It was mortifying to see Jinye after that halfwit blurted out the fact that the two of them had done “shameful” things together. It was the morning after, at breakfast, and Jinye was as bright and as beautiful as ever, speaking with Yulhee about summer dresses and hairstyles. Yewon was sinking into her chair and avoiding Jinye’s eyes at all costs.

Even when Jinye spoke up at the table, Yewon eyed her food and didn’t look up. When Jinye asked her a casual question, Yewon brushed it off by answering with as few words as possible. She was ashamed of herself and scared of Jinye’s judgement. She was also scared of what Jinye would do with the information… the thought of anyone besides Soonyoung, Haein, the King and Queen knowing about the dirty affair between Yewon and Soonyoung drove her crazy.

After breakfast was over, Jinye walked with Yewon, much to Yewon’s frustration.

“May I speak to you, your highness?” Jinye asked sweetly.

Yewon nodded, although she actually wanted to run away. She dreaded what Jinye would want to speak to her about…

“As you know,” Jinye began, “I gave my body to my ex-fiancée’s half-brother no more than a day after he ended things with me. I’m not one to judge another woman’s choices.”

It bothered Yewon to the core that Jinye was alluding to her affair with Soonyoung; it bothered her to the core that Jinye seemed to believe it without a doubt. “Lady Jinye, if you’re referring to yesterday night… what Soonyoung said is not true,” she lied, but she was a terrible liar.

“Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant,” Jinye replied with a small smile. “I just want to reassure you, your highness, that if were true, I don’t judge you at all. And also, please be assured that that I’m going to act like I didn’t hear what he said. I will not tell anyone or start gossip. So please, your highness, relax, okay?”

Yewon nodded in response, realizing that this meant that she stopped denying it and admitted to some guilt. But Yewon felt she did not have right to keep denying after Jinye said those things. Jinye sounded very sincere in her reassurance, like she really did want Yewon to stop worrying. Naturally, Yewon trusted her and felt only slightly reassured. She didn’t feel the impending disaster of a large-scale scandal anymore. She felt assured that Jinye would keep her secret.

-

She finally caught Soonyoung alone that afternoon. She came in, and he was writing in that book of his like he often was these days.

“You fool,” she spat towards him. There was a pillow on the floor that she threw in his direction. She blamed him for the humiliation she felt in front of Jinye, and if the secret ever came out, it would be on him.

“What’s making you angry?” he asked as he dodged the pillow.

“You don’t remember what you said last night?” Yewon asked him.

“What did I say?” Soonyoung asked. “All of last night is a blur to be honest.”

She threw another pillow at him. “You shouldn’t drink so much,” she mumbled. “Now Jinye knows about our affair.”

Soonyoung’s eyes widened, and he looked horrified for a second. “What…?”

“You said that the two of us did shameful things together, and she understood…”

Soonyoung had a guilty expression on his face for a minute, but he quickly erased it and said, “it’s no big deal; we’ll just deny it if she brings it up again.”

“This morning she told me that she doesn’t judge me for it and she’ll pretend she didn’t hear it…”

“And what did you say?”

“I just nodded. What else am I supposed to do?”

“Are you an idiot?” Soonyoung asked.

“Me? Look who’s talking!”

“You basically told her that you actually did it! If she had any doubts before, she doesn’t anymore because of you! You should have denied it all the way!”

“So this is my fault now?!” she snapped back.

“Yes,” Soonyoung claimed.

“You were the one who said it!”

“I was drunk!”

“That’s no excuse. This is on you!”

They continued bickering for many minutes until Soonyoung got tired and said: “look, what’s done is done. Just deny it next time. And if she decides to try anything, it’ll be our word against hers. No one’s going to believe her over you. She doesn’t have a great reputation anyways…”

Yewon calmed down just a little bit, but she still felt like she was about to explode any second. She was deathly afraid of what it would mean if such a scandal broke out. What would Seungcheol think? She rubbed her head and collapsed onto a nearby chair to try and calm her worried heart.

“I’m sorry,” Soonyoung finally apologized after he saw her like that. “I promise I’ll be more careful.”

Yewon accepted the apology with a brief nod.

“By the way,” Soonyoung said, “I think you might like to know that I improved. I’m not as ually tempted by you like before. No offense.”

“Of course, now you have Wonwoo’s old lover to keep you happy instead,” her voice was tinged with disapproval.

“Wonwoo was the one who let her go,” Soonyoung replied.

“Still, it’s wrong. And he’s not happy about it.”

“You’re right. I think he hates me now actually. He wants me out of the palace so badly,” Soonyoung mumbled. “But I don’t plan on leaving anymore.”

“Why not? Don’t you want to change your life?”

“I’m a coward. I’m afraid of death,” Soonyoung answered her. “When I saw Seokmin’s dead body, I was traumatized and the prospect of death depressed me. When I travel, I put myself in harm’s way and make death that much more likely. I’m afraid of being assassinated like Seokmin was, so I’d rather stay in the palace, secure among the guards.”

“That security didn’t help Jeonghan,” Yewon reminded him.

Soonyoung pouted and side-eyed Yewon with and upset look on his face, “way to make me feel better, princess.”

Yewon was amused by his disappointed expression and found herself smiling a little. Soonyoung also smiled when she smiled.

“Laugh at my cowardice, go ahead,” Soonyoung joked.

“It’s not cowardice,” Yewon told him. “If I’d seen someone be murdered right in front of me, I would feel the same way.” Both of their smiles faded at the memory of Seokmin. And Yewon found that it was now the right time to pull it out.

She reached into her pocket and gave him the letter.  “Seokmin gave this to me a long time ago. He told me to deliver it to you when he died,” she explained. “He also asked me not to read it.”

Soonyoung held the letter nervously. “Why did you wait until now to give it to me?” he asked with a slight stutter.

“I only remembered it last night,” Yewon answered.

Soonyoung nodded and opened the letter, taking its many pages from the envelope. It was quite a loaded letter, with at least seven full pages to be read. Soonyoung immediately started reading it, and Yewon watched his expression.

At first his lips were quavering, and then his eyes slightly widened and then he froze. Occasionally he would lift his head from the letter to look at her, but he didn’t explain and instead went back to reading. At one point, he narrowed his eyes and stopped reading the letter for a while and just sat with his thoughts, and when he returned his gaze to the letter, he was trembling. When he finally finished, he put it down and looked at her. He looked extremely shaken.

“He’s from Galacia?” Soonyoung asked with a hushed whisper. “A spy?”

Yewon nodded; she had expected that Seokmin had come clean to Soonyoung in his letter: “You can’t say anything to anyone,” she whispered. “If you’re afraid of death, then you can’t let anyone know that you know this information!”

“Were they the ones who killed him?” Soonyoung asked.

“Probably,” Yewon answer.

“Oh my God…” Soonyoung said. At this point, tears actually came out of his eyes. Soonyoung took a deep breath and put his hands over his face.

“What else did he write?” Yewon asked curiously, realizing that there must have been something more to elicit such a reaction from Soonyoung.

Soonyoung uncovered his eyes and went back to the letter. He removed one of the pages, folded it and put it to the side. He handed her the rest of the letter and asked her to read it.

Dear Prince Soonyoung,

If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. At least, I hope I’m dead. Maybe her highness gave you the letter while I was still alive, but I trust her to not do that. I also trust her to not read this or let anyone else read it. She’s wonderful, isn’t she? Our princess. She’s like my only friend besides you actually.

Prince Soonyoung, you are really and truly remarkable. I’ve never met a humbler person before than you. You’re a prince but you don’t show off about it. People easily judge you for your unhealthy hobbies, but I think that there is really no one better than you in this palace. I wish you were the one who married our princess. You would be the ideal King with the ideal Queen, and I would have been so honored to be your subject.

There’s so much I want to tell you. First of all, I’m not a kitchen boy. I’m a spy from Galacia, and I’ve done a lot of bad things before. I want this letter to be my confession.

One: I lied to our princess. I told her that the spies were sent by her father, but her father knows nothing about us at all. I didn’t want to lie, but they forced me to lie because they knew that our establishment would be in deep trouble if I didn’t lie. She wasn’t even supposed to know that I was a spy, but she figured it out. They beat me up because she found out, and they threatened to kill me if I didn’t lie. Anyways, please relay my apologies to her. Tell her that we don’t answer to her father. We answer to Prince Jihoon, her brother.

Two: Many years ago, when I was first recruited into the organization, we were tasked to assassinate someone. Prince Jihoon ordered it because he wanted weapons or something. I didn’t know who it was at first, but I had to comply or they said they would kill me. It turned out to be a very important family. We were to kill every single member except one. I watched as they killed the father, the mother, and the sweet girl. I had to listen to Jeonghan’s screams. I had to listen to him to beg them to stop hurting her, but they wouldn’t. And then I had to cut off her eyes. I had to horrible things that I can’t even recall anymore because recalling them gives me a panic attack that would perhaps kill me. It was that moment of trauma that led to my sickness, the panic attacks and the difficulty breathing. I know apologies are empty, but I repent. I apologize for being involved in that dreadful murder. I apologize for being involved in the death of Prince Seungcheol’s sun.

Five: If ever the war goes so badly, and Galacia would be on the verge of losing it, there is a truly despicable plan in place that I want you to know about. We would kidnap her highness, and then set the palace on fire, killing everyone in it. The death of the royal family and the destruction of your political center would disorient your country and give the advantage to Galacia. Sometimes, the spies talk about setting this plan off even earlier than that… so please, please, please, take action before this actually happens. The following page contains the names of all the spies that I know of which are in the palace, and explanation of their role and some of the heinous acts that they committed. There might be more which I don’t know of, but most likely, this is all of them, and if not all of them, then the large majority of them. Please stop them from doing any more harm.

And I apologize for not coming clean when I was alive. Please understand that I was scared to death. I'm scared that the Princess would no longer trust me and not want to be my friend anymore. I'm scared of being tortured and killed. I'm scared of being seen as a traitor. I had to die before the truth came out.

The following page consisted of a long list of names of people working around the palace. A lot of them, Yewon recognized. There was Seungcheol’s guard, the bearded man in the courts, the butler, the cook. Besides each name was an explanation of things that they’ve done, people they’ve killed, and roles they played. As Yewon scanned through all the names, never being truly shocked at any single one of them– until she got to the very, very last name in the list.

All of the spies were male, except that one. All of them were quiet and reserved, people that Yewon never actually spoke with at length, except that one.

Bae Jinye.

A/N: I hope that made some things slightly clearer~

jihoon is an in most of my stories, I need to make him the good guy for once lmao. Maybe in my next creation :P