Wang Yiren had lost everything she owned in one fell swoop. Before the accident, her parents had been wealthy. Not ludicrously so. Just enough to spoil their daughter rotten. To buy her every toy she desired, to dress her in the finest clothes and to dote on her with everything they had. She had never wanted for anything.   But life is fragile and Yiren had learned that the hard way. She had told Sakura through teary eyes that it had been raining when it happened - apparently her parents had been planning to take her on a lake trip to a log cabin in a well-known holiday spot to celebrate the news that they had another child on the way. Her mother had apparently cradled her stomach in the passenger seat and she had smiled at Yiren who sat in the back seat. She had promised that she would love both Yiren and the little baby inside her with all her heart.   The other car had been filled with a bunch of drunk young men who had no fear of consequences, or at least that was what Yiren had learned upon further investigation during her youth. They had been coming back from a camping trip and they speed into a curve in the road a little too sharply and a little too fast. The car had rolled twice before coming to a stop. All people involved had been dead on impact. Except for Yiren. No one had ever been able to explain how, but horrifically injured and a mere 5 years old, she had survived. She had been trapped in the car with her dead parents for six hours when people found her and it had taken another three hours to get her safely out of the car.       The doctors had been sure she wouldn’t make it, but she pulled through. Yiren was a fighter and that was what she did but that sort of experience changed a person. Perhaps that was why Sakura’s mother took the pity on her that she did. Sakura doubts she will ever know. Sakura certainly didn’t know of Yiren's true past until after her mother died and she had only been told it in an attempt from Yiren to manipulate her after everything that had happened between them. But from the moment that the Queen laid eyes on that tiny, wounded child, she had been smitten.  

 

Even at a young age, Yiren had been troublesome. She had known what it felt like to have what she wanted. She had known what it was like to lose it and it wasn’t a feeling she was going to endure again willingly. Perhaps that is why she clung to Sakura and her mother with such urgency and ferocity. It was not something Sakura had ever felt the need to question. Sakura had had few friends and Yiren was fun to be around and so it was good news when her mother brought her to the Palace to play with her. Hyewon had hated her for some reason, but Sakura loved making friends. And so she had been one of Sakura’s closest friends from the moment she met her. Yes, Yiren had her moments where she was a little too clingy, or when she chased off girls and boys who got a little too close to Sakura. But Sakura had never minded. Yiren had told Sakura that her parents had abandoned her, and so Sakura had always assumed Yiren was afraid she or her mother would to the same. Sakura knew Yiren and she understood her.     Or at least, Sakura thought she did. She could justify most things Yiren had done to her. She had forgiven Yiren a lot. She could even forgive Yiren’s lies about her parents - who would want to admit or talk about such a horrible past? Sakura could justify the way Yiren had driven away people that she liked or got along with. She could justify Yiren’s dislike of Hyewon. She could even justify Yiren’s initial deceit to get her to run away with her.      But for as long as she lives, Sakura will never understand how Yiren could have lied to her about her mother. How Yiren could have heard the news and concealed it rather than tell Sakura the truth. And a part of her will always consider Yiren a friend. Her heart will always ache when she thinks of the pain Yiren has endured. And she probably will never be able to stop caring. Even after the terrible thing she did to her, she is Yiren; Sakura's friend and she is Sakura; Yiren's only friend and she can’t not care about her.     But Sakura cannot allow Yiren to hurt the woman she loves and that is how she summons enough courage to meet with her. Though she is positively sick with anxiety and dread, though she thinks she may vomit when she sees her face, she holds her head high as she arrives at the address Yiren had sent her.     “Are you sure this is a good idea? You know how manipulative she is.” Yena asks as she pulls over on the kerb side. Sakura pauses before she gets out of the car and grimaces at her longtime friend.     “I have to. There’s really no other way to fix this.” She tells Yena. Yena only nods grimly.     “Well I’ll be waiting out here for you. I’m trained in civilian rescue if she attacks you - just make sure to scream really loudly, got it?” She says. Sakura tries to smile but she is sure that all that comes out is a face that looks like she’s trying not to vomit.       **********       Yiren answers the door when she rings the bell. Yiren's whole face lights up when she sees Sakura and she ushers the princess in like she has come for a social visit rather than to beg her to confess to a fairly serious crime.  

 

“I knew you’d come.” Yiren said warmly. “That reporter guy said you would and I guess he knew what he was talking about.”     “Is that how you were able to pull this off?” Sakura asks, wanting to avoid small talk at all costs. “What reporter?”  

 

Yiren wrinkles her nose.     “That’s not important, aren’t you here to see me?” Yiren asks. Sakura would almost feel guilty if it weren’t for the urgency of the matter at hand.     “I’m here to ask you - no, to beg you to come clean.” Sakura says simply. Yiren looks at her like she has just started speaking a foreign language.  

 

“Come… clean?” She echoes, like the words are poisonous. “Why would I do that?”  

 

“Because it’s wrong Yiren. You can’t lie to everyone like this. And you can’t take what’s rightfully Eunbi’s.” Sakura tells her firmly.     “Why not?” The younger girl asks, her voice eerily confused. Like she genuinely doesn’t understand what’s wrong with what she’s done. “Eunbi already has a family who loves her. She has a mother and a father. And she has paid for her father's surgery now too, so she doesn’t need the crown anymore. Why should she get her mother, her father, the crown and you, while I get nothing?”     “None of that belongs to you Yiren.” Sakura says. “I know how hard things have been for you but that doesn’t give you the right to-“     “Can’t you pretend?” Yiren interrupts her.     “What?” The older asks.     “Can’t you pretend? That I’m really the lost princess? That I didn’t lie? It’s not like you even wanted to be with Eunbi in the first place. Your father arranged the marriage, didn’t he? At least you know me. And I know you don’t… I know you don’t love me but maybe you could. If we pretended long enough. Eunbi has already gotten what she wanted. Why can’t I have what I want too?” Yiren pleads. Sakura stares at her for a moment, utterly speechless.     “What about me?” Sakura finally asks softly. Yiren looks confused. “What about what I want?” Sakura elaborates when Yiren doesn’t seem to understand. “Why do you never consider what I want? Why do you never ask? Why do you always treat me like another thing that you own? Have you ever, in your entire life, thought about what I would want? Thought about what it would look like to put me first, just for one tiny moment. To ignore what you want and let me live my life?”     Sakura doesn’t mean for the volume of her voice to rise but by the time she is finished she is practically shouting. Yiren looks like she may cry as she stares at her.  

 

“What… what do you want?” Yiren finally asks.     “I want Kwon Eunbi. Only her. I love her. I probably always will and I’m sorry that it’s come to this, but I won’t ever love you. Maybe you can live your life deceiving yourself but I can’t and I won’t live like that. So tell everyone the truth. Right now. Tell me whatever reporter put you up to this and go and do another live press interview and confess.” Sakura tells her.     “I’ll go to jail.” Yiren whispers. “Could you really send me to jail?”     And Sakura hesitates. For the rest of her life, for the rest of her existence, she will regret it, but she hesitates. Because it’s a valid question - could she really send Yiren to jail?     “She doesn’t have to because I’m the one who are going to throw you there.” Sakura was startled at the voice that comes behind her. Hyewon stands in the opened door frame, holding up her phone. The recorder app is opened on the screen. Hyewon glances at her phone and adjusts something on the screen before playing back that audio file.     “Can’t you pretend? That I’m really the lost princess? That I didn’t lie?” Yiren’s voice echoes clearly back at them and Hyewon smirks triumphantly.     “Oh I’m really going to enjoy seeing you in a prison uniform. I have always liked stripes as a style.” Hyewon sneers at Yiren.     Yiren stares between the two of them in horror for a moment, like she can’t understand what has just transpired and then she bolts. She pushes past Hyewon and sprints away.     Neither Sakura nor Hyewon chase after her.       **********          The article breaks the next day, a few hours before Eunbi’s plane is due to land.     It turns out Yiren’s mysterious ‘sponsor’ is none other than Ahn Joon-Young, the Kingdom Daily’s most beloved reporter and the most famous anti-royalists to walk the planet slash the leader of the Resistance that caused riot in Eunbi's Kingdom. Saved by comrade who put the lost princess in an orphanage rather than kill her. He confesses Mr. Ahn's involvement almost as soon as the authorities catch him and manages to land himself a plea d