Broken.

Everything was broken.

The floor where you had collapsed down onto your knees was littered with tiny shards of glass. You clung to the wastebasket with limp hands and stared ahead into the open space of his home, his office area that sat on a tangent to the library. From here you could see into the kitchen. A small turn of your head afforded you with a view of that glass wall that lead to the bedroom where mere hours before, in the dark warmth of the nighttime, Kyungsoo had breathed into your ear, the promises of his love.

There was a silence in this home. You’d noticed it last night when you listened for his breathing, for signs of life in here before you began the search for the video that would surely gain you enough of an upper hand to be able to free May from whatever charges this royal house had brought upon her.

That silence that felt peculiar last night felt nauseating now. You wished for the hum of a fan or the whirl of an appliance of some kind that could stop the pounding inside your ears.

More than the pounding you wished you could somehow put a stop to the voices in your mind fighting for their truths to be heard.

She was dead.

She was alive.

She had to be dead.

She couldn’t be dead.

Your eyes were closed as the truths battled and from beside you there was a sound.

At last, there was a sound. It was the soft click of a button on a phone and it was loud enough to pull your eyelids open as you turned at the sound.

The phone was to his ear and he didn't speak. His face held a serenity that one might mistake for peace had it not been for the darkness in his eyes. He lifted a hand to his face and quickly brushed the warmth of his palm over his face, from his forehead down to his jaw and there was a sharp inhale through his nostrils as he did it.

“Status,” he said softly in that monotone voice he used sometimes when he wasn’t making love to you in the darkness of his bedroom in the middle of the night. Someone was speaking on the line. You could make out the deep timbre of a man’s voice, too soft and too far away for you to make out any of his words at all, yet the length at which he spoke told you that he clearly had a lot to say. Kyungsoo’s focus drifted as he blinked and glanced around the home, no doubt following the man’s words as he constructed some mental picture of the information he was given.

He pulled the phone down from his face, ending the phone call without saying another word and his passive expression drifted as his eyes finally found focus on the desk that stood in front of him. You could make out movement inside his mouth, his jaw ticking back and forth and he blinked slowly all the while refusing to turn his face to look at you. Refusing to turn and tell you what the man had told him about your best friend and the thickness that was building inside your throat was getting tougher to swallow down. When he finally moved his face it was to look down at his legs that sat him down on this floor, just far enough away from you, just far enough for you to feel the cracks in the foundation. They were growing with each second that passed and he reached a finger down to push a piece of glass away from his heel.

“Kyung--” you had to try, and yet the thickness in your throat made your voice’s refusal to cooperate laughable.

Hopeless. That was that feeling in your chest. He inhaled a slow breath, deeper than the shallow insufficient ones you had managed and when he exhaled carefully you finally saw the parting of his lips that would at least lead to some words, some answers about May.

“There is no information yet,” he whispered and you wondered about just how much you could stand. Were you at your limit yet? Was this the moment when you threw in the towel, backed out of everything in this place, turned your face against this man who sat like a stone at the banks of a rapidly churning river with chaos around him, pulling everyone else under the surface to drown while he stood immobile and stubborn?

At least your eyes focused and you could feel it. You could feel your tears dried on your face, making your skin tingle with a tightness that matched that in your chest. It felt different the longer you allowed your spindly fingers to touch it. You prodded at it, poked it lightly, waiting for something to happen; bracing for it and yet the longer you bothered, the more reckless you began to feel. Was this it? Was this the end of it all?

Your focus fell down to your feet, moving beyond the broken and the wrecked and further. Bits of fluff. Brown tattered fur and pieces of broken plastic and beyond that, where the struggle had happened, where he had carried it in his hands like a curse, was his damnation. Dropped just off the desk surface and laying there on the floor as if it was worth nothing was the tape.

You knew it was within his grasp, but it was also within yours and he was still looking down at his feet as he sat there, useless and silent when he should have been standing up and doing something about this.

Surely he hadn’t lost his last bit of fortitude. His mind was still working was it not? Yet he seemed in a daze here and you moved.

You felt the small rectangle of plastic within your fingers and you clasped a hand around it, wondering just how powerful you could be if you could wield such a weapon. How far would you go to further destroy the trust he had given you. The madness in his eyes when he found you searching his home haunted you like a bad dream. There was no doubt that you had been caught red-handed. There was anger in those eyes and behind the rage, there was an incredible hurt. It was plain as day, the pain you saw on his face at your monumental betrayal.

“Did you mean any of it?” You lifted your hand with the tape in your grasp when he spoke and the surprise of his question was cold on your skin.

At last, he looked at you and the redness you saw ringing his eyes coloring the pain twinged within your belly, threatening to bring the nausea back.

When you opened your mouth to speak, your voice felt as trapped as before, more so you merely sat there, holding on to that tape with no words left to explain yourself.

For May. It had been for May. But now… Now, this felt different somehow. This felt shattered now and he was watching your face as you refused to offer him any sort of assurance. Why wasn't he fighting you for this tape? You both knew it’s significance, yet he sat there with his hands just as useless as your voice and that pain in his eyes that begged you to speak.

And you couldn't. Not that you wouldn’t, but this was beyond you. You knew you had sinned against him. You knew you would take this video with you and it would be the one bit of power you could hold on to. You had to protect yourself somehow...from him.

Your silence was his answer and as he watched your face you could see his own changing. He exhaled again, closing his mouth, his shoulders fell and sagged and those eyes moved slowly, trailing down your face, the face of the woman who he had made the mistake of falling for and who was now ready to stab him in the heart and that twinge inside your belly stung sharp and hot.

His eyes landed on your hand. The one with the weapon. The one with the power you held over him and he stared but made no effort to move.

“I’m sorry about May,” he said within a breath that caught halfway inside his throat and you swallowed away the grief you felt trying to rise up inside your chest.

Kyungsoo seemed to fight a similar battle when he blinked faster and exhaled through parted lips, trying to keep it at bay. He seemed to have less success than you did. You heard the tremble in his voice and saw the wetness reflected in his eyes that he tried to blink away.

You couldn't stay. Not anymore. You couldn't stay with him, not here. Not now, not with what he knew and with what you knew. Your legs pushed and your hand gripped the cassette like a lifeline.

He didn't stand up when you did.

“Can--” he spoke again, cutting himself off to gasp lightly as he fought off the emotions that threatened to overflow, “--can you do it quickly?” His words were directed at you and his eyes were on your closed fist. You looked down into your palm at the innocuous piece of plastic you held there, considering his request to you. More than the request you allowed yourself to feel it, the affection you had felt for him. The touches and the kisses and the love you had shared what felt like a distant memory from lifetimes ago now, yet you let it coat your tongue for one brief moment as you looked down at the broken home that housed this broken man.

“When you destroy me, don’t draw it out, but do it quickly?” He wasn't fighting you. He wasn't trying to keep it for himself or force you into complying with him. This request felt emptier than the asive silence that plagued his home.

“I’m tired,” he said, looking down at his hands again, “and if you take too long I might just do it myself.”  

You turned to leave. You had to leave. The pain felt too blinding inside this place and the sound of his fractured sob when you turned your back on him hit you hard. The shuddering inhale of breath before more sobs broke free punctuated the steps you took toward the front door and the silence on the outside, the click of the door, cut off the sounds of his weeping and felt like the final chop of the guillotine’s blade that would finally put an end to everything.

Only silence remained on the other side of that doorway and it felt no less oppressive than when you had been inside. You felt no relief. You felt no oxygen entering your lungs freely. Everything within your body was on fire and the longer you remained trapped inside your own head the more you would burn.

Your feet moved, carrying you down the hallway, away from Kyungsoo’s place you wandered. There were doors, more hallways, places you did not know or recognize and yet your feet kept moving. You were mostly ignored. The fire was burning inside of you after all. You had always been quite the actress, even when faced with disaster you kept your face still. These things were expected of you and instilled in you at a young age. The servants you encountered merely bowed their obligatory bows and waited for you to pass.

You weren't sure how long you wandered with your mind in a haze and your fingers holding on to that tape so tightly, but when you turned a corner you came to a stop, having reached the end. There was no more hallway to wander and you had yet to come across your familiar doorway, although you paid little attention to where you traveled really, you just moved without any clear destination in mind. Would you have even returned to your room if you found it? Probably not. Kyungsoo could find you there. He could come to his senses about this and seek you out to take this tape from you just as easily as you had taken it from him. You were certain he could overpower you if he wanted to.

The end of that hallway felt a little too symbolic to your current situation. Even if you had wanted to escape from him you were out of options. You were just you. An outsider in this house. A spy in his eyes. Your mind raced through the memories of his face and the betrayal you had seen there. The pain in those beautiful eyes that you had grown so fond of. For all he knew, you had been working with May all along to uncover the truth of his crimes. For what end? What would he believe your goal to be? Political motives? Pressure the royal family into playing more for your family’s side in this union? Securing more power or more money in the deal.

What had you even been trying to accomplish by finding this? Wouldn't you have been able to save May if you had just one inkling of an upper hand?

It all felt so useless now.

The unrest in your heart grew to uncomfortable levels and you needed some facts. You needed some truth and some answers now. You were done with speculating and guessing. You had to find May. Dead or alive, you had to see her. This tape could wait. Whatever it’s secrets were you were certain that the truth about May would help guide you in your decisions on what to do with it. As far as you knew, the secrets and the questions surrounding May were too great, far too risky to share what you had found in Kyungsoo’s room with anyone else.

You turned from the end of the hallway to catch the curious eyes of a servant carrying a stack of clean towels. You did not recognize her face from the glimpse you caught of it before she bowed her head in your presence.

“You there.” Your voice seemed to work just fine out here and her eyes rose carefully to look up from the floor.

“Yes, Your Highness.” she clearly knew who you were. Her eyes did not meet yours directly, she merely glanced down at the level of your shoulders as she waited for you to speak.

“Which of these rooms belongs to Prince Baekhyun?” The authority in your voice was natural. You were bred into this life and had grown quite used to sounding like you knew what you were doing by now.

She looked up into your face at this question, a puzzled flash filling over her features as she turned to look over her shoulder once before turning to face you again.

“He lives on the other side of the palace, Your Highness. On the second floor of the south wing.”

You lifted your chin, not letting your emotions betray you, “Take me there now.” Your words left no room for argument, not that she would dare. She merely looked down at the towels in her hands and back up at you quickly before nodding her head and spinning on her heels, glancing behind her briefly to be sure that you followed.

The walk through the halls took the grief and hopelessness you had let fester and churned it around within your belly, allowing it to change and shift until you felt something different inside of you. This walk had purpose and direction. You gripped the tape and shoved it deep into your pocket, being sure that it was seated deep enough that you wouldn't lose it by accident. A glance down told you that it was well hidden and you could feel the security of the hold inside the front pocket of your jeans.

You were led to and left in front of an unassuming white door with a simple peep-hole in it. Nothing fancy and intimidating like the security system at Kyungsoo’s place and when you lifted a hand to knock it took a good three tries before you heard shuffling and sounds on the other side of that wooden door.

“--the ?” it was Baekhyun’s voice that you recognized, muffled by the wooden partition. He must have seen you through the peep-hole but was taking longer than you expected to open the door.

When the door creaked open, it was a sliver, only enough for you to see his eyes and a bit of skin below his neck.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, his voice full of wonder and when he pulled the door open further, all at once, you knew the reason for the hesitation to open. He was almost entirely , except for the tight black collar around his neck and the small hand towel he held with one hand over his crotch.

“W-What are you doing here?” His lips formed into a small pout with his question and you steadied your breathing as best you could. You couldn't just tell him. Not anything about Kyungsoo, that much was certain, but with the state of him, you doubted he had been watching the news this morning. You could smell the old alcohol on his breath and you were pretty sure that was the stench of seeping through the doorway.

“Can I come in?” there was a split second delay in Baekhyun’s reaction to your simple question. He was frozen, it seemed, in either disbelief or confusion, you couldn't be sure which, but he stared at you unmoving before his eyes widened marginally and he flinched, coming to life all at once with a shake of his head and a flustered expression on his face.

“Uhh..Y-Yeah, definitely, let me just...uhh--” It was clear to see that you had interrupted something. Perhaps an extension of his evening with the drugs and the partying, but honestly you didn't care about any of that right now. You needed to get to him so he could help you. He had a phone. He had Sehun’s phone number and he could tell you what was happening with May. You were certain of this and no amount of a mid-, possibly still high Baekhyun could stop you.

“Can I have just...one minute? Just one, I have to--” He was speaking quickly, his hand still gripped tightly around that towel with what you were now certain was a half hard gripped inside that hand towel. He must have forgotten to close the door behind him when he spun and your distracted mind watched his bare retreating quickly where your ears caught the sound of other voices. Whiny and feminine and more than just one.

“I don't care, it’s time to go. Get out.” He was speaking in a harsher voice that he had ever used to you. He was moving fast. You caught glimpses as clothes were tossed over his body and other garments were tossed toward the two women who complained with grumpy expressions on their faces.

“But you didn’t even once.” One girl complained and he was pushing against her back with both hands as she tried to pull her pants up.

“Maybe you should try harder next time,” he said under his breath. The collar was off and he was now fully clothed as if the image of his ness was something you could look at him and not see at this point. There weren’t very many mysteries left when it came to Byun Baekhyun.

The women were pushed through the open doorway without so much as a ‘thank you for your time’, or ‘don't call me, I’ll call you’. He merely pushed and closed the door behind them before spinning to around to face where you stood with your shoes still on inside the foyer of his home. Habits pulled hard at you and you reached down to take them off as you glanced around at the mess that surrounded you.

Bottles and trash. Not a bit of dust or dirt, since the maids, no doubt cleaned very very often in here, but this mess was all new, probably from last night. Did he have a party? Why were there so many liquor bottles here? As you walked through the home, he was silently kicking bits of things out of your way so you could move through unobstructed. In his living room, in a spot where one might place a tasteful coffee table or an area rug, sat the reason for the huge amount of empty liquor bottles you saw. A blue plastic kiddie pool, one that might entertain a toddler for an entire afternoon sat, filled to the brim with liquor. You could smell it from where you stood beside the black leather sofa.

“Did you have an in here?” You were too tired at this point for niceties. Baekhyun was standing with his arms over his chest, biting down on his lip as he looked around at his own mess that you were now standing in the middle of.

Was coming to Baekhyun’s really the best idea? Honestly, your life seemed to be a big enough mess as it was, yet standing here in the middle of what appeared to be one hell of a disaster felt somehow comforting. You heard a small laugh in the middle of his chest. The kind of laugh that saw no humor, yet could not be helped and you turned to see him roll his eyes and hide the grin.

“If I knew you were coming I would have cleaned up.”

“Please. We just make the messes. We don't clean them up.” You couldn't do it. You couldn't make pretend that you were okay and play along with any of his silly games today. He dropped his hands from his chest and eyed you silently, following you along when you moved, making your way toward the strangely clean bedroom that you saw off of the kitchen. This room escaped without being trashed like the rest of the place. You briefly wondered if there was some significance here, but you couldn't really be bothered to explore the idea any further.   

You sat on the bed, thankful that the smell in this room was free of the stenches you could smell out there. There wasn’t a used to be found on this floor and Baekhyun stood at the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching you and waiting for some sort of explanation for w