Jinhee's mother sat across from her, both feeling the growing tension between them. Her mother calmly pulled out some healing antibiotics and bandages while Jinhee tried to sit there with her best stone cold expression. She had learned it from spending every day with Jongin and it seemed to keep everyone else at bay but her mother seemed to see right through her fake barrier. As her mother reached over to clean one of her cuts on her neck, she noticed a fresh bruise on her jaw in the shape of a hand. She faltered for a moment but continued her treatment and when she saw her mother pause, Jinhee knew that she was in trouble.

 

"Mother, I can-"

 

"I don't want to know, your majesty." Hearing her own mother call her by her royal title had completely broken her heart. This woman sitting in front of her was no longer her mother but just another servant that wanted to do their job and keep their distance from the royals as much as possible.

 

"You don't have to call me that when it's just the two of us. I am still your daughter despite my husband." Jinhee pulled at the collar of her top and her mother let out a large sigh and sat back on her heels. The two stared at each other for a moment before her mother quickly pulled her hand back and slapped Jinhee across the face, forcing the young woman's head to snap to the side. Jinhee quickly put her hand over her cheek that burned from the hard hit. She looked back at her mother who had fiery tears in her eyes and seeing her in that state Jinhee couldn't even cry herself even though she had been the one to be hit.

        

"It was Chanyeol wasn't it. You were fooling around with him I know it. You're a super woman and an even stupider princess." Her words with lined with poison and they were sinking deeper and deeper into Jinhee's heart with every syllable. "If your father could see you now he would die all over again from shame." Her mother packed up all her medical gear and put it into the little pouch she had wrapped around her waist at all times. "There are people in this palace fighting for their lives every day and struggle to have a child but you're running around with every man possible and embarrassing me, your husband and the King." She went to the door and slid it open, looking back on Jinhee one last time. "You're not my daughter. My child wouldn't be such a tramp." Her mother closed the door and stormed away, leaving Jinhee in shock. Her cheek didn't burn from the hit and her cuts no longer bothered her. In fact, her whole body was numb. This was all her fault. She must have led Chanyeol on at some point. Thinking it over and over again in her head she couldn't think of one exact moment but thinking of the attack made her heart race and her palms slick with sweat. She sauntered off into her sleeping quarters, laid in her bed and stared at the wall for what seemed like an eternity.

 

"My fault....my fault...." She muttered to herself as she fell into a deep sleep.

 

Jongin made his way to the jail and walked down the long hallway with barred off rooms on either sides. Most of them were filled with drunken men from the party and they would all be released in the morning but in the very far cell was Chanyeol who seemed to have sobered up and he was sitting against the back wall as if he had been waiting for the prince to show up. He stood there, staring at the pathetic man and regretting not killing him with his bare hands a few hours ago.

 

"What do you have to say?" Chanyeol growled out and Jongin smirked at the mans oddly placed anger.

 

"You can be hung for something like this you know." Jongin put his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. He loved seeing this man looking so pathetic and small when in comparison he looked like a titan while pinning his wife into the bushes and trying to force himself onto her.

 

"Jinhee had to know the truth." Chanyeol said and Jongin froze for a second as he tried to remember if Jinhee had told him anything about a secret. Chanyeol could read the doubt on his face and he chuckled. "She didn't tell you? You guys have a great marriage."

 

"Shut up." Jongin tried not to raise his voice but it was growing increasingly hard to not kill this man on the spot.

 

"Jinhee's father had promised her to me first. I am supposed to be her husband." Hearing those words sent a cold chill down Jongin's spine. Their union would make much more sense from a political stand point and he never did ask his father why he picked Jinhee over what must have been a handful of women. The two men stared at each other, mentally battling each other to try and see who would falter first.

 

"You may have been promised to be together but Jinhee picked me, she could have said no at any point but she didn't."

 

"Who would be foolish enough to say no to the King? Besides they were going to get kicked out if she didn't marry you. Her mother doesn't hold enough merit here alone to keep them within the palace walls so Jinhee only married you to keep her mother safely tucked behind the wall. Otherwise, we would have been the ones to be married and she would be in my arms every night." Chanyeol was loving the fact that he had something held above the prince and he could see the anger growing under his skin. Jongin lurched forward and held onto the bars, his knuckles turning white from holding it so tightly.

 

"If it were up to me I would kill you right now. But, I know Jinhee wouldn't want that for you."

 

"Because she loves me." Chanyeol puffed up his chest.

 

"Because she pities you." Jongin corrected him and Chanyeol bit the inside of his mouth and seemed to become the smaller man that Jongin desired. "Instead of death I am going to help you out." Jongin backed away from the bars and looked at him. "I am going to send you off to learn to be the best doctor to the King that ever worked under the throne, especially since I might be ruler one day. First thing tomorrow morning, you're going to the furthest village in the country and working there for the next twenty years. Minimum. Jinhee will never see your face again and if she does, she wont ever remember who you are." Chanyeol jumped to his feet and rushed to the bars, Jongin took two large steps back so when Chanyeol tried to reach between the bars to get at him, he was out of reach.

 

"You're a monster."

 

"And you're an attempted ." Jongin spat back and Chanyeol's ears burned red from anger. "See you in twenty years." Jongin his heels and walked out of the jail.

 

"YOU CAN'T DENY IT! JINHEE AND I ARE SOUL MATES! I WILL WIN HER BACK IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO!" Chanyeol's screams could be heard as the prince walked out of the jail and headed back to the palace. The lights were dim in their room so he made sure to be quiet when he entered. Thinking that perhaps she left to get some fresh air, he checked her sleeping area to make she was still there and still safe. He slid open the door slightly and saw he laying on her bed with her back to him. Jongin knew that she must have been exhausted from the terrible day she was having so he closed the door and went to his own sleeping quarters and went to bed. This day had dragged on too long for them and he was excited to be able to have a brand new start the next day.

 

 

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