Moonflower

Chapter 9: The Tender Touch of a Moonflower

Then he remembered. He had come prepared to sing to her tonight. To woo her with his words.

"Moonflower," he began to sing into her ear as he bent his head near hers, "glowing in the night. Your power burns ever so bright."

She lifted her head and turned her countenance towards his. Then she reached up, and her fingers found his face. They began to slide over his cheek. Then down across his lips. They silenced his song as they slowed in their perusal of his mouth. As though she was trying to memorize his countenance, the pads of her fingers slipped over each of his features slowly. Was she using her ability to feel to translate a picture of his face onto her mind's eye?

His skin was soft as her fingertips slid across his cheek. This touch shook a memory deep within her soul. Perhaps she'd been sliding her fingers across her eomma's cheek as she'd carried a wee Moonflower about with her? Or was it her appa's skin of which Yoongi's forcibly reminded her?

Her finger slid across his mouth next. His lips felt smooth under the pads of her fingers. She slid her index finger back along the bow of his mouth. What sweet melodies would those lips play upon her own if she gave him the chance to taste her kiss? She sighed inwardly and pressed on. Leaving those luscious lips behind.

He watched as tear after tear slid down her cheeks and fell to splash onto his shirt. Her thumb brushed across the wide swath of his nose before tracing its length up to the space between his eyes. Then her thumb brushed downward tentatively to touch his wounded cheek. She was surprised, and disappointed, when her digit slid into a bandage. Something had been stuck to his skin to hide it from the sun and the air.

She frowned. Then she moved her hand to the other side of his nose so she could enjoy the silky skin under his eye on his uninjured cheek. Slowly, she lifted her thumb and brushed his eyelashes as her skin slid along his lower eyelid. Her touch tickled him in that delicate spot. Involuntarily, he closed his eye. She felt his eyelashes brush her thumb as he did so. So she slid the pad of her thumb across his eyelid.

He'd never felt so vulnerable in his whole life. He knew that he was allowing her to touch a very fragile part of his face. A skilled man could instantly blind another where Yoongi was allowing her thumb to tenderly travel. But he discovered that he wanted to make himself vulnerable to her.

Still, he was shocked a moment later when he felt the brush of her lips across his eyelid. She robbed him of his breath for a moment. Then her fingers slid upward over the bridge of his nose and across the arch of his eyebrow. Finally, she slid all of her fingers across his forehead and into his hair.

She was surprised. His hair was short. Just a few inches long. And so soft.

"They told me you had long, blond hair that you wear in a topknot," she whispered, her breath caressing his cheek.

He smiled. "No. My hair is short and black. I wear a wig at court."

She frowned. All this time she'd been imagining him wrong.

"They lied to me. I hate it when people lie. All this time, I've had the wrong picture of you in my head."

"It's all right."

She was still running her fingers through his hair. She smiled suddenly. "It's so soft." Then she leaned towards him and buried her face in his hair. "I was right," she whispered into his ear a moment later.

"What?" he murmured as his arms continued to embrace her. He could feel his heart bending towards her as she touched him.

"You're beautiful."