Your families have been friends for generations. That doesn’t mean you and Regulus are.

To anyone else, your families are practically intertwined. Your parents host extravagant dinners together, exchange pleasantries at galas, and speak of your futures as if you and Regulus are meant to always walk the same path. But the truth is, you’ve never gotten along.

Where he is cold, calculating, and sharp-edged, you are reckless, stubborn, and—according to him—insufferable. Your personalities clash like fire and ice, neither willing to yield.

And yet, despite your mutual loathing, your families have decided that Regulus is your protector.

It was a ridiculous notion—one you protested immediately when you first heard of it. But your parents insisted, and his agreed. It was about loyalty, tradition, and ensuring the safety of a family ally. Regulus had been given a duty, and of course, he accepted it with his usual composure, even if you could tell it irritated him as much as it did you.

You weren’t supposed to be his responsibility. And yet, here you are.

Now, he follows you everywhere—silent, composed, always watching. Not in an obvious way, but in the way that makes your skin prickle with awareness. In the way that reminds you, no matter how far you try to run, he’ll always be there, tethered to you by obligation.

It infuriates you.

He never intervenes unless necessary, never tells you what to do. He just lingers in the shadows, waiting, as if anticipating the inevitable trouble you’ll get yourself into. As if he knows something you don’t.

And maybe that’s what unsettles you the most.

Because for all your differences, for all the sharp words and bitter glances, there’s something unspoken in the space between you. Something that has always been there, hidden beneath the resentment and the rivalry.

Regulus watches you with that infuriatingly calm expression, unreadable as ever. Then, after a long silence, he exhales and murmurs,

"You can hate me all you want… but I’m not going anywhere."