Seabound-SKZ

Chapter Twenty-Six

-trigger warning for the f slur!! be careful!-

Chan knew he was fucked, his mother didn't even speak to him the rest of the ball, not when the king had told him and Sunhi to have their first dance as a betrothed couple, not even as they stood next to each other as they thanked the guests, poor Sunhi looked shaken and he couldn't blame her, her brother ended up taking her out of the room discreetly after getting his mothers approval to do so. Her father was scowling at him, the prince didn't want to marry his daughter? unthinkable. None of the other girls came to speak to him after either, their own parents keeping them away, it hurt him but he did understand. they weren't here to be his friends, they were here to attempt to charm his mother into choosing one of them, even though he was sure his mother had the princess selected from the start.

The ball was wrapping up, the last lord bowing before the queen, the food table was almost completely gone, the royals and others staying at the palace bowed or curtseyed before the queen and just like that, Chan was left alone with her, aside from a few staff members beginning to clean up. she took a firm grip on his wrist, making him flinch as she began pulling him alongside her, he stumbled as he followed her, just to an empty room, where she faced him, looking as if she was about to boil over in anger.

"What the ever-loving hell was that, Chan?" she snapped at him, he recoiled, he hadn't heard such anger in her voice since his father had died, "You-you dare to go against my word in front of so many of our leaders?" she was seething, he could tell she was so close to screaming at him, so close to locking him into his room forever, "I-I'm so-" he stopped himself, she watched him expectantly "You're what, Chan?" she all but hissed out, he straightened up, looking her dead in the eye. he was sick of being afraid of his own mother, "I'm not sorry." he said firmly, she seemed to be at a loss for words for a moment before "What? how dare you? how fucking-" he cut her off, "You have no say in who I get to marry, mother, you have no right to meddle in something this important," he raised his voice slightly when she tried to talk over him again "I can guarantee you that Sunhi doesn't want this either, that both of us just want to be free to love who we want to." He stared her down, she held her head up and curled her lip up at the corner "what do you know of love, Chan?!" she said lowly, he hesitated, he didn't want to tell her of the eight Mermen he had fallen for, he couldn't put them in that kind of danger, "I do not love Sunhi or any of those girls," His mother's face hardened when he said that, "You-you..." she spluttered, Chan chuckled lightly "You want me to finish that sentence for you, mother?" he spat out the word mother like it tasted vile, "I fell in love with a man. not just one either-no-in fact it was-" He was cut off as his mother's hand came into contact with his face, hard. 

One of her rings had been flipped inside, probably on purpose,  the jewel cutting into his cheek, he gasped, his mother had just hit him, she had just slapped him like he meant nothing, "You-you-" her voice raised hysterically, he watched her, the confident feeling that had come over him was now gone, he felt completely at her mercy, "You fucking faggot!" she spat at him, he could feel tears beginning to build in his eyes, had this not been the woman who had worried over him swimming again while he was injured? the same woman who had been worried about them drifting apart? "Don't you dare start fucking crying now, Chan," she said, her voice almost back to its normal volume, "You will marry Sunhi, you will obey me, you have no choice." she watched him, his back pressed against the wall, hands poised to block another hit, "You are pathetic, a sorry excuse for a prince. go to your room, now!" that was all Chan needed, he ducked past her, arms still up to block her awful ringed fingers from cutting into his soft cheek again, and he ran down the hallway, ignoring the concerned call of one of the staff members who was carrying some of the food waste down to the heaps outside. 

He reached his room, by then he was fully crying, wiping his eyes and running nose on his nice dress shirt, in Jinyoung had seen him doing that he would have yelled himself hoarse. He pushed through his doors, immediately beginning to pull off his layers, he was so hot already and his tears weren't helping matters, he slammed the door closed, blocking it off by moving a chest of drawers, he let out a broken sob when the ship-in-a-bottle that his father had given him the last time he had seen him fell and shattered at his feet, glass spreading out around him, he saved what he could of the ship, stifling his tears as to not get them on the fragile wood, he didn't care too much about the glass, picking up a couple of bigger pieces, cutting open his hand in the process, he froze at the sparkling red that now seeped through the cut in his skin, he remembered the way the knife had felt as he slid it across his wrist, he threw the glass away from him, he couldn't do that again. not ever. he lay back on his bed, hoping to eventually cry himself out and get some sleep. 

Tears continued to slide down his cheeks, he didn't want this, didn't want to be with anyone other than the Mers', he wondered what they were doing right now, wondered if they were thinking about him, maybe they didn't care about him the way he thought they did. maybe Seungmin was just fucking with him, but the boy had seemed so eager to kiss him, he stopped himself from spiraling deeper into those thoughts by standing and walking toward the doors to his balcony, he squinted down at the sea, he could see a figure on the dock, he wasn't sure if it was a Mer or not, he couldn't see scales, but then again it could be Hyunjin or Jisung, he decided to go see, drying his eyes as best he could, making sure the bandage was tight enough over the cut on his hand and started heading down, breath still uneven and stray tears trickling down his face.