A/N: A bit belated, but happy birthday, Hak! Hopefully this makes up for how terrible I was to you in Lion and Lamb… heh…

So anyways, this will be a sixshot. For my darling Hak, who deserves more than anyone to be happy.

Much love,

Rosie

xxxxxx

Six Kisses in Crimson

By ObsessiveBrunette

Based on Akatsuki no Yona by Mizuho Kusanagi

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It had been a long day. That was the only thought running through Hak's mind as he shucked his sweat-stained, dirt-filled training clothes and pulled on his black sleep pants before collapsing on to his bed. His mattress groaned under the sudden strain of his weight, while his aching muscles sighed in relief. His eyelids grew heavy… sleep was mere seconds away… sweet, merciful sleep…

Bang bang bang bang bang.

The boy was jolted awake by a sudden pounding on the door.

Bang. "Hak-" the Princess' voice pierced through the thick wooden door from the other side.. Bang bang. "Hak, are you there?" Bang.

"Princess?" he called out blearily, annoyance in his tone. What did she want him for now? Another escort mission to the Palace kitchens for a midnight snack? He already had the words he would tease her with on his tongue as he approached the door, beginning, "Princess, if you eat too many steamed buns, you'll grow fat and ug-"

He was cut off as he swung the door open and found the Princess mid-knock, tumbling forward fist-first with a squeak of surprise into his bare chest.

Uh…

She looked up at him in shock, eyes so innocent, so wide, so… glassy… She gulped, but neither of them moved away. "I'm sorry for barging in so suddenly… I needed… I- I need to talk to you…" her voice grew soft at the end of her sentence, so quiet he could barely make out the words she was saying, although the distress in her tone was much more easily discerned now without the door a barrier between them.

"Princess… have you been crying?" he brought a gentle hand up under her chin and tilted her head back ever so slightly, the moonlight illuminating tell-tale tear tracks on both cheeks.

His touch seemed to startle her back to her senses, and she hurriedly tore her gaze from his and took a step away from him. Then another.

"What happened? Are you hurt? Princess-"

Hak took a step forward and began to take another, intending to close the sudden distance between them again, but the red-haired girl's outcry stopped him in his tracks.

"I don't love him!" the words were nearly a strangled gasp. "I don't know when I realized- how I realized- how I could have thought- I don't… I don't know anything, Hak…" Her gaze was trained steadfastly on the floor. "He was always- he was always, I mean, and you were always… how could I not have seen? You were always… Hak… you..."

What?

"I don't understand," Hak could barely hear his stunned, raspy whisper for his heart pounding so loudly in his ears, but they seemed to reach the Princess, for she suddenly looked up, a kind of desperation in her eyes.

"Yes! Yes, that's exactly it, I don't understand! How could I not have seen? With Su Won it was- no, Hak, with you, it's- it's…" she looked so helpless. "With you…" She looked around wildly, down either end of the deserted hallway, down at the mere inches between their feet, down at her hands that she'd been furiously wringing. They stilled after a few heavy breaths and fell to her sides, but they seemed restless there. She folded them behind her back. She tucked them in the folds of her nightgown. She began to stretch one hand into the scant space between them, but stopped herself midway, drawing her hand back before starting again as she finally met his eyes another time. Her pupils were dilated, her breathing still shallow, but more even. Her eyelids drooped almost imperceptibly. "Hak, you're so close…" her fingertips reached his chest and her breath hitched at the contact. Her eyelids closed further.

There was only so much an eighteen-year-old boy could take.

He kissed her. They stumbled backwards into the hallway completely and she gasped as her back hit the wall opposite the doorway, his arms braced against the wall on either side of her.

Her hands really were restless. They were everywhere. On the sides of his face, the back of his neck, roaming his hair, his chest, her nails digging into his back...

He growled and took her into his arms, hands finding her rear and lifting her up so that her legs could wrap around his torso. His mouth began to wander as his hands kneaded her ass, eliciting soft surprised moans from her that intensified as he found a sensitive spot at the base of her throat and began to suck. "Hak…"

His mouth moved lower, to the flesh below her collarbone that grew more and more exposed as the tie on her nightgown unraveled. "Oh God…"

He took one hand from her rear and used it to paw open her silk garment further, completely untying the loose knot at her waist so that the robe fell from her shoulders. "Hak…"

She clung to him as he pushed her harder against the wall to make up for the lost support from her bottom. He could feel how warm she was through his pants, how wet she was already, and no doubt she could feel how eager he was too. He couldn't contain the low moan that escaped as she fisted her hands in his hair and he buried his face between her breasts. He could feel her tears begin to spill again as she let out a soft, shallow-breathed laugh. ""Hak, I love you…"

For a second, her proclamation made the world stop spinning. Hak lifted his head in utterly stunned disbelief.

"Princess?" the word was the softest of whispers. He hardly dared breathe for fear that he'd heard her wrong.

Her smile was brighter than her crimson hair as tears continued to pour down her cheeks. She leaned her forehead against his own. "I love you, Hak. So much." She laughed again. "I didn't know it was possible to love someone this much." At this she seemed to grow embarrassed, and moved to kiss him again, but he pulled his head back and put his hand under her chin once more, firmer but just as gentle as before, making her look him in the eyes.

If he'd thought his heart was loudly fast before, now it felt like it might burst out of his chest. He spoke slowly, for fear of not finding the right words. "Princess… I too…" His adam's apple bobbed nervously as he cleared his throat. "I love you. More than you could ever know."

When she tried to kiss him this time, he let her, lifting her from her spot between him and the wall and carrying her back to his quarters. He laid her down on the bed and watched in rapturous admiration as she undid her chest bindings, the moonlight gleaming off the pale, unblemished skin of her breasts. "Oh," she murmured as her nipples immediately peaked against the cold draft floating in from the hallway. "It's so cold…" her violet eyes turned innocently upwards to him. "Hak, the door?"

He reluctantly wrenched his gaze away and turned to comply with her request, but found the door suddenly slamming in his face with a bang loud enough to wake him from his sleep.

Wake him… from his sleep?

For a few moments, there was nothing but darkness, the warmth of his covers, and the lingering memory of another pair of lips on his.

No, not memory. A dream.

He stumbled out of bed as if it had burned him and made his way to the window. It was probably around three in the morning, by the moon's position in the sky. Without bothering to tug on shoes or a shirt, he climbed out the window and began scaling the wall down to the ground.

The water in the Palace lake would be freezing this time of the night. Well, perfect. His feet touched earth and he was off like a shot towards the water, grateful that the dark would hide the flush in his cheeks and the bulge in his pants from any guards on duty.

It had been a long day. He needed sleep. Sweet, merciful, dreamless sleep.

But first he needed a long, cold swim.

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