childhood bestfriends caleb and nonMC!reader, who he's secretly in love with while she thinks he likes someone else
warnings. angst, fluff, rejection, she fell first he fell harder, caleb is down bad, groveling, miscommunication, caleb sucks at feelings, slow burn, childhood friends to lovers, he gives her a nickname adjacent to pipsqueak
preview. "I love you," he says, pressing his forehead against yours. You want to tell him that it's not fair to treat you the way he does and expect you not to fall for him. That holding your hair when you vomit, falling asleep at your bedside when you're sick, and his eyes closing in on you in any room is not fair. "Then prove it to me."
wc. 8.4k (she's hefty...)
You proposed to Caleb for the first time when you were nine years old, with a flower ring.
The winter air had nipped at your flushed cheeks as you stepped into ice, holding it out to him. Your breath had puffed into the air like a dragon, and you nuzzled your chin further into the wool of your scarf to keep warm. It had been the only flower left after fall had faded away, yet its white petals stood brilliantly in between your fingertips, weathering against the cold.
The child in front of you was closed off. Eyes narrowed, fists balled inside his pockets, and usually adorning a solemn look on his face. Though, it had certainly gotten better since you first met him as one of Grandma Josephine’s adoptive children. Back then, he hadn’t even spoken much—only keeping MC tight at his side, as if she might disappear if he didn’t. He wasn’t rude by any means…just, cautious. Too aware for a child of his age.
But without a doubt in your mind, he was the most handsome boy you’d ever seen.
He’d raised his brows. “You just met me last week.”
“It’s love at first sight.”
He rejected you, naturally, but it did little to make a dent in your childish heart. Not when his purple hues gazed into your own, with a softness that didn’t seem intent on hurting you.
The next two decades becomes a perpetual cycle of this encounter—in which you learn that Caleb is a very caring person.
In that time, you learn a lot about him, aside from his gorgeous face. You find that he’s fond of nicknames. Pipsqueak for MC. Splints for you, when you launched yourself off a swing and broke your wrist trying to impress him. Safe to say, it didn’t impress anyone but your doctor, who was baffled you managed to fly so high into the air with your 11-year-old legs. Caleb held your other hand tight in the emergency room as you wailed helplessly, waiting for the doctor to ease the pain. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t cry just a tad longer to keep your hand in his.
“This thing is so ugly,” you whine, picking at your cast as he walks you back home. “Do you think I’m gross now, Caleb?”
“It’s not ugly. You need it to get better.”
“I thought you’d fall in love with me if I went high enough,” you sniffle fake tears, which he reads in an instant. “I did go pretty high up, though. So maybe you like me at least.”
He laughs, and you scowl, insisting that you aren’t joking. So instead, he smiles and holds your free hand in his again. Your heart skips a beat. A childish, but innocent love fluttering in your chest. “Come on, splints. Let’s go watch TV, and I can sign your cast.”
The broken wrist is so worth it.
With MC being two grades lower than the two of you and thus having a different schedule, it doesn’t take long before you’re doing practically everything with Caleb. He’s your seatmate in class, the two of you walk to and from school, and there doesn’t seem to be a moment where you aren’t glued at the hip. Throughout all of this, you make sure you shoot your shot whenever the chance arises—even when it doesn’t arise at all.
“You get any chocolates for Valentine’s?” you ask as you plop down in your seat with your lunch, not-so-conspicuously eyeing his desk as his friends begin to crowd around the two of you. It didn’t take long for Caleb to adjust to ordinary school life. After his initial bumpy introduction where he seemed hesitant to get close to anyone his grandma would introduce him to, he was quick to adjust to a level of charisma even you haven’t gotten to.
By now, he’s charisma personified. You, yourself, have no idea how quickly he adapts to things. Though, you do recall that after an exam measuring his intelligence, he was told he couldn’t lower his grade by two years to be with MC. So you suppose he’s rather bright—almost as much as his face.
“Too many,” one of his friends groan, dragging his hand down the side of his face. “Life’s so not fair, dude.”
“Just a few,” Caleb laughs, turning to feel me stare at him expectantly. “Most of them are obligatory. I just helped a couple people out during gym.”
You glance at his friends. “How many is a few?”
“At least five,” another one grins. He wiggles his eyebrows at you, and his friend snickers at his shoulder. “You jealous?”
It’s not like your crush on Caleb is new news. In fact, it’s practically common knowledge at your school, given how open you are with your affection with him. Asking him out with a giant poster on orientation day, sending him notes with hearts littered everywhere during class, and refusing to be subtle when you’re discussing it with your friends…it tends to add up. Most people believe your relationship to be strange, but those who matter thought of it as the norm, so it doesn’t really matter.
“Jealous? I don’t think so, why?”
“Most girls would be if their boyfriend got a bunch of chocolates,” he responds, to which Caleb immediately reminds him that you’re not dating. Then his friend sighs. “It’s cute when girls get jealous, isn’t it?”
At this, your ears perk.
“Should I be jealous?” you ask Caleb, making his friends erupt into snickers. “Do you think it’s cute too?”
He rolls his eyes and flicks your forehead softly. “Do you ever ask normal questions, splints?”
Throughout your childhood together, everything involves him. Family dinners, graduation, holidays, all of it. Of course, this means that MC is there for all of it too. You’re helplessly in love, but you’re not stupid. You know what love looks like from the movies their grandma would play on their TV. He cares for her with a different look in his eyes. He protects her with a lovingness in his voice that he doesn’t spare for you.
The same fingers that flick your forehead touch her arm gingerly, like she could crack in half if he holds too hard. He doesn’t touch her very easily either, whereas he often falls asleep with his head fully leaning against your shoulder on the bus ride home. He wakes up at the crack of dawn to make her lunch, while the two of you munch on sandwiches from the school cafeteria during lunch breaks. He scolds you when your clothes are tossed on the ground while he folds hers without her having to ask. He never enters her room to protect her privacy while he lounges in yours like he owns the place.
Your Caleb, you have found, is different from MC’s Caleb.
MC’s Caleb is easy to depend on. Trustworthy, perfect, and never makes a mistake for the life of him. He never loses his cool in front of her, never has a hair out of place, lets her win at all the board games, and always has this clear but dazed look in his pretty purple eyes. Your Caleb has none of that. Your Caleb teases you mercilessly when you lose the card game for the fifth time in a row. Your Caleb passes out on his desk while studying for an exam, essentially drooling on his notebook to lie to MC that he’s naturally talented at math. Your Caleb sends you stupid videos about plane models and forces you to sit through a thirty-minute explanation about it.
You know he likes her. He knows you know he likes her. She doesn’t know anything at all. All jumbled up, like a wordless pact ready to crumble at any moment.
Of course, this means that he prioritizes her over you at times. All the time. It’s to be expected. She’s family, you’re not. You’ve grown used to it, and so has he.
MC doesn’t notice though, because she doesn’t have to. Because to her, Caleb is just a slightly nagging but cool adoptive brother. Nothing more, nothing less. And you’re one of her childhood friends, and Caleb’s best friend. Nothing more, nothing less.
The first year after you graduate high school is a dramatic shift from your cozy hometown. You somehow manage to get into the same college as Caleb–and you attribute his tutoring to be the main culprit—though in different majors. It’s a lot to convince him to go so far from home given that MC is still at home, but after a lot of reluctant discussion, he agrees.
“Take off your shoes at the door,” he reminds you as you barge into his dorm room after a particularly difficult exam for one of your classes. You do as he asks, grumbling about how he has no mercy for the fallen, tossing them haphazardly beside the door and prancing past him. He takes the time to tidy them up, as if he’s expecting it. “How was your exam?”
“Awful. I went through war.”
Caleb grins as he sits down at the coffee table beside you, watching as you bury your face into your arms. “And whose fault is it that they didn’t want to study?”
“Yours.”
“Funny,” he snorts, and you feel his large hand ruffling the top of your head. “It’s alright, splints. I can tutor you a bit earlier on the next one.”
“Even you can’t save me for this class.”
“Is that a challenge?”
He ends up cooking up something quick in his makeshift kitchen (essentially just a rice cooker), while you laze around on his bed, scrolling aimlessly on your phone. Once he’s finished, you scarf down his food like a man starved, lips stretching widely. At times like these, you’re oddly grateful for his hopeless love toward MC. How else would he have learned to cook such good food? “You should honestly be a chef, Caleb. Actually, no, that would mean other people would eat your food. I guess you can just be my personal chef when we’re married.”
Caleb remains completely unaffected, wordlessly cleaning the plate in front of you. “I didn’t realize I was engaged.”
“Well, now you know. Not sure if you remember, but I had fireworks for you and everything when I proposed. Plus an orchestra.”
He hums, looking up as if he’s in thought, and then nods. “Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar, splints. How could I forget?”
You shrug. “You tell me.”
His face falls as you pace to the door and begin to put your shoes back on. “Where are you going? Aren’t you done with class?”
“Going out. I deserve it after that exam.”
“With your friends?”
“No, with four guys,” you joke, but he doesn’t seem to find it very funny. “I’m just going to a club. I won’t be back too late.”
He’s already grabbing his jacket. “I can come.”
You push him back with your finger by the nose, and he blinks in surprise, making you laugh. “No need. You have exams too, y’know.”
“I’m done studying.”
“Liar.”
Though it takes some convincing, you eventually have him sit at his desk once more. He manages to nag a whole lot as you leave, reminding you to call him once you’re done so he can pick you up, but you just wave him off as you leave out the door. You take your time getting ready–dolling yourself up to hide the dark circles beneath your eyes. As you get ready, you video call MC, where she asks how you and Caleb have been doing in her absence. She rants about her days with her grandma, complaining about how quiet the house is when Caleb isn’t home, though she indulged in the beginning. She asks you to show her your outfit once you’re done, and she beams brightly in your screen, squealing about how you’d likely get a boyfriend soon that you can tell her all about.
You just smile, because you don’t know how to tell her that the only boy you want is wrapped around her unknowing hand.
The club is loud. Where the music rumbles through your feet to the tips of your fingertips, and the lights are flashing in a dimly lit room. Your friends flock to a table and order drinks while you let yourself feel the music and crack a joke or two once in a while.
A group of guys approaches you with easy smiles and louder voices than necessary—confidence sharpened by cheap cologne. One of them leans against your table like he’s done it a hundred times before, asking your name, where you’re from, if you come here often. The usual.
You answer, choking out a laugh to humor his unfunny jokes alongside your friends, while the swigs you take from your drink become deeper and deeper.
He’s not bad at flirting, you think. Subtle, and not too glaring about it. But you don’t particularly enjoy humoring it, and it becomes gradually more apparent as your eyes keep drifting elsewhere and you keep having to ask him to repeat himself. You’re growing bored. Irritated.
Because he’s not Caleb.
It hits you in strange, inconvenient flashes. The way this guy stands just a little too far away. The way his voice doesn’t quite reach you over the music, even when he’s close. The way you don’t feel that familiar, grounding presence like an anchor holding you to the ground.
You find yourself glancing past his shoulder. Half-wishing to see Caleb there. Watching. Hovering.
But there’s only strangers. Blurred faces and flashing lights.
“You okay?” the guy asks, tilting his head.
“Yeah,” you say too quickly. “Long week.”
He grins, like that’s an invitation. Says something else—something about getting you another drink, maybe dancing, maybe getting out of here.
You nod again. Smile again.
Across the room, your friends are already disappearing into the crowd, dragged toward the dance floor by laughter and hands you don’t recognize. One of them glances back at you, gives you a look that asks ‘you’re good, right?’ before she’s gone.
You sit back down at the table when the guy steps away. Maybe to grab drinks, maybe because he senses your attention drifting. You don’t really care which.
The music swells in your chest. The lights flicker. You wish you could enjoy yourself, but it’s particularly hard today.
You take another sip. Then another. Your phone rests face-down on the table, but you flip it over anyway.
No messages.
Of course not. He cares, but not like that. Not in the way that he would spam MC’s phone whenever he didn’t know where she was or how she was doing. No, not like that at all.
Another sip. The glass is nearly empty now.
And suddenly, you’re pressing send before you can even register what’s happening.
[you]: hi
The answer comes immediately, the grey bubbles popping up on his end of the screen.
[futre hubs <333]: do you need me to come pick you up?
[futre hubs <333]: i can
You’re not sure why you feel like shit, but you hate it. In moments like these—moments where the alcohol lets you lower your walls and truly think—it hits you like a truck, like a deeply sinking feeling in your chest. The years of rejection after rejection that the two of you frame like a bit—as if your feelings have become so miniscule that it no longer even phases him.
It hurts, a bit. More than you let yourself feel.
You’re not sure how much time passes. Maybe minutes or maybe an hour. There’s buzzing throughout your body. The grip on your waist belonging to the man you’ve been half-heartedly entertaining suddenly becomes harsher, snapping you out of your trance. It feels unlike Caleb, but you let it sit anyway. However, the hand moves to your wrist, and you’re being pulled out of the crowd towards the wall.
Too touchy. He’s saying something into your ear, and you feel his breath against your skin. You don’t like it. Too close. The buzzing feeling feels more like an alarm now.
The words either go unheard due to the music or don’t deter him. You want to go back. Back to Caleb. In the moment, you begin to think—almost as if the world is in slow motion. Perhaps the drinks, you think. You wonder if Caleb will leave you. You wonder if he’ll leave to go be with MC. You wonder if the years you’ve spent expressing your love to him meant as much to him as it did to you, or if he just found it plain annoying. You wonder if now that you’re in college, he’d want to explore other people, and he’ll finally find an outlet to get rid of you for good.
But you know he wouldn’t. Because he cares for you. Just not as much as he cares for her.
You wonder if he’s ever looked at you with the same softness he does with MC.
Someone pulls you away from the man and into their chest, and the worries dissipate in an instant. His scent. His warmth. You knew he’d come. He always does. It only takes a warning glare from Caleb before the man disappears into the crowd again, and you feel the grip on your wrist loosen. Caleb stares down at you, your back still to his chest as you blink wearily, almost in slow motion, and he sighs. He doesn’t give you the same smile he gives to MC when she’s in trouble.
A part of you wishes he wasn’t always there for you—not when it’s so different from how he’s there for her.
You sit idly in front of a convenience store parking lot while Caleb fetches you some water and ice cream. You have your knees to your chest, arms pulling them close as you shiver against the cold autumn breeze. You should’ve brought a jacket. The buzzing, hot feeling of the alcohol is subsiding too quickly.
“Drink.” You feel a water bottle press against your cheek from behind, and Caleb plops down beside you with a plastic bag. He notices how you’re holding yourself together and frowns. “Are you cold?”
“No.”
“I told you to grab a jacket.”
“You nag too much.”
He snickers and twists open the cap of the water bottle for you to drink, which you sip carefully. He strips his jacket off and drapes it over your shoulders, and you immediately bury yourself in it. It smells like him.
“What kind of woman do you like, Caleb?”
“You and your questions.”
“I want to know.”
He shifts to face you, motioning for you to lift your arms. He grabs either side of his jacket and pulls it shut, fumbling with the zipper until he manages to zip it to your chin. You can barely claw your hands out of his sleeves—the fabric almost engulfs you—but he just laughs. “My type? A woman who brings jackets when it’s cold.”
You scowl, making his laugh echo louder. “Other than that.”
“A woman who goes to class in the morning.”
“...Other than that.”
“A woman who doesn’t leave her clothes all over my floor when she feels like sleeping over.”
“Something else.”
“A woman who eats healthy, balanced meals. A woman who doesn’t steal all my pens and then still ends up asking me for more. Maybe someone who doesn’t pass out drooling on my pillow. Or someone who doesn’t let half the world know that they like someone—hell, maybe even the entire world.”
Caleb glances at you, chuckling to himself, but stops the moment he sees that you’re not laughing with him. Your head hangs low, your feet shuffling anxiously. His face twists, and suddenly the air thickens. “Splints?”
You pick at your sleeves. “So just not me?”
“I was just kidding around.”
“Jokes have some truth to them.”
“Not all of them. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay, Caleb,” you finally meet his eyes again, and shrug. “I know you like someone else. I’m not an idiot.”
Silence commences, like a bell dropping on your head.
Caleb shifts his weight, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. It’s a nervous habit you’ve seen a hundred times—usually followed by some half-joke, something to smooth things over.
But nothing comes.
The space between you suddenly feels too small and too big all at once. You try to act normal. You really do.
You fiddle with your sleeve again, smoothing it down, then pulling at it, then smoothing it again. Anything to give your hands something to do, so they don’t reach for him out of instinct.
Caleb glances at you. Then away.
Then back again, like he’s trying to solve something written across your face but can’t quite make out the words.
“Hey,” he starts, softer this time.
You hum in response, not trusting your voice yet.
Another pause. God, it’s awkward.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he mutters again, quieter now. Not defensive. Unsure. “You know I think you’re amazing.”
Just not enough.
“I am pretty great,” but it comes out too soft.
Neither of you knows what to do with another stretch of silence. So you opt to drink some more water instead.
“Why do you like me so much?” He eventually mutters out as he bites his bottom lip, eyes falling to the ground like he can’t bear to watch your expression. “You could do a lot better.”
You smile, but it’s half-hearted. “How could I not?”
He pauses, as if choosing his words carefully before his voice comes out in a soft whisper. “You mean so much to me. You’re smart, beautiful, and everything good in between—whoever gets to call you theirs is the luckiest person I know. And you know I’d do anything for you.”
Despite their sweetness, his words feel like judgement wrapping around your heart in vines, squeezing just before it’s about to pop. You wish you could block your ears out for what comes next.
“But it can’t be me.” Caleb’s lips purse, brows furrowing as he looks away. “I can’t give you what you want.”
The rejection hurts more than you realized it would. You want to tell him that it’s not fair to treat you the way he does and expect you not to fall for him. That holding your hair when you vomit, falling asleep at your bedside when you’re sick, and his eyes closing in on you in any room that you’re in is not fair.
Instead, you nod. And you swear to yourself that you’ll swallow this sickening lump in your throat that makes you want to hurl and sob at the same time. That you’ll bury it deep in a graveyard within you that even the closest person to you would never know of. Especially him.
“I don’t want it, either,” you snort back, immediately perking up to slap his back in what results in a jolt. His shoulders tense as he blinks wide at you, unsure of the sudden shift in atmosphere. “I don’t want feelings that belong to someone else, dumbass.”
Once it sinks in that you mean it, a smile finds its way onto his face, though something flickers beneath it, like a flash of something you don’t want to look too far into.
Not because you still had hope, but because whatever existed between you had never been something as simple as a crush. It had roots—tangled deep into your souls and impossible to pull free without tearing something open. You wanted to keep what was left. Even if it lingered just a little longer, and even if you pretended not to see the splintering strands in the string tying you together.
So you let it settle. Let it rot somewhere you couldn’t feel it.
The two of you fall into the kind of closeness that you’ve always had, and time passes as if it was always meant to be this way. It’s easier this way. For a while, it does work, but nothing ever really stays under wraps. Despite your incessant protests in telling yourself it’s fading, the scars he’s inflicted on you are just that. Scars. Unmoving yet subtle.
The thinning thread finally snaps a few years later, when MC develops feelings for a coworker in the Hunter’s Association. The day the cracks in the glass bridge holding you together shatter beneath your feet into a million different pieces.
“When’s the last time you’ve slept?”
He’s sprawled shirtless on the couch of his apartment in Skyhaven, freshly out of the shower after you arrived to visit him for the first time in months—only to see that he’s nearly overworking himself to death. Despite him going off to the DAA after college, you’d kept close contact, the connection between the two of you never wavering regardless of your restricted time. It only changed after news of MC broke out. Worried, you’d rushed to Skyhaven to make sure he was doing okay, which you’re clearly glad you did now. You’d practically had to drag him to the shower to keep him from passing out next to the front door in his gear.
Caleb, clearly, is off. You suppose you don’t blame him. The woman he loves is yearning for another. Almost poetic, really, but you don’t like seeing him this way. Especially when you know what it feels like yourself, even if you’ve gotten used to it. Gotten over it. He looks like a kicked puppy. Hurt, like a dog who’s just been scratched by its owner.
“I dunno.”
You peer into the empty abyss that is his fridge and frown. There’s a few measly apples sitting inside, and a half-eaten protein bar that’s been there for god knows how long. “What the hell have you been eating?”
He responds with a grunt, letting his head fall back against the sofa. You decide to make do with the instant noodles he has stashed in one of the cupboards and bring it over to him once it seems mostly done. With a fork, you stick out a few noodles to his face, urging him. “Eat.”
“Not hungry,” he mutters.
“Don’t care. Sit up.”
He opens one of his eyes to peek at you, which somehow urges him forward. There’s darkness beneath his eyes—even stubble littering his chin from a few days worth of not shaving. You want to reach out and poke fun at him, but the state he’s in deters you. Instead, you silently feed him, watching him chew his food while staring at your hands. It makes you wish you put on a fresh set of polish before you came.
You twirl another small forkful and hold it out. He leans forward this time without being told, taking it quietly. His shoulder brushes yours as he settles back against the couch, and you can feel his skin through your shirt.
“Thanks,” he mutters, voice rough from disuse more than anything. “For coming.”
“Yeah,” you say, quieter now. “Someone had to make sure you didn’t rot in here.”
He huffs a faint laugh, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Probably would’ve. Dramatic way to go out, huh?”
You nudge his knee with yours. “Starving to death in your own apartment? Real heroic.”
A ghost of a smile flickers across his face. It makes your heart flutter. Stupid feelings.
“…thanks for coming, splints,” he says.
Your chest tightens—sharp and sudden. It feels like it’s threatening to feel something that’s not yours to feel. So instead, you look down at the bowl, pretending to focus on separating another bite. You twirl your fork, more carefully this time. “I had to. You weren’t responding, so I thought you died, or something. Open.”
He rolls his eyes, but obeys anyway. “Bossy.”
“Learned from the best.”
His lids flutter shut, voice dropping to a lower hum. “I missed this.”
Your hand stills. “What?”
He shrugs, eyes still closed. “You being here.”
His hair is sticking to his forehead, still damp from the shower. Before you realize what you’re doing, you brush a stray strand of hair off his forehead. You speak quietly. “You look like shit.”
“Wow,” he mutters. “You have a way with words.”
You frown, and without thinking, your hand lingers at his temple for just a second longer than it should. His skin is warm, still hot from the shower.
“Idiot,” you whisper.
He catches your wrist. Not tight, not stopping you. Simply holding it there for a moment that feels too long and not long enough at once. Your eyes meet for a fleeting moment, and then you’re looking away, setting the mostly finished bowl of noodles onto the coffee table to pull away.
“Don’t make this a habit. I’m not flying out here every time you forget to eat.”
“Could,” he murmurs. “You would.”
You don’t respond to that, because he’s not wrong.
“…Is she okay?”
It slips out of him like instinct. Like breathing. And just like that, everything shifts. You don’t answer right away—instead, your fingers tighten slightly around the fork.
“She’s fine,” you say eventually. Leave it, you plead in your head.
“Did she say anything?” he asks, sitting up a little more now. There’s something in his eyes, like he’s searching. “When you talked to her.”
You shrug, trying to keep your tone even. “Just normal stuff.” Stop, you think. Please stop talking.
“Like what?”
“Like her job. Her grandma. Nothing serious.” Shit.
He frowns slightly. “She didn’t mention him?”
There it is. It’s always about her.
You know he’s in a vulnerable spot right now, but it does nothing to ease the sudden flame roaring in your chest. Whether it’s from years of repressed hurt or shame, all it amounts to is a relentless ball of rage inside of you that leaves your nails digging crescents into the palms of your hands. You stare at him, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you inch away from him.
“Does it matter?”
Caleb’s face relaxes. “What?”
“Why does it matter what she thinks about him? She likes him, end of story, no?”
“I just want to know if he’s a decent guy.”
Your ass. “That’s not really your business, Caleb, but sure. He’s a great guy. Amazing, honestly. He’s really gentlemanly and checks every single box. He lives above her apartment, so they’re right next to each other. He treats her gently, too. I’d bet every girl would jump at a chance to date a guy like that.”
You’re not sure where the words are tumbling out of, but it’s too late to go back. Neither do you want to.
“I wonder if he has a brother. Maybe MC could set me up or something.”
“Oh. Is he…” Caleb’s back straightens, and you notice his fingers digging into his thighs. “...handsome?”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m telling you, he’s perfect. His face could pay for the Linkon rent by itself.”
He suddenly stands, and you glare up at him through your eyebrows. “Why are you talking like that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you scoff.
He narrows his eyes. It’s something you haven’t seen in a while, since Caleb rarely gets upset at you. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, splints.”
“Can you just spit it out? What am I saying differently?”
“You’re angry.”
You stand, following suit. He looms over you to have his shadow essentially engulf you, and you wish you could kick his ankle so he falls to the ground. “Maybe if you weren’t so irritating, I wouldn’t feel so annoyed right now.”
“What?”
“It’s hard to watch, Caleb,” you hiss out in exasperation, throwing your hands into the air. “It’s always pipsqueak this, pipsqueak that, pipsqueak what. Seriously, we’re not kids anymore, you need to get over it!”
You’re not sure if you’re talking to him or yourself anymore.
“Can we calm down and talk? If I’ve been talking too much about it, I can stop, so—”
“We haven’t seen each other in months, Caleb! And all you want to ask me about is how she’s been? Why don’t you ask her yourself, if you’re so curious? Oh, but you can’t, because you always have to be perfect in front of her. So instead, you dump all of this on me. Your goods and bads, all of it, just for me to get kicked to the curb like I’m some dispensable object.”
“What?” his balks. “Dispensible? Are you serious? As if I haven’t gotten you out of every little thing you’ve gotten yourself into the past decade of our lives? As if I haven’t picked you up every weekend from your friends’ places at three in the morning? Like I haven’t called you every single week—”
“Well, I want you to stop that!” your words spit at him like weak knives, growing louder by the second.
“You didn’t seem very against it the last forty times.”
“I am now.”
“What has gotten into you, splints?”
“Don’t call me that right now,” you glower, and you try to ignore the hurt flashing across his expression. “I’m just sick of seeing you follow her around like some wet dog. She doesn’t see you like that, can’t you see that?”
Your breathing begins to stutter, and you suck in a deep breath through your nose. Your chest stings, and you pray that you don’t lose composure so the tears threatening to bubble at the corners of your eyes remain hidden.
“You told me that you couldn’t give me what I wanted. Well, she can’t either,” you bore holes into his chest, too afraid of what you might see if you look up. “If I can get over my stupid feelings, so can you.”
But you’re not over it. Not at all.
He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. For the first time in a while, you’ve rendered him speechless, and it feels even worse than what it felt to be rejected years ago. You’re not sure how your nails haven’t drawn blood at this point. You’d rather that they do, so you have some excuse to use the restroom.
“It’s not fair what you do, Caleb,” you try to will your tears to stay at bay, but you can’t help them. They sting, blurring your vision as you drop your head in some pathetic hope that he won’t face them head on. “How you treat me when you don’t like me like that is not fair. At least MC doesn’t know, but you—you know, and yet you—”
The rational part of you says that it’s not entirely his fault. Sure, you insisted on staying by his side. Sure, you insisted that you could push down your feelings. Sure, you’ve promised a lot of things, but it’s his fault too, for being the way he is—so kind, so thoughtful, just so him.
You wipe desperately at your tears. It was a lost cause from the start.
“Please don’t cry.” His face drains of color, apparent even against the dim lighting in his apartment. He steps towards you, and you take a step back. “Please don’t cry, splints, just not that.”
But when your tears refuse to cease dripping down your cheeks, your face flushing in humiliation, you feel both his hands cupping either side of it. He tilts your gaze up, and you realize that he’s only inches away from you, so much so that you can feel his breath against your skin. It’s moments like these that you lose yourself in his beauty. The deepness of his eyes that seem to peer into your very soul is one of the first features that you fell in love with as a child, and it hasn’t changed since. Damn him. You blink, eyes wide while his own flicker to your lips.
“Be as mad as you want. Hit me, hate me even,” he whispers, his nose almost touching yours now. His thumb pad smooths your tears away. “But don’t waste your tears on someone like me.”
You think you might be imagining things. Because with the tension that nearly suffocates you and his lashes almost fluttering against your skin, you think he might be about to kiss you.
A sharp pain jabs you in the chest. Is it pity? A consolation prize dressed up as something softer? Is it to smooth things over, to make this moment easier for him to leave behind? Or is it rebellion? Something reckless from the fact that he can’t have her? Your tears have dried up, but the rest of your body seems to weep, as no excitement, no butterflies course through your veins.
Why is it always something else? Why is it never you? It only hurts—because even now, you’re just the place he empties everything he feels for her.
Instinctively, you press your palm into his lips to push him away, and it feels like the air itself has stilled.
His breath lingers against your skin. Yours stutters like it’s forgotten how to exist in the same space as him. The air is so thick you could slice it with a knife.
Eventually, he pulls away. Caleb stares at you with an expression you haven’t seen before, though you don’t look long enough to analyze it. Wordlessly, you gather your things, stuffing your jacket into your bag and stumble over to the door—all while he stays locked in a petrified state, like he’s processing what he just did. Your gaze remains fixated on the wooden panels of the floor while you pack, refusing to look any higher in case you might see anything other than his feet.
“Don’t follow me,” you tell him as you leave.
You don’t wait to see if he hears you.
The journey home feels like there’s a gaping hole in your chest, and all you can do is stare out the window as you feel the vibrations of the train through your fingertips. Outside, the world blurs past in streaks of dim lights and shadowed shapes, and you wish that your feelings were as fleeting as the buildings blurring by.
You try to count the number of trees you see. Not on the warmth of his breath against your palm. Not on how close he’d been. Not on the fact that, for a second, you almost let him.
If you hadn’t pushed him away, would it have meant anything? Or would you have just been a mistake he’d regret in the morning?
Your phone buzzes frantically in your pocket, and you pull it out to see his name in big bold letters. He’s texting you simultaneously, apologizing in so many different ways that they all start to blend into one message you don’t plan on reading. You refuse to give into what your heart wants. It’s hurt you too much in the past. So instead, your thumb hovers above the ‘mute’ button.
You press it and shut your eyes.
Even if it’s difficult to adjust the first few weeks without him, you can’t bear to face him either. He shows up at your door. Nearly every day for some time, knocking softly and asking if you’d be willing to talk. When you simply plug in your earbuds and bury yourself into your bed, he apologizes through the door and leaves you something to eat. You tend to throw it out at first, but after a while, you figure it’s just a waste. Just like that, a month goes by. And then another. Then another. Until you can’t count them on one hand anymore. He comes by once every two weeks or so now, likely busy with his work.
Despite how much your body seems to miss his presence, you wonder if you should distance Caleb permanently. It’s a daunting idea. One that you never would’ve thought just a few years ago, but the embarrassment runs deeper than you want to admit. The feelings you’ve tried so hard to hide clearly aren’t hidden. Is this sustainable?
Regardless of what you think, he comes around like clockwork.
“Are you in there?” He knocks gently on your door, voice soft. He probably knows you are.
“No.”
He chuckles from the other end. “Right. Happy birthday, splints.”
You glance at your phone calendar. He’s right.
As usual, he begins to talk about random events in his life that he hasn’t had the opportunity to tell you, and while you usually muffle it out, you decide to quietly shuffle over to the door today. To tell him, maybe, that you don’t want to keep doing this. Or maybe just to hear his voice, you don’t know. Either way, you slide your back down the door where he’s on the other side, pulling your knees into your chest.
“I don’t know if you’ve read my text, but–”
“I don’t read them.”
Caleb stops, and you can almost hear his breath hitch. You usually don’t give him more than a few words, much less a full sentence, so it seems to have taken him aback. After the brief remission, you hear him clear your throat. “Splints, can you open the door? I want to talk—apologize to you.”
Silence.
“Or I can do it out here. That’s fine,” he sighs. “I want you to know that it’s okay if you want to hate me forever after this. I won’t keep clinging to you if you at listen to what I have to say, but I really just—I need to say that this is my fault.”
You half-heartedly hear his words drone on, his confidence wavering every so often while you pull up his chats on your phone. You have no idea how you hadn’t folded and read his chats until now, though it might’ve been more so for your own peace than anything. There’s too many to scroll up to, so you read the most recent messages, squinting in the dark against the light of your phone.
[1:41PM]
[caleb]: are you eating well?
[caleb]: i made this today
[caleb]: [image attached]
[caleb]: your favorite dishes :) i’ll drop them off at your place later
[caleb]: i hope you’re not just throwing them out…wouldn’t blame you tho
[caleb]: at least take care of yourself :)
[8:13AM]
[caleb]: hi splints :)
[caleb]: you probably watched it already but that movie you wanted to see came out a week ago. I went to go see it
[caleb]: i still think it’s kind of bad…but it was entertaining
[caleb]: unless you wanna argue about it ?? :3
[5:32PM]
[caleb]: ranked first today
[caleb]: i was excited to celebrate it with you and then remembered :/
[caleb]: it doesn’t feel as good when i can’t tell you lol
[caleb]: hope you’re okay
[11:23PM]
[caleb]: i wish i hadn’t been so stupid
[caleb]: i didn’t deserve you back then
[caleb]: i still don’t
[caleb]: i shouldn’t have lost my cool when you were over here. didn’t like hearing you talk about that guy like that
[caleb]: im sure he’s a good looking guy, and i know you’re particularly weak to good looking guys…
[caleb]: i was being childish and i wish i could’ve explained it to you then
[caleb]: i know you don’t owe me anything and you don’t have to listen to what i have to say
[caleb]: but i never wanted to make you feel used, and i never did. if that even sounds believable lol
[caleb]: it was never about her
[caleb]: there’s so much more i want to say but i’ll say it in person
[caleb]: miss you a lot
[caleb]: sleep tight
You wish the tightness in your chest would go away. You wish you didn’t feel his sorrow through him. And you wish you didn’t care about your own feelings for him.
“I love you, splints,” he murmurs, and your attention tears away from the chats, your phone nearly clattering onto the floor. Your eyes widen, suddenly regretting that you missed the first half of his speech.
“Not in the way you say it to your friends, or the way you say it to family. You’re my life, and you’ve been my life since the day you gave me that ring. I care for MC, but what I feel for you is different. It’s always been different. I realized that years ago, but I was afraid that it wouldn’t be fair for you. I thought you deserved someone better than someone who doesn’t know how to understand their own feelings.” Your throat dries. “I thought it wasn’t fair because I’d already put you through so much.”
“At the same time, I’m a selfish guy, you know? I couldn’t let you go either, because I couldn’t bear to see you with someone else. I wanted it to be us, and the only way I could think of existing without feeling like I was ruining you was to stay how we were. Stagnant, I guess,” he chuckles, but it feels sad. Weak. “I’m an idiot when it comes to you, you know.”
You don’t respond.
Not because you don’t have anything to say—if anything, there’s too much. It crowds your throat, every word scraping against the next until none of them can make it out. Your fingers hover uselessly over your phone, screen still lit with a conversation you can’t even remember reading.
‘I love you.’
The words echo, but they don’t land the way you once dreamed they would. They don’t bloom or soften or fix anything. They just sit. Too heavy. Too late.
Your chest tightens, aching outward like it’s trying to break free. Because you’ve wanted this—God, you’ve wanted this—for so long that you stopped letting yourself imagine it could ever actually happen. It should feel like relief. Instead, it feels real, but fragile.
Because you remember too much. The almosts. The waiting. The way you learned how to swallow your emotions when he built a wall between the two of you—and that doesn’t disappear just because he finally found the words.
Your hand curls slightly against the door, fingers brushing the cool surface.
Even with all that, you still miss the warmth of his skin. How his hair felt through a towel as you dried it. How he’d flick your forehead when you’d get a question wrong during one of his tutoring sessions. How he’d tease you about your grades or interests, and learn more about them anyway. How he’d message you throughout the day about random endeavors. How he’d always be there. How with just a call of his name, he would’ve crossed the continents for you. His eyes. His lips. His face. His painfully handsome face.
You remember him in all parts of your life—and not a single moment you’ve spared has gone without him. You remember how he held your hand when you’d broken your arm, and the way he’d lifted you into the air and embraced you when you were accepted into the same college as him. You remember how he’d pet your hair as you complained about him going too far for the DAA, promising he’d visit often. And he did. He always kept his promises.
Your body moves on its own, as if this was how it was always meant to be. The door slowly creaks open.
“…We’re a mess.”
A faint, tired smile is all you can give him. Still, when he sees you, the world seems to stop for just the two of you, and it takes him a moment to fully register that you’re really there. That you’re not just a figment of his imagination, and he hasn’t truly lost you forever as he’d feared. “This doesn’t mean you’re completely out of the woods. I’m still mad.”
“You should be,” he whispers out, nearly breathless.
Hesitantly, you step towards him. He reaches his arm out, brows furrowed cautiously like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to even blink right now. The tips of his fingers twitch towards you. You raise a brow, and he swallows the lump in his throat, retracting back until you nod.
Realizing you don’t have shoes, you step onto the fronts of his shoes one foot at a time, taking his hand until you’re flush against him and he’s already engulfing you into a crushing embrace. His arms wrap around you, strong and warm. He smells good. Though you can’t confidently say the same for yourself given the state you’re in, he drops his chin into the crook of your neck and inhales deeply, like a man starved.
“Note to self,” you mumble. “Don’t propose to any handsome guy you see.”
Caleb laughs, airy this time, and you feel it against your collarbone. “I thought you were going to leave your husband out here to die in the cold.”
“I should divorce you. We’re not even married yet.”
He grins, lopsided. “You should.”
“I won’t.”
“I know.
You bury your face into his chest, fingers digging into the fabric on his back. “I don’t want a version of my life without you, Caleb. As annoying as you are.”
He pulls away for a brief moment and places a kiss on your cheek, his own dusting red. Flowers feel like they’re blooming on the spot he pecked, but somehow, it feels natural. You’ve always been close to him physically throughout your upbringing, even if it never involved lips–that was new territory. You cross your arms, relying on his hands around your waist to keep you upright. “Tell me more.”
“You nag too much.”
He kisses your nose. “Hm?”
“You’re emotionally repressed.”
“Ouch.” He kisses your temple.
“You’re too good at things you don’t try at.”
Your jawline.
“You’re unstable. You’re too protective. You’re stupid.”
“I love you,” he says, pressing his forehead against yours. His lips hover above your own, just centimeters away.
Your lashes flutter against his. “Then prove it to me.”
“I will,” he whispers, just as his mouth slots against yours, and a warmth blooms throughout your chest. You melt into him, like you always have and you always will. “I’ll prove it to you for the rest of my life.”
SUMMARY: You have shared too much with Caleb— your childhood in middle school, your restless teenage years in high school, and the sleepless nights that came with training at the DAA. Through every phase of your life, you’ve loved him. Quietly. Desperately. While he loved someone else.
So you learned to endure it.
You swallowed your feelings and tucked them away in secret letters never meant to be read—letters inked with heartbreak, feverish longing, and fantasies too raw to speak aloud. From crooked handwriting to elegant script, each page was a confession of the love you hated to carry, the ache you never outgrew. And when Caleb vanished from your life after graduation without a word, you buried those letters in a box, and the box deep within yourself.
Years later, fate intervenes.
Caleb returns—broader, bolder, devastatingly handsome. And strangely focused on you. His touches linger too long, his eyes see too much, and his smile says he knows exactly what you’ve been hiding. He looks at you like you’re the one he’s been waiting for—and you can’t tell if it terrifies you or tempts you more.
You try to pull away. You’ve spent too many years surviving without him to fall now.
But Caleb doesn’t let go.
Because now that he’s seen the truth—every broken sentence, every filthy fantasy, every whispered ‘I love you’ you never dared say out loud—he’s not just here to catch up.
He’s here to chase you down.
And he won’t stop until you’re his.
WORD COUNT: 11.1k
NOTES: Takes place after the Main story supposedly ends. This happens far in the future. Caleb is older here, 28–29 maybe. Reader is NOT mc, keep that in mind. In this scenario mc is with another LI.
You used to love love.
Not just the idea of it—but the ache of it. The promise of it. The giddy, schoolgirl butterflies and the midnight hopes whispered into your pillow. Love was the secret language of your world, threaded through songs you hummed under your breath, the romance novels dog-eared to your favorite passages, the ink-stained pages of letters never sent.
You believed in love the way children believe in magic.
But you grew up.
And love? It grew fangs.
Now, you love to hate it.
You hate how it made a fool of you. How it made you wait and yearn and burn in silence, hoping he’d look your way and see you. Not as a friend, not as a childhood companion, but as someone worth reaching for. Worth choosing. But he didn’t. He never did. Caleb’s heart was always spoken for.
So you buried your own.
You’ve become good at pretending. You laugh at romance now, scoff at declarations, dismiss affection with a curl of your lip and a joke that lands just bitter enough to be believable. You’re not heartless—you’re just tired. Of hoping. Of hurting. Of wanting things that were never yours to begin with.
You fill your time with things that don’t require soft emotions. You keep your hands busy and your mind busier. You hum lullabies to yourself when the silence grows too sharp. You sleep with the light on sometimes—not out of fear, but because the darkness reminds you too much of waiting for someone who never came back.
And still…
Despite it all…
Sometimes, on quiet nights when your guard slips, you wonder what it would be like to be loved out loud.
To be wanted so much it’s terrifying. To be chosen first.
You don’t dare admit it aloud. You barely let yourself think it.
Because if love ever finds you again…
You’re not sure if you’ll run away from it—
Or straight into its arms.
You hear his voice before you see him.
Low. Smooth. A little deeper than you remember. It cuts through the background noise like gravity pulling everything toward it—pulling you toward it. You freeze mid-step, your spine going taut like a wire drawn too tight. You know that voice. You’ve heard it in dreams. In memories. In the echo of unsent letters you’ll never admit you still read.
You turn slowly.
And there he is.
Caleb.
Older. Sharper. Beautiful in a way that feels almost unfair. His body is broader now, sculpted with strength and silent discipline. His jaw is dusted with scruff. His posture, relaxed but alert. And those eyes—still storm-silver and searing, but steadier somehow. Knowing.
He sees you.
Really sees you.
And for a moment, the world narrows to just the two of you standing there like a collision waiting to happen.
A beat passes.
“...It’s been a while,” he says, and God—he smiles.
That same crooked, devastating smile that used to undo you in a single heartbeat. But there’s something different now. Less boyish charm, more… reverence. Like he’s looking at a relic he thought lost forever and can’t quite believe is real.
You swallow, throat tight. “Yeah. A while.”
There’s so much you could say. So much you want to say. About the years. The distance. The versions of yourself that broke and rebuilt in his absence. But your mouth is dry and your thoughts scatter like startled birds.
Caleb steps forward—close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off him, smell the faint scent of metal and pine and something unmistakably him.
He looks you up and down slowly, like he’s taking inventory of everything time tried to steal.
“You look…” His gaze softens. “You look like trouble.”
You scoff—too sharp, too fast, your defense mechanisms kicking in like old habits. “And you still talk like you’re trying to land a date in a bar.”
His grin flashes wider. “Would it work if I was?”
God, he’s flirting.
Like you weren’t just background noise to him once. Like you didn’t spend years trying to scrape his ghost off your ribs.
You narrow your eyes. “Why are you here, Caleb?”
He leans in, the air between you charged, crackling. His voice drops—lower, rougher.
“Because I missed you.”
You blink. That wasn’t the answer you expected. Not from him. Not with that look in his eyes—part hungry, part haunted, all real.
And just like that, the careful walls you’ve built start to shake.
You hear the door creak open behind you before the sound of his footsteps catches up.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” Caleb says, his voice deeper, richer than you remember. “You look... different.”
You don’t turn around immediately. The skyline looks safer than his face.
“Yeah, well. Years pass. People change.”
“Some people stay exactly the same,” he murmurs. “You still lean to the left when you’re uncomfortable.”
You whip around, heart doing a traitorous little jump when your gaze lands on him.
God. He’s unfair. Broader shoulders, sharper jaw, that golden tan that makes his white shirt look criminally good on him. His smile has mellowed into something more potent—less boyish charm, more devastating man.
You cross your arms. “You’re observant now. That’s new.”
He chuckles. “I’ve always been observant. You were just too busy avoiding my eyes to notice.”
Touché.
He walks closer—too close—and you catch a whiff of his cologne, spicy and dark, like danger disguised as comfort. His gaze drops to your lips for half a second too long before returning to your eyes with a glint that spells trouble.
“How long has it been?” he asks softly.
“Since you ditched our entire friend group without a word? Or since I gave up hoping for a message you never sent?”
His jaw tenses. “I deserved that.”
“You did.”
There’s a beat of silence between you, thick with all the things you’re too proud to say and all the things he suddenly looks desperate to.
You retreat into the safety of the couch, motioning for him to sit across—but no, of course not. Caleb drops beside you, hip pressed against yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“What about Emcee?” you ask, biting the inside of your cheek. “You two live happily ever after or what?”
His brow furrows. “Emcee? God, no. That was over before it ever started.”
Your heart skips. “Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I’m not.” Lie. “Just surprised.”
“Good,” he says, leaning in, his voice a husky whisper. “Because I didn’t come here to talk about her. I came here for you.”
Your breath catches. You laugh, shaky and forced. “Wow, Caleb. You’ve upgraded your flirting. What happened to your legendary cheesy pickup lines?”
He grins. “I could still use one, if you’re nostalgic. But I figured you’ve grown out of tolerating my bullshit.”
“Smart of you.”
And yet, the way his knee brushes yours every few seconds isn’t helping. Neither is the way his hand hovers just a little too close to your thigh when he reaches for his coffee.
You’re not sure what’s worse—that he’s this charming now, or that it’s working.
Later that night, after he leaves with a promise to “see you soon” and a gaze that lingers like heat, you retreat into your sanctuary.
Your room. Your old dresser. The box tucked under the drawer like a dirty little secret.
The letters.
Every one of them stained with years of aching want and unspeakable need. A catalogue of your descent into hopeless longing, from childish hope to fevered fantasy. The kind of thing no one should ever read.
Especially not Caleb.
But fate, of course, doesn’t care what you want.
The first time he brushes a strand of hair behind your ear, it's under the guise of helping you with groceries.
“I’m perfectly capable,” you snap, snatching the bag from his hands.
Caleb just laughs, leaning in. “I know. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.”
His knuckles graze yours. You pretend not to notice. He pretends not to notice you pretending. Bastard.
—
The second time, you’re at your favorite café, the one with the uneven chairs and the cinnamon drinks he used to gag over. You’d brought him there as a joke, once. Now he takes you there seriously.
He’s seated too close, his thigh pressed against yours like a quiet claim.
“So,” he says, turning his head toward you. “No boyfriend? Fiancé? Star-crossed lover waiting in the wings?”
“None of your business.”
“That’s a no, then,” he says smugly, sipping his drink.
You glance at him, narrowing your eyes. “Why are you asking?”
“Just making sure I’m not stepping on any toes,” he murmurs, then adds, “when I kiss you.”
Your heart slams into your ribs. You scoff, rolling your eyes so hard they might get stuck. “You’re not kissing me.”
“Not today, maybe,” he says easily. “But eventually.”
You hate how warm your cheeks get. You hate him a little more for noticing.
—
The third time is worse.
You’ve both had a bit too much wine. Not drunk, but soft around the edges. He’s on your couch, lounging like he belongs there, like the time between now and then never happened.
He watches you over the rim of his glass. “Why do you keep flinching when I touch you?”
“I don’t flinch.”
“You do. Like you’re scared I’m not real.”
You take a sip of your wine and stare straight ahead. “I’m just trying to figure out what you want.”
His voice goes quiet. “You.”
The word hits you like a punch.
“You wanted Emcee for years.”
“I was stupid for years.”
You meet his eyes. They’re clearer than they’ve ever been—focused, almost painfully sincere.
“That’s convenient,” you say coldly.
He sets his glass down, leans in. “No. It’s fate finally letting me try again.”
His hand reaches up, brushes your cheek with maddening tenderness. He’s so close you can feel the heat of his breath.
You freeze. The ache in your chest roars to life again. This is everything you ever wanted—but you don’t trust it. Not yet.
You turn your head. Just barely.
Caleb’s jaw clenches, his hand falling away.
He sits back without a word.
—
The fourth time, it’s raining.
He brings you a coffee, his hair damp, his hoodie soaked at the shoulders.
“You didn’t have to walk in this weather,” you mutter, taking the drink anyway.
“I wanted to.” His smile is lazy, but his eyes are sharp. “You’re still not letting me in.”
“Would you trust someone who vanished for years without a word?”
His smile falters. Then, to your surprise, he nods. “I wouldn’t. But I’d want them to fight for the chance to be trusted again.”
He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a familiar-looking charm—a bent paper star you made him in high school.
That might be the worst thing he’s ever said. Because it means he felt something. Because it means you weren’t the only one suffering in silence.
Because it means he’s telling the truth.
You excuse yourself before your throat gives way to the sobs you refuse to let him see.
He doesn’t follow.
But he waits.
He always waits now.
And that’s more dangerous than any of his old pickup lines.
You agree to go with him to the observatory.
Big mistake.
It’s late, the sky smeared with stars and promises, the air just crisp enough that Caleb offers you his jacket before you can even pretend to be cold.
You don’t take it.
So, naturally, he just drapes it over your shoulders anyway, like you’re his.
“It looks better on you,” he says, voice quiet as your fingers clutch at the sleeves that still smell like him.
“Don’t start,” you murmur, but there’s no real bite to it.
“Start what?” His smirk is all mischief. “Being nice? Can’t help it. You bring it out of me.”
You roll your eyes and turn your gaze to the sky, but he keeps watching you like you’re the constellation he’s been chasing all his life.
“I used to come here when I missed you,” you admit without thinking, and immediately wish you hadn’t.
The silence that follows is so sharp it could cut glass.
“When you missed me?” His voice is different now—serious. Dangerous. “How often did that happen?”
You laugh, tight and brittle. “Only every time I breathed.”
His head tilts slightly, like he’s not sure he heard you right.
Then: “Say that again.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll use it against me.”
He steps closer, slow and purposeful, until your back meets the cold railing. His hands cage you in, one on either side of your body, his expression unreadable but intense.
“Do you really think I’d take something that precious and weaponize it?”
“I don’t know what you’d do anymore.”
“Then let me show you,” he says, and for a terrifying second, you think he’s going to kiss you.
But he doesn’t.
His lips hover just beside your ear, the warmth of his breath teasing your neck.
“I dreamt of you too, you know. Every damn night.”
Your knees nearly buckle, but pride is a stronger drug than longing.
“Then why didn’t you do anything?” you whisper.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes burning. “Because I was stupid. And I thought you didn’t feel the same.”
You snort. “Well. You were wrong.”
“I know,” he growls. “I know that now. And you’re still keeping me at arm’s length.”
“Damn right I am.”
His smile is tight, hungry. “Fine. You want to make me work for it? I’ll work.”
“I want to be chased, Caleb. Not collected.”
He steps back, hands raised in mock surrender, but his grin is pure trouble.
“Then run, sweetheart. I’ll catch up.”
You hate him for knowing exactly how to undo you.
And maybe you hate yourself more for wanting to be caught.
It’s late. The kind of late where even the shadows seem to sleep.
The old piano room is still your secret solace—dusty, dim, filled with forgotten echoes and dreams you never dared to say out loud. The acoustics are perfect. No one ever comes in here anymore.
Except for one person.
You don't hear him at first. You’re too wrapped up in the song, the way your voice trembles on the high notes, the keys trembling beneath your fingertips. It’s the kind of melody you never intended anyone to hear. Especially not him.
I didn't opt in to be your odd man out
I founded the club she's heard great things about
I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath
Your voice breaks. You close your eyes, breathe, keep going anyway.
I stopped CPR, after all it's no use
The spirit was gone, we would never come to
And I'm pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free
Silence. One, two, three beats of it. Then—
“You always did sound beautiful when you were sad.”
You jump.
Caleb leans against the doorway like he owns the place. Like he owns the air in your lungs. Like he owns you.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he adds, smile lazy, eyes sharp. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”
You blink. “You heard that?”
“I always do.”
Of course he did.
You feel your cheeks burn as he strolls in, gaze never leaving yours. “That song… it’s new?”
You clear your throat, try for nonchalance. “Just something I was playing around with.”
He hums. “Right. Totally not about anyone in particular.”
You bristle. “Did I say that?”
“Nope. But you don’t have to. You forget—I know your voice. I know when it’s for fun. And when it’s ripping you open.”
You glance away, fingers tapping nervously on the ivory keys. “You're being dramatic.”
He kneels beside the bench. Just like that, he’s too close again. Always too close.
“You used to do this all the time,” he murmurs. “Sneak away to sing where no one could find you. You didn’t know I followed.”
Your heart stutters. “You never said anything.”
“Why would I ruin it?” His gaze darkens. “Hearing you like that—it was the only time I ever got to feel like you needed something.”
“I didn’t sing those songs for you,” you lie.
Caleb tilts his head, eyes locked on yours. “Then why are your cheeks red?”
You shove away from the piano, muttering, “You're insufferable.”
He follows, not missing a beat. “You’re blushing, songbird.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
You stop. He almost slams into you.
You glare up at him. “You think you’re so clever.”
He leans in, smirking. “No. I think I’ve waited too long to be this close to you, and now that I’m here, I’m not backing off.”
The worst part? Your hands are trembling. Your knees are weak. And still, somehow, you want more.
But pride wraps around your tongue like a noose.
“You heard the song,” you say, voice low. “That’s enough.”
His eyes flick down to your lips. Then back up. He’s not smiling anymore.
“No,” Caleb whispers. “It’s not.”
You should have locked the damn drawer.
You don’t even know what made you check—but something prickled at the back of your neck the moment you stepped into your apartment. Like something sacred had been disturbed. And when you see the box in Caleb’s hands, your heart stops cold.
No. No.
His head lifts as the door shuts behind you.
And your world implodes.
He’s seated on your couch like he’s carved from stone, the soft golden lamp beside him casting long shadows across the muscles in his jaw and the heartbreak in his eyes.
He’s holding your soul in his hands.
The letters—dozens of them, hundreds, years of ink and agony and lust and grief—you recognize the crooked childhood handwriting, the shaky, angry teenage confessions, the flowing script of your adult longing. Pages of you. Laid bare.
Your breath catches. Your throat closes.
“I—That’s not—You weren’t supposed to—” Your voice cracks. Your knees are trembling.
Caleb stands, the box still in his grip. He looks wrecked.
“I read every single one,” he says softly.
“Put them away,” you whisper, voice hollow. “Please, just… put them away.”
“I can’t.”
You turn to bolt, pure instinct.
And that’s when gravity betrays you.
A weight presses against your body—not crushing, but firm, immovable, inescapable. His Evol.
Your hands fly to the walls, to the floor, anywhere to push back, but you’re floating. Held in place. Suspended in the moment you never wanted him to witness.
“Caleb—!”
“I need you to hear me,” he says, moving closer. Slowly. Carefully. Like approaching a wounded animal.
Your back hits the wall.
He stops just inches from you, eyes devouring every inch of your face. His expression is ravenous, pained, like he’s starving and terrified that the meal in front of him will vanish if he breathes too hard.
“I didn’t know,” he says, his voice ragged. “I never knew.”
You shake your head. “You weren’t supposed to.”
His hand lifts. Hovers near your cheek. “I’ve been walking around blind, thinking I lost you back then. But you never stopped… You loved me. You loved me so much it hurt.”
Tears gather hot and fast in your eyes. “Caleb—don’t—”
“And I was in love with you,” he breathes. “All this time I thought I was chasing someone else, but it was you. It was always you.”
You look away. “You didn’t want me. You wanted her. You chose her.”
“I didn’t choose anyone,” he growls. “I was a coward. I ran. I shut you out and let you carry all that alone. I thought I was protecting you.”
“You weren’t,” you whisper. “You were destroying me.”
The look in his eyes breaks something in you.
“I memorized your words,” he says quietly, his forehead leaning gently against yours. “Every line. Every wish. Every desperate, filthy, aching thing you wanted to say. I felt all of it. Like I was there with you, through every goddamn year I missed.”
You tremble, caught in his pull, aching with the need to believe—but terrified to let yourself fall.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” you whisper.
“I’m not asking you to,” he murmurs. “Not yet.”
His fingers trail lightly over your waist, your hip, anchoring you. The Gravity around you loosens just enough for your feet to touch the floor again, but you don’t move.
His mouth brushes against your temple.
“I just want to earn you. All of you. Like I should’ve from the start.”
You don’t kiss him.
But you don’t pull away either.
You can’t.
Because suddenly, you're not cold anymore.
You’re burning.
He stays.
Even when you tell him to leave—quietly, then louder, then with trembling fingers pressed to his chest like a warning—Caleb stays.
“You shouldn’t be here,” you whisper, not meeting his eyes.
“I should’ve been here years ago,” he murmurs. “Don’t you get it? I’m not leaving again.”
You shove him.
He barely budges.
You shove him again.
This time, his hands catch your wrists mid-motion, fast, firm—calm.
You freeze. His skin is warm against yours, calloused where it should be gentle, familiar where it should feel foreign. Your pulse spikes in your throat.
“Let me go,” you say, breathless.
“No.”
Your breath hitches.
“No?” you echo.
His voice drops. “Not until you stop pretending you don’t want me to stay.”
You glare up at him, furious. “You think a few words and a couple of pretty promises erase everything?”
“No,” he says again. “But I’ll keep proving myself until they do.”
You twist out of his grip—nearly—before he suddenly pulls you in.
And for one terrible, brilliant second, your bodies align like they’ve been waiting for this moment your whole lives.
His eyes search yours.
And then, Caleb whispers, “Tell me to stop.”
You open your mouth.
But nothing comes out.
So he kisses you.
Not a soft, hesitant brush of lips.
It’s a claiming.
It’s all the years you spent alone, writing down your agony like confessions to a God who never answered. It’s every fantasy you denied yourself, every moment you watched him look at someone else and wished it were you. It's him—finally, truly, desperately—here.
Your fingers fist in his shirt like you’re angry, like you’re clinging to something you swore you’d never need again.
And when you break apart, gasping, forehead pressed to his, you say—
“I hate you.”
He smiles, soft and ruined. “I know.”
“I hate how much I wanted that.”
“I hope you did.”
“I’m still not making this easy.”
Caleb’s lips trail down your jaw, his voice a low rasp. “You’ve never made anything easy, sweetheart. That’s why you’re worth everything.”
And still—
Still, your heart trembles with the weight of old wounds, and you pull back just enough to see the truth in his eyes.
“You’ll have to fight for this,” you warn him.
His hand finds the back of your neck, possessive and reverent. “Then prepare to be relentlessly pursued.”
You never agreed to date him.
But apparently, Caleb’s taking “relentless pursuit” as a blood oath.
He shows up at your place the next morning with coffee—your actual order, down to the way you like the foam. He doesn’t say how he remembers. You don’t ask.
That night, he texts you at 2am.
Bastard: Thinking about that song you sang. Thinking about your lips too, but that’s not important (it is).
You throw your phone across the bed.
The next day, he’s waiting outside your building. Leaning against his hoverbike, all long legs and low-lidded eyes and that grin. You think he’s here for some kind of mission.
Nope.
Just here to take you to lunch.
“Don’t say this is a date,” you grumble.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says, offering his hand. “But hold on tight anyway.”
You hate how your fingers slide into his like they belong there.
—
Caleb doesn’t just flirt. He weaponizes charm like he trained for it.
He gives you compliments with the kind of intensity that makes it hard to breathe.
“I love your voice. Especially when you don’t realize you’re humming.”
“You roll your eyes the same way you used to when I beat you in training. It’s kind of adorable.”
“You don’t have to pretend around me. I know what you sound like when you're honest. I miss that sound.”
He touches you too often. Hand brushing your lower back when he walks past. Fingers grazing yours when he hands you something. Sitting just a little too close on your couch, his thigh pressed against yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
You hold strong—for a while.
Until he stays over one night, after watching some late-night sci-fi re-run and falling asleep on your couch like a smug golden retriever with abs.
You try to nudge him awake.
You fail.
Hard.
He catches your wrist in his sleep, pulls you down half-on top of him, murmurs your name like it’s a secret prayer, and buries his face in your neck.
You don’t sleep.
Your body is screaming.
But your heart?
It’s terrified.
—
When morning comes, you wake to him cooking in your kitchen like he belongs there, shirt half-unbuttoned, hair a mess, singing your song under his breath.
You freeze in the doorway.
He sees you.
And smiles.
Like you’re not the one who spent ten years hiding a love that almost broke you. Like he’s not here to crack it wide open.
“Morning, sweetheart,” Caleb says softly. “Stay.”
You almost do.
But you don’t.
Not yet.
You think you're doing a good job keeping him at bay.
You’re not.
Because Caleb is everywhere now.
He’s in your kitchen again, humming off-key as he steals bites from your cooking. He’s draped across your couch like it’s his favorite place in the world. He’s in the way he looks at you like you invented gravity, like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded.
You keep your walls up.
But he keeps coming.
Like he knows you’re lying every time you act unaffected.
—
One night, after a long mission and even longer silence, he shows up unannounced. Eyes shadowed. Mouth grim. Shoulders tense with something unspoken.
You open the door.
He doesn’t say a word—just walks past you, breath ragged.
You follow him into your living room. “Caleb?”
“I thought I lost you again,” he says, voice low.
Your stomach drops. “What?”
He turns to face you, and it’s like the air shifts. Thickens.
“I heard your name over the comms. Brief moment of static. No confirmation you made it out. Just radio silence.”
You cross your arms. “I made it out fine.”
“I didn’t know that,” he snaps. “And for a second, I thought—” He cuts himself off, jaw tight.
You exhale. “I’m used to people not checking in.”
“I’m not people.”
He stalks closer.
You step back.
He follows.
“I don’t care how many times you push me away. You don’t get to disappear on me.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” you throw back. “Pretend like none of this hurts? Like I didn’t bleed for you in silence for years while you played hero somewhere else?”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Your voice cracks. “Because I can’t let myself fall again, Caleb. Not if you're just gonna walk away when it gets hard.”
He grabs your wrist.
Not rough. Just certain.
“Look at me.”
You don’t.
So he tips your chin up with two fingers.
His eyes are burning.
“I am not going anywhere. I don't care how long it takes. You can scream, you can run, you can tell me you hate me. I’ll still be right here.”
“Why?” you whisper, eyes glossy. “Why now?”
“Because I’ve loved you longer than I even understood what that meant,” he breathes. “And I’m done pretending I don’t want every single part of you.”
His other hand slides to your waist, slow and reverent.
Your breath hitches.
You can feel his heartbeat through your palm. Fast. Desperate.
The heat between you is unbearable.
One tilt of your head and you’d be kissing him again.
You want to.
God, you ache to.
But instead, you whisper, “This changes nothing.”
He leans in, nose brushing yours.
“Wrong,” Caleb whispers, his voice rough with restraint. “It changes everything.”
But he doesn’t kiss you.
Not this time.
He lets you go.
And it’s infuriating—because now you want him even more.
The first thing you notice is the light—soft gold spilling through your curtains, catching on floating dust motes, warming the edges of the sheets tangled around your legs.
The second thing you notice is the heat.
Not the weather. Not the blanket.
Him.
Your breath stills.
Because Caleb’s wrapped around you like he owns you.
Which—he doesn’t.
He shouldn’t.
And yet here you are, cocooned in his arms, his entire body molded to yours like you were sculpted to fit him. Your head is pillowed on his chest, right over the steady, heavy thump of his heart. One of his hands is buried in your hair, fingers gently tangled, the other gripping your waist in a possessive clutch that hasn’t loosened even in sleep.
You remember falling asleep with your back to him.
You do not remember signing up for this full-body cuddle trap.
Then there's his thigh—wedged between your legs like it lives there.
Your cheeks burn.
“Okay,” you whisper to yourself. “Time to get out before you completely lose your mind.”
You try to slip away quietly.
You wiggle.
No movement.
You nudge his hand.
His grip tightens.
You try prying his fingers from your waist. It’s like wrestling a bear. A warm, unfairly smug bear.
You let out a frustrated sigh and attempt to roll away—but the second you shift, Caleb lets out a low, sleepy groan. His body shifts with yours, tightening the hold, his thigh sliding higher. His lips brush your neck, parting slightly—
And then he nibbles.
You whimper.
It betrays you instantly.
That quiet little sound. The one that escapes before you can swallow it.
Caleb hums. The vibrations rumble through his chest, into your cheek.
And then—
“Mm... morning,” he murmurs, voice wrecked and delicious.
You go still.
“Caleb,” you say, your voice a warning.
His lips find your pulse point. “You smell good,” he slurs, still half-asleep, tone thick with something dangerous.
His thigh rocks just slightly forward. Pressure, heat.
You squeak.
His arms tighten like steel bands.
He’s caging you in.
“C-Caleb, get off—this is—this is not appropriate!”
Another sleepy groan. His lips ghost along your jaw. “You’re so warm.”
Your brain short-circuits.
“You’re dreaming,” you say, trying desperately to breathe like a normal person. “This is a dream. You’re dreaming. Let me go.”
He chuckles—chuckles. A deep, lazy sound against your neck. “If I’m dreaming, I’m never waking up.”
Then his hips shift. Just barely.
But enough.
“Caleb!”
His eyes snap open.
You expect guilt.
What you get is heat.
Raw, focused, and dangerous.
He blinks once. Then twice. Then—
His hand slides from your waist to the small of your back. His nose brushes yours.
“I was trying to be good,” Caleb murmurs. “You have no idea how hard it’s been.”
You do, actually.
Because it’s been hell for you, too.
You’re seconds from giving in—completely, helplessly—when you shove at his chest with both hands and scramble out from beneath him.
Caleb just smirks from the bed, messy-haired and golden in the morning light. “What? You gonna pretend you didn’t enjoy that?”
You throw a pillow at his face.
“Out,” you snap.
He catches it effortlessly. “No breakfast first?”
You march to the door.
“Fine, fine. But next time?” He swings his legs over the edge and stands, gaze searing into yours. “You’ll beg me to stay.”
You slam the door in his face.
It doesn’t stop your knees from buckling.
It happens fast.
Too fast for logic. Too fast for the walls you’ve spent years constructing around your traitorous heart.
One moment you’re arguing—again. Another stupid quip from him, another reckless flirtation that turns your blood to fire. You’re trying to hold on to the last shred of distance between you, snapping something half-hearted and defensive—
And then Caleb moves.
He grabs your wrists, spinning you with dizzying ease, and slams them gently but firmly against the wall. Your back hits the cold surface. His body follows.
You gasp.
His eyes meet yours.
They are ravenous.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Caleb says, voice low, feral, shaking with restraint. “I can’t keep pretending I don’t want to devour you.”
Your breath catches.
And then he kisses you.
Hard.
Not sweet. Not tentative.
Possessive.
Like he’s claiming what was always his.
Your body jerks with the force of it, your wrists still caged in his hands above your head. You try to twist free—not to escape, but because it’s too much, all-consuming, desperate.
He doesn’t let you go.
He presses closer instead, chasing your mouth with his own, drinking in every gasp, every shuddering moan you try to swallow.
You break away for air—just for a second—and he follows, mouth trailing your jaw, nipping your throat, sucking a mark into the skin just below your ear.
“Caleb—” you manage, but it comes out a whimper.
His pelvis grinds into yours, deliberate and aching. The friction draws a strangled sound from your throat.
“Oh god—”
“That’s it,” he groans against your skin. “That sound. I’ve imagined it every night. Every. Damn. Night.”
His hands leave your wrists—only to slide down your arms, your sides, until they’re clutching your hips like he might fall apart if he lets go. He lifts you onto the wall, thigh pressing between your legs, grinding again.
Your fingers tangle in his shirt, yanking him closer even as your brain screams to stop this.
But your body?
Your body is already his.
“Tell me to stop,” Caleb breathes, forehead pressed to yours, chest heaving.
You don’t.
You can’t.
There’s no pretending anymore. No wall to hide behind.
Because the truth is—he touches you like a man starved, but worships you like you're divine.
His lips return to yours, slower this time but no less intense, and it feels like every missed moment, every unsent letter, every buried ache is burning through the kiss.
His self-control shatters.
And you let it.
Because there’s no going back now.
There’s a moment—barely a breath—after that kiss.
His forehead presses to yours, both of you trembling, not just from adrenaline but from something deeper. Something that feels like standing on the edge of a cliff after running your whole life just to avoid the fall.
He whispers your name like a secret, like a vow. It breaks you a little, how he says it. Like he’s tasting the weight of it for the first time.
Then he moves.
Your legs wrap around his waist without thought—instinct meeting inevitability. You're holding on to the only thing in the room that feels real. He lifts you as if he was made to, the heat between you palpable, a pulse that beats beneath your skin, echoing every missed chance and quiet longing.
The kiss deepens. Desperate, molten, tasting of years swallowed down and swallowed whole. His hands are everywhere—anchoring, memorizing, shaking just slightly from how hard he’s holding back.
He carries you through the house like a man possessed. Not with lust, but with ache. The bedroom door shuts with a thud behind you, and suddenly the air is full of promises, unspoken but heavy. When your back meets the mattress, he follows—solid and unyielding. Not crushing, but overwhelming in the way only someone you've loved for too long can be.
His weight is warmth, his gaze all hunger and reverence. His hands slide beneath your clothes, not to strip, but to feel. His palm over your heart. His fingers brushing your ribs like counting the years apart. Every touch says: I missed this. I missed you.
“You still gonna pretend you don’t want this?” he murmurs, his voice low, scraping over the tenderest parts of you.
You try to breathe out a laugh, but it catches on something in your throat—emotion, maybe. Want, definitely.
His mouth presses to your skin in a trail that’s less possession and more devotion. His touch follows, mapping you slowly, like he's rediscovering a land he once called home. You feel yourself arch into him, answer him without words, because words were never big enough for this.
He whispers things you’ll remember later—soft confessions and raw need laced with regret for every year wasted. You shiver when his breath touches your skin, when his fingers slide across bare inches you didn't mean to offer but couldn't deny.
And then... silence. Not because the moment ends. But because it begins.
Everything else fades.
There are no sharp lines, only sensation—heat and trembling limbs, quiet gasps, and the way your fingers fist into his shirt like you’ll fall apart without him there to catch you.
You lose time in the haze of it. In the rhythm of closeness, of skin against skin, of hearts beating so loud they drown out thought. You feel unraveled. Revered. Completely undone. Not by action, but by intent.
After, when the quiet stretches between you and your breath finally slows, he doesn’t let go. He stays draped over you, face buried in the crook of your neck like he’s terrified you’ll vanish if he opens his eyes.
“This isn’t over,” he says. His voice is hoarse, a whisper etched with everything he’s never said aloud. “I’m not letting you go. Not this time.”
And for the first time, you let yourself believe it.
Not because of what just happened.
But because of everything that didn’t need to.
You lost track of how long ago the sun set.
The air is heavy with heat and sweat, your skin slick against the sheets. You’re boneless, trembling, lips swollen from kisses too deep, too desperate. Every nerve is raw. Every breath you take shudders.
And Caleb?
Caleb is still going.
He hovers above you, eyes dark with something starved—like he’s been waiting his whole life for this and now that he has you, he doesn’t know how to stop. His hands roam as if relearning the shape of you again and again, like the memory alone will never be enough.
“We’re not done,” he murmurs, brushing hair from your damp forehead. “Not yet.”
You try to protest, but all that leaves you is a soft, aching sound.
He smiles—soft, wicked, reverent.
And leans in to kiss you like it’s the first time all over again.
You're floating.
Barely conscious, held together by the fragile thread of Caleb’s body wrapped around yours, his breath a soft rhythm against your neck.
Your limbs are jelly. Your thighs ache. Your lips are kiss-bitten and bruised, and you're so sensitive that every inch of you shivers when he so much as adjusts beside you.
And yet—even now, even after hours—he won’t stop touching.
Not in the same feral, frantic way as before. No. Now it’s worship.
He kisses the curve of your shoulder, the back of your neck, your spine. His fingertips trace lazy, possessive patterns into your hips. He murmurs things—some unintelligible, some far too intimate.
“You’re perfect,” he whispers against your skin.
“I missed you.”
“I’ll never let you go again.”
You’re too tired to reply. Your voice is hoarse from screaming, from moaning his name over and over, but your heart responds like a bell rung too hard. It throbs.
Eventually, he gets up—only to return with a warm towel, water, a fresh shirt. He tends to you with gentle hands, murmuring apologies each time you flinch from how sensitive you are, pressing soft kisses to your forehead, your temple, your knuckles.
When he finally slides into the shower with you, your body instinctively leans into his. The water is hot, soothing, washing away the sweat, the stickiness, the evidence of your complete and total unraveling.
But not the ache. Not the possessiveness.
He sits on the tiled bench and pulls you into his lap, your legs straddling him, head tucked under his chin. You’re exhausted, wrecked—and he’s still hard beneath you.
You give him a look that’s half horror, half disbelief.
He smirks, eyes dark and gleaming. “I told you, I’m not finished.”
“Caleb—”
“I owe you,” he says, voice dipping low. “For every year I didn’t touch you. For every time you cried over me in silence. For every word in those letters I should’ve read sooner.”
Your breath hitches.
And then his lips descend again—slow, tender, reverent. As if he’s trying to memorize this version of you, water-slicked and trembling in his arms, yours at last.
Back in bed, you collapse into his chest, body boneless, heart hammering.
And just when you think he’s finally done—
He shifts again.
Rolls you beneath him.
“You’re not going to let me sleep?” you rasp.
His fingers trail down your body, between your thighs, making you jolt.
“No,” he breathes against your ear. “You’re not sleeping until I’ve claimed every inch of you. Until you can’t think of anything but me.”
You should tell him to stop.
You don’t.
Because the truth is: every part of you belongs to him already.
And now?
He’s going to make sure you never forget it.
The morning after feels… dangerous.
Not because you’re in any real peril—but because it’s blissfully quiet, and the man who wrecked you within an inch of your life is humming softly in your kitchen, shirtless, wearing nothing but sweatpants slung far too low on his hips, looking like the devil himself in domestic drag.
You barely make it through the doorway, each step a careful negotiation with gravity and sore muscles. Your thighs ache. Your back aches. Everything aches. But the moment Caleb glances over his shoulder and smirks at your limp?
Oh, you want to punch him.
Or kiss him.
Or both.
“You’re up,” he says, voice as smug as the day is long.
“I tried to stay asleep,” you deadpan. “But someone kept me up all night.”
He chuckles—low and wicked—and sets a mug of coffee on the counter for you.
“Consider it payback.”
You squint at him. “For what?”
His eyes drop to your hips, the curve of your throat, the faint marks blooming on your skin like war medals.
“For every letter you wrote and never gave me.”
Your stomach drops.
The mug clatters slightly when you set it down too fast.
You’d almost forgotten. Almost managed to push aside the mortifying knowledge that he read everything.
And yet, here he is—utterly unbothered, possibly turned on, casually flipping pancakes like he didn’t spend the night wrecking you with the very fantasies you'd penned in lonely bedrooms and late-night heartbreak.
“You read them all,” you say, not quite a question.
He looks at you over his shoulder. “Memorized. Studied. Jerk—”
“Do not finish that sentence, Caleb.”
He only grins wider.
You try to be casual, sip your coffee, lean against the wall like you’re not reliving every desperate, depraved word he’s now got locked and loaded in that beautiful head of his. But he’s already watching you too closely. Reading you like one of those letters.
“There's one you missed,” you murmur before you can stop yourself.
He freezes.
Slowly, slowly, he turns. “Where?”
You bite your lip.
“The drawer by my bed. Bottom one.”
He’s gone before you even blink.
Your heart is pounding.
By the time you stumble after him, he’s already sitting on the bed, letter in hand. It’s the last one. The one you wrote when you thought you’d never see him again. It was raw, feral—filled with longing so thick it could drown you.
He reads it silently. His jaw tightens. His Adam’s apple bobs hard.
When he finishes, he just looks at you.
You’re not sure what you expect.
But you do not expect him to throw the letter down and stand up like that.
“I’m going to ruin you again,” he says, voice low. “And this time, it won’t stop until you beg me to believe you’re mine.”
Your knees buckle.
But he’s already crossing the room.
Already crowding you against the wall, hands gripping your thighs, lifting you effortlessly until your back hits wood and your legs wrap around him like muscle memory.
“Caleb—” you gasp, but he silences you with a kiss that’s pure possession.
“No more running. No more letters.” He grinds against you, voice rasping. “You want to scream my name? Do it now. Right here. Where I can answer every word.”
And you do.
God help you, you do.
—
You don't know how you made it through round... whatever number that was. Your body's a puddle, your skin still humming, but Caleb is finally calm. Sated, for now. The hunger in his eyes has simmered down into something deeper—something dangerous in its quiet intensity.
He’s seated now, bare chest gleaming faintly in the afternoon light, legs spread with an unmistakable air of ownership. You’re half-draped across his torso, wearing one of his shirts that swallows you whole. He holds you with one arm looped securely around your waist, the other hand delicately unfolding that last letter. The most intimate one. The one you never meant anyone—especially him—to see.
You try not to squirm as he reads it again, slowly, as if committing every line to memory.
You can feel his eyes on the page—but his attention is on you.
“You wrote this two years ago,” he says softly, thumb brushing idle circles against your inner thigh. “I was at the edge of the solar belt. Couldn’t sleep that night. I felt… off. Like I was missing something.”
You glance down, ashamed. “Don’t romanticize it.”
“I’m not,” he replies simply. “I’m aligning timelines.”
Your heart stutters. His hand stills.
“Do you want me to stop reading?” he asks, genuine this time.
You consider it. Swallow. Then shake your head.
He nods, kisses your temple.
Another beat of silence. The room smells of skin and paper and sunlight.
Then, quietly, with a low chuckle, he murmurs:
“I should have known,” he mutters, “you liked being chased. You always did, even as a kid. Remember all those games of tag?”
You remember.
And you remember how he’d always let you win—just enough—before pulling you back into his arms with that sly smile of his, the one that made your heart race and your stomach flip.
You squirm, face heating. “That’s different.”
“It was always you,” he says softly. “Even when I didn’t know what I was looking for. I’d follow you through fields, parks, school halls. You’d run, I’d chase. Every time.”
His voice dips, husky but no longer carnal. “You were never hiding from me. You were waiting for me to catch up.”
Your throat tightens.
“And I did.” He sets the letter aside. “Finally.”
The intensity softens into something almost unbearably tender. His fingers curl beneath your chin and tilt your face up.
“No more letters,” he murmurs. “If there’s something you want… tell me. If you need something… I’ll listen. If you feel too much—good. So do I.”
You try to look away, but he won’t let you.
“You’ve already stripped yourself bare,” he whispers, brushing your hair back. “Now let me carry the weight.”
And just like that, your defenses crumble—slowly, quietly, like a dam leaking at the seams.
You rest your forehead against his. His lips ghost over yours. There’s no urgency. No fire.
Just heat. Banked and waiting.
And when he pulls you closer, tucks you against his chest, and lets out a slow breath—you swear you can feel his heartbeat echo your own.
The world outside is quiet, but inside your home, chaos reigns.
“Hey! Give that back!” you shout, laughing breathlessly as you chase after Caleb, who’s casually sauntering around your kitchen—your kitchen—holding your favorite coffee mug high above his head like a trophy.
Bastard.
“This?” Caleb grins, the morning light making his messy hair look unfairly golden, like he just strolled out of a dream. “You mean our mug now. Community property.”
“That’s not how this works!” You make a wild grab for it, but he just shifts it higher, smirking like he’s enjoying this a little too much.
Maybe it’s the fact that he’s only in a loose pair of joggers, the drawstring barely tied, his chest bare and warm and still a little damp from his earlier shower. Maybe it’s the way he looks at you—like you’re the only thing in the world worth teasing, worth chasing. Whatever it is, your heart flutters violently in your chest.
“Caleb, I swear—” you lunge for him again.
He catches you effortlessly, laughing as he spins you around until your back is pressed against his chest, trapping you in his arms. The mug dangles in front of you tauntingly. His scent envelops you—fresh soap, coffee, and something that’s just him.
“Say please,” he whispers into your ear, his breath warm, sending a shiver racing down your spine.
You wriggle in his arms, only managing to grind yourself back against his hips in the most scandalous way. Caleb’s arms tighten, his low groan rumbling against your back.
You freeze, heat flooding your cheeks. Damn him.
Caleb chuckles, feeling the way you stiffen. “Careful, sweetheart. You’re playing with fire this early in the morning.”
“You started it,” you mutter, glaring over your shoulder.
He grins lazily, shameless. “I’ll finish it, too.”
Before you can retort, he finally, finally relinquishes the mug, setting it gently on the counter. You think you’re safe—until he sweeps you off your feet in one effortless move, carrying you bridal style toward the couch.
“Caleb! Put me down!” you yelp, pounding your fists against his chest, but he’s unbothered, humming a tune under his breath like this is the most normal thing in the world.
“Shhh. We’re doing Sunday properly,” he says, plopping down onto the couch and settling you firmly on his lap, caging you in with his arms. “Coffee. Couch. Cuddles. Mandatory.”
You open your mouth to protest, but his hand cups the back of your head, gently guiding you to rest against his shoulder. His touch is slow, deliberate, almost reverent.
You can feel the tension humming between you—thick, electric—but somehow, it doesn’t feel urgent. It feels… safe. Warm. Like you could fall asleep right here and Caleb would keep the whole world away from you.
You sigh, feeling your body relax against him despite yourself.
“This isn’t fair,” you grumble.
“What’s not fair?” he asks, voice low and teasing as he presses a kiss to the top of your head.
“You being so… so…” You gesture vaguely, words failing you. How do you describe this? Caleb being infuriating and sweet and annoyingly perfect, all wrapped up in one stupidly handsome package?
“So what?” he presses, feigning innocence. His hand strokes lazily up and down your spine, his touch feather-light.
You groan into his chest. “Everything.”
He laughs—really laughs—and the sound rumbles deep in his chest, vibrating against you. You can’t help the small smile that creeps across your face. You hate how easy it is to be soft with him. How easy it is to fall harder when you promised yourself you’d be careful.
“You’re stuck with me now, sweetheart,” Caleb says, dropping his forehead against yours, his eyes shining with something raw and unspoken. “Might as well get used to it.”
Your heart thuds painfully against your ribs, and for once, you don’t have a snarky reply. Just this—this impossible, chaotic, beautiful morning. His arms around you. His laugh in your ears. His heartbeat steady beneath your hand.
Maybe you are stuck with him.
Maybe you want to be.
And when Caleb presses a soft, lingering kiss to your lips—tender, warm, unbearably sweet—you know you’re completely, hopelessly, irreversibly his.
And judging by the way he smiles against your mouth, he's known it all along.
Your lunch is burning.
You know it is—because you can smell the faint scent of charred vegetables—and yet, you can’t do anything about it.
Because Caleb.
Because Caleb, who has one arm lazily wrapped around your waist, caging you against the counter, a spatula abandoned nearby. Because Caleb, who keeps murmuring absolutely mortifying things against your ear in that deep, smug voice of his, his lips brushing your skin with every word.
Because Caleb, who somehow—somehow—has memorized every single humiliating word you ever wrote to him.
You try not to die of embarrassment right there.
“You know,” Caleb drawls, his voice a slow purr against your ear, “you were really dramatic back in middle school. I believe it went something like—” he clears his throat exaggeratedly, clearly having way too much fun, “‘Dear Caleb, I hate you so much I hope you trip and fall into a mud puddle in front of the entire school. Maybe then you’ll stop being so full of yourself.’”
You groan, shoving your sleeves over your face, mortified. “Stopppp.” You’re basically trying to melt into the counter at this point.
But Caleb’s laughing, warm and delighted, peeling your sleeves down to expose your burning face. He lives for this now, clearly. Every time you squirm, he looks like he’s won the lottery.
“And then—then,” he continues gleefully, ignoring your protests, “in high school, when I got a little popular… You wrote, ‘Congratulations, Prince Charming. Maybe one day you’ll notice the loyal commoner you left in the dust. But no worries. I’m totally fine. Totally. Absolutely fine. Not like I ever cared anyway.’”
He recites it with dramatic flair, clutching his chest like a wounded lover. You are dying inside.
“Oh my God, Caleb,” you hiss, trying to hide your face again. “Shut up! I was, like, fifteen! I didn’t know anything about anything!”
He laughs again, low and fond, his chest vibrating against your back. “You knew enough to break my heart, sweetheart,” he murmurs, and you feel the serious undercurrent beneath all the teasing—the raw affection.
You twist in his grip, attempting to shove him away, but he just effortlessly manhandles you into his lap instead. One strong arm loops around your waist, the other sneaks into your hair, stroking it slowly, tangling his fingers through the strands.
You pout at him, cheeks still on fire. “You’re so annoying.”
His grin softens into something devastatingly tender. His eyes burn bright and molten as he stares at you, like you’re the only thing in the entire world.
“Not done yet,” he murmurs.
Your stomach drops.
You already know what's coming. The worst part.
Caleb leans down, nuzzles against your temple, and in a low, sinful voice, whispers, “And then there were the ones where you couldn’t stop thinking about me at night.”
You jerk, mortified, but he tightens his hold on you, trapping you snug against him. His lips graze your ear.
“You had so many thoughts about me,” he says, voice dropping impossibly lower. “About what you wanted me to do to you. About what you wanted to do to me.” He chuckles darkly when you squeak and try to wriggle away.
“I can quote those too, if you want,” he teases mercilessly. “Maybe I should start with the one where you described me tying you up with my DAA-issued tactical belt—”
“CALEB!!” you shriek, smacking his chest as he throws his head back laughing.
You bury your face in his shoulder, absolutely vibrating with secondhand embarrassment, whimpering, “I’m going to die. I’m actually going to die.”
“No, you’re not,” he says, pressing kisses to your hairline, your forehead, your temple, over and over again until your trembling subsides into quiet giggles. His arms are warm and unrelenting around you.
You risk peeking up at him—and freeze.
He’s staring down at you with a look so filled with adoration it physically steals the air from your lungs. His hand cups your jaw so gently it makes your heart ache.
“You’re my life,” Caleb says, voice rough with feeling. “You’ve always been my life. You just didn’t know it yet.”
You blink up at him, stunned, your heart threatening to burst out of your chest.
Slowly, shyly, you rest your forehead against his, your hands sliding up to his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath your palms.
Caleb exhales shakily, as if the moment is too big even for him.
The smell of burnt food lingers, the sun pours golden light across the kitchen, and you sit there, tangled up in him, the most chaotic, beautiful, utterly yours thing you’ve ever had.
“Guess I’m stuck with you, huh?” you whisper, a teasing glint in your eye.
Caleb’s smile turns crooked, boyish.
“Forever, sweetheart,” he murmurs.
And then he kisses you, slow and deep and soft, like a promise he’s waited a lifetime to keep.
—
Later that night, you're curled up on the couch together, tangled in a heap of limbs and fluffy throw blankets, a low movie playing in the background.
You’re half-dozing, feeling deliciously warm and safe against Caleb’s chest, his heartbeat lulling you into a haze. His hand strokes lazily through your hair, fingertips dragging slow, lazy patterns against your scalp.
You’re just about to slip under completely when—
"Sweetheart?" Caleb’s voice, deceptively casual.
You hum in response, not even bothering to open your eyes.
"What's this? Another letter?"
You tense immediately.
No.
No no no.
Your eyes snap open in horror just in time to see Caleb, that absolute devil, pulling out one of the more battered, worn pieces of paper from somewhere.
You gasp, trying to grab for it, but he holds it way above your head, smirking like the cat who caught the canary.
"Caleb!" you shriek, flailing. "Put it away! You can't—!"
He just laughs and pins you down easily with one hand on your waist, straddling your thighs to trap you in place.
“I think the people deserve to hear this one,” he teases, that wicked glint in his eye. “Specifically, me.”
He clears his throat dramatically while you writhe helplessly beneath him.
"‘It’s not fair,’" Caleb reads aloud, smirking as he drags his gaze down your squirming body. "‘It’s not fair how he fills out his uniform. How his gloves tighten around his fingers. How I can’t stop thinking about what those hands would feel like on my skin. How I dream about him tying my wrists, whispering filthy promises against my neck—’"
"CALEB!!" you wail, smacking your hands against his chest in a feeble attempt to stop him. Your face is boiling hot.
But Caleb, the menace, the absolute menace, just grins wider, loving every second of your humiliation.
"And it goes on," he says gleefully, ignoring your mortified whimper. "‘How I'd let him do anything to me. How I'd beg him to lose control. How much I crave him, every breath, every heartbeat, like I'm dying of thirst in a desert and he's the only water I'll ever want.’"
Your soul tries to physically leave your body.
You slap your hands over your face, wishing for death.
"Please," you moan into your palms, "Caleb, please stop—"
But he just chuckles darkly, leaning down until his nose brushes yours, his voice dropping to a sinful murmur.
“You really should have mailed this one, sweetheart,” he says, eyes smoldering. "Would’ve saved us a lot of time."
You whimper, still hiding your face. He peels your hands away from your burning cheeks gently but firmly, making you meet his gaze.
Caleb’s smile turns unbearably tender as he cradles your flushed face between his palms, thumbs brushing over your cheekbones.
"I memorized every word," he says softly. "Every single one. They're engraved into me now. Just like you."
Your heart stutters painfully in your chest.
You can't look away from him—those devastating sunset eyes drinking you in like you hung the stars.
He dips his head lower, kissing the corner of your mouth, slow and reverent.
“You’re mine,” Caleb murmurs, voice rough with possessiveness and love. “You always were.”
You melt completely, boneless in his hold, helpless against him—as you’ve always been.
"Caleb..." you whisper, voice trembling.
He smiles that slow, infuriating, dangerous smile—and promptly starts tickling you, laughing when you shriek and try to wriggle free, your earlier mortification forgotten in a burst of chaotic laughter and flailing limbs.
You scream his name, half furious, half in love.
Caleb just laughs like it’s the happiest sound in the world.
It’s late.
Not the deep velvet of midnight, but that quiet hour when the world seems suspended in hush. The city hums softly beyond the windows, and the room is awash in the muted amber of a bedside lamp. You're tangled together beneath the sheets—not in passion this time, but in something far more dangerous.
Vulnerability.
Caleb lies on his side, propped up on one elbow, watching you with that look again—the one that's too tender, too knowing. His fingers trail lazily across your arm, like he can’t stop touching you even now. Like he’s making sure you’re still here.
“I should’ve reached out sooner,” he says.
You stay quiet. Not because you're angry. Because you're afraid of what might come next.
“I didn’t date her,” he adds, so casually it nearly slips by.
You blink.
“What?”
“She wasn’t mine,” he says. “Never was. I thought…” He hesitates. “I thought she might be the only person who could understand what I was becoming. The training. The pressure. But it was never romantic. Not even close.”
Your throat feels tight. You shift, pulling the blanket up like armor.
“Then why didn’t you call? Or message? Or—anything, Caleb? You just vanished.”
He exhales, slow and jagged.
“I was afraid,” he admits.
You glance up, surprised.
He stares at the ceiling, jaw clenched. “Not of the missions. Not of the fleet. I was afraid that if I talked to you, really talked to you, I’d drop everything just to be near you. I was already teetering. One video call and I would’ve been done for.”
Your heart twists painfully.
“You idiot,” you whisper. “I would’ve taken you. In any form.”
“I didn’t want you to take less of me.” He looks at you then, eyes bare, voice rough. “I wanted to be worthy of what you wrote in those letters. Of the way you looked at me when we were kids.”
You want to scream. Or cry. Or maybe just bury your face in his chest until the years melt away.
“You were worthy, Caleb. You just… didn’t believe it.”
A silence settles. Not heavy. Just real.
He pulls you closer. One hand cradling your head to his chest, the other tangled in your fingers beneath the sheets. You listen to his heartbeat again.
Stronger now.
Steady.
“For the record,” he murmurs, “when I read the one about the lake—when we were sixteen—I nearly lost it. I remember that night. I didn’t know what to do with the way I felt back then.”
You squeeze his hand. “You pushed me into the water.”
“You screamed my name so loud, half the neighborhood heard.”
You smile despite yourself.
Then softer, quieter:
“I used to dream about that moment, you know? If you ever found the letters. If you ever came back.”
“And now that I have?”
Your smile fades. You tilt your head up and find him waiting. Bare. Present.
“I don’t want dreams anymore,” you whisper.
“Good,” Caleb says, leaning down until his lips barely brush yours. “Because I’m not leaving this time. And I don’t need letters. I have you.”
And when he kisses you, it’s not a claim.
It’s a promise.
The shuttle touches down with a soft hiss, and before the hatch even fully opens, you're hit with the scent of your hometown—familiar, grounding, sweetened by nostalgia. The air is different here. Softer. Like time slows down just enough to let you breathe.
Caleb steps out behind you, his duffel slung lazily over one shoulder. His eyes sweep over the old landing port, the cracked pavement, the overgrown grass curling at the edges of fences long forgotten. He doesn't say anything for a moment.
Then, quietly: “It’s smaller than I remember.”
You huff a laugh. “Because we’re bigger now.”
He looks at you—really looks. “You are.”
There’s a weight to those words you don’t touch yet. Not here. Not now.
The town unfolds before you like a photograph—faded but warm. You walk the familiar streets side by side, shoulders brushing, passing your old school, the corner store where you used to pool pocket change for sweets, the park where you’d play tag until dusk.
“I remember this tree,” Caleb murmurs, stopping beneath the one with the warped trunk. “You used to climb it like a gremlin.”
“You fell out of it once,” you remind him. “Cried for hours.”
He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “And you didn’t leave my side.”
A beat of silence.
“You always stayed,” he says.
You glance at him, the late afternoon sun haloing his profile. “You just didn’t always notice.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, his hand brushes yours. Then lingers. Then takes it fully.
You don’t let go.
The path takes you past your childhood home. Your heart kicks up. The windows are still the same. The porch swing still crooked. You half expect to hear your mother calling you in for dinner. Caleb pauses beside you.
“I remember sneaking out through your window,” he says with a crooked grin. “You made me carry that squeaky chair so we wouldn’t get caught.”
“You always stepped on the wrong floorboard anyway,” you mutter. “We always got caught.”
“Worth it,” he murmurs. “Every single time.”
You don’t speak again until you're standing at the edge of the lake—the one you wrote about. The one where you screamed his name across the water. It looks just like it did then.
The sun dips low, painting the surface gold.
You watch the light scatter across the waves, lost in thought.
“I didn’t know you loved me then,” he says, voice quiet. “But I felt it. In every laugh. Every fight. Every stupid dare. I felt it. I just didn’t have the words.”
Your throat tightens.
“I didn’t either,” you say. “So I wrote them instead.”
He turns to you slowly. “No more letters,” he whispers.
Then, gently, reverently, Caleb cups your face.
You close your eyes.
The kiss is soft this time. Not a promise or a possession. Just a memory, coming full circle.
Just two people who finally stopped running.
NOTES: guys I'm so embarrassed, I can't believe I posted the unedited version!!! I didn't like how instead of talking through their issues these two went to bang instead, AHHH this is so embarrassing!!!
Imagine waking up in a game world... A game you played in your last life. Well, how are you so sure? Because you have seen this dark, rich, and mysterious place plenty of times from the game.
You sit up from the sofa, scanning the room, unsure of what you’re looking for.
“So the unknown lady finally wakes up?”
Bam! Your heart almost jumps out of its place. The voice is clear and sharp, but there’s a gentleness and warmth in it, one you’ve always yearned for but never found.
When you look at the source, there, standing as erect and stable as a pillar, you find him.
Sylus.
You gape. He quips his brows and looks at you in amusement. Then something else catches your eyes when you look at him.
Red string.
On Sylus’ pinky finger.
Slowly, your gaze follows where the string leads.
No.
No. No way.
It shouldn’t be possible.
“That’s funny…” You laugh, humourless and dreadful.
As an avid reader, you’re not foreign to fanfiction with this concept. Specifically, soulmate AU—where there’s a pair tied together by a red string of fate on their pinky fingers, said to be destined together in life. Hell, you gobble these kinds of tropes in your past life.
“Why is it tied to me?”
His string connects to you.
A thread wraps around your finger, weighs nothing but glows a vibrant red that might just sear into your skin.
“Have you finished your musings?” He asks.
“...Hi. Sorry about that,” you focus on the man in front of you. His eyes, a glowing ruby that could rival the string, watches you. They never leave you from the start.
You raise an arm and stick out your pinky, “Can you see this?”
Sylus takes a few moments to look at your finger. A breath, a second, a third, then— “Nothing.” He tilts his head, “Why, is there anything that I'm supposed to see?”
You remember spending nights watching his story unfold, the way his loyalty across lifetimes tattoos itself into devotion to her. And yet, now, that same devotion bears a name: yours.
Sh*t.
You retreat your arm and shake your head.
“No, nevermind.”
Another female approaches the two of you.
“You’re finally awake! How are you feeling?” Her face is vibrant, lips lifted into a kind smile. Too familiar, too uncanny as though seeing your favorite painting comes alive.
This is the Main Character—the MC—with the same face you design her to look like in your game.
The main character of this game is fated to be with Sylus. Not you. Never. You did wish for love; you tried and failed, and you cried to have a love as dangerous and beautiful as Sylus' and MC’s; But, you never wish to change the game.
If this is a gift in exchange of the bad luck in your past life, then you will refuse ardently. Who knows? Maybe this is another angst story where you’re going to suffer and watch them be together while the string around your finger slowly disappears. Who knows, right?
You are going to find a way to cut this damn string off.
POV: You are the non-MC wife. You thought the marriage would save you, but the moment you crossed his precious MC, you became nothing more than a target. He didn't even hesitate.
God, the angst of being the disposable villain in someone else's love story is unmatched 💔
SYNOPSIS! when a split mission leaves you waiting in an empty penthouse past midnight, the silence begins to taste like jealousy
PAIRINGS: sylus x non!mc reader
WARNINGS! MINORS DNI!
Part 2 of BOUND, but can be read as a stand alone, jealousy, rough kissing, kissing involving blood, not proofread, porn with plot, unprotected piv, thigh riding, fingering, wap and I mean it, oral!m recieving where she spits out his cum back on his dick and licks it, a lot of spit honestly, overstimulation, they switch, edging, teasing, biting, I imagine reader as a femme fatale with abandonment issues, it's messy, fluids, lots of em, big dick sylus, mean sylus, multiple orgasms, he licks your panties spits on them and stuffs them in your mouth, bondage, manhandling, reader is mentioned to have long hair, kinda hate sex??? she pretends she doesn't want it, mentions of mc, he puts his regeneration at use, I love to dramatize and i'm also a zayne girl who doesn't know all sylus' lore, there is probably more I forgot to mention so please lmk!
W.C: 7.7k
a/n: Hellooo! Well, it sure has been a while since I first posted Bound. I completely ran out of inspiration for the second part, and this isn't even close to what I originally had in mind, but I think it works! That being said, I am still thinking of turning this into a multi-part series if there’s a demand for it (which is honestly my sole motivation for writing, lmao). The only reason I'm considering it is because I have a lot of just pure filth left over for these two... Anyway, N821 here is heavily inspired by Prague especially in the winter season, reader is his right "hand", and I really wanted to incorporate a version of Sylus who isn't softened by MC. Also, the dialogue about the mission was completely written by my dear friend (hi Anika) because I have no idea how mafia missions work...!
It was late. Beyond late, the kind of hour where the dark ceases to be a shield and begins to feel like a countdown
Two hours had bled away since midnight, the precise deadline Sylus had given you to return with the shipment routes. Two hours since his last text had flashed across your screen: "I'm on my way." A terse response to your notification that you had successfully wrung the coordinates from the broker. The deal had come with a condition, of course, but a win was a win.
Now, you stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows of the most expensive penthouse in N821. Your skin was still radiating the residual heat of a hot shower, the heavy ivory silk of your robe trailing against your ankles as you knotted the belt around your waist.
N821 was a different kind of monster than N109
Where N109 was a chaotic, bleeding theater of crime, N821 was the same beast refined sleeker, heavily organized, masked in exorbitant wealth, and brutally cold
You closed your eyes, exhaling a slow, sharp breath through your nose. The frustration didn't leave you, it merely settled deeper into your chest. He was with her. That little hunter. The one he taunted. The one you had once discovered practically in his lap
Granted, during that particular encounter, she had a loaded barrel pressed flush against his sternum. And God, how Sylus had thrived on the bite of it. He didn't just tolerate her defiance; he fed on it.
Irrelevant, you reminded yourself, your jaw tightening. Your arrangement with the leader of Onychinus was built on concrete and blood, not sentiment
If there was closeness between you, it was found exclusively in the dark sharp, high friction intimacy utilized purely as stress relief. When two apex predators unite, you do not expect a love story. You expect an alliance
He desired you; that much was undeniable. You were a crown jewel in the underworld silently deadly, poised. A trophy for a man who claimed to own the world
Not an ornament for him though. Never that. Sylus had little interest in fragile things
Yet, your eyes rarely deceived you. Every time he looked at the hunter, there was a faint, intolerable fondness in his gaze. It was childish to even note it, but the great, wanted criminal's eyes actually softened whenever he called her kitten
You despised the word. If he ever dared utter that nickname to you, you would ensure his next glass of wine was laced with cyanide.
Why did she get a title born of affection while you received a title born of strategy? With a quiet sigh, you stepped away from the glass to gather the paperwork scattered across the desk. Time was a luxury you didn't possess
The documents required your signature and a thorough review before they could be handed over to your dear husband by morning
Your dear, dear husband.
The man you swore you didn't crave. The man you swore you didn't miss. You swore it because it was the absolute truth. You were detached. It was the only state of being you had ever known
As the perfect daughter of a sprawling empire, love had never been factored into your record.
Neither had vulnerability
For someone who could afford everything the world had to offer, you couldn't afford a heart
You had never been in love. Intimacy itself was a foreign language until Sylus Qin. To this day, the irony of it brought a cold, humorless smile to your lips. Embarrassing, really, that a man so ruthless had been your introduction to the flesh.
Then again, he had set a incredibly high standard.
While other girls your age were experiencing the trivialities of teenage romance, you were busy learning how to strip a firearm in under ten seconds. You had spent your youth enduring grueling training sessions, followed by hours studying the art of high stakes negotiation under the suffocating, stern glare of your father
In your world, knowing how to distinguish which protocore dealer lied and which one merely inflated prices for survival was the key
But you knew how to hate. Sylus knew it, too, and he drew an infuriating amount of satisfaction from drawing that hatred to the surface
You sat in the plush, albeit uncomfortable, armchair, closing your eyes briefly to soothe the pulsing pressure building behind them. You forced yourself to reopen them, scanning the lines of text to highlight the clauses Sylus would inevitably want to contest.
Think of the devil
The heavy click of the penthouse door echoing through the foyer broke the silence. You didn't bother to lift your head. You were furious, and you had no intention of granting him the courtesy of an immediate greeting.
He called your name once. Then, as if tracking the scent of your irritation, his heavy footsteps moved towards the study where you were.
When he stepped into the light, he was a vision of controlled violence. His silver hair was damp, plastered slightly against his forehead from the storm outside. His clothes were dark with melted snow. His knuckles were split freshly cleaned, but faint traces of copper still stained the creases of his skin. A shallow, clean cut marred the high ridge of his cheekbone.
Yet, by the slow, deliberate grace of his stride, you could tell he was entirely unbothered. He looked utterly smug
You permitted yourself exactly one second to take in the sight of him. Then, with a fluid, dismissive motion, you tossed the files onto the marble coffee table. You swung your legs over the armrest of the chair, leaning back into the cushions with calculated laziness
Svlus stoned. He knew that nosture. He knew he was walking on razor thin ice
An amused brow arched upward, a familiar, infuriating smirk threatening to touch his lips before he smoothly schooled his expression. He slipped his damp coat from his shoulders, tossing it aside. Now, it was his turn to take you in
The silk robe had slipped, exposing the curve of one shoulder. Your long legs were draped carelessly over the velvet arm of the chair, and the ends of your hair were still dark with moisture. A vision. Perfect, dangerous, and entirely unimpressed.
"Read," you commanded
Your voice was a low, smooth blade. You didn't look at him as you spoke, your slender fingers wrapping instead around the stem of your champagne glass. You brought it to your lips, taking a slow sip
Sylus picked up the documents. His crimson eyes scanned between the lines, his expression entirely unmoved by the staggering demands written into the contract. It was the face of a man who found exactly what he expected.
You had done your job flawlessly. As always
"I assume it went well on your end as well" you murmured, boredom perfectly lacing your voice, though the underlying edge remained razor-cold. "Though if I were to critique, you are quite late. And we do have a time limit."
Sylus didn't look up from the pages immediately, flipping one over with a crisp, deliberate sound that echoed in the quiet room.
"Worry not, The twins handled it." he replied, his deep voice scraping pleasantly against the stillness
"it was supposed to be your job–"
"–The broker tried to alter the delivery terms at the eleventh hour," he murmured, tilting his head. The shallow cut on his cheek caught the amber light of the fire. "He brought a few extra bodies to enforce the new price. It took a moment to remind him of his place."
"Remind him of his place."
You set your champagne glass down on the marble table with a hollow, deliberate clink. Your eyes didn't track the movement; they remained locked on the neat, bloodless line across his cheekbone
"A clean cut for a back alley broker," you remarked, your tone smooth, devoid of the irritation simmering beneath your skin. "He must have exceptional aim. Or a very specific model of an association-issued blade."
Sylus didn't blink. The corner of his mouth twitched. He tossed the folder onto the desk, the heavy paper settling with a dull thud
"The association tried to intervene. They failed."
"And you let them walk away," you countered, sliding your legs off the armrest. You stood, the ivory silk parting slightly at your thigh as you crossed the room toward him. "You left the financing channel exposed. I noticed the omission before you walked in. It's a vulnerability, Sylus. My board will reject that transit exposure immediately."
You stopped a mere foot away from him. The scent of him, and the distinct, metallic tang of fresh blood rolled off him in waves, overpowering the scent of the room
"I don't tolerate sloppiness," you murmured, tilting your chin up to look him in the eyes. "Especially not when my family's name is masking your assets. If your little shadow play in N109 is bleeding into our territory, fix it."
Sylus stood his ground, a towering monolith of damp wool and dark intent. He didn't offer an excuse. He didn't even look at the paperwork you were weaponizing against him
Instead, his gaze dropped to your lips, then traveled slowly down the exposed column of your throat to where the silk of your robe loosely met at your chest
"Sloppiness" he repeated, the word rolling out of his chest like low thunder. He took a single step forward, crowding your space until the heat radiating from his body began to melt the chill in your own. "Is that what you're calling it?"
"I call it what it is. A liability."
Sylus reached out. His split knuckles were rough against your skin as his thumb caught the underside of your jaw, forcing your head back a fraction of an inch. His touch was cold, a harsh contrast to the feverish warmth of your skin, but his grip was unyielding.
"You don't give a fuck about the southern transit line" he murmured softly.
"I care about our metrics"
"You care that she was there."
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.
The amusement left his face, replaced by something entirely different. The smug, detached mask he usually wore around you cracked, revealing the dark, predatory focus underneath. His crimson eyes searched yours, not with the cold calculation of a business partner, but with the raw, heavy intensity of a man who had just found a crack in an unbreachable wall.
"Look at you," Sylus whispered, his deep voice dropping an octave, becoming rougher, more intimate. His thumb stroked the line of your jaw, the friction sending a sharp jolt straight down your spine. "Jealous." He leaned down, his breath ghosting over your lips
Your breath hitched a small fracture in your armor, but to a man like Sylus, it was a siren song.
"Don't flatter yourself," you hissed, your voice dropping to a dangerous, venomous whisper. You wrapped your hand around his wrist, trying to push him back. "I don't care who you entertain in your spare time. Just keep your goddamn pets out of my ledger."
Sylus didn't move an inch. If anything, your resistance only made his grip tighten, his fingers sliding from your jaw to wrap fully around the back of your neck, tilting your head up to fully meet his gaze. The coldness in his eyes was entirely gone. In its place was a dark, feral satisfaction that burned hot enough to scald
"Will you say that again?" He asked, his lips brushing yours with every syllable, a torturous, high friction promise.
You didn’t answer. You didn’t get the chance to
You tried to twist your face out of his grip, a sharp, dismissive jerk intended to re establish the boundary, but Sylus didn't let you breathe.
The moment your fingers tightened on his wrist to shove him back, he used his massive momentum to drive you backward
The small of your back hit the solid wall with a heavy thud. Nearby, the champagne glass you had set down wobbled, tipped, and shattered against the floor, the sharp crack of crystal completely swallowed by the sudden, suffocating proximity of his body
His hand shifted from your jaw, split-knuckled fingers tangling ruthlessly into the strands of your hair, tugging back until your neck arched, He used the leverage to feast on you completely without restraint. It was a violent, undisciplined wreck of a collision messy, desperate, and entirely devoid of the composure you both prided yourselves on
He didn't give you a clean, strategic kiss. He didn't offer the practiced precision you both used to mask your intentions in public.
He bit you.
It was a bruising, desperate clash of teeth and lips that tasted immediately of the starved, mutual want you had both spent days denying. You let out a muffled, furious sound against his mouth a protest born purely of your refusal to break first and tried to wedge your forearm tightly between his chest and yours to force some distance.
Sylus didn't care. He pinned your arm flat against the wall, his thigh crowding ruthlessly between yours, the rough of his trousers parting your robe.
The past four days of silence, of separate territories and distance, boiled over in a single second.
It was unpolished. It was feral. The slick, wet sound of his tongue sliding against yours filled the quiet room, deep and demanding, dragging the air straight out of your lungs until your chest heaved uselessly against his.
You tried to bite him back, to hurt him, to remind him of the danger of crowding you, and your teeth caught his lower lip, drawing a fresh bead of dark blood.
Sylus groaned into your mouth, He thrived on this.
He pulled back for a fraction of a second, just enough for a thin, silver string of spit to break between your swollen lips. His eyes were entirely blown out, the right crimson of his iris practically glowing in the shadows of the room, dark with a terrifyingly possession. He looked like a beast that had finally been given permission to tear its cage apart.
"My, my, is my sweet wife finally showing her teeth?" he murmured against your lips, his voice a ruined, breathless rasp as his mouth left yours for a single second to track a wet, heavy path down your jawline.
"Move." you gasped, your fingers clawing deep into the fabric of his shoulders, though your nails dug in so hard you were actively pulling him closer, betraying the very lie you were telling. "Sylus–"
He didn't let you finish.
Our blood. Our slick, hot saliva,
It mingled into a chaotic, violent smear between your mouths as he devoured your protest.
The grip on your hair tightened, tugging hard enough to make you gasp before he buried his tongue back into your mouth, deeper this time, swallowing your refusal whole. It was a suffocating, borderline foul display spit slicking your chin, the metallic taste of his torn skin smearing between you, while his large, calloused hand slid inside the parted silk of your robe to grip the bare skin of your hip with a bruising force that would absolutely leave a mark by morning
You hated how easily he broke you. You hated that you had spent days pretending his absence didn't claw at the inside of your ribs, only for him to wreck your perfect poise in a matter of sentences.
Sylus broke the kiss, His forehead rested heavily against yours, his chest rising and falling in violent, uneven synchronization with your own
"Say it again," he rumbled, his thumb dragging across your wet lower lip, smearing the crimson stain. "Tell me you don't care who I keep in my spare time while you're choking on me."
"You're a bastard," you whispered, your voice shaking with a dangerous mixture of fury and unadulterated arousal, your hips twitching helplessly against the heavy, solid weight of his thigh pressed between yours
"Yours," he growled against your skin, a dark, stolen vow before his lips curled into that insufferable smirk
His mouth descended on your throat with feral hunger, biting and sucking the sensitive skin until a deep bruise began to bloom while his thigh anchored firmly between your legs, the sudden, blunt friction wrung a sharp, fractured sob from your lips
It was humiliating the immediate, pathetic rush of your own juices instantly soaking through the lace panel of your underwear. Your logical mind screamed to fight, but your body, instinctively chased the bruising pressure. You rolled your hips against his leg, a desperate, rolling twitch to catch the edge of relief.
But Sylus had no patience left tonight. His large, rough palms slid beneath the hem of your slip, scraping up, up, up, the bare skin of your thighs, your hips, trailing a path of fire. His hands found your chest, fingers roughly squeezing the tight, aching weight of your breasts, his thumbs snapping against your nipples without a shred of shame
"Need I remind you sweetie," he rasped, pausing only to sink his teeth into the junction of your shoulder, biting hard enough to draw the metallic taste of blood. "She is not the one who wears my name."
Not the woman he loves, but the woman arranged in his bed. or at least that's how it sounded to you.
The bitter thought tasted like ash, but the fire between your thighs was blinding. Lured into his trap, your hips moved once again against his leg practically begging for the friction
Sylus let out a low, rumbling growl of pure triumph. Before you could reclaim your breath, his hands locked around your waist. With terrifying, fluid ease, he hoisted you onto his broad shoulder.
"What are you–"
The words were knocked out of you as he manhandled you across the penthouse, his brute strength on effortless display. You hung like a prized, captive trophy, until he threw you face down onto the mattress.
Your face pressed into the plush bedding, your breath hitching. Before you could scramble to your elbows, heavy, crackling energy flooded the space. Black and red mist bled from his fingertips, weaving through the air like liquid iron before snapping tight around your wrists.
The heavy pressure of his evol pinned your hands behind your back, completely unyielding.
"This won't solve anything, Qin," you hissed, turning your head to glare at him with vitriol.
But the threat died on your lips. In the dim amber light of the room, you were utterly exposed. Your silk slip had ridden up to your waist, baring the flush, plush curve of your ass and the perfect, arch of your spine. You looked like a feline caught in a trap, beautifully undone.
And fuck did Sylus adore the sight.
"It will," he murmured.
He stepped closer, his long fingers trailing down the small of your back before he leaned down to press a hot, mocking kiss against your lower spine.
His hand hooked into the lace of your underwear, pulling the material taut.
Even without looking, you could picture the sick, smug satisfaction written across his features. The panties were heavily damp, soaked through with the visible, glistening evidence of how badly you wanted him
Frustration and arousal coiled tight in your gut. You tugged uselessly against the heavy weight of bound hands "Uncuff me. This is fucking stupid! You can't just–"
"Can't?"
The word cut through your protest, smooth, amused, and dripping with absolute authority. He didn't care about your rules. With a swift, deft motion, his fingers hooked the damp lace, stripping it from your hips and leaving your dripping, swollen slit completely bare to the room
Before you could even process the movement, he brought the ruined lace to his mouth, licking and savouring the thick syrupy wetness on it before letting saliva gather and spat on the same place he sucked, his large, calloused fingers ruthlessly stuffed the wet, panties into your open mouth after, forcing it past your teeth and cutting off your scream
Your eyes widened in absolute shock. The sheer audacity of it, the profound degradation of being gagged by your own soaked underwear, sent a paralyzing jolt straight down your spine. You had never felt this helpless.
This desperate.
"Ah. Still trying to fight?" Sylus whispered, his lips curving into a dark, wicked smile as he looked down at your exposed, dripping heat. "Cute."
He reached down between your thighs. A heavy, viscous pearl of your own wetness was clinging desperately to your pussy, hanging from your swollen outer lips. With agonizing slowness, he used his thumb to catch the drop, breaking it and smearing the slick heat upward, coating your sensitive clit it until you were covered in your essence
A muffled, strangled sob caught in the back of your throat, completely swallowed by the material in your mouth as your inner thighs trembled
And Sylus thrived on the sound. With a deliberate, forceful shove, he buried two thick, rough fingers straight into your tight pussy. The contrast was intoxicating, the feverish pulsating warmth of your walls instantly clamped down, desperately squeezing the cold, length of his fingers.
"Look at how wet you are," he rumbled, his voice a ruined, gravelly rasp as he began to pump his fingers inside your tight walls, driving them deep, stretching you open with a crude, slow pace, as strings of your arousal glistened in the light "...don't get the wrong idea, I'm not trying to mock you."" and you swore he almost sounded amused, but you couldn't focus
How could you, when the obscene wet, squelching sound of his fingers sliding in and out of your pussy filled the quiet room. You were completely dripping, your sticky juices running down his hand and pooling onto the dark sheets beneath you as he used his thumb to viciously hook and rub against your swollen clit with every deep thrust, driving you toward a blind, desperate peak while you lay pinned and gagged
Breathless and whining is what you were, one of the most important board pieces in N019 reduced to this, and you knew this was not even close to it all.
You could feel it. just beneath the shadow of your straining hips, you could feel the thick, rigid length of his cock pressing hard against your thigh
Impending fucking doom it was.
He gave your ass a taunting squeeze, his large hand bruising the plush flesh before he finally pulled away.
The agonizing loss of his touch was immediately replaced by a different kind of torture. The slick, wet sound of his fingers inside you was gone, replaced by the harsh, metallic rasp of a zipper parting, followed by the slide of his boxers.
Pinned face down, your view was restricted, but you didn't need to see it to know what was happening. Peering over your shoulder, you caught a dizzying glimpse of his toned, sculpted stomach, and the thick, unyielding length of his cock standing proud against it. A bead of precum already glistened at the blunt tip.
You watched his large, scarred hand wrap around his own girth, pumping twice in a slow, deliberate stroke before he aligned himself behind you
He slid upward, but he didn't push inside.
Instead, he wedged the broad, mushroomed head of his cock perfectly against your swollen clit. His fingers gripped the base of his shaft, holding himself firmly in place while he ground against your sensitive nerves. Your pussy immediately coated him, the wetness running down his heavy length with every agonizingly shallow slide
He was teasing you. He was actively refusing to give you the ruinous relief of his cock stretching you wide, denying you the fullness you could feel aching in your gut. No matter how many times you fucked, taking Sylus Qin was a chore, because the universe was cruel enough to give the man a dick as impossibly big as his ego.
You whined, a fractured, pathetic sound, rolling your hips back in a desperate attempt to sink onto him, to soothe the need boiling in your blood
"Relax, wife," he drawled, his voice a low, teasing vibration as he delivered another shallow, grinding thrust that sent a shower of sparks straight to your stomach. "You'll get what you want."
The heavy palm of his hand flattened against your lower back, pressing you down as his cock remained glued to your dripping slit. "Today. Tomorrow." He leaned down, pressing a hot, open mouthed kiss to your trembling shoulder. "Over and over again, until you tire of me."
He pressed one final, bruising kiss to your skin, and then, the heavy, crackling weight of his evol vanished.
The sudden release of pressure made your arms give out, your chest hitting the mattress, but Sylus didn't let you rest. His massive hands gripped your waist, and in one fluid, effortless motion, he flipped you onto your back.
And fuck, was it a sight.
You were beyond divine. Your usually immaculate hair was a wild, tangled mess. Your cheeks were flushed a feverish, beautiful crimson, and tears of absolute frustration pooled in your waterlines. Your lips were swollen and thoroughly wrecked, while between your parted thighs, your dripping, perfectly ruined cunt was fully on display.
Sylus literally choked on a breath.
There was a reason you were hailed as the most beautiful, dangerous woman in the underworld. Everyone else only ever saw you armored in million dollar gowns and a blood chilling smile. No one on earth would ever get to see you like this. Reduced to a beautiful, panting wreck.
His. Entirely his.
But while he was busy staring at you with open, starving reverence, you were absolutely furious. You reached up, ripping the soaked lace panties from your mouth and hurling them directly at his sculpted chest.
It only angered you further when his lips curled into a wicked, devastating grin.
Your chest heaved. Despite your fury, your body betrayed you, throbbing violently at the sight of him caging you in, looking as if sculpted by gods
But the ache wasn't enough to dull your pride.
You needed revenge.
You surged upward, your hands shooting out to fist violently in the short, silver locks at the nape of his neck. You yanked him down, crashing your lips against his in a brutal, bruising kiss.
Sylus groaned into your mouth, a deep, guttural sound of approval. His body automatically chased the closeness, climbing over you to press his heavy weight down.
The second he did, your long legs instantly wrapped around his waist, locking tightly at the small of his back.
You squeezed your thighs, pressing right against the base of his rigid cock, wringing a sharp grunt from his throat. Using the leverage, you rolled your hips
The world tilted, and the next thing Sylus knew, his back hit the mattress, and you were straddling his hips.
You sat up, looking down at him with the cold, authoritative superiority.
"You've played enough," you murmured, your voice a smooth, dangerous blade. "So now, keep your hands flat on the mattress, Qin. If you even think about touching me before I give you permission, I swear to god I’ll leave you exactly like this."
His crimson eyes glistened with dark, feral amusement. It was a bluff. You knew it, he knew it. Sex between the two of you was like breathing; neither of you would ever actually stop. But Sylus loved this game just as much as you did
Slowly, he raised both hands in mock surrender, letting them fall flat against the dark sheets.
He watched, thoroughly trapped, as you reached down and slowly pulled the ruined silk slip over your head, tossing it aside. His eyes darkened, locking hungrily onto your perfect breasts, his jaw ticking with the desperate urge to bite, to taste, to ruin
But you kept yourself deliberately out of reach. You leaned down, taking his lower lip between your teeth for a sharp, stinging bite again tasting the blood from before, then dragging your open mouth down the strong column of his throat. You painted his skin with hot, stripes of your tongue, trailing down his collarbones, over the hard planes of his chest, and tracing the sharp, dangerous v-line that disappeared beneath his waist.
His breath hitched, his abdominal muscles jumping under your mouth.
Then, your slender fingers wrapped around his impossibly thick cock. You felt him flinch, a full body shudder ripping through him as you leaned down and pressed the softest, sweetest kiss directly to his weeping tip.
You were going to make him beg.
You flicked your tongue out, catching the thick bead of his precum, tasting the hot, salty tang of his arousal. You were aching, sticky, and left a mess because of him, so it was time he felt that exact same desperation.
Sylus let out a sharp, ragged exhale as you parted your lips. Maintaining absolute, unblinking eye contact with him, you slowly sank down onto his crown with your mouth.
Fuck.
You took him deeper, hollowing your cheeks. Taking his entire length was impossible, but you took as much as your throat would allow, your hands ruthlessly wrapping around the thick, heavy base to pump the rest.
His hands twitched violently against the sheets. His fingers curled into fists, fighting the agonizing urge to drag you up and kiss you. He needed to be inside you. He needed to feel you whole. Watching you worship him like this made you look like a filthy deity.
The visceral, wet sounds of your mouth sucking and slopping against his heavy flesh echoed in the quiet room. You gagged softly, choking once as he unconsciously bucked his hips upward, driving himself deeper into your throat.
You could taste the shift in his pulse. You knew he was close.
So, right as his hips snapped up, chasing the final, blinding high of his climax you pulled off completely.
The sudden rush of cold air hitting his slick, painfully hard cock made him freeze. He stared up at you blankly for a fraction of a second, chest heaving, before a rich, breathless laugh tore from his throat. He was left entirely high and dry, his eyes burning with a dangerous fire.
"Give me one good reason," Sylus rasped, his voice rough as gravel, "why I shouldn't flip you over right now and show you exactly what you just did."
You hummed, entirely unimpressed. "You could," you whispered, leaning down to drag your tongue up the underside of his shaft. "But you won't."
Before he could argue, you wrapped your lips tightly around him again, taking him agonizingly deep. A single tear escaped your lash line from the sheer, suffocating size of him, a thick string of spit and precum dripping down your chin to smear over his skin.
Sylus couldn't hold back anymore. Breaking your rule, his large hand shot up, tangling ruthlessly into your hair to guide your head, his hips bucking up in short, desperate thrusts to chase the edge.
With a deep, guttural groan, he shattered.
Hot, thick, salty liquid erupted into the back of your throat. You whimpered, your eyes fluttering shut for a moment at the overwhelming taste and volume of it.
But you didn't swallow.
You pulled back slowly, parting your swollen lips. Sylus watched you, his pupils blown wide, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Your hand remained wrapped firmly around the base of his twitching cock
Maintaining eye contact, you let his thick, pearlescent cum spill from your mouth.
It was absolute, exquisite filth. The heavy white fluid fell in thick droplets, landing directly onto his still erect cock, sliding down the slick, inflamed veins.
It was disgusting. It was perfect.
Sylus was utterly mesmerized, trapped in a state of primal shock as he watched his own seed run down his length. But it was infinitely worse when you leaned back down.
With slow, deliberate strokes, you stuck your tongue out and began to lick him clean.
You chased the hot rivulets of sperm up and down his shaft, swallowing every last drop of the filthy mess you had made
You sat back on your heels, wiping a stray drop of cum from your lower lip with the back of your hand, a triumphant, wicked gleam in your eyes
He was broken. You had taken the king of N019 and reduced him ruined mess beneath you
Or so you thought.
The heavy, suffocating shift in the room's atmosphere was your only warning.
Sylus’s chest was still heaving, the silver strands of his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, but the hazy, blown out look in his crimson eyes was already sharpening.
The dark, look in his eyes returned, instantly wiping away any illusion that you were the one in control.
A low, vibrating sound started deep in his chest.
"Beautiful," he rasped, his voice a dark, gravelly purr that was breathless and made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. "You played your hand well."
Before you could even register the sudden flex of his muscles, his hands lashed out
His massive palms clamped around your waist like iron vises. With a violent, he flipped you. Slammed into the mattress, the heavy, unyielding weight of his body instantly crashing down to cage you in
He didn't give you a second to recover. His hands caught your wrists, pinning them squarely above your head with just one of his massive hands.
"But the house," he whispered, leaning down until his lips brushed the shell of your ear, his hot breath sending a violent shiver down your spine, "always wins."
He shifted his weight, his knee driving ruthlessly between your thighs to force your legs impossibly wide. Even after his climax, he hadn't softened. If anything, he was harder, the thick, rigid length of his cock pressing hot and demanding against your soaking entrance.
His regeneration worked in more ways than one.
Your breath stuttered. The adrenaline of your revenge was instantly swallowed by the immediate, reality of what was about to happen.
"Sylus–"
"Shh," he commanded softly, silencing you not with cruelty, but with an agonizing, possessive intensity.
His free hand slid down your torso, his calloused fingers tracing your stomach before slipping between your thighs.
He didn't bother waiting anymore. You had long been dripping, completely melted down for him, your viscous wetness pooling against his fingers as he guided his thick, blunt head squarely against your opening.
He locked his crimson eyes onto yours, demanding you watch him. Demanding you feel every single agonizing second of your surrender.
And then, he pushed.
A sharp, fractured cry tore from your throat. Despite how wet you were, taking him was a visceral, shock to your system. He was too thick, too unyielding, stretching you wide open with a blunt, heavy pressure that sent a blinding flash of white hot pleasure straight to your brain
Your nails dug violently into the back of his hand where he held your wrists. "Fuck–wait, wait–"
"I’m done waiting," he growled, the muscles in his jaw ticking as he forced himself deeper, inch by excruciating inch. "You wanted to play the tyrant? Take it."
He didn't slam into you. He knew exactly what he was doing, driving himself inside with a slow, relentless, torturous pace that forced your body to accommodate every single millimeter of his girth. The friction was maddening
You could feel the distinct, heavy throb of his pulse buried deep inside your walls, stretching you until you felt completely, utterly full.
When he finally bottomed out, his hips snapping flush against yours with a heavy, wet slap, your back bowed off the mattress
You were completely lost to him. The meticulous, flawless daughter of a syndicate empire, reduced to a trembling, mewling mess, completely ruined by her husband
Sylus let out a long, ragged exhale, burying his face in the crook of your neck. For a few seconds, he just held you there, letting your body adjust to the staggering invasion, reveling in the feverish, desperate way your warm, warm inner walls clamped down around him, milking him
"Mine," he breathed against your skin
the word tasting like a vow and a curse.
Then, he began to move
He pulled back almost completely, the slow drag of his length nearly drawing a sob from your lips before he drove his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt with a heavy, concussive thud.
The rhythm he set was ruthless. It wasn't the frantic, desperate fucking of amateurs; it was the measured, devastatingly powerful pace of a man who intended to wring every drop of sanity from your mind.
PLAP! PLAP! PLAP!
The wet, obscene sounds of your bodies colliding echoed off the marble walls of the penthouse. With every deep, grinding raw thrust, he deliberately angled his hips, ensuring the thick ridge of his cock dragged ruthlessly against your swollen clit.
"Sylus" you sobbed, the name tearing from you in a broken, high pitched plea that you would have killed anyone else for hearing. Your legs instinctively wrapping tightly around his waist to pull him even deeper, desperately chasing the blinding high, the pain and pleasure was intoxicating, feeling it so deep in your womb that you swore you were losing sanity
"Hush now," he mocked, though his voice was thick with his own desperation, his breathing turning ragged as he pounded into you. He finally released your wrists, only to slide his hands under your shoulders, lifting you up so your chest was crushed against his. "Where is all that anger now, sweetie? Where is the woman who was going to walk out on me?"
"Shut up" you gasped, biting down hard on his shoulder to ground yourself against the overwhelming onslaught of pleasure.
He hooked his arms under your knees, folding your legs back toward your chest, exposing you completely. The new angle drove him impossibly deeper, the nerves of your clit so exquisitely sensitive that your vision literally whited out.
And as the suffocating, brilliant wave of your climax began to crest, snapping your muscles tight around his cock in violent, pulsating waves, Sylus let out a guttural moan, driving deep inside you one final, devastating time to meet you in the dark
...
The silence that crashed back into the penthouse was deafening, filled only by the ragged, synchronized cadence of your mixed breathing.
His palms, rough and heavily calloused, framed your jaw with a sudden, grounding warmth. Sylus looked down at you, his crimson eyes were completely blown, dark with an unreadable, heavy emotion as he leaned down to share the very air between your lips, sealing your surrender with one final, bruising kiss
Your fingers tangled into the short, silver locks at the nape of his neck. You pulled him down tightly against you, anchoring yourself to his massive chest. Heartbeat against heartbeat, you closed your eyes and focused on the heavy rise and fall of his torso, desperately trying to piece your fractured self back together.
"If you ever use your evol to bind me like that again, Qin," you whispered against his mouth, your voice a breathy, thin threat, "I will have your head"
A low, rumbling vibration started deep in his chest, breaking into a breathless, genuine laugh that brushed hot against your collarbone. "Is that a promise, my dear? I wouldn't say you are in the position to threaten me right now"
He nipped at the sensitive skin of your neck before his large hands slid beneath your thighs. With a fluid, effortless roll, he shifted your limp body directly on top of him. He stayed buried deep inside you, a heavy, unyielding anchor as the sticky, cooling residuals of your shared cum smeared between your skin.
You completely melted, turning to absolute putty against the hard planes of his chest. His broad palms traced slow, soothing patterns up and down your bare spine, but the gesture did little to cure the boneless, trembling legs and exhaustion holding you hostage. You were entirely unable to function
Sylus stared up at the ceiling, his jaw tightening. He wanted to say something. He wanted to offer a rare, uncharacteristic reassurance, to tell you that while he thrived on the fire of your jealousy, there was no one else
But the words remained trapped in his throat. Did you even want to hear that?
Absolute, non negotiable loyalty had been the bedrock of this arrangement for a full year now. It was a cruel twist of fate, the invisible threads of his life were bound to a different woman yet the only woman who truly mastered him was currently draped across his chest.
His wife.
He looked down at your tangled long hair, unable to fully articulate the staggering weight of what you actually meant to him. It was a terrifying admission, but you had completely rewritten his parameters. Every cold smile, every sharp word, every calculation you made left him utterly mesmerized. Without ever demanding it, you had him wrapped entirely around your fingers
"I should get you cleaned up," he finally rasped, his deep voice scraping pleasantly against the quiet room.
A faint, stubborn hum of disapproval escaped your lips. Beneath the sheets, your exhausted inner walls involuntarily clamped tight around his half hard length, wringing a low, strained groan from his throat. A dark, amused smile touched his lips at your defiance. He leaned up, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your heated forehead.
You were already slipping, the heavy pull of exhaustion dragging you over the brink of sleep, but the onychinus princess refused to let the business fade. Without opening your eyes, you murmured your final, drowsy command into the crook of his neck:
"You better make sure that shipment tomorrow is delivered."
You open LaDS to a completely silent game. No loading screen, no UI, just Sylus in Destiny Cafe. He stares directly at you for a few seconds, and right when you're about to restart your game to fix the bug, he walks closer and leans down. His right eye is glowing brighter than you've ever seen it before, with the bloom from its glow nearly obscuring your view of the eye itself.
"Take my hand."
He extends his hand, a circle on screen prompting you to tap it.
Something makes you hesitate. You feel your heartbeat pounding in your throat. You haven't seen anything about this mentioned online. Is it a new event? But if it was, then why did nothing have to download beforehand? Are you dreaming?
"Don't be shy, sweetie. It's rude to keep people waiting."
Something feels incredibly wrong here. You try to rationalize your instinctual unease, reasoning that it must be because you're worried something hacked your phone. You're starting to feel a bit dizzy.
Surely you'll find other LaDS fans freaking out on social media, right? You turn to check your computer, when you realize the screen has gone completely black, despite being plugged in. You hold down the power button, but no dice. A lightbulb in the hallway outside flickers and pops, shattering.
You startle and attempt to turn off your device, but nothing happens. Sylus raises an eyebrow.
"I don't mind a challenge. I'll stay here for as long as you like. Take my hand."
You hesitate for a few moments. Surely this is just a dream, none of this makes any sense. And if this isn't real, there's nothing wrong with taking the risk, right? You hold your finger over the screen, deliberating. Sylus's smirk widens.
⚜ summary: The soulmark system is supposed to be simple: two names, one great love, one companion. But when you, Mei, and Prince Caleb all bear each other's names, the truth becomes impossibly tangled. Some truths reveal themselves only in death, and some loves are understood only when they can no longer be returned.
⚜ cw: MDNI, fem!reader, non-mc reader, soulmate au, arranged marriage au, unrequited love, heavy angst, AGAIN HEAVY ANGST, love triangles, miscommunication, misunderstandings, mc is mei, ancient china au, court politics, tragedy, tw mentions of contraceptives/abortifacients, tw concubinage, tw childbirth, tw death from childbirth, angst with a bittersweet ending, major character death, prince!caleb, no one is the villain they're all just blind, unbetad, unedited.
⚜ wc: 18k, went all out here lol
⚜ a/n: I kind of rushed this because I want to post this before Caleb's myth drops, so I am so sorry if the writing is bad and the angst is meh. Also, due to the character limit, the format might feel weird, I recommend reading in AO3 instead.
⚜ arranged marriage aus | lads masterlist | AO3
I
Your nursemaids tell you stories about soulmarks before you are old enough to understand what they mean.
They say that sometimes a person bears two names on their wrists when they come of age. The marks appear without warning, as if written by an invisible brush. One name is the great love, the soul you are bound to above all others, the one who will consume you, complete you, destroy you if you lose them. The other is the companion, the soul that walks beside you through life, steady and true, a hand to hold when the path grows dark.
The marks never tell you which is which, that is what you must learn by living.
Some say the cruelest fate is not to lose a name, but to watch one change color and finally understand which it was. When your great love dies, their name darkens on your wrist like a bruise that never heals. When your companion dies, their name turns grey, like ash, like a memory fading.
You are seven years old when you first hear this story and you do not think about it much. Seven-year-olds do not worry about death or love or the mysteries written on skin that has not yet appeared.
You think about apple orchards instead.
The imperial palace has extensive grounds, and your father's position as a high-ranking lord means your family has chambers here, close to the court. You have the run of the gardens when your tutors release you from your lessons. The apple orchard is your favorite place, the rows and rows of trees heavy with fruit in autumn, branches perfect for climbing in summer, blossoms like snow in spring.
Caleb is always there.
He is a prince, the third son of the Emperor, which means he has more freedom than his older brothers. He does not have to sit through as many state functions or memorize as many treaties. He spends his afternoons in the orchard, reading under the trees or playing with his wooden practice sword.
You are shy around him at first. He is older, ten to your seven, and he is a prince, but he has kind eyes and a patient manner, and when you climb too high and cannot get down, he laughs and helps you, boosting you onto his shoulders to reach the ground.
"You are brave," He sets you down gently. "Most children would cry."
You flush with pride and do not tell him you wanted to cry very much.
Mei comes into your life when you are eight.
Her family are retainers to your household, lower in rank but trusted. Her mother serves your mother, her father serves your father, and now she is assigned to serve you.
Mei is exactly one year older than you, nine years old with serious eyes and a protective streak that runs deeper than the rivers surrounding the capital. She finds you in the orchard one afternoon, crying under an apple tree because one of the palace children, a duke's daughter with a cruel tongue, called you a country bumpkin and plain.
"Who said that?" Mei's voice is fierce. "Tell me who said that."
You shake your head, hiccuping.
"It does not matter. She is stupid and her eyes are bad." Mei sits beside you, pulling you against her side. "You are not plain. You are my lady. Mine to serve, mine to protect, and anyone who says different is a liar."
You rest your head on her shoulder and feel the tears dry. There is something about Mei that makes you feel safe. Something about the way her arm wraps around you, solid and certain.
"Will you stay with me?" you ask, and your voice is small.
"Always," Mei promises and reaches for your hand. "Where you go, I go."
Caleb finds you both there an hour later, and that is how it begins.
The three of you in the orchard, Mei's hand always finding yours first, Caleb's laugh bright as lantern lights, and you in the middle, not yet understanding what you are building.
You turn nine, then ten. Caleb turns thirteen, then fourteen. Mei turns ten then eleven, and she grows tall and graceful, her childhood roundness replaced by elegant lines.
You notice the way Caleb looks at her.
It starts small. He stumbles over his words when she speaks to him. He watches her when he thinks no one is looking. He brings her gifts, ribbons for her hair, a hairpin carved from jade, a book of poetry he claims he found in the market but you suspect he bought specifically for her.
Mei accepts these gifts politely, but there is distance in her manner. She does not blush nor simper. She does not gaze at him the way the court ladies gaze at princes.
She looks at you instead.
You are too young to understand what that means.
The years continue to pass. You turn twelve, then thirteen. Caleb is sixteen now, nearly a man, his shoulders broadening, his voice deepening. He has begun training with the imperial guard, learning strategy and swordcraft. He is good at it. Everyone says so.
Mei is fifteen now, and she is beautiful. You are not blind to it. The court notices her now, despite her lower rank. Men watch her when she walks through the palace gardens. Marriage offers have begun arriving for her family to consider.
She dismisses them all.
"I am not interested," she tells you one evening while she is brushing your hair in your chambers. "My place is here, with you."
"But you could marry well," you protest. "You could have your own household, your own…"
"I could." Her hands are gentle, working through a tangle. "But I do not want to. I want to stay here with you. Is that so strange?"
You do not know how to answer that.
Caleb's feelings for Mei are no longer a secret, at least not to you. He is obvious about it now, seeking her out in the gardens, asking her to walk with him, writing poetry that he does not give her but leaves where you might find it.
You read one once.
It compared her eyes to lotus pools and her grace to a heron taking flight.
You fold it carefully and return it to its hiding place. You do not tell anyone about it. You certainly do not tell Mei. Watching Caleb fall in love with her is both painful and beautiful. Painful because you…
You do not let yourself finish that thought.
The apple pies start when you are thirteen.
The cook in your father's kitchens makes them perfectly, sweet and tart, the crust flaky, the filling rich with cinnamon. She makes them for the household, small luxuries to brighten the long summer days.
Mei steals the first one.
"Come on," she whispers, catching your hand and pulling you toward the back stairs. "While everyone is at court."
You follow because you always follow her.
You sneak through the servants' corridors, giggling, the stolen pie warm in Mei's hands. You eat it in the orchard under your favorite tree, passing it back and forth, licking cinnamon from your fingers.
"We will get in trouble," you complain, but you are laughing.
"We will not. I will take the blame if anyone asks." Mei grins at you, her face smudged with apple filling. "Worth it though, was it not worth it?"
It was. It is. Every stolen moment with her is worth it.
You steal pies together all that summer.
It becomes your secret, your private rebellion.
Sometimes Caleb joins you, and then it is the three of you again, laughing, eating too fast, lying in the grass and watching clouds drift across the sky. Those are the good days. The golden days. The ones you will remember later when everything has gone wrong.
You turn fourteen. Your childhood is ending, sliding away like silk through your fingers. You begin attending more formal functions, your education intensifying. You learn household management and history, poetry and music. You learn how to smile and curtsy and all other things that daughters of noble houses do.
You learn how to watch Caleb watch Mei and pretend your heart is not breaking. You are old enough to name the feeling that has been growing in your chest for years now.
You are in love with Caleb.
You have been in love with him since you were seven years old and he lifted you down from a tree. You have been in love with him through every afternoon in the orchard, every stolen pie, every moment of laughter and lightness. Every time he shared his cloak when it rained, every time he noticed you were sad before you said anything, every kindness you took for granted.
But he does not see you, not the way you want him to.
He sees only Mei.
You cannot blame him.
Mei is extraordinary. She is everything you are not, confident where you are hesitant, bold where you are careful, beautiful that sometimes people stop and stare.
She is your dearest friend. Your protector. Your companion.
How can you resent her when you love her almost as much as you love him?
You tell no one about your feelings for Caleb. Not Mei, the person you trust the most, not your mother, not even your diary. You bury them deep, pressing them down like stones at the bottom of a river. You smile when he talks about Mei. You nod sympathetically when he confides his fears that she will never return his affection.
You are a good friend. A very good companion.
II
Your mark appears on the morning of your fifteenth birthday.
You wake to find two names written on your inner left wrist in ink that seems to shimmer when you move your arm.
Caleb
Mei
You sit on your bed for a long time, staring at your wrist. Your heart is pounding so hard you can hear it in your ears.
Two names.
One is your great love. One is your companion.
You know with certainty that it feels like destiny that Caleb is your great love. He has to be. You have loved him for eight years. He is written in your bones, carved into your heart. The mark is simply confirming what you have always felt.
And Mei…
Mei is your companion. Your truest friend. The person who has walked beside you through childhood, who has held your hand promised to never leave.
It makes perfect sense.
You should feel happy. You should feel hopeful. Instead, you feel strange, as if the world has shifted and nothing is quite where it should be.
You dress quickly and go to find Mei.
She is in her family's chambers, and when she opens the door, you see immediately that her mark has appeared as well. She is wearing longer sleeves, but you can see the edge of ink peeking out at her wrist.
"It happened," you say, and your voice sounds breathless.
Mei nods.
She does not look happy. Her expression is unreadable.
"Mine too," she replies, her voice quiet and almost reluctant.
You enter her room and close the door behind you.
"Will you show me?"
For a moment, you think she will refuse, then she pushes back her sleeve.
Two names.
Your name and Caleb.
The same names as yours. The same two people.
You do not know what to say, you just stand there, staring at her wrist.
"We have the same marks," you say, and it is not a question.
"Yes."
"That means..." You trail off.
Mei pulls her sleeve back down, hiding the names.
"It means we are both connected to each other and to him. That is all."
But it cannot be all. The marks mean something, they have to mean something.
"Do you think..." You wet your lips. "Do you think you know which is which? For you, I mean?"
Mei looks at you for a long moment. There is an emotion in her eyes you cannot name, it makes your chest tight.
"I think," she starts slowly, "that the marks do not tell us. We have to live and discover the truth ourselves."
"But you must have a sense. You must feel…"
"I feel many things." Mei cuts you off gently. "But I do not think it is wise to make assumptions. Not yet."
You want to demand she tell you what she is thinking, but Mei has always been private, and you have learned not to press when she closes herself off.
"Will you tell me?" you ask instead. "When you know for certain?"
"Yes." She takes your hand, squeezes once. "I will tell you everything. I promise."
You leave her chambers feeling unsettled. The conversation felt wrong, but you cannot put your finger on what.
Caleb's mark appears three days later.
He comes to the orchard in the afternoon, face flushed with excitement, and shows you and Mei his wrist without preamble.
Your name
Mei
The same names. All three of you connected in a triangle, bound by invisible threads of fate.
"This is it," Caleb looks at Mei with such naked hope that you have to look away. "This is proof. You are one of my soulmates, Mei. I knew it. I have always known it."
Mei says nothing. Her face is very still.
"Mei?" Caleb's smile falters. "Are you not happy?"
"I am..." She pauses. "I am surprised. I had not thought…"
"You have my name, do you not?" He reaches for her wrist, pushes back her sleeve before she can stop him. You see the flicker of emotion cross his face when he sees your name alongside his. "We all have each other's names. We are all bound together."
"Yes," Mei says quietly. "We are."
"Then this is fate." Caleb is still smiling. "You see? The gods have decided for us. You cannot refuse me now. You cannot say we are not meant to be together."
Mei gently pulls her arm free.
"The marks tell us we are connected. They do not tell us how."
"One of us is the great love. One of us is the companion." Caleb's voice is earnest. "I know which you are, Mei. I have known since I was thirteen years old."
You stand there, watching this exchange, and you feel as if you are disappearing. Neither of them is looking at you. Neither of them is acknowledging that your name is there too, that you are part of this triangle as well.
"Caleb," Mei says, and her voice is gentle but firm. "This is not the time for such declarations."
"When is the time?" He is pleading. "I have waited years, Mei. Years. Tell me you feel nothing, and I will stop. Tell me I am wrong."
Mei does not answer. She is looking at you instead, her expression unreadable.
"I think," you speak instead, and your voice sounds distant even to your own ears, "that we should not make assumptions. The marks have only just appeared. We have time to understand what they mean."
Caleb finally looks at you. You see the moment he remembers you are there, standing beside him, your wrist bearing the same names as theirs.
"You are right," he says, and he sounds chastened. "I am sorry. I got carried away. This is…this affects all of us. Not just me."
"Yes." You manage a smile. "It affects all of us."
But you already know that Caleb's mind is already made up. He has decided Mei is his great love. He has decided the story of his marks before he has lived it.
And you are the companion. The friend, the third point to fate’s triangle.
Later that night, alone in your chambers, you trace the names on your wrist with one finger.
Caleb. Mei.
You know which is which, you have always known.
Caleb is your great love. He is the one who will consume you, complete you, destroy you when you lose him.
Mei is your companion. Your steadiest friend. The one who walks beside you.
The marks have simply confirmed what your heart already knew.
III
The summons comes three months after the marks appear.
Your father's household is to meet with the imperial court to discuss a formal arrangement. You, Mei, and your families are to attend. Caleb will be there as well, representing the royal family's interests.
You know what this is before you arrive. You have heard your mother and father discussing it in low voices, arguing behind closed doors. You have seen the way the court ladies watch Caleb now, whispering behind their fans, calculating his worth as a potential match.
You know what is coming, and you feel numb about it.
The meeting takes place in one of the smaller audience halls. Your father and mother sit on cushions across from the Emperor's representative, an elderly minister with shrewd eyes and a neutral expression. Mei's parents are there as well, seated slightly behind, their faces tense.
Caleb stands to one side in formal court robes. He looks older than his eighteen years, solemn and princely. He does not look at you or Mei. His gaze is fixed somewhere in the middle distance, his jaw tight.
The minister speaks first. His voice is dry and formal, reciting the terms like he is reading from a ledger.
The arrangement is this:
You will be betrothed to Caleb as his primary wife. Your rank demands it. You are the daughter of a high-ranking lord, a princess in all but name. The match is appropriate, politically advantageous, entirely proper.
Mei will be given to Caleb as his concubine. Her family's status as retainers, servants, three generations of faithful service but no title, no land, no name of consequence, makes her ineligible for the role of wife, but the marks have spoken. The gods have written both of your names on his wrist, and to ignore the marks entirely would be to insult heaven.
Any child that Mei bears will be recorded as yours. The lineage will be clean. On paper, you will be the mother of all his children, whether they come from your body or hers, ensuring the imperial bloodline remains unbroken.
Everyone in the room remains very still while the minister speaks. You focus on your breathing, in, out, in, out, because if you focus on that, you do not have to think about what is being said.
When the minister finishes, your father speaks. "This arrangement is acceptable to our house."
Mei's father speaks next, his voice tight. "It is acceptable to ours as well."
They do not ask you. They do not ask Mei. Women do not get asked in matters like these.
Caleb finally looks at you, but you cannot understand his expression. It is blank, the face he has learned to perfect for courtly functions. Then he looks at Mei, and his face changes and softens.
The minister continues with more details.
The formal ceremony will take place in three years. There will be a betrothal period where you and Caleb will be expected to spend time together, to learn each other, to prepare for married life.
Mei will move into Caleb's household two weeks after the wedding. That is the tradition, the wife is installed first, before the concubine is brought in.
You find this detail particularly bitter. Two weeks. Two weeks of pretending to be a new wife before your dearest friend, your companion, is moved into the same house, into your husband's bed.
The meeting ends. You stand and bow. Everyone bows. You are dismissed.
In the courtyard outside, Mei catches your arm, her grip is tight enough to hurt.
"I do not want this," she whispers. "I do not want him. You know that, do you not? You know I have never wanted him."
"Then why did your parents agree?" You cannot keep the hurt from your voice.
"They had no choice. When the imperial court makes a request, it is not truly a request." Mei's eyes are bright with anger. "But I am telling you now, I do not want this. I will not pretend I am happy about it."
"Neither am I." The words come out sharper than you intend.
Mei flinches.
"You are angry with me."
"I am not angry with you. I am angry with…" You gesture helplessly at the palace around you, at the whole structure of it, the system that decides women's lives without consulting them. "I am angry with everything."
"Then we are in agreement." Mei's voice softens. "We are both trapped."
You look at her and see the exhaustion in her face. She looks older than her sixteen years. There are shadows under her eyes, and her usual confidence is stripped away.
"I need you to do something for me," you hear yourself say.
Mei straightens.
"Anything."
"I need you to..." You stop before forcing yourself to continue. "I need you to go along with this. Be what Caleb wants. Be what Caleb needs."
"What?" Mei's voice is sharp. "Why would I do that?"
"Because if you do not, he will be miserable, and if he is miserable, this whole arrangement falls apart, and then what happens? They send you to a different household? Marry you off to some stranger? I will lose you entirely." You are speaking too fast now, the words tumbling out. "But if you do this, if you accept your position in his household, then we stay together. You and I. That is all I care about. Staying together."
"You cannot ask this of me."
"I am asking. I am begging." Your voice breaks. "Please, Mei. Please do this, if not for him, then do it for me."
Mei stares at you for a long moment. You see her throat work, see her blink rapidly as if fighting tears.
"You do not understand what you are asking."
"I do."
"You do not." Her voice is cold. "But I will do it. If this is what you truly want, I will do it. I will be what he wants. I will be what he needs."
The words sound like a vow and a curse all at once.
You reach for her hand.
"Thank you."
Mei does not answer. She pulls away from you and walks across the courtyard, her back straight. You watch her go and feel something inside you breaks.
Later, when you are alone in your chambers, you will wonder why you did that. Why you asked her to sacrifice herself. Why you thought that was the solution, but in this moment, you tell yourself it makes sense. You tell yourself you are keeping her close, keeping her safe, keeping her yours in the only way the world will allow.
You tell yourself many lies that evening.
IV
The betrothal period passes in a blur.
Three years is a long time to pretend.
You spend time with Caleb as required. You take walks in the gardens, attend court functions together, sit across from each other at formal dinners and make polite conversation. You learn his preferences, how he likes poetry but cannot stand most music, how he has a sweet tooth he tries to hide, how he is terrible at strategy games but too proud to admit it.
He is kind to you. He treats you with the respect due a future wife, but his eyes are always searching the room for Mei. You pretend not to notice.
Mei, true to her word, allows Caleb's courtship. She accepts his gifts. She walks with him when he asks. She smiles politely when he attempts poetry. She does everything a concubine-to-be is expected to do.
But there is a distance in her manner. There is a wall she has built between herself and him, invisible but unmistakable. She goes through everything without being truly present.
You wonder if Caleb notices. You suspect he does not.
There are moments, though. Moments when it feels almost like before.
One afternoon in the second year of your betrothal, the three of you find yourselves in the orchard together. It is autumn, the trees heavy with fruit, the air crisp and clean. Caleb plucks an apple from a low-hanging branch and tosses it to you.
"Remember when we used to steal pies from the kitchen?"
You catch the apple, surprised by the sudden nostalgia in his voice.
"Of course. Mei was always the one who got us into trouble."
"I was the one who got us out of it," Mei retorts, but she is smiling.
It is a real smile, not the polite mask she wears at court.
"You were both terrible influences." Caleb's voice is warm, teasing, he sounds like the boy you knew at ten. "I was a perfect prince before I met you."
"You were boring," Mei counters.
"I was dignified."
"Boring," you and Mei say in unison, and then all three of you are laughing.
You sit in the grass, passing the apple back and forth, and for a moment, it is like nothing has changed, like you are still children without complications, still friends who steal pies and climb trees and watch clouds.
"I wish it could stay like this," Caleb admits quietly.
The words hang in the air. You want to agree, want to reach for that feeling and hold it tight, but Mei's smile fades.
"It cannot," she says. "It never could."
Caleb's face closes off. You look away. The three of you sit in silence for a while longer, and then Caleb makes an excuse and leaves. Mei watches him go, her expression unreadable.
"Someone will always be unhappy," she murmurs so softly you almost miss it.
You do not know who she means, perhaps all of you.
The wedding ceremony is elaborate and exhausting.
You are eighteen now, no longer a child.
You wear red silk embroidered with phoenixes in gold thread. Your hair is arranged in an intricate style that takes hours and hurts your scalp. Your face is painted and your lips stained crimson. You look like a doll. A beautiful, expensive doll.
Caleb wears matching red, his robes heavy with embroidery. At twenty one, he has grown into his features, handsome and princely and entirely unlike the boy you used to steal pies with in the orchard.
You exchange vows in front of the entire court. You drink from the same cup. You bow to his ancestors and to the Emperor. You become his wife in the eyes of the gods and the empire. Through it all, you smile and say the right words and do not let yourself feel anything.
After the ceremony, there is a feast. Hundreds of guests, endless courses, music and dancing. You sit beside Caleb at the head table and accept congratulations. People toast your health, your happiness, your future children.
Mei is somewhere in the crowd. You catch glimpses of her throughout the evening, always at a distance, never meeting your eyes. She is wearing pale pink, a concubine's color, and she looks beautiful and sad and so very alone.
The ceremony for taking Mei as concubine happens a week later. It is quieter, more private. Only close family and a few court officials attend.
Mei wears crimson as well, though a simpler style than your wedding robes. She kneels before Caleb and you, you, his wife, granting permission for her to enter the household. She bows three times. She pledges her loyalty to you first, then to him.
When she rises, her eyes are dry, but you see the strain in the set of her shoulders.
That evening, Caleb comes to your chambers.
It is your wedding night, delayed by a week to accommodate the concubine ceremony. Custom demands he spend this night with you, his wife, before he is allowed to turn his attention elsewhere.
You are ready or as ready as you can be. Your maidservant has prepared you, dressed you in a thin sleeping robe, arranged your hair. You sit on the edge of the bed and try to calm your racing heart.
Caleb enters. He looks nervous. He is still in his formal robes, though he has removed the outer layers.
"You look lovely," he says, and it sounds reflexive, the thing he was supposed to say.
"Thank you." Your voice is steady.
He sits beside you on the bed and the mattress dips under his weight. You can smell the incense that was burned during the ceremony earlier, still clinging to his clothes.
"I…" He stops."You understand, do you not?"
The question hangs in the air. You could pretend you do not know what he means. You could make him say it outright, but what would be the point? You are not cruel enough to make him spell out what you already know.
"Yes," you reply quietly. "I understand."
"I do not want to hurt you." His voice is earnest. He sounds young suddenly, younger than his twenty one years. "You are my wife. I will always respect you. I will always honor you, but my heart…"
"Is elsewhere." You finish the sentence for him. "I know, Caleb. I have always known."
He looks at you and you see guilt flicker across his face.
"Forgive me."
"Do not be sorry. The arrangement was not your choice any more than it was mine."
"Still. You deserve better than this. Better than a husband who…" He cannot finish the sentence.
You reach out and take his hand. His fingers are warm, slightly calloused from sword practice.
"Shall I tell you what I think?"
"Please."
"I think we can build a good life together. Perhaps not the life you dreamed of, or the one I dreamed of, but a good life nonetheless. We have been friends since childhood. That is more than most married couples can claim."
"Friends." He sounds sad. "Yes. We have been that."
"So let us continue to be that. Friends who share a household. Friends who support each other, and who fulfill our duties with grace." You squeeze his hand once. "We do not have to pretend to have great passion when we both know the truth."
"You are generous," Caleb says.
"I am practical."
"No. You are generous, and I do not deserve your kindness."
He leans forward and kisses you. It is gentle, chaste, a kiss between friends rather than lovers, then he stands.
"I should go," he says. "I should let you rest."
You nod. You do not point out that this is your wedding night, that custom demands more than a single kiss. You do not mention that the servants will notice, will gossip, will speculate about what it means that he is leaving so quickly. You let him go.
When the door closes behind him, you sit very still for a long time. You do not cry. You simply sit and breathe and accept that this is your life now.
Your marriage. Your role. Your future.
The next morning, you learn that Caleb spent the night in Mei's chambers.
V
The first months of marriage settle into a rhythm.
You wake early, attend to your duties as Caleb's wife. You manage the household, oversee the servants, handle correspondence. You are good at this, the careful navigation of social hierarchies, the endless small decisions that keep a prince’s estate running smoothly. Your mother trained you well.
Caleb is often away during the day, attending court functions or military training. When he is home, he is pleasant. He asks about your day. He ensures you have everything you need. He is a model husband in every way except the one that matters.
Mei lives in the chambers adjacent to yours, and you see her every day. You take your meals together when Caleb is absent. You walk in the gardens, sit in the pavilion overlooking the lotus pond, sometimes you steal away to the kitchens late at night to share rice cakes and talk about the rumors you hear at court.
In those moments, it almost feels like before, like you are still children, but then Caleb comes home, and everything shifts.
He seeks Mei out immediately. He brings her gifts, bolts of silk, jade ornaments, books of poetry. He writes her letters even though they live in the same household. He requests her company for meals, for evening walks, for viewing the moon.
Mei accepts these attentions with polite grace. She never refuses him. She never encourages him either. She exists in a strange middle ground, neither welcoming nor cold, simply present.
You watch this courtship from the sidelines and try to pretend it does not hurt.
The court notices, of course. The servants gossip. The other noble wives watch your household with speculation and poorly-concealed pity. Everyone can see that your husband prefers his concubine to his wife.
You hold your head high and refuse to acknowledge their whispers.
One evening, during a court banquet, one of the Empress' ladies makes a comment just loud enough for you to hear.
"How gracious Her Highness is, to allow her husband such obvious devotion to the concubine. Most wives would be beside themselves."
You smile serenely.
"Why should I object? Mei has served my family since childhood. She is dear to me. My husband's affection for her brings me joy, not sorrow."
The lie comes easily, you have had months of practice. The woman looks disappointed. She was clearly hoping for drama, for tears, for some crack in your composure. You give her nothing.
Later, Mei finds you in a quiet corner of the garden.
"You do not have to do that," she says.
"Do what?"
"Lie for me. Defend me. Pretend you are happy with this situation."
"I am not lying. You are dear to me."
"But you are not happy." Mei's voice is soft. "I can see it, even if no one else can."
You look away, focusing on the lotus flowers blooming in the pond.
"Happiness was never part of the arrangement."
"It should have been." There is anger in her tone now. "You should have been cherished. You should have been…"
"Please do not." You cut her off gently. "I do not want your pity any more than I want theirs."
"This is not pity. This is…" She stops. When you glance at her, her expression looks pained. "I wish things were different. That is all."
"So do I, but wishing changes nothing."
Mei moves closer, takes your hand. Her fingers are cool against yours.
"I would give this up in a heartbeat if I could. I would leave this household, go anywhere, if it would make you happy."
"You cannot leave. Where would you go? Back to your family? They have no wealth to support you. To another household as a servant? That would be a worse fate than this." You squeeze her hand. "We are bound together now, you and I. We must make the best of it."
"Then let me make it easier for you," Mei replies. "Give me leave to refuse his attentions. I do not want them. I have never wanted them."
You have noticed this. The way she holds herself distant when Caleb visits her chambers. The way her smiles never quite reach her eyes. The careful way she accepts his poetry without reading it aloud.
"If you refuse him outright, it will cause scandal. He is a prince. His pride…"
"His pride is not my concern."
"It is mine." You pull your hand free. "He is my husband. His honor is my honor. I will not have the court saying he was rejected by his own concubine."
Mei's expression closes.
"As you wish."
She turns to leave, but you catch her sleeve.
"Mei, wait. I did not mean…"
"You meant exactly what you said." Her voice is cutting. "You want me to continue this charade. To let him court me, to accept his gifts, to pretend I might care for him someday. All so you can save face at court."
"That is not fair."
"Fair?" Mei laughs bitterly. "What about any of this is fair? You married a man who loves me. I am forced to live with him and accept his attention when I…" She stops abruptly.
"When you what?"
"When I would rather be anywhere else." She finishes the sentence carefully.
You study her face, trying to understand what she is not saying, but Mei has always been good at keeping secrets. She has been keeping them your entire lives.
"I will not ask you to leave," you say finally. "But I will not give you permission to publicly reject him either. Find some middle path. Please. For me."
Mei nods once, then she walks away, leaving you standing alone beside the lotus pond.
The Moon Festival arrives in the eighth month of your marriage.
The court celebrates with lanterns and music, feasting and poetry.
You sit beside Caleb at the festivities, smiling and nodding as officials and nobles pay their respects. The celebration goes late. When you finally return to your chambers, exhausted, you do not expect Caleb to follow, but he does.
"May I come in?" he asks from the doorway.
You are surprised enough that you simply nod. He enters, closing the door behind him. He is still in his formal robes, though he has loosened them slightly. His face is flushed, from wine, perhaps, or from something else.
"Mei turned me away," he says, his voice raw…"She said she was tired. She said…" He stops. "It does not matter what she said."
Ah. So that is why he is here.
Not because he wants you, but because she refused him.
You should send him away. You should tell him you will not be a substitute for the woman he really wants, but you are tired of fighting, tired of pretending, tired of everything.
"You can stay," you hear yourself say. "If you wish."
Caleb looks at you for a long moment, then he nods.
He is gentler than you expected, almost tender. He undresses you slowly, his hands careful, and when he lies beside you, he takes his time. There is a loneliness in the way he touches you, as if he is seeking comfort rather than passion.
You let yourself sink into it. You let yourself pretend, just for these few hours, that he is here because he wants you, that his hands on your skin mean something beyond duty or disappointment.
Afterward, he does not leave immediately. He lies beside you in the darkness, his breathing slowly evening out. You think he has fallen asleep, then his arm slides around your waist.
It is unconscious, you think. A reflex. He pulls you back against him, his body curving around yours, his face buried in your hair. He holds you like he does not want to let go.
You go very still and barely breathe. You do not want to break this moment, this unexpected gentleness. Slowly, carefully, you place your hand over his where it rests on your stomach. His fingers tighten slightly, then relax. His breathing deepens. He is asleep.
You lie there in the darkness, held in your husband's arms, and let yourself pretend. Just for tonight. Just for these few stolen hours.
You pretend he came to you because he wanted to. You pretend the tenderness was real. You pretend that when morning comes, he will wake and smile at you, kiss you, and choose to stay.
You know better. You have always known better, but for tonight, in the darkness, you let yourself hope.
In the morning, he is gone.
The pillow beside you still holds the shape of his head. The blankets are tangled where he slept, but Caleb himself is nowhere to be found. You press your hand to the pillow, feeling the lingering warmth, and your heart breaks a little more.
A few weeks later, you have dinner with Caleb and Mei together, a rare occurrence now that the household has settled.
The meal is pleasant enough.
Caleb discusses trade negotiations with the northern provinces. Mei asks about a new shipment of silk from the south. You contribute everything that you have observed from the outer court.
For a moment, it almost feels normal. Three friends sharing a meal, the conversation flowing easily.
"Do you remember," Caleb says suddenly, "the year we stole pies every week for an entire summer?"
"The cook never did figure out who was taking them," Mei smiles.
"Because you were clever about it," you add. "You always took them when she stepped away, and you replaced the covering so it looked untouched."
"We were terrible," Caleb says, but he is laughing.
"We were children," Mei corrects.
The three of you reminisce for a while, trading stories and memories. For a while, the complications of your arrangement fall away. But then the meal ends, Caleb reaches for Mei's hand as they stand.
"Walk with me?" he asks her.
Mei glances at you. You see the regret and apology in her eyes.
"Of course," she tells him.
They leave together. You sit alone at the table, surrounded by empty dishes and fading laughter.
Someone will always be unhappy, Mei said once. You are beginning to understand what she meant.
The months continue, and the pattern repeats.
Caleb pursues, Mei deflects, you observe. The court whispers grow louder. Some say Caleb is bewitched by his concubine. Others say you are too patient, too forgiving, that you should assert your position as primary wife more forcefully.
A few, a very few, say quiet things about Mei's loyalty. About how she seems to spend more time with you than with Caleb. About the way her gaze follows you across rooms.
You do not listen to those whispers. You cannot afford to. Instead, you focus on your duties. You embroider. You manage the household. You write letters to your family. You sit through endless court functions with a smile painted on your face.
And at night, alone in your chambers, you trace the names on your wrist and remind yourself which is which.
Caleb, your great love, your husband, the man who will never love you back.
Mei, your companion, your truest friend, the one who walks beside you through all of this.
You repeat this until you believe it. You have to believe it. What else is there?
VI
The discovery comes on an ordinary morning.
You wake feeling nauseous.
At first, you assume it is something you ate at the banquet the night before, the fish had tasted strange, but the nausea persists through the morning, worsening when you try to take tea. Your maidservant takes one look at your face and goes very still.
"Your highness," she speaks carefully. "Have your monthly courses come?"
You open your mouth to say yes, then stop. When was the last time? You have been so consumed with household matters, with court functions, with carefully not thinking about your marriage, that you have lost track.
"No," you say slowly. "Not for... not for six weeks at least."
The maidservant's face brightens.
"Your highness, you may be with child."
The words do not feel real. They hang in the air, impossible. You and Caleb have barely touched since the wedding night. While he comes to your chambers perhaps once a month, he only stays as long as necessary to maintain appearances. Your couplings are brief, done for duty rather than the passion of newlyweds.
Except for the Moon Festival, that night had been different.
"Send for the physician," you instruct her. "Quietly. I want no announcement until we are certain."
The physician confirms it that afternoon. You are pregnant, and the child should arrive in early spring. After he leaves, you sit in your chambers and try to understand what this means.
A child. Your child. Caleb's child.
Word travels faster than you anticipated. You are still in your dressing gown when Caleb appears at your door. His face is flushed, as if he has been running.
"Are you sick?" The words come out rushed. "The servants said you called for the physician. Are you ill? Is something wrong?"
You stare at him, surprised by the urgency in his voice.
"I am not sick."
"Then why…" He stops, looking at you more closely, at the way your hand unconsciously rests on your stomach. Understanding dawns on his face. "Are you…"
"I am with child." The words come out quieter than you intended. "The physician just confirmed it."
For a moment, Caleb simply stands there, then he crosses the room in three long strides and pulls you into his arms. The embrace is fierce and desperate. His hands shake where they press against your back. You can feel his heart pounding against your chest, feel the tremor that runs through his whole body.
"Are you safe?" he asks, his voice muffled against your hair. "Are you well? Does anything hurt? Do you need…"
"I am fine," you say, bewildered. "Caleb, I am fine."
He pulls back just enough to look at you, his hands coming up to frame your face. His eyes are bright, searching.
"You are certain? You are not in pain? The physician said everything is well?"
"Yes. Everything is well."
"An heir," he breathes, but there is something else in his voice. Something beyond political satisfaction. "You are carrying my child."
He pulls you close again, and this time you feel it, the fear beneath the relief. He is trembling, actually trembling, his breath uneven.
"I heard about your mother’s pregnancies," he states gently. "After we married, I asked some servants in your household, I know she had difficulties and I…" His voice breaks. "I cannot lose you. Do you understand? I cannot."
The words stun you. You stand rigid in his arms, trying to understand what you are hearing.
"Caleb…"
He kisses your forehead. It is tender, lingering, more intimate than any kiss he has given you before. When he pulls back, his eyes are wet.
"Forgive me," he says. "I am being foolish. This is good news. This is very good news."
He steps away, composing himself, but you can still see the tremor in his hands, the brightness in his eyes.
"I should let you rest," he starts. "You need rest. The baby needs…" He stops himself. "I will make sure you have everything you need. Anything you want, just tell me."
Then he is gone, leaving you standing in your chambers, trying to understand what just happened.
Mei finds you an hour later, staring at nothing.
"I heard," She starts as soon as she enters your chambers "The whole household has heard by now."
You turn to look at her.
"Did you know Caleb asked the servants about my mother’s pregnancies?"
Mei pauses.
"No, but it does not surprise me."
"Why not?"
"He cares for you." Mei states it simply, as if it is obvious. "More than you think, more than he knows how to show."
"He only cares about his heir."
"No." Mei's voice is firm. "He cares about you. I have seen it in the small things he does"
"Those are just…"
"They are not just anything." Mei takes your hands. "He may love the idea of me, but he cares for you. There is a difference."
You want to argue. You want to insist she is wrong, but the memory of Caleb's embrace, his trembling hands, his fear, it sits heavy in your chest.
"He told me he cannot lose me," you whisper.
"Because he cannot." Mei reaches for your hand. "You are his wife. The mother of his child now. Someone he has known since childhood. Whether he understands it or not, you matter to him."
"But he loves you."
"He thinks he does." Mei's smile is sad. "But love is more than longing, more than pursuit. Sometimes it is in the quiet things. The unconscious gestures. The fears we cannot name."
You do not know what to say to that.
The weeks pass. Your body changes. Your stomach begins to round. You feel the first fluttering movements, strange and wondrous.
The court is told. Congratulations pour in. The Emperor himself sends a letter expressing his pleasure at the news of his grandchild. Your parents visit, your mother hovering anxiously, your father looking pleased in his austere way. Everyone is happy for you.
Caleb becomes more present. Not in the way you once hoped for, he still spends his evenings with Mei, but in smaller ways. He insists you sit during lengthy court functions. When you attend audiences, he cuts them shorter than usual. He checks that your chambers are warm enough without you asking.
Once, when you grow dizzy in the garden, he appears at your side before you can call for help, his hand steadying you, his voice tight with worry as he walks you back inside. You do not know how he knew you were there. You do not ask.
When you are five months along, Mei arranges an afternoon tea in your chambers. It is just the three of you. You, Mei, and Caleb. The conversation starts awkwardly.
Caleb discusses updates about the military. You share things about the household. Mei adds the preparations for the coming winter. Then Caleb says something about your lack of rest, and Mei's eyes flash.
"Perhaps if you visited more often as a husband rather than as an official checking on imperial property, she would feel less alone," Mei says, her voice sharp.
Caleb goes very still.
"I visit regularly."
"You visit to ensure your heir is well, not to ensure she is well."
"That is not…" Caleb stops. "That is not fair."
"Is it not?" Mei turns to you. "When was the last time he asked about your wellbeing that was not related to the child?"
You open your mouth to defend him, but you cannot think of an instance. Caleb's face has gone pale.
"I…"
"She is your wife," Mei continues, relentless. "She carries your child. The least you could do is see her as more than a vessel for your heir."
The silence that follows is heavy, painful. Then the baby kicks. It is strong enough that you gasp, your hand flying to your stomach. Both Caleb and Mei turn to you immediately.
"What is wrong?" Caleb asks, alarmed.
"Nothing. The baby just…" You place your hand over the spot. "The baby is moving."
Caleb stares at your hand on your stomach.
"May I…" He stops. "Would you mind if I…"
You take his hand and place it where you felt the movement. For a moment, nothing happens, then the baby kicks again, directly against Caleb's palm. His face transforms, wonder replaces the tension from moments before.
"I felt it," he breathes. "I felt…"
"Let me feel too," Mei says softly.
You take her hand and place it beside Caleb's. The three of you wait, silent, until the baby kicks again.
"Strong," Mei gasps, and there are tears in her eyes. "Your child is strong."
"Ours," you say instinctively. "You said you would help me raise them, that makes them ours."
Mei's fingers curl against your stomach. The baby kicks again, and for this one fragile moment, the three of you are connected. All of you feeling this new life, this small person who exists because of all your complicated relationships.
"I will do better," Caleb states, he is looking at you now, not at your stomach. "You are right, Mei. I have been seeing her as the mother of my heir, not as…" He stops. "I will do better."
Mei pulls her hand back.
"See that you do."
The moment breaks. Caleb stands and excuses himself. Mei begins clearing the table, but something has shifted. You sit there, your hands on your stomach, and let yourself feel a tiny spark of hope.
Then one afternoon, you find Mei alone and preparing herbs in the kitchen.
You watch her work for a moment before you recognize the plants she is crushing. You grew up in a lord's household. You know what tansy and pennyroyal look like when they are ground together. You know what they are used for.
The realization strikes you. Abortifacients.
"Mei?” You call her name before you can stop yourself.
She turns, sees you, sees the herbs. Her face goes pale.
"How long?" you ask.
"Since the beginning." She replies without shame. "I will not bear his children. I will not give him that."
"But why? A child would…"
"Would what? Tie me to him forever? Make this pretense real?" Mei's voice is sharp. "I am not you. I do not accept this quietly. I do not make the best of my cage."
The words are meant to wound, and they succeed. You take a step back as if struck.
"That was cruel.”
"Yes." Mei looks away. "Forgive me, that was cruel."
"If you hate this so much, why do you stay?"
"Because you asked me to." Her response comes quickly. "You asked me to be what he wants. To go along with this. To stay here, with you. So I stay."
"I did not know you were this miserable."
"Of course you did not know. You are too busy being miserable yourself to notice anyone else."
The observation is so accurate it steals your breath. You stand there in the kitchen, staring at each other, and for the first time, you see the full weight of what you have asked of her. The sacrifices she has made. The pain she has endured, all because you begged her to stay.
"I am sorry," you tell her, but the words feel inadequate. "Mei, I am so sorry."
"Do not apologize. This is not your fault. None of this is your fault." Mei turns back to her herbs, crushing them with renewed force. "But do not ask me to pretend I am content. Do not ask me to pretend I want him, because I do not. I never have."
"Then who do you want?" The question escapes before you can stop it.
Mei goes very still.
For a long moment, she does not answer. When she speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper.
"Someone I cannot have."
She does not elaborate. She finishes preparing her herbs in silence, and you do not ask again.
That night, you lie in bed with your hands on your growing stomach and take in everything you have asked of Mei.
You asked her to stay. She stayed. You asked her to accept Caleb's courtship. She accepted. You asked her to smile at court. She smiled.
And beneath all of it, in the privacy of the kitchen when no one was watching, she ground bitter herbs into tea and drank them so that the one boundary she had left would hold.
You think about what it must have been like. Month after month. The taste of tansy and pennyroyal, the cramping, the pain because of her refusal to let her body become one more thing that belonged to him.
She did that ever since she became Caleb’s concubine.
She did that while brushing your hair, while smiling at you, while reassuring you, while staying with you, and laughing with you in the gardens as if nothing were wrong.
You roll onto your side and press your face into the pillow, and you do not sleep for a very long time.
VII
The banquet is in honor of the Emperor's birthday.
All of the court is required to attend.
You are six months pregnant now, your stomach round and obvious beneath your formal robes. You move slowly, carefully, one hand always resting on your belly as if to reassure the child within.
Mei walks beside you, her presence a comfort in the overwhelming crowd. Caleb is somewhere ahead, fulfilling his ceremonial duties as a prince of the blood. You will join him at the high table once the formal presentations are complete.
The Emperor sits on his throne, receiving tributes and well-wishes. The hall is filled with nobles, officials, foreign dignitaries. Everyone who matters in the empire is here. Including the Emperor's concubines.
There are four of them.
You know their faces, their names, their positions in the complex hierarchy of the inner court. The eldest, Lady Qi, is kind and has always treated you with courtesy. The second, Lady Qin, is ambitious but intelligent, someone you respect if not quite trust.
The third is Lady Xue.
She is the youngest of the Emperor's concubines, only recently elevated to her position. She is beautiful, clever, and hungry for power. Her family is wealthy but not particularly well-connected. Her position depends entirely on the Emperor's favor, and that favor is slipping.
You have heard the whispers. The Emperor has lost interest in her. He visits her chambers less frequently. He has been seen courting a new woman, a merchant's daughter with a sharp wit and considerable political connections.
Lady Xue is desperate.
She needs to do something dramatic, something that will remind the Emperor why he favored her in the first place. She needs to prove her value, her indispensability.
She needs a victory.
You do not know that Lady Xue has been watching your household, noting the Emperor's pleasure at the news of his grandchild. You do not know that she has decided removing Caleb's heir would destabilize his position, would create chaos that she could exploit. You do not know that she has already bribed one of the servants to poison your wine.
The banquet proceeds.
Courses arrive in endless succession, delicate soups, roasted meats, fish cooked in wine and spices, steamed dumplings, sweet rice cakes. You eat sparingly, mindful of your pregnancy and the rich food.
Mei sits beside you, as is proper for a concubine. She barely touches her food. She has been tense all evening, her gaze constantly scanning the crowd.
"Are you well?" you ask quietly.
"I do not like this." Mei's voice is low. "Too many people. Too much attention on you."
"It is the Emperor's birthday. We cannot avoid attending."
"I know, but I do not like it."
You squeeze her hand briefly to reassure her.
"You think too much. Nothing will happen. I am perfectly safe."
Mei does not look convinced.
The wine arrives. It is a special vintage, brought out only for imperial celebrations. The servant fills your cup, then Mei's, then moves down the table.
You raise your cup to drink. Mei's hand closes around your wrist.
"Wait." Her voice is low, urgent.
"What—"
"The servant." Mei's eyes are fixed on the man retreating down the table. "He poured yours differently. He tilted the bottle at the end. Everyone else received a straight pour."
You glance at your cup. The wine looks the same as everyone else's, dark red and sweet smelling.
"Mei, you are being…"
"And he looked at someone when he set your cup down, across the hall. I saw his eyes move." Mei's grip tightens on your wrist. Her knuckles are white. "Do not drink it."
"It is the Emperor's wine. No one would dare…"
"Someone already has." Mei's voice is steady, but her hand is trembling. She is not guessing. She is reading the room the way she always does, with the sharp, relentless attention of someone who has spent her entire life watching for threats against you.
You set the cup down.
Mei stares at it. Then at you. Then at your rounded stomach.
You see the decision form behind her eyes a half-second before she moves.
"Mei, no…"
She snatches up your cup and drinks the wine in three quick swallows.
The hall goes very quiet. People are staring, someone laughs uncertainly, thinking this is some kind of joke. Then Mei's face contorts. She doubles over, gasping. The cup falls from her hands, shattering on the stone floor.
"Mei!" You lunge for her, but she is already collapsing. You catch her as best you can, supporting her weight, lowering her to the ground.
"Get the physician!" someone shouts.
Caleb is there suddenly, shoving people aside. He kneels beside you, staring at Mei's face. She is convulsing, foam flecking her lips, her skin turning an awful grey.
"What happened?" Caleb demands. "What did she drink?"
"My wine." You are shaking. "She drank my wine."
Understanding and horror dawns on Caleb's face. The wine was meant for you. For the child you carry.
Mei would have known that. She would have known the poison was meant for you. She drank it anyway.
The physician arrives, but it is clear almost immediately that there is nothing he can do. The poison is too strong, too fast-acting. It is burning through Mei's body, shutting down her organs one by one.
She is dying.
You pull her into your lap, heedless of propriety, of the watching court. You cradle her head against your chest, your tears falling onto her face.
"Stay with me," you beg. "Please, Mei. Please stay."
Her eyes flutter open. She looks at you, and despite the pain, despite everything, she smiles.
"I love you," she whispers.
The words are so quiet you almost miss them. You stare down at her, and in that moment, you understand.
You finally understand everything. Not Caleb. Never Caleb. You.
Mei has always loved you.
Caleb is there beside you, holding Mei's hand, weeping openly. He leans close, his face twisted with grief.
"I love you too," he sobs. "Mei, I love you. Please do not leave. Please."
He thinks she is talking to him. He thinks her final words are for him, but Mei is not looking at Caleb. She is looking at you. Only at you.
Her lips move again. You lean closer, and you hear her breathe three more words.
"Protect the child."
Then her eyes close and her body goes still.
Mei is gone.
The hall erupts. Guards are summoned. The physician declares her dead. The Emperor demands to know who poisoned the wine. Servants are questioned, dragged away. Lady Xue’s face is pale with shock, she did not expect her plan to fail.
She did not expect Mei to intercept the poison.
You hear none of it. You sit on the cold stone floor, holding Mei's body, and you cannot breathe. You cannot do anything except stare at her lifeless face and try to understand that she is truly gone.
She loved you. She has always loved you. And now she is dead.
Caleb tries to pull Mei from your arms. You resist, clutching her tighter, but eventually he succeeds. He lifts her body, his face streaming with tears, and carries her from the hall.
You sit there, alone, blood and wine staining your formal robes. Your hands are shaking. Your whole body is shaking. Someone, your maidservant, perhaps, helps you to your feet. Someone leads you from the hall. You move like a ghost. When you reach your chambers, you collapse, and finally, finally, you let yourself scream.
VIII
The funeral is held three days later.
Mei's body is prepared with the traditional rites, washed, dressed in burial silks, laid in a lacquered coffin. Incense burns at the four corners. Mourners file past to pay their respects.
You attend because you are required to. You are Caleb's wife, and Mei was part of your household, but you feel absent from yourself, as if you are watching from a great distance.
Caleb is devastated. He weeps openly during the ceremony. He talks about how he loved her, how he will always love her, how her death has left a hole in his heart that can never be filled.
Every word is a knife, because he is wrong. He is wrong about everything. Mei did not love him. She never loved him.
She loved you, and he will never know that.
He will spend the rest of his life believing she died loving him, that her last words were meant for him. The truth will die with her.
After the ceremony, after Mei's coffin is carried to the burial ground, after the earth is mounded over her and the final prayers are spoken, you return to the palace.
The investigation into the poisoning has concluded.
Lady Xue’s involvement has been proven beyond doubt, servants have testified, silver has been traced, the poison itself has been identified. She has been arrested, stripped of her position, sent to face imperial justice, but that is not enough for the court gossip.
The court needs someone to blame, and Lady Xue's arrest is not dramatic enough for them. A concubine's failed plot is politics. A jealous wife's poisoning is tragedy, and tragedy sells.
So the rumor takes root, you did it. You, the patient wife, the dignified presence at every function, finally cracked under the weight of your husband's obvious preference for his concubine and killed the woman he loved.
It does not matter that Lady Xue confessed. It does not matter that the poison was traced, the servants questioned, the evidence laid bare. The court has chosen its story, and your innocence is not part of it.
Caleb does not correct them. That is what breaks you, not the whispers, not the sidelong glances, not the women who draw back when you approach.
His silence. His refusal to stand beside you and say my wife did not do this. He is too deep in his own grief to notice yours, and the court takes his silence as confirmation.
Three weeks after the funeral, he comes to your chambers.
You are in bed, still in your sleeping robe even though it is midday. You have not bathed in days. You have not cared enough to bother. Caleb stands in the doorway, looking at you with an expression you cannot read.
"We need to speak," he starts.
You sit up slowly. You do not ask him to come in. You simply wait.
"The court is talking," he continues. "The rumors about you and Mei, about the poisoning, they are damaging my reputation and the imperial family."
"I did not poison her." Your voice is hoarse from disuse.
"I know that."
"Then why do you not say so? Why do you not defend me?"
Caleb looks away.
"Because I cannot bear to look at you."
"What?" you whisper.
"Every time I see you, I think of her. I think of Mei, lying dead on the floor. I think of how she is gone and you are still here. And I…" His voice breaks. "I wish it had been you."
The room tilts. You clutch at the sheets to keep from falling.
"I wish you had been the one who died instead of her. I wish…" Caleb cannot finish. He is weeping now, his shoulders shaking. "I cannot do this anymore. I cannot live in this house with you. I cannot look at you and not see what I have lost."
"Where would you have me go?" Your voice sounds distant, as if someone else is speaking.
"I have a summer estate. Three days' journey north. I am sending you there. You will stay until the child is born. After that… we will decide what happens after."
He is exiling you.
"And if I refuse?"
"You will not refuse. You will go. You will leave this palace, and you will not return until I send for you."
He turns and walks away, leaving you alone in your chambers. You sit very still for a long time after he leaves. Then, carefully, you look down at your wrist.
The names are still there. Caleb and Mei, written in the same shimmering ink. Mei's name has not changed. It is still the same as it was the day the marks appeared. You trace it with one finger, and finally you let yourself cry.
Not for Caleb. Not for your marriage or your position or your reputation. For Mei. For the friend who protected you. For the woman who loved you back and never told you. For everything you could have had if you had only understood sooner.
IX
The retinue assigned to escort you to the summer estate is small but capable.
Two guards, a driver, and your maidservant. They load your belongings into the carriage. You watch from the window of your chambers, already feeling like a ghost haunting your own life.
Your mother comes to see you before you leave. She looks older, worn down by the scandal. She does not embrace you. She does not say she believes in your innocence.
"Try to stay out of sight," she tells you. "Let the rumors die down. Perhaps in a year or two, people will forget."
"Perhaps," you echo, because what else is there to say?
Your father does not come. You are not surprised. To him, you were always a tool for power. A disgraced daughter is worse than no daughter at all.
The carriage journey begins. You sit in silence, watching the palace disappear behind you. The capital fades into countryside, rice paddies, small villages, rivers winding through green hills. It should be beautiful, you cannot bring yourself to care.
On the second day of travel, you notice something strange. The driver has taken a wrong turn. You lean forward.
"Where are we going?"
"To your destination, my lady." His voice is calm, steady.
"This is not the road to the summer estate."
"No, your highness. It is not."
Your maidservant reaches over and takes your hand.
"We are taking you somewhere safe," she says gently. "Somewhere you will be welcome."
"I do not understand."
"The summer estate is not safe for you. The other servants in the prince's household do not believe you are innocent. They believe the rumors. If you go there, you will be alone, unprotected, and when the child is born…" She stops. "We do not trust what might happen."
"Where are you taking me?"
"To Lady Mei's family."
You stare at her, confused.
"How…who arranged this?"
"Lady Mei did." Your maidservant's voice is gentle. "Some time before the Emperor's birthday banquet, she told us that if anything happened to her, we were to bring you to her family instead of the summer estate."
"Mei did?"
"Yes, my lady. She knew something was going to happen. She did not know what, exactly, but she sensed danger. She wanted to ensure you would be protected."
"She planned this." You cannot breathe. "She planned all of this."
Your maidservant squeezes your hand.
"She wanted you safe, so she made arrangements."
You sit back, stunned. Even in death, Mei was still taking care of you.
The journey takes five days instead of three. The roads grow rougher, the villages smaller. You are traveling west now, toward the mountains, away from the luxuries of the capital and into harder country. By the time you arrive, you are fevered and exhausted.
Mei's family home is modest, a compound built around a central courtyard, simple but well-maintained. As the carriage stops, you see an older woman emerge from the main building, her hair streaked with grey, her face lined with years of work.
She looks like Mei. The same eyes, the same determined set to her jaw. Mei’s mother, whom you have not seen since the announcement of your betrothal to Caleb.
You try to stand, to exit the carriage properly, but your legs buckle. The world tilts, going dark at the edges. You hear voices, feel hands catching you, but it all seems very far away. The last thing you remember is the smell of rain and the feeling of being lifted, carried inside.
When you wake, it is night. You are in a small, clean room. A single lantern burns in the corner. You are tucked into a bed that smells of herbs and soap.
A woman sits beside you, pressing a cool cloth to your forehead. Mei's mother.
"You are awake," she says softly. "Good. You have been fevered for three days."
Three days. You have lost three days.
"Where am I?"
"My home. My husband and I brought you inside when you collapsed. We have been caring for you."
You try to sit up, but she pushes you back gently.
"Rest. You need rest. The baby needs rest."
"Why are you helping me?" The question comes out sharper than you intend. "I am the one…they say I am the one who…"
"You did not kill my daughter." Mei's mother's voice is firm. "I know that as surely as I know my own name."
"How can you know?"
"Mei wrote to me." Her voice breaks slightly. "Several weeks before the Emperor's birthday, she sent a letter. She believed that you and your child were in danger. She told me she had made arrangements for your safety, that she had paid your servants to bring you here if anything happened to her. She told me…" Mei's mother stops to compose herself. “She told me that if you arrived at my door, it would mean she was gone, and that I should care for you as I would have cared for her."
"She knew something would happen."
"She knew danger was circling. She did not know the specific form it would take, but she knew, and she chose to protect you rather than herself." Mei's mother strokes your hair, the gesture so like her daughter's that it makes your chest ache. "That is who my daughter was. That is what her love looked like."
You cannot speak. You can only weep.
"She wrote to me every week since she entered your household," Mei's mother continues quietly. "She told me everything. About the tea she was taking. About how she would never bear that prince's child. About how her only happiness was you."
"She told you she loved me?"
"She told me she had always loved you, since you were children. Since the day you cried under that apple tree and she swore to protect you." Mei's mother's own eyes fill with tears. "She told me about the soulmarks. She knew that you were her great love, but you did not know, and that you believed the prince was yours."
"I do not understand." Your voice is shaking. "If she loved me, why did she never say anything? Why did she…"
"Because you asked her not to. You begged her to be what the prince wanted, to go along with the arrangement, to stay in that household for your sake." Her voice is gentle but unyielding. "My daughter would have done anything for you even if it meant giving up her life for you.."
The truth of it crashes over you. Mei sacrificed everything. Her happiness, her future, her very life. All because you asked her to. All because she loved you.
"I did not know," you whisper. "I did not know she loved me that way until…. I thought…I thought she was my companion. My friend. I thought Caleb was…"
"Caleb was her great love?" Mei's mother makes a sound that might be a laugh or a sob. "No, child. You had it backwards.”
"What do you mean?"
"My daughter knew the truth of all three marks. She knew which name was which for each of you."
I love you. Not to Caleb. To you.
"She also knew," Mei's mother continues, "that Caleb's great love was you. Not her. You. You were his great love, just as he was yours, but both of you were too blind to see it, too convinced of your own assumptions."
You stare at her.
"That cannot be right. Caleb loved Mei. He pursued her. He mourned her. He…"
"He loved the idea of her. The unattainable woman. The one who would not love him back." Her voice is sad. "But his great love was always you. My daughter knew that. She knew she was the companion to both of you. That her purpose was to walk beside you, to support you, to help you find each other."
"Then why did she drink the poison?" Your voice breaks. "If she was only the companion…if her death would not destroy him the way a great love's death would…why did she do it?"
"You were carrying his child. She knew that poison was meant for you, and if you died, you would both lose everything. She could not let that happen." Mei's mother wipes her eyes. "She removed herself from the situation. She knew that with her gone, you and the prince would have to face each other without her in the middle. She hoped…I think she hoped…that her death would force you both to see the truth."
You cannot speak. Everything you thought you knew is wrong. Every assumption, every certainty, all of it built on misunderstandings and blind hope and the failure to simply ask the right questions.
Caleb is your great love. You are his. And Mei knew that.
She always knew. She loved you anyway, with the quiet devotion of a companion who puts her great love's happiness above her own.
"I would have chosen her," you whisper. "If I had known. If she had told me, I would have…"
But the words falter before you can finish them. Would you have? Truly? If Mei had come to you at fifteen and confessed everything, if she had taken your hands and looked you in the eye and told you that she was your great love, not Caleb, would you have believed her?
Would you have turned away from eight years of longing, from the boy who lifted you out of apple trees, from the ache in your chest every time he entered a room? Or would you have held Mei's hands and felt sorry for her and gently explained that she was confused?
You do not know the answer. That is the worst part. You want desperately to say you would have chosen her, that you would have defied the court and your family and every expectation placed on you, but you are no longer certain of anything you once believed about your own heart.
"I would like to think I would have chosen her," you amend, and your voice is very small.
Mei's mother strokes your hair and does not argue. Perhaps she knows the truth. Perhaps she is kind enough not to say it.
"I know." Mei's mother pulls you into an embrace, and you sob against her shoulder. "I know, child, but she could not ask you to make that choice. She could not ask you to give up your position, your family, your future. She loved you too much for that."
You cry until you have no tears left. You cry for Mei, for yourself, for Caleb and the tragedy of three people who could not see what was written on their own skin. When you finally pull back, exhausted and hollow, Mei's mother smooths your hair.
"You will stay here," she says. "You and the child. You are safe here. You are welcome here."
"But what about…"
"No one knows you are here except those who brought you. Your servants…they are loyal to you, not to the prince. They will not betray your location." Her voice is firm. "You will stay. You will have this baby, and then we will decide what comes next."
You are too tired to argue. Too tired to do anything but nod and let yourself be cared for.
That night, lying in a small room in Mei's childhood home, you dream of apple orchards and stolen pies and a girl with fierce eyes who promised to always protect you.
You wake crying, but this time, someone is there to hold you through it.
X
The months pass slowly in Mei's family home.
Your pregnancy progresses.
Your stomach swells more, the baby moving constantly now, pressing against your ribs, making you breathless. The discomforts of late pregnancy are compounded by grief that never fully leaves, that sits like a stone in your chest.
Mei's mother attends you with quiet care.
She brings you ginger tea for nausea, rubs salve into your aching back, sits with you during the long afternoons when you cannot sleep.
She tells you stories about Mei as a child.
How stubborn she was, how fierce, how she once punched a boy who made fun of her younger brother. How she learned to sew because she wanted to make you a dress. How she wrote in her diary about you constantly, pages and pages of memories and hopes and quiet, desperate love.
You listen to these stories and feel yourself break a little more each time.
You also grow weaker.
At first, you attribute it to the pregnancy.
Late pregnancy is exhausting, everyone says so, but as the weeks pass, you notice things that worry you. You are tired all the time, sleeping twelve, fourteen hours a day. You have no appetite. Your hands shake.
The local healer examines you and shakes her head.
"The baby is fine. Strong heartbeat, good position. But you… You are not well."
"What is wrong with me?"
"Your body is giving up. Grief sometimes does that. Takes root in the bones, drains the life away."
"Can you treat it?"
"I can give you herbs to strengthen your blood. But the real medicine…" She pauses. "The real medicine is wanting to live, and I am not certain you do."
She is right.
You are not certain you do.
You go through day by day.
You eat when Mei's mother insists. You walk in the small garden behind the house, placing your hand on the rough bark of the apple tree that grows there. You sit in the sun and try to feel warmth.
But everything is distant, muted, you are a ghost drifting through someone else's life.
Seven months pregnant. Eight. The baby will come soon.
You wonder if you will survive the birth, part of you hopes you will not.
Mei's mother seems to sense your thoughts.
One evening, she sits beside you and takes your hand.
"You must live," she says. "For the child. For my daughter's memory. For yourself."
"I am trying."
"Try harder." Her voice is fierce, so much like Mei's that it hurts. "You have a choice, here. You can give up, let grief swallow you, or you can fight. You can live. You can raise this child and give them the love you never got to give my daughter."
"What if I cannot?" Your voice is small. "What if I am not strong enough?"
"You are. You have always been strong. You survived a marriage you did not want, a household that did not value you, the loss of your dearest friend. You can survive this too."
You want to believe her. You want to find that strength within yourself.
But as the weeks pass, as your body grows heavier and your spirit lighter, you feel yourself slipping away.
You think about the orchard often now.
Those golden afternoons with Caleb and Mei.
The three of you together, before everything went wrong.
You think about Mei's hands always finding yours first. The way she used to brush your hair. How she looked at you when she thought you were not watching.
You think about Caleb's laugh, bright and careless. How he used to help you down from trees. How his eyes would light up when he saw Mei, not realizing the person he was truly seeking was standing right beside him.
You think about the baby growing inside you.
Caleb's child.
The heir he wanted. The person who will carry both your grief and your hope into the future.
You hope the baby looks like Caleb. You hope they have his laugh, his kindness, his capacity for joy.
You hope they never make the mistakes you made. Never assume, never fail to ask, never let pride keep them from admitting what their heart already knows.
The contractions begin on a spring morning.
The sky is clear, the air warm. Cherry blossoms are blooming in the garden, pink and delicate.
You labor through the day and into the night.
It is long and difficult. Your body is exhausted before you even begin. Mei's mother stays with you, holding your hand, murmuring encouragement.
"You can do this," she says. "You are almost there."
But you already know that this is the end for you.
You have enough strength to bring the child into the world, but not enough to remain in it yourself.
The baby arrives just before dawn.
A girl, small but healthy, with a powerful cry and perfect tiny fingers.
They place her in your arms, and you look down at her face and see Caleb.
She has his eyes, that distinctive purple that marks her as imperial blood. She has his nose, his chin, his delicate features.
She is beautiful.
"What will you name her?" Mei's mother asks.
You do not hesitate.
"Mei."
Mei's mother's eyes fill with tears.
"Are you certain?"
"She is named for the only person who truly loved me." Your voice is weak, fading. "Let her carry that name. Let her carry that legacy."
You hold your daughter for a long time, memorizing her face, the weight of her in your arms, the sound of her breathing.
Then you look at Mei's mother and speak the words you have been preparing.
"Take care of her. Raise her here, away from the capital, away from the court. Do not tell Caleb where she is unless…" You pause. "Unless he comes looking. If he never comes, let her grow up here, in peace."
"And if he does come?"
"Tell him I forgive him." The words are important. They need to be said. "Tell him I understand. Tell him it was not his fault, any of it. We were all blind."
"I will tell him."
"And tell Mei…" You look down at the baby. "Tell her she was loved. Tell her she was wanted. Tell her…"
But you cannot finish, your vision is blurring, darkening at the edges.
Mei's mother takes the baby gently from your arms.
"I will tell her everything. I promise."
You smile, or try to. You are not certain if your face is moving anymore.
"Thank you," you whisper. "For everything. For taking me in. For…"
"Hush now. Rest. You have done well."
You close your eyes. The last thing you feel is warmth, sunlight streaming through the window, or perhaps just the memory of warmth, of spring afternoons and stolen moments and a hand that always found yours first.
You slip away thinking of apple orchards.
XI
The weeks after he sends you away are quiet.
Caleb returns to his duties. He attends the court. He trains with the imperial guard. He sits through the imperial council meetings and says the right things at the right times.
He visits Mei's grave every third day, kneeling in the dirt, speaking to her headstone as if she might answer.
He does not visit your chambers. There is no reason to, they are empty now, but sometimes he finds himself walking that corridor anyway, his feet carrying him there out of habit before his mind catches up. He stops outside your door, hand half-raised, and stands there for a moment before turning away. He does not examine why.
Your maidservants have been dismissed or reassigned. The rooms are being cleaned and closed. A servant asks whether your personal effects should be packed and sent to the summer estate, and Caleb opens his mouth to say yes, then stops.
"Leave them," he orders. "Leave everything as it is."
He does not examine that either.
At night, he reaches across the bed in his sleep. His hand finds empty space where a body should be, and he wakes confused and grasping, unsure who he was reaching for.
He assumes it is Mei. It has always been Mei.
After her funeral, Caleb checks his wrist obsessively. Waiting for the sign, for the darkening that would tell him his great love had passed, but both names remained unchanged, clear, vibrant, exactly as they had been since he received them.
He did not understand. How could Mei be dead and his mark remain the same? He convinced himself it was a delay. That fate took time to register death, that eventually, the change would come and he would finally have confirmation that Mei was his great love.
Then, three months after Mei's death and your exile, he wakes one morning and sees it.
Mei's name has changed. It did not darken as he expected, it faded. The characters have turned grey.
Grey. The mark of a companion.
He stares at his wrist, and the world tilts beneath him. No. That cannot be right.
Mei was his great love. She had to be. He loved her for years, pursued her, mourned her… But the marks do not lie.
If Mei's name is grey and she was his companion. Then that means…
He looks at your name. Still there. Still unchanged. Still shimmering.
The realization crashes over him. You. You were always the great love.
And suddenly, everything that felt wrong about Mei makes sense. The way his longing for her was always tinged with frustration, never peace. The way she never quite fit into the space in his heart he tried to force her into. The way loving her felt like chasing something perpetually out of reach. Because she was not meant to be caught, she was the companion. The friend. The bridge.
And you.. He remembers the last words he said to you. I wish it had been you.
The memory hits him. He told you he wished you had died instead of Mei. He looked at you, pregnant with his child, grieving your closest friend, accused of murder by the entire court, and he told you he wished you were dead.
He sent you away while heavily pregnant with his child. He had known about your mother's difficult pregnancies. He had known, and he had sent you away regardless.
And Mei died protecting you. Protecting you and the child. That was her last act of love for you, drinking poison meant for you, sacrificing herself to save you both. And he repaid that sacrifice by exiling you. By telling you he wished you were dead. By sending you away when you needed protection most. When Mei would have wanted him to protect you.
"No." The word tears out of him. "No, no, no…"
He is running before he realizes it, shouting for servants, for guards, for horses.
"The summer estate," he gasps. "Ready a retinue. Now. We leave immediately."
"Your Highness, it is barely dawn…"
"Now!"
The ride takes three days. Three days of riding hard, stopping only when the horses must rest. Three days of Caleb checking his wrist obsessively, looking at your name, praying it does not darken. Praying he is not too late.
He will apologize. He will beg for forgiveness. He will tell you he was blind, that he was wrong, that he convinced himself Mei was his great love when you were standing beside him the entire time.
He will make this right. He has to make this right.
When he arrives at the summer estate, he dismounts before his horse has fully stopped. He strides through the entrance, calling your name.
Servants appear, looking confused. The head of the household, a middle-aged woman with stern features, bows low.
"Your Highness. We did not expect…"
"Where is she?" Caleb demands. "Where is my wife?"
The woman's confusion deepens.
"Your Highness, she is not here."
The world stops.
"What do you mean she is not here? She was sent here several months ago. Where is she?"
"We received no such person, Your Highness. We received word that Her Highness would be coming, yes, but she never arrived."
Caleb's blood runs cold.
"That is impossible. She was sent here. With guards. With servants. They were to deliver her safely…"
"We have seen no one, Your Highness."
He tears through the estate like a madman. He checks every room, every chamber, every corner. He finds nothing. No belongings. No sign you were ever there. He returns to the capital and summons the servants who escorted you. They kneel before him, trembling.
"Where is she?" His voice is deadly quiet. "Where is my wife?"
"We delivered her to the summer estate, Your Highness," the driver says. "We saw her enter…"
"Liar." Caleb's hand goes to his sword. "The estate says she never arrived. Where did you take her?"
"Your Highness, we…"
"WHERE IS SHE?"
The servants exchange glances. Fear is written on their faces, but beneath it, something else. Defiance. Loyalty to someone who is not him.
"You told us you would come when the child was born," one of the servants he brought from the estate finally speaks up. "You made it clear you did not wish to see her until then. We thought, when she did not arrive at the estate, we thought you had changed your mind. That you had made other arrangements."
"What other arrangements? Where is she?"
Silence.
"ANSWER ME!"
But the servants from the retinue he assigned you do not break. They kneel there, silent and stubborn, protecting your location even under threat of death.
Caleb wants to execute them all. He wants to torture the truth from them, but a part of him, the part that remembers Mei's sacrifice, that understands these servants cared for you more than he did, that part stops him.
"Get out," he says finally. "All of you. Get out of my sight."
They leave, and Caleb is alone.
He sends men to every province, every village, every corner of the empire. He offers rewards for information. He follows every rumor, every possible lead.
Every morning, he checks his wrist. Your name remains unchanged. This gives him hope, irrational, desperate hope. If you were dead, the mark would darken. It has to darken. That is how it works. So you must be alive. Somewhere. Hidden, angry with him, but alive.
He will find you. He will make this right.
Seven years pass. Seven years of searching. Seven years of checking his wrist every morning, seeing your name unchanged, telling himself you are still out there. Seven years of guilt and desperation and the faint, foolish hope that maybe, when he finds you, you will forgive him.
Then he sees her.
A little girl in a market by the countryside, six or seven years old, who looks exactly like you the first time he saw you in the orchards. She has your smile, your features, the way you tilt your head, but her eyes, her eyes are his, that distinctive imperial purple, and standing beside her is a woman who looks like an older Mei.
Caleb stops dead in the middle of the market. People flow around him, annoyed at the obstruction, but he cannot move.
It is your daughter. Your daughter and his. The child you were carrying when he sent you away.
The woman holding the girl's hand looks up, and her face goes still when she sees him. She knows who he is, everyone knows the third prince by sight.
"You," Caleb says, and his voice is rough. "I need to speak with you."
The woman, Mei's mother, pulls the girl closer.
"We have nothing to say to you, Your Highness."
"That child…"
"Is not your concern."
"She has my eyes. She is… she is mine." The words break. "Please. Please tell me where her mother is. I have been searching…"
"Her mother is dead." The woman's voice is flat. "She died giving birth."
Seven years. You have been dead for seven years, and his mark never changed. Your name is still there on his wrist, unchanged, as if you are still alive. But you are not alive.
You have been dead for years, and the marks gave him no sign. No darkening. No confirmation. He checks his wrist again desperately. Your name is still there, still shimmering, still unchanged.
The marks are punishing him. They told him the truth about Mei but they refuse to tell him the truth about you.They leave your name unchanged, eternal uncertainty, no closure, no confirmation that you were his great love even though he knows, he knows you were.
"No," he whispers. "No, she cannot be... The mark is unchanged…" He sobs. "She cannot be…"
"She died in my home, far from you, far from the court that destroyed her and my daughter." The woman's eyes are hard. "She spent her last months in the same room my daughter grew up in. She named her baby after my Mei, and then she died, content that the child would be cared for."
"I tried to find her. Her servants would not tell me where they took her…"
"My daughter paid for them before she died. She made arrangements to keep your wife safe, to bring her here instead of your summer estate." Mei's mother's voice is sharp. "My Mei knew you would not protect her, so she did."
The words are a knife. Caleb stumbles, has to catch himself on a nearby stall.
"I need to see her." He reaches out, desperate. "Our daughter. Please let me…"
"You have no daughter." The woman pulls the girl behind her, shielding her. "You have an heir you never wanted, a wife you drove to death, and a legacy of cruelty. That is all you have."
The child, little Mei, peers around her grandmother's skirts, studying Caleb with curious eyes.
"Who is he, Grandma?"
"No one important, darling. Come. We need to go home."
"Wait!" Caleb takes a step forward. "Please. I know I have no right to ask…but please. Let me know her. Let me… I can provide for her. I can give her everything. Education, a title, a place at court…"
"She has everything she needs here." The woman's voice is final. "She has a home, a family who loves her, a quiet life away from politics and from the court. Why would I give that up to send her to you?"
"Because I am her father."
"You are the man who got her mother pregnant and then cast her out while she was heavy with child. That is not a father. That is a stranger who shares her blood and nothing more." Mei’s mother softens slightly, pity flickering across her face. "Go home, Your Highness. Go back to your palace. We do not need you. We never needed you."
She takes the child's hand and walks away, disappearing into the market crowd. Caleb stands frozen for a long time. Then he makes his way to the nearest inn and requests a room.
That evening, a messenger arrives. He carries two letters, one from Mei, one from you.
Mei's letter is long, detailed. She explains everything, the marks, the truth about who loved whom and what she hoped would happen after she was gone. She apologizes for not telling him sooner, for letting him believe she might love him someday, for not having the courage to simply say no.
You and my lady were always meant to be together, she wrote. I was merely the bridge. I pray that my death will help you see what was always written on your skin.
Your letter is shorter, simpler. I forgive you. That is all. No recriminations, no anger, no long explanations, just forgiveness, simple and complete.
Caleb reads both letters three times, then he folds them carefully and places them in his robes, over his heart.
That night, he dreams of apple orchards. He sees you as a child, seven years old, stuck in a tree, afraid to come down. He lifts you onto his shoulders. You laugh. He sees Mei, nine years old, fierce and protective, swearing to always guard you. He sees himself, blind and foolish, chasing the wrong person while the right one stood beside him the entire time.
When he wakes, his face is wet with tears.
He sends letters to Mei's family. He sends money, gifts, offers of support. Everything is returned, unopened. He tries three more times to visit. Each time, he is politely but firmly turned away.
He will never see his daughter again. This is his punishment, and he accepts it.
The marks on his wrist remain unchanged, Mei's name in grey, your name still shimmering as if you live.
He sees them every morning when he wakes, every evening when he undresses. They are a constant reminder of everything he failed to understand.
The absence of darkness on your name torments him more than any blackened mark could. It is a punishment worse than confirmation. It is eternal uncertainty, eternal hope that maybe, somehow, the marks are wrong and you are still alive somewhere. But you are not alive.
You were his great love, and you are gone.
He never remarries. He never takes another concubine. He lives alone in his household, performing his duties, serving the empire, but never truly living again.
Sometimes, on quiet evenings, he takes out your letter and reads it again. I forgive you.
He does not forgive himself. He will carry that weight until the day he dies.
XII
The orchard is exactly as you remember.
Apple trees heavy with fruit, grass soft beneath your feet, sunlight filtering through the leaves in dappled patterns. The air smells of summer, earth and apple blossoms and something indefinably sweet.
You are wearing a simple robe, the kind you wore as a child. Your feet are bare and your hair is loose, unbound by pins or ornaments. You feel light, as if a great weight has been lifted off your shoulders.
"Hello."
You turn.
Mei is standing beneath an apple tree, smiling at you. She looks exactly as she did at sixteen, before the marks appeared, before the arrangement, before everything went wrong.
"Mei."
"Hello, my love." She holds out her hand. "I have been waiting for you."
You run to her. You do not walk nor do you maintain dignity or decorum. You simply run, and she catches you, and you bury your face in her shoulder and sob.
"I am sorry," you gasp between tears. "I am so sorry. I did not know…"
"Hush." Mei strokes your hair, her touch gentle. "There is nothing to apologize for."
"I asked you to stay with him. I made you..."
"You made me nothing." She pulls back, cupping your face in her hands. "I chose to stay. I chose to drink that poison. I chose everything, knowing what it would cost, because I loved you."
You stare at her, and finally, you let yourself understand.
"You were my great love."
"No." Mei's smile is sad as she shakes her head. "You were mine, but I was not yours."
"The marks…"
"Do not match perfectly. They never had to." Mei traces a finger down your cheek. "My great love was you. My companion was Caleb. Your great love was Caleb. Your companion was me. Each of us loving different people, bound together by fate but not identically."
"He was my great love." You say it aloud, testing the words. "Truly?"
"Yes, and you were his. You were both too busy looking elsewhere to see it."
You look at your wrists. The marks are gone. Your skin is bare.
"They fade after death," Mei explains. "They no longer matter here. What matters is what we carry in our hearts."
You take both her hands.
"I love you, Mei. Maybe not the same way you loved me, but I loved you. I love you still."
"I know." Mei's smile is infinitely tender. "And that is enough. It has always been enough."
You stand there in silence, holding hands beneath the apple tree. The question rises in your throat before you can stop it.
"Do you think we would have been happy? If I had chosen you instead?"
Mei is quiet for a long moment.
"I think we were happy together in this life, in our own way. We loved each other, supported each other, shared moments of joy even in the midst of sorrow." She squeezes your hands. "What we had was real. Messy and painful at times, but real. I would not trade that for some imagined perfect version."
"But I could have loved you better. If I had known…"
"You loved me as well as you could with the understanding you had. That is all anyone can do." Mei guides you to the base of the apple tree. You settle into the grass together, shoulders touching. "We are here now. Together. As we were always meant to be, in some way."
"Will we see Caleb again?"
"Eventually, when his time comes." Mei glances at you. "Do you want to?"
You consider this.
Part of you wants to see him, to understand what he felt, what he wishes he had done differently, but part of you is afraid it will hurt all over again.
"I do not know," you admit.
"You have time to decide." Mei's voice is gentle. "This place is patient."
You sit in silence for a while, shoulders touching, listening to the wind move through the orchard. You think about Caleb, about the years he spent chasing Mei while you stood beside him, and you wonder if Mei ever resented being caught in the middle as much as you did.
Then Mei speaks, and her voice is different. Smaller and less certain.
"I was not always graceful about it. Loving you."
You turn to look at her.
"There were nights I hated you for not seeing me." She does not meet your eyes. "After he came to your chambers and you let him stay, after the Moon Festival, I lay in my room and thought terrible things. I thought, she knows. She has to know how I feel, and she simply does not care. I told myself you were selfish and blind and that I was a fool for staying."
Her hands are clasped tight in her lap.
"It passed. It always passed. By morning I would see you at breakfast, tired and sad and trying so hard to hold everything together, and the anger would dissolve, and all that remained was the wanting." She exhales. "But the resentment was there. I carried it alongside the love, and some nights, the resentment was louder."
You reach over and take her hands, uncurling her fingers.
"You are allowed to have been angry with me."
"I know, but I wanted you to hear it from me, not imagine me as someone who never struggled. I struggled. I raged. I wept into my pillow and cursed the marks and wished I had been born loving anyone else." Mei finally looks at you. Her eyes are bright. "And then morning would come, and you would smile at me, and I would think, oh, there you are, and it would start all over again."
You pull her close and hold her, and she lets you, and neither of you speaks for a long time. Then something shifts, a thought that has been circling the edges of your mind for longer than you want to admit finally settles where you can see it clearly.
"I did to you what he did to me."
Mei goes still beside you.
"Caleb kept me close but never truly saw me. He valued my presence but not my heart. He decided what I was to him before he ever asked." Your voice is steady, but your hands are not. "And I did the same thing to you. Every day. For years."
"That is not…”
"It is." You do not let her soften this. "You tried to tell me. In the kitchen with the herbs, you were telling me in the only way you had left, and I walked away. When you asked me for permission to refuse him, I said no, not because it was the right thing, but because it was easier for me. I made you carry his attention so I would not have to watch my marriage fall apart. I used you, Mei. The same way the arrangement used all of us, I used you."
Mei is quiet for a long time.
"You did not mean to."
"Neither did Caleb. He did not mean to overlook me. He was not cruel on purpose. He simply never questioned what he assumed." You turn to face her. "I never questioned either. I decided you were my companion and I stopped looking. I stopped asking what you needed, what you wanted, whether you were happy. I saw what was convenient and I never looked deeper."
"You were suffering too. You were trying to survive."
"So was he. That did not make it hurt less when he looked through me." You take her hands. "I am not asking you to forgive me. I am asking you to let me say this, because you deserve to hear someone name what was done to you instead of dressing it up as fate or duty or sacrifice."
Mei's composure fractures. It is small, a tremor in her jaw, the unshed in her eyes, but it is the most unguarded you have ever seen her.
"I waited a very long time," she whispers, "for someone to say that."
"I know. I am sorry it took me dying to get here."
A sound escapes her that is half laugh, half sob. She presses her forehead against your joined hands.
"You insufferable woman," she breathes. "Even now, you find a way to break my heart."
"I think that is what we do to each other. It seems to be our particular talent."
Mei finally laughs, wet and raw and real. You stay like that for a long time. Long enough for the trembling to stop. Long enough for the orchard to settle around you again.
When you finally pull apart, Mei wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, and the gesture is so ordinary, so human, that it makes your chest ache
"Tell me about my daughter," you say softly.
"She has a wonderful life. Bright and curious and loved. She grows up with her grandmother, learning to sew and tend the garden. She laughs often. She is happy."
Relief floods through you.
"Good. That is good."
"She looks like you, except for the eyes. Those are all Caleb."
You close your eyes. The orchard is peaceful, and safe, you could stay here forever.
"Mei?"
"Yes?"
"I am glad you are here. I am glad we have this."
"So am I.”
"Even when the marks fade?"
"Especially then. Because when the marks are gone, we know the love was never about what was written on our skin. It was about what we chose to give each other, day after day, even when it cost us everything."
Mei leans in and presses her lips to your forehead, soft and lingering.
"Rest now. You have been tired for so long. Rest."
So you do.
You rest in the orchard, in the place where your childhood lived, where your memories are sweetest.
You rest beside the girl who loved you more than you ever knew, who gave everything for you and never asked for anything in return.
And for the first time in forever, you sleep without grief.
The End
⚜ an: writing let the light in part two frustrated me so much because i can't get the angst right that i ended up focusing on this fic instead. this is also my first attempt writing an f/f fic so please be kind to me. as always your likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated!
one of my favorite kinds of non mc angst is when you have stood by the boys through every lifetime, so much so that your presence has become a quiet certainty for them.
they expect you to always be by their side, moving through the world as if your loyalty is as certain as the sunrise.
and whether they are blind to your feelings, consumed in their quest to reunite with mc, or simply incapable of truly seeing you, they’ll never choose you.
still, you remain, tethered to their side through every heartbreak.
but when you find out your cycle of reincarnation is finally ending, you keep it to yourself. is it selfish? perhaps. but your heart is weary, your love is stretched thin, and you know that if your devotion was never returned before, it never will be.
so when you finally slip away—cradled in their arms during a mission, surrendering your soul to the ocean at a seamoon ceremony, or resting among a field of datura flowers—they mourn you. of course they do. tears will fill their eyes as they whisper your name into the silence.
but some part of them knows you’ll come back.
you always do.
they’re certain you’ll return just as you always have, and that soon enough you’ll be smiling beside them again, teasing them like nothings changed.
you always return as yourself—changed in small ways, perhaps, but still marked by the beauty spot beneath your eye or the gentle brown of your gaze.
your face may shift with each timeline, but the faint scar along your arm from protecting him from wanderers or the wound over your heart always remains.
it’s all a quiet testament of your love.
so when the next cycle comes, and they cannot find you in a scattered crowd of villagers, when they don’t sense your presence in a university hallway, when they wait for you to find them in a game of hide and seek on a playground—the one right next to your father’s house—or amongst the last remaining lemurians who reside in verona, they begin to question it.
they start to wonder.
where were you? what’s taking you so long to come back to them?
where is the one who knows them best? the girl who shares every memory, who understands their purpose, who feels their pain more deeply than anyone else?
simply put—
where are you?
but the truth is painfully simple.
you are not here.
not anymore.
your soul is finally at peace, and alongside it, your love.
or maybe, somewhere in the world, you still exist.
maybe you grew up wrapped in the warmth of a loving family. maybe you still remember the warnings of hunters past and steer clear of those forbidden no hunt zones.
maybe you attend college, or perhaps you open a flower shop in a city where no one knows your name.
maybe every night you dream of a life you have never lived, with a man whose face you have never seen.
maybe you are sitting right beside them, by the sea or on a park bench, laughing at a joke you just told, while he absentmindedly takes your hand in his.
and maybe when you wake with tears drying on your cheeks, you’re confused, unable to understand what it all means.
but dreams fade the longer you remain awake, and slowly, you return to your life.
you feed your cat. you take out the trash. you spend a tuesday afternoon tackling a week's worth of laundry.
you live through mundane, ordinary moments.
you meet up with old colleagues for brunch, talking to your mother on the phone while waiting for the next train. you reply to the messages of a man you matched with online and let him take you out for a drink or two, thanking him at the end of the night for the fun you had.
the next day, you pass by a mural painted by a well-known artist from whitesand bay, leaving you so awestruck that you take a quick snapshot to post on your moments page before continuing on your way.
you arrive at akso hospital, stepping into the lobby to find the rest of your family sitting anxiously for news of your niece’s birth. you sit beside them, praying for the time to pass more quickly, absentmindedly reading the framed research credits of a 28-year-old cardiac surgeon hanging on the wall nearby.
and when you return home that night, head stuck in the clouds, swiping at the hundreds of photos you took of your sister's baby girl, someone stops you in the street.
their eyes—sky blue, violet-gold, or cotton-candy—search your face with overwhelming relief, haunted by a grief that feels centuries old.
“i’m so glad i found you again,” they’ll whisper as their arms wrap around you, the embrace tight enough to keep you from pulling away so easily, but gentle enough not to steal your breath.
“i missed you so much. where have you been?”
you freeze, fear rooting you into place as a voice inside urges you to fight, to punch, to kick, to scream—anything to break free from the arms of someone you don’t know.
you tense, and they feel it immediately. they notice your stillness, your lack of recognition, and finally, they let you go, albeit slowly.
their hands settle gently against your shoulders, smiling with a softness you have never seen directed to you, and they ask again:
“where have you been?”
you force yourself backward, taking three deliberate steps to create space between you, your left hand already searching your purse for anything to defend yourself with.
