**half the chapter is in Seolhwa’s POV and then Chanyeol’s respectively.

Part 2 : Yoo Seolhwa, Park Chanyeol

It’s the first day and I do nothing but sit in my room.

I should be doing something. Thinking of something. Looking for a way to escape. Trying to learn more about King Chanyeol so I maybe have a better chance to live. Bargaining for more than thirty days.  

But instead, all I do is sit in my room and stare idly out the window, at the palace gardens and at the palace walls and then beyond, where I should be but am not. All because of a foolish decision.

On the other hand, if King Chanyeol isn’t lying, at least my mother had gotten actual palace physicians looking at her. I had some experience with herbs and medicine, but it definitely isn’t a sufficient amount.

But what would happen after the thirty days were up? If he kills me, what about my family? My  mother? My sister? Do they get punished with me?  

There’s nothing I can do. I can name almost every herb that I’ve seen, I know how to use them, I know where they grow — but there is nothing that can heal whatever condition the king has. Is it even a disease? It seems more like a curse. There’s no other explanation I can think of, and I think there is no other explanation.

The sun is already halfway in the sky. I’ve done virtually nothing except visit the king in the morning, but that was a while ago. The servant from the morning hasn’t come back.

Another hour or so passes when I finally try the door. I don’t know what I’m expecting because it was locked the last time I tried, but for some reason, I turn on the handle again.

To my surprise, it swings open easily.

The moment I take a step out of the room, the white dress swishing around my feet, someone bows in front of me.

I nearly jump back. It’s the same servant from the morning, dressed in the same robes all the servants have. Her eyes are lowered to the ground respectfully, though I still remember her words from the morning. Park Chanyeol. He has a name too.

“Hello,” I greet cautiously. Was the door supposed to be locked, or did they purposely unlock it? “Uh… am I allowed to go down into the garden? They have a lot of herbs there and I kind of want to see it…” I also really want to see it properly without being afraid of being caught or being chased or worrying about my life. That’d be nice.

“Yes. Do you want me to lead you to the gardens?”

Good idea, I think. I probably can’t even get out of this hallway without being lost.

I nod at her, and she turns to the right wordlessly and I follow her.

It’s a relatively quiet walk for the first bit, but then the silence begins to get pressing. The unfamiliar hallways, the twists and turns that I can’t quite get used to, the long walks up and down staircases. How does she even remember everything?

And then the silence becomes unbearable and I turn to look at her even though she doesn’t return my gaze. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t think that’s very important, Miss.”

I shrug. “That doesn’t matter.”

She heaves a slight sigh, looking as if the last thing she wants to do is talk to me. “Go Eun.”

“I’m Seolhwa.” Maybe it’s because she’s the only one in the palace that I’ve seen that is around my age and actually seems to be friendly (or as friendly as someone living in the palace can get). “Yoo Seolhwa.”

I stretch out my hand for her to shake, though she stares at it for a moment and then turns away. Trying not to feel dejected, I hurry my steps to catch up with her. “How far are the gardens?”

“Not far.”

I also try to not let her short, quick responses discourage me, though admittedly, it’s getting a lot harder than before. She walks faster every time I catch up with her steps, so I can never really see her expression properly. When we turn into a larger hallway (this one more familiar than the last) and then go into the garden, the daylight is almost blinding.

It also reminds me of the king, even though daylight, in a way, is the exact opposite of the king.

The sun is bright in the sky, and it’s a lot different looking at it from outside, under it, than it is when I’m peering at it through the window. The garden, too, looks different under the sunlight. It doesn’t feel so wrong standing here, like it did last night when I fumbled for the echinacea flowers in the dark. With the warm sunlight, the colors of the flowers are more vibrant than they were at nighttime, the whole garden a mist of rainbow colors. And after being shut in the palace for such a long time, it really is beautiful.

“I’ll be going now,” Go Eun says to me. “I’ll be back to you back to your room later, but I have errands to run.”

She’s off before I can even bid her goodbye.

It stings slightly, but a couple moments later, I’m wandering idly through the garden and Go Eun and her attitude has been pushed to the back of my head. There’s a cool breeze blowing through, sending the flowers swaying and leaves on the trees rustling.

For a long part of the afternoon, I wander around the garden. There’s so many flowers that I recognize (some that I don’t, too) — rare ones that I’ve almost never come across that would’ve been so benefitting if I had them, common ones that I could pick off the side of streets, flowers that I didn’t even know existed. It’s as if the palace gardens have everything. There are fruit trees, some that extend higher than any tree I've seen, and others that are around my height.

I pass the area where I was in yesterday. The pink of the echinacea wave in the wind, and I stare at it. A day ago, I risked my life to get the flowers. And now? I can pick anything I want in this garden, technically speaking.

I don’t even notice the shadow standing near the set of palace doors, behind the large pillars, until he calls my name. Even then, I’m completely lost until he steps out from behind the white marble, still hidden in the shadows.

The moment I see King Chanyeol’s face, I draw a blank.

He doesn’t have the mask on anymore, and his robes aren’t as fancy as they were in the morning (while I'm still wearing the same thing Go Eun dressed me in). It makes him look simpler, less like a king and more like a normal person his age. If it had passed him on the street, I never would’ve guessed who he was.

“Your Majesty,” I remember, dropping into a hasty, messy bow.

His dark eyes are unreadable. “Stand up. What are you looking for in the garden?”

He doesn’t… sound like a king. The way he dismisses it with stand up, the casual way he’s standing there… it just doesn’t scream authority or power like I would expect. I expected a ruthless ruler who'd pick out any sort of disrespect (which I'm sure I've shown lots). This... was nothing like I'd imagined.

Still, it doesn’t make him any less of a threat. I’m not sure what to say, and it’s at that moment when I realize that he’s standing at the very edge of the shadows the palace offers.

I didn’t notice it before, but now I do. I’m standing in front of him, a couple of feet away from where the sunlight meets shadow, but still under the sun. On the other hand, the king stands in the shadows, almost touching the sunlight, but not quite. If he takes another step forward, he'll be under the sunlight. Likewise, one step will bring me into the shadows.

“So?” His voice interrupts my thoughts. “What were you looking for?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“They told me your mother’s condition was getting better,” he says suddenly, and my head snaps upwards.  “The palace physicians, that is.”

I don’t know what to say except to thank him. I do it in a small voice, head lowered to the ground, staring at the split of sunlight and shadow.

“Yoo Seolhwa,” he says, and I look up yet again. It’s odd hearing my name. “They say your present life is determined how your past life was. What do you think your past life was like?”

I freeze. It's such a random question in my opinion. “My… past life? Mine?”

“Yours.”

I search the king’s face for a hint of something — anything — but I can’t find it. His expression is masked, like usual, and I have no idea how I’m supposed to answer his question. My past life — I have absolutely no idea. Not that I haven’t heard of the myth — I’ve heard of it lots, and almost everyone believes it. Does he, too?

“My past life,” I repeat. “I…”

He tilts his head.

“I’m not sure,” I blurt, and it sounds like it’s the only thing I’ve been saying to him and I hope he doesn’t take offense. “I really don’t know. But I don’t think my past life determines everything. Maybe it gives you your circumstances — the family you’re born in, how wealthy you are, your social status. But in the end, you can determine your fate yourself, can’t you?”

King Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrow. “Fate is predetermined.”

“Or is fate even a thing?”

“I think it is. But even if it isn’t, isn’t it a better explanation for all the unfair things that happen? What was it that made me a king and you a commoner? Would it be fairer to say that it was just coincidence, or would it be fairer to say it was fate?”

“I don’t think either of them sound fair,” I say, before it hits me that it’s the king I’m talking to.

Was that an argument? I hoped to God it wasn’t. I didn’t want to get onto his bad side, but the way things were going, it was probably better for me not to speak to him at all. Every time I opened my mouth it felt like I was digging my own hole deeper.

I’m too scared to look at his face directly, so I sneak a glance up at his expression. He doesn’t look angry, but then again, I can never tell with him.

“I’ll go now,” I stammer, turning away and nearly tripping over my feet before I remember to hastily bow. And then I’m walking as fast as I can away from him, thankful that he can’t follow me into the sunlight.

***

Go Eun is nowhere to be seen when I find my way back to where I came out, but I hurry inside the palace anyways and hope that she’s somewhere in the area.

She’s not there, and I end up wandering around, lost and unwillingly to ask someone for instructions. The palace is huge, and I wonder how the servants find their way around it because it’s literally a maze. Each hallway, though they have different paintings and decorations, seem like the same to me. I don’t even know what floor I’m on when I finally acknowledge that I’m hopelessly lost.

“What are you doing here?” someone asks, and I jump.

I’m about to apologize when I meet the cold eyes of the king’s advisor, the same one who’d accused me of being a threat the day before. I stiffen. What is he doing here? The palace was so huge, and I managed to crash into him? Out of everyone in the palace, he was the last person I wanted to see. The guards who’d caught me would’ve been better company.

“Yoo Seolhwa,” he says, and it sounds nothing like how King Chanyeol says it. His eyes are narrowed in my direction, the hint of a threat in his voice, and obvious, open distaste in his expression now that the king isn’t here for him to kiss up to. The more I look at him, the more sick I feel. Maybe I’m in no place to think this way because it’s not as if the king is on my side either, but this man… he doesn’t seem right. Ingenuine. He’s saying something, but his meaning is different, twisted so it benefits him.

Or maybe I’m just looking too deeply into it. Years of stealing and lying to people on the streets have made me oversensitive to people.

“Sir,” I grit out.

“You can play dumb in front of the king, but you’re not fooling anyone,” he hisses, and I take a small step back in surprise. I didn’t expect him to be this aggressive straight up. “You’re not going to accomplish anything here. No one, not even the king, believes your little story of being able to cure him. He’s just playing with you. He’ll get rid of you when he’s sick of it. How long do you think a commoner like you can stay in the same place as royalty?”

I’m the one feeling sick right now. The advisor’s — Jinhwan —  eyes are dark, lips pulling into an unfriendly sneer. What’s worse, I don’t even know what to reply with. He’s painting the king in such an unflattering light, but do I call him out on it? Two faced, I think. To praise the king the way he did in front of him and then to speak of him so informally and badly.

“Thank you for telling me.” He sputters in protest, and I think that I’m making a big, big mistake when I stare straight into his eyes. “I’ll keep your warning in mind, but I don’t think His Majesty is the one I should watch out for.”  

He doesn’t get another word out when I turn on my heel and march away as quickly as I can. I turn down the most random of hallways that I find until I’m sure that I’ve lost him, and even after that, walk blindly.

It doesn’t help when I still wonder if the king is the same as Jinhwan says, but I leave it for another day to figure out. After all, I only have twenty nine after today, don’t I?

***

“How was your first day?”

Is he asking it out of courtesy, mocking, or simply asking it as something to start a conversation?

It’s not nearly as nerve wracking to face the king now, and I can breathe properly when I’m looking at him, though I’m still nervous. If I put aside the fact that he might very well kill me after thirty days, I can pretend like I’m having a very, very careful conversation with someone.

“It was…” I trail off. “I… got lost a lot.”

He laughs.

Actually laughs. And it’s odd. He’s laughing at what I said, but it’s soft, quiet, a reminiscent of someone who used to laugh more. “I assigned Go Eun to you, didn’t I? Does she not do her job?”

Why does he sound so casual when he’s talking to me? Almost as if he’s not a king and I’m not someone below him. “I left without her. It wasn’t her fault.”

He hums in reply, and that’s the end of our conversations for the morning.

***

For the next five days, I bump into King Chanyeol in different places. One in the archives, where I’m bored. I flip through the books, and though I can’t read, there are pictures painted and I look through them. The king is there too, and he hands me a couple of books and asks me how my process is. I fib about it and he doesn't pry either.

He’s sitting in the shadows that the palace offers very often, and he’s there whenever I go into the garden. Sometimes he talks. Other times he’s so silent I forget he’s there.

There’s other times when I see him around the palace but he doesn’t speak to me. Sometimes he has his mask on, extravagant, priceless robes that look like they’re worth more than everything I have at home. Other times he’s wearing something simple, one color, mask off.

The more I see him around, the more I wonder. People say he’s a cruel king, a bad king, one that should be feared. He doesn’t look like any of those, and though I don’t know him well, it just… doesn't match. Maybe it’s the way his hands linger on the windowsill as he stares outside the window. Right next to his fingers the sunlight pours in, mere centimeters away, but never touching. I don’t think he knows I’m there that time he stares wistfully outside, and the expression on his face doesn’t leave me for a very, very long time.

Because he doesn’t look cruel, bad or someone to be feared. He just looks lonely.

I wouldn’t know, though. The next day I ask Go Eun more about King Chanyeol and she just shrugs it off and tells me to focus on what’s my place to focus on, and I suppose wondering about the king really isn’t my place, and she’s right on that aspect.

***

I keep count of the days carefully. It goes from twenty nine to twenty to twenty five, and my days at the palace remain uneventful. It’s a redundant pattern of the same thing — wandering around alone, sometimes speaking to the king. I don’t know what to think of him anymore. There’s not the same, gripping fear and the urge to run away whenever I talk to him, but I can’t help but feel wary. His advisor’s words echo through my head no matter how hard I try to disregard them (and I should disregard them, because it’s a blatant lie and an attempt to scare me no matter how I look at it), I can’t. Because even though I’ve seen how the king acts normally and in no way does it fit all the rumours about him, there’s still the fact that he will most likely kill me in thirty days.

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