Sakura first learns of her engagement in her father’s study. It is a cramped, confined space. The air is thick with dust and the sickeningly sweet scent of lilies that clung to the corner. Sakura is surprised the scent remains after such a long period of time, but her father rarely airs the room and so scents seem to cling and lie heavy in the air. Papers, important state papers, are stacked neatly but nearly overflow off the expensive mahogany desk that is carefully placed in the centre of the room. The desk seems to sink into the plush purple carpet beneath it. On the wall behind the desk is her family’s coat of arms, and beneath it, in an expensive black leather chair, her father is always seated. Sakura has never seen the spot beneath the coat of arms unoccupied, and she has never seen her father slump or slouch, even after hours of peering at a computer screen. He always sits with her spine severely straight. Sometimes his long, thin fingers are laced together in front of his face and sometimes they rest on the armrests of his chair. On this particular occasion, King Miyawaki Shunsuke peers curiously at her daughter over the stacks of important papers with an expression that borders on indifference. Sakura had sensed this day was coming -she had never held any foolish notions of marrying for love, when she knew her father would one day choose her spouse for her, one that would benefit their Kingdom the most. In the past few months, she had known the day was approaching, like a noose slowly tightening around her neck as the King’s popularity with the public plummeted and discussions of Kingdom Miyawaki’s future as a monarchy began to creep into news articles. Still, she cannot help the surprise from showing on her expression. “So soon?” She responds, her voice reduced to a soft croak. Her father nods, glancing down at the papers set before him. “The sooner the better.” He responds. He glances up at his daughter. “You may have heard of her - she’s been in the press a lot recently. Her kingdom seems to find her charming enough, and I daresay you may even find her… amiable.” He says the word like its dirty, his eyebrows furrowing as his mouth shapes the words. Like enjoying the company of the one you are meant to wed is a distasteful thing, like affection has no place in a marriage. The notion is ironic considering the love he had held for the late Queen was famous across nearly all the Kingdoms in the world. They had once featured on a magazine because they had won a worldwide poll declaring them as the most beloved couple in all the world. Sakura wonders where is the man who had loved her wife so ardently now. This man before her has a cold, uncracked façade. Sakura does not hold any of that grace and even a year down the track cannot seem to dislodge the tight feeling in that reminds her of the agonizing grief she still feels. Her father slides a file towards her, and Sakura accepts it, opening it to find the hesitant smile of the lost princess gazing up at her. She recognises the photo -it had plastered news sites, magazines and newspapers for weeks, just a short few months ago. “THE LOST PRINCESS, FOUND!” She remembers one headline declaring. She is unsurprised at her father’s choice - the public adored her, her kingdom adored her, and was there a better love story than the beloved princess who had vanished for 20 years falling for and marrying the world’s most eligible bachelorette, Princess Miyawaki Sakura? Since his aim is clearly to use her daughter’s marriage to dilute discussions of a dismissal of the monarchy, it is only natural that he choose the most popular and soon to be most powerful woman in the world, - well, other than Sakura. Apparently she went by Kwon Eunbi - that was the last name borne by the people who had unknowingly adopted the young princess and housed her for the passed twenty years, from when she was a mere toddler until now. Her official title, however, is Crown Princess Eunbi of the IZ*LAND Kingdom. Her smile is sweet enough, beaming up at her from the file in her hands, though that is only a little consolation. Sakura briefly feels compassion for her -she doubts her sudden engagement is of Eunbi's own consent- no doubt wiser authority figures do not want a princess ignorant to all matters of state running their country, and this engagement is obviously an attempt to ensure that when Eunbi rightfully inherits her crown. Particularly with the sudden death of the King and Queen, having Eunbi inherit the throne immediately would be unthinkable. No doubt they would want someone appropriate and capable of ruling placed on the throne. This is clearly meant to be Sakura. Her father obtains the merger of the century, their popularity will no doubt skyrocket and banish all discussions of dismissal of the monarchy, and the other Kingdom secures a stable and capable ruler to replace their late monarchs. All parties involved are faced with only benefits, except the only two actually entering the engagement. Her father evidently decides Sakura has had enough time to process, and after being informed that her schedule and any important dates moving forward would be passed on to her by the King’s advisor, Sakura is dismissed from the room. She isn’t given the option to protest, or even voice an opinion on her impending nuptials and instead she finds herself outside her father’s study, breathing in the clean air. Her nostrils burn from the sweet scent of the lilies she had been forced to endure and the file in her arms is heavy. Once more, Sakura opens the file and peers at the smiling face inside. Eunbi looks confused and unsure - her brown eyes are widely opened and there is a slight crease between her brows - but otherwise her smile is sweet and full. This woman would be her wife, this is the woman she is to spend the rest of her life with. Sakura probably will not meet her until the day of their marriage, and she doesn’t know anything about her other than what the brief headline that had crossed her path chose to announce about her. Sakura had never entertained any foolish notions that she would be free to marry for love, but the taste in is still bitter as she closes the file and Eunbi's smiling face leaves her view. *************** Eunbi decides to get married when she was in a hospital. Her father is asleep beside her, and each passing moment is marked by the beep of the heart monitor. In her memories, her father has always seemed larger than life -huge and warm and full of life and love-, but he looks oddly small surrounded by the pristine white of the hospital bedding. She inhales deeply and regrets it, the air is sharp with the scent of disinfectant, and it burns her lungs as she inhales. On the other side of her father’s bed, her mum is sleeping peacefully in the chair, but the dark circles beneath her eyes betray just how much of a luxury this power nap is. Eunbi chews her lip as the conversation with the doctor echoes in her mind. They could not afford this treatment, was the reality. They were humble bakers, and the treatment her father would need going forward was far beyond their means. Her eyes sting as she watches his chest rise and fall slowly and the back of is tight and sticky with unshed tears. Briefly, she recalls another conversation she had recently, one that would no doubt solve the dilemma before her. But it came with its own set of complications. She is still reeling from the shock that these two people before her are not her birth parents, and yet the people she had spoken to expect her to step up as supposed princess of this kingdom. Not only that, but they have arranged for her engagement to a stranger, some Princess of a foreign land who is supposedly a desirable bachelorette, but that does not change the fact that she is a stranger. Someone she’s never met before. They are asking her to lead a country she didn’t know was hers, leave her parents and friends and everything she’s ever known behind, and marry a complete and total stranger. Her dad shifts slightly in his sleep, and her heart aches. If he didn’t get this treatment, he would die. That is her reality now, and she cannot bear to lose him. She and her mother also cannot afford his treatment, unless she suddenly becomes rich. This is a rare and fortunate opportunity that she has been given, a chance to save her father, yet her heart trembles with fear at the obvious choice she have to make. When Eunbi was small, she had sometimes thought that maybe her parents were not her own. Most children have this thought at some stage, but what made it strange was this odd recurring nightmare that she could never quite shake. The sounds of screams, of gunfire and the heat of a blazing inferno consuming everything she had had. Her parents insisted she had never experienced anything that could cause a dream like that, but the fact that even as an infant she could vividly recall the sensation of flames at the walls of a warmly painted nursery and the scent of burning flesh… that had always struck her as strange. Still, she had dismissed the thoughts, and now that she was well into adulthood, she had easily dismissed those thoughts as childish and ridiculous. Then she had gone in for a blood test and physical exam a few short months ago to flag her as a possible donor should her father’s condition worsen, and a birth mark on her upper left arm, a bit like the pattern one might find on a certain princess had set off alarm bells in the doctor’s mind. The marks were consistent with reports of the mysterious lost princess. The doctor had secretly contacted the late Queen’s father for some testing to confirm his suspicions. When the results came back and it became clear that Eunbi was not a suitable donor for her supposed biological father, some truths that turned her world upside down came pouring forth. Apparently the lost princess had gone missing in a fire. There had been some political uprisings around the time that Eunbi was born. A small but vocal group of people had grown discontent with the monarchy and had decided to make themselves known. The tensions had culminated in the royal palace being burnt to the ground. The infant princess had not made it out of the inferno, but no searching of the wreckage had produced a body. As it turned out, a member of the so-called resistance later came forward, several years later, telling the story of how he and his comrade had saved the princess’s life. He was being trialled for his crimes at the time, and at first, the story was written off as a blatant lie. His comrade had supposedly taken her and put her in an orphanage, though what orphanage it was remained unknown, as the comrade had died shortly after. But the resistance member had evidence; pictures of the infant princess that the Queen herself had not seen, a royal necklace that the baby had worn that should have been lost in the inferno along with her life, and a lock of her hair. Thus the legend of the lost princess came to life. Somewhere out there, a child who thought they were an orphan was actually a princess. The King and Queen had scoured orphanages in hope of finding their daughter, but eventually the pain of disappointed hopes became too much and the search was abandoned. The King and Queen would never see their missing daughter again. That daughter was apparently Eunbi, and what came next was the press, the newspaper articles, and one day an elderly man with squinted, wisened eyes and a short, hunched figure had approached her home.