Taeyeon has gotten quite used to nights in the castle.

When she’s not working on her compositions, she busies herself with the palace library’s selection of classical literature, which she finds to be more than entertaining.  But tonight, she opts to sit by her window, one elbow resting on the windowsill, watching the infrequent traffic of people and vehicles go by.  Chariots, carriages, wagons; knights, guards, and soldiers patrol the premises, stopping on occasion for quick conversations because there isn’t much work to be done.  There also isn’t much in particular for Taeyeon to watch, and her eyes glaze over the scenes before her.

She only realises it’s getting late when the castle’s premises below empty out considerably, and by then the sky is dark.  A group of nightwatchmen have taken over from the knights and soldiers earlier, ready to carry out their night shift duties.  Taeyeon yawns, and decides to turn in for the night.

She’s blown out her candle and lain down for forty minutes before she hears something at her door.  Her heart starts, but she brushes it off, thinking it’s just her ears playing a trick on her.  A few seconds later, she hears it again.  She’s sure this time: unmistakably, someone is knocking at her door.  It sounds tentative, yet decisive enough in the serenity of the night.

“Who’s there?”  Taeyeon says into the silence, feeling rather silly at herself for doing so, but also a hundred times more alarmed and alert than before.  Her first instinct is to gather her sheets around her body to protect her modesty; after all, she’s only wearing a thin nightgown, and has no idea who could be so reckless as to call on her so late into the night.

There’s no answer, but the door slowly creaks open.  Taeyeon squints her eyes, and standing there is a familiar silhouette, also cloaked in a nightgown but made of royal silk.

“Lady Jessica…?”  Taeyeon sits up, abandoning her defensive stance.  “What are you doing here?”

Unlike Taeyeon, Jessica’s eyes are wide open, her pupils slightly dilated as she stares into the relative darkness of Taeyeon’s bedchambers.  Taeyeon can barely make out Jessica’s features as her face is illuminated only by the pale moonlight that shines through her bedroom window.  She stumbles out of bed and towards the unexpected guest at her door.

“I woke up again,” Jessica responds, and for once, Taeyeon senses that she feels a little embarrassed with the way she averts her eyes.  “...And I couldn’t fall back asleep.”

“You should’ve called the servants and asked for your medicines,” Taeyeon says.

Abruptly, Jessica asks, “Do you not want me here?”

Taeyeon is slightly taken aback by Jessica’s question, and hopes it doesn’t show in her expression.  “I- It’s not that, I…”

With her words failing her in this absurd, unthinkable situation, Taeyeon instead chooses to quickly step aside to let the princess into her room.  Before she closes the door behind them both, she takes a fleeting look down both ends of the hallway outside to check if the coast is clear.  As if they’re doing something illicit.

When Taeyeon turns back around, she sees Jessica already sitting on the edge of her unmade bed, swinging her legs in a rather carefree manner and looking around the room, as if she were daydreaming during a casual encounter and not trespassing into someone’s chambers in the middle of the night.  Taeyeon is wide awake now.

“I’m sorry… my room is rather small and nowhere near as fancy as Lady Jessica’s,” Taeyeon finds herself apologising.

Jessica only giggles in response.  “I know, silly.  I live here.”

“...Right.”  Taeyeon feels stupid.

Jessica looks around again, and Taeyeon stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, shifting the weight of her body from foot to foot.

“They should’ve given you a bigger room,” Jessica comments absentmindedly.  “A nicer one.”

“I’m more than pleased with my room,” Taeyeon quickly responds, unable to shake the tension from the atmosphere and wondering if Jessica feels it too.  “After all, a guest room in any palace is more than sufficient for a nobody such as myself.”

“You’re not a nobody to me, Taeyeon,” Jessica says automatically.  She looks up and her eyes meet Taeyeon’s briefly, before she looks back down again.

“I’ll sit here,” Taeyeon says, to dissipate any awkwardness Jessica might be feeling, and she sits with her legs crossed on the carpeted floor, with her back leaning against the sturdy wooden doors of her clothes closet.

There’s a moment of silence, and for once, Jessica looks at Taeyeon without a word.  Taeyeon can’t tell what Jessica's thinking, and Jessica’s unreadability drives her out of her mind as always.  Jessica seems to have adjusted to the low light of the room by now, and this time, it’s Taeyeon that looks away from Jessica’s piercing gaze first.

“I wonder, why do you sit there and I here?”  Jessica suddenly asks, breaking the silence.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why am I sitting on your bed and you on the floor,” Jessica clarifies.

Taeyeon is puzzled at this odd question that has such a seemingly obvious answer.  It’s because her desk chair was earlier borrowed by one of the servants to run some errand and has not yet been returned to her.  “Of course Lady Jessica should take my bed- I mean, sit on my bed… I can’t very well make you sit on the floor.”

Jessica smiles, and in her smile Taeyeon senses a hint of sadness.  “Are you afraid of me?”

“I’m sorry?”

Taeyeon is growing more confused by the minute, with Jessica asking all these strange questions.

“Sometimes I wish people would stop treating me differently just because of who I was born to.  I know it’s a silly comp