Frigid | Dream x Reader

Chapter 17

Despite my sadness, my depression over my life and the way things have been turning out recently, I'm sort of seeing some light again, I guess.

Even though I feel immensely guilty to admit to that, L'Manberg and its citizens considering...

Dream's cute when he thinks no one's watching though. How he sits and pats and rubs down my little fox like he's the most precious creature in the world.

Is it wrong to feel jealous that a fox is getting more attention than me? Is that sad?

He doesn't realize I can see him playing with the little fox, I guess he thinks I can't see from the window above my bed because of how high above the loft is from the deck below.

"What're you looking at?" Ranboo pulls me away from the cute sight of Dream scratching at the fox's belly, earning my gaze back on him.

He's still holding his book that he's been scrawling blueprints for his new home in, which he was super excited to show me.

I got distracted from hearing my fox yipping outside, though...

"Sorry, I was just enjoying the view from my window." Not entirely a lie, but not entirely the truth either.

I mean, the view from here when the sun sets, and rises is to die for. But that's not what I was admiring.

"Watching Dream?" I sink back into my pillows as Ranboo's soft smile falls on me. "It's okay if you are."

"Is it?"

"You...you can't just stop how you feel." Tell that to Dream, who has tried already.

I know I can't help my heart from yearning for him, despite the enormously slim chance of our future being anything but dark like our present has been.

"Have you ever had feelings for someone you can't have, Ranboo?" I only realize that question left my mind through my lips when I see the uncomfortable stiffness of Ranboo's shoulders and the way he now fiddles shyly with his book. "Sorry."

I move back into my pillows to give him the space he usually prefers when he's uncomfortable. Honestly, I'm still surprised he agreed to sit on the edge of my bed instead of the loveseat like usual.

"Do you..." Ranboo shyly clears his throat in the middle of trying to speak. "Do you love him?"

"I did. I still think I do." Despite seeing the pain he can inflict on others. The aches he's inflicted on my own heart. "He says he does too, but I just..."

"Keep thinking of L'Manberg?"

"And other things, yeah."

An uncomfortable silence follows my admission to him.

"Is it wrong of me to feel like this?"

"No! No, no you can't..." Ranboo scoots up towards me despite how uncomfortable he was just a moment ago. "You can't help how you feel. You see something in him that the rest of us can't, and you...you fell in love with him even knowing what he's done to others."

My heart aches over how it's Ranboo, the guy who's absolutely terrified of Dream and almost closing in on himself every time he has to be in the same room as him, that's advocating that my feelings are justified.

"But he's done horrible things, he's hurt me and yet I—I can't fight down how I feel."

"That's okay." Ranboo's soft reassurance makes me want to cry again, which I already did enough of yesterday. "You can't help how you feel, and that's okay. Please don't hurt yourself more by blaming yourself or trying to ignore it."