remains of the day

Oneshot

Haseul is a prim, proper, dutifully well-educated lady. However, she was also, perhaps, too educated, aware that she did not want to marry Byun Baekhyun, her parent's pick of a husband. She has heard of him, sure - the most proper gentleman to marry, noble and aristocratic and also poor. It's a double deal, for her family and his; his gets the money they need, hers get the nobility they so crave.

She had never exchanged more than ten words with him, at best. When she met him for the first time, she did not like him - it's not him, per se. He was educated and nice and knew what her favorite book was about, but he spoke over the pianist playing the Moonlight Sonata, which happened to be her favorite song, and for that, he cannot be forgiven - even if it was no fault of his own.

The problem, in the end, was Haseul. She smiled politely at him when Baekhyun said that he wouldn't mind hearing her sing more, thanked him for his kind words, and excused herself.

She did not miss the confused look he sent her. Haseul grabbed her skirts a little higher so she could walk faster, and all but ran (because this crinoline won't allow her to do more than a brisk walk at most) to the garden, where she could find peace.

The birds sing to her, and she scoffed at them, going to the forest behind her home. Haseul can feel them pecking at her head, judging her for running away from the nice boy her parents found for her to marry, but what is Haseul if not a romantic at heart? She did not want an arranged marriage that will, effectively, trade herself for a higher status; all she wants is someone that will love her and that she will love in return.

She sat in a log when she was far enough from the house she can hear neither the music nor the birds, and sighed, putting her head on her hands, taking deep breaths to calm herself.

"I cannot do this. I cannot possibly do this." She told herself out loud, as if she was talking to her diary. "He is nice, yes, but that's all he is. A nice boy from a nice noble family that wants money."

She absently-minded picked up a stick that looked bendable on the forest floor, making it a mock ring that she slides on her finger. It looks weird on her hands, a mockery of what was to come. Haseul slid it off, and was greeted by a wooden facsimile of a hand, sticking out of the ground like a corpse.

Nature was fascinating, if a bit creepy, sometimes.

"What am I even going to tell him, during the vows? These lies?" Haseul sighed, and huffed, memory working. Her parents had made her write her own vows, what did they say? The piece of paper slipped in her mind, and her mouth worked out the words. "I promise to hold our love everlasting, not just for this moment, not for an hour, a day, a year..."

She slides the mockery ring in the wooden hand.

"But forever and always." She finished, and smiled. Simple vows for a lie she'll play.

The wood cracked as if alive, and something rose up - a torso, dressed in the prettiest wedding dress Haseul had ever seen, chestnut hair in gentle waves, and big, brown deer eyes. Haseul noticed, dimly aware, she was sitting on someone's lap. How unladylike of her.

The girl smiled.

"I'll love you forever, too." The girl replied, voice soft and quiet, and Haseul promptly fainted.

When Haseul woke up, she was in a bed. There was a soft song being played from somewhere, and the ceiling that greeted her was unfamiliar and strange, inclined and blue-ish.

She sits up, and looks around, finding the girl from before sewing quietly, humming to the song the gramophone was playing. A heavy moon hung outside the window, bathing the room in a silvery glow that makes the girl look ethereal. She is sewing a dress, focused on it, and it made her so, so pretty, albeit Haseul couldn't exactly forget how she simply popped out of the earth.