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When you're staying overtime to bring into life a new design, they're expected to go home and scrub themselves clean—as ladies should. They have to prime their skin and coil their hairs, and they enjoy it, but you on the other hand—you’re wiping sweat off your brow well into the night during most weeks. They aren't all that different from you in age, but there's already been talks of them entering society, finding suitors. 

You're no good for marriage. Dress-making is your calling. Your destiny.

It's hard, but it's the life you're most suited to fare. 

And you're okay with it because you have to be. Any bigger a dream, and high expectations will simply crush you to dust—its best to keep to the known, the little cocoon of a life you’ve lived till now. 

Today, today though—you can’t seem to stop look away from the shop window, and from the commotion that seemed to be unravelling through it. 

You're so dazed by the trumpets and dancing petals and soldiers on white horses that you barely feel the shadow falling over you from behind. 

“Boo!”

It startles you out of your stool, nearly bumping your elbow into the desk’s edge and spilling a pair of scissors and tape onto the wooden floor. Your heart only calms to a safe rhythm once you see that's it just your sister playing her tricks on you.

“Jiyu!” you reprimand feebly, catching your breath, scowling at how she’s giggling without a care. “What is it now? Father said you shouldn't keep hanging around here with nothing to do.”

“He made an exception today,” she tosses back easily, grabbing an eraser off the table to toy with until you grab it back. “Haeum and I convinced him with some sweet talk, of course. After all, it's the Queen’s parade! There will be soldiers to watch and toss flowers at. Do you think one of them will look my way?”

You want to roll your eyes at her bubbliness. She's always like this—the both of them, really. But you're honest when you say, “Yes, no doubt you'll catch everyone's attention. You're beautiful.”

Because she is. The way she smiles so brightly in response, teeth exposed and cheeks full like she doesn't think twice about her flaws—which don't exist—just drives home your point. They're both blessed with kindness and loveliness and beauty, and you were bestowed the duty to carry on the family business, hold up the finances that your father alone couldn't manage. 

But it's okay when you love your family and you're quite happy with your job. 

It's okay. Really. 

“You should come with!” Jiyu brings you back to the present, hopping on her toes and swishing her frilly skirt all over your plain flat one. “C’mon, Y/N, you stay cooped up all day at that desk of yours. Surely you can afford a few minutes away to forage for some handsome fellas.” She winks suggestively. 

It doesn't even bring a blush to your cheeks. She should know you've sworn off romance in this lifetime. It's not like you'll have any luck if you try anyways—true love and fairytale magic was for the privileged and the pretty. You were neither. 

“It'll be fu-unnn,” she sing-songs enticingly, wiggling her eyebrows in a way that just makes her look even more endearing. “Maybe you'll meet a wizard! Or a flying ship like they've been saying they made. Oh, it'll be novel, won't it!?” 

You've never been good at saying no to her requests; she's half your heart, really, and the other half is Haeum. You've been taught to care for them since you were a child—so it's a hard habit to break now. Wherever they go, and if they let you, you would follow. 

She's about to try again when you cut her off with a swift, “Fine.” You gather yourself up, dusting off the eraser shavings and chalk powder off your clothes. “But only for a few minutes. Just to look.”

She seems more than happy to settle for that, launching to lead you by the wrist to the parade before you can even check to see if your face is clean yet. Thankfully, you do manage to grab a hat for your unruly hair before you've made it out. 

It's noise and colours, everywhere. More vibrant than you have ever seen the city since the war was officially announced months ago. 

Fork-tongued flags and streamers hoisted on poles, miniature copies in people's fists, a brilliant shade of blue gracing the city square. The sound of horns is louder than ever, the procession in the middle of the street filled with men in dark hats and big mustaches, in their stiff uniforms. Dancers twirling feathery sticks, in their dreamy dresses that float like air. And through the gap in the crowd, you can see the queen herself hoisted up on a man-powered carriage—her sharp eyes still notable under the solid gold crown. 

“Wow,” you hear yourself whisper, tightening your hold on Jiyu’s hand without meaning to. “All this for her birthday… How breathtaking…”

“Isn't it?” your sister whispers from beside you, but her expression has gone distant and lovesick, swooning at the way a young man in uniform winks at her as he passes by. Once he's out of sight and hearing, she squeals in delight. “Oh, did you see that, Y/N!? He winked at me!! Where is Haeum-ie, she needs to know!”

The two are more interconnected than you were ever with either of them, two peas in a pod, so it only takes one small turn of Jiyu’s eyes to find Haeum on the other side of the parade, waving back at you like she'd picked up the conversation from all the way over there, strangely telepathic in the ways only sisters can be.

And without waiting for the people to finish passing by, Jiyu—who is the most impulsive out of you three—rush forward into the crowd to greet Haeum. You jab your hand forward to stop her by the arm, but she's too quick and lithe, already vanished into a mass of bodies. 

First, the panic hits. You can't lose your little sister—you’d be dead before sundown if that happened! 

Then you see both of them giggling to each other, swiveling around to wave you over, urging you to take a leap of faith and just maneuver through the crowd, too. 

“I—” Complaints die on your tongue when you realise no one can hear. You take a step forward, trying to push past someone, but they shove backwards unknowingly. You end up whispering a sorry on instinct and going the opposite direction, again with no avail. 

It feels like an awkward dance with yourself, like an ant trying to go around a crumb and failing miserably, pushing into excited people and the occasional lamppost blocking the way. In no time have you almost tripped over a dent in the pavement, spun around three times in dizzying speed, somehow carried by the wave of the crowd all the way to the emptier part of the street, behind everyone. 

It's such a sudden relief that you immediately rush for the alleyway on the side, desperate to get away from the uncomfortable ruckus. Your sisters would be fine, you tell yourself to calm down, they have each other. They may be easy to impress with a couple flashy grins, but they can take care of one another at least. You just need to get back to them without losing yourself.

Which might be a problem. Because you can't exactly tell where you are right now—the city is big and maze-like to begin with, the festivities has rendered it somewhat unrecognisable during wartime. 

It's your feet that do most of the thinking, moving on its own accord in the direction it feels is the most safe, leading you to a quieter, more shadowed, almost empty lane, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. 

Until you hear footsteps approaching. 

“Ooh, look, a lost kitten,” someone whistles out from behind you, and you turn in fear.

“Well hello there,” another one joins in a similar teasing tone—a man’s, deep and gruff like he sucks on a smoke-pipe all day. “Mind if you lift that hat of yours so we can get a better look?”

They smirk and guffaw between themselves, their looming height and intimidating soldier-uniforms coming into view when you brave a small peek. A gulp travels down your throat, and they seem to enjoy scaring you even more at that.

“I have to go—” you begin, but one of them shushes you softly, taking a step closer. It forces you to take a step backwards, but it's to your horror that you realise you've landed against a wall, with nowhere to run to as the two of them crowd you on either side. “My sisters are waiting for me,” you manage to spit out. “I need to go to them.”

“They won't mind though, would they? Surely they're busy celebrating out there. Doubt they'll even notice you're gone.”

Your blood freezes, their over-friendly demeanour sending a chill down your spine as they get up in your space. A discreet hand of yours slip into your dress’s pocket (that you'd stitched up for ease of carrying around your yarn in the shop), and thumbs around a tiny needle stuck into it. It doesn't hurt you, but you don't know how you can use it to distract them enough to run away. They keep flirting and proding even after knowing you don't want to engage.

“C’mon now, you don't need to lie to reject us,” one of them says again, sneering. “No need to make up sisters and obligations. I can tell you've got no one waiting for you. So why don't you come along and we can keep you company on a date?”

Tears begin to prickle in your eyes, but the second you think you're going to break, a lilting voice cuts through the echoing alleyway.

“There you are,” he smiles in a greeting, and your head shoots up. “I’m sorry I’m late. I was looking everywhere for you.”

A gentle weight falls over your shoulder—there, but barely touching. The soldiers’ brows furrow in confusion, then anger, as they take in the taller man who has interrupted the scene. 

Flaxen hair that shines like sunlight, unmarred skin that seems to brighten up even in the grimy alley, looking so out of place. He has a thick, checkered cape, billowy white shirt underneath, and an emerald earring dangling from one of his ears.

You feel like you should know this person.

“Who in the world are you—” the soldier's protest is cut short when the blond man lowers his head just slightly, to whisper, “Take a walk. Don't come back,” in the most entrancing voice you've heard. It's commanding and playful at the same time. Like a spell, almost.

As though suddenly obedient, the soldiers stiffen like wooden boards, and they march out of the alley like their feet have lost control, panicking the entire time. 

“What—”

“It isn't safe here,” the blond says, his silky hair brushing over your cheek when he leans to whisper like it's a secret, like you're being followed and he doesn't want eavesdroppers. “Come with me.”

And maybe it's the way he says it that's so compelling—like his voice is made of sugar and honey and melted wax, or the way he smells like sunshine in a field of flowers. Beautiful. You let him lead you out, your hand somehow having moved to hold his elbow he offers, all gentlemanly.

He walks like he's floating, soft and swift, through the streets and up a flight of stairs that land you at the long hallway-like balcony of several doors—a motel, you think. Downstairs, the procession is thinning in a distance, music reaching you in bits and pieces.

“My sisters are over there,” you hear yourself say.

The man next to you smiles. “I’ll take you there,” he hums. “But you’ll need to be brave for this next bit.”

You look at him, startled, but when that does nothing but bring his features even closer to your sight, it runs reddened heat down your ears and neck.

Everything is so… ethereal about him. As though he isn't real or tangible in any sense, even though your grip on him is solid, and you can wager that this isn't a dream no matter how much it feels like one. His eyes are brown, but there's green swimming in it, like little mossy fish. Then he does the thing that makes you backtrack on considering whether this wasn't a dream after all—he steps up onto the wooden railing of the balcony, and balances himself there like it's easy as pie.

“Now you,” he says, a twinkle in his eye.

“What!? No I can't—”

“You trust me, don't you?” He sounds confident, a palm extended for you to take, spine dipping like he's asking you to a waltz.

And you. You are scared. But you do still trust him, because a strange, inexplicable part of you thinks you know this man. That this is not your first meeting, even if you don't even know his name yet.

So maybe that's why you accept his hand.

“Extend a leg, then walk,” he instructs softly, not minding how you immediately grasp onto his shirt when it occurs to you how high you really are. A fall could injure you terribly.

“Walk? What do you mean, walk?”

“Like this.” He demonstrates by extending a long leg off the railing and into the empty space in front, coaxing you to follow. You press closer to him, not knowing what any of this is, but knowing it feels right to listen. “Good girl,” he adds with a smile when you manage to do it right, one leg in front of another, over air. And you're walking on wind in no time.

Not falling. Not plummeting to your death into the depths below onto the streets and people, but floating. Gliding almost—in a dance without a floor to stay afoot on.

“This is—I’m—”

“Wizardry,” he nods with a soft giggle, steering you over the chimney of a rooftop, gently leaping over the piped ledge and onto another house. “Magic is quite helpful, don't you agree?”

You nod in awe, watching the lamps and lights below turn into specks of shiny dust, like fireflies at noon. Beyond the city, there are ridges of mountains and valleys coming into view, touching the dips of the sky. You feel closer to the clouds than to the ground. Wow.

And his hands are curled around yours now—one around your palm, the other thumbing at your other wrist, slow, steady circles that test your pulse. It spikes and your heart jumps at a particularly low rumble from his chest that you only pick up because you're so close. Is this a dream after all?

“Here,” he is saying, and you don't even realise that your feet have touched solid ground, another balcony that you slowly realise is the upper floor of your boutique, where you'd started.

How had he known where to take you?

“Who are…”

He tilts his head, lowering your arms to your side and stepping back to take his spot on the railing again, ready to leave. You think he's about to disappear without another word like this was all just imagination, but he indulges you one last time. “Taesan. You'll know me by other names, but for you, I am Taesan.”

You test the name on your tongue, tasting magic, “Taesan…”

“That's perfect,” he flashes a perfect smile. “I’m going to see to it that they don't find you again, but stay put for a while before you go back out, alright?”

Wordlessly, you agree, a small smile twitching at your own lips. Something about him does that to you.

With one final curtsey, he floats backwards in lithe grace, like one of the petals that had fallen from a window. By the time you've rushed to lean over the ledge, he's vanished from sight. Gone as quickly as he'd come.

A wizard, maybe? You've heard stories from your sisters about magic users—its not terribly new to this part of town—but in all the retellings and anecdotes, there's a particular wizard that stands out, known to eat hearts of pretty young girls and leave them weeping all alone.

But him… He'd saved you. You don't think you were pretty enough to pull a trick on, so he'd sought you out and brought you to the safety of your home. A good wizard, you think, that has to be it. Jiyu and Haeum won't believe their ears when you tell them—rather, they’ll be too taken with a new object of their affections they would have picked out to fancy, some time during the parade.

Taesan, you echo in your head, gazing at the spot he'd been standing, trying to fashion out his figure from memory alone.

But something inside you tells you this won't be the last time you meet this man.

REBLOGS + COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

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