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Kyungsoo didn’t come for Jandi after the District Seven results as he’d promised.

He didn’t come for her at all, actually. She’d stayed with the other women for nearly half an hour, waiting to congratulate her husband, only to have a servant come with her coat and accompany her back to an empty car instead.

Jandi climbed into the car silently, but her mind was in utter chaos. Why did he leave me alone here? Won’t it look terrible to the media that he throws me aside as soon as he wins the primaries? Her vision blurred through angry tears she refused to shed.

It just wasn’t like Kyungsoo to behave like this. He wouldn’t leave her here when he’d promised to find her after the results were announced. Had something happened to him? Images of Kyungsoo being dragged off by shadowy figures, shot through the chest like he’d almost been at the pseudo-assassination, flashed through her head. Her palms clenched her skirts, and Jandi struggled to take a deep breath through her nose.

Think logically, Jandi. Be cool and collected, like Kyungsoo. Panicking won’t help you now.

Perhaps he’d had to attend to the media and all the interviews that were certainly coming his way now. Or maybe he’d needed to confirm logistical details about their empire-wide tour, now that they were set to go on with it. Maybe Kyungsoo, ever the overprotective husband, had wanted to spare her the stress of standing by his side through all of that, subject to the scrutiny of the entire empire.

But no, that didn’t quite make sense either. Her entire purpose, her reason for even being married to Kyungsoo, was to stand silently behind him as he made statements to the media. By now, it would hardly be the most stressful thing she’d done to play the good little wife while he fielded media questions. In a way, he needed her at his side now more than ever to show that District Seven had not been wrong in voting for him.

Frowning, Jandi looked up. The chauffeur’s eyes darted away hastily in the rearview mirror. Too late, I saw that. The man seemed to be bolder in his spying with Kyungsoo gone, an observation that made Jandi’s stomach clench.

“Do you happen to know where my husband is?” she asked him, hoping she wasn’t breaking some unspoken rule. “I thought he would come fetch me after the results were announced, but I haven’t seen him since.”

The chauffeur stared straight ahead at the road, unblinking. “Young Master has returned to the Do mansion. He requested a separate town car to take him home.”

What? Barely catching herself in time, Jandi forced her eyes to lower and her hands to clasp demurely in her lap. “I see.”

They rode in silence the rest of the way back. Only the chauffeur’s unnerving gaze kept Jandi’s anxious tears from escaping.

***

“Kyungsoo?” Jandi stepped into the living room. Why is it so dark in here? None of the lights were on, an unusual occurrence considering the living room was usually well-lit at all hours of the night. “Kyungsoo, are you back?”

There was a delicate cough from one of the servants behind her. “Young Master is in the library,” she said. After another moment’s hesitation, she continued, “He’s been in there since he got back.”

Frowning, Jandi checked the grandfather clock in the hallway. Kyungsoo must have returned home half an hour before her. If anything, she’d expected him to be in his study, discussing campaign details with his campaign manager and aides, or perhaps celebrating with a well-earned glass of wine. What was he doing in the library in a dark, uninhabited house?

Climbing up the spiral staircase to the library, she suppressed the urge to sprint the rest of the distance and shake Kyungsoo. Why had he just left her there in a sea of slimy politicians and come back to mope about in the mansion? Wasn’t this a time for celebration?

“Kyungsoo?” she called again, opening the heavy library doors and poking her head in. “The servants said you were up here.”

Sitting in the plush armchair where he’d found her in the library last time, Kyungsoo didn’t look up. “Well, here I am,” he said, staring into the glass of wine he was swirling in his left hand. “I’m sorry I left you back there. I know I said I would come find you after District Seven.”

Jandi waited for some form of explanation, something more to explain his uncharacteristic behavior. Nothing.

Her brow furrowed. She’d never seen her husband like this before, so closed off and blunt. It almost reminded her of Mansoo in a way, a thought that made her stomach twist in guilt. Kyungsoo’s nothing like his father. He’s a good man, even when he’s being like this. It wasn’t right for her to compare the two.

“Kyungsoo, are you… are you alright?” She closed the library door, sensing that this was not a conversation the servants should be overhearing. “Why are you hiding up here?”

An empty smile flickered across Kyungsoo’s lips. “You know, nobody’s asked me if I’m alright in such a long time. Nobody but you.”

Jandi stepped closer, cautious in the dim light of the library. “It’s an important question to ask.”

He hummed. “Not to some people. Not to most.”

Something in Jandi’s chest tightened, throbbing. It was almost like she wanted him to be angry at her for joining the fashion discussion club, or scared - anything to show some level of emotion. Anything would be better than the unfamiliar, bitter man in front of her.

“Kyungsoo, did something bad happen?” she asked, taking another step closer. “You seemed fine when we talked earlier. I’m worried. It’s not like you to be like this.”

He took another sip from his glass, and Jandi realized with a jolt that he was drinking, not just wine, but something stronger. Come to think of it, his pronunciation was a bit slurred, too, unlike the crystal clear enunciation he usually practiced. I’ve never seen him drink before, not like this.

“Aren’t you happy?” She sat down next to him, smoothing her skirts down. Now that she was only an arm’s length away, she could smell the alcohol coming off him. “You’re one step closer to being in the Cabinet. This is everything you’ve been working for, isn’t it?”

He swallowed. “I suppose, yes.”

“Then why are you sitting here drinking by yourself instead of celebrating?”

Tipping back his head, Kyungsoo finished off the rest of his drink, making a face at the burn in his throat. “Believe me, I’m asking myself the same thing.”

Unsure how to respond to that, Jandi stared at her hands in her lap. She’d only ever seen him drink at formal events before. He didn’t seem completely inebriated now - his movements were still controlled and his pupils were steady - but somehow it just felt wrong for a man like Kyungsoo to be anything but in complete control of himself.

“You know,” he said suddenly, “my father’s still off visiting his friend. Didn’t even come home for the primaries.”

Is that what this is about? Jandi thought. His father not being here? I thought Kyungsoo hated his father!

“He always does this,” Kyungsoo continued, “gets out of town for the primaries. The last time he was home for the primaries, my mother was still around.” He tapped something on his knee, and Jandi realized with a jolt that it was the Do Book, the one she had found with his mother’s page all but erased.

“A month after that, he did this. Borrowed some white paint from the scribe and made it like she’d never existed.” His brow furrowed, gaze still far away and cloudy. “Like she’d never done anything significant with her life but give birth to me.