a not so wonderful life
⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ━━ @daldahye 、 another door opens ⋆
𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆, his words ringing in her ears like a bell that won’t stop sounding. already they give her a headache. though dahye wishes it, she can’t pull her eyes away and tell him that he should think before he speaks, considering who it is that he’s speaking to. perhaps he doesn’t realize the cruelty of his own question, coming from his lips, to her - it cuts like a knife.
for choi deoksu is the man who intends on marrying her, but not for cause like love or anything of the sort. it’s an arrangement of convenience: no one lines up at the door of jung dahye for her hand in marriage, he doesn’t want to love anyone except for yi hyeyeon. ( at the very least, she thinks, she’ll be free from the flames that lick her heel. )
“ would you like it if i believed that, my lord?” she asks cryptically, finally managing to pull her eyes away. “ truly, though, i think - ..” her eyes cast instead in the direction of his - towards a certain princess, the one that holds his heart. “ you only have someone if you’re pretty.”
he pauses, his head tips to the side, to allow her to proceed with her thoughts ; unsure of how to take her tone, and the way the words had melted into thin air. “no, i want to know what you believe.” and not what you think i want you to, but these are words he does not say. for while they were acquaintances, secrets of his own buried in their vows to one another, he knows they are not close enough for things he shouldn’t say to ears that deserve better.
“that isn’t true,” he starts definitively, breaking his own rule of competence, to delay his outlandish tongue as his eyes follow his words -- taking them away from what once was to what now would be, watching the way they flicker. “it is much more than beauty that one can desire in a person.” and while he says this, his brows furrow -- uncertainty sinking into his own blunt features; roughened by the cold, harsh winter.
“what makes you think that it is otherwise?” concern fills his tone, this time, turning his attention to her, fully, now.
