“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Eun grunts. He’s been watching Soondeok try to start the fire for some time now and all that they’ve gotten so far are lungs filled with soot.

“I do this all the time on the battlefield,” Soondeok repeats for the umpteenth time in annoyance. “Does it make sense for me to do this, especially since I’m the sick one?”

Eun clears his throat awkwardly before snatching the twig out of her hand and she moves aside for him to crouch down in front of the cauldron at an attempt to start the fire. He huffs and puffs and picks but the embers don’t grow any stronger. Eun is about to give up but he remembers that his wife is watching and persists through even though he’s getting more and more agitated by the second. After numerous failed attempts, Eun takes a moment to catch his breath and that’s when he notices Soondeok breathing into her hands and rubbing her palms together to stay warm. Without a second thought, he strips off his outer robe and shoves it in the air at her but she only stares at it in confusion. Sighing, Eun rises to toss his robe over her shoulders and fixes it so her hair would be out of the way. When he catches her gazing warmly at him, Eun grunts.

“Ahem. I-it was getting in my way,” he lies and quickly turns back around to focus on starting the fire.

After numerous more attempts, Eun miraculously gets a flame to catch onto the wood and he immediately jumps in joy.

“Yes!” He exclaims as he proudly turns to Soondeok with a grin. “Did you see that, I got the fire started!”

His eyes grow wide at the weird face Soondeok gives him before she breaks out laughing. Eun pats down his face as his brows furrow with his lips pursing out cutely which makes Soondeok laugh even more.

“Why are you laughing?!” He whines before Soondeok eventually reaches over to grab his hands and hold them up to his face. His palms are as dark as the soot on the ground and during all this time he’s been trying to build the fire, Eun has been repeatedly rubbing and scratching his face which now makes sense as to why Soondeok was laughing so hard.

“Great job,” she laughs as she fails to clean off the mustache on his face with her thumb. “What do we do… it’s not coming off.”

Eun begins pouting and tries to pat his hands clean but his efforts fail. Huffing, Eun turns to Soondeok with a scowl who frowns back at him.

“It’s all your fault,” he groans and rubs his soot covered thumb across her upper lip. Her face shrivels up cutely and Eun chuckles before pointing to the cauldron. “Let’s hurry and heat the porridge before the fire dies out again.”

He’s clumsy and awkward but Eun manages to warm up the porridge without setting himself on fire while Soondeok crouched near the fire to stay warm. Eun is extremely proud of himself when he presents the bowl of porridge to Soondeok. He watches anxiously as she gently blows and stirs the porridge for it to cool before trying a small spoonful. She shoots him a smile and nods before feeding him a spoonful in return.

Some time passes before one of the servants in the courtyard notice a light coming from the kitchen. She immediately rushes over, fearing there may be a thief but what she stumbles upon surprises her greatly. Peeking over the small window, she spots both Eun and Soondeok crouching in front of the cauldron for warmth while sharing a bowl of porridge. Eun has soot all over his face and Soondeok has a mark across her upper lip but the two seem to be happily laughing over something. She frowns at Eun’s thin attire but her heart warms up again seeing his robe on Soondeok.

“Who would’ve thought,” Eun mumbles after they finish their third bowl of porridge. “That me, a prince, would be huddled up here in front of the cauldron in the middle of the night, eating porridge with soot all over my face and hands.”

Soondeok purses her lips. “Is that a bad thing?”

Eun shakes his head. “No, not necessarily. It’s just not something very prince-like.” He scoffs. “Although, I don’t think many consider me as a Prince, being how useless I am. I’m not good at martial arts. I don’t like to read and the King doesn’t even bother to involve me in any politics.”

“You’re not useless,” Soondeok disagrees as Eun turns to her with soft eyes. He can see the flames in the cauldron dancing in her brown eyes that still shine so brightly at night. She smiles warmly and holds up the empty bowl of porridge. “You started the fire and warmed up a nice bowl of porridge for your sick wife.”

He snickers quietly. “Is that something I’m supposed to be proud of?”

She frowns and sets the empty bowl aside before tucking her hands into her robes. “Right, cause I forgot I’m not considered as your wife.”

Eun’s expression instantly falls with a wave of regret ripping through him. “Y-yah…” Eun sighs. “That was years ago… I was young and angry and I just said a lot of things I shouldn’t have said.” Even with his lame excuse, Soondeok’s expression still doesn’t brighten up. “If I didn’t consider you my wife would I have rushed to grab a medic this morning, stay by your side all day long and come with you this late at night to roast my face and eat a soot filled porridge?”

He heaves another sigh as she chews on her inner lip with downcast eyes on the fire. Eun nudges her lightly and she finally turns to him. “Don’t be mad, especially with that face of yours right now.”

Soondeok immediately looks offended by his comment but he throws her off when he run his thumb along her eyebrows, connecting the two together with Eun laughing at his new work of art while Soondeok scoffs at him.

“You’re one to talk,” Soondeok grumbles. “You should see yourself. You look like a monkey!”

Eun gasps and tries to draw on Soondeok’s face again but her reflexes are fast even for being sick and she successfully blocks him from making another mark but at least there’s now a smile back on her face.

“Your Highness.”

Eun immediately shoots up when he notices the servant at the entrance of the kitchen and Soondeok takes a second longer to notice but Eun eventually helps her up onto her feet. They can tell she’s trying not to laugh at their soot covered faces but they can’t blame her. They look like idiots.

“My Lady,” she says through a gasp. “You’ve been bed ridden all day long. You shouldn’t be out at a time like this. You shouldn’t be exposed to the cold wind.”

“I’m fine,” Soondeok assures before turning to Eun. “I-I was hungry and I didn’t want to wake anyone so the Prince accompanied me. I’m much better now.”

She shakes her head disapprovingly. “Still, it’s far too soon to be outside.” She steps into the warmly lit kitchen and gives Eun a warm smile before turning back to Soondeok. “I can fix you both something if you’re still hungry.”

“It’s okay,” Soondeok shakes her head. “We basically ate all the porridge from earlier and we’re stuffed. It’s okay.”

“Then I will clean up here. You two should head back because you need more rest,” she advises and Soondeok nods. “I will have someone prepare warm water for the two of you to wash up.”

Eun turns to Soondeok before she turns to meet his gaze with a chuckle.

Before tucking himself into bed after they finished washing up, Eun makes sure to double check the blankets on Soondeok to see if they’re enough to keep her warm. Her eyelids flutter open and Eun instantly ducks under the covers.

“It’s scorching hot,” she groans as she tries to remove a layer but Eun stops her.

“You might get sick again because we stayed out in the cold for so long,” he grumbles as he makes himself comfortable. “Just leave them.”

She purses her lips as her hand snakes back under the covers. Once she’s sure that he’s fallen asleep, she’s going to kick them all right off. Soondeok sighs then closes her eyelids again. Now that she was back in bed, she realized she was pretty tired after all. She was drifting off to sleep under the heat of all the blankets when Eun’s soft voice suddenly penetrates through.

“You’re my wife.”

Droopy eyed and confused, Soondeok turns to her husband who was staring at the ceiling. “You’re my wife, my only wife and it will stay that way.” He turns to Soondeok and meets her gaze with his sleepy eyes. “Got it?”

Her heart skips a beat and a smile quickly forms on her lips. She nods once and he turns away with a sigh of relief knowing he got that off his chest.

“Go to sleep,” he whispers with Soondeok watching him intently as he slowly closes his eyes.

Instead of turning away, Soondeok continues gazing until her eyelids finally give in to sleep.

***

The moment it turns seven, the alarm clock immediately starts blaring into the dark room, except for a small slit of sunlight that runs across the room from the crack in the curtains. Baekhyun groans as he reaches over to smack the alarm clock until he eventually hits the right button to shut it up. Turning back to the sleeping beauty beside him, Baekhyun slithers his arms around her tiny frame and presses his lips to her forehead.

“You should get up before you’re late,” he advises through a croak. He chuckles as she whines and gently runs his fingers through her hair. “You’re going to miss your flight.”

Taeyeon yawns and stretches her limbs before forcing herself out of bed to wash up while Baekhyun decides to go back to sleep. Once showered and changed into comfortable yet fashionable clothing for the airport, Taeyeon tiptoes her way back to the bed and cups Baekhyun’s face with her tiny hand to sneak in a goodbye kiss.

“Bye, see you in a week,” she whispers and he nods.

“Have a safe flight,” a half awake Baekhyun mumbles. “Call me when you land.”

Taeyeon nods then after one last kiss, she quickly scutters to the door just as her manager is calling her to come out. Once the door closes shut behind her, Baekhyun sits up and begins cracking his neck and joints before reaching into his nightstand to grab a leather journal and a pen. He fans though the pages to a clean one and starts it out with a date on the right hand corner then proceeds to write down everything that happened in his dream. It fills up three pages, front and back.

“You’re my wife, my only wife and it will stay that way. Got it now?”

Signing off at the bottom, Baekhyun closes his eyes and his jaw tenses when his heart starts acting up. He’s always anxious after he wakes up from the dreams and they seem to be getting worst and worst each time. Unlike normal dreams that usually get distorted after waking up, Baekhyun remembers every single detail about these dreams. He even knows the details to things he shouldn’t know like what the material of their wedding rings and the name of the textbook he was sleeping on.

He flips through the journal to the first page which dates to a little over a month ago to when he saw Hera transform into Soondeok right before his eyes in the hallway. Since then, nothing has been the same for Baekhyun.

When he arrives to his studio later that afternoon, Chanyeol is seated in front of the main monitor and layering in clips of the latest song NCT had recorded the day earlier. He notices the stack of notes he left on the coffee table is still there and sighs. They’ve been there for days and he’s already called Heejin so many times for Hera to pick them up already.

“What is Hera doing that she’s too busy to come pick up those notes,” Baekhyun mutters as he slides into his chair next to Chanyeol.

“Ah,” Chanyeol throws him a quick glance. “Youngho’s grabbing them later apparently. She’s on site with EXO, filling in for Jungah so Youngho said he’d get them instead since he has to go there later anyways.”

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