Chapter Text
Character Profiles
Joong Archen Aydin
Age: 25
Full Name: Joong Archen Aydin
Rank: Captain, Special Operations Liaison (Pacific theater, retired active duty)
Current Position: Director of Strategic Operations, Aydin Conglomerate
Family: Parents, older sister
Background: Sent to military academy at fourteen, Joong spent four years in active deployment before returning to take up his role in the family business. He is now expected to transition from the battlefield to corporate; and to marry a man he hasn’t seen in years.
Notable Traits: Rigid, lacks emotional intelligence, speaks in military terminology without realizing it and uses silence as a weapon.
Dunk Natachai Boonprasert
Age: 29
Full Name: Dunk Natachai Boonprasert
Position: Heir to the Boonprasert maritime empire, brand ambassador and public face of the family's luxury shipping and cruise interests
Family: Parents, older sister
Background: Raised in the world of new money and high society, Dunk was sent to boarding school in Europe and has spent years building himself into a public figure and brand. He takes his role in the family business seriously and has no intention of letting an arranged marriage dictate his future.
Notable Traits: Elegant, sharp-witted, fiercely proud, and easily flustered. Uses sarcasm as armor and shops when he’s stressed.
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Joong Archen Aydin's family has booked the entire penthouse floor of the Grand Colet hotel, a gesture that his father, General Aran insisted upon because, as he put it, "private negotiations require private spaces, not the prying eyes of the public."
The table is a big mahogany thing that could comfortably seat twelve, but only eight place settings have been arranged, the empty chairs serving as silent reminders of the families who couldn't be bothered to attend.
Joong's family arrives first, because punctuality is not merely a virtue in the Aydin household but a sacred duty. General Aran sits at the head of the table, his posture so perfect that it seems he might be balancing a book on his head even now, his chest still decorated with medals from a career that ended five years ago but which he refuses to retire from mentally.
Beside him, his wife Dr. Pimchanok Aydin, thoracic surgeon, surveys the room, her diamond earrings catching the light with every subtle turn of her head.
Captain Emi, Joong's older sister, sits with a straight face and her back straight, her eyes sharp, taking in every detail of the room, as expected of someone who has spent years in naval intelligence.
Finally, Captain Joong Archen is seated beside his sister in perfect posture and straight-faced like everyone else at the table. His eyes perform a tactical sweep of the room in less than a second. Four exits, two main and two service. There’s security blind spots behind the massive flower arrangements and near the windows, he notes. He was trained to do it and now it’s a habit.
At twenty-five years old, he is two years younger than his sister, Emi who outrank him in seniority despite holding the same title.
Joong has just returned from four years of active deployment in the pacific theatre where he served as a Special Operations liaison between elite naval units and intelligence operatives. He has been back seventy-two hours and his father has already assigned him the position of Director of Strategic Operations within the Aydin family conglomerate; an empire of thirteen subsidiaries across five countries, specializing in defense manufacturing, aerospace, encrypted communications, and private security contracting.
Now Joong is here, at this dinner, to fulfill another obligation; his long-standing betrothal to Dunk Natachai Boonprasert, heir to the Boonprasert maritime empire. His father set this meeting up the moment Joong landed, because in the Aydin family, duty never waits.
Joong has spent his whole life learning how to survive, identify and counter threats and handle business. He has never learned to fall in love, but he’s about to try.
***
The Boonpraserts arrive thirty minutes late, because Mrs. Boonprasert insisted on making an entrance, and indeed she does. She sweeps into the room draped in diamonds and designer silk, her laughter too loud. Mr. Boonprasert follows close behind, his phone already pressed to his ear, his attention split between the stock market and the dinner he is supposed to be attending.
Ciize, Dunk's older sister, trails in with the bored expression on her face. Clearly she was forced to be here and it shows.
And then there is Dunk.
The moment Dunk Natachai Boonprasert walks through the door, Joong is already standing, trained from childhood to rise when the other party enters. The habit is so ingrained that it happens before he consciously registers the movement. When he sees Dunk, he stops for just a second, and that fraction speaks volumes.
Dunk is nothing like the boy Joong remembers. The last time they stood in the same room four years ago, Dunk was twenty-four years old, still soft around the edges, still carrying the awkwardness of youth.
Now he is twenty-nine, and that softness has matured into something else entirely. He looks elegant and polished and dangerously attractive. His dark hair is swept back from his forehead in a style that looks effortless but is clearly the result of effort, if the amount of hair gel in there is any indication.
His shoulders are broader than Joong remembers, though still nowhere near Joong's own intimidating width, and his jaw has a definition to it that makes Joong's eyes linger a moment longer than they should.
Dunk stops too, because Joong is so much bigger than he remembers. He towers over everyone in the room, all lean muscle and aura of power, wearing a charcoal Brioni suit that fits him very well. The physique and tan skin shows years of brutal training rather than the result of a gym membership and sunbathing. Dunk's memory of Joong is of a boy- serious, intense, quiet, always watching- but well…the boy grew up and into an insanely gorgeous man. Dunk can barely tear his gaze away.
Joong approaches Dunk without asking permission, closing the distance between them with confidence. It is a military power move, a way of establishing dominance without saying a single word, and it works exactly as intended. Dunk’s cologne hits him right away and makes him want to sneeze. It’s way too much.
"P’Dunk, I haven't seen you since you looked… bigger," Joong says, sounding like he might be amusement, though it is hard to tell with him.
Dunk's eyes widen, then narrow. "I'm not small. I'm just... smaller than you. A bit. When one squints their eyes." He is already defensive, already bristling at the implication, and Joong finds himself intrigued by how quickly he can be provoked.
"You're still temperamental," Joong observes. "I used to think you'd grow out of it by now." His tone is impossible to read, hovering somewhere between mockery and genuine curiosity, and Dunk can't tell if he's being teased or insulted.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Dunk demands, his chin lifting in a gesture that is clearly meant to be defiant but comes across as almost petulant.
Joong leans in closer, lowering his voice so that only Dunk can hear, and Dunk catches a whiff of… nothing. Just clean skin and the faintest trace of soap, and that absence of scent is more disorienting for Dunk than any cologne could have been.
"It means we can do that dance when we're alone. Now is barely the time for it." Joong murmurs, his lips close to Dunk's ear.
The seating arrangement places Dunk directly across from Joong, which is either a stroke of genius or an act of calculated cruelty on the part of their parents. The table is huge, and yet the distance between them feels insignificant, every glance across the table electric.
General Aran treats the entire dinner like a diplomatic summit, and his questions are less like conversation and more like interrogation. He leans forward, his medals clinking softly against the table, and fixes Dunk with a gaze that has probably made grown men tremble.
Well Dunk didn’t miss hanging out with these people. Dunk and Joong have been promised to each other since they are four and eight years old. Their grandparents were excellent friends and business partners back in the day and that’s what brought this marriage plan into being.
Growing up, Dunk and Joong were sent to the same schools, placed in the same social circles, forced to shop from the same stores, made to visit one another’s homes and spend time with each other’s families. Despite all that, they never became friends or even liked each other.
It just felt like that random kid your mom forces you to hang out with. Dunk grew close to someone else at school his best friend Pond. Joong never really socialized much or made friends.
When Joong left four years ago, it felt like a breath of fresh air for Dunk. From time to time he’d be forced to visit Joong’s parents but thankfully not much.
Joong’s father speaks, cutting off Dunk’s thought, "Dunk, my son will be deployed frequently. Can you handle extended periods of isolation? My wife managed. Though she had the constitution for it."
Dr. Pimchanok's replies icily. "I managed because I had a career. I didn't sit around waiting." Her eyes flick to Dunk with the faintest hint of disdain, as if she is already assessing his worth and finding him wanting.
Mrs. Boonprasert waves her champagne glass with reckless abandon, nearly sloshing the contents onto the white tablecloth. "Oh, Dunk isn't waiting for anything. He has a successful career. He's the catch. Joong should be grateful."
"I wouldn't say a catch necessarily," Joong says, looking up from his plate with an expression that is impossible to read, "But yes, he has some star qualities."
Dunk sets his wine glass down with a thud that echoes through the room, and he feels the heat rising to his cheeks. "Would you be marrying me if I had nothing to offer?" The question comes out sharper than he intended, almost accusatory, and he watches Joong's reaction closely.
"Yes. Your hand was promised to me in marriage by our grandparents, and I have to make good on that promise. It's what a real man does."
"Exactly," General Aran says, nodding with approval, and Dunk's jaw nearly hits the floor. It’s not the uplifting answer he was hoping for, and he is not entirely sure why he was hoping for one in the first place.
The conversation doesn’t improve from there. Dunk's parents are interested in very different things than Joong's parents, and the contrast between the families becomes painfully apparent with each passing minute. Mr. Boonprasert lowers his phone long enough to ask Joong about his plans for the family business, clearly more interested in the logistics of the merger than in the actual marriage itself.
Mrs. Boonprasert wants to know about the wedding venue, the guest list, the flowers, and whether Joong's mother will be wearing that "dreadful beige" again. General Aran, meanwhile, has moved on to questioning Dunk about his knowledge of maritime law, his readiness to support a military spouse, his understanding of the sacrifices that will be required of him.
Dunk's sister, Ciize, makes a valiant attempt at small talk with Emi, but it quickly becomes clear that they have nothing in common. The conversation between them starts and dies more times than Dunk can count.
The General and his wife make military references every three minutes. Dunk could turn it into a drinking game if he did not need to keep his wits about him. He notices that Joong uses military terminology too, getting effortlessly into the language of command and strategy as if it were his first language. Everything is a mission, an objective, a threat assessment. The wedding is a deployment and Dunk's family seems to be a potential intelligence leak. The marriage itself is nothing but a strategic alliance.
It is exhausting.
“We must apologize for delaying the wedding,” The General says, “Archen had to fulfil his military obligations. There will be no further delays.”
His wife goes on to add, looking at Dunk, “I’d hope that you waited and resisted the urge to see other people.”
Dunk’s mother takes it upon herself to answer that, “He’s a virgin. I assure you.” She says it so bluntly like she might as well be confirming the date of a business meeting, like she’s bragging about this fact; like it’s not fucking outrageously embarrassing for her son who then looks at her with a look that says he’s not sure whether to reprimand her or simply walk out of the room and go jump off a cliff.
Dunk knows all eyes are on him, can feel it. His face burns. He briefly glances at Joong who so happens to indeed be looking at him. Joong is clearly stifling a smile. He’s enjoying my embarrassment, Dunk realizes.
“And you, Archen?” Dunk fires back before he can stop himself because he refuses to be humiliated alone at this damn table, “Did you stay pure and untouched for me?”
Joong just stares at Dunk, his gaze saying ‘I knew you’d do this’. Dunk’s gaze answers him with ‘so answer the question then’.
“My son is disciplined,” Joong’s mother says as though this gives him an advantage over Dunk.
Dunk fights the urge to roll his eyes.
“Try the Risotto ai Funghi Porcini e Tartufo, Natacahi.” Joong’s mother says, “Mushrooms are great for boosting your immune system, your heart and your blood pressure.”
“No thanks. I don’t eat that.”
The entire table falls silent, looking at Dunk like he’s committed some crime, daring to refuse. He eyes them, confused.
“Just eat them, dear,” Dunk’s mother says with that behave-yourself smile of hers, “Once won’t kill you.”
“It might. Do you eat things you dislike?”
Dunk’s mother makes a small, awkward laugh, glancing at Joong’s displeased facial expressions.
“Food should not be wasted. We eat everything at the table.” The general says
“Not me.”
General Aran’s nostrils flare as he stares hard at Dunk who blatantly ignores him, looking at his plate and picking onion pieces out of his dish. He does not feel like having onion-breath tonight.
The uncomfortable silence lingers for a short while then Dunk’s father brings something else up to talk about.
Dunk drops his napkin during a particularly tedious discussion about security protocols, and as he bends to retrieve it, he finds himself looking at Joong's shoes. They are custom-made, clearly expensive, but they are combat boots in black leather, resoled for silence. He follows the line of Joong's leg up to his thigh, where his left hand is resting, and he notices the thick scar running across his knuckles, a remnant of some violence that Dunk doesn’t even want to imagine.
When he sits back up, Joong catches his eye and winks.
Dunk spends the rest of the dinner completely flustered, his face hot, his pulse racing, wondering what that wink could possibly mean.
The meal drags on, and Dunk finds himself stealing glances at Joong across the table, unable to stop himself.
Dunk remembers a boy who used to pout when he was concentrating, and he looks for that pout now, searching for a trace of the child he once knew. All the cuteness is gone now, replaced with someone more controlled. The short, military haircut doesn’t help.
Joong, for his part, finds himself watching Dunk as well. He remembers a boy who was always fidgeting and talking, a boy older than himself but never actually seemed that way. Dunk is calmer, more composed, but the energy is still there beneath the surface.
Their eyes meet across the table, and something passes between them that neither can name.
When dinner finally ends, Dunk's parents leave first. His mother is too drunk to argue, and his father is too absorbed in his phone to notice anything. His sister has already called her driver and is halfway to the door. Dunk tries to slip away in the chaos, but Joong catches his elbow with a grip that is gentle but firm.
"Walk me to my car?" Joong asks, sounding almost vulnerable, though Dunk can’t imagine Joong being vulnerable about anything.
"I thought you could handle threats all on your own, Captain," Dunk says, lacing his voice with sarcasm to hide how fast his heart is beating.
Joong's lips curve into a tiny smile. "I can, but my future husband walking me to the car is a tactical advantage. People will see us together. It establishes a united front."
Dunk falls into step beside him, and he hates how naturally his body aligns with Joong's, how easy it is to match his stride. "How have you been?"
Joong's expression changes, the armor slipping for just a moment. "I’m doing well. I can see you’ve been thriving yourself."
"Honestly? I was hoping you’d find somebody else to marry."
“Why didn’t you find someone else?”
Dunk looks at Joong like he should already know the answer to that. And Joong does.
"You wear a lot of cologne," Joong states, as if the observation is just that- an observation, nothing more.
Dunk stops walking and stares at him. "What sort of comment is that?"
Joong stops too, turning to face him, his expression blank. "It's an observation."
"And?" Dunk waits for Joong to elaborate, to explain what he means by that, but Joong simply stands there, hands clasped behind his back, patient as a statue. "And what?
“You can't just say something like that and not explain."
"I just did."
Dunk takes a step closer, his irritation making him bold. He leans in and sniffs Joong's neck, a gesture that is ridiculous and invasive and entirely inappropriate, but he does it anyway. He smells nothing. No cologne, no body spray, just the faint clean scent of soap. He frowns and sniffs again, closer this time, his nose almost brushing Joong's skin.
Joong lets out a small chuckle, "Can you even smell anything else besides your own loud cologne?"
Dunk rears back, startled. "You don't smell like anything."
"I don't wear cologne."
Dunk's eyes widen. "Oh, my Lord. Please tell me that you at least put on body spray or some deodorant."
Joong looks at him as if he has just asked something incredibly foolish.
"But why not? I mean, who doesn't wear perfume or cologne?"
"It's loud," Joong says simply. "It attracts attention."
Dunk blinks, waiting for him to elaborate. Joong does not, again. "Is it possible for you to elaborate more on the things you say? Just, you know, occasionally?"
Joong still doesn’t say anything.
"My father tells me that a man's fragrance should make a statement," Dunk explains, and he is not sure why he is sharing this, but the words come out anyway. "When I sit down somewhere, the scent I leave on the fabric should last the next three weeks."
Joong shakes his head slowly. "Leaving pieces of yourself everywhere. Unsafe."
"In what sense?"
"You’re an attention-seeker in short."
Dunk's jaw drops. "No." He pauses, considering. "But yes, I want people to know that I wear expensive brands. There's a difference."
"So you're an attention-seeker and a show off." Joong repeats factually
"And you're trying not to get noticed at all," Dunk counters, feeling defensive. "To be invisible and seemingly down to earth. Is that it?"
"Yes. Stealth is a man's greatest strength."
Dunk shakes his head. "Everything to you is just about the military, isn't it?"
"I'm a soldier," Joong deadpans.
"Joong, why are you doing this? This fantasy might have been a little cute when we were kids, but it's not funny anymore. This is our lives. Clearly we're not compatible. Why do you insist on this marriage?"
Joong's face is unreadable as he answers. "I want to be your husband." Then he resumes walking.
Dunk follows and waits for him to elaborate, to explain what that means, to give him something he can work with. Joong doesn’t. Again.
Dunk is getting irritated.
"What does that mean?" Dunk asks, his voice climbing with frustration.
"Keep guessing."
They reach Joong’s car and looks at his wristwatch with a precision that suggests he has been timing this entire conversation. "It's 8:33 and three minutes past the time I should have departed."
"You have another appointment or something?"
Joong blinks at him as if the question is nonsensical. "It's called sticking to time and schedule. You should get a sense of it if we'll be wed, P’Natachai."
His car pulls away, and Dunk stands alone in the parking lot, trying to process everything that has just happened. The evening has been a whirlwind of military jargon and family tension and Joong's unsettling presence, and Dunk's head is spinning.
There is no way in hell he is marrying that man.