➵ 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓: 𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒 [𝐊.𝐓𝐇]

"You cared, then?"

Taehyung was, to put it simply, pretty damn confused.

You'd been gone for hours now, having shoved him roughly awake at 7:00 in the morning to inform him that yes, you'd be gone for classes again, this time for the whole day, and if he dared to touch anything in your house, he'd be ripped to shreds when you returned.

It wasn't like he'd stayed awake, but when he did rise again, this time of his own accord and far later, he'd been met with a bowl of cold miso soup resting on the counter and a list of things, jotted down in your careful, loopy handwriting, that he was and was not allowed to do.

The whole thing struck him as cute, adorable, actually. He'd stared like a fool at the ripped sheet of paper, eyes tracing the vaguely threatening words again and again as if he was trying to commit the way you wrote to memory.

You were oddly fascinating, Taehyung acknowledged to himself as he leaned back against the couch, head tipped back as he flicked his legs back and forth in thought. You were feisty, clever, and scarily strong, as he had discovered yesterday when he had tried to seduce you- all in good fun, of course. He found amusement in the way women would lust after his every touch, his every word, his every movement.

But not you, it seemed, and that was what bewildered him most of all. He could feel your emotions because of the curse, and there was nothing remotely pining or even jealous when he had talked to that other girl yesterday. Nothing except plain annoyance and occasionally amusement of your own.

Nothing. It was ridiculous- there was no way a mere mortal (well, slightly more than a mere mortal, but it didn't matter at this point) could resist him so thoroughly. There had certainly been encounters when he had made you blush, and he took an unreasonable amount of pride in them too, but you were a girl made of barbed words and sharp looks and a scarily attractive confidence in both pushing him away and drawing him close that made something deep inside of him tremble.

Gods of Olympus, it wasn't like he hadn't tried. It was second nature to him at this point- he'd managed to pull mortals and immortals alike into bed with him without even a second thought- a single dark stare could send them running to him, a hint of a smirk or a flick of his tongue could steal their very breath. And he knew it, too.

The girl who had approached you and Taehyung yesterday had just been simple proof that his undulating sex appeal hadn't withered in the slightest since he'd been banished to his sword.

"So why?" Taehyung murmured to himself as he stared blankly at the pages of the mythology book he'd borrowed from your room and had been reading with faint interest before he'd been pulled back into this internal crisis he was having, "Why in Chaos's name won't she look at me twice?"

It was eating him up inside, it truly was. Three days should have been more than enough to convince a girl to let him have his way with her, curse or not. As long as she agreed, it would have satiated him, even if he did have to go back to the sword.