A few months ago

Akira's head gets hit with something solid as she's busy daydreaming on the front steps of the library, and she glares when she notices the familiar face grinning from afar. She sees him throw an apple up and down, chuckling as he sees that he has managed to get a headshot with the apple. The only thing that's easing her anger for having an apple thrown at her head is when the puppy quickly jumps from the horse before coming over to her and licking her fingers.

"Jeong Yunho," Akira starts. "You're lucky Mars is here to ease my burning heart. Or else you'll be getting not one but two apples to your head. You're really asking for a death wish."

"I was let off early today," Yunho says as he chomps through an apple and alights the horse. "The restaurant ran out of ingredients because they didn't expect the heavy volume of orders in one time so we're done for today."

She looks at her watch before picking up the apple targeted at her head and walking over to the pipe to wash it. She takes a bite out of it before sitting next to Yunho on the steps, with Mars eagerly placing each side of his legs on both of their legs, looking quite comical as he tries to balance himself with his legs spread out.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Yunho smirks, leaning back as he chews on his apple and swallowing it, enjoying how sweet it is. "Managed to get him off of you today?"

"He didn't come by today; he said he's doing something in town. Buying groceries or what not," she replies. "He asked me to go with him but Wooyoung said he needed to learn how to live without me again," she chuckles. "Wooyoung said that Seonghwa became too dependent on me, said he's never seen his brother like this."

"He didn't even want to come out of the palace before you came into the picture," Yunho utters. "Now he's setting aside all of his time to come and see you. Hah... it still feels so surreal."

"What? That your general finally fell for someone?"

He shrugs. "That we're living a normal life like this."

"You're going to jinx it, I swear."

"Our lives are already jinxed."

She pauses to think. "You're right."

Yunho takes a huge bite out of the apple again, slowly chewing as he utters, "So is he the one?"

She lifts his eyebrows; feigning innocence either intentionally or unintentionally.

"It may have been years since you've said it and," he quickly adds when it seems that Akira looks like she wants to refute him, "you may have said it while you're a child, but I know that you told Emira that your goal in life was to have a happy family. So," he repeats, "will he be the one you're building one with?"

Akira clears her throat, looking away as she clamps her lips, pretending that she has not heard of his question. "That was such a long time ago," she mumbles. "It's not even valid anymore."

He chuckles. "So you don't want a happy family with Seonghwa? Ah..." he smiles, "he's probably going to cry a river once he hears you say that."

"You know that's not what I meant," she quickly backtracks. "I mean," she relents, "who wouldn't want a happy family, right Mars?" she asks the puppy, receiving a bark in return. "I'm just being realistic."

"How realistic are you trying to get?"

"We both came from Lucida, and he has lived all of his life in Nyla. He's a nobleman while I'm-"

"I'm disappointed in you," he says casually, alarming Akira as she blinks. "I never thought that you still keep this mentality with you."

Her shoulders drop as she tilts her body to the side, rolling the half-eaten apple in her hand. "I'm just... being realistic. You know Seonghwa's past with Lucida; years worth of hatred don't just disappear like that."

"True. You never know what kind of ill feelings he might still harbour towards Lucida." As she side-eyes him, he continues, "If you want to be realistic I'm giving you a realistic situation." He shrugs, "But he's trying."

She opens her mouth to talk but closes it not long after. She remains mum.

"It's his effort that counts. As long as you see he's trying, I think that's what matters the most." He hums, "You know... I've seen how people try to impress you when you're the general in Lucida, but you never faltered. Seonghwa's the only person that has succeeded in impressing you."

"And why are you so interested in my love life?" She aims to throw the apple core into the nearest dustbin outside Madam Eurielle's house, shoots and scores. The apple core clangs against the walls of the bin before settling down to the bottom. "Get your own."

Yunho merely smiles, not saying anything as he finishes his own apple.

Akira narrows her eyes. "Did you get one?"

"What?"

"A love life."

He shrugs. "I don't know."

"You did, didn't you?"

"And if I did?"

"Who? A girl? A guy? Someone else?"

"I'm not telling you," he utters as he can't stop smiling. He throws away the finished apple into the dustbin too. "The focus is you, not me. I'm talking about your love life because I'm happy to see my general finally have someone."

"You're never letting this go until the day I die, are you?"

"Hmm," he hums. "I'm going to tell your children and your grandchildren how their mother and grandmother was the last person I thought would fall in love with someone, did."

"Why are you so intent on embarrassing me?"

He wriggles his eyebrows as he smirks. "Because I finally have something on you. All this while you're the one who's bullying me, and now I'll get my revenge."

"Hah," she scoffs. "I see you're treading on the path for revenge."

"It's the revenge I've been looking to execute since we were children," he jokes.

"How are you going to execute that revenge if I kick your butt first?" she points out.

"If I ever try to take revenge on you, I'm pretty sure Seonghwa is going to hunt me down relentlessly," he chuckles. "So I'm not taking that chance."

"Will you betray me one day, Jeong Yunho?" she utters. "What if we find ourselves believing in something different than each other?"

"Have we ever had any differences in our beliefs?"

"That's why I said what if." She leans forward, putting her elbows on her knees as she clasps her hands. "You know what's one of my fears?"

He huffs. "Akira Hwang has no fear."

She chuckles as she shakes her head. "My fear is that I'll be betrayed one day by the person I trust, but I keep continuing to fight for that person even though I had no idea they betrayed me. I keep asking myself if there comes a day where he has to choose again; would Seonghwa remain with the same answer?"

"What's yours? Your answer to which your loyalty lies."

She doesn't answer as she only smiles mysteriously, making Yunho gain more questions he has yet to get the answers to.

---

"He's alive... isn't he?" Akira utters as she holds the railing, although she feels like her legs might fail her and she'll end up tumbling down the stairs. "Everyone seems to refuse to tell me about what happened to him."

"His Majesty..." Yunho trails off, already feeling the pity washing over him as he looks at Akira's appearance.

Her eyes look swollen while her lips are cracked, face pale as worry lines decorate her forehead. Her voice sounds strained, as if it takes her whole energy to even get a word out. Her hands are slightly trembling as she holds onto the railing, her legs looking like they'll make her collapse.

"It's better if you see his condition for yourself, but you'll have to... prepare yourself for what you'll see."

"Bring me to him," she says defiant. After a thought she adds slowly, "Please."

"Follow me, Your Majesty." Without hesitating Yunho helps Akira to walk as he holds her on the side, already letting out a heavy breath as his mind thinks back to how shocked he was when he saw Seonghwa's appearance. He doesn't know how Akira will handle it.

They arrive at one of the rooms with a closed door, but what confuses her is that it's locked from the outside. It is as if they don't want to let anyone... or anything that's inside to get out. Even the guards who are on duty outside the room are standing quite a distance from the door, as if scared of what's inside. She notices that something like a black liquid is leaking from under the door, but it's not blood. She can't tell what it is.

As she looks at Yunho, speechless, the latter merely shakes his head before asking the guard to unlock the door.

The guard does albeit really quick, the lock clacking as he inserts the key before turning it and as the lock is released, he quickly retreats, not wanting to be near the door as it opens.

However, Akira and Yunho remain unperturbed as they stand in front of the door, the latter helping to twist the handle before pushing the door open, revealing to the queen what they have been locking inside.

She gasps as her hand flies to her mouth, the other hand clutching her chest as she looks at the condition of the room. A jungle of black tendrils and vines have sprouted all over the room, shooting from one wall to the other as some kind of black liquid drips along them, while the walls look charred as if they're burned. There's barely light pouring into the room through the barricaded windows, and she can already feel her body failing her as she sees that in the middle of it all, lies a figure on the bed that she knows is her husband, even though he looks barely anything like the Seonghwa she knows.

As she's about to step into the room, Yunho pulls her arm as he shakes his head. "There's a reason why we locked him inside."

Her pupils tremble as she looks at Yunho, begging for him to let her go. "It's been days since I saw him, so just," she slowly puts her hand on Yunho's, loosening his grip, "please let me see him."

"We don't know what he's capable of, or if he's going to act out," Yunho utters, "we took some effort to tie him down to the bed because he wouldn't stop writhing. But he just stopped, then we locked him inside. We don't know how he'll act next."

"He's my husband; I'll take the risk whatever it is," she pleads.

He sighs, nodding his head as he closes his eyes. "But make sure to avoid... touching or stepping on anything foreign in the room. We don't know what they are, but it does seem as if they hold some kind of black magic. Just be careful."

She nods ruefully before she steps over the black liquid, carefully arranging her steps so as to make sure that she won't be coming into contact with the foreign objects. She ducks to avoid the hanging tendrils and vines, avoiding her body from being caught. She notices Yunho following suit, although looking slightly reluctant as he steps over and ducks under them. She approaches the bed without any hesitation before she collapses next to the bed, tears in her eyes as she sees Seonghwa's condition.

Seonghwa's eyes are closed but some kind of black tendrils are creeping up from his body up to his neck, already breaching his face. His arms look stiff, as if it would break the moment she touches him. It takes her a lot of effort to keep looking at him without having her vision clouded by her tears. Her shaky hands reach out to touch him, but Yunho quickly pulls her hand back, shaking his head.

"We don't know the effect this thing will have on someone else," Yunho says. "We're not taking any chances; we can't lose you too."

"Who did this to him?" she asks through gritted teeth. "Who?"

"San..." Yunho trails off, already expecting her reaction as it's the truth none of them are prepared to hear.

"Choi San?" She stands up before grabbing Yunho's arms. She sniffs, unable to form any words as she can't imagine what had happened while she was unconscious. "How did it happen? What happened to San?"

"We got a surprise attack from Nyla, and apparently it was under San's orders. I don't think..." he takes a deep breath, "he was himself. He was someone entirely different, and I don't know whether he was cursed or something. He seemed to have transferred some of the curse to His Majesty. Maybe the effects are different on both of them, but His Majesty..." he throws a look to Seonghwa, "seems like he's not really... living."

"San did this to him," she repeats, still trying to wrap around the fact that it's someone she knows; someone she has trusted.

"We found both of them in your room, Your Majesty," Yunho says. "It seemed that they were having an altercation, but both of them were unconscious by the time we found them in this... condition. No one would know what happened except the two of them."

"He didn't wake up after you found him?"

"He was writhing but he didn't open his eyes. It looked like he was having a terrible nightmare, screaming."

"Why did you lock him inside?"

Yunho looks guilty as he scratches his neck, claiming, "We don't know how he'll act out or what he's capable of, so we're taking measures. I know," he relents, "this would probably be useless considering we're dealing with some unknown entity which has taken over his body, but this is the best we can do. No one could figure out what happened to His Majesty."

"I see," she replies, eyes never leaving Seonghwa as she resists the urge to hold him. Wordlessly, she walks away from the bed towards the door, followed by Yunho before they step outside, with the guards quickly locking the door back.

The sound of the lock being slotted in as Seonghwa is sealed inside once again breaks her heart, the pain of realizing that she won't be able to talk to him for the foreseeable future. But even if he does wake up... he probably won't be the person she knows.

Will I ever get him back?

"You need to eat something first, get your energy back," Yunho offers, knowing what's already playing in Akira's mind. "It's been days since you fell unconscious, so you need a proper meal. Don't even think about exacting your revenge without even sitting down and having a meal served to you."

She chuckles painfully, but she can only laugh through her tears as she wipes them away angrily. She walks away from the room towards the dining hall, with the general following closely behind, carefully watching her if she needs any assistance. But she walks fine on her own as she looks down, occasionally wiping her tears with the back of her hand.

As soon as they reach the dining hall, Yunho disappears into the kitchen after he pulls out the seat for her and he asks one of the chefs to cook some porridge for her. He waits at the boundary between the kitchen and the dining hall, observing Akira from afar.

She looks out of it as she clasps her hands on her lap, looking into the distance, unfocused. Instinctively her hands fly to her eyes as she presses her palms against them and wipes them away before she tilts her head backwards. Then she pretends as if she wasn't crying as she stares at somewhere far, sighing in defeat.

"That idiot," Yunho mutters under his breath, pain evident in his tone. "Will she never be able to rest?"

As he waits for the porridge to cook, he can't count how many times she has been wiping her tears. He looks to the side as he sees a maid about to bring out the porridge prepared, but he stops her before asking for the bowl, saying that he'll bring it over to the queen himself. He takes the ceramic bowl, careful to not let the hot food from sloshing too much as he brings it over to the long table. He places it in front of the queen, which seems to make her snap out of her thoughts.

"Thank you," she says weakly. Without thinking, she grabs the spoon and is about to scoop it up, but Yunho clicks his tongue before chastising.

"You're going to burn your tongue. Wait for it to cool down first."

"Right." She puts down the spoon, looking too out of it. They bask in the silence as he doesn't want to interrupt her reverie, but she breaks the silence when something comes to mind. "Jihyun... where is she? She's alright isn't she?" She shakes her head, her eyes blinking slowly. "I don't think I've seen her ever since I woke up."

Yunho presses his lips into thin lines, constructing sentences that could deliver her the message as subtle as possible, but he realizes that he has no choice but to be blunt. She has the rights to know what happened with her, and he doesn't want to be the one keeping it from her, no matter how painful it would be for her to know that the one of the closest people to her tried to harm her.

"His Majesty-" he takes a deep breath as he finds it suffocating to be calling him the title, "Seonghwa found Jihyun in your room trying to poison you with something that could induce a heart attack. He stopped her just in time, and he had sent her away to be locked up."

"She tried to kill me."

"She said she was threatened anonymously, but we couldn't prove anything yet. We found nothing in her possession that could prove as the medium used to threaten her. For now, we're only keeping her locked up. You could make a decision on how you want to deal with her..." he looks at her, "but focus on your husband first."

Only a sad smile comes to her, mind already too empty to think about how she can bring back Seonghwa. She thought that after waking up, the first thing that she'll be able to see is him waiting for her but rather it was only an empty room with the silence too deafening for her. Slowly, she picks the spoon up and mindlessly eats the porridge, her hand sometimes trembling as she feeds herself.

She stands up to pick the bowl up to wash it, but Yunho stops her as he huffs. "No queen should be doing the dishes," he tries to joke, but receives no smile in return as Akira only looks forlorn.

"I don't feel like I'm fit for that title anyway," she utters as she brings the bowl to the kitchen, already making Yunho speechless from her acting that way.

She goes to the kitchen, with the maids quickly attending to her to bring away the bowl from her. She doesn't have the energy to protest as she only watches them ushering her away from the kitchen, saying that it's a place someone like her shouldn't be in. She steps out of the kitchen to see Yunho waiting for her at the door of the dining hall, watching her with so much apprehension but she tries to smile it off.

"I'll be in my room," she utters. "I need to clear my mind a bit, and I'll figure out how I'll deal with... him."

He lets her go with his eyes, bowing his head slightly. He decides that she's able to walk without needing his help, so silently he turns away as he sighs.

Akira smiles at the palace staff she passes by, noticing how each of them seem to be looking at her longer and with more pitiful eyes.

The queen who has lost her king when she wasn't even awake.

She steels herself as she makes her way to their bedroom, already having enough of the eyes that are feeling sorry for her. She opens the door to their bedroom, looking at the bed as she closes the door and locks it.

If Yunho were to say that this bedroom was the very room that Seonghwa almost lost his life at, she wouldn't believe him because they did an excellent job in cleaning everything. Everything looks as it was, giving no sign that anything ever happened here.

She walks across the floor, remembering the last time they woke up together and she only manages to smile through her tears. She sits on the floor, leaning against the bed as she sucks in a breath, feeling her chest tightening. She sees something under the sofa before she scrambles to take it out, realizing it's Seonghwa's couple bracelet.

The bracelet is already broken, some of the charms missing. She grips the broken bracelet and like a madman, she looks around the whole room to search for the missing beads.

The girl said if we always wear them, our relationship would last forever.

She gives up trying to find the missing beads as she can't find them anymore in the room, figuring that whoever was cleaning the room could've mistakenly thrown them away. She hugs her knees to her chest as she sits on the floor, burying her face in her knees as she grips the bracelet until her knuckles turn white.

So if they're broken... does it mean our relationship would stop right there?