Two weeks later and Chaeyoung was feeling decidedly less excited. She was two months pregnant, and her morning sickness had fully kicked in. Every morning, like clockwork, she had to scramble for the bathroom, falling hard onto her knees and giving herself new bruises that she was grateful her stockings somewhat hid, where she proceeded to vomit while Joohyun held her hair back for her and rubbed soothing circles on her back. The worst part of all was the fact that it wasn’t just in the mornings, and Chaeyoung was outraged at the fact that she had to keep ducking out of meals and meetings to find the nearest bathroom. Joohyun had been particularly amused by her rantings about that, made even funnier to her by the fact that a little over a month into her own pregnancy and she was yet to feel any of the symptoms that Chaeyoung had been feeling around that time.

In Chaeyoung’s case, she was getting more. In just two weeks, so many things had changed. She was hot and flustered all the time now, despite the cooling weather of the mid-autumn weather, they’d had to add gingersnap biscuits and ginger tea to their tea parties, her moods were a little more irritable than usual and Chaeyoung was starting to look and feel like she was bloated all the time, until she realised with startling surprise that it was the baby. The morning that her skirt felt a little bit too tight around her waist, Chaeyoung was struck with the sudden thought that she really was pregnant. It abruptly became a reality to her.

With a hand pressed to her stomach, a slight frown on her face as she looked at herself in the mirror, Chaeyoung stared at her reflection. All of her clothes were perfectly tailored for her, each item usually costing more than was probably reasonable to spend on her wardrobe, which also meant that if she was bloated, she looked bloated. And if she was starting to show just the tiniest bit, then sooner or later people would start talking, and in the fitted pencil skirt she was wearing, it would definitely be sooner.

As she brooded over her appearance, warm arms wrapped around her from behind, and Chaeyoung looked up from her stomach to meet Joohyun’s eyes in the mirror. Her wife smiled at her before she kissed along Chaeyoung’s bare shoulder, her hands and lips warm and slightly ticklish. “What’re you looking so worried about this early in the morning?” Joohyun asked between her gentle kisses.

“My skirt is a little bit uncomfortable,” Chaeyoung sighed, an annoyed look on her face as she pouted, “and it’s one of my favourites.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not even showing yet,” Joohyun assured her, “it’ll be at least another month before you’ll actually be able to tell. You just look a little bloated is all.”

Huffing, Chaeyoung pulled herself out of Joohyun’s arms and gave her a betrayed look, “you’re supposed to tell me I don’t look bloated!”

Lips curling up into a smile, Joohyun let out a quick laugh, her eyes lighting up as she reached out to take Chaeyoung’s hands in her own and pull her closer. “You’re turning into an awfully moody cow lately,” Joohyun murmured, stretching up slightly to kiss Chaeyoung.

Pressing her lips together to try and stop herself from smiling, Chaeyoung gave Joohyun an unimpressed look, but it didn’t have much effect because her lips were twitching at the corners and her eyebrows were raised slightly with amusement. “I’m going to be the size of a cow soon enough. God, of course I’d start showing early, wouldn’t I? I’m going to need some bigger clothes.”

“Might I suggest a mumu?”

“What on earth is a mumu?”

“You know, those dresses. The floaty ones. Make you look like you’re going to coachella or make your own soap. Entirely inappropriate for a queen, but you could be six months and the press wouldn’t hear a word about the baby. Although, you’d probably have a lot to answer for with the fashion magazines,” Joohyun said, looking more amused by the second, “which sounds even more fun. Perhaps I’ll get Sooyoung to go shopping for you.”

Scoffing, Chaeyoung rolled her eyes, holding Joohyun by the waist as she smiled, “not for you?”

“I wouldn’t caught dead in one, darling,” Joohyun laughed kissing her on the tip of her nose before pulling away. “Now, I’ve been thinking-”

“That never bodes well for me.”

“That’s fair. Well, this time, I think you’ll like it. I cleared my schedule for the next two weeks. No meetings, no appearances, no lunches or dinners.”

A knowing smile on her face, Chaeyoung reached for the pressed shirt hanging up on the rail in the massive closet, slipping it off the hanger and pushing her arms through the sleeves. She started buttoning up her shirt as she turned away from the mirror and faced Joohyun, watching her browse the row of pigeonholes holding her heels, selecting a pair to go with her plum coloured suit. “You want to go to Ireland.”

Sitting down on the little ottoman, Joohyun slipped her shoes on and fluidly rose to her feet, walking over to Chaeyoung and brushing her hands aside as she finished buttoning the shirt up for her. It had an ascot attached to it, which Joohyun tied in a neat, loose bow, before running her hands over the ivory silk, giving Chaeyoung a hopeful look. “I do. I didn’t want to tell Yerim to clear your schedule just in case it wasn’t a good time for you, but I think we could both do with a break from the palace. You’re rarely allowed to leave it. We haven’t been in months .”

Reaching out to tuck a strand of Joohyun’s curly hair behind her ear, Chaeyoung gave her a loving smile, “I’ll get Yerim to clear my schedule.”

Face lighting up, Joohyun leant in for a kiss, and Chaeyoung smiled into it, cupping Joohyun’s face in her hands and gently caressing her cheeks. When they broke apart, foreheads touching as they both tried to prolong the moment, Joohyun gave her a breathless laugh, “so, when do you want to go?”

“In the morning.”

---

It was little trouble for them to drop everything and catch a plane to Ireland. It wasn’t exactly responsible for Chaeyoung to cancel so many appointments on such short notice, but one of the perks of being a queen was that she could do whatever she wanted to, even if skipping a state dinner meant that her lack of an appearance would cause a bit of a stir with the tabloids. Still, as she instructed Yerim what to pack in one of the expensive leather suitcases laying on the bed, half-filled, Chaeyoung’s thoughts weren’t on public appearances and meetings with people who ruined her country for her, but instead on the thought of a couple of weeks in the lush green countryside and the modestly sized house where they had to fend for themselves. It was always times like that, where she craved the urge to do things herself, that Chaeyoung realised how ridiculous she sounded. People would kill for the chance to have everything handed to them on a silver platter - quite literally that at meal times - and to her it felt almost suffocating sometimes. One of the things she was most grateful to Joohyun for was the small glimpses of freedom she offered Chaeyoung.

Joohyun likewise looked happy to be leaving as she breezed into their room, Sooyoung trailing after her, making noted on the tablet she carried in her hands as she listened to Joohyun rattle off a list of instructions. Aoife was trailing after her, tongue lolling and tail wagging, and Chaeyoung reached down to scratch the dog behind her ears when she bumped into Chaeyoung’s legs, seeking some affection. They had to leave within the hour, and Chaeyoung was already b with excitement at the thought of their time away together, although the fluttering in her stomach s