To my dear father, the King of Galacia,

It’s Princess Yewon. I finally arrived at Solen after some hardships, and right now, I am back to living my duties as Princess of Solen.

I am writing this letter to supplement the decree of his majesty of Solen. I wish you would accept all his premises without protest. Our country will have so much land in exchange for peace, land that Galacia had lost over many years of bloodshed. I implore you to accept this compromise, so that both countries can live without fear of war anymore.

I love my country, your Majesty. Galacia is my home, and I miss it every day I am away from it. I wish you do understand that I am doing all of this because I truly believe that it’s best for my country and my people. This is not a betrayal, and I hope that, despite everything, you don’t hate me. I worry that you do.

If you don’t hate me, I would like to kindly request an extra favor from you, as your daughter. Please return the hostages. The King of Solen chose not to be concerned with them, but I am concerned. There is nothing that I wish more than for those young boys and men to be back with their families after everything that they endured. Please grant me just this if nothing else...

I can think of nothing else to say right now. Please relay my love to everyone in Galacia, and tell them that I miss them terribly.

I’m sorry.

Love,

Yewon

-

When Haein first saw Yewon’s with the new haircut, she froze. She was surprised, but Yewon didn’t have to explain it, because Haein understood almost instantly. “They’re threatening your father, aren’t they?” Haein asked after the first glance.

When Yewon nodded, Haein put a comforting hand on Yewon’s shoulder and said: “I’m sorry you had to do that, your highness. It will grow back.”

However, Haein’s words were not comforting at all. On the contrary, they made her feel worse. Did she really look as bad as people seemed to think? If Haein’s way of comforting her was to say it would grow back in the future, that must mean that it looked unappealing in the present.

She lost more and more confidence as the day went by. Not a single person had a favorable reaction to her hair, and for the first time, she felt ugly.

When she entered the dining room during dinner, she caught eyes with Soonyoung, who narrowed his eyes when he saw her, but lowered his head and continued eating. She took the seat in front of him, which she regretted, because it looked as if he tried his hardest not to lift his head to look at her face again. He left dinner early that day.

Yulhee kept saying she looked like a man. The young princess hadn’t meant it in a mean way, but it kept pulling Yewon hard down the route of insecurity.

Seungcheol didn’t come to dinner at all. Nor did he visit her bed as he promised. Instead, he sent his guard Seungkwan to tell her that he was too tired to visit her that night.

She wondered if he really was too tired or if it was something else that was keeping him from her.

Was it because she was too ugly now? Had he liked her long hair, and was he repelled by her short hair?

Was he ashamed of her?

She tried to tell herself that Seungcheol would not concern himself with something as trivial as her hair, but she couldn't help but subconciously consider and believe it.

When Seungcheol had seen her for the first time since she cut her hair, he had not shown any expression at all, but the more she thought about it, the more convinced she felt that he probably hated it.

Those thoughts drowned her deeper and deeper in self-doubt and lack of confidence. She found herself staring at the mirror; the more she looked, the uglier she felt.

She took out a shawl and put it over her head to cover her hair and vowed to never leave her room without it.

-

She left her room that night, shawl over her head, to visit Wonwoo once again. Although she was uncertain about him, and although their conversation ended on a bad note the last time, she still craved his company.

When Wonwoo saw the shawl over her head, he didn’t look surprised. He must have heard that she had cut her hair.

“Let me see it,” he asked.

Yewon took off her shawl and prepared herself for his expression to change. And it did, but not in the way she expected. Actually, he smiled.

“You know what you remind me of?” Wonwoo asked as he studied her.

“What?”

“A Goddess.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, rolling her eyes at his cheesy attempts to cajole her.

“No, I’m serious. I read a book a long time ago about a Goddess that people in Siberia worship named Hita, the Goddess of Warmth. IThe legend is that she had long, beautiful black hair, and was the most beautiful Goddess known in the skies. Wey, the God of Ice, fell in love with her, and asked to marry her. She declined, and he was so angry that he initiated onto Earth the harshest of winters, so that all of her warmth will not be felt by the people, and the they would stop loving and worshipping her. Hard as she tried, her warmth was not strong enough to overcome Wey’s winter. The people were dying because it was too cold to live. They began to loathe her, thinking she was not showering her blessings onto the world. She ended up cutting her long, beautiful hair, and giving it to the village seamstresses to fashion coats for the people with it. It was because of those coats made of her hair that the people survived the harsh winter. When the God Wey found out that she cut her hair, he laughed thinking that she was no longer beautiful, but the next time he saw her, he found out that she was even brighter and more beautiful than ever before. You are exactly like that Goddess Hita, Yewon. You sacrificed your hair for your people, and somehow ended up the most beautiful person I know.”

Yewon blushed and averted her eyes, cursing his sweet tongue for making her so meek. He always knew exactly what to say, exactly how to make her smile in what had been the worst of days.

“Is that a real story, or did you make it up to make me feel better?” Yewon asked him, trying hard not to look like she was blushing.

“It’s real!” Wonwoo affirmed. “I’m being honest this time! I’ll even find the book for you as proof.”

“Well thank you for telling me that story,” she said. “I enjoyed it.”

“I would tell that you feel insecure about your hair when you walked in with the shawl over your head. Don’t feel that way. Insecure Yewon is not the Yewon that I know. You are just as strong and just as beautiful as you have always been, my dear, and don’t let anyone make you feel otherwise.”

“Thank you,” she said again as her lost confidence slowly began to resurface. “Really, thank you.”

-

Soonyoung was becoming painfully obvious with the way he was avoiding her. Every time she would be walking past him, he would turn around to avoid the confrontation. He even stopped coming to meals. Once she found him waiting outside the dining room for her to leave, his eyes on the floor, avoiding hers. He expected her to move along, but she didn’t, and instead finally confronted him about the strange way he was acting.

Something was very strange about with him indeed. Not only was he avoiding her, but he was staying as far away from her as possible.

“Prince Soonyoung, what’s wrong with you?” she stood before him and made it so that he was forced to acknowledge her.

“Princess,” he bowed his head slightly, his eyes dodging hers uncomfortably.

“Look at me!” she implored.

Soonyoung did as he was asked and looked at her. “Please, princess. I told you I want my space from you. Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he said. His breath was loud and his body was stiff.

“You’re the one making it hard,” she replied with a frown. “Why are you being like this? Can you at least stop making it so obvious to everyone?”

He didn’t even reply to her. He just pushed past her through the halls and began to rush towards where his room was. Yewon didn’t like being ignored like that, and she walked behind him, determined to understand what is making him so bizarrely uneasy.

When he noticed her behind him, he began to run.

Yewon still had a bad foot, and so couldn’t run after him, but she guessed he was heading to his room, and so Yewon made her way there too. When she arrived minutes later, her foot was sore and she just wanted somewhere to sit. The guards outside of his room said that Soonyoung was not accepting company. Yewon scoffed and collapsed on the floor right outside and yelled so that he could hear her from inside: “I’m waiting for you here. I’ll be sitting on the floor for as long as it takes you to open the door!” She remembered she did the same thing to Seungcheol a while back, and it worked. She didn’t think it would work with Soonyoung; he did not care much about her honor and couldn’t care less if she sat on the floor.

But he did not leave her sitting out for too long. A few minute later, he asked the guards to let her in. He was sitting at his desk, writing in an empty book when she walked in.

“What are you writing,” she asked him, standing many feet away from him in case he did not want her to see what he was writing.

“My thoughts,” he told her, still writing.

“Like a journal?” she asked.

“Kind of,” he answered. He placed the quill to the side and turned around to face her. “You want to know the reason I'm acting like this, princess?"

"Yes."

He took a deep breath and answered her: “because I’m sick.”

“Sick?”

“I mean mentally sick,” Soonyoung replied. He had a pained expression on his face, as if talking about that ‘sickness’ made him physically uncomfortable. “If you knew what goes on in my head, you’d avoid me the same way I want to avoid you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m addicted to ,” he answered bluntly. “I always crave carnal pleasure, and I can’t seem to function anymore because of this. And especially with you, princess. When I see you, I’m flooded with memories of when we… did everything, and my body reacts to these memories, and I can’t stop myself from thinking like that. I know you’re disgusted, and I am with myself as well. I just can’t look at you anymore without craving your body…” his voice trailed off. “And even though you are off limits, that excites me even more. I can’t control it anymore, which is why I need to avoid you. Even now, me and you together, alone, in my room, is a situation that should never happen again.”

Soonyoung’s allusions to their nights together flustered her and she found herself looking at the floor in slight shame. But she couldn’t feel threatened by what Soonyoung was saying like he seemed to expect. She did not feel insecure or scared of him at all. She trusted his self-control, and she knew that although he had such thoughts in his head, he was not going to act on them. Thoughts were just thoughts; only actions make someone liable. He may have a problem, but he was not a bad person.

“You need to fix yourself, then,” Yewon told him calmly trying to divert her thoughts from the flashbacks of their nights together, “because you can’t keep running away from me like this forever.”

She noted the lecherous way in which he was staring at her, and she understood the gravity of his problem. He looked so distracted by her body that he could not even make eye contact with her when she spoke to him. Small wonder he was steering clear of her.

Soonyoung nodded. “I know. That is why I’m moving out of the palace in a few weeks.”

“What?” she asked.

“I’m lusting over my sister-in-law and the future queen, princess. I need to get away from here,” Soonyoung replied finally forcing himself to look away from her body. “I need to get away from this palace, get away from the harem, get away from women in general…”

“You’re leaving forever?”

Soonyoung shrugged. “Forever would be ideal.”

The thought of him not being around saddened her; she could not imagine the palace without him. “You shouldn’t leave forever,” Yewon told him in attempt to convince him to stay. “You’re second in line to the throne…”

“Don't remind me,” Soonyoung groaned, “I would sooner die than become king. Another reason I want to leave is because I want to escape that responsibility.”

“You can’t just run away from that. Are you just going to abandon your country when it needs you?”

“I’m sure Wonwoo would do a much better job than I,” Soonyoung said. “If I run away and don’t come back, Wonwoo is next in line after Seungcheol. I’m actually protecting Solen by running away, you see. Better for Solen to be led by an intelligent scholar with political experience than by a -addicted imbecile whose life is falling apart,” Soonyoung mumbled the last bit.

Yewon tried convince him that it wasn’t true, that he was fit to be king, and that he shouldn’t sell himself short like that. She didn’t like to see him hate himself.

He responded to her refutations by comparing himself to his brothers: to Seungcheol who was motivated and powerful and had the aura of a true king; and to Wonwoo, who, in his words, “made the most of his life and invested himself in getting an education.” Soonyoung seemed very jealous of both Seungcheol’s leadership and Wonwoo’s erudition.

She learned that he felt suffocated in the palace and disillusioned with his life here, a life in which he could not find any fulfillment except in the abundant . He wanted to transform his lifestyle, and for that, he needed to leave the palace indefinitely.

“Where will you be going?” Yewon asked him when she was finally convinced of his decision.

“I don’t know,” Soonyoung replied as he began to ogle her again, getting distracted by her body. “Wonwoo said he would arrange it for me. He’s travelled a lot, so he knows places that would host me, and places where I could learn things. I’ll leave it to him. I don’t want anyone to know either in case they come looking for me, so please don’t tell anyone.”

“I support you in your decision, Prince Soonyoung,” Yewon told him. “I hope you find the fulfilment you’re looking for outside the palace.”

It was difficult to speak to him because of the way he was looking at her. Even though he was talking as he normally would, his eyes felt like razors and his expression was flushed with desire. He was forcing himself to stay in place, to stay grounded in that chair, three yards away from her. When he did finally make eye contact with her, his eyes were wide and seemed to be yelling at her, desperately asking for permission to get closer.

He really was sick, Yewon realized now more than ever.

At one point, it seemed like Soonyoung's entire body went stiff, as if he’d used up all his self-control and was ready to explode. Yewon decided she should excuse herself, but before she could, he let out a loud groan and pounced, but not in her direction. Rather, he pounced towards his table, from which he grabbed the quill and furiously began to write in the book on his table.

“Please leave and close the door behind you. Tell the guards not to let anyone else in,” Soonyoung said, taking a pause from his writing for as long as it took him to say it. Immediately after the last word, he immersed himself in whatever it was he was writing.

She did as he asked.

-

Seungcheol did come to Yewon’s room that night, although Yewon half-expected that he wouldn’t. Yewon had accepted the fact that Seungcheol did not like nor want to sleep with her; she was used to his excuses and expected him to give another one. So when she saw him walk through the door that night and take off his jacket and crown, she almost couldn’t believe it.

The mood between them was tense, and somehow she felt that it was because of her hair. He had barely spoken to her since she cut it, and she didn’t think he was very pleased with it. Whether this displeasure was because he was afraid for her honor, or simply because he found her unappealing to look at, she could not tell. She figured it was a little bit of both.

As he walked in, he simply greeted her formally and asked if she was prepared for it tonight. She told him that she was, and he nodded. It was painfully awkward.

It was awkward before it started, and sadly, the awkwardness did not go away even when it did. Yewon could only close her eyes throughout the experience hope for it to finish as quickly as possible. It shocked her how two people can be so close to each other physically, but so far away mentally. The most intimate human experience somehow become the most impersonal.

When it was over, Yewon tried to speak with him, to get him to open up, try to maybe recreate the same conversation they had before, but Seungcheol was unwilling to talk. Although she knew he did not intend to appear cold towards her, she could not help but feel that from him.

He did not stay for long after that. When her back was turned towards him, he got up and dressed himself.

Yewon tried to reflect on why things got so bad in such little time. He went from starting to open to her to barely looking at her and communicating with her in as little words as possible. The only thing that changed was her hair, she thought.

Did he really hate it that much?

When he was dressed, he said: “Princess, I know that was uncomfortable for you. I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to do it properly. Please reconsider my initial offer, for both our sakes.”

With that, he bowed to her and left.

A/N: I’m not as late as before!