"The Love That Waited" 1

The morning sun poured like warm honey over the Kim Kingdom, gilding the castle spires and the rooftops of the capital in gold. Spring had arrived, not just in season, but in spirit. A year had passed since Queen Tae had taken the throne. A year since she had looked Jungkook in the eyes and asked for freedom not from him, but from the past they once shared. She had not seen him since that night. But he had never truly left. The kingdom flourished beneath her rule. Wounds were healed, homes rebuilt, and where fear had once lived, hope had taken root. The people no longer whispered of rebellion or survival - they spoke of growth, of the future. Tae had become not just a ruler, but a symbol. A woman who had clawed her way from exile to empire, whose quiet strength commanded nations without raising her voice. But even as the world bloomed under her reign - her heart, sometimes, felt like winter still lingered.

Outside Tae's chamber stood the small blossoming tree - the one Jungkook had planted in silence the night they ended their love. That tree, once a bare sprig in a cracked ceramic pot, now stood taller, its branches stretched toward the sky, covered in pale petals that trembled in the wind like breath. It was the first thing Tae saw every morning. The petals reminded her of memories – of the softest kind of love, the kind that doesn't burn but lingers. She didn't water the tree. She didn't have to.

It had grown on its own or perhaps someone else had been tending to it all along.

The royal court pulsed with life. Yoongi and Jimin had married beneath the olive trees in the palace garden, their hands bound with gold-threaded ribbon, eyes soft and full of peace. Yoona and Hoseok would be wed next month, their names already etched into the hearts of the people. Hoseok's clinic, once a single-room haven, now stretched across three buildings a sanctuary for the ill, the broken, and the lost. Yoona trained women in the old barracks, teaching them to fight and speak, to lead and listen. Tae had made sure their names would be remembered not just in palace records, but in the stones of the streets, in the lives they changed. And yet... with every celebration, a piece of her heart remained still. There was one name never spoken aloud.

Tae fell sick that winter a fever that stole her strength and left her drifting in and out of sleep for three nights. But when she awoke, someone had always been there. Not a guard. Not a healer. Someone else. Her blankets would be tucked higher. The basin beside her would be fresh, the water still cool. Her medicine measured just right – the exact way she preferred it. And though she tried to stay awake, to catch whoever cared for her so silently, her eyes would always fail her.

But the scent lingered. That familiar blend of sandalwood and storm Jungkook's scent. It filled the corners of her room at night, as if he had just been there. As if he had never left. She tried to convince herself it was imagination. Memory playing tricks. But deep down, she knew. He was still watching. Still protecting. Always just beyond the edge of light.

The blossom tree outside her window bloomed again that spring - fuller than ever before. Tae stood before it one morning, hair loose over her shoulders, her royal robes traded for something simpler. The petals danced like snowflakes in the breeze. One floated through the window and landed in her hand, soft and trembling. She closed her fingers gently around it. So much had changed. And yet... not everything.

A whisper escaped her lips, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

kim taehyung ( tae)

Jungkook...

Her voice didn't crack. It didn't tremble. But it ached. She hadn't seen him in a year not truly. And yet, her body still remembered him. Her heart still knew his shape. But she also knew what she had asked of him. What she had chosen. And so had he. But as the wind kissed her face and stirred the curtains, Tae swore she felt something in the silence.

A promise still kept. A love still living - quietly. Patiently. And as she turned back to her room, the blossom tree trembled gently... as if it, too, had been waiting.

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should I continue it delete it