"Those who were destined to die had no right to interfere with the affairs of those fated to live."
A girl cursed to be reborn strikes an unlikely deal with the ambitious heir of Valorieve in order to fulfill her only wish. However, this strictly-b...
You were surprised, to say the least, when you entered the breakfast hall to find your husband waiting for you there.
Minho stood upon your entry, immediately greeting you with a polite smile, "Good morning, Lady Y/n."
It had been two months since you last saw him. Whatever he was doing out there had thinned him a little bit. The lines of his jaw had become slightly bolder, cheeks a tad hollower, but his eyes remained as sharp as you remembered them.
"Good morning to you too, Lord Minho," you returned his greeting, hoping you sounded composed. "I was not told you had returned."
"Ah, we arrived late in the night. I didn't wish to disturb you, so I stayed in my old chsmbers," he explained awkwardly as you took the seat opposite to his.
"I see," you gave him a smile that did not quite reach your eyes. "I'm sorry I was not there to welcome you back home."
Only when the servants left the hall could you finally relax. No longer needing to put up the couple act for them, the two of you began your meal in utter silence, occasionally interrupted by the soft clink of silverware.
"How have you been?"
There was your second surprise, and the day had barely begun.
You looked up from your plate to find Minho watching you, a vague look of hesitant expectancy in his eyes. There was no one around besides the two of you. You could not fathom a reason for him to talk to you other than his own desire to do so.
You patted your lips with a napkin. "I have been well. I trust that you have been well too?"
"Yes, I have," he said, and you caught a slight grimace on his face. You thought it possibly a result of the stiffness of this conversation.
You expected him to stop there, but Minho had other ideas.
"How about the palace? Has living here been good...so far?"
"Your palace is an exquisite place. I have been just fine here."
"That's good to hear."
In the recurring quiet, you thought of your parents. When they talked at the table, their conversations were never this stifling, and any silence that befell them was never so thick. But you and Minho were more strangers than acquaintances. All that you knew about him was well known to the public too, and vice versa.
Not nearly enough for you to carry a conversation that did not end in awkward silence.
"I heard that you didn't invite any of your friends to the palace." Minho cleared his throat, diverting his gaze when he added, "You are more than welcome to hold tea parties if you wish. I might not always be present to keep you company around here, after all."
He spoke that last sentence so softly, you might have thought you imagined it if it had not made your stomach flip weirdly.
"You must have heard wrong." you mustered a pleasant smile for him. A sense of dread had begun slowly seeping into your heart. "I invited my mother for tea last month."
"That was all?" Minho seemed to be at a loss for words, mouth opening and closing once before he finally worked out a response. "Do you not have anyone else you would like to invite?"
"No," you told him frankly, and the word seemed to hang in the air limply.
He said nothing for a moment, and you noticed that he had not touched his food since he started talking. Perhaps you should not have said so much, you realized. He must have been tired from travel, and you had just disturbed his breakfast.
"Well," Minho started, breaking you out of your blameful thoughts, "A friend of mine invited us to a gathering happening at the end of the week. Let us attend."
"Of course." you smiled, glad for the change of topic.
You did not want to think about the guilt that loomed over his expression, dreary and wholly unsettling.
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