Yandere that enjoys having a willing darling, but their darling is absolutely a feral beast that they’re kind of scared of.
They attempt to go check on you where you’ve been locked up in the basement, but you’re standing by the stairs in the dark, wide eyes bloodshot and nails digging into the wall.
Absolutely not, yandere slams the door and almost pisses their pants.
You kind of haunt the house. Yandere still loves you but you’ve somehow become more unhinged than them. Too many times they’ve tried to intimidate you but you’ve started growling like a rabid dog. How are they supposed to deal with that?
He’s kind of afraid, kind of turned on, and really doesn’t know what to do about it.
7 different locks and doors later, and he’s given up trying to keep you locked up. Fortunately for him you actually quite enjoy this game of cat and mouse, so you haven’t tried to escape the house itself.
── established relationship, hard dom!hongjoong x fem!reader
“The hotel room is too quiet for how hard Hongjoong is fucking you.”
You thought you could handle him, but Hongjoong isn’t interested in making love tonight. He wants to break you down until you are nothing but a weeping, shaking mess in his hands. He has rules—be still, be quiet, don’t cum—and he is going to make sure you fail every single one of them just so he can punish you for it.
Genre: heavy smut, porn without plot
Trigger Warnings: explicit sexual content (mdni!), daddy kink (heavy), degradation & name calling (useless, pathetic, toy, slut, hole, sleeve), rough sex: (hair pulling, biting, bruising, aggressive thrusting), oral fixation (fingers in mouth, gagging, drooling), denial, edging, impact play (spanking, slapping), objectification, dacryphilia, exhibitionism (sex against a floor-to-ceiling window), body fluids (spit, tears, sperm on face/throat), multiple orgasms, overstimulation (reader says it hurts), brat taming, mild breath play, cock warming, squirting, breeding kink, creampie, traffic light system, breast play, deep subspace, reader’s fucked stupid, aftercare???
WC: 17.7k
Mon’s Note: i honestly don’t know what happened here. title is “empty headed” because that is literally me after writing this. no thoughts. head empty.
The hotel room is too quiet for how hard Hongjoong’s fucking you.
“Da‑daddy,” you moan as he pounds into you, your arms pinned tight behind your back in one of his hands.
“Fu—fuck.” Your own sounds fill the space along with the wet slap of skin, the headboard’s dull knock against the wall, the drag of sheets burning your knees. You’re clenching around him each time he hits that spot, lights blurring at the edges. Your thighs shake, your mouth stays open, wrecked sound spilling out with every thrust.
Hongjoong adjusts your hips the barest inch and the angle turns ruthless. The stretch sharpens and the friction is obscene. You swear. His breath ghosts your ear, calm where everything else is chaos.
“That’s it. Fucking take it.” His rings are cold against your wrists where he pins them, a bite that makes you clench harder.
“Fuck Joong—”
He stops. The shift is sudden—your body still clenching around his dick, desperate for friction that’s no longer there. His hand fists in your hair and jerks you up hard, arching your spine until your back meets his chest. One arm locks around your waist, ribs pressed to his forearm. The other grips your jaw, fingers pressing into the hinge until your mouth falls open.
You can feel his pulse against your cheek.
You can feel your own everywhere.
“What did you just call me?” His voice is low, dangerous, a heat against your ear. You feel it more than hear it, vibrating through your ribs where he’s got you pinned. The air is hot and thin.
Your breath comes shallow, uneven. “I—”
“Say it again.” Hongjoong’s hips shift, just enough to make you gasp, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t give you what you need. His thumb drags across your bottom lip, smearing spit at the corner. “Go on.”
You swallow. Your pulse hammers against his palm. “Da—”
He tsks, the sound soft and cutting. His grip tightens on your jaw until your eyes sting. “Wrong answer.” His thumb pushes your chin up.
His hand slides from your jaw to your throat, not squeezing yet. “You know better.” The words are barely above a whisper, but they land heavy. He pulls out almost completely, the drag lighting every nerve, then slams back in without warning.
Your body jerks forward with the force, a broken cry tearing from your throat. The slap of skin is sharp. The mattress stutters under your knees, the headboard slams again.
“Daddy—” The word comes out garbled, desperate, exactly what he wanted to hear.
“Good girl.” His grip on your throat softens, becomes almost tender. “Again.”
“Daddy,” you gasp, the word punched out of you with another sharp thrust. Your fingers curl uselessly in his grip, your whole body wound so tight you think you might shatter. “Please—addy, I need—” Your own spit threads from your mouth to his thumb where it drags your lip and you taste metal from your bitten tongue.
Hongjoong’s laugh is dark, satisfied. “Need what, love?” The hand on your throat slides down to palm your breast, rolling your nipple between two knuckles until heat spikes. He pinches it and the pain blooms sweet and mean. “Use your words.” His breath hits damp hair stuck to your temple.
You moan uselessly, the sound ragged and broken. Words won’t come—just desperate, incoherent noise that makes him groan against your ear.
“That’s what I thought,” he murmurs, satisfaction dripping from every word. Your knees skid an inch on the sheet and his hand leaves your breast to clamps your hip and hauls you back so you feel the blunt head punch deep again. He holds you exactly where he wants you as he starts thrusting deep inside you. “Can’t even speak anymore, can you?”
You shake your head frantically, or try to—his hold on you barely allows the movement. Everything’s gone white‑hot and overwhelming, your body trembling in his arms as he takes you apart piece by piece. Your mascara is a damp smear at your lashes; a tear salt‑burns the corner of your mouth where it meets his thumb.
“Mmpf—please—” The words break on a sob as the tension coils impossibly tighter, your walls fluttering around him. Your thighs tremble uncontrollably. The mattress squeals. Hongjoong groans when your cunt strangles him, like the sound is dragged from somewhere he doesn’t show anyone.
“I’ve been a good girl, Daddy, please—” Your voice breaks on the words, desperate and pleading. “Please let me—fuc—k—let me cum, I need—”
“Not yet. Listen to yourself—messy little thing, slobbering on my hand and still trying to think you get a say.” His pace doesn’t falter, each thrust hitting that devastating spot that has your vision blurring. He changes nothing just to prove he controls everything. “You’ll cum when I say.”
“Daddy—” It’s a sob more than a word, your body trembling violently as you fight against the edge. “Please, I can’t—I can’t hold it—”
“Yes, you can. You’re a hole when I tell you to be a hole.” His lips brush your ear, voice dropping lower, amused and cruel. “Be useful.” His teeth take the soft flesh of your shoulder, a quick bite that stings and his tongue soothes, then he bites again, harder.
A broken whimper tears from your throat as tears prick at your eyes. “Yes—yes, I’ll wait—fuck—please—” The word breaks because he drives in meaner, holding you down with his forearm across your ribs until your breaths come shallow and quick.
“That’s all you’re good for, isn’t it? Taking.” The room narrows to the slick drag and the hot thud of him and the damp heat where your bodies meet. “Just a wet little thing I wreck.”
Your eyes sting, vision blurring as the first tear slips free. It tracks hot down your cheek, and Hongjoong’s rhythm stutters for just a beat like he’s savouring it. His grip on your jaw shifts, thumb catching the wetness before it falls to the sheet.
“Look at you,” he breathes, hungry. “Crying because you can’t keep up. Cock‑drunk already and I’m not even trying.” He drags the tear across your cheekbone, reverent and mean at once. “So fucking pretty when you beg with your eyes.” He licks the salt from his thumb, eyes fixed on your wrecked mouth. “Open that useless mouth and try again.”
Another tear follows, then another. A sob catches as he drives deeper. His groan vibrates against your spine. “Pathetic,” he murmurs, almost fond.
Hongjoong’s hand moves from your jaw to cup your face, fingers gentle even as his hips maintain their brutal pace. “Let me see what a mess you are.” He turns your face just enough to catch the tear‑tracks in the low light, pupils blown. “Crying so pretty on Daddy’s cock.”
The praise and the cruelty braid together and break something in you. “Please—” Your voice frays to a thread.
“So good for me,” he says, and then ruins it: “Good for nothing but this.” He catches another tear with his thumb. “My perfect little toy.” His palm slides down your belly, heat making your muscles jump. “Say it.”
“T—toy,” you gasp, shame and want tangling.
“Show Daddy how pretty you look when you break.” He hooks two fingers in the corner of your mouth, yanking it open so spit strings glitter from your lip. “There. Pretty mouth.”
His thumb presses your bottom lip then pushes past. Two fingers follow, flattening your tongue until drool pools at the corners of your mouth. “Keep it open,” he orders, voice rough. “Show me that useless tongue.”
You do, jaw slack, spit threading down your chin while he fucks you deep. He presses farther, taps the back of your throat until your eyes glass. The first gag catches wet and awful, and he groans like you handed him a gift. “There it is. Choke on my fingers while I fill you up.”
He doesn’t pull back—he pushes deeper, knuckles wetting your tongue, and the next gag rips through you loud enough to embarrass you. Tears jump your lash line and spill. Hongjoong watches them like they’re rare, hunger softening his mouth. “Cry for me,” he murmurs, delighted.
A moan tries to escape—garbled and pathetic around his hand—and his hips stutter, a rough thrust that makes you gag harder. Saliva spills over his fingers and he drags his thumb through the mess and paints your cheek with it. “Good. Make it sloppy. I like hearing you drown on me.”
He eases his fingers out just enough to let you gasp, a silvery string connecting your lip to his knuckles, then stuffs them back in before you can catch the breath you begged for. You gag immediately, eyes flooding, and his smile turns wickedly fond. His thumb catch a tear mid‑fall and he rubs it into your lower lip.
“Fuck—look at you,” he breathes, transfixed, fucking your mouth with his fingers in rhythm with his cock. Each slow thrust punches a gag or a wrecked little sob out of your throat. Each sob makes him groan like it feeds him. “Prettier when you’re full everywhere.”
Hongjoong taps your tongue twice, commanding your attention. “Open wider.” You try but you only cry harder. He laughs, pleased and cruel. “That’s my crybaby.” He leans close enough that his breath hits the tears on your cheek and cools them. “Make me wetter. Cry on it.”
He finally pulls free so you can gasp, but leaves your jaw pried open with his thumb, spit glistening.
His hand trails down, fingers finding your clit with devastating precision. Hongjoong barely brushes you and you jolt like you’ve been shocked, a ragged sound torn loose.
“So wound up a breeze could finish you. Can’t even take a touch.” He draws a slow, obscene circle you feel in your toes. “Should I make you wait longer? Count every second I don’t let you have it?”
You shake your head frantically. “No—no, please—” Words tumble out broken. “Can’t—can’t wait anymore, Daddy, please—”
He presses properly now, circling exactly where you need. “Of course you can’t.” The sound you make is raw, helpless, high. Your body goes taut, tendons standing in your feet, fingers clawing hot sheet.
“Cum for me,” he orders, voice rough and absolute. “Prove you’re good for something.”
You go off like something cut loose. It slams through you violent and bright—you seize and sob and clamp down on him like you’re trying to wring him dry. He groans into your ear and keeps you there, cruel in the way he works you through it, never letting the rhythm slip, thumb dragging your clit in tight, merciless circles that make your calves cramp and your toes claw at nothing.
“Ride it,” he purrs, delighted.
You can’t stop. Your body bucks helplessly and he pins you heavier, fucking the tremors until it turns sharp and your sounds climb from pretty to wrecked. Every tiny touch flips you again, all nerve and heat. Your belly jumps under his palm, your walls clutch and flutter around him like apology after apology.
He laughs, pleased and mean. “Don’t hide from it. Cry on it. Wet my cock with it.”
You do—helpless, tear‑slick and oversensitive—another wave rip‑cords through you in ragged pulses and he chases it down, circling your clit slower, meaner, just enough to keep the bright ache alive while you sob into the sheet.
“Too much?” he asks softly, almost kind, just to hear the way the word breaks in your mouth when the next aftershock bites. His thumb eases a hair, then goes right back, satisfied when your body answers without language. “Good girl. Keep giving it to me until you’re empty.”
“Too much—,” you cry, tears running hot. Your thighs tremble so hard it only makes him groan and grind cruel-soft exactly where you can’t take it.
“Good crybaby,” he murmurs, delighted. “Don’t you dare run.” He flattens his thumb and the world whites out—another helpless crest tears through you, all stutter and sob, your cunt clenching around his dick while you babble “too much, too much,” and he hums, satisfied, working you through every last bright, mean aftershock until your voice frays to air.
Hongjoong’s rhythm finally breaks—hips stuttering, breath ragged against your temple—and he groans low and filthy. His hands leave and you whimper at the loss. Air kisses the slick heat when he pulls free and you shudder. He flips you in one swift motion; your back hits the mattress, a bounce knocking a gasp out of you. The sheets are damp under your shoulder blades and the pillow is cool under fevered skin.
“Look at me.” Jaw tight, eyes wild, control fraying. A vein jumps in his neck. He looks like sin and victory.
“Hands above your head.” You obey, wrists crossing. “Don’t move.” His palm pins your wrists; the heel of it grinds the bones together until you whine. The other drops to his cock and works himself once, twice, your slick shines on his length.
“Eyes on me.”
“Fuck—” The word breaks as his release lashes hot across your stomach and chest. Cum splashes your throat, a line streaks your collarbone. He doesn’t look away from your face while he watches it drip. Ragged breath. Shuddering shoulders.
He drags two fingers through the mess and paints your lips with it, slow. He pushes his fingers past your tongue. “Suck it up like a good little slut.” You do, cheeks hollowing, and he hums approval when you gag around his knuckles then he pulls free with a wet pop.
Hongjoong smears the rest of his cum across your cheek and jaw, then rubs what’s left into your throat.
“Hands stay.” Your wrists ache deliciously. His palm presses your sternum, shortening your breath; he lifts it just enough to give you air, like charity. Then he kisses you deep, filthy, tasting salt and himself on your tongue. He palms the back of your thigh and hikes it high to his hip. “Round two,” he says like a sentence.
“No—no—” Your thighs slam shut on instinct, trembling violently. Oversensitive doesn’t begin to cover it—every nerve ending feels raw, exposed, like touching a live wire. Your knees knock together as you try to curl away, breath coming in short, desperate gasps.
Hongjoong’s hand catches your knee before you can fully close yourself off. His grip is firm but he doesn’t force—not yet. He watches you shake apart, eyes dark and assessing.
“Too much?” The question sounds almost curious, like he’s cataloging your limits for future reference.
“I can’t—” Your voice breaks on a sob. “Please, I need—just a minute—”
His thumb traces idle circles on your kneecap, a mockery of gentleness while your body still trembles from the aftershocks. “That’s not how this works, love.” He leans down, lips brushing your temple. “You don’t get to decide when we’re done.”
His hand slides up your thigh, not forcing your legs open yet, just resting there with casual ownership. “You know how we end things.” It’s not a question. His eyebrow arches, that familiar challenge, and your stomach drops because you do know. You know exactly what he’s waiting for.
The word sits on your tongue—red. Simple. Final. It would stop everything.
But it won’t come.
“No?” His thumb strokes once, twice, maddeningly gentle against your feverish skin. “Then I’ll make it easy for you.” His voice drops, taking on that edge that makes your pulse stutter. “Three seconds. Say it or I’m not stopping.”
Your breath catches. Every nerve ending screams that you can’t, that you’re too wrecked, too sensitive, too much—
“One.”
The word is right there. Red. Your lips part.
“Two.”
His fingers trail higher, barely a whisper of touch, and you tremble. Your mouth stays open, empty.
“Three.” He waits one more heartbeat, eyes locked on yours, searching. When nothing comes—when you just stare back at him, panting and wrecked and silent—something shifts in his expression. Satisfaction, dark and absolute. “That’s what I thought.”
“Let daddy in.”
Your thighs fall open slowly, a surrender that feels like defeat and relief tangled together. He drags the blunt head through your slick and slaps it against your clit—wet, obscene—once, twice, just to watch your whole body jump. When he pushes in—slow, deliberate, watching every micro-expression that crosses your face—the oversensitivity makes you keen, a broken sound that's half-sob, half-moan.
“Good girl,” Hongjoong murmurs, and doesn’t move. He stays buried to the hilt, making you feel every inch, every slow pulse. Your walls flutter around him and he hisses through his teeth. “Still.”
“Daddy—” You twitch, trying to adjust to the obscene fullness, and his hand clamps your hip hard enough to bruise.
“I said still.” His voice is steel. He shifts a mean millimeter deeper, a promise you’re going to hate loving. “You said you ‘can’t’ anymore? Cute.” He settles like a stake driven into the earth. “Then be useful.” Hongjoong’s hand lifts your thigh and hooks your knee higher, forcing the angle open until the stretch sits deep and electric. “Keep Daddy’s dick warm,” he says, bored and cruel.
Heat licks up your spine. Hongjoong doesn’t thrust. He doesn’t have to. You try to breathe around it. He shifts another millimeter—just a cruel reminder of his thickness—and the sound that leaks out of you is humiliating.
You twitch—instinct, pathetic—and his cock slides against a nerve that makes your whole body jolt. You try to chase it, hips rolling a greedy inch before you can stop yourself.
“Did I say you could move?” His voice cuts through the haze, razor-clean. His palm slams your hip back to the mattress, pinning you flat with bruising force. “Greedy little sleeve. One rule. You can’t even manage one.”
A wrecked whimper leaks out. The stillness is torture—every ridge, every vein, the obscene stretch of him pulsing inside you while your body screams to grind, to rub, to take. Your thighs tremble. Your toes curl like you’re trying to scratch at the air.
“Please—” you gasp, voice shaking. “I need—”
“You need?” He laughs, low and mean. “You need to learn to take what you’ve given.” His fingers dig into your hip, owning the flesh. “Move again and I pull out. I leave you empty and leaking with your little hole clenched around nothing. Is that what you want?”
“N—no, Daddy, please—”
“Then be fucking still.” He settles a breath deeper, a hateful inch that makes you sob, and holds you there like a knife sheathed to the hilt. “Keep me warm like I told you.” His mouth brushes your ear, the smile audible. “Stop acting like a desperate slut who can’t control herself.”
You feel the words burn through you; your walls flutter helplessly around him. You can’t stop the tiny drag of your hips—barely there, shameful—and he feels it immediately.
“Ah‑ah.” He smiles against your cheek.
“Please—” It scrapes out of you, ragged.
“Please what.” Flat as a verdict. “Use your stupid mouth.” His thumb strokes your jaw, mock‑gentle.
Your body shakes with effort. Your calves cramp. “Please—” The word fractures before it can form, dissolving into a sound that’s barely human—just need and surrender wrapped in breath.
The fullness skates the edge of too much; oversensitivity turns every slow beat into bright heat. Hongjoong only watches, pleased and dark, while you struggle to hold still around him. A whimper leaves you, broken and desperate.
“Quiet,” he says, almost bored. “Toys don’t whine.” He shifts deeper just to hear the noise you make. “Hands flat. Eyes open. Count your breaths if you need to. Don’t twitch.”
You count breaths because he told you to and lose the thread at eight, at nine, at nothing, because your body betrays you—tiny flutters you can’t control. Each one earns you a hum against your temple, a lazy squeeze at your throat that says he felt it.
“Pathetic,” he croons finally, sounding pleased.
“Daddy—” slips out again, ruined.
“What do you think you’re going to ask for? You’re full. You’re not getting more. You’re keeping me.”
“Please—”
“Please what?” His voice goes flat. “No babbling, no noise. Full sentence. Ask to be used.”
Shame burns hot. “Please use me, Daddy.”
“Mhm.” He rewards you with a single, slow grind that rolls through you like thunder, then stops dead. “Ask better.”
Your throat tightens. The words stick—humiliating—but his silence is worse, patient and hungry, like he has all night to watch you crack. “Please use me however you want, Daddy,” you whisper, voice breaking. “I’m yours—I’m just—please, I need you to—”
“Need me to what?” His thumb traces your bottom lip, almost tender in a way that makes you want to sob. “Say it clear or I’ll sit inside you and watch you shake until morning.”
“Please fuck me,” you gasp, shame scorching every syllable. “Please—use me like the toy I am. I can’t—Daddy, wreck me, please—”
“There it is.” His smile cuts wicked against your jaw. “See? Useless little mouth can learn.” He drags out of you slow—obscenely slow—until only the tip sits at your entrance. The loss rips a whimper out of you. “Since you asked nicely.”
He slams back in with no warning. Your toes curl hard enough to hurt. Your nails bite your palms. You don’t move. You don’t dare.
“Better,” he decides, and finally gives you motion—small, shallow, nothing like mercy. Short, ruthless strokes that never leave you, just rock deep enough to make your breath hitch on every one. “Count them.”
“One,” you whisper. “Two.” By four your voice shakes. By seven it thins to air. By ten you’ve lost the number and he has to murmur it for you against your mouth, amused.
“Ten,” he says, and nips your bottom lip. “Hopeless little counter.” He pulls out to the edge again and you whine without meaning to. He catches your chin hard. “What did I say about whining?”
“Toys don’t whine,” you breathe, panicked and obedient.
“That’s right.” He slides back in, the stretch a bright, tearing relief, and sets a new pace that is nothing like earlier—just deep and slow and devastating, like he’s proving he can keep you here forever.
You feel it rising again—desperation clawing up your throat, that helpless way your body starts chasing friction on its own. Your hips twitch forward, greedy without permission. His fingers bite down instantly.
“Stop.” Ice-cold.
But you don’t. You can’t. You’re wrecked and stupid with need, and your body rolls again—small, hungry little pulses that betray every order he’s given you. A whine slips out, high and broken.
“Daddy, please—I can’t—I need more, please—”
“You can’t?” His voice drops to something dangerous. “Or you won’t?”
“I can’t—” Another whimper. Your hips buck again, chasing the friction he’s withholding, and the sound that leaves you is pathetic. “Please, Daddy, I need—need you to move, need it harder, need—”
He goes dead still inside you. The absence of movement is worse than any punishment.
“Greedy little thing,” he says, tone flat with disappointment. “I give you my cock to keep warm and you can’t even manage that without turning into a whining, desperate mess.”
“I’m sorry—” You’re babbling now, words tripping over themselves. “I’m sorry, Daddy, please—just—please fuck me, I’ll be good—”
“You’ll be good?” He laughs—sharp, cruel, joyless. “You’re not being good now. You’re being a greedy slut who can’t follow a single fucking instruction.” His hand slides from your hip to your throat—fingers wrapping lightly. Your pulse hammers against his palm. “I don’t like you like this.”
It hits like a slap. Shame floods hot and immediate, and still your body trembles, still clenching around him, still needing.
“Please—”
“Please what? Please keep giving you what you clearly can’t handle?” He shifts just enough to make you whine, then stops again. “You’re not ready for more. You can’t even take what I’ve already given you without falling apart.”
“I can—I can take it—” Your voice breaks on a sob.
“No.” Firm. Final. “You can’t. Look at you. Shaking and whining and begging like you forgot how to be still.” His thumb strokes your throat once—almost gentle, which makes it worse. “I told you to be useful. Instead you’re being pathetic.”
The disappointment punches something open in your chest. You force yourself still—every muscle screaming—swallowing the whine clawing up your tongue. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, small and wrecked. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
He watches you for a long, measuring beat. Then, slowly, he withdraws completely. The emptiness is a knife.
“Daddy—no—please—”
“Quiet.” The word drops like a brick. He stays out of you, cock wet against your slit, heat without mercy. “You want more when you can’t even fucking hold still?” His laugh is flat and ugly.
Your chest hitches. “Daddy, I—”
“Don’t talk.” He drags the swollen head through your slick once, slow, and you gasp like a drowning thing. The emptiness screams. “You don’t get my cock. You get consequence.”
“Do you want Daddy to go find himself another hole?” His words hit like acid, eating under your skin. “A quiet one. An obedient sleeve that doesn’t twitch, doesn’t whine, doesn’t make me repeat myself like I’m training a puppy.”
“No—” It tears out of you, small and panicked. “No, Daddy, please—”
“No?” Hongjoong sounds almost curious, like he’s already halfway out the door. “Because you’re not acting like you want to keep me. You’re acting like a spoiled toy that forgot what it’s for.”
“I do—I want to keep you—” Your voice breaks. “Please don’t—I’ll be good, I promise—”
“You promised to stay still five fucking minutes ago and look where that got us.” His thumb drags across your bottom lip, cruelly tender. “Maybe I should find a hole that knows how to listen. One that doesn’t babble, doesn’t beg, and doesn’t forget every rule the second it gets full.”
The image scalds—him leaving you empty and shaking while he goes somewhere else—and the sob that rips free is ugly.
“Please, Daddy—please—I’ll do better, I swear—don’t leave, please don’t, I need you—”
“Need me?” His voice goes flat. “You need to learn to fucking behave.” He drags the head of his cock on your swollen clit like a threat and your body jerks up desperately. “See? Even now you can’t stay still.”
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—” Tears slip hot into your hair. “I’ll be good, I promise, please just—stay—”
“One. More. Chance.” Soft and lethal. “You twitch, you whine, you breathe wrong—and I’m done with you tonight. I’ll go find that quiet hole, and you can hump the sheet and think about why I left.”
The burn in your eyes sharpens.
“Say the rule.”
You swallow. “Keep—keep you warm.”
“At a minimum.” He taps the head against your clit again—light, mean—once. Your twitch and his hand locks your pelvis to the mattress with bruising pressure. “And you couldn’t even fucking do that.”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, shaking.
“I don’t want sorry. I want silent, still, useful.” He lays the fat tip at your entrance and holds it there. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to keep me right here and not twitch. You breathe wrong, we reset. You beg wrong, we reset. You whine, you don’t get me at all.”
“Daddy—”
“Start.” His thumb presses your throat, not choking, just owning. “Five breaths.”
You count, voice wrecked and tiny. One. Two. Your body claws for friction and he hears the minuscule drag in your hips like it’s a confession.
“Reset,” he says, bored. The head lifts off you. The loss is a knife. He sets it back and you whine before you can strangle it.
“Reset.” He smiles without warmth.
Shame burns through you. “Please—” You bite it off and force your lungs to move. One. Two. Three. At four he ghosts the head forward—no entry, just stretch on the skin—and you hiccup a sound you barely recognise.
“Reset,” he repeats, almost amused now. “We’d be done by now if you weren’t such a needy fuckup.”
“I can do it.”
“Doubt it.” He pats your cheek condescendingly. “But try again.”
You count, lips trembling. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
He stares down at you, unimpressed. “Now thank me for not fucking you.”
The sentence scrapes your throat raw. “Thank you for not fucking me, Daddy.”
He hums, pleased—and disappointed anyway. “Again, like you mean it.”
“Thank you for not fucking me,” you rush the words out, “For making me still. For making me useful.”
“Finally.” The head presses, a murderous inch, then stops dead inside—no thrust, just fullness that feels like a verdict. You choke on a sound; his fingers tighten on your jaw.
“Now you hold me there and you don’t move,” he says, low and lethal.
Your body locks into place, every muscle screaming against the stillness. The stretch sits there—barely inside, not enough, too much—and he doesn't move. Just watches you shake around that single cruel inch, his expression flat and clinical, like he's studying how long it takes before you break again.
He watches your thighs quiver around that single inch like he’s timing a lab experiment. “Three breaths,” he says, voice clinical. “Earn another inch.”
You breathe. One. Two. On three your belly flutters; he feels it. The head slides in a second inch and stops dead. You whimper through your teeth.
“Again. Three.”
You make it, barely—every nerve screaming—and he feeds you another inch like he’s measuring with a ruler. “See?” he murmurs, disappointed anyway. “When you shut up and follow orders you almost pass for useful.”
“Daddy—”
His palm covers your mouth, not to mute, to own.
He waits, indifferent to the shake, then seats the rest in a slow, inevitable push and locks your hips to the mattress. Utterly full. Utterly still.
“There.” His fingers tap your jaw, condescending. “Now ask me for nothing.”
You swallow hard, nod against his palm because language might ruin you. He smiles—cold, pleased—and starts the smallest motion imaginable, a cruel internal drag that never lets you chase. Your body tries anyway. He feels the microscopic reach.
“Aaand there she is,” he sighs, disgusted.
“On your fucking knees,” he says, voice flat and final. “Ass up.”
He pulls out completely—the emptiness is brutal—and you scramble to obey, limbs clumsy with need. Your knees hit the mattress, your chest drops, and you arch your back the way he likes, presenting yourself like an apology.
“Higher.” His palm cracks across your ass—sharp, unforgiving—and you gasp, lifting until your spine curves obscene. “There. Now stay exactly like that and think about why you're here instead of full of my cock.”
The air feels too cold on your exposed cunt. You hear him move behind you, deliberate and unhurried, and the anticipation is its own kind of torture. His hand smooths over the curve of your ass once—almost tender—then his palm comes down again, harder. The sound cracks through the room.
“Count.”
“One,” you breathe, shaking.
Another, lower—right on the tender hinge where ass meets thigh. You jerk, then wrench yourself back into place.
“Two—”
“Louder. Like you fucking mean it.”
The next lands before your mouth can catch up. You yelp. “Three!”
“Better.” He pauses, fingers trailing through the slick mess between your thighs, not giving you anything, just reminding you what you're not getting. The touch is featherlight—clinical, almost—and it makes you ache harder than if he'd pressed down with intent. Your clit throbs where his knuckles barely graze it, swollen and desperate, and the emptiness inside you feels like a wound. Every nerve ending screams for more.
“Why are you here?”
“Because I couldn’t stay still—couldn’t—”
“Because you’re greedy.” The slap is vicious and precise. “Four.”
“Four,” you sob.
“Because you take what I give you and immediately beg for more like it’s not enough.” His hand comes down again, twice in quick succession, and you lose count, scrambling to catch up.
“Five—six—“
“Pathetic.” He sounds disgusted and pleased at the same time. His knuckles skim the burn, then slide meanly through your slick, circle your clit once and abandon it like a test you failed. The touch makes you clench around nothing, empty and aching, every nerve ending screaming for more pressure, more contact, more of him. The abandonment feels like a punishment you can’t name—your body chasing something he’s already taken away. “Still dripping. Still desperate. Still not listening.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy—”
“You will be.” His fist knots in your hair, yanking your face off the sheet. “We keep going until your body remembers how to obey. You twitch or gasp wrong, we reset to one.”
The next strike lands; you choke the whimper into your teeth and hold. “Seven!”
“Let’s see you make it to ten without falling apart.”
Eight snaps high on the curve; nine brutal on the sit spot. You bite the inside of your cheek until you taste iron and force the numbers out steady—“Eight. Nine.”—and you don’t move.
Ten comes down perfect, right where it hurts prettiest.
“Ten.” Your voice is raw but even. Silence drops heavy around it.
“Look at that,” he murmurs, palm smoothing over the heat, reverent like he’s polishing his work. “Directions aren’t complicated when you’re not busy failing.”
His fingers trace the marks he’s left, then slide lower, through the slick mess between your thighs. You bite down hard on your lip to keep from making a sound, from pushing back into his touch.
“Don’t you dare chase,” he says softly.
You lock your hips but Hongjoong rewards you with nothing. Then—finally, cruelly—one slow circle on your clit that makes your calves charlie-horse and your lungs forget.
You wait. You hold perfectly still, thighs shaking, breathing shallow through your nose. You wait for the praise—for him to tell you you’re good, that you’ve finally done it right, that you’ve earned something. The silence stretches. His thumb stays maddeningly light, circling without pressure, and the words don't come.
They’re not coming.
The realisation settles cold in your chest even as heat coils tighter in your belly. He’s not going to give it to you.
“Please,” you whisper, a thread. “Please tell me I did good.”
Hongjoong’s hand stills. The silence stretches, and you feel the weight of his gaze on you.
“Ask properly.”
You swallow hard, forcing the words out even as shame and need tangle in your chest. “Please, Daddy. Please tell me I’m good. I need to hear it. I need to know I did well.”
His thumb resumes—tight, deliberate circles that you meet with perfect stillness because you want the words more than air. “You want praise?” he asks, almost curious. “After the shitshow you put on?”
“I made it to ten,” you rasp. “I stayed still. I didn’t move.”
“You finally did what you were told,” he concedes. Pressure sharpens and every muscle in you locks so you don’t grind into it. “Miracles.”
“Please,” you breathe. “Please, Daddy—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Hongjoong says, voice flat. His thumb stops mid-circle and lifts off entirely. “I didn’t ask for begging. I asked for obedience.”
The loss of contact is devastating. You bite back a whimper, holding position even as your thighs shake.
“You think making it to ten earns you anything?” He sounds almost bored now, disgusted. “That’s the bare minimum of not being completely fucking useless.”
Your eyes burn. You keep your face pressed to the sheet, don’t move, don’t speak.
“You want praise for doing what you should’ve done the first time?” His hand comes down once more on your ass. “For finally shutting up and following a simple fucking instruction?”
Silence. You don’t answer because he didn’t ask a question you’re allowed to respond to.
“That’s what I thought.” His fingers trail back between your thighs, maddeningly light, and you hold so still you forget to breathe. “You don’t get praise for meeting expectations. You get my cock when you exceed them.” His voice drops, cruel and clinical. “And you? You’re so far below the bar I’d need a fucking shovel to find where you started. You think ten slaps and some tears make you special? You’re not even average. You’re just finally less of a disappointment than you were five minutes ago.”
His fist knots in your hair again and yanks you upright—sharp, brutal—until your spine arcs and your knees scream against the mattress. Your scalp burns; your throat opens on a gasp you can’t swallow back.
“Look at me.” His voice is low, final. You force your eyes open, vision blurred, and meet his gaze. It’s flat. Clinical. Like he’s deciding whether you’re worth the effort.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” He tightens his grip until tears spring hot and immediate. “Attention. Validation. My fucking time.”
You can’t nod—his hold won’t let you—so you whisper it, wrecked. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Then stop fucking wasting it.” He drags you closer by the hair, your body folding backward, chest exposed, throat vulnerable. “Stop begging for praise you haven’t earned. Stop moving when I tell you to be still. Stop acting like you don’t know exactly what I expect from you.”
He releases your hair and you collapse forward, gasping. Before you can catch your breath, his hands are on your hips, hauling you upright and off the bed entirely. Your legs don’t work right—numb and shaking—but Hongjoong doesn't care, dragging you across the room until your palms hit cold glass.
“Hands flat,” he orders, positioning you facing the window. The city glitters below, oblivious. “Don’t you fucking move them.”
You press your palms to the glass, the chill biting into your overheated skin. The window is floor-to-ceiling, and you’re on the twentieth floor—exposed, visible if anyone bothered to look up. The thought makes your stomach drop.
“Daddy—“ you start, voice thin with panic.
“I don’t remember asking you to speak.” His hand lands between your shoulder blades, forcing your chest forward until your breasts press flat against the glass. The cold shocks through you, nipples hardening instantly, and you gasp at the contrast. “You wanted my attention? Congratulations. Now everyone down there gets a front-row seat to what happens when you finally shut the fuck up and do what you’re told.”
His breath is hot against your ear as he leans in closer, caging you against the window. “Look at them. All those people going about their boring little lives, and if even one of them glanced up right now, they’d see you—spread out, dripping, desperate. They’d see exactly what kind of slut you are. The kind who begs for cock pressed against a window twenty floors up.”
He grinds his hips forward slightly, not entering yet, just letting you feel the threat of it. “Think about it. Some guy walking his dog. Some woman coming home from work. And there you are—tits against the glass, ass out, waiting to be fucked like you’re on display. Like you’re a show I’m putting on for the whole goddamn city.”
He kicks your feet apart, wider than stable, until you’re on display—open, vulnerable. His hand trails down your spine, over the burning marks on your ass, then lower.
“Stay exactly like this,” he says, voice deadly calm. “Hands on the glass. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound."
You feel him line up behind you, the blunt pressure of his cock against your entrance. Your breath fogs the window. Every instinct screams to push back, to take what you need, but you lock your muscles and hold.
“Everyone can see you,” he says, breath hot against your ear as he leans over you, caging you between his body and the glass. “See how desperate you are.”
The angle is punishing. He bottoms out so deep you feel it in your throat then he pulls to the edge and shoves back in in one rude stroke. Your gasp splashes white on the glass. Hongjoong watches it bloom and fade and times the next thrust to erase it. He does not tease. He does not test. He just takes—hips snapping in a pace with no mercy—each impact a proof that your body belongs exactly where he’s putting it. When your thighs start to shake he only tightens his hand at your hip, grinding you into the glass so the cold bites your nipples and the heat bites everywhere else
Your reflection stares back at you—fucked out, wrecked, mouth open on silent gasps you’re not allowed to voice.
“This is what you needed,” he continues, rhythm brutal and unrelenting. “Not praise. Not softness. Just someone to put you exactly where you belong and fuck the desperation out of you until you remember how to behave.”
Your legs are shaking so hard you can barely stand, but his grip on your hips is iron, holding you in place, keeping you upright and on display as he uses you against the window.
You’re e so full. The stretch is devastating—not painful, but so complete it rewires every nerve ending, makes you hyperaware of every inch of him inside you. Your body clenches reflexively, trying to adjust, and the friction makes your breath stutter. He’s so deep you feel it in your stomach, a pressure that borders on too much but somehow isn’t enough.
The heat of him is overwhelming. You can feel every throb, every shift of his hips, the way he fills every space until there’s nothing left but him. Your walls flutter around his length, trying to accommodate, trying to hold on, and the sensation makes your head spin.
You feel owned. Claimed. Like your body was made specifically for this—for him to fill and use and shape however he wants. The thought makes you clench again, and you hear his breath catch behind you.
Hongjoong’s hand clamps your hip and drags you back onto him while his mouth finds the slope where neck becomes shoulder. He bites—hard, deliberate—until your breath splinters on the glass, then sucks wickedly slow to pull the bruise up dark and pretty. “Mine,” he says into the mark, not for you, for the mirror of your face in the window.
Rings grind into your skin as his fingers hike your waist higher, leaving crescent dents along your side. He shifts his grip to your ass and you almost hiss—the flesh is still burning from before, hypersensitive—but he doesn’t care, squeezing until your skin crests his knuckles. Then he smacks the same handprint in place—once, twice, a third time—each impact landing on already-raw skin that makes you gasp sharp and broken into the glass.
His mouth trails lower, teeth scraping the curve where your shoulder meets your throat. He sucks hard enough to sting, working the skin until you feel the heat bloom under his lips. When he pulls back, you know there's a mark—dark and obvious, a claim you'll see tomorrow and every day after until it fades.
“Everyone’s going to know,” he murmurs against your skin, moving to a new spot. His teeth catch again, sharper this time, and you whimper before you can stop yourself. He doesn’t scold you for it. Instead, he hums, pleased, and works his way across your throat, your collarbone, the top of your shoulder—each love bite deliberate, territorial. His tongue soothes over the marks before his teeth return, and the contrast makes you dizzy. Your reflection in the glass shows the trail he’s leaving. A constellation of bruises that spell out exactly who you belong to.
“Prettier when you bruise,” he murmurs, and you feel him smile against your throat. He shoves your wrists wider on the glass, laces his fingers over yours so you can’t hide the way you shake, and fucks you harder—short, piston drives that press your chest flat and stamp the rhythm into your spine. Your breath paints messy halos on the pane. Hongjoong leans forward and bites your ear, low laugh ugly against your skin.
His mouth moves to the curve of your neck, lips dragging slow over the sensitive skin just below your ear. The gentleness is unexpected—devastating. Your body doesn’t know what to do with tender after brutal, and the contrast hits like a live wire. He kisses once, soft, then again lower, and your breath catches wrong in your chest.
“Daddy—“ you try to warn him, but it comes out broken.
“Quiet,” he murmurs against your throat, and kisses you again. His lips are warm, almost reverent as they trail down to your shoulder, and the rhythm of his hips never falters—still deep, still unrelenting, but now paired with this impossible softness that’s unraveling you faster than anything brutal ever could.
It builds wrong. Too fast. You weren’t ready for it—one second you’re holding on, the next you’re free-falling, your orgasm slamming into you without warning. Your whole body locks up, spine arcing away from the glass as the pleasure rips through you in violent, uncontrollable waves. He feels the clamp coming—a greedy, panicked grab—and rips out in one brutal drag.
The world snaps wrong. Heat turns to air, slick to cold, friction to nothing. Your cry out raw and too loud, fog exploding across the glass in a white star. Your thighs slam together on instinct and find only his palm, flat and merciless, forcing your knees wide again. Everything skids, your body still pitched for impact while the impact is gone, nerves misfiring, the ache in your belly pitching higher with nowhere to go. Your clit throbs, your calves seize, your nipples spark on the pane.
“Did I say you could cum, you filthy slut?” His voice is ice and venom.
”Please-” Your voice cracks into a ragged wail you can’t swallow. The sound embarrasses you even as it keeps coming-thin, high, animal-your chest scraping the glass as you shudder.
“Shut your fucking mouth.” Hongjoong’s hand clamps your jaw brutal and drags your open mouth to the window so you hear yourself against the pane-hot breath, pathetic little whimpers bouncing back. “Disgusting. Look at this mess.” Two fingers slide through the slick pouring out of you and slap your clit mean, the sting bright and metallic and your whole body jerks like a current ran through you. “Dripping like a bitch in heat. You’re fucking pathetic.”
He does it again-lighter, crueler-just enough to sharpen the ache and keep it blooming. “Greedy cunt couldn't wait, could she?” The cold on your front feels like punishment, the heat at your back feels like a dare. You can taste blood where you bit your tongue, you can feel his ring scrape your hip as he drags your pelvis higher and pins you there, open and empty and shaking. “Worthless little whore. Can’t follow one simple fucking rule.”
“Could’ve asked. Could’ve been good. But no-you had to be a desperate fucking cumslut,” he snarls at your reflection, voice dripping contempt. He paints your hipbone with your own slick like a stripe, degrading, then presses his thumb into the fresh bruise on your shoulder hard enough to make you gasp. “Now hold it and suffer.”
Your body argues in every language it has—fluttering, pleading squeezes at nothing, a pulse between your legs that hurts, a tremor you can’t stop—while he gives you exactly no motion where you need it and too much where you can’t take it. He bites the hinge of your jaw, sucks until colour swells up pretty and dark, and when your breath stutters toward that helpless climb again, he taps your clit once—just once—and the wave collapses with a sob that fogs the glass and runs. “Filthy fucking thing. This is what disobedient sluts get.”
Your body is betraying you—hips rolling in tiny, desperate circles even though he’s not inside you anymore, chasing friction that isn’t there. The orgasm he denied you earlier left everything raw and oversensitive, and now every nerve ending is screaming for release. Your clit throbs in time with your pulse, swollen and aching, and the emptiness inside you feels like a physical wound.
You can feel it building again—that terrible, inevitable climb. Your thighs are shaking so hard they might give out. Heat pools low in your belly, coiling tighter with each ragged breath. It’s different this time—sharper, more desperate, edged with something that feels dangerously close to panic because you know what happens if you fall over without permission.
“Daddy—please—” Your voice cracks on the plea. “I need—I can’t—”
The pressure builds and builds, your body pulled taut as a wire, every muscle locked in anticipation of a release you’re not allowed to have. You’re so close it hurts—that edge right there, shimmering just out of reach, and your body keeps reaching for it anyway, mindless and greedy and completely beyond your control.
His fingers barely touch your clit, just the ghost of pressure—and begin to circle with agonising slowness. Not enough to give relief, just enough to make everything worse. Each lazy pass sends sparks shooting through your nerves, stoking the fire instead of quenching it.
“You gonna try cumming again without permission?” His laugh is cruel against your ear, all sharp edges. His hand spreads over your throat, thumb under your jaw to keep your face to the window, forcing you to watch yourself fall apart. “Be still. Feel every second of what you don’t deserve. Feel it, you needy little whore.”
Your body doesn’t listen—can’t listen. The orgasm crashes through you anyway, ripping a broken cry from your throat as you clench and pulse around nothing. Your legs give out completely, only his grip on your throat keeping you upright against the glass as pleasure tears through you in waves you can’t control.
“Did I fucking say you could?” Hongjoong’s voice is ice.
Your vision blurs with tears—shame and oversensitivity and the cruel ache of cumming empty. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I couldn’t—”
“Pathetic.” He releases your throat and you crumple, legs buckling, but he catches you by the hips before you hit the floor.
Hongjoong peels you off the window by the back of your neck and walks you to the bed like he owns the hinge of every joint. The mattress hits the backs of your knees, he doesn’t guide you down so much as throw you, a bounce knocking a breathless sound out of you.
His hand cracks across your face—not hard enough to hurt, but sharp enough to snap your attention back to him. The sting blooms hot across your cheek, shocking you into stillness.
“Eyes on me,” he commands, voice low and dangerous. “Don’t you dare look away.”
He slaps you again—same cheek, harder this time—and the sound that rips from your throat is pure, shameless need. A moan, broken and desperate, that makes his eyes go dark.
“Fuck,” he breathes, almost reverent. His thumb traces the reddened skin, the heat of it blooming under his touch. “You like that, don’t you?”
Before you can answer, he slaps you again—lighter this time, almost playful—and watches your pupils blow wide. “Yeah,” he confirms, reading your body like a book he’s memorised. “You fucking love it.”
He’s on you a second later—knee between yours, shoving them wide—hands mean on your hips as he lines up and drives in with one brutal stroke that punches the air out of you.
“Quiet,” he snaps, palm clamping over your mouth. “Swallow it.”
Your moan dies behind his hand, trapped in your throat where it burns. No easing, no rhythm—just slam, slam, slam—his pelvis clapping your thighs, the headboard starting to complain in hard little knocks that match your pulse. The angle is obscene with your hips tipped; each drag feels like he’s stripping you to the studs and hammering you back together wrong. Every sound you want to make gets caught behind his palm, building pressure in your chest until you’re choking on your own desperation.
“Look at me,” he grits. You do—eyes glassy—and it only makes him rougher. Heat builds thick and fast in your belly again, that off‑the‑cliff drop, the ache and burn at your clit. The sounds are wet and humiliating and loud, but your moans stay trapped—swallowed down like he ordered, leaving only the whimpers that leak through your nose and the desperate way you’re breathing against his palm.
Hongjoong’s close—you can feel it in the way his breathing saws, in the vicious set of his mouth, in the way his rhythm goes intent and ugly, grinding at the end of each thrust like he’s carving his name into the spot that makes you see static. His hand stays firm over your mouth, forcing you to take it in silence, to keep every wrecked sound locked inside where only you can feel how thoroughly he’s breaking you apart. You catch the first stutter in his hips and reach for him without thinking, greedy, pleading.
“Don’t.” The word is a snarl. He stuffs you full and holds there, cock thick and pulsing inside you, then drags out slow enough to scrape sparks and snaps back in hard enough to jolt your spine. “You don’t deserve Daddy’s cum.”
The sentence lands like a slap. Heat spikes behind your eyes; your body clenches around him in panicked apology.
“Please—” you manage against his palm, the word muffled and desperate.
“You need to learn.” Another slam—deep, punishing—and the next rolls through you like thunder, heavy grind at the end that drags a high, torn sound from your throat.
Your hands scramble for purchase on his shoulders, nails digging in, but he catches both wrists in one hand and pins them above your head. His other hand finally leaves your mouth.
“Please,” you sob, shameless now. “Please fill me—please let me have it—I’ll hold it—I’ll be good—”
He laughs—short, cruel—breath burning your cheek. “Will you?” His hand slides to your throat, thumb under your jaw to tilt your face up so he can watch you fall apart. “Say it properly.”
“Please, Daddy,” you gasp, voice breaking on the word. “Please cum inside me. I need it. I need you. I’ll keep it. I’ll—” Your voice knifes up because he grinds just right and the lights stipple again. “Please—I’ll be useful—please—”
His control frays; you feel it in the nasty little shiver that runs through him, in the way he clamps your hip like it’s the only thing stopping him from painting you from the inside. He bares his teeth, eyes sharp and dark. “Beg better.”
“Please—use me properly—mark me from the inside—please, Daddy—”
“Mhm.” The sound is a threat and a promise. He slams you deeper, deeper, harder—headboard knocking time, breath brutal at your ear—then rips out at the last second and fists himself once, twice, the wet slick of you shining his length while you wail.
“No—no, please—" The words tumble out desperate and broken. You reach for him with shaking hands, shameless now, all pride dissolved. “Please fill me up—mark me—use me—” You’re babbling, hips canting up obscenely, trying to tempt him back.
His eyes darken as he watches you fall apart, a cruel smirk playing at his lips. “Look at you,” he breathes, voice dripping with condescension. “Begging like a bitch in heat.” His fist keeps working himself, slow and deliberate, making you watch every stroke.
Your thighs spread wider without him asking, presenting yourself like an offering. “Please cum in me—I'm begging—I'll do anything—” Tears stream down your face, your voice cracking. “Need to feel you—need Daddy’s cum so bad—please don’t waste it—please use my hole.”
“Shut the fuck up.” His voice is dead calm, which makes it worse. “You think you deserve Daddy’s cum?" He laughs—short, cruel. “No. You’re going to lie there empty and watch me waste it. Watch what you don’t get to have.” His eyes are vicious, mouth twisted. “Pathetic little cumslut can’t even follow simple fucking rules. Open your eyes wider. I want you to see every drop you’re not getting.”
“Please, Daddy,” you sob, voice breaking on every word. “Please use your cumslut—please fuck me —I’ll be so good—I’ll take everything—please.”
You look at him—eyes glassed, mouth open, body clenching on nothing—while he edges himself cruelly, letting every half-breath of relief flash and die on his face. He squeezes himself hard, strangling the tremor, and lets the edge bleed away while you sob beneath him, trembling empty and open.
His hand fists in your hair, “What are you?"
“A slut,” you whimper, shame burning through you.
“A what?” He pulls harder, making you gasp.
“A pathetic slut—Daddy’s pathetic slut—”
“That’s right.” He releases your hair with a shove, letting your head fall back against the mattress. “And you love it,” he continues, voice dark with satisfaction. “Love being Daddy’s desperate fucktoy. Love being used and degraded and filled up like the greedy whore you are.”
“Yes,” you sob, because it’s true, because you can’t deny it when your body is still trembling with need.
“Tell me what you are.”
“I’m Daddy’s greedy whore,” you gasp out, shame and arousal twisting together. “I’m a desperate cumslut—I’m pathetic—I need you—”
“Fucking right you do.”
Then he flips you onto your stomach before you can process it, one hand shoving between your shoulder blades to pin you flat. The sheets are hot against your cheek, your breath trapped in the mattress.
“Stay down," Hongjoong orders, voice low and mean behind you. You feel him shift, feel the mattress dip as he repositions, and then his hands are on your hips, dragging them up, arching your back until you’re presented exactly how he wants you. You’re face-down, ass up, completely exposed with no way to see what he’s doing, no way to brace for what comes next. Your fingers twist in the sheets.
“Daddy—” you start, voice muffled.
“No,” he cuts you off. “You don’t get to look at me. You don’t get to see if I’m close. You just take what I give you and be grateful.”
He lines up and shoves in without warning, the angle deeper like this, meaner. Your cry gets swallowed by the pillow as he sets a brutal pace, hips slamming against your ass with each thrust. The sound is obscene—skin on skin, the wet slide of him inside you—and you can’t see any of it, can only feel and hear and drown in it.
“You’re lucky Daddy loves your hole,” he growls, and the words hit like a brand. His hand comes down hard on your ass, the sharp crack echoing in the room. The sting blooms hot and immediate, and you whimper into the pillow.
“Lucky I don’t leave you empty and aching.” He punctuates it with another thrust, deeper, meaner, grinding at the end until you’re sobbing. “This greedy little cunt,” he mutters, almost to himself. “Always so desperate for me. Always begging so pretty.”
“Say it,” he demands. “Say you’re lucky.”
“I’m—I’m lucky,” you gasp out, voice wrecked and muffled. “I’m lucky Daddy loves my—”
“Louder.”
“I’m lucky Daddy loves my hole,” you sob, shame and arousal twisting together until you can’t tell them apart.
“That’s right.” His rhythm turns vicious, each thrust punching the words back into you. “Don’t you forget it.”
“Please, Daddy—please—I'll do anything—I'll be so good—please just fill me—please cum inside me—” You sob again, pushing back against him even though you know better, trying to take him deeper. His breath hitches and you chase it, sensing weakness.
His hand finds your clit immediately, two fingers pressing down with just enough pressure to make you jolt. “This what you needed?” he asks as he starts to rub tight, mean circles that have you gasping.
“Yes—fuck—yes, Daddy—” You can barely get the words out, your whole body arcing up into his touch. His fingers work your clit in ruthless little circles while he fucks into you, the dual sensation making your vision blur at the edges.
“Gonna make you cum on my cock this time,” he growls. “Gonna feel you squeeze me while you fall apart.” His fingers speed up, the pressure perfect and devastating, and you’re already so close you can taste it.
“Please—Daddy—I can't—” Your voice breaks, thighs shaking so hard you can barely hold yourself up. The pressure builds too fast, too much, coiling tight in your belly until it feels like something’s going to snap.
“You can,” he snarls, “You will. Show Daddy what a good little slut you are.”
The angle shifts just enough and suddenly you’re there again—past the point of holding back, past the point of control. Your orgasm slams through you with brutal force, and this time it’s different. Wetter. Your whole body locks up as you gush around him, soaking his cock, the sheets, making a mess you can’t stop even if you wanted to. The sound that rips from your throat is inhuman.
“Fuck—” Hongjoong chokes out, and his rhythm shatters. “Fuck—that’s it—” He feels you clenching and pulsing around him, feels the hot rush of your release, and it destroys him. Three more brutal thrusts and he’s gone, slamming deep and grinding as he finally, finally fills you. You feel every pulse, every throb as he empties himself inside you, his groan low and wrecked against your spine.
His hips stutter through the aftershocks, grinding shallow like he can’t bear to pull out yet. Your body is still twitching, still clenching around him in weak little aftershocks while his cum starts to leak out around where you’re joined. He stays buried deep, breathing hard against your shoulder blade.
“Good girl,” he finally murmurs, voice hoarse. “Such a good fucking girl for me.”
He doesn't pull out. Instead, his hips roll forward again, fucking his cum deeper into you, the obscene wet sound making you whimper. “One more,” he growls against your ear, his voice rough and commanding. “Give me one more.”
“Daddy—I can’t—” Your voice breaks, oversensitive and wrecked, every nerve ending screaming. It hurts—the drag of him inside you feels like fire, too much sensation on already brutalised nerves. You try to squirm away but his grip on your hips is iron.
“You can.” His hand slides back to your clit, fingers still slick, and starts those same ruthless circles. The first touch makes you sob—it’s too much, bordering on painful, your body trying to reject the stimulation. “You’re going to cum on my cock again with my cum inside you. Going to make a bigger mess.”
The sensation is overwhelming—too much, too sensitive—and it hurts. Each thrust feels like he’s grinding against raw nerves, the wet slide obscene and filthy but painful in its intensity. You can feel his cum leaking out around him, coating your thighs, but all you can focus on is how much your body is screaming at you to stop.
“Daddy—please—it hurts—” you sob, tears streaming down your face.
Hongjoong stills immediately. Completely. His fingers freeze on your clit, his hips lock in place, and the sudden absence of movement is almost jarring after the relentless intensity.
“Colour,” he demands, voice cutting through the haze with sharp clarity. “Give me your colour right now.”
You’re gasping, trying to process the question through the overwhelming sensations coursing through your body.
“Green,” you manage to choke out between sobs.
“Don't lie to me.”
“Green,” you repeat, more firmly this time despite how wrecked your voice sounds. “Promise—it's green—just hurts—overwhelming— don’t stop”
“I know,” he murmur gently, his hips moving again. “I know it hurts, baby. Just breathe through it.”
You try to obey, gasping for air, and somewhere in the burning oversensitivity, something shifts. The pain doesn’t disappear, but it starts to blur at the edges, transmuting into something else. Your body adjusts to the intensity, and suddenly the hurt starts to feel good—sharp and bright and desperate.
“Feel that?” he asks, grinding deep. “Feel how full you are? That’s all Daddy’s cum, and you’re going to squeeze it out when you cum again.”
“Please—” The word comes out broken because you don’t even know what you’re begging for anymore. His fingers work your clit with practiced cruelty, and the oversensitivity that was making you sob is suddenly driving you higher. You can feel it building again—impossibly, devastatingly—your wrecked body finding another peak despite everything.
“That’s it,” he encourages, voice dark with satisfaction. “Knew you could take it. Feel you getting close again. Such a greedy little thing. Can’t get enough of daddy’s cock, can you?”
“No—no, I can't—” you gasp, pushing back against him mindlessly. The pressure builds impossibly fast, sharp and brutal and bright now instead of painful. Every nerve that was screaming in protest is now singing, driving you toward the edge with vicious intent.
“Come on,” Hongjoong growls, his fingers pressing harder, circling faster. “Give it to me. Show Daddy what a mess you can make.” His cock grinds deep, hitting that devastating angle. “Cum on Daddy’s cock right fucking now.”
Your body obeys before your mind catches up, the orgasm ripping through you with devastating force. You clench around him so hard it hurts, your walls spasming and tightening in a vice grip. The sound you make is broken and desperate, somewhere between a scream and a sob.
“Fuck—” Hongjoong chokes out, his rhythm faltering. “Fuck—you’re so tight—” His voice breaks on the last word because you’re squeezing him so hard he can barely move, your body milking him with each brutal pulse. “Gonna make me—fuck—”
He doesn’t get to finish the sentence. Your cunt clamps down on him one more time and it destroys him completely. He slams deep with a guttural groan, grinding against you as he cums again, harder this time, filling you even fuller. You feel every throb, every pulse as he empties himself inside you for the second time, his whole body shuddering against your back.
“That's my good girl,” he gasps out, voice wrecked. “Making such a pretty mess for Daddy. So fucking tight—milked it right out of me.”
You gush again—harder this time, wetter—your body wringing itself out around him in pulsing waves while his cum floods you. The release is so intense it borders on violent, liquid heat flooding between your legs, soaking everything. You feel it run down your thighs, hear it drip onto the already-ruined sheets, and the humiliation of it only makes you clench harder, forcing more of his release to leak out around where you’re joined.
“There it is,” Hongjoong breathes, reverent and filthy at once. “So fucking messy for me.” His hips keep grinding shallow, working you both through it, forcing every last drop out while you shake and sob beneath him. “Such a good little squirter. Making Daddy so proud.”
Your whole body goes limp, muscles giving out completely. You collapse face-first into the mattress, boneless and used, trembling with aftershocks. Hongjoong finally stills, cock still buried deep, and lets his weight settle against your back. His breathing is ragged against your neck.
“Perfect,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your sweat-slick shoulder. “You did so fucking perfect, baby. Squeezed me so tight I couldn’t help it.”
You can’t move, can’t think, can barely breathe. The sheets beneath you are soaked—cum and your own release mixing in a cooling puddle. Hongjoong shifts slightly, cock still buried deep, and you whimper at the oversensitivity. You can feel how full you are, how much he’s filled you, and it leaks out in thick rivulets with even the smallest movement.
When he finally pulls out, the loss is immediate and devastating. You whine—high and broken—feeling unbearably empty after being so full. His cum starts to leak out in earnest now, thick and warm, dripping down your thighs in slow rivulets. The sensation makes you shudder.
“Shh,” Hongjoong soothes, his hand stroking down your spine. He shifts his weight, hands sliding under your shoulders as he carefully rolls you onto your back. Your body settles against the mattress, and you feel more of his cum leak out with the position change, thick and warm between your legs.
“There we go,” he murmurs, settling between your spread thighs. “Look how much Daddy filled you up. So much it can’t even stay inside.”
You whimper, hips twitching uselessly, body still trying to clench around nothing. The emptiness feels wrong after everything, like you’ve been carved hollow. More of his release spills out with each aftershock, and you can feel it cooling on your skin.
“So pretty like this,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “All fucked out and dripping. Made such a mess of you.” His thumb drags through the slickness, spreading it further, and you keen at the oversensitivity. “My perfect mess.”
You can’t form words, can only lie there trembling while he touches you with a gentleness that feels almost cruel after everything.
“Good girl,” he whispers, and the praise makes something warm bloom in your chest despite your exhaustion. Your body is wrecked, oversensitive, every nerve ending raw and singing. But when his fingers brush over your entrance again, gathering more of the mess he’s made, you find yourself pushing back into the touch despite the sensitivity.
“Oh?” Hongjoong’s voice lifts with surprise, his fingers stilling. His eyes darken as he watches you move against his hand—mindless, instinctive—seeking more despite everything. Despite being so thoroughly fucked out that coherent thought is impossible. “Still greedy for it, baby? Even with that pretty head all empty?”
You can't answer with words—don't even fully understand the question—but your body knows. Your hips roll weakly against his palm, chasing the touch with clumsy desperation. A soft whine spills from your lips, needy and thoughtless. Parts of you crave the continued touch. The emptiness feels worse than the sting.
“Greedy thing,” he murmurs, but there’s wonder in it now, not just teasing. His fingers slide through the mess again, more deliberately this time, and you whimper. “Even after I fucked you senseless. Even after you came so hard you soaked the sheets twice. You still want Daddy’s touch.”
“Puh—please,” you manage, the word barely forming through drool-slicked lips, voice completely destroyed and slurred beyond recognition.
Hongjoong’s expression shifts—something possessive and tender at once. “Okay, baby,” he soothes. “Daddy’s got you. Always got you.” His fingers circle your entrance gently now, gathering the cum that’s still leaking out and pushing it back inside with careful pressure. The sensation makes you gasp, oversensitive but good, filling that devastating emptiness just slightly.
“There,” he whispers. “Is that what you needed? To stay full?”
You nod frantically, pushing against his hand, and he obliges—two fingers sliding in deeper, keeping his release inside you. The stretch is almost too much on your abused walls, but it’s what you want. What you need.
“Such a good girl,” he praises softly. “Taking everything Daddy gives you and still asking for more.”
His fingers work slow and steady inside you, and something in your brain just... shuts off. The constant buzz of thoughts, the ability to form coherent words—it all dissolves into nothing but sensation. Your mouth falls open, soft moans spilling out with each gentle thrust of his fingers.
“There she goes,” Hongjoong murmurs, watching your expression go slack with satisfaction. “There’s my girl. Nothing left in that pretty head but how good Daddy makes you feel, huh?”
You can’t even nod properly, just a loose movement of your head, eyes unfocused and glassy. Another moan slips out, breathy and mindless. His fingers curl slightly and your hips twitch, but there’s no urgency to it—just your body responding on pure instinct while your mind floats somewhere far away.
“Look at you,” he says softly, almost reverent. “Fucked you so good you can’t even think anymore. Just my empty-headed baby now, aren’t you?”
“Mm,” is all you can manage, the sound quiet and blissed-out. Your eyes flutter, struggling to focus on his face. Everything feels distant and warm, your body heavy and pliant beneath his touch.
“That’s right,” Hongjoong coos, his free hand stroking your cheek. “Don’t need to think. Just need to feel. Just need to let Daddy take care of you.” His fingers maintain that slow, gentle rhythm, keeping you full, keeping you floating. “Such pretty sounds you’re making. Can’t even form words anymore, can you?”
You shake your head—barely—another soft moan falling from your parted lips. The oversensitivity has melted into something dreamlike, each movement of his fingers sending lazy waves of pleasure through your wrung-out body. There’s no edge to chase anymore, no building tension—just the mindless contentment of being touched, being full, being his.
“Perfect,” he whispers. “Absolutely perfect like this.”
His hand slides up from your hip, palm warm against your ribs as it travels higher. When he cups your breast, thumb brushing over your nipple, you keen—high and broken. The sensitivity is different here, less raw but somehow more direct, each touch shooting straight through you.
“So responsive,” Hongjoong murmurs, watching your face as he rolls your nipple between his fingers. Your back arches weakly, pushing into the touch despite your exhaustion. “Even here. Every part of you is so fucking sensitive for me.”
His fingers inside you curl slightly in time with the pinch of his other hand on your nipple, and the dual sensation makes your eyes roll back. Another mindless moan falls from your lips, your body responding without thought, without control.
“That’s it,” he coos, switching to your other breast, palm kneading gently before his fingers find that peaked bud. “Just feel it, baby. Don’t think. Just let Daddy play with you.” He tugs slightly and you whimper, hips twitching against the fingers still buried inside you. “So pretty when you make those sounds.”
His touch alternates between gentle and firm—thumbs circling your nipples, palms pressing against the soft weight of your breasts, fingers occasionally pinching just hard enough to make you gasp. Each touch keeps you floating in that mindless space, pleasure washing over you in slow, lazy waves.
“Could play with these all day,” he murmurs, dipping his head to press a kiss to the curve of your breast. “Watch you fall apart from just this.” His tongue flicks out, circling your nipple before his lips close around it, and you gasp—the wet heat of his mouth making everything sharper, more intense.
Hongjoong sucks gently, tongue working the sensitive bud while his fingers continue their slow rhythm inside you. Your hands find his hair, holding on weakly, not pulling—just needing something to anchor you. When he grazes his teeth across your nipple, your whole body jolts, a strangled sound escaping you.
“Good girl,” he whispers against your skin. “Taking everything so well. My perfect, empty-headed doll.”
Your thighs shake harder now, trembling under his attention, muscles twitching with aftershocks that won’t stop. Each suck of his mouth, each curl of his fingers inside you makes them quiver more violently, until you can’t keep them still even if you tried.
“Joong,” you whimper, his name barely coherent, your voice destroyed and small. His mouth releases your nipple with a wet pop, switching to the other side, and the attention makes your back arch off the mattress weakly. “Can’t—too much—”
“Shh, I know, baby,” he soothes, releasing your breast to press kisses along your sternum. His fingers slow inside you, gentling their rhythm as your thighs continue to tremble uncontrollably. “But you’re doing so well for me. Just a little more, okay? Let me take care of you.”
You nod weakly, unable to do anything but submit, your body no longer your own—just something for him to play with, to care for, to keep floating in this mindless space. Your thighs won’t stop shaking, trembling against his sides as he settles between them again, and you can feel more of his cum leaking out despite his fingers still working to keep it inside.
“One more, baby,” he whispers against your lips. “Give Daddy one more and then I’ll let you rest.”
You manage to look at him through heavy-lidded eyes, vision blurred and unfocused. It takes effort to keep them open, each blink longer than the last. His face swims above you, features soft and concerned, and you can barely make out the dark intensity of his gaze.
“There you are,” he murmurs, his free hand cupping your face, thumb stroking your cheekbone. “Stay with me, baby. Just a little more. Can you do that for Daddy?”
You try to nod, but your head feels impossibly heavy, movements sluggish and uncoordinated. Another weak sound escapes you as his fingers curl inside you, and your eyes threaten to slip closed.
“Eyes on me,” Hongjoong coaxes gently, tapping your cheek to keep you present. “Want to see you when you fall apart one more time. Need to watch my baby come undone.”
It takes everything you have to keep your gaze on him, eyelids fluttering with the effort. His fingers work inside you with deliberate care, coaxing your body toward that edge one more time despite your exhaustion.
“That’s my good girl,” he praises softly. “Keep those pretty eyes on me.” His thumb finds your clit, circling with barely-there pressure, and your mouth falls open on a silent cry. “Almost there, baby.”
His hand moves from your face to slide two fingers past your parted lips. The touch is unexpected, gentle but insistent as they press against your tongue. Your eyes widen slightly, trying to focus on him through the haze.
“Suck,” Hongjoong commands softly, his voice dropping lower. “Show Daddy how good that mouth can be.”
You obey automatically, lips closing around his fingers, tongue working weakly against them. The taste is clean, just skin and the faint salt of sweat, and something about the act—the fullness in your mouth matching the fullness between your legs—makes you whimper around his fingers.
“Pretty,” he murmurs, watching your lips wrap around his digits with dark satisfaction. “Such a perfect mouth. Takes everything I give you so well.” His fingers inside you curl harder and you moan around the ones in your mouth, the sound muffled and desperate.
He pushes them deeper, making you gag slightly, and your eyes water as you struggle to accommodate them. “Shh, relax,” he soothes, easing back just enough. “Just like taking my cock. You can do it.” The comparison makes you clench around his other hand, and he groans. “Feel that? Your body knows what it wants.”
His thumb on your clit presses firmer now, circling with intent, and you keen around his fingers. Drool starts to leak from the corners of your mouth as you struggle to keep sucking, your jaw slack and uncoordinated. Everything is too much—the stretch in your mouth, the fullness between your legs, the relentless pressure on your clit.
“So messy,” Hongjoong says with satisfaction, watching the spit drip down your chin. “Can’t even keep it together anymore, can you? Just my brainless little toy.” He pulls his fingers from your mouth with a wet sound, dragging the saliva down your neck, your chest, leaving a glistening trail. “Open.”
You obey without thought, mouth falling open, tongue out. He leans down and spits directly onto your tongue, the act filthy and possessive, and you moan at the degradation of it. “Swallow,” he commands, and you do, throat working visibly.
“Good fucking girl,” he praises darkly. His fingers push back into your mouth, pressing down on your tongue, keeping your mouth open and exposed.
Your hand moves without thought, fingers wrapping weakly around his wrist. You pull it down, guiding it to your throat, settling his palm against the vulnerable column of your neck. The request is silent but unmistakable.
Hongjoong’s eyes darken immediately, understanding flickering across his face. “Yeah?” he asks, voice dropping lower. “Want Daddy’s hand around your throat while he makes you come?”
You nod as much as you can with his hand there, a desperate whimper escaping you. His fingers curl around your neck—not squeezing yet, just holding, the weight of his palm a promise.
“Please,” you manage, the word barely a whisper, and that’s all he needs.
His hand tightens around your throat, pressure building slowly, controlled. Not enough to cut off your air completely—just enough to make each breath something you have to work for, something you have to earn. The restriction sends your body into overdrive, every nerve ending lighting up as his fingers inside you curl relentlessly and his thumb grinds against your clit.
“That’s it,” Hongjoong growls, watching your face flush darker as the oxygen thins. “Give it to me. Come for Daddy one more time.” His grip shifts slightly, thumb pressing against your pulse point, and he can feel your heartbeat racing beneath his palm. “Feel how hard your heart’s pounding for me? Your body knows who it belongs to.”
Your vision starts to blur at the edges, stars dancing across your sight as the pleasure builds impossibly higher. His fingers don’t let up, working you with practiced precision, and you’re teetering right on that edge—desperate for release but unable to tip over without his permission.
“So fucking beautiful like this,” he murmurs, voice rough with awe and desire. “Completely at my mercy. Taking everything I give you so perfectly.” His hand loosens slightly, letting oxygen rush back in, and the sudden clarity makes everything sharper. “You'’re doing so well, baby. So good for Daddy. Just let go—I’ve got you.”
The praise combined with the pressure returning to your throat is what breaks you. The orgasm hits different this time—slower, deeper, rolling through you like a wave pulling you under. Your mouth opens on a silent scream, no sound escaping with his hand locked around your throat, and the deprivation makes everything more intense.
“Perfect,” Hongjoong breathes, watching you fall apart beneath him. “That’s my perfect girl. Look at you—so beautiful when you come for me. Did so fucking well, baby.” His hand stays firm on your throat through every wave, controlling even this, drawing it out until you’re shaking uncontrollably.
When he finally releases your throat, you don’t even gasp for air. Your body just goes limp, every muscle surrendering at once. Your eyes slip closed despite trying to keep them on him, and the last thing you register is his voice—distant, concerned—calling your name.
“Baby? Hey—” Hongjoong’s hand immediately cups your face, patting your cheek gently. Your head lolls to the side, body completely unresponsive. You’re still breathing—he can see your chest rising and falling—but you’re utterly gone, consciousness slipping away into the exhaustion he’s wrung from you.
“Fuck,” he mutters, but there’s no panic in it. Just concern mixed with something like awe. He carefully withdraws his fingers from inside you, and you don’t even twitch at the loss. More cum leaks out onto the sheets, but you’re too far gone to notice or care.
He shifts immediately into caretaker mode, moving with practiced efficiency. His hand stays on your face, thumb stroking your cheekbone as he checks you over. Your pulse is steady under his fingers when he presses them to your throat—the same throat he was just restricting. Your breathing evens out into something deeper, more peaceful.
“Did so good,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Too good. Gave me everything.” There’s pride in his voice, but also guilt—he pushed you right to your absolute limit and over it.
He stays close, watching the slow rise and fall of your chest, making sure you’re really okay. After a moment, he tries again, voice soft but insistent. “Hey. Baby, come on.” His hand cups your jaw, thumb brushing across your cheek. “Need you to wake up for me.”
You don’t respond, body still limp and unmoving. He sighs, shifting to sit beside you, one hand sliding to your shoulder to shake you gently. “Can’t let you sleep yet. We need to get you cleaned up first.”
Still nothing. Your breathing stays deep and even, completely out of it. Hongjoong’s expression softens, guilt flickering across his features again. He really wore you out this time.
“Okay,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way.” He slides one arm under your shoulders, the other beneath your knees, lifting you carefully against his chest. Your head lolls against his shoulder, body pliant and unresisting.
He carries you toward the bathroom, your weight comfortable in his arms. “You’re going to be so mad at me later if I let you sleep like this,” he says quietly, nudging the bathroom door open with his foot. “All sticky and messy. You’ll complain for days.”
He sets you down carefully on the edge of the tub, one hand staying on your shoulder to keep you upright while he reaches for the faucet. Your head tips forward, chin nearly touching your chest, and he has to catch you before you slump completely.
“Baby,” he tries again, patting your cheek a bit more firmly. “Come on. Just need you awake enough for a bath. I’ll do everything else.” The water starts running, warm steam beginning to fill the small space as he tests the temperature.
Your eyelids flutter—barely, but it’s something. A soft, incoherent sound escapes you, and Hongjoong takes it as a victory.
“There you are,” he encourages, both hands cupping your face now, lifting your head. “Let’s get you in, okay?” He helps you into the tub, supporting your weight as he eases you down into the warm water. The heat envelops you immediately, and you let out a small, contented sigh.
He kneels beside the tub, one hand still steadying you, about to reach for the washcloth when your fingers weakly grasp at his wrist.
“With you,” you mumble, eyes still closed, the words barely coherent but unmistakable.
Hongjoong’s expression softens immediately, a quiet laugh escaping him. “Yeah? Want me to get in with you?” He doesn’t wait for another response—just climbs into the tub behind you, pulling you back against his chest. His arms wrap around you, steadying you in the water, and you let out a small, satisfied hum as you melt into his warmth.
“Stay still,” he murmurs against your skin, voice soft and gentle—so different from how he sounded minutes ago. His lips press to your shoulder, kissing over the marks he left there. Some are already darkening into bruises, others are just faint impressions of his teeth. He maps each one with careful attention, like he’s cataloging the evidence of what he did to you.
You lean back into him, boneless and pliant, letting him support your weight completely. The warm water laps around you both as he reaches for the washcloth, soaping it up with one hand while the other stays wrapped around your waist.
“You’re going to be so sore tomorrow,” he says quietly, dragging the cloth along your arms with gentle strokes. His lips find the curve of your neck, pressing soft kisses to the red marks his hand left on your throat. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“Don’t be,” you mumble, the words thick and drowsy. “Wanted it.”
He makes a soft sound—half laugh, half sigh—and kisses the bruise at the junction of your neck and shoulder, the one from his teeth. “I know you did. Doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you after.” The washcloth moves to your chest, your stomach, washing away the sweat and evidence of everything that happened.
His other hand comes up to tilt your head to the side, giving him better access to your neck. He kisses every mark there too, lips tender against the sensitive skin. “So pretty,” he whispers. “Even covered in bruises. Especially covered in bruises.”
You hum contentedly, eyes still closed, completely surrendered to his care. His hands are so gentle now—washing you clean, touching you like something precious. The contrast makes your chest ache in the best way.
“I love you,” you murmur, barely audible.
Hongjoong's hands still for just a moment before continuing their careful work. “I love you too,” he says against your shoulder, punctuating it with another kiss. “So much. Even when I’m mean to you.”
Especially when he’s mean to you, maybe—but that’s something you both understand without saying.
He brings the cloth to your inner thighs, cleaning away the evidence of your releases, his movements are especially gentle, aware of how sensitive you must be.
“Almost done,” he murmurs, pressing another kiss to your shoulder. The washcloth moves down your legs, over your calves, taking his time to make sure he’s gotten everything. You feel yourself drifting again, lulled by the warmth of the water and his tender care.
When he’s finished, he sets the washcloth aside and just holds you for a moment, his arms wrapped securely around your waist. You can feel his heartbeat against your back, steady and reassuring.
Something stirs in your chest—gratitude, affection, love.
With effort, you turn your head slightly, just enough to press your lips to his cheek. It’s a soft kiss, lazy and uncoordinated, but full of feeling.
Hongjoong goes still, then lets out a breath that sounds almost like relief. His arms tighten around you, pulling you closer against him. “What was that for?” he asks quietly, though there’s a smile in his voice.
“Thank you.”
His hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, turning to press his own kiss to your temple. “Don’t thank me for taking care of you,” he says softly. “That’s my job. Especially after I’ve wrecked you like that.” But his voice is warm, fond, and you can hear how much your simple gesture affected him.
You shift in his arms, turning more fully despite the exhaustion weighing down your limbs. The movement sends water sloshing gently against the sides of the tub, but Hongjoong adjusts easily, his hands sliding to your waist to help stabilise you as you face him.
His eyes meet yours—dark and searching, still carrying traces of the intensity from before but softened now with concern and affection. You lift one hand, fingers trembling slightly as they trace the line of his jaw, then cup his cheek.
“Hey,” he whispers, his own hand coming up to cover yours against his face. “You okay?”
Instead of answering, you lean in and kiss him. It’s slow and deep, nothing like the desperate, hungry kisses from earlier. This one is grateful, reverent—a thank you and an I love you and an I trust you all wrapped into one. Your lips move against his with deliberate tenderness, and you feel him sigh into it, his body relaxing as he kisses you back with equal softness.
His arms wrap around you properly now, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of your head while the other stays secure at your waist. He angles his head to deepen the kiss just slightly, still gentle but more present, more him. When you finally pull back, it’s only enough to rest your forehead against his, both of you breathing the same air.
You catch the softness in his expression—the way he’s looking at you like you’re something precious—and a small, teasing smile tugs at your lips despite your exhaustion. Your fingers trace lazy patterns on his chest.
“You know,” you murmur, voice still thick with exhaustion but laced with amusement, “for someone who just fucked me unconscious, you’re being awfully soft right now. What happened to the mean Joong from like ten minutes ago?”
Hongjoong’s eyes narrow slightly, though there’s a smile tugging at his lips. “Are you complaining?”
“No,” you say, still trailing your fingers down his chest lazily. “You’re just being so sweet.”
His eyes narrow slightly, though there’s amusement flickering in them. “You want him back? Because I can arrange that.”
“Mm, no,” you hum, leaning in to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I like this version too. All gentle and worried about me.” Your smile turns a little wicked. “It’s cute.”
“Cute,” he repeats flatly, though you can see the way his lips twitch like he’s fighting a smile.
“Very cute,” you confirm, your fingers walking up his chest to tap against his collarbone. “Taking care of me, kissing all the marks you left, being so—” You pause, pretending to search for the word. “—domestic.”
Hongjoong’s hand slides up to catch your wrist, his grip firm but not rough. “You’re lucky you can barely move right now,” he says, voice low, “or I’d remind you exactly how un-cute I can be.”
You laugh—soft and breathless—and let yourself collapse back against his chest. “See? Cute. You’re threatening me while holding me in a bubble bath.”
He groans, but his arms wrap around you again, pulling you close. “You’re impossible,” he mutters against your hair, but there’s no heat in it. Just fondness, and maybe a little exasperation. His hand strokes down your back in slow, soothing motions. “Rest. You’ve earned the right to be a brat for a few minutes.”
“Only a few minutes?” you tease, already feeling yourself starting to drift again.
“We’ll see how long my patience lasts,” he replies, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. But his tone is warm, and you know he’s not actually annoyed. If anything, he sounds relieved that you’re coherent enough to give him a hard time.
You shift again, the water rippling around you as you turn to face him fully. His hair is damp, some strands clinging to his forehead, others pushed back haphazardly. His eyes are dark and deep, watching you with that same careful attention he always has, like you’re the only thing that matters.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he murmurs, close enough that your breaths mix. His thumb strokes your cheek like he’s checking you’re really here.
“Like what?” you ask while your fingers starts tracing idle circles on his chest.
His gaze narrows, suspicious. “Like you’re about to start something.”
You tilt your head, considering him with exaggerated seriousness. “Maybe I am.”
A quiet, disbelieving laugh slips out of him. “You can barely keep your eyes open.”
“And yet,” you say, letting your fingers trace his jaw again, feather-light, “you’re still watching me like you’re trying to figure out what I’m thinking.”
His hand closes around your wrist—not tight, not controlling. Just there. Grounding. Possessive in a way that doesn’t hurt.
“I don’t have to figure it out,” he says. “I know you.”
“Oh?” You lean in, just enough to brush your mouth against the corner of his—almost a kiss. Almost. You stop a heartbeat short, letting him feel the tease in the pause. “Then tell me.”
His eyes drop to your lips. “Don’t get cocky,” he warns, but the warning sounds thin, like it’s already losing.
You hum, pretending to think about it. “I’m not cocky.”
He gives you a look that says liar.
You meet it without flinching. “I’m just… curious.”
“About what?” he asks, voice low.
You press a soft kiss to his cheek, then his jaw, then the place under his ear where you know it makes him go quiet. You feel his breath hitch, and it makes you brave.
“About how long it takes,” you murmur against his skin, “before you stop being sweet and start being mean again.”
He exhales a laugh—one of those quiet ones that means he’s trying not to show how much you got to him. His hand slides to the back of your neck, thumb brushing your pulse. “You’re teasing me,” he says.
You blink slowly, innocent on purpose. “Am I?”
He leans in, close enough that his nose brushes yours. “You should rest.”
You let your smile widen, just a little. “Make me.”
His gaze drops, then returns to your eyes, darker now. “Careful.”
You press a final kiss to his lips—soft, brief, unhurried—then pull back before he can deepen it.
“Or what?” you whisper.
He looks at you for a long second, like he’s deciding how honest to be. Then he tucks you closer, forehead to yours, and his voice goes quieter.
“Or I’m going to stop pretending I’m patient.”
You sigh like you’re satisfied with that answer, and let your eyes fall closed, still smiling.
“Mm,” you hum. “There you are.”
His jaw ticks. You feel it more than see it—the subtle shift in his expression that says you’re walking a line.
“You’re pushing,” he says quietly.
“Am I?” you ask again, tone dripping with false innocence. Your fingers trail down his chest, nails dragging just lightly enough to make him inhale sharp. “I’m just sitting here. Being good.”
“You don’t know how to be good,” he mutters, but there’s heat creeping into his voice now, the kind that makes your pulse kick up.
You tilt your head, letting your smile turn sharper. “That’s not true. I was very good earlier. You said so yourself.”
His hand tightens on your waist—just enough to make you aware of it. “That was different.”
“How?” you challenge, leaning in until your lips brush his ear. “Because you were in charge?”
Hongjoong goes still. Dangerously still. The kind of stillness that means you’ve officially gotten under his skin.
“Baby,” he says, voice dropping into that low register that usually makes you shut up and listen. But right now, it just makes you bolder.
“What?” you ask sweetly, pulling back to look at him with wide, innocent eyes. “I’m just asking questions.”
His thumb presses into your hip—not hard, but deliberate. A warning. “You’re being a brat.”
“Me?” You press a hand to your chest in mock offence. “I would never.”
“Liar,” he says flatly.
You bite your lip to keep from grinning too wide. “Prove it.”
His eyes flash. “You really want to do this right now?”
“Do what?” you ask, all fake confusion as your fingers walk up his chest again, tracing the line of his collarbone. “I’m just sitting here in this nice bath you drew for me, being so grateful—”
“—being a pain in my ass,” he interrupts, but there’s a crack in his composure now. You can see it in the way his gaze drops to your mouth, then back up. In the way his grip on you shifts, like he’s deciding whether to pull you closer or push you away.
You lean in, close enough that your breath ghosts over his lips. “You love it,” you whisper.
He stares at you for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then, slowly, deliberately, he smiles—and it’s not the soft, fond smile. It’s the dangerous one. The one that means you’ve successfully woken up the version of him that doesn’t play nice.
“Okay,” he says simply. His hand slides up to cup your jaw, thumb brushing your bottom lip. “You want to be a brat? Go ahead. But don’t complain when I remind you what happens to brats who push too far.”
Your stomach flips—half anticipation, half genuine thrill. You should probably back down now. You’re exhausted, barely recovered, and you know he’s serious.
But instead, you smile back at him, just as sharp. “Promises, promises.”
His eyes narrow. “Last chance.”
You press a quick, teasing kiss to his lips—there and gone. “Make me stop.”
He exhales slowly through his nose, like he’s physically restraining himself. “You’re going to regret this.”
“Maybe,” you say, trailing your fingers down his chest again, slower this time. “But that sounds like a future me problem.”
Hongjoong’s eyes sharpen. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” you ask, innocent as a knife. “Use your words.”
His jaw ticks. For a second you can see the exact moment his patience runs out.
Then he moves.
His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, grip firm enough to make your breath catch. “You want me to use my words?” he says, voice dropping low and dangerous. “Fine. Stop teasing me before I forget I was trying to be gentle with you.”
You roll your eyes at him, the gesture slow and deliberate—practically daring him to do something about it.
His grip tightens fractionally. “Did you just—”
“What?” you interrupt, blinking up at him with exaggerated innocence. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You rolled your eyes at me.”
“Did I?” You tilt your head, playing dumb.
Hongjoong’s stare lingers, heavy and unimpressed, like he’s deciding how much patience you’re allowed to borrow before he takes it back with interest.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, almost thoughtful. “You did.”
Before you can respond, he shifts—slow, deliberate—until you’re pressed back against the edge of the tub, his body caging yours.
He kisses you then—deep and consuming, the kind that steals the air from your lungs and replaces it with heat. His hand tightens at the back of your neck, holding you, and you can’t do anything but take it. His mouth moves against yours like he’s proving a point, like he’s reminding you who’s in control here, and it works. God, it works.
When he finally pulls back, your eyes are half-closed, breath coming in short, uneven gasps. You feel dazed, unsteady, like the world tilted and forgot to right itself.
He’s watching you, and there’s that smirk—slow, satisfied, dangerous. “Is this what you wanted?” he asks, voice low and rough.
You nod, still catching your breath, unable to form words yet.
His smirk deepens. “Yeah,” he murmurs, thumb brushing your swollen bottom lip. “That’s what I thought.”
Y/N never expected a mysterious door to pull her into a Grimm fairytale. After nearly drowning in a raging river, she witnesses a maid stealing a princess's identity through dark magic and is cursed into silence before she can expose the truth.
Now trapped in a kingdom that isn't hers, Y/N must navigate court intrigue, a stolen crown, an increasingly suspicious Crown Prince Jongho, and growing feelings that are determined to go terribly wrong.
Pairing: Jongho x Reader
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Dark Fairytale, Royal AU
Tropes: Goose Girl Retelling, Slow Burn, Grumpy Prince x Feisty Heroine, Hidden Identity, Curse of Silence, Banter, Court Intrigue, Portal Fantasy, Stolen Crown, Forced Proximity, "She Knows The Truth"
Fairytale Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Jonghos Masterlist
To read the other members Fairytale Retellings go to the Fairytale Masterlist
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
This is Part 2
Jongho had expected silence.
Not the pleasant kind. Not the peaceful kind that settled over libraries in the late hours or over snowfields before dawn. He had expected the practiced silence of a princess raised for diplomacy. The kind of silence that knew when to lower its eyes, when to answer softly, when to allow men twice her age to believe they had led a conversation they had merely been permitted to finish.
That was what the reports had told him.
Princess Liora of Valterre was timid.
Soft-spoken. Gentle to the point of impracticality.
She preferred horses to court. Music to debate. Solitude to ceremony. She disliked crowds and wrote long letters to her father instead of speaking freely in council. She was not considered stupid, exactly, but sheltered. Young. Malleable.
That word had appeared in three separate reports.
Jongho had disliked it each time.
Malleable was what old men called women they believed could be bent without resistance.
He had prepared himself for a frightened girl arriving at his gates because two kingdoms had decided peace required her hand. He had not looked forward to it. Marriage, to him, was not a romance. It was a treaty in silk. A document given breath and expected to smile for the benefit of nobles who mistook ceremony for stability.
Still, he had intended to be kind.
Not warm, perhaps. He had never been especially skilled at warm.
But kind.
He had intended to give her distance. Space. Safety where the court would offer only scrutiny.
Then the princess of Valterre arrived.
And within half a minute, Jongho knew something was wrong.
She stood beside him now inside the entrance hall, dripping rainwater onto ancient stone and smiling at every person as if weighing their usefulness.
Not timid. Not shy. Not quiet.
She spoke too loudly.
Not in volume alone, though that was noticeable. Her voice rang through the hall with the confidence of someone determined to fill every space before anyone else could occupy it. She thanked servants without looking at them. She accepted greetings from nobles with a smile polished to brilliance and empty beneath it.
She commented on the weather.
On the road. On how unfortunate it was that border routes remained so poorly maintained when marriages of international importance depended on them.
That, especially, made Jongho’s jaw tighten.
She had not been inside his castle for ten minutes and already she had criticized his roads.
Politely, of course. Always politely.
“My father warned me the northern passes were difficult,” she said, resting one gloved hand lightly over her chest as one of the chamberlains bowed. “But I confess I had not imagined they were quite so neglected.”
Jongho turned his head slightly. “Did he?”
Her smile flickered. Only for a breath. “Yes. Though naturally I am grateful to have arrived safely.”
“Naturally.”
Her gaze lingered on him a moment longer than necessary.
She wanted reassurance. Perhaps admiration.
At the very least, engagement.
Jongho gave her nothing.
The reports had said she would struggle to meet his eyes. This woman held his gaze like a challenge.
Not from courage. From calculation.
He had known too many courtiers like that. Men and women who entered rooms already deciding who deserved flattery, who deserved pressure, who could be ignored, who could be used. They carried ambition beneath their tongues and perfume behind their ears. They laughed before kings finished speaking. They cried only when witnesses stood near enough to be persuaded.
Princess Liora of Valterre, if this was truly her, smelled of ambition.
Jongho hated ambition when it wore innocence as a veil. He watched her turn toward one of the older ladies of his court.
“How kind of you to receive me despite the delay. The storm made beasts of the roads. One of my servants frightened the horses near the river and caused nearly half the trouble.”
Servants.
His gaze moved before he could stop it.
Across the courtyard beyond the open hall doors, the arriving party continued to rearrange itself. Wagons were guided toward the lower stables. Guards dismounted. Servants carried trunks, rolled carpets, travel chests and damp bundles of cloth.
And there she was. The woman from the courtyard.
The one who had looked at him for all of two seconds and asked, very clearly and with bewildering sincerity, who had shit in his bed.
Jongho felt the memory threaten the corner of his mouth again.
She stood near the edge of the procession in borrowed servant’s wool that fit badly across her shoulders. Her hair was still damp, drying in uneven waves around her face. Mud marked the hem of her dress and one side of her jaw, though she did not seem aware of it. She had wrapped her cloak around herself with the defensive posture of someone both cold and irritated by the fact.
Wooyoung stood beside her. Talking, of course.
Wooyoung had a talent for turning air into conversation even when nobody had given him permission to breathe.
The woman looked at him. Then rolled her eyes.
Jongho looked away before his expression betrayed him.
She did not look like a servant used to court. She did not look like a noble pretending humility either. She stood wrong for both. Too straight in some moments, too careless in others. She did not lower her gaze enough, but not because she was arrogant. More because she seemed to forget she was supposed to.
And when she did remember, irritation crossed her face before caution buried it.
That was interesting.
Dangerous, probably. But interesting.
Beside him, the supposed princess continued speaking.
“I must apologize again for the state of my household upon arrival. Travel reveals character, does it not? Some servants prove loyal. Others prove careless.”
Jongho returned his attention to her. “Does it?”
Her smile sharpened slightly. “Oh, surely Your Highness agrees. People show themselves under pressure.”
Yes, he thought.
They did.
That was the problem. This woman was showing herself far too quickly.
A true sheltered princess, one sent across the border to marry a stranger for peace, should have been exhausted. Afraid, perhaps. Proud enough to hide it, but not untouched by it. She should have asked first after privacy, warmth, the safety of her remaining attendants.
Instead, she was performing. And not even subtly enough to flatter him.
“My staff will see you to your rooms,” he said.
Her expression froze almost imperceptibly.
She had wanted him to escort her. Perhaps she expected it.
That alone irritated him.
“I had hoped,” she said, lowering her voice into something softer, “that we might speak privately before the formalities begin. After such a difficult journey, it would comfort me to know the man I am to marry.”
The sentence was well chosen.
A lesser man might have felt cruel refusing it.
Jongho did not. “You will have time to rest first.”
Something passed through her eyes. Annoyance.
“Of course,” she said, recovering smoothly. “How thoughtful.”
He inclined his head, enough for dismissal.
A servant approached to guide her toward the guest wing. The princess hesitated for one final moment, then turned away with a graceful sweep of stolen blue velvet.
Jongho watched her go.
A few paces behind, another servant girl walked with lowered head.
Gray wool. Pale hair. Mud at the hem of her skirt.
Something about her posture pulled at his attention. Not because she looked suspicious. Because she looked broken in a way that did not suit a careless servant who had merely frightened horses.
Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her. Too tightly.
Like she was holding herself together by force.
The river woman looked at her as the girl passed.
Her eyes followed her with something fierce and protective, barely hidden beneath exhaustion.
Jongho noticed that too.
He noticed the way the princess did not look back at either of them.
The moment the guests were taken from the hall, Jongho turned.
“Council room.”
The chamberlain bowed. “Your Highness, your advisors are already gathered in your work room.”
“Then they are impatient.”
The chamberlain wisely did not answer.
Jongho walked through the eastern corridor, away from the noise of arrival. The castle seemed to exhale around him as he left the ceremonial spaces behind. Stone floors gave way to darker wood. Tapestries thickened along the walls, muffling footsteps and voices. Rain struck the high windows in steady lines.
He did not hurry. Hurrying suggested uncertainty.
Still, by the time he reached his work room, irritation had settled beneath his ribs like a blade laid carefully on a table.
The advisors were waiting.
Not all of them were technically advisors in the formal sense. Some were ministers. Some military commanders. Some childhood companions who had grown into positions of influence because Jongho trusted them more than the polished men his father’s generation had left behind.
Hongjoong stood near the map table with his arms folded, sharp-eyed and already suspicious simply because suspicion was his natural state. Seonghwa sat by the window, composed and elegant, fingers resting around an untouched cup of tea. Yunho leaned against the bookcase, too tall to look casual despite his attempt. Yeosang occupied the chair nearest the fire, quiet enough to be mistaken for decoration by anyone foolish. San paced near the hearth like a caged wolf. Mingi had claimed the largest chair and still looked too large for it, one elbow propped on the armrest, gaze calm but attentive.
Only Wooyoung was missing.
Jongho entered and conversation stopped.
Hongjoong looked first at Jongho’s face, then at the door behind him. “Where is Wooyoung?”
“Enjoying himself too much.”
San snorted. “That means he found trouble.”
“That usually means he became trouble,” Yeosang murmured.
Jongho moved to his desk but did not sit. “Princess Liora has arrived.”
The room shifted.
“And?” Hongjoong asked.
Jongho looked toward the rain-dark window. “The reports were inaccurate.”
Seonghwa’s brows lifted slightly. “In what way?”
“In every useful way.”
Mingi leaned forward. “That bad?”
“That wrong.”
A knock came before anyone could ask more. Then Wooyoung entered without waiting for permission.
He was grinning.
Jongho stared at him.
Wooyoung bowed with outrageous elegance. “Your Highness.”
“You are late.”
“I was gathering information.”
“You were flirting.”
“For information.”
San groaned. “We are doomed.”
Wooyoung closed the door behind him and crossed the room with the satisfied air of a man carrying a secret he intended to unwrap slowly.
Hongjoong narrowed his eyes. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“Because the road was fascinating.”
Jongho finally sat. “Speak.”
Wooyoung’s grin widened. “Where would you like me to start? With the princess who might not be the princess? The servant who looks at her like someone died? Or the girl from the river who insulted you before she knew your name?”
The room went silent.
Jongho’s gaze sharpened at Wooyoung .
Seonghwa set his cup down. San stopped pacing.
Yunho blinked. “She what?”
Wooyoung turned toward the room with visible delight. “Oh, you should have been there.”
Jongho said nothing. That was usually enough to make wiser men continue.
Wooyoung, unfortunately, had never placed enough value on wisdom.
He drew out the silence for another second. Then said, “A soaked servant girl, newly dragged from disaster, looked at our beloved crown prince at the castle gate and said, with remarkable emotional sincerity, ‘Who shit in his bed?’”
For one beat, no one moved.
Then San laughed. Loudly.
Mingi covered his mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking.
Yunho looked caught between horror and amusement.
Seonghwa closed his eyes as if requesting patience from a merciful god.
Hongjoong stared at Wooyoung. “You are joking.”
“I am not.”
Yeosang’s mouth twitched. “Was she executed?”
Jongho leaned back slightly. “Obviously not.”
San grinned at him. “Did you smile?”
“No.”
Wooyoung pointed at him. “He almost did.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did. A small one. Tiny. Like a secret trying to escape its prison.”
Jongho looked at him.
Wooyoung lowered his hand, still smiling.
“Moving on.”
“Please do,” Hongjoong said dryly.
Wooyoung settled into a chair without invitation. “I joined the Valterre procession near the border as planned. Officially, as a guard assigned by our outpost. Unofficially, to observe the princess before she entered our walls.”
Everyone already knew this.
Jongho did not interrupt.
“At first,” Wooyoung continued, “she matched the reports.”
Jongho stilled.
Wooyoung’s expression changed. The grin faded somewhat, though not entirely.
“She was quiet. Kept her hood low. Did not speak unless spoken to. Stayed mostly near her horse. The white one.”
“Falada,” Jongho said.
Wooyoung nodded. “Yes. Hard to miss. That animal hates everyone except the girls nobody important is watching.”
Hongjoong frowned. “Explain.”
“I will.” Wooyoung leaned forward. “At the beginning, Princess Liora seemed exactly as described. Timid. Tired. Soft. She avoided attention and let her maid handle almost everything.”
“Her maid,” Seonghwa repeated.
“Odette.”
Jongho watched him carefully.
Wooyoung noticed. “She was different from the start. Too comfortable. Too aware of the guards, the route, the supplies, the weak points in the group. At first I assumed she was simply competent. Some attendants are. Then we stopped near the river because of the storm.”
The rain hit the windows harder.
No one spoke.
Wooyoung continued. “Something happened there.”
“What?” San asked.
Wooyoung’s mouth thinned. “That is the interesting part. I do not know.”
Hongjoong’s eyes narrowed. “You were there.”
“I was with the rear wagons when the white horse bolted. By the time I reached the river path, the storm had made chaos of everything. Guards were confused. Servants were crying. One carriage was nearly overturned. And there was a girl on the bank who had not been there before.”
“The river girl,” Yunho said.
Wooyoung nodded. “Y/N.”
Jongho absorbed the name silently.
Y/N.
It suited her strangely.
Short. Direct. Unadorned.
Wooyoung’s gaze flicked toward him. Of course he noticed.
“The official story,” Wooyoung went on, “is that she fell into the river and was found half drowned. Which, judging from the state of her, I believe. Her clothes were unlike anything I have seen. Not Valterran. Not Astravian. Not from any court I know.”
“Foreign?” Mingi asked.
“Farther than foreign, if I had to guess.”
Yeosang tilted his head. “What does that mean?”
“It means she looked like she had been pulled out of a story that did not know where to place her.”
That silenced the room again.
Wooyoung rarely spoke so plainly when humor would do.
Jongho tapped one finger once against the arm of his chair. “And the princess?”
Wooyoung exhaled slowly. “That is where things become strange.”
“Stranger than mysterious river girl?” San asked.
“Yes.”
San nodded. “Excellent.”
Wooyoung ignored him. “Before the river incident, Princess Liora was timid. After it, she made a complete turn. Suddenly she was commanding. Loud. Comfortable giving orders. Her posture changed. Her speech changed. She looked directly at everyone.”
“That can happen under stress,” Seonghwa said, though he did not sound convinced.
“It can,” Wooyoung agreed. “But servants also changed around her.”
Hongjoong leaned forward. “How?”
“They behaved as though they were remembering and forgetting at the same time.”
Jongho’s gaze sharpened.
Wooyoung held it. “I know how that sounds.”
“Say it anyway,” Jongho ordered.
Wooyoung nodded. “The guards accepted her authority, but some seemed dazed when doing so. One called her Your Highness, then looked confused afterward, as if surprised by his own mouth. Another stared at the pale servant girl for several seconds like he knew he should recognize her, then turned away in visible discomfort.”
“The pale servant,” Jongho said.
“Liora’s alleged maid.” Wooyoung paused. “Though I would not wager much on alleged.”
Seonghwa’s expression had gone still.
Hongjoong crossed his arms tighter. “You believe the servant is the princess.”
“I believe something happened near the river that altered the roles within the party.”
Mingi sat up slowly. “Magic?”
No one laughed.
Magic was not common in Astravia. But old things did not disappear simply because courts found them inconvenient.
Jongho looked toward the fire. It burned low and steady, gold light licking over the carved edges of the mantel.
“Odette,” he said.
Wooyoung nodded. “The maid who became very timid, but was very commanding before the river.”
“And Y/N saw something.”
Wooyoung smiled again, slower this time. “You like her.”
Jongho looked at him. “You think I am interested in her because she insulted me.”
“I think you are interested in her because she insulted you and then looked at you like she was trying to decide whether you were another problem or a possible weapon.”
San laughed under his breath. “I like her already.”
“You have not met her,” Seonghwa said.
“I like her conceptually.”
Jongho ignored them. “What did she tell you?”
Wooyoung’s grin returned fully. “An extraordinary story.”
“Wooyoung.”
“All right.” He lifted both hands. “She said she came through a magical door on a bridge in another world, fell into the river, nearly drowned, crawled onto the bank, saw something she wasn’t supposed to, and was cursed so she could not tell anyone about it.”
Silence.
Then Yeosang said quietly, “That is oddly specific.”
“Exactly,” Wooyoung said, pointing at him. “Too specific for a lie told in panic.”
Hongjoong looked unconvinced. “Or too absurd for anyone to believe, which makes it safe to say.”
Wooyoung shrugged. “I laughed.”
Jongho’s eyes shifted to him.
Wooyoung winced slightly. “I thought she was joking.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
That answer settled heavily.
Jongho leaned forward. “How do you know?”
“Because when she later tried to say more in the courtyard, she stopped.” Wooyoung’s expression lost its humor again. “Not hesitated. Not reconsidered. Stopped. Like the word died in her throat.”
Jongho remembered. Liora had mentioned pity.
The river girl had opened her mouth. Closed it.
Her throat had moved as if swallowing pain. At the time, he had noticed only because he noticed everything usually. Because he was trained to notice details.
Now the memory sharpened.
“And when she looked at the pale servant,” Wooyoung added, “she looked furious. Protective. Terrified too, but mostly furious.”
“Protective of a stranger?” Mingi asked.
“Possibly not a stranger anymore.”
Seonghwa’s fingers rested together beneath his chin. “If the girl’s story is true, then she is the only witness unaffected enough to remember the original event clearly.”
Jongho nodded once. “Which is why she had her sent to the goose stables.”
San frowned. “That was punishment?”
“Containment,” Jongho said.
Wooyoung pointed again. “That is what I thought.”
“Stop pointing.”
Wooyoung lowered his hand.
Jongho sat back, thoughts moving quickly.
A false princess arriving under a storm. A timid woman turned commanding after the river. A servant girl who looked like grief wearing wool. A horse that disliked the bride. A mysterious woman dragged from the river who claimed a door brought her into their world and a curse sealed her mouth.
And Liora.
Liora, who smiled too easily, demanded too quickly, looked at status not as a duty but as a feast.
The kind of woman he hated most. Because she reminded him of every courtier who believed power was proof of worth.
“Do we have confirmation from Valterre?” Jongho asked.
Hongjoong answered immediately. “A painted likeness was sent six months ago.”
“Bring it.”
Hongjoong crossed to the cabinet along the wall and withdrew a sealed case. Inside, wrapped in cloth, lay a miniature portrait.
He handed it to Jongho. Hongjoong opened the miniature. The painted princess stared back at them.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
Blue velvet.
Liora.
Exactly as she had appeared in the courtyard.
Silence settled over the room.
Wooyoung frowned. „That can’t be right.“
Jongho took the portrait from him.
It was unquestionably the woman currently occupying the princess’s rooms.
Yet something about it bothered him. He could not explain why.
The face matched. The details matched. The title matched.
Everything matched.
So why did it feel wrong?
“Well,” he said softly. “That is Liora.”
Jongho looked at the portrait again.
It was not exact, of course. Portraits flattered. Artists softened flaws and adjusted expressions to please whoever paid them.
But the woman in the painting resembled the bride currently occupying his guest wing. Princess Liora had been sent to him as a treaty.
Somewhere between Valterre and Astravia, something must have happened. He was sure of it, his instincts never betrayed him.
“What about the horse?” he asked.
Wooyoung’s brows lifted. “Falada?”
“The reports mentioned him?”
“Yes. Gift from the late queen. Old bloodline. Valterre superstition says some royal horses understand more than commands.”
“Where is he?”
Wooyoung hesitated. “Liora requested he be kept away from the royal stables. Said the animal became violent on the road.”
“Did he?”
“He became violent around her.”
Jongho closed the portrait. “Have him watched.”
Wooyoung nodded.
“And the girls?” Yunho asked.
“They remain where Liora placed them for now.”
San looked ready to object.
Jongho continued before he could. “If Liora believes they are isolated and dismissed, she may grow careless. If we remove them immediately, she will know we suspect her.”
Hongjoong nodded slowly. “We observe.”
“We verify,” Jongho said. “Quietly.”
Wooyoung smiled again. “I volunteer to talk to Y/N.”
“No.”
His face fell. “Why?”
“Because you enjoy it too much.”
“I enjoy most things. That is a strength.”
“It is a security concern.” Yeosang muttered.
“You may continue your usual duties near the guest wing and stables,” he said. “You will report everything. Do not provoke Odette. Do not reveal suspicion. Do not flirt information out of a traumatized woman who nearly drowned.”
Wooyoung placed a hand over his heart. “I would never exploit trauma.”
Hongjoong stared at him.
Wooyoung sighed. “Fine. I would do it a little bit.”
“Wooyoung.”
“I will behave.”
Nobody believed him.
Jongho moved toward the window.
Beyond the glass, evening settled over the castle grounds. Rain had softened into mist. In the distance, near the lower fields, he could just make out the pale shapes of the goose stables.
He thought of Y/N’s face in the courtyard.
Mud on her jaw. Exhaustion under her eyes. That ridiculous sentence leaving her mouth before fear could catch it.
Who shit in his bed?
Another involuntary trace of amusement threatened him.
He suppressed it again.
She had looked at him without awe. Without calculation. Without desire for his approval.
Even after realizing who he was, she had not folded into apology the way courtiers did when they feared consequence. She had looked horrified, yes, but mostly at herself. As though the danger of insulting a prince mattered less than the embarrassment of having thoughts escape without permission.
Unusual.
And then, when the false Liora spoke, Y/N had gone still in a way that was not obedience.
It was restraint. A woman physically holding back truth.
Jongho knew that look. He had worn it often enough in council chambers filled with men who spoke treason through smiles.
“What are you thinking?” Seonghwa asked quietly.
Jongho did not turn. “That our bride is not what she claims.”
“That much seems likely.”
“And that the girl from the river may be the most honest person who arrived today.”
Wooyoung made a pleased sound. “I knew you liked her.”
Jongho looked over his shoulder.
Wooyoung immediately became fascinated with the ceiling.
“I do not like her,” Jongho said.
San grinned.
Mingi coughed.
Yeosang looked away, suspiciously expressionless.
Jongho’s patience thinned. “She is a witness.”
“Of course,” Wooyoung said. “A very funny snd attractive witness.”
“A cursed witness,” Seonghwa corrected.
“A very funny cursed witness.”
Hongjoong pinched the bridge of his nose.
Jongho turned back toward the window.
Mist curled low over the fields. Somewhere beyond the walls, geese cried out.
He wondered if Y/N heard them too. He wondered if she was afraid.
Then he wondered why that thought had come so quickly.
Behind him, his advisors began discussing quietly. Valterre. Treaties. The portrait. Magical binding. Ways to test old spells without alerting the caster. Wooyoung, naturally, added several unhelpful suggestions before Hongjoong threatened to assign him archival tax records for a month.
Jongho listened with half an ear.
His mind remained on the courtyard.
On Liorass polished smile.
On Odette’s lowered head.
On Y/N’s throat closing around words she could not speak.
He had spent most of his life being told that power meant commanding armies, signing decrees, making men bow and kingdoms negotiate.
But power was quieter than that sometimes. Sometimes it was the ability to decide which woman was believed. Which name remained attached to a body. Which truth entered history and which was buried beneath stable straw.
Jongho looked once more toward the distant stables.
The false princess had made her first mistake.
She had assumed servants were invisible. Most nobles did.
Jongho never had. “Wooyoung,” he said.
The room quieted.
“Yes?”
“Tomorrow morning, I want the goose stables inspected.”
Wooyoung’s grin returned. “For what?”
Jongho looked at him. “For geese.”
San laughed. Even Hongjoong looked amused despite himself.
Wooyoung bowed deeply. “As Your Highness commands. I shall bravely investigate the suspicious poultry.”
“And Wooyoung.”
He straightened.
“No more jokes about the river girl to her face.”
Wooyoung’s eyes gleamed. “Worried she will dislike me?”
“No,” Jongho said.
Then, after a pause, “Worried she will push you into a river.”
The room broke into quiet laughter. Jongho allowed himself the smallest smile this time, hidden by the window’s reflection.
Then it faded.
Outside, night gathered around the castle.
Somewhere beneath it, a false princess settled into silk. A true one lay beside geese. And a girl from another world carried a truth no one could hear.
A week had passed. Seven days.
Seven mornings of being woken by geese screaming at the sun as if personally offended by ist existence. Seven afternoons spent chasing those same geese across fields while they committed increasingly creative acts of destruction.Seven evenings returning to the supply hut smelling vaguely of feathers, mud, and regret.
If someone had told Y/N two weeks ago that she would spend her days herding geese in a medieval kingdom after falling through a magical door, she would have laughed herself sick.
Now it was simply Tuesday. Or what she assumed was Tuesday.
Time had become difficult to track when your daily schedule revolved around poultry.
„Gertrude!“
The large white goose ignored her.
Y/N sighed. „Gertrude, I swear to God.“
The goose waddled faster.
Which was impressive considering geese were apparently fueled entirely by spite.
Y/N rolled her sleeves higher and continued after her through the tall grass.
The afternoon sun warmed her shoulders. Unlike the miserable rain-soaked journey to the castle, the last week had been bright and mild. Autumn painted the surrounding hills gold and copper, and the fields around the castle glowed beneath endless stretches of blue sky.
Beautiful. If one ignored the geese.
„Come back here.“
Gertrude honked. An insult. Y/N was certain of it.
A second goose joined her rebellion. Then a third. Soon four white feathery traitors were running through the field like tiny criminals.
„Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.“
Behind her came laughter. Y/N turned.
Liora sat on the fence, trying and failing to hide her amusement.
Or rather, Odette sat on the fence. Everyone called her Odette now.
The magic remained as cruel and effective as ever.
Even Y/N had nearly slipped twice during the first days.
Not because she forgot who Liora was. Because hearing dozens of people call her Odette all day did strange things to the brain.
Still, when they were alone, Y/N always corrected herself. At least in her head.
Liora remained Liora. No spell could change that.
„You think this is funny?“ Y/N demanded.
„Very.“
„Traitor.“
Liora’s smile widened.
The transformation over the last week surprised Y/N more than anything else.
Liora still looked exhausted whenever she thought nobody was watching.
Still looked heartbroken when the castle celebrated the arrival of „Princess Liora.“ Still looked away whenever Odette crossed the courtyard wearing stolen silk.
But something else had changed.
For the first few days, Liora apologized for everything.
Everything.
For speaking. For asking questions. For accidentally stepping in mud. For not carrying enough buckets. For existing.
Y/N had nearly lost her mind.
The third apology before breakfast had broken something inside her.
„You need to stop saying sorry.“
Liora had blinked. „Sorry.“
Y/N had screamed into a hay bale.
Now, thankfully, things had improved. A little.
The geese helped.
Strangely enough.
Because the animals adored Y/N.
Nobody knew why. Least of all Y/N.
The first morning one goose had followed her.
By the third day there were five. By the end of the week the entire flock treated her like some sort of feathered queen.
Which would have been charming if geese possessed even a single ounce of dignity.
Instead they followed her everywhere.
Once into the washing area where they had nearly started an international incident with a visiting noblewoman.
The stable workers found it hilarious. Y/N did not.
Gertrude finally surrendered and waddled back toward the flock.
Y/N pointed at her. „That’s right.“
The goose honked.
Y/N narrowed her eyes. „We’re going to fight one day.“
The goose honked again. Louder.
Liora laughed so hard she nearly slipped from the fence.
The sound warmed something inside Y/N.
A week ago Liora had barely smiled.
Now she laughed almost daily.
Enough to remind Y/N there was still a person beneath all the grief.
The stable doors creaked open nearby.
A young man emerged carrying a sack of grain.
Dark hair. Broad shoulders. Ridiculously attractive.
Y/N immediately regretted looking.
The stable hand noticed and smiled.
And Y/N regretted looking even more.
„Finished terrorizing the geese?“
„Never.“
His smile widened. „Good.“
Liora made a suspiciously innocent noise.
Y/N threw a piece of straw at her. It bounced off her shoulder.
The stable hand laughed. His name was Minseok.
And if Y/N was being completely honest with herself, flirting with him had been one of her better survival decisions.
Not because she actually planned to romance a stable hand in another dimension.
But because geese stables were miserable. The supply hut where she and Liora slept had originally contained:
One blanket Three broken buckets. A family of mice.
That was it.
After three days of strategic flirting, they suddenly had: Extra blankets, Proper hay mattresses, Access to warm water, Clean soap, Occasional fresh bread
Y/N considered that a diplomatic victory.
Liora called it manipulation.
Y/N called it resource management.
The stable hand waved before disappearing again.
Y/N finally dropped into the grass beside the fence.
Every muscle ached. She stretched her legs.
Above them, clouds drifted lazily across the afternoon sky.
For a while neither spoke.
The geese grazed nearby. The castle stood atop the hill overlooking everything like a silent stone giant.
Eventually Y/N sighed. A long dramatic sigh.
Liora immediately smiled. „Oh no.“
„Oh yes.“
„Y/N—“
„Oh yes.“
Liora laughed. „The daily rant?“
„The daily rant.“
She crossed her arms.
Looked toward the castle. And began.
„First of all.“
Liora groaned.
„The prince.“
Y/N pointed dramatically toward the castle.
„He walks around looking like somebody murdered joy personally.“
Liora laughed. „He isn’t that bad.“
„You haven’t spoken to him.“
„Neither have you.“
„Exactly.“
Liora rolled her eyes.
Y/N continued. „I’ve seen him four times.“
„Five.“ Liora covered her mouth.
„The point is, every time I see him, he looks like he’s judging an entire kingdom.“
„He is a crown prince.“
„Then he should stop.“
Liora laughed harder.
„And don’t even get me started on Wooyoung.“
At that, Liora groaned properly.
Y/N pointed again. „No.“
„Y/N—“
„No.“
„The poor man.“
„The poor man?“ Y/N sat upright. „The poor man?“
Liora nodded. „Yes.“
„He spent an entire journey spying on us.“
„That was his job.“
„He lied.“
„He never actually said he was a guard.“
„That somehow makes it worse.“
Liora buried her face in her hands.
Y/N kept going. „He smiles too much.“
„He does.“
„He knows it.“
„He definitely knows it.“
„And every time he appears, I know he’s about to cause problems.“
„That’s fair.“
„Exactly.“
Y/N leaned back dramatically. „I hope he steps on a rake.“
Liora laughed so hard she nearly fell off the fence. „Y/N!“
„I’m serious.“
„No you’re not.“
„I hope two rakes.“
Liora’s shoulders shook.
„And the prince is no better.“
„Oh no.“
„Oh yes.“
Y/N threw both hands into the air. „Sending his little spy to investigate us.“
Liora wiped tears from her eyes. „Maybe he was just doing his duty.“
„He was spying.“
„He was gathering information.“
„Spying with extra steps being annoying.“
Liora laughed again.
Y/N dropped back into the grass. „I hate them.“
„You do not.“
„I do.“
„You absolutely do not.“
Y/N pointed upward. „The prince is grim.“
„Mmhm.“
„Wooyoung is suspicious.“
„Mmhm.“
„The entire castle is suspicious.“
„Mmhm.“
„And somehow the geese are the most emotionally stable residents here.“
A voice cleared itself behind them. Amused.
Y/N froze.
Liora froze.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
They turned around.
Wooyoung stood there. Already laughing.
Beside him stood six other men.
Men Y/N recognized from around the castle.
The prince’s advisors. The ones she occasionally saw crossing courtyards or entering council meetings.
And standing directly in the middle of them. Crown Prince Jongho.
Wooyoung looked delighted. „Two rakes?“
Y/N closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, Wooyoung was still grinning.
Unfortunately.
The other men looked equally entertained.
One was openly laughing. A very tall one.
Another had both hands over his face.
A third looked like he was desperately trying not to smile.
Wonderful.
Absolutely wonderful.
Liora had gone completely pale.
Y/N could practically hear her internally planning ten different funeral arrangements.
Wooyoung folded his arms. „So.“
Y/N stared. „So.“
„The geese are emotionally stable?“
„Compared to you?“
His grin widened. „See?“
One of the advisors laughed.
The prince remained silent.
Watching.
Y/N could feel it.
His attention settled on her with uncomfortable precision.
Most people would apologize.
Liora certainly expected her to.
Probably everyone did.
After all, she’d just insulted the future king of Astravia and his advisors while assuming nobody could hear her.
A normal person would apologize.
Y/N had nearly drowned in a magical river, been cursed, dragged across a kingdom, and forced to work in a goose stable for a week.
Normal had left months ago. Or maybe another world entirely.
Slowly she stood. Brushed grass from her skirt. Lifted her chin.
And met Jongho’s eyes directly.
Challenge for challenge.
Silence stretched.
Wooyoung looked like he might explode from happiness.
The prince watched her. Y/N watched back.
Neither looked away.
Then one corner of Jongho’s mouth moved.
Not quite a smile.
But close enough that Y/N suddenly understood something very important.
The prince liked being challenged.
And that was probably going to become everyone’s problem.
The worst part was that Jongho looked entirely unimpressed.
Not offended.
Not angry.
Not scandalized.
Just… unimpressed.
As though finding two women sitting in a field insulting him was a perfectly ordinary occurrence.
Y/N hated that. A little. Maybe a lot.
The geese continued grazing around them, blissfully unaware that their lives had suddenly become significantly more complicated.
A breeze stirred through the grass.
Nobody spoke.
Wooyoung was visibly struggling.
Y/N could see it in the way his shoulders shook every few seconds.
The prince stood with his hands clasped behind his back, dark clothing stark against the gold-green field. His advisors remained nearby, watching with varying degrees of amusement.
And still Jongho looked at her.
Waiting.
Y/N lifted her chin another fraction.
Fine.
If he wanted to stare. She could stare too.
She had spent years working customer service jobs.
No prince was winning a staring contest.
Not today. Not ever.
The silence stretched.
One second. Two. Five. Ten.
Y/N remained stubborn.
Jongho remained stubborn.
Around them, everyone else seemed to realize something strange was happening.
Wooyoung’s grin widened.
Liora looked like she wanted the earth to swallow her whole.
Y/N refused to blink first.
Jongho narrowed his eyes slightly.
Y/N narrowed hers right back.
Then. Finally.
Jongho looked away first. Only for a second.
A brief glance toward the geese.
But it counted. It absolutely counted.
A surge of victory shot through Y/N.
She tried not to smile.
Wooyoung immediately noticed. „Oh no.“
Y/N looked at him. „What?“
„You think you won.“
„I did.“
Jongho looked back at her.
His eyebrow lifted. Y/N crossed her arms.
„You looked away.“
Jongho looked completely unbothered. „Did I?“
„Yes.“
„I was observing the geese.“
„You surrendered.“
„I observed the geese.“
„You lost.“
A dangerous flicker appeared in his eyes.
Not anger. Challenge.
„You are remarkably confident for someone employed by poultry.“
Y/N gasped.
The advisors immediately started laughing.
Even Seonghwa smiled.
Liora covered her mouth. „Did he just insult my profession?“ Y/N demanded.
Wooyoung nodded solemnly. „He did.“
„The audacity.“
Jongho’s mouth twitched. „There are no professions here.“
„There are now.“
The prince looked genuinely curious. „Oh?“
„I am Head Goose Manager.“
„Head Goose Manager?“ Jongho repeated.
Y/N nodded. „Very prestigious position.“
„I see.“
„I worked hard for it.“
„Did you?“
„The geese elected me.“
The silence that followed lasted exactly three seconds before Wooyoung bent over laughing.
Y/N pointed at him. „Don’t encourage me.“
„Too late.“
„You’re the reason I’m like this.“
„I’ve known you a week.“
„Exactly.“
That somehow made Wooyoung laugh harder.
Jongho shook his head.
The expression was small. Subtle.
But Y/N noticed it.
And worse. She realized he was enjoying this.
The prince. The grim terrifying prince.
Was enjoying himself.
That felt illegal.
Beside her, Liora was openly smiling now.
Not the tiny careful ones she’d been giving lately.
A proper one.
Y/N immediately felt better.
That alone made the embarrassment worthwhile.
Jongho’s attention shifted briefly toward her.
The smile faded from his face.
Not because he disliked it.
More because he seemed surprised by it.
His gaze lingered on Liora for a second longer than expected.
Then returned to Y/N.
„You have been living here for a week?“
Y/N blinked.
The sudden seriousness caught her off guard.
„Unfortunately.“
„In the stables.“
„Technically the supply hut.“
„That does not improve the situation.“
„Depends on your standards.“
„It doesn’t.“
Fair.
Jongho looked toward the small hut near the edge of the field.
His expression darkened slightly. „You’ve been sleeping there?“
Y/N followed his gaze.
The hut looked pathetic from a distance.
It looked worse up close.
She shrugged. „At least it doesn’t leak anymore.“
Wooyoung frowned. „Anymore?“
„Long story.“
The prince’s eyes narrowed.
Then slowly he looked toward Liora.
Or Odette. For everyone else.
The girl immediately lowered her gaze.
Jongho watched her carefully.
Then looked back toward Y/N.
„I was informed this arrangement was temporary.“
„It was.“
„One week is not temporary.“
Y/N snorted.
„Tell that to your princess.“
The air shifted.
Slightly.
Not enough for anyone except Y/N and Liora to notice.
Liora’s shoulders tensed immediately.
Jongho saw that too.
Y/N could tell.
Because he missed very little.
The prince was quiet for a moment.
„It is childish.“
Everyone blinked.
Jongho folded his arms.
„It is childish for a future queen to leave her ladies in waiting sleeping beside geese for a week.“
Y/N stared.
Liora looked completely frozen.
The prince continued as though discussing weather.
„You will be moved into the castle.“
Y/N blinked.
„What?“
„The guest servants‘ quarters.“
„What?“
„I spoke clearly.“
„You can’t just do that.“
„I can.“
Y/N hated that answer.
Mostly because it was true.
Wooyoung looked delighted.
„Welcome to the castle.“
„Oh no.“
„Oh yes.“
Liora looked equally shocked.
Jongho glanced toward her.
„You as well.“
Liora opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Nothing came out.
The prince’s eyes narrowed slightly.
The moment passed.
He looked back at Y/N.
Then something changed.
He stepped closer.
Not threateningly.
Not aggressively.
Just enough that Y/N suddenly became aware of how tall he actually was.
Annoyingly tall.
She hated when men were tall.
It made arguments less dramatic.
Y/N refused to step back.
Jongho stopped directly in front of her.
Close enough now that she could properly see him.
And unfortunately.
Very unfortunately.
Her eyes betrayed her.
Because he was handsome.
Extremely handsome.
The kind of handsome that made people write poetry.
Which was deeply inconvenient.
Strong jaw.
Dark eyes.
Long lashes that seemed unfair on principle.
The sort of face sculptors would get inspired about.
Y/N immediately decided she disliked it.
On principle.
Jongho looked down slightly.
Then down more.
Y/N frowned.
„What?“
His mouth curved.
A genuine smirk this time.
„You’re very feisty.“
Y/N narrowed her eyes.
„So?“
His gaze dropped again.
And Y/N suddenly realized exactly what he was looking at.
Her height.
The absolute bastard.
„You are also very small.“
The advisors lost whatever restraint remained.
Y/N stared.
Offended.
Horrified.
Personally attacked.
„I hate this kingdom.“
Liora laughed.
The sound escaped before she could stop it.
Bright.
Warm.
Natural.
The entire group fell silent.
Immediately.
Because none of them had heard that laugh before.
Not from her.
Liora froze.
Her smile vanished.
Fear replaced it so quickly it hurt to see.
Jongho’s attention snapped toward her.
The prince studied her face.
Not the way he looked at Y/N.
Not amused.
Not entertained.
Focused.
Interested.
The kind of look people gave puzzles.
Liora lowered her head.
Too late.
Jongho had noticed.
Y/N felt it happen. Like a piece finally sliding into place.
The prince took one step toward her.
„What’s your name?“
Liora froze.
Everyone else expected a simple answer.
Only Y/N knew what was about to happen.
Liora swallowed. „Odette.“
The word came automatically.
Like something forcing itself through her throat.
Jongho continued watching her. „How long have you served Princess Liora?“
Liora’s fingers clenched in her skirt. „A long time.“
Not a lie.
Not really.
The prince nodded once.
Then.
Very quietly.
„Are you sure the princess is who she claims to be?“
The world stopped.
Y/N felt it.
Like cold water down her spine.
Liora went completely still.
The color drained from her face.
Jongho noticed. Of course he noticed.
The advisors noticed too.
Wooyoung’s smile vanished.
Y/N looked at Liora.
The girl opened her mouth.
For one glorious second hope surged through Y/N.
Maybe…
Maybe…
Maybe…
Liora tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Not silence.
Nothing.
As if her voice had simply ceased to exist.
Terror flashed across her face.
Jongho took another step forward.
„What is it?“
Liora tried again.
Still nothing.
Y/N felt her stomach drop.
No.
No no no.
The curse.
The spell.
It was fighting back.
Liora looked desperate now.
Her mouth moved.
No sound emerged.
Jongho’s expression sharpened.
„What happened?“
Y/N stepped forward immediately.
„The princess—“
Pain exploded through her throat.
She choked.
The words died instantly.
Every face turned toward her.
Y/N grabbed her neck.
No. Not now.
„The princess is—“
Agony.
White-hot.
Violent.
Something ripped through her chest.
Blood filled her mouth.
Y/N coughed.
Red splattered across the grass.
Gasps erupted around her.
The spell awakened fully.
Y/N staggered. „The princess—“
More blood.
Her knees buckled.
Pain shot through every nerve.
Not physical. Not entirely.
Magic.
Truth you carry.
Truth you keep.
The words slammed into her mind.
Louder.
Truth you carry.
Truth you keep.
Y/N screamed.
Or thought she did.
Nothing reached the air.
The field disappeared.
The geese scattered in panic.
Somebody grabbed her shoulders.
Maybe Wooyoung.
Maybe Jongho.
She couldn’t tell.
Everything blurred.
Truth you carry.
Truth you keep.
The rhyme repeated.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Violently.
As though someone hammered it directly into her skull.
Y/N doubled over.
Another cough.
More blood.
Her body convulsed.
The grass rushed upward.
Strong hands caught her before she hit the ground.
„The healer!“ someone shouted.
„The hell is happening?“ Wooyoung barked.
He sounded alarmed.
Which somehow terrified her more than the pain.
Liora was crying now.
She could see it.
The girl’s face above her.
Horrified. Helpless.
Jongho knelt beside her.
The prince’s face was closer than she’d ever seen it.
Not grim now.
Concerned.
His hand supported the back of her neck.
„Y/N.“
The sound of her name seemed distant.
Wrong.
Truth you carry.
Truth you keep.
The spell kept repeating.
Over and over.
Faster now.
Louder.
She tried to speak.
To explain.
To tell him.
To tell all of them.
But the moment the truth formed, agony tore through her again.
Her vision darkened.
Jongho’s face blurred.
Liora’s tears became streaks of light.
Wooyoung appeared beside them.
For once not smiling.
Not joking.
Genuinely worried.
That almost made her laugh.
The world tilted.
The last thing Y/N saw before darkness swallowed her completely was Jongho looking down at her as if she had just confirmed every suspicion he’d been carrying for a week.
And beside him. Liora.
Still trying desperately to speak. Still unable to make a sound.
Then everything went black.
Fairytale Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Jonghos Masterlist
To read the other members Fairytale Retellings go to the Fairytale Masterlist
Y/N never expected a mysterious door to pull her into a Grimm fairytale. After nearly drowning in a raging river, she witnesses a maid stealing a princess's identity through dark magic and is cursed into silence before she can expose the truth.
Now trapped in a kingdom that isn't hers, Y/N must navigate court intrigue, a stolen crown, an increasingly suspicious Crown Prince Jongho, and growing feelings that are determined to go terribly wrong.
Pairing: Jongho x Reader
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Dark Fairytale, Royal AU
Tropes: Goose Girl Retelling, Slow Burn, Grumpy Prince x Feisty Heroine, Hidden Identity, Curse of Silence, Banter, Court Intrigue, Portal Fantasy, Stolen Crown, Forced Proximity, "She Knows The Truth"
Fairytale Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Jonghos Masterlist
To read the other members Fairytale Retellings go to the Fairytale Masterlist
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
This is Part 3
Jongho noticed the hay first.
It clung to Y/N’s hair in pale, ridiculous pieces, caught among the damp strands near her temple and the loose waves falling around her shoulders. A smaller piece sat stubbornly against her sleeve. Another had somehow found its way to the edge of her cheek, almost hidden beneath a faint streak of dried mud.
She had mud on her face.
Hay in her hair.
Grass stains at the hem of her servant’s dress.
A small army of geese surrounding her as if she were their chosen sovereign.
And still, annoyingly, she was beautiful.
Jongho disliked noticing that.
Beauty was not rare at court. It was cultivated, polished, painted, dressed in silk and positioned beneath flattering light. He had grown up around women and men who understood exactly how to arrange themselves into something pleasing. Beauty, in a palace, was often another form of strategy.
Y/N’s was not like that.
It was unwilling. Unprepared. Almost inconvenient.
Her cheeks were still flushed from laughing and arguing. Her eyes were sharp with challenge, her posture too stubborn for someone standing in a field in borrowed wool before the crown prince of the kingdom. She should have looked small.
She did not.
Even when he stood close enough to look down at her, even when he let himself smirk and said she was feisty for someone so small, she did not step back.
She glared up at him like height was an insult she planned to overcome through spite alone.
Jongho found that more entertaining than he should have.
He also found it reassuring.
A woman who did not bend immediately before status was either very foolish or very honest.
Y/N might be both.
The thought almost drew another smile from him.
Then the servant girl laughed. The one everyone called Odette.
The sound changed the meadow.
It was soft, startled, bright before she could stop it. A laugh that escaped from someone who had forgotten she was allowed to make one.
Jongho turned toward her.
The girl froze Instantly.
Her whole body shut around the sound as if she had committed a crime.
Jongho watched the reaction settle over her face. Fear first. Then regret. Then a careful lowering of her eyes.
Too practiced. Too wounded.
For a servant who had laughed at a joke, she looked as though she expected punishment.
He remembered Wooyoung’s report.
Timid before the river.
A sudden change after.
A princess who did not resemble her reports in manner, though every record insisted she must.
A river girl who claimed a door had brought her here and a spell had sealed her tongue.
Jongho had been willing to wait.
Observation worked best when the subject believed itself unseen.
But this girl’s laugh had cracked something.
The false princess, if false she was, had sent these two to sleep beside geese for a week. She had called it discipline. She had called it household management. She had claimed carelessness required consequence.
Yet here, in the field, the pieces leaned in a different direction.
Y/N stood between the servant and the world as if ready to bite anyone who came too close.
The servant, meanwhile, looked toward Y/N before answering anyone, even in small things.
Trust. Fear. Shared knowledge.
Jongho folded the observation away carefully.
Then he asked, “What is your name?”
The girl swallowed. “Odette.”
The name came out too quickly.
He saw Y/N’s jaw tighten.
Interesting.
“How long have you served Princess Liora?” he asked.
The girl’s fingers twisted into her skirt. “A long time.”
Not a lie.
Jongho stepped closer. “Are you sure the princess is who she claims to be?”
For one moment, the entire field seemed to hold its breath.
Even the geese quieted.
The servant girl’s face emptied of color.
Y/N went completely still beside her.
Wooyoung stopped smiling.
Behind Jongho, the others shifted, amusement draining into attention.
The girl opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Jongho’s eyes narrowed.
She tried again. Still nothing.
No cough. No stammer. No hesitation.
Silence. Complete and unnatural.
A cold awareness slipped down Jongho’s spine.
Magic.
Not the harmless little charms sold in market stalls. Not candle blessings or threshold prayers or weather knots tied by old women in fishing villages.
This was older. Crueler.
It moved in the air like something half buried waking beneath soil.
Jongho took a step toward the girl.
“What happened?”
Y/N moved before anyone else could. “The princess is—”
Her voice cut off.
Her hand flew to her throat.
Jongho turned sharply.
Y/N tried to breathe through it, eyes wide with sudden pain. “The princess is—”
She coughed.
Blood hit the grass.
Red and bright.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Not because they did not care.
Because the sight was too sudden, too violent, too impossible to understand.
Then the meadow broke open.
Odette, made a soundless cry and reached for her.
Wooyoung swore.
San stepped forward.
Mingi said something low and harsh.
Y/N doubled over, one hand pressed against her mouth, the other clawing at her throat as if something invisible had wrapped around it.
Jongho caught her before her knees hit the ground.
She was lighter than he expected.
Too cold.
Her body convulsed against him, once, then again, not like faintness but like something inside her was fighting to drag truth out and punish her for it.
“Y/N,” he said sharply.
Her eyes lifted to his.
There was panic in them.
Pain. And fury.
She tried to speak again.
“No,” he said, though he did not know whether he was ordering her or the magic. “Stop.”
She did not or could not.
Her mouth formed the beginning of another word.
Blood spilled over her lower lip.
Jongho’s hand tightened behind her shoulders. “Do not speak.”
Wooyoung’s face had gone pale.
That, more than anything, told Jongho how badly this had shaken him. Wooyoung thrived in chaos. He moved through danger with a grin and a knife hidden beneath silk. But now he stared at Y/N as if the sight of her blood had knocked the breath from him.
Then he turned toward the castle and shouted, “Healer!”
His voice cracked across the field.
“Get a healer now!”
One of the nearby stable boys bolted.
San was already at Jongho’s side. “What is it?”
“Magic,” Jongho said.
Hongjoong’s face sharpened. “Old?”
“Yes.”
Y/N spasmed again.
Her eyes rolled halfway closed.
The girl called Odette reached for her, hands trembling.
“Y/N,” she mouthed, but no voice emerged.
Her terror was real.
Jongho saw that immediately.
No performance. No calculation.
Whatever bound her voice, it was choking her too.
And somewhere inside the castle, the woman wearing Princess Liora’s name was not here.
Convenient.
Jongho slid one arm beneath Y/N’s knees.
Wooyoung stepped forward. “I can help.”
“I have her.”
Y/N’s head fell against his chest as he lifted her.
The blood at her mouth stained the front of his coat.
He did not care.
“Move,” he ordered.
Everyone moved.
The geese scattered before them in a flurry of white feathers and offended cries. The meadow blurred into motion around him as he carried Y/N toward the path leading back to the castle.
The others followed.
Wooyoung stayed close, his expression stripped of humor now. His gaze kept darting to Y/N’s face, then to the girl called Odette walking unsteadily nearby.
She nearly stumbled twice.
On the third time, Wooyoung caught her elbow.
She flinched as if expecting to be struck.
Wooyoung’s face tightened.
“We need to move faster,” he said, softer now.
She nodded, still soundless.
Jongho glanced back once.
The girl was trembling too badly to keep pace.
“Take the horse,” he said.
Wooyoung looked toward the stable path where one of the palace horses stood tied near the fence.
The girl shook her head immediately.
Jongho did not have time for fear. “Now.”
Wooyoung obeyed. He swung into the saddle first, then reached down. The girl hesitated only a heartbeat before taking his hand. He pulled her up behind him with surprising care, settling her sideways before kicking the horse into motion.
She clung to the back of his cloak, face ashen.
Jongho turned forward again.
Y/N remained unconscious in his arms.
Her breathing was shallow.
“Stay with me,” he muttered, though she could not hear him.
Or perhaps she could.
Her fingers twitched once against his sleeve.
By the time they reached the castle courtyard, servants had already begun shouting for physicians and hot water. The first healer met them at the lower entrance, eyes widening at the blood on Y/N’s mouth.
“Poison?” she asked.
“Magic.”
The healer did not waste time asking foolish questions. “Inside.”
Jongho carried Y/N through the servant corridor, then past two startled guards into the eastern wing.
“Not the infirmary,” he said.
The healer glanced up. “Your Highness?”
“My chambers.”
The healer hesitated only long enough to understand the order was not open for discussion.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
His personal rooms were closer than the infirmary and better secured. If old magic was at work, he wanted walls he trusted and guards who answered only to him.
Y/N was placed in the inner sleeping chamber, not his main bed but the smaller curtained bed near the hearth that was sometimes used when he worked through illness and refused to leave his papers. The healer moved quickly, wiping blood from Y/N’s mouth, pressing fingers to her throat, checking her pulse.
The girl called Odette stood in the corner, shaking.
Wooyoung remained beside her.
Not touching but Close enough to catch her if she fell.
The healer looked up after several tense moments. “She lives.”
The words released something in the room.
“What happened?” Jongho asked.
The healer’s mouth tightened. “Her body reacted as though speech itself harmed her.”
“I know what I saw.”
“She is bound. That much I can say. But I cannot name the binding.”
“Old magic?”
“Yes.” The healer looked troubled. “Older than court magic. Older than most lineages. Something oath-shaped.”
Jongho looked toward the girl in the corner.
She tried to speak again.
Nothing.
Her hands curled into fists.
“Do not force it,” he said.
She looked at him with desperate frustration.
Then at Y/N.
Her eyes filled, but she nodded.
Jongho turned to Wooyoung. “Stay with them until I send someone else.”
Wooyoung nodded immediately.
No joke. No complaint.
That alone told Jongho enough.
By late afternoon, Y/N slept.
The bleeding had stopped. Her breathing had steadied. The healer had given her a draught for pain and another for fever, though she admitted both would only help the body, not the spell.
The girl called Odette refused to leave.
She sat near the bed, silent and pale, one hand resting on the blanket near Y/N’s wrist without quite touching it.
Jongho watched from the doorway for longer than he intended.
Then he left.
His advisors waited in his work room.
All of them.
The door closed behind him with a heavy sound.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Hongjoong said, “That was not ordinary magic.”
“No,” Jongho answered.
Seonghwa stood near the table, one hand resting on an open book he had clearly taken from the restricted shelves. “Bindings that prevent speech are common enough in theory. But coughing blood after attempting to reveal a specific truth is different.”
“It reacted to the subject,” Yeosang added quietly. “Not speech itself.”
Mingi frowned. “Meaning she can talk, just not about whatever happened.”
“Or whoever did it,” Hongjoong said.
San crossed his arms. “Then she was telling the truth.”
“Likely,” Jongho said.
Wooyoung leaned against the wall, still unusually subdued. “She told me exactly this on the road. Door. River. Curse.”
“You laughed at her,” Yeosang said.
Wooyoung winced. “Yes. Thank you. I am aware.”
San clapped his shoulder once. “At least you feel bad.”
“I feel awful, actually.”
“That is new for you.”
Wooyoung glared at him.
Jongho let them speak because it steadied the room. Familiar voices. Familiar irritation. Familiar men pretending not to be shaken.
But beneath all of it, the truth remained.
Y/N had nearly torn herself apart trying to answer his question.
And the other girl, the one called Odette, had lost her voice entirely at the same moment.
“The spell is tied to identity,” Jongho said.
Everyone looked at him.
“Names. Titles. Recognition. The magic protects the stolen shape of the tale.”
Hongjoong looked grim. “Those are not supposed to exist outside old royal bloodlines.”
“Valterre has old royal blood,” Yeosang said.
“And a dead queen who gave her daughter some kind of protective charm,” Wooyoung added.
Jongho looked at him.
Wooyoung nodded. “Y/N mentioned a charm once, before I thought to take her seriously. Or rather, she started to and changed the subject when it hurt her.”
Jongho absorbed that.
A charm. A dead queen. A stolen identity. A woman wearing the princess’s name.
“Where is the supposed princess now?” he asked.
Hongjoong answered, “In the south guest wing. She has asked twice whether she may see you.”
“Of course she has,” San muttered.
A knock sounded at the door before anyone else could respond.
The guard outside opened it after a brief murmur.
Princess Liora entered.
Or rather the real woman wearing the name Odette.
Jongho knew it now with a certainty that did not require proof.
She swept into the work room in pale blue silk, her dark hair arranged beneath delicate pearls. There was no trace of the frightened tenderness he had been told to expect from Valterre’s princess. No anxiety over the collapsed servant. No visible concern for the girl who had coughed blood in a field.
Only annoyance carefully dressed as worry.
“Your Highness,” she said, placing one hand over her heart. “I heard there was an incident in the fields.”
Jongho looked at her.
An incident.
Y/N’s blood was still drying on his sleeve.
Behind him, San’s expression turned dangerous.
Hongjoong’s eyes narrowed.
Wooyoung went very still.
Jongho lifted one hand slightly.
The others understood. “Leave us.”
San looked as though he wanted to object.
Seonghwa touched his arm once.
One by one, the advisors moved toward the door. Wooyoung was last. He met Jongho’s eyes before leaving, his face unusually serious.
Be careful.
Jongho barely inclined his head.
The door closed. Silence settled.
The princess looked around the room, as if pleased to finally have removed the audience.
“You keep intense company,” she said lightly.
“I value competence.”
“How fortunate for them.”
She moved closer without invitation.
Jongho did not move away.
He needed to see what she would attempt.
“I worried when I heard shouting,” she said. “The girl from the river is delicate, it seems.”
“She coughed blood.”
Odette’s brows drew together with admirable precision. “How terrible.”
Empty.
The words contained nothing.
Jongho watched her. “She was trying to answer a question.”
“What question?”
“Whether you are who you claim to be.”
For a heartbeat, something black flashed behind her eyes.
Then she laughed softly.
Just enough to imply he had said something absurd. “You are direct.”
“I dislike wasting time.”
“I have noticed.”
She stepped closer again.
Her perfume reached him first.
Roses. Rain.
And beneath them, something metallic.
Blood hidden under sweetness.
“You need not test me so harshly,” she said, voice softening. “I know this arrangement was made by fathers and ministers before either of us could consent to it. I know I arrive in your home as a stranger with a crown attached to my future. That must feel like an intrusion.”
The words were clever.
Not because they were seductive. Because they were reasonable.
Jongho said nothing.
Odette’s gaze lowered briefly to his mouth, then rose again. “But perhaps,” she continued, “we need not be enemies inside what others arranged.”
There it was.
A thread of magic curled beneath her voice.
Subtle. Soft.
A lesser man might have mistaken it for charm.
Jongho felt it brush against his mind like fingers searching for an unlocked door.
His body resisted before thought did.
He had always been sensitive to magic. As a child, he could sense charms hidden in walls, old blessings sewn into clothing, curses laid beneath thresholds. His tutors had called it a gift. His father had called it inconvenient.
Jongho had learned early to hide it.
He let Odette’s magic touch him now.
Not enter.
Only touch.
It carried suggestion. Warmth. Trust.
Desire, though poorly shaped.
She did not know him well enough to form temptation properly, so the magic offered vague impressions. A bride worth protecting. A woman misunderstood. A need to please her, to believe her, to keep her close.
Weak.
No.
Not weak.
Unfamiliar with resistance.
Odette was used to being obeyed.
Jongho softened his expression by a fraction.
That was all.
Immediately, satisfaction warmed her face.
“You are right,” he said.
Her eyes brightened. “I am?”
“We need not be enemies.”
She smiled. This time, it almost reached her eyes. “I am relieved to hear that.”
“You have had a difficult journey.”
“I have.”
“And the servants who failed you have been dealt with.”
Her smile deepened slightly. “Yes.”
Jongho forced himself not to react. “Still,” he continued, “I would prefer they remain close enough to question if needed.”
Odette’s expression paused.
Only slightly.
“Question?”
“The river girl collapsed on my grounds. It concerns palace security.”
“Of course.” She recovered smoothly. “How responsible of you.”
“It is my kingdom.”
“And soon,” she said softly, stepping close enough that the edge of her sleeve almost brushed his hand, “it will be ours.”
The magic pressed again.
Harder this time.
Jongho let his gaze linger on her face.
Played the part of a man considering the future she offered. “Soon,” he agreed.
Odette’s satisfaction bloomed fully.
The magic receded, content.
Foolish.
She thought a single agreement meant victory.
Jongho had dealt with ministers more dangerous than her by the time he was seventeen.
“Rest,” he said. “I will have dinner sent to your rooms.”
Disappointment crossed her face. “You will not join me?”
“Not tonight.”
She studied him.
Then smiled again, sweet and false. “Tomorrow, then.”
“Perhaps.”
She accepted that as enough. For now.
When she left, the room felt cleaner.
Jongho remained still until her footsteps faded down the corridor.
Then he exhaled slowly.
Old magic. Blood magic. Voice binding. Identity distortion. And manipulation woven beneath speech.
The situation was worsening.
Good.
At least now it had shape.
He waited several minutes before leaving the work room. Not toward the guest wing. Not toward dinner. Not toward the council chamber where his advisors undoubtedly gathered behind some door pretending not to worry.
He went back to his chambers.
The guards outside bowed and opened the door silently.
Inside, the fire had burned low.
The healer had left a basin of clean water, several cloths, and written instructions near the table. The girl called Odette had finally fallen asleep in a chair near the foot of the smaller bed, curled awkwardly beneath a blanket someone had draped over her shoulders.
Jongho paused.
Her face looked different in sleep.
Younger. Gentler.
Too much like the reports.
His suspicion settled deeper.
Y/N slept beneath the blankets, face pale against the pillow. Someone had cleaned the blood from her mouth, but a faint red mark remained near the corner of her lip. Her hair spilled messily over the pillow, still tangled from the field.
Jongho approached quietly.
He should not have come.
There were political reasons, perhaps. Security reasons. She was an unusual witness. A cursed outsider. A woman tied to whatever magic had entered his castle.
But none of those reasons explained why he sat in the chair beside her bed instead of simply asking a guard for a report.
For a while, he only watched her breathe.
Steady. Not strong yet, but steady.
The firelight softened the sharpness exhaustion had left on her face. Without the glare, without the challenge, she seemed younger. Not weak. Never weak. But human in a way the meadow had not allowed her to be.
He wondered what world she had come from.
A bridge, she had told Wooyoung. A door. Another world.
The thought should have been impossible.
Yet impossibility had bled on his sleeve that afternoon.
Jongho leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on his knees.
“What are you?” he murmured.
Not an accusation.
A question.
A thread of hair had fallen across her cheek. It moved faintly with each breath.
He looked at it for longer than necessary.
Then, very carefully, he reached out and tucked it behind her ear.
Her skin was warm now.
Good.
He began to withdraw his hand.
A rough voice spoke. “Touching unconscious women. Very princely.”
Jongho froze.
Y/N’s eyes were barely open.
Her voice sounded like gravel dragged across stone, but the look in her eyes was unmistakably hers.
Tired. Pained. Still challenging.
For one stunned second, Jongho did nothing.
Then he smiled.
Not the restrained expression he allowed courtiers.
A real one. Small, but real.
“You were awake.”
“Unfortunately.”
“You nearly died.”
“So everyone keeps saying.”
“No one has said anything. You just woke up.”
She blinked slowly. “Then I sensed the lecture coming.”
Jongho huffed softly.
Her eyes narrowed faintly.
“Did you just laugh at my suffering?”
“I smiled at your persistence.”
“Sounds like a joke.”
“It often does.”
Her throat worked painfully. She winced.
Immediately, the amusement faded.
“Do not speak too much.”
Y/N looked as if she wanted to argue, then seemed to think better of it.
Progress.
Perhaps the collapse had frightened her more than she wanted to show.
Jongho lowered his voice.
“I will find a way for you to speak freely again.”
Her eyes stilled.
The room seemed to shift around them.
At the foot of the bed, the sleeping girl did not wake.
Y/N stared at him.
Surprised.
“You…” Her voice caught. She swallowed carefully. “You know?”
“I know you are hexed.”
Her expression changed.
It was subtle, but he saw it.
The shock of being believed before proving anything.
The fear of hope arriving too soon.
“How?” she whispered.
Jongho leaned back slightly.
“I can sense old magic.”
Y/N continued staring.
“Of course you can.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I was hoping you were just annoyingly observant.”
“I am also that.”
A faint, exhausted smile touched her mouth.
Then vanished as quickly as it came.
“You believed her earlier.”
“Odette?”
Y/N flinched at the name.
Jongho noticed.
“Or the woman calling herself Liora,” he corrected quietly.
Her eyes widened.
There.
The truth, reflected before she could hide it.
“I played along,” he said. “She used magic in her voice. I wanted to know what kind.”
Y/N stared at him as if he had just become far more dangerous and far less irritating at the same time.
“Are you affected?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I am naturally resilient against most magic. Sensitive to it too.”
Her brows drew together faintly.
“That is convenient.”
“Rarely.”
“Must be nice.”
“It is mostly annoying.”
She gave him a look.
Even half conscious, she managed to imply he was being dramatic.
Jongho found that he liked it.
Too much.
“She tried to influence me,” he said. “It did not work.”
Y/N exhaled slowly, some tension leaving her shoulders.
Then her gaze shifted toward the sleeping girl at the foot of the bed.
Concern returned immediately.
“She…”
The spell stirred.
Jongho saw it happen.
Her throat tightened.
Her eyes flashed with pain.
“Stop,” he said at once.
She obeyed, though anger gathered in her expression.
“Do not fight it now,” he said. “You are too weak.”
Her fingers curled against the blanket.
“I hate that.”
“I noticed.”
“She cannot talk either.”
“I know.”
Y/N looked back at him.
The question was in her face.
Do you understand?
Jongho answered carefully.
“I know enough to suspect that her silence and yours are tied to the same event.”
She held his gaze.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
Once.
The movement was tiny.
But it felt like trust, unwillingly given.
Jongho accepted it for what it was.
“I will not ask you to tell me again until we know how to protect you from the spell.”
Her eyes softened.
Only a little.
“You sound competent.”
“I try.”
“Terrible habit.”
His mouth curved again.
The room quieted.
Firelight shifted across the walls.
Beyond the windows, night pressed against the glass, dark and watchful.
Y/N’s eyelids lowered, exhaustion dragging at her again.
Jongho stood, but she spoke before he could step away.
“Prince?”
He looked down.
“Yes?”
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“You still look grim.”
For a moment, he only stared at her.
Then he laughed.
Quietly.
A real laugh this time, low enough not to wake the sleeping girl.
Y/N’s mouth twitched in tired victory.
Jongho shook his head.
“You nearly died and this is what you choose to say?”
“Priorities.”
“You have strange priorities.”
“You have a strange face.”
His brow lifted.
“That was weak.”
“I lost blood.”
“I will allow it.”
“How generous.”
Her eyes closed again.
This time, they did not reopen.
Jongho remained beside her bed for a few moments longer.
The strand of hair he had tucked away had already slipped free again, resting against her cheek like it had no intention of obeying him either.
Fitting.
He did not touch it this time.
He only looked at her, at the woman from another world who had insulted him at his own gate, argued with him in a field, bled for a truth she could not speak, and still found enough strength to challenge him from a sickbed.
Fascinating.
Dangerous word.
Dangerous feeling.
Jongho turned toward the door.
Before leaving, he looked once at the sleeping girl in the chair.
Then back at Y/N.
A false bride slept in the guest wing beneath stolen silk.
A true one, perhaps, slept beside a bed she should never have had to guard.
And between them lay the river girl, carrying a truth powerful enough to draw blood.
Jongho opened the door quietly.
The corridor beyond was dim.
His guards straightened.
“Your Highness?”
“No one enters without my permission,” he said.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He paused.
“And send for Hongjoong. I want every book we have on old Valterran blood charms, identity spells, and speech bindings.”
The guard bowed.
Jongho looked once more into the room before the door closed.
Y/N slept.
For now.
But the spell had made a mistake when it chose pain over silence.
Pain left evidence.
And Jongho had built his life on noticing what others tried to hide.
The days following Y/N’s collapse only confirmed what Jongho had already suspected.
The woman occupying the princess’s rooms was unbearable.
At first, he had tried to remain objective.
A ruler could not allow personal dislike to influence political decisions. His father had taught him that. Hongjoong reminded him of it regularly. Seonghwa weaponized it whenever Jongho threatened to throw ministers out of windows.
So he observed.
He watched.
And every day he disliked her more.
Three days after Y/N woke, he witnessed Princess Liora scream at a maid because her tea was not hot enough.
Not cold.
Not spoiled.
Not poisoned.
Not wrong.
Simply not hot enough.
The poor girl could not have been older than sixteen.
She trembled so badly she spilled tea on her own hands while trying to apologize.
The princess continued anyway.
„You had one task.“
The maid lowered her head.
„I’m sorry, Your Highness.“
„You are always sorry.“
Jongho had been crossing the corridor.
He stopped.
The princess either did not notice him or did not care.
„You embarrass this household.“
The maid looked close to tears.
Jongho stepped forward.
Immediately the princess’s expression transformed.
Like a mask sliding into place.
„Your Highness.“
The sweetness in her voice almost made his teeth hurt.
Jongho looked at the maid.
„Leave.“
The girl practically fled.
The princess sighed dramatically.
„They truly are incompetent.“
„No.“
Her smile faltered.
„No?“
„They are frightened.“
The princess laughed lightly.
„As though I am some monster.“
Jongho stared at her.
For one terrible second he almost answered honestly.
Instead he continued walking.
Behind him, her smile disappeared.
That was becoming a pattern.
Another time she insulted one of the palace cooks because a pastry contained berries she disliked.
Then she informed one of the castle gardeners that the roses looked common.
Then she complained that the western guest wing received less sunlight than the eastern one.
Then she criticized one of Seonghwa’s administrative decisions despite understanding absolutely nothing about administration.
The list grew daily.
The castle hated her.
Nobody said it aloud.
But they did.
Jongho could see it.
Servants vanished when she entered rooms.
Guards looked relieved when she passed.
Even the palace cats seemed to avoid her.
And then there was Falada.
That horse alone nearly convinced him.
The first incident happened in the lower courtyard.
The princess had decided she wanted to ride.
A simple enough request.
Until Falada saw her.
The white horse immediately pinned his ears back.
Every stable hand within sight froze.
Jongho happened to be speaking with Mingi nearby when it happened.
The princess approached confidently.
„Bring him.“
The stable boys exchanged worried looks.
„Your Highness…“
„Bring him.“
So they did.
The moment she reached for the reins, Falada lunged.
Not enough to bite.
Enough to terrify.
The princess shrieked.
The horse reared.
Guards rushed forward.
Stable hands shouted.
Chaos exploded across the courtyard.
And through all of it, Falada’s eyes never left her.
Hatred.
Pure hatred.
Jongho had never seen anything like it.
Then something stranger happened.
The servant girl.
The one everyone called Odette.
The real Liora.
She stepped forward instinctively.
Without fear.
Without hesitation.
She spoke softly.
Too quietly for Jongho to hear.
And immediately Falada calmed.
The horse lowered his head.
His breathing slowed.
His entire body relaxed.
The princess looked furious.
The horse looked relieved.
Jongho noticed both.
That night he ordered another search for the queen’s missing amulet.
The same search he had been secretly funding for weeks.
The same search nobody outside his closest circle knew about.
Because he was no longer interested in proving his suspicions.
He knew.
The problem was proving them to everyone else.
Unfortunately, the amulet remained missing.
And without it, ancient identity magic remained difficult to break.
Which was why.
Several days later.
Jongho sat in his work room contemplating murder.
Not actual murder.
Probably.
Across from him, Hongjoong was reading reports.
Seonghwa was correcting paperwork.
Yeosang occupied his usual chair near the window.
Mingi was eating.
San was pacing.
Wooyoung was upside down in another chair because apparently sitting normally offended him.
Jongho stared at the wall.
„I hate her.“
Nobody looked surprised.
San snorted.
„Which one?“
„The fake princess.“
„Ah.“
Hongjoong didn’t even glance up.
„Understandable.“
Jongho rubbed his forehead.
„If she complains about another servant breathing incorrectly, I may lose what remains of my sanity.“
Wooyoung grinned.
„Good news.“
„There is no good news.“
„There is for me.“
„No.“
„She complained about you this morning.“
Jongho closed his eyes.
„Wonderful.“
„Apparently you’re emotionally unavailable.“
The room burst into laughter.
Even Seonghwa smiled.
Jongho considered throwing something.
Instead he leaned back in his chair.
„I would rather eat horse shit.“
Silence.
Then Mingi choked.
San nearly fell over laughing.
Wooyoung slid halfway out of his chair.
Hongjoong finally looked up.
„What?“
Jongho remained perfectly serious.
„I would rather eat horse shit than marry that woman.“
More laughter.
Louder this time.
Yeosang actually looked amused.
A rare event.
Seonghwa pinched the bridge of his nose.
„Please never say that during negotiations.“
„I won’t.“
„Good.“
„I’ll think it.“
„That doesn’t help.“
„It helps me.“
Wooyoung wiped tears from his eyes.
„I’m writing that down.“
„No.“
„Too late.“
Jongho sighed.
Then his expression sobered.
„The marriage remains delayed.“
The room quieted immediately.
That mattered.
Politics always did.
Hongjoong folded his hands.
„The Valterran delegation grows impatient.“
„They can continue growing impatient.“
„The council wants a date.“
„They aren’t getting one.“
San grinned.
„I like this plan.“
Jongho looked toward the window.
Sunset painted the mountains gold.
„I won’t marry her.“
Nobody argued.
Not one of them.
Because all of them had met her.
And all of them had reached the same conclusion.
The woman was wrong.
Everything about her felt wrong.
The title.
The behavior.
The magic.
The horse.
The terrified servant girl.
The river girl who nearly died trying to tell the truth.
Wrong.
All of it.
„We’ll find the amulet,“ Hongjoong said quietly.
Jongho nodded.
„We have to.“
Eventually the meeting dissolved.
Paperwork remained.
Reports remained.
Responsibilities remained.
Unfortunately.
Jongho lasted another hour before abandoning all of them.
The sunset called.
Or perhaps a certain goose stable did.
He refused to examine that too closely.
The path had become familiar.
Embarrassingly familiar.
The guards no longer looked surprised when he wandered toward the fields in the evening.
The geese definitely weren’t surprised.
The moment he approached, three of them hissed.
Rude creatures.
He disliked them immensely.
Which was why it annoyed him that they reminded him of Y/N.
He found her exactly as expected.
Standing near the fence.
Holding a bucket.
Surrounded by geese.
Of course.
The sunset wrapped everything in gold.
Her hair glowed copper at the edges.
The geese followed her like loyal soldiers.
One sat on her foot.
She appeared completely unbothered.
Jongho stopped.
Just for a second.
Watching.
Peaceful.
That was the word.
Strange considering Y/N usually spoke like she was arguing with existence itself.
Yet something about this place suited her.
Maybe because nobody here expected anything.
No titles.
No politics.
No performances.
Just geese.
And a woman who somehow managed to boss them around.
Y/N looked up.
Immediately spotted him.
And groaned.
„Why are you here?“
„There it is.“
„What?“
„My welcome.“
She rolled her eyes.
„You’re ruining the atmosphere.“
„The atmosphere smells like geese.“
„They’re sensitive.“
One goose honked.
Jongho pointed.
„See.“
„That was agreement.“
„It was judgment.“
„Same thing.“
Jongho found himself smiling.
Again.
Dangerous habit.
Over the past days they had become surprisingly good at speaking around the curse.
Not directly.
Never directly.
But carefully.
Through hints.
Through observations.
Through stories that weren’t stories.
Y/N had become clever about it.
Whenever the spell sensed truth approaching, she simply changed direction.
Most of the time.
Sometimes she still forgot.
And Jongho had learned exactly how quickly her face changed when pain arrived.
He hated seeing it.
Which irritated him further.
They walked slowly through the field.
The geese followed.
Naturally.
„I have news.“
Y/N sighed dramatically.
„That sentence never means anything good.“
„The horse tried to murder my fiancée again.“
She immediately brightened.
„Really?“
„Y/N.“
„What?“
„You’re smiling.“
„Maybe Falada has good instincts.“
Jongho barked out a laugh.
The sound surprised both of them.
Y/N blinked.
Then looked entirely too pleased with herself.
„What?“
„The laugh.“
Jongho groaned.
„Oh no.“
„Oh yes.“
She pointed at him.
„You laugh now.“
„Occasionally.“
„You used to look like somebody cursed you.“
„Maybe I was.“
She grinned.
The sight hit him harder than expected.
Beautiful.
Dangerous thought.
He ignored it.
Badly.
They continued walking.
Discussing plans.
Searching for loopholes.
Searching for ways around ancient magic.
Searching for clues.
Anything.
Everything.
At some point Y/N made another joke about his personality.
Then another.
Then another.
And somehow the conversation turned into an argument.
Not a real one.
The kind they always had.
The comfortable kind.
„You are impossible.“
„No.“
„You are.“
„I’m right.“
„That isn’t the same thing.“
„It usually is.“
Jongho stared.
Y/N grinned.
„See?“
„I dislike you.“
„No you don’t.“
The confidence in her voice was infuriating.
Mostly because it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Y/N stepped backwards.
Still grinning.
Still challenging.
Still entirely too pleased with herself.
„You absolutely don’t.“
Jongho stopped.
Looked at her.
The sunset painted gold across her face.
Across her hair.
Across the stubborn curve of her smile.
And suddenly he was tired of the distance.
Tired of her stepping away.
Tired of pretending he hadn’t spent the last week looking for excuses to visit a goose stable.
Before thinking better of it. He reached forward and aught her wrist.
And Pulled.
Y/N stumbled.
A surprised sound escaped her. Then she crashed lightly against him.
Everything stopped.
The geese. The conversation. The world.
Jongho’s hand remained around her wrist.
Her palm pressed against his chest.
She looked up.
Eyes wide with surprise.
They were close.
Closer than they had ever been.
Close enough to see every golden fleck hidden in her eyes.
Close enough to feel her breath.
Close enough that his attention dropped.
To her lips.
Just for a second.
Maybe two.
Y/N noticed.
He knew she noticed.
Because her gaze dropped too.
Silence settled around them.
Soft.
Dangerous.
Jongho suddenly found himself wondering what it would feel like.
To kiss her.
The thought arrived without permission.
And stayed.
He should be engaged to someone like her.
Someone who challenged him.
Made him laugh.
Looked at him like a man instead of a crown.
Someone whose first thought upon meeting him wasn’t how useful he might be.
His grip loosened slightly.
Y/N still hadn’t moved.
Neither had he.
The sunset deepened.
And then.
A voice ruined everything. „Well.“
Wooyoung. Of course.
Y/N immediately jumped backwards.
Jongho closed his eyes.
The universe hated him.
Wooyoung stood a few feet away.
Grinning like a man who had just discovered treasure.
„You know,“ he said. „This is significantly more interesting than paperwork.“
Nobody answered.
„Should I come back later?“
„No.“
„Fair.“
Wooyoung’s smile softened slightly.
Then his expression turned serious. „The princess is causing problems.“
Jongho sighed. „What now?“
„She saw you leave toward the fields.“
Y/N groaned.
Wooyoung pointed at her. „Exactly my reaction.“
„What happened?“
Wooyoung spread his hands. „She’s currently making half the castle miserable.“
Jongho pinched the bridge of his nose. „How bad?“
„She threw a vase….at a wall.“
Jongho closed his eyes again.
Behind him one of the geese hissed.
Appropriate.
„Your fiancée is looking for you,“ Wooyoung said.
The word fiancée tasted wrong. Jongho hated it.
Y/N noticed.
Of course she did.
For a moment neither spoke.
The sunset suddenly felt colder.
Then Y/N crossed her arms. The familiar challenge returning to her eyes.
„Better go save the vase collection.“
Jongho looked at her.
Longer than necessary.
Then sighed. „Unfortunately.“
Wooyoung’s grin returned immediately.
And somewhere inside the castle, a false princess waited.
While in a field full of geese, Jongho found himself wishing he could stay exactly where he was.
Fairytale Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Jonghos Masterlist
To read the other members Fairytale Retellings go to the Fairytale Masterlist
After stepping through a strange door on a winter night, Y/N awakens in a summer forest under an unfamiliar sky.
In a land ruled by fear of an old curse, she is found by a shadow-veiled war hero who believes himself too monstrous to be loved and is quietly surprised when she does not recoil.
Pairing: Song Mingi x Reader (Y/N)
Tropes: Fairytale AU, Grimm-inspired Bearskin retelling, Cursed hero feared as a monster, Soft male lead with tragic backstory, Hurt/comfort, Slow burn romance, Soft, gentle giant cursed by shadows, Logical/ Quiet FMC
Genre: Dark Fairytale, Fantasy Romance, Slow Burn, Angst with Soft Healing, Mythic Fairytale Retelling, Mutual awkwardness
Fairytale Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Mingis Masterlist
Intro | HJ | SH | YH | YS | SN | MG | WY | JH
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
This is Part 4
For a moment, Y N did not understand what she was seeing.
The cave had gone cold when the shadow appeared. Not temperature cold. Something deeper. Something ancient and wrong. She had felt it in her bones when the air thickened and the figure formed, its voice layered and furious, its rhyme sharp like a blade.
She had never been more afraid in her life.
Not when she stepped through the door.
Not when she fell from the cliff.
Not when the hut burned down.
Nothing compared to watching Mingi convulse in pain in her arms while something that did not belong to this world hissed over him.
She held onto him anyway.
Even when the shadows lashed violently around them.
Even when his body trembled so hard she feared his bones would break.
Even when the specter’s final words echoed in the cave and everything shattered at once.
Then silence.
Heavy.
Total.
And he collapsed.
“Mingi!”
She barely managed to guide his fall so he would not hit the stone. He landed on the blankets they had spread earlier, his body limp, breath shallow but present.
For a second she could not breathe.
Her hands hovered over him, unsure where to touch, afraid to cause harm after what she had just witnessed.
“Mingi,” she whispered again, her voice breaking.
The cave felt too still.
Too quiet.
The rain outside had softened, almost as if the world itself was holding its breath.
She waited for the shadows to surge again.
To return.
To coil around him like they always had.
They did not.
Her heart pounded violently in her chest.
Slowly, cautiously, she leaned closer.
He lay on his side, face turned partly into the blanket. His hair fell loosely over his forehead. His breathing was steady, though faint.
There were no shadows.
None.
Not clinging to his shoulders.
Not veiling his face.
Not shifting faintly along his skin.
Nothing.
The absence was almost more shocking than their presence had ever been.
She stared at him.
She could not see his face fully yet. The blanket obscured part of it, and he was still half turned away from her.
But even from this angle, she could tell.
The darkness was gone.
The curse was broken.
And she did not care.
Not about what he looked like.
Not about whether his features were sharp or soft or different from what she had imagined.
All she cared about was the terrifying stillness of him.
“Mingi, please,” she whispered, her hands finally settling against his shoulder, gently shaking him.
Nothing.
Her throat tightened.
“Don’t do this,” she murmured, panic rising again. “You cannot just dramatically break a curse and then not wake up.”
Her voice cracked.
She pressed her hand to his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall beneath her palm.
Alive.
He was alive.
But still unconscious.
“Mingi,” she tried again, leaning closer, brushing hair from his forehead with trembling fingers.
For a long second, there was no response.
Then a faint movement.
His brows twitched.
His fingers curled slightly in the blanket.
Her breath caught sharply.
“Mingi?”
He stirred again, a soft, disoriented sound escaping his throat as his eyes fluttered open slowly.
She did not wait.
Relief crashed over her so violently that she leaned forward and pressed her face into his shoulder, her arms wrapping around him instinctively.
“You idiot,” she breathed, her voice muffled against him, tears spilling freely now. “You absolute idiot.”
Her body trembled with the leftover fear.
He inhaled sharply, still weak, but conscious.
“…Y N?” he murmured, voice hoarse.
She pulled back just enough to look at him.
And finally she saw his face properly.
No shadows.
No veil.
No distortion.
Just him.
Her breath hitched again, but not in shock.
His features were softer than she had imagined. Warm. Open. His skin flushed faintly pink from the strain of what had just happened. His eyes...those kind eyes she had always seen through darkness...were clearer now. Unobstructed.
And they were exactly the same.
Still gentle.
Still warm.
Still his.
She let out a shaky laugh through tears.
“You look the same,” she said softly.
He blinked, confused.
“Just… more pink,” she added with a small, trembling smile.
His brows knit faintly.
She cupped his face carefully in both hands, thumbs brushing lightly over his cheeks as if confirming he was real.
“You look like you,” she whispered.
And she meant it.
There was no grand reveal.
No dramatic transformation.
Just the removal of something that never belonged to him in the first place.
His appearance now simply matched what she had already seen in him all along.
Kind.
Gentle.
And, to her complete lack of surprise...Pretty.
She leaned forward again and kissed him softly.
Not urgent this time.
Not desperate.
Just certain.
“I love you,” she murmured against his lips.
He swallowed slowly, eyes still slightly dazed, but focused entirely on her.
“…The shadows,” he breathed faintly, almost in disbelief.
“Gone,” she confirmed gently.
Her thumb traced along his cheekbone.
“Completely gone.”
He exhaled slowly, as if testing the air for something that no longer lingered.
“I can feel it,” he whispered.
She smiled through the remnants of tears.
“Good,” she replied softly.
She kissed him again.
Longer this time.
Warmer.
And when she pulled back, she rested her forehead lightly against his.
“I love you,” she repeated.
Not as a declaration this time.
As a promise.
He looked at her for a long moment, something raw and vulnerable flickering in his now unshadowed eyes.
“…I love you too,” he said quietly.
The words were steadier than before.
Less hesitant.
More certain.
She smiled at him then, her fingers still cradling his face as the rain outside softened into a distant murmur and the cave no longer felt like exile.
It felt like the beginning of something entirely new.
For a long moment after she kissed him, Mingi could not move.
Not because he was weak.
But because his entire body felt unfamiliar.
Light.
He inhaled slowly.
The air felt different in his lungs. Clearer. Warmer. Not heavy with something clinging to his ribs. Not threaded with the constant, subtle tension of shadow wrapped around bone.
He lifted a trembling hand to his face.
No resistance.
No shifting veil.
No cold, restless curl of darkness at his fingertips.
His skin felt… like skin.
Warm.
Alive.
His heart pounded in his chest, but not from pain.
From shock.
From relief so overwhelming it bordered on unbearable.
The curse was broken.
It had not lingered.
It had not twisted into something worse.
It had not found a loophole.
It had simply… ended.
He looked at her.
Really looked at her.
Her cheeks still damp from tears. Her eyes bright and wide and steady. Her hands cupping his face without hesitation.
She loved him.
The thought alone made his breath catch again.
Someone loved him.
Not despite the shadows.
Not as a test.
Not with fear hidden beneath bravery.
But openly. Fiercely. Without condition.
It felt too big for his chest.
Overwhelming.
Terrifying.
And the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened to him.
“I thought…” he started, voice still hoarse. “I thought it would never—”
He stopped.
Because it had.
Because she had kissed him at midnight.
Because she had said the words without giving him time to retreat into logic.
Because she had chosen him.
He reached for her hand again, slower this time, not out of fear but out of disbelief that she was still there.
Still real.
Still smiling at him like that.
“I do not know how to—” he began, then let out a breathless laugh.
“I have no experience with this,” he admitted quietly.
“With what?” she asked softly.
“With being loved.”
The cave fell silent around them.
He felt overwhelmed.
Not lost.
Not burdened.
Just… full.
As if something hollow inside him had finally been filled.
And then the air shifted.
He felt it before he saw it.
A faint hum.
A disturbance like heat over stone.
They both turned toward the mouth of the cave.
And there it was.
A door.
Standing where there had only been rain moments before.
Unpainted.
Rough.
Familiar in the strangest way.
Light spilled faintly around ist edges, not firelight. Not sunlight. Something else.
Y N inhaled sharply.
Her fingers tightened around his.
“It’s the same,” she whispered.
He looked from the door to her.
Understanding settled immediately.
“This leads back to your world,” he said quietly.
She nodded.
Her eyes were wide. Not fearful. Not panicked.
Just aware.
A choice stood between them now.
He did not hesitate.
“I will go with you.”
The words left him before doubt could even attempt to form.
She blinked, startled.
“What?”
He stood slowly, still slightly weak but steady enough, and faced her fully.
“Nothing binds me here anymore,” he said calmly. “The village has made that clear.”
His voice did not carry bitterness now.
Only certainty.
“No one treated me gently in this land,” he continued. “Not until you.”
His gaze softened.
“If you return to your world, I will not remain here alone.”
He stepped closer.
“I wish to begin again,” he said quietly. “With you.”
Her breath trembled.
“Mingi, your home—”
“Burned,” he said simply.
“My past?” He shook his head faintly. “It was already ash long before the hut.”
He reached for her hands.
“You are not.”
Her eyes shimmered.
“You are my present,” he finished softly. “And, if you allow it… my future.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then she nodded.
Once.
Firmly.
They did not speak further.
They did not need to.
Hand in hand, they stepped toward the door.
He felt the same strange pull as before.
A shift.
A bending.
The world around him folded...
And then...
They were standing on stone.
Cold.
Familiar in a way that was not his.
Streetlights glowed overhead.
Bright.
White.
Artificial.
The scent of rain on pavement lingered in the air.
Cars stood parked along the road. Tall buildings rose above them, glass and metal reflecting light in ways that made his head spin.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
He had expected disorientation.
He had not expected… this.
The door was gone.
The forest was gone.
The cave was gone.
Only a quiet city street remained.
Y N stood beside him, staring around in disbelief.
“It’s the same,” she whispered.
He looked at her.
“You did not disappear for months here?” he asked carefully.
She shook her head slowly.
“I just… left,” she breathed. “And now I’m back.”
He exhaled slowly.
This world felt overwhelming.
Too bright.
Too structured.
Too loud even in ist quiet.
The buildings towered like cliffs made of glass. Light shone without flame from poles and windows. Somewhere in the distance, a machine roared past on wheels without horses.
His heart pounded again.
Not in fear.
In astonishment.
“This is your world,” he murmured.
She nodded.
Her hand squeezed his.
He felt small here.
And yet strangely fascinated.
The lights.
The smooth ground.
The scent of something unfamiliar in the air.
So this was the place that had shaped her.
The place she had described in fragments.
He felt no regret.
Only curiosity.
And gratitude that he stood here beside her rather than alone in a forest clearing.
She turned toward him.
“You can live with me,” she said suddenly, almost breathless. “If you want. Until we figure things out. You don’t have to—but you can.”
He stared at her for a moment.
Then, to her surprise, he laughed.
Warm.
Unrestrained.
“We have lived together for nearly four months already,” he reminded her gently.
Her cheeks flushed.
“That’s different,” she muttered weakly.
He stepped closer and took her hand again, fingers intertwining naturally with hers.
“I will live wherever you are,” he said quietly.
Her expression softened instantly.
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him without hesitation, pressing her face against his chest as if anchoring herself to something solid in a world that suddenly felt unreal.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He rested his chin lightly against her hair, still taking in the brightness of this new world, the hum of distant traffic, the glow of lights he did not yet understand.
“I love you too,” he replied.
And for the first time in his life, standing in a world entirely unfamiliar beneath artificial stars, he felt certain of something.
Wherever the door led next he would not be walking through it alone.
A few months later, the world no longer felt like it was made entirely of glass and noise.
It still overwhelmed him sometimes.
The speed of it.
The lights that never dimmed fully.
The endless hum of machines moving even when no one seemed to be steering them.
But it no longer felt hostile.
It felt… navigable.
Mingi stood in a workshop that smelled of fresh wood and varnish, sleeves rolled up, hands steady as he measured a plank for the third time. Sunlight filtered through tall windows, catching in the fine dust that floated lazily through the air.
He had found work.
Carpentry.
The closest thing this world had to what he already understood.
Wood was wood, no matter the century.
Grain still ran in lines.
Knots still resisted blades.
Strength still required patience and precision.
His employer had been skeptical at first. Mingi had not exactly been able to explain his previous “experience” in a way that fit neatly into modern paperwork.
But skill translated without explanation.
And once he built his first table...solid, balanced, careful in every detail...the skepticism faded.
He worked quietly.
Efficiently.
And, as always, gently.
That word followed him here too.
Gentle with tools.
Gentle with coworkers.
Gentle even when someone accidentally bumped into him and expected him to react sharply.
He did not.
He never had.
Over time, faces in the workshop became familiar.
Yunho, who laughed loudly and insisted on helping even when help was not necessary.
Yeosang, who observed more than he spoke but noticed everything.
San, who moved with restless energy but worked with surprising focus.
They had welcomed him with curiosity at first.
Then with genuine warmth.
After work, there were evenings where they gathered together. Sometimes at small restaurants, sometimes in cramped apartments, sometimes at Y N’s place where conversations overlapped and laughter echoed against the walls.
Through Y N, he met Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Wooyoung and Jongho.
The first time he entered that circle, he had expected scrutiny.
Instead, he received teasing.
Questions.
Interest.
Wooyoung in particular had declared dramatically that Mingi had “main character energy,” which had left him staring blankly until Y N nearly choked on her drink laughing.
Seonghwa had been calm and perceptive, offering quiet reassurance that adjusting to a new life took time.
Hongjoong had asked sharp, thoughtful questions about how he learned woodworking so quickly.
Jongho had challenged him to arm wrestle within the first hour and lost with theatrical outrage.
They blended over time.
Work friends and shared friends merging into one group, conversations flowing naturally, jokes forming that made little sense to outsiders.
It was strange.
To belong.
To not be feared.
To not be whispered about.
To walk into a room and not feel people shift away.
He still startled occasionally when someone clapped him on the back without hesitation.
Still felt a flicker of disbelief when laughter followed something he said instead of silence.
But those flickers grew smaller with time.
Technology remained… complicated.
The first time Y N handed him her phone and told him to “just text in the group chat,” he had stared at the glowing screen like it might bite him.
“You press there,” she had instructed patiently.
He pressed too hard.
The screen zoomed in dramatically.
She burst into laughter.
“Why are you using it like it’s going to run away from you?”
“It is fragile,” he defended calmly.
“It’s not a porcelain cup,” she insisted between giggles.
He learned slowly.
Carefully.
Like an old man adapting to something new.
He typed too formally at first.
Used full sentences in group chats while everyone else responded with one word or emojis.
Accidentally turned on voice commands once and spent five full minutes trying to understand why the device was speaking back to him.
Y N laughed every time.
Not cruelly.
Never cruelly.
Just delighted.
And he found he did not mind being the reason she laughed.
Especially on evenings when the world outside quieted.
When their apartment was dim except for the soft glow of lamps.
When the city sounds softened into distant murmurs.
Those evenings were his favorite.
They would sit side by side on the couch.
A blanket draped loosely over their legs.
Her laptop open in front of them.
Stardew Valley.
He had learned the mechanics quickly.
Plant crops.
Water them.
Harvest carefully.
Repair buildings.
Speak to villagers.
It amused him deeply that the villagers in her game were kinder than the ones from his own world.
“See?” she would say smugly when a pixelated character gave them a gift. “Healthy community.”
He would shake his head faintly but smile.
He liked the quiet rhythm of it.
The simplicity.
The slow building of something warm and stable.
Sometimes, when rain tapped against their windows, he would glance sideways at her.
Her concentration face when she decided which crop to plant next.
The small smile when their farm expanded.
The way she leaned into him unconsciously when something in the game surprised her.
And he would feel it again.
That steady, overwhelming warmth.
The curse was gone.
The shadows had not returned.
But something remained.
The love.
It had not faded with the end of magic.
It had not dimmed under electric lights.
It had not weakened in a world without forests and kingdoms.
If anything, it had grown steadier.
Quieter.
Stronger.
One evening, as pixelated rain fell on their digital farm, she paused the game and turned slightly toward him.
“You’re staring again,” she accused softly.
“I am observing,” he corrected gently.
She smiled.
Then leaned closer and kissed him without hesitation.
No urgency.
No fear of midnight deadlines.
No curses waiting to be broken.
Just warmth.
When she pulled back, she rested her forehead lightly against his.
“I love you,” she said, like she always did.
As if it were a fact that required no drama.
He brushed a thumb along her cheek.
“I love you too,” he replied.
And under artificial stars, in a world that once would have overwhelmed him completely, he felt something he had once believed impossible.
Not just freedom.
Not just belonging.
But home.
Not in a hut.
Not in a cave.
Not in a kingdom.
But wherever she was.
And that was enough.
Epilogue
One tale began in shadow’s breath,
In war and curse and whispered death.
A soldier veiled in stolen night,
Who bore the weight of others’ fright.
One kiss at midnight, fierce and true,
Let dawn break through what darkness knew.
Where once a monster’s name was thrown,
Love claimed the heart that stood alone.
So Bearskin’s path has reached its end,
With ash turned gold and fate made friend.
A hut once burned, a curse undone,
Two hands now clasped, two lives made one.
Yet this is but the third to close
The first through flame and devil’s snare,
Of hidden doors and winding roads.
Where golden hairs were wrested bare.
In Yunho’s trial of death and flame,
The second walked a forest red,
Love called him back and broke the chain.
Where wolf and girl by moonlight tread.
In Yeosang’s tale of tooth and thread,
And now the third, through smoke and skin,
A gentler heart the shadows led.
Where night once curled but love broke in.
In Mingi’s curse of scorn and fear,
Three women stepped where doors appeared,
A steadfast heart drew daylight near.
Through midnight hush when none else heard.
Three hearts have chosen, fought, and stayed.
But listen close when twilight hums,
Three golden threads the dark unmade.
When wind through silent city drums.
Where fate waits patient in between.
For five more doors still stand unseen,
Five stories yet in shadow lie,
Five stars unclaimed in waiting sky.
And somewhere, just beyond your sight,
Another door will gleam tonight.
Fairytale Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Mingis Masterlist
can big companies or music formats stop copying ateez? thank you, be more original next time.
they also call them nugu... yeah, sure, so unknown that everything they do gets copied.
"don't toss around the name tag ATEEZ carelessly"; know your place and copy properly next time; even big companies copy our vision ← song mingi said it himself
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