Kintsugi // ATEEZ [Ishihara Sequel] ✔

38 Warmth

[A/N: I haven't been getting enough sleep I published this chapter in another story HELP I'd have to hibernate lmao]

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Her heart is as empty as the space beside her on the bed as she wakes up, her hands pitifully trying to find warmth as she grabs onto nothing. She crumples the blanket in her hands, feeling rather fatigued but sits up anyway since she has to continue her duty as the queen for today, with or without anyone by her side. She leans against the headboard, hugging her knees to her chest as she mulls over how she's going to keep a straight face as she goes on with her daily life, knowing that Seonghwa is locked away.

She gets out of bed, drags herself to the mirror to see the condition of her face, almost scoffing at how horrible she looks. She's too busy taking care of Seonghwa that she has barely even looked at herself in the mirror. Now that she sees the colours around her on and off more frequently, she isn't even that fazed anymore.

She's only worried if her slowly losing the ability to see colours means something bad, something that she doesn't want to think about. But she can't help but have her mind running with it now that the frequency of her seeing black and white is increasing, with the episodes lasting longer.

Her eyes fall to the couple bracelets she has placed carefully side by side on the dresser, with Seonghwa's counterpart having its string snapped and most of its beads missing. She picks up Seonghwa's bracelet carefully, the recount San had told her about the day Seonghwa was overtaken by the curse a heavy hit on her heart as he told her how desperately her husband was trying to pick the fallen beads up.

"You idiot," she mutters under her breath. "Even without the bracelet I keep thinking about you, now all I remember when I see this is the day you got hurt."

She grips the bracelet, but puts it down not long after as she doesn't let herself wallow in it too much. She steps into the bathroom, takes a quick shower before she gets dressed up accordingly to start the day. As soon as she's finished dressing up though, she merely pauses, Seonghwa's every shadow in the room coming back to her. She sees him sleeping on the bed; walking out of their closet; sitting near the window; everywhere.

Taking a deep breath, she turns to the dresser to wear her bracelet, and she puts Seonghwa's bracelet in her pocket. Just as she's about to step up she hears a knocking on the window, and she turns around, not knowing what to expect. She releases a sharp breath as she sees that it seemed to be the lovebird Seonghwa had made friends with. She quickly unlatches the window, even though she knows that it's not like she'll be able to understand it.

The bird immediately chirps noisily, as if greeting her in the morning before it hops onto her hand, then on her shoulder. It stays on her shoulder, chirping, saying something to her that she doesn't understand.

She knows something happened; she remembers clearly Seonghwa telling her that lovebirds are always in pairs. She turns her head to the side to finally see the bird falling quiet, a teardrop forming in her eye as she can't help but think about it.

"Did you..." she trails off, "did you lose your partner too?"

She only receives a brief chirp from the bird, before its head hangs down, as if sad.

"No..." she says. "The world is cruel isn't it? I'm sorry I can't understand you." A sad smile comes to her, "If Seonghwa was here we could talk more."

The bird chirps again, before it flaps open its wings, giving a hug to her near her neck, before it hops onto the windowsill. Looking back once to her, it takes off, to somewhere she can't see even as she looks out the window.

She can only feel how the weather has gotten extremely colder these days; the first snow will probably fall any time now. She closes the window carefully, walking over to the body-length mirror just to make sure her appearance is presentable now that she's about to have another meeting with the ministers. She walks out of the room, smiling as she greets the workers, before she goes over to the dining hall.