Step Out: Records | Stray Kids x Reader | Oneshots

Jeongin - Fox In The Dandelion Sea

But it's so good, I've never dreamed of nobody like you

These precious memories have long since been pocketed away in my closed fists until they've been ingrained into the lines of my palms. Such an intangible effort to hold onto the echo of the free-spirited companion I knew, all the while she was being seized by the royal duties that commanded her full attention.

How peculiar it was to witness the you who once shone the brightest frolicking amongst weeds as unruly as yourself now being caged in rigid corsets. The you who I now have to search for under layers of extravagant, bejewelled gowns, embroidered velvet and lace, under candle-light dinners where your makeup smeared across places it shouldn't belong.

Your royal attire demanded the wearer to be prim and proper, but you knew - as well as I - that you were anything but.

And I've heard of love that comes once in a lifetime

The kind of love I thought existed only in fairytales. That wasn't the kind I was thinking of watching you continually stifled by the day. There was nothing magical or mystical about powerlessly standing by as you were buried under such ill-fitting luxuries that barely let you take two steps forward without tripping. But how else could a humble servant such as I help to ease you off the royal burdens that governed your every thought and action?

By inheriting the skilled hands of a seamstress, I engrossed myself in grasping the fine arts of garment-making. For every afternoon you spent in yet another etiquette lesson, I spent under the meticulous guidance of my mother until eventually, my fingers knew the needle and thread like second nature.

And I'm pretty sure that you are that love of mine

The kind of love that filled in the gaps. The kind of love that granted me the seemingly magical ability to fashion for you whatever clothes your heart desires. But there was nothing more magical than seeing the overjoyed expression on your face when I gifted you that lightweight cotton frock one unassuming summer day.

I loved you to the point of creation. The kind of love that allowed you the freedom to spin and twirl on verdant fields as lush and effervescent as yourself. Back up on that hill, where the sight of your unpretending smile was all the commission I needed.

'Cause I'm in a field of dandelions

Waiting for you right on cue, I paced around the royal garden's gazebo with a lone dandelion seed clutched in my fist. This one was caught falling just outside my workshop window among multiple others.

After many insufferable years of being deprived of your beloved dandelion fields, you had requested a pot of the very same flowers to be stationed along your bedroom window to keep you company as you went about your studies. Little did your attendants know that this was another one of the little secrets forged between us. For your quarters were directly two stories above mine, and every time you sent dandelions seeds drifting down, it would be a signal to meet soon. A signal that you had been bored of your tedious tasks and needed fresh air.

The gazebo, as it happens, was positioned in the very centre of the garden, but the angle of the roof hid us from the prying eyes in the king and queen's quarters. Every time, I would arrive first as you awaited an opportune moment to evade your attendants, and I would walk along the circumference of the gazebo so many times that I could practically see groves forming in the wood where I paced. So on edge at the prospect of getting caught that I constantly fell victim to your tickle attacks and was broken out of my daze.

Illicit, unsuspecting, this was the place you had chosen for us to slack off on our daily regime, in place of the childhood dreamland we could no longer reach. But that didn't stop us from acting as if we were children all over again.