Slightly trembling, Yewon continued reading the journal. She read about Soonyoung’s escapades with women she didn’t care about, in gross detail that she didn’t need to know. She just kept holding on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, Mingyu’s story would appear.

It didn’t appear.

She held the diary close to her chest, gulped and let her thoughts settle and draws conclusions from what she read.

The facts were that Soonyoung explicitly asked her to read the diary, and explicitly asked her to read Mingyu’s part. There was no Mingyu, but there was that one story that resembled Mingyu’s to an alarming degree.

Soonyoung did find someone covered in blood in the hallways the night of Jeonghan’s murder. And Soonyoung did drag this person into his room. But that person was not Mingyu. It was never Mingyu; it was Haein. Soonyoung wanted her to know that.

It all suddenly clicked. Soonyoung’s strange story about Mingyu suddenly made sense; Soonyoung was never interested in men, and he didn’t just disregard the blood when he saw it. The fact that it was a woman that was covered in blood gave him a very convincing pretense.

Soonyoung had assumed that it was Haein’s own menstrual blood. But it wasn’t Haein’s blood, was it? It was Jeonghan’s. Soonyoung had just been under the mistaken impression that it was hers, which is why he ignored it.

The whole image was terrifying, and Yewon began to tremble as she considered it. She couldn’t even reason her way through the mess of her thoughts because she was so petrified by them.

She drew back slightly and fell into this state of denial. No, no. Maybe it was Haein’s blood. Maybe Yewon was reading this wrong and coming to erroneous conclusions. It didn’t make sense for Haein to have killed Jeonghan; that fact simply did not align with everything else that Yewon knew about her.

The denial calmed her down a little. She made herself believe that this was all a mistaken impression, and that the resemblance between Haein’s story (that Soonyoung had written) and Mingyu’s story (that Soonyoung had told her) was just a crazy coincidence. Blood was probably just a kink of Soonyoung’s that just so happened to be common between Mingyu and Haein.

But the more that she sat on this new information, the harder it was for her to maintain that this was all a coincidence. It couldn’t be a coincidence; this was what it was: Haein was the killer.

For the first time in a very long time, Yewon felt so alone. Someone that Yewon had trusted and loved for so long turned out to be like this, and it took such a toll on her.

Was there no one who was genuine around her? Was there no one she could trust?

It was a sleepless night of jumbled thoughts as she processed and came to terms with what she had found out. She had so many questions and so much she wished to understand. Why did Haein do it? What was Mingyu’s role in this? And why did Soonyoung lie to protect her?

But the one question that troubled her most of all was: what was she supposed to do with this new information?

The one thing that she knew she couldn’t do was face Haein directly. The thought of that woman now sent shivers down Yewon’s spine: a woman who had the heart to kill Jeonghan in that brutal way, so much so that she was covered in blood. A woman who was able to seduce another man and sleep with him not long after committing that murder. A woman who was able to fool Yewon for as long as she knew her.

Yewon had always known that Haein was far too intelligent to be just a maid. Haein also had too many political convictions to be a maid. Haein was with the resistance against the war, like Wonwoo… and also like Mingyu.

The three were connected in some hazy association that was unclear to Yewon. For now she wanted to avoid them, both Haein and Wonwoo.

Morning had come, and Yewon knew that Haein would walk through the door any second now to bathe and dress her for breakfast. Just the thought of seeing Haein made Yewon feel terrified.

Quickly, she hid the diary and slipped out of the room.

She dashed through the halls, eyes on the ground, dreading running into anyone. She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, because she was suddenly afraid of everyone and anyone. Everyone she ran into in the hallways had the potential to kill. Everyone was not what they seemed. Everyone wore deceitful masks that showed only what they wanted people to see. Yewon felt like she trusted no one but herself.

Aimlessly, she trailed through the halls, searching for somewhere she could hide from everyone. But there was no private space whatsoever. There were guards at every post, watching her. There was no where she could disappear.

She ended up trudging into the library, searching for a space among the shelves where it would be hard to find her.

In hindsight, going to the library might not have been the best place, because, of course, the first person to find her was Wonwoo, and Wonwoo was one of the last people she trusted at the moment.

“Yewon, you’re here!” Wonwoo said happily when he saw her. “What are you doing here so early?”

“May I please have time alone?” she managed to say, eyes fixated on the floor. “Please?”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, voice laced with concern.

“Please, Wonwoo,” she muttered under her breath. “I want to be alone.”

And so Wonwoo left her alone. An hour passed in which she just sat in a corner, knees held against her chest, eyes staring aimlessly. She was still and quiet but her mind and heart were raging.

 Wonwoo came back eventually, peering at her.

“You’re going to let me know what’s going on right now,” he insisted, taking a seat on the floor beside her. “What’s wrong, Yewon?”

Yewon shook her head, indicating that she didn’t want to talk to him. She wished he would leave her alone, but he was so stubborn and stuck by her side like a leech, insisting that he needed to know what was wrong with her. Yewon just ignored him and hoped he would go away.

He got tired of the silent treatment, and announced he was going to get Haein to try and talk to her.

“No!” Yewon yelled immediately when he said that, suddenly feeling terrified. The strong reaction startled Wonwoo, who narrowed his eyes at her.

“Haein… you’re avoiding her, right?” he noticed. “That’s why you’re hiding in the library and still in your sleepwear.”

“Don’t call her,” she stammered, her eyes pleading. “Please.”

“Did you get in a fight?” he asked. She didn’t reply. “Did you find out something?” he drawled– slowly, carefully. The way he asked it sent chills down her spine; he knew. Yewon was so sure that he knew.

Yewon felt like she was going to burst being in his presence. If he had something to do with it, then she didn’t want to be with him right now. She wanted to stand up and run away, but she knew he would follow her. She felt trapped. She buried her face in her knees, and held them closer to her chest to keep herself from quivering.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking right now,” Wonwoo said peacefully, “but I’m going to tell you something about Haein. Did she ever tell you about her family? She had four brothers, and two of them died very recently. One of them died from exhaustion on his way to war; the other was so scared on his way to battle, he decided to run away. He was caught and killed for cowardice by a very important Solenese war general– Jeonghan. Haein was so devastated by what happened, she vowed to do everything in her power to end the stupid war, and that included becoming your maid and protecting you from all harm. And she’s doing such a wonderful job protecting you, Yewon. She has demoted herself for you. She’s going to abort the fetus in her belly for you. She has barely been sleeping in her search for the antidote. Everything she has ever done, she did it thinking of you.”

Wonwoo’s voice was calming, and his words only slightly reassuring. Yewon was reminded instantly of the care and the love that Haein had shown her; there was no way that it was fake. No way at all.

It still didn’t change the fact that Haein was a murderer, and Wonwoo seemed very much aware of it.

She finally faced him, gaining the confidence to confront him: “so you know?”

“I know a lot of things, but I’m not sure what you know,” Wonwoo said carefully.

“So is there more than what I know?” Yewon replied, slightly terrified.

“Everyone has secrets, Yewon.”

“But very few people can say they’ve murdered someone!” Yewon blurted without really thinking.

At that, Wonwoo let out a sigh. “So you do know…”

Yewon bit her lower lip and buried her face in her knees again.

“May I ask how you found out?” Wonwoo said softly.

“That’s not important,” Yewon muttered. “How did you find out?”

“She told me,” Wonwoo admitted.

“And you supported her?!”

“Of course not,” Wonwoo replied.

“But you kept it a secret!”

“Well, I wasn’t going to rat her out and let her get executed. She’s my friend, Yewon. And she’s yours too.”

Yewon shook her head. “No.”

“What are you planning? Are you really going to report her? Even Soonyoung didn’t do that!”

“I… I don’t…”

“It’s in the past, Yewon. Let it stay buried,” Wonwoo implored. “Bringing something like this to light will only bring pain to everyone involved. And she already got punished for what she did. Remember Mingyu? They were engaged. When you were held suspect, Haein was prepared to admit to the crime to clear your name, but he stepped forward instead. She’s been suffering with it ever since.”

Yewon fell silent. So that was the connection that Mingyu had with Haein. That was why Mingyu turned himself in. That’s why he was looking at her when he came forward and confessed to the crime.

“It’s easy to look at this case and make moral judgements about her and call her out for her actions, but life is not like it is in the novels. Good guys and bad guys, they don’t exist in black and white. Haein is no exception. Everyone has motives behind their actions, and Haein had her own too. She was motivated by a lot of things, and they drove her to do it. She was motivated by her politics and her drive to end the war; she was motivated by her desire to avenge her brother who Jeonghan had wrongfully shot; she was motivated by her love for you, because she knew that Jeonghan was making you so unhappy in your marriage. She hated that man with a passion, and so she decided to kill him. In the end, she paid an enormous price for that crime.”

The picture was starting to become clearer. As she digested all of this new information, she felt Wonwoo’s thumb caress the tears from her cheek; it was only then that she realized that she had been crying. She was a little relieved to be crying, because it meant the shock and confusion had finally worn off and what was left was a feeling of disappointment and betrayal, the feeling of losing a trusted friend.

Wonwoo stayed by her side as she silently cried, until finally a guard came to the library in search of her.

“Your highnesses,” the guard said, bowing to both Wonwoo and Yewon. “Prince Seungcheol is asking for Princess Yewon at breakfast.”

“Tell everyone that the Princess is feeling unwell and will be missing the meals today. Ask the kitchen staff to bring food to her room,” Wonwoo told him, and the guard accepted that and retreated with a bow.

When the guard was gone and out sight, Wonwoo turned to her and said: “Please, keep it buried, Yewon. It’s better for everyone if it stays in the past.” When Yewon didn’t react to this, he said: “please at least give me some reassurance that you won’t tell anyone…”

“I won’t,” she muttered, and he accepted that with a nod.

-

When she arrived back at her room, she made sure to tell the guards that no one was allowed to come inside to disturb her– no one at all, especially Haein. Still, even as she made it clear to them, she found that she didn’t trust the guards. Suddenly, she was wary of everyone around her.

When Seungcheol came to her a few hours later, she realized she was right to not trust the guards to heed her very clear instructions not to let anyone in. She was aware that they probably couldn’t have stopped Seungcheol if he insisted, but Yewon still let it feed into her sudden distrust of everyone but herself.

“Your highness,” Seungcheol came in and bowed to her.

She didn’t trust anyone. Even Seungcheol.

“I heard that you were feeling unwell,” Seungcheol said softly, trailing closer to where she was sitting.

She couldn’t bear to lift her head and catch his eye.

He took a seat beside her, waiting for her to say something. But she remained silent, in no mood to speak to him.

Love was such a stupid thing to feel, thought Yewon, grudging the warmth she felt knowing he was by her side right now. How silly was it to trust and care about someone so unconditionally like that? How silly was it to care about someone else so deeply, when in the end that person could end up being a killer?

For all she knew, Seungcheol also had secrets– dark secrets. He was a cold man with a cold heart after all; he had probably murdered some people too.

But as much as she tried to tell herself this, as much as she tried to tell herself to distrust him, somehow she couldn’t even begin to doubt him. She loved him, and it was stupid, because people were cruel and didn’t deserve to be loved.

How did she become so cynical? Had Haein’s incident really affected her so much that the entire world suddenly became a darker place because of it?

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” he asked softly. “Why aren’t you looking at me?”

“I want to be alone,” she managed to say.

Seungcheol took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “You’ve been crying,” he noticed. “And you’re not sick.”

She pulled her chin away from his grip. “Leave me alone.”

“I won’t leave you alone until you tell me what’s wrong,” he insisted.

“It’s none of your business,” she snapped. “Just leave; I said I want to be by myself now.”

Seungcheol frowned at her. “No, your highness. If something is bothering or hurting you, then we need to deal with it–"

“You’re bothering me,” she blurted.

He was silenced by that. She noticed that he scooted a little farther away from her, and Yewon began to feel bad for snapping at him like that.

“I understand that sometimes, people don’t like to talk about why they’re hurting,” Seungcheol told her. “It’s hard to open up and lay yourself bare in front of someone else, but you’d be surprised at how understanding people can be, especially if they love you. If they love you, then you have nothing to fear from them. I wish I had opened up to Jeonghan when he was alive. I wish I told him I loved him, and I wish we talked about Solbin. I don’t want to make the same mistakes, and so I’m desperately trying hard to learn from them. Now, you’re in pain. I don’t know why, but I don’t want you to hold it in. I wish you could talk to me the way you can talk to Wonwoo…”

Yewon finally lifted her head to look at him, feeling remorseful for how she acted, feeling remorseful that she made him compare himself to Wonwoo again. She remembered that it was Wonwoo who sent out the message that she was ill and would not attend the meals, that it was Wonwoo who knew what was wrong with her, but here Seungcheol was, completely oblivious to what was wrong with her.

She didn’t want to make him feel like that. She wanted him to know that she trusted him, and so much more than she trusted Wonwoo.

And for a moment, she considered telling him.

But then it hit her that this secret involved Jeonghan.

A few months ago, Seokmin’s letter revealed the truth about Solbin’s murder. Yewon remembered the he told her that it felt like old wounds were reopened. She imagined that with Jeonghan, it would feel the same way. If she opened up to Seungcheol now about this, he would have to bear the pain of losing Jeonghan again, and relive the mourning. And she didn’t want that.

Wonwoo was right. It was better to keep the past buried in the past. To unearth it now would only cause him unnecessary pain.

“I’m upset because I’ve lost Haein,” Yewon told him. It was a half-truth, but it was all Seungcheol needed to know. “She’s going to resign.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol said. “I see. Because of her baby, right?”

Yewon didn’t answer, because she couldn’t find it in herself to lie to him and say yes. Seungcheol still took her silence as agreement, and nodded. “I’m sorry this had to happen.”

“I’ve come to terms with it,” Yewon managed. “I’m sorry that I snapped at you earlier,” she apologized.

“You are forgiven, your highness,” he said with a slight bow of his head.

She found herself inching closer to him and nestling against his arm. He was receptive of her cuddles, and adjusted by putting his arm around her as she laid her head in his chest.

One part of her was telling her that she was stupid to trust and love him; she was naïve to think that Seungcheol was not like everyone else, to think he was incapable the same moral transgressions that Haein, Seokmin and Jihoon had all been capable of.

The other part of her was just happy to be in his arms.

-

She had to confront Haein, and she chose to do that the following day.

Haein had come to her that morning like she usually did, as if to bathe and dress her, but both of them knew that it would be very different between them now.

Seeing Haein again after everything that Yewon had learned was like being slapped across the face. There Haein was, with a face that Yewon had always associated with comfort and amity, approaching her for the first time after Yewon had learned that she was capable of murder. Yewon felt her blood run cold and the cynicism come back to her; people were so deceptive.

Haein was evidently aware that Yewon had found out, probably from Wonwoo. Yewon could tell from the way Haein’s eyes were on the floor as she approached her; she was ashamed, but she didn’t seem nervous.

“Your highness,” Haein bowed to Yewon, holding the bowing position for a while longer than usual.

Yewon found that although she knew what Haein was capable of, she was not afraid of Haein at all. In some crazy, twisted way, Yewon still somehow cared about her, and still trusted her. And more than ever before, Yewon wanted to talk to her, try to understand her, try to look past the heinous crime and just be normal with her again.

“I want you to resign,” Yewon cut straight to the chase.

Haein seemed to have expected as much. “This is actually very merciful of you, your highness. Thank you.”

“I don’t want to see you ever again,” Yewon told her, but her voice faltered and it was obvious that Yewon was about to burst into tears. I don’t want to see you ever again; it was so difficult to say.

Haein bit her lower lip and nodded. “If I may,” she began, “can I just say something?”

Yewon wanted to hear what Haein had to say: she wanted Haein to present her case, and wanted Haein to redeem herself. Maybe Haein would a present a side of the story that made what she did forgivable; maybe she was coerced? Maybe she even deeply repented? Yewon hoped for something like that from Haein, and so she gave Haein the chance to tell her side of the story.

“I don’t regret what I did,” Haein told her. “Jeonghan was an evil man with an evil agenda that would have led to the loss of a lot more men like my brother.”

“Jeonghan waged war as retribution for the death and suffering of his family. You murdered him as retribution for the death of your brother. You are no different from him…”

Haein shook her head that, “no, your highness. Revenge was not what motivated me. Before Jeonghan died, I would wake up every day feeling guilty because I live in the palace and had the chance to kill him but wasn’t doing it. I felt like by letting him live, I was letting hundreds of other people die, and thousands more suffer. Now, I’m proud that I had the power and the conviction to do it, because I truly believe that eliminating him was the right thing to do. My only regret is the price of taking his life was losing Mingyu’s when it should have been my own.”

Yewon was baffled by how easy it was for Haein to make her actions seem so logical, like killing was the right thing to do. She hated herself for being convinced that it was okay for a small moment. But no, it was not the right thing to do, she told herself

“You’re wrong,” Yewon replied. “You think you saved lives by killing him, but you didn’t. His death also led to suffering. His death led to the battle, which led to death and suffering on a mass level. You can never predict the outcome of your actions, so no one should ever play God and mess around with other people’s lives.”

In reaction to that, Haein actually smiled. It scared Yewon a little bit, because this was far from the appropriate time to smile.

“Your highness, you’re a very beautiful person inside, but the way you think varies fundamentally from my own,” Haein told her. “I don’t think we’ll agree, but I hope you at least understand me better.”

Yewon did understand Haein’s position, but she still couldn’t accept it or change her judgement about it.

“Before I leave you for good, may I ask how you figured out that it was me?” Haein asked.

Yewon went with the truth: “Soonyoung kept a record of his… adventures. You were one of them.”

“I see,” Haein immediately understood, and her head was lowered in shame. She seemed more ashamed of her “adventure” with Soonyoung than she seemed of her murder of Jeonghan. “The blood gave it away, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” Yewon mumbled; the conversation was starting to make her uncomfortable, because the whole setup was gross made her insides churn.

“If you read it from his point of view, I probably appear like such a . I didn’t want to do anything with him, your highness,” Haein said defensively, “I seduced and distracted him because he caught me in the middle of the hallway as I was trying to strip out of the bloody clothes. He assumed it was menstrual blood, so I just went along with it, because it was better than him supposing it was someone else’s. I made sure he didn’t suspect anything, and that entailed sleeping with him. Soonyoung is stupid and easily fooled, and so he never caught on to the truth until much later.”

Yewon was able to put two and two together from that. Soonyoung found out that it was Haein when he read Seokmin’s letter. She remembered when she watched Soonyoung read it, how his expression changed at a particular part, how he began to tremble. And Soonyoung tore the part that exposed her out of the letter.

 I don’t understand,” Yewon thought out loud as she heard this, “why did Soonyoung lie to protect you when he found out? Why didn’t he report you? Why did he tell me that it was Mingyu he slept with?”

Haein answered that question by putting her hand on her belly, and suddenly it made sense.

“I knew Soonyoung valued human life,” Haein explained to her. “And so when he called me out for the crime, I took advantage of that. All I had to do was tell him I was pregnant for him to choose not to report me, because he didn’t want to cause the death of the fetus, especially if it was his own. He knew that reporting me would mean I would be hanged, which would mean the baby would die with me. He chose to protect me and my secret to protect the baby.”

I could never end a life, even if ending a life would be the right thing to do, Soonyoung’s words replayed vividly in her mind.

And it was then that it all clicked for her: why Soonyoung gave her Seokmin’s page; why Soonyoung asked her to read the diary – this was all evidence against Haein, evidence that she could use however was she wanted. But Yewon understood the message that Soonyoung was sending her with all of this: Soonyoung wanted her to protect the baby.

She remembered the last extended conversation she had with him, where she accidentally spilled that Haein was planning to get rid of it, and he got so angry at that. She figured that sparked something in him and made him decide to tell her.

It felt as if Soonyoung had been carrying a heavy, burdensome load that he suddenly transferred to Yewon. Yewon was now the one who had to decide what to do with all of the information she now had, and she was not sure what the right answer was.

“Are you still going to kill it?” Yewon asked, eyes on Haein’s protruding belly.

“Yes,” Haein answered, “This pregnancy is a product of intimacy with a man that is not Mingyu. If this baby lives, I will be reminded of that every single day of my life. I don’t want that.”

“That baby is also the reason you’re alive right now,” she reminded her, in an attempt to honor Soonyoung’s wish to protect it.

Haein only nodded in agreement, but didn’t make any further comment about it. Instead, she said: “I’m not a villain, your highness. I hope you know that.”

Yewon did know that. She had learned that there was no one in the world who was a villain by any absolute standard. In novels, the good and the bad guys had always been so discernable, so obvious, but Yewon had increasingly started to become aware that the world is not so black and white. People are capable of doing evil things, but their evil is rationalized and warped so that they don’t perceive it as such. To Haein, killing Jeonghan was a noble deed. To Jeonghan, waging violent war against a reprehensible enemy was the virtuous thing to do. To Jihoon, hampering the Solenese royal bloodline was for the greater good. To Seokmin, taking part in the slaughter of Solbin and her family was his duty. All of them have done evil things, but Yewon had seen the good in every single one of them.

It was with a heavy heart that Yewon turned Haein away for the last time, aware that she would probably never see her again. As Haein made her final bow and retreated, Yewon felt like she had lost a very valuable friend.

A/N: I hope this chapter clarified things! Ask if there’s anything you’re confused about, I know there’s been information overload in this chapter haha ^^”