The name written on that post it note had its own judging eyes. It looked up at you with contempt. You could feel the hatred scrawled out in that hand, the hard lines of the letters, the quick stabs at the paper that scratched at your skin with each pass your eyes took over the message.

“You--did this?” Your question felt weak and you hated the vulnerability in your own voice.

The death grip he had on the envelope had folded it in two and when he dropped his arms to his side you saw a few more pictures fall out, creased and ruined now in the struggle.

One image in particular, torn in half, showed a kiss. A kiss between two lovers that should never have been, yet looked real enough to somehow validate something in your mind.

He looked down at the mess on the floor at his feet and your stomach churned with such a force that would have expelled your breakfast had there been any to expel.

Your eyes burned with the fresh tears that escaped and the pinkness in his cheeks only served to accentuate his stubborn silence and inaction.

Of course he did this.

Do Kyungsoo

He had signed his name proudly on his work, throwing it so brazenly in your face that he had been the one to take her from you.

May. Your constant, your friend, your solid link to your home and the only person in the world who had been on your side.

May was gone. Stolen by this man who stood with his eyes cast down onto the floor, eyelids closed over black villainous eyes that had, so recently, tricked you into believing their tales.

But here was the truth. He had done this. He had set up this witch hunt for your friend in order to torture you and the bitter truth that flooded through your consciousness, hitting you so hard against the face you physically reacted with a stumble backward and a deep gasping breath that made those black eyes open.

He had warned you.

He warned you that he would chew you up and spit you out just like the rest of them would and you--

Stupid.

You had been so stupid, you--

You walked right into his lair, right into his bed, right into his warmth that felt so tempting and so good and now--

“I did this.” His low voice was speaking now and those eyes had nothing to lie about with the words he spoke yet something in those eyes had to be lying. Impossible. The lie you read in those eyes was regret. Impossible. How could he possibly dare to look at you like that right now. How dare he look guilty.

If he was going to steal something so precious from you he ought to have done with with a wicked smile and a flourish of his sword, not with a meek confession of his guilt and what looked like an excuse on the tip of his tongue.

Your thoughts were a jumbled mess and he dropped the contents of his clenched fist and he was moving.

Moving toward you, hands raised as he moved and you shook your head in contention as you took a step back.

“Will you just, listen--” His voice pleaded now and thankfully his feet stopped moving before you ran out of room behind you for your retreat.

What choice did you have? You were alone and the door was closed. May was gone and no other servants were posted at the door. Not that you had any trust left for anyone in this entire house now that your only familiar had been stolen.

“You did this to hurt me.” The truth was so obvious you felt like an idiot for even having to say it out loud and he swiped roughly at his face as he shook his head, ready to come up with some lie, some claim to innocence, you were sure.

“No-- Yes, at first, yes. I admit that, but no--not now, no.” His words were scrambling and grasping and you wondered how much of this you could stand.

“The punishment for high treason is death, Kyungsoo.” The tears that fell down your face did so freely as you lost the will to try and fight them. The suffocating ache inside of your chest made you gasp and your hand covered over where your heart sat just inside your ribs, beating wildly, reminding you that you were still here and you saw him close his eyes and drop his face.

“Y-You’ve killed her,” You whispered through the pain and he flinched backwards hard as if your words had actually hit him in the chest. It was a strange reaction to your words and when he shook his head harder and covered his ears with both hands you felt your own surprise well up and pause your breathing.

He dropped suddenly, with ears still covered you saw him fall from where he stood down to crouch on his heels and a strangled sound left his chest.

As quickly as he had dropped he rose back to his feet and turned away from you, his breathing hard and labored you watched and waited for some response from him that could be understood. His hands left the sides of his head and trembled their way down to his sides where he clenched his fists hard there. The tension you saw in his back and shoulders vibrated and you heard a whispering sound from his direction.

It was rhythmic and you recognized the sound as counting.

He was counting backwards in a quiet whisper that sounded small and broken.

“No.” He spoke up again after what felt like ages with a new sound of defiance in his voice. The regret and guilt was long gone with this new sound and he spun fast on his heels to look you square into your eyes.

“No,” he repeated, “I admit that I sent the pictures to the queen but the treason, the call logs, the spying, and gathering of information for someone outside of this country, that was May. That wasn’t something that I did.”

You shook your head. This was a lie. May didn't do any of those things. At the worst she was guilty of falling for a handsome, yet off limits prince, but treason? Spying? You lived with May. You saw her constantly and there was no way you would have missed something like this.

“That's not true,” you said, ignoring the scratching sound in the back of your mind. The small speck of doubt that had been planted there was unwelcome. You wouldn't believe it, not for a second. May wouldn’t do this. There was no way this was true.

“You’re lying. You tried to keep me from seeing the envelope--”

“So you wouldn’t hate me for being the one who caught her,” His voice broke through, interrupting your desperate attempt at finding any possible way to discredit him and you closed your eyes to shut out the intensity you saw in his eyes.

“When I sent this,” his hand opened toward the floor behind him, where the pile of photos mocked you for your own blindness, “I had no allegiance to you. I had no reason not to shove it in your face that your only friend in the world was a traitor. My fealty was to my country and to myself, but--”

Your only friend...a traitor.

Your mind was humming and you felt like the room’s oxygen had dropped significantly with the dizziness you felt with each new turn of your head.

You couldn't do this anymore. You didn't need to listen to his lies about May. Prince or not, you were royalty too and there was nothing that could possibly keep you here for such slanderous accusations against May.

“--but you don’t deserve to be hurt like this… by her, I’m sorry I had to be the one to find out the truth--”

The door to your room swung open quickly when you pulled hard against it and you were through the threshold, rushing away from the sounds of his words behind you, moving swiftly your bare feet gripped the plush carpet of the hallway but something gripped you hard from behind. Your swinging arm was caught behind you by a strong warm hand.

Who would dare lay a hand on a princess other than--

Kyungsoo pulled back on your arm and your forward progress stopped and when you ly his face reached your eyes. Only his dark eyes full of concern, full of worry, and full of . The liar. You couldn’t fall for this. For May, you had to keep your head on straight.

“Release me,” you growled out your words in a voice reserved for the lowest servants. You shot your command out through your lips and he tightened his grip around your forearm.

“You can’t go to her now. She is a traitor. I cannot allow my future wife to choose a traitor over the prince.”

When the words were out of his mouth you heard him inhale a trembling breath. That same trembling was moving through his body in a wave and your felt it in his hands that gripped around your arm tightly. He was blinking quickly and he pulled his bottom lip inside his mouth and bit down the second you saw that trembling reach his mouth. He was trying to control it. He was trying to hide it and he was doing a job of it. Whether he was scared that you would really go to May, or spooked by his own declaration that you were his future wife, you weren't sure, but something inside of him felt as shaky and unstable as a house of cards built on the floor of a moving vehicle.

“Allow?” The anger you were feeling inside of your body pulsed up fast and you felt consumed with rage at his audacity. You pulled hard at your arm, breaking the tight grip he held easily with the quickness at which you moved and he gasped in surprise and took a step forward, gripping you again.

“I’m sorry--” he scrambled and the surprise of his quick apology splashed a bit of cool water on the hot rage in your chest. The surprise made you pause for a moment. In that moment, he was doing something else that surprised you even more as his body moved and he spoke again.

“P-Please…” Your angry inhale of breath was taken by that single word.

“Please, you can't go, you’ll be taken too.” He moved again, moving down as if gravity had a hold on him, you felt the pull he was taking down to the floor. His hands grasped at your arm, sliding down with his descent, then wrapped around your palm, gripping tightly around your fingers.

His knees hit the floor hard.

“Please--” he repeated from his knees.

The chill that ran over your head and down your body, brought a sense unease, as the prince knelt before you on his knees, he gripped your hand and begged and you felt an overwhelming sensation of wrongness of this.

Everything in your body and soul protested and screamed and this should not be, this person should not lower himself to you or to anyone other than his king and his queen and yet...his knees touched the floor, his plea on his lips and his eyes wide on yours, he begged.

“You can't do this. You must get up.” You pulled against his hand and his eyes glazed over for a moment, not quite seeing his own actions. “Quickly, before someone sees--”

A voice broke through over yours.

A booming, echoing, terrifying voice.

“What is the meaning of this?” Her angry voice pierced through the space you both occupied and his eyes widened in instant recognition. A split second of realization flashed through his features and he was scrambling, pulling against you for leverage he lifted himself quickly back to his feet with his head bowed, eyes dropped and face bright red. You dropped your own face at the sounds of the approach of the queen and her entourage who followed closely behind.

“Do my eyes deceive me or did I just see a prince of my house on his knees?” Her voice grew closer and you tried not to flinch at the disgust you most definitely heard in those words.

“I am sorry Your Majesty, I merely lost my balance.” Kyungsoo’s voice was bold and concealed his nerves quite well, although you were sure you still heard traces of them. “It won't happen again.”

“The day it does will be the day this house loses a prince and gains a new servant.” Her threat felt real enough to believe she was capable of such actions against him.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” You caught the dip of his head from the corner of your eye and noticed the nervous clench of his jaw as his eyes darted back and forth quickly below her eyeline. His breathing was fast and you pushed down the sudden urge to lay your hand on his arm, in some misguided desire to calm him. Surely his apology would suffice. Surely the queen would be appeased by his quick apology.

She moved slowly and you watched as she reached her hand out toward him. Her long fingers slinked along his face and he lifted his gaze slowly as small goosebumps erupted along the back of his neck the second he felt her touch.

“Kyungsoo,” she cooed suddenly in a much sweeter voice that did not at all fit with the situation at hand. You took a step back, longing for a bit of distance from the terrifyingly powerful woman.

“I am most vexed to hear the latest news from your household. When I agreed, so graciously, to find you a wife, you must have known that your actions, and that of your house would be required to meet a certain standard. And now we have a spy?” She clicked her tongue several times as her hand moved over his face to cup his cheek.

He swallowed and watched her eyes carefully as she spoke. His hands were balled into tight white knuckled fists at his sides.

“And right under your nose? How careless of you.” She arched an eyebrow at him and it strained to move against the tightness of her over-stretched forehead. The effect was good enough and sent the message well and your focus moved back to Kyungsoo.

“I reported it as soon as I found out Your Majesty.” His voice remained level despite the physical symptoms you saw in him. What a strong reaction he had to this woman. A thin sheen of sweat could now be seen on the back of his neck and she reached around his head to grip him tightly in place.

“Not soon enough I’m afraid. Who knows what information that rat was able to pull out of my Sehun before you finally noticed something was amiss in your own house.”

Her words struck you hard and you steadied your legs to keep from recoiling from the woman. Rat? May was no such thing. You were sure she was innocent and it was just a matter of finding the evidence to clear her name. And what about Prince Sehun? Did he play no part in this fiasco? Queen Hong was so quick to side with her son despite the fact that he was also very much involved in whatever it was that had happened with May.

“Your Majesty.” Kyungsoo spoke up as soon as the queen dropped her hand from his skin and her eye lazily looked away from his face as if she suddenly had no interest in continuing the conversation she had initiated.

“I don't believe the evidence is completely conclusive, if you would permit me to--” Something in his voice changed and you recognized his tone now. He was back to bargaining, pleading with the woman who rarely gave him an ear to hear his requests.

You heard a small scoff that interrupted his question and he paused to inhale a breath.

“--investigate more. Something feels off, particularly with the phone records.”

Something felt off? Your mind was churning as you tried to make sense of his words, yet