Donghae couldn’t remember much, he remembered the battle, at some point he received a hard blow on his head, he could still remember he tasted blood, in the end he killed his opponent and his army won the battle.


Then everything went blurry.


He remembered having a fever, his head hurt badly, he was torn between painful consciousness and feverish sleep. Then there was this healer, a middle aged thin man who gave him medications and tended to his wounds.


Wait, this man was not his healer … He had his own healer, someone he could not remember clearly but he knew his healer was not this man.


He knew he was back to the Palace, the headache returned many times a day and the new healer gave him medicated tea. It tasted awful, Donghae never liked sweets and the medicated tea had overly sweet scent and taste … as if it was covering something Donghae could not point out.


The days passed strangely since he returned to the Palace, new faces came and go, the Royal Advisor claimed that he discharged many nobles under his command and appointed new faces on the vacant posts, funny thing was he could not really recall any of it.


He lost some important people he could not remember, every time he tried to think, his head hurt and the memories slipped away, leaving him with a headache. Then he was given the tea and slowly the pain ebbed away, it took away half of his consciousness. It dulled his mind to the point he could not remember anything.


At night, he had recurring dreams, in his dreams, he could hear a tiger roaring, he searched the dark woods with bizarre looking trees and foul scent. He also dreamed of someone he knew very important to him but when he woke up, he couldn’t remember the familiar face that was smiling gently at him. Everything escaped him as if he was trying to grasp the sand.


Donghae woke up with a soft body on the bed next to him. He sat up and found Yoona sleeping. He remembered that Yoona was his wife, however, Yoona’s body was strangely unfamiliar to him and felt wrong in his arms.


It felt as if there was a part of him that went missing. It left a large chunk of empty space in his brain.


He had breakfast with Yoona, she served him various meals she told the cook to prepare just for him. She poured him a cup of tea and told him about the jewelries she ordered from the royal jeweler, the expeditions his father was funding and the parties they were going to host. Donghae nodded dully, they didn’t matter to him.


The scene was oddly artificial and unfamiliar for him, something was missing, Donghae frowned. What was missing?


He caught a sight of a tiger carved on the handle of the knife and took closer loot at it. He was reminded of his dream, where he was chasing a tiger through the woods.


The headache returned, and without even realizing it, Donghae had been staring at the carving for too long.


“Are you alright dear?” Yoona asked, concerned, “Does your head hurt again?” She poured a cup of tea prescribed by the healer and pressed it against Donghae’s lips, “You need to drink this, Donghae-ah …”


And as usual, the thoughts became distant and dulled, leaving Donghae’s thoughts blunt and his head was filled with stuffy cotton.


Donghae knew something was not right, without the tea, the pain returned and the longer he was without the medication, the stronger the pain would become. The healer and Yoona kept pouring the tea for him at the first sign of his headache returning, Donghae started to hate the tea, it turned him into a mindless person although the pain was gone.


And one day he was tired of his condition, he decided to start experimenting.


First he needed to find a place where no one could find him. With his mind not working properly, Donghae could only think of a place.


The tower was where Lady Cho brought him, Sungmin and Kyuhyun when they were young to teach them about basic Astronomy. It was kept clean but mostly abandoned since no royal children went there to learn about Astronomy anymore.


He told the guard that he wanted to be alone and when no one was looking, he slipped into the narrow door at the back of the bookshelves. He locked the trap door and pushed heavy furniture to keep the door closed from the inside. He brought a container with clean water he filled from the bath, he didn’t trust the drinks that were served for him.


The first sign of the headache returned in the afternoon, Donghae ignored the pain, it got worsened to the point his eyes were blurry and his hands shook as he tried to drink some water.


The pain escalated greatly, it was as if someone was hammering the inside of his head, some time near sunset, Donghae passed out.


The nightmare he had was full of terrors, Donghae woke up sweating and gasping. The pain was still there, torturing him, clawing his nerves like millions of needles.


Donghae was a stubborn man, despite the fear that the pain would kill him, a little voice inside him said that he would be alright.


The clear summer night sky presented millions of stars on the dark sky, the Emperor laid on the wooden floor helplessly as pain consumed him. He looked up to the open ceiling, a memory when he was just a little boy came to his mind.


Lady Cho was pointing at the constellations on the night sky, she showed them the tiger constellation, the Governess recited a story about the tiger who helped a knight to kill an evil serpent.


“I want a tiger when I grow up!” little Donghae told Lady Cho.


“Of course you can have a tiger My Prince”, she replied with a smile.


The memory kept playing in his head, over and over again, with the pain like a dark cloud fogging his thoughts, Donghae began to shiver as fever claimed his body.



Donghae woke up as the sun was high in the sky. He was extremely weak, blood was coming out of his nose, he was thirsty and hungry, but for the first time since the battle, his head was clear.


Donghae caught his expression on a large mirror across the room. He looked like he fought a nest a devils the whole night. Apart from blood coming out of his nose, he had scratch marks all over his face and neck, he must had scratched himself during the night to relieve himself from the pain. He was deathly pale and his lips were dry, his eyes red, and his hair messy.


It didn’t take long for everything to click in to his mind. He knew the culprits behind the whole thing, although Donghae was not sure how bad things were but he needed to act fast.


Ignoring his trembling legs, Donghae went to his study.


“Your Highness! We’ve been looking for you all night! I will call the Royal Healer …”


“Who are you?” Donghae cut the young man dressed as a scribe sitting on his private study.


“I’m your private scribe Your Majesty”, he answered.


“Where’s Kim Ryeowook?!”


“You fired him, Your Majesty”.


Donghae didn’t remember firing the royal scribe, Ryeowook was his scribe since he ascended the throne and had been his friend for a long time, he was more than just a scribe to the Emperor, Donghae never thought of allowing the younger man a holiday much less firing him.


“Find him”.


“But Your Grace he’s …”


“Bring him here in one hour or I will have your head!”, Donghae cut the young man’s explanation.


The new scribe gulped, his expression paled.


“Y-yes … Your Majesty”, he bowed and ran out of Donghae’s private study.


Donghae washed his face, the cool water freshened him. As he wiped his face he remembered something.


He went down to the gardens, he had memorized the way clearly, the servants and maids passing him bowed and greeted him with respect, although they seemed to be puzzled at his appearance. Donghae ignored them and as he reached the garden, he half ran to a familiar spot.


What was he looking for? He wasn’t sure himself. But then the sight uncovered the fog in his mind.


A young man wearing simple commoner clothes was playing with a tiger as if the beast was a house cat. The tiger chased the young man and pinned him to the ground, they wrestled playfully and the tiger playfully gnawed on his head, causing the young man to laugh and tried to push the tiger away.


“Eunhyuk!”
*
Eunhyuk stopped playing with Bada at the sound of his name being called. There, he saw the face he’d been missing for the past months.


“Y-your Highness?” Eunhyuk mumbled, unsure. Bada growled a little in warning. The tiger recognize the man but he smelled something foul and bad coming out of the man. He didn’t know if he should protect Eunhyuk or accepts