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The knife slips because Lee Wan is looking at her instead of the green onions.

Not enough to matter, really. Just a shallow slice across his thumb, quick and bright against skin still warm from sleep, but his wife reacts as though he has severed the entire thing clean off.

"Your Majesty!"

The title escapes before thought can catch it.

Rain hums softly against the windows overlooking the sea while Wan stands there in black silk pajamas with blood gathering lazily along his finger and finds himself, absurdly enough, focusing less on the sting and more on the way Huiju's face changes the instant she sees it. Alarm first, then annoyance. Always annoyance after concern, as though she resents the existence of anything in this world still capable of hurting him after all they survived to arrive here.

"Oh my God," she mutters, crossing the kitchen quickly. "Give me that." Wan lets her pluck the knife from his hand. Morning settles differently in this residence. The silence is not the polished silence of the palace, where every sound is swallowed before it can become disruptive. This one breathes, much like in his own main estate. Drops plattering against the glass. The distant groan of waves below the cliffs. Some cabinets left half-open as he's yet to learn how to live inside a place without people quietly fixing everything behind him anymore.

The place sits along the eastern coast, several hours from Seoul, hidden beyond washed pines and narrow roads that are difficult for reporters to access, unless someone talks too much online again. I-Hwan had once brought him here years ago. Back then, Wan had only been a young prince visiting another unused royal property for an afternoon. Hwan wandered onto the balcony holding two untouched cups of tea and stared down at the royal guards waiting outside below and beyond the water for a very long time before quietly admitting he envied ordinary people sometimes.

It took Wan late enough to realize his brother had already felt a marrow-deep exhaustion no one could save him from.

Huiju grabs his wrist carefully, pulling him back toward the present. "Who would've truly thought," she shook her head, "seems like you're not meant for the kitchen at all."

"It's just a minor cut. Even seasoned chefs still make this kind of mistake."

"Whatever." Her hair is still messy from sleep, dark strands spilling over one shoulder of the shirt she stole from him sometime before dawn. Wan recognizes it immediately. He remembers her fingers undoing those buttons one by one beneath dim lamplight only hours ago, remembers laughter muffled against his throat, remembers the crescent marks she left across his shoulders while the faint sound of the rain started hitting their surroundings before sunrise. The memory arrives warm enough to distract him briefly. Huiju notices at once, her eyes narrow.

"You seem proud of yourself."

"I'm being tended to very attentively. It's pleasant." Huiju sighs, yet the corner of her mouth twitches before she drops his hand gently and disappears toward the hallway for the first aid kit he knows she's internally thankful she was able to pack.

Wan leans his other hand against the counter and watches the water slide down the windows in slow, uneven streams. The kitchen smells faintly of sesame oil, coffee, and the rice currently threatening to overcook. As it turns out, his wife may be right.

Half-unpacked suitcases remain stacked near the staircase. Four days now.

Four days since they relocated here for the time being, after his secluded private residence became impossible to remain in peacefully. Someone had started another heated discussion online after photographs surfaced of Wan entering the National Assembly building. The media frenzy returned almost immediately after that.

'Former King I-An Seen, Could He Be Secretly Advising New Administration?'
'Controversial Royal Couple Still Influencing Politics?'
'Public Remains Divided Over Crown Abolition Reforms.'

For three nights, reporters camped outside the gates while protestors remained gathered along with signs demanding everything from restoration of the monarchy to an in-depth criminal investigation into the former royal family. Some branded him selfish. Lots called him brave. Many simply treated them like the latest national spectacle to consume between election coverage and economic reform updates. Oh, the irony of it all never escaped Wan. The monarchy had ended precisely because he believed no institution should remain above the will of the people, and yet people still searched for crowns to place onto someone's head afterward. Even now, every news broadcast dissected them like an unresolved conspiracy.

The new administration had spent each day revising constitutional clauses, redistributing Crown assets into state preservation funds with his help, and restructuring ceremonial laws that no longer applied. Wan still followed every update with quiet vigilance despite no longer possessing real authority over nearly any of it. Some habits survived abolition too thoroughly to disappear within months. Sometimes late at night, Huiju would wake and find him seated on the edge of their bed, reading and scrolling through headlines with the same concentration he once reserved for state briefings.

She never told him to stop. Only brought him magnesium tea and sat down with him before falling asleep against his shoulder instead.

Wan remembers standing in the middle of their bedroom during the worst of the protests with his clenched fist in between his wife's smaller, firm hands, while security and his loyal staff struggled to shoo away a crowd demanding statements from the disgraced final king and his social-climbing queen.

That was the thing about Seong Huiju. Her love rarely announced itself loudly. It lived instead in instinct. In remembering. In irritation over whether he had eaten properly, slept enough, or carried too much alone again. In defending. She loved him fiercely in her own language, like someone continually reaching out to steady a blade balanced too long on its edge, before being the reason it sharpens once more.

Princes were never truly raised to become men. They were shaped first into symbols— into posture, into silence, into restraint so absolute it wiped desire cleanly out of a person before he ever learned how to name it. Wanting too much was dangerous when one belonged to the Crown. Even grief had to remain elegant. Especially grief.

Wan spent most of his life making himself smaller for the comfort of others. He was taught to be less threatening, less ambitious, and less visibly alive. The palace preferred the second son to be patient, standing politely in front of people who mistook his tranquility for weakness because he allowed them to. Then Huiju returned to his life and demolished that entirely.

She comes back carrying a first aid kit far too large for the situation. Wan glances at it once, mouth agape.

"...Am I dying?"

"You will be by my hands if you get hurt again, now sit down." He obeys immediately. Huiju cleans the cut carefully while muttering beneath her breath about his inability to survive unsupervised for even one morning, her fussing starting to remind him of late Queen Uihyeon when he scraped his knee as a kid after playing with other nobles his age. Wan watches her bent head beneath the kitchen light, the concentration pinched between her brows, the diamond stone on her finger glinting softly whenever her hand moves.

His mother's ring. The sight still catches his breath because of how right it looks. More right than it ever did, locked behind somewhere preserved as history instead of memory.

"You called me Your Majesty again," he addresses with a slight pout after a while of just watching her. Her hands pause briefly against his. Sheepishly, she replies, "I know." The apology lingers beneath the words unspoken. Wan looks down at her fingers once more. The title still slips free sometimes before either of them can stop it. Habit carved too deeply into bone to vanish within a few months. Occasionally, Choi Hyeon and many former palace staffs does the same. Occasionally, Wan himself still straightens his back like he had a rod stuck in his spine instinctively. 

After all, the Crown may be gone successfully, yet the shape it left behind remains harder to erase.

The second time Choi Hyeon accidentally called him Your Majesty since the abolition, he was holding grocery. Wan had opened the door to find his former aide standing there with fruits tucked beneath one arm and shin ramyun along with other condiments threatening to spill from an overfilled eco bag.

"Your Majesty, where should I—" Choi Hyeon stopped speaking, plastering a hand over his mouth quickly with wide eyes. Wan watched realization spread across the younger man's face before he eventually grimaced at himself. He placed the groceries carefully onto the counter, then scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck.

"I'm sorry. I'm still adjusting."

"As am I." Another silence settled. Strange, Wan thought, how hierarchy lingers even after disappearing. The palace had shaped all of them too thoroughly. Sometimes, he still waited to check if Choi Hyeon would bow his head towards him. Expected servants to avoid eye contact. Expected doors to open before he reached them. Instead, his not-aide handed him a bag of tangerines and asked whether Her Majesty—he corrected himself again with a face palm this time before changing it to Seong Daepyo—preferred the plain yogurt or the strawberry one. 

Normalcy arrived in fragments like that, nearly small enough to miss. "You do realize," Wan said eventually, helping unpack groceries, while their significant others stayed busy chattering in the other room, "that you are no longer obligated to remain beside me." Hyeon blinked, swishing his head.

"What?"

"The monarchy no longer exists. You are free to pursue another position." The younger man just stared at him for several seconds before suddenly bursting into loud fits of laughter, even going as far as to slapping his back, which surprised Wan.

"Ah, hyung," he said finally, with a smile on his brightened face, "what kind of thing is that to say?" He went rigid. Hyung.

Hyung. He thinks perhaps something shifted permanently inside him at that exact moment. Because later that night, long after everyone went to bed, Wan sat alone outside the terrace and thought suddenly of his parents.

Of his father carrying the Crown like inherited gravity until the very end, and of his dearest mother smiling softly through ceremonies she privately despised.

Would they think him selfish now? Would his father look at the abolished monarchy and see the failure he has outdone himself with? Would his mother simply feel relieved that at least one of her sons escaped alive? In quiet moments like this, Wan feels the silence immensely and the true weight of his verdict. 

Like ghosts sitting beside him in empty rooms.

By the third week of the long honeymoon that Huiju booked behind his back as a surprise with a smug little wink and the declaration that they were "already embarrassingly overdue for one," wandering through outdoor markets becomes her new favorite activity. Wan suspects this says troubling things about the scale of freedom she had been denied after getting tangled with him.

The market sprawls across a narrow seaside district stitched together by old stone streets and hanging lanterns swaying gently in the evening breeze. Vendors call out from beneath striped awnings while the scent of grilled seafood, citrus, coffee, and warm bread drifts through the crowded walkways in soft overlapping waves. Somewhere nearby, live music hums faintly through the noise of foreign conversation and laughter.

Huiju moves through all of it with unconcealed delight, shoulders dancing and hips swaying to the rhythm that surrounded them.

She pauses at nearly every stall. Handmade ceramics. Scarves she must be adamant on making a collection out of. Fresh fruit glistening beneath sugary glazes. Wan follows beside her, dutifully carrying all of her increasingly questionable purchases while she speaks to elderly shop owners with half-broken phrases and confident enthusiasm anyway.

"You're bringing all this back to Korea?" He questions eventually as she stops to inspect small painted dishes. She glances back at him with a serene smile on her face, before turning back towards the displays. "I'm on a secret honeymoon with my unemployed husband after we dismantled a centuries-old monarchy and fled the country. I'm making the most out of it."

Several nearby tourists glance toward them, while Huiju only looks more entertained. That has become another adjustment, too. An adjustment he was already used to by now.

A second glance lingering too long. A whisper exchanged quietly nearby. Phones lifted subtly before lowering again once noticed. The world still knew their faces.

Wan watches her drift toward another stand, loose hair from her ponytail lifting lightly in the wind as she tucks several strands behind one ear while examining souvenirs with absurd concentration. The force of her beauty still renders him motionless most of the time, more so, and especially nowadays. His wife was here beside him in ordinary clothes, now arguing over fruit prices with the vendor as though she wasn't a chaebol heiress instead of attending stifling dinners— here, chuckling melodiously in crowded streets in a country seas away from their own after surviving what felt like ages of being dissected piece by piece. The next time she reaches up to tuck a few stubborn strands away from her face, he does it for her seamlessly. His favorite habit.

Then he moves to step behind her, wrapping both arms around her waist daringly and dipping his head just enough for his nose to graze through her hair. She smells like expensive lavender and the saltwater and something that reminded him of home. She leans back into him, making something tender blossom inside his ribcage as she falls into another easy small talk with a local in English, and feels, all at once, suddenly, the full terrifying weight of everything she abandoned anyway. The thought settles more heavily these days precisely because titles no longer exist to soften sacrifice. He is not a king anymore. Not a prince. Not even especially important outside historical headlines and political discussions.

He was just Wan now, ordinary in ways he is still learning. Human in ways he was never fully allowed to become before.

And maybe, being human means still coexisting with insecurities too unreasonable for his own good. Would she look at him like this years from now, once all of this stopped feeling new? Once the freedom became ordinary, too?

The unbidden fear slips loose and follows him later that night, when Huiju sits cross-legged on the bed in an oversized pajama with a skincare headband pushing her bangs away from her face. The room smells faintly of ginseng cleanser and the water beyond the balcony doors. Wan sits between her knees while she massages moisturizer onto his face with unnecessary force. Her fingers pause briefly against his jaw when he speaks.

"Do you regret it?" Will you come to regret it?

"Regret what?"

"This." Me. 

Just one measly word, yet he sees the underlying, extended meaning arrive across her face almost immediately in the form of deep disbelief. In the form of a simmering rage at the mere idea that he could still have doubts after everything.

Huiju stares at him intensely for one long second before grabbing his face with both hands and kissing him hard enough that he nearly loses balance where he sits.

"We married for love," she says against his mouth afterward, eyes flashing with hurt. "What part of that continues to confuse you?" Wan could only stare at her helplessly as her expression softened slowly, the more she studied him. 

"I'm here, aren't I?" And of course, she sees right through him, the words heavy enough to split him open cleanly down the center. He exhales once, shakier than intended, before leaning forward abruptly and burying his face against her shoulder while her arm comes around him quickly without hesitation, the other running fingers through his nape. She sighs deeply, but it sounds affectionate in a way that still makes him question sometimes if he truly deserves it.

"You're going to make me redo your skincare."

"Redo it then," his arms circle around her frame, pulling her even closer to him. Holding her tighter, "I'm sorry, it's not doubt I feel but fear."

"I know," she assures, rubbing his back soothingly. She pulls back to stare at him in the eye resolutely, cupping his cheek. "Together, remember?" And suddenly he's in their bedroom again months back, staring at her with his iron fist sandwiched in between her delicate, calm hands as the noise around them faded away. It was them against everyone, through everything and anything. He would never forget.

She snorts as she presses her thumb underneath his eye, wiping the tear before it falls. "You're becoming sappier by the day, jagi." There is so much warmth beneath the complaint, and he finally feels himself relax. In her embrace, all his worries are flushed down the drain.

It was them, forever. Together.

The second spring arrived at the residence slowly, climbing the mountainside in quiet stages.

First, the wind lost its winter sharpness. Then pale green began threading through the trees below, softening the dark outline of the winding roads disappearing toward the coast far beneath them. By the second week of April, sunlight finally lingered long enough across the stone paths outside that Huiju started leaving nearly all windows open from morning until evening, insisting the entire place smelled better that way.

For years, this residence of his had existed merely as a place to disappear into briefly between obligations, a temporary refuge borrowed by royals too exhausted to admit the need for isolation aloud. His brother used to tease him for leaving it untouched, no matter how often he came here, claiming the place looked less lived in than preserved, as though Wan were afraid permanence itself might inconvenience someone.

Now sunlight fell across abandoned books on the sitting room floor, a garden of colorful flowers Hyeon had requested to be planted with Huiju agreeing only after hearing the meanings behind each flower, and a knitted blanket currently discarded near the terrace floor because his nephew had declared ten minutes earlier that capes made running faster.

This residence had truly become the place where his family resided.

She stood in the garden wearing one of his newer sweatshirts in his changed wardrobe with the sleeves pushed carelessly to her elbows while his nephew circled her at alarming speed, both of them engaged in what appeared to be a game. Of sorts. Wan watched her point accusingly at the child with mock sincerity. The boy, entirely unrepentant, pointed back up at her. His dimples deepened as he smiled at the sight, an encompassing tenderness unfurling deep in his chest. That was perhaps what startled him most about loving her after all this time. The feeling had once arrived like a catastrophe around her, all sharp and unbearable awareness, powerful enough to make him question years of control he once mistook for necessary discipline. Now it existed everywhere instead, woven so deeply into the shape of his life that everywhere he looked, there was color. There was laughter.

Outside, Yun said something outrageous enough to make Huiju bend over, eyes disappearing into crescents, one hand clutching at her stomach while she tried and failed to recover enough to argue back.

It was getting easier to imagine it nowadays— he could not help it. In place of his nephew, he sees smaller and chubby hands tugging impatiently at her skirt; dark hair sticking up after naps. A child with her fiery intensity and his eyes running recklessly through the garden while Huiju sucked in her teeth and pretended very badly to scold them for tracking dirt into the house.

He could not help it, not because he wanted it desperately, but because he was finally allowed to dream of something like that without the expectation and the weight of everything else waiting behind it. 

Had the monarchy survived, the palace would have devoured her with those expectations eventually. Every passing year transformed into whispers sharp enough to travel beneath doors. Every absence questioned, and every public appearance measured against whether the Crown had secured an heir yet. Wan knew exactly how poisonous those expectations could become. He had spent years standing inside them himself, and he would have never wanted to shackle Huiju to that kind of life.

Now, watching sunlight gather in her hair and shade it a pleasant brown while she tackled his nephew, he realized the future no longer worried him in the same way it once had. If children ever came into their lives, he hoped they would arrive naturally, warmly, and when they were both completely ready.

And if they never did, then that too would be enough. Huiju herself had always been enough.

Across from him, Yun Yirang followed his gaze in silence. Neither had spoken much since she arrived nearly an hour earlier. Hostility did not remain between them exactly, but he supposes some wounds changed shape more slowly than forgiveness did. For years, every conversation between them carried the strain of harsh things unsaid beneath it, everything in the past that had transpired twisting itself into something impossible to untangle cleanly. Even now, seated across from one another without titles left standing between them, traces of that history still lingered stuffily beneath the surface.

"She appears to be happy," Yirang said at last, head tilted in a manner too refined and practiced through her training to be softened yet. Wan's eyes remained outside.

"Yes." He had long stopped fearing the opposite now.  Yirang rested her teacup onto the table between them. "I used to think," she began slowly once more, "that she would eventually resent you for all of this." Wan glanced toward her then. "Before and after the abolishment. Leaving the palace..." She traced the rim of her cup, "She had intended to marry you for status after all, and yet," she took a glimpse at his wife once more, before back at him, no malice meant and hidden in plain sight in her eyes, "she is still with you."

"I worried too," Wan admitted quietly with a sigh.  Yirang looked at him carefully, imploring him to continue.

"That she would resent you?"

"That I would ruin her life," he smiled ruefully. Outside, Huiju suddenly stumbled after Yun yanked at her sleeve too hard, and Wan instinctively half-rose from his seat before settling again like he never moved in the first place at the quirked brow his sister-in-law gave him. "That perhaps, being tied to me and my name would only continue to bring her more suffering." Something softer breathed into her expression, almost imperceptibly. An understanding that he did not know still existed between them yet he finds himself somewhat grateful nonetheless that it did. 

"Lee Wan," she says quietly, anxiously, "When... His Majesty told me he was considering abdication in your favor, I thought the world was ending." His jaw clenched a little at the cut that never seemed to heal. "He spoke about you with so much trust that it frightened me." Her fingers tightened around her teacup. "I nearly went mad thinking that if you had ever wanted the throne for yourself, nobody would survive trying to stop you." The spring breeze shifted softly through the open windows. Wan thought of the image of his brother from the back, standing on the balcony holding untouched tea while staring toward the ocean with tired eyes.

I-Hwan had devoted himself to the Crown despite everything it slowly carved out of him. "I never wanted the throne in the ways you thought," Wan said, the words catching slightly against the tightness in his throat. Yirang lowered her head then, small and dignified beneath the spring light filtering through the windows, and Wan understood it for what it was at last: an olive branch offered in the only language being part of royalty had ever truly taught either of them.

"I know that now." And somehow, hearing those words from her after all this time felt stranger than anger ever had. Looking at her now, Yirang still carried herself with that same unyielding grace her upbringing had carved into her. Her posture remained taut even in moments of vulnerability. Even now, in her more casual clothing with her hair cascading in its natural waves in a place miles away from the palace and no court left to control, she still looked every inch the daughter of the proud family that had produced four queens for generations.

He had remembered that upbringing well. All those endless lessons; the pressure hidden beneath sophistication, and the understanding instilled into children before they were old enough to question it was that proximity to the throne was not merely ambition but survival itself.

Yun Yirang had wanted the Crown fiercely enough to destroy herself protecting it, and he had ended up hating her for that. For the paranoia and greed, as well as for the terror she allowed to rot her into someone capable of treating love like collateral damage. Even now, parts of him still recoiled remembering the things she had done to preserve her place.

But beneath that resentment, there had always remained a sympathy he never quite managed to silence.

For the old friend he once found in her before the system had affected her as it had affected everyone else. The very system that raised his brother into a king who hid his regret towards being the firstborn son of a king until it hollowed him from the inside. The system that raised Wan into a prince so practiced in walking two steps behind that people mistook his docile smile for harmlessness. And the system that raised Yirang into a woman taught from childhood that losing the Crown meant losing identity, purpose, everything.

As much as he abhorred what she became, he understood with a bitterness what the monarchy had done to people like them, and perhaps, he realizes now that understanding was part of why he never carried out the punishment she truly deserved.

"Just continue to be there for my nephew," he offered her a small smile, "this freedom is for you and him just as it is for me, Huiju, and everyone else." I-Yun needed a present mother more than the country needed vengeance. And he can see that she at least seemed better than she had been in a long while. She smiled more easily and fondly around her son these days, and listened when he spoke. The sharp desperation that once clung to her every movement seemed finally exhausted after years of consuming her whole.

Outside, his nephew shrieked victoriously after stealing the ball again while Huiju plopped to the ground dramatically. They both failed to notice that the two had moved on to another game. Just then, Huiju turned to look at them both and waved.

Yirang blinked at her before blinking at him already waving back at his wife like a fool with a grin on his face, already shifting to stand once more when the sound of a light scoff reached his ears.

"Is she the wife or you?"

He looked away from Huiju to stare at her questioningly, and for the first incredulous time since they became family legally, Yun Yirang laughed into her palm loudly and brightly. Oh, she was teasing him.

Wan should have known from the beginning that there would come a time when he would pray deliberately for his safety against his wife. Not because she caused trouble intentionally—though she quite literally does—but because he found himself in quite an awkward predicament that day.

The café sat tucked between narrow buildings near the Royal University district, warm with the smell of espresso and rain-damp coats while the autumn weather painted the windows beige outside. Students crowded nearly every table, conversations overlapping softly beneath low music and the occasional hiss of steaming milk behind the counter.

It was ordinary in the exact way that did not feel strange anymore.  Ordinary enough that no one bowed when he entered, and ordinary enough that he could stand quietly near the pickup counter in a long, dark coat and turtleneck while waiting for their order without feeling the weight of something breathing down his neck.

Huiju had just disappeared into the restroom when he felt a tap on his shoulder. "Excuse me?" Wan glanced and there stood a tall woman clutching an iced drink with both hands while her friend beside her already looked vaguely horrified on her behalf, despite nothing catastrophic having happened yet. The woman grinned once he looked her way.

"I'm sorry if this sounds strange," she began shyly, her pronunciation sounding a little different, "but I just thought you were really handsome." Wan blinked once behind his sunglasses, while her companion closed her eyes briefly, as if she was preemptively apologizing to heaven. The woman laughed awkwardly and tucked her hair behind her ear, encouraged perhaps by the fact that he had not immediately fled the building.

"You looked familiar somehow. I thought maybe you were an actor or something!"

"I'm afraid not," Wan replied politely, moving a respectable step back. "I—"

"Oh," she cut him off, straightening eagerly. "Well... are you single?" He did not answer her; instead, he removed his sunglasses. Thankfully, the effect was immediate. The woman froze so completely she may as well have turned to stone while her friend gasped so deafeningly before whispering with the devastation of someone witnessing a national scandal unfold in real time:

"Oh, fuck." She hit her friend with horror, "It's the king!! I mean the former king, you idiot!!"

"Shit, no wonder he looked familiar. I'm sorry!" She covered her mouth and bowed. "We're so sorry!" The friend bowed with her, bowing so quickly that Wan worried she might fall over. "She studied abroad for years and only came back recently. She didn't recognize you immediately, she wasn't trying to disrespect you—"

"I wasn't disrespecting him!" the woman hissed in despair. "I just didn't know I was hitting on royalty!" Former royalty, technically. Wan considered the half-heartedness in correcting her.

"Wait, so does that mean his wife—"

"Omo, what's going on?" He turned instinctively to the voice of his wife standing near the entrance of the restroom, her gaze moving between the three of them with suspicion sharpened by curiosity. The moment her eyes landed fully on him, however, amusement of the dangerous kind glittered there.

"Jagi," Wan called gently as she walked over to them, feeling pity for the two women appearing as though they were ready to be executed on the guillotine. "I've got it handled, you don't have to worry."

Huiju approached them with an infuriating calm, lips pursed as she hummed. She took her place beside him naturally and curled one hand around his arm, resting it lightly against the sleeve of his coat while the band on her ring finger glimmered and caught beneath the café lighting for only a second. "You don't need to apologize," Huiju assured the women kindly enough that they somehow appeared even more nervous afterward. "Having eyes isn't exactly illegal."

The woman made a tiny, distressed sound before they bowed once more and fled the establishment itself, causing some heads to turn and whisper. Wan lowered his head briefly, unsuccessfully disguising the smile threatening his mouth.

Only after the door closed behind them did Huiju finally turn toward him fully. "Huh." 

Wan accepted their drinks from the counter before handing hers over carefully. "Huh," he echoed. Her grip on his sleeve tightened as they walked back to their car. "You're still popular."

"There's not much I can do about that, jagi. I used to be a monarch just two years ago," he attempted to humour her, but she opted to put on her seatbelt before sipping on her drink placidly, humming at the taste with a deceptively sweet smile. "Mhm, you know what I mean." He cleared his throat preemptively, getting ready to explain further when she turned her head to him with that smile still. "I mean, I'm fascinated," she corrected, "do you know how absurd it is that someone flirted with you without recognizing you first?"

"I thought that was supposed to be a positive development."

"It is." Huiju hummed once more. "Still. That girl basically walked up to a retired tiger and flirted with it."

He deliberately took her hand in his, biting back the chuckle from erupting lest he wants to not make it back home alive. "A retired tiger?" He wanted to tease and say she was the tiger, but again, he would rather not risk it.

"Yeah."

"...Are you upset, jagi?"

"No." The answer came too quickly, even as she remained calm.  He shook his head, squeezing her hand. "You sound upset."

"I'm not upset," she replied with a glare, then added after a pause, "I'm experienced." She laughed, but the sound, as beautiful as it truly was coming from her, scared him a little. "Back at the academy, girls flocked to you constantly."

Something inside him roared to life. "You noticed that?" She clicked her tongue, glaring at him even more.

"How could anyone not notice it?" Huiju continued before he could get too excited. "Everywhere I went, people talked about you like you were Prince Charming. Your stupid height. Your shoulders. Your smile. Your manners and all that. Ha!" At this point, her husband had failed rather miserably at suppressing the pleased curve threatening his mouth.

"You looked extremely aware of yourself back then," she informed him dryly.

"It's not what you think."

"No?"

"It's true!" Huiju snorted at that. "And whenever you entered a room," she continued, "every girl suddenly got the same look on her face, like sugar had melted directly into their brains."

Wan laughed, pressing their intertwined hands into his indented cheek.  Huiju pointed at him immediately. "There! That smile. Exactly that one."

"You remember my smile specifically?"

"I remember being pissed by it." He heaved a sigh, but as he learnt, a win is a win. Because during those days in the academy, he had spent so much time believing Huiju barely looked at him beyond obligation and thinly-veiled irritation. But with her reaction now, he feels satisfied enough to know she was not completely oblivious to his looks, at least, which younger him did pathetically hope she noticed.

"The irony," Wan said with a smile still playing on his face, "is that I only ever looked at you." Huiju frowned faintly before placing her drink down in the cup holder. "What does that mean?"

Streetlights moved softly across her face as they finally drove, catching against the familiar line of her mouth and the soft pout on her tempting lips as she munched on her pastry. Wan remembered how he searched through the sea of students every day for that shameless 9th grader from Jujak House without thinking, remembering how his heart started stuttering in an irregular tempo once he successfully and naturally found her, even when she appeared as though she never so as spared him an interested glance back once.

"Nothing," he said, mischief and joy in equal measure evident in his baritone voice. "Nevermind."

It has been nearly four years since the palace stopped belonging to them, and perhaps, that was why it finally looked beautiful again.

Rain had passed again through Seoul only an hour earlier, leaving the stone pathways darkened and gleaming beneath the evening lights while the last traces of water clung to the tiled rooftops in silver threads. Lanterns glowed softly along the outer corridors, warm against the deepening blue of the sky, and somewhere beyond the main gardens, Wan could hear the distant murmur of tourists still lingering near the exhibition halls before closing time. The sound should have felt strange but instead, it felt oddly peaceful.

Outside, the palace stood peacefully in all its glory, no longer a prison nor a battlefield nor a burden resting endlessly against his spine. Just history.

Not erased no, never erased, especially not for as long as he lived. He made it certain that it will become a heritage where people came to learn, to wander, to take photographs beneath the same rooftops that had once housed centuries of carefully preserved bloodshed and love and loneliness and lessons all at once. Beside him, Huiju adjusted the sleeve of her top before glancing toward the central courtyard ahead.

"There are less people than I expected," she quipped, swinging their hands a little as they walked.

"They close early during weekdays."

"You still remember the operational schedule?"

"I signed that very schedule myself."  Huiju smiled teasingly. "Former kings really have trouble letting things go." He huffed a laugh, feeling as though he had gone back to the very day he walked out of the tall gates here not as I-An but finally Lee Wan.

Former king. Even after these past few years, the word former still startled him a bit. Not achingly anymore, nor with the emptiness that had followed him during those first months after abolishment, when every news report and constitutional reform update had felt like watching pieces of his past life dismantle themselves in real time. Back then, he had monitored everything like a man standing beside his own grave, unable to stop staring despite knowing the burial had been his own decision.

He remembered those nights vividly, as with most things. The television blaring all kinds of exaggerated news. Sitting on the edge of their bed deep into the night while he monitored through discussions about the new constitution being formed. Hearing all about how analysts debated the redistribution of royal assets, how politicians argued over cultural preservation budgets whilst still remaining shaken over the fall of their Prime Minister, and how historians and the older generations mourned the end of a long-standing dynasty while the current one celebrated what they called a necessary revolution of the nation.

And through all of it, Seong Huiju had become his anchor. Through it all, she had stayed by his side and never left like he feared she would once she came to realize there was nothing worth staying for in a blank man stripped of his honor.

Through it all, they were together. Then and now— always.

She was walking slightly ahead of him, pausing every few steps whenever something caught her interest despite having lived in this palace herself once upon a time. The soft lighting along the corridor painted gold against her skin while the wind lifted strands of her hair gently across her pinkish cheek. She looks back at him when she makes to walk once more, but he budges a second too late. "What's up? What's on your mind?"

Wan grinned at her cheekily. "I was appreciating the scenery."

"Ugh, you're flirting."

"Is it working, or have I already lost all my charm?"

"You really have," she blew a rasberry but her cheeks are puffed into a fond smile. "Have I ever told you that your game's gotten worse after becoming a commoner?" That stops him in his tracks again. Offended, he retorts loudly, "Isn't that too much of a hurtful thing to say to your husband on our anniversary?" She laughs again, pulling his hand as they continue to walk and he continues to sulk behind her.

“My wife is cruel like that huh,” he murmurs like a kicked dog deprived of its bone, earning a pleased little chortle from her.

“And you’ve become dramatic with age,” Huiju replies easily, eyes bright beneath the everglow. “Honestly, abolishing the monarchy ruined your dignity.”

Wan presses a hand against his chest as though she had just stabbed him there, and her mirth spills out warmer this time, fuller, bouncing through the corridor as they continue forward side by side. Ahead of them, the old banquet hall doors stood partially open, light spilling across polished floors in long golden ribbons. Beyond the hall, the terrace gardens stretched outward into the night exactly as they had years ago, wondrous chandelier lights suspended above pathways while rainwater gathered in trembling pools along the courtyard edges.

Wan slowed with awe. He could almost see it again. The orchestra falling silent, hundreds of startled faces turning, and the woman he loved standing with her fingers hovering over her slack mouth while he got down on one knee with his own pulse hammering violently beneath composure so maintained he had once believed it inseparable from himself. 

“It feels smaller. I remember this place feeling bigger that night.”  Huiju whispered eventually as they stepped onto the terrace together. Chuckling, “When I think about it now, it honestly feels like we walked into some ridiculous fairytale for a second.” Wan slipped an arm around her and pulled, leaning his cheek atop hers.

“Were you the princess in this fairytale?” he asked softly.

Huiju sighed with much theatrics. "I was the emotionally exhausted heroine who kept getting mistreated left and right by her in-laws.”

His form shook with a quiet laughter rumbling in his chest. “And I?”

“The deeply repressed male lead with unresolved trauma.” Music suddenly started drifting faintly from inside the banquet hall, and Wan felt Huiju pause beside him almost immediately. Their waltz; the same melody from that night. Wan looked down to see his wife looking entirely satisfied with herself.

“You planned this,” he murmured.

“Obviously.”

“When?”

“That information is classified.” He let go of her helplessly as she moved away from him, smiling despite himself as the music swelled gently through the terrace. Then Huiju extended one serious hand toward him. “Dance with me,” she said, and like a moth to a flame, Wan took her hand immediately, matching grins on their faces.

They moved leisurely at first across the damp stone in muscle memory, less polished than the perfect royal waltz they once performed for cameras and nobility alike. Back then, every step had been rehearsed. Measured. Elegant enough to survive headlines the next morning. This moment here, however, reminisced their practice on the rooftop more. As they drifted further across the grounds while the orchestra recording played softly around them, the damp remnants of the rain cooling the edges of the night air, Huiju’s fingers curled loosely around his shoulder while Wan guided her carefully through slower turns, and through it all, they kept bursting into fits of giggles like a pair of rebelling teenagers who had just discovered what falling in love was like for the first time.

In many ways— Wan thought as he swirled her and she almost lost her balance, making her curse him out as he laughed with a child-like bliss—that appeared to be the truth.

After all, back then, had they not danced like two people trying to uphold the contractual nature of their relationship despite what was undeniably budding between them, spell-bound with one another like that magical night existed solely for them and no one else? So heavily strung with the unfamiliar emotion that started weighing in before they could have a say on it.

And now, now—

The music rung its final notes. Huiju pulled back just enough to look at him then, and Wan recognized the expression forming across her face. It felt strangely nostalgic, almost reminiscent of the look she wore the night she first sat across from him inside his study years ago, proposing marriage like it meant nothing. Therefore, rearranging the course of their lives forever. Huiju smiled up at him something unbearably dazzling, then reached into her coat pocket. When the velvet box appeared in her hand, Wan went entirely rigid. Ah.

“Remember when you kept asking whether you should have a wedding band too,” she rolled her eyes, “and frankly, your sulking was becoming difficult to live with.”

“I was yearning.”

“You kept pouting each time I answered with why bother?" Huiju ignored his rapid reply as she opened the box between them, revealing two silver bands resting side by side like twin flames. Wan stared at the rings silently for a moment longer than intended, Huiju growing increasingly nervous with his reaction.

"Do you... not like it?" Her voice sounded timid. At that, he looked back at her again, and he looked as if she had just shoved another organ into his chest to make room for all the love he felt for her.

“I do,” he murmured, prying the box from her hand to take one of the bands, slipping it delicately onto her finger above the previous one. She huffed a complaint, wondering why he was ruining her proposal, but he simply brought her hand to his lips and kissed it with much devotion, before offering his own with a raised brow in amusement. Huiju then slid the remaining band onto his finger, and the moment the silver settled into place, he felt his insides give way entirely.

Huiju looked up just in time to squeak in surprise as Wan abruptly pulled her back into him, both arms wrapping tightly around her waist before lifting her clean off the ground effortlessly.

“Lee Wan—!” He spun her in the air twice, laughter escaping him breathlessly as her own startled giggles rang out through the terrace, bright enough to rival the music itself. Now there was no doubt in it. Wan lowered her gently afterward, though his hands lingered at the curve of her back while she continued to chuckle against his shoulder.

“Are you that happy?” How could he not be? He had quiet mornings tangled together beneath soft sheets, market dates beneath foreign skies, boisterous dinners with Choi Hyeon and Do Hyejeong, hushed midnight conversations dissolving into hope inside a home that belonged solely to them, years still unwritten stretching up ahead. A future no longer shaped by inheritance nor destiny, but by choice— by a love stubborn enough to survive everything meant to destroy it.

Wan cupped her cheeks before ducking down to kiss her, licking into her mouth deeply, as Huiju melted against him with a contented sigh that ought to undo him even after all this time. When the kiss finally broke, his wedding band rested cool against her hip where his hand remained, the silver glinting softly.

For most of his life, he had been taught that devotion meant sacrifice. That love, for people born too close to power, must always arrive second, if not third, to duty. And perhaps, getting here had not been easy. There had been grief threaded through it, and fear, and years spent learning how to untangle themselves from a system that had shaped even the way they spoke, the way they loved, the way they carried desires inside their bodies.

And standing here now with this woman in his arms while the old palace grounds stood behind them, Wan realized that while the Crown may be gone successfully, and the shape it left behind remained harder to erase, it, at last, no longer felt like something capable of holding him captive.

"Yeah. I'm happy, Huiju."