#n im mad it wasn't properly explored

[thelov3lybookworm]

When Shadows Ward Off Darkness (Part 3)

Chapter 3

Prologue Part 1 Part 2

Summary: Making up and New revelations are in order

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A/n: this part is again, a lil boring, if i say so myself, but its picking up, so im happy

next part will be fun to write 😏

@acotargiftexchange

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During the whole time Gwyn and Draven had been friends, they had explored hidden and secret places in the kingdom and turned them into their secret haunts, some of them being a dilapidated building, a forest rumoured to be haunted, though Gwyn could not find a single troubled soul other than herself and Draven in that forest.

Unless they were the ghosts people were talking about, then the forest definitely was haunted.

The small strip of land walled off from the rest of the beach was one of their favorite places to spend time at.

The sun nearly singed Gwyn's skin, but she pushed on, determined to get to the beach and take a dip in the cool, calming waters.

All she could do was hope that she didn't encounter him there.

The beach was one of the places where Gwyn found peace, something about the waters calming her soul, and Draven simply followed her around as if he had nothing else to do.

Which, considering he was a prince, checked out.

But her luck had begun being cruel to her lately, and she found him pacing along the cliffside, kicking up sand in his wake, his obnoxious cloak fluttering behind him, and just watching him wear such heavy clothes, Gwyn felt the urge to rip off her own skin, the heat and sweat drowning her more than the sea ever did.

She decided to step forward, and then instantly cursed whatever part of her brain had decided that.

He whipped towards her, his throat bobbing as he swallowed.

"Gwyn."

She ignored him, beelining straight for the water glittering under the harsh sunlight.

"Gwyn! It was not that big of a deal, okay? You are mad as if I killed your cats with a stick." He yelled in frustration, following behind her.

She turned back to him, gaping. "I would stab you to death with the same stick if you killed them. And it was that big of a deal, because now I don't know what was real and what wasn't, Draven." Then something occurred to her. "Is Draven even your name? Or is that another lie?"

He sighed, massaging his forehead. "It is my name. In a way." Before Gwyn could ask the question, he answered. "It's my middle name."

"And what is your actual name?"

"Azriel. Azriel Draven Black."

Gwyn rolled that name around in her head, admitting to herself that it was a beautiful name.

"Will you listen to me now?"

Gwyn lifted her chin, huffing. "You have exactly two minutes."

Draven's- Azriel's- jaw tightened, but he nodded. "Fine. You wanted to know why I didn't tell you I was a prince. It was because I knew you hated royals."

"I still had the right to know who I was becoming friends with."

He gave her a look. "You really want me to believe that you would not have kneed me in the balls the moment I let it slip that I was even distantly related to the King and Queen?"

Fair enough.

"Look Gwyn, I did not ask for this life, and everyday I try my best to be worthy of it."

Gwyn nodded, not knowing what to say.

"Also, I am not a real prince. I was not born in the royal family."

Gwyn's jaw slid to the ground. "You really were picked from the garbage then?"

He blinked, his lips twitching. "Yes, Me and Cassian were, technically, picked from the garbage."

Her cheeks reddened. "Sorry. I did not mean to say that."

He grinned slightly. "Come, I'll tell you more."

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It had been a few days since Gwyn forgave Azriel, and everything was going a little too well.

Something was bound to happen.

That morning, Gwyn found out that she was a half breed.

Half human, half merfolk.

She had been shocked, but not as much as she would expect to be.

She guessed it had something to do with the blood in her veins, how the way her body knew how to move before she did in water, how she knew how to swim before she even knew how to speak properly.

Currently sitting on the dining table opposite her uncle and next to her sister, Gwyn wondered how she had not figured it out earlier.

Catrin squeezed her hand, offering a small smile, and Gwyn knew she was pretending to not be affected by this information so she could be strong for Gwyn. But the disbelief in her eyes and her shaking hands stated otherwise.

"Why are you telling us this now?" Catrin questioned her uncle, who leaned back in his chair, sighing.

"Because according to the laws of the mer people, you and your sister have now come of age, and that means you must visit the queen, your mother, and stay in the kingdom for atleast a year. The queen will then decide if you get to leave."

Gwyn took in that information, her head reeling. "Why have we been living with you then?"

"The merfolk are a people who prefer to have the females in power, the goddess they follow dictating that females are pure and fertile, giving them the gift of life and having them rule justly and in a way good for the people. The males are either brought up by the blessing of the queen, or outcasted. Bearing a male child is a disgrace to the goddess, and despite it being rare that a mal is born, not many mer females like to raise the male child. The children who are removed from the mer society either die, or they are taken in by the mer people that worship the devil and live on the outskirts of the underwater kingdom."

"And how do you know about all this?"

Their uncle gave them a look. "I was one of the few half breeds, since humans are hated by the mer people, despite the half breeds proving to be more useful than a normal mer." He grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously a lot like fucking mer standards. "Your mother, my distant cousin, sent you two to me to take care of until you were of age."

Until you were of age.

That did not sound like a blessing.

"And now what?" Catrin mumbled, her hand tightening on Gwyn's. Apparently she had come to the same conclusion as Gwyn had.

Their uncle smiled ruefully, standing and turning away to walk into his room. "You will be meeting your mother soon."

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Taglist: @bubybubsters @eos-princess @nightless @harrystylesfan2686 @cassie6392 @bibliophiliaxvignette

[mischiefblues]

im annoyed bc george/bess had great potential, but instead they're focusing on the straight romances than anything else and leaving bess in a weird situation w lisbeth and now with odette it's just making it weirder.

[wistfulkitten]

i dream you'd love me again (2) || jk

sadness, guilt, regret. all things jeongguk felt after reading her letter.

genre: angst and fluff? childhood friends, cheating, sisters boyfriend au

pairing: jeongguk x reader

word count: 2.3k

posted: 200518

warnings: longing, infidelity, profanity (kinda), mentions of sex, probably inconsistent punctuation 

a/n: theres probably gonna be minor grammar issues because grammarly is shit and im tired. n e way i tried making this longer, it took me like four hours believe it or not. funni how i can make time for writing but not for my hw. silly me. i tried explained why he did what he did and im sorry if it was crappy. thank u to yall who read the first one. if you guys have any requests or ideas feel free to send me something in my inbox or message me. tyty:))

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sadness. sadness is what jeongguk felt at the end of ___’s letter. sad that he hurt her enough to the point that she thought of herself as anything but perfect. sad that she doubted his feelings for her. sad that despite everything he put her through, she still loved him and still wished him the best. he always knew she had a big heart. it's one of the many reasons he was drawn to her in the beginning, but it was also one of her biggest weaknesses. her heart was too big for her own good and it scared him. ___ was always too quick to forgive and forget and most of the time it came back to bite her in the ass.

 he saw it time after time when her dad had left. he had had an affair and left his wife and two kids for a younger woman and yet she never got mad or ever blamed her father in contrary to yoona. while yoona never gave her father the time of day after the separation, ___ always made sure to set time aside for him even when he never put in enough effort to interacting with his daughters. he was a pretty crappy father, content with his new life. and though it made her sad that her family was no longer whole and her mother was practically always crying herself to sleep, it made her happy that her dad was happy. she was just about twelve then and still, she never gave into childish grudges. thirteen year old jeongguk found her slightly stupid for this trait but as they grew up, he found it quite endearing. 

guilt. after the sadness had settled in, a great wave of guilt washed over his being. while he was here, newly married with a whole life ahead of him, you were somewhere out there living the life you always wanted sad and lonely. too heartbroken to even enjoy it properly. he didn't deserve it, the comfort and security his new marriage gave him, he didn't deserve it. 

 jeongguk was merely seventeen when he fell in love with a sixteen year old ___ all the while he dated yoona, her older sister. he’d known them practically his whole life and it was such a small town that it was simply impossible for you not to know anyone and everyone. everyone went to the same schools and hardly anyone moved out of the godforsaken town. he and yoona started dating in the sixth grade. much too young to be dating but their families were long time friends and saw it appropriate for the two to start early. so that one day the two families would unite. jeongguk hadn’t minded at first. he was eleven at the time but yoona had always been a good friend. they played together all the time so nothing really changed except for the frequent hugs and occasional kiss on the cheek.

 as they grew older they graduated into more mature ways of affection but it never bothered him too much. though he was friends with yoona, he was always closer to ___. sure at first, he had trouble expressing but afterward never once did they ever feel reserved towards one another, only ever honest with every bit of their being.  while yoona was more reserved and occasionally bratty, ___ was outspoken and adventurous. always willing to try something new even if it wasn't exactly encouraged. she never shied away from speaking her mind and that was something jeongguk always aspired to be. she was everything he wasn’t.  she expressed herself in every possible way. hair color was constantly changing since the start of high school. she pulled off any type of style you could think of. you could pick her out of any crowd in an instant. she painted, wrote poems and songs, sang, played various instruments, even took up photography. she turned any type of art form into a way for people to understand her, every single part of her. she was good at so many things and jeongukk, jeongukk was good at one thing. basketball. yet she never made him feel bad about it, instead she went to every game. cheering him on. she was mesmerizing in every single way. 

 while they had their good moments, yoona had a knack of patronizing him for every fault and imperfection. when they started high school she had tried so hard to be looked at as the perfect couple. she made it a point to show that they ‘never fought’ and were always ‘happy’. he never spent too much time with his friends because ‘every boyfriend had to put his girlfriend first’. this is the exact reason jimin never liked her and why jin always referred to her as a pain in the ass. it was safe to say his friends weren't exactly fond of her either. she was so different from ___ which was good or bad, depending on who you were asking. 

yoona was pretty, though jeongguk would say ___ was prettier. soft features, soft personality, light colors were a constant, skirt never too short, hair never too long. she was a straight line kind of girl like the majority of girls in town. grades never faltering. she always believed in the whole study hard, get a good job, have kids plan everyone stuck to and it was always so suffocating. 

he wanted more out of life, he wanted to explore places, explore himself. he wanted to get to know himself in more ways than one because he had yet to know all of it. all of him. but by the time he was sixteen, jeongguk already had a career to work towards and a girl everyone was so sure would be his wife. it was like his life was a book and everyone but him was the author. he had no control and he started to dread the future. he was running and he knew what would be at the finish line, so he slowed down. while yoona was running full speed, he was jogging at most. he started faking a persona in front of his family and yoona because they simply didn’t get it and they never would. 

when he couldn’t exactly talk to his own girlfriend about his feelings and problems ___ was always there to listen. she was good at that. listening. she never judged, instead always reassuring him that when the time came he’ll know what to do. she had an easygoing way of living and he longed to live like that too. though her mother didn't agree and favored yoona more, she simply took it as it was and cherished what she had for the time being. her love for her mother and sister never faltered even if their love never measured up. ___ had a way of looking at the world that could get her far, far away from here and jeongguk envied that. she said all his feelings were valid and no one should be mad at him for simply feeling. once he had slowed down enough for the once blurry images to become clear, he’d realized that running with yoona was far too tiring and that walking with ___ was far more fulfilling.

 jeongguk was merely seventeen when he fell in love with a sixteen year old ___ and it was the most exhilarating feeling ever. it had started out as just a friend being there for a friend, but one day it turned into something more. they had been out on one for their many infamous nightly drives when they had stopped at a cliff, a pretty view of their small town in sight. pretty lights below and above. the stars were out that night just like them, watching the rest of the world sleep. she’d looked into his eyes, simultaneously looking into his soul. with anyone else, he would’ve felt naked and exposed but with her, he wanted her to see everything and to understand everything. he realized he only ever wanted one person to do that and he wanted to express it in the best way possible. he kissed her. really kissed her and she didn't shy away. he knew it was wrong, they both did, but it felt so good. so good that it felt right. right there, in the back of jeongguk’s first car, clothes disappeared one by one and they wrote love poems into the bareness of their skin. so passionate, so raw that it was impossible to stop afterward. they did it again and again behind closed doors, behind the curtain they drew in the depths of night. it was nothing they ever felt before. when they weren’t tangled within each other they explored as much as the city would let them. talking about anything and everything. no boundaries. 

___ planned on leaving once she graduated, didn’t know where to but the farther the better. she hated it here and so did he. it made jeongguk sick to even think about a life without her in it. he was selfish, he knows. he had them both and it was very clear which of them he loved more yet it saddened him that the one he favored more would ever leave him here. alone. that was until she asked him to come with. she asked him to run away with her. he swears if he wasn't deeply in love with her then, he was now. of course he said yes. running away and seeing the world with his favorite girl was a dream. a dream he truly wanted to become reality. 

they planned it out. jeongguk and yoona graduated and while ___ finished her final year in high school and yoona stared college, jeongguk took a gap year waiting for ___. waiting for their dream while working jobs here and there, financially preparing. he also took a business internship so that his family would get off his back for working instead of college. it was full proof, even the boys knew. though they thought it was risky, they supported them both. they had grown fond of ___.  they’d both work jobs to add onto their savings and the day after ___ graduated they’d leave and never come back. that was the plan, the dream. and yet they never made it.  

regret. he regretted it so much. the faithful day came but jeongguk didn’t. she waited and waited but he couldn’t do it. he watched from afar, luggage in hand. watch her wait. watched her cry when she realized. he cried with her. he was just so damn scared. a coward is what he was. he was scared of the unknown, something he craved so much and yet he was scared of it. and that's exactly how he felt for ___ at that moment. he craved her so much, loved her so much, and yet he was scared of her. scared that her spontaneous ways would one day be the end of them. he thought of yoona, at least with yoona he knew what he was getting. knew exactly where they’d end up. he wanted certainty and that's why he watched her leave. but to his surprise, she didn't leave, not yet. she stayed and waited, waited long enough for everyone else to find out. she was then branded as a little slut that wanted a taste of the forbidden fruit, the one he didn't choose. it was far from the truth but its what everyone believed. and so she left far far away and he didn't chase after her. god did he regret it. every day since that day he’s felt nothing but regret. he was back to putting the mask on trying to appease everyone. surprisingly no one reprimanded him and for that he felt anger, anger he’d only felt towards himself.

___ was the love of his life so it hurt. it hurt to see that she didn’t think of herself like he did. he wasn't aware she felt that way. like she was in yoona’s shadow. to him, it had never been like that because she’d been the one he sought to look at first in every room. it hurt to see she thought so low of herself but you could say he wasn't any better. he was newly married and yet he was miserable. it had only been a few months since he and yoona got married and people were already asking when they were having a baby. straight out of college and things were moving so fast. he was nauseated and lived life in such a lethargic manner. he needed her. 

she said she still loved him. maybe it wasn’t too late. maybe he could turn things around and fulfill the dream they never reached. so he picks up the phone and dialed the number he used to call every night. it was so familiar that he didn’t need to think twice about it.

it rang once, twice, and finally, on the third ring, she answered.

“gukk?”

he cried at the sound of her voice. he missed her so much. after a while, he could hear soft sniffling from the other line.

“can i come home?” he asked, voice so hoarse it hurt.

“you are home… aren’t you?” voice strained, sounding confused.

“no no, you’re my home ___. i need to come home. “

with that jeongguk couldn’t help but cry harder.

“shhh shhh gukk, it's ok. everything will be ok.” she cooed familiar words he hadn’t heard in a while. “ok, come home. come to me baby.”

he booked the first flight he could as soon as she said where she was and packed up as much as he could. he was gonna stop living this lie and start living for himself. something he should have done four years ago. and in a few hours, that’s exactly what he was gonna do. live the life he dreamed of with her, no holding back. he needed to stop being afraid. he was on his way, without a care in the world. jeongguk loved ___ and ___ loved him. that's all that mattered.

he’d send the divorce papers over tomorrow.