The Chinese princess was beautiful. When Yewon saw her for the first time, she hoped dearly that this girl wasn’t the one that Seungcheol was meant to “meet.”

Princess Jieqiong was her name, and she looked like a piece of art. Her features were almost perfect, and to make it worse, she was so sweet. Yewon wanted to resent her, but the girl was so nice that Yewon couldn’t even do that.

Yewon wondered if Jieqiong was even aware that she was being set up with Seungcheol. The girl seemed clueless about that, and instead she seemed fascinated about being in another country. She often asked Yewon questions about Solen- questions like why women wear such tight dresses, why people were so touchy, why there were so many baths, what kind of food was on her plate, why was there a maid in her room to dress her etc.

Yewon didn’t really realize she had become to accustomed to Solenese culture until then. What had once been new to her when she first came to this country suddenly became a part of her everyday life, and she didn’t even think about it.

Yewon found it quite cruel and unusual that she was the one who was expected to entertain Princess Jieqiong on her visit to Solen. It felt like it was being rubbed in her face: behold the beautiful princess with features you could only dream of, with long hair you could never grow, a sweet personality that you lacked, and about to marry a man you were about to lose. It was so frustrating, and Yewon couldn’t even express that frustration to anyone.

Yewon watched Seungcheol when he first laid eyes on her during the welcome banquet. He didn’t really show much of an expression, but it was much softer compared to the look he had given Yewon when he saw her for the first time over a year ago now.

She remembered his icy glare when she was first presented to him; it gave her chills that her body still vividly remembered, and it sent fear down her spine as she worried about how he was going to treat her. That icy glare was most definitely not on his face when Jieqiong was presented to him.

After she bowed to him, he bowed his head back formally.

She then went back to sit in her table without looking back at him at all. From that, Yewon drew that the princess was absolutely clueless about the plans to be set up with Seungcheol.

Yewon thought that Seungcheol looking at her would be all that she had to bead, but that was not the case. After the banquet introduction, Princess Jieqiong was called onto the stage to perform something. She had a large instrument that she gracefully placed on her lap and began to strum with such supple skill, filling the hall with beautiful music.

The instrument appeared increasingly difficult to play, which made it all the more impressive how Jieqiong played it so easily. She looked so beautiful. So perfect. Like a princess straight from the novels: beautiful, talented, sweet, belonging to a powerful country– she had it all, and Yewon was raging with envy. Seungcheol would certainly choose to marry her. She turned to him to see his reaction to Jieqiong’s performance. He maintained his poker face all throughout, which didn’t really make her feel better, because he was still watching her.

Yewon couldn’t handle it anymore. She excused herself in the middle of the performance and left the hall. She waited outside for a moment until the performance was over so she could gather herself and walk back in.

Soonyoung shortly followed her out. He had a curious expression on his face, and asked: “that princess… she’s not being set up with Seungcheol, is she?”

Yewon nodded, eyes deject and face lowered.

“Seriously?” Soonyoung groaned, seeming upset about that.

“Why? Did you want her for yourself?” Yewon snapped. She was already bitter enough as it was, and she didn’t need Soonyoung telling her how much he wanted that girl too.

“No!” Soonyoung claimed with a scoff. “I don’t want her for myself, and I don’t want her for Seungcheol. You’re the one for Seungcheol and for Solen, and the girl is pissing me off, because she’s replacing you.”

Yewon felt only slightly better about that.

“Is the King really making Seungcheol marry another?” Soonyoung asked, genuinely upset.

“Yes, he is,” Yewon replied. “Ever since he found out that I couldn’t conceive.”

“I should have hidden that letter,” Soonyoung said with regret. “I didn’t realize it would lead to this.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Yewon mumbled. “He had already told me that I had four months to get pregnant before he would replace me.”

“Why can’t you just claim Haein’s baby?” Soonyoung asked her. “Pretend to be pregnant, and when the baby comes out, say it came out of you. Haein can help us…”

“It’s never going to work,” Yewon replied hopelessly.

Soonyoung also knew it was an implausible plan, and he accepted it with a brief nod of his head. “Well, we need to think of something,” he told her. “We can’t just let this happen.”

“There’s nothing we can do. But I really do appreciate the care,” she said lifting her head and softly smiling at him. “Thank you.”

He seemed so sorry as he looked back at her, as if he really wished he could do more to help her.

“I’m going back inside. The performance is probably over now,” Yewon told him. She took a deep breath and gathered the strength to go back.

The performance was indeed over by the time she was back. As she settled down beside Seungcheol, he suddenly reached out and held her hand. She smiled at the small intimate gesture, immediately understanding what he wanted to communicate to her with it.

They kept holding hands for a long while. It was only when the orchestra began to play and couples stood up to dance that Seungcheol removed his hands from hers, and Yewon knew very well why. She could see his father side-eying him, trying to compel him to stand up and ask Princess Jieqiong to dance.

Yewon remembered when she was first presented to him; she was also made to dance with him. It was almost like a royal custom in Solen to dance with the girl that is presented to you, and now it was expected of Seungcheol with Jieqiong.

“Go on,” Yewon whispered to Seungcheol.

He gave her an apologetic look, but finally stood up and started to walk toward her.

Just as Yewon began to dread watching Seungcheol and Jieqiong dancing together, Yewon saw Soonyoung rush over to Princess Jieqiong, bow to her and ask her to dance.

Jieqiong happily accepted Soonyoung’s hand, and Seungcheol stood dead in his tracks, probably feeling humiliated for beginning to make a move that he couldn’t complete because Soonyoung beat him to it.

Seungcheol made his way back to his seat and watched Soonyoung and Jieqiong. His fists were clenched and his body was stiff. He was embarrassed and obviously very, very angry.

Yewon turned to see that the King also appeared angry at Soonyoung, made obvious by the glares he was throwing in his direction hoping that Soonyoung would see them and stop.

But Soonyoung was deliberately doing this. He avoided looking in Seungcheol or the King’s direction, and instead held the beautiful princess in his arms and danced with her.

Soonyoung was a charming man, and his charms most definitely seemed to be working on Princess Jieqiong. She laughed and smiled with him, seeming so blissfully happy being as she soared through the hall with him. He gradually became more intimate with her as the dance progressed. At one point, he began to close in near her face to whisper in her ear, and she was eased into that interaction with a soft giggle. Yewon only watched with amazement as Soonyoung’s hands went from holding her waist, and later caressing her thighs, and she happily accepted all of Soonyoung’s touches.

Wow, Yewon thought as she watched the two of them get so intimate so publicly. It was not unlike Soonyoung to do so with a woman, but with a high-end Princess of China? Their interactions were borderline scandalous, especially if this Princess ended up being Seungcheol’s wife.

Oh.

It suddenly made sense to Yewon what Soonyoung was doing and why Soonyoung was doing it. He was making it so that Princess Jieqiong could not possibly be promised to Seungcheol. How could a princess who got so intimate with Soonyoung possibly get married to Seungcheol? Yewon was surprised and strangely pleased.

Yewon didn’t know how far Soonyoung would go, but she wasn’t surprised when he leaned in and kissed her lips, and Jieqiong accepted the kiss, flustered and happy.

Seungcheol was nearly fuming at this point. Had the girl not been a princess of China, Yewon would have imagined that the King and Prince Seungcheol would have put an end to it immediately. But there was not much they could do to Soonyoung without also humiliating her, and they would not risk that.

The two later left the banquet hall, hand in hand. Yewon could only guess what they were doing.

-

The following morning, a decree by the King and Seungcheol exiled Soonyoung from the palace.

Yewon heard this news from Haein, and Yewon thought it was an impulsive move that didn’t make any sense. Sure, Soonyoung seduced the Princess of China, but it seemed so rash to exile him for it?

She immediately went to Seungcheol to try and fight it. As stupid and as strange as Soonyoung was, Yewon still cared about him and wanted to have him around. He did this whole seduction thing for her after all, and so she felt like she owed it to him to at least try and overturn the decision. She also knew that he was deathly afraid of leaving the palace after the traumatizing sight of Seokmin’s assassination, and she wanted to spare him the experience of going out there again.

She found Seungcheol in his room that morning; his hair was a mess and it appeared like he had been drinking the previous night– there were empty bottles sprawled across his table.

“What are you doing?” she asked Seungcheol, who didn’t even lift his head to look at her when she went to him.

“Please, princess, I really don’t have time for you right now,” Seungcheol muttered.

“You’re exiling your brother?!”

“He’s not my brother,” Seungcheol muttered with bitter indignation.

“Look, I know he kissed your future wife but…”

Seungcheol scoffed, “he kissed my future wife? Really, princess? What about my current wife? What kind of things did he do to her?”

Yewon froze. Soonyoung had done a lot of “things” to her, but she didn’t know that Seungcheol was aware of those things. From the way that his eyes burned as he stared at her in that moment, Yewon could see that Seungcheol knew much, much more today than he did the day before.

Yewon couldn’t catch her husband’s eye anymore. He had found out about the dirty affair.

She felt so ashamed, especially given how he had believed in her when Jinye made it public. He trusted her, and she played along with that trust, but now that he knew the truth, it dawned on her that he probably didn’t trust her anymore.

“Please leave,” Seungcheol requested. “I don’t want to see you right now.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, bowed, and retreated.

-

Haein later revealed that the reason Seungcheol found out now about the affair was because Wonwoo accidentally told him.

She had forgotten that Wonwoo knew about it, and in quite a lot of detail.

“He sends his sincere apologies,” Haien told her. “He said that he was trying to ask Seungcheol questions to help him with the research on the poison, and it accidentally came up in his questions. He assumed that Seungcheol was aware of the affair since the very beginning.”

Seungcheol should have known since the beginning, thought Yewon. It was right of Wonwoo to assume that Seungcheol knew about it, because that’s how it should have been. It was wrong of her and Soonyoung to keep it from him.

If Seungcheol had known about it since the beginning, he would have not been as angry as he was now.

He would have been more understanding, and less rash.

Yewon still thought it was a rash decision to exile Soonyoung, and she still wished to fight it, but she couldn’t possibly face him right now when she was so ashamed and embarrassed, and when he was so angry at both her and his brother.

How betrayed must he feel right now, thought Yewon. Finding out that his brother had been the one to deflower his wife while he was being held hostage in Galacia, never to learn about it unilt now. What made it worse was that when they were outed by Jinye, he listened to Soonyoung blatantly lie that it wasn’t true, and Yewon never come clean about it. Instead, he believed in both of them, and now he knew the truth.

She desperately wanted to make things right, but couldn’t muster up the courage to face him.

Instead, she decided to write to him. After all, Seungcheol was much gentler when he wrote.

Dear Seungcheol,

I don’t have the words to express myself right now. I feel like I’ve let you down and lost something very precious to me– your trust. I am extremely sorry for not telling you about it earlier.

I hope you understood the circumstances that drove it; neither of us wanted to hurt you. You should not be angry at us for the infidelity itself, but keeping it from you was a mistake that I regret deeply.

I don’t know what else to say, except that I love you so much and I hate that recent events have been pushing us apart.

I’m sorry.

Love,
Yewon

-

Your highness,

You are forgiven. But he is not.

-

Dear Seungcheol,

He and I are the same, though. Both of us did it and hid it from you. Please reconsider. He does not deserve to be exiled.

-

Princess Yewon,

You and him are not the same.

I do understand the circumstances, and I have no right to hold against you what you did not choose. As much as the thought of it drives me mad, neither of you are to blame for what had to happen between you.

And yes, you kept it from me. I don’t hold either of you accountable for that either, because I know that I specifically asked you to never tell me, because I was afraid of myself. But now that I know, the very outcome I had been trying to avoid is unfolding– I can’t even look at my brother anymore. When I see him, I feel like a monster. I can’t have him around me or you anymore.

But Soonyoung is not blameless, your highness. It’s not just what happened with you the drove the decision to exile him. It’s a lot of things at once. Please understand.

-

Seungcheol,

You can’t exile your brother simply because you feel like a monster around him.

Soonyoung isn’t a bad man, and I would hate if something that he was forced to do with me drove him out of his home.

-

Dear Yewon,

I didn’t want to show this to you, but so that you don’t think ill of me, I’ve sent you something that would help you better understand my decision.

That heathen has disrespected you, your highness.

He is a sick man with lust that cannot be tamed, and he needs to leave the comforts of the palace for his own sake if not for mine. Otherwise, he would never learn to tame it, and it will remain a detrimental addiction- to himself and to our country.

I will welcome him back to the palace with open arms if he changes his dirty habits and fixes his sick mind.

Sincerely,
Seungcheol

With the letter, a book was sent, and Yewon recognized it as the book in which she had seen Soonyoung write on multiple occasions.

She flipped through it. In it were racy memoirs and explicit drawings. Yewon was far from prude when it came to reading such things. A part of her was even fascinated by all of the ual adventures that Soonyoung had documented. But as she flipped through, she stopped at one page when she recognized an illustration of herself.

It was obviously her; she could tell from the short hair and the body proportions that were quite accurately depicted. He even drew the small mole she had on her right .

She then realized, with slight terror, that these were sketched way after the affair actually took place. She had short hair long after the incident, and in most of the drawings, she had short hair.

The images were quite disturbing, depicting her in various positions and doing various things. Some of what was portrayed did actually happen in real life, but most of it seemed all part of some deviant ual fantasy of his.

She couldn’t even look anymore after flipping through a few pages. Seeing herself illustrated in such a way made her sick to the stomach,

Soonyoung did indeed have a problem, she realized as she shut the disturbing book and put it to the side.

Small wonder Seungcheol was furious. Small wonder he resorted to exiling him.

-

That night, Seungcheol came to her room, much to her surprise. She didn’t think he wanted to see her for a long time. Even if his letters had told her that he had forgiven her, she didn’t know if it was possible for them to just pick up where the letters left off. It was always so different in the letters than it was in real life.

She was even more surprised when he took her hand, pulled her up from the chair she was sitting on, and closed the distance between their lips.

Seungcheol had usually been very gentle when he kissed her, his lips were soft and sweet, giving her the space to breathe and melt into the kiss. This was a very different kind of kiss, though. It was a lot less gentle than it was hungry, like he was famished for her and wanted to taste as much of her as he possibly could.

He seemed unwilling to let her go any time soon. Whenever the kiss slowed, he would deepen it by pulling her closer. She melted in his arms, yielding completely to however his mouth wanted to play.

It was comforting to have him so close after expecting that he would be cold and distant for a while. She relished the moment for as long as it would last, knowing that when the kiss would end, the passion would fade, and he would put up that cold front again.

He eventually gave her space to breathe, but he didn’t let her go. Instead, he trailed kisses down her jaw and neck while his arms grazed her body in a hankering embrace. His lips and arms sent sparks through her body and made her crave more and more of him.

Yewon’s body ran cold when his mouth left her skin in order to help her out of her dress.

Ever since the revelation that she could not conceive, their life had come to a sudden halt, which was understandable, as Seungcheol did not take pleasure in it. Why he was initiating this with her now, she could not understand, but her body screamed too loud for her mind to even try.

“I told you that you were allowed to have extramarital relations with other men,” Seungcheol told her as he fumbled with her dress. “I revoke that offer.” At this point, the dress was off and more of her body was exposed, and every inch of it felt like it was demanding to be touched.

“You’re mine,” he declared before taking her lips in his again.

A/N: why is it so hard to write such scenes ah ;;