"Chris." /Chanlix/

-Chapter 4-

crystal architecture, yelled name; dissonance

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✎ Author's note

⟢➣ Hi hii, before we start, lemme put some trigger warnings!

TW: vague mentions of torture and rape

Neither of them will happen! A character will simply be thinking about the possibility of them happening.
Have a safe read ;D

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One only understands the importance of a thing once one loses it, they say. Not that Christopher had lost someone particularly important, at all, that's what he was telling himself. Surely, his days lately had been rather gloomy, but it was just winter approaching yet again, certainly not due to the lack of a certain bright spouse fussing around him all day with chats through paper and kisses. He had too much work to do to care anyways, he didn't spend time outside of his office much and, if he did, it was to tidy up the Queen's matters, so he wouldn't have had time for Felix even if the latter stopped avoiding him like the plague. Truly, Christopher admired how much resentment could be cooped up in such a narrow and slim body and managed to be directed only towards him at that. For sure, because his dear spouse seemed to hold his convenient omission of the whole truth only against him, treating with courtesy each one of his men, even Sky, who he had clearly caught red-handed as well. Christopher wasn't mad at him, he couldn't really, because in truth he was reacting in the way anyone would have reacted to their husband having omitted the truth about being a murderer for the Crown, someone that dirtied their hands so that everyone else could live in peace. And Christopher was completely fine with it, absolutely, why should he not? Felix was doing the job for the both of them, finally leaving him all alone with his pile of reports, like he had always wanted.

Minho's high laughter rang in his office, getting him out of his mind, back to the document in his hands, which had become almost unreadable, full of crinkles and twists, the consequences of his thinking about that cursed night. Why he still left his window open even if it was mid-September, he didn't know, perhaps because it was still rather warm, or perhaps because that day, a year prior, he had been in a lovely church, saying his vows to a young man with stars on his cheeks, who, somehow, was as much of a stranger as he was that day. On a whim, Christopher got up from his chair, his primal intention probably to close the damn window, but he ended up leaning against it, letting his black curls be swept around by the gentle breeze as he looked down to the gardens. There, sitting around a circular table, were his spouse and his most trusted man, laughing and exchanging paper, seemingly having the time of their lives. How Felix had managed to get that close to Minho of all, who was worse than all of his men combined, grumpier than him and Changbin when he was in a mood, it would have probably always been a mystery to him; and he didn't like unresolved mysteries. Yet there they were, Minho making his spouse smile like he, Christopher, should have been doing, but wasn't, couldn't.

What could have he done? Felix didn't want to see him, rightfully so, he supposed, and he did have a lot of work to do, even though the Great Exhibition was finally nearing its end. It was probably better like that, away from one another. No, Christopher wasn't mad, however he couldn't also say that he was happy about the situation. In truth, he should have been delighted, because finally Felix had stopped fussing around him, causing him not to work, and they had gone back to strangers, like it should always have been, but he was not. How could he have been, when Felix was already under his skin and he didn't know how or when he had managed to get there? He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment, because it felt like there were so many and also because thinking about it only angered him more, since it meant that he had ultimately lost control of himself and the hold on his principles. But he had known that, hadn't he, that such a thing could have happened. In fact, at first he had sworn on his life that he would have never married, because he had known that, despite all the years spent taking lives away, the chances of getting affectionate with someone were too high for his liking, as he struggled to keep at a safe distance even his men, but then he had been forced to, by his mother at first, then society and then, at last and silently, by the Queen, because the Bahng lineage had to go on. So, there he had gone, with a mute spouse in hopes that he would have been able to seclude them far away from him and, probably, it would have worked, hadn't it been Felix, because, truly, who could resist to such a genuine person like him who carried brightness wherever he went, a brightness able to light up even Christopher's darkest shadows?