The next couple of days seemed to pass by too quickly. I barely got to see King Chanyeol and my mind kept flashing images of Yu Seongwon whenever I thought about the real queen.

Where the hell was she?

I decided to go through her things in her room, hoping to find some sort of clue. I opened a few little boxes tucked away under other things, but they were only trivial items like needles and thread or pink blush.

I walked over to the dark wooden, rectangular chest that was pushed up against the wall and opened it. There were paintings and letters, but I couldn’t read them since they weren’t in Hangul. I gently placed them on the floor next to me. I happened upon a painting of a man who looked very familiar. I tilted my head as I examined it.

The round eyes and warm smile made my stomach turn. It was Yu Seongwon. The queen must have painted a portrait of him while they were together.

I couldn’t stand to look at it any longer and quickly set it down. The more evidence I had of their love, the guiltier I became.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small, white, silk fabric pouch tied tight with a piece of pink string. It was lying on another letter I couldn’t read.

I grabbed it and carefully opened it. The only thing inside was a coin.

That’s kind of weird. Why would the queen be carrying one coin in such a nice pouch?

With my curiosity growing by the second, I shook the coin out into my palm. As it landed, my stomach dropped. That red stripe down the middle looked too familiar.

Instinctively, I glanced around the room to make sure Lady Choi hadn’t walked in or a servant wasn’t about to serve me tea or something. Once I knew my room was empty, I placed all of the papers and books and paintings back into the chest where I found them, but kept the coin and pouch tight in my hand.

“Your Highness, the king has come to see you,” Lady Choi announced.

My eyes widened in surprise and slight fear. My heart began to beat rapidly against my chest as if it were trying to escape.

I quickly held my hands behind my back and stood up straight, waiting for the king to saunter through my doors. I could feel the rusty coin in my palm, as if it were getting heavier with every passing minute.

The doors finally opened and the king’s face immediately ignited with joy. He made his way into my room and waited for the doors to shut before speaking. “I haven’t seen you in quite a while.”

“A few days,” I confirmed while awkwardly nodding. For some reason, I couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I wanted to go to the village later today and meet with the citizens. We haven’t done that in a while.”

Despite my uncomfortableness, my eyes met his. “I’ve never gone to the village with you.” My voice was quiet.

His mouth opened before he shut it again. “Oh, right. I went with the queen a few days before her disappearance.”

The expression that quickly spread across his face resembled shame and sadness. For some reason, he’s mixing me up with the queen. In his mind, I’m her and she’s me. And that’s not good because he’ll get used to me. And I’ll have to go back. Right? I can’t be here forever.

. . . Right?

Absentmindedly, I began rubbing my thumb against the coin in my hand. And that’s when I started to feel the room spin as my mind started to become foggy.

I stopped rubbing the coin and mentally kicked myself, but it was already too late. The damage was already done.

“Soojin-ssi? Are you all right?” King Chanyeol took a step toward me before my eyes rolled to the back of my head, I felt myself fall, and everything went black. 

Hoooolllyyy crap it's been over a year since I've updated this story. To be completely honest, I sort of just lost the idea and the motivation to write it. A terrible writer's block, if you will. There were so many different paths I could have followed for this story, and I had to pick one that I wanted.

I'm pretty confident in this turn and I PROMISE to have chapter ten up by next week since it's sort of a cliffhanger and nobody likes those xD

AGAIN thank you for all of the comments and upvotes and subscribers and viewers! I probably wouldn't have tried to keep finishing the story if it wasn't for the support so thank you!!! Please keep doing what you do! 

And some more apologies for such the long wait lol