Prince Baekhyun led himself to his own bed. You followed only with a soft pressure against his back and the occasional shush to work against his quiet protests. 

It could wait. Whatever was consuming him so entirely could be put to bed for now and be dealt with later. After some rest. After some food. After some comfort from a friend. Not everything had to be dealt with alone. Not everything had to be hopeless and never ending.

He laid on his side on the large bed and was asleep as soon as his head reached the pillow. Still, you ran a rhythmic hand over his back as his breathing evened out and he let out a few low moans before he went completely still and quiet. 

The silence seeped in like a fog and you sank to the floor, leaning beside his bed and laying your head down on your arm that still touched his back. 

It was still.

It was quiet.

The silence coated over your head and made your ears ache with how loud it was. 

It was probably the silence that brought on the numbness, but the longer you sat there with your head down and your eyes closed, the less you felt. 

The less you felt of it. 

It and the guilt from it all. The ever asive dread in the pit of your stomach that did not let up. The pain and anguish caused by the choices you had made. The consequences of what you had done to him; his desperate and desolate cries in that dressing room. The silence was changing it and you began to feel nothing. 

It didn’t hurt. 

You had trouble breathing through your nose and your face was wet. 

The arm that you laid on was wet.

The bed below your arm was wet. 

It didn’t hurt. You felt nothing and it was absolute. 

You were numb. The tears were annoying but nothing else. 

They would end. 

As everything did.

The friendship you had with May.

The brief love you had known from Kyungsoo.

The silence throbbed and the numbness unfolded. 

Like waking up from a dream.

No matter how vivid and real the dream had felt, you were waking up now. And just as easily as you let yourself feel that dream, your reality was taking precedent. You would let it go just as easily. 

It had all been a dream and it was time to wake up now. The memory of his love faded into the numbness and you let it go with the dream. 

It was time to live in the real world now. 

You would not hold onto that dream any longer. 

—

You opened your eyes to the sunlight leaking through the tiniest opening in the curtains on the far window of this unfamiliar room. The stiff hardness below your body brought on an ache in your muscles when you moved your shoulders and you realized you were on the floor with a pillow below your head and a blanket over your body. 

The memory of the evening before returned as you blinked away the bright sunlight and sat up in the empty bedroom. 

Baekhyun was nowhere to be found, but you did notice a yellow post-it note stuck to a cell phone that sat on the bedside table. 

‘I got this for you. -B,’ was scribbled on the note by what you assumed was Baekhyun’s hand and you picked up the cell phone to unlock it. 

The lock screen wallpaper on the phone was a picture of you, passed out on the floor of his bedroom with your mouth open and an arm laid over your eyes. 

You had a waiting text message from a number saved under the name ‘Pretty Baekhee.’

‘Servants came looking for you early saw you on camera. Wedding stuff. Isn’t your family coming today? Sorry if i was weird last night.’

You felt lighter today. Despite the sore back from the hard floor and the headache from not getting nearly enough sleep, it would have to do. 

The dreams were fading. 

You wanted to ask him about last night. You wanted to ask him about what he said about his mom. You’d typed out the question three times, each time deleting it before giving up.  

‘Are you okay, Baekhyun?’

Your message sat there for a moment before you saw a few dots at the bottom of the screen as your message was received and you could tell that he was typing out a response. 

Only the action stopped for a while, picked up again, and stopped again. You stared down at the phone for a long while as nothing happened. 

Finally you felt a vibration in your palm that told you he had responded to you.

‘Yep, never better’

His reply was too short, too forced, and too flippant to be genuine. Especially with as long as you saw him typing for. He must have have had own little battle before deleting whatever he was too afraid to say. But what could you do? You couldn’t even be honest with him. Why did you deserve anything in return? You definitely couldn’t force him to talk with you. The idea of having someone to talk to felt so foreign to you, yet you yearned for it. 

‘You can talk to me sometimes, if you want to. We could talk to each other. Friends talk sometimes.’

This message was not met with typing. This message was received, read, and then it sat there on your screen for ages as you looked down for any signs of life from him. 

You’d given up on seeing him respond to it as you busied yourself with finding your way back to your own home so you could shower, change and get ready for the day. 

He’d said that your family was due to arrive today and you recalled seeing a schedule of events before the wedding that had a royal dinner with both families and all wedding parties present.

This would be a grand event. You would have to remember to eat something before you got into your dress since you would likely be much too anxious to eat anything at the dinner. 

You’d have to see him. Did you have the courage to look into his brown eyes and see all of that pain? Even worse was the thought of seeing those eyes vacant and hollow. 

No matter.

It would be an ordinary day for both of you. Business as usual. Fancy restrictive clothing; hold your head up high. Accept curtsies and bows. Show deference to the influential. Eat three bites, place fork down, sip wine. 

Look into his eyes. Ignore the pangs of guilt. Smile, but not too wide and don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. 

Just an ordinary day. 

Halfway through your food, the phone you’d hidden inside the waistband of your jeans vibrated and you excused yourself for the bathroom to read the text message from Baekhyun. The servants bowed at the waist as you walked by them. When you were passed, they simply resumed their work of readying your evening gown for tonight. As soon as you were out of the room you heard them resuming their low talking as they worked together and gossiped and giggled about something amusing. You swallowed away the envy. 

‘Thank you for this. Talk tonight?’

It felt nice. The smile that reached your eyes was genuine. 

Right there in that moment, hidden away in your bathroom with a house full of servants waiting to preen and pluck, truss and string you up, you made a decision for yourself. 

You would talk to Baekhyun. You would trust him. You would have a friend and there was nothing in the world that could stop you from having a friend. A real one. 

You had never owned your own phone before but you had watched May do it plenty of times to know that somewhere inside this keyboard was a selection of little faces. 

You found them easily enough and scrolled through to find the happiest one. One with a large toothy grin and little moon eyes and you sent out your very first emoji to your friend. The happiness you felt inside of your chest made you want to type that little face many times in a row, but you stopped yourself and just sent one. You didn’t need to go crazy. 

You hid the phone in the same shelf inside your walk in closet, just far enough back to be invisible to anyone who did not know where to look and you left the peace and quiet of the bathroom to get ready for the evening. 

As these things go, there was an abundance of waiting before anyone required you to move. 

The dress’s fabric was thick and shockingly scratchy whenever the ruffled hem tickled against your calves. Whoever picked it out obviously didn’t give a damn about the person wearing it. You recognized the thick glasses of the stylist from the dress fitting and her eyes roamed over your body in approval. She stopped at your neck. Her concerns ended there. They did not include the look in your eyes as you tried to ignore the itch in your skin when that stupid rufffle snagged on your pantyhose with every single step you took.

“This dress itches.” You said to the nearest ear to you and the servant girl looked at you for a moment; bowing her head in apology.  

“I’m so sorry, your highness. It’s sponsored for the event by the designer himself.”

“What’s the problem?” The stylist had a whiff of your annoyance as you reached down to scratch lightly over your hose, careful not to snag anything with your nails. 

“I beg your pardon, Ma’am, she says it’s itchy.”

You felt like a naughty child that was acting out, but you honestly did not believe you could stand wearing this for the entire evening. The stylist looked up from the dress at last and looked into your eyes for a good five seconds before she spoke again. 

“He is Her Royal Majesty's favorite designer and she has selected this piece personally for you to wear tonight. It is an unimaginable honor.” 

You could feel yourself losing the battle and the steel trap in her eyes held your own for longer than most of the hired help would even dare. “Perhaps a drink would help, your highness.” At last, she dropped her eyes and you gritted your teeth and nodded your head once. 

A shot of alcohol arrived on a tray and you tossed back the bitter clear liquid. 

It was an ordinary day. 

The dinner was beginning. Faces were blurring together with the occasional important face popping into your vision. 

You were presented into a dining room, a different one than you had visited before, this one larger and more grand. 

All of the faces you had grown accustomed to during your time in this place were present. Only Baekhyun smiled at you when you made eye contact and you smiled back at him. The others nodded with tired looks in their eyes and you did the same to them. You looked around carefully and slowly, knowing who’s dark brown eyes would be the final ones for you to touch when you reached your seat. 

As the groom, and the most important participant of this ceremony aside from you, Prince Kyungsoo would be seated at the top of the table, near the head. Near where his father, the king, was scheduled to appear and where his current wife, Queen Hong would be seated beside. 

Next to them, you would see the face of your father, who had just arrived, you heard from the maids this morning. He was bringing along his newest wife. She was younger than you and her pregnant belly would have swollen enough to make her hold in a grunt when she stood up and again when she sat down. 

You wondered if at last, your father would have the son he’d always desired and you wondered if that baby boy would ever know what it felt like to have a real friend. 

You’d arrived at your spot and your view of the floor showed you black shoes connected to ankles and black pants standing exactly where you expected to see him.

Just an ordinary day. 

There was a touch required here. His hand — the same that you’d felt before with his rounded fingertips and electric warmth as they etched a deep cut pathway across your bare skin. The passionate touches and heavy breaths of that far away dream world that still teased you. 

You had to let it go. It was gone.

He held his hand out, palm down and you did not even hesitate. You had to still be breathing, right? You’d yet to collapse onto the floor at his feet so you must be awake.  

Years of practice — you worked on muscle memory in front of this broken man with your broken heart still somehow pumping blood to every cell in your body on this very ordinary, very unremarkable day just like any other day. 

The palm of his hand was moist below your fingertips and you bent at the waist and the smooth skin of the back of his hand was heated when you pressed your lips to it. 

You’d meant to drop his hand quickly. It was done and you meant to let go. But he...his thumb moved with the lightest brush. Either a flinch or a mistake, he had given the smallest squeeze over your fingers. A ghost of a memory that had escaped. Remnants of the dream. It slowed you down and you looked into his eyes for a moment. 

You remembered to breathe. You remembered the small smile you pushed onto your face, for the sake of the show. 

He looked at your face now. The beautiful eyes of Prince Kyungsoo were holding on to yours with an unreadable and heavily guarded wall built around them. 

He breathed in and out and in again and he blinked once before his head dipped and he bowed just once. It was his part. 

No more would come from him until the dinner was over and he h