SIRENIC || KTH

18. Home That Awaits Me

The night grew older and now there she is, up on the piano, fiddling with the keys once more after months.

Slowly he walks up to the piano, careful not to scare her.

He doesn't have a single clue about what her fingers are doing to the ivory beneath them, but he loves it. The piece she is playing is slow and terribly romantic.

He has already begun imagining curling her into him while they lay together in bed, using the song she is playing as inspiration.

For some odd reason this lady has captivated Kim Taehyung in a way no other woman ever managed, and she doesn't even know.

He is standing at the edge of the little stage and barely whispers, "What are you playing?"

He feels like a goof while she plays, but she doesn't seem to notice. Without any hesitation or hiccups in her playing she responds, "Nocturne in F sharp major. It's Chopin."

"It's nearly as beautiful as you." He smiles as her fingers fumble for half a second and her eyes open wide in astonishment.

He is pleased with her reaction.

He can see her flip through a variety of expressions just beneath the surface. Her brow scrunching together but immediately stretch out while her sweet lips pursed. She chews in the side of her cheek for a bit and he can tell she is thinking everything through.

"You shouldn't have brought this piano here, it reminds me of him," she finally speaks.

"And yet, I'm fascinated with you, how you're trying to oblige, I really like it." He sighs, filled with admiration for her.

She immediately stops playing and turns on the bench to look at him.

He decides to try and charm her, so he makes a show of extending his hand towards her and bending at the knee, much like you would see the actors do in the historical movies when they approach royalty.

"My name, your highness, is Kim Taehyung, and what might I call you?"

The corners of her mouth turn upwards in a helpless smile. "You may call me Kath, for my name is Kathy." She plays right along and set her right hand in the palm of his left one.

Their little game continues and just as they do in the movies, he is holding her fingers, bringing them to his lips for a kiss. "My my Kath, what marvelous talent you have. You have won my heart entirely at the grace of these magnificent fingers."

"Oh really?" She giggles back at him. "Such a strange thing to love my fingers. Are you quite sure you love them?"

"Don't you already know, your highness? Surely you can feel my love for you," he gives her a shocked look of mock hurt and bends a knee on the small stage so that he may pull her hand over his heart.

Although charming on the surface, his heart is pounding beneath his chest, and her touch dosen't help much.

He guides her wrist to his chest but it doesn't take her long to start moving on her own volition. She traces tiny figure eights with her index finger and each loop makes his temperature rise.

She fakes a look of concern. "Whatever should we do, my lord? I fear your poor heart cannot take much more."

"One thing to do, my lady," He steps up the rest of the way on the stage. "You must continue playing until I am affected no longer."

She grins in a way that conveys to him that she knows exactly what she is thinking.

He half-heartedly expects her to shoo him away, but turning toward the keys she begins to play again.