When you were a child you had a recurring dream that you were trapped underwater. The threat of drowning was imminent, yet in your dream you had somehow figured out how to breathe. The trick was doing it slowly and steadily enough to seek out the rare oxygen bubbles floating within the water that would hold you over until you could reach the surface. In the dream, you could never seem to escape the water, and yet you never drowned either. It was merely an endless purgatory with no respite.

Trying to breathe in this fitting room felt just like being underwater. Your vision swam with dizziness with each turn of your head and the steady noise coming from the workers in this building was astounding.

It was supposed to be a dress fitting. You were awoken at dawn and dragged from your room by royal maids who spoke in quick words as they poked and preened at you.

This was the fifth dress. Or was it the seventh? What was abundantly clear the moment you stepped through those fancy french doors that separated you from the main hall, was that none of this was up to you. You didn't even look at the dresses as they were placed upon your body.

There was a rough tug on your back and pulled your entire frame into a stumble and you nearly lost your footing on the heels you wore. Your toes inside were numb and two hands reached for your own to steady you. The oxygen in the room grew distant and further away as the maid behind you pulled harder at the strings that constricted your waist.

Fashion, the high fashion clothing items you were often made to wear were never designed with comfort in mind. You breathed slowly and steadily. Only half as deep as you wanted to, you searched for the tiny oxygen bubbles in the water to keep from passing out. As long as you remained calm, as long as you did it slowly and carefully, you should be able to keep from drowning.

There was one thing that poked at you, unrelated to the stiff bars that lined this corset; on your way into this room, you caught the sight of another space on the opposite side of the grand foyer of this hall. The door had been left open and staff inside busied themselves with arranging, tagging and cataloging the array of crisp black tailored suits that lined the back wall of that room.  

From the glimpse you caught, he hadn’t arrived yet. But the sight of those suits alone was enough to the air from your own lungs and settle a stone heavy over your chest. The dizziness worsened after that.

Kyungsoo would be here today.

You hadn’t seen any sign of him since that day...since the day you left him broken on the floor with the glass shards, the ripped apart fabric and fluff, and the fractured remains of the trust he had been foolish enough to give to you.

You hadn’t seen him since he caught you searching his home for what he surely saw as evidence to use against him. To strip him of his title, to bring him down, to ruin him. You hadn’t seen even a glimpse of those eyes that looked into yours with betrayal and hurt since you left that day. How many days had it been?

“What day is today?” Your voice was thready and uneasy and the maid who held you by the forearms looked up into your eyes for the briefest moment before breaking the contact and looking back down and away from you. They didn’t usually look into your eyes as they worked on you.

What would he believe?

That you and May had been working together all along? That his suspicions of your servant had been well founded and that her arrest should have been yours instead? That you were a snake and a traitor to him, sent to destroy him from the beginning?

That the love you shared with him had been a lie?

He couldn’t believe that.

Your chest constricted and the strings were pulled again. You felt a burning in the back of your eyes that you blinked away before it had the chance to come to anything. You had a face full of makeup already and crying was definitely something no one had any time for.

“It’s Wednesday, Your Highness. The wedding is this Saturday.”

The movement that rocked you on your feet went still. The pause told you that the dress was on. The torture was over for a while at least and the maid holding your arms dropped you, leaving you to balance and teeter on your own in the middle of this room full of strangers.

Two more days. You had two days to watch the tape and decide what you would do with it. Two days before you would be married into this family and this royal house ...until the day of your death.

It had taken Jun just 12 hours to obtain a cassette capture device that would convert the video with your laptop. He had delivered it inside a boutique shopping bag concealed with clothing and it sat in the corner of your bedroom since it had arrived.

The curiosity that inflated your belly was no match for the guilt that sat heavy at the base of your spine.

The doors of the fitting room swung open and the small woman with the commanding voice, the ringleader of this circus and the one who’s opinion was the only valid one, entered. Her glasses perched on the tip of her nose and your fingers itched to push them up higher onto her face. You fisted your hands at your side to keep from touching her in any way. She was entirely too engrossed in her work to tolerate any such activity from you.

“This is it. This is the one.” she cooed at the dress and you looked down for the first time at the enormous ballgown you wore. It was heavy and it constricted like a boa around your chest, out what little life you had left inside your body.

“Don't you just love it?” It felt like a question directed at you but you couldn't imagine that she actually cared about your opinion. Yet the impulse to answer was strong and your lips parted to answer when another voice spoke up from somewhere behind you. “Yes, it’s perfect.” The man behind you, her assistant, of course, and the person who had been hired to her sizable ego replied and you tried your best to hide the chuckle that escaped your lips; amused that you had even considered that any of them gave a damn about what you thought. “It’s grand enough to appease her family but not grander than Queen Hong’s wedding gown was.”

“Oh, nothing should be grander than the queen’s wedding gown.” The forced indignation in the woman’s voice came through loud and clear and the man nodded his head in complete agreement. They both played their parts well, careful to speak their horror at such a thought at loud enough volumes to avoid any misunderstandings about who they were really putting on such grand heirs for.

The heavy dress swayed and followed with each step you took as you were pulled out of the dressing room into the foyer with the wall lined with mirrors. What you saw, in triplicate, was the reflection of yourself stuffed, painted and adorned with enough money to feed a whole family for years.

Your ears perked up at the sound of whispers behind you and a single word stuck out.

“The prince has been located,” they all said to each other and their eyes were cast down with faces grim and lined with worry.

The prince.

Prince Kyungsoo. Your stomach churned and you wished you had eaten something before you were brought here.

The stylist spun, eyes wide and her glasses teetered closer to the edge of her nose. “The prince is coming?” she repeated the whispers at a louder volume and their faces all turned away, looking down and away from her wide eyes.

“Yes, ma’am, but--” one of the staff, a taller girl with a different uniform than the others, who clearly held more authority than the others stepped forward. Her hands were clasped together in front of her waist they were red where she squeezed them down hard. You were certain they would be trembling had she not held them together so. “--he appears to be...impaired.”

“Imp--” Her voice rose in pitch and volume, “--he’s drunk?”

“Yes, ma’am. Quite.”

The commotion on the outside of the door sent heads turning and there was a low groan in a voice you knew inside your soul.

He was a limp mass, dragged in through the door with two security agents under each arm. His legs seemed to hold themselves up just enough, but the sagging in his knees told you he wasn’t walking in here on his own. He might not even be conscious right now, from what you could tell.

Your gasping breath reached only halfway into your lungs and you coughed into it, trying to get more air into your lungs as you tried to fight against the dress. His entire head was covered with the black hood of his jacket and you could make out the shape of his chin from below. The soft curve of his lips, pink and still below the fabric and you took a step before you knew what you were doing.

But there were people in the way. Bodies of people everywhere who hovered around him and like the red sea, the crowd parted in front of you. Not for you, of course, but for the stylist. Her aura commanded obedience and the two guards lifted him up higher.

Your high heels afforded you a slight view over the woman’s head and you saw the movement of his lips as he pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth and bit down.

He was awake. He breathed in loud and deep and coughed. A ragged sound that rattled the room around you and your head swam as you tiptoed higher to see him.

You had to see him. It had been so long and he had to be okay.

At last, his legs found the ground and he pushed himself up, standing taller than he had been when he was being dragged in here and the two men at his side loosened their hold on his arms, but not releasing him.

“Let me go,” he growled in a low voice and the grip they held released his arms for a second. Just long enough for his legs to give and for him to sink down to the floor. There was a loud gasp. Something outside of the drunken man who was quickly pulled back up into a standing position and the stylist had her hands forward as she peered into Kyungsoo’s face.

“Goodness gracious, Your Highness, what have you done to yourself.” Her voice held a new sort of panic that sent your chest into a spasm. Your hands pressed against the sides of the corset hard, trying to free some space for a little more air. It worked enough for one deep gasp.

His face lifted and you saw the whites of his eyes, now red and bloodshot and his lips pulled into a wide grin as he looked into her face. His eyes didn’t seem to hold any focus at all, but that smile felt wicked as you watched it.  

“Just a little haircut,” he slurred through the grin and he laughed harder, coughing again until his eyes closed up.

“Two days before your wedding?” She had a horror in her voice and her hand lifted to push the hood of his coat away from his head.

His hair was gone. Completely buzzed away, in what looked like an uneven shave job with cheap clippers, done in a fit of rage or madness.

“Wedding--” he mumbled and his tongue seemed to get in the way of his speech now, but the smile was back. Only this time you had to look away. You couldn't see this anymore. The burning in the back of your eyes returned when you closed them, wishing for it to subside quickly before you were scolded for ruining your face.

“--wedding...to...her--”

His words quit. You held your breath and swallowed and your closed eyelids fluttered and fought against your efforts.

He had stopped saying whatever it was he was trying to say and you felt a single teardrop escape through your closed eyes. You had to blink. You had to open your eyes and stop the emotions once and for all, but this room was suffocating you too much now.

When his words stopped coming there was a lull. A strange silence in the room around you and you blinked faster as your eyes roamed over the ceiling above your head. You felt desperate and you felt like you might be on fire with the heat you suddenly felt from the other side of the room.

Your own eyes betrayed you, as they always did, and you looked at him.

And his eyes had found you.

Standing just within his line of sight, dressed in the gown you would wear when you would become his wife in two day’s time, his brown eyes stared into your face with his drunken rambling words snatched from his parted lips and he stared at you.

“Strong coffee and cold water-- bring me both,” The stylist was shouting orders at the people around her and his body was pulled and shoved toward the room with the suits lining the back wall.

He was under a spell and you found yourself unable to look away from the dark gaze he kept on you.

“Your Highness, what did you have? Just alcohol? Did you take anything else?” He wasn’t answering their questions and those eyes blackened and stayed trained on you until the moment when he was pushed forcefully toward the open door of the room. Someone else was speaking to him, up close and in his face, another woman shouted questions at him, snapping her fingers in his face to get his attention off of you and onto her. Her hands touched his face and pulled open his sagging eyelids. She shook her head in exasperation at what she found.

“Jesus...your pupils-- let me see your arms.” The jacket he wore was pushed off his shoulders and on the knuckles his hands you saw the bright red of pulled-open wounds. Whatever he had been doing, his knuckles were raw from this particular bout of self-destruction.

The door was closed behind him and you felt your legs give out from under you. The dress was too heavy and it pulled you down as you sagged into a heap on the floor in front of the mirrors. The room spun too much. Your slow and careful breathing had been thrown out the window the second he looked at you and when you opened your eyes to look around you, the faces of the women who fretted and fluttered around you were tinged with black around the edges. There were flashing spots of lights that danced in your vision and you covered your mouth with your hands cupped over your nose and your mouth to try and get your frantic breathing to settle into something that would actually work to inflate your lungs.

You couldn’t manage it. You had to get this ing dress off and you pulled at the back, trying to get ahold of something that would untie it. Anything that would free you from this prison and the panic was setting in.

“Loosen the corset.” You heard the voice of the stylist’s assistant shout at the women and you felt something give in the back of your chest.

It was like the lights had been in a pitch black room and you could suddenly see the walls and the faces of the people who watched and waited for you to be sacrificed alive. But the relief of finally being able to see something was enough to make you thank them for their attendance. Your vision flashed with shadows on the wall of makeshift nooses hanging from the ceiling.

With the oxygen, came a steadying in your chest and you inhaled deeply, willing the room to stop spinning and thanking the heavens when the dark shadows stopped dancing around the backs of everyone’s heads like that.

You had a few expectations. This was, you had been told, a fitting. The stylist had been satisfied with the breath ball-gown and perhaps you could slip a few bills into the palm of the staff and convince them not to tie the damn thing so tight for the ceremony on Saturday.

Would you even need to?

You had never been more unsure of anything in your life as you now were of the promises you had made to your family when you set out to marry Prince Do Kyungsoo.

The room around you was fluid; people moved as water flowing around you, lifting and tugging against your limbs like unruly waves and you were seated back inside the dressing room, somehow now separate from the ball gown that would be your demise in three day’s time.  

The stylist was back and she peered down at you through the tiny round lenses perched on the tip of her nose. was a flat line of sobriety and in her face, she wore all the tension and worry of someone who’s head would be had should this ceremony not go exactly as the queen expected.

“We might as well break for lunch. I don't want you passing out during the rehearsal.” Her voice teemed with annoyance at the very thought of something else going wrong with her two conscripted performers.

Rehearsal? Your empty stomach lurched when your mind tried to process that word and all it foreshadowed.

The food rid your mind of some of the dizziness and you sharpened your ears to the quiet whispers of the staff members that entered your room. You wished they wouldn't whisper so quietly. You craned your neck; desperate for details of what was happening in that other room. It was mostly useless, for as soon as they caught on to your smallest movements, their eyes would cast down and their lips would snap shut.

The waiting was maddening. You longed for the days when May was with you. Distracting you with her stories or with reading headlines of the latest news to you. Anything to keep you connected to the world you lived in. Here, with these standoffish strangers, you felt like you had been cut off from any semblance of reality. You hadn’t even heard the latest updates from the social media world. Was Prince Chanyeol still posting snippets of his music on SoundCloud? Was Crown Prince Minseok still the nation’s most eligible bachelor?  

Had Prince Baekhyun had any more news reports of public indecency that managed to make it past the royal press filters into the trashy tabloid magazines that you caught once or twice peeking out of the bags of staff members that frequented your rooms. The bright colored publications with outlandish headlines spread over the smiling face of the man who’s innocent smile was branded almost wide enough to hide the obvious mischief in his eyeliner-smudged eyes.

Before becoming as familiar with the man as you now were, you would have dismissed the stories as baseless gossip articles filled with shocking lies to sell magazines. Now that you had experienced Prince Baekhyun in real life, you were pretty sure all those articles from last year were true and he had indeed been involved in that underground gambling ring where the currency was only actual money when wild ual favors or risky illegal substances could not be offered up instead. With as much as you knew about him now, it was a goddamn miracle that he wasn’t in the news every night with a story more shocking than the nights before.

“What is the rehearsal for?” Your question was peppered into the face of the person closest to you. She had been standing very still for so long you weren't even sure she was still awake, but she jumped when she heard you.

There was a quick bow of her head, too deep for such a small space with no witnesses to judge her deference to you, “Umm--,” she stammered, “The live broadcast of the wedding, Your Highness. The director wanted to do a few run-throughs for cameras and lighting. Also, the press reporters are here for the publicity photos. ”

Of course. You felt silly for being so out of the loop and now that she had told you, you recalled mention of the wedding being broadcast live in both countries. It was to be a public execution after all.

“You’ll have to get dressed again soon. I hear they are almost ready, Your Highness.”

You would have to face him. Up close and in the flesh, you would have to look at his face and see the hurt in his eyes. Did you even have the guts to look into those eyes right now?

You had little time to contemplate such inevitabilities because the stylist was back and the dress was stitched up again, cinching tightly around your already sore ribs and you practiced slow and steady corset breathing to keep your mind as clear enough to follow the director’s orders.

It felt like living inside of a movie. One of those dramatic films with villains and mysteries and murders. It definitely didn't feel like real life with the bright lights and sound crew making adjustments to hidden microphones trapped within vases and wrapped around the necks of pillars lining the foyer. You were sure the wires you saw would be hidden with fresh and elaborate floral arrangements on Saturday.

Men with security uniforms kept a still and silent vigil at the doors, keeping out anyone who should not be here, and no doubt keeping in anyone who might want to make a run for it. Not that you could make it three feet in these heels; with as heavy as this gown was. Crewmembers wearing headsets and earpieces spoke to someone as they tested their voices around you.

“Your Highness,” a low voice echoed behind your head and you turned to find the top of a head, caught mid bow, “I will be the stand-in for your father for the rehearsals. Please, may I have your hand?”

You heard a pushed up confidence in the voice and when he lifted his face to look at you there was a boyish pinkness in his cheeks. Your face must have shown the recognition for a moment and he straightened his shoulders and dropped his eyes from yours.

“I-If that is okay with you, of course. If you feel uncomfortable with me, I can get someone else—“

“Jun, It’s lovely to see you again. Of course.” You reached for his arm and gripped tightly around his palm. Jun, the young security guard whose eyes were too kind for this place. Jun, who have given you exactly what you needed to watch that cassette tape you had stolen from Kyungsoo’s most prized possession, and Jun, who felt sturdy and strong beside you as you rested your forearm over his. He held you steady and upright when all you wanted to do was sway with the thunderstorms that raged within your chest. You could do this. You could walk down that aisle and face the man who you had sinned against, as long as you could borrow a little bit of Jun’s strength to do so.

“—marble stairway — grand foyer — flowers, of course, the flowers,” the shrill voice of the stylist could be heard echoing into the expansive space just beyond your sight and you found yourself led to the top of the stairway she must have been talking about. Beside you, Jun was explaining the progression that the ceremony would take and you stared down at the steps before you.

“Of course, we’ve done a few run-throughs already, Your Highness. This will be the final one; so you and Prince Kyungsoo know how the real thing will go.”

“Is he here too?” You couldn't help your curiosity. He had seemed to be in no shape to stand at the end of that aisle without dropping into a drunken heap when you saw him hours ago.

“Yes ma’am, Prince Kyungsoo is inside.” Jun was quick with his response to your question and you inhaled as deeply as you could before your lips parted to ask a follow-up question while you had the chance, while you had his valuable intelligence all to yourself at this moment.

“Is he...okay?”

But Jun had heard something in his earpiece and lifted a finger over his ear toward the sound, breaking the eye contact, his shoulders tensed and you felt the moment lost.

“The Princess is ready,” he said into the empty air in front of him and you wanted to protest. You weren’t ready to face him. There were a lot of steps, this staircase was ing massive and there were cameras in your peripherals that made you dizzy as you tried your best not to look at them. He leaned forward, bringing you along with him as he began to move down the stairs. The steady hum of movement and noise from the staff around you had gone suddenly silent as you both began to make your way.

You weren't ready. But you were going anyway. Your own two feet surprised you with the way they moved smoothly down each step. Years of training coming to your rescue you merely moved forward with your chin held high and the elegance of your significant breeding oozed from your every pore. You were made for this. You had been carefully preened and crafted throughout your entire life for moments like this one and despite the torture happening inside your chest, your body, you could at least count on your body to behave itself when it really came down to the obedience that was expected of you.