#about this loneliness and and detachment and yearning to be a part of life you're not supposed to have | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eksvaized · 2 months

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Part One König / Ghost / Reader [ Previous 〡 Next ] ︱AO3 ︱Wattpad ︱ taglist: - (if you want to be added - let me know!)

since I finished editing 'just friends', I decided to rewrite & edit this story, so I hope you'll enjoy the new version! <3

Each morning, you awaken alone. The enormous bed, once filled with warmth, now cold and empty. Today, your morning isn't any different from the countless ones that have come before. As you roll onto your side, your hand stretches out, tracing the cool, empty expanse of the mattress. Your fingers curl around the frosty pillow, its fabric still bearing the faintest scent of him. You draw it closer to you, clutching at it in a futile attempt to fill the void that is left by your boyfriend and his lack of presence.

A sigh, barely audible, escapes your lips as a wave of loneliness engulfs you. Its icy tendrils wrap tightly around your heart, constricting it in a bitter reminder of your solitude. You yearn for a morning where you can flutter open your eyes to find König next to you, his arms securely wrapped around your body, his breath warm against your skin. You long to see him still sleeping, his face relaxed in peaceful slumber, instead of disappearing and getting out of bed as soon as the first rays of sunshine peek through the window. A longing for the soft whispers of "good morning" and the gentle comfort of his embrace fills you, making the emptiness of the bed all the more pathetic.

The first two years of your relationship with König were great. You were happy, genuinely happy, and over the moon because you finally had someone in your life, who truly cared about you, who showered you with attention and affection, and even lavished you with expensive gifts. You felt cherished and valued, and it was a feeling unlike anything you had ever experienced before.

However, as of late, König has transformed into someone unrecognizable. He is still your boyfriend; you love him very much, and he probably loves you even more. Yet, his demeanour, his behaviour, and the manner in which he has started to conduct himself have left you in a state of constant questioning. The love you once never doubted now seems uncertain, as his actions and attitude have begun to paint a different picture—he's not the man you met and fell in love with two years ago.

Sometimes, usually after a couple glasses of wine when you've gathered the courage, you dare to confront him about his nonchalant attitude towards you. In these moments of newfound bravery, you bombard him with questions, desperately seeking to understand if it's something you are doing that causes him to act as if he couldn't care less about you or your feelings. But no matter how earnestly you implore, he never gives you the answers you're looking for. He never provides any concrete explanations or reasons for his indifference.

He has a myriad of excuses for why he doesn't want to engage with you about your concerns. The reasons are countless and they change each time, just like shifting sands, always elusive and never consistent. You've heard a variety of them. For instance, he might dismiss your confrontation because of you being wine drunk, suggesting that you should go to bed. Another time, he might say he's too tired to engage in a deep conversation and promise to talk with you in the morning.

But perhaps the one that stings the most, your least favourite, is when he pretends he didn't hear you. Even when you're standing directly in front of him, looking at him with teary eyes, and pouring out your heart, he chooses to feign ignorance and act as though he didn't hear a single word. This cold dismissal is far worse than any words he could say.

Although he's cold with you, he never never displays any outright cruelty. Still, you can't help but notice the chilly detachment that has creeps into his voice when he talks with you. It's as if a frost has settled over your conversations, making each word feel like a shard of ice. Or the flicker of irritation that now seems to have taken up permanent residence in his eyes whenever he comes home and sees you. It's as if he's looking through you rather than at you, seeing not the person you are but the person he wishes you were.

König has constructed around himself an impenetrable wall. A wall so thick and so high that no matter how much you chip away at it, no matter how hard you try to scale its heights, it remains steadfast. It stands there as a constant reminder of the gulf that has opened up between you two—a gulf that seems to widen with each passing day.

You find yourself continuously attempting to convince your own mind that this is merely a fleeting phase, a temporary hiccup in your relationship. Every relationship, after all, has its own set of struggles and hurdles to overcome. It's normal, you tell yourself, maybe all you need to do is to be patient and wait it out. Time has a way of healing wounds and mending bridges, and perhaps a little more of it could be the magic potion that brings everything back to the way it used to be - normal and simple.

However, despite your best efforts to suppress it, there's a harsh, cruel voice that resides in the deepest recesses of your mind, nagging persistently. It casts a dark shadow of doubt over your thoughts, suggesting with an unsettling certainty that maybe, just maybe, the once deep love that existed between you and him is gradually, and painfully, fading away into oblivion.

You are brewing coffee, desperately hoping that the invigorating aroma and the caffeine would help to dissipate the remnants of sleep that linger stubbornly within you. The quiet solitude of the early morning embraces you, punctuated only by the gentle hum of the brewing machine and the occasional chirping of a bird outside.

But suddenly, the tranquillity of the moment shatters like glass as the front door swings open with a force that rings through the house. This abrupt entrance is quickly followed by the distinct, rhythmic thud of heavy boots making their way down the lengthy corridor. Each footfall sends a reverberation through the floorboards. The sound is so familiar, yet it sends a jolt through your heart. You don't even need to turn around to know - König has returned home.

Over the past few weeks, you've found yourself walking on eggshells around him. It feels as though the surrounding air has become thin and brittle, ready to shatter at the slightest misstep. You've been constantly monitoring your words and actions, choosing them with careful deliberation so as not to accidentally exacerbate his increasingly volatile mood, which has been fluctuating more frequently as days pass. But when he finally appears in the doorway of the kitchen, his face etched with deep lines of exhaustion and his eyes vacant, you find the words tumbling out of your mouth before you can stop them.

"What's wrong?"

His response is curt, delivered with an air of finality that leaves no room for further questions. "Nothing you need to worry about, liebling," he says, attempting to alleviate the palpable tension in the kitchen with a smile. But it's strained, fragile, like a piece of glass that's on the verge of shattering. The corners of his lips quiver slightly, an involuntary reaction betraying his inner turmoil. The frown lines etched deep on his forehead refuse to disappear, stubbornly present even as he tries to mask his emotions.

He closes the distance between you, his footsteps echoing in the silence. He leans in to plant a brief, fleeting kiss on your forehead, his lips colder than you remember, their warmth replaced by a chill that sends a shiver down your spine. As he continues his task, his hand reaches up to retrieve a cup from the cupboard above your head. You can't help but notice the new changes in him. His movements lack their usual grace, his touch feels mechanical, and his caresses are devoid of the genuine affection you've grown accustomed to. It's as if he's simply operating on autopilot, his mind evidently elsewhere.

You yearn for him to confide in you, to share his burdens and let you in on the whirlwind of thoughts that seem to be plaguing him. You wish to be his solace, to help him navigate through his sea of worries. More than anything, you want to help him, to alleviate his worries and bring back the man you know and love. But how can you do that if he refuses to let you in, if he remains so stubbornly silent, his emotions locked up tighter than a fortress?

"I'm leaving tomorrow. Have another mission. It's going to be a short one," König finally says, his gaze piercing you with an intensity that suggests he's expecting you to blow up.

However, you strive to maintain your composure. You have no intention of descending into another fruitless argument; every time he leaves after a fight, you feel awful for the way you acted.

"It's only been a week since you've returned home," you say, your eyes focused on the steaming cup cradled in your hands. The heat radiating from the cup is causing your fingertips to tingle, and the steam is lightly brushing against your skin. Despite the discomfort, you hold on to it with a firm grip. "I thought you were going to stay for at least another week. We had plans, remember? You gave me your word—."

He cuts you off before you can complete your sentence. "Plans have changed."

There have been countless times when you've wanted to confront König, to ask him directly why he finds it so challenging to uphold the promises that he so confidently makes. Yet each time you find yourself holding back, fully aware that such a conversation would be futile and would only result in both of you raising your voices in frustration. It has become painfully clear that he has no intention of discussing work-related matters with you.

König has a habit of offering reassurances that are devoid of any real comfort. He frequently insists that it's silly for you to burden your mind with matters that, in his opinion, do not directly concern you. This line of reasoning, though flawed, he presents as if it were an undeniable truth. And if, despite his attempts to dissuade you, you still muster the courage to press further, he always has a fallback. He always abruptly ends the conversation, leaving you hanging with a parting remark that it would be safer, better for you, if you remained ignorant.

* * *

As dawn breaks, you stir from your slumber only to find yourself enveloped once again by the cold emptiness of the bed beside you. The dreary grey skies outside mirror your inner turmoil. Raindrops pitter-patter gently against the windowpane. König didn't even bother waking you up before leaving. Yet, his absence is punctuated by a hastily scrawled note left carelessly on the nightstand. The message is brief and impersonal, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth: 'had to get up early, didn't want to wake you up. see you soon.'

Was it really so difficult to scribble three more words?

With a soft sigh, you whisper into the stillness of the bedroom, "I love you, too." The words, left unsaid by him, hang heavy in the air. You clutch the note in your hand before crumpling it and aimlessly tossing it onto the mattress.

With a great deal of effort, you pull yourself from the warm embrace of the bed, your feet reluctantly making contact with the icy floor beneath. You pause for a second, collecting your scattered thoughts, allowing the remnants of sleep to fade away as you mentally prepare yourself for yet another day.

Slowly, you venture through the hauntingly silent house, each step echoing through the stillness of the early morning. Each room you pass through seems to reverberate with echoes of a thousand memories that seem to cling to the walls and linger in the air. Yet amidst the symphony of remembrances, there's one memory that stands out from the rest, a memory that refuses to be drowned out by the others. It's that heated argument with König, a fiery exchange of words and emotions that took place just a few months ago.

You vividly recall the sting of his dismissive attitude on that day when you bared your soul to him, accusing him bitterly of not taking your relationship as seriously as you did, accusing him of taking your love, your commitment, for granted as if it were an inconsequential thing.

In the depths of your heart, you wished fervently, desperately even, for him to just be honest with you if his feelings for you were slowly fading away, like the last embers of a once roaring fire. You wanted him to admit it if he no longer felt the same passion, the same affection that once seemed to radiate from him like a comforting warmth.

But instead of providing the honesty you craved, he had merely dismissed your concerns, brushed them aside like dust. He told you that you were imagining things, that it was all just a figment of your overactive imagination, assuring you with words that felt hollow, that nothing between you two had changed.

But by the day's end, he had taken a step that had left you reeling in confusion. He had asked you to move in with him, a grand gesture that he believed would dispel your doubts and insecurities, a gesture that he thought would reassure you of his commitment. But instead of providing the comfort he hoped it would, it merely added another layer of complexity to the turbulent sea of emotions within you.

Initially, there was a glimmer of hope, a faint belief that things were on the verge of improving. You harboured the thought that perhaps the physical distance, the living apart, had been the catalyst that dimmed the once vibrant flame of your relationship. However, as each day bled into the next, and weeks morphed into seemingly interminable months, the solitary confinement within these walls began to weigh heavily on you.

The more time you spent alone in this house, the more you found yourself yearning for the familiar corners of your old apartment, regretting the decision to sell it to relocate here. After all, you pondered, what difference does it make where you live? The four walls of a room are just that, and the absence of König made this house feel no different than your old apartment.

What was the point of moving in together if König was always away, prioritising his work and his duty as a soldier above you?

You shake your head, as if physically trying to dispel the thoughts that have begun to creep into your mind. You can't allow yourself to dwell on them any longer, to let them take root and cast a shadow over your day. After all, the day has only just begun and you don't want to end up sulking on the couch, a prisoner in your own home, wallowing in a sea of regret and loneliness.

You stroll into the kitchen. As you slowly approach the counter, your fingers lightly graze the cool, granite surface, your mind whirling with the endless possibilities of what to make for breakfast. Your gaze wanders aimlessly, eventually settling on the window that provides a picturesque view of the neighbourhood.

You squint against the bright sun, your eyes catching an unusual sight - a man, his face damp with sweat under the morning sun, is engaged in an arduous task of moving boxes from a truck to the house across the street. His movements are slow and meticulous, each box handled with care as if they contain something precious.

A new neighbour.

A sense of intrigue washes over you, an irresistible curiosity that grips your very being. It's a magnetic pull that holds your attention captive, rendering you incapable of tearing your gaze away from the scene unfolding before your eyes.

His house lies across the street, a good distance away, yet his features are strikingly apparent and impossible to ignore even from your secluded vantage point in the cosy confines of your kitchen. His stature is tall and imposing, a figure that commands attention. His shoulders are broad, his hair is a dishevelled mess of rich blond locks.

As the day wears on, you find yourself repeatedly drawn to the kitchen window. Every so often, the man would step outside to retrieve yet another box from his truck, providing you with fleeting glimpses of him.

You remind yourself that you are in a committed relationship. You know that ogling other men is not something you should be doing. It's not something you usually do, and it's certainly not something you want to make a habit of.

However, in the recesses of your mind, a voice tries to justify your actions. It whispers, seeking to ease your guilt. You're just looking. That's not really doing anything wrong, right? It's a feeble attempt at rationalizing, but it works nonetheless.

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