The Second Chapter
She leaned against the railing of the balcony of her room for a couple of seconds, squinting at the sunset. It was a warm night in London, one of the rare ones since it usually rained non-stop. Taking a deep breath and smiling contentedly, she turned back to where she was seated earlier; right in front of the canvas she was painting on. Picking up a paintbrush, she the canvas, painting her interpretation of the setting sun.

“So this really is still all you’ve been doing,” a deep voice behind her suddenly commented.

Caught by surprise, she dropped her paintbrush and immediately stood up, turning around.

“Kyuhyun, what are you doing here?” she asked, leaning her head on his shoulder as he brought her to him in a hug. She glanced behind him and noticed that Siwon had left the room to give them some privacy.

“What, can’t I visit you anymore?” he responded, pouting as they pulled away.

“It’s been six months since you last visited,” she pointed out, making a face at him. “You never even called or even emailed. Too busy being a prince?” she then teased.

“Too busy covering for you,” he countered, rolling his eyes at her remark.

“Covering for me?” she repeated, frowning a bit. As far as she knew, her behavior in her whole stay in London was exemplary. She never got into any fights, any scandals, or anything negative. All she got were good grades and awards. It was what was expected of her as she remembered her father telling her every time he called or every time Kyuhyun came to visit and it was what she did. She followed what they told her to do.

Kyuhyun walked to the balcony and leaned against it. The sun had gone, the moon and the stars replacing its light. He let out a breath before turning around to face her once more.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” he finally began again.

“Sounds serious,” she commented. “What is it?”

“Uncle wants you to come home,” he told her, going straight to the point. “He thinks it’s time for you to.”

“But I’m in the middle of my studies,” was all she could reply, so surprised at what he had said.

“You will have to continue them in Korea,” he countered, shaking his head and looking out into the night sky. “It’s been getting harder and harder to keep the reporters from writing about you.” He turned and faced her once more. “They know you’re here, Taeyeon. They remember that you exist.”

“Does it even matter that I exist?” she asked. She walked over to the balcony and leaned against the railing beside him.

“You’re the princess,” he pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I’ve always been the princess,” she reminded him. “I’ve always been the daughter of my father, the king. That didn’t seem to matter before.”

It had always been a vague memory. South Korea was in the midst of poverty. People were losing jobs left and right and were facing hunger. The people wanted the king to do something about it and he tried, but there was only so much he could do when the world economy was also down. The people wanted security and hope and there was a hint of this with the queen being pregnant. Everyone looked forward to the prince that could possibly bring them out of poverty. But a princess was born instead. Hope was shattered and rumors of a revolt started to go around.

She remembered being flown to London at seven years old to study and live there because the country wasn’t ready for a princess as an heir. They wanted a prince. They wanted someone to be able to rule and bring them out of their miseries. But her mother died giving birth to her and couldn’t produce any other heir. With the revolt coming on, her father felt he had no choice but to get her out of the country, to keep her safe.

“Well it matters. You matter,” he stoutly declared. “And it’s time for you to realize that. It’s time for you to come back.”

“Unnie. Unnie.” Yoona stomped over to her brother, who was seated by the fireplace reading a newspaper. “Oppa, she’s doing it again. She’s ignoring me.”

Kyuhyun looked up from his reading, folding the newspaper on his lap. His sister was frowning, but what he noticed more were the clothes she had on. She was wearing a pair of jeans, a simple checkered blouse and a cap on her head, hiding her long hair.

“Wherever do you have to go dressed like that?” Kyuhyun asked her, meeting her eyes, looking amused.

“I always dress like this,” Yoona responded, the look of annoyance on her face replaced by innocence.

“No you don’t,” he stated, remembering all the frilly dresses that his sister always wore even when she was only in the palace. “Yoona, are you thinking of sneaking out again?” He snickered when she pouted. “Heechul,” he suddenly called to their assistant, who was seated in the corner of the room. “Doesn’t Yoona have her piano lesson this afternoon?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Heechul swiftly responded, standing up and taking out his gold pocket watch. “Her music professor should have arrived by now.”

“But unnie promised me we would go out today,” Yoona grumbled, almost stomping her foot in protest. “I’m wearing this because she told me I needed to blend in.”

Kyuhyun glanced at Taeyeon, who was seated by the window, looking out onto the gardens. He sighed quietly and turned to his sister.

“After your piano lesson, you and Taeyeon can go out,” he finally relented.

At this, Yoona beamed and gave her brother a tight hug. After which, she rushed out of the room to meet with her music professor. Kyuhyun chuckled and slightly shook her head.

Yoona had always been the most willing to explore outside of the palace out of the three of them. She was the more inquisitive one and the one who was always caught almost sneaking out. She was also the more emotional one, wearing her heart and emotion on her sleeve. She cried herself to sleep when a 10-year-old Kyuhyun told her that their parents weren’t coming back when she was eight years old. They were caught in a car accident and had died on the spot. She always got mad at her brother whenever he got to go to London to visit Taeyeon. And she hated it when the attention wasn’t on her. She was the youngest, after all.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Heechul quietly asked Kyuhyun, glancing at Taeyeon to make sure that she didn’t hear. “It’s not safe, Your Highness. The two princesses being out like that…”

“You’ve never called me Your Highness in private before,” Kyuhyun commented with a chuckle, looking up at him.

Heechul rolled his eyes. “If anything happens to them, Kyuhyun,” he grounded out.

“Siwon will be with them,” Kyuhyun finalized, lifting his paper up to start reading again. “Nothing’s ever happened with him around. And I’ll have other guards discreetly follow them.” He looked up at his assistant and friend. “Does that satisfy you?” Heechul merely pursed his lips. Kyuhyun sighed and glanced at Taeyeon, who was still absently looking out of the window. “They need to get away once in a while. Taeyeon, even more than Yoona.”


~ * ~
Taeyeon took a look at some of the clothes on the rack in the market that they went to. Yoona insisted on going to the mall, but Taeyeon declined her request. She wanted to go out because she wanted to see what she hadn’t been seeing for practically her whole life.

“Unnie, what do you think of this?” Yoona, still wearing her cap, asked, stepping out of a dressing room and modeling the simple, spaghetti-strapped dress she picked out from the rack earlier.

“Anything looks good on you, you know,” was Taeyeon’s remark. It was the right answer because Yoona looked rather pleased and immediately bought the dress right after she came out of the dressing room.

“You should buy something, unnie,” Yoona told her, looking through the dresses as they went on walking.

Taeyeon merely shook her head. “I don’t want to shop,” she told her.

“Then why did we go here?” Yoona wanted to know, glancing at her older cousin.

There were a lot of reasons why Taeyeon wanted to get out of the palace and to the market, but she settled on just one, the simplest reason. She smiled at her cousin.

“I just wanted to spend some time with you, somewhere different,” Taeyeon told her. “We haven’t been able to spend much time together with me being in London and all.”

“Well I could have visited you in London, but oppa wouldn’t let me,” Yoona replied, making a face at the thought of Kyuhyun being so strict with her. “We could’ve bonded during those times.”

“Kyuhyun’s just trying to protect you,” Taeyeon told her, smiling a little. Kyuhyun was really too strict at times, even with her. She could only remember all the times that he scolded her for going out unnecessarily (in his opinion). “Anyway, let’s not talk about that,” she told her, linking her arms with the taller girl. “I’m home and we have all the time in the world to bond.”

Yoona grinned and wrapped an arm around her. She had always wanted to be closer to her. Despite the distance between them all those years, she had always looked up to her because Kyuhyun and her uncle talked of no one else. It was something they did to make sure she wasn’t forgotten in the palace. It could have been something to cause her to be jealous of her but she knew her rightful place and it can never be one that was Taeyeon’s.

“Oh, unnie, look at this,” Yoona excitedly said, grabbing a headband. “Isn’t this so pretty?” Without thinking, she pulled her cap off and let her beautiful, long hair down to put it on. “How does it look on me?”

Siwon noticed what had happened a little too late. Before they knew it, people had noticed Yoona and had started closing in on them. Even when the younger princess had put her cap back on, she had already been seen. People started taking pictures and asking for autographs from the country’s princess.

Siwon and a couple of the guards who had been following them tried to ward the crowd off but they were too many and were too eager to get a glimpse of the beautiful Princess Yoona. Taeyeon looked around, trying to find an exit for them. Deciding to just take a chance, she clasped Yoona’s hand tighter and pulled her through the crowd to try to get away from there.

They ran through the market and people ran after them with such fierceness. They knew this happened to celebrities, had seen it happen on television, but they never thought it would happen to them.

“Unnie, what are we going to do?” Yoona panted, glancing behind her back. People had their cameras and phones ed towards them, continuously taking photos. She clutched her cousin’s hand tighter.

“Don’t worry,” Taeyeon assured her as best as she could. “I’ll get you out of here.”

“I’m more worried about you,” Yoona responded. “If your photos get out—.” Taeyeon almost stopped running at this. She thought that only Kyuhyun knew about the reason why she was away all those years. “I’m not a child, unnie, and I’m not stupid,” she continued, tugging at her arm, urging her to run faster.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed her arm, pulling her and Yoona into an empty alleyway. The two girls screamed in fright, but hands clasped over their mouths to keep them quiet.

~ * ~
“It was my fault!” Yoona immediately said before anyone could say anything.

Kyuhyun and Taeyeon lifted their faces up from their meek bows and gave the youngest royal a look of surprise. The King raised his eyebrows in amusement at this before glancing at the other two.

“And just how exactly is this your fault?” the King asked, indulging his niece.

“If I hadn’t insisted that unnie and I go out, this wouldn’t have happened,” Yoona emphatically explained. “Also, I was careless. I should have known better than to take off my disguise.” She looked at her uncle with the most pleading eyes that she could muster. “But this is the first time this happened so…”

“Oh? And what about all those other times?” the King pressed, a smile tugging at his lips. Yoona rarely ever admitted to doing anything wrong.

Yoona opened to defend herself when she saw Kyuhyun ducking his head to hide his laughter. Even Taeyeon held back a smile. The youngest princess then frowned, realizing that the King had always known about her trying to sneak out in the past.

“I’m sorry,” Yoona muttered. “I just don’t want you to scold unnie over this. She didn’t want this to happen. Besides, I don’t think anyone ever noticed her anyway.”

“Yoona is right, uncle,” Kyuhyun finally spoke up, giving her a sister a look. “I’ve talked to Siwon and said that they were at least successful at maintaining Taeyeon’s privacy.” He glanced at Taeyeon, who still hadn’t said anything, then continued. “For now, I think it would be best that both of them not go out of the palace, except for classes.”

The King nodded, contemplating his suggestion. “That would probably be best,” he agreed, ignoring Yoona’s obvious frown at this.

“I apologize, father,” Taeyeon finally spoke up. She only ever spoke when she felt the need to. “I thought everything would go smoothly, but I obviously erred in judgment. It won’t happen again. I take full accountability for this whole incident. Please don’t punish Yoona for what is supposed to be my responsibility.”

“Unnie…” Yoona began to defend her, but when the Kyuhyun shot her a look, she immediately knew that she had been dismissed. With a polite bow, she left the room.

“Taeyeon,” the King began, “I am not reprimanding you. I completely understand your need to go out and see what’s out there, but it’s too dangerous for you. It’s too early for the people to know that you are here, that you are back.”

“Then why am I back?” she shot back. She immediately bit her lip and shook her head. There were a lot of things she needed to relearn about the culture in Korea. “I apologize for questioning you.”

The King studied his daughter. He traced the curves of her face with his eyes and wished that he knew it and her by heart. He had not been there for her for most of her life and he regretted that deeply. What was more was the fact that he couldn’t seem to make her understand what her whole life was about, what it was that was driving them to hide her from the public, at least for a little while more.

“About those boys,” the King began, deciding to not address her outburst for the meantime and glancing at Kyuhyun.

“They will be sworn to secrecy,” Kyuhyun began. “I will have Heechul discuss with them their options and—.”

“There’s no need for that,” Taeyeon interrupted him as politely as she could.

“But Taeyeon,” Kyuhyun began again.

“They don’t know that I’m a princess,” she informed them. “They merely know me as Yoona’s assistant.”

~ * ~
“A princess’s assistant studying in SMA,” Kyuhyun snorted as soon as they were out of the King’s study. “Really?”

“It was all I could think of at the time,” Taeyeon defended herself. But there was a smile threatening to escape her lips. “They seemed to buy it.”

“It won’t hold for very long,” Kyuhyun mused as they descended down the grand staircase and to the lobby. “Especially when they find out that Siwon’s a bodyguard. Oh good, they’re now going to start to think that the palace uses their taxes to send everyone working for the palace to prestigious universities.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Taeyeon told him, rolling her eyes. “You said Heechul talked to them?”

Kyuhyun nodded. “They won’t breathe a word.”

“Then we’re good then,” Taeyeon reminded him, a teasing grin on her face.

They reached the guest living room and found Yoona in a heated argument with Donghae in the middle of the room. Each was on one side of the small table. They were seemingly arguing about… the color blue.

“Is everything okay in here?” Taeyeon cautiously inquired. At the way that Yoona’s fists were clenched to her sides and the way Donghae’s brows were furrowed together, she sensed that they shouldn’t make fun of the fact that what they were fighting about was so…trivial.

The two stopped in mid-argument, startled at the interruption. Donghae, being reminded of who he was standing in the midst of and where he was, bowed at once.

“Prince,” Donghae muttered, his eyes on the floor.

Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow and glanced at Heechul, who had been standing by the door the whole time. The prince rolled his eyes at the royal assistant, as it was apparent to him that he just let the two argue away.

“You seem to be getting to know each other well,” Kyuhyun commented amusedly just as Taeyeon quietly excused herself to the patio.

“Hardly,” Yoona spat, turning and leaving the room without so much as a bow to the visitors.

“Well that was rude,” Donghae mumbled, clearly irritated. His eyes flashed downwards once more when they saw Kyuhyun’s questioning look. “Sorry, Prince.”

A snort echoed in the room. Kyuhyun glared at Heechul, who had his hand covering his mouth, then turned sharply to Donghae.

“My name is Prince Kyuhyun,” Kyuhyun grounded out powerfully, “and that is how you will address me. I am not a singer. And I definitely do not wear flamboyant, body-fitting clothes. Prince Kyuhyun.”

“Of course, Prince Kyuhyun,” Donghae repeated in embarrassment just as Heechul excused himself, as he could not hold his laughter to himself any longer.

~ * ~
Taeyeon slipped through the sliding glass doors and quietly closed them behind her. She smiled a little as she saw Hyukjae standing on the edge of garden, just under the shade of the patio, his hands clasped behind his back. He seemed to be thinking deeply about something.

She had honestly thought that someone had intended to kidnap her (or, more importantly, Yoona) when she felt her arm being tugged to a dark alleyway. But, once they had calmed down, once she had seen that it was him and Donghae, she felt greatly relieved, even if she didn’t really know them well.

The two had brought them to a coffee shop just a couple of blocks ahead and they had hidden there for an hour, until their security arrived.

“Hey,” Taeyeon greeted Hyukjae quietly.

“Oh, hi,” Hyukjae greeted her back, standing up straighter, unclasping his hands. He glanced back towards the living room and saw that his best friend had finally finished arguing with the princess. “Everything okay?” he then asked, giving her a concerned look.

“What do you mean?” she asked curiously.

“I mean, did the King reprimand you, or did he sentence you to treason or something like that?” he clarified. “He must take great care of the prince and the princess and for something like that to happen, someone must take the heat for it.”

“Oh,” she remarked, finally understanding his question. “The King was very gracious about it. He’s not really as frightening as everyone makes him out to be.”

“He really must not be,” he agreed with a nod. He scratched his nose. “Heechul-ssi, is it?” She nodded. “He told us that the King was very grateful for what we’ve done, which isn’t really anything when you think about it.”

She smiled at him. “What you’ve done for us today, we can never repay you for,” she sincerely declared. “It means more than you know.”

He gave her a gummy smile, one that made her chuckle. They sat down on the patio chairs and just stared out at the sky contentedly.

“It must be nice living in the palace,” he mused. “Being with royals, having a share of their food, being on the inside… This is everyone’s dream. You know, happily ever after.” He looked at her, a curious look on his face.

“Except happily ever afters only exist in fairy tales,” she breathed out.