The Right Path
word count: 2,548
characters: prince!mitch x princess!reader
summary: being a princess and having to marry your ex-best friend and now (slight) enemy was not what you had in mind for the future, but this event does reveal some truths between you guys.
notes: this is my fic/imagine for Mitchtober, hosted by the talented @writingsbychlo! It’s also the first written work I’ve ever posted on tumblr, so I hope it’s alright! :)
Also, a special thanks to the lovely @meistilinski! She helped me write this piece and she’s just super talented and amazing! <3
warnings: a sprinkle of angst (I guess?), a few curse words.
Walking around in the royal garden was normally the favorite part of your day, but at this moment it was absolutely not. Because while your parents were discussing the terms of your arranged marriage with the parents of your enemy and soon-to-be husband, you were stuck with him. Mitch.
The two of you have actually known each other since you were little. Being royalty of neighbouring kingdoms and your parents liking each other instead of being rivals, pushed you together, but you two had never liked each other. Well, that’s not entirely true. When you were little you were the best of friends, but when you were teenagers, that friendship had turned to dust. For some reason the two of you just didn’t click anymore. Every time you talked it turned into some sort of argument or disagreement, which only made the hatred you had for each other grow.
Maybe it just wasn’t destined to be.
✧─── ｡ﾟ★: .✦ . :★. ───✧
You were walking through the rose pergolas to go to your favorite spot, with Mitch right behind you, when he decided to speak up, and ask the question you realized you didn't quite have the answer for. “Why do you hate me so much?” He looked straight ahead, your gaze not leaving the roses either. “I don't hate you, I despise you.” Your answer made Mitch scoff, and he rolled his eyes. He was expecting an answer like that, yet he hoped for a proper conversation.
As the two of you walked past a little pond where you loved to sit at and walked up the steps to the lookout spot, you heard him mumble something under his breath. “This is the stupidest thing I've ever had to do. I don’t even want to marry you..” You turned around and looked him straight in the eye. “Can you stop moaning? Just so you know, I'm doing this for my kingdom. If the choice was up to me, I would not have suggested marrying you,” When Mitch was just about to answer, you interrupted him.
“Your brother though, he is quite the gentleman. Nothing like you.” You whisked your hair over your shoulder, turned around and walked away towards the edge of the little lookout spot. A proud smile tugging at the corners of your lips.
For a moment it was silent. Only the chirping of birds, splashing water from a fountain and the soft sounds of the village you were looking over were able to be heard. That was until your peaceful atmosphere was rudely interrupted, again, by the last voice you wanted to hear.
“If you adore my brother so much, why don't you marry him? He’s more husband-material anyway.” He suddenly stood behind you, and you froze at his voice, not realizing he’d followed your tail. If it weren’t for the focus on the splashing water and sounds of chirping birds, you were sure you would've heard him strutting behind you. “Maybe he’d grant you every wish you desire, princess.” The arrogance was clearly evident in his tone, and you didn’t even have to look over your shoulder to know he crossed his arms like his usual moody form. The nickname wasn’t new for you either, he usually called you that, wanting to let you know you were spoiled, but you didn’t seem to care. You were a princess after all.
You let out a deep sigh, inhaling scents of the nature around you before turning around slowly. “Dear Mitch, that’s not how marriages work for people like us, unfortunately.” You could practically hear him roll his eyes.
Before he could say anything more though, you decided it was enough, so you walked away and circled around his body. Mitch shot question marks your way as you paraded around him but he didn’t follow this time. Instead he just watched as you made your way back to the palace. “Lovely talk as usual!” He yelled at you and you turned your head while still walking away. “I wish it was, yet it really wasn’t. Goodbye future husband.” You grinned as your head turned back around, hair dangling with every step you took, and you wish you could see his face right now. Calling him future husband probably upsetted and annoyed him, but you knew there was no way both your parents would call off the engagement. You knew he didn’t have a choice, and you didn’t have one either.
✧─── ｡ﾟ★: .✦ . :★. ───✧
The next day arrived sooner than expected, unfortunately. Yesterday when Mitch annoyed the shit out of you and made sure you knew he did not want to marry you, was actually not as bad as you thought it was. Well, aside from the constant bickering. But after all the engagement shit you’d had in the past couple of weeks, that day was actually a day where you were able to relax.
That didn’t count for this day, though. Today was the day that you, Mitch and both of your parents had to make all the agreements and plans for the future, most essentially the benefits of this marriage for both kingdoms. The kings and queens were set on the fact that you two were going to marry, with or without your approval. And since you two have known each other since you were kids, they thought you two could profit from the marriage as well. Little did they know...
The hours of sitting still in a room and not actually having a say in any of the things your parents were discussing, was the most dreadful experience of your life. And you weren’t being dramatic. Even Mitch had the same bored and unamused look on his face as you had. At least there’s one thing both of you could agree on.
It wasn’t a surprise you immediately went back to your favorite spot in the garden, just to stare at mother nature. The sunlight that shone through the leaves, shone bright on your face and you sighed. You could stay here forever.
“Figured you’d be here.” A voice said from a distance away and your eyes snapped open. You felt irritation fuel, something that just happened automatically whenever you would hear his voice.
“Why on earth would you require my presence, it’s not like I require yours.” He simply ignored you and rolled his eyes. He then walked a little closer, standing next to you, and leaned against the railing as well. It’s funny that you two were in almost the exact same spot as yesterday.
“Let me try that again, differently.” He cleared his throat. “Nice weather isn’t it? It explains why you’re here again.”
“Yeah, the same weather when I was in the embrace of a liar.”
He chuckled. “Good one. Did you make that up just now or do you have a whole book with lame insults?” You didn’t respond and instead, closed your eyes again. “What do you want? Figured you want to be as far away as possible from me, considering we spent hours in each other’s presence. Get to the point.”
You could feel Mitch's eyes on the back of your head. If he would look any longer, you might say he’d burn holes. He coughed, sounds of paper filling the air, and you didn't even notice the papers he had brought with him. You frowned, turning to look at him and he grabbed something from his pocket - a feather and a bottle of ink.
“I think we should go over our own conditions for this marriage. I think it's only fair that we ourselves also have some, besides the ones that our parents made.” Before you could say anything he already opened the little bottle and grabbed the feather. “Alright, I guess.”
He stood next to you and looked out over the village, feather in hand as the paper lay on the cement railing. You looked over at him, his fluffy, brown hair moving as his arm moved, to write the title. Knowing you shouldn't look that long, your eyes wanted to move away to a tree or sky, but the longer you looked, the more you felt drawn to him. You didn't want to admit it, but the hatred you once had towards him did fade a little over the past years. The anger that was within you was still present, but not as boiling as it used to be. His voice just reminded you of the same voice that told you pretty lies.
“So, condition number one,” he cleared his throat, your eyes still glued to his face. “No inappropriate touching. This thing stays professional.” You managed to snort out a laugh, cackling as the man beside you stopped his movements of his hand on the paper, and gave you an unamused glance.
“Why would you make a rule about that? Scared you're going to fall for me after we share the bed?” You mocked him while you leaned against the railing with your side. Even though the old times were gone, it still brought joy to poke fun at him. It was almost as if nothing changed. Almost.
“Not scared, I just know you.” He cocked his head with a sly smirk.
That’s true, he did know you, maybe even a little too well. Something that wasn’t in your favor, but you managed to play it cool. “Don’t worry, it ain’t gonna happen soon.”
“Alright, well, looks like you can’t take this seriously as usual, so we’ll just continue this another time.” He laid the paper down on the railing, with the bottle of ink on top. He put his hands in the pockets of his pants and you stood there in silence.
“Can I ask you something?”
“No.”
“Alright, I’m still gonna ask it. You better give me an answer this time, Y/N.”
“Should I?”
“Well, you kinda owe it to me”
“Owe it to you? I owe you nothing, Mitch."
“I just don't understand why you hate me. I don’t remember what went wrong between us. And would falling in love with me be so terrible?”
“Don’t know. Don’t want to talk about it.” You managed to muster, but he wasn't pleased with that answer. And as you tried to walk away, he managed to grab your arm. He didn’t apply too much pressure, but it was still strong enough so you could not pry out of his grip.
“I know you know. You say you despise me, yet something draws you to me. And I also know that somewhere along the line, you stopped hating me. Maybe you never hated me, maybe you just convinced yourself you did. You just try to bolt off every time I try to talk it out.”
You looked at him, staying silent. You didn’t want to admit it, but maybe he was right. Maybe you did overreact on the ‘hating you’ part, but you did have a valid reason if you really had to explain yourself.
“Look, I know you never stopped caring. It’s not like you. And in the meantime while you try to convince me you don’t, know that I'll always care about you, even when you think I don't. I know I haven’t always been the most endearing, but I have no clue what I did wrong for you to hate me so much. As much as I want to hate you too, I can’t. I could never hate you.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“This,” you pointed between Mitch and yourself. “Please just, don’t.”
“Why?” He looked at you with pleading eyes. Silently begging you to tell him.
“Why?” You repeated after him, but with a tone that made sure he knew that you couldn’t believe that he didn’t know what he did.
“Y/N…Tell me why. For god’s sake, we’re getting married! Aren’t we supposed to work on the issues we have with each other now before it’s too late?”
“Fine,” You took a deep breath and looked at the ground. Honestly you were just tired. Tired of holding a grudge against him, even though what he did nearly broke you.“The royal ball, 6 years ago.”
“Yeah? What’s with it?”
“When we were kids, we made a pact. remember?” Mitch was quiet for a few seconds, inhaling and exhaling deeply.
“yeah.”
“We promised we’d be together forever, soulmates for life...”
“...Then at that ball, when we were 17, I saw you with her, dancing with her. Kissing her cheek like you always did to me. Curling her hair around your finger and holding her close. I wasn’t jealous at first, I would always be happy for you, but you chose the one girl that made me feel like I was worth nothing, and you knew. You fucking knew. Yet you chose her.”
“I wanted to ignore you, hate you for a few days. Perhaps a few weeks, let you come to me to talk about that night, but you acted like nothing happened. Something just grew inside me, eating me up. Hatred formed like a fireball in the pit of my stomach. Those few weeks turned into months, and those months turned into years.” You let out a dry laugh, done with explaining the moment that hurt you for the rest of your life.
He looked at you with big eyes. “Y/N…” He sighed, empathy evident in his voice. “At that time there were some complications between our kingdoms. Of course I wanted to dance with you that night. I was supposed to dance with you, but my dad wanted me to have other options if the issues between our parents couldn’t be fixed. I didn’t want to do it, but you know how my father is. My intention was never to hurt you, I’m sorry...”
You stared at him. No expression evident on your face. You were processing everything he just said. It wasn’t his fault, if maybe you had just talked to him this would never have happened. “I’m so sorry, Mitch. I- I didn’t know...I’ve been so cruel to you for these past years and every time you tried to talk I just walked away-”
“-I know, it’s okay. Even though we never talked it out until now, we found a way to fix it.” He opened his arms and embraced you in a hug. You missed his hugs so much. His warm, loving and tight hugs. It felt like the world around you disappeared for a moment and the only people who were there were you. “Mitch?” “Yes?” “I guess falling in love with you wouldn’t be so terrible.” He let go of you with a genuine smile plastered on his face. For a moment you just looked at each other in silence, before you decided to break it.
“So, what about our own conditions for this marriage?”
“To hell with it”
Mitch grabbed the piece of paper and tore it to shreds. He looked down at you and you saw a different kind of sparkle in his eyes. He extended his arm as an invite for you to loop yours through his, and you waited a second before giving in. The two of you walked back to the palace, arm in arm, finally on the right path again.
