Sunshine

It really did feel like you’ve gone right back to square one after that. Taeyang becomes evasive again and he doesn’t show up to any of your sessions for the next week.

You try not to feel too disappointed but it’s hard now that your sessions become you just going through the motions once again. While he hadn’t been joining all of them, the few that he did brought a new challenge besides just the task at hand. It was almost… fun. Which isn’t a word you thought you’d ever associate with him.

But his words still linger in your mind, telling you to “know your place” and it reminds you that he’s better off distant if he’s just going to keep treating you that way. So you push aside any thoughts of him as you go through your week with the help of the Choi Princess and the guard attached to her hip, Shota.

But something nags at your heart when it starts to feel as though Taeyang has simply disappeared. You think he’d just fallen back to his old habits, but there’s a feeling deep in your chest that worries otherwise, leading you to seek him out late at night one day.

You tell yourself you’re seeking him out to put him in his place for speaking to you that way.

But when you make it to the doors of his bedroom, all you can do is stand there fidgeting. You’ve never been here before, and the idea of stepping in through these bounds is an intimidating one. It feels intimate in a way you’re not sure you’re ready to explore.

But it’s late and he’s not in his office, so he can only be here and you’re sure he’s not asleep yet. He never is at this time. And that nagging feeling in your head refuses to let this go unless you quell your worries.

With a steadying breath, you raise your fist and gently knock.

It’s silent for long enough that you do think he actually has gone to sleep. But just as you’re about to step away, you hear his voice, thin and subdued. “Come in.”

You hesitate again when your hands reach the knobs. But with another deep breath, you push them open.

Nothing could have prepared you for the sight of Taeyang sitting in his bed, bare of a shirt, bloodied and bruised.

The breath knocks out of your lungs. Your eyes follow down the trail of welts along his muscled skin—some split open with blood seeping through—with purpling splotches scattered throughout, all the way to the bruised knuckles trembling around a roll of bandages.

His movements falter when he looks up to see that it's you, and your gaze lifts to the bloody lip and the large bruise at his cheekbone.

Your eyes meet, and the moment freezes over. 

Breaking unspoken bounds is the last of your concern as you take the step into his room and let the doors fall shut behind you.

You drift over to him with slow steps while your eyes try to process the state he’s in. Taeyang only watches you with guarded eyes as you close the distance.

“I thought you were Intak,” he admits quietly. His voice is rough and hesitant. Weak.

Your heart thuds in your chest. A million questions run through your brain. But the only thing that your instinct tells you to do is to help him.

You gently pry the bandages from his loose hands that he relinquishes without a fight. 

“Let me,” you whisper, because the moment feels far too delicate for anything louder.

You expect him to turn you away, to tell you he can take care of it—whatever this is—himself. The dim light of the lamp at his bedside reveals nothing but his usual indifference.

But he lowers his gaze from you and nods.

You don’t waste time. You rush into his bathroom to scour anything you can—a handcloth, a bowl of warm water, salve for cuts—before you make it back to where he remains sitting in the same spot you’d found him, tense and unmoving.

He remains still and pliant as you work to gently dab off any blood and apply the salve. His skin is warm under your touch and you can feel his heartbeat, a quick and unsteady rhythm. It stays silent between you as you wrap the open skin on his chest and arms.

But there’s a war in your mind with possibilities of what could have happened, who could have hurt him. Did he get into a fight with someone? Was he attacked? Did he—

“I can hear you thinking.”

You snap out of your thoughts, blinking your gaze up to his. His head is tilted up to watch you where you stand before him. There’s a tiny, lifeless smile on his lips.

You swallow around the tightness in your throat and turn your focus to his injured hand cradled in his lap. It’s only his left one that’s bruised, his right remaining clean and untouched. 

You reach down with shaky hands to lift his battered one in your own. The skin along the knuckles are split open and scabbed over, a gruesome sight. You trace your thumb gently along the outside of the bruise, wondering if it was born from him punching something he shouldn’t have or…

You don’t let your mind travel to unsightly depths.

You hold his hand in your left and carve out some salve from the jar with your right, smoothing it gently over the skin before unravelling some bandage. Your hand holds his all the while, never once detaching, as if the tether between you was needed for… well you don't know what. You just know you don’t want to let go, not right now.

A distant part of you notes how delicate his hands really are, not too large to fit comfortably into yours.

“What happened?” You finally allow yourself to ask.

You let the silence persist, giving him the time to gather himself, as you wrap the bandage around his knuckles. When he finally speaks, it’s quiet. 

“I tried to do as you said,” he murmurs. “To push back against my father when I didn’t agree with something.”

Your movements falter at the admission, your eyes snapping up to see him watching your hands work his.

The bitter laugh that escapes his lips feels like a sudden sting in your heart. “Look where that got me.”

It all makes sense. His need to follow the rules set by his father, to bide to his every word. It must have been in fear of this. And there you were, treating him like just some spoiled, prickly prince who called himself helpless for pity. 

How could you be so wrong about a person? He had taken the weight of your words and carried them with him willingly, going so far as to heed to them. Or try to. 

The sudden guilt that sits in your chest feels too big for your ribs to contain. How naive you were to think things would be so easy for him. To think some harsh words from you would rewire years of habit and submission beaten into him.

“But,” he says, breaking off your miserable train of thought. His fingers tighten just a fraction around yours; you didn’t realize it had started shaking. “It felt good.” His eyes remain on your locked hands, his thumb pressing just slightly into your palm. “To not just follow blindly. To… think for myself.”

His eyes lift up to yours and you feel yourself still against his gaze.

Here lies this man, a shell of one, under your hands with eyes that carry more burden than a man of twenty should bear. You think you can start to see through it—the armour that he’d built up over the years that has rusted to his flesh, unforgiving. 

In this light, soft golden and vulnerable, he looks entirely like a different person. One that you can understand.

He was just another person who had the misfortune of having to bury himself away for his kingdom.

It takes great effort to break away from his gaze to settle it on the bruise at his cheekbone. He watches intently as you lift your free hand and let your finger brush against the darkening skin, stalling for another moment as you search for the courage to speak again.

“Hard to believe you listened to me,” you breathe. The words are meant to be light, but your voice shakes with the weight of your emotion.

Your heart nearly stops when he presses into your touch, his eyes fluttering shut. An overwhelming sense of emotion swells in your chest as he seeks out the warmth of your skin, turning his face to nuzzle into your palm.

He takes a deep breath that you feel against your wrist when he lets it back out.

You let your palm meld against him, thumb tucking against the crevice between his nose and his cheek. His hair cascades onto his forehead as his head tilts down and you’re struck with the urge to brush it back. But you can’t bring yourself to pull your hand that remains in his grasp.

Instead, you just watch him. You watch the way his brows furrow in concentration, like he’s doing everything to memorize the warmth of your touch as if it’s a temporary thing. You watch the way his throat bobs around a tight swallow, like he’s pushing down the emotion in him. You watch the way that some of that emotion seeps through anyway in the form of a crystal drop in the corner of his eye.

“I’m not usually this weak,” he murmurs, lips brushing against the heel of your palm. It sets a fire alight beneath your skin.

“You aren’t,” you answer easily. “Any weak person would not live a day in your shoes.”

His eyes flutter open, warm and dark like dampened soil after rain, carrying depths that you fear you may find yourself sinking into. 

And you can’t help but want to.

The silence feels exposing, like it's giving way for his prying gaze to rip through all of your barriers and seek out hidden truths behind your eyes you’re not even sure you’re keeping.

The lack of distance between you becomes apparent. You realize how close you really are, his knees brushing against the sides of your legs where you stand, your face merely inches above his. It feels so much like the night of your engagement—having him this close to—and yet it’s different in every way.

The soft breath that leaves you is traitorous when his eyes fall to your lips. And the distance somehow feels tighter even though you haven't moved. Threadbare, where you can feel the ghost of his breath brush against you.

Your eyes drop to his lips, the split skin on the plush of his lower one and the blood that pools between the cracked crevices. They beckon you closer.

Instead, you step away. 

“You should get some sleep,” you tell him. The disappointment that flashes across his face is apparent, but you try to make nothing of it. He’s quick to seal it away. “I can send the healer up in the morning to check on you. I’ll be discreet.”

He doesn’t speak as he watches you gather your meager tools and bring them back to his bathroom. When you step back out, he’s pushed up against his headboard, head leaned back. The strange urge to tuck him under his blankets ambushes you, but you push it away and stride across the room towards his doors.

Just as you reach for the handles, his voice cuts in.

“Princess.”

You stop, but you don’t turn around. You feel his gaze pierce into the back of your hair.

“Don’t let my defeat fuel your ego,” he tells you, light and airy.

You look over your shoulder at him, at the lazy smile on his lips, the tilt of his head rolled to the side, the hair brushing over his peering eyes. 

You mirror his smile. “I’d hardly call it a defeat.”

A shift, momentous and present, manifests in the week that follows. Things have changed between you two. To give more space between the tension for something more, relieved of any of the suffocation that came with being in his presence. 

He still remains with his duties while you return to your tasks for the wedding. But he’s no longer a ghost. In fact, you run into him more often than you’d think with him still entirely dedicated to his duties, whether he’s passing through halls by where you’re set up for the day or stopping by the kitchen when you’ve gone to make your own tea.

You share more gazes than you do words, ones that are laden with a tension that you’re not sure what to make of. 

But you don’t disrupt his work and neither does he attempt to belittle you. You’ve formed an unspoken truce. 

Things are finally peaceful, you’d say. 

𓆩⟡𓆪

Until you come home one day with two bloodied people at your sides and Taeyang nearly has a heart attack right there in the foyer in front of a Duke. 

Taeyang doesn’t even take notice of who’s at your side, far more affected than you seem to be, as he pushes past the Duke and beelines right over to you.

He stops in front of you, hands rising to reach over but he stops himself at the last second and shoves them back at his sides. 

“What happened?” He snaps instead, nevermind that you look perfectly at ease. 

He sees the hesitation in your eyes, the shock colouring them at his brutish tone.

The person to your right cuts in and only then does Taeyang realize it’s your sister. “Rebels, Your Highness.”

His blood chills when he sees the state that she’s in; wearing more blood than she is clothes. She must notice the panic on his face because she quickly interjects.

“Not mine,” she says, glancing to her left. “A close call, but gladly we had the best of the best to protect us.”

Intak, stationed at your other side, blushes and shuffles on his feet, averting his gaze.

He’s relieved to hear that, but he still can’t help but worry of the worst. His eyes turn back to you and scan you from head to toe, frantic to search for any evidence that you’re affected. “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head. “No. I had a trusty guard at my side,” you say before turning to Intak and giving him a warm smile. “Isn’t that right?”

Intak’s eyes flit past you, landing on your sister for a quick second before they move onto Taeyang. “I only served my duty to protect the Q—Her Highness,” he says, bowing his head to Taeyang.

Taeyang’s brows furrow at the formal display, unusual coming from his friend but he nods regardless. His worries are rather occupied by you and the fact that you don’t seem a bit of the distress that Taeyang feels.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” you add with a quick bow. “I have duties at hand.”

You brush past him but Taeyang doesn’t let you go far before he grabs your arm and halts you in your path. But when you turn to him, brows raised in question, he can’t figure out what he was even meaning for.

“Yes?” You prod and he just stares, gaping like a fish. 

“You were attacked,” he says stiffly.

“...Yes. It’s been established.”

Taeyang feels the familiar rise of irritation he experiences whenever he’s with you. But the difference is, it’s not at you. He doesn’t know what to do with it. He just knows that you were nearly hurt, it could’ve been plenty worse, and he wasn’t there to stop it.

What kind of a husband was he?

He jolts at the thought, dropping your arm and nearly flinching away from you.

“I—” He starts, then stops when his voice cracks. “Excuse me.”

He makes his quick escape out of the foyer. Tries to, because he can’t run from the feelings that conflict his heart.

He knows it’s an awful game to start evading you again. It starts to become apparent to him that the distance might become a necessary third party in your relationship and it’s no one’s fault but his.

He just can’t help it. Ever since that day when you’d sent his heart into turmoil and confusion, that’s all he can feel every time he sees you. He doesn’t understand why his heart nearly gave out or why he felt ready to burn the entire kingdom down in search of the bastards who’d nearly gotten to you.

The dirty looks you give him at the few dinners that he attends lets him know you’re not happy with his sudden change in behaviour. But if only you knew all his dilemmas were because of you.

It doesn’t help that the necklace he had commissioned for you turns up missing. He’s been so caught up in you that he doesn’t even know, or even bother to understand, how it happened. All he knows is that he sent his sister to have it picked up, that she was nearly robbed of it in town, and that it made it to the castle grounds before it completely vanished. He doesn’t let it show but it only adds to his long list of reasons to spiral.

He thinks his inner turmoil is just that—inner.

Though with the suspect glances that Keeho starts to give him whenever you come up makes him think he’s not being as subtle as he’d like to be.

Whatever it is, he needs the space to figure it out so his brain doesn’t go mad whenever he enters your vicinity. So, for the next week, he lets the distance grow.

And apparently, his healer friend finds herself in a similar spot with his brother. 

“Why must things be more complicated than they need to be?” She huffs. She drops her chin over her folded arms atop the balcony railing, staring out over the horizon morosely. 

“It’s not complicated,” Taeyang corrects, twirling the teacup in his hands. The breeze feels nice under the summer sun. But it does nothing to soothe away his burdensome woes, and neither does the lush greens of the forest below their tall station. “I’m simply keeping my distance from her to keep my head on right. It doesn’t take much from her to throw it askew.”

She only laughs at his misery. “How ironic,” she muses, words dripping with sarcasm.

He places his teacup on the tiny plate perched atop the railing, turning to her with a raised brow. “What?”

He watches her sigh dramatically and tilt her head up to stare at the heavens. “You’re trying to push away,” she states, before looking at him with a solemn gaze he’s not used to seeing from her. “And I’m trying to get closer.”

Taeyang feels his chest twinge with sympathy. He’s watched her pine after Jiung for years now, only to have him dismiss her despite his own feelings for her. 

“He’s still being evasive?” He asks, frowning. “I thought he’d get over it by now.”

She huffs, standing straight to kick her heel mindlessly against the ground, like she was taking it out on it instead of Jiung. “He’s convinced that nothing will cure him. But it doesn’t matter what he says. He can try to push me away all he wants but that won’t stop me from trying to find a cure.” 

He admires her determination to her craft, envies it almost. He just hopes it will fix whatever is wrong with his brother.

“It’s just annoying how stubborn and idiotic it is,” she grouses. 

He scoffs. Stubborn is something he’s becoming very acquainted with as of late. “I know a thing or two about that. I’m practically marrying stubborn.”

Taeyang can feel her disappointed glare from a mile away, nevermind a few feet. 

“Are you blind?” She asks bluntly, and Taeyang bristles back. “Stubborn runs in the Choi blood. You’re just mad you’re marrying yourself.”

It’s ridiculous enough to make him laugh, maybe for the first time in the days since he’d last talked to you in the foyer when he almost found out what it was like to have a stroke.

“You’re not the first one to have said something like that.”

“So you realize its truth, right?”

He reaches over to shove her by the shoulder. “Whatever.”

She swats back in instinct, laughing. “Seriously, Taeyang,” she starts, the mirth in her tone dying away to something more serious. “You know that pushing her away won’t do anything, right? Jiung’s doing it and maybe her feelings towards you aren’t like what I feel for Jiung but…” She frowns. “It’s not a good feeling. Especially not from someone who’s important to you.”

The sight of her downcast eyes and the sound of her sullen voice makes Taeyang’s resolve almost crumble. Almost.

But instead of facing that shifting feeling in his chest, he redirects his focus.

“Hey,” he says gently, reaching for her elbow to pull her into his space. “Jiung’s just scared, you know that?”

She doesn’t meet his eye, opting to stare at his chest as she wraps her arms protectively around herself. “I know,” she mumbles. She sounds small. She reminds him a little bit of his sister, just a tad less gremlin-like.

He smiles fondly. “So don’t let go of him.”

When she finally looks up at him, it's with tears in her eyes.

He reaches up to brush away the little droplet that escapes. “I know you’ll mend him. In more ways than one.” 

He’s not sure if he’s convincing her or himself—he has to believe that Jiung’s condition will get better, otherwise…

He snaps himself out of that train of thought, shaking his head. “Just have some patience,” he continues, clearing his throat of the rising emotion. “You know how he is. He needs to come to things on his own terms.”

She takes a deep breath, blinking away her tears. “You’re right,” she mumbles. There’s a long pause before she adds a quick, “You’re pretty helpful when you’re not being a stubborn ass.”

Taeyang goes to swipe her on the head but she swiftly dodges and embraces him instead, giggling.

“Thanks,” she muffles into his chest, her arms tightening around his torso. He holds back his grunt of pain. “You could learn a thing or two from yourself about your own little problem.”

He snorts, wrapping his arms around her shoulders before digging his chin atop her head, hard enough to make her wince. “My own little problem is more complicated than that.”

A movement in his peripherals catches his gaze. He turns his head to see the tail end of an emerald dress disappear down the hallway from the balcony.

He recognizes it as one of yours, and his heart twists with the reminder of just how delicate it all is.

He lets out a sigh, his arms loosening around his friend. “Much more complicated.”

𓆩⟡𓆪

Taeyang starts to realize that maybe he should have listened to the healer, that maybe he let the distance grow a little too far between you for the next few days when he sees Keeho start to hover around you much too frequently and much too familiarly.

Keeho has started to accompany you to your daily chores. Beyond that, he’s started conversing with you like it's nothing at the dining table, and whenever Taeyang hears your voice chiming around the corner, sending his heart array, Keeho’s nasally one follows right after. He hates that he’s been hovering around to simply keep watch, only driving himself more mad whenever he hears Keeho’s ridiculous jokes getting that laugh out of you. 

An absurd surge of fury pierces through him to see you that way for someone else, and his brother no less.

Suddenly, Taeyang’s duties become the last of his worries. Instead, he makes the time to accompany you to your duties so you wouldn’t have to deal with Keeho. Surely, you’d prefer him over his oaf of a brother.

But he starts to doubt his beliefs when the first thing you do is frown at him when he enters the parlor where you’re set up with a string quartet. Taeyang nearly throws a fit.

“Taeyang?” Four. “Keeho was supposed to accompany me.”

He doesn’t hide his scowl as he walks closer to where you are. “Well it’s me. Disappointed?”

You narrow your eyes, frown shifting to an annoyed pout. “Aren’t you busy?”

Taeyang can’t really say that he is without having to explain that he ditched everything to make time for this, so he just snaps at you to, “Just be grateful for it.”

The session commences tensely, every song grating his ears, but at least he’s suffering it with you.

He thinks it's enough to beat the pest that is Keeho away.

He realizes how wrong he was when he walks too late into the kitchen for the cake tasting, out of breath from darting across the castle to make it in time. Because there was Keeho, lifting a small bit of red velvet cake with his grimy little fingers for you. You’re smiling as you lean in to take the piece on your tongue, practically licking his fingers clean off.

Taeyang sees white.

It only gets worse. Keeho swipes the cream smeared at the corner of your lips and has the nerve to tongue it off, all while leering right into your flustered gaze with that sleazy smile of his. 

All Taeyang can do is stand there, chest heaving for an entirely new reason, as you ogle his brother while he murmurs something about how it, “Tastes so sweet.”

A sudden crash pierces through the horrible moment—a maid shattering a glass bowl at the other end of the kitchen, but Taeyang can’t find it in him to worry about that.

“Keeho,” Taeyang says, far too calmly for what he’s really feeling. “I need you in my office.”

He doesn’t wait for a response before he turns and leaves.

The way to his office remains quiet except for the clacks of Keeho’s boots prancing after him a little ways behind. Even his walk sounds arrogant, each click only stoking the flames of Taeyang’s ire.

As soon as the doors shut behind Keeho, all of Taeyang’s composure drops at once.

“What the hell was that?” He seethes, whirling around to face Keeho who stands there with his cocksure smile, hands folded behind his back.

He shrugs innocently. “What was what, brother?”

Taeyang’s eyes narrow. “You know what. Defiling your Queen out there in the open like that?”

“Woah,” Keeho scoffs, brows rising in shock at the pure anger seeping through Taeyang’s words. “That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? I was just feeding her cake.”

“Don’t play coy with me, Keeho,” he growls slowly, stepping forward but Keeho only grins.

“I’m not playing, brother,” he says casually. “You were too busy. You can’t blame me for keeping her company while you’re gone, can you? We might have to get used to it anyways, if this is how it’s going to be.” Keeho’s grin widens wolfishly and it only makes Taeyang’s stomach twist further into a knot. “I mean, when she’s all lonely and you’re working, it’s only fair if I get to—”

Taeyang can’t bear to hear him finish that thought. He doesn’t even realize what he’s done until he feels the ache left behind in his knuckles and Keeho’s head is snapped to the side as a violent red blooms across his cheek.

When it sinks in what he’s done, Taeyang can only stare at Keeho. 

Dread follows slowly after the realization. He’s never once raised a hand at his brothers, a vow he made to himself over years of being submitted to his father’s fury. And here he was, hurting his own little brother over—over what, over you?

Keeho stares back, hand cradling his jaw. “Taeyang, I—”

“Get out,” Theo says quietly, lowering his shaky fist. 

He’s not angry anymore. He can’t be, when all he can do is question his sanity. What are you doing to him?

The answer doesn’t hit him until later that night, when he’s perched atop his balcony that oversees the gardens where you’re lounging around with Jiung, Jongseob, Keeho, his younger sister and her guard.

He watches the way you laugh with them, play with them, poke and rib at them like they’re your own. And he realizes, with an aching heart, that you fit right into his home. Maybe more than he ever has.

Is this what he’s been missing out on all this time? You’ve been here for a bit over a measly month and yet you’re more at ease with his own family than he ever was. 

You’ve never been the problem. You’ve never been the spoiled, snobbish, above-anyone-else princess he’s made you out to be. Clearly, you make well with everyone but him. That only speaks to his character, not yours.

And it’s not just you. He’s managed to push everyone else in his family away because of his own ego, his own self-importance. He’s always had a knack for self-destruction. He just didn’t realize how much until it was laid out in front of him.

Taeyang finds himself wondering what it would be like to have his own family with you. Would it be just like this, laughter and late-night garden getaways? Or would he ruin that too? 

When you look up and catch his watchful gaze only to return it with a glare, he realizes that he wants nothing more than the version of you that his family has. The version of you that he wants for himself.

He just needs to work for it.

𓆩⟡𓆪

You’re not sure what’s changed. When Keeho told you what had gone down, you thought Taeyang finally lost it.

But it seems the opposite. Or maybe he’s reached a new level of insanity.

Because three weeks before the day of the wedding, on the morning of your birthday, you wake up to a bouquet of your favourite flowers. You think it’s from your sister, but when you read the neat cursive on the tiny card tucked away in the petals, you nearly lose it yourself.

I can see why they’re your favourite. They remind me of you. I’ll be sure to stay far away from them.

Your Arrogant Prince

The smile that pulls at your lips is immediate and against your will. It’s hard to believe he’d remember your offhanded comment from that day of flower picking, but it’s more likely he must have just asked your sister. 

You pick up the bouquet, note its lousy arrangement, and realize with a fond heart that he must have fixed it together himself.

But you’re quick to fan the flames. It will take more than one lousy bouquet for him to make up for his fair-weather tendencies. But that doesn’t stop you from depositing the flowers in a vase and leaving them at your bedside.

When you make your way down, you find the dining table filled to the brim with all your favourite foods. And, besides the regular cast, Taeyang sits at the head of the table for the first breakfast in many days.

He bids you good morning before anyone else can, taking not only you, but the others by surprise. You think it’s just a special thing, saved for your birthday, but the treatment continues through the following week and what you once thought was a gimmick might actually turn out to be effort.

It becomes even more obvious when you’re bombarded by maids at various hours of the day, tending to your every need.

During your jewelry arranging session, one of them approaches you with the tea that you like, just the way you like it.

You instantly lighten at the familiar aroma, setting aside the tray of jewels on your lap to lean forward and breathe it in. 

“How did you know this is the one I like?” You ask, practically beaming. “I don’t recall telling the staff here.”

The maid bows her head before stepping back. “It was a request from the Crown Prince, Your Highness.”

Your smile drops, shock raising your brows instead. How did he know?

You lift your eyes back up to her. “Is he also the reason I have an army of maids at my disposal at every hour of the day?”

The maid smiles sheepishly. “Yes, Your Highness. He’s asked us to make sure you have everything you need to make your days easier.”

Your lips rise into a slow smile. If this is how he seeks repentance, you can’t find it in yourself to complain.

𓆩⟡𓆪

The wedding is a little over two weeks away, and while the chaos is up to everyone’s necks, you manage to stave an early evening away for yourself to ease off all the stress. Well, Taeyang had a part in that—arranging with the staff to give you a needed day off.

The bow is a familiar weight under your hand, an old one, but not forgotten. You can’t remember the last time you’d felt mentally stable enough to think about anything but your impending doom. But with your impending doom feeling less like impending doom recently, you finally get a break.

You pull the arrow back, aim with a breath, then let them go in tandem.

It hits a few inches from the centre.

You figured you’d be a little rusty but with an hour of practice, you should be back to par.

You draw another arrow, taking your time to fix your aim. Just as you’re about to let go, a voice catches you by surprise and the arrow goes flying astray.

You curse, whipping around to glare at Taeyang.

“Really?” You huff at the smirk on his face as he approaches. “You couldn’t have waited until after I took the shot.”

“If you were good enough you would have gotten it,” he retorts easily, looking over at the target. “I didn’t know you did archery.”

He's casual today, with a white button down and brown slacks. His hair is pushed back messily with stray tresses fluttering over his face in the wind.

You tear your gaze away just as he turns back to you. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” you state, walking back to the quiver you’d left on ground by an oak tree.

You hear him trail after you on the rustling grass, moving to lean against the tree with his hands in his pockets as he watches you fall into position with another arrow.

You can feel his eyes on your figure. His leering has gotten less and less inconspicuous in the past week and as aggravating as it may feel at times, you can’t say you don’t enjoy the attention.

“I’ve never had much time to pick up such hobbies,” you hear him say as you adjust your aim.

You relax and lower the bow, looking at him over your shoulder. His eyes flick up to meet yours as you do and you’re a little taken aback at how fitting he appears with the windswept look. It’s times like this that remind you your misfortune isn’t so vastly great as you’d initially deemed it.

“Would you like to try?” You offer without much thought. You add hastily, “Instead of just standing there and leering like a creep.”

He smiles as he straightens and saunters up to you. “Can’t a man admire his wife?”

You ignore the familiar set of butterflies that he’s been letting loose in your stomach for the past days.

“I’m not your wife,” you correct him, shoving the bow in his hands.

“Yet.”

You roll your eyes as you shove him to position and he lets himself be pushed with a laugh.

You nearly stumble over yourself as you move to stand behind him. His laugh still takes you back, a sound you’re so unused to but has become a part of your routine with him recently. It’s not an unwelcome change.

He takes a breath and stares at the target for a calculating second. “Looks easy,” he mutters quietly. “I just have to pretend that it's Keeho’s head.”

Your stomach twists, cheeks burning at the reminder of your little… plan with Keeho that had practically gone up in flames. It seems that Taeyang still doesn’t know the truth behind it.

“About that,” you start, and Taeyang looks over his shoulder at you, a little startled like he hadn’t expected you to hear. You fumble for an explanation under his inquisitive gaze. “I just wanted to make you upset. And Keeho wanted to make his maid jealous so we—” You bite your tongue, cursing yourself for letting Keeho’s secret slip.

But Taeyang doesn’t seem to care about that. His lips pull up into a winning grin, like a cat with his canary. “You wanted to make me jealous,” he surmises, much to your dismay.

That’s one way to put it. But there was no way that you’d admit something like that. And it’s not as if he’s completely innocent of that crime either.

You scoff, turning your cheek to him. “As if you didn’t start it first.”

You don’t have to look at him to feel his puzzled gaze on the side of your face.

You roll your eyes, turning back to him with narrowed eyes. “Unless you like to cozy up with all your healers?”

Realization dawns on his face, lips parting in a small ‘o’. “Well,” he starts, standing straighter. “Only the ones I’ve been friends with since childhood. Especially the ones that seek advice from me about their feelings for my brother.”

Your cheeks instantly heat up. Now that you really think about it, you have seen Jiung hovering around the healer one too many times, enough to give you the grounds to question whether it was just for health checkups.

You dig your teeth into your lip, glancing up to see Taeyang watching you with a fond little smile. “I didn’t know you were worried about that.”

“I wasn’t,” you say stubbornly, avoiding his twinkling gaze. You push at his shoulder, hoping the blush on your cheek isn’t as intense as it feels. “You know nothing. Now shoot.”

He laughs again, turning his attention back to the target with a shake of his head. 

The line of his shoulders straightens with newfound ardor as he lifts the bow. He’s clumsy as he handles it, hooking the arrow with no finesse, and you have to keep yourself from laughing at his utter cluelessness. But a stifled snicker passes through anyway and his expression quickly sours as he glares at you over his shoulder.

“Instead of just standing there, aren’t you supposed to help me?”

It’s your turn to grin now. “Why would I?” You tease. “It’s so much more entertaining to watch you figure it out yourself.”

His glare deepens. “You’re a terrible teacher.”

“I never claimed to be a good one,” you remark with a smile and Taeyang’s glare melts away to the soft smile you’re slowly becoming fond of. You linger on it for a moment too long before you catch yourself. “Let me.”

You step behind him and raise your hand to his back, hesitating for just a second before you press it flat between the notches of his broad shoulders, placing pressure to straighten his stature. The touch, even through the layer of fabric, feels all too encompassing.

Taeyang takes a breath, a little too sharp to be normal.

“You have terrible posture,” you mumble.

He exhales, keeping his eyes strictly on the target. “So I’ve been told.”

Your arms come around to take his elbows between light fingers to adjust his arms as you start off on an explanation of the angles to hold his stance at. Taeyang stays far too silent, and you start to question whether he’s even listening.

You peer over his shoulder at the grip he has on the bow and the thought of reaching out to adjust his hands takes you back to that night in his bedroom. The purple along the knuckles of his left has faded to a shadowed lilac now, but the thought of touching him there again feels daunting. 

“Loosen your grip on the bow,” you tell him. It’s not on purpose that your breath brushes against his neck, but you’re not against the visible effect it has on him in the form of gooseflesh that rises on his skin.

He swallows, adjusting his grip on the wood. “Like that?”

“Hm. Could be better.” You eye his hand around the nock of the arrow. “That one’s worse, it’s too tight. Loosen and hold it between your thumb and side of your index.”

He follows, or tries to, but the arrow still sits uneasy in his hand.

“Not quite.” 

He tries again, but it still falls short.

He turns his head to peer down his nose at you. You try not to feel his gaze on you like a physical weight, but he makes it difficult. “Apologies, dear, but you may have to do it for me.”

You look up at him, expecting it to be another one of his artful attempts at flirtation, but the way he looks at you is only intense. Wanting.

It’s you who’s affected now, and you can’t help but to give in to his plea.

You tear your eyes from him to reach over and let your hand cover his on the bow. You falter at the tingles that rise beneath your skin before quickly reeling yourself together and adjusting his grip. You move on with haste, reaching around him to adjust his hold on the nock.

All while you try to keep your breaths intact with his gaze fixed on you, persistent and prying in the proximity.

“There,” you tell him and hope that pushes his attention back to the task at hand.

But his gaze lingers, like it mourns having to look away before he finally does. 

With a steadying—albeit shaky—breath, he pulls the arrow back and releases.

You’re too caught up in his profile to see whether he’s hit the target. But with the way his face lights up and the bright grin that pulls on his lips, you think he must have hit somewhere in the centre.

Only to turn and see that he’s hit the block, sure, but outside of the circle entirely.

“I did it!” He cheers.

You blink. “You did something.”

But when he laughs, bright and airy and like he’s conquered a nation, you think it doesn’t matter at all if he gets to laugh like this.

𓆩⟡𓆪 

It’s one week until the wedding and Taeyang is sure you’re just about near losing your mind. 

And it’s evident as such when you barge your way into his office again, crying, “I am going crazy!”

Taeyang looks up from his papers to see you practically heaving with your vexation, cheeks flushed and hair unruly. He gets the ridiculous urge to go over and smooth the strands out of your face.

Instead, he sits up straight in his chair. “And you’re just realizing this?”

You bristle at that, turning your glare to him. “Not like that,” you snap, then start pacing around the floor of his office, arms flailing wildly as you commence your timely ramble. It’s a familiar sight, now that you’ve come in here just to pace and complain before promptly leaving in a huff. 

“They pull me away from teatime—mind you I’d already been running around all morning like a headless chicken—to ask me to pick out cutlery of all things—”

“Sounds awful,” he chimes in drily, but you ignore him.

“—so I make my choice and then it’s oh are you sure?” You mock in a high, nasally voice. “We suggest sterling actually, and then she goes on and on and on about quality differences that I truly could not give a single damn about!”

His lips quirk up at the passion with which you tell your grievances. He stands from his chair and starts strolling his way to you. “How dare she?” He asks, but you’re too caught up in your flurry of ire to notice him closing in.

“Right?!” You cry with a toss of your arms in the air. You turn to watch outside the window when he stops a foot behind you. “So what even is the point of me being there? If you’re such an expert, you choose. I couldn’t care less at this point, Taeyang—“ five, he counts in his head, “—let’s just get married in rags. Let’s do it in the stables for all I care. I'm done. I am simply—”

He takes hold of your elbow and pulls you to him, cutting you off. You yelp and nearly topple over but his grip on you is sturdy enough to keep you upright. Your eyes are wide and questioning as they stare up at him.

With how close you are, he notices the flush on your cheeks deepen.

“Are you done?” He asks, his voice far too fond for his liking. But recently, anything he says or does around you is out of his control.

You blink up at him, seeming a little struck. “...Yes.”

“Good,” he says. Then he starts pulling you out of his office. “Come along.”

There’s a little resistance against his hold as you stumble after him. “Where are you taking me?!”

“You will see,” is all he says.

“If this is a scheme to just mess with me more, I swear—“

He moves his hand down to your wrist and yanks you forward to walk alongside him. “Hush. Just follow.”

You settle down, but you don’t shut up, opting to huff and puff under your breath about how “controlling” he is. He only listens with a tiny smile as he carries down the marble floors.

The room he brings you to is in an area you’ve never wandered to before and it feels a little… ghostly. 

It’s dark. It feels cold.

Taeyang strides across the room to the large window that sits on the other end. When he pulls apart the curtains, the sun spills in and sets everything alight.

The walls are a mix of gold and white that glow seraphically with the sun. There’s paintings hung on them of flowers and gardens and natural landscapes. Tarps are draped over all the pieces of furniture that sit dormant.

Something about this room feels like it's trapped in time. Untouched. You wonder how many years.

“This is where my mother spent most of her time.”

Taeyang’s voice pulls your focus to where he leans against the rim of the window, the sun against him like a celestial backlight. 

There’s a distant look in his eyes as they trace the walls. “I didn’t get to spend much time here with the others…” He pauses. He must mean his brothers and his sister. “I come here now when I need to get away. People don’t usually come here. Well, Jongseob does.”

The knowledge of this space, the weight that it carries, makes you feel like an intruder. “You didn’t have to bring me here.”

He looks at you for a thoughtful moment before he nods his head to his side, beckoning you to the empty space by the window.

When you join him, you both stay in silent contemplation. It’s not uncomfortable. It’s soothing, rather.

“Jongseob was in here the most,” he recalls quietly. “Jiung was here whenever he wasn’t busy. Keeho was always the detached type and my sister was more independent. She hated being coddled. But Jongseob always clung to her.” The tiny smile that sits on his lips is distant and a little sorrowed. “She favoured him. And I was…”

“Busy being a King?” You finish for him and he breathes a short laugh.

“Yeah. Too busy for her.” His smile fades, expression clouding with a darkness that doesn’t sit right with the sunlit room. “I had no time to be her son.”

The heavy look in his eye settles like a physical weight in your own chest. 

“That’s not true,” you insist. “I don’t remember much of her, but I recall she always looked at you fondly. She was a loving person.”

His eyes cast lower, head tilting down so his hair curtains his face. “But with no one to love her right.”

The guilt he must feel needs no other explanation. You lift your hand to brush his hair back, catching sight of the remnants of his tears that he blinks quickly away. He turns to you at the touch, lifting his melancholy eyes to you.

“She knew—knows,” you correct yourself. “She knows you love her. You were just… misfortunate enough to not get the chance to show her. But Jongseob did.”

He tries to turn away but you grab hold of his chin, firm yet gentle. Though he doesn’t look at you, lowering his gaze as a furrow sets between his brows.

“It’s a good thing, isn’t it?” You ask him quietly. “That he got to love her enough for both of you?”

His eyes fall completely shut, lips pressing tighter to smother the tremble. You watch him as he breathes, reels his emotions in, and opens his eyes to you.

“I’ve—” He starts, then pauses when his voice shakes. He swallows hard before trying again. “I’ve never thought about it that way before.”

You let your hand fall, fisting it in your lap to ease away the tingles left beneath your skin. “That’s what I’ve always been here for, I suppose.” You smile at the question in his eyes. “To challenge you, Taeyang.”

You expect him to fire back with something of his own but he only gets this sickeningly soft look on his face. One that would normally unsettle you.

But it is a little intimidating so you turn your gaze away. “What is it?”

“You’ve called me by my name six times now.”

Confusion. And then shock. You whip back around to him, eyes shot open wide. “You’ve been keeping track?”

He simply shrugs like it was a normal revelation, like announcing a shift in the weather. “I like the way it sounds on your tongue,” he states, and you feel your stomach twist. It twists further when he tilts his head just so, the corner of his lips lifting. “Say it again?”

A furious heat rises on your cheeks, but you can’t find it in yourself to deny him. Maybe it’s the vulnerability remaining from the moments just prior. “Taeyang, you’re being ridiculous.”

His smile pulls wider as he pushes himself fully up to his feet. “Seven,” he counts. “Again.”

You straighten out of instinct, crossing your arms as you try to tame your fluster. “No, Taeyang,” you grumble at his demand, turning your gaze out the window.

You try to ignore him in your peripherals as he moves closer, but his voice right beside your ear makes it difficult. “Eight.” 

He takes your chin in his hand to make you face him, a shiver climbing up your spine when your eyes meet his. They’re set alight to molten honey by the sun. His skin fares just as tantalizing, a golden dew. 

“Again.”

You watch as his smile fades into something softer. His eyes seem lost as they watch you. 

You let out a quiet, shuddering breath. “Taeyang?”

“Nine,” he answers. His thumb lifts, brushing against the plush of your lip. His body leans into you, eyes falling lower.

You don’t need the command. You give into him without it.

“Taeyang,” you whisper.

“Ten,” he whispers back, then seals his lips over yours. 

It’s warm and soft, everything that your relationship with Taeyang is not. And you find yourself lulled into it, hand finding his chest as his slides up to your cheek.

You falter at the flutter of his fingertips brushing against your heated skin, pushing back your stray locks.

He groans softly when your fingers dig into his shirt and he surges forward, pressing insistently against your lips. You lift on your toes to push back with the same fervour, moving in tandem with him. 

His heart pounds beneath your palm. Yours is a wreckage of its own.

It’s a simple kiss, but it’s enough to make your shackled walls come crumbling down.

“Sister! There you— oh…”

The warmth tears away in a single moment as you jump from the kiss, Taeyang stumbling back on his own. You turn away from him, trying to reel your wild heart in, and your cheeks burn even hotter at the sinking realization of what’s just happened.

You hear your sister’s heels slowly step away, the doors creaking as she starts to draw them shut. “I can come back—”

“No!” Taeyang interjects quickly, clearing his throat when his voice cracks. “What did you need?”

“It’s a bit of a personal matter but—”

“Coming!” You chime, turning and quickly rushing to your sister’s side while pointedly keeping your panicked gaze off of her baffled one. You don’t dare look back at Taeyang.

“Wait, you don’t have to come with me! I can just—” she tries to insist but you ignore her, looping your arm around hers to tug her, and you, away from this treacherous moment while mentally preparing yourself from the barrage of questions your sister is sure to have for you.

Taeyang just stands there helplessly, watching you fade away, with his mind in a storm and fire at his fingertips.

𓆩⟡𓆪

This game seems endless; traipsing around each other. 

After that happened—Taeyang can’t even bring himself to name what happened—things have taken a turn for the awkward. Eye contact is avoided at all costs at dinner, if he even decides to show up. Conversations are kept nonexistent. He simply nods at you to acknowledge your presence to which you only divert from. 

It’s safe to say that neither of you know how to act accordingly with what happened. He’s not sure what the protocol is and it leaves him feeling astray. You surely feel the same if your avoidant behaviour is anything to go by.

It keeps him up at night. The ghost of your lips pressing against his, the soft breaths he pulled out of you, your hand searing heat against his racing chest. Every time he closes his eyes, he’s back beside the window with his heart in his hand.

It’s all he can think of when he sees you. And it throws him so far off course from reality, pulls his focus so far out of his grasp, that he does everything he can to avoid having to face it, even if it means evading you.

He’s not even sure what it is, and he’s not sure he wants to know. He doesn’t want to know what it is that makes his heart lurch whenever it comes to anything remotely related to you. He figures it’s better left untouched and locked away.

But it’s hard to avoid it completely when everything becomes about you with the wedding only a few days away.

To make things worse, the gift he bought for you still hasn’t turned up.

His sister barging in with problems of her own (involving her guard, no less) doesn’t help either, and as much as he appreciates the reconciliation, it only adds to his long list of headaches to tackle.

Then to make things even worse, Intak comes to him with the petrifying news that a second attempt at your life has been made by a rebel, and the guilt he’d been carrying for the past two months heightens tenfold.

It’s safe to say that the days leading up to the wedding, he spends them on edge. And it doesn’t help that he hasn’t been in contact with you in any way. With preparations at all time high and you being pulled this way and that, he can’t even attempt to speak with you if he even grew the courage for it.

But the night before the wedding, Taeyang reaches his limits. Everything feels like it’s falling apart and the worst part is that it is all out of his hand. And he hates feeling helpless.

He needs something, anything, to put his mind at ease. And with a startling realization, he finds that you have become the source for it that he yearns for.

So he musters the meager bits of courage he has left in him and makes his way to your bedroom. He knows it's improper to see his bride the night before the wedding but many things about this betrothal have been anything but proper. Surely, you wouldn’t mind.

He starts to think otherwise when he pushes the door open to see you staring at yourself in the mirror, completely still and devoid of emotion.

“Princess?” He asks, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him. When your eyes snap up to meet his through the mirror, wide and stormy, he feels dread pool in his gut. “Are you alright?”

A laugh escapes you, short and devoid of any mirth. “Alright?” You repeat in a disbelieving whisper. “How can I be alright, Your Highness?”

Your Highness. Not Taeyang. 

He tastes poison in his mouth at the idea of you calling him anything other than his name now. It feels like you’ve just erased him; the him that he’s shown you the past few weeks.

He doesn’t understand. Has the kiss pushed you away? Did it make you realize that you didn’t want him that way? His heart twists at the thought and he wishes with a ravenous desperation that it was anything but that.

If only he knew, it was the opposite. You wanted him with a force so great that it terrified you. This was the last thing you wished for, especially after vowing to yourself you would never fall for these men’s games. Falling for Taeyang means falling at the hand of the crown, and with that, it means submission. It means losing yourself. And that is the farthest thing from what you want.

“What do you mean?” 

You hate that his voice sounds so genuinely concerned. This is exactly how he’s played you, isn’t it? By playing the part to get you to lower your defenses.

The familiar bitter tang rises up your throat. “It means,” you start, voice tight. “How can I be alright knowing that I’m marrying you?”

You watch through the glass as Taeyang’s eyes widen. The moment stills as you stare at each other, letting the weight of your words sink in.

Then his eyes sharpen, expression hardening into the familiar fury that you’re used to from him. The anger that only you seem to bring out in him. The anger you’ll be submitted to for the rest of your life. 

“I thought we were okay,” he says, even still doing his best to reel his emotions in. “What the hell is your problem now?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then make me,” he snaps.

You whip around to face him. “Make you?” You ask, exasperated already. 

His anger feels more real now that you face it with your own two eyes and it's heavy enough to make you falter, too overwhelmed with your own emotions already. But you stand your ground regardless.

“If you couldn’t understand all this time, how can I make you now?” Your chest heaves, the fear that's been growing inside you, faded in the recent days but surely there, rising to the surface all at once. “You’ll never understand the fear of being tied down to a man and becoming nothing more than a wife.” Your voice, and your breaths, rise with each sharpened word. “I have no identity, Taeyang. I have no purpose! If I marry you, I will never have one. That is my problem. Do you understand now?”

His jaw grits, brows furrowed over cutting eyes that reflect your own fury back. “No, I don’t,” he answers, taking a step forward. “You should be grateful, if anything. You’re getting everything a woman can ask for and you still choose to sing your woes about things that don’t matter.”

“Don’t matter?” You whisper in disbelief. The laugh that leaves you is abrupt and sharp. “You can dress this up as opportunity and prosperity all you want, Prince,” you spit the word, nevermind the disrespect. “I am getting everything but my own name. I am becoming yours. Don’t you realize how twisted that is? This… ceremony is to relieve my father of my burden in the name of a truce. It's not a wedding.” You pause, your throat tightening around your words. “It’s not love.”

Taeyang steps back, like the words had physically blown him. His expression crumbles away to a shock etched with what could be pain. But you can’t recognize it past your own.

Instead, you take a step forward, driving the knife deeper. “There have been two attacks on my life now,” you recount, hands quivering at your sides. “Your people do not want me and I have to live in that fear for the rest of my life. I’ve been almost killed twice now and you couldn’t even protect me! And you’re supposed to be my King? My husband?”

Taeyang’s eyes, now ridden with guilt, fall away from you.

You only want to hurt him more. You want him to feel a fraction of what it is that you’re feeling.

“Forget the people,” you scoff. “You can barely even stand me.” His gaze snaps back up to you but you don’t give him the space to counter. “You have hated me your whole life. And I’m supposed to believe you changed your mind about me in, what, two months? You don’t care about me. How can I be alright marrying you knowing that?”

Taeyang’s eyes flash, and you’re not sure what it is about those words, but they trigger something primal in him. “Watch what you’re saying,” he seethes.

You can only shake your head, stepping back when you feel a familiar sting in your eyes. “This won’t work. Is this how we’re supposed to live? Mercurial—okay to not okay. Make peace one day then mess it all up the next, whether it's your fault or mine. I can’t do it.” The tears well heavily but you don’t let them fall. “We’ll be miserable.”

“Then we’ll spend a lifetime being miserable!” He snaps. His chest is heaving, fueled with the intensity that returns to his gaze. “But we’ll do it together. You’re marrying me, whether you like it or not.”

“Like hell I’ll marry a man who can’t make up his mind! Who doesn’t care.”

The air shifts, and the fire in his eye isn’t simple anger. It’s rage. 

He steps forward. You step back. “I don’t care?” He asks in a quiet that pierces you harder than anything loud would. He doesn’t stop, invading your space and closing in every time you step back. “I have spent weeks trying to prove to you that I care. I care, princess, I always have.”

You shake your head, still scrambling back as he closes in on you. “It doesn’t matter if you just say it.” Your voice wavers, the last of your defenses a weary thing, overwhelmed by his sudden force.

He only persists, a slow, almost terrifying grin curling on his lips. “Is that so?” 

You gasp when your back hits the wall. 

He stands right before you, his heaving chest nearly pressed to yours, looking down at you with eyes a wild storm of anger, desperation, and something more.

His hand grasps your jaw, tilting your face up to his, and you feel trapped. 

Your body betrays you; because despite it all, you want nothing more than to stay trapped like this. You want his fingers to dig in deeper, to leave a claim on your flesh.

He leans down, his nose barely brushing yours as he breathes the words right over your lips. “I’ll show you just how much I care so you won’t dare insinuate anything like that ever again.”

The tremble that crawls down your body leaves you feeling breathless. With him so close, your desire for him becomes impossible to ignore. You want to stop hiding from it. You want to give in to it.

The way Taeyang looks at you makes it apparent he wants nothing more than to pull you under.

And pull, he does. 

The kiss is all teeth and tongue, storm and fire, an unforgiving push and pull. His hands feel like they’re everywhere, a trail of heat from your hair to your waist to your hips, pressing your back into the wall as he melds himself against you. 

His fingers feel as if they’re clawing their way to carve space for him. And you let him, but not without a fight of your own. 

Your hand digs into his hair insistently, soft between your fingers as you pull. The groan he lets out into your lips is rough and from the depths of his lungs. 

The part of his lips gives you the chance to lick your way into his mouth in search for claim, claim that he fights with his own tongue. 

You push against his hold with the force of your entire body, but he overpowers you, grabbing your hips to drive you right back into the wall. 

He tears his lips from you but it’s only for a breathless moment before he presses them back to yours, but not for a kiss. 

“I despise you,” he whispers against your lips, shaky and harsh. One of his hands slides up your back, finding the zipper of your dress, his other hand pulling your hips flush against him. You gasp when you feel the hard pressure of his arousal against you. “I despise the way you have crawled into every crevice of my mind.” You shiver as he tugs the zipper down, leaving you vulnerable to the cold brush of air against your back. “I despise the way you leave me defenceless.” He pushes you again, hard enough that you feel the wood digging in through the material of your corset. He burrows his face into your neck, breathing you in. “I despise you,” he whispers against your skin, leaving a thread of electricity as he glides his mouth from your neck up to your chin. He digs his teeth into your flesh and you whimper at the shards of pain, head falling back with a thump against the wall. “I despise the way you drive me absolutely mad.” 

His tongue drags up the cut of your jaw to trace the shell of your ear, fingers clawing into the shoulders of your dress. 

The words spill into your ear, whispered in reverence, as he tears the dress off your body. “I despise everything about you.”

Only your corset holds you together from crumbling into pieces from just his words alone. He stays buried against the side of your hair, unrelenting, and you realize that you’re on uneven grounds.

“Is that what you’re calling it?” You ask. You despise the thought of going down without a fight. So you dig your hands into the cotton of his shirt, pulling him forward as if there was any space to be closed between you. Your head tilts back to peer at him while he meets your gaze down his nose. His eyes are dark, consumed by lust and fury. “Hatred?”

The curl of his lips, the very smirk that would at one point urge you to pull out your hair, makes you want to find out all the ways you can smother it. 

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Princess.”

You grit your jaw, pulling at his shirt hard enough for the buttons to go flying but that’s the last of your worries when you’re met with the smooth expanse of his toned chest, unmarred from the scars you’d last seen him with. 

You force your eyes back up to meet his. “Then what is it?”

His hand comes up to grasp your jaw again, not gently. 

“Obsession.”

When his lips find yours again, they don’t pull easily. His teeth dig into your lip hard enough to draw blood, but he only chases it away with his tongue. 

His fingers are desperate yet clumsy as they search to undo your corset, but it’s a helpless attempt. 

He curses against your lips as he aimlessly tugs at it, impatience drawing higher with each second. “This wretched thing,” he hisses. “Take it off.”

The command makes your head spin, but your instinct is to fight it. 

“Maybe I should have given you that lesson you asked for all those weeks ago,” you mock, and he shuts you up by tugging your hair back and using your gasp to push his tongue back into your mouth. 

The whimper you let out is swallowed right up, and with shaky fingers you undo your corset, letting it pool at your ankles with your dress. 

He hauls you up like you weigh nothing, muscles shifting under your clawing hands as he brings you to your bed. The kiss breaks when he drops you down unceremoniously, and you scramble to gather yourself, lifting up on your elbows and folding your legs to give you some form of cover. 

But it’s not enough cover from his prying eyes as he drinks in your figure without barriers, and the fire in them only burns hotter. 

He tilts his head, messy hair falling over his brows and that smirk finding its way back to his lips. It’s infuriating how much it only adds to the heat pooling between your hips. 

“Hiding?” He asks you. 

You scowl, your eyes falling to the prominent hardness pressing against his slacks. “For someone who despises me, you sure seem desperate.”

His response is to prop his knee against the edge of the bed and reach forward for your legs. You yelp at the sudden pull as he handles you onto your back, pushing your legs apart with his hands under your knees. 

Your face burns with fire as his eyes catch onto the arousal that's pooled between your legs, slick and wanting. 

He clicks his tongue. “I don’t think you’re in any place to speak, Princess,” he drawls, trailing a hand down to swipe two fingers between your slick. The pressure, momentary and barely there, is still enough to have you gasp and swallow back a moan. The intensity in his gaze only turns manic as it climbs up your heaving body and rests on your face. “All that talk about how you can’t stand me and yet here you are, dripping for me.”

You drop your head back to evade meeting his gaze in favour of the ceiling. “Was this your plan?” You bite. “To drive me to the point where I can’t tell lust from anger?”

But he finds his way back to your view, climbing over to cage you between his arms. “It worked, didn’t it?” His smile is cocky as he hovers over you, like he’s already won this battle. 

“Perhaps,” you hum, letting a smile crawl onto your own lips. “You wouldn’t be the first, though.”

His expression immediately falls into a possessive fury that almost makes you give in. Submit. But he needs to learn that won’t be easy.

His harsh hand finds your jaw again. You hold back your wince, not wanting to give him any bit of kindling. 

“Big talk for someone who’s letting me defile her before the wedding,” he spits.

“Again,” you strain and his fingers only dig harder. “Wouldn’t be the first.”

All at once the heat of his body is ripped off of you. You don’t get a chance to centre yourself before you’re being flipped onto your stomach, ragged around like a doll. You’re hauled by your hips up onto your knees and before you can protest at the humiliating position, you feel the weight of his body press against your back. 

He buries his face into your hair and snarls the words right into your ear. “Then it’ll damn well be the last.”

You turn your head to snipe but he only takes the chance to crash his lips into yours, hand locking your jaw in place while the other pins your fist into the sheets. 

It doesn’t matter how hard you try to fight it—your body gives into the kiss far before your mind does.

He pulls from the kiss, but as soon as he does, you feel his hips press flush against yours. And you feel it— the achingly sweet press of his hardness against your core, a pressure so good it tears a moan from your mouth. 

He rolls his hips against you once more just to hear your sweet sounds, groaning at the pressure himself. 

“What are you doing to me?” He mutters, quiet enough that you think it wasn’t meant for you to hear. 

He buries his face into your hair again and presses his lips to the back of your neck. He trails down, leaving hot, wet kisses down the expanse of your spine, the heat of his body leading down. 

You move to turn but his hands are quick to grab onto your hips, pinning you in place. You push against his hold, a question forming on your tongue but it quickly dies away when you feel the heat of his mouth against your cunt. 

You gasp as he drags the flat of his tongue along your folds, the feeling foreign and strange and hot. 

But it seems to affect Taeyang the same that it affects you, if the deep groan that he lets out against your fluttering skin tells anything. “You talk so sour but you taste so sweet,” he breathes, and you feel it against your swollen bud that throbs for more. 

You want to look, want to watch him as he starts to devour you whole, lapping at you like a starved man who’s found salvation in the midst of a drought. Instead, you bury your face into the sheets and let them soak up your moans. 

It’s head-spinning, the way he traces the tip of his tongue through every crevice of you, mapping out your anatomy. The way he circles your entrance and dips in just so to leave you wanting more before he drags down to flick against your pulsing clit. 

You try to push against him in search for more, to feel more, to feel him deeper. But his hands hold you still as he takes his time with you, to pull you undone thread by thread until you’re left quivering on the brink. 

“T-Taeyang,” you plead, and you hate that you do. But you’re on the precipice and you want nothing more than down. 

You regret it when he stops completely, shaking with the loss of stimulation. 

“Say that again,” he commands, and your body seizes up again, your instinct for defiance treading through. 

You only bury your head further into your arms, biting your tongue. 

The silence stretches too long for his liking.

He’s off of you in a second, and before you know it, you're on your back again. 

He hovers over you, eyes dark and manic with want. 

“Say. It. Again.”

It only makes you want to defy more. 

The smile that curls on your lips lights a dangerous thing inside of him. You see it in his eyes as he pulls back, in the furrow of his brows, the set of his lips, and the slow, careful way he rids himself of his slacks. 

Your smile fades to nothing when you catch sight of him. The sheer size of him has a panic seizing through your body and yet the heat between your legs burns hotter all the same. 

He takes himself in his hand, pearly beads of his arousal gathering at the scarlet tip. Instinct presses your legs shut but he catches your thigh with his free hand, prying you open as he settles in the space between your legs. 

“You see what you do to me?” He asks you, and your eyes snap back up to his face. 

You’re adamant as you keep your gaze fixed up, the sight of him becoming too overwhelming to hold. 

He leans forward, hovering over your body with his free hand bracing beside your head. “Do you think this would happen if I didn’t care?”

The words you sparred with just moments ago all come rushing back at once. You’re reminded of all your grievances, and the crack in his hardened expression tells you he notices. 

“I’d hardly call this proof,” you grit, though the thought that you can bring him to this state of undone, that you can pry away the composure of a well controlled Prince, feels like a victory of your own. A small one, but a victory nonetheless. 

His face flashes with irritation. “Then what would you call this?”

“I’d call this nothing at all.”

He clicks his tongue, scowling. “Stubborn as always,” he grits, then retaliates by pushing the head of his cock against your clit, relishing in the sudden moan that it pulls from you. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

You press your mouth shut to smother the noises that threaten to spill out of you as he drags himself through your folds, not pushing in, but doing everything to leave you wanting it. 

“Say my name,” he asks, settling the tip of himself against your entrance. 

You want to cave, just to soothe your body’s cravings, but your pride holds itself high. 

“No.”

You expect him to get angry. To snap at you again. 

But he drops his forehead against you and laughs. 

You watch the smile that blooms on his lips, strained but fond and completely unexpected. “Your ego knows no bounds, does it, Princess?”

The sudden shift confuses you. But past that, a warmth spreads in your chest. The pressure of his head against yours, the heat of his body above yours—it doesn’t feel demanding. Not with the way he looks down at you now, his misplaced anger nowhere to be found. Only want. No, need. For you.

You swallow down the emotion that threatens to climb up your throat. “I fear you shouldn’t be one to pass judgement on that,” you say through your shaky breaths, and his smile mellows out to something softer. 

“Say my name,” he says again, but this time it’s a plea. “Even if it’s for the last time… Please.”

Your heart lurches in your chest. You’re not sure what it is, but something about his plea sounds final. And he’s never one to beg. 

His eyes fall shut as he swallows down a breath. “Please,” he whispers, tucking his nose against yours. “Let me have you just this once.”

When he looks at you again, it’s with that same softness that he’d looked at you with in his bedroom, and then again before he’d kissed you. It’s that same vulnerability that makes you want to tear down your walls then build them back up after making space for him. 

Here he is, the man who never begs, yearning for you, before you, at his most vulnerable. 

In this moment, you can’t remember what it is that you’d feared. 

It falls from your lips as just a tremor of a breath. 

“Taeyang.”

But it hits him like a storm. 

His breath gives like he’s relieved of a burden, shuddering through his body. 

You feel him drag against your folds again until the tip of him catches against your entrance and you hold your breath tight. 

Yet he doesn’t press in.

“Again,” he whispers, and you give in without question. 

“Taeyang.”

He pushes in, and even if he stops at just the tip, it feels all encompassing. 

You gasp at the pressure and pain that sears through you at the intrusion, your hands scrambling to find purchase against his back. 

His head drops against your shoulder as his body shudders at the feeling of you, so warm and so tight around just a fraction of him. The arm he had propped beside you winds around your shoulders to hold your head in a cradle against him. 

And he just holds you, lets you adjust to him as he breathes into your neck, the sounds piercing against the silent night. 

“Again,” he murmurs, but it’s merely a question. 

I’m ready. Are you?

You answer when you are, when the pain fades into an ache that craves for more. 

“‘Yang…” You whimper, because that’s all you can muster. 

He shudders again, before he turns to press his lips against your ear and pushes. 

Consumed—your breath and your body, and slowly, your heart.

That’s the only way you can describe how it feels. 

It feels like fire and ice, like a storm and its eye, the way he fits inside you. Like the space inside of you has always been carved just for him. Like he was made just to fit within you.

He moves only when you call his name again, a soft, “Yangie,” that makes him press a kiss against your shoulder before he lifts himself up and rocks into you. 

He kisses away the salt on your cheeks that you taste against his lips when he kisses you. 

But the kiss is barely a kiss. It's a languid press of lips, another point of connection as the gentle rocking picks up to a steady pace, one that has your nails digging into his flesh at the barrage of sensation. 

Everything that you expected it to be—rough and taking and dominating—it’s the opposite. He’s giving, he’s giving himself to you with a care that you’ve never felt before. 

His hand roams your body, present and soothing and worshipping. His lips whisper sweet nothings, a hum of your name between strings of nonsensical rambling that you’re not even sure he can make sense of. His moans are whines threaded with each of his breaths, desperate as he chases the heat inside of you with movements that get hastier and graceless with each moment that passes. 

But all you can focus on is his eyes—the devotion swimming behind his pleasure. It’s not lust. This isn’t just a chase for another victory. 

It’s a confession. Proof that he cares. That he feels just as you do, vulnerable and in love and scared. 

And it fuels the heat inside of you all the more. 

“Taeyang,” you gasp, your body seizing up as he drives you towards the precipice once more. 

His eyes flutter as he tries desperately to keep himself grounded to the moment and not lose himself completely to the sensation. 

“With me,” he pants, sliding his hand down your body to hold your hip, firm and grounding. “Fall with me.”

And fall you do, when he holds your hips down and drives into you with a desperate fervour, one that has you both crashing down in tandem. 

You cry out his name as the waves collide in you, your arms tightening around his shoulders, and he presses his face into your neck to bury his own call of your name.

The moments after are still. He remains buried in your neck, his slowly easing breaths soothing over your heated skin while you lie there in your afterglow.

You’re not sure how long it lasts until his voice rings in the delicate air, hushed and rough.

“Marry me.”

It takes you off guard. You can only lay still in your confusion.

When you don’t respond, he lifts his head and places it against yours, hazy eyes peering down at you.

“Marry me,” he repeats. Another plea.

You flounder for a moment more, the implications lost on you. “Are you… asking me?”

He gives a bare thing of a nod, a slight movement of his head against yours. The hand not wrapped around you feathers up your body to press against your cheek. 

“You can say no,” he tells you quietly. Hesitantly, like he doesn’t want to give you the option. “Say no, and I’ll let you disappear. Take your sister—sorry, guard. I won’t say a thing.”

The words don’t process as easily as you’d like. Part of you believes it's all a trick, a scheme to catch you in the act of something treacherous to hold over you for the rest of your life.

But with the way he looks at you, like he’s hanging on to catch the words from your lips right as they fall, makes you believe otherwise.

“You’re giving me a choice?” You ask, because nothing ever comes this easy for you.

He swallows, the pad of his thumb brushing against the corner of your eye to catch the tear before it can fall. 

“I can’t love you right if you don’t want it,” he whispers. “If I’m going to love you, I want to do it right.”

It feels like the closest thing to salvation. A devotion you’ve been expected of your whole life, but instead it’s here being given to you.

“Let me love you,” he begs when you remain silent. His own fear makes way with the water in his eyes, a parallel to your own just an hour ago. 

Still buried inside of you, connected to you in every sense of the word, he asks you again. 

“Marry me.”

𓆩⟡𓆪

Taeyang had never felt so scared.

In that moment, vulnerable before you in a way he’s never been with anyone before, with the fear that he might lose you for good.

The set of jewels sits heavily in his hands, the one he had specially arranged for you, now back in his possession. Even past the stress it’s given him, even past what he had to give up in turn for it, all he can think of is that he can place it upon your neck tonight as your husband.

He places it carefully back in its case and takes a heavy breath.

“Nervous?” 

Taeyang jumps, whipping to his left to face Jiung at his doors with wild eyes.

Jiung scrunches his face apologetically as he approaches. “Apologies. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, glancing down at the case.

“But you did,” Taeyang bites back pettily, handing the case to Jiung. 

Jiung takes it with careful hands but his eyes don’t leave Taeyang’s face. “You’re evading my question.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

There’s a palpable silence as he feels Jiung’s eyes bore into the side of his head. 

“Something happened,” Jiung observes and Taeyang’s shoulders slump.

He doesn’t even get upset like he normally would with how easily Jiung reads him. Instead, a small smile spreads on his lips. “I’ve been getting that a lot recently.”

Jiung, ever the emphatic, gasps. “I see!”

Taeyang rolls his eyes when he catches sight of the sunny grin on Jiung’s lips.

“Silence,” he intercepts as soon as Jiung’s mouth opens to spew more nonsense. “If I’m correct, I’m not the only one guilty of romantic epiphanies as of late.”

That shuts Jiung right up as a furious flush rises on his cheeks, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “It seems that it’s been a prosperous month for love.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Jiung points out and Taeyang curses his brother for being one to never let things go. 

“I am,” he answers, because admitting things has been feeling easier now. He supposes he has you to thank for that. “But…” He evades his brother’s eye, straightening his shoulders in an attempt to regain his composure. “I think that might be a good thing, right? It means I care.”

There’s a thoughtful look in Jiung’s gaze as he watches Taeyang, and Taeyang feels like shrinking under it. Despite being older, Jiung has a way of making him feel as though he was the younger one. It’s something Taeyang is grateful for no matter how much he grouses about it—to have someone to fall back on when he feels out of his own depth.

“She’s changed you,” Jiung finally says and Taeyang bristles.

“I wouldn’t say changed. Battered up maybe but—”

“Deny it all you want, brother,” Jiung chuckles, patting him a little too hard on the back and making his body jerk forward. “You can’t escape the truth anymore. You’re marrying it.”

Despite his ego, Taeyang grins at the thought.

Jiung’s smile softens, which makes Taeyang brace for the words to come when he catches it.

“Mother would be proud to see the man you’ve become today.”

He swallows, his smile faltering as his gaze falls to the marble floors. While he would normally deny the idea of that, he finds that it’s becoming easier to believe such a thing.

“And I’m sure she would be ecstatic to know who you’re marrying,” Jiung adds, very unnecessarily, with another one of his cheesy grins.

Taeyang groans, tossing his head back as a laugh clambers through regardless. His mother had spent the grueling hours of the carriage rides back home after visits to your kingdom listening to his tantrums over you. Remembering the knowing smiles she would give him, he thinks maybe she wouldn’t be so surprised to see how things turned out.

“You wouldn’t be wrong,” he mumbles with a smile to the ceiling. He pretends it reaches up to the heavens. 

“Speaking of, shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

The headache of having already shooed away several servants presses against his temples again, and Taeyang sighs.

“I will,” he says as he glances at the clock. Six hours until the ceremony commences. Plenty of time for him to make a pitstop. “After I make a quick visit.”

𓆩⟡𓆪

“You’re different.”

You glance to your right at your sister, because you can’t move any more with hands invading your hair and your face from every which way. “What are you talking about?”

The way she eyes you over with a narrowed scrutiny has you squirming in your seat, only to be gently reprimanded by the hair stylist to remain still.

She hums as she leans back in her chair with a calculating look.

You fluster under her eye, like she’s unravelling your secrets with just a look. “Stop that.”

“It seemed to have happened overnight,” she wonders aloud but before she can continue, her eyes catch on something over your shoulder. “Oh, what does he want now?”

You hear commotion behind you as a maid hastily cries, “Your Highness, you shouldn’t be here!”

“It’s improper to see her until the wedding!” Another one laments.

You push away the hands at your face and turn in your chair to see a handful of maids inching a misplaced Taeyang back towards the door, but Taeyang simply looks past them with a grin pointed at you.

“That’s alright, I’ve already seen plenty,” he states, and you quickly shoot up to your feet.

“Taeyang!” You hiss as you hurry up to him, pushing past the maids. His grin only widens. 

You’re in a simple slip dress, so you’re not completely indecent, but you still feel a little too exposed for your liking to be seen in such a disheveled state with your hair and makeup only half done.

“What are you doing here?!” You ask, disgruntled as you try to push him towards the door but he doesn’t budge.

He only leans forward and you have to lean away despite the way your body seeks his warmth. There are too many eyes. “Is it such a crime for me to want to see you?”

You hear a few gasps sounding from the maids which only makes you want to crawl away. Perhaps into his arms.

Caught up in your fluster, you don’t realize the name slip as you start to push him towards the door again. “You’ll see me plenty later, Yangie, now go.”

As soon as the word processes, you freeze. And with his grin somehow pulling even wider and the giggles of your maids becoming even more pronounced, you realize you definitely want to crawl away.

He leans forward again, and you lean away again. “Yangie?”

You dare not meet his eye, glaring at his chin instead. “I knew I shouldn’t have said yes,” you grouse.

His lighthearted demeanor immediately drops. He straightens, fixing you with a hard look. “Don’t kid about that.”

But the shift in his behaviour leaves you grinning at how quickly his composure seems to drop now. “Oh? I see your defenses are already weak.”

He scowls at you, but you can tell it isn’t one of malice. “You’ve spent your whole life scouring for my weak points. It’s only natural that you find some.”

You purse your lips to smother your teasing smile, crossing your arms as you lean forward this time. “It doesn’t help that I’m your biggest one, does it?”

You meant for it to be a light-hearted remark with no real heft.

But the way he smiles tells you otherwise. “I’m just surprised it took you this long to figure it out.”

The flutter in your chest takes you by surprise, and the fawning and giggling that your maids do at your sides does nothing to help.

You hope there’s enough makeup on you to hide your blush as you start to forcefully shove him back towards the door. “Goodbye.”

He huffs but he finally gives under the push of your palms, simply watching you as you shut the doors on his face.

The silence that remains is deafening and you repent under it with your hands against the door and your head dropped between your shoulders.

“Ah,” you hear your sister say, and you don’t even have to look at her to tell that she’s grinning. “I see.”

𓆩⟡𓆪

The new ring around your finger feels nothing like a shackle. It sits around there like a tangible bond, tied with the hope that you feel now with Taeyang standing beside you as your husband, as your to-be-King. 

When you bow together to address the crowd, you do it with your hand in his.

When he takes you down the aisle as azalea petals flurry down from the skies, you follow him with your hand in his.

When he pulls you into your dance, beaming at you like the sun lives in his smile, you fall in step with your hand in his—a point of contact that never once detaches as he leads you with a grace much more delicate than your first.

When he presses his forehead to yours, pulls you in with a hand on your waist and the other in yours, you tell yourself it’s a connection you won’t sever.

𓆩⟡𓆪

The night air soothes your heated skin, a welcome reprieve from the hours of celebration.

Everything turned out perfectly. Your hard work had paid off, and it felt all the more satisfying knowing that it was because of you, and Taeyang, that the finest details came together to paint such a beguiling night.

“Ditching me already?”

You scoff when you hear the question, leaning forward against the balcony rails as you peer up at the stars. You hear his footsteps approaching from behind you. 

“I’ve already suffered a lifetime of you,” you state. “I’m just preparing for another one.”

You try to suppress the shiver that passes up your spine when his hand brushes against your lower back. Even through the thick fabric of your dress, the touch feels charged.

“Always so dramatic,” he murmurs before he presses himself against your back.

You find yourself leaning into the heat of his body, placing your back to his chest as a smile tugs at your lips. “Can’t handle it?”

“I’ve handled it so far,” he chuckles above your ear, arms winding around your waist. “I deserve an award.”

You roll your eyes, knocking your elbow to his torso and he grunts at the impact.

“Mean,” he grumbles and you laugh. 

You remember the night of the engagement and how on this very balcony, you’d heard Taeyang declare his plan to evade you for your entire marriage. You couldn’t be more happy with how things turned out.

“Your aunt was right about you,” you hum without much thought, recalling that unexpected ambush.

“What about?”

“The trick to you was to just pester you until you caved.”

You giggle when he pinches your side lightly. 

“Pester me you did. I thought I would go mad.” There’s a short pause before you feel his smile against your hair. “You still drive me mad.”

You all but melt at the admission, burrowing further into his arms, and he accepts you with a tighter hold.

The moment goes silent, comfortable and in peace. Until—

“Why is your guard kissing my knight?”

You blink at the sudden question, then turn your head to where he’s looking.

There, on the courtyard below the balcony you’re on, is your sister and Intak wrapped up in quite the… intimate embrace. 

You let out a breath of relief then look away to give them their privacy. “Finally,” you sigh, a little prided in the idea that your talk with your sister had finally pushed them to the final stretch.

“Finally?” Taeyang asks, puzzled.

You tilt your head back to look at him. “Don’t tell me you had no clue.”

He only stares down at you with blank eyes, brows furrowed.

You snort, turning back to the skies. “You’re clueless.”

He sputters, winding up for an argument but then seems to think better of it. Instead he digs his chin into your head with a little more force than necessary, huffing, “I’m not clueless.”

The pout in his voice makes you laugh, which in turn makes his arms tighten around you.

“Hey,” he says after another silent moment. “Let’s leave.”

You turn in his arms, looking up at him with your brows raised. “Ditch our wedding?”

The sly grin that curls on his lips ignites a fire in you akin to the one from the night before. “I can think of better things to do.”

𓆩⟡𓆪

When you step into your new room, a massive area brimmed with the finest furniture and practically doused in rose petals, you almost tuck tail and run.

But when you step back, you hit Taeyang’s chest.

“Oh…” He trails off. He moves past you to take it all in with his sweeping eyes. “Their effort sure shows.”

You breathe a quiet laugh, taking in the myriad of lit candles that border on the lines of a fire hazard.

The silence that follows is a little stilted. Awkward. You both know what to expect and although it’s… already been done, it still feels different.

You suddenly feel crowded under your garments and jewels, so you figure you’ll start with that.

“Excuse me,” you mumble to Taeyang before taking off to where the vanities are set. 

You stand before the full mirror as you start to work off the jewelry adorning your body piece by piece. 

Your hands are a little shaky and you know you’re stalling, but Taeyang gives you your space as he busies himself with something at the other end of the room.

You expect your nerves to be remnants of what you were feeling just the night before. But something deep in you has found a peace that you’re still grappling to get used to.

Maybe the change was too sudden. Shouldn’t you feel a little apprehensive? How quickly can you really learn to trust someone? Did it all build up too quickly? Is it even—

“I can hear you thinking.”

You look up from your bangles to meet Taeyang’s eyes in the mirror as he approaches you from behind.

He’d rid his coat, leaving him in a silk button shirt that sits taut over his body. His hands are folded behind his back and there’s a tiny, restrained smile on his lips.

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, giving him a small smile of your own as you unclasp the bracelet around your wrist and place it on the vanity.

“Sorry,” you say, looking down to undo the last bracelet.

But his arms get in the way of your vision and before you can protest, you feel something cold and heavy against your clavicles.

Your eyes snap up to the mirror as Taeyang binds a necklace to you, an intricate piece of garnets and emeralds. The embossing is familiar to the vines of your own family’s royal crest winded around the garnets, along with the sharp swirls akin to the North’s crest around the emeralds. A fusion of your two homes.

Your hand comes up to the necklace, fingers tracing the elegant designs as you stare at the glimmering jewels in awe.

“You wouldn’t believe the drama I’ve had over this damn necklace,” Taeyang says lightly behind you. But he watches you carefully, eyes shifting between the necklace and your face.

“Do I even want to know?” You ask him after a moment as a slow smile rises to your lips, just to keep him on his toes a little longer.

He gives you a hesitant smile of his own. “Probably not now,” he answers meekly.

Your smile widens at the pleading look he fixes you with when you say nothing more.

“It’s beautiful,” you tell him, and the tension leaves his body at once. “I love it.”

He glares playfully at you, clicking his tongue. “Your mischief will get you in trouble one of these days,” he tells you, his hands falling to wrap around your waist.

Your eyes meet his through the mirror again before dropping to the cunning smile that plays on his lips. “I highly doubt that, if you have anything to do with it.”

As if to spite your words, his hand comes up to grasp the zipper of your dress. “Why’s that?” He asks you, voice dropping to a provocative lilt.

You hold your breath as he drags the zipper down, painfully slow to either give you the grace of a choice or keep you on edge.

You swallow at the brush of cold air against your back. There’s no corset to protect you this time. “I don’t think you have the power here.”

You shudder when his knuckles trace down your spine, the touch feeling like nothing more than a gentle breeze. But it’s enough to leave you feeling winded.

You expect him to dispute it, to claim for his hand over you. But you should have learned by now where his priorities lie.

Because when you turn to face him, he simply drops to his knees.

“You’re right,” he says, and he looks up at you with a devotion that takes your breath. “I surrender myself to you.”

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SERIES MASTERLIST a collaborative event by @jiuchip & @liliesonthego

series taglist: @jellyybelly @chandlxa @delicatechris @keymeadoww @ericlvr @ozzysoatsolivesandpasta @cuppasunu @ferociouspapa2 @nezzasworld @bubu-love-24 @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @filmsunshine @shmooooo @jsshu @reiofsuns2001 @kyoluvrs @halaziasupremacy @cherryyberry1 @peonyjoo @glitteryzombieexpert @onedirectionruinedme @rockstartaeyang @wuriwoori @embobema @snowzxki @myfavoritedelusion @soapyfish4life @fairyf1ed @sisakoekiee @snow0-0fairy @mellownorth @lunaryoongie @meiisamotherbitch @stxrxyyz @equillisation @rainyblahaj @melonia17 @louis4sho @soullesslien @cryptothecat @seobsongz @m-wraith96 @kha0sblossom @x-odid @stxrxyyz @youneedtonot @foreveronez

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you roll your eyes and sigh. “not you too! did you put him up to this?”

your sister lets a giggle slip past her lips as she poses yet again. 

“actually, it was all my idea, cuz. so don’t forget to quote me in your vows and name your first child after me, got it?”

you almost land a kick to his shin, but he dodges just in time. 

“hey! no touching the suit!”

and so, the rest of the morning continues in a blur of whites and flashes – the soft rustle of dresses, the flurry of laughter, a flicker of the camera. through choreographed scenes and age-old traditions, a cautious curiosity about your potential suitor bubbles quietly in your chest.

it’s not until later in the afternoon that you meet jiung for this first time.

under the sweltering sun, the four groomsmen stand valiantly next to the fountain, preparing themselves for the groom’s first look with the bride. you’re certain that all of them are wearing identical, meticulously tailored suits – and probably shared the same pot of hair gel – yet for some reason, jiung shines the brightest.

with his shy demeanour and low laughter, his soft gestures and quiet confidence, you feel drawn towards him. the afternoon continues, a blur of countless photos, traditions, and endless games. the two of you stand next to the bride and groom, moving in perfect synchrony, ready at their beck and call. whether it’s a loose strand of hair or a stray bead of sweat, you move before the words even leave their lips. 

it’s not until the bridal party breaks for a late lunch that you get the opportunity to sit down and take a breather. 

“here,” a voice, smooth as the finest silk, says as a small electronic fan emerges from the corner of your eye.

“thank you,” you mumble, suddenly shy. you’re never like this, usually warm and friendly towards new people, but for some reason this jiung guy has thrown you off guard. 

“don’t mention it,” he says, reaching towards his bento box, eagerly digging into the food.

the two of you sit in comfortable silence as all around you, the chatter lowers to a comfortable hum. it’s around three hours til showtime, and while most of the work is done, there’s still a whole evening and afterparty ahead of you. 

“do you like egg yolks, by any chance?” you ask sheepishly, glancing towards jiung. at the end of the table, you know that your cousin and her future husband are conducting a similar exchange.

“as a matter of fact, i do.” 

wordlessly, you carve out the hard boiled egg yolk and gift it to him, biting back a laugh. 

“while a lot of people think that egg yolks are unhealthy due to its high cholesterol content, they’re also rich in vitamins A, B, D, E, and K, and they’re a good source of protein, iron, and –” jiung stops midsentence, wincing while rubbing his calf. 

from across the table, keeho shoots him a pointed look.

“sorry,” jiung apologises, ears turning an alarming shade of red. “i’m really into nutritional science. and most sciences, really.”

“that’s alright.” you giggle. “i know it’s good for you, but egg yolks taste like dry concrete to me.”

“i mean, that’s valid.” he nods vigorously. “that’s like spinach for me, i can’t stand the nasty aftertaste.”

“really?” you sit up straighter. “spinach is my favourite, and it also has heaps of iron.”

a swap ensues, and the two of you make small talk over mouthfuls of food.

keeho watches until he feels the visceral need to puke at your antics. with a huge sigh, he mutters something about taking a nap before slipping away. “nerds,” he grumbles under his breath.

//

“okay, we don’t have much time so let’s just take it from the top. ready? a one, a two, and a three!”

the bridal party huddles around a high-top table as one of the bridesmaids gives everyone a crash course in choreographed dance for the evening entrance.

it is nothing short of a disaster, with the boys all seemingly possessing two left feet. but thankfully, what they lacked in skill, they made up for in enthusiasm and energy.

across from you, jiung’s brows scrunch adorably as he studies the bridesmaid’s moves with great care. a small pang stirs in your chest – unjustified, no doubt, because who are you to feel jealous over a man who you just met a few hours ago?

“guys, we have to get ready!” one of the assistants come around to fetch you.

it’s showtime.

you swallow your bubbling nerves and make your way to the hall in a single file. quickly, the group organises itself into pairs. 

somehow, you end up next to jiung.

in the back of your mind, you feel relief flood through your veins, along with a touch of anxiety – both at the prospect of being so close to him, but also at the very real risk of making a complete fool of yourself in front of your extended family and your sister’s social circle.

in front of you, keeho turns around and winks.

that bastard.

“all good to go?” jiung’s voice speaks into your ear – not too close, yet close enough for goosebumps to rise along your skin.

the emcee’s voice blasts through the speakers, cheerily welcoming everyone to the festivities. the crowd listens, laughing softly at the jokes and introductions – the official start of the night.

“yeah,” you reply belatedly, breathless.

“i’m sure it’ll be fine. what’s the worst that could happen?”

“i bring dishonour to my family?”

jiung laughs, and the sound is bright, like windchimes twinkling in an early spring breeze. you wish it were the first, but not the last time you hear it.

keeho’s booming voice cuts through before he gets a chance to reply. “let’s do this, guys! don’t forget to shake those hips!”

jiung looks at you expectantly, and like a scene from a movie, the rest of the world fades away. he offers you his arm and a warm smile, and you feel your limbs go soft.

“let’s give a warm welcome to the bridal party!”

as the crowd applauds, you walk down the aisle, hand in hand with jiung. the music blasts through the speakers, an addictive beat playing as the group gets into formation.

muscle memory kicks in and you move your body to the beat, trying your best to copy the bridesmaid in front of you. a few cheers burst through the crowd, lifting the energy, and a well-timed twerk by keeho gets everyone laughing. 

just as the music is about to end, jiung grabs your hand and freestyles a quick twirl.

the crowd erupts – and you’re left staring straight into his molten, chocolatey eyes.

“woohoo! the bridal party, everybody! i think it’s safe to say that the party has officially started! those dance moves, man – what a way to blow the house down!”

as you find your seat with your family and the rest of the evening’s program continues, your eyes can’t help but to gravitate towards jiung.

“y/n,” keeho’s voice comes out as a rushed whisper, his tone urgent. “stop staring at jiung and help me out here – my palms are sweating.”

your eyes are about to roll to the back of your head when you suddenly remember that keeho has the behemoth task of delivering the best man speech – well, better him than you, you muse. “the crowd will love you, trust me.”

“yeah but, i don’t know whether the jokes are aunty-appropriate, if you catch my drift, and –”

“yoon keeho.” you speak firmly, your palm resting on his shoulder. “there’s no one better for this than you. you’re gonna do a great job, just take a few deep breaths and go out there and be yourself.”

the two of you clench your fists in a “fighting!!” stance and you do your best to hype him up.

from across the hall, jiung watches keenly, eyes twinkling with mirth and a playful smirk on his lips.

sure enough, keeho smashes the speech and everyone – both your mum and his – is clutching their stomachs in uncontrollable laughter.

as the night rolls on, you keep finding yourself within jiung’s orbit. him passing you a plate and spooning food onto it at the buffet tables, sitting across from you as you play games in front of a cheering crowd, or just meeting each other’s eye across the sea of heads as fireworks glimmer across the sky.

you have to give it to your sister. you watched how she slowly descended into a ball of stress and madness whilst planning the wedding over the past few months – yet all the late nights, frantic phone calls and endless decisions have culminated in an unforgettable day celebrating the two of them.

as the two of you linger around the instant noodle station – a mainstay of the wedding’s afterparty – you turn towards your sister, watching her as she watches her dream come to life before her very eyes.

your heart surges with love and hope. “you’re beautiful, sis. you deserve this.”

she turns to you, eyes glistening with fresh tears. she’s already done so much crying today, but somehow this quiet moment with you feels justified. her teary eyes bore into yours as she utters softly, “so do you, y/n.”

you smile, and she goes back to staring at the crowd – a mixture of her found-family from school, all the way through to university, work, and hobbies, all mingling together and moving as one body to the tunes of the group’s afterparty spotify playlist. 

you do the same, following her line of sight, and settle on jiung. 

she nudges you, then. “you deserve to be seen too, and to be happy.” your sister murmurs earnestly. “i know you always say you’re fine on your own, but it’s nice to have someone to share these moments with.”

you nudge her back playfully. while your sister understands and empathises with your independent lifestyle more than anyone else, she also has your best interests at heart.

“i don’t even know him that well but he seems… nice.” you pause, searching for the right words. “warm, and responsible, too. and a bit of a dork.”

the two of you watch as jiung and keeho pull the groom and a few others into a group hug before cheering and jumping around in circles.

“theo is the same,” your sister replies with a quiet sigh, but her gaze says it all – gentle and loving as she watches her husband coerce the group into an unsynchronised robot dance.

liquor flows from bottle to glasses and bowls of noodles make their rounds from hand to hand. amid the haze of laughter and light, you and jiung find yourselves next to each other once more, close enough to feel his warmth against you.

“having fun?” he wonders aloud, body moving sporadically to the tune of ‘staying alive’.

you pretend to think about this, hands moving in a classic dance move – cleaning the windows and changing the lightbulbs. “a solid eight out of ten.”

“what are you taking two points away for? there were fireworks, y/n.” he counters with feigned disbelief. “not to mention the food was amazing and the chocolate cake was absolutely delicious. don’t tell your sister but i demolished two and a half plates of it.”

“i doubt she’d mind.” you shake your head, bursting into a fit of giggles. “well, i’m taking one point away because none of my songs have been played yet!”

“valid – that’s a crime!”

“and,” you breathe, unsure whether to wear your heart on your sleeve like this, but you think, to hell with it. what better place to find love than in a gathering intended to celebrate it? “you haven’t invited me to dance with you yet.”

jiung throws his head back in laughter. you watch dizzyingly as his adam’s apple bobs along his throat. “y/n,” he begins, and your skin tingles with anticipation. “i believe that’s hardly anyone’s fault but mine, and for that, i owe you an apology. in fact, i think they’ve been trying really hard to set us up.”

in pure comedic timing, you look across to the groomsmen’s circle, the group cheering and whooping for their best friend, only to quiet down when they feel your eyes on them. they look away sheepishly. 

you inch closer towards him, emboldened by his confession. like a scene from a movie, someone brushes past from behind you, causing you to stumble forwards slightly – straight into his open arms. 

he holds you tenderly; gently, as though you’re made of glass. his eyes, alight with cautious curiosity and concealed amusement, stare back at yours, and you feel it again: that feeling of the world peeling away, leaving only you, in his arms, in this fleeting moment.

you wrap your arms around his neck, as his palms caress your waist, thumbs rubbing circles against your skin. 

for a moment, it’s quiet. 

and then the next song plays, and it’s the song you’ve been waiting all night for. enchanted. the perfect word to describe how you feel as you gaze into his eyes, only to find your reflection in the warmth of his brown orbs, staring right back at you. 

“so, is that a ten out of ten then?” he whispers, voice low, meant for your ears alone. 

“hmm, still missing half a point. maybe if you kiss me, it’d be flawless.”

he didn’t miss a beat, capturing your lips in a slow, unhurried dance before the end of the first chorus.

You had gotten used to it.

The way every night, when you closed your eyes, the world shifted.

Sometimes you woke in fields of tall grass, the stars overhead brighter than any you’d ever seen in real life. Other nights it was a glowing train station, endless tracks stretching into fog. Once, it was a city of glass buildings, light refracting in ways you knew couldn’t exist.

But always—always—he was there.

You didn’t know his name. You never asked, and he never told. It didn’t matter. In those dreamscapes, you belonged to each other without needing the details. His voice, low and warm, always met you first. His laugh carried through places that shouldn’t exist. His smile made the strangest corners of your mind feel like home.

And when you woke? You remembered less than you wanted—his face blurred at the edges, his words slipping away like sand through your fingers. But the feeling stayed.

Every morning, you carried him with you in the hollow of your chest.

You’d tried to explain it once, years ago, to a friend.

“I think I’m… dreaming of someone real,” you’d said, heat prickling your cheeks. “Like… I meet the same person every night.”

Your friend had laughed kindly, patting your shoulder. “That’s called a recurring dream. Means your brain is attached to the comfort. Nothing more.”

So you stopped telling people.

Because maybe they were right. Maybe he wasn’t real. Maybe you had invented him because your subconscious was lonely.

And yet… every night, there he was. And every night, the bond deepened. You trusted him more than anyone you knew in your waking life. You’d shared secrets in those dreams you could never say out loud. He belonged to you—even if he was just a figment.

It was raining the day everything changed.

You ducked into a narrow little music shop you’d never noticed before, just to escape the downpour. The bell over the door jingled, and warm air smelling faintly of polished wood and old strings wrapped around you.

It was quiet inside, the kind of stillness that felt sacred. Rows of instruments lined the walls—guitars, violins, keyboards—each holding a story.

And then you heard it.

A voice.

Low. Warm. Familiar in a way that made your chest ache.

Someone was humming near the back, testing a guitar, fingers strumming soft chords that seemed to vibrate right into your bones. You froze, every nerve in your body tightening. Because you knew that sound.

You’d fallen asleep to that voice in a hundred impossible places.

Your breath stuttered as you walked deeper into the shop, drawn to the melody like a tether you couldn’t fight.

And then you saw him.

Head bowed slightly as he adjusted the strings. Hair falling into his eyes. A black hoodie pulled over broad shoulders. He looked up absently—just a flicker of movement—and then his gaze locked on yours.

The world stopped.

It wasn’t recognition like seeing a stranger you vaguely remembered. It was deeper. Immediate. A jolt in your ribs like lightning splitting the sky. His eyes widened, and in that single moment you knew:

He saw you.

Not just now, in the music shop. But always. In dreams. In the fields, the stations, the cities of glass.

His lips parted. A whisper tumbled out, shaky and stunned.

“You’re real.”

Your knees nearly gave out. The room spun. You gripped the edge of a nearby keyboard just to steady yourself.

“You—” Your voice cracked. “It’s you.”

The guitar slipped from his hands, dangling from its strap. He was already stepping toward you, eyes searching your face like he didn’t dare blink.

“I thought I was crazy,” he admitted, voice rough. “Every night… you were there. I thought—” He exhaled, almost laughing in disbelief. “I thought my mind made you up.”

You shook your head quickly, words tumbling out before you could stop them. “No. Me too. I thought the same thing. But it was you. It was always you.”

The space between you closed like it had been waiting forever.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. You just stared, memorizing the edges of a face you’d only half-remembered every morning until now. Seeing him in color, in life, felt like being reborn.

Finally, he smiled. Small. Shaky. Devastating.

“I should tell you my name,” he said softly, almost sheepish. “Jiung.”

You swallowed hard, your own name catching in your throat as you gave it to him. Hearing it on his lips seconds later felt like music.

You sat together on two stools in the corner of the shop, a half-forgotten guitar resting against Jiung’s leg.

It was awkward at first—two strangers who weren’t strangers at all. You didn’t know his favorite color, but you knew the exact sound of his laugh. He didn’t know what you studied, but he’d held your hand as you danced through glass cities.

Every silence filled itself. Every look lingered too long.

“I don’t know how this is possible,” you whispered, finally daring to look straight at him.

Jiung tilted his head, eyes soft. “I don’t either. But… I don’t care.”

You blinked at him.

“Do you?” he asked, earnest and a little vulnerable. “Care how? Or do you just… know it’s right?”

Your chest tightened. Because yes, that was exactly it.

You nodded. “I just know.”

And Jiung let out a breathy laugh of relief, like he’d been holding it in for years.

That night, you dreamt again.

The field. The tall grass swaying under endless stars. But when you turned, heart hammering, Jiung was already there—just like always. Except this time, the memory of the music shop clung to you. The feel of his real presence, his real voice.

“You were there today,” you whispered, almost in awe.

He smiled, reaching for your hand the way he always did here. “And you were too.”

His fingers were warm against yours. But for the first time, you weren’t sure if you’d wake up with that comfort fading. Because now, you knew you could find him outside of sleep.

You belonged to each other. In dreams. In waking. In every place in between.

Over the next weeks, you met in both worlds.

At night, you wandered impossible landscapes together, laughing like you always had. But during the day, you explored reality—coffee shops, quiet parks, late-night walks through the city.

Sometimes, Jiung would study your face with a tenderness that made your stomach flip. “You don’t fade anymore,” he said once, voice thick. “In dreams, I always woke up trying to remember you. But now… I don’t have to. You’re here.”

And sometimes, when you caught his hand across a café table, you’d whisper back, “You’re real.” Just to remind yourself. Just to believe it again and again.

Because after years of thinking you’d invented him, it was still a miracle every time he smiled at you like you were the most extraordinary thing he’d ever seen.

One evening, in a quiet moment before closing time at the music shop, Jiung leaned against the counter, guitar case at his feet.

“You know,” he said lightly, though his eyes shone serious, “I used to think dreams were an escape. Something you wake up from and forget. But with you…” He trailed off, swallowing. “With you, I don’t want to wake up. Ever.”

Your throat tightened.

So you reached for his hand—here, in the waking world—and squeezed. “Then don’t,” you whispered. “Don’t wake up. Just… stay.”

And Jiung smiled the way he always did in dreams. The way he did in reality now too.

Like you were his beginning and his end.

Like he had known you forever.

Like you were never meant to be anything but real.

Jiung let out a bright, melodic laugh, waving off your concern with a flick of his wrist. "Please, have a little faith in your man. I’ve seen the staff do it a thousand times. It’s all about the pressure and the angle. I’m a professional."

"Famous last words," you muttered, though a smile tugged at your lips.

"Watch and learn," he joked, flashing you that signature dimpled grin. He began peeling away the foil with unnecessary flair. "I’ll have the glasses filled before you can even finish doubting me."

You took a step closer, curious but cautious. Jiung gripped the base of the bottle and placed his thumb over the wire cage. He didn't use a towel. He didn't even point it away from the general vicinity of the living room. He was leaning into the "cool boyfriend" persona a bit too hard.

He started to twist the bottle, his face scrunched in concentration. "See? It’s coming. Just a little... bit... more..."

The "pop" didn't sound like a celebratory toast. It sounded like a gunshot.

The cork didn't fly toward the ceiling or the empty corner of the room. Instead, propelled by the built-up carbonation of a bottle that had perhaps been handled a bit too enthusiastically, it became a heat-seeking missile.

Thwack.

The projectile hit you square in the center of your left breast with a sickening thud.

The air left your lungs in a sharp gasp. For a split second, there was only the sound of the champagne foaming over the top of the bottle and Jiung’s triumphant, "Ha! Told you!"

Then, the pain blossomed—a sharp, stinging throb that radiated across your chest.

"FUCK!" you yelled, doubling over. "Ow! Oh my god, Jiung!"

Jiung’s smile vanished instantly. He didn't even bother to catch the overflowing foam, setting the bottle down haphazardly on the counter as he rushed toward you. "Wait, what happened? Did it hit the glass? Did it—"

"It hit my boob!" you shrieked, clutching your chest with both hands. You winced, tears of genuine, stinging pain pricking your eyes. "You sniper! You absolute menace! I cannot afford for these to get any smaller, Jiung! They're under attack!"

Jiung stopped dead in his tracks, his jaw dropping. His eyes went wide, darting from your face to where your hands were protectively covering yourself. "It... it hit you there?"

"Yes, there!" you snapped, turning away from him and pacing a small circle, clutching yourself. "It’s throbbing! It’s going to bruise! Why would you point it at me? I told you! I literally told you!"

"I didn't point it at you!" he protested, his voice rising in a mix of panic and utter confusion. He hovered behind you, his hands twitching as if he wanted to reach out but wasn't sure if he was allowed to touch the "crime scene." "I thought I was aiming at the wall! Are you okay? Do I need to get ice? Should I call a doctor? Can a cork cause internal damage?"

"It’s a blunt force trauma to the chest, Jiung!" you groaned, turning back to him with a glare.

He looked genuinely horrified, his lip wobbling slightly in a pout of pure guilt. "I’m so sorry. Oh my god, I’m the worst. Let me see—no, don't let me see, I mean—let me help? Is it red?"

You let out a frustrated huff and softly punched him in the shoulder with your free hand. "You're an idiot. Fuck!"

Jiung took the punch, nodding solemnly. "I deserve that. I deserve a hundred of those. I’m a failure of a boyfriend. Our anniversary is ruined by my lack of ballistics knowledge."

He stepped closer, wrapping his arms gingerly around your shoulders, trying to peer down at your face. He was being so sincere, so incredibly worried, that the tension started to leak out of the room.

But then, the silence stretched a second too long.

You heard it before you saw it. A tiny, muffled sound. A "pfft" that definitely didn't come from the champagne bottle.

You looked up. Jiung was biting his lower lip so hard it was turning white. His nostrils were flaring, and his eyes were crinkling at the corners.

The small bubble of laughter that had threatened to surface died instantly, replaced by a sharp, cold prickle of genuine irritation. The pain in your chest wasn’t fading; if anything, it was sharpening into a dull, rhythmic throb that made your skin feel too tight.

You looked at Jiung. He was still vibrating with that suppressed, shaky energy, his hand over his mouth, his eyes bright with the kind of amusement he usually reserved for watching funny fail videos on his phone. But this wasn’t a video. It was you.

"Is it really that funny to you?" you asked. Your voice wasn't loud, but the flat, icy tone cut through his giggles like a blade.

Jiung’s expression faltered. He straightened up, his hands dropping to his sides. "Wait, no—babe, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—"

"I’m standing here in actual pain," you snapped, your voice trembling with a mix of hurt and anger. You clutched your chest tighter, the stinging sensation making you feel vulnerable and ridiculous all at once. "I told you I was worried. I told you to be careful. And your first instinct is to laugh at me while I’m hurting?"

"I wasn't laughing at you hurting," Jiung said quickly, reaching out to touch your arm. "It was just the shock of it, and the thing you said about—"

"I don't care what I said!" you yelled, flinching away from his touch. The movement sent another jolt of pain through your chest, and you winced, fresh tears of frustration springing to your eyes. "It hurts, Jiung. A lot. And you’re standing there acting like it’s a comedy skit."

The mood in the room didn't just shift; it plummeted. The romantic candlelight now felt mocking, and the scent of the steak cooling on the table made your stomach turn. Jiung looked like he’d been slapped. The color drained from his face, replaced by a look of sheer, panicked regret.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice thick with realization. "I'm so sorry. I’m an idiot. I was just trying to lighten the—"

"I don't want to hear it right now," you interrupted. You couldn't look at him—not at his pouty lip or his worried eyes. You felt stupid, standing there in your nice anniversary dress, holding your boob like a wounded bird.

Without another word, you turned on your heel and marched toward the hallway.

"Wait, where are you going?" Jiung called out, his footsteps shuffling tentatively behind you. "Let me help, let me get you some ice—"

"Stay there," you barked over your shoulder, not slowing down. "I want to be alone for a minute."

"But it's our anniversary," he said, his voice small and cracking.

"Great job celebrating it," you threw back.

You reached the bathroom and stepped inside, swinging the door shut with a firm, echoing thud. You clicked the lock into place—a sharp, final sound that felt like an exclamation point.

Leaning your forehead against the cool wood of the door, you finally let out a shaky breath. You could hear him hovering on the other side, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He didn't knock, but you knew he was standing right there, probably staring at the handle with a heart full of guilt.

You walked over to the mirror and carefully peeled back the fabric of your dress. Just as you thought: a bright red, circular welt was already forming, right where the cork had made impact. It looked angry.

The silence of the bathroom felt heavy. Outside, you heard the faint sound of a chair scraping against the floor and then nothing but the low hum of the refrigerator. You sat down on the edge of the bathtub, resting your face in your hands. You knew you’d eventually go back out, and you knew he didn't mean to be cruel, but right now, the throb in your chest was the only thing you wanted to listen to.

The bedroom was dim, the only light creeping in from the hallway through the door you’d left slightly ajar. You were curled on your side, buried under the duvet, staring blankly at the wall. The physical pain had subsided into a dull, hot ache, but the sting of the situation—the ruined dinner, the laughter, the sheer absurdity of it all—still felt heavy in your gut.

The door creaked open just a few inches wider. A sliver of light cut across the carpet, followed by the soft, hesitant sound of Jiung’s footsteps. He was moving as if the floor were made of glass.

"Heyyyy," he whispered, his voice barely audible.

You didn't turn around. You just pulled the blanket a little higher.

"I brought peace offerings," he said softly.

He shuffled closer until he was standing by the edge of the bed. You felt the mattress sink slightly as he sat down on the very edge, keeping a respectful distance. In one hand, he held a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a thin kitchen towel; in the other, a steaming mug of hot cocoa, the scent of chocolate and toasted marshmallows drifting toward you.

"Are you feeling any better?" he asked, his eyes searching the back of your head for any sign of forgiveness.

"No," you muttered into your pillow. "It's still throbbing. And I think it has a heartbeat of its own now."

Jiung let out a soft, pained exhale. "I am so, so sorry. Seriously. I’m a total moron. I thought I was being cool and I ended up being a literal hazard to your health." He leaned in a bit, extending the mug. "I made it extra sweet. Just the way you like it."

The smell was intoxicating, and your resolve began to crumble. You rolled over slowly, propping yourself up on one elbow. You looked at the cocoa, then at Jiung. He looked completely pathetic—his hair was messy, his eyes were wide and filled with genuine remorse, and he was holding that ice pack like a sacred relic.

Your anger, which had felt so sharp in the kitchen, began to evaporate into a weary sigh. You reached out and took the mug. "Thank you."

"Can I...?" He gestured toward the ice pack.

You hesitated for a second before nodding. Jiung moved closer, crawling onto the bed with exaggerated care. He reached out, his hand steady but gentle, and placed the cold pack over the injured area, making sure not to press too hard. The shock of the cold made you hiss, but after a moment, the numbing sensation brought a wave of much-needed relief.

"Better?" he asked, his face inches from yours.

"A little," you admitted, taking a sip of the cocoa. It was perfect.

Jiung didn't pull away. He leaned forward and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead, then another to your cheek. "I really didn't mean to laugh. It was just the shock of the sound. I felt like such a jerk the second the door closed."

He looked at you, his expression earnest. "Tell me what I have to do. What can I do so you won't stay mad at me? Anything. I’ll do the dishes for a month. I’ll buy you that bag you wanted. Just tell me."

You looked at him, a mischievous spark finally returning to your eyes despite the ache. "Well... since you essentially attacked me... I think it’s only fair if I get a free shot at your balls."

Jiung’s entire body recoiled, his eyes bulging as he instinctively moved his hand to cover his lap. "The balls?! No! Anything but the legacy! I have a career! I have to dance!"

You let out a genuine laugh then, the sound finally breaking the last of the tension. "I'm only kidding."

He let out a massive sigh of relief, slumping against the headboard next to you. "Thank god."

He leaned down, catching your lips in a deep, loving kiss that tasted like chocolate and forgiveness. When he pulled back, his hand moved to the edge of the ice pack. He replaced the cold bag with his warm palm, his fingers moving in slow, rhythmic circles over your chest, being incredibly mindful of the sensitivity.

"I mean it," he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, protective tone. "I'll take better care of you from now on. No more flying corks. I’ll be the official protector of the girls."

"You better be," you whispered, leaning your head on his shoulder. "Because next time, I’m not choosing the cocoa. I’m choosing the kick."