it’s funny, the way familiar palace halls suddenly become foreign as a platoon of assigned soldiers surrounds him at cho’s direction. what seems to be the leader approaches him cautiously; the rest draw back, as if he’s been marked, cursed to bring bad luck to those around him. well.  ryeowook draws his arms around himself and hisses under his breath. cho laughs at them, good-natured and boyish, and claps him on the shoulder as if to show that he is harmless. 

 

the initial superstition wears off quickly after that. like it or not, he is harmless, at least for the time being, surrendered and made a prisoner within his own home. ryeowook finds himself being marched forward, strangely disembodied and disconnected even as he registers the movements. 

 

“we’ll talk more tomorrow,” cho whispers in his ear as they pass, as if that is meant to be a sign of comfort. if he thinks grimly, they don’t just happen to change their minds before then. 

 

the room they direct him to is part of the unfinished west wing. ryeowook doesn’t even recognize where they are, this room with the half-painted walls and sparse, cold corners. there’s a thin roll of blankets on the ground, hastily shoved into place, and after he stumbles over the threshold the soldiers draw the hanging cloth back over the unfinished doorway and leave him blessedly alone. 

 

ryeowook sinks to his knees and breathes. he’s shaking too, every bone in his body quivering with an unplaced monster of anger-despair-fear-misery. only now, confined to this room without even the privacy to shout or cry does it suddenly seem real. more than just the characters in a letter he had read disbelievingly aloud. ryeowook had never expected much, even despite his standing. perhaps because of his standing, as the last-born of several sons, unskilled in little else but a couple trivial arts and a damning need to manipulate his way to survival regardless of what it entailed. but this. even as a lastborn son, he’d still had some power. some ability to make connections, win royal approval through good works and studies. ryeowook has never been so unequivocally powerless. 

 

he looks down at his trembling fingers and nearly allows the rage to swallow him whole. 

 

---

“i think you should call me kyuhyun,” cho is saying. they’ve appropriated the emperor’s private audience room for this, and every time ryeowook sees the other sitting where the emperor should sit, the bile rises in his throat a little more. he wonders bitterly if cho even knows the significance of where he’s sitting, given his background. “to make things less awkward you know. we’re going to be wed soon, if all goes according to plan, and i’d rather the experience be at least a little pleasant for all parties involved.” 

 

ryeowook bites down the scoff rising in his throat. what exactly did this man expect out of a marriage of convenience? and he expected to keep the remaining nobles in line and rule the country?  

 

“if you believe it will increase our...familiarity, fine,” he says instead. “kyuhyun.” 

 

“your highness,” kyuhyun begins, probably to say something inane, but ryeowook cuts him off before he can finish. 

 

“don’t call me that if you don’t mean it,” he says. the force behind his own words surprises him. kyuhyun draws back as if stung, but when he looks at him again there’s a touch of admiration on his face. 

 

“maybe not then,” he says, not bothering to deny ryeowook’s words. he leans back, propping his arm up on his knee. there’s a sword leaning within an arm’s reach next to him too, something that would never have been allowed in the old court. ryeowook curls his lip at the display and tries his best to hold his tongue. 

 

“i want to move back into my rooms again,” he says. “if you want us to be more...familiar and prove you actually want to work with me, you can start by not treating me so blatantly like a prisoner of war.” 

 

“no,” kyuhyun says immediately. then, more measured, “i don’t think that would be very advisable at this point.” 

 

“if i am going to be emperor, even in name only, i am not going to be made to sleep on the floor like a common animal.” 

 

“i thought it was funny actually. do you know how many of us went hungry in order to pay for the construction of another palace wing?” there’s a particular edge that kyuhyun pronounces the word us with, and for the first time during the conversation ryeowook finds himself thrown off-balance. he had known, of course, that there were problems in the countryside that his father, perhaps, had not paid the closest attention to. but the way kyuhyun bites it out, bitter and self-mocking, that’s a little harder to ignore. 

 

“look--” he begins, disliking the feeling of being on the defensive, but kyuhyun is already shaking his head, waving a hand as if to render the conversation meaningless. 

 

“i’m sorry. maybe i shouldn’t have said that. i’ve been made to...understand that the problems of peasants are not always obvious to people who don’t live amongst them.” 

 

“my father,” ryeowook tries, acutely uncomfortable. “whatever kind of man he might’ve been, i don’t think he intended for people to starve.” it would also, he supposes, be in line with history for the new, illegitimate regime to begin their reign by slandering the old one. kyuhyun seems honest, like he believes what he’s saying, but all he’s educated in is plowing fields (and cutting throats, the bitter, sniping corner of his mind supplies). what does he know about ruling an entire country? 

 

“they did anyway,” kyuhyun says flatly. he sighs, reaching out a hand for the hilt of his sword. “your father--the emperor. well, he wasn’t very well-liked, and i can’t say i’m any different. but i suppose for you--a father’s loss is something to be mourned in every family.” 

 

“did you kill him with that?” ryeowook asks, eyeing the sword in his hands. it’s a question that puts him on more comfortable ground, allows him to slip back into a now increasingly familiar cagey, confrontational mode. it works too, because kyuhyun glances away, refusing to look him in the eye. 

 

“your highness--ryeowook,” he pauses. “here, have another cup of tea.” he leans forward, hands fumbling along the smoke blue flowers of an ornately painted teapot as he pours it into ryeowook’s cup. 

 

“maybe i gave you the wrong impression earlier--you're not staying in that room out of my own pettiness. not everyone’s particularly happy with the idea of keeping you alive. the room where you are is more convenient--there’s no windows, and it’s isolated enough that my men can keep an eye on who goes in and out. it’s all very annoying, but i’ve been advised that it’s to your advantage that you stay out of sight for now.”

 

over the rim of his cup ryeowook hums in thought. that. that is interesting isn’t it. of course there would be infighting among the rebels. if they can’t stay loyal to one party, how can they expect to stay loyal to each other? 

 

“so one of those treacherous military heads actually wanted to be emperor then?” ryeowook asks blandly, as if commenting on the weather. 

 

sure enough, kyuhyun balks. “maybe not emperor,” he says cautiously. “but perhaps they were under the impression that they would indeed be given more...authority afterwards.” 

 

“isn’t everyone,” he snarks. 

 

“most people don’t have the means to enact retribution when they think they’ve been cheated. but i suppose the point you’d be interested in is that they think you’re in their way.” 

 

ryeowook wets his lips. “i don’t suppose you know if they have any...designs for my sisters and the other women of the inner palaces?” god, he despises this so much. if there’s anything worse than the total loss of control that’s been leveled upon him, it’s the forced ignorance. the very act of having to ask, beg his captor graciously for any news of what’s currently going on is far more humiliating. 

 

“the ones without children will likely be allowed to return to their families. the ones with children. well, that’s more difficult to say.” kyuhyun shrugs, flippant and uncaring. “i’m sure there will be some place for them. all of the king’s children of note are currently dead or otherwise accounted for.” 

 

“what will become of the other children then?” ryeowook says, spits, thinking about sunyoung and his other half-sisters who have probably never even been outside the palace, all to be punished for having been born in the wrong family at the wrong time. “what do you think is the most humane way to deal with them? sterilization? or should we just get rid of the problem altogether? that would make things easier, wouldn’t it?” 

 

“if that was what i’d intended, you would not be here alive either.” kyuhyun is starting to sound more than a little annoyed. honestly ryeowook would acknowledge that it probably isn’t a good idea to squander whatever good-will the apparent biggest advocate of his continued survival harbors for him if it isn’t for just how good it feels, to poke at the other, lash out blindly in justified anger. “none of the current princesses hold enough power to justify that kind of cruelty.” 

 

“the same principle applies to you too. maybe that should make you happy,” kyuhyun continues. “the people who think you’re too much of a threat to be left alive wouldn’t have backed down so easily if you weren’t so far removed from both the public and line of succession.” 

 

“happy,” ryeowook echoes. everything about that word is relative. so maybe it shouldn’t hurt that the emperor’s audience chamber still smelled of lingering fragrance like it had when it was still occupied by its rightful owner. maybe the sight of the old decorated pillars and walls are supposed to be a comfort. it doesn’t matter, in the end, if all he pictures when he closes his eyes is some end to this reality and a return to the old one. 

 

---

kyuhyun excuses himself not long after that, leaving ryeowook and one of his accompanying guards to walk back to the room that he is apparently in for his own safety. the implication that there are internal divisions within the occupying forces is unsurprising, but very useful. it means that their position as a provisional government is even more tenuous than previously assumed. it also means they’re liable to change their minds about what to do with either him or his sisters at the drop of a hat. not ideal. 

 

he’s still internally balking at the idea of having to simply take kyuhyun’s word for everything when he almost trips over the last step of the stairs they’re currently walking up. the soldier behind him catches him on the shoulder with a hand that he hastily shakes off. 

 

“thanks,” he says reluctantly. 

 

“don’t bother,” the other guy says. he’s got big round eyes, narrowed into a thin glare, and a mouth pursed permanently in disapproval. ryeowook frowns at him, and abruptly realizes that this is the man who’d told kyuhyun to kill him in the courtyard. well. kyuhyun certainly seems like a man of his word, assigning someone who isn’t particularly interested in his well-being to look after it. 

 

“i won’t then.” he pushes past the other, moving forward so that they fall back into the previous front-back formation. he can feel the eyes behind boring into him, which he ignores with a single-minded determination. it’s far, far easier to survey the palace gardens around them, note the trampled flowers and splintered pillars, the dark stains that nobody has bothered to clean up. the callousness would have made him seethe, if not for everything else that happened. 

 

when they reach the unfinished doorway of his room, the soldier stops him. 

 

“look,” he says. “a lot of people are looking for us to actually change how things are run in this country. if you pull anything--” 

 

“listen, hyuk, whatever your name is,” ryeowook says impatiently. “if i’m going to pull anything, it’s certainly not going to be something someone like you would pick up on.” playing nice with kyuhyun all morning is exhausting, and that’s with kyuhyun at least trying to be a similar level of nice and civil. ryeowook hardly has the mental fortitude to do the same thing with an openly hostile foot soldier. if this guy wants to start something, he has no obligation to sit here and listen to the same endless threats. 

 

“it’s hyukjae,” his guard snaps, equally short. “i’m just telling you. i still don’t think we need you. but kyuhyun thinks so, and he’s never liable to admit defeat unless something blows up in his face.” 

 

---

ryeowook wakes up the next morning, a day off from a tentative coronation date, feeling nausea eating and his stomach and creeping up the back of his throat. the unfinished palace wing is hardly the most comfortable place to stay in, with the scent of paint and dust lingering everywhere, but even without that, ryeowook has hardly slept well.

 

“i’m ill,” he announces to the guards outside the doorway. “i’m not going to be leaving this room today.” 

 

he knows, is betting on the fact that with the coronation so soon, they cannot afford to look so indecisive. even now, they have already wasted precious time quibbling over whether to keep him alive, and any further delays will make whatever new regime they want to prop up look less legitimate with each passing day. 

 

ryeowook knows this, yet it is still a welcome surprise when a soldier ushers sungmin hastily into his room. it seems impossible to overstate the relief he feels at seeing the face of his friend, even with hyukjae glowering behind him.  

 

sungmin is dressed casually, a little on the messy side, with the pins in his hair half loose and hastily done. the case he carries still bears the sign of a royal physician, though ryeowook wonders if it still means something to the new regime. he looks frazzled, unsure, but it subsides a little when he makes eye contact with ryeowook, sitting curled in on himself on the makeshift pile of blankets. 

 

“what seems to be the problem?” sungmin says. he gives ryeowook a small smile, tempered by the presence of the third person in the room. 

 

“what’s wrong with him?” hyukjae says, sounding very doubtful about whether or not there was ever anything wrong with him in the first place. 

 

“i can’t properly ensure his well-being if you’re here hovering over me like some obnoxious mosquito,” sungmin tells the soldier brusquely, shoving his case at hyukjae’s chest. 

 

“watch it,” hyukjae snaps, looking for a moment like he’s ready to throw sungmin out of the room, consequences be damned. sungmin glares back. it’s only when ryeowook gives a loud cough, intentionally drawing it painfully out of the back of his throat, that the stalemate seemingly ends. hyukjae throws up his hands and walks out of the room, pulling the cloth back over the doorway entrance. it could be hardly considered private still, but the resemblance is there. 

 

as soon as he’s gone, sungmin swarms him, fussing over old cuts and bruises. ryeowook brushes him off half-heartedly, too achingly pleased to see someone familiar within an occupied capital. the hug sungmin pulls him into takes him a little off-guard. ryeowook melts into the warmth, suddenly realizing how much he has missed it. 

 

“saeun and i both thought for sure you were dead when the rebels stormed the palace,” sungmin says when they pull away.

 

“i thought i was too,” ryeowook admits. “i’m still not sure if this is particularly better.” 

 

“don’t say that,” sungmin says fervently. he’s got two fingers against the pulse on his wrist and ryeowook can feel the way they shake. “are you sick? wounded? the military bastards have been alright with you, have they?” 

 

“i’m fine,” he says. “really.” it’s not all that unconvincing. as far as captors go, the rebels have done practically nothing to him. (they might need him alive for his plans, but they don’t necessarily need him unharmed. ryeowook tries not to think about it too much.) 

 

he glances at the doorway, before dropping his voice into an embarrassed murmur. “it feels good to see an actual friendly face around here.” 

 

sungmin rubs his shoulders soothingly. ryeowook hasn’t even noticed how stiff and tense he’s been until he feels himself slowly relaxing.  “i’ll bet. none of these people look like particularly good company.” 

 

ryeowook thinks of kyuhyun sitting in a place where he has no right to be and dictating the rules and lives of people who he might never have even gotten the chance to see in public before this and grimaces. “they’re going to make me emperor tomorrow. i’m supposed to be their puppet. read off their decrees and sign off on whatever they want.” he stops, almost altogether, because this is all fine, it’s the thoughts afterwards that he doesn’t know how to put into words. but sungmin is nodding encouragingly, urging him to continue. 

 

he sighs. “i don’t know. i never dared to think about it too much. survival with some measure of respect was enough. but i always thought if--by some miracle--i made it to that position over jungsoo or jongwoon or any of the others, it’d be the happiest thing that ever happened to me. that it would prove that all the expectations of failure were wrong.” not like this certainly. you should be happy with your status as a lesser prince kyuhyun had said and wasn’t that illuminating. even his ascension is a sham, made possible only because his lack of power made him seem easy to manipulate and push around. 

 

the hands on his shoulders pause as sungmin makes a small noise of acknowledgment. “i don’t know what to tell you,” he says. “but wook honestly. maybe this is the best outcome we can hope for.” 

 

---

on the morning of his supposed crowning ryeowook wakes up early in the morning and immediately wishes he hadn’t. the nausea of yesterday had gone away, replaced with a very clear uneasiness that makes his head swim. but there is simply nothing else to do, so he allows hyukjae to follow him on his way out. 

 

it’s custom to mourn the dead properly before ascension as an emperor. to announce before them and heaven that you are now here to take their place. as it is, there is not much ceremony to his enthronement at all. not even an actual body to inter or honor with offerings. 

 

hyukjae frowns skeptically as he bows to the symbolic grave sites of his father and brothers, though he says nothing. whatever stirrings of remaining royalist sentiment the occupying forces have caught wind of has made even him uneasy. ryeowook tries to ignore him at first, and to his credit hyukjae tries his best to make his presence unbothersome, but ryeowook is getting sick of the sense of being constantly watched and monitored by hostile forces.  

 

“can’t you leave me alone for a moment?” he asks at last. “i assure you there’s nothing i can do, even if i wanted to.” 

 

he and hyukjae have been working through an equilibrium of sorts, which mostly consists of hyukjae eyeing him suspiciously anytime he says anything. eventually, even he is going to figure out that ryeowook isn’t actually going to try to eat his soul or whatever evil he thinks royals are capable of.  

 

when he’s gone, ryeowook sits down slowly in front of their graves. whether it’s a lack of courage or something else, he can’t bring himself to actually announce his upcoming ascension out loud. it’s such a bitter, blind twist to leave him the only member left to carry on and avenge his house.  

 

jungsoo would’ve had the shrewdness and the diplomacy to manipulate his way effectively through this. to take full advantage of what seemed to be kyuhyun’s relative ignorance of political affairs. there’d been a reason he’d been the undisputed official crown prince for so long, and so much of it had to due with his ability to work his way through the court. 

 

jongwoon had never been as good a diplomat, but even he understood the value of maintaining good relationships, good appearances very well, even if it meant simply knowing when and when not to speak. (and, some part of him thinks, if jongwoon had been left behind here maybe he would’ve found a way to stop the rebels from entering the palace or city until a solution could be reached.) 

 

ryeowook. what has he done? fail? let them take the city with barely a fight? let them make a mockery of the crown and his family’s former power? 

 

ryeowook has been so, so stupid. he thinks about how he has responded, biting and snapping and prodding, trying to provoke whatever reaction he can out of kyuhyun. and for what? for some momentary satisfaction of not allowing the other’s plans to go as smoothly as intended? how childish. it’s as if he’s learned nothing about how to actually work with others for his own intended outcome after years in this court. it’s no wonder kyuhyun had made that comment about how happy he ought to be about his lesser status. 

 

he’s in this situation now because of his own inadequacy, because the only thing he’s ever been good at in his father’s court is survival, getting by, avoiding pissing off the important people with his tongue and borrowing others’ protection when he did. if he were more capable, he would’ve cut kyuhyun’s throat open in the courtyard and died honorably. but there are still things he can do. and he has obligations too, to sunyoung and the other girls in the inner palace. the only way to make sure they’re all safe is to do it himself. 

 

ryeowook burns incense for the gods to take care of the dead and steels himself against what must be done. 

 

---

neither kyuhyun nor whatever other high ranking officials within the rebels’ conglomerate really seem to care about ceremony or custom. ryeowook is allowed to change out of his days old clothes and make himself more presentable, but anything more elaborate is ignored in favor of simply getting on with it. instead, most of the proceedings are left to a trembling confucian scholar who can barely stutter through the standard formalities. to his credit, the man does try to protest when kyuhyun grows impatient and tells him to skip some of the more tedious language, babbling something about the rites and traditions that has even ryeowook wanting to roll his eyes. 

 

the old throne room is the same uncomfortable mix of familiar and unfamiliar as the old audience chamber. really, the only extensive redecorating has been in the replacement of the banners and flags, but the assembly of grim-faced military men watching his every move makes him want to spend as little time as possible here. 

 

at last, the scholar finishes, and kyuhyun gestures at the throne for him to sit. ryeowook braces himself as he lowers himself to sit, suddenly terribly afraid of embarrassing himself in front of an audience of people who would love to do nothing more than watch him fail. 

 

“the new emperor, may he reign long and prosperously,” kyuhyun calls from beside him. he doesn’t sound entirely insincere, but the slightest hint of mockery is there. ryeowook grits his teeth to it. kyuhyun kneels, lowering his head in what might’ve been deference, if everybody in the room hadn’t known better. the rest of their audience follows suit, echoing the sentiment, and for a second it’s almost easy to pretend that he does have some measure of power here.  

 

“congratulations,” kyuhyun says behind him when he straightens up. his voice is light and celebratory, as if he’s wishing ryeowook a happy birthday.

 

it’s not a strictly happy occasion, but it doesn’t need to be, he knows. for now, it will have to be enough.



---
the semester kind of ate me alive for a few weeks and i completely forgot about this so. ah. sorry!! i can't even promise i'll update more regularly from now on because i have midterms this week and next but hopefully it won't be more than a month+ also, since so much has happened since i first published this i want to add the disclaimer that i 100% support ryeowook's relationship and that this is entirely for s and giggles. 

this chapter ended up being an annoying amount of exposition, a lot of me introducing some significant side characters, lots of the dry political blah blah, though the conclusion ryeowook reaches near the end of the chapter, while maybe not ideal, is fairly significant. they're going to get married next chapter though so there will be more interesting kyuwook interactions. i rewrote the beginning conversation several times and i'm still not. happy with it but it is what it is. the both of them are still getting a feel for how far they can push each other, and while both of them recognize that it's in their best interests to work together, that doesn't always fully translate to what they say. i was also. wary of writing hyukjae here. this au's hyuk isn't really an , it's just in terms of the feudal political compass, he's to the left of kyuhyun. kyu is "we should take over the government and give the peasants bread, but we probably still need some style of monarchy to keep control" while hyuk doesn't think they need a dumb government to distribute bread anyway.