Asa made her very first mistake. She was too confident, and hence, she forgot where she was. In a place where nobody knew who she was, she thought she was safe.

But that wasn’t the case at all.

Seniors were required to take a civics class, which was probably a good idea since half of her classmates knew nothing about how normal people lived, how politics affected them, how laws and government worked, etc.

It was funny, really. She learned about most of these things before she could even really talk. It’s not hard to gauge the dynamic of her family when she’s been surrounded by it her entire life.

She knew that this class was a mere graduation requirement, but the problem was that her classmates didn’t really care about anyone but themselves. Why would they?

They were born with a silver spoon. None of the legislation particularly affected them. To wealthy people, fines were merely chump pocket change. As long as Daddy and Mommy handled their misdemeanors, which ranged from assault and battery to underaged drinking to DUIs. Everything can be erased with a little money.

And because these kids ranged from upper middle class to elite wealth, the top one percent, it made their heads bigger. It was dangerous and certainly sad to see. How these kids with inflated egos would grow up to lead this country straight to the pits of hell, disregarding disparity because it didn’t affect them.

None being limited to being a horrible human being in general.

Her job wasn’t to be someone with a moral high horse. She’d known that she should stay out of the limelight, complete the year without a single whisper in her direction, but at the moment, she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t been angered like this in a long time.

Their civics teacher was down to earth and not part of lucrative wealth. Her name was Ms. Gallegos, and you could tell, at first glance, that she was in a completely different tax bracket than the rest of these kids. Her clothes weren’t designer, not close to veiled wealth either. A different type of wealth, something more exclusive. And you’d only be able to tell if you were in the club.

Someone like Frederick.

Ironically, they were speaking about tax regulations and government involvement.

Ms. Gallegos asked them if they knew how the tax bracket system worked. Now, from Asa’s knowledge, the U.S. handled its taxes very differently from the rest of the world. It was all thinly veiled under the guise of democracy.

There was no other country that made their citizens calculate how much taxes they owed to the federal and state government.

Before Asa’s able to speak, somebody else raises their hand, Ceres, she thinks, is her name. Ceres doesn’t bother waiting for Ms. Gallegos to acknowledge her, speaking completely out of turn without an inkling of shame.

“My papa’s always complaining that the government should stick their nose out of his business. He says they always take and take. I think that the tax system should be reformed.”

Asa lets out a scoff, louder than she intended and unbeknownst to herself.

Ceres, in the midst of silence, hears her scoff and whirls her head around to her with a sharp look.

“Did you have something to say, new girl?”

Her neck flushes from being put on the spot, but she also has no idea why she engages. It was obviously a trap, and she could so clearly see it.

“Yes, actually,” she says testily, “I have a question. Do you think that the world simply exists around you?”

Ceres’ eyes flash with indignance and everything rotten. “Sorry?”

“With your limited knowledge about how the world actually works, how the dynamic of government works, do you think that the government should only serve you and your family?”

The other girl releases a haughty sound from . “What the hell do you know about the world anyway? As far as I know, you’re probably as sheltered as I am. I don’t know who the hell you think you are, speaking to me like that.”

Unfortunately, Asa’s been conditioned by Camille. The two girls are two of the same kind.

“Your surname is…what?” She questions, calm and focused, not allowing Ceres to intimidate her.

Her classmates begin whispering around her, gossiping amongst themselves, probably live-tweeting their confrontation. The entire school would probably learn of this by lunchtime.

From their reaction, Asa deducts that Ceres must be somewhat important, and if there was a hierarchy, she must’ve been at the top of the food chain.

No matter, she’s had her fair share of experience with arrogant people who believe that they’re immune to everything.

“LaRue,” the other girl answers warily.

“You’re French,” Asa confirms, “you must be the heiress of LaRue Chateau, right? Last year, your ‘small’ winery brought in billions of profit, but your papa paid proportionally fewer taxes relative to his net worth. The poverty line pays a higher percentage of taxes, money which they can scarcely choke up. Student loans, mortgage payments, car bills, insurance—not to mention America’s lack of universal healthcare.

“Meanwhile, you’re what—seventeen? Haven’t worked a day in your life. You have a mommy and daddy who pay for your handbags and cars that cost the same, if not more, than a common man’s annual salary. Your only excuse to bring up your papa’s laments is to aid your little popularity contest and, for lack of a better word, it’s attention-seeking.”

The entire classroom is dead silent when Asa finishes, their eyes droning into the side of her head like she may have possessed a third eye.

Ceres looks livid. Her pretty face is bunched tight, teeth-baring. She feels threatened for being called out, probably because nobody’s ever done it before.

But Ceres is smarter than that. She doesn’t throw a tantrum. Instead, she plasters a smooth smile, and says in a sugary sweet voice, “oh yeah? You think that you know everything there is about the world, don’t you? What about the fact that you’re the princess of a European country? A brother-er, at that.”

Everyone gasps and Asa goes still.

Of course, she couldn’t hide her namesake forever, but having it used against her when she thought she’d been in a somewhat safe space made her feel exposed, the raw endings of her nerves set on fire.

“Your parents are royalty. The common man, that you so proudly stand up for, pay taxes to aid your lifestyle; meanwhile, you all are nothing more than a brand. There’s absolutely no decision-making on your part. It’s the parliament that does all the work, and yet, no one talks about the scene you made with your dear brother. I guess, maybe, you do owe your thanks to your publicists, right, hon’?”

Ceres is right in her entirety, but that doesn’t make her any less awful.

Ms. Gallegos looks horrified, mainly, because before Asa started school, every single faculty member who was in the loop had to sign an NDA surrounding Asa’s attendance at the school, basically, keeping the secret of her whereabouts.

If broken, they were entitled to a nasty court visit.

It was an understatement of the century to say that she felt bad. How could she have forgotten the consequences of her identity? How could she forget that everything she did was put under the microscope?

It would only take a couple of minutes for the students’ tweets to blow up and cause a whole headache for her family’s publicists and lawyers.

She could already see the articles that the tabloids would write about her, calling her family out for covering up the press conference, and sending her far, far away to avoid any further commotion.

Her little Serene Highness, a problem child!

As all these thoughts raced around her mind, pushing her to the brink of an anxiety attack, Asa couldn’t help but feel the weight of the crown snuffing her out once again. She couldn’t escape her life, no matter where she went.

. . .

Why did she open her big mouth?

Ms. Gallegos tries her best to calm the classroom down, but it’s to no avail. Everybody is invested, asking her questions among questions, and, if not, spreading nasty gossip that would reach her home by this evening.

Asa pushes out of her seat, at the last minute, she hears one of the kids who she’d eaten lunch with the other day, stand up for her. However, she doesn’t stay around to hear it. It didn’t matter.

She’d get a long phone call from her parents tomorrow, and if she was lucky, she would only go unscathed by following life plans dictated by them.

An arranged marriage was a given. Bearing children was also a given. That means, she’d be married by the end of the year and become another monarch’s problem, rather than Liechtenstein’s.

She would be forced to live out the rest of her life, every decision already made for her.

Asa’s skin is flushed, burning. Her pulse skips, quicker and quicker, playing hopscotch with the devil.

She’d thoughtlessly barreled out of the classroom, but when she landed herself in the middle of an empty corridor, in a very familiar wing of the school, she climbs the gravelly stairs, her rapid footsteps echoing behind her.

She reaches the top of the staircase to an entrance that leads to a private balcony, hidden from the view looking up from the front of the school. Without a single inhibition, she pushes the wooden door open, heaving big, exhaustive breaths.

The top of the school overlooks green hills and forestation, the sky above her a gray and dull overcast, mirroring her exact mood.

It’s awfully gorgeous in such a dreadful way. She continues her descent toward the edge of the balcony, each stone and pebble crumbling away as she takes another step. There are thick voluptuous vines wrapped around the school building, brick by brick, it dangles off of the stone ledge.

There are no blockers, no precautions for jumpers. Beneath her, there’s a lake that continues to a river connected to the cluster of deciduous and coniferous trees.

A sharp gasp tears out of her once she realizes that she has company. In the corner of her peripheral, where she hadn’t begun to explore, there was somebody sitting with his back on the edge of the wall where the elevated railing stood.

He was dangling dangerously off of the railing, but there was nothing fearful about his body language. He resembled a bird, not afraid of what was on the ground, but rather, liberated by treacherous heights.

And she knew who he was at first glance.

Asa has gone completely still at the sight of her English teacher, his nose buried in a book. She recognizes the cover, American Psycho. It’s the first edition, the same copy she has back home in her bedroom.

Her pulse calms to a manageable pace, and she lets out a long drag of air, comforted by how absolutely gorgeous he mingled with the background.

She wishes she could draw him in this exact moment, careening off of the balcony with no care of how dangerously close he was to meeting the doors of death.

Instead, she tries to memorize every line, every angle, down to the very last shape. The vivid colors of the green forestation, the texture of the stone, the simple cream button-down flushed against his pale skin, his exposed collarbone, all pretty and delicate, the antithesis of his fearlessness, and his black tie abandoned haphazardly on the ground.

She’d name the piece Recusant.

A second later, his attention wanes from his book, and as if sensing another presence, it lands on her. Their eyes meet, and she feels the bad, naughty butterflies gnaw themselves out from under her skin.

Like clockwork, there’s a sneaky curve that emerges at the edge of his mouth. It’s absolutely subliminal, barely noticeable if you couldn’t read micro expressions, but so, so sublime to witness.

How many times would she turn into an absolute fool in front of him?

Well, she was still counting, and so far, it exceeded the number of fingers she had on both hands.

Before long, she’d need a new set of hands, and maybe a new heart if she hadn’t already died from a heart condition.

She hadn’t made any efforts to talk to him since that night, and days materialized into two weeks. It hadn’t confused her in the slightest that he’d done the same. Hadn’t tried to call on her in class. Any and all personal talk was exchanged, one-sided, through her homework. And somehow, this continued their charade, a kept-up secret, from the first day they met to the night in the library.

She didn’t like clutter, and anything she didn’t have a use for went in the waste bin. But her literature homework had been an exception. She kept all of them, sometimes, reading over his penned scribbles frequently. She liked that he used green and not red. It was old fashion of him, as most teachers posted homework digitally nowadays.

He, however, favored pen and paper, despite the groans and moans of her unwilling classmates.

His rationale was that they’d absorbed the material with more purpose, rather than a mere glance over.

On a paper she wrote about vilifying same- relationships and subtle homoism in classic literature, he left comments all over it. She obsessed over every little word, down to the careless scrawl of his l’s and e’s, sometimes indecipherable, if not for her schemas.

Great observation

Sometimes, I also think that Zelda Fitzgerald herself was the first m/m enthusiast.

Very fitting usage of this word

ing beautiful

ing beautiful, he’d said. It was as risqué as he was, with no sense of boundaries. Just that, at the end of her work, it inflated her ego, made her heart so full because she’d never been acknowledged like this before.

There were no unnecessary sugar-coated words. Sometimes, he disagreed, on paper about her musings. It was intimate, and unlike anything that she’d ever experienced before.

God. She hated how much power he had over her. How he made her feel like she was standing on top of the world with his words alone, not even face-to-face at that.

And now she somehow stumbled into another private moment with him. She couldn’t tell if this was a of luck or a curse.

“Don’t you have class?” She asks, her voice rough and misshapen.

At this, he an eyebrow, challenging her. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“Oh,” she releases, as airy as her stomach felt. “I left.”

“You’re a little troublemaker, aren’t you?”

She winces, his casual comment hitting too close to home.

“Sneaking out past curfew, and now you’re playing hooky, princess?”

In the end, her irritation prevails over her entrancement. And she frowns, arms crossed. “What’s it to you?” Her tone comes out more sensitive and prickly than she’d intended.

But it doesn’t faze him. Nothing seems to. He lives life on the cusp after all.

“I’m not here to judge you,” he says. “Just entertaining a never-ending curiosity that starts and ends with you.”

“I’m boring,” she grumbles, for whatever reason, finding it permissible to sit beside him.

“Careful,” he says, grabbing the part where her forearm connected with her elbow before the wind had knocked her off.

She stares at him, feeling the burn of his touch before he lets go.

He leans against the back wall, sitting lazily and yet open like he was air himself. “So…what are you doing here, princess?”

“It looked like a good place to hide.”

He toys with her answer, looking inquisitive, and finally glancing up at her like she was the world’s greatest problem and he, the mathematician.

“If you want somewhere safer to hide,” he drawls, “there’s an abandoned art nook in the attic. The headmaster had a daughter who liked to paint. She was bullied, and often, hid up there.”

She blinks. “Why is it abandoned?”

“Because it’s no longer used.”

“Why?”

“Because the headmaster banned anyone from entering it.”

“What about his daughter?”

“What about her?”

“Doesn’t she want to share it?”

For a split second, Asa thinks that she saw something come over his eyes. A sadness, of some sort. But it clears just as quick as she’d gotten a gist of it.

“She didn’t like sharing very much,” he says.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Why are you using past tense to talk about her?”

“Because she’s dead, princess, and we’re sitting on a crime scene.”

She opens , but there are no words that come out, so she closes it, hesitates, and opens it again, unsure of what to say, but then she says, “I’m sorry. You must’ve been close.”

“I don’t know,” he whispers, his words seemingly floating with the breeze, “sometimes, I think I didn’t know her very well. If I did, maybe she’d still be here.”

Asa has no idea what to say because he looks like he could melt right into the grayness of the sky around them. There’s not much pain in his voice, or vulnerability, it was acceptance and maybe the succumbing to whatever emotion ate him up a long time ago.

“Was she special to you?”

“Special? Maybe,” he answers, strangely detached.

Asa glances down at his hands, in seek of the one thing that she’d suspected, and she found it. Right on his left ring finger is the evidence. There isn’t a ring, but there’s a very slight indent, the rest of his hand a slightly darker shade than the spot itself where the ring was.

“You’re married,” she surmises.

Her heart drops all the way down, story by story until it hits the ground with a splat, veins and arteries bursting. How idiotic. She’d somehow developed a crush on a man far more unattainable than your usual noncommittal player.

He was married to a dead woman.

And, it was then that Asa decided, this was her least favorite metaphor in the entire world.

[a/n] surprisingly, this story's raved about. idk why yall like this one so much but i ain't gna question it. i'm back with the vague and cryptic dialogue.

and what's a baekyhoney story without some complicated factor?

i hope im not completely trash at third pov. i've only been writing mmc third pov + fmc first pov as of late. asdhdkjhosdhfk