A/N: Sorry it took so long to update, but i had my reasons which i won't bore you with here.

Anyways, here's one update today. There will be another update tommorrow.

Enjoy... I hope ^^;;

It wasn’t long before Yewon opened Seungcheol’s first letter from his batch of apology letters, all conveniently numbered from 1-20.

It was only two days after she received said batch of letters, following a meeting with the King. Yewon had expected that Seungcheol would do what he told her he would do and fight against the King’s decree to force them to separate on account of her childlessness. But Seungcheol flaked; he was such a coward in front of his father.

“Time is running out!” she told him after the meeting. “I have less than a month before it ends.”

“Just… be patient,” he replied bitterly.

“What are you even waiting for?” she bit back.

“For the right time.”

“When is that? After the King announces our divorce, or before?”

“Stop hounding me,” he replied with a frown. “The more you do, the less I want to defy him.”

“Then we might as well divorce now if you aren’t going to take this seriously!” she blurted in a burst of anger and passion.

“And if that happens? What’s going to become of you? Face it, you need me so much more than I need you. Divorced from me, you’re stranded and homeless. Need I remind you that you’ve been disowned and exiled from your actual country?”

There he did it again. He said hurtful words with that loose tongue of his that always somehow managed to make her want to cry. Keeping a strong face and holding in her tears, she just turned her back to him and rushed away into her room.

Seungcheol struck a very sensitive chord when he reminded her of her less than ideal position as a stranded princess. She couldn’t go back to Galacia, and if they divorced, she did not know what would become of her. She would probably lose her princess title and become a commoner roaming about in Solen. Or she could become Seungcheol’s mistress. But then remembered that she had another option: Wonwoo.

She didn’t even want to think about that possibility now. If her marriage really did combust because of the King’s decree and Seungcheol’s unwillingness to fight it, then maybe she would consider it, she thought for the first time.

But Seungcheol would save their marriage. Right? Right?

She wasn’t so sure after that conversation between them, but she wanted to be sure. She wanted to get at least some semblance of a guarantee from him that he cared about her enough not to just give up.

It was in that gloomy trail of thought that she remembered the letters. Hoping to find that guarantee, she opened the first one.

Letter #1

Dearest Yewon,

Oh dear... If you’re reading this letter, it means I upset you. What stupid thing did I do or say this time?

I want to apologize about whatever I did. I know I have a sharp tongue and a heart of ice, but I wasn’t always like this, believe me! I used to be a pleasant guy, but then the bitterness of the world caught up with me and I became a bitter man myself. But I am slowly trying to change that, Yewon! I’m making a conscious effort to be less mean, starting with the servants. I smiled at Seungkwan like three times yesterday; the poor guy was so confused!

Anyways, I’ve thought long and hard about this collection of letters for you and their content, and now I think I know what I want to express in them. I want to reveal parts of me to you, parts of me that I cannot speak about.

First, Seungkwan. As you know, I’m a lonely man. And I actually consider my best friend to be Seungkwan. It’s crazy, right? A prince whose best friend is his GUARD. To be honest, Seungkwan is my ONLY friend, and he doesn’t even know I consider him a friend!

Every night he stands outside my door, and so he’s seen me in every state and consequently began to understand me very well. He knows what goes on behind my doors, and he also knows how I’m feeling in any given day. He knows when I’m sad, when I’m angry, when I’m happy, when I’m lonely. And in days when I feel like my world is falling apart, he cracks jokes to help me feel a little happier.

Sadly, that dumb guard going out of service soon to get married. He’s in love with some girl in his village (as you may already know because he won’t shut up about her), and so he will leave me. I’m more upset about that than I can admit to anyone but you.

Now that I think about it, maybe Seungkwan isn’t my best friend. It seems more correct to say that you are my best friend?

So… that’s one disclosure about me. I’ll write 19 more. I hope they help you understand me better, and therefore earn me your forgiveness! And if not, then I would have wasted a lot of time on these stupid letters and revealed a lot of mortifying details about myself. That embarrassment would be my punishment for hurting you. Well-deserved, I guess.

Until the next letter!

With love,
Seungcheol

And just like that, Yewon forgave him.

-

“Should I just lose hope in you agreeing to marry me?” Wonwoo asked her one day, opening up a topic of conversation that Yewon had dearly wanted to avoid. He said those words carefully, as if afraid of her reaction, but she didn’t get angry.

“I’m not divorced yet. We can talk when that happens.”

“There’s only some weeks left,” he reminded her. “Don’t you think I have the right to know if I’m going to announce an engagement soon or now?”

“There’s still some time. The King could change his mind.”

“He won’t change his mind, princess,” Wonwoo asserted. “The royals are pressuring him.”

“Seungcheol told me he would...”

“Yewon, I don’t think you understand,” Wonwoo interrupted her. “Why didn’t Seungcheol stand up for you yet? I’ll tell you why: because he can’t fight it. If he defies the royals and remains married to you, they will hate him, and they’ll want to overthrow him, and he can’t risk that. No matter how much he loves you, he can’t keep you as his wife because if he does, he might lose his chance to become King.”

Yewon’s face fell when she heard that. She had thought that Seungcheol defying his father and being unable to bear an heir were the only obstacles keeping him from fully embracing his commitment to her, but Wonwoo just revealed another layer of complication that she did not even consider.

Noticing her darkening expression, Wonwoo stopped talking about it.

Yewon felt lousier than ever as she began to understand the reason why Seungcheol was so reluctant to fight for her. Continuing his royal bloodline was not the only thing at stake here; it was also his future position as King.

Yewon felt bad for hammering him. She felt bad for being so whiney about him confronting his father, and she realized just how much of a compromising situation she was putting him in.

Perhaps it was just not meant to be forever. Perhaps her marriage with him was always doomed to end anyways, and it was stupid that they ever fell in love. It was stupid that they brought passion into a political relationship, and now they both had to face the consequences of that.

-

He came to her room that night. He had that guilty expression on his face that Yewon knew meant he was sorry for the last thing he said to her, in which he reminded her of her homelessness.

“I read your first letter,” she told him.

“I figured you would,” Seungcheol replied.

“I forgive you,” Yewon said with a small but hesitant smile.

Seungcheol nodded as he took a seat beside her. “I feel like I should do more than just write a letter to earn your forgiveness,” he mumbled guiltily. “What I said was too harsh.”

“I’m also sorry,” Yewon added. “I know I whine and complain too much. But I hadn’t realized that staying married to me could make you lose your kingdom in the end. I’m sorry for exerting the kind of pressure on you.”

Seungcheol took her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it with tender affection. In that moment, Yewon felt overwhelmed with a sense of impending loss. Will this all end soon? Will she never experience the thrill of his touches and kisses ever again? Did she have only one month to get as much from him as she can, before she cut off from him permanently?

“My dear princess Yewon,” Seungcheol said as he held her hand, “I love my kingdom, but I also love you, but what I would love more than anything in the world if I could share that kingdom with you. Right now, I’m being driven into a corner, and I feel like I have to choose one or the other…” he trailed off, deep in thought.

Yewon felt guilty once again, realizing that she was one of those people who was driving him into a corner. At first, he had found a loophole in this dilemma by asking her to be his mistress, but Yewon refused, telling him that he either stayed married to her or he lost her.

“I promise to speak to my father tomorrow,” Seungcheol maintained. “You were right. I’ve been putting it off for too long.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Yewon replied hesitantly.

“Yewon, I’ve already made my decision, and I will bear all its consequences.”

“But what if you lose your kingdom?”

“I’ll deal with that later,” Seungcheol said. “But for now, I won’t let you be forced from my side.”

-

The next time that Yewon saw Wonwoo the following day, she finally rejected his proposal.

Wonwoo accepted it with a brief nod. “It was worth a shot,” he said with a soft smile on his face. “But may I just ask why you came to this decision?”

“Seungcheol said I don’t have to worry,” Yewon answered. “That’s why.”

Wonwoo laughed, and Yewon didn’t understand why. “You trust him too much, Yewon.”

“I do trust him.”

“Did he tell you that he visited the harem last night?” Wonwoo blurted, and he seemed to have regretted it as soon as he said it.

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that,” Wonwoo replied. “But I think you should know that your husband is not as loyal as you think he is. He did go to the harem yesterday, and he will go tonight too.”

Yewon didn’t know what to feel. A part of her did not believe him; Wownoo did have a history of lying after all. It just didn’t make sense that Seungcheol would go to a harem; it went against everything she knew about him.

“How did you know this?” Yewon asked Wonwoo with narrowed eyed.

“Did you forget already? My mother is part of that harem.”

-

Wonwoo had planted a seed that Yewon could not get rid of no matter how hard she tried. Was Seungcheol really playing with other women? Did he want to? Did he need to? The thoughts were driving her crazy, and that night, she found herself going to that corner of palace, a corner she rarely ever visited.

She walked over beautifully-embroidered carpets into heavily ornate halls until she finally got to the door of the harem, behind which only the harem women, along with the princes and Kings and special guests, were allowed.

For a silent moment, she just stood and blankly stared at the door in front of her. She hesitated to knock, and was almost afraid of what she would find behind it. Curiosity got the better of her, and she knocked.

A very pretty woman opened the door, and that woman looked very surprised to see Yewon there.

“Your Highness,” the woman said with a bow. “It’s good to finally see you. May I help you?” The woman’s tone of voice was sweet and calming, and she also had a charming smile on her face that was almost alluring. Her smile, her tone of voice, her outlined and skimpily clad body, altogether made her a very subtly seductive woman.

Yewon felt very dull in comparison to the woman in front her, and she found herself struggling to find her words. “Is Seungcheol here?” she finally managed, not sure what kind of answer she expected.

“Yes, your highness. But I’m afraid he’s busy right now,” the woman replied kindly. “He’s in the middle of something. You must understand. Would you still like me to get him?”

Yewon just shook her head, bowed to the madam in front of her and quickly turned around.

She was confused and upset and frustrated all at once. She understood that maybe he was pressured into fathering a child with a concubine, but she still wished he could have told her. At least the blow would have hurt less.

When she finally arrived at her room, she found herself automatically drawn to the box of letters.

Letter #2

Dearest Yewon,

Wonwoo said something to me once, something that I’ve thought about a lot. I fall in love way too often and I move on from past lovers very fast too. It took only months after Solbin’s death for me to fall for her brother, and months after Jeonghan’s death for me to fall for you. Wonwoo implied that I was disingenuous and selfish when I love others, and that I should stop doing it, because it will only hurt you in the end when I “move on and fall for someone else.”

I just want you to know that I could never move on from you, my dear. As long as you’re alive on this Earth, you are my partner and my closest friend.

I often think about what would happen to me if you die. The prospect drives me crazy, to be honest. Losing someone I love, for the third time… it would be very, very painful, so painful, I think I would no longer be able to bear it anymore.

And I know for sure that, if you leave this world before me, I would be far too scarred to ever become so passionately attached to anyone ever again.

I’m not really a man of prayer, but my attachment to you has made me pray for the first time in a long time. I’m praying for a long and healthy life for you, so that I may never suffer the insufferable trauma of losing you.

Love, always,
Seungcheol

-

It was seconds after she finished that letter that Seungcheol barged through her door, breathless, as if he had been rushing to catch her.

Yewon was still so hurt to know that he was indulging in the harem, and even the letter didn’t help much. It just made her more confused and angrier. She had grown used to the loyal Seungcheol who would never even come close to other women, and so now that Yewon had reason to believe that Seungcheol was not as loyal as she made him out to be, she was angry and upset. She didn’t want to even speak to him or hear him defend himself. She threw a pillow at him to tell him he wasn’t welcome.

“Do you really believe I was sleeping with a concubine?” Seungcheol asked her when he saw he reaction.

“What else would you do in a harem?” Yewon muttered.

“I could meet someone who sleeps with concubines,” Seungcheol suggested. “Someone I want to convince of something? Someone who is a lot easier to convince when he is with concubines…”

Yewon looked at him quizzically.

“I was talking to my father, your highness,” Seungcheol explained. “I was trying to convince him to cancel his plans to divorce us. He’s not as stubborn when he’s around the harem women.”

Yewon suddenly felt very stupid.

“I never confront my father when he’s around royals or in an official meeting,” Seungcheol continued. “That’s why I never talked to him until now. My father’s much gentler when he’s in the harem, you see. So I’ve been waiting to catch him there before I confront him. That’s why it took so long.”

Ashamed, Yewon looked down at the floor guiltily

She felt him draw closer to her and suddenly take her hand and pull her up from her chair. She complied and stood up, unable to catch his eyes.

“I think I deserve an apology letter from you this time,” Seungcheol joked lightly.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered under her breath, eyes still glued to the floor.

“I forgive you,” he said, then he took her chin and forced her to look up at him. “But you wasted one of my letters,” he pointed at the open Letter #2 with his eyes, “so you have to forgive me immediately next time I upset you. It’s only fair.”

“Okay,” Yewon said, locking her eyes with his. “Next time, I promise I’ll forgive you right away, no matter what.”

“Promise?” he asked her with a light smile on his face.

“I promise,” she agreed, after which he closed the distance between their lips, as if to seal the deal.

In hindsight, Yewon wished she had never made that promise, because it was a promise that she could not keep. Days later, Seungcheol did something absolutely unforgivable, something that would torment her for the rest of her life.

Days later, Seungcheol died, and no amount of letters could make her forgive him for it.

A/N: …

Some of yall saw it coming.

Please don’t kill me.