#manipulation

“are you sure you’re fine?” ayato asks softly. he brushes a stray strand of hair away form your face. he presses his lips to your cheek like it belongs there.

a frank ‘no,’ dances on the tip of your tongue. your survival instincts are screaming at you, begging you to call off this entire thing. you want to go home. you want to tell him no, you’re not fine. but if you do, ayato would most likely take you home. not your home. but home. and as much as you wanted to escape, you knew being in a room alone with this man who stared at you as if you were is one and only was even worse. 

so you don’t. you do what you practiced. you stare into this man’s eyes and smile like you mean it. you kiss him on the lips, to which he reciprocates eagerly, and tell him, “i told you, i’m okay.” 

the way ayato smiles is devious. he smoothly hooks his hand around your waist and guides you to the center of the ballroom. try as you might, you can feel the envious gazes burning into your skin. towards you or ayato, you’re not sure, but you don’t want to think about it further.

ayato, it seems, doesn’t mind. his hold on you becomes all the more tighter, confident.  

the two of you are once again talking to one of ayato’s associates. you’ve seen this man at other social events here and there, but you’ve never talked to him personally. 

you shudder at the way he eyes you up. 

“oh, you must be the rumored miss ayato seemingly can’t stop talking about,” the man surmises. he stares into his glass of wine before taking a greedy gulp. “ayato has never talked about a woman so fondly, so i figured you must’ve been really special. now that i’ve finally been introduced to you, i can see i was right.”

you open your mouth to retort, but ayato beats you to it. 

his nails are practically digging into your bodice. “yes, this is my fiance,” he hisses. you don’t appreciate how much emphasis he puts into his words. you almost want to correct him, but you don’t, because this is what you’re paid for: to ward off potential marriage proposals. so sure, you’ll let this one slide, as long as he says nothing about it in private.

the man, seemingly oblivious to ayato’s rising anger, smiles. “ah, so you’ve finally put a ring on it? what a pity.” 

“i can hardly say it’s a pity,” ayato mutters. “we’ve been together for a very long time, it was only a matter of time. if anything, it seems as if you’re trying to make a pass.” 

ayato’s associate jumps at his tone. “oh,  no, that wasn’t my intention...”

his words start to melt into the background noise, the music, the meaningless chatter. you smile awkwardly, knowing that if you tried to handle things yourself ayato would only take over for you. so instead, you stand there and look pretty, trying to not draw any more attention than you should. 

instead, you opt to observe the room. between the crowds of mingling elites, you’re desperate to find out where kaeya had gone. was he close? was he far? did he leave? did he see you? 

your stomach flips at the mere thought. at the very beginning, kaeya was fun. casual. he was friendly but not invasive. he’d flirt with you and mean it, but you knew his attraction to you didn’t extend beyond the bedroom. at least, that’s what you thought. before you knew it, kaeya had grown so attached to you it were as if you were his second heart, as if he wanted to meld you into his skin and whisper all of his thoughts and praises. 

if he discovered you here with someone else, you don’t know what would happen. 

in the midst of your discreet search, you catch a familiar glimpse of someone else in the crowd. you usually see him in his work attire when it’s designated day, but today he’s donned on an emerald suit, decorated with gold embellishments.

your heart drops to the pit of your stomach when alhaitham’s gaze sweeps across the crowd, as if he’s looking for something too. to his right, tighnari matches his pace. they seem to be in some sort of conversation, mumbling to each other over glasses of champagne as the crowd moves forward.  they live on the opposite side of the city. what are they doing here? you were so sure that this event would only be attend by those with business in the inazuma district. what went wrong? 

you’re just about to look away when it happens. 

alhaitham looks back.

it’s like a bucket of ice has been poured over you. 

his stare goes from surprise, to confusion, to realization, to absolute anger.

you don’t forget how ayato’s hand rests comfortably on your waist. alhaitham’s eyes seemed to be pinned there, like he’s undressing you with his eyes, burning holes into every pore of ayato’s hand. 

you’re caught like a deer in headlights. tightnari’s trying to talk to him, but alhaitham ignores him entirely. his entire focus, his entire being, is locked onto you. you don’t know what to do at this point.

ayato’s tight grip loosens. without even realizing it you’re being guided away from the conversation. 

“i’m so sorry about that,” ayato murmurs as he wraps both hands around your waist. he presses into you, his nose finding its way inbetween your neck and your shoulder. 

you’re entire body freezes as alhaitham’s gaze drags up your hips to your neck. for a second, his eyes catch yours and he gives you this look as if to say, i’m going to kill him. 

“ayato, we’re in public,” you say as you gently press onto his shoulders. you hope that he can’t feel the way your fingers tremble.

“let them see,” he replies with a breathy exhale. “that way, no one ever tries anything with you again. besides, is it wrong for two lovers to express their love in public? especially so soon after being engaged.”

this is wrong. the ayato you knew when you first met didn’t like drawing attention to himself. he’d rather sit in the shadows and people watch rather than become the spectacle himself. and of all things, at the worst time. 

you feel as if ayato is unknowingly digging your grave. every time ayato moves so much as a milimeter closer to you, you can see alhaitham’s jaw clench just a little tighter. 

at this point, tighnari has caught on to what alhaitham has been so distracted by. tighnari doesn’t hesitate to size you up. the both of you. for a moment, his ears pull back. he’s threatened. 

“my dear?”

you’re attention whips back to ayato. his gaze is almost intense as alhaitham’s and tighnari’s. it’s full of love, adoration, and obsession. he looks at you like you’re the one for him. that he had just discovered you two were soulmates. but you’re not. 

you smile, even though you feel like turning your stomach inside out. you have to pretend that you’re fine. and you’re good at that, right? you’re good at pretending to be what these men want, which is convenient, emotionally available, and loving. even though you’re entire world, everything you’ve worked so hard to maintain, is falling apart right this moment, you will smile. because that’s your job, isn’t it? you’re good at giving what your customers need. you’re good at your job.

so you keep your voice nice and light, even though you’re words are anything but what ayato wants to hear. “but we aren’t engaged, though.” 

he hums, nuzzling deeper into your skin. “but we are, aren’t we? my ring is on your finger.” his fingers thrum against your hips. “did you know? my name’s engraved on the inside.”

as much as ayato’s words alarm you, your entire focus is locked onto alhaitham and tighnari, who look livid. their mouths are moving. the two of them are speaking to each other, and it kills you not to know what they’re saying. 

just before you can get away from ayato, they make their way towards you. 

their pace is slow, but intentional. their gazes don’t dare pry away from you.  

and just like that, it all becomes too much. 

“i have to go to the bathroom,” you blurt out. with some kind of newfound adrenaline, you manage to push ayato off of you. he gives you a look of hurt, confusion, anger, and absolute shock. “i’ll be right back.”

ayato’s clearly confused, but as he attempts to reach out to you, you blend yourself within the throng of people. without looking back, you disappear into the crowd, leaving ayato all by his lonesome. 

you’re quick to push through the crowds, but careful to avoid the other ticking time bombs in the room. you feel as if you’re being chased. and in reality, you are. you zigzag through different conversations, hoping to miraculously become invisible. and yet, despite your absolute care, you somehow step on your own minefield. 

you hear the sound of your name first.

you see him second. 

childe’s standing there, in a suit you’ve never seen him wear before. 

is everyone at this party? 

“i thought it was you, looking so pretty. are you all dressed for me?” 

you both know what the answer is, and yet you don’t say anything. 

childe chuckles. “why do you look so scared? you look like you’ve just been caught cheating.” 

he slowly slides his hand down your arm, almost sensually. his fingers interlock with yours before he’s swinging it playfully, but you know his mood is anything but. he’s staring at your interlocking hands so intently. you look down to realize that he’s staring at the ring ayato put on your finger. 

shit. 

childe doesn’t say anything. he simply kisses your hand all prince-like, his gaze meeting yours. he’s so calm it’s disturbing. 

“whoever got this for you has bad taste. i bet he just chose whatever ring had the biggest jewel, right?” he plays with your fingers dismissively, gentlely drawing patterns around your ring finger. “you always told me i couldn’t buy you a ring, and yet this fucker can. what’s so different? i bet he just thinks whatever is biggest is the prettiest. but truth is, it’ll never be pretty. it’ll never be my special kind of pretty, isn’t that right, girlie?” 

you’re tempted to curl into yourself, but you hold your ground. 

“let go, childe.”

“and let you run away from me to some other man who doesn’t know you as well as i do? hmm? he uses his hold on your hand as leverage to pull you closer to him. his other hand wraps itself around your torso, pressing you into him. you struggle to escape, but you can’t. to anyone else, you two would’ve looked to be in a lover’s embrace. he caresses your cheek, as if appraising you. “maybe i should leave my own mark on you. maybe that’ll show everyone who you really belong to.”

you wriggle in his grasp. “childe, i’m serious. stop—”

“hmm, at least your next is exposed. yes… i think a hickey here would be nice—”

“childe! what are you up to this time?” 

childe immediately pulls away to reveal a man smiling amicably at the two of you. a pair of silver frames rest on his nose.

“ah, pantalone.” childe replies. “it’s nothing.”

you don’t hesitate to use this opportunity to escape. the moment you can, you whisk yourself away. you don’t care for niceties at this point. instead, you find refuge in the ladies’ restroom. 

you lock yourself in one of the stalls, grateful that no one else is in there. with no one around to stare, observe, or judge you, you close the toilet seat and plop onto it unceremoniously with your head in your hands. 

at this point, everything is spinning. your heart is thumping at thousands of miles per minute, and you’re trying to get a grip on reality. you think about the bills you need to pay, your overwhelming debt, and the life that rests on your hands. you think about all the things you need to do, and all the things you can’t do, not by yourself.

you need money to survive. 

once you’ve properly calmed down, you take a deep breath and open the door. you look at yourself in the mirror, taking note of all the little details in your makeup and your outfit, all of which were made by ayato, for ayato. all dressed in light blues, you look like you belong to the kamisato clan. 

you look like ayato’s wife.

“you look wonderful in blue.”

you don’t have the time to turn before he’s on you. 

if you didn’t know better, you would’ve thought that kaeya had returned to his old self. he’s kissing you like he hates the space between you. his mouth is hot and tastes of alcohol. his hands find their place on your hips like it’s natural. 

you can’t breathe, with the way he kisses you. 

underneath his heated movements, there’s a underlying desperation. like kaeya somehow needs to overdose on your every breath to survive. his hands are all over you, rumpling the dress you tried so hard to smooth out. 

he pushes the two of you into one of the open stalls, smoothly locking it behind him. you’re pressed against the bathroom door, a hardness pressing into your abdomen.

“kaeya—” 

your words are immediately swallowed up by his mouth. he can’t be bothered to speak to you. you can feel how angry he his with his fingers dig into your skin. he just wants to kiss you senseless, is that so wrong?

his tongue runs over yours. he’s exploring your mouth like it’s a treasure trove. as if this his first time ever kissing you and he wants to learn what makes you tick. 

but really, you can’t breathe. 

“kaeya—”

he pulls away from you like it’s the most painful thing he’s done. and it’s then you meet his eyes for the first time that night. his gaze is vulnerable. it’s obsessive, and needy, and desperate, and too, too much. too emotional. it’s not what you signed up for, and it’s not what he promised you. 

but he doesn’t care about that right now. he nuzzles into your neck, breathing in your scent like it’s his drug. 

“i saw you. with him.” 

“who?” comes out of your mouth before you can stop yourself. 

“i saw you the moment you got here,” kaeya replies, ignoring your question. “do you know how hurt i felt? how much i wanted to just strangle him? i could do it, you know. i could stage it like it was an accident. or make it look like he was a danger to the people. no one would know.”

you knew kaeya was a ticking time bomb, but you’ve never seen him like this. 

he wraps himself around you and pulls you close, resting your head on his chest. you can hear how fast his heart is pounding. “you’d still love me, if i did that, right? you know everything about me, everything no one else knows. only you could love me.”

there’s a crazed look to him. he’s so out of it, you’re hesitant to touch him. his embrace steals the breathe out of your lungs, quite literally. he holds onto you like if he let up for just a second you’d disappear into thin air. 

“kaeya—”

he kisses you again, a small moan leaving his lips. “say my name again, please. say it like it’s yours. i’m all yours.”

you run your hand through his hair and pull, but he only groans in response. you can feel his hard-on grinding into you. a whimper escapes you as he brushes against your clit through the dress.

if it’s not his name, kaeya’s bent on not letting you speak. his kisses keep getting more insistent, more greedy. 

you run your hand through his hair and give it a hard tug.

“aagh—just like that.”

you’re out of options at this point. kaeya won’t pull away, so eager to breathe you in. 

kaeya’s too lost in you to notice your hand blindly grabbing at the bathroom’s lock. when the door opens, it creates enough momentum to seperate the two of you. kaeya’s taken off guard, so you take the chance to bolt it out of there and escape back into the crowd.

you just want to run away from everything. from these disastrous men. from these claustrophobic parties. from this entire situation. from all your problems. your debt. from small, tiny hospital rooms and endless nights praying for a miracle—

you don’t care what you look like at this point. you don’t care that your dress is in disarray, that tears are probably streaking down your face, or that you’re so out of breath you’re gulping down air like it’s water. 

fuck this. 

fuck that.

fuck everything.

you’re so focused on escaping you bump shoulders with a stranger. quite roughly, at that. 

diluc looks surprised. he appraises you concerningly, but you can’t stomach it. his gaze is so full of love and adoration and possessiveness you think you’re going to hurl. 

you don’t even say anything. when you see kaeya chasing after you, you book it. you don’t even text ayato you’re leaving. you just…disappear.

the hospital room’s quiet. it always is. save for the occasional nurse, no one else is here, save for the patient. 

in a way, this room is your escape.

you’re still in ayato’s dress. it’s a bit dirty from tonight’s events, a bit ruffled. you look like a victim in those crime TV shows with a shock blanket. 

right now, you’re curled up on the sofa, staring into nothingness. you don’t want to think of anything right now. there’s no point in saying anything. you know she won’t say anything back. 

what would she say if she were here right now? 

she’d scold you, for sure. she’d nag you for how messy your apartment was. how you dropped out of college when you promised her you’d pursue your dream. how you haven’t once visited your parents’ grave. how you sold your mind, body, and soul just for some few bucks. 

you crumble at the thought. oh, how much money it took to keep her alive. to hide the both of you away from them. to keep sniffing dogs off your trail. you could always move away, hop from place to place. but if you did, what would you do about her? 

your sister was like a second mother to you. how could you abandon her like that? 

the door opens so abruptly, you practically jump out of your skin. 

“kazu?”

“i knew you’d be here.”

somewhere down the line, you heard that kazuha had descended from a long line of honorable samurais. seeing him like this, appearing out of thin air as if he was there all along, you thought it could be true.

kazuha enters the room like a soft gentle breeze, like it’s a suggestion. 

you’re speechless. 

he sits next to you on the couch and presses the side of your head to lean onto his shoulder. the two of you look at your comatosed sister together, as if if you stared hard enough, she’d finally wake up. 

“it’s going to be okay,” kazuha whispers.

“how did you know i was here?”

“what do you mean?” he turns to kiss the crown of your head so tenderly. “i’ll always be there for you, don’t you know that?”

your blood runs cold. you pull away to look at him. “kazuha, i never told you where i was. no one knows about this hospital.”

he looks at you earnestly, as if you don’t know any better and he adores it.

At the party a week later, he already knew your name and was drinking more than anyone else. You laughed at his jokes even when they were kind of mean, even when you were nervous. He looked at you a little longer than he looked at everyone else.

Sukuna touched you more than necessary. His hand on your waist felt like a brand. When he leaned in and told you you were pretty, something inside you tightened with happiness.

You ended up in his bedroom.

The door shut.

The music behind the wall turned muffled.

He kissed you like he wasn’t used to asking permission. You were shaking. You didn’t want to look naive. When he pushed inside you and understood you’d never done this before, he froze for a second.

His fingers tightened on your thigh.

You wished you hadn’t let him realize.

You wanted to seem grown, brave.

There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes. Maybe even a little confusion. But he exhaled and kept going, like he’d decided it was just a detail.

Sukuna didn’t stop.

You clenched your teeth, buried your face in his forearm, pressed into the tattooed skin so he wouldn’t notice how much it hurt. He wasn’t cruel. He just didn’t think about the fact that you might be scared. He was too focused on himself.

Later you lay beside him, staring at the ceiling, convincing yourself it had been right. That it had meant something important to him. And in the morning Sukuna lazily said he liked you while you were cleaning up his room.

That you could try being together. He said it like he was talking about a new playlist, not your heart.

You agreed.

You said “yes” so fast he even smirked. Easy. Way too easy.

You remember your friends trying to talk you out of it. “He’s insane, can’t you see that? He’ll dump you in a week.” You didn’t listen. You looked at them and thought: You just don’t know him like I do. Stupid.

The stupidest girl alive.

Sukuna knew they were warning you. You told him. Complained that they didn’t get him, that he was good, just complicated. He half-listened, nodded, thought about something else.

Good? He wasn’t good.

But if that’s what you needed to believe — fine.

What did he care?

Sukuna knew you were foolish. Not dumb — you did great in school. Foolish in the way you looked at him. The way you waited. The way you forgave. He saw it and found it amusing. Sometimes even cute. Sometimes annoying. But overall — convenient.

At first, everything felt almost normal.

Sometimes he was almost gentle.

Sukuna could pull you into his chest out of nowhere and rest his chin on the top of your head. He could text you at night, a short “You asleep?” and when you answered, tell you to come over.

He could lace his fingers through yours like it was natural.

You lived for those moments.

They were rare.

That’s why they felt precious.

But most of the time, he was different.

He knew you loved flowers.

You’d send him pictures of bouquets, text “They’re so pretty,” sigh when you passed flower shops. He saw. Sometimes he even thought, Maybe I should get her some. Then brushed it off. Flowers die. Waste of money. And if he bought them once, you’d start expecting it again. He didn’t want you expecting things.

He didn’t want to owe you.

You wanted to be understanding for him.

He knew you were hurt when he forgot important dates. Your birthday. Valentine’s. Your anniversary. He didn’t remember numbers. Didn’t try to. What was the point? Days pass, everything repeats. Why celebrate?

The truth was he remembered your birthday. He just didn’t think it mattered enough to show up. A friend’s party, lots of booze, girls looking at him with interest. Why go home where you’d be waiting with that look in your eyes? He didn’t want to see it.

The candles had already burned halfway down by midnight.

You had bought a cake he never saw.

He came back three days later. You were sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea, not looking at him. Your eyes were red. You only asked, “Are you hungry?” He was. You cooked. Everything was “fine.”

You tried to smile. Asked if he’d had fun. You didn’t ask why he hadn’t come. And Sukuna pretended not to notice.

Easier that way.

He didn’t get why your friends hissed at him. They looked at him like he’d done something unforgivable.

What had he done?

He was with you.

What more did they want?

He knew you wanted real dates.

The kind you chose. Rom-com movies. Parks. Stupid little fairs. He refused. “Boring.” “Not going.” “Just come over.” You agreed. You always agreed. He didn’t think about how you felt. If you really wanted it, you’d drag him there, right?

So it must not matter that much.

He took advantage of the fact you wanted to be a good girlfriend.

He knew you hated horror movies. You’d say, “They scare me, I can’t sleep after.” But when he turned one on, you sat beside him, pressed close, and stayed quiet. He didn’t turn it off. He liked them. And if you were scared, you’d just cling tighter.

Not so bad.

He knew you were exhausted. Classes. A job. Four hours of sleep...

But when he wanted sex, he just came up to you and started. If you said “I’m not in the mood,” he’d insist. Not harshly. Just, “Come on.” Kissing your neck. Tugging at your clothes. You gave in, because it always felt good with him. Always.

Sukuna didn’t see a problem.

You weren’t really resisting.

So you must’ve wanted it too.

He knew you picked out thoughtful gifts. Hid them. Gave them to him with that hopeful look like you’d brought him a stray cat. He’d say “Thanks” and shove them in a drawer. Not because he didn’t care — he just didn’t know what to do with it. Books he wouldn’t read. Sweaters he wouldn’t wear...

Why? He didn’t ask.

You give, he takes. Fair.

He didn’t need anything.

Sukuna remembered how you hugged him after fights.

He yelled — he knows he yelled.

Sometimes for a reason, sometimes just because he was in a shitty mood. And you’d come up behind him, wrap your arms around his waist, press your cheek to his back. Quiet. He felt your breathing through his shirt. It was strange. Warm.

He didn’t get why you did it, but he let you.

Sometimes even waited for it.

Never asked.

He knew you were hurt when he disappeared for days without answering.

You’d text. Call. Then stop. When he vanished, you barely ate. You checked your phone again and again. Replayed everything you’d said. Convinced yourself you’d ruined it. And when he came back, you’d throw your arms around his neck like he’d returned from war.

Something in his chest tightened.

A weird feeling.

He brushed it off.

You’re just emotional.

You just missed him. Nothing special.

But there was something special about being waited for.

You thought if you loved him hard enough, he’d become better. You saw him as wounded. Broken. You believed you could be a quiet place where he didn’t have to be hard.

You believed that if you were patient enough, understanding enough, one day he’d want to be softer too. You didn’t try to change him. You just hoped he’d notice how much you did.

He never asked you to.

Sukuna knew what you felt when he came to bed smelling like someone else’s perfume.

You never said anything. Just turned to the wall and breathed quietly. He thought, If you’re not asking, good. He was too lazy to explain, too lazy to lie, too lazy to handle your feelings.

They were yours. Not his.

Sometimes he noticed something off.

The way you looked when he joked about you in front of friends. How you dropped your gaze when they said he didn’t deserve you. How you flinched when he yelled. And in those moments something unpleasant stirred deep inside him.

Guilt? No. Just discomfort.

Like he’d done something wrong but couldn’t figure out what.

He’d brush it off.

Drink. Leave. It would pass.

The worst part — he genuinely didn’t understand.

To him, you were just you.

Always there. Always available. Always forgiving.

He didn’t see boundaries because you never set them. He didn’t feel pain because you never showed it. He thought everything was fine. Because if it wasn’t, you’d leave. Or cry. Or scream.

But you didn’t scream. You didn’t cry. You just stayed.

You never cried in front of him.

That matters. You never cried.

He got used to thinking you were strong. That you could handle everything. That you’d always be there, always ready, always forgiving. He thought that’s just how you were. That tears weren’t your thing.

He was wrong.

That night at Gojo’s.

Sukuna was drunk. Really drunk.

He remembers you walking up to him — in that black dress he once called “decent.” You took his hand carefully, timidly. Your fingers were cold. They were shaking.

He thought you were freezing outside.

He didn’t think you were scared.

Didn’t think you were hurting.

“We need to talk,” you said.

He looked at you and noticed your eyes were shining. Something was off, but he couldn’t place it. He was drunk. He was having fun. He didn’t want to talk.

“I don’t have time for this,” he muttered. “Go home.”

Music. Noise. Laughter. He was always busy when you showed up serious. He knew what that meant. Complaints. Questions. Those eyes he never understood.

He pulled his hand away.

Your fingers slipped off. You stood there watching. He had already turned back to the crowd when something made him glance over his shoulder. Your lips were trembling. Just a little.

He decided it wasn’t his problem.

And walked away.

The rest is blurry. Booze. Laughter. Music. The brunette from another class who’d been eyeing him for months. She sat on his lap. He let her. She was warm, smelled sweet, said something playful.

He half-listened.

Then she kissed him.

He remembers the taste of her lipstick — sickly sweet, chemical. Not like yours. Actually, he barely remembered what you tasted like. Did you even wear lipstick? Maybe if he’d once said he liked it.

Did he kiss her back? Maybe. He didn’t push her away. What difference did it make?

Then Sukuna opened his eyes.

And saw you.

You were standing at the other end of the room. In the middle of the crowd. Of the laughter. Of all that shit.

You were standing there, looking at him.

And tears were running down your cheeks.

He didn’t know you could cry like that. No sound. No sobbing. Just tears — big, fast, endless. You were holding your hand to your chest like something hurt there.

And you were looking right at him.

For the first time, his indifference made him sick.

Something in his chest jolted. Hard enough to make him want to grab his ribs. He moved — wanted to stand, shove the girl off, go to you. He even opened his mouth to call you...

But the brunette tugged his hair. Turned him back to her.

And when he looked again, you were gone.

Sukuna doesn’t remember how he pushed through the crowd. The brunette shouted something after him, but he didn’t hear it. He shoved people out of the way and didn’t understand why his heart was pounding so hard.

You just left.

You always left when he told you to.

But you didn’t leave with that face before.

You didn’t cry.

He searched the whole house. He almost slipped on something spilled near the kitchen and didn’t even notice. Checked every room, the kitchen, the bathroom, even the damn storage closet. You were gone.

Someone said, “The girl in black? She left like a minute ago.”

He ran outside.

Cold. Night. Empty street. No one.

He headed toward the bus stop. Didn’t know why. Just instinct. He knew you wouldn’t have enough for a cab.

He remembered that one time after a fight when you’d stormed off, and he’d found you at that same stop. You were sitting there, staring at your phone. When you saw him, you smiled.

God, you smiled, even though he’d been yelling at you thirty minutes earlier.

Like he was the solution, not the problem.

He walked and thought, What am I even going to say? Why am I going?

He didn’t know.

His legs just kept moving.

Maybe it was the right thing to do.

He saw you from a distance.

A small figure on the bench, curled into yourself. You were staring ahead. Not crying. Just sitting there. He came closer. Stopped a couple of meters away. Didn’t know what to do. Shoved his hands into his pockets — he’d come out without a jacket, was freezing, but didn’t feel it.

“Hey,” he called.

You looked up.

And he saw your face. Swollen. Red. Wet. You looked at him like you were seeing a ghost. Like he was the last person you ever wanted to see. And for the first time, he was actually scared.

“What’s wrong…” he started. “You were crying?”

The words sounded wrong the second they left his mouth.

Stupid question. Idiotic. You were covered in tears. But he genuinely didn’t know what to say. He’d never seen you like this. And you just kept staring. And in your eyes there was something that made his insides twist.

“What…”

And then you sobbed.

You broke down.

Loud, shaking, like a child, like something wounded, like someone being killed from the inside out. You covered your face with your hands, your shoulders trembling uncontrollably. The sounds you made were awful.

They cut through the air.

Cut through him.

Dug under his skin and stayed there.

“I can’t do this anymore,” you whispered.

Sukuna froze. He had never — never — seen anyone cry like that. Especially not you.

You, who waited and tolerated all his bullshit.

For the first time in his life, Sukuna didn’t know what to do.

His mind went blank. His mind was blank.

Not a single thought.

Just panic — sticky, cold, unfamiliar.

He stepped closer. Crouched down in front of you. Reached out, hand hovering over your shoulder.

“Hey…” he tried again. “Come on… stop…”

You jerked away. Hard.

Like he’d hit you.

And something twisted violently inside him.

You shrank back against the bench, pressing yourself into the backrest, curling in tighter. And cried louder.

“Don’t touch me,” you breathed out. “Don’t touch me!”

Sukuna went still. His hand hung in the air.

He stared at you, confused.

You always wanted him to touch you.

You reached for him, clung to him, asked for affection even when he was rough.

And now — don’t touch me.

“I just—” he began.

“Just leave,” you cut him off. Your voice kept breaking, choking on tears. “Please. Just go.”

He didn’t go. Something held him there, pinned him to that asphalt, to that bench, to you. He watched you cry and felt something inside his own chest start to hurt.

Not like before. Worse. Deeper.

“I didn’t mean to,” he tried. “I didn’t think you’d—”

“You never think!” you suddenly shouted.

And that scream, wet and shattered, hit him like a slap.

“Have you ever thought about me? Even once? Do you know how many nights I couldn’t sleep? Do you know how I waited for you? Do you know how much it hurts when you do this?”

Sukuna stayed silent.

He didn’t know. He genuinely didn’t.

“You forgot my birthday. You left and didn’t come back. You slept with other girls and didn’t even hide it!”

“I didn’t fuck anyone!” he snapped back, frowning slightly, but you cut him off immediately—

“And I still loved you!” you cried. “I still waited! I thought if I was good enough, patient enough, you would—”

Your breath hitched.

You covered your face again.

Your shoulders shook harder.

And Sukuna felt something tear slowly inside his chest.

With a crack. With pain.

He didn’t understand what it was. He’d never felt it before.

“I…” he started again. Stopped. Swallowed. “I didn’t know it mattered that much to you. You never said it straight.”

You looked up at him.

So full of pain he almost flinched.

“I did,” you hissed quietly. “A hundred times. You just…” another sob, “…you just never listened.”

He wanted to argue.

To say he did listen.

That he remembered. That—

But he didn’t. He truly didn’t.

Your words had always slid past him because they felt small. Petty. Unimportant.

He reached out again. Slowly. Carefully.

Like you were a wild animal he might scare away.

His fingers touched your shoulder. Gently squeezed.

“Come here,” he said quietly. “Just… come here.”

He wanted to hug you.

For the first time in his life, he wanted to hold you not for sex, not out of habit, but because you were crying and he didn’t know how to make it stop. He tried to pull you toward him — careful, almost soft.

You tore yourself away.

You shoved him.

Hard. Both hands. So hard he nearly fell back. You jumped to your feet, stepping away. One step. Two. You stood there, soaked in tears, shaking, broken, screaming:

“Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare! Not after you— not after her—”

Your voice cracked.

You couldn’t finish.

You covered your face and froze.

Sukuna stood up slowly. Took a step toward you — then stopped. His hands dropped. He clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms.

It hurt. It should.

He turned his head away.

Not because he didn’t want to look. But because seeing you like that — crying, hating him, distant — was unbearable. And because for the first time, he felt ashamed. He stared at the empty road, at the lonely streetlamp. Anywhere but at you.

His throat tightened.

He ruined it.

He didn’t even know when it started going wrong.

He just lived the way he knew how. Took what was given. Didn’t think about consequences. And now you were standing there crying, and he didn’t know how to fix it. Only knew he had to do something.

But what?

“I’m sorry,” he said into the dark. “I… I’m sorry.”

He didn’t turn around. Didn’t look at you. He didn’t have the guts.

The night stayed silent. You stayed silent.

And something inside him was dying.

Slowly. Painfully.

For the first time in his life.

How many times had you smiled when you were breaking?

He’d never said thank you.

Never said you were beautiful.

Never chose you — just let you stay.

He thought about how if you walked away right now, he’d have nothing left. Just an empty apartment. A cold bed. And the memory of how you smelled. Something warm. Familiar. His.

He clenched his jaw and, for one second, hoped you’d say, “It’s okay. I’m just tired.”

Let him hold you.

But you said:

“Get lost, Sukuna. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

You didn’t say you didn’t love him anymore.

But he understood anyway.

Maybe the only right thing he could do now was leave.

Do not repost, copy, plagiarize, translate, or feed my work into AI in any form!) English is not my first language, so yes, my writing might not be perfect.(

CW: RAPE/NON-CON, power imbalance, notions of poverty, nepotism, imposter syndrome, manipulation, jealousy, misogyny, forced pregnancy/baby trapping.

WC: 11.2 K

Part 2 | Part 3

The suspense was killing you.

It wasn't an exaggeration. You felt it in every corner of your body: in the constant bounce of your knee beneath the desk, in your nails bitten down to nothing, in your absolute inability to focus on anything else over the past few weeks—months.

You checked the date. The response was supposed to arrive today.

Or tomorrow.

Or maybe in a week.

That was precisely the problem: nobody knew for certain.

The screen of your phone illuminated the room as you lay on your bed, staring once again at your application to King's Landing University. You knew it by heart. You had opened that page so many times that you could navigate every section with your eyes closed.

Your application was still there. Intact. Unchanging. Cruelly devoid of answers.

Application Status: Under Review.

The words seemed to mock you.

Under review.

Still.

After months of waiting. After countless nights studying until dawn filtered through your bedroom window. After exams, interviews, essays and recommendation letters, after nights spent wondering what the hell you had been thinking when you filled yourself with enough confidence to apply, crying until your eyes hurt and rebuilding yourself afterward.

After everything.

You let out a sigh and dropped the phone onto your chest. The ceiling returned a silent stare.

You had tried to distract yourself.

You really had.

You had read.

You had gone for walks.

You had even started a new book that you abandoned after three pages because you ended up imagining what your name would look like in an acceptance letter.

King's Landing University.

The dream. The opportunity. The future.

The most prestigious university ever known. The kind of place people spoke about with admiration and envy at the same time. The kind of place where the children of ministers, businessmen, judges, and nobles built the connections that would follow them for the rest of their lives.

And you wanted to be there.

No.

You needed to be there.

Because that acceptance meant far more than a university. It meant independence. It meant proving that all those years of effort had amounted to something.

It meant that the nights spent studying, the sacrifices, the extracurriculars, the humiliating pleading to Mrs. Betty for a recommendation letter, surviving on coffee and expectations would finally have a reward.

Now more than ever, you needed meritocracy to be real and not that social construct born as an incentive for the proletariat to serve capitalism. Please.

The phone vibrated against your chest.

The sound was so sudden that it startled you. For a fraction of a second, the world seemed to stop. Your heart lurched violently against your ribs and all the blood in your body seemed to rush to your ears. You remained still, staring at the illuminated screen as though any movement might make it disappear.

It couldn't be.

Or maybe it could.

Your hands trembled as you picked up the phone. Your fingers felt strangely clumsy, as if they had forgotten how to function. Part of you wanted to look immediately. The other wanted to delay the moment for a few seconds longer, clinging to the uncertainty before discovering whether all those years of effort had been worth it or not.

The notification occupied the center of the screen.

An email.

Sender: King's Landing University Office of Admissions.

For a moment, you stopped breathing.

You had imagined it so many times that the moment felt unreal. You had fantasized about opening that email during class, during dinner, before going to sleep and when you woke up. You had imagined hundreds of different scenarios, from tears of happiness to the devastation of a rejection. Yet now that it was actually happening, your mind seemed incapable of processing it.

Your eyes traced the university's name again and again.

King's Landing University.

King's Landing University.

King's Landing University.

It was real.

Real.

Your thumb hovered over the screen for several seconds before you finally gathered enough courage to open the message. The application took only a few moments to load, but they felt endless. You could feel your pulse pounding in your throat as you watched the white screen slowly appear. Every second stretched your anxiety to unbearable limits. And when the Wi-Fi, taking pity on you, decided to work, you saw it.

Office of Admissions

Dear Miss Y/N,

It is with great pleasure that we inform you of your acceptance to King's Landing University for the upcoming academic year.

After careful consideration of an exceptionally competitive pool of applicants, the Admissions Committee has unanimously recognized your academic excellence, dedication, and remarkable potential.

We are delighted to offer you a place among the next generation of scholars at King's Landing University.

Your achievements have distinguished you as a candidate of uncommon promise, and we are confident that your contributions will enrich both our academic community and the legacy of this institution.

In recognition of your outstanding academic record and exceptional promise, it is also our honor to award you the King's Scholar Scholarship, the highest merit-based scholarship granted by King's Landing University.

Reserved for a select a student once a year, the King's Scholar Scholarship is awarded to individuals whose achievements exemplify excellence, leadership, and intellectual distinction.

The Admissions Committee would also like to acknowledge the historic significance of this award. Since the founding of King's Landing University, the King's Scholar Scholarship has been granted exclusively to male recipients. Your selection marks the first time in the institution's history that a woman has been chosen as a King's Scholar. This distinction reflects not only your extraordinary academic accomplishments, but also the exceptional determination, intellect, and character that set you apart from an already remarkable pool of candidates. We are confident that future generations of scholars will look upon this moment as a milestone in the history of our university.

As a recipient of the King's Scholar Scholarship, you will receive:

• Full tuition coverage for the duration of your undergraduate studies.

• A generous monthly stipend intended to support your academic pursuits and living expenses.

• Residence in the prestigious King's Scholar Hall, including a private suite among the largest and most distinguished student accommodations on campus.

• Priority access to academic mentorship programs, research opportunities, and university-sponsored events.

• Eligibility for exclusive internships, fellowships, and international academic programs through the university's distinguished partners.

• Complimentary access to university libraries, archives, laboratories, and scholarly resources beyond those ordinarily available to undergraduate students.

These benefits shall remain in effect for the entirety of your studies, provided that you maintain the academic standards and conduct expected of a King's Scholar.

The Admissions Committee believes that you possess the talent, determination, and character necessary to uphold the legacy of this prestigious award. We look forward to witnessing your achievements and contributions to our academic community in the years to come.

Welcome to King's Landing University.

Sincerely,

The Office of Admissions — King's Landing University

Knowledge. Duty. Legacy

You had done it.

The words repeated themselves again and again in your mind as you stared at the screen blurred by tears. Accepted. King's Landing University. King's Scholar. The first woman in the university's history to receive that scholarship.

It was too much.

Too good.

Too big.

An incredulous laugh escaped your lips at the same time tears began sliding down your cheeks. You brought a hand to your mouth, trying to contain the emotion, but it was useless. Years of effort, sacrifice, and impossible dreams had just condensed into a few lines of text.

And then you stood.

The phone remained clenched in your fingers as you ran toward your bedroom door. The emotion overwhelmed you completely, driving away every rational thought. There was only happiness. There was only the desperate need to share it.

You crossed the hallway without barely feeling your own footsteps.

"Mom, I got in!"

Thanks, meritocracy.

—

The first weeks at King's Landing University felt like living inside a world that had previously existed only in your imagination. Even after receiving the acceptance letter, even after moving into the dormitory assigned through your scholarship, a part of you kept expecting to wake up and discover that it had all been a particularly cruel dream. The university was even more impressive than any brochure or website had managed to convey. Buildings of pale stone rose above vast, meticulously maintained gardens; marble fountains adorned entire courtyards, and pathways lined with rose bushes connected faculties whose names frequently appeared in newspapers, history books, and political speeches. There were students arriving in vehicles that cost more than the average house, sons and daughters of ministers, business magnates, and families whose surnames seemed capable of opening doors on their own. Yet for the first time in your life, you found yourself among them not as a spectator, but as an equal.

Privilege was present in every corner of the campus. It could be seen in the multi-story libraries whose shelves seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance, in laboratories equipped with cutting-edge technology, and in student residences that resembled private apartments more than university housing. Your own suite within King's Scholar Hall was larger than some homes you had known. It contained a private bedroom, a small sitting room, a dark wooden desk positioned before an enormous window, and a privileged view of the eastern gardens of the campus. During those first days, you often caught yourself staring at the room with a mixture of pride and disbelief, unable to fully accept that the space belonged to you. Every time you placed a stack of books on the desk or hung a photograph on the wall, it felt as though you were claiming a life that had once seemed impossibly out of reach.

The scholarship had transformed your university experience in ways you were only beginning to understand. You did not have to worry about tuition. You did not have to calculate every expense or wonder whether you could afford the next semester. The monthly stipend covered your needs comfortably and allowed you to focus entirely on the reason you had come there in the first place: learning. For the first time in a very long while, the future no longer seemed like a vague threat lurking behind a mountain of uncertainty. It seemed tangible. Attainable. Something you could build with your own hands.

And yet, as impressive as the buildings, academic programs, and opportunities were, what fascinated you most were the people. Every student appeared to have arrived there through an entirely different story.

It was during one of those early weeks that you attended the seminar that would end up changing far more than you could possibly imagine.

The conference was being held in Visenya Hall, one of the most prestigious auditoriums within the Faculty of Economics and Business. The venue was already crowded long before the event began. Row after row of students filled the tiered seating while the title of the lecture was projected across the main screen: Emerging Markets and Business Leadership in a Global Economy. You had arrived nearly thirty minutes early and still barely managed to find an available seat near the middle of the auditorium.

It was while waiting for the lecture to begin that you felt a presence occupy the empty seat beside you.

You did not look up immediately. You were reviewing notes you had taken about the guest speaker when the murmur of the room seemed to shift subtly. Not disappear exactly, but redirect itself. As though a small portion of the collective attention had suddenly found a new focal point.

You frowned slightly and lifted your gaze.

The young man who had just taken the seat beside you appeared completely unaware of it.

He was dressed elegantly without appearing ostentatious. His posture carried a quiet confidence cultivated over many years, the kind of assurance that did not need to announce itself because it was accustomed to being recognized. As he settled a folder onto his lap, several people seated nearby greeted him with a familiarity tinged with respect.

It did not take long to understand why.

The identification badge hanging from his neck displayed a name that even you recognized instantly.

Valarr Targaryen.

For a brief moment, you froze.

The Targaryens were not merely an influential family.

They were THE influential family.

For generations they had built a fortune so old that tracing its precise origins had become nearly impossible. Their companies operated in practically every imaginable sector: transportation, energy, technology, finance, media. Their names appeared on boards of directors, foundations, government organizations, and universities throughout Westeros. Entire buildings, libraries, and academic programs had been funded by them. Even King's Landing University owed part of its modern prestige to the substantial donations made by the family over the decades.

The Targaryens belonged to that category of people who seemed to exist above the ordinary structures of the world. Surnames that opened doors before they were even touched. Surnames that appeared in newspapers long before their owners learned how to walk.

And that young man was sitting directly beside you.

Valarr appeared focused on a collection of documents when his eyes briefly dropped toward your identification badge. He studied it for a moment before looking again, this time more carefully. A small crease formed between his brows until, with a spark of recognition in those distinctive eyes, he spoke.

"You're the King's Scholar." It wasn't a question. His tone carried a kind of genuine curiosity.

You glanced down at your own badge, where the scholarship's golden insignia appeared beside your name. "Yes."

For a moment, you assumed the conversation would end there. Instead, Valarr continued looking at you. Not in the uncomfortable way many of the wealthy, idle students in the faculty seemed to regard you, as though you were some peculiar exhibit displayed in a museum, but rather like someone who had stumbled upon something unexpected.

"I'd heard about you." The statement caught you off guard. It seemed unlikely, especially considering you had only been at the university for a few weeks. He appeared to notice your expression. "Everyone had." A faint smile appeared on his lips. "The first woman to receive the King's Scholar Scholarship tends to attract attention. I'm Valarr—"

"—Targaryen. Second in line to inherit the family empire. Current president of the student council and the Debate Club. Holder of a perfect 4.0 GPA. Or someone with a net worth extravagant enough to surpass the combined wealth of everyone currently present."

A look of astonishment crossed his face, only for an instant, a slight crack in his composure. His heterochromatic eyes—only now did you notice—created a striking effect, perhaps as he attempted to decipher you. He did not seem offended. If anything, he appeared surprised to encounter someone who had not been impressed by the implicit power of his surname.

The smile returned to his face. Softer this time. "I suppose introductions are unnecessary."

"A little."

"And here I thought I was being humble."

That earned a raised eyebrow from you.

Humble?

With a deliberate movement, you adjusted the notebook resting on your lap, positioning it neatly across your thighs with a black pen balanced on top before maintaining eye contact with him.

"If I had your surname, Valarr, I would be anything but humble."

Before he could answer, the lights in the auditorium began to dim. The general murmur gradually faded as the conference prepared to begin. Valarr shifted his attention toward the stage, though not before offering you one final silent observation.

Cataloguing. Taking note of something.

—

During the first few weeks, the university continued to feel like a borrowed place, as though at any moment someone would discover an administrative error had been made and politely ask you to leave the campus. You walked through the marble hallways with the same caution one uses when wandering through an art gallery: admiring everything, afraid to touch something that does not belong to them. Yet impostor syndrome gradually began to loosen its grip. It did so every time you raised your hand in class and your answer turned out to be correct. Every time a professor praised one of your papers. Every time you earned one of the highest grades in your cohort. The minimum required to maintain the scholarship was a 4.0. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Without realizing it, you began to put down roots.

The campus pathways stopped resembling labyrinths and became familiar routes. You learned which libraries were the quietest, which cafés served the best coffee, and which buildings remained open until late into the night during exam season. Your name began circulating among professors, researchers, and students. Not as a passing curiosity, but as someone who genuinely deserved to be there.

And that was precisely what fascinated Valarr most.

At first, it had been simple curiosity. Nothing more. The King's Scholar. The girl who had made history. The student everyone talked about. Yet the more time he spent observing you, the more difficult it became to reduce you to a university headline because you were not what he expected.

You lacked the arrogance that so often accompanied exceptional students. You were not pretentious. Nor did you carry that desperate need to constantly prove your worth. You had arrived at the university carrying something far rarer: a genuine hunger for knowledge. You attended seminars even when they offered no academic credit. You remained after class to ask questions. You read for pleasure texts that others could barely tolerate reading out of obligation.

And perhaps most bewildering of all, you seemed completely oblivious to the attention you generated. While other students carefully cultivated their reputations, you appeared far too busy building your future to concern yourself with them. A fish among sharks.

Valarr began seeking you out without meaning to. At first, they were coincidences. An empty seat beside you during a lecture. A casual conversation after class. A chance encounter in the library. But the coincidences began accumulating too frequently to continue calling them that. Gradually, your presence became incorporated into his routine so naturally that he stopped questioning it. He looked for you among rows of students whenever he entered an auditorium. He could identify your voice in a crowded room. He knew your favorite study spots. He knew roughly what times you visited the main café.

And most dangerously of all, he began anticipating those encounters. Because with you, it was easy to forget who he was.

For most of his life, Valarr had been aware of the weight of his surname. He had grown up surrounded by expectations, invisible protocols, and people who seemed to see the name Targaryen before the man behind it.

You didn't.

You argued with him whenever you believed he was wrong. You mocked his pretentious remarks. You interrupted his arguments during club meetings to point out flaws nobody else dared mention. And every time you did, something inside him felt absurdly relieved. Alive.

As though, for a few moments, he could exist simply as Valarr. Not as an heir. Not as a public figure. Not as a political or corporate promise.

Just Valarr.

Or Val, as you began calling him.

The first time happened by accident. At least that was what you claimed afterward.

You were leaving a particularly tedious lecture on corporate legislation when you mentioned something about him in the middle of a sentence.

"Val said exactly the same thing last week."

The silence that followed lasted only a second. Long enough. Your own eyes widened slightly when you realized what you had just said.

Valarr stopped walking. "Val?"

Heat immediately climbed into your cheeks.

"It wasn't intentional."

"Of course it wasn't."

"I mean it."

"Naturally." The smile that appeared on his face made it unbearably difficult to defend yourself.

"Don't start."

"Start what?"

"That."

"What exactly am I doing?"

"Enjoying it."

"Perhaps a little."

That smile followed you for the rest of the afternoon.

And, unfortunately for you, so did the nickname. It never disappeared.

At first, it was a habit born from convenience. "Valarr" felt too formal for someone with whom you shared so many hours of university life, too long for hurried conversations between classes or messages exchanged at two in the morning during exam season. Without realizing it, you began calling him Val more and more often. First in private. Then in front of friends. Then in cafés, auditoriums, and libraries.

Nobody else seemed to do it. Professors called him Mr. Targaryen. Student council members referred to him as President. Even people who had known him for years used his full name. Only you had shortened it. He never corrected you.

He never asked you to stop. He never mentioned that the small alteration caused a strange warmth to settle in his chest.

For the first time in a very long while, someone seemed to see him as a person before seeing him as a surname. That was rarer than it should have been. It was foolish. A beautiful, absolute foolishness. But emotions were rarely reasonable.

One autumn afternoon, several months after that first encounter in the seminar, Val found that feeling waiting for him inside the central library. The enormous room was bathed in golden afternoon light. Tall windows cast long shadows across the study tables, and the library's usual silence was interrupted only by the occasional turning of pages or the soft tapping of keyboards. Exhausted students hid among endless shelves while the semester marched inexorably toward exam season. He found you exactly where he expected to.

Seated beside a window, surrounded by books, papers scattered across the table, completely absorbed in your work, those beautiful brows furrowed in concentration amidst academic chaos. For a moment he remained still, watching you from a distance.

It was not the first time.

He had begun developing an unsettling ability to find you across campus. Libraries. Cafés. Lecture halls. Gardens. He always ended up locating you.

His senses had learned to seek you even before he became consciously aware of it.

A small smile appeared on his face. Minutes later, he returned carrying two coffees. He knew your order by hear without truly intending to, he had begun memorizing many things about you. The way you took notes (the Cornell method, efficient). Your study schedule (a morning review session devoted entirely to theory. Practice at night). The subjects you loved most (history. Especially ancient civilizations).

The expression you made whenever a reading frustrated you. The little details. Always the little details.

He gently placed one of the cups beside your laptop. Only then did you look up.

And smile. That simple, carefree smile that always seemed to arrive effortlessly.

"Val." The same warmth. The same absurd feeling. The same inexplicable need to hear it one more time.

"I'm beginning to suspect you live here."

Your lips curved. "Says the man who survives on constant study sessions."

"Semantics." Just as he did in class, he sat down to your right. It was as natural as breathing. "What are we studying now, dear?"

"Dear?"

"Would you prefer Your Academic Highness?"

You rolled your eyes. "That doesn't even make sense."

"Many things I say don't."

Who was he trying to fool?

"For the first time, we agree."

Valarr let out a small laugh as he glt comfortable in the chair.

The library was particularly quiet that afternoon. Most students were focused on the approaching midterms, and the enormous windows allowed golden light to flood the study tables. The air smelled of aged paper, ink, and freshly brewed coffee. Val picked up one of the books stacked in front of you. Examined it. Then another. Then a third.

"Are you trying to earn a second degree in a single week?"

"I'm writing an essay."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Because the answer is no."

"Not yet."

Your lips curved slightly. He always did that. Turn ordinary conversations into absurdly long debates.

"Political economy."Val read the title of one of the open pages. "How thrilling."

"It is." Your hands wrapped around the coffee he had brought you. Almond milk, cinnamon, and two spoonfuls of sugar. Perfect. Your lips left a visible lipstick mark on the rim.

"And here I thought spending an afternoon studying emerging markets was a sophisticated form of torture."

"That explains a lot about you."

"Such as?"

"Your personality."

Valarr's smile widened.

He rested an elbow on the table and began absentmindedly flipping through one of your articles. For a moment neither of you spoke. The silence between you was comfortable. Familiar. As though it had been built from months of endless conversations, study sessions, and afternoons shared in that very place.

It had.

Eventually, Valarr looked up again. "Do you know what's fascinating?"

"That depends entirely on what you're about to say," you murmured while extracting a passage from the article.

"Empires."

You sighed, feigning indifference. "Of course it's empires."

"Hear me out."

"That's exactly the problem."

Completely ignoring you, he continued. "Everyone thinks empires fall because of wars or revolutions."

"Don't they?"

"No."

His fingers tapped lightly against the book's cover. "First they stop adapting. Then they stop listening. Then they begin believing they're too big to fail."

"That applies to corporations too."

"Exactly."

"And governments."

"As well."

"And student council presidents with inflated egos."

Valarr narrowed his eyes. "That was a personal attack."

"It was an academic observation."

"Cruel."

"Accurate."

That earned a laugh. A genuine one. Not the polite smile he wore during conferences or meetings. Not the carefully measured expression that appeared in photographs and institutional events. A real laugh. And for a moment he seemed younger. Less heir. Less Targaryen. Simply Val.

Something in your chest softened at the sight. Because you were beginning to discover that there were two versions of him. The one that belonged to the rest of the world. And the one that appeared only when the two of you were alone.

Valarr seemed to notice it too. His gaze lingered on you a second longer than usual. Not long enough to be uncomfortable. Long enough to be conscious.

The sounds of the library seemed to drift away for a moment. The occasional rustle of pages. The keyboards. Distant footsteps among the shelves. Everything faded into a distant murmur.

"What?" you finally asked.

"Nothing."

A lie.

But you didn't press. Because you weren't entirely sure you wanted to know the answer. And because, for some reason, the way he had been looking at you had just made your heart beat a little faster.

"I'm going to the bathroom," you announced before doing exactly that.

Valarr looked at your cup, the one he had given you, studied the faint pink lipstick mark now decorating the rim, and, with all the fervent devotion such an act required, drank from that very spot. Perfect.

—

The campaign began almost by accident.

Not because you had never considered the idea before, but because you had never allowed yourself to take it completely seriously. For months, you had participated in student meetings, organized academic events, worked alongside university associations, and advocated for proposals designed to improve conditions for scholarship students. Little by little, without realizing it, you begun building a reputation that extended far beyond the King's Scholar Scholarship. People knew your name. They knew your achievements. They knew your opinions. And, more importantly, they respected them. So when someone suggested that you run in the Student Council elections, the idea was not met with laughter or disbelief.

It was met with enthusiasm. And that proved far more dangerous. It was one thing to hear a suggestion casually thrown into the air. It was something entirely different to discover that hundreds of people genuinely seemed to believe you could win.

The following months were consumed by the campaign. Posters bearing your name began appearing all over campus. Academic buildings, student residences, and even cafés transformed into improvised political arenas where students debated policies, budgets, and candidates with a passion that would have made more than one national parliament blush. For the first time since your arrival at King's Landing University, you ceased being merely an exceptional student and became a public figure. University newspapers published interviews with you. Professors discussed your candidacy. Students approached you to express their support or ask questions about your platform. Every passing week seemed to reinforce the feeling that something important was happening.

And for the first time, the name appearing beside yours was not the name of a scholarship.

It was Valarr Targaryen's.

The student press wasted no time turning the election into an irresistible story. On one side stood Valarr, the perfect heir. The incumbent president. The brilliant student whose surname had spent generations shaping the political, economic, and social history of Westeros. On the other side stood you: the first woman to receive the King's Scholar Scholarship, the student who had risen through effort, intelligence, and a determination that seemed inexhaustible. Tradition versus renewal. Continuity versus change.

The headlines practically wrote themselves.

The strangest part was that behind all those articles and debates, the two of you remained friends. You still shared coffee. You still studied together. You still sent each other academic articles at absurd hours of the morning.

Sometimes you would leave a public debate where you had just dismantled each other's arguments in front of hundreds of students and end up having dinner together barely an hour later. The contradiction bewildered practically the entire campus. Nobody understood how you could be political rivals and friends at the same time.

Nobody except the two of you.

Because neither of you ever allowed the campaign to destroy what you had built.

Or at least, you tried not to.

Election night arrived wrapped in almost unbearable tension. The Grand Auditorium was completely full. Rows upon rows of students occupied the seats while professors, student journalists, and council members waited for the results to be announced. The energy in the room was electric. Every conversation seemed to unfold in nervous whispers. Every gaze was fixed on the enormous screens suspended above the stage.

You stood among the other candidates, attempting to project a calm you did not feel.

For the first time, victory seemed like a real possibility.

Not a fantasy. Not an impossible dream. A possibility.

The first results began appearing, and the auditorium immediately erupted.

Your name led the count by a small margin. Enough. The next results arrived minutes later. Your lead increased. Then another student district reported its votes. And you remained ahead.

The murmurs grew louder. So did the smiles.Even a few professors exchanged glances filled with anticipation. Everyone was thinking the same thing. You could do it. You could win.

For a moment, you allowed yourself to imagine it. The presidential office. The meetings. The projects. The opportunity to leave a permanent mark on the university. The opportunity to prove you belonged there. The opportunity to keep breaking barriers.

And perhaps that was your mistake, allowing yourself to believe it.

The final ballots were the ones that changed everything. Cruelly. Your lead began shrinking vote by vote.

At first only by a few percentage points. Then by fractions. Then by almost nothing at all. The entire auditorium watched the screens in absolute silence as the numbers continued to shift. Each update seemed to take something from you. Each new figure eroded a little more of the hope that had begun growing inside your chest.

Until it finally happened.

Valarr took the lead.

And never lost it again.

When the final result appeared on the screens, the silence lasted only a fraction of a second before being replaced by an explosion of applause.

Valarr Targaryen — 73%

Y/N — 27%

The applause still echoed throughout the auditorium when you finally looked up at him. Valarr was surrounded by students, professors, and council members. Some shook his hand. Others congratulated him. Photographers captured every smile, every gesture, every moment of victory. The center of attention. Golden boy. And yet, his eyes still found yours as they always did.

The distance between you was not great, but for the first time since you had met him, it felt immense. While everyone else saw the newly re-elected president, you saw something else entirely.

You saw privilege. You saw money. You saw generations of accumulated power. You saw a surname capable of opening doors that would never open for anyone else.

Something bitter settled in your throat. You had worked just as hard. Perhaps harder. You had devoted entire months to that campaign. You had visited every student residence, attended every debate, answered every question, and built every proposal through your own merit.

And yet you had lost to a man whose surname was practically an institution within Westeros.

You filthy, cheating bastard.

Valarr began walking toward you. With every step, the resentment grew a little stronger until he finally stopped in front of you.

"Hey."

His voice was soft. Careful. Indulgent. He knew exactly how you felt, which only made you angrier.

"Congratulations." The words left your lips with a coldness that surprised even you, and Valarr frowned slightly.

"Y/N—"

"No." Your smile appeared instantly, and it was entirely false. "Seriously. Congratulations. It must feel nice."

Something shifted in his expression. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

A short laugh escaped your throat. "Incredible."

"What is incredible?"

"Even now you're pretending not to understand."

The tension began spreading between you. Around you, the celebration continued, but it felt as though it were happening in another universe.

"Then explain it to me."

"Oh, gladly." You crossed your arms. "Do you know what's most frustrating about all of this? That you never even had to compete on equal footing."

Valarr's eyes hardened. "Be careful."

"Why? Because I'm about to say something everyone already knows?"

"Y/N."

"Your family funds half the campus."

"That had nothing to do with this."

"Of course it did." The answer came out faster than you intended. Sharper. More painful. "It always has something to do with it."

Silence fell between you. For the first time since you met him, Valarr looked genuinely irritated.

"I didn't win because of my surname."

"Didn't you?"

"No."

"Then I suppose it's just a coincidence that the Targaryens have held leadership positions at this university for decades."

"I worked for this."

"So did I." Your words struck him harder than expected. Because they were true, and both of you knew it. "I worked for this too, Val." His name sounded strange between you now. No warmth. No familiarity. Only disappointment. "And for once, I would've liked to lose to someone who didn't have the entire system built around him."

The muscles in his jaw tightened. "That's unfair."

"Unfair?" A bitter laugh escaped you. "You're talking about unfairness after winning because of your family's legacy?"

"That's not what happened."

"Then tell me what did."

Valarr held your gaze for several seconds. "Maybe they simply voted for the more qualified candidate."

The remark made you blink in disbelief. An obvious insult. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"It means being an inspiration and being a leader are not necessarily the same thing." The distance between you narrowed.

"Think it. Use that pretty brain of yours," with his angular finger he tapped your forehead. "Being the symbol of change and being capable of leading an institution are not the same thing. Sometimes people like seeing a woman on the stage. Not necessarily in charge."

The blow was precise. Calculated. And deeply vile.

Because hidden beneath those words was an old idea you had spent your entire life fighting. The idea that women had to prove twice as much to be considered half as capable. The idea that you were exceptional... for a woman. The idea that your story was admirable, but that true leadership still belonged to men like him.

Understanding slowly appeared across your face. And when it did, something close to horror briefly crossed Valarr's eyes. He realized too late how it had sounded.

"That's not what I meant."

"Sure."

"Y/N—"

"Enjoy your presidency." You took a step back. Then another. "I'm sure you inherited it honestly."

The bitterness in your voice was impossible to ignore. Before he could answer, you turned on your heel and left him standing there.

—

Valarr began apologizing the very next day.

Not because he believed a few words could repair what had happened. He knew you far too well for that. He knew the problem had not been only the argument. It had not been only the election. It had been the way he had made you feel. The way he had reduced your accomplishments to an exception. The way he had, for a few moments, become exactly the kind of man you claimed to despise.

So his apologies did not arrive solely in the form of words. They arrived as gestures. The first appeared outside your dormitory door: a bouquet of white camellias, your favorite flowers. They rested carefully wrapped in ivory paper and tied with a dark blue ribbon. There was no signature. None was necessary. Valarr was the only person on campus who would remember a trivial conversation that had taken place nearly a year earlier during a visit to the botanical gardens of King's Landing.

You had mentioned then that white camellias symbolized pure, sincere, unpretentious love.

He had remembered. Of course he had remembered.

The small card contained only two words written in flawless, elegant handwriting.

I'm sorry.

The flowers ended up on your residence desk. You had not accepted them, but neither could you find the resolve to throw them away. Two days later, a coffee appeared. Your coffee. The exact blend you ordered during examination periods. Two packets of sugar. A touch of cinnamon. Almond milk.

You let it grow cold.

The following week, a box arrived. Inside rested a delicate silver bracelet adorned with tiny white pearls. Beautiful. Ridiculously beautiful.

You returned it that very afternoon.

Then came books. Desserts. Notes. Small details. Small memories. Small apologies. Every gift seemed assembled from fragments of conversations you had forgotten ever having. A favorite author mentioned once during a late-night study session. A pastry you had tried during your first semester. A special edition of a novel you had wanted to purchase months earlier.

And that was precisely what made everything so difficult.

These gifts proved something you did not want to acknowledge. Valarr listened. He always listened. He remembered everything. Absolutely everything.

Your preferences. Your fears. Your dreams. Your habits. The little things. Especially the little things. For the first time since you had met him, it was not endearing. He wasn't chivalrous. It was exhausting. Every object seemed to contain the same message.

Look at me. Forgive me. Come back.

Finally, a week later, he appeared in person. He found you leaving an advanced economics lecture. Crowds of students flowed through the hallways while he remained motionless beside a window, waiting, as though he knew exactly what time your class would end.

He probably did.

“Y/N.”

You did not stop.

“Y/N.”

This time, you turned only because you knew he would not stop calling your name. Valarr looked tired. More tired than usual. The dark circles beneath his eyes were visible even from a distance. He looked wrecked.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Finally, you sighed. “Val.”

Something resembling relief briefly crossed his face. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then talk to me.”

“I don’t want to.”

That seemed to surprise him. “Why?”

You folded your arms.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Y/N—”

“No.” Your voice was firm. Firmer than you intended. “I need time.”

The words lingered between you.

Valarr remained still. Waiting. As though there were more to come. There wasn’t.

“How much time?”

The question emerged softer. Vulnerable. And that made a part of you—the part that still wanted that closeness with him—want to surrender immediately.

You had never seen Valarr ask for something. Demand it? Yes. Take it? Yes. Ask for it? Never.

Still, you answered. “Two and a half weeks.”

Silence returned. At last, he nodded once. “Alright.” A weary smile appeared on his lips. “Two and a half weeks.”

And he honored it.

Surprisingly. Painfully. He honored it.

No more flowers appeared. No more gifts arrived. No coffees were left outside your door. No messages. No phone calls. No excuses to see you. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just absence.

And you discovered something deeply irritating. You missed him.

You missed the arguments.

The messages.

The jokes.

His presence.

The ease with which he always seemed to find a place beside you.

The two and a half weeks passed slowly.And when they finally ended, Valarr returned like the tide. Not violently. Not forcefully. Simply returning until he rose around you once more.

First, it was a greeting during a lecture.

Then a brief conversation in the library.

After that, a shared coffee.

Later, lunch.

And before you realized it, he was once again occupying space in your life. Not exactly the same space, but something very close to it.

The difference was that now he seemed more careful. More attentive. As though he had learned something from all of it.

Or at least was trying to.

It was approximately a month later that the invitation to the Aegon Foundation Ball arrived, a charitable gala held every year to raise funds for low-income students and research programs.

It was one of the university’s most prestigious events. Politicians. Business leaders. Alumni. Donors. Everyone attended.

And, of course, the student council president and the first female King’s Scholar recipient were expected to attend as well.

The invitation arrived on an otherwise ordinary afternoon. No flowers. No jewelry. No letters, just Valarr sitting across from you in the library, watching you over a mountain of books.

“I need a date for the ball.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What a devastating problem.”

“It is.”

“I’m sure half the campus would say yes.”

“Probably.”

“Then ask them.”

Valarr closed the book in his hands and looked directly at you. No humor. No teasing. No hiding behind anything.

“I don’t want to ask them.”

The silence that followed felt strange.

You understood exactly what he meant.

For the first time in a long while, hearing it did not make you angry. Only tired. And fond. And something dangerously close to forgiveness.

You released a long sigh. “It’s just a ball.”

The smile that appeared on Valarr’s face was immediate.

Small. Sincere. Extraordinarily rare.

“Does that mean yes?”

You rolled your eyes.

“Yes.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, the tension that had lingered since the election began to dissolve. Not because the damage had vanished. Not because the wounds had healed completely. But because, against all odds, you had decided to give him another chance.

And Valarr, above all things, had always been very good at taking advantage of the opportunities he was given.

—

The Aegon Foundation Ball was exactly the kind of event King's Landing University adored hosting.

Everything about it seemed designed to impress. The grand ballroom had been transformed until it was nearly unrecognizable. Massive crystal chandeliers descended from the vaulted ceiling, scattering warm light across hundreds of guests dressed in gowns and suits whose value likely equaled several semesters' worth of tuition. The walls were adorned with carefully curated floral arrangements, while an orchestra performed classical pieces from an elevated platform at the far end of the hall. Through the enormous windows, the city glittered in the distance, turning the night skyline into a natural extension of the gala itself.

The university had gathered students, professors, business leaders, alumni, and benefactors in a single place. It was a celebration of prestige, influence, and power; exactly the sort of environment in which Valarr moved with an ease that bordered on offensive.

And yet, that evening, he barely seemed to notice any of it.

He was watching you.

Not obviously. Not constantly. But often enough that, had you been looking for the signs, you would have found them.

Every time you disappeared into the crowd, his eyes followed. Every time someone stopped to speak with you, he found himself glancing in that direction. Every time you laughed—even from the opposite side of the ballroom—he seemed to notice.

At first, it went entirely unnoticed.

Until he appeared.

A graduate student from the Economics Department whose name you barely remembered. He had attended several seminars with you throughout the past year and, after exchanging a few words during a recent conference, decided to come over and say hello.

The conversation began innocently enough. Comments about the gala. A recent research project. The student elections.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

The young man proved pleasant, intelligent, and even amusing enough to draw several genuine smiles from you as the two of you spoke beside one of the tables near the dance floor.

And that was precisely when Valarr saw him.

It was neither rational nor elegant nor mature.

The feeling appeared so quickly that he barely had time to recognize it.

Jealousy.

Dark, unpleasant, deeply irrational jealousy.

That student was occupying a space Valarr considered his. The way you leaned forward slightly whenever something genuinely interested you. The way your eyes brightened during an intellectual discussion. The small smiles that appeared whenever someone managed to surprise you.

Valarr knew every one of those expressions.

He had memorized them over semesters, and seeing them directed toward someone else sparked an immediate irritation that began spreading through his chest. The conversation continued for several minutes.

Too many minutes.

From the other side of the ballroom, Valarr watched as the student seemed to grow more confident. Watched him lean slightly closer. Watched him make you laugh again.

And something inside him finally snapped.

When he appeared beside you, the smile he offered was flawless. Far too flawless.

“Am I interrupting something?”

The other student stiffened almost immediately. After all, it was difficult to ignore the presence of Valarr Targaryen.

“We were just talking.”

“I see.” The politeness in his voice was far more unsettling than outright hostility could have been. Beneath it, something far less pleasant had begun to gather.

A few minutes later, he found an excuse to pull you away. A meeting, perhaps. An appointment. You could not even remember which excuse it was. Suddenly, you were following him through the side corridors of the building while his pace became increasingly quick.

“Valarr.”

He did not respond.

“Valarr.”

This time he stopped. He turned toward you near the private restrooms reserved for the event's organizers. The polished mask he had worn all evening—perhaps all his life—was beginning to crack.

“What was that?”

You looked at him, confused. “What was what?”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about.” His voice was low. Controlled only because he was making a visible effort to keep it that way.

“I don't.”

“The student.” The word emerged laced with disdain.

“What about him?”

Valarr let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Are you really going to pretend you didn't notice?”

“Notice what, exactly?” The silence stretched long enough for you to understand perfectly where this conversation was headed, which was precisely why you chose to continue pretending. To play dumb.

“He was being nice.”

“Sure.”

“He was.”

“Men are rarely nice without a reason.” That response made one of your eyebrows arch. Valarr continued before you could answer. “Especially when they think a woman is giving them attention.”

There it was. The real reason.

Not the student. Not the conversation. But he idea that someone else might approach you. That someone else might claim your attention. That someone else might eventually matter to you.

“I think you're overreacting.”

“I think you're far too naive.”

The response came immediately. Automatically. For several seconds, the silence that followed was almost uncomfortable. Both of you knew exactly what had just happened.

Valarr had just spoken to you as though he knew better than you did about your own decisions. As though he needed to correct you. As though he needed to protect you from something you yourself were incapable of seeing.

Your eyes locked onto his. For a moment, he seemed to realize it. The tension eased ever so slightly, enough for his expression to shift. Enough for something resembling regret to appear. Before he could say anything, you smiled. A calm smile. A polite smile.

A perfectly false smile.

“Well.” You smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from your dress. “I'm glad to know you've thoroughly analyzed the situation.” Your heels clicked against the marble floor as you stepped closer to him. Close enough that barely an inch separated your noses. “I am not your girlfriend or your partner for you to direct this ridiculous display of jealousy at me. I am not yours, Valarr. Get that through your head. I'd rather drag myself through the mud than be with you, you misogynistic cheating idiot—” The words escaped before you reined them back in. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I intend to return to the ball.”

The smile never left your face.

As though nothing had happened.

As though you had not just called Valarr an idiot.

As though that conversation had meant nothing at all. And that, more than any argument, ended up frustrating Valarr. As you walked back toward the ballroom illuminated by crystal chandeliers, he realized that you had understood everything. Absolutely everything, which was far worse than any fight.

—

The penultimate semester arrived with the same cruel speed with which all good things seem to arrive and disappear. For months, you had lived immersed in classes, projects, seminars, student council meetings, and an absurd amount of coffee. Graduation had begun to take shape on the horizon in an increasingly tangible way. It was no longer an abstract idea reserved for older students; it was something real, something approaching with unsettling speed. That night, however, neither of you seemed willing to think about the future. The campus was nearly deserted. Most students were either preparing for final examinations or celebrating the end of the semester at one university party or another, while the academic buildings glowed in the distance beneath the lamplight, transforming into small islands of gold suspended in the darkness.

You and Valarr were lying on the grass in one of the university’s more secluded gardens. The lawn still held traces of the night's moisture, and the cool air drifted softly through the trees, carrying the faint perfume of the flowers lining the nearby pathways. Above you, the sky stretched vast and immeasurable, covered in a scattering of stars so numerous it seemed impossible that a city existed only a few miles away. Neither of you had any real desire to return to your residence halls. There was something strangely comforting about the stillness, about the absence of obligations, about the feeling that for a few hours the academic world could continue turning without either of you.

“Did you know there's an experiment designed to make two people fall in love?”

Valarr’s voice broke the silence with such casual ease that you turned your head slightly to look at him.

“That sounds scientifically questionable.”

“Probably.”

“Then continue.”

A smile appeared on his lips. “It consists of a series of questions. 36 Questions on the Way to Love.”

“The New York Times ones?”

“And sustained eye contact.” He replied.

“That is definitely pseudoscience.”

“Do you want to play or not?”

You stared at the sky for a few seconds before smiling. “Go ahead.”

Valarr folded his arms behind his head and began asking the questions. At first they were simple. If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, living or dead, who would you choose? What was your favorite childhood memory? What dream had you abandoned while growing up? The answers came easily and were often accompanied by laughter. You chose your mother for the first question, prompting Valarr to immediately accuse you of cheating. He chose his grandfather, explaining that he had spent his entire life hearing stories about him without ever having the opportunity to discover who he truly was behind the surname and the legend. That surprised you more than you were willing to admit.

As the night deepened, so did the questions. They left behind amusing anecdotes and lighthearted memories, venturing instead into far more delicate territory. You spoke about fears. About regrets. About the things you valued most in friendship. About losses that still hurt. About the decisions you would change if given the opportunity to go back. Time seemed to dissolve gradually around you. The hours slipped by unnoticed as you exchanged answers you rarely shared with anyone else. Perhaps because there was no need to pretend. There was no student council president and no first King’s Scholar. No titles, responsibilities, or expectations. Just two people lying on the grass in the middle of the night, speaking about themselves with a level of honesty that felt equally comfortable and dangerous.

Eventually they reached one of the final questions. Valarr studied the card in silence for several seconds before reading it aloud.

“What is your favorite memory of us?”

The question settled between you, changing the atmosphere immediately. It was not just another question, both of you knew it.

You remained focused on the stars as you considered your answer. There were too many years between you. Too many conversations, too many arguments, too many shared moments. Choosing only one seemed impossible.

Finally, you smiled. “The library.”

Valarr turned his head. “The library?”

“The first coffee.” Your smile widened slightly. “I don't know why.”

You did know why, you simply had no intention of admitting it. “I still remember how terrified you looked.”

“I was not terrified.”

“Valarr.”

“Yes?”

“You looked like a man facing a public execution.”

The laugh that escaped him was immediate. Genuine. The kind he reserved for very few people. Hearing it caused something warm to settle in your chest.

“And you?” you asked.

For the first time that night, Valarr hesitated.

“I don't have one.”

You frowned. “That’s cheating.”

“No.” His gaze remained fixed on you. “I have too many.”

The silence that followed was different from all the others. Heavier. More aware. For the first time since the conversation had begun, you became fully conscious of the distance separating you—or perhaps of how little distance truly existed between you. The air seemed denser, slower, as though even the world itself were holding its breath.

Valarr was still looking at you, and you were still looking at him.

His eyes briefly dropped to your lips before returning to your gaze. The movement was small, almost imperceptible, yet impossible to ignore. Your heart began pounding against your ribs with ridiculous force. Neither of you looked away. Neither of you seemed to want to.

“I think the experiment may have worked a little.”

The observation escaped your lips before you could stop it, a slow smile appeared on Valarr’s face.

“Has it?” His voice was gentle.

“Maybe.”

“What a relief.”

The remark caught you off guard, and you could not help but frown slightly. “Why?”

For the first time that night, something vulnerable appeared in his expression. Something unguarded. Something he rarely allowed others to see.

His answer came quietly.

“Because I've been ahead of the experiment for years.”

For a second, you forgot how to breathe, the world seemed to stop. The stars, the grass, the university—everything blurred into background noise. Only those words remained suspended between you, carrying years of silences, unspoken gestures, and feelings neither of you had ever found the courage to name.

Then Valarr shifted slightly closer. You saw him do it. You had enough time to understand what was happening, and yet you remained motionless. Perhaps because a part of you had spent far too long imagining what that moment would be like.

Perhaps because another part of you was not ready to face it. His hand brushed against yours in the grass before he closed the remaining distance.

The kiss was gentle. Tentative. As though even he, so certain about so many things, was not entirely certain about you. For a moment, you remained still, surprised by the reality of it. Then you kissed him back. Only a little. Just enough for something warm to move through your chest. Just enough for the world to disappear for one brief and dangerous moment. That was precisely why you pulled away.

Not abruptly. Not angrily. Quickly enough to regain a little air, a little distance, a little control before the moment became more real than you were prepared to accept.

Your eyes immediately found his. Both of your breaths were slightly uneven. Neither of you spoke.

But the rejection, gentle as it had been, hurt far more than Valarr was prepared to endure.

—

Graduation.

Graduation arrived wrapped in such an immense sense of triumph that, at times, it was difficult to believe it was real.

For years, you had pursued that moment with an almost obsessive determination. You had survived impossible exams, entire nights without sleep, and the constant pressure of a university that seemed specifically designed to separate the exceptional from the merely talented. You had arrived at King's Landing University carrying a historic scholarship, impossible expectations on your shoulders, and the persistent fear of discovering that everything had been a mistake. Yet four years later, you were there, seated among the most accomplished graduates of your class, watching endless rows of students dressed in identical black gowns while families filled the stands and cameras captured every moment of a ceremony that would mark the end of an era.

And you were not just another student among that crowd.

You were the one chosen to deliver the graduation speech.

When your name was announced, a wave of applause swept through the auditorium. It was not the polite applause offered out of obligation. It was long. Sincere. Earned. As you walked toward the stage, you felt hundreds of eyes following you, but for the first time in a very long while, it did not intimidate you. You had worked too hard to stand there. You had sacrificed too much.

Before you stretched an entire generation of students preparing to leave the university and face the world.

And you gave the speech . You spoke about effort. About uncertainty. About the fear of failure. About the invisible sacrifices no one saw when they looked at a brilliant résumé or a graduation ceremony. You spoke about opportunity. About privilege. About perseverance. About the people who believed in you when you could not yet believe in yourselves.

And when you finished, the entire auditorium rose to its feet. The ovation was so immediate that, for several seconds, you remained motionless behind the podium, unable to process what was happening.

This was real.

All of it was real.

The university. Graduation. The diploma.

The future. Especially the future.

If the ceremony represented the end of one chapter, what came next was even more exciting. During the previous months, you had received job offers from some of the most prestigious companies on the continent. International firms. Consulting agencies. Corporations whose names appeared constantly in financial magazines and economic newspapers. Any one of them would have been enough to change your life forever.

But you had achieved something better. Much better.

The offer you truly wanted. The only one you had wanted from the very beginning.

An international company based overseas had offered you a position that most graduates spent years trying to reach. The salary was extraordinary. The opportunities for growth even more so. For the first time in your life, the future seemed to open before you without visible limitations.

In one week, you would board a plane. In one week, you would begin a new life. In one week, you would be able to start sending money home. Helping your family. Easing burdens that had weighed on your father for years.

Fulfilling promises you had spent far too long making to yourself.

The thought alone brought a smile to your face every time someone mentioned the job.

That night, you could barely contain your excitement.

The celebrations continued long after the ceremony ended. There were photographs, toasts, embraces, and farewells. Professors congratulating you one final time. Classmates promising to stay in touch. Proud parents watching their children with tears in their eyes. The entire campus seemed suspended in a kind of collective happiness, as though no one wanted to admit that this chapter was coming to an end.

When the hours began to pass and guests gradually started leaving, you discovered that part of you did not want to leave either.

King's Landing University had been your home. Saying goodbye to it was more difficult than you had imagined.

It was close to midnight when you found Valarr.

Or perhaps he found you.

He stood beside his car in one of the more isolated parking lots on campus, his hands tucked into his pockets and an oddly calm expression resting on his face. By then, the crowd had nearly disappeared. Only a few scattered students remained, along with the distant echoes of the final celebrations.

For a moment, the two of you simply stood there, looking at one another. Two people who had shared entire years of their lives.

Two people who were about to walk different paths.

“I suppose this is goodbye.”

The smile that appeared on your lips was soft.

“Not permanently.”

“No.”

Something in the way he answered made the word sound different. Heavier. Sadder. Evaluating. Weighing.

You pushed the feeling away before it could settle. Tonight, you did not want to think about goodbyes. You only wanted to hold on to your happiness a little longer.

“Are you going to accept the job offer?” His blue eye seemed to gleam with an analytical, calculating light.

“What kind of question is that? Of course I am. It’s... it’s a dream come true.” You smiled.

“I’m happy for you.”

Valarr offered to drive you home, and you accepted without thinking much about it. After all, it was Valarr. He had been a constant in your life for years. A presence so familiar that imagining university without him felt impossible.

The interior of the car remained quiet as you left campus behind. Through the window, you watched the illuminated buildings slowly disappear into the distance. Every street felt like a farewell. Every traffic light, a countdown toward the future.

At some point during the drive, Valarr picked up a cup of coffee from the cup holder and handed it to you.

A small smile appeared on your face.

“Since when do you keep coffee in the car?”

“Since I met you.”

The answer made you laugh. It was true. If there was one thing Valarr knew about you, it was your almost unhealthy dependence on caffeine. You accepted the cup without suspicion.

The warmth immediately seeped into your hands. Comforting. Familiar. Safe.

As the city lights continued sliding past beyond the window, you lifted the coffee to your lips and took a long, carefree sip.

“It’s perfect.”

Valarr only hummed softly in acknowledgment before pulling the car over on a deserted corner.

“Sorry—could you grab my wallet? It’s in the back seat. We need to buy fuel. I’m afraid we might end up stranded in the middle of the city.”

You nodded.

Unfastening your seatbelt, you turned around toward the back seats. You leaned forward enough so that your dress hugged your bottom. You looked around the seats for the wallet, but there wasn't one; he pushed you hard against the leather surface, his chest pressed against your back, twisting one of your wrists behind your back.

You let out a groan. "Valarr—what are you doing—" You thrashed, trying to break free from him. You heard a small click behind you before he pulled you further forward, and taking your other wrist, he tied them together with his belt. Air left your lungs and was replaced by a knot in your chest. "Valarr, this is not funny—"

"Shh" He murmured from behind. You could feel his breath, his heavy breat, right where your face and jaw met. With the same force as before, he pressed your face against the seats. "All you do is talk. You chatter, chatter, chatter," he sounded frustrated, you still trying to break free.

You produced unintelligible sounds against the seats, heavy tears sliding against your eyes, ruining your mascara, wetting his seats.

"Don't make this harder than it is," he whispered, placing a soft kiss behind your neck. With one hand, he brushed your hair aside, trailing kisses down to the zipper of your dress.

"Valarr, please—"

"You'll enjoy it, I can assure you that. In a few years, when we're sitting at a family dinner and one of our children asks, "Mom, how are babies made?", and you'll blush so much, you'll blush so hard that the red will paint your ears, your neck, your cheeks." His fingers lowered the zipper with a slow, appreciative sway. "You'll do it. You'll like it. It will live in your memory forever." You leaned back to move him away. He put all his weight on you.

His kisses descended from your back like the tears that slid down your cheeks. You hated it. You hated his kisses, his caresses disgusted you, despised yourself for the faintest hint of pleasure that stirred within you.

"I've waited so long—God, you know I have." He sounded happy. Content. Relieved. He flicked his warm tongue from his mouth, licking your exposed skin. It felt slimy. Disgusting. Bad. "You've played hard to get for so long, love. I can't lie to you, it equally excited and frustrated me." His wet kisses reached the very end of the opening. A sound of pure desperation escaped his throat.

"Valarr—" You cried.

"Enough." You couldn't see it; perhaps that was your only consolation. The fact that you couldn't witness the abomination that sweet, golden boy Valarr who adored you and gave you coffee every day, was. "I told you to stop being difficult— let me have this. Just take it"

He took the sides of your graduation dress, something so special, and ripped it in two. The sound was heartbreaking. Real. This was real. His kisses trailed down the rest of your back. His lips kissed your buttocks, one hand kneading the other as you wept. What else could you do? You'd let him take what he wanted, and you'd take that plane to London. To your dream life. Yes. That's what you'd do.

That viscous fluid trickled down the crack of your ass, pausing to suck on your sweat soaked hole. His words were nothing short of obscene. He let out a pleased sound as he tasted your wet folds. "You taste delicious." He went back in there, slipping his tongue between your lips, bothering you. You hated him, especially the involuntary swaying of your hips. "See?" he whispered before gently biting one of your lips. "You love it. You're so wet. I can't wait, I need you. Can't wait"

You didn't hear him pull down his pants, but you felt him enter you. The combination of his saliva and your fluids was lubricating enough, but it didn't ease the pain of his cock tearing through your vagina. It didn't erase the unbearable burning. It didn't soothe your tears.

Valarr grunted with satisfaction at the sensation. "It's better than I imagined—God, you're so tight." Your silent weeping continued. You had to endure it. You had to resist. He would take what he wanted, do with you as he pleased, and then leave you alone. Yes. He would leave, and you would erase this from your memory. You'd crumple up this page of your story and throw it in the trash.

His left hand cupped your breast, his right your hip. The rhythm was slow, deep, and steady, his tip pounding inside you. You hated it. You hated how your cunt clenched, as if you were made for this, as if your mind and body existed on two different planes, as if, after all your intelligence, you were nothing more than a wild woman in need of a cock.

Valarr rested his face in the crook of your neck, his breath ragged, his moans punctuated by soft whispers. He placed gentle kisses on your neck and cheeks as he took your virginity. "You feel so good, my love," he traced kisses down to your ear. "Love it— love you so much."

His cock trembled inside you. You would let him do it, let him ejaculate inside you, allow his seed to rest on your thighs, and tomorrow, when the sun rose, you'll buy a contraception.

"I'm coming—" he groaned against your skin. And with a guttural growl he came inside you. White liquid staining your walls, tears illuminated by the car's headlights, his breath on the back of your neck. His still-half-hard penis slipped out of your walls. He appreciated the way his semen slid out of your cunt and dripped onto the leather of his seats. Not satisfied. Hungry. Needy. Amazed.

He smiled against your skin. His member, now fully erect, rubbed against your ass. His large hand on your hip moved down to your clit, massaging it in small circles. You hadn't come yet. And he, who knew no limits to his greed, wanted to feel it. See it. Have it.

—

His hand rested on your swollen belly, massaging small figures against your skin.

Who would have guessed it? Three months pregnant by Valarr, your belly was beginning to show, and he couldn't have been happier. You would bring life into the world, his seed, his legacy. The girl of his dreams, pregnant by him. He sighed happily against your hair.

The wedding would be in a month. That's what you decided, and he agreed with a gentle "as you wish." The diamond felt heavy on your finger.

You seemed spellbound in the news broadcast on the enormous big screen of the even more immense living room, listening attentively.

"And in this week's surprises, Miss Emma Renoir has become a business phenomenon after achieving a 22.3% increase in sales following her arrival. These gains equate to approximately $12,000,000 millions. She—" The reporter's solemn voice vanished into a black hole.

You turned. Valarr was holding the remote, he left it next to the sofa and then looked at you with those gentle eyes of his.

No. You didn't take that flight to London a week after graduation. You didn't solve your family's financial problems, didn't get to the offices of your dream job.

Valarr did it for you. He fixed your life, your family.

Instead, you were living the dream life.