domestic (un)bliss || 18+

a barely standing bed

Gaeun is flushed and flustered and the space between her thighs still aches as she rushes back to her room. She touches the coiffure Wook so carefully pulled her hair into and grimaces. She has half a mind to rip out the damned blue ribbon.

"Gaeun, wait!" Wook calls from somewhere out in the courtyard.

She doesn't stop until she nearly bumps into two unfamiliar faces dressed in old workers' clothes exiting her room. They bow in a hurry and fall into a flurry of congratulatory greetings. She frowns because as far as she knows, she remembers and has been introduced to everybody in the Jang household.

Gaeun thanks them politely but her suspicion doesn't lessen. Before she can ask who they are, Wook and Kim Dojoo appear from the entranceway. Wook's belt is crooked, hair haphazardly brushed behind his ears, and he is pink-faced from the neck up. But it's his ears that burn a bright red.

"Are you done, then?" Gaeun takes a moment to realize that Madam Kim is addressing the unfamiliar faces. "Is everything set?"

"Not yet, madam," one of them answers back politely, "We've only set up the frame. The canopy and the design plates are still drying. Tomorrow, we will—"

"Tomorrow!?" She exclaims and they flinch. She ushers them out into the veranda to speak with them and Gaeun can hear her scold them the entire way.

Turning to a mildly troubled Wook, Gaeun asks, "What was that about?"

He rubs the back of his head sheepishly and she forces the sudden memory of Ren out of her mind. "It's nothing," he replies when he doesn't know how to explain, "You might as well see for yourself."

Parallel to the large window at the back of the room is a bed frame nearly identical yet three times smaller than Gaeun had in her room back in Yeol. The mattress is missing and so are the curtains. But it is still a four-poster with a low headboard.

She gapes at it in surprise because it wasn't here an hour ago. When she turns to Wook, he shrugs casually.

"You kept complaining about sleeping on the floor so much," he said, "that I had to make a visit to the woodworker. He comes from the town by the borders so he knows how these beds are made." Quietly, he adds, "Apparently, my mother had something similar as well."

This gesture is enough for Gaeun to forgive him for everything. She had assumed he expected her to just...live with it until they separated. She didn't know he'd make an effort to make this house a home for her.

"Thank you," she says earnestly, feeling her heart flutter.

Wook clears his throat, "It's just so that you stopped complaining." When she moves to fix his belt, he catches her wrists and is suddenly bashful. "Kim Dojoo's still outside," he reminds her, completely misreading her. As always.

Gaeun rolls her eyes. She meets his eyes as she clips his belt open, fixes it, and then clips it back. "Fool," she says.

"Well, you left angrily and I couldn't follow you until I wore my clothes." He huffs as if she has exhausted him, "Sorry if I was in a hurry."

Something shifts in his eyes when he looks down at her. Slowly—deliberately—he drags his fingers over the curve of her neck. The ache between her thighs returns. She tilts her head back a little and doesn't look away as he tugs his ribbon free from her hair. "I wanted it back," he says and Gaeun wants to strip him bare and taste him this time, right where they are standing.

"Shame," she replies. Her thoughts are beginning to spiral to the darkest corners of her mind. For once, she is glad that Wook can never tell what she's thinking because her fingers still remember the heat of his tongue around them.