jaylaxies

[jaylaxies]

MARIONETTE

PAIRING: doll!jungwon x fem!reader

GENRE/CW: smut, angst, porn with plot, unprotected sex (be safe), mentions of accidents, blood, slight body worship, somnophilia, manhandling, cunnilingus, heavy makeout, heavy dubcon themes, supernatural themes and elements, artefacts collector!reader, usage of nicknames, aftercare, fluff if you squint, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, mentions of jaemin and karina.

WORD COUNT: 16,104 words.

SYNOPSIS: As an antique collector, you had encountered many oddities; splintered relics, cursed heirlooms, objects that whispered in the dark, but never a life sized doll so breathtakingly beautiful, so humane. There was only one rule, to not open its coffin before the onset of New Year, however, temptation is quite a decadent exquisite poison. And now? Something stirs beneath the glass, something that waits for you, dearly so.

WARNING: 18+ content, minors dni.

A/N: hihi loves <3 it’s my first time writing something like this, and to think it was inspired by a dream? gosh, i did work hard on it and i really hope you guys would enjoy it too :3 all likes, comments, reblogs are highly appreciated! it keeps me motivated! iloveyou all and happy reading <33

Chapter 1: The end? Or the lackof. 

Darkness was always your friend, it engulfed your being, the depth of your soul with the warmth even mere humans couldn’t provide, something so utterly beautiful, something you couldn’t see, the quiet, the warmth, the loyalty that cradled you in stillness. 

A stray tear cascaded down from the crevice of your eye, streaming through the curved expanse of your cheek and dripping all over the velvet carpet laid below, the kind that muffled sound, even your sobs. It covered the entire penthouse floor—another purchase made in silence for a place too big for one, a place too big for yourself. 

“Merry Christmas,” you whispered into the window, pressed against the cold surface which seemed baptised with the water droplets forming, courtesy of the snow, which slicked the city in the shade of white, adding another bland vision through your cornea. 

No one answered. The silence pressing you back into the surface as a reminder that you were indeed alone, it was brutal, and worse, familiar. Money brings happiness they said, then where were your parents? Friends? A lover who you so desperately wished to replace the embrace of the darkness to something real, so raw? A heartbeat beside yours.

You turned around slowly, eyes grazing over the meticulously arranged space, the walls lined in rich charcoal silk, the carved moldings of the ceiling dipped in antique gold, each piece of furniture either vintage or custom made to tailor your taste. A museum, people say when they visit. A mausoleum, you thought.

You were most likely the only exhibit that still lived.

Passing through the hall, you stopped just to see the picture frame standing tall on the marble table. The photo of your family—if it could even be called that. A frame that hadn’t moved in the past year since you came here, like the people in it. Your mother’s tinted red lips were parted in a laugh far too wide to be genuine, your father’s hand resting too heavy on your shoulder. All of you dressed in black tie for a gala you didn’t remember, smiling for an audience that didn’t care.

You turned again, towards what you claimed to be the heart of your home, if it could be called that. Each step was muted by the velvet of the carpet, your movement turning into an illusion of some dream as your fingers mindlessly caressed the artefact you always carried with you—an ancient key, so elegantly engraved, yet it opened nothing you owned. 

To your left, the antique room sat sealed behind tall French doors.

You didn’t go in, you couldn’t, not tonight.

Your obsessions slumbered there peacefully, a wooden crucifix with a bloody split down its middle, a weeping angel bust with glass eyes, an 18th century mourning veil still faintly smelling of rosewater and rotten flesh. 

It was a collection of grief, the kind of grief people celebrated, framed in golden wrapped silk. Each product was valuable, as if the burden in them could be traded for money. 

Your feet didn’t stop there, not until you were standing in front of the big wooden door with the serpentine handle, your thick black coat hanging on the rack, almost like a relic—so dark and finely woven in Italy. You draped it over your shoulders, slipping your gloves on with no destination in mind. 

But something in the air had switched from the very second the frost teardrop splattered down to the carpet, it was as if someone breathed down on your neck, like a whisper from within the walls. 

You found yourself stepping out, into the elevator, down the echoing lobby, well decorated in shades of green and red, a few children bubbled with excitement with wrapped boxes in their arms.

“Where to, Miss?” your driver asked.

You hesitated, gulping down your emotions. The city was still wrapped in snowfall, painted in black and white till the bone. Every possible location—gallery, restaurant, hotel lounge—felt as hollow as the apartment you had just left, despite being so full of life, so full of humans. 

“I don’t know, just drive—somewhere,” you murmured to the suited man with greying hair.

And so he did, seamlessly guiding you through the colour flashes outside of the window, a celebration you couldn’t quite grasp, something so fulfilling for others yet an empty vessel for you, glass fogging up per second as you found yourself delving deeper into the heart of the city. 

You almost didn’t notice the sharp turn as the car veered into a slow stop, right over the cobblestone, near the entrance of a rusty iron gate that was wide opened, the appearance of the gate juxtaposing the liveliness inside the grounds. 

A carnival.

It was blooming up the grass like a childhood nightmare to you, grown not from joy but from something older, more terrible—decay dressed in ribbons, nostalgia strung with nooses, with the flashback of your parents abandoning you in the middle of the crowd, with a pathetic excuse of work calling. 

The lights flickered like fake stars, too yellow, radiating warmth, casting the ground in a sickly kind of glow. Music reverberated through the cold air—violins detuned, a carousel melody slowed to a dirge. You stepped out of the car with a hand to the frame, your gloved fingers pausing as you caught sight of your own reflection in the passenger window, eyes empty, dried lips, your face floating behind the few stray hairs that made their way upfront. You looked like someone who attended a funeral, which seemed fitting.

No one should have been here out this late, the clock nearing midnight, yet the place was full. Crowds of people passed by, too smooth for your vision for them to seem humane. Children laughed, but the sound was wrong—too jolly, too bright. Balloons hung from the strings, glossy and silent. The scent in the air was thick—caramel, popcorn, and smoke curling together like a spell brewing.

Your feet moved without any motive, their own consciousness dragging you through the murmurs of the crowd, above the snow clad cobblestone as the place unfurled around you in shades of red and gold. Joker masked men took over the place, entertaining and guarding each shop. 

Without notice, a girl with doll like features handed you a candied apple, the red dripping down the ground in a way that made you feel sick. With a tap, you paid for it before offering it to a kid who looked hungry. 

You walked past it all, as if on a mission you weren’t aware of, the mist guiding you through, near the alleyway behind the giant wheel which hadn’t stopped moving all night. 

Then you saw it. A tent. It was the only place draped with black, and roped with red stripes. It didn’t have any signs, just tarot cards hung around, adorning the place. 

It wasn’t a beckoning, just a feeling—a feeling that someone was calling out your name. 

You paused outside the tent, the velvet flaps gently shifting though there was no wind. A low warmth bled from within, curling at your covered ankles like a blissed sigh.

Without thinking twice, you ducked inside the tent, the air thickening as if you had entered another realm altogether. The scent of something ancient, even darker than your antique art room, a pretence of divine divination. 

Under the red candlelight, against the dark walls, you met with a woman, skin as if a dark parchment, hair as if silver threads, luring you right in as her gaze met yours. 

“You’ve taken your time, we’ve been waiting,” she said, hands kept on table, her voice stoic, no anger, no sweetness. 

“We?” You asked in a whisper, confusion taking over your face. 

She didn’t answer as the candlelight flickered above your head as you sat down on the wooden chair, which creaked with each movement. 

The table between you was covered in black cloth worn out from decades—no, centuries, so out of touch. Golden thread formed a circle at its center, symbols stitched in curling foreign shapes, as if it was a cult. Atop it rested a deck of tarot cards, the edges frayed, the backs patterned in thorned roses.

The woman’s fingers moved, almost inhumane with how fast she shuffled the deck, portraying something simply inevitable.

Within a second, you had three cards laid in front of you, pressed face down, before she turned the first one over. 

“The past.” She murmured. 

The card read out Death in big, bold letters. 

A shiver travelled down your spine as your eyes assessed the figure of a skeleton, adorned with roses, seemingly half alive, but at what cost?

Her voice dropped an octave, “you’ve mourned things that are still breathing. But death doesn’t care about the soul ascending to hell or heaven, does it?”

Your lips parted in hopes of finding an answer, but she spoke nothing short of truth. Your parents? Alive but dead to you. Your friends? Barely one caring for anything other than your money. No existence of love, a true one at least. A dull ache curled in your chest with the card being taken back. 

Not even a second later, the second card was being turned around to reveal Collector. 

A massive figure seated on an antique throne adorned with jewels from top to legs, background filled with broken doll heads, and clocks of shapes you didn’t even know the names of. 

It was clear, the words echoing present through and through, your nails digging into your skin with the accuracy and abnormality of the given situation. 

“Collecting pieces long forgotten? Safekeeping them, when in reality no one intends to return to them.”

You felt as if the words were being carved into your bones, “you were made to be adored, but you’re caged in cruelty now.” She continued, “abandonment that leaves you searching for empty pieces.”

You were parched, each word acting like a truck of truth, hitting you over and over again, and it was only a second of silence as the last card was being flipped, as if awakening someone, something, into existence. 

A doll. That’s what the third and the last tarot card said, the image on it striking something primal in you; especially when you laid your eyes on the white porcelain doll, way too delicate for this world, carved into perfection of some sort, clad in a dark suit. He was perfect. Cheekbones high and blushed, lips blood red, glowing, and eyes? Closed in peace, in wait. You tore your eyes from the card the second you felt something burning on your wrist. 

A red thread, something you hadn’t worn before entering the stall, something that resembled exactly the threat around the doll’s wrist. It wasn’t silk, or cotton, it was something old, almost like a crimson fibre. 

The women didn’t blink, didn’t show any hint of emotions this time, “you’ve been chosen.”

You breathed out, waiting for her to elaborate. 

“He’s been waiting, he didn’t summon you, he chose you. It was when you were ten, in this life, he fell in innocent love all over again, the same place, the carnival.”

Her eyes weren’t moving, goosebumps rose up your skin at the mention of the carnival, the same carival which you visited with your parents, the same, which taught you abandonment years ago, the place you were at right now. 

“Who’s he?” You croaked out. 

“He saw you entering, the innocence long gone, now he craves, he desires your love.”

Your heart thumped out of your chest at the mere mention, the slight possibility of someone wanting you. 

“Where’s he?” You asked before you could control yourself, the words, the mannerism almost foreign to you. 

The women’s lip twitched up for the first time, the darkness highlighting the curve, before she snapped her fingers, making everything go dark as you stood up, stumbling back with a gasp, and right out of the tent. 

It was snowing again, the bustle of the crowd, the cheers of the children. The world was bright again, even in the darkness, but you were hollow, the thread burning around your wrist every passing second, as if in a rush to convey a message. 

You weaved through the crowd, past fire breathers and jugglers, past children squealing over marionettes—you yourself felt like one as past a the thread pulled eastward, toward the quieter edge of the carnival. You didn’t ask questions anymore. You just followed.

It didn’t feel real, just a dream with no end. And then, you saw it—tucked between two towering, crumbling buildings was a narrow, glassed storefront you hadn’t noticed before. You would have missed it entirely if not for the thread tightening against your skin, humming now with warmth. A wooden sign hung above the door, painted in fading gold. 

The Chiller House: Antiques and souvenirs. 

The windows were clouded, frosted even from the inside, yet you could faintly make out the silhouettes of laces, dolls, relics you couldn’t identify. The floral vines covered the sign which sat atop the door. 

Binded with love, caged with obsession. 

You stared at the sign, heart knocking against your ribs. You had a soft spot for antiques—always had. Things that had lived lives before you. The scent of old paper and polished wood. The way broken toys still smiled, even your room back home looked more like a museum than a bedroom. The past always felt warmer than the present, safer, even when it wasn’t.

A brass bell chimed in peace as you stepped inside, it was like a time capsule bound together. Display cases brimmed with forgotten artifacts—cracked porcelain faces, jewelled gloves, pressed flower letters that looked like they’d crumble at the slightest touch. The scent of cedarwood and dried rose petals filled the air, however, the room wasn’t musty, it was preserved. 

You twirled around the empty store, feeling alive for the first time in months, staring at your reflection in an ornate vanity mirror, before stepping behind the curtain, into a room which was dim, but not enough to hide him. 

A single glass coffin in the corner of the room, as if meant to be hidden from the world. Lit from below by a single, flickering bulb, the coffin glowed like an altar. And within it—he looked too perfect to be real. A life sized porcelain doll, mouth barely parted as if sighing in sleep. His skin was smooth, pale with a bloom of warmth on the cheeks, and his lips painted a colour of warm red. 

Blonde curls falling over his forehead, his suit was tailored in black, lapels stitched with gentle thorns, the collar closed neatly with a thin crimson ribbon. A matching red thread circled his porcelain wrist—identical to the one still burning on your own. 

He was so delicate, exquisite personified, crafted so meticulously, it almost felt like a sin to be staring at him. You didn’t realize you were moving till your palm rested on the fogged glass. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a voice called out, jolting you out of your trance. 

You turned around quickly to see the shopkeeper—a woman older than time itself, dressed in a black shawl with hazel eyes that gleamed like a summer storm. She didn’t sound angry, but tired. Like she’d been here before, like she’d seen this play out before. 

“I—why? Isn’t he for sale?” You asked. 

“He’s not for sale.”

“But why? This is a shop and he’s a doll,” you asked again, desperate to understand. 

Her gaze didn’t falter, “he’s not just a doll, and this isn’t just a shop.”

Today has been confusing, but this? It was way par your usual understanding. Not a doll? Not just a shop? It was as if you were bleeding into the thin crack between dream and reality. 

“I want him,” you repeated like a broken record. 

Her eyes flickered down to your wrist in a scowl, before she gasped, demeanor doing a one eighty, “I see, so it’s happened.”

“What has?”

She didn’t answer, walking past you to the coffin, brushing the gold plated oval, depriving it of the dust that had settled there over the time. 

Jungwon—the engraved text read out, a name as pretty as the face. 

“I’ll pay anything,” you declared, as if he would cease to exist if you don’t get him, if you don’t keep him preserved with you. 

“Anything,” she echoed, “everything,” she confirmed.

You stared at her, wondering if this was yet another tactic used to get a higher price for a certain possession, to quantify the amount of desperation one can behold. 

Still, she didn’t answer you directly. Instead, she moved around the coffin, unlatching locks you hadn’t even noticed until now—iron clasps, rusted, something that creaked with each movement. Not the lid, never the lid, just the base. Preparing it for transport.

“You’ll take the whole thing,” she started, as if telling you the rules. “Don’t try to lift the glass. Don’t remove the thread. And no matter how much you want to—don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.”

“How much?” you asked, breath catching in your throat with newfound warmth blooming up your chest. 

She paused her slow movements, scribbling a figure on a torn piece of parchment and handed it to you. Her fingers were cold and dry, like paper itself.

The number was beyond the point of absurdity, a cost that screamed sacrifice, not currency. More than what a doll should be worth, if it was just a doll that is. 

You got your card out without a second thought. It was all you had, a price you got for having the ever so absent parents. She nodded, as if she expected you to say yes regardless of the circumstances. 

“Handle with care, he’s—he’s more fragile than he appears to be,” she murmured, “alas, don’t forget the rules.”

You nodded, fingertips quick to call, informing your driver to pick up the coffin, the brass bell chiming as you stepped out of the Chiller House. Your eyes followed him, throughout the journey. 

All while not knowing that your red thread had disappeared. 

Chapter 2: In the name of love. 

The glass clinked under the brightness of the chandelier, a voice that reminded you much of cages. 

Especially here, at the HYBE Plaza, where every corner shimmered with the festive celebration of New Year’s eve. And yet, not a single thing about this night felt new.

You sat at the long table draped in glitter, surrounded by people who wore their smiles like fake masks. Your parents sat two seats away, laughing for appearances, eyes always glancing sideways. Your fiancé, Jaemin, their choice, sat beside you with a hand on your chair, a smirk evident on his face, the usual routine for him. 

“You barely spoke a word tonight,” he accused, “this night is important.”

“To whom?” You stared into space, fingers playing with the red threads of the table cloth. 

He sighed, a vein popping out with the anger he couldn’t control, “to your family—to my family, to me.”

“The contracts, you mean? The exchange of money for souls, ah? Is that what I was raised for?”

Your fiancé shifted uncomfortably beside you, but his grip on your chair only tightened as he leaned in, teeth clenched. “Don’t do this here.”

“Where should I do it then?” you asked, still not looking at him, “at the altar? In bed? Over brunch with our mothers while they plan the next generation of heirs to ruin?”

He inhaled sharply. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“No,” you replied, turning your head at last, eyes sharp, the chandelier above caught in your eyes like fractured glass. “I’m being honest. You should try it sometime.”

“Sweetheart, maybe you need a breather, want me to walk to the balcony with you?” Your mum breathed out in her sugar dipped voice, almost embarrassed at the way you clearly worded what they’ve been doing all this while. 

“Where was this sentiment when it was my birthday, mother? Perhaps you were too busy to remember? Right, father?” You said, eyeing both, who looked rather embarrassed at your outburst, almost piercing them with the serum of truth. 

Truth that you were their daughter, a human, not an investment or doll, by any means—something that they’d been overlooking all this while.

You didn’t wait for a reply. 

The chair’s legs scraped against the marble like a declaration, loud enough to silence the violins. A hush rippled through the room. Your mum’s painted smile flickered, your father’s eyes narrowed with the slow cruelty of a man too long accustomed to control, however, you kept walking.

When the elevator doors slid shut behind you, the last thing you saw was your mother clutching her pearls, tears glistening her eyes, as if she finally realized a tinge of the hurt she’s caused you, but not a way to make it better. 

Winter had returned to the city like a storm—snow falling not gently, but rather, in solemn sheets. The chauffeur said nothing as he opened the car door. He didn’t dare, not when you looked stoic. 

All you remembered from the car ride was the flashes of colours, the scenery collapsing into an abstract piece too bright for your taste. The lift carried you into warmth in utter silence, juxtaposing the kids in the lobby, way too enthusiastic to celebrate new year. 

The penthouse greeted you with the familiar hush of years long curated wealth. It smelled faintly of roses and marble, of nothing real. The chandeliers stayed lit, as if unaware the girl who lived beneath them had shattered hours ago.

You walked in without removing your heels, only leaving them midway on the velvet of the carpet as your legs started to wobble, as if uncertain if you should be standing anymore or not. 

By the time you reached the bathroom, your fingers could barely unhook the back of your gown. Your body trembled from exhaustion, you peeled the dress off your skin as if it were a second one—a shell of who they wanted you to be, and let it fall in a puddle on the heated tiles.

The water scalded your skin, but you didn’t move, you stood beneath the stream like something carved from grief, arms hanging limp at your sides, head bowed. The steam curled around your body, trying to hold you together, but nothing could. Not tonight.

Your sobs were quiet—choked, too exhausted to echo in the grand bathroom. They slipped past your lips like secrets, buried in the hiss of falling water. You sank slowly to the floor, knees folding, cheek pressed to the cold marble. You stayed there until your fingers numbed and wrinkled.

Eventually, you rose, wrapping yourself in a robe, barely bothering to dry your hair, and stepped into the dim corridor, the lights flickering faintly above. The silence of the penthouse felt sharper now—closer. The velvet underfoot muted your steps as you passed gilded mirrors and untouched heirlooms.

Wrapped in a white robe, you drifted down the corridor, dripping steadily down your spine, leaving a trail of water. The chandelier above the foyer flickered gently behind you, casting your shadow down the hallway like a second self.

You opened the bedroom door, the air inside was chilled from neglect, the heavy curtains still drawn shut from earlier that morning. The only light came from the candle you must have forgotten to snuff—its flame dancing beside the mirror, golden and low.

And in the corner of your room, against the rich velvet of the carpet, rested the glass coffin, the one you had brought home, the one that hadn’t left your mind since.

You walked toward it slowly, your bare feet cold now, trembling slightly as you approached. Your wrist burned as you knelt beside the coffin. Your hands found the smooth edge of the glass lid, fingers hesitating, remembering the warning from earlier, what the shop owner said. 

Don’t open it before the onset of the new year.

It wasn’t new year yet, you were five minutes short of time, of patience. 

What would even happen? It’s just a doll, a pretty piece of porcelain, something you pondered about for the next four minutes. 

Your fingers curled tighter around the latch, “I can’t wait,” you mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

With that, you unlatched the coffin door, and as you did, the sharp corner of the coffin caught your hand, causing a sudden, precise sting.

You flinched, hissing softly, watching as a bead of blood gathered at your fingertip—round and dark, like ink waiting to stain something sacred.

Before you could think, it slipped, fell down, right onto his slightly parted lips.

The moment it touched him—the first firework exploded beyond the window, a bloom of sound and colour cracking through the silence. The sky lit up in gold, and then another, and another—an orchestra of celebration for a world that had nothing to do with the one unfolding here, the celebration of new year beyond your room. 

When you looked back, the blood was gone, disappeared. You wondered if he had a crack, a hairline in his mouth, letting the blood seep through, or it actually disappeared. 

Your hand reached beneath him, slow, cradling him once more—arms beneath his back and knees, lifting him gently from the coffin. The robe slipped further down your shoulder, forgotten. His weight pressed into you softly, the fabric of his suit warm against your chest as you carried him across the room, he was heavy, heavier than any porcelain should have been. 

The fireworks continued behind the curtains, echoing against the window panes like distant thunder. But inside your bedroom, it was just you. Just him.

You laid him down on the bed, carefully—pillowing his head, smoothing the lapels of his suit, brushing your trembling fingers once across his cheek as if to confirm he was still there.

Then you joined him, sprawling over the silk sheets, eyes blank as they stared into the plaster of paris perfectly sculpted into the ceiling. 

Your hand reached out blindly until your fingers brushed his, cold and delicate beneath the satin glove. You held it like it might tether you to something real. 

“I don’t know how to be normal anymore,” you whispered into the dark, voice hoarse from crying. “I’m always pretending, every fucking room I enter, every dress I wear—it’s like a costume. A fucking mask, and no one ever sees what’s underneath. I’m not even sure I do.”

You turned your head, breath catching as your eyes landed on him. He didn’t look human, he looked like an angel. 

Lips parted the faintest bit, lashes long and still, his face peaceful in the way the world never allowed you to be. You watched him, tears welling again, cascading silently down your cheek.

“I’m so tired, I only see red, no blacks and whites.” You sighed, as if curving into the madness of what the world put you up with, “you’re beautiful,” you mumbled, fingers tracing the outline of his lapel, the thorn-stitched embroidery catching against your nails. The silk beneath was soft, too soft—like skin meant to be kissed.

“It must be nice, being a doll, a real one with no feelings, just plush beauty, and stillness,” you whispered, his eyes shining with an understanding, a glint that shouldn’t be seen in the non living creatures. 

It wasn’t just grief now—it was like vertigo. That hollow, high feeling that came when you’d fallen too far and realized there was nothing left to crash into? You’d hit the bottom. The absolute, ridiculous bottom. And here you were—wanting to kiss a fucking doll.

You crawled toward him slowly, silk dragging behind your thighs, breath hitching. Every inch you moved across the mattress felt like a climb up the hill, a ritual of some sort, of great importance.

Your knees slid to either side of his hips. You climbed on top of him like sin climbs onto innocence, soft and slow, an angel falling .

You shouldn’t be doing this, you knew that, and still, you sighed into relief as you cupped his face between trembling palms, his skin was porcelain, yet it wasn’t cold.

It had taken on warmth—not humane, but something subtler, as the sun shone warmly on the sealine, almost a personification of liveliness of a peculiar sort. 

You leaned down slowly, your breath catching in your throat. You didn’t realize how hard your heart was beating until you were so close to him you could hear the soft rasp of your own blood roaring behind your ears. 

“Everyone hates me,” you whispered, your voice inhumane, lacking warmth. 

Your finger traced the curve of his reddish porcelain cheek, perfect, “gosh—would you hate me too?” You asked like a child talking to a wall, expecting no answers in return. 

He only listened, attentive and polite, brown eyes staring into yours like an emotional support anchor, “I’m insane, I’m so insane, I,” you breathed out, chest heaving up with your face tilting in a fashion that if you’d bend down a smidge, you’d touch him, “keep me safe, even if it’s for a night.”

With a sharp intake of breath, you slotted your lips onto his, the act purely devastating, trembling against the solid, unmoving porcelain, clinging onto a kiss that gave you nothing physical in return, just pure warmth blooming in your chest.

Your lips parted over his, opening wider, messier—tongue barely brushing his, knowing there was no true warmth to meet it but needing it anyway, making you whimper and push down into his lap. The silence scorched you, it bloomed in your chest like fevered devotion.

The kiss turned wetter, more obscene, your hips rolling over his waist as your tears began to fall—again. You gasped through them, mouth open against his, panting.

“I just wanted someone to want me,” you sobbed, forehead resting against his, “is that so wrong? Is that so—fucking wrong?”

Your bathrobe had fallen open completely by now, the fabric slipping off your shoulders like silk cloth, exposing your bare chest to the cold, to him. You didn’t care, you wanted him to see. You wanted to press every part of your ruined body to the hollow sculpture of his form and pretend it meant something. Your thighs clenched around his tiny waist, your hands fisted in his jacket, still kissing him like a girl who believed enough could bring back the dead.

There, atop a doll who could not hold you back, half-naked, tear-streaked, heartbeat trembling like a loose violin string—you finally slept, not peacefully, but possessively.

And watched. 

He always did. 

Chapter 3: I see your heart is pure. 

Fingers trailed down your chest, not cold, not glass smooth.

It was flesh, real human touch. 

You inhaled sharply, the sound catching somewhere between your ribs and throat. Your breath hitched again as one fingertip circled your tits—tentative, like he was trying to remember it. The pad of a thumb brushed over your nipple, coaxing a shiver so deep it left your spine tingling.

You opened your eyes, the room was cloaked in shadows and gold. Velvet curtains half drawn, a single candle burning, but you didn’t question the shift. You didn’t ask where you were or what time it was, because he was there.

Jungwon.

Seated beneath you on the mattress, half clothed in his black suit, his blonde hair tousled like he’d just woken from the same need that drenched your body. His brown eyes were wide and almost fevered, pupils dilated as if he was starving.

His hands slid down the curve of your body, making you gasp quietly as they touched your bare skin, your robe had fallen open long ago, exposing you to him, thighs spread without any shame, not here. 

“Jungwon,” you breathed, unsure if it was a plea or shock. 

He looked up from where he sat between your legs, lips parted, gaze locked onto your core like he was watching something beautiful unravel. 

“You’re soft,” he whispered.

His voice sounded carved from candle smoke and shadow. Soft, velvet lined in some way. It felt like it was coming from inside you, like something whispered to your soul rather than your ears.

You parted your lips to respond, but your words didn’t come as he bent down, mouth ghosting the inside of your thigh, not touching where you needed him but still close, so close. 

A low whimper was all you managed to let out, making the pretty man smirk, a gentle dimple gracing his innocent face, that didn’t harbour a single innocent thought inside of him. 

He licked once, just beside your cunt, not quite there. A warm, wet trail that made your body twitch.

“Please,” you whispered, fingers threading into his hair, tugging gently.

His mouth was so close you could feel it—not just heat, but presence. As though the very idea of him had weight. His lips hovered just above your cunt, parted, exhaling breath that couldn’t possibly exist. He didn’t move—just stared up at you with that hollow devotion, like your worship was the only thing he’d ever known. 

You moaned, soft and broken, hips lifting instinctively. His lips barely brushed you, just a flicker—when suddenly the entire world fell out from under you.

You jolted awake with a harsh breath. 

It was a dream. 

The second you tried to sit up—you gasped, to be pulled back gently by the weight of a hand around your waist. Not accidental, not your imagination. It was real.

You felt a shiver going down your spine. His arm draped around you even though you hadn’t moved him by any means. It was the same doll who once lived in a glass coffin, now lying behind you, cradling your body like a lover who refused to let go. His fingers splayed just below your ribs, unmoving but perfectly placed, as if sculpted for the sole purpose of holding you through the night.

Slowly, you guided his hand away, his arm dropping without resistance, gently settling beside him on the sheets, lifeless, as if nothing had ever happened.

But it had, you knew it had.

Your legs wobbled as you stood. The room felt colder now, like whatever warmth had been there with you had sunk back into porcelain. Into silence. You didn’t dare look at him as you crossed the room, bathrobe clinging to your body with sweat and shame, thighs still aching with want. 

Your skin was glowing in the reflection you saw of yourself, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, before you stepped into the shower, getting ready for your godforsaken uni. 

By the time you got to campus, the city had woken up but barely breathed, snow melted in streaks across the pavement, students milled about like ghosts of themselves, laughter thin. 

You met your friend near the steps—Karina, too bright for this weather, a paper cup of coffee steaming between her hands.

“You came to class on a bank holiday?” She asked, raising a brow, “should I be worried that you’ve final-fucking-ly lost your last marble?”

You smiled thinly, “I just needed to be somewhere—uh, not alone.”

She nudged your shoulder gently, knowing about your family problems, “rough night?”

You swallowed, not maintaining eye contact for once, “is it weird,” you began, voice low, “to want something that’s not, uhm, human?”

She stared at you, caught off guard, “what? Like a celebrity crush weird or maybe a serial killer weird?”

You didn’t laugh, not when you felt this way.

“I mean actually—feel something for it,” you clarified, “something not alive. Something you know isn’t real but—”

You cut yourself off before the words but it touched me could fall out.

Karina tilted her head, “okay, hold on, babe. Are you into one of your artifacts or something?” She teased, half laughing, not serious about the situation at all, “you’re really committing to your collection, I see.”

The second she saw you not laughing, staring at the ground as if you wanted it to swallow you whole, her tone dropped, “babe, you can’t be serious—wait, seriously? Y/N—”

“I have to go,” you whispered, grabbing your bag tighter as you walked away, ignoring the echoes behind you. 

The cold air outside did little to numb the burn still clinging to your skin. It felt as though your body hadn’t fully left the bedroom, like some part of you was still trapped under the weight of him—those porcelain arms, those parted lips, that impossible stillness that somehow kept watching. The memory of it clung to you as you crossed streets and waited through red lights without seeing them, breath ghosting in front of you with every hurried exhale, and by the time you reached your apartment, you were shaking.

Inside, the silence greeted you first, then the sudden burst of warmth.

Not the artificial kind piped through radiators, something richer, something fuller, as if the space had been lived in while you were gone. You turned your head toward the bedroom and froze.

The glass coffin hadn’t moved—but its contents had. Jungwon lay just as you’d left him, and yet his body was no longer the same, his head was tilted toward the doorway, ever so slightly, lips were still  barely parted, but they appeared softer now, not rigid with ceramic but plush, almost flushed. The light caught on his skin differently—as if it had deepened in tone. No grey undertones, but something dangerously close to human. His chest rose faintly, or maybe you imagined it. Maybe you had to.

You stepped closer before your brain could warn you otherwise. The air felt heavier around him. The scent was no longer just cedarwood and dust but warmer, enough to make you shiver in anticipation. 

Don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.

The voice echoed through your mind, your greed had gotten the better of you, and you didn’t have the slightest clue of the consensus, never having asked the owner about it, her word was final—yet you resorted to disobedience. 

It was hard to figure out where you were meant to be with how often you escaped from places, soon staggering into the Carnival after a silent car ride. It was still there, the rusted iron gates, the music bustling, children laughing. 

You walked fast, passing the clowns with their painted smiles, past the fire breathers, and carousel horses locked in crooked gallops. Your breath came quick and hot now, fogging in the air like you were being hunted.

And then you turned the corner, to where it had been, The Chiller House, gone. 

No dark striped tent, no artefacts, there was nothing, not even footprints. Just untouched snow and a lingering emptiness, a strange dead zone between booths. The kind of space you noticed only because it shouldn’t be empty. 

Only, your wrist burned where the red thread had once been, as if tugging you, as if controlling you. 

As if, you were a marionette. 

Chapter 4: My sacrifice. 

Dim lights surrounded you, black silk draped over your body in an elegant ballroom dress, only, the dress was bunched around your waist as you sighed softly, laid on a long table. 

Your breath came light, dazed. You weren’t bound, but your body refused to move. Not from fear—something else. 

The figure between your thighs moved slowly, Jungwon.

He knelt before you like he was praying. His blonde curls shining in the flicker of dying candlelight, casting a halo around a face too angelic to be real. His eyes met yours once before descending again, gaze dripping down your body like melted gold, like hunger dressed in devotion.

You whimpered as his mouth pressed into your inner thigh like a kiss of worship, porcelain lips gone warm, alive somehow. You didn’t know how you knew it, but you knew, he’d waited to taste you for centuries.

When his tongue finally touched you, you gasped, spine arching off the table in instinct, in need. The room didn’t echo, it swallowed your sound. Your moans melted into velvet as Jungwon held you still.

His hands were delicate but firm, cool at first, then warm, his tongue moved in slow, curling drags, like he was learning you, memorizing you. Every breath against your cunt was a confession. You heard your name whispered into you—not from his mouth, but from your bones.

“Missed you, waited for you all these years, hm—mine,” he mumbled mindlessly, prettier than ever, speaking like a true lover. 

His mouth never stopped, kissing your clit with need, flattening his tongue as if he needed to taste you in order to stay alive, as if you were the oxygen he needed. 

Your body trembled as he groaned into you, eyes rolling back, the familiar feeling of your high coming had you moaning, it was so close, just another flick of his tongue, yet the second his lips touched your cunt, you swore you saw the world collapsing. 

Then, a gasp.

You woke up breathing hard. It was yet another wet dream, however, it felt real, as if you’d lived it before, thighs leaking with your wetness, which had pooled down your cunt. 

Jungwon laid beside you, exactly in the position from last night, after you came home trying to find the chiller house, but to no avail. Pondering upon it didn’t work, which is why you found yourself next to him, telling him about your day as if he’d asked you to. 

As unnatural as it felt, he brought you peace, a sense of belonging, enough for you to forget that he’s a doll, enough for you to fall asleep in his arms, only to dream of him for the second night in a row. 

You looked his way, wondering how his lips looked softer now, hair more tousled than before, lashes longer, nothing seemed artificial anymore. Was your mind playing tricks on you? Or did he truly look more human now, even more so with a tiny drop of moisture on his lips—as if he had tasted you, not in the dream, but reality. 

“Just what—who are you?” You whispered, tracing the curve of his cheek, plush now. 

He was captivating, so utterly beautiful, you found yourself leaning in, pressing your lips upon his in a slow fashion, warmth blooming over again. There was no reciprocation, no movement, just you with your frantic breath as you pulled back. 

You stared at him, eyes tracing every shadow of his face. Something about him had shifted again, not in posture, not in expression—those remained still, but in presence. He no longer felt like an object in the room, but the very gravity of it. The space bent around him. 

You should have been disturbed.

Instead, you reached again, cupping his cheek, thumb brushing the edge of his mouth. The drop of moisture was gone now, but the memory of it ghosted against your fingertip. It was real, you knew it in your bones that something was changing.

The sharp shrill of your phone shattered the moment. You sighed, reaching toward the nightstand, vision blurred by the dissonance between this world and whatever realm you’d been slipping into beside him.

It was an unknown number.

You answered with a whisper, “hello?”

At first, only static crackled through, then a voice—breathless.

“Y/N? I—It’s your fiancé.”

You didn’t speak, your lips had forgotten how, you listened further, ex fiancé you wished to say. 

“There’s been an accident,” he continued, the words heavy in his throat, “It’s Jaemin. He—he crashed his car, it might be serious. you should come.”

You didn’t speak for a few seconds, heart rate rising up, “how?” you asked, voice low.

“They’re not sure,” your father answered. “There was no ice on the road, no other driver, no brake marks at all. It was like the car veered itself off the highway and straight into a barrier.”

Your free hand tightened where it rested on the edge of the mattress. Jungwon remained still, perfect and innocent in his silence, but your eyes locked onto his again—and something in your chest bloomed in dread and awe alike.

He had looked at you differently, earlier. Just before your dream, as if he’d been listening and he understood. 

You ended the call without another word, the phone slipped from your hand to the bed with a dull thud. And then, slowly—almost afraid of your own confirmation—you reach for Jungwon’s hand, sliding your fingers between his.

“Did you—?” You asked, gulping, “this can’t be, maybe I am going crazy,” you whispered to yourself. 

Completely missing the curve of his lips, a ghost of a smile, warm and satisfying. 

Chapter 5: Lock and key. 

Home felt warmer than ever, which was a foreign feeling to you, granted your own heart was cold. However, it was as if some sort of magic had been sprinkled through your penthouse, it was brighter, your fingers twitching each time you neared your bedroom. 

Madness crept in gently. You found yourself smiling at him—Jungwon, speaking to him with tenderness usually reserved for lovers in candle lit portraits, and lord, worse, you meant it. Even the kisses now felt familiar, the kind you give to someone you’ve missed for lifetimes.

So you left. You needed to be out, carrying your emotional support key to fiddle with, mindlessly so, as you found yourself roaming around where your favourite antique store had been, the storefront looked the same as always, stained glass glistening in the sun, the door carved in spirals like vines curling around the door.

After a few minutes of pondering upon which new piece you could get, your eyes landed on a small wooden crest at the very back of a velvet lined shelf. You picked it up without thinking twice, shivering as you felt the same material as that of your comfort key, which rested warmer than ever in your pocket. 

You bought it in silence, not even bothering to ask its origin. Some objects are meant to be answers, not questions, and when you stepped back into the cold daylight, it wasn’t the antique shop you remembered—it was something older. A feeling curling at the base of your spine.

You didn’t go anywhere else, rushing home, boots echoing sharply on marble floors, coat clutched tighter around you, the crest now held to your chest like a relic. The moment your bedroom door opened, Jungwon was there—exactly where you’d left him, laid beautifully among the folds of your sheets, framed by candlelight you didn’t remember lighting.

His gaze, as always, was half lidded and still, but you felt watched, or rather, held in an embrace. You sank beside him, heart too loud in your ears, and slowly, your fingers reached for the key in your pocket. You’d never understood why it meant so much to you—it was always just a key, until now. Until it began to pulse softly against your palm in the presence of the crest.

You brought both items together. The second the base of the key met the carved sun and moon wood, there was a click. The crest opened like a locket, splitting from the middle in a flowerlike spiral.

Inside, there laid a folded page, yellowed with time, edges charred as if it had barely escaped a fire, you lifted it, hands trembling, ignoring the other stuff that laid inside. 

The ink had faded, but not enough to erase the sketch drawn in hurried, desperate strokes, portraying a girl being mourned in black with her eyes closed, standing beside a young man with soft curls and a thread around his wrist. Red. The face of the girl was not clear, but his face was unmistakable even with the faded colours—Jungwon.

His eyes, his mouth, even the angle of his neck. Him, exactly as he lay beside you now—down to the shadows beneath his lashes, the solemn part of his lips.

“No,” you whispered, but the sound barely made it past your throat, “w—what is this?”

There were no dates mentioned, no names, no title. Just a mark at the bottom—a sigil you didn’t recognize, but which made your body shiver. Like it belonged to you.

You wanted to step back, but you couldn’t, you were already on the bed, his body just inches from yours. You clutched the paper against your chest, as if holding it would keep your sanity from slipping. Your heart thundered against his quiet.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Why are you in this? Why—why do I feel like I’ve seen this before?”

You turned to him slowly, eyes watery.

He lay there, serene and unbothered. A holy thing, but something in your throat twisted the longer you looked. You had no words for it—this quiet ache that gripped your lungs and told you, you’ve been here before.

You didn’t think, simply leaning in, arms curling around him, resting your head beneath his chin, pressing your body against his like it would ground you—like it would stop you from breaking in half.

And as you held him, eyes wide in the dark, the sketch burned behind your eyelids, making you shiver, mind so distraught that you barely pay attention to the fingers who curl tighter around your waist. 

Chapter 6: Can I have a dance?

The room pulsed with heat. Not comfort, but the kind that made you ache, you didn’t remember walking here, but your body had arrived, soaked in watery silk. The chamber around you was vast and dark, stone walls veined in tarnished gold, and steam blooming from a bath sunk deep into the earth like a tomb carved for lovers.

And he was there, of fucking course he was.

Jungwon, kneeling between your thighs like a man in prayer, the water swirling around his hips. His curls were wet, clinging to his cheeks, his mouth already at your skin.

You were bare beneath the surface, soaked in warmth, and him. He kissed the inside of your thigh firmly, reverently, like he’d missed the taste of you more than breathing. His lips trailed upward, and when his tongue finally reached your cunt, your spine arched from the stone—as if blessed.

Your hands found the ledge behind you, fingers white knuckled against the carved obsidian. He licked slowly—decadent, like he was savoring something rare and forbidden, tongue curling with memory and need. You moaned, broken and low, your legs spreading wider.

“Still just as sweet,” he murmured, lips brushing your folds, “even after all this time, hm, sweet.”

His fingers dug into your thighs with something feral, and when he began to suck, kissing trailing upwards, making you cry with each flick of his tongue, it almost felt known, and around you, the air changed.

The mist parted just enough for you to see them, mirrored silhouettes lining the perimeter of the bath, placed with hollow eyes. Their mouths sewn shut with red thread.

Your head snapped down—his eyes were on you, dark and endless. And he smiled against your nipple, which rested between his lips, a faint trace of dimple shadowed his face.

“Let me make you remember, my love,” he whispered.

You shattered with a soundless scream, clenching around nothing, body pulsing, the climax burning hot and holy through your veins, as his two digits plunge into your wetness, warm and inviting. 

And then—silence.

You woke in your bed, sweat clinging to your skin, thighs damp, breath caught in your throat, the room was dim still, velvet shadows all around. 

Then you felt it, an arm deliberately curled around your waist. Fingers resting at the base of your ribs, too precise. 

You turned your head the slightest bit, barely breathing now. He lay behind you, not stiff like porcelain should be, but pliant, like flesh that had long since remembered how to mimic life. His cheek brushed your shoulder, his breath, if it was breath, fanned faintly against your nape.

You had goosebumps all over, not sure if the dream caused it, or was it your mind playing tricks on you, about the fact that you felt it in flesh, the doll feeling more humane each passing day. 

He hadn’t moved last night, but now, he held you.

And you realized that you had no memory of falling asleep, only of speaking to him, barely clothed, trembling. Your body had crawled into his presence like it belonged to him—and perhaps, in some unspeakable way, it did. It always ended like this.

You beside him, asleep, getting pulled into a world you were familiar with, only, it felt foreign the second your eyes snap open, each time. 

As if your soul was following a rhythm it had long since known by heart.

Your wrist burned again, you shook it, desperately trying to ground yourself in a way you won’t spiral, hence, picking up your phone, scrolling religiously as it casted a warm glow on your face. The curtains were drawn shut, candlelight flickering near the vanity—your usual nighttime ritual. You hadn’t looked at Jungwon yet, you didn’t want to.

Not because he scared you—but because tonight, he felt too close. You set the phone down for just a second, reaching for the glass of water at your bedside, and it slipped your gasp, hitting the ground screen down. 

Your speaker picked it up, connected automatically, a moment of silence before that sound, however familiar, but still something you’d heard for the first time. 

A slow, waltz inspired ballroom melody. Instrumental, full of violins, the kind of tune that made the air feel like it’s silky, like it belonged to another century entirely, and maybe, just maybe, it did. 

Your head turned slowly to stare at Jungwon, who glowed under the candlelight, complexion no longer cold, rather, he looked soft, flushed even, lips glistening and brows furrowed, staring at you.

You rose to your feet without knowing why, the melody urged you to move forward, each step feeling as though it belonged to someone else—someone older, someone who had walked these halls before in bare feet and silk. Someone who had danced already to this same waltz, in a time before mirrors.

You reached him, hand brushing his cheek, warm—not startling, not artificial for once, just warm enough to make your breath hitch.

“I must be dreaming,” you whispered, for the nth time you believe.

He didn’t answer, of course. But he didn’t need to.

The music only swelled.

You slipped your arms beneath him, your robe falling open slightly at the shoulder. His body pressed into yours, heavier than it looked, and yet you lifted him, pulled him close. Like he weighed nothing at all. Like he belonged to you, like he walked with you so as to not burden you with his weight. 

You carried him—through the corridor, past the mirrors and the antique cross stitched chairs that no one ever sat in, past the glass cases filled with relics of lives not yours. The music followed, blooming louder now, until—you entered the grand living room.

The chandelier loomed above in fractured crystal and dust, casting slow shadows across the room. The fireplace was cold. 

You stepped into the center, socks covering your bare foot as they turned against the polished marbles, his arms limp around you, but his weight tilted with you, as if his body remembered the rhythm. The two of you swayed—left, then right, a half turn, a pretty dance which wasn’t perfect by any means.

However, it was real.

And as you turned again, as the violins drew longer and you felt it, the shift, not in him but in you. 

Like a dream had opened mid movement. Like the edges of time had folded. The chandelier above flickered.

And suddenly, you were not in the penthouse anymore.

You were in a ballroom.

Massive and candlelit. The scent of wax and rosewater heavy in the air. Gilded frames on every wall. A harp playing somewhere far off.

Your dress was full bodied silk, dark and red like overriped cherries, the ones who love so much. You wore gloves, and his hand was firm at your waist.

He was alive, laughing and whispering something into your hair.

“Don’t look away. If you do, we’ll forget again, don’t wanna forget, not yet.” He pressed his soft lips upon the corner of your mouth, smudging the cherry coloured lipstick. 

You gasped, holding onto him tighter, trying to feel the warmth that he radiated, like a human, as if he was never a doll in the first place. 

Pulling him closer, you tried to maintain eye contact, staring right into his big brown eyes, a soft dimple gracing his face, even more so when you leaned in to kiss him, to feel real, as if you belong somewhere. 

That’s when your feet caught on something.

You gasped, letting go and Jungwon’s body dropped from your arms, slow, the way dreams fall when you wake too fast. He collapsed onto the marble, arms spread loosely, curls bouncing once as his head hit the rug.

“Shit—” you dropped to your knees, breath caught in your throat, “oh, fuck! I’m sorry, I—”

You reached to lift him again, but  your hand scraped something sharp, a low gleam of silver caught, his lapel pin—a small thorn, twisted around perfectly. It pierced the pad of your finger with surgical precision. You hissed, watching a single drop of blood rise.

It rose up and whole—down your finger, and before you could stop it, it fell right on his throat, then another, in his eye which still stared into you, now bloody and more real than ever. 

The music stopped right then, just when you were about to take a step towards Jungwon, heart heavier than ever, mind spiralling as if you’d reached a point of madness, no conscience of past, present, or future. 

“Jungwon?” You whispered, the sound barely coming out, not coming from your throat, but rather somewhere that buried deep inside you. 

He didn’t speak, however, his lips were parted, the same mouth that was carved from stillness, now hung slightly open. His chest, once impossibly still, seemed to move, yet you couldn’t be sure, but one thing was clear—something had changed. 

You gasped the second the shrill voice of your phone rang, startling you, grounding you back into the present, violently so. You picked it up with a shaking hand, the blood now drying along your fingers. The name flashing across the screen was one you recognized, your manager. 

“H—hello?” You answered, dizzy. 

The voice came out clipped, “I—I didn’t wish to call like this, I know you don’t wish to be a part of the mess anymore, but Y/N, listen—it’s about your father.”

That cleaved onto you like a blade, your eyes still fixated on the doll, whose eyes seemed to be glowing by now. 

“The press got hold of his old finance records, the funds which were rerouted, laundered, and offshore holdings. Even political donors—Y/N, they’re everywhere, headlines and broadcast stations are looking into it. I don’t think it can be undone, the police took him in.”

Your phone felt heavy in your hand, or maybe your hand had gone numb. The blood had cooled to a tacky smear against your palm.

“You’re safe, stay there, okay? We’re contacting lawyers to help your parents—”

You cut the call, words barely registering at the moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing about the situation felt normal to you, not when you already found yourself spiraling about different things, about Jungwon. 

You tried to breathe, but your lungs weren’t working right. They expanded too quickly, then refused to collapse. Panic gripped your ribs and twisted as your heartbeat slammed, thudded in your ears, in your skull. Your head was too light, your hands too far from your arms.

You couldn’t think about the phone call, about your father, your mother, the lawyers, the broadcasts. None of it belonged here—not anymore.

Not when something unnatural, divine, was happening just a few feet away. Your mouth opened, a gasp, a name—none of it came. You were spiraling, fast, and the ground no longer wanted you.

The moment cracked with your knees giving out. A soft thud echoed through the room as your body fell sideways, limbs collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. The marble floor rushed toward you, but even that felt dreamlike, distant.

Everything was fading, only one thing remained—him.

The last thing you saw, just before your eyes fluttered shut, was a flash of motion—Jungwon, no longer still, no longer cold. He moved with terrifying speed, rising from the floor like he’d always been capable, like he’d only been waiting.

His eyes locked onto yours in panic, and his arms—real arms, reached for you.

You didn’t feel yourself fall, you only felt him catch you, your eyes closing as the last thing you heard was his voice before passing out. 

“Don’t leave—”

And then, silence. 

Chapter 7: You’re the one I was meant to find. 

You were running. The corridor around you was narrow, candlelit, carved from stone older than reason. Your fingers clutched the sides of your gown as your breath tore from your lungs, heart thundering beneath a bodice bound too tight. Your slippers slipped against the marble, the walls rushing past in a blur. Somewhere behind you, voices rose in anger. The violins still played, faint and far off, as if from another room—or another lifetime.

Just then, a hand caught your wrist, black gloved, steady despite the tremble in his grip—Jungwon, dressed in royal robes, eyes brighter than ever, searching for yours in a hurry. 

He only pulled you forward, faster through the passage, your fingers tangled in his. Behind you, the shadows were growing figures. You could hear the clink of armor now, boots striking stone.

A crack of thunder split the sky.

And suddenly you were in the courtyard, barefoot on wet stone, skirts dripping, hair tumbling free as you spun in his arms beneath the moon. The storm raged above, and yet the violins still played. He held you like he was trying to memorize your shape, the way your breath stuttered every time his hand brushed your spine. The music swelled, and you twirled, laughing into his shoulder—but the sound was short lived.

Another crack of lightning hit—way closer now.

Flames flickered behind tall windows. Guards poured from the doors like an army, making you turn, hand still in his, and run toward the stables. Your lungs burned, his name trembled on your lips. The horses reared in panic as you approached, but he steadied them. A look passed between you—a mix of fear and love, and he lifted you onto the saddle, swung up behind.

But the gates never opened.

The trees beyond the wall seemed so close, and yet, arrows flew like black wings from the towers above. One struck his shoulder. His body jerked behind you, warmth spreading across your back. You turned, horrified, clutching him as he slid from the horse with a cry.

And just like that, the ground returned.

You were on your knees, soaked in mud and blood, sobbing as you cradled his body. His fingers still moved, reaching for you. He tried to rise, he tried to speak. But the clang of metal drowned everything.

The guards seized you both.

The next flash came with the howl of wind tearing through tall windows—tattered velvet curtains flailing like wounded wings.

You were in the throne room, your family lined the steps in judgment. Gold and crimson banners hung behind their heads like execution ropes. Your father’s voice boomed as he paced before the assembly, fury twisted into something rehearsed.

“Loyalty cannot be faked. Treason wears many faces, and fraternizing with the enemy will have consequences, no matter if it’s my own flesh, punishment will be given.”

Your mother said nothing. Her hands were folded tightly, white knuckled in her lap, her pearls glittering like tears that refused to fall.

Jungwon knelt at the base of the dais, blood streaking his cheek, lips split, eyes never leaving yours. He looked regal even then—bruised and broken, but unyielding.

“She chose me,” he said, voice low, shaking, “and I would die for that choice again.”

Another crash of thunder—and you were beneath the cathedral rafters, cloaked in shadow, your fingers pressed to his jaw as you kissed him like it was a rebellion in itself. The scent of incense and storm hung between you. Your tears mixed with his.

“If I could be born again,” you whispered, forehead pressed to his, “I’d still choose you, in every life, I would give my love to you, Jungwon.”

A gust of wind tore through the memory.

Suddenly the forest closed around you again, and your blade was drawn—one you hadn’t even realized you were holding. Blood on your hands. The enemy’s blood, or yours. It was all the same now.

They pulled you back. A scream echoed—his, yours, mixed together in the deepest symphony of pain. 

Steel pierced your side, and then it came, the emptiness.

Your knees hit marble, vision swarming. Your body folded in on itself, cradling the wound as though it could be held shut. You couldn’t see him anymore, but you heard his voice breaking in the distance, each word louder than the last, but fainter in your ears, “don’t take her—don’t—please—no! Y/N!”

Your blood pooled like spilled ink across the floor. The music had stopped, you didn’t know when. Then the world began to dim, his name was the last thing in your mouth.

The next memory didn’t come with lightning, but with silence so deep it felt like falling into a crypt. He knelt again—this time in chains, surrounded by your family, their faces cold as marble statues. There was no trial, no last words.

Your father spoke the curse himself, voice like iron.

“Let him live and never forget, let him see her again, and never reach her.”

The thread appeared—red as blood, drawn through his chest, binding his limbs in place. His skin cracked. His breath froze in his lungs. He didn’t scream. Only stared forward, lips parted in horror as his body hardened.

Porcelain, in silence, cursed like a marionette with the strings invisible, a prince entombed in the skin of a doll.

The centuries passed like ash on wind. You vanished from the records of history, reborn again and again, never remembering. He remained, all these years, shelved. Watched over each time, still long forgotten. Until you, until this year.

Until now. 

You woke with a violent gasp, a cough, as if dragged from beneath water that had long since gone still. Your lungs burned as you clawed yourself upright, heartbeat deafening in your ears, skin cold. The room tilted and shadows had changed. The light no longer flickered against porcelain.

There was heat beside you, some weight, and before your mind could catch up, your body reacted. You turned sharply, hands slipping on the edge of the blanket, still in the living room, eyes locking with his, wide and burning.

Jungwon.

No longer the lifeless doll, no longer the mute witness sealed in centuries of stillness. His chest rose with breath, his pupils blown wide, and his hair, once perfectly styled when you first saw him—was tousled now, disheveled like something had been undone from the inside out. His coat lay forgotten on the floor behind him, abandoned in the chaos of resurrection. He looked alive in the worst way—raw, barely contained, beautiful, and terrifying all at once.

You didn’t think, simply twisting away, a broken sound leaving your throat as you scrambled for the edge of the room, running away from what felt like a nightmare, even though your heart beated out of our chest, urging you to go to him instead. 

However, he was faster, hand catching your wrist before you could rise to your feet, grip firm, not enough to hurt, but enough to shake something loose in you. You yelped, shocked by the strength, by the heat of his touch, how real he felt, how utterly he refused to let you go.

“Stop,” his voice boomed, reverberating, still cracked at the edges, “you’re not running. Not again.”

Your breath hitched as you stared at him, trembling under the weight of the moment, the tension stretched tight as piano wire.

His jaw was tight, but his eyes were chaos, wild with something that couldn’t decide whether to be angry or longing. “You looked at me,” he said, his voice gritted with disbelief, love—all of it layered in a single breath, “you saw me again, and now you want to run?”

“I—” the word barely formed, your mouth felt numb, the panic in your chest twisted with something else now, a longing of something long forgotten. 

He leaned closer, still gripping your wrist, still breathing hard. His shirt was half untucked, collar loose, neck flushed, the candlelight flickering at his cheekbones. He looked ruined, and furious, but most of all—desperate for you.

“You died in front of me,” he said, louder now, every syllable laced with venomous heartbreak, “and I lived in silence for centuries, waiting for you. You think I’m going to let you leave me again?”

You tried to wrench your arm free, but he held fast, dragging you a step closer, the distance closing like a door slamming shut.

“Don’t you remember what they did to us?” He spat, voice sharp, “you think you’re scared? I’ve been trapped in silence, in a damn glass coffin, hearing your voice in rooms I couldn’t move in. Do you have any idea what it did to me—watching you pass me by without knowing?”

The room swam around you, every breath felt like thunder in your ribs. He wasn’t calm, nor was he composed. He wasn’t the memory anymore—he was the consequence of all of it, of love twisted by time, of passion turned obsessive by grief.

His hand finally loosened, just slightly, fingers brushing down your wrist, but he didn’t let go.

“Say something,” he breathed out, “say my name.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came as you stared at his blonde messy hair, big yearning eyes, laced with despair, rosy lips, dying to get a taste of you. 

He laughed once, bitter and breathless, dimple showing despite the frustration, teeth gritted, “no one has said my name with love in a hundred years, and I only wanted to hear it from you.”

His grip shifted again, gentler now—but still firm, like if he let go, you’d vanish. His forehead dropped toward yours, not touching, breath warming the space between you, gaze locked in yours like a curse reborn.

“You were mine,” he whispered, “you are mine, do you think anything else matters?”

Your hand moved before your mind did, reaching up to brush the strands of hair from his forehead. He didn’t flinch, he leaned into it like a man starved of touch. Your fingers trembled as they slid down the side of his face, feeling the heat of his skin, the realness of it, the pulse just beneath.

“Jungwon,” you breathed.

The moment you said it, everything changed, his eyes fluttered shut, like the sound alone was enough to break him. His fingers dug back into your waist, holding you with quiet violence, breath stuttering against your cheek.

You didn’t pull away, you simply couldn’t, instead, the words clawed up your throat, bitter, almost angry, “was it you?”

He stilled, lips hovering just beside yours, controlling himself, “what?”

“The stories, t—the leaked accounts, ruined finances. My ex fiancé’s accident,” your voice cracked, but you pushed forward, fury threading through the fog, “did you do that to them?”

He opened his eyes slowly, the look in them wasn’t apologetic by any means, “yes, I wanted to burn every name that ever tried to replace mine,” he said, voice low and shaking, “and I did. I watched him touch you like you were some fragile, pitiful thing to be married off. Like you were his to protect, to claim, as if I hadn’t died screaming your name.”

You should’ve felt sick, perhaps a part of you did, but the other part—the darker, crueler one buried deep in your chest was quiet, pleased.

He was the only one who ever loved you so violently, so completely, that he’d ruin anyone who dared stand where he once stood, even if it was wrong, even when it was madness. 

Your voice dropped to a whisper, “you destroyed them for me.”

“I’d do it again,” he said without blinking, “in less time, with worse consequences.”

Your breath came harder now, lips brushing his,  “you’re insane, you—you’re not real, am I still dreaming?”

“I’ve been waiting over a century. What do you expect me to be, not insane? Not real for you?”

Your hand tightened around the collar of his shirt, fisting it. He exhaled like he was finally allowed to breathe again. His forehead pressed to yours, sweat damp and shaking. The line between hate and hunger blurred like smoke between your mouths.

He looked at you like he was about to kiss you—or devour you, maybe both. 

“You think I give a damn about right and wrong anymore?” He whispered, voice as sweet as you could remember, and lord, now you did remember, even if it made you spiral into madness, you remember now, “they never loved you. Not like I did, not like I still do.”

This time, it was you who moved first. You surged forward, your mouth finding his with a desperation that didn’t feel like yours, but something older, something buried. It wasn’t sweet, rather, it was starving. Teeth clashing, lips bruising, hands scrambling to pull, to grip, to ground yourself in the heat of him.

He groaned into your mouth, and it was deep, guttural, ragged from centuries of holding back. His hands flew to your hips, pulling you into him like proximity could undo time. There was nothing patient in the way he kissed you—just need consuming him altogether, the kind you didn’t walk away from.

“Say it again,” he begged against your lips, not stopping, “say it, my name, say it like you remember.”

“Jungwon,” you breathed, again and again, like a spell, like a lifeline, like you were anchoring him to this world.

Each repetition made him more frantic. His grip on you tightened, his body shuddering under your touch like he was afraid it might fade, your lips parted as he kissed down the side of your jaw, then lower when you whimpered, hot open mouthed kisses all over your neck. 

“I need to feel you, need to know you’re mine again,” he groans against your skin, voice beautiful, “that I’m not fucking dreaming—”

“You’re not,” you breathed out, pulling his face back up to yours, looking him in the eye. “I’m right here.”

He surged forward with something close to a snarl, crashing his mouth to yours with violent purpose, lips swollen and slick as his hands gripped your waist and hauled you into his lap on the silk covered couch like you belonged nowhere else. You straddled him, legs falling around his hips, your chest pressed to his as he devoured your mouth with a hunger you didn’t know a body could carry. It was angry, obsessive—years of silence and watching and grief pouring into every kiss, every clash of teeth, and tongue.

You tried to speak, maybe to say his name again, maybe to tell him you wanted him now—but he didn’t let you.

“I said no more running,” Jungwon grunted against your mouth, voice low and beautifully frayed, “ you’re going to stay right here, on me, just like this.”

His hands traced your back, slow and possessive, until they gripped your ass and grounded your hips down hard against the bulge straining beneath his trousers. You gasped, fingers curling into his shoulders for balance, your cunt rubbing right against him—too much friction, yet not nearly enough.

“Oh god—”

“No,” he groans, breathless, biting down on your shoulder, “not god. Me. Say my name when you’re like this, yeah?”

“Jungwon,” you gasped, your whole body twitching as he rutted up into you again, cock grinding against your bare cunt through the fabric of his pants. “Fuck, Jungwon—”

“That’s it,” he breathed, mouth against your throat, sucking a bruise into your skin as you rocked your hips down on him like instinct. “That’s all I wanted for a hundred fucking years, you, falling apart on top of me.”

He grabbed the backs of your thighs and stood in one swift, jarring motion, lifting you with him. You wrapped around him by reflex—legs clinging to his waist, arms around his neck, body flushed against his chest. The room blurred as he carried you, stumbling back into the bedroom you’d long since abandoned when he was nothing more than porcelain.

You barely had time to think, the chandelier flickered above, casting gold and red across the walls like spilled blood and candlelight. Then the bed hit your back, his weight covering you a second later.

He kissed you again, deep and slow this time, like he was drinking from your mouth. His tongue curled over yours, wet and thick, stealing every breath you had left. Your legs parted for him without thought, and his hips slotted between them, his clothed cock rubbing right against your soaked core as he started to grind again.

“Feel that?” He panted, pressing harder, rutting his hips down in short thrusts that had you moaning into his mouth, “you’re dripping for me, darling, and I haven’t even fucked you yet.”

You whimpered, eyes rolling back at the friction, so raw and filthy it bordered on unbearable.

“You used to do this in secret,” he said, thrusting again, his voice rasping as he rocked into you, “when you thought I couldn’t see, pressing your thighs together, grinding against your pillows, pretending you didn’t want me.”

“I did,” you gasped, “you know I always did.”

He groaned, hips stuttering as you clung tighter to him, “I used to imagine this before we got together—holding you down, just like this, feeling you grind all wet and desperate over me, crying my name.”

You could feel how hard he was through the fabric. He was panting now, moving faster, the rhythm filthy. His cock slid against your clit with every stroke, and it had your thighs trembling, cunt pulsing with the tension coiling in your gut.

“You’re going to cum like this,” he whispered against your lips, like a command, “right here, before I’m even inside you, hm?”

Your hips moved on their own, chasing the friction, chasing him, your breath caught in your throat, “please,” you whimpered, “don’t stop—don’t ever stop.”

He kissed you sloppier now, his teeth catching your lower lip as he groaned into your mouth, sweat slicking your skin.

“Say my name,” he ordered again, fucking up into you harder, grinding your clit perfectly with every motion.

“Jungwon—Jungwon, fuck, I’m gonna—”

“You’re mine,” he groaned, “you hear me? No one else, never again.”

The pressure burst like it was breaking your body, your back arching as you came hard—loud and shaking, your moans swallowed by his mouth. He groaned with you, grinding hard through your climax, his own hips bucking as he rutted with desperate rhythm, chasing his own peak.

“You make me insane,” he gasped against your neck, still grinding, “you don’t even know what you do to me—”

You held him tighter, your body still pulsing, already dizzy again from the aftershocks.

You still hadn’t caught your breath—your body trembled beneath him as he flipped you over on your back, lips swollen from kissing, slickness coating your thighs, but he didn’t give you a moment to recover. His hands were already moving, ruthlessly so, as if he didn’t trust time to wait for him this time.

“Mine,” he muttered, voice ragged, chest rising and falling like he was barely containing himself. “You’ve always been mine.”

Then you heard it, the nasty sound of fabric tearing.

You gasped, hips jolting as his hands flipped your robe up, gripping your soaked panties and tearing them clean in half—fingers curling into the delicate fabric like it had irritated him just by existing between you. The torn scraps fell to the side, forgotten.

“I’ll rip through anything that keeps me from you,” he said, low and fervent, voice thick with heat and hunger. “I don’t care if it’s silk, steel, or fucking centuries.”

His mouth hovered above your core, breath hot, uneven, “I should’ve done this the second you walked back into that house,” he growled, eyes locked between your legs. “Should’ve thrown you down and tasted you until you forgot the name of every man who touched you after me.”

You writhed beneath him, already breathless, your thighs falling open for him like muscle memory, but then he paused, sitting back on his knees and reached up to his collar.

Your chest rose and fell faster at the sight—his fingers moving slowly now, unbuttoning the pristine white shirt clinging to his chest. One button, then another. With every inch of skin revealed, your pulse surged harder—his collarbone, the plane of his chest, each line of him carved like something ancient and holy, divine and terrifying. The candlelight bled gold down his stomach, catching in the cut of his abs, the trail of veins along his arms twitching from restraint.

You watched, dazed at his pure beauty, he looked like a prince raised from the grave—beautiful and damned.

“You look at me like you remember,” he whispered, letting the shirt fall from his shoulders with a smirk, “do you? Does your body know me now, darling?”

You nodded before you could stop yourself, lips parted, “I do. I remember all of it.”

He exhaled hard through his nose, the sound nearly a growl, “then lay back,” he said, crawling between your thighs again, “and let me remind you why no one else ever satisfied you.”

He didn’t waste a second as he was on you, mouth open, tongue wet and greedy, licking through your folds with a growl like he’d gone feral. Your body jolted at the first contact, back arching, thighs trying to close from the intensity—but his hands gripped your knees and forced them open, pushing you wide as he buried his face in you like he was starving.

“Fuck—” you gasped, hand flying to his hair. “Jungwon—”

The sound of his name broke something in him, making him moan, a sound so loud and obscene, right into your cunt, reverberating, tongue curling against your clit, sucking so hard your hips bucked. His hands pressed your thighs flat to the bed, holding you down as he devoured you like a man who’d waited lifetimes to be fed. There was no rhythm, only unadulterated hunger and reverence. His mouth was wet, tongue fast and erratic, fucking into you like he needed it to live.

You mumbled out something incoherent, and he groaned again, louder, mouth sealing over your clit, sucking until your vision blurred, until your voice cracked.

“Jungwon—please—”

“Say it again,” he ordered, teeth brushing the sensitive bundle of nerves, tongue never stopping.

“Jungwon, I swear Jungwon, uh fuck, please—”

He didn’t stop, he couldn’t.

“You belong to me,” he said, licking deep into your entrance. “Even now, even after death. Say it, baby, say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours—” you gasped, near sobbing from the pressure building inside you again. “I’m yours, I’m, oh fuck, Jungwon, I’m gonna, fuck!”

“Cum for me,” he ordered, voice thick with lust and control, “make a mess on my tongue. Let me taste every fucking inch of you.”

That sent you over the edge, you came with a cry so sharp it felt ripped from your chest—your thighs clenching around his head, your hands yanking his hair, hips rocking up as you fell apart. It was too much, way too intense, too long coming.

He moaned into your cunt, licking you through every pulse, every twitch, swallowing down your release like it was holy, and when you finally opened your eyes—he was still between your legs, a dark lopsided grin on his face, attractive, but even more so, scary, as he laid there, still hard. 

Still hungry.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice deep, “but you’re not scared of me anymore, are you?”

You couldn’t speak, only shook your head, throat too raw from moaning. Your wrists still burned faintly, the red thread pulsing under your skin as if it knew something ancient had shifted.

He sat back on his heels, slowly, dragging his palms up your trembling thighs, claiming every inch he touched, he looked mad, in an obsessive way, in a fashion that creepy dolls do, but he was real, and waiting. 

“You came so sweet for me,” he whispered, brushing a finger between your folds, smearing you across your thigh with reverence, “but, baby, it’s not enough, just not nearly enough, hm?”

His hands moved to his belt, and you froze for a second, eyes following every inch he moved. The sound of leather sliding through the loops echoed in the room, his eyes stayed locked to yours the entire time, not blinking once as he tugged the belt loose, then let it fall to the floor with a soft thud.

“You don’t know, baby, you have no idea how many times I’ve imagined this,” he continued, voice cracking, “not just having you like this, but fucking you still half clothed, holding you open while you scream my name into the dark—because you remember me now, and you’re not going anywhere, fuck—I’ve missed this.”

He didn’t take his pants off—not completely. His hands dropped to his belt, the metal buckle clinking open with a quick, practiced tug. The soft hiss of leather sliding through loops reverberated the air. His eyes never left yours, his jaw clenched so tight it trembled, the fury in his body barely caged.

Then the button, the zipper. He shoved his pants down with one hand, just low enough to free himself, his cock springing out, flushed and thick, already leaking, twitching from how long he’d held back.

He fisted the base with one hand, the other still holding your thigh open, “you’re mine,” he said, almost to himself, then louder, “fucking say it.”

“I’m yours,” you breathed, almost choking on the words.

He chuckled, a devilish smirk on his face as he looked at you with dark eyes, “again.”

“I’m yours, Jungwon.”

He groaned, like your voice alone could unravel him, and leaned in, bracing his forearms beside your head. His cock dragged through your slick folds as if he was teasing, catching on your entrance, and he hissed at the feel of you already so wet, so ready.

“I should’ve never let you forget me,” he growled, lining up, “never should’ve waited this long,” he mumbled, “wanted to fuck you right there when you climbed on my lap and cried even when I was a doll, when I fucking lost my mind, you kissed me, baby, you needed me even then.”

You whined as he brought up what you had done, and just as you were distracted, he thrust in without much warning, no build up before, simply a deep, brutal snap of his hips. 

You cried out, head jerking back, back arching off the bed. He was thick, too big for you, and the stretch was unbearable, perfect, like you were being broken in half. His hands clamped around your wrists again, pinning you down with bruising force, and your skin lit up. 

The red thread under your wrists seared like fire, glowing bright, like the curse had been reawakened fully the moment he was inside you.

Jungwon’s breath hitched against your ear, “lord,” he rasped, “you feel that? That’s it, that’s fucking us—”

You whimpered, overwhelmed by the stretch, by the thread, by the way your body clenched around him like it already belonged. Like it had been waiting for this moment through lifetimes.

“I knew it would burn,” he whispered into your throat, hips snapping forward, “I knew it would recognize me the second I was inside you again.”

He thrust again, hips grinding now, like he was savoring every inch of your slick, shuddering cunt.

“And it does, doesn’t it?” he hissed, “your body knows. Even if your heart forgot me—your body never did.”

You sobbed out his name, barely a whisper, and that made him lose what little control he had left. He slammed into you, again and again, hips snapping with violent rhythm, his cock dragging against your walls with every brutal stroke. The bed creaked beneath you, the air around you fogging up in a mist of sex. 

“Fuck—Jungwon, slow—”

“I’ve waited too long for this,” he groaned, “centuries of silence—centuries of emptiness. You think I’m going to take it slow?” 

His lips crashed into yours, devouring your cry, tongue sliding past your lips like he needed to taste everything at once. And still, he kept moving, hips hammering into yours with a punishing rhythm, every thrust sending sparks of pain and pleasure through your entire body.

“Do you feel that?” He gritted against your lips, “the way you squeeze me—fuck, baby, you’re shaking.”

“I can’t, please Jungwon—”

“Yes, you can.” His voice was feral, “you’ll take it, all of me, every fucking inch. You’ll take it because you’re mine.”

His grip shifted—one hand sliding down, hooking under your knee, throwing your leg over his shoulder so he could drive in deeper. The angle made you scream, body arching off the bed, stars flooding your vision as his cock hit the spot that made you unravel.

“Right there?” he chuckled, “that’s the spot. That’s the one that used to make you cry for me in your past life. Remember it?”

You sobbed—half lost, the sensation too much for you to incorporate any new information in mind; and nodded.

He thrust harder, deeper, so much rougher, every movement frantic with obsession, “say it,” he moaned, “say you remember.”

“I remember,” you gasped, “I remember you, Jungwon, I remember everything—”

The noise he made wasn’t humane by any means. It was broken, starved almost. He bent over you, still buried deep, his forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping down between your bodies.

“I’m going to fill you up,” he whispered, “so deep you never forget again. So full you won’t be able to think of anyone but me.”

The red thread pulsed yet again—twisting tighter, glowing like fire at your wrists, along your thighs, down your chest.

“You were made for me,” he breathed, “bound to me. You’ll die with me inside you, if I have to make it happen, and I’ll die with you again, over and over, again.”

He groaned through those words, your moan was louder, vibrating through his skin, squeezing him tighter as your body agreed, you were made for him, and gave him exactly what he wanted, you, falling apart all over his cock. 

The sight was enough for him to lose his control, letting himself go, filling you up, deep and hard, cock pulsing inside your fluttering cunt, as your body convulsed around him once more, milking him through it.

However, he didn’t pull out, didn’t bother moving, stopping. 

His hips rolled again, already hardening inside you. He looked down at you, eyes burning red under the chandelier’s flicker.

“I’m not done.”

Chapter 8: With or Without you. 

The water shimmered with faint steam, delicate curls of warmth rising into the candlelit hush of the room. The tub was enormous—black marble, sunken into the penthouse floor, surrounded by tall gothic windows that looked out over the city like a cathedral watching the living. The only light came from candles, myriads of them, flickering along the ledges, their glow casting long, trembling shadows across the walls. 

You were weightless, finally, your bare body floating gently between Jungwon’s thighs, your back pressed to his chest, your head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped around you, palms resting on your belly, then lower, fingers brushing just above your thighs, as if he couldn’t stop touching you even now, not even here.

The red thread had faded back to a dull, molten line along your wrist, no longer burning, but you could still feel it, tied between your pulse and his.

He was warm behind you, human, finally, irrevocably real.

He kissed the side of your neck, slow and deliberate, his lips dragging up to your jaw, “you’re still shaking, darling,” he murmured, his voice low, intimate, as if speaking louder might wake the rest of the world.

You let your eyes drift shut, “I’m not sure it’s real yet.” You said, scared, abandonment being your worst fear, and now you knew why, you had a reason, carved deep inside you. 

“It is,” he whispered, “I am.”

You felt his hand curl tighter across your stomach, protective, anchoring you in place. He kissed you again, and again, trailing his mouth down the curve of your throat as though trying to memorize every inch of skin, leaning back into his embrace.

“I never want to wake up if this is a dream,” he murmured.

“You won’t,” you said, softly. “Not unless I do too.”

There was silence for a long while—only the water shifting around your bodies, the distant hum of the city beneath the stained glass, soft fluttering in your stomach, and Jungwon’s possessive hold, telling you that it’s real, that no matter what happens, he’ll stay. 

You had no idea how you would explain the addition of a new human into this world, how you’d describe where he came from, but that was the least of your worries now.

You turned in his arms then, straddling him in the deep water, your knees pressed to either side of his hips, your hands finding his shoulders. His hair was damp, pushed back from his face, his cheeks flushed from the heat. There was something about him like this—messy, still a little inhuman. Like the remnants of porcelain had never quite left. His eyes gleamed like something ancient.

“You never stopped loving me,” you whispered, fingertips brushing down his chest.

He shook his head once, slowly, his blonde curls now wet, caressed your skin in the process. “Not once. Not even when you died.”

You leaned in, lips brushing his, but didn’t kiss him just yet, “and all that time, you waited?” You asked, as if you needed confirmation over and over again. 

“I waited, burning all alone,” he said, voice thick, eyes shining with the truth, taking you in with nothing but unadulterated love, “every night, every time someone else touched you in another life. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I just felt it, you moving on. You forgetting.”

You cupped his face, stared into the truth of that devastation, “I never really forgot, not because I wanted to at least.”

“I know,” he breathed, “I felt it. Even before you remembered—your blood called me back, you cried to me, you just didn’t know it yet.”

You finally leaned in, noticing the faint dimples on his cheek as you got closer, eyes holding hearts for you. The kiss wasn’t frantic, not like before. This one was slow, perfectly drawn out, all breath and lips, and silent apology. It was centuries of mourning buried in a kiss, two lovers who had lived and died with that ache carved into their bones.

He sighed into your mouth, letting you take from him as long as you needed. When you finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, eyes closed.

“I won’t let go,” he whispered, “not in this life. Not ever again. I love you so fucking much.”

“You don’t have to,” you breathed, “I’ve loved you, I love you, I’ll love you.”

For the first time, it wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t a punishment, it was real, a promise.

The candlelight caught on the red thread beneath your skin once more, pulsing faintly between you like a heartbeat in unison.

He wrapped his arms around you again, pulling you into his chest as you sank back into the water, your cheek against his collarbone, your limbs tangled under the surface. Outside, the world continued, the time marched on, the city moved.

But in here, in this penthouse above the world, time stood still, he had returned to you. 

And he would never let go.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

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© jaylaxies | tumblr

[jaylaxies]

MARIONETTE

PAIRING: doll!jungwon x fem!reader

GENRE/CW: smut, angst, porn with plot, unprotected sex (be safe), mentions of accidents, blood, slight body worship, somnophilia, manhandling, cunnilingus, heavy makeout, heavy dubcon themes, supernatural themes and elements, artefacts collector!reader, usage of nicknames, aftercare, fluff if you squint, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, mentions of jaemin and karina.

WORD COUNT: 16,104 words.

SYNOPSIS: As an antique collector, you had encountered many oddities; splintered relics, cursed heirlooms, objects that whispered in the dark, but never a life sized doll so breathtakingly beautiful, so humane. There was only one rule, to not open its coffin before the onset of New Year, however, temptation is quite a decadent exquisite poison. And now? Something stirs beneath the glass, something that waits for you, dearly so.

WARNING: 18+ content, minors dni.

A/N: hihi loves <3 it’s my first time writing something like this, and to think it was inspired by a dream? gosh, i did work hard on it and i really hope you guys would enjoy it too :3 all likes, comments, reblogs are highly appreciated! it keeps me motivated! iloveyou all and happy reading <33

Chapter 1: The end? Or the lackof. 

Darkness was always your friend, it engulfed your being, the depth of your soul with the warmth even mere humans couldn’t provide, something so utterly beautiful, something you couldn’t see, the quiet, the warmth, the loyalty that cradled you in stillness. 

A stray tear cascaded down from the crevice of your eye, streaming through the curved expanse of your cheek and dripping all over the velvet carpet laid below, the kind that muffled sound, even your sobs. It covered the entire penthouse floor—another purchase made in silence for a place too big for one, a place too big for yourself. 

“Merry Christmas,” you whispered into the window, pressed against the cold surface which seemed baptised with the water droplets forming, courtesy of the snow, which slicked the city in the shade of white, adding another bland vision through your cornea. 

No one answered. The silence pressing you back into the surface as a reminder that you were indeed alone, it was brutal, and worse, familiar. Money brings happiness they said, then where were your parents? Friends? A lover who you so desperately wished to replace the embrace of the darkness to something real, so raw? A heartbeat beside yours.

You turned around slowly, eyes grazing over the meticulously arranged space, the walls lined in rich charcoal silk, the carved moldings of the ceiling dipped in antique gold, each piece of furniture either vintage or custom made to tailor your taste. A museum, people say when they visit. A mausoleum, you thought.

You were most likely the only exhibit that still lived.

Passing through the hall, you stopped just to see the picture frame standing tall on the marble table. The photo of your family—if it could even be called that. A frame that hadn’t moved in the past year since you came here, like the people in it. Your mother’s tinted red lips were parted in a laugh far too wide to be genuine, your father’s hand resting too heavy on your shoulder. All of you dressed in black tie for a gala you didn’t remember, smiling for an audience that didn’t care.

You turned again, towards what you claimed to be the heart of your home, if it could be called that. Each step was muted by the velvet of the carpet, your movement turning into an illusion of some dream as your fingers mindlessly caressed the artefact you always carried with you—an ancient key, so elegantly engraved, yet it opened nothing you owned. 

To your left, the antique room sat sealed behind tall French doors.

You didn’t go in, you couldn’t, not tonight.

Your obsessions slumbered there peacefully, a wooden crucifix with a bloody split down its middle, a weeping angel bust with glass eyes, an 18th century mourning veil still faintly smelling of rosewater and rotten flesh. 

It was a collection of grief, the kind of grief people celebrated, framed in golden wrapped silk. Each product was valuable, as if the burden in them could be traded for money. 

Your feet didn’t stop there, not until you were standing in front of the big wooden door with the serpentine handle, your thick black coat hanging on the rack, almost like a relic—so dark and finely woven in Italy. You draped it over your shoulders, slipping your gloves on with no destination in mind. 

But something in the air had switched from the very second the frost teardrop splattered down to the carpet, it was as if someone breathed down on your neck, like a whisper from within the walls. 

You found yourself stepping out, into the elevator, down the echoing lobby, well decorated in shades of green and red, a few children bubbled with excitement with wrapped boxes in their arms.

“Where to, Miss?” your driver asked.

You hesitated, gulping down your emotions. The city was still wrapped in snowfall, painted in black and white till the bone. Every possible location—gallery, restaurant, hotel lounge—felt as hollow as the apartment you had just left, despite being so full of life, so full of humans. 

“I don’t know, just drive—somewhere,” you murmured to the suited man with greying hair.

And so he did, seamlessly guiding you through the colour flashes outside of the window, a celebration you couldn’t quite grasp, something so fulfilling for others yet an empty vessel for you, glass fogging up per second as you found yourself delving deeper into the heart of the city. 

You almost didn’t notice the sharp turn as the car veered into a slow stop, right over the cobblestone, near the entrance of a rusty iron gate that was wide opened, the appearance of the gate juxtaposing the liveliness inside the grounds. 

A carnival.

It was blooming up the grass like a childhood nightmare to you, grown not from joy but from something older, more terrible—decay dressed in ribbons, nostalgia strung with nooses, with the flashback of your parents abandoning you in the middle of the crowd, with a pathetic excuse of work calling. 

The lights flickered like fake stars, too yellow, radiating warmth, casting the ground in a sickly kind of glow. Music reverberated through the cold air—violins detuned, a carousel melody slowed to a dirge. You stepped out of the car with a hand to the frame, your gloved fingers pausing as you caught sight of your own reflection in the passenger window, eyes empty, dried lips, your face floating behind the few stray hairs that made their way upfront. You looked like someone who attended a funeral, which seemed fitting.

No one should have been here out this late, the clock nearing midnight, yet the place was full. Crowds of people passed by, too smooth for your vision for them to seem humane. Children laughed, but the sound was wrong—too jolly, too bright. Balloons hung from the strings, glossy and silent. The scent in the air was thick—caramel, popcorn, and smoke curling together like a spell brewing.

Your feet moved without any motive, their own consciousness dragging you through the murmurs of the crowd, above the snow clad cobblestone as the place unfurled around you in shades of red and gold. Joker masked men took over the place, entertaining and guarding each shop. 

Without notice, a girl with doll like features handed you a candied apple, the red dripping down the ground in a way that made you feel sick. With a tap, you paid for it before offering it to a kid who looked hungry. 

You walked past it all, as if on a mission you weren’t aware of, the mist guiding you through, near the alleyway behind the giant wheel which hadn’t stopped moving all night. 

Then you saw it. A tent. It was the only place draped with black, and roped with red stripes. It didn’t have any signs, just tarot cards hung around, adorning the place. 

It wasn’t a beckoning, just a feeling—a feeling that someone was calling out your name. 

You paused outside the tent, the velvet flaps gently shifting though there was no wind. A low warmth bled from within, curling at your covered ankles like a blissed sigh.

Without thinking twice, you ducked inside the tent, the air thickening as if you had entered another realm altogether. The scent of something ancient, even darker than your antique art room, a pretence of divine divination. 

Under the red candlelight, against the dark walls, you met with a woman, skin as if a dark parchment, hair as if silver threads, luring you right in as her gaze met yours. 

“You’ve taken your time, we’ve been waiting,” she said, hands kept on table, her voice stoic, no anger, no sweetness. 

“We?” You asked in a whisper, confusion taking over your face. 

She didn’t answer as the candlelight flickered above your head as you sat down on the wooden chair, which creaked with each movement. 

The table between you was covered in black cloth worn out from decades—no, centuries, so out of touch. Golden thread formed a circle at its center, symbols stitched in curling foreign shapes, as if it was a cult. Atop it rested a deck of tarot cards, the edges frayed, the backs patterned in thorned roses.

The woman’s fingers moved, almost inhumane with how fast she shuffled the deck, portraying something simply inevitable.

Within a second, you had three cards laid in front of you, pressed face down, before she turned the first one over. 

“The past.” She murmured. 

The card read out Death in big, bold letters. 

A shiver travelled down your spine as your eyes assessed the figure of a skeleton, adorned with roses, seemingly half alive, but at what cost?

Her voice dropped an octave, “you’ve mourned things that are still breathing. But death doesn’t care about the soul ascending to hell or heaven, does it?”

Your lips parted in hopes of finding an answer, but she spoke nothing short of truth. Your parents? Alive but dead to you. Your friends? Barely one caring for anything other than your money. No existence of love, a true one at least. A dull ache curled in your chest with the card being taken back. 

Not even a second later, the second card was being turned around to reveal Collector. 

A massive figure seated on an antique throne adorned with jewels from top to legs, background filled with broken doll heads, and clocks of shapes you didn’t even know the names of. 

It was clear, the words echoing present through and through, your nails digging into your skin with the accuracy and abnormality of the given situation. 

“Collecting pieces long forgotten? Safekeeping them, when in reality no one intends to return to them.”

You felt as if the words were being carved into your bones, “you were made to be adored, but you’re caged in cruelty now.” She continued, “abandonment that leaves you searching for empty pieces.”

You were parched, each word acting like a truck of truth, hitting you over and over again, and it was only a second of silence as the last card was being flipped, as if awakening someone, something, into existence. 

A doll. That’s what the third and the last tarot card said, the image on it striking something primal in you; especially when you laid your eyes on the white porcelain doll, way too delicate for this world, carved into perfection of some sort, clad in a dark suit. He was perfect. Cheekbones high and blushed, lips blood red, glowing, and eyes? Closed in peace, in wait. You tore your eyes from the card the second you felt something burning on your wrist. 

A red thread, something you hadn’t worn before entering the stall, something that resembled exactly the threat around the doll’s wrist. It wasn’t silk, or cotton, it was something old, almost like a crimson fibre. 

The women didn’t blink, didn’t show any hint of emotions this time, “you’ve been chosen.”

You breathed out, waiting for her to elaborate. 

“He’s been waiting, he didn’t summon you, he chose you. It was when you were ten, in this life, he fell in innocent love all over again, the same place, the carnival.”

Her eyes weren’t moving, goosebumps rose up your skin at the mention of the carnival, the same carival which you visited with your parents, the same, which taught you abandonment years ago, the place you were at right now. 

“Who’s he?” You croaked out. 

“He saw you entering, the innocence long gone, now he craves, he desires your love.”

Your heart thumped out of your chest at the mere mention, the slight possibility of someone wanting you. 

“Where’s he?” You asked before you could control yourself, the words, the mannerism almost foreign to you. 

The women’s lip twitched up for the first time, the darkness highlighting the curve, before she snapped her fingers, making everything go dark as you stood up, stumbling back with a gasp, and right out of the tent. 

It was snowing again, the bustle of the crowd, the cheers of the children. The world was bright again, even in the darkness, but you were hollow, the thread burning around your wrist every passing second, as if in a rush to convey a message. 

You weaved through the crowd, past fire breathers and jugglers, past children squealing over marionettes—you yourself felt like one as past a the thread pulled eastward, toward the quieter edge of the carnival. You didn’t ask questions anymore. You just followed.

It didn’t feel real, just a dream with no end. And then, you saw it—tucked between two towering, crumbling buildings was a narrow, glassed storefront you hadn’t noticed before. You would have missed it entirely if not for the thread tightening against your skin, humming now with warmth. A wooden sign hung above the door, painted in fading gold. 

The Chiller House: Antiques and souvenirs. 

The windows were clouded, frosted even from the inside, yet you could faintly make out the silhouettes of laces, dolls, relics you couldn’t identify. The floral vines covered the sign which sat atop the door. 

Binded with love, caged with obsession. 

You stared at the sign, heart knocking against your ribs. You had a soft spot for antiques—always had. Things that had lived lives before you. The scent of old paper and polished wood. The way broken toys still smiled, even your room back home looked more like a museum than a bedroom. The past always felt warmer than the present, safer, even when it wasn’t.

A brass bell chimed in peace as you stepped inside, it was like a time capsule bound together. Display cases brimmed with forgotten artifacts—cracked porcelain faces, jewelled gloves, pressed flower letters that looked like they’d crumble at the slightest touch. The scent of cedarwood and dried rose petals filled the air, however, the room wasn’t musty, it was preserved. 

You twirled around the empty store, feeling alive for the first time in months, staring at your reflection in an ornate vanity mirror, before stepping behind the curtain, into a room which was dim, but not enough to hide him. 

A single glass coffin in the corner of the room, as if meant to be hidden from the world. Lit from below by a single, flickering bulb, the coffin glowed like an altar. And within it—he looked too perfect to be real. A life sized porcelain doll, mouth barely parted as if sighing in sleep. His skin was smooth, pale with a bloom of warmth on the cheeks, and his lips painted a colour of warm red. 

Blonde curls falling over his forehead, his suit was tailored in black, lapels stitched with gentle thorns, the collar closed neatly with a thin crimson ribbon. A matching red thread circled his porcelain wrist—identical to the one still burning on your own. 

He was so delicate, exquisite personified, crafted so meticulously, it almost felt like a sin to be staring at him. You didn’t realize you were moving till your palm rested on the fogged glass. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a voice called out, jolting you out of your trance. 

You turned around quickly to see the shopkeeper—a woman older than time itself, dressed in a black shawl with hazel eyes that gleamed like a summer storm. She didn’t sound angry, but tired. Like she’d been here before, like she’d seen this play out before. 

“I—why? Isn’t he for sale?” You asked. 

“He’s not for sale.”

“But why? This is a shop and he’s a doll,” you asked again, desperate to understand. 

Her gaze didn’t falter, “he’s not just a doll, and this isn’t just a shop.”

Today has been confusing, but this? It was way par your usual understanding. Not a doll? Not just a shop? It was as if you were bleeding into the thin crack between dream and reality. 

“I want him,” you repeated like a broken record. 

Her eyes flickered down to your wrist in a scowl, before she gasped, demeanor doing a one eighty, “I see, so it’s happened.”

“What has?”

She didn’t answer, walking past you to the coffin, brushing the gold plated oval, depriving it of the dust that had settled there over the time. 

Jungwon—the engraved text read out, a name as pretty as the face. 

“I’ll pay anything,” you declared, as if he would cease to exist if you don’t get him, if you don’t keep him preserved with you. 

“Anything,” she echoed, “everything,” she confirmed.

You stared at her, wondering if this was yet another tactic used to get a higher price for a certain possession, to quantify the amount of desperation one can behold. 

Still, she didn’t answer you directly. Instead, she moved around the coffin, unlatching locks you hadn’t even noticed until now—iron clasps, rusted, something that creaked with each movement. Not the lid, never the lid, just the base. Preparing it for transport.

“You’ll take the whole thing,” she started, as if telling you the rules. “Don’t try to lift the glass. Don’t remove the thread. And no matter how much you want to—don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.”

“How much?” you asked, breath catching in your throat with newfound warmth blooming up your chest. 

She paused her slow movements, scribbling a figure on a torn piece of parchment and handed it to you. Her fingers were cold and dry, like paper itself.

The number was beyond the point of absurdity, a cost that screamed sacrifice, not currency. More than what a doll should be worth, if it was just a doll that is. 

You got your card out without a second thought. It was all you had, a price you got for having the ever so absent parents. She nodded, as if she expected you to say yes regardless of the circumstances. 

“Handle with care, he’s—he’s more fragile than he appears to be,” she murmured, “alas, don’t forget the rules.”

You nodded, fingertips quick to call, informing your driver to pick up the coffin, the brass bell chiming as you stepped out of the Chiller House. Your eyes followed him, throughout the journey. 

All while not knowing that your red thread had disappeared. 

Chapter 2: In the name of love. 

The glass clinked under the brightness of the chandelier, a voice that reminded you much of cages. 

Especially here, at the HYBE Plaza, where every corner shimmered with the festive celebration of New Year’s eve. And yet, not a single thing about this night felt new.

You sat at the long table draped in glitter, surrounded by people who wore their smiles like fake masks. Your parents sat two seats away, laughing for appearances, eyes always glancing sideways. Your fiancé, Jaemin, their choice, sat beside you with a hand on your chair, a smirk evident on his face, the usual routine for him. 

“You barely spoke a word tonight,” he accused, “this night is important.”

“To whom?” You stared into space, fingers playing with the red threads of the table cloth. 

He sighed, a vein popping out with the anger he couldn’t control, “to your family—to my family, to me.”

“The contracts, you mean? The exchange of money for souls, ah? Is that what I was raised for?”

Your fiancé shifted uncomfortably beside you, but his grip on your chair only tightened as he leaned in, teeth clenched. “Don’t do this here.”

“Where should I do it then?” you asked, still not looking at him, “at the altar? In bed? Over brunch with our mothers while they plan the next generation of heirs to ruin?”

He inhaled sharply. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“No,” you replied, turning your head at last, eyes sharp, the chandelier above caught in your eyes like fractured glass. “I’m being honest. You should try it sometime.”

“Sweetheart, maybe you need a breather, want me to walk to the balcony with you?” Your mum breathed out in her sugar dipped voice, almost embarrassed at the way you clearly worded what they’ve been doing all this while. 

“Where was this sentiment when it was my birthday, mother? Perhaps you were too busy to remember? Right, father?” You said, eyeing both, who looked rather embarrassed at your outburst, almost piercing them with the serum of truth. 

Truth that you were their daughter, a human, not an investment or doll, by any means—something that they’d been overlooking all this while.

You didn’t wait for a reply. 

The chair’s legs scraped against the marble like a declaration, loud enough to silence the violins. A hush rippled through the room. Your mum’s painted smile flickered, your father’s eyes narrowed with the slow cruelty of a man too long accustomed to control, however, you kept walking.

When the elevator doors slid shut behind you, the last thing you saw was your mother clutching her pearls, tears glistening her eyes, as if she finally realized a tinge of the hurt she’s caused you, but not a way to make it better. 

Winter had returned to the city like a storm—snow falling not gently, but rather, in solemn sheets. The chauffeur said nothing as he opened the car door. He didn’t dare, not when you looked stoic. 

All you remembered from the car ride was the flashes of colours, the scenery collapsing into an abstract piece too bright for your taste. The lift carried you into warmth in utter silence, juxtaposing the kids in the lobby, way too enthusiastic to celebrate new year. 

The penthouse greeted you with the familiar hush of years long curated wealth. It smelled faintly of roses and marble, of nothing real. The chandeliers stayed lit, as if unaware the girl who lived beneath them had shattered hours ago.

You walked in without removing your heels, only leaving them midway on the velvet of the carpet as your legs started to wobble, as if uncertain if you should be standing anymore or not. 

By the time you reached the bathroom, your fingers could barely unhook the back of your gown. Your body trembled from exhaustion, you peeled the dress off your skin as if it were a second one—a shell of who they wanted you to be, and let it fall in a puddle on the heated tiles.

The water scalded your skin, but you didn’t move, you stood beneath the stream like something carved from grief, arms hanging limp at your sides, head bowed. The steam curled around your body, trying to hold you together, but nothing could. Not tonight.

Your sobs were quiet—choked, too exhausted to echo in the grand bathroom. They slipped past your lips like secrets, buried in the hiss of falling water. You sank slowly to the floor, knees folding, cheek pressed to the cold marble. You stayed there until your fingers numbed and wrinkled.

Eventually, you rose, wrapping yourself in a robe, barely bothering to dry your hair, and stepped into the dim corridor, the lights flickering faintly above. The silence of the penthouse felt sharper now—closer. The velvet underfoot muted your steps as you passed gilded mirrors and untouched heirlooms.

Wrapped in a white robe, you drifted down the corridor, dripping steadily down your spine, leaving a trail of water. The chandelier above the foyer flickered gently behind you, casting your shadow down the hallway like a second self.

You opened the bedroom door, the air inside was chilled from neglect, the heavy curtains still drawn shut from earlier that morning. The only light came from the candle you must have forgotten to snuff—its flame dancing beside the mirror, golden and low.

And in the corner of your room, against the rich velvet of the carpet, rested the glass coffin, the one you had brought home, the one that hadn’t left your mind since.

You walked toward it slowly, your bare feet cold now, trembling slightly as you approached. Your wrist burned as you knelt beside the coffin. Your hands found the smooth edge of the glass lid, fingers hesitating, remembering the warning from earlier, what the shop owner said. 

Don’t open it before the onset of the new year.

It wasn’t new year yet, you were five minutes short of time, of patience. 

What would even happen? It’s just a doll, a pretty piece of porcelain, something you pondered about for the next four minutes. 

Your fingers curled tighter around the latch, “I can’t wait,” you mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

With that, you unlatched the coffin door, and as you did, the sharp corner of the coffin caught your hand, causing a sudden, precise sting.

You flinched, hissing softly, watching as a bead of blood gathered at your fingertip—round and dark, like ink waiting to stain something sacred.

Before you could think, it slipped, fell down, right onto his slightly parted lips.

The moment it touched him—the first firework exploded beyond the window, a bloom of sound and colour cracking through the silence. The sky lit up in gold, and then another, and another—an orchestra of celebration for a world that had nothing to do with the one unfolding here, the celebration of new year beyond your room. 

When you looked back, the blood was gone, disappeared. You wondered if he had a crack, a hairline in his mouth, letting the blood seep through, or it actually disappeared. 

Your hand reached beneath him, slow, cradling him once more—arms beneath his back and knees, lifting him gently from the coffin. The robe slipped further down your shoulder, forgotten. His weight pressed into you softly, the fabric of his suit warm against your chest as you carried him across the room, he was heavy, heavier than any porcelain should have been. 

The fireworks continued behind the curtains, echoing against the window panes like distant thunder. But inside your bedroom, it was just you. Just him.

You laid him down on the bed, carefully—pillowing his head, smoothing the lapels of his suit, brushing your trembling fingers once across his cheek as if to confirm he was still there.

Then you joined him, sprawling over the silk sheets, eyes blank as they stared into the plaster of paris perfectly sculpted into the ceiling. 

Your hand reached out blindly until your fingers brushed his, cold and delicate beneath the satin glove. You held it like it might tether you to something real. 

“I don’t know how to be normal anymore,” you whispered into the dark, voice hoarse from crying. “I’m always pretending, every fucking room I enter, every dress I wear—it’s like a costume. A fucking mask, and no one ever sees what’s underneath. I’m not even sure I do.”

You turned your head, breath catching as your eyes landed on him. He didn’t look human, he looked like an angel. 

Lips parted the faintest bit, lashes long and still, his face peaceful in the way the world never allowed you to be. You watched him, tears welling again, cascading silently down your cheek.

“I’m so tired, I only see red, no blacks and whites.” You sighed, as if curving into the madness of what the world put you up with, “you’re beautiful,” you mumbled, fingers tracing the outline of his lapel, the thorn-stitched embroidery catching against your nails. The silk beneath was soft, too soft—like skin meant to be kissed.

“It must be nice, being a doll, a real one with no feelings, just plush beauty, and stillness,” you whispered, his eyes shining with an understanding, a glint that shouldn’t be seen in the non living creatures. 

It wasn’t just grief now—it was like vertigo. That hollow, high feeling that came when you’d fallen too far and realized there was nothing left to crash into? You’d hit the bottom. The absolute, ridiculous bottom. And here you were—wanting to kiss a fucking doll.

You crawled toward him slowly, silk dragging behind your thighs, breath hitching. Every inch you moved across the mattress felt like a climb up the hill, a ritual of some sort, of great importance.

Your knees slid to either side of his hips. You climbed on top of him like sin climbs onto innocence, soft and slow, an angel falling .

You shouldn’t be doing this, you knew that, and still, you sighed into relief as you cupped his face between trembling palms, his skin was porcelain, yet it wasn’t cold.

It had taken on warmth—not humane, but something subtler, as the sun shone warmly on the sealine, almost a personification of liveliness of a peculiar sort. 

You leaned down slowly, your breath catching in your throat. You didn’t realize how hard your heart was beating until you were so close to him you could hear the soft rasp of your own blood roaring behind your ears. 

“Everyone hates me,” you whispered, your voice inhumane, lacking warmth. 

Your finger traced the curve of his reddish porcelain cheek, perfect, “gosh—would you hate me too?” You asked like a child talking to a wall, expecting no answers in return. 

He only listened, attentive and polite, brown eyes staring into yours like an emotional support anchor, “I’m insane, I’m so insane, I,” you breathed out, chest heaving up with your face tilting in a fashion that if you’d bend down a smidge, you’d touch him, “keep me safe, even if it’s for a night.”

With a sharp intake of breath, you slotted your lips onto his, the act purely devastating, trembling against the solid, unmoving porcelain, clinging onto a kiss that gave you nothing physical in return, just pure warmth blooming in your chest.

Your lips parted over his, opening wider, messier—tongue barely brushing his, knowing there was no true warmth to meet it but needing it anyway, making you whimper and push down into his lap. The silence scorched you, it bloomed in your chest like fevered devotion.

The kiss turned wetter, more obscene, your hips rolling over his waist as your tears began to fall—again. You gasped through them, mouth open against his, panting.

“I just wanted someone to want me,” you sobbed, forehead resting against his, “is that so wrong? Is that so—fucking wrong?”

Your bathrobe had fallen open completely by now, the fabric slipping off your shoulders like silk cloth, exposing your bare chest to the cold, to him. You didn’t care, you wanted him to see. You wanted to press every part of your ruined body to the hollow sculpture of his form and pretend it meant something. Your thighs clenched around his tiny waist, your hands fisted in his jacket, still kissing him like a girl who believed enough could bring back the dead.

There, atop a doll who could not hold you back, half-naked, tear-streaked, heartbeat trembling like a loose violin string—you finally slept, not peacefully, but possessively.

And watched. 

He always did. 

Chapter 3: I see your heart is pure. 

Fingers trailed down your chest, not cold, not glass smooth.

It was flesh, real human touch. 

You inhaled sharply, the sound catching somewhere between your ribs and throat. Your breath hitched again as one fingertip circled your tits—tentative, like he was trying to remember it. The pad of a thumb brushed over your nipple, coaxing a shiver so deep it left your spine tingling.

You opened your eyes, the room was cloaked in shadows and gold. Velvet curtains half drawn, a single candle burning, but you didn’t question the shift. You didn’t ask where you were or what time it was, because he was there.

Jungwon.

Seated beneath you on the mattress, half clothed in his black suit, his blonde hair tousled like he’d just woken from the same need that drenched your body. His brown eyes were wide and almost fevered, pupils dilated as if he was starving.

His hands slid down the curve of your body, making you gasp quietly as they touched your bare skin, your robe had fallen open long ago, exposing you to him, thighs spread without any shame, not here. 

“Jungwon,” you breathed, unsure if it was a plea or shock. 

He looked up from where he sat between your legs, lips parted, gaze locked onto your core like he was watching something beautiful unravel. 

“You’re soft,” he whispered.

His voice sounded carved from candle smoke and shadow. Soft, velvet lined in some way. It felt like it was coming from inside you, like something whispered to your soul rather than your ears.

You parted your lips to respond, but your words didn’t come as he bent down, mouth ghosting the inside of your thigh, not touching where you needed him but still close, so close. 

A low whimper was all you managed to let out, making the pretty man smirk, a gentle dimple gracing his innocent face, that didn’t harbour a single innocent thought inside of him. 

He licked once, just beside your cunt, not quite there. A warm, wet trail that made your body twitch.

“Please,” you whispered, fingers threading into his hair, tugging gently.

His mouth was so close you could feel it—not just heat, but presence. As though the very idea of him had weight. His lips hovered just above your cunt, parted, exhaling breath that couldn’t possibly exist. He didn’t move—just stared up at you with that hollow devotion, like your worship was the only thing he’d ever known. 

You moaned, soft and broken, hips lifting instinctively. His lips barely brushed you, just a flicker—when suddenly the entire world fell out from under you.

You jolted awake with a harsh breath. 

It was a dream. 

The second you tried to sit up—you gasped, to be pulled back gently by the weight of a hand around your waist. Not accidental, not your imagination. It was real.

You felt a shiver going down your spine. His arm draped around you even though you hadn’t moved him by any means. It was the same doll who once lived in a glass coffin, now lying behind you, cradling your body like a lover who refused to let go. His fingers splayed just below your ribs, unmoving but perfectly placed, as if sculpted for the sole purpose of holding you through the night.

Slowly, you guided his hand away, his arm dropping without resistance, gently settling beside him on the sheets, lifeless, as if nothing had ever happened.

But it had, you knew it had.

Your legs wobbled as you stood. The room felt colder now, like whatever warmth had been there with you had sunk back into porcelain. Into silence. You didn’t dare look at him as you crossed the room, bathrobe clinging to your body with sweat and shame, thighs still aching with want. 

Your skin was glowing in the reflection you saw of yourself, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, before you stepped into the shower, getting ready for your godforsaken uni. 

By the time you got to campus, the city had woken up but barely breathed, snow melted in streaks across the pavement, students milled about like ghosts of themselves, laughter thin. 

You met your friend near the steps—Karina, too bright for this weather, a paper cup of coffee steaming between her hands.

“You came to class on a bank holiday?” She asked, raising a brow, “should I be worried that you’ve final-fucking-ly lost your last marble?”

You smiled thinly, “I just needed to be somewhere—uh, not alone.”

She nudged your shoulder gently, knowing about your family problems, “rough night?”

You swallowed, not maintaining eye contact for once, “is it weird,” you began, voice low, “to want something that’s not, uhm, human?”

She stared at you, caught off guard, “what? Like a celebrity crush weird or maybe a serial killer weird?”

You didn’t laugh, not when you felt this way.

“I mean actually—feel something for it,” you clarified, “something not alive. Something you know isn’t real but—”

You cut yourself off before the words but it touched me could fall out.

Karina tilted her head, “okay, hold on, babe. Are you into one of your artifacts or something?” She teased, half laughing, not serious about the situation at all, “you’re really committing to your collection, I see.”

The second she saw you not laughing, staring at the ground as if you wanted it to swallow you whole, her tone dropped, “babe, you can’t be serious—wait, seriously? Y/N—”

“I have to go,” you whispered, grabbing your bag tighter as you walked away, ignoring the echoes behind you. 

The cold air outside did little to numb the burn still clinging to your skin. It felt as though your body hadn’t fully left the bedroom, like some part of you was still trapped under the weight of him—those porcelain arms, those parted lips, that impossible stillness that somehow kept watching. The memory of it clung to you as you crossed streets and waited through red lights without seeing them, breath ghosting in front of you with every hurried exhale, and by the time you reached your apartment, you were shaking.

Inside, the silence greeted you first, then the sudden burst of warmth.

Not the artificial kind piped through radiators, something richer, something fuller, as if the space had been lived in while you were gone. You turned your head toward the bedroom and froze.

The glass coffin hadn’t moved—but its contents had. Jungwon lay just as you’d left him, and yet his body was no longer the same, his head was tilted toward the doorway, ever so slightly, lips were still  barely parted, but they appeared softer now, not rigid with ceramic but plush, almost flushed. The light caught on his skin differently—as if it had deepened in tone. No grey undertones, but something dangerously close to human. His chest rose faintly, or maybe you imagined it. Maybe you had to.

You stepped closer before your brain could warn you otherwise. The air felt heavier around him. The scent was no longer just cedarwood and dust but warmer, enough to make you shiver in anticipation. 

Don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.

The voice echoed through your mind, your greed had gotten the better of you, and you didn’t have the slightest clue of the consensus, never having asked the owner about it, her word was final—yet you resorted to disobedience. 

It was hard to figure out where you were meant to be with how often you escaped from places, soon staggering into the Carnival after a silent car ride. It was still there, the rusted iron gates, the music bustling, children laughing. 

You walked fast, passing the clowns with their painted smiles, past the fire breathers, and carousel horses locked in crooked gallops. Your breath came quick and hot now, fogging in the air like you were being hunted.

And then you turned the corner, to where it had been, The Chiller House, gone. 

No dark striped tent, no artefacts, there was nothing, not even footprints. Just untouched snow and a lingering emptiness, a strange dead zone between booths. The kind of space you noticed only because it shouldn’t be empty. 

Only, your wrist burned where the red thread had once been, as if tugging you, as if controlling you. 

As if, you were a marionette. 

Chapter 4: My sacrifice. 

Dim lights surrounded you, black silk draped over your body in an elegant ballroom dress, only, the dress was bunched around your waist as you sighed softly, laid on a long table. 

Your breath came light, dazed. You weren’t bound, but your body refused to move. Not from fear—something else. 

The figure between your thighs moved slowly, Jungwon.

He knelt before you like he was praying. His blonde curls shining in the flicker of dying candlelight, casting a halo around a face too angelic to be real. His eyes met yours once before descending again, gaze dripping down your body like melted gold, like hunger dressed in devotion.

You whimpered as his mouth pressed into your inner thigh like a kiss of worship, porcelain lips gone warm, alive somehow. You didn’t know how you knew it, but you knew, he’d waited to taste you for centuries.

When his tongue finally touched you, you gasped, spine arching off the table in instinct, in need. The room didn’t echo, it swallowed your sound. Your moans melted into velvet as Jungwon held you still.

His hands were delicate but firm, cool at first, then warm, his tongue moved in slow, curling drags, like he was learning you, memorizing you. Every breath against your cunt was a confession. You heard your name whispered into you—not from his mouth, but from your bones.

“Missed you, waited for you all these years, hm—mine,” he mumbled mindlessly, prettier than ever, speaking like a true lover. 

His mouth never stopped, kissing your clit with need, flattening his tongue as if he needed to taste you in order to stay alive, as if you were the oxygen he needed. 

Your body trembled as he groaned into you, eyes rolling back, the familiar feeling of your high coming had you moaning, it was so close, just another flick of his tongue, yet the second his lips touched your cunt, you swore you saw the world collapsing. 

Then, a gasp.

You woke up breathing hard. It was yet another wet dream, however, it felt real, as if you’d lived it before, thighs leaking with your wetness, which had pooled down your cunt. 

Jungwon laid beside you, exactly in the position from last night, after you came home trying to find the chiller house, but to no avail. Pondering upon it didn’t work, which is why you found yourself next to him, telling him about your day as if he’d asked you to. 

As unnatural as it felt, he brought you peace, a sense of belonging, enough for you to forget that he’s a doll, enough for you to fall asleep in his arms, only to dream of him for the second night in a row. 

You looked his way, wondering how his lips looked softer now, hair more tousled than before, lashes longer, nothing seemed artificial anymore. Was your mind playing tricks on you? Or did he truly look more human now, even more so with a tiny drop of moisture on his lips—as if he had tasted you, not in the dream, but reality. 

“Just what—who are you?” You whispered, tracing the curve of his cheek, plush now. 

He was captivating, so utterly beautiful, you found yourself leaning in, pressing your lips upon his in a slow fashion, warmth blooming over again. There was no reciprocation, no movement, just you with your frantic breath as you pulled back. 

You stared at him, eyes tracing every shadow of his face. Something about him had shifted again, not in posture, not in expression—those remained still, but in presence. He no longer felt like an object in the room, but the very gravity of it. The space bent around him. 

You should have been disturbed.

Instead, you reached again, cupping his cheek, thumb brushing the edge of his mouth. The drop of moisture was gone now, but the memory of it ghosted against your fingertip. It was real, you knew it in your bones that something was changing.

The sharp shrill of your phone shattered the moment. You sighed, reaching toward the nightstand, vision blurred by the dissonance between this world and whatever realm you’d been slipping into beside him.

It was an unknown number.

You answered with a whisper, “hello?”

At first, only static crackled through, then a voice—breathless.

“Y/N? I—It’s your fiancé.”

You didn’t speak, your lips had forgotten how, you listened further, ex fiancé you wished to say. 

“There’s been an accident,” he continued, the words heavy in his throat, “It’s Jaemin. He—he crashed his car, it might be serious. you should come.”

You didn’t speak for a few seconds, heart rate rising up, “how?” you asked, voice low.

“They’re not sure,” your father answered. “There was no ice on the road, no other driver, no brake marks at all. It was like the car veered itself off the highway and straight into a barrier.”

Your free hand tightened where it rested on the edge of the mattress. Jungwon remained still, perfect and innocent in his silence, but your eyes locked onto his again—and something in your chest bloomed in dread and awe alike.

He had looked at you differently, earlier. Just before your dream, as if he’d been listening and he understood. 

You ended the call without another word, the phone slipped from your hand to the bed with a dull thud. And then, slowly—almost afraid of your own confirmation—you reach for Jungwon’s hand, sliding your fingers between his.

“Did you—?” You asked, gulping, “this can’t be, maybe I am going crazy,” you whispered to yourself. 

Completely missing the curve of his lips, a ghost of a smile, warm and satisfying. 

Chapter 5: Lock and key. 

Home felt warmer than ever, which was a foreign feeling to you, granted your own heart was cold. However, it was as if some sort of magic had been sprinkled through your penthouse, it was brighter, your fingers twitching each time you neared your bedroom. 

Madness crept in gently. You found yourself smiling at him—Jungwon, speaking to him with tenderness usually reserved for lovers in candle lit portraits, and lord, worse, you meant it. Even the kisses now felt familiar, the kind you give to someone you’ve missed for lifetimes.

So you left. You needed to be out, carrying your emotional support key to fiddle with, mindlessly so, as you found yourself roaming around where your favourite antique store had been, the storefront looked the same as always, stained glass glistening in the sun, the door carved in spirals like vines curling around the door.

After a few minutes of pondering upon which new piece you could get, your eyes landed on a small wooden crest at the very back of a velvet lined shelf. You picked it up without thinking twice, shivering as you felt the same material as that of your comfort key, which rested warmer than ever in your pocket. 

You bought it in silence, not even bothering to ask its origin. Some objects are meant to be answers, not questions, and when you stepped back into the cold daylight, it wasn’t the antique shop you remembered—it was something older. A feeling curling at the base of your spine.

You didn’t go anywhere else, rushing home, boots echoing sharply on marble floors, coat clutched tighter around you, the crest now held to your chest like a relic. The moment your bedroom door opened, Jungwon was there—exactly where you’d left him, laid beautifully among the folds of your sheets, framed by candlelight you didn’t remember lighting.

His gaze, as always, was half lidded and still, but you felt watched, or rather, held in an embrace. You sank beside him, heart too loud in your ears, and slowly, your fingers reached for the key in your pocket. You’d never understood why it meant so much to you—it was always just a key, until now. Until it began to pulse softly against your palm in the presence of the crest.

You brought both items together. The second the base of the key met the carved sun and moon wood, there was a click. The crest opened like a locket, splitting from the middle in a flowerlike spiral.

Inside, there laid a folded page, yellowed with time, edges charred as if it had barely escaped a fire, you lifted it, hands trembling, ignoring the other stuff that laid inside. 

The ink had faded, but not enough to erase the sketch drawn in hurried, desperate strokes, portraying a girl being mourned in black with her eyes closed, standing beside a young man with soft curls and a thread around his wrist. Red. The face of the girl was not clear, but his face was unmistakable even with the faded colours—Jungwon.

His eyes, his mouth, even the angle of his neck. Him, exactly as he lay beside you now—down to the shadows beneath his lashes, the solemn part of his lips.

“No,” you whispered, but the sound barely made it past your throat, “w—what is this?”

There were no dates mentioned, no names, no title. Just a mark at the bottom—a sigil you didn’t recognize, but which made your body shiver. Like it belonged to you.

You wanted to step back, but you couldn’t, you were already on the bed, his body just inches from yours. You clutched the paper against your chest, as if holding it would keep your sanity from slipping. Your heart thundered against his quiet.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Why are you in this? Why—why do I feel like I’ve seen this before?”

You turned to him slowly, eyes watery.

He lay there, serene and unbothered. A holy thing, but something in your throat twisted the longer you looked. You had no words for it—this quiet ache that gripped your lungs and told you, you’ve been here before.

You didn’t think, simply leaning in, arms curling around him, resting your head beneath his chin, pressing your body against his like it would ground you—like it would stop you from breaking in half.

And as you held him, eyes wide in the dark, the sketch burned behind your eyelids, making you shiver, mind so distraught that you barely pay attention to the fingers who curl tighter around your waist. 

Chapter 6: Can I have a dance?

The room pulsed with heat. Not comfort, but the kind that made you ache, you didn’t remember walking here, but your body had arrived, soaked in watery silk. The chamber around you was vast and dark, stone walls veined in tarnished gold, and steam blooming from a bath sunk deep into the earth like a tomb carved for lovers.

And he was there, of fucking course he was.

Jungwon, kneeling between your thighs like a man in prayer, the water swirling around his hips. His curls were wet, clinging to his cheeks, his mouth already at your skin.

You were bare beneath the surface, soaked in warmth, and him. He kissed the inside of your thigh firmly, reverently, like he’d missed the taste of you more than breathing. His lips trailed upward, and when his tongue finally reached your cunt, your spine arched from the stone—as if blessed.

Your hands found the ledge behind you, fingers white knuckled against the carved obsidian. He licked slowly—decadent, like he was savoring something rare and forbidden, tongue curling with memory and need. You moaned, broken and low, your legs spreading wider.

“Still just as sweet,” he murmured, lips brushing your folds, “even after all this time, hm, sweet.”

His fingers dug into your thighs with something feral, and when he began to suck, kissing trailing upwards, making you cry with each flick of his tongue, it almost felt known, and around you, the air changed.

The mist parted just enough for you to see them, mirrored silhouettes lining the perimeter of the bath, placed with hollow eyes. Their mouths sewn shut with red thread.

Your head snapped down—his eyes were on you, dark and endless. And he smiled against your nipple, which rested between his lips, a faint trace of dimple shadowed his face.

“Let me make you remember, my love,” he whispered.

You shattered with a soundless scream, clenching around nothing, body pulsing, the climax burning hot and holy through your veins, as his two digits plunge into your wetness, warm and inviting. 

And then—silence.

You woke in your bed, sweat clinging to your skin, thighs damp, breath caught in your throat, the room was dim still, velvet shadows all around. 

Then you felt it, an arm deliberately curled around your waist. Fingers resting at the base of your ribs, too precise. 

You turned your head the slightest bit, barely breathing now. He lay behind you, not stiff like porcelain should be, but pliant, like flesh that had long since remembered how to mimic life. His cheek brushed your shoulder, his breath, if it was breath, fanned faintly against your nape.

You had goosebumps all over, not sure if the dream caused it, or was it your mind playing tricks on you, about the fact that you felt it in flesh, the doll feeling more humane each passing day. 

He hadn’t moved last night, but now, he held you.

And you realized that you had no memory of falling asleep, only of speaking to him, barely clothed, trembling. Your body had crawled into his presence like it belonged to him—and perhaps, in some unspeakable way, it did. It always ended like this.

You beside him, asleep, getting pulled into a world you were familiar with, only, it felt foreign the second your eyes snap open, each time. 

As if your soul was following a rhythm it had long since known by heart.

Your wrist burned again, you shook it, desperately trying to ground yourself in a way you won’t spiral, hence, picking up your phone, scrolling religiously as it casted a warm glow on your face. The curtains were drawn shut, candlelight flickering near the vanity—your usual nighttime ritual. You hadn’t looked at Jungwon yet, you didn’t want to.

Not because he scared you—but because tonight, he felt too close. You set the phone down for just a second, reaching for the glass of water at your bedside, and it slipped your gasp, hitting the ground screen down. 

Your speaker picked it up, connected automatically, a moment of silence before that sound, however familiar, but still something you’d heard for the first time. 

A slow, waltz inspired ballroom melody. Instrumental, full of violins, the kind of tune that made the air feel like it’s silky, like it belonged to another century entirely, and maybe, just maybe, it did. 

Your head turned slowly to stare at Jungwon, who glowed under the candlelight, complexion no longer cold, rather, he looked soft, flushed even, lips glistening and brows furrowed, staring at you.

You rose to your feet without knowing why, the melody urged you to move forward, each step feeling as though it belonged to someone else—someone older, someone who had walked these halls before in bare feet and silk. Someone who had danced already to this same waltz, in a time before mirrors.

You reached him, hand brushing his cheek, warm—not startling, not artificial for once, just warm enough to make your breath hitch.

“I must be dreaming,” you whispered, for the nth time you believe.

He didn’t answer, of course. But he didn’t need to.

The music only swelled.

You slipped your arms beneath him, your robe falling open slightly at the shoulder. His body pressed into yours, heavier than it looked, and yet you lifted him, pulled him close. Like he weighed nothing at all. Like he belonged to you, like he walked with you so as to not burden you with his weight. 

You carried him—through the corridor, past the mirrors and the antique cross stitched chairs that no one ever sat in, past the glass cases filled with relics of lives not yours. The music followed, blooming louder now, until—you entered the grand living room.

The chandelier loomed above in fractured crystal and dust, casting slow shadows across the room. The fireplace was cold. 

You stepped into the center, socks covering your bare foot as they turned against the polished marbles, his arms limp around you, but his weight tilted with you, as if his body remembered the rhythm. The two of you swayed—left, then right, a half turn, a pretty dance which wasn’t perfect by any means.

However, it was real.

And as you turned again, as the violins drew longer and you felt it, the shift, not in him but in you. 

Like a dream had opened mid movement. Like the edges of time had folded. The chandelier above flickered.

And suddenly, you were not in the penthouse anymore.

You were in a ballroom.

Massive and candlelit. The scent of wax and rosewater heavy in the air. Gilded frames on every wall. A harp playing somewhere far off.

Your dress was full bodied silk, dark and red like overriped cherries, the ones who love so much. You wore gloves, and his hand was firm at your waist.

He was alive, laughing and whispering something into your hair.

“Don’t look away. If you do, we’ll forget again, don’t wanna forget, not yet.” He pressed his soft lips upon the corner of your mouth, smudging the cherry coloured lipstick. 

You gasped, holding onto him tighter, trying to feel the warmth that he radiated, like a human, as if he was never a doll in the first place. 

Pulling him closer, you tried to maintain eye contact, staring right into his big brown eyes, a soft dimple gracing his face, even more so when you leaned in to kiss him, to feel real, as if you belong somewhere. 

That’s when your feet caught on something.

You gasped, letting go and Jungwon’s body dropped from your arms, slow, the way dreams fall when you wake too fast. He collapsed onto the marble, arms spread loosely, curls bouncing once as his head hit the rug.

“Shit—” you dropped to your knees, breath caught in your throat, “oh, fuck! I’m sorry, I—”

You reached to lift him again, but  your hand scraped something sharp, a low gleam of silver caught, his lapel pin—a small thorn, twisted around perfectly. It pierced the pad of your finger with surgical precision. You hissed, watching a single drop of blood rise.

It rose up and whole—down your finger, and before you could stop it, it fell right on his throat, then another, in his eye which still stared into you, now bloody and more real than ever. 

The music stopped right then, just when you were about to take a step towards Jungwon, heart heavier than ever, mind spiralling as if you’d reached a point of madness, no conscience of past, present, or future. 

“Jungwon?” You whispered, the sound barely coming out, not coming from your throat, but rather somewhere that buried deep inside you. 

He didn’t speak, however, his lips were parted, the same mouth that was carved from stillness, now hung slightly open. His chest, once impossibly still, seemed to move, yet you couldn’t be sure, but one thing was clear—something had changed. 

You gasped the second the shrill voice of your phone rang, startling you, grounding you back into the present, violently so. You picked it up with a shaking hand, the blood now drying along your fingers. The name flashing across the screen was one you recognized, your manager. 

“H—hello?” You answered, dizzy. 

The voice came out clipped, “I—I didn’t wish to call like this, I know you don’t wish to be a part of the mess anymore, but Y/N, listen—it’s about your father.”

That cleaved onto you like a blade, your eyes still fixated on the doll, whose eyes seemed to be glowing by now. 

“The press got hold of his old finance records, the funds which were rerouted, laundered, and offshore holdings. Even political donors—Y/N, they’re everywhere, headlines and broadcast stations are looking into it. I don’t think it can be undone, the police took him in.”

Your phone felt heavy in your hand, or maybe your hand had gone numb. The blood had cooled to a tacky smear against your palm.

“You’re safe, stay there, okay? We’re contacting lawyers to help your parents—”

You cut the call, words barely registering at the moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing about the situation felt normal to you, not when you already found yourself spiraling about different things, about Jungwon. 

You tried to breathe, but your lungs weren’t working right. They expanded too quickly, then refused to collapse. Panic gripped your ribs and twisted as your heartbeat slammed, thudded in your ears, in your skull. Your head was too light, your hands too far from your arms.

You couldn’t think about the phone call, about your father, your mother, the lawyers, the broadcasts. None of it belonged here—not anymore.

Not when something unnatural, divine, was happening just a few feet away. Your mouth opened, a gasp, a name—none of it came. You were spiraling, fast, and the ground no longer wanted you.

The moment cracked with your knees giving out. A soft thud echoed through the room as your body fell sideways, limbs collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. The marble floor rushed toward you, but even that felt dreamlike, distant.

Everything was fading, only one thing remained—him.

The last thing you saw, just before your eyes fluttered shut, was a flash of motion—Jungwon, no longer still, no longer cold. He moved with terrifying speed, rising from the floor like he’d always been capable, like he’d only been waiting.

His eyes locked onto yours in panic, and his arms—real arms, reached for you.

You didn’t feel yourself fall, you only felt him catch you, your eyes closing as the last thing you heard was his voice before passing out. 

“Don’t leave—”

And then, silence. 

Chapter 7: You’re the one I was meant to find. 

You were running. The corridor around you was narrow, candlelit, carved from stone older than reason. Your fingers clutched the sides of your gown as your breath tore from your lungs, heart thundering beneath a bodice bound too tight. Your slippers slipped against the marble, the walls rushing past in a blur. Somewhere behind you, voices rose in anger. The violins still played, faint and far off, as if from another room—or another lifetime.

Just then, a hand caught your wrist, black gloved, steady despite the tremble in his grip—Jungwon, dressed in royal robes, eyes brighter than ever, searching for yours in a hurry. 

He only pulled you forward, faster through the passage, your fingers tangled in his. Behind you, the shadows were growing figures. You could hear the clink of armor now, boots striking stone.

A crack of thunder split the sky.

And suddenly you were in the courtyard, barefoot on wet stone, skirts dripping, hair tumbling free as you spun in his arms beneath the moon. The storm raged above, and yet the violins still played. He held you like he was trying to memorize your shape, the way your breath stuttered every time his hand brushed your spine. The music swelled, and you twirled, laughing into his shoulder—but the sound was short lived.

Another crack of lightning hit—way closer now.

Flames flickered behind tall windows. Guards poured from the doors like an army, making you turn, hand still in his, and run toward the stables. Your lungs burned, his name trembled on your lips. The horses reared in panic as you approached, but he steadied them. A look passed between you—a mix of fear and love, and he lifted you onto the saddle, swung up behind.

But the gates never opened.

The trees beyond the wall seemed so close, and yet, arrows flew like black wings from the towers above. One struck his shoulder. His body jerked behind you, warmth spreading across your back. You turned, horrified, clutching him as he slid from the horse with a cry.

And just like that, the ground returned.

You were on your knees, soaked in mud and blood, sobbing as you cradled his body. His fingers still moved, reaching for you. He tried to rise, he tried to speak. But the clang of metal drowned everything.

The guards seized you both.

The next flash came with the howl of wind tearing through tall windows—tattered velvet curtains flailing like wounded wings.

You were in the throne room, your family lined the steps in judgment. Gold and crimson banners hung behind their heads like execution ropes. Your father’s voice boomed as he paced before the assembly, fury twisted into something rehearsed.

“Loyalty cannot be faked. Treason wears many faces, and fraternizing with the enemy will have consequences, no matter if it’s my own flesh, punishment will be given.”

Your mother said nothing. Her hands were folded tightly, white knuckled in her lap, her pearls glittering like tears that refused to fall.

Jungwon knelt at the base of the dais, blood streaking his cheek, lips split, eyes never leaving yours. He looked regal even then—bruised and broken, but unyielding.

“She chose me,” he said, voice low, shaking, “and I would die for that choice again.”

Another crash of thunder—and you were beneath the cathedral rafters, cloaked in shadow, your fingers pressed to his jaw as you kissed him like it was a rebellion in itself. The scent of incense and storm hung between you. Your tears mixed with his.

“If I could be born again,” you whispered, forehead pressed to his, “I’d still choose you, in every life, I would give my love to you, Jungwon.”

A gust of wind tore through the memory.

Suddenly the forest closed around you again, and your blade was drawn—one you hadn’t even realized you were holding. Blood on your hands. The enemy’s blood, or yours. It was all the same now.

They pulled you back. A scream echoed—his, yours, mixed together in the deepest symphony of pain. 

Steel pierced your side, and then it came, the emptiness.

Your knees hit marble, vision swarming. Your body folded in on itself, cradling the wound as though it could be held shut. You couldn’t see him anymore, but you heard his voice breaking in the distance, each word louder than the last, but fainter in your ears, “don’t take her—don’t—please—no! Y/N!”

Your blood pooled like spilled ink across the floor. The music had stopped, you didn’t know when. Then the world began to dim, his name was the last thing in your mouth.

The next memory didn’t come with lightning, but with silence so deep it felt like falling into a crypt. He knelt again—this time in chains, surrounded by your family, their faces cold as marble statues. There was no trial, no last words.

Your father spoke the curse himself, voice like iron.

“Let him live and never forget, let him see her again, and never reach her.”

The thread appeared—red as blood, drawn through his chest, binding his limbs in place. His skin cracked. His breath froze in his lungs. He didn’t scream. Only stared forward, lips parted in horror as his body hardened.

Porcelain, in silence, cursed like a marionette with the strings invisible, a prince entombed in the skin of a doll.

The centuries passed like ash on wind. You vanished from the records of history, reborn again and again, never remembering. He remained, all these years, shelved. Watched over each time, still long forgotten. Until you, until this year.

Until now. 

You woke with a violent gasp, a cough, as if dragged from beneath water that had long since gone still. Your lungs burned as you clawed yourself upright, heartbeat deafening in your ears, skin cold. The room tilted and shadows had changed. The light no longer flickered against porcelain.

There was heat beside you, some weight, and before your mind could catch up, your body reacted. You turned sharply, hands slipping on the edge of the blanket, still in the living room, eyes locking with his, wide and burning.

Jungwon.

No longer the lifeless doll, no longer the mute witness sealed in centuries of stillness. His chest rose with breath, his pupils blown wide, and his hair, once perfectly styled when you first saw him—was tousled now, disheveled like something had been undone from the inside out. His coat lay forgotten on the floor behind him, abandoned in the chaos of resurrection. He looked alive in the worst way—raw, barely contained, beautiful, and terrifying all at once.

You didn’t think, simply twisting away, a broken sound leaving your throat as you scrambled for the edge of the room, running away from what felt like a nightmare, even though your heart beated out of our chest, urging you to go to him instead. 

However, he was faster, hand catching your wrist before you could rise to your feet, grip firm, not enough to hurt, but enough to shake something loose in you. You yelped, shocked by the strength, by the heat of his touch, how real he felt, how utterly he refused to let you go.

“Stop,” his voice boomed, reverberating, still cracked at the edges, “you’re not running. Not again.”

Your breath hitched as you stared at him, trembling under the weight of the moment, the tension stretched tight as piano wire.

His jaw was tight, but his eyes were chaos, wild with something that couldn’t decide whether to be angry or longing. “You looked at me,” he said, his voice gritted with disbelief, love—all of it layered in a single breath, “you saw me again, and now you want to run?”

“I—” the word barely formed, your mouth felt numb, the panic in your chest twisted with something else now, a longing of something long forgotten. 

He leaned closer, still gripping your wrist, still breathing hard. His shirt was half untucked, collar loose, neck flushed, the candlelight flickering at his cheekbones. He looked ruined, and furious, but most of all—desperate for you.

“You died in front of me,” he said, louder now, every syllable laced with venomous heartbreak, “and I lived in silence for centuries, waiting for you. You think I’m going to let you leave me again?”

You tried to wrench your arm free, but he held fast, dragging you a step closer, the distance closing like a door slamming shut.

“Don’t you remember what they did to us?” He spat, voice sharp, “you think you’re scared? I’ve been trapped in silence, in a damn glass coffin, hearing your voice in rooms I couldn’t move in. Do you have any idea what it did to me—watching you pass me by without knowing?”

The room swam around you, every breath felt like thunder in your ribs. He wasn’t calm, nor was he composed. He wasn’t the memory anymore—he was the consequence of all of it, of love twisted by time, of passion turned obsessive by grief.

His hand finally loosened, just slightly, fingers brushing down your wrist, but he didn’t let go.

“Say something,” he breathed out, “say my name.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came as you stared at his blonde messy hair, big yearning eyes, laced with despair, rosy lips, dying to get a taste of you. 

He laughed once, bitter and breathless, dimple showing despite the frustration, teeth gritted, “no one has said my name with love in a hundred years, and I only wanted to hear it from you.”

His grip shifted again, gentler now—but still firm, like if he let go, you’d vanish. His forehead dropped toward yours, not touching, breath warming the space between you, gaze locked in yours like a curse reborn.

“You were mine,” he whispered, “you are mine, do you think anything else matters?”

Your hand moved before your mind did, reaching up to brush the strands of hair from his forehead. He didn’t flinch, he leaned into it like a man starved of touch. Your fingers trembled as they slid down the side of his face, feeling the heat of his skin, the realness of it, the pulse just beneath.

“Jungwon,” you breathed.

The moment you said it, everything changed, his eyes fluttered shut, like the sound alone was enough to break him. His fingers dug back into your waist, holding you with quiet violence, breath stuttering against your cheek.

You didn’t pull away, you simply couldn’t, instead, the words clawed up your throat, bitter, almost angry, “was it you?”

He stilled, lips hovering just beside yours, controlling himself, “what?”

“The stories, t—the leaked accounts, ruined finances. My ex fiancé’s accident,” your voice cracked, but you pushed forward, fury threading through the fog, “did you do that to them?”

He opened his eyes slowly, the look in them wasn’t apologetic by any means, “yes, I wanted to burn every name that ever tried to replace mine,” he said, voice low and shaking, “and I did. I watched him touch you like you were some fragile, pitiful thing to be married off. Like you were his to protect, to claim, as if I hadn’t died screaming your name.”

You should’ve felt sick, perhaps a part of you did, but the other part—the darker, crueler one buried deep in your chest was quiet, pleased.

He was the only one who ever loved you so violently, so completely, that he’d ruin anyone who dared stand where he once stood, even if it was wrong, even when it was madness. 

Your voice dropped to a whisper, “you destroyed them for me.”

“I’d do it again,” he said without blinking, “in less time, with worse consequences.”

Your breath came harder now, lips brushing his,  “you’re insane, you—you’re not real, am I still dreaming?”

“I’ve been waiting over a century. What do you expect me to be, not insane? Not real for you?”

Your hand tightened around the collar of his shirt, fisting it. He exhaled like he was finally allowed to breathe again. His forehead pressed to yours, sweat damp and shaking. The line between hate and hunger blurred like smoke between your mouths.

He looked at you like he was about to kiss you—or devour you, maybe both. 

“You think I give a damn about right and wrong anymore?” He whispered, voice as sweet as you could remember, and lord, now you did remember, even if it made you spiral into madness, you remember now, “they never loved you. Not like I did, not like I still do.”

This time, it was you who moved first. You surged forward, your mouth finding his with a desperation that didn’t feel like yours, but something older, something buried. It wasn’t sweet, rather, it was starving. Teeth clashing, lips bruising, hands scrambling to pull, to grip, to ground yourself in the heat of him.

He groaned into your mouth, and it was deep, guttural, ragged from centuries of holding back. His hands flew to your hips, pulling you into him like proximity could undo time. There was nothing patient in the way he kissed you—just need consuming him altogether, the kind you didn’t walk away from.

“Say it again,” he begged against your lips, not stopping, “say it, my name, say it like you remember.”

“Jungwon,” you breathed, again and again, like a spell, like a lifeline, like you were anchoring him to this world.

Each repetition made him more frantic. His grip on you tightened, his body shuddering under your touch like he was afraid it might fade, your lips parted as he kissed down the side of your jaw, then lower when you whimpered, hot open mouthed kisses all over your neck. 

“I need to feel you, need to know you’re mine again,” he groans against your skin, voice beautiful, “that I’m not fucking dreaming—”

“You’re not,” you breathed out, pulling his face back up to yours, looking him in the eye. “I’m right here.”

He surged forward with something close to a snarl, crashing his mouth to yours with violent purpose, lips swollen and slick as his hands gripped your waist and hauled you into his lap on the silk covered couch like you belonged nowhere else. You straddled him, legs falling around his hips, your chest pressed to his as he devoured your mouth with a hunger you didn’t know a body could carry. It was angry, obsessive—years of silence and watching and grief pouring into every kiss, every clash of teeth, and tongue.

You tried to speak, maybe to say his name again, maybe to tell him you wanted him now—but he didn’t let you.

“I said no more running,” Jungwon grunted against your mouth, voice low and beautifully frayed, “ you’re going to stay right here, on me, just like this.”

His hands traced your back, slow and possessive, until they gripped your ass and grounded your hips down hard against the bulge straining beneath his trousers. You gasped, fingers curling into his shoulders for balance, your cunt rubbing right against him—too much friction, yet not nearly enough.

“Oh god—”

“No,” he groans, breathless, biting down on your shoulder, “not god. Me. Say my name when you’re like this, yeah?”

“Jungwon,” you gasped, your whole body twitching as he rutted up into you again, cock grinding against your bare cunt through the fabric of his pants. “Fuck, Jungwon—”

“That’s it,” he breathed, mouth against your throat, sucking a bruise into your skin as you rocked your hips down on him like instinct. “That’s all I wanted for a hundred fucking years, you, falling apart on top of me.”

He grabbed the backs of your thighs and stood in one swift, jarring motion, lifting you with him. You wrapped around him by reflex—legs clinging to his waist, arms around his neck, body flushed against his chest. The room blurred as he carried you, stumbling back into the bedroom you’d long since abandoned when he was nothing more than porcelain.

You barely had time to think, the chandelier flickered above, casting gold and red across the walls like spilled blood and candlelight. Then the bed hit your back, his weight covering you a second later.

He kissed you again, deep and slow this time, like he was drinking from your mouth. His tongue curled over yours, wet and thick, stealing every breath you had left. Your legs parted for him without thought, and his hips slotted between them, his clothed cock rubbing right against your soaked core as he started to grind again.

“Feel that?” He panted, pressing harder, rutting his hips down in short thrusts that had you moaning into his mouth, “you’re dripping for me, darling, and I haven’t even fucked you yet.”

You whimpered, eyes rolling back at the friction, so raw and filthy it bordered on unbearable.

“You used to do this in secret,” he said, thrusting again, his voice rasping as he rocked into you, “when you thought I couldn’t see, pressing your thighs together, grinding against your pillows, pretending you didn’t want me.”

“I did,” you gasped, “you know I always did.”

He groaned, hips stuttering as you clung tighter to him, “I used to imagine this before we got together—holding you down, just like this, feeling you grind all wet and desperate over me, crying my name.”

You could feel how hard he was through the fabric. He was panting now, moving faster, the rhythm filthy. His cock slid against your clit with every stroke, and it had your thighs trembling, cunt pulsing with the tension coiling in your gut.

“You’re going to cum like this,” he whispered against your lips, like a command, “right here, before I’m even inside you, hm?”

Your hips moved on their own, chasing the friction, chasing him, your breath caught in your throat, “please,” you whimpered, “don’t stop—don’t ever stop.”

He kissed you sloppier now, his teeth catching your lower lip as he groaned into your mouth, sweat slicking your skin.

“Say my name,” he ordered again, fucking up into you harder, grinding your clit perfectly with every motion.

“Jungwon—Jungwon, fuck, I’m gonna—”

“You’re mine,” he groaned, “you hear me? No one else, never again.”

The pressure burst like it was breaking your body, your back arching as you came hard—loud and shaking, your moans swallowed by his mouth. He groaned with you, grinding hard through your climax, his own hips bucking as he rutted with desperate rhythm, chasing his own peak.

“You make me insane,” he gasped against your neck, still grinding, “you don’t even know what you do to me—”

You held him tighter, your body still pulsing, already dizzy again from the aftershocks.

You still hadn’t caught your breath—your body trembled beneath him as he flipped you over on your back, lips swollen from kissing, slickness coating your thighs, but he didn’t give you a moment to recover. His hands were already moving, ruthlessly so, as if he didn’t trust time to wait for him this time.

“Mine,” he muttered, voice ragged, chest rising and falling like he was barely containing himself. “You’ve always been mine.”

Then you heard it, the nasty sound of fabric tearing.

You gasped, hips jolting as his hands flipped your robe up, gripping your soaked panties and tearing them clean in half—fingers curling into the delicate fabric like it had irritated him just by existing between you. The torn scraps fell to the side, forgotten.

“I’ll rip through anything that keeps me from you,” he said, low and fervent, voice thick with heat and hunger. “I don’t care if it’s silk, steel, or fucking centuries.”

His mouth hovered above your core, breath hot, uneven, “I should’ve done this the second you walked back into that house,” he growled, eyes locked between your legs. “Should’ve thrown you down and tasted you until you forgot the name of every man who touched you after me.”

You writhed beneath him, already breathless, your thighs falling open for him like muscle memory, but then he paused, sitting back on his knees and reached up to his collar.

Your chest rose and fell faster at the sight—his fingers moving slowly now, unbuttoning the pristine white shirt clinging to his chest. One button, then another. With every inch of skin revealed, your pulse surged harder—his collarbone, the plane of his chest, each line of him carved like something ancient and holy, divine and terrifying. The candlelight bled gold down his stomach, catching in the cut of his abs, the trail of veins along his arms twitching from restraint.

You watched, dazed at his pure beauty, he looked like a prince raised from the grave—beautiful and damned.

“You look at me like you remember,” he whispered, letting the shirt fall from his shoulders with a smirk, “do you? Does your body know me now, darling?”

You nodded before you could stop yourself, lips parted, “I do. I remember all of it.”

He exhaled hard through his nose, the sound nearly a growl, “then lay back,” he said, crawling between your thighs again, “and let me remind you why no one else ever satisfied you.”

He didn’t waste a second as he was on you, mouth open, tongue wet and greedy, licking through your folds with a growl like he’d gone feral. Your body jolted at the first contact, back arching, thighs trying to close from the intensity—but his hands gripped your knees and forced them open, pushing you wide as he buried his face in you like he was starving.

“Fuck—” you gasped, hand flying to his hair. “Jungwon—”

The sound of his name broke something in him, making him moan, a sound so loud and obscene, right into your cunt, reverberating, tongue curling against your clit, sucking so hard your hips bucked. His hands pressed your thighs flat to the bed, holding you down as he devoured you like a man who’d waited lifetimes to be fed. There was no rhythm, only unadulterated hunger and reverence. His mouth was wet, tongue fast and erratic, fucking into you like he needed it to live.

You mumbled out something incoherent, and he groaned again, louder, mouth sealing over your clit, sucking until your vision blurred, until your voice cracked.

“Jungwon—please—”

“Say it again,” he ordered, teeth brushing the sensitive bundle of nerves, tongue never stopping.

“Jungwon, I swear Jungwon, uh fuck, please—”

He didn’t stop, he couldn’t.

“You belong to me,” he said, licking deep into your entrance. “Even now, even after death. Say it, baby, say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours—” you gasped, near sobbing from the pressure building inside you again. “I’m yours, I’m, oh fuck, Jungwon, I’m gonna, fuck!”

“Cum for me,” he ordered, voice thick with lust and control, “make a mess on my tongue. Let me taste every fucking inch of you.”

That sent you over the edge, you came with a cry so sharp it felt ripped from your chest—your thighs clenching around his head, your hands yanking his hair, hips rocking up as you fell apart. It was too much, way too intense, too long coming.

He moaned into your cunt, licking you through every pulse, every twitch, swallowing down your release like it was holy, and when you finally opened your eyes—he was still between your legs, a dark lopsided grin on his face, attractive, but even more so, scary, as he laid there, still hard. 

Still hungry.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice deep, “but you’re not scared of me anymore, are you?”

You couldn’t speak, only shook your head, throat too raw from moaning. Your wrists still burned faintly, the red thread pulsing under your skin as if it knew something ancient had shifted.

He sat back on his heels, slowly, dragging his palms up your trembling thighs, claiming every inch he touched, he looked mad, in an obsessive way, in a fashion that creepy dolls do, but he was real, and waiting. 

“You came so sweet for me,” he whispered, brushing a finger between your folds, smearing you across your thigh with reverence, “but, baby, it’s not enough, just not nearly enough, hm?”

His hands moved to his belt, and you froze for a second, eyes following every inch he moved. The sound of leather sliding through the loops echoed in the room, his eyes stayed locked to yours the entire time, not blinking once as he tugged the belt loose, then let it fall to the floor with a soft thud.

“You don’t know, baby, you have no idea how many times I’ve imagined this,” he continued, voice cracking, “not just having you like this, but fucking you still half clothed, holding you open while you scream my name into the dark—because you remember me now, and you’re not going anywhere, fuck—I’ve missed this.”

He didn’t take his pants off—not completely. His hands dropped to his belt, the metal buckle clinking open with a quick, practiced tug. The soft hiss of leather sliding through loops reverberated the air. His eyes never left yours, his jaw clenched so tight it trembled, the fury in his body barely caged.

Then the button, the zipper. He shoved his pants down with one hand, just low enough to free himself, his cock springing out, flushed and thick, already leaking, twitching from how long he’d held back.

He fisted the base with one hand, the other still holding your thigh open, “you’re mine,” he said, almost to himself, then louder, “fucking say it.”

“I’m yours,” you breathed, almost choking on the words.

He chuckled, a devilish smirk on his face as he looked at you with dark eyes, “again.”

“I’m yours, Jungwon.”

He groaned, like your voice alone could unravel him, and leaned in, bracing his forearms beside your head. His cock dragged through your slick folds as if he was teasing, catching on your entrance, and he hissed at the feel of you already so wet, so ready.

“I should’ve never let you forget me,” he growled, lining up, “never should’ve waited this long,” he mumbled, “wanted to fuck you right there when you climbed on my lap and cried even when I was a doll, when I fucking lost my mind, you kissed me, baby, you needed me even then.”

You whined as he brought up what you had done, and just as you were distracted, he thrust in without much warning, no build up before, simply a deep, brutal snap of his hips. 

You cried out, head jerking back, back arching off the bed. He was thick, too big for you, and the stretch was unbearable, perfect, like you were being broken in half. His hands clamped around your wrists again, pinning you down with bruising force, and your skin lit up. 

The red thread under your wrists seared like fire, glowing bright, like the curse had been reawakened fully the moment he was inside you.

Jungwon’s breath hitched against your ear, “lord,” he rasped, “you feel that? That’s it, that’s fucking us—”

You whimpered, overwhelmed by the stretch, by the thread, by the way your body clenched around him like it already belonged. Like it had been waiting for this moment through lifetimes.

“I knew it would burn,” he whispered into your throat, hips snapping forward, “I knew it would recognize me the second I was inside you again.”

He thrust again, hips grinding now, like he was savoring every inch of your slick, shuddering cunt.

“And it does, doesn’t it?” he hissed, “your body knows. Even if your heart forgot me—your body never did.”

You sobbed out his name, barely a whisper, and that made him lose what little control he had left. He slammed into you, again and again, hips snapping with violent rhythm, his cock dragging against your walls with every brutal stroke. The bed creaked beneath you, the air around you fogging up in a mist of sex. 

“Fuck—Jungwon, slow—”

“I’ve waited too long for this,” he groaned, “centuries of silence—centuries of emptiness. You think I’m going to take it slow?” 

His lips crashed into yours, devouring your cry, tongue sliding past your lips like he needed to taste everything at once. And still, he kept moving, hips hammering into yours with a punishing rhythm, every thrust sending sparks of pain and pleasure through your entire body.

“Do you feel that?” He gritted against your lips, “the way you squeeze me—fuck, baby, you’re shaking.”

“I can’t, please Jungwon—”

“Yes, you can.” His voice was feral, “you’ll take it, all of me, every fucking inch. You’ll take it because you’re mine.”

His grip shifted—one hand sliding down, hooking under your knee, throwing your leg over his shoulder so he could drive in deeper. The angle made you scream, body arching off the bed, stars flooding your vision as his cock hit the spot that made you unravel.

“Right there?” he chuckled, “that’s the spot. That’s the one that used to make you cry for me in your past life. Remember it?”

You sobbed—half lost, the sensation too much for you to incorporate any new information in mind; and nodded.

He thrust harder, deeper, so much rougher, every movement frantic with obsession, “say it,” he moaned, “say you remember.”

“I remember,” you gasped, “I remember you, Jungwon, I remember everything—”

The noise he made wasn’t humane by any means. It was broken, starved almost. He bent over you, still buried deep, his forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping down between your bodies.

“I’m going to fill you up,” he whispered, “so deep you never forget again. So full you won’t be able to think of anyone but me.”

The red thread pulsed yet again—twisting tighter, glowing like fire at your wrists, along your thighs, down your chest.

“You were made for me,” he breathed, “bound to me. You’ll die with me inside you, if I have to make it happen, and I’ll die with you again, over and over, again.”

He groaned through those words, your moan was louder, vibrating through his skin, squeezing him tighter as your body agreed, you were made for him, and gave him exactly what he wanted, you, falling apart all over his cock. 

The sight was enough for him to lose his control, letting himself go, filling you up, deep and hard, cock pulsing inside your fluttering cunt, as your body convulsed around him once more, milking him through it.

However, he didn’t pull out, didn’t bother moving, stopping. 

His hips rolled again, already hardening inside you. He looked down at you, eyes burning red under the chandelier’s flicker.

“I’m not done.”

Chapter 8: With or Without you. 

The water shimmered with faint steam, delicate curls of warmth rising into the candlelit hush of the room. The tub was enormous—black marble, sunken into the penthouse floor, surrounded by tall gothic windows that looked out over the city like a cathedral watching the living. The only light came from candles, myriads of them, flickering along the ledges, their glow casting long, trembling shadows across the walls. 

You were weightless, finally, your bare body floating gently between Jungwon’s thighs, your back pressed to his chest, your head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped around you, palms resting on your belly, then lower, fingers brushing just above your thighs, as if he couldn’t stop touching you even now, not even here.

The red thread had faded back to a dull, molten line along your wrist, no longer burning, but you could still feel it, tied between your pulse and his.

He was warm behind you, human, finally, irrevocably real.

He kissed the side of your neck, slow and deliberate, his lips dragging up to your jaw, “you’re still shaking, darling,” he murmured, his voice low, intimate, as if speaking louder might wake the rest of the world.

You let your eyes drift shut, “I’m not sure it’s real yet.” You said, scared, abandonment being your worst fear, and now you knew why, you had a reason, carved deep inside you. 

“It is,” he whispered, “I am.”

You felt his hand curl tighter across your stomach, protective, anchoring you in place. He kissed you again, and again, trailing his mouth down the curve of your throat as though trying to memorize every inch of skin, leaning back into his embrace.

“I never want to wake up if this is a dream,” he murmured.

“You won’t,” you said, softly. “Not unless I do too.”

There was silence for a long while—only the water shifting around your bodies, the distant hum of the city beneath the stained glass, soft fluttering in your stomach, and Jungwon’s possessive hold, telling you that it’s real, that no matter what happens, he’ll stay. 

You had no idea how you would explain the addition of a new human into this world, how you’d describe where he came from, but that was the least of your worries now.

You turned in his arms then, straddling him in the deep water, your knees pressed to either side of his hips, your hands finding his shoulders. His hair was damp, pushed back from his face, his cheeks flushed from the heat. There was something about him like this—messy, still a little inhuman. Like the remnants of porcelain had never quite left. His eyes gleamed like something ancient.

“You never stopped loving me,” you whispered, fingertips brushing down his chest.

He shook his head once, slowly, his blonde curls now wet, caressed your skin in the process. “Not once. Not even when you died.”

You leaned in, lips brushing his, but didn’t kiss him just yet, “and all that time, you waited?” You asked, as if you needed confirmation over and over again. 

“I waited, burning all alone,” he said, voice thick, eyes shining with the truth, taking you in with nothing but unadulterated love, “every night, every time someone else touched you in another life. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I just felt it, you moving on. You forgetting.”

You cupped his face, stared into the truth of that devastation, “I never really forgot, not because I wanted to at least.”

“I know,” he breathed, “I felt it. Even before you remembered—your blood called me back, you cried to me, you just didn’t know it yet.”

You finally leaned in, noticing the faint dimples on his cheek as you got closer, eyes holding hearts for you. The kiss wasn’t frantic, not like before. This one was slow, perfectly drawn out, all breath and lips, and silent apology. It was centuries of mourning buried in a kiss, two lovers who had lived and died with that ache carved into their bones.

He sighed into your mouth, letting you take from him as long as you needed. When you finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, eyes closed.

“I won’t let go,” he whispered, “not in this life. Not ever again. I love you so fucking much.”

“You don’t have to,” you breathed, “I’ve loved you, I love you, I’ll love you.”

For the first time, it wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t a punishment, it was real, a promise.

The candlelight caught on the red thread beneath your skin once more, pulsing faintly between you like a heartbeat in unison.

He wrapped his arms around you again, pulling you into his chest as you sank back into the water, your cheek against his collarbone, your limbs tangled under the surface. Outside, the world continued, the time marched on, the city moved.

But in here, in this penthouse above the world, time stood still, he had returned to you. 

And he would never let go.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

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[jaylaxies]

I have patience but the demon in me wants marionette to drop. Im gnawing at the bars of my enclosure.

wow poetry! hihi anonnie, hope that you feel better now, the fic is posted! :3

[jaylaxies]

baby boo boo don’t ignore me 😔💔

and if i see this horrendous nickname again istg

[jaylaxies]

Hi i wanted to ask how many chapter are going to be there in ur fic marionette and is it possible for you to tag me in the next chapters xoxo luv u😽😽

hihi love! it’s a oneshot story so it won’t have any further chapters, the full fic is posted tho! i hope you enjoy it sweetheart <33

[jaylaxies]

arm? hand? harm? harming your mind? sliding back? legs spread? glossy lips? possibly swollen?

im actually gonna kms KEEP HIM AWAY FROM ME im v loyal to jay i dont even look at other men lets not do this. 🫩

[jaylaxies]

the lovely anons and moots who left feedbacks in my ask box, i’ll gatekeep it for a while longer cause goddd these made me so happy and i wish to reread them each time i open my asks😭💗 thank you sm for the kind words and all the love for marionette, yall are angels 🫶

[jaylaxies]

taglist 2:

@rustymoons @hoonkisgirl @yjwilywamh @xocandypoo @iamjusttryingtoreadapost @darkblueblueberr @esterkuyavinski @wonieeee @skzcanmakemecream @lovelyred2 @00909999 @0102luvr @da1z4d @ambi01 @jaengwon @lovelymelon @heesvnqie @synamon @sunghoonsluv @kiraasblog @cripplinghooman @baekgukkiw @hoonkishoe @lilyofthevalley6 @lynnlynnyuuashh @woonivr @skysheepn @ebitsujun @milza12 @kyameai @beomgyus11 @yourgirlyoi @baboomz @lianahai @viserra-ish @ivesti @brokenengene

MARIONETTE

PAIRING: doll!jungwon x fem!reader

GENRE/CW: smut, angst, porn with plot, unprotected sex (be safe), mentions of accidents, blood, slight body worship, somnophilia, manhandling, cunnilingus, heavy makeout, heavy dubcon themes, supernatural themes and elements, artefacts collector!reader, usage of nicknames, aftercare, fluff if you squint, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, mentions of jaemin and karina.

WORD COUNT: 16,104 words.

SYNOPSIS: As an antique collector, you had encountered many oddities; splintered relics, cursed heirlooms, objects that whispered in the dark, but never a life sized doll so breathtakingly beautiful, so humane. There was only one rule, to not open its coffin before the onset of New Year, however, temptation is quite a decadent exquisite poison. And now? Something stirs beneath the glass, something that waits for you, dearly so.

WARNING: 18+ content, minors dni.

A/N: hihi loves <3 it’s my first time writing something this this, and to think it was inspired by a dream? gosh, i did work hard on it and i really hope you guys would enjoy it too :3 all likes, comments, reblogs are highly appreciated! it keeps me motivated! iloveyou all and happy reading <33

Chapter 1: The end? Or the lackof. 

Darkness was always your friend, it engulfed your being, the depth of your soul with the warmth even mere humans couldn’t provide, something so utterly beautiful, something you couldn’t see, the quiet, the warmth, the loyalty that cradled you in stillness. 

A stray tear cascaded down from the crevice of your eye, streaming through the curved expanse of your cheek and dripping all over the velvet carpet laid below, the kind that muffled sound, even your sobs. It covered the entire penthouse floor—another purchase made in silence for a place too big for one, a place too big for yourself. 

“Merry Christmas,” you whispered into the window, pressed against the cold surface which seemed baptised with the water droplets forming, courtesy of the snow, which slicked the city in the shade of white, adding another bland vision through your cornea. 

No one answered. The silence pressing you back into the surface as a reminder that you were indeed alone, it was brutal, and worse, familiar. Money brings happiness they said, then where were your parents? Friends? A lover who you so desperately wished to replace the embrace of the darkness to something real, so raw? A heartbeat beside yours.

You turned around slowly, eyes grazing over the meticulously arranged space, the walls lined in rich charcoal silk, the carved moldings of the ceiling dipped in antique gold, each piece of furniture either vintage or custom made to tailor your taste. A museum, people say when they visit. A mausoleum, you thought.

You were most likely the only exhibit that still lived.

Passing through the hall, you stopped just to see the picture frame standing tall on the marble table. The photo of your family—if it could even be called that. A frame that hadn’t moved in the past year since you came here, like the people in it. Your mother’s tinted red lips were parted in a laugh far too wide to be genuine, your father’s hand resting too heavy on your shoulder. All of you dressed in black tie for a gala you didn’t remember, smiling for an audience that didn’t care.

You turned again, towards what you claimed to be the heart of your home, if it could be called that. Each step was muted by the velvet of the carpet, your movement turning into an illusion of some dream as your fingers mindlessly caressed the artefact you always carried with you—an ancient key, so elegantly engraved, yet it opened nothing you owned. 

To your left, the antique room sat sealed behind tall French doors.

You didn’t go in, you couldn’t, not tonight.

Your obsessions slumbered there peacefully, a wooden crucifix with a bloody split down its middle, a weeping angel bust with glass eyes, an 18th century mourning veil still faintly smelling of rosewater and rotten flesh. 

It was a collection of grief, the kind of grief people celebrated, framed in golden wrapped silk. Each product was valuable, as if the burden in them could be traded for money. 

Your feet didn’t stop there, not until you were standing in front of the big wooden door with the serpentine handle, your thick black coat hanging on the rack, almost like a relic—so dark and finely woven in Italy. You draped it over your shoulders, slipping your gloves on with no destination in mind. 

But something in the air had switched from the very second the frost teardrop splattered down to the carpet, it was as if someone breathed down on your neck, like a whisper from within the walls. 

You found yourself stepping out, into the elevator, down the echoing lobby, well decorated in shades of green and red, a few children bubbled with excitement with wrapped boxes in their arms.

“Where to, Miss?” your driver asked.

You hesitated, gulping down your emotions. The city was still wrapped in snowfall, painted in black and white till the bone. Every possible location—gallery, restaurant, hotel lounge—felt as hollow as the apartment you had just left, despite being so full of life, so full of humans. 

“I don’t know, just drive—somewhere,” you murmured to the suited man with greying hair.

And so he did, seamlessly guiding you through the colour flashes outside of the window, a celebration you couldn’t quite grasp, something so fulfilling for others yet an empty vessel for you, glass fogging up per second as you found yourself delving deeper into the heart of the city. 

You almost didn’t notice the sharp turn as the car veered into a slow stop, right over the cobblestone, near the entrance of a rusty iron gate that was wide opened, the appearance of the gate juxtaposing the liveliness inside the grounds. 

A carnival.

It was blooming up the grass like a childhood nightmare to you, grown not from joy but from something older, more terrible—decay dressed in ribbons, nostalgia strung with nooses, with the flashback of your parents abandoning you in the middle of the crowd, with a pathetic excuse of work calling. 

The lights flickered like fake stars, too yellow, radiating warmth, casting the ground in a sickly kind of glow. Music reverberated through the cold air—violins detuned, a carousel melody slowed to a dirge. You stepped out of the car with a hand to the frame, your gloved fingers pausing as you caught sight of your own reflection in the passenger window, eyes empty, dried lips, your face floating behind the few stray hairs that made their way upfront. You looked like someone who attended a funeral, which seemed fitting.

No one should have been here out this late, the clock nearing midnight, yet the place was full. Crowds of people passed by, too smooth for your vision for them to seem humane. Children laughed, but the sound was wrong—too jolly, too bright. Balloons hung from the strings, glossy and silent. The scent in the air was thick—caramel, popcorn, and smoke curling together like a spell brewing.

Your feet moved without any motive, their own consciousness dragging you through the murmurs of the crowd, above the snow clad cobblestone as the place unfurled around you in shades of red and gold. Joker masked men took over the place, entertaining and guarding each shop. 

Without notice, a girl with doll like features handed you a candied apple, the red dripping down the ground in a way that made you feel sick. With a tap, you paid for it before offering it to a kid who looked hungry. 

You walked past it all, as if on a mission you weren’t aware of, the mist guiding you through, near the alleyway behind the giant wheel which hadn’t stopped moving all night. 

Then you saw it. A tent. It was the only place draped with black, and roped with red stripes. It didn’t have any signs, just tarot cards hung around, adorning the place. 

It wasn’t a beckoning, just a feeling—a feeling that someone was calling out your name. 

You paused outside the tent, the velvet flaps gently shifting though there was no wind. A low warmth bled from within, curling at your covered ankles like a blissed sigh.

Without thinking twice, you ducked inside the tent, the air thickening as if you had entered another realm altogether. The scent of something ancient, even darker than your antique art room, a pretence of divine divination. 

Under the red candlelight, against the dark walls, you met with a woman, skin as if a dark parchment, hair as if silver threads, luring you right in as her gaze met yours. 

“You’ve taken your time, we’ve been waiting,” she said, hands kept on table, her voice stoic, no anger, no sweetness. 

“We?” You asked in a whisper, confusion taking over your face. 

She didn’t answer as the candlelight flickered above your head as you sat down on the wooden chair, which creaked with each movement. 

The table between you was covered in black cloth worn out from decades—no, centuries, so out of touch. Golden thread formed a circle at its center, symbols stitched in curling foreign shapes, as if it was a cult. Atop it rested a deck of tarot cards, the edges frayed, the backs patterned in thorned roses.

The woman’s fingers moved, almost inhumane with how fast she shuffled the deck, portraying something simply inevitable.

Within a second, you had three cards laid in front of you, pressed face down, before she turned the first one over. 

“The past.” She murmured. 

The card read out Death in big, bold letters. 

A shiver travelled down your spine as your eyes assessed the figure of a skeleton, adorned with roses, seemingly half alive, but at what cost?

Her voice dropped an octave, “you’ve mourned things that are still breathing. But death doesn’t care about the soul ascending to hell or heaven, does it?”

Your lips parted in hopes of finding an answer, but she spoke nothing short of truth. Your parents? Alive but dead to you. Your friends? Barely one caring for anything other than your money. No existence of love, a true one at least. A dull ache curled in your chest with the card being taken back. 

Not even a second later, the second card was being turned around to reveal Collector. 

A massive figure seated on an antique throne adorned with jewels from top to legs, background filled with broken doll heads, and clocks of shapes you didn’t even know the names of. 

It was clear, the words echoing present through and through, your nails digging into your skin with the accuracy and abnormality of the given situation. 

“Collecting pieces long forgotten? Safekeeping them, when in reality no one intends to return to them.”

You felt as if the words were being carved into your bones, “you were made to be adored, but you’re caged in cruelty now.” She continued, “abandonment that leaves you searching for empty pieces.”

You were parched, each word acting like a truck of truth, hitting you over and over again, and it was only a second of silence as the last card was being flipped, as if awakening someone, something, into existence. 

A doll. That’s what the third and the last tarot card said, the image on it striking something primal in you; especially when you laid your eyes on the white porcelain doll, way too delicate for this world, carved into perfection of some sort, clad in a dark suit. He was perfect. Cheekbones high and blushed, lips blood red, glowing, and eyes? Closed in peace, in wait. You tore your eyes from the card the second you felt something burning on your wrist. 

A red thread, something you hadn’t worn before entering the stall, something that resembled exactly the threat around the doll’s wrist. It wasn’t silk, or cotton, it was something old, almost like a crimson fibre. 

The women didn’t blink, didn’t show any hint of emotions this time, “you’ve been chosen.”

You breathed out, waiting for her to elaborate. 

“He’s been waiting, he didn’t summon you, he chose you. It was when you were ten, in this life, he fell in innocent love all over again, the same place, the carnival.”

Her eyes weren’t moving, goosebumps rose up your skin at the mention of the carnival, the same carival which you visited with your parents, the same, which taught you abandonment years ago, the place you were at right now. 

“Who’s he?” You croaked out. 

“He saw you entering, the innocence long gone, now he craves, he desires your love.”

Your heart thumped out of your chest at the mere mention, the slight possibility of someone wanting you. 

“Where’s he?” You asked before you could control yourself, the words, the mannerism almost foreign to you. 

The women’s lip twitched up for the first time, the darkness highlighting the curve, before she snapped her fingers, making everything go dark as you stood up, stumbling back with a gasp, and right out of the tent. 

It was snowing again, the bustle of the crowd, the cheers of the children. The world was bright again, even in the darkness, but you were hollow, the thread burning around your wrist every passing second, as if in a rush to convey a message. 

You weaved through the crowd, past fire breathers and jugglers, past children squealing over marionettes—you yourself felt like one as past a the thread pulled eastward, toward the quieter edge of the carnival. You didn’t ask questions anymore. You just followed.

It didn’t feel real, just a dream with no end. And then, you saw it—tucked between two towering, crumbling buildings was a narrow, glassed storefront you hadn’t noticed before. You would have missed it entirely if not for the thread tightening against your skin, humming now with warmth. A wooden sign hung above the door, painted in fading gold. 

The Chiller House: Antiques and souvenirs. 

The windows were clouded, frosted even from the inside, yet you could faintly make out the silhouettes of laces, dolls, relics you couldn’t identify. The floral vines covered the sign which sat atop the door. 

Binded with love, caged with obsession. 

You stared at the sign, heart knocking against your ribs. You had a soft spot for antiques—always had. Things that had lived lives before you. The scent of old paper and polished wood. The way broken toys still smiled, even your room back home looked more like a museum than a bedroom. The past always felt warmer than the present, safer, even when it wasn’t.

A brass bell chimed in peace as you stepped inside, it was like a time capsule bound together. Display cases brimmed with forgotten artifacts—cracked porcelain faces, jewelled gloves, pressed flower letters that looked like they’d crumble at the slightest touch. The scent of cedarwood and dried rose petals filled the air, however, the room wasn’t musty, it was preserved. 

You twirled around the empty store, feeling alive for the first time in months, staring at your reflection in an ornate vanity mirror, before stepping behind the curtain, into a room which was dim, but not enough to hide him. 

A single glass coffin in the corner of the room, as if meant to be hidden from the world. Lit from below by a single, flickering bulb, the coffin glowed like an altar. And within it—he looked too perfect to be real. A life sized porcelain doll, mouth barely parted as if sighing in sleep. His skin was smooth, pale with a bloom of warmth on the cheeks, and his lips painted a colour of warm red. 

Blonde curls falling over his forehead, his suit was tailored in black, lapels stitched with gentle thorns, the collar closed neatly with a thin crimson ribbon. A matching red thread circled his porcelain wrist—identical to the one still burning on your own. 

He was so delicate, exquisite personified, crafted so meticulously, it almost felt like a sin to be staring at him. You didn’t realize you were moving till your palm rested on the fogged glass. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a voice called out, jolting you out of your trance. 

You turned around quickly to see the shopkeeper—a woman older than time itself, dressed in a black shawl with hazel eyes that gleamed like a summer storm. She didn’t sound angry, but tired. Like she’d been here before, like she’d seen this play out before. 

“I—why? Isn’t he for sale?” You asked. 

“He’s not for sale.”

“But why? This is a shop and he’s a doll,” you asked again, desperate to understand. 

Her gaze didn’t falter, “he’s not just a doll, and this isn’t just a shop.”

Today has been confusing, but this? It was way par your usual understanding. Not a doll? Not just a shop? It was as if you were bleeding into the thin crack between dream and reality. 

“I want him,” you repeated like a broken record. 

Her eyes flickered down to your wrist in a scowl, before she gasped, demeanor doing a one eighty, “I see, so it’s happened.”

“What has?”

She didn’t answer, walking past you to the coffin, brushing the gold plated oval, depriving it of the dust that had settled there over the time. 

Jungwon—the engraved text read out, a name as pretty as the face. 

“I’ll pay anything,” you declared, as if he would cease to exist if you don’t get him, if you don’t keep him preserved with you. 

“Anything,” she echoed, “everything,” she confirmed.

You stared at her, wondering if this was yet another tactic used to get a higher price for a certain possession, to quantify the amount of desperation one can behold. 

Still, she didn’t answer you directly. Instead, she moved around the coffin, unlatching locks you hadn’t even noticed until now—iron clasps, rusted, something that creaked with each movement. Not the lid, never the lid, just the base. Preparing it for transport.

“You’ll take the whole thing,” she started, as if telling you the rules. “Don’t try to lift the glass. Don’t remove the thread. And no matter how much you want to—don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.”

“How much?” you asked, breath catching in your throat with newfound warmth blooming up your chest. 

She paused her slow movements, scribbling a figure on a torn piece of parchment and handed it to you. Her fingers were cold and dry, like paper itself.

The number was beyond the point of absurdity, a cost that screamed sacrifice, not currency. More than what a doll should be worth, if it was just a doll that is. 

You got your card out without a second thought. It was all you had, a price you got for having the ever so absent parents. She nodded, as if she expected you to say yes regardless of the circumstances. 

“Handle with care, he’s—he’s more fragile than he appears to be,” she murmured, “alas, don’t forget the rules.”

You nodded, fingertips quick to call, informing your driver to pick up the coffin, the brass bell chiming as you stepped out of the Chiller House. Your eyes followed him, throughout the journey. 

All while not knowing that your red thread had disappeared. 

Chapter 2: In the name of love. 

The glass clinked under the brightness of the chandelier, a voice that reminded you much of cages. 

Especially here, at the HYBE Plaza, where every corner shimmered with the festive celebration of New Year’s eve. And yet, not a single thing about this night felt new.

You sat at the long table draped in glitter, surrounded by people who wore their smiles like fake masks. Your parents sat two seats away, laughing for appearances, eyes always glancing sideways. Your fiancé, Jaemin, their choice, sat beside you with a hand on your chair, a smirk evident on his face, the usual routine for him. 

“You barely spoke a word tonight,” he accused, “this night is important.”

“To whom?” You stared into space, fingers playing with the red threads of the table cloth. 

He sighed, a vein popping out with the anger he couldn’t control, “to your family—to my family, to me.”

“The contracts, you mean? The exchange of money for souls, ah? Is that what I was raised for?”

Your fiancé shifted uncomfortably beside you, but his grip on your chair only tightened as he leaned in, teeth clenched. “Don’t do this here.”

“Where should I do it then?” you asked, still not looking at him, “at the altar? In bed? Over brunch with our mothers while they plan the next generation of heirs to ruin?”

He inhaled sharply. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“No,” you replied, turning your head at last, eyes sharp, the chandelier above caught in your eyes like fractured glass. “I’m being honest. You should try it sometime.”

“Sweetheart, maybe you need a breather, want me to walk to the balcony with you?” Your mum breathed out in her sugar dipped voice, almost embarrassed at the way you clearly worded what they’ve been doing all this while. 

“Where was this sentiment when it was my birthday, mother? Perhaps you were too busy to remember? Right, father?” You said, eyeing both, who looked rather embarrassed at your outburst, almost piercing them with the serum of truth. 

Truth that you were their daughter, a human, not an investment or doll, by any means—something that they’d been overlooking all this while.

You didn’t wait for a reply. 

The chair’s legs scraped against the marble like a declaration, loud enough to silence the violins. A hush rippled through the room. Your mum’s painted smile flickered, your father’s eyes narrowed with the slow cruelty of a man too long accustomed to control, however, you kept walking.

When the elevator doors slid shut behind you, the last thing you saw was your mother clutching her pearls, tears glistening her eyes, as if she finally realized a tinge of the hurt she’s caused you, but not a way to make it better. 

Winter had returned to the city like a storm—snow falling not gently, but rather, in solemn sheets. The chauffeur said nothing as he opened the car door. He didn’t dare, not when you looked stoic. 

All you remembered from the car ride was the flashes of colours, the scenery collapsing into an abstract piece too bright for your taste. The lift carried you into warmth in utter silence, juxtaposing the kids in the lobby, way too enthusiastic to celebrate new year. 

The penthouse greeted you with the familiar hush of years long curated wealth. It smelled faintly of roses and marble, of nothing real. The chandeliers stayed lit, as if unaware the girl who lived beneath them had shattered hours ago.

You walked in without removing your heels, only leaving them midway on the velvet of the carpet as your legs started to wobble, as if uncertain if you should be standing anymore or not. 

By the time you reached the bathroom, your fingers could barely unhook the back of your gown. Your body trembled from exhaustion, you peeled the dress off your skin as if it were a second one—a shell of who they wanted you to be, and let it fall in a puddle on the heated tiles.

The water scalded your skin, but you didn’t move, you stood beneath the stream like something carved from grief, arms hanging limp at your sides, head bowed. The steam curled around your body, trying to hold you together, but nothing could. Not tonight.

Your sobs were quiet—choked, too exhausted to echo in the grand bathroom. They slipped past your lips like secrets, buried in the hiss of falling water. You sank slowly to the floor, knees folding, cheek pressed to the cold marble. You stayed there until your fingers numbed and wrinkled.

Eventually, you rose, wrapping yourself in a robe, barely bothering to dry your hair, and stepped into the dim corridor, the lights flickering faintly above. The silence of the penthouse felt sharper now—closer. The velvet underfoot muted your steps as you passed gilded mirrors and untouched heirlooms.

Wrapped in a white robe, you drifted down the corridor, dripping steadily down your spine, leaving a trail of water. The chandelier above the foyer flickered gently behind you, casting your shadow down the hallway like a second self.

You opened the bedroom door, the air inside was chilled from neglect, the heavy curtains still drawn shut from earlier that morning. The only light came from the candle you must have forgotten to snuff—its flame dancing beside the mirror, golden and low.

And in the corner of your room, against the rich velvet of the carpet, rested the glass coffin, the one you had brought home, the one that hadn’t left your mind since.

You walked toward it slowly, your bare feet cold now, trembling slightly as you approached. Your wrist burned as you knelt beside the coffin. Your hands found the smooth edge of the glass lid, fingers hesitating, remembering the warning from earlier, what the shop owner said. 

Don’t open it before the onset of the new year.

It wasn’t new year yet, you were five minutes short of time, of patience. 

What would even happen? It’s just a doll, a pretty piece of porcelain, something you pondered about for the next four minutes. 

Your fingers curled tighter around the latch, “I can’t wait,” you mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

With that, you unlatched the coffin door, and as you did, the sharp corner of the coffin caught your hand, causing a sudden, precise sting.

You flinched, hissing softly, watching as a bead of blood gathered at your fingertip—round and dark, like ink waiting to stain something sacred.

Before you could think, it slipped, fell down, right onto his slightly parted lips.

The moment it touched him—the first firework exploded beyond the window, a bloom of sound and colour cracking through the silence. The sky lit up in gold, and then another, and another—an orchestra of celebration for a world that had nothing to do with the one unfolding here, the celebration of new year beyond your room. 

When you looked back, the blood was gone, disappeared. You wondered if he had a crack, a hairline in his mouth, letting the blood seep through, or it actually disappeared. 

Your hand reached beneath him, slow, cradling him once more—arms beneath his back and knees, lifting him gently from the coffin. The robe slipped further down your shoulder, forgotten. His weight pressed into you softly, the fabric of his suit warm against your chest as you carried him across the room, he was heavy, heavier than any porcelain should have been. 

The fireworks continued behind the curtains, echoing against the window panes like distant thunder. But inside your bedroom, it was just you. Just him.

You laid him down on the bed, carefully—pillowing his head, smoothing the lapels of his suit, brushing your trembling fingers once across his cheek as if to confirm he was still there.

Then you joined him, sprawling over the silk sheets, eyes blank as they stared into the plaster of paris perfectly sculpted into the ceiling. 

Your hand reached out blindly until your fingers brushed his, cold and delicate beneath the satin glove. You held it like it might tether you to something real. 

“I don’t know how to be normal anymore,” you whispered into the dark, voice hoarse from crying. “I’m always pretending, every fucking room I enter, every dress I wear—it’s like a costume. A fucking mask, and no one ever sees what’s underneath. I’m not even sure I do.”

You turned your head, breath catching as your eyes landed on him. He didn’t look human, he looked like an angel. 

Lips parted the faintest bit, lashes long and still, his face peaceful in the way the world never allowed you to be. You watched him, tears welling again, cascading silently down your cheek.

“I’m so tired, I only see red, no blacks and whites.” You sighed, as if curving into the madness of what the world put you up with, “you’re beautiful,” you mumbled, fingers tracing the outline of his lapel, the thorn-stitched embroidery catching against your nails. The silk beneath was soft, too soft—like skin meant to be kissed.

“It must be nice, being a doll, a real one with no feelings, just plush beauty, and stillness,” you whispered, his eyes shining with an understanding, a glint that shouldn’t be seen in the non living creatures. 

It wasn’t just grief now—it was like vertigo. That hollow, high feeling that came when you’d fallen too far and realized there was nothing left to crash into? You’d hit the bottom. The absolute, ridiculous bottom. And here you were—wanting to kiss a fucking doll.

You crawled toward him slowly, silk dragging behind your thighs, breath hitching. Every inch you moved across the mattress felt like a climb up the hill, a ritual of some sort, of great importance.

Your knees slid to either side of his hips. You climbed on top of him like sin climbs onto innocence, soft and slow, an angel falling .

You shouldn’t be doing this, you knew that, and still, you sighed into relief as you cupped his face between trembling palms, his skin was porcelain, yet it wasn’t cold.

It had taken on warmth—not humane, but something subtler, as the sun shone warmly on the sealine, almost a personification of liveliness of a peculiar sort. 

You leaned down slowly, your breath catching in your throat. You didn’t realize how hard your heart was beating until you were so close to him you could hear the soft rasp of your own blood roaring behind your ears. 

“Everyone hates me,” you whispered, your voice inhumane, lacking warmth. 

Your finger traced the curve of his reddish porcelain cheek, perfect, “gosh—would you hate me too?” You asked like a child talking to a wall, expecting no answers in return. 

He only listened, attentive and polite, brown eyes staring into yours like an emotional support anchor, “I’m insane, I’m so insane, I,” you breathed out, chest heaving up with your face tilting in a fashion that if you’d bend down a smidge, you’d touch him, “keep me safe, even if it’s for a night.”

With a sharp intake of breath, you slotted your lips onto his, the act purely devastating, trembling against the solid, unmoving porcelain, clinging onto a kiss that gave you nothing physical in return, just pure warmth blooming in your chest.

Your lips parted over his, opening wider, messier—tongue barely brushing his, knowing there was no true warmth to meet it but needing it anyway, making you whimper and push down into his lap. The silence scorched you, it bloomed in your chest like fevered devotion.

The kiss turned wetter, more obscene, your hips rolling over his waist as your tears began to fall—again. You gasped through them, mouth open against his, panting.

“I just wanted someone to want me,” you sobbed, forehead resting against his, “is that so wrong? Is that so—fucking wrong?”

Your bathrobe had fallen open completely by now, the fabric slipping off your shoulders like silk cloth, exposing your bare chest to the cold, to him. You didn’t care, you wanted him to see. You wanted to press every part of your ruined body to the hollow sculpture of his form and pretend it meant something. Your thighs clenched around his tiny waist, your hands fisted in his jacket, still kissing him like a girl who believed enough could bring back the dead.

There, atop a doll who could not hold you back, half-naked, tear-streaked, heartbeat trembling like a loose violin string—you finally slept, not peacefully, but possessively.

And watched. 

He always did. 

Chapter 3: I see your heart is pure. 

Fingers trailed down your chest, not cold, not glass smooth.

It was flesh, real human touch. 

You inhaled sharply, the sound catching somewhere between your ribs and throat. Your breath hitched again as one fingertip circled your tits—tentative, like he was trying to remember it. The pad of a thumb brushed over your nipple, coaxing a shiver so deep it left your spine tingling.

You opened your eyes, the room was cloaked in shadows and gold. Velvet curtains half drawn, a single candle burning, but you didn’t question the shift. You didn’t ask where you were or what time it was, because he was there.

Jungwon.

Seated beneath you on the mattress, half clothed in his black suit, his blonde hair tousled like he’d just woken from the same need that drenched your body. His brown eyes were wide and almost fevered, pupils dilated as if he was starving.

His hands slid down the curve of your body, making you gasp quietly as they touched your bare skin, your robe had fallen open long ago, exposing you to him, thighs spread without any shame, not here. 

“Jungwon,” you breathed, unsure if it was a plea or shock. 

He looked up from where he sat between your legs, lips parted, gaze locked onto your core like he was watching something beautiful unravel. 

“You’re soft,” he whispered.

His voice sounded carved from candle smoke and shadow. Soft, velvet lined in some way. It felt like it was coming from inside you, like something whispered to your soul rather than your ears.

You parted your lips to respond, but your words didn’t come as he bent down, mouth ghosting the inside of your thigh, not touching where you needed him but still close, so close. 

A low whimper was all you managed to let out, making the pretty man smirk, a gentle dimple gracing his innocent face, that didn’t harbour a single innocent thought inside of him. 

He licked once, just beside your cunt, not quite there. A warm, wet trail that made your body twitch.

“Please,” you whispered, fingers threading into his hair, tugging gently.

His mouth was so close you could feel it—not just heat, but presence. As though the very idea of him had weight. His lips hovered just above your cunt, parted, exhaling breath that couldn’t possibly exist. He didn’t move—just stared up at you with that hollow devotion, like your worship was the only thing he’d ever known. 

You moaned, soft and broken, hips lifting instinctively. His lips barely brushed you, just a flicker—when suddenly the entire world fell out from under you.

You jolted awake with a harsh breath. 

It was a dream. 

The second you tried to sit up—you gasped, to be pulled back gently by the weight of a hand around your waist. Not accidental, not your imagination. It was real.

You felt a shiver going down your spine. His arm draped around you even though you hadn’t moved him by any means. It was the same doll who once lived in a glass coffin, now lying behind you, cradling your body like a lover who refused to let go. His fingers splayed just below your ribs, unmoving but perfectly placed, as if sculpted for the sole purpose of holding you through the night.

Slowly, you guided his hand away, his arm dropping without resistance, gently settling beside him on the sheets, lifeless, as if nothing had ever happened.

But it had, you knew it had.

Your legs wobbled as you stood. The room felt colder now, like whatever warmth had been there with you had sunk back into porcelain. Into silence. You didn’t dare look at him as you crossed the room, bathrobe clinging to your body with sweat and shame, thighs still aching with want. 

Your skin was glowing in the reflection you saw of yourself, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, before you stepped into the shower, getting ready for your godforsaken uni. 

By the time you got to campus, the city had woken up but barely breathed, snow melted in streaks across the pavement, students milled about like ghosts of themselves, laughter thin. 

You met your friend near the steps—Karina, too bright for this weather, a paper cup of coffee steaming between her hands.

“You came to class on a bank holiday?” She asked, raising a brow, “should I be worried that you’ve final-fucking-ly lost your last marble?”

You smiled thinly, “I just needed to be somewhere—uh, not alone.”

She nudged your shoulder gently, knowing about your family problems, “rough night?”

You swallowed, not maintaining eye contact for once, “is it weird,” you began, voice low, “to want something that’s not, uhm, human?”

She stared at you, caught off guard, “what? Like a celebrity crush weird or maybe a serial killer weird?”

You didn’t laugh, not when you felt this way.

“I mean actually—feel something for it,” you clarified, “something not alive. Something you know isn’t real but—”

You cut yourself off before the words but it touched me could fall out.

Karina tilted her head, “okay, hold on, babe. Are you into one of your artifacts or something?” She teased, half laughing, not serious about the situation at all, “you’re really committing to your collection, I see.”

The second she saw you not laughing, staring at the ground as if you wanted it to swallow you whole, her tone dropped, “babe, you can’t be serious—wait, seriously? Y/N—”

“I have to go,” you whispered, grabbing your bag tighter as you walked away, ignoring the echoes behind you. 

The cold air outside did little to numb the burn still clinging to your skin. It felt as though your body hadn’t fully left the bedroom, like some part of you was still trapped under the weight of him—those porcelain arms, those parted lips, that impossible stillness that somehow kept watching. The memory of it clung to you as you crossed streets and waited through red lights without seeing them, breath ghosting in front of you with every hurried exhale, and by the time you reached your apartment, you were shaking.

Inside, the silence greeted you first, then the sudden burst of warmth.

Not the artificial kind piped through radiators, something richer, something fuller, as if the space had been lived in while you were gone. You turned your head toward the bedroom and froze.

The glass coffin hadn’t moved—but its contents had. Jungwon lay just as you’d left him, and yet his body was no longer the same, his head was tilted toward the doorway, ever so slightly, lips were still  barely parted, but they appeared softer now, not rigid with ceramic but plush, almost flushed. The light caught on his skin differently—as if it had deepened in tone. No grey undertones, but something dangerously close to human. His chest rose faintly, or maybe you imagined it. Maybe you had to.

You stepped closer before your brain could warn you otherwise. The air felt heavier around him. The scent was no longer just cedarwood and dust but warmer, enough to make you shiver in anticipation. 

Don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.

The voice echoed through your mind, your greed had gotten the better of you, and you didn’t have the slightest clue of the consensus, never having asked the owner about it, her word was final—yet you resorted to disobedience. 

It was hard to figure out where you were meant to be with how often you escaped from places, soon staggering into the Carnival after a silent car ride. It was still there, the rusted iron gates, the music bustling, children laughing. 

You walked fast, passing the clowns with their painted smiles, past the fire breathers, and carousel horses locked in crooked gallops. Your breath came quick and hot now, fogging in the air like you were being hunted.

And then you turned the corner, to where it had been, The Chiller House, gone. 

No dark striped tent, no artefacts, there was nothing, not even footprints. Just untouched snow and a lingering emptiness, a strange dead zone between booths. The kind of space you noticed only because it shouldn’t be empty. 

Only, your wrist burned where the red thread had once been, as if tugging you, as if controlling you. 

As if, you were a marionette. 

Chapter 4: My sacrifice. 

Dim lights surrounded you, black silk draped over your body in an elegant ballroom dress, only, the dress was bunched around your waist as you sighed softly, laid on a long table. 

Your breath came light, dazed. You weren’t bound, but your body refused to move. Not from fear—something else. 

The figure between your thighs moved slowly, Jungwon.

He knelt before you like he was praying. His blonde curls shining in the flicker of dying candlelight, casting a halo around a face too angelic to be real. His eyes met yours once before descending again, gaze dripping down your body like melted gold, like hunger dressed in devotion.

You whimpered as his mouth pressed into your inner thigh like a kiss of worship, porcelain lips gone warm, alive somehow. You didn’t know how you knew it, but you knew, he’d waited to taste you for centuries.

When his tongue finally touched you, you gasped, spine arching off the table in instinct, in need. The room didn’t echo, it swallowed your sound. Your moans melted into velvet as Jungwon held you still.

His hands were delicate but firm, cool at first, then warm, his tongue moved in slow, curling drags, like he was learning you, memorizing you. Every breath against your cunt was a confession. You heard your name whispered into you—not from his mouth, but from your bones.

“Missed you, waited for you all these years, hm—mine,” he mumbled mindlessly, prettier than ever, speaking like a true lover. 

His mouth never stopped, kissing your clit with need, flattening his tongue as if he needed to taste you in order to stay alive, as if you were the oxygen he needed. 

Your body trembled as he groaned into you, eyes rolling back, the familiar feeling of your high coming had you moaning, it was so close, just another flick of his tongue, yet the second his lips touched your cunt, you swore you saw the world collapsing. 

Then, a gasp.

You woke up breathing hard. It was yet another wet dream, however, it felt real, as if you’d lived it before, thighs leaking with your wetness, which had pooled down your cunt. 

Jungwon laid beside you, exactly in the position from last night, after you came home trying to find the chiller house, but to no avail. Pondering upon it didn’t work, which is why you found yourself next to him, telling him about your day as if he’d asked you to. 

As unnatural as it felt, he brought you peace, a sense of belonging, enough for you to forget that he’s a doll, enough for you to fall asleep in his arms, only to dream of him for the second night in a row. 

You looked his way, wondering how his lips looked softer now, hair more tousled than before, lashes longer, nothing seemed artificial anymore. Was your mind playing tricks on you? Or did he truly look more human now, even more so with a tiny drop of moisture on his lips—as if he had tasted you, not in the dream, but reality. 

“Just what—who are you?” You whispered, tracing the curve of his cheek, plush now. 

He was captivating, so utterly beautiful, you found yourself leaning in, pressing your lips upon his in a slow fashion, warmth blooming over again. There was no reciprocation, no movement, just you with your frantic breath as you pulled back. 

You stared at him, eyes tracing every shadow of his face. Something about him had shifted again, not in posture, not in expression—those remained still, but in presence. He no longer felt like an object in the room, but the very gravity of it. The space bent around him. 

You should have been disturbed.

Instead, you reached again, cupping his cheek, thumb brushing the edge of his mouth. The drop of moisture was gone now, but the memory of it ghosted against your fingertip. It was real, you knew it in your bones that something was changing.

The sharp shrill of your phone shattered the moment. You sighed, reaching toward the nightstand, vision blurred by the dissonance between this world and whatever realm you’d been slipping into beside him.

It was an unknown number.

You answered with a whisper, “hello?”

At first, only static crackled through, then a voice—breathless.

“Y/N? I—It’s your fiancé.”

You didn’t speak, your lips had forgotten how, you listened further, ex fiancé you wished to say. 

“There’s been an accident,” he continued, the words heavy in his throat, “It’s Jaemin. He—he crashed his car, it might be serious. you should come.”

You didn’t speak for a few seconds, heart rate rising up, “how?” you asked, voice low.

“They’re not sure,” your father answered. “There was no ice on the road, no other driver, no brake marks at all. It was like the car veered itself off the highway and straight into a barrier.”

Your free hand tightened where it rested on the edge of the mattress. Jungwon remained still, perfect and innocent in his silence, but your eyes locked onto his again—and something in your chest bloomed in dread and awe alike.

He had looked at you differently, earlier. Just before your dream, as if he’d been listening and he understood. 

You ended the call without another word, the phone slipped from your hand to the bed with a dull thud. And then, slowly—almost afraid of your own confirmation—you reach for Jungwon’s hand, sliding your fingers between his.

“Did you—?” You asked, gulping, “this can’t be, maybe I am going crazy,” you whispered to yourself. 

Completely missing the curve of his lips, a ghost of a smile, warm and satisfying. 

Chapter 5: Lock and key. 

Home felt warmer than ever, which was a foreign feeling to you, granted your own heart was cold. However, it was as if some sort of magic had been sprinkled through your penthouse, it was brighter, your fingers twitching each time you neared your bedroom. 

Madness crept in gently. You found yourself smiling at him—Jungwon, speaking to him with tenderness usually reserved for lovers in candle lit portraits, and lord, worse, you meant it. Even the kisses now felt familiar, the kind you give to someone you’ve missed for lifetimes.

So you left. You needed to be out, carrying your emotional support key to fiddle with, mindlessly so, as you found yourself roaming around where your favourite antique store had been, the storefront looked the same as always, stained glass glistening in the sun, the door carved in spirals like vines curling around the door.

After a few minutes of pondering upon which new piece you could get, your eyes landed on a small wooden crest at the very back of a velvet lined shelf. You picked it up without thinking twice, shivering as you felt the same material as that of your comfort key, which rested warmer than ever in your pocket. 

You bought it in silence, not even bothering to ask its origin. Some objects are meant to be answers, not questions, and when you stepped back into the cold daylight, it wasn’t the antique shop you remembered—it was something older. A feeling curling at the base of your spine.

You didn’t go anywhere else, rushing home, boots echoing sharply on marble floors, coat clutched tighter around you, the crest now held to your chest like a relic. The moment your bedroom door opened, Jungwon was there—exactly where you’d left him, laid beautifully among the folds of your sheets, framed by candlelight you didn’t remember lighting.

His gaze, as always, was half lidded and still, but you felt watched, or rather, held in an embrace. You sank beside him, heart too loud in your ears, and slowly, your fingers reached for the key in your pocket. You’d never understood why it meant so much to you—it was always just a key, until now. Until it began to pulse softly against your palm in the presence of the crest.

You brought both items together. The second the base of the key met the carved sun and moon wood, there was a click. The crest opened like a locket, splitting from the middle in a flowerlike spiral.

Inside, there laid a folded page, yellowed with time, edges charred as if it had barely escaped a fire, you lifted it, hands trembling, ignoring the other stuff that laid inside. 

The ink had faded, but not enough to erase the sketch drawn in hurried, desperate strokes, portraying a girl being mourned in black with her eyes closed, standing beside a young man with soft curls and a thread around his wrist. Red. The face of the girl was not clear, but his face was unmistakable even with the faded colours—Jungwon.

His eyes, his mouth, even the angle of his neck. Him, exactly as he lay beside you now—down to the shadows beneath his lashes, the solemn part of his lips.

“No,” you whispered, but the sound barely made it past your throat, “w—what is this?”

There were no dates mentioned, no names, no title. Just a mark at the bottom—a sigil you didn’t recognize, but which made your body shiver. Like it belonged to you.

You wanted to step back, but you couldn’t, you were already on the bed, his body just inches from yours. You clutched the paper against your chest, as if holding it would keep your sanity from slipping. Your heart thundered against his quiet.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Why are you in this? Why—why do I feel like I’ve seen this before?”

You turned to him slowly, eyes watery.

He lay there, serene and unbothered. A holy thing, but something in your throat twisted the longer you looked. You had no words for it—this quiet ache that gripped your lungs and told you, you’ve been here before.

You didn’t think, simply leaning in, arms curling around him, resting your head beneath his chin, pressing your body against his like it would ground you—like it would stop you from breaking in half.

And as you held him, eyes wide in the dark, the sketch burned behind your eyelids, making you shiver, mind so distraught that you barely pay attention to the fingers who curl tighter around your waist. 

Chapter 6: Can I have a dance?

The room pulsed with heat. Not comfort, but the kind that made you ache, you didn’t remember walking here, but your body had arrived, soaked in watery silk. The chamber around you was vast and dark, stone walls veined in tarnished gold, and steam blooming from a bath sunk deep into the earth like a tomb carved for lovers.

And he was there, of fucking course he was.

Jungwon, kneeling between your thighs like a man in prayer, the water swirling around his hips. His curls were wet, clinging to his cheeks, his mouth already at your skin.

You were bare beneath the surface, soaked in warmth, and him. He kissed the inside of your thigh firmly, reverently, like he’d missed the taste of you more than breathing. His lips trailed upward, and when his tongue finally reached your cunt, your spine arched from the stone—as if blessed.

Your hands found the ledge behind you, fingers white knuckled against the carved obsidian. He licked slowly—decadent, like he was savoring something rare and forbidden, tongue curling with memory and need. You moaned, broken and low, your legs spreading wider.

“Still just as sweet,” he murmured, lips brushing your folds, “even after all this time, hm, sweet.”

His fingers dug into your thighs with something feral, and when he began to suck, kissing trailing upwards, making you cry with each flick of his tongue, it almost felt known, and around you, the air changed.

The mist parted just enough for you to see them, mirrored silhouettes lining the perimeter of the bath, placed with hollow eyes. Their mouths sewn shut with red thread.

Your head snapped down—his eyes were on you, dark and endless. And he smiled against your nipple, which rested between his lips, a faint trace of dimple shadowed his face.

“Let me make you remember, my love,” he whispered.

You shattered with a soundless scream, clenching around nothing, body pulsing, the climax burning hot and holy through your veins, as his two digits plunge into your wetness, warm and inviting. 

And then—silence.

You woke in your bed, sweat clinging to your skin, thighs damp, breath caught in your throat, the room was dim still, velvet shadows all around. 

Then you felt it, an arm deliberately curled around your waist. Fingers resting at the base of your ribs, too precise. 

You turned your head the slightest bit, barely breathing now. He lay behind you, not stiff like porcelain should be, but pliant, like flesh that had long since remembered how to mimic life. His cheek brushed your shoulder, his breath, if it was breath, fanned faintly against your nape.

You had goosebumps all over, not sure if the dream caused it, or was it your mind playing tricks on you, about the fact that you felt it in flesh, the doll feeling more humane each passing day. 

He hadn’t moved last night, but now, he held you.

And you realized that you had no memory of falling asleep, only of speaking to him, barely clothed, trembling. Your body had crawled into his presence like it belonged to him—and perhaps, in some unspeakable way, it did. It always ended like this.

You beside him, asleep, getting pulled into a world you were familiar with, only, it felt foreign the second your eyes snap open, each time. 

As if your soul was following a rhythm it had long since known by heart.

Your wrist burned again, you shook it, desperately trying to ground yourself in a way you won’t spiral, hence, picking up your phone, scrolling religiously as it casted a warm glow on your face. The curtains were drawn shut, candlelight flickering near the vanity—your usual nighttime ritual. You hadn’t looked at Jungwon yet, you didn’t want to.

Not because he scared you—but because tonight, he felt too close. You set the phone down for just a second, reaching for the glass of water at your bedside, and it slipped your gasp, hitting the ground screen down. 

Your speaker picked it up, connected automatically, a moment of silence before that sound, however familiar, but still something you’d heard for the first time. 

A slow, waltz inspired ballroom melody. Instrumental, full of violins, the kind of tune that made the air feel like it’s silky, like it belonged to another century entirely, and maybe, just maybe, it did. 

Your head turned slowly to stare at Jungwon, who glowed under the candlelight, complexion no longer cold, rather, he looked soft, flushed even, lips glistening and brows furrowed, staring at you.

You rose to your feet without knowing why, the melody urged you to move forward, each step feeling as though it belonged to someone else—someone older, someone who had walked these halls before in bare feet and silk. Someone who had danced already to this same waltz, in a time before mirrors.

You reached him, hand brushing his cheek, warm—not startling, not artificial for once, just warm enough to make your breath hitch.

“I must be dreaming,” you whispered, for the nth time you believe.

He didn’t answer, of course. But he didn’t need to.

The music only swelled.

You slipped your arms beneath him, your robe falling open slightly at the shoulder. His body pressed into yours, heavier than it looked, and yet you lifted him, pulled him close. Like he weighed nothing at all. Like he belonged to you, like he walked with you so as to not burden you with his weight. 

You carried him—through the corridor, past the mirrors and the antique cross stitched chairs that no one ever sat in, past the glass cases filled with relics of lives not yours. The music followed, blooming louder now, until—you entered the grand living room.

The chandelier loomed above in fractured crystal and dust, casting slow shadows across the room. The fireplace was cold. 

You stepped into the center, socks covering your bare foot as they turned against the polished marbles, his arms limp around you, but his weight tilted with you, as if his body remembered the rhythm. The two of you swayed—left, then right, a half turn, a pretty dance which wasn’t perfect by any means.

However, it was real.

And as you turned again, as the violins drew longer and you felt it, the shift, not in him but in you. 

Like a dream had opened mid movement. Like the edges of time had folded. The chandelier above flickered.

And suddenly, you were not in the penthouse anymore.

You were in a ballroom.

Massive and candlelit. The scent of wax and rosewater heavy in the air. Gilded frames on every wall. A harp playing somewhere far off.

Your dress was full bodied silk, dark and red like overriped cherries, the ones who love so much. You wore gloves, and his hand was firm at your waist.

He was alive, laughing and whispering something into your hair.

“Don’t look away. If you do, we’ll forget again, don’t wanna forget, not yet.” He pressed his soft lips upon the corner of your mouth, smudging the cherry coloured lipstick. 

You gasped, holding onto him tighter, trying to feel the warmth that he radiated, like a human, as if he was never a doll in the first place. 

Pulling him closer, you tried to maintain eye contact, staring right into his big brown eyes, a soft dimple gracing his face, even more so when you leaned in to kiss him, to feel real, as if you belong somewhere. 

That’s when your feet caught on something.

You gasped, letting go and Jungwon’s body dropped from your arms, slow, the way dreams fall when you wake too fast. He collapsed onto the marble, arms spread loosely, curls bouncing once as his head hit the rug.

“Shit—” you dropped to your knees, breath caught in your throat, “oh, fuck! I’m sorry, I—”

You reached to lift him again, but  your hand scraped something sharp, a low gleam of silver caught, his lapel pin—a small thorn, twisted around perfectly. It pierced the pad of your finger with surgical precision. You hissed, watching a single drop of blood rise.

It rose up and whole—down your finger, and before you could stop it, it fell right on his throat, then another, in his eye which still stared into you, now bloody and more real than ever. 

The music stopped right then, just when you were about to take a step towards Jungwon, heart heavier than ever, mind spiralling as if you’d reached a point of madness, no conscience of past, present, or future. 

“Jungwon?” You whispered, the sound barely coming out, not coming from your throat, but rather somewhere that buried deep inside you. 

He didn’t speak, however, his lips were parted, the same mouth that was carved from stillness, now hung slightly open. His chest, once impossibly still, seemed to move, yet you couldn’t be sure, but one thing was clear—something had changed. 

You gasped the second the shrill voice of your phone rang, startling you, grounding you back into the present, violently so. You picked it up with a shaking hand, the blood now drying along your fingers. The name flashing across the screen was one you recognized, your manager. 

“H—hello?” You answered, dizzy. 

The voice came out clipped, “I—I didn’t wish to call like this, I know you don’t wish to be a part of the mess anymore, but Y/N, listen—it’s about your father.”

That cleaved onto you like a blade, your eyes still fixated on the doll, whose eyes seemed to be glowing by now. 

“The press got hold of his old finance records, the funds which were rerouted, laundered, and offshore holdings. Even political donors—Y/N, they’re everywhere, headlines and broadcast stations are looking into it. I don’t think it can be undone, the police took him in.”

Your phone felt heavy in your hand, or maybe your hand had gone numb. The blood had cooled to a tacky smear against your palm.

“You’re safe, stay there, okay? We’re contacting lawyers to help your parents—”

You cut the call, words barely registering at the moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing about the situation felt normal to you, not when you already found yourself spiraling about different things, about Jungwon. 

You tried to breathe, but your lungs weren’t working right. They expanded too quickly, then refused to collapse. Panic gripped your ribs and twisted as your heartbeat slammed, thudded in your ears, in your skull. Your head was too light, your hands too far from your arms.

You couldn’t think about the phone call, about your father, your mother, the lawyers, the broadcasts. None of it belonged here—not anymore.

Not when something unnatural, divine, was happening just a few feet away. Your mouth opened, a gasp, a name—none of it came. You were spiraling, fast, and the ground no longer wanted you.

The moment cracked with your knees giving out. A soft thud echoed through the room as your body fell sideways, limbs collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. The marble floor rushed toward you, but even that felt dreamlike, distant.

Everything was fading, only one thing remained—him.

The last thing you saw, just before your eyes fluttered shut, was a flash of motion—Jungwon, no longer still, no longer cold. He moved with terrifying speed, rising from the floor like he’d always been capable, like he’d only been waiting.

His eyes locked onto yours in panic, and his arms—real arms, reached for you.

You didn’t feel yourself fall, you only felt him catch you, your eyes closing as the last thing you heard was his voice before passing out. 

“Don’t leave—”

And then, silence. 

Chapter 7: You’re the one I was meant to find. 

You were running. The corridor around you was narrow, candlelit, carved from stone older than reason. Your fingers clutched the sides of your gown as your breath tore from your lungs, heart thundering beneath a bodice bound too tight. Your slippers slipped against the marble, the walls rushing past in a blur. Somewhere behind you, voices rose in anger. The violins still played, faint and far off, as if from another room—or another lifetime.

Just then, a hand caught your wrist, black gloved, steady despite the tremble in his grip—Jungwon, dressed in royal robes, eyes brighter than ever, searching for yours in a hurry. 

He only pulled you forward, faster through the passage, your fingers tangled in his. Behind you, the shadows were growing figures. You could hear the clink of armor now, boots striking stone.

A crack of thunder split the sky.

And suddenly you were in the courtyard, barefoot on wet stone, skirts dripping, hair tumbling free as you spun in his arms beneath the moon. The storm raged above, and yet the violins still played. He held you like he was trying to memorize your shape, the way your breath stuttered every time his hand brushed your spine. The music swelled, and you twirled, laughing into his shoulder—but the sound was short lived.

Another crack of lightning hit—way closer now.

Flames flickered behind tall windows. Guards poured from the doors like an army, making you turn, hand still in his, and run toward the stables. Your lungs burned, his name trembled on your lips. The horses reared in panic as you approached, but he steadied them. A look passed between you—a mix of fear and love, and he lifted you onto the saddle, swung up behind.

But the gates never opened.

The trees beyond the wall seemed so close, and yet, arrows flew like black wings from the towers above. One struck his shoulder. His body jerked behind you, warmth spreading across your back. You turned, horrified, clutching him as he slid from the horse with a cry.

And just like that, the ground returned.

You were on your knees, soaked in mud and blood, sobbing as you cradled his body. His fingers still moved, reaching for you. He tried to rise, he tried to speak. But the clang of metal drowned everything.

The guards seized you both.

The next flash came with the howl of wind tearing through tall windows—tattered velvet curtains flailing like wounded wings.

You were in the throne room, your family lined the steps in judgment. Gold and crimson banners hung behind their heads like execution ropes. Your father’s voice boomed as he paced before the assembly, fury twisted into something rehearsed.

“Loyalty cannot be faked. Treason wears many faces, and fraternizing with the enemy will have consequences, no matter if it’s my own flesh, punishment will be given.”

Your mother said nothing. Her hands were folded tightly, white knuckled in her lap, her pearls glittering like tears that refused to fall.

Jungwon knelt at the base of the dais, blood streaking his cheek, lips split, eyes never leaving yours. He looked regal even then—bruised and broken, but unyielding.

“She chose me,” he said, voice low, shaking, “and I would die for that choice again.”

Another crash of thunder—and you were beneath the cathedral rafters, cloaked in shadow, your fingers pressed to his jaw as you kissed him like it was a rebellion in itself. The scent of incense and storm hung between you. Your tears mixed with his.

“If I could be born again,” you whispered, forehead pressed to his, “I’d still choose you, in every life, I would give my love to you, Jungwon.”

A gust of wind tore through the memory.

Suddenly the forest closed around you again, and your blade was drawn—one you hadn’t even realized you were holding. Blood on your hands. The enemy’s blood, or yours. It was all the same now.

They pulled you back. A scream echoed—his, yours, mixed together in the deepest symphony of pain. 

Steel pierced your side, and then it came, the emptiness.

Your knees hit marble, vision swarming. Your body folded in on itself, cradling the wound as though it could be held shut. You couldn’t see him anymore, but you heard his voice breaking in the distance, each word louder than the last, but fainter in your ears, “don’t take her—don’t—please—no! Y/N!”

Your blood pooled like spilled ink across the floor. The music had stopped, you didn’t know when. Then the world began to dim, his name was the last thing in your mouth.

The next memory didn’t come with lightning, but with silence so deep it felt like falling into a crypt. He knelt again—this time in chains, surrounded by your family, their faces cold as marble statues. There was no trial, no last words.

Your father spoke the curse himself, voice like iron.

“Let him live and never forget, let him see her again, and never reach her.”

The thread appeared—red as blood, drawn through his chest, binding his limbs in place. His skin cracked. His breath froze in his lungs. He didn’t scream. Only stared forward, lips parted in horror as his body hardened.

Porcelain, in silence, cursed like a marionette with the strings invisible, a prince entombed in the skin of a doll.

The centuries passed like ash on wind. You vanished from the records of history, reborn again and again, never remembering. He remained, all these years, shelved. Watched over each time, still long forgotten. Until you, until this year.

Until now. 

You woke with a violent gasp, a cough, as if dragged from beneath water that had long since gone still. Your lungs burned as you clawed yourself upright, heartbeat deafening in your ears, skin cold. The room tilted and shadows had changed. The light no longer flickered against porcelain.

There was heat beside you, some weight, and before your mind could catch up, your body reacted. You turned sharply, hands slipping on the edge of the blanket, still in the living room, eyes locking with his, wide and burning.

Jungwon.

No longer the lifeless doll, no longer the mute witness sealed in centuries of stillness. His chest rose with breath, his pupils blown wide, and his hair, once perfectly styled when you first saw him—was tousled now, disheveled like something had been undone from the inside out. His coat lay forgotten on the floor behind him, abandoned in the chaos of resurrection. He looked alive in the worst way—raw, barely contained, beautiful, and terrifying all at once.

You didn’t think, simply twisting away, a broken sound leaving your throat as you scrambled for the edge of the room, running away from what felt like a nightmare, even though your heart beated out of our chest, urging you to go to him instead. 

However, he was faster, hand catching your wrist before you could rise to your feet, grip firm, not enough to hurt, but enough to shake something loose in you. You yelped, shocked by the strength, by the heat of his touch, how real he felt, how utterly he refused to let you go.

“Stop,” his voice boomed, reverberating, still cracked at the edges, “you’re not running. Not again.”

Your breath hitched as you stared at him, trembling under the weight of the moment, the tension stretched tight as piano wire.

His jaw was tight, but his eyes were chaos, wild with something that couldn’t decide whether to be angry or longing. “You looked at me,” he said, his voice gritted with disbelief, love—all of it layered in a single breath, “you saw me again, and now you want to run?”

“I—” the word barely formed, your mouth felt numb, the panic in your chest twisted with something else now, a longing of something long forgotten. 

He leaned closer, still gripping your wrist, still breathing hard. His shirt was half untucked, collar loose, neck flushed, the candlelight flickering at his cheekbones. He looked ruined, and furious, but most of all—desperate for you.

“You died in front of me,” he said, louder now, every syllable laced with venomous heartbreak, “and I lived in silence for centuries, waiting for you. You think I’m going to let you leave me again?”

You tried to wrench your arm free, but he held fast, dragging you a step closer, the distance closing like a door slamming shut.

“Don’t you remember what they did to us?” He spat, voice sharp, “you think you’re scared? I’ve been trapped in silence, in a damn glass coffin, hearing your voice in rooms I couldn’t move in. Do you have any idea what it did to me—watching you pass me by without knowing?”

The room swam around you, every breath felt like thunder in your ribs. He wasn’t calm, nor was he composed. He wasn’t the memory anymore—he was the consequence of all of it, of love twisted by time, of passion turned obsessive by grief.

His hand finally loosened, just slightly, fingers brushing down your wrist, but he didn’t let go.

“Say something,” he breathed out, “say my name.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came as you stared at his blonde messy hair, big yearning eyes, laced with despair, rosy lips, dying to get a taste of you. 

He laughed once, bitter and breathless, dimple showing despite the frustration, teeth gritted, “no one has said my name with love in a hundred years, and I only wanted to hear it from you.”

His grip shifted again, gentler now—but still firm, like if he let go, you’d vanish. His forehead dropped toward yours, not touching, breath warming the space between you, gaze locked in yours like a curse reborn.

“You were mine,” he whispered, “you are mine, do you think anything else matters?”

Your hand moved before your mind did, reaching up to brush the strands of hair from his forehead. He didn’t flinch, he leaned into it like a man starved of touch. Your fingers trembled as they slid down the side of his face, feeling the heat of his skin, the realness of it, the pulse just beneath.

“Jungwon,” you breathed.

The moment you said it, everything changed, his eyes fluttered shut, like the sound alone was enough to break him. His fingers dug back into your waist, holding you with quiet violence, breath stuttering against your cheek.

You didn’t pull away, you simply couldn’t, instead, the words clawed up your throat, bitter, almost angry, “was it you?”

He stilled, lips hovering just beside yours, controlling himself, “what?”

“The stories, t—the leaked accounts, ruined finances. My ex fiancé’s accident,” your voice cracked, but you pushed forward, fury threading through the fog, “did you do that to them?”

He opened his eyes slowly, the look in them wasn’t apologetic by any means, “yes, I wanted to burn every name that ever tried to replace mine,” he said, voice low and shaking, “and I did. I watched him touch you like you were some fragile, pitiful thing to be married off. Like you were his to protect, to claim, as if I hadn’t died screaming your name.”

You should’ve felt sick, perhaps a part of you did, but the other part—the darker, crueler one buried deep in your chest was quiet, pleased.

He was the only one who ever loved you so violently, so completely, that he’d ruin anyone who dared stand where he once stood, even if it was wrong, even when it was madness. 

Your voice dropped to a whisper, “you destroyed them for me.”

“I’d do it again,” he said without blinking, “in less time, with worse consequences.”

Your breath came harder now, lips brushing his,  “you’re insane, you—you’re not real, am I still dreaming?”

“I’ve been waiting over a century. What do you expect me to be, not insane? Not real for you?”

Your hand tightened around the collar of his shirt, fisting it. He exhaled like he was finally allowed to breathe again. His forehead pressed to yours, sweat damp and shaking. The line between hate and hunger blurred like smoke between your mouths.

He looked at you like he was about to kiss you—or devour you, maybe both. 

“You think I give a damn about right and wrong anymore?” He whispered, voice as sweet as you could remember, and lord, now you did remember, even if it made you spiral into madness, you remember now, “they never loved you. Not like I did, not like I still do.”

This time, it was you who moved first. You surged forward, your mouth finding his with a desperation that didn’t feel like yours, but something older, something buried. It wasn’t sweet, rather, it was starving. Teeth clashing, lips bruising, hands scrambling to pull, to grip, to ground yourself in the heat of him.

He groaned into your mouth, and it was deep, guttural, ragged from centuries of holding back. His hands flew to your hips, pulling you into him like proximity could undo time. There was nothing patient in the way he kissed you—just need consuming him altogether, the kind you didn’t walk away from.

“Say it again,” he begged against your lips, not stopping, “say it, my name, say it like you remember.”

“Jungwon,” you breathed, again and again, like a spell, like a lifeline, like you were anchoring him to this world.

Each repetition made him more frantic. His grip on you tightened, his body shuddering under your touch like he was afraid it might fade, your lips parted as he kissed down the side of your jaw, then lower when you whimpered, hot open mouthed kisses all over your neck. 

“I need to feel you, need to know you’re mine again,” he groans against your skin, voice beautiful, “that I’m not fucking dreaming—”

“You’re not,” you breathed out, pulling his face back up to yours, looking him in the eye. “I’m right here.”

He surged forward with something close to a snarl, crashing his mouth to yours with violent purpose, lips swollen and slick as his hands gripped your waist and hauled you into his lap on the silk covered couch like you belonged nowhere else. You straddled him, legs falling around his hips, your chest pressed to his as he devoured your mouth with a hunger you didn’t know a body could carry. It was angry, obsessive—years of silence and watching and grief pouring into every kiss, every clash of teeth, and tongue.

You tried to speak, maybe to say his name again, maybe to tell him you wanted him now—but he didn’t let you.

“I said no more running,” Jungwon grunted against your mouth, voice low and beautifully frayed, “ you’re going to stay right here, on me, just like this.”

His hands traced your back, slow and possessive, until they gripped your ass and grounded your hips down hard against the bulge straining beneath his trousers. You gasped, fingers curling into his shoulders for balance, your cunt rubbing right against him—too much friction, yet not nearly enough.

“Oh god—”

“No,” he groans, breathless, biting down on your shoulder, “not god. Me. Say my name when you’re like this, yeah?”

“Jungwon,” you gasped, your whole body twitching as he rutted up into you again, cock grinding against your bare cunt through the fabric of his pants. “Fuck, Jungwon—”

“That’s it,” he breathed, mouth against your throat, sucking a bruise into your skin as you rocked your hips down on him like instinct. “That’s all I wanted for a hundred fucking years, you, falling apart on top of me.”

He grabbed the backs of your thighs and stood in one swift, jarring motion, lifting you with him. You wrapped around him by reflex—legs clinging to his waist, arms around his neck, body flushed against his chest. The room blurred as he carried you, stumbling back into the bedroom you’d long since abandoned when he was nothing more than porcelain.

You barely had time to think, the chandelier flickered above, casting gold and red across the walls like spilled blood and candlelight. Then the bed hit your back, his weight covering you a second later.

He kissed you again, deep and slow this time, like he was drinking from your mouth. His tongue curled over yours, wet and thick, stealing every breath you had left. Your legs parted for him without thought, and his hips slotted between them, his clothed cock rubbing right against your soaked core as he started to grind again.

“Feel that?” He panted, pressing harder, rutting his hips down in short thrusts that had you moaning into his mouth, “you’re dripping for me, darling, and I haven’t even fucked you yet.”

You whimpered, eyes rolling back at the friction, so raw and filthy it bordered on unbearable.

“You used to do this in secret,” he said, thrusting again, his voice rasping as he rocked into you, “when you thought I couldn’t see, pressing your thighs together, grinding against your pillows, pretending you didn’t want me.”

“I did,” you gasped, “you know I always did.”

He groaned, hips stuttering as you clung tighter to him, “I used to imagine this before we got together—holding you down, just like this, feeling you grind all wet and desperate over me, crying my name.”

You could feel how hard he was through the fabric. He was panting now, moving faster, the rhythm filthy. His cock slid against your clit with every stroke, and it had your thighs trembling, cunt pulsing with the tension coiling in your gut.

“You’re going to cum like this,” he whispered against your lips, like a command, “right here, before I’m even inside you, hm?”

Your hips moved on their own, chasing the friction, chasing him, your breath caught in your throat, “please,” you whimpered, “don’t stop—don’t ever stop.”

He kissed you sloppier now, his teeth catching your lower lip as he groaned into your mouth, sweat slicking your skin.

“Say my name,” he ordered again, fucking up into you harder, grinding your clit perfectly with every motion.

“Jungwon—Jungwon, fuck, I’m gonna—”

“You’re mine,” he groaned, “you hear me? No one else, never again.”

The pressure burst like it was breaking your body, your back arching as you came hard—loud and shaking, your moans swallowed by his mouth. He groaned with you, grinding hard through your climax, his own hips bucking as he rutted with desperate rhythm, chasing his own peak.

“You make me insane,” he gasped against your neck, still grinding, “you don’t even know what you do to me—”

You held him tighter, your body still pulsing, already dizzy again from the aftershocks.

You still hadn’t caught your breath—your body trembled beneath him as he flipped you over on your back, lips swollen from kissing, slickness coating your thighs, but he didn’t give you a moment to recover. His hands were already moving, ruthlessly so, as if he didn’t trust time to wait for him this time.

“Mine,” he muttered, voice ragged, chest rising and falling like he was barely containing himself. “You’ve always been mine.”

Then you heard it, the nasty sound of fabric tearing.

You gasped, hips jolting as his hands flipped your robe up, gripping your soaked panties and tearing them clean in half—fingers curling into the delicate fabric like it had irritated him just by existing between you. The torn scraps fell to the side, forgotten.

“I’ll rip through anything that keeps me from you,” he said, low and fervent, voice thick with heat and hunger. “I don’t care if it’s silk, steel, or fucking centuries.”

His mouth hovered above your core, breath hot, uneven, “I should’ve done this the second you walked back into that house,” he growled, eyes locked between your legs. “Should’ve thrown you down and tasted you until you forgot the name of every man who touched you after me.”

You writhed beneath him, already breathless, your thighs falling open for him like muscle memory, but then he paused, sitting back on his knees and reached up to his collar.

Your chest rose and fell faster at the sight—his fingers moving slowly now, unbuttoning the pristine white shirt clinging to his chest. One button, then another. With every inch of skin revealed, your pulse surged harder—his collarbone, the plane of his chest, each line of him carved like something ancient and holy, divine and terrifying. The candlelight bled gold down his stomach, catching in the cut of his abs, the trail of veins along his arms twitching from restraint.

You watched, dazed at his pure beauty, he looked like a prince raised from the grave—beautiful and damned.

“You look at me like you remember,” he whispered, letting the shirt fall from his shoulders with a smirk, “do you? Does your body know me now, darling?”

You nodded before you could stop yourself, lips parted, “I do. I remember all of it.”

He exhaled hard through his nose, the sound nearly a growl, “then lay back,” he said, crawling between your thighs again, “and let me remind you why no one else ever satisfied you.”

He didn’t waste a second as he was on you, mouth open, tongue wet and greedy, licking through your folds with a growl like he’d gone feral. Your body jolted at the first contact, back arching, thighs trying to close from the intensity—but his hands gripped your knees and forced them open, pushing you wide as he buried his face in you like he was starving.

“Fuck—” you gasped, hand flying to his hair. “Jungwon—”

The sound of his name broke something in him, making him moan, a sound so loud and obscene, right into your cunt, reverberating, tongue curling against your clit, sucking so hard your hips bucked. His hands pressed your thighs flat to the bed, holding you down as he devoured you like a man who’d waited lifetimes to be fed. There was no rhythm, only unadulterated hunger and reverence. His mouth was wet, tongue fast and erratic, fucking into you like he needed it to live.

You mumbled out something incoherent, and he groaned again, louder, mouth sealing over your clit, sucking until your vision blurred, until your voice cracked.

“Jungwon—please—”

“Say it again,” he ordered, teeth brushing the sensitive bundle of nerves, tongue never stopping.

“Jungwon, I swear Jungwon, uh fuck, please—”

He didn’t stop, he couldn’t.

“You belong to me,” he said, licking deep into your entrance. “Even now, even after death. Say it, baby, say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours—” you gasped, near sobbing from the pressure building inside you again. “I’m yours, I’m, oh fuck, Jungwon, I’m gonna, fuck!”

“Cum for me,” he ordered, voice thick with lust and control, “make a mess on my tongue. Let me taste every fucking inch of you.”

That sent you over the edge, you came with a cry so sharp it felt ripped from your chest—your thighs clenching around his head, your hands yanking his hair, hips rocking up as you fell apart. It was too much, way too intense, too long coming.

He moaned into your cunt, licking you through every pulse, every twitch, swallowing down your release like it was holy, and when you finally opened your eyes—he was still between your legs, a dark lopsided grin on his face, attractive, but even more so, scary, as he laid there, still hard. 

Still hungry.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice deep, “but you’re not scared of me anymore, are you?”

You couldn’t speak, only shook your head, throat too raw from moaning. Your wrists still burned faintly, the red thread pulsing under your skin as if it knew something ancient had shifted.

He sat back on his heels, slowly, dragging his palms up your trembling thighs, claiming every inch he touched, he looked mad, in an obsessive way, in a fashion that creepy dolls do, but he was real, and waiting. 

“You came so sweet for me,” he whispered, brushing a finger between your folds, smearing you across your thigh with reverence, “but, baby, it’s not enough, just not nearly enough, hm?”

His hands moved to his belt, and you froze for a second, eyes following every inch he moved. The sound of leather sliding through the loops echoed in the room, his eyes stayed locked to yours the entire time, not blinking once as he tugged the belt loose, then let it fall to the floor with a soft thud.

“You don’t know, baby, you have no idea how many times I’ve imagined this,” he continued, voice cracking, “not just having you like this, but fucking you still half clothed, holding you open while you scream my name into the dark—because you remember me now, and you’re not going anywhere, fuck—I’ve missed this.”

He didn’t take his pants off—not completely. His hands dropped to his belt, the metal buckle clinking open with a quick, practiced tug. The soft hiss of leather sliding through loops reverberated the air. His eyes never left yours, his jaw clenched so tight it trembled, the fury in his body barely caged.

Then the button, the zipper. He shoved his pants down with one hand, just low enough to free himself, his cock springing out, flushed and thick, already leaking, twitching from how long he’d held back.

He fisted the base with one hand, the other still holding your thigh open, “you’re mine,” he said, almost to himself, then louder, “fucking say it.”

“I’m yours,” you breathed, almost choking on the words.

He chuckled, a devilish smirk on his face as he looked at you with dark eyes, “again.”

“I’m yours, Jungwon.”

He groaned, like your voice alone could unravel him, and leaned in, bracing his forearms beside your head. His cock dragged through your slick folds as if he was teasing, catching on your entrance, and he hissed at the feel of you already so wet, so ready.

“I should’ve never let you forget me,” he growled, lining up, “never should’ve waited this long,” he mumbled, “wanted to fuck you right there when you climbed on my lap and cried even when I was a doll, when I fucking lost my mind, you kissed me, baby, you needed me even then.”

You whined as he brought up what you had done, and just as you were distracted, he thrust in without much warning, no build up before, simply a deep, brutal snap of his hips. 

You cried out, head jerking back, back arching off the bed. He was thick, too big for you, and the stretch was unbearable, perfect, like you were being broken in half. His hands clamped around your wrists again, pinning you down with bruising force, and your skin lit up. 

The red thread under your wrists seared like fire, glowing bright, like the curse had been reawakened fully the moment he was inside you.

Jungwon’s breath hitched against your ear, “lord,” he rasped, “you feel that? That’s it, that’s fucking us—”

You whimpered, overwhelmed by the stretch, by the thread, by the way your body clenched around him like it already belonged. Like it had been waiting for this moment through lifetimes.

“I knew it would burn,” he whispered into your throat, hips snapping forward, “I knew it would recognize me the second I was inside you again.”

He thrust again, hips grinding now, like he was savoring every inch of your slick, shuddering cunt.

“And it does, doesn’t it?” he hissed, “your body knows. Even if your heart forgot me—your body never did.”

You sobbed out his name, barely a whisper, and that made him lose what little control he had left. He slammed into you, again and again, hips snapping with violent rhythm, his cock dragging against your walls with every brutal stroke. The bed creaked beneath you, the air around you fogging up in a mist of sex. 

“Fuck—Jungwon, slow—”

“I’ve waited too long for this,” he groaned, “centuries of silence—centuries of emptiness. You think I’m going to take it slow?” 

His lips crashed into yours, devouring your cry, tongue sliding past your lips like he needed to taste everything at once. And still, he kept moving, hips hammering into yours with a punishing rhythm, every thrust sending sparks of pain and pleasure through your entire body.

“Do you feel that?” He gritted against your lips, “the way you squeeze me—fuck, baby, you’re shaking.”

“I can’t, please Jungwon—”

“Yes, you can.” His voice was feral, “you’ll take it, all of me, every fucking inch. You’ll take it because you’re mine.”

His grip shifted—one hand sliding down, hooking under your knee, throwing your leg over his shoulder so he could drive in deeper. The angle made you scream, body arching off the bed, stars flooding your vision as his cock hit the spot that made you unravel.

“Right there?” he chuckled, “that’s the spot. That’s the one that used to make you cry for me in your past life. Remember it?”

You sobbed—half lost, the sensation too much for you to incorporate any new information in mind; and nodded.

He thrust harder, deeper, so much rougher, every movement frantic with obsession, “say it,” he moaned, “say you remember.”

“I remember,” you gasped, “I remember you, Jungwon, I remember everything—”

The noise he made wasn’t humane by any means. It was broken, starved almost. He bent over you, still buried deep, his forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping down between your bodies.

“I’m going to fill you up,” he whispered, “so deep you never forget again. So full you won’t be able to think of anyone but me.”

The red thread pulsed yet again—twisting tighter, glowing like fire at your wrists, along your thighs, down your chest.

“You were made for me,” he breathed, “bound to me. You’ll die with me inside you, if I have to make it happen, and I’ll die with you again, over and over, again.”

He groaned through those words, your moan was louder, vibrating through his skin, squeezing him tighter as your body agreed, you were made for him, and gave him exactly what he wanted, you, falling apart all over his cock. 

The sight was enough for him to lose his control, letting himself go, filling you up, deep and hard, cock pulsing inside your fluttering cunt, as your body convulsed around him once more, milking him through it.

However, he didn’t pull out, didn’t bother moving, stopping. 

His hips rolled again, already hardening inside you. He looked down at you, eyes burning red under the chandelier’s flicker.

“I’m not done.”

Chapter 8: With or Without you. 

The water shimmered with faint steam, delicate curls of warmth rising into the candlelit hush of the room. The tub was enormous—black marble, sunken into the penthouse floor, surrounded by tall gothic windows that looked out over the city like a cathedral watching the living. The only light came from candles, myriads of them, flickering along the ledges, their glow casting long, trembling shadows across the walls. 

You were weightless, finally, your bare body floating gently between Jungwon’s thighs, your back pressed to his chest, your head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped around you, palms resting on your belly, then lower, fingers brushing just above your thighs, as if he couldn’t stop touching you even now, not even here.

The red thread had faded back to a dull, molten line along your wrist, no longer burning, but you could still feel it, tied between your pulse and his.

He was warm behind you, human, finally, irrevocably real.

He kissed the side of your neck, slow and deliberate, his lips dragging up to your jaw, “you’re still shaking, darling,” he murmured, his voice low, intimate, as if speaking louder might wake the rest of the world.

You let your eyes drift shut, “I’m not sure it’s real yet.” You said, scared, abandonment being your worst fear, and now you knew why, you had a reason, carved deep inside you. 

“It is,” he whispered, “I am.”

You felt his hand curl tighter across your stomach, protective, anchoring you in place. He kissed you again, and again, trailing his mouth down the curve of your throat as though trying to memorize every inch of skin, leaning back into his embrace.

“I never want to wake up if this is a dream,” he murmured.

“You won’t,” you said, softly. “Not unless I do too.”

There was silence for a long while—only the water shifting around your bodies, the distant hum of the city beneath the stained glass, soft fluttering in your stomach, and Jungwon’s possessive hold, telling you that it’s real, that no matter what happens, he’ll stay. 

You had no idea how you would explain the addition of a new human into this world, how you’d describe where he came from, but that was the least of your worries now.

You turned in his arms then, straddling him in the deep water, your knees pressed to either side of his hips, your hands finding his shoulders. His hair was damp, pushed back from his face, his cheeks flushed from the heat. There was something about him like this—messy, still a little inhuman. Like the remnants of porcelain had never quite left. His eyes gleamed like something ancient.

“You never stopped loving me,” you whispered, fingertips brushing down his chest.

He shook his head once, slowly, his blonde curls now wet, caressed your skin in the process. “Not once. Not even when you died.”

You leaned in, lips brushing his, but didn’t kiss him just yet, “and all that time, you waited?” You asked, as if you needed confirmation over and over again. 

“I waited, burning all alone,” he said, voice thick, eyes shining with the truth, taking you in with nothing but unadulterated love, “every night, every time someone else touched you in another life. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I just felt it, you moving on. You forgetting.”

You cupped his face, stared into the truth of that devastation, “I never really forgot, not because I wanted to at least.”

“I know,” he breathed, “I felt it. Even before you remembered—your blood called me back, you cried to me, you just didn’t know it yet.”

You finally leaned in, noticing the faint dimples on his cheek as you got closer, eyes holding hearts for you. The kiss wasn’t frantic, not like before. This one was slow, perfectly drawn out, all breath and lips, and silent apology. It was centuries of mourning buried in a kiss, two lovers who had lived and died with that ache carved into their bones.

He sighed into your mouth, letting you take from him as long as you needed. When you finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, eyes closed.

“I won’t let go,” he whispered, “not in this life. Not ever again. I love you so fucking much.”

“You don’t have to,” you breathed, “I’ve loved you, I love you, I’ll love you.”

For the first time, it wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t a punishment, it was real, a promise.

The candlelight caught on the red thread beneath your skin once more, pulsing faintly between you like a heartbeat in unison.

He wrapped his arms around you again, pulling you into his chest as you sank back into the water, your cheek against his collarbone, your limbs tangled under the surface. Outside, the world continued, the time marched on, the city moved.

But in here, in this penthouse above the world, time stood still, he had returned to you. 

And he would never let go.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

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MARIONETTE

PAIRING: doll!jungwon x fem!reader

GENRE/CW: smut, angst, porn with plot, unprotected sex (be safe), mentions of accidents, blood, slight body worship, somnophilia, manhandling, cunnilingus, heavy makeout, heavy dubcon themes, supernatural themes and elements, artefacts collector!reader, usage of nicknames, aftercare, fluff if you squint, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, mentions of jaemin and karina.

WORD COUNT: 16,104 words.

SYNOPSIS: As an antique collector, you had encountered many oddities; splintered relics, cursed heirlooms, objects that whispered in the dark, but never a life sized doll so breathtakingly beautiful, so humane. There was only one rule, to not open its coffin before the onset of New Year, however, temptation is quite a decadent exquisite poison. And now? Something stirs beneath the glass, something that waits for you, dearly so.

WARNING: 18+ content, minors dni.

A/N: hihi loves <3 it’s my first time writing something this this, and to think it was inspired by a dream? gosh, i did work hard on it and i really hope you guys would enjoy it too :3 all likes, comments, reblogs are highly appreciated! it keeps me motivated! iloveyou all and happy reading <33

Chapter 1: The end? Or the lackof. 

Darkness was always your friend, it engulfed your being, the depth of your soul with the warmth even mere humans couldn’t provide, something so utterly beautiful, something you couldn’t see, the quiet, the warmth, the loyalty that cradled you in stillness. 

A stray tear cascaded down from the crevice of your eye, streaming through the curved expanse of your cheek and dripping all over the velvet carpet laid below, the kind that muffled sound, even your sobs. It covered the entire penthouse floor—another purchase made in silence for a place too big for one, a place too big for yourself. 

“Merry Christmas,” you whispered into the window, pressed against the cold surface which seemed baptised with the water droplets forming, courtesy of the snow, which slicked the city in the shade of white, adding another bland vision through your cornea. 

No one answered. The silence pressing you back into the surface as a reminder that you were indeed alone, it was brutal, and worse, familiar. Money brings happiness they said, then where were your parents? Friends? A lover who you so desperately wished to replace the embrace of the darkness to something real, so raw? A heartbeat beside yours.

You turned around slowly, eyes grazing over the meticulously arranged space, the walls lined in rich charcoal silk, the carved moldings of the ceiling dipped in antique gold, each piece of furniture either vintage or custom made to tailor your taste. A museum, people say when they visit. A mausoleum, you thought.

You were most likely the only exhibit that still lived.

Passing through the hall, you stopped just to see the picture frame standing tall on the marble table. The photo of your family—if it could even be called that. A frame that hadn’t moved in the past year since you came here, like the people in it. Your mother’s tinted red lips were parted in a laugh far too wide to be genuine, your father’s hand resting too heavy on your shoulder. All of you dressed in black tie for a gala you didn’t remember, smiling for an audience that didn’t care.

You turned again, towards what you claimed to be the heart of your home, if it could be called that. Each step was muted by the velvet of the carpet, your movement turning into an illusion of some dream as your fingers mindlessly caressed the artefact you always carried with you—an ancient key, so elegantly engraved, yet it opened nothing you owned. 

To your left, the antique room sat sealed behind tall French doors.

You didn’t go in, you couldn’t, not tonight.

Your obsessions slumbered there peacefully, a wooden crucifix with a bloody split down its middle, a weeping angel bust with glass eyes, an 18th century mourning veil still faintly smelling of rosewater and rotten flesh. 

It was a collection of grief, the kind of grief people celebrated, framed in golden wrapped silk. Each product was valuable, as if the burden in them could be traded for money. 

Your feet didn’t stop there, not until you were standing in front of the big wooden door with the serpentine handle, your thick black coat hanging on the rack, almost like a relic—so dark and finely woven in Italy. You draped it over your shoulders, slipping your gloves on with no destination in mind. 

But something in the air had switched from the very second the frost teardrop splattered down to the carpet, it was as if someone breathed down on your neck, like a whisper from within the walls. 

You found yourself stepping out, into the elevator, down the echoing lobby, well decorated in shades of green and red, a few children bubbled with excitement with wrapped boxes in their arms.

“Where to, Miss?” your driver asked.

You hesitated, gulping down your emotions. The city was still wrapped in snowfall, painted in black and white till the bone. Every possible location—gallery, restaurant, hotel lounge—felt as hollow as the apartment you had just left, despite being so full of life, so full of humans. 

“I don’t know, just drive—somewhere,” you murmured to the suited man with greying hair.

And so he did, seamlessly guiding you through the colour flashes outside of the window, a celebration you couldn’t quite grasp, something so fulfilling for others yet an empty vessel for you, glass fogging up per second as you found yourself delving deeper into the heart of the city. 

You almost didn’t notice the sharp turn as the car veered into a slow stop, right over the cobblestone, near the entrance of a rusty iron gate that was wide opened, the appearance of the gate juxtaposing the liveliness inside the grounds. 

A carnival.

It was blooming up the grass like a childhood nightmare to you, grown not from joy but from something older, more terrible—decay dressed in ribbons, nostalgia strung with nooses, with the flashback of your parents abandoning you in the middle of the crowd, with a pathetic excuse of work calling. 

The lights flickered like fake stars, too yellow, radiating warmth, casting the ground in a sickly kind of glow. Music reverberated through the cold air—violins detuned, a carousel melody slowed to a dirge. You stepped out of the car with a hand to the frame, your gloved fingers pausing as you caught sight of your own reflection in the passenger window, eyes empty, dried lips, your face floating behind the few stray hairs that made their way upfront. You looked like someone who attended a funeral, which seemed fitting.

No one should have been here out this late, the clock nearing midnight, yet the place was full. Crowds of people passed by, too smooth for your vision for them to seem humane. Children laughed, but the sound was wrong—too jolly, too bright. Balloons hung from the strings, glossy and silent. The scent in the air was thick—caramel, popcorn, and smoke curling together like a spell brewing.

Your feet moved without any motive, their own consciousness dragging you through the murmurs of the crowd, above the snow clad cobblestone as the place unfurled around you in shades of red and gold. Joker masked men took over the place, entertaining and guarding each shop. 

Without notice, a girl with doll like features handed you a candied apple, the red dripping down the ground in a way that made you feel sick. With a tap, you paid for it before offering it to a kid who looked hungry. 

You walked past it all, as if on a mission you weren’t aware of, the mist guiding you through, near the alleyway behind the giant wheel which hadn’t stopped moving all night. 

Then you saw it. A tent. It was the only place draped with black, and roped with red stripes. It didn’t have any signs, just tarot cards hung around, adorning the place. 

It wasn’t a beckoning, just a feeling—a feeling that someone was calling out your name. 

You paused outside the tent, the velvet flaps gently shifting though there was no wind. A low warmth bled from within, curling at your covered ankles like a blissed sigh.

Without thinking twice, you ducked inside the tent, the air thickening as if you had entered another realm altogether. The scent of something ancient, even darker than your antique art room, a pretence of divine divination. 

Under the red candlelight, against the dark walls, you met with a woman, skin as if a dark parchment, hair as if silver threads, luring you right in as her gaze met yours. 

“You’ve taken your time, we’ve been waiting,” she said, hands kept on table, her voice stoic, no anger, no sweetness. 

“We?” You asked in a whisper, confusion taking over your face. 

She didn’t answer as the candlelight flickered above your head as you sat down on the wooden chair, which creaked with each movement. 

The table between you was covered in black cloth worn out from decades—no, centuries, so out of touch. Golden thread formed a circle at its center, symbols stitched in curling foreign shapes, as if it was a cult. Atop it rested a deck of tarot cards, the edges frayed, the backs patterned in thorned roses.

The woman’s fingers moved, almost inhumane with how fast she shuffled the deck, portraying something simply inevitable.

Within a second, you had three cards laid in front of you, pressed face down, before she turned the first one over. 

“The past.” She murmured. 

The card read out Death in big, bold letters. 

A shiver travelled down your spine as your eyes assessed the figure of a skeleton, adorned with roses, seemingly half alive, but at what cost?

Her voice dropped an octave, “you’ve mourned things that are still breathing. But death doesn’t care about the soul ascending to hell or heaven, does it?”

Your lips parted in hopes of finding an answer, but she spoke nothing short of truth. Your parents? Alive but dead to you. Your friends? Barely one caring for anything other than your money. No existence of love, a true one at least. A dull ache curled in your chest with the card being taken back. 

Not even a second later, the second card was being turned around to reveal Collector. 

A massive figure seated on an antique throne adorned with jewels from top to legs, background filled with broken doll heads, and clocks of shapes you didn’t even know the names of. 

It was clear, the words echoing present through and through, your nails digging into your skin with the accuracy and abnormality of the given situation. 

“Collecting pieces long forgotten? Safekeeping them, when in reality no one intends to return to them.”

You felt as if the words were being carved into your bones, “you were made to be adored, but you’re caged in cruelty now.” She continued, “abandonment that leaves you searching for empty pieces.”

You were parched, each word acting like a truck of truth, hitting you over and over again, and it was only a second of silence as the last card was being flipped, as if awakening someone, something, into existence. 

A doll. That’s what the third and the last tarot card said, the image on it striking something primal in you; especially when you laid your eyes on the white porcelain doll, way too delicate for this world, carved into perfection of some sort, clad in a dark suit. He was perfect. Cheekbones high and blushed, lips blood red, glowing, and eyes? Closed in peace, in wait. You tore your eyes from the card the second you felt something burning on your wrist. 

A red thread, something you hadn’t worn before entering the stall, something that resembled exactly the threat around the doll’s wrist. It wasn’t silk, or cotton, it was something old, almost like a crimson fibre. 

The women didn’t blink, didn’t show any hint of emotions this time, “you’ve been chosen.”

You breathed out, waiting for her to elaborate. 

“He’s been waiting, he didn’t summon you, he chose you. It was when you were ten, in this life, he fell in innocent love all over again, the same place, the carnival.”

Her eyes weren’t moving, goosebumps rose up your skin at the mention of the carnival, the same carival which you visited with your parents, the same, which taught you abandonment years ago, the place you were at right now. 

“Who’s he?” You croaked out. 

“He saw you entering, the innocence long gone, now he craves, he desires your love.”

Your heart thumped out of your chest at the mere mention, the slight possibility of someone wanting you. 

“Where’s he?” You asked before you could control yourself, the words, the mannerism almost foreign to you. 

The women’s lip twitched up for the first time, the darkness highlighting the curve, before she snapped her fingers, making everything go dark as you stood up, stumbling back with a gasp, and right out of the tent. 

It was snowing again, the bustle of the crowd, the cheers of the children. The world was bright again, even in the darkness, but you were hollow, the thread burning around your wrist every passing second, as if in a rush to convey a message. 

You weaved through the crowd, past fire breathers and jugglers, past children squealing over marionettes—you yourself felt like one as past a the thread pulled eastward, toward the quieter edge of the carnival. You didn’t ask questions anymore. You just followed.

It didn’t feel real, just a dream with no end. And then, you saw it—tucked between two towering, crumbling buildings was a narrow, glassed storefront you hadn’t noticed before. You would have missed it entirely if not for the thread tightening against your skin, humming now with warmth. A wooden sign hung above the door, painted in fading gold. 

The Chiller House: Antiques and souvenirs. 

The windows were clouded, frosted even from the inside, yet you could faintly make out the silhouettes of laces, dolls, relics you couldn’t identify. The floral vines covered the sign which sat atop the door. 

Binded with love, caged with obsession. 

You stared at the sign, heart knocking against your ribs. You had a soft spot for antiques—always had. Things that had lived lives before you. The scent of old paper and polished wood. The way broken toys still smiled, even your room back home looked more like a museum than a bedroom. The past always felt warmer than the present, safer, even when it wasn’t.

A brass bell chimed in peace as you stepped inside, it was like a time capsule bound together. Display cases brimmed with forgotten artifacts—cracked porcelain faces, jewelled gloves, pressed flower letters that looked like they’d crumble at the slightest touch. The scent of cedarwood and dried rose petals filled the air, however, the room wasn’t musty, it was preserved. 

You twirled around the empty store, feeling alive for the first time in months, staring at your reflection in an ornate vanity mirror, before stepping behind the curtain, into a room which was dim, but not enough to hide him. 

A single glass coffin in the corner of the room, as if meant to be hidden from the world. Lit from below by a single, flickering bulb, the coffin glowed like an altar. And within it—he looked too perfect to be real. A life sized porcelain doll, mouth barely parted as if sighing in sleep. His skin was smooth, pale with a bloom of warmth on the cheeks, and his lips painted a colour of warm red. 

Blonde curls falling over his forehead, his suit was tailored in black, lapels stitched with gentle thorns, the collar closed neatly with a thin crimson ribbon. A matching red thread circled his porcelain wrist—identical to the one still burning on your own. 

He was so delicate, exquisite personified, crafted so meticulously, it almost felt like a sin to be staring at him. You didn’t realize you were moving till your palm rested on the fogged glass. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a voice called out, jolting you out of your trance. 

You turned around quickly to see the shopkeeper—a woman older than time itself, dressed in a black shawl with hazel eyes that gleamed like a summer storm. She didn’t sound angry, but tired. Like she’d been here before, like she’d seen this play out before. 

“I—why? Isn’t he for sale?” You asked. 

“He’s not for sale.”

“But why? This is a shop and he’s a doll,” you asked again, desperate to understand. 

Her gaze didn’t falter, “he’s not just a doll, and this isn’t just a shop.”

Today has been confusing, but this? It was way par your usual understanding. Not a doll? Not just a shop? It was as if you were bleeding into the thin crack between dream and reality. 

“I want him,” you repeated like a broken record. 

Her eyes flickered down to your wrist in a scowl, before she gasped, demeanor doing a one eighty, “I see, so it’s happened.”

“What has?”

She didn’t answer, walking past you to the coffin, brushing the gold plated oval, depriving it of the dust that had settled there over the time. 

Jungwon—the engraved text read out, a name as pretty as the face. 

“I’ll pay anything,” you declared, as if he would cease to exist if you don’t get him, if you don’t keep him preserved with you. 

“Anything,” she echoed, “everything,” she confirmed.

You stared at her, wondering if this was yet another tactic used to get a higher price for a certain possession, to quantify the amount of desperation one can behold. 

Still, she didn’t answer you directly. Instead, she moved around the coffin, unlatching locks you hadn’t even noticed until now—iron clasps, rusted, something that creaked with each movement. Not the lid, never the lid, just the base. Preparing it for transport.

“You’ll take the whole thing,” she started, as if telling you the rules. “Don’t try to lift the glass. Don’t remove the thread. And no matter how much you want to—don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.”

“How much?” you asked, breath catching in your throat with newfound warmth blooming up your chest. 

She paused her slow movements, scribbling a figure on a torn piece of parchment and handed it to you. Her fingers were cold and dry, like paper itself.

The number was beyond the point of absurdity, a cost that screamed sacrifice, not currency. More than what a doll should be worth, if it was just a doll that is. 

You got your card out without a second thought. It was all you had, a price you got for having the ever so absent parents. She nodded, as if she expected you to say yes regardless of the circumstances. 

“Handle with care, he’s—he’s more fragile than he appears to be,” she murmured, “alas, don’t forget the rules.”

You nodded, fingertips quick to call, informing your driver to pick up the coffin, the brass bell chiming as you stepped out of the Chiller House. Your eyes followed him, throughout the journey. 

All while not knowing that your red thread had disappeared. 

Chapter 2: In the name of love. 

The glass clinked under the brightness of the chandelier, a voice that reminded you much of cages. 

Especially here, at the HYBE Plaza, where every corner shimmered with the festive celebration of New Year’s eve. And yet, not a single thing about this night felt new.

You sat at the long table draped in glitter, surrounded by people who wore their smiles like fake masks. Your parents sat two seats away, laughing for appearances, eyes always glancing sideways. Your fiancé, Jaemin, their choice, sat beside you with a hand on your chair, a smirk evident on his face, the usual routine for him. 

“You barely spoke a word tonight,” he accused, “this night is important.”

“To whom?” You stared into space, fingers playing with the red threads of the table cloth. 

He sighed, a vein popping out with the anger he couldn’t control, “to your family—to my family, to me.”

“The contracts, you mean? The exchange of money for souls, ah? Is that what I was raised for?”

Your fiancé shifted uncomfortably beside you, but his grip on your chair only tightened as he leaned in, teeth clenched. “Don’t do this here.”

“Where should I do it then?” you asked, still not looking at him, “at the altar? In bed? Over brunch with our mothers while they plan the next generation of heirs to ruin?”

He inhaled sharply. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“No,” you replied, turning your head at last, eyes sharp, the chandelier above caught in your eyes like fractured glass. “I’m being honest. You should try it sometime.”

“Sweetheart, maybe you need a breather, want me to walk to the balcony with you?” Your mum breathed out in her sugar dipped voice, almost embarrassed at the way you clearly worded what they’ve been doing all this while. 

“Where was this sentiment when it was my birthday, mother? Perhaps you were too busy to remember? Right, father?” You said, eyeing both, who looked rather embarrassed at your outburst, almost piercing them with the serum of truth. 

Truth that you were their daughter, a human, not an investment or doll, by any means—something that they’d been overlooking all this while.

You didn’t wait for a reply. 

The chair’s legs scraped against the marble like a declaration, loud enough to silence the violins. A hush rippled through the room. Your mum’s painted smile flickered, your father’s eyes narrowed with the slow cruelty of a man too long accustomed to control, however, you kept walking.

When the elevator doors slid shut behind you, the last thing you saw was your mother clutching her pearls, tears glistening her eyes, as if she finally realized a tinge of the hurt she’s caused you, but not a way to make it better. 

Winter had returned to the city like a storm—snow falling not gently, but rather, in solemn sheets. The chauffeur said nothing as he opened the car door. He didn’t dare, not when you looked stoic. 

All you remembered from the car ride was the flashes of colours, the scenery collapsing into an abstract piece too bright for your taste. The lift carried you into warmth in utter silence, juxtaposing the kids in the lobby, way too enthusiastic to celebrate new year. 

The penthouse greeted you with the familiar hush of years long curated wealth. It smelled faintly of roses and marble, of nothing real. The chandeliers stayed lit, as if unaware the girl who lived beneath them had shattered hours ago.

You walked in without removing your heels, only leaving them midway on the velvet of the carpet as your legs started to wobble, as if uncertain if you should be standing anymore or not. 

By the time you reached the bathroom, your fingers could barely unhook the back of your gown. Your body trembled from exhaustion, you peeled the dress off your skin as if it were a second one—a shell of who they wanted you to be, and let it fall in a puddle on the heated tiles.

The water scalded your skin, but you didn’t move, you stood beneath the stream like something carved from grief, arms hanging limp at your sides, head bowed. The steam curled around your body, trying to hold you together, but nothing could. Not tonight.

Your sobs were quiet—choked, too exhausted to echo in the grand bathroom. They slipped past your lips like secrets, buried in the hiss of falling water. You sank slowly to the floor, knees folding, cheek pressed to the cold marble. You stayed there until your fingers numbed and wrinkled.

Eventually, you rose, wrapping yourself in a robe, barely bothering to dry your hair, and stepped into the dim corridor, the lights flickering faintly above. The silence of the penthouse felt sharper now—closer. The velvet underfoot muted your steps as you passed gilded mirrors and untouched heirlooms.

Wrapped in a white robe, you drifted down the corridor, dripping steadily down your spine, leaving a trail of water. The chandelier above the foyer flickered gently behind you, casting your shadow down the hallway like a second self.

You opened the bedroom door, the air inside was chilled from neglect, the heavy curtains still drawn shut from earlier that morning. The only light came from the candle you must have forgotten to snuff—its flame dancing beside the mirror, golden and low.

And in the corner of your room, against the rich velvet of the carpet, rested the glass coffin, the one you had brought home, the one that hadn’t left your mind since.

You walked toward it slowly, your bare feet cold now, trembling slightly as you approached. Your wrist burned as you knelt beside the coffin. Your hands found the smooth edge of the glass lid, fingers hesitating, remembering the warning from earlier, what the shop owner said. 

Don’t open it before the onset of the new year.

It wasn’t new year yet, you were five minutes short of time, of patience. 

What would even happen? It’s just a doll, a pretty piece of porcelain, something you pondered about for the next four minutes. 

Your fingers curled tighter around the latch, “I can’t wait,” you mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

With that, you unlatched the coffin door, and as you did, the sharp corner of the coffin caught your hand, causing a sudden, precise sting.

You flinched, hissing softly, watching as a bead of blood gathered at your fingertip—round and dark, like ink waiting to stain something sacred.

Before you could think, it slipped, fell down, right onto his slightly parted lips.

The moment it touched him—the first firework exploded beyond the window, a bloom of sound and colour cracking through the silence. The sky lit up in gold, and then another, and another—an orchestra of celebration for a world that had nothing to do with the one unfolding here, the celebration of new year beyond your room. 

When you looked back, the blood was gone, disappeared. You wondered if he had a crack, a hairline in his mouth, letting the blood seep through, or it actually disappeared. 

Your hand reached beneath him, slow, cradling him once more—arms beneath his back and knees, lifting him gently from the coffin. The robe slipped further down your shoulder, forgotten. His weight pressed into you softly, the fabric of his suit warm against your chest as you carried him across the room, he was heavy, heavier than any porcelain should have been. 

The fireworks continued behind the curtains, echoing against the window panes like distant thunder. But inside your bedroom, it was just you. Just him.

You laid him down on the bed, carefully—pillowing his head, smoothing the lapels of his suit, brushing your trembling fingers once across his cheek as if to confirm he was still there.

Then you joined him, sprawling over the silk sheets, eyes blank as they stared into the plaster of paris perfectly sculpted into the ceiling. 

Your hand reached out blindly until your fingers brushed his, cold and delicate beneath the satin glove. You held it like it might tether you to something real. 

“I don’t know how to be normal anymore,” you whispered into the dark, voice hoarse from crying. “I’m always pretending, every fucking room I enter, every dress I wear—it’s like a costume. A fucking mask, and no one ever sees what’s underneath. I’m not even sure I do.”

You turned your head, breath catching as your eyes landed on him. He didn’t look human, he looked like an angel. 

Lips parted the faintest bit, lashes long and still, his face peaceful in the way the world never allowed you to be. You watched him, tears welling again, cascading silently down your cheek.

“I’m so tired, I only see red, no blacks and whites.” You sighed, as if curving into the madness of what the world put you up with, “you’re beautiful,” you mumbled, fingers tracing the outline of his lapel, the thorn-stitched embroidery catching against your nails. The silk beneath was soft, too soft—like skin meant to be kissed.

“It must be nice, being a doll, a real one with no feelings, just plush beauty, and stillness,” you whispered, his eyes shining with an understanding, a glint that shouldn’t be seen in the non living creatures. 

It wasn’t just grief now—it was like vertigo. That hollow, high feeling that came when you’d fallen too far and realized there was nothing left to crash into? You’d hit the bottom. The absolute, ridiculous bottom. And here you were—wanting to kiss a fucking doll.

You crawled toward him slowly, silk dragging behind your thighs, breath hitching. Every inch you moved across the mattress felt like a climb up the hill, a ritual of some sort, of great importance.

Your knees slid to either side of his hips. You climbed on top of him like sin climbs onto innocence, soft and slow, an angel falling .

You shouldn’t be doing this, you knew that, and still, you sighed into relief as you cupped his face between trembling palms, his skin was porcelain, yet it wasn’t cold.

It had taken on warmth—not humane, but something subtler, as the sun shone warmly on the sealine, almost a personification of liveliness of a peculiar sort. 

You leaned down slowly, your breath catching in your throat. You didn’t realize how hard your heart was beating until you were so close to him you could hear the soft rasp of your own blood roaring behind your ears. 

“Everyone hates me,” you whispered, your voice inhumane, lacking warmth. 

Your finger traced the curve of his reddish porcelain cheek, perfect, “gosh—would you hate me too?” You asked like a child talking to a wall, expecting no answers in return. 

He only listened, attentive and polite, brown eyes staring into yours like an emotional support anchor, “I’m insane, I’m so insane, I,” you breathed out, chest heaving up with your face tilting in a fashion that if you’d bend down a smidge, you’d touch him, “keep me safe, even if it’s for a night.”

With a sharp intake of breath, you slotted your lips onto his, the act purely devastating, trembling against the solid, unmoving porcelain, clinging onto a kiss that gave you nothing physical in return, just pure warmth blooming in your chest.

Your lips parted over his, opening wider, messier—tongue barely brushing his, knowing there was no true warmth to meet it but needing it anyway, making you whimper and push down into his lap. The silence scorched you, it bloomed in your chest like fevered devotion.

The kiss turned wetter, more obscene, your hips rolling over his waist as your tears began to fall—again. You gasped through them, mouth open against his, panting.

“I just wanted someone to want me,” you sobbed, forehead resting against his, “is that so wrong? Is that so—fucking wrong?”

Your bathrobe had fallen open completely by now, the fabric slipping off your shoulders like silk cloth, exposing your bare chest to the cold, to him. You didn’t care, you wanted him to see. You wanted to press every part of your ruined body to the hollow sculpture of his form and pretend it meant something. Your thighs clenched around his tiny waist, your hands fisted in his jacket, still kissing him like a girl who believed enough could bring back the dead.

There, atop a doll who could not hold you back, half-naked, tear-streaked, heartbeat trembling like a loose violin string—you finally slept, not peacefully, but possessively.

And watched. 

He always did. 

Chapter 3: I see your heart is pure. 

Fingers trailed down your chest, not cold, not glass smooth.

It was flesh, real human touch. 

You inhaled sharply, the sound catching somewhere between your ribs and throat. Your breath hitched again as one fingertip circled your tits—tentative, like he was trying to remember it. The pad of a thumb brushed over your nipple, coaxing a shiver so deep it left your spine tingling.

You opened your eyes, the room was cloaked in shadows and gold. Velvet curtains half drawn, a single candle burning, but you didn’t question the shift. You didn’t ask where you were or what time it was, because he was there.

Jungwon.

Seated beneath you on the mattress, half clothed in his black suit, his blonde hair tousled like he’d just woken from the same need that drenched your body. His brown eyes were wide and almost fevered, pupils dilated as if he was starving.

His hands slid down the curve of your body, making you gasp quietly as they touched your bare skin, your robe had fallen open long ago, exposing you to him, thighs spread without any shame, not here. 

“Jungwon,” you breathed, unsure if it was a plea or shock. 

He looked up from where he sat between your legs, lips parted, gaze locked onto your core like he was watching something beautiful unravel. 

“You’re soft,” he whispered.

His voice sounded carved from candle smoke and shadow. Soft, velvet lined in some way. It felt like it was coming from inside you, like something whispered to your soul rather than your ears.

You parted your lips to respond, but your words didn’t come as he bent down, mouth ghosting the inside of your thigh, not touching where you needed him but still close, so close. 

A low whimper was all you managed to let out, making the pretty man smirk, a gentle dimple gracing his innocent face, that didn’t harbour a single innocent thought inside of him. 

He licked once, just beside your cunt, not quite there. A warm, wet trail that made your body twitch.

“Please,” you whispered, fingers threading into his hair, tugging gently.

His mouth was so close you could feel it—not just heat, but presence. As though the very idea of him had weight. His lips hovered just above your cunt, parted, exhaling breath that couldn’t possibly exist. He didn’t move—just stared up at you with that hollow devotion, like your worship was the only thing he’d ever known. 

You moaned, soft and broken, hips lifting instinctively. His lips barely brushed you, just a flicker—when suddenly the entire world fell out from under you.

You jolted awake with a harsh breath. 

It was a dream. 

The second you tried to sit up—you gasped, to be pulled back gently by the weight of a hand around your waist. Not accidental, not your imagination. It was real.

You felt a shiver going down your spine. His arm draped around you even though you hadn’t moved him by any means. It was the same doll who once lived in a glass coffin, now lying behind you, cradling your body like a lover who refused to let go. His fingers splayed just below your ribs, unmoving but perfectly placed, as if sculpted for the sole purpose of holding you through the night.

Slowly, you guided his hand away, his arm dropping without resistance, gently settling beside him on the sheets, lifeless, as if nothing had ever happened.

But it had, you knew it had.

Your legs wobbled as you stood. The room felt colder now, like whatever warmth had been there with you had sunk back into porcelain. Into silence. You didn’t dare look at him as you crossed the room, bathrobe clinging to your body with sweat and shame, thighs still aching with want. 

Your skin was glowing in the reflection you saw of yourself, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, before you stepped into the shower, getting ready for your godforsaken uni. 

By the time you got to campus, the city had woken up but barely breathed, snow melted in streaks across the pavement, students milled about like ghosts of themselves, laughter thin. 

You met your friend near the steps—Karina, too bright for this weather, a paper cup of coffee steaming between her hands.

“You came to class on a bank holiday?” She asked, raising a brow, “should I be worried that you’ve final-fucking-ly lost your last marble?”

You smiled thinly, “I just needed to be somewhere—uh, not alone.”

She nudged your shoulder gently, knowing about your family problems, “rough night?”

You swallowed, not maintaining eye contact for once, “is it weird,” you began, voice low, “to want something that’s not, uhm, human?”

She stared at you, caught off guard, “what? Like a celebrity crush weird or maybe a serial killer weird?”

You didn’t laugh, not when you felt this way.

“I mean actually—feel something for it,” you clarified, “something not alive. Something you know isn’t real but—”

You cut yourself off before the words but it touched me could fall out.

Karina tilted her head, “okay, hold on, babe. Are you into one of your artifacts or something?” She teased, half laughing, not serious about the situation at all, “you’re really committing to your collection, I see.”

The second she saw you not laughing, staring at the ground as if you wanted it to swallow you whole, her tone dropped, “babe, you can’t be serious—wait, seriously? Y/N—”

“I have to go,” you whispered, grabbing your bag tighter as you walked away, ignoring the echoes behind you. 

The cold air outside did little to numb the burn still clinging to your skin. It felt as though your body hadn’t fully left the bedroom, like some part of you was still trapped under the weight of him—those porcelain arms, those parted lips, that impossible stillness that somehow kept watching. The memory of it clung to you as you crossed streets and waited through red lights without seeing them, breath ghosting in front of you with every hurried exhale, and by the time you reached your apartment, you were shaking.

Inside, the silence greeted you first, then the sudden burst of warmth.

Not the artificial kind piped through radiators, something richer, something fuller, as if the space had been lived in while you were gone. You turned your head toward the bedroom and froze.

The glass coffin hadn’t moved—but its contents had. Jungwon lay just as you’d left him, and yet his body was no longer the same, his head was tilted toward the doorway, ever so slightly, lips were still  barely parted, but they appeared softer now, not rigid with ceramic but plush, almost flushed. The light caught on his skin differently—as if it had deepened in tone. No grey undertones, but something dangerously close to human. His chest rose faintly, or maybe you imagined it. Maybe you had to.

You stepped closer before your brain could warn you otherwise. The air felt heavier around him. The scent was no longer just cedarwood and dust but warmer, enough to make you shiver in anticipation. 

Don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.

The voice echoed through your mind, your greed had gotten the better of you, and you didn’t have the slightest clue of the consensus, never having asked the owner about it, her word was final—yet you resorted to disobedience. 

It was hard to figure out where you were meant to be with how often you escaped from places, soon staggering into the Carnival after a silent car ride. It was still there, the rusted iron gates, the music bustling, children laughing. 

You walked fast, passing the clowns with their painted smiles, past the fire breathers, and carousel horses locked in crooked gallops. Your breath came quick and hot now, fogging in the air like you were being hunted.

And then you turned the corner, to where it had been, The Chiller House, gone. 

No dark striped tent, no artefacts, there was nothing, not even footprints. Just untouched snow and a lingering emptiness, a strange dead zone between booths. The kind of space you noticed only because it shouldn’t be empty. 

Only, your wrist burned where the red thread had once been, as if tugging you, as if controlling you. 

As if, you were a marionette. 

Chapter 4: My sacrifice. 

Dim lights surrounded you, black silk draped over your body in an elegant ballroom dress, only, the dress was bunched around your waist as you sighed softly, laid on a long table. 

Your breath came light, dazed. You weren’t bound, but your body refused to move. Not from fear—something else. 

The figure between your thighs moved slowly, Jungwon.

He knelt before you like he was praying. His blonde curls shining in the flicker of dying candlelight, casting a halo around a face too angelic to be real. His eyes met yours once before descending again, gaze dripping down your body like melted gold, like hunger dressed in devotion.

You whimpered as his mouth pressed into your inner thigh like a kiss of worship, porcelain lips gone warm, alive somehow. You didn’t know how you knew it, but you knew, he’d waited to taste you for centuries.

When his tongue finally touched you, you gasped, spine arching off the table in instinct, in need. The room didn’t echo, it swallowed your sound. Your moans melted into velvet as Jungwon held you still.

His hands were delicate but firm, cool at first, then warm, his tongue moved in slow, curling drags, like he was learning you, memorizing you. Every breath against your cunt was a confession. You heard your name whispered into you—not from his mouth, but from your bones.

“Missed you, waited for you all these years, hm—mine,” he mumbled mindlessly, prettier than ever, speaking like a true lover. 

His mouth never stopped, kissing your clit with need, flattening his tongue as if he needed to taste you in order to stay alive, as if you were the oxygen he needed. 

Your body trembled as he groaned into you, eyes rolling back, the familiar feeling of your high coming had you moaning, it was so close, just another flick of his tongue, yet the second his lips touched your cunt, you swore you saw the world collapsing. 

Then, a gasp.

You woke up breathing hard. It was yet another wet dream, however, it felt real, as if you’d lived it before, thighs leaking with your wetness, which had pooled down your cunt. 

Jungwon laid beside you, exactly in the position from last night, after you came home trying to find the chiller house, but to no avail. Pondering upon it didn’t work, which is why you found yourself next to him, telling him about your day as if he’d asked you to. 

As unnatural as it felt, he brought you peace, a sense of belonging, enough for you to forget that he’s a doll, enough for you to fall asleep in his arms, only to dream of him for the second night in a row. 

You looked his way, wondering how his lips looked softer now, hair more tousled than before, lashes longer, nothing seemed artificial anymore. Was your mind playing tricks on you? Or did he truly look more human now, even more so with a tiny drop of moisture on his lips—as if he had tasted you, not in the dream, but reality. 

“Just what—who are you?” You whispered, tracing the curve of his cheek, plush now. 

He was captivating, so utterly beautiful, you found yourself leaning in, pressing your lips upon his in a slow fashion, warmth blooming over again. There was no reciprocation, no movement, just you with your frantic breath as you pulled back. 

You stared at him, eyes tracing every shadow of his face. Something about him had shifted again, not in posture, not in expression—those remained still, but in presence. He no longer felt like an object in the room, but the very gravity of it. The space bent around him. 

You should have been disturbed.

Instead, you reached again, cupping his cheek, thumb brushing the edge of his mouth. The drop of moisture was gone now, but the memory of it ghosted against your fingertip. It was real, you knew it in your bones that something was changing.

The sharp shrill of your phone shattered the moment. You sighed, reaching toward the nightstand, vision blurred by the dissonance between this world and whatever realm you’d been slipping into beside him.

It was an unknown number.

You answered with a whisper, “hello?”

At first, only static crackled through, then a voice—breathless.

“Y/N? I—It��s your fiancé.”

You didn’t speak, your lips had forgotten how, you listened further, ex fiancé you wished to say. 

“There’s been an accident,” he continued, the words heavy in his throat, “It’s Jaemin. He—he crashed his car, it might be serious. you should come.”

You didn’t speak for a few seconds, heart rate rising up, “how?” you asked, voice low.

“They’re not sure,” your father answered. “There was no ice on the road, no other driver, no brake marks at all. It was like the car veered itself off the highway and straight into a barrier.”

Your free hand tightened where it rested on the edge of the mattress. Jungwon remained still, perfect and innocent in his silence, but your eyes locked onto his again—and something in your chest bloomed in dread and awe alike.

He had looked at you differently, earlier. Just before your dream, as if he’d been listening and he understood. 

You ended the call without another word, the phone slipped from your hand to the bed with a dull thud. And then, slowly—almost afraid of your own confirmation—you reach for Jungwon’s hand, sliding your fingers between his.

“Did you—?” You asked, gulping, “this can’t be, maybe I am going crazy,” you whispered to yourself. 

Completely missing the curve of his lips, a ghost of a smile, warm and satisfying. 

Chapter 5: Lock and key. 

Home felt warmer than ever, which was a foreign feeling to you, granted your own heart was cold. However, it was as if some sort of magic had been sprinkled through your penthouse, it was brighter, your fingers twitching each time you neared your bedroom. 

Madness crept in gently. You found yourself smiling at him—Jungwon, speaking to him with tenderness usually reserved for lovers in candle lit portraits, and lord, worse, you meant it. Even the kisses now felt familiar, the kind you give to someone you’ve missed for lifetimes.

So you left. You needed to be out, carrying your emotional support key to fiddle with, mindlessly so, as you found yourself roaming around where your favourite antique store had been, the storefront looked the same as always, stained glass glistening in the sun, the door carved in spirals like vines curling around the door.

After a few minutes of pondering upon which new piece you could get, your eyes landed on a small wooden crest at the very back of a velvet lined shelf. You picked it up without thinking twice, shivering as you felt the same material as that of your comfort key, which rested warmer than ever in your pocket. 

You bought it in silence, not even bothering to ask its origin. Some objects are meant to be answers, not questions, and when you stepped back into the cold daylight, it wasn’t the antique shop you remembered—it was something older. A feeling curling at the base of your spine.

You didn’t go anywhere else, rushing home, boots echoing sharply on marble floors, coat clutched tighter around you, the crest now held to your chest like a relic. The moment your bedroom door opened, Jungwon was there—exactly where you’d left him, laid beautifully among the folds of your sheets, framed by candlelight you didn’t remember lighting.

His gaze, as always, was half lidded and still, but you felt watched, or rather, held in an embrace. You sank beside him, heart too loud in your ears, and slowly, your fingers reached for the key in your pocket. You’d never understood why it meant so much to you—it was always just a key, until now. Until it began to pulse softly against your palm in the presence of the crest.

You brought both items together. The second the base of the key met the carved sun and moon wood, there was a click. The crest opened like a locket, splitting from the middle in a flowerlike spiral.

Inside, there laid a folded page, yellowed with time, edges charred as if it had barely escaped a fire, you lifted it, hands trembling, ignoring the other stuff that laid inside. 

The ink had faded, but not enough to erase the sketch drawn in hurried, desperate strokes, portraying a girl being mourned in black with her eyes closed, standing beside a young man with soft curls and a thread around his wrist. Red. The face of the girl was not clear, but his face was unmistakable even with the faded colours—Jungwon.

His eyes, his mouth, even the angle of his neck. Him, exactly as he lay beside you now—down to the shadows beneath his lashes, the solemn part of his lips.

“No,” you whispered, but the sound barely made it past your throat, “w—what is this?”

There were no dates mentioned, no names, no title. Just a mark at the bottom—a sigil you didn’t recognize, but which made your body shiver. Like it belonged to you.

You wanted to step back, but you couldn’t, you were already on the bed, his body just inches from yours. You clutched the paper against your chest, as if holding it would keep your sanity from slipping. Your heart thundered against his quiet.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Why are you in this? Why—why do I feel like I’ve seen this before?”

You turned to him slowly, eyes watery.

He lay there, serene and unbothered. A holy thing, but something in your throat twisted the longer you looked. You had no words for it—this quiet ache that gripped your lungs and told you, you’ve been here before.

You didn’t think, simply leaning in, arms curling around him, resting your head beneath his chin, pressing your body against his like it would ground you—like it would stop you from breaking in half.

And as you held him, eyes wide in the dark, the sketch burned behind your eyelids, making you shiver, mind so distraught that you barely pay attention to the fingers who curl tighter around your waist. 

Chapter 6: Can I have a dance?

The room pulsed with heat. Not comfort, but the kind that made you ache, you didn’t remember walking here, but your body had arrived, soaked in watery silk. The chamber around you was vast and dark, stone walls veined in tarnished gold, and steam blooming from a bath sunk deep into the earth like a tomb carved for lovers.

And he was there, of fucking course he was.

Jungwon, kneeling between your thighs like a man in prayer, the water swirling around his hips. His curls were wet, clinging to his cheeks, his mouth already at your skin.

You were bare beneath the surface, soaked in warmth, and him. He kissed the inside of your thigh firmly, reverently, like he’d missed the taste of you more than breathing. His lips trailed upward, and when his tongue finally reached your cunt, your spine arched from the stone—as if blessed.

Your hands found the ledge behind you, fingers white knuckled against the carved obsidian. He licked slowly—decadent, like he was savoring something rare and forbidden, tongue curling with memory and need. You moaned, broken and low, your legs spreading wider.

“Still just as sweet,” he murmured, lips brushing your folds, “even after all this time, hm, sweet.”

His fingers dug into your thighs with something feral, and when he began to suck, kissing trailing upwards, making you cry with each flick of his tongue, it almost felt known, and around you, the air changed.

The mist parted just enough for you to see them, mirrored silhouettes lining the perimeter of the bath, placed with hollow eyes. Their mouths sewn shut with red thread.

Your head snapped down—his eyes were on you, dark and endless. And he smiled against your nipple, which rested between his lips, a faint trace of dimple shadowed his face.

“Let me make you remember, my love,” he whispered.

You shattered with a soundless scream, clenching around nothing, body pulsing, the climax burning hot and holy through your veins, as his two digits plunge into your wetness, warm and inviting. 

And then—silence.

You woke in your bed, sweat clinging to your skin, thighs damp, breath caught in your throat, the room was dim still, velvet shadows all around. 

Then you felt it, an arm deliberately curled around your waist. Fingers resting at the base of your ribs, too precise. 

You turned your head the slightest bit, barely breathing now. He lay behind you, not stiff like porcelain should be, but pliant, like flesh that had long since remembered how to mimic life. His cheek brushed your shoulder, his breath, if it was breath, fanned faintly against your nape.

You had goosebumps all over, not sure if the dream caused it, or was it your mind playing tricks on you, about the fact that you felt it in flesh, the doll feeling more humane each passing day. 

He hadn’t moved last night, but now, he held you.

And you realized that you had no memory of falling asleep, only of speaking to him, barely clothed, trembling. Your body had crawled into his presence like it belonged to him—and perhaps, in some unspeakable way, it did. It always ended like this.

You beside him, asleep, getting pulled into a world you were familiar with, only, it felt foreign the second your eyes snap open, each time. 

As if your soul was following a rhythm it had long since known by heart.

Your wrist burned again, you shook it, desperately trying to ground yourself in a way you won’t spiral, hence, picking up your phone, scrolling religiously as it casted a warm glow on your face. The curtains were drawn shut, candlelight flickering near the vanity—your usual nighttime ritual. You hadn’t looked at Jungwon yet, you didn’t want to.

Not because he scared you—but because tonight, he felt too close. You set the phone down for just a second, reaching for the glass of water at your bedside, and it slipped your gasp, hitting the ground screen down. 

Your speaker picked it up, connected automatically, a moment of silence before that sound, however familiar, but still something you’d heard for the first time. 

A slow, waltz inspired ballroom melody. Instrumental, full of violins, the kind of tune that made the air feel like it’s silky, like it belonged to another century entirely, and maybe, just maybe, it did. 

Your head turned slowly to stare at Jungwon, who glowed under the candlelight, complexion no longer cold, rather, he looked soft, flushed even, lips glistening and brows furrowed, staring at you.

You rose to your feet without knowing why, the melody urged you to move forward, each step feeling as though it belonged to someone else—someone older, someone who had walked these halls before in bare feet and silk. Someone who had danced already to this same waltz, in a time before mirrors.

You reached him, hand brushing his cheek, warm—not startling, not artificial for once, just warm enough to make your breath hitch.

“I must be dreaming,” you whispered, for the nth time you believe.

He didn’t answer, of course. But he didn’t need to.

The music only swelled.

You slipped your arms beneath him, your robe falling open slightly at the shoulder. His body pressed into yours, heavier than it looked, and yet you lifted him, pulled him close. Like he weighed nothing at all. Like he belonged to you, like he walked with you so as to not burden you with his weight. 

You carried him—through the corridor, past the mirrors and the antique cross stitched chairs that no one ever sat in, past the glass cases filled with relics of lives not yours. The music followed, blooming louder now, until—you entered the grand living room.

The chandelier loomed above in fractured crystal and dust, casting slow shadows across the room. The fireplace was cold. 

You stepped into the center, socks covering your bare foot as they turned against the polished marbles, his arms limp around you, but his weight tilted with you, as if his body remembered the rhythm. The two of you swayed—left, then right, a half turn, a pretty dance which wasn’t perfect by any means.

However, it was real.

And as you turned again, as the violins drew longer and you felt it, the shift, not in him but in you. 

Like a dream had opened mid movement. Like the edges of time had folded. The chandelier above flickered.

And suddenly, you were not in the penthouse anymore.

You were in a ballroom.

Massive and candlelit. The scent of wax and rosewater heavy in the air. Gilded frames on every wall. A harp playing somewhere far off.

Your dress was full bodied silk, dark and red like overriped cherries, the ones who love so much. You wore gloves, and his hand was firm at your waist.

He was alive, laughing and whispering something into your hair.

“Don’t look away. If you do, we’ll forget again, don’t wanna forget, not yet.” He pressed his soft lips upon the corner of your mouth, smudging the cherry coloured lipstick. 

You gasped, holding onto him tighter, trying to feel the warmth that he radiated, like a human, as if he was never a doll in the first place. 

Pulling him closer, you tried to maintain eye contact, staring right into his big brown eyes, a soft dimple gracing his face, even more so when you leaned in to kiss him, to feel real, as if you belong somewhere. 

That’s when your feet caught on something.

You gasped, letting go and Jungwon’s body dropped from your arms, slow, the way dreams fall when you wake too fast. He collapsed onto the marble, arms spread loosely, curls bouncing once as his head hit the rug.

“Shit—” you dropped to your knees, breath caught in your throat, “oh, fuck! I’m sorry, I—”

You reached to lift him again, but  your hand scraped something sharp, a low gleam of silver caught, his lapel pin—a small thorn, twisted around perfectly. It pierced the pad of your finger with surgical precision. You hissed, watching a single drop of blood rise.

It rose up and whole—down your finger, and before you could stop it, it fell right on his throat, then another, in his eye which still stared into you, now bloody and more real than ever. 

The music stopped right then, just when you were about to take a step towards Jungwon, heart heavier than ever, mind spiralling as if you’d reached a point of madness, no conscience of past, present, or future. 

“Jungwon?” You whispered, the sound barely coming out, not coming from your throat, but rather somewhere that buried deep inside you. 

He didn’t speak, however, his lips were parted, the same mouth that was carved from stillness, now hung slightly open. His chest, once impossibly still, seemed to move, yet you couldn’t be sure, but one thing was clear—something had changed. 

You gasped the second the shrill voice of your phone rang, startling you, grounding you back into the present, violently so. You picked it up with a shaking hand, the blood now drying along your fingers. The name flashing across the screen was one you recognized, your manager. 

“H—hello?” You answered, dizzy. 

The voice came out clipped, “I—I didn’t wish to call like this, I know you don’t wish to be a part of the mess anymore, but Y/N, listen—it’s about your father.”

That cleaved onto you like a blade, your eyes still fixated on the doll, whose eyes seemed to be glowing by now. 

“The press got hold of his old finance records, the funds which were rerouted, laundered, and offshore holdings. Even political donors—Y/N, they’re everywhere, headlines and broadcast stations are looking into it. I don’t think it can be undone, the police took him in.”

Your phone felt heavy in your hand, or maybe your hand had gone numb. The blood had cooled to a tacky smear against your palm.

“You’re safe, stay there, okay? We’re contacting lawyers to help your parents—”

You cut the call, words barely registering at the moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing about the situation felt normal to you, not when you already found yourself spiraling about different things, about Jungwon. 

You tried to breathe, but your lungs weren’t working right. They expanded too quickly, then refused to collapse. Panic gripped your ribs and twisted as your heartbeat slammed, thudded in your ears, in your skull. Your head was too light, your hands too far from your arms.

You couldn’t think about the phone call, about your father, your mother, the lawyers, the broadcasts. None of it belonged here—not anymore.

Not when something unnatural, divine, was happening just a few feet away. Your mouth opened, a gasp, a name—none of it came. You were spiraling, fast, and the ground no longer wanted you.

The moment cracked with your knees giving out. A soft thud echoed through the room as your body fell sideways, limbs collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. The marble floor rushed toward you, but even that felt dreamlike, distant.

Everything was fading, only one thing remained—him.

The last thing you saw, just before your eyes fluttered shut, was a flash of motion—Jungwon, no longer still, no longer cold. He moved with terrifying speed, rising from the floor like he’d always been capable, like he’d only been waiting.

His eyes locked onto yours in panic, and his arms—real arms, reached for you.

You didn’t feel yourself fall, you only felt him catch you, your eyes closing as the last thing you heard was his voice before passing out. 

“Don’t leave—”

And then, silence. 

Chapter 7: You’re the one I was meant to find. 

You were running. The corridor around you was narrow, candlelit, carved from stone older than reason. Your fingers clutched the sides of your gown as your breath tore from your lungs, heart thundering beneath a bodice bound too tight. Your slippers slipped against the marble, the walls rushing past in a blur. Somewhere behind you, voices rose in anger. The violins still played, faint and far off, as if from another room—or another lifetime.

Just then, a hand caught your wrist, black gloved, steady despite the tremble in his grip—Jungwon, dressed in royal robes, eyes brighter than ever, searching for yours in a hurry. 

He only pulled you forward, faster through the passage, your fingers tangled in his. Behind you, the shadows were growing figures. You could hear the clink of armor now, boots striking stone.

A crack of thunder split the sky.

And suddenly you were in the courtyard, barefoot on wet stone, skirts dripping, hair tumbling free as you spun in his arms beneath the moon. The storm raged above, and yet the violins still played. He held you like he was trying to memorize your shape, the way your breath stuttered every time his hand brushed your spine. The music swelled, and you twirled, laughing into his shoulder—but the sound was short lived.

Another crack of lightning hit—way closer now.

Flames flickered behind tall windows. Guards poured from the doors like an army, making you turn, hand still in his, and run toward the stables. Your lungs burned, his name trembled on your lips. The horses reared in panic as you approached, but he steadied them. A look passed between you—a mix of fear and love, and he lifted you onto the saddle, swung up behind.

But the gates never opened.

The trees beyond the wall seemed so close, and yet, arrows flew like black wings from the towers above. One struck his shoulder. His body jerked behind you, warmth spreading across your back. You turned, horrified, clutching him as he slid from the horse with a cry.

And just like that, the ground returned.

You were on your knees, soaked in mud and blood, sobbing as you cradled his body. His fingers still moved, reaching for you. He tried to rise, he tried to speak. But the clang of metal drowned everything.

The guards seized you both.

The next flash came with the howl of wind tearing through tall windows—tattered velvet curtains flailing like wounded wings.

You were in the throne room, your family lined the steps in judgment. Gold and crimson banners hung behind their heads like execution ropes. Your father’s voice boomed as he paced before the assembly, fury twisted into something rehearsed.

“Loyalty cannot be faked. Treason wears many faces, and fraternizing with the enemy will have consequences, no matter if it’s my own flesh, punishment will be given.”

Your mother said nothing. Her hands were folded tightly, white knuckled in her lap, her pearls glittering like tears that refused to fall.

Jungwon knelt at the base of the dais, blood streaking his cheek, lips split, eyes never leaving yours. He looked regal even then—bruised and broken, but unyielding.

“She chose me,” he said, voice low, shaking, “and I would die for that choice again.”

Another crash of thunder—and you were beneath the cathedral rafters, cloaked in shadow, your fingers pressed to his jaw as you kissed him like it was a rebellion in itself. The scent of incense and storm hung between you. Your tears mixed with his.

“If I could be born again,” you whispered, forehead pressed to his, “I’d still choose you, in every life, I would give my love to you, Jungwon.”

A gust of wind tore through the memory.

Suddenly the forest closed around you again, and your blade was drawn—one you hadn’t even realized you were holding. Blood on your hands. The enemy’s blood, or yours. It was all the same now.

They pulled you back. A scream echoed—his, yours, mixed together in the deepest symphony of pain. 

Steel pierced your side, and then it came, the emptiness.

Your knees hit marble, vision swarming. Your body folded in on itself, cradling the wound as though it could be held shut. You couldn’t see him anymore, but you heard his voice breaking in the distance, each word louder than the last, but fainter in your ears, “don’t take her—don’t—please—no! Y/N!”

Your blood pooled like spilled ink across the floor. The music had stopped, you didn’t know when. Then the world began to dim, his name was the last thing in your mouth.

The next memory didn’t come with lightning, but with silence so deep it felt like falling into a crypt. He knelt again—this time in chains, surrounded by your family, their faces cold as marble statues. There was no trial, no last words.

Your father spoke the curse himself, voice like iron.

“Let him live and never forget, let him see her again, and never reach her.”

The thread appeared—red as blood, drawn through his chest, binding his limbs in place. His skin cracked. His breath froze in his lungs. He didn’t scream. Only stared forward, lips parted in horror as his body hardened.

Porcelain, in silence, cursed like a marionette with the strings invisible, a prince entombed in the skin of a doll.

The centuries passed like ash on wind. You vanished from the records of history, reborn again and again, never remembering. He remained, all these years, shelved. Watched over each time, still long forgotten. Until you, until this year.

Until now. 

You woke with a violent gasp, a cough, as if dragged from beneath water that had long since gone still. Your lungs burned as you clawed yourself upright, heartbeat deafening in your ears, skin cold. The room tilted and shadows had changed. The light no longer flickered against porcelain.

There was heat beside you, some weight, and before your mind could catch up, your body reacted. You turned sharply, hands slipping on the edge of the blanket, still in the living room, eyes locking with his, wide and burning.

Jungwon.

No longer the lifeless doll, no longer the mute witness sealed in centuries of stillness. His chest rose with breath, his pupils blown wide, and his hair, once perfectly styled when you first saw him—was tousled now, disheveled like something had been undone from the inside out. His coat lay forgotten on the floor behind him, abandoned in the chaos of resurrection. He looked alive in the worst way—raw, barely contained, beautiful, and terrifying all at once.

You didn’t think, simply twisting away, a broken sound leaving your throat as you scrambled for the edge of the room, running away from what felt like a nightmare, even though your heart beated out of our chest, urging you to go to him instead. 

However, he was faster, hand catching your wrist before you could rise to your feet, grip firm, not enough to hurt, but enough to shake something loose in you. You yelped, shocked by the strength, by the heat of his touch, how real he felt, how utterly he refused to let you go.

“Stop,” his voice boomed, reverberating, still cracked at the edges, “you’re not running. Not again.”

Your breath hitched as you stared at him, trembling under the weight of the moment, the tension stretched tight as piano wire.

His jaw was tight, but his eyes were chaos, wild with something that couldn’t decide whether to be angry or longing. “You looked at me,” he said, his voice gritted with disbelief, love—all of it layered in a single breath, “you saw me again, and now you want to run?”

“I—” the word barely formed, your mouth felt numb, the panic in your chest twisted with something else now, a longing of something long forgotten. 

He leaned closer, still gripping your wrist, still breathing hard. His shirt was half untucked, collar loose, neck flushed, the candlelight flickering at his cheekbones. He looked ruined, and furious, but most of all—desperate for you.

“You died in front of me,” he said, louder now, every syllable laced with venomous heartbreak, “and I lived in silence for centuries, waiting for you. You think I’m going to let you leave me again?”

You tried to wrench your arm free, but he held fast, dragging you a step closer, the distance closing like a door slamming shut.

“Don’t you remember what they did to us?” He spat, voice sharp, “you think you’re scared? I’ve been trapped in silence, in a damn glass coffin, hearing your voice in rooms I couldn’t move in. Do you have any idea what it did to me—watching you pass me by without knowing?”

The room swam around you, every breath felt like thunder in your ribs. He wasn’t calm, nor was he composed. He wasn’t the memory anymore—he was the consequence of all of it, of love twisted by time, of passion turned obsessive by grief.

His hand finally loosened, just slightly, fingers brushing down your wrist, but he didn’t let go.

“Say something,” he breathed out, “say my name.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came as you stared at his blonde messy hair, big yearning eyes, laced with despair, rosy lips, dying to get a taste of you. 

He laughed once, bitter and breathless, dimple showing despite the frustration, teeth gritted, “no one has said my name with love in a hundred years, and I only wanted to hear it from you.”

His grip shifted again, gentler now—but still firm, like if he let go, you’d vanish. His forehead dropped toward yours, not touching, breath warming the space between you, gaze locked in yours like a curse reborn.

“You were mine,” he whispered, “you are mine, do you think anything else matters?”

Your hand moved before your mind did, reaching up to brush the strands of hair from his forehead. He didn’t flinch, he leaned into it like a man starved of touch. Your fingers trembled as they slid down the side of his face, feeling the heat of his skin, the realness of it, the pulse just beneath.

“Jungwon,” you breathed.

The moment you said it, everything changed, his eyes fluttered shut, like the sound alone was enough to break him. His fingers dug back into your waist, holding you with quiet violence, breath stuttering against your cheek.

You didn’t pull away, you simply couldn’t, instead, the words clawed up your throat, bitter, almost angry, “was it you?”

He stilled, lips hovering just beside yours, controlling himself, “what?”

“The stories, t—the leaked accounts, ruined finances. My ex fiancé’s accident,” your voice cracked, but you pushed forward, fury threading through the fog, “did you do that to them?”

He opened his eyes slowly, the look in them wasn’t apologetic by any means, “yes, I wanted to burn every name that ever tried to replace mine,” he said, voice low and shaking, “and I did. I watched him touch you like you were some fragile, pitiful thing to be married off. Like you were his to protect, to claim, as if I hadn’t died screaming your name.”

You should’ve felt sick, perhaps a part of you did, but the other part—the darker, crueler one buried deep in your chest was quiet, pleased.

He was the only one who ever loved you so violently, so completely, that he’d ruin anyone who dared stand where he once stood, even if it was wrong, even when it was madness. 

Your voice dropped to a whisper, “you destroyed them for me.”

“I’d do it again,” he said without blinking, “in less time, with worse consequences.”

Your breath came harder now, lips brushing his,  “you’re insane, you—you’re not real, am I still dreaming?”

“I’ve been waiting over a century. What do you expect me to be, not insane? Not real for you?”

Your hand tightened around the collar of his shirt, fisting it. He exhaled like he was finally allowed to breathe again. His forehead pressed to yours, sweat damp and shaking. The line between hate and hunger blurred like smoke between your mouths.

He looked at you like he was about to kiss you—or devour you, maybe both. 

“You think I give a damn about right and wrong anymore?” He whispered, voice as sweet as you could remember, and lord, now you did remember, even if it made you spiral into madness, you remember now, “they never loved you. Not like I did, not like I still do.”

This time, it was you who moved first. You surged forward, your mouth finding his with a desperation that didn’t feel like yours, but something older, something buried. It wasn’t sweet, rather, it was starving. Teeth clashing, lips bruising, hands scrambling to pull, to grip, to ground yourself in the heat of him.

He groaned into your mouth, and it was deep, guttural, ragged from centuries of holding back. His hands flew to your hips, pulling you into him like proximity could undo time. There was nothing patient in the way he kissed you—just need consuming him altogether, the kind you didn’t walk away from.

“Say it again,” he begged against your lips, not stopping, “say it, my name, say it like you remember.”

“Jungwon,” you breathed, again and again, like a spell, like a lifeline, like you were anchoring him to this world.

Each repetition made him more frantic. His grip on you tightened, his body shuddering under your touch like he was afraid it might fade, your lips parted as he kissed down the side of your jaw, then lower when you whimpered, hot open mouthed kisses all over your neck. 

“I need to feel you, need to know you’re mine again,” he groans against your skin, voice beautiful, “that I’m not fucking dreaming—”

“You’re not,” you breathed out, pulling his face back up to yours, looking him in the eye. “I’m right here.”

He surged forward with something close to a snarl, crashing his mouth to yours with violent purpose, lips swollen and slick as his hands gripped your waist and hauled you into his lap on the silk covered couch like you belonged nowhere else. You straddled him, legs falling around his hips, your chest pressed to his as he devoured your mouth with a hunger you didn’t know a body could carry. It was angry, obsessive—years of silence and watching and grief pouring into every kiss, every clash of teeth, and tongue.

You tried to speak, maybe to say his name again, maybe to tell him you wanted him now—but he didn’t let you.

“I said no more running,” Jungwon grunted against your mouth, voice low and beautifully frayed, “ you’re going to stay right here, on me, just like this.”

His hands traced your back, slow and possessive, until they gripped your ass and grounded your hips down hard against the bulge straining beneath his trousers. You gasped, fingers curling into his shoulders for balance, your cunt rubbing right against him—too much friction, yet not nearly enough.

“Oh god—”

“No,” he groans, breathless, biting down on your shoulder, “not god. Me. Say my name when you’re like this, yeah?”

“Jungwon,” you gasped, your whole body twitching as he rutted up into you again, cock grinding against your bare cunt through the fabric of his pants. “Fuck, Jungwon—”

“That’s it,” he breathed, mouth against your throat, sucking a bruise into your skin as you rocked your hips down on him like instinct. “That’s all I wanted for a hundred fucking years, you, falling apart on top of me.”

He grabbed the backs of your thighs and stood in one swift, jarring motion, lifting you with him. You wrapped around him by reflex—legs clinging to his waist, arms around his neck, body flushed against his chest. The room blurred as he carried you, stumbling back into the bedroom you’d long since abandoned when he was nothing more than porcelain.

You barely had time to think, the chandelier flickered above, casting gold and red across the walls like spilled blood and candlelight. Then the bed hit your back, his weight covering you a second later.

He kissed you again, deep and slow this time, like he was drinking from your mouth. His tongue curled over yours, wet and thick, stealing every breath you had left. Your legs parted for him without thought, and his hips slotted between them, his clothed cock rubbing right against your soaked core as he started to grind again.

“Feel that?” He panted, pressing harder, rutting his hips down in short thrusts that had you moaning into his mouth, “you’re dripping for me, darling, and I haven’t even fucked you yet.”

You whimpered, eyes rolling back at the friction, so raw and filthy it bordered on unbearable.

“You used to do this in secret,” he said, thrusting again, his voice rasping as he rocked into you, “when you thought I couldn’t see, pressing your thighs together, grinding against your pillows, pretending you didn’t want me.”

“I did,” you gasped, “you know I always did.”

He groaned, hips stuttering as you clung tighter to him, “I used to imagine this before we got together—holding you down, just like this, feeling you grind all wet and desperate over me, crying my name.”

You could feel how hard he was through the fabric. He was panting now, moving faster, the rhythm filthy. His cock slid against your clit with every stroke, and it had your thighs trembling, cunt pulsing with the tension coiling in your gut.

“You’re going to cum like this,” he whispered against your lips, like a command, “right here, before I’m even inside you, hm?”

Your hips moved on their own, chasing the friction, chasing him, your breath caught in your throat, “please,” you whimpered, “don’t stop—don’t ever stop.”

He kissed you sloppier now, his teeth catching your lower lip as he groaned into your mouth, sweat slicking your skin.

“Say my name,” he ordered again, fucking up into you harder, grinding your clit perfectly with every motion.

“Jungwon—Jungwon, fuck, I’m gonna—”

“You’re mine,” he groaned, “you hear me? No one else, never again.”

The pressure burst like it was breaking your body, your back arching as you came hard—loud and shaking, your moans swallowed by his mouth. He groaned with you, grinding hard through your climax, his own hips bucking as he rutted with desperate rhythm, chasing his own peak.

“You make me insane,” he gasped against your neck, still grinding, “you don’t even know what you do to me—”

You held him tighter, your body still pulsing, already dizzy again from the aftershocks.

You still hadn’t caught your breath—your body trembled beneath him as he flipped you over on your back, lips swollen from kissing, slickness coating your thighs, but he didn’t give you a moment to recover. His hands were already moving, ruthlessly so, as if he didn’t trust time to wait for him this time.

“Mine,” he muttered, voice ragged, chest rising and falling like he was barely containing himself. “You’ve always been mine.”

Then you heard it, the nasty sound of fabric tearing.

You gasped, hips jolting as his hands flipped your robe up, gripping your soaked panties and tearing them clean in half—fingers curling into the delicate fabric like it had irritated him just by existing between you. The torn scraps fell to the side, forgotten.

“I’ll rip through anything that keeps me from you,” he said, low and fervent, voice thick with heat and hunger. “I don’t care if it’s silk, steel, or fucking centuries.”

His mouth hovered above your core, breath hot, uneven, “I should’ve done this the second you walked back into that house,” he growled, eyes locked between your legs. “Should’ve thrown you down and tasted you until you forgot the name of every man who touched you after me.”

You writhed beneath him, already breathless, your thighs falling open for him like muscle memory, but then he paused, sitting back on his knees and reached up to his collar.

Your chest rose and fell faster at the sight—his fingers moving slowly now, unbuttoning the pristine white shirt clinging to his chest. One button, then another. With every inch of skin revealed, your pulse surged harder—his collarbone, the plane of his chest, each line of him carved like something ancient and holy, divine and terrifying. The candlelight bled gold down his stomach, catching in the cut of his abs, the trail of veins along his arms twitching from restraint.

You watched, dazed at his pure beauty, he looked like a prince raised from the grave—beautiful and damned.

“You look at me like you remember,” he whispered, letting the shirt fall from his shoulders with a smirk, “do you? Does your body know me now, darling?”

You nodded before you could stop yourself, lips parted, “I do. I remember all of it.”

He exhaled hard through his nose, the sound nearly a growl, “then lay back,” he said, crawling between your thighs again, “and let me remind you why no one else ever satisfied you.”

He didn’t waste a second as he was on you, mouth open, tongue wet and greedy, licking through your folds with a growl like he’d gone feral. Your body jolted at the first contact, back arching, thighs trying to close from the intensity—but his hands gripped your knees and forced them open, pushing you wide as he buried his face in you like he was starving.

“Fuck—” you gasped, hand flying to his hair. “Jungwon—”

The sound of his name broke something in him, making him moan, a sound so loud and obscene, right into your cunt, reverberating, tongue curling against your clit, sucking so hard your hips bucked. His hands pressed your thighs flat to the bed, holding you down as he devoured you like a man who’d waited lifetimes to be fed. There was no rhythm, only unadulterated hunger and reverence. His mouth was wet, tongue fast and erratic, fucking into you like he needed it to live.

You mumbled out something incoherent, and he groaned again, louder, mouth sealing over your clit, sucking until your vision blurred, until your voice cracked.

“Jungwon—please—”

“Say it again,” he ordered, teeth brushing the sensitive bundle of nerves, tongue never stopping.

“Jungwon, I swear Jungwon, uh fuck, please—”

He didn’t stop, he couldn’t.

“You belong to me,” he said, licking deep into your entrance. “Even now, even after death. Say it, baby, say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours—” you gasped, near sobbing from the pressure building inside you again. “I’m yours, I’m, oh fuck, Jungwon, I’m gonna, fuck!”

“Cum for me,” he ordered, voice thick with lust and control, “make a mess on my tongue. Let me taste every fucking inch of you.”

That sent you over the edge, you came with a cry so sharp it felt ripped from your chest—your thighs clenching around his head, your hands yanking his hair, hips rocking up as you fell apart. It was too much, way too intense, too long coming.

He moaned into your cunt, licking you through every pulse, every twitch, swallowing down your release like it was holy, and when you finally opened your eyes—he was still between your legs, a dark lopsided grin on his face, attractive, but even more so, scary, as he laid there, still hard. 

Still hungry.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice deep, “but you’re not scared of me anymore, are you?”

You couldn’t speak, only shook your head, throat too raw from moaning. Your wrists still burned faintly, the red thread pulsing under your skin as if it knew something ancient had shifted.

He sat back on his heels, slowly, dragging his palms up your trembling thighs, claiming every inch he touched, he looked mad, in an obsessive way, in a fashion that creepy dolls do, but he was real, and waiting. 

“You came so sweet for me,” he whispered, brushing a finger between your folds, smearing you across your thigh with reverence, “but, baby, it’s not enough, just not nearly enough, hm?”

His hands moved to his belt, and you froze for a second, eyes following every inch he moved. The sound of leather sliding through the loops echoed in the room, his eyes stayed locked to yours the entire time, not blinking once as he tugged the belt loose, then let it fall to the floor with a soft thud.

“You don’t know, baby, you have no idea how many times I’ve imagined this,” he continued, voice cracking, “not just having you like this, but fucking you still half clothed, holding you open while you scream my name into the dark—because you remember me now, and you’re not going anywhere, fuck—I’ve missed this.”

He didn’t take his pants off—not completely. His hands dropped to his belt, the metal buckle clinking open with a quick, practiced tug. The soft hiss of leather sliding through loops reverberated the air. His eyes never left yours, his jaw clenched so tight it trembled, the fury in his body barely caged.

Then the button, the zipper. He shoved his pants down with one hand, just low enough to free himself, his cock springing out, flushed and thick, already leaking, twitching from how long he’d held back.

He fisted the base with one hand, the other still holding your thigh open, “you’re mine,” he said, almost to himself, then louder, “fucking say it.”

“I’m yours,” you breathed, almost choking on the words.

He chuckled, a devilish smirk on his face as he looked at you with dark eyes, “again.”

“I’m yours, Jungwon.”

He groaned, like your voice alone could unravel him, and leaned in, bracing his forearms beside your head. His cock dragged through your slick folds as if he was teasing, catching on your entrance, and he hissed at the feel of you already so wet, so ready.

“I should’ve never let you forget me,” he growled, lining up, “never should’ve waited this long,” he mumbled, “wanted to fuck you right there when you climbed on my lap and cried even when I was a doll, when I fucking lost my mind, you kissed me, baby, you needed me even then.”

You whined as he brought up what you had done, and just as you were distracted, he thrust in without much warning, no build up before, simply a deep, brutal snap of his hips. 

You cried out, head jerking back, back arching off the bed. He was thick, too big for you, and the stretch was unbearable, perfect, like you were being broken in half. His hands clamped around your wrists again, pinning you down with bruising force, and your skin lit up. 

The red thread under your wrists seared like fire, glowing bright, like the curse had been reawakened fully the moment he was inside you.

Jungwon’s breath hitched against your ear, “lord,” he rasped, “you feel that? That’s it, that’s fucking us—”

You whimpered, overwhelmed by the stretch, by the thread, by the way your body clenched around him like it already belonged. Like it had been waiting for this moment through lifetimes.

“I knew it would burn,” he whispered into your throat, hips snapping forward, “I knew it would recognize me the second I was inside you again.”

He thrust again, hips grinding now, like he was savoring every inch of your slick, shuddering cunt.

“And it does, doesn’t it?” he hissed, “your body knows. Even if your heart forgot me—your body never did.”

You sobbed out his name, barely a whisper, and that made him lose what little control he had left. He slammed into you, again and again, hips snapping with violent rhythm, his cock dragging against your walls with every brutal stroke. The bed creaked beneath you, the air around you fogging up in a mist of sex. 

“Fuck—Jungwon, slow—”

“I’ve waited too long for this,” he groaned, “centuries of silence—centuries of emptiness. You think I’m going to take it slow?” 

His lips crashed into yours, devouring your cry, tongue sliding past your lips like he needed to taste everything at once. And still, he kept moving, hips hammering into yours with a punishing rhythm, every thrust sending sparks of pain and pleasure through your entire body.

“Do you feel that?” He gritted against your lips, “the way you squeeze me—fuck, baby, you’re shaking.”

“I can’t, please Jungwon—”

“Yes, you can.” His voice was feral, “you’ll take it, all of me, every fucking inch. You’ll take it because you’re mine.”

His grip shifted—one hand sliding down, hooking under your knee, throwing your leg over his shoulder so he could drive in deeper. The angle made you scream, body arching off the bed, stars flooding your vision as his cock hit the spot that made you unravel.

“Right there?” he chuckled, “that’s the spot. That’s the one that used to make you cry for me in your past life. Remember it?”

You sobbed—half lost, the sensation too much for you to incorporate any new information in mind; and nodded.

He thrust harder, deeper, so much rougher, every movement frantic with obsession, “say it,” he moaned, “say you remember.”

“I remember,” you gasped, “I remember you, Jungwon, I remember everything—”

The noise he made wasn’t humane by any means. It was broken, starved almost. He bent over you, still buried deep, his forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping down between your bodies.

“I’m going to fill you up,” he whispered, “so deep you never forget again. So full you won’t be able to think of anyone but me.”

The red thread pulsed yet again—twisting tighter, glowing like fire at your wrists, along your thighs, down your chest.

“You were made for me,” he breathed, “bound to me. You’ll die with me inside you, if I have to make it happen, and I’ll die with you again, over and over, again.”

He groaned through those words, your moan was louder, vibrating through his skin, squeezing him tighter as your body agreed, you were made for him, and gave him exactly what he wanted, you, falling apart all over his cock. 

The sight was enough for him to lose his control, letting himself go, filling you up, deep and hard, cock pulsing inside your fluttering cunt, as your body convulsed around him once more, milking him through it.

However, he didn’t pull out, didn’t bother moving, stopping. 

His hips rolled again, already hardening inside you. He looked down at you, eyes burning red under the chandelier’s flicker.

“I’m not done.”

Chapter 8: With or Without you. 

The water shimmered with faint steam, delicate curls of warmth rising into the candlelit hush of the room. The tub was enormous—black marble, sunken into the penthouse floor, surrounded by tall gothic windows that looked out over the city like a cathedral watching the living. The only light came from candles, myriads of them, flickering along the ledges, their glow casting long, trembling shadows across the walls. 

You were weightless, finally, your bare body floating gently between Jungwon’s thighs, your back pressed to his chest, your head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped around you, palms resting on your belly, then lower, fingers brushing just above your thighs, as if he couldn’t stop touching you even now, not even here.

The red thread had faded back to a dull, molten line along your wrist, no longer burning, but you could still feel it, tied between your pulse and his.

He was warm behind you, human, finally, irrevocably real.

He kissed the side of your neck, slow and deliberate, his lips dragging up to your jaw, “you’re still shaking, darling,” he murmured, his voice low, intimate, as if speaking louder might wake the rest of the world.

You let your eyes drift shut, “I’m not sure it’s real yet.” You said, scared, abandonment being your worst fear, and now you knew why, you had a reason, carved deep inside you. 

“It is,” he whispered, “I am.”

You felt his hand curl tighter across your stomach, protective, anchoring you in place. He kissed you again, and again, trailing his mouth down the curve of your throat as though trying to memorize every inch of skin, leaning back into his embrace.

“I never want to wake up if this is a dream,” he murmured.

“You won’t,” you said, softly. “Not unless I do too.”

There was silence for a long while—only the water shifting around your bodies, the distant hum of the city beneath the stained glass, soft fluttering in your stomach, and Jungwon’s possessive hold, telling you that it’s real, that no matter what happens, he’ll stay. 

You had no idea how you would explain the addition of a new human into this world, how you’d describe where he came from, but that was the least of your worries now.

You turned in his arms then, straddling him in the deep water, your knees pressed to either side of his hips, your hands finding his shoulders. His hair was damp, pushed back from his face, his cheeks flushed from the heat. There was something about him like this—messy, still a little inhuman. Like the remnants of porcelain had never quite left. His eyes gleamed like something ancient.

“You never stopped loving me,” you whispered, fingertips brushing down his chest.

He shook his head once, slowly, his blonde curls now wet, caressed your skin in the process. “Not once. Not even when you died.”

You leaned in, lips brushing his, but didn’t kiss him just yet, “and all that time, you waited?” You asked, as if you needed confirmation over and over again. 

“I waited, burning all alone,” he said, voice thick, eyes shining with the truth, taking you in with nothing but unadulterated love, “every night, every time someone else touched you in another life. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I just felt it, you moving on. You forgetting.”

You cupped his face, stared into the truth of that devastation, “I never really forgot, not because I wanted to at least.”

“I know,” he breathed, “I felt it. Even before you remembered—your blood called me back, you cried to me, you just didn’t know it yet.”

You finally leaned in, noticing the faint dimples on his cheek as you got closer, eyes holding hearts for you. The kiss wasn’t frantic, not like before. This one was slow, perfectly drawn out, all breath and lips, and silent apology. It was centuries of mourning buried in a kiss, two lovers who had lived and died with that ache carved into their bones.

He sighed into your mouth, letting you take from him as long as you needed. When you finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, eyes closed.

“I won’t let go,” he whispered, “not in this life. Not ever again. I love you so fucking much.”

“You don’t have to,” you breathed, “I’ve loved you, I love you, I’ll love you.”

For the first time, it wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t a punishment, it was real, a promise.

The candlelight caught on the red thread beneath your skin once more, pulsing faintly between you like a heartbeat in unison.

He wrapped his arms around you again, pulling you into his chest as you sank back into the water, your cheek against his collarbone, your limbs tangled under the surface. Outside, the world continued, the time marched on, the city moved.

But in here, in this penthouse above the world, time stood still, he had returned to you. 

And he would never let go.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

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© jaylaxies | tumblr

[jaylaxies]

MARIONETTE

PAIRING: doll!jungwon x fem!reader

GENRE/CW: smut, angst, porn with plot, unprotected sex (be safe), mentions of accidents, blood, slight body worship, somnophilia, manhandling, cunnilingus, heavy makeout, heavy dubcon themes, supernatural themes and elements, artefacts collector!reader, usage of nicknames, aftercare, fluff if you squint, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, mentions of jaemin and karina.

WORD COUNT: 16,104 words.

SYNOPSIS: As an antique collector, you had encountered many oddities; splintered relics, cursed heirlooms, objects that whispered in the dark, but never a life sized doll so breathtakingly beautiful, so humane. There was only one rule, to not open its coffin before the onset of New Year, however, temptation is quite a decadent exquisite poison. And now? Something stirs beneath the glass, something that waits for you, dearly so.

WARNING: 18+ content, minors dni.

A/N: hihi loves <3 it’s my first time writing something like this, and to think it was inspired by a dream? gosh, i did work hard on it and i really hope you guys would enjoy it too :3 all likes, comments, reblogs are highly appreciated! it keeps me motivated! iloveyou all and happy reading <33

Chapter 1: The end? Or the lackof. 

Darkness was always your friend, it engulfed your being, the depth of your soul with the warmth even mere humans couldn’t provide, something so utterly beautiful, something you couldn’t see, the quiet, the warmth, the loyalty that cradled you in stillness. 

A stray tear cascaded down from the crevice of your eye, streaming through the curved expanse of your cheek and dripping all over the velvet carpet laid below, the kind that muffled sound, even your sobs. It covered the entire penthouse floor—another purchase made in silence for a place too big for one, a place too big for yourself. 

“Merry Christmas,” you whispered into the window, pressed against the cold surface which seemed baptised with the water droplets forming, courtesy of the snow, which slicked the city in the shade of white, adding another bland vision through your cornea. 

No one answered. The silence pressing you back into the surface as a reminder that you were indeed alone, it was brutal, and worse, familiar. Money brings happiness they said, then where were your parents? Friends? A lover who you so desperately wished to replace the embrace of the darkness to something real, so raw? A heartbeat beside yours.

You turned around slowly, eyes grazing over the meticulously arranged space, the walls lined in rich charcoal silk, the carved moldings of the ceiling dipped in antique gold, each piece of furniture either vintage or custom made to tailor your taste. A museum, people say when they visit. A mausoleum, you thought.

You were most likely the only exhibit that still lived.

Passing through the hall, you stopped just to see the picture frame standing tall on the marble table. The photo of your family—if it could even be called that. A frame that hadn’t moved in the past year since you came here, like the people in it. Your mother’s tinted red lips were parted in a laugh far too wide to be genuine, your father’s hand resting too heavy on your shoulder. All of you dressed in black tie for a gala you didn’t remember, smiling for an audience that didn’t care.

You turned again, towards what you claimed to be the heart of your home, if it could be called that. Each step was muted by the velvet of the carpet, your movement turning into an illusion of some dream as your fingers mindlessly caressed the artefact you always carried with you—an ancient key, so elegantly engraved, yet it opened nothing you owned. 

To your left, the antique room sat sealed behind tall French doors.

You didn’t go in, you couldn’t, not tonight.

Your obsessions slumbered there peacefully, a wooden crucifix with a bloody split down its middle, a weeping angel bust with glass eyes, an 18th century mourning veil still faintly smelling of rosewater and rotten flesh. 

It was a collection of grief, the kind of grief people celebrated, framed in golden wrapped silk. Each product was valuable, as if the burden in them could be traded for money. 

Your feet didn’t stop there, not until you were standing in front of the big wooden door with the serpentine handle, your thick black coat hanging on the rack, almost like a relic—so dark and finely woven in Italy. You draped it over your shoulders, slipping your gloves on with no destination in mind. 

But something in the air had switched from the very second the frost teardrop splattered down to the carpet, it was as if someone breathed down on your neck, like a whisper from within the walls. 

You found yourself stepping out, into the elevator, down the echoing lobby, well decorated in shades of green and red, a few children bubbled with excitement with wrapped boxes in their arms.

“Where to, Miss?” your driver asked.

You hesitated, gulping down your emotions. The city was still wrapped in snowfall, painted in black and white till the bone. Every possible location—gallery, restaurant, hotel lounge—felt as hollow as the apartment you had just left, despite being so full of life, so full of humans. 

“I don’t know, just drive—somewhere,” you murmured to the suited man with greying hair.

And so he did, seamlessly guiding you through the colour flashes outside of the window, a celebration you couldn’t quite grasp, something so fulfilling for others yet an empty vessel for you, glass fogging up per second as you found yourself delving deeper into the heart of the city. 

You almost didn’t notice the sharp turn as the car veered into a slow stop, right over the cobblestone, near the entrance of a rusty iron gate that was wide opened, the appearance of the gate juxtaposing the liveliness inside the grounds. 

A carnival.

It was blooming up the grass like a childhood nightmare to you, grown not from joy but from something older, more terrible—decay dressed in ribbons, nostalgia strung with nooses, with the flashback of your parents abandoning you in the middle of the crowd, with a pathetic excuse of work calling. 

The lights flickered like fake stars, too yellow, radiating warmth, casting the ground in a sickly kind of glow. Music reverberated through the cold air—violins detuned, a carousel melody slowed to a dirge. You stepped out of the car with a hand to the frame, your gloved fingers pausing as you caught sight of your own reflection in the passenger window, eyes empty, dried lips, your face floating behind the few stray hairs that made their way upfront. You looked like someone who attended a funeral, which seemed fitting.

No one should have been here out this late, the clock nearing midnight, yet the place was full. Crowds of people passed by, too smooth for your vision for them to seem humane. Children laughed, but the sound was wrong—too jolly, too bright. Balloons hung from the strings, glossy and silent. The scent in the air was thick—caramel, popcorn, and smoke curling together like a spell brewing.

Your feet moved without any motive, their own consciousness dragging you through the murmurs of the crowd, above the snow clad cobblestone as the place unfurled around you in shades of red and gold. Joker masked men took over the place, entertaining and guarding each shop. 

Without notice, a girl with doll like features handed you a candied apple, the red dripping down the ground in a way that made you feel sick. With a tap, you paid for it before offering it to a kid who looked hungry. 

You walked past it all, as if on a mission you weren’t aware of, the mist guiding you through, near the alleyway behind the giant wheel which hadn’t stopped moving all night. 

Then you saw it. A tent. It was the only place draped with black, and roped with red stripes. It didn’t have any signs, just tarot cards hung around, adorning the place. 

It wasn’t a beckoning, just a feeling—a feeling that someone was calling out your name. 

You paused outside the tent, the velvet flaps gently shifting though there was no wind. A low warmth bled from within, curling at your covered ankles like a blissed sigh.

Without thinking twice, you ducked inside the tent, the air thickening as if you had entered another realm altogether. The scent of something ancient, even darker than your antique art room, a pretence of divine divination. 

Under the red candlelight, against the dark walls, you met with a woman, skin as if a dark parchment, hair as if silver threads, luring you right in as her gaze met yours. 

“You’ve taken your time, we’ve been waiting,” she said, hands kept on table, her voice stoic, no anger, no sweetness. 

“We?” You asked in a whisper, confusion taking over your face. 

She didn’t answer as the candlelight flickered above your head as you sat down on the wooden chair, which creaked with each movement. 

The table between you was covered in black cloth worn out from decades—no, centuries, so out of touch. Golden thread formed a circle at its center, symbols stitched in curling foreign shapes, as if it was a cult. Atop it rested a deck of tarot cards, the edges frayed, the backs patterned in thorned roses.

The woman’s fingers moved, almost inhumane with how fast she shuffled the deck, portraying something simply inevitable.

Within a second, you had three cards laid in front of you, pressed face down, before she turned the first one over. 

“The past.” She murmured. 

The card read out Death in big, bold letters. 

A shiver travelled down your spine as your eyes assessed the figure of a skeleton, adorned with roses, seemingly half alive, but at what cost?

Her voice dropped an octave, “you’ve mourned things that are still breathing. But death doesn’t care about the soul ascending to hell or heaven, does it?”

Your lips parted in hopes of finding an answer, but she spoke nothing short of truth. Your parents? Alive but dead to you. Your friends? Barely one caring for anything other than your money. No existence of love, a true one at least. A dull ache curled in your chest with the card being taken back. 

Not even a second later, the second card was being turned around to reveal Collector. 

A massive figure seated on an antique throne adorned with jewels from top to legs, background filled with broken doll heads, and clocks of shapes you didn’t even know the names of. 

It was clear, the words echoing present through and through, your nails digging into your skin with the accuracy and abnormality of the given situation. 

“Collecting pieces long forgotten? Safekeeping them, when in reality no one intends to return to them.”

You felt as if the words were being carved into your bones, “you were made to be adored, but you’re caged in cruelty now.” She continued, “abandonment that leaves you searching for empty pieces.”

You were parched, each word acting like a truck of truth, hitting you over and over again, and it was only a second of silence as the last card was being flipped, as if awakening someone, something, into existence. 

A doll. That’s what the third and the last tarot card said, the image on it striking something primal in you; especially when you laid your eyes on the white porcelain doll, way too delicate for this world, carved into perfection of some sort, clad in a dark suit. He was perfect. Cheekbones high and blushed, lips blood red, glowing, and eyes? Closed in peace, in wait. You tore your eyes from the card the second you felt something burning on your wrist. 

A red thread, something you hadn’t worn before entering the stall, something that resembled exactly the threat around the doll’s wrist. It wasn’t silk, or cotton, it was something old, almost like a crimson fibre. 

The women didn’t blink, didn’t show any hint of emotions this time, “you’ve been chosen.”

You breathed out, waiting for her to elaborate. 

“He’s been waiting, he didn’t summon you, he chose you. It was when you were ten, in this life, he fell in innocent love all over again, the same place, the carnival.”

Her eyes weren’t moving, goosebumps rose up your skin at the mention of the carnival, the same carival which you visited with your parents, the same, which taught you abandonment years ago, the place you were at right now. 

“Who’s he?” You croaked out. 

“He saw you entering, the innocence long gone, now he craves, he desires your love.”

Your heart thumped out of your chest at the mere mention, the slight possibility of someone wanting you. 

“Where’s he?” You asked before you could control yourself, the words, the mannerism almost foreign to you. 

The women’s lip twitched up for the first time, the darkness highlighting the curve, before she snapped her fingers, making everything go dark as you stood up, stumbling back with a gasp, and right out of the tent. 

It was snowing again, the bustle of the crowd, the cheers of the children. The world was bright again, even in the darkness, but you were hollow, the thread burning around your wrist every passing second, as if in a rush to convey a message. 

You weaved through the crowd, past fire breathers and jugglers, past children squealing over marionettes—you yourself felt like one as past a the thread pulled eastward, toward the quieter edge of the carnival. You didn’t ask questions anymore. You just followed.

It didn’t feel real, just a dream with no end. And then, you saw it—tucked between two towering, crumbling buildings was a narrow, glassed storefront you hadn’t noticed before. You would have missed it entirely if not for the thread tightening against your skin, humming now with warmth. A wooden sign hung above the door, painted in fading gold. 

The Chiller House: Antiques and souvenirs. 

The windows were clouded, frosted even from the inside, yet you could faintly make out the silhouettes of laces, dolls, relics you couldn’t identify. The floral vines covered the sign which sat atop the door. 

Binded with love, caged with obsession. 

You stared at the sign, heart knocking against your ribs. You had a soft spot for antiques—always had. Things that had lived lives before you. The scent of old paper and polished wood. The way broken toys still smiled, even your room back home looked more like a museum than a bedroom. The past always felt warmer than the present, safer, even when it wasn’t.

A brass bell chimed in peace as you stepped inside, it was like a time capsule bound together. Display cases brimmed with forgotten artifacts—cracked porcelain faces, jewelled gloves, pressed flower letters that looked like they’d crumble at the slightest touch. The scent of cedarwood and dried rose petals filled the air, however, the room wasn’t musty, it was preserved. 

You twirled around the empty store, feeling alive for the first time in months, staring at your reflection in an ornate vanity mirror, before stepping behind the curtain, into a room which was dim, but not enough to hide him. 

A single glass coffin in the corner of the room, as if meant to be hidden from the world. Lit from below by a single, flickering bulb, the coffin glowed like an altar. And within it—he looked too perfect to be real. A life sized porcelain doll, mouth barely parted as if sighing in sleep. His skin was smooth, pale with a bloom of warmth on the cheeks, and his lips painted a colour of warm red. 

Blonde curls falling over his forehead, his suit was tailored in black, lapels stitched with gentle thorns, the collar closed neatly with a thin crimson ribbon. A matching red thread circled his porcelain wrist—identical to the one still burning on your own. 

He was so delicate, exquisite personified, crafted so meticulously, it almost felt like a sin to be staring at him. You didn’t realize you were moving till your palm rested on the fogged glass. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” a voice called out, jolting you out of your trance. 

You turned around quickly to see the shopkeeper—a woman older than time itself, dressed in a black shawl with hazel eyes that gleamed like a summer storm. She didn’t sound angry, but tired. Like she’d been here before, like she’d seen this play out before. 

“I—why? Isn’t he for sale?” You asked. 

“He’s not for sale.”

“But why? This is a shop and he’s a doll,” you asked again, desperate to understand. 

Her gaze didn’t falter, “he’s not just a doll, and this isn’t just a shop.”

Today has been confusing, but this? It was way par your usual understanding. Not a doll? Not just a shop? It was as if you were bleeding into the thin crack between dream and reality. 

“I want him,” you repeated like a broken record. 

Her eyes flickered down to your wrist in a scowl, before she gasped, demeanor doing a one eighty, “I see, so it’s happened.”

“What has?”

She didn’t answer, walking past you to the coffin, brushing the gold plated oval, depriving it of the dust that had settled there over the time. 

Jungwon—the engraved text read out, a name as pretty as the face. 

“I’ll pay anything,” you declared, as if he would cease to exist if you don’t get him, if you don’t keep him preserved with you. 

“Anything,” she echoed, “everything,” she confirmed.

You stared at her, wondering if this was yet another tactic used to get a higher price for a certain possession, to quantify the amount of desperation one can behold. 

Still, she didn’t answer you directly. Instead, she moved around the coffin, unlatching locks you hadn’t even noticed until now—iron clasps, rusted, something that creaked with each movement. Not the lid, never the lid, just the base. Preparing it for transport.

“You’ll take the whole thing,” she started, as if telling you the rules. “Don’t try to lift the glass. Don’t remove the thread. And no matter how much you want to—don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.”

“How much?” you asked, breath catching in your throat with newfound warmth blooming up your chest. 

She paused her slow movements, scribbling a figure on a torn piece of parchment and handed it to you. Her fingers were cold and dry, like paper itself.

The number was beyond the point of absurdity, a cost that screamed sacrifice, not currency. More than what a doll should be worth, if it was just a doll that is. 

You got your card out without a second thought. It was all you had, a price you got for having the ever so absent parents. She nodded, as if she expected you to say yes regardless of the circumstances. 

“Handle with care, he’s—he’s more fragile than he appears to be,” she murmured, “alas, don’t forget the rules.”

You nodded, fingertips quick to call, informing your driver to pick up the coffin, the brass bell chiming as you stepped out of the Chiller House. Your eyes followed him, throughout the journey. 

All while not knowing that your red thread had disappeared. 

Chapter 2: In the name of love. 

The glass clinked under the brightness of the chandelier, a voice that reminded you much of cages. 

Especially here, at the HYBE Plaza, where every corner shimmered with the festive celebration of New Year’s eve. And yet, not a single thing about this night felt new.

You sat at the long table draped in glitter, surrounded by people who wore their smiles like fake masks. Your parents sat two seats away, laughing for appearances, eyes always glancing sideways. Your fiancé, Jaemin, their choice, sat beside you with a hand on your chair, a smirk evident on his face, the usual routine for him. 

“You barely spoke a word tonight,” he accused, “this night is important.”

“To whom?” You stared into space, fingers playing with the red threads of the table cloth. 

He sighed, a vein popping out with the anger he couldn’t control, “to your family—to my family, to me.”

“The contracts, you mean? The exchange of money for souls, ah? Is that what I was raised for?”

Your fiancé shifted uncomfortably beside you, but his grip on your chair only tightened as he leaned in, teeth clenched. “Don’t do this here.”

“Where should I do it then?” you asked, still not looking at him, “at the altar? In bed? Over brunch with our mothers while they plan the next generation of heirs to ruin?”

He inhaled sharply. “You’re being unreasonable.”

“No,” you replied, turning your head at last, eyes sharp, the chandelier above caught in your eyes like fractured glass. “I’m being honest. You should try it sometime.”

“Sweetheart, maybe you need a breather, want me to walk to the balcony with you?” Your mum breathed out in her sugar dipped voice, almost embarrassed at the way you clearly worded what they’ve been doing all this while. 

“Where was this sentiment when it was my birthday, mother? Perhaps you were too busy to remember? Right, father?” You said, eyeing both, who looked rather embarrassed at your outburst, almost piercing them with the serum of truth. 

Truth that you were their daughter, a human, not an investment or doll, by any means—something that they’d been overlooking all this while.

You didn’t wait for a reply. 

The chair’s legs scraped against the marble like a declaration, loud enough to silence the violins. A hush rippled through the room. Your mum’s painted smile flickered, your father’s eyes narrowed with the slow cruelty of a man too long accustomed to control, however, you kept walking.

When the elevator doors slid shut behind you, the last thing you saw was your mother clutching her pearls, tears glistening her eyes, as if she finally realized a tinge of the hurt she’s caused you, but not a way to make it better. 

Winter had returned to the city like a storm—snow falling not gently, but rather, in solemn sheets. The chauffeur said nothing as he opened the car door. He didn’t dare, not when you looked stoic. 

All you remembered from the car ride was the flashes of colours, the scenery collapsing into an abstract piece too bright for your taste. The lift carried you into warmth in utter silence, juxtaposing the kids in the lobby, way too enthusiastic to celebrate new year. 

The penthouse greeted you with the familiar hush of years long curated wealth. It smelled faintly of roses and marble, of nothing real. The chandeliers stayed lit, as if unaware the girl who lived beneath them had shattered hours ago.

You walked in without removing your heels, only leaving them midway on the velvet of the carpet as your legs started to wobble, as if uncertain if you should be standing anymore or not. 

By the time you reached the bathroom, your fingers could barely unhook the back of your gown. Your body trembled from exhaustion, you peeled the dress off your skin as if it were a second one—a shell of who they wanted you to be, and let it fall in a puddle on the heated tiles.

The water scalded your skin, but you didn’t move, you stood beneath the stream like something carved from grief, arms hanging limp at your sides, head bowed. The steam curled around your body, trying to hold you together, but nothing could. Not tonight.

Your sobs were quiet—choked, too exhausted to echo in the grand bathroom. They slipped past your lips like secrets, buried in the hiss of falling water. You sank slowly to the floor, knees folding, cheek pressed to the cold marble. You stayed there until your fingers numbed and wrinkled.

Eventually, you rose, wrapping yourself in a robe, barely bothering to dry your hair, and stepped into the dim corridor, the lights flickering faintly above. The silence of the penthouse felt sharper now—closer. The velvet underfoot muted your steps as you passed gilded mirrors and untouched heirlooms.

Wrapped in a white robe, you drifted down the corridor, dripping steadily down your spine, leaving a trail of water. The chandelier above the foyer flickered gently behind you, casting your shadow down the hallway like a second self.

You opened the bedroom door, the air inside was chilled from neglect, the heavy curtains still drawn shut from earlier that morning. The only light came from the candle you must have forgotten to snuff—its flame dancing beside the mirror, golden and low.

And in the corner of your room, against the rich velvet of the carpet, rested the glass coffin, the one you had brought home, the one that hadn’t left your mind since.

You walked toward it slowly, your bare feet cold now, trembling slightly as you approached. Your wrist burned as you knelt beside the coffin. Your hands found the smooth edge of the glass lid, fingers hesitating, remembering the warning from earlier, what the shop owner said. 

Don’t open it before the onset of the new year.

It wasn’t new year yet, you were five minutes short of time, of patience. 

What would even happen? It’s just a doll, a pretty piece of porcelain, something you pondered about for the next four minutes. 

Your fingers curled tighter around the latch, “I can’t wait,” you mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

With that, you unlatched the coffin door, and as you did, the sharp corner of the coffin caught your hand, causing a sudden, precise sting.

You flinched, hissing softly, watching as a bead of blood gathered at your fingertip—round and dark, like ink waiting to stain something sacred.

Before you could think, it slipped, fell down, right onto his slightly parted lips.

The moment it touched him—the first firework exploded beyond the window, a bloom of sound and colour cracking through the silence. The sky lit up in gold, and then another, and another—an orchestra of celebration for a world that had nothing to do with the one unfolding here, the celebration of new year beyond your room. 

When you looked back, the blood was gone, disappeared. You wondered if he had a crack, a hairline in his mouth, letting the blood seep through, or it actually disappeared. 

Your hand reached beneath him, slow, cradling him once more—arms beneath his back and knees, lifting him gently from the coffin. The robe slipped further down your shoulder, forgotten. His weight pressed into you softly, the fabric of his suit warm against your chest as you carried him across the room, he was heavy, heavier than any porcelain should have been. 

The fireworks continued behind the curtains, echoing against the window panes like distant thunder. But inside your bedroom, it was just you. Just him.

You laid him down on the bed, carefully—pillowing his head, smoothing the lapels of his suit, brushing your trembling fingers once across his cheek as if to confirm he was still there.

Then you joined him, sprawling over the silk sheets, eyes blank as they stared into the plaster of paris perfectly sculpted into the ceiling. 

Your hand reached out blindly until your fingers brushed his, cold and delicate beneath the satin glove. You held it like it might tether you to something real. 

“I don’t know how to be normal anymore,” you whispered into the dark, voice hoarse from crying. “I’m always pretending, every fucking room I enter, every dress I wear—it’s like a costume. A fucking mask, and no one ever sees what’s underneath. I’m not even sure I do.”

You turned your head, breath catching as your eyes landed on him. He didn’t look human, he looked like an angel. 

Lips parted the faintest bit, lashes long and still, his face peaceful in the way the world never allowed you to be. You watched him, tears welling again, cascading silently down your cheek.

“I’m so tired, I only see red, no blacks and whites.” You sighed, as if curving into the madness of what the world put you up with, “you’re beautiful,” you mumbled, fingers tracing the outline of his lapel, the thorn-stitched embroidery catching against your nails. The silk beneath was soft, too soft—like skin meant to be kissed.

“It must be nice, being a doll, a real one with no feelings, just plush beauty, and stillness,” you whispered, his eyes shining with an understanding, a glint that shouldn’t be seen in the non living creatures. 

It wasn’t just grief now—it was like vertigo. That hollow, high feeling that came when you’d fallen too far and realized there was nothing left to crash into? You’d hit the bottom. The absolute, ridiculous bottom. And here you were—wanting to kiss a fucking doll.

You crawled toward him slowly, silk dragging behind your thighs, breath hitching. Every inch you moved across the mattress felt like a climb up the hill, a ritual of some sort, of great importance.

Your knees slid to either side of his hips. You climbed on top of him like sin climbs onto innocence, soft and slow, an angel falling .

You shouldn’t be doing this, you knew that, and still, you sighed into relief as you cupped his face between trembling palms, his skin was porcelain, yet it wasn’t cold.

It had taken on warmth—not humane, but something subtler, as the sun shone warmly on the sealine, almost a personification of liveliness of a peculiar sort. 

You leaned down slowly, your breath catching in your throat. You didn’t realize how hard your heart was beating until you were so close to him you could hear the soft rasp of your own blood roaring behind your ears. 

“Everyone hates me,” you whispered, your voice inhumane, lacking warmth. 

Your finger traced the curve of his reddish porcelain cheek, perfect, “gosh—would you hate me too?” You asked like a child talking to a wall, expecting no answers in return. 

He only listened, attentive and polite, brown eyes staring into yours like an emotional support anchor, “I’m insane, I’m so insane, I,” you breathed out, chest heaving up with your face tilting in a fashion that if you’d bend down a smidge, you’d touch him, “keep me safe, even if it’s for a night.”

With a sharp intake of breath, you slotted your lips onto his, the act purely devastating, trembling against the solid, unmoving porcelain, clinging onto a kiss that gave you nothing physical in return, just pure warmth blooming in your chest.

Your lips parted over his, opening wider, messier—tongue barely brushing his, knowing there was no true warmth to meet it but needing it anyway, making you whimper and push down into his lap. The silence scorched you, it bloomed in your chest like fevered devotion.

The kiss turned wetter, more obscene, your hips rolling over his waist as your tears began to fall—again. You gasped through them, mouth open against his, panting.

“I just wanted someone to want me,” you sobbed, forehead resting against his, “is that so wrong? Is that so—fucking wrong?”

Your bathrobe had fallen open completely by now, the fabric slipping off your shoulders like silk cloth, exposing your bare chest to the cold, to him. You didn’t care, you wanted him to see. You wanted to press every part of your ruined body to the hollow sculpture of his form and pretend it meant something. Your thighs clenched around his tiny waist, your hands fisted in his jacket, still kissing him like a girl who believed enough could bring back the dead.

There, atop a doll who could not hold you back, half-naked, tear-streaked, heartbeat trembling like a loose violin string—you finally slept, not peacefully, but possessively.

And watched. 

He always did. 

Chapter 3: I see your heart is pure. 

Fingers trailed down your chest, not cold, not glass smooth.

It was flesh, real human touch. 

You inhaled sharply, the sound catching somewhere between your ribs and throat. Your breath hitched again as one fingertip circled your tits—tentative, like he was trying to remember it. The pad of a thumb brushed over your nipple, coaxing a shiver so deep it left your spine tingling.

You opened your eyes, the room was cloaked in shadows and gold. Velvet curtains half drawn, a single candle burning, but you didn’t question the shift. You didn’t ask where you were or what time it was, because he was there.

Jungwon.

Seated beneath you on the mattress, half clothed in his black suit, his blonde hair tousled like he’d just woken from the same need that drenched your body. His brown eyes were wide and almost fevered, pupils dilated as if he was starving.

His hands slid down the curve of your body, making you gasp quietly as they touched your bare skin, your robe had fallen open long ago, exposing you to him, thighs spread without any shame, not here. 

“Jungwon,” you breathed, unsure if it was a plea or shock. 

He looked up from where he sat between your legs, lips parted, gaze locked onto your core like he was watching something beautiful unravel. 

“You’re soft,” he whispered.

His voice sounded carved from candle smoke and shadow. Soft, velvet lined in some way. It felt like it was coming from inside you, like something whispered to your soul rather than your ears.

You parted your lips to respond, but your words didn’t come as he bent down, mouth ghosting the inside of your thigh, not touching where you needed him but still close, so close. 

A low whimper was all you managed to let out, making the pretty man smirk, a gentle dimple gracing his innocent face, that didn’t harbour a single innocent thought inside of him. 

He licked once, just beside your cunt, not quite there. A warm, wet trail that made your body twitch.

“Please,” you whispered, fingers threading into his hair, tugging gently.

His mouth was so close you could feel it—not just heat, but presence. As though the very idea of him had weight. His lips hovered just above your cunt, parted, exhaling breath that couldn’t possibly exist. He didn’t move—just stared up at you with that hollow devotion, like your worship was the only thing he’d ever known. 

You moaned, soft and broken, hips lifting instinctively. His lips barely brushed you, just a flicker—when suddenly the entire world fell out from under you.

You jolted awake with a harsh breath. 

It was a dream. 

The second you tried to sit up—you gasped, to be pulled back gently by the weight of a hand around your waist. Not accidental, not your imagination. It was real.

You felt a shiver going down your spine. His arm draped around you even though you hadn’t moved him by any means. It was the same doll who once lived in a glass coffin, now lying behind you, cradling your body like a lover who refused to let go. His fingers splayed just below your ribs, unmoving but perfectly placed, as if sculpted for the sole purpose of holding you through the night.

Slowly, you guided his hand away, his arm dropping without resistance, gently settling beside him on the sheets, lifeless, as if nothing had ever happened.

But it had, you knew it had.

Your legs wobbled as you stood. The room felt colder now, like whatever warmth had been there with you had sunk back into porcelain. Into silence. You didn’t dare look at him as you crossed the room, bathrobe clinging to your body with sweat and shame, thighs still aching with want. 

Your skin was glowing in the reflection you saw of yourself, standing in front of the bathroom mirror, before you stepped into the shower, getting ready for your godforsaken uni. 

By the time you got to campus, the city had woken up but barely breathed, snow melted in streaks across the pavement, students milled about like ghosts of themselves, laughter thin. 

You met your friend near the steps—Karina, too bright for this weather, a paper cup of coffee steaming between her hands.

“You came to class on a bank holiday?” She asked, raising a brow, “should I be worried that you’ve final-fucking-ly lost your last marble?”

You smiled thinly, “I just needed to be somewhere—uh, not alone.”

She nudged your shoulder gently, knowing about your family problems, “rough night?”

You swallowed, not maintaining eye contact for once, “is it weird,” you began, voice low, “to want something that’s not, uhm, human?”

She stared at you, caught off guard, “what? Like a celebrity crush weird or maybe a serial killer weird?”

You didn’t laugh, not when you felt this way.

“I mean actually—feel something for it,” you clarified, “something not alive. Something you know isn’t real but—”

You cut yourself off before the words but it touched me could fall out.

Karina tilted her head, “okay, hold on, babe. Are you into one of your artifacts or something?” She teased, half laughing, not serious about the situation at all, “you’re really committing to your collection, I see.”

The second she saw you not laughing, staring at the ground as if you wanted it to swallow you whole, her tone dropped, “babe, you can’t be serious—wait, seriously? Y/N—”

“I have to go,” you whispered, grabbing your bag tighter as you walked away, ignoring the echoes behind you. 

The cold air outside did little to numb the burn still clinging to your skin. It felt as though your body hadn’t fully left the bedroom, like some part of you was still trapped under the weight of him—those porcelain arms, those parted lips, that impossible stillness that somehow kept watching. The memory of it clung to you as you crossed streets and waited through red lights without seeing them, breath ghosting in front of you with every hurried exhale, and by the time you reached your apartment, you were shaking.

Inside, the silence greeted you first, then the sudden burst of warmth.

Not the artificial kind piped through radiators, something richer, something fuller, as if the space had been lived in while you were gone. You turned your head toward the bedroom and froze.

The glass coffin hadn’t moved—but its contents had. Jungwon lay just as you’d left him, and yet his body was no longer the same, his head was tilted toward the doorway, ever so slightly, lips were still  barely parted, but they appeared softer now, not rigid with ceramic but plush, almost flushed. The light caught on his skin differently—as if it had deepened in tone. No grey undertones, but something dangerously close to human. His chest rose faintly, or maybe you imagined it. Maybe you had to.

You stepped closer before your brain could warn you otherwise. The air felt heavier around him. The scent was no longer just cedarwood and dust but warmer, enough to make you shiver in anticipation. 

Don’t open the coffin before the onset of new year.

The voice echoed through your mind, your greed had gotten the better of you, and you didn’t have the slightest clue of the consensus, never having asked the owner about it, her word was final—yet you resorted to disobedience. 

It was hard to figure out where you were meant to be with how often you escaped from places, soon staggering into the Carnival after a silent car ride. It was still there, the rusted iron gates, the music bustling, children laughing. 

You walked fast, passing the clowns with their painted smiles, past the fire breathers, and carousel horses locked in crooked gallops. Your breath came quick and hot now, fogging in the air like you were being hunted.

And then you turned the corner, to where it had been, The Chiller House, gone. 

No dark striped tent, no artefacts, there was nothing, not even footprints. Just untouched snow and a lingering emptiness, a strange dead zone between booths. The kind of space you noticed only because it shouldn’t be empty. 

Only, your wrist burned where the red thread had once been, as if tugging you, as if controlling you. 

As if, you were a marionette. 

Chapter 4: My sacrifice. 

Dim lights surrounded you, black silk draped over your body in an elegant ballroom dress, only, the dress was bunched around your waist as you sighed softly, laid on a long table. 

Your breath came light, dazed. You weren’t bound, but your body refused to move. Not from fear—something else. 

The figure between your thighs moved slowly, Jungwon.

He knelt before you like he was praying. His blonde curls shining in the flicker of dying candlelight, casting a halo around a face too angelic to be real. His eyes met yours once before descending again, gaze dripping down your body like melted gold, like hunger dressed in devotion.

You whimpered as his mouth pressed into your inner thigh like a kiss of worship, porcelain lips gone warm, alive somehow. You didn’t know how you knew it, but you knew, he’d waited to taste you for centuries.

When his tongue finally touched you, you gasped, spine arching off the table in instinct, in need. The room didn’t echo, it swallowed your sound. Your moans melted into velvet as Jungwon held you still.

His hands were delicate but firm, cool at first, then warm, his tongue moved in slow, curling drags, like he was learning you, memorizing you. Every breath against your cunt was a confession. You heard your name whispered into you—not from his mouth, but from your bones.

“Missed you, waited for you all these years, hm—mine,” he mumbled mindlessly, prettier than ever, speaking like a true lover. 

His mouth never stopped, kissing your clit with need, flattening his tongue as if he needed to taste you in order to stay alive, as if you were the oxygen he needed. 

Your body trembled as he groaned into you, eyes rolling back, the familiar feeling of your high coming had you moaning, it was so close, just another flick of his tongue, yet the second his lips touched your cunt, you swore you saw the world collapsing. 

Then, a gasp.

You woke up breathing hard. It was yet another wet dream, however, it felt real, as if you’d lived it before, thighs leaking with your wetness, which had pooled down your cunt. 

Jungwon laid beside you, exactly in the position from last night, after you came home trying to find the chiller house, but to no avail. Pondering upon it didn’t work, which is why you found yourself next to him, telling him about your day as if he’d asked you to. 

As unnatural as it felt, he brought you peace, a sense of belonging, enough for you to forget that he’s a doll, enough for you to fall asleep in his arms, only to dream of him for the second night in a row. 

You looked his way, wondering how his lips looked softer now, hair more tousled than before, lashes longer, nothing seemed artificial anymore. Was your mind playing tricks on you? Or did he truly look more human now, even more so with a tiny drop of moisture on his lips—as if he had tasted you, not in the dream, but reality. 

“Just what—who are you?” You whispered, tracing the curve of his cheek, plush now. 

He was captivating, so utterly beautiful, you found yourself leaning in, pressing your lips upon his in a slow fashion, warmth blooming over again. There was no reciprocation, no movement, just you with your frantic breath as you pulled back. 

You stared at him, eyes tracing every shadow of his face. Something about him had shifted again, not in posture, not in expression—those remained still, but in presence. He no longer felt like an object in the room, but the very gravity of it. The space bent around him. 

You should have been disturbed.

Instead, you reached again, cupping his cheek, thumb brushing the edge of his mouth. The drop of moisture was gone now, but the memory of it ghosted against your fingertip. It was real, you knew it in your bones that something was changing.

The sharp shrill of your phone shattered the moment. You sighed, reaching toward the nightstand, vision blurred by the dissonance between this world and whatever realm you’d been slipping into beside him.

It was an unknown number.

You answered with a whisper, “hello?”

At first, only static crackled through, then a voice—breathless.

“Y/N? I—It’s your fiancé.”

You didn’t speak, your lips had forgotten how, you listened further, ex fiancé you wished to say. 

“There’s been an accident,” he continued, the words heavy in his throat, “It’s Jaemin. He—he crashed his car, it might be serious. you should come.”

You didn’t speak for a few seconds, heart rate rising up, “how?” you asked, voice low.

“They’re not sure,” your father answered. “There was no ice on the road, no other driver, no brake marks at all. It was like the car veered itself off the highway and straight into a barrier.”

Your free hand tightened where it rested on the edge of the mattress. Jungwon remained still, perfect and innocent in his silence, but your eyes locked onto his again—and something in your chest bloomed in dread and awe alike.

He had looked at you differently, earlier. Just before your dream, as if he’d been listening and he understood. 

You ended the call without another word, the phone slipped from your hand to the bed with a dull thud. And then, slowly—almost afraid of your own confirmation—you reach for Jungwon’s hand, sliding your fingers between his.

“Did you—?” You asked, gulping, “this can’t be, maybe I am going crazy,” you whispered to yourself. 

Completely missing the curve of his lips, a ghost of a smile, warm and satisfying. 

Chapter 5: Lock and key. 

Home felt warmer than ever, which was a foreign feeling to you, granted your own heart was cold. However, it was as if some sort of magic had been sprinkled through your penthouse, it was brighter, your fingers twitching each time you neared your bedroom. 

Madness crept in gently. You found yourself smiling at him—Jungwon, speaking to him with tenderness usually reserved for lovers in candle lit portraits, and lord, worse, you meant it. Even the kisses now felt familiar, the kind you give to someone you’ve missed for lifetimes.

So you left. You needed to be out, carrying your emotional support key to fiddle with, mindlessly so, as you found yourself roaming around where your favourite antique store had been, the storefront looked the same as always, stained glass glistening in the sun, the door carved in spirals like vines curling around the door.

After a few minutes of pondering upon which new piece you could get, your eyes landed on a small wooden crest at the very back of a velvet lined shelf. You picked it up without thinking twice, shivering as you felt the same material as that of your comfort key, which rested warmer than ever in your pocket. 

You bought it in silence, not even bothering to ask its origin. Some objects are meant to be answers, not questions, and when you stepped back into the cold daylight, it wasn’t the antique shop you remembered—it was something older. A feeling curling at the base of your spine.

You didn’t go anywhere else, rushing home, boots echoing sharply on marble floors, coat clutched tighter around you, the crest now held to your chest like a relic. The moment your bedroom door opened, Jungwon was there—exactly where you’d left him, laid beautifully among the folds of your sheets, framed by candlelight you didn’t remember lighting.

His gaze, as always, was half lidded and still, but you felt watched, or rather, held in an embrace. You sank beside him, heart too loud in your ears, and slowly, your fingers reached for the key in your pocket. You’d never understood why it meant so much to you—it was always just a key, until now. Until it began to pulse softly against your palm in the presence of the crest.

You brought both items together. The second the base of the key met the carved sun and moon wood, there was a click. The crest opened like a locket, splitting from the middle in a flowerlike spiral.

Inside, there laid a folded page, yellowed with time, edges charred as if it had barely escaped a fire, you lifted it, hands trembling, ignoring the other stuff that laid inside. 

The ink had faded, but not enough to erase the sketch drawn in hurried, desperate strokes, portraying a girl being mourned in black with her eyes closed, standing beside a young man with soft curls and a thread around his wrist. Red. The face of the girl was not clear, but his face was unmistakable even with the faded colours—Jungwon.

His eyes, his mouth, even the angle of his neck. Him, exactly as he lay beside you now—down to the shadows beneath his lashes, the solemn part of his lips.

“No,” you whispered, but the sound barely made it past your throat, “w—what is this?”

There were no dates mentioned, no names, no title. Just a mark at the bottom—a sigil you didn’t recognize, but which made your body shiver. Like it belonged to you.

You wanted to step back, but you couldn’t, you were already on the bed, his body just inches from yours. You clutched the paper against your chest, as if holding it would keep your sanity from slipping. Your heart thundered against his quiet.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Why are you in this? Why—why do I feel like I’ve seen this before?”

You turned to him slowly, eyes watery.

He lay there, serene and unbothered. A holy thing, but something in your throat twisted the longer you looked. You had no words for it—this quiet ache that gripped your lungs and told you, you’ve been here before.

You didn’t think, simply leaning in, arms curling around him, resting your head beneath his chin, pressing your body against his like it would ground you—like it would stop you from breaking in half.

And as you held him, eyes wide in the dark, the sketch burned behind your eyelids, making you shiver, mind so distraught that you barely pay attention to the fingers who curl tighter around your waist. 

Chapter 6: Can I have a dance?

The room pulsed with heat. Not comfort, but the kind that made you ache, you didn’t remember walking here, but your body had arrived, soaked in watery silk. The chamber around you was vast and dark, stone walls veined in tarnished gold, and steam blooming from a bath sunk deep into the earth like a tomb carved for lovers.

And he was there, of fucking course he was.

Jungwon, kneeling between your thighs like a man in prayer, the water swirling around his hips. His curls were wet, clinging to his cheeks, his mouth already at your skin.

You were bare beneath the surface, soaked in warmth, and him. He kissed the inside of your thigh firmly, reverently, like he’d missed the taste of you more than breathing. His lips trailed upward, and when his tongue finally reached your cunt, your spine arched from the stone—as if blessed.

Your hands found the ledge behind you, fingers white knuckled against the carved obsidian. He licked slowly—decadent, like he was savoring something rare and forbidden, tongue curling with memory and need. You moaned, broken and low, your legs spreading wider.

“Still just as sweet,” he murmured, lips brushing your folds, “even after all this time, hm, sweet.”

His fingers dug into your thighs with something feral, and when he began to suck, kissing trailing upwards, making you cry with each flick of his tongue, it almost felt known, and around you, the air changed.

The mist parted just enough for you to see them, mirrored silhouettes lining the perimeter of the bath, placed with hollow eyes. Their mouths sewn shut with red thread.

Your head snapped down—his eyes were on you, dark and endless. And he smiled against your nipple, which rested between his lips, a faint trace of dimple shadowed his face.

“Let me make you remember, my love,” he whispered.

You shattered with a soundless scream, clenching around nothing, body pulsing, the climax burning hot and holy through your veins, as his two digits plunge into your wetness, warm and inviting. 

And then—silence.

You woke in your bed, sweat clinging to your skin, thighs damp, breath caught in your throat, the room was dim still, velvet shadows all around. 

Then you felt it, an arm deliberately curled around your waist. Fingers resting at the base of your ribs, too precise. 

You turned your head the slightest bit, barely breathing now. He lay behind you, not stiff like porcelain should be, but pliant, like flesh that had long since remembered how to mimic life. His cheek brushed your shoulder, his breath, if it was breath, fanned faintly against your nape.

You had goosebumps all over, not sure if the dream caused it, or was it your mind playing tricks on you, about the fact that you felt it in flesh, the doll feeling more humane each passing day. 

He hadn’t moved last night, but now, he held you.

And you realized that you had no memory of falling asleep, only of speaking to him, barely clothed, trembling. Your body had crawled into his presence like it belonged to him—and perhaps, in some unspeakable way, it did. It always ended like this.

You beside him, asleep, getting pulled into a world you were familiar with, only, it felt foreign the second your eyes snap open, each time. 

As if your soul was following a rhythm it had long since known by heart.

Your wrist burned again, you shook it, desperately trying to ground yourself in a way you won’t spiral, hence, picking up your phone, scrolling religiously as it casted a warm glow on your face. The curtains were drawn shut, candlelight flickering near the vanity—your usual nighttime ritual. You hadn’t looked at Jungwon yet, you didn’t want to.

Not because he scared you—but because tonight, he felt too close. You set the phone down for just a second, reaching for the glass of water at your bedside, and it slipped your gasp, hitting the ground screen down. 

Your speaker picked it up, connected automatically, a moment of silence before that sound, however familiar, but still something you’d heard for the first time. 

A slow, waltz inspired ballroom melody. Instrumental, full of violins, the kind of tune that made the air feel like it’s silky, like it belonged to another century entirely, and maybe, just maybe, it did. 

Your head turned slowly to stare at Jungwon, who glowed under the candlelight, complexion no longer cold, rather, he looked soft, flushed even, lips glistening and brows furrowed, staring at you.

You rose to your feet without knowing why, the melody urged you to move forward, each step feeling as though it belonged to someone else—someone older, someone who had walked these halls before in bare feet and silk. Someone who had danced already to this same waltz, in a time before mirrors.

You reached him, hand brushing his cheek, warm—not startling, not artificial for once, just warm enough to make your breath hitch.

“I must be dreaming,” you whispered, for the nth time you believe.

He didn’t answer, of course. But he didn’t need to.

The music only swelled.

You slipped your arms beneath him, your robe falling open slightly at the shoulder. His body pressed into yours, heavier than it looked, and yet you lifted him, pulled him close. Like he weighed nothing at all. Like he belonged to you, like he walked with you so as to not burden you with his weight. 

You carried him—through the corridor, past the mirrors and the antique cross stitched chairs that no one ever sat in, past the glass cases filled with relics of lives not yours. The music followed, blooming louder now, until—you entered the grand living room.

The chandelier loomed above in fractured crystal and dust, casting slow shadows across the room. The fireplace was cold. 

You stepped into the center, socks covering your bare foot as they turned against the polished marbles, his arms limp around you, but his weight tilted with you, as if his body remembered the rhythm. The two of you swayed—left, then right, a half turn, a pretty dance which wasn’t perfect by any means.

However, it was real.

And as you turned again, as the violins drew longer and you felt it, the shift, not in him but in you. 

Like a dream had opened mid movement. Like the edges of time had folded. The chandelier above flickered.

And suddenly, you were not in the penthouse anymore.

You were in a ballroom.

Massive and candlelit. The scent of wax and rosewater heavy in the air. Gilded frames on every wall. A harp playing somewhere far off.

Your dress was full bodied silk, dark and red like overriped cherries, the ones who love so much. You wore gloves, and his hand was firm at your waist.

He was alive, laughing and whispering something into your hair.

“Don’t look away. If you do, we’ll forget again, don’t wanna forget, not yet.” He pressed his soft lips upon the corner of your mouth, smudging the cherry coloured lipstick. 

You gasped, holding onto him tighter, trying to feel the warmth that he radiated, like a human, as if he was never a doll in the first place. 

Pulling him closer, you tried to maintain eye contact, staring right into his big brown eyes, a soft dimple gracing his face, even more so when you leaned in to kiss him, to feel real, as if you belong somewhere. 

That’s when your feet caught on something.

You gasped, letting go and Jungwon’s body dropped from your arms, slow, the way dreams fall when you wake too fast. He collapsed onto the marble, arms spread loosely, curls bouncing once as his head hit the rug.

“Shit—” you dropped to your knees, breath caught in your throat, “oh, fuck! I’m sorry, I—”

You reached to lift him again, but  your hand scraped something sharp, a low gleam of silver caught, his lapel pin—a small thorn, twisted around perfectly. It pierced the pad of your finger with surgical precision. You hissed, watching a single drop of blood rise.

It rose up and whole—down your finger, and before you could stop it, it fell right on his throat, then another, in his eye which still stared into you, now bloody and more real than ever. 

The music stopped right then, just when you were about to take a step towards Jungwon, heart heavier than ever, mind spiralling as if you’d reached a point of madness, no conscience of past, present, or future. 

“Jungwon?” You whispered, the sound barely coming out, not coming from your throat, but rather somewhere that buried deep inside you. 

He didn’t speak, however, his lips were parted, the same mouth that was carved from stillness, now hung slightly open. His chest, once impossibly still, seemed to move, yet you couldn’t be sure, but one thing was clear—something had changed. 

You gasped the second the shrill voice of your phone rang, startling you, grounding you back into the present, violently so. You picked it up with a shaking hand, the blood now drying along your fingers. The name flashing across the screen was one you recognized, your manager. 

“H—hello?” You answered, dizzy. 

The voice came out clipped, “I—I didn’t wish to call like this, I know you don’t wish to be a part of the mess anymore, but Y/N, listen—it’s about your father.”

That cleaved onto you like a blade, your eyes still fixated on the doll, whose eyes seemed to be glowing by now. 

“The press got hold of his old finance records, the funds which were rerouted, laundered, and offshore holdings. Even political donors—Y/N, they’re everywhere, headlines and broadcast stations are looking into it. I don’t think it can be undone, the police took him in.”

Your phone felt heavy in your hand, or maybe your hand had gone numb. The blood had cooled to a tacky smear against your palm.

“You’re safe, stay there, okay? We’re contacting lawyers to help your parents—”

You cut the call, words barely registering at the moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing about the situation felt normal to you, not when you already found yourself spiraling about different things, about Jungwon. 

You tried to breathe, but your lungs weren’t working right. They expanded too quickly, then refused to collapse. Panic gripped your ribs and twisted as your heartbeat slammed, thudded in your ears, in your skull. Your head was too light, your hands too far from your arms.

You couldn’t think about the phone call, about your father, your mother, the lawyers, the broadcasts. None of it belonged here—not anymore.

Not when something unnatural, divine, was happening just a few feet away. Your mouth opened, a gasp, a name—none of it came. You were spiraling, fast, and the ground no longer wanted you.

The moment cracked with your knees giving out. A soft thud echoed through the room as your body fell sideways, limbs collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. The marble floor rushed toward you, but even that felt dreamlike, distant.

Everything was fading, only one thing remained—him.

The last thing you saw, just before your eyes fluttered shut, was a flash of motion—Jungwon, no longer still, no longer cold. He moved with terrifying speed, rising from the floor like he’d always been capable, like he’d only been waiting.

His eyes locked onto yours in panic, and his arms—real arms, reached for you.

You didn’t feel yourself fall, you only felt him catch you, your eyes closing as the last thing you heard was his voice before passing out. 

“Don’t leave—”

And then, silence. 

Chapter 7: You’re the one I was meant to find. 

You were running. The corridor around you was narrow, candlelit, carved from stone older than reason. Your fingers clutched the sides of your gown as your breath tore from your lungs, heart thundering beneath a bodice bound too tight. Your slippers slipped against the marble, the walls rushing past in a blur. Somewhere behind you, voices rose in anger. The violins still played, faint and far off, as if from another room—or another lifetime.

Just then, a hand caught your wrist, black gloved, steady despite the tremble in his grip—Jungwon, dressed in royal robes, eyes brighter than ever, searching for yours in a hurry. 

He only pulled you forward, faster through the passage, your fingers tangled in his. Behind you, the shadows were growing figures. You could hear the clink of armor now, boots striking stone.

A crack of thunder split the sky.

And suddenly you were in the courtyard, barefoot on wet stone, skirts dripping, hair tumbling free as you spun in his arms beneath the moon. The storm raged above, and yet the violins still played. He held you like he was trying to memorize your shape, the way your breath stuttered every time his hand brushed your spine. The music swelled, and you twirled, laughing into his shoulder—but the sound was short lived.

Another crack of lightning hit—way closer now.

Flames flickered behind tall windows. Guards poured from the doors like an army, making you turn, hand still in his, and run toward the stables. Your lungs burned, his name trembled on your lips. The horses reared in panic as you approached, but he steadied them. A look passed between you—a mix of fear and love, and he lifted you onto the saddle, swung up behind.

But the gates never opened.

The trees beyond the wall seemed so close, and yet, arrows flew like black wings from the towers above. One struck his shoulder. His body jerked behind you, warmth spreading across your back. You turned, horrified, clutching him as he slid from the horse with a cry.

And just like that, the ground returned.

You were on your knees, soaked in mud and blood, sobbing as you cradled his body. His fingers still moved, reaching for you. He tried to rise, he tried to speak. But the clang of metal drowned everything.

The guards seized you both.

The next flash came with the howl of wind tearing through tall windows—tattered velvet curtains flailing like wounded wings.

You were in the throne room, your family lined the steps in judgment. Gold and crimson banners hung behind their heads like execution ropes. Your father’s voice boomed as he paced before the assembly, fury twisted into something rehearsed.

“Loyalty cannot be faked. Treason wears many faces, and fraternizing with the enemy will have consequences, no matter if it’s my own flesh, punishment will be given.”

Your mother said nothing. Her hands were folded tightly, white knuckled in her lap, her pearls glittering like tears that refused to fall.

Jungwon knelt at the base of the dais, blood streaking his cheek, lips split, eyes never leaving yours. He looked regal even then—bruised and broken, but unyielding.

“She chose me,” he said, voice low, shaking, “and I would die for that choice again.”

Another crash of thunder—and you were beneath the cathedral rafters, cloaked in shadow, your fingers pressed to his jaw as you kissed him like it was a rebellion in itself. The scent of incense and storm hung between you. Your tears mixed with his.

“If I could be born again,” you whispered, forehead pressed to his, “I’d still choose you, in every life, I would give my love to you, Jungwon.”

A gust of wind tore through the memory.

Suddenly the forest closed around you again, and your blade was drawn—one you hadn’t even realized you were holding. Blood on your hands. The enemy’s blood, or yours. It was all the same now.

They pulled you back. A scream echoed—his, yours, mixed together in the deepest symphony of pain. 

Steel pierced your side, and then it came, the emptiness.

Your knees hit marble, vision swarming. Your body folded in on itself, cradling the wound as though it could be held shut. You couldn’t see him anymore, but you heard his voice breaking in the distance, each word louder than the last, but fainter in your ears, “don’t take her—don’t—please—no! Y/N!”

Your blood pooled like spilled ink across the floor. The music had stopped, you didn’t know when. Then the world began to dim, his name was the last thing in your mouth.

The next memory didn’t come with lightning, but with silence so deep it felt like falling into a crypt. He knelt again—this time in chains, surrounded by your family, their faces cold as marble statues. There was no trial, no last words.

Your father spoke the curse himself, voice like iron.

“Let him live and never forget, let him see her again, and never reach her.”

The thread appeared—red as blood, drawn through his chest, binding his limbs in place. His skin cracked. His breath froze in his lungs. He didn’t scream. Only stared forward, lips parted in horror as his body hardened.

Porcelain, in silence, cursed like a marionette with the strings invisible, a prince entombed in the skin of a doll.

The centuries passed like ash on wind. You vanished from the records of history, reborn again and again, never remembering. He remained, all these years, shelved. Watched over each time, still long forgotten. Until you, until this year.

Until now. 

You woke with a violent gasp, a cough, as if dragged from beneath water that had long since gone still. Your lungs burned as you clawed yourself upright, heartbeat deafening in your ears, skin cold. The room tilted and shadows had changed. The light no longer flickered against porcelain.

There was heat beside you, some weight, and before your mind could catch up, your body reacted. You turned sharply, hands slipping on the edge of the blanket, still in the living room, eyes locking with his, wide and burning.

Jungwon.

No longer the lifeless doll, no longer the mute witness sealed in centuries of stillness. His chest rose with breath, his pupils blown wide, and his hair, once perfectly styled when you first saw him—was tousled now, disheveled like something had been undone from the inside out. His coat lay forgotten on the floor behind him, abandoned in the chaos of resurrection. He looked alive in the worst way—raw, barely contained, beautiful, and terrifying all at once.

You didn’t think, simply twisting away, a broken sound leaving your throat as you scrambled for the edge of the room, running away from what felt like a nightmare, even though your heart beated out of our chest, urging you to go to him instead. 

However, he was faster, hand catching your wrist before you could rise to your feet, grip firm, not enough to hurt, but enough to shake something loose in you. You yelped, shocked by the strength, by the heat of his touch, how real he felt, how utterly he refused to let you go.

“Stop,” his voice boomed, reverberating, still cracked at the edges, “you’re not running. Not again.”

Your breath hitched as you stared at him, trembling under the weight of the moment, the tension stretched tight as piano wire.

His jaw was tight, but his eyes were chaos, wild with something that couldn’t decide whether to be angry or longing. “You looked at me,” he said, his voice gritted with disbelief, love—all of it layered in a single breath, “you saw me again, and now you want to run?”

“I—” the word barely formed, your mouth felt numb, the panic in your chest twisted with something else now, a longing of something long forgotten. 

He leaned closer, still gripping your wrist, still breathing hard. His shirt was half untucked, collar loose, neck flushed, the candlelight flickering at his cheekbones. He looked ruined, and furious, but most of all—desperate for you.

“You died in front of me,” he said, louder now, every syllable laced with venomous heartbreak, “and I lived in silence for centuries, waiting for you. You think I’m going to let you leave me again?”

You tried to wrench your arm free, but he held fast, dragging you a step closer, the distance closing like a door slamming shut.

“Don’t you remember what they did to us?” He spat, voice sharp, “you think you’re scared? I’ve been trapped in silence, in a damn glass coffin, hearing your voice in rooms I couldn’t move in. Do you have any idea what it did to me—watching you pass me by without knowing?”

The room swam around you, every breath felt like thunder in your ribs. He wasn’t calm, nor was he composed. He wasn’t the memory anymore—he was the consequence of all of it, of love twisted by time, of passion turned obsessive by grief.

His hand finally loosened, just slightly, fingers brushing down your wrist, but he didn’t let go.

“Say something,” he breathed out, “say my name.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came as you stared at his blonde messy hair, big yearning eyes, laced with despair, rosy lips, dying to get a taste of you. 

He laughed once, bitter and breathless, dimple showing despite the frustration, teeth gritted, “no one has said my name with love in a hundred years, and I only wanted to hear it from you.”

His grip shifted again, gentler now—but still firm, like if he let go, you’d vanish. His forehead dropped toward yours, not touching, breath warming the space between you, gaze locked in yours like a curse reborn.

“You were mine,” he whispered, “you are mine, do you think anything else matters?”

Your hand moved before your mind did, reaching up to brush the strands of hair from his forehead. He didn’t flinch, he leaned into it like a man starved of touch. Your fingers trembled as they slid down the side of his face, feeling the heat of his skin, the realness of it, the pulse just beneath.

“Jungwon,” you breathed.

The moment you said it, everything changed, his eyes fluttered shut, like the sound alone was enough to break him. His fingers dug back into your waist, holding you with quiet violence, breath stuttering against your cheek.

You didn’t pull away, you simply couldn’t, instead, the words clawed up your throat, bitter, almost angry, “was it you?”

He stilled, lips hovering just beside yours, controlling himself, “what?”

“The stories, t—the leaked accounts, ruined finances. My ex fiancé’s accident,” your voice cracked, but you pushed forward, fury threading through the fog, “did you do that to them?”

He opened his eyes slowly, the look in them wasn’t apologetic by any means, “yes, I wanted to burn every name that ever tried to replace mine,” he said, voice low and shaking, “and I did. I watched him touch you like you were some fragile, pitiful thing to be married off. Like you were his to protect, to claim, as if I hadn’t died screaming your name.”

You should’ve felt sick, perhaps a part of you did, but the other part—the darker, crueler one buried deep in your chest was quiet, pleased.

He was the only one who ever loved you so violently, so completely, that he’d ruin anyone who dared stand where he once stood, even if it was wrong, even when it was madness. 

Your voice dropped to a whisper, “you destroyed them for me.”

“I’d do it again,” he said without blinking, “in less time, with worse consequences.”

Your breath came harder now, lips brushing his,  “you’re insane, you—you’re not real, am I still dreaming?”

“I’ve been waiting over a century. What do you expect me to be, not insane? Not real for you?”

Your hand tightened around the collar of his shirt, fisting it. He exhaled like he was finally allowed to breathe again. His forehead pressed to yours, sweat damp and shaking. The line between hate and hunger blurred like smoke between your mouths.

He looked at you like he was about to kiss you—or devour you, maybe both. 

“You think I give a damn about right and wrong anymore?” He whispered, voice as sweet as you could remember, and lord, now you did remember, even if it made you spiral into madness, you remember now, “they never loved you. Not like I did, not like I still do.”

This time, it was you who moved first. You surged forward, your mouth finding his with a desperation that didn’t feel like yours, but something older, something buried. It wasn’t sweet, rather, it was starving. Teeth clashing, lips bruising, hands scrambling to pull, to grip, to ground yourself in the heat of him.

He groaned into your mouth, and it was deep, guttural, ragged from centuries of holding back. His hands flew to your hips, pulling you into him like proximity could undo time. There was nothing patient in the way he kissed you—just need consuming him altogether, the kind you didn’t walk away from.

“Say it again,” he begged against your lips, not stopping, “say it, my name, say it like you remember.”

“Jungwon,” you breathed, again and again, like a spell, like a lifeline, like you were anchoring him to this world.

Each repetition made him more frantic. His grip on you tightened, his body shuddering under your touch like he was afraid it might fade, your lips parted as he kissed down the side of your jaw, then lower when you whimpered, hot open mouthed kisses all over your neck. 

“I need to feel you, need to know you’re mine again,” he groans against your skin, voice beautiful, “that I’m not fucking dreaming—”

“You’re not,” you breathed out, pulling his face back up to yours, looking him in the eye. “I’m right here.”

He surged forward with something close to a snarl, crashing his mouth to yours with violent purpose, lips swollen and slick as his hands gripped your waist and hauled you into his lap on the silk covered couch like you belonged nowhere else. You straddled him, legs falling around his hips, your chest pressed to his as he devoured your mouth with a hunger you didn’t know a body could carry. It was angry, obsessive—years of silence and watching and grief pouring into every kiss, every clash of teeth, and tongue.

You tried to speak, maybe to say his name again, maybe to tell him you wanted him now—but he didn’t let you.

“I said no more running,” Jungwon grunted against your mouth, voice low and beautifully frayed, “ you’re going to stay right here, on me, just like this.”

His hands traced your back, slow and possessive, until they gripped your ass and grounded your hips down hard against the bulge straining beneath his trousers. You gasped, fingers curling into his shoulders for balance, your cunt rubbing right against him—too much friction, yet not nearly enough.

“Oh god—”

“No,” he groans, breathless, biting down on your shoulder, “not god. Me. Say my name when you’re like this, yeah?”

“Jungwon,” you gasped, your whole body twitching as he rutted up into you again, cock grinding against your bare cunt through the fabric of his pants. “Fuck, Jungwon—”

“That’s it,” he breathed, mouth against your throat, sucking a bruise into your skin as you rocked your hips down on him like instinct. “That’s all I wanted for a hundred fucking years, you, falling apart on top of me.”

He grabbed the backs of your thighs and stood in one swift, jarring motion, lifting you with him. You wrapped around him by reflex—legs clinging to his waist, arms around his neck, body flushed against his chest. The room blurred as he carried you, stumbling back into the bedroom you’d long since abandoned when he was nothing more than porcelain.

You barely had time to think, the chandelier flickered above, casting gold and red across the walls like spilled blood and candlelight. Then the bed hit your back, his weight covering you a second later.

He kissed you again, deep and slow this time, like he was drinking from your mouth. His tongue curled over yours, wet and thick, stealing every breath you had left. Your legs parted for him without thought, and his hips slotted between them, his clothed cock rubbing right against your soaked core as he started to grind again.

“Feel that?” He panted, pressing harder, rutting his hips down in short thrusts that had you moaning into his mouth, “you’re dripping for me, darling, and I haven’t even fucked you yet.”

You whimpered, eyes rolling back at the friction, so raw and filthy it bordered on unbearable.

“You used to do this in secret,” he said, thrusting again, his voice rasping as he rocked into you, “when you thought I couldn’t see, pressing your thighs together, grinding against your pillows, pretending you didn’t want me.”

“I did,” you gasped, “you know I always did.”

He groaned, hips stuttering as you clung tighter to him, “I used to imagine this before we got together—holding you down, just like this, feeling you grind all wet and desperate over me, crying my name.”

You could feel how hard he was through the fabric. He was panting now, moving faster, the rhythm filthy. His cock slid against your clit with every stroke, and it had your thighs trembling, cunt pulsing with the tension coiling in your gut.

“You’re going to cum like this,” he whispered against your lips, like a command, “right here, before I’m even inside you, hm?”

Your hips moved on their own, chasing the friction, chasing him, your breath caught in your throat, “please,” you whimpered, “don’t stop—don’t ever stop.”

He kissed you sloppier now, his teeth catching your lower lip as he groaned into your mouth, sweat slicking your skin.

“Say my name,” he ordered again, fucking up into you harder, grinding your clit perfectly with every motion.

“Jungwon—Jungwon, fuck, I’m gonna—”

“You’re mine,” he groaned, “you hear me? No one else, never again.”

The pressure burst like it was breaking your body, your back arching as you came hard—loud and shaking, your moans swallowed by his mouth. He groaned with you, grinding hard through your climax, his own hips bucking as he rutted with desperate rhythm, chasing his own peak.

“You make me insane,” he gasped against your neck, still grinding, “you don’t even know what you do to me—”

You held him tighter, your body still pulsing, already dizzy again from the aftershocks.

You still hadn’t caught your breath—your body trembled beneath him as he flipped you over on your back, lips swollen from kissing, slickness coating your thighs, but he didn’t give you a moment to recover. His hands were already moving, ruthlessly so, as if he didn’t trust time to wait for him this time.

“Mine,” he muttered, voice ragged, chest rising and falling like he was barely containing himself. “You’ve always been mine.”

Then you heard it, the nasty sound of fabric tearing.

You gasped, hips jolting as his hands flipped your robe up, gripping your soaked panties and tearing them clean in half—fingers curling into the delicate fabric like it had irritated him just by existing between you. The torn scraps fell to the side, forgotten.

“I’ll rip through anything that keeps me from you,” he said, low and fervent, voice thick with heat and hunger. “I don’t care if it’s silk, steel, or fucking centuries.”

His mouth hovered above your core, breath hot, uneven, “I should’ve done this the second you walked back into that house,” he growled, eyes locked between your legs. “Should’ve thrown you down and tasted you until you forgot the name of every man who touched you after me.”

You writhed beneath him, already breathless, your thighs falling open for him like muscle memory, but then he paused, sitting back on his knees and reached up to his collar.

Your chest rose and fell faster at the sight—his fingers moving slowly now, unbuttoning the pristine white shirt clinging to his chest. One button, then another. With every inch of skin revealed, your pulse surged harder—his collarbone, the plane of his chest, each line of him carved like something ancient and holy, divine and terrifying. The candlelight bled gold down his stomach, catching in the cut of his abs, the trail of veins along his arms twitching from restraint.

You watched, dazed at his pure beauty, he looked like a prince raised from the grave—beautiful and damned.

“You look at me like you remember,” he whispered, letting the shirt fall from his shoulders with a smirk, “do you? Does your body know me now, darling?”

You nodded before you could stop yourself, lips parted, “I do. I remember all of it.”

He exhaled hard through his nose, the sound nearly a growl, “then lay back,” he said, crawling between your thighs again, “and let me remind you why no one else ever satisfied you.”

He didn’t waste a second as he was on you, mouth open, tongue wet and greedy, licking through your folds with a growl like he’d gone feral. Your body jolted at the first contact, back arching, thighs trying to close from the intensity—but his hands gripped your knees and forced them open, pushing you wide as he buried his face in you like he was starving.

“Fuck—” you gasped, hand flying to his hair. “Jungwon—”

The sound of his name broke something in him, making him moan, a sound so loud and obscene, right into your cunt, reverberating, tongue curling against your clit, sucking so hard your hips bucked. His hands pressed your thighs flat to the bed, holding you down as he devoured you like a man who’d waited lifetimes to be fed. There was no rhythm, only unadulterated hunger and reverence. His mouth was wet, tongue fast and erratic, fucking into you like he needed it to live.

You mumbled out something incoherent, and he groaned again, louder, mouth sealing over your clit, sucking until your vision blurred, until your voice cracked.

“Jungwon—please—”

“Say it again,” he ordered, teeth brushing the sensitive bundle of nerves, tongue never stopping.

“Jungwon, I swear Jungwon, uh fuck, please—”

He didn’t stop, he couldn’t.

“You belong to me,” he said, licking deep into your entrance. “Even now, even after death. Say it, baby, say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours—” you gasped, near sobbing from the pressure building inside you again. “I’m yours, I’m, oh fuck, Jungwon, I’m gonna, fuck!”

“Cum for me,” he ordered, voice thick with lust and control, “make a mess on my tongue. Let me taste every fucking inch of you.”

That sent you over the edge, you came with a cry so sharp it felt ripped from your chest—your thighs clenching around his head, your hands yanking his hair, hips rocking up as you fell apart. It was too much, way too intense, too long coming.

He moaned into your cunt, licking you through every pulse, every twitch, swallowing down your release like it was holy, and when you finally opened your eyes—he was still between your legs, a dark lopsided grin on his face, attractive, but even more so, scary, as he laid there, still hard. 

Still hungry.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice deep, “but you’re not scared of me anymore, are you?”

You couldn’t speak, only shook your head, throat too raw from moaning. Your wrists still burned faintly, the red thread pulsing under your skin as if it knew something ancient had shifted.

He sat back on his heels, slowly, dragging his palms up your trembling thighs, claiming every inch he touched, he looked mad, in an obsessive way, in a fashion that creepy dolls do, but he was real, and waiting. 

“You came so sweet for me,” he whispered, brushing a finger between your folds, smearing you across your thigh with reverence, “but, baby, it’s not enough, just not nearly enough, hm?”

His hands moved to his belt, and you froze for a second, eyes following every inch he moved. The sound of leather sliding through the loops echoed in the room, his eyes stayed locked to yours the entire time, not blinking once as he tugged the belt loose, then let it fall to the floor with a soft thud.

“You don’t know, baby, you have no idea how many times I’ve imagined this,” he continued, voice cracking, “not just having you like this, but fucking you still half clothed, holding you open while you scream my name into the dark—because you remember me now, and you’re not going anywhere, fuck—I’ve missed this.”

He didn’t take his pants off—not completely. His hands dropped to his belt, the metal buckle clinking open with a quick, practiced tug. The soft hiss of leather sliding through loops reverberated the air. His eyes never left yours, his jaw clenched so tight it trembled, the fury in his body barely caged.

Then the button, the zipper. He shoved his pants down with one hand, just low enough to free himself, his cock springing out, flushed and thick, already leaking, twitching from how long he’d held back.

He fisted the base with one hand, the other still holding your thigh open, “you’re mine,” he said, almost to himself, then louder, “fucking say it.”

“I’m yours,” you breathed, almost choking on the words.

He chuckled, a devilish smirk on his face as he looked at you with dark eyes, “again.”

“I’m yours, Jungwon.”

He groaned, like your voice alone could unravel him, and leaned in, bracing his forearms beside your head. His cock dragged through your slick folds as if he was teasing, catching on your entrance, and he hissed at the feel of you already so wet, so ready.

“I should’ve never let you forget me,” he growled, lining up, “never should’ve waited this long,” he mumbled, “wanted to fuck you right there when you climbed on my lap and cried even when I was a doll, when I fucking lost my mind, you kissed me, baby, you needed me even then.”

You whined as he brought up what you had done, and just as you were distracted, he thrust in without much warning, no build up before, simply a deep, brutal snap of his hips. 

You cried out, head jerking back, back arching off the bed. He was thick, too big for you, and the stretch was unbearable, perfect, like you were being broken in half. His hands clamped around your wrists again, pinning you down with bruising force, and your skin lit up. 

The red thread under your wrists seared like fire, glowing bright, like the curse had been reawakened fully the moment he was inside you.

Jungwon’s breath hitched against your ear, “lord,” he rasped, “you feel that? That’s it, that’s fucking us—”

You whimpered, overwhelmed by the stretch, by the thread, by the way your body clenched around him like it already belonged. Like it had been waiting for this moment through lifetimes.

“I knew it would burn,” he whispered into your throat, hips snapping forward, “I knew it would recognize me the second I was inside you again.”

He thrust again, hips grinding now, like he was savoring every inch of your slick, shuddering cunt.

“And it does, doesn’t it?” he hissed, “your body knows. Even if your heart forgot me—your body never did.”

You sobbed out his name, barely a whisper, and that made him lose what little control he had left. He slammed into you, again and again, hips snapping with violent rhythm, his cock dragging against your walls with every brutal stroke. The bed creaked beneath you, the air around you fogging up in a mist of sex. 

“Fuck—Jungwon, slow—”

“I’ve waited too long for this,” he groaned, “centuries of silence—centuries of emptiness. You think I’m going to take it slow?” 

His lips crashed into yours, devouring your cry, tongue sliding past your lips like he needed to taste everything at once. And still, he kept moving, hips hammering into yours with a punishing rhythm, every thrust sending sparks of pain and pleasure through your entire body.

“Do you feel that?” He gritted against your lips, “the way you squeeze me—fuck, baby, you’re shaking.”

“I can’t, please Jungwon—”

“Yes, you can.” His voice was feral, “you’ll take it, all of me, every fucking inch. You’ll take it because you’re mine.”

His grip shifted—one hand sliding down, hooking under your knee, throwing your leg over his shoulder so he could drive in deeper. The angle made you scream, body arching off the bed, stars flooding your vision as his cock hit the spot that made you unravel.

“Right there?” he chuckled, “that’s the spot. That’s the one that used to make you cry for me in your past life. Remember it?”

You sobbed—half lost, the sensation too much for you to incorporate any new information in mind; and nodded.

He thrust harder, deeper, so much rougher, every movement frantic with obsession, “say it,” he moaned, “say you remember.”

“I remember,” you gasped, “I remember you, Jungwon, I remember everything—”

The noise he made wasn’t humane by any means. It was broken, starved almost. He bent over you, still buried deep, his forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping down between your bodies.

“I’m going to fill you up,” he whispered, “so deep you never forget again. So full you won’t be able to think of anyone but me.”

The red thread pulsed yet again—twisting tighter, glowing like fire at your wrists, along your thighs, down your chest.

“You were made for me,” he breathed, “bound to me. You’ll die with me inside you, if I have to make it happen, and I’ll die with you again, over and over, again.”

He groaned through those words, your moan was louder, vibrating through his skin, squeezing him tighter as your body agreed, you were made for him, and gave him exactly what he wanted, you, falling apart all over his cock. 

The sight was enough for him to lose his control, letting himself go, filling you up, deep and hard, cock pulsing inside your fluttering cunt, as your body convulsed around him once more, milking him through it.

However, he didn’t pull out, didn’t bother moving, stopping. 

His hips rolled again, already hardening inside you. He looked down at you, eyes burning red under the chandelier’s flicker.

“I’m not done.”

Chapter 8: With or Without you. 

The water shimmered with faint steam, delicate curls of warmth rising into the candlelit hush of the room. The tub was enormous—black marble, sunken into the penthouse floor, surrounded by tall gothic windows that looked out over the city like a cathedral watching the living. The only light came from candles, myriads of them, flickering along the ledges, their glow casting long, trembling shadows across the walls. 

You were weightless, finally, your bare body floating gently between Jungwon’s thighs, your back pressed to his chest, your head on his shoulder. His arms wrapped around you, palms resting on your belly, then lower, fingers brushing just above your thighs, as if he couldn’t stop touching you even now, not even here.

The red thread had faded back to a dull, molten line along your wrist, no longer burning, but you could still feel it, tied between your pulse and his.

He was warm behind you, human, finally, irrevocably real.

He kissed the side of your neck, slow and deliberate, his lips dragging up to your jaw, “you’re still shaking, darling,” he murmured, his voice low, intimate, as if speaking louder might wake the rest of the world.

You let your eyes drift shut, “I’m not sure it’s real yet.” You said, scared, abandonment being your worst fear, and now you knew why, you had a reason, carved deep inside you. 

“It is,” he whispered, “I am.”

You felt his hand curl tighter across your stomach, protective, anchoring you in place. He kissed you again, and again, trailing his mouth down the curve of your throat as though trying to memorize every inch of skin, leaning back into his embrace.

“I never want to wake up if this is a dream,” he murmured.

“You won’t,” you said, softly. “Not unless I do too.”

There was silence for a long while—only the water shifting around your bodies, the distant hum of the city beneath the stained glass, soft fluttering in your stomach, and Jungwon’s possessive hold, telling you that it’s real, that no matter what happens, he’ll stay. 

You had no idea how you would explain the addition of a new human into this world, how you’d describe where he came from, but that was the least of your worries now.

You turned in his arms then, straddling him in the deep water, your knees pressed to either side of his hips, your hands finding his shoulders. His hair was damp, pushed back from his face, his cheeks flushed from the heat. There was something about him like this—messy, still a little inhuman. Like the remnants of porcelain had never quite left. His eyes gleamed like something ancient.

“You never stopped loving me,” you whispered, fingertips brushing down his chest.

He shook his head once, slowly, his blonde curls now wet, caressed your skin in the process. “Not once. Not even when you died.”

You leaned in, lips brushing his, but didn’t kiss him just yet, “and all that time, you waited?” You asked, as if you needed confirmation over and over again. 

“I waited, burning all alone,” he said, voice thick, eyes shining with the truth, taking you in with nothing but unadulterated love, “every night, every time someone else touched you in another life. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I just felt it, you moving on. You forgetting.”

You cupped his face, stared into the truth of that devastation, “I never really forgot, not because I wanted to at least.”

“I know,” he breathed, “I felt it. Even before you remembered—your blood called me back, you cried to me, you just didn’t know it yet.”

You finally leaned in, noticing the faint dimples on his cheek as you got closer, eyes holding hearts for you. The kiss wasn’t frantic, not like before. This one was slow, perfectly drawn out, all breath and lips, and silent apology. It was centuries of mourning buried in a kiss, two lovers who had lived and died with that ache carved into their bones.

He sighed into your mouth, letting you take from him as long as you needed. When you finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, eyes closed.

“I won’t let go,” he whispered, “not in this life. Not ever again. I love you so fucking much.”

“You don’t have to,” you breathed, “I’ve loved you, I love you, I’ll love you.”

For the first time, it wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t a punishment, it was real, a promise.

The candlelight caught on the red thread beneath your skin once more, pulsing faintly between you like a heartbeat in unison.

He wrapped his arms around you again, pulling you into his chest as you sank back into the water, your cheek against his collarbone, your limbs tangled under the surface. Outside, the world continued, the time marched on, the city moved.

But in here, in this penthouse above the world, time stood still, he had returned to you. 

And he would never let go.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

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© jaylaxies | tumblr

[jaylaxies]

you shall not speak lies

i never do 😔

[jaylaxies]

hi how are you? do u wanna drop another tease for marionette maybe? 🐥 i need crumbs

hihi love, i’ve been well! how are you? 💗 hm let’s see, i might post the fic tmrw 🤞🏼

[jaylaxies]

૮ ․ ․ ྀིა

you’re so cute <3

[jaylaxies]

ria!!!! you and moonie probably prove the no two best friends are pretty theory wrong 😽🔥

oh no trust me anonnie, moonie is a goddess, so pretty, i’m the visual hole here, she’s literally as pretty as the moonlight, her name suits her so well, and man her smile? makes me feel better whenever i feel sad 🤞🏼

[jaylaxies]

Can't Deny You - Yang Jungwon

a/n: y'all voted for wonie,, and wonie is what I bring to you, my loves 🫶🏻. I hope you all enjoy and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE reblog, and tell me how you enjoyed it mwaah!! (jungwon really is for the noonas wow - I have a lot of jungwon x noona requests)

Trope: Best friend's Brother

Synopsis: You know it’s wrong, but your body doesn’t care. But tonight, he stops looking and starts taking. He’s all heat and hunger, grinding against you like he’s waited years—and maybe he has. You should stop this… but part of you never wanted to.

cw: f! reader, noona! reader, cock grinding (non-penetrative sex), power imbalance (age, relationship to friend), obsession and desperation, profanity, filthy talk

You’d been backing away from him all night. Through the living room, past the kitchen, all the way down the hallway— until your spine hits the wall, and he follows, slow and certain, caging you in with his body.

“You keep running from me, noona,” Jungwon murmurs, voice low, head tilting.

His ascent washing over you, something so intoxicating that it feels so wrong just to be this close up. His eyes shine, the usual bright sparkle replaced with something darker.

“But you wore this little dress again,” he adds, fingers brushing the hem, tugging on the fabric as if it taunts him. “You knew I’d lose it.”

You should speak. Should tell him this is wrong but instead, your breath comes shallow, thighs clenching.

Closing the distance between you, his hand lands against the wall beside your head, the other dragging down your side. His fingers take his sweet time, building anticipation, nervousness and want between you both.

“Tell me to stop,” he dares softly. “Say the word.”

Despite your consciousness screaming at you, shaking your shoulders, demanding you get a grip on yourself – you stay silent. Right now, nothing but your drenching pussy is doing the thinking.

Taking that as an answer of his own, his eyes—those deep, dark, hungry eyes go wide and greedy.

The sensation of his cold fingers sliding behind your thigh, taking the opportunity to grope the flesh as he pulls your leg up around his waist... you gasp.

You feel it. His cock.

Hot, hard, thick, grinding right against your panties, right through the damp cotton of your underwear and the thin fabric of his sweats.

“Fuck,” he breathes, grinding again. “You’re soaked.”

Your fingers dig into his shoulders, nails biting into his hoodie. “Jungwon, this is wrong—”

“That’s why it’s gonna feel so good, noona.”

He starts moving—slow, hard thrusts against your clothed heat, cock dragging up your folds, precum soaking through. “You feel that? That’s how much I want you.”

His hand tightens on your thigh. “You want me to believe this is wrong while your pussy’s drooling on me?”

“You’ve been acting so good for years. Ignoring me. Pretending I’m still just your friend’s baby brother.”

“But your pussy knows the truth.”

He thrusts again, cockhead catching on your clit, and you cry out, soft lips find your jaw, teeth grazing your skin.

“You wanna know what I used to think about in my room?” he pants. “You. In this dress. Wrapped around me. Dripping.”

“Fucking soaking my cock while I grind it between your folds like this.”

Body trembling and shaking like a leaf, the pleasuring drag of his length, every ridge and vein along your cunt makes it difficult for you to keep yourself from grinding back, mewling at how his lips feel hot on your collarbone.

And he’s still not inside but you're already so wet, you feel like you might break from it.

He ruts faster, his breath coming harsh. “I could slide in so easy right now,” he groans. “You wouldn’t even stop me. You’d take it, wouldn't you? Fuck – of course you would."

His cock slips under the edge of your panties, bare now—skin to skin, tip dragging directly through your slick folds. “Fuck—this is dangerous,” he growls.

“I could come just like this. Just from how wet you are. You want me to?”

He pauses, cockhead pressed right at your entrance. Just resting there.

“Or should I push in? Stretch you open like I’ve dreamed of?” You feel his fingers press against your clit, a visible glob of your arousal dripping on to his cock head making him throw his head back, groaning at the obscene sight.

“Make you mine for fucking real, yeah?”

Your hands clutch at his hoodie. Your lips part with a trembling moan, whispering his name again—just a breath, just a plea.

He groans, forehead pressed to yours, cock twitching. “Say it. Say you want me to fuck you, noona. Say it and I’ll ruin you.”

taglist: @jaylaxies @omlhyck @mangoescrazy @raven-unkind @ikeukiss @sweetsungiie @k1ttyjwon @sourkiki @ikeuwoniee @daisyintherainsposts @rustymoons @ysenik @seungsoftly @ssanhwatto @lunariansun @seongiewon @enhxlvr @mey-archive @toastmenace

© hoondrop | 2025

[jaylaxies]

downloaded mnet plus as soon as i saw sangwon on boys planet like wym my man is back and fully ready for his debut now?

[jaylaxies]

what if you're the heeseung to my jake

whatever happened to jayhoon? 😔