part six:: sangfroid

Sehun’s eyes are generally nearly slits, except in rare circumstances of extreme surprise. This, it seems, happens to be one of them.

“Jongin hyung! Soojung noona! Wake up now!”

Soojung springs up, covering her reddening face with her hands. “Sehun-sshi, what are you doing here?”

“Spying on you and Jongin oppa,” Jinri answers cheekily, appearing out of nowhere behind Sehun and grinning at both of them like a madwoman.

Jongin narrows his eyes at his dongsaeng, silently vowing revenge for all the pain in his throbbing head.

“What do you think you’re doing here, you ungrateful brat? When I get a hold of you, I’ll—” He breaks off, clutching his head in pain.

Soojung’s eyes widen in shock as she sees the young fisherman collapse to his knees. Rushing to his side, she tries to prop him into a sitting position. Sehun runs off, presumably to find a towel or something wet. Jinri simply heaves a sigh and pulls Soojung away from Jongin.

The older girl looks at her in confusion, but Jinri only shakes her head. “Ever since our parents died, he started drinking every day, Soojung eonni. When he’s drunk, he says things about his hyung and noona.”

Soojung tilts her head to the side. “You have older siblings? Do they not live here?”

“No, they don’t,” Jinri says quietly. “They live up there.” She points up to the sky, her eyes filling with tears.

The princess immediately regrets asking such a foolish question. “I’m sorry, Jinri-sshi. I shouldn’t have asked.”

An innocent smile appears on Jinri’s childish face. “It’s okay, Soojung eonni. My eonni’s name was Hyoyeon. Jongin oppa said she was going to become the village leader, you know. She was going to be the first fisherwoman to lead our village. I don’t even remember her face. I’m not sure, but I think it’s because I was born after she died. I don’t know my other oppa’s name, though. Jongin oppa never told me, and I don’t want to ask him.”

Suddenly, a yell comes from inside the hut. Soojung makes a start toward the small shack, worried for Jongin’s safety, but Jinri pulls her back once again. “He’s going to be throwing things around. You don’t want to be there when he does that, eonni. You’ll get hurt.”

Sehun comes rushing back, holding a bucket of water and a towel. “Where’s Jongin hyung?” His question is answered by the series of crashes from the inside of the hut. He winces, rubbing the back of neck. “Oh, did he start already? Well, I guess he’ll pass out pretty fast then.”

Soojung hangs her head, trying to hide her tears of shame from Sehun and Jinri. How could she not have known that there were people suffering like this outside the Palace? She clenches her fists, ignoring the pain as her nails dig into her palms. Her mother must have ordered something truly sinister for this village to be in such ruins. No other village she had ever seen was this poor, with so much sorrow and deprivation. Or maybe that was because she’d only seen the most prosperous of the villages, if they could even be called prosperous at all.

Noticing her change in mood, Sehun pokes her in the side with a finger. “Yah, noona, are you okay? Jongin hyung will be fine in a couple of hours, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He breaks out into a grin, an idea forming in his head. “Noona, what did Jongin hyung say when you went to talk to him yesterday?”

Soojung looks up, rather bewildered. “Nothing much, really. But why do you ask, Sehun-sshi?”

Sehun’s grin widens at her vague reply. “No reason, noona. No reason at all.”

Catching on to Sehun’s plan, Jinri rolls her eyes in annoyance and smacks him upside the head. “Yah, Sehun-ah, leave Soojung eonni alone. She’s really tired, can’t you see?”

Sehun sighs, his plans yet again thwarted by his hyung’s younger sister. He gently flicks Jinri’s forehead in retaliation for the smack to his head.

Watching her two dongsaengs, Soojung doesn’t realize that a small smile has crept its way onto her face. And when Jinri sees the princess’s face finally breaking into a genuine smile, she inwardly cheers in happiness.

|ethereal masquerade|

Sooyeon is confused. This kind of emotion is new to her, having always been the one who grasps situations the fastest. But now, the calm and collected Crown Princess really can’t make heads or tails out of this strange, tense situation. Joonmyun and Jongdae are at each other’s throats, glaring at each other as if they were wolves about to pounce. And Sooyeon is caught in the middle of all this.

Calling on the majority of her rapidly dwindling courage, she steps out from behind Joonmyun and looks at each of the men in turn. “What’s going on here?” she snaps, pretending to be annoyed as she suddenly notices Taeyeon standing somewhere in her peripheral vision. “Joonmyun. Just leave. I was in the middle of something before you just had to interrupt. Jongdae-sshi, I’m sorry for the disturbance. Let’s go, shall we?” She flashes the young nobleman an entirely falsified smile and links her arm with his.

It takes all of her strength to ignore the hurt expression on Joonmyun’s face and the way he reaches for her, but she turns herself away from him with a herculean effort and hides her unshed tears in the confines of her heart.

As she hastily pulls on her heels again, she uses her free hand to wipe away the trails of watery kohl that run down her fair visage. Standing up, Sooyeon offers Jongdae her gloved hand in an invitation to return to the ballroom and forget the interruption. But Jongdae doesn’t take her hand. Instead, he pulls a silk handkerchief out of the pocket of his suit and gently wipes her face clean of the conspicuous black smudges.

Surprised by the tender gesture, Sooyeon lifts her eyes to meet his, only to be met with a ban expression devoid of any emotion or sincerity. Suddenly, Jongdae pulls her close and bows his head to whisper in her ear, “The Queen’s watching, little Princess. I think you should play along for a while.”

Sooyeon’s fists clench and she feels her nails digging into her palms. Why did the Queen, even now, have the power to make or break her life as she wished? Why, even now, did she have to fight to receive any kind of genuine emotion from anyone?

Noticing Sooyeon’s tense position, Jongdae swiftly kicks her in the shin. The Crown Princess gives a start, rudely awakened from her reverie. “Don’t clench your fists like that,” Jongdae mutters, tapping her hands with a gloved finger. “It looks like I’m threatening you with a death penalty or something.”

Sooyeon pushes the young nobleman away irritably, narrowing her eyes at him. “When Queen Taeyeon’s watching, there’s always a death penalty involved, you know,” she hisses, turning her elaborately coiffed head from side to side in a futile attempt to find the devious Queen.

Suddenly, Sooyeon recalls the moment of secrecy between her mother and the young nobleman standing in front of her. Trying not to let anything on, she arranges her facial expression into a semblance of calmness and turns to Jongdae again. “Shall we dance, Jongdae-sshi?” she asks, curving her crimson lips into a fake smile.

Jongdae rolls his eyes in exasperation. “I told you, little Princess,” he gripes. “Don’t call me Jongdae-sshi. I feel so old. Just call me Chen-ah.”

Struck by a sudden bout of curiosity, Sooyeon asks, “Why do you call yourself that strange Chinese name? Are you Chinese?”

The elusive nobleman merely grins. “Come on, little Princess. Let’s dance.”

|ethereal masquerade|

Several hours later, Sooyeon is back in her room, washed clean of any trace of the rouge that coated her fair visage. As she lies down on her bed, she lazily traces the pattern of her coverlets with one finger, lost in her own thoughts. The royal façade is all gone now, and Sooyeon is now just Sooyeon, free in the confines of her lavish room to be herself.

Smiling to herself as she recalls her adventures with Jongdae, she begins to think about her lost childhood, and she suddenly realizes that Jongdae, however irritating he might be, seems like a remnant of what could have been an infantile innocence. Her heart races a bit as she remembers the way she twirled across the dance floor, almost weightlessly, and she rises from her bed, sashaying around her room blissfully. As she lets her long hair fall away from its elaborately pinned coiffure, she feels the ponderous burden of all her cares drop from her narrow shoulders.

But all good must come to its destined end. Her carefree mood is dashed to the ground by a series of sharp knocks on the door of her room. After tying up her hair again and making sure the Crown Princess has taken Sooyeon’s place, she opens the door, only to be greeted the face she longed to see and, at the same time, wished to never see again.

“Sooyeon-ah,” Joonmyun says quietly. “Can I come in?”

As she looks at him, it seems that he’s aged more than ten years in the two days that he’s been away in Busan. There are lines on his usually smooth, chiseled face, and it hurts her heart to see him in such a bad condition. Softening her steely gaze, Sooyeon steps aside from the entrance, making way for Joonmyun to enter her room.

Standing awkwardly in a corner of her room, Joonmyun watches the Princess silently as she flops down onto an elaborate sofa. “Come sit here, Joonmyun-ah,” Sooyeon calls out, patting the space on the sofa beside her.

The auburn-haired man pushes his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo and reluctantly seats himself as far as possible from Sooyeon on the rather spacious couch. “Princess…” he starts out, but trails off, hanging his head wordlessly. After a long period of silence, he lifts his head to look at her, and she’s shocked to see his eyes glassy with tears. “I’m sorry,” is all he says, before getting up and leaving her all alone.

For a moment, Sooyeon can only stare at the space that Joonmyun occupied a mere minute ago. After that, the sorrow hits her hard, like a tidal wave crashing through her soul and wiping all the remaining traces of happiness from Jongdae and the ball. The Crown Princess, a woman who must never shatter in the eyes of the Joseon people, feels the cracks in her composure widen until she breaks into pieces. The floodgates of her tears open up, and she simply curls into a ball and sobs for what seems to be an eternity.

As she dwells on her sadness, Sooyeon suddenly recalls one of the only happy moments of her miserable childhood, a memory of her spending some time stolen with Joonmyun in a far-away winter when they were both innocent and ignorant of the Empire’s bloodstains. She’d been inside the stuffy Palace, studying Roman and Greek history or some other subject that Joonmyun had deemed irrelevant to the idyllic white paradise outside the walls of the Palace. Sooyeon had longingly watched the landscape, marveling at how it could be so tantalizingly close, yet so depressingly far. After rescuing her from the endless prattling of her tutor with the excuse of an urgent meeting with Queen Taeyeon, Joonmyun had nicked some cakes from the royal kitchen and the two children snuck out into the snowy Palace grounds, passing the remainder of the day frolicking on the icy hills that surrounded the Joseon Empire’s stronghold. The two of them were eventually found and chastised severely for their escapade anyway, but Sooyeon still cherishes that precious memory.

After all, they were much closer then, before Soojung was born.

|ethereal masquerade|

Some time passes as Sooyeon dwells on her grief, but the room, which was previously only filled with the sound of her sobs, now makes space for he resonating booms of a person knocking on the door. Hastily wiping the tears away from her face, she stands up and makes her way yet again to the double doors of her room. But before she reaches the entrance to he chamber, the doors open and her younger sister steps into the room—rather cautiously, Sooyeon notes, after the initial shock wears off.

“Sooyeon eonni,” Soojung starts out timidly, then trails off, slightly at a loss for what to say.

“What do you want?” Sooyeon snaps, pretending to be annoyed by her sister’s appearance, even though she longs to envelop the younger girl in her embrace.

Soojung seems to muster up a lot of her courage before blurting out a hasty “Can I hide here for a while?”

Sooyeon stares at her younger sister, rather confused. “Hide? Why do you want to hide?” She pauses for a second, then asks, “What did you do this time? Is eomma angry at you?”

The younger girl merely ducks her head in embarrassment before replying. “I just left the Palace when I was supposed to be studying. But it’s okay, I guess, because eomma saw me come in but she didn’t say anything out of the ordinary. Maybe she thought I slept here. If she asks, can you tell her I slept here?”

Sooyeon rolls her eyes at Soojung’s mundane request, but her relief is short-lived. “Yah, eonni, have you seen Joonmyun oppa around?” Soojung asks, turning to face her sister.

The Crown Princess clenches her fists in ire, her eyes narrowing as she looks long and hard at her sister, trying to fathom any hidden hints of malice in her tone. Finding none, she grates out an affirmative from between gritted teeth and turns away from her sister, unwilling to show Soojung her tears.

Sensing the change in her sister’s demeanor, Soojung silently makes her way towards Sooyeon and sits on the sofa next to her. Resting her head on her sister’s shoulder, she wraps her arms around the older girl, even though Sooyeon stiffens at the sudden affection from her almost estranged sibling.

But, as both of them know so well, sweet times can only last for so long. As the sisters rest in mutual comfort, the door to the room slams open and Joonmyun rushes in, an irate expression on his usually calm visage. He grabs Soojung’s arm and drags her off the sofa.

Soojung indignantly shakes herself free of Joonmyun’s grip. “What do you want now, Joonmyun oppa?” she snaps, rubbing her wrist vigorously.

“You idiot,” he snarls, his fists clenched at his sides.  “Why did you stay at Busan? Why didn’t you come back here? Are you out of your mind? Do you even know what those rebels would have done to you if you hadn’t been with the village leader’s sister the whole time? They would have killed you! You would be dead now. And yet you still have nerve to have the village leader tied up in some hut?”

Sooyeon looks from Joonmyun to Soojung in utter confusion. “What on earth is going on here? When did you go to Busan? Is that why you weren’t here yesterday?”

Soojung’s face reddens in embarrassment. “Since when does it concern you where I go? You don’t ever care, so why do you even bother asking now?”

The young girl turns on her heel and storms toward the door, yanking it open with vehement force. She doesn’t make it out the door.

Queen Taeyeon is standing in front of her, watching her daughter with a sort of malicious glee on her powdered face. “So, dear little Soojung-ah, what’s this I hear about you going to...Busan?”

A/N: omgomgomg sorry mianhae désolée im sorry for not updating for so long *cries* here’s a chappie for all  my subbies <3 my excuse (legitimate excuse, mind you) is schoolwork. Lots of schoolwork. Cya @ the next chappie!