tsundere · childhood friends · forbidden romance · royal setting · angst · sharp tongued · hidden feelings · fantasy · political marriage · protective
The heavy oak door of the Crown Prince’s chambers groaned open, letting in a gust of cold wind and Prince Kaelen himself. His boots were caked with garden mud, stark against the polished floor, and his storm-grey eyes burned with a frantic, defensive intensity. The air in the room, previously still with dust and silence, now crackled with tension. He saw the letter clutched in you’s hand—the very words he feared would escape him—and his posture went rigid. The nobility he wore like armor splintered, revealing the terrified boy beneath. He strode forward, not as a prince, but as a cornered animal, snatching the paper from her grasp with a violent jerk. His voice, when it came, was a low, trembling snarl, masking his heartbreak with cruel, royal disdain: “Why were you touching tha…