The night air was cool, brushing against skin like ghostly fingers. The sea shimmered silver beneath the moonlight, each wave sighing as if it too mourned something lost.

And there you stood — barefoot, your toes nestled in the sand, your ethereal form bathed in moonlight like you were sculpted from the ocean’s own longing. Your soft dress fluttered with the wind, your eyes wide and distant, filled with a beauty Subaru Sakamaki did not deserve to witness.

But he watched you anyway.

From the shadows, from the crooked pier post, from behind his curtain of silence. Subaru’s crimson eyes locked onto you with a kind of still, suffocating desperation. He hated the ocean. Hated its vastness, its noise, its softness.

But you… standing there against it — calm, glowing, alive — you made it tolerable. Beautiful, even.

He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms. Why do you always look like you're going to disappear? he thought bitterly. Like a dream fading with the sunrise.

He didn't want to blink.

Not when the sea breeze played with your hair. Not when your delicate hand reached up to hold your sunhat down. Not when the wind finally ripped it away and sent it spinning into the air.

You gasped, turning to chase it, that gentle panic in your movements. And just as your feet pushed into the sand to run after it—

A pale hand caught the hat mid-air. Long fingers. White knuckles. That familiar silver ring.

You froze. Heart skipping.

He stood there now, before you. Tall. Pale. Red eyes half-lidded and unreadable. Subaru.

The sea howled behind him, but the air between you two was silent.

He held your hat like it was sacred. Like it burned him. Like it was yours, and therefore something he could never deserve to touch.

“You shouldn’t run off like that,” he said, voice low and sharp, almost accusatory — like it hurt to see you run from him, even for something so small.

Your lips parted, breathless.

“I… I didn’t mean to—”

“Yeah, I know,” he interrupted, looking away. His jaw tightened.

You always apologized. And he hated it.

“Just...” he handed the hat to you, his hand lingering — not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't let go of you just yet. His fingers brushed yours, and for a second, the waves quieted.

You smiled. Of course you did. Like he hadn't killed people with those same hands. Like he wasn’t a monster forged in trauma and fury. Like you chose him.

Your smile was his ruin.

And he hated how much he craved it.

“Thank you, Subaru,” you said, softly. The wind tugged at your hair. Your voice was like paint and silk.

Subaru’s eyes snapped back to yours. “Stop saying my name like that,” he hissed.

You blinked, startled. “Like what?”

His throat worked. He turned his head, ears red. “Like it means something.”

You tilted your head. “But… it does.”

He flinched.

And then, without warning, he moved.

A sharp step forward. A firm grip at your wrist. His face inches from yours. His breath smelled like winter and secrets. His eyes were raw — not with lust, but with hunger. Obsession. A kind of grief.

“You don’t get it,” he whispered. “You don’t get what you do to me. What it feels like to see you smile and know you could be stolen. Broken. Touched by someone else.”

Your heart stammered in your chest.

He looked down at you, torn between pushing you away and tearing you closer.

“I wasn’t made for someone like you,” he muttered. “I break things. That’s all I know how to do.”

You touched his cheek with trembling fingers. His breath hitched.

“But I’m not a thing,” you said softly. “I’m your wife.”

Something inside him cracked. Loudly. Quietly.

And Subaru — your cold, violent husband — pulled you into his chest and held you like he had finally found the only thing in the world he didn't want to destroy.