Work Text:
In the darkness of the cave, Yona’s hand is in his and it’s not the first time it has been. Beneath his hand, the chill of his fingertips and skin of his knuckles, Yona’s is as warm as embers but her delicate hand doesn’t burn his; there’s something about her that always makes Shin-ah’s blood boil backwards, it makes him want to look at her and take her all in, hold her hand just a little bit longer. But he doesn’t remove his mask.
They are separated from the rest, lost amongst the walls of stone and the darkness that is almost second nature to him, but Yona is stumbling, her shoes catching loose stones and she is not used to the pressing inky black, being forced into it. So, he guides her, holds her hand and hopes the sound of his bells soothe her.
“Shin-ah,” Yona says and although she speaks quietly her voice echoes through the cavern in front of them. He feels her flinch beneath his fingers and she continues, quieter this time. “Are we lost?”
“No.” Shin-ah replies.
He squeezes her hand; she squeezes back and follows him as he rounds a corner and then she stills.
Around them, the walls of the cave are glittering through the darkness like stars. Crystal deposit, Shin-ah thinks to himself, humming as Yona’s hand falls from his. He has seen millions of these before, the different colours of stones, but Yona is entranced as she drifts over to the wall to gently run her fingers over the facets, her lips falling open in wonder, eyes shining almost as brightly as the stones in the wall.
Shin-ah drifts over to her side and rests his hand gently over hers, and she looks up at him, her lips stretching into a smile before she presses her other hand on the wall, staring deeply into the sparkling stone.
“I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as this.” She says breathlessly and Shin-ah tilts his head.
You should look in a mirror, he thinks. But he doesn’t say it. “You’re a princess.” He says instead, simply and plainly. “There are probably shoes prettier than rocks.”
Yona shakes her head and gently traces the shapes of the crystals with her fingers. “No, nothing compares to this.” She says softly and sincerely. “No shoes or jewelry compares to… this. Have you seen something like this before?” He nods, and the bells on his mask release a jingle that echoes around them something magical. “They look like stars.”
They do look like stars, silver and white and gold-yellow sparkling through the darkness around them, luminescent and glowing, and Shin-ah can feel the cave water running deep beneath them and the sound of the bats in the cavern to the right of them. He realizes fleetingly that Yona is trying to make constellations out of the crystals, joining up the points of the crystals with her fingers to make pictures, and he watches as she traces the shape of a lopsided dragon.
Slowly, he lifts his hand from hers and traces the shape of Ao’s face, chubby squirrel cheeks and all, and Yona giggles.
“You’re beautiful.” Shin-ah tells her, and it surprises him because he’d never say something like that, and he shoves his mask down further over his eyes.
Why did he say that? ‘You’re beautiful’, why? Because, in that moment he thought it, he wanted her to know it. She talks about her unruly red hair, worries about wrinkles and dirt smudged on her nose, has callouses on her hands from drawing back the bowstring, she bites the inside of her cheeks when she’s annoyed. She’s always beautiful, and underneath the glittering light of a hundred thousand crystals in a crystal deposit they’re just passing through, her beauty is amplified tenfold by the glowing lights, by her laugh and how she’s making pictures out of crystals.
He feels her hands tugging gently at the side of his mask and he lets go, he lets her pull it over his head so his face is exposed, rests the mask on the crown of his head. Yona is looking at him, amethyst eyes peering into his golden ones and he tries to look away, turn his head in another direction and look unaffected, but her hands are on the side of his face.
Yona’s hands cup his jaw and turn his face back towards her, guide him back to her.
“Look at me,” she says, so softly it’s barely a whisper. “Look only at me.”
Shin-ah tries weakly to move his head away but Yona holds fast. “My eyes.” He tries gently, carefully, he doesn’t want to hurt her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” Yona says, and she says it so firmly he relaxes completely, goes soft and pliable beneath her. “I know you won’t hurt me, Shin-ah. Just tell me, what are you thinking about right now?”
He watches her carefully, sees every part of her glittering against him, and then he looks at her lips, the softness of her skin and wonders what it would be like to kiss her. This isn’t the first time he’s thought of it, but there’s something about being in the dark with her that makes him come alive, and he wants to press his lips against hers and feel her breathe beneath him and know that they’re both alive.
Not monsters.
Not cursed.
Two people, intertwined.
“I’m thinking about kissing you.” He says his voice a whisper as he reaches out to caress her cheek, watches as he blushes a little when his thumb swipes over her cheekbone. “Is that a wrong thing to think?”
Yona shakes her head vigorously, her hair expanding and falling like a flaming halo around her face. “No. It’s not.”
Shin-ah looks at her very deeply and lifts his other hand to the other side of her face, and Yona leans into his touch, she doesn’t try and leave or move away from him, but she willingly touches him, talks to him, makes him feel comfortable and at ease. She is something else entirely.
“I would like to kiss you.” Shin-ah says, moving his face a fraction of an inch closer to hers.
Yona glances down at his lips and then back up, looks bashfully up through her lashes, almost. Anticipation, maybe. “Then, why don’t you?” She asks, and then she moves just a little bit closer to him.
“Because I don’t know if you want it.” He explains as his fingers tilt her face upwards, her face hot beneath his hands. “And, I’m your dragon, I’m sworn to protect you. I’m not sure what will happen if I kiss you."
Yona snorts. “All that talk of being my dragon, you sound like Kija.”
Shin-ah chuckles lightly, barely. “Maybe I do.”
“You should stop worrying so much,” Yona says, so bluntly it startles him a little, and when he looks deep into her eyes he sees the fire blazing with determination behind them and he just knows he’s done for. “If I didn’t want you to kiss me I would have stopped you talking about it a long time ago.”
He leans in close to her, his breath fanning over her lips and their noses almost touching. “Can I kiss you, Princess Yona?” He asks, and his voice is strained and he wants her to say yes so badly, so that he can finally kiss her and know what it would feel like to be loved by her.
Yona’s eyes flutter shut. “Please…” She breathes.
He closes the distance between them quickly but gently, presses his lips against hers and tangles his fingers in the back of her hair. Her hands grip at the front of his shirt, tugging him closer to her, and in a moment of pure instinct he backs her right up against the crystal deposit – one hand on her waist, the other pressing against the wall – as he deepens the kiss.
Shin-ah runs his tongue over her bottom lip and she gasps, opens for him and then with a start he pulls away, chest heaving, and a hand pressed over his mouth. He looks at Yona and she looks right back, her cheeks pink, her lips red.
“Why… why did you stop?” Yona asks him, breathless, and her hands still balled in the front of his shirt.
“Because,” Shin-ah begins, his voice muffled by his hand and his cheeks growing hot. “I love you. I want to do this with you all the time and I didn’t want to go too far and make you hate me.”
Yona releases his shirt, steps closer to him and cups his face gently in her hands. “I could never hate you, Shin-ah.” She tells him gently. “I love you too.”
And then she gently presses her lips to his, just for a minute, maybe two, but it’s enough for him to know that he loves her and that she loves him. That she thinks he’s every bit as spectacular as he thinks she is, and it’s enough for him, and he know he wants to kiss Yona forever and more. He wants to hold hands, kiss her beneath the moon, love and smile and let her look into his eyes and kiss his eyelids.
He will protect her, love her and adore her for the duration of their life together.
So, he takes her words in his heart and carries them on his sleeve.