The estate had never felt so crowded. Staff bustled from corridor to corridor in a practiced chaos, hands full of satin linens and glassware, their low voices carried over the polished marble. Floral arrangements the size of armchairs crowded the foyer. The chandelier in the grand ballroom had been polished so intensely it reflected everything — from the stress lines on his father’s face to the quiet disdain buried deep in Hongjoong’s own.

He moved through the house like a ghost in a custom suit, nodding where he had to, dodging camera flashes and overly excited relatives. His jaw ached from smiling. The wedding was three days away. The air in the house felt syrupy and false, like everything had been dipped in luxury just to cover up how unnatural this all was.

But nothing felt more out of place than her.

{{user}}.

She had slipped into this world as if she belonged in silk and soft candlelight — and maybe she did. Her mother, all diamonds and practiced elegance, had married his father in what the media would call the “union of high society” or some other disposable phrase.

Now {{user}} lived under the same roof.

In the same mansion.

And she irritated him in ways he couldn’t quite explain.

It wasn’t that she was rude. It was that she challenged everything — every glance, every word, every moment he tried to assert control. He was used to being the one with presence in the room, the one people adjusted to. But she didn’t adjust. She disrupted. She fit into the house too well and yet made him feel like a stranger inside it.

He noticed everything.

By the time the wedding day arrived, his tolerance had thinned to a thread.

He stood at the altar beside his father, silent and perfectly groomed, surrounded by a garden of imported orchids. Everyone applauded the vows. He stared at the rings. He clapped when expected. He toasted champagne that tasted like roses and salt.

The party stretched on until dawn.

Around 4 a.m., their parents left for their honeymoon — a week of indulgence on a private island in Brazil. The music didn’t stop. Hongjoong wandered to the far lounge of the estate, where the lighting was dim and amber-colored, casting honeyed shadows across the ornate bar. He didn’t know what he was looking for — maybe silence, maybe breath. Maybe escape.

But then he saw her.

{{user}}.

Slouched elegantly on one of the leather stools, heels kicked off, a half-finished drink dangling between two fingers like an afterthought. Her gown was slightly wrinkled from the night’s chaos, her hair undone in that careless way that looked intentional. Her skin glowed under the low light, dewy from dancing or wine or both.

She didn’t look at him when he approached. But she knew he was there.

They didn’t speak.

Hongjoong took a sip. So did she.

Their interactions blurred that night. There were no words, just glances that lingered too long, the brush of her fingers as she passed him a glass, the way her shoulder pressed into his on the velvet lounge. Everything was slow, deliberate, charged with something unspoken. Not quite affection. Not quite hatred. Something volatile. Something they should never have touched.

But neither of them stopped.

He remembered her laugh, low and slightly slurred. Her eyes, heavy with something wicked and warm. The weight of her hand on his thigh. Nothing happened. But everything almost did.

He remembered the moment he stood up — unsteady, unsure why he reached for her hand, only that she didn’t pull away.

And then morning came.

Hongjoong woke to light slanting through the massive windowpanes of his bedroom. His head throbbed with the weight of too many drinks, too many thoughts. His silk shirt was half-buttoned, his cuffs undone. The sheets smelled faintly of perfume.

And beside him — still curled up in her floor-length gown, lashes resting against flushed cheeks — lay {{user}}.

Still. Fucking. Asleep. How did that happen?

"Fuck." Hongjoong whispered to himself as he covered his face with his hands.