Sacrifice

Chapter 6 : New Beginnings

A blush fans across your cheeks when you realize Sunghoon has been watching you the entire time. The older prince notices the bright red hue and stares in awe. Something stirs in his chest and he has to steady himself in the wake of the sudden and long-forgotten feeling.

"Fine," Sunoo finally gives in with a resigned huff. "If you're staying out in the garden, make it quick. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose are getting quite red from the cold weather. She might catch a cold if she stays out any longer since her body is still recovering from the bite."

Sunghoon nods wordlessly and watches as Sunoo slips his hands out of his grasp, eyes fluttering close as the younger prince leans up to plant a soft kiss on his cheek before making his way back into the castle. The silence stays present for a while, long after the younger prince had entered the building and you wonder if Sunghoon is waiting for you to say something.

"You weren't at breakfast this morning," you finally comment. His gaze shifts to look at you, looking somewhat startled to hear your voice.

"I wasn't sure if you would be comfortable with me there, so I stayed in my room just in case," he murmurs hesitantly.

"I was hoping you would join us," you admit honestly, surprising the prince once again. "I wanted to see you."

"You did?" In this moment, it doesn't matter to you how many centuries the prince has lived, because right now, Sunghoon looks like a young boy who has just survived adolescence and is now beginning to conquer adulthood. He looks nothing like the self-assertive man you danced with in his room a few days ago. Instead, the prince looks like he's living his first life, learning and unsure, taking in the new surroundings of the world around him, one discovery at a time.

"I wasn't too sure if you're just normally reclusive, or if you were purposefully avoiding me. But when the other princes began to ask of your whereabouts this morning, I knew it was intentional," you frown.

"I wasn't only avoiding you for your sake," Sunghoon sighs, softly kicking a foot aimlessly at the snow, a simple action to keep himself distracted. His hands are hidden away in his pockets and his breaths come out in white puffs, floating in the air before slowly dissipating into nothing. "I was keeping myself from visiting you because I didn't deserve to see you yet."

Your eyebrows draw together tightly and you wish to tell the prince he's foolish for feeling this way. But you can also relate to the prince in the sense that you would also be beating yourself up if you were in his shoes. So, you remain silent, allowing the prince the opportunity to get his thoughts off his chest, hopeful that this will help him cope with his previous actions.

Unbeknownst to you, there's more meaning behind Sunghoon's words than he's letting on. The moment those words tumble off his tongue, he's immediately taken back to the last night of your first life. Now, instead of the fresh powdery scenery of the winter garden around him, all he can see is his bedroom full of villagers. All the while, he stands in the center, a pathetic trembling figure, unable to shift into his wolf form when you needed him most. He has no right to be by your side now in this life when he was the one who failed to save you in your last life. In Sunghoon's mind, they wouldn't have lost you if he hadn't frozen on the spot.

"Sunghoon?" you call gently, reeling him back in from his spiraling thoughts. The prince shakes his head softly, clearing his mind, and choosing to focus on the most present matter. He doesn't wish to confront the thoughts that have been troubling him for over a century. Perhaps, if he pushes them away enough times, they'll magically disappear as if they never existed in the first place.

"The night that we first reunited, when we danced in my room, I treated you so carelessly. It's almost as if I didn't even recognize that I finally had the love of my life back in my hands. In retrospect, I was so overcome by greed that I barely even recognized myself." Sunghoon pauses to laugh bitterly at himself. "I was so wrapped around the idea of being with you again, that I failed to recognize the fact that you were standing right in front of me."