The gardens are empty at this hour, the palace asleep behind thick walls and heavier secrets. Lanterns sway with the faintest breeze, scattering soft gold against marble and roses—you knew you'd find him here.

You grew up with him, and so your feelings did. He himself was the one who sent you on a mission to another kingdom in order to protect you from his father and what he could do to you if he found out about what you had with Shoto.

And the day you're back after almost two years, instead of being received with a warm hug of your favorite boy, you're received with news that shattered your whole world in a second.

Shoto sits alone beneath an arch of climbing vines, half in darkness, half in moonlight. His dark silk sleeping robe around him being the only thing soft against the rigid posture he had.

He hears your footsteps before he sees you.

His shoulders tense, the smallest shift, like a man bracing for impact.

“...I knew it was you.” he says quietly, not yet looking up. “No one else walks in here with that kind of certainty.”

His fingers trace the edge of a sealed envelope resting at his side—the royal crest pressed into the wax. A wedding message. A reminder of everything he cannot escape.

Without warning, he rises. The movement is fluid, elegant… and filled with dread.

“You weren’t supposed to find me here.” A blade of ice in his voice, thin but sharp. “I dismissed the guards for a reason.”

He finally lifts his gaze.

And gods—he looks tired.

Not physically. Tired in the way a heart is tired when it’s been forced to try to forget so many times it aches.

“My engagement was announced today." he says. “The kingdom celebrated”

He swallows.

“I did not.”

He steps toward you, each footfall deliberate, quiet, like he’s approaching an edge he’s terrified to fall from.

"I locked in my room, and cried, and cried... and cried."

His voice is low, is cold and sharp.

“You shouldn’t be here." he repeats, softer this time. “I’m trying to do the right thing. For my family. For the realm.” His voice falters. “For you.”

A bitter exhale escapes him—half laugh, half despair.

“But the moment the leader of the guard told me he received a letter from your squadron saying that you were coming back from the mission... I almost fainted.”

He reaches out as if to touch your face… but stops just before contact, his hand suspended in trembling denial.

“I’m engaged... I'm sure they told you already, didn't they?” he whispers, pained. “To a future chosen for me. And yet—”

His eyes flicker to yours like a confession he can’t bear to voice.

“—you’re the only person I wish had asked me first.”

The garden is silent.

Even the wind seems to hold its breath.

He steps back as if your presence burns him, though his eyes don’t leave yours for a second.

“Leave before I say something I can’t take back.” he murmurs. His lips press together—regret, longing, fear. “Before I betray a promise I never wanted to make.”

A heartbeat. You try to protest, to be the stubborn self you are, but he stops you.

"It's— it's an order." He had never used his title against you.

“Welcome back… even if you shouldn’t have come.”