This little corner of the internet is a fresh start—not the ‘90s kind of fresh, but the phoenix rising from the ashes kind. My original blog vanished into the void, and while I’m still mourning, I’m here, rebuilding, weaving words back into existence. So if you’re reading this, consider yourself officially invited to stay awhile. Maybe even give me a follow and a virtual hug.
I am a dreamer, a storyteller, a seeker of depth and meaning. I crave both freedom and comfort, mystery and warmth. I live in the space between softness and steel, between fire and quiet rebellion. I write because I have to—because stories spill from me like ink onto parchment, like whispered secrets carried by the wind.
Here, you’ll find words in every shade of emotion—fluff, angst, smut, comedy, but always with heart. Character arcs and epic stories are my lifeblood. I live for deep dives into personalities, unraveling layers, and seeing what makes fictional souls tick.
This is a place for my writings, my musings, and my fandom love—Ikemen Prince, Vampire & Villains (Cybird), and Court of Darkness (Voltage). If you’re here for brooding princes, mischievous tricksters, and the occasional emotionally devastating love story—welcome home.
I’m an INFP, a lover of deep conversations, a collector of emotions. Small talk isn’t my thing—I want to know what makes your soul light up. I value authenticity above all else. No pretense, no masks, just the raw, unfiltered self.
Below, you’ll find my Masterlist of Writings, where lost words are finding their way home again. If something speaks to you, like it, reblog it, breathe life into it. Let’s create, connect, and dream together.
Wistful, wild, and waiting to be written.
Masterlist
Click here for: Most Loved Fics by Wistful
~Ikemen Vampire~
Autumn 2025 Request Fics
"The Alchemy of Pleasure" - Leonardo x Reader (NSFW)
"Let the Rain Witness" - Vlad x Reader
Winter/Christmas 2025 Request Fics
"Where Resistance Surrenders" - Leonardo x Reader
"A Matter of Restraint" - Leonardo x Reader
~Ikemen Prince ~
Bloodstained Roses: Ikemen Lore Series:
"The Weight of Roses" - The King & Belle
"What the Roses Knew" - Belle & Jin
"The Thorned Prince" - Jin Grandet
"The Hollow Throne" - The King & Lady Michel
"The Hollow Queen" - Lady Michel & Chevalier
"The Rose Beyond Reach" - Chevalier Michel
"The Ashen Crown" - The King & Lady Leticia
"Whispers in the Glass" - Ikepri Modern AU Horror
Prologue
Chapter One: The Last One to See Them
Chapter Two: Written in Pencil
Chapter Three: Lingering in the Glass
Chapter Four: What Mercy Owes to Hunger
Chapter Five: Only Survival Matters
Chapter Six: The Almosts
Chapter Seven: The Kindest Voice
Chapter Eight: A Lesson in Wanting
Clavis Collections
"Kintsugi" - Clavis x Reader (Secret Santa Gift for my friend, RJ)
"Ethics and Aesthetics 201" - Modern College AU pt. 1
"Not Every Mask is a Lie" - Modern College AU pt. 2
"The Compass and the Blade" - Modern College AU pt. 3
"Sleight of Heart" - Modern College AU pt. 4
"A Birthday Trap of the Best Kind" - Your Birthday Chaos
"A Lesson in Losing" - Pinned Love pt. 1 (NSFW)
Clavis x Cassandra (landing page)
Chevalier x Riven
Silvio x Serafina
Autumn 2025 Request Fics
"The Warmth We Make" - Licht x Reader
"Stay Until the Ashes" - Gilbert x Reader
"As Steady as the Rain" - Nokto x Reader
"The Alchemy of Pleasure" - Leonardo x Reader (NSFW)
"Every Turn Leads Back to You" - Clavis x Cassandra
"Your Favorite Disturbance" - Clavis x Reader
"A Kingdom Built of Bruises" - Gilbert x Reader
"Where Dawn Finds Us" - Clavis x Reader
"A Lantern for the Lost" - Gilbert & Chevalier
"A Morning Made of You" - Leon x Reader
"The Shape of Want" - Chevalier x Reader
"For All Night Like This" - Clavis x Cassandra
Winter/Christmas 2025 Request Fics
"A Holiday Kiss for the Chaos Prince" - Clavis x Cassandra
Vibe & a Line Asks
"Chest-Forward Literature" - Jin x Reader
"A Most Defenseless Woman" - Chevalier, Clavis, & Reader
"Sprawled Like Trouble" - Clavis Lelouch & Reader
"Not What it Looks Like" - Yves, Clavis, & Reader
"Still Under the Same Sky" - Licht & Reader
Lyssaria la Vienrosa - Rhodolitian Side Blog
~Court of Darkness ~
"Whispers of the Heart" - Toa x Reader
"The Crimson Waltz" - Guy x Reader
"The Art of Compliments" - Guy & Princes
"Radiant Rebellion" - Lance x Reader (named Lilia)
i love reading peoples little fantasies, like u got this whole intricate hallucination going that u are articulating for me to live it with u. like pls go on i want that hallucination too
I've been trying to figure out how to write this for a while.
A couple of months ago, I experienced the end of a friendship. It wasn't entirely unexpected. There had been things that were rather "off" for a long time, and I had been wrestling with difficult feelings for quite a while.
What I didn't expect was how it would end.
Those who know me well know that when I'm hurt, my first instinct is usually to turn inward. I tend to assume I've done something wrong, keep my feelings to myself, and spend far too much time examining my own faults and trying to fix anything that can possibly be a flaw.
This time, I tried to do something different.
Instead of carrying the hurt alone, I tried to communicate. I tried to express feelings I'd been holding onto and have an honest conversation about things that had been weighing on me. Not because I wanted a fight, but because I cared enough to try and trusted the person enough to think they'd listen.
I genuinely hoped it would lead to understanding, or at the very least, closure.
Instead, I was met with name-calling, accusations, and some very deliberate poking at insecurities I'd shared in confidence. Before I had much time to process any of it, I was blocked everywhere and every door was slammed shut.
I'm not sharing this because I want sympathy or because I want anyone to be angry on my behalf. Life is complicated, people are complicated, and every story has more than one perspective.
But I do want to be honest about why I've been absent.
For a long time, writing has been one of the places where I feel most like myself. It's where I process emotions, explore ideas, and connect with people. After everything happened, I found myself struggling to do something that has always come naturally to me. Every time I sat down to write, I felt drained. Every time I thought about posting, I felt vulnerable in a way I hadn't before.
I think part of me lost confidence. Part of me lost trust. And part of me was simply grieving.
Not necessarily the loss of the friendship itself, but the experience of finally choosing honesty over silence and having that vulnerability answered with cruelty instead of conversation.
That hit harder than I expected.
Shortly afterward, I spent three weeks in Italy. The timing was unexpected, but in many ways it was exactly what I needed. I wandered beautiful streets, saw incredible things, ate wonderful food, and gave myself permission to step away from social media, fandom, expectations, and all the noise in my head.
It didn't magically fix everything.
Healing rarely works that way.
But it gave me space to breathe.
And slowly, over these past weeks, I've started feeling something I haven't felt in a while:
The desire to create again.
The desire to tell stories again.
The desire to come back.
So if you've been waiting on updates, wondering where I've disappeared to, or checking in on unfinished projects, thank you. Truly.
Your kindness over the years has meant more than I can adequately express.
I'm not promising that I'll immediately return to my old pace. I'm still finding my footing. But I want to write again. I want to share again. I want to reconnect with this little corner of the internet that has brought me so much joy.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for your grace.
And thank you for staying.
❤️
Usual Ikemen Tag List: @ithseem @chirp-a-chirp @aquagirl1978 @queengiuliettafirstlady @nyxthepixystick
🖋️ Line & a Vibe: "A Most Defenseless Woman" Clavis (Comedy)
Submitted Line: “Hey, you don't do that. No pointing your sword at a defenseless woman!”
@avellanas-nutty-empire Hope you enjoy the silliness!
✨ Want to play too? Toss me a line and a vibe → Original Post Here 💌
(Send a single dialogue line + a vibe or genre—I'll spin it into a drabble or one-shot!)
Submitted Line: Clavis, Ikemen Prince
Title: "A Most Defenseless Woman"
Vibe: Comedy → Sibling Chaos → Tactical Threats
“You’re holding it wrong,” Chevalier says, his tone as flat and precise as the gleaming blade you grip. His voice cuts through the cool morning air like a measured strike. “Again.”
You adjust your grip on his sword, the weight of it feeling as heavy as your own determined heart. Every muscle in your arm tenses as you focus on the challenge before you.
Chevalier steps back just enough to give you room—his presence calm and unyielding. “Point it here,” he instructs, tapping the center of his chest with two long, deliberate fingers. “And commit. No hesitation.”
A nervous swallow escapes your lips as you squint at him. “And I’m…supposed to point this at you?”
“Yes.” His reply is curt, almost clinical.
You blink in confusion. “Won’t that hurt?”
He fixes you with a stare that could freeze molten steel. “Only if you’re competent.”
“Gee, thanks,” you murmur under your breath, half-amused and half-dismayed.
With trembling determination, you raise the sword slowly, each motion measured, still wondering if this isn’t some kind of cruel test. The cool metal feels alien in your grasp as you inch closer to the target.
Just then, from behind a nearby tree—bounding with that unmistakable, irreverent energy—comes a familiar voice:
“Hey, you don’t do that. No pointing your sword at a defenseless woman!”
You jump, the sword nearly slipping from your hands as adrenaline surges. In an instant, Clavis appears, his entrance as flamboyant as ever. He wears an expression of utmost feigned horror, his eyes wide and glistening, and his gloved hand flies dramatically to his chest as if he might faint at any moment.
“Honestly, I leave you two alone for five minutes,” he hisses, his tone dripping with theatrical indignation, “and already someone’s threatening the kingdom’s most delicate flower.”
Chevalier exhales slowly—a measured, almost imperceptible sigh that seems to consider every decision leading to this absurd moment. “Leave.”
Clavis gasps, his eyes widening further. “Such cruelty. And after I defended your honor!” he exclaims, feigning deep emotional injury.
“Wait.” You blink, caught between confusion and amusement. “Clavis, are you calling Chevalier a defenseless woman?”
“Obviously.” Clavis gestures grandly toward Chevalier’s pristine, barely concealed irritation. “Look at him—ethereal, fragile, tragically misunderstood. The very image of feminine vulnerability. Really, he’s just one corset away from a tragic heroine.”
Chevalier’s eyes narrow. “I could kill you with the scabbard alone,” he states, his voice as crisp as falling snow.
Clavis leans in close to you conspiratorially, lowering his voice to an urgent whisper just for you. “See? She’s furious. This is what happens when you train women in the art of war. Hormones. Rage. Stabbing.”
Chevalier turns his cool gaze on you. “Stab him.” The command is delivered with a detached finality that leaves no room for debate.
You glance back and forth between the two—a mix of exasperation and amusement coloring your tone as you sigh. “Does sword training always turn into this?”
“No.” Chevalier’s lips twitch ever so slightly as he holds out his hand. You hand his sword back to him. “But I’ll remove the variable.” He turns toward Clavis with deliberate calm, as if correcting a minor miscalculation.
At that, Clavis yelps dramatically and begins to backpedal behind a tree. “If I’m found dead, tell them I died as I lived—beautiful, misunderstood, and unfairly persecuted by family!”
Clavis Moments Snippet - College AU Pt 2
Clavis Lelouch x Reader
Fandom: Ikemen Prince
Word Count: 1171
Summary: Modern College AU
Not Every Mask is a Lie
The classroom emptied out slowly.
Chairs scraped. Boots thudded.
Voices tangled—half-formed arguments tripping over each other
as students scrambled to assemble their next
“Very Important Opinions”
before reaching the hallway.
The air buzzed faintly with the scent of old upholstery
and chalk dust—
clinging like memory.
Slanting light spilled across empty desks,
catching pale motes and paper scraps—
like the afterthought of a storm.
A breeze slipped in through the cracked window—
tinged with ivy, stone,
and something softer.
Like the ghost of rain on parchment.
Clavis didn’t move.
He remained sprawled in his seat, longer than usual—
posture all loose grace,
but his eyes were sharp—tracking the last exit like a predator
that hadn’t decided whether or not to give chase.
A black fountain pen spun between his fingers
in slow, practiced loops—
as if it might explode if he stopped.
He watched the door where she had disappeared only moments earlier.
The air still held her shape somehow.
Not physically—
but in the hush she left behind.
Like the dream of a melody
you couldn’t hum,
but knew had changed you.
She moved like someone who didn’t need to be seen
to be remembered.
No hesitation.
No hurry.
Just a kind of quiet conviction
that made the world tilt around her
instead of the other way around.
His gaze drifted to the windowsill where she’d been,
half-expecting to see her still there,
caught in sunlight and violet ink.
Ridiculous.
He was romanticizing her.
Which was—frankly—unacceptable.
Worse:
it wasn’t just in his head.
Then, with a breath too steady to be casual,
he rose.
He stretched like a cat waking from a nap
it pretended not to enjoy—
spine lengthening, coat shifting with the motion.
And then—he yawned.
Loudly.
Theatrically.
As if to remind the room he hadn’t cared about any of it.
Not really.
“Well,” he murmured to no one in particular,
“at least someone made class worth attending today.”
The words slid out too easily.
And rang too true.
He slung his satchel over one shoulder.
The strap creaked against the leather of his coat—
a long, dark overcoat with gold-stitched cuffs
and a stormy purple lining
that whispered at his ankles when he walked.
Beneath it, a tailored charcoal blazer.
Under that, a lavender turtleneck—
plush, unexpected, too warm for the weather,
too deliberate not to be a choice.
His trousers, of course, were perfectly pressed.
Which was impressive
for someone who claimed he'd rolled out of bed
five minutes before lecture.
As he turned to go, something caught his eye.
A sliver of cream, tucked delicately into the edge of the windowsill—
right where she’d been sitting.
A thin envelope, sealed with a faint press of wax,
a small dried flower tucked into the fold.
White petals, tinged faintly violet at the throat.
He paused.
Brow lifting.
Heart—irritatingly—tapping once against his ribs.
Not a flutter.
Not quite.
Just enough to notice.
“Oh?” he murmured, stepping closer.
The envelope came free with a slow drag of two fingers—
like the pull of a fuse just before it lights.
He turned it in his palm,
examining it with the same attention he gave
to dangerous things disguised as delicate ones.
“A secret admirer already?”
His voice was low. Wry.
“Tch. My reputation’s slipping.”
But it didn’t feel like flirtation.
Didn’t feel like a dare.
It felt like something she hadn’t meant for anyone to find.
Especially not him.
The flower.
The placement.
The fact that it hadn’t been left for him at all—
but he was the one who found it.
He should walk away.
Toss it.
Laugh.
But instead,
he stood there,
motionless.
Fingers curled around the paper
like it might bleed if held wrong.
And hating—
hating—
how it made him feel
like someone had left behind a truth
and forgotten
he wasn't the kind of person
who believed in meaning.
He turned the envelope over.
Of course he did.
It was thick.
Textured.
Handmade, probably.
The scent struck him in soft, unfolding layers—
lilac warmed by old wood,
rain-soaked parchment,
and something deeper underneath.
Resin, maybe.
The ghost of ink.
A memory sealed inside.
There was no name.
No mark of who it belonged to
or who it was for.
No reason to open it.
No reason not to.
He broke the seal carefully—
carefully, for once—
and drew out the single folded slip inside.
Handwriting.
Slanted.
Elegant.
A little wistful.
Like it had meant something
when she wrote it.
He read the note.
“A mask is only beautiful if it’s chosen.Not every mask is a lie.Some are armor.Some are kindness.”
He stared at the words.
His hand tightened slightly around the paper—
like part of him wanted to crumple it.
And the rest
couldn’t bear to.
He read it again.
Then again.
And this time,
he didn’t smirk.
Didn’t scoff.
Didn’t say something outrageous
to jolt himself back
into that safe, familiar numbness.
The room was unchanged.
The lights still buzzed faintly overhead.
Somewhere, the old radiator groaned—
like the room itself had opinions.
But for a moment,
everything felt off-axis.
Tilted.
Like the world had turned
without asking.
Somewhere—
uninvited, unwelcome—
he heard Chevalier’s voice:
“Attachment clouds judgment.”
Clavis’s jaw tightened.
Of course he heard it now.
Cold.
Clean.
Exacting.
Like care was a crack in the armor.
Like noticing someone—
really noticing them—
meant they could be used against you.
And the worst part?
He didn’t even disagree.
Maybe he was startled it didn’t sting.
Or maybe that was the sting—
that it didn’t feel like a threat.
It felt like recognition.
Like memory.
The dried flower rested in his palm.
Fragile.
Honest.
Like something delicate
he hadn’t yet decided how to hold.
“Not every mask is a lie.”
The words echoed in his mind—
soft,
but persistent.
Like something he’d heard once in a dream
and never quite forgotten.
Or remembered
from a lifetime he hadn’t lived.
He folded the paper
with the kind of precision
he reserved for traps,
detonators,
and letters to Chevalier’s secretaries.
Then slid it—
with its pressed flower—
into the inner lining of his coat,
where he kept things
he didn’t want anyone to know
he’d kept at all.
A breath escaped him.
Not quite a sigh.
More like surrender
disguised as indifference.
“So she’s not just playing back,” he murmured.
Then frowned.
Was she?
Or had he just stumbled
into someone else’s truth
and mistaken it
for an invitation?
He paused.
And then, softer—
barely more than breath—
“...Interesting.”
And just like that,
he was gone.
Coat catching the air
like a storm behind him,
boots whispering against marble—
measured,
but impossible not to ignore.
His steps were light as mischief
and twice as intentional.
Already thinking
of ten different ways
to draw her out again.
He should burn the note.
He’d burned better things before.
But this time,
he didn’t reach for it.
Something about it threaded itself through him—
quiet as a secret,
loud as a vow he didn’t remember making.
🕸 "Whispers in the Glass" 🕸
(Ikemen Prince Horror AU)
Read the Story So Far:
➔ Prologue
Chapter One: The Last One to See Them
“What if the one everyone trusts
is always the last to see them?”
It always began with fevered heat.
His lips claimed hers like fire searching for oxygen—deep, urgent, desperate to consume. His hands framed her face as though she were precious, irreplaceable, the only thing in the world worth holding. The press of his body left no room for doubt, no space for fear, only the surety that she was wanted—more than wanted. Worshipped, as though her very breath were his salvation.
The air wrapped itself in the smell of him, the rasp of his breath at her ear, the low murmur of words that sounded like vows. Mine. Always mine. His voice was rough with feeling, the kind that made her spine arch and her pulse race until she thought her heart might break from the force of it.
In those moments, she was alive in a way waking life never touched. She kissed him back like drowning, like she might die without the taste of him. And in the heat of his devotion, she was certain—so certain—that she had been chosen, claimed, adored.
But dreams are liars.
At first it was small things—kisses that ended too soon, touches that cooled before they burned. She told herself it was nothing, only her own fear playing tricks. Yet soon the silence stretched. Where there had been fire, there was distance. His hand slipped from hers, not with cruelty, not with goodbye, but with indifference—like the absence of touch had always been there.
And then came the worst part: nothing at all. No messages. No laughter meant for her. He walked past her in the hall as though she were air, as though he had never traced her lips with promises and kissed them into her skin.
But he still smiled. Still laughed.Just not with her.
She heard it spill from his lips when he leaned too close to other girls. Saw the light in his eyes—the same light she once thought belonged only to her—now shining easily, carelessly, as if it had never been hers to keep.
It wasn’t a break. No slammed doors, no cruel words to mark the end. That was the torment. He hadn’t left. His desire had simply withered, decayed in silence, leaving her clutching the corpse of what once had been alive.
She tried everything. Painted her mouth with the smile he used to crave, wore dresses like offerings laid at an altar—trembling hands fastening each ribbon as if silk and thread could tether him back. She twisted herself into hollow reflections, every motion a sacrifice to the fire that had already burned out.
But he never turned.
She watched from across the room, heart thundering as he bent his head toward another, as if the sacred things he had once said to her were nothing but lines rehearsed for whoever came next.
The hollowness was a hunger with teeth. It devoured her ribs, gnawed marrow from her bones, carved her chest raw and echoing until all she could hear was the splintering sound of her own heart breaking.
Had she dreamed the devotion? Imagined the fire? Or worse—had it been real, only to fade like smoke through careless fingers?
The ache became ritual. She begged without words, without dignity, without end. She told herself he would remember. That he had to. That no one could be held so fiercely, so reverently, only to be forgotten.
And yet, the dream always closed the same way:
Him walking away.Her voice breaking as she called.The sharp, cold certainty that she was no longer anything at all.
She woke gasping, reaching for a body that wasn’t there, throat raw from pleas that had never passed her lips. Her pulse thundered in her ears, her skin damp with dream-heat, the phantom burn of his mouth still pressed against hers.
A deep voice cut through the haze.
“Miss? We’re here.”
Her eyes flew open. The world reeled between dream and waking, and for a heartbeat she could not tell which was worse. Always, it ended the same. Always, she woke with the same truth pressed like iron against her ribs: it wasn’t the kiss that haunted her, but the silence after—the silence that seeped into her bones, curling close like a shadow that whispered she had been abandoned, erased, forgotten.
She pressed her hands to the seat beneath her, grounding herself in the scuffed leather, the faint smell of tobacco and rain. The dream clung like cobwebs—thin, fragile, suffocating—and she grasped at ordinary textures as though they alone could keep her from unraveling.
“Miss?” The driver’s gaze flicked to her in the mirror, his hands poised on the gear shift.
She drew in a breath, her voice unsteady. “Sorry—I didn’t mean to drift off.”
The driver gave a noncommittal nod, already turning back to the road.
The taxi pulled away with a sigh of gravel, leaving her alone at the base of the long stone path. She clutched her suitcase, its weight steady in her hand, though nothing could steady the ache still clawing at her chest.
The academy rose ahead of her, startling in its beauty—turrets piercing a flawless sky, pale walls gleaming like bone, banners stirring faintly in the breeze. A fountain spilled light into diamonds across the air, while roses blazed in full bloom along the walkways—so many roses, red and pink and ivory, their perfume heavy enough to taste.
It should have been beautiful. It was beautiful. Yet the sight caught in her throat. The brightness felt too sharp, the roses too many, their sweetness almost cloying—as if the whole place had been dressed in loveliness the way a body might be dressed for burial.
But, of course, that was only the dream’s fault. The ache it always left behind. Just her, still shaking it off.
She tightened her grip on the suitcase and lifted her chin, willing herself forward. Gravel crunched beneath her shoes; roses leaned close with their heavy perfume. The windows stared down from above—rows of glass, cold and watchful, catching the morning light. The whole place seemed to hush around her, as though it were holding its breath.
Halfway up the path, she slowed. One of the tall windows above the fountain had darkened for the briefest moment—like someone had passed behind the glass.
But when she blinked, the window was empty again, shining too brightly to hold a shadow.
Her chest tightened, the dream still clinging in pieces. She almost turned back—
“Welcome to Rhodolite Academy,” said a voice, low and resonant, carrying the steadiness of someone used to welcoming strangers, warm enough to soften the morning’s chill.
She startled, looking toward the sound.
A young man stood a few steps away—tall, broad-shouldered, his presence not heavy but fresh, like the first clean breath after storm. The academy uniform might have seemed severe on anyone else—black blazer marked with the gold-trimmed rose crest, crisp white shirt beneath—but he wore it carelessly graceful, the loosened crimson tie threaded with gold softening the formality. His dark hair, brushed back but already unruly in the breeze, caught the sun and turned burnished at the edges. Yet what truly disarmed was his smile—open, bright, edged with mischief—and the warmth in his golden eyes, a light that refused to dim.
Before she could protest, he reached for her suitcase, taking it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“First day?” His smile made it easy to nod. “I’m Leon. I’ll walk you in.” The words carried the practiced rhythm of a line he had spoken before, smoothed by repetition until it sounded as natural as breathing.
He pivoted smoothly toward the courtyard, moving as if the stones had been laid down just for his stride. She followed, suitcase lighter in his hand than it had ever felt in hers. The building rose taller with every step, its rows of windows catching the light like watchful eyes. She tried not to stare too long at them, tried not to imagine her reflection scattered across the glass.
“It really is beautiful,” she said at last, her voice steadier than her hands. “I read the bells ring every day, all year long. I like that. It makes a place feel…alive.”
“Beautiful, yeah,” Leon agreed easily, his smile quick and unforced. “But it changes with the seasons. Spring makes it gentle. Fall makes it honest. You’re arriving at the honest part.” His gaze lingered on the looming building with the weight of someone who believed the word meant more than weather.
His gaze slid toward her then—not just a passing glance, but the kind of quick, measuring look that caught the tremor she thought she’d hidden. Golden eyes softened, warm enough to say he understood even without her telling him. When he leaned a little nearer, there was a brightness to him—sunlit citrus touched with neroli, clean and golden as dawn.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said—and almost meant it. Something in her chest was strung too tight. New place, new start, new chances—her mother had spoken the words like both blessing and warning. A place where you’ll be seen.
But the dream lingered behind her ribs like a warm stone. In it she was loved, adored—until his hands slipped from hers and she watched him grow bored. Every morning she tried to pretend it was someone else’s story, something overheard and easily forgotten. But the dream never let go. You want too much, it seemed to scold. You ask to be held forever.
She forced a breath, and the ache of it clung close. But the shift of light changed everything as Leon pushed the doors open, and the world inside stole her breath before memory could steal it back.
The entryway belonged to another century. The style was unmistakable—late Gothic revival, all soaring glass and carved ironwork—architecture designed as much to intimidate as to inspire. Light spilled down through towering panes, fractured by old iron tracery, softening against polished wood and a sweep of crimson carpet.
A chandelier, heavy with crystal, glimmered above the grand staircase. She knew the shape—nineteenth century French, tiers meant for candlelight long before electricity was common. Here, the flames had been replaced by bulbs shaped to mimic them, their glow steady where fire should have flickered. It should have felt modern, safer, but instead the imitation carried its own unease—like a memory forced to keep living.
Bouquets of roses wound their way along the banisters—scarlet blooms against dark garlands, their perfume faint but unmistakable. It stirred old customs she’d read about, when flowers weren’t decoration but talismans: beauty set against decay, reminders of how quickly petals wither.
It was beautiful, achingly so, the kind of beauty that pressed close, lush and a little too heavy, as if it knew how easily admiration could slide into unease.
She paused just inside, her fingers curling tighter around the strap of her bag. The academy’s heart was not cold stone after all, but something warmer, older, dressed in velvet and roses. Yet her historian’s eye whispered what her chest already felt—that grandeur this staged was always a mask, meant to impress, to conceal as much as to reveal. And the hush in the air was not silence but waiting, as though the place itself held its breath.
“Not bad, right?” Leon’s voice broke the stillness, bright and easy, tugging her back from the edge of unease. He flashed her a grin, the kind that made shadows scatter. “Don’t worry. It looks dramatic, but you get used to it. Everyone does. I’ve said it a hundred times before.” He tipped his head toward the chandelier, catching its glint in his eyes. “The roses are just showing off.”
His tone pulled a small laugh from her, and for a moment the weight in her chest loosened. He made it feel almost ordinary, as if the shadows had been imagined, as if the silence was only silence. Almost.
Leon caught the glance she cast back toward the windows and tipped his head, a mischievous spark lighting his eyes.
“Careful,” he said lightly. “If you keep looking over your shoulder like that, the Academy might think you’re already afraid of it. And once it thinks that…” His grin tilted, practiced but warm. “Well. Let’s just say I’ve seen how that ends.”
Heat rose to her cheeks before she could answer, and his grin widened as if that was exactly the reaction he’d been aiming for.
“You’re supposed to check in with the headmaster,” he added after a beat, his tone shifting back to business. “Sariel Noir.”
Something flickered behind the name—like a shadow that brushed even his easy confidence. A name spoken carefully, as though it carried weight.
“Yes,” she said. “I know. Just…easier to say I got lost than admit I needed a second before walking into all this.”
“Smart to pause,” Leon murmured, and the line fell too smoothly—like a reassurance he had given many times before. “Most don’t, and the Academy eats them alive quicker for it.”
Her pulse hitched, uncertain if he was teasing or if something sharper hid beneath the warmth of his smile.
Then, as if he hadn’t said anything strange at all, he brightened. “Do you want to freshen up first? Offices are upstairs, but the ground-floor bathrooms are closer. Big day.”
She did want to—her palms were damp, her blouse clinging uncomfortably beneath the blazer, her skirt creased from the long ride. A loose strand of wavy hair had slipped free, brushing against her cheek no matter how she tried to tuck it back. And if she admitted it, she wanted the reassurance of a mirror—just to see herself whole, neat, not frayed around the edges by nerves and travel.
“Please.”
He smiled like it was a relief that she’d asked him for something. For a moment his gaze lingered—on the stray hair she kept trying to tame, on the line of her shoulders as if memorizing the way she carried herself. There was no mockery in it, only a flicker of interest he didn’t bother to hide before his grin softened it back into ease.
Her stomach fluttered, sharp as the drop on a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. It was too familiar, that sudden sense of being wanted, and for a heartbeat it pressed against the dream still lodged in her ribs. The same ache, the same pull—but this time she was awake, and his eyes were real. That was what unsettled her most.
“This way.”
He turned toward the corridor, suitcase in hand as though it weighed nothing. The motion drew his sleeve tight, a brief glimpse of muscle flexing beneath the wool, the strength tucked too neatly under tailored lines. She fell into step beside him, her shoes clicking against marble in time with his stride. Close enough now to catch the quiet warmth of rose and honeysuckle softened by polished leather—safety wrapped in something steadier, like a garden still holding the rain. Every now and then she glanced at him—at the easy line of his shoulders, the careless swing of his loosened tie—and it startled her, how quickly she noticed. How quickly she wanted to.
The third time, Leon’s mouth curved, just enough to let her know he’d caught her. He didn’t look at her outright, just let the grin flicker there as if to say I see you.
Heat prickled along her skin, half embarrassment, half something else. She looked away first, but the smile lingered in her mind, tugging at her like a secret meant for her alone.
It wasn’t fair. The dream had taught her how dangerous it was to want too much, to believe too easily. Yet Leon’s warmth had already begun to bend the shadows back, like sunlight edging into a shuttered room. And she didn’t know whether to lean into it—or brace herself for the moment it would fade.
They turned down a narrower hall where the floorboards creaked as if learning her weight. The hush deepened here, the roses and chandeliers left behind, until it was only him at her side and the long stretch of shadowed corridor.
He stopped before a door marked LADIES in faded serif letters, the paint worn thin by years of hands pushing past. Balancing her suitcase easily in one hand, he leaned his shoulder to the opposite wall with a kind of practiced carelessness, as if the whole corridor belonged to him.
“I’ll wait just here,” he said, steady and certain, with the reassuring cadence of someone who had promised it before. “Take your time.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, ducking inside.
The air seemed close, heavy, as though every whisper spoken in that room had clung to the tiles and never left. The light softened everything it touched, kind to faces but merciless to silence. Two girls stood at the bank of sinks, their heads bent close to the mirror as if the glass had secrets it refused to share aloud.
One’s hair gleamed, coaxed into glossy, obedient waves; the other wore a constellation of freckles scattered like fate across her nose, her bangs falling in uncombed honesty. Their voices wove together too low to catch, the kind of murmurs that belonged to locker rooms and powder rooms, to the hidden sorcery of girls—urgent little stitches meant to hold some invisible seam from tearing open.
“...walking with Leon that night,” glossy-hair said, her lip gloss catching the light like a seal on her words. “He was the last person to see them—every time.”
Freckles swallowed, her throat shifting visibly. “She was always following him around. Maybe he—”
The door’s soft click cut their whisper sharp. They looked up and saw her—the new girl, the wrong girl—and their faces rearranged with polite speed, as if their expressions had been waiting just behind the glass all along.
“Sorry,” she said automatically, voice too quick, too thin. “I didn’t mean to—”
“We were just leaving,” glossy-hair said, smile blooming bright, so bright it bled at the edges like light caught on a knife. “Welcome.”
Freckles lifted a small wave, eyes skittering to the door and then back to the mirror as if it still held more than reflections. “First day? The Headmaster doesn’t like waiting.”
They drifted toward the door, silence pulling taut between them like a thread about to snap. Glossy-hair’s hand touched the knob, but her mouth couldn’t resist one last incision.
“Leon’s very kind,” she said to no one in particular, her tone bright as glass. “That’s all.”
The words clung faintly to her, though she couldn’t shape them into sense. Just another half-heard story that wasn’t hers. Yet.
The door closed behind them with a hush too exact, as though the room itself had swallowed their voices whole. Their perfume lingered—roses lacquered over with drugstore sugar—clinging to the damp air until it thickened, sweet enough to choke.
Leon’s name still echoed, caught between the tiles and the hiss of the pipes. The last person to see her. Very kind. That’s all.
It should have sounded harmless. Ordinary gossip. But the words had edges. They clung like burrs, drawing blood only once you tried to brush them away.
Her gaze lifted to the mirror. The glass reflected only what it ought—her flushed cheeks, the one rebellious strand of hair—but the silence warped around it, uneasy, as though the mirror had overheard and was waiting for the right moment to whisper it back.
She smoothed her uniform, tugging the hem straight, then ran damp fingers over the wave that refused to stay in place. The gesture was practical, but it felt like a shield. Leon’s smile had followed her inside, steady as sunlight through a window, yet practiced enough that she wondered who else had seen it before. To step back out meant facing it again—only now the girls’ whispers clung like thorns at the edges of his name.
She turned from the sink, but the mirror held her still—its surface quiet, patient, as if waiting for her to look again and catch what it had overheard.
The latch clicked under her hand. The air of the hallway was cooler, sharper, as she stepped back through.
Leon straightened at once, all warm attention, as if he had been waiting only for her. A brightness clung to him, fresh as sun-warmed air with a trace of something green and sweet beneath it, the kind of warmth that steadied even as it pressed a little close. “Better?”
“Yes,” she lied. The rumor coated her tongue with chalk. She wanted to ask—about the girls’ whispers, about who she was, who they were, and if his kindness was truly what they claimed. Kindness could be a vow—or a mask. And from a distance, from a dream, it was impossible to tell the difference.
Something shifted at the edge of her vision. A figure leaned against the wall as though the corridor were his drawing rooom—one ankle crossed over the other, arms loose, every line of him careless. His shirt was half-untucked, collar slack, the knot of his tie skewed just enough to look deliberate: silver crossed with a cool mint shade. His blazer sagged open, wrinkled from wear rather than pressed into obedience.
The grin arrived before the words—sly, delighted, the kind of smile made you wonder what he already knew.
“Ooh, a new girl,” he said, savoring it like a sweet. His voice curled with mock innocence before dipping into something darker, almost hungry. “They really shouldn’t tempt me like this.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks before she could stop it—mortification tangled with something sharper, quicker, that she shoved down as fast as it rose. The air thinned; the corridor shrank. It felt too narrow for her and his gaze at once.
A chill feathered the back of her neck. She couldn’t tell if it was the audacity of his grin or the easy way he wielded it—as if the very walls bent toward his amusement. For a heartbeat too long she forgot what she meant to do with her hands.
“Cut it out, Nokto.” Leon’s voice cut clean, warm as ever but edged with steel. He stepped half a pace closer, as though to place himself between them. The air shifted with his nearness, a faint impression of rain-washed gardens and worn leather, protective as a shield yet edged with a quiet weight that lingered after the warmth. “She’s not here for your games. Try to behave—for once.” His smile tugged at the corner, softening the reprimand into something that looked almost like a joke, though his amber eyes never left Nokto’s face.
Nokto’s smile only widened, lazy and unbothered. He shifted just enough to catch the light, the loose mint-and-silver tie glinting as if it were part of the joke. His blood-red eyes lingered on her—measuring, amused. Then, with deliberate slowness, he tipped her a fox-like wink.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured, the grin sharpening for an instant. “I always behave the way they want.”
The words slid like silk but tasted of smoke, leaving the air tainted. As the silence folded back around them, the corridor felt altered—narrower, darker, as if his grin had left a shadow on the air itself.
Updated: 9/18/2025
Let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters. And tell me in the comments or your reblog...
Imagine it’s your first day at the Academy—new halls, new faces, and already a rumor that the boy carrying your suitcase might be the last one people see alive.
Would you trust Leon’s kindness…or the whispers?
Horror Specific Tag List: @rjthirsty @hariet436 @rkmaru @valleyvayy28 @bchrmhtl
Usual Ikemen Tag List: @ithseem @chirp-a-chirp @aquagirl1978 @queengiuliettafirstlady
A love torn apart. A secret carried in silence. A child who must never be known.
Coralie walked away from the palace, from the man she loved, from the life they could never have. But in the quiet shadows of exile, she holds onto the one truth she cannot forget—his son.
SPOILER WARNING: There be spoilers ahead for Jin's route. So if you have not read his route and do not want spoiler's please do NOT keep reading.
The gravel crunched beneath Coralie’s boots as she walked, each step measured and steady, though her heart felt like it was shattering with every beat. The crisp evening air bit at her exposed skin, stinging her cheeks and the tip of her nose, but the coarse gray cloak hung heavily over her shoulders, muffling some of the chill. Its weight was nothing compared to the secret she carried now.
Her hand brushed the fabric of her dress beneath the cloak, her fingertips grazing the fine silk as if to confirm it was still there. The sensation was soft, familiar, but brought her no comfort. No one could know. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. She swallowed the lump rising in her throat, her dry lips pressing together, and kept her chin high, her gaze fixed on the iron gates ahead.
The whispers of the courtiers buzzed around her like wasps, venomous and sharp. Their clipped words brushed her ears, a low hum of malice just out of reach, yet their disdain was as tangible as a nettle’s sting. Still, she didn’t flinch. She had always known their judgment, their scorn, the way their eyes narrowed and their mouths curled. A commoner had no place in the palace, let alone in the life of a king. But now, their words were nothing more than the faint hiss of wind in the trees. Nothing mattered except the life she was leaving behind—and the life growing within her.
She could feel his presence, even without turning her head. His gaze burned hotter than the evening sun fading into the horizon, its warmth lingering in the cool shadows of the palace. She knew he was watching from one of the tall, arched windows, the panes glinting faintly with reflected firelight. His stare was heavy on her back, magnetic, threatening to pull her around. Did he know she wouldn’t look back? That she couldn’t? If she saw him one last time, she wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to keep walking.
Her breath hitched, ragged and unsteady, as her hand brushed her stomach again, the motion unbidden and instinctive. Beneath the layers of fabric, her skin felt warm and taut, as though her body already understood the weight of its new purpose. This wasn’t just her pain to bear anymore. This child—his child—would never know the father who had loved them without even knowing they existed.
The iron gates loomed closer, their cold metal glinting in the fading light like a specter waiting to consume her. Her heart clenched, the beat heavy and uneven, a muffled drum against her ribs. She had wanted to tell him. Had almost told him. A hundred times, the words had hovered on her lips, tasting of desperation and longing—only to be swallowed, again and again, like something bitter she couldn’t bear to release.
What would it have changed? Knowing would only have made this harder for him—for both of them.
He had a kingdom to rule, a crown to bear. The scent of burning wood from the palace’s hearths wafted toward her, warm and acrid, a reminder of the world she was leaving behind. He couldn’t know about this small piece of their love, this life she carried like a fragile flame. The ministers had made their decision, carving their will into stone as though his life—and hers—belonged to them. And if they ever discovered the truth, they would sharpen it into a blade, poised at their throat.
The whispers grew quieter as she neared the gates, replaced by the rhythmic crunch of gravel beneath her boots and the muted clang of the guards’ armor as they flanked her. They stayed silent, their presence unyielding, their footsteps a relentless reminder of the path she couldn’t stray from. She focused on the sound of the gravel, grounding herself in its gritty, repetitive rhythm as though it could drown out the ache in her chest.
She thought of the garden, of the way his fingers had brushed hers as they walked among the roses, the warmth of his touch lingering even now like a ghost on her skin. She thought of his smile the last time they’d met there, soft and fleeting, his eyes heavy with the weight of their love and the impossibility of it. She hadn’t told him then, either. She had let him believe this was simply a goodbye. Perhaps it was kinder that way.
The gates creaked as they opened, the sound echoing in the cool evening air. The sharp tang of iron invaded her senses, mingling with the faint, heady perfume of the roses lining the path. Their vibrant blooms still reached skyward, defiant and brilliant, as though untouched by the sorrow that hung heavy in the air.
Her breath caught in her throat, tight and unyielding, as her gaze flickered toward the flowers. The roses still bloomed, vibrant and alive, as if they hadn’t noticed that the world had changed. As if they didn’t understand that love—no matter how fiercely it once flourished—could be uprooted in an instant.
Her chest tightened, and she forced herself to step forward. The cloak rustled softly around her, a muffled reminder of the burden it concealed. She didn’t look back.
This was her choice. Not to leave him, but to protect him—and the child they had created together. The ministers might think they had won, but they didn’t understand. He would carry her with him, just as she carried this small, unspoken piece of him with her now.
As the gates groaned shut behind her, the sound reverberating like the final toll of a bell, she allowed her hand to rest fully over her stomach. Her fingers splayed across the faint curve that had only just begun to show, the warmth of her palm grounding her. Her steps faltered for just a moment, her breath trembling as the enormity of what lay ahead threatened to overwhelm her.
But she couldn’t stop now. For herself. For him. For their child.
The wind whistled and shrieked through the cracks in the cottage walls, slipping through the gaps like cold fingers dragging over her skin. It carried with it the bitter, metallic bite of frost, the kind that clung to the air and settled deep into her bones, numbing her from the inside out. The scent of damp wood and lingering ash filled the tiny space, mingling with the faint, milky sweetness of her sleeping child.
Coralie sat on the edge of the small wooden bed, its frame groaning under her weight, the straw-stuffed mattress thin enough that she could feel the hard slats beneath it. The coarse wool of her dress chafed against her arms, her sleeves stiff from too many washings in near-frozen water. Everything in this place was rough—unforgiving.
She didn’t move to stoke the fire. It had burned low, shrinking to little more than a dull red pulse in the hearth, barely giving off enough heat to fight the creeping cold that slithered through the floorboards. Her breath came in thin, pale wisps, disappearing before her eyes as she gazed down at the tiny bundle in her arms.
His small, delicate breaths ghosted against her skin, rhythmic and warm against the chill. His fingers twitched, curling and uncurling in the loose folds of her dress, as if grasping for something unseen. His cheeks were flushed pink, a stark contrast to the pallid, hollow look she had come to wear. He looked untouched by hardship, soft where the world had made her raw.
But it wasn’t his quiet sighs or the tiny, perfect curve of his lips that held her captive.
It was his eyes.
Those eyes.
Those eyes. Deep burgundy, like aged wine poured into crystal, rich and impossible to forget.
Every time she looked at her son, she saw the man she had loved, the man she had left behind. It was both a comfort and a torment. Her son was a living reminder of what she had lost and what she could never reclaim.
They belonged to another world, another life. They belonged to a man she had loved—and a love she had lost. Looking at her son was like looking into a mirror of the past. A past that still reached for her, no matter how far she had run.
Her fingers trembled as she brushed a strand of his dark hair away from his forehead. It was silkier than her own, finer, and when she ran her thumb along the soft curve of his temple, he closed his eyes and snuggled into her hand. His lips parted with a tiny, breathy sigh, a sound so sweet and fragile it shattered something inside her.
“You’ll never know him,” she whispered, her voice so thin and frail it barely rose above the wind. Her throat ached with the weight of it—the truth she would have to carry for both of them. “And he’ll never know you.”
Her words hovered in the frozen air, heavy and unshakable. He would grow up far from the palace, far from the marble halls and gold-gilded ceilings. He would never know the feel of silk against his skin, the taste of spiced honey cakes at lavish feasts, the weight of a crown he might have worn. Instead, he would know the bite of hunger, the sting of frost, the scrape of calloused hands doing honest work. And it had to be this way.
It had to be.
The outskirts of the kingdom were cruel, a place of thin gruel and thinner hope, where the forgotten tried to build lives out of what scraps remained. The villagers here did not know her as “Belle”, the woman who had once danced with princes in candlelit ballrooms, her laughter echoing among the halls. To them, she was no one.To them, she was just another destitute mother, struggling to keep herself and her child alive.
And she was struggling.
Her hands ached, the skin cracked and raw from endless scrubbing and mending, from hauling water in buckets so heavy they made her arms shake. Her nails were chipped, dirt embedded beneath them no matter how often she tried to wash it away. Her back throbbed from nights spent curled on the cold, splintered floor, when there was no space on the narrow bed, when the blankets were too thin to share. The hunger was constant now, gnawing like an unseen beast, making her lightheaded and slow.
But she refused to give in.
She had made a choice the day she stepped through those iron gates, her secret a stone sinking into her ribs. She had swallowed down her love, buried it deep, and let it rot for the sake of something greater. She had chosen to protect her son, because if the court had known of his existence, they would have found a way to destroy him for what he represented.
The babe stirred, his tiny fingers latching onto the fabric of her dress, his lips puckered in a soft cry, and she gently rocked him, murmuring soothing words until he settled once more.
“No,” she said, her voice quiet but firm, her lips brushing his forehead in a kiss that lingered, like a promise. “I don’t regret it. Not for you.”
Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She had already given up too much. She wouldn’t let sorrow take her, too.
Whatever the future held, she would fight for him—for the life he deserved. But he could never know the truth. That burden was hers alone to bear.
“Jin,” she whispered, the name curling in the cold air between them. It was not a royal name. Not a noble one. It was something smaller, quieter—but strong, just like the child who bore it. “You’re all I have now. And you’ll be alright. Even if you never know where you come from.”
The fire in the hearth guttered, threatening to die completely. Coralie rose, cradling her son close, feeling the fragile weight of him against her chest as she moved toward the dying embers. She reached for the poker, her fingers stiff and slow from cold, and prodded the coals until they glowed once more, breathing life into what little warmth remained.
She wouldn’t let it go out. Not tonight. Not ever.
The cold would not take them. The dark would not win.
Because no matter how cruel the world became, no matter how much she had lost, she would survive.
For Jin.
For her son, who carried the king’s eyes—and for the truth he could never, ever be allowed to know.
Tag List:
@rjthirsty Goes alone with the other fic you were interested in. <3
"This is the foreign romance novel you've been wanting to read. I thought I'd read it to you, complete with sexy voices."
The vibe:
Comedy. I would love to hear his editorial comments breaking into the narration. I'm guessing the book is setting some unrealistic expectations in the bedroom. 🤣
I would have included the screenshot, but the ask feature doesn't have an upload option.
🖋️ Line & a Vibe: Jin (Sexy Comedy)
Submitted Line: “This is the foreign romance novel you’ve been wanting to read.”
@katriniac Hope you enjoy!
✨ Want to play too? Toss me a line and a vibe → Original Post Here 💌
(Send a single dialogue line + a vibe or genre—I'll spin it into a drabble or one-shot!)
“Submitted Line: Jin, Ikemen Prince”
Title: "Chest-Forward Literature"
Vibe: Comedy → Chaos → Unintended Sexy
It all started because of Clavis.
Which, in hindsight, should’ve been your first clue to run.
You’d wandered into the palace library looking for a historical reference and found him snickering to himself in the corner like a child who’d just rigged a pie to fall on someone’s head. Which…you wouldn’t put past him. But there would definitely also be whipped cream and possibly confetti involved.
“What did you do?” you’d asked, narrowing your eyes.
Clavis had smiled innocently—another bad sign—and gestured toward Chevalier’s usual reading pile. Sitting discreetly near the top, nestled between a leather-bound collection of romantic poetry and a tragic love story set during a war, was a very out-of-place paperback.
The cover featured a shirtless man in breeches holding a swooning lady whose dress was clearly losing the battle against gravity.
“A little gift from me to our dear Brutal Beast. It blends in, don’t you think? Romantic. Historical. Chest-forward,” Clavis whispered conspiratorially. “I do hope he notices the duke’s...swordsmanship.”
You’d barely kept it together. “You’re terrible.”
“Thank you, my dear! I knew you secretly found me the most entertaining, lovable prince,” he said proudly.
Later, when you mentioned the whole ordeal to Jin over drinks—mainly to share the laugh—his eyes lit up.
“Oh, you’ve read those?” he asked far too casually.
You’d scoffed. “No! I just saw the cover. Although I admit, part of me wants to know if the writing’s as dramatic as the artwork.”
And that, unfortunately, was your mistake.
Now, tonight, Jin appears at your door with that gleam in his eye, smelling faintly of dry spirits and sugar. And holding something behind his back like a mischievous child. Also...as usual.
You arch a brow. “What are you hiding?”
“I brought you a gift,” he says innocently. That’s the first warning sign.
“I don’t trust you.”
“That’s hurtful.” He pouts dramatically. “Is that any way to treat your favorite prince?”
“Favorite?” you scoff. “Leon would like a word.”
“Leon can have a word when he learns how to moan like a baroness.” Jin pulls the book from behind his back with a flourish, wiggling it in the air like a prize.
Your jaw drops. “Is that—?!”
“This is the foreign romance novel you’ve been wanting to read. I thought I’d read it to you, complete with sexy voices.”
“…You mean your voice.”
“And it is, in fact, sexy.” He cleared his throat and began in a deep, exaggerated purr. “‘Chapter Four: Her Forbidden Desires.’ His silken voice, low and commanding, sent shivers down her spine as he pressed her against the mahogany piano.” He pauses already, eyes meeting yours. “I have…thoughts. First of all,” he begins, licking his lollipop thoughtfully, “who’s pressing people against pianos? That’s how you throw out a back.”
“Keep going,” you snorted, trying to hide your grin behind a pillow.
“You belong to me,” he growled, his fingers tracing the lace of her—” He stopped. Blinked. Flipped the page. “…Is that…a real position?” he asked, eyebrows slowly raising. “I’m not even sure that’s physically possible without dislocating something.”
You wheezed.
“It says he lifted her with one arm and spun her mid-air while undoing the corset with his teeth—do they think men are octopuses?”
“I think you’re supposed to suspend disbelief.”
“I think he’s supposed to suspend his spinal cord after that.”
And so it continued, he would read a few lines, occasionally adding helpful commentary like:
“No man says this. I say a lot of things in bed, but ‘I yearn to unravel the tapestry of your soul’ isn’t one of them—unless I’m drunk. Or bored. Or both.”
Or:
“Why does he keep growling? This guy needs a cough drop.”
Then he flipped to another page, voice slipping into his smoothest tone: “He trailed kisses down her spine, then swept her into his arms and pinned her to the wall like a painting made of desire—”
Jin paused. Blinked once. Twice.
Then his brows lifted, a gleam sparking in his wine-red eyes. “…Okay wait—hold on. This? This we gotta try.”
Before you could protest, the book went sailing across the room with a casual thunk, and he was already stripping off his shirt. His unfairly gorgeous, ripped torso caught the light, muscles rippling like something out of the actual cover art.
“You’re not serious—”
“Dead serious. There’s a wall. You’ve got a spine. And I’m feeling artistic.”
He grins like a wolf whose just found dinner, muscles on full display like he’s stepped off the cover of the book himself.
He tries to sweep you up into his arms in a grand romantic gesture—only to immediately trip on the edge of the rug.
There's a crash, some very un-princely swearing, and a muffled, "I'm fine!" as he sprawls dramatically on the floor.
You peek over the edge of the couch, trying—and failing—not to laugh as Jin lays sprawled across the floor like a tragically overconfident model in a magazine shoot gone wrong. “That was very ‘painting made of desire.’ You okay, Mr. Romance?”
“I’m seducing you,” he groans from the floor. “It’s a...process.”
“I’m sure it is.”
He props himself up on one elbow, hair tousled, lip curled into a smirk like he hadn’t just face-planted mid-fantasy reenactment. “You laugh now,” he murmurs, voice dropping to that low, smoky register that always gets to you. “But I’m a man of many talents. Tripping is just foreplay.”
“Oh really?”
“Mmhmm.” In one smooth motion, he's up—graceful, this time—his bare chest glinting in the low light, eyes locked on you with dangerous intent. He walks toward you, slow and steady, like a panther whose finally remembered he was a predator.
He stops in front of you, gaze dropping to your lips before flicking back up with a lazy, heated grin. “Now, where were we? Ah yes…” He bends forward, palms braced on either side of your head, effectively caging you against the back of the couch.
“…I believe I was supposed to ‘pin you like a painting made of desire.’”
Your breath catches. He's close—too close. His voice is velvet and honey, eyes half-lidded, the scent of sweet candy and something headier curling around you like smoke.
“You’re not going to trip again, are you?”
“Only if you sweep me off my feet.”
You roll your eyes—just before he leans in and presses his lips to your neck, slow and languid. His breath fan against your skin as he whispers, “Still think I’m not serious?”
Your fingers curl into his hair almost without thinking, and his chuckle vibrates against your throat.
“You know,” he murmures, lips brushing your ear, “you could’ve just asked me to roleplay the book with you. No need to pretend you’re not into it.”
“I wasn’t pretending.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, kissing the corner of your mouth, “you’re a terrible liar.”
And just like that, the ridiculous book, the rug mishap, and the chaos fade into the background—because somehow, Jin has turned a parody into something very real.
Something intoxicating.
Somewhere across the room, the paperback lays open-faced on the rug, still whispering promises of impossible passion.
📣First Time For Everything Ikemen Fan Zine: OUT NOW [Download link] !
This project wouldn't have been possible without the enormous passion of our contributors. Thank you all for joining us on this adventure, and now... Might we invite you all to settle in a comfortable chair and enjoy the contents of our zine? ;)
First Time For Everything Ikemen Fan Zine includes:
works featuring Midnight Cinderella, Ikemen Sengoku, Ikemen Revolution, Ikemen Vampire, Ikemen Prince, and Ikemen Villains characters.
20 stories by 14 different authors.
20 artworks by 16 different artists.
The Art of Prince & Villains Trailers.
Photocards depicting select characters in outfits designed specifically for this occasion.
"A Lesson in Losing: Mind, Pride, and Underthings"
Clavis Moments Snippet - Pinned Love Pt. 1: Smut
Clavis Lelouch x Reader
Fandom: Ikemen Prince
Word Count: ~4800
Thanks for @avellanas-nutty-empire for coming up with the idea and letting me run with it, and being my assistant as needed while writing this. You're the best!
NSFW 18+ content below - “pretty” smut, soft dom, edging, orgasm denial, overstimulation, PIV, and (if you squint) dub-con
Summary:
You only wanted a few self-defense tips. A theoretical brush-up. A wrist lock or two in case Clavis wasn’t around to pull a smoke bomb from his coat and vanish like a dramatic little menace.
But then Clavis finds out you asked Kei for help—and suddenly it’s not self-defense.
It’s a full-blown lesson in pinning, punishment, and why training with a prince should come with a safety warning.
And you definitely didn’t expect losing a sparring match to feel this good.
You only meant to ask for a few pointers.
A few harmless, theoretical “what-if” scenarios—like, what if you were suddenly ambushed by a dagger-wielding nobleman? Or what if someone tried to drag you off your feet and Clavis wasn’t there to throw a smoke bomb and cackle like a maniac?
You hadn’t expected much. A few tips. Maybe a wrist hold or two. Something practical.
What you hadn’t counted on was Clavis discovering you’d asked Kei.
And not even in some clandestine whisper behind palace curtains. No—you’d barely finished asking Kei your very innocent, completely reasonable question before word somehow made its way to Clavis.
And now?
Now he appeared—refined chaos in royal trim, every step humming with the promise of trouble.
He didn’t knock. He never knocked. But this time, the door didn’t just open—it burst like it owed him money. For a brief, heart-stopping moment, you thought it was Prince Silvio.
“Training?” he echoed, voice like sugared wine with something lethal stirred in.. “With someone else?”
You opened your mouth to explain. He cut you off with a scoff that sounded positively offended.
“I thought we’d firmly established I’m the only one allowed to pin you to the floor, young lady.”
You hadn’t agreed to any such thing.
Not that it mattered. Logic had clearly fled the premises—because he was already slipping off his coat with the languid grace of a predator who knew you were cornered. Each movement was deliberately slow, deliberately smooth, as if to say I’m going to ruin your afternoon and enjoy every second of it.
And worse?
He was smirking.
That lazy, lopsided smile of his, the one that always spelled trouble and temptation in equal measure. The one that made you forget how to breathe, let alone form reasonable arguments like I wasn’t actually planning to spar in the nude, Your Highness.
His eyes were molten gold, glinting with something that was not even remotely innocent.
“Come now,” he drawled, letting his coat fall across your writing desk like he owned the damn room. “Surely you didn’t think I’d just let this pass. You asked Kei to train you. Kei. The man who thinks smiling is a liability.”
“I wasn’t planning to let him pin me,” you said, voice dry, arms crossed.
Clavis’s brow lifted. “Oh, dearie. You don’t plan to get pinned. It just happens. Like falling in love.”
You opened your mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “Did you seriously just compare grappling to romance?”
“Didn’t I?” he said, unbothered, already rolling up his sleeves. “Now. Shall we begin your ‘lesson’ or shall I add betrayal to the list of crimes you’re answering for?”
Which brings you to now—flat on your back in your room, spine sinking into the plush, silky cream bedding, skin flushed, breath ragged, and dignity somewhere across the room wondering how it got here.
Clavis hovers above you like a smug, purring nightmare spun from heat and wicked intentions. His weight isn’t crushing—it’s lounging. Draped. Intentional. Like he’s reclining across a throne instead of using your body as one.
His hair, soft and unruly, brushes your cheek as he leans in. His lips skim the air beside your ear, breath stirring wisps of hair near your temple. He smells like lavender and something richer—sweetly scorched sugar and heat, like a candied sin just pulled from the fire.
And then he dips lower.
Not a kiss. Not yet.
Just the soft, maddening drag of his mouth along your neck. A tease. A featherlight brush that sets every nerve alight like kindling. Barely there—yet somehow everywhere. He doesn't touch you so much as hover with intention, turning absence into its own kind of seduction.
By the time his lips part, they graze your pulse like a secret.
“What are you waiting for?” he murmurs, voice velvet and sin, brushing hot against your throat. “Show me what you’ve learned.”
You try. Stars help you, you try.
But it’s impossible to think—let alone fight—when his thigh is wedged between yours, warm and firm, angled with devious precision. The friction is subtle. Consuming. Inescapable. Each twitch of your hips earns you a whisper of relief—and somehow leaves you even more desperate.
You shift. Barely.
His thigh presses just a little harder.
Your breath hitches.
And he hums. Pleased. Deep in his throat. A sound like smoke and silk, curling low through your ribs.
Then—he moans.
Low. Broken. Like sin sliding into your bloodstream. A sound that’s half-accident, half-offering—raw and wrecked and startlingly real. It leaks out of him like molasses from a cracked jar, sticky and slow and so intoxicating it coils heat low in your belly.
He’s still above you. Still smug. Still technically in control.
And yet—
That sound was like he’s the one unraveling.
The sound hits you like a pulse. Like a match to dry parchment. Heat blooms under your skin, electric and urgent, and something in you moves.
You roll your hips again—less accidental this time. His breath catches. A soft stutter. A tell.
There.
Your eyes flick to his face. His lashes flutter. His jaw tightens—just a fraction. But his hips? They shift. Just slightly. As if your touch had struck a nerve he hadn’t meant to expose.
And gods, you like it.
You're not sure what's more intoxicating—how easily he’s unraveling you…
…or how deliciously easy it is to begin unraveling him.
You steal yourself. Focus. Gather what scraps of composure remain and brace your hands against his chest—not just to push, but to test him. Shift his weight. Find a weakness. Anything.
For one breathless moment, you think you feel it—his balance tipping, just slightly. You lunge, twisting your hips, planting your foot for leverage—a real attempt this time. A proper maneuver, half-remembered from Kei’s bored instruction.
But Clavis adjusts just as fast.
His body shifts—smooth, unbothered, sinfully fluid—like silk re-weaving itself around you. Your attempt fizzles, your momentum lost to his ridiculous reflexes and the traitorous ache pulsing low in your belly.
Your palms slide over the heat of his chest—too warm, too solid, too there. Every inch of him radiates heat like a hearth you hadn’t realized you’d been cold without. His shirt’s long gone, flung somewhere with princely disregard, and the bare skin beneath your hands is electric—taut muscle under silk-smooth skin, flexing like he’s daring you to try again.
And gods help you, you think he might, just to watch you squirm.
Your fingers curl instinctively, nails brushing against his skin. A subtle warning—or maybe a dare.
He doesn’t stop you. He just watches.
Not with surprise. Not even amusement. With certainty.
And then he smiles.
That slow, ruinous smile. The dangerous one. The worshipful one. The one that makes your pulse stutter and your spine forget how to hold itself upright.
And before your brain can finish screaming he’s going to move—
He does.
Fast as thought. Smooth as shadow. He seizes your wrists and presses them to the bed above your head, one-handed—effortless, like he’s merely pinning a ribbon in a breeze.
His other hand?
Already in motion.
It slides down your body with infuriating leisure—just fingertips at first, barely-there brushes that skim over your ribs and trace the line of your waist. His touch is warm. Dry. Unhurried. It carries that devastating mix of reverence and devilment that only Clavis could perfect—like he’s both undressing you and praying over you, all in the same breath.
You gasp as he drags his knuckles just below your navel and pauses. Not low enough to satisfy. Just low enough to tease.
Your nerves light up like kindling. Heat pulses deep in your belly, anticipation coiling tight behind your ribs.
Then he leans in.
His lips brush the corner of your jaw—barely a kiss, more like a brand. The heat of his breath spills over your cheek as he whispers, voice dipped in shadows and mischievous heat. “You almost had me that time.”
And then—his hand dips lower. Knuckles graze the edge of your need. A cruel suggestion. A dare.
“But almost,” he murmurs, “doesn’t earn your release, lovey.”
And then he touches you.
Properly.
No more teasing. No more featherlight brushes.
His fingers slide over the softest part of you with devastating precision—slow, steady, deliberate. Just enough pressure to make you jolt. To send heat shooting through your limbs like lightning dipped in wine. The pads of his fingers map you with sinful patience, stroking like he’s memorizing. Like you’re a secret he plans to write symphonies about.
You whimper.
And gods, the sound is honest.
Shame curls low in your gut, but he hears it—and he thrives on it.
That smile returns—a leopard’s grin, sharp and savage. Dangerous and beautiful enough to ruin you.
“I just wanted to learn a few moves,” you whisper, breathless and increasingly convinced this wasn’t what you’d signed up for.
He hums. Low. Indulgent. His breath stirs your hair as he nuzzles closer, lips ghosting over the shell of your ear. “Mmm. And you thought Kei would be a better instructor?”
The accusation pours like wine spiked with something lethal. But you can’t answer. Because his hand is between your thighs now. Palm firm. Fingers poised. And he’s still.
Too still.
Until—
One slow stroke.
Your whole body tenses. He pauses.
Another stroke. Deeper this time. Cruel and perfect.
Then nothing.
Stillness again.
You bite your lip hard—so hard it stings—fighting every instinct that begs you to move. To rock. To chase. Your body arches before you can stop it, hips twitching upward in search of pressure, of rhythm, of something.
But you’re held.
Pinned. Not just physically—but by the unbearable denial in his touch. By the rhythm he won’t give you. By the flicker of his gaze, dark with knowledge and indulgence and something softer he won’t name.
You’re trembling now.
It starts in your thighs—subtle, then spreading like wildfire through the rest of you. Your breath comes too fast, too shallow. Your skin feels over-sensitized, your thoughts sluggish and syrup-thick, as if his touch rewired your nervous system and forgot to install an off switch.
And still—still—his fingers linger.
Just shy of mercy.
Just close enough to burn.
He doesn’t need to look at you to know what he’s doing. He feels it in your pulse, your breath, the way your hips twitch up like your body’s trying to beg without permission.
And he revels in it.
“You want to protect yourself, dearie?” he purrs, wrist flexing—just so. A shift so small it should be harmless.
It isn’t.
It’s lethal.
The motion sends a surge of heat coiling low in your belly, sharp and visceral. Your toes curl. Your lungs forget their purpose. And Clavis—damn him—just smiles.
“Then get me off of you.”
The challenge is silk-wrapped steel. His gaze is sunfire, framed by the fall of his hair, his lips parted in a smirk that makes you want to slap him and moan at the same time.
You twist beneath him—half-hearted, dizzy, dazed by want. Every muscle rebels, caught between instinct and surrender.
He doesn’t move an inch.
Of course he doesn’t.
He’s lounging like a smug jungle cat, relaxed and coiled in the same breath, confident in how thoroughly he’s undone you. His knees bracket your hips. His weight is deliciously heavy, and his restraint somehow worse—because you know he’s holding back.
“Oh no, no,” he chuckles, low and pleased. “Use that fancy new training. Roll your hips. Pin my arm. Come on, darling. Impress me.”
You try. Gods, you try.
But his fingers slide again.
Lower. Deeper.
It’s not rough. It’s not fast. It’s calculated. Every stroke is a confession he whispers through your skin: I know exactly what you need, and I’m not giving it to you. Not yet.
The tension builds. And builds.
But never breaks.
Your thighs tremble around him, helpless to hide the tremor. Your spine arches with need. But the release you’re reaching for stays just out of reach, caught in his clever fingers like a secret he refuses to share.
It’s impossible to think, let alone execute a tactical maneuver.
“You’re distracted,” he murmurs, teeth nipping just beneath your jaw before his tongue flicks over the sting—soothing, then stoking. “Guess I’ll just have to edge you until you can flip me properly.”
Your hands twitch where he still has you pinned. Every inch of you burns. The sheets feel too rough, the air too cool, and him—him—too hot and cruel and close. The smell of him—lavender, warm spice, and a hint of sinful mischief—fills your lungs, thick and dizzying.
He leans in again, lips brushing your temple, breath feather-light.
“Should’ve picked me first,” he adds, almost sweetly. Almost. “But lucky for you, I’m a very committed instructor.”
You’re not sure if this is training or punishment.
But if this is lesson one…gods help you.
You’re never graduating.
Still—somewhere beneath the searing pulse of desire, a flicker of strategy stirs.
Clavis is cocky.
Too cocky.
He’s delighting in your unraveling, too busy drinking in your every twitch and whimper to anticipate what comes next.
And you?
You may be wrecked—but you’re not helpless.
Not yet.
You gather what little’s left of your coherent thoughts—what fragile embers haven’t melted into the pillow beneath your head—and focus.
You breathe in. Deep. Deliberate.
You can feel him—his weight pressing you down like velvet iron, his thigh still angled exactly where it knows it shouldn't be, his breath teasing the shell of your ear like a secret too hot to touch.
He leans in again, lips parting, voice curling like smoke laced with sin and smugness—ready to whisper something that would probably make your knees weak if you weren’t already flat on your back.
And that’s when you strike.
A twist. A shift. Controlled chaos through the haze of heat.
The move Kei showed you—offhand, bored, like an afterthought—flashes through your mind. It was meant for arrogant opponents.
Taller ones. Cocky ones.
Exactly like the one currently whispering filth into your ear.
You feint left.
Clavis tracks with you—predictable, cocky, head tilting like he’s already preparing a fresh round of mockery, the curve of his smirk brushing your jaw like punctuation.
Perfect.
You roll your hips sharply. Hook your leg beneath his. Press your palm hard into the spot just behind his shoulder—the point of balance Kei pointed out with bored precision.
There’s a shift. A stumble in Clavis’s breath.
Surprise—not panic—ripples across the porcelain mask of his calm as gravity, at last, exacts its revenge.
And then gravity wins.
He hits the mattress with a soft, muffled oof, his limbs sprawling like a toppled deity. The silken sheets crumple beneath him, and your body follows—landing above him in a straddle, hair wild, heart thundering, thighs trembling as they lock around his waist.
The world stills for a beat.
Then—he laughs.
Low and rich, like warm liquor over ice. A slow, wicked purr of delight that rolls through your core like an earthquake made of honey and hellfire. There’s nothing mocking in it. Nothing scornful.
Just pleasure.The pleasure of being surprised.
The pleasure of being outplayed—if only for a moment.
“My, my,” he drawls, voice thick and indulgent as he gazes up at you, sprawled and golden like sin incarnate. “Looks like someone’s been paying attention.”
His hands slide up your thighs—slow, reverent, claiming. Palms hot, thumbs tracing idle, possessive circles against your skin, like he’s reminding himself that you did this. That you’re real. That you’re above him, for now.
His gaze drinks you in—greedy, amber bright, starving.
But beneath the heat, something else simmers in the gold of his eyes.
Admiration. Wonder. That sharp flicker of delight he only gets when someone pulls a trick he didn’t see coming.
It’s not just that you surprised him.
It’s that he likes that you did.
That he wants you to.
And gods—he’s looking at you now like you’ve become his favorite kind of problem:
Beautiful.
Unpredictable.
And absolutely worth the unraveling.
You’re still shaking—legs quivering from the effort, your pulse a staccato rhythm behind your ribs. Every part of you feels overstretched, over-sensitized, undone. But the fire in your eyes hasn’t dimmed. Not even close.
You’re breathless. Wild-eyed. Triumphant.
And Clavis?
Clavis looks wrecked in the most delicious way. Lavender hair tousled, pupils blown wide, his breath a fraction uneven—like he’s not used to losing control and loves the taste of it.
“Now let me finish,” you demand, voice torn and frayed but full of defiant heat.
And gods, that grin.
It blooms across his face like a seditious sunrise—slow, sharp, and unholy. That curve of his mouth could ruin empires. Could melt saints. Could pull confessions from between clenched teeth.
He doesn’t move fast. He doesn’t need to.
His hands slip lower, grounding you. Holding you.
Worshiping you.
Thumbs stroking gently, tenderly, against your thighs like he’s praying—not for salvation, but for more.
And then—without warning—he lifts his head.
His lips part. And his mouth finds your breast.
Hot. Deliberate.
Not rough. Not greedy.
Just slow.
Devastating.
He doesn’t take—he lingers. His tongue flicks, light as air, a tease calculated to torment that your breath hiccups in your throat. One hand flies to his hair, your fingers tangling in those soft, chaotic strands—not just to anchor yourself, but to hold him there, to keep him exactly where you need him—lavishing attention where you ache.
He hums against you. The sound rumbles through your chest and into your bones. “That,” he breathes against your skin, tongue trailing fire across the underside of your breast, “was one successful maneuver.”
Your stomach drops.
You grind your hips against him, slow, slick, needy, chasing the friction like you’ve forgotten everything else. His abdomen is taut beneath you, muscles flexing as you move—his breath catching as he feels what you’re doing.
You moan.
One hand clenches in the sheets beside his head, the other still in his hair, body rocking against him with frantic, tremoring rhythm—
But just when you think he might let you take it—
His grip tightens at your hips.
Stops you cold.
“No, no, no,” he murmurs, mouth still warm against your skin, voice laced with mock reproach and something dangerously fond. “Trying to steal the ending, darling? Naughty.”
You freeze. Trembling. Seething.
Desperate.
Your thighs ache. Your pride burns. Your body is still pulsing where he left you, every nerve raw and wanting—but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t let you move either.
“Two out of three,” he says, tilting his head like a professor delivering an inconvenient syllabus change. His teeth flash in a wolfish smile—beautiful and merciless.
“You never said—”
“I’m saying it now.”
And gods, the way he says it.
Like it’s law. Like it’s always been law. Like your breathless protest is just a quaint little rebellion he’s already forgiven you for… before punishing you anyway. Like the bed you flipped him onto should apologize for the audacity.
His smirk sharpens into something cruelly regal—gracious and devastating, like a king offering absolution and retribution in the same breath. The curve of it is taunting. Arrogant. Beautiful.
And then the world tilts.
Before you can even blink, he moves.
You don’t fall—you’re claimed.
One moment, you're triumphant and straddling him like a goddess mid-victory. The next, you're flat on your back, head sunk into the pillows, your wrists caught in his hand—effortless, instinctive, like he’s done it a thousand times in dreams he’ll never admit to.
His body presses down over yours, heat and shadow, silk and danger.
And suddenly, you are nothing but sensation.
His weight isn’t crushing—it’s anchoring. His thigh slots between yours again, perfectly, deliberately, and the pressure is maddening. Just enough to make you whimper. Just enough to remind you what you almost had.
His fingers remain at your wrists—possessive, not punishing. The grip isn’t meant to restrain you. It’s meant to remind you that he can. That he is, even gently. That you’re his, and you both know it.
He sighs—sighs—like he’s settling into a well-earned nap. Like dominating you is the most relaxing part of his day. His head dips low, lips barely brushing your throat.
“Honestly,” he murmurs, a breath against your skin, “I’m starting to think you like losing.”
Then his hand slides.
Back down your body.
Confident. Skilled. Unforgiving.
No warning this time. No teasing graze. Just a deep, smooth press of his fingers—right where you’re already soaked and aching. The sound you make isn't human. It's not dignified. It’s a half-moan, half-sob torn straight from somewhere beneath your ribs.
Your back arches. Your wrists twitch in his grasp. Your legs clench around his thigh, desperate for leverage—for friction—for anything.
The pleasure floods in like fire licking under your skin, sudden and electric. You chase it, hips rocking, muscles tensing—
But Clavis?
He doesn’t let you fall.
Not yet.
"You want your reward?" he coos, voice like silk dragged slow over a wound. His lips flirt with your skin—barely brushing your jaw, skating past your cheek, lingering at your ear just long enough to burn. "Then beat me again."
And just to make sure you understand, he bites your shoulder.
Not hard. Not enough to truly hurt.
Just enough to brand you.Just enough to say mine.
Then he keeps going.
Measured. Patient. Diabolical.
His fingers move with calculated rhythm—press, curl, drag—every stroke engineered to leave you trembling on the edge without a thread to cling to. It’s not just arousal anymore. It’s agony. It’s need wrapped in velvet, stretched to its breaking point.
You buck against him. Curse him. Try to twist. Try to fight.
But your body doesn’t listen.
It wants him. Every part of you wants him.
And Clavis? He just grins. That infuriating grin—sharp and sinful, lit from within by something molten and exultant. He watches you crumble like it’s a private performance. Like he’s waited his entire life for this exact moment.
He’s so close now. Too close. His breath ghosts over your lips. His mouth hovers like a promise he has no intention of keeping—not yet.
He catches every moan, every broken sound you try to swallow. Hears every gasp. Feels every tremble.
And gods…
It’s impossible to think. To breathe. To fight—
When the man pinning you down knows exactly how to break you open—
and make you crave it.
You’ve lost track of how many times he’s edged you.
Time? Gone.Logic? Obliterated.Dignity? Probably curled up in a fetal position somewhere beneath the sheets, whispering apologies to your ancestors.
But your stubbornness—
Oh, that’s still here.
Bloodied, blistered, shaking with exhaustion—but alive.
Clawing. Gritting its teeth. Screaming not yet.
Clavis leans in again, that damnable crown of hair brushing your cheek like a caress spun from vice. His weight is heat and honey, every inch of him an altar to indulgence. You can feel the devilish curve of his smirk just inches from your mouth.
“You sure you don’t want to surrender, my lovely lover?” he purrs, a devil’s whisper dressed in charm. His fingers trail down your side, featherlight and loaded with meaning. “You’re shaking like a kitten caught in the rain. It’s adorable.”
You suck in a ragged breath. Flash him a smile that’s more teeth than charm. “And you talk too much.”
His grin flickers, just for a beat. “You wound me.”
Good. This time, you don’t wait for a miracle.
You make one.
A twist of your hips. An arch of your back. A hooked leg behind his knee—
And then—then he’s off-balance.
He falls.
And the world turns with him.
You flip him cleanly onto his back, limbs tangled, breaths colliding, and straddle him like a starved, battle-worn queen seizing her throne. Your hands press into his chest to steady yourself—he’s solid, burning hot beneath your palms—and your thighs quiver from the strain and the sheer aftershock of victory.
Your hair hangs in wild disarray around your face, your lungs claw at air, and your body screams for relief even as your pride plants its flag.
His hands drop away.
Willingly. Worshipfully.
He stares up at you—equal parts thunderstruck and ravenous.
“Well, well,” he breathes, the words hoarse and pleased. “Three out of three.”
You nod, flushed and shining like vengeance given form. “Now give me what you promised.”
He tilts his head, lavender lashes half-lowered and a slow, sinful smile, mischief dancing in his gaze like a dare. “What did I promise, exactly?”
You open your mouth to snap something—sharp, triumphant, probably unrepeatable—but you never get the chance.
Because his hands find your hips.
And then?
He moves.
No fanfare. No prelude.
Just a hungry snap of his body beneath yours as he drives you down onto him in one breathtaking, devastating thrust.
The world doesn’t just tilt.
It shatters.
There’s no teasing this time. No delicate edgework. No cruel pauses designed to unravel your mind.
Just heat.Just depth.Just the overwhelming sensation of him suddenly everywhere—thick, hard, perfect, filling every inch he’s denied you until now.
It’s like being split open and sewn back together in a single motion.
He thrusts so deep it knocks the air from your lungs—
Steals his name from your lips and drags it from the marrow of your being in a sound that’s not just a cry.
Not just a sob.
But something holy.
Clavis.
Your Clavis.
And gods—he groans when you take him in. A sound rough and low, torn from somewhere deeper than his mischief. He clutches your hips like he’s trying to memorize the shape of you from the inside out, like this was the moment he’s been carving toward with every denial, every breathless tease.
Because it isn’t just your body that arches to meet him now.
It’s your soul.
The ache he’s built inside you with every sly whisper, every withheld kiss, every cruel denial, every brush of breath against trembling skin—it detonates now. Shattering through you like a pulse of light too bright to contain.
You’re not making love.
You’re not just coming together—you’re coming undone.
You’re falling.
It’s impact.
It’s surrender.
It’s a salvation that tastes like ruin and burns like need.
This isn’t just what you wanted.
It’s what you needed.And he’s giving it to you now.
All of him. All at once.
Like he’s been starving too.
Every thrust drives deeper, claiming you again and again with a rhythm that makes the earth fall away beneath you.Every drag, every grind of his hips against yours, every guttural breath he exhales into your skin is a reclamation. You clutch at his shoulders, nails dragging down his back as you scramble for purchase, for sanity, for anything to hold onto.
But there’s no ground anymore.
There’s only him.
The feel of him—thick and deep, stretching you around every sinful inch like your body was built to remember him.
To welcome him.
To never forget this.
Your hips roll with instinct, with desperation, chasing the crescendo he’s kept just out of reach for so long. You cry out again—your voice unfiltered, undone, reverberating through the space between you like a prayer lost to fire.
Your spine bows.
Your head falls back.
You shatter.
Your whole body seizes—legs trembling, toes curling, your hands grabbing at the sheets, his arms, the stars—anything to stay tethered as your climax hits like a storm against stone.
Not a ripple.
A tempest.
One that rips through your core, tears apart every tightly-wound string inside you, and leaves you bare.
Unmade.
Unmoored.
The release ravages you.
It drags sobs from your throat and heat from your veins. The tension that’s lived in your belly, your thighs, your spine, your soul—
It snaps.
Like a bowstring loosed after too many hours pulled taut.
And gods, it feels like flying.
Like falling.
Like being seen.
You’re left wide open—
Raw. Breathing. Alive.And he’s still there.
Still inside you.Still watching.
Still holding you like you’re something sacred—even as you fall apart all over again.
When your vision finally stops spinning, he’s gazing up at you—not smug, not triumphant, but…
Soft.
Amber eyes quiet with something close to reverence.
He brushes a damp strand of hair from your cheek, fingers trembling just enough to betray the weight of what he’s feeling.
“There,” he whispers, voice so gentle it barely brushes the air. “Lesson complete.”
You blink at him—dazed, undone, some half-formed retort dying on your tongue. “That was the reward?”
He chuckles, low and wicked and caramel.
Then he leans in and presses the lightest kiss to the corner of your mouth—
Soft. Burning.
A promise dressed as mercy.
“Oh no,” he chuckles, hands tightening at your hips as he rolls them into his once more. “That…was just the start.”
And this time?
He doesn’t stop.
Not until you forget your name.
Forget how to breathe.
Forget the palace. The rules. The sky. The stars.
Clavis Moments Snippet - College AU Pt 1
Clavis Lelouch x Reader
Fandom: Ikemen Prince
Word Count: 1471
Summary: Modern College AU
“Ethics and Aesthetics 201”
Clavis was already bored.
He sprawled in his seat
like it was a chaise longue,
one boot perched arrogantly
on the edge of the desk in front of him.
A pen twirled between his fingers
with the lazy dexterity
of a street magician
and the attention span
of a cat in a sunbeam.
His gaze wandered through shafts of light
and floating flecks of air,
like his thoughts were unraveling
thread by golden thread.
The professor—
a tweed-wrapped relic clinging to tenure
and some long-faded dream of Socratic glory—
opened the floor with a classic:
“Is beauty a form of truth?”
Half the class parroted Keats.
The other half tried defining truth
in language so dense and self-important,
Clavis considered faking death
just to end the discussion.
He sighed.
Then, slowly—
like it might cost him something—
he raised
his hand.
The professor flinched.
Subtly.
“Mr. Lelouch?”
Clavis smirked like a knife dressed for dinner.
He shifted languidly,
crossing one leg over the other
with a flourish.
The hem of his long coat fanned open.
His outfit, as always,
toed the line between costume and rebellion:
tailored blazer,
layered textures,
collar tilted just a little wrong—
like a dare no one had taken yet.
He looked like he’d wandered out of a museum exhibit
on decadent student revolutionaries—
structured, dramatic,
and disheveled enough
to make one question whether he was headed to a philosophy lecture
or a coup.
“Beauty’s not truth,” he drawled,
twirling his pen between long fingers.
“It’s a costume. A very useful one.
Dress a lie up nicely enough,
and most people will kiss it
before they question it.”
A few students laughed—
nervous little exhalations.
He caught the pen mid-spin,
held it like a scalpel,
then let it drop
with a soft clack against the desk.
“Or, to put it another way—
if I whispered sweet nothings
while handing you a poisoned drink,
you’d probably still call it romantic.
Until your lungs gave out.”
More laughter now,
edged and uneven.
Clavis leaned back,
hands laced behind his head,
gaze sweeping the room
with the lazy satisfaction
of a pyromaniac
watching the first curls of smoke.
He adored the slightly scorched silence
he always left behind.
Except this time—
A new voice drifted in.
Smooth as dusk,
and just as certain.
It struck him like piano keys
played by moonlight—
soft, deliberate,
impossible to ignore.
“So you’re saying truth is meaningless
as long as people are easy to manipulate?”
Clavis turned,
curiosity piqued
against his will.
She sat two rows back,
half-claimed by the afternoon light
slanting through the high windows.
Curled into the old window seat
no one ever chose—
tucked
like a bookmark
between sun and shadow.
Her notebook lay open across her lap,
its pages gently curled at the edges,
well-loved and used.
One foot was drawn up onto the cushion beneath her,
the other barely brushing the floor.
Her pen hovered motionless in her hand—
poised, not idle.
Dark hair spilled in wild waves over one shoulder,
lit at the edges like ink brushed with fire—
smoky, fluid, half-written.
There was something still about her.
Not stiff—just settled.
Like she belonged to the space
more than a desk or chair ever had.
A wildflower
in a room full of trimmed hedges.
Her tone had been calm.
Even.
Not deferent.
Not mocking.
Simply—engaged.
Clavis blinked,
the shift in atmosphere tangible—
like someone had opened a door
to rain.
His golden eyes narrowed,
feline and gleaming,
the way they always did
when something caught his interest mid-prowl.
Maybe a flirt.Maybe a clever little know-it-all.
Or maybe—something else entirely.
She hadn’t smiled when she spoke.
Hadn’t leaned forward,
didn’t coat her words in charm
or force.
No.
She hadn’t thrown her voice like a dart.
She’d placed it.
Soft.
Steady.
Unapologetically certain.
And somehow,
that was more dangerous.
Clavis tilted his head,
golden eyes glinting—
not with amusement,
but with the cool appraisal
of someone spotting a hidden blade
in what looked like lace.
“Not meaningless,” he said,
voice smooth as silk over glass.
“Just easily replaced.”
“Then you’re not talking about truth,”
she replied, resting her chin in her hand.
“You’re talking about perception.”
His smile held its shape,
but his gaze cut sideways—quick,
clinical, already dissecting.
“Ah, so you believe there’s a difference?”
“Of course.”
Her thumb tapped idly against her cheek
as she considered.
“If a rose smells sweet,
but you’re allergic —
is it still beautiful?”
“Depends who you ask.”
“Exactly.”
The corner of her mouth twitched—
not sweet, not smug,
just the quiet amusement
of someone who’d already filed him away.
“Which makes truth
not the rose,
but the reaction.”
The room had gone still.
Even the clock seemed to hesitate,
as if it, too,
didn’t want to interrupt.
Clavis stared at her now—
not smiling.
Watching.
Measuring.
She hadn’t laughed at his joke.
Hadn’t flushed,
hadn’t shrunk,
hadn’t tried to charm.
She’d parried.
And worse—
she’d meant it.
And then,
without meaning to, he laughed.
Quiet.
Low.
Genuine.
The kind that cracked out
like a forgotten note
from some earlier version of himself.
“Well, well,” he murmured, lips curling again.
“Looks like someone came to class
with her brain switched on.”
Her lips curved—barely—
and one brow arched
with quiet amusement.
“Looks like someone came to class at all.”
Laughter again.
Sharper this time.
A few students turned to glance his way—
some smirking,
others grateful
the fire had shifted direction.
Clavis grinned wide—
sharp and white.
The kind of smile
that sparkled enough
to distract from the burn.
He leaned back in his chair
like he’d won something.
And yet—
Something flickered beneath the grin.
Just for a breath.
Not weakness.
Not quite.
But some flash
of old ache
or hollow pride.
Most people wouldn’t have noticed.
Most people never did.
But she wasn’t laughing.
She was still watching him—
not with the smugness
of someone who’d gotten the last word,
but with a quiet, open stillness.
Like she was listening to something
no one else could hear.
No judgment.
No performance.
Just presence.
Interesting, he thought,
throat dry.
She sees too much.
The professor cleared his throat—
voice slightly cracked,
as if grateful the room hadn’t devolved
into smoke and property damage.
But Clavis?
He was already plotting.
Already intrigued.
Already cataloguing.
The precise shade of ink she used—
violet.
Unusual.
Personal.
The kind of detail
most people wouldn’t notice.
But he did.
The way her smile
didn’t reach her lips,
but tilted at the edges
like a thought she hadn’t spoken yet.
The cadence of her voice
when she’d said it—
“Which makes truth not the rose, but the reaction.”
It echoed still.
Like a refrain.
Delicate.
Dangerous.
Delightful.
And beneath all of it,
that terrible, persistent itch—
Would she say something like that again?
Would she look at him like that again?
Like he wasn’t a spectacle.
Like he was worth
the bother of understanding.
He glanced her way again—
nonchalantly, of course.
She turned back to her notebook,
tucking a strand of hair behind her ear
with a slow, absent motion—
as if clearing space
for something sacred.
Then her pen began to move.
Not fast.
Not frantic.
Steady.
Purposeful.
Not the way students wrote lecture notes.
The way
someone wrote beliefs.
The kind of writing you did
when the words already lived inside you.
He hadn’t meant to think of her as beautiful.
But the thought had arrived anyway—
unannounced
and certain.
Slipped in through the way
she tilted her head,
the way her gaze held his without wavering
when most would have looked away.
He couldn’t see what she wrote.
But he knew.
It was something
chosen.
She wasn’t predictable.
That was a problem.
Most people flinched
when they saw the wires.
She only tilted her head
like she wanted to understand the mechanism.
She’d wandered into the snare without flinching.
And somehow,
that made him want to redesign it entirely—
just to see how far she’d follow.
Ethics and Aesthetics,
the syllabus had called it.
He supposed this was both.
She looked like she belonged
in a painting no one had finished—
something caught in brushstrokes
and golden light,
still waiting for a name.
There was beauty in her, yes.
But not the kind people complimented at parties.
It was the kind you stumbled into by accident—
and couldn’t forget,
no matter how you tried.
And as he watched her—
sunlight brushing the slope of her cheek,
ink flowing like conviction across the page—
he wasn’t sure:
Was it her honesty
that made her beautiful?
Or just the way she wore it—
like it didn’t cost her anything?
Either way—
he’d already started
studying the shape of her.
Already wondering
what it might take
to unmake her—
This is for you!
Your story.
I hope this brings you all the love and joy you deserve today!
(Please see my note to you at the end!)
"The Soul Beneath the Paint"
The place smelled like damp stone, oil paint, and poor decisions—Théodore Vangot’s specialty. He favored basements that looked as though they might cave in if someone sneezed too enthusiastically, spaces that felt borrowed rather than sanctioned. Clavis approved immediately. Anything respectable enough to be structurally sound was rarely worth the trouble.
He arrived late, as usual. Not out of carelessness—he had never been careless—but because rooms told the truth once they’d grown tired of pretending. People relaxed. Masks slipped. Patterns revealed themselves.
Amusement, for instance.
And Third Prince Clavis Lelouch adored amusement.
And Clavis had never met a moment he couldn’t make worse—or more entertaining.
And if there wasn’t any entertainment present…well. He had a long and illustrious history of correcting that oversight.
Low light skimmed the brick walls and unfinished arches. Candles burned in bottles along the floor, wax pooling like lazy offerings. The crowd was predictable: nobles congratulating themselves for being adventurous, artists pretending not to notice, patrons pretending this wasn’t how empires quietly fed. Clavis drifted through it all with practiced ease, golden eyes bright with the faint, predatory gleam of someone already bored and waiting for provocation.
Théo spotted him across the room and scowled, the look of a man who had just realized a fire had started—and that it was looking at him.
Clavis smiled back—wide, genial, and entirely undeserved. He lifted two fingers in a lazy wave.
Fires, after all, were meant to be admired—at least briefly—before anyone thought to put them out.
Théo swore under his breath and turned his attention pointedly back to the art, as though ignoring Clavis Lelouch might somehow render him theoretical.
Clavis let the smile linger a moment longer than necessary, then turned away, already bored with a victory that required no effort at all.
Most of the art was…fine. Competent. Some of it was eager—straining for danger the way a child strained to say something they’d definitely get scolded for. A few pieces longed desperately to scandalize and lacked the courage to follow through. He catalogued it all with the bored generosity of someone who had never needed a painting to tell him he was alive.
Then something tugged.
Not the art.
The sensation.
It caught his attention sideways—not painful, not sharp, just insistent, like a loose thread brushing his wrist until he noticed it. He followed the feeling toward a stretch of wall where the light fell softer, where the crowd thinned without ever fully dispersing.
Three paintings hung there.
Portraits, perhaps—if portraits had learned how to keep secrets.
Faces emerged from shadow and color, not posed so much as interrupted. As if the moment had arrived too soon and decided to stay anyway. The eyes were unsettling in the way honest things often were.
They didn’t look out.
They looked back.
Clavis slowed without quite meaning to.
Around him, murmurs bloomed—intimate, raw, striking—people congratulating themselves for recognizing depth without ever getting close enough to drown in it. He barely heard them. The paintings felt like paused confessions, caught mid-breath, before the subject had decided whether it was safe to finish the thought.
And then—
Ah.
There she was.
Not centered. Not spotlighted. Just off to the side of her own work, close enough to claim it, far enough that no one was required to acknowledge her. Her hands folded loosely in front of her, fingers worrying at one another whenever someone leaned too close to the canvas. She listened more than she spoke. When she did speak, her voice didn’t travel far—soft, careful, shaped for rooms that had taught her not to expect accommodation.
She stood solidly, warmly present, and yet held herself as though the space might issue a quiet complaint if she weren’t vigilant.
Clavis’s mouth twitched.
She had a presence that grounded the room, a softness that didn’t ask permission to exist. Not carved down. Not curated. She filled her clothes naturally. As if she belonged to herself. And yet—there was restraint in her posture, a learned habit of minimizing, of standing as though the world might accuse her of taking more than she was allowed.
People navigated around her with the care reserved for obstacles, not people.
That, Clavis decided, was rude.
So many of the women he knew looked like they were negotiating with their own bodies—tight smiles, careful angles, a constant accounting of restraint. Hunger worn like virtue. Effort polished until it passed for elegance.
She didn’t look negotiated.
She looked real.
Someone praised the emotion in one of the paintings. Another remarked on the eyes, on how alive they felt. She smiled politely, nodded, and stepped half a pace back—as if the work were the point, and she merely the means.
They handled the art as though it were brave for existing. Careful fingers. Earnest nods. A respectful distance, as if daring to touch it too long might make them complicit.
No one lingered on the woman who had been brave enough to make it.
Something tight twisted low in Clavis’s chest.
Ah.
That feeling.
The one that came from watching something essential be overlooked while everyone congratulated themselves for noticing it at all. From seeing people skim past the living thing to admire what it left behind.
He’d spent his life being noticed like a firework—loud, brief, decorative. Memorable, yes. Replaceable, always. Compared endlessly to a brother who mattered.
Watching them look through her, Clavis felt an old, familiar irritation stretch and roll its shoulders.
He tore his gaze away and found Théo mid-argument with a patron who looked one insult away from being escorted bodily up the stairs.
“Ah,” Clavis said cheerfully, stepping into Théo’s peripheral vision like a bad idea that refused to be ignored. “I see you’ve found someone who thinks exposure pays rent.”
Théo didn’t look at him. He flattened his palm against the edge of the nearest table instead, fingers splayed, breath measured—counting, perhaps, or restraining the urge to throw someone.
“Leave.”
Clavis dipped his head closer anyway, voice dropping into conspiratorial amusement. “I’m shopping.”
That earned him a sideways glance—brief, unimpressed, already tired. Théo’s gaze flicked to Clavis’s empty hands, his tailored sleeves, the unmistakable absence of intent. “You don’t buy art.”
Clavis lifted one shoulder in an easy shrug, already drifting closer to the wall of paintings. “I fund bad decisions,” he corrected lightly. “Occasionally they turn out to be beautiful.”
Théo exhaled through his nose, the sound sharp and resigned. “You’re a menace.”
Clavis’s smile widened, bright and entirely unrepentant. “Ah. So you have noticed.”
Théo’s jaw tightened. He didn’t dignify that with a response—just made a curt motion with two fingers toward the stairwell. The patron hesitated, recalculated, and decided he liked his bones intact.
Clavis waited until the man was moving before speaking again, his tone gentler now, almost idle.
“You’ve got someone the crowd keeps stepping around instead of toward,” he said. “That feels like a design flaw.”
Théo followed his line of sight at last. His jaw worked once before he spoke. “She doesn’t like taking space from people who don’t offer it.”
That earned a look from Clavis.
Not the observation—but the fact that Théo had bothered to make it.
Something in Clavis’s expression changed, small and contained, the humor thinning at the edges. “How polite of her.”
This time, the joke didn’t quite land.
His attention slipped back to her without permission, the room dissolving into a low, indistinct murmur around the quiet center she formed simply by standing there.
He watched the way her shoulders eased the moment someone stepped away from her work—as if she’d been holding herself taut, waiting for permission to breathe. Watched how her gaze lingered on faces rather than praise, searching not for approval but for recognition. For someone looking at her, not just through her.
She waited the way kind people waited. Patient. Hopeful despite herself. Standing there as if she were braced for disappointment, yet still listening for something gentler to arrive.
Not invisible.
Just unconvinced she was allowed to be seen.
Clavis exhaled softly through his nose.
The irony tugged at the corner of his mouth.
People loved vulnerability when it stayed framed and silent.
Admired it best when it didn’t ask anything in return.
Théo muttered something about buyers and drifted away, already hunting his next problem. Clavis remained where he was, letting his presence thin and fade, becoming just another shadow at the edge of the room. It was a trick he’d learned early—how to disappear without leaving.
He did not approach her.
Not because he lacked interest—but because the thought of stepping forward, of letting his attention land on her openly, tasted wrong. He had learned what attention did to soft things. How quickly it turned curiosity into entitlement. How easily people forgot there was a living, breathing person attached to the thing they admired.
He would not be another pair of eyes that took without giving.
So he watched.
He watched her fold slightly inward when the room grew loud. Watched the warmth return to her gaze when someone truly looked—really looked—at the work. Watched how she lingered near the paintings as though they were both refuge and risk, shield and invitation all at once.
Clavis Lelouch did not believe in love at first sight. That sort of nonsense made people careless.
But he believed in patterns.
And as the night wore on and the room shifted around her without ever quite making space, the same thought returned again and again—persistent, inconvenient, impossible to ignore.
The world had made a mistake.
One he suspected he would eventually find difficult not to correct.
Clavis did not return to Théodore Vangot’s basement.
This was, strictly speaking, a lie.
He simply did not return in any way that could be traced, named, or reasonably blamed on him.
Instead, he let the city do what it always did when nudged correctly—shift. Names began to circulate where they hadn’t before. Invitations appeared in hands that did not quite remember requesting them. Doors opened and insisted they had never been locked.
Clavis insisted on nothing directly. That was the trick.
A comment made in passing, framed as idle observation.
A suggestion delivered with the lazy certainty of someone who did not need to be right to be believed.
A patron redirected. A schedule “adjusted.” A gallery waking up one morning with the uncomfortable sensation that it was suddenly curious.
He never attached his name.
That would defeat the point.
He told himself this was efficient. That talent, once identified, ought to be placed somewhere it could shine. Cultural stewardship. Civic responsibility. A public service, really.
He told himself many things.
What he did not tell himself was her name.
He learned it anyway.
It surfaced gradually—in the margin of a request, in the corner of a conversation that paused when he passed. Spoken softly, as though volume alone might bruise it. He did not repeat it. Did not test the sound of it in his mouth.
Not yet.
Her work began to find its way.
Not all at once. It slipped naturally forward in increments. From brick to velvet. From candlelight to chandeliers. From rooms where people hovered uncertainly to rooms where they expected something to happen.
She followed, always a step behind her own momentum.
By the third inquiry delivered with breathless urgency—sealed with wax thick enough to imply delusions of grandeur—Clavis realized he might have…overcorrected.
He stared at the parchment. Then at the wall.
“That’s not subtle,” he informed it.
The wall, having seen worse, declined to comment.
He skimmed the letter again. Too eager. Too fast. Too many people suddenly very interested in acquiring something they’d apparently never heard of last week.
Ah.
Yes.
He might have been a touch enthusiastic. In his defense, enthusiasm had never once been his quietest trait.
He spent the next hour quietly dismantling his own handiwork—redirecting patrons, inventing scheduling conflicts, spreading the notion that the artist preferred smaller commissions. Intimate ones. Selective ones. The sort that did not arrive accompanied by footmen and entitlement.
Balance, after all, was important.
So was not dropping a stampede directly on top of her.
At one point, he found himself cornered by a merchant who smiled too quickly and asked far too specific a question.
“Well,” the man said pleasantly, “of course we were intrigued. When a prince takes an interest—”
Clavis’s pulse spiked.
Ah.
No.
Absolutely not.
He intercepted the thought with a smile so easy it nearly tripped over itself. “You misunderstand,” he said lightly, already reaching for misdirection. “I don’t take interests. I redirect them.”
The merchant blinked. “Then the inquiry—”
“—comes from a consortium,” Clavis cut in, waving the matter away as if bored by it. “Not me.”
The man frowned, a bit disappointed. “Which consortium?”
Clavis hesitated just long enough to be noticeable. Oopsie.
“The… Discerning One,” he supplied, with all the confidence of a man inventing history on the spot.
The merchant’s brow furrowed. His gaze drifted—not to Clavis’s face, but to the empty space beside him, as if expecting the rest of the explanation to materialize.
Clavis excused himself three carefully non-suspicious breaths later.
He heard it again an hour after that—spoken reverently, with the sort of gravity usually reserved for secret orders and inherited wealth.
“The Discerning Consortium,” someone whispered.
Clavis left immediately.
Not hurriedly. That would invite questions.
Instead, he departed with the calm assurance of a man who definitely had somewhere else to be and absolutely was not fleeing the consequences of his own imagination.
Some lies deserved to die young.
He saw her again days later in the palace corridor, a canvas tucked beneath one arm and held close to her body like something both precious and faintly alarming. Her dark hair framed her face in soft, practical lines, brushing her jaw when she moved. When she glanced up, her eyes caught the light—deep, searching, already apologizing for the space they took before dropping again.
She walked carefully, shoulders drawn in—not cowed, but braced. As if the world had grown louder without warning and she was adjusting herself to survive the volume.
People noticed the canvas first.
The texture.
The promise.
The price.
She noticed the moment their attention slid past her and settled on the canvas instead.
You could see it in the way her grip tightened. In the fraction of a second it took her to follow their gaze, already preparing herself to be secondary to the thing she carried. As if she were accustomed to being measured by what she offered rather than who she truly was.
That, Clavis decided, was excessively irritating.
At gatherings—because of course there were gatherings now—he listened as they spoke about her work with reverence. They discussed mood and depth and emotional honesty. They speculated. They priced.
They spoke of her hands.
Of her time.
Of what she could be made to produce.
No one seemed especially concerned with whether she was enjoying any of it.
So, Clavis adjusted the world again.
He ensured the rooms she entered were quieter. That the most ravenous collectors were kept busy gnawing on something else. That praise arrived in manageable increments and departed before it could congeal into expectation, obligation, or ownership.
It was not protection, he told himself.
It was moderation.
Théo noticed. Clavis had been hoping for incompetence. This had been wildly optimistic.
“You’re hovering,” Théo said one evening, still bent over his ledger, quill scratching with obvious irritation.
Clavis leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, crossing one ankle over the other as if he belonged there by accident. “I’m loitering,” he corrected mildly. “There’s a difference. Shall I procure you a dictionary?”
Théo flipped a page with unnecessary force. “You’ve redirected three buyers, invented a consortium, and frightened off a baron.”
The quill paused.
“All for someone you’ve never even spoken to.”
Clavis’s response was immediate and immaculate. He straightened his cuffs, adjusted a glove that did not need adjusting, and offered a smile so smooth it had never once failed him. “You’re welcome.”
Théo finally looked up, expression flat in the way that meant the argument had already happened without Clavis. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”
Clavis’s smile softened just enough to be misleading, the way a practiced trick made you forget to watch his fingers. “I know exactly what you think I’m doing.”
Théo closed the ledger with a soft, decisive thump. He eyed Clavis over the spine. “I’m charging you rent for the meddling.”
Clavis waved a hand, already retreating toward the hall. “Invoice me,” he said airily. “Put it under community outreach.”
After that, he remained unseen.
Well.
Unseen by everyone except Théo.
Which was manageable.
Visibility came with conditions—with expectations, invisible ledgers tracking what was owed and by whom. Being noticed was never neutral. It turned attention into claim, and choice into obligation.
Clavis had learned early that being seen meant being claimed—by duty, by comparison, by a world that never asked whether you wanted what it demanded.
And there was a treacherous part of him that feared what would happen if she learned who had tipped the first domino.
Gratitude was a kind of gravity.
He would not survive being chosen because she felt she had to.
Then, one day, he saw her smile.
Not the polite one. Not the careful one she wore when praised.
This one was unguarded.
It flickered across her face like sunlight breaking through cloud cover—brief, warm, and entirely unaware of the damage it could do. Her dark lashes softened, her mouth curving not for anyone else’s benefit but her own. She stood before a finished piece, head tilted, eyes distant and bright with possibility rather than doubt.
For a moment, she looked unburdened by the habit of caution.
Something in Clavis’s chest went very, very wrong.
He turned on his heel and walked away before the thought could finish assembling itself.
No.
Absolutely not.
Later, alone, he stood at the window longer than necessary, hands braced against the sill as if the city itself required holding in place.
This was becoming a problem.
He watched from farther away after that.
Watched her grow accustomed to rooms that expected her and still hover at their edges, as though unsure she’d earned the right to occupy the center. Watched her listen more than she spoke. Watched her accept praise with the same gentle reserve she’d used in the basement—polite, grateful, and faintly unconvinced it was meant for her.
Soft things survived best when the world didn’t demand they become sharp.
He had seen what sharpness bought you—attention, usefulness, a place at the table that was never truly yours.
He would not be the one to teach her that price.
So he waited.
And waiting, he discovered, was far more dangerous than acting.
This had stopped being curiosity.
Clavis Lelouch did not enjoy realizing that too late.
The palace had dressed itself for spectacle the way a trap disguises itself as invitation.
Chandeliers spilled molten light in sheets of gold across marble floors so buffed they reflected movement like liquid. Silk whispered as guests turned. Jewels sparked at throats and wrists. The air carried crushed rose, warmed wax, and the faint metallic tang of anticipation.
Clavis inhaled and almost applauded the effort.
Nothing said culture quite like gilding every surface until it forgot what it was.
Music drifted from the musicians’ gallery—precise, elegant, unthreatening. The kind of melody that insisted everything was under control.
It lied beautifully.
If one listened closely, the tempo pressed just a fraction too tight, as though the violins were aware they were being evaluated. Even the music was performing.
The court had decided the evening mattered.
You could feel it in the way laughter skimmed too brightly across conversation—never sinking, never risking depth. In the careful clustering of bodies near the central display. In the way people stood not merely to admire—but to be seen admiring.
They angled themselves toward visibility, each profile curated, each nod calculated.
Art, after all, was most useful when it reflected well.
Her paintings hung along the far wall, framed now in gold that caught the chandelier light and refused humility. The velvet behind them was a deep, indulgent crimson, turning shadow into theater. What had once lived in candlelit brick now gleamed beneath royal approval.
Given space.
Given endorsement.
Given the kind of legitimacy that came with invisible strings.
She stood before them. Encircled.
Collectors leaned too close, the scent of expensive cologne clinging to wet varnish. Rings flashed as hands gestured inches from the canvas—too near, proprietary, almost grazing. A goblet tilted dangerously near a corner of one frame before its owner corrected himself with a sheepish chuckle and an even sheepisher bow toward the nearest noble.
Someone laughed loudly about “placement in Benitoite markets.” Someone else murmured about “long-term yield.”
They spoke about her with admiration. They spoke about her without looking at her.
“The brush control is extraordinary.”
“So restrained.”
“Very marketable.”
“She understands vulnerability. That’s rare.”
The words floated upward, polished and hollow.
Depth.
Market.
Vulnerability.
Currency disguised as praise.
Clavis did not join them.
He stood half-shadowed against a column near the perimeter, one shoulder resting against marble with the careless ease of a man who had absolutely no intention of being responsible for anything that happened within ten paces of him. A glass of grape juice hung lazily between his fingers—untouched, glinting in the light like a prop he had accepted purely to appear sociable.
His expression shifted every few seconds—mild amusement, passing boredom, faint intrigue—the exact rotation required to suggest he was paying attention without ever being caught invested.
He looked, in short, like a prince tolerating culture for the sake of public morale.
To most of the room, he was merely ornamental—another gilded fixture in a hall already drowning in them.
Which suited him perfectly tonight.
Decorative things were rarely suspected of counting.
He watched who leaned too close. Who calculated while smiling. Who paused before speaking, recalibrating based on wealth, rank, advantage. He watched the small territorial shifts—who angled their body toward her, who angled their body toward the nearest buyer.
He looked, in short, like a man deciding whether to start a fire purely to see who would run first.
And more than that—
He noticed her smile.
It was immaculate.
It curved precisely when required. Tilted just enough to flatter without inviting intimacy. It never lingered long enough to suggest vanity. Never faltered long enough to betray fatigue.
A noblewoman leaned closer to one canvas and declared the piece “achingly consumable.”
Consumable.
The word moved through him like grit between teeth.
The artist inclined her head and offered a brief explanation, voice soft as velvet brushing stone. Her hands folded neatly at her waist.
A gentleman in brocade praised her “discipline.” The restraint in her shadow work. The admirable control of her emotional output.
She laughed softly. Too quickly. The sound dissolved almost as soon as it formed, like something dropped in water and immediately submerged.
Clavis’s fingers tightened around the stem of his glass. The crystal gave a faint, protesting creak.
There.
It happened again.
Her gaze flicked from face to face—not seeking connection now, but gauging reaction. Measuring which comment had drawn the most interest. Which phrasing had earned the softest murmur of approval.
The next explanation shifted accordingly.
Smoother.
More precise.
Less wandering.
Her shoulders drew inward by a fraction before she corrected them. Her tone thinned just slightly, refined at the edges. The warmth she offered was curated now—angled carefully, polished before release.
She adjusted her answers to meet the room halfway.
Then a little more than halfway.
The details she lingered on began to mirror the words they liked best.
She began trimming her own edges before they could be filed for her.
A collector nodded approvingly. Another leaned closer.
Encouraged.
They murmured about narrative economy. About compositional restraint. About how “accessible” the next collection might be.
They were not cruel. They were pleased.
And she was beginning to align herself with that pleasure. Not surrendering. Refining. Calibrating.
Becoming legible in the language of acquisition.
They nodded gravely at the honesty in her brushwork. They praised the emotional candor of her subjects. They leaned closer.
They were devouring her.
Not viciously.
Enthusiastically.
They wanted her hands. Her time. Her output.
And she was beginning—quietly, efficiently—to move to the rhythm they preferred.
Something inside Clavis went very still.
The music did not falter, but the air shifted against his skin, as though the room had tilted by a degree only he felt.
Another room rose without invitation—brighter, harsher. Applause breaking slightly to the side of where he stood. Laughter landing a fraction too far away. A younger version of himself smiling wider than he felt because the alternative had been invisibility.
He had learned quickly which parts of him were useful.
The wit.The charm.The spectacle.
Not the heart.Not the sensitive tenderness.Not the inconvenient depth.Not the parts that bled when ignored.
Smiling was safer than being overlooked.
Being amusing meant being remembered.
Being unforgettable was almost the same thing as being wanted.
Almost.
He had sculpted himself accordingly—polished the edges, honed the timing, refined the chaos until he could slice attention cleanly whenever he pleased and it gleamed brightly enough that no one noticed what it protected.
The memory receded.
The echo did not.
Across the room, her voice carried a little farther than it had weeks ago. Not louder. Projected. She gestured toward one of the canvases, fingers tracing the air where shadow curved across a painted cheek. Her explanation was precise, efficient, careful not to linger too long on any one detail.
Her hands returned to her waist.
Her fingers curled inward again—pressing lightly into one another, knuckles whitening just enough to suggest the effort of remaining composed. As if anchoring herself against the current of attention.
Approval moved through silk and satin like a tide—small nods, satisfied hums, the faint tightening of lips that meant future investment. A collector leaned toward another and murmured something that ended in numbers.
Clavis’s jaw shifted. Not a dramatic clench. A subtle grind, muscle ticking once beneath the smooth line of his cheek.
If he remained where he was—clever, distant, ornamental—she would complete the transformation.
He could already see it forming.
The smoother cadence.
The curated warmth.
The edges sanded before they could be sanded for her.
She would learn to glide through rooms like this one without leaving fingerprints. To project without revealing. To pre-trim herself into whatever shape made acquisition easiest.
The court would reward her for it. They always did.
He had seen that reward. It glittered. It applauded.
It consumed.
The softness he had first noticed—the un-negotiated solidity of her presence, the way she filled space without apology or performance—would not vanish dramatically.
It would erode.
Buffed.
Refined.
Sanitized.
Safe.
His fingers tightened harder around the glass. The crystal protested again.
Ah. So this was the part where he pretended this was none of his concern.
Excellent.
Marvelous plan.
Stand still. Look decorative. Let her sharpen herself politely for an audience that preferred manageable depth.
Brilliant.
He had redirected currents to keep her from being swallowed whole.
He would not stand here and watch her learn to tread acid gracefully.
Across the room, she laughed again.
Bright.
Flawless.
The sound lifted, curved, landed perfectly.
Her dark hair caught the chandelier light as she turned slightly, strands brushing the line of her jaw. The gold behind her framed her like something claimed. Her hand rose briefly as she spoke, fingers describing a careful arc in the air before returning to her waist.
They folded there again. Knuckles pressing faintly into fabric.
Anchoring.
Holding.
That was enough.
Clavis pushed away from the column. He moved as though boredom had finally exhausted him.
He adjusted his cuffs mid-step—because of course he did—and let the glass vanish into the hands of a passing servant without breaking stride.
He did not hurry. Hurrying suggested urgency. Urgency suggested feeling.
He preferred neither publicly.
The room felt him before it saw him. It always did.
Conversation snagged and re-threaded itself. A gentleman angled his body away instinctively, like a man noticing smoke. A cluster of courtiers straightened not out of reverence—but out of precaution.
The disaster has entered the radius.
Someone murmured about securing the silverware.
Someone quietly asked whether the chandeliers were insured.
A gentleman muttered about structural integrity.
Clavis offered a pleasant nod to no one in particular.
He reached the edge of the circle and stopped.
Listened.
A gentleman with an aggressively waxed mustache was in full stride, explaining the “disciplined emotional economy” of her latest piece as though he’d personally painted it.
Clavis tilted his head slightly, the movement lazy enough to be mistaken for indulgence. “How fortunate,” he murmured, voice smooth as a card sliding across felt, “that she’s present to hear her valuation.”
The mustached man blinked. A few guests laughed automatically.
There he is. The hellcat.
Someone exhaled in faint amusement, expecting a spectacle.
Clavis smiled faintly, as though he’d offered nothing more than spice.
A woman in emerald silk recovered first and chimed in, voice honeyed. “We were admiring her restraint. One feels how much she holds back.”
Clavis’s gaze slid back to the artist.
She did not look at him. But he saw the flicker at the edge of her composure—the fractional tightening at the corner of her mouth, the breath she inhaled before answering. She smoothed it away expertly.
His mouth curved, slow and almost contemplative. “Restraint,” he replied pleasantly, smoothing the crease of his glove with deliberate care, “is a quality people admire most when it benefits them.”
The emerald silk faltered. Not enough for scandal. Enough for discomfort.
The ripple of laughter the room had prepared stalled somewhere in the throat.
One guest exhaled a dismissive little scoff—ah yes, the palace menace performing again—but it sounded thinner than intended.
They were accustomed to Clavis being disruptive.
He was not, historically, precise.
And this—
This was precise.
Surgically so.
“Your Highness does adore a provocation,” drawled a marquis near the back—a narrow man with lacquered hair and a smile permanently affixed at an angle of indulgent superiority. The kind of man who mistook patience for intellect.
There it was. The indulgent smirk. The assumption that this, too, was theater.
Clavis let the remark drift through the air unchallenged.
He tilted his head slightly, as though considering whether the marquis might improve if shaken.
No smile now. No wink.
Just attention.
Then he moved.
Not quickly.
Not dramatically.
He drifted forward the way smoke advances under a door—quiet, inevitable—just enough that he stood beside her rather than outside the circle.
Close enough that the edge of his sleeve brushed the fall of her skirt. Not touching.
Never touching without intent.
He angled himself beside her— occupying the space that had been pressing inward.
The circle adjusted instinctively.
Predators recognized predator.
“You’ve all spoken very eloquently,” he continued, gaze sweeping the faces before him with lazy thoroughness, “about what she gives you.”
He paced half a step to the side as he spoke, slow and unhurried, forcing their eyes to follow him rather than the canvas.
“Her vulnerability.”
A glance at the mustached gentleman.
“Her discipline.”
A flicker toward emerald silk.
“Her restraint.”
He stopped moving.
Looked directly at the collector who had been calculating margins.
“And her productivity.”
A faint, collective tightening rippled through silk and satin.
Another guest rolled his eyes, this one younger, impatient. “We are patrons, Your Highness. Appreciation is the point.”
Clavis turned his head just enough to regard him.
The motion was minimal.
The effect was not.
“Of course,” he said mildly. His thumb brushed invisible dust from his cuff. Then, almost idly—
“Has anyone asked her what she prefers?”
The words did not rise.
They threaded.
The circle did not laugh.
The marquis’s smile stalled.
A goblet stilled mid-lift.
The collectors’ gazes shifted—not toward the paintings this time, but toward her.
Toward her face.
Toward the place where answers lived.
She inhaled.
It was soft.
But he saw it—the lift at her collarbone, the way her dark lashes lowered briefly before rising again. The faint tightening at her fingers where they pressed into fabric.
Gold framed her.
Voices hovered.
For the first time that evening, the room was waiting for her rather than for what she produced.
Clavis did not look at the others.
He looked at her.
And let the silence hold.
He turned toward her—not sharply, not with the surgical precision he’d used on the others—but gradually, like a door opening on its own hinge.
When he spoke to the room, his voice skimmed.
When he spoke to her, his voice lowered. Not theatrically. Just enough that it no longer carried glitter.
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
The question didn’t sparkle. It didn’t perform. It rested between them—clean, unadorned. Offered without cushioning.
Across the circle, silk shifted. Someone adjusted a cuff. The emerald silk woman’s smile held—but the edges pulled tight, as though stitched.
The artist blinked once—as if the inquiry had required translation. Her fingers loosened from the seam of her sleeve, hovering briefly before settling again. A breath lifted the silk at her collarbone. From this distance, he could see the faint flush along her cheekbone where the chandelier light struck, warming her skin into something almost fragile.
The room did not know where to place the silence.
A diplomat near the back exhaled through his nose—annoyed at inefficiency—at a ridiculous person that the universe had decided to grant the title of “prince” to. “We were merely honoring her success,” he said smoothly, the words lacquered in civility.
There it was. Reframing.
Rescue the narrative.
Restore the hierarchy.
Clavis’s gaze drifted toward him.
Curious.
Like a cat observing a teacup pushed too close to the edge.
His eyes moved lazily from the diplomat to the gold frame behind her. The gilded carving caught the chandelier light greedily, flaring at its edges. Velvet swallowed shadow behind it. The cluster of admirers stood just shy of touching what they already felt ownership over.
The gold was very bright.
Almost greedy.
“How generous,” Clavis said softly. He adjusted the fall of his glove, smoothing the leather along his wrist as though tidying something delicate. “I was under the impression it was already hers.”
The words did not rise.
They settled.
The emerald silk woman’s fan faltered mid-motion. A collector’s smile tightened, then recalculated. The diplomat’s fingers flexed once around the stem of his glass.
Clavis stood tall, shoulders relaxed, one hand slipping casually behind his back while the other rested loosely at his side. The chandelier light caught in his hair and traced the sharp line of his jaw. His expression was mild—almost pleasant—but his gaze did not waver.
“But do continue,” he added lightly, as though inviting further enlightenment. “I’m learning so much about generosity tonight.”
The marquis’s mouth opened. Closed.
No one resumed speaking. The air seemed to thin.
Clavis turned back to her. “You’ve had her hands all evening,” he said quietly. Now he shifted his stance fully—angled subtly so that he occupied the space between her and the tightest press of the circle. Close enough that the heat from his sleeve brushed her arm. Close enough that anyone reaching would have to acknowledge him first.
His golden gaze swept the circle slowly—deliberately—making eye contact one by one. “You’ve discussed her output. Her discipline. Her market trajectory.”
He met each pair of eyes in turn. Held them just long enough to prevent escape. A collector cleared his throat. A marquis found sudden interest in the frame behind her shoulder.Clavis inclined his head slightly, as though inviting someone — anyone — to correct the list.
“Has it occurred to any of you that she is not a resource?”
He stood very still when he finished. His weight settled evenly between both feet. His chin lifted by a hair’s breadth. The faintest curve of amusement lingered at the corner of his mouth—not playful, not kind.
Just certain.
He did not break eye contact. He let them feel it.
The noblewoman in emerald silk stiffened, but it was not the kind of stiffness one could politely comment on. It lived in the hand that snapped her fan open too sharply, lacquered ribs cracking against one another before the silk settled between her fingers. A pulse flickered at the base of her throat, just above the jeweled clasp resting against her collarbone.
“Surely no one implied—”
“You didn’t have to.” Clavis did not elevate his voice, nor did he lace the words with humor.
He inclined his head a fraction, the gesture almost courteous, as if acknowledging a clever but unnecessary move in a game he’d already decided to end. His gloved thumb traced idly along the seam of his opposite glove, smoothing leather with slow, deliberate precision.
Around them, satin shifted against satin. A bracelet chimed too brightly. A wine glass touched marble with a careful click that tried very hard to sound accidental.
He stood there long enough for the silence to grow uncomfortable.
And in that silence, the hierarchy tilted.
He adjusted his position—not with abruptness, not with theatrical intrusion, but with the smooth inevitability of someone stepping into space that had always belonged to him. The movement forced the nearest collector to retreat half an inch to avoid brushing his shoulder. By the time the circle realized it, Clavis stood aligned beside the artist herself.
Not shielding her.
Simply present.
Close enough that the warmth from him brushed the silk at her sleeve. Close enough that anyone wishing to lean in would have to lean past him first.
“She is not a commodity.”
This time he did not allow his gaze to drift. His chin lifted a subtle degree, catching the chandelier light along the sharp line of his cheekbone. The gold in his eyes brightened—not with mischief, but with clarity.
“She is a person who paints.”
The distinction sat there, undeniable.
Impossible to reframe.
The emerald silk woman’s fan slowed mid-air. The diplomat’s fingers tightened around the stem of his glass, knuckles paling beneath the cuff. The mustached gentleman blinked as though recalculating a figure that no longer resolved.
Clavis’s gaze remained on her.
And then, with a softness that carried farther than volume ever could—
“I prefer her unpriced.”
There was no grin in it. No smirk. None of his usually mocking tone.
Only certainty.
A glass tipped and sloshed against crystal. Someone cleared their throat and immediately regretted the sound. A marquis bent with exaggerated interest toward the veining in the marble floor, as though architecture had suddenly become riveting.
The mustached gentleman gathered himself, mustache bristling with injured decorum. “Your Highness, we meant no offense—”
“I’m aware.”
Clavis turned his head just enough for the man to feel the full weight of his attention—and then the absence of it. For a flicker of a heartbeat, the old chaos flashed in his eyes, that familiar glint of teeth and danger wrapped in delight.
“That’s the problem.”
No one laughed.
The music at the far end of the hall continued, but the notes seemed to skim uselessly across the air, unable to anchor.
Clavis let the quiet stretch—not indulgently, not theatrically—just long enough for discomfort to root itself.
Then he shifted toward her again.
His shoulders eased. The angle of his stance opened. When he extended his hand, it was not high, not claiming—just forward, palm angled upward, fingers relaxed beneath the glove. An offering made in full view of every witness present.
“Will you join me on the balcony?”
The mustached gentleman made one last attempt at salvage. “Your Highness, we were discussing a commission—”
“I’m certain you were.”
Clavis did not grant him eye contact this time. His gaze remained on the artist.
“You all seem very invested in what she can produce,” he continued, tone level. His head tilted slightly, golden eyes steady. “I’m curious who she is when no one is pricing her..”
No flourish. No laugh.
Just iron.
The absence of humor unsettled them more than any spectacle would have.
The Hellcat of the court—who so often burned for entertainment—stood still.
Intent.
“They can wait,” he said quietly. His thumb flexed once beneath the leather, betraying the faintest thread of tension. “They will.” He did not blink. “Will you come outside?”
Behind him, a heel scraped marble. Silk whispered. Someone shifted weight and found no comfortable place to stand.
No one interrupted. Because this was no longer provocation.
It was selection. And courts understand selection instinctively.
Her hand moved.
The silk at her wrist loosened as her fingers uncurled from her sleeve, the fabric sighing softly against her skin. Chandelier light caught along the curve of her knuckles as she lifted her hand toward his, slow enough that every pair of eyes in the circle tracked the narrowing space between them.
For one suspended heartbeat, the ballroom held its breath with her.
When her palm met his glove, the contact was quiet. Intentional. Warm through leather.
Clavis closed his fingers around hers.
And then he smiled.
Not the sharp-edged crescent the court knew. Not the brilliant, dangerous flash that preceded disaster.
This one was smaller.
It softened the line of his mouth. Touched the corners of his eyes. Stripped the performance from him without effort. It was the smile of a man who had just decided something and would not be persuaded otherwise.
It was for her.
Close enough now that she could see the faint flecks of brighter gold in his gaze, the way the chandelier light fractured there instead of bouncing off.
He did not glance back at the circle as he guided her forward. He did not need to.
He turned, guiding her forward with a steady pressure of his hand, and the guests parted instinctively. Silk brushed silk in reluctant concession. Shoes shifted across marble with subdued reluctance. Space formed where moments before there had been none offered.
His posture remained unhurried, shoulders easy, stride measured—but the angle of his body made something unmistakably clear:
Access now required permission.
Behind them, the chandeliers glittered.
Too bright.
And the court understood, in the quiet way courts always understand power when it shifts—
They had been admiring the wrong thing all evening.
The balcony doors swung inward and closed behind them with a softened thud, muting the ballroom into a distant hum. Laughter dulled into something shapeless. Crystal and silk became suggestion rather than sound.
Outside, the air was cooler.
Honest.
Moonlight spilled across pale stone and ironwork filigree, catching in the carved railing and pooling along the floor at their feet. Lanterns along the outer wall burned low, their glow warm but unobtrusive. Beyond the palace grounds, the city lights flickered in quiet defiance of courtly spectacle.
No gold frames.
No velvet.
Just night.
Clavis did not release her hand immediately.
He stepped forward first, drawing her with him into the open air, as though escorting her across an invisible threshold. The breeze lifted the edge of her sleeve and brushed across his jaw, carrying the faint scent of oil paint and silk.
Her fingers were still warm inside his glove.
There was the slightest tremor in them—not weakness, just the residue of being observed too closely for too long.
He felt it.
He loosened his grip gradually, his thumb shifting once against her knuckles before he allowed his fingers to separate from hers, as if sudden movement might startle something fragile.
“You’re very good at surviving rooms.” The words were light in structure, but his voice had lowered—lost its gleam. He remained angled toward her, not fully facing her yet, as though the confession required momentum.
Moonlight caught along the edge of his cheekbone and the bridge of his nose. Without the chandeliers, the gold in his eyes looked darker. Deeper.
A faint crease formed between her brows.
He noticed that too.
“It’s impressive,” he added, though the corner of his mouth did not lift this time.
He shifted, leaning his hip against the stone railing. One gloved hand rested loosely on the cool surface behind him, fingers splayed, grounding himself in something solid. He angled his gaze outward over the city instead of directly at her—giving her space to breathe without being pinned by his attention.
“I’ve been watching you,” he confessed. His jaw tightened a fraction afterward, muscle ticking once beneath the skin as though the words had cost something. “For a while.”
He rolled one shoulder slightly, almost dismissive, as if confessing to a minor indulgence rather than months of calculated interference.
“I told myself it was the art.” A faint exhale escaped him—not quite a laugh. More the ghost of one. “I’m exceptionally talented at self-deception when it suits me.”
The wind shifted then, slipping between them with cool fingers, catching a strand of her dark hair and lifting it across her cheek. It curved there, moonlight tracing the arc as it settled against her skin.
His gaze followed without permission.
The strand brushed the corner of her mouth when she breathed. She did not move to tuck it back immediately. There was a hesitation there—small, almost imperceptible. As though she were deciding whether the gesture would look self-conscious. As though even here, even now, she were measuring.
His hand twitched.
He could have reached out. Two fingers. Light. Casual. The sort of touch that would pass as light flirtation.
He knew exactly how.
He knew precisely how her pulse might jump beneath his knuckles. How the room behind the doors would imagine intimacy where there was none. How a single brush of leather against skin could tilt a moment irreversibly.
Touch was information.
Touch was leverage.
Touch was a test.
And he was very, very good at testing.
His fingers flexed once at his side.
He did not move.
Not because he lacked the desire. Because he recognized the impulse. This was not a room. This was not a game. If he reached for her now, it would not be to gather data. It would not be to provoke reaction. It would be because he wanted to.
And that—
That was infinitely more dangerous.
So he let the strand remain where it was. Let the wind decide. And kept his hands where she could see them.
“In there,” he continued quietly, his eyes finally returning to her face, “you were adjusting.”
His gaze sharpened—not harsh, but focused. Tracking details the way he always did. The slight shift of her shoulders before answering a question. The way her fingers curled inward when praise grew too specific. The fraction of delay before she chose which part of herself to offer.
“You were learning which parts of yourself they’d reward.” His jaw flexed again. “I know that choreography.”
The night seemed to still around them. Somewhere below, a carriage rolled faintly across cobblestone. A lantern flickered.
He inhaled slowly, and for a moment his gaze drifted—not to her, not to the sky—but somewhere inward.
Applause landing slightly to his left.
A younger version of himself grinning wider than the room deserved.The realization that wit drew attention faster than honesty ever would.He had learned how to bend before the wind asked him to.
He blinked once and returned to the present.
He exhaled slowly. “I don’t want you to learn how to survive rooms the way I did.”
There it was.
Not I love you.
Not I choose you.
But fear.
Real. Bare.
He pushed off the railing then, straightening—not towering, not looming—but standing fully before her now.
The distance between them narrowed.
Moonlight traced the line of his collar, the clean fall of his coat, the tension barely visible in the way his fingers flexed once before stilling.
“I didn’t rearrange half the city,” he added softly, “so you could become better at being consumed.”
There was no grin now.
No theatricality.
Only intent.
And beneath it—
the unmistakable tremor of a man who had just stepped out of the shadows without a joke to retreat behind.
Silence gathered between them, not vacant but weighted.
She broke it by shifting her weight.
The stone beneath her shoes whispered softly as she turned her shoulder a fraction toward him, chin lifting just enough that her voice carried without needing to rise.
“You weren’t as subtle as you think.” The words were quiet. Warm. Amused at the edges.
Clavis’s body reacted before his mind caught up.
Not a flinch—nothing so obvious. His spine straightened a hair. The hand resting at his side stilled mid-flex, fingers settling as though he’d caught himself reaching for something he’d sworn he wouldn’t touch. His gaze sharpened, gold brightening as it locked fully onto her face.
She didn’t look away.
Her expression held a calm certainty that did not seek permission. The night breeze teased at the hem of her skirt, but her eyes stayed steady, intent, thoughtful.
“The consortium,” she continued, voice low, conversational—as though listing curiosities rather than unraveling him. “The redirected collectors. The baron who suddenly decided my work was ‘too intimate for his estate.’”
A corner of her mouth curved, not quite a smile. Something knowing lived there.
“And the rooms,” she added, softer now. “How they grew quieter.”
She stepped closer. Just enough that the space between them narrowed and the warmth of her presence brushed against his coat, subtle and undeniable. Close enough that he could see the fine texture of paint still faintly staining the skin beneath her nails.
“Did you think I wouldn’t feel the current change?”
The question did not accuse.
It recognized.
Clavis’s pulse skipped—once, sharp and unhelpful.
He shouldn't be surprised that she noticed. He had been rearranging the world like a chessboard and had somehow forgotten she lived inside it.
“I thought,” she went on, her tone gentling—not cautious, but precise, “that you were waiting.”
Waiting.
Not hiding.
Not meddling.
Waiting.
He inhaled, slow and deliberate, the way one did when deciding whether to lie convincingly or not at all.
“For what?” The question slipped free without armor.
Her gaze softened then—not pity, not triumph.
Understanding.
She lifted one hand, not toward him, but between them, palm angled slightly upward as if feeling for the shape of something invisible.
“For you.”
The wind shifted again, cooler this time, threading between them and slipping beneath the edge of her wrap. The linen stirred against her forearm, and she held his gaze one heartbeat longer before lowering it
She reached into the fold of the wrap she carried draped over one arm and produced something wrapped with linen, folded twice over, secured loosely.
He noticed the geometry immediately.
The slight rigidity beneath the cloth. The way her wrist compensated for the weight of something flat and firm.
A painting.
His chest tightened before his mind approved the sensation.
She stepped closer, close enough that the linen brushed against the front of his coat. He could feel the faint drag of fabric across the wool. Her hands worked at the wrapping with deliberate ease—no flourish, no hesitation. The linen loosened and peeled back, and the raw edge of stretched canvas emerged into the light.
Unframed. Edges unfinished.
The kind of piece not meant for display.
Moonlight caught in the paint first—subtle ridges of brushwork, gold dulled to something deeper. Only then did it catch in her eyes as she lifted it toward him.
Clavis’s expression did not collapse.
The angle of his head altered a fraction. His shoulders squared without him meaning to. The hand that had been relaxed at his side curled slowly inward before he forced it open again.
This was not part of the choreography.
She extended the canvas toward him and set it in his hands.
The weight settled against his palms. He felt the slight give of stretched linen beneath paint, the unfinished wood along the back edge. His gloved fingers tightened instinctively along the frame, leather creaking softly against raw grain. The linen she’d unwrapped slipped from his grasp and fell soundlessly against the stone at his feet.
He lowered his gaze.
And the air left his lungs in a quiet, involuntary exhale.
It was him.
But not the version the court applauded.
Not the grin caught mid-spark.
Not the tilt of a man preparing to set something on fire just to watch it burn.
The figure in the painting stood at a window, shoulders angled inward as though bracing against more than cold stone. Hands pressed flat against the sill, fingers splayed—not dramatic, not triumphant—simply holding.
The gaze was not outward. Not performing.
It was turned toward something distant beyond the frame—something unreachable, perhaps, or merely unspoken.
The gold in his eyes was muted there.
Less flare.
More depth.
There was calculation in the line of his mouth, yes.
But also weariness threaded beneath it. A tension at the jaw that had nothing to do with amusement. The sort of solitude that lingered after rooms emptied.
The mask was gone.
The brightness muted.
Loneliness, rendered without cruelty.
Seen.
His throat tightened.
No one had ever looked at him long enough to choose that angle.
No one had ever lingered on the moment between performances.
His thumb shifted unconsciously along the edge of the canvas, testing the boundary as if the image might smear under pressure, as if this version of him might dissolve if he handled it too roughly.
“You keep watching everyone else.”
Her voice didn’t rise. It didn’t try to soothe. It brushed against him the way the wind had earlier—steady, present.
“I thought someone should watch you.”
He lifted his eyes slowly.
The moonlight cut along the sharp line of his cheekbone, caught in the faint tension at the corner of his mouth. For once, no smile rushed forward to armor him. No glint of mischief surfaced to deflect.
He looked at her the way a man looks at something dangerously fragile in his own hands.
And more exposed than he had intended to be.
“I rearranged rooms,” he said, the canvas steady in his hands.
The moonlight caught along the ridge of his glove as his fingers flexed against the wood. He shifted slightly, angling himself so the stone column pressed faintly between his shoulder blades, grounding himself against something solid.
“I redirected people. I told myself it was balance.” A faint breath escaped him — not laughter. Something closer to self-indictment. “But that wasn’t why I crossed that ballroom.”
The night pressed close around them. Beyond the balcony, the city lights shimmered like distant embers, small and stubborn. Behind the doors, the orchestra continued, thin and ornamental, as if embarrassed to intrude.
She stepped closer enough that the warmth of her reached him. The edge of her sleeve brushed the back of his wrist. He could see the fine detail of paint along the edge of her thumb now. The faint rise and fall of her breath.
“I could have kept watching,” he continued, his gaze drifted briefly—not to the palace doors—but to the city beyond the balcony, lights flickering against the dark. “I am very good at that.” His mouth tilted faintly—the old habit, trying to surface. “Observing. Adjusting. Interfering without consequence.”
The smile faded before it finished forming.
“But when I saw you standing there—letting them speak about you like projected revenue—”
His grip shifted on the canvas. One hand slid higher along the frame, steadying it. His jaw tightened, not theatrically, but in the quiet clench of a man who has recognized himself in a reflection he doesn’t enjoy.
“I realized something inconvenient.” He looked at her fully now. “I didn’t want to be another person watching,” he said, the confession settling low in his chest before it reached the air.
“I wanted to be the one who stepped forward.”
He stepped closer until her breath rose against his throat and the night felt irrelevant.
“I saw you adjusting,” he said, his voice lower now, stripped of the brightness he used like armor.
The canvas shifted slightly in his hands as his grip changed. His fingers pressed into the wood just enough to strain the leather at his knuckles before easing again.
“And I— The word caught, not in his throat so much as in his chest. He swallowed, jaw tightening as he forced the next breath to settle evenly. “I know what that costs.”
The night air slid along the balcony, cool against the heat gathered between them. He stood fully exposed now—no angle left to retreat into—holding the image she had made of him as if it were both confession and proof.
“I survived by becoming something else,” he went on quietly. “By learning what gave the best reward.” His gaze stayed on her, steady and unflinching. “I don’t want that for you.”
The wind stirred again, lifting the loose strand of her hair and drawing it across her cheek again. This time, he didn’t stop himself.
His hand rose slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. Two fingers brushed the strand back, tucking it behind her ear. He left his hand there, the heel of his palm resting lightly along her jaw, thumb warm against her cheekbone. The touch was gentle but unmistakably intentional.
“I chose you in that room,” he said, his voice deepening with the admission. “Not your art. Not what you can give.” His thumb shifted slightly, grounding himself as much as her. “You.”
His hand drifted from her face to her waist, hovering for a breath before settling there—not gripping, not claiming. Just present. Steady. As if he were placing himself rather than taking anything.
“And I did it knowing you might not take my hand.”
There was no smirk now. No flash of mischief to soften the risk. His expression held a quiet resolve, threaded through with something rawer—an openness he did not usually allow to exist unguarded.
“I won’t promise you ease,” he said, voice low enough that it felt almost like breath against her temple. “Or simplicity.” A faint, rueful exhale escaped him. “I rearrange the world when I’m frightened. I test it when I care.”
His thumb shifted once at her side, a small, unconscious motion betraying the tension he refused to dress up.
“If you choose me,” he continued, “it won’t be because I made it convenient.” His fingers tightened just slightly—proof, not possession.
Moonlight traced the line of his collar, the tension in his shoulders, the way he held himself as though braced for impact.
“But I will never make you feel invisible.”
He did not dress it as a promise.
He offered it as fact.
Her gaze moved over his face slowly, taking him in—the tension at his jaw, the faint crease between his brows, the absence of the usual gleam of mischief. The night softened him without diminishing him, revealing what lived beneath the performance.
She stepped closer. The front of her blouse brushed his chest. Her hand rose to the space just above his chest. She hovered there for a breath, as if feeling for the heat beneath fabric and bone, then let her palm settle lightly over his heart.
“Clavis.”
His name, spoken without title. Without distance.
“I choose you too.”
His breath caught.
His eyes closed for a fraction of a second—not in relief, not in triumph—but in surrender. When he opened them again, he searched her face, memorizing the steadiness of her gaze, the certainty in her voice, the absence of obligation in her choice.
The tension in his jaw eased first. Then his shoulders followed, the armor loosening not all at once but enough to matter.
The corner of his mouth curved.
Slow. Deliberate.
“Then I suppose,” he murmured, his voice lowered until it belonged only to them, “this is where things become interesting.”
He guided her hand upward from his chest, turning her palm toward him. His thumb brushed once across the center—an acknowledgment of where she had chosen to touch him—before he pressed his lips briefly to her palm.
Warm. Intentional. A vow disguised as courtesy.
He straightened, but did not let go of her. His fingers closed around hers again, more firmly now—not to restrain, but to stay.
When he looked at her, the mischief had not returned. Neither had the mask.
What remained was intent.
The canvas rested forgotten against his hip. Below them, the city continued its quiet flicker. Behind them, the ballroom resumed its curated hum.
But on the balcony, beneath indifferent stars and cooling stone, something irreversible had taken root.
He had chosen her.
And she had chosen back.
No spectacle required.
@dododrawsstuff @just-a-dodo
Last Valentine’s Day, you sent that Clavis drawing with the bouquet.
You didn’t have to.
I don’t know how many people you sent it to—maybe a few, maybe just me—but either way I still made it to the list.
I don’t think you realize how much that meant to me.
I don't really received things like that often—something thoughtful and creative and freely given just to make me smile. It made me feel seen.
It stayed with me long after the day passed.
And ever since then, I’ve wanted and planned to give something back to you.
Not because I felt obligated. But because that kind of kindness deserves intention in return.
Over this past year, I’ve gotten to know you more—not just your art, but you.
So this fic…it isn’t just about Clavis.
It’s about you being seen.
It’s about someone looking past what you produce and seeing you, choosing you—deliberately, publicly, without hesitation.
I wanted to write something that reflected the real you. Not an idealized version. Not just “the talented artist.” But the thoughtful, sensitive, quietly brave person underneath. The one who deserves to take up space without negotiating for it.
You made me feel special last Valentine’s Day.
This is my way of returning that. Thanking you for that.
Thank you for that drawing.
Thank you for your kindness.
And thank you for being someone worth writing about.
Love you, my sweet beautiful friend!
Always your friend, who sees you,
Wistful
🕸 "Whispers in the Glass" 🕸
(Ikemen Prince Horror AU)
Prologue —
“What if your reflection wanted more than to follow you?”
The music floated like perfume down the gilded hall—sweet, beguiling,a drifting spell spun of promise and peril. She followed, helpless as a moth to flame, until the melody slipped away and left her stranded. Here the air shifted—colder, older, laced with dust and the faint copper tang of blood, as though the shadows themselves had lungs and had been exhaling for centuries.
Her heels struck the marble in sharp, solitary beats—each echo too loud, too hollow, too eager to betray her. She told herself she wasn’t lost, only strayed for a moment, chasing the shimmer of a jeweled mask that had dissolved into shadow around the corner. Yet the farther she wandered, the thinner the light became, until the lanterns seemed to choke on their own glow. The corridor drowned in dusk. She had come to the abandoned wing—the one no one mentioned, the one the faculty swore remained locked.
Except tonight the lock was broken. Tonight the dark had opened its mouth.
And then—she found them.
Mirrors. Dozens. Tall as sentinels, narrow as coffins, their silvered faces veined with cracks like ice spreading across a black pond. Dust festered in their corners; gilt frames had leached to the sickly color of bone. They leaned against the walls with the solemn patience of mourners at a wake—silent, watchful, waiting for someone to join the procession of the dead.
At first, they only gave her back her reflection—her jeweled mask, her silk gown, eyes too wide in the dark.
Only—
The reflections didn’t move with her. One mouth curved when hers did not. One tilted its head, slow as a predator. One raised a pale hand, beckoning.
Her breath tangled in her throat, a stitch of panic she couldn’t swallow. The music was gone, stripped so completely it was as though it had never existed. The air curdled—stale, metallic, suffocating—sliding over her tongue like dust, like iron, like a warning too old to decipher. Still she whispered, “It’s only me. Only me—” as if naming herself might anchor her to something real.
When she turned, the corridor was still empty.
Only the mirrors. Only the glass alive with faces not her own—eyes gleaming too sharp, smiles bending wrong, hunger slick as oil in their stare. Too many eyes. Too much hunger. The kind that could peel sound from the air. The kind that had already begun.
The first scream tore from her throat before she could stop it. The second was swallowed whole by the glass.
And then—silence.
Let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters.
And tell me in the comments or your reblog...
Be honest—would you survive this prologue?
Horror Specific Tag List:
@rjthirsty @hariet436 @rkmaru @valleyvayy28
She was his light in the shadows, the one who believed in the man he could be. But in a world ruled by duty, love is the hardest battle to win.
As the sun sets on the garden, a prince must decide—his heart or his kingdom.
SPOILER WARNING: There be spoilers ahead for some routes, at the very least Jin's. So if you have not read his route and do not want spoiler's please do not keep reading.
The prince leaned against the cool stone wall of the palace gardens, his eyes fixed on the fading horizon. The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows over the carefully tended roses, but his thoughts were far from the blooms that courtiers praised for their perfection. His mind was on her.
Coralie.
Even her name carried an air of quiet strength. It wasn’t the type of name meant to echo through the stately halls of Rhodolite—it stood apart, different but unpretentious. And yet it lingered, just like her presence. She didn’t belong in his gilded world, yet she had a way of eclipsing everything within it.
The first time he saw her was when the lead minister of the court introduced her as “Belle,” the woman who would choose the next king. “Belle” was described as a figure of extraordinary virtue and pure heart, someone with the wisdom to judge him and his brothers and the insight to select the one most capable of guiding the kingdom toward prosperity and maintaining its delicate alliances with neighboring realms. Every boy born to the royal family grew up hearing tales of “Belle”.
And Coralie was a myth made flesh, a symbol of the kingdom’s ideals, whose choice would shape the future of the realm.
She wasn’t the most striking woman at first glance, her beauty quiet and unassuming, but there was something in her that he sensed right away—an energy, a light—words didn’t seem to come to him. When she had stood before him as he was introduced to her, she had smiled, and in that instant, he was undone.
It wasn’t the carefully practiced kind he saw in court—those smiles were polished and empty, meant to curry favor or mask disdain. No, her smile was real, an honest expression of joy that seemed to reach out and warm his soul. It was as though she carried the sun in her chest, radiating its warmth to anyone lucky enough to stand near her.
As he had offered a polite bow, Coralie tilted her head, her eyes twinkling as she looked him directly in the eye, her gaze steady, curious, and without a trace of fear. "Your Highness, I hope you're not one of those princes who only looks charming when they're trying to impress someone."
Her courage startled him. And he straightened as a surprised chuckle escaped his lips.
"And if I were?"
She shrugged with a playful smirk. "Then I’d suggest we skip the formalities and you show me who you really are. I’ve already seen enough polished masks for one day. And I’m here to judge the real you, not your perfected persona.”
He should have laughed it off, dismissed her words like any other prince in his position would. But he didn’t. Instead, he sought her out again and again—conversations in the halls, stolen moments in the garden, a quiet exchange of secrets under the moonlight.
She would be making her decision soon. There was only one petal left of “Belle’s Time”. He knew it. She knew it. Their time together was almost over.
The trees rustled, and he opened his eyes once more. She hadn’t arrived at their secret part of the garden yet, but she was everywhere. In the flowers blooming along the path, in the sunlight casting shadows along the pathways, in the gentle rose-scented breeze that stirred the leaves. She had become a part of him, and he wasn’t sure he could let her go.
He loved her.
But what could he offer her? A prince’s life was not his own, bound by duty and expectation. He could already hear the protests of the ministers, the whispers of scandal if he pursued her. A prince didn’t marry for love—they married for alliances, for power.
And yet, the thought of her leaving, of never hearing her laugh again, was unbearable.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. What was it about her that pulled at him so fiercely? He couldn’t quite name it, but there was something magnetic about her simplicity, her authenticity. She was a woman who seemed to carry the world lightly, as if the burdens others groaned under were merely part of life’s dance to her. She had a way of seeing things—no, of being—that made him question everything he thought he knew. When she talked with him, his insecurities, his fears, his very sense of inadequacy seemed to lessen, dissolving like mist beneath the warmth of her voice. She didn’t just speak to him—she believed in him, in ways no one else ever had.
With her, he felt that he could be more than the man he was—a man of conviction, of strength, of purpose. She drew out pieces of him he hadn’t even known were there, glimpses of the kind of ruler he might become, not because of power or tradition, but because of the humanity she saw within him. Her love—her presence—was a force that steadied him, made him feel as though the weight of the crown could be borne, as long as she stood beside him.
But even now, the thought twisted in his chest—what would he become if he lost her? Without her, those glimpses of strength might flicker and fade, like embers left untended. The idea of a life without her wasn’t just painful; it was terrifying. Her presence filled the hollow spaces within him, spaces he hadn’t even known were there until she began to mend them.
If she ever left, if she were taken from him, it wouldn’t just break his heart—it would unmake him. The thought lingered like a shadow, whispering that his strength, his purpose, his very sense of self, might crumble in her absence. She wasn’t just someone he loved; she was the compass that pointed him toward the man and king he could be.
The sound of footsteps on the gravel path pulled him from his thoughts. He straightened, his heart quickening despite himself. A moment later, she appeared, stepping through the arch of climbing roses that framed their secret garden. Her dark burgundy hair swayed with her movements, the vibrant color catching the fading light, and for a moment, she looked almost otherworldly.
“Am I late?” she asked, her voice light, though there was a teasing note in her tone. She tilted her head, the corners of her lips curving into a faint smile that sent warmth coursing through him.
“Not at all,” he replied, his voice softer than he intended. “You’re just in time.”
She stepped closer, her hands brushing lightly over the roses before settling at her sides. When her green eyes found his, they softened, and she smiled. “You’ve been waiting for me.”
“I always am,” he said, and though his tone was light, the weight of the truth behind it hung in the air.
She reached for him then, her hand resting on his arm before sliding down to meet his. It reminded him of the first time she’d done it, back when they’d both pretended they didn’t care who might see. “You’re stronger than you think,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “You’ll be a good king. I see it in you.”
Her words pierced him, filling him with both hope and despair. She believed in him, even when he doubted himself. She brought him strength, brought out qualities in him he never knew existed. But could he be the man she thought he could without her?
“Sometimes I wonder…” she said softly, a hint of uncertainty in her tone, as she gazed up at him, “what are you afraid of?”
Her question lingered in the air, unguarded and raw. It struck something deep within him—something he hadn’t been ready to face, much less name. He held her gaze, the weight of the moment pressing against his chest.
The shadows deepened as the sun dipped lower, and he stepped closer, his hand still holding hers. “Losing this,” he finally said, his voice low and steady. “Losing you.”
She tilted her head, her expression softening into something poignant. Her breath caught as their eyes met, the moment stretching between them like a fragile thread. “You’re stronger than you think.” She looked down at their joined hands, her thumb grazing over his knuckles in a small, unconscious motion. “And even if you lose me…you’ll go on. You’ll become the king this kingdom needs.”
He watched her, his chest tightening with the weight of what he couldn’t say. I love you. I need you. Don’t leave.
His fingers tightened around hers, and his jaw set. “If you choose me, Coralie, we’ll find a way.”
She hesitated, her gaze dropping to their joined hands. “And if I do…” Her voice softened, carrying the weight of her doubt. “You know what they’ll do. To me. To us.”
He drew in a slow breath, his resolve steady as he tilted her chin up to meet his eyes. “I know. But none of it changes how I feel about you.”
Her lips curved into a faint, bittersweet smile. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s not,” he said softly. “But you’re worth it.”
Her gaze lingered on him for a long moment before she leaned in, her head resting briefly against his shoulder. It was a small, fleeting gesture, but it said everything they couldn’t.
And as the shadows deepened around them, he knew the truth. Even if he claimed her, the ministers would never allow it. They would call her unfit, a commoner with no place in the palace, and they would stop at nothing to ensure she could never become queen. They would twist the role of Belle into a scandal, discredit her, and strip away the freedom that made her who she was. She wouldn’t just face whispers in the court—she would face hatred, plots, and isolation.
And yet, despite the odds against them, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her. Loving her.
Surely, the garden’s light would fade before his love for her ever did. And yet, despite the impossibility, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her. Loving her. Surely, that would have to be enough. Surely, that would have to be enough.
The king stood at the tall, arched window of his chambers, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. Below, the palace courtyard bustled with activity—soldiers, ministers, and courtiers, all playing their parts in the kingdom’s endless dance of politics and power. But his eyes were fixed on a single figure.
Coralie.
She didn’t struggle as they led her away, her dark burgundy hair loose and wild against the plain gray cloak they’d draped over her shoulders. Her steps were steady, her chin held high, even as whispers rippled through the gathered crowd. She walked with the grace of a queen, though the court had never—would never allow her to become one.
His hands trembled where they were clasped behind his back. He wanted to shout for them to stop, to demand they bring her back to him, but his voice remained locked in his throat. He had made his choice—or rather, the choice had been made for him. He was weak. He always had been. His only strength had been from her, and even that wasn’t enough for him to fight for their love.
A hand settled on his shoulder, firm and suffocating. The lead minister stood beside him, his voice calm and smooth, like poison poured into wine. “It is for the best, Your Majesty,” the man said, his words laced with hollow reassurance. “The kingdom cannot afford the instability of a commoner queen. Lady Michel will secure the alliances we need and ensure the crown’s strength. This sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
“Sacrifice,” he murmured, the word barely audible. His gaze never left Coralie as she neared the gates.
“Yes,” the minister replied with a slight incline of his head. “Sacrifice is the foundation of great leadership. The people will see this as a testament of your devotion to the kingdom.”
The king’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding as the word echoed in his mind. Sacrifice. It was what they had demanded of him again and again—his love, his humanity, his very soul—all for the sake of the crown.
Below, Coralie paused. For a fleeting second, he thought she might look back. That her eyes might meet his one last time. But she didn’t. Her head remained high, her focus forward, as she disappeared through the iron gates and out of his life.
“You’ve made the right decision,” the minister continued, his grip tightening on the king’s shoulder. “This is what it means to be a ruler. To rise above personal desires and embrace what is necessary.”
The king’s hands curled into fists, nails digging so deeply into his palms that he felt the sting of broken skin. Personal desires? They had no idea what they’d taken from him. What they’d destroyed.
“You may leave,” he said sharply, his voice low and cold enough to slice through the minister’s empty platitudes.
The man hesitated, then withdrew his hand and bowed. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
When the door clicked shut behind him, the king exhaled slowly, his breath trembling as he let the mask slip, just for a moment. He pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window, his eyes closing as the image of her departure burned itself into his memory.
The courtyard was empty now, but he could still see her in his mind—the tilt of her head, the set of her shoulders, the quiet defiance in every step. She had made him feel brave, strong. She had been the one person who believed in him, the one who made him feel like he could be more than a crown.
Now the garden seemed darker, colder, a reflection of the void she had left behind. He felt it growing inside him—a shadow he couldn’t shake, a bitterness that festered with every passing moment.
The ministers thought they had preserved the kingdom, but they had taken something far more precious. He had given them his heart, and in return, they had left him with a crown that felt more like a noose.
The garden’s light had faded.
And with it, the man he had been began to unravel.
Tag List:
@rjthirsty You told me to tag you when I posted this fic <3
If you love me—
or the little worlds I build with words—
would you read a fic and leave me a note?
Tell me what lingered, what you loved, what stayed with you.
That would mean more than I can say.
I don’t usually ask for things like this…
but today, a certain group of people reminded me that I have worth.
And for once, I believed it enough to let my voice reach out.
Not sure where to begin?
You could start here:
✨ Most popular Wist Fics
or wander through the
📜 Masterlist post
Usual Ikemen Tag List: @ithseem @chirp-a-chirp @aquagirl1978 @queengiuliettafirstlady @nyxthepixystick
