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Yoongi held her close for some time.  Until he realized that she had fallen asleep in his arms.  He gazed down at her upturned face.  It was glowing in the light of the moon.  Under such gentle light, with the doors of her eyes closed, she appeared flawless.  An indescribable beauty rested against his arm.  

He felt a strong desire erupt from deep within him.  An ache to keep her always.  To shelter her from life’s storms.  She had already suffered too much because of them.  He longed to wrap himself around her and spend his days simply delighting in her.

He’d found her.

The girl he wanted to marry.

His advisors would fight him.  His attendants would be secretly appalled.  His lawyers would try to convince him that he was breaking their sacred laws to marry a blind peasant.

But he didn’t care.  He wanted her.  The problem was…he also wanted to shelter her from their repulsion.  He was afraid she would easily break under their ridicule.  Of course, in his position, it was easy enough to put an end to such ridicule.  Just chop off the head of the first person to speak against her.  The kings before him had done so over more minor offenses than speaking against the queen.

But he instinctively knew that such an action would drive her from him forever.  She would, for the rest of her life, blame herself for the offender’s death.  She would get no rest.

The only way to give her a happy existence was to leave her here in his garden.  To play in the dirt.  To nurture her baby plants.  The ones her heart so loved.  

It wasn’t fair.  He wanted her.  And she desired him.  He could feel it.  In the touch of her fingertips upon his skin.  He had tasted it in her kiss.  She longed for him too.  

But if he indulged that desire, would he destroy the very part of her that had attracted him?  Perhaps, for now, he’d simply indulge in the embrace of her lips every night here in their secret garden.  He’d visit her in her sanctum, hold her close, and love her lips with his own.  It seemed the only viable option now.

—

He held her for a while longer as he watched the moonglow play on her skin.  It seemed to caress her.  Like he longed to do.  He reached up and cupped her face with his hand.  Then he slid his thumb over her skin.  So soft.  Untouched by the hardening effects of the sun.  For she hid in darkness.  All the time.  

Suddenly, he was swamped by sorrow.  A beautiful girl like Moonflower had been born to dance in the sun.  Yet here she was hidden in the darkness.  She spent her life on her knees.  Digging in the dirt.  

He wanted her to feel the rays of the sun on her face.  He longed for its warmth to thaw the frozen places in her heart.  He wanted to open her eyes to the wonders around her.  To all the beautiful flowers she had nourished into growing such magnificent blossoms.  How unfair was it that she’d poured years of her life into this garden yet she could not see a single bloom?  

It was true that she could enjoy their fragrance.  And the velvet touch of their petals.  She could feel the breeze on her skin.  And hear it rustling the leaves of the trees.  She could taste the freshness of the soil as greenery burst forth from the ground.  Its scent was so strong that it permeated the air.  All she had to do was breathe in to taste it too.  Perhaps her other senses were more in tune with those aspects of nature because she’d been robbed of her fifth sense, her sight.

Still, he mourned for her.  It must be awful to walk through life blind.  She was closed off from so much.  He wondered where she had been hidden in the palace that he had never before met her.  

He had only recently begun walking in the garden late at night.  Otherwise, he might have met her years ago.  He realized that he no longer felt alone, though.  Her glowing presence had lit up his life last night.  And tonight.  

He would do whatever he had to do to keep her with him.  He didn’t want to lose the first true friend he’d ever had.  Someone who saw the real him – all of him.  And loved what she saw.  How ironic that the first person to really see him was blind.