Cut the strings and set me free

Part 3- a puppet tied to countless strings

A hardness that comes from wanting to see me survive.

Knowing from the sympathetic light in his eyes, soft and hurting, that he knew that I needed to hear it, that I needed to know where I stood, whether I was willing to take that plunge, or whether I'd allow my life, my significance be blown away like a stray leaf in the wind.

"I have what it takes. But do they? Could I be any more obvious than if I had walked into their chambers and stood bare as the day I was born?" I demand, my tongue looser and words unfiltered as I look at them, look into every pair of eyes, which oddly seems to grow the more I focus, a pleasant fiery feeling chipping away at the ice, melting it.

"Sometimes the eyes don't see what the heart does. Sometimes we are deceived. Sometimes we are pushed into sacrifices we were never prepared for." Yoongi oppa says, evading my question, lips twisted in a grimace- the only indication of how he disapproves of my comment, of me ever reaching such an extent, of entertaining it.

But despair drove people of all statuses high and low, of any stature and of any birth to the extremes, to stoop to levels they would've never dared entertain.

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because in a week I'll belong to Jungkook, in a week the two of us will be bound in a marriage neither of us wants. And we can spend our lives as dolls. Broken discarded dolls." I say, tears splashing onto my cheeks as I hiccup, curling into myself.

I allow myself a few long moments of silent, of grief that my buzzed, inebriated mind notes as a mourning, of the life that will cease to exist in seven days.

Seven days and it'll be over.

Seven days and I'll be shackled.

Seven days until I no longer belong to me.

I get up, staggering as the world spins, the fine ornate furniture teetering and whirling around, their faces blurring and merging and becoming duplicates.

"(Y/N) you're drunk. Ridiculously so!" Seokie grits out, standing immediately to support my swaying frame.

I turn to him.

"Are you mad too? Are you going to pretend nothing's happening?" I ask, hands clutching at him, leaning into him, the small thunk of something hitting the ground a distant sound to my ears.

His face softens.

"Of course not. But we need to get you back to your chambers, without causing an uproar in the castle." He says.

Jinnie oppa stands in front of me, holding out the delicate chain and carefully drawing it around my neck, fingers brushing against the clasp, against my heated skin with a soft brush.

"Let your heart decide. That's the biggest advice I can give." He says softly, fingers swiping at my tears in a show of tenderness that only ever truly surfaced when we were alone, when the only pair of eyes on us were each other's.

And the room continues to spin, ears filling with the hushed low hum of chatter as they decide how to get back.

My grip on Seokie gets tighter, legs stumbling as I grip at him.

"I just don't want to hurt any more. Is that too much to ask?" I whisper into his nightshirt.

"It's not. It's never too much." He whispers, the low vibration of his chest pressing against my cheek.

And it's the last thing I hear as my body falls, vision finally turning black, as I stumble headfirst into that chasm, into that endless consuming void.

I feel a pair of arms encircle my waist, feel hands draw me towards a firm chest, and feel a hand brush across my cheek.

And even as I lean into them, I yearn that they were someone else's, that they were the hands I longed to always hold me close.