Things had changed a lot in the palace. After losing Soonyoung, and now Haein, it felt like the palace atmosphere was different, and in a bad way. Yewon did not how to explain it, but somehow both Haein and Soonyoung had been an essential part of the palace, and now that they were gone, it was quiet and dull.

It was Yulhee’s maid who took over Haein’s job until Haein’s replacement could be found.

“I want Seungyeon back,” Yewon told Seungcheol one day.

With a frown on his face, he replied: “no.”

“Why not?”

“Do I need to explain it? She hurt you!”

“She’s different now, and she needs the money.” Yewon remembered the time when she ended up in Seungyeon’s home in the village. She and her sisters were very poor, and for that reason, Yewon felt obliged to give the maid another chance.

“I don’t care. I don’t want to see that witch around you anymore,” Seungcheol replied.

Yewon tried to reason with him, but he would have it no other way. At one point, he stopped listening to her and ignored her when she tried to talk to him about it, and it drove her crazy.

This was Seungcheol’s biggest flaw; he was stubborn and refused to listen to anyone once he made up his mind. And this was just one of many shortcomings that Yewon saw in him.

Men in real life were very different from the men in the novels. The picture-perfect princes on white horses who do everything for the girl that they love– that was such a fantasy only found in the stories. In real life, the people you love have serious flaws, and you loved them in spite of it. Seungcheol was no different.

Once, he had gone too far though.

“I don’t like how close you are to the translator. Stop talking to him,” he demanded.

Of course, Yewon did not heed Seungcheol’s orders and kept meeting Minghao, thinking he had no right to prevent her. One day, however, she didn’t find Minghao in their designated meeting spot. When she ran into him in the halls, he scurried away without a word. This went on for a couple of days.

Afterwards, there was a banquet in which she tried to approach Minghao again, but when he saw her, his widened and he hastily slipped out of the hall.

Something was wrong, and Yewon knew that Seungcheol had something to do with it.

“What did you tell Minghao?” she asked Seungcheol in the middle of the banquet.

“I threatened him,” Seungcheol stated matter-of-factly. “I told him to stop talking to my wife, or I’m kicking him out of the palace.”

Yewon wanted to scream in that moment. She wanted to make a fuss and throw her arms at Seungcheol and publicly shame him for being a possessive jerk, but she held it all in for the sake of his honor. Instead she stormed out of the banquet, furious and angrier with him than she had ever been in a very long time.

He was such a jerk.

Unfortunately for her, Seungcheol followed her to her room, but not to make it up to her. Rather, he came to scold her.

“Your highness, go back to the banquet immediately!” he demanded with a frown on his face. “How dishonorable is it for you to walk out on a banquet like that?”

Yewon only threw a pillow at him, which he caught with his hand and approached her as she buried her face in her sheets to groan.

“Leave me alone,” she mumbled, voice muffled by her sheets. “I don’t like you very much right now.”

“It doesn’t matter how you feel,” Seungcheol said. “Go back to the banquet immediately!”

“No.”

“Your highness!”

“Go away!” she yelled, throwing another pillow in his direction.

“You’re such a child!”

“And you’re a jerk!” she yelled back.

They continued bickering until Yewon finally had enough and began to cry. His words somehow cut deeper than anyone else’s, and she didn’t want to hear him yell at her anymore.

“Just leave!” she replied, wiping her first tears.

Seungcheol was evidently taken aback by her tears. He looked guilty for hurting her, but when he opened his mouth to say something, he closed it again, turned around, and left.

That was the most serious fight they had in a very long time.

-

The following day, Minghao came to her and began to tell her about his newest Jeonghan theory.

“Why are you talking to me?” Yewon interrupted him in the middle of it. “Didn’t Seungcheol threaten you?”

Minghao lowered his voice so that only she could hear, “your husband is so weird!” he muttered. “First he demanded that I never speak to you again, and then he told me to go talk to you immediately. He’s scaring me!”

Yewon was amused at that. She took it as Seungcheol’s form of an apology.

But that was not the only form of an apology she received. That night, Seungkwan delivered to her a letter with the familiar royal seal on it, along with a box the size of a very large book.

Dearest Yewon,

I’m kinder when I write than when I speak, and so I decided that I don’t want to speak anymore if it means that I hurt you. I’m sorry for making you cry.

I hate how my tongue can’t articulate the right words say to you. I wish I could speak the way I write, but I find that I’m terrible at expressing myself when I open my mouth, and instead I come off as cold and callous. Whenever I hurt you with my words, please remember that I never mean it.

Ah, what to do? My heart is in pain knowing that I’ve upset you. I can only hope that this letter will make you (and hence me) feel better.

The box that I’ve sent is filled with letters. I spent hours writing them! I know that I’m kinder when I write than when I speak, and for that reason, I want to give you something that will make you remember my kindness when you need to. Whenever I upset you in the future, please open one letter and read it, okay? There’s about 20 letters in there, and I hope you never have to use them all up, but knowing how dreadful my tongue can be, I wouldn’t be surprised if you do. But from now on, I promise to be more careful with my actions and my words.

I don’t know what else to say. I just hope you forgive me?

I’m coming to your room tonight. If you still hate me, just throw a pillow at me, and I’ll leave immediately. I promise.

With love,
Seungcheol

Yewon read the letter with a smile on her face.

The thing about caring for someone is that you can never hold grudges. No matter what they do to you, you forgive them immediately. And just like that, Seungcheol’s mistakes was completely erased for Yewon. That simple letter had mended what could have been a much longer-lasting resentment of him.

Shortly after reading the letter, Seungcheol knocked on the door and entered. Carefully, he approached her. Yewon didn’t throw any pillows at him.

Instead she let him take her hand, pull her up from her seat, and close the distance between their lips.

Another thing about loving someone is that no matter how many times they kiss you, it always gives you the same butterflies in your stomach as the first time.

When their lips parted, he pulled away and lingered with his face in close proximity to hers. Then, without another word, he took her hand and drew her out of the room.

She was in her sleepwear, but Seungcheol didn’t seem to care about that. He pulled her through the halls where everyone could see her, took her outside the palace and into the palace gardens. He then set her down on the bench and sat beside her.

He still didn’t say a word, but Yewon noticed that he was looking up at the sky. Yewon raised her head to see that he was staring at the moon. It was a full moon, shed in full glory in a black, starless sky.

He finally spoke many seconds later: “the day after Solbin died, it was raining, and ironically, the sun was also obscured by ugly, grey clouds. That made her death so much harder for me to bear, because I couldn’t even look to the sky to find the sun. That night after that dreadful sunless day, however, was a full moon. I remember watching the moon that night and thinking that the moon was beautiful. Even if the sun was hidden behind ugly grey clouds, at least the moon was still there to shine. Many, many months later, fate brought me a moon of my own.” He turned to her. “The full moon used to always remind me of that night after Solbin died, but it doesn’t anymore. Now, when I see it, all I can think about is you. It’s like you’ve erased my most traumatic memory… and my greatest fear is you turning into another traumatic memory.”

“I won’t,” Yewon said. “I’ll always be here.”

“I sense that something bad is going to happen any second now,” Seungcheol replied. “I feel so much negative energy inside that palace; I feel it in my bones, and I’m afraid.”

“Nothing bad is going to happen,” Yewon reassured him. “What will happen is this: we will stay married for a very long time, Wonwoo will find the antidote, and I will give a beautiful girl who will become the new sun in your life, and then I will give you a boy who will become the heir, and then after that maybe I’ll give you some more. Eventually, we’ll become King and Queen with a beautiful family. It will be a happy ending for us, just like in the stories.”

Yewon’s blood ran cold at the last sentence. Just like in the stories. Since when was anything like the stories? She shook the thought away and chose to bask in optimism for just a little while longer.

Seungcheol nodded his head along to what she was saying. “I hope you’re right, your highness. I really, really do.”

Yewon hoped she was right too, and was deathly afraid of being wrong.

However, her worries did not last long, because she found that not everything in the novels was nonsense. Despite the imperfect non-white horses, the imperfect awkward , the imperfect man, and the imperfect circumstance of their marriage, there were some things that were just as perfect as the stories made them out to be: the small moments with him, like sitting on the bench in the garden and staring at the moon together; those moments were strangely perfect.

A/N: sorry this was a little late and short, but I made it up with some yewon x cheol fluff??

ANYWAYS SVT'S COMEBACK WAS JUST WONDERFUL