Eternal Love (MewGulf AU)

🌻Chapter 40

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Gulf couldn't process what Yaya had said immediately. It was so far beyond what he'd expected to hear, he thought he must have misunderstood.

What had she just said? He thought it over carefully, then finally realized exactly what she'd told him. But he couldn't help her. The wedding ceremony will takes place in three hours. She shouldn't even say something like this as a joke.

He looked quickly over at AA, but AA's face was forbidding. He seemed to be battling back a flood of powerful emotions.

"I can't marry Mew. Please..." Yaya said again.

This time, her beautiful face looked tortured.

Gulf didn't understand what she wanted. Wasn't this the day Yaya had awaited for so many years? But she had never revealed her distress so candidly before.

"Stop acting like a child." A low voice cane choking out of AA. His anger had set a vein in his temple ticking. "Don't you think it's a little late for cold feet? No one's going to listen to your selfish demands now, when you're about to become the queen."

"I know." Yaya appealed to AA with her eyes, revealing just how strong the emotions she held inside her heart were. "I assumed that I had to obey King Bonsakh's decision. Mew did too. But we don't. It just got harder and harder, the closer today came. Do we have to go through with such an unhappy wedding? Isn't narriage supposed to be with someone you love?"

"What---" AA looked bewildered. His chest heaved with his frantics breaths. "What are you saying? How can you be so naive when you're going to become the next queen? This marriage isn't for you, it's for your country. That's what it means to be part of the royal family."

His voice betrayed the turbulence within him, undercutting his argument. He himself didn't believe the things he was saying. He may have been right in theory, but that wasn't what mattered.

"Is it a crime for the royal family to seek their own happiness?" Yaya asked.

A cynical smile shadowed her face. AA's jaw tensed at the sight of such desolation.

"AA," Yaya turned her tear-stained eyes on AA. "There's someone else that I love. I struggled to abandon those feelings, but they refused to disappear. And yet you still want me to marry Mew and have his children?"

AA's face was a picture of agony. This wasn't the man that Gulf knew. He knew AA as a detached man, philosophical towards everything.

It was then that Gulf understood who it was that Yaya really loved.

AA knew it too. He must have felt the same way as she did.

'He didn't have any choice but to accept it.'

Everything in AA's heart was laid bare by that single sentence.

"It's too late..." he whispered, still trying to reject the idea, but his voice cracked.

It pained Gulf to see how violently the man was struggling to contain his own emotions.

As royalty, AA had no choice. He existed for the country and its people. His first priority was to do what was best for the country, not for his own emotions. Mew, AA, and Yaya had all been born into Arabian royalty, and the importance of the royal family's role had no doubt been instilled in them since they were children.

But Yaya said that she couldn't give up her love. AA was struggling with indecision. And Mew---he had been busying himself with selfish pursuits like kidnapping Gulf, even though he knew how reckless it was.

Maybe Gulf hadn't understood anything about these people. It must take so much willpower just to live their lives.

He had accused Mew of being selfish and arrogant, but the man hadn't been acting on ordinary determination. He must have given the matter a great deal of thought and agonized over his eventual decision. The result of that had been to kidnap Gulf and bring him to Madina, which seemed so foolish on the surface.

Mew had said he'd done it to fulfill his promise to Gulf, but that wasn't the only reason. He wanted to love someone for his own sake and secure his own happiness, independent of his obligations as the next king.

Gulf ventured some impertinence. "It's ridiculous to let your parents arrange your marriage in this day and age," he said. "Even if you swallow your feelings and marry Mew, you're never going to be happy with someone you don't like."

He knew how rude it was for him, as a foreigner, to offer his opinion.

'Isn't marriage supposed to be with someone you love'

No matter what country a person is from, whether they're royalty or peasants, they're all humans beings.

"I think you need to tell Mew right away," he suggested. "I'm sure he'll understand. He'll think of something so that no one gets hurt."

He knew Mew would put Yaya's feelings first, even it it meant putting himself at a disadvantage.
Mew would worry about Yaya's happiness as a human being, even if she was a member of the royal family. Even if he couldn't have what he wanted himself. But no, he would grant Yaya her desires precisely because his own were denied to him.

TBC