vernon, you protested, “i'll cook... please?” vernon, however, raised a brow at you.

“you have never cooked in your life.” this made you turn away from him as he still looked at you questionably, “yeah, but, you know, i saw this cooking asmr on youtube and i wanted to give it a try.” “do you want to poison minghao? or maybe me?” you looked at vernon, offended by what he said and before you could go and attack him without a word, minghao spoke up, “it's fine with me. i'd love to taste your cooking.” he said and pet your head- even sneaking a wink at you.

“well, if it's fine with you, bro.” you frowned at vernon and cursed with your eyes. “i'm gonna burn it on purpose and give it to you.” and minghao laughed at your statement.

you were left there blushing while vernon and minghao went up to the former's bedroom.

currently, you are in the kitchen, trying your best to follow the cooking asmr (it has ingredients and measurements) and struggling is an understatement. the amount of flour on the kitchen countertop just to make youtiao, for what? to impress minghao.

you were about to give up and just order out when you heard someone come down. you looked back and saw minghao smiling softly at you.

after making sure your brother is still in his room, you immediately ran to minghao's arms, hugging him tightly while his left arm rests at your back and his right arms caressing your head.

“i missed you so much, haohao.” you said with a pout and he kissed the top of your head, “i missed you too, love.” that made you smile and melt. you looked up at him with puckered lips and he giggled before leaning down to give you a quick smooch.

“what were you making, pretty?” he asked as he started to put away baby hairs from your face. you looked back at the kitchen then back at him, “well, i tried to make youtiao for you but...” and with a laugh, minghao wiped your face, “no wonder why you have flour on your face.” you smiled at his laugh; oh how much you missed that.

“but baby, i don't think your brother would like youtiao.” you rolled your eyes and went back to make youtiao, “i don't care. i'm making this for you, not him.” you heard minghao laughing behind you as you start making the chinese snack again.

you thought he went upstairs to vernon's room again because of the silence until you felt a pair of arms slowly wrap around your waist and feel a head bury itself on your shoulder. you couldn't help but smile at his gesture.

when you felt his head lift and his chin on your shoulder blades, your hands suddenly moved on its own, wiping flour on minghao's face.

the look on both of your faces when the two of you were processing what just happened was like looking into a mirror; eyes wide. you were frozen there until you felt a finger wiping flour on your face as well.

and the battle commenced, the other trying to wipe more flour on the other's face. the kitchen had never been filled with laughter like the two of you are doing now. it was really lively, full of smiles, laughter, and flour.

the kitchen is so messy but who cares, right? well, vernon, apparently, “what the fuck is going on?” the two of you froze on the spot and comically looked at vernon who's face looked terrified.

“i'm gonna question later why the two of you are so close with each other but why is the kitchen in a hot mess?” he asked, ignoring the fact that the two of you are hugging at the moment. you two pulled away from each other faster than lightning.

“sorry, nonnie. i'll clean it up later.” you said timidly, “i'll help, vernon.” vernon nodded, “we'll talk after you guys finish cleaning. i was wondering why minghao was taking so long at the bathroom.” vernon walked away, mumbling the last sentence. the two of you looked at each other and laughed before you started cleaning.

let's just say that vernon was shocked to find out the two of you were dating and started to list to minghao the things you like and don't like. minghao was internally taking notes while you try your best to stop vernon from talking too much and accidentally say something.

YAYYYY WE'RE DONEEEEEE \(@^0^@)/

i hope you liked this short prompt, it's my first time ＞﹏＜ you can leave replies for any tips you can give. stay hydrated everyone!!!!

[vkooksupremacy]

Yuta, pointing to Y/N from a distance : That's the guy I have a crush on.

Yuta : Thoughts?

Taeyong :...

Y/N, dancing to red lights in public : I cannot breathe...

Taeyong : And prayers.

Likes, reblogs, and feedback appreciated!

[slytherinshua]

THE JEALOUSY OF A GOD

genre. greek god au. slightly fluffy. warnings. descriptions of war. jealousy. abduction(?). wyatt bleeds ichor not blood. only loosely proofread. wyatt and reader are married. pairing. ares!wyatt x demeter!reader. (ft. helios!seungjun & apollo!hyojin). wc. 1.4k. request. no. a/n. ares is the god of war, demeter is the goddess of harvest for those unaware. we're going to ignore the fact that demeter is hera's sister and ares is hera's son bcuz... yeah. there's sm incest in greek mythology help??? also i kinda hate this i think it's bad so i'm sorry also the ending is kinda rushed but my brain gave up....

You couldn’t help the way your heart broke a little as you surveyed the sight of all the trampled flowers, torn grass, and squashed bushes. Blood painted them, making what was a luscious thriving green appear brown and dirty. All of your hard work had gone to waste again— all because of Jaeyoung.

As the god of war, it seemed wherever Jaeyoung went, war would follow. He was generally disliked amongst the other gods because of the violence that always broke out due to his rashness. He had a tendency to be hot headed and think with his spear rather than his head. This was at the expense of many poor humans, as well as your poor flowers. You could never hate him for it, though.

Though the god of war and the goddess of harvest were possibly the two most unlikely pairing, your love was written in the stars, predicted and destined to be since the beginning of time. Jaeyoung was by no means the perfect god, but you were far from perfect yourself. His rashness balanced your overly cautious nature, and his push to take risks had been beneficial many times in the past. At the same time, your thoughtfulness had gotten him out of trouble on numerous occasions over the centuries. 

When it came down to it, Jaeyoung was someone who you would always come back to. His loyalty made him more trustworthy than any other god or goddess you knew, and you knew he would always stand by you no matter what and listen to all your concerns. The love and peace of mind he gave you was far more precious than your field of flowers— you could always grow them back.

His wars didn’t happen as often as they used to due to your influence on him. He knew how much you hated bloodshed in general, and you had his word that it would only happen when absolutely unavoidable. You were sure this battlefield was the same.

Broken spears and bloodied bodies remained hidden amongst the tall grass and broken flower stems. You walked through the field, watching as fresh grass and poppies sprouted wherever your feet touched. You carried a basket of ambrosia and a goblet of nectar, intent on giving them to your lover. 

Jaeyoung still stood at the other end of the field, ordering his warriors around to check for the dead. He didn’t seem to notice your presence yet, but as you drew closer, he turned around from the brush of your footsteps through the grass.

“Love, why are you here so early? It has not been an hour since the fighting ceased.” He said warily, his deep voice drawing goosebumps out from your skin. He sheathed his sword and cupped your cheek, the familiarity of his rough hands against your smooth skin made your eyes flutter closed. Whether it was in the intimacy of your own or moments after a battle, his touch still held boundless love for you.

“You’re getting gold on me.” You said softly, noticing every movement he took. He drew his hand back, feeling the ichor drips from his fingertips. He wiped it away, and then swept across your cheek where it had stained, returning your skin to its smooth untainted state.

“Forgive me— I have not yet had the chance to tend to my wounds.” He replied.

“I am sorry for coming so early and unannounced. I could not rest while you were not home. I would like to tend to the field before Seungjun’s chariot reaches the west.” You said slowly, searching his eyes for his approval. He nodded, accepting the ambrosia and nectar from you and withdrawing to the shade of a tree to partake in the nourishment. 

You trailed along the edge of the field, letting your touch slowly heal the Earth, life sprouting from your very fingertips. Jaeyoung watched you intently, pondering over your differences as he often did. You breathed life into everything you touched, allowing the flowers to bloom, the crops to mature, and humanity to continue. His existence brought death and chaos, fear and loss following him at every turn. 

It was a delicate dance; life and death.  

When you were satisfied with the flowers now blooming on the field, you ambled back towards the tree that Jaeyoung was now sleeping under. The battle must have tired him out. You knelt beside him, brushing a wet cloth against the cuts that still leaked gold from his body. Your husband was strong as most gods were, but you still cared for him as if he was the most delicate piece of glass.

You knew it was strange how you loved him. Your love for him resembled humans’ love, not the love of a god. Jaeyoung had filled every last piece of your heart, and you loved him with your entire being. It had taken a long time for him to even get a sliver of affection out of you, and you often remembered the days where his efforts to win you over were met with silence from you. You used to despise how treacherous he was; how much pain his wars caused. But it wasn’t entirely his true nature.

Yes, he fought, but he fought for the right causes and he was loyal to his men. You had grown tired of how fickle your fellow gods were. They betrayed each other as if it were their only entertainment, and you would be hard pressed to find a god who had no enemies.

The other gods of Olympus hated Jaeyoung because he had stopped being like them. Once he had met you, and quickly fallen in love, he dedicated his life to you. You were present in all of his thoughts, and he would turn on the whole world before he turned on you. There was not a single other god who you could say possessed such devotion. 

The least you could do to return his affection was keeping him as safe as possible. You had never told him how hard you worked to keep connections with the other gods of Olympus. Over half of them were more than ready to kick both you and Jaeyoung out after one of his more rebellious encounters. You convinced them to not strip your husband of his powers, but even now, you had yet to soothe Hera and Athena’s anger. 

You were wary of Hera especially. She didn’t forgive others easily, and was known to be jealous and wicked. You knew she was planning something against Jaeyoung even now, and you were anxious to find out what it was. You weren’t sure what else you could do to get you back in her good graces.

Jaeyoung stirred awake at your touch, already alert as soon as he opened his eyes. He glanced up at you, quickly checking that everything was alright before sitting up.

“No one would be able to tell that a battle happened on this field.” His eyes trailed over the fresh flowers and healthy grass; now looking much unlike the field he had fallen asleep to. He then turned back to you, “Thank you for cleaning it up.” 

You simply cupped his face and pressed a kiss to his lips, which he gladly reciprocated. It was your silent way of reminding him that you were more than willing to do anything for him. He was yours and you were his for the rest of time, and nothing could ever separate him from you.

You travelled back to Olympus; Jaeyoung seemed cheerful, while you were more cautious. Something in your gut was telling you that now was not the time to show your faces in Zeus’s throne room. You dissuaded your husband from announcing his return, and led him back to your chambers instead, urging him to rest more and promising him to be back within an hour.

But you didn’t return within an hour, and Jaeyoung’s worry grew with each passing minute. Hyojin— the god of archery, music, and poetry— burst in, and with a few quick words of explanation, Jaeyoung’s heart sank. He knew that he had gotten on Hera’s bad side; his willingness to do anything for you only reminded her of how unsuitable her own husband was to her. Jaeyoung knew that she held no fondness for him, but he had never accounted for the full extent of her jealousy. 

Hera had captured you, and Jaeyoung had no doubt that she would do whatever it took to get what she wanted out of him, using you as her leverage.

↳ onf taglist (bolded could not be tagged): @eternalgyu,, @candewlsy,, @weird-bookworm,, @seunghancore,, @haecien

[slaythenightaway]

does anyone have any recommendations for zb1 or boys planet fics? or like accounts that make them? they can be on any platform :)

[spadesolace]

Chance Encounter

plot: a highschool au where bona is the star fencer of the school who is smitten by the student council treasurer (reader). the always cross paths with each other but either one starts a conversation or a greeting. until one day when eunseo had asked bona to visit the student council office and sees the reader.

requested: no (it's a prompt rotting in my brain)

You've heard of the rumors going around that the star fencer of the school has a crush on you. Most of the time, you ignore it. It was a baseless rumor that most students pass around to live for drama. You know that there is a long line for Kim Jiyeon's heart and you had a free pass to it. Yet here you are, during lunch break with Sojung who has her ear on the ground as she is the student council president, you can't blame her for knowing all of the news and tea going around campus.

"Trust me, I heard it from Jiyeon herself." The look of disbelief was evident in your face that Sojung had to throw her used tissue to your face.

"First of all, ew. Second of all, Jiyeon or Juyeon? You still get their names mixed up.” Picking up the used tissue, you placed it by your side. A weapon incase Sojung does it again.

“THE Kim Jiyeon, star fencer that has everyone wrapped around her fingers.”

“You of all people would know that I don’t believe it until it comes from the source itself.”

She knew it too well, even despite trying to get your attention to look behind you where Jiyeon was a few tables away and looking at your direction. Maybe it was because you can’t believe that someone like Jiyeon would like you. She’s a star fencer and you are simply the student council auditor, there is not much to you that would make people know who you were.

----------

At the other table, where Jiyeon was admiring you, her friends were also looking at your direction.

“She’s gonna melt, Bona.” Juyeon similarly with Sojung threw her used tissue to make the girl stop.

“Bona really likes her, huh? How did you even notice her?” Jiyeon looked at Luda as if it were the most stupidest thing that has come out of her mouth aside from the multiple times she had insulted people but she was only being blunt.

“I met her through Hyunjung, they’re closer. It was during the Sports Festival where she was injured after sprinting for her class. A bit clumsy but she was cute despite sweating so much and laughing at whatever Sojung had told her.” By the time Jiyeon finished her story, Luda was making her way on to the other table. To which another person had joined their table, Kim Hyunjung. The trio are doing their own thing with Luda joining out of the blue leaving Jiyeon and Juyeon alone.

“Do you have any plans later?” Jiyeon shook her head to answer Juyeon’s question. “Good, could you pass this down later in the student council? I’ve got club activities later and it need to be passed later.”

“I don’t have training later so why not.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Bona. LET ME KISS YOU.”

----------

“Luda, why are you eve-” “AAAAHH!” The group looked at Jiyeon who was trying to push Juyeon away, you had raised your brow at Sojung who had tried to convince you earlier that she likes you. Something nobody knows was that you hoped what Sojung and Hyunjung had told you were true, deep down you know you also like her but would you admit it? No. There is a long line for Kim Jiyeon and the rumors of her liking you was not helping at all. Who wouldn’t fall for Kim Jiyeon the star fencer? She’s beauty, brains, and brawn; everything anyone could ask for, she has it.

Here you are, watching the entire scene unfold on how Juyeon was trying to kiss Jiyeon. Does it break your heart? Certainly, because you had this false hope already built up and crumbled down within seconds.

“Back to our conversation, what are you doing here, Luda?” The trio looked at the small girl who was looking at Y/N with a huge grin, one things that girl knows is how to persuade people into doing her bidding yet you can’t get past it.

“I can’t come by the office later since I have a date, could you switch with me for today? I’ll cover your shift tomorrow.” That was one way she persuaded you, through trades. She’s done it multiple times and most of them were useful and helped with finishing your work early at the council, it did sometimes intervene with your schedule of matching with Jiyeon. You knew that Wednesday’s were her free day from training, the few times you see her and sometimes walk almost side by side with her. You would sound stalkerish if you said this to Sojung and Hyunjung but you didn’t care, the crush you had for the star fencer was something you would like to keep to yourself.

“I don’t know, Lu…”

“I’ll buy you milktea tomorrow if you agree.”

“I’M SOLD.” That was all it took for you to agree at something spontaneous, your mom wouldn’t mind if you go home late, it wasn’t the first time it happened. It did mess up your schedule of having one of the few chances of walking with Jiyeon even if it were a few feet away.

----------

Here you were, stuck in the student council office with the paperwork you were going to do the following day. You didn’t notice how busy the council is this days, especially with the amount of paperwork the clubs are submitting now. Either way, you were going to do it tomorrow, so no better time than the present.

“Here are the expenses for the theater guild, Y/N.”

“Props are that expensive? Maybe I should drop by and help out?”

Yeonjung was about to reply when the sound of the door opening brought your attention to the girl arriving. You noticed the black duffle bag anywhere, it was one of a kind especially having her name embroidered on the sides. Kim Jiyeon. As far as you remembered, she wasn’t a treasurer in any club or in the fencing team, but before she could look at your direction, some of the people in line had told her to sit down and wait until I was done talking to Yeonjung.

“That would be a great help actually, we’re kinda looking for someone to be our technical for the annual school play. I’ll message you the details later. Bye, Y/NN.” You waved at Yeonjung goodbye as she left with Dayoung, the other treasurer you had talked to before the younger one. There were only two people left in line before you faced Bona, and its the Math club and Chess club which would be fast as they’re both responsible and have the same expenses for the entire school year. It went by faster than you wanted, quick and done; here you were hoping it would take a few more minutes but for once you wished they were a bit irresponsible. The girl of your dreams already standing in front of you with you could only assume is a shy smile while holding some documents that you are sure its not from her team.

“Hello, do you need some help?” The student council auditor in you came out, a bit friendlier than your normal greeting with familiar faces.

“Juyeon wanted to hand this in, she couldn’t come due to some schedule conflict.”

“Well, that’s rather usual with Juyeon, Luda had mentioned it a few times that’s why she comes during my schedule most of the time. Can I see?” Jiyeon handed you the documents, mostly expenses for the dance club and some of her own essays that she mentioned that you need to check on. It was a bit awkward to see Bona just standing next to you, so you patted the seat next to her and she obliged quickly, watching you work and check on the expenses that she submitted without knowing what it actually is.

Bona watching as you check and compare the documents from other documents that she doesn’t understand but she did notice how fast you worked. Now reading the essay Eunseo had always made sure you read before she submitted it but there was something different from the essay. She noticed her name, maybe it was a creative writing essay and Eunseo couldn’t think of a name but it didn’t make sense for her but somehow you did.

‘As someone who is not as dense as my friend, Bona, I know of your feelings for a certain athlete. You are quite subtle, I must say but I noticed the way you would always walk out after her during free day or how you would walk out whenever training finishes. Being her best friend, I would like to ask you to ask her out because neither one of you has the guts to confess unless I deliberately plan this entire thing with Luda. PS. she said don’t kill her.’

There you two were, sitting together in close proximity. You were contemplating on asking Bona out while she wanted to talk to you.

“About the rumors-” “I genuinely-” You both looked at each other, contemplating whether to continue what you were saying or wait for the other, but you let Bona talk first. Maybe it would be a bit awkward to bring up the rumors and Eunseo’s letter.

“I- I genuinely do like you, somehow the rumors started when I told Dayoung that I was interested in you.”

“It’s Dayoung, sometimes she gets a bit of a tangent especially with Exy… and I was wondering about the rumors but now that you’ve admitted to it. Would you like to go on a date with me? Let’s say this Saturday?”

Bona did not expect your reply, especially you never really showed much interest towards her. You were merely minding your own business but given that Eunseo was one of the reasons why you two are now talking and going on a date (once she regains consciousness and replies to you) so maybe she needed to give her gratitude towards her best friend.

“Sure, I’d love that. I’ll give you my number.”

“Give me your address as well, I’ll pick you up.”

So maybe it wasn’t entirely chance encounter as Eunseo and Luda pulled some strings but it was a start.

[ericshoney]

The Mafia Boss Masterlist

Warnings : Warnings: Mature/suggestive themes and language, violence, underage drinking/smoking, fighting, crime, smut.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter twelve

Chapter thirteen

Chapter fourteen

Chapter fifteen (SMUT)

Chapter sixteen

Chapter seventeen

Chapter eighteen

Chapter nineteen

Chapter twenty (End)

[atinyjules]

Broken Melodies : Fake or True ft. Lee Jeno {ch -1 }

A/n: Hii guyss! So...putting aside Jisung's version for a bit...I decided to make Jeno's version cause he's been climbing up my bias list...again. Ik its called broken melodies but don't worry...it'll either be happy sad or sad happy or happy happy or sad sad-jk I'll just see where the plot line takes me.

Sooo here ya go!

And here is the masterlist for this series incase you have trouble finding it.

Genre: Gang au, a mix of enemies-to-lover and fake relationship trope, slow burn, fluff, angst, crack au, romance.

Pairings: Lee Jeno x Na Eunbi

Warnings: Strong language, mentions of blood, fighting, war, death, violence etc.

Amongst the crowd of travellers, tourists and people returning home a faint figure walked through the swarm of people, trying to navigate her way to find those who had come to get her. Pushing the stroller with her things, she broke into a bright smile when she caught sight of a familiar figure.

"Dad!" She pushed her luggage to the side, running into her father's embrace as the elderly man broke out into a happy laughter and hugged his daughter.

"How was France?" her father asked as she pouted.

"Your daughter finally returned home after 6 years and that's all you have to say?" she questioned her father before chuckling and hugging her father again.

"I'm just kidding! It was really fun! I made some really good friends too. But I definitely prefer home." she said as her father chuckled and patted her cheek.

"I'm happy that you enjoyed but I'm even happier that our Eunbi is back. After all there no place like home." he said as she nodded, agreeing to her father's words.

"Where's Jaem?" Eunbi asked, referring to her elder brother.

"At home, he hurt his back." her father said making her scoff.

"What he do this time?" she asked as her father chuckled.

"The usual, he got into a fight with the Lee's son." herfather said making her roll her eyes.

"Can't you do something about it? Dad, I'm tired of this." she whined to her father who nodded.

"Dad is tired of it too. Now, how about we continue this at home? You must be tired." Her father suggested as she nodded.

"Yes, please. I'm exhausted." Eunbi said earning a hearty chuckle from her father as they headed home.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

Eunbi's

"Hey, douchebag." I said, popping into Jaemin's bedroom as he yawned and put his phone down.

"When did you reach?" he asked as I entered his room and sat on the edge of his bed.

"Just now, care to explain why my oh, so wonderful big brother couldn't even come to get his younger sister who he hasn't seen in 6 years from the airport?" I asked making him groan as he rubbed his eyes.

"I see six years hasn't changed your blabber mouth." he said making me raise my hand as a threat.

"Heyy...hey. I'm injured." Jaemin said making me roll my eyes.

"And who's fault is that? Yours. Can't you control yourself? Dad's always sick and worried for you, but you just add on to his burdens." I say as he looks away and scoffs.

"Tell that to Lee Jeno." he said making me hit his hand.

"Knowing how big of a nasty mouth you have, you probably initiated the brawl." I said making him groan.

"How many times do I have to tell you to make you understand that I'm fucking INJURED!" he groaned and massaged his hand.

"Serves you right." I say as he sighs and gets up carefully.

"Sorry...okay? Now come give me a gentle hug." he says spreading out his arms as I chuckle and give in.

"I missed you, douchebag." I say as he chuckled.

"Surprisingly...I missed you too. I suppose you're attending college with me?" Jaemin asked as we broke the hug.

"I don't know yet. But we'll see." I say as he nudges me.

"Ay, I go to the best institution in the country." he said making me chuckle.

"And yet you act like a child." I said as Jaemin pull a strand of my hair making me wince in pain.

"Just because you returned after 6 years doesn't give you the opportunity to shit talk me whenever you want, dumbass." he said making

"OW!"

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

Jeno's

I had just got back home from college and walked up towards my room when dad spoke up.

"Must you always use fists?" I sighed and walked towards where dad was sitting, facing his fish tank.

"I'm sorry dad...I got carried away." I reply and sit on the chair beside him.

"It's always like that. At first you do it as a mode of defense and next thing you know you keep fighting and get carried away because it becomes a norm. Fighting and throwing fists becomes a norm. Don't be like me son...I don't want you to regret wasting your life by causing violence later in life." dad said making my breath hitch as I held his hand.

"Dad, you were never a bad person." I say as he chuckles.

"Because I'm your father. Even if I was, you only saw it as good because I'm your father and you are my son. I...I've done things in my life that even God wouldn't want to know. I don't want you to be like that." Dad said making me look down.

"I-I won't...I promise I'll try to control myself. I'll change dad...just...don't trash talk yourself." I say making him laugh heartily as he patted my head.

"I wonder if the people at school know how much of a child you are when you're with your dad." he said as I sighed.

"You're the only family I have left." I say as his eyes soften.

"What about Taeyong?" he says jokingly as I groan.

"Him too, but he's such a douchebag." I say earning a smack on the head. I turn to see Taeyong.

"What was that for?!" I exclaim as he squinted his eyes at me.

"Watch your mouth will you? I'm your elder." he says making me scoff.

"Why are you here anyways?" I ask as he sits downs on one of the chairs.

"Our men got into a fight with the Na's. They're pretty injured." Taeyong said making me sit up straight.

"Who initiated?" I asked as Taeyong sighed.

"Heaven knows...but they started the fight at a pub and it escalated from there." he said making me burn up.

"Jeno...it's not your business to worry about this." dad warns as I nod.

"Yes, dad." I obey as Taeyong snickers.

"If only you were this obedient in school as well, then I wouldn't have to keep coming to get you. Get a life and stop your middle school brawls will you?" Taeyong said making me groan as I stood up and walked towards the stairs to my bedroom.

"I'll be in my bedroom if you need me." I say and leave.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

After having a talk amongst the family members, it was decided that Eunbi would infact join her brother's college and study there so after being admitted she gleefully waited for her first day of college just to find out that her amazing ass of a brother slipped and further worsened his back injury. And according to doctor's orders...he would have to sit out attending college for 2 months.

"Did you have to go take a bath?!" Eunbi exclaimed as Jaemin gave her a sarcastic laugh.

"Ha ha ha-OF COURSE! How was I supposed to know that I would slip??!" he exclaimed as she scoffed.

"Its the shower! Of course you'd slip! That's why you're supposed to be careful! Which you weren't!" she exclaimed as their father watched the chaos.

"I was!" Jaemin replied.

"No, you weren't and noww! Now I have to attend college alone! For two months!" Eunbi exclaimed as Jaemin laughed again.

"As if you didn't attend middle school and high school alone in a foreign country for 6 years! You'll be finee!" he exclaimed.

"Nooo, I won't!" she exclaimed and Jaemin was about to reply when their father butted in.

"Enough! Now...let's all calm down." their father commanded in a stern voice making the two siblings quiet down (see what I did there?).

"Jaemin can't attend college for two months so Eunbi you'll have to manage on your own." their father said making Eunbi sigh and accept the situation.

"And Jaemin...don't think you're free. I sighed you up for online classes and a tutor." Jaemin's face fell the moment he heard his father's words.

"But...I'm injured." He pleaded as their father leaned forward.

"Because of your own carelessness." their father said as Eunbi laughed at her brother.

Now, after everything was settled, the only thing on Eunbi's mind was the arrival of her first day.

Taglist: @chezziy

That's it for the first chapter ✨

You can find chapter 2 here

I enjoyed writing it so I hope y'all love reading it😭✨

Likes and rebloggs are appreciated 💖✨

[jj-stay]

How BTS would react to having an S/O who is not scared by scary things

Hey there, beautiful people! It’s your favorite fangirl [jj-stay] back with another fun-filled post! 🎉 Today, I’m diving into how our beloved BTS boys would react to having a fearless S/O who laughs in the face of scary things. Ready for some fluff, romance, and a whole lot of laughs? Let’s get into it! 💖

📖 Word Count: Perfect for a cozy read! (536) 💌 Request Status: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! 💑 Pairing: BTS x Reader (All the heart eyes for you!) 🌈 Genre Vibes: Fluff, Romantic, Funny (Because who doesn’t love a good giggle?)

🚨 Trigger Warning: None! This one’s all about the fun. 🛑 Disclaimer: Pure fiction, folks! Any resemblance to real events or people is just a happy accident.

So, imagine this: each BTS member with a partner who’s totally unphased by all things spooky. Whether it's a haunted house, horror movies, or ghost stories, our fearless reader takes it all in stride. How would each member react? Spoiler alert: there’s a lot of admiration, a bit of jealousy, and plenty of cute moments ahead!

Jin: Jin’s expecting a classic horror movie night: screams, cuddles, and him being the brave protector. But guess who’s laughing at the jump scares? Yup, you! Jin’s left both impressed and slightly miffed. “How are you not scared?!” he’d ask, only to end up hiding behind you as the movie gets scarier. Your bravery might just help him conquer his own fears. Or at least, provide endless amusement.

Suga: Suga’s cool as a cucumber…until he’s not. A haunted house adventure reveals you’re the fearless leader, while he’s clutching onto you like his life depends on it. Your fearlessness fascinates him, making him see you in a whole new light. He might not admit it, but he’s secretly glad you’re there to protect him from the ghosts. And hey, maybe your courage will rub off on him!

J-Hope: Ghost stories are meant to be scary, right? Not for you. J-Hope watches in awe (and a bit of horror) as you casually add your own funny twists to the tales, leaving everyone in stitches. Your fearless attitude is a breath of fresh air for him, and he’s instantly more drawn to your adventurous spirit. Who knew ghost stories could be so much fun?

RM: RM’s all about that intellectual bravery, but when it comes to actual scares? That’s your territory. During a spooky tour, he’s the one sticking close to you. Your calm demeanor while exploring haunted locations blows his mind. He’s both impressed and inspired by your bravery, and might even try to match your fearlessness next time. But for now, he’s happy to have you as his fearless guide.

Jimin: Jimin expects you to cling to him during a thrilling roller coaster ride, but instead, you’re the one cheering and having the time of your life. He’s both amazed and a little envious of your fearless nature. Your courage makes him want to be braver himself, and he can’t help but admire your adventurous spirit. Plus, he loves seeing you having so much fun!

V: V’s excited to take you to a haunted house, expecting you to need his protection. But when you start leading the way fearlessly, he’s in awe. Your bravery is contagious, and he finds himself enjoying the thrill more with you by his side. Your ability to turn scary situations into fun adventures makes him fall for you even more.

Jungkook: Jungkook’s ready to play the hero during a haunted maze outing, but it turns out, you’re the real hero here. He’s shocked by how unfazed you are by the spooky atmosphere, while he’s the one getting startled. Your fearlessness inspires him, and he loves the idea of facing scary challenges together. Plus, he thinks your bravery is seriously cool.

So, what do you think? How would BTS react to your fearless self? Drop a comment, share your thoughts, and let’s keep the fun going! 💖😊

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