a continutation of this which is basically more this!!

Sixteen days. Just over two weeks. Half a month.

Donghae counts his day backward from the moment he woke up alone and stared into the empty space where Hyukjae would have lie till the day he can reach over and his touch is anchored by Hyukjae’s presence. He measures the distance between Beijing and Seoul in the stretch of lonely nights he spent in their bedchamber, searching for traces of Hyukjae’s in the long gone warmth of their sheets and the scent that Hyukjae left behind in their shared bed.

In his waking hours, he haunt the hallow halls of the Palace, listless and purposeless, seeking Hyukjae’s ghost in its walls.

He wears his longing like a well-used and worn out coat, tugging it closer to him whenever the thought of missing Hyukjae stir up a winter storm that run a chill right straight through his heart.  And it must have been so obvious to those around him because even his attendants are careful with him, giving him space to breathe as though he was afflicted with an illness that can be cure with enough time.

Donghae knows there’s a word for this, for this kind of dependency that has him all twisted up inside without Hyukjae by his side, but they had spent nearly a year locked in each other orbit and he can’t remember a time when Hyukjae wasn’t a phone call away and he couldn’t breach the distance between them with a single step.

It’s a strange feeling to grasp when they had spent their early days as reluctant strangers stuck in an unwanted arrangement and then later allies against the confined of the Imperial Palace and it’s warring occupants who wear a smile on their face even as they have a knife at each other throat. It was an uneasy alliance at first but Hyukjae’s steadfast devotion to his family and country and his determination to make any unsatisfactory situation his own slowly grinded down Donghae’s walls of indifference.

“This isn’t your war,” Hyukjae had said from the very beginning. “And I will do everything in my power to keep it that way.”

It was meant to be an assurance, a promise, that Donghae wouldn’t get dragged into the political strife that plagues the Imperial Palace and Hyukjae’s tumulus relationship with his family but as much as this has never been Donghae fight from the start, Hyukjae is his husband and Donghae couldn’t abandon him not when Hyukjae had done everything to support Donghae and keep him safe and away from the political machination of the Court.

It’s that kind of thing of thing that can cause someone to be halfway in love and on his way to completely and irreversibly gone for this wayward prince, that he finds himself revisiting all their old conversations and playing back Hyukjae’s voicemail, chasing remnants of Hyukjae wherever he could find.  

But even with the waning phone calls and texts it does nothing to abate this loneliness that sits heavy in his chest.   

The last thing Donghae remembers is Hyukjae telling him to “stay out of trouble,” and that he’ll “be back before you know it,” and a hasty kiss delivered to his forehead before Hyukjae left on his diplomatic excursion to Beijing.  

And now Donghae is set adrift without his anchor to keep him grounded.

He finds himself drifting through the palace with no singular destination at sight and eventually he stops at a lone courtyard, far enough from the interior of the palace that he spot no other occupant but himself and his attendants.  

He quickly dismisses them and they reluctantly left him to his lonesome.

Winter has arrived in Seoul, casting a blanket of snow wherever Donghae can see. There are bare bones of the trees rooted in its spot and not single green foliage seem to survive the harshness of a freezing January sweeping in but the coldness doesn’t touch Donghae.

He finds the landscape to be hauntingly beautiful in its bareness, the scenery matching the hallow ground of his frozen heart.   

He walks toward the edge of the border of the Imperial Palace, where on the other side of it is the world that Donghae had previously occupied before his marriage with Hyukae.

Donghae looks up and up, craning his neck up to see at top of the bricks and mortars that fence the palace from the outside world. Have the walls of the Imperial Palace always been that high? Or had the months Donghae spent in here made him shrink into himself, he wonders.

When Donghae first glimpse at the Imperial Palace in simpler times he saw the confine of the walls, caging the inner sanctum of the Royal Family, and had thought, almost wistfully, who were they trying to keep out? But now he knows that now was the wrong question to ask.

It should really have been: who were they trying to keep in?

Once upon a time Donghae had looked upon this place behind a pixel screen and printed page of textbooks and like all eyes that lay upon it he was drawn to its grandeur and beauty, filled with untold promises. Like some fantastical tale he read in his childhood, he dreamt of a benevolent king, a beautiful and generous queen, and a handsome prince waiting to find his one true love.

That romantic notion died along the day Hyukjae had offered him everything he could ever dream of and in return shackled him to a loveless marriage. When the main gate of the Palace closed behind him on the eve of his wedding night and with Hyukjae and his future in front of him, Donghae said goodbye to his freedom and his halcyon days.

His only reprieve is that he isn’t alone, that Hyukjae too shares his fate. They’re both prisoner behind these walls.

In the first few months that Donghae had arrived at the Imperial Palace he found the loneliness to be unbearable, the rules and strict protocols were suffocating and the people showing kindness and politeness even as their motives and ambitious stay as hidden as an iceberg.

But Hyukjae made it all tolerable.

Now that Hyukjae left on his trip, this place once again become too stifling—his every move watch and reported to Hyukjae’s enemies, his isolation extended and confined to only those that is allow to associate with him without any political agenda, and he has nobody else to fall back on.

Donghae reach a hand out to touch the brick barrier. Pressing his hand up against it, he muses if he can actually scale the wall.

“Looking to escape already?”

Donghae abruptly pulls back from the wall and turns around, eyes going wide as he catch sight of Hyukjae standing in front of him.

There are dark shadows under his eyes and with his hair mussed and his tie loose he looks like he had just woken up and threw on his clothes before rushing over here but he’s still the most beautiful thing Donghae has seen.

“What no welcome back?” Hyukjae demands when Donghae still haven’t said anything, arms cross and brow raise. “No hi? No good to see you? Nothing at all? Not even—”

Donghae’s legs propel him forward before Hyukjae could finish his sentence and he launches himself across the field, landing on Hyukjae with a loud thump as Hyukjae fall under Donghae’s weight and taking Donghae with him.

Hyukjae isn’t supposed to be here. He’s not even supposed to be back yet. There’s still another five days to Hyukjae’s trip but if he’s a figment of Donghae’s imagination than—than his mind have been that desperate and cruel to conjured up Hyukjae for Donghae’s sake only to take him away later.   

But, Donghae pressing his head against Hyukjae’s chest, he hears the loud thump-thump of Hyukjae’s heart flushing his system, Donghae knows this is real. Hyukjae is real. And he’s here.

They lay there silently as Donghae tries to burrow his way into Hyukjae’s chest and never leave and Hyukjae seems to content to let him.

But it’s not long before Hyukjae once again break the silent.

 “You’re practically frozen,” Hyukjae snaps, touching Donghae’s cheek and pulling his gaze upward to Hyukjae’s own. “Why aren’t you wearing your coat, you idiot.” The chiding is harsh and familiar but it’s the most comforting words Donghae has heard in a while.

“I miss you,” Donghae says instead, squeezing Hyukjae waist tightly.

Hyukjae doesn’t deign him a reply, instead he pushes Donghae off of him and pulls Donghae up alongside him. He takes off his overcoat and wraps it around Donghae’s shoulder with Donghae barely offering any resistance. He peels off his gloves and shoves it at Donghae. “Here,” he says, expression unchanging but his action speak for everything else.

And Donghae stares at it for second before taking it and putting it on his apparently numb hands now. Hyukjae takes one of Donghae's gloved hand in his and pulls him toward the Imperial Palace once again. Donghae doesn’t look back at the wall once as they make their way back inside.

“Welcome home,” Donghae finally says, lacing their fingers together as the warm finally sink into his frozen fingers and spread throughout his body, and for the first time in a long time he means it too.

Hyukjae squeezes his hand and that is an answer in itself.

Sometimes home isn’t always a place, it’s in the furrow of Hyukjae’s brows when he’s thinking too hard, the twitch of his lips when he’s resisting a smile, and it’s in the warmth of his hand over Donghae’s on a cold winter day like this.

a/n: goong is one of my favorite manhwa series so !!!!! one of the thing i love about it is how it really focus on how the mc went through the isolation from her family and her old life, the rigid and rules of the palace, and the strained and conflict of her relationship with the prince and everyone around her that it took a lot of toll on her mental and emotional health. BASICALLY SHE WASN'T HAPPY. like here is the fairy tale situation she landed herself in, bethrothed to the crown prince by her granda's previous agreement and she could have it all but real life isn't all like the romance novel and it horribly. so yea hyukjae isn't donghae's cure all, he's unhappy obviously but hyukjae's presence make it bareable bc he's not alone at least. and i like the constrast of this fic with the first one i wrote for goong au where donghae is such a vibrant char but here's he more washout imiation of himself but ya know still has some color to him still.