There are certain chambers in the Palace that have large doorways—European style, courtesy of the Queen’s ‘friend’ in France—and large Hangeul characters painted above the handles, clearly stating “KEEP OUT”. Of course, Sooyeon has never been one to disobey her dear mother’s orders, but since Taeyeon herself is ushering her hurriedly through one of those very imposing doors, she has no choice but to let the heavily manicured hands guide her.

“This is where you will be entering the main reception, Sooyeon-ah,” Taeyeon hisses urgently. “You’ll be using this hallway a lot tonight.”

Sooyeon tilts her head to the side in confusion—a perfectly staged gesture, of course. “Why, eomma?”

Taeyeon rolls her eyes in an uncharacteristic breach of her frigid royal façade. “Because you’ll be moving between the ballroom and your rooms several times tonight. Since Joonmyun-ah isn’t here to cover for you while you change from your dancing gown to your evening gown, I’ll be conversing with the guests in your place. Don’t mess this up, Sooyeon-ah. It’s your last chance to find a suitable King.” The Queen heaves a sigh as she turns her elaborately coiffed head away from her daughter.

Sooyeon’s nails are digging into her palms as she grits her teeth and glares at the back of the Queen’s lengthy golden tresses. She can feel a drop of blood rolling down her hand, but she doesn’t really care now. The hot tears are stinging the back of her eyes as she blinks to clear them out of her vision, hoping that her kohl isn’t smudged by the sudden outpouring of emotions.

Suddenly, Taeyeon spins around, her hands fluttering helplessly as she shoves Sooyeon roughly out the door, muttering something about losing track of time. But before they’re fully out of the room, Sooyeon catches a fleeting glimpse of the entire ballroom. Her breath catches in as she gazes upon the multitudes of vibrantly hued, silken-clad gentry of almost the entire Joseon Empire. She finds it rather ironic that though she’s the figurehead of Joseon Korea, she is still intimidated by the prospect of having to pull on her façade again and face the crowds of flatterers slavishly seeking her attention.

In a few minutes, the Crown Princess is back in the ballroom, surrounded by wealthy sycophants. Their cloyingly saccharine compliments make Sooyeon gag, but she relishes the power she wields over them, the authority to crush them like ants or raise them to the height of royal supremacy. And she does partially enjoy the ice princess image that Taeyeon has coerced her to project.

Out of the blue, she feels a hand touch her shoulder lightly. She spins around, her lengthy tresses almost slapping the stranger in the face. The first things Sooyeon notice are the sharp features that define this man’s face, and then the single gold earring that dangles from his ear.

“Who are you?” Sooyeon snaps, caught off guard by the sudden appearance of this strange person.

The man merely smirks at her, infuriating the Crown Princess even more.

“Who are you?” she hisses, her voice infused with anger.

“Kim Jongdae at your service, your Highness.”

Sooyeon narrows her eyes at the amount of attitude in the tone of the last word. Her fists clench as he raises one perfectly penciled eyebrow at her, provoking her temper even further.

Two can play at this game, she thinks, quite riled up by Jongdae’s expressionless face and nonchalant demeanor. “Why are you bothering me? Do you not know who I am, commoner?”

Jongdae’s eyes widen slightly in mock surprise at her unwarranted affront to his heritage. “My dear Princess, you’ve gone quite far,” he murmurs, his lilting Korean barely reaching Sooyeon’s ears over the clinking of champagne flutes.

“Don’t tell me how far to go and not to go, commoner.” Sooyeon stops ranting for a moment, searching for some caustic insults. Finding nothing particularly viable, she settles on vituperating his maquillage. “What kind of a man wears kohl like that? Are you a noblewoman or a nobleman? Or are you even noble at all?”

Stopping to catch her breath, she stares up at him in astonishment as he lifts a white-gloved hand to stop her from garrulously (and futilely) jabbing at his pride. Then he extends a finger and flicks her forehead lazily. “Little Princess, you still have a lot to learn, I see. Allow me to become your instructor in the art of royal façades.”

Sooyeon snorts in disbelief. “Who exactly are you anyway, Kim Jongdae?”

Jongdae merely smirks at her—rather infuriatingly, Sooyeon notes, and she finds her fists clenching again. Seeing her irate gesture, he grins in satisfaction.

“Lesson one, Princess. Never let your emotions control you. Especially in the presence of strangers.”

The Royal Princess narrows her eyes at him and opens to deliver another verbal slap, but she’s stopped in her tracks by a delicate hand on her shoulder.

“Well, my dear Sooyeon-ah and Jongdae-ah, what a coincidence! You two have met already!” The Queen’s high-pitched voice trills through the air, effectively silencing all conversation within a twenty-foot radius.

Sooyeon mentally cringes at the thought of all the glass that could have been shattered if her mother were an opera singer. Letting Taeyeon’s endless stream of prissy, overly feminine chatter go in through one ear and out the other, she catches sight of Jongdae snickering at her silently. Fuming, Sooyeon starts fantasizing about shooting daggers at him and wiping that smug smirk off his face.

Soon enough, Taeyeon finishes her prattling and leans in close to whisper a venomous threat. The Queen brushes her fingernails lightly across Jongdae’s cheek in a gesture of farewell, and whispers something into his ear, all the while with her eyes on Sooyeon, wordlessly warning her to keep herself under control.

Once Taeyeon is well out of sight, the Princess hurries to Jongdae’s side, rather worried and curious.

“What did she tell you?” she murmurs, making sure that nobody is watching her before viciously digging her nails into the nobleman’s wrists.

Rather irritated, Jongdae pulls his hands away from Sooyeon’s vise-like grip. “What’s your problem, woman? And why do I need to tell you anyway?”

“Because I want to know,” she snaps childishly.

Jongdae rolls his eyes at her. “I don’t really care if you’re the Princess or not. I fail to see how it’s any of your business what the Queen told me. And here’s lesson two, little Princess. Whining doesn’t get you any information—you need to try harder.”

Sooyeon averts her gaze from the infuriating nobleman, toying with a bauble on her sash. Her mind races as she racks her brain for some way to weasel those elusive whispered words out of Jongdae. Turning her back on him, she loses herself in her thoughts as she watches the rich and famous in the Joseon Empire sashay frivolously in their finest attire. Sooyeon heaves a sigh as she spies her mother ordering around one of Joonmyun’s fellow servants in the Palace, gesticulating tensely in an obvious effort to conceal her ire from the guests in the ballroom.

It’s sometimes the ones you hate who are the muses for some of the best schemes in your life. Taeyeon’s clandestine methods of oppression in order to obtain anything have influenced her daughter too much, apparently. Whirling around, Sooyeon grabs Jongdae’s collar and yanks him forward, relishing the look of pure shock on his face. She tangles her hands in his hair, pulling on the roots hard enough to hurt. “Tell me what the Queen said,” she hisses into his ear, infusing each word with an amount of venom and authority that only the daughter of the Queen could have. Satisfied with her show of superiority, Sooyeon lets go of Jongdae and shoves him back roughly, smirking at him.

The young nobleman seems flabbergasted for a moment, before he simply raises an eyebrow at her. “Is that the best you can do, Princess?”

She can barely resist the urge to strangle the insolent man. Steeling her nerves, Sooyeon gives him her best arctic glare. “Either the words leave your mouth, or your blood leaves your mouth. You can choose,” she snaps, almost at the end of her patience.

“I didn’t know it was possible to be so poetic while issuing death threats,” he notes with a slight smile, the first one that she’s seen on his face. Catching sight of the look on her face, he stalls a little and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “What exactly am I supposed to tell you?” Jongdae whines, looking her with pleading eyes.

“Just repeat what Taeyeon said. It’s not that hard, Kim Jongdae-sshi.”

“Don’t call me that. It makes me feel old. My name is Chen. Call me Chen-ah.”

“Whatever. What did Taeyeon say?”

“Ooh, the latest gossip! The Princess talks about her mother without honorifics! Come and spread the slander about the heir to the throne!”

“One more chance, commoner. Or you’ll be dead before you can open your mouth to make another one of your smart little comments.”

“Since when have I been a commoner—” Jongdae is cut off as Sooyeon makes a move to strangle him. He skillfully dodges her repeated lunges, easily eluding of her grasp every time she seizes hold of the fabric of his suit.

Jongdae decides to take the game a little further by taking off running down the hallways of Palace. Unwilling to accept defeat, Sooyeon hitches up her skirt, pulls off her rhinestone-studded stilettos, skidding barefoot across the marble floors in hot pursuit of the young nobleman—that is, until she suddenly crashes right into something warm and solid.

The Princess panics, straightening herself out and hurriedly shoving the shoes back on her feet as she lowers her head to hide her embarrassment. Her whole body shaking in terror, she looks up to see someone she hadn’t expected at all.

“Sooyeon-ah, are you okay?” Joonmyun’s voice cuts through the haze in her mind created by her pounding heart.

“Joonmyun-ah. Why did you come back from your trip? Aren’t you supposed to be in Busan?”

She sees something like hurt flash through his eyes before it’s gone and he’s replying with a terse “I’m back early”.

Suddenly, another voice cuts through their little world. “Hey, little Princess, what’s going on?” Jongdae’s sharp-featured face appears in the periphery of Sooyeon’s vision. She whips her head around to look at Joonmyun, only to have him pull her protectively towards himself.

“Chen. What are you doing here, traitor?”

|ethereal masquerade|

Sehun, Jinri, and Soojung have a caged tiger on their hands—almost literally. Jongin is thrashing around in his rope binding like a possessed man. In Soojung’s opinion, quite frankly, he’s possessed anyway, drunk or not. The three youngsters watch in rapidly growing trepidation as the tanned fisherman’s fists clench and unclench repeatedly.

Finally, Sehun grows tired of waiting for his hyung to just shut up. He grabs a nearby piece of wood and brings it down hard on top of Jongin’s head, not even flinching at the resounding crack that has Jinri and Soojung hugging each in terror.

Jongin’s head lolls around a little before he blinks his eyes groggily. “Sehun-ah, get me another shot of soju and I’ll give you the day off so that you can spend some time with Jinri-ah.”

Sehun’s face reddens in embarrassment and he averts his eyes from Jinri. Soojung snickers under her breath and affectionately ruffles the younger girl’s hair. Jinri looks up at her, rather surprised at the sudden act of friendship.

The Princess retracts her hand quickly, flustered by the response that Jinri gave her. After all, the only things she knows about friendship are from her books and Joonmyun. But Jinri simply puts her arms around the older girl, resting her delicate head on Soojung’s shoulder.

Another loud crack shakes the two girls out of their reveries. Sehun has just bashed Jongin on the head with his wooden block again, and Soojung can see the beginnings of an egg-shaped bump on the top of the tanned fisherman’s head.

Sehun is grinning like a madman now. “See, Soojung noona? All it takes is two cracks to hyung’s head and he’s all set for interrogation.”

Soojung tries to make herself laugh at the young boy’s comments, but it comes out as more of a cough than anything else.

Jongin is now babbling incoherently, but he stops as soon as Soojung kneels down next to him. “Who are you?” he slurs, the soju still not completely beaten out of his system.

“I—I’m Soojung.” She can’t bring herself to say more, for fear of what he might do to her.

Sehun makes a gesture to urge her on. “Tell him you’re the Princess, noona.”

“Won’t he try to kill me again?”

“Nah, it’s okay,” Sehun says, grinning. “If he moves, I’ll just give him another whack with the nice block of wood here.” He pats the plank, as if to reassure Soojung that everything would be okay, but he only manages to scare her even further.

Turning back to the inebriated fisherman, she pokes him in the shoulder, hoping to elicit some response. He merely groans and tries to move his hands. Once he realizes that he’s bound to a chair, however, he starts thrashing around again, seemingly wide awake.

“Who are you, woman? Let me go!”

At a loss for what to do, Soojung looks at Sehun and Jinri helplessly. “Tell him who you are,” Jinri prompts her with an encouraging smile.

“Jongin-sshi, I’m Soojung,” she says, tentatively touching his shoulder in an effort to calm the crazed man down.

“That means nothing to me, woman. Tell me who you are or I’ll kill you,” he growls, throwing her hand off his shoulder angrily.

Soojung’s eyes grow wide in fear and her stuttering starts up. “I…I’m the Princess. I was with Joonmyun oppa a while ago and you…” She trails off, unsure of what to say to him.

Jongin’s whole body tenses for a moment, and then a string of profanities leave his mouth as he attempts to get free of his bonds. Sehun steps closer to the chair, holding the plank aloft like a torch, ready to strike.

“Sehun-ah, you traitor,” Jongin hisses in his wrath. “I can’t believe you, you brat. How dare you side with this pampered piece of trash? I raised you from the cradle to where you are now, you little—” He’s cut off as Sehun heave the plank up in a threatening motion.

Soojung’s heart begins to pound with fear. If Sehun knocks Jongin out, she won’t have a chance to explain herself to him. And even though Soojung doesn’t want to admit it, she balks at the idea of Jongin getting hurt further. “Sehun-sshi,” she almost shrieks. “Don’t hit him!”

The young man obediently lowers the plank, eliciting another snarl from Jongin.

“If you want to hit me, you’d better do it like a man, you weakling. Don’t just do it because some woman tells you to.” The tanned fisherman turns his face away in disgust, not even sparing a glance to his dongsaengs.

Soojung closes her eyes, trying to block out the sounds surrounding her sensitive ears. She needs to put some sense into Jongin’s mind, whether it requires any unconventional methods. And for that, she can’t have his family watching her coerce him into siding with her.

“Sehun-sshi, Jinri-sshi, can you both please leave?” Soojung is surprised with how clearly her voice rings out in the decrepit shack. Being around her sister has affected her temperament a bit more than expected, apparently.

“Soojung eonni, be careful, okay? Jongin oppa’s a bit…” Jinri trails off, making a swirling motion with her finger near her temple.

“It’s fine, Jinri-sshi. I’ll be fine,” Soojung smiles reassuringly at her dongsaeng.

She waits in silence until the door of the hut closes to speak. “Jongin-sshi. I don’t really know what to tell you. I’ve already said these words to Chanyeol-sshi and Baekhyun-sshi. I apologize from the bottom of my heart for all the wrongs that have been done to your people by the nobility. I understand that you don’t want me to be sorry, so you can hate me even more than you do now. But I’m not the kind of person to just sit down and watch the world pass by, like my mother and my sister. I swear that I will avenge everything that you and your people have suffered.” Finished with her speech, she squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for Jongin to assault her with a barrage of insults.

“You’re a hypocrite,” he hisses at her, clenching his fists. “You think that you can win me over with your honeyed words. I know who you are, little girl. Your family has trained you well.”

Soojung can’t take this anymore, and she lets herself lash out at him. “What family? You assume everything about me, Kim Jongin, because you think that all the hardships you’ve gone through make you some sort of saint. You’re the one who doesn’t understand reality. You can’t see anything under the powder and the kohl that we put on to hide our true selves. I honestly don’t care what you think about me, Jongin-sshi. But just know this. I have no family. Never have, and never will.”

Jongin watches her through narrowed eyes as she wipes away the tears that are spilling over her fair cheeks.

“I don’t want to concern myself with your petty drama, Princess,” he snaps. “At least you live in the lap of luxury. At least your parents are alive. Do you know what your family did to mine? I will never forgive you for what you have done. I watched them die in front of my eyes. What have you suffered in your life, you mindless doll? Have you ever gone hungry and had to beg on the streets of Busan? Have you ever been beaten within an inch of your life by complete strangers because you just wanted a loaf of bread to feed your sister? What do you know about life?”

Jongin blinks repeatedly, trying to clear away the tears that cloud his vision and threaten to spill over onto his face. His willpower is no match for the force of the emotions raging in his heart, however, and he feels the wetness trail down the sides of his face. He turns his tanned visage away from Soojung, not wanting her to see the sadness that eats up his soul from the inside.

Soojung has no idea what to do. Jongin is crying and so is she, but she’s rather wary of getting close to him at all. Throwing all caution to the winds, she unties him and puts her arms around his broad shoulders, hoping to comfort him. He stiffens when she embraces him, but makes no move to push her away. Drawing on her last vestiges of audacity, she rests her head on his shoulder in a gesture meant to be consoling. She can feel Jongin’s shaky breathing as he attempts to calm himself and stop his tears.

“Prin—I mean, Soojung-sshi…” Jongin trails off awkwardly, clearing his throat.

Soojung raises her head to look at him questioningly, wondering what he might want to say now.

“I…can we stay like this a little longer?” Soojung notes he sounds quite similar to a sheepish child—when he’s talking normally, that is.

She’s tempted to refuse and tie him up again, but she needs the comfort as much as he does right now, so she simply nods and settles back into her original position. After all, it couldn’t hurt to make a new friend, right?

A/N: ermahgerd sorry I didn’t update earlier! Loads of schoolwork T.T and ermahgerd quasi-fluffy-quasi-angsty kaistal right here people! I wrote this whole thing with gdragon’s debut single on youtuberepeat. Plus some chensica for those chen stans out there :) chen-sica-suho, actually.